The Slush File

I think a lot of times familiarity is what makes you fond of something, and so on my grind to 70 in WoW I found myself more often than not missing FFXI. I realized how much I actually liked grouping to level as opposed to soloing. I remember at one point I my view of FFXI had become so skewed with missing it I went back to get a party on my pld, only to end up with a party level range of 5 a smn healer and no refresh, and then I rembered why leveling was not the trip down lollypop road I had turned my memories into.

So I trudged on, being easily distracted, I took time off to watch shows on DVD, to play Paper Mario, and to make one last ill fated move back to FFXI. Things we’re not the same people I had known had quit, and Solstice was dwindling, it was tough to level new jobs because low levels had become sparce, and everyone and their mother had already leveled bard and red mage.

So after 7 Months




Now if you don’t know anything about WoW, I’ll just say this 7 months is HORRIBLE, I must have at least doubled the next slowest to 70. I rolled a Pally which although they can tank, is pretty inferior to warrior, and seeing as it’s the best healing class in the game at the moment, it would be dumb to spec it any other way. I did it because I was tired of waiting around in MMOs and by being a healer it’s been nice, I’m pretty much able to raid whenever I want to raid, something that I could not have done had I rolled a DD.

One thing I found out in my first week of being 70 is I suck at pvp



It’s all up hill from here though, a lot of those losses we’re simply because I had no idea how to handle a certain class, So that’s wow…

Ps. I live 1 block from 35w literally, but I was very lucky, none of my friends or family were involved.

-if you like Electronica check out Digitata’s new album II Daggers www.myspace.com/digitata it’s insanely good.

I'm pretty exited for May

May 4th


May 5th


May 11th
Urban Lull (At Once Charmed)

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(Plans LP Release)

May 15th


May 18th


May 29th


/exitement

( Details )

This was a survey I got on myspace, I thought it was pretty cool so I decided to give it a go. The guy who sent it to me got a lot of really lucky ones compared to me, I got about 50 cool and 50 WTF.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, Zune, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

for fun I added my pick in Brackets for the ones I didn't like, but it's completly cheating


1. Opening Credits:
Zissou Society Blue Star Cadets, Ned's Theme

2. Waking Up:
Bach- Ste No.1-II: Allemande

3. First Day At School:
Atmosphere- Watch Out

4. Falling In Love:
Local H-Son of Cha (If you know this song, you know how little sence it makes)
[Wilco-Sunken Treasure]

5. Fight Song:
Sigur Ros- Staraflur (This would be a pretty emo fight scene orcestra music??)
[POS-POS is ruining my life]

6. Breaking Up:
Incubus-Magic Medicine (I honestly think this song has like 4 plays ever)
[The Cure- Pictures of You] Side note I saw Soul Asylum at first ave last month and the covered Just like heaven it was amazingly awsome.

7. Prom:
Soul Asylum- Cartoon (YES! so perfect)

8. Life:
Mars Volta- Drunkship of Lanterns (meh)
[The French Kicks-Close to Modern]

9. Mental Breakdown:
Toadies- Backslider (This is kinda lol, this song is literally about insestual rape)
[David Bowie- Life on mars?]

10. Driving:
Local H- Eddie Vedder
[Dosh&Andrew Bird- Simple X]

11. Flashback:
Pixies- Tame
[Uncle Tupelo-if that's alright]

12. Getting back together:
Weezer- Mykel and Carli (horrible song, but it fits my friend got DBT-feb.14th which I thought was kinda lucky)
[Coldplay-The Scientist]

13. Losing your virginity:
Incubus- Aqueous Transmission (I thought this was rather interesting)
[Digitata-Bangin' Jessica Alba]

