Bon Scott Retrospective and March 26th

Bon Scott: Retrospective

(Unabridged Original Post from Music Blog)

I have made it through multiple listenings of the Bon Scott ACDC era.  Bon Scott was every bit the rock and roll singer he sung about being.  There is no making a saint out of Bon Scott, and that unapologetic attitude just makes him that much more a rock and roll legend.  The thing is, there are a couple of songs where he seems to bare his soul a bit.  An early example is "Its a Long Way to the Top", but the best example of this is "Ride On", and I feel like he was growing to have some maturity to him near the end.  Bon Scott's influence can be heard very strongly in the later 80's bands like Motley Crue and Skid Row.  While that style of vocals is now considered dated, the original stays the standard and the ACDC songs, especially the Powerage+ era still feel like fresh hard rock.

My favorites that feature Bon prominently are the ones where he gets "real" with us.  I like "Its a Long Way to the Top" and "Ain't No Fun"".  I also like the songs where he stretches his singing ability a bit, like "Highway to Hell", "If you Want Blood" and "Rock and Roll Damnation".  Finally, I can't forget his sleaziest, most witty songs "Big Balls"  "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack".  Even if he did not write the lyrics to all of those, his delivery is iconic.

The truth behind Brian Johnson's hiring, I found out, was that it was Bon that picked him.  One night Bon came back from watching a show.  He told the band that this singer really howled on the mic, got on the floor and tore up on stage.  He told the band that this singer really had "it", he had that Little Richard mentality, he really knew what rock and roll was about.  It just so happened, that was the night that Brian Johnson got appendicitis and he was genuinely howling in pain. After the band realized that Bon would want them to go on after his death, the first name that came to Malcolm and Angus' mind was Brian Johnson, because they felt he had been given the "ok" by Scott all those years ago

March 26th, 2014

Its funny, last week I was having misgivings about the PS4 and Microsoft virtual reality headsets.  I felt that Occulus had done all the heavy lifting and these two companies would be coming in to swoop up the benefits and have a competing product basically using all the hard work Occulus had done.  Now... I'm really glad Facebook isn't going to have a monopoly.  Combine this with the camera being integrated into Occulus and they are just having too many missteps these days for me to support them.  Maybe Valve will pick up the technology as well.  This is the closest we've ever come to "in home" and "you know, actually works" VR in my lifetime.  I hope it doesn't spell doom for the tech for another 10 years or so.

I'm not a fan of Mayo in general.  Mayo though, is an important base for a lot of sauces and a great shortening substitute in breads.  Anyway, if you are not getting this Kraft Olive Oil mayo, you need to try it.  You can reduce calories in things by SO much with this stuff.  I make a spicy chili mayo for zuchini fries, salmon burgers, and a few other things.   I use mayo in my "quick" biscuit recipe when I don't have time to do them all fancy like.  I make a small amount of thousand island dressing with it for my crab salad sandwhich.  This stuff works well in everything.

I played the most lump sided, bad luck induced game of Lord of the Rings LCG yesterday.  Before turn 2 ended, I legitimately was wiped out.  This is with the easiest rated quest in the starter set.  I haven't lost this quest in months and I was playing it just to get my game knowledge back up to par.  The starter box has particularly weak "Lore"(think Blue magic in Magic; The Gathering), but I really like Lore.  I'm doing a 2 Leadership 1 Lore deck, and I just do not know if its going to cut it.  I was not going to get any new expansions till I finished that 3rd quest, but I just want to play Lore so badly.

Still, its funny, going back to the Facebook buying Occulus Rift VR tech for 2 billion dollars.  Old people with money to burn still do not understand the tech industry.  Reports are that pretty much any stock with the word Occulus rose in price for no other reason than people buying it because they think they're getting a steal on penny stocks that are about to be worth billions.