just gimme some truth

Austin and I finally got internet at our new house this past week. We are getting settled into the new place slowly but surely. It's crazy how much furniture we still need to make the place look like a normal house. I've been working a lot lately, which is what I'll blame my laziness towards getting completely unpacked on. But I'm making progress.

i'm a lot like you are

Pitchfork Media reports that Neil Young will be launching a fall tour in support of his new album Chrome Dreams II. Ohio got the short end of the stick, but he'll be a mere 4 and 1/2 hours away when he hits Detroit on November 10th (a Saturday) and Chicago on November 12 & 13 (Monday and Tuesday). Chicago tickets go on sale this Saturday. No announcement for Detroit yet.

...It looks like the starting price for tickets is $57. That probably kills that idea. :(

edit: Looks like Bob Dylan will be at the Taft Theater on October 15. Tickets also start at $57 for that.

big money on the line

UFC 75 turned into a disgrace last night. Never has the sport's blatant favoritism towards certain fighters been more obvious than the sham of a match that the Bisping vs. Hamill bout turned into last night. Held in London, one of the main event's featured the UFC's UK pretty-boy Michael Bisping getting dismantled by Cincinnatian Matt Hamill for three rounds in front of Bisping's home crowd, only to have two out of the three judges give the fight to Bisping at the end. One judge was absolutely correct in giving all three rounds to Hamill, and somehow the other two judges (the incredibly incompetent Cecil Peoples and Jeff Mullen) scored the match 29-28 for Bisping. This all comes after mounting criticism from fans over preferential treatment from referees for UFC's high-profile fighters (including some questionable officiating in Bisping's favor during his previous fight against Elvis Sinosec) and just plain bad decisions from judges (as seen in UFC 74, when judge Adalaide Byrd scored the one-sided fight in favor of the loser, Marcus Aurelio). The judges were so blatantly wrong that there were a noticeable number of boos from the British fans during Bisping's post-fight interview.

The whole thing was made worse by Bisping continuing his cocky Brit act in the post-fight interviews. His comment after getting dominated for three rounds on his feet was that Hamill should go "back to wrestling". The man has instantly jumped to the top of my list of fighters I want to see get destroyed. Hamill, meanwhile, was nothing but gracious in defeat. I cannot wait for Bisping to get pitted against some real competition like Chuck Liddell or even the up-an-coming Houston Alexander and see him get completely destroyed, both to spite the UFC and to put him back in his place. Or better yet, give us Bisping-Hamill II, but put it in Cincinnati this time.

I don't know whether to attribute last night's travesty to the incompetence of the judges, or if something more sinister is at work, with the heads of Zuffa--the owners of UFC--doing everything they can to make sure their hyped-up, big name moneymaker fighters don't suffer any setbacks in their rise to the top. It's obvious already that they build up guys like Bisping and Roger Huerta by spoon-feeding them easy opponents; considering questionable actions from referees and judges in the past, culminating in that debacle last night. For the first time, I find myself questioning the integrity of the UFC. I know one thing: I won't be buying any Pay-Per-View events for awhile, and I'll be contacting the UFC to let them know what I thought of that garbage last night. I'm sure it won't do any good... although since money seems to be the only thing that matters to the UFC now, and with all the outraged fans, who knows...

my weariness amazes me

"Surrender Should NOT be an Option" by Ron Paul

Surrender Should Not Be an Option

Faced with dwindling support of the Iraq War, the warhawks are redoubling their efforts. They imply we are in Iraq attacking those who attacked us, and yet this is not the case. As we know, Saddam Hussein, though not a particularly savory character, had nothing to do with 9/11. The neo-cons claim surrender should not be an option. In the same breath they claim we were attacked because of our freedoms. Why then, are they so anxious to surrender our freedoms with legislation like the Patriot Act, a repeal of our 4th amendment rights, executive orders, and presidential signing statements? With politicians like these, who needs terrorists? Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us? This seems the epitome of cowardice coming from those who claim a monopoly on patriotic courage.

