Normally, you’d have good old Double M filling in the Friday Daily Pulse, but he’s wiped out and needs a small vacation to the Vatican in order to soothe his weary soul. Me? I’m J.J. Botter, co-editor of the Music Zone here at IP, and I’ve been AWOL from the site for the better part of five months now. Being in a Cavalry unit in the Army typically means about 1 hour of free/personal time in the evenings, and most of that “free” time is devoted to getting our uniforms ready for the next day. Eric can sympathize with me, I’m sure.
Regardless, I’m here to chip in to the Matthew Michael Relief Fund, so let’s get this party started or something along those lines.
Let’s all thank President Bush for using 40 MILLION DOLLARS to throw a big thank you party for himself at the Capitol. Nevermind the fact that we’re knee-deep in Tsunami Relief and that at least SOME of that money could have been put back into taxpayers pockets in an effort to bolster the enonomy. No, I guess having a lavish 40 MILLION DOLLAR party seemed like a better usage of the funds.
And then hey, it seems like the best way to achieve peace in the world is by foisting our personal belief systems on other countries, much like Iraq. Oh, Iraq is only the beginning, I think. There’s thousands of other countries out there who absolutely NEED FREEDOM and don’t know what they’re missing without it. Nevermind that they’ve existed far longer than the United States and have done decently for themselves.
I don’t know about anyone else out there, but it seems like World War III could be just around the corner, and YAY I’ll get to be on the frontlines!
TV
The only show I’m really interested in right now would be Arrested Development. To me, the rest of the sitcoms on the networks right now just pale in comparison. I picked up Season One and really never stopped laughing through all 22 eps.
24 seems like a really good show, if I could ever find the time to sit down and watch the first three seasons. It WILL happen at some point, but it’ll probably be next fall when I’m back in Iraq.
MUSIC
I’m still recovering from the Great iPod Crash Of 2005. I’m back up to roughly 25gigs of material at this point, which means I’m free to start grabbing other stuff off torrents to fill up that remaining 25gigs. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with 10,000 songs in my pocket. It’s one of those things where you may not want to listen to certain stuff, but you at least have the OPTION of doing so if you choose. Hence, the inclusion of some classic Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears to go along with my Arcade Fire, Flickerstick and gigantic/complete Bob Dylan, U2, Coldplay and Dave Matthews collections. I like Dylan a whole lot, and I can listen to Dave in short spurts, but at least I have the files ready in case the mood does strike me.
// Blottie has a pretty awesome interview with Lovedrug available in the Music Zone.
GAMES
I hate to say it, but Halo 2 is STILL the only game that matters around the barracks these days. We still have massive 8 player system link games EVERY DAY that can extend right up until we have to go to formation at 5:45am.
There’s a few games out that we really enjoy on a daily basis, too. Mercenaries is absolutely incredible when you’re looking for a single player game to rock the house down. Good mix of strategy, driving, and just blowing stuff up. If that’s your thing, I highly suggest you buy it or download it or whatever it is you do.
THE WRESTLING
Okay, so I haven’t watched wrestling in six months and I probably STILL won’t watch it, unless I hear it’s a good show and can download it from PWTorrents.net. They just LOST me with the Randy Orton thing and then the Kane thing and just the fact that everything generally sucked pretty hard for a long time. If Batista goes on to face Triple H at WrestleMania, I might follow that chase with interest, but if he jobs despite all the groundswell of support he seems to be gaining, then it’s back to a blackout for me. At least a WWE blackout; TNA seems to be putting on some killer shows, so I might start checking those out again.
Also, don’t forget to check out all the great new columns, news, reviews, etc. over in our Comics, Sports, Movies, and kick-ass Figures zones… and feel free to chime in on some minor speculation over at the forums.
The main thing here is that I’m a music guy. Used to be a wrestling guy, but got tired of it and one day decided I’d had enough and wanted to write about music. So that’s what you get out of me — music, music news, reviews, etc. I’m back with a vengeance, and I look forward to helping this fine music staff MM has assembled move smoothly into the future. We’ve got a good thing going, and it’s an absolute blast to be back in it.
