In the interim, the real question is, what hasn’t happened? Life, death, birth, loss, celebration, heartbreak, victory and tragedy. Pretty much every major spectrum of emotion you could face experienced in a quarter year. But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Life would be pretty boring otherwise if nothing ever happened. Every happening can’t be positive. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s not a made for tv movie. The more you try to control direction and steer the ship the more you realize you don’t have control anyway, just run with it.
Life has a very funny way of floating people in and out of your field of view. Sometimes it feels like people are just gone, and when you least expect it they reappear, like you never missed a beat. It’s very important to recognize those moments in time and seize them. You never know what could happen in the next hour. You could be gone. They could be gone. Things can change in an instant.
American culture makes us complete workaholics. Working for the man. Government taxing the hell out of the middle class. Cost of goods and gas on the rise. Getting harder to support ourselves let alone a family. On we work, 35, 45, 60 hour weeks just to stay ahead but still a step behind. Our lives are unbalanced and tipped heavily towards work and not what makes us who we are. Now that I am turning 30 later this year, I’ve put the brakes on alot of that to regain control of my life. I’ve heard too many “I wish I had done more of ______ when I was younger, now I am too old”. I am not going to be one of those people.
I used to spend so much time thinking about work and work related things. I am so good at what I do now though, its not as time intensive as it used to be. We’ve had exceptional success in the last few years all over the place. I’ve travelled to cities like Chicago and Denver, met lots of people, been praised on our work by clients and paragons in the Drupal & web design communities. Things are great.
I’ve made it a point to make the last year of my 20s a completely ridiculous blast. I started out by ordering a Super VIP pass for the Firefly Festival this summer in Delaware. I hope I can meet lots of bands and lots of interesting people. Music has been a very integral part of my life since I was a child, so I hopped at the chance to go to this. I spend as much time listening to music a day as I do working- there are no amount of words to express just how many doors unlocked and opportunities opened up for me because of it. I wasn’t sure at first if I could swing this, because this year is also the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones and supposed farewell tour. Along with that, At the Drive In has reunited for just a small string of shows. I can’t even put into words the amount of reverence and respect I have for the Stones. I wanted to do my best to get to both, but not wind up spending $5000 immediately. Then I figure, what the hell, you know? Money comes and goes but opportunities do not. Shortly after ordering the Super VIP pass, I read that the Stones would not be touring this year, but touring next year for their farewell tour. That frees me up this summer. When you stop trying to plan and control every little thing, things just seem to happen in your favor and work out. Life is funny like that.
I’m also going to do some travelling and see some people I don’t get to see very often. There’s a couple of people that live states away that I have been meaning to meet for the last 10 years and I am long overdue. Again, I let too much take priority over the things that really matter in life. I’ve learned the hard way that such things can’t be taken for granted.
That pile of work in your queue? That’s always going to be there. Friends, family, neighbors? They might not be. Gain perspective.
]]>Check out their website, and this video from this weeks performance:
]]>I’ve bought exclusively from Dunlop when I need guitar picks for 14 years now. I started with them. I’ll end with them. Same with Mesa Boogie for guitar cabinets, Schaller for straplocks, Sperzel for locking tuners. Lifetime customer.
I stayed with the same mom n pop video store, even when Blockbuster came into town, until their ultimate closure due to said stores moving into town. Something like 20 years I was a customer. I still have fond memories of that place.
I’ve always eaten Utz chips, Lance crackers, and frequent the same deli. I almost live at the Dogfish Brewpub.
You may have noticed though, that during the last 48 hours my site has been unavailable. I sure as hell noticed.
Today I’m breaking connection with a domain shop who I have used since 2002. I won’t call them out, since it’s not worth getting into. I am transferring my 41 domains over to NameCheap who seem to be decent and are mentioned a lot on Reddit and LifeHacker.
They’ve been mostly good, but a recent DNS mixup (their fault) caused all my personal sites, my fathers site, and domain pointers to go offline for 24 hours, which is not the first time a mistake like that has happened. Not only does that knock websites offline, it also knocks email and other things out, too. I simply do not want to have that happen again. They aren’t a huge registrar, but I gave them my business. This time I am going to step it up.
So far, the process has been painless. NameCheap has really good transfer pricing and makes it pretty easy to do. Each domain will cost me roughly $8 which isn’t bad. I’ve seen higher.
