FilteringCraig

Death by Stereo, a band, has been named in a lawsuit over the deaths of some concert-goers who fell from a window while the band was playing. The thing that makes this story different is that this was a DIY show in what appears to be a residence.

A local residence known as the Solar Haus has regularly hosted concerts in the past. On Sept. 28 2003, one concert turned tragic when 6 people fell from a third floor window. Four lawsuits were filed in early March on behalf of the victims…

The plaintiffs filed suit the week of March 1, 2005. The four separate lawsuits list Death by Stereo, Design & Research Enterprises, Homer T. Hurst, Noonkester Realty and three Solar Haus residents at the time of the incident as defendants. Two of the listed residents were Tech students at the time of the accident.

DIY shows are put on by people around the country in basements, and garages, and apartments. I actually went to a couple in Boston when I lived there during college. At first it seemed kind of strange, but I got used to the idea of being in some dude’s basement for a rock show. Kegs are flowing, bands get paid, kids make some cash and it is all fun and games, until someone falls out of a window.

That being said, I would never have considered putting one on in any place that I lived, due to me being afraid something would happen.

Well, now the whole DIY concert scene around the country has to re-think their hobby. With a lawsuit like this over something very tragic, the liability side of hosting a concert becomes all too real.

Keep in mind, I don’t really think the families have a claim for this kind of money. I feel badly that they died and the concert shouldn’t have occurred in a residence, but those kids should have realized some of their own risks going to the concert in the first place.

They shouldn’t have died, but some lawsuit for some amount of money that nobody involved can ever come up with, isn’t going to bring them back.

(originally linked at Buzzgrinder.com)

I hope you can read the sign, but in case you can’t…

The sign says, “Missed the concert? Can’t afford to see ‘em live?” and then has the U2 DVD propped up next to the sign.

Thanks, Best Buy. Today, I love you.

This guy claims that he is going to eat this rabbit that he saved from underneath his porch… that is unless you donate to his cause.

You see, if all you lovely internet people donate to this dude’s cause and he gets over $50,000, then he will save the bunny.

Oh yeah, and it is a total fake according to Snopes.com.

I wish the people who send me emails knew about Snopes.com so they could debunk all the garbage before they send me stupid emails.

Just a warning to all those baseball fans out there. I have now finalized the roster on my fantasy baseball team and knowing how snake-bitten I am when it comes to predicting sports, you can expect nothing but bad things from these players this year.

Scan the sports wire for hamstring injuries, arrests, DUI’s, spousal abuse, drugs, bench-clearing brawl suspensions, hang nails and any other negative thing that could keep these players from producing this season. You better hope your team trades the players that I have on my Fantasy Team.

For a while I was honestly thinking of picking nothing but Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees players to guarantee myself no heartache this season. But alas, this is my team.

Position Players
V. Martinez (Cle - C)
M. LeCroy (Min - C,1B)
D. Ortiz (Bos - 1B)
Mi. Sweeney (KC - 1B)
R. Freel (Cin - 2B,3B,LF,CF,RF)
A. Miles (Col - 2B)
A. Boone (Cle - 3B)
E. Hinske (Tor - 3B)
C. Izturis (LAD - SS)
A. Everett (Hou - SS)
B. Wilkerson (Was - 1B,LF,CF,RF)
L. Ford (Min - LF,CF,RF)
C. Beltran (NYM - CF)
R. Winn (Sea - LF,CF)
A. Kearns (Cin - RF)
R. Johnson (Tor - LF,CF,RF)
P. Burrell (Phi - LF)
R. Baldelli (TB - CF)
R. Ibanez (Sea - 1B,LF)
M. Lamb (Hou - 1B,2B,3B)

Pitchers
M. Clement (Bos - SP)
K. Wood (ChC - SP)
T. Hudson (Atl - SP)
B. Wickman (Cle - RP)
A. Otsuka (SD - RP)
T. Gordon (NYY - RP)
W. Miller (Bos - SP)
M. Gonzalez (Pit - RP)

I surrender Netflix. You have beat me fair and square. Your minion, Sissy Spacek has hog-tied, tar and feathered and otherwise humiliated me.

