So anyhow, have some fun this Independence day, get drunked up, think about how good this country is, even w/ all of it’s flaws, past, present and future. And hey try not to lose your fingers, toes or ‘hair de genitalia’ whilst effin around with bottle rockets and/or other fireworks and/or OTHER homemade mistakes waiting to happen.

-A-

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and avoid getting hit by Mike Tyson in the first 1:30 of round 1.

The only safe strong enough to secure my Duplo blocks.

I realize that should I proceed and build this, I will be nowhere in the neighborhood of Fort Knox level protection, but, as a guy who’s spent more than a couple bucks (possibly a couple thousand) and hours (possibly a couple krotillion) on Lego blocks and kits well into my adult life, I WANT THIS. I mean, it’s a damn Lego safe with working gears (not that Lego is foreign to complex working gear structures. I’ve hand built a few complex mechanisms while just freestyling builds -You should’ve seen the A-815 Battlehawk and the blueprints for the unbuilt A-822, both manufactured by the mysterious Drachius organization, James knows what I’m talking about. That plane was a monster. The Battlehawk had 4, Double-barreled, recoiling, pulse blasters, mounted on the underside of the airjet and a removable pilot’s pod-). So I love the idea of this safe and it does have a fair layer of protection, plus, it’s completely up Omar’s alley. Though I may sound kinda childish on my social networks and this blog, I’ve actually rid myself of most of my material ‘Kiddy Stuff’. All of my remaining categorical toys sit on two shelves in my room along w/ my books, DVD’s and CD’s and that’s far too little. I’ve given up pretty much all of my old Lego kits and blocks when I moved here and haven’t purchased any replacement kits because of the money suck that Lego blocks are to a guy like me, but I think this safe may get me to jump ship on that pattern. I love building stuff, I love thinking through concepts and I love being a kid at heart and I have a LOT of free time these days, you know, with the whole, “I have a disease and a lifestyle so erractic I can’t handle most normal occupations”, so I believe that this would be a nice little distraction of a project and a way to ease back into them Lego and the child I actually am, internally and externally. I dare you to block me from finishing this project. *rimshot*

Lego Combination Safe (Instructables)

Dear Mr. Fox correspondent, your homework tonight is to find a dictionary and look up the word ‘Hypocrite’ . That is all. Have a nice day.

Update: Later in the show, They run a talk about how the media is supposedly scared of Obama. That he supposedly runs monthly newsconferences and the ones in primetime are costing the networks millions, but they’re afraid to not run the conferences for fear of Presidential retaliation. So let me get this straight; Obama is running press conferences that are just fucking TV stations of big big money and networks are just teeming in fear because he’s gonna just run them into the ground if those press conferences aren’t aired? I have heard from Fox, more than once, that Obama needs to be more communicative about these uncertain times we’re in. So now that he IS communicating w/ the public on a regular basis it’s bad because he’s forcing them? And these multibillion dollar corporations are just crying in a corner for what may happen should the conferences not be shown? Fox, the main, big, national Fox channel (Fox 5 Atlanta, over here) didn’t run at least one of his prime time conferences and I heard nothing from the democrats about that, you know who I DID hear from, Fox News pundits basically applauding themselves for having their sister channel ignore the press conference. Also, I think I only count 3 primetime conferences and one was the state of the union address thingee (that isn’t really the state of the union adress, because incoming Presidents don’t do one on their rookie year) and the others were dealing w/ the financial crisis. Those, I personally think, are a bit more important than the latest episode of Deal or No Deal. I’m gonna drive myself crazy following these political antics. Cause both sides do shit that make me want to just drop out and be ignorant.

This shirt is like the Oracle of Delphi, if the oracle happened to vaguely have subtext that suggests something, anything was gonna go awry and the subject happened to publicly fall into that category in some roundabout manner. (too wordy?)

Shitty quarterback* and PETA nemesis, Michael Vick, was released from jail today yesterday, headed to house arrest and we here want to celebrate that with the only song that could properly honor his release from the big house. Also I had to show the T-Shirt that I bought like a week after Vick was arrested, from the Goodwill store. It doesn’t even fit me, but I saw it and it was a situation where it HAD to be bought, I don’t even think I had a decision in the matter, the universe decided for me when it comes to peer pressure, the universe is the worst. I also realize that today’s musical pick is in no way original, but come on now, sometimes something is too perfect and you have to follow the pack. So Mike, I dedicate this to you.

* Vick isn’t a horrible QB, he just makes horrible decisions at times. Doesn’t know when to give up the play or not run w/ the ball when he should dump it or make a perfectly safe pass, he just forces shit he shouldn’t. The funny thing is his backup made much better decisions when he got the starting job in Atlanta, then last year, the rookie QB, Matt Ryan, made better decisions too. Vick can make good plays and can make tremendous highlights with his feet and he has a cannon of an arm, the problem is he lacks accuracy when he has to rely on the cannon. He’ll probably work in NFL again, probably even start, but there are better quarterbacks than him and his backups in Atlanta were frequented that category. -The Mgmt.

