Real Estate - Green Aisles

I wish I didn't love this pic

The Coup – Head (Of State)

Genetically Co-evolved: The Elephant & The Ghetto Blaster

[pic via Brock Davis]

Progressive Rock.

King Crimson, Rush, Genesis.

These are the bands with pictures over the definition of “Pretense“, one of the worst offenses of Douchebags everywhere. I mean, I can take some proggy songs, some of the time, but when some frat boy plunks $5 into the jukebox, I pray that we aren’t in store for 80 minutes of rock opera crooning and over the top drum solos.

Prog Rock is one thing, but I am not ashamed to admit: Pink Floyd… is a great band. Ever since I was first enthralled by “Time”, and the rest of Dark Side of the Moon (the pinnacle of stoner rock)1, The Wall (We Don’t Need No Education), both super selling mega classic rock blockbusters. [[1]]Anyone remember chillin’ out after the party, sleepin’ in the back of the truck, buzzed and cold, but happy to be among friends, underneath the starry, starry night?[[1]] Although DSotM will always be my first and favorite, my really close second is not “The Wall”, but “Animals”.

Pink Floyd’s tribute to George Orwell’s story, “Animal Farm”, this album has a short, but sweet tracklist:

1. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 1 (1:25)
2. Dogs (17:08)
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones) (11:28)
4. Sheep (10:20)
5. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 2 (1:25)

Songs there are few, but each of the 4 animals get over 10 minutes of haunting singing and guitar solos. Sung from the perspective of the animals, songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour imbue each animal with a negative trait. Waters—the mastermind behind the spiral of despair that is The Wall—wrote all of the songs except one.

My favorite member of Pink Floyd2, David Gilmour—the acoustic genius behind Dark Side I might add—is the writer and guitar player on one of my favorite songs of all time, “Dogs”.

Who was born in a house full of pain.
Who was trained not to spit in the fan.
Who was told what to do by the man.
Who was broken by trained personnel.

Who was fitted with collar and chain.
Who was given a seat in the stand.
Who was breaking away from the pack.
Who was only a stranger at home.

Who was ground down in the end.
Who was found dead on the phone.
Who was dragged down by the stone.

Fairey did a nice job on the new cover

Fact being that I still can’t give a solid answer on the difference between Communism & Socialism (can you?) though, admittedly a lot of the meaning behind Orwell’s story went straight over my 10 25 year old brain. If anything though, it planted the seed of my extreme distaste for greed, materialism and politricks.

While Animal Farm’s message resonated with my young soul, 1984 also hit me hard like a ton of bricks. Unlike the communist oriented Farm, ’84 was a story whose message was directed toward the lovely type of capitalistic western empire that I call home3, AND was named after the year of my birth. But nonetheless, Animal Farm wins out. I’m not stupid enough to miss the reason why though: Instead of oppressive Big Brothers and boring Ministries, you have Talking Animals™. Anthropomorphism wins again (See above elephant).

I reread it every other year or so, and like any good book, I always find new meanings & messages every time. Squealer is my most despised character though. True to his name, this greedy pig had a mastery of the enemy’s cruelest, yet most least recognizable tactic of oppression, one that is in both 1984 and Animal Farm: the corruption and controlling of the very language we speak, think and and record history with. Squealer’s sly manipulation of the clueless sheep and the hardworking and loyal—but dimwitted—Boxer, the powerhouse of Animal Farm, has gotta be some of the worst examples of the perversion of power. Yuk. I’m glad I’m no pig.

But what about you? Are you a dog, pig or sheep?

____
1. Although I gotta admit, you get your band for your buck with the 10 min+ songs. ↑

2. Barring Syd Barrett, band headmaster during Pink’s early, psychadelic days ↑

3.  Industrial England, Corporatist America whatever. Semantics. ↑

But what’s really of interest— to the artist in me at least—the geek in me is afk, shitting himself over the wonderful possibilities as well as the horrible implications for internet monopoly—is Scott McCloud’s beautiful & super informative comicbook describing what Chrome is & how it functions. McCloud captures the images of various coders and designers, and use them to explain Chrome’s features to users and dispense tech-talk to the developers. And man… If you’ve read McCloud’s other books, you know that McCloud has a wonderful grasp on the medium of comics, and can explain just about anything through a few, lines & a word bubble.

The part below perfectly illustrated what I perceive to be one of the most frequented and most frustrating part of a browser: the URL bar.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAA indeed!

In the new version of firefox, the “awesome bar” tries to give suggestions when you type into the box. But a lot of the times, these results just end up cluttering the short box and makes things even more difficult. In fact, while creating this post, I typed “hagure” into the URL bar and instead of taking me to hagure-metaru.net, I got a link for http://hagure-metaru.net/wordpress/wp-admin/press-this.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogoscoped.com%2Fgoogle-chrome%2F&t=Google%20on%20Google%20Chrome%20-%20comic%20book&s=&v=2

That is not helpful at all. I look at the first part of the URL, then my eyes glaze over at the trailing gobbledygook, and I feel like the programmer in the last panel. Here’s hopin’ Google comes through.

