Oh, that liberal media

The search for WMD is over... again.

Wrapping up his investigation into Saddam Hussein's purported arsenal, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any.

Nor did he find any evidence that such weapons were shipped officially from Iraq to Syria to be hidden before the U.S. invasion, but he couldn't rule out some unofficial transfer of limited WMD-related materials.

Ok, didn't this get reported weeks ago, or is this a different outfit saying the same thing again? Of course it's headline news again, and Allah forbid the MSM would report about any good news in Iraq. And you have to love this single-sentence paragraph:

The Bush administration justified its 2003 invasion of Iraq as necessary to eliminate Hussein's purported stockpile of WMD.

Anyone who thinks WMD was the only single solitary justification for going into in Iraq is a liberal tool. Go ahead and whine your head off about how "removing a brutal dictator" was an afterthought because of the lack of WMD. Then read the 2003 State of the Union Address and explain why you're still whining. Maybe it's because I actually followed the whole ordeal from 9/11 that I wasn't suprised, and I didn't feel lied to. Because I actually knew what was going on. Let the THC drain from your system for a few days, and you'll probably realize that America isn't such a bad place after all. Hey, I'm no blind patriot, but you have to admit that this really isn't a cesspool of slime and vermin that Michael Moore pretends it is to sell books. Well... speaking of Michael Moore... Noam Chomsky... and Ward Churchill... yeah, I guess you're right. America is a cesspool of slime and vermin.

P.S. Wasn't it the CIA's faulty intelligence that said that WMD was there in the first place? Should we really be trusting the CIA with this report that there aren't any?

Generation Rx

Holy crap, more real news I decided to blog on... It seems that 20% of all teenagers are turning to prescription drugs to get high, instead of pot.

NEW YORK - About one in five teenagers have tried prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the pill-popping members of "Generation Rx" often raiding their parents' medicine cabinets, according to a study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The 17th annual study on teen drug abuse, released Thursday, found that more teens had abused a prescription painkiller in 2004 than Ecstasy, cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter products such as cough medicine, the study reported.

Is this really a bad thing? The kids aren't using street drugs. So either, they're getting the picture, that they shouldn't do street drugs, and are turning to regulated substances that are deemed safe enough to be sold in a drug store, OR they're proving that they should legalize some of those street drugs and regulate them. Of course, what will really happen is that government will just put higher restrictions on these substances and make them harder to get. Dammit... I mean... I don't care.

Oh yeah, Laura, Vicki and Cody don't think there is anything for government to worry about, and they intend to write their local congressman. As should you.

That Certain Shade of Green

What's this? Real news commentary? Well, I've been saying it for years, and moreso since I started driving as a job. Traffic lights are programmed to stop as many cars as possible.

Backed up at a traffic light? Frustrated when you hit a red light only a block after driving through a green? Odds are, those traffic signals may need some work.

...

A new survey being released Wednesday says the nation's traffic signal operations are largely inefficient,

Well, I guess they're not programmed that way, but they really need some work. The strange thing is that as I recall, downtown Rochester used to be decent, except for Civic Center Drive, which has been screwed up since they built it. However, since they did a bunch of construction on Broadway several years ago, just about all the traffic lights downtown have been fucked. This is really when I noticed. Specifically, the light at 16th street and south Broadway, used to let cars go very shortly after they stopped, until one night I sat through a whole cycle in the turn lane and realized that something got screwed up in it. And don't get me started on the lights at the 19th street bridge over 52, but those are temporary because of construction. ::mumbles something profane about Roc-52::

First the ridiculously low speed limits, and their potential increase on the horizon, and now a group of engineers announcing that I was also right about crappy traffic lights. What driving gripe of mine will be proven valid next?

