EDIT: 11/25/08 - I take back everything I say in this post.  This album rules.  I had to listen to it like 20 times, but now I love it.

I just finished listening to Guns N’ Roses newest album, Chinese Democracy. 

For years…for over a decade, GnR fans have been awaiting the release of the elusive Chinese Democracyalbum.  After alienating/firing all of the original members of the original Guns n’ Roses including the irreplaceable Slash and Duff McKagan, Axl started working on the GnR album that he said would end all Guns n’ Roses albums.

Did it work?  Did it happen?

I don’t think so.

The opening song, ‘Chinese Democracy’ is awesome.  The very first thing you hear is Axl’s signature shriek as the music starts to build.  As a first single, I think it will really make GnR fans say, “Holy shit!  Guns N’ Roses is still awesome!”  Then, they will hear the next song, ‘Shackler’s Revenge’ and be weirded out.  It’s a good song, and I’m not saying that bands can’t evolve and change their sound, but Industrial GnR?  Ugh.  It’s like mixing Coca-Cola with Orange Juice.  I like both, but I don’t want them together.  I don’t want Industrial rock blasting over Axl Rose.

Then there are a few piano ballads.  I know the piano was a huge part of the Use Your Illusionalbums, and I understand that Axl loves playing that particular instrument.  But at least on the Use Your Illusion albums, the piano was complimented by shredding guitars and heavy bass lines.  On Chinese Democracy, there are some Electronica beats mixed into piano fellating that would make Elton John’s jams sound Heavy Metal.  Ugh.

If this album were not released under the band name Guns N’ Roses and instead released as The Axl Rose Band, it would make a lot more sense.

I give this album a B- (and that is being generous)

There are some very good songs on the album.  If you feel the need to get the whole album, you can get it on iTunes for $9.99.  Or, if you just want the really good songs, here they are:

“Chinese Democracy”
“If the World”
“Catcher in the Rye”
“I.R.S”
“Madagascar”

That’s all you really need to hear.  Again, the album is not bad, and I can’t complain since I kind of just ended up with a free copy of it a few days before it was released.  Still, if you are a hardcore (or even casual) fan of GnR, don’t expect great things.

That being said, I am going to go listen to Use Your Illusion I and Appetite for Destruction – REAL Guns N’ Roses albums.

Click for a larger image.

Here’s the genesis of the most recent TSAT post, WE PITCH HE-ROTIC FICTION.

A few weeks ago, Brandon and I were out getting a burrito from Chipotle.  As do most conversations between us, the topic of discussion, probably something about the fledgling economy, quickly devolved into a back-and-forth about sex and fart jokes.

We were discussing romantic evenings from a guy’s perspective and pretty much decided on what that evening would be.  If you (and you will) read the first excerpt of “He-rotic fiction” mentioned in the essay - the one dealing with a Chipotle burrito, you will pretty much be reading the exact perfect evening Brandon and I decided upon.

So from that little conversation grew the proud oak that is our most recent masterpiece.

And, I am sure most of you are well aware that TSAT essays are nothing but satire, but it warrants repeating:

TSAT ESSAYS ARE SATIRE.

As a precaution, we asked our good friend Amy to be the test audience for our most recent sex-splattered literary creation.  Amy is a hardcore feminist, and she almost crapped her pants laughing at our genius essay.

So go read it.  But before you do that, put a link to These Stories Are True (www.thesestoriesaretrue.com) on your website.  Seriously.

WE PITCH HE-ROTIC FICTION

- David C. Garcia

There once was a proud and mighty beard. (click!)

But the beard was very depressed and wanted to die. (click!)

So the beard killed himself. (click!)

Now the place where the beard once lived is a very sad place indeed. (click and cry!)

FIN!

You know what they say, “It’s hard out there for a pimp.”

Indeed, and there are mad pimps out there trying to gank my skrilla on a daily basis.  I can’t stand it.  No matter where you turn, some jerk is around the corner trying to scam you out of a dollar.  Shit, I can’t even go to my mailbox without getting solicited by high interest rate credit card companies trying to mooch my hard-earned loot.  Bitch please.  My credit is so jacked, there is no way I could even qualify for your 85.9% APR card.  I PWN at bad credit.

