Issue 100

News: The Famous "A Hard Day's Night" chord revealed! Warning: Guitar geekery ahead.
As you may see, this marks Honorificabilitudinitatibus Be S-Y-What's hundredth issue. As you may have inferred from other posts, I am a guitarist and Beatles fan. This essay will encompass both topics. Around the time between the previous issue's posting and right now, I learned that the chord I had been using for the famous opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night" was far from close to the real chord. I had assumed that that famous chord was a Fadd9 (Notes: F A C G), as George had stated once in an online chat before his death. However, there was more to it than that, as I would soon figure out. Not only was Paul's bass note not part of the notes in the chord (it was a D [12th fret, second string]), but also George Martin's piano plays part of a G chord (without the B note). This gives the notes: D2, G2, D3, F3, A3, C4, G4. And, of course, George's guitar was a 12-string, so F4 and A4 should be added. In my spare time, I managed to find five candidates for a one-guitar equivalent to the chord with those notes in mind. With them in mind, I noticed that virtually every time, the chord which had the closest proximity to the chord was one which I would later call G9sus4. The fingering is actually surprisingly simple: All strings are on the third fret, except for the Third string, which is fretted on the second fret. Something I noticed is that with a greater number of strings (ie 7, 12, and even 14-string models, the final one of which doesn't even exist in a production model), the closer that the chord came to that famous chord. So, let the busker's choice chord become replaced!

Band Name of the Day: Pierce v. Pierce. From a famous fictional law firm in a famous movie.

Film idea of the Day: A journalist comes into a small town where a group of goths have been arrested for a murder which they haven't committed, and gets sucked into a web of intrigue that the entire town is involved in about those murders.

Film Review of the Day: American Psycho. The antics of Patrick Bateman, a high-powered yuppie lawyer who may or may not be a serial killer. The movie required a second viewing for me to truly get the satire of consumerism behind the frequent violence, and even after this, I'm not even sure whether Patrick's crimes are supposed to have actually happened or are merely his own overactive imagination trying to break free of his life.

Quote of the Day: "Everyone thinks I'm a liar! Well I'm a lot of things, I'm an astronaut, I'm a basketball player...... I'm even the President of the Universe, but I'm not a liar."
________________Captian Hero, Drawn Together.

Link of the Day: What may/will be The best Five seconds of your day.

Issue 99

News: Free the Three!
I recentrly watched a movie about how three teenagers got implicated in a murder case. As it turns out, in 1993, there were three boys murdered in West Memphis, AK. Three boys were arrested in connection with these murders. The only pieces of evidence for their guilt: They dressed in black, listened to Metallica, dabbled in Wicca on occasion, and one of the teens was named Damien (born before The Omen unpopularized the name Damien). There was no DNA evidence supporting their guilt, and there was no evidence that any of them would have even done something to that extent. Even after defending those habits which got him implicated, and refusing to back down from the Satanic Panic at work, the three got convicted. The Satanic Panic itself should be an indicator of their innocence. There have been many incidents of Satanic Panic (mostly centred around Reagan-era preschools) in the world since the Inquisition ended in around 1834 (it had tapered off before that, but then was the official end), and virtually all of them have simply been proven to be blatantly false accuastions over the years. In the meantime, their guilt has been contested over the years (even by the victims' families, but not by the police force), and there is going to be a new trial soon in light of new DNA evidence showing that there is virtually no DNA of the "killers" on the murder weapons. Until the time cones when they reach a "not guilty" status, I must say "Free the Three!"

Band NAme of the Day: Gothic Cartoon of Evil. From a CAP report on the movie Natural Born Killers as evidence of "wanton violence" in the movie.

Film Idea of the Day: Murder Will Out. In Georgian England, two young girls discover that while the people of their village are dropping like flies, a sociopathic farmer and War of 1812 veteran may be behind the murders. After he is finally caught and sent to Bedlam, they seek to off him themselves. They fail.

