I Seethe

Thanks to watching reruns of Scrubs, I've been exposed to the song "A Little Respect" by Erasure from their album The Innocents. This is possibly the most cloying, treacly thing I've ever heard. It would make Winnie the Pooh vomit homey and Liberace refuse to perform it on the grounds that it's too gay. Then I thought maybe there's some clever, ironic subtexts so I Googled the lyrics and discovered it's even more nauseating than I thought (sample line I am unfortunately not making up - "Soul, I hear you calling"). This cannot stand.

I'm an idealist and I want to live in a better world. I want to live in a world where I can ride my pogo stick home from work and immediately climb onto my trampoline and have bouncy pie fights with hot Asian women. I want to visit a store where the wine is made of beer and the shirts in my size have vertical stripes. I want an official dictionary with words like "floingy". I want to be able to ride unicorns through the heathers until they drop dead of exhaustion, then grill them as steaks with a soy/orange marinade. I want heaven to be reachable with a stepladder and made of pie.

To that end, as a measured and reasonable response to the music industry for dumping that bag of shart song on us, I encourage everyone to drop by their collective houses and fling their goldfish beneath their stoves, put gravel in their lip balm, set fire to their potted plants, and then set fire to the fire. They should be required by law to shave with chainsaws and bathe in rubbing alcohol. May their sandwiches be made of bologna and their pillows full of cacti. I wish them slugs in their head. May they never say "piffle" again.

Example of a woman who would be good in bouncy pie fights:

Cool - almost lunchtime.

Portal

I haven't played the game, but my understanding is that it's a first person shooter with a weapon that can open holes in walls / floors / ceilings. Essentially the building is a maze with a series of enemies / puzzles to defeat while receiving helpful instructions from a female computer named GLaDOS (pronounced like Gladys). The computer frequently offer cake as a reward for escaping. In the end, you discover the computer was just experimenting on you and intended to dispose of you when finished. At that point, you get to turn on the computer and destroy it while it attempts to talk you down (e.g. "okay, you've passed the real test - you can have your cake now"). None of that matters. The end credits / closing song is my new obsession:

And then you can watch this:

Direct links are here and here.

Horrorscope

With the help of iTunes shuffle, I have decided to read YOUR PERSONAL horoscope for the year of 2011, thus saving you the trouble of having to live out the year yourself. Beginning with:

January: Slayer - God Hates Us All - Here Comes the Pain. The year starts on a very positive note, as you're already no doubt aware because your love life is fulfilling and your bank account is full and you've just received a promotion to a job within a major corporation that spends all of its free time helping the homeless.

February: P.O.D. - Satellite - Boom. Next month, the moon will collide with the Earth and both will explode. But then they will recover. And then things will go seriously downhill.

March: The Allman Brothers Band - The Devil's Rejects (motion picture soundtrack) - Midnight Rider. In March, you will sit down to write a simple blog post and then will be traumatized when you are forced to write something really long when you thought you would be getting away with a cheat.

April: Slayer - Cult (single) - Cult. As part of a twelve step recovery program, you will join a group of very nice people who worship Giant Atomic Chickens. I will be your Grand Poobah / Father Confessor / Messiah / Bunny Rancher. Make checks payable to me. You know you have the money (see January).

May: Christian Altenburger, Helmut Winschermann, German Bach Soloists - Top 100 Masterpieces of Classical Music (disk 2) - Mozart Violin Concerto #3 in G, KV216 - Movement 1. You will have a flashback to March and wonder just what the hell you were complaining about then.

June: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced? You are not now nor will you ever be.

July: Soundgarden - Down on the Upside - Switch Opens. The summer kicks into high gear emo style. You will begin to wear dark clothing and bitch about the heat. July makes little sense, and neither does this prediction.

August: Kiss - Destroyer - King of the Nighttime World. Things finally begin to look up after a long, hot summer when you become a vampire just in time for the nation to be gripped by Twilight fever when Twilight #258 - The Undead Have Are Boring and Morose Motherfuckers (the IMAX experience) hits theaters.

