disposable robot

Mr. Restaurant

2007-11-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

Peter's Creek Parkway is anthropomorphic-food crazy.

This sign is hamazing.

Stop the presses!!!

It sounds so ominous.

THIS ONE'S NOT FOR HAMATEURS!!!lOLOLOLKJPIGELL

Something about this seems so utterly creepy. Maybe because I saw it in a sketchy dollar theater at nine in the morning with all the power out.

Dear god.

Please conduct all wheel chair races at the checkout

2007-10-25T09:17:00.000-04:00

Look at 'im go!

I got up to some cookery on Wednesday.

This is the frog that lives on my gutter.

Menacing.

30 Rock.

I had more to post, but I'm lazy.

It feels kinda yellow today...

2007-09-20T13:14:00.000-04:00

I saw the cashier for details. She recommended buying lotto tickets.

I wish I were someone like Hitler so I wouldn't feel bad doing shit like this.

If you're having a bad day, I recommend going to a stranger's house with panties on the fan.

Randi's new tattoo in all of its (not-yet-colored-in) glory.

My back yard is mainly in Vietnam.

Buckley keeps it real.

Books read
Oryx and Crake. God damn, humanity is doomed. I really loved this book, though. HIGHLY recommended.

Movies watched
Rocket Science. It was good, but it could've been great. A lesser Thumbsucker, sort of.

All right. Bye.

The fruits of my labor: literally, literarily, and otherwise

2007-08-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

The first batch of tomatoes and a few handfuls (of many) of basil from my backyard garden. Delicious.

I installed a 1/4" jack on one of my favorite toy keyboards. It's about the simplest thing you can do, electronically speaking, aside from taping an LED to a battery, but I still feel like kind of a badass for doing it. It sounds great except for a loud hum when the keyboard is shut off (anybody know what would cause that? something grounding something something I suppose...). There's a more detailed view of the jack here.

Flea market photos
I went to the awesome flea market on Capital on Saturday. I hadn't been in years. Here's some pics:

Shoe pile. You seen that thumb in the corner? For you, I throw that in for free.

I want "courage"! I want to BE COOL. I want to LOOK SHARP. Sign me up!

This is the best gay Mexican cowboy store EVER.

At this point do you even need your Power Rangers action figures to be knock-offs? Can't the past ten-fifteen years of figures have trickled down to the third world by this point?*

Some people argue that cheap phone camera's CCDs are shitty because they can't capture the frame all at once, leading to distorted perspectives and swervey lines. My word for these people is "bitches".

This is basically the best car in the history of cars.

I might be going back next week. Get more pictures. Hit me up if you wanna go.

Books read
House of Leaves. Mark Danielewski. LOVING it. I haven't gotten to the crazy part yet. Sure, the book (a fictional story about a fictional guy finding a nonfictional academic analysis of a fictional nonfictional documentary about a house that may or may not be fictional nonfictional and also there's a labyrinth in the living room or something) is pretty strange from the get go, but it gets ka-razy in a little bit. Anyways, I'm really enjoying it. It owes a lot to Pale Fire§, but is much less of a pain to read since it uses footnotes instead of endnotes (for the most part). I'd recommend it.

Movies watched
Superbad. I don't even need to tell you how good this is. Anybody reading this has already seen it. If you haven't, I have one word for you: BLOW-J.

TV seen
I've been watching/re-watching Undeclared. I don't have much to say about it that except for that it is awesome and you should watch it but you already have so you should re-watch it.

Okay, it's late. Time to go to bed.

* Which reminds me, at the Paws for a Cause thrift store across the street they had a Power Rangers Zeo lunch box for sale. I almost bought it. Almost.

§ Structurally speaking, at least.¶ Tonally it's quite different.

¶ Literary/cinematic critique with tangentially related, egocentric endnotes/footnotes. Both are examples of ergodic literature.

End times

2007-08-08T21:22:00.000-04:00

The surest signs of the endtimes: expensive cars, vanity license plates, and poodles in pink golf shirts.

In other dogs-in-cars news...

Rid yourself of all butt love.

The duel of the fates.

Go write some goth poetry you emo fucking bitch.

Greensboro is hainted!!!

The world is a vampire

2007-07-07T00:52:00.000-04:00

I was gonna post a picture of the Smashing Pumpkins show, but this was WAY better.

I haven't blogged in like forever because I don't have the time. I've been working a lot, went out of town a couple of times, and, you know, watching TV 'n' stuff like that. I got a sweet shout out in the newspaper.

Books read
The Road. Cormac McCarthy. Really liked it. Oprah liked it. So, you know. Practically guaranteed good. They're making a movie. John Hillcoat's directing. Neat.
Pale Fire. Vladimir Nabokov. Randi got me another copy. What a badass. I need to read this.
A Family Daughter. Maile Meloy. Really digging this. All five pages I've read. I need to read more.

Concerts attended

Smashing Pumpkins in Asheville at The Orange Peel. Good show. Super long. Love that fan. Love love love it.

Grizzly Bear in Greensboro at The Carolina Theater. Opened for Feist. Grizz rocked ass. Feist put me to sleep. But Grizz rocked ass.

More to come. Later. Maybe.

Pitchers

2007-05-25T12:36:00.000-04:00

Some pictures from my trip to Boston.

I NEVER HAVE TIME TO WRITE IN THIS THING

2007-05-12T00:43:00.000-04:00

WORK IS SUCKY BUCKLEY IS AWESOME THINGS WITH RANDI ARE GREAT I'M GOING TO BOSTON NEXT WEEKEND GOD OF WAR II KICKS ASS I HEARD PHIL HAD A BABY ARCADE FIRE IN DC WAS GOOD WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures

2007-04-19T14:58:00.000-04:00

I spend my time in chain restaurants where gigantic anthropomorphic birds walk around and Dora the Explorer plays on TVs in the ground.

I wish I remembered where I was when I took this.

My attempt to document the effect these horrible muscle relaxers the doctor prescribed have on me.

Buckley is haunted.

Truth in advertising

2007-03-21T20:25:00.000-04:00

I want to marry this song. "Laying Down the Gun"

MY OWN DOG

2007-03-19T21:23:00.000-04:00

He's the master of all time and space.

I've had kind of a shitty night--I mean, not really, in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, kinda crappy--but I'm listening to The Greatest on vinyl and I'm cleaning and cooking and I am like "oh shit, this is where the phrase 'It's aaaallllllll goooooddddd' originated."

Also, Diet Sunkist is the beverage of kings. Kings who don't care what people say about their choice of beverage. Or sexuality.

And, speaking of Kings, anybody who doesn't go to see Megafaun and Bowerbirds at Kings on Thursday is a fool. A damn, damn fool.

And crap, Inland Empire is leaving after Thursday, ugh. I think I'm gonna see it on Wednesday (I THINK). Holla if you want to come.

And I might have a party in a few weeks or something. Good idea? Perhaps.

My aunt's dog

2007-03-19T01:12:00.000-04:00

This picture is scary.

Authors who, without my permission, kick my ass

2007-03-15T10:47:00.000-04:00

We're playing cricket at the theater this month--which is to say that, on the digital projector, we are showing cricket matches from the 2007 World Cup. We aren't, you know, having bowlers, and bats, and wickets, or whatever they use. I don't understand cricket. I don't understand sports in general, but I REALLY don't understand cricket. There is a profundity to my lack of understanding that is lacking in my other lacks of misunderstanding. Or something.

The matches start daily at 9:30 A.M. The thing is, since it's primarily middle-aged guys who are interested in this sort of thing, and since most of them have, you know, JOBS, nobody comes at 9:30. Except me. I'm here. 'SUP.

I wanted to come in early just in case we had any customers, so I got some reading done. I had planned on finishing Mao II, but I realized I'd forgotten it when I got to work. I did have Pale Fire, so I got started on that.

Goddamn, it's really good. I'll hopefully finish it in the next couple of days.

The Explosions in the Sky show is tonight, and I'm kind of meh about going. I dunno, I'm sure it'll be good....but, on the other hand, MEHHHHHHHHH. Hmm.

I've been spending a lot of time in Greensboro lately, and it's a really great town. It's always been associated with, I dunno, sucking, I guess, in my mind, but I had never really been there. I love it. Tate Street FTW.

Movies seen
The Lives of Others. This was pretty good. It kind of dragged at the ending (err, endingS...it kind of had a Return of the King thing going on). It's weird to think that there was basically a totalitarian state inside of Germany within my lifetime. I remember the Berlin Wall falling down, but I didn't know what it really signified. History! WTF AM I RITE?!?

300. It was all right. Nothing special. Pretty. Boring. Whatever. This will live on forever as the favorite movie of random nerds who will defend it to the death. The character design of Xerxes is worth the price of admission, though.

Okay, time for work.

p.s. And oldie but a goodie: Sufjan Stevens - "Majesty, Snowbird"

DOCTA SAYS I NEED A BACKIOTOMY

2007-02-17T00:53:00.000-05:00

Because I'm an old man, I kind of hurt my back a couple of days ago. It hadn't been hurting, really, just feeling kind of off. Tonight at work, it was totally killing me. Maybe I just needed a reason to complain. Whatever, it seems better now. That's good.

I went to see Deerhoof with Randi the other night (and Neal, if you wanna get technical about it--I don't). Maplestave and The Harlem Shakes opened, and I really really liked The Harlem Shakes. Maplestave were good, but the new song they played was really rough. The first opening band was super cute, even though they weren't very good at their instruments. I can't remember their names, however.

I got a dog!! Have I mentioned that before? His name is Timbaland Rocketpants "Buckley" Ropeburn-Explosion.com the Third, or just Buckley if you're on a deadline. He is AWESOME. I would highly recommend getting a dog just like him. GOOD LUCK!

