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

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 Floyd{{2}}[[2]]Barring Syd Barrett, band headmaster during Pink’s early, psychadelic days[[2]], 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 home{{3}}, 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).

[[3]] Industrial England, Corporatist America whatever. Semantics.[[3]]

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?

Luckily (?) I’m half asian so I got the JUICE that comes in the can (thank god for the commissary). None of that carton shit tho (I always begged my mom for the Donald Duck OJ), that 40 cents a can shit (at least it used to be). But it was always made hella fucking watered down so it would last longer.

Went to college and I had it the way its supposed to be made.

“GOD DAMN THIS IS FUCKIN SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!” Too sweet even. My mom hella brainwashed me. Now I hella water down juice and shit. Thriftyness wins again.

But when I was little little and we were poor poor, I always had the fake kool-aid. Red. It’d always be bed time and I’d say “Can I have some red juice?” My mom cups her hand: “Here you go” =((((((((((((((((((( >=(

And it annoys me that that powered nestea shit is called TEA. Dammmit its drink! nesDRINK.

PS: White people eat cheese. See Boondocks, ep.1

Yeah... Imma go see it. Gotta support, right?

As I noted in another post, Puff Daddy is fucking ridiculous. Who knows how much bank he’s gonna make offa pimping Biggie’s ghost once again. Sigh. Victory is his. Always. At least Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) is gettin paid too.

And have ya’ll seen the Sweet 16{{1}} with his son?

“Begun this, Clone War has.”

Homeboy has got the ego of his dad fosho… I dunno Puffy’s lifestyle growin’ up, but I assume he was a hustla (I guess we might find out soon though). This kid might have the swagger, but he sure as hell ain’t gonna have the drive.

And to all the haters: No I don’t know StarWars quotes off the top of my head. I googled “clone quotes”. But I do know the Star Wars Gangsta Rap by heart.

*pimp walk*

Yet, I didn’t know it spawned a sequel.

Jar Jar is kinda racist though. The “X” hat is a trigger and then the whole chasin’ after the white women thing… yuck. Then there’s C3PO…{{2}} Disregarding that though, shit is pretty funny. Jabba rap… haha. A lot more “gangsta”{{3}} that the first at least.

But the original is still the best starwarz related shit ever.{{4}} Fuck the remake, or the movie versions. And you gotta love the LL reference at the end.

So yeah, that’s about the extent of my Starwarz infatuation. Me and the rest of the FHP used to sing this shit in Chemistry… if I remember right I was Yoda (I’m good with voices). Good times.

Never really cared for the movies… they’re aiiight, but I’d rather watch some Macross or something. Either way, fuck the haters, Imma go grab a gin & tonic.

[[1]]Ugh don’t ask. Ever since the boo came into my life I’ve found myself watching more crap on TV. Not by choice…usually. Why can’t she just stick to cartoons? Although she did show me the awesomeness that is Food Network. I guess we’re even.[[1]]

[[2]]How often I find myself taking off my social justice hat, especially when it comes to the shit that makes me laugh… oh world and your opposing truths.[[2]]

[[3]]That’s quote-un-quote.[[3]]

[[4]]PS: The original was actually uploaded on Newgrounds/Atom, but that site is so ad-ridden these days, that I opted for the lower quality YT versions. You can go here for the first one and here for the second if you want to see the good shit.[[4]]

Do not ingest.

…Actually, I’m nooooot. But my is… when she wants to be. Ammy can dress with the best of ‘em and her Rainbow Robot T rivals some of my favorite Uniqlo prints. (I wish I was in Japan for the Grand Prix…)

On another note… Maybe if I get this for her she’ll stop asking me to drive 300+ miles to get her sleepyhead some icecream. Usually between the hours of 12am~4am. Who am I kidding. That’s a 24/7 kinda request. Haha… it’s all love!

…OR IS IT!?

PS: I saw on VH1 (the realicrap station) the other day: “If it weren’t for fashion, I’d be dead. Thought that was kinda dramatic… but I’m sure its true. Fool looked like a fuck-up.

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.

Almost walked outta the store; then I re-picked Kart.

Charge it, done deal.

Came home and misplaced it.

I didn’t even try to play it.

Are my days as a Gamer done?

I dunno. I just wanna say that I didn’t care cuz I heard that MKwii was shit and that cycles ruined the game buuuuut…

I played it.

Jump powerslides are reminiscent of OG SNES MK (enough acronymns for ya?), or at least so I believe. I haven’t figured out the boost system for MKwii yet… right now it seems that you simply “charge up” a speed boost, but I doubt that’s all there is to it. There’s depth to this game; it should not be slept on. Fuck. I gotta take this game seriously! No looking for contacts, kill the monks!

We’ll see.

But really though?

Its crazy that I said “We’ll see.”

