I, for one, Welcome our Robot Overlords.

MurderBot 4000 (actual drawing)

How smart is YOUR phone?

In my search for the ultimate smart phone, I've run the gauntlet. I started with a Blackberry Pearl, then two different iPhones, then the G1, then on to an HTC Snap. So I've used RIM's Blackberry OS, iPhone OS, Android and Windows Mobile.

As long as the hardware is acceptable, then it all boils down to OS for me. BB OS was trash. iPhone OS was great but i got bored after a while. WinMo was absolute garbage. Android was great. I really loved the G1 but I was sick of T-Mobile raping me and terrorizing my service.

I just purchased a Samsung Moment on Sprint. I love it. Honestly the only complaint I have is that the physical keyboard is almost too expansive. I am coming from the HTC Snap, which is a candybar form factor, so I got used to a cramped Qwerty. The Moment's keyboard is HUGE in comparison, even to the G1. Actually, I forgot how nice a virtual keyboard is. When I had a G1, Android didn't yet have a virtual keyboard, so it's been since my last iPhone that I'd used one. I'm faster typing on the virtual keys than on the physical, but that will probably even out as I get used to the size of the Moment's keyboard.

I also bought a 64 GB iPod Touch, so I have an iPhone OS device too. (In case you're confused, the iPhone and iPod Touch both run iPhone OS). The iPhone(s) that I had were the original launch versions, and the upgrades Apple have done really shine through. The screen seems sharper, could be my imagination, and the thing runs super friggin' fast. I was playing 3d Mini Golf Challenge and the graphics looked fantastic and smooth like butta!

The thing I hated most about WinMo was it's App system. At first there was no app store to speak of, so dl'ing apps was a chore! It was the same for BB OS. Then Microsoft brought out the Marketplace, and it was still lacking. I may have had a better experience if I was using a Pro (read touchscreen) device, but I had Standard (non-touch) and the works were sticky at best.

All in all, I feel like I have the best of both worlds now. An Android powered phone, and an iPhone OS powered PMP. I'm going a little app crazy, dl'ing apps on both devices but I couldn't be happier.

Ode To Philly

The train makes its soothing clack clacks. I peer from the window. The sun glints gently off the choppy surface of the Schuylkill River.

The valley is lined with autumn trees wearing their yellows, oranges and browns.

I think to myself, "Wow, this is beautiful. I love my city."

I exit the train and walk downstairs to change platforms. It's an absolute clusterfuck! People jammed in lines, herded like cattle. Septa workers barking orders and demanding tickets. People jockeying for position barely grunt an apology when they shove through or step on your toes.

I think to myself, "Fuck, I hate this city."

The 23rd floor of a downtown office building, looking down out of a floor-to-ceiling window. The architecture of City Hall is exquisite. The sky reflected off of the Comcast Building and the Cira Centre is almost mesmerizing. A pure blue sky floats over the angular tops of the offices. The Delaware River off behind the sprawling metropolis; the 3 bridges to New Jersey spiking over it.

I think to myself, "Why would I want to live anywhere else?"

The work truck pulls out of the office building's loading dock, into the miles of jam packed traffic. People yell and honk and curse. Police are blocking off the cross street for what seems to be no reason at all. Homeless people demand payment to sooth their crack and/or alcohol habits. Pedestrians yell at the cab driver who just zoomed across three lanes and ran the red light. A broken down bus cuts the three lanes into two and the potholes bring those lanes to a crawl.

I think to myself, "That's why I want to live anywhere else!"

I love you, Philly, but I hate your guts.

8 Years Later

Believe me when I say, I absolutely respect and feel saddened for that tragic loss on September 11th, 2001. I'm not one of those "Truthers" because I'm smart enough to realize that if the government intentionally killed over 2000 people that day, they certainly wouldn't have allowed that guy who published "Loose Change" (and started all this mess) to release it, let alone live to tell about it. I mean, someone actually told me that a jet plane with a full tank wouldn't have exploded and didn't. What? They even said to me that they never showed the first plane hit on tv until the next day, only the second! What what? The list can go on and on. I think it's more like that episode of South Park, where the boys find out that the government didn't do it but wanted enough people to think they could have just to foster a good healthy fear of government!

Anywhen, that's not even the point I want to make in this post. I think we should have a fear of our government. We should be very scared of our government and those citizens who allow them to do whatever they want.

I understand, we were all emotional after 9/11. We were scared of this faceless enemy who brazenly attacked us. It was hard to see the horizon through the tears. The images of people leaping to their deaths to avoid suffocating or burning was painful to watch.

And we were angry. How dare they?? We wanted vengeance. Sure Mr. Bush, sure Mr. Cheney, do whatever it takes to find those bastards. Whatever you need, we will give it up. While I don't blame the government for what happened 8 years and 2 days ago, I do blame them for everything that happened afterwards.

