News/Blog
I couldn't decide whether to make this a news page or a blog page, so I figured... Why not a little bit of both?
May 9, 2026
(L to R: Riggz Miller, Leo Kelly, Bryan Morgan, and myself).
Bryan Todd Morgan, 8.28.76—5.9.26
My best friend moved on to the next dimension at three a.m. this morning.
I met Bryan Morgan when a mutual acquaintance was putting together a new band in August of 2012. I quickly found out two things about my new bandmate: we had way similar tastes in music, we both consumed musci any way we could do so — LP, cassette, downloads, streaming — and mosty importatly, we were both multi-instrumentalists... although, truth be told, he was a way better drummer than I, mainly because he always had a kit nearby.
When the band we were both recruited for imploded several months later, we kept playing together. We plotted a few bands and went through all of the pitfalls one does through when assembling the bands. Insomnia Station was lightning ii a bottle — rehearsals were great, and while we didn't get to play out much and Leo Kelly, our drummer, elected to stop playing, we parted as friends with no hard feelings. Other attempts Bryan and I made weren't so successful — we weeded through more than our fair share of flakes, the tales of which could make for several posts here (and probnably will).
The musical chemistry between us was incredible even when it was the two of us getting together in his furnished basement with guitars to play, coming up with cover song ideas on the fly and almost immediately picking up on each other's wavelengths, to the point where we plotted, but never brought to the public, a duo called Dos Amigos. The COVID lockdown put paid to that idea.
Bryan had a great, warped, and sometimes dry sense of humor. In one of our early get-togethers after the first band we were both in imploded, he casually mentioend to me how his father — a trans woman who goes by Diane now — had undergone their transition surgery recently by stating that "s/he went from having an outie to an innie." (On a sad note, Diane is currently residing in a facility up the road from my house, the same facility both of my parents had been in and out of much of their last months of 2021.)
Regrettably, I only ever had him over to the Generic Yellow Bird Studio once, where we tracked one of his original songs, "Emotion", and an impromptu solo acoustic cover of Warrant's "Andy Warhol Was Right". On the former song, we spplit the guitar solo section, and when I played my part, I had done a lick at the end that impressed him so much that he mock-strangled me.
Bryan had recorded an album of his own years before called Upsidedownside, and we were discussing remastering and reissuing the album at some point. One of the highlights for me on that album is a track called "I'm Schizophrenic And So Am I" — imagine Alice Cooper gone punk. We had revived it for Insomnia Station. I think I will undertake that remastering project finally as time allows and get it out before the end of the year, maybe even sooner, with the proceeds going to both his family and a cancer charity.
Last week, we found out that he'd been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. The doctors gave him two weeks to live. That estimate proved a little too generous.
This past Sunday (May 3) was the last time I saw him. He was still coherent and talkative, and the four of us spent two hours talking about everything from music to movies. I am blessed, as are Riggz and Leo, to have been able to do so, take one last group photo with him, and most importantly in my case, give him one last hug and tell him I loved him. We were planning to have at least one movie night in his place, which would have been today. The other day, his wife Susan posted on Facebook that Bryan was already declining.
Earlier today, I listened to one of his favorite albums, Aerosmith's Rocks. I had only ever had it on CD until a few years ago, when Bryan had gotten hold of a CBS UK copy and bequeathed me his VG+-quality Columbia US copy. There are way too many other albums that I could have picked that we had in common as favorites —Led Zeppelin III, the Germs' (GI), Fear's The Record, and countless others that I can't think of at the moment. We were always turning each other onto stuff. The last thing I remember turning him on to was Yeule's Evangelical Girl Is A Gun — No sooner did I mention the song title to him on the phone over a year ago that I heard him cue up a stream of the album, the opening bars of "Tequila Coma" playing over the sound system in his man cave.
I'm going to miss him terribly. Say hello to my mom and Daffney for me, old friend.
#FuckCancer
April 26, 2026
OK, are they losing their minds over at Endeavor/TKO Group, or what?
News reports are all over the Internet Wrestling Media stating that Kairi Sane was released from the WWE.
This, to quote Bob Mould, makes no sense at all.
What kind of idiot puts someone who's in the middle of a story arc that's been ongoing for the past year, who is one of the best athletes in the women's locker room (along with her fellow countrywomen Asuka and Io Shirai), on the choppinh block?
I would like to say I hope she sneaks over to AEW to work with real-life friend Mina Shirakawa, but Tony The Snowman doesn't know what to do with most of his fucking roster and Kairi's talents don't deserve to rot.
