Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Mall Thoughts

Today, since the training sessions I was a part of didn't get done until later, I didn't have a chance to go anywhere far from the hotel, but I did decide to check out the local mall to see what it was like. Basically, it was like an American mall except for a few small differences.

Inside of the mall there is a lot of security. Outside of most of the bigger stores (like Sears) there was a guard stationed along with guards inside. Also, stores that sold expensive items such as electronics or jewelery had guards at the entrances of the store.

The stores were basically what you'd have in the US--clothing, electronics, a food court, a Bath & Body Works type place, shoe stores, sporting stores, and a liquor store (which is the one you probably won't find in the US). The most interesting part of the clothing stores were the female mannequins. As opposed to US mannequins, each of the female ones were molded to be nipping out something fierce. Seriously, I think the nipples on some of those mannequins (even though they are covered up by clothes) could stab right through you.

Prices were actually more expensive than in the US. After figuring the exchange rate I went and searched out how much different items cost. Here is what I found:

--A 750 ml bottle of Absolut vodka was $25 (I checked that for you, Alex)
--Xbox 360 games were between $60 and $80
--An actual Xbox 360 would run you about $550
--Most new DVDs were between $20 and $28
--The third season of Alias on DVD was $65 (I checked that for you, Kristin)
--A moderately priced suit coat was $200 to $400 (there were some cheaper ones for $100 or so, but nothing really below that)
--Jewelery, especially watches, was insanely high priced. A cheap Citizen watch was $500 to $1,000
--A pair of jeans was about $30 to $50
--An iPod (the 30 gig, I believe) was about $400

There actually wasn't much of anything that was cheaper than the US. Now I'm sure that if I was in a seedier part of town I would be able to come across items for much cheaper, but the nature of the part of the city that I'm in is that it is very affluent.

Now I'm getting ready to wake up early tomorrow morning and catch my plane home. All in all, it was a very nice trip. For being a work related trip, it was still an enjoyable time. Oh, but before I nod off to bed, here is a picture of the worms that I ate. I actually liked them!

IMG_0436

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

It is a Business Trip After All...

As much as I would have loved to have had time to see the city and its sights, I've unfortunately been working, although not all of the time spend with coworkers has necessarily been "working". I have had the chance to get plenty of Mexican food in my belly. I seriously feel like my stomach has expanded by a factor of at least two.

So far I've had enchiladas, chitarra, pollo (chicken) in pepper sauce, a gigantic kiwi martini, plenty of Mexican beer (light, of course), along with some worms. Yes, worms. I'm sure most people know the Mezcal worm that is traditionally in the bottom of tequila bottles. Well, the worms that I ate are similar to the Mezcal worms. They look more like very large meal worms, however. I ate them by themselves and in a tortilla. They're fried, not raw, so they were actually quite good. You heard it here first, I love fried worms.

Beyond eating tons of food, I've been quickly getting reacquainted with my Spanish skills. I find that I can read and understand what is spoken in Spanish, but my ability to speak it is still horrendous. It's been nice to be able to sit at a table with some of the Spanish people in our training and be able to understand their conversation and, occasionally, participate (even if I interject using English and a few butchered Spanish phrases).

Tonight everyone from the training sessions are going to be heading out to a supposedly very famous and historic restaurant on the north part of Mexico City, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from where we are located in the southwest part of the city. When I asked one of the firm partners that works here how long it would take to traverse across the city by car he told me at least a few hours. That's amazing! I think about how long it takes to drive through the Twin Cities from the west edge of Minneapolis to the east edge at St. Paul and then compare it to the HOURS it would take to get through Mexico City. The grandiosity is amazing.

Here's to hoping I get to try some more exotic foods tonight! Oh, and I took a picture of the worms so when I get a chance you'll all get to see exactly what ended up in my stomach!

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Totally Different

Well, I made it to Mexico City fine. It's interesting, however, the stark difference between my expectations and the reality of the city. At every turn, since stepping off of my plane, things have been almost exactly the opposite of how I had been led to expect them to be.

When people have talked about Mexico City one of the key points has been how dirty and grimy of a city it is and how crime ridden it is. I know that part of it may have to do with the part of the city that I'm in, but from everything I've seen, this city appears to be a decently modern, first world type city.

As I disembarked from my plane I wholeheartedly expected to enter a ramshackle, cobbled together airport but instead I was amazed at the shiny newness of the terminal. Apparently the airport had been renovated within the last year or two and it definitely shows. The shops, the waiting area, and even the terminal were all leaps and bounds nicer than what I would have expected and, I am not joking, this airport felt more modern than the Minneapolis airport.

After going through customs I met up with my manager and driver to head out to the hotel. The driver drove us to our hotel in a car that's much nicer than mine (a newer Stratus) and on the way I didn't feel like I was in a foreign country at all. Sure the road names had a definite Spanish flair to them, but the majority of the billboards and ads were in English. Most of what was being advertised was also US based products.

The apartment buildings and factories and office buildings all looked, for a lack of a better word, normal. Only a couple of times during our half hour trip to the hotel did I see areas that looked run down or garbage ridden. This was so much different than expected.

Arriving at the hotel I was again amazed. This place is great! It has an art gallery, fancy restaurant, a stylish bar, broadband (and wireless) internet, spa, and some pretty pimp rooms. It might not quite be the Marriott Marquee, but it beats the hell out of your local Motel Six.

As I sit here in the bar drinking some cheap (yet classy) beer listening to the thunderstorm outside, my thoughts wander over all the pre-conceived notions I had going into this trip and how most of them have turned out to be wrong. The only ones that seem to be panning out are the ones dealing with security--there are definitely a lot of security guards around, but I am assuming it is because I am in a very nice part of town, and the language barrier, which really hasn't been a barrier at all. Most of the people I've dealt with so far speak English, at least to a degree, and for the few that don't my Spanish is passable enough that I can get the point across.

Knowing all of this and knowing how I generally feel about planes (I hate them), I find myself torn. I'm slowly starting to get bit by the travel bug. Seeing new places and new things is becoming more and more fascinating every trip I take. In Chicago I went out to some really high class restaurants. In New York I'm visiting famous clubs and going to Broadway shows and seeing celebrities. In Mexico City I'm seeing new parts of the world. The descent down of my flight was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Never have I seen such an urban sprawl. It is city as far as the eye can see.

Even more odd, I find myself wanting to be confronted with more international tasks so that I can see more of the world. I know that I have at least one more scheduled international trip this year, and that is to Australia, as well as a few more trips within the US so I can see even more of the world. And next year I think there is a very good chance that I can see even more of the world because of the nature of my job and the company I work for. Who would have thought that I'd actually like my job and learn to like to travel? Not me, that's for sure.

Sweet!

