Author: Dale

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Top 5 Great Guitarists You Haven’t Heard of

I think of myself as a pretty dang good guitarist. I can be pretty cocky about it and get snooty with people who claim to play guitar but only play D, C, G or power chords and have no knowledge of any guitar techniques. My castle made of sand could easily be crumbled if I ran into any of the people on this list. Most people haven’t even heard of them but I deem them to be among the great guitar players. So here they are in no particular order:

Stanley Jordan

I am gonna go ahead and crown him the “King of Hammer-ons”. His bassist is pretty amazing in his own right. Check out this sweet cover and be shocked when he starts playing 2 guitar parts on 2 guitars at the same time:

 

John Fahey

Finger-picking, slide, multiple stops; Fahey mastered them all and is one of the greatest acoustic guitarists of all time.

 

Yngwie Malmsteen

Fast. That is the proper adjective. He makes it look so easy. Personally my ears don’t have the stamina to keep listening to him for more than a song or two, but there is no denying his amazing skill.

 

Kaki King

She does some very amazing percussive acoustic work and is just really, really good. Here she is playing with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters:

 

Ian Thornley

If you frequent the pages of EverydayNormal then you have actually heard of him. He can do it all.

 

Well, there you have them and now you know about them so you have no excuse not to admire them now.

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Make this Memorial Day Special

I would be willing to wager that there are many people who don’t know why we have Memorial Day. Luckily I am here to either inform or refresh your memory on the topic.

Memorial Day was something that came about in the years following the Civil War. There are several towns, both in the north and south that lay claim to being the birthplace of the holiday. At its earliest it was called “Decoration Day” which is when people went to decorate the graves of those who died fighting. The first officially declared Memorial Day was on May 30, 1868 when both union and confederate graves were decorated at Arlington Cemetary. At this time people in southern states did not recognize that day as the holiday. That did not occur more fully until after World War 1, when it became a holiday for more than just Civil War soldiers. In 1971 it was actually, finally made a federal holiday.

Make a special point to remember those who didn’t even know you, but died for you. And also remember those who may not have died while fighting, but did fight for you. And don’t just remember them on Memorial Day or Veterans Day, just kick it up a notch on those days.

Also let’s not let the following hilarious video be true:

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Stupid “Net Neutrality” {Legislation}

I heard about “Net Neutrality” a few years back and was not convinced by the main crux of the push for it. The people who want it say that it’s purpose is in case your Internet Service Provider decides to give more bandwidth to bigger companies, who may even pay for improved access to their site, while restricting smaller sites speeds. They want equality in site speed across the internet. It always smelled pretty weak and seemed like a made up “crisis” to me.

You see, if my ISP was throttling my access to anything (especially something specific) and annoyed me, I would switch providers, as I have done before. Not only would Net Neutrality give government more control over something that is very libertarian now, but it would slow down load times for all sites since that is the only way to truly guarantee that times are equal. Enjoy this one:

Net Neutrality {legislation} is stupid and all arguments for it are weak.

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Fun with Corporate Letters (McDonalds)

It is often very fun to write a letter to a company about their products or services. I once wrote a sweet letter to Charmin about a way they could save money by making rectangular sheets instead of squares. Sadly I do not have a copy of that letter or their reply which was very interesting.

Most recently I have written a letter to McDonalds about a problem I have had a couple of times at one of their establishments. Here it is:

Somebody who handles the drinks wears a ton of hand lotion. When I take a drink a smell like musky mouse urine wafts up in my face and overwhelms the taste of my drink. Normally I like the taste of mouse urine, but in this case the added moisturizers left on the cup get all over my hand and make me smell like fufu too. It is bad enough walking through a door after such a person has gone through leaving a mess of fairy snot on a door handle, but it is a whole new level when you feel like you are drinking it. Please tell the employees that lotion is something to be washed off of their hands along with the mucus, sebum, urine and excrement.

I am still waiting for a reply and will update this post with it if I get one.

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Making Everybody Else Look Bad

I just saw something that made me feel like a schlub. What could it be that would make me feel so banausic? It has to do with one of the great regrets of my life. I never asked my father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage. My defense has always been that she told me I didn’t need to, but that is a lame excuse as I should have just done it anyway. Luckily he is one of the coolest people on the planet and is very, very kind to me. Having two daughters myself now, I can say that I would want this little rite of passage to take place, but if my girls like guys who are as amazing as I am I could overlook not having it. All of that aside, let’s look at what triggered all these feelings:

I bow to this man’s creativity and really wish that I had thought of it. It would also have been handy to own a camera around the time I proposed. I also found something that makes me feel quite a bit better about things:

Seemed to be staged but I still feel a little better.

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The Art of the Cover Song

There are few things as wonderful as hearing someone cover a song and make it sound new and refreshing to you. In fact there are some groups that I only enjoy through the filter of being covered by someone else (Beatles). If you feel as I do, oh, you should be as excited as I am about what I came across today.

That was awesome and if you disagree you are a racist who wants old people to die.

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The Man’s Entire Catalog

“I’ll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. I’m a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don’t know if it gets any better than when he sings ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’.”

Mr. Bolton has been known well in mainly two areas; adult contemporary music and comedy. It is nice to see him participating in creating material for the latter for a change.

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Video: It Just Makes Sense

When you have run up debt and bills so high that you cannot fathom the numbers the best and quickest way to make your problem go away permanently is demonstrated in this video:

It is really that simple people, and if you disagree you are a racist who wants old people to die.

Can you believe how many people actually try to make cases for all of the above?

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Butt Dialing to the Rescue

When planning the crime of the century it is probably a good idea to make sure you haven’t accidentally dialed 911 with dispatch now recording your plans. I guess you could do that if you were getting bored with the monotony of the average heist and wanted to add something to up the degree of difficulty.

Who doesn’t love a good stupid-criminal story?