 |
Sometimes Updated Daily! Bookmark so you don't miss a thing! |
|
Come on In, The Water's Fine
No Lifeguard On Duty!
Big Dark Cloud
Links that Rock
BandHammer
Bands that Rock
AC/DC
Lists That Rock
80s Rock/Metal
Where To Rock
Arco Arena
Sponsors
|
December 25 - A traditional celebration. Happy Birthday Jimmy Buffett!  Oh yeah, Merry Christmas too. |December 16 - All I want for Christmas... December 13 - Save Tookie! Now you might be wondering why a cold hearted, cynical, hang-em-high conservative like me would be lobbying for clemency on his behalf. I'll just mention that it's NOT due to Snoop Dogg's influence. It's not because I'm impressed by his "redemption", or his anti-gang children's books. I could care less about any of that. Regardless of what he's done over the past several years in between ducking gang rapes and smoking, the simple fact remains that he butchered 4 people and is responsible for the senseless murders of thousands since. He does not deserve to live. But he does not deserve to become a martyr for the ignorant Hollywood masses who've suddenly taken up his cause. The last thing we need is "Tookie" tribute concerts popping up on MTV. We've finally managed to squeeze Rage Against The Machine into the past - we must not let them become relevant again. 'Ol Tookie should simply be placed back in his 6 x 8 cage, fed Alpo, beaten when non-compliant about housebreaking, and forced to live his last days in relative obscurity - just like any other animal. The California government shouldn't be interfering - leave that to PETA. I think a punishment like that, far away from the spotlight and further from the public's eye, where he would be forced to live an anonymous "life", would be just as fitting. But in case my appeal falls on deaf ears... Screw that guy. |December 12 - Daydreaming... I don't know when my next midlife crisis might happen, but I have a pretty good idea of where it'll be. |December 11 - Reader Mail!
Who says flattery will get you nowhere? To think that I have "fans"... too cool. They even linked me up! So, as long as there's a Hair Band News site, you can consider me supportive. Go check 'em out and give 'em some love. They're in it for the right reasons - they just want to rock. And tell 'em James sent ya. Also got this one:
So I went and checked 'em out - you should too. That stuff's not bad! Any opportunity I get to plug an unsigned rock band, you can bet I'll take it. Kingly blessings go to DIRT. Keep an ear out for these guys, with a little luck and a higher production budget they could hit big. If there are any other good unsigned rock bands out there who want a little bit of free exposure, drop me an email. I only ask one thing - you must rock. Save the alternative tuning, poor-me lyrics, whiny balladeering, and emo haircuts for the 14 year old girls at Hot Topic. Anyone else, you're welcome to crash this party. If you REALLY rock, send me mp3s of your stuff and you might get added to FJ Radio. You get an automatic audience prone to checking out good rock cds, and I get to update the playlist a little more often. Sound fair? Let's bring back the rock! Didn't get any email about it, but in my random web surfing I noticed that some of my favorite Sacramento-based bands have been working on new stuff! Check out Anatomic, who've just released the song titles from their upcoming cd. 3 of them have been available for a little while and were distributed in demo form about 2 years ago, and 1 is a remake of a song from their Shy Tiger days. The rest is all new stuff! If you can't wait, pop in a copy of their last cd, "In For the Thrill". It's still one of my favorite albums, and I can't say enough good things about these guys. I also went back to another cd that I hadn't listened to in a while, from Barking At Flies. Those guys really grew on me - they used to open up for everyone who came through town. But after a little while, they'd been drawing crowds of their own. If you liked them, guitarist Mike Ragusa and drummer Cortney DeAugustine (who also played in Frank Hannon's Moon Dog Mane project) have formed a new group called Fear The Days. Song samples on the site, so there's no excuse NOT to check 'em out. All of that should keep you all out of trouble for the day. More tomorrow! |December 10 - A safety net should not be a hammock. I've gotta say, that even though life without power was inconvenient, it really wasn't that bad. A cool front passed through immediately after the storm, making air conditioning unnecessary. The temperature was actually a bit chilly at night. And the sky was as clear as could be. Without the lights from neighboring homes, streetlights, and cars (there were curfews mandating that everyone be in their house by 7pm), you could see stars that likely hadn't been seen in this part of the world for decades. You could look up and see the Milky Way. It was breathtakingly beautiful, even if the accompanying dinner was a bag of crackers and a bottle of water. But enough of that. Back to tearing Florida a new one. As I've mentioned, I had been working constantly. When the storm hit, I had not even had one day off for a month. I'm not talking about working all 5 days of the week from 9-5 and skipping lunch, being unable to see the premiere of a movie. I'm talking about working all 7 of them. From 7am until 10pm most days. You want to talk about no free time? Look at my website updates in October. There was barely enough time for showering, shitting, and shaving, and certainly no "wasted" time spent resting. And my house took some damage - I am also a victim, so everything I'm about to say is more than the ranting of a bitter misanthropic prick from a comfortable living room, far removed from the misery. I was there, took a direct hit, and didn't even get a break during the eye of the storm. I was in the eyewall the entire time - the part that spawns tornadoes. But somehow, I found enough time to get to the grocery store and stock up on bottled water, canned food, crackers, peanut butter, propane gas, batteries, candles, flashlights, even sanitary wipes in the event the water supply would be contaminated and unsafe for even bathing, much less drinking. Between my supply of food and