Women Covering Muse

Everyone knows that pitch shifting is the shit. What's better than making Nickelback sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks on crack (not that Nickelback can get any worse. I actually probably enjoy Alvin annoyingly reflecting on his rockstar "career" than  Chad Kroeger. Also, Jake G likes Nickelback, further proving their douchiness, but that's for another post.) But I digress, pitch shifting can have uses other than making someone's song ridiculously high or low, or allowing Dragonforce to correctly play their stupid ass music (the last one is actually them playing). It can make singers sound like women.

I know, right?

Anyways, the best band to do this with is Muse, a band which I am only slightly embarrassed to like. Matt Bellamy's shrieking falsetto is already somewhat girlish sounding, so a little pitch shifting can go a long way. For example, Muscle Museum. The effect is less funny sometimes (the more vibrato, the more it sounds like a broken record, not Gwen Stefani, but overall I find it very amusing. Here are a few Muse songs I did: Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole. I'm far too lazy to go out and find more content/jokes/examples for this post, so y'all can experiment with this and MAKE YOUR OWN FUN! I will, however, leave you with the following thought:

My brother suggested that I pitch shift James Blunt, but instead I just played a James Blunt song from iTunes. No work needed there. If I made him sound more like a girl, my computer would explode and I would die from the flying shrapnel and pieces of "Twilight". Either that, or the universe would anti-implode or some shit and James Blunt would grow a pair.

2/1/09 - Follow up link: Ouch.

(P.S. That link to nothing may have been a rip off of the "Saving Private Brian" episode of Family Guy)

A Review of the Entire Lower Upper Midwest (Part 1)

(This post is coming out too long, so I decided to split it up).

Iowa.

Many people choose not to think of it. Good for them. Us unlucky ones are forced to. Some assholes proactively defend Iowa.

They're just dumb, though.

Regardless, Iowa sucks. I can tell you that having spent a good portion of the last (the time of writing) weekend (what would have been a kickass 3 day weekend) in said state. There are so many bad things about Iowa, I don't know where to start. That is convenient, however, because I can then introduce this article more thoroughly and buy time. I spent the 31st of October through the 4th of November allowing myself to be dragged through Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, and then back through those in the reverse order in exactly one night. I feel the need to detail just exactly why that was a terrible, terrible idea.

That brings us back to Iowa. The easiest place to start (or so I have decided) is that it smells like shit. Pure and simple. I don't know how anyone could live there. The stench never ends. I guess I could get used to it, but then I would probably kill myself from the knowledge that shit smells normal to me, and that I probably now smell like shit. But I don't think I could get used to it anyway, and here's why: Iowa has managed to make different shit smells. For some reasons, all the terrible stenches are slightly distinct. It's like the gourmet of shit smelling. I suppose the better analogy would be the Old Country Buffet of shit smelling, although I'm sure its probably less analogous and more directly comparable to Old Country Buffet itself. Whether it is a paper plant, a pig farm, a trucker, meth labs, or even Cedar Rapids' unique Quaker Oats factory shit smell (which I at first thought was alright, but then not later when I actually stepped outside), it is unbearable. Now, I know that I'm not the only one to make this point in a humorous blog post, but it just can't be stressed enough.

Funnily enough, they still try to make it livable. This brings me to my next point: department stores. I guess its to give people a way to buy the essentials/do stuff on weekends/buy too much shit from Ikea, but looking at West Des Moines is so disheartening that it makes me want not only to have an existential crisis, but to star in a rotoscoped movie about having an existential crisis. This is coming from me, a person who wholeheartedly embraces commercialism and actively defends McDonalds. It is so intensely suburban and commercialized, it could make the directors/whores of Scary Movie 4/Epic Movie/etc. cry like little bitches. Let me try to convey to you West Des Moines. Picture a booming metropolis, for example Minneapolis. Imagine it at night to emphasize the lights coming from everywhere. Now make everything a department store or restaurant chain, and fill those in with the kind of people who like going to department stores, who are either insane or my mom. Applebee's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and the works. All boxed into a perfect square made by roads, outside of which is flatness, suburbs, and apartment buildings. West Des Moines is a metropolis of a lame mall. Damn.

But aside from all that, using stores like that to make a place fun works just about as well as the time Billy's baseball playing cousin took steroids.

