I Moved To Seattle For This?

I can remember growing up in Idaho and hearing all about how bad the weather was in Seattle. The classic "raining too much, high suicide, etc.etc.etc." is what I always heard. Long, cold seasons, tons of rain, hardly ever sunlight.

Fast forward a few years to me actually living here. For every summer I've lived here in the past three years, it's been at least 90 degrees or above. This year, we've actually hit 103 degrees during the summer.

Looking around at the apartments here in Seattle, I have yet to find one with central air. But everyone that has grown up here keeps repeating like a broken record "oh, there's no need for it because it never gets that hot for that long". Apparently I'm living in a different Seattle then what I grew up hearing about because it's just too f**king hot to be.

KGB (542542) Is WROOOOOOONG.

The other day during a trip to the bar, whilst, I was drinking a beer, I decided to take the KGB (i.e. 99 cent cell phone google service) for a test run to see what they had to say to a few questions. Bascially, I was trying to play stump the chump with what is supposed to be an answer service.

Yes, they got the number of lifeboats on the Titanic correct, however, they did get a question wrong. And what I like to consider, a pretty easy question wrong.

Who said "that which does not kill us, only makes us strong"? No, they didn't say Kanye West, but they did say it was Goethe.

WRONG.

Ol' KGB needs to do abit more fact checkin' on their Friday nights. Guess I won't be usin' them anymore.

Lacuna Coil - BEST BAND EVER.

So backstory on this, I've been listening to Lacuna Coil, a metal band from Italy, since around 2003. Oregon-B exposed me to this band and with every album that gets released, I like them that much more.

The music is heavy, the lyrics are very well written, and let's just face it...Cristina, the lead singer (pictured above) is just smokin' hot, and even moreso in person!

I recently saw them a few days ago in concert at Neumos in Seattle. This was a tiny venue where I could have almost literally reached out and strummed on the guitars of the band. I was in the second row and loving it.

Their sound is perfect. Her and Andrea Ferro (the lead male vocal) have voices that don't need to be put through any mixing equipment because they are flawless. High energy show with a band that hasn't forgotten their roots. Every person on stage has refined their talent enough so that when they are all working together, it's just absolutely flawless and awe inspiring. I've been to many concerts and hands down, Lacuna Coil is the best band I have ever seen live. End of f**king story.

What makes it even more awesome is that Cristina actually shook my hand. :P Yep. I sound like a tween girl, but seriously...when you've listened to a band as much as I have listened to them, actually seeing the band live, and literally being 6 feet away from them is just something that is undescribable.

Lacuna Coil is an unstoppable musical juggernaut that I will follow FOREVER!!!

ROCK ON LACUNA COIL!

You Have To Be F**king Kidding Me

This is a joke about the "Good Idea Fairy". A mythical creature anyone in the military has known that comes around and gives the superiors "great ideas" on how to chance policies and SOPs to make things "better". However, the Good Idea Fairy is decidedly Un-Good, because it usually makes work harder, and only serves to piss off soldiers.

Now please prepare for a doozy.

In this article, a report developed on comission from the Pentagon has decided to urge the Department of Defense to ban any and all smoking in the military in order to save money on related health costs.

My favorite was the following quote: If the monetary costs of smoking don’t get the attention of Pentagon brass, the report also identified what it said was a “strong association between tobacco addiction and mental-health problems, among them mood disorders, schizophrenia and substance abuse” — not exactly the state that generals and admirals want their gun-toting charges to be in.

So wait, let me get this straight. They're connecting tobacco use with mood disorders and schizophrenia? I don't know much about mental disorders. I DO know that those types of disorders are genetic in nature and cannot be caused purely by an outside factor.

Also, seriously? Remove smoking completely? Soldiers and sailors constantly work out, eat well (at least in mess halls), and work in a safe environment (while not in wartime). If smoking is their only vice, I think they're gonna be okay.

Reading comments at the bottom of this article, a few people brought up the slippery slope arguement. If first smoking, what next? Remove all the Burger Kings from post? Remove all the soda machines? Stop selling Ding Dongs and remove alcohol from post?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is only a portion of why I had to leave the Army. The Army is not my fathers Army. The Army is slowly sliding into a sea of magoo, family friendly b.s. Officer clubs gave away to Community Clubs. Nowadays, if you're a single soldier, you pretty much get the backend of many benefits (i.e. maybe I wanted to live on post? Ah, I'm not married with kids, I'll get my butt off your post then.)

Flat out, this is just wrong. If smoking is banned from the military, John Wayne will come back and just start punching people out. Seriously.

Another Coward Joins The Ranks!

So I just recently read in this article post, it appears that an Army Major has decided to join the Weenie Brigade with Lt. Watada by not deploying to Afghanistan. His name...er, ahem, I'm sorry...the piece of sh*t's name is Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook.

Only now, instead of pulling the "illegal war, I'm going to run away like a little girl", he's pulling the "Obama wasn't born in the U.S., so he can't be President, so I'm going to run away like a little girl" excuse.

Yeah, you didn't read that wrong. He's arguing that the birth certificate presented is fake, and thusly, he cannot engage in wartime activities outside the US if he's under orders by someone other then the President.

So, lemme get this straight there Major. Remember that 30 page background check you had to fill out in order to get a Security clearance upon joining the Army? Remember having to list everything, and provide documentation to prove your eligible to serve? The fact that they stopped short of asking how many molars you had? You don't think the President had a similar background check? You honestly think the CIA would allow a non-citizen to take the Office of the President?

