On the occasion of the Inauguration of the 44th President, I was having a discussion with a friend.  He’s not a big supporter of Obama. I’m not a big supporter of anybody. IMHO, there is no appreciable difference between Republicans or Democrats, Reds or Blues. The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that they meet in secret bunkers outside DC or maybe at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia and come up with goofy new shit for conservatives and liberals to argue about to distract them from the fact that there’s not a single fucking significant difference between the major policies of either major party and that none of the things that are truly on their agenda have anything to do with people like you and me. I ask you peruse the quote below:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. …And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson

I’d like to note that one of the Founding Fathers is not talking about a foreign tyrant here because they had already gotten rid of him. He’s talking about the government of the US. The people need to wake from their lethargy and take back their government. I think when they do it will make the Reign of Terror look like Sesame Street.

I ran across this article in The Guardian about a guy in San Diego that wants to graft tiger fur to his skin to complete his trnasformation into a tiger. I’m not sure why I’m just now running across an article from 2001 but we’ll just go with it, OK? This is pretty extreme but I guess whatever flips your switch, right?

His website is here. It doesn’t say whether he ever got the fur graft but it doesn’t really look like it.

Indie 103, the only radio station I listened to when I was in LA (which wasn’t nearly often enough) , has gone off the air because they couldn’t compete in the ClearChannel world. They’re continuing to webcast over the Net so I have high hopes that they’ll continue.

There’s an article on Rolling Stone (which is mostly a corporate whore now masquerading as a hipster magazine).

It’s sad but I think it’s just one of the early deathknells for old media style radio.

Warning: This is going to be long. Go get coffee.

So I got this bitchin’ new Magellan Maestro 4250 GPS refurb from the Tiger Direct outlet store on Capital in Raleigh on the 14th of December. 4.3″ Wide screen, text-to-speech, pretty up to date maps and a smoking deal at $119. It was so cheap that I got the extended warranty because the guy told me I could exchange it if it broke or whatever.

It was cool the first time I used it. The second time — not so much. I plugged it in and realized that it was running on battery power.  I thought I might have blown the fuse on the lighter so didn’t worry about it too much. Later I checked the fuse and it was ok so I plugged my phone charger into the lighter socket and it worked alright. That’s when I noticed the tip had fallen out of the dc adapter for the GPS.

No problem, I’ll just take it back and get another one I think to myself. Sunday afternoon I trundled up to the store to get my new one. Only they didn’t have any (I don’t know if this is significant or related but there was another guy there at the same time trying to return a refurb Maestro 4250…. hmmm). I was told to try back on Friday, that’s when the trucks come in. The next Saturday they didn’t have any either. This went on for 3 weeks. After a while, I started calling to ask if they had them so I didn’t waste a trip.

On the 11th of January I called and asked if they had any and was transferred to Sales (I’d dearly love to know what this prick’s name was so I could post it in big letters). He said they didn’t have any. I asked if they could hold one for me and he asked how old it was. I said it was about a month and he said that if it was more than a month I’d have to send it to Magellan.

I explained that I had the extended warranty and he said I’d have to send it in anyway. The conversation proceeded downhill from there. I said I’d never had a problem with TigerDirect but that I wasn’t impressed since the CompUSA thing had taken place. He said it wasn’t CompUSA’s fault it was the poorly trained people they had working since they had to add employees (Sounds like CompUSA’s fault to me). Ultimately, I asked when the manager was going to be in and he told me 3 or 4. I asked which it was and he said 3 or 4  and wasn’t interested in getting more specific than that.

So I decided to wait until around 4:30 and I went in and asked for the manager. The girl at the customer service desk said the manager wasn’t there but she’d call the person in charge. She asked what the problem was and I explained it to her. She called the guy on the phone and talked to him for like 3 minutes then hung up and said ‘Yep, you can either return it for a refund or send it in.’

So the asspony running the store (whose name was Keith BTW) wouldn’t even come out and talk to me. The short version of the remainder of the story is that I found a dc adapter for Magellans at Target for $20 and bought that. Because of their shitty customer service I won’t be shopping in the Tiger Direct store in Raleigh anymore. When I complain to Corporate I’ll be making a decision about whether or not I’ll be shopping at Tiger Direct at all.

Here’s a clue for you, fucktards… If you’re the Electric Company you can tell me what I have to do, if you’re selling consumer electronics you’re not the only game in town. As an additional note, I’d like to point out that we had a CompUSA in Raleigh and it shut done because in spite of having really good prices everybody there was a complete PITA to deal with. More later.

Psych! I went down to get them yesterday but Autumn was out of 14ga barbells in 3/8″ & 1/2″. I didn’t think to ask about 12ga until after we left. I would totally have gone for 12s. She supposed to get some in Monday so maybe next weekend.

I went to see Framing Hanley last night in Jacksonville.  It’s a two and a half hour drive down there and we got started a little late so we made it about 8:45. Doors were supposed to be at 8 but when we got there a pretty long line was still winding it’s way out the door.

