johnzo

I saw Patton Oswalt at a breakfast place here once. I did a double-take when I saw him and he gave me a look that said he was not interested in meeting a fan right now (totally cool by me, dude doesn't owe me anything and he was recently widowed) and so I just nodded and kept heading for the restroom without breaking stride. Right when I started playing drums, me and a couple guitarist work friends rented this piss-smelling practice room in the Rockbox, an ancient Seattle rehearsal warehouse a couple blocks from the Space Needle. All the big Seattle bands rehearsed at the Rockbox before they made it. My friend was really into the Foo Fighters and wanted to play Everlong, which was way too fast for me to play, but I was up for anything so I'd try and it would sound brutal, just awful, I could not keep up the steady fast hat beat of the tune. And we played it over and over again, because how else am I gonna get better? One day we're leaving the space and the old stoned door guy says "hey, were you the guys playing Everlong?" and I said yeah, and he said "yeah, Dave Grohl was here, standing outside your door listening for like ten minutes and he was nodding his head and digging it" And we were really bad, I cannot emphasize enough how shitty we sounded. So I'm horrified, and I beg the guy, please tell me you're pulling my leg. And finally I got him to admit that he was ******* with us, that Dave Grohl really wasn't there. So that's my best celebrity non-encounter. I was so relieved... Another time, I was hanging out with my friend's band in the Rockbox. The next door band was Candlebox. Everyone makes fun of Candlebox here because the perception is that they're lightweight outsiders who moved here to cash in on the grunge thing in 1994. My friend's bandmates are all metalheads so that day they were ******* around trying to play The Trooper and they can't get it right because it's insanely hard to play. Suddenly, Candlebox next door fires up an absolutely perfect and tight version of the Trooper. So my friend's band got owned by Candlebox. Embarrassing! I really miss Grapes. They had the best wings I've ever eaten, giant, crispy, and breaed. I could eat like two baskets of those things when I was in my twenties.

Can Durant even win games in August and September anymore?

I demand the Bombers cease all activity except for the resigning of core players! Those guys who are doing plumbing maintenance at IGF, they need to stand the **** down until we get Leggett back in the family.

always been a Durant fan but after watching him last year I really have to wonder how much game he has left.

yeah, the guy really nailed it. Thanks for listening MO!

thanks man! Yeah, it's largely a CF chord progression song so it definitely has that Walk on the Wildside feel. It's great to hear you guys say Lou Reed because that's where I was aiming. At some point this will definitely have live drums. at this early stage it's easier to just throw down something in the drum machine and concentrate on the singing. send along your own stuff any time, I'd love to give it a listen.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Odih-fP0kkbiZI3LOkEbmqsZtJETpOPk/view LMK if that doesn't work for you, Google Drive is sometimes flaky when it comes to audio. thanks for your interest Mark -- It's real plain, just vocals, and super vanilla drums and instrumentation at this point. (shamefully, I used a drum machine instead of playing the drums myself) The tune has a lot of growing up to do but it's been born alive! I'm going to PM it to Noeller every hour until he puts it on the radio.

MO, yeah,I know how that feels to be generally brutal Anyway, right now I'm listening to the first complete song I've ever composed and recorded. It's called You Suck. I'm proud of it tonight and will probably be horrified by it tomorrow.

Potentially a big deal: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/us/north-carolina-gerrymander.html A federal court says that North Carolina's congressional district boundaries violate the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court will be ruling on a similar case from Wisconsin soon.

That's where I grew up. I had four of those deep cold lakes, plus Superior, within a bike ride as a kid. My old man worked in forestry, so he knew all the secret logging roads that would lead to great camping and fishing on crown land. Spent a lot of my childhood bouncing around those old roads. Later on, my folks had a spot at Northern Lights Lake, southeast of Quetico and just north of the border. Last time I ever went dirt biking with my brothers was up there. Man, NWO is so beautiful. I gotta get a camping trip together with my old crew someday. We used to go to Cavern Lake and knock around the bat cave ... we'd keep our beer in a deep spot of the lake just off our campsite and make a game of diving for it. Somehow, we didn't die. Great thread J-Pop!

Maybe the Sheriff Joe senate run works out for the GOP establishment: he and fellow nutbag Kelli Ward split the crazy vote in the GOP primary and someone who can play well with others wins the GOP nomination.

