zizakdotcom... Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

At it again...

2010-09-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, I have had 2 hundred dollars of Google AdWords Coupons sitting and staring at me from my desk. In an effort to clear out the stack of crap on my desk, I thought I should actually use them. After all, who doesn't like free stuff.

Then I thought about it a little more, this means, to get any real use out of them, I would need to start writing again.

So there you have it. I thought 15 minutes a day of quick entries about anything I come across in my daily life or observations I have should do it. From music and technology to being a Dad in this crazy world we live in are fair game.

Stay tuned, hopefully those AdWords Coupons pay off! Daddy needs a New Samsumg LED TV

Van Halen II

2009-11-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

I recently got busted for playing this a little bit too loud...

Can you imagine that?!?

Recover Disk Space on your Mac with Monolingual

2009-09-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling lately with space issues on my MacBook. (Gotta get rid of all those 'research files' I have been accumulating.) Yesterday I decided to actually do something about it. After a little searching, I found a little gem called
Monolingual. Here is a snip from their sourceforge site...

http://monolingual.sourceforge.net

"Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. It requires at least Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and also works on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Version 1.3.9 is the last version for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

I don't know about you, but I use my computer in only one (human) language — English.
And I'm willing to bet that you do too, albeit perhaps not English.
So why do you have a bunch of localization files for the Mac OS X operating system
filling up your hard drive? Enter Monolingual — a handy utility for reclaiming your
space for more useful things… like international mp3 files, email or whatever you like."

Here are my results after running Monolingual.

Before:

After:

Results:

Amazing! Just by removing files I will never use, I saved myself 3.6GB!!! Awesome!

A word of caution though... If you think you will EVER use localized files, save those. I saved all Japanese localization because my MacBook has been known to travel to Japan and friends & family there may require them if they use my machine. Just use caution before kicking off Monolingual, because getting them back requires re-installation.

Enjoy!

New Alice in Chains. Getting PsycHeD!

2009-07-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

The new Alice in Chains is set to drop in store September 29th, 2009.

Can.Not.Wait.

For those who have NOT heard the new single, A Looking in View check it out here:

http://www.aliceinchains.com

Be prepared, it is heavier than Whaleshit! Although I would much rather prefer a Layne-Staley-fronted-Alice-in-Chains, (not too possible since Layne went dead back in April of 2002) new frontman, Will Duvall does a great job maintaining the Alice legacy with his strong, dark vocals. A perfect harmonizing complement to AIC Vet, Jerry Cantrell.

I would love to see an extended AIC tour, so far only the following dates have been announced:

Jul 18 Detroit
Aug 1 Dublin, Ireland
Aug 2 Barcelona, Spain
Aug 4 London, United Kingdom
Aug 8 Berlin, Germany
Aug 10 Hamburg, Germany
Aug 12 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Aug 22 Los Angeles
Sep 8 New York City
Sep 12 Indianapolis
Sep 15 Toronto, Canada
Sep 20 Milwaukee

Help bring back Rock and Roll and pick up the new Alice in Chains record when it drops September 29th, 2009.

Rock out!

Catpuke - On the Equator

2009-06-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Location - Laundry Room Entrance
Date - June 18th, 2009
Time - 16:35
Reporters - Me
Culprit - Neko
Form - 4.1; Small footprint, moist consistency, a little watery. Not very appealing.
Annoyance Factor - 3.3; I was in the other room, I knew she was on the tile. No Big.
Containment - 2.1; Easy
Collateral Damage - 2.5; I hate when it gets in the tile grout.
Clean Up - 3.0; 5-7 squares of toilet paper and a wipee.
Comments: I like how its straddling the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. I am waiting for one that she has her sick in four tiles at once. Like at the Four Corners in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

Score: 15.0

Life Information 101

2009-06-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

I believe all children should be armed with a knowledge base of information which will allow them to navigate their lives without looking like a Dolt. If this knowledge could be 'installed' at birth, all the better. But until then, it is my job as a Dad to teach MY kids what I believe to be this critical Life Information. This information has been compiled over 40+ years of personal experience and is referred to on a daily basis

This is the first installment the Life Information 101 series.

Left loosey, Righty tighty.

I can not count how many times I have used this one. It never fails. It always helps. And it has multiple applications...

A screw, a nut, a bolt, a lightbulb, a gas cap, a coffeecup lid, a jar, a bottle of beer.... the list goes on. The beauty of this lesson is that it is easy to remember, very applicable and once mastered, it quickly eliminates the Dolt Factor.

How have you applied Life Information Lesson 1?

Catpuke - Take it outside.

2009-06-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Location - Garage Entrance
Date - June 17th, 2009
Time - sometime in the night
Reporters - Me
Culprit - Neko, most likely
Form - 3.5; Small footprint, dried out probably from the warm garage.
Annoyance Factor - 3.3; In the garage, out of sight. But on a rug that has just been cleaned.
Containment - 2.9; Easy
Collateral Damage - 2.9; Soiled a newly cleaned rug with sick.
Clean Up - 2.0; 1/2 sheet of Bounty.
Comments: If I wasn't paying attention, I could have stepped right into it.
Score: 14.6

Catpuke - So close, yet so far.

2009-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Location - Laundry Room Entrance
Date - June 15th, 2009
Time - 10:35am
Reporters - Me
Culprit - Neko
Form - 6.1; Compact, moist, Kinda looks like a capital "F".
Annoyance Factor - 6.9; I was in the shower, couldn't react.
Containment - 2.1; No spatter.
Collateral Damage - 6.5; She sicks on the carpet!? 2 more inches and she could have made it to the tile.
Clean Up - 6.4; 5-7 squares of toilet paper and the Bissell Spot Cleaner.
Comments: Piss me off! She go two more inches and make it to the tile!?

Score: 28.0

Catpuke - Puke Pyramid

2009-06-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Location - Master Bedroom
Date - June 14th, 2009
Time - 16:37
Reporters - Max and Suki
Culprit - Neko
Form - 7.0; Small footprint, decent consistency. Creative result.
Annoyance Factor - 8.3; This will be on mind as we fall asleep.
Containment - 3.0; Fairly easy
Collateral Damage - 7.2; Gotta wash the blanket now.
Clean Up - 4.0; 5-7 squares of toilet paper.

Score: 33.0

Max of a 1000 faces...

2009-06-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Check out Max when we were in Shizuoka, JP back in 2006. Not a bad video for our little Sony T-1. Just don't get a sore neck looking at this.

Sunday Afternoon in the Park.

2009-06-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

This footage was taken when the Floyd was almost 2 months old. Even at 2 months he was a Badass. and he has the looks to prove it. Dont mess with the Max! i slapped all the footage together and made the vid in about 2 hours... killer vid for a HEAVY, HEAVY song!!! VH baby! listen to zizak.com

Suki's First Steps

2009-06-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

March 3rd of 2007 was the first official day that Suki walked... although she took a couple of steps on the 1st... When Max learned this, he was pissed since Sissy did it 10 days before he did.... Enjoy!

Johnny Z

Baba Baby Revisited

2009-06-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is Max when he on October 1, 2003. Seemed he liked to pretend he was Linda Blair or The Devil. Don't worry, we checked his head for 666, but we only found 665... ah... whatever. close enough. Check out 2410 Bridle Path Lane's kitchen mid-remodel!

