Music is sound. It’s a combination of many things, not just words. Placing all of the focus on the lyrics is detrimental to the rest of the music, and often wildly misleading when trying to describe the musicians’ overall sound.

For example, I’ve seen scores of music bloggers referring to bands as “Viking metal”…just because they’re metal bands who sing about Vikings and Norse mythology. That’s not enough; a band would still need to use classical Scandinavian musical stylings and extreme riffs in there, otherwise any metal song about the legendary northern warriors would instantly be considered Viking metal based on the lyrics alone. If that’s the case, then Led Zeppelin’s famous “Immigrant Song” is Viking metal. Ridiculous!

Next we have Swashbuckle, who are often referred to as “pirate metal.” Technically, this is incorrect: Swashbuckle may perform in pirate costumes and write lyrics about nautical nonsense, but they’re a thrash/death metal band. (Full disclosure: I’ve written about Swashbuckle for Musician Photo Journal, and even I’ve fallen prey to using the term “pirate metal.”)

Drifting away from metal, we have “nerd rock.” This is rock or punk music wherein the lyrics deal with topics such as comic books or video games. Again, it’s a piss-poor genre; just because your band sings about something that might be geek-related, that doesn’t change the riffs on your guitars, now does it? Case and point: look at “I am the Law,” a thrash metal classic by Anthrax. Using modern standards, this song would be classified as “nerd rock” because the subject is Judge Dredd, a comic book character. Clearly, this is wrong; no one would ever consider an Anthrax song to be nerd rock! So why are other songs with nerdy lyrics given that rubber stamp?

We all know the real reason for these misleading genres: money. If you advertise your group as a rock band, even though you happen to sing about Star Trek, you won’t get far. Promote yourself as a nerd rock band, however, and science fiction convention planners will be knocking down your door. Furthermore, nerdy lyrics and the like are often used as a cover to hide many bands’ lack of musical skill. Fanboys are much more likely to give a crappy rock band a free pass if they’re singing about Batman than if they were performing Top 40 songs.

I still think a band should stick to its guns and forgo these fake genres. Your music should always come first before selling out, but that’s not a popular opinion these days.

Seriously…how the hell did this happen?! It’s flagrant stupidity on a level I can barely understand. Why would you ever want to shit on improving one’s mind, and instead reward the opposite, which is idiocy?

Most of the complaints I’ve seen don’t focus on public schools, as for the most part, it’s required by law for children to attend them. The exception is homeschooling, but even though that’s been slightly on the rise, it’s not as widespread as the anti-college sentiment. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; there’s boatloads of conservative pundits and politicians who have had excellent educations, yet they turn around and bash the very system that taught them.

Another part of these anti-education views is the increasing role of fundamentalist religion in the United States. Just look at how politicians and religious groups have tried to ramrod complete nonsense like intelligent design into taxpayer-funded public school programs! It never fails to amaze and anger me that people want to supplant rational thought and factual information with superstition, and that’s the very antithesis of a proper education. To return to the subject of homeschooling, there’s a lot of parents out there who feel that public schools are “too secular” at best and “evil” at worst. Thus, they homeschool their children according their religious beliefs, and this is another level of insanity. How can you expect a child to function in the real world when you’re consistently decrying the facts at home?

My theory is one shared by many others: conservatives and über-religious folks hate the educational system because it teaches people to think for themselves, and that may lead them to question these same politics and religions. As well it should! You should question and learn about everything, be it right or left, god or godless. The whole point of a good education is that you can make your own well-informed decisions borne out by facts, not hearsay.

Do you need a college education or higher learning experience to succeed in life? Not necessarily. But dismissing education out of hand is idiotic, no matter which side of the political fence you sit on.

I do understand that at its core, Twitter is simply an extension of the user’s ego. When you tweet about your activities, you’re hoping that other people care enough about you in order to follow you and actively read what you have to say. This same principle applies to other online services like personal websites, photo galleries, social networks, and of course, blogs. Advocating your activities and projects via Twitter is an excellent idea, as it gets your point across with brief bits of text.

With every positive comes plenty of negatives, unfortunately. There are aspects of Twitter that are becoming more and more popular…and exponentially more annoying. Some of these are memes that start with one or two users, and eventually infect most of the userbase. (We’ve seen this happen with email and forums in the past.) Others are just virulent outgrowths of the service itself.

