5. NATTEFROST- The Art Of Spiritual Purification
NOTE: I heavily recommend reading my description before listening.

Roger Rasmussen is one of my favorite Black Metal artists, because he introduced Punk simplicity into the Black Metal genre with his band Carpatian Forest, and the Punk-Black fusion flourished greatly with his self-titled solo project Nattefrost. Nattefrost allowed much more extreme styles and lyrics, outside of the normal Satan worship and sacrificing, Nattefrost features: Rape, Pissing, Shitting, Death, Violence, Suicide, and in the case of this specific track: a one and a half minute intro of Nattefrost vomiting into a plastic bag.

I listen to this song all the time, mostly the introduction, because it honestly makes me the happiest human being. However, realistically, I’m listening to a guy vomit into a plastic bag. It’s disgusting and wrong and weird and I really wish I could not bring up “The Art of Spiritual Purification” in public, but I somehow always manage to offend someone with it.

4. Merzbow- Slave New Desart
NOTE: I heavily recommend reading my description before listening.

Merzbow is noise, plain and simple as that. It is loud, it is painful, but somewhere lying underneath the junk are beautiful pulsations and sounds that our ears must be trained to hear. Masami Akita is the genius behind Merzbow and I’m a fan of his work, however, I have have been known to say, “You can listen to good noise artists like Merzbow, or you can listen to bad noise artists, like Merzbow.”

As much as I love Merzbow and think the music has a deeper meaning than its face value, absolutely no one likes Merzbow because it’s “just static and noise.” I can’t talk to anyone about Merzbow without them making a joke and it sucks and I’m pretty ashamed of it.

3. Christina Aguilera – Ain’t No Other Man

The previous two songs are songs from artists I love that have no one else loves and those songs are usually jokes I throw on a playlist to mess with my friends. This, however, is Christina Aguilera and I have never once successfully played “Ain’t No Other Man” at a party without someone instantly questioning my sanity. I love this song and I think it’s catchy, but apparently I’m plain wrong and should be considered for a firing squad.

I don’t even think “Genie In A Bottle” or “Dirty” is socially acceptable anymore and realistically I should quit Christina Aguilera like Britney Spears quit on herself, but I can’t help but find myself enthralled by the weird nuances in Christina’s voice. Regardless, if I play her at a party, I’m instantaneously hated.

2. 311- Down

The catchier the music is, the more likely there is for someone to either hate me for it or for some biddy to scream, “Oh mai Gahd I luv this song!” There’s one exception to that rule: Terrible “wigger” music. It would have been a tough call between choosing Linkin Park or 311 if it weren’t for the fact I hate everything about Linkin Park, but for some reason I absolutely love this song.

Anal Cunt probably said it best when they covered this song in a version known as “311 Sucks” with the official lyrics being:

[no lyrics, just wigger jibberish, except at the end:]
YOU FUCKING SUCK!

I don’t think I should like 311 and no one believes I should like 311, but I like 311 and I’m completely ashamed of it.

1. My Dragon – Nijigen Complex

I’m almost certain no one believes me when I say that I listen to this song almost every day, but it’s 100% true. What originally started as a joke has now developed into a sickly weird obsession with this bad. Yes, that’s a guy with a beard in a girl’s bumble bee suit, and yes, his voice can really get that high. To try to salvage my ego, I made this picture:

Sadly, I listen to this song… and I more than just listen to this song, I listen to this song everyday and for some reason I know most of the lyrics. WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF???

Conclusion

For a while I haven’t been allowed to “DJ” at parties and this list is a very strong reason as to why.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

I briefly mentioned my hatred for the new .CO domains on Twitter during the Super Bowl, but having seen the annoying “dot-co” commercials on every channel, I have to discuss my distaste and general hatred for GoDaddy, because they money due to the lack of copyrights and regulations on the internet.

GoDaddy initially holds my general hatred because they demoralize women with their “WEB CONTENT UNRATED” stunts, but realistically, those ads only have models in bikinis. This is stupid because I can see real girls in real bikinis in the beach, or I can use the internet for filthier things porn, not GoDaddy’s bullshit excuse to go to their website. Hell, Sports Illustrated shows more skin than Victoria’s Secret and they show more skin than GoDaddy.

Next, I figured out that GoDaddy was run by pigs that only want our money, because back in the fall they released .XXX domains at the ridiculous price of $100/year. The only people I hear and know who bought .XXX domains are respectable businesses and schools, not the pornstars, skanks and smut websites they were pandering .XXX to in the first place. Aurora Snow, Sasha Grey, Avena Lee, Faye Reagan and Dani Woodward are five pornstars and guess how many of them hopped on the .XXX bandwagon: None! Do you know who has a .XXX domain? (And by “has a .XXX domain” I mean, “has a .XXX domain reserved so no one else can do anything with it”): Chase, Amazon, Harvard, Apple, Microsoft, etc. This list goes on and on and on… None of those businesses even use their .XXX as a jumper to their original .COM website, they want NOTHING to do with .XXX, it’s literally being used as theft from GoDaddy.

