Yep, That's My "Accent"

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Comcast

I've made mention in the past about the troubles that I had with Time Warner cable and Roadrunner internet services. Well, we no longer have either in St. Louis Park. Instead we have only one option--Comcast. They bought out Time Warner/Roadrunner for the community. Along with the buyout comes terrible service (of both the customer and internet/cable type) and a lack of any alternatives.

We have continued to have troubles with our cable card not working and our internet just losing signal, at which point we have to reset our router for service to pick back up. On top of the continued troubles, our promo package that we had with Time Warner has run out so now Comcast wants to charge us nearly $100 a month for service.

I called them to see what's up and after about a half hour of arguing over how ridiculous it is that I should be paying so much for service that blows harder than Katrina did, the woman I talked to agreed to have an upper level technician come look at our setup since we've had 6 previous visit from technicians that didn't know jack and didn't fix a damn thing. She said she would call that evening with a time that the tech could come visit.

I didn't get a call that night or the next morning so called Comcast again. I got a different person since the woman I talked to was out that day. He said he would get something scheduled and call me back. There was no call that night... or all of Friday... or all of the weekend... or on Monday... so I called them again.

I got another new person because the other two were unavailable. It escalated to a senior service person, finally, and we went through everything AGAIN. By this time I'd wasted a couple of hours on the phone between all of the different calls. We finally got a tech scheduled to come look at our place.

So, Thursday night will be the big night as I informed Comcast that if they don't resolve all of my problems that I was going to cancel my cable and go with satellite. Time Warner never fixed anything and I highly doubt that Comcast will get anything done either so I'm prepping myself for the switchover to DirecTV. Dealing with Comcast's "Comcastic" service is driving me bonkers.

This is why cities should not allow cable companies to have a monopoly over an area. The same thing happened to me in Rochester where Charter was the only option in town and they seriously sucked hard. When there's no competition, what's the point in even trying to help out your customers? They're stuck with you regardless of how crappy you are. And that is terrible.

If a candidate on today's ballot had a strong stance on taking down shitty cable companies, I would vote for him or her in a second. Who cares what their stances on Iraq or social security or immigration or any of that other crap is? I want them to kick Comcast in the taint and give me some better options. Crack down on the monopolies!

Do It

Get out there and do it. If you live in the Minneapolis area, you have until 8 pm in most areas, so that leaves you about 9 and a half hours from right now. Go get 'em!

Championship in the Bag

After the self destructing mess that was the playoffs for the summer league ultimate frisbee team I played on, where we were undefeated going into the playoffs and then lost all the way out the playoffs, the fall league team I played with walked away with the fall 2006 crown! This is the first time I've played with a disc club that's managed to make it to the big show and pull it off. There have been a few times where a team I played with got close, but never was the peak of Mt. Championship climbed until this last weekend.

It was a really great feeling to win, as expected obviously. Who would feel bad about winning a championship? The funny thing about it, though, is that for a while afterwards I kept thinking about the small mistakes I made and the things I could have done better when I should have been enjoying the moment instead, right?

See, our semi-final game was against a team that hasn't lost a game in over two years and we only ended up beating them by one. It was a really tight game towards the end and a few more errors or a couple of amazing plays on either size of the disc could have easily turned the game. Knowing that, it kind of puts the mistakes that were made into a very bright light and I still find myself focusing on them. I shouldn't have made that throw... or I should have made a stronger inside cut in the end zone on the point where we turned it over on the goal line... or I should have played defense a little more on the hip of the guy I was guarding instead of giving him as much space as I did. It's these little things that can make or break a really tight game and I know I wouldn't want to be the person responsible for those mistakes.

But whatever, we won the championship and got a chocolate trophy. Go team!

...now I just need to find a winter indoor team that will take me in.

Friday Salute: Chairs in a Bag

In the house I live in, we don't have much for movable sitting arrangements. In our living room on the main floor we have a couch and two recliners. In my room I have an office chair and a big, gnarly looking, green, puffy chair. In our basement we have a leather couch. The only movable sitting apparatuses that are in the house are the rolling chairs around the dining room table. This causes trouble when more than three people want to watch TV in the basement or we have a larger than six person poker game.

