John’s Crawlspace

So last Saturday, I stopped by the beer store to pick up a case for the Phillies game (which wasn’t until later on that day). I don’t go to this distributor too often, but I was in the area, and they usually have a decent variety. There were two older ladies working there, and since they saw me looking around (as opposed to knowing what I wanted to buy as soon as I walked in) they started talking to me, and making all kinds of recommendations. It was immediately obvious to me that they didn’t really have the slightest idea what they were talking about, but I entertained the conversation anyway. One of the ladies was raving about the “new” Saranac Pomegranate Wheat, and before I knew it she had gone to the walk-in freezer and brought one out for me to try. I had this beer last year while I was in Vermont, but I wasn’t gonna turn down a free beer, so I acted like I had never heard of it before. The funny part about this was, she didn’t call it pomegranate - She stumbled over the word when she hit that third syllable, and she actually ended up saying pomeranian. Saranac Pomeranian Wheat - It’s delicious… You need to watch out for the hairs though. Anyway, I didn’t want to chug this beer, so I continued to talk to them while I drank it, and before I knew it, they were handing me another beer. I had already tried both of these beers before, but I’m not one to turn down free beer, even if it was 10:30 on a Saturday morning. Anyway, I ended up hanging out in the beer store for almost half an hour, talking to two ladies (both of whom were old enough to be my momz, yo) about beer, college, and sex. I made that last part up. Anyway, I ended up leaving with a case of Troegs Sunshine Pils (and a 30 of High Life for good measure). Definitely much better than the garbage I left with last time. That made my Saturday a little bit more interesting.

I wrote before about how I was having knee problems that were getting in the way of my running. I stopped running completely for a little bit, and I’ve gotta say, I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed running until I wasn’t able to do it. Anyway, I figured it probably had something to do with the fact that I was running in somewhat crappy shoes. They were Nikes that ran me about $50, but I bought them at Kohls or something. I decided to go to a real shoe store and talk to someone that might know what they were talking about. So I did that, and a dude at The Finish Line suggested the Asic GT 2130s. They felt comfy, so I bought them. About 2 miles into my first run, my feet started to hurt… In the same place on each foot. After 5 miles, I felt like my feet were cut open. So those shoes sucked. I returned them and got a pair of Nike Air Max Moto 5+ instead. These shoes are much better. I ran 3 days in a row this week with no problems whatsoever. I realize this probably isn’t very interesting to most of you, but I’m pretty damn happy to be running again.

These photos of Antelope Canyon in Arizona are absolutely amazing. I can’t imagine there are many other places in the US that can match the sheer beauty of that place… Although I’ve never seen it with my own two eyes. Then again, 11 people died there in 1997, so maybe it’s better that way?

I don’t know if any of you were fans of Kids in the Hall, but I loved that show. If you’re a fan, check out their new sketch, it’s pretty funny. This, on the other hand, isn’t so much funny as it is just downright disturbing. That’s definitely a dude.

The “metal mashups” on this site are pretty interesting, although they’re definitely hit or miss. “Whole Lotta Sabbath” was pretty damn cool. Metallica’s “Eye of the Beholder” mixed together with Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” was actually difficult to listen to, to the point where it was almost disorienting, if that makes any sense. I liked the Iron Maiden/Public Enemy mashup (”Hallowed Be Thy Enemy”), and hearing the Ghostbusters theme mixed together with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” was pretty cool. Oddly enough, “Stayin Alive” vs “Another Brick in the Wall” also worked out very well. I would have never thought of combining The Bee Gees and Pink Floyd, but its actually a very logical pairing. The guy is no Girl Talk, but it’s worth checking out if you enjoy mashups.

I’m a national shark rodeo champion… Although I’m currently suspended due to my refusal to wear that cowardly chainmail suit. And this dude is a little bitch.

I don’t post music on here nearly as much as I’d like to. I’ll hear a new album and tell myself that I’m gonna post it on my site… But by the time I actually have some free time, the album has been out for a month already, and most people who would potentially be interested in hearing it probably already have a copy. I’m a big fan of MP3 blogs, and if I had more time I’d like to have one of my own. Unfortunately, I can tell you right now that will never happen. Hell, if I had more time, I’d probably start off by revamping the site, as half the stuff on here doesn’t even work, and the layout looks like crap. Anyway, getting back on topic here… Here’s a bunch of random MP3s for you that I had on my computer at work. I’m not gonna bother with descriptions or anything, check them out if you feel like it, maybe you’ll find something you like. Don’t get caught downloading them though, or the RIAA might take away your home.

I’m heading to another small festival this weekend (the last one was a blast), so naturally its pouring down rain, and there are flood warnings… In retrospect, I probably should have gone to visit some friends at Shippensburg or Penn State for graduation, since most of the people that I know who are still in college are graduating now. Oh well - Hopefully the weather will improve a little bit tomorrow. This guy’s got the right idea. Have a great weekend everyone!

From time to time I make mix CDs for my friends. More often than not, they like them - Not to “toot my own horn” here, but I think I’m pretty good at it, as far as determining songs/artists that a person might like based on what they currently listen to, and their personality in general. Pretty deep, I know - What can I say?

Anyway, I made a mix for a friend of mine that I see once every 2 months or so. It’s been in my car for a few weeks now, so whenever Howard Stern is on vacation (which seems like it’s more often than not) I’ve been listening to it, and I think it’s pretty decent. I’ve made tons of mix CDs in the past, but never thought to post them on here for other people to check out. Oh yeah, and if you’re expecting metal, you might want to steer clear of this one, although maybe you’ll find something new that you like. You can download the mix here.

