c-PACKing it in

The annual CPAC conference, that is, the Conservative Political Action Conference, had it's annual straw-poll, this time for the 2012 Republican presidential hopeful, again with Willard Mitt Romney taking it home. I find this interesting, because Romney has been pretty low-key since McCain shored up support for his bid to succeed W, and Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin especially have certainly not been low-key, yet they came in second and tied for third respectively. CPAC goers voted for the most conersative candidate to support and Romney again is their man. Nice going Mitt, and maybe in 2012, you won't step down from your presidential campaign and tell it to a shocked roomful of CPAC attendees.

Tinted Windows :|

What happens when Taylor Hanson smashes a pumpkin, drinks from a fountain belonging to wayne and turns a cheap trick on a street corner? Tinted Windows. That's right, the new "supergroup" (and I'll explain my slant on supergroups later). Tinted Windows consists of Taylor Hanson of Hanson fame (if you have no idea, just think Jonas Brothers but not a Disney product), James Iha formerly of The Smashing Pumpkins on guitar, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne on bass and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick fame on the drums. It sounds good, on paper, in terms of the guys involved, except Hanson, he seems alright but he's not a rock sorta guy you know? And unfortunately, as the front man he I guess gets to decide what the direction the band takes, and it's that pop crap that Miley, the Jonas' and whoever else like Back Street Boys or the newly reformed New Kids from the Block or whatever it's called are trying to sell. Now, I would say, good for them, make some money while your doing this thing that you want to do, but come on, if these guys were like in their 20s or something then I can see this thing rolling along, but James is in his 40s, so is Adam, and Bun there well, he's creeping up on 60. Taylor is the odd-man out, clocking in at 25. But like, I can't see girls getting behind such a band, especially with a guy who's name is representative of what he looks like and almost a senior citizen. No disrespect to Bun, he does his thing with Cheap Trick, but seriously, they aren't going to be picking lots of teenage girls.

Now, onto the topic of a supergroup, maybe I have been skewed in my view, because of what I have seen, but I guess Tinted Windows is closer to what I would consider a supergroup, cus when I think that term, I think all-star team of rockers, but some groups have not shaped up to my expectations, such as Zwan, as much as I love Billy and Jimmy, but it's basically the Smashing Pumpkins (or rather the reformed pumpkins) with some dirty mexican on bass and another one on guitar and some white dude named Sweeney on guitar. Come on, that ain't a supergroup! I mean, if it were, then the new Smashing Pumpkins should be classified as a supergroup. I mean, when compared to the Travelling Wilbury's no "supergroup" can match up. I mean please, Bob Dylan, Ray Orbison, Jeff Lyne, Tom Petty and George Harrison! That's a hell of a team right there.

McSlimeball

You know what ticks me off? Really obviously slimey politicians, liek they don't even try to hide the fact. Like, Obama, good for him, he has hardly let his slimey-ness rear its ugly head. But the man picked to replace Obama's slimey senate seat, has no reservations about being the handpicked Johnny Q. Slimeball of the Public, also known as the junior senator for the people of Illinois. I mean that smile Roland Buriss puts on his face, just gives it all away and his repeated claims of being elected before many times, most for the position of State Comptroller or something, but please, I never believed his many statements that he never lobbied for the position from ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich, like please! Oh by the way did you know Rod Blagojevich has a brother named Rob? I understand it was probably easier on their immigrant parents by giving them simple names, or maybe they didn't know too many other names to choose from, I digress however.

Here's what some fancy-schmancy Democrat from the totally not-corrupt state of Illinois had to say about Roland Burris.

"I think Roland actively wanted this job," Hare said on CNN's American Morning. "I think he went out and tried to do everything he could to get the job but most importantly, he was under oath, and three times before this impeachment panel he was asked and he denied all three times that he had any contact, never raised any money.

Uh, how about had you guys in the State Congress stripped Rod of his powers of being Governor earlier, Roland would never have become the senator in the first place?

