www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmJxtgmsqAE

I don’t really, but I remember that the guitar part was fairly simple and I could almost play it passably.  How strange that they are what they are now, and that they spawned SO many (poor) imitators.  This wasn’t the first single…in fact it was the last, but for some reason it’s the one that sticks in my mind in relation to the album & radio play.

When I think of Basket Case (wasn’t it the “big” single that blew them up?), for some reason I remember my friend John’s house up the hill…maybe I saw the video there for the first time.

Dookie holds up, I think, as a really strong, consistent piece of work.   “Sassafras Roots” is my favorite track.

Huh, I didn’t (and still can’t) remember “She” as being a single, but I guess it was.  Strange.

I stopped into one on my lunch break to check out some laptops (I HATE the new layouts they’ve got in all the stores now btw…feels way too…I dunno, off), and I was greeted by a Marshall full stack & head in the entryway thing.

WTF?

Maybe this won’t be as strange to people that aren’t “into” electric guitars (and shit)…but to me this is shades of the Twilight Zone.  Now, I didn’t go check …but I’m just going to go out on a limb and wager that you can’t bring in your guitar (or grab a sweet Jag off the rack :) :) ), plug it into one, and crank that shit.

Just a guess.  Hell, maybe you can.

But if you can’t…WTF?

Because that’s how you shop for an amp.  I suppose if you find out that they have a great deal on an amp, you could go try it out at a guitar shop (or the Guitar World right down the street from this Best Buy), then come back here and buy it without ever touching it…but that rings really false to my inner artist. Both pretentious and not.

Wow and quadruple wow.

So, so rich.  And creamy!

Oh gawd, it’s sour, sour sour.

Food poisoning.  Maybe.

Discuss.

PS. The Japanese are WEIRD.

Plainclothes police officers beat and attempt to kidnap a 12 year old girl.  Father charged with assaulting police officers for trying to stop 3 men from dragging his daughter into a van.

ARE Y O U F U C K I N G K I D D I N G M E?

This is probably the worst “stupid cop” (not to mention racist) I’ve heard in years, and these guys should be locked the fuck up.  I hope the family gets a LOT of money from the city/cop shop and those cop lose their jobs and (as some commenters suggested) get flagged as sex offenders.  Let’s see how they like having their lives ruined.  That poor girl.

[edit: For the sake of blog courtesy, I found the story here.  It is also on digg...so MAYBE it will make it to the mainstream media.  I hope so. ]

Poor 3rd cat I guess.

OK, I get it. You’re so used to lining up for random shit that Apple people tell you is cool that somehow, subconsciously you decided that maybe the reverse would work: line up and random shit will appear.

But seriously guys, this is taking a bit far.

I like how the improv everywhere guy has already said it’s not them. Because that was my second though, right after pod-person stupidity and right before “maybe there actually is something coming out and they know about it and the rest of the internet doesn’t”.

There are lots of places to get fake tans in the Portland area. Because, you know, you won’t stand out at all in a city where THERE IS NO SUN 9+ months a year you have no sun. Here’s some random info about the history of sunless tanning (and the tanning fad in general).

Basically, lazy people who don’t actually work in the sun want to look like they do – ok, not exactly, BUT what the want is the natural result of being in the sun for long periods (historically the result of WORKING, but in the last 100 years those with time to spare (read: non-poor) have taken to languishing in the sun for whatever reason. But take the term “farmer tan” – a sort of condescending term, implying that one’s tan is similar to one actually gained from work – and thus uncool.

I don’t know if the previous paragraph makes sense, but the whole thing is funny/annoying to me.

But throw out everything and what you’re left with is that it is trendy to look dark (But not too dark! People with naturally dark/brown skin are scary! They will take your jobs and your women!). It is trendy and therefore people do it. People will take the path of least time (and often correspondingly most money). Even laying out in the sun all day actually takes time and *gasp* they don’t have that – time should be spent driving around in a hurry on a cell phone!

What really gets me is when people “tan” to like the nth degree and they look fucking orange. And they think this is hot. I mean, sure “hot” is subjective and all, but who the fuck thinks orange (and I’ve seen MUCH worse in real life, that’s just something that came up on the first google page) is hot? Well, them obviously I guess. And guys in general will fuck anything with a clear pathway to the funhole, orange or not. And Portland always has a decent amount of oranginas at any given point of the year. I mean, really, what are you supposed to think when you see them? “OH, they’ve obviously spent the last 4 months blasting their skin off on their yacht in the Caribbean!” I guess.

And it’s not like you could even CLAIM it is natural around here. At least lazy ass people in Cali who bakey bakey can try and be sly about it and pretend they were actually out in the sun (although of course they weren’t *gasp* working in it! That would be tacky! The work that is.). But here…no, no and NYET.

I guess it’s interesting that pale skin used to be the status symbol and now it’s flipped around. Oh, and don’t get me wrong, a tanned body can be HOT. But fake tan? You look nasty. But “Wait!” you say “I’m sure fake tans will eventually be indistinguishable from real tans!” Well, don’t you worry your pretty little orange head; I’m sure you’ll give me another reason to laugh at you.

Whatever, it’s annoying.

H. (P.?)

Christ.

Those kids are annoying.

A few weeks ago I was walking somewhere to find some food on my lunchbreak, and one of them turns around and starts pissing. He’s standing on the sidewalk, right behind a hotdog or some other bullshit vendor. Right on the side of the fucking courthouse. Or whatever it is – the thing immediately east of the square. His friend notices me staring (from across the street) and starts yelling “Stop looking!”. (He’s yelling it in that really retarded way urchins do when they want attention. Like 1/4 sing-songy, 1/2 down syndrom, and 1/4 directed at everyone but who they are actually yelling at so they can get everyone attention but make it look like they didn’t want it). Why? So he can PISS on the fence IN PRIVACY? In one of the busiest sections of downtown Portland? Fucking idiots. I just kind of stared for a while then moved along. You’d think I would know better, but people’s stupidity and lack of decency still amazes me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand some of how their values got they way they did (one piece: having not worked for any kind of property/ownership/achievement, how can one know the value of such?), but that in no way excuses anything they do in the least.

The same day, another one of them had a begging sign that said something like “Since you’re in my bedroom, can I bum some change?” Or something to that effect. Wow. Yeah, the street is totally your bedroom.  I mean, ok yeah it is where you sleep, but…whatever, you get the picture.  Plus, what is the logical connection between being in someone’s bedroom and giving them money?  Are we talking about a whore so trashy that she (or he if it’s a man-whore) bring business home??

I mean, I can’t stand beggars in general, but the Portland Urchins are some of the most obnoxious. Maybe because some of them seem to have a dress code? I think I’ll call it: “dirty, dirty, metal punk goth”. Because they act so entitled to things like pissing on the streets?

I’ve heard others say we/Portland attract so many urchins from around the country because of the generous amount of free food/soup kitchen type things we have. I have no knowledge of this, because I’m just not that in to local politics. Whatever the reason…maybe we need cut back for a while. Or just conscript them into the military or some kind of labor force.