You know, for all the things that are wrong with Blogger (the downtime, the bloated website, the obligatory blogger bar on your website, etc.), it really is nice that it basically uses a form object that's accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

That's exactly how I'm writing this now--on my blackberry through its internet browser. Sure, it takes a while to type on this tiny keyboard, but at least I can do it. This will come in very handy when I have a lot of downtime in the airport (like right now).

It's kind of cool that I get to go to mexico for work, but it sucks that I'm pretty much getting gyped out of two days off this Memorial Day weekend. I hope my manager is sympathetic to this and will give me a free day or two to use in the future.

Anyways, I'm about an hour away from making my first international trip. I hope it goes well.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Traveling Yet Again

Jeez. It seems like I'm never going to be home. I just got back really late Thursday night and now I'm flying out to Mexico early tomorrow morning. I don't know what I'll have for internet down in Mexico so any updates might be non-existant until I return on Thursday. Hopefull, though, in my downtime I'll be able to get out and take some good pictures. I'll be in Mexico City and I'm told there are some great pyramids to go see that are only about an hour from the city.

I still don't know if I'm used to this whole flying concept yet. Yes, it is a little bit easier for me to handle, but I think that's only because I'm getting a lot better at actively lying to myself and making myself believe that I'm actually not flying. When I have an aisle seat I persuade myself that it's a train or bus I'm on. When I have a window seat I try to make myself think it is some sort of carnival ride or a simulator at a museum or that we're on a string guiding us from point A to point B.

When I actually give in and let myself realize that I am, in fact, on a plane at 30,000 feet in the air I do start to get panic-y, but I try to divert my attention by playing on my PSP or watching movies on my laptop or reading a book. It doesn't always work, but it helps.

Anyways, I'm going to be in Mexico. This should be interesting.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Casket Architects - Dance on the Death Nerve CD Review

High school, at least in the midwest, is a grimy breeding ground for crappy bands which can't do anything other than cover “Brown Eyed Girl” over and over again, all the while trying to learn how to simply write one cohesive song. Amongst this limitless amount of talentless, hack bands there is occasionally a group of kids that come together to form a band which, actually, isn’t half bad (and can actually write their own songs). From that point -- the defining moment of realization in which they come to see they are better than their high school brethren -- the band usually goes through the “trying to hard” phase in which they attempt to outdo all of their influences. Teenagers are invincible and they know all. They can conquer the world. And it is only natural that this attitude seep into their creation process. It is this phase that Casket Architects feels like they are stuck in.

The band is far from being in high school, but throughout Dance on the Death Nerve you get the feeling that they are trying to mix together the Misfits, the Ramones, Converge, and Sonic Youth all the while showing that they are equally as good, while managing to meld all of these different styles simultaneously.

There is not so much a standard sound that the band possesses, and I refuse to refer to their style as “sci-fi deth rock” as they do on their website and press sheets. Instead you can feel the leanings and direction of each song individually. They do not possess a singular sound, but instead a grouping of sort of similarly sounding songs. For example, “Deftwitch” is a lean, classic punk song that puts on display their love of the Misfits. “Observer”, taking a much different direction, sounds like a mellow Every Time I Die with the noisy influence of Sonic Youth.

The reason that so many of their songs fall into one stereotypical, predominant influence is the brevity of each track. With only three tracks breaking the two minute barrier, the majority of the songs on here feel all too brief to properly develop into full-on, thought-out tunes. When they do expand to create something with a little substance, such as on “Casket Architecture” and “Solar Surgeon”, they come across as a really tight merging of classic punk and modern noise-core.

Given some time to develop themselves into a cohesive unit, instead of the amalgamation of hodge-podged influences and song pieces that they currently are, they could come out way ahead of the current underground, revitalized classic punk genre. Until then, however, they just don’t rise above what they are trying to emulate.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Traveling Again

I'm in New York as I write and will be here until late, late Thursday night. So blogging will no doubt be light. I'm off to try to figure out the train system and get to CBGB's to see Danko Jones. Wish me luck... because I have no clue where I'm going!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Bye Bye Dome

Well, looks like it is official now. The Twins are going to get their new ballpark, and from the sounds of it the stadium is going to suck even more than the Metrodome... except it'll be outdoors. There's not much positive about the new stadium, in my mind.

The new stadium is going to be a few blocks from the Target Center and warehouse district meaning that pretty much all summer when there are night games, the area is going to be even more overcrowded. It's bad enough as it is down there, but it'll no doubt be a tremendous hassle to get around on the nights when there is both a Twins game AND a big event at the Target Center.

From what I've read it's also not going to be an overly spacious stadium and will be very compact, which is kind of what one of the complaints about the Metrodome was so I don't get why people would rather be cramped outdoors than indoors. I know on some of the hot summer days I'd rather be inside the dome where it is climate controled rather than being cramped next to some uber-fat guy who is covered in more sweat than a boxer in the seventh round.

One thing that most people won't care about, but I do, is that the stadium will be built on top of what is, right now, the cheapest place to park downtown. So instead of parking for $5 for the day, as I do now when I have to drive, I'll have to park in one of the other parking establishments, with the cheapest being $7.50 a day and most being around $10.

If anything, this new stadium is going to get me to stay away from baseball games than go to them. Right now I like to try to make it to Twins games because it's cheap. I have a feeling that with a new venue there isn't going to be a whole lot of $3 and $5 cheap seats days with dollar dogs.

Whatever, though. Just as I was getting back into baseball and the Twins, I'm going to stop caring again because of the idiocy of moving the Twins from the dome to a new, seemingly ill-designed stadium

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Expensive

Man, having a place of your own (even if you're only renting it) can get spendy quick. Since I've moved into my new place a month ago, the expenses that have built up just buying stuff I need in the house has been pretty eye-popping.

Yesterday I made the biggest purchase since I moved in--a grill. Now this isn't just any grill. I could have settled for a small charcoal burning grill or even a moderately sized gas grill, but that wouldn't be any fun, now would it? No, instead I went out and bought a ridiculously huge grill that you could probably put an entire pig in if you wanted to. If you want some details, check them out here.

I thawed out a nice big ham steak to cook on it tonight (after I go buy a gas tank for it, that is) and break it in. I think I should also probably buy a tarp for it, but that's another chunk of change I'm not all that interested in spending.

Last week I bought myself a 20" true flat tv for my room so that I could watch movies up there when the big screen was being used in the basement. I don't want to be a dick and steal the tv when my roommates are using it.

On top of those two big purchases I also had to get a dust bust hand held vacuum for cleaning the stairs and the tight areas that Roomba doesn't get to. I needed two lamps for my room since there is no ceiling lights in it. A touch lamp to go next to my computer desk and a five way directional uber-lamp manage to light everything up nicely at night.

Let's see, what else did I have to get? We needed a toaster and a water filter for the kitchen. Our water has kind of a rust taste to it and we were getting sick of it. The toaster we need to make, well, toast.