I might have gone a little overboard with the electronic/dancy type stuff on here, but you can’t tell me that these songs aren’t catchy. Hopefully, the presence of Chromeo on this CD doesn’t put my sexuality at stake. And to compensate, I’m gonna go ahead and mention that the new Arsis CD, “We Are The Nightmare”, is pretty spectacular.

Getting back on track here, remember that song “Still Fly” by Big Tymers? Classic. Anyway, The Devil Wears Prada did a cover of it for the “Punk Goes Crunk” compilation, which, as a whole, is overwhelmingly lame. However, I like the cover that they did. It’s funny to hear this type of music done in “metalcore” (or whatever) style. I’ve actually seen these guys before (at Sounds of the Underground last year) and I’m not really into their music, although I do get a kick out of the fact that they have a song called “HTML Rulez d00d“. Anyway, if you like that Big Tymers song, check out their cover of it, it’s entertaining as a novelty if nothing else.

How badly do you want a customized mouse pad? Probably not all that much, really. It’s nothing to get excited over. But this site has them for $2.99 each (with discount code MSPD99). I dunno about you guys, but for $2.99, I think a lemonparty mouse pad is a great deal. Hurry up though, the offer only lasts until 12/31/2099. Shit, I’ll be 126 by then… I hope to have enough money saved up to retire by the time I hit 125.

I love Pantera (I doubt I’ll ever “outgrow” them), so naturally I thought that this video was pretty entertaining. I could have gone without the ‘manky nuts’ parts though.

I’ve been seeing a lot of live music lately, which is awesome. My brother’s band, Still Motion, played at the Trocadero on Wednesday night. I feel like they get better everytime I see them. Last weekend, I saw Umphrey’s McGee at Rams Head Live in Baltimore. They put on a great show. The last song that they played was a sort of “mashup” between “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and “Come Together” by The Beatles. It was pretty interesting…

The next day, they played a free show at the Green Apple Music Festival in DC. It started to rain about halfway through their set, and it turned into torrential downpour. People came on stage to speak between each band’s set - Chevy Chase came out after Umphrey’s, but before he had a chance to say anything, a cop came on stage and grabbed the mic, and told everyone to seek shelter immediately due to electrical storms. A huge crowd of people all running in different directions in the pouring rain was pretty chaotic, but it was funny. I was completely soaked at that point and didn’t really care about the rain, so I was just running around screaming. We ended up going to the Air & Space Museum while we waited for the rain to stop… Which it never really did. Apparently Warren Haynes played for a little when the rain slowed down, but we didn’t catch that.

This weekend, I’m going to a small festival that’s about an hour from here. It’s called Some Kind Of Jam, and I’m only familiar with 2 of the bands that are gonna be there. It’s only $30 though - I’d spend more than that in one night in the city, and I probably wouldn’t have as much fun either. Believe it or not, I’m really not all that into most “jam bands”, but I love camping out and live music, and festivals are always a good time. I’ve never been to one this small, where I wasn’t familiar with the majority of the bands, so we’ll see how it goes, but I’m sure it will be fun. I can’t wait for my tent to flood when it rains… I actually just ordered a new one, but I’m sure I won’t have it until next week. Anyway, that’s all for now, have a great weekend.

I’d venture to say that I became aware of The Disco Biscuits probably 2-3 years ago, but they never really piqued my interest. I had some friends that liked them, but they just didn’t “do it” for me. Up until about a year ago, the fact that they are considered a “jam band” was enough in itself to keep me from really giving them a chance. I was more confused by them than anything else; I had a hard time understanding the appeal of their music.

I have checked out parts of their sets at a few festivals (most recently Langerado) but as I said before, I was never really able to get into the music. This band has a huge (dedicated) following, and I almost felt like I was being left out or something. I’m open to all kinds of music, so clearly I just didn’t “get it”.

Illicit Drugs:

At some point, it dawned on me that the reason that I wasn’t able to get into this band was because I’ve never taken ecstacy. At some point in high school, I saw how people acted when they took it, and I decided that, in direct conflict with my burning desire to put holes in my brain, I had no interest in ever trying it. It should have been obvious to me… The bands name is a direct reference to the drug, and “molly” is all over the place at their shows. Anyway, it became apparent to me that the majority (or at least a good amount) of the band’s fanbase were so into the music because they were rolling at the shows.

This may or may not be an unfair statement, I’m sure the band has fans that have never touched the stuff, but I formed my opinion. So essentially, if you disagree with me, you’re wrong.

Cardio:

I’ve been running on and off since my freshman year of high school. I was never even semi-serious about it until college, and even then my running was sporadic… I’d go 4 times in 1 week, then skip the entire next week, you get the picture. After I graduated, I realized that I needed to get rid of a mild beer belly that I had cultivated, so I started to get into a routine, and I realized that I actually enjoyed it. Since I graduated in December of 2006, I’ve been running pretty consistently, although some knee problems have forced me to cut it from 5-6 times a week to 3 times a week.

Anyway, I’m a huge music fan, and I waste a lot of time putting together playlists for my runs. Most people probably just put their iPods on shuffle and go. I, on the other hand, spend much more time than I probably should putting together these playlists. A few weeks ago, I came across the “Hippie Workout Mix”, which is comprised of selections of live Disco Biscuits performances (put together by Live Music Blog, which is a pretty cool site). I usually run to metal, but I thought I’d give it a try.

To my surprise, I really enjoyed running to this. It had a pretty consistent beat, and due to the nature of the music, I found myself spacing out a little bit, and therefore not concentrating on how long/far I had gone. My only complaint was that, at just under 33 minutes, it was too short. But I knew that the guy who put that podcast together was on to something, because it was great to run to.