No words or so much skin

According to the career-music-store-employee sources at the nin hotline, With Teeth has been shipped, though obviously not yet available for sale. Some of those employees also happen to be impatient nin fans who have busted open a few boxes and looked at the packaging. There's actually going to be a picture of Trent in it. He's coming out of his shell. And apparently... no lyrics. I'm guessing that this is some sort of joke... how Trent put no instrumentals on the album, so he decided to make the packaging without lyrics. Ha... yeah. Whatever. And this album was supposed to be mostly about the lyrics. There better be official lyrics on the official website when it goes live officially. I hate not knowing lyrics. I can't listen to music when I don't know the lyrics. Bugs the ever-living crap out of me. Even though... due to the leak, I know pretty much all of the lyrics to the whole album, but there are some lyrics, particularly "You Know What You Are?" that I can't fully make out. I'd rather not wait for a non-sold-out concert to lip-read and figure out what he's saying. Especially because I can't lip-read.

Oh, and as an update to the preliminary review of With Teeth, and as an opportunity to use the word "officially" twice more... the entirety of the new album has officially grown on me. It r teh r0x0r, all the way through. I was actually going to mention this on Monday, because it had completely grown on me after about 2 or 3 complete listenings over my shift on Monday. Anyway... like you cared. "WTF? Why is he blogging that he likes a CD in it's entirety??"

Witha Teetha...

With Teeth kinna got leaked. No, not track 7 from the album; the whole album. So I have it. No, I won't give it to you. It's not that hard to find yourself. It was leaked last Thursday, so you shouldn't have too much trouble. I did it myself, with a nudge from Will, but his help wasn't entirely vital. As for the album... it kicks ass. Two or three tracks are going to have to grow on me, but that's normal for a NIN album. First listen, it was off-putting. The thing about new NIN is that when you get a new, full-length album plopped in front of you, it's understandably off-putting because of how long we went without new material. But most of the songs were either great on the first listening or great on the second. Like I said, only two or three tracks haven't taken root yet. I'm still going to buy the real thing when it comes out in a few weeks, of course, as should you, free-loading vagrant. Get a job. Here's my personal quick review of the album... your mileage may vary:

01 All the Love in the World: The send-off for the album is immediately in the "off-putting" catagory because of the drums. Usually, when Trent uses synth drums, he still does a great job with them, but I'm sure this is a stylistic choice. The hook is simple and catchy. And the layering of voices at the end is pretty sweet. Trent actually sings more than screams here. Not that he can't scream on key, but it's just a bit different. (Edit: I said off-putting, but I didn't say that I really liked it. It's unusual for something Trent put together, but it's still really good.)

02 You Know What You Are?: I had to place this in the "needs further review" catagory. It's fast-paced and pretty cool, but... I don't know. That's why it needs further review.

03 The Collector: Ok, this is With Teeth's entry to the "fucked-up time signature" collection of Trent's portfolio. It's also cool, but it hasn't grabbed me yet. It's close, but I just seem to forget it. Maybe it just gets drowned out by all the great stuff that comes later.

04 The Hand That Feeds: Well, if you haven't heard this by now, why are you even reading all this shit?

05 Love is Not Enough: I know, it sounds like a Bond movie. Close. This is growing on me, but it's not quite there yet. It's easier to describe the ones I like... because I can't put my finger on what I don't like about the few that I don't like.

06 Everyday is Exactly the Same: The first track on the CD I liked immediately. This track rules. It starts off with a neat little, out-of-tune piano, and then the synth stuff jumps out at you. The lyrics work better, and you can actually hear Trent sing again.

07 With Teeth: This one has grown on me, though the chorus is still a bit funny to me. The chorus is just "With Teeth" repeated four times, except Trent says it like the title above (A-with-uh teeth-uh), which is the way I wrote it down when I was writing out the lyrics. So, I probably ruined the song for myself because I did that. But I like the song as a whole. The chorus, though a hair silly, is forgivable.

08 Only: Trent goes back to his Down in It days and puts together a spoken-word song. He even references Down in It directly, by mentioning that tiny little dot that caught his eye... turns out it was a scab. This track took a second listening, but I like it. I guess, all I'm doing is saying "I like it, or I don't like it yet" rather than describe the song, but I'm not a fucking music review writer so shut up, I'm trying. (PS - This is apparently going to be the next single, after "The Hand that Feeds.")