To get our place in decent order when we moved in, Karl and I dropped about $150 on cleaning supplies, utensils, and other odds & ends to get the place in order. We shouldn't have a need to get any more cleaning crap for a year or two.

On the tools side I picked up a drill, a saw, assorted tools like a hammer, screwdrivers, and pliers, along with other odds and ends. I really needed the saw to cut down a bunch of overhanging trees in the back yard that hadn't been taken care of probably ever. Thank goodness my grandma sold me her old push lawn mower for cheap or I'd have had to throw down some serious change for one of those.

All in all, this has been a very expensive month. It is now time to take a few months off from purchasing anything in order to recoup and regain a few dollars in the old checkbook.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Horrible Experience

About a month ago I moved into a new house in St. Louis Park, MN. When I looked at the place a few months ago with my roommates, it was easily the cleanest and most pristine house that we had looked at when shopping around for a place to live. We were so impressed that we made the decision the day of looking at the place that we would lease it.

A little more than a month later we came to move in and expected everything to be in just as wonderful of shape as before, but we were terribly wrong. The place was an utter sty with nothing cleaned up and the house basically unlivable until we took care of the crappiness that had come to infest it within the last month. And to make matters worse, the person we were renting it from was in Iowa, never showed up to collect the papers, and was basically unreachable the entire time.

What kind of landlord is not going to be around to collect his check, make sure the people moving in are, and take care of switching everything over? Obviously not ours. Seems like he couldn't give two shits about anything. I can get into more of his ridiculous antics later, but for now I want to show you all the pictures I took to document how shoddy the house was when we arrived. If you want to see higher resolution versions of the pictures below, they're all in this flickr set.


Let's start with what we found in one of the closets. You'll see that the panel has been ripped off and there's some wonderful garbage on the floor. I wonder why the panel got ripped off? Actually, I wonder more why when whoever was doing whatever they were doing didn't put it back on when they were done.

Ahh, moving right on to the garage (sorry for the haphazard ordering but I'm just following my Flickr stream). As you can see there is no way in hell we'd be able to put a car or anything else in the garage with all that garbage. It was a pile of sheetrock, magazines in boxes, wood scraps, and other junk.

Here's a look at the other side of the garage with junk still on the shelves. You can also see that there's some old doors and refuse towards the back of the garage. I guess we should have looked closer into the garage before we took the place, but I figured when we were there looking that the crap was in the garage as they were in the process of moving.

When you look at the garage from a little further away you'll also see the bags of wet, gross mulch that they had left in the driveway. They stunk, were all wet & icky, and weighed a ton.

Here you can see that only one of the lights works. No doubt we just need to put a new bulb in it, but regarless of what we have to do it was annoying to have some parts of the house only partially functional (just wait, there's more than just a light that doesn't work).

Here you'll see that they left lawn chairs, a fire thingy, and lots of ishy leaf piles by the back porch. Again, it was obviously too much for them to take some of their stuff with them or clean up in the least.

On the porch it was even worse as they left a crappy ass charcoal grill, boxes of gross-ness, more bags of garbage, and planters with dead plants in them. Some people might like to move into a house that has that "already lived in" feel, but this is going to far.

You see how this picture is so dark? The reason for this is that one room in the basement had no power to it. All the outlets and lights were dead. This only just got fixed last week after probably 10 phone calls to JPL Investments (the company we're leasing from), which is basically one dude--Patrick Lonergan. The cobwebs also kind of sucked.

Well look at this! Paint cans and garbage! Guess what else? They're still freakin' there! When we finally got Patrick to get someone to move the garbage out of our place they wouldn't take paint cans because you can't put them in a dumpster and have to have them specially disposed of. At least we moved them all into one closet for now, but it's still ridiculous tha we have to have that shit in our house.

Water spots on the floor. Cute. Obviously there was a leak there at one time. Let's hope it doesn't happen again while we are living there.

Is it too much to ask that light switches and outlets have covers on them? We found multiple switches/outlets without covers or covers that were utterly broken. We ended up having to replace them ourselves. I still haven't given Patrick the bill, but I doubt it's worth the fight for the few dollars, especially considering he's next to impossible to get to return a phone call.

Looks like they forgot some junk when they left. As much as I love having ratty clothes from the 70's in my closet, I'd rather they be mine and not left there by the previous tenant (which just so happened to be Patrick himself along with his wife).

Not content just to leave their clothes in my closet they crammed some old desk in there as well. How truly wonderful. What was even more wonderful is that the people who came to clean crap out refused to take it out so Karl (my roommate) and myself had to carry it out.

Tired of seeing pictures of garbage and crap that was left in the house? Yeah, so were we. It was more and more frustrating to see how much disarray the house was left in when it was vacated.

Tah dah! More junk! They must have really loved their freakin' hangers. There were so many of them in all the closets. Why couldn't they have left cool stuff like comic books or motorcycles or cage dancers? Instead it's hangers and garbage.

You can't really see it in this picture (or in the other bathroom pictures in the Flickr group), but the bathrooms were terribly dirty. The bathtub had pine needles, dirt, and grime in it. The sink had dirt in it. The toilets were a tad bit on the unclean side. It was just gross all around.

Sure, they leave all their garbage and junk but take the curtain rods? And oddly they leave the curtains... We changed out these curtains without rods for some blinds. Are you starting to get the picture of how incompetently cleaned and prepared this place was?

This is one of my favorites! The company that painted the walls decided to paint over all of the cable jacks. When the cable company came out to hook stuff up, they were a tad bit unhappy about it, and had to actually replace the connectors. I also found out that the cable jack in my room can't be hooked up to the cable box so I get no cable in my room. I can only watch DVDs.

The microwave was coated in grime and had some caked on crap on the turntable (which you can see here). I had to scrub like a mofo to get this, the fridge, and the freezer clean, as you'll be able to see in the next picture.

There's still remnants of that orange goop in the freezer because no matter what I did I couldn't get it all to come off. It's some of the most adhesive crap there is. There are a bunch of pictures of the grimy fridge and freezer if you look through the photo set.

Water damage to the carpet. Killer. I didn't remember that being there when we looked at it, but it very well could have been. I don't remember looking too closely at the carpet. I hope the water doesn't leak in again as I now have my tv in the basement.

There's a sliding door for the bedroom in the basement (the one that had no power initially), but the door has no rollers and isn't attached. This is next on my list of things to talk to Patrick about fixing since right now it's just a plank sitting in a lot in the wall. It doesn't work.

Ooohhh, look at that--more crap! More buckets of paint and other assorted garbage that could be thrown out. Unfortunatly we still have the buckets of stuff over with the paint in a corner of our basement.

Yep, you guessed it, even more crap. The paint cans are still in the basement. I'm tempted to pay to have them disposed of and send the bill for it to Patrick, but I doubt he'd do anything about it because he doesn't really seem to care about anything.

