I sat and pondered and pondered and sat, and I tried to figure out who I was going to support for President in 2008. While I had narrowed it down to one or two, I figured I needed to make things official, and really look at the positions of all the candidates. So what follows are the candidates from the two major parties and which issues I agree with them on.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE): Nothing
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY): Israel
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT): Immigration
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-SC): LGBT Issues
Former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-AK): Taxes, Guns
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH): Nothing
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): Israel
Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM): Death Penalty, Guns
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Health Care, Iran, Iraq, Homeland Security
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Guns, Health Care, Iraq, Israel
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Crime, Energy, Immigration, Homeland Security, Taxes, Iran, Iraq
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): Iraq, Iran, Israel, LGBT Issues, Abortion, Crime
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX): Immigration, Taxes, Education, Government Size / Spending, Guns, Abortion, Health Care
Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA): Abortion, Crime, Energy, Health Care, Taxes, Homeland Security, Immigration, Iran, Iraq
Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN): Taxes, Abortion, LGBT Issues, Guns, Immigration, Iraq, Iran
The winners then, are Duncan Hunter and Mitt Romney. I'll have to give it to Mitt for two reasons: There are a number of smaller, out-of-the-way issuses that I simply know more about his positions on as opposed to Hunter's, and he's by far the more viable candidate.
Now keep in mind, I didn't just look at the things these people have said during the campaign or previously, but what they actually did about these issues while in office. For example, Mike Huckabee claims to support the FairTax, which I orgasm over, but as governor of Arkansas he raised far too many taxes for my taste. Also, many of the Republicans support cutting spending and introducing a school voucher system, which is great, but only Ron Paul actually advocates eliminating the federal government's role in education entirely, and totally eliminating useless Cabinet departments.
So, while I will be content with any Republican in the White House come Januray 2009, I can firmly say I hope it will be Willard Mitt Romney (I know, the name does leave a lot to be desired, but oh well).
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Then And Now: American Gladiators
I guess now is as good a time as any to start posting again.
American Gladiators was a subtly patriotic show about amateur athletes going head to head with professional "Gladiators" in a series of grueling events. After going on a short twelve year hiatus for a few production meetings and the construction of a new set, the series is set to return in 2008. How does the new American Gladiators stack up against the original from the early 90's?
The Timing
Then: Aired during Operation: Desert Storm, a justified invasion of Iraq that was backed by a majority of the American public. Although we pulled our troops out of the country rather quickly and left Saddam Hussein in power, the war was considered a success.
Now: Will air at the height of the writer's guild strike.
The Gladiators
Then: Pumped full of steroids, scooped up from a beachside gym in California.
Now: Pumped full of steroids and botox, scooped up from a reality show's audition room in California.
The Hosts
Then: Mike Adamle, the greasy creep that pestered female competitors with his constant leering and unnecessary physical contact during interviews, and Larry Csonka, the retired football player who felt the need to reference his accomplishments in the NFL at every opportunity.
Now: Hulk Hogan, the greased-up freak will confuse female competitors by referring to them as "dude" and "brother" during interviews, and Laila Ali, the retired boxer who will feel the need to reference her father's accomplishments at every opportunity.
The Studio Audience
Then: Tourist families taking a rest from the blazing sun during their trip to Universal Studios, clad in Zubaz and neon T&C Surf Design shirts.
Now: Those very same families, who were unable to find an exit after the last taping in 1996.
Event: Assault
Then: As a Gladiator mans a giant air cannon that launches tennis balls at 100 miles per hour, the challenger must navigate an obstacle course and shoot a target above the Gladiator's head with one of several Nerf guns without getting pegged by a tennis ball.
Now: Realizing the event's obvious influence on the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, it has been removed from the show. In its place, a two minute moment of silence. During this time, the challenger that can go the longest without blinking or laughing gets five points.
Event: Joust
Then: Using padded jousting poles, a Gladiator and challenger attempt to knock each other off raised platforms to the safety mats far below.
Now: Taking a page from Survivor, the Gladiator and challenger share a tiny platform above a pool of water. The two put their senses of balance to the test as they stand still for hours. The first to fall in the water wins.
Event: Atlasphere
Then: The challengers and Gladiators step inside large metallic spheres that resemble hamster wheels and smash into each other. Challengers score points by stopping on marked capture points.
Now: Gladiators and challengers put on blindfolds and enter a small closet, where they punch and kick one another wildly. Points are awarded arbitrarily.
Event: The Wall
Then: Two challengers race to the top of a rock-climbing wall as Gladiators attempt to pull them off.
Now: Challengers and Gladiators team up to pull Mexicans off of a replica U.S./Mexico border fence as they scramble for a better life.
Event: Human Cannonball
Then: Gladiators don protective gear and shields, then stand atop a raised platform as challengers attempt to knock them off by swinging into them with a rope.
Now: Three judges - one snarky, one female and one "cool" - rate the challengers' interpretive dances and puppetry skills.
Event: The Eliminator
Then: The final event of every show, both challengers race to complete a brutal gauntlet of challenges and emerge the victor.
Now: Challengers are released in a section of L.A. that was devastated by a 1997 earthquake. Here they must elude a series of Gladiators armed with unique gadgets such as flamethrowers and jetpacks as they attempt to hunt down and kill the challengers in front of a bloodthirsty nation of mindless viewers.
American Gladiators was a subtly patriotic show about amateur athletes going head to head with professional "Gladiators" in a series of grueling events. After going on a short twelve year hiatus for a few production meetings and the construction of a new set, the series is set to return in 2008. How does the new American Gladiators stack up against the original from the early 90's?
The Timing
Then: Aired during Operation: Desert Storm, a justified invasion of Iraq that was backed by a majority of the American public. Although we pulled our troops out of the country rather quickly and left Saddam Hussein in power, the war was considered a success.
Now: Will air at the height of the writer's guild strike.
The Gladiators
Then: Pumped full of steroids, scooped up from a beachside gym in California.
Now: Pumped full of steroids and botox, scooped up from a reality show's audition room in California.
The Hosts
Then: Mike Adamle, the greasy creep that pestered female competitors with his constant leering and unnecessary physical contact during interviews, and Larry Csonka, the retired football player who felt the need to reference his accomplishments in the NFL at every opportunity.
Now: Hulk Hogan, the greased-up freak will confuse female competitors by referring to them as "dude" and "brother" during interviews, and Laila Ali, the retired boxer who will feel the need to reference her father's accomplishments at every opportunity.
The Studio Audience
Then: Tourist families taking a rest from the blazing sun during their trip to Universal Studios, clad in Zubaz and neon T&C Surf Design shirts.
Now: Those very same families, who were unable to find an exit after the last taping in 1996.
Event: Assault
Then: As a Gladiator mans a giant air cannon that launches tennis balls at 100 miles per hour, the challenger must navigate an obstacle course and shoot a target above the Gladiator's head with one of several Nerf guns without getting pegged by a tennis ball.
Now: Realizing the event's obvious influence on the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, it has been removed from the show. In its place, a two minute moment of silence. During this time, the challenger that can go the longest without blinking or laughing gets five points.
Event: Joust
Then: Using padded jousting poles, a Gladiator and challenger attempt to knock each other off raised platforms to the safety mats far below.
Now: Taking a page from Survivor, the Gladiator and challenger share a tiny platform above a pool of water. The two put their senses of balance to the test as they stand still for hours. The first to fall in the water wins.
Event: Atlasphere
Then: The challengers and Gladiators step inside large metallic spheres that resemble hamster wheels and smash into each other. Challengers score points by stopping on marked capture points.
Now: Gladiators and challengers put on blindfolds and enter a small closet, where they punch and kick one another wildly. Points are awarded arbitrarily.
Event: The Wall
Then: Two challengers race to the top of a rock-climbing wall as Gladiators attempt to pull them off.
Now: Challengers and Gladiators team up to pull Mexicans off of a replica U.S./Mexico border fence as they scramble for a better life.
Event: Human Cannonball
Then: Gladiators don protective gear and shields, then stand atop a raised platform as challengers attempt to knock them off by swinging into them with a rope.
Now: Three judges - one snarky, one female and one "cool" - rate the challengers' interpretive dances and puppetry skills.
Event: The Eliminator
Then: The final event of every show, both challengers race to complete a brutal gauntlet of challenges and emerge the victor.