For example, the number of followers. I’ve noticed far too many people who are obsessed with how many followers they have. That’s the ultimate in narcissism, nothing more. When it comes to celebrity Twitter accounts, the problem is multiplied tenfold. As if their egos weren’t inflated enough!

Next, the spambots. Twitter’s done a decent job blocking them and deleting obvious spam accounts, but the shit still gets through. I’ll post something about my Mac, and I’ll get five or six responses within the next ten minutes from random accounts trying to sell me Apple crap. All fake, of course, but their existence is nonetheless aggravating.

Then there’s Twitter’s tagging system. As it was originally designed, it allowed groups of users to relate their tweets to one another. For example, for those users who watched the World Cup, placing a #worldcup tag on their tweets made them easier for other soccer fans to find and follow them. Twitter even got in on the act by appending a soccer ball image to those tags! However, like most other good intentions, the Internet community rapidly sent tagging down the toilet. How many tags have you seen that are actually relevant to the community as a whole? I’d say about 10% of them. Most of them nowadays are nonsense words that are lucky to have anything to do with the tweet itself, let alone the entire Twitter community.

Even worse, look at all of the miscreants who type out entire phrases in tag form. Not only is this a glaring misuse of the tagging system, it’s egocentric and it spotlights the user’s inability to use proper grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Come on, if you’re going to bother typing out #omgihadamassivesandwichforlunch, then just write “OMG, I had a massive sandwich for lunch!” like a adequately intelligent human being. Periods, spaces, and commas are your friends. Tagging is for categorizing similar tweets, not expression!

My biggest complaint about Twitter, by far, is livetweeting. Holy shit, is this annoying. In case you’re unaware, livetweeting is when a user tweets, nearly in realtime, their thoughts and opinions on a specific event, like a concert, film, or television show. Not only is this a massive feeding of the user’s ego — “Look what I get to do, while you only get to read about it in short bursts!” — it’s also extremely rude. Livetweeting a concert is rude to the band, as you’re essentially telling them that your social life is more important than the hard work they put into their performance. Livetweeting movies are even worse, as it’s incredibly distracting to other people in the audience. Look, if your followers gave a shit about the movie you’re seeing, they’d go see it themselves! We don’t need your play-by-play, Madden. Plus, if you’re livetweeting a film or show…you’re almost certain to give away spoilers. Thanks a lot, dick. I’ve had to unfollow quite a few people because of this. Spoilers nonwithstanding, few things are more irritating than seeing my feed clogged up by the same user posting twenty or more tweets in a row.

I’ve spent enough time complaining about many Twitter users’ irritating behavior. I will admit that some of my friends have been guilty of these offenses in the past, and when this happens, I do bring it to their attention. (Politely, of course.) Anyway, user excesses are clearly not the company’s fault, but I do have a separate set of concerns that apply to them. Twitter as a business is naturally trying to boost its own growth and bottom line. It’s been adding many new features to the service over time, like lists, suggestions on who to follow, verified users, geolocations, APIs, et cetera. However, like Facebook before it, some of this stuff is crossing the line into serious security issues. Verifying a user is a great idea, as followers can be confident in who they’re following, but it also means Twitter owns some serious personal data on you. Foursquare, another popular service that many people use in conjunction with Twitter, is practically an open invite for someone to stalk you or rob your house.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s only a matter of time before Twitter piles on the extras so much that becomes a bloated cesspool. At that point, I may elect to leave rather than deal with the spam, unwanted features, and invasion of privacy.

What, you don’t think this could come to pass? Well, remember that even MySpace used to be tolerable…

I first ran into this annoying problem in the early 2000s, when I found some Starman trade paperbacks on the cheap. When checking the indicia to find out which issues each volume contained, I was surprised to see that many issues were missing, seemingly at random. In truth, the excised issues were simple one-shot stories that didn’t factor heavily into the core Starman tale…but that’s not the point. If I’m buying trade paperback collections of a series, I want the entire series, not bits and pieces! (The Starman problem has been corrected in the omnibus editions…but I can’t afford those.)

