Do you feel alive?

I do. Hope y'all had a great year. I know I did.

Happy B-day, Pops, Happy 100th post, Blog.

My dad's forty-uhh, forty-something today. Forty-six? I dunno, mid-late forties. Happy Birthday to him, my classic rocker, bird shootin', politics-hating dad. Yeah he's still quite young. And what's the best way to tell him? By telling him that his favourite hockey team, the New York Islanders, lost to their rivals, the New York Rangers, who happen to be my favourite team, last night 5-4 after blowing an early lead.

And this marks the 100th entry on my blog, and it's still going on strong. I wonder how many blogs I follow will reach this milestone.

2008: A Look Back At This Year In Pop Culture.

Jo, the puppy cam's dedicated to you, pal.

They should've mentioned Rick Rolling.

Why American sports are different from (and better than) European sports.

Let's take one example of a sport played in both continents. My favourite, ice hockey. Observe, America:

Now Europe:

What's the difference? Oh the European sportswear must be cooler, look at all those decals! Wait a minute. Decals? As in, advertisements? The guy's covered in them! I can't even tell if there's a team logo on the bloody thing. Look back at the first picture. What do you see? Team logos, standing large and proud right in the fucking middle of the jerseys. Advertisements? Nope, just the brand of sportswear being used, example Reebok. Small patches, like in normal clothes.

See, the thing is, if I want to play in a sports team, I want to show it by wearing the team logo proudly. Not be a walking billboard.

And the distinction is clear in many other sports. Let's take American baseball now:

A giant NEW YORK right across the shirt. And you know that guy loves it, just look at him. Hell, he's even sporting some shades.

Baseball isn't that popular in Europe. Okay, how about European football?

Hmm yeah, I don't follow football but I know that that little white patch - come on, look harder - across from the Nike logo is the team logo. But fuck that, get insured with the American International Group (AIG)! What if you play for a team sponsored by a company that you think sucks? You're gonna be spending a good chunk of your career running around practically saying "Oi, support this company even though it probably sucks! I hate it, but hell, I support it anyway!"

Be proud of your team, wear the team LOGO, let the sponsors have a bit of advertising space in the arena and during game intermissions, not on your body.

And while we're on the topic of wearing your gear proudly, what do team captains in football wear? Arm bands, or wrist bands? Whatever, those cheap removable things nobody even ever notices. In America, team captains and assistant captains have giant "C"s and "A"s (look at the guy in red and white in the first picture) STITCHED onto their jerseys. Now that's something I'd be proud to wear.

American sports 1, European sports 0.

Walking billboards, pshh.

Oh and another thing. In American sports leagues such as hockey and baseball, athletes know how to be, you know, ATHLETIC. They put their bodies to the test during gametime and take their physical strength to the limit. In other words, they know how to play rough and not be pussies. Go ahead, tap an Italian footballer's leg.

OUCHIES, MY A-LEG, IT IS A-BROKEN, I CAN NO LONGER A-PLAY!

American sports 2, European sports 0.

No longer allowed to feel.

It seems that as more time passes by, the more focused we are on labelling others. Everyone has to fall under a specific category, and no two cliques can interact, socialise, or even dare to merge.

What's that one annoying label we like to use on everyone? Emo. Nowadays, when you see someone feeling down or lonely, your first reaction is to call him emo and then tell him to get a life.

I'm not going to give a definition of "emo", that shit's been done over and over again. My point is that now we're associating a normal human emotion with something negative that should be abolished forever, therefore discouraging people from expressing their emotions and hence encouraging them to bottle everything up.

Being sad or feeling lonely isn't emo. It's normal and it happens all the time to everyone. Thank God that shitty trend is on the decline now - human emotions should not be associated with trends, fashion or whatever. If you're down, speak up.

P.S. This isn't some reaction to a personal experience of my own or to anyone specific, it's just a general thought. If anything, I'm as happy as a nun who just got her negative pregnancy test results back (kudos to anyone who gets the reference).

Come on, make our lives easier.