One of Heather's friends committed suicide on Sunday. The funeral was tonight, I think. I don't have much to say about that, really. It's pretty shitty. He left a suicide note on his livejournal and included the password to his photobucket account. Modern times are fucking weird. Moving on, he seemed like a good kid. I hope everybody can handle it.

Movies Seen
Factory Girl. I hate Sienna Miller. I didn't before, but I do now. I hate her to her very core. I'm not wild about Guy Pearce, either. His Andy Warhol isn't half what his crazy Australian bastard is.
Venus. I've mentioned this already, but it's really good. After seeing The Last King of Scotland, I was pretty sure nobody had a chance at beating Whitaker for Best Actor. After seeing Venus, I wasn't so sure. Bonus points, it featured my number one fetish, DUMPY BRITISH CHICKS. There's something about that combination of sweat pants, potato chips (CRISPS, if you will), and that hot hot accent. It's inexplicable.

Music heard
Menomena. Friend and Foe is really, really good. I might be the only person who thinks this. Well, Brad really likes it. But he's like bff with those dudes now. So he doesn't count. 2:22 into "Muscle 'n Flo" is, as the kids say, teh sex. The whole thing, good as it is, feels rather achievable, if that makes any sense. Composition-wise, it's easy to understand.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Some Loud Thunder. I originally hated "Satan Said Dance", but now I love it. I currently hate the first three tracks because of the gratuitous amounts of input clipping, but I guess I'll get used to it. I still find it irritating. GRUMBLE GRUMBLE.
The Harlem Shakes. Burning Birthdays. Step 1) Insert CD. Step 2) Hit repeat. Step 3) Profit! I am totally in love. If I were a CD I would want to marry it.

Books read
I've been really lazy lately. Haven't read shit. This means I am a bad person. Also because I beat up children. But mainly the reading bit.

Okay, time for bed. But first, music:

Menomena - "Muscle 'n Flo"
The Harlem Shakes - "Carpetbaggers"
Mount Eerie - "Ut Oh! It's Mourning Time Again"

Bamm-Bamm Berry Pebbles

2007-02-15T18:48:00.000-05:00

This is the cereal I recommend to the person who desires the taste of bubble gum in milk.

I desire the taste of bubble gum in milk.

I'm listening to the new Modest Mouse album and I'm not quite sure what to think of it. That is my nice way of saying that I am, at the moment, let down, but that this might at some point change. These things take time with me. Except Cloud Cult. I was instantly in love with that shit.

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been busy with living. Life is awesome. So is Venus. You should see it.

That's it for now.

Even Bob Marley cover bands have heart attacks

2007-01-30T15:20:00.000-05:00

"The world is overrated." That's what my 12 year old cousin said to me at her father's funeral. He was 45 and died of a heart attack. They served fried chicken at the dinner afterwards. So, yeah. That's nice. I wasn't close to him at all, but I was pretty freaked out.

Aside from the funeral, which, honestly, wasn't all that bad (it was really good to see my Granddad and my Aunt Diana, along with the aforementioned cousin), I've had a fantastic fucking week. Neal and I went to see The Rapture on Monday, which was a bunkload of fun. Before that, I went to see Annuals and The Dears with Randi, who basically kicks a bunch of ass (in case you didn't know). Before that, Camera Obscura with a whole bunch of peeps, and that show included a FREE BONUS TRIP TO THE MALL!! I bought a watch that tells the time in French because I am bad with money. Oh yeah, and on Saturday, I went to the Jackpot with a good handful of tight dawgz, which I so rarely get to do anymore since I work all damn weekend. It was a really great night, actually. I mean, fuck. We went to IHOP -AND- Waffle House. Waffle, woohoo!

I decided to quit being a bitch and just start working with the 8pre. It's working out well so far, I think. We'll see how it goes.

I'm still reading Mao II, and it still kicks ass. I need to finish it so I can start on, well, whateverthefuck is next on the pile.

I finally caught up on Battlestar Galactica. SPOILER ALERT!!@ Baltar is an asshole.

I'm growing a beard. It's official name is Beardy McGee, the Beard of the Century.

I'm gonna get a pet. I haven't decided what, exactly, kind to get. I'm thinking a dog. But maybe two kittens. WHO KNOWS?

This is as good a time as any to end this. WITH SONGS!!!!

The Micropohones - "I Can't Believe You Actually Died"
Sifl and Olly - "Heart Attacks"

"Did you make it major at the end?"
"Yeah, I did."

The top ten movies of 2006

2007-01-18T14:17:00.001-05:00

1. Children of Men.
2. The Fountain.
3. Half Nelson.
4. Brick.
5. Babel.
6. The Departed.
7. The Science of Sleep.
8. The Puffy Chair.
9. The Proposition.
10. Inside Man.

According to me. The guy whose opinion matters.

Remember winter?

2007-01-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

Me neither.

Movies watched
Children of Men. Sweet sassy molassy. One of the best films of 2006, definitely. This was a perfect example of perfection of the craft--not art--of film making. Those goddamn 5 minute one-shot action sequences were amazing. GO SEE THIS.
Pan's Labyrinth. Nice. Really nice. I've got The Devil's Backbone on Netflix and hope to watch it soon.
The Painted Veil. A movie about cholera that is, somehow, worse than actually getting cholera. The most passive aggressive movie I've seen in years.
The Wonder Boys. Sometimes I forget how much I love this movie. But I love it.

Books read
If on a winter's night a traveler. I finally finished this. It was great. Go out and read it. I COMMAND YOU TO DO THIS. It was clearly a major influence on David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Which might be my favorite book. MIGHT.
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. This, seriously, took about an hour to read. It wasn't the BIGGEST waste of $13 ever, but it was certainly up there. It's a neat idea, but a neat idea does not a good novel make. It seems like something I would have written in high school. I dunno. I feel like I'm being too hard on it. It was an enjoyable enough read, I guess, partially because of its total absurdity, but it just doesn't seem like there was a point. I won't be reading this guy's other stuff.
Mao II. Damn. I just started this this afternoon when I had a few moments before work, but it's fucking great. I'm glad I got it.

Books bought, gifted, or otherwise acquired, but not yet read
Number9Dream. Because the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the world is that I have yet to read every David Mitchell novel.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I'd thought about reading this before, and H-Dawgg says S-Dawgg fucking loves it. Thought I'd give it a try.
House of Leaves. Because I'm in the mood for something just that crazy.
Infinite Jest. I came THIIIIS CLOSE to buying this today (I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble, in case you couldn't tell), but I didn't. About an hour later, Maddy gave it to me for my birthday. Because she is a badass. I HAVE SO MUCH TO READ!

Back to work (for now).

I'm gonna be pissed when this book is over

2007-01-06T14:06:00.000-05:00

"It could be an important feature to be added to your portrait: your mind has interior walls that allow you to partition different times in which to stop or flow, to concentrate alternately on parallel channels. Is this enough to say you would like to live several lives simultaneously? Or that you actually do live them? That you separate your life with one person or in one environment from your life with others, elsewhere? That in every experience you take for granted a dissatisfaction that can be redeemed only in the sum of all dissatisfactions?"
-If on a winter's night a traveler

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.

2007-01-02T00:36:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty good year.

The first half (or so) was horrible, the second half was good, and the last month or two was fucking fantastic. I've had some fun, met some new people, and done a lot to improve myself.

It's kind of funny. The last time I had a party, I spent a shitload of money, gave everybody a month's notice, and it was fucking horrible. Nobody came, I got super depressed, all that stuff. I decided to do this thing about a day ahead of time, spent about sixty bucks on hooch, and had a great fucking time. I had my first taste of champagne since 2001 (I think) and I really liked it. Tiny bottles. Very classy.

Please tell me that somebody else was drinking the Cock last night. I hope I didn't do that by myself.

Lessons learned
1. Don't watch Battlestar Galactica with a drunk. THEY WILL SPOIL EVERYTHING.
2. Amy playing Wii sober is more dangerous than most people playing Wii while drunk.
3. iPod Shuffles are only capable of playing The Mountain Goats.
4. And that's OK.
5. It takes two hours to find a restaurant on New Year's Day.
6. And it's fucking On the Border.
7. But it's surprisingly good.
8. Especially when you're so fucking hungry.
9. And they bring out the chips.
10. And you're like ARMARMARMARM.
11. Which is the sound of a person eating many chips.
12. And also salsa.
13. Which is delicious.

And now, a song:

I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
Headed north on mills avenue
And listened to the engine roar

My broken house behind me
And good things ahead
A girl named Kathy
Wants a little of my time
Six cylinders underneath the hood
Crashing and kicking
Aha! Listen to the engine whine

I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me

I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young
Hurt my knuckles punching the machines
The taste of scotch rich on my tongue

And then Kathy showed up
And we hung out
Trading swigs from a bottle
All bitter and clean
Locking eyes
Holding hands
Twin high maintenance machines

I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me

I drove home in the California dusk
I could feel the alcohol inside of me hum
Pictured the look on my stepfather's face
Ready for the bad things to come

I down shifted as I pulled into the driveway
The motor screaming out
Stuck in second gear
The scene ends badly
As you might imagine
In a cavalcade of anger and fear
There will be feasting and dancing
In Jerusalem next year

I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
Download.

Also

2006-12-30T02:49:00.000-05:00

This is very last minute, but I am considering having a New Year's Eve Box Social at my place. I am considering it hard enough that I spent five minutes or so on a gif. If you're interested, let me know. If you're not, that's cool. This isn't gonna be a barn burner, but it might be fun to get a couple of people together. Holler.

