StinkFight.com

Review written by prominent gun rights blogger and author David Codrea.

Review: “Self-Defense is more than physical”

It’s some incredibly nice words about my book A User’s Manual for the Human Experience.

(click on photo to see it big.)

Trip total: 3219 miles, slept in six Wyoming cities, two Utah cities, in ten days. We got three tiny spider cracks in the windshield from pebbles thrown by trucks (two in Wyoming, one in Utah.) There was snow in one part of the state while we were there, tornado in another (we missed both). Even so, we loved every minute of being there, and feel like we left home when we came back to Los Angeles.)

Leaving Wyoming. Sad. But…”Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.”

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We packed and pumped at the Pump & Pack in Douglas:

Open carry dinner at T-Joe’s Steak House in Cheyenne:

Entering Colorado:

Entering Utah:

Our car at this amazing stop. We were the only people there:

Rainbow in Utah:

Utah, car carry only:

California. Guns back in the cases. Meh. How come the places you need ‘em the most you can have ‘em the least?:

DJ started to cry, literally, when we hit Los Angeles. It took us 90 minutes to go the last thirty miles:

Back in the nest.

Charlie cat happy to see us:

We’re trying to move to Wyoming within a month.

You don’t need to buy Adobe Acrobat Distiller to make PDFs. CutePDF is an AWESOME freeware PDF utility, with no crapware. Info and download link here. Direct small download here. Supports Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista (x32/x64).

You install it, then you can “print” a GREAT looking PDF document directly from Microsoft Word or any other program that has a “print” option. You can export Word docs, make eBooks, even make a PDF of a webpage. (Click here for the PDF I made of this page while I was in “post-writing” admin mode.)

I almost think that it looks better than PDFs made from Distiller, at least with the one-click settings in CutePDF. (Acrobat has many many deep menus for changing various things, I’ll still use that for outputting books to send to the printer. But CutePDF opens faster, renders faster, and looks better for simple things like a book proposal or a business letter.)

You click on “print” from whatever program you’re in, then you have to pick “CutePDF writer” from your drop-down list of “printers.”

Happy new year! (we slept through midnight, I’m up starting my new year now.)

I tried Puppy Linux on my laptop, it’s pretty amazing. Runs from a flash drive, can do a lot, including graphics, web, e-mail, word processing and photography.

I just bought this 200-dollar laptop on eBay. Bought it from a seller with nothing but positive feedback. It’s a Working IBM Thinkpad A31 Laptop,1.6Ghz, WiFi, 15″ LCD, CD-RW, 512MB RAM, 30GB hard drive, and a USB port.

I’m going to install Puppy and use it to write my next book. My next book is called “Practical Emotional Self-Defense”, it’s about dealing with idiots, and it’s going to make me a millionaire. Mark my words. (I don’t believe in New Years resolutions, but how’s that for a plan. And we’re four hours into the new year, and I’ve already written 3000 words of the new book.)

Puppy Linux is a mindblowingly cool operating system, and easy as pie to use. I’ve always been afraid of Linux, thinking “Windowz works well enough, why bother?” But Puppy is no bother. It works BETTER than Windowz.

Puppy is free, and it will turn a slow older Windows machine into a fast little writing tool. The whole OS, with a bunch of programs, is only 90 megs! (as opposed to the 8000 megs of Windows with no programs). You can even run it entirely loaded into memory, from a CD ROM.

Yay! Happy new puppy hobby for the new year!
I have a friend who’s working her way through college, she’s smart and geeky, but under employed. I suggested to her that she buy lots of older working laptops with no OS (you can find them on eBay for like 50 bucks sometimes if you buy five or ten of them), install and configure Puppy, and sell them for a small profit to help with college expenses. She might do it. And that’s permitted in the Puppy license. The Puppy Linux website even has a link for people who sell pre-configured Pup boxes, though I didn’t see any who were doing it with laptops, just desktop computers.

Funny little fun commercial for the Free State Project, which DJ and I recently joined.

Visit and join Free State Project:
http://freestateproject.org

(Note: The creators of this commercial are participants in FSP, but are acting on their own by posting this. This video does not represent the Free State Project as a whole, or any other individuals in the project.)

CREDITS:
Story, male voice and editing: Michael W. Dean
http://www.michaeldeanvoice.com

Story edits, female voice and haberdashery: Debra Jean Dean
http://www.debrajeandean.com

LEGAL:
Most images were grabbed from the Internet. Used with a clear understanding of Fair Use.

