Rush's new album

  So most real musicians know that Rush's new album Clockwork Angels is coming out May 29th, though today radio stations are getting a 3rd single (aside from BU2B and Caravan) called Headlong Fight.  Clocking-in at over 7 minutes, WAAF in Boston claimed they "moistened their pants" from Alex's solo.  WYGY in Cincinnati claims it's "'74 to '77 Rush-fans rejoice".  These are good signs.
  I'm interested to see if Alex is using classic effects he's kept hidden-away.  He's using a vintage Gibson E355 hollow-body guitar which gives a great sound.  Radio stations are allowed to play it on the airwaves 19 April.
  I can't find any snippets anywhere online yet, though I suspect Rush.com will have an "Easter Egg" for Easter Sunday on the 7th, as they're prone to that kind of shenanigan.
  Note that most real guitar players also have a pick on-hand at any given time, taking it out of their pocket, wallet, or hat with great pride and showmanship, as if they have the sudden answer to all things.  I encourage everyone to have a guitar pick on-hand from this point until May 29th  just in case Rush might need your guitar skills (as is every Rush guitarist's dream).  You never know when Alex might just show up and say, "Mike, I .. I can't go on..  you need to play Limelight for me!  For.. for the fans!"  Well.. if I must...

Oh, Long Johnson!

Oh, Long Johnson!
OH, Long Johnson!
.
.
.
BANG!

Trailers for Trailers

  Now there's movie trailers for upcoming trailers for upcoming movies.  I think this is to ca$h in on the hype, or seed it, anyway.  The Alien prequel Prometheus is a fine example of this, as is The Avengers and now more recently the Blade Runner-esque remake of Total Recall a movie based on the short story by Phillip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".  The remake looks like it's trying to do the 1997-Now approach of Blade Runner's 2018 world in a modern L.A. from the quintessential 1982 film of the same name.  Does this mean that the Blade Runner 2 film (also being produced by Riddley Scott [confirmed]) will be more action-y like the 1990 film Total Recall ?  Still, I adore Future Noir films, such as Dark City, Minority Report, Battle Angel Alita (Gunnm), Dark Angel, and arguably Batman (1989), Empire Strikes Back, and Time Bandits, "RETURN THE MAP!"  Indeed.
  Sometimes this pre-hype gets a little ahead of itself; by doing so, expectations are too high and the tower of cards collapses.  Fine examples of this is by way of cars, such as the 1958 Ford Edsel.  So much hype 3 years prior made America in a frenzied froth.  Advertisement was never before seen at this magnitude with hidden suggestions and garish claims.  Finally it came out but everyone was exhausted from the hype, like waiting for Christmas morning for a kid hyped-up on Tang for 3 years that the car could not be anything but a let-down unless it flew to Mongo City and you could battle Ming the Merciless along with Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers  at the same time and win-over Princess Aura.  Yeah, the car couldn't do that (well, maybe the Comet Edsel sub-model in 1960) and everyone gave it the thumbs-down.  Same thing about the Chevy Volt.  Took 6 years to come out and it's a mild flop.  It's a fine line.  Politics are the same way.  Sarah Palin was flying high like Sally Fields the Flying Nun, only to burn-out the media 2 years later.  She didn't even run for president this time around, instead, lurking like a she-troll in media-news-land for all eternity like a lost soul refusing to cross the River Styx.
  We'll see.

New Work

  So I've been working a bit lately.  I got my 2005 Honda Superhawk VTR1000F fired-up and changed the oil and like all Honda motorcycles is running like a champ.

  I still think it's cool to ride a motorcycle onto a USAF base wearing a carbon-fiber "Vader" HJC helmet, but hey, that' just me.

  I've been remastering some of my older work to 32-bit audio and also stripping-off vocals and whatnot so I can showcase my guitar-only work.  Some folks are into that, the stripped-down versions of one instrument only, and I guess the productions are less muddled.  I left a little MIDI drums in there when the guitar parts are quiet on occasion so listeners are not just sitting there asking themselves, "Is that it?"

  The economy is still very broken but ZObamites are still loving their beloved communist, vaguely accepting that ObamaCare is really mandatory-to-purchase health-care in the same way most states insist on having car insurance (except you can get away with not owning a car and therefore not paying that, though still required to pay state taxes on road care, etc.)  Lovely.

  I had a surprise second-bout of Bell's Palsey a few days ago, likely caused by the European strain of Influenza Type A wrecking my immune system (indeed, my tongue turned white due to the bacteria overload for a few days).  Sucks cuz' now it's my right side, which makes for a good poker player I suppose.  Facial muscular paralysis is fun.  I got my first whammy of this in 1989.  Makes it hard to eat, of course, though the nerve wasn't completely "eaten" by the pac-man-like virus so it's not a total loss.  Some restoration has occurred naturally.  Docs can't do anything in this medieval time, of course.  I guess Jesus could give me a haymaker and that'd do it.  I find it interesting no one notices the damage, but it makes me certainly less animated looking.  Maybe that's a good thing.

  Looking at someday buying a cool muscle car again.  I miss them.  I miss my TransAm Firehawk, Ginger.  Pontiac is dead though.  Maybe a used Corvette or Viper, but it's out of my price range even still.  $55K is a lot of mula, eh?  Someday.

  Got the sprinkler system up and running nicely.  Guess I set it right for winter storage.  Peaches and apple trees are blooming, as well as a crab-apple-tree meant for booze later-on.  Colonials would make booze out of anything, you know.  Crab-apple booze can be intense.  That's my goal this season.

  That's it, just a heads-up.  I usually get one-a-day posts on Google Blogger but this month might be a few shy.  We'll see.

Pink Slime

  I dunno about you guys but I find "Pink Slime" to be delicous.

What's with the double?

  So I order cheeseburger goodness at Burger King (aka the BK Lounge) and though not charged, I find I've received double cheeseburgers.  Not to complain, it's fine and all, but what's with all these restaurants insisting on doubles?  Why not make a good single?  Well, I guess it helps create the Juicy Lucy cheese-in-the-middle concept a bit, which isn't bad.
  BK also has finally changed their shakes here in C.Springs, Fountain specifically.  Surprisingly, the chocolate I'm having is on-par with Baskin Robbin's, which is impressive.  I'm struggling to find synthetics in it but I can't detect it.  It tastes like scooped ice cream with milk added and high-quality chocolate syrup (ie. not Hershey's).  Hm.
  Well.. win then.  Hm.  I can't complain about anything today.  Drat.

Kaminski's Dad?

