Jonas Sykes.net

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So, haha it’s been waay to long since I have written on this thing. I wanted to let all my favorite stalkers and internet buds that I am still alive. I cant believe how things have changed in the past couple months. I have bought a car although I still don’t have a license at least till the end of the month. Me and my wife are debt free. I have bought so many records I am not going to even trying to get everyone caught back up. I really think I might keep this space on this site reserved for telling you more about things going on in my life and then mixing in the music of my life and what I am feeling.

so yeah I been doing really well won’t divulge too much because I want to keep you coming back for more.

if you aren’t my friend on facebook click the link and do it.

anyways just want to make the transition into regular posting again as seemless as possible expect a small update in the future and hopefully things will be back on track after that!

I can’t apologize to myself enough for allowing this to go as long as it has to not be well over a month since I have even thought about updating this thing.

Let’s see the big things I want to touch on are the things going on in my life and what they mean to me.

Writing this after trying desperately to fall asleep seems to be the right sort of atmosphere for a stupid self-centered reflection post.

As you can see here my goals have sort of maintained the same sort of decisive focus on the important matters and haven’t really wavered that much. 2009 Resolutions

This is the post from last year which if you notice has the goals from the previous year. This is interesting because it allows myself a scope of time that looks more realistic to goal setting rather than forgetting the new years resolution as soon as it’s out of present memory.

Let’s go over last years and give them the time they deserve before they are lost again.

X-NO DEBT

So I guess it’s been hit or miss this year. As it’s pretty bad out there I strive to put myself at a level where it doesn’t affect me. I am partway there. Whats interesting I think as I read through my goals in 2008 I wrote those I think before I had any intention of joining the military so I had a pretty easy time radically transforming my personal circumstances.

Some of these goals are obviously going to get recycled and used again as I haven’t even come close on some of these. And I will also add some short term goals for things I need to finish very soon.

let’s get these little goals out of the way and break this down into something easier to digest and more manageable.

-Finish my EOC and get next skill level so I can actually enroll in school.
-Get drivers license
-Pay off investment debt and buy a car
-Start regularly putting money back in my IRA
-Finally rollover my 401K into said already opened IRA
-Bring lunch to work, everyday
-Curb my record spending habits
-Be more careful about being lazy and being okay with it
-Update this site more lol

-Pay off wife’s debt
-Open up savings account for honeymoon
-Attend Throwdown XIII
-Enroll in school
-Finish degree
-Fund future projects account further

I can’t really think of anything else to write but let me just tell you I will be back to update this soon.

I hope you all have a great 2010!

So I realize it’s been a damn long time and I really don’t have the motivation to brag about my vinyl or tell you how much I hate things.

I just want to say that I will blow this shit up soon!

I wrote this while I was on hold with this wonderful company

This piece will be called
“Asurion and why it makes no fucking sense whatsoever!”

First of all why do you buy insurance on anything? Well if you are like me you pay for insurance because you try to protect your investment.

I am a current Verizon Wireless customer and I am currently an Asurion Cell Phone Insurance customer (ie: they recieve a charitable donation of 5.00 a month from me) The only stumbling block in dealing with these people is that in the event that your phone is actually broken and you get to use their service you have to pay a flat rate fee of 50.00 well if you are pretty proficient in simple multiplication you can see that 5 X 12 + 50 = 120 now this is only a suggestion of the type of situation you may encounter for me this is pretty much right on the money (literally.) Let me say a few more things real quick about Asurion their little java bullshit at their website http://phoneclaim.com/ when submitting a claim forces you to use Internet Explorer and then not even to step 2 it says you have to check your email to complete the steps…well guess what I did and once I clicked “Resume Claim” I get the same screen about how they have to email me…WTF!? So can I ever file a claim? I figured I might try calling:

I am trying out right now, I am on hold right now it’s been 15:27 and every couple of seconds it let’s me know all about their website (thanks assholes)

I have to wonder as I sit here if they are even open?

19:17 finally got someone who sounds like they are half asleep named Shaquessa or some made up nonsense.

hey did you know that well apparently if I ask not to be placed on hold they cannot complete the claims process. “I can’t forget about you this is my job” wow congrats what a great job too!

what the fuck?!

yeah no never again…might as well put the 5 dollars a month away in a savings account and can buy a new phone in half the time.

15 days to receive the phone or I get charged 175.00 automatically….

so I ask for the address where I can send the phone

WELL SIR WE ARE SENDING YOU AN ENVELOPE….

no, I don’t want it I want the address I want a delivery confirmation…

Asurion Phone Claims (I am guessing)
po box 9998
smyrna tn 37167

wooooow what a fucking bitch apparently I am asking to much to have things spelled out to me!?

apparently sarcasm and telling me I am having a bad morning is standard protocol.

