Friday, May 30, 2008

Karma is going to destroy Boston.

Does it get any better than living in Boston right now? Sports wouldn't even exist in America without us. I wonder if a Boston team isn't in the Finals whether it even count as a World Championship? It's like that age old question if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it does it make any noise?-www.barstoolsports.com

I'm pretty fucking sure this means Boston is going to either: A. Be the first struck with a nuclear bomb. B. Have every team in Boston set the record for losses in a season. or C. Have an infestation of gays to be the homo city of the world. (So we could make fun of them and humiliate them all day every day.)

You see. That would even work... Any of those options, those cockmasters from Boston would say something to effect: "I'm gonna make a shirt that says 'First! Nuclear Bomb hit!'" or maybe they would take pride and brag about how many gay people were there, had said gays infested their city.

It was less than a year ago and I was rooting for the Red Sox in the world series, because damn I don't like the Rockies.... I can't believe I actually did that. I need a scarlet letter because I fail at life.

Indians.


Amazon Indians from one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been photographed from the air, with striking images released on Thursday showing them painted bright red and brandishing bows and arrows

Is this real? (Also is this front page news?) This looks like some kind of bad indian movie. Or a crappy video game. Painted whole body bright red huh? Sweet. Firing wooden arrows at a metal aircraft... Reminds me of Diablo II.

Also. There's no room in this world for these people. I would love to give them some hand woven rugs with small pox. Whos with me?

/cynicism

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I don't know why this is so funny...

But damn does this make me laugh:




Something about Casey Kasem... I'm not sure, but I laugh at the weirdest parts of that clip. Listen to when he says "please." Thats the please that is when you've had a shitty day and you'd rather take a bullet in the head instead of doing you're job.

What happened to all the pictures I was suppose to see?

Damn. Ja Ja Ja.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

J.R. Towles

2007 - 40 AB 15 Hits
2008 - 115 AB 16 Hits

I believe this would constitute bad news. All over bad news.

Did they just move Adam Everett to catcher and change his name?

By the way, A.E. is mashing! .189 BA with a 56 OPS+

(J.R. is a whopping 47)

Just to give you a comparision... Kaz Matsui has a 90 OPS+, and thats a little china man.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Quest for Shred. Post 1

These posts will all be tagged "Shred." So when they get buried by random sports posts, or me bitching about how much I hate cowboy fans... just click on the link to the right that says Shred Posts.






Well this is the first one. My practice schedule currently includes too much stuff to write about in one post. So I'm going to break it down 1 thing at a time. I stole this lick from Kirk Hammett on the song "Sad But True." It's a good one for a couple reasons: It works strict Alternate Picking, its great for vertical movement on the fretboard, and it can be transposed from any position on the neck. I don't want to get too involved in theory on here, because I'm no theory master, but what I mean by transpose is that this lick in the format its in now is in the D minor pentatonic scale. If you were to move it up the neck so that it would read 12-10-12 instead of 14-12-14 that would be the C minor pentatonic scale.


Let me break down how I practice this. First of all... if you listen to anyone around they say "YOU MUST PRACTICE WITH METRONOME OMG !@11ELEVEN!!!" Well, they are kind of right in my opinion. However, I fucking hate metronomes. They drive me crazy. I do believe its important to get build speed slowly and surely with some sort of beat you can change. This is why I use the program Guitar Pro. That picture up there is actually a screen shot of guitar pro. I take the song "Sad But True" and turn the tempo down and slowly increase until I fuck up. Then I practice the fastest I can do the lick cleanly and accurately. Rinse and Repeat until one day I can say... damn I moved up 5 beats per minute from last week! So if you hate metronomes like me, get guitar pro and use the drums in the song... The only thing I stress is turning off the guitar thats playing that lick so you hear YOURSELF playing it, and not the computer. Once I get a video camera I'll illustrate this better, but for now text will have to do.


On to the lick itself. This is done with strictly alternate picking. This means that after EVERY downstroke there is a following up stroke. Down-Up-Down-Up-Down-Up. It may seem more convienent if you move down a string to use 2 down strokes, but that is another technique called "Economy picking." This may take a while going really slow to get used to. It took me fucking forever just to learn the lick before I could even play it with the backing track.


Personally I start this with an upstroke. John Petrucci would say practice everything starting with both ups and downs, but frankly I don't have that much time. Starting on the upstroke with my ring finger for the 14th fretted notes, and index for the 12th fretted notes until the fragment that is 12-12-13-12-13-15-15-15. I switch that to Index for the 12's, Middle for the 13's, and pinky for the 15's. As far as the bend in there... I bend it up with my ring finger and move on to that next fragment.