FAIL Blog

What do I do with my spare time?  Well, a lot of things, but I like to relax with a Dos Equis and the FAIL Blog...
http://failblog.org/page/1205/

Wow! It turns out, I'm GAY!

  NOT.  Well, at least I got your attention, eh?  Yeah, no.  I like dem ladies.  They smell nice.
  Anyway, one thing (more) that I can't stand is that syrupy-sweet customer-service person, particularly in restaurants, but also places of commerce like Best Buy and what-not.  That, "gushing-over" happiness that's obviously forced.  In auto purchases, a grinning, loving salesman is dangerous.  Where I'm from, towards the middle of a transaction of a car purchase, you know you've been had.  It's important to STOP and find out what's wrong if the salesman and you agree on a price and he gets all chippy.  You've been just railroaded, buddy.  Usually, in New England, if someone you don't know suddenly is all super-smiles when they meet you something's up.  For girls, it probably means he wants to bang you and take-off.  If you're  a girl meeting a girl, she obviously hates you and trying to pretend to mask it, but you both know what's up.  Here's a chart for the sucker-ignorant that meet up with someone all gushing over you:

You're a                    and they're a              it means
======                   =========             ======
Girl                          Girl                             She hates you
Girl                          Guy                            Zoom-zoom boom-boom..
                                                                      (no, he doesn't think you're interesting)
Guy                         Girl                             Your waitress wants what's left in your account
Guy                         Guy                            Your car dealer just stole your wallet, sucker

This formula is pretty invariable.  If you think it's otherwise, you're a sucker.  Don't pretend that that waitress is so gosh-darn happy to see you.  She's in agony.  I know because I've waited before.  If she had won the lottery, which is the level of happiness she's exuding, she wouldn't be working tonight.  She'd drive by the joint and throw her corporate-shitty uniform with "flair" into the face of the manager on-duty and chuck him the finger.  At best a waitress can endure because she's given-up on life and accepted her lifetime prison sentence.  She's tired, her feet ACHE, her lower back ACHES, she has a headache from all the stupid noise and those IDIOT PEOPLE demanding and smiling over "Stomp-stomp, clap-clap, happy-happy birthday" bullshit songs that take them away from their desperate attempt to get food to their customers, hoping to God the cook didn't screw it up because that's ruins their tip, which is their livelihood as they make $2.75 an hour (waiter's salary).  The more gushy these waiters get, the more pain they're in.  Look into their eyes and see the desperation and understand how hard it is for them.  They may work 10 hours and make $27.50 of which 30% is taxed.  Imagine working 10 hours and coming home with $19, sometimes only making a few bucks in tips?  That's America, friends.  Their lives suck!  So all of you idiot frack-faces announcing your birthday at Red Robin just KNOCK IT OFF!  You self-absorbed jack-a-lopes!  You're NOT that important to ruin these people's lives because their tips are now in jeopardy because you took them away from food delivery getting ice-cold, salads wilting because you want to FORCE SLAVES to obviously FAKE bounce-around that it's your birthday AND you want all the quietly dining patrons to be RUDELY interrupted from their meals and lives to know about it.  Why are YOU so important?  Worse still are the jealous fools that think, "Hey, I want MY reward too!  I want MY birthday song!  I'm a REtard!"  You think you're so important?  You're NOT, otherwise you wouldn't be getting these poor sobs to spring around you like some unjust reward-song, these complete strangers who could give two shits about your birthday but they have NO CHOICE because management thinks it's a good idea.  COMPLETE STRANGERS ARE NOT HAPPY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!  Management thinks it's a good idea, to create a certain atmosphere.  Maybe somebody NEEDS that little uplift when no one in their lives would do that for them anyway.  You think people need synthetic light in their lives?  WRONG management.  WRONG.  It's ridiculous and annoying.  Your server is suffering, constantly.  Making them do more is more suffering.  They are NOT happy to serve you.  They're doing it so they can afford Ramen at home.  They DON'T love you and your screaming kids, and you and your family is NOT suddenly the best thing that's ever happened to them, as much as they act it to be.  If you believe that, you're a democrat and want to vote Pelosi and think Obama's increase in oil production for the US is for American consumption (guess again.. can you say, China?)
  That's right, kiddies.  I've been in the customer-service world deep, and let me tell you (in Rusty Nail's voice from the movie JoyRide):  "It's no f*ckin' picnic."  So, TIP your waitress GENEROUSLY even for mediocre service.  If she lays it on thick, ask her how busy it's been today and that her feet must hurt.  She'll break down and be HUMAN again, if only for a moment, a gracious reprieve that says, "My God, man, you know how I suffer to feed my kids!"  I'd rather have honest service than fake service.  You should too.  If you like the saccharine-laced Disney fakeness in the same way Disney raped the original novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (I got news for you kids, it ends badly.  Read the book.  He disintegrates.) then I'll have Kevorkian's remaining team visit you and your offspring to make sure the gene pool isn't ruined with you or your mentally corrupted brain-fried brood.

Your waitress

Ciao, and have a happy last day of winter!