Now they’re offering the new age domain, which is simply “dot-com” missing a letter: .CO, and much like .XXX, .CO is just a new way to steal money from people and businesses. Amazon, Microsoft and Apple’s .CO’s all jump to their original .com websites (Harvard 404′s and Chase was already taken by a marketer), so there’s absolutely no reason for their .CO to exist whatsoever. The only reason .CO was created was so that respectable businesses will shell out more money to GoDaddy, in return, it ensures that no one will abuse their name or likeness. I can’t even name a single .XXX website that anyone uses, nor can I name a solid .CO website that anyone uses. The only .CO I’ve seen that’s considered useful is Twitter’s T.CO, which is their link privacy/security/shortening site, but that’s not a real website. They’re only being used to steal our money.

Here’s a look at some of the most popular generic top level domains(gTLD) and their intended use:

gTLD – Intended Use

• .aero – the air transport industry.
• .asia – companies, organizations and individuals in the Asia-Pacific region
• .biz – business use
• .cat – Catalan language/culture
• .com – commercial organizations, but unrestricted
• .coop – cooperatives
• .edu – U.S. post-secondary educational establishments
• .gov – U.S. government entities at the federal, state, and local levels
• .info – informational sites, but unrestricted
• .int – international organizations established by treaty
• .jobs – employment-related sites
• .mil – the U.S. military
• .mobi – sites catering to mobile devices
• .museum – museums
• .name – families and individuals
• .net – originally for network infrastructures, now unrestricted
• .org – originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs, now unrestricted
• .pro – certain professions
• .tel – services involving connections between the telephone network and the Internet
• .travel – travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.
• .xxx – pornography

If anyone can tell me how .CO is any different from .COM other than the fact it’s a single character shorter, I will recommend you for a Nobel Prize, because that explanation will be much more complicated than anything physics related. .CO is just a way to milk money out of companies that want to avoid controversies of people stealing their identity, and from people trying to steal other people’s identities (I really hope that some asshole buys joerenken.xxx or joerenken.co just to spite my ass). Why would anyone buy a .CO for legitimate use when they already own the .COM domain? It’s utterly stupid and inefficient to host the same site twice, that’s a waste of money!

What’s going to be next? Is GoDaddy going to sell the hot new domain .QQQ? .THIS? .THAT? My main issue with this whole domain thing is that I don’t think there’s a way to stop this money-milking problem from continuing. GoDaddy used to be in favor of PIPA/SOPA passing, which as you may remember would restrict/censor the internet. Is it possible that GoDaddy’s backing of SOPA/PIPA could be grander scheme to take over the internet and sell people domains based on the gTLD? Think of it this way: if SOPA/PIPA passed and the internet became overruled by the goons of congress and GoDaddy, I couldn’t own joerenken.com anymore, because I’m not a company. I’d need to own joerenken.blog to have a blog, joerenken.storage to keep my files online, and joerenken.touchingmyself to masturbate.

Unfortunately, that scheme didn’t come to pass, because GoDaddy switched their view on SOPA/PIPA when they realized the internet would die instantly if either passed. However, the issue of GoDaddy stealing people’s money is a giant issue that needs to be addressed. We have copyright rules and regulations in place so that no one else can legally open another “Harvard Business School”, so how come this policy isn’t prevalent on the internet? What is the difference between Harvard.com, Harvard.biz, Harvard.aero, and Harvard.mil? NOTHING!!! They are all still Harvard. Why should Harvard give money to GoDaddy to ensure that their name won’t be used wrongly on all these different domains? It’s because GoDaddy wants your money, and that’s bullshit.

Did you know sub-domains exist? My website is a perfect example, because this blog is under the “joerenken” domain as: blog.joerenken.com. “blog-dot” is the sub or directory under the domain. There’s no need for me to own any other gTLD as long as I own my singular domain. I have access to mil.joerenken.com, biz.joerenken.com and literally any sub-domain I wish to wish to create, because I’m allowed infinite sub-domains with the ownership of my “joerenken” domain. That’s how web hosting works and it’s genius. My singular domain should be a copyright so I don’t have to purchase every gTLD in the universe to keep my name safe.

No business, company or person should need to buy each gTLD previously listed above to keep their name safe, because that would cost hundreds of dollars a year and most of the domains would be bought solely to make sure no one else can use them. To be clear: it’s not selfishness that we buy them so no one else can use them, it’s to avoid identity theft. Instead of using and introducing new gTLDs, our names should remain safe under a singular domain and we should use sub-domains to branch out, because that not only costs less ($10/year), but it’s also efficient. Of course that ease and simplicity will never happen though, because GoDaddy wants your money and they want you to stay tuned for the .NEXT big domain .YOU need to .BUY!

TL;DR:

Instead of selling domain names as a copyright, GoDaddy is stealing our money. It’s wrong and it should be regulated much better than it currently is (if at all). We should have the right to a single domain-name without the issue of identity theft. because we didn’t buy the other 500 domains that exist.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

I loved their style, and the dances were elaborate and well organized. The whole night made me want tea and crumpets, and Brianna really wanted to take Captain Maggots home, “She’s so cute and feisty!” I really wish we could have made it closer to the stage, but the vantage point was perfect from where we were standing.