Of the things on my list, I have accomplished some number of them

2006-12-30T01:52:00.000-05:00

That number is around four. If you count sleep twice. I did.

I'm kind of all over the place tonight. I've got so much to do, so much stuff to do it with, and so little time in which to do it.

Here are the things which I would like to be doing:

Reading If on a winter's night a traveler.
Putting to good use my new recording setup.
Playing Final Fantasy III.
Playing Geometry Wars.
Reading Albion or Runaways.
Including things that won't make me sound like a nerd.
Like exercising.
Cleaning my house.
And hollering at ladies.
Drinking.
Having a get-together.
Re-rearranging my bedrooms.
Finding a roommate.
Questioning this list's use of gerunds.
Watching The O.C..
Watching TV in general.
Watching movies.
Getting some Netflix.
Writing long lists.
That no one will read.
Becoming rich and famous.
Getting COUG.
Starting more posts that end up as lists instead.

Things that I need to do very badly

2006-12-29T01:59:00.000-05:00

Go to sleep.
Paint a dinosaur on a lighter.
Rearrange my room.
Clean my room.
Rearrange the other room.
Clean said other room.
Finish the goddamn book already.
Eventually finish this post.
Make a hundred thousand plus one mix CDs.
Wrap presents.
Destroy my tree.
Have a drink.
Go to sleep.

Autores que a)viajar a través del tiempo, y b)me espían

2006-12-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

(Courtesy of Matt)

Películas miradas
Clases de conducir. Ay dios británico mío. Esta película fue terrible. Protagonizaban Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Julie Walters (Molly Weasley), y Laura Linney (no es un Weasley--los papeles horriblemente mal dados). Salvo Julie Walters, quien actua como el madre de Rupert Grint en las películas de Harry Potter, actua como una cascarrabias anciana quien lo emplea. Laura Linney actua como la madre de él, y ella no puede hacerlo de ninguna manera. La única cosa positiva que la película tenía en su favor fue Bryony (rima con Hermione--¿¡¿coincidencia?!?), una sexy potra escocesa con ese más valorado de rasgos, el sexy acento escocés. Yo juro, yo podría casarme con una chica sin brazos ni piernas si ella fue nacida en Escocia. Es inexplicable. También tenía la chica de Cuidando a mum, lo cual es cómico porque esa fue la última comedia inglesa bajo el par pero bien popular que tuvimos.

Libros leídos
Si en una noche de invierno un viajero. Verdaderamente lo estoy disfrutando. He leído casi un tercio de él. Probablemente lo terminare esta semana.
El arcoíris de la gravidad. EN PAUSA.
Las correcciones. Demasiado desprimente. Pausa.
Catálogos varios. Tengo que imaginarme lo que quiero para Xmas y lo que otras personas quieren para Xmas.

Palabras:

Continúa, no dejes morir la conversación. Di algo; sólo continúa de hablar "¿Lees muchas novelas? ¿Sí? Yo también, o a lo menos algunas, aunque las que sean no ficción son más para mi…" ¿Es todo que te puedes imaginar? ¿Estás parando? ¡Buenas noches! No estás capaz de preguntarle: ¿Has leído ésta? ¿Y ésta? ¿Cuál de las dos consideras mejor? Allí tienes, ahora sabes algo de lo que puedan hablar para una media hora.

El problemita es que ella ha leído muchas más novelas que tú, especialmente unas extrañas, y tiene una memoria ordenada, ella refiere a episodios especificos; te pregunta, "Y recuerdas lo que la tía de Henry dice cuando…" y tú, quien desenterró ese titulo porque conoces el titulo y nada más, y te gusta dejarle creer que la hubieras leído, ahora tienes que lograr salirte con comentarios genericos, como "mueve un poco lento para mi," o aun peor, "me gusta porque es ironica," y ella contesta, "¿Verdaderamente? ¿La encuentras ironica? No habría dicho…" y tú estás afectado. Lanzas una opinión de un autor famoso, porque has leído uno de sus libros, dos a lo más, y sin indecición ella ataca fuertemente la opera omnia, la cual parece que sepa perfectamente, y si es que ella sí tiene algunos dudos, es peor aún, porque te pregunta, "Y el famoso episodio de la fotografía cortada: ¿está en ese libro o aquél? Siempre los mezclo…" Tú adivinas, porque ella los mezcla. Y ella dice, "Vaya, de que estás hablando? Eso no puede ser correcto…" Pues, digamos que ustedes dos los mezclan.

--Italo Calvino, Si en una noche de invierno un viajero

I've got to be at work in less than eight hours, so I should probably get some rest.
Tengo que ir al trabajo en menos que ocho horas, entonces probablemente deba descansarme.

Authors that both a)time travel, and b)spy on me

2006-12-16T16:04:00.000-05:00

The ¡Forward, Russia! show last night was amazing. It's so rare, for a show for which my hopes have been so built up, for me to feel satisfied afterwards. My expectations were ridiculously high, and they were absolutely met. Snowden was really good, too, as was the whiskey. Conshafter, the first opener, was terrible, but that's the way things go.

I don't normally drink in public. I'm almost always driving, so the opportunity rarely presents itself. Neal drove us to 506, though, so I went to town. I definitely started reciting some Joanna Newsom lyrics in the course of the evening. If I didn't have a job and didn't need money I could totally be a drunk. Alas!

Movies watched
Driving Lessons. On my British God. This movie was terrible. It was starring Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Julie Walters (Molly Weasley), and Laura Linney (not a Weasley--HORRIBLY miscast). Except Julie Walters, who plays Rupert Grint's mother in the Harry Potter movies, plays an elderly curmudgeoness who employs him. Laura Linney plays his mom, and she's horrible at it. The only positive thing the movie had going for it was Bryony (rhymes with Hermione--coincidence?!?), a sexy Scottish fox with that most valued of traits, the sexy Scottish accent. I swear, I could marry a girl with no arms and legs if she was born in Scotland. It's inexplicable. It also had the girl from Keeping Mum, which is funny because that was the last sub-par but well-liked English comedy we had.

Books read
If on a winter's night a traveler. I'm really enjoying it. I'm about 1/3 of the way into it. I'll probably finish it this week.
Gravity's Rainbow. ON HIATUS.
The Corrections. Too depressing. Hiatus.
Various catalogs. I have to figure out what I want for Xmas and what other people want for Xmas. I'm halfway there.

Words:

Go on, don’t let the conversation die. Say something; just keep on talking “Do you read many novels? You do? So do I, or some at least, though nonfiction is more in my line…” Is that all you can think of? Are you stopping? Good night! Aren’t you capable of asking her: Have you read this one? And this? Which of the two do you like better? There, now you have something to talk about for about half an hour.

The trouble is that she's read many more novels than you have, especially foreign ones, and she has an orderly memory, she refers to specifific episodes; she asks you, "And do you remember what Henry's aunt says when..." and you, who unearthed that title because you know the title and nothing more, and you liked letting her believe you had read it, now have to extricate yourself with generic comments, like "it moves a bit slowly for me," or else "I like it because it's ironic," and she answers, "Really? You find it ironic? I wouldn't have said..." and you are upset. You launch into an opinion on a famous author, because you have read one of this books, two at most, and without hesitation she attacks frontally the opera omnia, which she seems to know perfectly, and if she does have some doubts, that's worse still, because she asks you, "And the famous episode of the cut photograph: is it in that book or the other one? I always get them mixed up..." You make a guess, since she gets mixed up. And she says, "Why, what are you talking about? That can't be right..." Well, let's say you both get mixed up.

--Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler

This is just too hilarious, especially considering who lent me the book.

I've got to be at work in less than eight hours, so I should probably get some rest.

I'm going to keep adding to the sidebar

2006-12-13T00:57:00.000-05:00

Until it gives my browser cancer. Or at least leukemia.

So I had my root canal today. The following paragraph should not be read by the faint of heart:

Because of the pH inside my tooth, which was apparently abnormal, the anesthetic didn't work. Normally, the tissue is all dead at this point, but mine wasn't. The combination of these two things means that I basically had to sit there while the dentist hacked away at living, active, fully sensitive nerve tissue. For over an hour. I feel absolutely fine now, but I can honestly not begin to describe how bad it felt while undergoing the procedure. It was, as he referred to it, "a difficult situation".

I watched The Fountain again and liked it more the second time. A movie's faults seems to fade with time, but its strengths do as well. That's just in my brain, though. I've been listening to the score nonstop this week, and even though Schoolkids didn't have it in stock (the bastards), Brad ordered me a copy that should be in tomorrow or Thursday. I'm looking forward to getting that.

I've started reading If on a winter's night a traveler. I am quite enjoying it. It shouldn't take forever to read, either, so hopefully after a few afternoons or so I'll be finished with it. I have an ever-growing number of books half-read, and this is filling me with secret shame. Except it's not secret, but I just told you. But nobody reads this, so it is. If a blog falls in the woods...?

I put up an Xmas tree. It's glorious. Lights and everything. Even ornaments. Yeah, I'm fancy. I have glitter on me. It came off of the ornaments. And also because I like to look pretty. Holla!

I couldn't keep the night from coming in.

2006-12-11T03:06:00.000-05:00

So I've got an annoyance of a cold right now that caused me to take some Nyquil tonight at about seven. I fell asleep, and now I'm awake. Hmm. It's the middle of the night. Oh well. I'm being productive. I'm making a blog post. I'm educating Saunders on the topic of Tim Buckley, and whether or not he is God. I'm thinking about dreams.

