When Rights are Wrong

In the office today the topic of stem cell research came up. It’s gonna be on the ballot in November so it’s important to know were you stand. The problem I have is that most people connect SCR with fetal SCR. The deal is that if someone gets an abortion then we can use the dead fetus for good by cloning stem cells, which could potentially cure some diseases. I think this would greatly increase the acceptability of abortions. Abortion is wrong. Yes it’s still a fetus, but that doesn’t mean it’s not alive. "A woman’s choice" is a lame excuse for erasing a mistake from your past at the expense of a child’s life. If a woman is raped and gets pregnant then I still think that abortion is the wrong answer. I think it makes a bad situation worse. You don’t want the kid, fine. That’s perfectly understandable. Don’t keep the kid, but don’t kill it! I think adoption is the answer to a lot of abortion issues. The ONLY time I think it is at all acceptable is when the mother will die due to the pregnancy/delivery. At that point it is a choice, one life or another. This world is a messed up place and there are bad things that happen with or without our doing but I don’t think that just because life gets the better of us we should take the easy road. What do you think?

It’s some serious stuff so now it’s time to talk about the complete opposite. Movies. Is it just me or is there absolutely nothing good in theaters this week. It’s all stuff I’ve already seen or stuff I don’t want to see. I know I talk about movies a lot here but I really enjoy a good movie just like everyone else. They can be so good that they make you see and/or think things differently than before. Sometimes they just hit a spot in you and become a part of your life. Whatever it is a movie does for you it’s all about entertainment and that is the main problem I have with the movies out now. They don’t seem at all entertaining. One thing that gives me hope is to look into coming attractions. Sometimes they are so undeveloped that no one even knows much about the story or its cast but it’s still fun to read about them. It’s a sign that someone out there is still coming up with good ideas. At least some better ideas then Alien Vs. Predator or First Daughter.

The genre I’m really getting into is the guerilla style, low budget, documentary. Ferenhiet 9/11 and Super Size Me are the two that I’ve seen and I think it’s great. Moore has a new one coming out called Sicko. and it’s about the health care industry. This guy is out to get everyone so watch out! I’d love a comment or 10.

Movie: Groundhog Day

Once Upon a Cell Phone Nightmare

Wanna hear something kinda funny? It’s actually not funny at all but maybe you can learn a lesson or two. Yeah.
I had a cell phone from Cingular™ for about a year and everything was great. I talked to everyone all the time and text messaged people once and a while even. I was a walking commercial for cell phones. That of course changed when I got a bill for $368. Yep, one month of service. Normally my bill was like, $50 something. So naturally I remained calm and called my friendly Cingular™ Customer Service Representative. Surely they would fix this grievous mistake on their part. Come to find out it was no mistake. And do you know how it happened? Those "blessed" rollover minutes. Minutes that were intended to save people from $368 bills. For the first six months of my plan I stayed well under my allotted minutes, therefore accruing thousands of rollover minutes. But one sinister month I began going over on my minutes as well as every month after. Since I had rollover minutes I had no idea and my bill stayed at about $50. Now technically it is my fault because I should have looked at my bill and seen my minutes but I was duped. Yes duped. I, for some reason thought that my contract was for 1000 anytime minutes. I noticed that I used about 800 or so a month. But actually I had only 600 anytime minutes, SIX HUNDED!!!! So eventually I used up all my rollover minutes and I get a giant bill. What’s worse is that I couldn’t pay it and they would not let me pay installments. So the bill sat there getting larger by the day due to late fees and continued service charges (although my phone mysteriously called the automated bill pay number every time I tried to use it). Grand total; $837.71. At that point they terminated my contract, cut my service completely, and sent out the hounds, affectionately known as Debt Collectors. By then I figured my credit was trashed just in time to get married and that I would forever have this monstrous, looming amount of money hunting me. BUT…the moment I had given up all hope of carrying on a normal, consumer driven life, a light at the end of the tunnel, a silver lining around my giant debt. The debt collection company lets me pay in three monthly installments. I can do that! If I make all three payments the collectors won’t put this little incident on my credit. So now, thanks to Debt Collectors Inc., I’m living the dream…paycheck to paycheck.
MORAL – Read your bills carefully or get legally ripped off.

