A Lost Music Post Apparently From 11 Years Ago

Something I noticed this morning, I was wondering who had won all the Grammy awards for Best Hard Rock Performance and as I read the Wikipedia page on the award, I noticed it said something near the end of the description that caught my eye.  It says about the Grammy awards that awards "in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position."  I put this last part in bold to highlight this fact because it's total bullshit.

As I glanced down the list of winners, I noticed that they all seemed worthy of their wins, as most of those songs are pretty good.  Cult of Personality, Black Hole Sun, Give It Away, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Guerrilla Radio, All My Life, B.Y.O.B, songs like that that were very good hard rock songs.  Judging music, as you know, is a matter of taste, so giving an award to musicians who someone says it the best can be hard to do, I would think.  Some people like certain shit, some people don't.  But most of these songs were major radio hits.  Now, I also don't think ragging on the Grammy's is all that necessary.  Everyone who knows anything knows the Grammy's are total bullshit, and only exist to boost album sales.  But to go out and say you are going to honor artistic achievement and technical proficiency and overall excellence without regard to album sales or chart position and then nominate Kid Rock (in his rap/rock days) and Limp Bizkit for the award?  You cannot tell me that Limp Bizkit's Nookie was in the top SIX best songs of the year 2000, as far as technical proficiency goes.  There is no goddamn way.  The song was popular as hell, that's for sure.  But it's not good.  It's not well done in the grand scheme of creating excellent music.  It's bullshit!

Anyway, that's all I'm saying.  They got better, and started actually awarding shit to artists that probably deserve it in later years, like awarding Best Hard Rock Performance in 2009 The Mars Volta for their song Wax Simulacra, because that song is the shit, and it's very technically proficient!  Well done, Grammy's.

Anyway, I just thought I would share that thing I noticed.  The other nominees in the year 2000 were Korn - Freak on a Leash, Kid Rock - Bawitdaba,  Alice In Chains - Get Born Again, Buckcherry - Lit Up, and the winner was Metallica with their cover of Whiskey in the Jarro.

Also, they're reshuffling all the categories in 2012, so there will be no more award for this and a separate one for best metal performance.  Lump em together.  They should get super-specific with their categories, like, Best Alt-Country-with-Rootsy-Bluegrass-sort-of-stuff Performance or Best Post Hardcore Performance with Male and Female Singers Who Alternate Lead Vocal Duties.  That would make it interesting, for sure.

Best Band No One Has Ever Heard Of Award goes to.......The Dogcatchers?

I Won The Lottery

Chances are, at one point or another, you have thought about what it would be like to win the lottery, what it would be like to have infinite money just by buying a ticket for a dollar. I have spent entire days thinking of nothing other than the idea of being a multimillionaire by the end of the day. It especially happens on the days when I have actually purchased a lottery ticket, like this past Tuesday. The Mega Millions jackpot was in the 180million dollar territory, and so therefore, my mom forced me to buy a ticket. She even paid for it. Well anyway, as you can see by me still blogging to pass the time, and also despite the title, I did not win. In fact, no one won. So the jackpot climbed once again, and they drew new numbers on Friday, which no one won. So again, the jackpot climbed, and now it sits at $290,000,000.00. I just wore out my zero key typing that out.

Let's think about that for a minute, shall we? I have a very handy iPhone app that I think is actually from the Mega Millions people, called iMega. On this app, it tells you what the current jackpot is, what the previous draws were, and things like that. $290,000,000.00! I include the cents because that's funny and it adds drama because there are more zeros than are necessary, while remaining factual.

When you win a big jackpot, they take a chuck out of it for taxes, yet no one ever really knows how much that chuck is. On this app, it gives an approximation of the amount you would actually take home if you won, both for the lump sum payment, and also for the annuity. If I were to win teh jackpot on this Tuesday (you bet your ass I'm buying a ticket or two) at $290,000,000, the lump sum payment would be $136,950,016. That's after taxes. Just boom, one hundred thirty six million dollars in your checking account. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean. That also means you would be paying $156,049,984 in TAXES and whatnot. Crazy talk. That's over half your winnings. But I say, at that point, who cares? You have 136,000,000, regardless of what happens to the other 156.

The annuity is what excites me. At this jackpot level, you would get a $8,365,384 check, every year for 26 years. I'd be 53 when the payments stop coming. There is no possible way I could spend that much money by then, is there? Let's dive into these numbers a bit.

...Gets out calculator...All these numbers will be for the annuity deal.

All total, I would be paid $217,499,464 by the time I turn 53.

I would have $697,114 to spend per month.

That's $22,919 every day

That's $955 an HOUR

$15.91 a minute

If this 8.3 million dollars was more viewed as an hourly wage, like what you make for working 40 hours a week...You would be getting paid $4,357 an hour. $6,535.50 an hour on holidays. But you'd have to assume time and a half wouldn't be paid for holidays, because that would increase you're salary, wouldn't it? And at this point, is that really necessary anyway?

I think eventually I would get bored trying to figure out what to spend my daily $22,000 on. I could buy a mid-sized sedan every day for 26 years, I suppose. 9,490 Nissan Altimas.

