Once upon a time, I was planning to keep this site in a more "professional-ish" side. But as I've gotten older, more tired of bullshit, and generally, have a lot of opinions, I decided to come back to this page, and create a new section of shorter opinions, and then I might expand on them. AT one point, I was going to write a whole new website for this, but I realized nobody of any consequence reads this part of the site anyway....and maybe I'll consider becoming a supporter....someday. Besides, not that anybody cares, and venting is therapeutic to me.
| Music
| Music to me is many things. For starters, it's a way to calm down, a way to party, a way to state a message to the public that's emotionally and often logically meaningful, a way to showcase talent, and a way to most importantly have fun. What it isn't to me, is a meal ticket to being a rich, drug addled, adulterous douchebag who thinks he's a universal expert on the universe - which unforutnatley seems to be the general opinion of the more self-described "ambitious" people I've been with. It's to be taken seriously - to an extent, but not so much that you start alienating everyone around you, most importantly, the other musicians you are working with. Nothing good comes out of that. I play music because that's what I enjoy doing, and if I wasn't enjoying it, I would no longer be doing it.
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| Technology
| Technology is supposed to be there to make our lives easier. It seems though that more and more late-stage capitalism is using it as a way to try and slip one by the non-tech-savvy public. The whole point of a computer is to create and curate data, whether that data is a sheet of statistics for business use, or audio data to create music with without a studio the size of a warehouse with millions of dollars in vintage analog gear no regular person can afford. THe whole point of a smartphone is to provide a short-term, small capacity access device to the internet, while also providing functions for calling and texting. I'm not evern sure WHAT the point of a "tablet" is other than as a heavily castrated "computer". A video game console is supposed to PLAY VIDEO GAMES - not take over the job my PC is to do. But hey, Consumertards continue to buy this shit so they can brag about all the stupid functions it does that are not the primary purpose of it, or even the intent of it origianlly, because humans are basically egocentric chimpanzees these days.
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| Video Games
| Video Games are intended to be ENTERTAINMENT! That's it! Escapism. A way to get away from your life for awhile and be someone else or do at least something else and something entertaining using technology. I don't use my Atari 2600 to get on the internet, or my NES to process spreadsheets - so why in the absolute monkey's patoot does a friggin Playstation need a Web Browser, a chat client, an e-mail client, and a desktop JUST BUY A FRIGGIN PC ALREADY!!!. My frickin' 486 can do all those things better than a modern game console can...so why bother?
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| Guitar
| Guitar is one of the most versitile instruments in the world besides the synthesizer. You can do all sorts of awesome sonic things with a guitar - electric or acoustic, as long as you can learn to find ways to make it work for you in a way you like the sound of. Go look around, there's guys who can beat box on acoustic while playing a instrumental rhythm and melody line at the time time, or people who can create great, lush, sonic soundscapes with just a sampler, pedalboard, and an electric. There are bassists out there who can play full instrumental pieces on a friggin BASS. A guitar can even sound like a synthesizer with some decent hardware (one only knows....I'm building a self-contained Guitar Synth system of my own right now).
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| Musical Tribalism
| Everyone asks what the "music culture" of the "2020's" or "2010's" is, and the fact is, I don't know either, nor do I care. I'm quite HAPPY that "Musical Tribalism" is over. I really got sick and tired of getting in fights with the Grungers about using a whammy bar and right-hand-hammer-ons on my guitar, I got really sick and tired of fighting with "metalheads" because they seem to think every damn song needs to be tuned to Drop-Z 12 steps down and played below the 3rd fret because they want to "out heavy Korn". I'm sick and tired of all the early 2000's arguing with Hot Topic Goth people over the fact I refuse to wear cargo pants and fishnet tank tops. I got tired of all the assumptions I'm a "dad rocker" because I listen to 80's Arena Rock and New Wave. I got sick and bloody tired of every Liam and Noel Gallagher wannabe on the internet starting fights with me because I listen to 80's Hair Metal, and similiarly, fighting with every pussy-addict Poodle Hair farmer over my choice of guitar! Or dealing with some pansy in a Man Bun telling me to turn the distortion off my Jazzmaster because "Clean tone" is the "in" thing now. Musical Tribalism is a grave I lovingly take a piss on. Fuck all these stupid "labels". It's sucking all the originality out of Rock N' Roll!
