Sunday, November 02, 2008

R.I.P. Frank

From a Myspace bulletin:

Frank Navetta, founding member and guitarist for the Descendents, fell
ill over the past few days and passed away on October 31, 2008.
Besides naming the band, Frank wrote a ton of great songs and was a
great friend. He will be truly missed.

We don't have any information about funeral or memorial services at
the moment. We'll pass along information for any public services when
we find out.

Go give Milo Goes To College or Bonus Fat a spin in Frank's honor.

-J

This sucks. Milo Goes to College is my ALL time favorite album, and Frank was an inspiration to so many. I feel privileged that I got to see him when the original Descendents played at Stockage. (they really need to release that show. It was amazing to say the least) My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends and the Descendents/ALL family.

Frank you will be missed.

I'm not a Loser!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Senior Pictures

Since Summer is over and School is starting up today, I thought this would be a good time to look back and share some senior pictures. This is my graduation picture. I've been rocking the beard for 30 years now. If you want to share your senior pictures please do so, and we can ALL laugh at how ridiculous you looked. It's fun to laugh at the expense of others.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

It's an Invasion!

So we move into our new place and get All the boxes unpacked. Everything is perfect. The wife and I head to up to my parents for the weekend, and when we get back, I hear Sherry shriek in the kitchen. I may have left a cereal bowl in the sink accidentally, and ants were crawling ALL over it. Not only were they in the sink, but they were also under everything we picked up on the counter. Now in my defense, we had ants in the house way before I left the bowl in the sink, they just remained hidden until then- like a sleeper cell of Ninja ants. We killed them ALL and went to bed. It was over-"Mission Accomplished"

Turns out the war was far from over. The next morning the number of ants increased tenfold. If it was war they wanted, they were going to get it. We went to the local Wal*Mart and bought every kind of ant spray and bait known to man. I lined the perimeter of the house with this hardcore Raid brand spray, and we put Ortho ant baits on the counter. It didn't take them long to discover the sugary sweet poison. In a few hours, we had a non-stop trail of ants eating the poison and best of all, taking it home to their loved ones. Did I feel bad wiping out an entire ant colony? Hell no! That's what you get when you mess with 'Merica.

The next day, I got home from work at noon, and there were literally thousands of ants squirming on the front stoop suffering a slow, painful death. I would find out later that they were all over the front entry when Sherry went to work that morning. Now, this was on the complete opposite side of the house as the other invasion. The ants were now attacking us from both fronts. So Sherry sprayed the hell out of those ants with Raid, which lead to the massacre on the stoop.

The ants slowly stopped coming to the bait, and we haven't seen one since. Victory was ours! We would find out months later when we replaced our entry door that the ants had moved into rotting wood underneath the door jam. When we pulled out the old door, there was ant hill sand and hollowed out exoskeletons everywhere. I went spelunking in the basement under the stairs with a flashlight and found more of the same. At least ALL the ants were already dead. It took us twelve hours to put that door in as it was, and I would hate to also have to deal with eradicating another ant colony as well. In conclusion , if you ever have an ant invasion, Ortho ant baits are awesome. I highly recommend them.

Monday, August 25, 2008

GET OFF MY GRASS!!!

We're going to take a quick trip in the way back machine back to June 27th of this year. That's when this post should have been written you see, but because I was either busy with the new place or just lazy, I didn't get around to it until now. Suspend your disbelief and pretend with me that it is the end of June, summer isn't almost over, and I have just mowed my lawn for the first time.

Now I have mowed many many lawns in my life and hated every sweaty, grueling, miserable second of it, but now that it is my own lawn I find some sick pleasure in doing so. The smell of freshly cut grass and the way the clippings stain my chucks green make me feel ALL tingly inside. I still despise it mind you, but not as much as I did back in middle school because now it's my yard. I own it, and if I want to stand out in the middle of it every morning to greet the new day wearing nothing but my boxers, It's my God given right as a homeowner to do so.