I never would have said that before. Game woulda been analyzed harder and faster than any magazine reviewer. Back in the day, I was a gamer. I didn’t need no review or strategy guide to tell me how to play a game. Sadly, this was Ninja Gaiden that we were talking about, so beatdowns were given without any mercy. I woulda beat that bird through shear tenacity. Sadly, the bird wasn’t even a part of the equation

Before I start, I just wanna say that Jason isn’t as crazy as I thought. Today the Futurama where Leela gets laid by Zapp Brannigan played. It in he says, “So… crawling back to the big Z like a bird on its belly!” Hahaha Jason, the joke was on us. You sly lad you!

So I have a little issue with friendships which stems from waaaay back in the day. As a wee lad, I had a super best friend. You know, one of those people that you totally click with, are totally in sync with, and stay up all night doing nothing, all the while having the time of your life. Good times.

Anyway, one week I got sick for a week and took off from school. When I came back, things changed and for some reason we stopped being such close friends. Looking back, I guess you could call it “growing apart”, but at the time, it just came outta nowhere. One week best friends, next week avoidance. Anyway, this was pretty crazy for me. Took another day or two off to cope.

So I went back to school, and after doing the whole “walk around while eating lunch so you look busy and not like a loner” for awhile, I nudged myself into a group of people who ate lunch by the library. So now I had people to eat lunch with, but I never considered myself to be their friends or anything, mainly cuz all they ever talked about was what happened on RAW or HEAT or whatever wrestling thing came on the night before (yeah I never was into watching the drama of men in tights fake beating each other up). So I still didn’t really have any good friends. That went on for about a trimester or 2.

Year after that tho, I got into the groove of things, and the beginnings of the FHP were born (Subw00fer & Doctor Claw UNITE!). Oh wait, this was acutally the start of Super Smash Brothers J.E.T.T. (Jason, Efrin, Terry Todd & Mark). Although Efrin didn’t play, he was cooler, and JMTT doesn’t have as nice a ring to it. Anyway, my Smash Brothers days is another story altogether.

Thing is, that whole incident only reinforced my previous insecurities that every kid has. I was left a kid who had a “fear of commitment” of sorts, the whole “not wanting to get hurt again” thing. So it became hard for me to make friends (and you people reading this know how “interesting” of a person I am…), resulting in stunted social development throughout highschool.

BUT, luckily I found the FHP and all my problems were solved! I had some cool friends, a Posse even! Yay! Noone was to mess with us. We were unbelievably smart, unbelievably lazy and unbelievably rudies (cept for that whole magnet-skating thing, and although we did tag up stuff, more often than not I did it with apple peels that I would deem “Nick Jr.’s Face”…yeeeeah…)! Anyway, now I could worry about more important things like girls and kisses and dances and all that normal HS stuff.

I’m listenin to Daft Punk’s Homew0rk by the way.

So yeah, Its Christmas (fuck off nitpickers) and I’m doing good (once again…). Let’s describe my day.

I woke up around 6ish; Mizuki was eager as ever to see what Santa & My ‘rents gave to her. She wound up with a tv, dvd player, expensive electronic learning thingy, and other stuff. Me? The usual outfit & cash, along with a 307 cd case (OMG) and some headphones (actually these are pretty cool). So yeah, after the merriment of everyone opening their presents—- hold up. So yeah, christmas this year was cool. I actually felt a little something like the old days of the holiday, a true sense of wonderment for the presents, as well as the feeling of being happy with my whole family (a reacurring theme this break). Like I said before, its been good.

So anyway, afterwards, I went back to sleep for awhile and did the usual room seclusion thing that I love doing while @ home. Around 3 or 4 tho, it started hailing! Haha, what a christmas day huh? I loved it. I surely wouldn’t be able to get this kinda shit in SD. Which brings me to another thing. I dunno if its because of finals and all that stress mess, but when I’m in SD, I seriously cannot feel the holiday spirit. I’m sure a lot of it just has to do with the environment. While I’m in SD, it doesn’t even feel like winter. For example, when the holidays come around here, it gets fucking cold (not like in SD where its only cold late @ night. I’m talking about all day all night) And the trees (not all evergreen) have little or no leaves. I dunno, I just haven’t felt it in SD yet. Although not having seasons is convenient, you just gotta appreciate how nature works, changing things up for us every 4 months or so.
ANYway, the hailstorm also created a really nice rainbow too. Nice and thick and not all tranlucent. It was actually a double rainbow, with a fainter double below it. What a beautiful day huh?

Dinner was great too—- oh yeah, my brunch, was Mabou (sp?) Ramen. Uh… I guess its like regular Ramen w/ spicy ground pork and tofu added to it. Man… that shit is too good.
Dinner tho, was even better. A nice Christmas roast with homemade mashed potatoes, steamed veges and salad and mini crossaints. Man that roast was good. Actually come to think of it, imma hafta have some after this post.