THE END

Sucks huh? Oh well. At least it didn’t happen to you. I’m sure you, dear reader are much to street smart to let that happen to you. Now, for today’s Rad Ass website (no it’s not a typo, just embrace it). Web Radio. I’m sure this is so 90’s for some people but I just got into it. In case you’re like me and have no idea, it’s a website that lets you listen to real radio stations from around the world on your computer. So if you’re like me and live in a desert with not much radio variety, this is pretty cool. This site may not be the best one for this type of thing but it works fine and it’s free and that fits my requirements for almost everything. Hope you like it. And remember to let me know of your favorite websites you slackers. I love you all, really.

Movie: Fight Club

The Pursuit of Happiness

The next set of marriage road-blocks are coming from non other than my mom. This is really not a big surprise considering every time I get a girlfriend she turns into a nut. But the problem now is that it is actually (a/e)ffecting my relationship with my fiancé. I have to do something about it and it’s probably gonna be a big ol’ deal because the main point is my mom needs to lay off. Another problem is that my parents want to make me pay "rent" if I’m going to continue living at home. Although this seems like an OK thing it isn’t because I would still have to abide by the house rules like curfews and chores. Sucks right? But the good thing is that my fiancé’s brother’s roommate is moving out by the end of the year which would mean I could get a room/place of my own for about $300/month if I want.

On a completely different note, today marks two wonderful things; payday and the release of The Used’s new album, In Love And Death (they go hand in hand). I’m listening to it right now and it is amazing. I love these guys. I love every song I’ve ever heard from them. I think it’s possible that they have 100% good songs. I can’t wait to see them Oct. 13. Unfortunately, now that their CD has come out there are no more I’m looking forward to. I hate when that happens. A lot of the bands I like are not around anymore or don’t even sound the way they did before…ahem. It’s kinda sad.

I guess it’s about time for some new website referrals, but this time I want to do something different. I am gonna list some but I want YOU to list some of your favorites and then in an upcoming post I’ll list them. Just hit the comment button and let ‘em rip. My choice for today is Quizilla. This is a site were you can take or create any quiz you can think of, literally. If you are bored go here and you will easily waste an hour of your life, and isn’t that what the internet is all about? Now start commenting with your picks.

Movie: Memento

Life, Love, Losers and Winners

What's the matter with me? No post in a whole week! I can’t believe it. Well, at least I should have some interesting stuff to tell. Like how my brother has started singing for another band. Yes it’s true, the drummer of Band A, my brother who gave me crap for being in two bands, is now in two bands. It’s cool though because it doesn’t bother me. He played me a tape of the band he’s in. The recording was rough but it wasn’t bad at all. I can’t wait to hear it with vocals. I get nervous for my brother but he’ll do fine.

I’m sure some of you heard about Britney Spears got married again. It’s weird that most people’s problem with me getting married is my lack of financial stability, but someone like Birtney Spears, who has truck loads of money, has just as much, if not more of a chance of getting a divorce than I do. Famous people never stay together. So what is it, you have to have some money but not a lot? I don’t know. I figure if you get married, no matter what tier of success your on, it’s gonna be hard but it’s also gonna be worth it too. Write that down.

To my amazement, people have actually visited my blog. In a previous blog I said that most likely no one was reading it but to my surprise I got some comments stating the opposite. Although it was only three people it was still nice to hear from fellow web roamers (which they MUST be if they found this place). Thanks for the responses and keep them coming. I’d love to read someone else’s blog if you tell me where it’s at.

Movie: Made

Analyze Me

This blog has been around for a couple weeks and I think it's entirely possible that no one except for myself has ever seen it. I guess I’m really just doing this for myself, as a form of unconscious therapy. Spilling my guts to the phantom audience. After seeing Hollywood therapists such as Tony Soprano’s Dr Melfi, it seems like therapy is really just the art of inference. "This could be happening because of this part of your life, caused by this, caused by that," etc. Nothing is essentially your fault because the things you do are byproducts of things done to you. I guess that’s kind of true on some emotional levels but it seems more like a cop out. I think people can change, but only if they want to.