Religion crutch explained

  You see, sometimes people use religion as a crutch as I explained in a previous blog, but that's sort of okay.  Helps you through tough times?  Sure.  There's another, more sinister thing I see every day, and that's when people use religion to cover up their inner selves in the same way someone paints over a rusty car (when cars were made of metal in the '70s).  The rust percolates, thrives, and comes through, eating from the core, outward, until there's nothing left, bubbling up over the over-coat of paint.
  One good example of this is an acquaintance of mine who seemed a bit.. effeminate.  More so that he should for 1997 USAF standards.  He'd wear women's jeans (buttoning on the other side as woman's jeans do) because the "cut" was better.  Hm.... really now?  Anyway, it's pretty obvious he was gay, but in denial.  Gays often resented their mothers, and I believe it to be a bit of a psychological disease, but hey, that's me, and that's them, and, well, whatever.  People are broken everywhere, all the time.  To compensate for this feminine issue, he'd try to date the most beautiful girls, only to do nothing with them.  Quite brave to ask them out, buy them flowers, etc.  He'd never do anything physical though, as if it repulsed him inwardly somehow.  He was surprisingly a devout Catholic, performing the required Days of Obligation and knowing Catholic Law and Ritual very well.  We'd banter the Seven Sacraments and other logistical Catholic requirements few new about (I was at one point pretty gosh darn Catholic, as I wanted structure, order, and the right path, Catholicism being one of the toughest to maintain correctly.  There's a lot of rules in Catholicism, to include a mandatory Virgin Mary (aka tween slut) homage on Saturday mornings that's quite time consuming.)  He loved Catholicism so much, though he had a Bachelor's Degree in something or other, he was going to get ordained as a Catholic priest once he did his USAF time as an enlisted (yeah, there are those weirdos that come in with a Bachelor's Degree already and come in enlisted instead  of being an officer, which is odd as all frack but whatever). [Hi, Dave. (weirdo, tapping the Coke can like an OSI officer)].  Oh Esss AYE!  Ching Chow! 
  Oh, I strayed a bit there.. sorry.  Kay.. so anyway this guy was obviously gay but covering it up with all sorts of everything else to make it not true.
  Catholic priests have been in the public eye for the last 20 years or so as gay child molesters as well.  Who knows what percentage?  Scary thought.  I think these guys were a bit messed-up to begin with, using priesthood as "car paint" to cover that rust, instead of dealing with these issues before-hand, perhaps seeking law and structure to sort of front-end-alignment their brain-heads.  Doesn't work, obviously.  It's just covered-up.
  I've seen several folks using religion as a car-paint cover-up.  A lieutenant was hyper religious, had a gorgeous wife, but still was using my PC at work at night to browse kiddy porn on the internet for several months.  He got an Article 15 (about as bad as you can get for USAF without being kicked-out or jailed).  I think his punishment was mild.  Still, they let him stay in.  His wife was a goody-goody too.  I can only imagine how she dealt with this.  When I was leaving that remote duty station, I asked what he was going to do for his church he went to before he PCS'ed (left to a new assignment) which was in a few months.  He remarked he'd do an "interpretive dance" to my horror.  I actually saw him a few months later and asked how that "interpretive dance" went.  He said he performed randomly and silently in front of about a hundred people for about an hour with no music, he then stopped suddenly and that was it.  No applause, just silence. 
  Yeah, I meet people like that.

  So, I figure if you got issues (who doesn't?) you should deal with them first instead of burying them deep inside and covering it up with religion.  I see this buried denial all the time and has anyone noticed the most religious folks are the most fracked-up sons-of-biyatches?  Yep.  Car paint.  Get rid of the rust first, God'll help you sand it down, then get all religious if you need to.  You'll find you won't have that glassy-eyed glazed-over look when you talk about God and being "saved", etc.  It'll just be matter-of-fact and people will see you're sane instead of that you're burying some inner evil rust.

St.Demigod Day, I see ghosts (shadow people)

  St.Patrick's Day.  Another Catholic demigod worship "Day of Obligation" (if you don't then you're a sinner, cannot receive the sacrament of the eucharist, and have sinned venally and must confess to a priest at a confessional, or.. well, then you're not Catholic and just lying to yourself, and therefore, according to the Catholics, going to hell) based on a French missionary sent to Ireland to convert the pagans, the 17th of March representing his death, later the two local tribes tore at each other for ownership of his body and several died in the process.  In Ireland, a day of mourning.  In America, a reason to sing the unrelated song, Danny Boy about a father losing his son to war, presumably sentenced to be drafted into the Mexican Revolution, as there's no draft or other war in Ireland at the time it was written (1913).  In America, it's also a reason to drink, though people prefer Jameson (made by a Scotsman) or Guinness Beer, and the "Irish Car Bomb" which is considered offensive to Irish.  People also wear green, though the Irish find that annoying and stupid a tradition.  Yep, we ruined it.  People also remember leprechauns incorrectly, though not other evil fey folk, pookas or kelpies or other folklore correctness.  Pathetic, as Ireland does none of this, and I've been there.  Yep, the "Empty Generation" of the '90s and '00s have ruined it again.
  Anyway, I see ghosts.  A type of Shadow People as it were, but not .. human.  I often have to walk for miles in darkness, the starlight of Scorpio shining bright in the southern sky, complete with Antares (hense, the constellation Scorpio, of course) in the wee hours, and I see shadow animals.  I'm not sure how to deal with them.  I just .. watch.  Long and sleek, I've seen some chasing hare across a fence.  Others seem larger at a distance and bound up 100-step stairways.  I've seen them cross great distances at about 20 to 30 mph with loping strides.  They're all dark, like shadows, moving silently.  They remind me of a mix between a wolf and a cheetah.  Sleek with ears pressed down about their heads in full speed, chasing animals sometimes.  The rabbits I've seen them go after are high-tailing it like there's no tomorrow, usually 2 or 3 rabbits going nuts, but not scrimmaging as rabbits ought, escaping instead straight and together.  Odd.  I've seen this throughout my life, many times.  One time I was certain it was a wolf as light from a lamppost struck it into a shade of gray, but I was chastised no wolves are on the high plains, and that it was likely a coyote.  The thing is, these shadow beasts are around 10 feet long to include the tail.  I measured the distance of a fence section because it had taken-up the entire length when full-stride and it was about 10 feet.  The escaping critters make a bit of a racket, but the shadow creature makes no noise.  I've seen it's jowls and teeth once, tongue hanging out in pursuit.
  None of these shadow animals have chased me, which is good, though in Japan I've been regarded by some in the woods late at night.  I could see pinpricks of red eyes and a seething hatred aimed towards me, and a great danger when I stopped and my heart was in my throat, yet they turned and left, again silently.
  Now, people have mentioned "Shadow People" before.  I'm usually not frightened by the shadow animals, oddly, but the shadow people creep me out.  Some research has indicated a very few folks have seen them as wolf-form, and get the same feelings I do vs. the shadow people.   There's a bit of a legend about it as human-form.  Often looking like a man with a fedora hat, all black and seemingly absorbing light, around 5 foot tall.  I've seen two, peeking behind a tree, then pop back and vanish.  A crushing sense of dread making it hard to breathe.  Some say they're elemental-evil, made of the darkness before the universe's big-bang, before creation of light, or just before.  Some say they're demons, waiting.  Others have insisted they're djin, but I've encountered those before, and they have more obvious intent. 
  I get a sixth sense from my mother (or a sense of derangement, one or the other).  I've been safe these years from them, though the djin have cause havoc on more than one occasion while sleeping, they try to pull your soul from it's astral tether magnetically and they burn with fire, and it hurts!  Ah but the djin are another story, always up and to the left of any room, a thin, loincloth-clad young man with a turban.
  These creatures, always watching, chasing.. have you seen any?