They told us to watch our neighbors. They told us to fly our flags. They told us not to look behind the curtain, that everything was for our protection. They told us to send our brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, children, cousins and friends off to fight this massive threat. They named a bill "The Patriot Act", and we bought it. They called the prisoners "Enemy Combatants" and we said okay. They call Guantanamo Bay "Gitmo" and we think it's cute.

The Patriot Act allows the government to wiretap anyone for any reason. Because they feel like it. It also allows them to search whatever they want and then get a warrant afterwards, if they find something. They can search your medical and tax records, even what books you borrow from the library!

Guantanamo Bay aka Gitmo. I feel like I talk about this until I'm blue in the face, but people act like it's okay. What the fuck don't you people understand? Since when was it fucking okay to keep people prisoner indefinitely, and torture them just because they called their cousin who took a piss in a public bathroom in Iraq right next to someone who might have terrorist ties? Most of these prisoners have been there since January of 2002 and they still don't have charges against them. What? That doesn't bother you? Why not? Cause they're brown-skinned? Cause they're muslim? They are people. Living breathing actual real-life human beings. Every bit as valuable as me and you.

We're supposed to be America, Land of the Free. If they were Americans, or white people for that matter, those cocksuckers who say we should keep them until the war is over would be singing a different tune. What war, do you ask? The war on terror. That's right. That's the war we declared after 9/11, when we went into Afghanistan. The war on terror. When might that be over? Never. Never ever. The war on terror will never be over, and that makes lots of people very happy. They don't want to give us out freedoms and rights back. It's like a dream come true, we let fear make us complacent.

For all the rights we've given up, and all the lives lost since this war on terror, WE THE PEOPLE are NO safer, and NO better off. I thought Barry O. would help start the healing process, but he's right on board with Bush/Cheney. He renewed the Patriot Act, he bold-faced lied about closing Gitmo, and he could give two shits about bringing our troops home.

8 years later and we're still fucked.

Habituality.

It's all the same, whether it's drugs or eating or shopping or sex or love or gambling. I'm talking about addiction. If "addiction" is too strong a word for you then we can use "unhealthy habits".

Everyone has some bad habits, but most of us don't let them affect the rest of our lives. That's when it becomes a problem, when we know something is no good for us yet we continue to do it anyway. That's where it goes from innocent fun to delinquency. Some examples:

Drugs: It always starts recreationally doesn't it? You're out partying with your friends so you smoke a little pot, snort a line or two, pop a couple pills. That's all well and good until you can't go to the store until you smoke a bowl. You can't finish your day without that stiff drink. You can't get out of bed until you take that Percocet just to get you going. You convince yourself that you NEED that joint to fall asleep. You really think your back hurts. You start buying beer just to wash down the coke drips.

Eating: Food is nourishment, life, energy, an absolute need. There's such an emotional tie to food. If you're happy you want to eat to celebrate. If you're sad you wanna eat to feel better. Then you get so used to eating all the time, your body thinks it's hungry just because your taste buds aren't stimulated. There's so much risk involved: heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, you name it.

Love: People get so addicted to people. I know it sounds funny but there's immense comfort in familiarity. We're hard wired with the concept of needing a partner. And that's all well and good when the other person is giving as much as their taking. But when our partner is emotionally and/or physically harming us, is it worth it? People will let other parts of their lives fall the wayside in the pursuit of loving someone and being loved. It's so bad to let your own love (which very much could be just a mask of familiarity and this intense desire to not be alone in the world) cloud what could be potentially harmful.

This begs the question: How do I overcome these obstacles? I have the fool proof plan! I know, I know, easier said than done yet it can be done!

1. Acknowledge the Problem

You need to really look at yourself and the problem and categorize it. What benefits are you gaining from these activities? What detriments? Accept that it's an issue.

2. Commit to Change

Once you've acknowledged that it IS an issue, you really need to convince yourself that fixing it is the only option. Remind yourself that you DO deserve the best life has to offer and keep telling yourself that failure is not acceptable.

3. Break the Habit

That's the hard part. It won't come easy at first but it gets easier through time. Once you know what's wrong and then convince yourself that's it time for a life change, then you have to do it. Stand your ground, refuse to be compromised, cut out the bad influence and embrace the new you. You're golden, platinum even, and every step you take can reinforce that.

Like Beanie Sigel paraphrases the old adage in his song 'Can You Feel It?': Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll still be amongst those stars.

How do you solve a problem like Hip Hop?

"If every thing's commercial, where the fuck's the show at?"

Joe Buddens from "Who Killed Hip Hop?"

