Perhaps the dumbest web service I’ve seen in a while, youvebeenleftbehind.com, will send emails to the friends and relatives (up to 62 addresses) of devout Christians, after the Jesus-Freak has been whisked to heaven via the Rapture—all for just $40 bucks a year. I mean, what price is worth the ability to thumb your nose and gloat at all those damned heathens, right?

That’s not all! The site also provides 250 MB of storage, 150 of which can be “encrypted” (there’s zero information on what exactly they mean by this or what method is used), so you can upload those important documents that you want to pass on to your loved ones.

The site suggests storing sensitive passwords, banking, brokerage information, locations of hidden valuables, and power of attorney documents. Their reasoning? You won’t need it, you’re in heaven! You can either give them your entire financial life to “hold” and keep “safe” for your loved ones, or risk the Antichrist getting it all. (I’m feeling like an opposing site, for donations to the Antichrist needs to be built, right now.)

Why entrust them all your information, you may ask? Simple, they say. Because they’re Christians. That should be all the credentials you’re average God-fearing, bible-humping idiot should ever need. Never mind that their contact info consists solely of a PO Box and a Gmail address. The domain registrar is a proxy, giving jack-shit for info as to who your money or your private financial information is going to. But hey, they’re Christians, it’s all good!

<sarcasm>This seems too good to be true! How do I know my information and messages will be delivered once I’m strumming a harp in heaven? Didn’t they say they were all Christian too? That means they’ll be in heaven with me! It’s so confusing, my head hurts! I better have an exorcism!</sarcasm>

Actually, according to these true believing heroes, there are five Christian people, scattered around the United States who must check in to the system on a regular basis. Should any three of these God-loving people fail to log-in over a three day period (presumably because they are now in heaven, not jail, mind you), the system will be triggered. An additional three days will be given as a failsafe and then like mana from heaven, all your important stuff will be delivered to the people you care most about on earth.

On one hand, it stinks to high hell of a total sucker scam. People who pay for this service are not only going to be $40 poorer, they’re likely to have their identities stolen and have their money cleaned out, pre-Rapture.

On the other hand, I’m all about abusing Christians.

Yet again, I have sustained injury due to the prolific use of my BlackBerry and moderate addiction to Twitter. As detailed in an earlier post, I had a slight slip-up while composing a tweet on some stairs that resulted in a bitch of a sprained ankle. You would think I’d have limped away with some kind of lesson learned and perhaps seared into my gray matter á la Pavlovian response. Nope.

Last night, fresh of the subway, a bit drunk and walking the home stretch to my building, I whipped out my trusted BlackBerry and let my thumbs start tapping away a tweet, all without breaking stride. Head down and absorbed in the glow of the screen, I walked head-first into a steel pole. Nice, right?

I struck the pole with a fair amount of momentum, though whether it be by virtue of the alcohol in my system or the fact that I have a rather hard head, I didn’t really feel much pain, nor did I knock my ass out cold.

Unfortunately, there were a fair amount of witnesses, but I managed to quickly recover and continue as if I had not just completely pulled a “dumb drunk walking” moment. The whole episode was a matter of seconds.

However, this morning my forehead has been graced with quite a nicely-sized and tender lump. I’m sure that in 24-48 hours it will be gone, but until then, it serves as a reminder of the dangers of tweeting while walking in even a mild state of inebriation. At some point (I swear), there will come a time where I will have learned my lessons concerning BlackBerries and perambulation.

My general feeling about Metallica is they’re washed up, used, irrelevant and more than a bit embarrassing for many years now. The drummer is annoying and what they put out now is hardly what I would consider Metal, Thrash or otherwise.

From the whining over Napster, back in 2000 to the overall, professional douchebaggery of their drummer, they lost whatever was left of any respect from my adolescence.

Now, I see they want you to pay for the ability to watch promotional in-studio videos of their up-and-coming album. With price packages ranging from $24.99 to a whopping $124.99, with hardly any real value in the products, I’m thinking they’re sounding their own death knell to whatever is left of a paying consumer base that retains more than a couple brain cells.

Since when did a successful marketing and promotional campaign start with requiring consumers to pay? Is the album that bad?

With their bratty and self-defeating stance on digital media and DRM, they basically beg to be pirated. Why drop cash onto their already significant earnings if they treat some of their base as criminals and the rest as suckers? Really, why even listen to them?