My dreams have been very vivid lately, or maybe I have just been remembering them better for some reason or another. Tonight, I remember seeing Diana and, at some point, her becoming Jessica. That has more truth in it than I'd rather admit, at least in the realm of old crushes and girlfriends. Then part of one of my teeth kept falling out, and whenever it did, I lost all hearing in my left ear. I remember my mom once, years ago--it was shortly after September 11th--told me she had a dream where her tooth fell out, and she looked it up and it said when you loose a tooth it's because you're grieving. And, like I said, it was right after September 11th. Also, in the dream, I referred to getting colds as being "gay", which is so middle school, and I offended somebody (in the dream).

NyQuil is a hell of a drug.

I am ever-so-tangentially reminded of this song, "Cosmia", by Joanna Newsom. In case you didn't know, this is the best song to be released in 2006. I know there's three weeks left in 2006, but nothing better is coming out in this period. The other day Grayson asked me what my favorite song of the year was, and I said it was this. He said "Emily", and, I'll be honest, if two guys who know their shit to the degree that we do (he writes for Pitchfork, I....claim to know a lot about music) independently select two songs from the same damn album, that's not too bad.

Here's the words:

when you ate I saw your eyelashes
saw them shake like wind on rushes
in the corn field when she called me
moths surround me - thought they'd drown me

and I miss your precious heart

dried rose petal, redbrown circles
framed your eyes and stained your knuckles

and all those lonely nights down by the river
brought me bread and water (water, in)
but though I tried so hard my little darling
I couldn't keep the night from coming in

and all those lonely nights down by the river
I was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kin
now in the quiet hour when I am sleepin'
I cannot keep the night from comin' in

why've you gone away?
gone away again?
I'll sleep through the rest of my days
if you've gone away again

sleep through the rest of my days

why've you gone away, away
seven suns, seven suns
away, away, away, away

can you hear me? will you listen?
don't come near me, don't go missing
in the lissome light of evening:
help me, Cosmia; I'm grieving

and all those lonely nights down by the river
brought me bread and water (water, in)
but though I tried so hard my little darling
I couldn't keep the night from coming in

and all those lonely nights down by the river
I was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kin
now in the quiet hour when I am sleepin'
I cannot keep the night from comin' in

beneath the porch light we've all been circling
beat our dust hearts, singe our flour wings
but in the corner, something is happening!
wild Cosmia, what have you seen?

water were your limbs, and the fire was her hair
and then the moonlight caught your eye, and you rose through the air
well, if you've seen true light, then this is my prayer:
will you call me when you get there?

and I miss your precious heart;
and miss, and miss, and miss,
& miss, & miss, & miss, & miss, & miss your heart
but release your precious heart
to its feast, for precious hearts

(lyrics courtesy of { milky moon }, which is amazing)

I don't see how anyone cannot just LOVE that song. It's amazing. I can't even begin to understand all of it. I guess, in the harpist's brain, there are scales, harp scales, and plucking notes out of them aren't all that hard, but the music, in tandem with the lyrics, have that ever-sought-after but oh-so-rarely-found quality of blowing my motherfucking mind. I love you, Joanna Newsom. <3

Itinerary for this week
Monday: NyQuil X-)
Tuesday: Root canal :-(
Wednesday: TV party with Jonathan :-)
Thursday: Work :-( and screenings :-) (With Mallory? :-) )
Friday: FORWARD ¡RUSSIA!, MOTHERFUCKER!!! :-) :-) :-) :-) This is gonna be the concert of the goddamn season
Next Monday: Trekky Christmas! :-)
Years from now: Rocket cars!!! :-O

If only I had a voiceover to express my emotions

2006-12-01T23:56:00.000-05:00

I have recently discovered Geometry Wars. Now, this is kind of like Columbus discovering America. There were already Indians that had played Geometry Wars. I gave them smallpox-infected blankets. Whatever. That's how I roll.

So anyway, before, I was thinking of selling my XBox. Now I'm going to keep it. For a four dollar game. Seriously. It's fucking awesome. Hurray for being a nerd. Here's a video of a bigger nerd doing really well at the game. Pure insanity.

I went to trivia with Mallory and Alyssa tonight, and that was really fun. We tied for third place, but we totally should have tied for second, since one of the questions asked how many notes are in the traditional Chinese music system and I said seven. The "correct" answer was five, but Wikipedia says it's both:

The ancient Chinese defined, by mathematical means, a gamut or series of 12 frequencies (called the 12 lü) from which various sets of five or seven frequencies were selected to make the sort of "do re mi" major scale familiar to people who have grown up in the United States and the United Kingdom.

But whatever. One of the categories was movie quotes, so I had an unfair advantage.

I'm gonna see Ariel tomorrow, and Jonathan a week from now, so that'll be nice. I need to do more to get back in touch with old friends. Three in two weeks isn't bad, though. It's also a good motivation for cleaning my house, since it's kind of a mess at the moment. At least I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

On lifehacker or somewhere I saw a recommendation for the once-again available moleskines, tidy little notebooks for writing or drawing or whatever. They were around since the dawn of time, but the company that made them went out of business or something in the late nineties. Anyways, they're around again, and they sell them at the checkout regions of Barnes and Noble. I got a three-pack of Cahiers journals, and they're pretty sweet. Funnily enough, I had just bought a similar style notebook from a Spanish company called Miquelrius just the day before. It has the benefit of being bright red in color, which is pretty awesome in its own right.

Basically, I'll have no shortage of writing surfaces in the near future.

Books read
The Corrections. SO. FUCKING. DEPRESSING. Christ. I don't think I can handle this.
Gravity's Rainbow. Still trudging along.
The Thin Place. I realized I never finished this. I probably should.

Television viewed
Battlestar Galactica. I'm watching season two. I love this shit. It's so depressing. Or it would be, were I being chased by robots. So instead it's just badass.
The O.C. Just started season one. I. LOVE. THIS. SHIT. Teen drama like whoa.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. This show might have stopped sucking. It's hard to tell. WTF Aaron Sorkin?
30 Rock. Tracy Morgan is a god. A drunk driving, ghetto god. Read his interview in Mass Appeal a few months back for proof of both.

Movies watched
The Fountain. Amazing. Flawed, but amazing. The score, composed by (who else?) Clint Mansell, is WONDERFUL, and I would fully recommend it to anybody who likes awesome, post-ish, symphonic rock. I need to re-read the graphic novel, and see if it is, as I recall, identical to the film. The final moments of this film, by the way, are some of the most powerful images I have ever seen. I'm serious.
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. I liked it a lot. Not Zhang Yimou's best work, I think, but I definitely liked it. The worst part about it was the voice overs, the ones that told you that he was sad when he was sad and that he was lonely when he was lonely. The guy didn't have the most expressive face, but I still think the work could have been done with camera angles and things like that to show the audience what the deal was. Oh well. It still kicked ass. The Curse of the Golden Flower should be coming in just a few months. That'll be fun.

Grocers shopped
Trader Joe's. One of these joints finally opened up in the Triangle, and I checked it out today. It's all right, but it's a bit smaller than I'd hoped and I couldn't really do my day-to-day shopping there. Depending on how good the lunch meat is--I haven't tried it yet--I might be going back, but, for the most part, I'd be just as happy with the prices and selection at Super Target. Also, they sell DVDs. And I need my O.C. fix.

Okay, it's way too late. I shouldn't be up. Have a good night!!

Wincing the Night Away; or, To Writhe

2006-11-23T01:29:00.000-05:00

I've had a fun little week here at jonmorgan, inc. It would be hilarious, really, if it weren't happening to me. I'm getting a root canal. That'll set me back about two thousand dollars. I can't get it done until December 12th, but the doc gave me drugs for the pain. Except instead of lessening the pain, they just make me loopy, incredibly thirsty, and unable to drive. Last night, after taking one, I fell asleep with my glasses on. I woke up with broken glasses. And that's the stuff that happened AFTER the weekend.

On a positive note, my mom's in town and got a real big kick out of the Wii. Middle-aged woman playing Wii Sports = hilarity. We watched some Battlestar Galactica, too, which she enjoyed. I need to get Season 2.

Shane's gonna be in town this weekend, and I haven't seen him since he moved. It'll be cool if I get to see him. And Chad said he might be around in December, which would be pretty awesome.

Thanks to Matt, John, Ellen, Shane, and Chad and maybe other people for various advices given and listening to my petty human shit. It's been quite a rough week. Next week is going to be better. I can feel it. Hopefully I'll finally get around to that game of Scrabble with John (after having cancelled two weeks in a row). And Sunday night, if I feel up to it, is The Hold Steady. I can't fucking wait. That's gonna be the best show in the world except for ¡Forward, Russia! I'm so excited. Oh yeah, and Asobi Seksu in like two weeks. And Anathallo. Which I might have to go to solo. I don't give a fuck.

Oh, and Kieslowski's Veronique Diabolique came out on Criterion this week. Shit, I need to get that. Even if it does sound like European porn (it isn't). I have spent so much money this week (Wii + two games + food + shelter + morphine 'n' dentists 'n' shit). Oh well. I'm American. I'm supposed to live beyond my means. Money cash hoes money cash hoes WHAT.

Okay I'm going to go lay down and die from toothpain.

Robert Altman is dead.

2006-11-21T12:15:00.001-05:00

There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right

2006-11-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

I got a Nintendo Wii this morning. I had to wait in line all of ten minutes. People who camp out are suckers. Except people who camp out for PS3s and sell them on eBay for $2000, whom I envy. I got Zelda and Tony Hawk's Downhill Extreme to the Maxxx 2k6. I played Zelda for five minutes before collapsing in exhaustion. I needed the sleep.

I had WAY too much to drink on Friday, and I was in super rough shape last night. No sleep + hangover = bad mood at work. I lived, though, as far as I can tell. More or less.

