Wow...Not Even On The Television News Yet

Seriously. Channel 31 is more concerned that it's fucking snowing.

I can completely understand how someone can feel such a way. I've made it known that the Colorado Department of Revenue and Qwest aren't two of my favorite things. The IRS only sort of gets me down. My biggest gripes are with the inherent inefficiency in bureaucracy. I got in a (verbal) fight with a sociology professor about that once. Fucker.

There's some creepy (to me) details in CNN's Story:

Texas plane crash pilot: 'I have just had enough

It's crappy to crash a plane into an occupied building, for sure. My band mates also mostly avoid political and religious talk, because it could potentially tear the band apart. We're there to make beautiful music together, not bitch about the man. If something's really bothering any of us, though, it's not unusual to vent a little to each other. Both of my bands are quite therapeutic that way. They're awesome for me.

This is Crap.

This blog might be going away if I can't figure out the migration situation. I'd like to be able to continue using this platform since I've gotten pretty used to it (since 2002). I might use this as an opportunity to switch to a more robust platform (if anyone knows of a cool one, feel free to comment). This is the bullshit that I got yesterday:

Dear FTP user:

You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement. We will be following up with more information via e-mail in the weeks ahead, and regularly updating a blog dedicated to this service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

The full text of the announcement at Blogger Buzz follows.

Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing[1] Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.

Three years ago we launched Custom Domains[2] to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year's post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP[3] and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing. (If you're interested in reading more about Custom Domains, our Help Center has a good overview[4] of how to use them on your blog.) In evaluating the investment needed to continue supporting FTP, we have decided that we could not justify diverting further engineering resources away from building new features for all users.

For that reason, we are announcing today that we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger after March 26, 2010. We realize that this will not necessarily be welcome news for some users, and we are committed to making the transition as seamless as possible. To that end:

• We are building a migration tool that will walk users through a migration from their current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) that will be available to all users the week of February 22. This tool will handle redirecting traffic from the old URL to the new URL, and will handle the vast majority of situations.
• We will be providing a dedicated blog[5] and help documentation
• Blogger team members will also be available to answer questions on the forum, comments on the blog, and in a few scheduled conference calls once the tool is released.

We have a number of big releases planned in 2010. While we recognize that this decision will frustrate some users, we look forward to showing you the many great things on the way. Thanks for using Blogger.

Regards,

Rick Klau

Blogger Product Manager

Google

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

Mountain View, CA 94043

[1] http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/05/ftp-vs-custom-domains.html

[2] http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/01/blogger-custom-domains.html

[3] http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/05/ftp-vs-custom-domains.html

[4] http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373

[5] http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/

We're All Going To Get Sued.

I like to find myself via Google just to see what nonsense I'm up to. I was a little frightened when I found this. Sure, you have to click 'read more,' but I'm totally there. The bad thing is that the boys got a cease and desist letter after I left the band, thus, the name change.

I'm sure that sending this photo when the christian festival asked for a band photo back in the day didn't help our lawsuit viability. I can't believe that I found this...



Note my BLC t-shirt, Ross on the BMX, and Jason's stunt double (he was out of town). Madness. Andrew's beer got cropped out.

They Fucked With The Wrong Mexican.

I still think that this is hilarious. Grindhouse is on the Encore tonight. (I thought that the satellite TV was going away. Apparently not.)

Really Real Rage; Damn The Man

Today, I wasted two hours at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's office to not register or title a truck. The problem comes down to what the revision number is on the 'Statement of Fact' form. The content is exactly the same, but my revision number wasn't acceptable to the bureaucrats.

I came uncomfortably close to a homicidal freakout with the shotgun of doom. I got home and was reduced to freaked-out pacing and yelling at the cat. I decided that I ought to play some bass for therapy (as I often do), instead of shooting those giggling bureaucrats with rat-shot in the face. They're on the list now, however.

The 'Frito Bandito' (Mahoney's new nickname) inspired me to fill said truck and park it in their lot with rotting garbage. This is what I will do early next week. I need to pick up some restaurant waste so that it's totally awesome. I'm sure that I'll get a ticket, but maybe we'll make the news. Free advertising, friends...

I tried to watch TV, but I had to turn it off because I was this close (holding fingers close together) to getting medieval on its ass.

Because I was completely pissed off, I totally broke the orange one. I was learning a fucking INXS song, of all things:



I broke the pick guard off at the output jack. It was hanging by a screw, and that made me angry enough to start drinking.

