I haven’t been blogging. It’s not for lack of excitement in my life or a lack of video games, politics, or bullshit to rant about either. I’ve just not been blogging. But winter’s coming and I live in the fucking Snow Belt. Rest assured. Blogging will begin anew.
This message goes out to the 4 people that read my blog.
-=Grim=-
About a year or so ago, maybe even two years ago, I went to visit my friend Steve of HMTK.com fame for a night of Hackmaster and hanging out. While Val and I were waiting for the rest of the group to show up Steve showed us a new game he was working on. The game, tentatively called “Quads” at the time, was fashioned out of stone tiles he made in his basement. I mean it was an impressive set of pieces and the box he made was also really nice. The game reminded me of Tri-Ominos, Dominoes, and something else (I can’t remember the name of it off-hand), but while reminding me of these games it was still unlike them. I liked it - a lot. It was very tactical and very much a thinking man’s (or woman’s) game, yet light enough that even mathematically-challenged people such as myself and Val could play it.
The reason I felt it was a thinking man’s game was because of the forethought required when placing tiles. Basically, you place tiles and… and… ah hell, there’s a frickin’ Flash video on how to play. Why am I going to waste everyone’s time trying to explain a game I haven’t played in years. The the video, Found Here, is on the SimplyFun Board Games page for Quartiles. Just follow the link. It’ll take you to the page that describes the game and has the video on how the game is played. Steve’s page about the game, found here, delves more into the game and whatnot. He’s much better at explaining stuff like this.
I vividly recall having a blast playing it and commented on how much the public would dig a game like this were they to play it. Steve said he hoped so since he was going to be marketing it. It looks like he was successful in the first part. Now people just need to play it so they can see how much fun it is. Looking at the pieces for the game it’s easy to see how beautiful both the pieces and the carrying box are made. This isn’t a game box you stash away in the closet. This is the type of thing you keep on your coffee table or next to your entertainment center for people to see. This is the type of thing you carry under your arm and bring to the park to play with strangers. For $40 it’s almost a steal considering most board games now-a-days range from $30-$70 and none look this good. I mean look at this thing:
That isn’t some cardboard monopoly board. That’s art. I plan on getting myself a set, and I think it is a GREAT idea for a gift so I’ll be nabbing a few for holiday presents. Now that it’s out I keep thinking back to the car ride home from Connecticut, where Steve lives, and talking about how much fun that game was and how impressed be both were (Val and I) that he made a game like that. Peep that shit, warriors.
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It should be noted right off the bat that I hate [hed] PE. I think their albums blow goats, their message (if you could call it that) is almost always juvenile, and they always struck me as a “rip-off band”. I literally felt pain when I heard their songs even before I knew it was them. Zero respect. Zero.
When I saw that there was a new video for their first single off the new album I expected the worst. Seriously. I mean, it’s [hed] fuckin’ PE. Here’s what I saw [I hope this video stays online]:
That’s actually pretty brutal and… and… good? Still, it was only one song so I expected the rest of the album to blow. I’m listening to it right now. It doesn’t blow. Man, I stand corrected. Okay, it’s still [hed] PE so it’s still got some juvenile lyrics I’d expect to come out of a high school hip hop act, but compared to their other albums the band has matured a bit. You can tell they’re less obsessed with sex and “the marijuana” and more upset with the state of the world around them. The music is a lot better too. I only expected “Suffa” to be decent, but out of 19 tracks (a sizable album for this day and age) more than half are worth listening too. Songs like “comeova2nite” will still make you want to puncture your eardrums with your fist, but lame songs are the minority on this piece.
About time.
As a side note, I do appreciate the vast number of styles present on the album. They definitely didn’t constrain themselves to one genre with this one. They went with what they felt and thus we have lots of punk, hardcore, metal, hip hop and Latino present, but not in a boring hodgepodge like so many other newer school bands of the day (shit bands like Slipknot and KoRn come to mind). If anything, check and see if your local library has the album and give it a listen. It’s not bad. Fuck I hate being wrong after abusing a band for so many years. Just be prepared for a total lack of political correctness. I respect that.
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I was browsing Taylor Mali slams today when I discovered the following video. I thought it was great and needed to be passed on.
Incidentally, if you haven’t peeped any Taylor Mali - do so. He’s amazing.
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I almost wept with joy. The Holmes haitus is over?
