Washington Interns Gone Bad

Blogging is Like so Last Week

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:57:00 +0000

After all these years of obsessive blogging, I think that well has finally dried up for me. Not only have I neglected this blog, but my other two as well. I have a blog devoted to bass and another where I was doing a blaxploitation web comic featuring an Obama action figure over on Today.com but I haven't posted on either of those, mainly because I took issue with today.com's somewhat fascist way of dealing with a couple of bloggers who I had become friendly with over there. I also don't really have it in me to bother arguing with the outright lunacy that the morons on the right have been calling political discourse these days. Barney Frank put it the best... it's like trying to have a conversation with a coffee table.

I've got a lot going on these days with a very active child now in preschool, a band learning to play very intricate songs now with an upcoming gig, trying to manage an office of a small business during very trying economic times, and discovering all sorts of very exciting stuff to watch on my iPod. It doesn't leave a whole lot of free time to crank out any kind of regular commentary, especially not of the multi-paragraph variety.

So what's an opinionated guy who likes to make snarky comments about things to do? I still enjoy sharing things with complete strangers on the internet. When I was making zero budget films, one of the things that I liked was that limitations force creativity. That's what I've learned to love about Twitter. So if you've liked what you've read here over the last 7 or so years, consider following me on Twitter. It's the same sarcasm and the same links to cool (and not so cool) stuff that you came here for, only far less time consuming.

The Far Right Kills Again

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:47:00 +0000

So yet again, some member of the lunatic fringe of the far right has used violence to intimidate or cause for the purpose of "exerting pressure on decision making. You know, the very definition of TERRORISM. This time it was an abortion doctor, shot in his church on a Sunday, allegedly at the hands of one of these militia nutjobs. What part of killing doctors do you assholes consider to be "pro-life?" I'm sure the excuses will be flying out of the kinds of blogs I stopped reading months ago, and frankly I don't give a shit for excuses. This needs to be a wake up call to any moderates left in the republican party. These are the people you are in bed with. They are the American Taliban. They'll kill you if they don't get their way, or just to make a point. Fox News shitheads like O'Reilly stoke the flames but I'm sure he'll be on his show today making excuses for his hateful rhetoric. We need to stop tolerating this shit. We need to stop making excuses for the people pumping hours and hours of hate filled rhetoric day in and day out on talk radio and Fox News to an audience of people who are not particularly bright and prone to acts of severe wingnuttery. They're not just entertainers. They are inspiring people to do some fucked up shit and making lots of blood money for it.

Right wingers, it's time to reign your people in before somebody else has to start doing it for you. Remember that Patriot Act that you were all gung ho about when your people were running the show? Your people aren't running anything these days and now all of a sudden you're concerned about reports of extremism? Well you've got good cause to be concerned since you're in bed with domestic terrorists. Your extremists have a body count that continues to grow. Purge your party of this bullshit before we tie this around your neck like a motherfucking albatross. You think you've got PR problems with Dick Cheney running around defending torture? That's nothing compared to members of your base killing doctors.

Tweeting Twits

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:39:00 +0000

I keep hearing that twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your blog. I've been trying for a while now without a whole lot of results. But I keep on trying to get more followers. Here's a little viral way to get more followers. It's kind of the same logic as a chain letter. You sign up and automatically follow six people, and then when people sign up under you, you're one of the people who gets added and as people sign up under them, your followers should increase exponentially. Won't you give it a try? At worst you waste a few minutes. At best you get shitloads of twits following your every tweet.

Just click here to get it going. Thanks.

Cinco de Mayo's on Tuesday

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:51:00 +0000

In honor of a Mexican holiday which is not that big a deal in Mexico but used to sell lots of tequila and Corona in the states, here's an epic Spaghetti Western ballad by Ween. If you're not familiar, I urge you to give it a listen. It's a song about murder and revenge and betrayal by a truly great band. I shot this one myself, just days after getting my first digital video camera in the spring of 2000, from the top balcony of the 9:30 club in DC.

First 100 Days

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:03:00 +0000

I know, it's been forever since I've posted here. I've been super busy with life lately. I'm learning a new musical instrument and practicing an hour's worth of new music for a gig that is getting terrifyingly close. And as far as political posts go, I've been more focused on doing political cartoons than writing about it.