If I was still in the Internet Wrestling Media (and getting paid to write for it — one of the reasons I stopped writing about it after IMG Enronned ScoopsWrestling.com and the ex-Scoops editor who was running WrestlingBytes.com couldn't be bothered to look for funding for the replacement website was because I was putting in too much uncompensated work compared to when I was getting paid to write at least four columns a week, plus there was no Substack back then), I'd be filling quite a few Microsoft Word virtual pages wirth invective. But thast was so twenty-five years ago. Honestly, fuck this shit. I have better things to do. And if I do decided to rant about that somemore, that'll be in the Thoughts section of this website, not here.
April 20, 2026
I don't bitch about Mondays very often, but this morning I had a good reason to.
My Keurig K-Cup machine achieved ex-parrot status this morning. I've had it for over a decade, which is probably a minor miracle as far as coffeemakers go.
This actually leaves me with a small dilemma. At my day job, there are both a K-cup machine and a drip coffeemaker alailable to everyone, and I have been availing myself of both — the latter whenever I remember to bring my own K-cups (I'll throw between four and six K-cups in a sandwich bag, throw that in my work bag, and be done with it for a week.) That's fine for work — it's the mornings afrer I roll out of bed, as well as the weekends when I want to nurse a couple of cvps while music is playing in the living room (or lately, when I'm at my computer working on this website).
The dilemma is this: Do I just get another K-cup machine? Do I go back to a drip coffeemaker? Do I decide to go the French press route? There's upsides and downsides to both.
The K-cup replacement would seem the most logical at first — I'm used to having the opportunity to make a different kind of coffee for my second cup of the day (when I'm home). But the varying prices of K-cup varieties and the amount of K-cups some coffee brands package up (some 12, some 10... why?) sometimes to make this the least frugal method as far as upfront cost. A drip coffeemaker would be wonderfully old school (I used them for most of my coffee-drunking life) and be economical as far as layout, but what do I do with the rest of the pot? Pour it into my TAL 64-oz. thermal bottle and take it to work with me? The French press sounds appealing to the coffee aficianado in me, but do I really want to be fucking with cleaning it at five after five in the blessed A.M. when my eyes are still in "Where's the fuckin' coffee?" mode (as depicted above by Snoopy)?
Fortunately, there's options within the options. I have a Cuisinart grinder that was part of our wedding registry and has yet to be even taken out of the box — whole beans may be even cheaper than pre-ground in the long run. And there's always the option of filling one's own K-cups, either with a reusable K-cup or with disposable ones. There's also reusable K-cups that use filter inserts (less cleanup to deal with, especially in the morning.
Where one door closes, several more open.
I have some time to decide on what option I'm going to take for home use going forward. In the meantime, after work I just grabbed a jar of Maxwell House instant. I still have a hot water kettle!
If you're wondering, I take my coffee wither black or with two to three sugars (or Splendas if there's no sugar). I have yet to go the Descendents route and make a "bonus cup" or fill a whole thermos with expresso (the pre-show ritual of Bill Stevenson)... but give it time. (I'm kidding... or am I?)
April 2, 2026
Between my eyesight (I'm overdue for a checkup and new specs) and my car being forced to the side for various mechanical reasons, I've been relying on either my wife, my sister-in-law, or Uber for transport back home from work. But, as Deadmau5 once said, "Sometimes things get complicated" and yesterday afternoon was one of those times. Several banking services were borked with DDoS attacks including Chime, which meant I couldn't pre-book an Uber when I needed it yesterday. My sis-in-law wasn't able to pick me up and my wife had just started her shift at work an hour and a half beforehand, so I called a friend of mine and had him pick me up at an Arby's that happens to be a ten-minute walk up the road from my job. Just as I got to Arby's to wait for my friend, wouldn't you know it? Chime got their shit fixed right before my ride arrived. I said fuck it and went inside the Arby's to get two sandwiches and an order of curly fries. I figured I deserved it after sweating all afteroon about how I had no way to access my money. It happened to be my scheduled payday too, which was another pain in the ass!
Having the impromptu Arby's visit after work didn't exactly deter me from getting what I wanted later in the evening: the new limited edition Huntr/x Meal from McDonald's. Some might think it's overpriced but I didn't care. The "Hunter Sauce" for the nuggets had an awesome kick to it, and the shaker fries (soy, garlic and sesame) added a nice tough to the potatoes. Want to know the funny part? I hawe yet to see the K-Pop Demon Hunters movie (I just happen to like "Golden". A lot.)
