Glitch Slap-or-Why I Suddenly Hate Spike Jones

Fucking technology; stupid me.
Earlier tonight I discovered an incredibly stupid glitch in Windows Media Player. This weekend I picked up a Spike Jones 3 CD set out of the WalMart bargain bin on a whim. When I ripped it to my EHD, the artwork for the first 2 discs downloaded, but not the third. Instead of finding the artwork online and pasting it manually, I clicked on the "update info" WMP function. It updated that disc and (for some fucking reason) replaced about 1/5th of my files with that same artwork. Now about 750 of my files have the image (below) as their album art:Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!
I'm way too anal-retentive to ignore it, and this will drive me mad until I get everything back to the way it's supposed to be. Of course all of the files that were replaced were those that were not in the WMP library. We're talking about obscure Japanese punk comps, vinyl transfers, self-produced CDs, out-of-print crap, promotional discs, etc. Essentially, it's all of the stuff that it took me forever to find the graphics for the first time around.
Something that took about 2 seconds to happen is going to take about 65 hours to fix. Seriously.
The final kick in the nuts? The CD set is of such unbelievably crappy production that it is virtually unlistenable.
I know, I know, I know - WalMart, $7 box-set, Windows Media Player - I was totally asking for it. Bite me.
That doesn't matter. I'm about 6 shots of tequila away from driving out to California, defecating on Jones' grave, stealing the headstone, driving North to Washington, and hurling it through the front windows of Microsoft's main building. That might seem excessive, but should take up less time than it will to fix the fucking problem itself.
Cocksuckers.

Game Plan

Tomorrow before the Effigies/Methadones/M.O.T.O. show, Dena's planning on either doing a BBQ out at her dad's place or pizza at Annex (if the weather sucks) we're doing pizza at Annex around 7ish.

Shoot me an e-mail/text or give me a call and I'll keep you in the loop

What I'm Listening To - Spring 2008

Here it is... finally.
I'm half-assing the liner notes and letting the music speak for itself. Liner Notes:
1) Teenage Bottlerocket - Gave You My Heart
from the 2008 album Warning Device
Here's a habenero up the pooper to kick off the new WILT from the brand new Teenage Bottlerocket record. These guys are going to be playing Reggie's on the 29th of March and I'm damned sure that I'll be there.

2) The Queers - Another Girl
from the 1996 album Don't Back Down
That bubblegum pop is mighty sweet. I can't get enough

3) Ben Weasel - First Day of Spring
from the 2007 album These Ones are Bitter
It's Ben Weasel. You're either gonna love it or hate it. I, for one, love it.

4) The Travoltas - Alright
from the 2000 album Teenbeat
Marky Ramone (who produced the previous Travoltas album) called this band "Pure Americana". They're from Holland. Stupid foreign bands coming from overseas and stealing all of our Americana. Hell, they do it so well, I'm about ready to outsource all of our pop music.

5) Tim Armstrong - Into Action
from the 2007 album A Poet's Life
Let me introduce you to your official theme-song for every Friday night after you hear this song. This is it.

6) Tōkyō Jihen - Burakuautto
from the 2006 album Adult Pour Femme
This is Shiina Ringo's new project with Seiji Kameda. For a sample of her solo work skip to track #22

7) The Network - Roshambo
from the 2003 album Money Money 2020
Yup, It's yet another Green Day side project - This time it's synth-pop dance rock. Trust me, it's awesome.

8) El-P - Flyentology
from the 2007 album I'll Sleep When You're Dead
I'll be the first to admit that the one aspect of my music collection that is sorely lacking is the rap/hip-hop genres. Then again, most hip-hop albums don't feature members from the Mars Volta and Cat Power. I picked this one up after reading a rave review in Wired magazine, and I'm digging it. This track is a collaboration with Trent Reznor.

9) The Raveonettes - Dead Sound
from the 2008 album Lust Lust Lust
This is the track that I'd been waiting on to get this WILT out. It was so worth it.