"The game got cheaper, rappers is more commercially successful now but the heart's a lot weaker"

Jadakiss from "Letter to BIG"

I have a wide range of music that I love. From AC⚡DC (the original gangsters of Rock) and Led Zeppelin to Nirvana and Pearl Jam to Pantera and Megadeth to Green Day. But Hip Hop is dearest to my heart.

Take a listen to 96.5 FM or 98.9 or 100.3 or 103.9 (the so-called Hip Hop and R&B stations here in Philly) and you'll notice something, You'll notice how few songs they actually play (maybe 30 different songs all day!). You'll also notice how few of those 30 songs are actually Rap songs.

Just to clarify, Hip Hop is a culture, Rap is the music of this culture. While it's fine to call Rap music Hip Hop, saying they are different genres is ridiculous and outright incorrect. I don't care what anyone says, it's just not true.

Back to the problem at hand. What we're hearing on the radio and seeing in the videos is not Rap! If you sing the whole song, then you're not a rapper! Yeah, I'm looking at you Lil Wayne. I'm looking at you Kanye. At least T-Pain knows he's a singer.

Speaking of those guys, Autotune (or as Joe Buddens calls it "that funny voice shit") was meant to be a tool to correct the pitch of a singer when they made a minor mistake. While I'm all for doing something new and different, when everyone is doing it, it's no longer new or different. It's fucking annoying. And not creative. And repetitive. And nauseating. And again to be as clear as I can: You guys are sweating an effect that Cher brought out! She wasn't the first to use Autotune but her song "Do you Believe?" was the first to purposely crank the settings for that robotic sound. How gay is that?

"808" is short for TS-808. The TS-808 was a hardware drum synth, and has moved into the digital world as every Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) worth it's salt has a digital version of this piece. The drum sounds aren't great, I'd even say they suck. But it's a synth, so you can change the sounds in almost innumerable ways. Why on earth is everyone using the default sounds in almost every song? The default bass drum sound is so high pitched and short it's almost a snare. Honestly, I have snare drum sounds pitched deeper than the standard 808 kick! Bass sounds should thump not pop. Snares should pop. It takes all the depth of the song away if there's not any low frequencies to balance the spectrum.

The music industry is wondering why record sales are dropping. The radio is jamming us full of the same songs so we barely even know what else is out there. We get trained to not like the music that doesn't follow the formula. Why is there more Hook in a song and less Verse? Does anyone want to think about what a rapper is saying or do they just wanna dance to a stupefied chorus?

If the labels sign artists who break the mold, and actually promote them, and the radio would get some balls and play those artists, we could have a whole new feeling in the industry. And sales would start rising again.

Really, I don't care what it is your rapping about. I just want you to do it with some skill, some complex rhyme schemes, clever comparison, to the rhythm, differently than the last guy, and find a way to get it into my hands. Until then I won't be buying your albums. I'll be going to mixtapetorrent.com and downloading, freely and legally, music from artists who want to actually Rap. Then I'll go to www.LogikBombsRadio.com and listen to free streaming Hip Hop and R&B, with no commercials and all kinds of artists, from unsigned to commercial, with one common thread: Talent. Because if you have to follow the industry's formula to brainwash the masses into thinking you're good, then you aren't really, are you?

Humanist.

The label "Atheist" has some pretty negative connotations lately. That's where my reluctance to apply this label to myself stems from. I danced around with "Agnostic" for a while, but I wasn't really being honest with myself.

The problem is that while the definition of atheist is spot on for me [I don't believe that there is a God], there's these negative implications that people take when you call yourself that. A lot of people think that because you don't believe in God, you're automatically Richard Dawkins Jr. If you're not familiar, many people refer to Dawkins as a "militant atheist" as he is unabashedly hateful towards religion and God in general and fires off at average believers specifically. I find that to be detrimental to other atheists, and honestly in poor taste for an academic like himself.

For me it boils down to one thing, I don't have faith. It's pretty simple. I don't believe in God, and I can't pretend that I do. I won't. But I also am not going to bash someone because they do. Will I laugh at an anti-religion or anti-God joke? Of course, I laugh at EVERYTHING, I'm simple. I won't, however, judge anyone negatively solely on the fact that they have a faith that I'm lacking. I respect everyone's religious beliefs, except maybe Scientologists and Hardcore Mormons, and in all honesty I'm envious of the faithful. It must be a comforting feeling for those with true faith in God, to absolutely know that He's watching over you, taking care of you.

I call myself a Humanist. It's atheism at it's purest, without all the "we hate you, Pope!" of the Dawkins and Myers atheists. I believe we, as humans, are in control of our lives and destinies. I'm a good dude because I am, not because I'm afraid of hell. I don't help people out because God's watching and taking notes, I do it because I'd like someone to help me when I need it. I don't have any problem at all with your religion unless you have a problem with my lack of it.