Here's a bunch of old, broken blinds and broken lamps and broken other garbage. I'm so glad that he left this stuff instead of getting rid of is so that we could, you know, actually put stuff in this room.

Ahh, Christmas, and we definitely had a lot of presents left for us in the house. It's just too bad that they mostly were equivalent to big, smoking piles of coal. What makes the Christmas tree so special is that Patrick justified its presence by saying it was there when they got there so he thought he'd leave it.

Most of the floor was like this before we dusted it up. There sure isn't anything better than sawdust all over the floor! Man, I don't think I can keep up this dripping sarcasm anymore. It's just too much, so let's just end with another picture of yet more paint cans.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. More stuff left in our basement that couldn't be disposed of so we're expected to deal with it. There really is no better place to rent from than JPL Investments! And just so you know, I'm not serious about that in the least. If you live in Iowa or Minnesota, stay clear of them for sure.

So now you all have a visual tour of the hellishly messy environment I was forced to move into upon getting to the Minneapolis area. I have a feeling the next year is going to be pretty rough whenever anything goes wrong since our landlord doesn't seem to know the first thing about client care. Oh well, it's a learning experience, right?

I really don't think it could possibly get any worse than this in the future when I move into or buy a new place. Seriously, I think I've burned through so much bad karma moving into this place it would be quite a ballsy manuever for the big guy above to put me through the same hellish experience all over again.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Vacuum Hacking

I should have figured that it would happen, but it appears as if people have been hacking Roombas. I have a Roomba and love it. The floors in my house are hardwood and I don't have a bunch of junk on the floor so when it comes time to vacuum the house, I choose a floor, turn Roomba on, and let it loose as I leave for work. And I run it probably once a week because of the amount of cat hair that accumulates on the floor. I didn't think cats could shed as much as they do and still have fur on their bodies!

The Roomba has fascinated me ever since my parents bought one and I stumbled across this pretty sweet breakdown of the technical pieces of the robot. I had guessed about how the Roomba works as I watched it do its thing, but I never realized that it did pretty much all of its sensing by infrared. Even the bumper on the front uses infrared lines on the inside that get broken when the bumper is pushed. What really interested me was the downward sensors that detect if Roomba is getting close to stairs and going over. I'd usually put things by the stairs or put up one of the infrared barriers by the stairs, but now I found out that I don't have to worry about it!

I would be very curious to get a breakdown of the algorithm that Roomba uses to traverse a room that it is cleaning because it seems to go over the same parts of the floor multiple times and it would be nice if it was more efficient and covered ground fewer times and finished its cleaning run quicker, but I can't complain too much. All I have to do is press a button to get my floor vacuumed!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

This Age's Dialpad

When I was in college I had toyed around with an online service called Dialpad. This service allowed anyone who had an internet connection, a computer, and a microphone headset to call people's phones. Since it was long distance to call my parents and my friends at other colleges, I was looking for any cheap way to make calls. I bought calling cards at Sam's Club, had a cell phone for a time (but only had nighttime minutes to use), and even made the mistake of using the college's long distance plan. All of them cost precious dollars, however. Dollars I could have been using on video games and CDs.

Dialpad worked ok. It was ad supported and you needed a pretty good internet connection for it to work good, most likely because of the crappy compression algorthims. I eventually gave up on it because it would often drop calls and would be very laggy. In the last couple of years, however, VOIP phones have been all the rage. Skype has been one of the pioneers of the updated Dialpad model.

I know the big initial draw of Skype was the ability to call other Skype users thus bypassing having to have a phone line or cell phone at all (assuming everyone you called had Skype). They had their "Skype-out" service for a fee as well, though, which would allow Skype users to call actual phone numbers.

In a wonderful move, Skype has now made their Skype-out calling service completely free for at least the rest of this calendar year. With the great strides made in compression algorithms and the proliferation of high speed internet, this is pretty damn cool. It's kind of too bad that I just locked into a cell phone plan with as many minutes as I did because with this development, I could have made all of my daytime calls via Skype and nighttime calls on my cell. Oh well. Hopefully everyone else can benefit from this.

The only downside is that by using Skype you are supporting a subsidiary of Ebay, which will always be close to what the epitome of internet evil is in my mind. But you might as well make use of it as long as it is free, right?

Monday, May 15, 2006

Twitch

There are very few things that make me want to be punched in the face. I'd get punched for $500. I might do it if it means I'd get a week or two off of work. I'd probably take a punch to defend a family member or my girlfriend. Other than those few situations, I probably wouldn't ever want to see someone's fist flying towards my face an a velocity that would not allow it to come to a complete stop before impacting my precious face.

Actually, come to think of it, there is one other situation where I would like to get punched in the face, namely right in my left eye... hard... so hard that it would swell up too large to even move, and that situation would be this very moment. For some reason the muscle right under my left eye is twitching at an uncontrollable rate. It doesn't affect my vision at all, but the constant movement makes me want to sit here with on hand pressing in on my eye socket to make it quit.

I really don't know what the heck would cause my eye to twitch so much and so uncontrollably, but it isn't anywhere close to quitting and it's been going strong all weekend. I did hear someone mention that it might be from a lack of calcium, but how would that cause one specific muscle to twitch? I've also assumed it might be stress as it has been quite stressful at work lately, but usually stress gives me migraines and not muscle spasms. Hopefully it goes away soon, though, because I'm pretty damn tempted to say something really inappropriate to someone at the bus stop today in order to get that face meeting fist experience that would probably solve my problem.

Music that Pleases My Ears

Music 20060514

Another week, another top five. As opposed to last week's list which was mostly bands that had recently released greatest hits releases, this week we see one greatest hits artist and then a bunch of new CDs that I was listening to.

#1 for the week was pretty surprising for me. Edgewater put out a pretty forgettable radio rock oriented release a couple of years ago right when Nickelback was cresting the radio waves. I listened to them once or twice and pretty much wrote them off. Then about 2 weeks ago I saw that they had a new CD out so I decided to listen to a song or two to see if they'd changed - and they did! Now a much more mature and edgy band in nature, they still possess the basic radio rock formula, but take a heavier approach. It makes their new stuff leaps and bounds above what is on the radio today and what they had previously released. Great stuff.

My second most listened to band this week was Lifetime, one of the classic punk bands that influenced so many of today's melodic punk bands. They recently released a greatest hits CD so I took the chance to go back and relisten to a lot of their back catalog. I never was all that into them back when they were in their heyday and after listening to them again, I find that I appreciate them and their influence, but their music doesn't grab me as much as I thought it might now that I am older.

Goatkill are one hell of an interesting band. Most of their songs are quick, less than two minute, grind/spazz/metal conglomerations. You can download their latest CD for free at this link. They're just giving it away. I finally listened to it after we reviewed it a long time ago over on Decoy. It's an interesting release but probably nothing I'll actively listen to again. If you like spazzcore, then give them a shot, or else don't really bother.