The same thing happened when I was catching up on Green Lantern Corps. I discovered that issues #21-22 were never reprinted. This makes no sense; the story in those two issues featured Alpha Lantern Boodikka, and she’s been increasingly important as the book’s moved forward. It’s possible that these two missing issues will be reprinted along with the current “Revolt of the Alpha Lanterns” story, but then you’ve got issues being printed out of order. The Green Lantern trade paperback Rage of the Red Lanterns has this exact problem: it reprints Green Lantern #26-28, #36-38, and the Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns one-shot. But what about issues #29-35? Those were reprinted in the Secret Origin trade paperback, which came out before the Rage of the Red Lanterns collected edition. Stupid, isn’t it?

Speaking of which, I was thinking of picking up a few Green Arrow collections, starting with Kevin Smith’s “Quiver” storyline from 2001. Well, screw that: not only is that series of collections missing random issues here and there, but two of them actually got printed in reverse order. Volume three, Straight Shooter, contains issues #26-31. Volume four, The Archer’s Quest, contains issues #16-21. That’s just lazy.

“Best of” collections are exempt from this complaint; by their very nature, they’re designed to pick and choose from the best stories a particular comic book has to offer. But for numbered collections of ongoing series, there’s no reason why we can’t read every issue in the order in which they were originally published. This is especially important nowadays, as the average price of a comic book is around four dollars. Many fans buy some series solely in trade paperback format (in my case, Invincible and X-Factor). If issues are missing, then we’re not getting the entire story, rendering the entire process moot.

Lame commercials are nothing new, but as we’re rapidly approaching election season, an overwhelming majority of the ads are for political campaigns. Specifically, we’ve got our state primaries coming up very soon, so the candidates for governor, Senate, and Congressional positions are making their final pushes to sway voters and secure their parties’ nominations. Why does this bother me? Because the ads are nothing but attacks, hit pieces, and smear campaigns.

Ads aired earlier in the spring and summer did indeed discuss critical issues. Those are what’s really important, so why not just stick with that tactic instead of this lowbrow mudslinging garbage? The candidates are all behaving like children.

Instead of talking about important issues at hand, such as the state economy, unemployment, infrastructure, et cetera, the candidates would much rather smear one another. Usually, this is done by pointing out “lies” in one campaign, and claiming that the opponent would never do such a thing. (Guess what: that’s probably a lie, too.) I understand that candidates can and should defend themselves from false claims, but doing so by viciously counterattacking is just sinking to their opponents’ scummy levels. It’s a sad indicator of just how low political discourse in this country has fallen.

Just in case any of my readers decide to run for political office, here’s some friendly advice. I’m one of those rare voters that casts their ballot based on multiple issues that are of critical importance to my state and country, rather than single issue, special interest nonsense (like gun rights). The serious issues are of utmost importance. However, personal conduct does carry some weight. If the centerpiece of your campaign is to smear your opponent rather than discuss the critical stuff, then it’s unlikely I’m going to vote for you. I’ll take a beleaguered underdog who can actually help my state over a shifty blowhard any day of the week.

I’ve been trying to spend more time outside lately, engaging in activities that get me out of the house. I already go biking every weekend, weather permitting, but I don’t think that’s enough. To be completely honest, I feel useless and lazy when I stay indoors, and that’s highly irritating to me.

Fear not, I’m not ditching my indoor hobbies, like my enjoyment of books, films, and video games (I’m currently addicted to Dragon Quest IX). Time spent outside just feels better, if that makes any sense. I can do indoor stuff whenever I want; I hate wasting days with great weather.

Here’s some of the ideas I’ve come up with. Some of these ideas do involve an up-front investment, and lack of funds is often a hobby killer, but it’s still worth recording these for later reference.

• Fishing. I haven’t fished since I was about ten or eleven years old. My grandfather would take my brother and I to a large pond located near his house, and he taught us basic skills in order to catch perch and other small fish. Those skills have faded into nothingness over the past two decades, but I figure I could at least to try to recapture them. It’s fishing, not rocket science, so I’m sure I could at least become competent at spincasting and catch-and-release. Oh, and I’d definitely opt for lure fishing rather than bait fishing. For all of my love of horror movies and death metal, I still find live bait repulsive.

