Ben Montana

Hey, everyone.

I made a video for this Arby's contest. If I win, I become famous and get free Arby's. Which would make me very happy. So... If you don't mind, please sign up and cast a vote. You can view my awesome video and vote here:

(http://www.rescuebrigadeaudition.com/video/view/12)

If you really want to help, vote every day!

If you have problems signing in... Try using your email address and password (instead of your username) because Arby's authentication system sucks balls.

Also, I promise to finish the ants comic as soon as possible.

~~Ben

I Love Music: Punk Rock Girl

There was a time in Poonheads history when The Dead Milkmen made up a large part of our daily soundtrack. You might say that those guys were just as important to our musical development as was Danzig. Or you might not. Depends on your point of view, I guess.

I still fuck up every time I try to quote Bitchin' Camaro.

Anyway, for some strange reason, "Punk Rock Girl" popped into my head today. And I'll be damned if it's not stuck there now. While we didn't listen to this song much in the old days, it's become pretty much my favorite Dead Milkmen song ever. There's a reason that it's there most well known song... Because it's awesome.

I present to you, now, Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen. The video quality is so-so, but the audio is what's important. Also: Best guitar solo in punk history.

Also, if you're in the mood, here's a relatively humorous video for Stuart (a Poonheads staple): (http://youtube.com/watch?v=VHFr6DgrF0w)

~Ben

Resources:
Dead Milkmen Website: (http://www.deadmilkmen.com/)
at Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Milkmen)
at Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=dead%20milkmen)

I Love Music: From Across The Pond

As I've said many times before, I listen to Virgin Radio (a UK based radio station) at work, pretty much all day. This exposes me to a lot of music that many of my American compatriots are unaware of. And also, it makes me look cool cuz I can say, "I only like obscure British bands". That means a lot.

Anyway. In an effort to enlighten my fellow Americans, I present to you a small selection of artists currently airing on Virgin.

In no particular order:

Amy Macdonald - the first Virgin artist I really took a liking to. Soon after hearing her for the first time I was compelled to import her debut album, "This is the life". She's got a few singles out, but what follows is the song that really made me fall for this Scottish beauty.

Duffy - the non-crack addict's Amy Winehouse. Since Ms. Winehouse broke this style into the modern charts, there's been an influx of soulful British babes, singing their hearts out. Duffy has a rich voice backed by an upbeat poppy arrangement.

One Night Only - these guys are pretty new to my musical lexicon. They manage to use the same kitsch indie/britpop formula that has become bland and muddled in recent years and turn it into something above average and appealing to my ears.

The Kooks - are my current all-time favorite band. It's a good mix of that classic British-Invasion rock and modern sensibilities. But mostly that classic British-Invasion rock. I bought the first album and it was super bad-ass. I eagerly look forward to their next release.

And there you have it. Four of my favorite musical acts from across the pond. I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I have. I'll try to keep you posted on any new findings.

Until next time,

~Ben

Resources
Virgin Radio online: (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/)
Amy Macdonald on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Macdonald_%28singer%29)
Amy Macdonald on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rs=5174&page=1&rh=n%3A5174%2Cp_32%3AAmy+MacDonald%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A387645011&sort=-releasedate)
Duffy on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duffy_%28singer%29)
Duffy on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=Duffy)
One Night Only on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Night_Only_%28band%29)
One Night Only on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=One%20Night%20Only)
The Kooks on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kooks)
The Kooks on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=music&field-artist=Kooks)

I Love Music: Hold on Tight

It's that time again. I've got another song stuck in my head, and you get to reap the benefits (if you can call it that).

Today's earworm comes courtesy of The Electric Light Orchestra. ELO is probably best known for singles such as "Don't Bring Me Down", "Do Ya", and a cover of "Roll Over Beethoven". I'd heard the name before, but only recently got into them after hearing "Twilight" used as the opening for the cult Japanese Drama, Densha Otoko.

I purchased "Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra" to appease my craving. The problem is that ELO's music is very diverse. What I wanted was more "Twilight". And after learning that Twilight was part of larger entity that was the concept album titled "Time", I just had to own it.

"Time" is a great album. While no two songs on the album sound much alike, they are similar enough to form a cohesive being. And also, it's got a bunch of really catchy songs. Like "Hold On Tight".

So, without further adieu, "Hold on Tight" by Electric Light Orchestra.

~Ben

Resources:
ELO on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO)
Time at Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Time-Electric-Light-Orchestra/dp/B00005KHEV)

I Love Music: Birdhouse in your Soul

I heard this the other day on Virgin. Birdhouse in your Soul by They Might Be Giants. They're kind of old news now, but I never really listened to them much. Just those two songs that were on Tiny Tunes that one time. Anyway, I heard this and it's been stuck in my head for a while now. And you know what happens when I get a song stuck in my head... I post the youtube video so that you guys can hear it and get it stuck in your head.