[As a side note, even though I don't believe I'm very interested in all aspects of every religion! Also, I love movies with a religious themes like Stigmata, Constantine and Angels and Demons.]

Same as it Ever Was...

[The bulk of this information comes from the documentary "The Obama Deception" which was written and directed by Alex Jones. His website is www.InfoWars.com and there's a great guide for this movie at www.scribd.com/doc/13404412/The-Obama-Deception-Guide There's links for every piece of information included in the movie. A feat most filmmakers won't even bother trying.]

A little history so you can understand where I'm coming from with my anger and disappointment: I originally wanted Hillary Clinton for President. I voted for her in the Primary. My liberal views aligned more with Obama but I thought we really needed someone more middle of the road to get things done. Hillary lost the Primary and called for her supporters to back her former rival Barack Obama. I played to role of good little soldier, and yes, I got caught up in the whole "Audacity of Hope" rhetoric too. I waged my internet war against McCain and the "Old Boy's Club", telling anyone who'd listen to make sure they were registered and go out and vote, and take a chance on bettering our future.

When it came down to Election Day, I was ready and willing to vote "Change" and wash away the evils of the outgoing Presidency. I wasn't able, however, as I had an emergency to go pick up my daughter, Sarah, from Jacksonville, FL and bring her home. My heart was there, though. We all know the outcome, "Yes, We Can!" turned into "Yes, We Did!" and I never felt so empowered and included in a government in my life. A friend even told me "He should thank you, you helped him win!". I even made a song celebrating his win, and you can see that in the Video Bar to the right of this post.

Change? Yeah, I have four quarters.

It's the same old same old, all over again. Like the awesome sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica says "As it was before, so it shall be again". Empty promises. Back door shuffling. Dealing from the bottom of the deck and all that. And here's a list of some broken promises he's made.

Banker Bailout

Obama said that he's upset about all the bailout money, but his own Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel is the one who engineered the whole shebang.

Later, after public outrage, He signed an Executive Order to cap pay to executives whose companies want Federal Bailout money, but exempts all the banks who already got the money from us. The ones who caused the whole financial crisis to begin with.

The final version of this bill was kept secret from Congress until minutes before the vote, this was before he was in office but he lobbied hard for it's passing. The bill ended up being a blank check for the giving, and as of February 2009, it's cost the US $9.7 TRILLION DOLLARS! And no one is responsible for that money doing any good. We might as well have burned it.

Stimulus Package

Obama made the pledge to have Congress wait 5 days to vote on any bill. This is so the people (via a website) and Congress have time to really see what it's about. Apparently, the Stimulus Package was sooo important, that Congress was forced into a vote less than an hour after receiving the 1,070 page Stimulus Package. Can you read 1070 pages in an hour? Me neither, but it was really really important to the country to get it passed. So they passed a bill they couldn't possibly have read.

Well, let's go, Barack! Sign that thing into law already! Oh, wait, He needed to go on a little 4 day vacay and actually said out of his mouth, that there was no rush to sign it!!! What kinda Dubya bullshit is that? You made this big speech begging Congress to hurry up and vote, but then you blow off signing it? Fuck that.

Gitmo

A very prominent campaign point was the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, lovingly referred to as Gitmo. Gitmo is a stain on the integrity of America. And you, Mr. President, promised us one of your first orders of business would be to close it, along with the shady goings on of the previous Administration. You even fooled us for a minute with an Executive Order. Alas, dear B to the O, the Exec. Order only says you'll look into closing it, if you wanna. On top of that, you expressly allow the practice of Renditions! They are basically, secret abductions where they take a prisoner and just make them disappear. Who knows where. That's some more of the same old same old.

Iraq

More promises, less keeping them. I thought you would immediately start a 18 month troop withdrawal. Then it changed into starting it in 23 months. Who knows when it will really happen. Don't even say you can't do it! The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military, so you absolutely can. Hey, I got an idea, why not send more troops to Afghanistan too? Oh yeah, you did.

Bored yet?

There's so much it's becoming tedious to write, and probably for you to read, so I'll leave you with these last little bits.

He claimed he'd keep lobbyists out of the White House but has named more lobbyists to positions in our Gov than any other President.

NSPD 51 is a doctrine that O. won't rescind. It gives the Prez Dictator-esque powers during an emergency.

Even after demonizing the Patriot Act, O. voted to reinstate it and continue warrant-less wire tappings.

Thanks, Barack for destroying my faith in our government, once again.

Epic Failure isn't the right word...

Wow!!!!! How suck ass is that? Hopefully the picture is readable. If not, I'll inform you that the upgrade from iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G S doesn't seem like much of a "game changer" to me.