10) Armchair Martian - Son of Jeff
from the 2007 compilation Good Guys, Bad Band
Now that Drag the River is dead, I can't wait for some new Armchair Martian. Until then, here's a track that was originally on their 2000 release, Hang On Ted.

11) Foetus - Mon Agonie Douce (JG Thirlwell remix)
from the 2008 album Vein
I've been loading up the last few mixes with a load of Thirlwell tracks (Foetus, Wiseblood, Manorexia, Steroid Maximus, etc.), Lucky you. This is a great remix of a track off of the Love album. Crank it up and roll down that window.

12) Gogol Bordello - Tribal Connection
from the 2007 album Super Taranta!
I'm digging these guys so hard right now. I'm just enjoying 'em until the band implodes - The lead singer is starring in Madonna's directorial debut. That can't be a good sign.

13) Tiger Army - Spring Forward
from the 2007 album Music From Regions Beyond
Rockabilly and Spring go together like crucified Jesus and chocolate bunnies.

14) The Tim Version - March 22nd is National "Quit Your Job Day"
from the 2003 album Prohibition Starts Tomorrow
This album is one of the best surprises I've tripped across lately. It goes from D4esque punk to alt-country and right back again. I'm looking to pick up some of their other albums, and hope that they're half as good as this one.

15) The Replacements - God Damn Job
from the 1982 EP Stink
I need a god damned job - That just about sums it all up.

16) Turbonegro - Do You Do You Dig Destruction?
from the 2007 album Retox
More death-punk from everyone's favorite King Diamond meets Tom's of Finland looking motherfuckers. It's a good thing.

17) Bad Religion - Prodigal Son
from the 2007 album New Maps of Hell
This track has gotten pushed from the previous two WILTS and landed here. Actually, this almost got bumped off of this one for a track from the new Flogging Molly album, but was given a last-minute reprieve. It's a good track and deserves better than that.

18) The Arrivals - Failure
from the 2006 compilation Protect
I really have to pick up the new Arrivals record. In my defense, I wasn't sure if they released anything after that turd of a second album, but upon a quick Google search it looks like they got a new one out last year. Look for something off of that record in future comps if I pick it up and if it's good. Wow, that's a lot of 'ifs' - For now enjoy this comp track.

19) The Methadones - Already Gone
from the 2007 album This Won't Hurt...
All-you-all better be out for the Methadones show at Otto's this Friday. Seriously.

20) Against Me! - Borne On the FM Waves of the Heart
from the 2007 album New Wave
This track gets the full "Butch Vig" treatment from their new producer. I really like this track, but it's amazing that this is the same band that released Against Me! Is Reinventing Axl Rose. It's a slippery slope, but for now they're dancing on the edge.

21) Wolf Parade - You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son
from the 2005 album Apologies to the Queen Mary
"I was a hero early in the morning - I ain't no hero in the night"

22) Shiina Ringo - Meisai
from the 2004 album Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana
The literal translation for this album title is "Lime, Semen, Chestnut Blossoms".
No, really.

23) Flatfoot 56 - Same Ol' Story
from the 2007 album Jungle of the Midwest Sea
Spiritual Celtic punk from the South side of Chicago? Sign me up - It's good stuff. No shit.

24) Drag the River - Death of the Life of the Party
from the 2008 album You Can't Live This Way
This song is essentially the self-eulogy for Drag the River from their final record.

--end--

Here's the deal:
1) It's FREE
2) I'm only doing fifty (50) of these
3) Shoot your mailing address to dclies(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll mail you out a copy
4) The first batch is going out to anyone at the Effigies/Methadones/M.OT.O. show at Otto's on Friday. The second batch should go out sometime the following week.

Super-Secret Show

I'm going to be out of town tomorrow night.
I'm totally pissed that I'm going to miss this show:
Doesn't sound familliar?
Google it.

Panic Button

Recently I've been neglecting the blog. I know it.
I've spent most of my time trying to find a job back here in Illinois, and it's taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. I really need to find something in the next month or I'm going to be in a world of trouble, so I've been in overdrive lately.
I'm going to try and get a few posts that I've been working out in my head up here soon, but until then, enjoy yet another squirrel pic that The Girl sent me:
Superb.