I hope to have this done by February. The only slow part is the move between registrars, which typically takes 5-7 business days.
]]>Since I purchased one of the guitars used on this album last month, it’s inspired me to revisit some of my favorite songs and finally tackle them.
Tuning: DCGFAD
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That’s basically it.. at least how I tend to play it, and what I gathered watching Deron play this in his video lesson. The biggest trick to getting this song down is having good control over alt-picking and being comfortable moving up and down the neck when changing sections/riffs.
]]>However, when you are updating code, removing modules, or doing other general site maintenance, you might run into an error like this that scares the bejeesus out of you:
Fatal error: Class ‘EntityFieldHandlerHelper’ not found in ~/public_html/sites/all/modules/entity/views/entity.views.inc on line 134
Boom. Nothing but you, a white screen, a fatal PHP error and probably lots of “WTF??’s” dancing around your head and no clear way to recover and get the site back up.
Whats happening here is you have moved or updated code that changes either the location of a class definition or the file that contained it. Since it is no longer where Drupal’s code registry expects it to be, we need to clear the registry out and rebuild it. There is an internal function to do this, but there is a quicker way to get up and going again.
Any veteran user of Drupal at this point should be familiar with Drush, the excellent shell tool for administering Drupal and using it at every turn. While your first thought may be to call this:
1
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You may notice that the error will persist beyond this. That’s because (at the time of this writing) the Drush action that clears Drupal cache does not rebuild code registry. It is important to note that this function and the ‘clear cache’ button in Drupal will not rebuild the registry. We need to grab and add an additional command into our Drush arsenal, “Registry Rebuild”.
The easiest method to install this add-on is right in the terminal:
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Now, you should be good to go. Become a Drush warrior!
]]>Not only have I wanted to do something new with my site for quite a while, but I made it a goal of mine to convert it to Drupal this year. Well, I could do it in Drupal. Easily. But there would be two problems with that:
I began reading about Octopress and was quite interested, and began the process of migrating my Wordpress blog to Octopress.
I only needed a handful of things to do the migration:
However, there were a couple of hurdles along the way of getting to the end result.
The first immediate issue when using exitwp was that the BeautifulSoup parser was breaking pretty easy. There were a few suggestions. One was to try using version 3.0.7a, and the other was adding debugging to the html2text.py script so I could see where it was breaking:
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With the above in place, the parser will at least show you where it stopped.
What I was finding was that it was stopping on a couple of posts, ones containing HTML in the content. Some posts, the HTML was broken, just as a result of WYSIWYG generation I assume. Second, some posts only had a break tag or anchor in them that were perfectly fine. Upon removing them, and newlines, it would pass the post fine. However I didn’t want to just remove all markup.
So the next big decision I made was to just import the best posts from January 2009 onward, and do the cleanup from there. Starting at that point, the parse errors were far, far less. I assume this is due to the Wordpress WYSIWYG getting better over time (from 1.x to 3.x). Ah well.
Octopress comes with Disqus support out of the box, the defacto go-to platform for comments. We’ve been using Disqus since about 2009, and they’ve really done a lot of good stuff. Takes the burden of commenting off your hands, plus they have an excellent import/export platform and support for most major blogging/CMS systems.
I used their custom Wordpress plugin to export the comments from my Wordpress site, and imported them into Disqus. This process took roughly 24 hours to complete- but as I understand it there was a large backlog of import jobs to be processed. Normally this does not take very long at all.
After that, I had to create a CSV of URLs from the old paths to the new paths. With it, Disqus automatically updates existing comments to point to the new URLs.
Since Octopress uses different URLs than the ones I had in Wordpress, I needed to setup 301 redirects for search engines. Nothing out of the ordinary here. I don’t mind the ranking impact here, after all I am just a small blog.
With my Wordpress blog hosted up on our dedicated server, I already had a spot to host. Octopress has built-in support for rsync. Setting the configuration in config.yml makes this a breeze.
All in all, a little bit of work and a decent learning experience and here we are. There were a couple of huge benefits for me to switch:
No database.
Since Octopress bakes the blog, the result is all static files, resulting in a huge reduction in footprint on the server and much faster loading times. No database means a lot more, like no chance of SQL injection, no single point of failure, no maintenance.
No security patches.
I know I tend to exaggerate but seriously, Wordpress seems to have security patches or upgrades at least 3 times a month. While the process of updating the codebase has gotten easier since 1.x, its still a pain in the ass to keep up with. There have been a couple of times that letting Wordpress updates slack bit me in the ass, despite only using a couple of plugins.
