PICTURE IT: You're outside a huge Victorian just West of downtown Oakland. You see a taxi pull away and turn towards the stoop to see two young weirdos wave goodbye to it as they wipe tears from their eyes. They are bidding farewell to their longtime friend and short-time roommate so she can pursue her degree, and they are so very sad because now they have to find someone on Craiglist to fill her room in the bottom floor of this beautiful converted duplex.

The front room houses Jason, the taller and maler of the two, a web programmer, musician, and cook, recently arrived from Portland. Shayna, an artist and seamstress, also new to the Bay area from San Diego, occupies the back room.

The middle room...it's the middle room that brings you here. You walk up the steps as the pair solemnly greets you, their loss still visibly fresh. They let you inside and you pause briefly in the antechamber, taking in the majestic feeling of the house. Jason opens the door to your new room with a dignified purpose and you are immediately awed by the brilliant royal blue hues that meet your eyes. Shayna notices your stunned silence and reminds you that we are free to paint the house however we like but you asure her the gold highlights already match so well.

You enter the room with a growing smile on your face, noticing the large closet with ample storage space above. Your eyes continue up from there, noticing for the first time how truly high the ceilings actually are in this house. Your footsteps make an echo in the empty room as you walk across the beautiful hardwood floors towards the attached/shared bathroom. You can barely hear them going on about the included utilities and endless showers while you dream about taking a luxurious bath in the tub.

The rest of the short tour is almost unnecessary at this point. The kitchen is as ridiculously huge as they said and it really could use an island or a better table. There is in fact a giant basement with tons of storage with a ridiculous amount of washers, dryers, and water heaters to use up your free utilities. Everything turns out to be even better than you expected and you thank them earnestly for showing you the room.

On the way back home you note how convenient it is located to the 19th St. BART station.

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Jose Sinatra and the Troy Dante Inferno were a novelty lounge group from '90s/'00s San Diego. I only ever saw them in OB at places like the OB Street Fair and Chili Cook-off, where Jose would always make sure to incorporate plenty of chili references into the songs. I wanted to hear Knowing Me Touching Me earlier today, considered by many to be their finest works, so I figured I should upload it for your enjoyment as well since it's not available online and my official CDR copy barely plays (sorry about the annoying skipping noise in the background, CDRs don't age well).

01_Knowing_Me_Touching_Me.mp3 Listen on Posterous

02_Too_Young_For_Love.mp3 Listen on Posterous

03_If.mp3 Listen on Posterous

04_Medleyone.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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First demo/single off our in-progress album. Originally recorded with much help from Dan O'Hara for his Creature Guts project. This is my blackened and droning take, to contrast with his more lively and psychedelic version.

Does that work for you?

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Another boring Sunday sifting through the dregs of my feed reader until I randomly came across this AV Club interview with Community's Joel McHale. Nothing much by itself, but I happened to have read this other AV Club interview pretty recently, probably last Sunday, and I remember thinking at one point, "Community should've been popular by April 2010...I wonder why they're not mentioning it". Turns out it's because that guy is Adam Scott and they are totally different guys!

The stubble and hair are just superficial differences on these two walking smirks. I already have such a hard time telling actors/friends/humans apart, this time leading to at least one conversation where I compared his role in those shows to each other. So happy to clear that up for everyone.

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Between not going out as much, not shooting when I do, and being more and more particular about what makes the cut to process and publish, not a lot of photography has been happening lately. I still have managed to get a few good concert shots and thought I'd share some here since Flickr is pretty much useless these days.

Primary Colors at some crusty house in San Diego

This was my first experiment of putting two cool-looking photos that otherwise didn't make the cut on their own into a cooler-looking double exposure. This was a pretty good set, minus some technical difficulties. Michael needs to punch more audience members in the face or something; which would at least help with the photos.

Terraform behind the pizza place on Hawthorne

Terraform is/was always a solid live act. I say was because I think they're done...I guess the ring mod must've died.

No Babies also behind the pizza place on Hawthorne

No Babies with special bonus lineup! I really prefered this sludgier, more focused sound. I tried to tell them as much but just ended up drooling like a moron. They're hard to photograph with all that spazzing about!

Tiny Knives at Red and Black Cafe

This was the Gathering of the Goof Punks, before it got so sweaty in there that my lens was too fogged up to shoot. This is the part where Jai eats a microphone.

Muscle Beach at Kenton Club

Dan O'Hara (background) was guesting on sampler for this set and completely destroyed it. This set was a huge inspiration for my current obsession with sample-based music.

Drunk Dad at The Know

Finally saw these guys. Quite a departure for young Emmett from our Swelter and Flay days. He seems way more at home here and the rhythm section is so crushing.

Nasalrod at Quag Keep

This is one of my favorite Portland bands right now. Chairman's lyrics (and antics) are so hilarious sometimes that you forget there's an amazing band rocking so hard alongside him.

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Came upon some bonus lobster tails so I whipped this up the other night. Did this risotto pretty much to the recipe, only adding a bit of red bell pepper. Saffron dipping sauce was good but not great, especially when it ended up all over everything when I sat down to eat and tragically knocked the whole plate onto the floor.

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Progress has been made in the continued search for smart hip-hop options. Irene was kind enough to point me towards an interesting writeup of Death Grips which I really only read because the summary started out:

I’ve smoked PCP on purpose, I’ve gotten a footjob and liked it, I can call cops “sir” while high as a motherfucker. That is why Death Grips is for me.