Now: Challengers are released in a section of L.A. that was devastated by a 1997 earthquake. Here they must elude a series of Gladiators armed with unique gadgets such as flamethrowers and jetpacks as they attempt to hunt down and kill the challengers in front of a bloodthirsty nation of mindless viewers.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Insert Angst-Ridden Cry Here
"After close to 15 minutes of talking about problems faced by the world, Weber finally got his second wish as Pres. Clinton began making the case for why his wife should be elected president. Speaking without notes, Pres. Clinton argued that Sen. Clinton is a 'change agent' with examples from her life from before the two married to the present day."
William Jefferson Clinton has enormous balls filled with other people's huge balls to get up on a stage and claim that his cackling wife is a "change agent." Change what? Does he mean like when I press that button on my remote that changes the channel back to the last channel I was watching?
I am 21 years old. I'm not some old man by political standards, but I'm not some young whippersnapper either. OK, I have voted in only one presidential election. In my lifetime there has been one president that has not been a Clinton or a Bush. I wasn't alive for Jimmy Carter, or most of Reagan, and my first memory of anything (and this is sad) is of the Berlin Wall coming down.
So when Bill Clinton says his wife is a "change agent" he is clearly just a little bit full of horse shit. Like about 100 percent. America is praying that there won't be another four or eight years of these same people. Democrats, it is your duty to vote for Obama, or Edwards, or Biden, or Kucinich. Anybody! Vote for that crazy old man Gravel so he can chase kids off the White House lawn. Vote for your best friend. Vote for Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. Vote for a cartoon hot dog. Anybody else.
Hillary Clinton is not an agent of change. She's not some powerful President Toughmilf. All this talk about a woman president is wonderful. Ladies, us guys understand, we want that just like we want a dog president, but we don't try to elect the first dog that runs for president. We're waiting for the right dog. Some sort of 35 year old talking dog. I think we can wait for the right woman. A woman without the last name of Clinton.
If Democrats fail and Hillary Clinton ends up as the nominee, then I implore America to vote for the Republican. I don't even care at this point if his politics suck. I'll vote for Ron Paul a million times before I vote for Hillary Clinton.
I have this horrible feeling that if Clinton gets back into the White House for eight years American politics are going to turn into a really long and boring version of "Romeo & Juliet." The sort of version that ends up with Chelsea Clinton running off to Kennebunkport to secretly marry some forgotten Bush cousin with twelve fingers and then they'll have a baby and it will be the Kwisatz Haderach that performs an abortion and signs an order outlawing homosexuality on the same day. Thanks, but no thanks! I don't even mean that first "thanks." I only mean "no thanks."
William Jefferson Clinton has enormous balls filled with other people's huge balls to get up on a stage and claim that his cackling wife is a "change agent." Change what? Does he mean like when I press that button on my remote that changes the channel back to the last channel I was watching?
I am 21 years old. I'm not some old man by political standards, but I'm not some young whippersnapper either. OK, I have voted in only one presidential election. In my lifetime there has been one president that has not been a Clinton or a Bush. I wasn't alive for Jimmy Carter, or most of Reagan, and my first memory of anything (and this is sad) is of the Berlin Wall coming down.
So when Bill Clinton says his wife is a "change agent" he is clearly just a little bit full of horse shit. Like about 100 percent. America is praying that there won't be another four or eight years of these same people. Democrats, it is your duty to vote for Obama, or Edwards, or Biden, or Kucinich. Anybody! Vote for that crazy old man Gravel so he can chase kids off the White House lawn. Vote for your best friend. Vote for Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. Vote for a cartoon hot dog. Anybody else.
Hillary Clinton is not an agent of change. She's not some powerful President Toughmilf. All this talk about a woman president is wonderful. Ladies, us guys understand, we want that just like we want a dog president, but we don't try to elect the first dog that runs for president. We're waiting for the right dog. Some sort of 35 year old talking dog. I think we can wait for the right woman. A woman without the last name of Clinton.
If Democrats fail and Hillary Clinton ends up as the nominee, then I implore America to vote for the Republican. I don't even care at this point if his politics suck. I'll vote for Ron Paul a million times before I vote for Hillary Clinton.
I have this horrible feeling that if Clinton gets back into the White House for eight years American politics are going to turn into a really long and boring version of "Romeo & Juliet." The sort of version that ends up with Chelsea Clinton running off to Kennebunkport to secretly marry some forgotten Bush cousin with twelve fingers and then they'll have a baby and it will be the Kwisatz Haderach that performs an abortion and signs an order outlawing homosexuality on the same day. Thanks, but no thanks! I don't even mean that first "thanks." I only mean "no thanks."
Exactly How Much Is A Billion?
This gave me nightmares.
1. A billion seconds ago, it was 1959 and the Cold War was heating up.
2. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive and the Roman Empire was conquering the known world.
3. A billion hours ago, early man was making primitive tools during the Stone Age.
4. A billion days ago, no life forms with two feet were alive on Earth.
5. But at the rate the United States government is spending YOUR money, a billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes ago.
Now while this is still fresh in your brain, chew on this: Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is asking Congress for $250 billion dollars in Katrina relief for New Orleans.
This means, among other things, that each of the 484, 674 residents of New Orleans (man, woman, and child) would get $ 516, 528.
Each of the 188, 251 homes in New Orleans would get $1, 329, 787.
A family of four would recieve $2, 066, 012.
As one former Congressman put it, "A billion here, a billion there...Pretty soon you're talking about real money."
1. A billion seconds ago, it was 1959 and the Cold War was heating up.
2. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive and the Roman Empire was conquering the known world.
3. A billion hours ago, early man was making primitive tools during the Stone Age.
4. A billion days ago, no life forms with two feet were alive on Earth.
5. But at the rate the United States government is spending YOUR money, a billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes ago.
Now while this is still fresh in your brain, chew on this: Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is asking Congress for $250 billion dollars in Katrina relief for New Orleans.
This means, among other things, that each of the 484, 674 residents of New Orleans (man, woman, and child) would get $ 516, 528.
Each of the 188, 251 homes in New Orleans would get $1, 329, 787.
A family of four would recieve $2, 066, 012.
As one former Congressman put it, "A billion here, a billion there...Pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Overheard Between John Edward Thomas Moynihan And His Father, Tom Brady
Nice going, DAD! Way to shit the bed against the Jets, DAD! Great job fucking my fantasy team in the finals with 140 yards and zero touchdowns, DAD! Thanks for not covering the 90 points and pissing away my five grand, DAD! I hate you! I never want to see you again!
Well, alright, let's calm down here. I guess I can concede that I wasn't seeing you much to begin with, so I think we need to have a little man-to-infant chat here. We both know that you make Matt Leinart look like Jon Kitna when it comes to raisin' pups, ya dig? So what about we make a little dealio here: I'll keep this "shitty father" business to myself and you don't blow my trust fund on some diamond thong for my future stepmother. Okay? Pinky shake? Yeah, you're pinky's as big as my whole fucking hand, so why not?
Oh, by the way, when are you and Mom getting back together? She gets really excited when you're on TV. She has a ritual, she locks herself in her room to watch the game with one of the landscapers, yelling "Go deep, baby! Go deep!" I didn't even know there was a TV in that room. But I see tears of joy on her face every time you guys win!
It hasn't been that bad with you gone; Mom brings over these hot-ass nannies to help change me. Sometimes I'll just shit myself as soon as the doorbell rings so these girls get an extra shot at rubbing my ass crack. No more tears, indeed.
Oh, and one of my teeth came in last week, Dad! Look! This tooth is gonna--LOOK AT MY FUCKING TOOTH, DAD! Thank you! This tooth is 1/20th of my future million-dollar smile, which works out to, um, oh fuck, what's a cool mill divided by 20? The abacus on my crib doesn't go up that high. Hey, hand me that little globey thing with the balls in it that I like to mow the carpet with. Oh shit, I forget, I'm not that old yet.
Well, alright, let's calm down here. I guess I can concede that I wasn't seeing you much to begin with, so I think we need to have a little man-to-infant chat here. We both know that you make Matt Leinart look like Jon Kitna when it comes to raisin' pups, ya dig? So what about we make a little dealio here: I'll keep this "shitty father" business to myself and you don't blow my trust fund on some diamond thong for my future stepmother. Okay? Pinky shake? Yeah, you're pinky's as big as my whole fucking hand, so why not?