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| "Are You Gonna' Get In Another Band?"
| Let's see, from my experience, getting into a band means I (a middle-aged lead guitarist with a full time career and an unhealthy gear obsession), will be joining a (hyper-narcisscistic, self-righteous, egomaniacal, sex/drugs/alcohol obsessed) lead singer, a (quiet, reliable, and lovable) bassist, a (consummate gear snob with a Gibson SG/Les Paul/PRS/FAno/Vintage Jazzmaster) rhythm guitarist (who might also be singer), and a (stand up comedian with more common sense than any of us) for a drummer. This congealed mess of personalities with zero personal chemistry but 105% musical chemistry will create some of the best rock and roll you'll ever hear in your lifetime, and then break up six months to six years later when the lead singer fucks someone in the band (or their girlfriend), the 4th or 5th drummer quits (or gets arrested for driving under the influence), the bassist decides he'd rather be a good family man and take care of his wife and kids, or I get into a physical altercation out of longtime repressed anger (most likely with the lead singer), who then tries to use my wife who he's maybe talked two (and probably tried to get into her pants) twice, as a reason I left the band after being angry in silence for months/years to keep the whole personal shitshow that's also a great live show going. Why do I want to live in this shitmess when I'm perfectly happy makign songs at home on my computer and posting them to my YouTUbe channel for fun and comments?
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| If I Were to Form A Band
| Here's what I'd do. I'd form a TIGHT, 3 piece, of three, logical, intelligent, label-hating, drug-free, independant people like myself. We would be HIGH TECH. IE, we'd use amp modelers, voice effects, sequencers, an electric kit, and try to take the traditional ZZ Top style power trio to a level that would give Nine INch Nails some competition. The kind of people? My idea? Singing Bassist, and one kick-ass drummer whose not afraid of technology. Then we would incognito - to the local scene - write, rehearse, and tighten up our act, while we viet the clubs in town to weed out all the clubs that have a awful reputation, so we know WHO to avoid. THen, once we have a tight 45+ minute set put together - WE STRIKE. We hit the bars, every gig we can at those clubs, and play our asses off, and have fun doing it. Not for money - but for EXPOSURE - at first, then slowly introduce the financial element as we gain more appeal and develop value on the local scene. Once we have enough people wanting to listen to our music outside of a club - we record originals ourselves, on a computer, for $0.00, costing us only time, and then we release it on places like Apple Music and Spotify - pure Punk Rock DIY Style. And if it comes to just being a local act, great, let's have fun, if it grows out of being a local act, then awesome. I wouldn't mind kicking off a mean prog neo-new-wave scene that way.
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| Gear Snobs
| Gear Snobs are the kind of people who either learned to play well but give their gear too much credit for WHY they play well, or they play like shit and think a $3000 Gibson and a $5000 Marshall is going to suddenly turn them into Jimmy Page over night, even though they practice less than an hour a week, and spend more time posing in a mirror with their super-expensive guitar than they do PLAYING it. They're also the guys who will put down a kid starting out on a Squier because his parent's didn't just hand him a botique instrument off the bat like a moron, or will piss on the guy playing killer Led Zeppelin covers on a Chibson he upgraded and modified because he spends more time practicing than doing his day job. I hate gear snobs. Gear snobs suck. Don't be a gear snob.
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| Squier
| I love Squier, Squier makes great guitars, and I appreciate that they are at least TRYING to keep the prices down on their stuff. They're doing the work I wish they had done in the 90's. They also make an awesome modification platform for relentless gear tinkerers like me. Though I do fear them going the way of Epiphone and just becoming the "mid priced Fender" line someday, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the branding if you ask me. But still, Fender putting out sub-$500 Jaguars, Mustangs, Bass VIs, and Jazzmasters....about frickin' time! Honestly, I know the snobs would call me a weirdo for this, but I frickin' LOVE the Affinity series necks! Skinny, fast, modern fretboard radius. Awesome.
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| Fender
| Fender also makes some great guitars but they are seriously out of reach to anyone whose not seriously playing shows every night and who lack the technical abilities to bring a Squier up as needed, and the price keeps getting higher and higher to make me almost want to consider them simliar to Gibson these days. Don't get me wrong, I love Fenders, but I don't see myself affording one anytime in the near future, and like I need one anyway, my collection is insane enough as it is for a middle-class non-rich, non-famous guy. And plus, I have the models I want to copy for myself anyway. Of course, the Jaguar is my #1 favorite off-the rack models, me and Strats and Teles have an affair going way way back, and the Jag-Stang, as polarizing as it is, is a mean monster with some high output pickups in it with the fatness to rival any hotted up Gibson.
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| Epiphone
| Epiphone can be great but I think their consistency is not as good as Squier. I've played a lot of them and there's been some real jewels, and some real junk. My 2008 "Les Paul" Special II is an awesome axe I got for free from a dumpster, but I've played some brand new Standards that made me cringe. Of course, some of my critique is being a relentless tinkerer, I'm not a fan of the "set neck" stuff as much, but it's better than when Squier tried to put out a Set-Neck guitar (seriously, the Double Fat Tele Deluxe was a NIGHTMARE to set up with a non-recessed strat bridge with a carved top and a set neck...those saddles would not get low enough). Of the reissues, I really like their Firebirds and Explorers.