So the evening presses on, and I get a call from Tuan askin if I wanted to go see ROTK (you should know this acronym). Man, what a pleasant surprise! So we go around 8:30, and watch the damned thing.

I’m sure everyone else has heard enough about it but man, what a tight ass movie/trilogy/ending. The minor book/movie changes were a nice + in this one, subtle, understandable and enhancing. Lemme just say that I will be joining the horde who await the super ultra extended mega triple trilogy DVD pack. Man… watching the whole thing’ll probly take a whole day huh? “Good shit” as Dan “THE MAN” Laury would say.

So then I return, and am lucky enough to catch Adry online for a brief moment. Damn… I miss her millions (but that’s another post!). I love ya babe, hope you’re havin fun!
Bored, and longing to get fucked up, Me and Tuan hook up again. I smoke him out (in a matter of speaking?) in front of his home, look at the stars, and chill. Good people.

And now I’m at home, typin, eatin frozen strawberries, and listening to Daft. What a wonderful life indeed.

* Broken Shower

So I’m in the shower doing my thing… I slip up and am about to fall right? So I try to balance myself on the wall… but lo and behold the wall doesn’t agree with this decision and decides to CAVE IN. So now… Marshall Uppers Apt. J-5 has a hole in the wall in the shower. Big ass hole too… bout 6-8 tiles.

AND YES IT IS BECAUSE I SLIPPED! haha

* Cat Section Crazy

So one day (I think 2 Thursdays ago…) Cat section isn’t at SSB (which is like a minute’s walk from here), but somewhere in 6th college (which is like 5 minutes drive from here). So me and Justin go roll up right, bout 10 minutes late. After like an Easter egg hunt tryin to find the place, we arrive. First thing we hear is the TA going, “You should put your listening ears on!” First thing we see is some crazy shit. Ppl cuttin paper and looking through pieces of plastic. They look through the plastic at some cup and try to analyze this. On the directions, there’s some shit like: “What does the cup look like? What is different?” (It looks like a cup and nothing is different…) But yeah. Since me and Justin are late, we don’t have time to cut out the paper to make the “viewing pane” or whatever that plastic thing was. The teachers just give us a pre-made one…

Just a reminder… what I’m talking about is CRAZY… but you probly had to be there…

Oh yeah… and J’s blazed as fuck so of course it’s weird to him.

ANYway, so we fly through all the things we’re supposed to do (like 5 of them), while everyone else is still on like the 1st one. WTF… its just looking at a cup through a piece of plastic, how stupid can you get? But yeah… it was just weird as fuck…
Oh. And at the end, I get my quiz back. Me and Justin both got: 3.8 out of 5 & 3/4. WTF kinda grade is THAT?

* Necklace/Poster/Skirt

Me and Adry went to the vendor fair @ library walk a few weeks ago. It was really nice and everything… lots of good stuff. Adry got me this tight ass necklace… its cool cuz whenever I’m not with her it reminds me of her…
But yeah. I also got a Radiohead OK Computer poster… good stuff. Adry also got some rings for herself (actually, she tried to get me one, but it wouldn’t fit!) And I also got her a real cool skirt-like drape thing whatever, and a Nightmare Before Christmas poster. Hopefully she likes em both!

* Essay Sucked

So yeah the Cat Essay SUCKED. Stayed up till 7 AM doing it… I had very hateful away messages and all that. Um… yeah it sucked. I don’t wanna think about it right now.

…Oh yeah. We turned it in during class, and later that day at section (which I didn’t go to but heard about it) they gave it right back to us and said to peer edit it (which I already did like 3 times). STUPID

* Adry likes CREED??? 3 DOORS DOWN???

Yeah. That pretty much explains it. How can you like that Krytonite song? WTF. Nickelback too probly. BLAH BLAH BLAH! fucking ey no sense of taste in music! hahaha

So yeah… this weekend was pretty FOGGY. Derrick and Manny came over and chilled. Hella fun! Hella food! Hella uncertainty! Hella tired! Hella fun!
Hella… hella! And wtf is Bookoo? Yoked? Wha…???

Oh yeah… earlier we also went with Kaia, AJ, Tomas, Jose, Tiff, Fernando, John, Angelica, etc. to some Drag Queen thing. Me n Adry saw only a lil’ bit though… although there was this one completely naked guy in the theater lounge… uh… yeah. Then we went to the ATM and lost Jose. Then we went to the moov’s but lost the bus so we didn’t go. Then we went to AJ’s and chilled for 10. Then we came here and me, Kaia, Tiff, Adry & Mel partook in some activities. Then Derrick and them came back.

Hella non-chronological order!

Haha hella fun!

And Adry… the love is always there, forever waiting.

…forever mushy!

OH YEAH.
Aren’t the pix and other stuff cool? It’s becoming more like a regular website… well not really but kinda. And use the damned board! Yeah you! Tuan goddamnit!