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Greyhawk68

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Posts by John Roling:

Favorite Music of 2024

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A Fantastic Year for Music

As you know, I am a music junkie, and have been my whole life.  Each year I like to listen to as much new stuff as possible and come up with a list of my favorites.  You will find that list below.   Bring Me The Horizon killed it as usual, and after Jordan Fish left the band, he helped produce an EP for House of Protection.  HoP are two former members of Fever 333, and I LOVE what they put out.  In fact, I was one of the top 1000 listeners to them on Apple Music.  

There were great new albums by Sueco, Alkaline Trio, the aforementioned Fever 333 and more.  Neck Deep put out one of the absolute best pop/punk albums I’ve heard in years, and then I found BILMURI for the first time.   Now, Bilmuri is considered kind of a mix of emo, hardcore and country, with some awesome saxophone thrown in.  It’s weird as hell, and his videos are even weirder, but I played it more than anything else this year.

Groups such as Better Than Ezra and X Ambassadors put out really great albums as well, but the biggest revival was Linkin Park, who released their album From Zero.   I love the new vocalist Emily Armstrong, and the album was very strong.  I was very happy to have them back.

There are more good albums on the horizon for 2025, and dark times make great music.  So I imagine we’ll have some albums of a lifetime coming out soon 🙂

  • Bring Me The Horizon – POST HUMAN:NeX GEn
  • Sueco – Attempted Lover
  • BILMURI – American Motor Sports
  • Linkin Park – From Zero
  • Alkaline Trio – Blood, Hair, And Eyeballs
  • Neck Deep – Neck Deep
  • The Used – MEDZ
  • Stand Atlantic – WAS HERE
  • Your Broken Hero – The End?
  • Better Than Ezra – Super Magick
  • X Ambassadors – Townie
  • Sum 41 – Heaven x Hell
  • Yours Truly – Toxic
  • Fever 333 – Darker White
  • House of Protection – GALORE -EP
  • State Champs – State Champs

Honorable Mention – Judas Priest, Ninja Sex Party, Maggie Lindemann, Nothing Nowhere, Green Day, Mick Mars, Anberlin, Jack White

Glad The Blog is Still Here

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Your dark’s too vivid, the light’s not there

My last post went up Dec. 10th but I had written it immediately after the election.  The problem was, when I went to post it, I found that my website had been infected with malware.  The infection took out several of my personal sites as well as one of my friend’s business sites which I maintain for him.  So everything went dark for a bit.

It took several weeks of back and forth with my hosting provider (whom I’ve been with for over two decades) as well as some paid professional services to get everything cleaned up.   Due to how things got infected and cleaned, my provider couldn’t figure out how the malware/hackers got in.  It took quite a bit to get things all sorted, and the infection popped up a couple more times before we finally seemed to have it under control.

During that downtime, I faced the realization that I might lose two decades of posts here.  Part of it was fairly liberating to be honest.  But the other, more nagging part, was that I was going to miss all of that history.  In addition, I would miss writing here, especially during the next four years.

No, I don’t plan on writing a bunch of political stuff (although it may happen from time to time) but rather I want to lean into art.   I restarted my Flickr account, and have started to post on Bluesky.  I plan on focusing quite a bit on photography, videography and other creative endeavors.

I have to admit this is all me trying to distract myself from the abject horrors that are sure to surface under the new regime.  The last term almost broke me, so I’m going to go to try to insulate myself a bit better this time.  Art, writing, and learning new technology will fuel me.  I hope you can find the things you need to help you as well.   Be kind to each other.

And today’s title is from Two Faced by Linkin Park, one of my albums of the year.  My music post will get here soon but the line “your dark’s too vivid, the light’s not there” was a really powerful turn of phrase for me.  Vivid darkness is a kick ass concept.  Thanks LP.

…time to find out

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Stages of Grief - Acceptance

During this recent election, America showed me what it truly is.  I had hoped that the first term was an abomination, but no, this really IS America. The electorate made this choice knowing what it was getting.  I have to accept that, yet it makes me sad.

You can call me a snowflake with my woke tendencies, but I think everyone deserves to live their life their own way.   As long as you aren’t hurting anyone else, its no one else’s business how you live.  Live and let live.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.

But that’s not what you see from the president elect.

  • You see homophobia.
  • You see transphobia.
  • You see racism.
  • You see xenophobia.
  • You see sexism.
  • You see narcissism.
  • You see hate.

No matter whether he was speaking on the evils of windmills, getting his black people mixed up, talking about mass deportations, extolling the virtues of fictional serial killers, or giving his microphone a happy ending, it was all laced with elements of the above.