Debra the all too helpful robotic supervisor can’t help either and doesn’t know who transferred her…REALLY!?

whoa I will never do business with this company after this little encounter.

what a scam, after I get my new phone I am so over this…hey Asurion FUCK YOU!

Hey there you.

so I figured it been awhile, first off I have something to say I am sick to death of private trackers actively disabling support for certain bittorrent clients I have different rules for 4 different trackers. One of them Waffles decided its not going to support the version of utorrent I use so I go through their list and see what I can use. Frankly I don’t ever feel like using Azeurus(sp) or any of that other bloated shit. So I downloaded Halite because they support it well the thing is I downloaded a torrent forever ago and the person who uploaded it deleted it and its perpetually stuck in CHECKING FILES well I try and manage the torrent and it fucking crashes I uninstall it and reinstall it I unpack it to a different location. I try everything including getting a different version of the software. So when I do a clean install its still up at the top checking files and getting nowhere…..

so you know what that makes Waffles useless to me as I cant even use it. Who decided utorrent isn’t safe? I use 1.6.1 which has no known bugs or privacy concerns but whatever fuck it.

In my life I have a few things that might be of some importance to me. I finished my 3rd and final volume of my CDC’s and I am going to start studying tomorrow so I can take my EOC and get ready to get on with my life I am sick to death of the idea of getting people all acquainted and familiar with their job before I get to take classes. I have no future in Aircraft Maintenance so why are they pushing me to be so proficient in it before they let me do something else? I am cross-training as soon as possible this is horrible I cannot wait to take classes. I love how many people join the military for “education” and then never pursue it. What a joke, not only is it my number 1 but I cannot WAIT!

Let’s see I ordered a couple 45″ boxes for my 7″s and my smaller records and I got some sweet resealable sleeves from bagsunlimited for all my records without any covers and now they are all finally packaged up nice.

also let’s see I nuked my blackberry storm I tried to upload the official new OS update from Verizon and it got all screwed up and now I am trying to get it back to a working condition. I am looking at The Droid and am very certain on how its going to kill the iphone and I am very happy about that. Just from reading about it and seeing some of it’s capabilities I am very excited about it. And at 199.00 I have to wonder why the Iphone is so overpriced? Here is the Cnet review:

also since we are talking about cellphones and cnet reviews I think for someone like me I would like to show you a video for the new Samsung Blue Earth which is a more eco-friendly midrange phone and I might pick it up depending on the start price for the Blackberry Storm 2 my main appreciation of the phone is that is has built in solar panels and is partly made from recycled materials which is really cool!

So like I said though I am thinking the Motorola Droid might become my primary phone pretty soon the cost is relevantly cheap for the capabilities it possess and as an early adopter I love the challenge of being able to play around with something that google has developed.

On another note I had a good Halloween we got quite a bit of tricker-treaters and that always awesome.

Yeah I think I might update later and do some new music reviews.

thanks for reading…

Hey everyone, I am pretty stoked I have a 3 day weekend that means on Sunday night (tonight *now monday) I don’t feel any need to go to sleep at any given time and am going to use that time to make a little update to let you know what I been up to.



First of all I don’t know if any of my readership watches Curb Your Enthusiasm but if you don’t you really should. Holy hell is it hilarious!



So I been listening to a wide variety of things as the backdrop to this new post but overwhelmingly I am listening to some old Against All Authority. It’s crazy because throughout my life they have always been a constant for me since I got into Ska and Punk way back and I realized that I have never really given them any credit. As someone who is more known for specifically stating what I do NOT like I think it’s important when a band can make music throughout the years that always makes me feel good and gets my fist a’ pumping.



let me get this out of the way because you know its the primary reason it seems that I have this blog here is the new records I have bought and am waiting or have recently got for about a buck each.

I am also waiting on for the first time in my life my very own copy of this I am very excited I got it from a guy off the BossToneS forum for 25bux and its signed by Kevin Lenear one of the saxophone players.

also this drops tomorrow I am excited I don’t know how long I can hold out because it is Baroness I might just get 2 that way I can sell one and sort of make up for this….

Red Sparrows – Aphorisms pre-orders are going on new Boris album is running out at a record pace…..There is just so much new music out there right now. It’s tough to pick and choose :head explodes:



Let’s see, I plan on doing a little bit of upkeep here on the old site upload some photos I been sitting on and do something to make this more of my page. I plan on doing some cool stuff stay tuned.

