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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill

Well it's that time again. Election time. If you're like me, you're wishing the Supreme Court hadn't struck down the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform act because we're now stuck with a million more commercials than we use to be.

The problem I have with these commercials is:

1. They're negative
2. They make promises the candidate can't implement without 100's of votes in the state legislature
3. Uninformative: i.e. does candidate X support abortion? Yes/No

Because of this, I decided to do my own research (you know, like a good voter should?) and see where the candidates stand on what I like to call "black & white issues. These issues are typically polarizing and seldom, people fall in the middle on them.

I tried to avoid issues like healthcare, education, jobs & cancer (nobody supports cancer, people you're preaching to the choir)...since these issues any candidate with a chance, will say they "support it". The only real difference is how they support it.

Results

The results weren't too surprising with both candidates, for the most part, sticking with their party lines.

Further Reading & Sources

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Asks Both Candidates
• C-SPAN Political Debate Between Scott Walker & Tom Barrett
• VoteSmart.org Profile on Tom Barrett
• OnTheIssues.org on Tom Barrett
• Issues Taken From Official Website Of Tom Barrett
• Issues Taken From Official Website Of Scott Walker

I'm a little slow to blog but I figured I'd dedicate a post to my best friend of 20 years: Tyler Gitter who recently got married. It's been a little over two weeks since his wedding, but the fun times shared by all are still in my memory.

I would have to say it was the most fun I've had at a wedding (including my own). It was probably more fun than my own because I didn't have to worry about having many responsibilities but I was still part of the wedding party (as the best man) so I was free to have a good time.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. For Tyler's bachelor party we went go-kart racing down south of Madison at the Sugar River Raceway I sucked pretty bad at go-kart racing, typically coming in the bottom three. After watching all the crazy videos online of the go-karts, that apparently can reach speeds of 55 mph, I was more interested in walking away without injuring myself than winning. Regardless of my sucky-ness I had a really good time racing. Check out my Photo Gallery for some images from our bachelor party.

After that we cooked out at Tyler's new apartment and then watched random videos on YouTube for an hour or so on his TV set. After that we went out to some bars in downtown Madison. Naturally being the only sober person, and designated driver, I almost ran into a parked car trying to leave Tyler's parking lot.

The Day Before The Day

Tyler and I hung out a bit the day before the wedding and he stayed over since him and Shayla couldn't "see each other before the wedding". He was pretty nervous that everything would fall into place so I tried to keep him calm as best I could. The rehearsal went pretty well and everyone ate at a pizza place in downtown Appleton.

The Ceremony

Originally Tyler and Shayla planned to have their ceremony outdoors, at Memorial Park in Appleton but it was really windy and I doubt many people would be able to hear what was going on so they moved it indoors at the park. I thought the wedding accurately reflected Tyler's personality because half the time everyone was laughing at all the funny remarks. It was nice not to have it be all uptight and serious.

...And My Favorite Part Of Weddings...The Reception!

The food at the wedding was definitely some of the better wedding food I've had. Perhaps I've grown sick of the stereotypical food since I worked at a banquet hall for a couple of years, but it was excellent.

For the Garter Toss Tyler wanted to do something a little different. We ended up re-enacting the Gun vs. Sword scene from Indiana Jones to the tune of the Indiana Jones Theme Song:

Dancing

I brought my best dance moves for Tyler's wedding. I was still aching a week later from all the jumping around I did and apparently I left an impression with people because they're still talking about me dancing around. It was hands down the most fun I've had at a wedding. I did plenty of break dancing and whatever else I could think up. The picture below captures the essence of the night in my opinion:

Stereotypical Last Paragraph

I had a blast during the 5 day wedding extravaganza and I hope everyone else involved had as much fun as I did. I wish Tyler and Shayla the best and to many years of arguing whether the towel should be hung on the shower curtain after it's used or tossed in the laundry basket (just kidding...hehehe).

Photos by Robert Janes.

Well I've wrapped up another year of Summerfest. Last year I checked out Reel Big Fish which is still probably my favorite show of all time. This year I made the trip down to Summerfest twice! I was hoping to make it down a third time but that didn't pan out. Either way it was a lot of fun this year just like last year. And yes I'm rambling on, on purpose here to get this text to clear the image on the right (sorry web designer nerd joke).

Trip 1: 311 & Pepper

I made the first trip down with my good friend and co-worker Kyle. We arrived at Summerfest early enough to see two bands. The first band was a Reggae/Ska/Punk band by the name of Pepper. Pepper was the opening act for 311. I would say I probably liked their style of music more than 311 but it was early in the night so the show wasn't as exciting at this point.

Pepper playing at Summerfest 2010

Next up was 311. Mike and his friends arrived at this point and we worked our way up in the crowd. At one point we got a really wimpy mosh pit going but since it was a Reggae/Rock band that quickly ended. After that we moved our way up to the 2nd row, right off the stage.

Finally, 311 played their song "Down" which was a favorite of mine so I ditched the front row and returned to the scene of the mosh pit expecting it to be going on during their most popular song. I was disappointed to see a bunch of hippies just standing around like it was a hippie jamfest or something.

So I started jumping around a bit and bumping into people. After a few minutes the crazy die-hard mosh pit people surfaced (shaved heads, no shirt on, tattoos, they're easy to spot) and joined me. We only moshed for a song or two until a cop came in and told me to 'KNOCK IT OFF'. It was child's play compared to the Reel Big Fish show last year where I was scared for my safety.

