Oh No, Puns!

A while I found an article titled ''Porn actor goes on rampage at video production office, police say; 1 dead, 2 wounded''. I can't remember how the heck I stumbled across this article, but I bookmarked it because I thought that the comments were just hilarious (if not really mean).
Here's the article:

"Police say a disgruntled employee, in the process of being fired, stabbed three co-workers in Van Nuys with a Samurai-style sword."

The man believed responsible for a rampage at a Van Nuys video production facility that left one dead and two wounded is a struggling porn actor who faced the loss of his job, authorities said.

Stephen Hill, 30, allegedly used a machete-style weapon in the attack, which occurred about 10:20 p.m. at a video distribution business on Hayvenhurst Avenue and Saticoy Street.

Los Angeles Police Department Det. Joel Price said Hill was both working and living at the offices of Ultima DVD Inc.

Price said Hill did production work and acted in several porn movies. But on the night of the attack, he apparently faced the loss of his job and eviction from the office.

Hill allegedly fled after stabbing the three co-workers. The victims were rushed to a hospital, where one was pronounced dead. There were seven people in the office when the attack occurred.

The LAPD is investigating the attack as a case of workplace violence. The suspect fled in a blue Toyota RAV4 with license plate 5YTC423.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Well, it's odd and tragic itself. And probably these comments full of puns will offend quite a few:

''I'm sure being evicted was HARD ON him''

''what? he didnt shoot it with his gun?''

''I'm sure he will receive a stiff sentence.''

''I thought this was a joke ad for a lumber company or a wood worker union or some hot dog company .... and on and on ...''

''Maybe he got some bad ass... And I can't even get any.. What a dork....''

''How do one gets to be "struggling porn actor"? Either you're one or you're not. I don't think anyone "struggle" to become a porn actor. ''

''Too bad, i really enjoyed his stuff''

''The cialis side effect strikes again!!!...i can see so many innuendos with this story like "Raging porn star still at LARGE"''

''one of is co-stars kept calling him' shorty' !! almost as bad as 'speedy' !''

''A "struggling porn star"? I thought porn was what struggling real actors / actresses, who have no marketable skills, fell into while trying to "make it big"!''

''So, this guy was going to get the "shaft"?''

''Now he will go from violating hot chicks to being violated by ugly dudes. What a moron.''

''If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword.''

''This is a bad time to lose your job, even for a porn "actor".
I'm surprised this kind of thing is not being reported every single day as more people lose their jobs.
It's tough out there people, so hold hands and share your lunch with others, just like you did in Kindergarten. :)''

This last one I agree with. The world needs more hugs. Naked hugs. (okay maybe not naked; that's situation-dependent).

Country Metal?

One makes your head explode (as in Mars Attacks!) while the other makes you headbang (as in Metallica). Okay, not all country is bad, but there's awful country out there. The same can be said of heavy metal (although I like metal a lot more).

Even though both styles have great affinity for some things and after all, share many of the same roots, I've heard relatively little mingling between them. Let's face it; if a band leads the way in an imaginary 'Country Metal' genre, or 'Countrycore' (god I hate the -core suffix), chances are that it's forever labelled as 'cheesy', 'godawful', or a shame in the name of metal. However, I think there have been a few instances that I think could lead to some kind of interesting cool music based on both. Coming from a mix of heavy metal and southern rock, Black Label Society had the damn catchy "House of Doom" track, for instance:


From "Hangover Music, Vol VI".

Okay, it isn't country, but southern rock is well, a fusion of rock & roll, blues and country music! I think that it may be good as a platform to further mingling between country and heavy metal.

Other ways would be through punk music and that very very bouncy hill-billy stuff. Here, for instance, punk band Guttermouth created something really unique; that "barnyard" sort of rhythm fits punk and some kinds of country/folk excellently. Note the awesome violin and banjo interplay in the background and their solos:


I'm Destroying the World from "Covered in Ants".

Kid Rock seamlessly mixed southern rock, hip hop and not-quite-metal in "Cowboy", so figure, you can remove the 'breakbeat' influence and turn the metal one up a notch. It's not a bad song, considering that he managed to mix 3 things so well (when many nu-metal bands suck and they don't even mix country):


Song from "Devil Without a Cause".

Rebel Meets Rebel, with their eponymous track, to me seems to be real Heavy Country (or whatever), however, I'm not quite sure about that fiddle lead before the verses... they are annoying. They could sound a lot better. However, the vocals here, specially when they harmonise bring out tons of potential. Hmm, I think it's okay. Here we go:


From Rebel Meets Rebel album.

It gets better towards the end with that fiddle breakdown solo double-timey part.
"Coyboys Do More Dope" by Rebel Meets Rebel:



Quite like the piano there...

Now, the guitar-shredding angle of music is a good way to immerse into the world of country music. It may get a bit tiring after a while (like most country), but it's briefly the coolest thing in the universe:



We also have another band a bit like Rebel Meets Rebel but maybe a bit more palatable to some; Haf Bitten Moon:



Finally, I'll leave y'all with these two funnies. Meh...

Football Predictions

I dunno, I was just curious about how accurate I could pull this off. Lets see how many of these hold true tomorrow and after tomorrow.


Going horizontally: Netherlands, Paraguay, Italy, Japan, Brazil and Portugal. There's still lots to guess about the last two spots so I put nothing there.

EDIT (3 days later): seems I got all the teams, except for Italy. Wow. That's the thing about predictions, it's always easier to get something apparently obvious wrong. Now, the last 2; 1H and 2H were left blank because I had the feeling that anything could happen. Chile almost didn't get through and Spain didn't end in 2nd place. Damn.

One thing to have in mind when predicting is to have in mind that although we know many things are possible, we must still not think of the future as a predetermined state. When in movies people travel to the future, it's a future that is already set and can't change unless the past is changed. It's all clouds of probability. I'll post something about that one day.