The Manifesto Part Deux

When I was a child I found this thing. Before I was alone but this thing let me speak and listen. Before I was trapped in my head worrying about what would be said. But here, on the wire. The world was the world. And the world was big, bigger than I can still fathom.
I was awestruck. It had the power to make the small large and the large small. The signal became infinite.

And then its greatest strength became its greatest failing. It wasn't supposed to be. It was what it was and nothing more or less than that. There was no outside of the box because there was no box to begin with, just a space containing an infinite amount of thought, the bottle sea.

15 years ago the world changed, and at the same time it didn't. We are still small and petty. We are still arrogant unrealizing of the range, enormity, and breath of human existence.

I'm not talking about lolcats and memes. No I'm talking about the simple willingness and capacity we have to ignore. We live in a time where there is no excuse not to know, and not to hear.

Yes there is an expanse of data wild and untamable, unknowable in its scale, but we owe it to ourselves to try. To use this tool unprecedented in all of human history to see the world.

And yet we don't. So convinced we are of own wisdom that no view that contradicts our own preconceptions could possibly be valid. The lack of a box has become the box. The wilderness remains untamed, not because of its vastness, but cowardice and laze.

When I was young the world was large and vast and unknowable, and slowly it got smaller. This place, unwalled and infinite, became small. This place defined by its limitlessness became small!

And the true lament of it all is that it's not the thing that became small. It is we who failed to grow with it. We had a place limited only by conception and yes that conception was a limit.

We try. Over and over again we try. But brilliant ideas and advances are ignored in favor of the mundane, left to languish and stagnate. And these are the solutions. What of the questions, lights in the dark void left to flicker out and die?

Why did we not grow when the world grew?

Classic Reviews : Guns and Roses Appetite for Destruction

Okay so the new Slash Album came out a few weeks ago, but you know what I realized. Rather than listening to it I would rather listen to the classic cuts. God I'm going to hate admitting this but Slash is a one trick pony. He does one thing. He does it really well but he does one thing.

And rather than listen to the new Slash I would rather listen to the old so welcome to my Album reviews: Classic

First off let be be clear. All of the members of Guns and Roses were and mostly still are awesome at what they do. It's one of those bands you want to see back together because everybody held their own. It shows in their single projects ehhh even ehehehehh CHehehehh ineese speww Deiiimoabefmeocracy. Damn you Axl I wanted to hate it. But damn it I kind of like it despite the fact that you insisted on calling it a Guns and Roses album.

Let's set the stage shall we. It's the late '80s. Metal is king but it's kind of becoming a parody of itself. People love it, but at the same time the mainstream doesn't take it seriously anymore.

You have a few underground movements (Thrash) trying to recapture the glory, but on the LA strip it's mostly glam metal.

Now while not thrash Guns and Roses were aggressive. Nobody was afraid of their teenage daughter dating Diamond Dave. (They should have been. Oh, the hotel stories I've heard.) But Axl Rose. Christ. I think it was Slash who said with him you never knew what type of show you were going to get. He might have an awesome set or he might get pissed and walk off stage, or worse break someone's nose. When he sang "you can have anything you want but you better not take it from me." You believed him.

Note: Though to be fair Roth had long started his solo career by '87, the year Appetite for Destruction came out.

Let's start with that great cut everyone hears at least once. That ubiquitous anthem that says, "Kansas just got blown the fuck away Dorthy and your about to ride the whirlwind." "Welcome to The Jungle"

What can't be said about it that hasn't already? As a first track it does its job. It tells you exactly what type of album this is going to be, an unapologetic tour through rock and roll debauchery, drugs, sex and rock and roll.

Okay I'm not going through every track but some deserve special mention.

Quasi-mandatory disclaimer: I do not use nor do I endorse the use of drugs. There I said it! Happy, you Nazis! Now that I've gotten that over with "Mr. Brownstone" is catchy as hell. "He's been knocking. He won't leave me alone."

And Paradise City. Oh God Paradise City. The riffs and solos. Slash at his best. Damn the entire band at its best.

My Michel is a good song, but it's a little weak in this line up.

Sweet Child of Mine. It's ballad but unlike other ballads it never seems quiet or tame. It seems like a fierce explosion of emotion. While the guitar work is top notch it mostly works 'cause of Axl's vocal range.

Rocket Queen is great too.

Overall, it's a tight album. All killer and no filler. And when I say killer, I mean some of the best riffs and solos in rock history. All is as it should be this album being a near mandatory listen to anybody even mildly interested in rock.

