FacebookTwitter
tom@stortz.com
16 May, 2011

A post for the masses

By |2016-11-01T23:42:15-04:00May 16th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

Even though I spent way more time on the below post I know not everyone cares about music and will be disappointed with just that post so I’m going to write a bunch of gibberish that should satisfy your appetite. My family, Nicole, Laura, Brookes, and a few of their friends went out to the Belgian Cafe at 21st and Green in Philly. It was Laura’s Bday and she didn’t know everyone was going to be there so it was an interesting surprise. I was there early and they sat the 3 of us a table for 10 people so Laura sort of saw the surprise coming. The restaurant had about 100 different bottled beers a few different ones on tap which was a nice change of taste. I even liked my steak which was pretty good and the potatoes and corn were a fine complement. Everything went smoothly and conversation was decent although I find that with parties over say 6 make conversation difficult, I thought it went smoothly. I know this is kind of half assed but I’ll try to make a better post in the morning when I’m thinking better.

16 May, 2011

Gusto’s Top 25 Bands – 25-21

By |2011-05-24T23:10:45-04:00May 16th, 2011|Music, Top 25 Best Bands|0 Comments

25. Kings of Leon

There was discussion as to whether or not KOL has been around long enough to really be a top 25 band and truth is they started in 1999 out of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. In a little known fact the group consists of 3 brothers (Caleb, Nathan and Jared) and their cousin (Michael). They are going to be one of the youngest bands on the list. I personally don’t believe they deserve this high of a ranking but there is little doubt they are going to be around for a long time producing singles. Their album Only by the Night, released in 2008 is where they gained notoriety here in the US. Sex on Fire, Notion, and Use Somebody were the most popular songs. Other recent hits have been Radioactive and Pyro. I find their songs to be a tad similar sounding if that makes sense.

24. Green Day

Green day is comprised of front man and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool. Dookie was one of the first CD’s I ever purchased and I listed to every track on their dozens of times. Dookie was released in 1994 and sold over 10 million copies. Some of their other more popular albums were Kerplunk!, Nimrod, Insomniac, Warning and American Idiot. 21st Century Breakdown is an album I’ve never listened to. In my opinion this band has way better songs and then KOL and is probably more deserved of the 24 spot. Songs likes Basket Case, Longview, Welcome to Paradise, She, When I Come Around, Holiday, Jesus of Suburbia, She, Minority, I can go on an on and I’m not even an enormous Green Day fan.

23. Queen

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), John Deacon (bass guitar), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals). Freddie Mercury died in 1991 due to a complication with the Aids virus. The band has released 15 albums with Queen and Queen II being their debuts. Monster hits include Bohemian Rhapsody, Don’t Stop Me Now, We Will Rock You, The Show Must Go On, Under Pressure, We Are the Champions, Somebody to Love, Killer Queen, Another One Bites the Dust, and I Want to Break Free. I particularly like the song Flash. I’m pretty sure these 10 songs are enough to make this band a top 25 band of all time. Probably even way higher than spot 23.

22. Jim Croce

This is sort of a weird one and I’m sure most people have never even heard of Jim Croce. Strangely, I’ve actually listened to a few of his more popular songs and even kind of like them. To have Jim Croce up this high is sort of a slap in the face to Queen in my opinion. He debuted in 1966 and was finished in 1973 which makes longevity an issue. However, songs like Speedball Tucker, Operator, Time in a bottle, I got a name, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim and I’ll have to say I love you in a song are all classics. With only 6 albums I think this is way to generous of an all time rating. Good artist, not top 25.

21. Pink Floyd

This is a band that I really like and probably can’t appreciate nearly as much as I should. I don’t understand the brilliance behind their music and how difficult it is to play. However I do have a place in my heart for listening to Dark Side of the Moon plenty of times which being under some influence. They were founded in 1965 and obviously Dark Side, Wish You Were Here and the Wall were their most famous albums. They have so many awesome songs like Breathe, Time, Hey You, Money, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick In the Wall (Part 2), Brain Damage, Learning to Fly, and Goodbye Blue Sky which I really recommend. There are so many songs that I haven’t listened to that I’m sure I’m not even close to naming all the good ones. Another band way to low at 21. Probably in my top 15.

