GUNS X ROSES

Let's get right to it: The first Guns n' Roses album of new, original songs since the first Bush administration is a great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record. In other words, it sounds a lot like the Guns n' Roses you know. At times, it's the clenched-fist five that made 1987's perfect storm, Appetite for Destruction; more often, it's the one sprawled across the maxed-out CDs of 1991's Use Your Illusion I and II, but here compressed into a convulsive single disc of supershred guitars, orchestral fanfares, hip-hop electronics, metallic tabernacle choirs and Axl Rose's still-virile, rusted-siren singing.
If Rose ever had a moment's doubt or repentance over what Chinese Democracy has cost him in time (13 years), money (14 studios are listed in the credits) and body count — including the exit of every other founding member of the band — he left no room for it in these 14 songs. "I bet you think I'm doin' this all for my health," Rose cracks through the saturation-bombing guitars in "I.R.S.," one of several glancing references on the album to what he knows a lot of people think of him: that Rose, now 46, has spent the last third of his life running off the rails, in half-light. But when he snaps, "All things are possible/I am unstoppable," in the thumper "Scraped," that's not loony hubris — just a good old rock & roll "fuck you," the kind that made him and the old band hot and famous in the first place.
Something else Rose broadcasts over and over on Chinese Democracy: Restraint is for suckers. There is plenty of familiar guitar firepower — the stabbing-dagger lick that opens the first track, "Chinese Democracy," the sand-devil fuzz in "Riad N' the Bedouins" and the looping squeals over the grand anguish of "Street of Dreams." But what Slash and Izzy Stradlin used to do with two guitars now takes a wall of 'em. On some tracks, Rose has up to five guys — Robin Finck, Buckethead, Paul Tobias, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and Richard Fortus — riffing and soloing in broad, saw-toothed blurs. And that's no drag. I still think the wild, superstuffed "Oh My God" — the early Chinese Democracy track wasted on the 1999 End of Days soundtrack — beats everything on Guns n' Roses' 1993 covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?
Most of these songs also go through multiple U-turns in personality, as if Rose kept trying new approaches to a hook or a bridge and then decided, "What the hell, they're all cool." "Better" starts with what sounds like hip-hop voicemail — severely pinched guitar, drum machine and a near-falsetto Rose ("No one ever told me when/I was alone/They just thought I'd know better") — before blowing up into vintage Sunset Strip wallop. "If the World" has Buckethead plucking acoustic Spanish guitar over a blaxploitation-film groove, while Rose shows that he still holds a long-breath vowel — part torture victim, part screaming jet — like no other rock singer.
And there is so much going on in "There Was a Time" — strings and Mellotron, a full-strength choir and Rose's overdubbed sour-growl harmonies, wah-wah guitar and a false ending (more choir) — that it's easy to believe Rose spent most of the past decade on that arrangement alone. But it is never a mess, more like a loud mass of bad memories and hard lessons. In the first lines, Rose goes back to a beginning much like his own — "Broken glass and cigarettes/ Writin' on the wall/It was a bargain for the summer/An' I thought I had it all" — then piles on the wreckage along with the orchestra and guitars. By the end, it's one big melt of missing and kiss-off ("If I could go back in time . . . But I don't want to know it now"). If this is the Guns n' Roses that Rose kept hearing in his head all this time, it is obvious why two guitars, bass and drums were never going to be enough.
It is plain, too, that he thinks this Guns n' Roses is a band, as much as the one that recorded "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Used to Love Her" and "Civil War." The voluminous credits that come with Chinese Democracy certainly give detailed credit where it is due. My favorite: "Initial arrangement suggestions: Youth on 'Madagascar." Rose takes the big one — "Lyrics N' Melodies by Axl Rose" — but shares full-song bylines with other players on all but one track. Bassist Tommy Stinson plays on nearly every song, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, the only survivor from the Illusion lineup, does the Elton John-style piano honors on "Street of Dreams."
But Rose still sings a lot about the power of sheer, solitary will even when he throws himself into a bigger fight, like "Chinese Democracy." In "Madagascar," which Rose has played live for several years now, he samples both Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and dialogue from Cool Hand Luke. And at the end of the album, on the bluntly titled "Prostitute," Rose veers from an almost conversational tenor, over a ticking-bomb shuffle, to five-guitar barrage, orchestral lightning and righteous howl: "Ask yourself/Why I would choose/To prostitute myself/To live with fortune and shame." To him, the long march to Chinese Democracy was not about paranoia and control. It was about saying "I won't" when everyone else insisted, "You must." You may debate whether any rock record is worth that extreme self-indulgence. Actually, the most rock & roll thing about Chinese Democracy is he doesn't care if you do.

www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/24024297/review/24161281/chinese_democracy

DAVID FRICKE
(Posted: Nov 27, 2008)

Wall Street

Congress hears Lehman sought millions for execs

WASHINGTON - Days from becoming the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, Lehman Brothers steered millions to departing executives even while pleading for a federal rescue, Congress was told Monday.