Setting the Bar Higher

Joey Rats & the Vatican City Rollers have just revised the cardinal sins... and just as I had mastered all of the old ones. Ain't that always the way.

Here are the new seven:
Polluting
Genetic Engineering
Being Obscenely Rich
Drug Dealing
Abortion
Pedophilia
Causing Social Injustice

I'm appalled. It used to be that the capital vices were within the reach of everyone - Hell, you could whip through all seven between your 3rd and 9th Jager Bomb shots on any given night. Now most of the cardinal sins are only within the reach of Robb Report subscribers. Seriously, How is the average person supposed to get tanked on tequila shooters and wake up the next morning only to realize that they had inadvertently engineered a totalitarian army of human/chinchilla chimeras in their stupor? It just isn't fair.
I'm going to need a serious influx of cash to actualize a few of these sins. I'd better get cracking on "The Liar's Cocaine and Abortion Emporium" if I want to even sniff #3.

The only bright spot? The potential David Fincher film for the revised SE7EN should be freaking awesome.

A Near Death Experience

One of my very good friends recently started up a new blog. It deals with her work as a forensic investigator out West, and is absolutely fascinating.
I can't tell you who she is (due to the sensitive nature of her blog), but I can say that most of you know her.

Check it out. Here's the LINK.

Triple Fuck the Rev

Man, I am so pissed off at Record Revolution in DeKalb.
About a month ago I started to put together the Spring '08 WILT mix. Right now most of my music collection is packed up in a series of boxes, so I'm only using my "new" CDs that I've purchased in the last six months. It's a pretty good mix, but I decided that it could use a few more sources, so I went through a couple the 7DA boxes and cherry-picked about 25 used CDs to trade in for some new stuff. All the discs were in excellent condition (mostly unplayed promos), and were all in-demand titles that should sell pretty quickly (emo-core, pop-punk, indie-rock, etc.). I made a point to pick out the ones that I thought that I could get the most in trade for.
A few weeks ago I stopped by the Rev on Saturday - They had up a sign that they had closed early. Fuck. No big deal - I'll just head back tomorrow.
The next day I was there right when they opened - First one in. Bobo greeted me with "We don't buy discs on Sunday."
I just turned straight around and walked out befuddled.
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
I know that the bread and butter of record stores are used CDs - You buy 'em (on average) for 2 or 3 bucks a disc, and sell 'em for 7 or 8 dollars. Used CDs are 200% profit. On new CDs and vinyl you're lucky to break even with over-head. To not buy good used CDs at any given opportunity is fucking insane.
I cruised around with the box of CDs in the back of my Jeep for another week and was driving past the Rev on Friday when I decided to give it one last shot. The kid behind the counter told me that only the owner can buy CDs and that If I wanted to sell back my CDs that I would have to make an appointment.
Fuck that. I was just trying to support the local scene, and kept getting jerked around. I hadn't shopped there since 1996, and can't imagine any reason for doing so ever again. I'm amazed that they are still in business - Give it a couple of years. They're fucking doomed, and as soon as they go tits-up I'll be right there to do a celebratory jig in front of the vacant storefront.

Anyway, I'm heading up to Reckless Records in Chicago this afternoon to trade in my box 'o' discs for some new stuff (I sure do hope that I don't need an appointment to sell used CDs there). So the new WILT should be ready sometime in the next week or so. If you want to complain about the delay, feel free to call up Record Rev at (815) 756-6242.
Bastards.

Because I Didn't Like the Original Flyer

I just made my own. Feel free to download full-sized and print out 100 or so copies to post around town.I'm just putting this info up here for web searches:

The Effigies
The Methadones
Masters of the Obvious (M.O.T.O.)
@
Otto's DeKalb, IL
March 21st, 2008

Heads Up

This concert is gonna be freakin' awesome.
Be there.

