For years I have been railing against the cell phone companies and their ridiculous collusionary tactics and absurd plans. But after Eileen got a new phone the other day and I found out that you can hack it to play an mp3 of Got to Get Her Out as the ring tone, I started to rethink my decision to continue using an expensive and outdated brick of a phone which I never turn on.

But then I talked to the Verizon reps who were peddling their wares at work today, and I was reminded all over again why cell providers were one of my original arch-nemeses. None of them care the least bit about providing plans that make sense for their customers, because it's much easier to employ confusing pricing plans and false advertising, then sign you up for a long term contract to make sure you can't switch to a competitor.

Take, for instance, the 450 minute America's Choice Calling Plan, which is advertised for $39.99 a month (although I get a discount). First of all, your rate is variable depending on who and when you call, which has been the hallmark of every cell phone plan since the things were invented. Apparently the long-distance-provider model of pay for the minutes you actually use is too simple and easy-to-understand for cell phone customers, who prefer to maintain their minute balance and monitor the time of day as they jabber away while driving their oversized vehicles.

But the most dishonest part of all is that, above and beyond the quoted monthly charge is the tiny print at the bottom which reads "gov't taxes and our surcharges could add 8% to 28% to your bill". Now wait a minute, it's one thing to not include government taxes, but their own surcharges? Shouldn't that be part of the price they quote as their monthly charge? Best Buy isn't allowed to advertise a TV as costing $250, and then when you go into the store tell you that it really costs $350. So why are cell phone companies allowed to?

And then there is their definition of "nighttime", which is 9:01 PM to 5:59 AM. Apparently in Verizonland, the sun shines for 16 hours a day.

So if I do end up getting a cell phone, I will be kicking and screaming all the way. I hate giving these hucksters my hard-earned money, especially since they've gone absolutely nothing to earn it.

My site has always had an RSS feed (ever since we moved to Movable Type at least), but I've just now linked to it in the leftnav as I am just now starting to use a news aggregator (talk about being behind by about 3 years...). If you more experienced RSS-ers have advice for customizing my feed I'd be happy to take it.

Today marked another sure sign that spring is here. No, Ken Griffey Jr. hasn't hurt his hamstring yet, but we had our first tornado warning in Kansas City.

Tornadoes are my least favorite of all weather patterns. Hurricanes do more damage, but they're much more predictable. Blizzards last longer, but you get to skip work. Earthquakes are scary, but they only last a few seconds. Tornadoes are unpredictable, dangerous, and they interrupt my TV watching.

I would have thought by this time we would have been able to control the weather. We can take pictures with our cell phones and see satellite pictures of the White House, but even the richest of supervillains can't hold entire countries hostage with weather machines yet.

So until we can bend nature to suit our whims, I propose that we build tornado-proof buildings that can withstand the strongest of winds. One morning while playing basketball with the CS grad students I was running full speed down the court while looking to the side when I ran smack into Richard Souvenir, who was standing in my way to set a pick. Even with the powers of momentum behind me, I bounced right off and fell to the ground while Richard just stood and laughed. I propose that we build structures that can do the same thing: laugh derisively as the tornadoes bounce off of them.

Things to do:
-Purchase the Kelloggs company and force them to start making Strawberry-Banana Nutri-Grain bars again.
-Abolish daylight savings time
-Celebrate wedding on hovercraft with boxing chimps, midgets being shot out of cannons, and Less than Jake
-De-invent capri pants
-Control the weather

First of all, let me head off most of the comments at the pass. I'm calling it "Indie Rock" as a matter of convenience to refer to the current crop of low-fi, garage-rock-sounding bands. I know they're not representative of independent music, and me calling them that probably makes you as angry as it makes me when people call anything they don't like "emo".

Indie Rock

Time of Popularity: This one is kind of tricky, but I'll go with 2001 when the Strokes' first popular album came out until present. And yes, I know most of these bands have been around for a much longer time. People I used to trade Pumpkins' shows with have been babbling about Modest Mouse since the mide-to-late 90's.
Ripped off the musical stylings of: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, pretty much every rock band of that era.
Trademark Sound: Forced "fuzziness" that's supposed to sound raw and energetic, but seems kind of fake when you realize that it's a calculated choice and not borne from not having the money for production.
Most Successful Artists: The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Raveonettes, The Killers, basically The [insert plural noun here].
Band with the most staying power: It's still too early to tell. My guess would be whichever band adapts their sound to whatever is trendy next. If you held a gun to my head I'd say the White Stripes, because everyone seems to be oblivious to the fact that Meg White is possibly the worst drummer ever. The radio station here got a hold of a new song by them and played it incessantly this past weekend, and again I get the same kick drum pounded into my head over and over again. The drummer in my high school band used to try and play these ridiculous fills in every slight transition during our songs, while Meg takes the opposite approach: bang the cymbal or kick drum over and over and over again with no variation in rhythm at all.
Clothing: Tight t-shirts and tight jeans, I guess. And scariest of all, Beck was wearing his pants and boots like Napoleon Dynamite during SNL on Saturday.
Long term contribution to society: Too early to tell, although they've ushered in an age where the nerdy and poorly dressed are the new cool kids. Napoleon Dynamite is a hit movie, Seth Cohen is the most popular character on the OC, and comic book movies reign at the box office. 'Tis a great time to be a programmer.
The Last Word: It's especially ironic that these bands are called "indie", because they've been Smash Mouth-esque in their selling-out-ness. They're on commercials for Ipods, jeans, and cars before their songs are even on the radio, as was pretty much the case with The Zutons (yet another plural...noun?), whose song "Pressure Point" I heard in an advertisement for blue jeans and during a video game before I ever heard it on the radio. It's also a great time to be a lead singer, since actual singing skills are no longer required. "Perhaps if we turn up our guitars and don't make any attempt to do any post-production, people won't notice that I'm not on key," they seem to say. Luckily the time has just about run out for low-fi garage rock. Only a few more months of Franz Ferdinand and Bright Eyes until the fickle public casts its favor in the direction of a new sound. What will be next? The answer probably lies in "what hasn't made a comeback yet?". My guess..."disco rap".

