random thoughts

slayer 'world painted blood'
every time slayer announces a new record, the typical cycle of comments ranging from 'they're too old,' to 'this will never top _enter slayer record here_,' or 'it'll be boring' rears its head.

'god hates us all' literally had one listenable track. 'christ illusion,' while a better outing, still wasn't the greatest. but i'd argue 'world painted blood' is almost a return to form--or rather, the closest thing to a return to form we might get from these metal stalwarts.

'wold painted blood' very well could sit right between 'seasons of the abyss' and 'divine intervention' if you rearranged their back catalog in chronological order based on style. it's fast and straight forward without all the tinkering and, i don't know, 'experimental' angles (?), that made 'christ illusion' a bit inconsistent in my mind. lombardo sounds great, the songwriting is solid, and the lyrics are as cheesy as ever.

fortunately for slayer fans, the cycle of mediocre or relatively disappointing albums has finally ended with a quality slayer record. if this is how you 'spread a little hate worldwide,' sign me up.


coalesce 'ox ep'
question--what tops a genre-defining metalcore band that comes out of retirement and releases one of the best records in 2009? only one of the year's best ep's, that's what. coalesce returns with an equally-impressive ep filled with a few full songs, and great instrumental interludes that builds off of their latest lp--plenty of grooves, shifting rhythms, and spagetti western instrumentals.

• great parenting: pretending your kid flew away in a homemade hot air balloon to get publicity, only to get caught, charged, and possibly deported. mother of the year material, right here--http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_re_us/us_balloon_boy
• wait, stop spending! so now obama wants a spending freeze. hey, maybe you should have your staff draw up some plans, sit on them for a few weeks, then decide you don't like them because they don't give you a clear timetable as to when you can finally be deficit free, and tell them to revise their proposed plans. and yet let's still try to punch through a costly health care reform because america really needs it so badly. what a douchebag. read it HERE
• taylor swift: her face has been plastered all over yahoo.com for the last year, she just hosted SNL, she wins a bunch of music awards, and she has her own guitar hero commercial. either she has the best PR agent in the entire freaking universe, or she made a pact with satan. or it's a combination of the two--her agent is satan

the biggest ebay auction in my life

i take some pride in knowing my way around ebay auctions and using my own personal system to win objects of desire for the least amount of money when possible. when my strategy fails, i typically exact revenge to the potential winning buyer in a specific auction if its inevitable that i'm going to lose (re: outbid).

in some ways, buying a home is like an ebay auction when other parties are involved. only your paypal funds, and the object in question, is magnifed by thousands.

the ebay strategy actually came into play in my personal situation where at the last second i had to swoop in with my final offer (re: snipe) and came out on top. the only caveat is that i came out marginally on top, and got blindsided not by a higher counter-offer, but a higher down payment.

that said, everything is in limbo and it made me wish i could exact my revenge, much like i do on ebay. sadly, the parameters and rules of ebay auctions don't fully extend to the real world, otherwise that other bidder would be paying out the ass if i had it my way.

everything smells like ass

1. smells like ass

When something smells bad
This Indian food smells like ass

www.urbandictionary.com

i remember in 7th or 8th grade science class our science teacher had us conduct an experiment where we smelled specific odors for an extended amount of time, then smelled other odors only to prove that our olfactory system (explanation here) was saturated to the point that everything smelled like the original odor we fixated on. in retrospect, this probably wasn't the best thing to teach kids since the fresh scenting odor could have easily been glue, rubber cement, or whatever other garbage kids would get high on.

anyways, such was the case last week when mother nature decided to piss all over new york and rain for literally a week straight. whenever it rains, all sorts of weird odors pop up. that damp odor. the smell of earthworms (or so my wife claims). sometimes moistened bird shit in trees. but in my case last thursday, it was ass.

now let's be frank here. everyone knows what ass smells like, and don't deny it. you know some point in your life you got a whiff of ass either from dirty underwear, bums or hobos, the bathroom, or even tickling your own brown eye for whatever reason (you pervert!). and you know that smell because it hits you and it's obnoxious. like someone just decided to shove your face into a swamp-ass of some morbidly obese person during the height of summer heat and humidity.