14. Wedding:
Jayhawks- Ann Jane
[Bjork-Hyperballad]

15. Birth of Child:
Billy Bragg- Hot Rod Hotel (complete wtf)
[Son Volt-Carry you down]

16. Final Battle:
Wilco- Hell is Chrome
[At the Drive in- Pattern against User]

17. Funeral Song:
Kraig Johnson and the Program- The Sun is Signed and Sealed (good fit)
[Our Lady Peace-Theif]

18. End Credits:
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Don't Forget Me
[Toadies- Dollskin]

all in all, I'd like to re-do it, but I didn't want to cheat, I'm really shocked at a couple things, I have like 100+ Wilco/Son Volt/Tupelo songs on my computer and only got 1, as well as about 75 Our Lady of Peace songs, yet I got doubles from some other bands (Incubus??). as far as picking my own, it was a lot harder than I thought, I spent almost a hlf hour on it, and if I did it tommarow, I'd probly have completly diffrent answers, some are really difficult, like the baby one(which has none) or the breakup one (which has a million)

( The next president )

( WoW(lol) )

So in my first akward moments of the new year, completely drunk off my ass I decided it would be a good idea to hit on my ex-girlfriend from about five years ago. I had dumped her at the time, because of a large age disparity, she's four years younger than me, which at that time meant highschool girl and creepy old guy. I didn't want to be that older guy who shows up at Homecoming and Prom and whatnot, so I dumped her.


So I'm thinking hey we're both older now, this is a good idea, and apperently she didn't hold any grudges, because she was all about it. I spent the next couple hours with her, and asked her out on my day off, exchanged current numbers etc etc. I didn't think about it much the next day, but when I was playing hockey with some friends she left me a message. Someone asked me who it was from when I was checking my texts afterwards and I felt embarassed, I changed the subject. I started feeling more and more weird about it, I put off returning the message, even though our date was in two days.


On the day of the date, she called me at 2pm, because I haden't bothered to call her since the party. In all honesty I was actually under the weather on wednesday, but it wasen't like mono or anything. I told her I was sick, and I really didn't feel up to going out. it's like I could hear her brain thinking 'he just said that stuff because he was drunk' over the phone, the tone changed, she was annoyed. I tried to set a makeup date, although at this point it was more just to not be such an asshole, but she was traveling over the weekend. So I told her I'd call her on my day off this week, which is tommarow.


I'm so fuckin stupid sometimes.

I finally finished Zelda: Twilight Princess yesterday, and I have to say I really liked it. From what I’ve read while most people like it, some people insist at taking shots at it. So instead of talking about why I liked it, I’m just going to touch on the different things people have brought up against it.

1) The graphics: People have complained that for a game coming out on a next gen console it doesn’t have the best of graphics. Personally I think the game looks great, but I would be lying if I said it looked like a ‘next gen’ game. I really don’t feel it hurts Zelda all that much seeing as it has a somewhat cartoon like style, much like DOA on 360 doesn’t look all that much better than it’s Xbox predecessor simply because the models are more anime then realistic. The second thing is, this game WAS developed for the Gamecube then simply ported to Wii later, and if you look at it as a gamecube title there are really no qualms to be had with the graphics, in my mind.

2) The Music: This is the one I completely agree with, The Legend of Zelda has some of the best original music of any video game franchise, why then do they still use MIDI format for their music? It would be great to be able to hear these songs as played by actual strings or brass.

3) Voiceovers: I’m really tired of this complaint about Nintendo games lacking voice acting. Personally, I like voice acting, but only if it is VERY good. That said of the games I own with voice acting in them, the majority have very poor voice acting, and believe me when the voice acting is poor, it hurts the game play far more than text blocks. I’d really rather avoid the chance of this ruining the game, because I really wouldn’t be all that pumped for VA even if I was guaranteed it would be top notch.

4) Easy Boss Fights: Twilight Princess is to put it lightly, pretty easy. The fact that you have no really need to carry red potions or fairies on you is kind of disappointing. I don’t like games where you have to fight a boss 20 times just because of sheer luck, and the boss fights in Zelda were actually pretty fun and innovative, especially the last two. But maybe if the bosses took more than like half a heart when they hit you, then it would feel more challenging.