Part Deux re-unites us with the world famous, often imitated, never duplicated, Baba Baby, the Maximus Floyd. This time the Baba Baby requires little before he gets his Evil on. Please watch with caution! Contains disturbing scenes of Evil.

Catpuke - Rolling Pin

2009-06-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Location - Rear North-South Hallway
Date - June 11th, 2009
Time - 1702
Reporters - Me
Culprit - Neko
Form & Assessment - 6.0; Small footprint, Not much liquid.
Volume - 4.6; I've seen bigger.
Annoyance Factor - 1.3; On the tile is a good thing.
Containment - 3.0; Easy
Collateral Damage - 0; No one stepped in it.
Clean Up - 2.0; 5-7 squares of toilet paper and a wipee.

Score: 16.9

What's up lately?!

2009-06-05T20:09:00.001-07:00

Hey there followers of zizak.com! Sorry updates have been a little on the light side lately.
No real reason other than life has been busy lately. No big surprise.

Everyone is healthy, that is what counts.

Here's to health and happiness to all!

Piece out!

OpenID at zizak.com

2009-06-02T20:09:00.001-07:00

We just implemented OpenID here at zizak.com. You ask.. What is OpenID and what can it do for me?

Scraped from openid.net website...
--------
What is OpenID?
OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

OpenID is still in the adoption phase and is becoming more and more popular, as large organizations like AOL, Microsoft, Sun, Novell, etc. begin to accept and provide OpenIDs. Today it is estimated that there are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly ten-thousand sites supporting OpenID logins.
---------------------

More Maynard Wine Tourdates

2009-05-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in checking out T O O L's frontman Maynard James Keenan, you can find him here in the very near future promoting his Arizona Stronghold Wines...

Dates and locations for the signings are:

Jun. 03 - 4:30 - 7:30 p.m. - Milwaukee, WI (2305 N. Prospect Ave.)
Jun. 05 - 4:30 - 7:30 p.m. - Chicago, IL (1500 N. Kingsbury)
Jun. 06 - 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. - Chicago, IL (1101 S. Canal St.)
Jun. 09 - 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. - Miami, FL (6701 Red Rd. – Coral Gables)
Jun. 10 - 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. - Boca Raton, FL (1400 Glades Rd.)
Jun. 12 - 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. - Orlando, FL (8003 Turkey Lake Rd.)
Jun. 13 - 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. - Jacksonville, FL (10601 San Jose Blvd.)

Here was my take on the experience when the Maynard rolled through Sacramento.

www.zizak.com/maynard-james-keenan-whole-foods-sacramento-wine-tour

Enjoy!

One of the happiest days of my life...

2009-04-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

was today....

Quote Suki 04.25.09:

"I am glad my Dad is my Dad..."

If that doesn't make you love this grrrl, I don't what will.

Something nice I have in common with my daughter.

2009-03-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Today I think I may actually have beat a personal record. Something to be really proud of.

As of 17:00 PST, I have cleaned up 4 catpukes that I found in various parts of the house and with varying magnitude of destruction. Today I got everything from the Completely-Liquid-Silver-Dollar-Sized-on-the-Tile easy job to the Half-Chunky-Half-Wet-Eight-Inch-CatPuke-Skidmark-on-the-Carpet that is a Royal Pain in the Balls to clean. This special gift requires the help from our trusty Bissell SpotLifter. If we didn't have this thing, our carpets would look like a literal minefield of Catpuke. Not pretty. Fortunately, this thing works like a champ. Spray the catpuke spot with the magic liquid, let it sit and vacuum the catpuke away. Then proceed to half-gag your lunch as you clean it out of the effluent reservoir. NASTY!

So as I am cleaning up the day's fourth offensive, and Suki comes along because she sees that I am about to employ the trusty Bissell SpotLifter. (She is scared as Hell of the loud noise, she hates it in fact). She jumps on the bed and buries her head in the pillows while the SpotLifter wails away.

Just as the SpotLifter wound down to a halt and revealed a clean carpet, Suki asked, "Daddy, what are you doing?"

To which I replied, "Cleaning up CatPuke."

"What is your favorite kind of CatPuke Daddy??"

"I enjoy the dry, chunky kind that is easy to clean."

Suki responded with "Oh cool. That's my favorite too!"

I am glad to see we have that in common.

Maynard James Keenan from TOOL appears at Whole Foods in Sacramento.

2009-02-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I was out in the real world, away from my normal sequestered existence. (Remember I have been working from home since June 2008, thankfully actually.)

On my drive home down I-5 South, I have my radio tuned to Sacramento's Alternative Station, KWOD 106.5, on in an effort to decompress and equalize from the 8 hours of white-noise that saturated my skull from the 50,000 square foot datacenter I was confined to.

What?! Did I hear that right? WTF?!?!

Did they just say Maynard James Keenan from T O O L is gonna be at Whole Foods in Sacramento TOMORROW NIGHT?!?! Whole-y Shit! I recall reading that MJK's new venture is wine making. My immediate thought is I hope it doesn't delay the next
T O O L record. :)

So I get home and call the store to validate if I heard that correct. The dude at the Eastern and El Camino Whole Foods Store I talked to confirmed that Maynard will indeed be at the store, signing bottles of his new line of wine he is launching, Arizona Stronghold Vineyards. He continued to explain how its gonna work. Show up after 08:00am on Thursday and receive a numbered card that reserves your space in line. Said card serves conveniently as an order form for Maynard's wines that ranged from $25 to $110 in price. Woe! You need to purchase a bottle of wine to get it signed by the Maynard. NO OTHER MERCH with be signed! NO CAMERAS! NO CELLPHONES!

So I mull this information over in my skull that has been cleared out of white-noise from some Alice-in-Chains - Jar of Flies and a Vodka Tonic or two. I think, how cool would it be if me and George-O, my 12 year old, go and meet one of my Rock-and-Roll Heroes and share and in a Kickass Father and Son experience?? So I spring it on him at 8:30pm or so Wednesday. He said he would "TOTALLY be into it!" He is budding T O O L fan afterall. I digest this all as I fall asleep last night.

I wake up at 07:00am today (Thursday) and think about it. Is it worth it? I gotta drive to the other side of town (approximately 40 minutes one-way) at 08:00 rush hour traffic to get the ticket to get in line... "I would TOTALLY be into it!". Then drive back, wait in line, deal with the Freak Parade. "I would TOTALLY be into it."

So I talk it over with my better half and she says its cool to take him. "Have a good time."
08:00am, I drop George-O at school and head to Whole Foods to get the ticket... ETA 08:45am.

I arrive 08:50am at Whole Foods expecting to see a line of headbangers around the corner. There is NO ONE there!!! "Coool" I think to myself. I walk up, talk to a dude standing at the front door, he gives me a ticket, because why else would someone looking like me be at Whole Foods at 08:50am, tells me that Maynard will start signing at 4:30pm today and to arrive anytime after 2:30pm. Cool. We are number 177. He adds there is 1000 tickets available and we have a great number.

Psych!!!!

I continue to carry my day forward like any other workday, but today I am awaiting Taylor to arrive home from school. He does. I remind him of our upcoming adventure. He says, "Cool...................... THATS TODAY! Awesome!" We are out of the house by 3:15pm based on the contingency he finishes his homework when we get home.....