And there you have it... I don't know why I find it so appealing or why it's stuck in my head, but it's opened a whole new world for me. I bought A Users Guide To They Might Be Giants... it's their "best of" album. I found it at Best Buy and I really really like what I hear. I only got though about half of it so far, but I really look forward to the rest of it.

Until next time,
~Ben

Resources:
YouTube link: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6kJD2N2gvqw)
"A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants" on Amazon: (http://www.amazon.com/Users-Guide-They-Might-Giants/dp/B0007XT8DA/)

Scouting For Girls: Elvis Ain't Dead

Some of you may know that I listen to Virgin Radio (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/) at work. On Virgin, I hear a lot of new, British music. A lot of it is quite catchy. At the moment I have the song "Elvis Ain't Dead", by Scouting For Girls, stuck in my head.

It's only right that I share with you this lovely little tune.

You can see the video here: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gFzREgP3RiU) or you can view it below.

Until next time,

~~Ben

RSS News Reader

A long time ago, there was a TV network called Tech TV. It had cool shows about technology type stuff. It was probably my favorite television network ever.

Then it got bought out by G4, the gaming network. Now owned by G4, all the tech shows started getting replaced by gamer oriented shows. All the great tech show hosts got laid off in favor of hip, stylish gamer hosts. Lame.

Kevin Rose, one of the younger, hipper tech show hosts got sick of the G4 and, with the help of his partner in crime, Dan Huard, started his own Internet TV station thing (http://www.revision3.com/). They have all kinds of awesome tech related shows, just like they had on Tech TV, except I dont' have to get extended cable to watch them.

I hadn't kept up with any of these shows since The Broken went on hiatus. Today, I decided to look it up and realized that I don't have the time to watch all the back episodes like I wanted. I figured instead of trying to watch all the ones that were already up, I'd do better to just watch the new ones as they come out. To do this, I would need a feed and a reader.

RSS feeds make it easy to keep up to date on news and site updates. I've got one for this blog (the orange icon in the menu bar). Revision3 has one for each of its shows. In order to take advantage of an RSS feed, however, you really need a feed Reader to aggregate all your feeds and keep you updated on them.

Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/), the email client that I use, has a built in News reader, so I figured I would just use that one. I went in and subscribed to all the feeds and everything looked peachy. Thunderbird, unfortunately, was built to be an email client first and foremost. It's news reading capabilities are kind of iffy. I'm all a fan of simple, but there comes a point when something just doesn't do what I need it to do. Thunderbird did not do what I needed it to do.

The main problem was that after subscribing to all of the feeds for all of the Revision3 shows, I found that there were almost 300 new articles in all those subscriptions. Not that bad, I thought, because I had just subscribed to them. They were all new to me. What I didn't know was that Thunderbird would pull down ALL the articles EVERY time it updated. So, after clicking the Get Mail button two or three time, I ended up with something like 800 new articles, most of which were duplicates. This would not do.

A quick Googling led me to Sharp Reader (http://www.sharpreader.net/). I've only used it for about an hour, but already I like it. It's everything I wanted. Simple, only pulls down updates and opens articles in an external browser. What more could I want? Perhaps more awesome news feeds to read in my new news reader? Probably.

While Thunderbird is a great email client, I would not suggest it as a news reader. Sharp Reader, however, I would throughly recommend for a News Reader. If you do a lot of newsing, I mean.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Guitar for the Soul

It may come as a surprise to some that I play guitar. I would think, anyways. I guess when I look at myself in the mirror I just don't see a guitar player.

I'm not super good. But I'm not super bad, either. I just play for fun. For myself. It's the one thing that I doubt will ever have a chance of becoming a chore.

Unlike comicking, guitar playing doesn't take any set up. When drawing, I have to take out my paper and pencils and erasers and stuff. With my guitar I just reach over, grab the sucker and start playing. I'm able to be creative. I create something that will not have to be cleaned up or stored away.

It's not like coding in that I don't have to think about it. Coding requires analytical thinking. Guitar playing is mostly muscle memory. Yet, it's not passive like watching TV or listening to music. When I'm sitting there, I'm actually moving my fingers. I'm an active participant. I find guitar playing to be very satisfying.

It's kind of like meditating. I can just sit back and relax, sometimes not think about anything, sometimes think about everything. But I'm able to focus because my hands are busy with the strumming and the fretting. I find it difficult to talk while I'm playing, but I think about all kinds of things.

Music making is good for the soul. When I come home, no matter how hard of a day I've had, or how tired I may be, there's always enough left in me to pick up my Strat and finger a tune. It clears my head and revitalizes me, if only for a moment.

I would highly recommend taking up a musical instrument. Something that's easy to start, but complex enough to keep you from getting bored. Portability is another consideration. A guitar isn't that portable, but I stay in my room a lot. I've been known to take a harmonica with my on trips, though. So, maybe something like that.

Start off slow and don't get frustrated. Remember, you're doing it for fun. If you get angry with it, it won't help soothe anything, especially not the soul. Just screw around with it, making sounds that appeal to you. Doesn't matter if it makes a song or not. Eventually, if you like the instrument, you'll get bored with just making noise and try to learn a song or two. Don't get frustrated if you can't get them right away. Just set it down and come back later. Remember that you're playing for fun. I've been playing for around 7 years now, and I don't know more than 10 songs total. But it's still fun.