Check out the Photos and Videos I took:

Videos:

Emilie Autumn- 4 O’Clock w/Best Safety Lies In Fear Intro (Best Quality Recording of the Night)

Emilie Autumn- Liar (Too Much Bass *sadface*)

Emilie Autumn- I Know Where You Sleep (Too Much Bass *sadface*)

Photos:

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

Well, something I hate doing is involving myself in politics because there’s never a right answer… HOWEVER, this political bullshit, brought to my attention by someone on FaceBook simply known as Conservative Lady, can actually be solved with something as simple as facts! She’s trying to say Bush was a nice guy and didn’t raise gas prices and that it was the evil Obama doing all the dirty work. Look:

Well, Conservative Lady, being someone who was driving in 2007 and 2008, two years in which Bush was in office, I can remember paying a shit ton of money on gas. I guess I don’t suffer from what’s commonly referred to as “stupidity” or “short term memory” and I can instantly see this is bullshit and luckily, this can be sorted  out with a little thing known as “facts.”

Merriam Webster, hook me up with a definition baby!

Definition of FACT: 1: a thing done: as, a obsolete : feat, b: crime <accessory after the fact>, c archaic :action … 2 archaic : performance, doing … 3: the quality of being actual : actuality <a question of fact hinges on evidence> … 4 a : something that has actual existence <space exploration is now a fact> b : an actual occurrence <prove the fact of damage> … 5: a piece of information presented as having objective reality.

In case you don’t get that, a fact is truth and something that actually exists. This website actually exists: U.S. Energy Information Agency, and they have cool things like THIS .PDF FILE OF GAS PRICES and some really cool looking charts like this one:

Wow! Look at that spike that was there in 2008. That looks an awful lot like when BUSH WAS IN OFFICE. When Obama first took office, the gas prices dropped like a goddamn rock, but then prices gradually grew over the years. However, gas prices grew MORE during Bush’s time in office than Obama.

The average price for gas in 2001 (Bush’s first year): $1.46
The average price of gas in 2008 (Bush’s last year): $3.26 ($1.80 increase)

The average price of gas in 2009 (Obama’s first year): $2.35
The average price of gas in 2011 (Last full year of stats): $3.52 ($1.17 increase)

I can already see your current argument: The average price of gas appears to be higher with Obama in office than with Bush. Factually, across Bush’s entire 8 years, yes, Obama is higher in average. However, if you compare Bush’s last three years in with Obama’s first three year (that’s 2006-2011), Bush’s and Obama’s average prices are practically identical, $2.885 and $2.888, respectively. Bush had a peak average price of $4.165 in June 2008, Obama had a peak gas average price of $4.018 in May 2011. They’re close enough. (SOURCE)

There’s just one giant fact that’s an issue here… Bush owned an operated an oil company. Obama has never owned, operated, or worked for an oil company. Also, there’s another fact that’s severely looming over this entire discussion: THE PRESIDENT HAS NO INVOLVEMENT WITH THE PRICES OF GAS. THEY ARE DETERMINED BY SUPPLY AND DEMAND BETWEEN OIL COMPANIES AND THEIR CUSTOMERS. Thinking the price of gas is determined by the President is about as silly as assuming he has control over the price of the Big Mac at McDonald’s or bracelets being sold on Etsy.

Is she necessarily lying about gas prices during Obama’s era? No, not at all. However, she is blatantly avoiding the facts about Bush era gas prices. Look at this:

That link in her post is the same exact one I had shown earlier that was the (SOURCE) of Obama vs. Bush prices. She’s blatantly ignoring… Oh… SEVEN FUCKING YEARS OF GAS PRICES. That’s what we, kids, call propaganda. Say it with me! Praw – pa – gan – duh!!!

Merriam Webster! Give me your definition!

Definition of PROPAGANDA: 1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions … 2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person … 3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

Oh fuck yeah! I’ll have my fucking cake and eat it too! PROPAGANDA IS FOR COMMIES CONSERVATIVES.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

There’s only one thing that remains a distraction, no matter how hard I try to avoid it: Visual distractions. My eye balls are receiving paper cuts because my eyes are so close to my goddamn book, or I”m receiving laser eye surgery because of my phone, but no matter what, something manages to catch my eye and distract me and I cannot stop staring directly at the fool who’s creating the distraction. Sometimes it’s a homeless hoarder that takes up seven seats with his bags of old newspapers, sometimes it’s a woman who thinks neon is a fashion trend, but a solid 90% of visual distractions come from a prominent group of individuals with their Macintosh white headphones in their ears who have just decided that these sweet beats from Arcade Fire, Bon Iver or some other hipster shit-fuck band are worth drumming to.

