fuck halloween. it’s stupid, and it’s really the worst in nyc because it gives childish grown-ups an excuse to go BALLS OUT freak-o. we got plenty of freaks here without it being halloween.

fuck it.

it’s fantasy basketball time! just had my draft last night and so far my team looks like this.

starting line-up:

g: t-mac
g: ray allen
f: chris bosh
f: dwight howard
c: stromile swift

bench:

f: antawn jamison
g: michael redd
f: lamar odom
f: james jones
g: ricky davis
c: zaza pachulia

but being the KING of transactions it won’t stay that way for too long… though I do like how my team is looking so far. I could use a solid center, but bosh and howard put up decent big man stats so I’m not too concerned.

I was reading this one article on SI.com, Ark. St. leading scorer out over shoe dispute. it’s about about a basketball player for arkansas state who’s refusing to play this season because he claims his pair of adidas shoes caused him injury and the school, sponsored by adidas, is forcing him to wear them.

sure, it’s kind of stupid. but read the whole thing and tell me if you don’t turn into beavis and butthead when you get to the second to the last line.

so I don’t ever listen to the radio seeing how I don’t drive anywhere. but this past week I had the pleasure of riding in a van for a few days and the driver seemed to love the local hip hop station.

I immediately heard the kanye west song (surely this is the only one, as it’s the only one ever played. gold digger) and I was like “so this is kanye west.”

then like 4 songs later the song came on again.

and again like a few songs later.

and again.

and again.

so the knicks managed to get eddy curry from the bulls. speaking purely as a fanatical fantasy basketball fan, I have never seen a starting center average as few rebounds as this guy. I remember time and time again checking in with this guy’s stats over the past two seasons and never was I impressed with his numbers. not something you’d expect from a guy who was once heralded as “baby shaq” and is commanding a $60M salary.

here’s a guy who’s a wide-body 6′11 starting center averaging the amount of rebounds expected out of a decent guard 6 inches shorter.

my thoughts on the transaction? well, his old jersey number with the bulls (#2) is already taken by mo taylor so he’ll either have to negotiate with him or pick something else.

so kxs hooked me up with her copy of from autumn to ashes‘ latest release abandon your friends. I read a bunch of reviews, albeit off amazon, and it looks like the whole world absolutely fucking hates it.

the knock against it was the standard “they sound nothing like [previous release]” and how they’re alienating all their fans. ok, two things:

1. crying about it isn’t going to deliver a new album of their old stylings.
2. people change.

idiots: bands do this all the time. look at the artists making music right now, and listen to their past several releases. if there isn’t some discernable difference from one album to another, it’s my personal opinion that those people are making music for the money (read: to appease the masses, their label) and not for themselves. or are completely devoid of creativity.

on the other side of the argument there are the bands that change their sound to a more readily digestible radio-friendly format upon signing with a big label. well, those people signed their “art” away for money and are no longer writing music for themselves either.

to sum everything up: get over it. really.

back to from autumn to ashes: the only thing I agree with the kiddies reviewing the album on amazon is that this is indeed two albums mashed into one. there are two very distinct styles on this album with a jagged line going right down the middle. it’s not terribly cohesive, but at the same time I don’t think I could handle a whole album of either style all on its own… so I guess this is the best format for it. the two styles I’m talking about here are the new-school wistful semi-metal emo and the frantic and justice for all-era metallica sound (yeah, not quite raw enough to be anything before justice). these are completely on the opposite ends of the FATA spectrum. and you know what, right now I prefer the wistful sounding stuff with the semi-metal stylings over the forced old school justice type songs.

the bottom line: do I like it? eh, it’s okay.