gawd! metallica rawks!!!

man, i totally forgot how much metallica rocks!

i recently starting listening to them again after re-watching the great great joe berlinger documentary, paradise lost: the child murders at robin hood hills. the whole soundtrack is metallica, circa the masters of puppets years.

i had forgotten how masterful that album was, and was reminded how much i loved them.

my youthful trip into metal music began i think in 6th grade when i got the beastie boy's album, liscence to ill, for my birthday. you say, that's not metal! but... it featured slayer guitarist kerry king. that, my friends, got the head bangin'!

from there, i got into classic rock, zeppelin, hendrix, etc. at that point i think one of my brother's friends in boy scouts (he's 2 years older) got me into metal, and more specifically, metallica. from the scary, in your face imagery of their album covers and t-shirts, to the ferocity and energy of hetfield's vocals, to the power and ripping melodies of hammett's guitar solos, i was hooked!

favorite album? toss up. i swing towards master of puppets, but ...and justice for all i really think was their high point.

ahhh... so many memories: listening to the garage days re-revisited tape that i bought at the mall while driving with my aunt, sporting my justice shirt and headphones all the way to d.c. in a boy scout bus, headbanging while raking leaves to master of puppets, school dances where the 4 metal heads (who actually went to dances) begged the dj to play metallica, then they would put on one and everyone would clear out while we waited for the fast parts to kick in then go nuts...

metallica and i parted ways at the black album. i remember it being cool that they were getting huge with enter sandman, but once hetfield took singing lessons... done.

just put on ...and justice for all. it will get you rocking. hard.

a new movie i'm excited about

i saw the trailer for fido a few weeks back on fangoria.com

this looks soooo awesome!

it's like pleasantville meets romero's day of the dead, starring carrie anne moss and tim blake nelson (both with three word names... coincidence or clever casting?)

check it out:

fido trailer

send a reverse postcard

i thought of a fun thing to do when your co-workers go on vacation - send 'em a postcard from the office! find out where they are staying, get the address and send a postcard just so they know "what they're missing."

for added impact, use really bland imagery on the front: take a picture of your cubicles, the front of your ugly office building, the person's empty desk, etc.

just something fun and silly. my co-worker sara is off this week, chilling out at home, so i'll be sending her a little something in the mail.

your boring job may cause cancer

i heard somewhere that if you have a job where you have to say the same words or phrases day in and day out, that you run the risk of getting throat cancer. i guess the theory is that repetitive use of the same section of your vocal chords will wear them out.

throat cancer's greatest hits:

"do you want fries with that?"

"does this package contain anything fragile, liquid, perishable or potentially hazardous?"

"good morning, (insert company name here) how may i direct your call?"

so choose your profession carefully. it may cause cancer.

my summer - the sequel

with the opening today of pirates of the caribbean 3, i feel like i'm living the same summer over and over and over... but it's not exactly the same: it's like someone photocopied my summer. it's not quite as good, the tones and colors aren't exact, the subtle shades aren't apparent. then, someone took that photocopy and photocopied it. magnifying all of the imperfections and murkiness.

pirates 3 , shrek 3, spiderman 3. enough! enough! enough!

okay, so i haven't seen any of these movies (no, not films, there is a difference) and will most likely see spiderman and that's it. (it's sam raimi, i'm obligated.)

why do people feel the need to go and see all these sequels? is it that we are so "short" on time in our lives that we can't stand the idea of "wasting" 2 hours on something that might not entertain? "well, the last 2 movies were good, so we have to go see the next one..."

you know what? i saw shrek (the first one.) that was enough.

come on.

if you keep going, they'll keep making this crap. look at shrek 3 - top grossing weekend blah blah blah. and the reviews are pretty horrible.

it's weird - a little indie film (yes, there is a difference between a film and movie) like little miss sunshine comes out last summer and makes $70 mil! how does that happen, and why doesn't hollywood pick up on that?

here's an idea. make a really good film for $5 mil. market the crap out of it for say $25 mil. that's a total of $30 mil. say you make $75 mil at the box office, that's $40 mil profit, before video! why do you need to spend $200 mil making a crappy movie? for the cost of one shrek 3, you could make 40 really good films. 40.

please make good films. stop hedging bets on crappy sequels.

and if you are going to make sequels, how about the breakfast club?

anyone else have ideas?

mmm... beets

man, there's something about beets! i know, i know, the inner child in you says yuuuukkkkk!!!!! beets! blech. but i've recently discovered that there's something so great and tasty about the humble, rooty beet.

when i was a kid, i think i had some bad experiences. either school lunches or my mom's bad vegetable serving practices. canned? no way. badbadbad. fresh from the ground, local if possible.

they are so sweet, and have a pleasant firmness, if cooked properly. i last had them with a roasted chicken - just chunk up potatoes, onions, carrots and some beets. throw in some olive oil, pepper, salt. slap a roasting chicken in there after slathering with butter. 375 in the oven? something like that.

anyway... really tasty.

another great recent beet experience: american flatbread, towards the end of last summer. in burlington, right across from the farmer's market in city hall park, american flatbread gets a lot of local and/or organic veggies from the market and throws them on top of the daily specials. well, one night they were offering a special with beets. i had to try beet pizza, i mean come on!

turns out, one of the tastiest pies i've ever eaten (their beer was the perfect compliment)

do yourself a favor. take another look at beets. chances are they don't taste the way you remember them. oh, and you can dye your hair with them. and other stuff.

why the title?

we are the terrorists. why? well... take a good look at this guy. our fearful leader. imagine that you live in iraq, you have brownish skin and have to worry that you will be ripped from your home and tortured for no reason. or that your house and loved ones could be destroyed at any moment.

why do people in american fear terrorism? do we even know what true terror is? would terror for us be to not be allowed to shop at wal-mart? or not having 2 cars? or a 3-car garage? or seeing shrek 3?

look at it from another perspective - the other side. our leader "gets his orders from god." how is that any different than a leader in the middle east? our leader is motivated by power and money. again, no difference.

how many thousands of people in the middle east have died at the hands of americans? - i wish i could say "died at the hands of white people," but u.s. soldiers are poor and the majority are not white (because rich white folks don't fight wars.)

why does the rest of the world hate us? we are greedy, fat, lazy and ignorant. the last time i went to montreal - even the homeless people i spoke to were bi-lingual... not me.

just a little perspective shift - to let you know where i'm coming from.