"No problem Dad."

On our drive up to Sacramento, I tell T how T O O L was one of your Mom's and mine first dates, we traveled to Reno, NV to check them out there. Also, we caught them at them Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. Both dates supporting T O O L's 1998 release AEnima. I continue to tell him how his little brother was almost named Maximus Maynard Zizak (we opted for Maximus Floyd Zizak, obvious reference, obvious better choice we believe too.)

We arrive at the scene and decide to park across the street just south of Whole Foods. We lived in the area for 10+years and knew that parking lot sucks to begin with on a normal day, let alone without the 1000+ Strong Freak Parade. Good choice. We get to the corner and assess the scene, the line was wrapped around the back corner of the building. "WOE!" Taylor exclaimed. We laugh and headed toward the crowd.

We approached the line of people to ask what number they are so we can settle into our reserved spot at 177. First... 520, second 225... last 170... We settle in next to a couple younger punkers and a couple of annoying drunk chicks with foul-mouths. Sad thing about that was, they weren't even cute or funny. Just annoying.

We stood there in the same spot for about one hour and a half, people watching (my personal favorite), chit-chatting with the folks around us and with eachother. We enjoyed talking about if each of these people in line bought 1 bottle of $25 wine, that would make a nice little $25,000 payday. Thing is, the $100 bottle was sold out in 30 minutes and most people had purchased multiple bottles. So by OUR estimates, Maynard pulled in a clean $30,000. (Not accounting for Whole Paycheck's cut.....)

Perhaps the biggest laugh we got out of our conversations was our the actual Whole Foods Patrons, most of which were Suburbanite While Collars coming in for a baguette, a bottle of wine, sushi or an overpriced soup or salad for tonight's dinner and had NO CLUE of the Pending Freak Parade of T O O L fans awaiting them. Some looked at us, laughed and got a kick out of it. Some looked Scared Shitless.

I enjoyed the ones that looked Scared Shitless.

Probably the only real bummer of the day was the music selection supplied by 98Rock. We didn't listen to T O O L, didn't listen to A Perfect Circle, and God forbid, Pusifer. But they were spinning new Metallica... UGH! We digress. You would think that the local Rock station could provide some friggin T O O L.?!?

Finally around 5pm or so, we started REALLY moving. Security was tight the whole time. 3 cops (actually rent-a-cops, but they were pretty gnarly looking canvassing the parking lot looking for ruffians), 2 cops inside, 2 personal security dudes and loads of Whole Foods folks directing traffic. Again, no CAMERAS, no CELLPHONES, no MERCH!

We finally get to purchase the bottle of wine Maynard gets to sign for us, I decided on the Arizona Stronghold Mangus - described :

"Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (and possibly a hint of Syrah). Wielding more acidity and tannin than Nachise, deep black current undertones, tobacco and leather."

Tobacco and leather???... Sounds good to me.

I go to pick one up and the lady at the register says, "If the young man (Taylor) is going to meet Maynard, he needs to have a bottle to sign with him." I say, "So its OK to serve Minors here at Whole Foods?" I shake my head, roll my eyes and reluctantly agree to this LAME ASS policy. Like I am going to leave him in the parking after all this or me stay out there and NOT share this experience with him? Yeah Right.... Mrs. Z. may drop a comment or 3 on this LAME ASS policy here later... Stay tuned for that.

We grab our 2 bottles and head out to the line to actually meet Mr. Keenan. Whew... we are almost there, the anticipation is mounting and the people are getting stoked about having the opportunity to actually have a famous rockstar POSSIBLY look at them in the eyes like they were a mangy, little GrubWorm for most likely less than 10 seconds. And we all paid more than 50 dollars for this experience??!

Rock and ROLLL!!!!!!

We finally get to the front of the line and we are standing there next in line, and we STILL couldn't see Maynard due to the wall of Bottled Water barricading him off from the rest of humanity, cellphones and cameras. Only the person who is getting their bottle/s signed can have contact with him. The personal security guard and Rent-a-Cop wave us through
and we hand over our bottles. We look up and its not Maynard! What!>!>?! Its a dude with blonde, Owen Wilson looking hair, that CLEARLY isn't Maynard, but kinda looked like him... I know Maynard has a very twisted sense of humor and he may have a plant sitting in for him.... then the bottle gets handed to a bald dude wearing a thick, black oversized hoodie.

THATS MAYNARD!

He signs the bottle and in a soft and sincere voice says, "Enjoy." He delicately hands the signed bottles over to Taylor and I.

(Next)

"Thank you." He almost whispers.

I am watching this unfold in slow motion I point to him, lock eyes and utter. "Thank you Mr. Keenan. You rock."

He slowly shuts his eyes, bows his head and breathes... "Thank you."

Taylor and I walk around the Wall of Bottled Water and chat with cool dude John we met in line and have been chatting with about T O O L, STP, NIN, FNM, Mike Patton, Music and Life for the past 90 minutes. We chat about the combined 20 second brush-with-Rock and Roll we just had. Kind of anti-climatic, but exciting, exhilarating and awesome none-the-less.

John and I plan to hook up for any upcoming killer NorCal shows and FaceBook in the meantime. The latter is done.

Taylor and I hustle back to the car to head back to the Zizak HeadQuarters...(remember his homework??) He said to me as we merge into 5:45pm rush hour traffic, "Dad that was cool. I had a good time. Do you know what would be cool?"

"What's that?"

"When I turn old enough we share this bottle of wine."

"Count on it."

(As long as it's not Corked by then.)

I live for that day.

###################

Linkage-

http://kwod.net

http://www.sacbee.com/livinghere/story/1632015.html

http://www.arizonastrongholdvineyards.com/

We Shot Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_James_Keenan

http://www.toolband.com/

###########

Upcoming Maynard Wine Dates:

February 26 & 27
from 4:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Tamarac
7400 E. Hampden Ave
Denver, CO 80231
303.488.2000

March 1 from 2 PM – 5 PM
Indian School Plaza
2103 Carlisle Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110
505.260.1366

March 23rd – WFM PLANO
2201 Preston Rd.
Plano, TX 75093

March 24th – WFM LAMAR
525 N Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703

March 26th – WFM SUGAR LAND – 15900 Southwest Freeway
Sugar Land, TX 77479

March 27th – ALAMO QUARRY – 255 E. Basse Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78

Banzai!

2008-09-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

anyone guess where this is?

Pink Floyd Founder Dies.

2008-09-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

Pink Floyd keyboard player and founder member Richard Wright has died aged 65 from cancer.

Wright appeared on the group's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside lead guitarist Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason.

Dave Gilmour joined the band at the start of 1968 while Barrett left the group shortly afterwards.

Wright penned songs on classic albums including The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.

His spokesman said: "The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer.

"The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

He did not say what form of cancer the self-taught keyboard player and pianist had.

Live 8

Wright, a founder member of The Pink Floyd Sound - and other previous incarnations including Sigma 6 - met Waters and Mason at architecture school.

Pink Floyd achieved legendary status with albums including 1973's The Dark Side Of The Moon, which stayed in the US album chart for more than a decade.
Wright, known as Rick earlier in his career, wrote The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them from the album.

Waters left the band in 1981, performing his last concert at London's Earls Court.