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I found an article that says something I’ve been ranting about since the early ’90s, only the author is much more articulate and less prone to vulgar language than I could ever be. Sorry, cuss words aren’t taboo to me (they really aren’t). Seriously, quit being a whiny, partisan asshole and just read the article, then tell me what you think. Keep in mind that only the weak-minded or ignorant believe all revolutions to be bloody wartime affairs. Ever heard the term “bloodless coup”?
How bad does it have to get before you people do something about it? How long until you decide that enough is enough and stand up for yourselves? “United we stand. Divided we fall.” Mean anything to you? The whole “Red state v. Blue state” thing is a very clever way to keep the People united and non-partisan, and thus we fall further and further away from what we should be (and could be) and more into a stratified, impotent society. Yay for us.
I hate pointing fingers at specific groups, but the Evangelicals are a serious setback to the country. With 1/4 of the voting power in America, they’ve done a lovely job of helping to sell us out to Big Money, people who claim to be Christian traditionalists, but then reject everything Biblical except in name. Good job. It’s nice to know that some Bronze Age religion calls the shots in a country that is supposed to be progressive. And by “progressive” I don’t mean Liberal. Don’t get me started on Liberals or Conservatives either. They’re the other assholes screwing this country left and right (ooooh pun!) with their partisan politics. A country runs on compromise. Polarization and the inability to compromise is a great way to stagnate the political machine.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not naive enough to think that America *was* something more than it is now. No, it’s always been a walking mess. We’re only 200 and change years old; we’re infants compared to the rest of the world. I’m bitching about what we could be.
Tsk. Whatever. I’m done ranting. Keep watching American Idol people. Keep arguing over useless divisions of paradigms. I hate to sound like a Pinko Commie (I like saying those two words for some reason), but it always has been and always will be about the Haves versus the Have-Nots, and unless you’re hitting up the Bohemian Club you’re a Have-Not, trust me. Hrmm, maybe I should check the news to see what Rights got signed away today?
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This past Saturday my friend Mike and I did a whirlwind attack on New York City: We drove down at 3pm Saturday, saw Skinny Puppy, went to the after party at Club Pyramid, and then drove home, arriving back in Albany around 7:30am. It was a grueling trip. But the trip isn’t the part that annoyed me (it was actually fun). No, what annoyed me is the fact that Skinny Puppy needs to break up and move on in life. ARGH!
Here’s the deal: the lead singer is what pulls peoples’ attention to the stage. Failing that, the guitar players. The drummer and keyboard could have all the presence in the WORLD, but it won’t matter: the stage will seem empty if the guitar players and lead singer can’t pull it together. Skinny Puppy, being Skinny Puppy, didn’t have any guitars on stage, so the whole thing fell to Nivek Ogre. Many people consider him a titan of industrial or something, so he should have been able to pull it off, right?
*sigh*
Wrong. Want to see what I had to deal with?
That’s right: Ogre was behind a fucking sheet the whole time. The stage seemed really empty and devoid of energy. Sure it was nice and artsy at first - “Ooooh, look at the cool shadow play when he sings.” But the keyboardist looked bored and the drummer looked like he’d rather be somewhere else, so it really was up to Ogre to pull this shit together. Of course he didn’t. My friend Mike thinks he was on some serious drugs and too wasted to sound like Skinny Puppy (seriously, he sounded like shit). I think he just needs to call it quits for a while. His voice sucked and his presence wasn’t there. BORING. The whole damned band wasn’t there, mentally or emotionally. I felt like I was watching some crap high school band or a geriatric ward slowly die of old age, not Skinny Motherfucking Puppy! The thing is, once in a while Ogre would come dancing out from behind the sheets and start singing to the crowd. Then there was a noticeable surge in crowd energy; they went from zombies standing there looking confused by the bright lights to something resembling insomniacs trying to dance. The latter was an improvement, trust me. But I don’t blame the crowd at all. You can’t get into a show that isn’t there. Even when Nivek came frolicking out from behind the curtains to scream in the crowds’ faces it still wasn’t anything to get excited over. Sure he *looked* cool, but image only goes so far.
This is boredom:
To make a long story short, Skinny Puppy was a waste of money. Mike and I left before the set was even over. We just couldn’t take it any more. The after party was fun though, but I admit that we mostly hung out outside with my other homies that we met there. Gnargh! Friggin’ Skinny Puppy. What a let down. But like I said, what we did before and after was cool, but that’s all for another blog.