Overplayed Little Songs

the list yet (I honestly thought it would be ‘Nevermind’), but when they ran the resumé of the album, I honestly submitted to their pick. It was a huge and original album. Do you remember how many times they played ‘You Oughta Know’ and ‘Ironic’ alone? There were 3 #1 singles, 5 in the Top 10. The album was the 2nd best selling album of the 90’s (S.Twain, Come on Over #1), one of only three albums to spend over a year in the top ten, Nominated for 6 Grammys, 4 win’s and right now, stands at 16million unit sales in the US, 33m worldwide and is currently the 20th best selling album of all time. With all that, at that time, those were hard stats to vote against. So as much as I would’ve preferred something else, not that I hate the album or songs (I did get tired of them), I didn’t dispute the ranking. But here’s the question (because you know I love input), do you still think it stands there? ~10 years later, you don’t hear much from the album (or Alanis, for that matter). So now, what would be that #1 album born from the decade that truly formed me? Again, I tend to think of Nirvana, because today, we still see the impact that album has formed, it took the glam out of ‘real rock’ and made known the melancholy attitude of the generation, but there are others. OK Computer, honestly, to me, one of the top 10 front to back albums of all times and easily vys for #1 in my eyes. Pearl Jam released just as many impactful singles from ‘Ten’, I wasn’t a big fan at the time, but I don’t deny it’s stature. There’s Shania Twain, ‘Come on Over’, while totally not my cup of tea, revitalized the entire female country/rock industry and if you don’t believe me, ask Taylor Swift or Leann Rhimes, The Dixie Chicks, I’d even say Kelly Clarkson.

"Pick Me!, Pick Me!, NO Me!, Right Here!"

There’s Shania’s male equivalent, Garth Brooks, who revitalized country. Period. He’s not around much, but his impact sure is. Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z, Tupac, all, certainly made a still massively visable mark on not only music but everywhere, ask your neighborhood neo-wigger. Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Tupac, U2, Green Day, Metallica, Backstreet Boys and Britney goddamn Spears (there’s certainly some sort of visible remainder of her impact), what’s the number #1 Album. Is it still Jagged Little Pill? You oughta know. (Yeah, I totally forced that one).

When siblings fight, it’s usually the sibling with the size advantage that wins, which is logical because they have more weight, power, and experience. But when the younger sibling hits his growth spurt and the sibs sizes average out, then the fight becomes a fairer fight. For eons the Andromeda galaxy has been lording over us like a big brother, all cocky and whatnot, threatening to kick our ass and take the last slice of pizza and always riding in the front seat of the car (Andromeda doesn’t even call shotgun, he just sits up front, WTF!). Well guess what Andy, we’s all growed up now sucka. Scientists have now found that our galaxy, The Milky Way, is ~50% larger than we had originally thought it, making our galaxy around the same size as our closest neighbor Andromeda, which from the first comparisons, we’d thought was just dwarfing us, in fact we are now the two biggest systems of the Local Group of galaxies (which sounds like a workers union). Astronomers discovered this information by noticing that when they 3D mapped the stars, using a process I’m not really gonna go into the many details, about new stars and radio telescopes and such, but yeah, we as a galaxy are now bigger, bitch and Andromeda is quaking because equivalently we’ve gone from being a 5’5″ pipsqueek to a 6’3″ guy who packed on some beef and now beats up bullies at the beach. We’ve “grown” in both breadth and mass (bigger and heavier) and I think we’re gonna get a little more respect in our star quadrant and this is just the begining of the true mapping of our galactic structure. But to pour salt into a sore wound, this makes Pluto even more of a non-planet (Pluto, you’re such a pussy, I fuckin hate you. Die you Trans-Neptunian abomination, you go die right now ).

Somebody in this approximation of an image has hit puberty and has been working out at the gym. Do you see them arms?

Now the bad news. The speed and recalculated size of the Milky Way increases the probability and shortens the timelime of a likely smash into another nearby galaxy (think Andromeda), which, you gotta trust me, is NOT going to be pretty, especially if you’re anywhere within the vicinity of the two objects. So now the race is on in the, “how will our beautiful solar home be unimaginably destroyed” stakes? The contestants are: our wonderful Sun going hyper and imploding and throwing our solar system into every which direction possible OR our whole galaxy smashing into another galaxy and crashing together at massive speeds; which of these unimaginably destructive, amazingly colossal, unfathomably cataclysmic and violent endgames will destroy our little neck of the universal woods and reduce it to powder first? The supernova is getting 4-1 odds, since it’s got about 5 billion year timeline, while the galacto-smash is in the 1-2B neighborhood.  So everyone place your bets and give me the money now and I’ll pay back the winners once the results are in and no bet is too big (what? it sounds totally fair to me), hey, I’ll even give you a half price discount on the juice, scouts honor (disclaimer: Omar is not and was never once a Boy Scout or a scout of any other kind, he did think the Biker Scouts, were cool. The closest he ever came to scouting was learning to tie knots from a scout master who visited the kids at the Children’s Hospital in Norfolk, VA while in the playroom, during which, he still would rather have played the Donkey Kong machine, especially since he has no remembrance at all of how to tie said knots).

