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This is the Christmas card to send me. I think it’s great. Unfortunately, all Gingers don’t have the same sense of humor that I do.

It’s times like these that I wish that heaven and hell actually existed because I’m sure this asshole would be roasting about now. 

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies in Calif. at age 91

This kind of thing drives me nuts. The cops arrest someone for doing something that’s not illegal and charge them for resisting arrest.

- Note: This is the first I’ve used Windows Live Writer for a blog post.

This is not me.

In my seemingly hopeless quest to stop being a fat ass, I joined a gym yesterday. It’s an LA fitness close to where I work. I picked this particular gym for two main reasons: a friend of mine goes there and recommended it and it’s close to work. Having a friend to work out with is the main reason I decided to go there. It also doesn’t hurt that there aren’t scores of teenage kids meandering all over the place like the last gym I went to.(it was a community center).  As an added bonus, the scenery is very nice. Unless you’re a gay man. Probably nice for lesbians though.

In any case, they offer a free session with a personal trainer. The purpose of this session is to give you an idea of what a personal trainer can do for you, and to convince you to start paying for said personal trainer. Well, I figured, it’s free, what the hell. So, even though I had no intention of spending $100-$200 a month on something I got in the army and high school football for free, I had a session with the personal trainer. He    kicked     my     fat ass. Holy shit. It was probably 30 minutes total. 5 minutes on a treadmill to warm up and then it was all calisthenics. Of course I’m very much out of shape, but I didn’t expect to be crushed so easily with my own body weight. (I should have known better considering how much body weight I have). Here’s some advice for all you personal trainers out there: don’t make the first session so painful that your prospective client can’t walk up and down stairs for days afterward. That’s probably not a good idea.

After receiving my personal trainer ass kicking, I decided to spend 20 minutes or so on the elliptical machine. (my heart rate was at 150 after the calisthenics). The elliptical that I was on was close to the large room where they have aerobics classes.  Through the glass walls, I could see everyone in there dancing to whatever music they have playing. Luckily I can’t hear the music. But, I do have my own music being played through my headphones. So all of those dancy people were unknowingly dancing to Machinehead’s Aesthetics of Hate. Which made me giggle. I’m sure my giggling made me look even dorkier than your standard fat man on an exercise machine -  bonus dorky for all those around me.

Here’s another tip for everyone out there: When I mentioned that I just joined a gym, it is useless and annoying to start telling me about all the other gyms I could have joined for cheaper. Seriously. Stop it. Don’t make me kill you.

Since I’m a atheistic scrooge, here’s all the Christmas spirit I can muster…

I own 1 CD from Pitchfork’s top 500 of 2000 and I wish I hadn’t bought it. (Mastadon’s Leviathan – I could never get into that band). Obviously my definition of music doesn’t match Pitchfork’s. So I decided to pick my favorite albums of the last 10 years (more or less). All of these are albums that I couldn’t stop listening to when they came out and that I still listen to often today.

Here’s the list in no particular order

The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance (2006)

Ha! Who’d have figured I’d start this list off with an Emo band? I’d never heard of this band until Guitar Hero 2 came out for the Xbox360. The Xbox360 version had 10 more songs than the PS2 version and Dead by My Chemical Romance was one of them. It quickly became one of my favorite songs in the game so I bought the whole album. The album reminds me a little The Wall by Pink Floyd. (sacrilege!)

Toxicity – System of a Down (2001)

Iowa – Slipknot (2001)

I bought these two albums on the same day in 2001. They came out within a week of each other. It was a good week. I really liked all of SOAD stuff from the last 10 years but Toxicity was their best.

Robot Hive Exodus – Clutch (2005)

This CD did not leave the CD player in my truck for about 4 months. It’s just barely better than Blast Tyrant – Clutch was on a roll in the mid 00s. And seriously, in how many songs can you sing in binary?

Hybrid Theory – Linkin Park (2000)

I’m sure to get grief for picking this album but I really like Linkin Park. Well at least until their last album and the really bad remixes they’ve released.

Better Life – Three Doors Down (2000)

Just a solid rock album. Their later stuff is a bit too sappy for me but this album was very good.

Mushroomhead – XIII (2003)

No one else I know likes Mushroomhead so I may be off my rocker. I’ve liked all of their albums since XX.

Machinehead – The Blackening (2007)

Probably the heaviest music on this list. Aesthetics of Hate is one of my favorite songs of the decade. Too bad I still can’t even get close to being able to play it on drums in Rock Band.

Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope (2006)

What? A non-metal album? - John Scalzi’s blog is a daily read for me. He frequently will post links to music that he’s listening to or likes. Most of the time, I can’t stand any of it. (it’s heavy on 80s pop music – shudder!). Every once in a while he’ll post something good. Regina Spektor’s Fidelity from Begin to Hope was one of those posts.

Eminem – The Eminem Show (2002)
I don’t usually go for rap but for some reason I like this album. I don’t like anything else Eminem has made but I played this album quite a bit when it came out.

All That Remains – The Fall of Ideals (2006)

Every song (except one – The Weak Willed ) on this album is awesome. The drumming is crazy good. This band does something that I wish more screaming metal band would do; they mix singing with screaming. The only song on this album that I don’t like is the one where the vocalist doesn’t sing.

Gamma Ray – Majestic (2005)
A little old school power metal. Vocals are completely opposite of what you usually hear in metal today. I’m sure the singer has to squeeze his testicles to get up that high.

There’s some story that runs throughout this album but I don’t usually pay attention to lyrics so I have no idea what it is. It’s probably best that way.





Sanctity – Road to Bloodshed (2007)

I can’t remember where I heard these guys but their album rocks.



Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue (2009)

This one barely makes the list. I’m a little hesitant to put it on here because it hasn’t been out that long. But, I figured that since I’ve been playing it nonstop since I got it, it should probably go on here. I really didn’t expect much from this album. I was very surprised at how good it is.



Trivium – Ascendancy (2005)

Another metal band that does a good job of mixing singing and screaming. There’s also a lot of old school 80s type thrash playing on this album.

Worst:

I figured I would mention the two albums I disliked the most from the last 10 years. (other than just about everything on the previously mentioned Pitchfork list).

Metallica – St Anger (2003)

When I saw Metallica on the Summer Sanitarium tour, they opened the show with 4 songs from the 80s. It was awesome. Then they played Frantic. Everyone sat down. It was like an intermission. Time to get a beer, go to the bathroom, pick your nose…

Metallica was going through therapy when they made this album and it shows. The production on the album is god awful. There are no solos. They tuned the guitars way down and then repeat two or three riffs for 6 minutes for each song. Hetfield’s singing is dreadful. They let Bob Rock play bass. Just an awful awful album. These fuckers should send out refunds to all their fans for this mess.

Judas Priest – Nostradamus (2008)

This is a double CD of drone. After Angel of Retribution I was expecting something good. Nope. This album is slow, sloppy and droning. You can tell that these dudes are in their 60s.

Office Space is one of my favorite movies of all time. I even liked Idiocracy. So I was looking forward to seeing Extract. There were a few funny parts but for the most part it wasn’t that good. It has a very sitcom-ish plot. Oh well.

On a slightly related topic, a co-worker of mine was recently laid-off. He found out a couple of weeks before it was official. So for those two weeks he changed the name tag on his cube to Samir Nagheenanajar. He has a great sense of humor. I’ll miss having him around the office.