I really really liked this game, it was one of my favorite games I have ever played. I don’t even care if the update the graphics, I just hope they rip this same engine and push out another as soon as possible. The horseback fighting sequences are so incredibly well done, Wiimote to aim things I don’t know if I could ever go back to the old way. I could go on and on, I highly recommend it to anyone

I had been looking foreward to this Saturday for a while now, I actually came across Doomtree in a weird way, I had been kind of off of rap and R&B for a while, and really haden't been listening to any. I was into the whole indy thing at the time, before it all became brit pop ripoffs or ludicrisly emo. Anyway a friend of mine and I had nothing to do and he said he heard a pretty good punk band was playing at the triple rock named the Plastic Constilations, which I now know is the side project for the unbelivably talented DJ for Doomtree, Lazerbeak, and he was opening for Sims, POS, Dessa and Cecil. That was all it took, I was totally into their sound, and I'm a huge fan of underground hip hop now, I wouldn't say I have a ton of knowlege on the scene, but I dig it when I can. I've seen them all a good amount of times but I was really exited for this show, I'm not sure, mabye because they were, and because I love First Ave.



I'll admit I overhyped the show a bit for myself, if you talked to me saturday morning you would think I was expecting the second coming of Christ that evening. You ever have it where your so exited for an event, you waste your entire day being busy waiting for it? That was my saturday. The show WAS totally worth it though, really not a lot of songs I can think of I was hoping they would play. Revolution, Kings must Die, POS is ruining my life, Half cocked concepts, Matchbox diary, Tin man purrs like a Kitten, all of my favorites. I guess mabye the only one I can think of they missed was So far so good, but hardly a big deal. The show was roughly 3 hours with a 30 min intermission, during which their was a on stage break dance show, which was entertaining in it's own right, all in all I had a great time.

I Finally got my hands on a Wii this week. I really really like Wii sports, and Twilight princess. Ever since FFXI I have no attention span for games anymore, offline games haven't been able to grab me. But I've been playing my Wii like crazy since the say I bought it. I've been trying to find one pretty much since launch, when last week I got tipped off that Target had some but they were saving for when they opened. Having gotten to best buy an hour before open the previous week, only to be over 60th in line(the number of Wiis they had) I got there at 6am and waited in 15-20 degrees Ferienheight for a couple hours, but now that it's over with it was totally worth it. When I'm at home I can't put this thing down.

A lot of diffrent things coming up in the next couple weeks, thanks in part to the holidays, but I think tommarow Might be what I'm looking foreward to the most. I haven't been this exited about a show in a while.

I saw casino Royale already, I didn’t hate it, it was surprisingly long but I was entertained. The poker scenes were borderline unwatchable, the hands were all so gaudy, every hand was high trips and straights, but then I play a lot of poker so I can be a hater. However my friend who doesn’t play as much as I do said those scenes were pretty horrible also. There was a lot less action the you typically expect from a bond movie but I thought it worked it was a definite change of pace for the opening. In Pierce Brosnan Bond films the opening sequence was like watching fireworks, I thought this new opening was maybe my favorite part.
But I was talking to my roommate John about the movie today and I thought he made an interesting point. The paper review praised this movie for making bond more human, he dosen’t have all the gagets, he isn’t invinvible, he dosen’t drive a sports car(at first). But to John, Bond movies are about that fantasy, of the ultimate coolest guy, invincible, cunning, awesome gadgets and witty quips. If you want to make a action movie about a human secret agent that's fine, but not Bond. Bond Movies are about the ultimate male fantasy, of being the coolest guy that has ever walked the earth.
Personally I didn’t mind it, and I enjoyed myself (sans poker scenes). But I guess when I compare it with his view of what a Bond movie should be, I don’t think it came through. So here is the question, is that what keeps Bond movies so consistanly popular? This ultimate male image? Despite the fact that I liked the movie, I think I would say