File, story and audio covered by Creative Commons Share and Sharealike license 3.0. Anyone may reuse, remix, repost, for any purpose.

Contact us if you would like the high-quality audio as a WAV file to use for radio broadcast, or to remix.

On racism….
Skin color in and of itself is meaningless to me. It’s like my cats, one is white, one brown, one tiger. The tiger one is nuts and claws me, but I don’t think it’s because of his color. It’s because he’s nuts.

I figured out where I stand on racism. I have always maintained that I am not racist, and still do. But I’ve wondered how I consign my views with this truth: When I’m in a black or Latino neighborhood I am on guard, prepared for trouble.

I finally figured out what it is: I do not think non-white people are bad. But it’s been my experience that when I’m in a non-white neighborhood, non-white people tend to think that *I* am bad.

I do not dislike non-whites. I am simply on alert of non-whites who dislike ME because I’m white. I am not racist. I am wary of non-whites who are racist.

—–
(Anyone who thinks that this attitude of mine IS racist, does not understand how the world works. And I expect to take more shit from liberal whites for this than from non-whites. Especially from whites who “understand the struggle” of non-whites, but have never lived in a non-white neighborhood. I lived in a black ghetto neighborhood in Washington DC, the year the mayor got busted for crack. And I lived in Hispanic neighborhoods my first 16 years I lived in California. I know what I’m talking about.)

(This is slightly old news, but I forgot to blog about it, and I’m still irked that it happened. I think they should find the fucking people who did it and charge them with treason.)

Olympic champion Kim Rhode’s shotgun is stolen

Authorities say the gun, which Rhode used in four Olympics, was stolen from her pickup truck in Lake Elsinore while she was shopping for her upcoming wedding….Full story here.

The stuff NRA is against didn’t make sense to me at first, but more and more it totally makes sense. Assault weapon bans? ALL guns are assault weapons. Many guns defined as assault weapons are same power as hunting rifles, but just LOOK scarier. “Assault weapon” is a term made up by politicians to make people who don’t know the difference think that semi-automatic guns are machine guns (fully automatic). They’re not. And machine guns have been illegal in the US for non-military since the 1930s.

Gun registration? Will make it easier to round up guns from honest citizens if the gov decides to do so. And almost all gun crimes are committed with UN-registered guns anyway.

Waiting periods? Women have died waiting for their gun when the restraining order doesn’t keep their stalker from trying to kill them.

“Gun-free zones”? Mass murders love ‘em. That’s why they shoot at schools and malls, because there’s no chance someone who is legally packing will fight back and end it quick. “Gun-free zones” don’t work on criminals any more than “drug-free zones” keep drugs out of neighborhood. Criminals will bring guns into a gun-free zone. Criminals do not obey laws, that is the definition of a criminal. (Note: the only place I’ve ever seen a “drug-free zone” sign is in the most drug-riddle junkie ghetto neighborhoods I’ve ever had the misfortune to live in.)

Crime goes down, not up, in states that increase issuing of concealed carry permits for law-abiding citizens.

The new thing that anti-gun politicians are pushing for is mandatory “ballistic fingerprinting”. Two firms, Smith & Wesson and Glock, are already doing it voluntarily. It was done on our new guns. Each one included one fired cartridge in a little evidence envelope, with a printed note that it had been scanned by technician number whatever. The idea being that cops can compare firing pin marks on cartridges found at a crime scene with those in the database. Only problem is, killers will hook up a baggie to catch their own shells, and get my shells or your shells, that they scooped up at a firing range, and dump them at the crime scene. Then if we don’t have an alibi, we’re gonna have to spend a lot of money on lawyers to stay out of prison. If we’re lucky.

Also, a few hits with a nail file changes the firing pin marks. Or you can replace the pin. Or barrel, if you wanna change the rifling marks. Firing pins and barrels are not considered “guns”, they are gun parts, and can be ordered through the mail, purchased at a gun store or a gun show without a waiting period or background check, and they are not used to fire a round for any database before sale.

Gun politics are something politicians use to get votes. End of story. And all politicians, even the ones who want to take guns away, are protected 24/7 by armed guards and secret service, so they’re hypocrites. They can be protected by guns but I can’t?????

I really believe in smart self-protection, not gun control. The cow is too far out of the barn for gun control. When guns are outlawed..well you know the rest.

Arm everyone without a criminal record and enact nationwide Castle Doctrine. Turn everyone into a cop, because the cops can’t be everywhere, and I wouldn’t want them to be. This works in Texas. Low violent crime rate because everyone’s packin’.