The weather has been a tad schizophrenic but not as bad as the past couple of weeks. We were in the sixties yesterday and today it's in the low forties. I said screw the winter coat and wore my Descendents hoodie instead. I don't want to touch the winter coat until Christmas Eve if I can help it. The weekend is supposed to be warmer (66° tomorrow and 74° for the highs Friday and Saturday, with the lows still lovering between the high thirties and high forties. After that, it's temps in the mid-forties to mid-forties for most of next week. Summer cannot get here fast enough.
March 27, 2026
Last week, while Tara and I were having her birthday dinner, a long-awaited event happened in town: a Philly Pretzel Factory location finally opened in town. A soft opening happened on March 17, but the grand opening was on the 20th. The other day, I was at work having lunch and got a phone call from Tara to meet her outside the office building: She handed me a bag of five pretzels. Then yesterday, after she picked me up from work, we decided to order ahead and pick up a ten-pack to split. I ended up eating three of mine, fresh out of the oven, in the car and saving the other two to take to work today for break snacks. Having a Philly Pretzel Factory location in town is going to spoil us because occasionally, after Tara had discovred the existence years ago of the franchise on an episode of Undercover Boss then Googled to find that there was a PPF location in St. Clair, after which she'd buy about 20 whenever she was in that area or near one in Allentown, which we'd pick on for the next few days (they reheat well in the microwave after 30 seconds.)
Having a Philly Pretzel Factory, and a couple of years ago, a 7-Eleven, finally come to this area, is nice, but I honestly wish there was a record store or book store in town rather than having to travel to Wilkes-Barre to shop at Gallery of Sound, Musical Energi, or Barnes And Noble. There was also a nice, punk-centric record store in Berwick called Waxpax Records but when I went to look for a web link for this blog post, I just found out that they closed at the end of January, which sucks because I'd only gotten to shop there once. Goddamnit. The only time I was there, I had bought the album by my friend Riggz Miller's band One Revived and albums by The Cramps and Operation Ivy, and was considering a return trip with my bonus money from work. Damn, damn, damn. (No, I still haven't spent that bonus money yet; I msy just end up buying a $50 Amazon gift card somewhere and doing my shopping there.)
The weather has been slightly nuts the last week. We had our first 70° days the other day and right now, its under 30° again. What the fuck, Mother Nature? It'll be betwwen the thirties and forties this weekend and then 60° is predicted for Monday and 71° for Tuesday, after which the temperature will slowly dip down and a repeat of under-forties temps dominates the weekend, at least according to the ten-day forecast on Google Weather as of this writing, then 51° on Monday. I'd like to put away my winder coat until at least after fucking Thanksgiving, thank you very much!
March 20, 2026
Yesterday was my wife Tara's birthday; we went to Senape's Tavern for her birthday dinner - she picked me up after my shift and we went right there without my even knowing where we were going. Senape's has been in existence since 1908 - when I was Googling for an appropriate link, i found this Reddit post from two years ago nade by one of their employees; scroll down in the comments and you'll see a link in a mini-documentry about the place.
We get there and the waitress asks us if we had a reservation -- we didn't, but there were tables free so we got one. Before we knew it, about four other parties came in, only one of which had a reservation, which was funny. Even finnier: Yesterday was a Lent day, which is why the place seemed to be ground zero for customers that night. I'd hazard a guess that we were the only party that got sausage and pepperoni on their tray of pizza becaue of Lent -- I haven't followed the no-meat restiction on Fridays since I was living at home and even then, when I was out by myself I'd still eat meat (one notable time being when I was in Toronto for Wrestlemania X9 -- I had checked into my hotel after arriving by car that Friday and ordered in a cheeseburger and fries from room service.)
THose of you that have never been to Northeastern PA: Yes, we deal with a lot of square/rectangular pizza around here as well as the usual round pies. If you're ever in Old Forge, PA, go visit Revello's abd order yourself "a tray of red": Hillary Clinton tends to make a habit of stopping there whenever she's back in the area (Her father was from Scranton, she'd been christened there as well as spent summers in nearby Lake Winola.) Last night's meal ended up being my second pizza meal in two days as yeserday, my work ordered in six different [ies from a pizzeria in nearby Sugarloaf -- part of a celebration of sorts for passing a particular goal at work that also included some cash bonuses for everyone. I'd forgotten all about the cash bonuses being incoming until my boss Chris cameup and handed me an envelope. When I told Tara of the cash bonus I was ordered to spend it only on myself and evenentually, that's what I intend to do... once I decide on what.
March 18, 2026
More of an update than a blog post: I'll probably be tweaking this site, especially the front page, over the next few days, espcially when I can be behind my iMac rather than my Linux-ed MacBook Air (where I'm posting this from..
