RedWolfJC's Rants Archive #1

Rants:

03/30/01
Just so you know, I didn't write that last rant, it's a song by The Ataris, which I have conveniently uploaded in my mp3 of the month section for your listening pleasure. It's a great tune by a cool band. Why did I write all of that? I dunno, I guess I'll never figure out what Womankind is all about. I don't know whats going on lately, but I've heard from all of these people I haven't heard from in a long time. I hope I'm not dying. Oh yeah, Hey Dave, Lauren and Shelly. How are y'all doin?
So like things are pretty cool right now I guess, I'm doing OK. I only hope the weather gets warmer soon. This is a really pathetically boring rant so I'll stop for now, but I'll be back with more soon.

WCW Wrestling R.I.P.

03/19/01
the last song i will ever write about a girl

Broken heart again today...
The flowers that I gave to you have withered all away.
Just when I opened up my heart
The one you used to love came and ripped it right apart.

Why do I never seem to learn?
That love is wrong and girls are fucking evil.
I guess I'll never figure out
What womankind is all about.

I heard your voice again today
I'm scarred by all the lies that were once promises you'd made.
I lie in bed awake at night
And wonder what went wrong or even more just what went right.

03/05/01
Russian Roulette, or Why the RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.
I've made lots of comments on Napster here, some were pretty biased, some were straightforward. Today I am beginning to see that the issue of Napster is based upon the simple premise of right and wrong. However, it's not as simple as it would appear. It is true that Napster users are violating copyright laws, that is a wrong. However, The people at Napster have been trying to develop a system to right that situation. They are seeking a fair and legal method of getting money to the artists and songwriters who deserve such funds. Unfortunately the RIAA is acting like the spoiled stepchild here, and refuses to hear or accept any proposal other than the complete and total destruction of the Napster system, and all systems like it. More than that, it seems that the RIAA wants everyone involved in the use, production, and daily operation of Napster to be stripped of all of their property, their freedom, and to be publicly flogged on a daily basis to keep other companies from even thinking about taking on the fascist regime known as the RIAA. OK, that was a little biased. But my statement, although exaggerated, is true. The RIAA has shown absolutely no interest in working with Napster to come up with a reasonable solution to this issue. The Reason? They wouldn't have control over it, and without control, they could not exploit it. Artists would actually get their royalty payments. You see, If Napster is shut down, and the RIAA wins their lawsuit, the artists may get some money, after all of the legal expenses are recouped, but it will be a one time payment. If Napster continues and begins to pay royalties, Artists will continue to receive royalty checks, there is not a one-time payment, but rather many payments over the years.
Napster was just a little upstart company when all of this came out last year. It had a loyal following of college students who had high bandwidth connections to the internet. After all of these legal allegations came out in public, Napster grew. And Grew. In fact, the napster community has increased to almost 100 times it's size just two years ago. Hence the title. The RIAA took a fledgling company and turned it into a Martyr of mp3 trading. Like it or not, mp3 trading is here to stay. Unfortunately for the RIAA, they created their own destruction. The Recording industry basically destroyed itself when it went into the digital age unprepared. They created a new digital format in the 80's which rendered all other formats of music obsolete. However they didn't have enough foresight to realize that it would only be a matter of time before the public could copy this new digital music. If the RIAA is smart they will survive, not by running from new technology, but rather by embracing it. The invention of Cassette recorders didn't stop people from buying new music. The invention of the VCR didn't stop people from going to the movies. The invention of mp3 trading has already been shown not to have ruined album sales (with CD sales being higher than ever). The only thing that will destroy the RIAA is their own alienation of their bread and butter. If you own a store, you won't stay in business long if you constantly piss off your customers, or call them criminals.
I started this rant by saying that Napster is a simple case of right and wrong. Perhaps I should have said that it's a simple case of wrong and wrong. And as the old cliche goes: two wrongs don't make a right. It's time for the RIAA to put their differences aside with Napster, and other file sharing services, and do what is right for everyone involved.

