you know, i don't mind the border people doing all kinds of inane checks into my history. in the end, they might not like my politics, and it might harm my employment opportunities (if it hasn't already, and i'm sure it has), but i don't expect that to be a serious limit on anything i actually want to do in life. i don't find surveillance to be particularly bothersome, not even at a deep level. i dunno, call me a political voyeur or something...

...but the reference requirements are really quite onerous. if you don't know anybody with a passport, you need to find four people that aren't family and have known you for more than two years and they have to vouch that the information you provide (which is mundane shit like address and work history) is valid.

i couldn't even find one person that's known me for two years well enough to verify that.

nor is it really useful in any kind of...well, anything. security wise, references are stupid. i've been through this argument with employers. do you expect me to give you a bad reference? really, what the process is doing is determining if the applicant has the social skills to build personal friendships or not. that's at least arguably valid in an employment situation. it's of almost no value in a passport situation.

all of this is so that i can walk over a bridge to see a concert, maybe have a few beers. to spend money in the local economy, if you want to phrase it like that.

i'm good at 'splainin'. i can run off odsp documents, write an essay. i'm sure i'll convince them.

...but the whole process is really quite stupid, regardless of the angle it's being approached from.

he stopped doing drugs. i'm not usually one to assign talent to substances, but in corgan's case that's really the truth of it.

pelican - forever becoming

release date.

https://pelicansl.bandcamp.com/album/forever-becoming-2019-remix

mammatus - heady mental

release date.

https://mammatus.bandcamp.com/album/heady-mental

stigmata, by ministry.

you could play the game of connecting melt banana tunes to ministry tunes for a while....

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see, there's a flip side to this too. maybe melt banana were never really metalcore. but, even a comparison to something less stupid like refused instantly places melt banana in the 'not bro' category, and that is really massively refreshing for a lot of people. nowadays, this collection of genres is so saturated with big bearded idiots....

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the flip side of that argument is that they're finally putting all their talent to use to produce interesting music....

the new record does, however, take more than a few ideas from post-idiocy boredoms, who went through their own passage from stupidity into the profound...

wow. it took them 20 years, but they finally grew up and wrote some music. bonus: it's really good.

actually, maybe that's not fair. i'm listening to some of their 00s work now and it's definitely a lot better than the ridiculous 90s stuff i've been basing my opinion of them on all these years.