Well the aforementioned post about something relevant has come. Topic of which is the Vice Pres debate last night. I didn't get to see the first presidential debate, and I caught only the last half of the vice pres debate, but what I saw gave me hope. Sarah Palin is a horrible person, and I mean that in the sense that I don't give a shit about the fact that shes a woman or what her family is going through. Hell Clinton had to put up with his brother. But I mean that in the sense of the $27 million in earmarks for a town of 6,000 people, and in the sense of the bridge to nowhere. She STOLE money from state and federal development funds and used it on programs of her choosing. Moving on to McCain, his approval ratings of what George Bush is doing have topped out at 100% while Bush's public approval rating has slid to almost all-time lows. That in itself should be enough to win swing-voters to the democratic side. John McCain is a war-hero, and he used to be the maveric, but when I look at him now all I see is four more years of bullshit.

The debate itself is what I expected, although some of the public reactions are not. I have read news articles that stated Palin sounded more like the kind of person that would talk straight to you, and Biden would be someone who would lecture you. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?!? For a woman who cannot name one periodical that she has read to increase her knowledge of state and federal affairs, or has had almost all her meetings with foreign diplomats censored and edited so she doesn't look like the jackass that she is, or who wouldn't take any questions from the press during those meetings. I just think it to be unfathomable that anyone would seriously vote for this ticket at this point in our history.

 Joe Biden stated the facts, and he stated them clearly and made sure that he came across clean and truthful, Palin (from what I saw) actually used names, sources, or even facts only a few times, and she just seemed to be so far out of the loop that there is no way she could handle it.

Well, I guess it has been a while since I've posted anything of meaning. But don't worry, I'm sure I'll have a relevant post before too long. In the mean time, here is some life updates for me. I am on my own. My grandmother is in a nursing home and has developed alzheimers to the point that she no longer knows who I am. My father has moved into a low income housing development. Now before I type anything else, I don't want or have no intention of turning this into a pity party. Life happens and you just have to keep moving forward. But I do want to say thank you to all you guys for your words of support, they mean alot to me. This is me popping my cherry on living on my own. I have left home before, but that was to move in with robert, so I don't really count that because I knew him. I have moved in with a guy that I have known for a few years, and two guys I met two days ago. I am still nervous, but I think everything will work out just fine.

Motoko Kusanagi Witty Jones, aged 1, of Lawrence, KS was put to rest after a brief battle with uterine infection Monday September 22nd.

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I am addicted. To ONDEMAND.

ONDEMAND is kind of like PPV, but free with subscription to packages like HBO, Starz!, so on. It is without a doubt one of the greater products ever conceived by a cable tv company. They have programming available from all the movie networks, and really just about all the major networks period. I can switch over to that mode anytime of day and catch Harvey Birdman: AAL, South Park, Daily Show, Entourage, or newly released movies. All the network stuff still has commercials, but at probably 10% of the original length and quantity. But I haven't even told you the greatest part, you can pause and stop the video so that you don't miss anything. I have access to a TiVO with whatever programs I want to watch. Goodbye Sun.

Also, who is using which pseudonym on savedbyatowel.com?

I'm moving to Canada. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome.

I knew that there was ALOT of stuff that happens that never makes it into the papers. For instance, within the first week of PSU classes beginning, there were 3 student deaths and 6 girls reported being raped. But thats not why I'm leaving. Martial law was instituted during the RNC. Police blocked public lands to prevent people from joining a PEACEFUL protest. And even that wouldn't be enough to push me out of this country. The reason I'm leaving is that I had to hear something like that FROM A FUCKING RUSSIAN NEWS AGENCY. Does no one in America have the balls to tell it like it is? (I mean outside of Ron Paul)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsn6jN0p21w

Now before the comments start rolling in. I said that it wasn't surprising for them to do something like that. They can throw shit out like "security measures" and "credible threats" all they want and if I was up there and had nothing to live for I probably would pull a gun on somebody and spill blood on a $300,000 motherfucking dress that I'm sure will only be worn one time. This whole elitist argument is for the damn birds. You have to be an elitist to be elected as President, thats the only way your going to have the money to do it. Even then you have to reach for lobbyist handouts and sell your damn soul. I'm so sick of the election season.

