All Things Music

Patrick Wolf's first single from his forthcoming album (which I have helped to fund and will therefore, according to his website, get a credit on the album for, which is soooo fucking cool) is available on his myspace, along with a picture of him in a bondage-type outfit (no, I'm not kidding, so probably NSFW). It is called "The Vulture", it has weird lyrics and a heavy dance/electronic vibe, and at first it weirded me out but now I dig it. One thing that I respect to no end about P-Wolf is that he really does seem totally artistically motivated. He is also totally nuts, and this combination makes me confident that anything that he releases, even if it isn't totally amazing (even though it usually is) will be at least not-consciously-affected by any sensibility other than the desire to make good music.



Pitchfork reported that dude-of-the-millenium Jack White has formed a new (non Raconteurs) band with the girl from the Kills and two other bums that I don't care about. The Dead Weather's first single is available for digging purposes on their website, along with a cover of a non-"Cars" Gary Numan song. Strangely, White only plays drums and sings. After giving the first song a listen, I like the heaviness of the guitars, although the singing didn't seem particularly interesting to me. However, I remain very hopeful that the new album will kick serious ass.



My friend at work told me about this website, which was described as "Digg for indie music", so obviously I was intrigued. It is really well designed, really simple to join and get into, and a totally rad idea. It is almost a game in that you try and earn "Rep" points by giving hearts (of which you have a limited number). Hearting songs that earn tons more hearts after you heart it gives you "Rep" points. It is totally lame but also horribly addictive, and a neat way to hear music that you might not normally give a chance. Unfortunately, no BJM or Patrick Wolf yet, which is an ultimate bummer (although they do have BSP). What intrigues me are the forces at work in trying to build a high "Rep". Obviously, there will be a scramble for new singles by popular bands (i.e., Fleet Foxes new single), but to earn shitloads of Rep points, it is necessary to heart bands before they become popular. Also, I just leveled up, which is hilarious. My point, before I got interrupted, is that in the end the way the point system works is that it really does encourage digging for great songs without a large following, which I think is really neat. Holy shit, I just found a Hood Internet combination of Single Ladies and Fleet Foxes, and my mind has just been blown beyond all comprehension.

T.O. Comes to Buffalo

And one fan isn't happy.

Video Game Rant

I have a big problem with DLC and patches in the current video game climate. Some DLC can be a beautiful thing, worthy of our hard earned griblet. Call of Duty: World at War has some multiplayer maps coming, totally worth it. Left 4 Dead has FREE DLC headed our way, holy fucking shit worth it. Resident Evil 5 has some new multiplayer modes on the horizon, bullshit. This is the kind of thing that should be included in the retail package, not sold separately at a premium price. It bothers me that if a developer can't finish something on time they will gouge us later on. Developer laziness leads to constant patches after release, no doubt they shipped an incomplete game. Do it right!

Gamefly is worth the money and lackluster shipping rate. Gamefly has saved me from buying coveted games I ended up hating (MLB Front Office Manager, Street Fighter IV, GRID), and Gamefly has introduced me to some exceptional games I may have overlooked (Battlefield: Bad Company, Pure). If you game often, sign up now.

Seen on XBOX Live
WombMuncher420
ILiketoParty69
ThrustfulWang

Wet

Gotta live this new Snickers ad.


Not a huge fan of this band, but this song is my jam of the moment.


No link here, just a great story. One of the dudes that I work with said that a friend of his went to a bar in Texas somewhere that Dikembe Mutumbo goes to, and he witnessed a very drunk Dikembe sitting at the bar yelling "Who wants to sex Dikembe up."


I just thought of another great name for our blog: "Fucking blog has fucking papers".


At work, half our day is now spent doing Goldust impersonations.


Finally, this dude is being called the new Zizou, and this goal is absolutely wet.

Marriage

I don't even know what to say about this. It is weird, it is hilarious, it is possibly NSFW. I haven't watched it all, the first few minutes are enough...

Things to do if you want to kill your credit score:

So, you really want to kill your credit score, eh? Simple! Cancel one of your credit cards that had a really high rate and a $0 balance for the past several years! I did it, it can work for you too! 