sitting on the train home, this random fellow came in and sat right next to me. looked kind of unclean, but he could've easily been a construction worker with all the dirt on him. or a homeless vagrant. whatever he was, he reeked of ass. at this point, you either get up so you can breathe normally, or you stay so you don't have to stand the rest of the ride home. i chose to stay, picking comfort for my legs and ass over the comfort of my olfactory system. it'd come in waves, but i figured the next stop wasn't too far away so i'd soldier through it.

leaving the train station and getting onto the bus, there's an old guy in front of me stepping in. one guess to what he smelled like: ASS.

sitting in the bus to get home. oh, what's that pleasant odor fouling up the cabin area? ASS.

i finally got home and didn't have to deal with the smell anymore. why am i sharing this story? because going into the mens room at work today, i was taken aback by the odor of ass. but no one was in there. someone laid down some #2 and it smelled like ass, and it reminded me of that day last week.

coalesce - ox

label: relapse
score: 9/10



rather than go into a long-winded back history about the band and how it's come full circle, i'm just going to cut to the chase--coalesce's ox is probably the best hardcore/metal album that you'll listen to year-to-date through 2009.

filled with all the angular guitar riffs, dizzying leads, pounding grooves, and mutating rhythms and tempos that you'd expect from the band, they still retain the rock vibe picked up from 'there's nothing new under the sun' ('the comedian in question', 'wild ox moan'), and even throw in elements of doom (the end of 'the purveyor of novelty and nonsense'--the bell tolls for thee!), clean singing, more moody instrumentals, and even some spaghetti western (i kidd you not, the interlude in 'dead is dead' will make you feel like you were transported into a sergio leone movie).

equally gratifying is the level of production for the record. there's just a weighty feel to everything with no instrument left behind. the fullness of the drums, the bass lines rumbling through, and the ripping precision of guitar riffs--it's probably the best produced release in their long tenured history. and there have been some pretty questionable ones (thank god for 'give them rope: she said v. 2.0').

it's hard to believe that the band's last full length album came out roughly 10 years ago. despite being in the forefront of the 'tech' or 'math' metal movement from the 90's that's obviously moved on, coalesce still manages to be relevant, quite refreshing thanks to the addition of various new creative elements, and a standard for other hardcore/metal bands to meet. in other words, they're still the same ass-kicking band that's setting the standard for everyone else to follow. old friend, it's like you never left.



ORDER
BAND WEBSITE
STIMULATE THE ECONOMY

you may want to fix that, yahoo!

look, i'm not racist (at least in my mind, i'm not), but this randomly caught my eye. careless programming gaff or inside joke? you may want to tweak the margins, yahoo! we already know that there are african americans playing basketball and have the ability to dunk. no need for name-calling.

things i saw on my way to work this morning

1. in front of some huge bank on 6th avenue, 10 people surrounding a dog, trying to catch it. it's not like the dog would freak out or anything over a circle of humans crouched down and aggressively trying to grab it.

2. a women in the dunkin donuts line with a full blown mustache. not dark peach fuzz or anything mind you, but actual whiskers that a man would have. if it were any longer, she could've stood in for kevin costner/kurt russell as wyatt earp. the indian worker at DD then referred to her as 'sir.'

i can't make this up people. real recognizes real.

coach K is pissed, smart

apparently word spread to coach K of duke university that average joe president barack obama did not pick duke to make it to the final four in his ncaa tourney bracket. this is what coach K had to say about it during a press conference:

"Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said from the Blue Devils' first-round site in Greensboro, N.C.

at the gym, espn had a brief highlight clip of his actual response. it's difficult to say if he was actually pissed that duke was snubbed by the president, or maybe he was just handing out a friendly barb. but i have to question whether this man is even taking anything seriously. his administration decides create a personal war versus rush limbaugh, he's busy making ncaa basketball picks, and he has time to fly out to LA and go onto the tonight show with jay leno.

oh by the way, obama actually responded to coach K's remarks by calling into espn radio. never mind running the country. coach K is the real enemy here.

this just in: apparently obama could not conquer bowling and equated his skill level to the special olympics. maybe he'll then explain that his economic policies are really awesome. like a chuck e. cheese's party.

thanks to jon/right on buddy!!! for the tips.

coach K says 'worry about the economy' HERE

obama replies to coach K HERE

obama bowling skills = special olympics, as told by obama on the tonight show with jay leno HERE

obama enemy flow chart here--