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Wow I can't believe this album is getting such positive reviews. It's pretty uninspired and pop-ish. "Family Tree" is like a wannabe Coldplay epic and "Dancing Choose" is a Dan Deacon ripoff. It makes me cringe a little it's so bad. They do this thing on a few songs where the music is discordant, which can be cool in certain situations. Here, to me, it just sounds wrong. Judge for yourself but my first impression here is "blah."
It's lacking the flirtations with darkness the other albums touched on. You can tell the studio quality is super high, which I think takes away from the great, gritty sound of the singer's voice and makes the instruments lack soul. I wanted to like it because I've enjoyed their other two albums but I can't talk myself into it. It has a good song here and there, "Golden Age" is fine, and the instruments get good on "Lover's Day," in an Arcade Fire, crescendoing way. "DLZ" progressively gets more interesting but the sort of singing/rapping reminds you of rap rock from the 90s. Too soon for that trend, I'm afraid. Overall a forgettable album. Pitchfork gave it a high number as well as Spin. They are plain wrong. Don't buy it, I'll give you my burned version if you want to give it a try.I want to stress this is my first impression, because too many times to count in the past I've hated albums at first but then enjoyed them later on. So, I promise to listen to the album a few more times and then give an update. Not that you care, but I'm curious for myself to see if I'll change my mind. 
Instead of going out last night, I decided to watch a marathon of The Wire episodes I had on Netflix. The Wire, if you haven't seen it, is a great show about crime in Baltimore, Maryland that ranges from street level gang shit to corruption in local government.
So basically I was busy watching a cop show when I notice there are flashing lights hitting the blinds on my windows that face the street. I think it might be a tow truck, not caring much. But then I hear a megaphone of a woman saying "step out of the vehicle." I jump up and look out the window to see a black Acura with people in it right in front of our apartment, and 6 COP CARS in a row with their lights flashing (no sirens) behind the first cop car. The cops have their guns pulled.
I lose it. I run to the bathroom convinced a stray bullet is about to enter my apartment, and Killian, like the really smart guy he is, wants to film the event through our front window with his iPhone. The woman continues to tell the people to step out of the vehicle, and they aren't complying.
A little background- in the last month and a half, there have been two murders on Treat Avenue, my street. It's extremely unnerving because Treat is normally the calm amongst the storm that is the Mission District. There were two murders up our street recently and that's been creepy (one was the leader of the Hell's Angels in SF). And in addition to those two, there have been a lot more shootings around. I've seen countless cop cars patrolling the area. And I think most people have become more jumpy and aware of things; it's much quieter on the streets in the evenings.
So back to last night- I'm listening to the policewoman on the megaphone telling these people to get out of the car, and it was intense because you could tell she was trying to sound calm and authoritative but they weren't getting out of the car and who knows what was happening (I was in the bathroom, and I finally convinced Killian to get the fuck away from the window) but her voice would get excited and nervous and you could tell they didn't have control over the situation yet. I peek out and see a bit of the street from our bathroom window, and I see a cop running up the street with his gun drawn.
So that goes on for a while. Then loudspeaker voice finally starts sounding like people got out of the car and are complying, so we go to our front door (which has a window out) and peek to see what's happening now. Five kids are getting handcuffed and the cops are looking in the car. Then Matt walks right up the stairs with his bike, and is in disbelief that he just came home to this. He said in addition to the 6 cop cars down the street, there are additional squad cars blocking the street up where we can't see.
So by this point we are outside standing on our porch, and the excitement is dying down, the kids are being put into squad cars. There are some cops checking the vehicle, and one opens the trunk of the car. All of the sudden, like 4 cops jump back and some draw their guns because there was a fucking kid in the trunk! He was lucky they didn't shoot him because you could tell he scared the shit out of everyone. Apparently he was in the trunk because there was no room in the car. THAT was funny.