Out of every single nation in our world, only three haven't adopted the Metric System as the primary or sole system of measurement. Two of them - Myamnar and Liberia - are practically irrelevant to the rest of the world, while the third hard headed nation is... yes, you guessed it, the United States of America.

Why must they insist on keeping something no one else in the world uses? Why not just get rid of their method of measurement - inches, feet, miles and whatnot - and save a lot of time on converting from that crap to metric system values?

Then there's that region shit with video games and DVDs and so on. NTSC and PAL. Bloody hell, that's so annoying. Why? Why do that to us? I loved my Playstation when I was a kid. Then we moved here and all the games were PAL, I couldn't buy a damn thing until I illegally chipped the console. I tried watching a DVD yesterday on my laptop and I couldn't because it was region locked. Give us a break, you sell us consoles and DVD players and laptops here, then you sell us games and DVDs which we can't even watch on them?

They're doing one thing right. They're going to make accounting standards the same worldwide. Same methods of accounting everywhere. Of course you are, how annoying is it to do business internationally, only having to realise that you have to do all your accounts ALL OVER AGAIN in THEIR bloody method? Very.

Abolish the United States Customary System for units of measurement!

Why that name?

Why is it called Boxing Day? In certain countries, the 26th of December is based on the tradition of giving gifts to the less fortunate members of society.

So a couple of thoughts. First of all, why on the day after Christmas? Isn't that disrespectful? I mean, you're dividing the time of giving into two days - the 25th for the people you know and care about, and the 26th - the day AFTER the wonderful time of (a very commercial, but whatever) Christmas - for those who are socially inferior, probably have no relatives, no friends, and are in need of more attention than the extra attention you already give to your friends. It's like, you ended up with a bunch of extra stuff from Christmas and you don't know what to do with it so you'll just get rid of it by giving it to less fortunate people. Well, that's bloody nice of you isn't it, why didn't you just visit the poor chaps on Christmas eve or Christmas evening and say "Here you go pal, a little something on this special day!"? Oh that's right, YOUR special day is the day after everyone else's!

And another thing, what's with the name? It's supposedly a day of giving, yet it gives the impression of giving blows to someone's face.Why not call it Getting-rid-of-stuff-by-giving-it-to-the-poor day? Here you go old man! Pow! Right in the kisser. Happy Boxing Day! What, can't handle a Round 2? Come on, I'm being generous!

Oh and, Happy Birthday to that drummer we love, hate, and love to hate for being such a dick sometimes. Here's to another 45 years, Lars Urlich!

Merry Christmas.

And Happy Chanukah (or Hanukkah).

And of course, starting from tomorrow, Happy Kwanzaa to my African-American friends. Not that I have any. I did, but I don't anymore. That was in America. I'm not in America now. I'm just saying it like, in general. Hmm.

It's so easy to buy presents for the little'uns. You just need to know two things: High School Musical and Hannah Montana. Let all the advertising, commercialisation and mass production do the rest.

Happy happy joy joy.

Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy

Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy

I got my driver's license, happy happy joy

Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy

For the lulz.

The internet is full of a lot of shit. Practically anything. Here's some internet-famous pictures that really cracked me up.

Hardy har har. Bloody hell, I should be sleeping. Driving exam tomorrow.

In the Name of Honour.

That's the name of the book I just finished reading. A book which really frustrates me. The Islamic approach on justice - tribal judgements and crimes of honour - undoubtedly leaves a bad image showing immaturity amongst men and extreme unfairness towards women.

To push the law aside and take matters into your own hands when there is a dispute between two families is completely absurd. Raping your neighbour's wife, taking one of his young daughters to marry one of your relatives or murdering your own wife is not justice.

It's all about honouring your family, isn't it. That's not honouring anyone. Such people give a bad name to humanity itself. It's so pleasing to know that things are changing in countries like Pakistan, where women are drawing nearer and nearer to equality with men, cases of rape are decreasing, and the sad excuses of men who brought misery to their wives and other people's wives are being brought to justice.

Sweet tooth.

I don't know if this affects anyone else, but it sure pisses me off. Don't have a soft drink before you go to bed without brushing your teeth. Everytime I do, I wake up with the most irritating feeling of itchy sugar coated teeth. Ugh.