16 May, 2011

Finishing the Weekend

By |2011-05-24T23:25:16-04:00May 16th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

I’m just going to pick up exactly where I left off on Saturday night. I have been using the word exactly way too much to just agree with everyone. It makes other people feel good about what they are saying to me when I’m agreeing 100% using the word “exactly”. Anyway, after golf I played a 1v1 beer pong, best of 7 series, with Gusto. Just to give a quick update on how Ck4 and I play beer pong in the fairest, purest form possible. No bouncing, no leaning, no death cup, the cup doesn’t count if it reverse bounces in your cup, there is only one re-rack and you can use it anytime but no power I. The power I is an unfair rack and I really don’t care about any argument to defend it. The Triangle is the 3 cup rack and you don’t want the triangle for fear of making the first cup. There really isn’t an awful cup to make for the I, the middle obviously but it’s still in a straight line which is better then the back two, thus making the I unfair. The only nuance to the game we play is bringing it back and you get a shot at redemption from both players where if the first player misses, the 2nd player could technically still tie the game making 6 straight shots. Getting that out of the way, I beat Gusto in the best of 7 in 6 games in a pretty fun series. 1v1 beer pong is the very best drinking game from a fun factor because there is no waiting in line and you start to find the groove to the game.

After that we went to Jess and Meghan’s for a few drinks and then went to Kildares for the night. A side note, Bake went 8 for 8 in flip cup and if he was Chad I’m sure he would want me to point that out. Kildare’s had a decent crowd and I only have one real highlight when Gusto was talking to two girls and I happily tried to win over one of the two. After telling the one girl she looked like Sara Bareilles

which I didn’t really think was an insult but the only reason I told her that was because her nose was really big at the bridge but she couldn’t have possibly known that was what I meant. Also I bet not many people even know who Sara Bareilles even is. I think she’ s reasonably attractive enough to use this line just to point out. Anyway, she wasn’t the girl I was even trying to talk to, I had her friend but I was running some ok game and then I hit a nerve when I started talking about her tattoos. She basically thought that I was talking down to her and that pissed her off and left me wondering what I did wrong. It reminded me of the time I pissed a girl off because I was asking about her baby and if it was a nuisance and she didn’t like me much either. Jkash also doesn’t forget the time I told this one girl she looked like Snooki which proved to not be such a complement. After Kildare’s, Gusto and I listened to some Neil Young and numerous other classics until I went to sleep at 3 or so. I know I still haven’t gone through Gusto’s top 25 best bands of all time but I’m getting around to it as the list evolves.

I awoke at 7am, showered, went back to sleep until 8:30 and then I had to wake up for some volunteer work that I agreed to do with Bake, JKash, and the Shee. In moments of kindness that I’m going to point out, both Bake and the Shee thought enough of me to bring me some form of breakfast which I engulfed. The volunteering was for the Ronald McDonald House and it was a contest of sorts where teams had to go through different obstacles and get a time. Jkash and my obstacle were two big feet that 3 people had to stand on and go out and back around a cone. Technically we just made up that they had to go up and back and we weren’t given any instruction on how to run the obstacle, we just were “trying to look official.” Before we left Jkash said I should get a pic using this line “Excuse me, Mr. McDonald, could I trouble you for a picture.” Here it is.

We decided to go to Limekiln at 3:30 for a round of golf which I should have just opted out due to feeling lousy and running on no sleep. I fell asleep on the ride there and was just trying to get through the round without incident. After carding back to back 10’s with hitting 8 shots in bunkers, my round was shot. There is nothing worse then blowing up the round on hole number 3. Fortunately for me there was some lightning and we were forced to stop after 9 which was really a scam because they started letting people play again 10 minutes after we left. A really poor job by Limekiln and I don’t really have a problem never giving them business again. After that I went to sleep at 6:30 pm and woke up this morning at 7. I woke up at 2am and took a shit but other then that my body needed some serious rest and I’m feeling much better today. I’ve got about 5 posts in the queue and should be able to fill up this blog with entries in no time. It’s also my sisters b-day so Happy Birthday Laura! This blog will be like me writing it on facebook where all the posers come out to fake celebrate your birthday.