Oh, by the way, when are you and Mom getting back together? She gets really excited when you're on TV. She has a ritual, she locks herself in her room to watch the game with one of the landscapers, yelling "Go deep, baby! Go deep!" I didn't even know there was a TV in that room. But I see tears of joy on her face every time you guys win!
It hasn't been that bad with you gone; Mom brings over these hot-ass nannies to help change me. Sometimes I'll just shit myself as soon as the doorbell rings so these girls get an extra shot at rubbing my ass crack. No more tears, indeed.
Oh, and one of my teeth came in last week, Dad! Look! This tooth is gonna--LOOK AT MY FUCKING TOOTH, DAD! Thank you! This tooth is 1/20th of my future million-dollar smile, which works out to, um, oh fuck, what's a cool mill divided by 20? The abacus on my crib doesn't go up that high. Hey, hand me that little globey thing with the balls in it that I like to mow the carpet with. Oh shit, I forget, I'm not that old yet.
Monday, December 17, 2007
They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab, I Said No, No, No
Every once in a while, I get an e-mail from a somebody that thinks I'm an investigative journalist (I'm better at it than Dan Rather, but still...), and this morning was one of those times. Usually these letters end up being from someone who was lucky enough to find time between swatting at imaginary flies and chasing passing airplanes with a can of Raid to send an e-mail, but I was compelled to check this one out.
The e-mail had the subject line, "CIA Torture Plane Crashes Carrying 4 Tons of Cocaine on Board in Mexico." It came from an odd address, which is often the sign of spam, but it was sent to my Blogger address and asked me what I thought about it. I checked out some of the links, and if this begins to circulate more (maybe it is, but this is the first time I've heard of it), here's the deal as I understand it…
In September, a plane carrying what Mexican newspapers reported as 3.2 tons of cocaine crashed in Yucatan, Mexico. If you want to know what 3.2 tons of cocaine looks like, climb inside Lindsay Lohan's nasal cavity, or look at the picture below, reportedly taken at the crash site:
According to some of the frequenters of Airliners.Net who looked up the numbers, the crashed drug plane is registered to Donna Blue Aircraft Inc. in Coconut Creek, FL. So where does "CIA Torture Plane" come into play?
The email trail led me to left wing blog The Daily Kos, which contains the following without a link to any corroborating information:
"…documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo's infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005."
"…documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo's infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005."
"Infamous torture chambers?" Who writes this stuff, Dick Durbin?
None of these "documents" are produced, however — at least as far as I can find. Here's a YouTube video containing accusations only as well. There are more vague possible connections, such as here, but this "evidence" would hold up in kangaroo court only.
But if the story is true, has it occurred to anybody that maybe the CIA is forcing coke on Gitmo prisoners so that, upon their release, they're hooked and spend all their subsequent time and money trying to score blow instead of plotting attacks on the West? That would be a brilliant tactic if you ask me.
Another reason I have trouble believing this story is that it doesn't fit the government's modus operandi. If this was a secret operation led by Bush/Cheney, the crashed plane would have been filled with dozens of now-dead terrorist suspects and Gitmo would be the world's biggest coke stash. I know the government's up to all sorts of stuff that we know nothing about, but I have trouble believing that the pool of tax money isn't deep enough to finance all of their underhanded needs without also having to be Amy Winehouse's dealer on the side.
To add to proof of the paranoid and delusional nature of some of the accusers, on the Kos site, there's a poll asking "why isn't our English mainstream media covering this?" The majority of the respondents said it was because the mainstream media "work for the GOP." Oh man, I love starting off a weekend with a good laugh.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
No Shock To The System Needed
There was a recent story about how 13 juniors from Ohio State were allowed to make arrangements with the NFL to assess if and where they would be chosen in next year's draft. I wasn't as alarmed as some people, who claimed "Wow, that's like the entire team!"
That math notwithstanding, I can explain that Ohio State will usually go out of its way to help one of its athletes make an informed decision about whether to declare for a draft, be it NFL or NBA. After all, a man like Jim Tressel is fully aware that high school football's elite come to Columbus for two reasons:
1) To fuck a lot of girls
2) To get ready for the NFL (I realize that's basically the same thing)
Furthermore, it's certainly a help to one's coaching efforts when one's players gain feedback regarding what holes in their game could potentially be costing them millions of dollars. The majority of these players, I believe, will take the information that the League gives them and prepare for their respective senior seasons accordingly. I would guess four or five will take the leap and declare. The rest will wait and take a shot at bigger money down the road.
Speaking of, I suppose some of you are pissed off about the Ohio State-LSU matchup, and to be totally truthful, you can all suck down a used catheter bag like a cherry-flavored Capri Sun. Just because you assholes want to fill out some brackets before Christmas is no reason to drastically alter the landscape of college football.
Besides, what we have now IS a playoff. It's a two-team playoff. Just because we're over the third-best team instead of the ninth-best team or the 17th-best team doesn't change the structure of that. And why should a potential 1-seed, that (typically) goes the whole season taking care of their business be rewarded with the chance to blow out Clemson, right back on the same starting line with 15 other teams that (most of which) couldn't get it done in the regular season. Fuck those teams and fuck you. Better luck next year.
I don't understand how this matchup supports anyone's argument for a playoff. If we had a playoff, this is exactly the game that we would have: two teams with pretty good reasons to be there, methodically picked from a handful of other teams with pretty good reasons to be there.
"Oh, but Antonio," you'd say, as I'd reluctantly turn to listen. "At least with a playoff, everything would be settled ON THE FIELD." What about those first 12 games? Were they not played on the field as well? All you do with a playoff is reward a team that got hot at the end of the year, one that, more often than not, doesn't have proper claim to such a mulligan.
And I hear the argument about strength of schedule. But I don't understand how a conference that's "been beating each other up the whole season" could have TEN FUCKING BOWL-ELIGIBLE TEAMS! How tough are those alleged beatings if no one is out of bowl contention? I've heard people say Ohio State would be lucky to go .500 in the SEC. What bullshit. Mississippi State went 4-4. You're telling me they couldn't beat Mississippi Goddamn State?
(And how is it the fault of the Big Ten that they weren't stupid enough to put together another opportunity for their team to get knocked down in the polls in a conference championship game? They're "pussified" because you decided to play on Thanksgiving Week and they didn't? Isn't it a bit pussified that LSU is playing a home game for the BCS title?)
And all this fucking money that a playoff would supposedly generate? Where do you think that's gonna come from? That money will get yanked out of your so-called league championships and all the other, lesser bowls. And with the same teams playing in more games, you're actually preventing fan dollars from all of these other bowl-eligible teams from getting into the picture. Do you think the TV money from those first-round games is going to be so much better than Shitty Bowl TV Money? More than enough to facilitate a change?
That math notwithstanding, I can explain that Ohio State will usually go out of its way to help one of its athletes make an informed decision about whether to declare for a draft, be it NFL or NBA. After all, a man like Jim Tressel is fully aware that high school football's elite come to Columbus for two reasons:
1) To fuck a lot of girls
2) To get ready for the NFL (I realize that's basically the same thing)
Furthermore, it's certainly a help to one's coaching efforts when one's players gain feedback regarding what holes in their game could potentially be costing them millions of dollars. The majority of these players, I believe, will take the information that the League gives them and prepare for their respective senior seasons accordingly. I would guess four or five will take the leap and declare. The rest will wait and take a shot at bigger money down the road.
Speaking of, I suppose some of you are pissed off about the Ohio State-LSU matchup, and to be totally truthful, you can all suck down a used catheter bag like a cherry-flavored Capri Sun. Just because you assholes want to fill out some brackets before Christmas is no reason to drastically alter the landscape of college football.
Besides, what we have now IS a playoff. It's a two-team playoff. Just because we're over the third-best team instead of the ninth-best team or the 17th-best team doesn't change the structure of that. And why should a potential 1-seed, that (typically) goes the whole season taking care of their business be rewarded with the chance to blow out Clemson, right back on the same starting line with 15 other teams that (most of which) couldn't get it done in the regular season. Fuck those teams and fuck you. Better luck next year.
I don't understand how this matchup supports anyone's argument for a playoff. If we had a playoff, this is exactly the game that we would have: two teams with pretty good reasons to be there, methodically picked from a handful of other teams with pretty good reasons to be there.
