The Websites of Both Country and Westerns Stars

So this morning I was checking out the websites of some of the larger country acts in order to get some ideas for a website I'm designing for a friend of mine. Keith Urban's site is quite good in terms of design. The photoshopping on his new DVD is a bit weak, but the concept is there. His fan club is called the Monkeyville Club. It's not clear from the site whether he means 'monkey' in an affectionate way or in a 'poo thrower' sort of way, but either way it's a stupid idea. Unless, of course, I came up with it. In that case it would be cool.

The site for Big & Rich is designed well in the sense that there is a lot of information (not to be confused with worthwhile information) which is all organized quite efficiently. The main header graphic (shown to the right) depicts Big & Rich touching guitars, achieving a not so subtle gay effect. Fellas, put those things away and get back to making your "80's Rock But There's a Fiddle and/or A Mandolin In There Somewhere So It's Country" music."

The website for Rascal Flatts is more than a bit shitty. Guys, you're making some good money now, stop getting your sister's kid to design your site in his basement and hire a pro already. Get the person who photoshops the singer to look less fat in the pictures. That person has a gift.

I could go on, but it's time for my leisurely walk to the library, so if you see any cool sites out there I could get some inspiration from, lemme know.

Movie Review - Sunshine (2007)

I was waiting to see this movie for some time. I finally received it from Zip.ca and all one can say is... wow (but not in a good way). The phrase breath-takingly shitty come to mind, but even that doesn't do it proper justice.

I'm assuming a lion's share of the positive reviews this film received are for director Danny Boyle, which I can see as I am a fan also. However, every director has his abysmal, flaming disasters and this one truly is Danny Boyle's.

Sunshine fails, and spectacularly so, on every level. I knew the story would necessarily have to stretch what we know about science and technology to insane proportions, so I made a conscious decision before watching the film to prepare for that. Nothing could have prepared me for the glowing disco ball of crap I was about to see.

While the cast itself isn't bad (at least one has to believe the screenplay was that awful) the story is so unbelievable it's laughable. The concept is truly funny and the movie takes itself so seriously it's actually kind of enjoyable in the sense that it's amusing to make fun of it.

I know it's boring to always pick out story holes and flaws in movies, but I defy anyone to get even quarter way through this little gem without uttering something out loud. Topic: a bunch of twenty year old (apparantly seasoned and specialist) astronauts have been put in charge of 'the future of mankind' by flying a space ship towards the sun and shooting off a made in the USA nuclear missle to regenerate it... discuss... xD

Above all that, the film is laboriously slow and takes forever to unravel. Just when you're hoping for the credits to roll, a twist of inane proportions begins. It seems like a 5 hour movie by the time you're done with it.

Considering the big budget, Sunshine is almost as galactically crappy as Stealth. Almost.

I reserve the 1 star rating for the absolute bottom of the barrel films that make me wish I hadn't wasted my time. With the exception of a few visually stunning scenes, Sunshine is in my humble opinion one giant blazing infernal ball of glorious failure.

No Longer Undiscovered

Guitar 9 Records Profiles Yours Truly

Pabbly Road

Friday (er, Thursday)

Well it's Friday again (Thursday for those of you who aren't me) and a new weekend dawns! :)

With most of the CD going into the mixing phase, my mind is wandering more and more towards the real meat and potatoes of it all, the marketing! That's right folks, gone are the days when the music and the bands mattered, at least in the technology using parts of the world.

These days most people have 180 gig iPods and put all kinds of music they like on it. They don't give a shit so much about knowing who the band is or anything like that. I can't say as I blame them though. Decades of shitty, plastic music will do that to people. The music industry, methinks, is the only industry that rewards mediocrity.

Fortunately I have been blessed with a vision and a perspective that will restore balance to the universe and bring everlasting peace to the people of planet earth...

Well, that may be a bit grandiose. Maybe. :)

Greatest Hits Update

Recording for the Greatest Hits album is almost finished!

For the rest of October I'm going to be focusing on the CD artwork and website. I'll be getting back to final recording and mixing in November. We're shooting for a December 1st-ish official launch (emphasis on the ish) so keep your panties in a knot till then. :)

Furious Ming has contributed some drumwork already for the song Believe and is working on a couple other pieces at the moment.

More updates as soon as they are available!

Butthead Fire Drinker

This guy probably started out thinking he was cool, but how quickly the tide can change....

Fire Drinker (sort of)

Let's Get Physical

Here's a video clip of a new workout routine. I'm not sure what it's called but it's supposed to be a really effective workout. Perhaps they should call it the ass to mouth workout. haha

Ass to Mouth Workout Regimen

Facebook Study

According to British researchers, it's hard to make close friends on Facebook.

Read the article here.

This study found that social networking sites like Facebook aren't creating many close friendships, but are creating 'plenty of meaningless ones'.

I can see that because personally I don't think an email only interaction qualifies as a relationship, at least not in the sense of a true friendship. To be fair though, what constitutes a meaningful relationship is completely relative and different for many folks.

That being said, the internet is really just a reflection of society in general. If a certain tendency, behaviour, attitude, movement, business, sexual kink, school of thought etc. exists in our society, then it exists on the internet.

This includes relationships. It would make sense to me that if we are seeing an increase of what some might describe as 'meaningless' friendships or relationships, then our society outside of the computer is also conducive to us creating these equally meaningless relationships. If it's not an increase and simply is part of human nature, then we, as people, have a tendency to create frivolous friendships which is magnified through the general anonymity of the internet. Either way it's all good cuz it's just us.

