My technology addiction explained? iPad anyone?

I know it sounds like a menstruation control device, but I really want one. "Have your period? iPad has a Application for that." I sure hope so, because my ankles are bloated and I have some severe cramps.
My only real problem at this point is what size iPad should I get? The Light, Regular or Super Absorbency? If we're still using the feminine napkin analogy, I think I want the regular, which is code for 32GB. That means spending $599. Six hundred dollars on something to surf the web with. Doesn't that seem a little fucking crazy? It sounds expensive, but I still need one. The need is deep within' my bowels, kind of like this fizzy feeling behind my penis. It's that need for new technology, that I've possessed since I was a wee little man. I remember working a whole summer on a deck with my uncle Steve, just to buy my first CD player in 1987. I was a mere 15 years old and I wanted nothing more than to have "Appetite for Destruction" and "Dark Side Of The Moon" in crystal clear CD format. I worked nearly two months at less than Kathy Lee Gifford wages and made some pretty serious money. I think when I was done with my summer of illegal child labor, I was $600 richer.

This lead me to a technology crossroads I wasn't quite ready for. I only really wanted a new CD player, but with over $600 to my name, I was suddenly in a different tax bracket and could afford a lot more than just a music player. I also wanted a new TV. Betamax had recently gone in the shitter and we had purchased a VHS machine for our living room "theater". I was given the Betamax and three tapes. "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Empire Strikes Back" and "Cocoon". The other tape was blank and was used to record Magnum P.I. I was set. However my television was a crappy 13 inch trailer park model, which didn't even have a remote control. Was I expected to get up and change the channel? That just wouldn't do. I needed a new one.

So with my $600 in hand, I went to Audio King and shopped for a TV and a CD player. I ended up with a JVC 20 inch, mono TV with remote control, which I still have. It sits proudly in studio B, where we record Chronic Insomnia every Monday night. It still works perfectly and it has many memories attached to it. That was the best $429 I have ever spent.

Sure it looks a little out of date and it's not digital or High-Definition, but it's an integral part of my teenage years and the beginning of my journey into a life of loving technology. This was the second from the top of the line 20 inch TV you could buy in 1987. The only thing better was the Stereo version, which was $529, too rich for my blood.

Then it was time to pick out my CD player. Now lets remember that CD players were only a couple of years old at this point. You couldn't go into Walmart and get one for less than $50. They were more like $250 to $400 each. Now I was spending $429 on my TV, so I had less than $200 to spend on my CD player. I found a Kenwood, 8x oversampling, 1 bit player that was a floor model. Which means it was sitting on the shelf and it was sold as is. No remote, no box, no manual, just the player. The sign below it said $179, which was exactly what I had left, easy choice, box that bitch up and I was out the door. My father was with me and he was so proud of my decisions as a 15 year old, that he was all smiles. The problem was when we got the CD player home my old crappy reciever was so old it didn't really have the hook ups for it. I was gutted. My father, being the best dad in the world, took me out the next day and bought me a kick ass receiver. That receiver was another $169 and was only 25 watts per channel, but it was new and it would hook up to my CD player and the stereo Super Hi-Fi Betamax I just got. Watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in stereo, through huge speakers changed my life.

Here's that Vector Research Receiver my father bought for me that same week, back in 1987. Sure it's missing a few buttons and it's a little old looking, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. This thing sounds great and floods me with the memory of my late father helping me pick it out. Every time I see this receiver I can remember my father helping me hook it up. We sat back and listened to the whole Dark Side Of The Moon CD in my bedroom as soon as we hooked it up. I will NEVER forget that. (Excuse me while I cry a little bit).

That was the beginning of all things techical for me. With a little research, and some good old fashion passion, you too can fall in love with the latest and greatest techno-bullshit that is coming out every other minute. This minute it's the iPad. I want it badly and I am not even sure why. I could buy so many other things with my $600 this time, but all I see at the end of my journey is Apples latest menstruation machine called the iPad. I will of course keep this forever. Someday maybe I'll list off all the cool techno-bullshit I currently own.