As well, executives who feared for their bonuses in the company's last months were told not to worry, according to documents cited at a congressional hearing. One executive said he was embarrassed when employees suggested that Lehman executives forgo bonuses, and cracked: "I'm not sure what's in the water."

The first hearing into what caused the nation's financial markets to collapse last month, precipitating a $700 billion bailout, opened with finger-pointing and glimpses into internal company documents from Lehman's chaotic last hours.

MTV Real World X Blackthorn

iphone Kill Switch

Steve Jobs confirmed a widespread rumor in a Wall Street Journal interview today. He admitted that the iPhone has code inside it that routinely checks back with Apple to see if any downloaded software has been blacklisted. This also enables Apple to remotely disable any malicious programs at their discretion.
WSJ explains:
Apple raised hackles in computer-privacy and security circles when an independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in theory trigger the removal of the undesirable software from the devices.
Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he says.

Top of Their Game !

We decided to look at five big elements of the on-premise experience and ask patrons just how important each ranks, to determine the three most important aspects. The elements we chose to include as choices were drink selection; sports, music and entertainment (which we lumped together); prices; service; and food. Twenty-eight percent of guests participating in the survey ranked service as the most important aspect of a bar to them in choosing where to spend their money. Drink selection and sports/music/entertainment tied, chosen by 22 percent of respondents respectively as the most important aspect. Twenty percent said prices were the most important factor,and a mere 8 percent chose food. Asked what they’d pick as the second most important aspect of a bar, the highest percentage chose prices. Service came in just behind that at 24 percent. As the third most important bar element, 25 percent chose prices. So, it’s safe to say that service and entertainment are the most important elements to guests, and prices are pretty close behind in most minds. We’ve touched on this again and again in our Buzztime Report findings, but it bears repeating: Service is king. Price is important, but if people wanted to save money they’d stay at home. They don’t want to get fleeced either, so price is important, but not the top concern. Make absolutely sure your staff is executing the kind of stellar service that makes patrons feel special and pampered. If that’s not already your standard, consider making it the standard. Service sells !

Drink Up

WELLINGTON - A restaurant in New Zealand's tourist hub of Queenstown was convicted Monday for accidentally serving dishwashing liquid as mulled wine.
A customer and a barmaid were hospitalised after drinking the liquid in July last year.
The barmaid may suffer health problems after the inside of her throat was scarred by the liquid containing sodium hydroxide, the court was told.
The court ordered the restaurant pay 1,000 dollars (750 US) to both women for emotional harm caused by the poisoning.
The customer had asked the barmaid for a sample of mulled wine, but spat it out immediately after feeling her lips and mouth burn.
Then the barmaid tried some, suffering scarring to her throat after swallowing some of the detergent.
A worker at the restaurant had filled an empty mulled wine container with detergent -- which was the same colour -- leading to the accident, the court was told.