My wife tells me she watched a documentary one time where they followed people in the aftermath of winning the jackpot and how it destroyed their lives. She claims she wouldn't want to win a jackpot because she wouldn't want her life ruined by an exorbitant amount of money. I told her I'd take my chances. I'd rather be rich and see what happens than be afraid to be rich. That just doesn't make much sense to me.

So wish me luck tomorrow, and I wish you the same. Because chances are, if I win, I'll give you some. And if you win, I would expect the same treatment.

C'mon, Pittsburgh. You CAN do it.

Good morning, world! How are you today? Isn't this a fine Sunday? Hope you're doing well and that the rest of you're day is great.

Let me talk to you this morning about baseball. Do you like baseball? I know I do, I love baseball. America's Pastime. Pastime is defined by Mirriam-Webster dictionary as "something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably." That's baseball! Some have argued that football has taken over as our national pastime, but I will disagree here. While I would say that football has become the most popular sport in America, and easily the most watched and followed, baseball is the pastime of our nation, if not the favorite sport. Baseball is not intended to be an action-packed game of excitement, in which you devote entire days sitting on the couch watching. Baseball is a game you throw on the radio, TV, or you attend in person, to hang out, relax, and enjoy a game. Granted, there are moments of intensity involved in baseball games. A close game, in the late innings, especially in September or October, can be as intense as any football game. But the fact that major league baseball is played for 7 months, with 162 games, a weekend series against the Pittsburgh Pirates just isn't that intense. But that's what makes baseball so great. It's to be taken as a casual game played among millionaires in the heat of the summer. Just hangin' out, playin' ball. Love it.

Speaking of the Pittsburgh Pirates, I don't know if you know much about that team, but they are not a very good team. In fact, they have been bad for quite some time now. You could safely say that the team has been pitiful for at least 17 years. It was 1992, the last season the Pirates had a winning record. 1992, I was nine years old and in the fourth grade. George H. W. Bush was the President. Right around the time the Pirates were wrapping up this last winning season, Nick Jonas was born, if that helps visualize the length of this futility. The Pirates have become Major League Baseball's farm team (farm team meaning minor league teams that send the good players to the big leagues when they're ready to play.)

They are constantly searching for success, while keeping their budget ridiculously low, rarely paying big name players to play there. The estimated 2010 payroll of the Pirates is $34.9 Million. Alex Rodriguez is making $33 million HIMSELF this season.

You can't compare the Pirates payroll to the Yankees, they're in their own league as far as spending money on players, even if it's fun to try. Take a middle of the road team like Cincinnati, which is similar in size of market, including geographically located in the middle of the country, as well as in the same division in the National League, as well as futility in the teams recent past, and they're payroll is $72.3. The San Diego Padres and the Texas Rangers both rank in the bottom four of the MLB payrolls, yet both of those teams are in first place in their divisions, as of this writing. So payroll shouldn't matter if the team is run correctly. All I'm saying is that Pittsburgh is bad, and probably will be bad for a long time, and it's sad that those fans in that great city haven't seen a winner for a while, and won't see one in even longer. Baseball is too great a game to be forgotten about in such a wonderful city. The Pirates have won 5 World Series championships in their history, and there are only 5 teams in baseball that have won more championships than Pittsburgh. It should be factored in that the Pirates have been a Major League team for 120 years. Most of baseball's championships have gone to either the Yankees and the Cardinals, taking 37 of them combined in the 105 World Series' played. That's 35% right there.

But I digress. If you can't get people to the ballpark to watch a game, no one is paying them money to go get better players. If they can't get better players, they can't be a better team, and no one wants to come out to the park to see a bad team. It is baseball's ultimate Catch 22. Revenue sharing is supposed to help, where the big markets share monies with the smaller market teams, but that's not even the answer to me. Look at a team like the Tampa Bay Rays. They are just as much a small market team as Pittsburgh, with only 11 seasons under their belt, and they made the World Series in 2008. The Florida Marlins, who play games in a football stadium in front of about 2,000 people, who have only been a team since 1993, have won two World Series'...in less time than the Pirates have had since their last winning season, I might remind you. If a team can start from nothing, with no one, and no history, and can get players and win a Championship in THREE YEARS like the expansion team Arizona Diamondbacks did in 2001, then there's no reason the Pirates couldn't turn it around and do it quickly.

The Pirates are one of the original 16 teams from the olden days of baseball, and I would love nothing more than to see them gain success in the near future, because that city deserves it. If they keep making poor personnel decisions, both player personnel and management, they will continue to embarrass themselves year after year as they have done for Nick Jonas' entire life. To show that this season is no different than the past 17, and potentially worse, they were outscored by the lowly Milwaukee Brewers 54-3 in three games this past April. That's an average of game score of 18-1...Three times in a row. I can promise you that if a player on the team starts to play well in the near future, he will be traded to a different team for other young prospects. It has happened consistently in their recent history, because they just seem like a team that doesn't want to win, and they blame it on financial restraints. Small market teams complaining about being a small market team is getting old and worn, because you can't use that argument anymore. Look at the Rays. Look at the Rangers and Padres this season. You can win, if you want to. Just do a better job, Pittsburgh.

Do a better job.