Scammers are even worse than the credit industry.  Particularly sinister are the scammers who try and play off their scamming nature and pose as legitimate entrepreneururs.  When I had my first job working at Burger King (Represent!), there used to be this old Colonel Sanders-crossed-with-a-professor-looking guy who would come in and try to convince kids that they could earn zillions of dollars if they participated in Amway.  When I moved on up in the world and started working at Borders (Represent!), there were all kinds of these Amway assholes who would go to the cafe and meet up with kids who had just started college.  Like those kids don’t have a hard enough time staying focused in college, and now they have to go sell shit for you?  Dickheads.  I’d like to say that the Amway jerks are why I eventually went and got a real job, but that would be a lie.  I eventually quit because Borders was scamming me with their shit salary.

God, I hate scammers.

The worst kind of scammers are the Interwebs scammers who solicit the millions and millions of dipshits who troll around on the Internet searching for porn and cool MySpace layouts.  They are pretty much a new incarnation of the scam artists who advertise their products on late night infomercials.  You know the kind.  The clean-cut bachelor who earns $50,000 a month doing something or other part time or the savvy housewife who bought a new mansion for her family using some revolutionary product.  Yeah, those assholes.  Yeah, they are on the Internet, too.  And they suck.

I’ve been on Twitter for about two or three months now, and I love it.  Little microblogs from hundreds of people I hardly know and who I can reply to or not based on my mood.  It’s cool.

Until some scammer started following me on Twitter.  Being relatively new to this popular networking site, I was particularly impressed with its purity.  I only have to listen to people if I follow them.  But usually, if someone follows me, I follow them back.

So, when biggestfiresale started following me, I followed him as well. 

This is biggestfiresale’s avatar: 

Is that him?  Who knows?  If so, he looks like a tool.  All of the posts associated with him will be in green because he likes green things.  Like my money.

This is me (davidcgarcia) and my avatar:

Is that really me?  Hell yeah, I am a heavy metal zombie!  All posts associated with me will be in red.  For no particular reason.

FYI: Twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet, so a lot of the tweets between me and biggestfiresale are abbreviated.

I quickly learned biggestfiresale guy was a scammer when I got this tweet:

biggestfresale: In just 8 days, The biggest, Baddest package of online marketing tricks,secrets and knowledge is released to the public. Don’t miss it.

I decided to bite.

davidcgarcia:@biggestfiresale Is it free?

And he promptly replied

biggestfiresale@davidcgarcia: Not free. But you get over 100 of the internet marketing products for the price of one. So pay for 1 and get 99 free!

Yep, a fucking get-rich-quick scam.  There was obviously something in it for this guy.  Was he getting a commission?  Did he make money off the sales we made through the products we bought from him?  Probably, but I didn’t care.  I figured I would just reply to his silly little tweets when he posted them.

Later during the day, biggestfiresale posted another tweet.

biggestfiresale:Peter, its a virtual “whos who” of the internet marketing giants,Joel Comm,Alex Goad,Peter Drew,Dave Guindon,Kevin Wilke,Ewen Chia,Brian Koz

Who the crap is Peter?  Who are the rest of those guys?  Irrelevant.  I wanted in.

davidcgarcia:@biggestfiresale I know, right? Don’t forget David C. Garcia: Internet sensation.

This time it took a while for him to reply, but he finally did.

biggestfiresale:@davidcgarcia I David, I didn’t forget you. You pay for 1 and you get over 115 money making programs free. Where can you get a better deal?

So I @ replied to biggestfiresale one more time and asked him to hook me up for free.  I asked if he would be willing to hand out this nonsense gratis to your truly.

