This band went all in on the concept for their first album: naming themselves Whitechapel, then having every song on the album being first person from the point of view of Jack the Ripper. The lyrics are graphic and profane (Festering Fiesta might be the best song title of all time), the music brutal, the vocals seemingly Nurgle-inspired. One of those albums that makes me think there's something wrong with me for somewhat liking it.
2.5/5 - Average death metal/deathcore that doesn't overstay its welcome. Too gruesome to listen to regularly, and not as good as their later albums.
It has been many years since I have been on here, but Erik's 30th has inspired me to get back on and share with you all my many experiences as a Law Enforcement Officer. I will warn you though alot of the stuff I deal with is pretty messed up and I deal with a ton of racist people. Viewer discretion is advised.
To kick things off, there is a guy here that is basically a white supremacist...well he is one due to the fact he has white tattooed on his left tricep and power tattooed on his right tricep, along with a german eagle with a swastika in it. He is also a diabetic but a special kind that gets 4 shots a day and takes a fast and slow acting insulin. He is a major problem within the facility and well we all wish he would literally die. He was getting he blood sugar level checked at 3:30 am and this 6'2" black male nurse wouldn't inform this inmate which his levels were and went into full dick mode (not the kind robbie likes). He was taken and put in a special holding cell and was told that he cant act that way.
His response was priceless. "It aint my fault that nigga aint white"
Caution to all those Grindr "website" users...there is a guy who has been here for 2 years and is being tried as a child molester. He used Grindr to have hook-up dates with boys around 15 and 16. Well that is pretty messed up if I do say so...but the kicker here is that he has AIDS and he knew about it, and has infected a minimum 6 people.
For everyone's benefit: Aaron informed me when trying to make this post that the idkfa server was rejecting him. That is to say: the references in his post to the words "sex" and "underage" and "hook-ups" made the server think he was either a) doing something illegal, or b) spamming the site.
You have such a crazy job that the Internet thinks you're spam.
Ok i have something a little newish. It's not so much of a fun story but entertaining non the less. So every inmate is able to have visitors and write as many letters as they want. It is very advantageous for these inmates to have multiple "girlfriends" or "bitches" as I like to think of it. Unless these people are rich or have some weird crazy kind of income they use these women to put money on their accounts so they can get snacks/treats/etc. All of them think they are these guys’ "bottom bitch" though because they are basically just pimps in the end.
The part that I am getting to is that we get to read this inmate mail and it is always hilarious when these women start figuring out about each other. These inmates are lazy too and don’t use the "six degrees of separation” rule. Good on them for figuring out ways to get money though, but the train wreck is just amazing.
I have been busy lately but here is a quick update in the police world.
A man was arrested for DUI and brought to our facility. I had discovered that it had been his third DUI but not to sure when the other two were. It had to have been somewhat recently due to the fact that he was driving on a suspended license. He was being an asshole so I decided to "nut him up" which basically means talk shit to him to see if he would try and do anything. It was a boring night and I wanted a little bit of action. So while I was booking a new arrestee, I overhear this asshole talking about how he doesn’t like the way he is being talked down to by deputies "me especially". In turn, I tell him how I don’t appreciate piece of shit people who drink and drive and put other people lives in danger on the road. Of course he didnt like that and two other deputies swoop in and get his left arm in a control hold and escort him to be finger printed. I overhear a deputy yelling multiple times to stop resisting and to get on the ground. I look over and see four deputies trying to control this guy who is like 5'8 but 300lbs, so he was like a sumo wrestler basically. I start walking over to where the skirmish is happening and pull out my taser. I hear the guy yell out "I aint getting on the ground". I'm like alright mother fucker..."taser, taser, taser". I see two deputies basically dive out of the way as I push the taser in his back. The guy screams and falls to the ground, where we were able to cuff him up and throw him into a room.
Now could this be avoided, probably...but it was a very slow night.
I really don't see the point of resisting police officers, particularly when you're already in a facility of sorts. What is the thought process? "If I just attack these guys, I can probably escape and just go about my life without consequence?" Or are these dudes just in so deep that anything added to their record is just another line item on a pile of dogshit?
Well they are angry and things escalate. It's generally heat of the moment, but we told the guy on many occasions to calm down. People dont realize that when you go to jail you lose certain rights, and they need to do what they are told...within reason. But some people are under the impression that we are limited on what we can do...case in point.