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Give it Away

When this song came out on MTV, I had a foreign feeling; I kinda liked it. I didn’t admit it, but when it came on, I didn’t do the usual and immediately ignore it or change the channel, I would linger and it was in heavy rotation, so every time, I’d linger a little longer before I changed the channel, kinda lying to myself about how much I didn’t like it. During this period in time, a guy in my class, named Justin Case (which is both, an interesting name AND sort of a dick move by his parents, because you know kids jumped on the that name once they figured out the wordplay within.), anyway, Justin and I were in the same row in class and he didn’t really know rap and I didn’t really know rock and in sort of diplomatic conversations, I let him know I kinda liked Give it Away, he said he liked Public Enemy (the ‘Bring the Noize’ remix w/ Anthrax, specifically) and in the pseudo-music UN delegation that Justin and I had set up in the back corner of 6th period, we had a cultural exchange, he let me borrow Blood Sugar Sex Magik and he borrowed ‘Apocalypse ’91 : The Enemy Strikes Black’ and we both liked the albums we borrowed. I think that RHCP album was probably THE best album anyone could’ve given to me at that time to open me up. It was funk heavy a la’ George Clinton and it was produced by Rick Ruben, whom I still associated heavily with early Def Jam; License to Ill, LL Cool J-Radio, etc. So that album would be step one to a whole new me. A more honest me, a guy who could speak on the history of Hip Hop, in depth, from pretty much top to bottom and still dig on some Ozzy. Though at that point in time, I would admit nothing more than the fact that I kinda liked the Chili Peppers because “they were kinda rap”.

Alice in Chains-No Excuses

The next song worked itself nicely into my progression. It came outta nowhere, well out of nowhere as far as I knew, considering that Jar of Flies was not their first album or first success, but it/they were new to me. What helped here is that ‘No Excuses’ wasn’t hardcore, it wasn’t ‘metal’ heavy, it’s almost a retro folk song, even the guitar solo has a classic rock feel and all of that together worked for me, because even though I didn’t listen to pretty much any other kinda rock, I still had an appreciation for that which came before me and ‘No Excuses’ was light enough, that I could excuse it and it got me to the next step of breaking the shell, by now, the cracks in the shell are significant you can tell that it wouldn’t be too much longer before the whole thing breaks open and I just come oozing out into the pan.

Tool-Sober

This one still shocks me. There is no way I would’ve ever guessed that the me, the pre “Open-Omar” me, would’ve even liked this song and I surely wouldn’t have guessed that this would be the track that basically said, “Stop Bullshitting, stop hating genres and appreciate whatever music it is for the music that it is. Sober was wild, first there’s the video, which is the main reason that I ever stopped to listen to the song in the first place. If its’ 1993-94 and this claymation nightmare shows up on your screen, you’re probably gonna stop and wonder which of Satan’s minions created this monster (and then Satan will tell you it’s a false positive and that he’s gonna take Tool to court for trademark infringement), but you will watch. Then there’s Maynard James Keenan, he has an amazing voice. It’s not so much that it’s “beautiful” but the guy has amazing control and vocal mastery to do a lot of things some the best singers couldn’t dream of. When Maynard wants to stick the note, he’s gonna stick the note. Then there’s the double guitar hits of the song and when it all comes together, it was just the thing I needed to come out of my shell and start looking around the musical landscape. I can still love my De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang, PE, whatever. I was the only one holding me back and these 3 incidents made me realize that. It is not an affront to my values to have a wider range of tastes, in fact, it enhances my appreciation of nuances that I never knew existed. Basically it growed me up a bit and I’m better and happier and mostly, more well rounded for it.

So that’s it, a little autobiographical Pl.A.List, a little metaphor and a little story on how it all began, the catalyst to me opening my horizons and from this, I now get down with some of my newer favorite groups, SoundGarden, The Who, The Stones, and Radiohead (oh beautiful Radiohead), even Jimi Hendrix, groups I may have never dared to try if it hadn’t been for those first few. I opened myself up to new flavors to become the man I am now, The Incredible Edible A.

ps: gotta thank Mark from WordPress for helping me out and fixing the error on the website quickly after I emailed them to get me up and running in mere hours as opposed to days, which a lot of free services will sometimes do. Now I’m back online, ready to torture the world w/ my opinions and prose.