02/14/01
Happy Valentines Day. Normally, I'm not big into this so-called holiday, fabricated by greeting card makers trying to exploit human emotions for profit, but I was thinking about things, and I suppose this world needs a little love put back into it. Even though it's commercialized, plastic, prepackaged love sold in little heart-shaped boxes, and in the reproductive organs of plant life. Now rather than sit at home alone, complaining about how you've been left behind, or how the Love bug hasn't bitten in a long time, perhaps try and go out today and do something nice for someone. No, I'm not saying walk up to someone you don't know and give them a hug and say somebody loves you, unless thats your bag baby. Rather, hold the door for a little old lady, say Hi to someone you don't know, or even just flash someone a friendly smile. Smiles are contagious. Keep love alive.
Here's a little ditty to help keep hope alive. hang in there, things always get better.

No I Don't claim to be a wise man
A poet or a saint
I'm just another man searching
For A better way
But my heart beats loud as thunder
For the things that I Believe
Sometimes I wanna run for cover
Sometimes I want to scream

Bang A Drum for tommorow
Bang A Drum for the past
Bang A Drum for the hero's
Who won't come back
Bang A Drum for the promise
Bang A Drum for the lies
Bang A Drum for the lovers
And the tears that they've cried
Bang A Drum bang it loudly
Or as soft as you need
Bang A Drum for you brother
And a drum for me.

Bang A Drum.bmp

02/01/01
Another year. Another rant. What a confusing time in my life. I'm adding some stuff to the page today, so I figured I'd throw in a few things going on in my life. Classes are pretty hellacious, as always, but somehow I'll survive. Relationship wise, life is pretty messed up right now, but since even I don't have any idea whats going on now, I'll reserve comment on that for later. I'm throwing a bunch of shit up here today since this weekend I'm going to do my approximate bi-annual system dump. Total system shutdown, format, and start over. Not a whole lot of fun i must say. After I get this system back up and running I will be doing a complete webpage re-design. So for now I'm gonna leave it all up in the air. By the next rant hopefully I'll have it all worked out. Peace!
JC

12/04/00
I realized suddenly that this year I don't have nearly as much to say as I have in the past. I guess there really hasn't been much on my mind. Well at least not much that I really feel like talking about. I mean I could go off on a long rant about the presidential controversy, but thats been so overdone. The only thing I will say about it is that it is now so obviously time that there is a national voter machine instituted. Since several counties (not just in Florida) can't get their shit together and provide a good legal way to vote, I believe we need to standardize the voting machines. I could comment further on Napster and Scour Exchange(which has folded), but all that does is aggrivate me, especially since I have recently discovered the wonders of bootlegging live shows. I could go off on how I feel old, but that just depresses me. I could rant on about the disgusting horrible state of music and the music industry, but I really don't feel like it. So basically this rant is going to be me bitching about how I don't have much to bitch about.
Finals are in two weeks so I better start studying soon.
Website of the month: Friends Of Live This is the band site for that great band that came out in the early 90's called LIVE. Although they haven't been as popular in recent years, they have a great new album out called "The Distance To Here" and Julie and myself went to see them in concert on Sept 12th (See rant below) and they put on an awesome show. The website, although a little clunky is put together well and has all the info on what the band has been up to. Check it out if you're bored.
Well I'm tired. Sleepytime, I gotta pretend that I'm Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts in a mock senate hearing on relations with Cuba tomorrow (Stupid polysci major). See you kiddies soon.
JC