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| Gibson
| Great guitars but also great wallet-busters. I've heard of duds but I've played so few Gibsons the few I've played were great instruments (but also the few I've played were all from some really great times in their manufacturing, though most of what I've played has been 70's Norlin and 80's era Gibson guitars). I'm partial to the Explorer, Firebird, and some iterations of the SG myself. I also like some Les PAuls, a friend of mine had the Zakk Wylde setup in his 89' in High School, and my first Gibson experience was on a Les Paul custom that cost $1050. One of my favorite vintage Gibsons I've ever played though, was a Alpine White 1967 SG Special with a Vibrola, which some friends in father in the Keys got in high school.
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| Paul Reed Smith
| I've only ever played one and it was a great instrument. It was a turquoise Custom 24 at a guitar store like....20 years ago. It had low fast action, stayed in tune, and was fun to play. I also have played some of the import Mark Tramonti SE models before, and I like them, but I'd prefer a Odyssey or Hondo Paul Dean guitar instead. That said, I do have issues with their owners like I do with Les Paul owners, except this time it's some "Blues Lawyer" with more money than musical skill telling me how I need a small combo and need to lay back - because I'm eatin' him for breakfast with a good Billy Gibbons-esque delivery on a guitar 1/10th the cost.
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| Kramer
| Kramer, king of the 80's. Why would I NOT like Kramers. Every guy I listened to from the 80's that I like most likely has had some form of Kramer guitar....Bon JOvi, Elliot Easton, Paul Dean, Howard Leese, George Lynch, Joe Satriani, Ritchie Sambora, Vivian Campbell....the name dropping never stops, I know. Kramer was my first guitar, a red Focus 3000 which I still have, and I've owned quite a few over the years. Never met a truly bad Kramer that wasn't abused in a previous life.
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| Apple
| Apple is a walled garden of pre-obsolete computers and mobile devices aimed at people who believe just because something costs more money it's a better product than something reasonably priced and designed to allow the user full control of their device offically. Most people I know who gloat about their iPhone or iPad or iMac are usually the type who are utterly clueless as to what they even have these devices for outside of a status symbol, let alone how they work or can be truly useful for what technology is truly for. "I have an Apple, I have an Apple, Apple is the bestest!" they say - well "Why" I ask? They basically are like a light-duty Google.
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| Microsoft
| Microsoft is a authoritarian organization that only has a market because clueless management and clueless businesspeople have not the foggiest idea what technology is really for, or at least, how we ACHIEVE something using technology that has any inherent value. They seem to start copying other companies every few years, whoever is the most popular, trying to relive their glory days of Windows 95 which they ruined with the integration of Internet Explorer into the explorer.exe shell. For a glimmering short period of hope in the middle of the 1990's, Microsoft seemed to be on a right track, but just like a lead singer who got some good head from an attractive chick, it all went to their head and they got greedy! Greed, it's the American way. So now they try and attract people back with "free" Windows every time they screw up.
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| Linux
| A OpenSource, Free, de-centralized clone of Unix with a Kernel developed by a guy who I have no qualms with - probably because he's not in the Tech media every other damn week blabbing about something stupid like the so called Tech Bros do. You can find all sorts of "flavors" of it for free on the internet, and run it on a computer as old as 10-15 years old and actually USE that computer for something useful. Hell, the kernel still runs on your old rusty Pentium or even 486 in some distributions now. Now if only we can do something about these Linux wizards who take out their Incel status on "newbs" like somehow knowing an operating system that doesn't have a stock trader title makes them better than everyone else.
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| Windows 11
| LTSC is okay, SaaS can suck my ****. I'm hoping the exclusion and dimemberment of IE pushes organizations to start developing more universal web-apps that work in every browser rather than just various shades of "Chrome".
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| Windows 10
| A bloody roller coaster of an Operating System. It started out great, then I pissed off Microsoft submitting too many bug reports with the Experience tool, and they started having a lot of problems. Then a colleague found an HP Driver flaw and got HP involved, and it was fixed for awhile for the most part, then we had another wave of the Bitlocker Apocalypse due to changes to BCD Boot Code and Bitlocker, then smooth sailing, then it bricked my Toshiba Sattelite from 2009 because they dropped driver support in 10 and decided all the old drivers should no longer work, then they brought it back....up and down, up and down...I finally got sick of dealing with this for free and got Linux Mint instead, and relegated Windows to my "money maker" status.
