Oh no...

Since I last gave a shout-out to them on my blog (Jon Wye), it seems the creative folks at JonWye have started making pretty badass leather belts and guitar straps.

One belt is called "Zombies in the Wild West."

Zombies in the Wild West

God help my wallet...

Oh no... They make those too.  I'm feeling this one:

Favorite "New" Music of Lately

I am well aware that I overuse the word "awesome."  On this blog, in my everyday speech, whatever.  I overuse the word.  Not to toot my own horn, but it just MUST be because I AM AWESOME!  Right?!

Well, whatever you may think about my awesomeness, it's not me that I'm talking about in this blog post.  It's more awesomely sweet music.  I absolutely love listening to and playing music.  I listen to music loudly in my room, and even louder in the car.  I firmly believe that for every situation in life, there's a song.  My dream job would be to handpick the songs to movies.  I think that God put me on Earth to do that.  I'm pretty sure I would do the job better than anybody else.  Unfortunately, my phone is not ringing with requests to do this, and so I'm a lowly Engineer.

Because I love music so much, I have to share with you my favorite albums of lately...  I'm like a one-man Campus Crusade for Christ... except I just want you to rock the fuck out, and we can leave religion out of it:

1.  Foo Fighters- Wasting Light
So I had written the Foo Fighters off as pretty much washed up... Their last albums have all had a good song or two, but have largely consisted of filler material.  This album is all killer, no filler.  There are heavy Queens of the Stone Age influences (see "Bridge Burning" and "White Limo") that I love, which makes sense because Dave Grohl kicks ass with them every now and then.  AND, even the radio-friendly songs are amazing this time around.  "Walk" is an awesome "redemption" song and I can't fault a band for making a radio-friendly song when it is THIS good...  This album belongs on everybody's record shelf/iTunes collection/Amazon Cloud Drive, because lord knows there's something everybody can enjoy here!  And while I'm saluting the Foo Fighters, if you look around on YouTube, you will notice that they have been playing shows in the garages' of their fans for the last couple months!  How sweet is that?!  AND, how awesome is the Beatles throwback below?  They are the shit.






QOTSA influence in full effect!  Compare and contrast!:




2.  Holy Ghost!
I saw these guys open for Cut Copy and they cranked out some very cool electro-y-disco-y tunes!  They were a crazy mix between Chromeo/Phoenix and good old fashioned 80s music.  The album is very fun, and is perfect for the approaching summer.  My favorite song off the album is below, but I should stress that the album as a whole has MANY songs that are this good!



3.  Metronomy
I had never heard of these guys... until I started religiously following a Swedish club's blog!  They have recently started posting Metronomy songs-  I like what I heard and so I downloaded the album.  Behold, one of my favorite songs of lately.  I have played the living shit out of this song (as Liz can attest!)!

Again, I highly recommend everybody pick up this album.  Especially you Adam since you dig the French.



And then there is this song with one of the ILLEST basslines I've heard in a long time...  Great album...



4.  Raekwon-  Shaolin vs Wu-Tang
 I'm 1/2 white, 1/2 Indian, and I love Wu-Tang.  Raekwon is my 2nd favorite Wu-Tang member after RZA and he is blessed with the ability to only make disgustingly sick albums.  Like all Wu material, this album is dabbled with kung-fu samples and pretty cool imagery...  Maybe I am particular intrigued by this album because I've been learning kung-fu for the last year and a half... but it's more than just that!







"Dressed in all black, perfect vision, and their movement is in silence... This is Shaolin..."





5.  Tame Impala-InnerSpeaker
So this album's >1 year old, but I just got to it lately... And it rocks.  It's very psychedelic, and filled with phaser and delay.  What's that?  It means the music sounds like a wave... In fact, after listening to this album on repeat for a while, I went out and bought myself a nice two-phase phaser...

Doesn't the music sound like how the video looks?



And for all you dancers, here is a phenomenal remix of one of my favorites from the album:



My badass phaser  :)



That's it for now...  I've got some sweet concerts coming up!

A-Trak
Crystal Castles
The Strokes
and
Tame Impala

It's going to be great.

