Pepperoni Pizza Cracker Combos. Not the Pretzel flavor, like you can find everywhere in Los Angeles, but the Cracker variety. A simple snack. A tasty snack. Let’s be honest…fattening as fuck.

Every time I take a road trip to San Francisco or Las Vegas, I always see these in the roadside Kwik-E-Mart type places. They are always horribly overpriced, but I still buy a dozen or so. Why? You can’t get them in Los Angeles!

To prove my point, I was “that guy”, and contacted Mars Incorporated through the Combos web site, stating how I only find these damn things when I drive over 250 miles from my house, and why doesn’t the local 7-11 have “the good Combos” (screw “cheddar cheese”, and forget your damn “pretzel”)? A few days later, I received an email with links to a Product Locator, as well as an Online Distribution Center.

The product locator confirmed what I said:
Searching for “Single” size on the product locator page generated this:
Albertsons 4421 E Bonanza Rd Las Vegas NV 89110 702 453.6501 230.7 miles

Searching for the “Medium” size got me this:
K Mart 491 Tres Pinos Rd Hollister CA 95023 831 637.5730 252.2 miles

The product is not even available on the Liberty Distribution page, period.

Fail. Epic fail.

True, I could hit up Amazon or Costco to find these, but - dude, seriously - it’s just a snack. They have every other flavor locally, so why not the one good one? I should be able to just walk into my local shop, and get these artery clogging masterpieces of fake Pizza flavoring.

I’ll go so far as to say it’s a sign of a crap economy and business plan. More and more shops are closing, or converting to “online only”. Brick and mortar is dying. I don’t know about you, but I prefer actually walking into a shop than “pointing and clicking”. I’m already going to get fat as fuck from the damn snack. At least let me burn a few calories to get the stupid thing!

I am baffled by the “news” entry I just saw on The Tripwire, regarding Coldplay going back in the studio with Brian Eno:

“Though Eno received some slack for his last go with Coldplay, fans and critics most likely won’t be crying this time around, after the news of Coldplay’s seven Grammy nominations and 4 BRIT nominations for their work with Eno on Viva.”

Are you kidding me? What the hell does a Grammy award have to do with the enjoyment of an album?

I have never been in a record store, deciding if I want to buy a record, and been swayed in ANY way by a “Grammy Award Winner” sticker. Awards don’t make music better. “Wow, that album sucked, but it did win a Grammy, so maybe my untrained ears don’t realize that this crap is actually good music…”

Give me a break!

I’m a fan of Coldplay. Been a fan since their Fierce Panda days, but their last album was WEAK! I still bought it, hoping it would grow on me. Nope. Nothing. Yet their over-hyped crap sells.

Another example of the dumbing down of the general public. Look, this song is being used to sell a product on TV. Look…we won awards! Look…people mention us in all news publications. So what? If your song sucks, a statue is not going to distract me from not liking your crap!

UGH!

Hell (to go off on a side rant), look at all the clearance sales from the businesses closing down. You know they are a scam, right? Circuit City has everything 10 to 30% off! Big deal! That’s 10 to 30% off of FULL manufacturer’s list price! You know what? Circuit City’s prices, before this clearance, were CHEAPER! Most of the items you can find “on sale” and “marked down” at Circuit City you can find in any other store for less!

Lesson learned from these examples? Read! Learn! Educate yourself! Stop taking things at face value! Don’t believe an album is good because it has been nominated for an award! Don’t believe the sticker price! Don’t believe me! Learn for yourself! WAKE UP!

If you are a reader of my blog (and according to my stats, there are a surprising large number of you), you know about my Mom. We are almost at the three year anniversary of her passing (summary: liver cancer, melanoma, and complications from bad medical care).

Knowing that the trigger for my Mom’s descent into cancer hell was a mole, I decided to do something about a number of moles on my face, and a head cyst (again, readers of the blog will know some of this already).

I can report, so far, that all the biopsy tests have come back clear - no cancer.

Yay.

The price for this, though, is (currently) a very painful nose. I had five moles “shaved” (you don’t want to know). I will say this…you know when you go to the dentist, and the dentist sticks that novocaine needle into your gums? Well, imagine that needle going multiple times into your nose. OUCH! And that is just to numb you up!

My nose is much smoother (yay), but DAMN it still hurts…and I look like I lost a fight.

One more biopsy report, and this is behind me.

Would have been nice to have medical insurance to pay for this.

Your celebratory song of the day:
James Brown - “Funky President” (mp3 - buy on iTunes)

Never voted for you.

Not sad to see you go.

Hope some government official has the balls to find a way to hold you accountable for all the bullshit you have put this country through for eight years!

Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (YouTube)

“We used to be happy with you, and we didn’t know it.”

“What happened to the site? It sucks!”

“Do you still work for them? It doesn’t look like it.”

“Five wallpapers and four videos. Wow, you are are doing a lot of work. Bring back the old site!”