I cannot help but think of a lyric from Calypso on the song The Exorcist:

“Love thy neighbor, right?

Or is it only if they’re

Rich, able-bodied, cis, hetero and white?”

A red voter this year might say that they themselves show none of those horrible character flaws.  Maybe.  Maybe that IS the case, but even if that is somehow true, you’ve proven that those hateful things are not deal breakers for you.  You can look the other way because your team wins.  

That doesn’t mean you are a good person.  That means you are an accomplice.  You are still hurting others. 

34 felonies?  No biggie.  Banging a porn star while his current wife is pregnant?  He’s a true Christian. Being an actual sexual assaulter who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy? Well, he didn’t assault MY daughter.  

Ask any woman you know who has been assaulted, and they’ll tell you how horrible this decision by America feels.  It’s just one of many that have been actively hostile towards women recently.

You chose the felon over the actual prosecutor who put bad people in jail.  You want to support the police, yet you put the actual criminal in office.  Somehow, this is all fine to you.  Somehow, you justify it in your mind. Somehow, most police ALSO wanted the felon (unless of course they worked at the Capitol.)

The cognitive dissonance that goes on here is on a level I cannot comprehend. I don’t know how so many people, whom he wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, worship him.  It will never make sense.

I guess it’s time to see what everyone voted for.

The Death of Reality

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When Eyes Wide Open Means Eyes Wide Shut

Remember the good old days when a photograph was a reliable capture of reality? You’d snap a picture, and there it was—a genuine representation of that moment in time. Fast forward to today, and it’s a whole different ballgame. Thanks to the wonders of digital manipulation, it’s getting harder and harder to trust that what we’re seeing is anywhere close to the truth.

Take Google’s feature that ensures no one’s eyes are shut in photos, for example. Sounds like a lifesaver, right? No more pictures ruined by that one person blinking at the wrong time. But here’s the kicker: the photo you end up with isn’t actually real. It’s a composite image, pieced together from various frames to create an “ideal” moment that never actually happened.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I appreciate not having to sift through dozens of shots to find one where everyone’s eyes are open. But at the same time, it’s a bit disconcerting to think that this “perfect” photo is, in reality, a fabrication. We’re no longer capturing moments as they are; we’re creating an illusion of perfection.

And it’s not just Google. Everywhere you look, digital manipulation is creeping into our photos and videos. From filters that smooth our skin and whiten our teeth to apps that can swap out backgrounds and even change our facial expressions, the line between what’s real and what’s fake is becoming increasingly blurred.

These edits shape our memories in ways we might not even realize. We look back at photos from a vacation and see sun-drenched beaches and smiling faces, but the truth might be that it rained the whole time and the kids were grumpy. Over time, the edited photos become our memories, replacing the less-than-perfect reality with a curated version of events.

It’s a weird time for digital photography, no doubt about it. On one hand, we have more control than ever over how we present ourselves and our lives to the world. On the other hand, we’re losing touch with authenticity. We’re creating a version of reality that’s more like a glossy magazine spread than a true reflection of our experiences.

So, where does that leave us? Are we witnessing the death of reality in photography? It’s hard to say. But one thing’s for sure: the next time you see a flawless photo or video, take it with a grain of salt. Because in this age of digital manipulation, what you see is rarely what you get.

In the end, maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe these edited photos can help us see the world—and ourselves—in a more positive light. But let’s not forget to appreciate the unedited, imperfect moments, too. After all, sometimes the most genuine moments are the ones where someone’s eyes are shut.

Lastly, I want to point out that everything before this paragraph was generated and written by AI.  I told AI to adopt a persona of myself based on this blog, and prompted it to write this out with some themes and points that I had, and quite frankly, it did a damn good job.  I left it fully unedited.  My point for this whole exercise was that from now on, you will never be able to tell if any photo or video was reality at the time.  It most certainly was not, and we will gaslight ourselves into thinking it was.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet.  I’ll keep playing around and let you know.

Park Avenue leads to Skid Row

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We are the Youth (?) Gone Wild

Once again, it’s been a bit. Not sure if I can still call this a blog if I’m only posting a couple of times a year. But hey, I felt like writing, so here we are.

It’s been a good year so far. Went on my first cruise and loved it, had a nice Vegas trip, made it to a quick family reunion, and also got to see a pretty amazing concert.

One of my longtime favorite bands is Skid Row. Recently their lead singer had to quit the band due to his health. The band had four dates booked that they had to fulfill, so they needed someone to fill in on lead vocals. I don’t think they could have found anyone better for the role than one Lzzy Hale of Halestorm.