First of all, I guarantee whatever band they like sucks, secondly, I bet they’re drumming maniacally on their own lap in hopes that some chick will come up to them and say, “Oh hi! I noticed the sweet drum pattern you have been making, what band are you listening to? I would be quite interested in listening to their music. Furthermore, I’m very interested to know about your life and if you’re not doing anything later, I would love to buy you dinner before I take you home and make some sweet fucking love to your genitalia along to the beat of the music in which you are now drumming to.”

Realistically, they look like the guy in the photo above. Secondly, their retarded flailing motions have forced me to not only to hold my place in my book or drop Words With Friends for a minute, but they’ve made me pause my fucking music so that I can hear the pitter patter on their lap through the bullshit talk of some high school shit-stain who is just sooooo in love with Panic! At The Disco. I used my less than mediocre music understanding to pay attention to their “sweet beats” long enough to understand that they don’t have a fucking clue what in God’s name they think it is that they’re doing. Not only are they scaring children with their limb throwing and making blasphemous sounds on their lap that wouldn’t pass at a European DiscoTech, but they’re also pissing me the fuck off.

All I want to do is read my fucking book and understand how the Riots in L.A. in the 1960′s pertained to why the mostly white police could not solve a case involving the murder of a black woman in the heavily black section of town, Watts, and the importance of the black detective, Easy Rawlins, was to the case. No, instead I have to stare at this douche with a death glare until hopefully his eyes meet mine and he’ll stop the bullshit. That’s not the case, because this fucking clown is too busy roaming his eyes across the goddamn train hoping some sexually attractive female will rub up against his greasy ball sack.

Why is it that there are people who ride on the train that think that because they have a pair of headphones it, it instantly makes them a goddamn drum major at Berkeley? I highly doubt this asshole has even given interest to the thought of being a drummer, much less seen or played a kit. It’s so fucking annoying, mostly due to the part that I’m supposed to be reading, or playing games on my iPhone to be better than some thirteen year old kid, but instead I’m drawn into the massive douchebaggery of some kid with two hands and a lap. At least the motherfucker wasn’t beat-boxing or rapping.

Here’s a message to all the pretend drum majors on the MBTA: Even if you were a drum major, you wouldn’t be drumming on your lap in a fucking train, because you’d have a kit at home to play. Stop looking retarded and do the world a favor by crawling into your shell and not making obscene gestures with your appendages, because you’re a fool and the the only human being who still finds AFI relevant.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

Where my homies at that have received a ticket in their life? Speeding, traffic violation, parking violation, being too damn sexy, whatever it is that we may have been pulled over or ticketed for, we all understand it’s a pain in the ass and it costs a lot of money. I’ve received four tickets in my life: two for speeding in Quincy and Malden and two for parking violations in Boston. There’s a fifth one where my friend Tom managed to park my car the wrong way on a street in (I think) Ashby, MA. The problem I’m facing involves one of my parking tickets in Boston.

Rewind to 2007

2007 was not a very good driving year for me, because that was the year I received three of my tickets. The first was a $150 fine for driving 46mph in a  30mph zone in Quincy (I fought to reduce that to $100), the second was a $100 fine for driving 75mph in a 55mph on the highway in Malden, and the last was a $95 ticket for parking in, I wish I was making this up: a “Veteran Handicapped Police Officer’s Parking Area” in Boston. Apparently the ticket was much less than I was expecting because I tried my best to squeeze ahead into the spot in front of it, which was a normal meter spot, but I guess the ass of my car was just a little too far back.

Fast forward to 2012.

I receive a collection notice in the mail (I’m going to post the thumbnail, you can click to zoom):

I love that you can see my Cradle of Filth background through the picture. When you look at the collections they’re looking for, you can see that I only owe money under the “Penalty”. In other words: I’m being charged for not having paid the ticket that I paid for. Read that over until it makes sense. I paid my ticket in 2007, but in 2012, almost FIVE YEARS LATER, I’m being charged the penalty on my ticket. What the hell? I have paid the ticket and I haven’t received anything in the mail stating I owe any more money.

My initial response was to call the Office of The Parking Clerk and ask them what was up with my ticket. I called and listened to a robot run through menus for five minutes until it told me I could talk to an operator. I told the operator, “Hi, my name is Joe Renken and I’m calling about a Collections Notice I received in the mail.” He said “Okay, let me connect you.” That fucking asshole sent me back to the same robot menu! After another five minutes of robot talk, I asked, again, for an operator. Once it connected again, I wasn’t sure if it was the same guy, so I said “Hi, my name is Joe Renken and I’m calling about a Collections Notice I received in the mail, and if you could answer my question instead of reverting me to the robot menu, that would be great.” His response, “Okay.” Shit… That somehow worked! I told him how I only owe the penalty and he told me that it’s a common occurrence. If there’s only a penalty on the ticket, it means it was received late and they never sent a notice to receive the rest of the funds…

Rewind to 2007.