11/12/00
JC's 2k B-day Rant. Welcome all. Guess what, It's my birthday again, no applause, just money, please. Well in writing this years rant, I decided to look up what I wrote last year. Hell I wasn't too happy at the time, but things have a way of coming full circle. Anyway, I figured I would go back and answer the things I was wondering.
>> I guess I finally can accept now it's never too late for a second chance, or to start over. Sometimes things don't go the way you planned, but if the road is meant to be traveled, you will find the way.
I'm not really sure what I was thinking at this point, whether it be about love or about going back to school, but either way, I suppose it's true. And although it may never be too late for a second chance, I've learned that the road less travelled is usually the one that is the most beneficial. Sometimes it's better to go back and have closure, but you can still close the door after you walk out of it, without looking back.
The toughest thing for me right now is believing in myself, as much as I try, I just don't sometimes. I can't believe that anyone can understand me for who I am. Not that I want people to understand every little detail, every little quirk,and flaw and accept it unconditionally, but rather accept me for who I am. It's hard for me to believe that I am worthy of love from someone, because I hold the concept of love so high that it almost makes it unattainable.
Well I do believe in myself a lot more this year, although still not as much as I would like to. And I finally see that some people can accept me for who I am, and I also figured out that I am not the only one who is different, which is bizarre given the carbon copy people of this university. I'm still not sure on the whole being worthy of love thing, but I'm more willing to find out than I was last year.
I've learned that a smile is worth more words than one could say in a lifetime. Sharing one brief moment with someone can make your entire past seem insignificant.
Still holds true today, except that a simple smile can turn into so much more.
I'm just starting to figure out that it isn't always better to, as Dream Theater said, "Save the mystery" rather than "Surrender to the secret." In other words, sometimes the reality is better than the fantasy you build for yourself. And there's only one way to find out, actually go out and pursue it rather than sit Idly by and watch the world go around.
True, Very true. And the more I experience it, the better reality becomes. I forgot that most fantasies are based on past realities, and when the present becomes better than the past, watch out! :)
It's been a pretty big year for me, things didn't quite work out the way I expected, and given the opportunity, I would probably change a lot, but I'm still alive, and probably a lot better off than I was at this time last year.
Well, Things never work out the way you expect them, but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and I've become a much stronger person over the past two years. Things seem to be getting a lot better. And I'm actually becoming a little happy. Time for another cancer stick.
I didn't expect that to change. Smokey smoke time.
Note to self for 2000, things better be looking up by now, if they aren't get on the friggin ball!
Well things are looking up, it's been a pretty good year. Here's to the next year! Good Memories :)

10/23/00
Sorry it took me a few more days to get back here and explain myself, but unfortunately the Network here at school is shitty and has only been working about 35% of the time, and when it does work it doesn't work 100%. But I have been assured that all the problems have either been fixed or are in the process of being fixed so, hopefully everything will be squared away. Anyway as you may have noticed I added a Pictures page, and thats just the beginning, many more pictures will be posted within the next couple of weeks, I might even start a new site for just pictures, but thats later, I'm already trying to moderate 3 different websites, as well as try to get an education so don't expect much more too soon, but I'll get around to it.
As far as the deleted rant goes, I rarely ever do that, actually I think thats my first deleted rant. Let's just say it was all a HUGE misunderstanding, and I didn't mean any of the things I said, I was really pissed about something, and extremely drunk and I took it out on the wrong people, and I personally apologized to all of them. It was a mistake, and I still would have left it up there, but some of the remarks were pretty bad and simply not true. Anyway things are better, and i'm just taking things one day at a time. I got tickets coming for the Sammy Hagar show in Chicago at the Chicago Theater, so if any of y'all are going look for me. I'll write another rant soon, and update the mp3's and website of the month, so keep your eyes peeled. until then

Peace

JC

10/14/00
***Deleted***
My apologies for anyone who read my drunken rant formerly posted here. It was inappropriate and childish. However that doesn't mean that some of what I said wasn't true. I will post a new rant in a couple of days that explains everything.

10/09/00
Wow no rants in over two months, can you tell I'm a college student? I've been pretty busy the past few months, as this year has officially become the YEAR FROM HELL!!! Well it ain't all that bad I suppose. I've got a new romantic interest in my life and suprise, suprise... She likes me too. As much as the concept of entering the whole dating game scares the shit out of me, it is kinda nice to have someone there to do all of those couples things that young lovers often do. Unfortunately, I'm quite broke, and don't really have the money to do a lot of shit, so we usually end up renting movies, or going to dollar beer night at the local pub.

Sept 12th me and the little lady went to go see LIVE (the band) at Marcus Ampitheater in Milwaukee WI (which is Algonquin for "The Good Land"). Awesome show, If you ever get the chance to see them, go. They are incredible live, and have an awesome show. And the Marcus ain't a bad place to see a show either, not as good as Alpine Valley, or Deer Creek, but it's right on the lake, and although it was a little chilly, it had a great view. Of course it was a bit of an undertaking driving all the way from Normal IL (home of the ever losing Redbirds) to Milwaukee, but Julie made the 3 hour drive easily tolerable, and even entertaining at some points.

Last friday (Oct 6th) I got the chance to see the Punk-O-Rama tour in St. Luigi too, another almost 3 hour drive, but my favorite punk band ALL was playing there and let me tell you, they didn't disappoint at all. Add to that a great bonfire party afterward at my old friend and former ISU partner in crime Mr. PBR himself Robby's house, and it made for a cool weekend. By the way Sir P.B.R., you better get your ass up here for a visit.