When Bleeding Kansas released their last CD I was not all that impressed. With their latest effort, they have definitely progressed, but not as much as I'd have hoped. Their brand of dirty metalcore is interesting for a while, but I can never listen to an entire CD of theirs in one sitting. I think most of these listens this week came when listening to songs between other albums in order to break it up into digestable pieces.

Ignite was my #1 last week and remains in my top five as I still can't get enough of this band. Tied with them for the last spot in the top five was The Killer. I received the rerelease of Better Judged by Twelve than Carried by Six last week as a submission for review and I found myself actually really getting into their brand of hardcore. It's nothing overly special, but the coupling of their CD with a live DVD and the great packaging drew me to it. Then after listening to it, I found that they were better than a lot of your standard tough guy hardcore bands out there.

So, that's what I was listening to last week, what about you?

Friday, May 12, 2006

You Can't Say No to Vampires

Up until yesterday, I had been in New York this week for work. It was my first time to the Big Apple, and I was staying right on Time Square at the Marriott Marquis, so I wanted to definitely do some New York-ish things while I was there during my free time. One of the first things I did was walk up and down Broadway, just taking in everything from a real life perspective as opposed to the glamorized version seen on tv and in the movies.

In my walks I was attempted to be taken aside by numerous men and women dressed in suits and dress clothes asking me if I wanted to see a movie about some book called Dianetics. Yes, my friends, I was attempted to be converted to scientology! (I don't capitalize the word because, frankly, I don't think of it as a religion, I think of it as stupid. The end.) It was crazy how pushy the scientologists were to everyone out on the street that was in dress clothes. Since I was in my work garb, I was dressed pretty nicely. The average, everyday Joe's the scientologists just let go by, probably because they figured they wouldn't have enough money to simply throw away to some moronic scheme thought up by a dead sci-fi author.

After browsing Broadway, I stopped in to the Virgin Records Megastore just to see how much things cost in New York, which happens to be a lot more than Minnesota. Clearance CDs were $10 as opposed to the usual $5-$7 here. New releases were all $20. Video games were about the same price. DVDs were slightly more expensive, but not by a lot actually.

Anyways, while I was there I saw a plethora of 12-15 year old girls hanging out. I didn't know if this was a hang out for young girls or what was going on until I saw that Nick Lachey was there. It took me a bit to remember what his actual name was because I only thought of him as Jessica Simpson's husband... well, now ex-husband.

I later decided that it would be a sin for me to be in New York, staying on Broadway and not attend a play. Thankfully on the ground floor of the Marriott is the last minute ticket sales booth where all the seats that are left open for the day are sold at half price to fill out the seats. Unfortunately my first two choices for plays to attend, Spamalot and The Producers, were sold out for the night. When seeing what else there was that might be appealing, I stumbled across Lestat, a play based on the Anne Rice vampire novels. It was a musical, which I tend to loathe, but it did have vampires, which friggin' rule, so I tossed the dice and decided to go.

Turns out that some pretty good seats were available so I ended up in the 12th row right on the middle aisle so I had a great vantage point for the show. The show itself was ok. The stage, costumes, and special effects were ridiculously awesome for a play (at least in comparison to everything I've seen on stage), but the music was a little weird. The music was written by Elton John, so it was definitely upbeat, which I didn't think fit all that well with a dark vampire fantasy.

Most of the songs felt like Lion King songs with vampire lyrics. All of the performers were tremendous, however, so they were performed quite well. I just got a little bit of weird-ish feeling when watching the show and having to deal with the constant shift between dark, brooding speaking moments and the upbeat musical numbers. I don't know if it was worth the Broadway ticket price, but it was pretty good for a play if you don't mind upbeat vampire singing.

It was nice to be able to do these couple of things while I was out in New York, but there is so much to see and do out there that I should never run short of things to do when I'm visiting. I'll be going back again in a week and a half and I'll probably have to be out there or in Chicago once every month or month and a half because of the nature of my job. So it's good to know that I'll always have stuff to do. Like for my next trip I'm going to try to catch a concert at CBGB's and hit up a nice restaurant or two.

Screw Fossil Fuels

Guess who doesn't like paying $3 a freakin' gallon for gas? This guy. Yeah, the prices are there, just like the analysts predicted. Thank goodness I'm now living where I can take the bus to and from work every day. Still, when I want to go visit Kristin or home or when I have to drive to the airport or get groceries or such, I'm stuck guzzling gas and paying the abysmally high gas prices.

I'm wondering how high it'll have to get before the bus services raise their prices, as well as delivery services like DHL, FedEx, and UPS. Heck, I know pizza delivery services are making a killing with these rising gas prices. Anytime you get a pizza delivered nowadays they take on an extra couple of bucks for a delivery fee. Before the outrageous gas hikes of the last couple of years, there was never a delivery charge. It was simply a courtesy that a place could deliver (and that's how they would woo you away from a pizza place that only did carry out).

I don't know how high these gas prices are going to go, but pretty soon I'm not going to want to ever go anywhere other than my basement because I won't want to feed the greedy pockets of the oil companies who, while making record profits, won't do a damn thing to help out the everyday consumer.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Burden of a Day - Pilots & Paper Planes CD Review

The currently all-encompassing genre of metalcore (of both the melodic screamo type and balls to the wall angry persuasions), without a doubt, is this decade’s nu-metal. Much like the often maligned genre that started in the early 90’s, peaked in the mid to late 90’s, and then turned into a dumping ground of washed up, no talent bands in the early 00’s, faux-screamo and metalcore are reaching the ends of their life cycles. Both grew out of the underground at the end of the 90’s and have proliferated quite strongly throughout the first half of this decade. In the last couple of years, however, it has reached the saturation point and, just like nu-metal, both genres have become a dumping ground for bands that have no idea how to innovate, so they play what they’ve been hearing for the last few years.

In rare cases nowadays a band will rise up from the refuse surrounding them and revitalize the mildew-laden, rotting riffs in some sort of new way. With Burden of a Day, you see a band trying so hard to bring together so much of the last few years in order to rise up, but it’s all been done so much better in the past that this band just doesn't have a chance.

During the good moments the vocals are very reminiscent of The Refused or Thursday, but at other times they feel like an unfocused Hand to Hand or My Chemical Romance. The rapid pace, semi-spoken vocals are often the most appealing of the lot. It is the portions of attempted cleanly sung, and at times off tune, passages that will turn away the listener. That and the atrocious lyrics. Yes, this release is chalk full of the standard emo, cry baby lyrics. And on top of that you'll be graced by some of the Christian themes littered throughout, which I know some listeners just can't stand.

Musically, the most glowing part of the band is the punchy drumming, complete with a plethora of double bass rolls and straight ahead pace setting. Whereas many modern metalcore and faux-screamo bands use double bass pounding only for breakdowns, here you'll often find the double rolls are used throughout songs to keep the pace strong, which most of the tracks need since the majority of the time they feel like Alexisonfire and Poison the Well rip-offs.