March 17, 2026
"Climate change should be called climate collapse." -- Jello Biafra
Woke up this morning and got ready for work to find that the car doors were frozen shut. It's a good thing the car only needs to be unlocked from the outside with a fob. Tara managed to get one of the back doors open and we managed to get the front doors pushed open from the inside. A little scraping of the windows and off we went.
Humorus complication number two came at work when, after enjoying the new Butthole Surfers single, I went to put on some Tangerine Dream only to discover that Apple Music was temporarily not cooperating. I managed with YouTube Music for about an hour and a half until Apple Music was back to full power.
I forgot today was St. Patrick's Day until Tara reminded me of it. I didn't wear anything green. Fortunately, I didn't get pinched. With that in mind...
Today's page updates I did from my 2017 MacBook Air running Linux. Eventually I will get used to how basic copy-and-paste functions happen in Linux. At least I'll be well rounded in all three major operationg systems afterward right (even though Windows anything blows more goats than a beastiality convention in Alabama.)March 14, 2025
Two Friday The 13ths in a row, but I wasn't doing this particular subpage on this website on February 13th (Henry Rollins' birthday!), so today's as good a time as any to share this meme my wife made on her phone with Picsart years ago.
Yesterday after work Tara and I stopped at Genevive's Deli again for potato cakes. What the hell, we have a few weekends left until Easter to enjoy these fried goodies, and then wait for church bazaar season to kick off in a couple of months. My cousin Ashley happened to come up in line when I was waiting and we caught up on things. As I was walking back to the car with the potato cakes, someone coming out of either the Dollar Tree next door (which is a shithole, quite frankly) or the Aldi's asked me if they were having a barbecue outside. If my hands hadn't been full I would have facepalmed right then and there.
March 7, 2026 (entry #2)
I found my new weekend breakfast obsession this morning: Wendy's Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant sandwich. Tara and I had stopped at Wendy's for breakfast and I had some points coming, so I first picked out one of these as a freebie to try... than I decided to also add a meal centered around a second round of this sandwich (upsized)... and I'm glad I did. Sweet baby Jesus, whoever came up with this sandwich needs to be elevated to sainthood. I tried to hype Tara into this sandwich, but she's more of a Breakfast Baconator or Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit person. She says the idea of maple and bacon together doesn't sound appealing.
If only Wendy's did all day breakfast like McDonald's was doing for awhile... **sigh**...
I tried to go through a coding course at freeCodeCamp and for some reason about a few pages in, the site was giving me more shit than a GG Allin concert about a code string I swear I entered correctly. Maybe I should just sit at my iMac with my iPad open to a legnthy Python tutorial on YouTube and VS Code open in this iMac? I'd probably be better off doing that than just reading a bunch of text. What say you?
March 7, 2026
Being a very lapsed Catholic, I don't really do the whole Lent thing anymore and haven't for
decades. But my wife
It's almost five in the morning as I'm typing this so I might as well finish downloading the new Morrissey album (check my capsule opinion of it here) and go to bed for a few hours -- my Saturday alarm is going to go off at eight anyway. Mine and my wife's disparate sleep and work schedules have us kind of bonkers in the sleep cycle department.
March 5, 2026
The spring thaw has finally arrived... at least it looks that way for now. The weather app on my new phone (a Google Pixel 10 Pro -- I had an opportunity to try a different kind of smartphone after being with Apple's iPhone for over a decade) is telling me that next week we're going to go from the low fifties on the weekent to 70 degrees on Tuesday and then back to another coating of the useless white shit on Thursday. Anyone for groundhog stew?
Meanwhile, working with HTML and CSS on here seems to have inspired me to look into learning how to code other languages, and I've been fooling with Python a little bit tonight. Adding another skill set to my life (along with music, writing, and cooking) can't hurt, right?
I've also started to get interested in Linux, having recently converted a backdated MacBook Air that was formerly my mother's into a laptop running Ubunto Studio. The reason for this, besides curiosity, is because if God, Lucifer, Buddha and Reina Tanaka forbid, I can't get a new Mac machine anytime in the future and I'm stuck having to get a non-Mac computer, I would take a Windows laptop and put a Linux distro on it. Apparently a lot of people are starting to get disgusted with Windows 11 and its adware and are moving to Linux distros, and others are taking computers that can't run anything past Windows 10 and putting Linux on them -- thus upcycling them. I dig this the most.
Speaking of coding, I've been fixing mistakes here and there on this site. I just haven't been mentioning them here like I have all of the major site updates. There's no need to -- when they get fixed, they get fixed.