BCBG Pay Cut

Hey there. Hard times continue to strike. We've just been told that our salaries are going to be slashed 6%... I'm thankful that it's not a 100% pay cut... but I may have to start looking for a second job to pay the mortgage...

A Winter Wonder

The dark clouds and sullen sky
A somber time has come
The symphony that is to be
Cannot be be matched by one
The scattered rains drip away
Feeding our Earth life
With low winds it helps begin
To deal with all our strife
A man stands as best he can
Asking himself, "Why?"
A desolate pain a lingered stay
A broken man can die
At god's fury he yells a flurry
Of words and excuses
And with loud thunder came asunder
Thoughts that confuses
And heavy lighting always blinding
Calls out to this pain
A voice of reason never treason
Eases his mental strain
A man lies for his demise
As he gazes at the sky
A fallen angel simply unable
As gods continue to cry.

-Metallman

Felt Good to Pick Up My Axe

Hey there. I own a Kirk Hammett 602 guitar (KH-602 or "Skully" as Kirk likes to call it) and I haven't given it much justice as of late. I got it many, many moons ago at the Marshall store in Hollywood. The one right across the street from Guitar Center. I remember walking in and checking out the gear and fell in love with it. Felt good, felt great playing. I asked the clerk for a cable so that I can check it out. He did and after a few minutes of me playing some Metallica stuff, the clerk hooked up next to me and we jammed some songs together. After a good 30 min jam session (we were basically the only ones in the store) he asked if I was interested in taking it. Typical sales guy, pretends to be your homie then gets you buy something. I told him that the $1200 price tag was way out of my reach. Love the guitar, just not the price. He then revealed to me that he's is the owner of the store and because I'm a "cool guy" he'd give it to me for $700 and throw in a guitar case. Did this guy practically slash the price in half?!?!?!!? Instead of me pouncing on the deal, I was being a geek and asked him if he was sure about that. The guy practically said that he owns everything in the store and it's really up to him to decide how much he wants to sell things so he said it was more than cool. Needless to say, I took it. I'll never forget that guy for hooking me up. Thanks to you, owner of the Marshall store. You're one bad ass guy.

Metallica's Death Magnetic is Bad Ass

Hey there. My wife pleasantly surprised me with this album a few weeks back. A "just because" gift, so to speak and I after having a good two weeks of listening to it, I've decided... This album is bad ass! It's the first album in years that I can listen to from beginning to end without skipping a song. I wanted Metallica to "come back" with this album. Considering that their last few albums went away from their standard sound, I naturally figured that their new album might be another expansion of that. As a musician, you can understand wanting to expand and try new things. I didn't knock them for it, but c'mon, let's face it... it's nowhere near being their best stuff.

In comes Death Magnetic, the latest entry in 20+ years of Metallica music. It's not thier "old" stuff but it's not their "new" stuff either. It's a perfect blend of what made them who they are while continuing to expand and venture off to new sounds. Take the track, The Unforgiven III, for example. It starts off with a piano intro. Nice, melodic, and easy going. Not standard Metallica. After the minute mark or so, the band plays jumps in, with a clean sound, a little more intricate than Fade to Black, but closer to Unforgiven II. Not "standard" Metallica, but you can see them playing this. Then comes the verse. Heavy moving rhythm and lead guitars and the voice we all know and love all kept in time with a strong bass and drum. Good stuff. Perfect blend of what was done and what is to be.

Then we have a the heavy tracks like All Nightmare Long and My Apocalypse. I mention those two cause they're my personal favorite on the album. Fast, furious, and again, simply bad ass. There also is an instrumental track on the album. Suicide and Redemption is a perfect blend of 3 different songs. Each section sounding completely different from each other but sound so right together. Great stuff, this is.

I have a 2 Gig micro card on my phone. I'm very selective as to what music I put on there since 2 gigs is simply not enough to even come close to catalog all the music that I own. Without hesitation, I downloaded the whole album on my phone and play it at work, while working. lol If you guys haven't had a chance to take a listen, you definitely should. For all us Metallica fans that have been yearning for that classic Metallica sound, this is the album that should have come after the Black Album, if not before.