Also, I don't know if you guys remember Colin Jones? He was two years behind me at Colgan. Well he got into a wreck last week. A pretty bad one. He's in St. Johns in Joplin in a medically induced coma. He had a stroke this last week and now the left side of his body is paralyzed. He's been in the coma so long that if they ever do bring him out of it it will be a medical miracle if he's not totally brain dead. 

But not all is doom and gloom for me tonight. NEW MUSIC

Emery - Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!!

I have seen something that made me bleed from every orifice in my body. And now I am going to share!

http://www.break.com/index/show-me-your-genitals-pt-2.html

Don't let the title fool you. No nudity in this vid, but it is definitely NSFW.

This guy is probably doing this as a joke, but I don't care it's a damn travesty and it isn't funny.

Well who am I to break the trend. I like the stuff you guys posted for techno, especially that Aphex Twin stuff. My experience with new music is rather limited at this point in my life. For a few years I had an XM radio and I pretty much left it on the unsigned artist or the metal channels. This was a great experience for me because it was stuff that wasn't mainstream enough to be hugely popular, but the artists and bands were talented enough to gain playtime on a satellite radio.

But that aside I am going to leave some links for new songs you may or may not know depending on what you listen to.

Five Finger Death Punch - The Bleeding

Slipknot - Psychosocial

If you can find it, check out "The sound and the fury - vanity (AKA The House of Vanity)"

Also, let's keep this going. I'm interested in exploring other's musical taste and so far you guys have posted some cool shit.

Keeping my theme of presenting you with music that you may or may not be familiar with (probably getting more familiar, at least in this post):

In terms of artists with a wide variety, Aphex Twin does a pretty good job. You probably have heard of Come to Daddy, and possibly Windowlicker (skip the first few minutes to hit the song, but the start is hilarious). What makes those two videos creeptastic is the the director: Chris Cunningham, also of Rubber Johnny fame. Watch that one on your own risk. If you thought the first two were weird.. yeah. However, Mr. Richard James also has some different flavors of music. Flim, Heliospan, and Digeridoo. By 'flavors', it's the same style but a bit different take.

Look inside for some more!

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Well, NT brought up the only name so far, and I kinda like it: "Saved by a Towel". (I assume you were going for a nice little Hitchiker's Guide reference, there?) At any rate, it's kinda quirky, and most importantly, "towelsaved.com" and "savedbyatowel.com" are both available.

I did some brainstorming earlier, and came up with this random header for the site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/orrbane/2810151554/sizes/o/

I think the name has some promise, anyways. And maybe we could have a site theme. I'm thinking I might like to blog under a pseudonym, personally.

What does everyone think? If no one tells me they totally hate the idea, I might pick up one o' those domains and start getting it all ready this weekend.

We'll do this real quick if we can. To begin with, I want equality within the USA. This means everyone judged on effort and merit and abilities. We have to view ourselves as individuals, and not groups. We'll concern ourselves with individual rights that should apply no matter who the person. We need to move away from saying "this race or gender performed better or worse" and ask "is the quality of education accesible by all people the same?". I've ranted on this before with Title IX extended to education, where people should be able to do what they want, and not worry about quotas. People will do the jobs they want to do and extend as much effort as they want to.

As you may have already thought to yourself, "But Michael, earlier in your VAWA rant, you did exactly that, labelling a law bad because you were concerned with it not adequately covering men. You were absolutely concerned with groups!"  And you would be correct. To my credit, I want it to adequately and fairly cover men so that the language in the law becomes one of covering an individual.

So, the Wage Gap!!

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I am now officially registered to the Democratic party. Maybe this isn't surprising to some of you, but others that were surprised, I am even more surprised than you to see myself typing this. Never in all my life did I think the day would come when what I used to consider the "faggot, flag-burning, baby killing, pussy liberals" would be the only hope of saving America. The area I grew up in, the people in it, and the lifestyle I had were all in a sense the republican way of life. But after the past 8 years I've done some growing, both mentally and spiritually, and I realized how terrible it is that small town communities and low-to-middle income families are literally tricked into thinking that the republicans are the right choice for anything.( I'm going to stop myself right there and state that I am solely referring to those currently holding office right now at the federal level.) I understand now what happened to me and why I used to believe that the republicans could do no wrong. It started off so simply. The democrats were for abortion, and being a catholic I was against it, so I didn't like them. I believed that America could not lose a war, so I was always for it. And I was opposed to gay marriage. This sounds like me and the Republican party are a perfect match, right? Well like I said I have learned a few lessons, and I hope other people have also going into the voting season.