It’s hard to continually be fed the same regurgitated song structures, riffs, and vocal patterns and not get utterly fed up with the lack of innovation. Heck, with the majority of today’s scream/sing bands, all I really want is some genuine emotion. Instead you get one or two pretty decent songs (“For Tomorrow We Die” and “Escapism as an Art Form”) and about 10 crappy ones (the rest of this album). This scene is getting old. Let’s move on.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

May 7th's Top Five

Music 20060507

This week we see Ignite take a commanding lead as the #1 most listened to artist by yours truly and there is a good reason for that--they friggin' rule. As you should have read in a previous post, this band's disc has been streaming for free over at Decoy Music, so it's received even more listens that what Last.fm tracked for me. This truly is one of the best melodic punk records I have heard in ages... probably since Rise Against's last effort. Seriously, this is a disc that everyone who likes rock music in the least should buy.

NOFX snuck into the #2 position because I listened to their new CD once through and then listened to a couple of old tracks at home as well for nostalgia sake. If you haven't heard of NOFX by now, you must not listen to any of the same music as me. They're some of the granddaddy's of punk music, well, at least this era of punk.

For some reason during the middle of this last week I had a hankering for listening to some Further Seems Forever so instead of picking out which album to listen to, I hit up their recently released greatest hits disc. It was great to listen to some truly good emo as opposed to all of the faux-emo and faux-screamo populating the modern rock airwaves. FSF may not have ever been the most intricate or talented of a band, but their albums (and songs) were consistently solid.

I didn't think I listened to either of the next two artists as much as I did this week. Massive Attack recently released a double disc, greatest hits release and since I liked some of their past works, I grabbed it and spun through some of the songs on both discs. I never realized how good they were, but I found I can only take so much Massive Attack in a day so I spaced it out over a couple of days, but nonetheless I was impressed by the greatest hits release.

Lastly Richard Cheese made his way into the top five. I had his newest greatest hits cd sitting on my desk at home so I threw it in for kicks when I was doing laundry earlier this week and there were just enough songs on it to get it to register onto my top five. If you dig lame ass, lounge music covers of current hits (of all genres), then by all means go get some Cheese, but for me he's more of a novelty item.

Looking back, three of the top five listens for this week were centered around greatest hits albums. I wonder if this means I'm getting fed up with new music? Truth be told there's been some great CDs to come out this year, but not many. I've been listening to a lot of older stuff lately, which is cool because I get to revisit some favorites, but it also kind of sucks because I love new music. Anyways, what did you listen to last week?

Monday, May 08, 2006

Small Town Crook

It's been the big, headline story of the area for the last few days--Dale Schlicting and his DSI Agency, based in the Hayfield area (near Rochester, MN), has defrauded a significant chunk of the community out of what will no doubt be millions upon millions of dollars. According to the initial news stories, so far over $700,000 of fraud have been identified. When you talk to the people in the community you know that it's going to be a whole hell of a lot more.

My family and myself got hit by Schlicting's frauding schemes. Fortunately (well, as fortunate as you can get when you get swindled out of your money) we did not lose near the amounts that some people have. I don't know how much my family lost, but it isn't a large amount. Personally I haven't checked the exact dollar amount, but it is in the ballpark of three to five thousand dollars.

I was pissed about having that much money stolen from me, so I can't even begin to imagine some of our neighbors and friends that were taken for almost all they had. One couple had all of their retirement investments through DSI and were living off of the interest checks on their investments. Another couple had well over a quarter million put away that they were going to use when they retired. It seems like just about anyone you talk to in the community was affected or knew someone close who was affected.

Hell, this guy even defrauded his own church! It takes a phenomenal level of greed to cheat a church out of their money. Even Schlicting's "friends" were taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't understand this guy. No one seems to. Being in a small, rural community, he probably thought he could get away with it and no one would ever look into it. Thankfully, someone did. I hope his ass rots in prison for the rest of his life.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Fear is Our Tradition!

You want to hear what will probably be the best melodic punk record to come out this year? Yeah? You do? That a boy (or girl). For a short time, Decoy Music is streaming the entire new Ignite CD, so check it the heck out and put in your freakin' preorder already. This is going to be an amazing release. I usually don't get this hyped up over a band, but I haven't been able to put this record down as of late.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Project 86 / August Burns Red / The Showdown

Every show with a scene friendly band on the bill that I attend, I feel so far away in age from every other attendee there, and it only feels like there is an even larger gap when I go to Christian clubs since they attract so many of the ultra young crowd, no doubt because parents think it is a safe haven to drop their youngsters off at so they can go home, down some wine, and enjoy the rare occasion they have to try making babies.

This show took place at the 3 Degrees Club in Minneapolis, MN and I will say that the venue is phenomenal for mid-tier bands to play in, except that the owner won’t let the kids mosh, hardcore dance, or crowd surf. In fact, they kick you out if you even jump around and bump other kids too much. Oh yeah, and then there’s the fact that there is no alcohol served there because, obviously, beer came from the devil. Oh, and don’t forget the crazy ass host of the place who comes on between bands and acts like a maniacally possessed 30 year old who just shot a load of smack and mainlined a gram or two of caffeine. But beyond those few items, the club is a great place.

The show got underway with a local band that went by the name of If Truth is Dead. I know this because they mentioned their name after every damn song in an obvious attempt to get anyone in the crowd to remember who they were because their music sure as hell wouldn’t do it. Imagine a really crappy rip off of Emery, complete with dueling vocalists and a keyboardist who doesn’t have anything to actually do on stage. Well, ok, I might be a little off by saying that If Truth is Dead is a really crappy rip off of Emery. I should have said that they are a horrendously amateurish wannabe hack job that creams over Emery before they go to bed every night. Thankfully they only played like 20 minutes.

The first touring band of the night that graced the stage was Schema, a band that is still unsigned for some odd reason. Their set was actually very well suited for the strictly ruled club in that they don’t play music that makes you want to move. Imagine A Types era Hopesfall mixed with some Chevelle and you got their sound.

It was pretty apparent that they weren’t all that into the venue, the host, or the other performances that much, but that didn’t detract from them playing a tight set. Every song was expertly played with minimal movement by the actual band members, which isn’t all bad. The crowd, full of greasy teens with bad haircuts and Norma Jean t-shirts, heckled the band between songs making fun of their name, probably because it was too hard of a word for most of them to understand what it meant.

Schema did debut one new song and it was easily the best one they played that evening. The song embodied an edgier version of their melodic modern rock sound, as well as showed a thickness that was not as prevalent in their other songs. I seriously believe their next release, be it another independent LP or through a label that actually takes the initiative to sign them, will be a phenomenal offering. Keep Schema on your radar.