On Saturday, I managed to survive two concerts back to back. Starting at four, I went to ABC No Rio for Coffins. Never will I go back there. The place is a tiny, cramped shithole, with no bathroom, alcohol or ventilation. It was disgustingly hot. I lasted fifteen minutes in there before common sense and a bit of chew-my-own-leg-off animal frenzy drove me out to an Australian bar across the street to down beers with other like-minded Australian metalheads. I would have liked to catch the opening bands, but fuck that oppressive shit, I just checked back every couple of beers till Coffins went on.

The band was great, although I had trouble seeing them. A stage to elevate things would have been much better. Coffins was loud enough that flecks of the ceiling were dislodged by sonic vibration, raining down on the people in front of me. They played a good set and I enjoyed seeing them live for the first time, but fuck that venue.

Here’s a few photos of Coffins live.

After leaving that hellhole, I shared a cab with some Australians to Williamsburg (they were going to see the next Coffins show of the evening, at a proper venue) and rushed my ass to the Music Hall of Williamsburg for The Sword. I hung out downstairs in the bar, getting fairly buzzed at this point, skipping the first opening band and a bit of Stinking Lizaveta. Eventually I headed up to the hall and hooked up with a buddy of mine.

Stinking Lizaveta was pretty good, though I can’t say I was really into them that much. Still, they were far from sucky. Torche was entertaining. I’d nabbed one of their albums a few weeks prior, just to check them out and really wasn’t into them at all. Live was a different story, though. They were pretty solid. Good enough that I later revisited the album I had and can definitely appreciate it more. Often, seeing a band live makes you a fan far more than an album will (or vice versa).

Finally, The Sword. Those Texas fuckers tore the goddamn roof off. They were even better than the first time I saw them live. It was one of those “Holy shit, this rocks” moments. My neck is still quite sore from headbanging. Of course, at this point, I was pretty much thoroughly shitfaced, lost and at sea in stupid drunk land, rambling and weaving. At one point I recall chucking a plastic cup with the dregs of my beer out over the heads of the audience, something that horrifies me, because it would have really pissed me off if I were on the receiving end. Oops. Sorry. It was, the booze not me. Swear it.

Here’s a bunch of photos from that show.

It’s been a at least a few months since I’ve posted some of the photosets of concerts I’ve been to recently. If you know me (really, you don’t), I go to a fair amount of shows here in New York City, mostly metal of the Doom, Black, Stoner, Drone and occasionally, Death varieties. I like Metal; I like getting pasted and snapping a shitload of photos and uploading them to Flickr with minimal editorial discretion.

So, here’s a mess of them for you:

• Mouth Of The Architect / Wetnurse / Total Failure / Psyopus
• Fu Manchu
• Tombs / Plows
• Estuary
• BloodHorse / Disfear
• Howl
• Earth / Kayo Dot / Zaïmph
  

The cool thing is that today, the band Wetnurse emailed me to ask if they could use one or more of the photos I shot of them for the liner of their new CD. Of course, I’m more than happy and honored to oblige.

This morning, I rushed onto the 2/3 train, heading into work, managing to catch a seat. As I settled, I spotted my upstairs neighbor a bit farther down the car from where I was sitting. I was about to wave when a man sitting next to where she was standing leaned over a let loose a massive wave of multi-colored puke onto the floor, liberally splattering her legs and feet.

Not even pausing for a moment of shock, she runs from the train, barely making it past the closing doors; I assume to go home and clean up. People quickly start moving to my end of the car. Meanwhile, Mr. Yakkity continues to hurl forth streams of joy and partial digestion.

For three whole stops, the man kept barfing. He must have had a second stomach or something, because it was fucking impressive. Someone gave him a bottle off water and some napkins and eventually, the torrent of chunks tapered off and stopped.

After wiping off his backpack, the guys stays on the train (thanks for that, buddy) and just slides down the bench, away from the scene of the crime and acts like nothing happened.

Gross, yet slightly exciting. I wish more morning commutes were like this.

This is one the stupidest spam emails I’ve received in a good long while. So lazy, so completely ridiculous in it’s amount of fearless disregard for any kind of credibility, I just had to post it.

The Internet Website Service wish to inform you that we are having some problem with some Website Service Accounts,due to error code 334409.We have discorvered that in few days from now some account will not be able to access his or her E-mail account.