One other thing to consider is the people you live with. Don't play so loudly that you bother everyone around you. They'll just come in and bitch you out and that's no fun. So, keep it respectable. That's why I don't use an amp (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZovZ6phyXSo).

And if it turns out that music's just not your thing... well, I'm sure there's something else out there that could help you relax. Maybe yoga. Or a bonsai tree. All I know is that my guitar is important to my own mental well-being, so it might be of some help to yours.

Until next time,

~~Ben

Of pngs and Feeds

I managed to shoe horn the RSS feed into the front page of Poonheads.com. You can get to it, by the way, by hitting the Home link in the menu there at the top of the page.

Now, this was a challenge for me. At work, I mostly use PHP and javaScript. In all my wisdom, however, I decided to program poonheads.com in C#.net 2.0. I hadn't touched the code in about a year and a half when I initially wrote it ( and it was fresh in my mind from my .Net programming class).

Originally, the main news post on the front page pulled from an XML page on my server. It was just a matter of changing the reference to the Blogger feed. And adjusting to the feed's new schema. Which sucked because my xml file is really simple and the blogger feed was very much not simple. So it took a lot of trial and error. I provide you now with the code. The secret was the InferSchema part.

DataSet newsSet = new DataSet();
newsSet.ReadXml("http://poonheads.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default", XmlReadMode.InferSchema);
DataRow newPost = newsSet.Tables["entry"].Rows[0];
lbl_title.Text = newsSet.Tables["title"].Rows[1][1].ToString();
lbl_poster.Text = newsSet.Tables["author"].Rows[1][0].ToString();
lbl_time.Text = newPost[1].ToString().Substring(0, 10);
String body_text = newsSet.Tables["summary"].Rows[0][1].ToString();
if (body_text.Length > 250)
{
      body_text += "...";
}
a_continue.Text = "CONTINUE READING";
lbl_text.Text = body_text.Replace("\n", "<br />");
a_continue.NavigateUrl = newsSet.Tables["link"].Rows[3]["href"].ToString();
So, I don't know if that helps, but that's what it is. I don't feel like commenting or explaining it. I figure anyone who's looking at this probably knows kind of what's going on and would be able to figure it out.

I'm not really sure of a good way to display code in blogger. I'll probably just put some border around the <code>s with css. That ought to work good enough. Which brings me to my next point.

IE does not properly support .png alpha transparency. I've always known this, but never really bothered until I downloaded the RSS icon, which used alpha transparency. I didn't really want to mess with making another one, so I decided on just looking up an IE hack. I found a couple, but the results were kind of meh.

So I present to you the only foolproof 100% effective way to deal with alpha transparency in IE: Don't use alpha transparency in your pngs. Use indexed pngs or use gifs. Create your design without having to rely on transparency and everyone will be happy. The end.

So that's all I have for today. Except this random youtube video David showed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgnloJgui1U

Until next time.

~~Ben

Awesome Time

Oh man. Things have been pretty awesome. No new content on the site, really. At all. In fact, I haven't worked on the site at all in about a month. School started a few weeks ago, so when I'm not in class, I've been watching TV and relaxing. Cuz that's what I do.

This weekend I plan to write up an awesome secret script that I can't tell you about. But it'll be awesome. And I'll hopefully get it done this weekend.

I haven't worked on Numbskull, or Poonheads, or Campfire. But I have been coloring Jaks Tales by Chris Paluszek. His other comic, Carzorthade is really fucking awesome. Check that one out, too. It makes me giggle.

Other projects include video editing. I've been learning to use Adobe Premiere. I've been experimenting on some old video that we shot several years ago. I have a video for "I turned into a martian" by the Misfits over at youtube. I have some other videos up there too, but I won't link to them. I'm sure you can find them. There's a clip from the mythical "Poonheads Movie". Pillboy doesn't like those clips, though, so I'll never do much else to them. Eventually, I'd like to host all my videos in a subsite of poonheads.com. But I'm lazy, so who knows when that'll get done.

Speaking of video, we hope to start a new online talk show thing. The Poonheads Show. I don't know when that'll take off, though. Sometime soon, hopefully. It will be awesome.

In other, non-online news. I asked out a girl the other day. First time in around 3 years. It feels good. And she even said, "Yeah, okay". She's pretty awesome. I don't know if she'll be able to handle the awesomeness that is POONHEADS. I mean, one of us at a time? Sure. But all three of us. That'll take some effort.

Speaking of girls: Sterling got a new girlfriend. We don't like her much. She's really creepy and not too attractive. So, Sterling... if you're reading this: Dude... you can do better, man. The world knows it. Dump her ass. And, Sterling's Girlfriend, if you're reading this: GTFO.

That's about it. Maybe I'll get to updating this site more often. ... Nah. Anyways. Stay awesome.