My Friday Salute: Taquitos

Today I would like to introduce you to one of my wonderful friends that I like to keep in the freezer for times when I'm too damn lazy to cook, which is more often than you'd think. Say hello to my taquitos!

They're beef or chicken rolled in a crunchy tortilla that you can pop into a microwave at any time to snack on. Rolling a meat taco into a non-messy, snackable form is something of genius. Whoever created the taquito deserves a handshake or pat on the back or check for a billion million trillion dollars because, gosh darn it, they're really good.

I usually buy my taquitos by the 60 count box at Sam's Club. Hey, you can never have too many taquitos if you ask me. Unfortunately, the downside to having 60 taquitos at your disposal is that I'm often tempted to cook ungodly amounts of them all at once because they're so snackalicious. Like right now. I just make 14 of them for lunch. You can't deny the power of the taquito. It's like the Chuck Norris of Mexican cuisine.

Dream Theater - Score CD Review

Anyone who follows Dream Theater, even in the least, knows that they are one hell of a live band. In fact, Dream Theater like their live performances so much so that out of their 14 releases from 1989 until now, 5 of them have been live albums, the latest being Score. With their last live album being Live at Budokan, which was released in 2004, and having only one new album under their belts (Octivarium) between that live album and this one, there is one big question that is just begging to be answered: Is this triple album really necessary?

If you listen to only the first disc of this 3 CD set, then the answer would be “Maybe”. Containing only 2 songs (out of the 8 on it) from Octivarium, the other songs you would think would have been played on past live releases (both CD and DVD), but only the overplayed “Innocence Faded” will seem familiar. Instead of the usual songs, Dream Theater play some older material along with two songs that were never released — “Another Won” and “Raise the Knife”.

The two new songs are both interesting pieces, with “Another Won” originally being written in 1985 (it shows its age a little) and “Raise the Knife” being from their 1996 sessions. Even with these new songs and the positives of hearing some Octivarian tracks played on the first disc, “The Spirit Carries On” is an overpoweringly weak song, but the crowd seems to eat it up nonetheless. Dream Theater has never been good at being a ballad band and their attempt here is almost to the point of being laughable, especially when James LaBrie implores the crowd to “Sing it!”.

The remaining highlight on the first disc is the performance of “The Root of All Evil”, which was probably the best track from Octivarium, and it started the set off perfectly. In place of some of the songs on disc one, or potentially in augmentation of the set, I would have killed to hear something from Train of Thought, as the songs from that album seem to be very conducive to a live environment, as heard on Live at Budokan.

Once you’ve finished blowing through the first disc and pop in the second, the answer to the question posed in the first paragraph will go from that “Maybe” to a hearty “Yes!” Hearing the band playing alongside an orchestra is something that any Dream Theater fan, and many prog rock fans in general, will cherish. If you’re thinking that the collaboration sounds anything like the much publicized Metallica “collaboration” with an orchestra, then you’re in for a big surprise. Instead of using the orchestra for small finishing touches, like Metallica did, the Octavarium Orchestra complements Dream Theater perfectly, weaving in and out of the six songs they play on.

“Six songs is all?” you might be wondering, but remember who we are talking about here. The first collaboration is on the sprawling 40 plus minute epic “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence”, which is started off with over seven minutes of the orchestra playing a derivation of the theme of the song before Dream Theater joins the fray. When they do, the interplay between the two groups is phenomenal. Instead of overpowering the orchestra, the band is mixed at the perfect level so that this feels like a unity between the two entities, as it should be, instead of a gimmick, as many bands would no doubt treat it.

“Vacant” is really unneeded, however, and “The Answer Lies Within” is done well enough, but again it is a ballad, which Dream Theater doesn’t exactly excel at. Thankfully the orchestra makes it a little more interesting than it would usually be. The final three pieces to be played on this effort are all amazing in their own right. The 10 minute “Sacrificed Sons” is a nice mid-tempo prog song that mixes with the orchestra wonderfully. “Octavarium”, clocking in at 27 minutes, mixes a long section of ambience during the first third of the song with mostly the band performing throughout the rest of the song with not as much of the orchestra chiming in until the end of the song for the build up faux finale that leads into the 10 minute “Metropolis”.