It was at a ballroom in a small casino in Riverside, Iowa. I made the trip with a couple of my good friends and got to enjoy one hell of a concert. If you want to see how insane Lzzy is, and how good she sounds as the voice of Skid Row, check out one of my favorite Skid Row songs of all time, Quicksand Jesus.

After the pandemic, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need to see live music. I was wrong.

Speaking of the pandemic, after that Vegas trip, we caught COVID for the second time.  It was worse this time around and it was a pretty miserable couple of weeks isolating.    Hopefully this means I am good for awhile. 

As for here, I have some ideas of things I want to discuss.  I look forward to getting the creative juices flowing again.  For now, I’ll just get back to listening to the new Bring Me The Horizon album non-stop.  You should probably do that too.

Best Music of 2023

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Some uplifting music this year even!

This year wasn’t nearly as depressing and angry on the music front as last Favorite Albums of 2023year, and there was some amazing stuff in rotation.   It was definitely a great music year.  Special emphasis on Beartooth for being a positive force, Sleep Token for pushing genres, Pierce the Veil for being the perfect album when I needed it, Hoodie Allen with one of the best breakup albums of all time, and Bad Omens, who technically came out at the tail end of 2022, but I’ve listened to them nearly nonstop since I found them.  Such a great album.  To hear songs from everyone below (including the honorable mentions) you can check it out on Apple Music here.

  • Sleep Token – Take Me Back to Eden
  • Bad Omens – The Death of Peace of Mind
  • Piece The Veil – The Jaws of Life
  • The Used – Toxic Positivity
  • ILLENIUM – ILLENIUM
  • Waterparks – INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
  • Hoodie Allen – Bub
  • All Time Low – Tell Me I’m Alive
  • Beartooth – The Surface
  • Story of the Year – Tear Me to Pieces
  • Nine Days – Slow Motion Life, Pt. 1
  • The Menzingers – Some of it Was True
  • Taking Back Sunday – 152
  • Thirty Seconds to Mars – It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day
  • Lil Lotus – Nosebleeder

Honorable mentions: NF, Therapy?, Fall Out Boy. Depeche Mode, Skrillex, Paramore, MOD SUN, Extreme, Jason Mraz, grandson, K.Flay, Ren

Hello There Stranger

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Or holy crap, how has it been a whole year?

I’ve sat down to write numerous times this past year, and just never felt like finishing anything.  I just wasn’t mentally into documenting the crap I was going through.   I won’t touch on it too much other than I’m happy 2023 is about done. 

I will mention that nearly two and half years after we went into lockdowns and I started writing my COVID Diaries, my wife, youngest daughter, and I finally caught COVID.  It hit us around the fourth of July holiday so we were stuck at home, and I was hit pretty hard.  I can only imagine how bad it would have been had I not been immunized.  But it was inevitable, and now that’s something else checked off the list.  I just got my most recent booster, so hopefully I can avoid a winter strain.

The world is currently in chaos. We are around two years since Russia invaded Ukraine and there is no end in sight to that conflict. And now, Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas after its terrorist attack over a month ago.  There are hate crimes rising against Jews and Muslims around the world.   It’s like a holiday for racist white people.  It just sucks, because I don’t want innocent people to die on either side. I’m against violence of any kind, especially when attacks have a blatant disregard for innocent life.  There has been a recent pause in fighting while hostages have been traded.  Hopefully that is a sign there can be some negotiation, even though the cease fires just ended.

So the world is a powder keg and there is a possible super volcano ready to erupt in Iceland.  Yes, seriously.  So we have that going for us.

One thing I wanted to touch on is that I lost one of my childhood best friends this past year to a heart attack.  He was two years younger than myself, and in much better shape.  It really hammered home how fragile life is and how quickly things can change.  I hadn’t spoken to him in years, but we were inseparable during the summer months.  Playing baseball, basketball and golf while riding around on our mopeds… It was a shock to my system at a time where I was very low myself.  In fact, a couple week prior I had gone to the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack, only to find out it was anxiety.

To recover from my episode to hear my old friend had died was fairly devastating, but it gave me a renewed sense of wanting to be healthier.

I finally got tests done at the doctor that showed I had been dealing with a stomach bacterial infection for the last couple years that was causing me a lot of issues.   I felt sick a good portion of the last two years and this was probably the culprit.   After finally getting the tests, we were able to attack it with antibiotics. In January I’ll get some additional tests to make sure it was fully eradicated. I’m already feeling a ton better, so I’m hopeful.