Due to continuing knee problems (which really, really suck, and most likely mean I won’t be able to participate in this) I’ve been forced to find alternatives to running. So at the gym tonight, I decided to give the elliptical another shot. It doesn’t look much like that, but that chick using it is smokin’. I’ve used it before, but it was boring as hell. I don’t like running in place; I’d much rather be running outside, where there’s stuff to look at.

Anyway, I was putting some music on my iPod at work, and I thought I’d give this Disco Biscuits nonsense another shot. I found a song on the Live Music Archive that was about 36 minutes long, and put a few songs on the playlist before it so I’d have an hours worth of music.

I stand firm in my opinion that the elliptical sucks, and in my opinion is no replacement for a good old fashioned run, but that hour went by ridiculously fast. The improvisational techniques employed by the band (and their overall style) is perfect for running, in my opinion. After my workout flew by, I realized that the Disco Biscuits exist for a reason… They need to start playing in gyms. The only problem with that idea is that their fans would show up, and within minutes, people would be trying to plug molly and smoke DMT in the gym, and I don’t think that would fly. If you’ve been to music festivals before, maybe you just got a mental image of a bunch of drugged-out zombies “raging” in a gym. Maybe you laughed.

So what was the point of this post? I have no idea, really. Maybe I’m in the minority since I was able to “overcome the odds” and find a way to enjoy this band without the assistance of mind-altering drugs. I realize this is a weird post. I’m exhausted (as usual) which may have something to do with it, but I know I’ve been neglecting the site, so I told myself I’d sit down tonight and wouldn’t get up until I wrote something. So there you have it.

This actually kind of scares me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because it reminds me of the mechanical hound in Fahrenheit 451? If one of those things was following you around, I bet you’d be pretty freaked out, so don’t call me a pussy for being scared of a robot.

My 500 GB external hard drive (this) is giving me “cyclical redundancy check” errors, and not allowing me to access any of the files on it. I’ve spent an insane amount of time gathering/organizing the music on here, so to say that this sucks would be a bit of an understatement. Anyway, I’m gonna see what I can do about that now, so wish me luck. Or don’t, it really doesn’t make much of a difference.

Charles Manson is making good use of his life sentence - He just released an album under Creative Commons. The 16-track album is titled “One Mind”, and you can download it here. I just downloaded it, and the quality leaves something to be desired… But then again, it was recorded in prison. Anyway, I’m intrigued. I might have to check out some more mentally ill musicians.

Watching stuff in slow motion is usually pretty awesome, and this is no exception. Wow.

Shorpy.com posts high-resolution historical photos. For some reason, I find most of the pictures to be pretty pretty fascinating. Definitely a good way to kill some time.

What The World Eats is pretty interesting - It shows pictures of families from different parts of the world with everything that they purchased at the grocery store (or wherever they get their food) for that week, along with what they spent on it, and what their favorite foods are. It turns out that the Aboubakar family from Chad is living large… Who would have thought?

You’ve gotta be pretty confident in your artistic abilities to start drawing on a Lamborghini in sharpie marker. Check out the end result though, it looks pretty badass. By the way, the link for the word ‘looks’ in that last sentence is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.

Remember the Westboro Baptist Church (the “God Hates Fags” people)? They got Rick Rolled. I laughed.

Some dude attached high-def cameras to elephants. The resulting pictures came out pretty well… Interesting stuff.

Correct me if I’m wrong… But I’m pretty sure that the music video for “Unleash Carnage” by Himsa just made tennis a little bit more badass.

Charlton Heston is dead, and I’m going to bed. That sentence rhyming was not an attempt at humor.

So I got back from Langerado (a music festival in Florida) on Monday night around 9 pm. I had a pretty awesome time there. The festival started on Thursday (March 6th) at 6pm, so I figured that a flight scheduled to arrive at 2pm in Fort Lauderdale (an hour from the festival grounds) would give us plenty of time to get there and set up our campsite. Unfortunately, there were electrical storms in the Fort Lauderdale area, so our flight was forced to land in Orlando. We sat there for awhile and refueled, and by the time we got to Fort Lauderdale, it was about 5:00 pm.

It took us a bit to get our rental car situation figured out, and then we headed to Big Cypress Indian Reservation, where the festival was taking place. There was a huge line of cars outside of the festival (this has come to be expected, however) and it was pretty frustrating to be sitting in the car, knowing that bands you really wanted to see (like Les Claypool) were playing a mile or two away. But we tried to make the best of a bad situation. So we started drinking, and this of course leads to peeing on the side of the road. It was dark out at this point, so this wasn’t really a problem. I got out of the car and walked away from the car, down a little hill on the side of the road about 50 yards. It was marshy on either side of the road, and people were jokingly (or so I thought) yelling stuff like “watch out for alligators!” I laughed, and started to do my thing, when I heard some crazy noises followed by movement about 5 feet away from me. I immediately zipped up and ran back to the car like a little bitch. Sure enough, about a mile down the road, there was a sign posted saying “caution: crocodiles” or something along those lines.

When we finally got into the festival it was between 12:30 and 1. We rolled right through security, they didn’t even ask if we had anything illegal in the car… Which we didn’t, but I know sometimes those searches can take a long time. We parked and setup our campsite in the dark. It was a raining a little bit, but nothing ridiculous. We managed to catch the end of Perpetual Groove, and then if I remember correctly we walked around for a while exploring the campgrounds. I got bit by a few fire ants and we probably called it a night around 3 am.

The next day we got up around 9 or so. We hung out for a bit and drank, and enjoyed our canopy tent (which wouldn’t be around for much longer). We headed into the main festival area around 12:30 to see The Dynamites. They were cool to watch for a little bit, but matt pond PA started at 1:30, so I left the show early to check them out, and I’m glad I did. They put on a really good show, although I don’t know if I would have enjoyed them as much had I not known some of the songs.