arsenal of supplies, I was prepared for World War 3. I could have probably made it through a much more catastrophic storm. Yet on the morning after the storm (which I should also mention was spent WORKING, as was the evening of the storm, by phone and by candlelight in my home office, trying to coordinate a re-opening of business and checking up on my staff...) there were folks lined up for food, water, and ice. Within 2 days, people were complaining about the "slow response" and "bad communication". There were people already bitching about the power being out for so long. All I could think was... SHUT THE FUCK UP. You had a week's warning that the storm was coming. You saw how bad the response to Katrina was. You saw the difficulties that both FEMA and the local government encountered in assisting people who needed it in the storm's wake. You were told to keep on hand at least a 72-hour supply of food, water, and ice. You can start bitching about the slow response 4 days later. But the day after? You're not starving. You've only gone without food for less than a day. Are you really telling me that you don't even have a box of Cheez-Its and a bottle of Gatorade in your pantry? Who doesn't have a few cans of soup ALL THE TIME? Stop being a Disaster Attention Whore and playing refugee. MOST OF YOU DID NOT SUFFER. YOU WERE INCONVENIENCED. There is a HUGE difference. Don't tell me that you didn't get a warning. Don't tell me that you didn't have enough time to prepare. And don't tell me how you felt like you were living in a 3rd world country when the power took more than a few days to come back on, and you didn't know where to go for bottled water. When did self-reliance become so lacking in today's society? Why do people feel the need to let the government take care of them? The government's job is not to take care of YOU - they exist to fix potholes, run schools, regulate business, and enforce laws. And exactly how good a job do they do at that? Do you really want those bumbling neanderthals in charge of YOUR personal safety, comfort, and convenience as well? If you can't be bothered to fill your pantry with nonperishables, bottled water, and at least a few days worth of basic supplies when you're given a near-perfect forecast a week in advance, and expect the government to come in and give you the very things you were told to have on hand yourself, you deserve to be killed in a storm. And the money we'll save by not rescuing your stupid asses can go back to fixing those potholes. |December 9 - As long as I'm here... Still resolving difficulties keeping the site online, but things are looking better. Even if the index page doesn't always seem to load, (as I write this...) at least the rest of them are working. So go ahead and feel free to hotlink images again, until I get the motivation to go back and fix that. New links section, some reader mail, and more all coming soon! |December 7 - ANOTHER day that will live in infamy... Domain name needed renewing. I did. Unbeknownst to me, the hosting plan expired at the same time. Long story short - everything got deleted. I didn't know this had happened until I checked to see if Monday's update has posted, and noticed a generic "Under Construction" page that I did not create. Hell, this site is ALWAYS under construction. Like the folks who plan highway repair, I make sure that this site is always underperforming, falling apart, and run by idiots who never seem to get the job done. Plus, I waste a ton of money keeping it online. The same job could be outsourced to Indian monkeys for a fraction of the cost. But if I were to do that, the terrorists win. SO I've been screwing around trying to get everything back up, rather than just exploring a more cost efficient host and starting over from scratch. Truth be told, that might not be such a bad idea. When a website like this grows WAY beyond it's original vision (which was 2 or 3 friends laughing at me for posting profanity-laced forwarded emails), it's quite a chore to move everything. Relatively speaking, I'm trapped in a bad internet marriage. It'd be better for everyone to just move on, but I'm too lazy. Looks like you're stuck with me, just like I'm stuck for many more years of running this place. So hang in there world - I'll be fixing it all back up and trying to get it all back online again really soon. But since my host deleted all of my shit, a lot of features/photos may be lost forever. I'd only had them stored on the host's server, as I've switched computers a few times since the site's inception. But I'll be spending my only day off this week dedicated to getting this place back to being filled with the mediocrity you've come to expect over the years. FJ.com - where quality is job three, right behind unoriginality and eating Cheetos. |December 5 - That wasn't *entirely* intentional... Guess I should provide some sort of an excuse for blowing off the site for 2 months, and share my tales of beach-going, island-hopping, band-seeing, photo-taking, and chick-magnetting. But alas, I actually spent the entire time working. Literally. I've been putting in between 10 and 15 hours every day, and went a 6 week stretch with no days off. During the rest of those weeks, we're talking a half day, day at most. I'll spare you the details, but this whole having-a-job thing is really interfering with my lifestyle. I was not meant to live like this - I'm supposed to be the ambassador of perpetual summer, fer cryin' out loud! But "luckily", I'm back "down" to 6-day weeks, and will hopefully only average about 12 hours a day for the foreseeable future, so updates may actually start happening again. On the bright side, I'm not the only web slacker out there. There are a lot of dead links that will need deleting, and several new finds that need to be added. For the three of you who've been checking up regularly during my absence, I think you'll like them. Lots and lots of stuff to talk about, but it'd probably be a good idea to post it all slowly until everyone (meaning the other 3 of you) comes back. But contrary to popular opinion (and popular demand, for that matter...), I'm still alive and kickin'. | |
Turn It Up!
Hit The Beach
Support: E.S.I.A.
|
