Death to Radio Disney (and others like it)

Just a heads up for those whom stumble upon this...

I started writing this post a little over a year or so ago (around September of '09) due to all of the bubblegum pop crap I was cursed to hear while babysitting a friend of mine's daughter. (Wow, September of '09, that was a long time passed.) She was an excellent play date companion for my two older boys, but since the kid moved on and my angst for aural injustice was quenched. But I started to think how come I never posted it until now. I still dislike it (the music not the kid.) And in fact since I began writing the bulk of the post; I've seem to have found more offenders to add on. I'll try not to amend most of my feelings but I do want to add on to my argument to us parents (yes, believe it or not as immature as I act, I do have parental duties to my boys) we shouldn't be dumbed down to subject ourselves to this. We should demand respect back to our ears and put on something more structured; like the sound of a live lobster squealing as you drop it into a vat of boiling water. Hell, that sounds a whole lot better that the stuff I'm going to report on. (Which reminds me, why did I put myself through all this torture?!?)

One more thing, I tried not to edit my original thoughts on this too much to keep to my emotions which I still stand on in this matter the same as when I first scripted it.

I like music, 'nuff said. Actually let me rephrase to say that I like GOOD MUSIC. The kind of stuff that either moves you to be with your girl (or guy depending on your preference), start a riot, or just vent over the BS that is well, anything. Music has to be in my opinion raw and to the grit of the subject matter that it's trying to impose. But there's some that fall so far from that bar that it's nowhere to be found. That music in my opinion is the bubblegum-pop tripe that is outfitted by Radio Disney and all other imitators of the sort. (More on the imitators later.)

Why do I hate on Radio Disney, why the hell not. It's crap. It's crap beyond crap. It's the type of crap that if dog crap was able to walk, that it would be the crap that dog crap would step on by accident. Oh yes, that bad; and it's not to say that I'm closed minded. I like all kinds of music from rock to country to rap (especially old school rap) to oldies to classical to even some bluegrass. But the vile act of ear rape that is Radio Disney is beyond help. It's that bad, and I would stand for it. I despise Radio Disney and it's clones with the fiery passion of a thousand George Foreman grills. It should be banished from all existence, and here are some reasons why.

I like to draw your attention to public radio menace number 1: Miley Cyrus. This, has to be the worst solo offender of aural carnage since Roseanne sang the National Anthem back in the 90's. This death siren which is the offspring of country star of the late 80's/early 90's Billy Ray Cyrus leads us to the belief that talent really does skip a generation. It's bland Mickey Mouse (no pun intended) messages of the trials of being a tween and being hip to the standards of a John Hughes movie of what cool kids are presented in an ear splitting yelp that we can only wish that dogs could hear. I rather put a Skil Saw to my inner ear than listen to the crap that is being sung by what could possibly be the fourth Chippette from Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Public radio menace number 2: The Jonas Brothers. They say that celebrity deaths always come in threes. Apparently this trio killed all of our perceptions of what good music and celebrity stardom can provide. It's like if they dressed a bunch of whiny little tarts in oxford dress shirts and pleated khakis, gave them a couple of Les Pauls and told them to pretend to play while the producer dubbed over their PA system with people that can actually play their instruments. Essentially it's this generations Milli Vanilli but crappier. And trust me, I tried to find something nice to say about them, but there's nothing and I mean nothing but pure unadulterated lame that is emitted from these prepubescent dorks.

Pubilc radio menace number 3: ANYTHING FROM THE KIDZ BOP KIDS!!! What in the record producers right mind would think that this was a good idea. Don't they know that just because they can attempt to sing already ear-splitting pop songs in an even more annoying vocal concession is just like putting the Chipmunks balls (if they had any) into a blender on frappe. And I know that this is the second Chipmunk reference in this post but they were the kids crap of the eighties and this is the kids crap of this decade. (Heck, while we're at it, outside of The Christmas Song from the 60's, we'll throw in the original old school Chipmunks as well.) Why must we suffer from this form of inhumane cruelty by having our kids blast this from their Hello Kitty boomboxes in their room and tyrade in what they call dancing is beyond my realm of understanding. Why is this being put up with, who the hell knows. But I know that I'm done with that.

And this is just the top three offenders. I haven't even cashed into the High School Musical songs or Kelly Clarkson music or any of that crap. I tread not to because I would like to keep my sanity after writing this post. And that's just Disney I'm talking about here. Hell, Nickelodeon is doing this now too since I started writing this post and forgotten about it about a year back. They have Miranda Cosgrove (who doesn't really sound that bad but it's the content matter that counts on this one), Big Time Rush (their N'Sync's to Disney's Jonas Bros. being their Backstreet Boys), and any other child actor they have in their arsenal that could remotely carry a melodic tune if I so dare would call it that. This is just the peak of the iceberg of buffalo dung that is Radio Disney (and others like it), and I want out. It's mind-numbing, brain-draining, sub par manufactured crap that is being forced fed to our youth because we use it as a babysitter instead of teaching them some good music, or hell, even spending time with our kids. Now there's a novel concept. Doubt that's gonna happen to our youth anytime soon, but hey, it's just a thought...

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

p.s. If you didn't realize it by now, my afterthoughts were written in this font style outside of the couple of sentences about Nickelodeon's bandwagon of a fail they could (and would) call vocalists. I kept those as is because that was indeed a continuation of my original thought.

Kids and their toys

If you're a decent reader of my blog, you should know that I have three sons. Two of them being the oldest at ages five and six. They love their toys, and that's respectable. But they love my toys as well. And by my toys, I mean my bass guitars (yes, plural) and my videogame consoles, in particular the Wii. I don't mind it sometimes; but there are times that when I see them playing I either want to take it away from the both of them because they're misbehaving, or because they can't play the game the way it's intended to be played. The sad thing is that I don't know what irks me more.

