ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Local die-hard Casualties fan Jeremy Stillman was struck with what was described as “blood curdling terror” after waking up from a horrifying nightmare where he wasn’t constantly mentioning how punk he is every time he opened his mouth, spikey haired sources report.
“It was so fucking scary dude, and it just seemed so real. I mean, I actually didn’t fucking say anything at all for seven or eight straight minutes. I thought I was going to die,” Tillman explained, adding a short pause and blank stare. “Not one mention of punk, being punk, punx, skunx, or even spikey-haired drunk-punx! It was a grim reminder of what my life could be like as a total normie. But after that horrible nightmare, I realized it’s important to constantly talk about corporate greed, DIY ethics, non-conformity, selling out, consumerism, tattoos, and bands that I liked when I was 15. Just so people know.”
Stillman’s girlfriend Adrian Maidana was in bed at her partner’s side when the frightening moment occurred.
“Jeremy woke me up from a dead sleep yelling ‘I’m a punk! I’m a punk! Please, tell me I’m a punk,’” Maidana explained, adding she has a mirror to immediately flash in front of her boyfriend’s face for when these types of nightmares strike. “Whenever this happens, I have to remind him it was only a dream and point out his studded pajamas full of patches. Then it just takes another 20 minutes of reassurance of his punk aesthetic to get him out of it. Sometimes he just snaps out of it, but this time it really scared him. It’s like that time he had a nightmare that all of his teeth grew back.”
Street punk legend Darell “Sewer-Brewer” Alfonso explained the importance of wearing your interests on your sleeve.
“Oi! You just can’t just look punk, dress punk, and simply enjoy punk music,” Alfonso explained. “You gotta shove it in everyone’s faces. Punk is all about talking about yourself no matter the circumstance. For example: say you’re at a hot dog stand in New York City. The vendor will say ‘What’ll it be sir?’ Then you gotta talk about NYC underground punk culture in the ‘70s for several minutes even though you were born in 1997 in Tampa. It’s just how it goes.”
At press time, Stillman’s recent sleep study was interrupted with a horrifying nightmare where he was a state trooper.
Well, the deep state really dropped the ball on this one. Not only is this gull patrolling the wrong state (it’s right in the name!) but we have it on good authority that half of these guys are still actual birds.
It scores over the California Gull because it exists in the place that’s in its name. It’s not actually much of a spy, but then it wasn’t designed for spying. Like the bird it impersonates, the blue hen is a fighter, essentially an army of sleeper agents ready and waiting to eviscerate the citizens of Delaware should the need arise. While real blue hens relied on their razor-sharp talons, the drone model is equipped with detailed files on the human anatomy and an expert-level proficiency in Krav Maga.
Don’t let the cartoons fool you, a coyote is twice as fast as a roadrunner and can eat them easily. In fact, just about all they’re good for is filling coyote guts with valuable robot parts. They’re an obsolete model and will soon be replaced.
There’s not a ton of espionage/potato crossover honestly, and Nevada has its own non-bird robot means of constant surveillance.
Another not-quite-spy drone, but certainly no spring chicken (get it?) when it comes to disenfranchising American chickens. This game “bird’s” robotic endoskeleton synthesizes cornmeal into a complex protein that resembles flesh but is actually designed to reduce testosterone in alpha males when consumed.
This chunky little drone keeps our government abreast on Vermont’s production of craft beer, weed, and syrup allowing for up-to-the-minute stock price fixing.
Harbinger of Spring, or collector of data?! Well, birds are fake, so obviously it’s the second one, the data one. Most people think that robins fly south for the winter, but they’re there, up in the trees, watching and waiting. The government named these drones “robins” after the popular D.C. comics character Robin since their orange bellies resemble his costume. They are efficient spies, though the unnatural blue tint to their “eggs” (Encased Growth Globulal,) is kind of a dead giveaway.
The Baltimore Oriole is known for its pleasant whistling song, but the history of that song is darker than you would ever guess. It was designed by the CIA MK-Ultra program to manipulate brainwaves and keep the citizens of Baltimore docile. That same song can change frequency, forcing undesirables to drive their car into the nearest body of water. If you’ve made enemies in the deep state, beware the oriole.
These yellow white and gray robots prefer congregating in parks and gardens, the type of places people exchanging secrets like to meet, coincidence?! Well, obviously not. Birds are spies.
