The Mandela Effect and WTF?

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I was born in 1974 and therefore grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. There are a lot of things I remember very clearly from my time growing up (and some that I don’t). What I do know is that all of these memories are real. I can remember the color of the first telephone we had in our house… and how it had a long, dangling cord that I would sit on and swing back and forth when I was a wee, little child. I can remember the brand name of the flush valve handle that was on the toilet in that house, the tile pattern in dad’s den, the color of the carpet dad bought at the local hotel when they remodeled (I think it was then a Best Western and still is), the phone numbers as well as addresses of all of my local friends (y’know, within Continue reading The Mandela Effect and WTF?→

Pain don’t hurt

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I get bored when I’m not home incessantly fucking with my wife about every silly thing (I still have no idea how I tricked my wife into marrying me) so I end up looking up equally silly stuff on the internet instead. Today, I was wondering why I’ve never had a headache… I need to caveat that by saying that I don’t have a lot of memories of what went on in my youth and I may have had headaches then, but I don’t now. Also, I do experience sinus pressure in the mucus membrane when I have a cold or the flu, or other viruses, but that’s just pressure right behind my face. I don’t consider that a headache. In the broader term, I don’t get headaches. It turns out that the “never getting headaches” thing goes a bit deeper. It’s most likely not that I don’t get headaches, Continue reading Pain don’t hurt→

Music is universal, but not generational…

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I know that I have I have 100% been ‘That Guy’ in relation to this particular subject. The music I heard when I was between about 12 and 18 years old rules the Goddam world. Nothing before or since has ever even come close to it. I would swear that on a bible! Every other person that lives on planet earth would swear the same, but based on the music they listen to. For at least a decade, I thought that those who didn’t appreciate my music simply hadn’t heard my music. If they had heard it, I reasoned, they would fucking love it. … Not so much. The image below shows some other guy (with a youtube channel) reaching that same realization: He’s way into it, she’s doing her best to force her frown the other way (and not making it happen). She just doesn’t like this music. In Continue reading Music is universal, but not generational…→

Dunn’s River Falls, Jamaica

Posted on May 6, 2017 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I have to admit that I was absolutely ecstatic when my wife suggested this as a trip when we went to Jamaica. Mostly because I had read the fine print that she obviously ignored. This excursion is a bus ride to the middle of nowhere, followed by trekking up a waterfall (hiking up said waterfall. About 900 feet, but straight up, and in water). I was on board from word go. The wife, on the other hand, became less excited with every passing second. Our marriage was at it’s strongest when this photo was taken: That photo, incidentally, was taken just before she realized that we were about to march up a waterfall. The first stretch of the climb is pictured here: If you’re searching for the word, I will throw it in here: terrifying. There is something about the natural beauty of waterfalls that allows you to forget that Continue reading Dunn’s River Falls, Jamaica→

Refinishing a guitar – the hardware

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I posted about actually trying to strip and refinish an Ibanez G10 guitar a while back, but I recently found this post regarding the hardware I put into it was still in draft state. So here is the how and why in regards to the pickups I put in the guitar. They cost more than the guitar did. When I was refinishing that G10, I realized (shortly after the first coat of blue -you know, well before it started to look really cool) that it wouldn’t matter how awesome it looked if it didn’t sound great. The stock humbuckers really sounded pretty good as far as stock humbuckers go. I wouldn’t call them ‘meaty’ but there was definitely some well-designed, whey-and-soy-based-product there which simulated meat fairly well. They sounded resoundingly okay, but okay wasn’t good enough. Now that I have a guitar that I’ve taken down to bare wood, I Continue reading Refinishing a guitar – the hardware→

VIPAttractions.com Jamaica — Fraud

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Update 4/24/17 After making this post and sending a link to the company with this post, links to my social media posts, and my review on Tripadvisor (where I am slowly becoming an actual voice… level 4 reviewer with over 10,000 reviews read) they relented. They sent me an apology email this morning as well as a refund. That’s great. But they were still relentless cunts through the entire process so the reviews on all sites will stand. Stop jerking around your customers, assholes! Original post 4/23/17: VIP Attractions is evidently an airport service offered to those who arrive in (and depart from) Montgo Bay and Kingston, Jamaica. It is purported to be a ‘rush service’ through customs on arrival, and a bar to sit in while you wait for departure. All of that may be true, but I wouldn’t know. I paid for the service, but never got to Continue reading VIPAttractions.com Jamaica — Fraud→

My first full guitar build: Semi-hollow body

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

So, after some promising but lackluster results with my attempt to refinish a damaged Ibanez G10 guitar I figured why not go whole hog and do one from the ground up? To add a ton to the degree of complexity, I decided to go with a semi-hollow body guitar for full build number one. To further add to the difficulty, I chose to dye the wood grain rather than paint over it. Because seriously, when you’re learning to ski, are you going to learn more on the Bunny Slopes or on K12? (and kudos to anyone who got that reference without clicking the link. So I ordered up a kit and set to finishing it. The body looked like this coming out of the box: The front had a beautiful grain that I figured I’d be able to finish without much of an issue. Seriously, it looked like I could Continue reading My first full guitar build: Semi-hollow body→

Refinishing a guitar – a work in progress

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Shadowtwin — 2 Comments ↓

A few weeks back, I had the brilliant idea to try to use one of those websites to print out a ‘guitar skin’ to try to finish a guitar with some of the imagery from one of my book covers (no link to the site because the resulting image sucked so incredibly hard). Let me say here that I had absolutely zero percent confidence that it would work, and that confidence was not misplaced. Do not try any of these services for a photo-realistic image. The image I used was one I created specifically for the project. That image was the full-sized version of this image (I am using a screen-friendly 2500×2000 version of it here, but the image sent to the manufacturer was a much less reasonable 10000×7800 @ 300dpi -which should have been suitable to print an image roughly 50×40 inches with reasonable detail): It turns out that Continue reading Refinishing a guitar – a work in progress→

Metallica - One

Citing Metallica's song 'One' as 'music lost to history' probably doesn't make much sense to most. In this case, I don't think the song is lost to history, but the video is.