14 May, 2011

Short Saturday Entry

By |2016-11-01T23:41:11-04:00May 14th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

We dominated our softball game 15-0 against a team that would lose to little leaguers. Their first pitcher literally rolled a pitch to Chad. It was a really a mockery of the league. In other news, Chad, Bud, and I played golf at Turtle Creek on a relatively ugly day. We finished the round in under 4 hours which was really nice. I was 93 with a 41 on the back which was pretty good. I had about 6 or so penalty strokes on the front which put me behind a bit. Bud managed a 15 on a hole which was pretty spectacular. His first 5 shots went OB. Other than that though last night was pretty decent with Greengenes playing at Mad River. I managed to get back safely and everything with the night was pretty entertaining. No real spectacular stories though. Just wanted to give a Saturday post which I suspect is better then nothing.

13 May, 2011

Limewire settled for 105 million

By |2011-05-13T08:30:19-04:00May 13th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments


I thought this was pretty funny because Limewire’s business model was eerily similar to Napster, Kazaa, and Ares, all of which are now defunct. I read they were being sued originally for over a billion dollars so I guess they got off pretty good. Isn’t it fairly obvious that this is not a legal way of distributing music. Basically anytime I’m able to download music for free, I’m doing it illegally. Currently I’m using the youtube to mp3 which will eventually get sued and shutdown. If I were the music companies I would be upset too. They go to the all the trouble to produce music and then people find ways of acquiring it by paying nothing. At this point in my life I practically never pay for music unless there is a group I really like and I want to hear their entire album. Even so I could just download each one of their songs off of youtube and just burn it on a cd. My real question is how on Earth is limewire able to pay 105 million. That business model must be making way more money then I ever imagined.

13 May, 2011

Near Death Experience

By |2011-05-24T23:15:39-04:00May 13th, 2011|My Life|4 Comments

While on the road I encountered a near death experience. Well actually it was an avoidance of a near death experience. Basically I was making a left hand turn across a two lane road and there was an Indian man, in the near lane of oncoming traffic, who thought he was being generous by waving me to turn in front of him. He had 2 cars behind him (that he was stopping) that made it hard for me to see across into the far lane which looked seemingly clear. Knowing that you can never trust someone waving you on I cautiously made the turn and just as I was about to go a car whizzed passed me in the far lane. I slammed on the brakes just in time and probably missed getting struck by a 40 mph vehicle by a foot. The Indian man had his hands on his head as I looked over at him. This is why I implore you to never be nice to people in traffic. You are actually making it more dangerous to drive when you try to be nice. My car would have been completely smashed and I can just imagine what a jolt like that would do to my body. Those few moments could have altered my entire life because I was almost stupid enough to trust another human being.

So after brushing that almost catastrophe off like no big deal, I started thinking about how some people would take a bullet for others. People who become secret service agents would risk their lives for the President and I started thinking if there was anyone I would take a bullet for. Not surprisingly the list was very short. I like to think of myself as a generous person but there has to be some thought given to how much is too much. Everyone is only given one life to live and I would love to know the answers of other people. Would I take a bullet for my parents even though they’ve lived 27 more years then me? What about my siblings? Close friends? Your significant other? I think this is a tough question to answer.

13 May, 2011

The blog post

By |2011-05-13T01:36:41-04:00May 13th, 2011|My Brain|1 Comment

I’ve had a couple people tell me they liked my “journal” entries a few weeks ago of when I was handwriting a “journal” back in 08′. I assume the difference is that I was writing with the intention of no body ever reading those entries compared to my “blog”, where I tailor what I want people read. I assume people might like those better because it goes with my theory that honesty is the best policy and that people respect honesty. I suspect that people like to read about my inner thoughts because they can compare them to how they think. Most of the time when I’m writing its just my random thoughts and not my personal thoughts. I believe there is some importance to maintaining a certain degree of privacy and not being a complete open book. If turning this blog into a personal journal was going to vault me to stardom I’d have no problem doing it but I can’t foresee that happening. I will however keep in mind that people may prefer a more inside look on my life and thoughts.