I am locked between me and poseur me. Me who knows what he likes and me who thinks he knows what he should like. I can’t say that I have been in this situation too many times, but my dear friend Netflix has smacked me in the face with my own stink.

I returned a movie today without having watched it. A movie that is now out of my possession and it hadn’t seen the welcoming little tray on my DVD player. Hell, it wasn’t even put in the DVD burner so that I might watch it sometime in the future.

Looking on the bright side, maybe the movie wasn’t any good anyway, but I won’t know. I returned the unwatched motherfucker right back to its place of origin.

I returned In the Bedroom with Sissy Spacek, which had been up for many awards a few years back. I was thinking I should definitely check out that movie because it was up for awards and being a pop culture whore, I am totally out of the loop on that one. I will continue to be out of the loop for the forseeable future.

(from the Netflix sleeve)

Set in a tranquil town on the Maine coast, In the Bedroom tells the story of a couple (Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson) whose teenage son (Nick Stahl) is involved in a love affair with a single mother (Marisa Tomei). When the relationship comes to a sudden and tragic end, the boy’s parents must face their worst nightmare and embark on a dark, dangerous psychological journey. Spacek and Wilkinson turn in stunning performances.

Every time I thought about putting that movie in, I read this little blurb and … BLECH!

It doesn’t matter how good or bad that movie was, I could never bring myself to put that in the DVD player with a description like that. I rented it from them so long ago that I no longer remember why I rented it other than it had been up for awards.

I am such a zilch and a nothing, that it makes me sick.

Meanwhile, I was able to gather the strength, drive and time commitment to pop in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle this weekend.

I must keep that in my head.

There is no shame in watching what you want to watch.

The shame is mistakenly renting In the Bedroom as a movie that you just might want to watch.

You don’t.

Don’t rent it.

Oh, and just so you know how insane I am, In the Bedroom arrived at my house on November 3 2004, and I finally gave up the ship today on March 14 2005 when I folded over that little sticky seal to send it back to Netflix without a rating because I didn’t watch it.

Stupid, no late fees movie rental place. I might have forced myself to watch it with late fees.

Forget it. I suck.

I am going to dork out on you all for a little bit here. I am sure a lot of you have heard of Bit Torrent, which is a peer to peer file sharing program. I am also sure a lot of you have no idea how it works, as it has taken me quite a while to figure it out.

Now, if you want, there is a lot of free music available on Bit Torrent from the many performers who will be at SXSW Music fest this year, so I am going to show you how to get those wonderful MP3’s.

Bit Torrent isn’t like Kazaa where you can just search for files, click to download them and then they start. It just doesn’t have that front-end or a server collecting available file names. Instead, you need to search out Torrents, which are small files that you download that will seed your program to search out other computers on the net that have that file. Then it hooks up with as many people as possible to download that file.

First of all, you need a client for Bit Torrent. This is a program that runs on your computer giving you the ability to manage your files and locations. The only one that I have ever used is called Bit Comet. So, download that program and install it. You can also get it if you search for Bit Comet at Download.com.

After you have that program installed you are set to find some torrents.

In the case of SXSW, I have put the file on my own site, so you can download it by right-clicking here and saving that file to your hard drive.

After it has been saved, you can go into Bit Comet, click File, Open Torrent and select the SXSW file that you downloaded from this site. You will see Bit torrent go into a negotiating mode of sorts, as it finds people who have that file shared out and makes connections allowing you to download the file.

After a certain amount of time downloading, you will have a big old file of MP3’s from the Featured artists at South By Southwest this year.

Rock.

