Everything is getting more and more expensive these days. Retailers like Target and Walmart recently admitted they are price gouging all of us. As a fuck you to those greedy corporate fat cats, we at The Hard Times we wanted to give you all the opportunity to get a free vinyl record from our Hard Times Shoppe.
Now we can’t just give you a free vinyl, that would rob you of the satisfaction of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and earning one yourself. My grandfather had a saying, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man wire fraud, you give him the opportunity to buy a limited edition orange vinyl of Ceremony’s Rohnert Park LP at no cost to themselves.” In honor of this sage advice, here are our tips to open a credit card in someone else’s name.
Step 1: Dumpster Dive to Find Credit Card Offers Sent to Your Neighbors
The easiest way to get a credit card opened in someone else’s name is to find the offers people are sent in the mail. Go to the dumpster behind your apartment and start digging. You think you just saw the guy with the Chevy Camaro throw away his trash and that piece of shit keeps doing burnouts out of your parking lot at 2 a.m., so he has it coming.
Step 2: Ponder the Grim Implications of the Oppressive Economic Systems Put in Place to Keep Those in Power Thriving
Ok so you dug through your apartment’s dumpster and all you found were overdue bills and evidence that your neighbors have as many maxed credit cards as you. You did find the Camaro Guy’s mail and found he is in a pretty contentious custody battle and is likely using the early morning burnouts as a coping mechanism. Before you formulate your next plan of attack, take a moment to reflect on the structure of the economic systems of our society and how those systems are put in place to allow people that are already thriving to continue to thrive at the expense of those with lower economic status.
Step 3: Dig Mailboxes in a Nearby Affluent Suburb to Find Better Credit Card Offers
After a short period of reflection on our economic system, you decide that you aren’t going to let the bourgeoisie bastards get away with it. You’re going to the suburb near you that pays to be on a “Top 10 Places to Live” list put on by an online magazine and find credit card offers there. You’re not just doing this for a free vinyl anymore, you’re doing this for you and all your neighbors forced to barely scrape by.
Step 4: Bail Yourself Out of Jail
Yeah so the police in the suburb you picked clocked you almost immediately after you passed the “Welcome to Carmel, Indiana” sign. You didn’t even make it to a mailbox and they arrested you for “disorderly conduct,” whatever the fuck that means, and you have to call a friend to bail you out. Thanks to the bail costs, you are down $200 from when you started, which means you need a free vinyl more than ever. Keep going, now is not the time to quit.
Step 5: Regroup by Watching “Catch Me If You Can” Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks
You need some inspiration, so you decide to watch Catch Me if You Can with the buddy that bailed you out. You didn’t find any meaningful ideas since the movie takes place in the ‘60s and ‘70s and identity theft safeguards have changed since then, but it’s a solid flick.
Step 6: Just Use Gene Simmons’s Information
If all the steps above fail for you, feel free to use Gene Simmons’s information that we got by posing as someone looking to license the KISS brand for a mobile game or some shit like that.
Name: Chaim Witz
Address: 1234 Coral Canyon Rd. Malibu, California
Social Security Number: 666-16-5678
Security Question: Name of First Pet?
Answer: Peter Criss
Congratulations, you now have the skills to open a credit card in someone else’s name. Take time to scroll through the Hard Times Shoppe and spend to your heart’s content, you’ve earned it.

We’ve said it before, but self-titled LP threes are often a boardroom calculated move when a band wants to return to form, and while this thrice of an effort without deadbolts is better than most pop punk records 2011 and beyond, but the unfortunate reality of rankings is something has to be in last place. We love ALL The Story So Far albums, but for some reason, this one had far less personality than its two predecessors, and certainly less than its perfect follow-up. “Still,” the world was clamoring for more TSSF records, and showcased such by buying/streaming the LP to a strong twenty-three on the Billboard 200 in its opening week. Also, how stoned was the band when they threw out the concept for this album cover?
While this debut full-length is endearing, catchy, and a hell of a solid start for any band, it just isn’t as good as you remember that it is, and to directly quote uber-non-controversial Vince McMahon’s theme song, “There is no chance, NO CHANCE IN HELL that ‘Under Soil and Dirt’ is the best TSSF LP in their esteemed catalog. Honestly it isn’t even a medalist here but it IS likely your gateway drug to this fantastic band unless. And again, we really aren’t sure what is going on with the album cover here. Is this like their thing?
There are no “skip it” tracks moving forward. The Story So Far’s sophomore full-length LP was far from a slump, and like most solid second albums, it is a version of their debut on steroids that doesn’t give you bacne, make your balls small, and give you a giant face. Production value amplified? Check. Catchier songs with better musicianship? Check. Heavier? Check. The band’s collective net worth before even forming? Checks, IRAs, 401Ks, AND trust funds. Anywho, at just under thirty minutes, “What You Don’t See” is the band’s shortest LP, and that says a lot, as ALL of their LPs are pretty concise as well. Want to sweat remotely? Watch the band’s video for one of their biggest songs “Empty Space” and, uh, feel full; yeah. So, enjoy this bronze medalist musical recording and face value but without the “s” like The Suicide Machines’ song.
The band may love that this most recent effort is ranked in the sterling silver medal position here, but you miscreants will still @ us and bitch in the comments/mentions because the music you listened to in 7th grade is always better than the music 7th graders get to listen to now. Whatever, man, we want YOU to disappear anyway. Speaking of the word “whatever,” whatever a valiant return to form is defined as in Merriam-Webster dictionaries. This effort also is the band’s longest gap between full-lengths AND their first without former bassist Kelen Capener, who has both a funny Twitter, and left the band two years ago. Produced by Jon Markson, who also sat behind the boards for Koyo and Parker Cannon’s side project No Pressure, this one truly shows that Markson made his mark, son. (
The gold medal winning full-length studio album “Proper Dose” was and always will be a series of four “uns”: Unexpected, unconventional, unrivaled, and unreal. Some bands “mature,” or at least attempt to do so, and their songs end up sounding like its antonym “immature,” or just “crappy,” but TSSF’s fourth album is far from a farce in musical form, and that’s NOT all we have to say about that. Please find us another Warped Tour band that combined the best parts of the mid-90s with some 00s flair, and a modern Ric Flair for the gold. We mean, you always find the words to say to keep us right here waiting, and take us as you please. We predict that the band will keep this up on album six, and will provide their listeners with a proper dose of quality.