IN THAT REGARD,YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND PASSWORD FOR UPGRADING YOUR ACCOUNT.

YOU ARE ADVISED TO IMMEDIATELY SEND US THE REQUIRED INFORMATION SO AS TO ENABLE US IMMEDIATELY UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT.

NOTE:You have to understand that the reason why we are not sending this message from our own private account it’s due to some technical problem we are having right now.Thanks for your understanding.

THE INFORMATION BELOW REQRUIRES AN ACCOUNT UPDATE

1)Full Email Address:
2)Password:
3)Country:
4)Date of birth:
5)First name/Last name:
6)Alternative Email

Best Regard,
Jerry.

Copyright © 2008 The Trustees of Webmail Service | Copyright Complaints

OH NOES!!! The Internet Website Service is getting an error code 334409!?!? My precious email! I must send them all my private information immediately to prevent a possible clog in my internet tube! Maybe I should send them my social security number and mother’s maiden name as well, just to make sure and play it safe.

Help me “Jerry”, you’re my only hope.

This photo pretty much explains one of the prime things I dislike about Brooklyn—breeders with double strollers and a fucked up sense of entitlement, coupled with a total lack of awareness of how disgusting they are to the rest of the non-breeding world.

I snapped this shot as I was walking down Atlantic Avenue this past Saturday. The stupid-ass bitch’s stroller was completely blocking the only entrance to the store. Fuck anybody else getting into the place, the lady needs her shit, now.

On top of this obnoxious obstruction, she has a double stroller with only one kid. These buggies are a constant aggravation and eyesore in my area of Brooklyn, whether they be slowly strolling, taking up the entire sidewalk or completely blocking aisles in the supermarket, they fucking suck and so do the people that abuse them.

This is my foot. It’s all fucked up. It hurts like all Hell and is seriously pissing me off.

On Saturday evening, after watching a movie, I headed down the stairwell of my building to step outside for a smoke. As I neared the stairs, I whipped out my trusty BlackBerry and started composing a tweet. Memory escapes me as to what.

Eyes and attention on my phone, my brain decided that I’d reached the bottom of the stairs and I stuck my foot out, expecting to encounter floor, only to find that I hadn’t reached it yet and had two more steps to go. Down I went.

I managed to not bail completely and landed upright, but my left foot folded in at the ankle. Not a pleasant feeling. At first, I suspected I’d broken a bone or three, but as I stood with the pain settling in, I found I could walk okay. I smoked a butt and went back upstairs, passing the evening a little bit sore, but otherwise fine.

In the wee hours of the next morning, I awoke in serious pain. I tried getting up to grab some painkillers, only to find that I could not put any weight whatsoever on my left foot. I’d sprained the living shit out of it. I could move only by holding the wall and hopping on my one good foot.

I spent the majority of Sunday with my ankle wrapped in an ace bandage, propped on pillows and icing the shit out of it, hoping for improvement. By the end of the evening, I could sort of limp around instead of hopping, but I still needed to hold onto something for balance.

This morning, I tried again to stand up, only to find myself pretty much back where I started, hopping and in a lot of pain.

So here I am, not at work, bored out of my skull. After spending the morning elevating and icing, I ‘m seeing a marked improvement. I can stand normally and put most of my weight on the foot and I now can move about, but very slowly and with a pronounced shuffle. It sucks, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I’m pretty sure that if I wake very early tomorrow and start icing, I’ll be okay enough to make it through the commute to my desk in Manhattan. Granted, I’ll be a fucking charity case cripple, but at least I’ll have some use.

That said, I’ve learned my lesson. Twitter is addictive. Twitter is fun. Twitter is good. But, one should not Tweet while descending stairs, crossing the street, operating a chainsaw or performing a triple bypass. It’s just asking for trouble.

Considering that I swear a lot, someone recently sent me a link to the Cuss-O-Meter, a nice little script that spiders and returns stats on the amount of curse words from a given site.

According to the meter, 42.5%of the posts on this blog contain swear words. Of all the sites that have used the meter, my site rates 372% more in sheer cursing.

Well, fuck me with a fucking shit-stick.

This result does please me, but I’ll admit that I am a bit disappointed that the percentage wasn’t a bit higher. I guess it’s something to fucking work on.