But today I saw something that I really wanted to share. Anyone who pays any attention to the political blogosphere has noticed a disturbing uptick in the levels of vitriol coming from the right, starting right around when it became obvious that Obama was going to win, and getting scarier and scarier by the day. You've got bloggers who would once decry liberals for being traitors to our country now making threats of violence to elected officials if there are investigations in the wrongdoings of the previous administration. There's talks of states seceding. You've got these teabag parties sponsored by Fox News which in theory were supposed to be about government spending and nonpartisan in nature but in reality turned into giant right wing Obama hate circle jerks, and people are being exceedingly defensive when you dare suggest there might be some racist overtones involved. And the scariest thing is that guns and ammo are flying off the shelves.

Today I found a great piece that details the first 100 days of the far right. Here are some tasty tidbits...

When Sean Hannity runs a poll asking whether his viewers prefer a military coup, secession, or armed rebellion -- and armed rebellion wins -- that's evidence of this kind of shift. Right-wing talkers have built careers out of demonizing liberals; but when they start talking about what specific steps should be taken against them, that's not something we should ignore.

...

Up is down. Black is white. Obama's not a citizen, he's going to take our guns, Congress is about to legalize incest....this we believe, and there's no expert and no amount of real-world evidence that can ever convince us otherwise. The right wing's retreat from consensus reality has finally left them living in an Orwellian alternative universe all their own.

...

This overweening humiliation is growing every day that the Democrats and their new president stay in power. It's a pain that will not go away, and it's likely to curdle into something far more venomous in time. The result, unfortunately, is probably going to be more violent attacks on government authority like the one in Pittsburgh last month.

...

At the same time, the past 100 days have seen record gun sales and nationwide ammo shortages as terrified conservatives buy up guns in anticipation of a total weapons ban. This seems like just another curious only-in-America news story -- until you realize that the far right is already sporting most of the earmarks of a group that's gearing up for violent action. Given the rest of the pattern, we should take this trend very, very seriously.

You really should read the whole article. It may be a tad alarmist, but it brings up some very valid points. The scary people are getting scarier and the pieces are falling in place for the shit to really hit the fan.

I don't have any solutions beyond mandatory sedation of these people, but despite the good intentions, that would be fascist. All joking aside, we've got a very serious potential threat on our hands. What do we do?

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Wow, I haven't written here in 2 weeks. I suck! Actually I don't suck. I've just been super busy. I've got 2 other blogs that I try to update daily, one of which is a comic strip which takes a lot of work. And if that wasn't enough, I'm trying to edit together 3 cameras worth of footage for a TV pilot. And I've got a family and day job! I'd like to petition the powers that be to add a couple of hours to the day please.

If you want fresh and tasty daily content from me, check out my bass blog and Obama Action Comics!

Michael Phelps' Infamous Bong

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:48:00 +0000

So there's all this ridiculous brouhaha over a picture of Olympic superstar Michael Phelps doing a bong hit. Oh noes, he's smoking pot!!! And of course, people are looking at this the wrong way. These puritanical culture warriors out there say disgrace this and lost endorsements that and I say bullshit. If anything, this should show that normal, everyday people who are great successes in life sometimes enjoy the effects of an intoxicating plant. This whole episode is a perfect illustration of the absolute ridiculousness of marijuana prohibition. They say this sends the wrong message and I say it sends the perfect message. It's harmless, and even some of the most accomplished and successful people (even outside of the entertainment industry) enjoy it. Competitive athlete Arnold Schwarzenegger extolled the virtues of pot smoking and how it helped him work out in the documentary Pumping Iron, and now he's a governor. But Phelps breaks an Olympic record, gets caught smoking up and goes from national hero to pariah overnight? What the hell is wrong with this country?

Another Blog? Am I Crazy?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:13:00 +0000

Yep, I've gone and started yet another blog. It's more political humor. I could have done it over here, but hosting it on today.com gives me a trickle of revenue based on traffic and I think this one, if the right people know about it, can get me some good traffic.

So what's this new blog all about, you ask? Ever since I made a political comedy film, I've thought about doing a comic book, kind of as supplemental material to the film. The problem is I'm not an artist, and I never got around to trying to find an artist who wanted to collaborate on something that would probably not make a dime. Plus, the film never really took off the way I thought it would, years passed and the context got a little stale. So I forgot about it for a while. When I first got my mac, I saw that it came with a program called Comic Life which has all the templates you'd need to make a comic book as long as you have artwork to drag into it. But I still didn't have an artist.