In any case, we have achieved the goals specified in the initial authorization. Saddam Hussein has been removed. An elected government is now in place in Iraq that meets with US approval. The only weapon of mass destruction in Iraq is our military presence. Why are we still over there? Conventional wisdom would dictate that when the "mission is accomplished", the victor goes home, and that is not considered a retreat.

They claim progress is being made and we are fighting a winnable war, but this is not a view connected with reality. We can't be sure when we kill someone over there if they were truly an insurgent or an innocent Iraqi civilian. There are as many as 650,000 deaths since the war began. The anger we incite by killing innocents creates more new insurgents than our bullets can keep up with. There are no measurable goals to be achieved at this point.

The best congressional leadership can come up with is the concept of strategic redeployment, or moving our troops around, possibly into Saudi Arabia or even, alarmingly enough, into Iran. Rather than ending this war, we could be starting another one.

The American people voted for a humble foreign policy in 2000. They voted for an end to the war in 2006. Instead of recognizing the wisdom and desire of the voters, they are chided as cowards, unwilling to defend themselves. Americans are fiercely willing to defend themselves. However, we have no stomach for indiscriminate bombing in foreign lands when our actual attackers either killed themselves on 9/11 or are still at large somewhere in a country that is neither Iraq nor Iran. Defense of our homeland is one thing. Offensive tactics overseas are quite another. Worse yet, when our newly minted enemies find their way over here, where will our troops be to defend us?

The American people have NOT gotten the government they deserve. They asked for a stronger America and peace through nonintervention, yet we have a government of deceit, inaction and one that puts us in grave danger on the international front. The American People deserve much better than this. They deserve foreign and domestic policy that doesn't require they surrender their liberties.

the ones that can help themselves

A lot has been happening lately. Complications arose that have prevented Austin from closing on the house yet, so I'm currently staying at my parents house with nearly all of my things relatively inaccessible while they're stored in Austin's parents' garage. I have the next couple days off of work, so hopefully I can do some hunting for a better job.

As you can see, I've made another change to the layout of my blog. I wasn't satisfied with the new theme, but I'm not sure how I feel about this one either. Feel free to comment.

there's a party in my tummy

in labyrinths of coral caves

Jess, Mom, and I returned Saturday from our trip to Conneaut. We all had a good time getting together with my grandparents, and aunt, uncle and cousins, who Jess and I hadn't seen in two years. This was Jess' first trip to Conneaut and she really seemed to like to place. I know we both enjoyed just relaxing and not doing much for a few days. I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of the beach and our time with my little cousins, which I'll put up on Flickr sometime soon.

Hopefully Austin and I will be out of The Asylum and into his new house Saturday (are you happy, Austin, I called it your house?). I don't enjoy packing but I really need to get busy doing it.

The Aqua Teen movie was pretty bad. There were a handful of amusing parts, but too few, which says a lot for a movie under an hour and a half in length. 2 out of 5 Davies. Superbad was very crude (actually, crude may be putting it mildly), but fairly funny film. Not worth seeing in theaters, though. 3 out of 5 Davies.

some who say i've lost my mind

Jess, Mom, and I are off for the wonderful Conneaut, Ohio today. We'll be there most of the week to spend time with my grandparents and to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Should be fun. I'm looking forward to spending time with everyone and not working for a week. We should return on Saturday.

i was cautioned to surrender

Here are a few delayed thoughts on some recent movies.
The Simpsons Movie was a funny and mostly satisfying experience. It certainly wasn't on par with some of the classic seasons of the TV show, but considering the current hit or miss writing of the past few seasons, I was happy with the outcome. 4 out of 5 Davies.

All of Pixar's movies have been entertaining so far, and Ratatouille was no exception. Visually the animation looks amazing at times. It wasn't on the same level as The Incredibles or Toy Story, but it was a cute little movie. 4 out of 5 Davies.