Ok, so this is ridiculous. The first credit card I got had a pretty high interest rate, something like 9.99% +prime and only $2,000 limit on it. Needless to say, I had it only for emergencies and buying a Wii (that cost me some money in interest! Bad move.) Well, it's been sitting in my wallet for a couple years, I have another credit card with a much lower 2.9% over prime and max of $7,500. I have no need for that other older card. So, I decided to close it out. Plus it was cluttering my online banking.

Oops.

Apparently, your oldest card is something you should hang on to and not close out. Even if you chop up the card so you never use it, just hang on to it for your credit score. Closing that out brought my credit score down from 718 to 684. That'd be not good. You would think that "in these tough economic times" banks would be looking to close out some accounts to reduce their potential losses. Hell, American Express is paying people $300 to close out their accounts! But no, I get penalized for doing that. I don't quite understand that. Whatever, but if you're considering closing out your credit card, don't do it. Just let it fester with $0 balance.

Edit: This is also our 100th post!

Do your best jagger

In response to Larsen's Rolling Stones top 5, I present to you (possibly again) the Jagg off:

Update: Northeast Consulting Scam

Just a quick hit update. I was running through the google analytics results and so far we've had 10 hits from searches relating to Northeast Consulting Inc scams. This is great! That's 10 people we've prevented from getting screwed or embarrassed. We're also the number 1 result for those searches. w00t!

Top 5...Rolling Stones Songs

5. "Factory Girl"

4. "Midnight Rambler"

3. "Tumbling Dice"

2. "Dead Flowers"

1. "Brown Sugar"

TV is dead! Long live TV!

As y'all know, I've been looking at my expenses and weighing what I'll be doing once I get a job and apartment in terms of services. Part of that is determining the whole TV thing. Reality is that there are traditionally 3 choices: the local cable provider, Verizon FiOS if it's available in your area, or one of the satellite providers.  

Over the past couple years the tv networks have finally started to get it. The old business model is dead. Service providers are a dying breed. They serve only as middlemen at this point. With the continued evolution of websites like Hulu, which let's be honest, started because hackers and tv-links thought (accurately) that on demand internet streaming is the future of TV. NBC and Fox have collaborated on Hulu, and all the major networks seem to have an equivolent site.

This is fantastic, only there is one problem. THEY EPISODES UP 8 DAYS LATER! Seriously, what the fuck? That's after the next episode airs! Do they not realize what that does? You miss a broadcast episode and you have to go pirate it to catch up! YOU IDIOTS! You get to put targetted advertising in, and you're missing the boat! Or you have to pay like $3 for the show on itunes. It's kind of ridiculous. Defeats the whole point. Once they get the Simulcast going then they'll be onto something.

Until that point, it's still up in the air in my view. Another alternative is the Slingbox. I've been using it since 2007, when I bought it so I could watch TV while making phone calls at work. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to install it at their parent's house and streaming it over their broadband network. Then all you gotta pay for is the internets. 

With Netflix now available over xbox 360 and other systems, its only a matter of time until services like Hulu are available in that way as well. Combo TiVo, Modem, Netflix/Hulu box? You bet it'll happen. Just a matter of when. TV is dead my friends. Long live TV!

March Madness 2009

Besides the World Cup (and admittedly, most other soccer tournaments), March Madness is easily my favorite sports playoff system. Almost every game is off the wall intense, and of the 63 games, it seems like at least a quarter of them come down to the final minute. The inclusion of at least one team from each conference in D-1 is, in my opinion, awesome, because every year there is a great cinderella story. Besides, if I went to school at, oh I don't know, Cornell, it would amp me up to no end to know that my school was going to be playing in March Madness (and getting absolutely demolished by some basketball power house). Now that ESPN realizes the interest that people now have in cinderella stories, they've started broadcasting a ton of games from the smaller conference tournaments (which have the same intensity, in most cases, as March Madness itself). I don't believe they did this (at least as much) in years past, but it is a rad and smart move. Essentially, they are extending March Madness (which, lets face it, pretty much everyone digs) farther backwards, and additionally getting people more interested in the early round games that can be blowouts by familiarizing people with teams like Siena and VCU, that actually can upset a top team in the tournament.