Oh yeah. Check out the site of the month Come.To/CaitlinsWay. It's a side project I started as a favor to a friend's younger sister, so it might not be exactly hip, seeing as it's a fan page for a show on Nickelodeon, but I like doing the web Design for it so too frickin bad!

Other than that my life has been an abyss of crappy classes, and bureaucratic college bullshit. What else is new.

Hasta Luigi
JC

7/30/00
Welcome my friends to the rant that never ends. Speaking of which, I've gotten questions lately on how I feel about certain issues, I will very breifly address them here, and go much deeper into each one at a later date. OK Here we go:

1 Napster: I fully support Napster, and am against any legislation to block it. Simply put, it's users are breaking the law, not the company. Shut them down and you have to shut down websites like EBay, and Half.com because their users might be and probably are selling stolen goods. It's not the software thats breaking the law, it's the people who use it.

2. Election 2000: I don't know yet. I know I'm not going to support George W. Bush, despite John McCain's attempt to sway voters. It's really sad that when election 1996 was going on everyone was saying could we possibly get any worse candidates thatn Clinton v. Dole? well it seems Election 2000 has answered that challenge with a resounding YES!

3. Microsoft me(millenium edition): I have no plans to upgrade to it, however I had no plans to upgrade to 98 either, we'll just see if I can get my hands on a trial copy to "test" the software before I buy it. From what I've seen so far, looks just like 98.

4.Vince Mc Mahon and the XFL: Vinnie Mack is a freaking marketing God. I predict great things for the XFL it's first couple of years, but after that there's gonna either have to be some incredible football coming out of there, or XFL is gonna be filed away with the USFL and WFL. The XFL though is off to a great start by hiring Dick Butkus as head coach of the Chicago team. The man is practically a God in the city of Chicago, so Vince Mc Mahon is going to have success with his chicago team, time will tell about the other seven teams.

5. Skid Row vs. Sebastian Bach: This is a rather odd one, but I honestly was asked about this recently. As many of you know, Skid Row remains one of my favorite bands. Well they had broken up a few years ago, when to my suprise while reading concert ads I came across the one for the KISS farewell tour; with opening acts Ted Nugent, and Skid Row. So to say the least i was pretty happy about this. That is until I found out that former frontman Sebastian Bach is no longer with the band. To make matters worse, I later found out that drummer Rob Affuso wasn't allowed to rejoin the band either. So now Skid Row is opening for KISS with a relatively unknown vocalist (John Salinger) and the former drummer of Saigon Kick. Now after the split of Skid Row Between Sebastian Bach and the rest of the band happened, the Band had criticized Bas for doing Skid Row songs on his solo tour, along with criticizing his smaller audience size. They basically said that if Sebastian wants to be in a Skid Row cover band that was fine with them. Now me personally I don't see how 3/5ths of a band is much better than 1/5th of a band. But I guess as long as you have more than 50% of your band together...
In honor of that awesome question, I posted under the HairBand of the Month, Skid Row's Forever (pretty ironic, huh). I still don't believe that Skid Row fits in with that whole hairband thing, at least not after hearing Slave to The Grind, and sUBHUMAN rACE, but this song is pretty glam so I suppose it fits. One last side note, I did not attend the KISS farewell tour, not because of Skid Row, but because of lack of fundage. HOWEVER- if there was the real 90's version of Skid Row, complete with Sebastian and Rob, I would have found a way to go. I Saw them on the sUBHUMAN rACE tour and they were incredible.