09 Getting Smaller: One of the tracks that was leaked already. This sounds like a Foo Fighters song, but with Trent singing, and heavier, crunchier guitars. That's not a bad thing, mind you.

10 Sunspots: This song sounds almost like Weezer or something like that... I think it's the bass and the simple drum riff. The refrain sounds more like older-school NIN. It's a cool song. There's this interesting synth sound at the end, which people have said sounds like a drill, I hear the drill, but after hearing it in my car, it sounds more like a blender or a mixer... not that it really matters what home appliance it might sound like.

11 The Line Begins to Blur: When I first heard this leaked on the net, I had the same problem I think a lot of people had, and that is that the guitars sound like they're clipping (that they're too loud/heavy). At first, I thought maybe it was a shitty rip that had been normalized wrong and clipped the guitars. But it grew on me pretty quick, and it actually sounds right to me.

12 Beside You in Time: This is the track that's used in the teaser trailer on nin.com. Basically... if you've watched the trailer, you've heard this whole song. The pieces from the trailer are just repeated longer, and then there are lyrics not in the trailer. I was really anticipating this track, because of that trailer, and it's not as huge of a pay-off as one would expect from Trent, but it really still is a good track.

13 Right Where it Belongs: Wow. Hurt, it's not. The Great Below, it's not. But this is still a damn good track. The weird thing about this track is how fast it grew on me, it doesn't sound like NIN at all, yet somehow sounds like it's perfectly normal for a NIN track. It's like a wing of Trent's creativity that was always part of his repertoire, he just never made any songs in this catagory. I can't really describe it any other way. Just buy the album or at least download this thing.

Now that I have heard that in Winamp, that is the shiznite. I'm going to go finish listening to it over one more time and go to sleep.

iChangemymind

Like Brad Pitt with the new Beetle, I too have changed my stance about a piece of pop-culture technology. I've decided that I no longer hate the iPod. At first, I thought of it as an icon of yuppie, hippie college kids, and being an Apple product, I thought of it as annoyingly flashy and expensive. All of Apple's products are ridiculously over-priced when they're first released, and initially the iPod was only suitable to early-adopter budgets. It was only recently that the iPod worked it's way down to a more practical price.

See, when the iPod Mini's came out, I noticed their prices were similar to the regular iPod, but had smaller capacities and shorter battery life. My first thought was of those three, big, capital letters, "WTF?" Some months later, the iPod Shuffle caught my attention again, but at first, I didn't get it. I saw "iPod" and then I saw "$99" so I assumed it was merely an accessory for the regular iPod, because there's no way you could buy an iPod for anything under three weeks salary, right? Well, I still like Apple computers, and I found out through browsing their site that the Shuffle actually was a tiny iPod that sold for $99 or $149 for the 512MB or 1GB versions, respectively.

I could never figure out what yahoo could fill up a 30GB iPod anyway, because all the mp3's I have on my computer take up a bit over 6GB and I don't even listen to half of them. So the Shuffle looked much more practical and upgraded my opinion of the iPod from "contemptible" to "remissible." Then, I noted that iPods prices have gone down across the board.

So, in summation... you may see me owning one someday. I've been thinking about it. Not seriously, but if I had an extra $400 laying around, I'd do it. You might be shocked to know that I actually went and looked at the iPods at Best Buy the other night. But after I'm done writing this, I'm going back to apple.com to check prices there (there are student discounts on iPods, just like on their computers).

The reason I bring all this up is the fact that I heard this news story on the radio on Monday, about George Bush's iPod, and I thought it was ironic. Trent Reznor went out of his way to complain about a presidency that hasn't affected him in the least and whined his angst-ridden heart out about corporate greed, yet bought iPods for his entire staff because apparently Apple isn't a large corporation looking for a buck. The iPod I saw as a staple of the artsy, know-it-all, liberal college student's lifestyle is now shared by the man in the White House that they all hate for no good reason.