Lot and Luke

I am alone
But hear and understand before pitying me
For it is not my aloneness that is what brings me sorrow

For it is the trespasses against my home

I am a small man
Small and afraid
For there is a difference between chosen solitude and unsolicited rejection

To live is to be alone
For I am too cowardly to unmask myself
and risk true intimacy

Because of this I am chained
tempered and cooled

But in this place
I am master of my own fate

That book was placed by my own hand
That piece of beauty chosen and cherished by my eyes
This wooden chest holds the garments that shield my flesh

In this control, it is here and only here I find freedom
Here and only here I can be large and because of that
It is here and only here I am unafraid

For those who understand and respect this deep sanctity of my home my door will be unlocked and bread will be at my table

For all others I say unto thee do not bother me for my door is already locked to you

Southfield May 21, 2012 City Council Meeting

City council meeting held in Southfield Michigan on May 21, 2012

Topics Include
* The recommended 2012/2013 Budget
*A local theatre group (SRO Productions) leaving where they are housed in a restored church.
*A police officer's use of profanity.
*The Southfield Tree Fund




An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Southfield 2012/2013 Recomended Budget Presentation

Presentation of the Southfield City Administrator to council regarding the recommended 2012-2013 budget.



Notes: This video contains only the first hour of the presentation due to technical limitations. Audio of the entire meeting will be available shortly.

Album Review: Doctor John: Locked Down

Dr. John
Locked Down
3.5/5



Guess who's back. Back again. The Wolf is back tell a friend.

Yeah. It's been a while since I reviewed a new album, partially because of life stuff and partially because most of what's been coming out is indie pop, and I'm not really qualified to review indie pop. It's not my style and I know it. Read the Florence and the Machine review.

So this time I'm taking up some good ole New Orleans R &B. Now, it's not my forte either but I dig it enough to be a little less biased.

Dr. John is a legend and unfortunately I'm a bit new to him. Before this album my only exposure to him was the 101 Dalmatians soundtrack and his role as himself on Treme.

That and his Muppet caricature.

All that said I dig this album. "Big shot". It's got heart and groove and I have to say that is hard to pull off. A lot of the modern blues and jazz acts I've come across can get an endless groove feeling easily but it seems to lack heart. That's not the case here. Most of the songs here have a sort of tragic feel.

Not sad and not wallowy, but tragic, like a, "It ain't pretty, but this is my life. It's all I got as much as I might hate it." feeling. Or that might just be me.

Who the hell knows .

But then again that is one of the points of blues, to tell life's story in all of its ugly beautifulness.

And off the beaten path I go. It's hard, really hard to get past the smiles and laughs and handshakes, to get past all that bullshit and move people by the other side of the coin. Because mostly most folks don't want to hear it or tell it, like there is something wrong with feeling pissed, or afraid, or sad, when all of that is just part of being human. We all have our bullshit, every single one of us. And maybe admitting it can help us keep the demons of our minds at bay.

It takes guts and skill to actually move people and well this album has moved me.

My Thoughts on HBO Go and Xfinity for XBox

Okay after about two months I think that it is about time I review the HBO and Xfinity Xbox 360 apps. I'm going to say a lot but here is the gist. The Xfinity apps is basically Comcast's TV OnDemand service with a better interface, which I find frustrating. The HBO app, while not eclipsing Netflix and Hulu mostly succeeds at what I expected it to be, though I am disappointed in a few very specific holes in expected content. Cough ach** In Treatment*** cough.




The Roll Out Kerfuffle
Yeah. I guess I can't go any further with ignoring it. These services, HBO Go and Xfinity on Xbox had incredibly horrible launches. This is part of the reason why I waited so long to review them. I wanted the review to not be a long rant about it, but at the same time I can't say it doesn't color my opinion. Part of the problem was a disappointment with the product which I'll describe later but here I'm going to focus on the two weeks of heck with them.

The technology that Comcast uses so that its service can bypass its data cap was already controversial, but that technology also made it difficult for some people to set up the service. It took me about four hours to set mine up which sounds short but for Hulu the same process takes about 5 minutes.

Add to that people were expecting to have the HBO GO library included in the app or at very least being allowed to use the HBO Go app and you have a situation where some people can't use the app in the way they wanted, to watch the entire series of Deadwood in three days.




By the way to anyone who hates on the above parody I can say a lot of those lines are actual quotes from the show.


You got that you sons of bitches! You screwed the pooch on this one! In your haste to silence the grievances and doubts against you, you have only proven your detractors right to think you cocksuckers can't do a damn thing right, and through your ineptitude showed your clientele you are unworthy of the hard earned currency we lay from our pockets into your fucking ass cheeks, you motherfucking incompetent whores! (Shot of my punching of a cable exec, leaving the room and looking at my number 2 so he knows to finish it.)

I love Al.