Then the other day I saw a blog post with these great photos of an Obama action figure from Japan. This action figure is heavy on the action, with guns, swords, and badass looks. The light bulb went off and I had everything I needed to make a great political comic.

Like any work of political satire, it's rooted in reality but treads heavily in fantasy. And my fantasy is an Obama who gets things done by any means necesarry. This Obama will take the high road first, but if people get in his way they soon realized that they're messing with the wrong guy. And like any good comic book, there's a host of evil villains. Anyone care to guess who their ringleader is?

So check it out and let me know what you think. It's going to run daily for as long as I can keep up that pace. It's at obamacomics.today.com

And if you want that badass graphic on a badass t-shirt, get your bad ass over here!

I Must Be Doing Something Right

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:51:00 +0000

So I just racked up another battle of the blogs win. This time it was against a blog with a pretty low ratio of wins to losses, the most recent post being a one liner with their new URL, and the next most recent being a happy holidays blinky graphic. I have nothing personally against that blog, but I still would consider it a slam dunk win for me just based on quality original content vs not much of anything. I won by one vote, 8-7.

Now when I vote in these battles, there are some blogs that I always vote for because I've made friendships and alliances or I just really like their content. And there are some that I always vote against because there's something I really don't like about their blog, or them personally. And then there are ones who I usually will vote for or against depending on who they're up against. If a blog that I usually like goes up against another blog that just really catches my eye or mind with something cool, I'll vote for the new blog, and if a blog that I usually don't like is up against something that I find to be even worse, or something otherwise stale, boring, ugly, pointless, spammy, etc, I vote for the one I usually vote against. And then there are those who just out of spite I will vote against even if they're up against the worst blog ever, a 404 error page, nothing but blinkies, religious prosteltizing, ________ insert annoying blog stereotype here, etc.

So this battle tells me that there are 7 people out there who will vote against me no matter what. I apparently have touched a nerve.

So let's have some fun. If you're one of those who always votes against me, speak up. Tell me why. And don't hold anything back.

Generic Friday Post o' Randomness #8

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:42:00 +0000

I don't have enough stuff to concoct a whole post, so here are a few random tidbits.

Last night I auditioned to play bass in a band. I wrote about it on my bass blog. Here are the before and after posts about that.

New York has a new junior senator, and she's the congresswoman from my home district. Since I don't follow politics back home much, I didn't even know we had a democratic congresswoman since my district is so republican (how republican is it?) that they voted against FDR even though he lived there. It's no surprise she's one of those Blue Dog conservative democrats who rode the start of the anti-republican wave in '06, but it doesn't sound like she's Joe Lieberman bad.

Sunday I'm doing a technical runthrough for a variety show that I'll be directing next Sunday. I'm a bit nervous about this because of all sorts of far from ideal variables. I just have to remember to turn the limitations into creative opportunities. I've definitely done projects with less ideal variables, though never involving a live studio audience.

And lastly, I've continued my campaign of no good high jinks on right wing blogs. I now take full credit for making Poor (dumb) Republican close his comments (no link since he gets paid for pageviews). He is now officially my bitch. But since that wasn't evil enough for me, another blogger and I got into a round of dead baby jokes in the comments of another right wing blog post spewing the usual anti-choice crapola on the anniversary of Roe vs Wade.

Despite All My Rage I am Still Just a Rat in a Cage

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:09:00 +0000

So yesterday was supposed to be this great big celebration of hope and change and all sorts of great stuff. We finally are rid of the Bush/Cheney Crime Family and Obama is now our president. People were celebrating all over the country. I supported Obama with a bit more enthusiasm than I've had for any democrat since my youthful idealism turned into angry cynicism sometime in my early 20's. Yet I still couldn't seem to muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm yesterday. I was more interested in going to a couple of really dumb right wing blogs to gloat than I was for celebrating something new.

Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm is because I'm so used to being burned by democrats. I've pinned my hopes on them every time because they're less evil than republicans, and every time they disappoint. While somebody like Bush could make radical changes for the worse, democrats don't seem to have the guts to even try making changes for the better. The second they get a little bit of republican opposition they just give up. Obama talks a good game about change, but his party's lame track record doesn't bode well for this, and neither does the team of the same old players that he's chosen to surround himself with.