September: Spinal Tap - This is Spinal Tap - Sex Farm. Those sidelong glances and "accidental" touches finally pay off when, after an extensive hay-baling session, you finally get to make it with the family goat. Perv.

October: Alice Cooper - Trash - Only My Heart Talkin'. Alas, the courthouse will deny your petition for a vampire / goat wedding when rumors emerge that one of you might be gay.

November: Slayer - Undisputed Attitude - Spiritual Law. Heartbroken, you will try to turn your problems over to God only to learn that the GAC worshippers based their theology on a truncated Mayan calendar and believe the world has already ended (wikipedia The Apeckalypse for more info).

December: King Diamond - Fatal Portrait - The Portrait. All will be well in the holiday season and you should not worry at all that the Hannukwanzaramadamasux prediction is based on a song written by a Satanist about a girl's soul being stolen. (True prediction - you will burst into flames.)

Notes: idea scavenged from Pearl. Also, if any of this proves to be less than 100% accurate, a printout of this post will be considered legal evidence in a lawsuit against Apple.

Obligatory Giving Thanks Post

I am thankful for drug bunnies, whiskey, the new waitress at the yakitori restaurant (I nicknamed her Velma), Satan, and (in case I've neglected to mention them) Asian women, especially J-bunnies.

And this meme courtesy of (who else) Avitable. This hoary meme asks that you put your iTunes on shuffle and post the song titles as answers to the questions. I excluded tracks that were soundtracks or J-lessons. When others do this they claim the results are eerily prophetic. That didn't happen for me, especially for the question about lust that was answered by a band with the word "butthole" in their name.

Q: How does the world see me?
A: Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight (Spinal Tap)

Q: Will I have a happy life?
A: Never the Machine Forever (Soundgarden)

Q: What do my friends really think of me?
A: Thorn Within (Metallica)

Q: Do people secretly lust after me?
A: Lonesome Bulldog 3 (Butthole Surfers)

Q: How can I make myself happy?
A: Blow Up the Outside World (Soundgarden)

Q: What should I do with my life?
A: Briefcase Full of Guts (Dethklok)

Q: Will I ever have children?
A: Lady Evil (Black Sabbath)

Q: What is some good advice for me?
A: Perversion (Rob Zombie)

Q: How will I be remembered?
A: Crying (Roy Orbison)

Q: What do I think my current theme song is?
A: Spirit in Black (Slayer)

Q: What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
A: New Faith (Slayer)

Q: What song will play at my funeral?
A: Skeleton Christ (Slayer)

Q: What type of men/women do I like?
A: New Damage (Soundgarden) / Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (Metallica)

Day 13

Continuing the 30 Days of Honesty meme with day 13 because, on reflection, days 1 – 12 sounded like whiny little invitations to my very own pity party.

Dear King Diamond,

Thank you for your wonderful music. While there is no shortage of posers screeching about killing their cats for Satan, it warms my heart to know there are also artists, such as yourself, who are true to their religious beliefs while screaming about killing your cats for Satan. Please know that when I was in basic training and thought that all that Army stuff wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped and wanted to drop out and just kill people in the civilian marketplace, I was able to look around at all the Jebus freaks who talked a good game but couldn’t endure, get in touch with my inner hatred, sack up and drive on. Songs like Black Masses and Nuns Have No Fun listened to late at night on my smuggled Walkman were particularly uplifting. You are awesome.

But not bunny-awesome.


- Yours in Satan,

Grant

It's Friday, here's part of a meme

Stolen from the Monogram Queen. I hate long memes and some of the questions were stupid, so I'm just doing select ones. BTW, it's her birthday today, so feel free to send any gift money to me via the donate button and I promise I'll think about passing it along.