• Boating. Big problem with this one: I do not own a boat. Nor would I have a place to store a boat, even if I did. Oh, and I get seasick. The closest I’ll come is buying one of those inflatable raft-boats for use on lakes. I’ll look like a total dork rowing around in an air-filled dinghy, but far worse things have happened to me.
• Biking. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, biking is a standard weekend activity for me, as long as it doesn’t rain. (When it does rain, I fly into a rage, and just end up going to the gym, which isn’t nearly as fun. I already hit the gym three times a week, and while that’s healthy, it’s still an indoor activity. Plus, quite frankly…it’s boring as shit. The barbecue joint next door doesn’t help, either.) I know the technical term for biking might be “cycling,” but I think that’s more reserved for racing bicycles and folks who do all of their riding on smoothly paved roads. Since I ride on roads as well as trails, I own a hybrid bicycle as it’s simply more adaptive to different types of terrain, not to mention more comfortable. Anyway, I’m thinking of biking more during the week; it’s just difficult to work around my gym schedule at times.
• Hiking. I’ve been a fan of this leisure activity since I was a kid. Wandering and exploring the woods is always great; I just have to be cautious, as I’m severely allergic to poison ivy. For spring or fall hikes, this isn’t much of an issue, as I’ll be wearing long pants. In the summer, it’s a considerable danger. I can also mix hiking with geocaching, if I’m so inclined. I’ve already planted one cache and found a few others, but I need to get in gear and do more. The one thing that’s holding me back right now? I seriously need a new pair of hiking boots.
• Camping. My girlfriend and I were supposed to go camping this summer, but we got a bit lazy, things fell through, and all of the state campgrounds’ good spots are taken. We’re going to be much more proactive next year. Camping’s a bit more fun in the spring or fall, anyways, as nothing beats sitting by a fire at night enjoying freshly cooked meats.

Halfway through the summer isn’t the best time to have such an epiphany when it comes to outdoor activities, but it’s better than nothing, and can certainly help set the standard for next year. That is, if my notoriously short attention span can even remember or remain interested in this shit by then!

However, there’s one big problem that I have with Scott Pilgrim, and that is the central plot. It all boils down to this: the eponymous protagonist wants to date Ramona Flowers, but she requires that he defeat her six superpowered ex-boyfriends (and one ex-girlfriend!) first. The six Scott Pilgrim graphic novels detail the hero’s quest to vanquish his seven foes and get the girl.

And that’s what bugs me. Seriously, dude, if a woman is that high-maintenance…tell her to fuck off, and get someone down-to-earth! Cripes, if a woman asks you to beat up one ex, superpowered or not, that’s too much. She’s obviously more concerned witih petty revenge than you.

Come on, Scott Pilgrim. Don’t be such a pussy. Man up and get yourself a girl that respects you!

The other reason is that the models are a pain in the ass to dust. They’re made of ABS plastic, which is a dust magnet to begin with, and my apartment is carpeted, which only makes things worse. I vacuum the floors once a week, but it’s still an uphill battle. I’ve been using Swiffer dusters once a month to clean the models, which is a pretty good solution…but dust still manages to collect in the cracks and other hard-to-reach places. Compressed air can get that, but I really don’t feel like attacking my models with an air can for a few hours every month. I do not have that kind of time or patience.

One model that will not be going into storage is this massive statue of General Grievous. I have no idea how I’d safely pack that one up, and disassembly is out of the question; it took me nearly three hours to build it in the first place!

Finally, my purchasing of LEGO® sets is also going on hiatus. Aside from the obvious expense, I simply don’t have the space to display any more models! I’ve had to put plenty of them in storage before because of this, and it’s well past time I just stop feeding the vicious cycle for a while. This isn’t the end of my LEGO® fandom, fear not. Plenty of my non-Star Wars LEGO® kits are already in storage, and once I get a house, condo, or other larger living space, I fully plan to build a workshop for this sort of thing in the basement. I’ll build one hell of a diorama down there! (Including a city with a railroad, but I must complete my real model railroad first.) I’m sure I’ll get back into it in the future — I tend to rediscover my interests every few years or so — but for now, I could use a break.

A notable exception might be the collectible minifigures, as those take up very little space. (Not to mention that collecting them is highly addictive.)

Holy shit. I’ve owned this damned dot-com for ten years as of today. It’s come a long way from its beginnings as an online portfolio when I was job-hunting after college to its blog format today.

I purchased the liquidcross.com domain name and associated web hosting on July 23, 2000, and set it up as a place to display the artwork and other design materials I was working on in college. I was set to graduate the following semester, and I wanted something that I could easily send to prospective employers; nothing’s simpler than a web link, after all.