The reason we say taser is to alert other deputies of your intentions so that they can get out of the way and so they know what you are doing.
On slow nights, if I am working a housing unit I will watch TV or movies on my phone. So much happens every so often that it is hard for me to read books, I get distracted to easily. But when I am working with newly arrested inmates and booking them into the facility, when its slow we just stand around and BS, there are about 4-5 other people you directly work with.
Fair enough. For some reason when I read that it was, "Taser taser!" in the same way a bad early 90's gangster impression would say something like, "Gat GAT, motherfucker!" Being a safety concern, your explanation makes a lot more sense :)
Next time you're feeling you need to "nut [someone] up," just know that there is a lot of quality television out there. Just as for a recommendation. Maybe not as interesting as tasering someone, but also not as potentially dangerous.
My apologies to Mike, for I told him that I would post stuff last night.
These people in jail will try and do anything and everything in order to get more than what they deserve. They try and play deputies, manipulate them into getting anything extra.
To set things up, I am currently working on a Mental Health module where anyone crazy basically comes here, they are given the opportunity to take medication but alot of them refuse so they stay crazy. I had this guy today who went to the dentist. He "allegedly" got his mouth numbed up and got some teeth pulled. I'm not really sure, he might have and might not have. Inmates word in jail is shit. So I have to double check everything just in case. Medical personal told me that this guy doesn't need any special diet such as a soft meal which could be blended up food or a vanilla shake (which comes in a carton).
This guy keeps bothering me and I keep telling him I owe him nothing and he wont get any more. He is a dick and a problem, but also retarded (excuse my language). I keep telling him that I cant tell him and ask him what he wants me to do. He tells me I need to do my job and help him out and that I need to have some compassion. I respond with, "Oh you want me to have some compassion...how much compassion did you show the guy you murdered." And I havnt heard a word out of him as of yet.
So in my line of work there is always the chance that I will get into a situation where I may have to draw my weapon and take someones life. I have been thinking about this more and more due to all the controversy with the shooting in Ferguson, St Louis and a few other less known places at the moment. From the research that I have done, along with what I know, those incidents were "legit shoots". There are always those situation such as Tavon Martin and the BART incident along with Zimmerman (non police related) where its a little more complicated.
One thing we are always taught is that make sure you go home every night, that is the number 1 goal of the day. Especially more than ever with Natasha and Jensen, I am doing everything I can to make sure I go home at night (as honorably and lawfully as possible of course). My father always told me that it is "better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6".
It is very hard now at the moment though because working in the jail I am really seeing the other side of things. Things that most of us never got to experience just due to where we grew up and the people that we hung out with. I know growing up with Erik, John and Josh the only real trouble we go into was...we just had no interest and better things to do...nerdy things to do. I have no compassion for anyone in jail, as some of you may already know due to a prior message. Yes, some people arnt that bad and not everyone is a career criminal. Many make mistakes and others are just drunks. Be that as it may, while you work in a place like this you have to treat everyone like they are a murderer. Just give them what they are owed and nothing else.
Okay I digress. What I'm trying to ask you all who are reading is that with your knowledge on weapons, criminals, and the law, would you take someones life if it meant protecting yourself or loved ones from harm or death? I will not judge anyone ether way, just curious really for what different people think on the matter.
I'm super happy to hear that despite the soul erosion it sounds like you encounter daily, you still take the time to reflect on the nature of the situation. I feel that is incredibly important.
As to your question, hell if I know. I keep a pistol in my bedroom, unloaded, and in its case. I don't really know why. The situation you propose would be the ideal scenario: you performed an act in defense of yourself and loved ones. I'm not confident that whatever situation would arise would be that ideal, cut or dry. You have years of weapons and psychological training, experience to deal with those situations. I have trouble staying ahead of laundry.
I suppose would. I've been in some terrible situations in the past where I have drawn a weapon on someone endangering my family. The threat was enough, luckily.
I claim to be utilitarian, and I imagine people who who endanger other's lives are mostly tortured/unhappy individuals. Thus, if it's people that I know live happier lives, it would definitely have to be us over them.