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| Windows 8.x
| Microsoft decides to integrate the leftovers of Windows Phone into a "start Screen" that makes me using Windows 3.1 in 2013 look more professional. Suddenly, all over the corporate landscape, employees with glee could play Candy Crush Saga, post internal photos on Fakebook, and get in flame wars in politics with their colleagues in Twitter. All the while, guys like me are sick of having to obscure all our fucking programs to access our regular programs because "touch screens"
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| Windows 7
| The last great Windows ever made by Microsoft. Stable, solid, a bit slow to boot, but it ran great, and it was fairly secure in it's time. Just ditch IE for Firefox and you're golden with it. It was also the last time I could open up a FAT-16 just-barely-ATA hard disk from a 1990's PC on a USB to IDE adapter in Windows without resorting to a VM with XP-7 to do it.
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| Windows Vista
| It was great when it was in beta and we could download it free to try and break it, because Microsoft didn't put the *bloatware* in it yet. Then the official release came out and it was probably the second worst thing to Windows Me in it's respective prime.
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| Windows XP
| The second last greatest version of Windows that I slammed a lot when new because I was just starting in tech and computers seriously, and every fat admin type in my social circle was telling me to do a whole range of illegal, narcisscistic, and manipulative things to get a Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon running this O/S because I was stuck a penniless teenaged high schooler with a 486 and Windows 3.1. But I eventually got it in 2008 and it was great for the 2-3 years I used it until I got a student Windows 7 Pro license to use for awhile.
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| Windows 2000 Professional
| THIS was even better than XP, and I still use it to this day for data recovery and to push a 486 into the Windows-version of a 21st Century. It boots fast, even on a DX4-100 with 16MB of RAM, and somehow runs Firefox 10 on a 486 with 64MB of RAM. Why Microsoft couldn't have pulled an Apple with THIS instead of 10 is anyone's guess.
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| Windows 98 SE
| 98 SE was the best of the 9x series, even better if you strip out IE and put 98lite on it. Runs at blazing speed on a 486 DX2-40 SL NEC Versa 40EC with 20 MB of RAM that way. I ran 98 sE into the ground from 2001-2006. The only reason I don't use it now is because I find most of my 98 SE software runs under Wine natively without Winetricks.
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| Windows 95
| About the same as 98, except more choice, and pre OSR versions, you basically had the same experience as Windows 3.1x but with the better 95 interface and memory management.
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| Windows 3.1x
| The first version of Windows that wasn't a useless toy, especially Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with it's built in networking (TCP/IP installed separatley). I have many fond hours in this O/S even with it's quirks. It was kind of like a fine sidekick with some personality flaws and a bad memory but overall was a great collaborator.
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| All the Windows before that (1.x, 2.x, 3.0)
| Basically, useless kludges to suck up RAM on your 286 or 386 PC pointlessly to do the same shit you could do in DOS with a pretty interface. I seriously think this is where the whole "End Luser" paradigm got started. Basically a way to get technophobic Tina in Accounting to learn to use a computer when she's afraid it will become a robot that will steal her inhaler for fuel.
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| MS-DOS
| Basically a test O/S made by Tim Patterson at Seattle Computer Products for an 8086+ micro computer and tweaked by Microsoft to hide that fact after they bluffed IBM that they had an Operating System for their new PC (the IBM PC 5150 that came out in August 1981). A great, single-tasking, single-user, open, blank slate of an O/S that could be anything you wanted it to be as long as it could start within what was left of the 640K of base memory available to executables.
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| FreeDOS
| Jim Hall is to FreeDOS what Linus Torvaldes is to Linux. FreeDOS is a DOS Compatible OpenSOurce operating system that runs in all not-too-outside-standard IBM Compatible PC's from the original PC from 1981 to anything that has CSM and can boot in "Legacy Mode". It's my DOS of choice now, and operating system of choice for all my 486 and older systems at this point. With the work of a certain Japeth did for HX....I truly think if the FreeDOS Community really puts the code in, we could have a truly solid "retro OS" that keeps vintage and antique computers useful.
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| SaaS (Software as a Service)
| Basically, instead of going to a store, buying a box with a CD/Floppies/USB drive in it, you buy a non-tangible license that you pay a "fee" for every month to use the damn software. Whoever thought of this needs to be drug out into the street and flogged by someone in a bee suit with a Hornet's Nest. I already have enough bills a frickin month: power, electricity, water, internet, credit cards, cell phone, car insurance, renter's insurance, pet rent, regular rent....why the fuck do i want to add one more scummsuckin' pile of money onto the pile of crap I have to pay for once a month. SCREW SAAS! It's a big reason I've dumped most of the major corporate operating systems for Linux at this point, because I don't see gIMP pestering me for $24.99 a month! I don't see Mozilla Foundation pestering me for Firefox! Libre Office doesn't tell me I can't change Fonts because I'm not a "Deluxe Super Uber User" who pays $109/mo for their software. So why subject myself to that crap when there are free OpenSource options available. If I'm putting money down, there'd better be a BOX and some PHYSICAL MEDIA involved, and I only pay you ONCE - otheriwse, don't waste my time.