What we deduced is the kids stole the car and were joy riding or something around the Mission. They may or may not have been gangsters, to me they just looked like high school kids being retarded, but unlucky for them bad timing because with all the recent murders, the cops are not taking any chances. At first I started thinking, hmm, maybe we should consider moving, but then I thought, last night they put a total of 9 cop cars on one stolen vehicle that may or may not have been something really serious. So now I'm thinking, we are probably in the safest place!
I will get a hernia if I bother to follow this presidential race every free second of my time. I've been having dreams about it and that's too far in my book. Reading the Daily Kos is more depressing than dead kittens. Hearing that people want to vote for McCain because Palin is a woman makes my blood boil. If I hear one more person say Obama isn't qualified, I will throw up. So then you'd rather vote for McCain, huh? That's your argument? Obama is a fucking self made success. Went to Harvard. Is clearly super intelligent. He's a senator. He loves this country and fuck if you're president, you HIRE the best people where you're shaky on the issues. I would love to have him as a representative for my America.
McCain married into money- to a woman who's family that distributes Budweiser. I love beer, but that's not bettering society now is it. He's 72 years old. He's really out of touch with America's economic problems. He's part of the party that's fucked it up for the last 8 years. He's insulted women by just picking any woman (a crazy woman) to be on the ticket. Clearly they're afraid of her too because they won't let the "bulldog" off the leash. Where is there even an issue here?
After this post I'm done being political. I'll keep this blog to irreverant humor. Modern government overall serves as a mechanism to suck money out of our pockets and find new and interesting ways to tax us little people to serve the interests of the rich. Doesn't matter what party. I'd like to think otherwise but the Democratic congress is doing jack shit right now, how's it really going to be different? Obama will be too busy cleaning up a mess to do anything fantastic.
Why won't they legalize weed? Can't tax it, too abundant. Why keep us dependent on oil? Can't tax solar energy, too abundant (they'll find a way to tax it I don't doubt). The modern U.S. is built on the rich, competitive, eat or be eaten, get power and stay in power at all costs, Rockefeller way of life. Federal government is important for civil liberties, but we are becoming too dependent on the idea that the federal government should have its hand in community issues like education and wealthfare. And our reps have little idea as well; they all come from money. So. Fuck it. Done and done.
Here's a cute picture of a kitten!!!!!
"McCain's vice-presidential pick, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, sued the Bush Administration in federal court recently, charging it was too accepting of climate change studies which overstated the phenomenon's impact on polar bears. The result, she argued, would be a negative impact on her state's businesses, including oil and gas extraction."See article here
Palin- "Thanks, but no thanks!"
The only thing the Republican campaign is allowing Palin to claim is that she told Congress "thanks but no thanks" for the bridge to nowhere up in Alaska. Well above is a link to Palin specifically saying she would not change "progress" and she would allow Alaska to take the money.
As proven over and over thus far, the Republican party is having difficulty understanding how the internet works and that it is very easy to prove hypocrisy nowadays. Guess that's what happens when you're a huge bunch of richies who relied on their secretaries a little too much and managed to stay computer illiterate for decades. She creeps me out. Can't wait for her to be allowed to speak for herself and sound like the crazy she is.
Wow, MTV sucks. I know this isn't news but I watched the VMAs yesterday a la DVR and I did a lot of fast forwarding. It's a shadow of what it once was.
I couldn't decide if maybe it always sucked and I grew out of it, or if it just sucks now. I've decided it was probably bad when I liked it, but it's definitely gotten worse. They don't show videos anymore, and the small stable of stars they work hard to promote mostly suck- Pink?! I didn't know she ever became famous and wow, that song of hers is absolutely horrendous. I'm guessing she wrote this song herself and thought it was super good.
lots of what's wrong with society
At least in the original Real World, they attempted to deal with issues like race, AIDs, homosexuality and world events. Now basically everything promotes a heavy consumerist life style of being rich and beautiful. It's so empty it's not even entertaining. I think the only show I sometimes watch on MTV is their True Life series. Death to MTV!