Later during the evening, he sent me a private message:

biggestfiresale: You don’t understand, You pay $97 and you get all110 products free. The $97 is what it would normally cost you for one. Just sign up

“You don’t understand”?  Condescending.  “Just sign up”?  Rather forceful little online vulture.  It was on!  I decided to become the character of a broken down man and see how much this dick would take advantage.  For the record (you will see what I mean), I love my wife, don’t have a kid (yet), and my father-in-law is a very nice man.  I also don’t have a friend named Rex (that would rule, though), I am employed and don’t live on foodstamps.

davidcgarcia:Will it payoff? Have to sell some of my kids videogames & check savings. If I get the acct. in the neg again, the wife is going to leave.

biggestfiresale: Will it payoff?Thatsup to you and how much effort you put into it. You have to stay focused,and set goals of how much to make the 1st month

davidcgarcia: I’ll sell the kid’s xBox tomorrow.I think the wife also has some $, and I can get some money for the foodstamps. Cool? Can I buy on weekend?
 
davidcgarcia: I just need to make sure not to break kid’s/wife’s trust (again).Will it be easy to earn $97 back? Is worth it selling stuff 4 ur product?
 
biggestfiresale: the launch is Nov-18. David,any program in the package will make you, a nice living.But is not automatic.You have to work it, and be focused

davidcgarcia: I’m just really, really afraid that my wife will leave me. What would you do? Sell the kid’s stuff to pay for this? What would you do?

biggestfiresale: If you are afraid of that,then I suggest save your money and get a job.You are not ready for Internet marketing yet. But maybe in the future

Okay, he seemed to have a bit of a soul and was a bit ethical, but that was a big “fuck-you” sandwich with the whole “get a job” suggestion so that he can take advantage of me “in the future.” Shiiiiit.  I decided to play hardball.

davidcgarcia: Nobody will hire me. I have a disability. This was going to be my way to enjoy life.

biggestfiresale: Sorry. If $97 is going to create so much angst with  your wife, then I suggest you consult with her first. If she say no, then its no.

davidcgarcia: No way. I’m doing it. She’s asleep all the time. I will take her money while she is asleep. I want to be a selling sensation!

He didn’t reply.  So I waited about 10 minutes.

davidcgarcia: All right. Wife caught me with the cash and left to go back to her parents. I am buying the VISA gift card tonight. $97 right?
 
davidcgarcia: Do you take payments via VISA gift card? I went to your site. I even did that guess [how much I can earn] thing ($100,000)! Where do I pay!?!!!

biggestfiresale: yes, Visa, m/c or Paypal. The launch is Nov 18. Only 5 days away. You can purchase it anytime on the 18th or after.

There it is.  He sees the money.  Doesn’t care where it comes from.  I make myself even more retarded, and now I start acting needy.

davidcgarcia: VISA giftcards? I am going to do so good for you, boss. Then I am going to win my wife back. If I work super hard, maybe I can get millions?

About an hour.  No reply.
 
davidcgarcia: Hey boss, my bud Rex just told me you guys are probably a scam. Not true right? I need you to be the real thing.I want to win the wife back.

Huh?  Call him a scammer, and he immediately replies.  This came in just a few minutes later:
 
biggestfiresale: If you think that, then don’t buy anything.No scam.If it was a scam you just call up Visa gift cards to cancel the transaction, and its done

davidcgarcia: Naw. I told Rex to shut up and that my boss was not a scammer. I want to pay now, though. Do I have to wait?  

I actually had some used Visa gift cards in my wallet, so I decided to send him a picture of them so that he would know I was serious (FYI: all of the card numbers are real.  Go ahead and try and use them.  The cards have alredy been used up):

davidcgarcia: Okay. Here are the cards I just got http://twitpic.com/lktr [CLICK TO SEE THE IMAGE I SENT] I’ll send you the card numbers after I talk to my father-in-law.

And a few minutes later

davidcgarcia: Damn, my father-in-law just tried to punch me. VISA GC# 4315680114973317 Let me know when you process that. I’ll send the other ones after.
 
biggestfiresale: no no….don’t give me the numbers. When its Nov-18. go to the site and purchase. I don’t handle the orders, the website does

davidcgarcia: It’s cool. I trust you with them boss. How rich are you? Rex said you are probably richer than God. I want to be rich like that!