“Metropolis” shows a wonderful balance between the orchestra and Dream Theater near the opening. Being a heavier song to start, the smoothness of the orchestra takes some of the edge off while not neutering the song. As the song progresses the orchestra does take a back seat to the myriad of solos, but that is somewhat to be expected.

In the end, this is a wonderful performance put on by one of the most talented bands still playing today. And as is the case with almost every Dream Theater live release, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth, this time around by getting a set consisting of Dream Theater’s less played material, unreleased material, and an entire set consisting of a melding of orchestration and prog rock. This is essential listening for any prog rock fan.

Savage Chickens

Cartoons about chickens scribbled on post it notes. How does it get any better. Go see more Savage Chickens, you'll enjoy yourself. Trust me.

Fat Disease?

I don't know about you, but I sure as heck think metabolic syndrome is just totally a made up disease. I've been reading about it everywhere, most recently in the latest issue of Wired, and it just seems like a way to classify people that are fat and lazy into one mass category so that Pfizer and other big drug companies can peddle "get thin quick" drugs to the legions of people who suddenly have been diagnosed with a new disorder.

You don't have a syndrome because you don't exercise, watch 5 hours of television a day, eat McDonalds for lunch, Chipolte for supper, and snack on a bag of Cheetos a day. No, that's called being a lazy fat ass. If you look at the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, you see what are not symptoms of anything, they're effects of a crappy lifestyle.

Now I'm not some totally insensitive clod who thinks that all fat people are just big, dumb, and lazy because I know that there are people that do have hormone, enzyme, and chemical imbalances that lead to their size, but you can't be serious when 75 million of the 298 million people in the US fit the category of suffering from metabolic syndrome according to The National Istitutes for Health. That is a fourth of the US's population!

Instead of selling high price designer drugs to the overweight, why don't doctors just tell people what they need to hear--get off your ass, exercise, and stop eating so much crap! I know that I'd be fat as all get out if I didn't exercise because I eat terribly. I'm smart enough to know that when I have a double whopper or a half of a Domino's pizza that I need to go out and do something besides sit in front of my TV playing Xbox 360 or reading a book. I go to the gym, work off the extra calories, and guess what? I ward off "metabolic syndrome". I'm sure if I tried, I could give myself metabolic syndrome, but then is it really a syndrome? I thought that syndromes were things that we caught or were caused genetically... but don't tell big pharma that. Then they wouldn't be able to peddle drugs to fat people.

Destroy the Runner - Saints CD Review

Dear Destroy the Runner,

We have recently had the chance to listen to your debut CD, Saints, and upon doing so were overcome with a myriad of emotions. Going into our initial listening of your CD, we knew that there would definitely be similarities between your brand of melodic metalcore and what we have pioneered in the last few years, but we didn’t know that you would blatantly copy us as much as you did.

From the first song to the last song, we felt as if you took every riff we have put down on tape, from what we did on our debut full length, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes all the way up to our most recent offering, Shadows are Security, changed them around slightly, and claimed them as your own. Yes, some may call this copying the sincerest form of flattery, but we see it as a lack of creativity on your part.

It wouldn’t be that terrible if you were simply ripping off our riffs, much like Caliban did earlier this year on their release The Undying Darkness, but you also outright steal our vocal approach. Yes, we realize that the combination of heavy, guttural yelling interspersed with light, tenor singing is not something unique only to our band, but both your yells and your singing sound exactly like Tim and Clint’s vocal styles.

We are saddened to see Solid State Records resorting to signing bands that lack originality and ape already established bands' sounds outright without even attempting to put a unique spin on it. Signing bands just to cash in on a trend is not something we support.

Despite the above, however, we do feel you have some signs of talent, and if you try to find your own identity instead of merely copying us, we think you could do well in the melodic metalcore genre. We are sure you’ll sell plenty of records to kids looking to whet their appetites while they wait for us to put out a new disc, but please don’t plan on continuing to cash in by peddling your unoriginal music to our fanbase.

Signed collectively,
The members of As I Lay Dying

Some Great News (For Me At Least)

For the first time in 11 years existing homes prices and sales have fallen. For anyone trying to sell a house, that definitely sucks, but for anyone that is considering taking the plunge into home ownership within the next year's time frame, this is great news. Prices have been slowly leveling off over the last 6 months or so here in Minnesota, but they haven't been falling.