Wright, together with Gilmour and Mason, continued to record and tour as Pink Floyd during the remainder of the 1980s and into the 1990s, releasing their last studio album - The Division Bell - in 1994.

In 2005, the full band reunited - for the first time in 24 years - for the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park.

"That was Good Times!"

2008-08-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

When teamzizak (including the cats, Henry, Neko, and Tokyo) moved to Elk Grove almost 2 years ago, we almost immediately lost Neko. For the longest time, we could not figure out where she went off to... our old house, got hit by a car or went to live with another family. She essentially disappeared. We walked around the neighborhood looking for her with no success.

Well a while back Taylor said he saw Neko at another house right around the corner. He said he tried to entice her out by calling her.. No Dice. Max even said he saw her on his way home from school. But she would not come home with him. I doubted them saying it was Neko.

Well, yesterday we see a big, ol' U-Haul in front of Neko's alleged, newly adopted house. We thought we needed to act fast if we wanted to get our Neko back. So after dinner, Taylor, Max and I went over to the house and knocked on the door.

This nice little ol' man answered the door with a perplexed look on his face. I explained our sitch on how we lost our cat once we moved to the neighborhood and pointed out where we live.. (you could see our house from his).

After about two seconds he asked, "What does she look like?" Both T and M both chimed in with, "She has stripes! She is friendly! She loves cuddles! She is cute!"

The nice little ol' man told us how 'Sara' would sit on his wife's lap while she drinks her evening wine and they would cuddle up with eachother. She said she always loved those times.

Since 'Sara' was now an outside cat, he opened the garage door to see if she was nearby... and there she was! The boys cried out, "NEKO!!!" She came over to the boys and got her pets from them and Taylor picked her up like she hasn't been away from us for 2 years.

We asked if it would be good if we take her back home, he said yes. He was relieved to have her go to her original owners, since they knew she was loved and taken care of before assuming her new identity as 'Sara' at their house. He explained, since they were moving, he had arranged for 'Sara' to be taken by another family after they were to move. So she would not have been abandoned.

Taylor took Neko back to our house to get her settled down inside with the rest of teamzizak while Max and I chatted with the ol' man about 'Sara' and other things for a few minutes. Max stood there with me and listened intently at what he had to say. We thanked the man and wished him good luck at his new locale.

While walking back to our house, Max, holding my hand in the chilly evening air, looked up at me and said, "Dad, That was Good Times!"

I said to him, "Indeed it is."

Karma Points... we could sure use them

2008-07-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

I am here at Toby Johnson Middle School in downtown (windy) Elk Grove, CA at Taylor's second installment of Hell-Week. (See previous post for details...) I was walking back to the car to check on the status of Taylor's missing waterbottle, (he somehow lost it in the 100 yard walk between the car and the football field) when something shiny and black caught the corner of my eye, reflecting from the setting sun.

more below....

V
V
V

I took two steps and back and found the gleaming, black, shiny object and lo and behold, it was a cellphone... First thought that came to came mind was "What could I do with it and how could I benefit from my finders-keepers-losers-weepers loot." Then one-split second later I thought, don't be an asshole, don't even think about it. "What would I want someone to do if they found MY phone?" I need to do what I can to return it...

Fortunately, it had some battery power left and so looked through the contact's and call log to see if there is someone I could call to return the lost cellphone. Sure enough, the entry "Mom" stood out. So I called, "Mom" explained who I was, where I was and HOW I found the phone. A breath of relief came through the earpiece from "Mom" and she said, " My son lost it yesterday. I said, "Well, I am at the school and I will be here until 8pm, so come on down and I will hand it over.

It is now 7:25pm and I am awaiting "Mom's" call to pick up her son's phone. Believe me, when T-bone gets to the age of having a cellphone I would want someone to do the same for us in the likely event of Taylor (or Max or Suki) losing something of theirs...

Update soon to follow...

--jcz

zizakdotcom has been googled!

2008-07-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I was at maps.google.com looking up some directions from the homefront. No big deal. When the results of the directions came up, a popup window displayed and a view of my street showed. GOOGLE GOOGLED teamzizak headquarters!!!!

Hell, had I known the goog was outside my crib taking pics I would have run out there and saluted them!! Good stuff! but kinda creepy...

check the pic of teamzizak HQ! Enjoy!

Taylor's Hellweek Begins...

2008-07-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

The oldest member of teamzizak, Taylor, is about to step into the ultra-competitive world of pee-wee football. He has been attending non-manditory conditioning sessions in the Franklin Junior Wildcats organization (http://www.franklinjrwildcats.org) and is ready for competitive try-outs. The try-outs last 2 weeks, run from 6pm-8pm with team rosters decided on August 8th.

From the Wildcats website:

Now entering our sixth season, the Jr. Wildcats are building a reputable program in the community of Elk Grove. The Jr. Wildcats are listed among the top 30 youth football programs in California in 2007 by First And Goal Nation. The Jr. Wildcats placed four of five teams in the 2007 NCSA playoffs. Three teams, the Mighty Mites, Pee Wees, and Jr. Midget teams competed in the NCSA Championship games and the Mighty Mites were the 2007 NCSA Champions. Our Midget Open competition cheer squads placed first in a national competition sponsored by JAMZ in Las Vegas in February 2008.

Please join me in wishing Taylor the best of luck in his quest for football immortality!

Godspeed

Summertime Fun!

2008-07-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

Lotsa fun has been had by all at the teamzizak HQ.
Some of the good times include (but not limited to)

4th of July Fun - (Everyone still has all their fingers)
Camping at Sly Park, CA
Camping and Beach Party in Santa Cruz, CA

Check out some of the pics!

Funniest pic seen in a while.

2008-07-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Funniest pic seen in a while.

Shame on YOU!

2008-07-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

in response to...

So Yeah, I will include me in the group too. So shame on me too, I need to do a little bit more Practicing than Preaching lately. My Preaching is winning over my Preaching handily. In all aspects.
If we all did THAT much, we would be better off in one aspect or another.

Good read!
Rock on Paul!

jcz

Mad Season - Live at the Moore

2008-07-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

Incredible DVD! This is a true, melt-your-face-off performance given by Barrett Martin, Layne Staley, John Baker Saunders, Mike McCready and guest Vocalist Mark Lanegan.

This was recorded live at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, Washington on April 29, 1995. Also included is footage from the band's performance on Pearl Jam's Self-Pollution Radio Broadcast in January 1995 ("Lifeless Dead") as well as the video for "River of Deceit". The version of "November Hotel" played live was renamed "Black Mirror".

Additionally, the video of "Lifeless Dead" from Pearl Jam's Self-Pollution satellite radio broadcast is featured. It is one of two recordings that Mad Season played on the broadcast, along with "I Don't Know Anything", however "I Don't Know Anything" has only circulated as an audio recording.

Live at the Moore was released on VHS only, with no official DVD version available.

--jcz

How I improved my fuel economy, saved money, saved the environment, relaxed, and had fun...and how you can too.

2008-06-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

If you are sick to death of these rediculous gas prices, do what I did and you too can improve your fuel economy, save time, save money, save the environment and save what's left of your sanity.

Listen up! First off, you can not tell how you are doing when trying to conserve gas without the proper data. So, you need to start collecting the data on your gas consumption. You need to establish your baseline . For example, keep a notepad and pen in your car so you can record the following information:

* The date of the fill-up. This data will allow you to easily SEE and track how often you visit the gaspump.