Additionally, I love spending half the day at work constantly refreshing the Live Scores page on ESPN to stay up to date with all the games. I don't know why they don't just give us the days off.

Job Searching, Marketing Scams, and You: Northeast Consulting, Inc

Now, it takes a lot to make me mad. Even more to make me angry, and few if any have ever seen me truly enraged. Right now I'm pretty pissed the fuck off. This is why:

So last week on a whim I checked out marketing jobs in Boston and the Boston area. Mind you, this was immediately after waking up, so I wasn't fully awake or anything. This tends to be the time of day that I do most of my job hunting and applying. Why? It's easy to wake up, grab the laptop off the floor, check the email and any postings that came in and just follow it from there. Well, I came across an ad seen in another posting here. Now, my main thinking on this was "well, as a campaign worker I'm selling a candidate all day. I've done this stuff before, I do it well, why not take a stab at marketing?" So, I sent off my resume and stuff right away. Then I started researching the company. I didn't research first because who knows how many other applicants there are? Better get your stuff in faster and research later.

Well looking at their website you see a modern, professional website. It looks snazzy. First thoughts: oh looks like they may be a good sized firm that has their shit together. I dig a little deeper and start looking at the individual pages. Something starts to seem off. What is the point of a corporate website? To instill confidence in the corporation to its potential clients and show off accomplishments. This site seems geared entirely towards those looking for jobs. Here ladies and gentlemen, we have Red Flag #1. Well, ok maybe thats not terrible, their site says they work on relationships with clients and direct sales. Sure, that makes sense. If you're approaching a company they might not care all that much for your website if they aren't looking in the first place, use it to attrack talent, especially when looking to expand like they say. Fair enough.

OK so then we come to Red Flag #2. I get an email within an hour or two. It's a form email signed by the "Human Resources Department" asking me to call THEM for an interview. What? Who requires that you call them for an interview? No one, that's who. But wait! They call me first! OK, so I have a resume that they think would compliment them well. AWESOME! Sounded legit on the phone I guess, so that's great. They want an interview with me on Tuesday at 2:30. Fantastic!

Now it is time for some deeper research on them to prepare for the interview. Onwards, to Google, Master of Company Lore! Wait, what the fuck? Red Flag 3: Googling Northeast Consulting, Inc shows up with nothing but job postings for the past 3 months. "Well, they did say they were looking to expand, it only makes sense that they're posting on all the different job sites, they could really find the cream of the crop so-to-speak." No big deal there. But... still, it goes for over 7 search pages and there's no press on them. Maybe they're a start up? Let's find out when they were started.

Ok, now I don't know if any of you are geeky enough to know that you can find out who owns websites and when they were registered with ease. Now, I hate the godaddy.com commercials as much as the next guy, but you can use their site to get all this information for free. The search is called a "whois" search. Well, turns out that their website was registered in 2008 by a website design company from Colorado or something. Fair enough. That fits the start up motife and the lack of any info on them, they haven't been around long! Great, so while there are a couple "Red Flags," what else have I got to do, get off Cape, go for an interview. What do I have to lose at this point? After all, googling "Northeast Consulting, Inc + Scam" turned up nothing. I also decided to check the Better Business Bureau's website. It turned up nothing on the name or website. I also checked some other companies that I know are real and legitimate, some of those didn't turn up either so I thought nothing of it.

So, I mention all this to my friend AJ from college. He mentions he had applied to something similar and found out it was a scam after he applied. He mentioned that it too was in Braintree, but was called Bdi or something. But so far as we knew, Braintree was the only similarity.

A few days pass, it is now Sunday night and it just isn't sitting well with me. By this point their whole presentation just doesn't feel right, no company should be presenting themselves. I read their email and note they specify what your dress code is. That's odd, shouldn't that be a test of your potential employee? Seeing how they present themselves? If they can't sell themselves, how can they sell your product or that of your client?