...this is the first philosophizing I've done on idkfa in quite some time. Brings back memories of some terrible claims. Perhaps Robbie can put me in my place, like the good ol' days ;) I honestly hope to never be in the situation. Unless it's a bear, which I will stab in the face without mercy or regret.
I think about this regularly, but I also am in shady ass places riding my bike, at shady ass hours occasionally. I also work in a city with relatively small amount of violent crime and live in a city with even less so it's not like I really have to worry about it. Interesting to note in the last several years about 20% of all homicides in Seattle were in fact police shootings. Yeah that sounds high, but it was 6 out of 30 total for last year.
On one hand I don't have a problem using force, even deadly force to protect myself. But knowing how I typically react to stressful situations I can say I would mostly likely crumple under the stress and just become a regular victim statistic, or if I were to carry a weapon I would escalate the situation unnecessarily to the point were someone would get get hurt due to my own bravado. I have a suspicion that a lot of "self defense" homicides are kinda due to the second situation where the person with a gun actively provokes, or at least doesn't attempt to cool the situation down, to the point where shooting in "self defense" is the only option left. The law of course seems to favor the story of the one left alive, unless of course it's Nick Cage in ConAir.
So also being in a City where I'm almost as likely to get shot by a cop than a criminal is an odd feeling. Doesn't leave me with a whole lot of trust in the police force of Seattle, but of course I don't really threaten anyone with violence so I'm unlikely to ever get myself into a situation where I could be shot by an officer.
So I'm going to apologize for this little diatribe and I hope its even remotely comprehensible. I hear the argument all the time that the police have a right to protect themselves from harm, and deadly force is of course one of the totally justifiable methods of doing so. But that kind of comes down to a value judgement that the life of an officer is somehow inherently more valuable than the life of the victim. That's probably true almost all of the time. Yet these are people who get a whole hell of a lot more training on how to handle dangerous situations than the average person and I feel should be held to an entirely different standard. If a person is threatening you with a knife, and you have a gun, how likely is it that you get sent home in a body bag. Not likely, yet consistently the guy with a knife does (particularly here in Seattle). Or a better example some dipshit throws a punch at an officer, more often than not that dipshit gets the fuck beat out of them. Ok yes an officer could get injured, but I just don't buy the argument that the amount of force that typically makes the news was justified. Shit even if it doesn't make the news. The simple fact is that an officer has far greater effects on the outcome than the other guy, they are more armed, better trained, and have the responsibility to actually make sure the best outcome is achieved even if it means accepting some bodily injury or harm in the end.
At the end of the day being an officer is still just a job that you chose to take. Just like being a nurse in an Ebola hospital is a job a person chooses to take. Is it fair to judge your own life higher than those you are meant to serve because your job is unsafe? You might have more value to your life than that person in cuffs or in the jail cell, but you are not really a qualified person to make that judgement call either, 'cause you're biased.
Sorry Aaron, I'd way rather get beers and fuck around talking about this kind shit than trying to write an essay on it.
Honestly, I had pretty low expectations for this album. They replaced the lead singer screamer and one of the guitarists, and the last release was pretty much a retread of the albums that preceded it. That being said, they replaced the lead screamer, legendary Angela Glassow, with EVEN HOTTER Alissa White-Gluz (of The Agonist fame... and Canadian Idol...), and legendary axeman Christopher Amott (brother of the remaining guitarist) with none other than technical shredder Nick Cordle (formerly of Arsis fame). This shakeup truly reinvigorated the band, as the result is the best that Arch Enemy has put out since at least Doomsday Machine.
4.0/5 - Exceptionally good melodeath. So many workout staples in here.
Unsurprisingly, this music is hyper-violent thrash. And not mainstream, Metallica-esque thrash; no, definitely thrash of the Exodus vein. Super harsh, screaming vocals; long tracks; disturbingly violent lyrics; no slow tempos; and, really, nothing truly catchy, just chock full of headbanging riff. While most normal people probably wouldn't understand how this could be at all enjoyable, for this brand of thrash, it's actually quite good, especially for an underground band. But only if you're into speedy riffs and headbanging like it's still the '80s.
3.5/5 - Very good harsh thrash.
Some more instrumental music, this time of the post-rock with some electronic elements variety. Pretty great background music, as the album flows pretty seamlessly and is generally pretty smooth, but with enough changes to keep it interesting. Like Bonobo, but more rock and less beats.