* How many gallons you consumed (or purchased). This is useful because you can start to get a feel for how much you actually consume.

* How many miles you actually drove. Most cars have a trip gauge you can reset to track this mileage information easily. Reset it each time you fill-up.

* Record the amount of money you spent filling your pig up. This data will allow you to see where it hurts and much it hurts.

I usually print off and keep the receipt from the gas station so I can refer to it in my logs.

Ok. So now what?

Fair enough. I found this nifty little site called ecomodder.com that helps you nicely track all this information. You create an account, add your vehicle information and the data that you have been tracking. You essentially create a travel log that will graph your vehicle's gas consumption data in a nice, clean format. See my latest information below:

From the above graph, you clearly see in just 36 days of modifying my driving behavior, I improved my gas mileage by 5 Miles per Gallon! or a 19% increase. That's pretty huge! Especially when you learn what I did to gain those extra 5MPGs.

What I did to improve my fuel economy ---

First thing I did was SLOW DOWN! My commute is approximately 15.7 mile each way. So 31.4 miles per day to and from work. A decent relatively painless commute by today's standards, to say the least. My average commute is approximately 25-30 minutes. For the 85% of my entire commute, I would drive between 70-85 Miles per Hour. I know, lay off the pedal, Leadfoot! According to cnnmoney.com: "Every 10 mph faster reduces fuel economy by about 4 mpg, a figure that remains fairly constant regardless of vehicle size."

Since tracking all this stuff and modifying my driving habits, I have been driving 85% of my commute between 60-70 mph. Not bad huh? But still there is still room for improvement. I am trying to get the sweetspot between 55-60 mph. I will post how many middle-fingers I encounter when I am driving in this range.

One of the benefits to driving sloooooooowwer is that I soon realized that I actually had extra time to think and relax... rather than blazing down the highway with white-knuckles at 80+mph, risking life and limb, I was able to use this time as 'wind-down' time. I am now able to think clearly about things... I think about Home, the family, work, friends, music, money, life, death, everything that is important to me. This helps me to walk into the house and greet the family with a smile and be the best Dad and Husband I can possibly be. As opposed to being a wired, stress ball from an unnecessarily fast and unsafe commute.

One additional benefit from driving slower is that I have reconnected with some good old music from the personal collection. I have been spinning Run-DMC - Raising Hell, Rush - Moving Pictures, Mad Season - Above, Anthrax - Among the Living. These have made a leisurely commute that much more enjoyable. Good times.

Now you ask, ok... what ELSE have you done to improve your fuel economy?

The next change in my driving habits may be considered unsafe by some so use it with caution, or do not use it all. Its known as drafting.

Wikipedia defines 'drafting' as: Drafting is a technique in sports racing where competitors align in a close group in order to reduce the overall effect of drag or fluid resistance of the group in a slipstream. Especially when high speeds are involved, drafting can significantly reduce the average energy expenditure required to maintain a certain speed.

I only do this if the situation presents itself. For example, when an 18-wheeler is close enough to catch up to it without going over my alloted 65mph. Of course, I always maintain maximum safety. I do not get right up on his ass. I maintain a 2-5 carlength distance to ensure adequate reaction time.

Once engaged in 'the draft', you can actually feel the car in the pull of the semi. During this you do not have to press the gas, only have to give it slight 'feather touches' to maintain the draft. Obviously, the less gas you use, the better gas mileage. Again, do not do this if you are unsure of what you are doing. All that extra time 'thinking and relaxing' will go to waste if you are dead.

Perhaps the most fun driving behavior modification I have employed to date is coasting. Basically this entails throwing the car into neutral when, for example, going down a hill or when your car's momentum can get you where you want to be using as little gas as possible.

I have made a game out of it where I compete with myself trying to beat my previous coasting record. For example, I figured out exactly where I can throw it into neutral and coast all the way into the garage. Which I have only done twice since starting this. The map at the left illustrates the 'garage coast' path. Which according to google, is approximately 3/10th of a mile. Not too shabby. I keep pushing back the point where I toss into neutral, in an attempt to find the sweetspot. Try it! It's fun! AND you will save gas!

Other things I have done to improve gas mileage are smaller things, but nonetheless, should improve my gas mileage. This will become clear as times marches on, and I collect more data about my usage.

Lose the weight. I did. I removed an extra children's carseat, a 20lb trailer hitch, about 5 pounds worth of to-be-recycled-papers and 5 pounds of my own fat. (I dropped 5 pounds since recently working out). Basic idea here... less stuff moving around at 60mph, the less energy used. Easy.

Inflate your tires properly. I did. Next time you are out, count how many cars you see on the road with low, under-inflated tires. If everyone had properly inflated tires, we could save 1000s of dollars and improve our overall mpg. When tires are under-inflated, the car works harder to overcome the additional friction produced while tire is running on the road. Properly inflated tires reduced the surface area of the tire on the road and reduces friction. You may experience a slightly 'harder' ride, but you will get over it fatty. And for all you tree-huggin, Birkenstock wearing, Environmentalists out there, less fuel consumption equals less CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

There are other tips and tricks I have yet to try out such as: Properly tuning our vehicles. A nice, clean well tuned engine runs more efficiently. I need to save some pennies for this one. We are still waiting for Economic Stimulus Check for this purpose.

Fuel additives can also improve fuel economy. There is a product called BG 44k. I have a can ready to roll, I just need to drain my current tank and then I will add it, document it, check the results and post em up..

There are several other suggestions out there on the web I found. I will check them out and post them up here if there are any worth while.

Ok. So now what? Above, I described the process on how to effectively improve your gas mileage and the benefits of such actions. Now you need to enable your plan of attack and actually DO SOMETHING! Do it for yourself by saving your money... Do it for your family by slowing down and living with less stress and perhaps reducing the risk of getting into a fatal car crash... Do it for the environment and all the little creatures on God's Green Earth... and imagine this... Do it for the sake of HAVING FUN! However, if none of these reasons listed are compelling enough for you to change your driving habits, do it so you can tell the Middle East where they can shove their precious oil!

Feel free to comment and / or DIGG IT! if you liked it!

--jcz

Corrupt rpm database on Fedora Core 6

2008-06-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have several FC6 machines running out there and I have run across a few that barf when adding new RPMs to the system. Long and short of it, I have a corrupt RPM database. Takeaway: How to restore corrupt rpm database on FC6 installation. You may be able to get away with it on FC* installs, but its tried and true with FC6.

Here's what you do:

Make sure that you have no 'rpm' commands running in the background. Via automation, I run rpm commands to "auto-install", so I had several 'rpm' commands stacked up on the system. You have to kill them to proceed: Do this as a good user:

kill -9 `ps -ef|grep rpm | awk {'print $2'}`

Clean out the old RPM database. Do this (as a good user):

rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*

Then rebuild the sucker. Do this:

rpm --rebuilddb

This should take a couple minutes for it to rebuild it. You can test it out after the process has completed by doing this:

rpm -qa

You should see all your RPMs all happy now.

Hope this helps someone...

jcz

Load Dump on J Street in Sacramento, CA

2008-06-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

On the way to lunch today, I turned the corner to find this at 5th and J. Street, right near our favorite downtown Sacramento Mexican Restaurant... Cilantro's. Home of the Super Taco Friday (STF)

A loader carrying gravel dumped its' load... I thought it was kinda funny. No one was injured so thats good. But everyone had the same silly look on their faces.

