Today I think I’m going to make myself a turkey sandwich on 8-grain bread for lunch.  It should be delicious, considering how much I love turkey and 8-grain bread.  Putting the two together couldn’t be anything short of a winning combination. 

As simple as making a turkey sandwich sounds, though, I can’t help but be cautious.  I could easily turn it into something disgusting by adding the wrong condiments.  For example, if I were to add some mayonaise and then peanut butter, the sandwich would probably taste like a dead horse that’s been sitting in the sun for a week.  One or the other, though, I’m sure it would still be good. 

Well, maybe not the peanut butter. 

Or the mayo.

God, I hate mayo.

Full report after I eat it.

This September, Metallica is releasing Death Magnetic, their first album since their craptacular 2003 effort, St. Anger. I know for a fact that St. Anger disappointed a lot of Metallica fans because A.) They hadn’t come out with anything since 1997’s Re-Load, which is one shitty album; B.) It sounds like Lars forgot his drums at his other L.A. home and was reduced to using the trash cans they kept in the back of the recording studio; and C.) None of the songs sound like they were written by Metallica. The album is completely devoid of the uniqueness and luster that made Metallica great in the first place.

I’m not a big Metallica fan, but I’d like to think that I know enough about music that I can make judgments over whether or not something sucks. Metallica fan or not, St. Anger is flat-out bad. I tried listening to it with Jawsh when we were in Minnesota earlier this summer and couldn’t even get through the second track, which was eight minutes of redundancies, half-assed songwriting, and drums that sounded like a calf sucked on them. Just listen to “Frantic” and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you!

Anyway, Death Magnetic was produced by the great Rick Rubin, who is pretty much the Michael Phelps/Ravi Shankar/Michael Jordan of producing. That guy could help any shit band make a half-decent album; give him a good band, and he’ll help them make a damned good album; give him a great band, and you have the stuff that legends are made of (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Jay-Z, System of a Down, etc.). After the disaster that was St. Anger, Metallica would have been idiotic to choose anybody else.

And judging by their new single, “The Day That Never Comes,” now available on iTunes, it sounds like they’re back on the right track. Rolling Stone says it’s a mixture of “Bleeding Me,” “The Unforgiven,” and “Am I Evil?” and I think they’re dead-on. It sounds like the old, epic Metallica that we’ve come to know and love. The most noticeable Rubin influence right off the bat is Lars’ drums. They actually sound like they’re, well, drums. But give it a listen for yourself and see what you think.

Post thoughts here! I’m talking to you, Kujala!

Couple of announcements I have here, people.

1.)  Angie and Levi are getting married today.  Woo!

2.)  Jawsh and Kate are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary.  Hoo!

And last but certainly not least…

Today, my dad–the great Tom Miller–is turning the ripe young age of 50.  That’s a 5 and a 0.  wWe wished him an early happy birthday last Friday at the Railyard, telling everyone he was turning 40.  By my math, that would have made him 17 when he and my mom me.  But no, today he’s turning 50 years old.  Congrats on the milestone, Pops.  You’re the greatest!

Note:  The guy in the picture isn’t my dad.  I typed “Thomas Miller” into the Google Image search engine and this image was the third listed entry.  This guy is a death row inmate whose name just happens to be Thomas Miller.  My dad isn’t black, nor has he ever killed anyone. 

As far as I know, anyway.

Go here.

Note the venues on November 29 and December 9.

Hell yes.

Tomorrow is the concluding chapter of this summer’s exciting Bachelor Party trilogy.  The first installment, Bachelor Party: Camouflaged Chaos, was released in June and stars my friend Clay Waltner as a twenty-something who, two nights before getting hitched, decides to go out and get a little tipsy with his buddies, all of whom are outfitted in camouflage.  The four-hour epic, which takes place in Bozeman, Montana, ends with supporting star A.J. Miller (that’s me), passed out on the floor of the Imperial Inn in downtown Bozeman with two bathroom towels as my pillow and a shower curtain as my blanket.

The second installment, the much more incoherent and nonsensical Bachelor Party II: The Show of Shit, released in July, debuts first-timer Kyle Klock and his group of butt buddies as they roam about Bozeman, Montana playing an idiotic game called pub golf, in which they essentially get as retardedly drunk as humanly possible, make asses of themselves, forget their identities, and eventually fall asleep in various front yards across town.  At the end of the night, sidekick Levi Kujala reveals that he, too, is going to have a bachelor party, with his taking place the following month.  Co-star Kyle Chenoweth looks into the camera, shrugs, and says “Here we go ag…” and then barfs before he can finish his sentence.

The final installment of the Bachelor Party trilogy, aptly titled Bachelor Party III: Finnish Frenzy after groom-to-be Levi Kujala, hits the airwaves tomorrow and will pick up where Bachelor Party II left off, complete with the same lovable characters from II and even some new faces, such as  Pastor Grant, Papa Keehr,  Ian “Ian” Anderson, Paul “Mr. Paul Decker to you, punk” Decker, and many more.  What kind of antics will the boys be up to this time?  Well, we’re just going to have to wait and see, aren’t we?