The NRA is in favor of background checks, and so am I. The NRA wants them on the spot, but the gov has squelched attempts make the databases work together to do this on the spot, because the gov likes waiting periods.

I think that the reason the NRA is against any gun control is that with politicians, if you “Give ‘em an inch, they take a mile.” Bans on “assault weapons” today can mean a ban on all guns next year.

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P.S. A funny thing that store owners do in Texas is put a “No guns allowed” sign in the door. I’ve seen ‘em there a lot. But it’s only a “nod-nod wink-wink” to gun-shy people. People with carry permits in Texas can carry a concealed weapon in a business unless it has a very specific legalese wording in the sign. “No guns allowed” or a sign with a gun and a red line through it do not satisfy this requirement. Those signs are the gun-packin’ owner telling his gun-packin’ patrons “It’s OK” while assuring patrons who are nervous around an honest law-abiding armed population.

p.p.s., a very few states do allow NON-concealed carry, but I wouldn’t want to do that. In a bank robbery or mall shooting, a criminal is probably gonna shoot the one guy he knows has a gun first!

MWD

The Whole Earth Catalog was an amazing, large “Access to tools” book in the late 60s, early 70s that influenced EVERYTHING: Internet sharing of technology and media, affordable housing, Craigslist, BitTorrent, green energy, and more. And the visionary who started it, Stewart Brand, ran The Well (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), the first commercial online service company, even before the Web. (If you ever get an e-mail from someone and their e-mail address ends in @well.net, you can be sure they were using the Internet before you were.)

I had The Whole Earth Catalog as a kid, from my sister, Connie. I found her copy in the attic after she went off to college. I loved the WEC, and it influenced me a lot, opened my mind to ideas that I did not hear about in school, or anywhere else, in my little town.

Reading the WEC also made me want to seek out and meet inventor and visionary Buckminster Fuller. (The Whole Earth Catalog people loved Fuller, because he invented the Geodesic dome, which the WEC touted as cheap housing for hippies wanting to “get back to the land.”

(I met Fuller in Chautauqua, New York, when he was in his 80s and I was 12. Changed my life. He was the first famous person I ever met. Back then, my “rock stars” were scientists.)

Wikipedia says, “Apple Inc. founder and entrepreneur Steve Jobs has described the Catalog as the conceptual forerunner of the World Wide Web….”The WEC was sort of like Google in  paperback form, 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.”

Article in Time Magazine by Stewart Brand called “WE OWE IT ALL TO THE HIPPIES.”

(My view of the Internet is much like Stewart Brand’s. That it’s majestic and spiritual. Which is part of why I don’t like social networking, even though social networking came out of those ideas. I just think most people doing social networking are not people I’d want to talk with in real life. There are a lot of weenies and dolts in the world, and before the Internet, I was blissfully unaware of what they were thinking and doing. I really don’t want to see pictures of your cat, I don’t want to hear your dumb jokes, and I really don’t want to take a “Do you like me?” quiz. I thought those were stupid in third grade. I still think they’re stupid.)

Here’s a cool article about the Whole Earth Catalog. Here’s some quotes from it:

Richard Wurman: A West Coast catalog for hippies that won the National Book Award [in 1972, in the Contemporary Affairs category]? It was a paradigm shift in information distribution. In the early ’70s, the public didn’t know what a yurt was, or where to buy one. But if you were interested in moving back to the land and needed sturdy, cheap housing, this was invaluable information. I think you can draw a pretty straight line from the WEC to a lot of today’s culture. It created an aroma that’s so pervasive, most people don’t even know the source of the smell.

Kevin Kelly: For this new countercultural movement, information was a precious commodity. In the ’60s, there was no Internet; no 500 cable channels. Bookstores were usually small and bad; libraries, worse. The WEC not only gave you permission to invent your life, it gave you the reasoning and the tools to do just that. And you believed you could do it, because on every page of the catalog were other people doing it. This was a great example of user-generated content, without advertising, before the Internet. Basically, Brand invented the blogosphere long before there was any such thing as a blog.

John Perry Barlow: Before the WEC came out, business was big and ugly. It was a kingdom of acronyms like IBM and GE. But Stewart saw sustainable small business as a virtue.

Fred Turner: The WEC set the stage for all of today’s social networks. This kind of collaborative communication and the emphasis on small-scale technology really hit home in early Silicon Valley. You have to remember that the first Xerox PARC [the Palo Alto Research Center, a division of Xerox credited with inventing laser printing and the Ethernet, among other things] library consisted of books selected from the WEC by computer guru Alan Kay.