Check it out. -- jcz

Drupal with GD libraries

2008-06-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

By jcz - Posted on 10 June 2008

Thankfully, the installation and configuration of Drupal 6 (www.drupal.org) in our environment was pretty straight forward. Since I have had various other CMS' like postnuke,
mambo and Plone running on our LAMP stack, it was pretty painless. Point it to the correct database with appropriate credentials and you are flying! ----- As a sidenote, go to www.cmsmatrix.org for full, comparable list of all CMS systems out there. Good starting point for those just diving into Content Management Systems - CMS.

However, once I started getting into the nuts and bolts of DP6, ie learning how to post content, install new modules, modify the blocks and getting a handle on all the features Drupal has to offer, I noticed I was having some difficulty with images and image manipulation, as were others. For example, while trying to upload my images to add a bit of flavor to my stories, I would receive the following message...

The built-in GD image toolkit requires that the GD module for PHP be installed and configured properly. For more information see http://php.net/image .

I dug around a bit, followed the links and read the many offered suggestions and based on that and the errors I was receiving, I figured my php 4.4.4 instance was not properly compiled with GD . Sure enough, running the phpinfo command 'php -i' validated the lack of proper GD libraries. Apparently, Drupal 6 can operate just fine without GD, however if one wants or needs to incorporate images into their DP6 deployment, GD is necessary.

So I looked on our system to validate GD was there, it was. I then looked to find where the GD libraries were located, turns out, in /usr/lib. No surprises. Next was to dig up all of the php compilation options that are necessary for our beautiful LAMP stack to run properly. This took some doing because I had all the options documented from way back in 2006 in a file
on another backup machine. Finally, I found it and looked something like this:

tool@www]# ./configure --with-apxs2=/apache/bin/apxs --disable-debug --enable-inline-optimization --enable-magic-quotes --enable-magic-quotes --enable-mbstring --enable-mm=shared --enable-safe-mode --enable-track-vars --enable-trans-sid --enable-wddx=shared --with-xml --enable-xml --with-mysql=/mysql

Notice the main options were the paths to apxs2 and mysql. Those were the biggies to get this pig up and running.

Next, I cleaned out any configurations that may have lingered around and could possibly cause me strife. I then primed all the previous options listed above and added the GD options like this:

tool@www]# ./configure --with-apxs2=/apache/bin/apxs --disable-debug --enable-inline-optimization --enable-magic-quotes --enable-magic-quotes --enable-mbstring --enable-mm=shared --enable-safe-mode --enable-track-vars --enable-trans-sid --enable-wddx=shared --with-xml --enable-xml --with-mysql=/mysql --with -gd=/usr/lib

AGAIN it puked out some messages. This time about jpeg and png libraries. So I again validated if and where the proper jpeg and png libraries are on the system. Once again /usr/lib. I added them to the configuration file like such:

tool@www]# ./configure --with-apxs2=/apache/bin/apxs --disable-debug --enable-inline-optimization --enable-magic-quotes --enable-magic-quotes --enable-mbstring --enable-mm=shared --enable-safe-mode --enable-track-vars --enable-trans-sid --enable-wddx=shared --with-xml --enable-xml --with-mysql=/mysql --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib --with-png-dir=/usr/lib --with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib --with-gd=/usr/lib

Based on another CMSers suggestion, for good measure I added the zlib options.....and... voila! SUCCESS!
It compiled successfully without any errors. Next with the basic make;make install and then test it out with a graceful apache restart and.... It works!!

Moral of the story, I guess, is RTFM and Document! Document! Document! It will save lots of time down the road.

Good times!

jcz

Welcome to zizakdotcom 2.0

2008-05-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to zizakdotcom! teamzizak recently completed the migration from mambo (www.mamboserver.com) to drupal (http://drupal.org) Check out their respective sites for more information.

The decision to do so was based on drupal's ease of use, vast selection of customizable modules, extensive theme and ecommerce options and overall look and feel. Drupal's development and visibility certainly has picked up steam over the last year or so over other CMSs', perhaps this fact sealed the deal when switching to drupal.

So welcome, once again, and remember you will find all you need to know about teamzizak, world news and comment, music, pop culture and trivia ad-nauseum at zizakdotcom! Peace!

--teamzizak

The Crystal Method - The Winner

2007-06-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

I originally posted this over at video.google.com, but I have been trying to get all accounts in one spot....

This video took over a year to compile, edit and finalize. i got the idea from the vibe of the song, the name of the song and what that conveys.

The hooks, fills & drops that are found throughout the song also lent themselves well to the whole idea of the video i have always loved this type of footage and documentaries... and i think the video does an interesting job of bridging the footage, the song and the meaning all together. its a kind of anachronism in my thoughts... the footage was compiled from unclassified military footage found at various corners of the web. it probably took just as long to dream up the idea and find the footage as it did to create this video .... it is approximately 70 minutes of footage compressed down to 5 minutes and 11 seconds. anyways, check it out and lemeno your thoughts! ENJOY! Credit to The Crystal Method for the Title Song. zizak.com

Scrumptious.Kylie.Minogue

2007-05-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

God, I could watch her walk around all day! Instead, I can watch this... and think about how i could possibly edit something like that together...

Killer StufF!

Enjoy....

ZizakdotRock

zizakdotAnthrax

2007-05-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

Unless you have been living under a rock, you havent heard of perhaps the biggest casualities of the digital age is the bankruptcy of Tower Records. Tower, since I moved out to Sacramento in 1991, has been a weekly visit of mine til it closed last year.

Shame...

These are a couple snaps of one my all time faves, Anthrax, while on stop here in Sacramento with Lamb of God. This is me with guitarist Scott Ian...

NYHC!!!

zizakdotNYHC

King's X - Roseville, CA 8.2.99 - Black the Sky

2007-05-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this vid I recorded when the mighty King's X rocked through Sacramento in 1999. I have the full length vid on video.google.com (soon to be youtube) so make sure you check that out if you already havent!

This is "Black the Sky" off of Dogman. Killer stuff and twice the bonus since its not really one of their staples in their playlist...

Enjoy!!!

zizakdotKX

America's Tire Company! Awesome Customer Service!!!

2007-05-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

I would like to congratulate America's Tire Company as being the Winner of the Inaugural zizakdotcom KickAss Customer Service award!!

Hows friggin cool is this?

Brother-in-law notices that the front-right tire on our 2003 Chevy Avalanche is running a little low. i check it out and sure as shit, it is...... and even more so than when he took a peek at it.

So, BIL, (Brother-in-Law) and I get out the air compressor and fill that bastard up with 25PSI... The manufacturer's recommended PSI value.

The next day, Monday, Wifee and BIL take the truck to America's Tire Company to have them take a look. They, ATC, investigate and notice there is a nail creating a slow leak in the inside wall of the front right tire.

(check em out here: http://www.discounttire.com )

They indicate that they will fix it for FREE with the understanding that we come to ATC (America's Tire Company) YESS!!!!! We will be back in flash when our tires run out and we need some new treads. No bout adoubt it... we WILL be back...