I'm also a bit wary of they way Obama is reaching across the aisle. While I like the idea of bipartisanship in theory, they way it's been practiced usually means giving the republicans whatever they want and what's the point of electing democrats if that's what they're going to do? On one hand I saw how Bush talked the talk of bipartisanship without ever walking the walk and it infuriated me. And while part of me likes the idea of healing those wounds, another part of me wants to see republicans punished severely for their behavior over the last 8 years. Obama might be a different president, but he's dealing with the same old republicans.

And then there's my personal life. My family is wonderful but my job is a whole other story. The economy is in a shambles and I work for a small business that is seeing the brunt of this downturn. The odds are stacked against us, our cashflow is a trickle, our credit is less than half of what it was a year ago, my boss is downright depressed and there's a lot of uncertainty about the future. The political stuff aside, it's really hard to celebrate when I could have everything yanked out from under my feet. I really want to be excited about a bold new future for our country and all, but I'm having a hard enough time thinking positively about my own future let alone our country's.

Just One More Day and the Whining is Deafening

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:53:00 +0000

We've just got one more day until the end of the Bush Error. And the whines from the right are insane. Whhhhhaaaaaaa they're spending too much money on this inauguration. Whaaaaaaa everyone's making such a big deal out of Obama just because he's black. Whaaaaaaaaa look at all these celebrities turning up. Whaaaaaaaa Bush wasn't treated fairly by the liberal media. Whaaaaaaaaaaa nobody likes us anymore. Whaaaaaaaaa.

First off, nobody ever really liked you. Secondly, it's not our fault that the only celebrities that your side can get are a few comedians and country singers. And lastly, SUCK IT!!!! You had your chance to do it your way for 8 years and look how our country wound up. I know, it's not Bush's fault. Bill Clinton got a blowjob and the media is liberal and lame excuse after lame excuse after even lamer excuse blah blah fucking blah till the cows come home. Hey, what part of SUCK IT don't you understand? You lost. SUCK IT! America has rejected you. SUCK IT! You're making asses of yourselves with the whining about how we're now on the road toward soviet style communism because a centrist freakin' democrat is in office now. SUCK IT! You sound like a bunch of douchebags. SUCK IT.

Here's the douchiest, whiniest, lamest post I could find on the subject. SUCK IT!

Holy Frakkin' Frak!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:42:00 +0000

I'm only a day late getting to see the first of the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica. We ditched our cable TV a few months ago so I downloaded it this morning and just got around to watching it now. Anyone who wants to discuss it, please jump to the comments which will be rife with spoilers. All I can say without giving away anything is that they made it worth the wait. This was possibly the most intense episode they've done yet. For every question answered there are new ones to ask. And if like me you just saw it and need more, there's also a 10 part series of webisodes featuring Gaeta and a pair of number 8's which has some backstory and includes a little something juicy about Gaeta's personal life.

For anyone who has been resistant to watching this show because either they're not into sci-fi or because the late 70's source material was pretty hokey, ditch any preconcieved notion you may have. This is one of the best shows on TV.

Ain't I a Stinker?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Sometimes I can be a little bit evil. Like my last post, calling out a couple of bozo right wing bloggers. That was really only the beginning of my tormenting of them. Poor (Dumb) Republican had banned me from commenting on his blog, so I commented there as Robert from the oxymoronically named Wise (sic) Conservatism, getting into a big argument over how he was lame to whine about being censored at Digg and then turning around and doing the same thing. That really pissed off Poor (dumb) Republican to the point where he closed the comments on that post. So then "Robert" started in on his post about funding for NASA questioning his conservatism and calling him a tax and spend socialist for wanting to fund a program started by JFK and that private industry could do it better on the free market and other crazy far right bullshit.

Then back on Wise (sic) Conservatism, I posted as Poor (dumb) Republican, bashing Robert for leaving those comments on "my" blog. But then I goofed. I meant to leave a comment from myself, but somehow the info was autosaved as being from Poor (Dumb) Republican and thus I was caught. Poor (dumb) Republican and Robert congratulated themselves on their brilliant detective work rooting me out, and the jig was up just slightly before I was really bored with them.

