Watch The Thrones

Starting this week:

DJ Undacut will be truly getting his nerd on by following along to HBO’s Season Three of Game of Thrones and making snide comments, comparisons to the books, etc. Since there are only 4,677,982 places on the internet that blog about GOT we thought we would make Dublin’s World the 4,677,983rd place just so we can hit that magic number.

For those not aware, DJ Undacut has fallen very much in love with the world that George RR Martin has created and is fascinated to watch television try to recreate it. These books were written in reaction to the limitations of the film and television world, so to see that world try it’s damndest to keep up with a massive epic is enjoyable. DJ Undacut doesn’t get mad when the show fails, that’s too nerdy, he embraces it. There were times that both Season 1 and 2 went off the master script that Martin wrote but for DJ Undacut, that is just as interesting as watching a faithful recreation of the books page by page.

DJ Undacut’s Predictions:

- they are going to have to chop maaaaad chunks of Book Three for this season or else the actress that play Aria is going to be 67 years old by Season 5.

-there is going to be hella sex.

-this season is going to end with a wedding.

For his previous thoughts on Game of Thrones the television show click here:

http://dublinsworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-weekend-with-game-of-thrones.html

After watching an episode on Sunday night feel free to make it your ritual to join us here on Dublin’s World on Monday and get DJ Undacut’s round up on how the television show succeeded, failed, fell flat, whatever. And no spoilers.

-Happy Easter!

When Dumb Songs Win

We try to tune it out: the traffic, the constant barrage of people's opinions, environmental meltdown, the economy, and most difficult of all, the current commercial radio play list. Many of us find ourselves in conditions where we have no choice but listen to the top 40 "hits", and holy Christ, just when we think it can't get any worse, it gets worse.  
        Unfortunately, after hearing a song 345,666 times, and no matter how much this song may insult our intelligence and sense of decency, no matter how much our conscious mind hates if, we’ll still catch ourselves humming it while we wash the dishes at night. That's when we realize we're part of the problem.
        So we except that we're a brainwashed slobs like everyone else while also coming to terms with the fact that some of these current hits might appeal to us. I'll offer myself and the song "All Gold Everything" by Trinidad James as an example.
        I don't know anything about James, I haven't heard his other songs or followed his career, but "All Gold Everything" is a pretty dumb song. The lyrics mean nothing, just gibberish where he name drops both strip clubs and colleges (gotta love the irony of our age). It breaks no new ground, with lyrics so dumb they almost take pride in being "anti-clever". In fact, the delivery itself is so weak that the phrasing becomes hesitant and off beat, making the listener wonder if Trinidad James even possesses the most basic of rap skills. In the end it doesn't even matter, I still like it.
       Mostly it's the beat I like, one of those simple loops with just enough menace to it to where anybody can bob their head and feel cool. My fondness for the song also stems from a misunderstanding when I first heard it. After James says: "Gold all in my chain / Gold all in my ring / Gold all in my watch" he says: "Don’t believe jus’ watch". I thought when I first heard it the line was "Don't believe in your watch". I thought: ‘huh, don't believe in your watch? That's weird. I guess he's saying he's so dismissive of his rival's belongings that he doesn't even believe in them. That's quirky and kind of original. It's still pretty dumb but it shows a funny kind of twist on bragging.'
        Of course I was wrong, which was pointed out to me by a friend's eight year old daughter. Not that I minded much because I still like the song. Just to be clear: this happens rarely. I really don't care for any of Clear Channel's playlist these days. Drake's radio hits make me sleepy and "I'm Different" just sucks no matter how many times you hear it (I don't want to be harsh, I think 2 Chainz may have a severe mental disability, God bless him). But when "All Gold Everything" comes on I can't help but grin and nod my head a bit. Sometimes a dumb songs wins.

 03-22-13

Hope Dies in a Dental Chair

My war with the dentists continues. For those of you not aware of this, I touched on it some years back right here on Dublin's World: http://dublinsworld.blogspot.com/2010/11/soul-of-dentist.html

My latest run it with the Dental Establishment came about because of my wonderful teeth grinding habit. Due to anxiety and stress I grind the hell out of them while I'm sleeping to the point that it is effecting my jaw and the only means to battle it is a special mouth guard (doesn't that sound relaxing? Sleeping with a chunk of plastic in your mouth?)