So I guess that I'll start with the part of them misbehaving on the Wii. First off they're five and six, they're prone to be in trouble all the friggin' time anyways. Always roughhousing in our home causing more noise than necessary, it can lead to insanity at times. But for the most part they are good boys, and they do listen to instructions (remember that one for later in the post). But there are some things that I just don't understand with them and the operation of the Wii, much less the playing of the titles. First is the dreaded WiiStrap. They sometimes pass the WiiMotes back and forth to each other forgetting to strap that thing on, it's an annoyance and I really don't want a broken TV because of that. It's a pet peeve that I'll probably contest to a future 'WTF PEOPLE?!?' posting *hint* but for now it's just a nuisance that they don't remember at times. Another nuisance is them touching the discs. Like I said, they're 5 and 6, greasy, grimmy, disgusting, slimy, booger infested, dirt-in-nail, and otherwise gross out until you vomit fingerprints all over my games? I don't effin' think so! I take care of my stuff and try to find classic stuff to horde (I swear I was going to go all Bilbo Baggins on this Nintendo PowerPad I saw at Goodwill today, but the wife wouldn't let me, damn). I like to keep my stuff in mint condition if I can, so I don't ever let my kids take out the discs and scratch 'em all to hell and back. Also, they tend to be a sore loser if they're losing on something. I keep telling them "so what!" and let them sort it out in a mature way (as mature as a 5 and 6 year old can be).

The other thing that gets me isn't quite the conduct and etiquette in playing a videogame, it's the execution of playing said videogame. I have a lot of stuff on Virtual Console for my Wii because I like the old school games and that they're a good basic building block for any gamer, even little kids. It's just that with little kids, they tend to do some of the most mind-numbing things that I just gets my blood pressure rising. Take for example, Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES; my kids love this game, but not for what you might think. There's a minigame in it that let the two players play the original Mario Bros. arcade but as a port (transport with an updated look from the original) of course. Well, that's all they play. They don't continue on through the actual game and accomplish anything, it's just the constant playing of the port that makes me wanna yank the controllers off their hands and play the whole damn game myself just to show them what the hell they're missing by playing that stupid effin' port!!! That pisses the crap outta me. But that's not the only game they play (thank goodness for options); they play WiiPlay as well. Here's where the etiquette thing comes back to bite me in the ass. It's a game essentially of minigames, and they're supposed to take turns on which games to play, but that doesn't happen usually. Usually it ends up with the same damn game being played multiple times, and the same kid winning multiple times, that it causes the other one to get pissed off. So I come to the rescue and pwn the winner in his own game. They're both upset, they're either in time-out or in their room sulking, and I'm not stressed out over the arguing of a videogame.

I seriously get irked to hell by both of these instances and I try to reason with those boys. They sometimes get it, but I swear they're both thick in the head. Must have gotten that from their mother.

I'm BootLeG sampler.. and I'm sleepin' on the couch for that remark...

Family Game Night

If you haven't already figured out, I'm a hardcore gamer. In fact, I love me some videogames no matter what it might be. Luckily for me, my wife is a gamer as well; albeit a casual gamer; but a gamer nonetheless. And when two gamers who love each other very much, one day they have little baby gamers. This is the setup to what it's like to have gamers in training. Just a forewarning, if you're a gamer itself, you can definitely understand the frustration that we go though.

So the other night my boys, ages six and four, wanted to go play the Wii. I gave them permission because they were actually acting like good kids today versus the little buggers that they usually act like. They gathered around the living room and started to play Wii Sports; strike one. One was feeling crappy due to the other pwning them in boxing, and visa versa when it came to tennis. I said, "OK, try a different game. I don't wanna hear any more whining about losing or anything, it's just a game," or something along those lines. (hey when you're cleaning up from dinner and knee deep in pots and pans, oh whatever...)

So they decided to go play Super Mario Bros. 3 that I've bought from the Virtual Store, strike two. The younger one started to sabotage the older one by whenever he tried to pass him on the path, they go into the Mario Bros. mini-game, causing him to lose and then doing the next level. Albeit he dies on each attempt, it's an annoyance that he's basically cock-blocking his brother from playing the game. At about that time my wife came home from running an errand and both me and her (being the fair gamers that we are) put a stop to the sabotage. This ended up with my wife and I watching both our kids playing Mario Bros. 3 in the worst, less than amateurish, sloppiest gaming specticale that we have seen in ages; strike three and they're out.

My wife got so mad that they kept on dying and with having unlimited continues, suffering from having to see them fail so much; that she took one kids controller and started to play for them. I followed suite and started to play for the other. After about ten minutes of that we relinquished the controllers back to them so we could find some sort of solace in them playing something more than the same three levels. But they died and had to start all over again. At that point, my wife had bribed them with cookies to pull them off of the Wii to end that insanity.

This is a gamer family's game night. Let the kids play until you're too damn upset with them losing and have to play for them. And all I can say is that goodness we had those cookies, if not then we would've probably have had two less kids. It was that nerve-raking indeed, but we went through it. And now that I think about it, it's like that with just about any type of game from our childhood that these kids seem to butcher into mincemeat. A few months ago we tried a similar expriment with Trouble. They kept on skipping turns, not jumping over players pegs, all sort of chaos. So it's whether it's a videogame, boardgame, whatever, those two somehow find a way to cause me and my wife to wonder; why did we want kids again?!? But in all honesty, they're good kids, just don't get them to play a game near you unless yourself is a gaming masochist.

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...