How f**king stupid are you?? Although I think you are personally pissing all over everyone that's gone over there, if you honestly think that, you shouldn't be over there, because you're going to end up getting people killed. How the f**k did you become a Major?? What G1 did you pay off to get that rank?? It was 10 years from Captain to Major when I was in, apparently the Army doesn't even require intelligence anymore!

Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, you are a f**king coward. Get out of my Army, and get on the wheel!

Sometimes Justice Is Not That Tasty

So today a judge reversed the conviction against a mother (Lori Drew) for her participation in a fake out that "led' to a girl killing herself.

Story is here.

Basically the synopsis is this, there was a teenage girl named Megan who had a Myspace account. The woman, Lori, created a Myspace account fictitiously as a boy and began a chatting with Megan. Shortly there after, Lori using her fake profile "dumped" and began trashing on Megan on Myspace.

Shortly thereafter, Megan hanged herself.

Megan's mother then stated that her daughter killed herself because of the actions of Lori.

Lori was charged basically for cyber bullying under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Now before you have an opinion, re-read what I wrote above. A very loose synopsis and think about the facts at hand.

Basically in a nutshell this is what happened, older woman using a fake identity to ridicule and bug a young girl, on a computer. The girl, in question, was diagnosed with depression. The girl, being ridiculed, on a computer, killed herself.

That all being said, I don't see any judge worth their weight in salt with accusing that the actions of Lori directly lead to the death of Megan. Is Lori a horrible person for doing this? Absolutely. Is she by any intent or mean a killer? Crap no. The idea that words alone led someone to die is completely absurd, and anyone who thinks that this is a possibility should get their head checked.

At the risk of sounding wrong hearted, there is a "block" button on MySpace for a reason. In this case, it should have been used early.

Heidi And Spencer Are Unholy Retarded

fig 1.1 - Heidi and Spencer having sex. Because
they think this is how you do it. Yeah, that dumb.

So in passing I saw an article where these two oxygen thieves claimed 9/11 was an inside job. My standard rant aside about how complete ignorant and retarded this theory is, I find their moron statement compounded only by that of talking of "The New World Order" theory. Seriously? If said order existed, would they really want the world now? Why haven't they taken the world already?

I swear to everything that is intelligent, these two spoiled d-bags apparently just sh*t on enough people or enough stuff to stay relevant. And when they can't do that, they just say something so inherently stupid, the press must cover them.

I wouldn't even put these a-holes on the wheel, I would put them in a rocket and send their a$$ to Pluto. That way, no one on Earth would have to get any more stupid from their existence, and they wouldn't know where they are because I'm pretty sure they believe Pluto to be a cartoon dog.

Holy crap I hate these people. F*CK YOU TWO.

Napster Reloaded

I pretty much cried after reading this announcement as the greatest bastion of free software/music/etc is officially going down. Yes, The Pirate Bay (.org) is officially selling itself to become the next legal Napster. Uhm. Sweet. No no no, f*ck that.

The greedy a-holes that bought it, Global Gaming Factory X AB (which will henceforth be called "Corporate Butthole"), the CEO Hans Pendeya (which will henceforth be called "The Taint") had this to quote source:

(1) The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world," said GGF CEO Hans Pandeya. "However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires (2) a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. (3) File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."

Okay, I put the numbers and underlined select quotes on this b.s. rambling because I'm doing exactly that, calling bullsh*t:

(1) This could very true there Hans Taint. But the reason why? BECAUSE IT'S A SOURCE OF FREE SOFTWARE!! Do you honestly f*cking believe, for a SECOND, that once it's a legal download source, that it'll still be up there? Hell to the no! Another Torrent tracker will be crowned king and you'll loose traffic worse then a low lying highway in a flood.

(2) Man, I remember hearing this from the company that bought mine, shortly before I was laid off. The whole "oh, we need to redo stuff. We need to fix stuff. We've got all this ideas and jizz jizz jizz". Uh no. You said it yourself. It's in the Top 100 visited sites. So unless to sell out or ruin something, why change the business model? Hell, even in college when I worked at a restaurant that had a smoking section, once we got rid of the smoking section, what happened? Yep! Lost half our patronage. Only a moron of a CEO would change anything about a site that receives that much traffic.

(3) No we don't. As an avid downloader of torrents, myself as well as us thousand others expect that for free stuff, we're going to have to deal with slower downloads and such. Honestly, I've gotten full length movies in under 5 minutes. The Corporate Butthole is simply trying to justify the incoming download fees under the guise of a better "user experience". Do they serious think we're that dumb?

And as for the owners of The Pirate Bay, er, previous owners. Yes, we got it. You've "fought the good fight" and yeah, yeah "you're gotten no thanks" or whatever. Doing the right thing would not have allowed a corporation, for whom you had previous posted cease and desist letters

located here against, to take over your organization. The RIGHT thing to do would have been to take your site offline. But instead, you're trading in your fight and everyone that's joined behind you, and did what Napster did... gave it to some CEO to make crap tons of money on, and further the cause of "the new owners plan to make it a legal service that allows 'content providers and copyright owners [to] get paid for content that is downloaded via the site." Great. Fuel the organisations that have screwed generations of music and movie lovers out of TONS of money for a single album, DVD.

Thanks guys. Go ahead and hop on The Wheel. And as for the Corporate Butthole that bought the site, I will never visit it again. So I hope your "potential profits" crumble, you industry grovelling a-holes.