SO….We’ve finally become comfy enough around guns to keep them loaded in the house. Because you know, an unloaded gun isn’t really a gun, and there may not be time to load it in an emergency.

I put a notice by the gun to remind me. Will keep that up for a while. Seems like a silly thing to need to do, but I’ve been practicing loading dummy shells so long that grabbing the gun from the corner and  flipping it around has become second nature, so I need to un-do that thinking.

Also, we went and fired our new pistols today. Took a one-hour lesson, then shot 125 rounds each, at 25 feet. We were pretty good for first time with new guns. (DJ and I have both fired pistols before, but it’s been many years.) I think we did pretty good, below is the last target we did…the 10 head shots are mine, the 30 center body shots are DJ’s (she’s a better shot than me):

I actually think that shooting with the shotgun made us better shots with pistols. I wasn’t sure it would transfer over, but I think it did.

We shoot without our glasses, as we want to practice under adverse conditions, rather than under optimum conditions.

After shooting that much, we both felt kind of mellow and excited at the same time. Kinda high almost. Went to McDonalds drive through on the way home, then both napped, hard, for an hour and a half.

When we woke up, we took the guns apart to clean and oil them:

I found an amazingly helpful video on YouTube, here, on the disassembly of this particular model. I love the video, it’s the only one this dude’s put up on YouTube, but it blows most “how-to” videos about anything out of the water. It’s very no-nonsense, and shows you exactly how to take it apart and put it back together.

It’s not that hard once you see it done, but I really doubt I could have figured it out on my own, and the owner’s manual that came with the guns is pretty useless. It’s not for our particular model, but rather a generic manual for all Smith & Wesson pistols.

We’re really enjoying the handguns, and plan to shoot at least 125 rounds a night each, two nights a week, until we’re really really good.

The handguns somehow feel more like “guns” to me. Maybe because I used to associate handguns with criminals but associated shotguns with my kindly old grandfather. Or maybe it’s because the bullet and the noise come out closer to your ears than with a shotgun (even though a shotgun is louder).

We love our new hobby, and love that there’s a lot to learn. I’d kinda gotten bored with filmmaking and audio production, because I know so much about both. It’s nice to have a new hobby. And our hands hurt from loading, shooting and taking the guns apart. We got little raw spots on the tip of our thumbs from loading all those bullets into the mags….It sort of reminds me of when I first started playing guitar, when I was 14, and the pads of my fingers would be sore after, but I got callous and the pain eventually went away.

I think it will work the same with this.

(Coming in 2010:$30 Gun School. lol…)

MEW!

MWD and DJD

Download 10-meg zipped PDF of magazine.

or

Download torrent.

This is the complete “Guns” magazine from Sept. 1957. Has lots of photos of family bonding over guns, advertisements for mail-order 20 dollar Remington shotguns and mail-order 40 dollar fully automatic machine guns, as well as an interesting  article (starts on page 22) called “Why Not a PRO-Gun Law?” (in which the author also admits he’s a felon, having purchased confiscated guns from cop friends.)

This mag, and all the photos, somehow kinda make me miss my grandfather.

==

“Guns is a magazine for the recreational and competitive shooter, hunter, collector, and firearm owner. Each issue features new products, shooting competitions, history, and trade show coverage. From handguns to shotguns, this monthly magazine provides the ultimate coverage in the field of firearms.Features proper gun use, hunting techniques, collecting, firearms legislation, and new guns and accessories.

“Since 1955, sportsmen and enthusiasts have turned to Guns Magazine for the latest news on firearms, training, hunting, accessories and more. In the field or on the range, you’ll find the information you need to make the shooting sports more enjoyable.”

September 1957

I just finished reading Black Man With a Gun by Reverend Kenneth V. F. Blanchard. It’s a short primer on gun ownership, great tips on choosing and using a weapon, with very interesting parts on the racist roots of gun control and a Christian take on self-defense vs. the “thou shall not kill” commandment. (The author is a Baptist minister, as well as a Harley rider and ex-gov shooter.)

Reverend Kenn is a great guy, we’ve been e-mailing and exchanging books through the mail. He does two wonderful podcasts, one on gun rights called “The Urban Shooter Podcast“, and one about sex, marriage and God called “Naked but Not Ashamed.” I’m subscribed to both. I’m happy to have this cat as a friend.

The second book I’m digging is ex-cop Massad Ayoob’s “The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery.”

