Dog reviews Wolf

Today I'm going to switch it up a little. As I've stated before, I'm quite into music (who the hell isn't?), and I wanted this to be a music blog. The problem with that is that there are already a thousand better music blogs, so I decided not to put all my eggs into that basket. Starting today, I will do an occasional music review, but it won't be standard fare, so don't expect them that often. For my first music review post I have a guest music reviewer. I would link to my guest's blog, but I'm very sure that they don't have one. It will all make sense as you read the back story.

Friday night I was driving home and pulled up next to a police car at a stop light. As always when I'm driving, I had my portable music player cranking out the tunes in a random fashion. At that time Patrick Wolf's "The Magic Position" happened to be rocking out of my speakers (and I don't know if rocking would be the correct way to describe Patrick Wolf, but I digress). This police car was a K9 unit with the dog was riding in the back. I don't think the dog liked the sounds emanating from my windows because it started barking viciously at my car. I know that it didn't smell weed or anything because I've already covered that, albeit in a poor way.

So by removing drugs from the equation I came to the obvious conclusion that police dogs don't like Patrick Wolf. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, and now I can confidently add police dogs to that list.

"A picture says a thousand words"

...and I couldn't come up with a thousand words, so you get this

Artist: Patrick Wolf

Song: The Magic Position
Album: The Magic Position
Released: February 26, 2007
Verdict: 0 Snausages out of 5

Special thanks to my guest reviewer, the police dog in the K9 police car next to me. If I were the reviewer I would have given the album 3½ Snausages because I dig most of it, but it just wasn't my time to shine today, and I don't rate things on the Snausage scale of excellence.

July 26, 2007 is New Blog Title/URL Day!

Hooray!

So today I finally came up with a title for this blog that I'm very happy with. I liked the first title: [insert witty/clever/ironic title of blog here] but it had too many flaws. It was too long, it didn't roll of the tongue easily, and I feel that it wasn't that marketable.

But in your About Me, you say that you're not interested in promoting/branding yourself?

That is correct imaginary occasional anonymous reader, I am not interested is marketing myself, but sure as shit I'm interested in marketing my blog. Like every other blogger I want people to read what I have to say, or else I would just have a diary (well probably a journal because diaries are for girls).

And for anyone who bookmarked this blog (I doubt that, I don't even have it bookmarked), the old URL is dead. I never liked crapamajig, it was a game time decision when I wanted to get this blog going a few months back. I also added contact info in case you would like to e-mail me and tell me what a terrible writer I am, and a legal section with information that I will not guarantee is legally accurate because I'm not a lawyer.

If this cat starts hanging around you, kiss your ass goodbye.

So if you still haven't heard about the cat that can predict when nursing home patients are going to die then read this article. If you don't have the time, or it's been deleted from the server, here's the best quote:

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death.

Harbinger of death? That cat sounds too metal to be hanging out at a nursing home.

A very informal case study on the criminal mastermind known as the Hamburglar

Seriously!? A butterfly net??

I was on vacation a couple weeks back and spent some time at the beach with some friends. Several of my friends decided to dig a giant hole in the sand. And I'm not talking about a quick 10 minute job, they were at it for a couple hours. Why did I bring that up? Because they are also in their early to mid 20's and that seemed like the best thing to do at the time. Not hit on girls or play football or wiffleball, but to dig a giant pit. They were the coolest kids on the beach, if you were under the age of 10.

What does trashing on my friends have to do with the Hamburglar? I love writing seemingly off-topic intros that loosely relate to the main story, like on The Simpsons back when it was good.

While all the heavy construction was going on, I decided to hang back with a couple friends and someone's cousin from Germany. Another quick off-topic lesson: if you play sports with someone from another country, make sure that you explain all the rules before the game begins. Assuming that the German kid knew how to play wiffleball came back to bite us in the ass when he kept running on fly balls. Quick conclusion: Germans don't know how to play wiffleball. Lesson learned, moving on.

My friend Warren and I overheard some guy talking while he was walking by. And by overheard I mean we couldn't not hear him because he was talking so damn loud, as if he wanted everyone to hear what he was saying (and I see the irony posting that on a blog). At this point I don't really remember what he was talking about because it obviously was not important. Warren and I looked at each other with disbelief over the nerve of this knobjob causing Warren to mockingly say "Rabble, rabble, rabble," to which I replied "Robble, robble, robble." This led us into a discussion over the controversial Hamburglar character.

We both agreed that the Hamburglar is awesome, despite the positive way the crime of (ham)burglary is presented to the youth of the world. If I were still a gullible kid I would definitely consider the Hamburglar a role model. Need reasons? Here are three.

1. The guy lives in McDonaldland - tell me you wouldn't give a leg just to visit McDonaldland as a kid, especially if you were a fat kid? This guy lives the dream.

2. He is dressed as a bandit - Zorro mask, fedora, cape, old tyme prison stripes, bold red tie. Face it, the man can dress. Also take into account that America loves criminals: the Mafia, Gangs, and most recently Pirates. I think bandits are the next big criminal fad. Mark my words.

3. No repercussions - the worst thing I ever saw in any of the commercials featuring the Hamburglar was they took the burgers back and wagged their pointer finger at him. Maybe I was too young to see Big Mac beat him senseless, or it never happened because that would be very un-PC after the whole Rodney King incident. Even if he were incarcerated I figure the jails in McDonaldland probably resemble the PlayPlaces that are in some of the restaurants. What kind of punishment is being held captive in a room that features a ball pit?

Case and point.

So back to the intro. I'm not completely off the hook, I stood in the pit and got my picture taken.

Slow News Day?

I think Yahoo's servers screwed up this morning and posted some news from 1994. But seriously, I would love to say that I didn't know that Hootie & the Blowfish were still touring, but I got invited to go see them this summer. At least I declined the offer.

Slow News Day?

These were the news headlines on Yahoo! this morning (see above image). This is why I love/hate the internet. It's cool to know that an automatic toilet paper dispenser has been unveiled, but in the big picture it really isn't important front page news like the headlines above it. But that is getting off track from what I really wanted to write about: learning from Kool & The Gang that there is no age limit on cool. That single statement, without even reading the article, has really changed my opinion on old people. Actually scratch that, despite my respect and admiration of Kool & The Gang. I still don't really like old people, except for when they swear or attempt to get in or out of a boat.

Happy (belated) Birthday America!

(Ed. note: I originally planned to post this on the Fourth of July, but I was on vacation getting a suntan/sunburn on the beach.)

Dear foreign friends,

You need some new material as your constant bashing of George W. Bush has become tiresome and annoying.

Pretty much every negative comment I read about America mentions G-dubs and how ignorant Americans are for electing/re-electing him. Seriously, that's all you can come up with? Bashing a whole country based on a president who lost the popular vote but due to an antiquated electoral system and slick legal wrangling was elected in the most controversial election in the history of the United States.

I try to be a straight shooter so I can't fully defend his re-election because he did actually win the popular vote that time, but he barely won with 50.7% of the vote. Simple math then tells us that 49.3% of Americans who voted in 2004 voted against him, which turns out to be over 60 million people. Perhaps those figures may help shed some light on how divided America was on his re-election.

This isn't a post to defend his presidency as I was part of the 60+ million who voted against him. I'm just sick of hearing that Americans are dumb because they elected Bush. Find something else to bash our country about, like the health care system or greenhouse emissions.

So in conclusion, while bashing America and how ignorant Americans are, please don't be ignorant yourself and show how little you know about what is going on in the country that you hate ever so much.

Thanks.

-Jon