Speed.
Static files = lightyears faster than waiting for database response.
Out of the box support.
All I have to do is alter the config.yml file and I have immediate support for Google Analytics, Twitter, Facebook, Disqus, and Google+. No plugins needed.
Opportunity to learn.
Doing all of this gave me a good opportunity to learn some new things since its all right in front of me now.
A good change of pace from the norm. I really like Octopress.
]]>Ought to be able to nail all of these for sure.
]]>Review:
Not counting the subpoints under Concerts, thats roughly half of the list accomplished. Combined with achieving things that were not on this list to begin with, I came out pretty far ahead. Some of those goals were just dreams, I need to be better at distinguishing the two. But still, you never know who you’ll run into.
I guess now with 2012 looming, I should think of a new list.
]]>Google backend nerds >>>> Apple/Facebook backend nerds
Apple user interface guys >>>> Google/Facebook interface guys
Facebook >>>> nothing really, but who cares they have a couple hundred million users.
]]>At my age, I cannot afford to play this type of game anymore. I’m calling “Jumanji” and hanging it up.
My typical weekday went from 8 hours of work to 14-15. Get home, log in, go. It was never meant to end up that way.
One thing I had never done in my life, at least in my gaming career, was to get the max level in an MMORPG and see the entire game. I had come close in the past. This time I wanted to see it through, and Rift was the perfect game for that. Quite honestly, its the best MMORPG since Everquest in my opinion.
I always had utmost respect for the players that could do the ‘endgame’ content in these games, areas that take 10-40 man groups to ‘clear out’ (kill the bosses) the zone. One player I always reference when talking about the subject was a player from Everquest way back in the day. He and select others, due to their outright performance and ownership over the game, were hand picked and now work at Blizzard Entertainment. I always thought that was awesome. I always thought that someday, maybe that could happen to me.
Face it, that shit isn’t easy. Most people think it is, other laugh at this type of game. It’s real, actual work. If you think it isn’t, you try successfully leading 20 people in a game without dying for hours and getting nowhere. From the time you start until the time you hit the maximum level is just practice. After that, I would find, is a relentless grind and a level of competitive gaming I had not yet experienced.
I wouldn’t call it an addiction. I was never addicted. I had a desire to be the best, just like anything else I set out to do. There wasn’t going to be any half measures this time. I wanted to do it all. I fell in with a group of people who had just transferred from another server for some reason or another. They were, by all accounts, the best from where they came from. Perfect, I thought. They were going to need players, and I needed players to see the rest of the game. Most of them were just like myself. Some younger, some older, funny, witty players. It was the catalyst that sucked me in like a riptide that takes you far away from mainland.
Before I knew it, we had picked up another 16 people. The guild I just joined went from new to ‘raid ready’ in a matter of hours. A casual, 1-2 hour a day few days a week hobby became a 6 day a week, 5 hours a night alternate life. In fact, some days it didn’t even feel real, almost automatic, something between Inception and The Machinist. Hours flew. Days fell off the calendar. I was playing every chance I got, everywhere I was needed. I even started another character, and hit the level cap in 9 straight days of playing. Only a few knew what I was up to, I balanced it well though I knew the house of cards was prone to coming down at any day. All day I thought about how we’d handle the nights raids, what loot might drop, who would get it. Advancement. Progression. Bragging rights. Boom.
So it went on, for weeks. Every night. We actually did very, very well. If I recall, our guild started out being like 9th or 10th on the server in terms of what we’d conquered, how well respected we were, and how popular our guild was. As of the day I quit, we had risen to the #1 spot. To do that, in just 5 or 6 weeks, is remarkable. I felt pretty good, we had become the best, and there was still more to do.
But not for me.
I was so driven to do this that I lost sight of everything else. My blinders were on, I saw the end, and nothing was going to stop me from getting there. Frequent nights out all but came to a halt. I started skipping the gym. I started staying up way later than I should, and Sundays were great marathon days to get ready for the weeks raid schedule. Usually on-time bill payments began lapsing. Grocery shopping became frequent take out. Whatever would cut down time and give me more to allot here, I did it. Go out for dinner? No. Down to the pub for a beer? I’ve got beer at home. Without ever thinking about it, I had become a full-time, hardcore raider.
