- Dear pop music hacks of the world (that means YOU, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Maroon 5, every man band in existence and every American Karaoke contestant in that show’s disastrous history), please take note of the following story and adjust your songwriting and recording practices accordingly. Your music will still suck abysmally because you lack talent and musical ability, but you could go from an F- to a straight-up F and if nothing else, that is improvement in the truest definition of the word. Brilliant indie rockers Fleet Foxes went into the studio in 2009 and spent most of the year recording their new album “Helplessness Blues.” At the end of the process, the band sat down and listened to the final mixes of the songs for the albums and decided that the songs simply were not good enough, singer Robin Pecknold revealed in a recent interview. At that point, the band had a decision to make. Were they like the proverbial crappy pop artist, they would have simply cobbled together the best of what they knew wasn’t their finest work and the label would have pushed it out, promoted the heck out of it and hoped for the best. And honestly, that approach probably would have worked because the majority of listeners have horrible taste in music and would never have known the difference. But instead, the band sat down and collectively decided to return to the studio and re-record much of the album. "When we did the first mix of the album it was like, 'This is where we're at, not where we want to be'," Pecknold said. "I felt there were things that could be improved. I wasn't being precious about it. I wanted the album finished and out as much as anyone. But as soon as we started re-tooling one or two of the tracks, that opened the floodgates." Bassist Christian Wargo added: "It just sounded weird, not what we wanted. We just thought we could do a better job. That's what we all thought. I wasn't just Robin not wanting to let go of the thing." Because of that decision, an album that was to be released late in 2010 will now drop on May 2. The band's 2008's self-titled debut was universally well-received and buzz for “Helplessness Blues” has remained high despite the delay. True fans of good music will appreciate the extra effort on Fleet Foxes’ part as well as Pecknold’s explanation of their reasoning for returning to the studio: "There was absolutely no chance I was going to ever put out something that I wasn't totally convinced was as good as it could possibly be. I didn't care how many times we had to re-record stuff." Now THAT is the sort of attitude that more bands would do well to emulate…………
- Ready to join the push to forever abolish the Guinness Book of World Records, world? The longer we all allow this farce to continue, the more no-talent morons we’ll having lining up to “accomplish” asinine feats like growing their fingernails out longer than anyone else in history, accumulating the longest ball of yarn or playing the opening lick of “Smoke on the Water” with thousands of other idiots in the same place at the same time. But because some of you obviously are not yet convinced and fully behind this crucial cause, let us examine the story of the “World's Largest Whoopie Pie” in Portland, Me. and see if you don’t change your mind. Like all tales of tools attempting worthless feats in the name of setting a record, this one began with a few idiots having a dream and no one around to tell them that their dream was the worst idea they’ve ever had. No, this isn't raining on someone’s parade as they attempt something great that other are too timid to try; it’s alerting a person to the fact that they are about to waste their time and the valuable time of others pursuing something that will benefit no one and will make the world a worse place. Our idiots for this story are Jon Armond and Eva Matteson from Portland's Coast 93.1 Morning Show and Amy Bouchard from Wicked Whoopies, who decided to try and settle the ongoing battle between Maine and Pennsylvania over who could claim the whoopie pie as 'their' dessert. The trio of fools teamed up to create the 'World's Largest Whoopie Pie' Saturday at the Maine Mall in South Portland by beating Pennsylvania's largest whoopie record of more than 200 pounds. To that end, the endeavor was a success. The supposed world’s largest whoopie pie weighed in at 1,062 pounds and a crowd of equally pathetic people with nothing better to do gathered at the mall to watch the pie come together. Once it was completed and weighed, the giant whoopie pie was cut and sold by the slice. All proceeds from the event will be used to send Maine made whoopie pies to our troops serving overseas, which seems like a noble cause until you realize that a) troops need phone calls home and other amenities more than they need a damn whoopie pie and b) any respectable soldier, sailor or airman who finds out the story behind the whoopie pie on their plate will immediately throw it in the trash because they will want no part of encouraging ass clowns to attempt pointless feats in the name of setting world records that matter to no one…………
- Crossing tech dorks and especially video game enthusiasts is never a good business decision. Rogers, one of the largest Internet service providers in Canada, is finding that out after inadvertently screwing over thousands of World of Warcraft players. The online game is a huge draw for pale, pasty, no-life-having nerds the whole world ‘round and in Canada, where winter in an 11-months-a-year ordeal, being able to connect with the outside world despite the five feet of snow on the ground outside is crucial. Rogers was impeding WOW players’ ability to participate in their favorite games and allegedly doing so as part of its efforts to clamp down on peer-to-peer file sharing. Last month, WOW player Teresa Murphy filed a complaint with Canada's telecoms regulator, the CRTC. The agency ordered Rogers to investigate Murphy's claims that its filters couldn't tell the difference between P2P and her game. Sure enough, the cable provider determined that Murphy’s complaints were accurate and that its filters really couldn't tell the difference between P2P file sharing and World of Warcraft. Rogers then attempted to argue that problems only arise when players use P2P software at the same time as the game, but Murphy insisted she didn't use P2P software at all. Whether that is true or not, Rogers has announced that a fix for the problems that she and other players were experiencing wont be ready until June. The battle over WOW access is part of a larger debate over Internet usage in Canada, where last month the Canadian government vetoed a ruling by the CRTC that would have allowed fairly stringent usage-based Internet following a vociferous opposition of the ruling by the public. All of the issues surrounding the country’s Internet usage policies could be resolved if Canada were to join nearly every other Western nation in offering offer broadband plans with unlimited data. So put down the round bacon and maple syrup and get to it, Canucks……….