"Oh, but Antonio," you'd say, as I'd reluctantly turn to listen. "At least with a playoff, everything would be settled ON THE FIELD." What about those first 12 games? Were they not played on the field as well? All you do with a playoff is reward a team that got hot at the end of the year, one that, more often than not, doesn't have proper claim to such a mulligan.
And I hear the argument about strength of schedule. But I don't understand how a conference that's "been beating each other up the whole season" could have TEN FUCKING BOWL-ELIGIBLE TEAMS! How tough are those alleged beatings if no one is out of bowl contention? I've heard people say Ohio State would be lucky to go .500 in the SEC. What bullshit. Mississippi State went 4-4. You're telling me they couldn't beat Mississippi Goddamn State?
(And how is it the fault of the Big Ten that they weren't stupid enough to put together another opportunity for their team to get knocked down in the polls in a conference championship game? They're "pussified" because you decided to play on Thanksgiving Week and they didn't? Isn't it a bit pussified that LSU is playing a home game for the BCS title?)
And all this fucking money that a playoff would supposedly generate? Where do you think that's gonna come from? That money will get yanked out of your so-called league championships and all the other, lesser bowls. And with the same teams playing in more games, you're actually preventing fan dollars from all of these other bowl-eligible teams from getting into the picture. Do you think the TV money from those first-round games is going to be so much better than Shitty Bowl TV Money? More than enough to facilitate a change?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Coheed & Cambria
As much as that last post took out of me, I just had to write this. Afew hundred people have asked me to burn down Coheed & Cambria. (That's hyperbole.) Over the past couple of years, I've heard more and more nerd chatter about these idiots, so the time has come. The last straw was when I saw the video for "The Suffering" which, I shit you not, features a centaur saving a mermaid from a sea monster. Chew on that for a minute.
Now, any reviewer with an ounce of class could easily get through a review of a Coheed & Cambria album without resorting to cheap shots at the lead singer's appearance. Luckily for you, I don't have an ounce of class, so not only will I resort to it, I'll start with it. If you haven't seen him, imagine a cross between E.T. and Rain Pryor. Or how about this: imagine Buckwheat getting really surprised, but then it starts to rain and his hair gets wet on top and settles into a horrible football shape. The worst part of it is that it seems to be intentional: he recognized his own capacity to have the worst hairdo in all the vastness of creation and he seized it and harnessed it and made it his own, and now all the sane people in the world are left agape, scratching our heads. And as I pointed out in an earlier post, I don't mean scratching our heads in confusion, either. You get itchy just looking at that hair.
Claudio Sanchez's yearning to shock and disgust the populace by cultivating and magnifying his worst traits doesn't end at his hair, unfortunately. Coheed & Cambria's music itself is a horrible calculation. It's clearly a product of pure spite, an ugly distillation of Sanchez's hatred of art. Music this bad isn't stumbled upon accidentally. Limp Bizkit's music is accidentally bad: it's clumsy, stupid, dull and ugly. Coheed & Cambria know what they're doing, and they're up to something far more sinister: they have deliberately combined all of rock and roll's worst traits, all of its most horrible, nauseating excess, and turned it into something so patently awful that, of course, every nerd on the internet loves it.
It's a scientific fact that emo is the world's queerest music. No, that's not just my opinion. It's empirical. You can pull out your oscilloscope, your Bunsen burner, your Jacob's ladder, whatever. Run emo through it, and it'll turn pink. Furthermore, it is beyond dispute that prog-rock is the nerdiest music in the world. Prog-rock is all about geeks writing computer programs to settle the Neil Peart vs. Mike Portnoy debate. Prog-rock bands are so desperate to be high art that they're content to sidestep art altogether, resulting in fat guys in pillbox hats playing ten-minute solos on fourteen-string basses. Prog-rock is an elaborate, terrified denial of the fundamental rock and roll fact that no matter how virtuosic and sophisticated a band gets, some junior-high dropout could step up with a guitar with four broken strings and play a song with enough soul to blow them out of the water forever.
Call me paranoid, but I don't think anyone could be stupid enough to combine emo and prog-rock accidentally. It's too plainly apparent that the result of the union would be the most ungodly abomination ever wrought on mankind. Coheed & Cambria are up to something. Maybe they're trying to destroy music, maybe they're some kind of elaborate performance art piece to demonstrate how stupid American rock fans are, or maybe they just enjoy making sane people cringe.
To look for clues into their nefarious purpose, I've undertaken the horrible task of listening to 2005's "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness." It's a terrifying prospect. I was ready to give up halfway through reading the title. Let's see if I can slog through the prog.
Track 1: Keeping the Blade
Awesome, the first half of this track is reminiscent of the theme song from Unsolved Mysteries, and we all know that Robert Stack was The Boss. Just when I'm getting into it, the track quietly slips into a coma and turns into a repetitive, featherweight "hey guys, we hired a string quartet" arrangement. The good news, however, is that there hasn't been any singing yet. Okay, three minutes down, nine hundred to go.
Track 2: Always and Never
Ooh, a jolly little lilting acoustic guitar bit. This song has a vagina. Hey, that reminds me, I've mentioned the singer's hair, but I haven't gotten around to pointing out that thing that really puts him in a class by himself: his vagina. Uh, wait, I mean: his voice. He makes Geddy Lee sound like James Hetfield. He sounds like a little girl who got kicked in the nuts.
Here he treats us to a dorky little lullaby about beautiful children laughing and shit, BUT LO! He turns it around at the end and starts talking about killing. You see, this means that there is depth to the song, because there is the surface level where he's sighing and squealing like an adorable little infant fairy princess, and then there is the deeper level where he's in a "grown up" band and he has a little beard and stuff (which means he has to get all serious and talk about killing). Magnificent.
Track 3: Welcome Home
What have we here? The theme from Tetris! More precisely, it's basically the theme from Tetris, but with enough modification that they can pull a Vanilla Ice and say "no, no, it's not the theme from Tetris at all, the theme from Tetris goes 'doo doodle doodle doo, dootle doo doo,' and our song goes 'doo doodle doo, doodle doo doo doo.'" But anyway, you'll forget about the Tetris thing soon enough, because the song eventually segues clumsily into the riff from Kashmir ("no, no, the riff from Kashmir goes 'duh nuh nuh, duh nuh nuh…'"). But you'll forget about that, too, because you'll spend six minutes trying to figure out just what the fuck is going on with this song, and then it'll be over. It is a complete mess with no tune and no direction, alternating haphazardly between filched riffs and dorky Zakk Wylde flourishes and never getting anywhere. How balefully crappy does a band have to be to combine the tune from Tetris and the riff from Kashmir and totally fuck it up? More evidence to support my thesis that these guys are crappy out of intentional malfeasance.
Track 4: Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)
Uh oh, bless their little hearts, they're trying to rock again. The good news is that this time they pick a melody and stick to it, unlike the ugly tilt-a-whirl that was the last track. But boy howdy, the singer's voice sounds weird at the beginning of this track, like some government experiment into riot control using sound frequencies that make you lose control of your bowels. I'm not going to lie, my heart's not really in listening closely to fifteen Coheed & Cambria songs in a row, so the fact that this track slipped by pretty much unnoticed didn't present a big problem for me. What am I supposed to do, go back and listen to it again?
Track 5: Crossing the Frame
At first I almost felt relieved that this track was going a little easier on the prog-metal, but then I remembered what was hiding inside the metal: emo! I feel like I spent the last ten minutes prying open a treasure chest made out of hardened barf and finding that it was filled with bricks of poop. Okay, let's skip a few boring ones so this miserable thing doesn't get too long. Do you people have any idea how LONG this record is?
Track 8: Wake Up
The only good thing about pop-metal was power ballads. Not even the biggest snob in the world could deny the bizarre appeal of songs like "Home Sweet Home" and "I Remember You." Come to think of it, I am the biggest snob in the world, so that's straight from the horse's mouth. Something about those songs managed to hit exactly the right balance of stupidity and really really stupid stupidity, ensuring that you'll be singing along with them at the top of your lungs whenever they come on the radio. That was just a preamble to explain and excuse the fact that I'm basically saying "this song would be way better if Motley Crue had written it." The two types of acceptable ballads in this world are good ballads and MONSTER BALLADS. Since this falls fall short of the former and doesn't even attempt the latter, what we're left with is just a boring, stupid, song in which a hideous yeti/chipmunk hybrid whines his heart out over a bed of cloying strings.