Honestly, I'm really disappointed. I can't believe this is what Apple is spewing out these days. A tiny camera upgrade. You might be saying "But Rob! It's a whole megapixel, and autofocus and auto white balance!" and I'd say to you, "Poo". Sorry, but 3 MP in a $400 to $500 (if your ineligible for an upgrade, god only knows off contract!) phone? Lackluster at best. At first the 2 MP cam was okay because the iPhone was fucking awesome! It was really something new at the time, but we're used to it now and the upgrades need to be fantastic!

My main problem is the whole "Up to 2x Faster!" but they won't release the specs of the processor! I highly doubt Apple stuck an 800 Mhz processor in there, so what's really popping?

In my honest [and humble, I swear!] opinion, Apple is simply milking the cow. I love their products [mostly] but I have to call it like I see it. They wanna keep the revenue pumping and know that people will lap up the newest Apple crap as long as the buzz words keep flowing!

Fahrvergnugen!

Remember that shit? And then the classic parody of it, Farfrompukin?

My daughter loves music, and rhyming. Hopefully someday she will be the undisputed Queen of Hip Hop but I'm not pushing her at all. Lol, seriously, the kid just sits around rhyming words for as long as she can, and gets a huge smile when she discovers a new rhyme. Is this common for 4 (almost 5) year olds? I'll have to look it up. She also really enjoys it when I beat box. Smooth Criminal is her favorite performance of mine.

Eminem's new album, Relapse, is growing and then diminishing on me. I really like 3 AM and Underground, but the rest of the album can go either way with me. One day I hate it, one day I like it alot.

While beats are my main focus right now, I still have a few songs left in me on the rap side of things. I feel like I should quit rapping sometimes and just make beats. This is largely due to my age. I'm 30. I know it's not that old and I don't feel old, but in the rap game? 30 is about when you call it quits. Idk, I'll just go with the flow. It's not like I want a record deal or anything, the time for that has surely passed. I wouldn't ever tour anyway. My daughter comes first and I'm not gonna drag her around the country/world so I can live out some silly childhood dream. But I would like to earn a living making music. I'm working towards that still, just with production instead of vocals.

I need an electric guitar. Then I could rock out with my cock out.

I'm trying to hustle up money for an HTC Touch Pro. I keep seeing them on Craigslist for somewhere around $200. I'd flash it to work on Cricket, then I'd have the best of both worlds. A dope smartphone and $58/month unlimited everything service. Kick ass!

I can't wait to eat stromboli for my fat meal today! Waiting for Saturday gets me through the week on my diet.

Chicks.

I keep waking up early and I don't wanna!

I'm so sick and tired of giving a shit about politics. I really don't think we should do another bailout, for two reasons. Either the first two worked and we're good now, or they didn't and why bother? Fuck it, Barry. We need to find another way. Good try though!

In The Ayer!!

"When they say in a rap song, like they almost inevitably do, 'Throw your hands in the air, and wave them like you just don't care', wouldn't a better show of apathy be to do nothing at all?" -- Jimmy Carr






I haven't blogged in a while, and I know I've chosen a convoluted way to say that I'm starting to not give a shit about politics in general. I mean, of course I care, but for fuck's sake already.

As much as I hate to agree with Glenn Beck, he was on The View (where the chicken heads unfairly and predictably buck-bucked at every syllable he spoke) the other day and spoke about how the governing of our country has become just plain old entertainment. He's totally right. My friend Scott (the Conservative Hippie) and I were talking about this a few days before Glenn did and the serendipity was delightful!

Back to my apathy. Nancy Pelosi needs to stop being a douche about everything, I mean, she won't even entertain an idea if a Republican even sneezed in the same building it was thought up in. Joe Biden won't keep his fucking mouth shut about sensitive information he shouldn't be telling the world. Barack keeps throwing money at everyone (at least now, we're adding some caveats and stipulations to the "lending"). Rush and Glenn and Hannity won't stop screaming "SOCIALIST!!!!!" at every Liberal with a thought.

Enough is enough! Everyone is posturing for the cameras, trying to keep their names in the headlines and I'm really just sick of hearing about it. It's a circus. It's tiresome and it needs to stop. Everyone just needs to shut the fuck up and govern. Toss out your silly misconceptions about the other side and work together for the betterment of the country.

Why Don't You Go Outside and Play Hide-and-Go-Fuck-Yourself!

Okay, I don't think Barack Obama is fucking superman or anything, but the guy's trying. He came into this presidency looking at a financial catastrophe. He came in hearing Americans screaming for our boys in fatigues to come home, and crying for a solution to get decent affordable healthcare. Every one is clamoring for instant fast food solutions to the myriad of problems that this country has, and the guy's only been president for 3 months!

