Are Sarah Palin jokes still funny?

Sure, why not.

For all intents and purposes, I think that Sarah Palin reminds me of a ships figurehead. They're all dolled up and nice to look at, but they really don't do anything. Except for warding away storms, water demons, and jagged rocks.

The Raw Deal: "People who have birthdays on Sept. 11th"

According to them, People who have birthdays on Sept. 11th, have a pretty raw deal. Again, according to them.

I overheard this yesterday as I was walking out of my local comics shop in Cockeysville. The speakers were two teenage kids, high school-ish age. "Dude, you know what sucks? Tomorrow's my birthday man, and nobody's gonna fuckin' pay attention because of 9/11."

I kept on walking. That $25 pile of comics wasn't going to read itself, and I felt pretty certain that the kid would probably get impaled on something. Hopefully to fill in the irony, a really big bad ass American flag.

My only piece of advice to you, the slighted, is get over it. Get down to the DMV, and smudge your birth date to Sept. 12th or 10th, but seriously, get over it. If the kids who have birthdays on Christmas can deal, so can you.

Metallica grows one of their testicles back.

So the new Metallica album, Death Magnetic hits stores on Sept. 12th. I gotta say, after years of having a love/hate relationship with the band, I'm kinda excited for it. They've been releasing new songs from the upcoming album on Monday nights, from here until the release date. This in and of itself is pretty nice, considering the reputation this band has for not only "free" music, but it's reluctance to fully embrace online marketing in the way that younger bands do. I mean shit, it's already working just by me writing about it. But on to the main course, the music.

One of my coworkers had been suggesting that I preview the new tracks for about a week. My initial hesitance was due to the "sour taste" left in my mouth from anything written after the Black album. So needless to say, I was less than optimistic about what I'd be hearing. After listening to the two released tracks so far, "The Day That Never Comes" and "My Apocalypse", the title of this article is what came to mind. It's good. Not great, but good.

The Day That Never Comes - My initial impression with this track was not good. To be frank, it sounded like if you took the hardest sounding track off of Load and mixed it better. Then you get to the 5 min. mark. And then it starts getting good. My jaw almost dropped when I heard that Kirk Hammett remembered how to solo again. After giving the track another listen though, and talking with my friend Matt, I started to warm up to it. Slow doesn't always mean lame for a metal band, and I think I just had to remember that. However, I'm entirely unsatisfied with James Hetfield's vocals. They do nothing if not remind me of everything that was Load / ReLoad /St. Anger. There was a point brought up in discussion, that if the previous albums had never happened, that I'd maybe be less critical of his modern singing. While that may be true, it still doesn't help me forget that James Hetfield sounds like he's taking a drink of soda after singing-aah, every-ahh line-aahh.

My Apocalypse - I was told upon hearing this track, that if I was looking for a song that reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Metallica tracks, Battery, then this would be it. Honestly, it was pretty sick. I still have problems with Jame's vocals, but not as much as I did with TDTNC. The guitars and drums however are really the best parts of this song. Kirk Hammett is writing sustainable, and listenable riffs as well as solos, and it sounds like Lars remembered what his double bass pedal was for.

That being said, I still feel I have to apply the "good, not great" tag to this track as well. Largely due in part to the fact that I'm not going to let the rest of the album rest on this one song, and then get depressed when it doesn't deliver.

You know, it's funny though. I can remember having discussions with my old roommate about how the metal community needed Metallica back, and now, I'm not so sure we do. We've been doing pretty good without them so far. I will always respect them, IMMENSELY, for how far they've come, and how much they literally legitimized metal as a genre, but I don't get the impression that Death Magnetic will be this generations album that inspired them to musical greatness. However, it is still early, and while I think there's definitely room for improvement, this is hands down the best thing they've released in the last 16 years. So if I sound a little cautious, as most of us rational Metallica fans might, we've got good reason to be. On Sept. 12th though, I hope when I openly proclaim, "prove me wrong", I will be.

I will be a city dweller (update)

Weeeelll....things didn't go exactly to plan. To make a short story a lot shorter, our cats ended up being deal breakers with the guy we were going to rent from. Even though he said they'd be okay. And that we'd give him a security deposit for them. And he said, "Sure, that sounds great!" Apparently it was not so great, as we were told on a Friday the place was ours, and then Joe John Indian-Giver reneged on us the following Monday. It was news to me that aside from getting stuck in our moving boxes, and eating bugs, that cats are unfathomable engines of wanton destruction. They're like little Hitlers.



Thankfully my girlfriend (and this why I love her) kept a backup plan in this case, and saved a couple of her B choices. So that Monday we went into panic mode, and looked at a great place in Remington, and some crap shack across from the Burger King on Eastern in Fells/Canton. Guess which one we picked. On the plus side of this, we're paying less rent for tons more space. The downside is that we're not in the heart of Fells like we wanted. Whatever, this place has it's very own dive bar on the end of the block, so I'm happy. I do still have to worry about Hipsteritis though. There's not a Whole Foods near us, but we are dangerously close to Hampden. As long as I wear my old SARS face mask, I should be good.

I will be a city dweller.

So it's finally going to happen, I'm going to be an official city dweller at the end of the month. What'll it be like, for a small town boy (resisting urge to write Journey lyrics) to adjust to living the city life? What perils will he face? Will he find a kind of font so that this reads like those spinning dramatic newspapers??? We'll see. I think it'll be fine. I come from Aberdeen in Harford county, which isn't exactly the litmus test for quality living. If I can survive in there, I should be good anywhere.

There is one thing that worries me though, Hipster Disease.



Yes, Hipster Disease. If left untreated, and gone unnoticed me and the girlfriend could very well end up looking like the above picture in less than 4 months. Well, it wouldn't be too bad, as the girl in the picture looks pretty cute, but still, I'd look like an insufferable douche.

I'm already noticing some of the symptoms. Yesterday I spent a good 30 min. or so on my lunch break looking at bikes, and bike helmets. I'm already gloating to my friends who live in the county, how much we paid for the great amount of space we got. And it really won't be helping that since we'll be in Fells Point, the closest grocery store is, a Whole Foods. I hate Whole Foods. If you ever thought that the people from the hybrid episode of South Park, who smell their own farts were made up, then you haven't shopped at Whole Foods.

It's gonna take all of my natural stubbornness to resist this, because the moment I see myself wearing a blazer in August, while rolling my second skin jeans up to ride my bike, it'll be too late.

DO WANT. BAAAAAAD.

This is an alarm clock that wakes you up to the sweet sweet smell of bacon. No, it doesn't simply spread the scent, it actually cooks you bacon in the morning. If it'll get me coffee, I think I might move in with it.

How things get done.

I work in advertising. Admittedly, not on the decision making end of things, but I still work in advertising. If you ever wanted to know how the things you see everyday get created, then watch this video. I will certainly not stop you from thinking otherwise.