After matt pond PA, we went back to the campsite to drink a little, and then headed back to the festival area in time to catch The Wailers. They were pretty cool, I’m not crazy about reggae, but if I’m gonna listen to some, it obviously doesn’t get much better than the music of Bob Marley. So that was kinda cool, but I got distracted after an hour or so of it. We checked out a little bit of G Love’s set, but I’m not too crazy about them.

311 put on a pretty good show. I don’t listen to them that often anymore, but they were my first “favorite band”, I remember listening to them non stop starting in like 6th grade, so it was cool to finally see them. It sucked that I missed !!! (who I also heard put on a good show), but I am definitely glad that I saw 311.

After 311, we checked out a little bit of The Roots (which were okay, but I’m not crazy about them) until The Beastie Boys played. I really enjoyed the Beastie Boys set. I knew that they had some instrumental stuff (their new album, The Mix Up, is all instrumental) but I didn’t expect them to play a lot of it. The set turned out to be about 50/50 and I was impressed by how good they were at playing their respective instruments. Their set was a lot of fun.

After that was Umphrey’s McGee. I was pretty excited to see them, and they played an awesome set, it was definitely in my top 5 for the weekend. After Umphreys we headed over to catch the end of Sound Tribe Sector 9’s set. I like these guys as well, but I couldn’t really get into them that night for whatever reason. So many people were out of their minds at that point, there were people in “zombie mode” all over the place. It got really windy and cold, so as soon as Sound Tribe stopped playing we headed back to the campsite. On our way back, it started to rain really hard. I have had this same tent leak before during rain, so I moved what I could of my stuff into the car. At that point the rain was coming down so hard, it was just ridiculous. So the four of us were just sitting in the car while the torrential downpour continued outside. We had a few beers, and I ended up sleeping in the car that night. My tent did flood, but I’m glad I moved my stuff so none of my clothes got soaked.

The next day, the first band we checked out was The Bad Plus. I was excited to see them (they do some awesome covers) but I wasn’t really able to get into their music that day. We walked around for awhile, checked out some of State Radio’s set, and then headed to the stage where The Avett Brothers were supposed to play. They didn’t end up showing up though, which was kinda lame.

We went back to the campsite to drink for a while, and then came back for some of Thievery Corporation’s set, which was pretty cool. We watched a little bit of Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood’s set, but made sure we left in time to get to the stage where Ghostland Observatory would be playing. The frontman (?) is so ridiculously strange, and the light show was just awesome.
They put on one of the best shows of the weekend, in my opinion.

After Ghostland played, R.E.M. came on the main stage. I stayed for maybe 2 songs, and then 2 of us headed back to the campsite to drink some more. We came back in time to catch the last 3-4 songs that R.E.M. played, and it was definitely cool to see them, but I’d be lying if I said I really cared about them. I wanted to hear them play “Man on the Moon”, and they did, so that was cool.

Pelican was up next. I like these guys a lot, and they definitely didn’t disappoint. Before the show, some cute little hippie girl (covered in glitter and wearing fairy wings) was talking to me. She asked me “what kind of music do these guys play?” They’re definitely not a “jam band” by any means, and I think they’d tend to appeal to metalheads more than anyone else. I told her they were a rock band, which I realize is a ridiculously vague description. She said “oh, like REM?” I told her yeah, and then made my way up to the front of the stage. I doubt that chick stayed around for more than 30 seconds of Pelican’s set. Regardless though, it was awesome. After Pelican played, I didn’t really care where we ended up. The Disco Biscuits were playing, but I’m not too crazy about them, so we just wandered around for awhile. There was so much to see there, and I’m sure I still didn’t see 25% of it.

We ended up checking out the Yard Dogs Road Show before we went back to our campsite for the night, and I’m glad we did. They are a traveling cabaret act with sword swallowers and stuff. I didn’t think I’d like them but it was actually very entertaining; I was surprised. Definitely check these guys out if you ever have a chance, I feel like they do a good variety of different things, so there’s something for everyone… And their music is good, too.

Sunday (the last day of the festival) was a lot of fun. I was pretty burnt by this point (the sun was brutal during the day there) and I decided Sunday would be my booze day. That’s not to say that we weren’t drinking the entire festival, but I decided to just concentrate on drinking. We headed into the main festival area at around 2:30 to see The Funky Meters, then checked out a bit of Keller Williams and Grace Potter. I wasn’t excited to see Grace Potter, but I was pleasantly surprised, she can really, uh… Rock? I don’t know what else to say.

The way they had the main festival area setup, you had to pass through security in order to get to the area where the stages were. Security wasn’t letting people bring in anything other than one sealed water bottle, and they were patting people down, so bringing anything other than a flask was pretty tough. There was a “taxi” service (people driving golf carts around) and we learned that when you took a taxi into the festival area, you didn’t have to pass through security. So we started bringing in bookbags full of beer this way, which was pretty awesome, especially since beers were like $6 each inside the festival.

Minus the Bear started at 5:30, and we took a “taxi” - I asked the driver to take us right to that stage, since we were cutting it pretty close. She took us down some access road and dropped us off behind the stage, an area that we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. So we walked out from behind the stage and entered into the media section, where all the photographers and people with press passes watch the shows. We watched most of Minus the Bear’s set from there, which was pretty awesome. I got some half decent (or at least close up) pictures too, though I was a little drunk at this point. Minus the Bear played an awesome set, and I really enjoyed being super close to the stage.

After that, we saw Blind Melon, who put on a ridiculously good show. Shannon Hoon, the original frontman, died in 1995 from a cocaine overdose, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d like the band with the new lead singer. I gotta give him credit though, he did a great job, and really did an amazing job with the old songs.

