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For more information, including some behind the scenes photos, check out their blog post….

http://improveverywhere.com/2010/07/14/star-wars-subway-car/

I chatted yesterday with a real estate agent who was having an open in our building yesterday. It was actually the unit below us. He told us the unit is selling for $105k, and the sellers bought it for $145k. The unit is just like ours, except they have the view of a rock wall, which is by far the worst view of any condo in our building. The owners moved out months ago, so I’m assuming they really just want to get rid of this thing as soon as possible. I get it, but I really wonder if they can afford to sell at such a low price. If it doesn’t sell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a foreclosure. I’m also concerned how all of this will affect the value of the rest our condo’s units.

We have our unit listed at $5k below what we paid for it, and it’s probably about $20k higher than the average person has for our layout in our two buildings. The problem is these other units aren’t getting anymore showings than we are, so we’ve decided not to drop our price anymore. We simply refuse to go in the red on this, so we’ll probably end up taking our condo off the market for a few years. At that point, we’ll see if the market is any better and try to sell it again. If not, we may refinance, and then rent it out. Either way, we’ll need to find a new place to live with more space.

This isn’t our condo association, but this is our situation…
Condo owners make the best of a tough situation

Related:
These Cards Suck
City Data

Alexis Schrubbe – Vocals
Mike Cammilleri – Keyboards/Organ
Joe Niesen – Guitar
Chris Sandoval – Drums
Me – Bass

We’ve all played in a bands, except for maybe Alexis. She and Mike know each other from playing the UW marching band. She would sometimes sing at Badger games, so Mike already knew she had some good vocal chords. I met Mike when I was playing with Marcus King and Thee Royalty, but he’s also played with The Kissers and has his own organ trio called King Cruiser. I met Chris last Summer jamming at Madison Music Foundry, and he has a ton of experience playing with groups like Tommy Castro, Cold Blood, The Tubes, and the list goes on forever. Joe used to play guitar in Adam Isaac and the People, but I’ve know him since the early SWS days….funky as hell!

For now, we’ve been learning a bunch of funky covers, but the plan is to switch gears and start writing originals. We’re hoping to be playing out in a couple of months. Oh, if you have any ideas for a band name, post a comment!

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Making of AT-AT day afternoon

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I love using the self checkout, but there are some unwritten rules when using it:

1. No Cash Allowed. I just about lose my mind when some old lady starts pulling out cash, or worse, her coin purse. Seriously? Oh no, is she pulling out coupons too???

2. 10 Items or Less. I personally try to limit the number of items to 10 items or less. If someone pulls up with a big cart full of stuff, they should be kicked out of the store with a lifetime ban for stupidity.

3. Express Checkout. It normally doesn’t say it’s an express checkout, but the ONLY reason people use self checkout is to save time. If you have items that you need to lookup, for example produce, keep moving on down to the regular checkout.

I liked this album, but the irony of this song today is hilarious….

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I liked enough that I bought their new album, Elephunk, a few years later. I enjoyed it, and I was kind of digging on their new female singer, but they starting to scare me with some of the radio friendliness; like Hey Mama and Let’s Get Retard, which ended up being renamed so they could sell the crap out of it.

I actually liked this song…

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I still liked them since I couldn’t blame them for making radio friendly songs, yet, for the most part, stuck to their roots. They would play shows with an actual band, and from what I’ve heard, put on a good show.

Their next album, “Monkey Business”, was total garbage. I thankfully hadn’t bought the album yet when I friend of mine warned me not to buy it. He told me to check out the song, “My Humps“, which happens to be one of the worst songs ever created. First, Fergie should never ever rap. I was embarrassed for her and the rest of the band. Second, their genre just went from a crossover hip hop band to dance music you’d hear in a dirty small town dance club. It was official, the Black Eyed Peas had officially sold out to the record industry. I’m guessing they liked the money they made from Elephunk, and were willing to do anything to make more.

Total suck….

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Over the next few years, their suckdom continued to grow, which included a horrific solo effort by Fergie. I just found out they played on American Idol, and they stunk it up pretty good. They keep saying, “I wanna rock right now”, but they don’t do anything but suck.

I wanna suck right now…

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Who keeps buying their crappy auto-tuned albums? You need to stop!

Related:
The Black Eyed Peas “Give Back” with Embarrassing Idol Performance
Black Eyed Peas Have Officially Written The Worst Song Ever
The Black Eyed Peas Suck!

In this tale of sex, violence, race, and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, “Cadillac Records” follows the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America’s musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.

It was a great movie except one little thing. Beyonce. I think she did a decent job at acting, but her singing was awful compared to Etta James. When Beyonce started singing “At Last”, I just couldn’t stand it. Once she entered the movie, I had a hard time concentrating because I was so irritated with her awful singing. Beyonce may have a decent voice for pop/r&b songs for the MTV crowd, but people who actually love music realize she is no Etta James.

Etta James

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Beyonce

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Beyonce didn’t sing out of key or anything horribly bad, but her voice has no soul. She’s an average R&B singer trying to mimic the great Etta James. It doesn’t surprise me Etta doesn’t like Beyonce.