I hadn’t ever been to a show in Jacksonville before and the routine outside was my first clue that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. There was one security guy working his way up the line checking IDs, then a little while later there were 2 guys with those metal detector wand things checking people for weapons (I’ve never once seen that happen in Raleigh outside of shit going on at Walnut Creek of course I guess Jacksonville is full of Marines). Through the gates to the courtyard and there’s another guy doing security letting people in the front door 2 at a time. Inside, you give your tickets to the girl and she checked them against something and made some marks on a piece of paper. Let me say, though, that the TSA should really come down and take a look at how they run things at Hooligan’s. Then maybe it wouldn’t take 2 hours to board a plane.

Inside, Hooligan’s is divided into 3 sections. Left is the pool tables. I never went in there but I’m guessing there were maybe 6 tables. Center room is the main bar with some tables and booths and the bathrooms. Right side is the large concert space. The stage is pretty good sized and there’s room for probably 500 people (if they’re really friendly) with 2 bar-lets at the back (cash only, limited selection).

Anyhow, bob from Washington, DC opened. They were already on stage when we got there so I only heard a couple of songs. They seemed like a really competent Alternative band. Maybe that’s not fair. They were good. I wasn’t overwhelmed but it may have been because of a 2 and a half hour car ride followed by freezing outside for another half hour. From what I heard they reminded me of kind of an edgier version of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Maybe I’ll catch them at Lincoln when they play with Airiel Down.

Next up was a band whose name I don’t remember that started with a V (something like Voodoo – again, see my previous posts about bands pimping their shit). They aren’t listed in any of the listings for last night that I can find. Too bad, they were pretty good.

Then came Almost Kings from Atlanta. I think they were probably my favorite. They did this kinda hip hop based rock thing with some definite Southern Rock undertones. Take a listen on myspace you’ll see what I mean. Very high energy and catchy tunes. On Like That is a definite winner. We got one of their CDs . I’m glad I caught them at Hooligan’s because that looks like it’s as close to Raleigh as they’re coming anytime soon.

After a waaaaay too long setup, Framing Hanley came on. We wound up leaving after they did like 4 songs because it was 12:30 and we had a 2 and a half hour drive home. They were good. Of course we missed their single Lollipop — I’m sure it was the last song they played. I was pretty drunk by this point (Important safety tip – if you’re planning on drinking at night you should definitely eat something after breakfast). It’s hard to tell but they didn’t seem to have the energy level all the way to 11. It may have just been Almost Kings putting on an exceptional show though.

At any rate, Jacksonville should be proud of having a place like Hooligan’s – it rivals anything you can find in Raleigh. The alcohol was reasonable ($3.50 for a Highland Oatmeal Porter, $3.50 for a Yuengling Lager), the barstaff brought their A game (at the bar-let in the back room the bartender knew what I wanted the second time I came up – she rocked). They concert space was large and free of visual obstructions and there didn’t seem to be any chokepoints except the door to the main bar. They had security everywhere but they weren’t  overt about it. I did feel a little bad for the dude they threw out who lost his shirt. He was sitting outside arguing with one of the bouncers with no shirt on and it was probably 20 degrees by then. Another thing I thought was cool, is that at a couple of points security brought people who were obviously regulars to the front of the line. It’s good to see that sort of thing rewarded.

BTW, I took pictures but my blackberry zoom is fucked up again so they’re unusable. I guess I’m going to have to get a real camera at some point.

One last thing: Hooligan’s, your myspace page bites. Hire a professional to take care of it. I can make recommendations if you need some.

Today we introduce a new segment I like to call Would You Hit it?

Melanie Griffith used to be hot. She was a dumb as a fucking brick but she was hot. Now she looks like this:

Would you hit it?

Today there’s an update to the ongoing Times of London goofiness over at TechCrunch. Basically, it’s the twit at the Times saying they didn’t make stuff up, just that they’re too fucking stupid to do actual journalism and check their facts before publishing them in front of the entire world.

What exactly do they teach in journalism school these days?

In my rant from yesterday, I said all kinds of ugly things about physicists from Harvard when I should have been saying all kinds of ugly things about “journalists” from the Times of London. They engaged in a type of journalism frequently know as “bullshit”. Turns out the aforementioned physicist said nothing of the kind regarding CO2 footprints. It appears that as close as he came was “a Google search has a definite environmental impact” which is something I can live with because it carries all the weight of “water is wet”.

Here’s a link. Interestingly, the Times hasn’t yet mentioned that they made it up. See my previous entry regarding “Death of Old Media“

I was over by Edenton the other day and there’s a sign on NC-17 that says:

TRUCKS FOLLOW US-NC ROUTES THRU EDENTON

My question is why was “thru” abbreviated? There wasn’t a space issue on the sign. Is this an attempt by our benevolent government to save 30 cents a sign? If that’s the case why was routes abbreviated to “RTS”? I think it might be because they have idiots working for the Department of Transportation. Why, you ask? I’ll give you another example. In every weigh station in the state there’s a sign just before the scale that says:

TRUCKERS

DO NOT!

BRAKE HARD

WHILE ON SCALE

I’ll let the lack of a definite article go for now. A lot of jack booted sign making nazis do that because, apparently, they think it sounds more authoritative. That said, can anybody who made it past the 3rd grade not recognize how wrong the punctuation is? Apparently, the sign geniuses at North Carolina DOT can’t.

« Older Posts — Newer Posts »