- Is there no word for “no” in Mandarin Chinese? Apparently not, because if there were, then Lu Hao, a three-year-old toddler in China, would not currently be tipping the scales at an astonishing 132 pounds -- five times the normal size of a child his age. For a baby that weighed less than six pounds at birth, packing on 126 pounds should take at least a decade, not three years. Why is he so FAT and why isn't someone putting the kid on a diet? "We have to let him be, as if we don't feed him he will cry non-stop," said Hao's mother, Chen Yuan. "For a meal, he can eat three big bowls of rice," Hao's father, Lu Yuncheng, stated. "If we don't feed him he will cry non-stop." Hey mom and pop, who’s in charge here? You or your orca-FAT toddler? If the kid won't stop crying, then you buy some ear plugs, feed him a normal portion for a three-year-old and allow him to cry his FAT head off. What’s worse: Having your child cry because you won't let him eat himself into a food-induced stupor or allowing him to each as much as he wants and possibly become so FAT that his body gives out by age 10? Even if doctors in China have unable to diagnose what's behind the Lu Hao’s abnormal weight gain, that doesn’t mean you just continue to throw food at the problem. No three-year-old should be plowing through enough ribs and rice to feed an NFL offensive tackle and then going back for seconds because his parents can’t say no to his appetite. Making matters worse, Lu Hao seems to have a decidedly American approach to life in that he hates exercise so much that his parents take him to kindergarten on a motorcycle. Just an idea, but why not use the kid’s aversion to walking to your advantage? Place his food all the way across the room and when he walks over to take a bite, move it back to the other side of the room so he has to traverse the distance again. Repeat the process until he is too tired to keep walking and falls asleep…..and the problem is solved. Hao’s parents have also installed a basketball hoop to encourage him to exercise, but they claim exercise only makes him hungrier and that typically results in him gaining even more weight. Multiple specialists in China have examined him and doctors at the Guangdong Children's Hospital told the parents their child's weight gain could be caused by a hormone disorder. Others have suggested Hao shows signs of Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Those problems aside, his biggest liability is parents who are epic failures at doing their jobs as the adults in the family…………
- The more concussions become an issue in sports at all levels, the more likely it becomes that athletes will take a more active role in managing their health and well-being, especially when it comes to brain injuries - or so one would hope. The “tough guy” mentality that has reigned in sports for years, especially at the professional level, is still entrenched but the occasional athlete will buck the trend and make a decision about their career based on personal health concerns as opposed to an obligation to get back on the field of play early and put their well-being at risk in the process. Concussed Boston Bruins center Marc Savard could be one such athlete. Savard is having "real memory problems and he's quite worried about it," a source claimed recently. He was placed on long-term injured reserve in early February with his second concussion in less than a year after being injured in the Bruins' Jan. 22 game against Colorado. A vicious smash into the end boards' glass by former teammate Matt Hunwick concussed Savard, who also sustained a concussion against Pittsburgh on March 7, 2010. The first concussion kept him out of action until the second round of last year’s playoffs and he also missed the first 23 games of this season. Even after returning, Savard played in just 25 games and tallied two goals and eight assists in limited playing time. He signed with Boston as a free agent in 2006 and was re-signed in 2009 to a seven-year extension that takes him through the 2016-17 season, but of late he has talked like a man who is anything but certain of a return to the ice. "I'm not going to make any decision about my future until I get some more medical stuff done. I've just got to be patient going forward," he said. "My agent talked to me a lot, and he gave me time to think about a lot of things. It's going to be tough, especially watching them play." Ending a 13-year career that also includes stops with the New York Rangers, Calgary Flames and Atlanta Thrashers would be difficult under any circumstances, let alone due to an injury, but when the choice is between walking away from the game while you’re still able to walk and doing so with long-term brain damage…….well, the choice becomes clearer. Savard’s post-concussion symptoms are similar to those of teammate Patrice Bergeron, who suffered a concussion in 2008 and reported a persistent sleepiness and the phenomenon of things around him moving slower than normal. If those symptoms persist, it would be difficult to imagine a circumstance in which Savard would or could return to the ice…………
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