I should also mention that I still own and operate this receiver, as a matter of fact, it's being used right now in my downstairs setup. I should also mention that the Kenwood CD player I bought still works and is in my parents garage collecting dust.

Michael

Those classy Canadian Women

Did the Canadian girls, a few of which were underage, go overboard in their celebration? I think they did. For some reason this seems to be a non-issue really. Which to me is sad. If ANY other team would have done this, they would have been ripped apart in the media. Should they celebrate, hell yeah they should. Should they be proud of beating the US hockey team and winning on home soil, hell yeah. Should they be celebrating in front of international cameras with cigars and champagne? No. Leave that stuff for the locker room. Show some class and respect your own countries laws and try not to underage drink in front of millions and millions of international viewers. I'm not even worried or concerned about the drinking at all. I am concerned about how the Canadian woman are getting a "get out of jail free" card for this. I want to reiterate, ANY other team that did this, would have been in serious trouble for doing that.

Do I care about underage drinking? Hell no, if you're old enough to go off to war and kill other people your age, then by all means you should be able to have a drink, but it's the law up there. If the Americans had done something like this, we would have been labeled "filthy Americans" and probably panned in the media for years to come. Being the host team DOES NOT give you the right to be cunts about it. Smoking Cigars and underage drinking is not acceptable on the international Olympic stage, in front of cameras. It's seems so obvious to me, but I guess the cold has fractured the part of their minds that controls attitude and decision making. It wasn't even close to class, it was downright pathetic. The French Canadian part of me is ashamed. if the rest of the world doesn't care, why should I? I don't know, but for some reason I do.

Antidote To A Robotic Heart

If this don't make you smile, you've got a robotic heart. I laughed my ass off at this. Sure, you can see the ending a mile away, but it's still fucking good.



Michael

Kevin Smith in Fatgate

This seems to be the final outburst from Fatty Kevin Smith on the subject. He might be fat, and he admits that, but I do think that Southwest Airlines treated him like a turd for no reason. Here is what he wrote on Feb. 15th on his blog. Please don't sue me for reprinting this...LOL.

Running out of gas on this subject

Monday 15 February 2010 @ 8:18 pm

Lots of folks still telling me to stop crying and lose weight - as if that’s what this was all about. Easier to tell the lie about the whiney Fatso than the truth that someone at Southwest fucked up. “Sure, someone fucked up, Lardo” You’re saying. “You and your fat gut! This is YOUR fault because you’re fat!”

Once again: I know I’m fat. The point of all this? I’m not too fat for Southwest Air, yet someone deemed me so. *sigh*

Then, suddenly? A glimmer of hope: a little after 12 noon (roughly 48 hrs after being deemed Too Fat To Fly), Linda (a rep from Southwest Airlines) called my house.

Very sweet, warmly compassionate and apologetic, Linda assured me they’d been trying to track me down for at least a day, but my cell phone was indicating a full voicemail box.

First, there was the serious “Mea culpa” - very sincere, very meaningful, from an actual individual who didn’t then spend the next two paragraphs telling me it was still all my fault because I’m fat.

In fact, Linda admitted (without urging) that the whole situation was handled really badly, and that the blog write-up was in error.

Linda told me that, before I got anywhere near the plane (remember: I was hoping to get on standby), they were having a space issue on board with another passenger who’d purchased two seats, and they were having a problem moving already-seated passengers to accommodate this person. Enter me, who - Linda admitted - WAS NOT A PROBLEM. She fully acknowledged that I wasn’t bounced by the Pilot… BECAUSE THE PILOT PROBABLY DIDN’T EVEN SEE ME.

According to Linda, with the melee surrounding boarding and finding a second seat for the other passenger, the Pilot called for a quick settlement of any outstanding issues so that they might take off. And even though I was already planted in my arm-rest lowerable, seat-belt-buckleable seat, I got the hook.

So the Pilot DIDN’T bounce me because I couldn’t fit in the seat. In fact, it sounds like the Pilot had very little to do with bouncing me at all. And Linda said she just found this out today, as they gather info from all involved.