Now, I know that trolling blogs of people who I disagree with in the intention of riling them up and getting them to spend lots of time writing their lame retorts which I don't even really read is not a particularly nice thing to do. So why do I sometimes do it? Sometimes I just see something that is so incredibly stupid, ignorant, misinformed or otherwise simply wrong that just trying to correct the error isn't enough. For one thing, they get awfully defensive about it. They expect an in depth explanation of why it's stupid/ignorant/wrong/etc. But when you spend quality time explaining what's wrong with it, they don't get it anyway. What's the point of giving them what they want only to have it dismissed because it doesn't fit in with the dogma spewed by some right wing AM talk radio shock jock or Faux News personality? There is no point having a debate with people who think they have everything all figured out.

See, I don't do this to just any old conservative blogger. Hell, I'm even friends with some of them. But the ones who are rigidly dogmatic, the ones who just rehash the same shit they hear on their various sources of bad propaganda, the ones who lamely try using bad recycled talking points, or the dubious info they've gotten from those notorious email forwards, those guys are just begging to be fucked with. I go after the ones who blame everything on the liberals. I go after the ones who remind me of all those assholes I saw every day in the last month of the election on YouTube at the Sarah Palin rallies stirring up the hate. I go after the ones who constantly whine about being victims (and this has become such a right wing cottage industry that Ann Coulter even wrote a new book that projects this behavior to the liberals). I go after the ones crying about socialism. I go after the social conservatives who aren't bright enough to come up with their own blog content but want to tell me how to live my life.

And then once my steam has been suitably blown off, I forget about it and go back to enjoying my normal life while these boneheads continue to spout off on a daily basis about how much better life would be if it wasn't for us damn liberals.

It's Award Season!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:00:00 +0000

It's that time again where people in the entertainment industry get together to congratulate themselves, and in honor of that, I am giving out the much coveted Uwe Boll Your Blog Sucks Award today! Anyone can have a blog that sucks, but it takes special talent to create a blog that sucks to the point where it deserves an award for its massive suckitude. I first read of this award here, and while I was at first hesitant to award it to anyone, I have since come across a couple of blogs that have achieved new and exciting levels of suckage and feel that they need to be recognized for their amazing work at creating content that is so mind numbingly pull the hair out of your head while banging your face against the computer monitor bad that it even goes beyond being so bad it's good.

I know it's going to come as no surprise that our winners are of the right wing persuasion. There are a few right wing blogs I actually like, and even some lefty ones that I really don't. But this award transcends the politics. These bloggers would most certainly suck writing on any topic, and that's what makes them so special.

First up is Robert Garding of Wise Conservatism. Our blogs have tangled before, back when he was calling it "Tired of All The Liberal Rhetoric Out There." The fact that he's calling his blog Wise Conservatism is hysterical given how incredibly mind numbingly moronic he is. It's a poorly written rehashing of bad right wing talk radio crap with a couple of sycophantic commenters who help boost this mentally challenged guy's ego to write even more worthless drivel. His recent post, a "parody" song, perfectly illustrates why he deserves the 2009 Uwe Boll Your Blog Sucks award.

And then there's this guy, Poor Republican. That's what he calls himself, because this poor republican is such a victim! He's like the villian at the end of any given Scooby Doo cartoon who would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling liberals! It's so incredibly sad when people who just don't quite have the mental capacity to have a real debate think they do, and then when they fail at everything, it's always because of the liberal boogeyman. Take a gander at this whine cellar of a blog. The "eco-nazis" are after his light bulbs, Digg is censoring him, and his blog is so important that he needs to set down some rules for comments. Oh, and then there's this gem on the subject of race!

And that's it for this round of the Uwe Boll Your Blog Sucks Awards! I urge the winners to give their acceptance speeches right here in the uncensored, unmoderated comments, and to copy the lovely graphic below to proudly display on their award winning blogs. Thank you, and good night.