Great book, with a mindblowing amount of information. Aimed at training cops, but useful info to civilians, especially about disarming armed people if need be. This book also has enough smarts and class to mention Reverend Kenn.

Here’s a PDF scan of that section. (Excerpting covered under US Copyright law under “Fair Use of short excerpts for Literary Critique.”)

Michael W. Dean

Little side note: Anyone who thinks that legal gun ownership is a white-boy sport, I have to point out that I’m learning more from a black guy and an Arab-American then from anyone else at this point.

Debra Jean and I bought two new 9mm handguns today. We went to buy one, but couldn’t decide on which to get, so got one for her and one for me.

She got the “girly gun”, the Smith & Wesson Model 908S semi-automatic pistol. It’s a small concealed carry model. (We’re gonna apply to get carry permits. Wish us luck. We live in California.)

DJ’s gun (expanded photo size not actual size. They’re small, but not that small, and are pretty hearty):

I got the 910S semi-auto pistol. It’s basically the same gun, but an inch longer, a little heaver, with a larger-capacity magazine. (10 shots max in California, hers holds 8.)

My gun:

We have to wait ten days to pick them up, but we bought ‘em. They were on sale. They list for 650 each. We spent 1200 Including the testing, the background checks, tax, and a book on self-defense laws and technique, and a book on first aid.

We had to pass a state-mandated written safety test. It’s got 30 questions, you are allowed to get 6 wrong. We studied on the car ride there. DJ missed none, I missed one. Here’s the PDF of the California government study guide we used.

We’re psyched! Can’t wait to play. (And practicing at the range will be much cheaper than with the shotgun.  9mm parabellum ammo is about 30 cents per shot, shotgun is a dollar a shot.)

We bought them now instead of later, because if Obama gets elected, he plans to make it LOT harder to buy a gun. He’s got a bad record on legal gun ownership and gun rights.

This is a photo of the path that used to be solid ivy. It’s from two years of me walking every other day or so to fill the birdfeeder on the back of our house. I’ve beat a lot of metaphoric paths in my life, but this is my first literal path.

I’ve lived with Debra Jean for two years today. We call it our second “nestiversary”, i.e. two years to the day from when I moved in with her (I moved in with her on 8/7/6, we got married shortly after that, and had been together almost a year when I moved in.)

It’s been a wonderful time. I love her, and I love living with her, and I love being out of the hood - being where it’s safer, and quiet enough for me to think.

I finally beat my own path in life, with someone I’m loving being with.

MEW! We’re so very happy.

(Photo by Becky Haycox.)

=========

Me and the wife seceded today. Not from the USA, but from the WORLD. We’ve declared our property a sovereign nation called NESTLANDIA.

Does anyone know what it takes to get a top-level domain? We really want .nest

Julie Peasley (who is a good friend, and also taught me how to use Quark, which is what I use to lay out my books with) has come out with a line of plush toys that are subatomic particles. They’re doing so well that she’s had to hire people to help keep up with the orders. I’m very proud of her.

This just goes to show what I have always believed: that if you just do art for the sake of art, and you’re good, eventually, something will catch on commercially, create a zitegiest.

Here’s an article about her company in the Denver Post.

Here’s her company’s website: ParticleZoo.net

(Photo above by Sean Maytum.)

Download episode 0070 of Clone The Homeless

THY WILL BE DONE. hy Will Be Done

Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean, being of sound mind and body, have a will-signing party. Their friends George Earth, Becky Haycox and Lydia Lam come over and sign as witnesses. Everyone has a great time, nibbling good food, giving each other backrubs, laughing, and chatting. They play with some electrical devices, then talk about personal stories about The Mentors, El Duce, MDC, Franco from MDC, Danny Plotnick, Moterbooty magazine, and Bomb touring with the Flaming Lips.

They talk about Jethro Tull (greatest band ever, sort of), people who don’t take care of their kids, why all humor is to stave off fear of death, fun with guns, home security and spy cameras, and they wonder if Kurt Cobain was murdered or offed himself.

Chris and I have worked on several projects together. And he’s the tech editor on the YouTube book I’m working on.

He’s really creative. Check out his stuff.

The YouTube book I’m writing with Alan, YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts, doesn’t come out for four months, and we’re still writing it. But it’s not only on Amazon, but it’s already at #76,142 in sales on Amazon!

It’s on Target too.

It’s common for publishers to put the book on Amazon before it’s done, but I’ve never had it rank this well in pre-order sales this far out from the street date. Yay!

My friend jezebel from back in the day’s art site, wormintruder.com

Very cool art, Flash animations, video, words, music, and more. Loads kinda slow, but worth it.