Track 9: The Suffering
As I pointed out earlier, this song has a video featuring centaurs and mermaids and Pegasuseses and shit. One might be tempted to say "oh, but come on, that must have been an ironic, tongue-in-cheek joke kinda thing." Maybe I would have been inclined to agree if I didn't know better.
Get this: we're dealing with a fucking sci-fi concept album here. Did you read the title of the CD? Here, read the title of the fucking CD. It's called "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness." It's not even just part four of a goddamn four-part concept album. It's part one of part four. If these assholes were putting centaurs and shit in their video for the purposes of irony, it's too bad for them. They've blown their credibility to the point where I pretty much have to take all the stupid shit they do at face value. Here's how it is: either Coheed & Cambria are sinister Dadaist anti-art crusaders bent on destroying rock from the inside, or they put mermaids and centaurs and tentacle monsters in their video because they earnestly thought it would be cool. Pick one. They're either evil or they're huge idiot nerds. Hey, here's something I don't get: all new CDs cost pretty much the same amount, right? In fact, many fine older albums get price reductions down to ten bucks or so. So my point is, Coheed & Cambria records are no cheaper than good records. I could almost understand listening to a song like "The Suffering" if it only cost like two bucks to buy the CD: "I'd love to listen to good music, but who can afford it?" People are basically ripping themselves off. Let's skip ahead a bit.
Track 12: The Willing Well I: Fuel For The Feeding End
Okay, here's part one of a four-part movement inside a record that's part one of a two-part series that represents part four of a four-part series. Here goes part one of my four-part review:
I: This record is a festering pile of horrible masturbatory pap…
Track 13: The Willing Well II: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness
II: …and if you are a fan of Coheed & Cambria, I can say with the utmost confidence that you are a bona-fide tin-eared nerd with absolutely no concept of…
Track 14: The Willing Well III: Apollo II Telling The Truth
III: …what makes music good or bad, evidenced by the fact that you are simultaneously listening to the three lamest, dorkiest, and most artistically bankrupt genres of music ever invented, all at the same time, coagulated and…
Track 15: The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut
IV: …mashed together into a sickening, putrid sludge of pretentiousness and idiocy by a group of people who are either too stupid to know the abominable sins they are committing against the art of music or who are evil enough to willfully package and sell what they know to be the ultimate test of consumer stupidity. Either way, you fail.
If you would like to send a testimonial about how this review cured you of your destructive, stupid habit of listening to Coheed & Cambria, feel free to.
Now, any reviewer with an ounce of class could easily get through a review of a Coheed & Cambria album without resorting to cheap shots at the lead singer's appearance. Luckily for you, I don't have an ounce of class, so not only will I resort to it, I'll start with it. If you haven't seen him, imagine a cross between E.T. and Rain Pryor. Or how about this: imagine Buckwheat getting really surprised, but then it starts to rain and his hair gets wet on top and settles into a horrible football shape. The worst part of it is that it seems to be intentional: he recognized his own capacity to have the worst hairdo in all the vastness of creation and he seized it and harnessed it and made it his own, and now all the sane people in the world are left agape, scratching our heads. And as I pointed out in an earlier post, I don't mean scratching our heads in confusion, either. You get itchy just looking at that hair.
Claudio Sanchez's yearning to shock and disgust the populace by cultivating and magnifying his worst traits doesn't end at his hair, unfortunately. Coheed & Cambria's music itself is a horrible calculation. It's clearly a product of pure spite, an ugly distillation of Sanchez's hatred of art. Music this bad isn't stumbled upon accidentally. Limp Bizkit's music is accidentally bad: it's clumsy, stupid, dull and ugly. Coheed & Cambria know what they're doing, and they're up to something far more sinister: they have deliberately combined all of rock and roll's worst traits, all of its most horrible, nauseating excess, and turned it into something so patently awful that, of course, every nerd on the internet loves it.
It's a scientific fact that emo is the world's queerest music. No, that's not just my opinion. It's empirical. You can pull out your oscilloscope, your Bunsen burner, your Jacob's ladder, whatever. Run emo through it, and it'll turn pink. Furthermore, it is beyond dispute that prog-rock is the nerdiest music in the world. Prog-rock is all about geeks writing computer programs to settle the Neil Peart vs. Mike Portnoy debate. Prog-rock bands are so desperate to be high art that they're content to sidestep art altogether, resulting in fat guys in pillbox hats playing ten-minute solos on fourteen-string basses. Prog-rock is an elaborate, terrified denial of the fundamental rock and roll fact that no matter how virtuosic and sophisticated a band gets, some junior-high dropout could step up with a guitar with four broken strings and play a song with enough soul to blow them out of the water forever.
Call me paranoid, but I don't think anyone could be stupid enough to combine emo and prog-rock accidentally. It's too plainly apparent that the result of the union would be the most ungodly abomination ever wrought on mankind. Coheed & Cambria are up to something. Maybe they're trying to destroy music, maybe they're some kind of elaborate performance art piece to demonstrate how stupid American rock fans are, or maybe they just enjoy making sane people cringe.
To look for clues into their nefarious purpose, I've undertaken the horrible task of listening to 2005's "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness." It's a terrifying prospect. I was ready to give up halfway through reading the title. Let's see if I can slog through the prog.
Track 1: Keeping the Blade
Awesome, the first half of this track is reminiscent of the theme song from Unsolved Mysteries, and we all know that Robert Stack was The Boss. Just when I'm getting into it, the track quietly slips into a coma and turns into a repetitive, featherweight "hey guys, we hired a string quartet" arrangement. The good news, however, is that there hasn't been any singing yet. Okay, three minutes down, nine hundred to go.
Track 2: Always and Never
Ooh, a jolly little lilting acoustic guitar bit. This song has a vagina. Hey, that reminds me, I've mentioned the singer's hair, but I haven't gotten around to pointing out that thing that really puts him in a class by himself: his vagina. Uh, wait, I mean: his voice. He makes Geddy Lee sound like James Hetfield. He sounds like a little girl who got kicked in the nuts.
Here he treats us to a dorky little lullaby about beautiful children laughing and shit, BUT LO! He turns it around at the end and starts talking about killing. You see, this means that there is depth to the song, because there is the surface level where he's sighing and squealing like an adorable little infant fairy princess, and then there is the deeper level where he's in a "grown up" band and he has a little beard and stuff (which means he has to get all serious and talk about killing). Magnificent.
Track 3: Welcome Home
What have we here? The theme from Tetris! More precisely, it's basically the theme from Tetris, but with enough modification that they can pull a Vanilla Ice and say "no, no, it's not the theme from Tetris at all, the theme from Tetris goes 'doo doodle doodle doo, dootle doo doo,' and our song goes 'doo doodle doo, doodle doo doo doo.'" But anyway, you'll forget about the Tetris thing soon enough, because the song eventually segues clumsily into the riff from Kashmir ("no, no, the riff from Kashmir goes 'duh nuh nuh, duh nuh nuh…'"). But you'll forget about that, too, because you'll spend six minutes trying to figure out just what the fuck is going on with this song, and then it'll be over. It is a complete mess with no tune and no direction, alternating haphazardly between filched riffs and dorky Zakk Wylde flourishes and never getting anywhere. How balefully crappy does a band have to be to combine the tune from Tetris and the riff from Kashmir and totally fuck it up? More evidence to support my thesis that these guys are crappy out of intentional malfeasance.
Track 4: Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)
Uh oh, bless their little hearts, they're trying to rock again. The good news is that this time they pick a melody and stick to it, unlike the ugly tilt-a-whirl that was the last track. But boy howdy, the singer's voice sounds weird at the beginning of this track, like some government experiment into riot control using sound frequencies that make you lose control of your bowels. I'm not going to lie, my heart's not really in listening closely to fifteen Coheed & Cambria songs in a row, so the fact that this track slipped by pretty much unnoticed didn't present a big problem for me. What am I supposed to do, go back and listen to it again?
Track 5: Crossing the Frame
At first I almost felt relieved that this track was going a little easier on the prog-metal, but then I remembered what was hiding inside the metal: emo! I feel like I spent the last ten minutes prying open a treasure chest made out of hardened barf and finding that it was filled with bricks of poop. Okay, let's skip a few boring ones so this miserable thing doesn't get too long. Do you people have any idea how LONG this record is?