The Blessed Virgin Mary had extreme BO and smelled like sh*t

    Back in about nothing AD, soap wasn't used much, and bathing was rare, though some Romans would occasionally do so if the city had a bath house, though those didn't come into vogue until 43 AD, and it'd be unlikely Jewish girls would be invited.  Girls didn't shave anything and often got fleas, ticks, and lice permanently.  There was no Pantene Pro-V conditioner either, and it was really dusty in the desert all the time.  People ate a lot of legumes so they farted a LOT and HARD and explosively.  There was no toilet paper either.  Even now, Middle Easterners use sand and their left hand when there's no toilet handy.  A lot of times they go outside of their mud hut and sh*t right behind their house.  I've known some to crap right next to their beds because it's too much bother to go outside at night, even if it's runny, violent diarrhea, splattering all over the place.  Jews didn't really have "beds" as we know it, often collected straw with chiggers, fleas, ticks, etc. (over time).  There was no deodorant either.  Some people would try to mask the stink with herbs but it never worked.  There was no toothpaste so teeth were blackened and stank like homeless women in Detroit jones'n for crack.  New clothes were rare and washing them was almost irrelevant except to get the mud off once every year or two, mostly made of a burlap material.  Dry skin had to have been intense and flaky, but the armpit hair caught a lot of it as a nice meal for the bugs.

  Joseph had 7 children before his wife died in childbirth on #7.  Mary got pregnant "immaculately" at around age 11, though the "virgin" part indicates Joseph had nothing to do with it, since Jesus (Ioshua)  had one older brother and then 3 younger siblings (two sisters and another brother). These were outside of Joseph's 7.  Somehow, Mary had another kid before Joseph by .. someone?   It's arguable that Mary boinked before Joe.  This makes her a dirty pirate hooker at age 9 or 10.  Based on age survival, Joeseph was likely in his early 30s, because 11 year old Jewish girls are hot to trot.  Anyway she told him she was pregnant by magic God so they got married a few weeks later.  He then banged her at least 3 more times and she had 3 more children before age 16.  That's pretty slutty.

  Okay, so the likelihood is that yes, she stunk, her fingernails were encrusted with sh*t, she was as hairy as a caveman, complete with unibrow and messed-up teeth.  She couldn't read, as it was forbidden by the Jewish faith, nor could she count or add.  She was considered at best a possession like a donkey, and by age 11 she was humped by men old enough to be her grandpa.

Possible picture of Mary, Mother of Jesus (taken by a Nikon)

 I get annoyed that society has to "pretty-up" things.  Make them seem nicer than they really were.  Make people seem like heroes when there were mediocre or only did a few nice things but were generally downright bad people.  Mary was probably an okay little girl.  I don't think one should pray to her, because that demotes demigods and making a quadinity instead of a trinity.  She was not a demigod.  The concept of God making her pregnant is irrelevant to me.  She could have sat on Joe's lap and he bust a nut for all I know.  Just no penetration I guess.  I don't need some sort of magical birth to make Ioshua's Word a good one.  I think it might have been made-up to make Him seem more important, more holy.  I don't need that.  I also don't need miracles or a resurrection to make His Word right.  The core of it is there and it's truth, but I see a lot of people needing to cling to this, otherwise it becomes less for them.  The TRUTH of things is what's important.  There's no denying Mary stunk, was hairy, had bad breath, rotten teeth, and had shit in her fingernails and va-jay-jay at all times, was infested with parasites and bug bites, and had an IQ of about 41 at best.  Mary is consequential.  Mary is a backstory, as is Joseph, almost brushed aside and peppered with a few magical bits to make it seem wonderful.  I'm certain it wasn't.. not at all.  Imagine all the flies all the time during the Birth of Jesus (Ioshua)!  Flies EVERYWHERE!  Animals crapping all around in that hollowed-out cave-area to the god Tammuz the Sumerian shepherd-god.  Somehow everything got all prettied-up along the way, after-the-fact.

  I encourage everyone to go to the Middle East and see what it's like there, then downgrade that about 2100 years, give-or-take.  I've seen modern Middle Easteners shit on themselves stink like dog, treating women like gnats even still.

  I don't need magic to make Ioshua's Word true, nor miracles performed or exaggerated. 

Blasphemous?  Perhaps.  Accurate?  Perhaps.  Yet THESE THINGS DO NOT SWAY ME FROM WHAT IS RIGHT; and if you're clinging to some deep, inner issues using religion as an anchor, as a crutch, well you got bigger problems, America.  Fix those FIRST, don't cover up your issues with religion.  Makes us true believers look bad.  Go see a shrink and get over yourself.

Done.

Can you solve this riddle?

  Is there any similarities in the 4th panel?  I'm at a loss.  Obviously it's a "FAIL" joke, but try to use your mind and think what all these things in the bottom right have in common.  I say, it's things you can eat with bacon.

My current studio

  There's a lot of folks that show themselves playing their instruments live while showing a video on YouTube.  I don't do that, partially because I layer 7 or 8 guitars into the track to create a rock-guitar choir effect in the same way several violins sound better than just one for a concert, or a choir of singers sound better than just one.  This is not always true, but it sounds.. fuller and richer than a single instrument.
  My studio is a bit cramped as well, and wires are all over the place.  I have a pedal board coming in to fix a bit of that, but it's not as nice as some of those high-end ones.  Still, it works.  I have a small rack system and a keyboard with a few guitars and a bass.  All my works is by me.  I don't cheat and use the CD to add tracks.  I'm quite proud of being able to play all the instruments sans-drums.  I think my covers sound pretty close to the originals.
  Here's me at my studio to-date.

iStomp

  So Digitech (my favorite guitar rack-unit company) has made a blank guitar pedal called "iStomp".  It has four knobs and with an iPhone or iPad you download a pedal's inner works into it (take about 30 seconds) then the iStomp becomes that pedal.  Graphically on the iPhone, the knobs correspond to the knobs on the box.  If the pedal graphic as 3 knobs, knobs 1-3 are functional, the last one is not.