One evening I was playing host to an inordinately large poker game of 10 people. This meant we'd need to have two games going at the beginning and merge into one at the end. Not knowing how I was going to seat everyone, I went to Target in a mild panic. It's there that I remembered the magical items that are chairs in a bag.

I bought four of them, we set up a game in the basement and one upstairs. It worked wonderfully. And when the game was over, the chairs went in their bags and sat in the corner with the poker table and chips, hardly taking up any extra space. We now have more chairs for when people come over to watch football on the big 57" or want to watch a movie. We can also have more than a couple of people lounge around up in my room... although I don't remember there ever being more than like two people in my room for more than 10 minutes. But still.

Chairs in bags, you make life so easy. I salute you.

Lazy Business People

While walking from the bus stop to our work buildings the other day, my roommate Karl and I came to a consensus on a modern day annoyance - people who walk to work with roller bags. Now I'm not talking about business people walking around downtown with big ol' suitcase roller bags, usually on their way to or from hotels or on the way to the airport. I'm talking about what is basically a glorified mini laptop bag with a long ass handle thrust out of it and a pair of little wheels on it.

Are people that lazy that they need to roll, at most, 10 pounds? I have a backpack for carrying my laptop and work gear to and from work. It works fine. Most people have briefcases. They work fine too. Others even have messenger bags, which are great as well. But, for the love of all that is holy in this world, why would you need to take a briefcase and drag it behind you? It's probably more work to extend the legs and drag the bag behind you than it would be to sling a briefcase strap over a shoulder or put on a backpack.

So, in conclusion, if you have a mini roller bag that you haul around downtown Minneapolis, don't be surprised if I walk up to you, kick your bag, and call you wuss-face.

Cat Captions

I never thought I'd laugh so hard at a bunch of pictures of cats with random captions. Go to this link to experience more funny cat fun. Yay!

Dead Poetic - Vices CD Review

Four Wall Blackmail put this band on the map. Their invigorating blend of post-hardcore and Thursday worship was perfectly timed. New Medicines catapulted this band to the top of the new wave screamo genre. The maturation of their earlier sound combined with a more refined songwriting ability allowed the band to create an undeniably forceful release. Vices will be the album that paints a picture of a band persevering through adversity and coming out on the other side stronger than ever before. This album, without a doubt, shows the band coming together to create their most mature release to date and, at the same time, shows that they're not concerned with riding along on the wave of the popular genre of the day.

Strip away what you previously knew about this band. This isn’t a screamo release. This isn’t a scene-centric CD. This isn’t a cliché ridden album. This isn’t like their last two efforts. What this album is, is a straight ahead, solid, rock record. I’m sure that to many fans this is the worst news in the world, but to those of you can look beyond a band's looks and past, those of you who simply enjoy good music, this is as solid of a release as you will find in the rock arena.

The biggest change that people will notice is the lack of screaming. This really shouldn’t feel like that big of a change, however, as it is easy to see the natural progression of the band from their inception to the current day in regards to this piece of the band. Their first record was raw and emotional, with a moderately heavy focus on screaming. Their sophomore effort had considerably less screaming as the focus was more on using it to augment passages of songs as opposed to being the focal point, with there even being a couple of songs that were found on New Medicines sans screaming. With the complete removal of screaming, the band is now able to focus more on creating cohesive songs that have more musical depth. Besides, Brandon Rike has one of the more infectious and striking voices in modern rock, so why take away from his vocals by overlaying them with extraneous yelling?

Musically, there is a stronger consistency in the songs on this album. Whereas in the past there was a strong distinction between the band’s softer, intricate moments and their heavier, quicker songs, Vices has a smooth consistency that is rarely broken. Yes, there are definitely slower and quicker songs, but the flow between them feels natural. The only slight misstep the band may have taken is overloading the second half of the disc with slower numbers. Within the first seven songs there is only one down tempo number, “In Coma”, whereas in the second half you have “Paralytic”, “Animals”, and “Copy of a Copy” sporting slower and more mellowed tempos.

