While I'm Running My Mouth...

I have a show tonight in Brooklyn, The Meltdowns are playing at the Charleston! Free pizza with yer drinks! woooo. The show tonight starts at 10pm and is free (you can get their earlier and pay to see two other bands that may or may not be awesome - it is unknown!)

And we've another show Saturday night in en ee double you jerz where many murders occurs: we're playing with SixToEightMathematics and Mazeffect at a place called Buddie's Tavern in Parlin, NJ, not too far from New Brunswick, actually. Hint, hint. xD That show starts at 9:30 (we're on 11:30).

leap year day reflections

[ edited x-post from LJ... took the dirt out, for public decency ]

Unlike the New Year's holiday, the leap year day actually does make me stop and pause to consider where things are at. Which makes sense, since four years is quite a bit longer. I have to actually think about it a little harder.
So, what happened, then? What's changed?

Well, I didn't live on my own back then. I lived in a huge, cold apartment in Gloomfield, NJ, I was in a relationship that was beginning to shake and break. My band played with drum machines, we were okay but people weren't really into it. I was working at the University, riding my bike a lot. Taking care of someone who couldn't take care of herself. Ugh. I really didn't like my cushy university job, either. I felt pretty much like I was living in nowhere north-jersey and going nowhere fast. It was one of those times where I just couldn't see anything for myself, no future, nothing. I was 23 and bored, unhappy and spinning my wheels.

So, then:

I no longer live in NJ.
I actually love where I live.
I've learned to play capoeira, I've learned to go rock climbing, and to surf.
I'm not in any shitty relationship(s).
I have my own apartment.
My band rocks, actually has fans.
I have a job I actually like, with the possibility of a long career.
I have goals and stuff! (I want to run my own onsen someday - a japanese-style bath house on a hot spring)

Yeah, this totally rules! Alright then, just checking. How about everyone else?

Strange Country

Curated by my friend Hiroshi Kumagai, and featuring my friend Colleen Gutwein, Strange Country in Jersey City opens next week.

dday on "how do we defeat tim russert?"

Over here:

The country wants change. They want Washington to stop all the partisan bickering and they want a different tone. They want their government to be serious and deal with real problems.

Can someone please explain to me how that can possibly happen until something is done about the reprehensible political press? From tax returns to Farrakhan to footage shown by "mistake" to the endless, trivial, gotcha bullshit, this debate spectacle tonight was a classic demonstration of what people really hate about politics. It isn't actually the candidates who can at least on occasion be substantive and serious. The problem is Tim Russert and all his petty, shallow acolytes who spend all their time reading Drudge and breathlessly reporting every tabloid tidbit and sexy rumor and seeking out minor inconsistencies from years past in lieu of doing any real work.

Judging by their silly questions tonight, Russert and Williams obviously know nothing about health care policy, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, economics, global trade or any other subject that requires more than five minutes study to come up with some gotcha question or a stupid Jack Bauer fantasy. It's embarrassing.

These people guide the way citizens perceive politics even if the citizens don't know it. It's hard for me to see how anything can truly change until this is dealt with.

I can safely say

I don't get it:

The Smashing Pumpkins - Superchrist

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I spent the whole time watching this kinda waiting for something to happen, expecting the music or the video to go somewhere... I don't know. I don't get it. I guess there's nothing to get, I'm just not that into it.

Apparently they also eat their own:

If it's going to be one of these weeks, then fucking AWESOME:

In other words, not being able to beat Siegelman at the polls, Woods believes that his own party corruptly used the criminal justice process to take out an adversary. This is an extraordinary, heavy accusation. Not something that a senior Republican would raise easily about his own party. And the facts back the accusation up, beginning to end.

Somebody Fine Me This Please

I CAN HAS ACTION COOK BOOK?

This Is Phun

via Matt Jones:

The Steaks Are Medium Rare

From Jesus' General:

Conservatism's First Article of Faith states:

Inasmuch as the profit motive is the most basic, most efficient, and most noble of all the conditions that combine to form the human character, we believe that the corporation is far better suited than government to meeting the needs of the People.

They were there when our Our Leader needed them most, willing to shred the Bill of Rights in return for a tidy profit and the promise of even more lucrative contracts in the future. And how do we repay them (aside from the millions in dividends our treasury showered upon their stock holders)? Tragically, we do that by hemming and hawing over whether we'll give them immunity from being sued--heck some senators like Chris Dodd and congressmen like Jay Inslee even outright oppose it.

We've seen the truth of this born out many times from the swift response of FEMA contractors to the compassionate service provided by the pharmaceutical industry and the efficient health care management of this nation's insurers. But no private endeavor for the public good has been as gratifying to true patriots than the wiretapping of our citizenry by the telecoms.

Congress goes back into session today. That means the FISA extension bill, with its courageous lets-give-the-telecoms-a-pass-for-trashing-the-Bill-of-Rights provision still intact, could come up for a vote again, any time. We have to be ready to call our senators and congresspeople when it does and tell them that we demand that they allow the corporations to violate are Constitutional rights without fear of being brought to justice.

