Well, I didn't go to DragonCon but I was definitely there to at least see it from the outside on Saturday night. The huge line of Trekkies, weeaboos,  Narutards, stiletto-wearing butterfaces and other miscellaneous dregs of basement-dwelling youth stretched around two whole sides of the hotel. I don't think it's a very wise idea for young ladies to wear pirate skirts that reveal buttcheeks and thongs in downtown Atlanta at night. You might gon git raped.

Anyway, whatever love I had for anime must have died, because all I saw of the DragonCon crowd was a bunch of overweight Aspie losers who couldn't get a date off the calendar. I'd apologize for my frankness but I'd be lying. These people suck shit through a straw.

Maybe it was my environment that affected my mood so negatively; I hate Atlanta with a passion and wouldn't step foot into it unless I had a damned good reason. And I did: a free Collective Soul and Drivin n' Cryin concert. (I'd post better pictures but they reveal my mild-mannered alias who is a total douchebag.) As coincidence would have it, I'm a friend of the family to Collective Soul drummer Cheney Brannon, which means I got to meet the band backstage (and Drivin n' Cryin's Kevn Kinney, also) and ride back to the hotel with Collective Soul in their tourbus. Awesome guys, all of them. I'm really fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet them.

On another note, I'm thinking of resurrecting the Bent Lounge. I obtained version 3.03 of the Invision Power Board program, and I'm kind of itching to use it. Thoughts, anyone?

There's a time and a place for everything. But the patrons and owners of local pizza restaurants have never heard that expression.

If any of you didn't spend the early 90s as a drooling toddler, you'll probably remember Boys II Men's I'll Make Love to You, which hit #1 on the charts and was played nonstop for years on every soft pop radio station alongside The Real McCoys and Ace of Base. You can't have lived through 1994 and not heard that gag-inducing piece of shit. It's a song that a delusional woman would make her suffering boyfriend play over and over on every date if he ever expected to get any. And it's the last song you wanna hear on the ultra-loud jukebox at Pizza Hut when you're having dinner with your parents. I was so fucking embarrassed that I actually faked a coughing fit during the worst parts of the song. If I could go back in time to that moment, I'd stand up at the table and scream, "WHO THE FUCK PUT THIS SONG IN!? I DON'T WANNA HEAR ABOUT PEOPLE HAVING SEX WHILE I'M EATING!" Bender 1, Pizza Hut 0.

And then there was the incident at Mazzio's (damn we ate a lot of pizza back then), where the manager thought it would be a swell idea to put in a copy of the newly-released Dances With Wolves and play it on the big screen TV in the corner of the restaurant. Well, our dinnertime just happened to coincide with the part where Kevin Costner takes down a buffalo and eats its hot, raw, bloody heart. Manager Moron, who later was imprisoned for putting toilet cams in the ladies bathroom, had to come out and fast forward through that part or else spend the rest of the night cleaning puke off of the floor. I think I did my very first headtable then. I was only 11 then, but already I had a clear grasp of the sheer fucking gut-wrenching stupidity that was the majority of mankind. Luckily we left the restaurant before the sex scene came up. I wonder how the manager dealt with that one.

Any tales of woe and facepalm from your past?

Oh God finally, FINALLY.

It has taken me THIRTEEN loooong agonizing years. THIRTEEN YEARS.

I knew there was a reason I wasn't going to bed tonight. I KNEW IT.

Thirteen years old. 1996. Middle school. Six o'clock weekday mornings. I'd record Mega Man. A song played during the credits . . . couldn't understand the lyrics, loved the song, COULD NOT FIND OUT THE NAME OR ARTIST. This song was like fucking crank. If it were a person I would have killed and eaten them. I was so sick from wanting to hear it I even learned to play it on my guitar. And burnt holes in the VHS watching the credits over and over again. It made me fucking MENTAL.

Even when the internet became popular I still couldn't find that fucking song. And I looked all over the shittin place. There was a great goddamn hole in my life, all because of 30 seconds of music played during the ending credits of a kid's cartoon show.

And now, thirteen years later, that song has a name.

Sinnerman by Extra Fancy.

I can now die in peace.

This past Tuesday I attended a high school band concert at my alma mater. One of the pieces played by the concert band really caught my ear, Apollo: Myth and Legend by Rob Romeyn, published in 2008. At first listen during the warm-up, I thought it was a piece from Pirates of the Caribbean. It kept nagging me after I went home, and I finally did some research. It turns out I was right.

Apollo: Myth and Legend composed by Rob Romeyn
He's a Pirate composed by Klaus Badelt
Side by side comparison (2 MB mp3, 1:21, 224kbps VBR, 44hz)

It goes from Apollo to Pirate with a brief silence between; the latter is extremely overcompressed, like most modern music, so it will seem louder. Apollo, to its credit, has more variation, creativity with the percussion, and less repetition in the rhythm sections. I think both pieces generate excitement, however "influenced" Romeyn was by the swashbuckery that was PotC.

Too bad there isn't a way to link my LJ via RSS to my Twitter updates...at least none that I know of. Right now I'm updating Twitter more often than my journal. It's always easier to write a one-liner, click "post" and be done with it. Miraculously, some of my lines are actually almost funny.

The time changes tonight? I'd totally forgotten. Just like I'd forgotten about my spring break, which is this week. Where is my brain these days?...oh wait. I know exactly where it is: lost in the armpit of Nowhere with Wes Bentley and Judas Priest.

Oh right. I saw this picture of Elvis on a birthday card recently and I've been staring at it ever since. Is it not monumental? That's a rhetorical question, so you're not obligated.



P.S. Hey, I may not be an Elvis fan, but I hate your mustache.

Oh ho ho. I'm messing around with Adobe Premiere and I think I've fallen in love. Look out. Music videos are in the near future. Don't tell my writing and art muses that I'm having an affair. I just got out of the doghouse last month.

Ghost Rider, and every aspect of its fandom, was dedicated to Judas Priest. Of that I am dead certain.

Some of you...okay, maybe none of you...know that I've gotten into the GR fandom after recently watching the 2007 movie with Nicolas Cage and thinking, this movie needs to be slashed and adored. Granted, the film heaved on ice, and so does a lot of the fanfiction for it, but I've already started a fic and so far I've been happy and busy with my work. I just came from a heinous dry spell, so anything that sparks my interest is nothing to be scoffed at. Really, I'm grateful to be doing something again, even if it doesn't generate much interest for others.

Dave Gahan Check this guy out. He's got some good tunes. This one is particularly my favorite. Brings back those Marilyn Manson-esque dark raunchy 6/8 rhythms from the late 90s.

Tool's Schism. Those lyrics are so goddamn epic, but especially this part:

Cold silence has
A tendency to
Atrophy any
Sense of compassion...

Ah. AHH. Toolgasm.