Engineering, and the Lack Thereof

I forced myself - against my better judgement - to watch the opening performance of The Voice, with the four judges performing Freddie Mercury and David Bowie's "Under Pressure." I fully expected it to be bad.

Let me tell you, with every bit of objectivity I can muster, that it was well and truly awful. Never mind that Christina Aguilera's urban yodeling has no place, well, anywhere. Or that Adam Levine just can't. (Seriously, dude. David Bowie is strongly considering suicide so he can start rolling over in his grave.) I rather like Cee Lo Green, and Blake Shelton falls right in that level of like.

No, even if the four of them had actually rehearsed that song more than zero times it would have sucked. Even if they had tried to act like a group of four vocalists instead of everyone trying to be the hero and carry the song (Cee Lo being the only exception). Even if Christina could stop fucking with her in-ear monitor as if that will suddenly make the urban yodeling not terrible.

That performance was never going to be better than terrible (sounding) because NBC seems to have forgotten to hire an audio engineer for the broadcast. I could have mixed that crap better drunk, blindfolded, and backwards.

I sincerely hope that the broadcast console got hit by lightning right before the show, so that the engineer has an excuse. Otherwise, NBC needs to kick the fader-pusher off the truck and bring in someone with more experience than mixing the church band once a month.

[/critic]



tweaker

I'll Always Respect The Flag...

...as well as all those who fought and died to defend her. I'm just not so sure about what she stands for anymore.

I'm not so sure half-staff would cut it on this one. Hang your head, America. Be ashamed. I know I am.

Will someone please tell me when it's time for the fourth box?



tweaker

Another Hetero Post On Gay Marriage

Any homosexuals out there who may stumble upon this post, I sincerely hope that you have some comfort in knowing that you are in the unique political position of not fighting your battle alone. There are heterosexual individuals and couples out there who've got your back. I do. So does this guy, who has a pretty positive outlook for you. God-willing (or whoever you pray to, and if you don't pray, then just maybe;) you won't even have to wait that long.

It'd be like hoplophobes fighting for Second Amendment rights.

Anyway, LGBT community, keep your head up. The dominoes are falling.



tweaker

You Don't Believe That

So, there's apparently a great deal of attention on the State of New York, USA. In a shocking turn of events, the state passed a law legalizing marriage to same-sex couples.

Well, shit. Now my marriage isn't sacred [/sarcasm].

Frankly, I'm shocked that giving more that two shits or a fuck about individual rights happened in NY at all. NY is right up there in the Royal Family of Nanny States, alongside such brilliant deathplaces of freedom US states as California and Massachusetts. Someone tell Rick Perry. He's letting folks float the "L" word in describing him (no, not lesbian, however apropos; I was referring to "libertarian") and I can't figure out why. Sure, you can carry a gun in TX - he does - but we'll be damned if a dude can suck another...

Suffice to say we all know where that was going. *ahem* Anyhoo. It took the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to get dildos legalized here. Seeing the pattern yet? All politicians wanna shit on your rights. It's just a matter of what order they do it in.

So, it didn't take too long before The Enlightened One chimed vicariously in on the whole gay marriage thing. By way of a White House Spokesman, we heard all about how Øbama believes same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights and privileges as everyone else. We even go this gem of a quote:

The states should determine for themselves how best to uphold the rights of their own citizens.

Lolwut?!? Y'all pay attention, 'cause I'm only gonna say this one (on this post, anyway): Barack Obama does not believe that statement. Not even a little bit. He probably figures it's okay, though. Neither did Dubya.



tweaker

It's Almost Like They Listen

Just a glimpse at this headline makes you think that our voices, at long last, have been heard!

Of course, the saavy terrorist will use this as an opportunity to use a sub-11-year-old to smuggle his plastic explosives and Glock 7 through security. Someone think of the children!

Color me unimpressed. Sure, it's great that children 10 and under can skip the grope. I'll try to explain that to my daughter when she's 11. The article - and the .gov fuckheads - makes no mention of whether the kiddos can still avoid being sexually assaulted if they don't go through the porn-o-scan. And who decided that 10 and under is safe, while 11 and up is ZOMGTERRIST!!!1!!

Until that policy is thrown out, in its entirety, on its face, it is still an abomination before any with a sense of freedom at all. Personally, I won't be happy until the policy gets tossed and anyone who wrote the policy is prosecuted for sexual assault alongside anyone who carried the policy out.

*************************************

Keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the ground, people. As we draw closer to another election season, all the .gov wants to appear to give a damn about your rights. Don't buy it. They do not.



tweaker

Hang Your Head, Boy

At the risk of sounding like that mouthpiece from the Dixie Ducks, I am ashamed of a certain part of Texas right now. This kind of thing is supposed to come from out in JayG's part of the world.

Texas? Srsly? I swear, the whole world is coming to an end.

h/t to SayUncle.



tweaker

Cookin Up A New Shooter

I have answered the call. I am going to do everything in my power to help a friend I've known since high school (who knows I'm a gun nut) become a shooter.

She just went shopping yesterday for her first gun, and she's already getting pointed toward the de facto standard Good Gun For Women: the snub-nosed .38. Uhhmm... no. She was also presented with a Glock 33. Sure, why not a subcompact plastic fantastic in 9mm Super+P+P+SuperP+?

*sigh*

I covered some basics in an email (along with some not-so-basics. I can't help it; I love this stuff!), gave her the Four Rules, and pointed her toward the encyclopedic website of the Queen of Practical Gun-Totin' Wimmens.

I figured that's enough drinking from the firehose for one night;)

I gotta tell ya, I'm excited. She's already told me she's excited. This is gonna be great! I'd give just about anything to be there for her first trip to the range.



tweaker

Is It Just Me?

Am I the only one who thought that the whole Weiner thing was a distraction until the White House said so?

Anyone?



tweaker

Horror Stories

I like horror stories (as a genre). Sure, I like Freddy Krueger, too, but I tend to lean more toward horror stories with a hero. And not just any hero, either. An action hero. The kind with bad guys that are scary as fuck, but have a protagonist capable of opening up such an over-pressurized can of Whoopass that, by the end, there's damn-near no one left standing to look at the hero, hold up a beer, and scream, "Hellz Yeah!"

Think Army of Darkness or Monster Hunter International. Yeah. That.

So, it was with no relation to the aforementioned preferences that I was led to learning about the Stanford Prison Experiment by Breda's post relating it to some recent atrocities. I had no prior knowledge of said experiment, but I had heard that name somewhere before so I decided to read the Wiki entry. Besides, it was from Breda! What could go wrong?

Well, I made it through the general description of the experiment, got through the basic logistics, and even the overview of its failure. It wasn't until I got to the tail end of the "Results" section that I remembered why I was reading it, which occurred because I started to see the parallels that I'm assuming led to Breda's having made the association in the first place.

I stopped reading the article.



tweaker