I set a goal, I met it. It all came at a personal cost.
I realized while gaming is a fun, positive hobby, these kinds of games are habitually destructive on an individuals lifestyle. Why was I even doing this in the first place? Some old ass nostalgia? A goal the 17 year old me never got to do? Who even cares? I am doing what many others who play games like this cannot do, and that’s quit while I am ahead. After all, we did reach the top.
I should have been focused on myself and not some character. It’s precisely what I set out to do last spring and lost complete track of this summer. Because of that, I had made numerous poor decisions under clouded judgement. I wrecked half my summer in a nightmarish double life that I never intended to have. At least it’s all over.
I haven’t played in two weeks. I walked away. It feels like a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders. What they say is true, those games are a job, and I don’t need a second one.
As of today, I will never touch one of these games again. I now run, but that’s a post for another day.
]]>Okay, still with me?
Being 28 years old and born at the right time to experience the golden years in gaming, I can remember games from the NES system all the way through the late 80s up to now, from Super Nintendo to PS2. That is nearly 24-25 years worth of knowledge in my head. While the NES boasted the most difficult titles (save/continue states lacking, glitchy mechanics, and flat-out hard design) there have been a handful of titles over the years that have provided a challenge so great that they’ve nearly defeated my will to play games anymore.
As a kid, some of those games were Ninja Gaiden 1-3, Batman, Blaster Master, TMNT, Double Dragon, Zelda 1-2. I have since beaten all of those except TMNT, where a corrupt save state (emulator) trashed my progress at the very end. These were some of the hardest I can remember, although there are many more obscure ones like Kid Nikki, Hook, or McKids for example (hey, its a lot harder than you’d expect).
Since then, I haven’t really played a ‘difficult’ game since Baldurs Gate 2, where its more of a thinking mans RPG (and, probably my favorite game ever). I had heard of Ninja Gaiden (XBOX) legendary difficulty, and yes, what they say about it is true. However, I was able to beat that as well, albeit after many many deaths.
That’s the thing about video games. They were made to be conquered, they were made by humans much like ourselves. Some games, however, are only beatable by the elite. I by no means claim to be an elite gamer, since its such a vague description, but I know I am up in the ranks somewhere.
There are two games out in the wild for PS3 that will truely test your skills as a gamer, your decision making, endurance and willpower. These games are Demon’s Souls and its followup, Dark Souls (look, even CNET is writing articles asking if the game is ‘too hard?’- no, just hang up the controller and find another hobby).
Demon’s Souls defeated a lot of players. A lot of people probably never saw more than a quarter of the game. I was not one of those people. Unlike pretty much any other game out there, it does not give hints, it does not hold your hand, it does not care if you think it is unfair. It is relentless. You die, a lot, no matter how good you are. This made me love, but also hate, the game. But for $60 this is exactly what I want out of a video game- I don’t want it to give in to me and just hand over the ending credits. Make us work for it.
There was never much of a plan for a sequel to Demon’s Souls, but after positive reactions, high reviews and players still playing the original, From Software set out to make Dark Souls, taking the difficulty up 10 times what it was in Demon’s Souls.
It’s hard. Real hard. I would go so far as to say this is probably one of the hardest games I have ever played. No directions, no instructions. You are put in a world and told to go. Little hints are scribbled around the world from other players, usually telling you to ‘watch out ahead’. No matter how well equipped you are or how quick you are with defensive moves, you basically die in a couple of hits. Die, and the game gets harder. The more you die the tougher time you’ll have- and that is the only motivation to do what you can to stay alive.
I am about 1.5 hours into the game, getting a feel for it and exploring around. I died pretty much in the first 3 minutes of the game, and probably 20 times since.
This is exactly the challenge I have waited for from gaming this year. If you can beat this game, congratulate yourself- you’re a better gamer than a lot of folks out there.
If you do pick this up, do yourself a favor and do not look up hints, tips and walkthrough videos online. It will only ruin the experience. Earn your win.
Oh, and on the back of the box? It tells you straight up: “Prepare to die.”
Official website: http://www.preparetodie.com/en/
]]>They haven’t done half of what we have, but the minute he declared himself the competition, suddenly we were equal.
I love Mad Men. I think it is one of the best shows on TV in the last 20 years, possibly one of the best of all time. I’ve watched all 4 seasons 3 times through in the past 9 months, and if you’ve seen it, you know why. You can’t help but watch, no matter how many times you’ve seen an episode. It’s that well done.