Sunshine was a fairly entertaining sci-fi film. The movie looked beautiful with some fantastic visuals and the acting was done well. The story was very tense and moody throughout, and did a fine job keeping me in anticipation. Although the plot fell a little flat the end, overall it was an enjoyable movie. 3 out of 5 Davies.

28 Weeks Later started out as a promising sequel to 28 Days Later but went downhill fast. It turned out to be one of those movies where every character makes the dumbest, most irrational choices possible. The plot ranged from frustrating to downright ridiculous at times; it was the type of film that I could find something to nit-pick about in every scene. Very disappointing. 1 & 1/2 out of 5 Davies.
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I'll repost the information for the two fantasy football Pick'em leagues that I posted earlier, along with the information for the new Survival fantasy league:

Survival football: league id - 1782 password - cincinnati

College Football Pick'em: league id - 10305 password - buckeye

Pro Football Pick'em: league id - 16554 password - bengals

don't be denied

The FBI raided the home of the former head of the Department of Justice, in an attempt to uncover leads regarding the leak over the warrant-less--and most likely illegal and unconstitutional--wiretapping ordered by President Bush. Guess they're trying to take care of some loose ends so that they can continue to infringe upon our civil liberties.

untie me for now

It's that time of the year again: time for fantasy football leagues to begin. I've gone ahead and created Pick'em leagues for college and pro football. I'll create an NFL survival league when Yahoo opens it up. I wasn't going to create a salary cap league, but if there is enough interest in one, I'll do it.

College Football Pick'em: league id - 10305 password - buckeye

Pro Football Pick'em: league id - 16554 password - bengals

Sign up!

anyone but you

I was going to post about NFL Comissioner Roger Goodell and his lackluster enforcement of the new NFL behavior policy last week but didn't end up getting around to doing so. It seems like that may have been a good thing, as I now have even more reason for ranting about it.

I was going to complain about Goodell's inconsistent enforcement of the policy, where players like Chris Henry and Pacman Jones get suspended for having multiple problems (as they should be), but higher profile players like Michael Vick and Joey Porter get preferential treatment. By preferential treatment, I mean that while Goodell was more than happy to suspend Pacman Jones for multiple run-ins with the law--even though Jones had never actually been charged with anything--but when a big moneymaker like Vick gets in trouble, Goodell is content to let things play out in the legal system first. Saying that Vick isn't a repeat offender like Jones is just downright not true; Vick has had more than his share of run-ins with legal authorities and the NFL itself for poor behavior in the past. The only difference is that Vick brings in a lot more money.

Then you have Joey Porter, who assaulted and robbed a fellow NFL player at a casino and merely gets fined for it and is not suspended a single game. Contrast that with today's news that Odell Thurman's request to be reinstated by Goodell after reportedly complying with all the requirements of the league's substance abuse policy was denied by Goodell with no explanation! Thurman is automatically suspended for another entire season. Apparently when you're the NFL Commissioner, you can just wake up in the morning and make decisions that affect the rest of someone's career on a whim. The only possible reason Bengals.com could come up with at this time was an alleged assault in the spring involving Thurman, but since no police were called and no charges were filed, Goodell would simply be looking for any excuse at all to punish Thurman if that was his reason. There may be a good reason for denying Thurman's request, but not releasing that reason at the same time the denial was announced is simply lazy and irresponsible, and Goodell deserves all the criticism he gets because of it, even if he announces a legitimate reason at a later date.