I ask AJ again for more details of this company he found out was a scam, and he doesn't respond for a bit, so in the mean time I look up marketing job scams. I found the holy fucking grail of marketing scam company listings here. Reading through there's some good information. In the comments there's a list of known scams. Northeast Consulting isn't in there. Ok, I'm feeling alright about this. Then AJ responds. BSI Boston was the name of it he says. Well, scrolling down the comments further, lo and behold! BSI Boston is listed on that page. He asks me what the name of the person that called me was... sure enough. Same fucking lowlife. Now, when I got her name it sounded really lame and fake: Jen Jenson. I googled it, found nothing related to Northeast Consulting Inc initially. But its a real enough name, people have it. Fine. Now, she's related to a pre-existing scam. Fuck me.

I go find BSI Boston's website. The language and text are exactly the same on the Northeast and BSI sites. They're they same company. Scrolling further on the about.com page reveals that they recently changed their names and phone numbers.

I got pwned. Doomed to remain on Cape longer.

Now, I wasn't planning on writing this up, but Depo asked me to write up some stuff on job hunting and I want to make sure that google comes up with this whenever anyone searches for Northeast Consulting, Inc. I want people to know how fake this is and any further iteration that comes from 100 grossman ave, braintree, ma.

Also, Jen Jenson: Fuck you.

[Edit 09/03/09]: So it appears Jen Jensen and Andrea Anderson may in fact be different people. Good for them. That still doesn't excuse this company from their shady business practices. Scam or not, they're still out to screw people for their own gain. That is not OK in my book. I will not sit idle and allow people to spend money to interview or quit a job or relocate for this bullshit. I'd also like to take a moment to point out that this is the 2nd hit on google after their own website. Awesome.

Top 5...Big Lebowski Lines

5. "People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone in the body." - Jackie Treehorn

4. "Brandt can't watch though, or he has to pay an extra hundred." - Bunny Lebowski

3. "No, Walter, it did not look like Larry was about to crack." - The Dude

2. "Strong men also cry." - Jeffrey Lebowski

1. "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass." - Walter

Shitty Movie Review of the Week: Solar Attack

While every media outlet reviews Watchmen to death (hint: it ruled), I wanted to introduce a new feature that I'll try to keep with: the weekly TV movie review. This week I happened to catch Solar Attack. 

This movie featured Iron Chef America's Mark Dacascos (the Chairman's nephew) and Louis Gossett Jr as the President. Truly this film was ahead of its time (2005). The general premise of this putrid, stale, rotting piece of disaster movie trash is that the Sun has just sent out a burst of plasma towards the Earth, it cuts off all satellite communications by hurling the satellites like meteorites into the general populace. 

Holy shit. That rules right? The badassness doesn't end there. Turns out the plasma is going to light the air on fire. "Holy fuckin shit, did you say the air is gonna light on fire?" Yes. The fucking air lights on fire. Sadly the whole move goes south from there, turns out they want to prevent the fucking air from lighting on fucking fire. Buzzzzzzzkill. In a hugely convoluted set up, it's up to billionaire scientist and Iron Chef Chairman's nephew Luke something or another to convince ground breaking black president to nuke the world and extinguish the atmosphere. Without ruining anything, because the plot is so retarded to begin with that nothing will ruin it, he winds up on a Russian submarine in a torpedo shoot out with an American submarine, and hacking into the underwater telephone cables below the subs crush depth.

I know what you're thinking: "Holy fuckin shit, that fuckin sounds so fuckin awesome. It just blew my fuckin mind" and you'd be right, your fuckin mind has been blown by the thought of that. Until you see it. There will be disbelief, but little suspension of it. I'm pretty sure I've seen better graphics from the downloadable lego model builder (which is wicked sweet by the way). Featuring radar screens that they call sonar, under water radios so subs can talk to each other, and many many lame plot points and attempts at dialogue, its well worth seeing. Did I mention the fuckin air ignites? How about satellites slaughtering people? That's what I thought. 

I highly recommend seeing it when your options are Solar Attack, Clear and Present Danger for the 7th time in 2 months, and 1000 Ways to Die.

Unfortunately, the trailer is no where to be found that will let me embed it, so here is the link, and trust me, it captures the true escense of this fill in its full shittastic glory.

Trailer