DECK IV

Guinness News

DUBLIN: For two-and-a-half centuries St James’ Gate has been the home of Guinness. Diageo, the famed Irish stout’s British-based parent company and the world’s largest producer of alcoholic drinks, brews a billion pints a year of the “black Stuff”. Recent weeks were abuzz with press speculation that Diageo would sell the world brand’s historic birthplace and build a new brewery outside the city. Irish Guinness drinkers had taken it hard. “If Guinness pulled out of St James’s Gate, I’d never drink Guinness again — and I have been drinking Guinness for 38 years, with an average of 40 pints a week,” said Martin O’Mahony, a 59-year-old engineer in Cork city on Ireland’s south coast. But the speculation has — in part at least — proved wrong. Diageo said it plans to invest e650 million in the St James’ Gate brewery — and also a new production plant at a location yet to be announced outside Dublin. “Our ambition is to create a brewing hub which will meet the highest standards of technology, efficiency and environmental management,” said Diageo’s chief executive Paul Walsh. Guinness brews its distinctive stout not only in Ireland but also at global locations that include Nigeria, which has the company’s third best-selling market after Britain and Ireland. Beside Guinness, Diageo offers many international known brands like Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky, Captain Morgan rum and Baileys liqueur. Guinness’ plans include an investment of e 70 million in parts of the existing brewing facilities at St. James’s Gate, a Diageo spokesman said. After upgrading, about 50% of the existing brewing facilities at St James’ Gate would be sold, the spokesman said. The new plant would produce Guinness to meet growing export demand, plus other ales and lagers, from 2013 onwards. St James’ would produce Guinness primarily for the Irish and British markets. Simultaneously, Diageo plans to close down two breweries in smaller towns in Ireland’s north, and southwest of Dublin, involving a net reduction of 250 employees in Ireland. The labour union has already announced adamant opposition to any redundancies. Guinness workers can look back on a long history. The first to brew beer at St James’ Gate was Giles Mee in 1670. The site takes its name from one of the old gates into Dublin. In 1759, Arthur Guinness begin brewing there. West Indies Porter — a precursor to modern-day Guinness — was first brewed in 1801. In 1886, Guinness was the first major brewery listed on the London Stock Exchange, being the largest brewery in the world with annual production of 1.2 million barrels. Today, St James’ Gate site is Ireland’s biggest tourist attraction with more than 9,40,000 visitors per year, each paying a e12 entrance fee. The original storehouse, a seven-floor building constructed in 1904, serves as a visitor centre with bars, shops and a training centre. Originally, beer was stored here in huge vessels of oak and pine, later of aluminium. In the 1960s, the storehouse had an overall capacity of 39,300 barrels. Under Diageo’s current plans, the historic storehouse will continue to develop to accommodate growing visitor numbers, now expected to surpass one million people a year, the company said. Naturally, the storehouse is not the only thing foreigners are attracted to. “I like Guinness,” said Melow Bivona, a 26-year old who works for Apple in Ireland. “If you taste Guinness, it tastes like a bit of Ireland,” he said. It’s a view shared by locals. “Guinness is Ireland,” said 40-pints-a-week O’Mahony.

Cork Tale...

I thought I’d start the new week with a few beer jokes;
Old man Murphy had worked down at the brewery for years, but one day , he just wasn’t paying attention and he tripped on the walkway and fell over into the beer vat and drowned.
The foreman thought it should be his job to inform the widow Murphy of her old man’s death. He showed up at the front door and rang the bell. When she came to the door, he said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but poor old Murphy passed away at work today when he fell into the vat and drowned.”
She wept and covered her face with her apron and after a time, between sobs, she asked, “Tell me, did he suffer?”
“I don’t think so,” said the foreman: “He got out three times to go to the men’s room.

Mentos X Carlsberg

There have been thousands of mentos and coke video clips around the web over the last year or so, now Carlsberg have created their own commercial with beer and mentos. Although it has a unique ending...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjXCWhs49fE

DVD WARS

The two-year war between HD DVD and Blu-ray officially ended Tuesday morning as Toshiba waved the white flag and declared it would stop producing HD DVD products.
The company, which began sales of HD DVD in March 2006 with the HD-A1 player, "decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence," said chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida. The Blu-ray format is now the definitive winner in the war and stands unopposed as the optical media replacement for DVD.
Toshiba's news release goes into a bit more detail: "Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand."
Three movie studios currently support HD DVD--Universal, Paramount, and DreamWorks Animation--but we expect them to follow suit and announce support of Blu-ray sooner rather than later.
With Blu-ray support announced by industry heavyweights Netflix, Wal-mart and Best Buy, speculation ran rampant before the weekend that Toshiba would end the war, and the company deserves credit for pulling out as soon as it did. The two incompatible formats have led to plenty of confusion among prospective buyers of next-generation hardware and software, although some have opined that the war was a good thing--at least it led to price drops.
We've been advising readers against the purchase of HD DVD players since the announcement by Warner Brothers in January that it would exclusively support Blu-ray. That doesn't mean we're telling everyone to rush out and buy a Blu-ray player now; we still believe that most home theater fans would be better served to wait for prices on players to fall. Of course, with the exit of Blu-ray's major competition, those prices may fall later rather than sooner.

Bar Joke

A lady walks into a bar and sees a really cute guy sitting at the counter. She goes over and asks him what he is drinking.
“Magic Beer”, he says.
She thinks he’s a little crazy, so she walks around the bar, but after that there is no one else worth talking to,goes back to the man sitting at the bar and says,
“That isn’t really Magic Beer, is it?”
“Yes, I’ll show you.” He takes a drink of the beer, jumps out the window, flies around the building 3 times and comes back in the window.
The lady can’t believe it: “I bet you can’t do that again.”
He takes another drink of beer, jumps out the window, flies around the building three times, and comes back in the window.
She is so amazed that she says she wants a Magic Beer, so the guy says to the bartender, “Give her one of what I’m having.”
She gets her drink, takes a gulp of the beer, jumps out the window, plummets 30 stories, breaks every bone in her body, and dies.
The bartender looks up at the guy and says, “You know, Superman, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk!”

