Randomness Is The Answer #184

Right. Time to start inflating balloons.

I am the king of getting my devices to do more than they're designed to out of the box.

So a while back I bought an Amazon Fire Tv stick. It's nice for Netflix, HBO Go, Prime movies and tv obviously, and a few others. But its fairly limited app-wise since it uses the Amazon app store. Lower rate of adoption of Amazon phones and devices means that developers don't make as much for it since there's less money in it.

Found an Android app that pushes other apps from my phone over to the Fire Stick. So far I've added the app to my Google Play movies and music plus the one that Cox has for watching live and on-demand tv. So I've increased my accessible media on it tenfold.

One drawback was I had to buy an app from the Amazon store that lets me use my phone as a mouse since some Android apps don't work properly with the Fire remote. But for $2 i have access to a dickload of movies and tv shows from Cox plus the ability to buy or rent from Google using the money they give me for doing their surveys without having to stream it from my phone and kill my battery.

And you guys thought I'd fuck up haha. Have some confidence in me n00bz! :p

I like the comparisons, but ATR, A7X and FOB all have been well selling groups, i think the change in sound was definitely more calculated.

All That Remains, especially fall of ideals/Overcome was a band that i don't know if they could have headlined a club that sat more than 500 people. now they get to tour amphitheaters with Volbeat and 5 Finger Death punch

Avenged did a total 180 from waking the fallen to city of evil, it was a successful move and one that saw them immediately start headlining bigger venues

Fall Out Boy i think has the most to lose from experimentation, From under the Cork TRee was a straight forward pop punk record that made them all millionaires, they get progressively weirder each album, it's better, but i'm sure their label hates it, kind of the opposite of what ATR and A7X did, they consciously buried the underground sound to appeal to straightforward rock audiences, where i don't know what radio station would carry 40% of fall out boys last record

But you're bang on with Thrice, being kind of a niche post-hardcore band with very limited success means they were free to explore whatever avenue they felt fit them musically, it fits them like a glove

only other band like that, imo is Bring Me The Horizon, not popular enough to have too loyal a fanbase so they throw curve balls every record

A7x was calculated. Shadows said when they put out Waking the Fallen that their next album would be half screaming and their next after that would be clean. I don't know i they'd have as many fans as they do now without the metal roots before becoming more of a hard rock group. And they definitely wouldn't be as popular now if they hadn't evolved into what they are. The combination is what makes them so appealing.

Phill Labonte from ATR always wanted to be a pop punk singer, he was just better at metal so he went with what he could do while working to get better at what he wanted to do. Now the band has kinda found a middle ground sweet spot where "real" metal fans hate their new stuff and their new fans hate their old stuff, and I'm just stuck in the middle enjoying the best of both.

I also feel like if the first few Thrice albums had been mixed a little closer to the bassier side and had the drums brought out a little more, people would be discussing their metal roots rathet than their hardcore roots.

Got an all cash offer for our house in Texas today. Counter offered 4k higher (so we can get enough to cover costs) and the guy accepted. So assuming all goes well, it'll be out of our hands by August.

Joey.....driver had called in and said he was going to kill himself. I didn't take the call, but by the time police got there, he had shot himself. was still alive......had to get a team in to take his truck 200 miles to nearest terminal. not one of my better days

Chromecast is way better J-Dawg, it's well worth it.

I don't want my phone to be the only source of my entertainment joe, plus the chromecast is limited to apps that are approved for it too. Or screen mirroring, but i want to avoid that.

That's fair, but there are so many supported apps for it. Roku is pretty good too.

Reception!

I thought about getting a Roku, but i'd be in the same boat as the chromecast minus the phone problem. The fire stick is a dickload easier to sideload apps on since its android-based, plus i already had one . My only regret was not spending the money to buy the box (which i still might do down the road if Huawei's Android box doesn't pan out)

What a fucking awesome day!

Nice that you're having fun, Jeff.

Yeah i got way into Avenged during waking the fallen and loved city of evil. same with Trivium doing Ascendancy and following it with the Crusade

biggest problem with Phil is he's a bad singer, last album his vox were very obviously cleaned up in post, he needs the grit because singing straight clean for him is a real challenge. the rest of the band hold some blame as well as they haven't had a really stick in your head memorable riff since "2 Weeks". his singing got bland as the rest of the band got boring which is a huge negative strike

issue with thrice and the metal roots is their rythym section grew up on metallica, but their guitar players grew up on the smashing pumpkins, no matter how much you mixed to up the drums and bass, teppei's melody lines would have always thrown metal purists for a loop

In my experiences, anyone who calls themselves an "X purist" is really someone who wants to have an excuse to brush of someone else's opinions on things. The only thing that makes them happy, that's "pure" is the thing or things that they like. I put less stock in those people and more in the casual listener, the casual fan of a genre. That's the tip of your bell curve.

I also feel like people get too caught up playing the subgenre game, especially in the metal scene. I refuse to refer to a band as post- anything or anything-core unless it was a major movement like post-grunge or hardcore. But i feel like we don't need to get so specific. I stop listening to people if i ask them what they listen to and they say they're really into post-melodic death-thrashcore or some shit like that. I just don't have time for you to be that particular.

Well I had a brilliant night! Met some girls and danced with this really cute girl too! It was an amazing experience and just an awesome day. Everything was great!

I agree, the fracturing of genres is way dumb, but i get why people latch on to them.

that said there's a lot of Seattle in Thrice's sound, tough to push back on that.

Steph Curry is just so, so, so good

I like Curry over Lebron because Curry is way more classy IMO.

classy is meaningless, Jordan was the biggest douche bag on the planet, didn't stop him from being great, Curry is just a different animal from Lebron. LBJ heading to his 6th consecutive fnal, in his 30s, he'sa genetic freak and will easilt be in the talks for GOAT when his career is done

Being classy will make him even more popular though.

no being talented makes him popular. IF steph curry was a the nicest guy in the room but shot 17% from beyond the arc no one would care

classy is the dumbest shit sports fans latch onto. the leafs could ice a team filled with juvemile delinquents and barely reformed sociopaths. If they win is about all that matters as fan.

Bill Bellichek is an asshole, but he wins, no one will care how classy he is when he goes into the HOF

Alright you make a good point with Bellichek! He's a dickhead but people probably only like him because he's apart of the Patriots.

again if the Pats didn't win with bellichek at the helm no one would care, he'd be rex ryan, a loudmouth goon with nothing to show. people like talent and victories, "but he's a nice guy" is meaningless in terms of actually winning. Pro sports is filled with more win at all costs guys than gee shucks nice dudes who win. We can go through every sort, and every championship team. I'll take a ruthless lunatic wh puts up points over a nice guy who tries hard. Curry's a sweetheart, but people love him because he's the deadliest 3 point shooter in the game, end of. if he stomped cats to death after each game there'd be warriors fans lining the block with kitten sacrifices to make sure more victories would rain down.

Yea I don't really care about the classy thing, plus it makes zero sense whatsoever anyways.

I hate though that everyone seems to be craving suspensions and fines and stuff for small, dirty plays. My god, the last few games have been tough to watch with how many god damn replays there have been for elbows... Who fucking cares, these are grown men, let them play.

Tonight's game 6 is one of the most heart breaking losses ever, anywhere. OKC had a trip to he finals sealed and then started choking on the worlds fattest dick. Durant looked especially awful. Typical OKC though, get a lead then stop attacking and let Durant try to draw fouls and shoot contested ISO jumpers. Kinda glad it didn't work but also wanted to see GS lose. I've flip flopped my rooting interest mid series in a weird way.

All hail Klay - dude was out of this world tonight