VOTE FOR THIS MAN!!!

He's the guy who brought you such quotable gems as, "I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at everyone over it," and on how he got so much of the black vote in AK as a Republican, "Simple. I asked them for it." He's the bass player in the band Capitol Offense. And now he's asking you a simple question. It's the title of this first video:

"Want to see the IRS disappear?"

No, he's not a magician. It's former Gov. and current, and possibly the darn nicest, Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee.

Interested?

Just watch...



Sounds pretty good, wouldn't you say? Just keep watching. It gets better.





And now some words from the guys who wrote the book on this stuff:


So go check out the Fair Tax link on the left there. Go ahead. You know you want to.

They shall indeed. I guess.

Here's that video I told some of you about. Apparently you can put custom songs in Guitar Hero II. Here's a song by Poland's own Behemoth. It's pretty crazy. Enjoy.



And that's another reason whycome black metal is awesome.

I also love the character playing guitar in the game. It is so not his style.

There are also a lot of videos on You Tube of people doing this with other songs, as well as some tutorials on how to do it yourself. Some pretty cool stuff.

Notch

I consider myself to have had several great, or at least very interesting, jobs and duties over the course of my life. I've worked at a dairy. I've been a carny. Even worked a little in the horse racing industry. But as of last night, I have become something else.

A jazz drummer.

And quite unintentionally.

I was working my sound guy job at Rohs Street Cafe last night. A jazz group called Made in Brazil was playing. Really nice guys, and incredible musicians. There were four of them: keyboard player/singer, bassist, saxophonist/flautist, and a percussionist/singer. While setting up, I happened to mention that I was a drummer, and I forget why, but it came up that my set was right in the next room. So they played their first set, which was really cool. Then, during their break, the bassist, Andre, came up and asked if I would like to sit in.

Now, I have absolutely zero real experience in jazz drumming. But, I hadn't really played drums in so long, and any chance is a good one. So I agreed.

I must admit, I was kind of nervous. But it was really fun. And since jazz drumming has much less structure and "rules" than the style I'm used to playing, it almost seemed like it was harder to mess up. But I still wasn't sure about the whole meshing with the band thing. For instance, I don't really what I'm supposed to do when other guys are soloing, like if I'm supposed to hold back a bit or just keep doing my thing, or what. And I think I had a solo, but I just kept doing what I had been doing, since compared to what I usually do for normal beats, it was like soloing.

Maybe that's why I didn't get another solo.

I dunno, but afterwards, the guys said they really liked it, and even invited me to sit in with them again next time they come. I'm going to be out of town that day, but I might be back in time to sit in for at least a while. I hope so, anyway.

Another cool thing was my cousin JE, his daughter, Olivia, and my aunt Edith and her new husband, Hank all stopped in to hang out. That was really cool cos I don't get to see them very often. (You might remember JE as the videographer at our wedding - there may be some pics of him and his kids in my Facebook albums)

Now if I could only find a job that actually wants me to start working for them...

As Good as it Gets

Last night I had one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I was sitting in our office room at our house watching my Ozzy Osbourne Live at Budokan DVD enjoying a Samuel Adams Brown Ale while my wife fed me leftover meat from City BBQ.

This, my friends, is the life.

Announcement:

I love my wife.

More dream stuff

As I was making my dream band for that last entry, I realized that I had several people in mind for each spot, but it depended on what style of music (metal) they were. So here are some more specific Super Groups (as if you care):

Death/Black Metal:
Vocals: Eric Clayton of Saviour Machine (clean) and Peter Espevoll of Extol (grinding)
Guitars: Ihsahn of Emperor, Chuck Schulinder of Death, and Galder of Dimmu Borgir
Bass: Jason Wisdom of Becoming the Archetype
Keyboards: Nathan Van Hala of Saviour Machine
Drums: Gustav Elowson of Crimson Moonlight

Thrash Metal:
Vocals: Luke Easter of Tourniquet
Guitars: Aaron Guerra of Tourniquet, Kurt Bachman of Believer, and Kerry King of Slayer
Bass: Cliff Burton of Metallica
Drums: Ted Kirkpatrick of Tourniquet

Rock/Heavy Metal:
The original Black Sabbath

Barnes had a boffo idea.