When this video dropped (I'd guess it was about 1989) I thought it was the most powerful video I had ever seen. Now, nearly thirty years later, I still believe it is the most powerful music video ever made.

The story may not be completely unique (the imagery is recycled -but from a film that was so old that my -then fifteen or sixteen year old- eyes had never seen. My now forty-five-ish year old eyes had never seen it either) but that video is shot and edited so well that you will be crying by the end. If, that is, you have a heart.

The video for Metallica's One surpassed all expectations for music videos, set the mark for what music videos would, could, and should be. It rocketed the group from garage band to the biggest group that ever lived. This single video defines not just that band, but the entire genre.

No other video has ever had such an impact on on the world of music. Not Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video (which I believe to this day gets far too much credit) not The Beastie Boys song Sabotage which was a wonderful throwback to the seventies era cop show, but which I believe, also gets credit far beyond it's worth. Metallica's video for One, on the other hand, didn't try to look like anything more than it was. It was a hard-rocking song and Metallica used some masterful movie clips to add to the morose feel that the instruments generated. That video, for that song, was absolutely perfect.

It is without any form of doubt that I say the video for Metallica's song One was, and ever will be, the best video ever made. Don't take my word for it though, watch the video above (with low light and in a dark room) . If it doesn't move your heart, you're living this life all wrong.

July 2017

Cancer: 6/22-7/22
For 34 years you have been painstakingly removing a single hair from the head of each of woman you murder -with plans to weave them into a belt. A mishap involving a a candle-warmer, a vacuum cleaner, and the police breaking down the door to take you 'dead or alive' will bring your collecting days to an unfortunate end.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
Your plan to rook your boyfriend into marrying you by faking a pregnancy will fail this week. There are several reasons why this plan will fail: 1) you have denied him sex for your entire relationship, promising him that flower on the honeymoon. 2) You actually are pregnant. 3) You've been wearing a T-shirt that says 'Gold Digger' on it since the day you met him. 4) The single strand of hair that the Cancer (horoscope above) pulls from your head will be the one and only time he leaves his own DNA at the crime scene.

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
Okay, maybe the stars have been a bit harsh. They know you are a good guy, but you've made a lot of mistakes. The stars are willing to meet at Gina's Coffee Shop on July 12th at noon. If you aren't there, you may as well write off visitation of your kids.

Libra: 9/23-10/22
98% That is the specific number you will give your wife before you jump out of the plane. That optimistic chance of survival will slowly fade as you realize that gravity doesn't care a great deal if you have your arms out or not: Terminal velocity is terminal velocity. Your attempt to recreate the famous scene from the movie Point Break will end just as it should have in the movie: A horrible mass of flesh and bone several miles away from the guy who actually did have the parachute.

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
The stars have a huge "to do" list. As such, your childhood wish to have sex with Anna Nichole Smith will finally come true this week. No, there's no way to stop it. The stars do apologize for the lateness of the fulfillment of this request, but they think your friends will count it anyway.

Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
You've seen the movie The Number 23 exactly twenty-two times. You've built your life around avoiding that number. You''ll feel supremely confident when you leave your house on 07/12/2017. But, on 07/12/2017, you will step onto the sidewalk only to be struck and killed by a drunk driver. The time of impact? Exactly 11:01:00am on 07/12/2017. You will have exactly enough time to add up the digits of the date AND time: 1+1+0+1+0+0+0+7+1+2+2+0+1+7=23. Your realization that any date, time, or irrelevant number can be made to equal 23 will be moot.

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars have been watching you. And your daughter. Oh my, how we have been watching your daughter... Blah, blah, something about a star rising in Orion, blah, blah. The stars will definitely offer you better guidance once that daughter is of legal age.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
Every man wants to die a hero. That's human nature. But you have obsessed about it. When little Johnny accidentally starts a fire in his trash can this week, you should calmly walk out of the house with everyone else. If you happen to stand in Johnny's room screaming "take me, I'm the one you want!" That action may be ill-perceived by the police. The firefighters aren't even going to respond; the trash can fire burned itself out without even melting the plastic of the can.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Billy-Ray has been wearing that mullet for thirty damn years, so you figured yours would be fine, too. You'll soon realize that Billy-ray can rock that hairdo because he doesn't have to get it near the shake machine at Dairy Queen. You, on the other hand, have to get those lovely locks right up in there. Or, your now-naked scalp did.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
While the police report will read "failed attempt to jump the Grand Canyon", and the coroner's report will read "severe blunt-force trauma", everyone who knows you will know that they should have read "Eh, I think I can make it."

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Rape. It's a big, scary word. It will also be the most appropriate word for what the biggest guy in jail is about to do to you. Please confer with a Cancer for advice on how to handle it.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
Yeah, your Lyft driver is also carrying a knife. Unwanted advances will also result in removal of the penis. Keep it in your pants. Unless, of course, the Uber driver already handed it to you. In that case you can wave that thing around like a flag. You're probably not going to get a ride, but you are going to be one in a very exclusive group of men who can 'wave it around like a flag'.