311 performing 'Amber' at Summerfest 2010

After the show we ended up getting stuck in a parking garage for 30-45 minutes. Overall it was a good time.

Trip 2: Slightly Stoopid

The next trip down to Summerfest was to see another Reggae/Ska/Punk band named Slightly Stoopid. The band apparently was hired to the record label that one of the Sublime band members started in the 90's. The band is mainly a Reggae band but has horns and has a few faster songs as well. This show probably had the most weed smoking of any of the shows I've been to before. It probably didn't help that we pushed our way up to the front again, but that's where all the fun is.

About quarter of the way into the show a crazy dude climbed up the rafters at the Potawatomi Casino stage and after some encouragement, on our part, jumped. I was surprised to find that a fellow YouTuber captured this epic event on video. If you crank up your brightness on your monitor you can see the entire thing unfold.

Crazy guy at Slightly Stoopid jumping from 10-15 foot support beam at Summerfest

Some other highlights from the show that I can recall was me fighting with some 18 year old girls who couldn't handle my need to mosh during one of their few fast songs. Another interesting moment was when a fight broke out (at a Reggae/pothead show mind you) between two guys eventually ending in them both choking each other and falling into the bleachers. The verdict is still out whether it was for real or staged since security ran in and everyone seemed to be friends again.

Wrapping It Up

Overall it was a good time at both shows. I really wanted to see Less Than Jake, but they played on a Sunday night and nobody was able to make that. Regardless I think the other two shows equal a single Less Than Jake show in value.

Okay, yeah, I know. I haven't done anything on my site in over a month now. Ironically I had a uber spike in traffic at the end of April that I didn't even notice until yesterday. Sadly I hadn't even logged into Google Analytics to check on this in over a month as well. There's three reasons for this occurrence.

Reason 1

Work... It's safe to say I've never, been busier at a job than I have in the past 3 weeks. I suppose I took it for granted at my previous jobs that working 40 hours a week was normal. For the past 3 weeks I've logged 55, 53.5 & 50+ (not done yet) this week. A few people have left and a new one started coupled with there seeming to just be more work lately. Because of that I've been getting home at night, plugging in my laptop and working till it got dark out. I tend to prefer working long days during the week and completely tuning out on the weekends.

Reason 2

Great Success...! This has affected my online presence on numerous websites, with Facebook, Twitter & NealGrosskopf.com. I simply have less to say after earning my greatest achievement to date. It just seems like nothing can top the fact that I'm out of the house! Every other life event dwarfs in comparison to that and seems so insignificant that it's not worth talking about. I've also started to change my perception of giving out information to the masses on the teh internet(s).

Reason 3

Netflix... After discovering the awesomeness that is Netflix I've been watching movies and TV shows constantly using the streaming service. Also after a 11 hour day, once I'm finished with work my hands are starting to hurt, and I need to get off the keyboard and give them a break. Netflix is the perfect solution to this.

Excuses, Excuses

Blah, blah ,blah. I'd like to say "I'm going to try harder to post more" but I know that's not the truth. I must say that after seeing the large spike in traffic, I am interested in getting back on the horse again and writing tech articles. The last spike was the second highest I've seen so I know I can still churn out a few good articles and help out some fellow web nerds.

Stay tuned.

It's been difficult for me to find something to talk about that is more exciting than my previous blog post. While I don't think I'll ever be able to top that achievement I suppose it's finally time to talk about something else (for a change).

I recently got a pretty good deal on an old school original Xbox along with 25 games. Since then, I've been re-living the glory days of the old Xbox I use to own before it was stolen. Probably my favorite game from the Xbox was Doom 3, which I've been playing constantly for the past two weeks now. Another pretty sweet game is Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory which is a stealth-based third-person shooter. The game has pretty good graphics for an original Xbox game and I find it to be pretty fun.

Then, on my birthday, I woke up decided I felt like buying a new TV set. I've been using my crappy 25 inch TV for the past year or more since the old one was a casualty of the before time. I didn't really mind this since I seldom played any games on it and when I watched movies I usually wasn't paying much attention to them. Then, Best Buy had a 36 month no interest deal running which was exactly what I was waiting for before buying another TV. I did some quick research and decided to buy a LG 42LE5400 LED 42 inch TV.

A couple cool things about it is it's only 1.2 inches thick (as you can see in the picture, it's only as wide as a nickel and more narrow than my 24 inch flat screen computer monitor). Another awesome feature is it has the ability to hook up to the internet for select websites. One of these is Netflix. I had previously used Blockbuster's mail service which was ok but once I started using the Netflix integrated service I was really impressed. I can now select movies on my computer and they'll instantly show up on my TV and I can start watching them streaming. Apparently the TV was a good deal because my friend Tyler went out to Best Buy that same day and bought the exact model I bought.

The picture quality for my LED TV is really awesome, but my main problem is I don't own anything that outputs in 1080p (HD). Time to upgrade. I ended up buying some cheap HDMI cables from Amazon along with a cheap HD Antenna which works great for the price. I had looked around some local stores for HDMI cables but they are wicked expensive, usually around $5 a foot with the shortest cable being 6 feet long for $30. I also bought a floor model LG Blu Ray player for $100. I got it mostly just to upconvert my DVDs so they're not windowboxed anymore.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my recent purchases.