While it might be a lot more pleasant than the reign of terror, is their really any justice in the death sentence of Saddam Hussein? When captured, the UN requested Saddam be sent to them for a trial on violations of the Geneva Convention. This was denied, it was decided that he would be tried by his own people, in a court that didn’t just vaguely resemble an American court format. But the question is why was he tried by the Iraqi people while he did violate the Geneva Convention, he never broke a single Iraqi law. He was the king, the dictator in an absolute monarchy, whatever he chose to do would then be legal, so what exactly is he on trial for?
People point to the reactions of the Iraqi people, today there was great celebration, but there was also great protest. As well you would think there would be, obviously this meant a great deal to the Iraqi people, he was their absolute ruler for over 20 years previous. As an example if George Bush were kicked out of the white house tomorrow, despite only being in power for roughly six years, I think you would see a similar reaction. So really, was putting Saddam to death, via trial over laws that didn’t exist when they broke them really any more just then the fate of the French Aristocrats? Or is the trial of Saddam Hussein a thinly masked Guillotine sent with a bow on it to the Iraqi people from the US government?

About 4 years ago, I saw Martin Dosh for the first time, it was at the 400 bar and he was opening for Kraig Johnson. I rember I was there with my friend David and we both thought he was a complete joke. I saw him again this last year opening for Mel Gibson, and I was really impressed at how good it had gotten. So I was looking through the paper yesterday when I saw an article about the one man band Martin Dosh, promoting his new cd last night. I went to check it out and it was easily the best show I've seen all year...

you can check out the sound here

www.myspace.com/doshanticon

you can check him out on one of these dates

Oct 20 2006 8:00P
Triple Rock Social Club Minneapolis, MN
Oct 24 2006 8:00P
Empty Bottle w/ Daedelus and Caural Chicago, IL
Oct 25 2006 8:00P
The Spot at Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH
Oct 26 2006 8:00P
The Mercury Lounge New York, NY
Oct 27 2006 8:00P
Barge Canal Coffee House at Colgate University Hamilton, NY
Oct 28 2006 8:00P
North Star Philadelphia, PA
Oct 29 2006 8:00P
Pa's Lounge w/ Fog Somerville, MA
Oct 30 2006 9:00P
Oasis Cafe New Paltz, New York
Oct 31 2006 8:00P
The Black Cat w/ Tapes 'N Tapes Washington, DC
Nov 1 2006 8:00P
Big Orbit's Soundlab Buffalo, NY
Nov 2 2006 8:00P
Garfield Artworks Pittsburgh, PA
Nov 3 2006 8:00P
Alchemize Cincinnati, OH
Nov 4 2006 8:00P
The Cactus Club Milwaukee, WI

heres a pretty good video of what Dosh does...


here it is in action

Honestly I wonder when the conversation will change from anti-botting to everyone botting. There is no way to know that you didn't waste 3 hours camping against a bot unless you know that you had a botter working for you. People from other LSs like SF or Peacemakers or even PoS for that matter possibly don't have botters, but if a linkshell in the aery is botting, your wasting your time. If everyone botted at least everyone would be on equal footing, and hey theres more skill to botting than hoping it pops right on top of you, so that it actually loads.

If every linkshell had 3-4 members that botted it is the ONLY way that pulls would be random, because something would have to give, unlike when one linkshell is lucky enough to have the other ls's go for it with skill agianst their bots. Morality is based on ground rules, and breaking them, the only thing making 'botting' is people refusing to agree to a policy like this, and I don't understand their agenda, what do they have to lose??? Is this just a scare tactic so that they can be the only LS that bots? or do they genuenly think they stand something to gain by keeping it an advantage to the few people that are ok with botting themselves?

There is no way to prove that someone bots, but there is no way to prove that somebody does either, I could take a pic of my mac, and my ps2 and all my copies of FFXI for ps2 and 360, and people would just say I'm hiding my PC. But at least if botting was decided between everyone to be fair game, then we could be sure there was an even playing field.