Last one standing?

A lot of blogs I normally read are now abandoned. Wasted. Defunct. Kaput. A shame really, it's not like you don't have enough time on your hands - after all, all you do is sit in front of the computer all day, like me.

One blog that is updated constantly, one that I've only just started checking out recently, is this - http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/

It's got great comics on it, and it's updated daily.

What sucks is that while everyone is abandoning their blog, Perez Hilton is still out there, doing his thing. Oh we'll bring you down one day, fucker.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Whenever you feel like shit, nothing beats a nice long laugh. It really helps when you stay focused on something funny for a long time. Chances are, your mood will practically fully change for the better after an hour or two of hilariousness.

That's why I say, if you feel down, watch stand up comedy. Rent a comedian's DVD, someone well known. Jeff Dunham and Lee Evans work wonders for me. Jeff's Christmas Special is quite popular, obviously, at this time of year. Lee has a couple of great performances which can be found in their entirety on YouTube. His facial expressions, accents and movement are all gold.

If you don't feel better after, well, eat a giant container of ice cream and watch soap operas in your underwear and cry a lot.

They're everywhere Pt. 2

First the toilet prank on me. Then the hacking of Luke's laptop. It was Jo's turn.

Jo is very fond of post-it notes. We used that to our advantage. A while ago we bought 5 packets of post-it notes and waited for the perfect day when Jo would be out of the flat for a long period of time. Today was that day.

After almost 2 hours of work, and a lot of swearing - the sticky notes weren't really that sticky - we were satisfied. All we had to do was wait for Jo to return to the flat.

First we left him a little bait. Some sticky notes on the front door of the flat. On them I wrote that Luke and I knew that Jo loved post-it notes so much, that we bought him a packet. We left him a brand new packet by the door of his room. When he came and saw it, he was really thankful and... hugged us. Then he opened the door to his room...

Here's my best work of art...

Yes those are dicks. You should've seen the little boy from across the street staring at them as I was putting them up. And for the grande finale, Luke's best work...

We decided to call him Pablo. After all, this is cubism at its best. Jo likes it so much that he won't be removing it. A true work of art indeed.

They're everywhere.

So you decide to go to Valletta to do a little bit of Christmas shopping, and who do you see walking towards you? Someone with a clipboard and a nervous look on his face, sporting a goddamn Vodafone logo on a dark blue polo shirt.

Yes, I use Vodafone.

No, I don't spend more than 10 euros a month, thank you very much now get the fuck out and leave me alone.

You take a couple of steps when you see someone else walking towards you. Someone with a clipboard and a nervous look on his face, sporting a goddamn Go Mobile logo on a dark blue polo shirt.

Oh fuck, not this again.

Yes, I use Go Mobile now leave me alone I'm busy kthxBAI.

A couple more steps.

You see him from the corner of your eye. Oh no, you are NOT talking to ME, asshole. So you cross to the other side of the main road to avoid any interaction with him. Phew, that was close.

You repeat this for a couple more times before you finally make it to... the other end of the city entrance. The city ENTRANCE. Dear God, is the whole main road riddled with bored and nervous mobile company employees who would do anything to sell something to someone for a little extra commission?

And I swear they increase in number as Christmas draws nearer. They're like a bunch of zombies all coming towards you saying BUUUUUY OOOOUUUUR PRRRROOOODDUUCCCTSS. And then you have to try to dodge them all like it's some fucking warzone.

Fuck you, let me do my Christmas shopping in peace.

It's official.

Burger King is better than McDonalds. Why? I took my McDonalds-addict girlfriend to Burger King yesterday (how romantic) and she absolutely loved it.

But it's obvious that it's better. Bigger burgers, for starters. The fries aren't coated in salt. And hey, they sell Kinnie! You definitely eat your money's worth. Unlike McDonalds, where you need to eat like 3 burgers to fill yourself up.

And while we're talking about fast food, don't go to Pizza Hut more than once a month. Or a year. Unless you're filthy stinkin' rich. Yesterday I spent money throughout the whole day for food equivalent to one meal at Pizza Hut. Curse those heavenly breadsticks and their price tag.