The NFL's morale of the story: someone suffering from substance abuse problems deserves to be repeatedly punished for it for the rest of his life (or at least suspended two entire seasons), while a thug who--along with six or seven of his cronies--decides to mug a fellow NFL employee outside of a casino doesn't get suspended for a single game.

through the graves the wind is blowing

The New York Times featured a decent front page article on Ron Paul, which is probably as good a look at the candidate as you're likely to find from a major news outlet, since most of them seem hellbent on pretending the man doesn't exist (although maybe a slightly more flattering, less biased headline would have been "The Pro-Peace, Pro-Life, Pro-Freedom-, Pro-Health Candidacy..."). I may not agree with every position he takes, but I agree with a lot of them, and more importantly, I admire the way he sticks to his guns and doesn't toe the party line (something I used to be able to say about John McCain). And while I realize the chances of him being nominated are next to none, I'm not sure how the Times can get away with publishing lines like "Ron Paul will not be the next president of the United States." and call it unbiased journalism. Thanks for trying to predict the future, Times. Next time leave the fortune-telling to carnival workers and at least pretend to have some journalistic credibility. That said, it's still a pretty good article.

I'm realistic enough to know that it will take an incredible turn of events for Paul to receive the Republican nomination, which I why I firmly believe the presidential primaries are going to be far more important to vote in than the actual presidential election.

it's a song i sing

Surprisingly, Transformers ended up not being half bad. I never followed the series as a kid and honestly I hardly know a thing about it, so I whether or not the film dogmatically adhered to canon was not an issue to me like it was for some (I love you, Justin). That said, the movie was nothing more than a brainless, high-budget popcorn flick. The fact that the movie really had potential is the sad thing; in the hands of a real director--not Michael-I-use-lots-of-explosions-because-I-can't-direct-a-movie-with-real-plot-development-Bay--m it could have been amazing. Despite wanting to dislike Shia Labeouf for appearing on a Disney Channel show, he was really the only character that truly felt three-dimensional. The effects were impressive, but considering how great technology is these days, good character development and story is rarer than jaw-dropping effects.

3 out of 5 Davies


I watched Velvet Goldmine the other night-- a weird, trippy glam-rock fairy tale loosely based on David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Wasn't anything spectacular, but it did make me overcome my skepticism that Ewan McGregor would not make a good Kurt Cobain if (or more likely, when) they make a biopic about him. McGregor, who played the Iggy-based character, ended up looking just like Cobain for most of the film, making him and Brad Pitt the only two actors I'd like to see play the part.

as she counted the spiders

The Smashing Pumpkins will be in Columbus on October 11 for anyone interested. No announcement when tickets go on sale yet.
edit: Tickets went on sale Saturday!


No one wants to see Queens of the Stone Age in Indianapolis on August 4, do they?

torn like an old dollar bill

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned. [link]

Well, it looks like the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of lives lost and the billions of dollars spent, not to mention two countries invaded, for the "war on terror" has done nothing more than set al-Qaeda back six years. I'd hate to see what we'd have to do to achieve and real long-term results.

And my faith in the current administration's ability to handle anything plummets even further...

get behind me

It's official: UFC 77, featuring the rematch of Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin, will be held on October 20 at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio. No announcement on when tickets go on sale.

Austin and I walked down to watch the fire on West McMicken this evening. There was a ton of smoke and the whole building was mostly destroyed.

the hardest button to button

No, I'm not dead. It's been two weeks since I've updated (and even then just with a new layout), but I've just been busy with work. That, and I doesn't feel like I have too much to write about.

I watched Letters From Iwo Jima the other day. It was a really good--but very somber--film. Not the movie to watch if you're looking for something to brighten your day. Next on my list are Flags of Our Fathers, The Bourne Supremacy, Blade Runner (never seen the whole thing), and Dr. Strangelove. Pixar's new movie, Ratatouille, has received great reviews, so I'd like to see that soon too. Despite the good things I've heard about Transformers from most people, I'm still indifferent about seeing it.

The new Smashing Pumpkins album did not disappoint. Zeitgeist can't measure up to most of their older albums, but most of the songs are surprisingly good. It's a very aggressive album; at times it is reminiscent of Machina and the heavier parts of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie. Worth picking up if you're a fan.

it's lonely at the top

As you can see, I've changed the template for my blog. I'm going to give it a few days to see how I like it. Let me know what you think.