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| The Internet
| The Internet was once a place of government officials (who pass far more as government officials than today's "government officials" if you ask me), scientists, scholars, students, and tech guys like me. We all hung around and freely exchanged information and ideas in peace among the rest of our intelligent, and educated populace. Then Al Gore put a bunch of money into it, and slowly trickled in the regular mainstream users who made it popular, yes, but at what cost? Soon we saw pop-up ads, viruses, scammers, stolen software, stolen music, social media, and a focus on image and impressing others over information and intelligence. Now the place is basically a bunch of us old timers scratching our heads at all the forceful ads of Tech Bro led companies, authoritarian stances by said tech companies, a constant barriage of security issues introduced by people trying to make it easier for idiots to run amok online talking about their clothes and who they slept with last night. A place where people have forgotten what lane they are in, let alone how to stay in it.
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| YouTube
| Once was a fun place to make 15 minute or less videos on your den, garage, basement, bedroom, or studio apartment, sharing your passion with a community you probably built yourself. Now it's basically one giant advertising vector - the 10 foot needle in the vein of the world looking to inject you with a case of the "gimmies" so you buy more useless crap you don't need because some obnoxious manchild with a channel and an ADHD problem needs to hit you over the head with squarespace and Nord VPN every 5 minutes. A place where guys like me are increasingly becoming less welcome due to our honesty and shoestring production values, and guys who act like they drank 10 Red Bulls and have a passing interest in Skibidi Toilet hang out to make us old folks feel exhausted.
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| Facebook (aka "Fakebook")
| A social media platform run by a manchild with the mental constitution of a three year old ("Fuckerberg" as I call him), so that your elderly family members can all scream obnoxious shit straight out of an Alex Jones episode at each other like a bunch of 14 year olds arguing NIrvana vs. Snoop Dog on the playground. The place your spouse forces you to get an account because "if it didn't happen on fakebook, it didn't happen", or doesn't want you to quit until you start ranting in such an unhinged tone everyone's surprised Zuckerburg hasn't perma-banned you already. It's also filled with ads, and the algorithm assumes your gender, political affiliations, and other things worse than YouTube does.
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| Reddit
| Basically a giant forum for everything run by shareholders claiming to be the "Voice of the internet". If this is the "voice of the internet", we're in really big trouble. I mean, here's a place that needed monetary reason to shut down unhealthy subreddits like r/watchpeopledie or r/redpill or r/mgtow, yet perma-banned ME for getting doxxed by a MAGA Hat 5 years ago. A lot of subs have moderators who apparently are revived zombies from HItler's own regime (maybe they'er working for Orange Scourage now). It CAN be useful for stuff, but I find 99.7% of the tiem I read a Reddit thread since my exile, it's not nearly as useful as an actual forum from a website run by an actual fan of the subject. Just seems to be "Forums for people who don't know how to use old-timey webforums" because anything with a UI that doesn't look like their stupid-phones scares them.
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| Atari
| Once upon a time, Atari was some sort of weirdly disgraced company to sit beside the future spot of Tesla, and the then current spots of DeLorean, Edsel, the Bell Network, and Exxon Oil. But somehow, in recent years, they've been doing a damn fine job of redeeming themselves, though it seems so many Atari Fanboys out there are whining that it's not "the same Atari" - of course not, but I heard Nolan Bushnell is on the panel, so it's about as close as it's going to get without a Time Machine from Doc Brown. I say enjoy it, andI think the 2600+ and 7800+, and the smaller size of the company, and more grass-roosty communications to their fanbase is an example Nintendo and the others could really learn from (especially Nintendo). I'm wishing Atari a lot of good luck in their new time as long as they keep up the good work and don't turn into another Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.
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| Nintendo
| Ah, Nintendo, now like the Disney of Video Game companies. Not that suing your fanbase is a stranger to any of the others, but christ, Nintendo is kind of like the rock band that refuses to play their hits on tour. They want to bury all the songs theyh don't want on the setlist (Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros 3.) hoping you'll buy a new album. These guys need to eat some Humble Pie, and maybe take a look at what Atari is doing. I don't see Atari silencing someone just because they want to whine about Mr. Run and Jump (honestly, Mr. Run and Jump is better than any damn thing Nintendo has come out with recently IMHO).
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| Sony
| I always saw the Playstation series as the game console for people who are frightened of their own potential immaturity by acting like a teenage edgelord. This all stemmed from Nintendo's "Family Friendly Standards" from above, sort of the W.B. To Nintendo's Disney. They don't have bad games, I love the Twisted Metal and Armored Core series, but honestly, they caught me at a bad time, I was learning Guitar by then, and not really interested in a game that I needed to dedicate hours to unless it was 8-bit NES Dragon Warrior.