Anyway, it has been rather dry this summer so the grass doesn't grow to much, so on that particular day in June I was mostly mowing weeds which apparently don't need water to grow. When your lawn is 75% weeds it just looks bad when they get too long. I take pride in my lawn and those weeds need cutting. Perhaps next year I will water the yard with Gatorade to encourage growth and prevent weeds (It gots electrolytes, what plants need)

I guess that story wasn't really worth waiting two months for, but there will be more like it in the next coming days. Be prepared to be disappointed. Eventually I will take you ALL on a virtual tour of the new place, but for now you'll have to wait. Come back on Thursday and I will tell you ALL you ever wanted to know about Ants.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

October Can Not Come Soon Enough


Here is Scott ALL performing Can't Say at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. It's professionally shot, could a DVD release happen in the near futre? ALL will be playing Riot Fest in Chicago on October 12th. You can find information here and here.

See you there bitches.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Music Lists are Hard

So the CDP was challenged by Will to make a list of your favorite album released each year that you were alive. The CDP the asked everyone to do the same. Here is my list:

1980
Favorite Album: Is this Real? - The Wipers
Runner-Up: Nobodies Heroes - Stiff Little Fingers

1981
Favorite Album: The Adolescents - The Adolescents
Runner-Up: Fat - Descendents

1982
Favorite Album: Milo Goes to College - Descendents
Runner-Up: Everything Falls Apart - Husker Du

1983
Favorite Album: Painting Smiles on a Dead man - The Last
Runner-Up: Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

1984
Favorite Album: First Four Years - Black Flag
Runner-Up: Zen Arcade - Hüsker Dü

1985
Favorite Album: I Don't want to Grow Up - Descendents
Runner-Up: Tim - The Replacements

1986
Favorite Album: I Against I - Bad Brains

1987
Favorite Album: All - Descendents

1988
Favorite Album: Surfer Rosa - The Pixies
Runner-Up: Confessions - The Last

1989
Favorite Album: Allroy's Revenge - ALL
Runner-Up: Energy - Operation Ivy

1990
Favorite Album: Repeater - Fugazi
Runner-Up: Allroy Saves - ALL

1991
Favorite Album: Nevermind - Nirvana
Runner-Up: 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours - Green Day

1992
Favorite Album: Automatic for the People - R.E.M.

1993
Favorite Album: In Utero - Nirvana
Runner-Up: Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins

1994
Favorite Album: Smash - The Offspring
Runner-Up: Dookie - Green Day

1995
Favorite Album: Big Choice - Face to Face
Runner-Up: Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters

1996
Favorite Album: Pinkerton - Weezer

1997
Favorite Album: Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
Runner-Up: Dude Ranch - Blink 182

1998
Favorite Album: Hello Rockview - Less Than Jake
Runner-Up: Mass Nerder - ALL

1999
Favorite Album: Local 1500 - Pavers
Runner-Up: Blue Skies Broken Hearts Next Twelve Exits - The Ataris

2000
Favorite Album: No Kill, No Beep Beep - Q and not U

2001
Favorite Album: The Argument - Fugazi
Runner-Up: We're Not Going to make it - Mediocre at Best

2002
Favorite Album: Return to the Island of no Return - The Pavers
Runner-Up: Closed - Drag the River

2003
Favorite Album: Transantlantacism - Death Cab for Cutie
Runner-Up: Guitar Romantic - Exploding Hearts

2004
Favorite Album: God Bless Your Black Heart - The Paper Chase
Runner-Up: Cool to be You - Descendents

2005
Favorite Album: Resolve - Lagwagon

2006
Favorite Album: 12 Small steps one Giant Disappointment - Bad Astronaut
Runner-Up: Lemonheads - Lemonheads

2007
Favorite Album: You can't Live this Way - Drag The River

first half of 2008
Favorite Album: Adventure Boy - Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast
Runner-Up: Stay Down - The Smoking Popes

Thursday, July 10, 2008

My Insides are on the Outside

There will be some new posts next week about the new place. They should have been up sometime this week, but I have been spending a lot of time lately with my porcelain friend above. I won't go into details but will say the candle was burning at both ends if you know what I mean.
-Benjamin