I immediately followed up with this message:

davidcgarcia: Hey boss. Here are the other two VISA gift cards: 4315680302540092 and 4315680133269705 Am I in? I’ll get you the other gift card soon.

And then promptly sent this message:

davidcgarcia: So am I ready to go boss? Am I ready to get rich like you? What’s my first job? Did you process the GCs or send them to the website for me?

He wasn’t replying.  I sent this about an hour later.
 
davidcgarcia: Boss, I haven’t gotten anything from the site saying to you submitted my moneys. You’re not keeping them are you? I trust you.

davidcgarcia: Boss? Where are you?Did you stop talking to me after I gave you my $? Please come back? Please don’t take my money. I need to win wife back.  

Notice my grammar is getting worse.  It is awful by the end.  And I start using emoticons.  The things I do for a laugh.

davidcgarcia: :( please. don’t take my money. you said you weren’t a scammer. i thought we were friends. i cut up the cards after i sent you the numbers.

He didn’t reply until several hours later.  I honestly thought he was done with me, but he came back to bite:

biggestfiresale: I am not in front of the computer all the time. I just got back. Please do not buy this product, if you are going to have so much grief!

He immediately followed up with this:

biggestfiresale: I am not here to hold your hands.I have 900 other customers.I can’t hold everyone’s hand. I suggest keep you money,this is not for you.Sorry

What a dick.  And don’t you mean 900 other people to scam?  Time to ramp up the desperation, ruin the grammar and get really weird:

davidcgarcia: Boss, u hav my VISA#s. My wife left cuz of us.I want to prove u wrong. You hurt my feelings, but I will proove you wrong by getting rich.

davidcgarcia: Boss! Come back! Wife’s gone! Teach me! Rexs dad said i should call a lawyer cuz you took my cards. No way. I told him you are my friend!
 
davidcgarcia: Boss, Rexs dads a cop and he said that by taking my VISA#s u got paid for a service.I know u aint swindlin’ me.I just want to make it rich.
 
biggestfiresale: David ,I don’t take orders, only the website can takes orders. I don’t own the products,I get paid a commission for selling the package.

Notice he has yet to reply to the concern about the Visa gift card numbers I sent him.  I wonder if he thought he could keep them.  After all, I paid for them with cash, and they are just gift cards not real credit cards.

davidcgarcia: All right. Just use the numbers on the site when it starts then, Boss. We are still friends, right? I trust you with my visa#s again boss. 
 
biggestfiresale: I also can’t teach you,You have toteachyourselfand read all of the material.I am sorry you misunderstood my position.Don’t worryabout the #s

Don’t worry about the Visa gift card numbers I sent you?  Yeah, I’m sure you’re good for it.  Not going to do anything with them?  Maybe I do have problems with paranoia…

davidcgarcia: Rexs dad said he would get a buddy to help me pro boner against you, but I said we are friends.

“Pro boner.”  Nice touch, rednecky davidcgarcia.

biggestfiresale: I canT place the order for you. Please place it yourself. Don’t worry about he Visa#, If you want to feel safe,just call up Visa and cancel

davidcgarcia: I don’t have the cards anymore boss! You have the card#s. I trust you. My wife left me cuz of you.

davidcgarcia: Boss! Ok you can haz my money! Can we just be friends? I promise not to get the lawyer to pro boner. Just be my friend and help me get rich. 

LOLcats represent.

biggestfiresale: Just call up the tel# behind the card, and cancel the cards. You are making me nervous, I have go to bed,,, good night

That was it.  Time to wrap things up and bring ‘em home.

davidcgarcia: I don’t have the numbers. I cut up the cards. I told you. You are the only person with the numbers now. And my only friend. Boss! Help!

davidcgarcia: Boss! Why wouldn’t you be my friend? Why did you lie to me? You made my wife leave and then took my $.   

A little creepier yet: 

davidcgarcia: I won’t be mad.You were my everything. I wanted a friend like you boss. I wanted it so bad.I hope you can live in the world w/out me. :( 

davidcgarcia: What I am saying is that I just took a lot of pills. Getting sleepy too.