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| PC Vs. Console
| I really have no preference for one over the other. Remember, I'm a relentless tinker, and my computer is no exception. Hell, I have a gaming rig in the garage I'm building right now as of this writing. But sometimes, I really like the idea of being able to play a damn game without having to spend minutes to hours putzing about with Direct X, compatibility layer, .NET, Vulcan Shaders, GPU Drivers, BIOS/UEFI settings, SoundBlaster settings, or hacking in soundcard hardware drivers as it goes with DOS games sometimes. Sometimes it's nice to just slap in a cartridge and a controller - and just GO. After all, isn't the point of gaming supposed to be having fun and escapism, and relaxing? Not spending hours trying to play with hardware?
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| Religion
| I've been a "religious tourist" most of my life. I've been a mild observer of multiple strains of christannity including Baptist, Lutheran, Catholicism, and Messianic Judaism. That said, I'm with George Carlin when I say "keep your flying spaghetti monster stories to yourself". I lived in the deep south for 18 freakin' years of my childhood and had to deal with more than my fair share of people who self-righteously and selectively rattle off bible verses at random to cast a pall of judgement. It seems they all forget the damn line "may he without sin cast the first stone" - yet these same people are the kind of assholes that then either ask or outright call you a "sinner" and then comes the 33:16s and 47:19s and the Lukes, and the Johns, and the Corinithians, and the Romulans, and the Karadasians (shakes head). That's why I just consider myself a "religious tourist" rather than anything specific, all the while holding the belief that when you die, you just hang out in a black, dark, weightless, nothingness - true peace, no bills, no judgement, no people making stupid nosies, nothing but whatever your possible energy feels of the situation. Personally, I find it relaxing, some other people...probably not so much. Seems like the most realistic possibility.
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| Brick and Mortar Shopping
| You know what, there's one reason I DO like E-commerce, and that's because I don't need to deal with the hell that is going to a store with the rest of the population. Not because I think I'm better, but because I'm bothered by how much worse the majority tends to be in public. Let's see, I drive to the store on a crowded street with people who hardly have driving skills so bad I wouldn't trust them with a Big Wheel. Then I have to fight for a parking spot with people who despite having a much newer vehicle with a backup camera seem to ignore it and prefer the "drive by sound" method, while dealing with the others who lap the parking lot like it's the Indy 500 of passenger cars because they just need to waddle their fat ass into the store from a front spot, even at the expense of someone with a REAL need and handicap stickers on their car. Then I have to avoid any sort of solicitors by the front door, most likely kids being pimped out for their underfunded school extracurricular programs, so I can hunt for the smallest cart I can find, only to find that the idiots smashed them all up with their cars or that the local tweeker ran off with them to carry his collection of portable latrines. Then I deal with all the unattentive fucktards IN the store, blocking me, ignoring my presense, and generally, making me start to feel like Postal Dude with a brand new Napalm Launcher! I find half the shit I want or need that say's it ins store on some "App" I Don't want or even have a use for is not at the store because the stoned fucktards running the inventory system that hasn't been refreshed since 1988 never updated their stock. Meanwhile, I have to call the wife 300 times whose getting irate with me because I'm trying to come home to a PEACEFUL home because she's not stating something specific about something on the list she made that I NEED to make the right choice. Then I come to the front, find all the cashier lines are full of people stocking up like the Nuclear Holocaust is coming tomorrow, the self-check is blinking like a goddamn flightline at the airport at midnight, and then I have to show my stupid recipt to the greeter up front because he think's I'm so desparate I'm going to steal a $2.99 can of fake cheese! All the while I have to listen to irritating Pop music from people like Katy Perry (who we should have left in space)!
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| Driving
| Driving in America is kind of like trying to get somewhere safely with a bunch of drunk teenagers who think they're in bumper cars posting on social media. Apparently, all of the "laws" the DMV announces for driving are optional: using your turn signal, using your turn signal as something other than a "I'm going to merge/turn and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it lever", right of way, how to use a 4-way stop, the speed limit, the "construction slow the f*** down" signs, physical violence when installing tire chains in the designated area, road raging because you're too lazy and/or stupid to get up or leave earlier so you push your accountability for your own laziness on everyone else. And then there's these people in these big fat fucking bloated cars we have now - likely as a "safety" thing because people can't drive. And they bumble in and out of the lanes like they are on 4 handles of Vodka because their 4 door wannabe King Ranch RAM pickup is too big for them to handle. Where the fuck is my Jetpack!?!?