I'm getting all bent out of shape about the Republicans (conservatives, right-wingers, whatever you wanna call them) and their double standard. Bushypoo started throwing money at these corporations to keep them afloat. I don't blame him, it was needed to start the process of getting us out of the whole that was dug for us to mudslide into. Republicans started smiling, "Look at W.! At the end of his term and still trying to do what's best!". Now Barack is continuing in that vein and their foaming at their mouths! "Look at the socialist! Let them fail! They did it to their selves!" You can't have it both ways, cock suckers!

So what if we let the automakers fail, and the financial companies, and throw the welfare system out the window, and close all borders? What good will that do the country? Tell me your plan. Stop fucking crying and saying that we need to do this shit, and come up with a better plan! I'm so sick of hearing what Obama shouldn't be doing when no one else has any ideas. If you do have some ideas, share the fucking knowledge! Stop keeping it some secret that you need your Conservative utility belt on to hear about! Because until you have an idea, every time I hear you bitch about Obama and the Democrats in Congress, and you keep exaggerating every little idea into some far fetched Socialist/Communist/Facist conspiracy to undermine the sovereignty of the United States of America, then I'm gonna tell you to suck my fat fucking cock until you choke on my poison acid goo, pussy!

Shineless...MicroFiction

There's this site called The Imagination Generator (just google it). It gives you a prompt to write from. The one that came up for me was "What if the sun didn't come up?" It prompted me to write this.

It's been months since the Earth stopped spinning. I haven't had a good nights sleep since. It isn't the light, I have the misfortune of living in the Western Hemisphere. It was night here when it happened. Those lucky bastards in the East have all the heat and daylight. It's the paranoia. It's gotten pretty barbaric everywhere.

They're trying to keep up appearances, mind you, but it isn't working. I just heard on the short wave that people keep assassinating everyone in the line of succession for the Presidency. I don't even think the Constitution specifies who's next. They've been winging it for a while now anyway. I didn't think it'd get this bad this fast. It's only been 3 1/2 months since "The Event" (as the tiny bit of media left is calling it). Within the first two weeks people started freaking out. The cold was setting in and companies were downsizing left and right. Really, they could've continued on, but everyone got scared. We had the feeling of the End Times. Wouldn't you?

First the companies started closing as their leaders just wanted to secure their own nest eggs and run for sunnier locations. I don't blame them, but it was just like dominoes. A few big corporations fall and then the rest follow suit. Then other countries quit trading with the frozen tundra that the US was becoming. So about a month in, hopelessness settled in. Those who ran in droves to Europe or Asia found that the Atlantic Ocean was frozen about halfway over. So you either had to try drag a boat over the icy expanse, which proved futile to most and they turned back due to hunger or death, or they tried to bring enough gasoline to drive the trek in a vehicle. Going westward, in theory, you could walk straight to India. Unfortunately, the lower common denominator of our society have taken to piracy. Unless your heavily armed and numerous, you're really at the mercy of lady luck. From what I hear she's quite the cunt.

The very lowest dregs of us have stayed in the cities of the east coast. Raping and cannibalizing for warmth and sustenance. The government, or what's left of it, is holed up deep inside some mountain refuge, pretending to plan our amazing turn around from lost world into Super Power again. It's not gonna happen, but at least the foolish can believe in something bigger than the horrors of the street. I can't lie and say I haven't fallen victim to the hopelessness myself. I've tasted human flesh. I've killed to protect my meaningless possessions. I've turned a blind eye to a teenage girl being sodomized in a frigid alley.

I've got a plan. I've heard rumors of a paradise in Afghanistan. Well, what used to be Afghanistan. Supposedly, it's become a melting pot of cultures. A Garden of Eden in this horrible fuckhole of a world. Half of it's freezing, the other half is sweltering. Maybe I can make it there and sleep through a night. It's gotta be better than just surviving.

What year is it? Oh yeah, I'm NOT a time traveler, damn!

Lost has been making me think about time travel lately. If you know me, then you probably know that I'm fascinated by all things Sci-Fi, and time travel is pretty close behind super powers on the list of things I think about that a grown man probably shouldn't. 

I like the way Lost is handling the time traveling. We haven't been told why this all happens yet, but i'm sure we'll know once the writers think the reasons up! Anywho, most of the time they travel through time mentally, their consciousness moves between then body and now body. It pretty much kills the worry of meeting the physical you of the past and creating that dreaded "disrupt the universe" paradox. It also takes quite a toll on the brain, confusion and pain and sometimes death occurs unless you find your "constant", which is usually a person to help ground you and keep your brain from going all mushy mashed potatoes. 

Lately, a group of the Losties have been traveling together through time on the Island, but physically instead of mentally. I think this is more of the Island itself moving through time and them staying in place. This would allow the writers to change the rules (that they've been following up to now, having a person move from their now self to the past self) to fit the story they're trying to tell. As we speak, the Losties are 30 years in the past. 