I actually do feel bad for biggestfiresale.  Kind of.  Not really.

Holy bejesus, this is hilarious.  As I was working on THE BOOK this evening, my friend and former co-worker Mike “I’ve Got a Boner for WWII History” McKenna sent me an invite to his new group on Facebook called “Yes on 8.1 - Ban Divorce.”  I didn’t read through what it was about and didn’t even take heed of the decimal Prop number.  Mike is a tree-hating, Commie-stomping Republican (or at least he used to be.  Maybe CA gayed him all up), so I figured it was just another cause supporting an über-conservative agenda.  Then I went back and read the actual subtle/hysterical platform for the group after observing the finely-crafted logo:

Prop. 8 was a good start in protecting marriage. By passing Prop. 8, Californians made it clear that the only way to preserve monogamous, life-long relationships protected by law was to prevent homosexuals from entering into monogamous, life-long relationships protected by law.

Makes sense right? Of course it does.

However, the struggle to protect marriage is not over. We need to go further. We need to destroy the one thing that has threatened traditional marriage throughout history: the willful termination of marriages by those in them.

The solution is obvious. We must ban divorce. Join with us to encourage Californians to target this problem by putting a proposition on the ballot next year to eliminate divorce.

This past election day we decided who gets to marry. Now let’s decide who has to stay married.

I immediately joined this group.  I think you should, too.  Joining awesomely hilarious causes is awesome, wouldn’t you agree?  Shit yeah, you would.

Don’t be gay.  Support and Join Prop 8.1

Sometime in 2005 or 2006, I got a MySpace page.  I did it because all of the other kids were doing it, and I felt like being part of a giant community of retards.  So I had a MySpace page.  I still have that MySpace page.

I hate MySpace.  I loathe almost everything about it.  I hate the emoticons, I hate the retarded surveys, I hate the eye-burning profiles with flashing pics that I am convinced will eventually kill an epileptic.  I hate most people’s attempt to be cool on MySpace.  I hate that most people on MySpace look nothing like their pictures in real life.  Did I mention the surveys?  GRRRRRR!  I hate the surveys.  I hate that an actual sub-dialect of the English language has been forged and spread virally because of that obnoxious “social networking” site.  I know what WTF means, but for the life of me, I am still trying to figure out what FTW is.  Does it mean “Fuck The What?”  Maybe “Fuck The World?”  How about “Fuel The Wombat?”  OMG LOLZ WWJD GRRRRR!

So I hate MySpace.  I have considered deletzorging my MySpacesz for a long time now, but I recently got back in touch with several members of my extended family I have not seen in years.  They have MySpace pages and don’t hold quite the contempt that I do for that site.  For that reason, and for that reason only, have I decided to keep my MySpace page.  Also, I do enjoy messing with nit-wits like this guy.

So, I eventually jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.  It was just at social and just at networky as MySpace, but the IQ level of the people on Facebook seemed to be more in the range of average intelligence than that of the 80 IQ MySpace E-tards (get it? Like retards except…whatever).

Here are some of the cool features of Facebook:

- I can usually search for you by your real name.  A name that doesn’t involve stars or happy faces or flashing pieces of shit.

- There is a Scrabble feature on Facebook.  I LOVE Scrabble.  I’m like a Scrabble Savant.  I dare you (DARE you) to step to my word pimping!

- Through Facebook, I was able to get back in touch with a whole shload of people I knew years ago.  I am sure if I waded through the shitpile of profiles on MySpace, I would be able to find the same people, but I don’t have time for that sort of nonsense.

I am not sure if I can think of any other reasons I like Facebook more than MySpace.  Oh wait!  There is an addicting little application on that site called “Pirates.”  It’s pretty much all about being a pirate and looting and burying gold.  It sounds a bit lame, but it’s like fucking Internet crack cocaine.  YAAAAR!