One criticism that is sure to crop up is the length of the album at 50 minutes over the 14 tracks laid down. Really, this isn’t much of a criticism as there are no wasted tracks, no boring interludes, and no true filler. Each song differs enough from any other on the album, as well as explores different territory than the band’s past releases, that you don’t get the feeling of being bored.

Once you dig into the release, you’ll see that the band has managed to soar beyond the expectations set upon them. Take, for example, what could be argued as being the best track on the CD — “In Coma”. Taking on a slower pace with guitar tones similar to previous songs “Glass in the Trees” and “The Dream Club Murders”, the band creates an introspective verse structure that leads into an emotional and strong chorus, yet tender enough to not feel like it was forced. All the while Rike croons what is some of his most mature and deep lyrics to date. It’s great to see Rike able to create as open and creative lyrics as he does because when all the vocals are sung, you can’t disguise bad lyrics by simply yelling them incomprehensibly.

The majority of the heavier rocking tracks on this release sees a lot of modern alternative rock influence, most notably a nod to mid-career Blindside, Obsession era Eighteen Visions, and late career Deftones mixed with the late 90's rock appeal of bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam. The band doesn't so much sound like the latter two groups, but the structuring of the songs and the straight forward nature of the tracks hearkens back to such bands, if only they were given a modern facelift.

Notice should also be given to the guest appearance by Chino Moreno of Deftones fame on the track “Paralytic”. This is another strong song and the addition of Chino’s backing vocals helps to give it that extra punch, even though the song is one of the more melodic tracks, sounding very close in feeling to something out of A Perfect Circle's catalog.

When all is said and done, this is Dead Poetic at their best. This album is not going to be what you expect if you go into it with any pre-conceived notions of what to expect. There are still elements of their sound present, but they’ve grown up and walked down their own path instead of following in the footsteps of what’s currently trendy and popular. Classic rock, modern rock, hard rock, melodic rock, whatever you want to subclass it as, the only thing you really need to know is that this is at its core just wonderful rock music. Period.

Movie Time

Check out the ever growing thread of movies being added to!

Nacho Libre (5.5/10): You know, I thought for sure I'd get into this movie considering it's Jack Black and a Napoleon Dynamite styled script combined into one. However, there just weren't enough interesting and funny moments. Yes, there were some truly hilarious moments, but a lot of the movie was pretty middling and kept me at an arm's length from the characters since they were so stereotypical, even with Black injecting his patented humor into some of the scenes. I would only recommend this to die hard Black fans or people looking for a non-offensive comedy for the wee ones to watch.

My Manhood

It's not very often that a man has the need to question how much of a man he really is. We're too busy flaunting how much more of a man we are than any other male in our direct vicinity that we don't need to worry about questioning how much of a man we really are. However, I was recently forced to contemplate my manhood, or lack thereof, with the results proving to be quite depressing.

Last week, I found some Home Depot gift certificates in my wallet that hadn't ever been used. I don't remember where I got them or how much they were for, but when you find gift certificates, you have to use them, right? I knew we needed some caulking for the windows at my house, some hanging hooks, and fuses so I took a visit to the local Home Depot on Friday. When I asked how much was on the gift certificates, the lady helping me told me there was $50 on each of the three cards I had. That's $150 of free spending power at Home Depot I just found! Awesome, right?

Well, it wasn't so awesome when I thought about it. If the gift certificates were to just about any other store, such as Best Buy or Target or Barnes & Noble or Gamestop or Sportmart or whatever, I would have known exactly what I was going to spend the money on. With Home Depot, however, I found myself staring at the rows and rows of home improvement supplies and couldn't think of a damn thing I wanted to buy outside of the caulk, fuses, and hooks I came to pick up.

Home Depot is a man's store and being a man, I should have had a list of a bajillion things already enumerated in my head that I would buy if given the chance. Instead, I found myself strolling up and down aisles wondering if there was anything there I might possibly need. In the end, however, I just bought what I came for and decided I needed to think about what I would use the remaining $125 on.

This experience was quite a blow to my manhood and makes me wonder about what it will be like when I own a house of my own. I hope that by that time I'll have that list of a bajillion things in my mind and will want to make home improvements and renovations. Until then, however, I'll probably just use the gift certificates on house essentials. Pathetic, I know.