Aside from Lost, I was thinking about time travel in the sense of what if it's going on right now? Who's to say people aren't time traveling this very minute correcting things in their past (our present)? They could be averting global thermonuclear annihilation right this moment! Thank you, TimeCops of the future! For ensuring humanity will live to see another generation! And we would never know it! 

Also, what if our history, our past, has been completely changed from where we should have originally been? What if JFK was gonna somehow cause the downfall of the USA? I doubt it, but what if some enforcer from the future was the second gunman on the grassy knoll that day? His assassination prevented the Canadian Hockey Stick Invasion of '72! I'm so glad we're not saying "Eh?" and "aboot". What if 9/11 happened to specifically ensure the peace treaty with the Klorgax people of Argine 33? I'm not trying to belittle these events, but just show that the possibilities are endless! 

Where's my Blog Juice?

I used to have sooo much to blog about. Not so much recently. Of course I have thought, therefore I should be able to formulate something slightly interesting to write about. I have been exhausted lately. I guess my brain can't really stay on topic long enough to think about what to write long enough to write it down. So maybe I'll just share some randomness. 

Every claims their "random" now. I get the point but it's getting over used to the point of douche-baggy-ness. Just like people making new words out of douche bag. I like to call people "bags of douche juice" because it's way more offensive to call people the contents of the douche bag as opposed to the container. 

Tonight, Sarah asked me why things burn (in reference to the billion percent alcohol mouthwash I use that melts my taste buds off). I told her "It's a physiological effect of nervous stimuli." I don't think it made sense to her 4 year old brain. 

Definition of  "I know, right?": I agree with your previous statement and am affirmatively responding. 

"I'm On A Boat" is fucking hilarious!!!

If I would've slept 3 seconds later on the train on the way home today, I would've missed my stop. I woke up just in the nick of time. 

The only reason I would ever be vegetarian is to lose weight. But meat is so tasty! 

My JudgingEyes.com page is moving to a new host tomorrow. Hopefully it goes smoothly. 

I guess it's folding clothes that I washed Sunday time! Me and the wrinkle monster go way back! 

JawBones!

This is Jesse aka Jawbones. He loves the cock. 

I like dragons.

I might be getting a new dragon today. I hear the Royal Bargain has an awesome "hang on the wall" type sculpture. So, I thought I'd share my dragons with you. Enjoy! Or Hate it! I'm not gonna tell you what to think. 

Much Ado About, nothing really.

So, the Apple Store was down this morning. Everyone got all excited about the rumored revisions to the iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini. You could hear them thinking, "This is gonna be fucking awesome!". It wasn't. I'm underwhelmed. 

Don't get me wrong, it's not an epic fail or anything. They needed some tweaking and Apple didn't make any hoopla about it. I guess I just get irritated by the tech blogs I read (Engadget.com specifically) making a fuss. Oh my, the Apple Store is closed! There's gonna be mind blowing updates to the existing product line! You're gonna be so mad if you just bought one of these items! No. I'm not. I bought my iMac over a year ago, and I'm not blown away by the new specs. I slight processor upgrade. A tiny, almost invisible graphics upgrade. It just really shouldn't have sparked anyone's nerdgasm. 

I'm hungry, not for any new tech stuff, just for dinner. Liverwurst and cheese, upgrading to the onion roll. Yeah, that's as spectacular as the Mac line refresh this morning. 

"I don't promote violence, I just encourage it"

For whatever reason, I've been thinking about the negative view of violence in Hip Hop. Of course it all goes hand in hand with the sex and drug use. I just never understood why, when it comes to rap music, it's such a big huge deal. 

To me, music is just another creative media. Yet, the same people who love movies filled with sex, drugs, and violence condemn the same things in music. How is it different? 

No, I wouldn't let my daughter listen to uncensored Eminem, the same way I wouldn't let her watch a mobster movie. I don't know, but who do you think promotes more violence? Al Pacino and Bobby Dinero or Jadakiss and Cassidy?

Jumping Ship!

So I've trade my iPhone for a T-Mobile G1. There a few reasons why I even considered this. 

First and foremost, I was bored with the iPhone. I know, I couldn't believe it when I first thought it either, but it's true. Yes, my iPhizzy was unlocked and jailbroken, but since I'm not a developer I can't help that they seem to make tons of themes every week and nothing really interesting, App-wise. The App Store apps were great mostly, some retarded, but none the less, after about a year on the iPhone (well two different iPhizzy's) I just lost interest. So a new phone will respark my tech geek side. I'm down for that! 