Movies seen: Fast Food Nation, L'Atalante. I liked both of them, even Fast Food Nation, which has been reviewed pretty poorly. It's very Linklatery, and I really appreciated the way it dealt with certain issues (immigration, whether or not a person should eat poo, et cetera). Plus, it had AVRIL MOTHAPUNKIN' LAVIGNE. Word. L'Atalante was good, too, and it featured a large amount of cat throwing. Who doesn't love that? Dita Parlo was great. Michel Simon's character reminded me a lot of my grandfather. That was neat.

I saw Katie last night, which was nice. I need to do a better job of keeping up with my old peeps. I also need to do a better job of not using words like "peeps".

I am not a clumsy person.

2006-11-10T02:03:00.000-05:00

This is not to say I'm a graceful person, per se, but I am not, in general, particularly clumsy. I do enjoy Clumsy Bear, which is a delicious Polish candy that Kim buys me, but that does not, as far as I know, make me clumsy.

But anyway, the past two times--TWO TIMES. IN A ROW.--that I have gone out with Heather, I have managed to knock over my drink. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Now, I know, on the list of things that will make a person like a person and the list of things that will make a person not like a person, (spills drinks) is not of particular importance. But, I mean, COME ON. This shit is interfering with my otherwise impeccable GAME. Ahahahaha. Jesus.

SPEAKING OF DEPRESSING!

Babel. The new movie by my favorite Mexican (by which I mean person from Mexico, not, you know, brown person who speaks Spanish), Alejandro González Iñárritu, is seriously, really, for real though, amazing. Go see it. NOW.

I love overselling things. It's my favorite hobby. But seriously, Babel is great, and, while I understand the criticisms that some people have expressed (the interconnected plots aren't so interconnected, for instance), I disagree with them for the most part. Yes, the narrative connections are tenuous, but the tonal connections are there throughout. Anyways, I really liked the film. A lot.

My elliptical machine exploded. Maybe I can trick Microsoft into fixing it. Maybe.

The new Shins album is good.

Life is funny.

Good night.

Doop doop

2006-11-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

The trip for the Broken Social Scene show was fun. The actual show, not so much. I mean, it was fine, but Amy Millan wasn't there, and that made me kind of sad. Just kind of, though. I got to see Matt Banks, which was nice, but we didn't really get to hang out or anything. There was also this dude that I should have remembered from high school, but I didn't, so I just seemed like a dick. Oh well. My biggest regret, however, was that I missed Misha Barton, who was apparently gallivanting around downtown Asheville mere hours before we got there. I'm sure our paths will cross again. I'm guesting on The OC next month.

Babel comes out on Friday, and I'm suuuuuper excited. I'll be watching it Thursday night, and will probably make all kinds of love to it. I'll have to get it drunk first, I bet.

My XBox 360 exploded, but it's part of the recall, I guess, so I'll get a new one. They're sending me a box tomorrow. All I really use it for is watching videos, but I feel so primitive doing that on my PS2. It makes me feel like a poor person. A poor person from 2003. Without a remote.

I felt like there was something else to say here, but it's not coming. There's assorted personal shit about certain shit being stressful and shit, but eff that shit. Oh, and I bought a video game, Final Fantasy XII, which is fun. There was something else...

I saw Bananas. It was weird. It was like a combination of a Marx Brothers movie and a vehicle for standup and sketch comedy. And you know how I feel about that.

EHHH.

IMs worthy of blogging

2006-10-31T22:48:00.000-05:00

StunninDunn: HOLLA SON
StunninDunn: we all cowards
StunninDunn: and in movies, will smith always says use that to your advantage
StunninDunn: that shit don't work
StunninDunn: THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE

To live

2006-10-28T11:51:00.002-04:00

John Arthur Boles is an absolute, unmitigated badass. Don't let nobody tell you different.

The Tilly and the Wall show last night was amazing. When a band looks like they're so happy that they're about to die, it makes the show about ten times better. That was definitely the most excited band I've seen except for Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The crowd was great, too, and people were dancing. IN CHAPEL HILL. Since when does that happen? It was great.

Bowerbirds opened, and I felt kind of bad for them. Most of the people didn't know who they were and didn't really care, so there was a lot of talking and whatnot. It was still cool that they got to open for such a big show. They play at Bickett like three times a week, so go see them. Pony Up! was great, too, although the word on the street is they only played half of the songs they were supposed to. I would definitely like to see them again if they come around. They're from Montreal. Who isn't?

One of the guitar players in Tilly broke two or three guitar strings, which made me feel less bad about breaking so goddamn many in the past few weeks. I've never had a problem with that before, so I don't know what the deal is. In fact, I broke one five minutes ago playing a Tilly and the Wall song. HOW IRONIC!*

We also watched Huozhe by Zhang Yimou, which was pretty great. It was really sad, but very nice. I need to see more of his films. I need to see more puppetry-centric films in general. What have we got besides this and Being John Malkovich? Muppets don't count.

I had some more to say, but I think I'm gonna go out for a bit and spend some money. Life is pretty good right now. Let's hope it keeps going.

p.s. Death of a President is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo baaaaaaaaaddddddddd. SO BAD. I'm seriously.

* This is, in fact, in no way ironic. HOW IRONIC!

Wm. Matthew Banks is a golden god

2006-10-25T23:03:00.000-04:00

Monday, October 23, 2006
Lunes, 23 Octubre, 2006

I've made a huge mistake

He hecho un gran error.

One George Oscar Bluth's Segway is available on eBay. In case, you know, anybody has been thinking of buying me a present.

La Segway de uno George Oscar Bluth está disponible en eBay. Por si, sabéis, alguien ha estado pensando en comprandome un regalito.

In that same vein, in case you didn't know, Arrested Development's Franklin Delano Bluth is based on a real-life Sesame Street character, Roosevelt Franklin (that is a link to a wiki dedicated entirely to muppets). Roosevelt Franklin was a teacher, apparently, at Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School. He taught his inner-city students valuable life lessons. For instance, poison is baaaad newwwws. Also, Africa is awesome and worthy of rapping. I can't believe they took this guy off the air.

En esa misma línea, por si no sabéis, Franklin Delano Bluth de Arrested Development se basa en un personaje real de Barrio Sésamo, Roosevelt Franlin (ese es un link a un wiki dedicado completamente a los Muppets). Roosevelt Franklin era un profesor, aparentemente, de Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School. Daba lecciónes muy valiosas a sus estudiantes inner-city. Por ejemplo, el veneno es notiiiicias maaaalas. También, La África es increíble y merece ser rapeada. No puedo creer que ellos hayan echado este hombre.

This weekend has been pretty good, moderately strange, and felt kind of long. Kind of like Marie Antoinette. Jonathan and Sallie got married. I had a good night after the wedding. I talked to Chad and Shane for the first time in a while. Jeff and I were talking about the wedding, and ended up talking about Becky, and no less than ten minutes later I saw Becky for the first time in I don't know how long, at least a year. It was really good to see her.

Este fin de semana ha estado bastante bien, moderadamente extraño, y en cierto modo sentía largo. Casi como Marie Antoinette. Jonathon and Sallie se casaron. Tuve buen tiempo después del casamiento. Hube vuelto a hablar con Chad y Shane por primera vez en mucho tiempo. Jeff y yo estábamos hablando sobre el casamiento, y acabamos hablando sobre Becky, y no menos que diez minutos después hube vuelto a ver ella por la primera vez en no sé cuánto tiempo. Era muy bueno verla.

I met her man, too. He seemed nice. It was a kind of hilarious situation. KIND OF. In fact, everything that happened this weekend was.

Conocí a su hombre, también. Parecía simpático. Era una situación divertidísima. EN CIERTO MODO. De hecho, todo lo que pasó este fin era así.

It was a good weekend. I think.

Era un buen fin de semana. Yo pienso.

I've made a huge mistake

2006-10-23T00:53:00.000-04:00

One George Oscar Bluth's Segway is available on eBay. In case, you know, anybody has been thinking of buying me a present.

In that same vein, in case you didn't know, Arrested Development's Franklin Delano Bluth is based on a real-life Sesame Street character, Roosevelt Franklin (that is a link to a wiki dedicated entirely to muppets). Roosevelt Franklin was a teacher, apparently, at Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School. He taught his inner-city students valuable life lessons. For instance, poison is baaaad newwwws. Also, Africa is awesome and worthy of rapping. I can't believe they took this guy off the air.

This weekend has been pretty good, moderately strange, and felt kind of long. Kind of like Marie Antoinette. Jonathan and Sallie got married. I had a good night after the wedding. I talked to Chad and Shane for the first time in a while. Jeff and I were talking about the wedding, and ended up talking about Becky, and no less than ten minutes later I saw Becky for the first time in I don't know how long, at least a year. It was really good to see her.

I met her man, too. He seemed nice. It was a kind of hilarious situation. KIND OF. In fact, everything that happened this weekend was.

It was a good weekend. I think.

wtf is a troika?

2006-10-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

I've got the afternoon off (I'm working tonight), which is really weird. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Besides, you know, posting to a blog no one reads. And watching TV. I think I'm gonna go shopping.

The Maple Stave show was really great last night, so anybody who missed it is a big loser in my book. Imagine me doing the L thing with my thumb and forefinger on my forehead. That is how I demonstrate who is, in fact, a loser. So yeah, it was one of the best shows they've ever done, which makes me happy since their show last week was kind of a disaster. It was at Jo and Joe's, too, and I haven't been there in forever. We used to hang out there all the time when I worked at the Carolina. I should stop by there sometime.

I was thinking about going to Okkervil River at the Coffeehouse, but I ended up going home. John and Erin left after mplstv, and I do so hate going to those things alone. Oh well. Perhaps another time.