I’ve also closed my exercise rings on my Apple Watch every day this year. That is definitely having a positive impact as well.  Even on my sickest days I made sure to at least shuffle along on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  I’m feeling a lot better today than I have in a long time.  And that’s good, because I want to be around a long time.

In other news, we passed a milestone in September.   We marked 20 years of this blog. For the last 20 years, I have documented my life, shared technology, bitched about the state of the world, opined about music, gushed over gadgets and fell in love, and then out of of love, with social media.  This blog was always written for me, to document what was going on in my life and to share it with the world.   At times there were an unfathomable amount of people reading, and nowadays, maybe only a few. I hope I have enlightened, entertained, provoked or helped everyone reading this in some way.  No matter whether we were close, or we never met, I hope this place has given you something.

Thanks for sticking around, and I don’t just mean the blog.  I’m really glad you have.   Keep fucking going.

2022 Music Top Albums

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The Year of Angry, Defiant and Depressing Music

2022 was a rough year, and with it I listened to a lot of angry and rather depressing music.  That said, music has always been my emotional outlet, and these albums helped me “keep fucking going” in 2022.  Metalcore factored in heavily, with insanely good albums from I Prevail, Architects, Silverstein, Sleeping with Sirens and Motionless in White.  I still listened to some great pop punk with Sueco, Papa Roach, Stand Atlantic, Magnolia Park and State Champs.  Mix in some emo and whatever Jeris Johnson is and that rounded out the majority of my listening.

Avril Lavigne had a resurgence with a really fantastic pop punk album and Demi Lovato moved away from pop to arguably one of the best pop punk albums of the year as well.   Polyphia are a prog rock group who have some of the most intricate guitar work I’ve ever heard and they were so vibey for upbeat background music for working and writing.

Dermot Kennedy and Tyrone Wells had great adult alternative albums, Machine Gun Kelly had another punk album and I really liked about half the album.  Then Jack White blew me away with Fear of the Dawn which I can only describe as “sounds like Jack White” as he’s pretty much a genre unto himself.  Hell even 80’s glam metal band Skid Row got a new singer and put out an excellent album of rock (if still a bit dated.)

Music is my lifeline, and I now have my perfect listening environment in my home theater.  I’ve spent countless hours sitting in the Dolby Atmos sweet spot just letting the music wash over me.  Some of these albums had such good multi-channel mixes too.  I’m experiencing this music on a whole new level.  I’ve finally reached a childhood goal.  That was definitely a positive for the year.

Here’s to as much good music in 2023, and maybe a little more uplifting.  If you want to check out the best songs from my favorite new releases of the year, you can check it out here on Apple Music.

  • I Prevail – True Power
  • Architects – The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit
  • Sueco – It Was Fun While it Lasted
  • Sleeping With Sirens – Complete Collapse
  • Silverstein – Misery Made Me
  • Jack White – Fear of the Dawn
  • Papa Roach – Ego Trip
  • The Wonder Years – The Hum Goes On Forever
  • Jeris Johnson – I wan BLOOD/I want love
  • Polyphia – Remember That You Will Die
  • Magnolia Park – Heart Eater EP
  • State Champs – Kings of the New Age
  • Stand Atlantic – f.e.a.r.
  • Palaye Royale – Fever Dream
  • Motionless in White – Scoring The End of the World
  • Avril Lavigne – Love Sux

Honorable Mention: Demi Lovato, Dermot Kennedy, Electric Callboy, Tyrone Wells, Machine Gun Kelly

COVID Diaries Pt. 29

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The End?

The end of what you may ask?  Well, I guess I will say it is the end of this series at least.  No one in the States is paying ANY attention to COVID at all.  Other than the immunocompromised that is. 

Shortly after my last post, the CDC posted new guidelines that basically amounted to “Eh, we give up.”  So, people basically did.  You would be hard pressed to see many precautions any longer. Everything has basically eased back into what normal seems like.  Which means people are catching and passing around COVID all the time, but if you aren’t testing, you might not even know.  My mom had it for a second time during this period, and it was nothing more than a mild cold this time around. 

At least one positive is the release of the Omicron focused booster shots.  They are out now, which should hopefully help combat the most common variants that are still circulating.  COVID isn’t over, but I’m sure it will end up becoming more of a yearly flu situation.  As such, this morning I got my updated booster AND my flu shot.  So hopefully I’m well protected for the fall.

Let’s see, what else happened since June?  The war in the Ukraine is still raging on, Boris Johnson resigned and the Queen died in the UK, R. Kelly was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life, there was another mass shooting in Highland Park, IL, James Caan, Ivana Trump, Anne Heche and Oliva Newton John all died.  Mar-a-Lago got raided due to improper storage and handling of classified documents, a childhood friend committed suicide, the NFL season began and a neighbor destroyed a privacy wall of trees on over 300 feet of my property.   So yeah, it’s been a hectic couple of months, and most of the news kinda sucked.

