Red Bar Radio

It was December. I was snowed in. Called into work, as I was not able to even get my truck out of the parking lot. Also, snow and ice is terrifying so it is probably best that I couldn't even get to a real street.

Anyway, as I sat there, in my apartment, I began looking for some entertainment. I quit WoW about a week before this happened -- so I was pushed into the situation of trying to find something else to do indoors. I had rejuvenated my bass playing and had been having fun with that. But if you take over a year break from bass, your fingers turn to mush after you play for a couple hours straight. So that wasn't even really an option at this point.

I was reading a forum where someone pointed out the guy who was the subject of ridicule of this particular thread, (which was well-deserved, but now we're getting off topic) was actually a guest on this internet talk show I'd never heard of called Red Bar Radio. I listened to the episode he appeared on and laughed my ass off. Then I listened to more. I couldn't stop! This show was like crack. I've never heard anything like it before. It really is a unique show.

The host, Mike D always has a cohost -- usually a local (Chicago) comic will come on the show. They'll talk for a while and then take calls from listeners (who can call in on skype, or on a regular phone) and you can watch the whole show via web cam on Stickam.

Anyway, the tagline of the show is "We make fun of everybody". And they really do. It is exactly my style of humor. They ridicule each other, and callers, and whoever else is unfortunate enough to be the subject of discussion on the show. It's hilarious. Mike D is a strong comic. He really is. He is often funnier than the comedian cohosts he has. Granted, there are some very funny cohosts, so this would place Mike D pretty high up on the list. He's just so fucking funny. He doesn't give a fuck. But he's joking. Calm down. It's just comedy.

I've heard him say he doesn't think anyone over the age of 35 would enjoy the show -- and I think he's right. It's a new generation of comedy, and it's awesome.

So I was snowed in for a few days and then had about 9 days off work for winter break. The snow was pretty bad during most of the break, so I had lots and lots of time to listen to the past episodes. No joke, I must have listened to somewhere around 80 hours of this show. Granted, I'd often be cooking or cleaning or whatnot (as most people do while listening to talk radio) but still, I really gained an understanding of the show.

One of my favorite episodes is when comedian (and frequent co-host) David Angelo brought this guy Jordan on the show with him. It was awful. It was one of the worst shows I'd heard, because this guy was horribly disrespectful of the audience and clearly felt like he was superior. He is a camera man or something (he never really did say what it was that he did for a living, other than it involves film and comedians). He was a pretty big nerd. Mike D and David Angelo later defended him as a person, but admitted he was a huge dick on the radio show.

It was getting hard to even continue listening. He was arguing about how CRT monitors are superior to plasma and just generally didn't have anything to say that was funny or worthy of my time (or this show!).

Then the show, which was shaping up to be one of the worst that I'd ever heard, took a drastic turn for the absolutely awesome and hilarious. This Jordan guy basically said all Mike D's listeners were 13 year olds and he wanted callers to call in to challenge this. He got his ass handed to him. You really have to hear it to understand, but this guy was such a movie nerd. He seemed to think he was going to win this thing by citing obscure movies that he thinks are awesome. This isn't a fucking movie nerd radio show. It's a comedy talk radio show. He was completely out of his element. The audience wasn't having it.

He ended up getting so upset by the callers who pointed out what a douchebag idiot he was and how he was wasting everyone's time (in a very funny way). At one point, Jordan calls the caller a "waste of space" and asks why the caller is getting so upset about TVs? The caller pointed out (correctly so) that Jordan was the one who sounded upset (you could hear it in his voice). It wasn't more than a couple minutes after this (right around the time Mike D read off some of the instant messages he was getting from listeners about how horrible Jordan is) that Jordan showed his true colors, got really upset, actually stormed out of the studio (he even halfway slammed the door to emphasize his level of anger and sadness).

It was so hilarious and awesome. It went from having Jordan be the worst thing ever to hit Red Bar Radio to him being the reason that show is one of my absolute favorites now.

Anyway guys seriously check this show out. I love it so much I signed up for the exclusive content membership which is $10 a month (they have some awesome videos -- some are like television episode-length videos, for example the one where they go to the Renaissance fair to interview "creeps". So funny.

