…And Garbage for All

If the members of the heavy metal act Metallica decided to make and release their own peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, it would take the band much, much longer than anyone would guess was possible. Using their reality-TV-show-turned-documentary from 2004 as a roadmap, this is about how things would go:

First, the band’s management would purchase every type of sliced bread, peanut butter, and flavor of jelly available on the market and deliver it to “Sandwich-Making Headquarters.” Then singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich—both of whom are well into middle age—would sit in a room together for many hours a day and apply adolescence-fueled sandwich-making techniques. This would typically involve hurried and somewhat arbitrary combinations of the aforementioned ingredients, drawn-out tasting sessions for each resulting sandwich, additional hours spent struggling to note any differences that may or may not exist when compared to previous sandwiches, and regular outbursts of frustration and contrived angst interspersed with obscenities.

After about a month of this, there is a strong likelihood that a therapist would be called in for moral and psychological support due to the increasing frequency of exclamations like “Hey, making sandwiches is really fucking hard!” along with each band member having many near-realizations of “What the hell are we doing?” and “Why are we even still around?”

Occasionally, guitarist Kirk Hammett and Bass Player X would be invited to share whatever ingredients they use for their own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but most of these contributions would be outright dismissed, and those that weren’t would be discarded shortly thereafter.

This process would continue until an apex of frustration and exhaustion was reached, but also after most of the requisite parts of a sandwich were cobbled together. The ensuing disinterest in the project would signal to everyone that it is time to stop working and start being rock stars again, which is really what it’s all about for these guys. Of course, this means headlining an 18 month worldwide tour in support of the brand new Metalli-Sandwich, which at this point is long anticipated by fans.

In the end, Metallica’s latest creation would look and taste exactly how a PB&J should to John Q. Metalhead. Yet former fans and/or musicians not under the band’s spell are quick to notice that something is wrong with the taste of this sandwich, sort of like drinking a glass of milk after it started to sour in the fridge. Regardless, it would be a smashing success, and the many members of the Metallica Corporation—not just James, Lars, and Kirk—would make oodles and oodles of money, just like they always do when a new product is branded with the Metallica name.

So this holiday season, don’t forget to buy a Metalli-Sandwich for your loved ones, along with these other fine wares from Metallica (AKA the Wal-Mart of heavy metal):

.music gTLD Free-For-All

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There are eight companies currently vying for control over the new gTLD (generic top-level domain) .music. Here they are sorted in alphabetical order by parent company—not by the subsidiary that submitted the application:

  • Amazon
  • Donuts via subsidiary Victor Cross
  • Famous Four Media via subsidiary dot Music Limited
  • Far Further via subsidiary .music LLC
  • Google via subsidiary Charleston Road Registry Inc.
  • .MUSIC via subsidiary DotMusic Limited
  • Radix via subsidiary DotMusic Inc.
  • Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. via subsidiary Entertainment Names Inc.

Interestingly, Donuts, Inc. icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 also owns the .band gTLD through its Auburn Hollow, LLC and the .rocks gTLD through its Ruby Moon, LLC.

On a somewhat related note, the .game gTLD is owned by Uniregistry, Corp icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 while the .games gTLD (note the addition of an ‘s’) is owned by Donuts through its Foggy Beach, LLC. The costs for a domain from these companies are about $500 and $15 per name per year, respectively, so I guess Uniregistry gets to mark up its names by 3333% for having a gTLD that is only one letter shorter.

Amazon and Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) also applied for the .game gTLD and were denied, while Foggy Beach, LLC (Donuts) was the sole applicant for the .games gTLD. Google did file an objection to the .games name, claiming that it was too similar to the .game gTLD and would confuse Internet users. This is funny.

Blurring the Boundaries of Entertainment (and Good Taste)

Kraid’s Theme icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 (track from Metroid Metal by Stemage icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 )

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Norfair icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 (track from Metroid Metal)
Brinstar icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 (track from Metroid Metal)


Metroid Metal icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 is one of the very few cases where two totally unrelated cool things were successfully combined together to produce something even cooler. That said, a person performing heavy metal renditions of video game songs almost always turns out poorly, and that’s how it should be.

It’s like putting scoops of chocolate ice cream on a pepperoni pizza—maybe it sounds like a good idea at first, but reality will quickly set in after scarfing a bite or two. Some things are just better kept separate from one another, and putting too much good stuff in one place can taint a person’s previous experiences and render future experiences as unpalatable, or even disagreeable.

For example, watching people icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 record themselves playing distortion-laden versions of video game songs and then uploading them to YouTube makes me hate heavy metal, video games, and the Internet all at the same time!

The Root of All Evil

Hello Chad,

Hope you're doing well!

My apologies, if I may have disturbed your schedule with this email.

Chad, my name is Tom Slayer and I work as an Account Manager at a leading Web Development & Online Marketing company. It recently came into my focus that you registered a new domain www.*********.band and so wanted to check if you’re looking for a company that might help you build your website.

If you are interested, reply back to this email with the services that you are interested in and we will get you estimates in the next 24 hours.

Regards,

Tom Slayer
Account Manager
tomslayer.analyst@gmail.com

IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential. They are intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or make copies thereof. If you do not wish to receive my email in future, please reply to this email with subject as "Not Interested".


Tom Slayer is one of my favorite vocalists. He doesn’t sing about happy things, like how life is lollipops and rainbows, he sings about real stuff… like vampires and shit. He’s a really down to earth, normal guy, and it means a lot to me that he takes time out of his busy day to make sure I have a good website.

Here is a picture of Tom Slayer icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 . He is totally awesome, if you can’t tell already.

slayer-000002-formatted