Face Meltingly Sensitive

Face Meltingly Sensitive

The Absolute Best Playlist of Power Ballads You’ll Ever Hear

Since the dawn of time, music has been used to express feelings of love, lost love, sadness, and, occasionally, something about how hard it is to be rich and famous. Since the dawn of hard rock, that same music has used sensitive lyrics combined with electric guitar shreds to bring tears to the Big-Haired-Acid-Washed-Denim-Wearing-Jersey-Soul in all of us. I’ve compiled what I think are the best examples of this music. I made some guidelines for myself to follow when selecting songs for this list:

• There has to be an electric guitar present. 
• Except for those two songs. You know the ones.
• Song should either be about finding love, losing love, loving love, having sex, or poor little rich boy topics.
• Band/Artist should primarily be known for straight up rock music, not love songs.
• Except for the first song, but I give good reasons for that one.
• Only one song per band/artist, but a previously featured artist doing a duet outside of their main gig is okay.

You can listen to the playlist here (requires Spotify). Some blatant omissions will, of course, be noted but rest assured that I will explain any and all deficiencies that I have noticed myself in the song-by-song codex below the break.

Dear Robin Williams

It's been almost a year since I last updated this blog. And it takes a tragedy to bring me back to the land of the writing. That's a terrible way to be, and it make me a horrible author. Not in the You-Can't-Write-for-Shit-Kid sort of way (any previous blog entry spells that out to great effect anyway), but in that Now-It-Seems-Like-You're-Only-Writing-This-for-Guaranteed-Hits way. This is what Reddit has done to my brain. Anyway, I'm crossing platforms for only the second time. After the jump you'll see a blog post originally written on my company's intranet collaboration platform. I needed to share here, as well.

Man of Steel: At Least There Wasn't A Giant Mountain of Kryptonite This Time

Warner Bros. takes their copyrights pretty seriously, so here's this  watermarked image of a different man of steel.

So they rebooted Superman. We all knew it was going to happen and, given the success of the current Marvel franchises, we all knew it was going to be a litmus test to see if the DC Universe could sustain the same type of interconnected storyline(s). I originally wasn't going to write this post, but an ongoing argument over the quality of the film with Mrs. AR, and seeing @Hokuboku live tweet the first Donner movie rekindled my desire to talk about the film and, truth be told, I really need to vent.

*WARNING* This entry is full of spoilers for the film. After the jump you will see plot point after plot point being written about in a very snarky and pissy manner. Anyone that complains about spoiling the movie gets a box of angry bees sent to their house.

Dear Adam Gabriel Christian

I very, very rarely cross the streams between the real me and the corporate me. Who wants to risk total protonic reversal? However, as the big day is getting closer and closer I'm compelled to share this with everyone else. Below you'll find a blog I originally wrote on my corporate intranet blog. It's about my little sister and the tiny human currently feeding itself off of her body. Special shout out to my nieces out West. I love both of you immensely. Sorry I'm so far away.

Incredibly Difficult Task

There's a disturbing trend popping up on Facebook that I simply cannot fathom. It is baffling how many different times I've seen this posted on my News Feed. What, I ask you, the entire fuck? Is this a difficult thing for people? Are there men and women out there that have to sit and think about this? To prove how ridiculously easy this is I'm going to sit here and rattle off five movies without an S in the title from a random sampling of genres. You'll have to trust that I'm doing this improv style, but those that know me well know how I am about movies and recalling them.

The World Almost Ended Just Now

As the nine of you that read this blog know, I have a strong attachment to this new, living creature known as Teh Interwebz. The Internet allows us to communicate with people thousands of miles away in real time, watch as we land rovers on Mars, and of course, take pictures of our food to show to our friends. So if something should ever happen to this now indispensable facet of our day to day life the impact would be felt immediately, right? Right. That's why, today, I blew a fucking gasket.

Dear Felix Baumgartner

Dear Felix Baumgartner,

You, sir, are the very definition of a BAMF.

For those of you that don’t know who Mr. Baumgartner is, let me break it down for you: In 1960 Colonel Joseph Kittinger, former command pilot for the USAF (and surviving Vietnam War POW) participated in Project Excelsior which was designed to test the chances of a successful high altitude bail out and what affect they could/would have on the human body. This qualifies him as Felix’s BAMF Father. At the time of Col. Kittinger’s jump there were no fancy pressurized capsules, ultra-accurate sensors, or even energy drinks. Wearing a pressure suit and several layers of clothing that doubled his weight, and having absolutely no idea what would happen to his body at those altitudes and speeds, Colonel Joseph Kittinger stepped out of an open air gondola… and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past. His highest altitude was recorded as 19.47 miles, his free fall lasted for 4 minutes, 36 seconds, and he achieved a speed of ~614 MPH (that’s 9/10ths of mach, donchaknow). He landed safely in the New Mexico desert. That’s pretty amazing, right? Right. So let’s beat that record.

He's A Funny (looking) Guy

Some time ago a friend of mine and I decided that we were going to bite the bullet, face our fears, cross off a bucket list item, and some other tired phrase and try our hand at stand up comedy. We both love the format to no end and are moderately amusing to people when we're at parties. Long story short: He did it several times and I did not. I went to see his first performance and watched in awe as his first three jokes bombed like Enola Gay. His fourth joke involved him having a giant cock and Richard Simmons and, as such, was met with great peals of laughter. He is much more of a badass than me. These are facts and I can't explain it. However, I did actually write up some material and I might have practiced it in the mirror a few times. Found them today and thought I'd share with you. Because I love you, Dear Readers, that's why [Editor's note: These are unedited and you'll get to see some notes I gave myself along the way].

The Universe

At work the other day, I got reflective and accidentally wrote a poem. My apologies. 

I often look at the stars.
I get a feeling of vertigo if I think about it too hard.
How is it possible that we're still alone?
If I stare long enough, and engage all the Math,
I can begin to see a three dimensional view of
The Universe

I often look at the stars.
I get a feeling of sadness if I think about it too hard.
Could it be that all of this is for naught?
My imagination takes over, when I disengage the Math,
I see a perfect, three dimensional view of
The Universe

I often look at the stars.
I get a feeling of wonder if I think about it too hard.
Within the scope of all this enormity, why can I only...
Why can I only think of my own mortality,
When I see a three dimensional view of
The Universe

The Search for Our Beginning Could Lead to Many Sequels

Having finally gotten round to watching Prometheus (Happy Father’s Day old man), I am now prepared to convey to you the follow up to my preemptive review. I’ll tell you now that there may be a spoiler or two in the article below, but I’ll hide them so you don’t have to read it unless you want to. I’m not going to nitpick on the tiny details like I have seen some people do, though I have one or two concerns regarding some plot holes or inconsistencies (as well as my thoughts on the reasoning). Because this is a response to my preemptive review, I’ll answer all the questions and thoughts I had in the original article first, and then give a proper review after. Enjoy. Or don’t. So long as you’re reading…