Track 8: Wake Up
The only good thing about pop-metal was power ballads. Not even the biggest snob in the world could deny the bizarre appeal of songs like "Home Sweet Home" and "I Remember You." Come to think of it, I am the biggest snob in the world, so that's straight from the horse's mouth. Something about those songs managed to hit exactly the right balance of stupidity and really really stupid stupidity, ensuring that you'll be singing along with them at the top of your lungs whenever they come on the radio. That was just a preamble to explain and excuse the fact that I'm basically saying "this song would be way better if Motley Crue had written it." The two types of acceptable ballads in this world are good ballads and MONSTER BALLADS. Since this falls fall short of the former and doesn't even attempt the latter, what we're left with is just a boring, stupid, song in which a hideous yeti/chipmunk hybrid whines his heart out over a bed of cloying strings.
Track 9: The Suffering
As I pointed out earlier, this song has a video featuring centaurs and mermaids and Pegasuseses and shit. One might be tempted to say "oh, but come on, that must have been an ironic, tongue-in-cheek joke kinda thing." Maybe I would have been inclined to agree if I didn't know better.
Get this: we're dealing with a fucking sci-fi concept album here. Did you read the title of the CD? Here, read the title of the fucking CD. It's called "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness." It's not even just part four of a goddamn four-part concept album. It's part one of part four. If these assholes were putting centaurs and shit in their video for the purposes of irony, it's too bad for them. They've blown their credibility to the point where I pretty much have to take all the stupid shit they do at face value. Here's how it is: either Coheed & Cambria are sinister Dadaist anti-art crusaders bent on destroying rock from the inside, or they put mermaids and centaurs and tentacle monsters in their video because they earnestly thought it would be cool. Pick one. They're either evil or they're huge idiot nerds. Hey, here's something I don't get: all new CDs cost pretty much the same amount, right? In fact, many fine older albums get price reductions down to ten bucks or so. So my point is, Coheed & Cambria records are no cheaper than good records. I could almost understand listening to a song like "The Suffering" if it only cost like two bucks to buy the CD: "I'd love to listen to good music, but who can afford it?" People are basically ripping themselves off. Let's skip ahead a bit.
Track 12: The Willing Well I: Fuel For The Feeding End
Okay, here's part one of a four-part movement inside a record that's part one of a two-part series that represents part four of a four-part series. Here goes part one of my four-part review:
I: This record is a festering pile of horrible masturbatory pap…
Track 13: The Willing Well II: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness
II: …and if you are a fan of Coheed & Cambria, I can say with the utmost confidence that you are a bona-fide tin-eared nerd with absolutely no concept of…
Track 14: The Willing Well III: Apollo II Telling The Truth
III: …what makes music good or bad, evidenced by the fact that you are simultaneously listening to the three lamest, dorkiest, and most artistically bankrupt genres of music ever invented, all at the same time, coagulated and…
Track 15: The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut
IV: …mashed together into a sickening, putrid sludge of pretentiousness and idiocy by a group of people who are either too stupid to know the abominable sins they are committing against the art of music or who are evil enough to willfully package and sell what they know to be the ultimate test of consumer stupidity. Either way, you fail.
If you would like to send a testimonial about how this review cured you of your destructive, stupid habit of listening to Coheed & Cambria, feel free to.
Battle of the Band Names
I've been exceptionally bored today, so I came up with a bunch of band names that I thought might be cool. Yes, this is another list post. Don't like them? Well, when you grow up and start your own blog, you don't have to make any if you don't want to. But trust me, the allure will be there. You won't be able to resist..... 
1. Children Of The Grave 
2. Duke Of Aquitaine
3. Phantom Tao 
4. The McLean Avenue Minutemen
5. The Elements 
6. Peace Is A Dirty Word
7. Appetizers For Mangino
1. Children Of The Grave
2. Duke Of Aquitaine
3. Phantom Tao
4. The McLean Avenue Minutemen
5. The Elements
6. Peace Is A Dirty Word
7. Appetizers For Mangino
8. The Lone Riders
9. Surge
You all get bonus points if you can tell me what numbers 1, 6, and 7 refer to.
Uncultured Swine Presents: The 10 Ugliest Musical Artists
There's a lot of ugly running around outside. One need only stick his or her neck out the window and be repulsed by the low quality of looks running rampant and roughshod over our dear planet. People use celebrities to get away from all this, but unfortunately, sometimes even they cannot save us. Feast, my friends, on the 10 Ugliest Musicians / Singers / Artists/ People...
Kelis
Her milkshake, assuredly, does not bring boys to the yard.
Claudio Sanchez, Coheed and Cambria
Awful music aside, this man's (?) choice of hairstyle leaves you scratching your head. And not in confusion, either. You just get all itchy looking at him.
Clay Aiken
The red-headed stepchild of Martin Short. With baby teeth.
David Crosby
This man has it all: bald on top, pube curtains on the side, a moustache that's definetely full of bologna sandwich crumbs, a penchant for hippie clothing and a body shaped like the liberty bell.
Daron Malakian, System of a Down
Nothing is worse than an ugly singer who can't sing. I mean, really, really REALLY ugly. And really, really, REALLY can't sing.
Joey Ramone, The Ramones
Of course I respect the man. He was a badass. But he had no chin. Just a face that morphed into a neck.
Lemmy, Motorhead
Even if it weren't for the terrifying solar system of warts, or whatever those things are, he'd still make the list. Wonder if he ever worries about one of those fleshy biscuits falling into his stew?
Michael Jackson
You'd really think I'd leave him (?) off the list?
Shane MacGowan, The Pogues
Pasty, paunchy, and perpetually drunk, and with a mouth like somebody stepped on a weak spot and fell through a porch.
Pasty, paunchy, and perpetually drunk, and with a mouth like somebody stepped on a weak spot and fell through a porch.
Steven Tyler, Aerosmith
Apparently the victim of a catastrophically spectacular mouth-muscle collapse. Like he got drunk one night and tried to stretch his lips around a steering wheel and they never snapped completely back.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
S.O.A.D. Hate Mail, Part II
I got bored, so here are the rest of the e-mails I got in reference to my anti-System of a Down rant. Have fun.
I know that everybody can't like system of a down but that not a reason to criticate us.
You critic the adolescents but you do like us when they critic Opera because they don't listen this music. Moreover they aren't commercial so you have choice to don't listen us.
And you what you listen ?
Sory for the bad english I'm a frenc idiot who listen system of a down.
-Guillaume
I'm not going to be too mean to Guillaume because his e-mail is pretty adorable.
I'me maybe the sort of idiot who listen to System of a Down but I don't want tu tell you you're wrong, however I think that. I accept your opinion wihout any difficulty but I see that you don't accept that people like this band. So you said we're idiot, you said they play chit... And I can't stand people like you who say this kind of things. I like SOAD since their first album for their style, their originality, their dynamism and maybe also for their political positions. Try to listen to them more precisly and you'll discover some subtilities (if you don't, maybe your IQ is too weak to understand them). So I don't want to speak any more to you, because in fact I don't care of people like you and I don't understand why I'm writting to you (I'm french so it's more difficult). So good continuation in your chit and try to be more precise in your conjectures. It would be nice to you to answer me (maybe I can't write english perfectly but I can understand it, so you, and also System of a Down) And If you understand french, tell me so I could be more precise too.
-Romain
Gosh, will the French just get off my ass already? But honestly, these French e-mails are much more polite than most of the ones in English, probably because these guys don't know any English curse words like "noob" and "lol."
Hi..
The article about System Of A Down is totaly pathetic. The things you tell about Cigaro, BYOB, Radio/Video etc. are really stupid. I can't imagine that someone could think such a shit.
I just tell you: if you are against anything of System Of A Down, if you belive that the shit that comes out your mouth is real, you should go fuck your self.
Just go fuck your self and die. I swear I'll fucking kill you.
-Yannick
Well if you're going to kill me anyway, why should I bother fucking myself and dying? I like this letter because a lot of people threaten me, but this guy actually swears he's going to kill me. That's a whole new level. Now, if he doesn't kill me, he's breaking his word, and it's probably an affront to God or something. If Yannick doesn't kill me, he's going to go to hell for it. How radical is that? Also, I enjoy the mental image of "thinking up a shit." I wish I could really do that, I'd never have to eat or go to the bathroom again, I could just concentrate really hard and a shit would telepathically form in my toilet.