A few years ago, after going through a long and torturous experience with a Dentist from Hell (actually Tehran, but who gives a shit), I found a new dentist and explained the whole mouth guard situation to him. This new dentist then counter explained that before getting fitted for a mouth guard I would first need a couple of caps, my wisdom teeth out, and a redo of everything the Dentist from Hell had done. This wasn't good news to say the least but who was I to argue? I hadn't spent numerous years and pissed a ton of money away to get through dental school. I wasn't a "doctor" (I wish with all my heart that I could type those quotes four times bigger so I could mock the bastards just a little more).

I mean really, how unimaginative do you have to be to decide that you're going to be a dentist? And don't tell me the line about "wanting to help people". These people are sick and greedy, there's no "help" or charity involved. Regardless of the money, who wants to spend their days up in people's mouths, scraping and gouging with metal instruments? I would say: the same people that took part in the Spanish Inquisition 500 years ago; sick psychopathic freaks.

Back to my current battle: a year goes by and various projects are performed on my mouth, not by the new dentist himself but his many assistants and other doctors that lurk about the office after being recruited from various dark corners of Eastern Europe. Not only do they have thick accents but they all seem to mumble for some reason and that’s only when they speak. Mostly they are silent. They don't explain what it is that they're actually doing, forcing you to drag everything out of them. It's MY mouth! I've made money with this thing you lazy marble mouthed morons (and not on the street you sick bastards).

This last time was the worst. I was supposed to come in and have a crown put in that had been prepped a few weeks before. The procedure was supposed to take thirty to forty minutes and due to my own shitty schedule, it had to be done on a Saturday.

I come in around noon and one of the "doctors" from beyond the Iron Curtain goes to work on it with a couple of her dickish assistants. It's the weekend and no one wants to be there. I choose to keep my resentment on the downlow, hiding it behind a thin mask of false cheer while the german dentist and her assistants hide nothing, answering my questions with short curt replies, their faces permanently sour with carved frowns.

The German then pops the temporary and attempts to insert the new cap, pushing and shoving it between my remaining healthy teeth. Her breath is bad, pumping point blank into my face. The cap doesn’t fit at all, it was either made by someone who didn’t know what they were doing or, more likely, the German doctor and her assistants have grabbed the wrong cap and are trying to apply it to the wrong mouth. She tries to grind it down to make it fit but it’s no good. This goes on for forty five minutes until I suggest that they insert another temporary and order another cap.

“No, no, no,” she mumbles through a thick cloud of breath. “It vill verk. It vill verk.”

She grinds it down ten or fifteen more times, an hour and a half now gone by, then she disappears. Forty five minutes pass in which I make phone calls and send texts cursing her and all her fellow dentists. I take the opportunity to go on Yelp and pull up the dentist, just to see. There is one yellow star marked with ten reviews, all negative. Not only are there mentions of bad attitudes and shoddy work, some also make claims of impropriety regarding the bills and rates. One reviewer goes as far as saying the main dentist is a criminal and that his brother’s practice is being shut down one town over due to charges of fraud.

I’ve got to say, I don’t use Yelp much at all, maybe once or twice a year for a restaurant, but this makes me a believer. I am going to Yelp the shit out of everything now. Here I am, in the middle of a negative experience, and I’m able to go on-line with my phone and read about others that have gone through the same thing. Granted, it does me little good at this point. If I had Yelped these bastards in the first place instead of just choosing them because they were a block from my apartment, I could have saved myself a lot of time and money.

The german woman finally did come back an hour later and said she would have an assistant stick another temporary in because the cap wouldn’t fit. I was too angry to reply. After waiting for nearly a minute for me to say something, breathing hard and filling the air around us with her putrid breath, she just walked off. The assistant, an ugly girl with fat wrists but better breath, stuck the temporary in and I left immediately, four hours after first showing up.

That was two weeks ago, tomorrow I have to return to that hell hole and have the cap put in, only because they already have my money and I feel it’s a bad idea to change horses mid-stream in the middle of a dental procedure (I haven’t used that term since the 2004 Election!). After that, we’re finished. I’m going on Yelp and I’m going to find me a nice dentist that’s close to my home and see’s me as a human being, not a single man with a steady income that they can milk for years because I neglected my teeth through most of my twenties. I may be just another asshole but they have no soul.

In conclusion, no matter how friendly or skilled or professional the next dentist is, and no matter if they earn my respect or not, they will never earn my trust. They are still a dentist and you must never lose sight of that.

-03-15-13