  Digitech offers some of their classic pedals, such as the FX line, as well as some suspicious clones of the Ibanez Tube Screamer TS9 called the "Screamer Tube Overdrive".  The graphic on the iPhone looks suspiciously like the same.  There's several pedals like this, including a few Boss pedals (my favorite pedal chain pedals btw) such as the venerous Boss Octaver OC-2.  So Digitech sort of cheaply copies these in the same way movies have "mockbusters" such as Almighty Thor trying to cash-in on the arguably better summer-hit Thor.  Digitech's playing the Coming to America, "See, they got the Big Mac..  I got the Big MICK!!!"  Uh huh.
  What's sort of neet about it is that you can switch-out your pedals on the fly.  It comes with 10 or so cloned pedals, and then you can download others for $9.  What it comes down to is that you can spend $150 for this iStomp and have several pedals which normally cost $100 to $200 a piece.
  It has its shortcomings.  Like all Apple products, audio quality is lacking.  Now, the software is downloaded from the iPhone, the audio is actually then played from the guitar, to the iStomp, and then into an amplifier.  The problem is that all the pedal downloads sound cold and digital.  Digitech doesn't give info on the audio sample rate on their website or the THD or any goodies like that.  I suspect it's 16-bit as that's a cheap option.  It does seem to offer stereo out, which is good, and into a Marshall stack it might be okay.
  Another problem is you can only have one pedal at a time  This is like only have one item on your burger.  You can have cheese, but no pickle, ketchup, bun, salt, pepper, or onion.  You can have salt, but no.. well, you get the picture.  So.. you have to buy more iStomps for more effects, which becomes cost-prohibative and you'd be better off just buying the original pedals anyway.  I don't know too many people that use only one effect at a time for recording.  Some bands might sound like they do, but unless they're a punk band, playing fully raw, engineers usually secretly add reverb and a few other things at the end of the mix.  I suppose you could also do that, but who wants chorus all by itself on a clean-sounding guitar?  Or just a swirler like a cloned MXR Phase 90?  Odd, and rare.  Usually you'll have some classic distortion and maybe a little reverb and chorus.  I like to add a drop of delay, perhaps a spacial enhancer and run it through a series of 12AX7 tubes.  Often I'll add a bit of flanger to the mix during the crazy solos.
  This ends up being a single pedal for $150, albeit versatile.  Sonically, it sounds cold.  It's all  digitally devised, and the onboard processor is fairly weak.
  I'd say this item would be good in a pinch if you lost a pedal in concert and needed a rare replacement pronto, it'd make a good backup all-in-one pedal that could fill the place on-the-fly until you got a bona-fide 1984 Boss CH-2 MIJ for instance.  It'd also be good for kids who want a pedal, or want to try-out different pedals but have no clue as to what they might sound like, it'd be a good start.  This would also be good for the audiophile-retarded who think mp3 files sound "pretty good".  They don't.

  Here's Jack Black (aka gearmandude) on YouTube giving a decent review of it (as he always does) and leaves it open-minded and open-ended with an ambivalent response.

New Dodge Viper Logo

  The Dodge Viper is no more as of 2010.  The V10 powered car is being produced by Dodge's new sub-line, SRT.  Just like Scion is to Toyota, Dodge is sub-branding the Viper to the SRT line, making it its own company.
  The Viper will be released with an additional 100 horsepower or so, though things are vague still as to whether it will be direct-injected or not.  It's strongly rumored the 8.4 liter engine will still be used, however.  The 2013 Viper will also have a new logo again, as it changed from "Sneaky Pete" to "Fang", it will now be called, "Stryker".  It's pretty cool.  The emblem is lit-up when brakes are applied in red.

Colorado Weather

  Been here on and off for about 20 years now, particularly "The Springs" as it were.  Never a dull moment with weather, well rarely anyway.  January usually brings a second, odd Indian Summer of about 60 to 70 degrees for a week or two every year, and March is just jacked.
  Take for instance, the last few days: 70 degrees and somewhat windy followed by 15 degrees tonight and snow.  65 degree change in 24 hours.  That's pretty good, but not the wildest I've seen since I've been here.  Back in 1996 it went from 85 degrees to -10 in 12 hours.  Fun!  Still, it's about almost always a bit windy in the Springs, unlike Denver where it's more temperate, though Denver gets more wet snow.  We get the powdered stuff, dry like crushed styrofoam.  Makes for slippery driving when it's about a half-inch deep.  It's almost.. oily.  Weird.
  Gonna work on the song, "BattleScars" by Rush and Max Webster done in 1982 as my next project.  My Boss Octaver OC-2 is perfect for this.  Indeed, I think that's exactly what Alex used back in 1982.  I also won a Feedbacker on eBay.  The Boss DF-2 "Super Feedbacker and Distortion " (changed from the ultra-rare DF-1 "Super Distortion and Feedbacker" (made with the same innards exactly, but the name was changed after 2 months thanks to DiMarzio already having a pedal called "Super Distortion")  It's a neat pedal that when you press and hold it down, it gives a Jimi Hendrix style held feedback noise.  It doubles as a distortion pedal as well.  The "feedback" effect is a naturally occurring sound when the guitar's pickup is getting sound from the amplifiers creating a "feedback loop" back into the guitar from the speakers, then through your wiring and back into the speakers.  Eventually it gets out of control and squeels pretty insane if you're not careful.  Jimi used this previously undesired effect to create haunting sounds (as here).  Joe Satriani (who I've always felt was far better than Jimi and probably the best guitarist of all time), another virtuoso used the effect 20 years later.  (Truly mesmerizing).



  Normally, this cool sound can be had with active pickups and large speaker cabinets, of which I have neither, though I've accomplished the sound a few times in jam-sessions with a Marshall tube cabinet.  To facilite this effect and give it a little push, Boss created a pedal for studio artists in 1984 (such as myself) to not have to mic my speakers (which, to me is undesirable due to ambient noise and volume required) for those who prefer to record directly from effects boxes and preamps (which is what I do, right into my soundcard's input).  It amplifies the note played and feeds it back up into your guitar's pickups, which then spit it back down through the cable into the pedal making a "mini loop".  It works, and it works good, and will sound good at the beginning of BattleScar during the bullfrog-depthcharge baritone guitarwork.

Insomnia

  It happens.  Sleep for 4 hours then wide awake at 1:30am.  Gotta work 6am to 6pm.  I'm sure I'll feel like sleeping at noon, halfway through the shift.  I got a veteran crew partner today though, so that'll help, if I can get him to stick around on the Ops floor.  Might have to down-shift and take things slow today.  It's weird, the body messing around with us, that we know we have to sleep, but it just doesn't happen.  Can't make one sleep, just lying in bed, staring up into the darkness.  A little MST3K's "Starfighters" on Netfix streaming.  Cooked a burger.  Hydrated my humidor.  Maybe I'll try another hour of sleep.  Yuck. 
  Dayshifts are crappy during the week, daystaffers milling about, the floor usually a bit loud, making more white-noise din.  The "High Plains Cafeteria" aka "The Broadmor" (because of the ridiculous prices) has gone downhill since Woody left.  Not worth the $8 for a small burger (again with the burgers) and the 10 minute hike up the hill, only to bring something back ice-cold.  There was a tomato epidemic in the US last year, so they took tomatoes off the menu when tomato prices were tripled.  Never came back.  Stupid.
  Well, I'll try to get an hour-in.  Blah.