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| Sick
| When I'm Sick, here's what you do - and I suggest you do this too because It'll help you get better. You viet multiple medical related websites for information on your symptoms and when to seek medical attention. Then, you call in sick from work if you are contaigous, have a fever of 99 or higher, and/or need to be in the bathroom every 5 minutes, or feel like you're swimming in a sea of 9 volt batteries with the energy and snap of a slug on valium. You find the apropriate medications - if there is anything that will help you - AND THEN YOU LAY THE FUCK DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP!!!! And if you're contaigious, then that means you don't give it to your lover, your pets, your kids, or anyone else - YOU KEEP THAT SHIT TO YOURSELF. Which then relies on THEM KEEPING TO THEMSELVES!! Because there is no more unhappy home than when EVERYONE is sick. You want to see War of the Roses play out in real life, just get even the worlds most loving, capable, and solid couple sick - I bet you dollars to donuts they'll be trying to kill each other if they don't respect each other's personal space. I also don't want to hear you ask me "how did you get it" or "who gave this to you" or "is it the 'Rona" because I'm probably going to get even more angry. You know what I myself want when I'm sick, ot lay on the couch and listen to Arcus speedrun Nintendo games - while I sleep, and pretend I don't exist.
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| Antinatalism
| Antinatalism is the belief that it's morally wrong, and/or socially irresponsible, to have children. Right now, with Trump in Office, trying to turn women into the real life production of the Handsmaids tale, for more soldiers for the elimination for Brown people in other counties who don't believe in their exact sky fairy, peopel struggling to find work, people struggling to find housing, even with what would have been easily a livable wage 10-20-30-40 years ago, and tariffs galore hleping make stagflation and hyperinflation even worse - why in the HELL woudl I want to put another human on this planet to suffer? What if I had a daughter? And she had to suffer the abuse of horrid "Bros", the shitty "Beauty Standards" of our culture, or the sexist, racist, homophobic bullshit of your average Trumptard. What if I had a son and he had to suffer the rampant abuse from women I had to but 1000x worse, the sexist bullshit women pull on men today, or the ever growing "Bro standards" for how to live your life like an entitled brat while having no accountability? How about BOTH suffering bullying? What if they wanted to be TRANS or what if one was gay? I'd still love em', but this society is turing less pro LGTBQA+ supportive by the minute.....plus, I generally hate society as it is now, so why "contribute" to the overpopulation problems and ecological nightmares they don't tall ya about? I'm perfectly happy, as a CIS gender White Male, with a wife, and two cats TYVM!
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| Apartments
| Apartments used to be housing for people who could not afford a house. But now, because the housing market only caters to rich people who want six cars and nine babies, and probably voted for that orange shithead whose president (4/2025), everyone is going to live in an Apartment for the rest of my natural life. And an Apartment is SUPPOSED to be a affordable housing for people who can't afford a house, with a functional maintenance staff who takes care of problems for you. But my experiences are that Apartments are merely just a attached space to live in that you still have to treat like a house, without all the benefits of building equity in a house by way of paying some corporation or business a overly-inflated occupancy fee (ie RENT) a month for it. Maintenence doesn't do shit, complains when you do it, but won't respond when THEY are needed. Parking is atrocious because somehow everyone here owns 3+ vehicles that need full sized parking spaces, enough vehicles that they could SELL for a house downpayment - further proving the "fat lazy American Slob" stereotype. I live in a nice place now, apparently a "Luxury Apartment" just means you get an attached garage, and the whole maintenance fixing shit is a big dog and pony show.
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| OLD Compact Trucks and SUVs
| They fuckin' rule! I'm talking about all the old, SMALL trucks and SUVs, like the Chevy Luv, Nissan Datsun 720 Hardbody, the Toyota SR5 or 4Runner, the original 1991-2003 Ford Explorer and it's related 1983-2011 Ranger and 1983-1990 Ford Bronco II, the Chevrolet S-10 and GMC Jimmy and Cyclone, the Oldsmobile Bravada, or the Dodge Dakota. The orgiinal Bronco from 1966-1978, the International Harvester Scout from the sixties and seventies, the original Jeep CJ-5 from AMC, or Willy's Jeep, or the Ford Jeeps from the sixties (that were father of the Bronco). I hate to blame Ford, but I blame Ford because turning the Explorer into a "Family Vehicle" was one of the worst things they ever did. Basically now, every pant-suit wearing soccer mom abnd biz-cas clad breeder suburban dad gets to "feel tough" without actually feeling tough. Some of you fuckers need to stick to your damn Minivan! Leave the trucks to us who need to haul, tow, move Apartments, and do actual WORK, or even have some off-road fun from time to time. But of course, they had to bloat em' out like everything else so the breeders could sit their six kids in the back while they play Minecraft on their driver distraction devices.