The last week has been such a lazy one for me. Roommate got a copy of Prison Break season 1, 22 episodes each 44 minutes, and I got hooked. The show is about a guy, whos brother is on death row, and he has no appeals left. So he does his homework, plans an escape, and then gets arrested and sent to the same prison as his brother in an attempt to spring him from jail. It's setup really well, and really keeps you interested in whats going to happen next. I managed to waste a whole lot of time on this. Season 2 is already like 6 episodes in, I'm trying to get up to date using bit torrents, but I've never really used them before so it's going slowly ( I haven't started ) but I've been trying to find more info on Torrents and how they work, I really don't like how open share programs like Limewire fuck with your computer.

Today was pretty funny cause I went out for coffee with a friend... at the White Castle on lake street. It was pretty funny I think we were the first people to order coffee there at 11:30 at night, they had to make us a fresh batch, which was perfect really. With not many places being 24 hrs anymore, (lake street White Castle has 24hr dining room) it's actually pretty nice. Of course no trip to lake stree white castle could be complete without being offered the oppertunity to purchace a brand new Rolex, an experence that I felt really capped off the moment.

Kicking an addiction is a lot like getting dumped, in your teens when your dumped, the next month or so is a struggle to get back into the swing of it socially. You’ve pushed most of your friends away, to spend more time with her, you’ve ditched them last second, to appeal to her whims. The only real diffrence is, instead of just getting your friends back, sometimes with addiction it’s a matter of getting the girl back also. It happened on a Thursday, I had an anxiety attack, and I quit, I left my love of two years cold turkey, the next days felt weird, but I had assumed they would, and then luck set in.

If I had been asked what would help someone out of a social rut, I don’t think I could have given a better answer then my first week after quitting. Things went astonishingly well. I was out of the house doing stuff the following Tuesday all the way to Sunday. I had a date with a girl that I really like on wed, got recognized by the band at first ave. on Friday got to talk with them, and won a poker tournament on Saturday, just to name a few.

I was on a roll, and I was starting to think it was going to be easy. But then the second week hit me like something I could have never expected. Lets see starting from the top, didn’t go bowling this week, nope, couldn’t get a hold of them. Could not get tickets to Atmosphere via any of my hookups(not that it was a huge surprise). Sill didn’t finish unpacking, and the Contender Finale was a complete snore… Basically, nothing happened, I even logged on a bit Friday I was so boared.

How much someone treats you effects your mood, is directly related to how much you want to sleep with them. And man I thought our first date was pretty good, but I got turned down for the second one, kinda hard if you ask me. She didn’t really critisise me, but she basically said, hey I got all this stuff to do this week, so I’m going to put you off till next week so I have time to relax, Awsome.

I really don’t know where to go from here.

I saw Half Nelson this week, and I didn't get it. I like day in the life movies, not everything needs to be heavily plot based to work, but this was a little light on the action read:none. But I cruised over to imdb only to find that apparently I just don't get it. According to the reviews the acting was riveting, to me it was ok. I felt like everything was kinda half done, the scenes where he is teaching carry no content, while dialectics seems like an interesting concept towards history, he continues to spew off the same rhetoric over and over throughout the course of the movie, when maybe the interesting thing would be to see it applied to content. I’ve taken some excerpts…

“Anyone who has experienced addiction in their lives, whether your own or someone close to you, will find this film cutting”

I truly hope whoever wrote this has been lucky enough to not qualify for this statement. Having an addicted friend is weird, There is this space between taking it personally and letting it hurt you, and turning a blind eye. At the beginning you make a race towards trying to help, and when things go wrong it really hurts, sometimes the user even pulls you up there, but when things go wrong and they will, the desire to fall into ignoring the problum is so strong. At no point did I ever see a similarity to this, or to my own addiction problum, but admittedly, I’m an odd case.

“The theme and context of the movie are fairly provocative and yet you never feel overly uncomfortable”

Because they are very flat like a picture. The movie is more of a painting than a moving entity. Dan is the same character he is at the beginning when the final credits roll. OK, Teach is on Crack so what, lets show him on crack for various everyday events, check. Nothing Dramatic happens as a result, except two things first a student finds him, result: nothing she dosen’t tell on him, does not attempt to help him. He attempts rape, result: Nothing, the victim does not tell on him, and does not appear in the movie again. It’s a picture of a teacher on crack and a student looking for a role model, and no I don’t think it’s touching that she chooses Dunn despite his faults, because she pretty much has a static reaction to him through anything that happens.