Of course the $10 is well earned by Red Bar Radio. I intend to keep my membership up as long as the show continues to be such a great source of entertainment (they do a couple shows a week usually, and often have a decent after show which you can get on the pay area (you can also hear it live for free on their site or stickam but the archives don't have the after shows)).

I want to support this awesomeness and I am so glad I found Red Bar! Check it out guys!

http://redbarradio.com

Superdrag -- yeah!

After a several year hiatus, Superdrag will soon be releasing their new album. On their myspace page, they let you download one of their new tracks (not fully mixed yet). The very first time I heard it, I wasn't sure what to think. The second time hearing it, I am fully convinced this album is going to be right up there with the rest of them.

I was afraid that John Davis had gone perma-soft with his gospel solo project. However, it seems he hasn't skipped a beat and is back on track. I really can't wait for the album to be released. I hope they play in Seattle, that would be freakin' awesome.

PS: If you want to hear the song, go here: http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Superdrag%20Return_%20Filthy%20and%20A/ or check out their Myspace page.

Things that make me laugh

I was picking up some groceries and as I was walking back to my truck, I spotted this gem. I quickly finished loading in my groceries, whipped out my camera and couldn't stop laughing. Seriously. I love it. I wonder what other amazing home remedies this guy has created.

Click for big.



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The original Michael Scott

Video 1

Video 2

Found these on Youtube. This guy is pretty funny. Ricky Gervais is a British comedian. Most americans who recognize him would do so from having seen the original BBC comedy "The Office". The US version was based closely to the original. He really is the original Michael Scott.

I removed the title for this post because I felt like it

So I just spent some time picking out a pretty cool Firefox theme and customizing the rest of Linux's appearance. I don't have much else to say except I am pretty satisfied with the current look and feel of my setup. So, here's a pic of my cluttered desktop. (Click it to see the full thing)

Hello, Fedora, won't you tell me your name

So I finally got to a point where I wanted a more standard distribution of Linux. The more obscure ones I've been using (as written about in previous blog entries: LinuxMint and FreeSpire) are great for an average user. I would still reccomend them to someone new to Linux who wants a desktop Windows replacement.

But I reached a point where the over-simplified interface, small software library, and lack of bleeding-edge updates got to me. The nerd deep within my soul began to scream, "This is for noobs! You are no longer a noob! Man up!" And so I did.

Even though Fedora 9 is coming out at the end of this month (or early May; I've read conflicting reports) - I downloaded Fedora 8. Fedora has, for a long time, been that one distribution I just loved the idea of, except I couldn't get much to work. I was unable to actually replace Windows with it. I'd have trouble playing videos, youtube never worked, heck, I don't even think I could get MP3s to play sometimes (this is my 3rd of 4th version of Fedora I've tried).

I downloaded the huge dvd ISO and burned it. I booted into the graphical installer, Anaconda. Installation was easy peezy. I'd say the main part that would throw a newbie for a loop would be the disk partitioning portion. I already had available partitions ready for it, so I just assigned the mount point to them and away we went. There are guides out there to walk someone through this, but if they are hoping to keep any data that is already on their drive, they are walking on thin ice here. It's almost necessary you have someone experienced with this part to help you at this stage.

If you come from a windows-only background, the filesystem and command prompt in Linux will be the basis of your troubles. Some things are best done from the command line, and I accept this. In fact, I kind of like it. It just seems to work better.

Anyway, after booting into Fedora 8 for the first time, my system downloaded and installed updates for about an hour (there was a little bubble notifying me of the over 220 updates available, I just let it connect and install all of them). To be honest, at first, I wasn't sure if I should really install all the updates or not. So I didn't. I couldn't get a damn thing to work. I actually called it a night the first day and continued after work the following day.

I let it run and install everything the second night, and now I could install everything I needed. The great thing about Fedora is that even though it requires more time at the command line, it is such a popular distribution that you can find guides for nearly everything you might need help with. You can literally copy and paste the commands into the terminal window. It's pretty easy, really.

So the second day I was able to get any and all video playback to work flawlessly; audio was working great. The desktop effects (you can check them out on this crappy video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpidWhfIlyo ) are, in a way, silly, but pleasant and the cube for multiple workspaces works very well for me. The way my brain thinks about it in 3D helps me organize my windows well, and it's pretty cool lookin' to boot.