Once the coked out host did his thing between sets, The Showdown hit the stage and ripped right into it. With the no fun policy, err, I mean no moshing policy in effect, the crowd, which was primed to explode with bundled up energy, could only jump up and down and scream as the band roared through their brand of shredding, double bass pounding, raw metalcore.

After two songs something odd happened, however. The Showdown stopped playing and a Maylene and the Sons of Disaster cover band started up for a couple of songs. Most people probably believed the guys up on stage when they said that they were actually The Showdown and were playing some new songs off their upcoming disc, but I wasn’t fooled. You could easily tell by the complete lack of double bass, shredding, or screaming along with the addition of groove guitars and southern accented, melodic vocals that this was a Maylene cover band and nothing more.

Eventually the real Showdown showed back up to finish the set with the song “Iscariot”, but that southern rock band that took over the middle part of the set still left a disastrously bad ringing in my ears. Anyone hoping to see a progression of The Showdown’s sound on their upcoming CD is going to be in for a real letdown as it appears that the band has pulled an Avenged Sevenfold on us and totally pussed out.

Thankfully the youngsters in August Burns Red kicked us all in the teeth and reminded us what being really, f-ing heavy sounded like. It would be a lie to say that it wasn’t a little bit odd to have the youngest band on the tour being the ones who showed the other bands how to kick audible ass. Every song they played was spot on, aggressive, energetic, and destructive. This band is not a band to listen to live while standing around doing nothing. If the club had been filled with actual metalcore fans instead of all the pubescent, cross adorned, upper class kids you would have seen the crowd going off and people messing each other up. I can only imagine the destructive beauty of it all.

August Burns Red do not act their age at all, and that is definitely to be taken as a compliment. They were all business while on stage, and impressively they never looked like amateurs or kids. Josh McManness is a beast behind the mic. With a similar approach to Jeffrey from Poison the Well (minus most of that melody stuff), every lyric was screamed out with guttural urgency. These guys are primed to explode, if given the chance. Solid State should be salivating while they imagine what amazing things this band could do for them down the road.

The final band to take the stage were the headliners, Project 86. I last saw them in concert in 2001 shortly after Drawing Black Lines had hit the shelves. It’s amazing how much a band can change in five years. As soon as they hit the stage, I was overcome with a small feeling of being underwhelmed. My memory remembered Project 86 as one of the tightest performing bands my young brain had seen. Now it felt as if they’d grown sloppy and complacent, which I can imagine happens to a band after playing the same songs about a kajillion times.

To their credit, though, they didn’t skimp on the amount of songs they played. Each of their five releases was represented throughout their set, but the majority of their songs came off of Drawing Black Lines and …And the Rest Will Follow. It is always nice to see a band traverse their entire back catalog when performing. Unfortunately many of the songs came off quite lackluster with poorly mixed vocals (they were very soft) and thin guitars. No doubt they would have had a much thicker sound if they still had Cory Edelman with them (as was the case when I last saw them).

In the end, their set was less than spectacular, but far from being bad. Well, that is, except for the couple of minutes that Andrew Schwab took out of the set to evangelize. It gets on my nerves whenever a band comes out and uses their time on stage to push their beliefs. I really don’t care what a band believes, I’m there to see them play music. I don’t want to hear about how weak they are and how Jesus helps them feel strong and all that crap. That’s good for them, but get back to playing songs!

The night finally drew to a close after Project 86’s two song encore, which culminated with a rendition of “Sincerely Ichabod” featuring Josh of August Burns Red and David from The Showdown on vocals and the drummers from said bands banging away on bass drums. It was quite the spectacle, and actually was a great way to end the show – a combination of the different, somewhat diverse, heavy music that was played that night.

Arkansas Actually Progressive?

Personally, I loathe smoking and smokers. There is nothing redeeming about the habit whatsoever. It stinks. The smoke hurts my eyes and damages my lungs. Smokers get ugly teeth. They get breaks during the day that I don't (which really pisses me off). It's just an all around terrible thing and I wish it could be done away with completely, especially because it has been proven how harmful second hand smoke really is to people that don't smoke, me being one of those people.

In an interesting development in state law, there has been a wonderful new statute put into place in, of all places, Arkansas. What this law does is makes it illegal for people to smoke in their cars if a child is present. This is one of the smartest things I've seen put into the law books in recent memory.

Why should kids get tortured and have years taken off of their lives because their parents want to make their own lives miserable and shorter? It's totally unfair, especially since the kids have no way to protect themselves from their parents' smoking habits.

I realize that the kids getting protected by this law are still more than likely inhaling lungs full of cancer causing agents at home, but at least this is a start. Who would have ever imagined that Arkansas would be this progressive? I guess it does help to remember that this bill was originally drafted as a joke, but still. I'm glad it passed and I can only hope other states follow suit.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Audible Conversion

I'm a big audiobook fan and have been a subscriber to Audible for over a year. In that time I've listened to my audiobooks on my PocketPC through Audible's player that I installed on it. Well, with my new Blackberry I didn't need my PocketPC any more so I sold it. I had a 128 MB Creative MuVo MP3 player that I figured I could use instead.

I tried authorizing it to use Audible's management software, but it was a no go. Apparently my version of the MuVo isn't supported. Wonderful. My 40 gig Lyra also isn't supported and there isn't Blackberry support so the only way I could listen to my audiobooks would be on my computer or to burn them to CD in which I could only listen to them in my car (which I don't drive much any more since I take the bus to work). Lame.

Well, in searching the internet for a way to convert Audible's proprietary .aa files into MP3's that I could play on my MP3 player, I found this great workaround. I'm converting as we speak! The only problem is that I'll have to cut up the resulting MP3 file into smaller digestable pieces for my MP3 player. That shouldn't be too hard. I'm just glad I found a way to listen to my audiobooks on the go again. Now I can finally finish up listening to Xenocide.

Musical Top Five

Music 20060430

You know, I listen to a ton of music. Moonlighting as an editor for a music website will do that to you, but I definitely enjoy every minute of it... except for those minutes where I am stuck slogging through an atrocious new pop-punk or radio rock cd that I have to review. I also figure since I keep stats of what I listen to through Last.fm I might as well look back at what I listen to most in a week and let you all know if the artists are worth the amounts of listens I gave them or not.

This week sees light listens in my top 5, but that's because I don't have internet at home so nothing I listened to at my new place has been tracked. I will be getting internet tomorrow, so my stats next week should be way more interesting.

Juno Reactor captured the number one spot mainly because I like listening to techno when I really need to focus on a work task and I've had a few that I've needed to focus on last week. They are definitely one of the better techno artists out there and have a gigantic back catalog of stuff to listen to. You can't really go wrong listening to anything they have to offer.

Tha Alkaholiks made it into my top five mostly because I listened to their new cd once and since it had 15 songs on it, it outpaced all the other full cds I spun. They have some interestingly flavored rap numbers, but nothing overly interesting. Their new cd is better than the majority of hip hop radio, but not by a ton.

