Is there anyone I left out? Any good heavy bands that I don't know about? Lemme know.

Finally made an appointment to have my entire back tattooed. June 23rd I will be a lot poorer and in a lot of pain. Money will be spent. Blood will be spilled. Pictures will be posted. ßßß

So I was able to track down the Examiner story mentioned below, and in typically reprehensible Examiner fashion, the headline was completely misleading. The story had nothing at all to do with the Zodiac, and it was chock-full of the yellow journalism it's fast becoming (in)famous for:

On Feb. 20, 1979, unwitting pedestrians in the Mission stumbled across a nondescript brown cardboard box tied with thick white string. Inside, they found a pair of women's legs, a uterus and a grapefruit-sized blob of lung. The legs, severed at the hip joint and still enveloped in flesh-toned pantyhose, torn at the ankles, were crossed Indian style.

Do we really need this in a major metro paper? Don't get me wrong: I'm the last person to call for any kind of censorship. But we already have rotten.com and 1,000 other sites to feed my need for sick and twisted content. Memo to Ted Fang: If you have to stoop to these depths to induce people to buy your paper, maybe you're in the wrong line of work. Get out before you embarrass yourself any more.

17 May

It's a crazy world. Somebody oughta sell tickets.

The big 72-point headline on the S.F. Examiner today was something to the effect of "DNA Evidence Links 92-Year-Old Suspect to Zodiac Killings," but I can't find the freakin' story anywhere. Maybe they'll post something on the Examiner site, or maybe it'll show up here. How crazy would it be if they caught this guy more than 30 years after his last known killing? Conventional wisdom has always dictated that he was either dead or in an institution, but this is nuts. What good is the goddamn Internet if I can't find an article that's in the daily paper? If anyone finds any info, be sure to let me know. Thanks.

Since I'm already in generic weblog news update mode, here's some other shit that's in the news:

G.W. Bush is laying out his energy policy today. Folks here in California are apprehensive, but let me put your minds at rest: We're totally fucked.

Opera, my browser of choice, just inked a big deal with IBM. [Thanks to kingFresh for the heads up on this one.] Opera clearly kicks Netscape 6's sorry ass and should have no problem stealing its dwindling market share. You make a great product, and it will eventually rise to the top. Faith in the free market restored. Now everyone who's been ignoring my emails about how your sites looks like shit on Opera better start paying attention.

This just in: Ichiro is good. If you hit safely in 21 straight games and make it look like child's play, you deserve to be called anything you want. I'll happily call him Ichiro (Hell, I'd call him the Queen of England if he wanted.), but I refuse to call this guy Dr. Bon Jovi. I'm out. ßßß

My first initiative in dialing it back to 4: working from home at least once every coupla weeks. Man, does that make a tremendous difference. Just not having to deal with the humanity on public transit is brilliant. I guarantee that I work harder, longer, and more efficiently from home. Now if I could only figure out how to get out of these damn meetings. ...

Just when I was starting to develop a tolerance to suck list 2001 and actually get some work done, Dack has developed another evil application for his newfound forms fixation. It's the opportunity to complete this sentence: "It's a sure sign of the apocalypse when ..." Needless to say, I've got a major catalog of apocalypse-related news stories, so I've already wasted an hour filling out that infernal form.

Did this guy steal the gig that was rightfully mine? Speculation is mounting that Mike Inez has been approached by Metallica to replace Jason Newsted. If only I had tracked down that video. ...

Two versions of the new Squarepusher single are available free from nme.com here. And it's good. Don't say I never gave ya nuthin'. ßßß

15 May

Dialing it back to 4.

So both my boss and my boss's boss were gone last Thursday and Friday on some business thing. Of course, I start licking my chops over all the blawg-related stuff I'm gonna get done, how I'm gonna leave early those days, etc., but guess what? I ended up working harder and longer on those days than normal. That's just wrong. So no DVD reviews, no breathtaking redesign, and no database-driven content management and publishing tool. All I got done was updating the Who is this guy? section. Oh well.

Lined up two auditions for Saturday. Despite my better judgment, I'm holding out hope for both of 'em: One's a dirty punk rock 'n' roll thing, à la Hellacopters and New Bomb Turks, and the other's a promising-sounding breakbeat/two-step/drum 'n' bass/dub thing. So I'm stoked, although one or both will probably fall through. Musicians are stupid and lazy.

Where oh where is the Jack Johnson album?!? No, not that Jack Johnson — the Mos Def project. Apparently they played at Coachella, but the album is nowhere in sight. Get to work, Mos! We need you. You're our only hope. ßßß

Rock 'n' Roll America Pt. 2 is on the air. More real rock from the rock, on tap for your listening and dancing pleasure. This will definitely be my last weekly installment; from here on out I'll be broadcasting on a biweekly (that's fornightly to you Brits out there) basis. Too much work the other way.

While we're on the music tip, is there any chance that the new Weezer single sucks? Now I'm not saying it does, but humor me here. Perform this simple test: While listening to the song, try to forget that it's Weezer, hero of emo boys and rock critics the world over. Pretend you just downloaded the track from some random band on mp3.com. Does it still rock, or does it sound like generic heavy metal that you and your stoner friends used to play in your parents' garage? Just wondering.

While we're slaughtering sacred cows here, this just in: The Simpsons has officially worn out its welcome. Now a bigger Simpsons fan than me you will not find. I've watched that show religiously for over 10 years, ever since it was a poorly drawn feature on the otherwise abysmal Tracey Ullman Show. But last night's episode had to be, in the immortal words of the Comic Book Guy, "the worst episode ever." Not only is it no longer the scathing social commentary it once was, now it just plain sucks. Memo to Fox: Put the show out of its misery. Let me keep my memories of the Simpsons pristine. Thank you.

I don't add links to other sites lightly here at blawg, but I added two today: mecawilson and Lileks.com. I've been peeping Lileks.com for a while, and there's just some gorgeous shit there. Check it out if you haven't. And mecawilson, well, that mu'fucka had me rolling on the floor with some of his posts. Do yourself a favor and read it. And Matt: Quit the Web gig and get yourself an agent. I'm pretty sure you missed your calling as a comedy writer. Or a sociologist. Or something.

Got all manly this weekend and helped our friends Neal and Jessie dismantle and cart away our old wooden hot tub. Me + Sawzall - hot tub = happy, happy boy (and lots of firewood). Neal's planning on putting the thing back together once he gets it to his crib, and if anyone can do it, it's him. He's all handy and shit. He's a lot like me, in fact, except that I'm incredibly talented only in the destruction phase. Not so much when it comes to the construction part. My next victim: my old concrete fish pond. Me + 8-pound sledge - fish pond = trouble. ßßß

Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.