Dark, glitchy, otherworldy, and angry--just what I am looking for. Wyatt put forth a rebuttal that dude is just doing a bunch of yelling and trying to be edgy but in my naivety I still think that people can be genuinely pissed (I know I am). I do agree that the MC, with all the subtlety of a ball-peen hammer to the face, could be a tad craftier. The music is what I'm extra excited about though. Fucked up electro noise may have finally found a place in dark hip-hop after jungle -> d&b -> IDM -> dubstep have all failed me. Definitely got a lot of good ideas to steal for Gift Giver.

I also found this cruel joke in an article on how Odd Future and Waka Flocka are ushering in an enlightened age of rap metal:

Flocka doesn't really rap at all. He shouts violent threats over some of the most decidedly radio unfriendly beats heard in quite some time...Flockaveli is, first and foremost, an unrelenting, angry sea of volatile beats and guttural vocals...

Don't bother! That this is considered radio unfriendly is only testament to the pathetic state of mainstream hip-hop. It's not heavy at all and he didn't even like this classic parody (that I didn't know was a parody and is now ~50% ruined).

(P.S. Off-topic and not really what I'm looking for but this guy is really good and I do like some jazz beats)

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Words of Scragz is back.

Hopefully this will get you caught up.

Music

Out

• Rock-based anything - Punk, new wave, even most of the metal I've heard lately; YAWN. I want something that sounds DIFFERENT. I don't want to start on a total bummer though so, to Rock's credit, I am still very into Cardiacs and I think it will still be another few years for me to be really absorb their back catalogue. Take this gem for instance off 1989's On Land and in the Sea:
  

  05_The_Duck_And_Roger_The_Horse.mp3 Listen on Posterous

In

• Darkness - Anything good right now is super dark and some kind of heavy, which is so fortunate because that's just what I'm into! 
• Hip-hop - Never having gone through a proper hip-hop phase, it's still entirely possible one could sneak up at any time. Odd Future has some of the new sounds I seek and a recent bit of Pandora led to some other good stuff. Still so much of it is so boring on the music side or too autotuned on the vocal side. Suggestions are welcome.
• Dubstep? - Wyatt sent me some tracks since I still haven't given this an honest try. All in all, it seems way too rooted in late 90's drum&bass and IDM for my tastes but some of the heavier and noisier stuff has potential. This Cloaks track was the most standout of what he sent:
  

  03_Rust_On_Metal.mp3 Listen on Posterous
• SOMETHING NEW - My experiments with Gift Giver and Sick Fuck are going well. Both have fresh demos that will get their own posts.

Fashion

Out

• That outfit I wore for six months - I am sick of it. I still might be into some general western-wear but I need a break from being a cowboy full-time.
• Facial hair - It is actually a big fucking hassle to have a ridiculous moustache.
• Winter ANYTHING - So bored with all my topcoats.

In

• Gay scarves, ascots, cravats, bolos - The necktie rejection continues.
• Goth-lite - Or just generally creepy.
• Spring ANYTHING - Topsiders, cuffs, pullover sweaters. Really on the lookout for some seersucker.

Internet

Out

• Facebook - Narcissism, the destruction of privacy, Like Culture; I'm fed up. The only thing I ever got out of it was Scrabble and insecurity. 

In

• This blog - I haven't had a real blog in a long time. Not sure yet what to do here.
• Yelp - I was finally pushed to write my first review since there is finally a decent burrito vendor in Foster/Powell that I felt it was my duty to promote them (seriously, go eat there). It is surprising I haven't done more criticizing since I am such a natural.
• Reddit? - The investigation continues...

People

Out

• Everyone - People are so flakey and rude these days!

In

• Chums - <3

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Google just launched a way to block entire domains from search results and I spent all morning making a good list of content farms and spammers. It's pretty tedious to add the sites one by one, but it sure is going to make searching so much better.

Here's what I came up with so far:

• 123people.com
• about.com
• absolutelyrics.com
• activehotels.com
• allexperts.com
• answerbag.com
• answers.com
• articlesbase.com
• ask.com
• associatedcontent.com
• azlyrics.com
• bigresource.com
• bills.com
• bizrate.com
• bleacherreport.com
• brighthub.com
• brothersoft.com
• buzzillions.com
• buzzle.com
• catalogs.com
• chacha.com
• chiff.com
• cooks.com
• copygator.com
• dennyweb.com
• devcomments.com
• developerit.com
• donanza.com
• download3k.com
• efreedom.com
• eggheadcafe.com
• ehow.com
• elyrics.net
• elyricsworld.com
• encyclopedia.com
• essortment.com
• examiner.com
• experts-exchange.com
• expertvillage.com
• ezinearticles.com
• findarticles.com
• fixya.com
• freewebs.com
• helium.com
• hubpages.com
• infobarrel.com
• infoplease.com
• livestrong.com
• lovetoknow.com
• lyrics.info
• lyricsbay.com
• lyricsdownload.com
• lyricsfreak.com
• lyricsmania.com
• lyricsmode.com
• lyricsondemand.com
• mahalo.com
• mail-archive.com
• markmail.org
• metrolyrics.com
• mp3lyrics.org
• mysaving.com
• naymz.com
• networkedblogs.com
• nextag.com
• organizedwisdom.com
• osdir.com
• petitionspot.com
• qondio.com
• questionhub.com
• resellerratings.com
• robtex.com
• saloon.com
• shopwiki.com
• sing365.com
• songlyrics.com
• squidoo.com
• suite101.com
• thefind.com
• thefreedictionary.com
• twenga.com
• velocityreviews.com
• w3schools.com
• webanswers.com
• wisegeek.com
• wonderhowto.com
• wowxos.com
• xomba.com

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