1. Please share one middle school memory. It can be good, bad, ugly, funny. Pictures or words, I don’t care, just share.

In the 4th grade, we moved from Kentucky to Tennessee. KY and TN have a "friendly" college basketball rivalry that is twisted into a complete fucknuts fundamentalist-style form of hatred by younger kids who live in isolated rural communities like where we lived. I knew of the rivalry between adults but didn't know telling my fellow students that I was from Kentucky would ensure that I got into a fight every day during recess while the teachers hid in their break room. I never won any because none of my classmates had been taught anything as silly as "don't attack a guy with a group of 13 people just because he was born across the state line".

My most memorable fight came on a day I wore my favorite shirt, a denim Western-style shirt with fake pearl buttons. That day I fought a 5th grader and his flunkies. Like Ron White says, I don't know how many it would have taken to kick my ass, but I know how many they used (4). Also, the 5th grader had failed every other grade and had only been passed along to get rid of him, so he was 16 at the time. Yes - he had to shave and would have driven to middle school, but his family was as poor as everyone else and couldn't afford a second vehicle. I remember this one most of all because a) while on my back being pounded, I aimed a kick at the alpha male's face that missed by about a millimeter (damn - so close), and b) because I had to go through the rest of my classes with blood and grass stains on my now ruined shirt (one sleeve had been completely ripped away, although I was still wearing it, and most of the buttons were now missing) sitting in class while the teachers pretended not to notice that I was bleeding. At least when I returned to class in a seriously damaged condition, they were polite enough not to call on me.

Public education's official motto should be "Filled with suck."

2) You're favorite Beatles Song: Helter Skelter.

4. Would you rather host a party or be a guest? No.

7. If you are (or when you were) single, what is the kiss of death for you concerning the opposite sex? (That is, what is one trait or behavior or habit or anything at all that immediately turns you off from considering that person a potential match for you?)

Insincerity. The kind of corporate mentality wherein they pretend to like you as long as you pay for things, but abruptly drop you when you have nothing tangible to offer in return. I've often thought I wouldn't mind having one of those prostitute girlfriends (the kind that exchange sex for gifts and money), but then I realized that would mean she would have abruptly dropped me when the hospitals began billing the shit out of me. Being sick and broke is not when I would like to be dumped.

10. What is your favorite Tom Cruise movie? Tropic Thunder.

Movie Notes

Not actual reviews, just a few recent observations.

Transformers 2: I don't get all the complaining. I'll admit this is not a great movie, but when you go to a Michael Bay film sequel based on a line of Hasbro toys, are you really expecting Girl with a Pearl Earring? If you want big, dumb, loud action, this is it. I agree that it is an assault on the senses, but that's a description of the experience and not a criticism. If you go to a Metallica concert and claw your way through the pit to the front row (I did this in Germany and Alabama), are you later going to complain that the music was too loud? At a heavy metal concert? Note - I have yet to see any geesers at an Anthrax concert shouting "Turn it down - we're trying to talk here!"

For all the summer blockbusters I've seen, I think only Star Trek was better. Terminator 4 was competently made, although a waste of acting talent, and Wolverine was a disappointment. The special effects in T2 were a bit overdone, but the composition of the shots was usually clear and not dizzying. I also don't get the claims that the plot was incomprehensible. It wasn't even convoluted. If you can't follow this one, you either spent half of the movie freebasing cocaine in the bathroom, you have a life-threatening case of ADHD, or you couldn't keep up with the romantic subplots in Green Eggs & Ham.

IMAX Lite: Some theatres are now showing IMAX movies at full IMAX price, but not informing audiences that it is not in the original IMAX format. The persons responsible for this should be publicly executed, preferably by anal rape. However, I saw T2 in what I've dubbed IMAX Lite format and was surprised to find it less of a disappointment than than expected. The biggest letdown was the sound quality. In a regular IMAX theatre, you can experience true surround sound. In the IMAX Lite, they just upped the volume to a newly discovered level (threat-level red or Death Star or something). The bass pounded in my chest, which I might have liked a couple of years ago, but now doesn't go well with my chronic chest pains. The screen is smaller, but you can sit closer to it (too close, in my case) so the diminished size isn't as big of a deal. The thing that bothers me is the change in dimensions. If you look at the picture in the link, the real IMAX format gives you a better sense of vertigo than the cropped version. Directors who film a movie with the IMAX format in mind might find their art unintentionally altered by the change.