The DNC in retrospect was what I expected, aside from a few surprises. And I don't mean surprises as in Obama coming in for a speech on the third night. I mean really, who didn't see that coming? What I meant was Ted Kennedy coming in, Hilary Clinton being a team player, and Michelle being as good of a speaker as she was. I don't know about the rest of you but I definitely feel that Joe Biden was the right choice for the VP as well.

I have to say I was a supporter of Hilary from the start. As first lady, she didn't do what most of them did. As far as I know, MOST first ladies have just done busy work while the husband was in office. By busy work I mean charities, fundraisers, putting warnings on things that are cool, so on. She got started by pissing off every single senator and rep she could by trying her absolute hardest to push for universal healthcare. She failed, but all it took was her push for it to become one of the major topics of the '08 election. I know that some of you might be thinking that it was rising costs and such that pushed the idea into the forefront, but without her early dedication, would it have become a hot topic for debate? I don't think so. It's not just that though, the simple fact is she will say whats on her mind and she has a very sharp wit to go with it.

Now on to the second topic of the title, my experience with mace. Last night me and David went to bootleggers. It was pretty busy and everyone there was shitcanned. At about 1 A.M. I noticed the owner walking up to the dance floor and talking to a black guy. Didn't look like anything suspicious. Then I saw him walking outside to where the Frontenac cops were. Again, didn't thing anything of it. Then the cops come in and head directly towards the dance floor. This is were I start to pay attention. They get on the dance floor, have the DJ cut the music, and proceed to "talk" to the black guy and his buddies that were on the stage. I don't know if you guys know what a taser sounds like, but I do. It has a very distinct popping sound. Well I heard it but I didn't see anybody drop so I thought it was being used for intimidation. They clear off the dance floor and drag the guy off to the side, throw him on the ground and handcuff him. At this point I notice a few people running away coughing and crying very hard. I had no idea what was going on so me being the dumbass that I am move in for a closer look. At that point I started to smell something, but I had no idea what it was. It reminded me of a cinnamon scented candle, but mixed with jalapenos. Then all at once I started to cry, cough, and my nose began to run. I have seen videos of people getting sprayed with mace, but I guess I just didn't realize it has an area effect. I was a good 15 feet away and it still hit me pretty hard.

It is at this point were I actually start to freak the fuck out. There were two drunk very fucking dumb bitches in the bar. One of them began to chant, "Dirty Cops! Dirty Cops!" I realize that I am standing right next to her so I get to the other side of the bar ASAP. Then as I turn around to resume to watch the show, another girl that was standing next to me shouted something to the effect of, "You fucking pigs!" Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ I am surrounded by people that are going to get my ass arrested and tazed. It was at this point that I grab David and we get the fuck out. As we are walking away there is a huge confrontation out in the street, the Frontenac cops have called in the county and pittsburg cops and half the bar is outside looking like they were going to kill them. We tore ass and got the hell outta there before anything happened. There isn't anything on the morning sun website either so I am guessing that it resolved itself.

 WARNING: Most of these links are to youtube. Some to wikipedia and other places. I urge you to give everything a good listen through. Since this is techno, at least get through the first minute past the buildups to the heart of the song. 

As you are pretty well aware of, I like techno. I love it! All kinds. Techno, trance, goa (think Juno Reactor or most of the Matrix:Reloaded soundtrack such as Conga Fury), psy, ambient, and chillout. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to genres within techno/electronica. One could argue also that electronica is sometimes pop/techno/rock music. Something like Deep Dish. Some, like Orbital, I don't know where to put because each song is pretty unique. The first is more hardcore techno, the middle is a light trance, almost chill. The last one is def. chillout. Even then, it's a tough definition, for me. But, the point of all this is to introduce to chillout. (More)

News on the street is you can make money blogging.

This isn't "new" news, it's just the sort of news that never fails to surprise and amuse, no matter the age.  People can get money for typing and pressing "Blog This!"  No paper involved.  No brilliant editorial plan.  Just type, publish, collect.  As I hinted at recently, I'm rather interested in seeing all of us get more into the writing mood here.  I've also approached several people from my friends circle at adding to our mood.  I'm not suggesting that we'll be raking in the dough tomorrow, but I think if we all got on a more consistent publishing plan, it would be worth our while to put up a few Google banners and have some new supplemental income.

Yet getting people to blog seems to be a battle of epic proportions. 