I needed an excuse to replace that hinkey 'parchment' one. I opted for a brown tortoise one, a la the hot rod (wicked, but with a side-mount jack) precisions from a few years ago. I'm thinking that I ought to go all out, though, since it'll be in pieces, and just do all the mods that I want to do now, since I can do it outside of the bass, and then basically drop the new setup in.

I'll be internet shopping tonight.

Wow.

I fucking hate cops, man. I stared down one on Monday that was giving me the evil eye. That piece of shit didn't have the balls to pull me over. I was obviously staring him down in a smoking truck. Fucker.

This video shows Los Angeles Airport Police repeatedly TASERing an unarmed 78 year old senior citizen.



Officer Corrington can be seen holding William Lamb in place. Officer Rios approaches Mr. Lamb from the front and repeatedly fires a M-26 TASER gun while making direct contact with Mr. Lamb's chest and right leg. Although the TASER gun cannot be clearly seen in the video, it is described in police reports. TASERs are powerful electro-shock weapons that are designed to incapacitate by conducting 50,000 volts of electricity to an individual's body. It induces skeletal muscle spasms that immobilize and incapacitate the individual, causing the victim to fall to the ground. After Officer Rios exercises deadly force, Officers Corral and Corrington can be seen lowering Mr. Lamb to the floor.

The victim, William Lamb is a California State licensed Civil and Structural engineer who resides in Lancaster, California. Mr. Lamb, who was 78 years old at the time of this incident, entered the LAX Police station because his vehicle was impounded during an international trip. He becomes upset when officers refuse to release his vehicle, and threatens to sue the police. In the complete video one can see that although Mr. Lamb is visibly upset, he is not a threat to other citizens in the police station nor to the police officers. Citizens continue to conduct business at the police station counter.

During the 4 December 2004 incident, Mr. Lamb sustained a broken elbow and abrasions to the arms in addition to the TASER wounds. Several months after this application of lethal force, Mr. Lambs right leg spontaneously broke while walking to his mailbox. His femur broke at the precise location of the 50,000 volt TASER injury. Mr. Lamb's leg was repaired surgically and he now walks with the assistance of a walker.

Although it is generally agreed that there are valid police uses for electrified TASER gun darts, contact TASER usage is highly controversial. Many cardiologists believe that the 50,000 volt TASER can lead to death by interrupting heart rhythms. Numerous police agencies authorize the use of TASERs only when non-lethal measures have been exhausted. This video clearly demonstrates that Officers Rios, Corrington, and Corral were in control of the situation and could have easily handcuffed the 78 year old William Lamb if they had so desired.

With The Vegas Pumpin' (was Are You Kidding Me?)

When I was about thirteen years old, my brother and I went through a "guess what" phase with my mother while she was at school. We did all sorts of stupid shit: piercings, various pyromaniac activities, motorcycle joy-riding, smoking anything that didn't smoke us, etc. When she called to check in on us, we would undoubtedly be home like the cherubic children that we were, and ask her to "guess what." Then we would confess to burning something, piercing something or whatever.

One of the pranks that I'm still most proud of (and one that wasn't even fucking noticed for two weeks), was the orange cat with a green mohawk incident. I decided that my (mean) orange cat, Tigger (if he'd been a black tabby, probably would've had another name), would totally look more bad ass with a mohawk. We had clippers because Erich went through that G.I. Joe haircut phase that many little boys go through--I didn't go through that phase until much later--that's a good story. The cat held still, and had as much of a mohawk as a cat could have. He actually seemed to enjoy it (I know that cats don't actually enjoy anything).

Afterwards, I thought that I was going to get in trouble. This wasn't a "guess what" moment. My parents didn't notice Tigger's haircut. When I cut Erich's hair, or my own hair, they did notice. I had to take this Tigger's new style to the extreme (ha--get that--totally not a lifted sample, doggs). I dyed the cat's head with green food coloring--he didn't care for that at all.

They didn't notice until I told my father that I'd done it. Then I think that I was grounded, beaten, or both (most likely).

Getting back to the reason for this post:

In Boulder, pets are not personal property (one cannot own an animal, but rather is its guardian). This is a good reason for the BLC to not play in Boulder--especially since Greg is banned for life (Bunny Genghis) and some of us have a history of animal abuse (just ask Nitwit).