A Revised Holiday Schedule

Ladies and Gentlemen:

January 2nd through May 30th is the worst period of the year.

It's cold.  It's dark a lot.  And there are no holidays.  And let's face it.  A holiday is only a holiday if you're not working.

If you're lucky, you get MLK day off.  But unless you're a federal employee, this stretch of the year is a barren wasteland of shittiness.

From Office of Personnel Management... the red arrows indicate the days our slacker government gets off that most non-fed employees don't get...

Looking at the above schedule, it's clear to me what needs to be done:

1)  First, we need to make sure that MLK Day and Washington's Birthday are days that everybody get off-  Not just the Feds.  And while we're at it, give us non-federal workers  Columbus Day and Veterans Day off too.  I'm aware that there are non-Feds that get some or all of these four days off, but I feel like that's the exception and not the rule.  It needs to be the rule.  

Oh, and speaking of George, did you know that there is a Washington Monument in Baltimore City?

Here it is at night.  Also, if you drive up I83 north through the city, you can see it on your left.  He's holding a scroll or something but it looks like a giant penis.  Just saying...

2)  We need to create at least three more YOU-ABSOLUTELY-POSITIVELY-MUST-HAVE-THIS-DAY-OFF holidays.  As in... everything shuts down.  Everything.  Except liquor stores...  These holidays would be the equivalent of Christmas in that the overwhelming majority of America should get them off.  I want for the overwhelming majority of Americans to have the option of just sitting on their obese asses on these days.  Yes, some people may choose to be productive, but I would hope most of us just view these new holidays as an excuse to go out.

I would propose these three:

Groundhog Day would offer America a collective chance to just catch their breath.  Occurring on February 2nd, Americans will have just completed their first full month of work since October. And since it's always better to ease back into something, it makes perfect sense from a timing point of view to give everybody this day off.  Depending on what the American public thinks, I would be willing to swap Groundhog day for Super Bowl Sunday, but an American holiday based on a sporting event might be frowned upon by some people (Hi Liz!).

Valentine's Day.  The purpose of establishing Valentine's Day as an official holiday is two-fold.  First, it gives America a vacation from their recent vacation.  Did Groundhog Day wear you out?  Well throw your feet up and relax with your loved one(s, if you are Mormon or a swinger) on Valentine's Day.  Second, Valentine's Day as a real holiday would probably be good for the economy.  Yes, there would be a dip in overall GDP due to a one-day loss in overall production of goods and services.  But, I think this would be offset by heightened commercialism (buying of flowers, visiting restaurants, going out to bars) and a net increase in yearly productivity as a direct result of the additional day of rest.  

Earth Day.  Occurring on April 22nd, Earth Day would be the designated April holiday.  Yes, this overlaps with Easter, but Easter is not a holiday that everbody gets off.  Furthermore, while we might disagree on Jesus, we can't disagree that we are all members of PLANET EARTH.  AND FURTHERFURTHERMORE, I would say that Jesus would encourage the celebrating of Earth Day wholeheartedly given that his dad allegedly made it.  Isn't that how it went?  I don't know.  My religion knowledge is a little shaky.  

"Hello, I'm Jesus!  You may know me from such books as the BIBLE.  I'm here to tell you that when it comes to Earth Day, don't slack on your pimpin'."  

SO, with these modifications, we have added:

GROUNDHOG DAY or SUPER BOWL SUNDAY into February

VALENTINE'S DAY into February

EARTH DAY into April

Now I know I was only going to suggest three, but we need something for March.

While St. Patrick's Day is the obvious choice, I must confess that I hate St. Patrick's Day.  I think it goes back to the days of Elementary School when I was incessantly pinched for not wearing green.  The fuckers that used to do that have gone nowhere in their lives by the way.  I checked on Facebook.

So, for March, we will go with International Women's Day.  Women love women, and men love women, so why can't America step up to the plate like the rest of the world and acknowledge this great day?

And that concludes the revised holiday schedule.  While I don't expect any immediate changes, I take solace in the fact that Memorial Day is right around the corner!  SALVATION!