And before you ask, no, I didn't change my mind about the iPod just because W has one. I was coming around already. The irony of the situation just made me decide to bring it up, and I came to the conclusion this week.

And on a side note, being tax week, I'm sure many people are using their returns to buy iPods, as I would probably do if I had a tax return over $40... and if I hadn't done my taxes back in January and already gotten my return and spent it 10 times over (you slackers.. happy tax day).

Update: Oh yeah, here's a brief history of the iPod, if you're curious.

Can I help you... Saddlebags?

Apparently, overweight people aren't treated as nicely by retail employees.

Investigators found that when women wore a prosthetic suit designed to make them look obese, they were treated more rudely, and received fewer smiles and less eye contact from sales clerks at a Houston, Texas, shopping mall than when they shopped without the fat suit.

First of all, I call bullshit. Forget about the fact that it's likely that they had a preconceived theory and set out to 'prove' it. From my experience working in retail, on the average, the customers who give retail employees the most shit were overweight women. Don't ask me why. Let me stress "on the average," because obviously you'll always be able to find a stupid bitch in any weight bracket (and either gender, of course). Of course, I always treated every customer the same--with the same contempt and lack of respect.

But say it is true, and obese customers are treated worse than those with a quote/unquote "normal" weight. They fail to mention in the 'study' that the door swings both ways. Ask anyone in retail, they'll tell you. Customers tend to head toward more attractive employees to be rung up. Attractive waiters and waitresses make more in tips. My old manager at Spencer's, Dee (if you're reading this, you probably know her), told me once of a customer who demanded someone else ring her up because she thought Dee was "ugly," (the little bitch didn't get her way because Dee was the only one there).

The article makes it sound like retail employees are these evil, sadistic people. They do it all the time, especially around the holidays. They make it sound like all retail employees are on this constant power trip, and want to make your shopping experience as unpleasant as possible, when it's usually the customers who are unreasonable and overly demanding. Whatever. I don't deal with customers anymore, so screw them all.

Al Gore, King of All Media

As if the internet alone wasn't enough, Al Gore is taking the initiative in creating a cable channel.

The former vice president and longtime Internet champion joined investors Monday to announce the creation of Current, a cable TV channel that will target younger viewers with a blend of news, culture and viewer-produced video.

Maybe Al is trying to do what Mikhail Moore couldn't. I don't really know. I could be a pessimist, and predict that this channel will be a financial black hole like Air America is, but I'll just wait and see if this is a leftist propaganda channel, directed at young, impressionable and very emotional minds, or if it's just a touchy feely, Nickelodeon for 18-34 year olds.

Day 2 finished

I haven't blogged it yet... Mitch Hedberg's death seemed more important to take note of... I quit smoking. Yes. I quit. No, I'm not quitting... I quit. I'm done quitting, and I'm done smoking. I haven't had a cigarette for almost 50 hours. It would be longer, but since Ben had his thing on Thursday and I went to Winona to visit, I had to have a few smokes for the road. But at roughly midnight on Thursday (Friday morning), I had my last cigarette, and it's now almost 2 AM on Sunday. My computer is going to change to daylight savings time very shortly, and that will add an extra hour onto my clock for how long I've gone without smoking. (Not really) Yes. I did quit. Well, I quit smoking, but I still have to go for 3 weeks supposedly before it's out of my system. So... yeah. I'm not going out to bars or anyplace that allows smoking until at least May. See you later, dudes.

Later, Mitch

Well, the first comedian I had an active interest in has passed away.

Mitch Hedberg, a Minnesota-born comedian who worked in nightclubs, college campuses, television and film in a wide-ranging career, and who struggled with drugs and alcohol, died in New Jersey, his family said. He was 37.

Just so you know, the drug abuse rumors are just rumors right now. He had a prior heart condition, and that may very well be the cause. I don't have any particularly poignant words to say here, so I'll just leave you with this...

"I'm sick of following my dreams, man. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."

Mitch Hedberg
2/24/68 - 3/30/05