Anyway eventually they got their act together but it took them forever.

Criticisms of Netflix and Hulu
In order to understand my opinion of these services you have to understand that ultimately I was hoping they would improve on Netflix and Hulu. While I like both of these services I do have a few gripes with them.
Lets get this out of the way. I hate the metro redesign of these apps. I've hated it for nearly a year now. See I mostly use these apps to watch TV and it was easier to search out specific episodes in Netflix back when they were in list form. It's even worse than that because you don't even go to an episode menu screen in Netflix before it starts playing anymore. It plays the episode it thinks you were on even if you only had about 2 minutes until the end of it. So basically I'm watching the ending credits of South Park every time I fire it up.

In Hulu the metro the redesign made it so that most of the time only 100 panels could be displayed. What does this mean? If you're Hulu favorites list or queue on your computer has more than 100 items you're out of luck. Browsing through a studios' catalog and they have more than 100? Out of luck. Going though and selecting stuff by letter and it has more than 100, you are out of luck. How do I know this? Because things arranged alphabetically in the C section are cut off at CO and searching I see a show called The Cut. That and as an anime nerd I search for stuff in their Funimation collection which I know they have.
But those are problems that are kind of nitpicks. You can still watch shows. The big one I was expecting the cable app to fix was a lack of premium content. It is very hard to get movies less than a few years old, at least mainstream ones on these apps.
Expectations
Furthermore my expectations were shaded by the Comcast Xfinity.tv website, which while not perfect had far more content than their TV OnDemand service and integrated the HBO Go library into it.
To put it simply I was expecting the Comcast app to be more similar to the website than OnDemand. The website is basically Netflix, but with premium content, which is what I was hoping for.
OnDemand
I love...ed OnDemand 10 years ago. It was exciting. A library of content I could watch without being bound to the clock. If a show came on late night, like Real Time with Bill Maher, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force I didn't have to stay up until midnight to watch it. It was great.
But here is the thing. Now to me that is the norm. I almost never watch a show when it comes on. Ten years ago that quality was a cool gimmick. Now it's just the way I watch TV.
OnDemand hasn't changed much in 10 years, which to me seems inexcusable when there are services that have refined the trait it defined. Now I don't just watch whichever show I want to watch when I want to, I watch whichever episode of that show I want.

And that is something that is just plain hard to do with On Demand which normally doesn't even give you a full season of these shows. After years, I have finally gotten my mother to sit down and watch The Wire. She's hooked but can only watch 4 episodes a month OnDemand. Meanwhile on Comcast's website if I wanted to I could watch the entire series.
Now I understand why the interface is so hard to change, which is the major complaint when comparing it other services. Your cable box just isn't that powerful a computer, but in terms of content, they are the grand masters. They've been at it far longer than Netflix, yet it seems they have far less content especially full seasons.
Note: I'm just going on my feelings here. I don't have specific numbers and even if I did there are different ways to calculate the size of a media library. I wish they would just measure it in content hours.
And it seems the Xfinity App has less content still. A lot of the shows it offers are already on Netflix, but have full seasons there, like Supernatural.

For shows where chronology matters it's confusing as all heck to tell which order the available episodes are in.
Also the search function is broken. I'm delighted to say one of my favorite miniseries Into the West is available, but in order to find it you have to go through the network menu because search says it doesn't exist.


All that said there is premium content. There are shows there that I just can't get anywhere else like NCIS, Young Justice, Thundercats, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, which by the way does its predecessor proud.



And all in all Xfinity does have newer movies than the other services.

It just seems that all of that comes at the expense of viewing things the way I've gotten used to viewing them. If I want to sit down and watch a marathon I've gotten used to being able to. Same goes for watching specific episodes. All the election talk has got me in the mood for "Douche and Turd".

Douche and Turd
Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore...

HBO Got It Right
Everything I've been complaining about especially interface stuff. It's not a problem with HBO's app. The interface is great. One thing that always bugged with nearly every app is that I can't sort how I see the episodes. There are some shows where the chronology doesn't matter and watching the episodes newest to oldest is probably going to be best, for instance news and talk shows. Then there are others where that option seems insane. Try it with Game of Thrones. I dare you.



Who's that? Why does that guy want that guy dead? Why is that guy saying that guy owes him money? Why is that guy piss scared of that guy?



HBO has a drop down menu that lets you sort how you sees things. Newest to latest, or the other way round. Even for movies you can browse alphabetically or order added.

They have a screen for each episode which conveniently includes a next episode button.

And all the better they have full series. Not just a season but full on series. And they simulcast episodes. You can watch it through the app as soon as it starts on TV. If you're in your kitchen cooking and miss the first five minutes, no problem, just start it from the beginning. It also has a pretty good selection of sports stuff which is hard to find in an OnDemand format due to timeliness issues. Nobody gives a rat's ass about last month's championship match.