On the good side, Biden got some legislation through that should help the economy and the middle class.  He also is forgiving some student load debt, so that’s huge for a lot of people as well.  Things are trending well going into the mid-terms.  We’ll see if it makes any difference.

I’ve also been trying to buy a car for the last several months, and it has been a nightmare.  I want a hybrid as my last two cars were also hybrids.  I like being less reliant on gas and having the emissions better for the environment as well.  The problem is, due to sky high gas prices, EVERYONE wants hybrids. I haven’t been able to see the model I want in person because they are all sold before they ever hit a dealer’s lot.  I’ve had my name on waiting lists at several places, and even went to buy one, until they showed me the bill with a 20 percent markup of the price due to inventory scarcity.  They also added another $1200 in “protective coating”.    They added $7200 to the cost of the car.  I, not so nicely, told them what they could do with their offer.

So, that is ongoing.  I’m finally supposed to have a vehicle coming in October.  I won’t believe it until I’m sitting behind the wheel though.  Fingers crossed.

Lastly, this is a special day for the blog, as it is our 19th anniversary of posting here.  Pretty wild that I’ve been writing down my thoughts on the interwebz for so long.  I want to at least hit the twenty-year mark before I hang this up though, so you’ll have to hear from me a tad bit longer.  Thanks for being a part of the ride.

COVID Diaries Pt. 28

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The End of Roe v. Wade

It’s been a couple months again, but I had to post today with the news that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.  The right to safe abortions will disappear in 13 states within a month and will leave many more shortly thereafter.  Never mind that this has been settled law for nearly five decades.  Never mind that all the recent conservative Justices that were pushed onto the Supreme Court said in interviews that it was settled precedent.  They just changed their minds, or outright lied during their interviews.   And now here we are.

Clarence Thomas also signaled that this could pave the way for removing access to contraception, as well as same-sex marriage.   And his wife Ginni tried to help overturn the election, and that’s just somehow fine.  Things are very bad now, and I fear that they will get worse.

Something else that DID get worse were mass shootings.   Many happened since we last spoke, and the two most prominent ones were a racist hate crime in a black community grocery store in Buffalo, and the school shooting that took the lives of 19 children and several teachers in second to fourth grade classrooms in Texas.   The police waited and didn’t storm the shooter either, preventing possible life saving medical attention to the wounded children.   So MANY good guys with guns were too damn afraid to storm ONE bad guy with an AR-15.  Kind of ruins their whole narrative, doesn’t it? 

In at least a slight, bare minimum glimmer of hope, today it looks like a very basic gun control bill was passed. It’s something, but it’s been so infuriating to see nothing done about this year after year, tragedy after tragedy, death after death.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is still going on, and people here don’t pay much attention, and it’s just so weird that there is that much pain and suffering going on and it’s not really spoken about.  People bitch about gas prices instead.

Yes, gas is near $6 a gallon which is the highest it’s ever been in my lifetime.   But we’re not getting blown up, or our land taken, or our people raped and murdered.  I’ll pay $6 and place the blame where it belongs, greedy oil companies that are making record profits, and Russia for fucking up the international oil supply with their bullshit war.

Oh, I’m still keeping these blog posts titled the COVID Diaries, because COVID *IS* still a thing.   We had a scare with exposure this past week, my nephew and niece contracted it, and it’s at high levels in many parts of the country including our own county.  During these past months, we surpassed ONE MILLION deaths due to COVID as well.  Just a staggering number.

The good thing is that symptoms still tend to be very mild in those that are vaccinated and vaccines were finally approved for young children under 6.  Now everyone can get vaccinated, and soon there will be new vaccines that give even better protection from the Omicron variants.   So at least there is some good news there, even though no one is talking about it or acts like it exists.

What else happened?   Well Naomi Judd committed suicide.  Ray Liotta died in his sleep.  The January 6thcommittee has had hearings that have released a ton of insanely damning evidence. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against the former regime, there are still people going to the rallies of the troglodyte that tried to overthrow the government.  So THAT is still a thing.  And lastly, the fed hiked interest rates to try to stop rampant inflation.

So not a lot of feel good in the headlines the last couple of months.   Keep hanging in there, keep fighting for what you believe in, and keep fucking going.

After today’s horrible Supreme Court ruling, just know that if any of you need to visit my state, and might need a supportive place to stay, just let me know.

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