Scoop Jackson is an award winning sports writer and he is coming to ESPN’s page 2. He decided to introduce himself and it turned into a list of beliefs that Scoop has. I won’t go one by one or anything, but one line in particular just screams of utter stupidity and it happens to be one of the great sports debates that I have ever been involved with.

When the Bengals were the worst team in the NFL, it was very popular to say that the best college teams would have beaten them in a matchup. At the time I think it was the Miami Hurricanes.

Now, Scoop says this in his intro to ESPN Page 2.

“I believe USC with Mike Williams would have beat all but five NFL teams.”

Let me tell you something. This is not true. In fact USC with Mike Williams wouldn’t be able to beat a single NFL team. Not one. Not the Arizona Cardinals.

Here’s why.

USC might have a huge number of talented players on their roster, but how many of them will make it to the NFL? How many will make it to be starters in the NFL? Not a huge percentage.

How many players on the Arizona Cardinals will make it to the NFL? 100%

So, even if USC has 25 NFL caliber players on their roster, and 12 who will become NFL starters, they wouldn’t be able to compete with a bunch of guys who were the best of the best on their teams.

And this argument doesn’t even include the fact that NFL players work generally (on average) work out more than College Players and are therefore bigger and stronger, etc.

So, I look forward to reading some of Scoop’s stuff on Page 2, but this belief holds no water.

I don’t have the answers when it comes to Social Security. I have trouble really grasping the issue as a whole. So, lets have a discussion and see what comes of it. I am going to throw some random stuff out there and let’s see what happens.

***

As I have stated a number of times in various places, I am not sure how I feel about the whole Social Security issue that is going on right now. The only big opinion that I have is that it is a dead political issue because I don’t think Bush can get enough support to get anything passed. With that being said, how about a discussion?

***

Here are my assumptions.

1. Social Security is eventually going to run out of money. When is that going to happen? I don’t know for sure, but based on demographics it is reasonable to assume that it will eventually.

2. Social Security is important to a lot of people who don’t save for retirement or can’t save for retirement.

***

I honestly like the idea of private accounts in theory because any chance I get to manage my own money seems good to me. That doesn’t mean that it is a good idea overall and that it is good for our country and for the state of Social Security. Private accounts will divert some of the money from Social Security which (as you remember from above) will fall short of payouts sometime in the future. What this means to me is that there is going to be a switching cost associated with moving into a private account system. How much is that switching cost going to be? I have no idea, but it will have a major cost.

If we don’t privatize and Social Security fails to meet the needs of retirees in the future, it will also cost some money to keep it afloat. Private accounts could be a means to an end of having the Government on the hook for retirement benefits of this country’s citizens, but is that the way it should be?

Both plans will require an influx of cash from the government.

I guess the real question is; Should Government be involved in funding our retirements? If yes, then we need to come up with a solution to FIX social security. If not then we should look at something like private accounts (or something not proposed yet) to phase out social security as a system of the Government funding our retirement.

Any thoughts?

Alaskan senator Ted Stevens wants to apply public broadcasting standards on cable and satellite.

Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area,” the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television affiliates. “I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air” broadcasters.

Doesn’t he understand the fundamental differences between cable, satellite and broadcast or does he just not care? Well, I am here to tell you that I don’t want the Government imposing standards on cable TV because I pay (thus, choose) to have that pumped, as is, into my home.

I finally updated the website over at The Company Line Website and I think you should all go and check it out when you get the chance. I am kind of proud of some of my work over there.

The site isn’t perfect, but I integrated Movable Type so that I can input the blog entries with that and also the Show Dates. The Audio and Pics options don’t have anything under them yet, but they should after the show on this Saturday at Peabody’s Downunder.

Did I mention that we have a show on Saturday at Peabody’s in Cleveland and you should all come on out to see us? 7:00 PM so get there early and hear us rock. We are playing with KB and the Riptides among others.

Hope to see you there, and be sure to check out The Company Line Rocks.com

(If you don’t come out Kiddicus might kick your ass.)