After Blind Melon, we apparently saw of Montreal, but I don’t really remember that. I do know that we were at the very front for Phil Lesh & Friends, though. I’d be lying if I said I was a huge fan of The Grateful Dead, but I really enjoyed watching these guys play, it was a great way to end the weekend. After Phil Lesh, Nick and I walked around for awhile and drank, and probably ended up getting to bed around 2 am or so. We weren’t in a huge hurry to leave the next day since our flight wasn’t until 5 or so. It was nice to be able to take our time while taking the tents down and packing up the car. I apologize if my recap of the festival wasn’t overly cohesive, but I’m pretty exhausted right now. You can check out the majority of the pictures I took at Langerado here. I took a lot of video as well, so maybe some day it will end up on YouTube? Probably not.

I started a new job (doing SEO) this past Wednesday. I mentioned before that I got pretty burnt while in Florida. By Wednesday, my entire face (and neck, and back) was peeling. I’ve never had it happen that badly before. I’m pretty sure everyone at my new job thinks I was in a chemical fire. It’s Sunday night right now and I’m still peeling, though it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before. Anyway, this recent lack of posts has been brought to you by corporate America. I don’t get out of work until 6:15, and I get home around 7 or so. After sitting at a computer the whole day, the last thing I find myself wanting to do is get back on the computer when I get home. But hopefully I will get used to this new routine soon enough, and I’ll be able to find more time for the site again.

I can’t believe that the world’s first MP3 player was released ten years ago. I only say that because I owned the world’s second MP3 player, the Rio PMP300. I thought it was the first until I read this article. It definitely doesn’t seem like ten years ago when I was walking to school in the morning, listening to the 5 Limp Bizkit mp3s that would fit on its whopping 32 MB of memory. I guess that really was ten years ago… Shit, I’m getting old.

So someone came out with a website that, in my opinion, is way overdue. It’s called RateMyCop.com, and I guess it’s pretty self-explanatory. For those of you that are complete idiots, it is basically an online police officer database where users can rate cops on things like authority, fairness, and satisfaction. Of course a bunch of cops have their panties in a bundle about this, and the domains registrar (GoDaddy) actually had the nerve to pull the plug on the site (article here). It’s back up on a different host, and you can check it out here.

This past weekend was pretty exhausting… We did the Erin Express thing again this year, and then saw Grimace Federation at the TLA. I also hit a girl with a french fry, and she told me that her boyfriend is in the mob, and that he’s going to kill me. So I have that going for me. Anyway, I’m gonna watch Breaking Bad and try and get some sleep, hope you all had a nice weekend.

Some of you may already be aware of this, but Trent Reznor has released a new Nine Inch Nails album titled “Ghosts”, and he’s using the internet to distribute it. This is still a relatively new way of releasing music, and bands like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are at the forefront of the movement. On the official website, you can get the first volume of “Ghosts” for free. There are four volumes, and several ‘plans’ to choose from in order to obtain the other three: “$5 gets you a download of all four volumes/36 tracks, $10 gets you the download + the collection on two CDs, $75 comes with a fabric slipcase and a data DVD and other crazyness, and for $300 he’ll sign stuff and give you the collection on vinyl and probably cook you dinner if you ask nicely.” (via Stereogum) Since the NIN.com servers are apparently pretty overloaded right now, I threw the album on megaupload (here) for your convenience. I have seen the first volume of the album on a few different torrent sites (such as The Pirate Bay) and it’s pretty obvious that Trent (or someone that works for him) uploaded it, so that’s pretty cool. I listened to Vol 1-4, and it sounds pretty decent - FYI, it’s all instrumental. That’s all for now.

Any of you who would potentially be interested in going to Bonnaroo have probably already seen this year’s lineup, since it was released on February 6th. I’m not particularly crazy about the headliners, and I don’t think Metallica is a good fit for the festival at all. I can’t say for sure, but as of now, I doubt I’ll be making it this year. I already have my tickets for Langerado and Camp Bisco though, and I’m really looking forward to both of those. I keep finding out about new festivals, and I’m tempted to try and go to all of them, but it just isn’t practical. Popped! and All Points West are both so close to me that I feel like I’d be an idiot for not going, and I just heard about Rothbury Festival which has an amazing lineup. And there are so many more, too. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, so I think I’ll move along.

I’ve never been a big fan of police. That being said, it’s refreshing when you catch wind of a cop that is going out of his/her way to help people and do the right thing. Thank god there are still some good cops out there, like this one. Oh, wait a second…

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever actually solved a Rubik’s Cube. Don’t see this as a reflection of my intelligence or anything like that, I’ve just never taken the time to play with one for more than a minute or so. This guide will show you how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, and how to do some other “cool” stuff with it too. It’s already gotten me laid four times, and I haven’t even read it yet.

Did you know that Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally? I sorta figured it was illegal to sell it anywhere in the US. This article is about the peyoteros, and the growth and sale of peyote, and it’s actually pretty interesting.

Seriously, screw this game. I want to punch whoever made it.

I saw this a few weeks ago, but forgot to post it. It deserves its own paragraph, because it’s probably the best video of all time.

I can’t imagine ever being this good with Photoshop. Some of those are just downright awesome.

What is Longplayer? It’s a 1000 year long piece of music which started to play on the 1st January 2000 and will continue to play, without repetition, until the 31st December 2999, when it will come back to the point at which it began - and begin again. Get your lemon party started!