Over the following years, liquidcross.com went through a few visual changes, but eventually the online portfolio ceased to be relevant. In 2003, I revamped the site once more and turned it into a blog. Aside from being a method in which to teach myself Movable Type, I used it to write about all manner of stuff. In addition, I eventually created static pages that featured random articles I’d written about video games and my other hobbies, plus pages devoted to my various collections: games, models, books, et cetera.

I stopped blogging in early 2008 due to failing interest and readership, but about six months later, I was bitten by the writing bug once more. I installed WordPress and created a new blog, complete with a proper title: Text and Violence, a blog specifically designed to be an outlet for my grumblings with the world. I removed the static pages towards then end of 2009, as constantly updating them was getting tedious.

Hop into your DeLorean, kids, and check out some snapshots of the various designs that I’ve created for liquidcross.com over the years. To my great dismay, I cannot seem to locate the very first version of the site, so we’ll just have to begin with the first major revision in 2001:

Much to my chagrin, I don’t have a picture of every permutation, but that’s because I was stupid and didn’t snap them every time I created a new design. Also, as I said before, some of the very early files have sadly been lost. However, I do have a few unused designs, which have never seen the light of day…until now! Aren’t you lucky?

Other than my own personal stuff, liquidcross.com has also been home to a few subsites over the years; most notably Breakfast at Timpani’s, Iron Man 2020, and Crimson Plague.

Breakfast at Timpani’s (or B@T for short) was a superhero webcomic drawn by myself and written by my friend the Reverend, which ran from 2001-2004. It ended because real-world priorities took over, but such is life! Anyway, here’s a sample of what that site looked like:

The Iron Man 2020 site was just a shrine of sorts to a lesser-known character within the Iron Man mythos that I particularly enjoy. The site was removed in 2009.

Crimson Plague, however, had a much higher pedigree. The Crimson Plague comic book was the brainchild of legendary artist George Pérez. A science fiction horror story, Crimson Plague was notable for the fact that every single character in the book was based on a real person with the same name. Only George’s photorealistic drawing style could have made this possible. While the book had a modest web presence on the publisher’s site, I was fortunate enough to build the official Crimson Plague fansite with George’s blessing. In fact, it ended up being my senior project for my bachelor’s degree! George’s help was invaluable, and he provided me with all manner of images, scripts, and other media. Series star Dina Simmons was also incredibly helpful in promoting the site and providing content, as well! Since Crimson Plague sadly did not last, the fansite shared its fate.

Anyway, check out a screenshot:

I’ve considered reuploading the subsites for archival purposes, but some of them are so out of date and broken that it would be a colossal undertaking to make them work properly again, even just for nostalgic reasons. Still, it’s an idea…

So liquidcross.com really has a come a long way in a decade. As for what the future may hold? Honestly, I have no fucking idea. I had no clue this was what the site would evolve into when I started, so any premonitions I do have are likely to be completely wrong. As such, the only real way to find out what’s going to happen in the future is to just experience it in realtime. Here’s to many more years…

Seriously, what the fuck are you doing?! Who the hell wants to talk on the phone instead of enjoying the sun, surf, and sand?

I went to the beach over the weekend, and you could barely take a few steps without coming across someone constantly talking or texting. For them, the beach did not exist. So what was the point in even being there for these idiots? See, I’m one of those old farts who believes that when you’re vacationing, even just for a day at the beach, you should leave your daily routines behind. While there, I like to forget about everything else in the world and just relax.

My girlfriend and I want to rent a beach house for a few days next year, and we wouldn’t mind bringing some friends along. I, however, would wish to enforce a no-cellphone rule. If there’s an emergency, use the landline in the house to call 911! This stance practically guarantees that we’ll be going alone, but hey, more relaxation for us, right?

It’s very simple: your conversations, text messaging, and Twittering are not important. Get over it. They are wants, not needs. Put that shit down, and pick your head up. If you can’t live without that stuff, then don’t bother going on vacation in the first place.

If someone’s interrupting your day at the beach with their senseless yammering on the phone, just grab it and pitch it into the sea. And for added amusement, paraphrase Biff from Back to the Future II:

“You want your phone back? Go get it!”