TC, JR and Sophing

A new thing was posted on the Josh Ritter web merch site. A reader set, of 3 books and a tote bag. The 3 books of Josh's favs. Drop City by TC Boyle, who is like the only American author that I have read works by, so I feel like me and Josh have like a special connection, like oh my god, like. The other books are, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which I have also enjoyed (oh shit 2 for 2), and the third is one called Independence Day, which I think is the novel the movie was based on, and I liked that movie (3 for 3 woot!), who cares that the cover of that book looks nothing like aliens are invading Earth :O.

Next, for some reason, call it a fan's intuition, I had the desire to check out the Smashing Pumpkins onilne offerings, and lo and behold, yesterday they added new stuff to the online store, with some 20th anniversary tees, and a messenger bag I was trying to snipe earlier, but to no avail. Oh, and I should mention, I checked yesterday, probably like minutes after they upped it to the site.

And finally, I got a call 2 hours earlier telling me I made the soph team at Essex, this is really cool cus I don't like rejection, and now, just to clear another hurdle, I need to win my appeal of my current status. If I get that, then I'm golden.

Sweet.

(Come On) ((Hey Oh))

I took a look at my top 25 most played playlist in iTunes, and guess what? My current fav, (Come On) Let's Go! is behind my all time most played, Snow ((Hey Oh)) by more than 100 plays. That, in my opinion, is some crazy stuff man. Also, I have found that I have a predisposition towards songs that have brackets in them lol, That's the Way (My Love Is), (You Want to) Make a Memory just to name a few.

Obama the Vetter

Bill Richardson, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killefer. Why do these names stand out? Well, that Nancy chick's name doesn't really, I had to copy/paste that from where I get my news, but still. What do these three have in common? Well they're all Democrats, okay, but also, they have "issues" which have caused Obama to look like a very shitty person to pass judgement. They were tapped by Obama to lead their respective portfolios of Commerce, Health & Humnan Services and Chief Performance Officer. But they all had something wrong with them, in Richardson's case, there's an open FBI investigation into the way his administration handled something or other, I couldn't have been bothered to find out what, it was just funny to see that his desertion of the Clintons in the primaries have now come back to bite him in his face, and to think, he thought his turncoatedness would have resulted in him being named VP ahahaha. And Tom, oh Tom, he apparently had some tax issues, with a rented car and driver, and owed backtaxes in excess of 100,000 USD. And Nancy, supposed to be Obama's go to gal on efficiency and performance issues, also had tax issues, this one surrounding one of her houses. Whoops. Pick again Obama.

TSP, not SP

I had always wondered, as a pretty anal iTunes tagger, whether I should tag the pumpkins stuff as The Smashing Pumpkins, or just Smashing Pumpkins, so I looked to their albums for help, and their very first album, it said Smashing Pumpkins, but by the second album, it was The Smashing Pumpkins. I had alternated between the two, and retagging about 500+ songs in iTunes takes a few seconds, which is pretty annoying, and then the whole synching ordeal too, it just was such a pain going back and forth. So I was rewatching, this time the full interview given by Billy and Jimmy on This Hour with that George dude from CBC, and Billy said that the band is officially The Smashing Pumpkins, and that it said Smashing Pumpkins on Gish only because he couldn't get it to fit with the artwork, so there you go, I can now leave my pumpkins stuff tagged with The Smashing Pumpkins in peace now.

New Year's Resolution

Kinda late, but here I go: Practice the violin 30 minutes everyday, because, I have realized how much I have lost in terms of skills and technique. 30 minutes won't do much, but it should put the hold on losing any more skills.

Where did my Walls Go?

I had only one video up on youtube and it was the official music video to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' single Walls (Circus) from their soundtrack album She's the One. Anyway, it's been up for quite some time, let's say 3 months, who knows, anyway it was doing decently, maybe around 3000 views by now, and it was the only version up on youtube so I was like, sweet I'm contributing like legit. But now, the vid is gone, I noticed this after uploading FOL to youtube and I'm like where my Walls go? Apparently, Warner Music Group has complained of copyright issues or whatever. That's awesome, so now I have to come up with a creative way to up it again ahaha.