Boffo, I tell ya!

I took this idea from Barnes's latest blog entry and made it my own.

Tommy's Worldwide Traveling Adventure (in place of the wrestling thing)
Scotland
England
Germany
Norway
Sweden
Ireland
Iceland
China
Japan
Israel
Egypt
Australia
Alaska
Yellowstone


Tommypalooza (Dream Music Festival)

Black Sabbath
Saviour Machine
Emperor
Tourniquet ca. 1992 or 1997
Crimson Moonlight
VNV Nation
Alice Cooper
Johnny Cash
Rammstein
Antestor
Meshuggah
Clutch
Zao
Joy Electric

And, this Super Band made of:

Vocals: Eric Clayton of Saviour Machine (clean) and Peter Espevoll of Extol (grinding)
Guitars: Ihsahn of Emperor, Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society/Ozzy, and Aaron Guerra of Tourniquet
Bass: Jason Wisdom of Becoming the Archetype
Keyboards: Nathan Van Hala of Saviour Machine
Drums: Ted Kirkpatrick of Tourniquet


Tommyuk-yuks (Dream Stand-up Comedy Show)

Eddie Izzard
Bill Cosby
Jim Gaffigan
Dane Cook
Lewis Black
Jerry Seinfeld
Christopher Titus
Patton Oswalt
Carlos Mencia
Dave Chappelle
Brian Posehn
Zack Galifianakis
Nick Swardson


The Stewart Network (My own television network with shows that are currently on air/in syndication)

Mystery Science Theater: 3000
The Office
The Simpsons
Family Guy
Seinfeld
24
Sealab 2021
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
South Park
Titus
Chappelle's Show
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Metalocalypse
Mythbusters
Man vs. Wild


Best Movie Ever (The Title)

Starring:
Anthony Hopkins
Tom Hanks
Jack Nicholson
Wilford Brimly
Mel Gibson
Marlon Brando
Morgan Freeman
Natalie Portman
Jackie Chan
William Shatner
Sean Connery
Bruce Willis
Julianne Moore
Hugo Weaving
John Rhys Davies
Robert DeNiro
Betty White
Will Ferrell
Christopher Walkin
Christian Bale
Jenna Fischer
John Heder
Patrick Stewart
Dennis Haysbert
Michael Cain
Steve Carrell
Walter Matthau
Samuel L. Jackson


Feast of the Tommy (My Dream Meal)

Appetizer: Mozzarella sticks, rosemary sour dough bread with olive oil and fresh pepper, hot dogs, Bavarian pretzels, and a Woodchuck Amber draft cider

Main Entree: thick sirloin cooked medium over a charcoal grill with bbq pulled pork
Sides: corn on the cob with copious amounts of butter, glazed carrots, bacon, fried cinnamon apples, steamed broccoli, and a cornish game hen
Beverage: large stein(s) of Samuel Adams Boston Lager/Scotch Ale

Dessert: warm, gooey brownie a la mode with caramel and hot fudge, caramel apple pie, generous wedge of Steph's "Super Cake," and a Long Island Iced Tea

After Dinner: Auchentoshan single malt scotch on the rocks with an Arturo Fuente Opus X cigar

And now the post that will get me disowned by some members of my family:

I think that Michael Moore makes some good points.

Now that you're conscious again, let me explain.

Take his new movie, Sicko, for example. Now, I've basically been brought up to shudder at the very sound of his name or the mention of universal health care. And I do disagree with a lot of his points and the methods he chooses to employ in making them. But I do not view him as pure evil anymore after watching some interviews with him about his new movie. Say what you want about the man, but he has good intentions, and a bigger heart than most of us. He sees an imperfect system in which so many people in need of medical help go without it simply because they can't afford it and wants to do something about it. I know you're saying, "But universal health care would have so many problems of its own," but you can't pretend that the current system is without problems, as well.