“Every frame delivers the intensity and drama within this young teacher's life and the issues he handles with his addiction and how he strives to reach his students in the classroom through honesty, humor and the lessons of history delivered on screen.”

Did I miss something, when in any teaching scene was their any content. I’m sorry I can’t get over this, all the classroom scenes came across as a cheesy face push, if it was a live show I would have expected Ryan Gosling to talk up Minneapolis for a cheap pop.

So that's it, I didn’t get it, please if you liked this movie make sense of me for it I’m too stupid.

SUBTEXT: I went to Best Buy the other day to buy a cord that I had lost in my recent move. It costed like $2 so suddenly I had this hole burning in my pocket because I was going to have to charge it. My friend David had recommended the Drive By Truckers album “Blessing and a Curse” to me like 6 months ago, so I picked it up. HOLY SHIT! I’m in love.

There is a scene in “I am trying to Break your heart” where Tweedy and Bennett rip off a fantastic two guitar version of Camera that blows the album version away, and afterwards they get in an argument ending in Tweedy saying “Two guitar rock is dead.” This album proves him wrong, at times you feel like your listening to an old Tuepalo album, but mainly it’s just really good two guitar alt-country, that just pushes foreward, hard.

I was about to write this LJ a couple days ago, but then I put it off because I realized it was 5am, I was tired, and I worked in 4 hours. If you can’t tell, I moved into my new place last week, and I was pretty exited about it. I’ve been fucking awful about unpacking so far, I finally got a lot done today, I’m down to a handful of boxes but I have a floor now at least.

Last week I got my Ninja to 75, an endeavor that thanks to quitting FFXI for a while, and then a recent sabbatical, took almost a year to do. I’d love to finish my whm and my rdm, two things I’ve always said I was going to do before I quit, but I’m tired of leveling, I just want to enjoy my lv75 jobs for a change.

I was exited, I got to tank my first HNM almost right away, well, at least I thought it was a HNM since he gives a title, but Xlotol is kind of a joke to tank lol, So much so that I tanked the second night In Haubergon. Had good luck with him lately as you can read in Sstellar.livejournal.com 3/4 over since last sat morning, on harpe and bandos.

But far and away the most exiting thing for me lately is my roommate buying a DS, been playing Mario Kart DS like there is no tomorrow. The night he first got it we went through my entire library playing anything with multiplayer, as much as I liked my DS before, I like it even more now.

Living closer to the city, I have a lot more to do now, socially. You know what I’m getting at. And with the Wii coming out soon, I kinda want to beat Wind Waker which I never did… I’m so hot and cold these days with this, if the right item drops soon, I’m going to look like an asshole. I enjoy playing, I think the Trinova Clique is a lot of fun to be around, but I’m so disenchanted at times without Cid or Tamag or Shemi.

Going to log on tomorrow, give Roxi his Osode back, which was super fucking awesome of him to just give me by the way. And I’m going to logout, hopefully for the last time.

AND I’M NOT GOING TO WoW or some faggot shit like that, Fuck You and the high Horse you rode in on. There wanted to say that all day, you know who you are.

Today was a good day to die.

R.I.P. Slusher

First of all, for the first time ever I'm posting from the city of Minneapolis. I feel like from the moment I picked this place out until the moment I moved this week, my life was on hold. Everything I did was just a form of passing the time until this week, and now that the time has come, it feels about as good as I expected it to. I moved out to the suburbs about a year and a half ago, and I hated it, I'm so happy to be back.

This Monday I went downtown to go see Irving Avenue play the Fineline, I'll be blunt, I was a little disapointed when I found out the day of the show, because I had wanted to check out the Doomtree show at first ave. But I decided to make the best of it, and I arranged to get together with some friends at Brothers and take advantage of Tuesday night specials, before heading down to the show.