Free Music is Good !

A REVOLUTIONARY online music service offering free song downloads will launch today.
www.qtrax.com

Qtrax, a file-sharing site funded by advertisers and backed by the pop industry, will initially boast a five-million-song catalogue – similar to iTunes.And its Melbourne pioneer said the plan is to eventually deliver about 25 million free songs to music lovers.
The site, launched in Cannes, France, with stars James Blunt and LL Cool J, is predicted to signal the death knell for CDs and a massive challenge to iTunes.
“This will change music profoundly,” Qtrax chief Allan Klepfisz said.
“Once the genie is out of the bottle, the industry won’t turn back. The time has come for free music.”
Significantly, major record companies, which have traditionally sued file sharing or peer-to-peer (P2P) sites, support Qtrax.
Qtrax has licensing agreements with the majors – EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – allowing access to about five million songs.
The same catalogue is on sale at the popular online music store, iTunes.
Mr Klepfisz, 52, has been working on Qtrax for eight years, initially in Melbourne and more recently in his New York base.
Artists and record labels were supporting Qtrax to stem a losing fight against stolen music, he said.
And Qtrax would compensate artists unlike illegal music download sites, he said.
Record companies will get an equal split of advertising revenue and royalty fees it collects from Qtrax. A recent music industry report by Jupiter Research said for every song sold online, 100 were stolen.
Ninety-four per cent of those online were unwilling to pay for music, the report added.
“I think the record companies realise their attempts to make up for lost sales are not working,” Mr Klepfisz said. “The compact disc – as the main conveyer of mainstream music – is dead. So they need to look for alternatives. They need to see whether this vast mass of people can be brought into a legal arena and monetised with advertisers.”
Mr Kelpfisz said punters were still willing to pay for concert tickets and merchandise. “But they are not willing to pay for music online,” he said.
“The idea of free music is not so radical. Commercial radio and free-to-air television is paid for by advertisers and available for free to consumers.”
In the US, observers said Qtrax posed the first real threat to the Apple-owned iTunes. But Mr Klepfisz expects Qtrax will affect illegal P2P sites more and boost sales of iPods.
As the site expands it would add rare, unreleased and live concert recordings, he said.
“We plan to have north of 25 million songs,” Mr Klepfisz said.
Eagles star Don Henley and Annie Lennox have also been in talks to appear at today’s launch.
Punters will be able to access free music after the launch at
www.qtrax.com