Good Customer service gives me a boner and I will do what i can to help the folks that give me great customer service! So I am spreading the word!

So I am going against the ol' business school adage... For every GOOD customer service experience you have you tell 3 people, for every BAD customer service experience you have, you will tell 15 people... on average... So spread the word, America's Tire Company kicks ass!

They changed the tire within 30 minutes and send wifee and BIL on their merry way!... with no hEADACHE!!

So Cheers to you America's Tire Company! Thanks for being kind, courteous, respectful and offering a great deal for price/service weary consumers... Like us.

I encourage ALL vistitors of zizak.com, zizakdotblog and all zizakdot___ services to use America's Tire Company the next time you need new tires or visit them immediately when they have a sick tire or tires in need of care.

Cheers!

Congratulations America's Tire Company!
oh... and don't forget to visit http://www.zizak.com

zizak.CustomerService

Japanese television RULES!!

2007-05-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things when I travel to Japan is, watching tv, of all things. you see, their tv is much different than tv in the US.

I have gotten into heated debates with people (who do not have ANY CLUE whatsoever) that the whole "REALITY tv" was plagiarized from Japanese tv.

Now, if you think it is hard to watch Simon tell people (honestly) that they couldnt suck enough is harsh, then Japanese tv is NOT for you.

JP tv is brutal, funny, harsh and 100% part of their culture.... they LOVE to play pranks on eachother... they love to push the envelope of endurance, humility and pain. all of this is represented in their programs they have. It is embedded in their culture.

I thank God that my father-in-law hasnt thought of anything to do to me after 10 years... i have heard incredible stories of his antics over the years and he puts any prankster to shame... he is the master!! for (a quick) example, while playing one of those games that push the quarters out in a fancy-shmancey hotel, he coaxed his nephew to 'tilt' or lift one edge of the machine to make it dump all its quarters... as soon as "kaori" did so, an alarm went off, Father-In-Law disappeared, my wife and Brother-In-Law started grabbing the coins (yen of course) and a security guard appear questioning Kaori...

Later, my Father-In-Law asked Kaori, "Why did you listen to me? You shouldve known that you could get in trouble!!"

what a ballbuster!!

I must post his speech at our wedding!!! it brought the HOUSE DOWN!!! in the meantime, get a quick peak at Japanese humor at the link below..

Tanoshi! (Enjoy)

Zizak.JP

Frankenstein

2007-04-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

In the midst of today's commute home, a time I usually like to chill out, veg out, space out and enjoy the monotony of the car hummin along at 70mph... on the way home to CampZizak, I was caught offguard.

I was scanning through my presets, going from commercial to commercial, a little bummed because I only had 10 more minutes of commute to listen to the tunage. I perfectly hit that time when all the stations were in "commercial-mode". Damnit!

Finally I hit 93.7, JACK-FM, and caught one of the most killer songs of all time, Frankenstein. One of my favorites! Unfortunately I missed the beginning, but I nailed it right before the heavy-synth part 3/4 towards the end!

Holy Shit!

I promptly blasted the synth part, pushing the envelope of what my stock VW stereo could produce. All the while, paying homage to the song and thinking back to when I was 7-8 years old listening to the vinyl 45RPM with my older brothers and me 'acting' like Frankenstein. Walking around with my arms extended and stiff in front of me, doing the zombie walk. And the eldest of the Zizak Brothers pretending to shoot me when the main groove kicks in after the killer synth bridge!!!

UGHGUGUHGHUGGUHG!!!

So here I post Edgar Winter's Frankenstein in a special performance from 1973 (I was freakin 4 years old then). This is for all the amateurs who need a little dose of what true Rock and Roll is all about. RAWK and ROLL!!!!!

\m/

Thank me later.

zizakdotMusic

How much ass does Pro-pain kick?

2007-04-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

This will inform you.

zizakdotMusic

Accept, BonJovi, Iron Maiden, Metallica, RATT, and Yes

2007-04-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is the shit I grew up on. In the frontrow with my Kodak DiskCam. Look that one up. WAAAY before your 2Megapixel camera/phone/mp3 player/dildo ever came along.

check em out here:

Bitches...

zizakdotMusic

Cuz you gotta have friends...

2007-04-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

What a great picture! Will and Max at sister's birthday party... hangin out!

Looking forward to a fun, long summer!

jz

It was a Great day!

2007-04-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

April 10, 2006. It was a Great Day!

April 10, 2007. It was a Great Day!
___________________________________________________________

What a difference a year makes...

Awesome!!!

zizak.Awesome

God Damn it!

2007-04-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

It is so GodDamn irritating to hear this..

It really makes me believe that no one in the medical / health field knows what the Hell they are talking about.

Here I am on 10mg of Lipator and this crap comes out.

What it all boils down to is CommonSense and Moderation.

Additional research I have done indicates that if you backdown on 16oz. of cheese and bump up a little excercise and fresh air, things should work out all right...

Hello, does that sound like CommonSense?

If I were a Politician I would run under the CommonSense Party. Its pretty straight forward, CommonSense. Hello Bitches. WTFU.

zizak.CommonSense

New Pro-pain Tour Dates...

2007-04-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

From the pro-pain.com website...

We are proud to announce the following tour in celebration of "15 YEARS OF PRO-PAIN"!

07.04.2007 Sarasota, Fl. (USA) Gallery Billiards Music Venue

12.04.2007 WACHENROTH (D) Toxicity
13.04.2007 BISCHOFSWERDA (D) East Club
14.04.2007 BERLIN (D) K17
15.04.2007 STAVENHAGEN (D) Tankhaus
16.04.2007 HALLE (D) Rockstation
17.04.2007 OSTRAVA (CZ) Underground Arena
18.04.2007 BRNO (CZ) Faval
19.04.2007 PRAHA (CZ) Futurum
20.04.2007 BRATISLAVA (SK) Randal
21.04.2007 AIGEN (AT) Kikas
22.04.2007 BUDAPEST (HU) Kultiplex
23.04.2007 WIEN (AT) Planet Music
24.04.2007 ZAGREB (CRO) Boogaloo
25.04.2007 MUENCHEN (D) Metropolis
26.04.2007 AARAU (CH) Kiff
27.04.2007 ERSTFELD (CH) Transylvania LIve
28.04.2007 DUDINGEN (CH) Bad Bonn
29.04.2007 SAARBRUECKEN (D) Roxy
30.04.2007 FREIBURG (D) Cafe Atlantik
01.05.2007 STUTTGART (D) Rohre
02.05.2007 KOBLENZ (D) Suppkultur
03.05.2007 ESSEN (D) Turock
04.05.2007 SNEEK (NL) Bolwerk
05.05.2007 AMERSFOORT (NL) De Kelder
06.05.2007 VOSSELAAR (BE) Biebob

Supports 12.04 - 24.04 - SILENT OVERDRIVE (DE), HEMLOCK (USA).
Supports 25.04 - 06.05 - GURD (CH), DAYS OF BETRAYAL (BE).
X-CORE (CZ) and JUNKHEAD (DE) on select dates.

Look for the new PRO-PAIN album "Age Of Tyranny / The Tenth Crusade"in stores throughout Europe on March 30th!! US and Japanese release dates will be announced shortly!! Thanks to our fans for their loyal support over the past 15 years!! We can't thank you enough!! See you on tour in Europe this April/May, and in the US later this year (tba). Stay tuned!