Hi I read ur little article on soad!!! And i need to ask you a question! Are you michael Jackson? You need ya head chekin m8! All dat xcess bone in ya hed is sendin ya wacko!! ha ha Plz email me bak as i dont understand ur evilness!
Thank you
Yours sincerelySoad fan or as u called me an adorable man-child halfwit who just wants hugs!!!
-Emily
Sometimes people just talk in a weird code that I don't understand.
Hope you'll listen to aerials or toxicity soon.. or chop suey! Ok i read all the sentences that you wrote but its just rediciolous to read your comments about the band that i love very much.. the lyrics can go this way
My cock is much bigger than yours or my shit stinks much beter than yours.. every single fan should understand what they want to.. i think soad is the closest band to me even im from TURKEY and im accepting the genocide problems.. they can be ARMENIAN it doesnt matter to me bucause i do love hearing DARON MALAKIAN s or SERJ TANKIAN s voice and that im a child over 18 years old and i think that im someone that has special needs.. soad is feeding me my thoughts about life or the world that im living in… the thing your doing is called humanity.. who you think you are???? How can you say that daron musnt sing anymore..? getr rid of the way you are….
-Tulu
This guy is accepting of genocide? I know Turks are supposed to be bloodthirsty, but that's just monstrous!
fuck you you fucking piece of shit you prob like some fucking shit like panthera or linkin park yeah thats really fucing uique when theres thousands of other fucking bands that shound the same go fuck yourself you cock sucking fuck i would kick your fucking ass if i ever fucking saw you.
-William
Well, let's just leave it at that. If anyone else has any half-baked threats or jumbled foreign word-puzzles for me, I hope that they'll send them to me so I can continue to be amused by the giant blob of poor taste and mental tragedy that is the Information Age.
I know that everybody can't like system of a down but that not a reason to criticate us.
You critic the adolescents but you do like us when they critic Opera because they don't listen this music. Moreover they aren't commercial so you have choice to don't listen us.
And you what you listen ?
Sory for the bad english I'm a frenc idiot who listen system of a down.
-Guillaume
I'm not going to be too mean to Guillaume because his e-mail is pretty adorable.
I'me maybe the sort of idiot who listen to System of a Down but I don't want tu tell you you're wrong, however I think that. I accept your opinion wihout any difficulty but I see that you don't accept that people like this band. So you said we're idiot, you said they play chit... And I can't stand people like you who say this kind of things. I like SOAD since their first album for their style, their originality, their dynamism and maybe also for their political positions. Try to listen to them more precisly and you'll discover some subtilities (if you don't, maybe your IQ is too weak to understand them). So I don't want to speak any more to you, because in fact I don't care of people like you and I don't understand why I'm writting to you (I'm french so it's more difficult). So good continuation in your chit and try to be more precise in your conjectures. It would be nice to you to answer me (maybe I can't write english perfectly but I can understand it, so you, and also System of a Down) And If you understand french, tell me so I could be more precise too.
-Romain
Gosh, will the French just get off my ass already? But honestly, these French e-mails are much more polite than most of the ones in English, probably because these guys don't know any English curse words like "noob" and "lol."
Hi..
The article about System Of A Down is totaly pathetic. The things you tell about Cigaro, BYOB, Radio/Video etc. are really stupid. I can't imagine that someone could think such a shit.
I just tell you: if you are against anything of System Of A Down, if you belive that the shit that comes out your mouth is real, you should go fuck your self.
Just go fuck your self and die. I swear I'll fucking kill you.
-Yannick
Well if you're going to kill me anyway, why should I bother fucking myself and dying? I like this letter because a lot of people threaten me, but this guy actually swears he's going to kill me. That's a whole new level. Now, if he doesn't kill me, he's breaking his word, and it's probably an affront to God or something. If Yannick doesn't kill me, he's going to go to hell for it. How radical is that? Also, I enjoy the mental image of "thinking up a shit." I wish I could really do that, I'd never have to eat or go to the bathroom again, I could just concentrate really hard and a shit would telepathically form in my toilet.
Hi I read ur little article on soad!!! And i need to ask you a question! Are you michael Jackson? You need ya head chekin m8! All dat xcess bone in ya hed is sendin ya wacko!! ha ha Plz email me bak as i dont understand ur evilness!
Thank you
Yours sincerelySoad fan or as u called me an adorable man-child halfwit who just wants hugs!!!
-Emily
Sometimes people just talk in a weird code that I don't understand.
Hope you'll listen to aerials or toxicity soon.. or chop suey! Ok i read all the sentences that you wrote but its just rediciolous to read your comments about the band that i love very much.. the lyrics can go this way
My cock is much bigger than yours or my shit stinks much beter than yours.. every single fan should understand what they want to.. i think soad is the closest band to me even im from TURKEY and im accepting the genocide problems.. they can be ARMENIAN it doesnt matter to me bucause i do love hearing DARON MALAKIAN s or SERJ TANKIAN s voice and that im a child over 18 years old and i think that im someone that has special needs.. soad is feeding me my thoughts about life or the world that im living in… the thing your doing is called humanity.. who you think you are???? How can you say that daron musnt sing anymore..? getr rid of the way you are….
-Tulu
This guy is accepting of genocide? I know Turks are supposed to be bloodthirsty, but that's just monstrous!
fuck you you fucking piece of shit you prob like some fucking shit like panthera or linkin park yeah thats really fucing uique when theres thousands of other fucking bands that shound the same go fuck yourself you cock sucking fuck i would kick your fucking ass if i ever fucking saw you.
-William
Well, let's just leave it at that. If anyone else has any half-baked threats or jumbled foreign word-puzzles for me, I hope that they'll send them to me so I can continue to be amused by the giant blob of poor taste and mental tragedy that is the Information Age.
System of a Down Hate Mail
I have to admit, I didn't think people read what I have to say, so I was a bit surprised at the overwhelming response to my post yesterday (on the old site) about how much System of a Down sucks. Now, I don't write this stuff just to incite nasty e-mail. I write it to poke gently at the ridiculous seriousness of music fandom and music criticism. The nasty e-mail is just a welcome and hilarious side effect. So without further ado, let's have some fun...
Dear Antonio,
You asshole, you fucking asshoale. System of a Down, SoD, is the shit and u fuckung know it you pinprickshiteatingpandafucker. The muzic is profound, look that one up my ass hole. Steal This Album is by far the best cd of the 2000's, I bet u dont even know that its named for Abie Hofmann's autobiography Steal This Book, u c u do no research, i bet u barely even listen to the shit you review you stinkyovarianoctaroon. Its ppl like u why we have GBUSH and KATRINA and BINLADEN. IF more ppl listned to SoD and paid attention Serj's lyrics (which are all true I read noam chomsky and chomsky says the smae thing) we wouldnt have this shit. Its asshoales like you who turn ppl from the truth when the truth is right b4 there eyes. You spread lies. You fuck its true that GBush sends the poor and not his slutfacedblackfacedcreamyzit daaughters. And Serj is right and Daron CAN CAN CAN SO sing and you know nothing about metamorphic timesignatures and guitar-fuz rhythm textures because SoD piosneered that shit and you dont listen to SoD because youare a ignorant shopaholicwishingcrowbagging-metmusilsuckingsuckfestassclown.
and fuck u i can spell i just dont want to run spellcheck right now so fuck off and die slowly.
Love,-Thomas
Thomas, if you can spell, why would you need to run spell check? People who can spell don't spell things wrong, that's what "knowing how to spell" means. I guess this guy is part of the "internet generation" and thinks that the ability to run a spell check means knowing how to spell. But apparently he's too lazy to run a spell check, so it's a moot point anyway. I'll give him props for calling me an "octoroon" though, even if it's misspelled and contained within an ineffectual compound insult. I've been called a lot of things in my time, but most people don't have the wherewithal to bring antique racial slurs into the mix.
Just because you hate everything doesn't mean you have to hate System of a Down.
-Kyle
Apparently Kyle failed his logic class, or has a different definition of "everything" than I do. Faulty reasoning aside, I don't hate everything, just you and the music you listen to.
what the hell is wrong with you? Instead of just saying that you don't like the music, you have to go and say that the (wondrous) people that listen to their music are retards. STFU man. Their songs really mean something, while you're off listening to a load of crap I'm guessing. Why the hell did you go to all that trouble just to dis SOAD and the fans? In my opinion you are a peadophile who is obsessed with hoovers and has too much time on his hands. YOU SUCK COCK.
