Where was Double-J and Joey?

Just her this afternoon in Saturday Night Fever asking John Travolta when they were going to "make it."
Tonight, 31 years later, I see Donna Pescow on the Sopranos finale as the mother of Meadow's fiance.

Reliving the past

Last night, I went out the Genius and some friends to Slim's in the city by a bay and saw Cowboys From Hell, Blood Red and Damage Inc. All metal bands with one thing in common, they're all cover bands.
Anyway, Cowboys From Hell covers Pantera, Blood Red overs Slayer, and Damage Inc. covers Metallica.
On a critical level, CBH left me a little flat. For one, I didn't realize Pantera had such a following that would evoke a cover/tribute band. Two, the sound was off, the drummer sucked and his drumset sucked. Three, without looking at their history, I would say that Pantera came out some time in the late 80's. By that time, I probably already had my metal jones and wasn't quite that into it and my metal experience was now encapsulated in an early 80's vacuum. That's not their fault, CBH put out a valiant effort and ended their session with some nice tunes. By that time, me and Genius went down by the stage where the accoustics improved dramatically and the band sounded much better.
Blood Red was cool. Slayer was a mainstay on my playlist of the early 80's. My only gripe was that the lead singer couldn't match the vocal intensity of one, Tom Araya (who can?).
I must admit I was impressed with Damage Inc. With an ensemble that included a guy who looked like a guy I use to work with at the House That Ben Franklin Built (the Cliff Burton character), a guy who looked like the guy who fixed my washer a couple of months ago (imitation Kirk Hammett), fat James Hetfield and Asian Lars, Damage Inc. belted out early Metallica that was true to the music and the intensity of that music. Damage Inc. reaffirms the notion that their are guys out there like me who yearn for a Metallica who once upon a time played nothing but kick ass music w/o regard to progression and musical creativity.
In my opinion, that is why Slayer will always be a better band than Metallica. Dude, it's fuckin' metal, just play. Stop gigging with the San Francisco Symphony.
The other issue here is the whole concept of a cover/tribute band. I feel that as an artist, it must be such a compromise to have to resort to playing other people's materials. By the same token, there are probably some of these bands who do this for the sheer love of the music. They would have to. How can you make money from doing this? The best thing about the cover/tribute band is that they keep the music alive and keeps old farts like me lovin' the music.

Bleach 8 Cover Guy

Chip the Judo Master bugs me once in a while to draw him stuff from his manga comics. This is my first serious foray into drawing with MSPaint. It is the cover of Bleach 8. Can somebody out there please tell me what the name of this character is? The Judo Master told me that it was Byakuya or something or other. I believe he's wrong though.
MSPaint, of course, comes with any new computer with Microsoft Windows. I got my inspiration for drawing with Paint by watching some videos on Youtube involving painting with this underutilized application. Its underutilized because there are other more advanced tools out there for drawing, i.e. Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw, which makes MSPaint look like Commodore 64. Anyway, I'm inspired by these Youtube artists because of how they utilize MSPaint to create such beautiful drawings. I'm going to keep practicing with it to see what I can come up with.

Check out Mrs. BOB's new car

On April 1st, Mrs. BOB, with major due diligence on my part, drove away with a brand new (used) 2003 Toyota Camry SE from Capitol Toyota in San Jose.

My first Flash movie

http://smccd.mrooms.net/file.php/3703/moddata/forum/858/5541/Pascual_Flor_1chap6_mspaintbg_10second_movie1.swf

Could you pull another tooth out please?

A tough game to watch today.
Mike the Allstar made several mistakes at shortstop. The team as a whole played pretty bad. The good hitting by the other team exposed all the weaknesses. The other team was composed of several players from the Pee Wee league, all playing the infield positions. This contributed to short innings limiting the number of at-bats The Allstar's team were gong to have.
I could tell that the other team was the type of team who took baseball seriously, namely by drafting the experienced kids from the other league. Which is okay by me, because the way I see it, good play begats good play. In the Allstar's team's case, bad play begats bad play.
The most excruciating thing to me is when some of the kids can't even field a ball that's rolled to them.
Again, who am I to talk? I'm not out there coaching the kids. I suppose I should be. I put in my two cents worth during game days when I can actually be in attendance. It's practice days that I think the kids need the most help in. Game day is for reinforcing the fundamentals taught on practice day. Of course, I can't make it practice day because of work. As it is, I haven't seen any improvement from the day one. Part of the problem is making the time when the kids aren't at practice or in a game. This falls on the parents. Of course, all households have different situations. Practice and game days are probably the only times some of these kids ever get out to throw or hit the ball around. There's just not enough time in the parents' busy work weeks to devote to baseball. And still there are those kids whose arms were twisted to play. I've been guilty of that in the past.
Oh well, one more game left next week and then it's on to football...er...soccer.

On politics...

You've got to remember. I'm a politician. Which makes me a cheat and a liar. So when I'm not kissing babies, I'm taking their lollipops.

The Hunt For Red October