I’m broke as shit and work at Macy’s for minimum wage. I work 17 hours a week and I hate my life. I’m fat, pathetic and the only cool thing I have going is my car. I have stumbled on a couple of payments because of having to pay my two previous infractions. Now I receive a third one and have no money to pay for it. Fuck my life. Realistically, I probably did send that check in just too late, or paid it with my credit card, again, just too late. Regardless, my bank is only responsible for the last 3 years of my account and they don’t have anything of mine dating back to 2007.

Fast forward to 2012 again.

The Complaint

I paid my ticket, but according to the system, It was paid a little late (which I can believe). However, since 2007, I’ve had my car inspected, and I even re-registered it in 2009 after I bought it back from the kid I sold it to. Normally, unpaid parking tickets are posted to the the RMV and we cannot renew our registration or have our car inspected until all unpaid tickets are taken care of (Source: Mass.Gov). This “penalty” I received was supposed to be mailed to me for collection, or posted to the state so I could have it paid before inspection/registration of my car, way back in 2007. It wasn’t. It was stuck in an eternal void until LDC Collection Systems were hired to start playing hardball with everyone. That’s why I just received this notice now… Nearly five years later.

I guess this means only one thing: The Office of The Parking Clerk is run by  a bunch of morons who don’t know how to do their job. It makes sense that if someone doesn’t pay their ticket on time, they would automatically send out a new bill with the penalty amount attached: Nope! It would make sense if they sent my delinquent account to the state to prevent me from registering/inspecting my vehicle: Nope! This screams “system run by a bunch of fucking scumbags,” because I’m certain half the jerkoffs that work in that fucking office have outstanding parking tickets, or they have to cover up parking tickets for their buddies in the BPD or for City Officials. They’ve ignored these “delinquent accounts” for years, but now that the city “needs money,” these five year old “delinquent accounts” which have been sitting in the bowels of the system for years are being brought back.

Here’s a better cost cutting/money gathering plan, City of Boston: Just do your fucking job. I would have paid this five years ago if I knew it was late, but I guess you needed that time to remove all the “wrongful tickets” from “respected City Officials” in the system before you printed out ten thousand of those bullshit “Boston City Official Parking Permission” permits, am I right? Here’s another plan: Eat shit.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

Well, I was wrong. I’ve found something that is far more annoying than those surveys that were mindless and fucking pathetic. I’ve found an evolution of those stupid surveys, AND THEY LAST THIRTY GODDAMN DAYS! They look something like this:

We get it, you love Anime, Video Games, Photography, Music and other shit your friends like, the only problem is that these “30 Day Challenges” (Also known as a “30 Day Memes”) have found an unoriginal way for us to spam the ever living shit out of the things we like. IT. IS. FUCKING. STUPID. These are the new age of surveys, the same ones we used to spam old websites with, those websites which we have migrated from. But instead of spamming the internet with a “new” survey every day (we all know they were the same surveys with the questions in different orders), we’re spamming the internet with the same exact thing, every single day, for thirty fucking days.

Someone fucking kill me.

I thought we grew up internet? I thought we learned to share quality content with each other? No? We didn’t? We buy bug repellant to avoid mosquitoes, and we joined Facebook to avoid MySpace’s spam… but the spam has evolved to adapt to the repellant, and now repellant is about as good as a cube of fucking sugar: sweet and enticing, inviting us to share it’s goodness with the world! UGH!!! At least I update with new and interesting fodder that no one gives a shit about and not the same exact crap over and over again. I’m sure everyone would just looooooove the idea of me blogging only about Mountain Dew and only Mountain Dew every single day for thirty days. NO! They fucking wouldn’t!

Stop the spam, internet! Cut it out!

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

Whitney Houston, Adele, and Inbreeding
I’m not in the least bit surprised everyone was jerking off Whitney Houston, I’m pretty sure I missed any Amy Winehouse tribute, if there was one, and Tony Bennett’s response to star’s drug overdoses was that we should legalize drugs. Luckily, Whitney Houston became quickly overlooked when we remembered she hasn’t been relevant in years and that the Grammy Awards, much like the Oscars, are run and operated in an inbred fashion. Everyone we expected to to be posted on a pedestal was posted on a pedestal, and everyone we expected to win, did win. The Grammy Awards are all about favorites and money, not about the artists who have earned it. I can easily name two people in Boston who have a better voice than Adele, but the only reason Adele is famous is because she sold her soul to the industry. I can name four rock bands from Boston that are better than the Foo Fighters, but the Foo Fighters won because they’re the industry poster boys.

Drugs
I’m glad that no one paid attention to the issue of drugs or the major effects drugs have on people. Whitney Houston died from drug use, Amy Winehouse died from drug use, and Michael Jackson died of drug use. Of course, after an emotional Whitney Houston tribute, Bruno Mars came out to the stage to perform… Did we forget that Bruno Mars was a coke fiend? I really would have liked to have seen the awards address the effects and problems people face with drug use/addiction, but instead, they’d rather take the route to enshrine them.