The PulseAudio audio server is really phenomenal. Whereas I've always had issues with audio in Linux (even the "noobie" distros would get confused with my multiple sound devices sometimes, which was annoying) but no longer! PulseAudio allows you to adjust the volume of each individual audio stream coming out of your computer. That means rather than relying on the volume knob on each program, you can switch to PulseAudio and adjust them all in one window. Also, a very neat feature is that it will auto-mute your other applications if you receive (or place) a VOIP call. This works, I've tested it with Skype.

Did I mention I have complete read/write access to my NTFS partitions? It only took one package install. It didn't come configured that way out of the box, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have write access on my NTFS drives with the noobie distros.

Really, the only thing I haven't been able to get working yet is something which isn't very important, and which I've never gotten to run on any version of Linux: World of Warcraft.

I still have my little Windows partition I can boot to if I feel the need to play... and I maintain some hope of getting Wine or Cedega or Crossover Office to actually run it correctly.. but I don't really care anymore. The benefits of Linux outweigh the downside of having a dual boot system.

It runs very quickly. It has a great software update system. It looks and feels great. Sound and video don't just work, they work better than they do in Windows XP and in "user friendly" distros in my experience. Every piece of software I've installed has worked without a hitch (I've installed quite a few, and with the exception of WINE for WoW). The multiple workspaces are very useful; the 3d cube layout is just brilliant.

What more can I say? I think I'll be migrating my laptop to Fedora next.

If it's time for some tacos, it's definitely not Taco Time

So I get out of work on Friday and I want something quick to eat.  I remember some coworkers at Microsoft telling me that Taco Time is pretty good. It was described to me as an "Expensive Taco Bell" or "Like Taco Bell, but a little more fancy".  
This place is like 5 blocks from my house, so I figure I'd take the plunge to the NW mexican fast
 food scene and give it a shot.  If only I'd known...

My experience at Taco Time was one of the worst I've ever had.  I like food, I'm not all that picky.  I was in one of those "Taco Bell even sounds good" moods, so I thought I'd be satisfied with "taco bell, but better".  I go through the drive through and take a look at the menu.  "Our tacos are so huge, we ROLL them!"  I see.  So you sell $5 burritos as tacos because that makes sense, right?  If you roll a soft taco like a burrito, guess what it is?  A FUCKING BURRITO.  (Burritos usually cost more than tacos, so this business model makes absolutely no sense to me.)

However, the best looking thing on the menu is the "tacos", particularly the soft tacos.  Because they are big.  And rolled like a burrito.  I mean the burritos looked pretty good.  Next thing I notice is they offer whole wheat tortillas.  Not very authentic but I figure if I get mine with regular tortillas I'll be fine.  I proceed to order two $5 veggie soft tacos.  

After I pay, the lady asks me if I would like any hot sauce or ketchup.  I should have asked for my money back and just left at this point, but alas, I did not.  KETCUP.


KETCHUP.

Anyway, I reply with "Give me the hottest hot sauce you have."

Now, I didn't ask what was in the soft taco.  I've had probably thousands of tacos and burritos in my day, and a whole lot of them were veggie.  Here's what is in a typical veggie taco or burrito anywhere other than taco time: Beans, rice, cheese, onions, tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream.  Basically what Taco Bell markets as a "7 layer burrito".

Heaven forbid Taco Time follow those rules.  NO THEY ARE TACO TIME THEY ARE SPECIAL.  What you get from Taco Time when you order a veggie soft taco is the following:

1.) Tortilla (whole wheat, even though you didn't order it) - Filled with:
2.) CABBAGE (Yes, a shitload of sliced cabbage.  I'll say it again.  CABBAGE.
3.) SUN FLOWER SEEDS.  (I'm not making this up)
4.)  A tiny amount of normal ingredients such as beans and perhaps one or two grams of cheese product.
5.  "hot" sauce (if you asked for it) that tastes like the mild (MAYBE medium) taco bell packet sauce.  And if you know anything, you know that Taco Bell's "Fire" Sauce is the hottest they have, and it is pretty weak, but it makes the medium seem like ketchup.

I was so hungry and having already driven home, I just ate both of these fuckers.  They weren't even as filling as you would expect based on their size as they were mostly cabbage.

I just can't even believe what an atrocity that place is.  Their attempt at providing me with tacos was an epic failure.