Digital and Disney Digital 3D: wastes of money. When I left Star Trek, I didn't say to myself "Gee, that would have been really good if only the picture wasn't so fuzzy." I don't know how good your eyesight would have to be to tell the difference between a regular film and a digital one, but obviously it must be better than mine. If you can see a difference between 24- and 32-bit color depth on your monitor, then go ahead and pay the extra $3 for the digital film. And the 3-D is a complete joke. In most scenes it is indistinguishable from 2-D, plus the glasses dull the color pallette, which is a real shame with movies like Up.

Advertisement: before T2 began, they advertised the coming of two well-known operas (I forget their names). Opera advertised at a Transformers IMAX film? If someone asks you "Would you rather we get balcony seats at the symphony, or do you want to muck into the mosh pit at a Slayer concert?" and your response is "Which ever one's closer to a place that serves Korean BBQ", then this ad was aimed at you. And me, for that matter.

Quick Cultural Note

Although many adult Asian women can easily pass for hot schoolgirls,

Asami Abe, Age 23

Hwang Mi Hee, Age 26

the reverse is not often true.

Direct link is here.

P.S. Tracy, I'll give you a dollar if you perform the song on your blog.

Country Music Stars Die!

'Tis the season for xmas music, which I generally love if not sung by country music stars. Best xmas song ever - O Holy Night sung by Nat King Cole. Worst one ever - same song by the Judds. While working in the office one December we softly played various compilations of xmas CDs. Since we were busy, most songs faded into the background, but not that one. When the Judds, who know as much about singing as I do underwater aardvark ranching, hit the high note and screeched "YONNN-DERRRR", everyone in the office dropped their work and looked up with an expression like I had just waved a fresh dog turd under their noses, which was true only half of the time.

Previously, while slaving in Kmart, they played a wide selection of xmas tunes (where wide = about 4) that included a show tunes version of Jingle Bells that somehow failed to rise to the level of competence normally displayed by kindergarten classes hitting the rum (sample lyrics - "Jajajajajaja Jingle Bells! Jajajajajaja Jangle Bells!"). This still wasn't as bad as the country music love ballad written to Santa Claus, wherein the singer managed to add an extra syllable to his name. Seriously - every line began with "Say-ant-uhhhhh..."

Which was not as bad as this one. I don't know the title, and I don't want to know. Rather than sing the lyrics, the woman primly pronounced each syllable as if it was made of glass. Actualy lyrics (that I can remember) were:

Little toy train
Little toy tracks
Placed in a box
Carried in a sack
Carried by a man
Dressed in white and red
Little boy, isn't it time you went to bed?

While driving home I literally had a vision of sugar plums dancing in my head shooting the woman in the face while she sang that feckin' song. I hated it so much that I couldn't purge it from my head until I wrote a short story called "A Brief Future of Television" that was like the Gong Show but with double-barreled 12 gauge shotguns. That was before the recent spate of reality-based TV shows, which just shows how hard it is to keep parody ahead of reality. The story was published in Black Petals, an actual print magazine, so at least some good came from the trauma.

Happy Hannukwanzaaramadamasux ya'll.

The Holidays

Time to reflect and focus on the things that are important.

Free Dr. Pepper for All Americans

Although they've been trying to keep it quiet, in March Dr. Pepper announced that they would give every American a free Dr. Pepper if Guns 'n' Roses ever released their album Chinese Democracy in 2008. It seemed like a fair bet since the album has been in production for 17 years and the odds of it being released this year were on par with being struck twice by lightening while winning the lottery. The album is due to be released tomorrow, and DP has decided to honor their offer, although they are being a tad churlish. For 24 hours only, on November 23 you can go to http://www.drpepper.com/ and register for a free 20 oz Dr. Pepper. A coupon should arrive within 4-6 weeks.