Karen Mistal Waldron.. anyone?  Anyone?

Take all your gold, then you go

  A lot of folks are confused why I left the Air Force after 15 years, not sticking-out for the 20 and getting my pension.  Well, it's not all about the $200 a week stipend and substandard, military health-care (that's a doosey, let me tell you, I mean, Motrin can only go so far, aka as the joke in the AF is, Vitamin M).  A good part of it is keeping one's soul in-tact.  Too often I see Master Sergeants surrendering to the game, drinking the "Blue Kool-Aid" as it were.  Accepting all that is Air Force, not arguing any point, not sticking-up for the troops that whine, putting a deaf-ear to their plights, such as, "The fitness test is unfair, my inseam is 28 inches and I have to run as fast as someone with an inseam of 38 inches!  Their footstride is twice mine!" or "I've worked 28 days straight with 12-hour shifts with no lunch breaks for 3 years now."  or  "The military doc flight-surgeon gave me Motrin for my broken foot but denies the foot is broken.  I know it's broken because I paid for an X-Ray the military won't pay for at a civilian doctor!"  These are all true statements that have occurred.
  I see these Master Sergeants realizing that they have only 3 or 4 years left and that they better not rock-the-boat.  The Military Pension is not guaranteed, you have to apply for it, and can be denied if they want to keep you in longer.  Not the "Stop Loss" program, just cruelty.  I've seen it several times, and it's ugly.  So, these MSgts become ineffectual.  They don't want any problems, they just want to get out and go away.  Deep inside, they realize it's too much for them and that it's a mess, but they surrender to it.  In a way, these folks give up their soul.  It's lost, like at The Crossroads of Willie Brown.  Colonels encourage it, as the MSgts become their mirrored, smaller "mini-me" pawn, pushing bullshit arbitrary policy randomly created by the Colonel who "enhances" the already asinine policies to ensure a General-slot for themselves by making the rules even harder.  Making standards even more ridiculous to adhere to.  This transformation of de-evelution happens to Captains making Major as well.  They take things too seriously and surrender a part of themselves.
  So the MSgt just sighs, claims he isn't selling-out.  Thinks he's doing a good job when in fact he's empty.  A hollow man like a priest who doesn't understand the trappings of real life.  Just shuffling along like a ghoul, eyes empty, a small spark inside, dying ember.  It's over.  You've surrendered to "The Game" and when they get out they think they can get that all back.  Nope.  It's gone.  You've lost.
  I was told I had to play "The Game".  Not to rock-the-boat.  Just do what I'm told so I can make SMSgt (Senior Master Sergent).  Bull.  I've seen these suck-ups and they disgust me.  I explained to my Colonel at the time that I will rock-the-boat, defy policy and inspire a defence for my troops, batting for them 100% when needed.  This did not go over well, and created quite a ruckus.  I politely resigned.  They can keep it.
  Now I work for them at twice my original pay as a contractor for merely advise.  I like that I can tell the Colonels where they can put it, though I don't, because I don't need to.  I'm treated well.

YoYogurt

  Becky's throat was hurting from the H1N5/A Epsilon, so I went to YoYogurt and got her some "white chocolate".  I drove the Sky that'd been sitting for the last few months in storage.  She started right-up, which was nice.  I also had a large cup of gay.  A small, hair-teased gay tallied me up, and it felt funny on the inside.  New flavor?  Gay.

Gay, I say!

If you're not first, you're last (rant).

  Some people base their whole lives on that.  Anyway, what's up with WholeFoods?  It seems like unnecessarily expensive organic food marts have become gay cruising grounds for gay McGay gays.  There's another one, like Sunflower or some such. More like Whole GAY.

 That, and frozen yogurt places.  I remember TCBY was normal and no big deal.  Just another DairyQueen wannabe.  Now frozen yogurt over the last 2 years has gone ultra-trendy.  It's still not healthy stuff.  TCBY, who's trying to trend-out their store just like YoYogurt by offering Scandinavian Design furniture and post-modernist art with a buffet-style self-serve setup which they weigh at the end, now offering frozen Greek yogurt (which is just a name for more dense yogurt).  This soft-serve yogurt is crap.  It should be like scoopable dense stuff, but they whip it with air and make it seem healthy.  It is not.  It is the same as DQ, weather you put fruit in it or not.  DQ offers fruit as well.  Stupid.  Parents are fracking stupid, "Oh, it's yogurt so it's okay!" as their kids shovel Oreos into it and get a painful-large sized sugar rape diabetes fatism shit frack.  These are the same parents that let their kids eat muffins, breakfast cereal, or Eggo's with a giant glass of juice (full of corn syrup, btw) but NOT chocolate cake and a coke.  Same thing.  It is, so shut up.  Idiot.  Stupid idiots.  You're a robot that listens to the FDA because you're too stupid to know what ingredients are, and you made up your mind on things the day you had a kid at age 19 and you stopped growing as a human since then.  Idiots.  America is now idiots.

  Men with tramp-stamps, fro-hawks, and porn-star star-tattoos is not cool, it's sad.  I don't understand how they can breed.  I suspect it's in the bovine growth hormone over the years.  Ironically, WholeFoods is bovine-growth-hormone-free, which counter-produces gays.  I honestly think the outbreak of gay-ism is based on chemicals, particularly estrogen in the water by way of not being able to chemically remove it from the urine due to female birth-control pills, patch, etc., and by way of estrogen being pumped into the chicken and milk-producing cows.  It was tried-out in Puerto Rico in the late '80s and women were getting breasts and periods at age 6 due to it.  It's documented and factual.  Girls are getting, to a lesser degree, these things at age 7 or 8 here in the US.  I strongly believe it's efeminating men.  What guy cares about how his nails look?  As long as they're not grubby.  Clean is one thing.  I'm for clean.  Detailed is another matter.  Except for BluRay-Disc quality Hollywood, detailed is not a male option.  Teeth shouldn't be whiter than say, a dwarf-star, creating its own luminescence, they should be ivory, perhaps bone-colored, no?  Why are people drinking bleach for this?  Are they that stinky?  People are taking self-detailing too far.  Do they have that much time in the day?  Don't they have jobs?  Guys should legally not spend more than 20 minutes in a bathroom, to include the 3 "S"es, "shower, shave, shite".  I'm even for brushing one's teeth and flossing is not out-of-the-question but.. really now.
  So I recommend boycotting WholeFoods and the like.  A brick of 1 pound British cheddar should cost a dollar, not $45.  It costs 11 cents to make.  A 2 pound, bone-in ribeye steak should cost about $15, not $45, and a jar of grape jam should be about $2, not $11.  WholeFoods caters to the ignorantly rich, more money than brains.  You can get non-HFCS (high-fructose-corn-syrup'ed) items at cheaper stores if you look a bit, and not pay an overkill price.  WalMart and similar stores offer them and a minor premium of a few cents.
  HFCS is everywhere.  You can't escape it.  One comedian was commenting on a can of green-beans, it's ingredients was: green-beans,  water, salt, high-fructose-corn-syrup.  "There's corn in the green-beans!" he declared.  Check your bottle of "maple syrup" like Mrs.Butterworth.  It's corn-syrup.  There's no maple syrup in maple syrup.  You have to find it, and it's pricey.  I found some 100% maple-syrup finally for $12.  Some 100% maple-syrup containers actually don't have 100% maple-syrup.  It's only 10%.  Now that's false advertising, like anyshit Hyundai puts out.  You want a Korean car?  Really?  CHING CHOW!