It's a tough decision for me. I guess you could say I'm currently against universal health care, if only because that's where my thinking began and so, having not made a concrete decision, I am here by default. I guess I realize that both will have their issues.

Universal health care will be sub-par compared to ours, and would have things like women having miscarriages in waiting rooms because the lines are too long (which has actually happened).

But, one could argue that under our current system, things like that still happen, just not in hospital waiting rooms. They happen outside hospitals because the people know they wouldn't be able to afford the care, so they don't bother. Or they do try, but are denied.

One major benefit to our current system is that we've been able to use the great amount of money we've made to make incredible advancements in medical science. A lot of the free health care service that others enjoy may not even be possible were it not for people like our doctors and researchers. This is also why in America, far fewer people die from serious diseases like cancer than in countries that have universal health care. Again, it may not be free, but it's sooooo much better.

But you have to admit that the idea of everyone having access to medical attention no matter how much money they have is pretty attractive. And the idea that it is possible for someone to be too poor to be healthy in this great, filthy rich nation of ours seems borderline ludicrous, if not way over the line.

We all love it in Family Guy when Peter is describing how horrible their equivalent to our Chuck E. Cheese's is and the man behind the counter tells the little boy with 13 tickets, "I'm sorry, Timmy, but you need 15 tickets...to live," and opens a trap door beneath the kid. Well, replace the man with a doctor and tickets with money, and it's kinda scary how accurate it is.

I love what Michael Moore said during an interview on CNBC. A lady was asking him about his movie and said what so many of us have, "I would rather get sick here in America than any other country." And, to what may have been the surprise of many, Moore replied, "So would I." But then he continued, "But that's because people like you and me could afford it."

As I thought about it, it did seem a little odd that government is in charge of just about all public services except medical. I mean, they do security, fire, education, sanitation, public safety, etc. Why not this area? Again, we can go back to how private companies can make so many great developments not possible under a socialized system. This also made me think how kick-ass our fire fighting equipment would be if they'd been run by private companies competing for our attention. But then again, our military is obviously government-run, but is the most advanced in the world. Could our universal health care system be the same if it had enough money?

Everyone also talks about how inefficient government programs are because they cost so much more to do the same things that private citizens could do for a fraction of the cost. But apparently, our own version of socialized health care (Medicare) has a much lower cost for overhead and profits and such than private companies. Now, would that continue if nationalized? I don't know.

And that's how I'll end this. I don't know.

Just one o' them things

Ok, I saw this little gem of a quote while parousing one of those Facebook boards of people arguing with each other (because all important issues in the world WILL be solved by Facebook posts) and this was one girl's response to someone stating that there was more historical evidence of the existence of Jesus than the existence of Julius Caesar:

"Little Caesar's has some pretty kick-ass breadsticks. I don't see no Little Christ cookin' up anything delicious."

It's so brilliant, just thought I had to share it. She was somewhat of an idiot, but this made me laugh.

Oh, this world of ours

We've all heard about how malaria is killing people by the millions around the world and ravaging communities and economies, mostly in Africa. And we've heard about how us people of the West have eradicated the disease by use of the wonderful pesticide known as DDT. So you've probably also heard that thanks to people like Rachel Carson, it's use has been restricted because they had "findings" that stated how bad it was for the ecosystems and did more harm than good, etc.

But I bet you didn't hear about how we now know how very WRONG Carson was. Really. So while her ilk have falsely convinced us that the use of DDT is an abomination, millions of people have died from malaria while we refused to use our best defense against it.

And it is effective. Very effective. Did I mention we don't have malaria problems in the US anymore? Well, thank your good pal, DDT.

Now, am I saying that Ms. Carson is responsible for all these deaths because she misled people into banning the use of our best defense? Well...

Now some still say it does have proven adverse effects on the environment. Also tends to be bothersome to some birds, or something. And yes, that's bad. But you know what else is bad? LETTING 300 MILLION PEOPLE DIE FROM SOMETHING THAT IS EXTREMELY PREVENTABLE.