Well I am sure there has been at least a little bit going on in my life since the last rant about Verizon so I figured now is a good time to update this. If you are reading this some place other than Jonassykes.net come join the party

It’s been a good last week at work I been doing a detail called A-Page or TODA and if you know what that means, I have been taking a real break from my job and doing something pretty boring.

Well I got issued my 3rd and final book of my CDCs as of yesterday. I am going to try and crack them a bit earlier this time and might go back through the 2nd book now that I don’t have to worry about answering questions.

Without going into someone else’s business I have an older friend sign up for the Army which is pretty awesome if you ask me. Good luck on that buddy it’s a different appreciation for things when you know you can’t call in sick and have to actually try at your job.

I been doing well. Getting my jabs in where I can and happy about that. I got some bad news yesterday but I am not letting it get me down. I am not going to say what it is, except its not something I am really thrilled about.

But music is what I am most excited to talk about:

first off vinyl!

got this thing 12 years after I initially bought this on Cassette. This of course being the first BossToneS album I have ever bought and ever heard. It is of course fitting that this is the last one I needed to complete my Mighty Mighty BossToneS album collection.

I paid 54 bucks or something so it was 60 shipped with insurance I got it yesterday. SO FUCKING AWESOME!

If you know what this album art is you are probably familiar with my favorite label The Mylene Sheath I encourage you all TO buy this and play the shit out of it. This is a super rare repress of the GIANTS – They, The Undeserving 12″ translucent green w/white splatter “It’s been over a year since we put out this beast on vinyl and it’s been sold out for months and months. Or has it? Back when we had these pressed up, the plant accidentally pressed 100 of them on transparent green w/white splatter, which we’d never ordered. The color configuration we’d wanted was transparent green w/white haze. The plant was quick to rectify their mistake and everyone that had preordered the transparent green w/white haze received their copy. But this also meant we didn’t have 100 jackets for the splatters. Then we just kind of sat on the mispressed copies of the record until recently. After a few discussions with the band and our buddy Charlie over at Three Bears Design, it was decided that Charlie was game to crank out some hand screened jackets in the ultimate labor of love (thanks brother!). They’re all completely DIY, hand-pulled, hand-numbered, all with slight defects and clearly hand-made with L-O-V-E. Each one-of-a-kind. These are all first come, first serve. We have 50 copies for sale and the band has 50 copies they’ll be selling at shows. After these are sold, we have no clue when a vinyl repress will occur with this album…” I got this album on a couple different colors and I fucking love it enough to buy it again. Great stuff! myspace buy

I really only heard a handful songs of this band before ordering this. Imagine if Defiance Ohio had a Ska baby with Less Than Jake. Sounds great minimal horns and very folky (if that’s a word)

myspace
buy

Well if you pay attention to your cell phone bill with Verizon for the month ending August 2009 you may have noticed a flier that looks like any terms of service agreement change only this one is for a service called “Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice”

in the terms of this agreement if you do not opt out of this new service you will automatically be included in this program:

Verizon Wireless describes it further this way:

Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) is information created by virtue of your relationship with Verizon Wireless. This information includes: services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), related local and toll billing information, the type, destination, technical configuration, location and amount of use of purchased services.

it already seems suspicious enough but the fact that they are asking me for permission to use collected data from my account with 3rd parties is deeply disturbing from a privacy perspective.

so I did what I encourage everyone to do I opted out. This is just another way for Verizon to benefit from information farmed from its stupid and often gullible and uncaring consumer supporters (err: customers)

What kills me with these sort of things is inactivity is grounds for acceptance of terms of service changes.
Verizon describes these unfriendly consumer practices in this way as if CPNI is something we should all champion as tech innovation for the end consumer:

Q4. How do I give my consent to share CPNI?
Unless you provide us with notice that you wish to opt out within 45 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give us the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies described above.

this is backwards and a complete infringement on a consumers right to privacy, and it’s interesting to note that I was never contacted or aware of the integration of CPNI when I opened my account. And yet the FCC thinks this practice of collecting this information is alright. Really good info about CPNI here

here is the opt out number for verizon:

1800-333-9956 have your last 4 digits of your social, your acct number and zip code to complete the opt out if you have more than one number on the account wait at the end and it will give you the option to opt out all at once.

if you are having problems completing the opt out you can call customer service and tell them to remove you manually 1800-922-0204

or you can visit http://www.verizonwireless.com, register for My Verizon, and opt out by updating your profile.

