HA! F-W-I! If you don’t know what FWI means, you should ask Cayle Hunter, cuz he says it all the time. Maybe you should look it up right now. Go ahead. FWI. Click that shit.

Anyways. Here’s the real point of this blog. I assume you’re probably just perusing the internet right now, at about 25 MBPH, a slow surf on a cruiser bored board. Well, here’s a little salt for your tastebuds: Trouble Me Flickr. From Oakland. A photografffffer.

With every web site, TV station and newspaper weighing in with their 2 cents regarding which horse they’re backing in this year’s Presidential election, there are certainly more than enough learned opinions being circulated for even the most hungry of newshounds. Even the Average Joe is getting his voice heard this election season, via blogs, online forums, call-in shows and those ubiquitous polls, undertaken seemingly every 5 minutes. But there is yet a third demographic, one that is still sorely under-served by the media at large, the true “man on the street” who isn’t simply passing by but spends his days, and sometimes even nights on the street; that lower-crust of society who though seen by all, are heard by few. Seeking to give a voice to the voiceless, Synthesis correspondent Cayle Hunter sought out a spokesperson for those in our community who have yet to have their opinions added to the public discourse and found one, where else, in Chico’s Downtown Park Plaza. We asked this man, who we shall refer to as “Vincent”, who he was voting for in the upcoming election and why, and this is what we got. Learn about it.

Right outside Synthesis HQ in sunny Downtown Chico, CA is a sprawling concrete square known as Downtown Park Plaza. Once upon a time it was filled with magestic oak trees, but they all got cut down and now we have a fountain that bums wash their asses in and kids get E. Coli from. WINNAR! Even better, the park is always filled with really intelligent folk just waiting to share their wealth of knowledge with the public, like so many scruffy Socrateses. In this video, Synthesis Marketing Boss Cayle Hunter asks a few of these park residents their opinion on the upcoming presidential election.

This year has been great as far as bad contracts are concerned in the major leagues. With Andruw Jones, Miguel Cabrerra, Eric Gagne, the crown jewel of all bad contracts Barry fucking Zito, and now Dontrelle Willis all complete flops, GM’s around the league have to be even more wary of spending the big dollars on extensions for younger players and those big free agent fish.

It was announced today that Willis, or “the human earned run” as I like to call him since he was traded to Detroit (note the 10.32 ERA), has been sent down to Single A. I’m sure it’s just to “work things out” or whatever, but the truth is his numbers had declined steadily for the two seasons previous to Detroit acquiring him during the off season due to the fact that he can’t seem to mix in a strike every once in a while.

Detroit as a team fucking sucks this year after many predicted them to be world series contender, and after putting Jeremy Bonderman on the DL earlier in the day things don’t appear to be looking up any time soon. They have one of the highest payrolls in the bigs, and I looked forward to seeing that lineup come together on the field, but such is the way of baseball. After all, who would have predicted Tampa Bay to be 38-26 at this point in the season?

Unplanned by us, this week has turned out to be Hatebreed week here at Synthesis: with the band on the cover of this week’s Synthesis weekly, an interview with the band on the frontpage of the website, Spencer’s blog yesterday about Waiting for Jasta (like Waiting for Guffman only more pissed) and today’s YouTube video of Synthesis metal guru Cayle Hunter chopping it up with Mr. Jasta himself, we couldn’t jock Hatebreed more if we TRIED.

If you’ve ever heard of underground metal shitdicks Armed For Apocalypse, it’s probably been on this here blog, since A4A guitarist, co-screamer and mastermind Cayle Hunter also happens to spend his days trying to sell people ads on our fine suite of websites (if you’re interested, you should e-mail cayle@synthesis.net). The band recently borrowed a couple of Video Matt’s camera rigs to document the recording process down at Pus Cavern studio in Sacramento. Check out the video for “We Lost Nothing” above and know that no matter how tough you are, Nick Harris is tougher.