I have a lot to say about the final genre, "Indie Rock", but I am saving it for another day. I do want to post about another music-related item though. Former Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan recently released the entire archive of released Pumpkins material (well, majorly-released material) to online music downloads sites earlier this month.

More interestingly, he has also started posting lengthy bloglike entries on Billycorgan.com and a myspace account about his pre-Pumpkins days playing in The Marked (some of the most hilarious music ever) and the recording sessions for the album Adore. They are fascinating, engrossing, and incredibly long.

I'm happy to report that the recording sessions for Just Because it Doesn't Kill You... were not nearly as traumatic as the Adore sessions. I was not doing drugs, on bad terms with any of my fellow bandmates, or purchasing Ferraris in cash and having any members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers over to Apartment 12 Studios. Maybe that's what was missing...

The Red Sox home opener was today, so it's the first official day of baseball season. Therefore, it's not too late for a baseball preview, a week into the season...

AL East
Predicted Finish:NY Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Toronto
Sadly I still don't think the Red Sox will be able to overtake the Yankees over the 162-game season. I don't think Pavano will have a good year, as most newcomers to New York usually don't, but I think Mussina and Johnson have one decent year left in them. Meanwhile the Red Sox have Schilling and a bunch of inconsistent arms. Baltimore may finally get a bit better, as the have the offense and the back end of the bullpen to compete with the big 2 but not the starters. The surprise will be the D-Rays finishing ahead of the Blue Jays, who've got nothing this year.

AL Central
Predicted Finish: Chicago White Sox, Minnesota, Cleveland, Detroit, KC
The Twins are the chic World Series pick, but I don't think they have the pitching. Plus, White Sox ownership has shown that it will at least try to make a deadline deal to help the team while Minnesota still whines about not having any money. Cleveland and Detroit are about even, and the Royals will be terrible once again. It will be a long, painful baseball season here.

AL West
Predicted Finish: Angels, Seattle, Texas, Oakland
As much as I abhor their name ("Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim"), the Angels are the only complete team in the West. Seattle has the offense but not the pitching, Texas does as well, and Oakland will flounder while they wait for their next crop of Moneyball stars to mature.

NL East
Predicted Finish: Atlanta, Florida, NY Mets, Philadelphia, Washington
Same old same old for the Braves, although the Marlins will put up a fight. The Mets tried to buy the division again this year, and once again they'll fail. Pedro will be rejuvenated in the NL until the press starts to dog him, but the rest of the staff is old or hurt and Piazza isn't the force he used to be.

NL Central
Predicted Finish: Houston, St. Louis, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh
I hate to say it Brewers fans, but I have a feeling this first place start won't last too long. The Cardinals have lost just enough from their bullpen and offense to slip into 2nd. By the way, Cardinals fans, is it too late to send Renteria back? He's left scads of runners on base and been a liability defensively for the Sox.

AL West
Predicted Finish: San Diego, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco, Arizona, Colorado
The Dodgers don't have the bats to take the division, and the San Francisco Bonds' may suffer a bit without their one and only player as he alternately rehabs and pouts. I guess this is just my attempt at ruining his and his childrens' lives like the rest of the media. Oh woe is Barry.

The past 2 years, I played intramural softball at school with some other folks in the CS department. Perhaps you remember our jaw-dropping upset against the dreaded Beta frat last year? One of the drawbacks to no longer being at school is that I don't get to do intramural sports anymore.

But luckily my company takes part in the Kansas City Corporate Challenge, in which local companies compete against each other in sports ranging from track and field to basketball. There just so happens to be softball in the Corporate Challenge, so this past Tuesday I went to tryout for our team.

Being that I work for a software company, I figured that this team would be a lot like the one I played on last year, but I forgot that we also have a bunch of sales and marketing folks. As such, the tryout consisted of almost 50 guys trying out for 8 spots, and most of them played college baseball at major programs like Georgia Tech.

Needless to say, I think I'd have a better shot of making the Royals than of making the softball team.

Emo

Time of Popularity: 2003
Ripped off the musical stylings off: Didn't really have a signature sound, so it couldn't really rip anything off.
Trademark Sound: There really wasn't one. Most were fairly slow, droopy, and acoustic.
Most Successful Artists: Dashboard Confessional
Band with the most staying power: Dashboard Confessional
Clothing: Emo didn't really have an image, it was more of a state-of-mind.
Long term contribution to society: An outlet for millions of depressed teens, who finally had musical idols who were as sad and mopey as they were. Also coincided with the mainstream rise of blogging, especially LiveJournal, meaning the internet is now littered with bad teen poetry, bad teen artwork, and Mood: Pensive.
The Last Word: Emo managed to have a backlash against it before it even became remotely popular. Even before I knew what it was, I would hear musical snobs call any band they didn't like "emo". That's still the case today, where any band that doesn't sound like a late-60's garage-rock clone with fuzzy acoustics is immediately labeled emo by the hordes of annoying indie hipsters whose musical preferences are no longer indie or hip. Real emo music is melodramatic and whiny, with the most often topic of complaint being the inability of the singer to get some girl to love him. In other words: my music.

Next time: Indie Rock