Film Review of the Day: Paradise Lost. This was the film I had watched. This may be just as good a crime documentary as The Thin Blue Line was. Sure, it shows no revealing "This crime must not go unpunished, so let's punish these people we found" (not the actual words used in the film) statements like TBL did, but it shows how obvious the innocence of the West Memphis 3 was.

Quote of the Day: " Well I object to all this sex on the television. I mean I keep falling off."
_______An old lady.

Link of the Day: The official website for the WM3's second trial.

Issue 98

News: After 90 years... Genocide in Armenia recognised.
We all know about the Holocaust. However, many of us haven't yet heard about which could very well be considered a precursor to the Holocaust in very much a similar way to the way that WW1 was a precursor to WW2. The Holocaust was well-publicised when it was discovered by our troops in May 1945, but even to this day, what happened in Armenia is nowhere near as common knowledge as what happened in Auschwitz. Incredibly, after 90 years, the Turkish government, which committed the crimes, has yet to take responsibility for the way they treated the Armenians in what can be considered the prototypical modern genocide. Fortunately, just earlier in the week, a caucus of the US Congress has finally passed a resolution that recognised and condemned the Armenian Genocide. Of course, the house itself has yet to pass the resolution, and therefore has yet to actually become law, and Condoleeza Rice is fighting against the bill, as it could give us another enemy in the Iraq war in Turkey (yet another good reason for us to get the hell out of there). Fortunately, I am not Rice and fully support the genocide-condemning resolution. Let it pass through congress and may it help us get the hell out of Iraq.

Band Name: Pig Tollers. From the film review below.

Film Idea: Nothing I can think of right now can top the film review below.

Film Review: The Butcher Boy. This may be by far the most bizarre coming of age story I have ever seen. It's even more bizarre than anything I could have even come up with. A young boy named Francie gets sent to a work farm for pretending to be a pig in a neighbor's house, sees the virgin Mary, thinks he survived a nuclear explosion, and murders a friend's mother Charlie Manson-style. The End.

Quote of the Day: "I cannot go on . . . All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."
_______Thomas Aquinas

Link of the Week: What may be my favorite commercial ever.

Issue 97

News: My Views on Marriage
In a previous issue, I mentioned that I am personally opposed to the institution of marriage. In this issue, I will elaborate on the issue. One major flaw I find in marriage is that it is outdated, in that the original purpose of it was that it was merely a transfer of ownership of a young girl from her father to the man who would become her husband, reducing the girl from daughter to wife, and in effect, slave to her husband. Naturally, this is as a rule no longer the case and is simply a superfluous ceremony, full of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing,. One other issue I have with marriage is the monogamy which society seems to expect from marriage. All the research I've done indicates that the "one man, one woman forever" lifestyle expected by many advocates of marriage is very rare and unlikely to work for most couples (it can work for some couples, but not for all), and one may even go as far as to call it "unnatural" (which I would not complain about, as virtually every posible type of sexual behavior has been observed in nature except marriage).

Band Name of the Day: Scooter Vacations. From the examples for the "labels" for the post.

Film Idea of the Day: Just Can't Get Enough. It is a jukebox musical based on the songs of the New Radicals in the album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too. The basic plot will be that a member of a religious sect prosceletyzes to a goth anarchist girl and falls in love with her, leading to conflicts with said sect. Naturally, since the number of songs is necessarily small, this will be a one-act musical.

Film Review of the Day: Z. This movie about the assassination of Greek politician/olympian/College Professor/JFK Equivalent Gregoris Lambrakis has taken its place as a favorite foreign movie of mine, and it may even beat out The Seventh Seal as my all-time favorite foreign movie.

Quote of the Day: "You may be right. I don't think so, but you may be right."
____________Robert Downey Jr. in Natural Born Killers

Link of the Day: DemSoc Forums. I post here. To find my username, think about my "ministry" and my favorite novel.