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Most of you were at my wedding, many even attending the blessed proceedings of the bachelor party. It was indeed a glorious day to reign in a new era in my life. Not of wedded bliss or anything, but of wearing jewelry! Oh yes, I look fantastic with this ring. It's titanium, squareish for awesome comfort, got some grooves in it, and it's shiny. Totally bitchin'. I can now punch through walls. Now I can also tap it on desks and make obnoxious sounds to bother people. Getting married kicks ass.

We'll take a trip now down the few days from bachelor party to wedding day! Come with me, won't you?

THE BACHELOR PARTY! We ate steaks, I remember that part. Maybe I had some potatoes too... River City Brewery was indeed a brewery and their stout was most excellent. I got some sort of shot from the waitress that was the humiliating blowjob shot I thought was going to be provided. Then later I recieved an Irish Carbomb and demonstrated my unique ability to not be able to chug a damn thing.

Nolan then showed up and there was much rejoicing as we scampered off (but a manly scamper, more like a stroll... not quite a preening mosey, but definitely not skipping) to the first bar. It was called the Pumphouse. There was a gas station attached to it, which was odd, but explained the name of the establishment. This is certainly a better explanation than the raunchy images my tipsy brain was conjuring to explain the nomenclature. That being said, the bar wasn't bad. We had many drinks, met a drunken 21 year-old girl on her birthday party. Riley made fun of her home state of Arkansas and declared it wasn't the south as well as giving a decent verbal smack upon their beloved Razorbacks. She also became sad with my illustrious twin Jimbo for living in Georgia and not liking grits and sweet tea. Bryan doing his best "I like everything you like and your drunk so I could have a chance" proudly announced his love of all those things. Then her boyfriend came over. The next obvious course of action was to start hitting on her friend, who I think was married too... 

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I know there has been speculation over the past two years.  Those who began to believe that maybe my claims of what my wife and I did were a little too forced.  That maybe, just maybe, I in fact might have developed a taste for what some would consider unnatural.

You were right.  I like Project Runway.

First thing's first.  "Reality" TV threatens to be the death of good, scripted television.  America's Got "Talent", American Idol, Survivor... all damaging the status quo of good television by asking you to turn your brains so far off that you might as well become a vegetable.  So how did I come to one of these shows?

Let it first be said that my wife is an enthusiast.  Now, don't go ragging on my wife.  Last week she read comic book issues of Hellboy and Astonishing X-Men, her most enthusiastic response to a movie so far this year was the underrated Speed Racer.  Other than a strong affinity for footwear, she has more Internet "street cred" than a lot of people.  So, when I first became aware of her watching Project Runway, I dismissed it as another weakness exposed, and I would have to be careful to discourage such lapses from happenning again. 

Enter last season-- Season 4.  It all started so innocently, as these things do.  She lured me to a friend's house to watch, using food.  "Oh, people are bringing food and wine."  Well, what else am I going to do?  I mean, at that point I still had the World of WarCraft needle in my vein, so I could either sit and farm gold all night, or I could get drunk and eat other peoples' food. 

At first, I had the "expected" reaction.  85% of the people I know have had what I like to call their "one, secret season of The Real World".  Mine was Season Six: Boston.  These sorts of reality TV shows with people living together are all about creating DRAMA.  People get upset, and then have their own private camera diaries where they talk shit on people behind their backs.  PR does this, and does the whole competition / elimination thing.  AND THERE ARE CATCHPHRASES!  God forbid.  Why would I want to watch a show with catchphrases about a bunch of people competing to see who makes the best clothes?!  I mean, I'm not Riley.  I don't spend an hour dressing myself, and fretting about whether or not someone will wear the same shirt as me to the club.

But then things crept up on me.  And slowly, surely I began on a downwards spiral.  I wasn't missing episodes.  "Oh, I'm just watching it because Cayla has it on."  I then realized how dire of straights I was in only this month when:

1) I saw Season 4 designer Chris March shopping the Chicago Magnificent Mile on August 4th and got a little more giddy than I should have.

2) The evening of Michael Arruda's bachelor party, which brought the first situation where Cayla was going to be watching the episode (Season 5, episode 5) live and I was going to be out of town.  This meant that she wouldn't DVR it, and I couldn't just happen to watch it.  I was going to have to set the DVR for myself, or ask her to do so for me.  To record Project Runway.  For me.  Oh lord.

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