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| The War of the (CIS Gender) Sexes
| It's fucking stupid. That's what it is. I'm so sick and tired of the never-ending game of social hostage taking that is Neo-Feminism and what I call "Manninism" and some call "Incels". Maybe if some of you men learned how to keep your hands to yourself, and some of you women learned how to take a good, deep, hard look inside yourself from a personality standpoint, maybe we could end this stupid-ass war. I'm tired of listening to another man's sex escapades because he's so insecure about his manhood he feels the fucking need to tell everyone who he fucked and how, and I'm tired of listening to another woman bitch and piss and moan about how men need to be "trained" and how men need to be treated like wild animals. You people are the reason why society cannot progress, you're still acting like fucking Chimps! I thought humanity was supposed to be better than that. Oh well. And so the pendulum swings, from one side of hatred, to the other for each gender, until we finally kill each other in a sexually-charged orgy of violence towards each other when everyone else finally gets sick of this shit. GAAAAAHHHH!!!
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| The 2024 Election
| I don't think there's ever been a time that I've thought my own countrypeople were any more stupid. You elected in a sexist, racist, homophobic, failed businessman with a loud mouth, a fake tan, and a dementia who illegally created a "efficiency" department (DOGE) run by a unelected South African white investor who blows up home-made space ships for fun and thinks he's the next Albert Einstein because of it. And ever since, every damn, fucking day, I have had to see those two shitheads in the goddamn news. And I'm fucking sick of it. And on top of it, they are backed by a foundation of Fundimentalist Sky Daddy worshippers who think that women should be barefoot, pregnant, and confined to the kitchen, men should be allowed to abuse their wives because "god says so" and "birthrights", that science is bunk and Just So Stories are true, that the earth is flat, that climate change has no impact on human survival, and probably promote wars against anyone whose skin is a darker shade of "brown" than theirs. And they were voted in by the same people who talked about shooting "Obama's secret army of black helicopters" in 2008 and kept whining about his birth certificate......WELL WHERE IS MUSKRAT'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE!?!?
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| REAL I.D.
| Let's see, I had three reports that people were being pressured or pushed to get REAL I.D.s for things that the REAL I.D. isn't meant for, both in liberal states - WA and CA. REAL I.D., per the Department of Homeland Security, is supposed to be for accessing secured government sites, like the capitols, domestic flights, and needing to access a nuclear power plant. That's practically VERBATIM was the DoHS.gov site says. Considering we already have a Facist Dictator whose one part Jonestown Massacre and one part the German Auschwicz - for President - I am not surprised, but I am rather alarmed. This has me wondering if The Orange Fuhrer and his group of geritol rats are cooking up something similiar to 1940-1945 in Germany. "Show me your Papers". See, I was hearing all about this from an alt-right ex-marine in 2008 - seems to me, like I've said before, the right just projects their bullshit as being something the left would do. Talk about lack of accountability. Shut up boomer grandpa, your words hold no weight anymore. Me, fuck it, I'll get my passport renewed.
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| Human Studidity
| Behind every cranky guy like me, is a unending siege of shitheads who don't listen, don't read, don't think, but they sure love to talk - A LOT. And most of what they say has no substance or weight whatsoever. Humanity today is stupid. Very stupid. Even I'm probably stupid, because human stupidity, is imminent. Why? Because we are not "gods", nor do we know everything, nor is what we are taught 100% set in stone and stays factual forever, actually, a lot of it is quite subjective and involves looking at DETAILS to understand it. And as an American, I think our culture is ALLERGIC to details. Which is a damn shame because the guys who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have some pretty careful nuances in ALL of the documents including those. Problem is, the DEMON IS IN THE DETAILS.
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| Trump's Stupid Tariffs (and how they will affect me)
| So as we know, EVERYTHING on this website, is most likely made in Asia: China, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan - video games, cars, guitars, computers, pedals, amps, COMPUTERS especially. So this orange idiot started a trade war with all these other countries that we were doing okay-ish trade on (as long as you stayed off Temu and AliExpress), and well, just you wait. The prices on everything are about to go sky high. I already see it with some things already that are made over seas. Every single chinese part or item I purchased in the last year or two, has gone up at least a few bucks, if not more, and I don't see the prices stopping their rise, because of these Tariffs. Normally I bitch about Jeff Bezos too, but Honestly, he did something right for a change and pissed off Orange-utan and his 2-bit cronies by offering mentioning the Tariff on the price - hahahaha. So this summer, I'm probably NOT going to be building a bunch of guitars, probably won't be spending a lot on any kind of gear upgrades or new blah blah blah for my recording setup. My saving grace though, is computers. Everyone throws out their old crap, and buys new crap they can't afford - and here I am taking your 10 year old computer, slapping in the maximum amount of RAM, and an SSD - usually stuff I already have laying around, and then throwing Linux on it.
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