Valentine’s Day is “a day invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap“. To be honest, though, Valentines Day doesn’t actually bother me all that much - If you’re in a relationship/romantically involved with someone, no big deal, buy them some stuff and take them out to dinner, it’s a chance to spend some special time together… Wow, that sounded lame. And if you’re single, just get blackout drunk. It’s really that simple. Speaking of blackout drunk, the new Blue Moon ‘Rising Moon Spring Ale’ is pretty awesome. Err, anyway, I’ll be spending my February 14th hiking through the woods with a friend of mine. We made these plans before we even realized that they would be falling on Valentine’s Day, but I’m glad I’ll be occupied (and far from civilization?), and won’t have too much time on my hands. Anyway, if you’re single this V-Day, maybe this will make you feel better: 14 Horrible Moments in Valentine’s Day History. And regardless of your plans, I hope you all have a nice (sustainable?) February 14th.

So after years of searching, you find the perfect girl. She’s all you ever wanted, and what’s more, she’s into you. Down the line you propose to her, and she accepts. Things couldn’t possibly be going any better than they are. So you finally get married, and it’s wonderful. The honeymoon is absolutely amazing. And then… You find out she’s your twin sister? Say it ain’t so! Seriously though, think about that for a minute. That really, really sucks.

Speaking of things that really, really suck… I honestly can’t believe how bad this song is. It’s the new single by “Soulja Boy”. He had that “Crank Dat” song which was annoying, but this new song is just so incredibly bad, it blows my mind. I really don’t even know what else to say about that, but I’m sitting here listening to it and I’m just in disbelief over how mind-numbingly stupid it is. And I’m sure tens of thousands of people already have it as their ringtones… Thank god.

The new Mars Volta CD, “The Bedlam in Goliath”, leaked a day or two ago. Those of you that want it probably already have it, but if you’re looking for it, you can grab it here. Also, my brother’s band, Still Motion, have recorded four new songs, and I think they sound pretty damn good. You can check them out on their myspace, or download higher quality versions of them here.

If you’re in the Philly area, and you’re looking for something to do this Saturday, this might be worth looking into: “Winter Beach Bash” featuring VHS or Beta. It’s free, and they’re a pretty cool band, too. If I remember correctly, they had some songs in Grandma’s Boy, so maybe you’d recognize them from that. Anyway, I’ll probably be there, if you want to come out and meet a blacked out celebrity. What? I am a celebrity, certainly you’re not questioning that.

So I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go to Langerado this year. I have some friends that are interested in going, and the lineup this year is pretty awesome: Beastie Boys, Gov’t Mule, Ben Folds, Built to Spill, Les Claypool, Umphreys McGee, Keller Williams, STS9, of Montreal, !!!, Minus the Bear, Ghostland Observatory, Blind Melon (minus Shannon, of course), Dr. Dog, Vampire Weekend, Pelican, Bassnectar, Busdriver… And a bunch of others, including some bigger bands that I’m not sure I care about, like REM and 311. It’s in the Florida Everglades, so we’re most likely gonna have to fly down. But the climate there in March will most likely be awesome. Bonnaroo is hot and dry (and was very dusty last year), while Langerado will be warm, sunny, and breezy. So yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ll be heading down there on March 9th.

As you can clearly see, I haven’t done much in the way of this site for the past week or so. My dog has been really sick, and we had to take her to be put to sleep on Monday. Not gonna get into the details of that, but I watched it happen, and it definitely sucked. Needless to say, I wasn’t really in the mood to spend much time on the computer (or do much else, for that matter) for the past couple days. Anyway, I’ll get working on the next “installment” of my Ghana thingy soon.

Okay, back to Ghana. One of my first days of teaching science, I remember the subject was about personal hygiene. I was teaching the kids about staying healthy and keeping themselves clean by brushing their teeth after meals and taking a shower everyday. Teaching them these things seemed very strange to me because I don’t even think they each have their own toothbrush. I also had to teach them about the environment and keeping it clean by not littering. This was even more bizarre because it is contradictory to what they have been doing their entire lives. There are no trash cans anywhere because, like I said before, they have no organized public waste system. So to stand in front of a classroom and tell kids not to litter when it is their only option is definitely odd.

Later that day, one of the children told me to follow them, and they took me to an area where they had a boiling pot of water over fire and were preparing to cook a “grasscutter”. I’m picky when it comes to eating new kinds of meats, so what I was about to see was probably not entirely conducive to me trying this meat later: The grasscutter looked like a big beaver or something, and they were using a machete to cut all of it’s hair/skin off, and then using their bare hands to pull its eyes out and stuff, it was pretty gross. I’m sort of a baby when it comes to that sort of thing though.

That afternoon we took a tro-tro to Hohoe. This was the first time that we did it by ourselves, without someone’s assistance. This was also our first (but certainly not last) experience with the term “yovo” – Which we were told means “white man”. Whenever people (almost always smaller children) see you, they get excited and yell “yovo!” It sounds like they are saying “yobo” though. I thought this was cute, and it never really annoyed me at all, because as soon as they realize that they have your attention, they get all excited and smile and wave to you. Sometimes older people would yell it though, and that annoyed me, because it just seems immature, and in my experience it’s just a term that is only supposed to be used by kids, though I could be wrong about that. While we were in Hohoe, we found an internet café (which I’m honestly convinced used a shared dial-up connection, it was just ridiculously slow) and bought phone cards. Margie got a message from someone in the DAVS organization that said they needed us to come back to Ho that Friday for a meeting.

That evening was spent the same way that most weekday nights were: Sitting around with the children outside, just messing around and talking or playing cards. It was always enjoyable, but like I said before, sometimes the kids were just too much, especially when they were in “climb all over you and touch every single part of your body like you’re an alien” mode. This particular night, one of the kids was sitting on my lap for awhile. At one point he said “look what I have” and held his hand out. He had something small and white in it. I asked him “what is that?” and he told me “my tooth”. When I looked at his face, I saw that there was lots of blood in his mouth. This freaked me out and I went back to my room and immediately used some of that anti-bacterial moisturizer stuff. It might sound insensitive or ridiculous, but I felt like it was better to be safe than sorry. This happened a few other times, when children would be sitting on or near me and have large open sores (which they constantly pick at), sometimes it just really bothers you.