]]>Since 2005, I have been spreading the word about this band like a prophet speaking about the end of days. If you were into any kind of metal at all, chances are I told you to check these guys out, and even if you weren’t, you heard about it anyway.
World Under Blood formed 6 years ago in Los Angeles, a brainchild of riff machine Deron Miller and Tim Yeung, extreme metal drummer of ‘Divine Heresy’. Deron Miller is the frontman behind CKY, a hero turned mentor turned friend. In CKY, Deron Miller concocts furiously melodic rock riffs with an unforgettable signature sound that has taken them from the small town of West Chester PA to just about everywhere you can imagine with a dozen or more world tours, not to mention opening for legendary bands Metallica and Guns n Roses.
After a tease of two demo tracks in 2006, it was a long time coming to their debut release ‘Tactical’ yesterday. I’ve waited patiently all this time and had my head blown completely off as soon as I hit the first track “A God Among the Waste” and was pummeled song after song all the way through until the closing track. While the guitars and drums maintain a furious, relentless assault it maintains a melodic quality you don’t hear too often in death metal. The vocals are clear and discernable while still being true to the genre and the lyrics are sharp and smart.
Luke Jaeger (Sleep Terror) was also brought aboard on lead guitars- a man himself well established in the field as a insanely talented individual who can play almost any genre thrown his way (I am a particular fan of his spanish guitar playing). Putting these two guitar players in a room, let alone an album, is like setting off a 10 nuclear bombs at once.
This album is the best of all the influences that each player grew up with. Bands like Gorguts, Death, Megadeth, Pestilence, Malevolent Creation, and Morbid Angel among others. While true metalheads will tell you they hear melodic death metal all the time (I don’t) - I love this album. I don’t tend to listen to this genre too particularly much, and all I know about it are the albums Deron had sent me a few years ago after the third CKY album was released. I’m easy to please. I love loud guitars, hooks, and brilliant riffing. It’s all here. There’s really no point in a long album review because you just have to hear it, especially if you’re a musical adrenaline junkie like I am.
If you like metal at all, you should check this band out. You’re bound to find one track you like, if not at least to marvel at the technical mastery of the instruments each player brings to the table.
]]>Here’s what I love about Google+ in general and the Google+ Diet in particular:
Instead of saying, “I’m going to write a blog post now,” or “I’m going to send an e-mail” or “I think I’ll tweet something” you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you’re going to say it to.
If you address it to “Public,” it’s a blog post.
If you address it to “Your Circles” it’s a tweet.
If you address it to your “My Customers” Circle it’s a business newsletter.
If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.
I’d say this is pretty revolutionary.
Mike Elgan is correct.
Google+ can easily replace Twitter used like this. If you get all your friends in, or at least the important ones, you can drop Facebook as well. I picked up on this in the first few hours of checking it out, and others are slowly coming to that conclusion.
Google+ for Brands beta started accepting applications (deadline for submissions was yesterday) and will be interesting to see how Google+ separates brands from humans. I am particularly interested in how Brands will utilize Hangouts and deliver customer service through it, like a lot of companies have done with Twitter.
Will Google+ be the next social networking super giant? Maybe, maybe not- but this is the new model of social network functionality for sure. It’s already off to a great start with over 10 million users, a milestone that took Facebook and Twitter much, much longer to reach.
I absolutely love it.
]]>I forgot to tell you, someone made a Beetlejuice joke the other day, and I broke out the “this is why I wont do two shows” quote, and they didn’t get it. I was like “Sir, you are no Kevin Quillen.”