I Got Nuthin

I really don't have anything worth posting about... seriously.
Nothing - Nada - Zilch.
All I have is this humorous picture of a squirrel that The Girl found somewhere on the interwebs:Hope you enjoyed that.

Contested

The first person who can name the source picture for the new L&E banner (above) will win one of 3 super-awesome prizes (you choose).

Send all guesses to dcles(at)gmail.com along with your mailing address.
---

UPDATE
Ladies & gentlemen, we have a weiner:
Ms. Janxgirl85 called it, and has chosen to receive the complete collection of pre-WILT mix CDs. Now I just have to burn those 25 comps and get 'em in the mail.
Thanx for playing.

The image is from the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs.
HERE'S a post that I did on that film just about 1 year ago.

Printer Solstice

I just got a new printer. I'm pretty excited.

That's just how lame I am.

Freedom À La Carte

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Babies Like Strippers, Right?

On December 8th I ordered a couple of gifts for my 1 year-old nephew. I was going to be responsible and get that one thing out of the way before I started my whole moving fiasco. This is that story:
Taking a cue from Kaka, I decided to get the kid a couple of UglyDolls. I figured that plush toys were the way to go, and the more unique they are, the more memorable they should be in the long-run. Yeah, He's only 1, but babies love stuffed toys - I know I did. My mom kept all of those toys and whenever I look at 'em a flood of memories comes flooding back over me. It's still kinda cool.

Anyway, I made the order back in early December directly from the UglyDoll site so that it'd be sure to arrive before the holidays. It never showed.
Turns out, they'd shipped the package to a P.O. box using FedEx - That doesn't work. The package got lost in shipping limbo. After the holidays I called up their customer service department. They apologized profusely and re-shipped the package... to the post office... with FedEx... again. Seriously.
It still hadn't arrived by the middle of January, so I shot a series of e-mails to the customer service department. They kindly offered to refund my money and re-ship out the order gratis with a bunch of extras throw in for my trouble; which I thought was very nice, except... By the beginning of this month, I still hadn't received a refund to my account, or a package of any sort from 'em. Nothing; nada.
I called up customer service yet again on the 5th of this month and pleaded with them just to credit my checking account before I had to close it out on the 15th. I'm pretty sure the customer service girl didn't take that job to deal with a near-hysterical 32 year-old man on the verge of tears, so she wasn't gonna argue.
"...I'm incredibly sorry sir, we'll credit the account and ship out another package immediately."
"You keep saying that. [sobbing] Quit saying that unless you really mean it."
"We'll get this sorted out right now."
"Seriously? For true? DON"T SHIP IT FED EX!"
Amazingly, a credit for $47 appeared on my checking account on the 14th - One day before I was scheduled to leave back for IL. I was so happy that I almost fell outta the computer chair. I could close out my DC checking account and not lose that credit.
One promise down...

Yesterday the package finally arrived.
It took 2 months and 2 weeks to finally get the order - I ripped into it with disbelief, and...
THE ORDER WAS WRONG!?!
I had ordered 2 full-sized UglyDolls and they sent me one full-sized doll and one fucking key-chain.
ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKING KIDDING ME?
NO, REALLY, ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKING KIDDING ME?
Calm down; you got the credit back - itwasfreeitwasfreeitwasfreeitwasfreeitwasfree...