But if that’s the case, then who made that call to yank me? Someone had to actually point a finger and say “Him. He goes.” And not only that, but they then stood behind a fabrication that I was being ejected because I was too fat for my seat.

Regardless, I thanked Linda and told her she was the nicest Southwestern employee I’d met in the last 43 hrs. And then, I asked when Southwest was going to update their blog, to which she said soon, and we hung-up pleasantly. And as pleasant as Linda was, clearly the notion of me going on Larry King scared the shit out of somebody over there.

I was very nice but very firm/clear with Linda: Southwestern needs to make this right. And “right” is Southwestern falling on their sword over a situation THEY CREATED and continued to mismanage for nearly 48hrs.

So I swore to Linda, up and down “Get me a document to sign, and I’ll swear on my child’s life and penalty of all I own that I’ll never sue your Airlines. But just PUT THE FUCKING TRUTH OUT THERE THAT I’M NOT TOO FAT TO FLY, AND THAT THIS WAS ALL AN UNFORTUNATE ERROR ON SOUTHWESTERN’S PART.”

This is the piece Linda wrote.

She called me a little bit ago to see if I’d read the piece. I put her on hold, quickly read it, then got back on the horn.

“Linda - there’s nothing about me not being Too Fat To Fly,” I said.
“The people around you said they had to lean over to make room for you,” Linda offered.
“Linda, they didn’t! The older lady was leaning against the window like she was gonna nap, and the lady to my left was already leaning toward the aisle. I would never pick a seat that might possibly make me look even fatter because I don’t fit in it or something.”
“That’s the report I have,” she continued, then sighed and added “This is so embarrassing to talk about.”
“Wait - what people around me?” I asked.
“The people seated next to you.”
“You guys went to their houses and interviewed them?”
“No.”
“Then where’d that statement come from?”
“Others people around you.”
“Linda, there was nobody but me, the two ladies, and Suzanne. Are you telling me this is Suzanne’s report?”
“The report we received said the ladies were leaning away from you.”
“They were already leaning when I sat down! They didn’t lean because of me! I even asked them both if I was a problem. But you said you took their statements, and now you’re saying they weren’t interviewed at all. You said we’d get to the bottom of who made the decision to boot me, since it WASN’T the Pilot.”

And Linda apologized and pointed out the blog apologies for putting me on and taking me off the plane, as well as the refunded fares.

“But the last paragraph is still all about your two seat rule. By including it, you guys are still saying I was Too Fat To Fly - or at least NOT correcting it. You even say ‘You’re not here to debate the decision the Employees made.’ But when we spoke, you told me they were wrong, and THAT’S why I was happy and ready to drop all this. I don’t want your money, I just want you to put in print what you told me: that I was grabbed because I was the last guy on, not because I didn’t fit with the arm rests down, or because I couldn’t buckle the seat belt. Because I did. And we both know this.”

I feel like a broken record with that stupid “But I could buckle and fit” shit. Pathetic, right? Grasping at any dignity straws. But that’s what you do when you’re kinda stripped of your dignity.

I could hear it in her voice: the sad frustration. Somewhere between the two phone calls, the bounty that was hinted at got a lot smaller. And while the apology is a little deeper now and more sincerely-worded than it was in the initial “apology” blog (thank you, Linda), it still infers that I need two seats to fly on Southwest Airlines.

I begged her to just put the truth in the about me and the seat belt and arm rest - at least admit you guys were wrong: that I wasn’t Too Fat To Fly. And while in phone call #1 it seemed promising, it didn’t happen. There was some standard corp-speak about how they’re going to examine their “Person of Size” policy, and how they know it needs change. I sincerely hope it does. That shit with the Girl on the flight was just heartbreaking and shameful.

But to be honest, I was looking for a little exoneration so I didn’t have to keep exonerating myself. And while Linda was kind and respectful, if they’re gonna stick with this “Well… he needed two seats…” shit, then we’re just back to square one.

You guys screwed up, SWA; why’s it so hard to own up to it? Now I’m gonna carry this Too Fat To Fly shit around like herpes for the rest of my life, and it was never even true.

