October 12, 2007 Tales From Outer Space (And Portuguese Restrooms) HAY GUYS! I've received a number of e-mails lately from complete strangers who, presumably deluded by that forgiving haze of nostalgia, seem to remember this website as being "funny," and therefore desire to see it updated more regularly (i.e. at all). Why haven't I been updating? Well, the fact of the matter is that I've been really busy with a lot of things lately, such as running my hand-carved ivory jockstrap business from my basement, realizing that I don't actually have a basement, stalking Bob Uecker, finding creative new ways to make small children cry, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, I'm a really busy man, and I simply didn't even notice that Nine Inch Nails (at least I think that's the band I was writing about) had been doing anything in the meantime. I assumed that since a NIN album was released in 2005, that meant I was in the clear until at least 2017 or so. But no, that shithead Reznor had to go on tour again, and put out a new album again, meaning that I have to start updaing this piece of shit again. Seriously, what is that guy's fucking problem? Leave me alone. It seems that a few weeks ago Trent Reznor went completely insane and decided to not only start touring again, in every single place on Earth that doesn't rhyme with "Damerica," mere months after the Awitha Teetha tour supposedly ended for the seventh or eighth time, but has also made a bunch of nutty websites about barns and some fake church in Texas, and leaked songs from his new album (several decades ahead of schedule) via public toilets. Okay! Looks like I've got quite a lot of stuff to address here. But let's stop, take a deep breath and/or some Vicodin, and go over this one thing at a time. Is that all right with you? Can you handle that? First of all, in addition to all the thrilling content of www.iamtryingtobelieveinanotherversionofthechurchofairbornewiretaps.com, there have been some equally thrilling new pictures on the nin.com of Trent and various people whose paychecks he signs.     01. 02. the beginning of the end 03. survivalism 04. i like dudes 05. vessel 06. me, i'm not 07. nuthin' but a capital g thang 08. my violent heart 09. the warning 10. my little pony 11. meet your maker 12. the greater good 13. the great destroyer 14. the greatest meatball sub ever 15. another version of the truth 16. in this twilight 17. immigrant song 18. stairway to heaven 19. 8½ minutes of feedback 20. doesn't this fucking record ever end? 21. zero-sum 000000 0000 0000000 000000 0 0 00000 0 00000 00 00 00 0 and some such nonsense Wow that's a lot of songs! It's certainly a change from 2005's "let's just slap a few 3-minute-long gay disco songs on a CD and call it an album" philosophy. Well, okay, sorry. That was a little harsh. I believe the average song length on With Teeth was closer to four minutes. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that there are more songs this time around, and judging by the sound of the few that have "leaked" so far, it definitely sounds like Trent has been  Speaking of leaks, the phat jamz "My Violent Heart" and "Me, I'm Not" were leaked, along with untold quantities of drug-laced bodily fluids, in various assorted public restrooms at, of all places, Nine Inch Nails concerts. If what's been said on the internet is to be believed, and I know of no reason why it shouldn't, a mysterious entity known only as "one of Trent's underpaid lackeys" has been discreetly leaving behind USB flash drives with these new NIN songs near Trent's personal favorite receptacle for feces, urine and vomit: the toilet. Naturally, any NIN fan's immediate reaction to finding a small metallic object floating in a toilet next to a used condom and hypodermic needle would be to snatch it up, pick off the pubes and put it in their pocket for later, on the off chance that it contains a brand new hip-hop song by Trent Reznor to salivate over and then forget about as soon as the next Fall Out Boy single drops. Fortunately, the songs have been received remarkably well by those who aren't named after long-handled hand tools with sharp widely spaced prongs for lifting and pitching hay, and have inspired such praise as "this song has drums in it" and "I love it when Trent sings like a girl."
Let's look at this dumb tour. It has no actual title, unless "nine inch nails performance 2007" is it, which would be really stupid. It doesn't seem to be in support of anything in particular (except maybe the Equal Opportunity STD's Association), and it only really seems to serve the purpose of satiating Trent's deep, burning desire to go to Portugal. Of course while he's there, he figured he might as well simultaneously piss off his smelly European fans by playing absolutely no new material and all of his fat, ugly American fans by actually mixing up the setlists this time around and playing songs they never have before, ever, including "Last," "We're In This Together," and "Boot Scootin' Boogie." I guess it was only after the first week of the tour that Trent remembered that he had new, marginally less whiny songs to add to his repertoire, and decided to bust out with "Survivalism" in front of a crowd of Spaniards who had no idea what he was singing about but were too mesmerized by his badass finger gloves to care.   Meanwhile, as part of... something, I guess, there have been lots of really dark, scary websites popping up that appear to have tenuous associations with the new NIN material. I haven't spent a particularly large amount of time attempting to navigate and decipher the jibberish that plagues these sites, since I'm not a complete loser, but I have managed to gather a few little globs of information in the few fleeting moments I spent poking around there before getting distracted by photos of nude ladies. It looks like they're supposed to be from the future, at or around the year 2500 let's say, and everyone is totally getting high on this groovy drug called Parepin. And I guess everyone's so wacked out on this stuff that they can't code simple websites worth a damn. It would be nice if they'd actually tell me where to get some instead of just rubbing it in about how awesome it is. And then there's this "Presence" thing coming out of the sky, which looks like something people order on the internet to try to spice up their marriage. Trent hasn't said much about these websites, except that it's all part of the art form, or some hippie shit like that. Dude, seriously, hook me up with some Parepin. I bet it'd make that barn look really intense.Here is what I believe to be a complete list of all these NIN nerd traps (I didn't actually try to find every single one, and I'm sure there are more of them, so don't fucking email me to tell me how stupid I am for omitting thegovernmentisstealingyoursocks.com or whatever). iamtryingtobelieve.com - I really hope this doesn't lead into an ad for Aquafina. anotherversionofthetruth.com - Zero Tolerance. Zero Fear. Corn For Everyone! churchofplano.com - I wish they'd talk more about the potluck dinners. 105thairbornecrusaders.com - Their motto, Gladius Invidia Deo, means "Get A Life." consolidatedmailsystems.com - Hey, they're still better than UPS. uswiretap.com - They sure put a lot of time into this one. artisresistance.com - Home of the shittiest wallpaper I've ever seen. thehockeypuck.com - I haven't figured out the connection, but I know there is one.  Yes, these are truly exciting times to be a 15-year-old with nothing better to do than sit in your parents' basement and waste days staring at garbled text and scrambled images in the hopes of discovering some important clue that ultimately leads to an mp3 of Trent rubbing a microphone under his armpit for eight seconds. What does it all mean? This is too much for me to handle! WHAT IS THE PRESENCE?! Fuck it, I'm going to go have some fucking Cap'n Crunch. Later. Do you have any intriguing theories about the Year Zero promotional websites? I'm sure you're really smart, so please feel free to send them my way.
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