Hard Rock/Metal Performance
This is what I consider the most controversial category since Jethro Tull took home the trophy. Not only did Jethro Tull not deserve it, the Academy has purposely been keeping Metal down and not posterizing it. In 1989 they split “Best Hard Rock Performance” and “Best Metal Performance” into two categories, this year they slammed them back together. As you might imagine: Dream Theater, Mastodon, Megadeth, and Sum 41 did not have a fucking chance against industry rock poster boys Foo Fighters. To prove that this category, much like it was in 1989, has become a pile of shit once again: the Foo Fighters wrote one Metal song and won the Grammy for it… Dream Theater, Mastodon and Megadeth live for Metal and lost. Sum 41 isn’t even metal! See the problem?

Thanks for destroying this category once again!

Skrillex
Dubstep is catchy. If you’re drunk in a club and dancing with a sexy whore that might go home with you, Dubstep is your best friend. However, Dubstep is built on a Macbook and requires Sonny Moore to press the “play” button. There’s no real talent involved with what he does, but because it’s catchy, it sells and drunk people love it, they’ll throw him a couple of Grammy Awards. Somewhere, Dead Mau5 is crying.

Chris Brown vs. Paul McCartney in the Battle For Ignorance
It’s nice knowing that much like drugs in the industry, domestic abuse pays off too. Snort coke, sing, then die: You’ll be enshrined forever. Mercilessly beat your girlfriend, send her to the hospital, then write an album: win Grammy Awards. Seriously? Fuck that. Chris Brown should live in shame the rest of his life, but instead he wins a Grammy Award, which instantly has Twitter blowing up with ignorant cunts saying “I’d let Chris Brown beat me up! Team Breezy!” My ex and current girlfriend gone through domestic abuse in their life (not from me, thankfully) and they would never want a man to be abusive them, even if he was rich and famous. There are girls saying “I’d let Chris Brown beat me up!” yet they don’t see the real side of domestic abuse. After my ex left an abusive relationship and started seeing me, I could still see the effects it had on her. She was so trained by her abusive ex, who would yell or even hit her if she talked to another man, that if she talked or even looked at another guy when she was on a date with me, she started apologizing simply out of habit. That is fucked up. Those ignorant cunts need a dose of reality.

The second case of ignorance came from people blowing up Twitter saying “Who is Paul McCartney?” …Motherfuckers! You know how to tweet, but you don’t know how to fucking Google? The Grammy Awards wouldn’t be what they are, hell, music wouldn’t be what it is today without The Beatles or Paul McCartney. Seriously, these motherfuckers have the time to tweet their fucking ignorance, but they don’t have the same (or less) amount of time devoted to running a fucking Google search? What the fuck.

Nicki Minaj, Please, Shut The Fuck Up
I can’t even begin to describe what the hell Nicki Minaj did, but I can tell you it sucked. Does she wish she was Lady Gaga, or does she think she’s Lady Gaga? Regardless, it was unoriginal, tacky and a fucking abomination. It was probably the worst thing about the show, considering the Chris Brown and Paul McCartney ignorance was outside the show.

The End
One day the Grammy Awards will be more realistic and not a gross abomination, but I’ll probably be dead long before that day comes.

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

First Issue: If Heidi Is In Public Alone, She Will Be Raped

I wish I could be exaggerating on this one, but it’s 100% true. If at any point in time Heidi is alone in public, she fears she’s going to be raped. Some guy, somewhere, is going to come out of the woodwork and rape her. The instant she leaves work, if no one is with her or no one is there to pick her up, a man is going to come out from the shadows and rape her. I really, really wish I was exaggerating this, but I am not. My sister’s views on society are really this pessimistic, her legitimate view on society is “Someone is going to rape me.” I don’t even know where this came from, she had rode on buses and trains alone her entire life without issue, but it hasn’t been until recent that all of a sudden she’s afraid of society… and this is long after she’s stopped riding the bus and train alone everywhere.

Second Issue: “No Seriously, I’m Going To Be Raped”

Heidi was done at work at 10 or 11pm the other day and her boyfriend’s car was broken down, so he couldn’t get her. Instead of walking 10 minutes to Quincy Center to catch a bus, or walking the 45 minutes it takes to get home, Heidi absolutely refused either idea, because she feared she was going to be raped by a complete stranger, “You know how bad Quincy Center is at night!” Yeah, it’s so bad I’ve never had a problem there in the 24 years of my life, nor has Mom, Dad or Heather… I hung up on Heidi because she was babbling like a paranoid moron, so she called mom relentlessly on her cell phone until Mom woke up and trucked out to pick her paranoid ass up.

Fact: Heidi has never been sexually harassed or abused in public, or by a stranger.

Third Issue: Heidi Associates With Scumbags and Doesn’t Pay Attention To It

Most rapes that occur are done by someone the victim knew (source), and herein lies the problem: Heidi works and becomes friends with absolute scumbags. One of her coworkers is a 40 years old guy who has been trying to crawl into her pants for the past two years, but she overlooks that and considers him “a friend” (“You have to get to know him!”), but he’s really a bully and has the mentality of a high school jock. She’s gone to his house, just her and him, so he could cook her a fancy steak dinner (RED FLAG!). He’s aware she has a boyfriend, but he continues to try for her and whenever Heidi is supposedly “too busy” with her boyfriend to want to hang out with this guy, he’ll becomes upset call her “a terrible friend” (translation: “I hate you because you have a boyfriend and I would just prefer it if you blew me”).