So, Linda: I appreciate the effort you made, the time you spent with me on the phone, and the work you put into this. You, too, were a reasonable cat during our conversation.

But wrapping up with a repeating of that 2 seat policy (the one THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY CASE) is a reminder that you guys haven’t learned anything: you’re still blaming it on the Fatty. Still, you tried. Thank you for that, Linda - and for being human.

Southwest, I appreciate you refunding my airfare. But if you’re not gonna admit I wasn’t Too Fat To Fly, then I’ll cover it.

But, folks? Tomorrow? Let’s Tweet about other stuff, shall we? This is starting to taste mediciney and fruitless.

“Well it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don’t have the education enough to admit when you’re wrong.-Quint, Jaws.

Was Kevin Smith Wrong to tear into Southwest Airlines? I don't think so, even if he might have been over the top with his approach, it's a subject that obviously needs to be touched upon. I'm not talking about touching in bad places, but in emotional and legal ways. I think he did a great job of getting that kind of discrimination in the heads of others who might be flying Southwest Airlines. Good on ya mate.

Michael

This is so wrong!

First Draft of the Chronic Insomnia Story

Below is the beginning of a grand story I am writing about the formation of Chronic Insomnia back in 1983. This is the first draft and I haven't really edited it at all but I thought I would still put it out for people to read.

Michael

The name Chronic Insomnia started in 1990 when I purchased a Hi-8mm camcorder. That 8mm opened up a giant creative process that Ryan and I had been looking for since our earlier years of making audio madness. We had the idea of making a late night TV show that only the Chronic Insomniacs would watch. In actuality we started this whole thing much earlier. Let me give you the whole story.

It's 1983 and I am at my house after school. Probably watching the A-Team or Magnum P.I. with my father. Ryan has decided to come over and hang out. This is just the beginning of our friendship and we are still feeling each other out. That sounds gay, but I assure it was. I don’t really remember the catalyst that began our friendship.

Anyways Ryan comes over and I have a surprise for him: a big black boom box with a microphone on it. For some reason, which I can't recall after so many years, it wasn't surprising to Ryan that I wanted to record our voice with my tape recorder. Maybe he had already experimented with this in his own life, but from memory we just slipped right into recording. We set the boom box down on the floor of my upstairs bedroom and began a career in making each other laugh. It was a contest to see how often we could make the other one stop the recorder so the laughing wasn’t picked up.

Ryan had this nervous tick of having to play with something while recording, and this fateful day it happened to be the pieces from my "Crossbows & Catapults" set. Ryan cupped three or four pieces in his hands and juggled them above the hardwood floor of my room. Each time he dropped them it shot straight into the microphone and nearly drowned out everything we were saying. I was 11 and my technical expertise wasn't as honed so I ignored the obvious crippling effect of his nervous habit to the audio sound. We were working with a cheap ass microphone and we both sounded like the same person at times anyways, so it really didn’t matter.

In one glorious day we managed to pound out our breakthrough comedy album tentatively called “Being Stupid”. Let’s be honest here, it was stupid, but we were in 6th grade. I am not sure how Ryan and I even met, but I am sure it was in Ms. Keyo’s class when Ryan was pointing out that he could see her panty lines through her slacks. We were nothing short of subtle and sophisticated, even back then.

Our first tape wasn’t really funny, but at the time we thought we were fucking geniuses. I remember being proud of our accomplishment. Are there a few golden gems on the tape? Well not really. Most of it was pretty stupid, but was a blast to make. Which for me has been the reason for the continued work relationship. We always have a blast in everything we do. I don’t recall any recording, short film or song we did where I didn’t at least laugh a dozen times. It hasn’t felt like work even to this day. Some of the highlights on the tape, at least for me was my rendition of Bill Cosby, which turned out to be the benchmark in which all comedians and impressionists compared themselves too.

Between Ryan’s rhythm section with the Crossbows and Catapults pieces and my wonderful job of stopping and starting the tape recorder, we managed to actually finish over 35 minutes of audio carnage. To this day I still have the original cassette tape and each time I bring it out the memories flood back to me. In all honesty it’s actually a pretty good piece of audio. It’s not funny at all really, but it does show our immediate ability to just “wing” things without any sort of preparation.