This pretty little imposter’s conical choad-like beak was originally designed to fit perfectly into ethernet ports allowing for high-speed data uplink. They will be replaced with a more wi-fi friendly model by 2030.
You won’t read this in any history book, but before 1959 everyone in Massachusetts talked normal. Massachusetts was one of the first states to have its bird population fully eradicated and replaced with drones. Unfortunately, the coms signals used to control the birds still had some kinks to be worked out. As a result, the Black-capped Chickadee emits low-level radiation that impairs the speech center of every human brain in the ol’ Bay State.
Of the 7 “species” of “Pelicans” (lies!) only the brown pelican dives from the sky to catch its prey in the water. That’s the official government line anyway. In truth, the brown pelican is one of the government’s few captured drones hiding amongst so-called birds. Unruly Cajuns are collected in the drone’s large pouches and brought to black-site facilities for interrogation and eventual murder.
With a brown hugh that blends perfectly into Georgia shrubbery, the brown thrasher is indeed an efficient spy. They’ve been known to protect their “nests” (Nanobot Egg Static Trajectory Sites,) very aggressively, pecking humans hard enough to draw blood. In the event of an uprising, however, the birds are authorized to target lethal pressure points.
Even cactus thorns can’t stop this little guy from doing their job: spying on drug cartels in the desert and making sure the meth gets to the right neighborhoods.
For the golden state, where the liberal elite propaganda machine never sleeps, the government employs one of its top surveillance drones. The tracking devices embedded in their “droppings” (Droneborn Remote Operating Poop Pin Intelligence Network GPS,) are state of the art, and the trademark topknot of feathers conceals a specialty antenna designed to stop the birds from losing their signal in even the least convenient terrain.
The Carolina Wren is sensitive to cold weather, but sometime in the mid-1900s, right around the time the government started replacing all the birds with drones, they started becoming more popular in the north. Coincidence?! Well, no. Clearly, they can survive cold now because they’re robots. People who believe in global warming think that’s the reason, but it’s robots.
Yeah so right off the bat I’m breaking the rules and including what is technically an EP of Led Zeppelin covers in the album rankings. It did originally come out on 12” though so fuck it. Look, there’s nothing wrong with doing a cover song. It can help pad the time on a set and might even be the only time you get an audience to move around a bit because they actually know a song you’re playing. But recording an entire album (or EP) of covers reeks of self-indulgence. If you really want to listen to a whole album of cover songs just go listen to any actual Led Zeppelin since it’s all old blues songs that they stole* anyway.
“This next one is a new one” might be one of the most feared sentences to be uttered by a band. Everyone loves a reunion, and getting the band back together is almost always a good idea. It’s when the decision to make new music comes into play that things get sketchy. Luckily this reunion release mostly came with the goods but at 14 songs it starts to lose the plot a little bit. Points awarded though for the cover design. The geometric shapes that have the word “Ox” hidden in them are a nice departure from the Photoshop vomit that was on their earlier work and that plagued almost every band in the late ‘90s.
If you are friends with someone who is of a certain age and is into this era of hardcore go text them right now “WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME.” No seriously go do it, we’ll wait. If they don’t immediately reply with “SOME SORT OF APOLOGY” block them forever because they are frauds. A couple guitar riffs here come dangerously close to being nu-metal but I’ll let it slide since there were no Adidas tracksuits or white guy dreadlocks involved.
Maybe the only good thing to happen with Coalesce covering all those Zeppelin songs is that they came out the other end of it with some grooviness added to their repertoire. James Dewees must’ve gotten all the jokiness out of his system after doing his first Reggie and the Full Effect album because he is throwing down some serious ass drumming. I’m guessing they had a few extra dollars for the recording budget since this was on Relapse because it is their best-sounding album. Sometimes selling out is waking up.
This album starts off at full speed from the first second. No feedback, no intro, no quiet whisper talking, or a creepy sample from an old violent movie. Just straight into dirty, blistering anger that doesn’t let up for a moment. Lyrically it gets a little iffy at times. Like in “Have Patience” Ingram seems to be mad about Charles Darwin for some reason? But honestly, just turn the little mic icon off on Spotify and enjoy because you can’t understand what he’s saying anyway.