It does what I want, but I wish they had more HBO original movies, documentaries and some of the older and smaller series. They have most of the big stuff, Deadwood, Oz, The Wire, The Sopranos, but some of the more obscure stuff from the HBO library like Dennis Miller Live, The Chris Rock Show, The Corner, and Spawn are gone. Like I said they are also missing alot of their original movies and documentaries. There are no Tuskegee Airmen or When the Levies Broke. Which is a shame, because they kept advertising, "The entire HBO catalog."

All that said while I expected the Xfinity app to compete with Netflix I never did for this one. You only get it if you already have cable. And while I love HBO content it can't compete with the size of the other services libraries.

I'll Finish the Way I Started

The Xfinity apps is basically Comcast's TV OnDemand service with a better interface, which I find frustrating. The HBO app, while not eclipsing Netflix and Hulu mostly succeeds at what I expected it to be, though I am disappointed in a few very specific holes in expected content. Cough ach** In Treatment*** cough.


Again it's a damn fine show. Too fine to be pushed to the wayside the way it's been.

May 8, 2012 Southfield School Board Meeting

Meeting of the Southfield Board of Education held May 8, 2012

Topics Include
*A student trip to Japan
*Summer School
*Various Student Awards
*Asian Student Teachers

Note: A portion of this video was edited to remove a song from a Studio Ghibli movie. (I'd have to check but I think it was the theme to Princess Mononoke a movie I really should watch again.)

An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Important Dates Southfield Late May / Early June

May 15, 2012 6:00 pm - Southfield Board of Education Study Meeting
May 15, 2012 7:00 pm - Zoning Board of Appeals Meeting
May 21, 2012 - Southfield City Council Meeting
May 23, 2012 - Southfield Inside Out / Face to Face Project Opening
May 29, 2012 -School Board Study Session
June 3, 2012 10:00 am Southfield High School Graduation
June 3, 2012 3:00 pm Southfield-Lathrup High School Graduation
June 4, 2012 Southfield School Board
June 4, 2012 Southfield City Council Meeting
June 5, 2012 Southfield School Board Budget Public Hearing
June 7, 2012 7:00 pm University High Graduation


Note: I was mistaken about the date of teh inside out Opening. This post originally said it was on the 24th.

Southfield City Council Meeting May 14, 2012

City Council Meeting held in Southfield, Michigan on May 14, 2012



Topics Include

• Community Development Block Grant Action Plan Approval
• Resolutions regarding opposing Fracking and Super PACs, as well as in favor the state reimbursing cities for loss of funds from the elimination of the personal property tax
• Issues with DTE Energy

An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Southfield City Council Meeting May 7, 2012

City Council Meeting held in Southfield, Michigan on May 7, 2012

Topics Include

• A discussion on development and planning priorities
• A program that would allow the city to be used as a mechanism to help reduce bank risk so that homeowners could get better terms for energy improvement loans.
• Community Development Block Grant
• The Chaldean Festival
• The resurfacing of Civic Center Drive.

An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Southfield City Council Meeting April 30, 2012

City Council Meeting held in Southfield Michigan on April 30, 2012

Topics Include

• The possibility of upgrading the city's sign ordinance to better regulate electronic signs.
• The possibility of phasing out portions of a program that allows some city employees and officials to take home cars.
• A series of arrests that took place at Northland Mall on April 28 regarding possible gang activity.

An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Solitude Blues

The days of I am are over
let others worry on that
I just want to be

Time for me to walk fields of clover
I've stopped caring about my hat
'Cause long ago I've learned no one sees me

My mind aint ever been more sober
Done opening up the latch
Alone in my thoughts I've just found the key

Look we all got a number
Aint we all just a bunch of rats
But that don't mean there's no glee

Southfield Regular City Council Meeting April 23, 2012

Regular City Council Meeting held in Southfield, Michigan on April 23, 2012

Topics Include

• A public hearing concerning the city's assessment roll for money collected from things such as noxious weed removal and grass cutting code violations.
• Recognition of the Southfield Christian School Boys Basketball team for winning the State Championship
• The possibility of police corruption
• Dissatisfaction of Emergency Medical Services Care

An agenda and related documents can be found here.

Southfield April 23, 2012 Special City Council Meeting

Special city council meeting held on April 23, 2012 in Southfield, Michigan.
Topics include

• The sale of city owned property, the Franklin Orchard Condominiums to the Christian Tabernacle Church of Southfield
• An outdoor art project (Face to Face)

 An agenda and related documents can be found here.