So, aside from the real names and Scrabble and Pirates application, there really isn’t anything remarkable about Facebook.  But there isn’t anything that really bothers me.  That is…

Until I became the victim of Superpokes!  Oh.My.Bleeding.Jesus.  Have you ever been at a restaurant, and some kid is yelling and screaming and making all kinds of stupid noise while you are trying to eat your favorite dish?  Eventually, your food just starts to taste like hate and all you want to do is grab that kid and throw him at the group of servers who are singing their “cool” version of “Happy Birthday” to the drunken skanks at the table next to you.  You know the feeling, right?  Is it just me?  Anyways, that same fury is what I feel when I get Superpoked.  Except it’s like that kid keeps coming back over and over again.

What is a Superpoke?  It’s like a steroid-enhanced poke laced with absurdity.  On Facebook, you can standard “poke” someone, which is in essence a cute way of nudging someone and saying hi.  But with Superpokes, you don’t just get “poked” by someone.  You get forced into a corner and electronically sodomized by them.  For example, I shamelessly browsed through my Facebook messages on my BlackBerry the other day and noticed that So-and-So had “Thrown a sheep at me.”  And guess what?  What’s-his-face had “Made a taco for me.”  Oh, and Hooray! What’s-her-name “Skipped school with me.”

Holy shit!  If you threw a sheep at me in real life, I would….I don’t know.  Who the shit throws a sheep?  If you made a taco for me, I would thank you but I would feel kind of weird.  And skip class?  Really?  Where are we going?  To the abandoned shack in the woods to smoke cigarettes?  Jesus.

But really, it’s not the absurdity of the Superpokes that bothers me.  I like absurd things.  Like way more than most people.  It is the frequency at which Superpokes occur.  When I log onto Facebook, I have like a zillion (literally) notifications letting me know I have been assaulted with a sheep or served Mexican food or asked to bail on my high school studies or whatever.  It is overwhelming.  The people who developed this application made it so that there are levels of Superpokes you can perform as well.  In order to “level up” for these pokes… I mean Superpokes, you have to annoy the balls off someone like me.  It just makes the Superpokers more determined to get me to roundhouse my pets.

So stop fucking Superpoking me!  I just removed the application for Superpokes that was on my profile, but I am still getting fucking Superpoked!

AAAAAAARRRRRGGH!

I recently got a Twitter account.  It is way better.  It’s a nice little micro blogging/status updating site. If you are like me and hate having livestock tossed your way several times a day I encourage you to get a Twitter account.  It is way less irritating.

My father is a Navy Submarine veteran, a former Fed and is now working to help save the lives of young American soldiers in Iraq by doing whatever it is that he is doing.  I think it involves counter-insurgency work and IED investigations.  I don’t know anything.

My brother is former Army Reserve and was in Iraq for the first year of Gulf War 2.

When I was younger, the concept of a U.S. at war was hard to imagine.  I had been born after Vietnam and was just a pimply adolescent during Gulf War 1.

We truly do live in a different time, now.  We have young men and women out there in shitty deserts and nasty mountain terrains.  They are in airplanes and on aircraft carriers.  They are in frightening places most of us can’t even imagine.

Thank all of you for doing what most of us don’t have the balls to do.  Seriously.

I went on and on in my last post about Prop 8 not being a liberal or conservative issue and that it is simply a Civil Rights issue.  I stand by that.  However, my favorite left-wing nutzo “political commentator,” Keith Olbermann, offered up some pretty smart words tonight.  It’s a bit sappy at times, but the message still gets through.  Check it out, you silly bastards:

All right, I am now seriously returning to posts about farts and retards.

I am not sure if you all know exactly how much work goes into crafting the each weekly TSAT essay.  Do you know?  No you don’t.  Every week, Brandon and I focus our genius brains as hard as we possibly can, toss all other thoughts aside and delve into the process of creative fact/truth writing.

This week, Brandon and I dove into a concept that spans/blurs interests.  If you are a fan of WW2 history and/or a fan of Super Mario Bros., then you will most certainly love the most recent essay.  It is a factual and brave retelling of the events of World War II as seen through the eyes of Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong and all the rest of those fellas.

Go read it:

EXCERPT FROM A MUSHROOM KINGDOM HISTORY BOOK