4.0/5 - Great for instrumental background music.
What an interesting release. It's progressive djent with all clean vocals; honestly, I've always been curious if clean vox djent would work, and it does... but primarily because it's VERY melodic djent (not anything like, say, Vildhjarta). What I didn't know when I picked this up is that it is a band created by 20-year old guitar prodigy Jakub Zytecki (from Poland); his playing is simply out of this world. He has ridiculously technical chops, but also plays really tasteful jazzy leads. An impressive display of skill.
3.5/5 - Very good, although pretty overwritten. The guitar playing is spectacular, and the melodic djent good, but the album is a bit overlong and some of the songwriting not great. However, they have a very promising future!
So I'm not really sure how to genre-fy this album; it's got some electronica, some ambient, mostly instrumental with a few vocal tracks, and it's pretty jazzy in general. Just pretty good slow-paced chill out music, I guess... which is apparently a genre? In any case, this is a really well written and superbly paced album. If you're looking for some interesting and non-intrusive background music, this is about as good as it gets. Going to have to check out more Bonobo!
4.0/5 - Great music for relaxing, or as background music. A lot of times this music just gets boring and seems lost to me, but this album is a really good one.
Recommended for Mike and Dave.
SPDCA: I'm looking for a better way to get a hold of people.
I'm trying to review a couple collaboration and social aggregation softwares, and was curious if anyone had experience or had seen success with these, or something like them:
Thought: I live on the Internet through email, RSS feeds, Gchat, and to a lesser degree Twitter, and even less so Facebook. I normally proclaim "every tool should do one thing and do it well," but the amount of tethers I have and their incongruity with how other people interact with their Internet-capable devices make the act of getting a hold of "everyone" and in a way that everyone prefers a tedious task.
I want to be able to tell people, "Go here," or invite them to a place, and have that be a singular, finely-grained place where they can subscribe to things like "movie nights" or "Dungeons and Dragons." I want that place to allow users to get notifications where and when they want it. I want it to be able to integrate with silly things like Twitter, or simpler things like idkfa. And I want that place to be available for mobile devices.
I've been lurking on Cel.ly for some time. It has an interesting feature where a "cell" (a group chat) can have what they call "receptors" and "transmitters." A receptor can be another cell, or a feed like a public Twitter account or an RSS feed (something that could link the cell with updates from idkfa). This kind of integration appeals to me, as it means that depending on the cell, and the type of message, it is possible to get push notifications on one's phone for services that are not "push-y."
I like the simplicity of the Cel.ly interface, and it seems to work pretty well across both web and mobile clients. It's interesting that you can have point-to-point conversations where you are just talking with one person via direct message (and have push and email notifications apply the same).
Unfortunately, I don't see where one has the ability to start a temporary group conversation. This would be something I'd want if, say, I wanted a message to go to a subset of people, and have the potential for that conversation to remain among that subset (say, GTA5 bat signals, or whatever).
For anyone interested, and perhaps as incentive to try out the idkfa Cel.ly (cel.ly): I figured out how to get Cel.ly to update periodically with book (intersectionthereof.com) stats. That is, total word count, updated in increments of 100 words, for the book Mike and I have been working on since summer of 2012.
So, you know, next time you're curious how it's all going. Now your answer is online. And automated. And somewhat mobile-friendly.
So, for whatever reason, the Cel.ly integration with the Giterary wordcount feed fell apart. Either something is weird with how I'm generating the feed and they are silently ignoring new entries, or, they aren't doing RSS feeds any more.
Either way. If you're still interested in getting a wordcount update, the RSS feed is available here: http://arch.gitera...okmaking.collection (arch.giterary.com)
As I like notifications on my phone for when this changes, I've actually plugged the feed into IFTTT (ifttt.com), which just gives me notifications at least once every 15 minutes if the feed is updated.
215k words, at time of writing.
This album is a re-release (and largely a re-recording) of Ayreon's second album, Actual Fantasy. I'm obsessed with Ayreon special edition releases (the DVD's are usually pretty classic, since Arjen Lucanson is just waaaaaaay too nerdy and awkward), so I of course had to own this, even though I had never listened to the original (which apparently had terrible sound quality and programmed drums). This is an interesting album. It's definitely the most electronica-inspired album, but still firmly in space metal territory. Only a couple of singers. Only a loose theme instead of an album long narrative. I've listened to it a couple of time, and while it's not a bad album, the invariable mid-tempo, synth and sample songs just get a bit boring after a while. A couple of songs have certainly grown with a few listens, but overall, I think this is one of Ayreon's weaker offerings.