Shinkansen, Mt. Fuji, Shizuoka, Japan

2007-04-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

I recorded this on our Sony DSC-T1. What an amazing sight!

I waited to catch the first one pass by while we waiting for our Tokyo connection.
I got as close as possible and was able to catch it scream by!!
awesome!

Off in the distance, I thought I heard another one so I turned around to just catch another Shinkansen flying in the opposite direction!!!

The funny part of this video is the little 'Obachan' walking in front of the second one.
The kickass part is Fuji-san looming in its majesty... keeping watch...

I just regret I didnt shoot this with the Sony mini-DV.

zizak.JP

Bad Brains...I Against I... 2007

2007-04-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

check out the article on www.zizak.com...

http://www.zizak.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=9

Bad Brains rule! and let's face it... you suck it.
NYHC/CBGB

zizakdotMusic

Ticking away... The moments that make up a dull day,

2007-03-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

yeah right... there is no such thing as a dull day round these parts.

There is no frittering and wasting the hours in off hand ways.

I just dont have the fucking time for it.

i dont have time for misspelings, contractions, CAPITALizations or puncuation

what i do have time for is living... L-I-V-I-N

thats about all i do have time for.

i do believe this wild trip of a ride i am on is good stuff and worth sharing, so i will share what i can, when i can. so be careful, you may learn what is important to me, and you may also find it is important to you too, no matter how hard you may try to hate what we have in common.

thats lesson number 1

New Steve Vai Tourdates...

2007-03-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

Check it out...

DIRECTLY from Steve's Newletter!

Now if this isnt kickass... i dont know what is!!!!

Hi Folks,Well, I was sitting here thinking, it's been a while since I was out there with my own band playing a full show, but would it make sense to tour on an orchestra record since that's what's being released?If I don't get out for at least a little bit now, it may not be another 2 years before I get a chance to.What if I just do a quick stint of Europe and the US? Yeah, I'm feeling that need to get out and play for you all again.

OKAY - HOW ABOUT THESE SHOWS BELOW?

Jun 28 - Luxembourg

Jun 29 - Paris, France

Jun 30 - Biddinghuizen, Netherlands

Jul 02 - Ingolstadt, Germany

Jul 03 - Ulm, Germany

Jul 05 - Barcelona, Spain

Jul 06 - Valencia, Spain

Jul 07 - Murcia, Spain

Jul 08 - Bergara, Spain

Jul 09 - Porto, Portugal

Jul 10 - Lisbon, Portugal

Jul 11 - Madrid, Spain

Jul 13 - To Be Announced

Jul 14 - Udine, Italy

Jul 15 - Pistoia, Italy

Jul 16 - Rome, Italy

Jul 18 - To Be Announced

Jul 19 - Wolverhampton, UK

Jul 20 - Manchester, UK

Jul 21 - Nottingham, UK

Jul 22 - London, UK

Jul 24 - Dublin, Ireland

Jul 26 - To Be Announced

Jul 28 - Moscow, Russia

We'll announce venues shortly, check the Vai.com Tour Dates page for links to tickets for Holland and France which are on sale now. There are still a few cities to be confirmed above, and we'll announce US dates later.

WILL THERE BE AN EVO EXPERIENCE?I enjoyed the last one very much and I do have some ideas for a new one. Let's do it! Unfortunately we can't do EVO for festival shows. For shows already on sale (like Paris) EVO Experience passes will be sold separately from tickets.

WHAT ABOUT THE BAND?Hmmm, well, since it's a relatively short tour it might be a good opportunity to do something different and perhaps change the band up.It's tough. The Breed is like a family to me and although I know that we can probably get together anytime and do a gig or tour, this is may be a good opportunity to try something a little different. Tony and Billy won't be joining me on this run - but they are actually doing a project together and you won't want to miss them when they tour Europe in October!So, since there is no studio album with a firm band that I'm touring on, anything goes. I'm thinking of having a violin player in the band that can understand how to play like a violin player but still rip it up when necessary. Imagine some of those guitar lines doubled with a violin. That's pretty strung up! Well, let's see how auditions go.

WHAT MUSIC ARE WE GOING TO PLAY?I guess a lot of this will have to do with who the band ends up being, but whatever it is I would like to do a lot of songs that have never been performed live before, such as "Die to Live," "Lucky Charms," the last movement of the "Fire Garden Suite" etc. I'm sure we can do some things from the new Sound Current CD. I have a feeling "The Murder" may be pretty harmonically defiant.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT RECORD?When I jump into "Real Illusions Part 2," it's going to take quite some time to finish it so perhaps we can record a live record from this tour with all new songs, similar to the way we did "Alive in an Ultra World". I only hope that I can walk that walk after talking the talk. We can record new songs one at a time per show. Okay then, new tour, new band, new music and a new live recording, and you're all invited! And I am going to request that this tour is an "All Ages" event in every city. I'm hoping this will be possible. Keep an eye on Vai.com for more info.

Steve

NameFink WTF?!!

2007-03-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

How the Hell you ask Namefink.com came into being?

When braindumping with my business partner about current business ventures
we have stirring in the pot, we came up with several URLs we should register.

So we logged onto ISP account and did tghe appropriate searches...
Excellent!
The domains we thought of were not registered at this time [about 12:30am]...

So I stepped and took responsibility for registration of the domains first thing in the morning since we were both pretty buzzed from Vodka and me, Tonic; her, DietCoke.

Imagine my surprise, [for lack of a more appropriate term] when I went to register these domains, [at my favorite ISP] they were already registered?

WTFF??? {What The F***in F***?]
8 hours ago they were NOT registered...

So I did a little research...
Went to my favorite whois.net to see who the F "has" these domains??

I filled out the appropriate form and the results indicate that a http://www.nameKing.com were [testing] these domains.

Parking a domain???! WTFF>!!?! I have never heard this terminology before! and I have been in this Industry for 16+ years... and registered 100s of various [good and bad] domains for Friends, Family and Fools... Otherwise known as: FFF... more on that later...

So my research resulted in lotsa information about 'Testing' a Domain and the process it entails...
The long and the short are this... someone can 'test' a domain for 5 days, and then relinquish the digital property after 5 days if they [more on they later] decide it is not a feasible opportunity...

WTFF?

I will post that this, was the most informative starting point i found regarding this BullSh!t.

Read it for more information on this deceptive name testing practice.

Long/Short, I decided to lay-low and not generate any additional buzz about this domain I was interested in... fingering that they would [test] this domain and find that it is not worthy of them stealing. I waited 5 days [minimal 5 day testing period] to see what happened.... and SureAsShit, the relinquished the domain and I snatched that MFing domain back as soon as that 5 day period was through.

Based on the level of Vodka-Tonic in my system at this time, I can Not divulge details on my theory, however as soon as I available to wax on my theory, I will. and you will be the first to hear about it.

Stay tuned Bitches.

zizakdotNameFink

zizak@ Mt. Fuji

2007-03-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

i have only time to post a quick pic...
its one of my favorite alltime pics of me and the boys

on the outskirts of Shizuoka, Japan.... Looking across the bay
at Mt. Fuji...

Amazing!!!!

zizak.jp

An Absolute Blowout

2006-06-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

A collection of Video's shot at the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show.
Enjoy!