tonight my wife and i attended the los angeles memorial for ryan and it was the saddest 3 hours of my life. knoxville got up on the mic and broke down, as did steve-o, jeff tremaine and trip taylor among others. to see these guys that were always cracking up and doing ridiculous stunts and pranks and always laughing…taking nothing seriously…breaking down and shedding tears, was enough to make me lose it as well. i wanted to get up to the mic and speak, but i couldnt get the guts. the main reason for that was that ryan dunn was a very close friend of mine from 1995-2001. i was never interested in him as an entertainer… only a friend, so i felt kind of out of place at the memorial. one of my best friends, aaron ashcraft, if i remember correctly was the first to meet him. they were trying to start a band or something. ryan knew i could play guitar a little bit and he said to me in a very serious but joking tone, “i dont have any talent, do i”. we hung out at his house a lot and then he got this small apartment with a creepy roommate and we would watch Monty Python all the time which was one of his favorite things. Musically he was somewhat of a Life of Agony fan, but he randomly idolized Keith Caputo and his solo records. Keith’s albums were never released in the united states, so i did my best to explain to him why Keith’s solo cd cost him $30…Dunn asked me, “why did i have to spend $30 on this cd?”…well because it was a european import. he didnt understand. his frustration and anger always made us both laugh. i dont want to sugarcoat ryan’s life and not mention the fact that he was indeed, without a doubt, a reckless driver. as april margera has stated as well as bam, he was a “fast junkie”. he flipped a car in late ‘95 with bam, chris raab and jess margera in the car with him on 202N. the car landed on 202S. Jess was thrown from the car several feet and bam thought he was dead. jess broke some bones but everyone else was ok thank god. ryan went to the junkyard and had pictures taken of him and the totalled car. from that point, i was afraid to be a passenger in Ryan’s car. in the 16 years that i have known him, i only got in a car with him once…and we were on windy roads with sharp turns and i begged him to slow down. he loved cars, he loved acceleration, he loved speed…he thought it was impressive. . I pretty much lost him when i moved to LA, but i still hung out with him 5-6 times a year afterwards when id go back east to visit. He always greeted me with a bear hug. he was ALWAYS smiling, no matter what hell he was going through. he was depressed a lot and hid it well. we did not talk about Jackass. we never talked about the CKY videos. we had a personal relationship that involved very long and interesting conversations, and we told eachother everything no matter how personal. we supported eachother in our struggles against substance abuse, we talked about all the great and funny stuff we did in the mid 90’s when he moved from ohio to west chester, PA. Foreign Objects fans may know that Jess and I asked him to pose as a member of the band in a photo, so that magazines and the “metal media” would think we were a full band when we really were not. he loved the idea. i seriously think that was the first photo ever taken of ryan in west chester and it was included in the 2 cd set of FO’s Universal Culture Shock. Ryan would do anything for his buddies. If i had a problem with my car, hed come over and fix it while telling me extremely exaggerated stories of what he was up to and what was going on with his life. he had so many ambitions before he hit it big with Jackass. he was very into car repair and i remember him telling me that he wanted to open a shop…or maybe he told me that he DID open a shop. we were all broke back then, and we would entertain eachother with many different ideas and ambitions that would ultimately never materialize.
Ryan never had a negative word to say about anyone. i noticed that a lot because i would try to get him going…i’d try to gossip with him…doesnt this dude suck, aint this guy a prick…he never dignified shit talk with a response. He loved us all, and thats what makes his passing so goddamn unfair. of course the media had a field day with his blood alcohol level but i dont think the accident that killed him and zach was caused by that. ryan could hold his liquor and drove for years under the influence. we all did. the road he we speeding down at 130 mph, is notorious for deer leaping out of nowhere. i can pretty much guarantee that a deer jumped out of the woods, and in front of his car and he swerved to avoid hitting it and that is what caused this accident. i still cant believe that he is…gone. in my 35 years, i have been lucky enough until now to never lose a close friend. so i am no good at this. Ryan’s not gone, hes gonna show up at The Note with his white t-shirt, blue jeans and ridiculous beard and offer to buy me a drink. And we’ll complain about our girls, our strange careers, and we’ll laugh about all of it…because if there’s anything i have learned from ryan, its that no matter how bad shit gets, its still funny, so fuck it. This is what i wish i had said tonight at the memorial…but i knew the tears would come out much quicker than the words. i feel so helpless, i feel bad for bam…i wish he was easier to get in touch with. i want to be there for him. i want to hug April and Phil…i will never get over this, ever. i will always remember his sense of humor, his stature, his ambition, his white lies, his exaggeration, his bad hygiene, his strong desire to get everyone back together…especially raab and dico…and how much he appreciated where and what he ended up doing with his life…arguably the greatest Jackass, and even more a remarkable and unreplaceable REAL friend. i could go on and on but i decided the jist of it would be enough. Ryan i will miss you when i visit home, i can’t imagine you not showing up for a gig or a get-together…i can’t wrap my head around the fact that you no longer exist in human form, but i know youre in heaven…and eventually we will all be reunited.