That night I had a particularly vivid and disturbing dream about the drug jenkem. In the dream, the jenkem was in pill form, and somehow it ended up in my mouth and I was freaking out and woke up in a panic, and was so disturbed by this dream that I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I know the dream sounds dumb (there was more to it than that but there’s no reason to get into all the details) but it really upset me for some reason. I never have dreams like that at home, so it was definitely the malaria medicine.

After the first week or so of teaching, I feel like I was beginning to get better at it, but I definitely wasn’t getting any advice or feedback or anything. It was frustrating because the classes we were teaching were already being taught by other people before we arrived; so we basically relieved them of their duties for the month that we were there. But they had been teaching these classes for who knows how long, most likely several years, and therefore were probably much better at it than we were… Which kind of makes you question, how much is my being here really helping these kids out, if they’re not learning as much as they probably were before I took over the class? I tried not to let this bother me too much though, and just concentrated on writing better lesson plans, and coming up with activities that the kids would enjoy.

We left around 7:45 am that first Friday (the 16th of November) to head to Ho – I mentioned earlier that someone from DAVS called Margie and told her that we needed to be there for a meeting. When we got there, we met Jerusha, a new volunteer. She wouldn’t be at the orphanage with us though – She was there to do HIV awareness programs at schools. We were told that she had a program later today (at Ola Secondary School in Ho, an all-girls high school) and that we’d be helping her with the program.

We arrived at the school and met the headmistress – It’d been a long time since I sat down in a principal’s office, and certainly one of the first times that I had ever been there and was not in trouble for doing something stupid. After some introductions and etc we headed to the church (this was a Catholic school) where we’d be giving the presentation.

We sat down in chairs on the altar as the students all showed up (there were probably between 250 to 300 of them). Clayman, who was in charge of DAVS, gave a quick speech and then introduced us one by one to the students. After saying each person’s name, they’d stand up and the girls would all clap. I think he introduced me second or third, but after I stood up, the girls went crazy: They were all yelling and cheering and it seriously took them a good 45 seconds to stop clapping. I was laughing because I didn’t know how else to respond, it really took me by surprise, I suppose it’s just because I’m a white guy and they don’t see too many of them there to begin with. Either way, it was pretty amusing, especially since the other volunteers only got like 10 seconds of applause: clearly I was the star of the show.

We didn’t really do a whole lot to add to Jerusha’s HIV presentation, she basically talked to the kids about chastity and different forms of contraceptives, and debunked some common myths about HIV. They have some terrible myths over there, stuff like “if you rape a virgin child it will cure you of HIV”, that was actually printed in some of the literature that she had. I have no idea how a myth like that could get started. After she talked to the kids for awhile, she and Cortney (along with the help of a volunteer from the audience) demonstrated how to put a condom on… Using a banana. The fact that this was all happening on the altar in a Catholic church was a little strange to me at first, but I guess its better that they learn.

After the presentation, we were outside and the kids were coming up to us and asking for our email addresses and phone numbers - most of them were asking the girls though, only a few asked me for mine. I actually have received a few emails, and thankfully zero phone calls.

Later that day we went for dinner and drinks in Ho. While we were sitting there, Nana (one of the members of DAVS) told us that giving the “thumbs-up” (followed by putting your thumb down) meant “I will shit inside your mouth”. I couldn’t believe this, as I had given the thumbs-up so many times since my arrival. It’s not something I do often (if at all) at home, but when you come to a new country you find yourself resorting to hand symbols/gestures when there is any type of language barrier… Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, this blew my mind, but other people would later verify that it did indeed mean specifically that. So from that day on I made a conscious effort to avoid hand gestures for the remainder of my trip.

While we were in the restaurant, there were tons of people outside marching down the street. They were all clapping and singing, and some had instruments, it was some sort of procession. Nana explained to us that this was part of a funeral. Funerals in Ghana can last up to a week (they’re usually at least 5 days long if I remember correctly) and what we were witnessing was the part of the process where they are “searching” for the deceased person. It’s basically a procession to the mortuary, where they will “find” the body, and its part of the acceptance process that the individual is, in fact, deceased. He also told us that this was likely the 3rd or 4th day of the funeral.

The following day (Saturday, the 17th of November) was their “Thanksgiving”. It has nothing to do with the Thanksgiving that we celebrate in America though. It’s celebrated as a result of some long legal battle that the village father was involved in, he explained the story to us but I didn’t write it down so I don’t really remember all the details. Anyway, the case was dismissed on November 17th, so they celebrate that day every year. So we had to sit through a 3 hour long church service, which I wasn’t too crazy about, but I guess it was interesting. Afterwards, everyone in the village got a soda (which was such a treat for the kids) and some rice. That (along with some singing) was basically the extent of the festivities, but they were all pretty excited about it.

Later that day, I decided to do some laundry. Obviously there are no washing machines there, you wash the clothes yourself using your hands and some buckets. As soon as the children noticed, they took over. I tried to do it myself but they wouldn’t let me. I think it rained that afternoon so I ended up drying my clothes on some string hanging in my room. Cortney and I drank some Ghanaian whiskey that night before bed.

The following day (Sunday, Nov 18th) we (Cortney, Margie, Jerusha, Jerusha’s friend Lizzy, Appiah, and myself) traveled to Wli Falls. Since we invited Appiah to come along, we had to follow the tradition (which he didn’t tell us about until after we had invited him) where we pay for everything for the guest. Since there were 5 of us chipping in, it wasn’t a big deal, but was still a bit annoying. We took a tro-tro into Hohoe and bought some food to take to the falls – Bananas, bread, crackers, and water. I also found a lady who was selling fresh pineapple, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I’m not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but all fruit over there tastes absolutely amazing.