There

  Okay, so like, in 2nd grade I learned the difference between:

• There
• They're
• Their

 

  In the USAF there was a half-day class on this subject, because people would write EPRs using spell-check options and since all 3 are spelled correctly, it'd pass up the words as fine.  Later XFD-format was the standard for EPRs, which was a shitty version of Adobe Acrobat's PDF.  The USAF was given version 1.0 which is horrible and buggy, and saving was almost impossible, and no one had PureEdge software at home to read it, making it a nightmare for everyone.  Some officer thought this was a good idea and that's why I hate brass, such as when an officer up-high changed the term THREATCON to FPCON (Force Protection Condition) for base-threat situations, making 9 infinity documents have to change for no reason, wasting several Brazils worth of trees.  The actual measures of the FPCONs were exactly the same as the THREATCONs, just with the name-change.  Fracking idiot bastard officers.

  Anyway, I find a lot of folks screwing up the 3 "thayers" in blogs, comments, etc.  It irks me a bit.. okay, a lot; enough to blog about it.  Pet peave or what will you, I'm going to explain it simply.  A trick is to use substitution beforehand.

THERE

A place, like over there, down there.  You should be able to substitute the word "HERE" with there and it should sound pretty okay: He fell down the hole over there. / He fell down the hole over here.  Works okay.

THEY'RE
This is a contraction of two words: "THEY ARE".  You can substitute these two words in lieu of they're and it should sound correct, as in:  "They're going to go to the store / They are going to go to the store."  It works.

THEIR
This is ownership of several people, as if someone owns something.  You can replace the word with "HIS" and it should be pretty correct (though if it's a girl, you should use "HER"):  "They took all of their books with them. /  They took all of his books with them."

Pretty simple.  The rule is, substitute:

• There with here
• They're with they are
• Their with his

So let's prove these 3, just in case.  We had 3 sentences above.  Let's try the substitution method to verify each of them for kicks. The three sentences were:

1. He fell down the hole over there.
2. They're going to the store.
3. They took all of their books with them.

Let's try the first one, using the substitution method.  Which sounds right?

• He fell down over here.  (We substituted there with "here")
• He fell down over they are.  (We substituted there with "they are")
• He fell down over his. (We substituted there with "his")

Which one sounds right?  Pretty obvious it's the first one.  Let's try the other 2:

• Here going to the store.
• They are going to the store.
• His going to the store.

Pretty easy to guess which sound best, above, no?  Which did you pick?  The best choice was number two.  Lastly, the final sentence:

• They took all of here books with them.
• They took all of they are books with them.
• They took all of his books with them.

Unless you want to sound like Yoda, it's pretty simple to choose.  By using Mike's quick method of substitution:

• There with here
• They're with they are
• Their with his

you should be okay every time.  The first two are easy to remember.  There has "here" in it, spelling-wise.  They're has "They are" in it, if you make the apostrophe a letter "a".  The weird one is "their", which doesn't have "his" in it, but you'll just have to grow up and remember that "their" can be substituted for "his".  Sorry, life ain't easy.  If you enjoyed this lesson, please send me $100 via my homepage: http://www.mikecronis.com/ under the donations section on the left under DONATE.  Thanks.

Click me for a.. reward... but only if you got 100%!

While Supplies Last

  Sometimes it's humorous to see failed fast food promos based on movies.  One that comes to mind is Subway's and the movie Coneheads.  (based on Saturday Night Live's skit from 1977)  The movie bombed, costing $33M to make, but grossing only $21M (to include international and VHS/DVD sales). 

At the end, "actual employee" looks annoyed that he's selling product.

 I remember it vividly, because my ex-wife's dad worked as a manager at one, and I'd get a lot of Subway's food, at least one sandwich every day or two while I was working at GPS, which was kind of nice.  I'd get them because Bill Derk (her dad) was so sick of them he'd surrender his "one sandwich a day employee benefit" to either her or myself.  It happens, when you work at a restaurant, though when I worked the 3 months at the BK Lounge I never tired of the variety (though I'd make some interesting sandwich combinations, like an Italian Whopper (tomato, mozzarella, and pizza sauce [based from the Italian Chicken sandwich, often offered, including right now]).  Anyway, I learned a lot about Subway's.  The meats are almost all turkey-based, which gives it that cardboard, bland flavor.  I was always particularly horrified that people would put anything and everything on one of those subs (based on the submarine and not a freakin' subway, nice try, Subway's).  I mean, why would you put cucumber, mustard, lettuce, etc. on a meatball sub?  Madness.  I chalk that up to medicinal marijuana and/or retardation.  In New England, you'd be chased out of town by the villagers!
  Oh, I lost track.  So Subway's had a lot of Coneheads merchandise.  They bought too much of it.  To save waste overhead costs, they continued to use the cups and what-not for over a year!!!  The film already wasn't being offered at Blockbuster (remember that?  Actually renting videos at a store?)  It was odd to see the obvious failings of the corporate head of Subway's, hoping (wrongly) that Coneheads would be a huge success.  I was still drinking out of Coneheads cups in 1995!
  Burger King offered a few flops as well.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture glasses were particularly fail, as were 1976's King Kong and thier push for The Lord of the Rings was set to a happy, kiddy theme that was quickly pulled in 2001 before Fellowship of the Ring came out, "Follow the wonderful Hobbits in a magical adventure for the ring!"  (all happy-like) as if it was for little kids spoken by what sounded to be a gleeful leprechaun.  I guess the company heads didn't know what the movie was and might have watched Ralph Bakshai's The Hobbit back in 1977 on TV and thought Hobbits were like My Little Pony and Rainbow Brite.  Uh huh.