One little thing I would like to note is that my traffic has been slumping. I’m averaging about 100 people a day and that is way down from a few months ago. I lost all the random traffic I suppose which really shouldn’t bother me that much but for some reason there is a feeling of reward when you know more people read what you write. It makes you feel important. It also motivates you to keep at it. I’ve pretty much been doing this for so long that if high traffic was my motivator I would have stopped a long time ago but it’s always in the back of mind. The concept of linking out and putting the blog’s name out there is what I have to do more of but just never care enough to. I just like updating people on the status of my site every so often if anyone ever cares.

13 May, 2011

Coming into my own

By |2011-05-13T00:04:30-04:00May 13th, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

Today’s cities on my business trip included Alexandria, Capital Heights, Annapolis, Frederick, and Hagerstown. Today was way more driving and not nearly as efficient as yesterday. Driving to Frederick and Hagerstown is really too much driving and too spread out to make it worthwhile. I need to plan a trip to head further south and hit Richmond, Norfolk, Fredericksburg and anything deeper. The past two days are really good learning experiences as I’m essentially “selling myself” as JC would put it. Just feeling comfortable going into these different businesses and working the situation to the best of your ability has more value then anything financially. I sometimes wonder why I don’t have the same ability when trying to pick up girls. I am going to use this last line though as some foreshadowing because I think I’m about to turn over a new leaf.

I’ve wrote an entire entry before on how life gets broken down into different stages and I think I’m beginning to feel the next phase. With the latter part of my 20’s working against me, I’m starting to feel some pressure to take the next step from single, party animal to finding someone to have a relationship with. That last sentence is more intimidating to me then walking into any random business trying to sell hand tools. I’ve just always had a feeling that I’d meet the right person and it would be as simple as that. Problem is I don’t really give anyone a chance and just work back into the my normal routine. I’m considering just joining match.com and just going on a whirlwind of random dates so I at least can experience that girls are crazy instead of just assuming.

As the title of this post explains, coming out of business trips like these are what makes me a more well rounded individual. Basically it’s my product and the person who will sell it with the most enthusiasm is me. So if I can’t do it, it’s hard to imagine finding other people to do it more successfully and with more passion. This company is my life force and my responsibility which means that I’m going to have to grow up from a “boy”, to a man. This isn’t a 9-5 job where you get a salary and as long as you do your work, you get paid. You earn the money you work for and it has both its ups and downs. The opportunity that I have though to find myself being part of a family run business is a great experience and I find myself doing things that most people don’t get the chance too. I talk to other business owners as another the business owner. They look at me as a 27 year old kid but I’m starting to feel the sense that I belong. At this point of my life I’ve made significant strides since when I came out of college.

I just have a feeling that something is going to go right over these next few months. I’ve had this feeling before and I remember posting about it, but nothing ever happened. This time I’m throwing it out there again and I can’t explain what it’s like the Phil Collins song where I can feel it coming in the air tonight, except tonight is the “near term future”. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. I think these posts are good though because they document how I’m feeling at this present time. One day I can look back and read my entire life and see what has actually transpired which I think is pretty neat.

12 May, 2011

On the road again

By |2016-11-01T23:40:07-04:00May 12th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

Technically the again isn’t necessary but I’m on the road attemping to sell the company’s products. Currently I’m staying at the Red Roof Inn in Alexandria which is a story to begin with. Alexandria is about as far South as I can get in one day and I just assume I can book rooms here without an issue. Little did I know the Comfort Inn I usually stay at was booked and so was the Days Inn next to it. So that had me scrambling to find a room and Red Roof told me this was the last room they had so luckily I was able to get lodging. I’m not going to bore you with the details of my trip but for a brief overview, I start in Balitmore and had about 8 stops there, then went to Beltsville, then Hyattsville, then Bethesda, then made my way down to Alexandria which is a good home base. The most important part of my trip is my GPS which literally saves hours and is worth it’s weight in gold. Probably way more then just it’s weight. This machine literally controls my life. I think its directions are pretty good although I found myself a few times sitting in traffic flipping out and there had to be better ways to avoid some issues. This was a pretty macro post but I have the micro that I’ll write later tonight because trips like these fill me with little details that go unnoticed by everyone else but me. I’ll hopefully have something by tonight but no promises because these tend to be long days. I was up at 5 yesterday to make it to Baltimore from Philly by 8 (with a few stops on the way) and didn’t quit till 4 and my only break was a number 8 at Arby’s. I also consider the whole hours of driving a break too but that can get taxing. Would you buy tools from this guy?

