People need to get off Michael Vick’s ass. He wasn’t strangling dogs or cutting out their insides when they were alive. He provided a house in which his family and friends fought dogs. He didn’t run over anyone while drunk driving. He didn’t assault anyone. He didn’t get arrested for carrying ridiculous amounts of weapons into stupid places. But he served more jail time than anyone else in sports who did those things. If you think dogs have more value than people, you’re wrong and you may be retarded. You might want to get checked.

Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve talked about how much I dislike militant vegetarians, or especially vegans. Let me start by saying that my mom is a vegetarian, and I know lots of people who are normal people who don’t eat meat because they don’t like it, they want to be healthier, or even they think killing animals for food is wrong. That’s all fine and good. What bothers me is when people who don’t eat meat judge people who do. Like there’s something unnatural about eating meat, even though any animal with sharp enough teeth does it. And they don’t do it in a nice, caring way, either. Generally they seem to run after the weakest animal they can find, rip out its throat while it’s still alive, and proceed to eat it while it lays there bleeding in the sun, abandoned by its loved ones, forgotten by history, its bloated rotting corpse stripped bare by predators, scavengers, and maggots. And yet, by eating meat, I’m somehow a bad person, when we raise these animals, feed them, love them, feed them, feed them, and then slice their heads off, carve them up, and eat them. I’m not saying it’s a great thing. Sure, it’d be fantastic if we could all live off of our own bodies and never have to eat anything that was alive. It would also be fantastic if we never had to sleep, if we all got along, and if no one ever wanted for anything.

I think my point is, while slaughtering animals for food isn’t pretty, what the hell else are we supposed to do? Lethally inject them? We can’t let them die of natural causes because nobody wants to eat nasty old animal meat. It seems like slaughtering them the way we do is more humane than the “natural” way that animals get eaten, as described so poetically above. Militant veggies do realize that animals all die anyway, right? Do they think that animals would live forever and grant us all serenity and happiness if only we would stop eating them? We need the nutrients that eating meat gives us if we want to be healthy. Plus, they’re fucking delicious! Bacon? Hamburgers? Bacon burgers? Chicken burgers with bacon? Turkey? Turkey bacon? It’s all so good. So, really, if you want to be a vegetarian, more power to you! But you’re never going to get people to stop eating meat. It’s too good, it’s too important, and most of all, I’m pretty sure that the Bible, which describes the absolutely, 100% true tales of the One True God and His Boy Jesus and Their Dog Astro, and is not to be read as a parable, but as a nonfiction account written by the Lord Himself on High, tells us we should eat animals. So, PETA, why do you hate God?

As far as what I did on Halloween, I can sum it up in one word: Nothing.

Des (who is now our third follower, let’s all give her a round of applause) burned me a CD by a band called The XX, and I’m digging it. I’m pretty sure it’s going to get played every night when I’m going to sleep for quite a while. I wouldn’t listen to it when I want to be energized, but there’s something nice about their little sound, though I feel like a lot of the songs cut off before they should. I guess I’d rather have that (I call it Neko Case Syndrome) than songs that go way over long.

Oh, and digital only releases are bullshit. I hate having to spend money on a computer file. You hear me, Audra Mae? Also, if you’re going to include a bonus track on a certain format, wouldn’t it make sense to include it on either the CD or the vinyl, and not the fucking ITunes? You hear me, Lawrence Arms? Lagwagon? And every other band that’s pulling this bullshit? If you want to reward people with a bonus track, which I assume is the point of a bonus track, shouldn’t you reward people who are still buying your music in physical format? Those of us who love you enough to want to hold your music in our hands, look at the cover art, read the liner notes, read the lyrics, etc? Instead of some faceless asshat who doesn’t give a shit? I guess I’m becoming the crazy old man who still types on a typewriter instead of a computer with this stuff, but it’s sad for me to see the way the music industry is going.