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Jon Stewart said what I’ve been thinking. This arming of insurgents is rediculous. Aw, did we make them say they were sorry before handing them a crate of AK-47? Those weapons *will* be turned against us. They are not our friends and most certainly not our allies. Oooooh, they reject the Al Qaeda. Gee, thanks. Have some hand grenades, but promise you won’t use them against us. Notice in the article they drop a nice veiled threat too. “America, this alliance lasts as long as it takes to oust the Al Qaeda - then you better be gone!” Fuck that. We just armed the same chumps who were blowing us up last year.
This whole things reeks of the administration having no fucking idea how to fix the problem they got us in to. “So uh… we’ll arm these, uh, insurgents and they’ll fight with us… and stuff. Right? We’ll retinal scan them and… um… hey we can keep them under our thumb, right?”
Christ. We just ousted a tyrant that got his start the same way. The supposed mastermind behind 9/11 was trained by the CIA. These Muslim “enemies of our enemies” make *great* allies. Yea.
-=Grim=-
The Albany news is claiming that the chaos outside is “vicious rioting in the downtown area”, but those aren’t looters pounding at my door. Looters don’t eat your neighbors. I used to be an atheist; now I can not ignore the God-given apocalypse standing on my doorstep. Christ I wish Val hadn’t gone outside to find the cats. I haven’t seen her since and she isn’t picking up her cell phone. If anyone does manage to find her, living or dead… or “undead” for lack of a better term to describe these things… call me. My phone is still working, but who knows for how long. Why won’t Val pick up her phone? Christ Val, just answer the fucking thing!
I tried putting the radio on to drown out the ever-present moaning of these things. Hundreds of dead things outside, thousands in the city, all moaning at once… it’s maddening. I almost welcome the sporadic screams of those caught outside, the gunfire in the distance (I knew I should have moved into the ghetto; it sounds like they’re making a stand), the breaking glass, whatever. The radio didn’t work. It only made me more insane. Fuck the Emergency Broadcast System. Does anyone have any real news? Last I heard the nearby shelter was overrun. Before that I was hoping Val made it there. Now I dread that notion. Where *is* she? Why won’t she answer her goddamned phone!?!
All I have is a few kitchen knives and one boarded up door between me and oblivion should these things break through into the building’s lobby, and there’s not much preventing them from doing so. I mean really, what shitty Albany apartment complex is prepared for “rioting”? I refuse to use the “Z” word. I’ll just keep trying to pretend that they’re looters and drug-addicts. Anarchists. Terrorists. Whatever. I can’t count on the Feds to protect me. They couldn’t even handle a friggin’ hurricane and one war overseas. The news this morning said that this rioting was a social pandemic throughout most major cities in the world. Yea, right. Who am I kidding? The Feds won’t be the cavalry coming in to save the day. They’re holed up in some underground bunker that will serve as their living tomb.
No one is coming to save me. No one is coming. Not even Val.
-=Grim=-
…at least don’t look like a basement-dwelling World of Warcraft dweeb. Yea, sure, whatever. I’m a callous prick or whatever you want to call me. But this shit had me cracking up:
I mean COME ON. What, were they out of Black Metal drummers in Norway (or whatever Midwest town this group is from) so they had to ask the high school marching band snare section to come lay some tracks with them? Look at this guy! They even gave him sad clown makeup instead of corpse paint! *sigh* It really ruins a band’s image when people like this try to do the rock n’ roll pose for photos. I don’t give a fuck if you’re gutter punk or some other anti-establishment band, image is everything (the gutter punks would have the image of “we don’t need an image!”, usually the standard punk image, i.e. “We really do have an image, but we like to think we don’t.”). For Black Metal image is about eating babies, skull-fucking the pope and destroying all things pleasant. You can’t pull that off when your band has that one weak link in the photo. Look as bad-ass as you want, the weakest link is the image presented. Yo, it’s even funnier in the unmarked photo:
Holy D&D dork, Batman! He probably goes by the name Zamoth Gar, Bane of Light. Why couldn’t they give this guy a mask or something? Some mean looking thing with rusty nails and fangs or whatever is this years trendy thing in the Black Metal scene. No, they give the Chess Club looking guy sad clown makeup. Whatever, I’m an asshole. Bite me.
Christ…
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P.S.: For the record, the band is called Emaciation. I have a feeling there’s another 30 Black Metal and Death Metal bands with that name, probably meaner looking too, but whatever.