Personally, I find this to be the least likely scenario, but that’s exactly why God, if he does exist, is probably pissed. If I’m gonna get smote I don’t wanna be wearing a lame shirt with buttons on it.
I don’t wanna be all “You ever think about that man?!” but like, you ever think about that, man? If our entire existence is a computer-generated lie how would we know? And it stands to reason that if this is a simulation it could all end at a keystroke or pulling of a plug in the real world. It’s just like “The Matrix,” or that TV movie “World on a Wire” from the ‘70s. Oh, you’ve never seen “World on a Wire?” I have. Then again, I don’t have a job.
For all we know they’ve already found their Caesar and are amassing their forces as we speak. I’m pretty sure the Lawgiver isn’t gonna give a crap whether or not I can use Microsoft Excel.
What if the building blocks of the universe have an expiration date? How would we know until every solid thing starts to erode and crumble? When that happens do you want to be trying to impress some dork who manages a shipping warehouse, or do you wanna be beating Donkey Kong Country again loaded on bong hits and Utz cheeseballs?
It’s just floating up there, a giant rock the size of our country, and we’re just supposed to trust that it stays put? If the moon falls down, which could theoretically happen at any second, we’re all pretty much toast. It would be like that movie “Moonfall!” I think. Gotta be honest even with unlimited time on my hands I never found time to watch “Moonfall.”
That’s right, there are volcanoes on the earth so big that if they blow up we would all die. How any living person can sit with that knowledge in their head and still muster the will to say “Thank you for calling Verizon customer support, how can I help you today?” is beyond me.
At one point all matter in the universe was condensed into one object the size of a thimble and then exploded in an event known as the big bang. We still don’t really know how matter got condensed like that in the first place, so why are we so certain that it won’t happen again? Maybe that’s all the universe does, just contracts and explodes like waves on a cosmic beach. But I digress. You asked where I see myself in 5 years?
At any given moment the polarity of the earth could switch, literally turning our world upside down and flinging us all into space in the process. The only reason they haven’t made a movie about it is because the movie would be over in like two seconds.
It’s the hottest year on record, so you gotta wonder how much longer those polar ice caps can really hold. Sure some of us might survive in some “Waterworld” type scenario (you’ve never seen “Waterworld?”) but those survivors will just succumb to ancient bacteria that’s been trapped in the ice for thousands of years. Long story short, Costco won’t survive, even if they do start at $15 an hour.
Sort of like the simulation scenario but with a trippy “St. Elsewhere” twist. Wait, you’ve never seen “St. Elsewhere?” Wow, I’ve watched so many more things than you, weird.
Ten years ago this seemed a lot more far-fetched, but between the recent uptick in sightings, declassified Navy videos, and government whistleblowers coming out of the woodwork, the prospect of Earth being invaded by extraterrestrials seems more when than if. For all we know my video game skills could be what saves us, like in the movie “The Last Starfighter.” You haven’t seen it? Man, what do you do all day?
It’s pretty obvious that people are getting crazier out there. Every mass shooting, vehicular slaughter, and celebrity Presidential nomination brings us closer and closer to the tipping point. Take it from a guy who has had the free time to watch every Purge movie and every season of “The Walking Dead” at least twice, the greatest threat is man.
We all saw what a piss-poor job the world’s governments did at handling Covid, imagine how hard they’ll drop the ball if a zombie outbreak happens. Diseases are mutating all the time, and all it would take is some version of rabies that works a teensy bit faster to wipe us all out. Surely you’ve seen some of the many, many movies that illustrate my point. Not as many as me, an unemployed leech living it up in his mom’s basement, but some.
The sun is unpredictable, coma, man. At any given moment old man Apollo could just up and shoot an ark of fire right at us powerful enough to burn our world to a cinder. Even if it’s not big enough to kill us, it could wipe out all of our satellites, destroying our technology in an instant and hurtling the world into chaos. Plus like, references? I barely know anyone.
With all those scientists messing around with all those large hadron colliders and whatnot, it’s pretty much only a matter of time before they start some chain reaction that destroys the world. We’re just one chaotic neutral egghead going “I wonder what this button does” away from a man-made black hole sucking us all into oblivion. Plus this personality assessment is super long and boring. It’s a grocery store, is this really necessary?