9 May, 2011

Adults Creating Childrens Movies

By |2016-11-01T23:40:55-04:00May 9th, 2011|Movies|1 Comment

The Neverending Story was on a movie station and I ended up DVR’ing it and watched it this afternoon. The last time I watched this movie was back when I was around 10. Obviously my interpretation of watching it today differed drastically from my earlier remembrance of this movie. I always thought that this was a movie geared to children but after seeing it today, I think I was misguided. Back when I was 10, I suppose I just watched this movie to watch the movie. I never really understood anything that was happening other then I was being entertained by moving figures and some bright lights. This is a pretty involved movie that has concepts that no 10 year old could ever understand. My 10 year old memory had a talking, flying dragon, a boy reading in the attic, and Atreyu the incredible warrior who turned out to be a 13 year old kid. After watching it today, the nothing was a creative concept for destroying people who had lost the desire to think and Bastian, the main character, was the mastermind behind Fantasia and all that encompassed it.

Which got me thinking that this movie was created by adults and was probably made for adults, kids just happened to like the creatures involved. The movie had a budget of 27 million and was the biggest budgeted movie of its time in 1984. It’s misleading because Bastian is 11, Atreyu is 13, and the empress looks like a 10 year old girl so you think it’s made for kids because all the main characters are kids. Everyone else in the movie is either a heavily make up’d creature, a giant prop, or some other poorly designed paper mache pos. This isn’t a movie that a 10 year old is walking out of and saying that he’s going to start reading more because he related to Bastian’s experience and wants to live in Fantasia’s fantasy world.

Now maybe I was just a retarded 10 year old but I was watching this movie today and was still trying to figure out what was going on. The world of Fantasia is disappearing, because Bastian is reading about it disappearing, and for some reason he’s the only person who can not only stop the destruction, but also the only one who can create Fantasia to begin with. And the answer to stopping all the madness is naming the Empress?!?!?! Now if that’s only a little far out, he had to learn that he was actually a part of the story by following Atreyu’s journey by reading about it? Seriously, how is a kid supposed to figure that out? That’s why I still can’t figure out if they tried to make the movie for kids or adults.

That last sentence then got me thinking about how adults are always the ones who are creating movies for kids which makes me think that this is such an easy market to enter. Adults don’t really know how kids think and are just guessing half the time at what kids like. Fortunately kids minds are relatively simple and they like virtually everything which makes this market easy to penetrate. Any person who writes Children’s books for a living has basically conceded that they can’t write anything intellectual and have to dumb down anything they do to try to amuse 5 year old’s. The people at Disney who have to create these movies for kids must hate their lives. They constantly have to dumb everything down to work into the mind of a child. Funny jokes about hookers, priests, and all race jokes are all useless to these people. Being an adult and writing scripts for children is hell on Earth.

Basically, a movie is either geared to children or for adults. This Neverending story was neither which is why this movie only grossed 20 million and is never really highly regarded as good. This movie is actually bad. I actually missed the first 30 minutes but I can describe what I saw. For 5 straight minutes I watched Atreyu walk through a swamp. Then he was getting sneezed on by a giant turtle. Then they wasted more time watching him fly on Falcor which proved entertaining for 5 seconds, not 3 minutes. Atreyu then hastily runs through the Sphinxes gaze which was pretty silly considering he could have been vaporized. Something happens with a mirror and he finds himself flying again to another part of the world. He mistakenly kills a giant wolf in what has to be the worst battle scene of all time. He then talks to empress, who then calls out to Bastian, who then saves the world. It ended with the stupidest idea ever of bringing Falcor into the city to chase 3 kids. I can only imagine all the press a flying dragon would bring and what disruption it would have brought to the real world. Time to go though, Neverending Story 2 is on.

Toggle Sliding Bar Area

Categories