The Yellow and Black Attack

I realize that this post will get me banished from most corners of the world (or banished to a corner of the world, either way it's not good). Last night I saw Stryper.

Yeah, you read that right, I saw Stryper. Most of you know my philosophy. If the ticket is in the $10-15 range for an 80's band, it will be more than worth the level of humor that will come from the show.

Now I know, your all wondering, were they in the yellow and black outfits? Can Michael Sweet still hit those brain piercing shrills? Do they still throw bibles into the crowd. Well folks, I have your answers.

The outfits, I'm sorry to report, were not present. It was upsetting. That was a big part of the expected humor. There outfits were still bad, just not yellow and black. Two of the members were also wearing Stryper tshirts. I love bands that wear their own shirts. I suppose when the record label won't fund a wardrobe, you wear whatever you have in your closet.

As my girlfriend so aptly pointed out, Michael actually appeared to have some sort of a Trent Reznor thing going on. It was quite odd. T-shirt over fishnet shirt, black jeans and boots, shoulder cropped hair. I guess he was trying to keep up with the times. I guess that's cool, but someone should have told him his time was 1985.

One other note about low-budget tours. The two 10x10 banners sporting their pictures that were on each side of the stage were a great Kinko's bargain. They also had a tapestry behind the drummer that was rehashed from one of their 80's tours. It's good to see they recycle.

As far as the music goes, they were surprisingly decent. Definitely didn't sound like a band who hadn't played together in 15years. Oh, and yes, Michael can still hit the notes. It was rather scary.

The crowd was great. Except for the VIP balcony section of 18yr old girls from some local religious school, we were probably the youngest people there. Lots of people who had seen better days, and parents trying to rock with their sweaters tied around their waists. Quite funny indeed. I did see one kid with a mohawk sporting a yellow and black striped shirt and another with a Stryper wristband. Oh, and a special shout out to the really weird guy in the turtle neck rockin the front of the stage. Pure entertainment.

On a side note, I just heard on the radio this morning that they are trying to put together an acoustic tour of churches. LOLOLOLOL. Apparently ones that can hold at least 750 people. Now, call me crazy, but they couldn't sell out the Paradise, and that only holds about 500 people. Those crazy 80's rockstars...the ego just never goes away.

P.S. They still throw bibles.

P.S.S I didn't get one.

P.S.S.S Dammit!

My favorite quote yet

I thought when our fearless leader said "if you don't need gas, don't buy it" in reaction to the massive gas price gouging that was going on after hurricane Katrina that I'd heard the epitome of stupid responses. I was wrong.

In recent Senate committee meeting to determine if perhaps the leaders of FEMA were not quite on the ball in the days following the hurricane, it's has become apparent that Michael Brown may not have done his job properly.

I know, I know, you're as shocked as I am by this news. A man with no qualifications, a made-up resume and no prior management skills of anything was given the job of heading up our Federal Disaster agency as a favor, and he didn't handle things right. Couldn't G.W. have done a favor for Brown in a way that would be less damaging to the country? Maybe he could have got him a pair of tickets to a U2 concert or something instead. He is great pals with Bono and all.

Anyway, that leads me to my new winner of the "epitome of stupid responses" award. After receiving multiple emails from the only guy from FEMA in NO after the hurricane, Brown's aide responded by saying that he needed more time to eat his dinner first. She stated "He needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes. Restaurants are getting busy. We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choice, followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc."

I don't think I need to say anything else on this subject.

The dam is made of wood.

People seem to be shocked and concerned about the dam in Taunton that's on the brink of giving way and flooding the town. Weren't they concerned before this last week of rain?? It's a 100 years old and it's made of wood!!!!

Now I'm no engineer, but it seems to me that wood probably isn't the best material to build a dam with. Now I get that 100 years ago, this was how it was done. But somewhere in the last century, nobody saw this coming?

2 years ago, it was inspected and determined that it was in fair condition. Of course, nobody did anything about it, just pointed out that it was a problem. In this country, we seem to work on the principle that if we ignore something, then it's not an issue. We wait until after there's a disaster and then pretend that we're surprised.

If somehow this doesn't give way and the water levels go back down to normal without incident, perhaps someone should upgrade the dam with something other than the "beaver" technology that's currently in place. Hey, how about bricks? It saved the 3 Little Pigs after the big bad wolf blew down their house made of wood.

I got my Powerball tickets

So I picked up my Powerball tickets today. 10 to be exact. The jackpot is estimated at like 340 million or something like that. I have no idea why I bothered to make the trek to NH to buy these. The odds of winning according to the NH lottery web site are 1:146,107,962. I bought 10, so I guess I've increased my odds to 1:14,610,796. Well that's a guaranteed win.

It's amazing too that most people don't play on any regular basis, yet when the jackpot gets up near the 200 million mark, everybody is suddenly flocking to the stores to get their tickets. It's as if the $1 spent isn't worth it if your only going to win 75 million. It's such a great example of greed and laziness. And I'm part of it.

I'll let you know if I win, or maybe I'll pay someone to let you know for me.

***UPDATE***

I didn't win.