Most people know that the current circumstances at “a certain site” are not my doing. Regardless, watching something just waste away is a frustrating thing, especially when you are still fighting for the cause (and not being heard). U2 has a new album out, but has the same web site. Other bands have new projects, but are not gutting their web site into a wasteland of wide nothingness, but I digress.

What to do when you can’t take it anymore, and you need to escape? The batting cage at Sherman Oaks Castle Park!

Stress Relief In Action - QuickTime MP4 video (1.92 mb)

120 pitches, and I am still enraged. At least I hit the pole a few times.

Today I returned to my doctor:

* Six stitches out of head. Check.

* Results of biopsy on cyst: “It’s just a cyst.” Specifically, a Pilar Cyst. No cancer. *relief* As Cancer is what got my mom, and a LOT of my relatives, I am rather paranoid about the big “C” now.

* Removal of first (of 6) moles from nose area.

The procedure is as follows: you get stuck with a needle, numbed up, then the doctor takes a scalpel, and literally cuts off the mole, then finishes up by cauterizing the wound (essentially, burning it). A quick procedure, done with my eyes closed (I am a pussy). The needle is a bit of a sting. The numbing fluid burns to hell and back. The rest is ok, but the smell of the cauterizing does get your attention.

So, in two more weeks, I’ll know if the mole is cancerous. Until then, I will be alternating between waking up in cold sweats, and trying to enjoy every minute of the day.

Thanks to everyone for the emails and the Facebook comments. I’m, for the most part, doing fine. I’m still working (just interviewed Fletch today), and still hanging in there.

Here, I’ll share a funny story from today before I log off. As I am a Valley boy, I am not always completely aware of everything happening on The Westside. I went to park on Wilshire Boulevard today. The meter flashed “Fail”. Result! Free parking. All is fine. I go to my appointment. I come out, and had a mini-shock. I noticed the sign above my car. Tow Away Zone: 4pm to 7pm. It was 4:17pm. OOPS! No wonder parking was so easy to find. Good thing the car was still there, and with no ticket. I forgot about Mayor Tony’s little traffic congestion solution. The swarm of parking enforcement nazi’s all over Wilshire should have been a reminder.

Here’s a quick pick of the result of today’s procedure: a bloody band-aid. As it is a covered wound, I don’t think you all need me to obscure the image, like I did above.

Now if you’ll excuse me, for the first time in two weeks, I get to wash my hair. EWWWW!!!!

Appreciate your fans. Check.

Leave tradition record labels behind, embrace the future of music, and make money doing it. Check.

Make your fans shit multiple bricks by putting three full length concerts online for free. Check and mate.

Three shows. Five full length HD (1920×1080!) unedited raw camera feeds per show, synced with soundboard audio. They even give you a Final Cut Pro session file to ease in editing the footage any way you want to!

400 gig of BitTorrent love.

I picked the right time to buy the 6TB raids! Thanks Trent! Keep being a leader!

(click to enlarge - Photoshop composite of sleeve and vinyl scans)

I have a lot of 45s.

I’ve always been a singles fan.

Back in the day, I’d save up my money, ride the bus (164, thank you) to the North Hollywood Licorice Pizza, and buy a 45. Sadly, due to a loss in time, I have neglected my 45s…until now.

With the shockingly cheap abundance of 45s around L.A. lately, I am starting to be buried under an avalanche of Bags Unlimited 45 boxes. Worse, I have started buying doubles (dammit!).

The solution? Filemaker, and a scanner.

I have a few databases hidden on the web site, that I use via my Blackberry, when I am out and about. For example, using an IDAutomation.com bar code scanner, an Amazon developer account, and a custom Filemaker template, I spent a day scanning my close to 1000 DVDs. Now, I can just go to the listing page, see details, and even cover art (via an extra click) if I need to confirm whether I have something.

Sadly, the UPC code wasn’t introduced until the early 1980’s. Because of that, if you want to database old records, you have to do a lot of typing…or do you?

Do you have a load of 45s, or other music formats, that you want to quickly database? Instead of typing every last bit of information on the labels, just scan them!

Sweet!

For years I have had a bump on my head. No big deal. Just a bump.

The bump (a cyst) started to grow. No big deal. Put on a hat. Problem solved.

For the last few years though, stressful situations caused the bump to pulse with a lot of pain. A big deal.

I finally went and got the cyst removed. Six stitches. $360 (before factoring in the pending biopsy report). Not bad to stop a few headaches.

A tip. When having a head cyst removed, don’t be a dumbass (like myself) and go searching YouTube for “cyst removal” videos. I couldn’t see what the doctor was doing, but I still knew everything she did. (vomit)

And, yes, as a few people on my Facebook profile have pointed out (as well as “the little woman”), it does look a bit like a fetus. EWWWW!

Now I will go back and honor my doctor’s request for me to rest in bed.

I’ll be back online in an hour.