At this point in my life Ryan wasn’t my only friend and it was about a year until we got back together to record our sophomore effort, which never really had a title. This time around we actually did some funny stuff. This audiotape was centered around Paul Michealson a reporter interviewing special needs people in a hospital/school environment. Sounds like a funny premise already, but it got even more hilarious when Ryan slipped into the straight roll and I went completely off the damn rails.

The year was 1984 and we were in 7th grade. Our voices were just beginning to change and during this time you could actually sort of tell us apart on the tape. At this point I had gotten a new boombox with a better microphone on it and I had learned to keep things out of Ryan’s hands while we recorded. It didn’t work totally, but I did manage to limit his random sounds by at least 50%.

This tape took us multiple days to finish, at least two. It was more thought out and actually had a little bit of a storyline. Now when I say storyline, I mean it was more linear and sort of flowed from one point to another. We were still totally winging it and we never really talked about what was going to happen outside of the actual recording. I had moved into the basement of my parent’s house and that is where I would stay for the next 12 years. We had more freedom, we could be louder, more vulgar and we took full advantage of it.

At that time I had honed my ability to play the mentally challenged and Ryan couldn’t handle more than a millisecond of my shaking and grunting so this tape was also filled with plenty of stopping and starting of the tape. Each time Ryan, as Paul Michealson, would ask my special needs person a question, I would take it up a notch and really blurt something out. I would take my hands and beat them against my chest. The angle of my hands was very important to make it look more realistic. We weren’t working with a visual medium, but my mission was to make Ryan laugh so I had to pull out all the stops.

The tape might have had a linear feel to it, but it was also filled with pretty “out there” ideas. I would just blurt out anything that popped into my head for each of his questions. I wasn’t afraid to play a woman on this tape either. Our knowledge of women was very limited and we managed to show just how ignorant we were about girls. We talked about periods and bathroom events, something similar to what we talk about today, and we thought we knew stuff. Well we really didn’t. We were just goofing around and making ourselves laugh as much as we could.

This time around the recording really spurred us on and more ideas started flooding us. It wasn’t nearly as long until we got together to record the next tape. After Paul Michealson, we really went into the experimental realm. At this point Ryan had gotten himself a boombox and we switched our location to Ryan’s house for the summer. This turned out to be a great boon since we wanted to be louder and more rowdy on tape. It was time to take the recording process up a notch once again.

The next couple tapes were actually a series of tiny segments strewn over multiple cassettes and didn’t have any sort of connection. Ryan and I experimented with sound effects and using music as filler. Our voices were changing and cracking constantly. Ryan had this dog named “Cinnamon” and we thought it would be a good idea to get her to growl into the microphone and pretend she was pissed at me for not satisfying her sexually. Was this funny, well yeah it was, but it was also filled with sugar loaded freedom screams and chants of “Too much sugar, too much caffeine” yelled into the tiny microphone on top of Ryan’s tape recorder. A tape recorder we would eventually destroy in the name of audio creativity.

I am not sure why, but at this point I wanted to try something on my own and I created a couple of audiotapes alone in my basement. Most thirteen year old kids masturbated; I actually liked recording myself, and exploring the limits of what my tape recorder could do. Earlier on I had found out that if you recorded yourself in high speed, you sounded like a chipmunk. This gave me an idea to record a Star Trek inspired highspeed tape. It turned out really stupid and was actually really hard to understand, but the intensity of the tape was unparalleled at the time.
During my foray into Alvin and Star Trek, Ryan was working on the Epy Epperman radio show. He was taking the normal route and making something with a storyline. I listened to his tape and was jealous of a few things. He was taking things to a new level of creativity and editing. I thought it was pretty funny actually and much more mainstream than anything that popped into my head at the time.

We had both gone off and explored different styles and quickly learned that without each other it just didn’t work that well. I was the crazy fucker with the extreme ideas and Ryan was intelligent one that kept us somewhat understandable. Ryan did get insane at times and I was able to intelligently think of things, but we leaned towards those stereotypes and it worked. It still works today.