I used to write her love letters. I’ll still write love letters to her art.

Click this image for cool video of her:

Check it out: http://www.plotbox.blogspot.com/

Danny’s smart as heck, has a great outlook on life, and has been making films (on film) longer than most filmmakers have known about filmmaking. I’ve known Danny since 1987, and he influenced me to become a filmmaker. Read what he says, and subscribe. It’s good.

Also, subscribe to his excellent podcast, “Nest of Vipers.” It’s the only podcast (other than my own) that I’m subscribed to. Has great guests, and wonderful and wry cultural chit chat from California’s movers and shakers.

And GET TORRENT for Danny’s film “Out of Print.”

“Out of Print” is an ode to the counterculture of the 80s and 90s, when finding quality culture was a real treasure hunt. 4 minutes long. Will be loved by anyone old enough to have ever collected actual vinyl, or anyone who knows what a zine is. Film is a sort of tone poem to what indie media was like before the Internet.

Credits: Voice Over by Bucky Sinister. Appearance by Eric Grotke. Photos by Murray Bowles. Music by Alison Faith Levy & Mushroom. Sound Engineer: Chris Xefos. Cinematography by Christian Bruno & Danny Plotnick. Post-production audio fluffing: Michael W. Dean.

Awards: Finalist, Underground Filmmakers Festival.

(photo of Danny Plotnick by Becky Haycox)

“CLONE THE HOMELESS” podcast complete archive.

GET TORRENT.

First 69 episodes of Clone The Homeless podcast. http://www.clonethehomeless.com/ episodes average 1 hour. High-quality recordings, 128k 16-bit MP3s.

Full archive is 2.4 gigs, but is unzipped, allowing you to take only what you want, or the whole thing if you really wish to immerse yourself.

Podcast from author/filmmaker Michael W. Dean, covering an array of topics from sex, drugs, rock and roll, cats, survivalist ideals, utopia, anti-utopia, DIY art production and dissemination, being self-employed as an artist, marriage, three-way sex, the Olympics, rock and roll, love, sex, Chinese medicine, dealing with life on life’s terms, growing old with punk rock grace, cat care tips, not giving a shit what anyone thinks of you, and making your mark on the world.

Mostly interviews and yacking with Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean, includes interviews with Skip Lunch and with London May (Tiger Army, Samhain, Dag Nasty.)

All files copyright PEEP! Press, 2006-2008.

feel free to share with anyone for non-commercial use.

Produced by Michael W. Dean.

contact info for Michael W. Dean at http://www.stinkfight.com

leni wrote:

I use DreamHost.com. They’re pretty good and give tons of throughput, way more than anyone else for the price ($120 a year, and I host two blogs and two high-throughput podcasts, and still don’t use all they allow me.)

They just sent me an e-mail that has codes to give people a discount (and I get some free months if you use them.) Below is the e-mail, if you use one of these codes, post a comment on here with which one you used, so I can take it off the list.

Sign up is here.

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I hate television. But I still watch it, because very occasionally it suprises me. Last night I was channel flipping in disgust at 4 am, and ran across the video for the new song “I will possess your heart” by the band Death Cab for Cutie. View the video here.

I know this band is huge, and you probably think I’m the last person in the world to discover them. But I’ve heard this band before, and didn’t love them. Way too poppy for me. But this one song blew me away. And I usually hate rock video (it’s too “advertising based”). But I entirely loved the feeling of isolation and beauty in this one. Shows the band playing in a freezer room, interspliced with a young woman traveling the world alone. As DJ put it, “She’s seeing these places, but she’s not really seeing them.” The song is amazing…sort of Joy Division meets Bomb meets the music I’d want played at my funeral (if I wanted a funeral, which I don’t).

I even love the title of the song…it’s a sentiment that would be creepy in the maw of some singers, but works with this one. Interestingly, I read an interview with the singer after seeing the video, where he said it was about a stalker’s obsession with an unrequited love. I didn’t get that thought at all. But I guess I’m at an age where nothing ever enters my mind about wanting to have anyone anywhere near my life who doesn’t want me there. I took it as the singer and the girl knew each other, and were spending some time together. Didn’t have a thought of “will they meet again”? though I did like that the avoided the rock video cliche of having them meet in some capacity at the end.

I could do without the middle-eight in this song, but it’s short enough not to distract. (God I hate three-act format, in film, AND in music.)

It’s a truly stunning song, stunning video….I just gaped my eyes open. Listening to it now. You should be too.