Even Another Right Wing Professional Victim

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:41:00 +0000

I hear a very faint whine coming from somewhere far in the north. Oh, it's Sarah Palin, not content with the lack of spotlight since her embarrassing run for VP and her national tour of hate rallies, she's doing whatever she can to get back into the news. And how do failed conservatives get themselves in the news? By crying victim of some liberal plot or another. She chose one of the more popular boogeymen, the big bad liberal media. You know, the media that's owned by something like 3 huge multinational conglomerates, and we all know how liberal multinational conglomerates are! But yes, she's out there on a whine fest that the liberal media wasn't fair to her. She says that her media portrayal would have been "prettier" if she was a democrat. Guess what, honey? It would have been prettier if you weren't a complete dumbass in interviews. It would have been prettier if you weren't on stage stirring up hate from coast to coast. It would have been prettier if you could have named a single periodical where you get your news. It would have been prettier if everything you said in those first few weeks when the coverage actually was prettier didn't turn out to be such a hot steaming helping of pure and utter bullshit. Thanks but no thanks to the bridge to nowhere? Bullshit! Saved money selling the jet on ebay? Bullshit! Didn't abuse your power firing a state trooper over personal matters? Bullshit. The media were downright good to you considering what a horrible candidate and generally vile human being you are!

The best part is that this all came out in an interview for a right wing documentary about how they're all such victims of this big bad liberal media conspiracy, which I'm sure will be a blockbuster success just like An American Carrol or Michael Moore Hates America or that one where Ben Stein tries to portray the quack scientists trying to wrap scientific language around religious creation mythology as victims of a conspiracy of liberal scientists. And when this movie tanks, you know who is going to be blamed for it, right? Certainly not the marketplace where the general public votes with their dollars on what they like and don't like. Nope, it's doomed to fail from the getgo because of the liberal media conspiracy.

But back to Palin, while her whining riles me up a bit, I do find her to be quite a perfect John Waters tragicomic anti-heroine. Couldn't you just picture the late great Divine playing a redneck floozy who managed to get herself into politics way over her pea brained white trash beauty queen head? Everyone except her begins to realize that she's a complete joke while her ego gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then it's all taken away from her. Insiders spill the beans about what a drag on the ticket she was and how much of a raging bitch she was to work with. And all of a sudden it hits her that she's a national laughingstock except to people as whacked out as herself. In the Waters version, she'd go on a sex drug and crime spree across the tundra and die in a hail of police bullets. In the real world, we'll probably be seeing her on another national tour of even more hate rallies in about 3 years.

Name That Kitty

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:27:00 +0000

Wow, I haven't posted anything here since Christmas, though I've been rather prolific over on my bass blog. So the Sunday after Christmas, Anne and I drove back from her parents' house, leaving Stella with them for the week so we could have some grown up time. We spent it doing massive organizing of our stuff which we never would have time for when there's a curious toddler running around. When we got back, this cat was sleeping on our porch. There have been a bunch of strays around our neighborhood and this one seemed the friendliest, even letting Stella pet him. So we left some food out for him and the next few days he would follow us around our complex like a puppy. We decided at the very least we would take him in long enough to get him fixed and then try to find a good home for him, but within minutes of being in our house, he actually used the litterbox we got for him leading us to believe that he was an abandoned house cat. He's incredibly loving and in just the couple of days that we've been letting him in he's become very comfortable and less whiny. He's also really good with Stella who wants to manhandle him every which way. He's swatted her twice but used amazing restraint doing so. He's got some serious claws that could do some real damage but he only gave her the tiniest little ding to get her to back off, and that was only after she pulled his tail. So depending on Anne's allergies, we are probably going to keep him. All he needs is a name and I am open to suggestions.

After You Open Your Sockings...

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:58:00 +0000

...go kill some zombies!

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:48:00 +0000

I'm outta here. Have a very merry Christmas or whatever other holiday you might be celebrating this week!

Bass Stuff and Other Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:52:00 +0000

Christmas is getting closer and in 2 days we make the drive south to my inlaws' house. I'm hoping I can fit a bass in the car so I can get some practice in while I'm there. I usually bring a book to read while enjoying the down time of being away from home, but I've been working hard on playing at least a little bit every day and I don't want to fall too far out of practice. My brother in law has a 5 string (I think it's a Peavy or an Ibanez) which he might bring with him for me to practice on if I can't bring my Fender, and I can return the favor by showing him a few tricks, maybe get him on the daily regimen of chromatic scales. This weekend I bought something that I haven't used since grade school... a music stand. My dad got me a great book of Jaco Pastorius tabs and I decided to start with Continuum. It sounds a little bit strange on a fretted bass, but that's what I've got to work with. Here's somebody playing it nicely on a fretless acoustic to give you an idea of where I'm trying to get to with this one.