I haven't really learned to play any new music on guitar. Don't know if it's just that I prefer to play their older stuff like Creeping Death or Trapped Under Ice, or just plain laziness, but this album is sparking that bug in me to pick up that guitar and learn me some songs. I already started on Unforgiven III and This Was Just Your Life and it's definitely an album that I would like to learn to play from start to finish. The only album that I am able to do that with is Master of Puppets, sans solos of course. lol This may just be what I needed to get my ass back on the axe and grinding out to this album.

Take a listen to the album. Here's My Apocalypse for you guys to enjoy. Later!

Rock Band at Metallman's

Hey there friends. Man, it was a mission to get Rock Band on at our place this weekend. In a previous post, I stated that I was able to get it at a reasonable price while getting 30% cash back. Well, I received Rock Band on Thursday and to my dismay, there were no breakaway cables in the box. You need those cables to hook up the instruments to the XBOX 360. Considering that it was pretty late, I left a voice message to the store I got it at. Discouraged, I put the instruments away and figured I'll try em on Friday. Come Friday, I called again and their customer service people said they would ship the cables to me. BUT IT'S FRIDAY AND I NEED IT BY SAT!!! I figured, I'd go buy a cable and at least that way I can test the drums and guitar that came with Rock Band, considering that I got a Wireless guitar, we should still be good to go. So I get a cable at my local Gamestop and hook it up to my drum set. NO POWER! WTF?!?!?! Everything is hooked up yet the drums are not turning... Let's try the guitar. Put batteries in the guitar, hooked that up, NO POWER!!! I was getting pretty damn upset at this point. I tested out the microphone... NO DICE! Shit! I figured that maybe my USB ports on my XBOX 360 were disabled or something, so I ended up calling the XBOX 360 support line. After registering my console, the agent gave me a pretty simple test to check out the USB ports. He simply asked me to plug in my phone via USB into the ports. If the phone starts to charge, then the ports are fine. I hooked it up, and phone was charging... I was shipped a defective Rock Band! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling pretty bummed out on Saturday morning, since friends and family were coming over to rock out later on, I decided to call the place I got Rock Band from. I wasn't expecting to get through since the place is closed on a Saturday. Angels smiled down that morning because someone picked up. I told them the situation and without hesitation, they offered to replace all the instruments. But they were going to be shipped via UPS. Not today, friends. I told them I'd go grab them myself since I needed it that night. I grabbed my little one and off I go to Burbank, CA to get my gear. Traffic was horrible, naturally, and after going through all kinds of traffic jams and accidents, I finally get there and get my stuff replaced.

Shortly after getting home, I nervously hook up the instruments. People were coming in less than 2 hours and I don't even know if the instruments will work. I put in all the replacement parts and hooked everything up and to my relief.... SUCCESS!!! Whew.... The kids and I got our band going and tested everything out and it all worked like a charm. That was a close one.

So how was it, you asked? Pretty bad ass, thank you. lol Family and friends showed up shortly and while it was still "early", we allowed the kids to stay up with us to enjoy the game. Once their bed time rolled around, the party started. If someone failed at their instrument, causing the band to fail, you were forced to take a shot. Liquid courage definitely got people off their asses and into the drum set, strumming away, or singing the night away. Great time, it was. Got to see some old friends, made a few new ones, all while hanging out with family. The band didn't start disbanding until after 4 AM. Great stuff. Below are just some of the snap shots of the night. Next time you're in town, you should follow the music over to Metallman's. That's really where the party is at. Later!

Here we are with our cuz, starting the night off right.
Haven't seen you since forever, buddy. Glad you were able to make it.
Damn proud of our accomplishments.
My babe, living the high life. lol
Can you tell that we are enjoying ourselves? lol
I'm telling you, a little liquid courage and everyone will start singing.
Even Metallman got into the act.
Our daughter playing guitar for her Nina. She's so bad ass, she doesn't even need to see the TV to know what she's doing. lol
I walk into the kitchen to grab a few brews and this is what I see. Don't ask me what happened cause I don't know... lmao

Christmas Lights

My wife has been on my case to get the Christmas lights up. Now that they're up, for some reason she won't talk to me...