nmdmatt // libérerMédias

So I kept it pretty hush hush, but the past two weeks I was in a slump, I guess you could call it a mild depression.  I don’t know why, but it hit hard. It didn’t really bother me until the end of last week, and by that I mean this past Friday.

It feels like two years, but it was only two weeks ago. Our friend Russell passed away, I wasn’t good friends with him, but a lot of the people close to me were. So I did what I do best, and be there for them. So much shit happened, and I think it snapped me in half.

There’s too much laundry that I could air out, so I don’t feel like speaking it. But things finally started to get resolved, true colours shown.

Today though, I just woke up and felt better. It’s a nice spring day, and all day it rained and stormed. I feel fresh.

It’s nice.

Bush vetoes legislation barring use of waterboarding.

“Bush said such tactics have helped foil terrorist plots”

Cha. Like anyone wouldn’t say whatever you wanted after going through that. It’s just like the Salem witch trials..

“From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges”

You are terrorist. Yes?

Well the MPAA just cracked open a bottle of champagne, 2007 was the biggest box office year to date, since 2002.

From 2006, there was a 5.4% jump in box office returns. I think it is comical how their on a full out assault against piracy, yet their profits keep growing. Sort of reminds me of the oil companies, how they need to keep raising oil prices when it isn’t needed.

This isn’t to say the piracy is OK, but it is also to show that it isn’t killing them. They could, of course, say that their fight on piracy caused this up surge in box office sales..but what if:

What if file sharing is in fact helping them? It costs me $7.50 to see a movie, and that is without food or drink. Hell, in Stevens Point it was $8. I’m damn picky about what I’ll see in theatres. In my mind, I’d rather see a bootlegged version of a movie before I go to the theater. If I feel the movie was good, I’ll pay to see it. Before I saw American Gangster, we found a crappy cam bootleg, we noticed it was a good movie - and we went. Hell, even if people bootleg movies, but don’t go to the theater, they may end up buying it.

That’s how a lot of people are about music. I’d like to hear the whole CD before I buy it. Or I just don’t have the money at the time, and I will buy it.

Companies need to have faith in their consumers. Quit attacking us.

I was looking through my old notebooks and found a phrase that I had jotted down. It sparked something in my head, and this new essay was the final outcome. Here: Religion of the Capitalist

I closed again last night, and repeat the same schedule until Wednesday for my weekly day off. Pierce came by right as we were leaving, so we headed over to my place. It was, might be, around 50 degrees, so we decided to go on a night stroll.

We walked down 7th, headed to the Downtown strip. Half of the time we just walked on the street. All of the sidewalks are flooded with 2 inch puddles, or are still complete ice..or a hidden mixture that’s one hell of a piss off.  We just talked about stuff, random, whatever came up we talked about.

We checked out that new plaza they built by the Marina and the kids playground. There isn’t any shops in there, I’m not sure if it’s even complete yet. One store is open, actually. It’s called Gallery 56. There’s paintings and art odds ‘n’ ends, but I think its just a painted picture shoppe type thing, not an actual art gallery.

We kept walking, and found another new store that popped up across from Bjorn’s. I thought it was a fancy clothes shop, but it turned out to be a fancy decor place. And that’s when I was pissed. Kenosha has always been a middle class town, factory town. My generation is part of the college generation,  most of our parents didn’t have to complete school, they could just go and get a factory job.

Now Kenosha is a damned shopping mall. Downtown is just a giant coffee yuppie shop. I’m a bit disgusted by the new apartments, and those new “high class” shops. All it’s doing is raising people’s ideas of their standard of living. It’s sick. I wish something cool would go in there. Like an actual store. Not just some knick knack shop.

Downtown Pantry is closing. You’d think that a small little food shop like that would thrive with all the new housing. Some how it just isn’t. They want to build and expand downtown, but stores keep coming and going with the seasons. They need to stop expanding, they need to structure it. Make sure shops stay, make sure something actually builds to the environment there.

Ugh.