I was originally gonna do a fake blog, like some fictitious diary or whatever, but instead I just did this. Maybe some other time I’ll start up a weird, fake one and link it here. I love writing stories so it would probably be similar to that. For all anyone else knows this blog could be a fake one. I don’t know why anyone would invent something so ordinary but maybe I’m just that tricky!!

I guess this blog could turn into something pretty interesting if one of my bands got signed and became as big as David Hasselhoff or something. Whatever happens I’ll try and keep this place up to date throughout all my fame and fortune. Or I’ll just have my personal assistant do it for me.

On another note, I thought of another interesting web site. It's some European radio station’s site called The Atheist Network. Now, I'm no atheist but it's still fun to get on the message boards and rile up the natives. Don’t worry about hurting feelings on here because these guys are already pissed off just at the fact that there are people in the world that believe in God. If you have a good argument they will eventually give up and start calling you gay, which means you won, because they will never change their minds. But then again that’s what makes it so much fun! So go at it.

Movie: Dogma

Site Seeing

Sometimes the internet can feel like an empty, vast desert of stupid crap, but every once and a while you find a really cool website. These are a few that I have found and enjoyed.

One of the coolest is a site called Metaphilm. This site interprets a ton of recent movies and a few old ones. They search far and wide for anyone willing to write an essay that looks a little deeper at modern cinema. One of my favorites is a great take on Fight Club and Calvin & Hobbes. Awesome.

A couple of other cool movie sites are Movies.com and IMDB.
Movies.com is nice because along with movie news, it is fairly up to date on movie buzz as well. The search feature let's you search names of movies or film makers/actors/crew resulting in a complete list of relevant matches. Selecting a movie that is yet to be released will give you all the info available including a "blogish" style buzz update which lets you know how the movie is coming along. They also have a weekly Buzz Bin that lists the top 20 most intriguing upcoming movie news.
IMDB has even more up to date info on upcoming movies but not much in the "how's the movie coming along" section. One nice thing about IMDB is that people-searches result in tons of info, from what movies they've done or will do, to mini-bios and quotes.

The last site for the day is Free Translation. Just try it.

I'll think of some more later.

Movie: Sleepers

Back to Bass-ics

Let me start off by making things a little clearer. I'm gonna refer to the band that I ditched last week as Band A, and the other band as Band B. This will make things easier to explain and understand.

About 8 months ago, in Band A, our original bass player quit and we spent a few months finding a new one. We did and he played real well but his style was a little bit different than ours. Last week he informed us that he would be moving after Christmas and that he was selling all his equipment to do so. Luckily relations with the former bass player were better again and he was quick to volunteer for the newly open position. We discussed it and decided it was a safe move. Today is our first practice with him back in the band.

I’m actually excited about this because he started playing bass when we started a band, which means his style is exactly our band’s style. The same goes for the drummer and other guitar player. I hope that maybe this will put some motivation back in our band and we can take this thing all the way…maybe.

Movie: Training Day

Battle of the Bands

So last night I had to work a little later than normal and because of that, I didn't feel up to driving all the way out to practice then all the way home again. I called the guys after work and told them the deal and they were, to say the least, pissed. They had already driven to practice and set up, but now I wasn't even coming. I apologized and suggested that they practice with just the three of them. Then it turned into; "Maybe you should quit the other band cause it's taking to much of your time, blah blah blah."

This (the band I ditched on) is the band that I'm least interested in because the other has the better chance of turning into something. I still like playing with them just not as much. They always try to pull guilt trips and stuff, while the other band is always pretty laid back. I just got a message from the guitar player in the lesser band to call him back. Who knows what it's about but I'm, really not looking forward to that call, but oh well.

When I started in these bands it was purely for fun but now that I'm getting married I need to re-evaluate my time because bands take up a lot of it. My fiancé has never complained about my being in a band but I don't like not being around her if it's not for a good reason. A band that is really trying to "get big" and realistically has the potential to is not a waste of time, but a band that probably won't make it can be a waste of time.

I’m not sure if I should quit one band for the other (which would have to happen eventually) or stick it out. I’ll keep you posted cause I’m sure you’re dying to know.

Movie: The Sopranos: Season 4, Volume 3

Money, it's a gas...