Secondly, I loved my iPhone! It was like my iMac's little cousin riding out for the homies! When something you love doesn't live up to it's potential, its painful to watch.  I could no longer sit idly by and wish my SMS thread would load already! I was sick of reading over and over in interwebs forums: "Hahaha! It doesn't even do copy and paste! LOLOLZ!!!11!!" I hated the fact that if someone sent me a picture message (MMS) that I didn't even know until said someone texted asking if I'd received it. I hear it's not much better with ATT service. The add-on MMS apps (one from the App Store and one from Cydia) were clunky and convoluted. The load times on everything were seconds longer than they should be. I know I'm talking seconds, but in tech time, that's light years! I couldn't take the pressure of not updating when Apple released a new firmware because I needed to wait until The iPhone Dev-Team figured out the new unlock. I'm an updater, and an early adopter of everything! So the anxious wait was horrendous, granted they were pretty quick about it but still, I felt pressured knowing the update was out and I couldn't do it! 

So I jumped ship last night. 

I got my G1 aka the Google phone aka Androidicus King of the Open Software Smart Phones! In the pursuit of full disclosure, I've been a Google fanboy way longer than I've been an Apple fanboy, so I don't feel any pangs of disloyalty. I remember feverishly searching the interwebs for a Gmail invite code, trying every cell phone I could get my hands on to request one from Google (for some reason, in the beginning, this was Google's preferred method of giving them out!) So it was only fitting that I have the Google-est phone on the planet! 

Getting the back cover off to insert my SIM card was hard. It didn't seem like I was doing it right but I did it. Powered on. First snag! Albeit a minor one. See, the G1 is a 3G phone and I don't have 3G service from T-Mo. I have the standard ass EDGE. The G1 expects you to insert a 3G SIM so the APN settings are set for that. But the G1 immediately let me change the settings. I simply chose the T-Mo US settings and changed the APN to wap.voicestream.com and BOOM! I was on my way! The interface is nice. It's clean and I like that you can arrange your icons however you choose. The iPhizzy makes them shift to the top in an orderly fashion when you move them, but on the G1 you can place the icons wherever you like, similar to your computer desktop. 

You need to slide the screen away to type. I knew that ahead of time, and it's cool. It would be cool to have a virtual keyboard for short little inputs, but remember this phone is open source, so it's all a matter of time. Speaking of, there's no need to jailbreak the G1 because the option is right in settings to allow Non-Android Market apps to be installed. So if Google doesn't approve someone's app you can still install it if you want. That way the dev community is one force! Not two separate ones like with Apple (one for the app store and one for the jailbreakers).  I'm liking the physical keyboard. I haven't had one on a phone in a while so it'll take some getting used to. But I'm constantly texting and emailing so I appreciate it. 

One thing that totally kicks ass is the Myspace, Facebook, and Twitdroid (for twitter.com) apps. Although they look very similar to the iPhone versions (how different could they really be?) there's one huge advantage on the G1. You can set them to tell you when you get messages. I know it sounds simple right? When you leave the app, you will get a notification when someone sends you  a message. No, I'm not cluttering up my gmail with those notifications, it just tells me as if I was getting a text message. They each let you select what you'd like to be notified of, and at what frequency you'd like the app to check. You could NOT do this on the iPhone. 

The camera is better than the iPhone's too. The iPhizzy has a 2 MP cam, and the G1 has a 3 MP cam. The G1 has removable storage and a removable battery. I haven't really done too much investigating as I just got it last night, but for right now, I'm happy with my decision. If I change my mind, I'll just sell the G1 and hop back on the iPhone thing. 

If you could pass on a piece of advice that meant a lot to you when you received it, what would it be?

Don't Eat The Yellow Snow. 

If your first thought is "Of course not!", you're taking it in too much of a literal sense. Yet, taken in a literal sense, you either now what made the snow yellow or you don't. Either way, it's probably not a good idea to eat that snow. Unless you see that yellow stain on the snow and think, "Wow! Lemonade!!". Then again, the chances of someone walking by and spilling some delicious lemonade is pretty low. Maybe you're traveling closely to the local winter lemonade stand but I doubt it. That just seems a little too good to be true. 

You should probably investigate. Smell it. Get a real good whiff. What's it smell like? Yep, I thought so. It's not lemonade is it? Now that you know it's not tasty lemon juice and sugar, what are you gonna do about it? 

I have one really good answer: Don't Eat It. 

Applied to the rest of your life, I think that's some pretty sound advice. Take every situation you come across as a patch of yellow snow. 

Consider the source, do you know where this yellow snow came from? If so, is it a good source or a bad source? Meaning is it most likely lemonade or is it more likely the other yellow liquid? 

Observe the yellow snow. What kind of tracks are leading up to the yellow snow? Is it dog tracks or is it the tracks of children with an empty pitcher next to it? Or is there a hot steaming pile of brown next to the yellow snow? 

Smell the snow. Does it have a sweet citrus smell or a warm ammonia like aroma?

The point is Don't Eat the Yellow Snow, unless you're sure it's lemonade.