"Like a lot of other people in this country, I am growing definitely tired of bombs. But I do object to the hypocrisy of accepting force as an instrument while squealing against this or that individual weapon, or of denouncing war while wanting to preserve the kind of society that makes war inevitable." - July 14, 1944

• 01:28 2 things I should be ashamed of as a south alabamian: never eating a raw oyster before yesterday; and drinking yankee-ass "moxie" soda. #

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• 22:00 Seattle's streets are entirely free of park benches, except at bus stops. My guess is they know they'd just be full of homeless people. #

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• 10:13 i dreamed of weird food: canned whole crocodile, endorsed by the king of spain. #
• 12:03 Does the fact that my mood improves noticeably when I eat mean I'm permanently on the food/shelter rung of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? #
• 12:15 There is no such a thing as a worst case scenario.. no matter how bad you think things might get, they could get even worse. #

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• 10:09 I dreamed one of the major Marvel or DC villains was crazy b/c as a child they dressed him as a bunny to hide him from the nazis. #

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• 13:55 At a restaurant that serves goat. #
• 15:17 goat is having its revenge from beyond the grave #
• 15:41 I have become that which I used to fear: a fat sweaty bald man in a polo shirt, walking down the street in the hot southern sun. #
• 22:25 @Quinbot no i mean new age shaving "creams" that are more like lotion than soap. lotion don't lather up no matter how much you rub it. #

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• 08:59 Wtf is the deal with foamless shaving cream? #

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Drag this to you toolbar.

Irish I Were Drunk

EDIT: don't use it on gmail.

EDIT: I know it doesn't work in IE.

EDIT: changed to keep original image size.

• 08:29 today is "see how long i can use windows with no shell" day #

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"VNC2Go is a VNC client (viewer) that runs on MIDP-enabled devices. It lets you control any desktop server running a VNC service, from any mobile device that supports Java Midlets, such as mobile phones and PDAs."

If this actually works, it could be the most useful thing anybody had ever done with Java, ever.

Scott, you were wondering the other day if it would be possible to telnet to unix servers from a blackberry. I think that's what this is.

• 16:59 a watched jboss boils slower. seriously, i think it really does runs faster (on xp at least) when the cmd.exe running it is minimized. #

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Don't let extreme metal purists fool you: some of that goofy 80s hair metal actually did kick serious ass.

For proof, I suggest the early Motley Crue albums.

Really anything before "Home Sweet Home" kicked off the power ballad craze. When every leather-clad bunch of glam metal boys in America trying to outdo each other at the game of imitating Journey and REO Speedwagon for fun and profit. That was the death spiral that nearly killed rock and roll. We're extremely lucky that "alternative" rock was there to pick up the torch because otherwise there would have been no rock on the top 40 and MTV at all between about 1992 and whenever things like the White Stripes started to pop.

But that doesn't mean that "Too Fast For Love" doesn't rock.

(youtube link)

I know very little about April Wine's music other than this one song. Based on just this one song, I would classify them as sort of a Canadian version of Foghat. That statement, based mostly on ignorance, could possibly anger fans of both April Wine and Foghat, but I ain't scared.

The song opens with a guitar riff similar to Rush's "finding my way". This makes me suspect that this song is probably pretty much what Rush would have been up to by this time if Neil Peart had never joined the band.

After about 15 seconds and some screaming, the song gets down to business. The chunga-chung-chung rhythm is a positively eerie foreshadowing of the much-later hit "Man, I feel like a woman" by fellow Canadian Shania Twain. No, I am not joking. That's really what it sounds like.

When the verses start, that's when the Foghat similarity comes in. Although the vocalist of this band screams more or less like any 70's Robert Plant imitator during the intro, when he actually sings the sound comes out extremely "Fool for the City".

This was apparently April Wine's biggest U.S. success and the song that finally got them some play down south after a decade of Canadian existence. I can probably attribute that to the fact that the lyrics are not about anything even remotely Canadian, but instead deal with Las Vegas, the city that's more American than America.

The solo is the real standout of this song, and is everything 70s. Dueling lead guitars, phase shifters, creepy long delays, and more pull-offs than (insert some kind of joke about somebody having sex with a bunch of groupies here).

That "flying saucer taking off" effect after the solo and before the last verse sounds like one of those things I've heard a million times but can't actually name any of them when put on the spot.

The ending sounds a lot like Led Zepplin's "How Many More Times", which is faintly ironic considering how derivative that song itself is generally considered to be.

If you think this is a negative review, then you don't know me. This song has "guilty pleasure" written all over it, and if there's one thing I indulge in without a hint of guilt, it's guilty pleasures.

On my particular iPod this particular morning, the song is randomly followed by Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes".

• 15:43 Call your father. #

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• 12:21 Duck is good eats. #
• 17:06 At a rained out company picnic. #
• 22:28 The Stone Mountain laser show has changed ridiculously little since I last saw it.. in 1992. #

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Badfinger - Baby Blue

One defining hallmark of seventies power pop (as opposed to 90s revival) is that the vocalists still made a real effort to sound like the Beatles. (see also my earlier posting of Slade videos) Eric Carmen looks like Dana Carvey in a wig and is also forever tainted with associations with the Dirty Dancing sound track in the minds of people too young to remember his early career, but this is a pretty damn good McCartney. Better than Wings.


Raspberries - Tonight

Oh hell, I'll do the Slade again. Dude sings every song the way John Lennon sang "Twist and Shout", and looks like him too.


Slade - Gudbuy t' Jane

This is more like proto-hair-metal than power pop:

STARZ - Cherry Baby

Every single alternative band in the 80's that sounded like the Byrds was actually imitating this song, and thus ended up sounding like the Byrds second-hand:

Big Star - September Gurls

Ok, this is from 1982 not from the 70s but I like it and it isn't as over-exposed as (say) "I want you to want-me" or "Surrender", so here it is:

Cheap Trick - She's Tight

• 08:19 Raw ramen for breakfast again. Still haven't caught worms. #

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Some famous, some not. Some good, some bad. No Rick Rolls.

• 10:48 Am I the only person who can't hear the name "Terry McAuliffe" without thinking of a cross between Terry Nichols and Christa McAuliffe? #
• 18:20 PDF files are actually less of PITA to deal with on a blackberry than on a PC. #

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• 12:51 setting things up so your phone rings everytime a message is sent to the mallet list is a bad idea #
• 18:31 Into the flabby arms of ma bell! I am a customer of at&t for the first time in my adult life. #

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• 09:35 People who think "Mack the Knife" is a cute little trad pop song like "Danke Schoen" have never actually paid attention to the lyrics. #
• 15:16 oh the irony of using a phone to enter this on the web site instead of sending a text message #

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