I love you
deron
–end post jack–
For 11 years now, I have been a fan/friend of the band ”CKY”. They started out as a group from West Chester, PA who exploded in the skateboard world as the soundtrack to underground skate videos (also the same name as the band), as well as when Jackass hit MTV (a merging of efforts by Big Brother magazine w Johnny Knoville and Bam Margera’s CKY crew). It was the latter premiere on MTV where I would become completely hooked on CKY.
Sitting in my friends room, watching the show, was a segment where some of the guys rode in shopping carts, flying out as the carts struck sidewalks, bushes, or other carts. The backing track to the segment though made me sit up and say “Travis, dude, what the hell is that song?! Who is that?”. The riff was mesmerizing.
That song was ’96 Quite Bitter Beings’ and it was unlike anything I had ever heard before in my life. No, its not ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘Master of Puppets’ or ‘Welcome to the Jungle’- but it had a unique vibe and sound that was different than any other band I was listening to at the time. The first few seconds of that song completely takes you away and drops you right into Deron Miller’s twisted universe of riffage, hooks, and melody. I was fascinated that for such a relatively young band, so unknown at the time, they had carved out a signature sound that was undoubtedly unique and still is to this day. When they went in to record these songs in the late 90s, Chad Ginsburg, a studio engineer at the time, dropped everything to join the band. It struck him in the same way it struck me.
I scoured the internet for literally 3 weeks trying to find out anything I could about this song and where I could hear more. Back in those days, Google was literally brand new, websites were something only geeks or nerds had, and information I was seeking was generally derived from message boards, Amazon, or chat rooms. Luckily, I eventually stumbled upon cky8k, the official/unofficial website of the band, where you could trace the roots of the original group of fans of the band to. I still know some of those people to this day.
From there, cky8k evolved into cky2k, another message board, where a lot of the fans started to come together more and the band frequently would post and interact. Around this same time, after being signed to Island DefJam Records, ckymusic.com was launched along with “Ask CKY” - an area where people could post questions the band would answer. CKY would be one of the few bands actively doing this. Since then, over 10,000 questions have been answered, far more than any other band will ever do (on record).
Honestly, I could go on forever, I started this post in March but deleted 5 paragraphs after the previous one because really its unimportant for you the reader and after so long I forget where I was going with it.
Whats important for me is to state how much of the last decade of my life has been fueled very much from this band, the people, the connections I’ve made, the shows I’ve seen, the opportunities granted to me, and all the cool shit I have been a part of (no matter how small). I’ve drawn from so much that I have been expoosed to and absorbed what I can and eternally grateful that the universe aligned, put this group together and let their dreams come true, bringing them to the world. Ryan Dunn was part of that entity that allowed me to pursue and follow my own dreams and do my own thing. His loss is extremely tragic, as well as passenger Zach Hartwell.
CKY is something that I’ve developed very rich relationships and been part of many special things that I will carry forever. For me it goes way beyond music or silly stunt videos. It always has, and it always will. I could not imagine where I would be today without any of those people in that side of my life at all. I wouldn’t have a job, Deron gave me my first real gig in 2002 at running a website (deronmiller.com) at the time I was very proud of. I pursued this interest right into a career. I wouldn’t have the extended family I have, without the gigs, I’d not know all the cool people I know. My soul would have less music in it, my heart would have less love. I would have quit guitar in college, because music had become so boring to me before they brought that passion back.
Thank you.
]]>All readers looking for Dragon Age 2 tips or whatnot (my original DA postings seem to be quite popular), keep looking. While I have DA2 and played it, I doubt I will finish it. There is something about this one that is so boring to me unlike the first one. I’ve done all the quests and sub quests, now I am in the final act and barely feel that I have been challenged. I haven’t died nearly as many times as the first (maybe 5 times tops?) and I can’t find myself caring about the game. Despite the scores, it feels mediocre at best. Sorry. The quote I posted last night sums up how I feel about gaming anymore. It’s not that I am getting older, its that the games are getting weaker and shorter. It’s all about the graphics now, thanks to the Call of Duty generation. Thanks guys.
Same goes for Rift. I am most likely going to cancel the account (again) because I have reached my goal of hitting the level cap. I simply don’t have the time to contribute to the end game / raiding etc. It would take me weeks to gear up for that while other players are doing it in a few days. Simply takes too much time. Looking back at my list of goals (first one), I have to let it go. Letting go is hard for me too, that should have been a goal.