Posting has been rather light here because I just don't care enough about what's going on politically to do much beyond leaving a snarky comment or two on other political blogs. While I'm still really happy that John McSame and Tits Cheney were soundly rejected, the expected letdowns that I get from every democrat have already begun and Obama isn't even president yet. The team for change sure looks like a lot of the same old people. They're a lot better than the current gang, but they're still the lesser of the same old two evils. And the idea of having a hardcore social conservative evangelical preacher, even if a little less hardcore than the really scary wingnutty social conservatives, doing some prayer thing at the inauguration rubs me the wrong way. Yeah, I get the whole inclusion thing, reaching across the aisle and whatnot, but I do think in a world where acts of terror are being committed in the name of theocratic religious extremism, our own homegrown theocratic religious extremists ought to at least not be given the kind of legitimacy that speaking at such a historic event would give. I wouldn't necessarily call what I'm feeling buyer's remorse. It's more like just another reason to continue being the cynical bastard I am about politics. The masses who woke up enough to vote for Obama will be back to sleep in no time. Lesser evil breeds complacence and leads to the greater evil. Don't think the scary people who we saw in all those videos of the Sarah Palin hate rallies are going to be getting complacent. They're going to be even scarier in time for the midterm elections. And the cycle of bullshit continues and we the people are the ones who get the shortest end of all of it.

And that's why I get a whole lot more out of playing those four fat strings than I do thinking about any of that ugly stuff, which is why I've got far more activity happening on my bass blog. It's not just for bass enthusiasts, but anyone who likes music. Screw politics. Let's rock!

Another New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:49:00 +0000

I know that I don't have a great track record when it comes to keeping new blogs that I start. Remember my video blog? It's been a really long time since I updated that thing. Or how about my silly super-villain persona? I was no Sylar, and the inspiration for that one dried up pretty quickly. And how about the year and a half I took off from this blog? Or my few weeks ~~blogging~~ reposting stuff from here at Open Salon? Yeah, you get the picture.

But yesterday I went and did it again. I started a new blog. It's called Bass Nation and as you can see it's not even hosted on my own domain. This time it's going to be something I'm going to stick with. What's different about this blog? Well for one, it's a subject that I am currently obsessed with, playing bass. Yeah, I know, I've been obsessed with politics and look at my posting frequency on that subject since the election. But there's another difference. I might actually make some money from this new one.

I've tried making money from blogging before. Google Adsense dropped my ass days before they were going to send me a check, something that I've found to be a rather common practice with them. I did Pay Per Post for a while but I felt like a cheap hooker writing posts about stuff that I couldn't care less about. I did actually make a few hundie with that, but I feel that it compromised my blogging integrity. Then I heard about Today.com. They pay a whopping buck per post, plus more if I can build serious traffic. They run the google ads so I don't have to worry about getting dropped. All I have to worry about is posting daily and trying to get some traffic and maybe running some of my own ads on there.

I'm not saying that I'm giving this blog up. I've had it for 6 years which is like a geological era in internet terms. But I'm super burnt on politics since the election, and I'm far more interested in my instrument. So please stop by the new place and say hello, but don't stop coming here because I'll try to post at least once a week.

How To Make ANYTHING Funny

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Just add some Yackety Sax!

Bush getting shoes thrown at him: already funny.
Bush getting shoes thrown at him with him to the tune of Yackety Sax: Absolutely fucking hilarious!

Best Christmas Special Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Sure, you've got the classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph and Charlie Brown, but do any of those have scenes entirely in the Wookie language or song and dance routines with Bea Arthur? They sure don't! But this one does. Sometime between the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, there was the Star Wars Christmas Special, a true testament to late 70's TV kitch. George Lucas would rather it disappear completely, but like a true Jedi, it will never really die. I realize that most people aren't going to watch a 2 hour video on my blog, but if you click through to the google video page you can download a copy and watch at your leisure. Merry Christmas and May The Force Be With You.

So Long Bettie

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:30:00 +0000

Even though Bettie Page traded her skimpy outfits for a bible decades before I was born, the world is a less sexy place without her in it.

Jon Favreau Groped Who?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:09:00 +0000

Is it just me, or is the funniest part of this story that this guy happens to share a name with this guy?