Non-Americans can go suck it.

Awesome Monday

First it started with Galmet - an all-girl Japanese death metal band.

Direct link.

Then I discovered Lujaneeza - the singer looks Asian.

Direct link.

Then I found Ikaten - I'm not sure if that's the band or the name of the show. They're not the prettiest J-bunnies ever, but chicks in bands (especially bass players and drummers) are hot.

Direct link.

Then I discovered Vyson - you can't really see them well here, but they are hot and the song title is Killer Pussy which makes them even more awesome.

Direct link.
Another song is here. It's all stillshots instead of video, but in the middle is a picture of the band, any one of which would make a good present to me.

And here is a creation using Haruhi and friends from anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's all kinds of awesome. A quartet of hot Japanese schoolgirls form a band with two dressed in schoolgirl outfits, Haruhi dressed as a sexy bunny, and the other lead guitarist dressed as a witch. The first song is Kill You by Dethklok - a lovely song for the ladies. Note - Pickles is singing instead of Nathan Explosion.

Direct link. Below is the same scene, but now it's set to Painkiller by Judas Priest.

Direct link. And again, but now it's Nemesis by Arch Enemy.

Direct link.

As the Head Honcho of the United States of Bunny, I approve of this growing trend. And here are a few more items of awesomeness:

I'm willing to marry the entire group

Galmet - a Japanese all girl death metal band.

Tip - from Prata.

Bunnies!

Musical Zeitgeist

I simply refuse to believe "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" by The Fifth Dimension was the most popular song of the day when I was born. Surely it was something like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, War Pigs or Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Must be a typo.

On the other hand, when I graduated hell high school, the top song was "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" by Cutting Crew. I don't know the song, but the references to death and bladed weapons sound more appropriate.

Stolen from Gib.

Crazy Eights

Metalmom tagged me and I obey. I had nothing to post anyway - I've been too busy to think of anything but databases, and some may think I’ve already posted too many pictures of hot Japanese women (as if that’s possible).

8 things I’m passionate about – books (mostly fiction), writing (mostly checks), death, Japan, extreme movies, heavy metal music, recycling, and hot Asian women (preferably 日本の兎).

8 things I want to do before I die – hot Asian women, learn Japanese (日本語), get another story published, blow up a packed church (I’ve got my eye on a local group of Scientologists), visit Japan, patent my invention the FlameSaw™, get laid without paying for it, and become immortal.

8 things I often say –
Logically, I should do the same to you.
Kill everyone in the name of Satan. (sung to the tune of Skip to my Lou)(you think I’m kidding)
Bunny!
You’re going to burn in Hell…so, let’s dance!
ベットのしたにたこがいます。
Yeah, that’s right, I farted – and I’ll do it again.
You’re doomed…doomed…definitely…doomed.
日本の兎は　セクスを　しませんか。

8 books I’ve read recently
Hearts in Atlantis – Stephen King (read it)
The Children's Story (but Not Just for Children) – James Clavell (read it)
Black Hawk Down – some guy (skip it)
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
HP VII – Rowling
Freaky Deaky – Elmore Leonard
Trail of the Spanish Bit – Don Coldsmith (yeah, I read Westerns)
The Quantum Rose – Catherine Asaro (yeah, I read romance)

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over
Love to Hate – Slayer
God Send Death – Slayer
Cowboys from Hell – Pantera
Sex. Murder. Art – Slayer
Battery – Metallica
O Holy Night – Nat King Cole
Angel of Death – Slayer
Return to Oz – The Scissor Sisters

8 things that attract me to my best friends – their inability to grok my creepy vibe™, my evility, and my super ability to pick up a check. Nothing else – most people revile me on site.

8 people I think should do Crazy 8s – I don’t tag, but if you want a meme, knock yourself out. At least it’s nice and short. What’s with all the 50+ meme questions these days anyway?