3.0/5 - Good album. The original release would have scored worse, but the new sound quality is impeccable.
Distant Satellites follows directly in the footsteps of every album Anathema has released since We’re Here Because We’re Here. In fact, it’s almost become formula to have multipart songs separated over the album, with a long time track occupying the penultimate or thereabouts slot on the album. If the music wasn’t so good, and full of emotion, it’d probably become tedious… but man, Anathema has a knack for creating the most evocative soul-searching music ever. And with this album, they’ve really perfected that formula.
4.0/5 – Great album. They’re going to have to head in some other direction for the next album, as I feel the formula they’ve ridden for the past few will become tired pretty quickly from this point on.
Most instrumetal albums are pretty hit or miss for me. For all the greatness in bands like Scale the Summit, Animals as Leaders, Exivious, Conquering Dystopia, and Blotted Science, there are tons of wannabe technical bands that just don't make the cut (and because of that, I only listen to the best of the best as determined by ratings). And that's because it's incredibly hard to make an instrumental album that is technical but interesting. It often boils down to noodling for the sake of noodling, time signature changes at random, or simply stuff that is hard to play that doesn't sound good... and it becomes boring fast. That being said, I will add Pomegranate Tiger to the above list in the future. This album is varied, has great songs that go places, and is still technical as all hell. This will be an album I revisit in the future, which is not something I say often about instrumetal!
4.0/5 - Great instrumetal album, a tad overlong (76 minutes!). This album pretty much blew my mind... and it's a debut! Pomegranate Tiger is a young and very talented band, and I can't wait to see what they can come up with in the future.
Alt J is an incredibly unique sounding band. The vocal delivery in particular is provocative and borderline annoying... but you eventually get used to it, and see how well it marries to the odd guitar, bass, and other instrumentation. I guess I would classify this as... indie-sounding... but that term is pretty throwaway these days.
3.5/5 - Very good album. Cohesive, and I really haven't heard much else that sounds like.
So, I generally don't listen to hip hop (I have listened to Eminem in the past, but not much else), primarily because I feel like the biggest poseur EVER when I do. I mean, I've just recently gotten over feeling self conscious about all the screamy vox in the car, but I feel like it's... racially insensitive to listen to hip hop because of the prominent use of slang that I'm not allowed to say. Plus, it's lyric driven and I generally don't care a lot about lyrics but music. THAT BEING SAID, Run the Jewels is a duo of El P and Killer Mike... a white guy and a black guy, which exempts me from guilt when I listen. And for whatever reason I can't get enough of this album. The beats and melodies, and rhymes, they're all SO GOOD. It makes me want to try and find more stuff like this!
4.0/5 - Better than the other limited hip hop I've listened to, and it was free!
Necrotizing fasciitis in the Marshall Islands (www.youtube.com).
While more of an ad than anything else, I did meet this guy and was around during the time he got the infection. I WASH EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME.
Mastodon's evolution as a band has been pretty interesting. From the super heavy and chaotic metals of Remission to posterchild for prog in the last few years of the naughts, they seemed to get better and better with each release (although I still have a soft spot for Leviathan). Then came The Hunter... where apparently they believed they had taken prog to its culmination and wanted a more accessible sound to please the masses. Even though that album is better than I remember it to be (which I always forget in between listens), it is still disappointing for me personally coming after the masterpiece that is Crack the Skye. Unsurprisingly, the new album trends in the direction established by The Hunter, and is less heavy with an almost complete absence of harsh vocals and, shockingly, restrained drums (Brann Dailor's drumming has set this band apart in the past, he's just a beast). At first I thought it was their ReLoad to The Hunter (i.e., an inferior Hunter 2). Then I listened to it, again and again... and realized that it is a pretty different beast. Still technical, but melodic. Cool songs. Proggy hard rock, as it were.
3.0/5 - Good for what it is. While I do like it, it's more on the same level as The Hunter... meaning a good album, but inferior to Mastodon's back catalog.