At this point the year is 1986 or so and we have decided to just make simple audiotapes. You would think we would come up with more intricate storylines and flowing narrative, but it just didn’t turn out that way. We had recently found Ryan’s record player in his living room and we decided we were the Beastie Boys and we were going to scratch our brand of hip hop into our recordings. We didn’t have any phat beats to work with, but we did have old superman and Tex Ritter records to work with and for us those were much better.

Another breakthrough at this point in our recording career was an interest in making something serious. We both sounded like the worst B actors in the history of film, but the sound effects were on another level for us. We didn’t know what else to do but try and make it serious. We failed miserably. I think it must have been near Halloween or something and we had found a record of scary sound effects.

When We Were Thin...Well Sort Of.

Here are the photos we promised on the show with Ryan being REALLY thin. Well at least thin in comparison to his overweight bloated fat ass now. Enjoy the pictures and any ladies out there that want a piece of him, just email us at: thechroniccrew@gmail.com and he'll go out with you.

Ryan was the master on the wax in the early 90's. Check out that sophisticated turntable he used. He's a real catch ladies.

Is there anyone tougher than this guy? He smashed his hand through Sheetrock! Amazing!

I figure it's only fitting to include a couple of photos of myself on here. I wasn't nearly as thin back then, but my fashion sense and taste in photography was obviously up there with the greats. Who else simulates sex with large stuffed teddy bears?

Yeah this was as fun as it looked. I broke this bears cherry during the photoshoot.

Drinking from an empty bottle of wine and wearing a tennis racket cover for a hat, comedy gold!

I hope you enjoyed some photos from our past. These were all taken in the same day sometime in 1990. Just goes to show you how old we really are. We haven't aged well. It's a shame because we were fucking sexy back then.

Michael

Chris Hardwick's Country Video

This is pretty goddamn funny. I don't like country music at all, but this makes me laugh every time I listen to it.

It's the guy from "Singled Out" and yeah he still looks the same even though it's been 15 years. He's one of those assholes that doesn't age.

Michael

With Friends Like Frank...

Look, I love Frank Miller. And Frank loves Will Eisner. Both of these facts are beyond debate. And yet - when I watch the TV spots for Miller's Spirit movie...yeesh.

How exactly does turning Eisner's work into Sin City pay respectful homage to it? It's not that I'm against the idea of stark black/white punctuated with a single obnoxiously bright color. It's been Frank's baby since "Babe Wore Red", and even though I personally think the effect is now overplayed and best laid to bed, I get it for Sin City.

But seriously, how does turning The Spirit into a Sin City knock-off do anything but drink 64 ounces of Gatorade and pee all over Eisner's work? Basically, Frank is saying "I like Eisner's stuff so much, it's deserving of getting scrapped for the Frank Miller treatment!" Blecch. Make it look like Eisner, you arrogant prick!

Cinematography aside, how does anybody watch that guy yell "Somebody get me a tie...and it better be RED!" without laughing about how STUPID it sounds. Who filmed that and said "Cut! Thaaaat's a keeper!" Apparently Frank Miller did.

To reiterate my first point, I do love Frank, the little scamp. But I'm beginning to smell the faint trickle of excrement in the wind. And I think it's that Spirit movie coming soon.

- Ryan

How am I the Biggest Douche Bag?

I am trying to figure out why I am a close second to Dad DiDio in the Douche Bag category. I am not sure I deserve that monocle. Seems like I could be the nicest of the shows hosts. Obviously I am wrong because you as the viewers are always right. I would like to know WHY everyone thinks I am a giant Douche Bag? Is there a specific reason? Is it my grating voice? Is it my large ball sack? I am sure that one of them could be the culprit.

Perhaps I come across as too polite and people aren't used to that due to the fact that Ryan is kind of harsh at times. This is due to his lack of sexual activity. I don't count sex with ones self as actual sex. This could be the reason for his douche baggery. I can't explain mine, other than it's just my o'natural self.

Michael