Down, down to Goblin Town

  McDonald's is also guilty of hoping to release movie-related promo stuff that utterly fails.  I mean, it seems that the movie might do well, but the American public is fickle.  It's why I stay away from vague stocks, like WalMart, that might suddenly be betrayed by the American mass to go to Target, or K-Mart.  Could happen at any time like chaos theory.  There's no accounting for pop-culture desire, and it's a deadly game.  K-Mart and Target also sell Chinese shirts and have a small profit-margin, just like WalMart.  It's just the randomness of it all that makes it work, for now.  The Great Muppet Caper was not that great of a flick, but McDonald's pushed it, though not a horrible fail.  Batman Forever glasses are laughable.

  Wendy's has failed worse, with movie-promo designs of Willy Wonka (2005), Garfield: The Movie, and, as a last, great hope by them, almost sadly, Jetsons: The Movie which it looks like they spent a lot of money for, as they even copied McDonald's happy-meal box for the occasion.  Sad.  Interestingly, Deep Roy became a keychain for the Wendy's Willy Wonka promo.  I think they had to enlarge his actual size so that he could be a keychain, lest he get lost.

"Come, Fellini." - Princes Aura (Ornella Muti) and Fellini (Deep Roy) Flash Gordon 1980



McDonald's Fail

  McDonald's has been ramping up their McCafe line for about a year or so now.  It's pretty horrible stuff, but SUV women seem to like it, according to their demographics.  Their coffee is marginally better than Starbucks, who makes the worst coffee on earth, and then adds candy-cane flavoring to hide it, so you get a hot, somewhat-coffee-flavored drink (or cold).  The "Frappuccino" concept was something Dunkin'Donuts has been doing since 1974 (aka "ice coffee"), except they add more corn syrup in it, like they do their other coffees, such as their poorly-designed machiatto which inexplicably has caramel in it.  Well, fake caramel, anyway.  It's really just caramel-flavored corn-syrup.  Those SUV chicks really dig their corn-syrup!  Makes for fat-ism, but I like pudgy chicks anyway (not fat ones, just those with baby-fat, like young Jennifer Connelly, for instance, or young Rene' O'Connor).
  Irregardless (yes, it's a Boston word, pronounced, "Irr-eh' gahhd-liss"), they have marched onto changing their shakes.  Yep.  They add whipped cream on them.  It's a synthetic, long-shelf-life cellulosed "whipped cream" that may or may-not be non-dairy.  It's hard to tell.  They add a chemically-synthesized vat-cloned maraschino cherry on it as well.  The candied cherry is a bit rough tasting and chemically as is the "pseudo-whipped cream".  It doesn't stop there.  The actual pre-mix substance they were using for their shakes tastes more "authentic" in the sense it tastes more like shit.  The original mix had some ice-crystals in it of some such that made it nice in a McDonald's kinda way.  The new version tastes like lark's vomit.  The vanilla is trying waaaayyyy too hard, like a French Resistance Vanilla.  More like vanyllyn synth.  The chocolate is a nightmare.  It reminds me of being chased by Robert Englund's Freddy Kruger except when he played on the '80s TV miniseries, V.  (which by the way was such a huge impact on TV in the early '80s, schools actually stopped teaching to discuss it that week, and no one watched anything else.  I think it had a Nielsen rating of around 85%).
 It's sad companies have to ruin a good thing.  McDonald's shakes were just fine the way they were.  I fear the Shamrock Shake's warping. 
  Burger King has responded by doing the same, though I believe they are on a trial basis, and still keep their original formula, which is good.  I think BK offers cones too, and some mini-sundaes.  I've had them.  They're fair, for a dollar.
  Worse still is the pickle.  Yep.  The pickle has been dill since I can remember, until recently.  In the mid-'90s, places were switching their spears in sit-down restaurants to salty, garlic ones.  They're crap.  No one likes these.  Gimme a Vlasic any day.  A Kosher Dill or a Polish Dill (very slightly spicier) is great.  No one buys garlic-y pickles.  Still, restaurants insist.  The garlic demands that if a couple is dining, both parties must partake, lest the non-eater suffer garlic-y kisses.  Blah.  This makes the clever dater/diner forgo the pickle, increasing overhead for the restaurant and overall waste.
  Wendy's has changed their pickles from the hamburger-chips they used (a dill variant McDonald's currently uses) to a garlic-y bread-and-butter crinkle design.  Probably more expensive and they taste like crap and misplaced on a chicken sandwich or anything else, ruining the overall taste.  Wendy's also changed their bun to some sort of potato-based thing.  Not horrible but pretty un-Wendy's.  The Frosty has undergone some diabolical alchemical designs as well.  Just not good.  LEAVE IT ALONE!  Sheesh.
 
  On a side note, The Phantom Menace has been re-released in 3D at the theaters.  No one is going to see this, except for young kids who say, "This is my Star Wars" because they were born too late and desperately wish to attach to something that is of value in the last 10 years, but there's nothing that great, so they honor and respect something that's shit, because their generation is empty and they have nothing else.  Really, has there been any great music bands that have formed since, say, 1995?  Any band that has say, 20 or 30 albums, all platinum?  Nope.  The Empty Generation, with their iPhones teaching them no skill-set except l33t.  '90s Generation?  Fail.  2000nds Generation?  Fail.

Fail.

(like)

Feeling better due to an alignment of planets

  Well, I'm recovering from the frackin' Andromeda Strain, which is good.  My blood hasn't turned to powder.  Gosh, I can't remember being sick in such a long time!  Guess it's gotta happen eventually.
  You've probably noticed this last week a rather interesting alignment of planets overhead around 8pm or so,  moon included.  Every single planet, from Mercury to Pluto is lined-up along the sun's ecliptic, which is kinda neet.  You'll notice Venus and Jupiter bright along with the moon in the western sky.  Further overhead is Saturn and then Mars.  You probably can't see Neptune or Uranus unless you've got demigod eyes and live in a cornfield, but they're there.  Anyway, it don't mean nuthin'.  Just pretty cool.  I suppose ancient scholars would forebear doom.  I remember in the '80s evangelists would take this opportunity to forescribe religious events and that one should donate even more, which is fairly evil in my opinion.  Just like your analog clock at home, the hands have to meet every hour and a few minutes or so.  Only astronomical interest is the perturbations that affect gravity-bearing objects are more focused in one direction by a fraction.  Jupiter usually cancels-out a lot of that, and near-earth objects (like satellites) are more affected by things like the moon and the sun's solar pressure, though the sun is so enormous it isn't affected at all.  It's just neet.

Enjoy the display.