I also considered staying to punch A Rooster for the Masses in the face, 1)for having a moronic, self-aggrandizing band name, and 2) for having the following:
"Socially-conscious rhapsodies fused with danceable, disco-like grooves that work over an electronic/organic hybrid of beats, synths and guitar. A messy contradiction? Hardly. It’s the very crux of Rooster’s philosophy: people can think and shake their asses at the same time."
on their old web site.

If I'm horribly judgmental, but I can at least acknowledge it, that's a start, right? To being a good person, I mean. I dunno.

I'm kind of reading two books now, or, really, three, but I'll put a stop to that before too long. The Effect of Living Backwards, which is, in alternating chapters, very normal and very bizarre. Imagine random tales of shame and embarrassment mixed in with a narrative from a school(?)/prison(??)/concentration camp(???) for victims of terrorism designed by Hunter S. Thompson. Or something. I dunno. It's all right.

Also on the block is An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I haven't gotten very far in it, but I had it with me in the car the other day when I needed something to read, so I got 20 or 30 pages into it. It seems very conventional, so far, as opposed to Never Let Me Go, which at least hinted at the unusual things to come from the very first sentence.

Finally, still, I'm making my way through Gravity's Rainbow. I like it more than I did when I started it (which is to say that I like it at all). I really like the concept of it, but it feels at times that I'm putting more into it than I'm getting out of it. I'll definitely finish it, though. Heroes don't cut and run.

Speaking of which, Heroes is my new favorite TV show. Well, wait, that's not right. It's my favorite new TV show. Yeah. That's it. Hiro is a badass. Henry Gale is cooler. But Hiro's still cool. Yeah. I'm a nerd.

Rachel Ray makes me want to die

2006-10-11T08:14:00.000-04:00

Somebody gave her a talk show? WHO ARE THE AD WIZARDS THAT CAME UP WITH THIS ONE?

Anyways. I got to watch Rachel Ray try to make out with Morgan Freeman while cooking him dinner. Creepy.

I'm on my last day in DC, and we've gone a lot of places in the past two days. The Washington Monument, Vietnam wall, Lincoln Memorial, White House, some Smithsonians, the botanical gardens, and probably some other stuff. We somehow managed to get on this tour bus thingie without buying a ticket ($20 per person), which was pretty sweet.

I saw The Departed the other night, and it was really good. I'll probably end up seeing it again in a month or two. It had a really good cast, except for Vera Farmiga, who wasn't up to the level of the rest of them. She was better in Down to the Bone which, I guess, means she needs to play more junkies. Or something.

All right. I'm going to go do things. By which I mean holla at a continental breakfast.

No time for love, Docta Jones!

2006-09-30T01:46:00.000-04:00

Two kind of hilarious things have happened, at least in the realm of things I own breaking, and they are as follows:
1) My water heater is broken. I am getting used to cold showers. The dishes are piling up. Good news! Water heaters are relatively cheap. Bad news! The installation is expensive. Shall I become a plumber? Shall I learn to live with dirty dishes? STAY TUNED!!!
2) I just came home, and a glass of ice water on my desk formed a large (suspiciously large! I must investigate.) puddle of condensation. Playing around in said puddle, splashing, frolicking, what have you, was my mouse. My super fancy lasers shooting out of the bottom mouse. Now it has the shakes. I just kind of have to laugh at that. I might get a significantly less fancy mouse as a replacement. We'll see.

I had some other stuff I was going to post, but I'll probably do that later.

Later is now! The future is here. Et cetera.

We had a wacky day at work today because one of the breaker boxes upstairs was fucked up. We'll be down a theater until Tuesday. As it turns out, they don't sell three-phase industrial circuit breakers at Home Depot. LAME! It went okay, though. More adventures tomorrow.

I'm working on a song right now and I'm really happy with it. I'm kind of doing what I did with the last one, in that I'm trying to do something different from what I'd been doing so I can see how it turns out. I need to figure out how to synch my synth with my drum machine, though, because I had to eyeball it and it's a little off. I realized, though, that I should really just embrace the fact that I'm using a drum machine and not real drums. I don't forsee finding a drummer any time soon, especially since a)I'm not looking, and b)working with most other people terrifies me.

Which reminds me, I have fallen in love with Tapes 'n Tapes's (Tapes'?) "Just Drums". And I'm still obsessing over Joanna Newsom's Ys. But that doesn't have any drums. The new Beck album has drums, but it isn't that great.

I've got a few fun things planned this week, which is pretty unusual, honestly. I'm looking forward to it. Next week, my mom is on fall break. We're going to DC to do touristy things since she's never been there. It should be fun. I'll hopefully stop by IKEA on the way home.

Okay. Time for bed.

In this stanza, I rhyme "forgotten" with "Bin Laden"!

2006-09-11T11:35:00.000-04:00

On the way home this morning, I was passed by a speeding H2 that I can only assume was an army recruiting vehicle. GoArmy.com and other sorts of army-related advertising all over the place.

It's good to be reminded of what we're fighting for.

I got more than two hours of sleep. But less than three.

Holy Jesus it's late

2006-09-11T04:40:00.000-04:00

So I started reading my old site on the wayback machine about an hour ago and finished up what was there just now. It's really strange to see broad periods of life condensed into little tiny posts. I used to be really fucking happy. And even when I wasn't, I was pretty damn hopeful. Which reminds me of "Built Then Burnt". Anyways, I need to work to meet some new people. And maybe to reconnect with some old ones. I'll probably delete this in the morning. But reading myself writing was ever-so-strange.

I'll probably delete this in the morning.

God damn I'm tired.

It's a few hours short of five years since the bulk of civilization became irrevocably fucked.

I remember the confusion, as in "Why the fuck did you call me to tell me a plane crashed in to the World Trade Center?"

I remember being shocked when it happened again, seconds after I turned on the TV.

I became incredibly upset when I realized what would happen in terms of our country's retaliation. This was the day when the president moved from buffoon to something worse.

The Starlight Mints played the Cradle that night. They were coming from DC. The show started several hours late. About thirty people showed. Here's a picture. The flag's from the military surplus store across the street. The Comas opened.

A few days later, Kathryn told me she saw the RDU CLOSED sign on I40 and had to pull over to the side of the road because she'd started to cry.

I remember being certain that American anarchists did it, and I didn't know a goddamn thing about al Qaeda.

Anyways, it's September 11th. Go team.

Ship to shore

2006-08-30T14:55:00.000-04:00

I finally finished Cloud Atlas, and it's one of the best books I've ever read. The only problem I had with it, really, was that I disliked (somewhat) the third section, which was a detective story set in the 1970's. It was written in the style of a pop mystery novel of the time, which, while quite impressive to alongside the other period styles (1850's, 1930's, ~2300's, ~who-knows-maybe-2800's), just wasn't that great. It was important for the progression of the novel, but I just found some aspects irritating. Other than that, one of the best books I've ever read.

I'm now reading Liars and Saints, by Maile Melloy (sister of Colin) and it's great. It's the type totally trashy family gossip that I would probably read all the time if I were a middle-aged housewife. I'm really looking forward to reading her newer book as well. After that, probably another by Mitchell. After that, if I'm feeling masochistic, more of Gravity's Rainbow. Maybe.

The Science of Sleep is great, in case anybody hasn't seen it yet. Great as in, "it's great!" Not so much as in "This, truly, is a Great Film." Idlewild , on the other hand, was so bad it gave me cancer. I'm recovering nicely, thanks for asking.

Hey, it's one of THOSE things.

2006-08-11T11:00:00.000-04:00

Free beastiality!

2006-08-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

That's what it said on the front page of blogger where it lists random people's newest posts. I didn't click the link.

They say it's the things you don't do that you'll regret in life.

I just got back from three days of heaven and hell in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. I was flying solo, in full adventure mode. The original plan was to see two concerts in two days, but things got diverted slightly by it being hot as fuck in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, I stopped at my aunt's house to drop off my things. My aunt lives in suburban Virginia in the area where all the D.C. types live. Looking out over the sea of McMansions, a sense of dread overcame me like, well, a growing sense of dread. Okay, not really. But it's weird to look at all these houses which could hold several of mine with room to spare, and they all look the same. Some of them are differentiated by fancy brick or stone work on the front, but the sides and back are all siding. They don't have yards and I assume the inhabitants don't have souls. I didn't verify this for sure.

I make a quick visit, thanks for letting me stay, then went on in to town. I got to the venue, finding it the first time for once.* Got parked pretty far away, ten or eleven blocks, but I didn't want to go down the side streets because last time it was a pain to find the car. So I march to the venue in the 100 degree heat, happy as a clam at the prospect of seeing Sleater-Kinney for one final time. They're breaking up after the next few shows. Forever!

Fast forward past the opening band--The Rogers Sisters, not bad--and Goth Asshole #3 comes onstage. The transformers on the building are overheating. The fire marshall is shutting the venue down. Later, bitches!

Shock.

Awe.

Other emotions. There isn't a word for how it feels when you just spent another $3 on a bottle of water before getting sent home from a band's fourth-to-last ever show. There really should be.

People were pissed, we marched out. Son of bitch, give us our money back, I will eat your children, rabble rabble rabble. Scenester Girl #8 says they're fully booked for the next three or four days. No possible reschedule. Scenester Girl was wrong.

Web site in the morning: show's rescheduled. Thursday night. Hot damn. The only other night it's even possible for me to work it. Everything's okay. Hip hop hurray. Et cetera.

Wednesday night, Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band. Jesus Christ. So, so good. Easily one of the most powerful performances I have ever seen. Efrim Menuck has this gigantic Star of David tattoo like the one I got in that horrifying dream a month or so back. I was right up on the stage, which is something I don't normally go to the effort to do, but I'm glad I did it for this. The opener was Black Ox Orkestar, four-sevenths of SMZ doing Jewish music in a similar vein. They were pretty good...I mean, they're god's chosen people. They have to be good. Right?