Currently. I am stuck on 75 beats per minute on this lick. The song is played at a 93 beats per minute tempo, so I am about 3/4 the way there. Honestly the first time I played this I could do 65 pretty cleanly, and after 3 weeks i've moved up to 70-75 cleanly... slow progress, but I see no other way of accomplishing shred level speed without going through this.

Next time I will share one of my sweep picking exercises.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Ultimate slap in your face.











This is B Lidge saying fuck you, really really loud, to Houston.

I hope for, our sakes, we have the lead in the ninth.

Granted, I did see him load up the bases one night and get out of it with a double play.

On a side note... I will soon be posting weekly updates on my quest for shred. When I get a video camera I'll be uploading vids of my practice routine to share to others. To shed some light on that fact that novice guitar players can work the skills needed to reach their goals. Hopefully, I can help others who are frustrated with speed, acuracy, and dullness of their sound (which is me). Searching around the internet for advice is useless, its either people who have no clue, or people who've allready achieved their goals trying to teach to others. Back to it.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Quote

After Lester's no hitter last night

Just another boring night in Boston sports. It's hard god damn work being this awesome at everything. It must suck so bad to live anywhere but here.

This is why its so easy to hate sports teams/cities that have a ton of recent success. That quote is from barstoolsports.com, and It would be EXACLTY what I would say if Houston had as much success as Boston has over the last few years.

Fuck the Spurs, Cowboys, Mavericks, for having more success in recent years that us. And fuck the Rangers for owning us every damn year. Damnit. Why can't we be dominating? I would shove it in so many peoples faces. I would be worse than any Yankee fan you've ever met.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Random

Lance went on Rome yesterday, and then he hits the game winning home run.
Another opportunity for Rome to gloss his "jungle karma"

And... This sound byte has been playing on Rome alot lately, and I think its just awesome.
Its Brett Meyers of the phillies explode on this guy.

http://www.bugsandcranks.com/philadelphia-phillies/brett-myers-blows-the-game-screams-obscenities-at-reporter/

Sound byte is towards the bottom of the page

The flopping is out of hand.

I don't know if you can get more angry at a T.V., than when Tim Duncan falls over when a snowflake grazes his toe, and the ref's call 98 fouls on the snowflake.

Duncan... backing it in... he spins!
*WHISTLE*
You! Snowflake! DID YOU FUCKING FALL ON TIM DUNCANS TOE?
THAT IS FLAGRANT!
*League suspends the snowflake*

It sucks that we, as Rockets fans, have to be associated with Robert Horry. Atleast on a small level. Unfortunately, Horry is now the equivalent of: guy who tries to gouge eyeballs out in football dogpiles, or . . . guy who bashes ice skater's knee or . . . guy who gases, burns, shoots, stabs, and drowns millions of people in the 1930s and 40s.

We can't accept Berkman not hitting .400. Terrible! Fucking Terrible! Unacceptable!
I like looking down at the Cards in the standings. Makes me feel like takin a big ole dump from above them. Take my shit Pujols! Does it feel good on your head?

This is my dream (and if this is possible, i want to know how): I want to get a shitload of sound bytes from Major League, and Jim Rome and have a way to play them in public. Becuase whats better than saying the major league quotes while watching an astros game, than having the soundbytes right there. And rome is just funny to me, It would just make me laugh all the time. I could manually buzzer annoying people at the bar.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Pitcher hits HR, Media goes batshit fuckface crazy.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8083928/Pitcher-Owings-lifts-D-backs-with-stick

PHOENIX (AP) - Micah Owings isn't a good hitter for a pitcher. He's a good hitter, period.
Owings proved it again Wednesday with an opposite-field, pinch-hit home run that tied the game in the sixth and helped the
Arizona Diamondbacks rally from four runs down to beat the Houston Astros 8-7.

Why is this such a big deal? Jim Rome made a scene about this that would make a Japanese woman having an orgasm feel bad. It was known going into the game that this guy can mash it up. Teams meet about how to face him when he is at the plate. He puts his offensive teammates to shame at batting practice, and they even know it. It's widely known in their clubhouse that Owings is in their top echelon of power hitters.

The media is not doing its job here. Front page / Index of webpage news is reserved for: Roger Clemens and preteen girls, Miguel Tejada's age, Mike Piazza's sexual orientation, and Jason Whitlock's blatant (and somehow acceptable) racism.

I will give this guy credit for going 8 for 19 on the season with a HR, a double, and 3 RBIs all the while going 4-0 pitching. Great job front-page-news-for-hitting-a-homerun guy!