That's all for this update. Next, in what is hopefully less a boring rant and more funny, we might cover the flatness and the people who live in this literally God forsaken (God got the hell outta there right quick) place. Or whatever. It's not like anyone cares about those places. To drive the point home, I shall conclude with the bold statement I opened with.

Iowa.

Some Select Quotes of My Own

After seeing some splendid quotes that may or may not be relevant to any situation at hand whatsoever, I decided to post some of my favorite quotations, both humorous and inspiring.

"Do or do not, there is no try." ~~~ Unknown

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" ~~~ Unknown (I find this quotation particularly motivating).



"In mathematical English, applying the conditional operator to P and Q produces a sentence that may be written, "If P, then Q", or "P implies Q". (Fine point.) Sentences of this form are conditional assertions. Conditional assertions are at the very heart of mathematical reasoning. Mathematical proofs typically consist of chains of conditional assertions.
A conditional assertion "If P then Q" has the precise truth table shown here. The meaning of "If P then Q" is determined entirely by the truth values of P and Q and this truth table. The meaning is not determined by the usual English meanings of the words "if" and "then".
The truth table can be summed up by saying: A conditional is true unless the hypothesis is true and the conclusion is false. That means that to prove "If P then Q" is FALSE you must show that P is TRUE(!) and Q is FALSE." ~~~ Charles Wells, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Case Western Reserve University

"My Mama always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.'" ~~~ Kurt Cobain

Thank you for taking the time out of this wonderful day to read my humble post. Have a great life!

On Cats

You know those times when you smell something, and you are pretty sure its not you, but your not quite sure? Regardless of the final conclusion you reach, that one second of doubt, that one instance of "Does something I'm wearing...or even me, smell terrible?", that one painful, terror-filled, eternal second is the most scary goddamn thing in the world.

Unless you are emilz, then its just 10:37 AM.

But that was me this morning. I got to school at a torturous 7:00AM for a National Honors Society meeting, and I walked into the lecture hall. As I sat down, I smelled something vaguely resembling cat piss. Now I have three cats, and sometimes they do smell gross and/or leak butt juice on my belongings, so needless to say, this scared the everliving s*** out of me. I tried to calm myself. Maybe someone pissed themselves in study hall yesterday...Maybe its that fugly bitch sitting in front of me...Maybe its me!

OH F***!

Okay...let's be rational. I can't smell it all the time, so its probably not me. So it's not my sweatshirt or tee shirt, it's not me (I smell amazing, as always). That leaves the pants. Oh God....OH GOD! There is a grass-stain on the pants. Were they not washed? No...they were definitely washed. Okay, it does not seem to be anything I'm wearing. Probably just something in the room.

Okay...so now the meeting is ending and I'm at the front of the room.

I smell it again...damn.

Okay maybe it is me, but I can't tell for sure. It's not a constant smell, so I don't think so, but I am recovering from a cold so my nose is kind of plugged. I smell my shirt. Yeah...I'm fine. I went first block (astronomy) and slept on and off because I had to get up early (even though astronomy is actually cool, its not like I missed much).

That brings us to now...spanish class. I keep nervously sniffing, but now I am so paranoid that I think I smell it sometimes...but my mind could be playing tricks on me because I expect the smell to be there. Emilio says I don't smell like cat piss, but how can I trust him? (He's Italian...also he's currently failing at Dolphin Olympics and probably the next spanish test) I don't know what to think anymore! DID I JUST SMELL IT AGAIN?!? I don't know...I can't trust anyone or anything...

...even myself.

On Cat Piss Journal Entry #2
It is 1500 hours and I have declared war on my cats.

On Cat Piss Journal Entry #3
eighteen-hundred hours. i'm in hiding. i barricaded myself in my washing machine, but i think the cats have me surrounded. can't use capitals...it will alert the cats

On Cat Piss Journal Entry #4
i think the cats poisoned the water, cause im seein crazy shit all over. right now im talking to the lord of the laundry detergent and i think hes gonna be on my side to fight the cats.

On Cat Piss Journal Entry #5
confirm poisoned water im trippin ballz but i dont trust that lord of the laundry machine cuz one i think hes a ghost or maybe a goblin (in spanish that is duende) and two i think hes gonna turn on me if this is my last post let em know i went down fighting

On Cat Piss Journal Entry #6
It is 2200 hours and I dug a hole through my floor and am halfway to outside. Take that you stupid cat bastards...I shall escape to FREEDOM!

to be continued...