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<\/a><\/p>\nI am now, however, better than they are when it comes to Guitar Hero III, though, due to my wasting an inordinate amount of time to increase my fake guitar skills when my real guitar skills could use some brushing up. I\u2019ve completed 7 songs on Expert, and I\u2019m almost done with Hard. I only have two more songs to go \u2013 Metallica\u2019s \u201cOne\u201d and Slayer\u2019s \u201cRiver of Blood,\u201d which is every bit as pleasant as it sounds. The Slayer song came out in 1986, the year I graduated from high school. I thought I knew every song from 1986, but I\u2019d never heard this one.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because it\u2019s not a song. It\u2019s aural vandalism.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s just nothing pleasant about listening to hardcore metal music. Nothing at all. No melody, no rhythm, no humor. Just noise. Ear-splitting, ugly, vomitous noise. Thankfully, it has all but disappeared, only to be replaced by hardcore rap music, which is infinitely worse. (Did I say \u201cthankfully?\u201d I meant \u201chorrifically.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Most of Guitar Hero songs are classic rock oldies, but as you get closer to the end, more metal is inflicted on you. It\u2019s somewhat disturbing to have songs like Iron Maiden\u2019s \u201cThe Number of the Beast\u201d sneak into your home as a result of this diverting little game, but at the same time, you also get to see how deeply silly the posturing, pseudo-Satanism really is. And the Maiden song actually has a melody, albeit a simple, stupid, repetitive one. Not so with the Slayer abomination, which, to quote Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, is a dark, ugly thing.<\/p>\n
Oh, wait. That\u2019s not all of what Chris Buttars said. He said that black babies are dark, ugly things. And then he sort of apologized but said that this wasn\u2019t a racist statement. And amid calls for him to step down, he announced today that he is seeking reelection in November.<\/p>\n
He insists that he was taken out of context. So, in the interests of fairness, I\u2019ll put him back into context. See, they were discussing a bill to split Buttars\u2019 school district, and somebody termed the bill an \u201cugly baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
To which Buttars responded \u201cThis baby is black, I’ll tell ya. It’s a dark, ugly thing.”<\/p>\n
Now I’m not one to call for someone’s head for saying stupid things, even stupid racist things. Americans are wildly oversensitive when it comes to race, and people produce verbal blunders that don’t necessarily mean they’re Goebbels at heart. Indeed, one could make the case that Buttars was trying to use words to describe something as foul and loathsome. Without thinking of the implications, he was unfortunate and awkward enough to use the word “black” as a synonym for “foul,” which, when not describing human beings, is not all that controversial. I actually think that probably was the case, and Buttars should have apologized profusely, explained himself, and taken his lumps.<\/p>\n
That’s not what he’s done. Yes, he apologized, but with little or no explanation beyond “It was a poor choice of words.” Then he belligerently announced it was “over,” and he started to belittle the folks who called for the apology in the first place. Today, he labels anyone who sees no non-racist way to interpret his statement as members of a \u201chate lynch mob.\u201d Yeah, that’s smart, Chris. Use overtly racial language to try and diffuse a racially charged situation.<\/p>\n
I don’t think he should be forced to resign. But I\u2019m tempted to move to West Jordan to run against him.<\/p>\n
Oh, by the way, the MPAA admitted that they were the reason the Indy trailer was edited to give Ray Winstone gelatinous pants. Apparently, there\u2019s a rule that \u201cno gun can be pointed directly at someone in the same frame in a trailer.\u201d Oooookay. The international trailer makes a whole lot more sense without the digital wonkery, and you can see it now in HD if you want to.<\/p>\n
Here the link.<\/a><\/p>\n To sum up: I wish I could ski better. The end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorryfor the lack of blogging this weekend. On Monday, the Cornell Family was busy tearing up the slopes at Brighton Ski Resort, and yours truly demonstrated that he is the living embodiment of Darwinian natural selection. Four of my five children are probably better skiers than I am, and two of them are six years ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4913,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}