We argued with taxi drivers until we arrived at a reasonable price. As soon as we got into the taxi my stomach started acting up. This was the first of many times that this would happen, but it got pretty bad, to the point where I didn’t even want to move… You could call it “doo-doo pains”, but we’re all mature here, so we won’t. The taxi broke down on the way to the falls, so we actually sat on the side of the road for 45 minutes or so while the driver repaired whatever was wrong with the engine – I think it was a fan or something. After he got the car running again, he was driving like a madman (most drivers over there are pretty ridiculous, and don’t obey speed limits at all). We passed a tro-tro with a bunch of people standing outside of it. One guy had all his belongings sitting on the ground next to him, and the taxi got so close to him that it ran over whatever he had sitting on the ground. I couldn’t believe our driver did this, and he didn’t so much as even tap on the breaks after he totally destroyed all of this guy’s stuff. There is no way that he was oblivious to what happened, there was a really loud crunching noise as we passed the dude and the entire car shook. It was funny, but I felt bad for the dude too, I sort of think the driver did it on purpose.

When we got to the falls, we paid 8 Ghana cedi to get in. It would have been cheaper if we just wanted to see the lower falls (as it only takes like 15 minutes to walk to them, and there is no uphill hiking required) but we had been told that the upper falls were much more spectacular, and were well worth the hike. We were assigned a guide, and began our journey.

After about 15 minutes of walking on flat ground (and crossing bridges) we took a right turn (instead of going straight, which led to the lower falls) and started to climb uphill. The hike was much steeper than I expected. I had originally planned on wearing flip flops, and had I done that, there is absolutely no way I would have made it to the top. We took several breaks on the way up. At certain points during the hike (as we got closer to the upper falls) you could see the waterfall through the trees, which made it more exciting and provided some motivation. I don’t think I’m in amazing shape or anything, but I run often enough that I’m confident in my “hiking abilities”, or whatever you want to say. But even for me, this hike was pretty damn tiring, so for those in the group that don’t get any sort of exercise, I can imagine it was pretty rigorous.

The mountain that the falls are located on is Agumatsa, and at the very top of the mountain, there is apparently a village with around 400 people living in it. I was also told that when we were at Wli falls, we were technically in Togo, the country to the east of Ghana. We ended up traveling to Togo again later on in our trip.

When we finally arrived at the upper falls, it was more magnificent then I imagined it would be. “Powerful” is probably the best single term to describe it: It’s so enormous and loud, and the wind and water flying out of it are just… Like I said, powerful. When you get within 10-15 ft of the actual waterfall, it feels like you are in a hurricane or something, it’s just an amazing feeling, and it really puts you in your place, and kind of makes you feel insignificant (but not in a bad way). After swimming, wading, and climbing some ridiculously slippery rocks for a while (in surprisingly cold water), we had some lunch there.

After we hung out for a little while, we decided to hike back down the mountain to check out the lower falls. The hike back down wasn’t as bad as the hike up, but it definitely wasn’t easy, either. I found that it’s harder to have good footing when going downhill, and at many points, if you lose your footing, you honestly would have fallen off of the side and died, so that was a little scary.

When we finally got to the bottom, we spent about 20 minutes at the lower falls. They were pretty cool, but paled in comparison to the upper falls. The lower falls weren’t as big, and there were tons of annoying bugs that swarm around your head – These bugs weren’t annoying us when we were at the upper falls. On the walls of the lower falls are thousands of bats – More than I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s kind of gross to think that all of those bats crap into the water that you’re swimming in, though. One cool thing about the lower falls was the rainbow. Like I said, we stuck around for about 20 minutes before we left. Checked out a few of the gift shops at the visitors center, and then we headed back to the village.

Once again, that’s all I have time for right now. I don’t know how many parts this Ghana experience will be separated into, but I’m using my “journal” from the trip as a reference guide, and it looks like I’m about 25% of the way through it, so who knows?

On a separate note, if you like Atmosphere, he has a free internet-only album that just came out, I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but you can grab it here.

I hope you’re all enjoying the holidays, and I’ll be posting again soon… I’m driving to Albany on the 29th to visit a friend, and from there heading to Montreal on the 30th (for New Years), so I don’t know if I will get around to making a New Year’s post or not, but I’ll try. From what I can remember, this site started in 1998, so its 10th burfday is approaching. GET EXCITED! No, you probably shouldn’t. Anyway, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next chapter, or something like that.

Wow. So it looks like OiNK (one of the biggest private torrent sites) has been shut down (press release here). That really sucks - I checked this site almost every single day for new music… It was pretty much my main source for quality rips of new albums and older/hard to find stuff. It does kind of baffle me how these sites can be shut down, since they aren’t actually hosting any illegal content (and therefore aren’t infringing on any copyrights) but maybe I just don’t know enough about copyright law to understand. So that sucks, but who knows, maybe someone will bring the site back? By the way, this is a terrible news article. They got OiNK’s URL wrong, and no one “paid” to download music - You had the option of making a small donation to help keep the site running, but no one forced you to, it was entirely possible to use the site without spending a dime. This article is a little better, but it still doesn’t get all the facts right. People don’t have to “prove that they have music to offer” in order to join the site, they just need to be invited by someone else.

Update: There’s a video regarding the site creator’s arrest here. By the way they raided his house you’d think he was a drug lord or something.

Anyway… Here is a higher quality (”scene”) rip of the new Serj Tankian album. Oh yeah, and make sure you download the new Britney Spears album… Shit is fire. I’ll make a bigger update soon, I just got home and I’m gonna try and get a few hours of sleep in before it gets bright out… Ugh.