Fucking terrifying.

2) Like anyone 30 or older who paid attention to anything ever, if the screen doesn’t say “TEST” somewhere, the only logical conclusion to make is that the Russians dropped a bomb somewhere.

For the first time since I can remember, the EAS got my attention tonight.
Fix your fucking graphics, Channel 7.

3) Based on the number of hits I get on the Channel 7 articles, I should just turn this site in to strange aspy observations about what’s on that channel, and only that channel.

More later.

Until then:

This is only the beginning.

So, I guess a few people will notice that the page looks a little different right now.

It’s only temporary.

It looked like someone might have rolled it in ash.

Upon further investigation, I discovered it was covered in more maggots than I’ve ever seen in one place.

No fucking way am I touching that.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll need to douse it in gasoline and set it ablaze, unless they have the good sense to turn in to flies and go away before I get home from work.

Local ordinances be damned. This is the only way I can purify my driveway.

Update:

Apparently, there are two schools of thought on getting rid of them in such a way that the police and / or fire department won’t pay me a visit.

The first is to boil water, mix bleach and Pine Sol in to the boiling water, and throw it on the maggots. Because cleaning up boiled maggots soaked in bleach and Pine Sol is less gross than using my ShopVac and hoping they starve.

The other is to use pesticide. I’ve got a bunch of that around, and I’ll give it a shot. Thing is, the boiled concoction proponents say pesticide doesn’t work at all.

Oh yes, these are the salad days.

Off the top of my head, I can’t recall an experience that changed my perceptions so quickly.

The light distorts what a self-important asshole Adam Young has become.

For starters, Paper Route is about a million times better live. In trying to explain the difference, the only accurate thing I can come up with is: they sound less bitchy. They sound like they mean it. And they seem weirdly polite. Maybe it’s that they’re from Nashville. Maybe it’s because a Detroit crowd would go nuts over someone taking a festering dump on a guitar on stage. I can’t say for certain.

They opened for everyone, I guess you could say. At least, in my mind. I think they had two or three actual fans, so getting a good view at the SRO Royal Oak Music Theatre was surprisingly easy to accomplish. They were loud, and seemed sincere enough, and try as I might to deny it, they were good. In retrospect, I probably should have picked up their CD and given them another chance.

Lights was basically what I expected. She did the Old Navy repertoire, and what are unarguably the best tracks off of The Listening, but that was more or less it. I was disappointed that she seemed rushed and that there were none of the fabled covers (particularly Coldplay’s Lost), but at the same time, her performance and presence was so adorable, I wanted to put her in my pocket.

Finally, it was time for Owl City.

Now, being a moderate Death Cab for Cutie and a stupidly huge fan of The Postal Service, I’ve never been terribly overjoyed by the way Owl City progressively co-opts The Postal Service. But short of Fireflies, other Owl City songs aren’t complete ripoffs, so I went in to it prepared to give them the benefit of doubt.

Right out of the gate, they have this overblown “light up everyone in the band” opening that took far too long. Look! A guy on drums. Oooh! A violinist and a cellist! Holy shit! Keyboards! And then… Adam comes jumping around in an owl hoodie, looking more tweaked than your typical City Club regular.

The gaggle of 15 year-old girls absolutely lost their shit, while me and their parents tried to figure out what the big fuss was about. Frankly, I would have been fine with him sitting in front of a MacBook and fucking around. But no, dude’s making the absolute most of his fifteen minutes. The ridiculous amount of aping he was doing in conjunction with “HOW’S EVERYBODY FEELING?” after every second song was almost embarrassing, at least to me, having paid for the ticket.

Seriously. I’ve seen some real nobodies before, and none have approached the crowd-whoring on display here. Not even Steve “Give it up for me!” Ballmer could touch this guy.

As we had moved around the theatre throughout the night, we ended up really close to the soundboard, and that’s where my hope was successfully killed off.

I know how a soundboard works, and not just because I mastered the hell out of South Lyon High’s 1993 production of Mame (yes, I am going to take full credit on this one, unless you can prove otherwise). The amount of engineering, and pre-prod, and all around fuckery that was going on was almost too much for me to take in.