The show itself was really impressive, towards the beginning of the year, they got a new lead singer, so that the lead guitar player would not have to sing. The addition was nothing short of when they added pay at the pump to gas stations, they sound much much better. I had listened to the Demo with the new lead(I still have it around here somewhere) and it was good, but it didn't have the effect it had on me Tuesday, my expectations were blown away.

BUT IT GETS BETTER: Irving Avenue was done at like 11:10, so I made my quick congrats, excused myself from my entorage, and was ordering a Whisky Sour at First Ave by 11:15. Thats right, I caught Both shows. I don't really rember who opened for them but they were just finishing up when I got there, it was pretty forgetable, with the excpetion of an absolutly rediculous Beatboxer they had in their group.

I think Sims/Mictlan/Cecil is probly the best Doomtree combo you can see. To me it dosen't really matter if POS is there or not, he's really good, but he only ever does like one or two songs unless it's a POS show. I think Sims loses something without haveing Cecil, and I think Mike loses something without having Sims. and all their best Duet(is it called a Duet in rap?) songs involve one another. very entertaining show, and a fitting end to my first night back in Minneapolis.

I finally got my computer back from the shop today, I was so pumped I wanted to do something with it, so I decided to make some FFXI fanart. Took me quite a while but I wipped this out...



Turned out ok, kinda disapointed I forgot weapons, and if you think about it, they Byrnie is kinda fucked also, but oh well. I'm moving on the 5th of September, back to south Minneapolis(from the subburbs) I'm exited for it, should free up some time for FFXI that I have not had lately.

On a sad FFXI note, my good friend Tamag is leaving at the end of the month. It sucks because it wasen't really by choice (the parents are madeded, why you think?). We started out as rivals, the two serious players in a playful chat ls, and became really good friends over the years. He'll be able to play from time to time on the weekends so his account will stay active, but it will be a far cry from the times we used to log on every night and team up for CoP missions, or later Solstice events. If you see Tamag on after the first week of September it's probly me, but I'll make sure to /seacom it.

I promised myself I would not talk about music in this LJ, lately I've come across as a music critic which I'm not, but I have a dilemma. So far my favorite show I've seen this year was a Sims/Cecil/Miclitan of doomtree combo @the Varsity theatre back in march (Mel Gibson was also at that show) they are playing the first ave mainroom on Sept.5th, I was all psyced to go but then a close friend of mine got a gig at the Fine line. My friend Jon's band Irving Avenue isn't really a big band in any way, so the Fine line is a pretty big deal to them, and it's at the exact same time. I really want to hit up the first ave show, but I know IA needs all the support they can get, so they can land a weekend gig, I know it's a lame problum, but it's been bugging me, I'll probly end up at the IA show.

last thursday Night I went to the Digitata show at the Turf club. First time I've seen them in about six months, which for a local bad (sans Umbrella sequence) is a long time. I should mention local bands love to push other local bands and for that reason often times you'll see yourself sitting through 2-3 bands before you see who you came to see. So I've taken up the practice of showing up late, very late. I rolled in about four hours after doors to see the second band play their last three songs, brilliant. Digitata is a three piece, featuring a drum set, a guy working a beat machine, and a female lead singer with a keyboard. I guess you could kind of say it’s electronica, but the drum set, and Maggie
s choice of synth settings keep it from being completely electronica. The show was fantastic at one point the played “Bangin' Jessica Alba” >> “What's cookin” then two of my favorites then went to a new song which I really liked. They also played a great rendition of the second track off Sexually Transmitted Emotions(the name escapes me) which has an incredibly long buildup, where the completely replaced it with still buildup, but something that drew you in a lot better than before. I love Digitata shows, the music’s great but mainly I love Maggie Morrison. Any fan of Digitata would have to agree probly the hottest woman in all of the twin cities, imagine a girl, with a very girl next door look, just belting out very sultry (think Fiona Apple) lyrics. All this on top of a Steady Electronica sound and it's just so incredibly hot.
Anyway check out their sound if you want:
www.myspace.com/digitata