Even after all of this, Heidi would rather accept a ride home from this guy than walk 10 minutes to catch the bus. Hell, her previous boyfriend, another scumbag coworker, knocked her up and ran away. You can read that lengthy rant here.

Fact: Heidi’s friends and coworkers are the most likely to rape her. (Sorry, Ferrari, it’s just statistics).

Realizations: The Statistics

Here is a link to Roger Williams University Rape Myths and Facts Page. Here are some of their numbers from the surveys taken:

• 84 percent of the women who are raped knew their assailants.
• 57 percent of the rapes occurred on a date.
• Approximately 25 percent of all women in the U.S. will be abused by current or former partners some time during their lives.
• 78 percent of sexual assault victims were assaulted by someone they knew.
• Up to 57 percent of rapes happened on a date.
• 25 percent of women were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, partner or date during their lifetime.
• 84 percent of the women knew the men who raped them; 57 percent were on dates.

Do you notice something here? These specific statistics I chose are all on the page, I am not double copy & pasting. They’re emphasizing the fact that most rapes occur because the assailant knows the victim. There are much less rapes caused by random activity. One of my friends has worked at a new job for only a year or so now, she already has three, THREE, sexual assault cases against co-workers. On a side note, the numbers from Roger Williams are lower than the numbers my Sociology professor (a police officer) gave me, which claimed 90-95% of women who were raped or sexually assaulted knew their assailant.

Let’s Wrap This Up: Conclusion

Rather than having a shitty view on society and fears that a stranger is always going to rape her, my sister should be spending more time looking at those around her, the scumbags she calls “friends” than blaming the world on being a terrible place. My mom especially needs to stop pandering to Heidi about the bullshit she reads online, “Did you read that story about that girl somewhere in some town some time ago that was assaulted? That could happen to Heidi!” The probability of Heidi being raped by a stranger is about as probable as it is for me to quit drinking Mountain Dew: The percentage is so tiny, it’s irrelevant.

The world isn’t that bad, in fact, it’s pretty awesome. So open your eyes Heidi, you keep your friends close, and you keep your enemies closer. (Just a hint: You probably shouldn’t keep your enemies that close anymore, they’re the ones who are most likely to rape you).

Love,
Joe

Have a question? Email: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken

I’ve very strongly supported Mountain Dew Pitch Black and it’s sequel Mountain Dew Pitch Black 2, which are grape flavored soft drinks (PB2 being the same recipe with an added tartness). If I had to live off one flavor it would be either of those, may the rest in peace, but if I had to make my own flavor of Dew, I’d finish the Mountain Dew rainbow.

I base my flavors off of colors and Mountain Dew has all the colors of the rainbow covered, except one. They have Mountain Dew in the flavor of red, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet, but they don’t have a yellow flavor. Last year there was a Mountain Dew flavor that was yellow, Diet Mountain Dew Flare, but that was a limited release and I never managed to get my hands on a bottle. If I had to make a new flavor and have it last, I’d join on the lemonade kick and make Mountain Dew Reverb. It’d pretty much be the same thing they did with Mountain Dew Distortion, where they took the original Dew and infused it with a blast of lime, but instead, MTN Reverb would be infused with a blast of Lemon.

Question 2:
“Why do you love me so much?” -Ashley “Hat Rack Girl”

Ashley, I wish I could explain in words how much I love you, but I think it could be better answered with my penis: ghuiu gbiylivlbv vyulb hghtb ghfvgf fcxds ssedfb jkik,,kok, i. That was me slapping my penis on the keyboard.

Ashley, I love you because you look like a plank of wood. I don’t know when you grew those boobs you have, but 32A fits you nicely. You’re just barely 22 years old, but you already sound like a 70 year old Las Vegas biddy who has been huffing Virgina Slims for the past 56 years because she believes it will keep her looking fit and in shape. You drink more than the Hoover Dam, you piss more than a racehorse, you make Lindsay Lohan look sober, yet somehow the idea of your bear-trap vagina remains disgustingly appealing.

If I didn’t have a beautiful girlfriend who is sweet, charming, lovely, and an absolute bombshell, I might still be considering crawling in your disease pit. Love you!

Question 3:
“Should you answer this question with an impossibly long reply?” -My Dying Sister

No. Fuck you.

Question 4:
“Why do you fart so goddamn much?” -My Girlfriend

I fart so much because I have a terrible diet and I’ve been incredibly lazy this winter. If I had been moving around more so that my body could digest the shit I infest it with, my body wouldn’t build up with surplus bowel smog that explodes into the room or under the blankets. Give me a month and I’ll be back to work and eating slightly more healthy, and I’ll be much more active. Either way, farts, laziness, bad diet and all, I’m amazed I’ve remained under 200 pounds all winter.