It’s one thing to rip off another artist and be somewhat original about it. It’s something else to be devoid of talent.

For example: I love the hell out of Oasis, and I’d never dream of arguing that they spent the greater portion of the 90′s dipping in to The Beatles’ well. But in the same regard, you’re legally retarded to suggest that the brothers Gallagher can’t write and perform the shit out of a song.

Owl City, on the other hand… I’m not 100% convinced that the audio engineer doesn’t help Adam shoot up backstage, because he sure as hell does everything but jump around in an owl hoodie when the music’s playing.

Perhaps the most amusing incident of the night was when they got to Fireflies — clearly the only song the Peanut Gallery had actually heard of , as evidenced by them going nutty, and singing along for the first time after twelve other songs.

We left early, and met a woman in the elevator who had taken her kids to the show. “It’s much different than where I was last night.”

“Where were you last night?”

“We went and saw this guy… Johnny Rotten… he used to be in a band called The Sex Pistols.”

It made me feel nice that she thought we were too young to know who Johnny Rotten was, or who the Sex Pistols were. Success.

P.S. If you haven’t seen me whoring this video out before, enjoy:

If Matt Engelbert bitches about anything, you’re going to send Steve Clark out to interview him, and run it as a legit story before the weather?

If you hadn’t canned him, I’d almost worry about you sending Steve Wilson out to pester me on my way to work, now that I’ve posted about this guy twice.

Click this to see the first act.

I’m posting about watching it.

Hopefully, this will create a ripple in the universe, which stops people from using “blog” as a verb. Or is it adverb?

Sorry. I have no excuse. Hopefully, at least two of you subscribed to the RSS feed.

Using the power of thought, semi-transparent women can infect you.

On the subject of me, I’m recovering from the fabled H1N1 flu virus, which makes me feel incredibly lame.

I mean, I know I’m getting “up there” in years, but getting the disease of the year so many months after the scare just adds further validation to my waning coolness. It’s like a tack on a map, showing that I am precisely behind the curve I used to be ahead of.

Maybe I’ll do better next year.

Maybe I’ll make you proud of me.

Love me again for the very first time, Internet.

Total stream of consciousness here… my “A” key has decided to take a shit on me, forcing me to hammer the fucking thing, as though I’m writing something very important, like an addendum to a health care bill.

I’m not getting in to that whole debacle. At least, not tonight.

I have a feeling that I’d post more, if I got off my lazy ass (in the metaphorical sense of the term) and installed a decent front-end on my BlackBerry.

It's like telling the outside world to fuck off.

That’s right. My BlackBerry. I’ve been trying to avoid it for years.

I proudly recalled the story (a true story, mind you) in which I, the hero, received a free BlackBerry from Research In Motion at Comdex 2001, and subsequently sent it back with a polite note detailing everything that was wrong with it, and why I couldn’t possibly find a use for it.

Admittedly, back then (Jesus… that’s a legitimate “back then”), the BlackBerry was a glorified pager that couldn’t make or receive phone calls, and I couldn’t get a signal to save my life in South Lyon. But the point was, I was not one of those people.

Now, I suppose I am. Either I’m delusional about work, or I’m getting more e-mail that can’t-slash-shouldn’t wait until the next morning to be responded to or read. Not “I AM VERY IMPORTANT” so much as “I’d like to not be surprised tomorrow.”

And while I’ve been able to send and receive mail on my phone for longer than you have, there’s something about the BlackBerry that causes it to link with your brain and demand to be paid attention to.

The most fucked up thing, is that I got it knowing that the OS has needed overhauling for far too long. Knowing that all the new whiz-bang shit is iPhone-only. Knowing that my flagship 9700 is hardly much different from any other 8000 series or even the 9000, for that matter. It was another Old Man “I just want it to do blah, blah, blah” purchase.

Where have the years gone?

And in this commercial, the audience is all Mini Wheats, which made me think “This fucking fight is so fixed. That’s not fair to the Cheerio.”

No. Not in an observational or remotely funny way. I legitimately felt bad for the Cheerio for a good four seconds.