So far, I have read around 6 books. At that pace, I should easily clear 20 before the end of the year. The Dexter series have been a great read. I would like to finish Atlas Shrugged- that would count for at least 15 books due to its length. Scott Weiland has a biography coming out this month which will probably be my next read. I have been a Stone Temple Pilots fan since I was 13. I need to see them live, too.
I joined a gym at the start of April. At the end of March, I had a bad case of food poisoning. I couldn’t eat for almost a week, and dropped about 7-10 pounds down to the low 150s where I don’t need to be. Through the training and help of my friend Adam Howard, I am back up to where I should be, watching what I eat, and moderating my ‘off’ day where I’ll have some beer or maybe a slice of pizza. A lot of people said I should join Club Fitness because its ‘cheap’ and ‘everyone goes there’. I can’t. I value loyalty far more than dollars and know that if you are true to people they will be the same way in return. I don’t mind the drive or the parking. I go in there thinking about how good I will look and feel 3 months from now. I want to look good for the summer, but also other things coming up near the end of the year. Not all web developers fit an unhealthy stereotype.
Looks like my 4th of July will be in DC too. I threw that one out there on a whim, but as luck would have it, I will be there.
]]>It’s my opinion that single player games today have elaborate stories and flashy graphics that cover up its shallow gameplay to the casual gamer and rope people in to buying the infinite number of sequels that follow. Multiplayer is the only real way to find a challenge today and for me there hasn’t even been very many good multiplayer games in the last 5 years or so which surpass the depth of my previous favorites. I do not believe in the idea of “You’re just getting old”. Games are becoming stagnant, repetitive and too much time/money is invested in a games story and flashiness rather than creating a game with depth which caters to the gamers who like to binge for 10 hours at a time on a game and seek the excruciating challenge that makes you want to throw your controller at the ground and punch a hole in the wall. This feeling is then followed by glorious triumph of the beautiful sense of accomplishment when you show that motherfucker who is the boss. When you hear a developer say the words “streamline” you should more often than not immediately think they’re making this game for the lowest tier of gamers rather than think they’re actually improving the game.
]]>For instance, ever notice when you are coming out of a public restroom, crumpled up paper towels near the corner of the door? Know what that is? That is from people opening the door with a paper towel so they don’t touch the handle after washing. Many people don’t wash their hands. That’s why cautious people like myself will do that. We don’t want to litter, just stay healthy. Please place a trash can near the door for us so we don’t feel like jerks to the janitorial staff. We don’t intend to be. That, or everyone just wash their f’ing hands for gods sake.
I rather enjoyed going to Chicago. It’s been a while since I have been outside of the MD/PA area from which I usually travel. The last time I have flown was in 2002, when I spent a week in Las Vegas, and then a week in Hilton Head Island with my folks and good friend Travis Orbin. It was good to see some new sights. I had seen a lot of Chicago over the years in various shows and films, such as The Dark Knight, for example. It was cool, for me at least, to see different shooting locations used in this and other movies. Growing up on films, it was surreal for me to see these places. I loved it.
Our hotel was right in the heart of Chicago, just a street or two away from Michigan Avenue. The overlook from the street across the river and up through the city is just one of many shots used in many films and shows (Backdraft, Perfect Strangers, The Fugitive) and is such a great view of the buildings and architecture of Chicago. The hotel itself, immaculate. Probably one of the nicest places I have stayed other than the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Best in- house bar and in-house eating (Shula’s Restaurant) in any hotel I have seen yet.
Staring out over the city from the Hancock Observatory you can’t help but think about the achievements man has accomplished. These buildings are unreal. The city extends into the horizon. So many people. So many lives. So many stories. We’ll never know them all. We can only wonder. Man is so small. The world is so big.
I got to reconnect with someone I hadn’t seen since a whirlwind (historic) weekend in 2003 which is a long time to have not seen someone. CKYs concerts usually bring people together from all over the world but for some reason or another, we wouldn’t see each other again until 2011. Too long. It’s funny to think of how 8 years had passed, but when seeing someone like that again, it’s like the very next day since the last time you saw them. Don’t even miss a step. Break out and carry on. There are still many more to see.
I have nowhere near the time to spill out every worthwhile thought in my head into this blog. I wish I did. I have a good thought from time to time. In fact, you’d be surprised. I guess that is the gem those who can hang out with me take away. I simply move too fast.
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