We must act. The stakes are far too high. Do we want AT&T to undergo the same fate as Blackwater, who's operatives now have to take a split second to think before they slaughter random people in the streets. I think not.

Elsewhere:
Firedoglake and the ACLU always have the latest on FISA action.

Now There's a New Idea:

Instead of trying to impose pro-U.S. regimes by force, U.S. policy should involve supporting indigenous democratic forces with non-military assistance, taking its cues from the needs of these movements rather than trying to manipulate the results.

Morning. Meh.

Good morning, Internets. This is what I do for work.

 dbms_output.put_line('Let us remove the remaining role, and verify the creation of a DELETED level in its place.');
 DELETE FROM ident_security_roles
 WHERE ident_serialNumber = v_ident_user
 AND role_id = v_higher_role_id;
 
 BEGIN
     SELECT sl.value INTO t_level_value FROM security_levels sl
     INNER JOIN security_permission_levels spl ON spl.level_id = sl.id
     INNER JOIN ident_permission_levels ipl ON ipl.permission_level_id = spl.id
     WHERE ipl.ident_serialNumber = v_ident_user;
 EXCEPTION
     WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
         dbms_output.put_line('could not find a perm level in ident_permission_levels for this user, bogus!');
         RAISE TEST_FAILED;
 END;
 
 IF t_level_value <> -1 THEN
       dbms_output.put_line('Bogus, expected value of -1, found: ' || t_level_value);
       RAISE TEST_FAILED;
   END IF;

this is still the greatest thing ever

Eff Emm Yoo

Warning - dork out:

So there I am last night after rehearsal, minding my own business, as usual. And I take a ride with Lloyd and Gerry over to the WFMU studio in Jersey City. We're going to see Pat Duncan, who runs an awesome broadcast that usually features a loud and rockin band playing in the studio. A tech from WFMU had come to one of our shows and was really into it, talked us up to Pat, and Pat sent us a nice note on myspace inviting us to come by and drop off a CD.

So we've got some copies of the EP and we go there and we ring the bell and the door magically opens and we go upstairs and we're in the on-air studio room, rapping with Pat, if you will, and he just puts on our music, OUR MUSIC, on the RADIO, on fucking WFMU!!!

I still haven't quite absorbed that. 91.1 WFMU in Jersey City is a big deal to us folks around here, we listen to it all the time, so do all of our friends. It's a free-form radio station that broadcasts all over the world on the interwubs, and has a really large audience. I worked the phone's one night for last year's pledge marathon, it was neat... anyway, I'm drifting from the point

WE GOT PLAYED ON WFMU!!! TWICE!! And our record is now in their library!!!!! We were briefly speaking on air, but I wouldn't call it an interview (thank god, I'm the würst at interviews and should not ever be allowed to open my mouth), more of a hello and we got to mention our show on Saturday. And we're supposed to get back in touch about playing live on-air on his show sometime in May before we leave for the tour.

Wow. I thought we were just dropping off CDs.

Freakangels

Go, Warren, go!

Freakangels is a new weekly web comic by Warren Ellis.

It's damn neat. Go look.

Jesus' General

I love the General:

Thomas Horn
Christian Persecution Expert

Dear Mr. Horn,

I've been following the good work you're doing to exposing cases of Christian persecution. Your job must be incredibly challenging. Ending discrimination against Christians is a tremendous undertaking, but the sheer immensity of the task doesn't seem to deter you in the least. You've been very successful. I'd even go so far as to say your efforts are second only to those of Our Leader and his Glorious Crusade against Islam.

Regrettably, this email is more than a simple congratulatory letter. I'm writing to alert you to a particularly heinous act of anti-Christian discrimination I recently discovered in Singapore.

For years, Topshop, a local market chain, has stocked its shelves with Christian products for the Singaporean faithful. That all ended recently when the government ordered the market to stop selling such items. Now, local Christians no longer have access to "Looking Good for Jesus" cosmetics. They are denied the opportunity to bathe in Our Savior's immaculate love and "Looking Good for Jesus Bubble Bath with Citrus Scent," and they can no longer "get tight with Christ" by applying a dab "Looking Good for Jesus Sparkle Cream (with lily scent)".

We can't let this assault on religious liberty stand. We have to fight back and your organization can help us with funding and volunteers.

I'm in contact with Miss Poppy Dixon, an American distributer of the "Looking Good for Jesus" cosmetics line. She's willing to sell us as many units as she can secure. And if that isn't enough, we can also buy all the Last Supper Lunch Boxes and Fuzzy Dayglo Velvet Jesus Banks we want from her. Then it's simply a matter of shipping it to the faithful in Singapore.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Your Own Heart A Sword Shall Pierce

No, It Doesn't Work

From now on I am ignoring strange girls that poke me on Facebook.

I'm also never drinking again.

The Politics of Hope

That's hysterical.

I haven't settled on whether I'd prefer Clinton or Obama, and it's going to be quite a knife-fight through the convention, the first brokered one in almost forty years. BUT. I think everybody support one or the other will get behind the winner full-force, and maybe we'll even have a combined ticket.

We all know the score. We have to kick those fuckers out.

Eddie sent me a card

Thanks, dude. I think of this every time I have another one. Great.