-Hamish
This started out as a fairly ordinary flame, but he really got creative at the end. I'm not exactly sure what gave him the impression that I'm a Hoover-obsessed pedophile. Maybe he was reading my article and sort of dozed off in the middle and part of his dream was about me loving little boys and vacuum cleaners. In that case, doesn't that make him the Hoover-obsessed pedophile, since those issues were burning a hole in his subconscious so deep that they manifested themselves in dream? Anyway, I won't dignify this with a response, because I don't talk to pedophiles.
I'm a Fan of System Of A Down , i live in France , i think you're just stupid , you just don't understand what SOAD mean , they do music , no shit , just music , remenber guy System is the best way to peace.kind regards
-Daron
I get kind of happy-sad (like when you see a pretty girl do something clumsy) when I think about these French kids struggling to get their point across in an extremely difficult foreign language. Hang in there, guys!
Hello Mr. Antonio. I would just like to let you know that you are a complete idot and a total asshole. System of a Down is a great band, if not the best, and just because you don't like their music doesn't mean you need to say anything against it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But you are a fucking idiot to go online and try to make a point of it. No one is going to actually follow that article. If anything people are just going to love them more, and hate you. So, in my personal opinion, i think you should apologize to the band, and then go and shoot yourself in the head. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,Malakian75
What's with everybody having the right to express their opinion but me? This shit is totally unfair. I try to improve people's lives by helping them rid themselves of terrible music, and I'm labeled an "idot" and an "asshole," and yet this guy advocates suicide and public apology (which is pure un-American cowardice) and he gets off scot-free?
There are more, but this is getting long and tedious. Check back tomorrow.
Dear Antonio,
You asshole, you fucking asshoale. System of a Down, SoD, is the shit and u fuckung know it you pinprickshiteatingpandafucker. The muzic is profound, look that one up my ass hole. Steal This Album is by far the best cd of the 2000's, I bet u dont even know that its named for Abie Hofmann's autobiography Steal This Book, u c u do no research, i bet u barely even listen to the shit you review you stinkyovarianoctaroon. Its ppl like u why we have GBUSH and KATRINA and BINLADEN. IF more ppl listned to SoD and paid attention Serj's lyrics (which are all true I read noam chomsky and chomsky says the smae thing) we wouldnt have this shit. Its asshoales like you who turn ppl from the truth when the truth is right b4 there eyes. You spread lies. You fuck its true that GBush sends the poor and not his slutfacedblackfacedcreamyzit daaughters. And Serj is right and Daron CAN CAN CAN SO sing and you know nothing about metamorphic timesignatures and guitar-fuz rhythm textures because SoD piosneered that shit and you dont listen to SoD because youare a ignorant shopaholicwishingcrowbagging-metmusilsuckingsuckfestassclown.
and fuck u i can spell i just dont want to run spellcheck right now so fuck off and die slowly.
Love,-Thomas
Thomas, if you can spell, why would you need to run spell check? People who can spell don't spell things wrong, that's what "knowing how to spell" means. I guess this guy is part of the "internet generation" and thinks that the ability to run a spell check means knowing how to spell. But apparently he's too lazy to run a spell check, so it's a moot point anyway. I'll give him props for calling me an "octoroon" though, even if it's misspelled and contained within an ineffectual compound insult. I've been called a lot of things in my time, but most people don't have the wherewithal to bring antique racial slurs into the mix.
Just because you hate everything doesn't mean you have to hate System of a Down.
-Kyle
Apparently Kyle failed his logic class, or has a different definition of "everything" than I do. Faulty reasoning aside, I don't hate everything, just you and the music you listen to.
what the hell is wrong with you? Instead of just saying that you don't like the music, you have to go and say that the (wondrous) people that listen to their music are retards. STFU man. Their songs really mean something, while you're off listening to a load of crap I'm guessing. Why the hell did you go to all that trouble just to dis SOAD and the fans? In my opinion you are a peadophile who is obsessed with hoovers and has too much time on his hands. YOU SUCK COCK.
-Hamish
This started out as a fairly ordinary flame, but he really got creative at the end. I'm not exactly sure what gave him the impression that I'm a Hoover-obsessed pedophile. Maybe he was reading my article and sort of dozed off in the middle and part of his dream was about me loving little boys and vacuum cleaners. In that case, doesn't that make him the Hoover-obsessed pedophile, since those issues were burning a hole in his subconscious so deep that they manifested themselves in dream? Anyway, I won't dignify this with a response, because I don't talk to pedophiles.
I'm a Fan of System Of A Down , i live in France , i think you're just stupid , you just don't understand what SOAD mean , they do music , no shit , just music , remenber guy System is the best way to peace.kind regards
-Daron
I get kind of happy-sad (like when you see a pretty girl do something clumsy) when I think about these French kids struggling to get their point across in an extremely difficult foreign language. Hang in there, guys!
Hello Mr. Antonio. I would just like to let you know that you are a complete idot and a total asshole. System of a Down is a great band, if not the best, and just because you don't like their music doesn't mean you need to say anything against it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But you are a fucking idiot to go online and try to make a point of it. No one is going to actually follow that article. If anything people are just going to love them more, and hate you. So, in my personal opinion, i think you should apologize to the band, and then go and shoot yourself in the head. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,Malakian75
What's with everybody having the right to express their opinion but me? This shit is totally unfair. I try to improve people's lives by helping them rid themselves of terrible music, and I'm labeled an "idot" and an "asshole," and yet this guy advocates suicide and public apology (which is pure un-American cowardice) and he gets off scot-free?
There are more, but this is getting long and tedious. Check back tomorrow.
Celebration Day
Led Zeppelin's transcontinental renaissance has kicked into high gear with last night's reunion concert in London. Over on our side of the ocean, Zep has inked a promotional deal with the NFL and ESPN, which explains why you heard "Dazed and Confused" in the background last Monday night while the referees were ass-raping the Ravens' defense with gusto.
Now when I heard about this deal, I expressed unbridled optimism that this arrangement might lead to Led Zeppelin playing a halftime show at the Super Bowl. Then I came to the conclusion that Led Zeppelin doesn't play halftime shows. If anything, the Super Bowl should be played during the intermission of a Zep concert.
Here's what I did: I've predicted what Zeppelin song each of your favorite NFL personalities would request. I know what you're thinking: "Another crappy list post." But it was either this or I don my unbuttoned half-shirt ala Robert Plant. And so crank it up and enjoy.
Minnesota Vikings: Going to California
Trent Green: Dazed and Confused
Bill Belichick: No Quarter
John Madden: Ramble On
Vinny Testaverde: Achilles Last Stand
Jeff Garcia: In Through The Out Door
New Orleans Saints: When The Levee Breaks (that's really mean)
Donovan McNabb: Sick Again
Chad Johnson: Dancing Days
Patriots and Dolphins: Good Times, Bad Times
Heinz Field: The Rain Song
Andy Reid: Custard Pie
Bill Parcells: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
\m/ \m/
*makes rock fingers and bangs head*
Now when I heard about this deal, I expressed unbridled optimism that this arrangement might lead to Led Zeppelin playing a halftime show at the Super Bowl. Then I came to the conclusion that Led Zeppelin doesn't play halftime shows. If anything, the Super Bowl should be played during the intermission of a Zep concert.
Here's what I did: I've predicted what Zeppelin song each of your favorite NFL personalities would request. I know what you're thinking: "Another crappy list post." But it was either this or I don my unbuttoned half-shirt ala Robert Plant. And so crank it up and enjoy.
Minnesota Vikings: Going to California
Trent Green: Dazed and Confused
Bill Belichick: No Quarter
John Madden: Ramble On
Vinny Testaverde: Achilles Last Stand
Jeff Garcia: In Through The Out Door
New Orleans Saints: When The Levee Breaks (that's really mean)
Donovan McNabb: Sick Again
Chad Johnson: Dancing Days
Patriots and Dolphins: Good Times, Bad Times
Heinz Field: The Rain Song
Andy Reid: Custard Pie
Bill Parcells: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
\m/ \m/
*makes rock fingers and bangs head*
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