He's everywhere.

And I love it.

They're good old chaps, really.

So I get on the bus this morning, the driver's a young guy, he passes by another bus and screams "AW MY FRIEND!" to the other bus driver. He does this with another bus driver before I get off the bus for University.

As I'm on the bus back to the flat in the afternoon, once again I hear "AW MY FRIEND!", this time coming from another bus. It was the same guy.

See, they're not all that bad. Bus drivers can be friendly too.



"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BLOODY WAY!!!!!...... MY FRIEND!!"

R.I.P. - 4 years on and still not forgotten.

"On December 8, 2004, while performing with Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Abbott was shot onstage by a mentally ill former US Marine named Nathan Gale. Abbott was shot three times in the head, killing him instantly."

Dimebag Darrell Abbott, guitarist for the bands Pantera and Damageplan, was brutally murdered on stage four years ago, doing what he loved to do best. An influence to many guitarists and metalheads alike, he will always be remembered for his memorable songs and the passion he had for his music.

My heart goes out especially to his brother Vinnie Paul, who witnessed the violent act when he was playing drums behind Dimebag that night.

Help The Imagery out just a bit more.

Keep voting for The Imagery on 5061 5230, just a few more votes and they'll have a chance of making it to the Lidea Band Challenge Finals, eventually leading them to perform in Holland if they win.

For more info check out http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=42671652126

A punk rock Christmas.

It's that time of the year again where we dish out the old Christmas classics from the back of the CD rack and play them non-stop, whether the whole family likes it or not. Not me though, I have my own playlist.

Yes, you guessed it, they're mainly rock-driven songs, but they're still great to play anywhere during the festive season. Here's a few of the songs from my Christmas playlist - download them or ask me to send them to you if you're interested.

• My Chemical Romance's version of "All I want for Christmas is You". Upbeat, fast, and headbangable.
• "I Won't be Home for Christmas" by Blink-182. It's not exactly the cheeriest of festive songs, but it's funny as hell. I love running the scenes through my head as I listen to the lyrics.
• Simple Plan's "My Christmas List". The whiny pop-punk band offers a great singalong for whiny teenagers. Honestly, I don't know why they came up with such childish lyrics but it's a fun Christmas song.
• "Punk Rock Christmas" - The Sex Pistols. Yeah, what else would these guys name the song.

Sigh.

Another one of my creations. Wish I could make it bigger. I have quite a large collection now. Won't be putting them online though, since they concern my friends, so unless I have their permission, it wouldn't be very nice now would it.

Linkin Park - Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes

I should become a professional music journalist.

I didn't include this in yesterday's entry because I didn't want to overload your tiny brains with my opinions on today's music. But now you have to read some more today. Nene.


Linkin Park's new live DVD/CD set, the second official one to be released after 2003's Live in Texas, portrays a much more cinematic and diverse performance from the band since the Meteora days. They used to be coined as nu-metal giants, but with new songs from Minutes to Midnight introduced to their ever-changing setlist, they're becoming more of a rock n' roll band without completely abandoning their roots.


The set first starts out with some of the heavy classics such as "One Step Closer" and "From the Inside" along the newer heavy stuff "Given Up" and "No More Sorrow". Then it slows down with popular singles like "Leave Out All the Rest" and "Breaking the Habit". Their longest song ever, "The Little Things Give You Away", almost reminds me of Pink Floyd, giving a psychedelic feel during the solo. Great guitar work by Brad Delson. There's some more classics from the Hybrid Theory album, some more of the new stuff, and even a couple of songs with Jay-Z which were mashed up for the Collision Course CD.


Some things which I like to point out from the performance are:

• What used to be the band's setlist closer is now the opener. Yes, I'm, talking about "One Step Closer".
• One of Phoenix's bass guitars is like, wow, totally fucked up. Half the body is practically missing. How cool is that?
• Mike's singing has improved immensely. Chester has gotten better too.
• Chester plays guitar during the end of "Shadow of the Day". I had never seen him play guitar before.
• The drummer Rob Bourdon looks a LOT like my own drummer friend Toffer (hi Toffy, hope you're reading this).
• Phoenix sings during "The Little Things Give You Away". That's the only time another member of the band apart from Mike and Chester sings in a song.
• Jay-Z looks so awkward during the end of "Jigga What/Faint" because the whole band is rocking out like hell and he's just standing there. Hah.
• The piano version of "Pushing Me Away" is absolutely beautiful, it almost made me cry.
• The band is improvising their songs a lot, with extended intros and outros.

