Deathchants and Military Waltzes
I joined up with Kreblog and two other buddies of mine (one who flew in from Colorado) to see Scissorfight play at the Stone Church in Newmarket.
The opening act, a band called Eyewitness Deathcount, seemed to typify the sound of new death metal one hears on the On-Demand metal music station on the cable. Sure the band mastered the obligatory staccato machine gun riff soundscape necessary to the style, but the lyricist belted out his stuff in a high octave scream which I'm hearing more and more of in today's death metal (high octave screaming as opposed to low octave throaty gutteral dronings). In any case, they didn't play for too long and the other band, Lamont was much better. Then afterwards, Scissorfight took stage and took flight. Man, what a necessary dose of good North American rock & roll asskicking. Hope Kreblog liked it!

Scientific Arguments
A friend of mine in high school was a year older and the summer he got his license was good times. He always had at his disposal a blue Dodge minivan that we could use and abuse. One thing that we derived hours of amusement from was to drive around town with the side door slid open and shoot at the school with one of those high powered wristrocket slingshots with the surgical tubing. Our object was to take out one of the big windows at the front, but it always seemed that Newtonian Physics or the Hand of God would steer the steel ball away from the glass within the last 15 feet or so of the trajectory. Being dumb, we had no idea what scientific principles were at play. Why was our missile not hitting its intended target? How could we overcome the prevailing vectors that had prevented successful take down? One theory that my friend proposed was that since the car was involved, its own forward speed and momentum was tied up somehow in all of this. He dubbed it The Doppler Effect. Another friend who was often in the van and who was a bit smarter than us expressed his adamant opposition to this proposed theory. "It is not the Doppler Effect!" he would shout. Having come to no agreement on the subject cause and effect we got the hell out of there and went to get fast food.

Good Clean Fun for the Kids
Mad Libs has recently retired the following words to their Hall of Fame:

Nouns: poop, pee, caca, boobs, dick, boner, ass, butt, nuts, fart
Verbs: pee, crap, hump, poop, barf, urinate, fart, burp, puke
Adjectives: brown, yellow, smelly, hairy

Love and Rockets


Finally was able to get my photos uploaded from our recent trip to South Dakota. Galleries are available for viewing:

Custer State Park:
Sylvan Lake - where we stayed.
Harney Peak - hike to Harney Peak; highest mountain east of the Rockies.
Scenic drives: Iron Mountain Road and Needles Highway
Wildlife Loop Road - bison herds, pronghorn, and wild burros.

National Parks and Lands:
Badlands - insane mazelike landscape of eroded pinnacles, spires, and buttes.
Wind Cave - interesting scenery above and below the surface. Prairie dog towns, bison herds, lonely landscape above ground; rare boxwork formations below the ground.
Devil's Tower - unsettling, yet beautiful landscape.
Minuteman Missile - bizarre, yet entertaining. Ground Zero Cold War fun visiting a decommissioned nuclear missile silo and launch control facility.
Mount Rushmore - resting place of our Founding Heads. A good dose of Patriotism

Crazy Horse Memorial - ongoing, monumental tribute to the legendary Sioux warrior.

A week was not enough time here. So much to see and so much variation in landscape and terrain. We fell in love with the area and will definitely return another day.