I'm hoping that this national average will trickle its way into the Minneapolis suburb area. I somehow don't think it will because there is always demand for housing in the inner suburbs of Minneapolis, which is where I most definitely want to live since I hate commuting, so I don't see there being any plummetting in prices, but it would be great to see everything stay flat for a while and let inflation outpace housing prices.

If you know of a great house in the St. Louis Park, Plymouth, Edina, Golden Valley, or New Hope area, let me know, especially if it is a good deal.

Me and My 360

I may not play video games nearly as much as I used to, but I still do. I enjoy popping in a game on my Xbox 360 every now and again to kill some time, blow off some frustrations, or get my ass kicked by a roommate. What's interesting about the 360 is that what games you play and what actions you take on your 360 are captured in an RSS feed that can be accessed on the internet if you so choose it to be.

Well, I let mine be accessed and I actually feed it into a service that I found called Xbox 360 Voice. This service takes what you've been doing on your 360 and turns it into a blog. That's right, my Xbox blogs, and does so more often than I do, actually, which is kind of sad. Here, check out what my Xbox has been up to.

My, haven't video games come so far? And I remember wanting to bash in my parents' television while trying to figure out what the hell was going on in E.T. for the Atari 2600. I still have nightmares about that game.

The Office Premier

There's one show that I've really really really really been waiting to start back up again--The Office. The first two seasons, well, if you call it that since one season was only 6 episodes long, but anyways, the first two seasons were comedic genius. Sure, tons of people say the UK version is better, but I haven't seen it yet, so to me the US version is ridiculous in its awesomeness.

Last season ended on a real high note with many plot lines coming to a head and a few new ones being introduced. With those things in mind, I went into the season premier to find myself... not quite as impressed as before. However, because of the big money payoffs at the end of last season and the situations that were set up because of them, I had a feeling the show was going to need to attempt to find a new identity. No longer did you have the Pam/Jim dynamic or the Jim/Dwight dynamic or Pam soon to be getting married. The show was definitely going to need to find its rhythm again, and I think it might be a rough few episodes until it does.

There were a lot of funny moments, don't get me wrong, but the season 3 premier also came off as if the writers were trying a little too hard. Michael seemed a little extra moronic and backwater. The other characters didn't quite have the timing and "character" that they previously did. Thankfully there was Dwight. His character was as hilarious as ever. Two scenes in particular had me in stitches. The first was his remorse of Jim's leaving and the second was his use of his newly acquired "gaydar". Genius stuff.

I'm still stoked that a new season of The Office is coming my way once a week, but I'm going to temper my expectations for a bit as it seems like the show is going to be going through a few growing pains to get back to the level it was previously at.

What's the Big Deal?

I love my energy drinks. Usually it doesn't matter what kind of energy drink it is, I'll drink it. Some personal preferences are Monster, Red Bull, Donkey Kick, and Jolt (that's right, it has made a comeback!). Even though I prefer those, I'll drink just about anything from MDX to Rock Star to Bawls to Tab Energy.

They all have pretty funny names when you think about it. Bawls? Donkey Kick? Red Bull? All pretty out there names if you ask me. And now there's a new kid on the block--Cocaine. After reading up on some of the facts on the drink, I think it may now be my new favorite energy drink, regardless of how it tastes.

If you look at the charts in the link you'll see that it has a whopping 33.33 milligrams of caffeine per ounce. My current favorite, Monster, only has 8.75 milligrams per ounce. Cocaine packs in almost four times the concentration of caffeine per ounce! Holy crap pants is that nuts. It's almost like drinking straight espresso.

Unfortunately, it is getting a fair share of bad press because of the name. They claim it is going to promote drug use or make drug use look cool. Seriously? If an energy drink leads you doing hardcore drugs, then something is wrong with you in the first place. It's like saying Donkey Kick is promoting animal abuse or that Jolt is promoting electocution and shock therapy. Come on. It's a clever name. What they should have really named it, though, is Speed. That's probably a little more accurate.

Now I just have to figure out how to get my hands on this stuff...

Pretty Much Says It All