If you think Live in Texas was good, this DVD will blow you away. There's a total of 18 tracks on both the DVD and the CD, and a bonus extra 3 songs on the DVD which are unlocked when you watch the full concert. There's a good mix of songs from their three albums, so there's something for everyone who likes Linkin Park. One of the bands I must see perform live before I die.

Oh so many people celebrating graduation.

Made this demotivational poster myself. Kinda got me wondering, am I in a rush to graduate?

This or that?

A few rock albums have been recently released. Namely, the infamous Chinese Democracy by Axl & Friends (fuck off, I'm not calling them Guns 'n Roses) and Nickelback's Dark Horse.

Let's start off with the former shall we? When you haven't released music for a while, you have to make sure that you keep up with the constant changing of the music scene around you. Bands mature and discover new grounds to maintain their popularity. Axl Rose was apparently aware of that. However there's a difference between extending your sound while keeping SOME of your roots and, well, doing something completely new and unrelated to previous works.

You see, if Axl Rose had named the band something else, there wouldn't have to be any connotations with Guns n' Roses' old work. But he had to stick to the damn name, now everyone's comparing the new to the old, and well, Chinese Democracy is the band's own St. Anger. I don't know, maybe die-hard G'n'R fans accept the huge change of sound, but I couldn't stand listening to more than a minute of some of the songs, let alone the whole album. I managed to listen to "Street of Dreams" in its entirety though, that song isn't that bad. I won't say the album SUCKS, because there are those who like it and have every right to. I personally just don't enjoy it. Hell, the new album "Day & Age" by The Killers managed to beat Axl out on the UK charts. On a side note, I think that album is pretty good except for, well, the first single. They could have started out with a song that defines their album more.

Now, Dark Horse. Chad Kroeger's unique voice and band has made the Canadian rockers the most loved and the most hated across the world. For those who love the band, this album is one giant present to you. For the haters, it's a huge FUCK YOU right in your face. Piling up on the success of their previous albums ever since they hit the mainstream with the album Silver Side Up, this album proves that Nickelback still have what it takes, compiling a work of art made up of huge in-your-face guitar riffs (e.g. "S.E.X.") and more mellow heartwarming songs (e.g. "Never Gonna Be Alone"). What makes this album so great is that they managed to maintain their same sound without dishing out the same old formulae over and over again, despite being highly criticised for doing so in the past.

If you're a Nickelback fan, you won't be disappointed. If you know any Nickelback fans, this is the perfect Christmas present. If you like rock n' roll, this album is definitely worth checking out. If you hate the band, you're going to have to deal with hearing them all the time on the radio again (and you were just beginning to enjoy the end of "Rock Star", ha).

The great cartoons we watched that could have destroyed our lives.

Growing up in the 90s, some channels you probably watched included Cartoon Network, The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Some great cartoons aired during this decade, but were we aware at the time of the subliminal messages behind these cartoons?

I'm talking about two cartoons in particular. Rocko's Modern Life and Ren & Stimpy. Nowadays people will tell you that these cartoons were really weird but awesome nonetheless. Of course we found them weird when we were kids. We were too young to actually understand what the hell was going on.

Rocko's Modern Life was full of double entendres and sexual innuendos, as can be seen here.



Ren & Stimpy was full of violence where Ren would break down into fits of psychosis and gleefully plot to kill Stimpy. There was also a great use of toilet humor, strong language and sexual innuendo which eventually led to the show being recast as Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". There was even a more explicit homosexual relationship between them during this era. Here are some of the greatest Ren & Stimpy moments.



Well there you have it. These cartoons probably fucked up my generation where they were popular, especially in the United States. That explains a lot.