Poodles are neither fowl nor are they rabbits. My perception of this case is just the man trying to generate revenue. It's bullshit, from here:

Ticketed poodle owner vows 'Cici will remain pink'

By Vanessa Miller
Originally published 09:16 a.m., March 11, 2008
Updated 09:16 a.m., March 11, 2008

The Boulder salon owner facing a $1,000 fine for dyeing her miniature poodle pink will have to wait for her day in court.

This morning, Joy Douglas, owner of Zing Salon, 1100 Spruce St., appeared before a judge in Boulder Municipal Court and asked for her hearing to be rescheduled because she's retained a defense attorney.

The judge granted Douglas' request and reset her hearing for April 7.

Officials at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley issued Douglas a ticket on March 1 for violating Section 6-1-14 of Boulder's city code, titled "Dyeing fowl and rabbits prohibited."

Douglas has insisted she didn't break that law, because she uses beet juice — and occasionally Kool-Aid — to "stain" her dog Cici's coat. She said she never has used chemicals, and her pooch never has had a reaction to the stain.

This morning, Douglas brought Cici to court, but had to leave the pink poodle outside the Boulder County Justice Center.

Douglas remained confident that she ultimately will be vindicated and won't be fined for having colored Cici's coat.

"Cici will be pink until they kick us out of the city of Boulder," Douglas vowed before her brief hearing.

She also reiterated her claim that she dyed the dog pink to support breast cancer awareness.

"This is a good opportunity to talk about people's rights and breast cancer," Douglas said. "There's always lemonade and lemons."

----------------
Now playing: Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

Fuck You, Arapahoe Community College (aka The Man)

Apparently, when one attempts to access this very web site from the computer lab of Arapahoe Community College, one receives the following message:

Access To This URL Has Been Blocked
Access to this URL is blocked from the CCCS network in accordance with the system's Computer Use Policy, SP 3-125c due to the rating of its content. Request for accessing this URL(s) may be granted only by your college president. Your request for access must include your computer IP address(s), computer name(s), reason why you need access to this URL(s), and the dates when such access should start and end. Please include your name, position title, email address and phone number. It may take up to 2 business days to grant the requested access after your president has approved your request.

Amazing.

Put On Your Surprised Face

Is this as horrifying to anyone else is it is to me?

FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

No Hangman For You

"The New York State Senate Majority passed legislation Monday, sponsored by Senator Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), to make it a felony to etch, paint, draw or otherwise place or display a noose on public or private property."

They are not even kidding, friends. Soon, it'll be a felony to draw an electric chair on a paper plate. Hell, it ought to be a felony to think about drawing an electric chair on a paper plate.

Lost And Found and lost again

Been a lot foggy lately, my friends. Running red lights...stopping at green ones..."losing" important documents. Essentially, I feel high, however, that is not the case. It's like someone is putting depakote in the water supply (supposed to be on 1,500 mg a day). Really miserable. I believe that this numb feeling is a stress-related deal. I've got the "I'm stressed out" rash, again (third time since I was 17). I seem to be dealing fairly well this time.

I probably require a vacation and some weed.

This weekend was restorative, though. My pets are feeling lonely, for sure, but those little assholes have been getting on my nerves. I'm feeling better about the girl after moving in for a few days. We made it out to a show (saw a lot of pals). I had "lost" my driver license. The fucking patriot act means that I can't make a deposit at the bank without one (fuckers). The state of Colorado doesn't accept my birth certificate as valid (although I was born in a U.S. military hospital in country). It's a two-day hassle to get another license. Fuckers.

Practice with BLC was instrumentalists and missing a bass player (put me on the spot without a net). I'm still feeling things out, for sure. My "menacing" tone might not work for this band. I'll try something different for the next practice. If I get the dynamics right, I think that it's doable, though. That's a reasonable goal, right? It's proving to be difficult to adjust to a much quieter band (on 2, the practice rig is far too much--The OC goes to 11). I think that they would've said something if I had been really obscene. They're used to a subliminal bass player, which isn't what I've been doing lately. Andrew did clue me into a decrescendo that I totally did wrong. Thanks, dude--I got it now. It's all going to work out with a little practice. One month until the debut of the unfuckwithable new lineup. Fingers crossed.

I found the MIA license in a truck that I drove a week ago today. Excellent.

Later, I got a bad phone call with another cancer scare. Why is it that everyone I really care about is having these fucking issues?!? Meanwhile, back in my crotch, the "lymphoma" seems to have cured itself sans medical intervention. Whoot.

I'm probably dying. Whoot.