So, I'm heading out to visit the nephew tomorrow, and I need another gift quick. So I head out to Wal-Mart at 11PM tonight for a last-minute stop-gap gift. I spent 45 solid minutes roaming through the toy aisles, wherein devised up my theorem that all babies must be extraordinarily boring and/or gay. There wasn't one fucking age-appropriate thing in that whole fucking store that I wouldn't be mortally fucking embarrassed to have in my house. When the kid turns 6, his uncle is gonna come through big-time, but for now the kid is so much better than all the crap they're peddling for babies.
The only things I found that were even sorta cool that weren't way out of his age-range were the Doodle Pirates, but buying a baby something called a "doodle pirate" seemed like a sure-fire way to end up on a government watch-list. I wasn't gonna fall for that trap.
I was heading out when I stumbled across a bunch of really cool fuzzy little plush toys of rabbits, squirrels, beavers, and other assorted wildlife... for dogs. I stood there for a good 5 minutes eying a plush wild turkey and noodling over how my sister-in-law would react to me bringing a basket full 'o' Fido's Pride brand chew toys for her baby. I decided against it.
I headed home, dejected.
When I got back I decided to check Amazon to see what I could find. I found the missing UglyDoll shipped directly from Amazon for $5 less. Score. I picked out a second UglyDoll so that I could get free shipping, and (in the end) the 2 dolls came out to ten bucks less than ordering directly from the manufacturer. So I got the refund, and the kid is getting 3 UglyDolls for less than what I was gonna pay for two. Everybody wins (sorta).

I bet that that package gets soooo lost. Bastards.

John McWho?

Did anyone have any idea that John McCain was in Sugar Grove (IL) tonight for an Oberweis fund-raiser?
Well he was.
I had no idea until I got the invite about a half-hour beforehand. I still haven't seen anything in the media. I'm just amazed that the (default) Republican nominee could head into Illinois and no one seems to care or notice.

Huh.

What The Flickr?

I threw up a handful of random photos up on my Flickr page. This should serve as a warning to everyone that booze and photography make strange bedfellows, indeed.

Garmin Electra

The Girl just gave me a Garmin Nüvi on the expressed condition that I never make her navigate anywhere ever again. This last trip back from DC I had a chance to road-test it. I gotta say, it's pretty fucking sweet.
I've made that trip about 20 times, so I didn't really need the map function, but I was all about was the statistics function. I became obsessed with raising my "overall average" and keeping the "time stopped" to a minimum.
My obsessing allowed the time to fly by and I made the trip in record time - 10 hours and 45 minutes. From the start (leaving DC at 10AM), the device called the estimated time of arrival as 7:48 (central time) - I thought the thing was fucking nuts. I've never made the trip in less than 11 hours and 15 minutes, but the Garmin called it within 3 minutes from the get-go. How, I have no idea.
My proudest accomplishment was keeping my stopped time down to 22 minutes - That includes time stopped at traffic signals, in traffic, and fuel/bathroom breaks (3 each). Impressive.

I can't wait to take it out and test the map function.
Cartography rulz!
---
Here's the Garmin breakdown of the DC to Illinois trip:
745.3 miles
Total Trip Time: 10 hrs. 45 min.
Moving Time: 10 hrs. 24min.
Time Stopped: 21 min. 46 sec.
Max Speed: 85.9 mph
Moving Average: 71.7 mph
Overall Average 69.3 mph

Heading Home

I've gotten everything wrapped-up here in DC, and am driving back to Illinois this morning so that I miss the ice storm tomorrow.

Here I come.

Steve Kazmierczak

The Chicago Tribune hasn't "released" the name of the NIU shooter, but if you follow the leads in THIS article, THIS has to be the guy.
---
HERE'S something else I dug up.
Weird.
---
I think I may have found the guy's Live Journal page. By searching his UIUC alias (sans "2"), I found this (skazmie.livejournal.com/).
I really wouldn't paste that link if I were you - The page seemes really wiggy, my SpyBot and StopScript programs started going nuts when I checked it out, which led to the Blue Screen of Death. It might just be Vista being Vista, but I don't trust it.
All you need to know is that the user name is "steve... kaz. ..." & it's titled "Emo-Sexual Blog".
Seriously.

Update: It looks like this one was a false-positive. Sorry, Emo-Sexual Blog - Keep on keeping on.
---
Clarification:
I went to school in DeKalb and still have a bunch of friends back there (some who work for the university), but I never knew the shooter (nor would I want to).
I just put together some clues that were being floated by various media sources early this morning. I cannot vouch for the validity of any of the aforementioned sites or any sites mentioned in the comment field.
I just happened to be awake at 3AM, did a few simple web searches, and posted what I found - That's it.