Thursday was the rescheduled S-K show. This time, people got there early. I did, too. The line was two and a half blocks back by 7:00, and doors were at 7:30. I don't know if you know this, but 102 degrees is hot. Anyways. That's not important. I got inside and got a good spot towards the front of the balcony. The openers this time, two-thirds of French Toast, from D.C.--I'd seen them before. They sucked. But they were a band, and they were in town (well, two of them were), so they played.

Sleater-Kinney seriously rocked shit. They were good the last time I saw them, but a bunch of angry girls had pushed me into a corner and I couldn't really see anything. I had a perfect view this time, and I will swear on a stack of seven bibles that Carrie Brownstein's rockstar dance moves are the sexiest thing in the history of the planet. It was really good. They finished with "Sympathy" and "Dig Me Out", which was about as good as any way to do it. I was smiling.

When you're alone at shows, you notice all the other people who are alone. When it turns out they aren't, it's like a dagger in your heart. A tiny, tiny dagger.

I'm glad I went. I'm glad I'm home. I have more stories to tell, but this blog is ridiculously long.

More to come.

*Dear 9:30 Club web site,
I didn't know 14th Street was the same as US-1. Don't give directions to out-of-town folks to get off on 14th Street when the sign says US-1.
luv,
jon

Oh my pregnant head

2006-07-22T02:29:00.000-04:00

I've got a bastard of a migraine tonight, but I took all sorts of drugs and am now less migrainey and more caffeiney, which is better, but still weird.

Movies seen:
The Sketches of Frank Gehry: Fucking Y-A-W-N. Well, that's a bit harsh. But I liked it less than My Architect, which is saying a lot. Oh well. Didn't have high hopes.
Clerks II: Pleasantly surprised. The second trailer was funny, but I still didn't expect much out of it--especially after watching Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back the other night. Got off to a rough start, but about 30 minutes in it gets really funny and was good enough for me.
Lady in the Water: God help me, I liked this movie. I can even tell you, in great detail, a hundred things about this movie that sucked. But it doesn't matter. I just liked the movie. I don't know. I'm hypmotized by Bryce Dallas Howard, but it's more than that. Really.

I also saw trailers for The Prestige (omg), Children of Men (zomg), and The Fountain (zomfgomg). It's gonna be a good fall for movies.

I started back in on Cloud Atlas, which I liked, but I had forgotten to read it or something a while back. It's a pleasant diversion from Gravity's Rainbow, which, at this point, is like reading a factory (if that makes any sense). I'll get back to it once I'm done with Atlas, but I'm not into reading it right this instant. Oh, and there's a weird secondary character connection between Cloud Atlas and black swan green. How cute. Or something.

I haven't done any recording lately, but I've been messing around with programming synth parts on the computer on advice from Matt. He makes stuff with super simple software and it sounds great. I'm still learning a lot. I've made some random songs with it, but it's hard to finish them and to fit vocals with them, mainly because I don't know from music theory (, Brendan). Doing stuff on the guitar, or even the keyboard, makes a lot more sense to me in my caveman/outsider artist ways, but notes on the page/screen are a mystery to me. I'll work it out. Maybe. I've got some fragments of stuff, non-computer, in my head, but I've got to piece them together to make something of them. We'll see. It'll just take time.

Fucking time, man. Lame.

If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be blah blah blah

2006-07-10T21:45:00.000-04:00

On Saturday we went to see Belle and Sebastian, Broken Social Scene, and Ted Leo at the Merriweather Post Pavillion, one of those ridiculous, oversized clusterfucks of a venue. The traffic on the way was really bad, mainly because a disorderly automobile had decided to break down in the HOV lane or something. I don't know. Saturday traffic.

The show was rrrrrrrrrrealllly good. This gang of teenage jackasses kind of ruined Ted Leo, but whatever. I've seen him before, I'll see him again. They left to go hump him backstage or something after he went off. Broken Social scene was great. A lot of their songs kind of sound the same live (in a place like that, anyway), but I don't care. It was nice. Belle and Sebastian was so so good. I realized that Stuart Murdoch is the son of Michael McKean and Grand Moff Tarkin. Who knew? I also don't think I had realized the first bit of "Sukie in the Graveyard" was about handjobs. But I hadn't really listened to much of The Life Pursuit yet.

I kind of lost interest in blogging at just this moment. Maybe I'll finish it later.

Thoughts on being executed

2006-06-24T11:27:00.000-04:00

I just had a very real feeling dream in which I had become a person who had been accused of a crime years ago, if that makes any sense. I wasn't the person when it happened, but I was them in the present. He/I had been accused of murder ten or fifteen years ago, and for some reason it hadn't been that important to do anything about it. But these two people--I think they were Mormons--came to let me know they'd be deciding shortly what to do about it. It was apparent they were going to sentence me to death.

At first I thought the whole situation was kind of hilarious, but as time wore on, all my old friends came to see me and say goodbye. It was that that made me realize that I was going to die, and I got really scared. Somebody asked me if there was anything I thought we should do, and I wasn't really sure. I don't know what you do when you're about to die. I got really scared about going to hell, so I wanted a star of David tattooed on my chest. All they had was a Bic pen, so they held me down and stabbed me in the chest over and over to do the tattoo. That woke me up.

Stand and Deliver

2006-06-21T23:03:00.000-04:00

So this is kind of ridiculous, but by a weird course of events (Matt telling me there's a shitload of videos on Pitchfork), I have discovered a song that everybody in the world has probably already heard before. "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants. The video is ridiculous. It's wonderful. It kind of makes me want to walk around with a white stripe on my face. And here's where I'd say something dirty about Meg White if I weren't so goddamn classy.

I'm still progressing on this three pronged attack to improve my life, and it's going okay, I guess. It's no "six days and a girl in your face", but it's a start. It leaves me feeling like there isn't enough time in the world, though, and it makes me realize there's a lot I didn't do for a really long time that I should have been doing. I dunno. I guess it's rewarding. Or I guess it will be some day.

The final trade of Y: The Last Man came out a week or two ago, but I still haven't read it. I feel like I need to start over, at least at book four or three, to get a good heading before finishing it off. I've been reading a lot of other stuff, though, so I haven't had time.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston is really great, and I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who hasn't seen it. It's very sad, but not depressing, which is good. And it's kind of heartwarming, but not in that terrible way that makes you want to die like most things that are heartwarming are.

I'm going into what will be the seventh of at least twelve straight days of work, which is kind of killing me. Well, not killing me. Destroying my soul. Or something. The new guy is doing well, though, so I think I won't have to spend too much extra time at the theater this weekend. I might actually sleep on Tuesday.

Anything can happen.

Sweet Zombie Jesus

2006-06-10T02:54:00.000-04:00

So we opened A Prairie Home Companion today, the same day as the ℵ0-plex down the street. I was nervous as all hell, but it turns out they did almost exactly the same with it as we did. Whew. If we work really hard to sell this for the rest of the time we have it, we can do really well.

Thoughts on the film: the Altman-ness is great. The Keillor-icity.... well, I've never liked Garrison Keillor. I liked him in this movie a lot more than I do on his show. I would probably be far more neutral towards him if I felt there were ANYTHING listenable on the radio besides NPR.

I found myself going through the AM dial, except it wasn't a dial, it was a digital readout, last Saturday when APHC was on. I found this guy who, I think, is somewhat famous, Neil Boortz. Holy cow, what a jackass. He went on and on about how basketball needs a "21 foot rule", meaning that the sum height of each team's players on the floor at any given time cannot exceed 21 feet. Now, I'm no basketballetician, but that seems to me like it would put the average player height at about 4'2" or 4'3". Maybe my math has gone awry somewhere. Division can be pretty complicated.

I got back into reading this book about the Millenium Prize Problems, which is pretty neat. It really makes me wish I had kept at math and physics and whatnot. Someday, maybe. I dunno.

DeYarmond Edison is going to have a show on Sunday at Bickett. I'm excited. I haven't been to many shows lately, so this will be nice. I kind of want to see Tilly and the Wall, but I don't think I'd have anybody to go with. This might be the only thing I go to before the thing in Maryland and then Camera Obscura, which is on the same night as Six Organs of Admittance. Sorry crazy hippies, you lose to the Scottish. Again.

Okay, time for bed. And by "bed" I mean "watching videos until God-knows-when in the morning".

The Puffy Chair

2006-06-07T23:01:00.000-04:00

We had this tiny indie movie screening at the theater tonight for The Puffy Chair, and it was really great. Ultra low budget affair about a guy, his girlfriend, and his brother, and the cross country trip they take to aquire an ebayed recliner. "Transatlanticism" was in it towards the beginning, and I've been listening to the whole album again tonight. I had kind of forgotten about it.

Other movies this week:
Heaven: Krzysztof Kieslowski - being alive + Tom Tykwer = pretty damn good. I've owned this for about a year and just now watched it. Not as good as the Three Colors series, but pretty damn good.

Human Nature: Michel Gondry + Charlie Kauffman x man-monkey ^ ideopathic hirsutism = holy damn. I wish this movie were better. It certainly had its moments. I don't do well with goofy.

Brick: Damn. This movie is nearly perfect. See it. SEE IT. I'm going to watch it again tomorrow, I think.

I've been recording a fair amount lately, I suppose, which is a pretty good thing. I kind of know what I can do and I know what I can't do. This doesn't stop me from doing things I know I can't pull off, but at least it's an early warning system.

My spidey sense is tingling.

It wasn't the MOST depressing night of my life...