Put another way, social networking tools like Facebook don't create meaningless relationships, people do. :)

You Tube: Pedro Edition

I've started a You Tube channel featuring videos of me fuckin' around on the guitar for those of you who want to see that. The permanent link is listed on the left of the screen under Other Webamables. Or you can just click here.

Enjoy! :)

The Demon Inside

Here's a little video of me playing the intro to "The Demon Inside", a song on the upcoming CD. Baby Ibanez practice amp and guitar provided by Super P.

America the beautiful (and stupid)

* Warning: Watching this video may actually hurt your brain.

This girl is as pretty as can be and that's why she was in the Miss Teen USA pageant. Below is a video of her answer as to why 1/5 Americans can't find the United States on a map. I know she's just a teenager and may have been nervous, but if you can figure what the fuck she's saying, you deserve a cookie. Enjoy!

Superbad is super bad

I saw the movie Superbad last night with my friend Bicky. I should have known better than to brave this little show, especially when the rest of the audience looked like they were 12 and were carrying skateboards.

The first 5 minutes were kinda funny because I wasn't expecting such low brow, puberty age humour. But 87 boner jokes and 10 minutes into the movie my initial surprise turned to sheer boredom. If there ever was a movie that should come with a mute button. Superbad's painfully unfunniness completely dwarfs it's occassional funniness.

In fairness I did get a good laugh a few times, mostly at the subtle humour of Cern's character and the cops were for the most part amusing. But boy did Superbad ever make me pay dearly for those laughs. In retrospect, it wasn't worth it. I'm just glad that Bicky had free tickets.

I read the critic reviews and the critics all love it, assuring me that they must be on a payroll somewhere. And so I am bestowing upon Superbad the very first zero out of 5 stars I've ever handed out. That in itself is impressive.

The Return

Wow, it's been so long since I posted on my blog. When I logged back in this morning the landlord was beginning to put up some 'Condemned' signs and there were squatters and heroin addicts living in it.

I've whisked them all away (except the heroin people, it must be hard to find a place to relax when you're all strung out on the mighty horse).

Just wanted to announce that the Greatest Band In The Universe project is about halfway done. So far we have three songs completely finished, two more in the vocal recording stage, and two more that need lyrics and a melody. More about this project later as even I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with it yet.

Peace out. Next time I'll share with you how to find your life's purpose in about 10 minutes, as well as scare up some funny pictures for your viewing pleasure.

I'll take 'with' makeup for $500 Alex

Here's Katherine Heigl with and without the benefit of makeup, lighting and apparantly hundreds of photoshop people.

Best...Self-Piledriver...Ever.

Toby Keith (The Asshole American)

That is all.

Ok, not quite all. :)

Here's Toby rockin' out a big G chord
with a capo, apparently brought to you by Ford

Toby Keith is another one of these country singer dickheads with no personality of his own, so his people tried to give him a street tough image. So lame. Toby basically makes lots of loot writing drinking jingles for the right wing redneck crowd. He could write a song called I'm a Big American Asshole, and his fans would not only buy it with pride, but somehow think it was a way of supporting the troops.

Here's Toby sporting a mullet before his marketing people
gave him that fake tough guy Skynyrd reject image

I like the song As Good As I Once Was, I must say. Even though the title is a direct rip off of the famous Ronnie Hawkins saying. The biggest reason I dislike Toby Keith is because of his hypocrisy as a recording artist. He wrote a song about the Dixie Chicks when they were in all that hot water over that comment they made about George Bush. At his concerts, Toby used to have a big banner that showed the Dixie Chicks with Saddam Hussein and shit like that. For all the 'America the Free' horseshit he claims to be so proud of, he really yellow bellied out when a fellow artist spoke her mind.

For this, Toby is not a real artist and he can eat shit and die, courtesy of the red, white and yours truly.

Bitchfight: MTV Edtition

Apparantly, MTV is doing everything it can to try to avoid a confrontation between Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel at the upcoming MTV Movie Awards. Cameron and Jessica are the former and current girlfriends of N'sync shithead Justin Timberlake, the douchebag who seriously thinks he "brought sexy back".

MTV is worried that if the two losers ladies meet on the red carpet, there could be an eye scratching, hair pulling, "he's my man" style bitchfight.

In my humble opinion, MTV should use this lame drama to bring even more attention to their stupid awards show and arrange it so that these two ditz's end up on stage together "by accident". MTV staff could be planted to egg both of them on, and before you know it we would be sitting back enjoying a pathetic, but wild and super funny girlfight. Not only would this send the Godzilla vs. Cross-eyed Bambi (Rosie O'Donnell vs. Hasselback) feud to the back of the news line, it would become the youtube event of the year (well, the week. Ok, the day).

Oh while they're fighting, MTV should flash this picture on the big screen.

Oopsy Daisy

Miss USA does her best version of the self atomic drop at the Miss Universe Pageant in Mexico.

Humour, H20 style

This one from my friend H20. Enjoy!

Jim was in BIG trouble.

He forgot his 20th wedding anniversary. Needless to say, his wife was really angry and threw him out. She told him "tomorrow morning, I expect to see something in the driveway that goes from 0-250 in 6 seconds and IT BETTER BE THERE if you want to be allowed back!!"

The next morning when his wife woke up, she looked out the window. Sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway.

Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Jim has been missing since Friday.