The bad news is that all old comments have been lost. From now on I will be using Blogger's integrated comments.

when you can't decide what's on your mind

Rob and I returned home from North Carolina yesterday evening, exhausted but still emotionally pumped from the Smashing Pumpkins show the night before at The Orange Peel in Asheville. After a fairly dull opening band (I can't help but get annoyed by openers; I just see them as a obstacle keeping me from seeing the main act) the Pumpkins finally took the stage at ten o'clock and proceeded to blow us all away.

This is the kind of show where you can't help but be a little disappointed by the set list, because no matter how awesome the show is, there's no way the band can possibly play all the songs you want to hear. That said, there wasn't a bad song out of the entire, massive twenty-seven song show. They played most of the classics like "Today," "Zero," an up-tempo version of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," acoustic versions of "1979" and "Rocket," and a heavier "Tonight, Tonight". There were some reworked older songs like extended versions of a couple Machina tracks, some rare songs like an acoustic "Daydream" from Gish, "Lucky 13" and "Home" off of Machina II, "Translucent" (which I believe was played live for the first time ever), and what may have been my favorite song from the whole show, "Starla" from Pisces Iscariot. They also threw in a good number of songs from the upcoming Zeitgeist album which were all impressive, and further increasing my hope that the new album will be quality (although I'd really like to know who I should be angry at for being a bunch of greedy jerks--the band or their record label--for releasing the album in a regular version, special edition, and with three different exclusive tracks available at Best Buy, Target, and iTunes [link]). During the solo acoustic set, Billy also introduced an untitled song that he had just written the night before. It took him a couple tries to get it going, but I think everyone enjoyed being the first ones to ever hear it.

As for the band themselves, I have to believe that the pre-reunion Pumpkins would have had their work cut out for them to top this performance. Some naysayers may claim this isn't a true reunion since James Iha and D'Arcy Wretsky are missing, but I think many people will agree that the Pumpkins have always been about Billy Corgan. As long as he has Jimmy Chamberlin to back him up on drums, I really don't think it matters who else is playing. I should give Iha some credit since he is responsible for co-writing a few classic Pumpkins songs like "Mayonnaise" (of course, he's also responsible for crap like "Take Me Down") and he's a decent guitarist, but he clearly is not an essential part of the band when it comes to live shows. Billy Corgan's vocals were spot on, he played spectacular lead guitar, Jimmy confirmed my belief that he is the best drummer of the past twenty years... after Dave Grohl, and the rest of the band (guitarist Jeff Schroeder, bassist Ginger and sometimes-present touring keyboardist Lisa Harrington) filled their roles just fine. Obviously the stars of the show were Billy and Jimmy--in that order-- with Billy both playing his heart out and hamming it up with the audience in between songs and Jimmy taking some short solos throughout the show to impress the crowd.

By the time everything was said and done, the band had played an epic concert nearly three hours in length. I think it is safe to say that no one was left wanting more after this show. Had the band played longer, we would have stayed and loved every minute of it, but after an amazing two hours and forty-five minutes, we were exhausted and happy. One of the coolest things about the show is that the band openly encouraged people to bring in cameras, camcorders, and audio recorders (which Rob and I did not take advantage of). I've found some cool pictures so far and I hope some good recordings surface online soon. Thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us use their Marriott reward points to get a hotel room. Rob and I decided that trying to come home after the show would have been both impossible and border-line suicidal on the mountain roads.

(full band set one)
United States
Doomsday Clock
Bleeding the Orchid
Today
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Glass and the Ghost Children
Home
Hummer
Lucky 13
Come On Let's Go
Blue Skies Bring Tears
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(mostly solo acoustic set)
For God and Country
Daydream
Rocket
1979
unnamed new song
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(full band set two)
Translucent
Starla
Tonight, Tonight
Tarantula
Starz
Zero
Disarm
Gossamer
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(encore 1)
Shame
Silverf***
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(encore 2)
With Every Light