*sigh*

Here’s to the Google Monopoly… a reluctant cheer. May you guard my (and the rest of the world’s) data/life with wisdom, courage and justice.

boo...*lick*

From: Galati Efaw
Subject: “Remember Me? aloof taboos”

Be on top all night!
Look for more information

Sasuke vs. Itachi. The showdown we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived.

Yeah I know its a bit late. I was just killing some time cleaning the above image in Ai and figured I’d post it up. Back to the essays…

Last weekend

Bungie Jumping

Kaki King

Snakes on a plane, New Castle, Garage Sale, Huge TV

. : .

WordPress Amnesty Monday; July 9, 2007 5:43 p:

Bungie Jumping: : I went Bungie jumping with Mel’s friends. We had to hike up and then jumped offa cliff for fun. One of my favorite experiences of last year. Thanks ya’ll… and remember to fix yo face!!! Ashley & her sister & cuz are tons of fun… I’d like to kick it w/them sometime again…

Kaki King: Great music, that I did get around posting about in a little more detail. before. Good thing this isn’t a real music blog, or I’d be in trouble. Anyways, she plays acoustic. While you’re listening to the song, imagine that the guitar is sideways on homegirl’s lap. WOWOWOWOW! CRAZY HUH!?

Snakes on a plane: I saw it in theatres, to my surprise. I felt better as an internet citizen for seeing it though. It was entertaining, but the crowd was silent except us. Fuckers. But going with the posse (Wayne Conrad & Jason Tjalsma) made it that much better. Good times. I miss ya’ll too!

New Castle: I love this stuff. IronicallyCoincidentally, I’m drinking it right now. Mmmmm…

Garage Sale: Um, I think that this was when I helped out Harold, my neighbor back in the VV with a Huge “Garage” Sale at my sister’s gym’s parking lot. Worked kinda hard (not REALLY), but it felt good helping out a friend. In return, I also picked up my current 26″ Sony Trinitron, the “Huge TV”. <== I'm a Sony TV whore. I always wanated a nice Wega…... Anyways, without Harold and my dad, half the furniture/appliances in the Mennonite Mansion wouldn’t be here! And now I play videogames in my room all the time.

Almost a year later, but better than never.

“What are they saying in that song!?”

For those of you who don’t know, its “T T Totally Dude!”.
If you didn’t understand that, then chances are, you probably already know the hook—as well as the rest of the song by heart.

The explosion-as-devilhorns-sign and the very end made me get spit all over my aging Powerbook G4 (ooh shiny Macbook Pros). Then yesterday, Shannon told me about the newest song from the 1 2-Hit Wonder, Shop Boyz:

Damn. Just had to rub it in huh? And you want us to pay you for this stuff music industry?! I don’t wanna sound all old-fogey-ish… music in general has never been better imo, but radio is a cesspool. With stuff like pandora, last.fm, and the hype machine, I won’t look back when the current business model collapses, despite the RIAA’s last gasps.

Anyway, sorry for the crap. I’ve been real bitter as of late at myself and my world in general, for having shit like this, “Pop Lock & Drop It” & “ella, ella, ey! ey! ey!” stuck in my head more than 1/2 the time I’m awake.

Here’s some real music:

John Mayer – Kid A (Radiohead Cover)

Though I was definitely part of the right college radio generation, I never got into the whole John Mayer (or SD’s response, Jason Mraz) thing. But Radiohead was “my band” back in the days of the FHP (FumeHood Posse)—which, btw, is way better than OBG (no comment)—and continued to be my “college band” throughout my UCSD days. Long story short: Kid A is my favoritist song ever (LIVE!!!), and Mayer does a nice acoustic of it.

I also picked up this gem from the del.icio.us mp3 page.

We Got Our Own Thing – J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E.
(via: The White Noise Revisited)

This one’s for Clockw0rk. Funky-house beats that you love, with the old-school rap rhymes that no one can deny… don’t sleep on that via: link though, as I go through it with Peel, I find a lotta gems (YA mp3 blog I gotta check up on).

PS: I’ve been listening to a lot of “The Eraser” recently… shoulda got it last Summer back in Switzerland. And Random Google Researchâ„¢ for the post: Remember this? I vaguely, vaguely do, but the game and cartoon are remembered more readily… Thanks Nintendo Power!

Is it just me or is there a lot of LOLCAT noise at boingboing recently. Yes, I did blog about it. No, I will not talk about LOLCAT club.

I cannot turn anywhere without seeing this madness.

But I will not give in.

Anyways, Ratatat – Wildcat

I listened to a lot of synth and guitar from this du-du-du-duo in March and April. Its actually a trio (Guitar, Bass, Synth/Drums (if you can really call a single snare and cymbal “drums”), but that’s beside the point. Me and Shannon instinctively growl and claw at the air everytime we hear the big cat in the distance… It’s really a silly sight to see. And you gotta love it when they break it down around 1:57. When we saw them in concert last month at Porter’s Pub, we were also joined by a few of the hipster kids who’ve been listening to the duo for “Seventeen Years”.
Get funky friends, get funky.

PS: No, my last post wasn’t a spam message. And no, I do not plan to use it. Its just interesting. Much like the iPhone and this Multi-touch computer from Jeff Han.

Once Upon a Time,

I saw a parliament of Owls flying in the Air.

gogogogo