Question 5:
“How do I deal with a roommate who left for India for two weeks without leaving rent money or money for bills?” -I’m Going To Kill Him

This is what I was looking for! Even though I’m aware you’re completely screwed on money until he can give you the money he owes you, what you need to do is go to the hardware store and buy a new lock for his door. Change out the lock and plan ahead some more viciousness.

When he does get back, especially from a long trip from India, he’ll want to pass out in his bed. Unfortunately for him, he’ll be locked out of his room, because he’s a moron who doesn’t know how to plan ahead and screwed his roommates. He may get violently angry that his room is locked, so you probably shouldn’t be home when he gets back.

You know, it’s cold in New England, really cold, so you should open a window in his room before you lock the door shut. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault he opened the window on that really warm day before he left and forgot to shut it!

Oh right, remember how I said you should plan to not be home when he gets there? You should order a pizza under his name when you get word that he’s home. Make sure it’s really expensive pizza topped with a bunch of stuff he won’t eat.

Last thing: Frame that letter to him, sign it, and give it to him as a Valentine’s Day gift. Include a message that you hope he likes (X) pizza you ordered for him. He’ll get the joke.

Question 6:
“First Renken to get married and why?” -I Stalk Your Family

Knowing us Renkens, Heather won’t get married because she can’t even keep a boyfriend if she tried and Heidi will probably be dead before she’s even given a proposal. I don’t plan on getting married any time soon, and the girlfriend is on the same page as me, so that leaves my cousins Erin and Mike. Erin I can’t see getting married, period, and Mikey I can see getting married because he’s incredibly gay and the hot new trend is gay marriage… However, Mikey’s also an idealist, so I don’t actually see him getting married until Gay marriage is universally accepted in the United States, like what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are doing.

I guess that means I’m going to get married first. There are quite a few states that I can see keeping gay marriage out for a while before their rulings are overrun by the federal government, so that won’t be for (my random estimate) about 12 years. I plan on being married in about 6 years if everything goes smoothly, and sooner given the circumstances are appropriate.

Question 7:
“Do think Brady is washed or washing up? I think we should look to Ryan Mallett! What do you think?” -Stefan Thug Life

Tom Brady isn’t washed up, nor do I believe he is washing up. It’s incredibly difficult to win a Super Bowl and it basically takes a perfect set of circumstances to win one. The NFL just does an amazing job of glorifying its winners to make it appear as though each Super Bowl run was perfectly obtained and not a masterful fluke. Regardless, we’re keeping Brady for at least another three years and I have no idea who the hell Ryan Mallett is, so I am just going to say no to that rather than research some unproven 12 year old.

Question 8:
“Why do i suck so much when it comes to computers…no matter how much you explain?” -Tattoos

It’s because you’re a techno-retard! It’s not as bad as it could be, though, at least I don’t get a new call each week from you about how the computer is doing something weird for me to simply explain the computer is running a virus scan. I don’t hear much from you about the computer breaking which means either 1) You’re being safe on the internet, 2) You know how to fix what you broke, or 3) Pure luck. Knowing you, it’s probably the last one.

I greatly appreciate that I’m your go-to for computer problems, seeing as I probably wouldn’t qualify myself in the top 25% of friends with computer knowledge. However, between Fred, Taylor, Tom and various other people teaching me computer things and my natural talent to tinker with things, I manage to pull through for you every time, so it all works out in the end!

Question 9:
“Why is my cat looking at me like that?” -My Last Name Is Boys

It’s probably a combination of the drugs and paranoia making you believe you cat is Satan. Either that, or your cat is hungry and staring into your soul to feed off the remnants of your prior innocence.

Question 10:
“May I move to Alaska please?” -NickleAnus

Why the hell would you move to Alaska? It’s a barren wasteland covered in snow and moose feces. The only reason I would allow you to move to Alaska, given I had any say in this, is if you became a Deadliest Catch fisher(wo)man on the Bering Sea. I think it would be bad ass for you to be on the Northwestern with those Nords. They’re by far the most awesome dudes out there.

Yes, I understand your plea that polar bears and otters and seals and moose are cute. But those can easily be seen at a zoo and wouldn’t require a complete change in life and lifestyle. Keep it to the city, girl.

Question 11:
“We never hang out anymore, why is that? Also, where do missing socks go? 3 pairs of socks don’t have their matches…who would take them?” -Ellen Degenerate

We don’t hang out any more because you quit the best job you ever had! Retard. Also, I think this video will explain your problem with missing socks:

Question 12:
If you could replace Obama with a zombie version of a dead president, which one would you pick? Would your answer be different if it were a robot instead? -Ducks Dispatcher

Great question! If I had to replace Obama with a zombie version of a dead president, it would be William Taft, I giggle at the idea of a big fat dead zombie president. Realistically though, I would replace him with JFK, just so that someone could assassinate him again.

A robot completely changes this question, because there’s only one robot president I want:

Love,
Joe

Have a question for Joe? Email it to: joe@joerenken.com or message Joe on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Renken