June 2005 Archives

So I'm looking to see if anyone has any information about the following two songs:

1. "Frontier Psychiatry" by "The Avalanches". There are a ton of samples in the song and I'll be damned if I can figure out where ANY of them come from. I can't find much online about them either, and if anyone knows, please let me know. It's driving me bonkers.
2. Ditto for "Insight" by Kramer on the Virus 100 - Alternative Tentacles album. The song is a cover of the Dead Kennedys song "Insight". But what's driving me nuts is trying to figure out what the samples in the background are. It's some type of interview of two guys, one who's got a very strange voice and one who does not, and they're talking about movies and Calypso music and some child asks the one with the goofy voice what his favorite song is in the whole world. It's kind of unsettling the way the music and the samples interplay. I'm dying to know the source.

Anyway who knows anything about either song, thanks.

I went a day without listening to "My Chemical Romance" yesterday and felt itchy. The first thing I had to do was listen to it this morning when I was on the way to the train.

I'm obsessed.

I fired up the AOL Triton Beta again thinking maybe I'd been too hard on it previously.

Nope. Still blows. I can't imagine they're actively using that for anything inside AOL. I can't fathom that that thing moved out of Alpha into Beta in the condition it's in.

I'm trying to convince my friends to ditch AIM and move to MSN before that thing moves live.

So a fellow blogger, Aaron, at FreeWillBlog.com pointed out to me that Fred Phelps, the shithead douchebag that protests all things gay, and held a rally celebrating the death of Matthew Shepard while picketing his funeral with offensive signage is a close friend of Al Gore!

Wow. Here are some more details for you (more here) if you're interested.

And still, most gay people will say the democratic party is their party. What insanity. Good catch Aaron.

My wife and I went with the kids to IHOP Saturday morning for breakfast. The food and service were horrible, but as a highlight we found out that my son likes coffee. He kept pointing at my cup and saying "Dada, want some please"..."Dada, want some please". Finally I relented and said "You're not going to like it" and let him have some on a spoon. After making a face, he jumped up and down and whispered in my ear "More dada. Want more please".

And another generation of addict is born.

The US House voted 238-187 in favor of limiting the FBI's ability to search through book store records and library records for potential "markers of terrorism". (Link)

Advocates of the Patriot Act say that this does not have a chilling effect, but I can say that for me personally, I think long and hard about whether or not I should buy books, and whether I should buy those books online with my debit card or go to a book store and buy with cash.

As an autodidact, I like to read to learn new things. One thing I've been interested in reading is the Koran. I hear so much about Islam these days that I'd like to read the Koran and be able to speak intelligently about the issue, and debunk those who are speaking crap. (For the record, I think that both those who say that Islam is a religion of peace and those who classify it as purely a war-like religion are both full of crap. If you read the Bible, you could draw the conclusion that God is both a legalistic God, focusing only on you following his rules, and a loving God that cares for all of his people)

But I don't buy the Koran, or several other books because I don't want to draw the attention of the FBI or whomever would mistake me with a terrorist based solely on what I read.

I can only imagine that if it has a chilling effect on me, it must have one on other people as well.

Rep. Steny Howard of Maryland has submitted a bill which would repeal the 22nd Amendment, which is the Constitutional Amendment which limits a president to 2 terms.

Seriously? FOR REAL?

Rep. Howard's other bills include authorizing a soapbox derby in Washington DC. What a guy.

I picked up "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge" by My Chemical Romance this week.

They are my new musical obsession. There's a lot of things that I like about the album. It has shades of the Misfits, Weezer, Iron Maiden, Pulp, the Smiths, and a bunch of punk bands. But it's greater than the sum of it's parts.

It's very frenetic, it's dark, angry, poppy...can something be both bright and dark at the same time? This does straddle that line. It's 5 guys from New Jersey, comic book geeks (they probably know my friend Brian). They're like the band that stepped out of the background of Mallrats. Okay, some of you might view that as damning, but I think that's a good thing.

Anyway, that's the music that currently is battling it out for supremacy with Devotchka for my undivided musical attention.

So I've been away from the website for a while. There's been a bunch of stuff going on:

1. I have been busy with work lately. There's been many things that needed to get done, and many more coming up. Work's been neither good nor bad, it's just been. There are times when work augments my quality of life and times where work detracts from my quality of life. Right now, I'm floating between those two poles.
2. There's been a lot of things to do with the Bucks County Libertarian Party. Last week, 7 people showed up at the meeting! That's huge. It was only the 3rd meeting, so to have that many people there was very gratifying. I'm still learning how to prioritize and lead people, which are not things I'm good at. This experiment at growing the party is turning out to be an experiment in growing me as well.
3. Fun neighbors! We have fun neighbors. Two sets! We've been spending time out on our front porch drinking beers and letting our kids play together. On average there's 7 kids in the little area in front of our houses playing, and we the adults taking turns policing the whole lot and laughing a bunch. It's been wonderful to be able to be social again.
4. Kids. The kids are keeping us both very busy. They're fabulous and by fabulous I mean ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. They're both active and talkative and becoming very complex people. I've posted some new pictures of them for your viewing pleasure. We've been doing things with them: going to the pool, going to Hersheypark, we're planning a trip to the beach soon, and so on.

I promise to post more in the coming days.

HOLY SHIT! I love Pink Floyd. How awesome is this. I wish that I could see this live.

I bet you've been curious like me, almost burning up with curiousity...and I'm here for you. I'm available to answer your question, to sate that desire for deeper knowledge:

Oreos dipped in Nutella? VERY TASTY.

Almost too tasty.