Last Manziel update: http://3downnation.com/2018/01/08/johnny-manziels-agent-breaks-silence-loudest-possible-way His agent sez: ouch. he wants top-flight CFL starting QB money ... with zero CFL track record ... and then takes a sideways **** on Austin and the rest of the TiCat management. The note also says that Hamilton has allowed the Manziel camp to negotiate with one other team in the hopes of working out a trade for his rights. I am always wrong at predicting but I predict Johnny Football winds up in Montreal. Throwing a hail mary on a high-profile CFL newb like him is a classic Als move. I also predict that the mangled French at his press conference will be hilarious.

I like 2. On 1, tho -- a lot of fishing challenges are 4Q last-gasp things where they still make sense to go after even with the potential 10 yard penalty, so is the penalty doing enough to disincline the fishing coach?

I'm glad for the TiCats sake they got Masoli wrapped up before moving on Manziel.

I don't want to get too Art Bell on this... but what ******* species is Stephen Miller and why is he cheaping out on his human suit?

I think the onfield rules are fine. An occasional blown call is not nearly as bad as multiple fishing challenges in a quarter, especially the fourth quarter. Wouldn't mind seeing one less national starter with the NFL vacuuming up so much canuck talent these days, but I doubt the PA is interested in that.

It sure seems like the Bombers have. The biggest game of the season and they don't start the guy they've been grooming for years to be the next QB? What's going to happen in the next year that didn't happen in the last two? I'd be surprised to see him back.

Funny thing is, he's won games for way worse teams than the Bombers. He was never a great passer, but he could get the ball there ... until last year, when suddenly he couldn't hit a hangar door.

Khari looked real real good when he had Lulay as his QB. The way their wheels fell off after they lost him makes me think that his non-rehiring was more of a chicken salad situation. Anyway, just a couple weeks ago there were rumors that Gary Crowton was in the running for an Als job. They've done a real nice job not have Crowton around. Khalil Carter has a pedigree, his DBs looked real good in Calgary that past few years. Can't be easy to have a greybeard like Stubler hanging around the org like your girlfriend's best dude friend ... knowing your replacement is right there if someone above you panics.

If I were Collaros I'd be less concerned with my new team's QB coaching and way more concerned with my new team's pass protection. He was under siege last year. Remember "I can't do my work?" At least if the Riders don't work out for him, he can go work for Volvo or Toyota as a crash-test dummy, he's got the relevant experience. Poor Kevin Glenn. Whenever I see him I hear the Littlest Hobo theme song in my head.

Bannon is an arsonist looking to burn down the system. He describes himself as a Leninist, someone who benefits when everything gets worse, and his default firefighting move is to spray gasoline. If he has opinions on all this, I'll pay attention to them when he gives them under oath. Until then, he can STFU.

No words

But this TLJ thread is where I go to argue when I'm tired of the Richie Hall threads! I'm just glad the two year Skywalker saga off-season is easier to handle than the six month CFL off-season....

I like the consistency in the Skywalker dudes, how they're all whiners. Luke was going into Toschi station, Anakin hates sand, Kylo Ren is being torn apart and needs to talk to his -security blankie- grandfather helmet. This is how I know Rey will not be a secret Skywalker, she lacks the necessary whininess. It seemed to work okay for Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter and Neo and so forth. And let's not get into this "true fans don't like TLJ" thing. I'm a ******* giant star wars nerd (though I didn't read much of the EU beyond the Zahn books). Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theater -- I was six -- and it messed me up for life. I will put my star wars trivia skills up against anyone. And I will never call Episode IV anything other than Star Wars, because that's its name, goddammit. For me, the Last Jedi divide is between people who have a template in their heads for what a Star Wars movie HAS to have ... it's gotta be about dynasties struggling for control of the force, oodles of secret backstory, epic space battles, a very tight plot with continuously escalating threats, plucky heroes succeeding against all odds, jaw-dropping lightsaber fights, etc. The Force Awakens was exactly that movie (minus jaw-dropping lightsaber, I guess), and it was pretty decent, but it was also really safe and stale and lazy. Another trench run destroying another Death Star? Try ******* harder, JJ. What I want is something that is enough like Star Wars that I recognize it but also something that's fresh enough that it's still surprising, and TLJ was exactly that, so it worked great for me.

4-44 over the last three seasons. Good thing there's no relegation in the NFL, the Browns would be playing in the AFL6 by now.