Business $

ran across mark cubans blog a few days ago an found it quite interesting alot of good business insite weather you agree or not it provokes thought an questions ,,enjoy
The Rules of Success
As MicroSolutions became more and more successful, and as I paid attention to the common traits of businesses that I saw succeed and those I saw fail, I came to realize that there are “Rules of Success” that I saw in companies that excelled. Where companies failed to follow those rules, inevitably, they failed. I found myself checking with “My Rules” before I made decisions. When I traded stocks or considered investments in companies, I applied The Rules to their business before I made a decision.
The Rules are not infallible. They have their limits. I’m an entrepreneur. My businesses have had hundreds and now more than a thousand employees. My world has been limited to starting, building, growing and running businesses that are never going to make the Fortune 500. My dreams were never to build the biggest corporation in the world. So, if you are a middle level manager in a Fortune 500 company, these rules may not help you manage your department. If you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company with tens of thousands of employees, some rules will apply, some won’t, but where they will help you is to know how little guys coming out of nowhere are going to disrupt your business.
Where The Rules will help you is if you are considering starting, or currently run your own business. There are always exceptions to any rules, but I can assure you that those exceptions will be rare. Entrepreneurs that don’t follow the rules are far more likely to fail. There is no doubt about it.
So let’s start at the beginning.
Rule #1: Sweat Equity is the best start up capital.
The best businesses in recent entrepreneurial history are those that have been started with little or no money. Dell Computer, MicroSoft, Apple, HP and tens of thousands of others started in dorm rooms, tiny offices or garages. There weren’t 100 page long business plans. In all of my businesses, I started by putting together spreadsheets of my expenses, which allowed me to calculate how much revenue I needed to break even and keep the lights on in my office and my apartment. I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition and why my product and/or service would be important to my customers, and why they should buy or use it. All of it on a piece of yellow paper or in a word processing file, and none of it cost me more than the diet soda I was drinking while I was writing it up.
I remember the foundation for each of my businesses. MicroSolutions was very simple. To use microcomputers and software to help our customers become more productive, profitable and gain a competitive advantage. AudioNet, which became broadcast.com was simple as well: use the internet to enable real-time, worldwide communications of entertainment and business applications. HDNet is to create great entertainment, originated in High Definition format to allow our distributors to compete for the highest margin customers.
Once I could put the idea on paper, I gave the company a name. From there, I took the most important steps: I tried to find people to shoot holes in it. When we started AudioNet, I remember getting an appointment with Drew Marcus of Alex Brown (it could have been Larry, but I think it was drew :), an investment banking company. Drew followed the radio industry and I wanted to see if there was anything he saw from his experience that would blow up the concept. He loved the idea. We took it to Dan Halliburton of Susquehanna Radio. He was an executive in charge of several Dallas area radio stations. We discussed how he could broadcast his stations over the Internet using AudioNet and reach the in office market where there weren’t many radios on desks, and few of those could pick up the AM signal of his stations. He loved it. I took it to Tim and Eric Crown, who ran a newly public company called Insight Enterprises. I asked them if it made sense to broadcast their quarterly earning conference calls over the internet so their investors and the research analysts who followed them could easily listen to the calls and get up to date information, or listen to an archive of the call if they missed it. They thought it would help them reach their Investor Relation goals less expensively.
Each step cost me next to nothing to get great feedback. Each enabled me to check the foundation of my business idea to see if it was easy to shoot holes in it, and most importantly, they all served as sales calls. Each company eventually became a customer of ours.
I went through this in each of my businesses. The step gave me confidence that my business idea was valid. That there was a chance of success. At this point, many entrepreneurs think the next step is to take all this feedback, update their 100 page business plans and go out and raise money. It’s as if the missing link for success in a business is cash to get started. It’s not. Far more often than not, raising cash is the biggest mistake you can make.
Most entrepreneurs tend to think in terms of what raising money means to them. How it can get them started? How many people they can hire? How much they can spend on office space? How much they can pay themselves? They forget to put themselves in the position of the person or company they are asking for money from. They think they are considering that person’s position by making up numbers and calling them expected returns for the investor. If you only give me X dollars, you will get X pct back in X years. You will double or triple your money in X years. Any investor worth anything knows you are just making these numbers up. They are meaningless. Worse, if you tell a savvy investor that the market is X billions of dollars and you just need one or some low percent to make zillions, you are immediately kicked to the curb.
These investors, including myself, know what you don’t, and they are not telling you. The minute you ask for money, you are playing in their game, they aren’t playing in yours. You are at a huge disadvantage, and it’s only going to get worse if you take their money. The minute you take money, the leverage completely flips to the investor. They control the destiny of your dreams, not you.
Investors don’t care about your dreams and goals. They love that you have them. They love that they motivate you. Investors care about how they are going to get their money back and then some. Family cares about your dreams. Investors care about money. There is a reason why venture capitalists are often referred to as Vulture Capitalists. The minute you slide off course from the promises you made to get the money, your dreams fall in jeopardy. You will find yourself making promises to keep investors at bay. You will find yourself avoiding your investors. Then you will find yourself on the outside looking in. The reality of taking money from non family members is that they are doing it for only one reason, to make more money. If you can’t deliver on that promise, you are out. You will be removed from the company you started. You will find someone else running your dream company. If this sounds like a scene out of the Sopranos or an episode you would watch on TV about a loan shark, you are right. The only difference is that it’s all legal.
There are only two reasonable sources of capital for startup entrepreneurs, your own pocket and your customers pockets. I personally would never even take money from a family member. Could you imagine the eternal grief and guilt from your mom, dad, uncle or aunt because you blew your nephews college money or the money for grandmas last vacation… I cant.
You shouldn’t have to take money from anyone. Businesses don’t have to start big. The best ones start small enough to suit the circumstances of their founders. I started MicroSolutions by getting an advance from my first customer of $500. The business didn’t grow quickly in the first couple years. We didn’t grow past 4 people in the first couple years, and we all worked dirt cheap.
So what’s wrong with that? It’s OK to start slow. It’s ok to grow slow. As much as you want to think that all things would change if you only had more cash available, they probably won’t.
The reality is that for most businesses, they don’t need more cash, they need more brains.