Darth Drabek

The Afghan Whigs - I'm a Soldier NEW SONG! It's off the upcoming Rhino Records retrospective, entitled The Unbreakable Afghan Whigs. They got in the studio for a few days and cut two new songs for the record. No tour planned though... that makes me a sad panda.

Yesssss! Ted Leo - Building Skyscrapers in the Basement is there a place to go where a little girl might never have to know? and is there a time of night when she'll ever feel it's safe to dim the light? i know some things i'd rather not, like the time ahead is all the time you've got. and one other thing i know: out from under layer after dark layer, as the years go by, a little girl can grow.

Maybe I'll break out some Todd Snider. Maybe "Slippin' Away." Nah, that song's too much of a downer. Say Anything - Alive With the Glory of Love

And I though Of Wolf and Man was their lamest song. Patsy Cline ~ Walkin' After Midnight Hey man! I feel a change in the wind... the hair stands on the back on my neck! That song has a message.... "Seek the wolf in thyself." That's some zen stuff right there. I bet Bob Rock thought it was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard. out through the new day's mist I run! out through the new day's mist I have come! If it wasn't Metallica song about werewolves, it would sound kinda like fairies prancing through a woodland meadow, ya know? The Afghan Whigs - White Trash Party

The Lemonheads - No Backbone Catchy rocker off the new album, featuring J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. on lead guitar. Download it here.

Wooo! Rollins rules! I saw Rollins Band back when they released "Nice" in 2001 or so. Great show. Rollins Band - Tearing I'm glad you guys are diggin the tunes. Maybe I'll offer up more slices of my musical past, if I can find a few more that aren't terrible.

Hey guys! I'll listen to it too! But before that, I was listening to "Steve's Boy" by The Lemonheads. That last album of theirs is really growing on me.

Dissection eh? Those guys really aren't bad at all... I've heard a lot of metal bands that are worse. But then again I've always liked the more melodic metal bands. So which one of them is the dead one? I finally posted my homemade recording of The Lemonheads' "The Outdoor Type" over at CrimsonKeep. CLICK HERE for acoustic rock goodness!

Whiskeytown - Losering I never would have thought to use "loser" as a verb. Truly, you are a genius, Ryan Adams.

CCR - Lodi if i only had a dollar for every song i've sung every time i had to play while people sat there drunk you know i'd take the next train back to where i live oh lord, stuck in Lodi again

CTRL-Y is easier. also, if i don't feel like taking a dead comrade to the temple (i.e. the trek is too long), CTRL-R. taks I still wanted my party to get the XP from the kill, so I stayed away from CTRL-Y... I mostly used CTRL-R to heal up my party after battles, and I think the other one was CTRL-J to teleport the selected party members all the way across a map if I didn't feel like walking.

I have played both Shaq Fu and Michael Jordan's Chaos in the Windy City back in the day, so I am interested to see how this amateur-made game stacks up with those other ventures. The writing alone should allow this Barkley game to surpass them. Maybe this weekend I'll download the demo if I have time. It looks like this "Chef Boyardee" character put an awful lot of work into a joke game.

You should write for Pitchfork. No, because then I'd have to hate him. And I don't know if I could bring myself to do that. Also, I really, really wanted to buy Jackie Chan's Police Story the other day when I saw it on DVD. I remember renting that movie on VHS back in the day and thinking it was awesome. I didn't want to shell out the 20 bucks though, so it's still on the shelf.

Cake - Commissioning a Symphony in C completely filling the palace concert hall it's warm and golden like an oven that's wide open it has a melody both happy and sad built on victorious young triads you've entered the room with great caution though no one in the hall is even watching they are transfixed; they are forgetting just to breathe they are so taken by your symphony in C

But it's post-apocalyptic! Isn't that what you've been clamoring for? More post-apocalyptic RPGs? So what if the apocalypse was caused by the "Chaos Dunk?" It's still a post-apocalyptic world, and Sir Charles has to slam/jam his way to the truth to see what nefarious schemes B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S. will concoct next.

If you were sitting at home wishing you could take the role of former NBA All-Star Charles Barkley in a post-apocalypic RPG, this is your lucky day. Forum/screenshots/download links This game has the potential for many, many "LOLZ."

Ironically enough, my entire company spent the entire morning Tuesday at a "customer service workshop." The keynote speaker was John DiJulius, a self-made businessman turned motivational speaker and author. He was a very charismatic speaker, although I'm not sure his hospitality-based solutions will transfer well to our business. One of his customer service axioms that stuck with me was "It's not our fault, but it's still our problem." It's really easy to point out where the customer is wrong -- you can even be validated by "the rules" -- but the successful companies try to appease the customer anyway. He gave an example about his trip to Disney World with his son -- they waited in a 45-minute line, only to be told his son was too short to go on the ride. Now, they disregarded several signs at the ride's entrance and throughout the ride's line (You must be X inches tall to ride "Twilight Zone"). A lot of companies would say "tough luck, you should have read the signs." Well, the fella running the ride gave DiJulius' son a offical looking ticket that read "Future Twilight Zone Traveler," redeemable for a free trip to the front of the line as soon as the kid was tall enough. The thing was even signed by Mickey Mouse himself. Way to brighten up a bad situation, eh? Those bastards at Disney are smart, because now this kid will be bugging his dad to go back once he gets a bit taller, and BAM -- repeat customer.

Third Eye Blind - Blinded What, nobody listened to any tunes today?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - O'Malley's Bar I am tall and I am thin of an enviable height and I've been known to be quite handsome from a certain angle and in a certain light well I entered into O'Malley's said "O'Malley, I have a thirst" O'Malley merely smiled at me and said "you wouldn't be the first" I knocked on the bar and pointed to a bottle on the shelf and as O'Malley poured me out a drink I sniffed and crossed myself my hand decided that the time was nigh and for a moment it slipped from view and when it return it fairly burned with confidence anew well the thunder from my steely fist made all the glasses jangle when I shot him I was so handsome it was the light, it was the angle...

VHS or Beta - Night on Fire

Good to see the Aga Khan doing something with all that money he stole. Not a fan, meta? I can't comment on Chabon too much, I know he won a Pulitzer for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I thought about picking that one up... but I wasn't in the market for a full-length novel at the time. The subject matter in The Final Solution interested me more, anyway.