Related Links:
Cadillac Records Trailer
Etta James to Beyonce: I’ll Whoop Your Ass!

Anyway, here it goes…..

5. Ke$ha

I wouldn’t consider this girl to be popular yet, but wow does she suck. If she gains any popularity at all, she’ll probably move up a few spots.

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If that isn’t proof enough, she does the EXACT same moves for every performance.

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I’m pretty sure her 15 minutes are just about up. Hey Ke$ha, I suggest you save your money and go to community college. Otherwise, I see the word “stripper” in your future.

4. Taylor Swift

Taylor is HUGE right now. I’ve listened to her music, and it’s catchy pop songs for little kids. My niece loves her. But, is she deserving? She supposedly writes her own songs, which I have to give her some credit, but pop stars aren’t created because of good songwriting. Taylor is an extremely cute girl with a unique look to her. The young boys love her! Unfortunately, the world that isn’t tone deaf and doesn’t want to sleep with her, simply can’t stand her.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a few more examples:

Performance at Grammy Live concert 2008
there are no words for how much taylor swift CAN’T sing

There are a thousands of singers of more talented singers out there, yet Taylor is the one making millions and winning awards. If it wasn’t for great marketing, she’d be nothing but an average karoake singer aspiring to someday perform in a cover band.

3. Ashlee Simpson

Ashlee’s career should have never started. If it wasn’t for her sister, Jessica, she’d be a nobody. On top of being a horrible singer, she completely sold out by trading in her rocker look for the blonde barbie girl look, which included plastic surgery. Yay….she now looks like everyone else. It’s not surprising to see she’s doing a lot of lip syncing these days.

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2. Rihanna

Rihanna is probably one of the absolute worst singers in pop music today. To begin with, she has a very limited range to her voice, but she also can’t sing in tune. I’m sure the producers even had a hard time getting the recording software to fix her voice….

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I’m guessing we’ll never see Rihanna sing live ever again.

1. Britney Spears

Britney Spears is the #1 most undeserving pop star. Britney is an entertainer, not a singer, but she still performs live, or at least pretends to perform live. She occasionally attempts to sing live, only if she’s not dancing and if the part is easy enough for her tone deaf vocal chords. You’d think after all of these years of lip syncing, she’d eventually get good at that, but I guess not. Aside from being a mediocre dancer, what is she good at?

This might not be fair to post, since she’s singing along with the pre-recorded vocals, and it wasn’t meant to be heard by the public, but it gives you a sense how tone deaf she really is…..

Click here to view the embedded video.

Britney is nothing but a softcore porn star lip syncing her way through her choreographed dance numbers, but if it sells, her record label could care less. The only thing more pathetic is the millions of fans who aren’t smart enough to realize she’s a fraud.

Brett Favre has been one of my all-time heroes in regards to the game of football, and sports in general. I’ve watched or listened to just about everyone of his games as a Packer. The problem started when he started talking about retirement. At the end of each season, Favre would announce that he was going to take some time to ponder his future. That was fine to a certain extent, but the time to ponder kept getting longer with each year. The Packers gave him way too much time to ponder his decision, since the team wanted to do everything they could to coax him into coming back. To make matters worse, the media swarmed to this ongoing story like rabid dogs.

Favre had a breakout season in 2007, and for whatever reason, decided to call it quits. I remember I was at work when I heard the news, and I just couldn’t believe it. He was arguably the most loved player in Green Bay Packers history, and Packer fans were in shock that they’d no longer be able to watch that gunslinger from Mississippi.

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Favre wants to come back out of retirement. The team had already made changes to the offense to accommodate Aaron Rodger’s skill set, and were ready to move on. I had heard rumors the coaches didn’t think Favre could no longer win cold weather games, but that’s just hearsay. At the time, I thought the Packers should have let him come back, but I think Favre knew they didn’t want him, and I believe he ultimately wanted to play for the Vikings, which had his previous QB coach, Darrel Bevell, running the offense he had so much success.

Of course, we all know what happens next….

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The Packers weren’t going to just let him go to the Vikings, so they traded him to the Jets. I didn’t like the move, since I didn’t want to see Favre playing for anyone but the Packers, but Aaron Rodgers had a great first season as a starter, and I still enjoyed watching Favre play the game. He ended up getting hurt, didn’t want to break his starting streak, and basically screwed over the New York Jets. Again, he retires, and asks to be released. He asked to be released? Of course he did, he wanted to go play for the Vikings to A) get back at the organization that let him go, and B) rejoin with Bevell and make another run at the Super Bowl. To a certain extent, I can’t blame him, but he also fucked over every Packer fan that loved/loves him. I could handle watching him play for another team from a different division, but the Minnesota Vikings??? Are you kidding me? The Vikings are the most hated rival, and he wants to play for them???

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Favre has had a great season with the Vikings, but he’ll go down in history as the arrogant crybaby that let down the fans that bleed green and gold on his behalf.

Favre let his own arrogance get the better of him, and the fans that supported him for 16 years suffered for it. Brett Favre hurt both the Packer and Jets organizations, and most importantly the Packer and Jets fans.

This is why I no longer like Brett Favre.