At number three is another techno entry--Junkie XL. I listened to them a lot back in college and only recently picked up their cd Saturday Teenage Kick again since I lost my copy. They do some killer stuff... well, actually now that I think about it, isn't it just one guy? I forget. Regardless, this is more song oriented techno music than your average DJ puts out.

Black Friday '29 and Vindaloo are both bands who sent me cds to consider for review. Neither is really that great. I actually don't remember much about them other than that they were your average hard rock styled band.

It probably took me all of 20 minutes to listen to the 12 songs by Time Again last week. They play a straight up, full speed ahead style of hardcore in the vein of Sick of It All. There's not too much to say about hardcore bands other than you'll either enjoy them or not. Time Again are good, but nothing I'd find myself listening to over and over again.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Almost Here

The cable guys are supposed to come on Thursday afternoon to install internet and cable so hopefully I'll be back on the internet at home and can actually watch tv again. It's been a torturous last couple of weeks without internet. I miss it more than tv.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Totally Different

Well, I made it to Mexico City fine. It's interesting, however, the stark difference between my expectations and the reality of the city. At every turn, since stepping off of my plane, things have been almost exactly the opposite of how I had been led to expect them to be.

When people have talked about Mexico City one of the key points has been how dirty and grimy of a city it is and how crime ridden it is. I know that part of it may have to do with the part of the city that I'm in, but from everything I've seen, this city appears to be a decently modern, first world type city.

As I disembarked from my plane I wholeheartedly expected to enter a ramshackle, cobbled together airport but instead I was amazed at the shiny newness of the terminal. Apparently the airport had been renovated within the last year or two and it definitely shows. The shops, the waiting area, and even the terminal were all leaps and bounds nicer than what I would have expected and, I am not joking, this airport felt more modern than the Minneapolis airport.

After going through customs I met up with my manager and driver to head out to the hotel. The driver drove us to our hotel in a car that's much nicer than mine (a newer Stratus) and on the way I didn't feel like I was in a foreign country at all. Sure the road names had a definite Spanish flair to them, but the majority of the billboards and ads were in English. Most of what was being advertised was also US based products.

The apartment buildings and factories and office buildings all looked, for a lack of a better word, normal. Only a couple of times during our half hour trip to the hotel did I see areas that looked run down or garbage ridden. This was so much different than expected.

Arriving at the hotel I was again amazed. This place is great! It has an art gallery, fancy restaurant, a stylish bar, broadband (and wireless) internet, spa, and some pretty pimp rooms. It might not quite be the Marriott Marquee, but it beats the hell out of your local Motel Six.

As I sit here in the bar drinking some cheap (yet classy) beer listening to the thunderstorm outside, my thoughts wander over all the pre-conceived notions I had going into this trip and how most of them have turned out to be wrong. The only ones that seem to be panning out are the ones dealing with security--there are definitely a lot of security guards around, but I am assuming it is because I am in a very nice part of town, and the language barrier, which really hasn't been a barrier at all. Most of the people I've dealt with so far speak English, at least to a degree, and for the few that don't my Spanish is passable enough that I can get the point across.

Knowing all of this and knowing how I generally feel about planes (I hate them), I find myself torn. I'm slowly starting to get bit by the travel bug. Seeing new places and new things is becoming more and more fascinating every trip I take. In Chicago I went out to some really high class restaurants. In New York I'm visiting famous clubs and going to Broadway shows and seeing celebrities. In Mexico City I'm seeing new parts of the world. The descent down of my flight was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Never have I seen such an urban sprawl. It is city as far as the eye can see.

Even more odd, I find myself wanting to be confronted with more international tasks so that I can see more of the world. I know that I have at least one more scheduled international trip this year, and that is to Australia, as well as a few more trips within the US so I can see even more of the world. And next year I think there is a very good chance that I can see even more of the world because of the nature of my job and the company I work for. Who would have thought that I'd actually like my job and learn to like to travel? Not me, that's for sure.

Change in Dress

So far one of the biggest changes that I've had to get used to with my new job is the change in dress. When I was at Kingland, if I wasn't meeting with a client in person (which wasn't all that often) I could show up at work in shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. And I loved every minute of it. Who doesn't love not worrying about having to get all dressed up before work? It made the day a little easier because I could be comfortable.

At my new position, it's totally business dress all the way. No t-shirts here. No shorts. No sandals. I can barely get away with leaving my dress shirts untucked. The only way I can is if I go right to my office bypassing everyone else in the office and then I stay there all day only to leave for coffee or taking a pee.

I really, really hate dress clothes. For me they are ridiculously uncomfortable. Sure, some people love dress pants, and I admit that at times they do feel nice on, but not for an entire day with a shirt tucked into them and a belt around your waist that just doesn't feel like it's the right size. One hole is too tight and the other is a little too loose. Thank God I don't have to wear a tie or a suit every day.

Most of the day my feet are screaming at me to be let free. Being trapped in dressy shoes or boots is not something they enjoy. I'm the type of guy that will wear sandals every day of the year that there isn't snow on the ground so it's quite a difference having them trapped inside semi-uncomfortable shoes for 10 hours a day.

Considering I also end up having to travel places now, I'll be in New York next week and Mexico at the end of the month, it also gets to be a real chore to attempt to pack dress clothes into my suitcase without them getting somehow wrinkled. It's damn near impossible! Even if I only pack them into my suitcase for the flight out and unpack them in my hotel room as soon as I arrive, they always end up somewhat wrinkled.

And what is the point of it all? I can't stand spending extra money for expensive dress clothes when I'm perfectly happy with my current wardrobe. I can't stand taking extra time out of my day to get gussied up when no one sees me anyways. I spend the entire day in my office since no one from my team is in this office - they're all located in other cities so we do all of our work over the phone.

*Sigh* I guess there's no escaping it. The older I get and the higher I move up the corporate ranks, the more dressy it's going to get. I hate conforming, but I don't have a choice, do I?

Don't You Get the Joke?

Who, in their right mind, would invite Stephen Colbert to speak at the White House Correspondent's Dinner? Did they think that his show was serious and not a total parody of the ultra-conservative Republican stereotype? Regardless, only hilarity could ensue and I'm sorry I missed it.

Since I don't have cable yet (Time Warner / Roadrunner just doesn't want my business all that quickly, do they?), I was forced to miss the address, but managed to read the transcript of it and, damn, did I wish I could have seen it. How awesome is it that someone was dumb enough to book Colbert and not think he'd skewer the hell out of the Republican party and the President himself? I'll tell you, more awesome than a gigantic sack of awesome covered in awesome sauce delivered to your front door by the awesome man.

[Update: I finally saw the address as it is now up on YouTube. Hilarious as ever. Watch it in pieces here, here, and here.]