I also found this article about CPNI from ars technica

THIS IS WHY ITS IMPORTANT TO NOT SWITCH TO AN ELECTRONIC FORM OF PAYMENT. YOU WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED OTHERWISE!

if you are seeing this on facebook or an rss feed check here for the full effect

So now I been meaning to actually write something that feels more positive. And sometimes the energy behind what I decide to commit to writing down sometimes has that sort of melancholy and sadness that sort of surrounds my posts. Which is almost never intended. First of all I want to say music is great as a landscape to help me with my writing.

I been saving the content of this post to just focus on awesome stuff and get it all out there. First of all

This beautiful piece of music is Rameses III “I Could Not Love You More” LP which if you are listening to the Mylene Sheath player in the right hand corner pause it for a second and press play on this player and minimize the window….do this until you get into the mood that I feel comes with this music or if you are psychologically too strong to let your environment and music determine how you feel. I want to meet you as you must be a very special robot!

now I also want to say as far as vinyl goes I been slowing down a little bit as I attempt to finally pay off the entirety of my student loan debt (but enough about that) this is whats new in my collection:

Madness – “Keep Moving” promo version this auction includes the Geffen Records packet and the promo photo it came stamped like all promo versions of records. One of my favorite Madness records as it contains tons of my favorite songs. Michael Caine, Sun and the Rain. Got this for 7 dollars shipped!

Junius – “The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist” 2xLP Okay it’s crazy because every once in awhile I will hear a band that makes me wonder why I never heard of them before that point. This is a band like that and this will be the first release of theirs I will own. It is absolutely amazing and you have to hear it. The sound is hard to explain it’s a shoe gaze mix but if I had to compare it to something imagine The Cure had an electroclash child with Mogwai. So listen to it here and buy it from my buddies at the Mylene Sheath I ordered the two most limited versions of this record the:bronze/black swirl limited to 100. and the clear vinyl w/bronze haze limited to 100. both of which contains a 16 page paperback book.

And since we are talking about absolutely beautiful breathtaking releases I noticed that I have neglected to mention anything about the new Caspian record “Tertia” I should be getting any day now.



here are a couple pictures of the ones I ordered and hopefully the last one I should be picking up sometime very soon (it’s a disease don’t judge me! )

this is the one I did not order and looking at it now with the artwork, makes me wan’t more than the other ones. Very beautiful limited to 700 (get this while you can!)

The 180 gram the first one I considered buying because thick vinyl is crucial for a release like this one. Limited to 100 (sold out)

Transparent pilsner w/opaque maroon haze. It’s a beauty thats for sure! Limited to 100 (sold out)

a couple more shots of how massive of a release this is:

The whole spread including the beautiful artwork and the gold foil stamping

close up of the gold foil stamping.

anyways, if you want to hear it you can here or you know you want it on vinyl from the Mylene Sheath

I could go on and on but I will save some more for later. Thanks for reading enjoy the music!

well it’s been about 2 weeks so I am a little overdue for this. It seems I have less and less of what I would call free time and more of what I have come to know as “getting my brain back together time.”

let’s start with work

I finished my first volume of CDCs and was assigned my 2nd volume yesterday I am planning on doing some sort of studying with this long 4 day weekend I am on. I am probably going to take what I call my morning crack which is an equal amount of Piracetam and Choline that coupled with the caffeine already in my system can probably push me through at least the 1st half of the book in just a couple days lol.

There is something about Choline that makes me sort of OCD and the Piracetam makes me interested in things I usually could not become interested in.

I want to sort of redesign the page here a little bit in the next few days it looks pretty bad.

in other news I been zoning out and feeling less excited for some reason at work and in my personal life. I want to get back to school I think that’s why I am trying to rush through these CDCs and then at the same time I won’t turn them into the very last minute because I am not looking forward to taking the end of course exam because I know I actually do need to study these things a little bit.

um, I went to the dentist yesterday and got lots of fillings…so thank you America!

yeah that’s about it really record collection has slowed down a little bit as I struggle to get just a little bit more ahead of where we are now financially. I want to put out records pretty bad I often think about what it is that I have to contribute and could I find anything I like that much that I could stand behind and sell.

I feel somewhat disconnected but I am thinking its mostly just a combination of a lot of little things and nothing major. Maybe I just need to sit down and call everyone and maybe I might feel better (or maybe that would make things worse)

and Music:

I can’t really say anything right now because I don’t really have anything new I am listening to. A couple bands but I will save those up and maybe I can do an entire post about bands I been listening to you might be unfamiliar with.

and other:

been reading walletpop everyday lately it’s a good blog and though its obviously biased some of their articles make me laugh. Anyways I just wanted to update hope you enjoyed this.