"...The freaks come out at nine, and it's twenty to ten..."Skid Row
JC

7/26/00

Todays Rant: DR. Strangeframe or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Frames
Alright again I'm being stupid, but I wanted to address the frame issue anyway. I've gotten lots of comments lately on how people like/dislike framed webpages. As you already can tell I've got both frames, and no frames. And as far as I know, they both work fine. The biggest problem I've found with frames, are that not all browsers support frames, and a lot of times, they aren't set up right, and things have a nasty habit of popping up in the wrong places. Well as far as the browser thing goes, it's the year 2000, so lets get with the program people. It might just be time to upgrade that tired ol browser that you got. Actually all browsers that came out in the past 5 years (starting with Navigator 2.0 and IE 3.0 if i'm correct) support frames. And as far as things popping up in the wrong places, etc: I've done extensive testing on the site, and so far all of my frames work good. But who knows, frames have been known to do some pretty weird things from time to time. But it's not like this is brand new technology. The only reason I switched to the frame thing is that it was a lot easier to organize everything. Personally, I don't really like em either, and thats why there is a no frame option on my site. I think the site is set up well, with easy access regardless of connection speed. one of my biggest pet peeves is waiting for 20 minutes for some stupid flash intro to finish, which most of the time isn't that cool anyway, and isn't worth the wait. Now this doesn't bother me on a T3 connection where it comes up in a couple of seconds, but when you're on a 56k connection, no matter how cool the intro is, waiting for it to load takes away any of the impact it might have had. Alright enough of my bitching. Have a nice day
JC

7/14/00

Just a little breif note to update y'all on whats going on. I've been hard at work on a new celebrity fansite that I'm going to be launching in a few days. I'll link it to here when I launch it in a few weeks. Needless to say I was too busy to even notice until today that my little corner of the web has surpassed the 2000 hit mark. not bad considering this site has no publicity whatsoever (aside from word of mouth and the few links I have to here which reminds me... Side note to Shelly@justahorizon. Update my link please, pretty please...) So When I get the chance, I'll update the song of the month, and hairband of the month, and I promise that they won't be so obscure this time. A special shoutout to my friends from the St. Louis area, who's Cardinals, sans big Mac McGuire, spanked my Chi Whitesox 13-5. Enjoy it, fellas cause it ain't gonna happen again :)~

Alright, this is gonna be my final plea to all of you reading this. Puhleeeeeeze sign my guestbook. I mean, I've had over 2000 people visit this site, yet I have 2 people in the guestbook, which rounds out to about 0.1%. Pretty pathetic. I mean I hope that there's more than those 2 people who come visit me. I think it's pretty hard for someone to visit this seldom updated site 1000 times, so I'm assuming there's more of ya out there, so sign away. Oh and one more thing, a bonus so to speak. If you send me your website info, I will be more than happy to link you from here. I don't get a lot of people, but every little bit of publicity helps. Ok enough begging.

Have A Nice Day

JC

6/25/00

Wow 2 rants within 3 days.

How do you know if there's maggots in your chinese food? Easy, The rice moves. A rather disgusting analogy/joke that brings forth a simple point. Sometimes the hardest questions have the simplest answers (plus I can insert my love for chinese food too!). It's kinda like when you're waiting for the right time to pop the question to the love of your life, only to find her sleeping with your best friend. At least you know that it wasn't a good time to ask her then, was it? Unfortunately, being the eternal pessimist that I am, I have to constantly remind myself of clich� optimism in order to keep a somewhat happy disposition. Too bad it isn't working.

Don't get me wrong, I still maintain a somewhat healthy positive attitude about love. It's just that I've come to realize it only exists in movies and sappy 80's ballads. What a rude wakeup call when I realized that life went a lot deeper than a Cameron Crowe or John Hughes flick. It's kinda rough when you finally grow old enough to learn that the good guy doesn't always win in the end, actually the good guy rarely wins. You have to ask yourself sometimes, what happens after the two lovers ride off into the sunset at the end of the movie? I'm not talking about the actors showing up again in the sequel. I've heard people ask why there were never any sequels to those movies since they were so succesful. It's not that the movie wasn't popular. I think that it's more like people are really afraid to find out what happened between Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court after they land in England. We would rather live in the illusion that everything was going to be OK, and that they'd live happily ever after than risk watching Say Anything 2. But it's all just an illusion. In real life, there'd be a lot more to the story than Lloyd holding up a radio outside Diane's house playing "In Your Eyes", and Diane going back to him after she realizes that her father is a crook. Of course there is the eternal question that could be answered in the sequel where Lloyd asks Diane, "Do you need me, or do you need just someone?" and then says it doesn't matter. What if she really did just need someone, and proceeded to dump him as soon as they landed in England, cause she fell for some intellectual Brittish guy? Nobody wants to see that. But that's how real life is. There is no happily ever after. There always is and always will be a part two to the story, as well as a part three, part four, etc. �I know, I overanalyze everything. �Sometimes I think they based the Dawson character from Dawsons Creek on me.

All in all it's just another brick in the wall

JC

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