I have a job that pays well for someone living at home with Mom and Dad but recently I have been battling poverty. That’s not to say that I am penniless but it’s close. Since when did my job seem like it doesn’t pay enough? Maybe since my lifestyle began exceeding my means. I feel like I have so many bills that I didn’t have before. I know I’ve expressed this before, but money sucks. It sucks because every aspect of life centers on money and success.

I think I’m gonna find a way to make more money. I’m not sure if it will be a scheme or more of a plan but I just thought of this so give me some time and I’ll get it.

On a financial plus side, my fiancé has (thanks to her grandpa) two plots of land up in the hills, so when were ready we can build a fairly decent house. It turns out that Southern California is about the most expensive place to live in the country, but with some collateral like land we can get a loan. At least CA’s worth it. It really is the best place to live. Where else can you go surfing and snowboarding in the same day? It actually just started raining outside and it’s the middle of September. Weird.

I’m getting married in exactly 400 days. Now that’s cool.

Movie: 21 Grams

The War on Error

I am a Republican I guess, which means I will be voting for Mr. Bush in November. This does not mean that I agree with everything he does, but compared to the Kerry alternative the choice is obvious. So many Bush-Haters have so much wrong, Michael Moore driven information that they think Bush allowed the terrorist attacks to happen because he had defense based stock options. The problem with trusting a movie is that the main goal of his movie (as with every movie) is entertainment. Moore admittadly had an agenda with the film, not to enlighten the public but to get Bush out of office. He knew that people believe what they are told so much so that if his movie was made right it could go unquestioned by the masses.

To be fair, I loved his movie. It was well made and funny but it didn't change my mind about who should be president. Most people who have dissected the movie know that many of the movie's key points are refutable and that's OK because it's just a movie.

Recently (as of the start of this new war) there seems to be a resurgence of "hippy-dom." WAR IS WRONG!!!!! BUSH LOVES OIL!!!!! It's amazing to heare people saying things like, "This war is about oil!" What's wrong with oil? Our lives are "driven" by oil. This country could not make it an hour without oil. Maybe that is what we need to fix. Maybe we need to stop being so dependent on foreign commodities. But what are you gonna do? That's not something that will change no matter who's in office.

Movie: Three Kings

From My E-mail (Sweeeet!!!!!)

I just found out that I can make posts through my e-mail. This is awesome.
What next, flying cars!?

Music Musings

I know I said I would post the next day but I never got the chance. It's funny how hard it can be to sit down and write for a while.

I've realized that I am probably semi-obsessed with music. I don't know if this is a bad thing or not but whatever. I love writing music. I love listening to music. I love looking for new music. I love playing music. I love music. I want so bad for music to be my job. I wonder what the odds are for a band to get signed. Probably worse than one million to one, but I think I could do it. I recently had a band meeting with one of my bands and we talked about getting ready to take things more seriously. More practice and writing. Hopefully this means that we can start making a living out of this nonsense. Cool, huh? If anyone ever reads this (doubtful) and wants to hear some of our music, e-mail me at audrocker@msn.com and I'll get you some. I like it.

Movie: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Day One

This is the official blog of me. Welcome to it. I hope that you find whatever you're looking for. I figure I'll update this semi-daily. We'll see how it goes. Enjoy.

I am a 20 year old office assistant. My life is good. "Why so good?" you ask. Because I'm exactly where I want to be in life. I'm engaged to an awsome girl. I'm in 2 very talented bands. I'm persuing a career as a recording engineer. I have an extensive DVD collection. My life is moving in the direction that I've always wanted; forward. In a couple years from now, if my life is still in the same place that would be less exciting, but right now it's perfect.

Most of my life (right now) revolves around getting married. With all the plans I have for the future the best thing I can think of happening would be for one of my bands to get a record deal. At present, I am by most standards poor. However, if all goes according to plan I'll be able to make do. But it would be nice if money wasn't an issue. When I think about how money is the reason everyone does almost everything it pisses me off. I figure that the best way to beat the money system is to have so much of it at all times that it never has true value. It sounds weird but that's just what I think.

I don't want this to turn into a place where I promote my bands though. This is just a place where I type whatever I want. More than likely no one will ever read this but myself and that's probably OK, but you never know.

Here's something I just thought of. After every post I'll put what movie I plan on watching that night. What a great idea.

MOVIE: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King