On Friday, I went to check out the Alarmists a band who I had been told to check out for quite some time. First off they are friends of friends, but secondly I’ve been hearing their name around town a lot lately. They were opening for a band named the Debut at the Hexagon, so naturally I rolled in late like normal, but this time I found out they had already played, but the second band was still on, I was confused, I thought they were getting bigger. Later I ran into Ryan, my friend’s friend in the band and learned an interesting story. Apparently the second band rolled in and found out they were first, and surprised informed the other bands that they were too big to go first and refused to play. The bar was a little worried, so they asked if anybody if they would be willing to move. When the lead singer from the Alarmists, who was originally 2nd to last, stood up, and said in front of the wining band. “Well we have a show at First Ave. tomorrow(which is a MUCH bigger deal than the Hexagon) so we can go first, that way we can focus on that show, since this is just the Hexagon.” Not only funny, but, as a consolation, one of the band’s roommates hooked me up with a copy of their album, which I’ve been checking out this week. It’s pretty good, I was worried that it would be brit pop, because that’s what our mutual friend is into, but it’s not. It’s sort of that Brit pop sound moving into Bluesy rock, I’m digging it so far.

I hate how much my LJ sounds like a music critic lately, because deep down I have no idea what I’m talking about. After Mel Gibson’s second album got panned by Citypages Ben went on a rant about how you should have played in a band before you review music, and I defiantly don’t qualify there, unless you want to count Back Ally Penis Enlargement, the metal band I was in, that made fun of metal bands, by playing really bad metal. So I hope you realize when I say shit like, Vicious Vicious, Eric Applewick and the Olympic hopefuls ruined the brit pop sound for Minneapolis and until Dosh joined Vicious Vicious and turned it into Dosh featuring Eric Applewick’s old band, I was going to pull my hair out over how much people loved him. He made a band with the Kid Dakota frontman (name escapes me) called the Olympic hopefuls, a band that made fun of the Brit pop sound by being as typical and cheesy into that stereotype possible, it was intentionally bad, and it ran away with local awards, people loved it, they loved Applewick and they loved Vicious Vicious, meanwhile Kid Dakota, the one decent band in the whole thing got panned. Despite that, everything I say here is simply opinion.

Speaking of Mel Gibson, Ben sent this out to everyone on his friend list this week,

we are going to be playing out a lot. we are going to be doing this so that we can pay off the debt that we have acquired recording our new disc (it should be out in a while). so it does not get boring having us play often, we want to play a lot of songs that we do not necessarily play often and do some remixes. that is where you come in. send me a message with songs that you want us to do off a mannequin american and w/ guitar. if you have a good idea that is even better.

i hope to hear from you all,
ben

pretty exited about the concept of recommending songs to play, but I haven’t thought of what to request yet, other than “This ship is obviously sinking” which they never play, and should.

FFXI:
I’ve been leveling Ranger this last week or so, just to mess with as a sub on nin or war, I originally toyed with the idea of leveling it to 60 to play with Slug in exp a bit but I don’t think so now. I spent more on ammo 20 >> 30 than I do on like a month of ninja tools, when they say Ranger is a joke now because you spend the kitchen sink to be with the big boys instead of blow the big boys away, they were right, unnerf ranger!
To be honest I was like pretty impressed with it so far, the damage is a lot better than I had expected, 20 > 30 I did good damage, but it was kinda boring, at level 30 I changed to Crossbow and wow, it’s a lot of fun. Holy bolts do about 80-90 a hit(nin sub, Dhlamel pie) , then I have bloody bolts, acid bolts and venom bolts all at my disposal. I hit an IT beetle with a 300 barrage, and later I hit a berseked Dhlamel for 130~ a hit, I really dig this job, but I’ll probly stop at 40 at least until I finish some other stuff.
I feel like a complete ass lately in FFXI, everything I say and do is with the same weight as I used to carry, I need to realize as someone with playtime that has diminished as much as mine, I need to bite my tongue, be less volatile, and just be happy I still have my place in a HNMLS with my playtime, instead of trying to push weight I no longer have around.