2006-05-28T02:26:00.000-04:00

...but it was top ten material.

Holy crap

2006-05-14T11:30:00.000-04:00

Gore 2008!

Party!

2006-05-14T01:47:00.000-04:00

I just saw what very well may be the best movie I've ever seen.

2006-05-10T00:53:00.000-04:00

The Science of Sleep. It was beautiful.

Bones, bones, brittle little bones

2006-04-28T23:37:00.000-04:00

Hard Candy seriously kicks ass. It kind of sucks, and it's definitely fucked up, but I would recommend it.

Also, the tiny tiny Altoids kick a little ass. They have these beautiful A's stamped into them. That sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

Black Swan Green was glorious, and I think the next time I have need to use a band name for something it will be Black Swan Green. I should snap that up on MySpace right now. If you're not the first to plagiarize something, you're just stealing.

Wes Anderson directed a TV commercial. It's everything you might hope it could be.

I watched National Treasure and kind of enjoyed it, which fills me with shame.

Nobody's selling U.S.! A Novel, which makes me sad. I'm going to Quail Ridge Books tomorrow before I holla at Amazon.

Party at my place May 29th.

I am finding more new music than I can handle listening to. It's glorious.

I've used "glorious" twice now in this blog post, thrice if you count this sentence. Time to pack it in. Later. I feel like there's more I have to say, but I can't think of anything.

This band

2006-04-19T23:33:00.000-04:00

kicks ass.

I'm thinking of having a party

2006-04-18T12:41:00.000-04:00

May 27th. It'll have been a year since I've been in this house, and I never had a housewarming party. Possible cookout? I'd have to get a grill. The concept of getting drunk in the afternoon and staying that way for 10 or so hours intrigues me.

More to come.

I've been doing yard work.

Holy Fuck!

2006-04-15T01:19:00.000-04:00

Jesus Christ this band was good. They opened for Wolf Parade, who were also good. But Holy Fuck stole the show. Perhaps.

I've been kind of busy lately, which is why I haven't been blogging. For the first time in a long time I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day, which is both a good and a bad thing. It's not that I have a whole lot going on, really, but between work, guitar, shows, and movies, I find myself wishing I had more time for a lot of stuff.

I went with Jeff to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs in DC last week. It was awesome. Blood on the Wall opened. They were good, but I won't go out of my way to see them again. We were next to the five frattiest dudes on the planet, and they kept shouting "RALEIGH!" and giving me high fives. So at least they were nice.

Brandy and I attempted to rock the fuck out the other day, but neither of us was very prepared and we were both kind of (really) nervous. I was, at least. It's possible she took my genuine modesty ("I'm really bad at guitar.") as false modesty ("....or am I?!?") and expected me to be a lot better. I don't know. I overestimated my ability to pick up a song on the fly. I do not posess this ability. I am learning some new songs, though, which is weird because I haven't done that in god knows how long. It'll be good for me if we keep up with it, but I still need to take lessons. I really need to take lessons. Brandy is fairly new to drumming, but she seems to be really into it and I bet she'll be downright decent sooner or later.

Last week was ungodly slow at the theater, but this week should pick up, I think. Let me holla at RenTrak for a minute...wtf, we haven't submitted. Well, judging by the performance of other theaters, we probably didn't do that great. Better than last week, I'd imagine. Nobody cares about this.

Hmm. I thought I'd have more to say, but I guess I really don't. Maybe next time I'll talk about the Jehova's witnesses. Or the crazy post card. I might do that tomorrow. Seacrest out.

Browsing your own high school on myspace is interesting

2006-03-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

For instance.

Also.

Also!

HAHAHAHAHA ALSO@

This is probably a bad idea

2006-03-29T01:39:00.000-05:00

But here's my new song. It's kinda rough. Kinda REAL rough. I could work on it for like a week more, and it would still, you know, have my voice on it. SO WHATEVER. I'M PUNK, BITCH.

le click

Basically you have to weigh the pros (accomplishing something (if one can say making songs is accomplishing something) ) and the cons (embarassment, ridicule, ostracization, cancer). So, yeah. YEAH.

p.s. if I were a fucking badass I would call myself Gnarls Barkley because that shit is HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

p.p.s. I got a shitload of new music to listen to yesterday. Maybe some of it will rock.

p.p.p.s.s. Inside Man is badass. I wish all mainstream film was this good.

p.p.s.p.sp.ssppppp. Later!

Words cannot describe how badly I want this

2006-03-28T19:19:00.000-05:00

It's hard out here for a robo-pimp

2006-03-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

So I've been trying to write some songs lately, and to be honest it's gone fucking terribly. I can't really make anything that doesn't sound the same as everything else and I can't come up with any lyrics had I music to accompany them.

So anyways, I sat down in my "recording room", which is what I call the room I threw all my music crap into and almost made it tidy (and by "almost" I mean "cords all over the place which will eventually cause my tripping and death"). I sat down and just made a fucking song. I don't know what was wrong with me before, trying to WRITE music. Who the fuck writes music? Musicians, probably. But I don't. So anyways, I just sat down and made a song, and wrote some stupid words about robots and whatever. It's out of my range so I don't feel bad for being off-key. I might put it on myspace if I end up polishing it.

Rock on.

Russians tinkle for Jesus?

2006-03-25T23:26:00.000-05:00

So I just walked out to the lobby to lock the doors, and I hear this tinkle tinkle tinkle sound at the counter. I turn around, and there's this girl, and she's holding a wind chime. She's talking to Shannon, and I just keep on moving. Gotta lock them doors.

I turn around, and the girl is right behind me. She's cute. (That's pertinent information, I guess). She hands me a piece of paper that's been laminated or something. What the fuck? "Hi! I am a missionary from Russia. I am here to collect donations for poverty and bloobity blah blah blah. Gimme money!" It was written by her, I guess, because it was on kids' paper. The kind with the really big lines, and the dotted line in the middle to tell you how far up halfway is.

Let me remind you, at this point, that she was carrying a HUGE FUCKING WIND CHIME. Don't forget that.

So anyways, I read her little paper, and I smiled and said "Sorry," and she kind of nodded and said something that was almost a word but wasn't. I felt kind of bad, seeing as she was Russian (or a liar), but she walked away. Tinkle tinkle tinkle!

It reminds me of the joke in that Kurt Vonnegut book. Ting-a-ling, you son of a bitch!

Don't you get it? You die in the game, you die in real life!

2006-03-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

Ahahahahaha I want to see that movie so bad. I think my good/bad double header this week will be Stay Alive with Inside Man (which I think will be good). I'll also probably see tonight, unless for some reason I succumb to external forces (marketing? peer pressure? dark wizards?) and watch Ask the Dust.

So after going to no shows for about a million years, I've been to three in the last week and I've really enjoyed it. First I saw Islands, which I covered in the last post. Sunday was Camera Obscura, which was darling, and the CD I made for the ride ended EXACTLY when I got home, which, well, I don't know what that means, but it was awesome. It was very crowded. I became very familiar with the hair care products of the people in front of me. And I had a good time. Last night was Maple Stave at the Wetlands Dancehall, which I had never been to. It seemed okay, but it wasn't very wet. Maple Stave was good. I've become somewhat deaf. Whatever.

I'm trying to start a movie related blog, which may or may not horribly suck, and I'll post a link to it if I ever do anyting with it. I probably won't.

I'm thinking about taking guitar lessons. I need to find a place where an adult can do that without seeing the 12 year old who comes in afterwards, because that would just be embarrasing. Like on Seinfeld when Kramer was taking a karate class. Except without beating up children.

Well, maybe with beating up children.

Caché (Hidden)

2006-03-17T01:58:00.002-05:00

This oddly chosen title (In French? In English? IN BOTH!) goes to a French film starring Daniel Autiel (who I insist I've seen in something, though IMDB begs to differ) and Juliette Binoche, who is sexy even though she's pretty old now. Also, I guess, she's a good actress. It's so hard to tell in another language. Or in Bee Season.

Anyways, I can't say much about this movie that won't give it away, but I can say that the real experience is thinking about the movie, and if that's what you're into then I'd highly recommend it. At the end of the movie a resounding WTF? filled the theater (from all four present), but about fifteen minutes later I really liked it. Yeah, I don't know. I think it was good.

I went to see Islands Sunday night. The show was really good. I mean, really, it wasn't, it wasn't great, but I had a good time. I've been weird about going to shows for a while, and it's kind of hard to get myself out the door, but I did it this time. Jeff even bailed on me right before the show, but I went by myself and had a good time. Met up with Grayson and his ladyfriend and saw some other peeps as well. Anne cut her hair, looks good, and I realize that sounds really stalkerish to write in a blog. Whatthefuckever. So, yeah, Islands were fun, if a bit ungoodsounding, and Metric was O.K., but not my cup of tea. The opening band was an 80's cover band that appeared to play no covers. Their major influences were leather jackets and Prince's haircut.

I got an HDTV. And HD cable. And an Xbox. I live in a wasteful country and deserve to die. But LOST looks sweeeet. Fuck you, hungry people!

Other movies of note:

Hustle & Flow: Terrence Howard is a jewel.

Crash: Terrence Howard is a jewel. Too bad he can't save this pile of simple-minded manipulative crap.

Manderlay: Jesus. Come on Lars, let's get some ice cream or something.

Ultraviolet: What if Equilibrium was WORSE? And PURPLE?

Block Party: Yaayaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy.

Night Watch: Surprisingly badass. Also--Russian!

My New Cell Phone: Not actually a movie. But it is fancy. God damn I am a consumeristic whore.

Demitri Martin: He doesn't have a movie. (Does he?!?) I missed him at NC State. But I read an interview with him in this month's

Believer: which I love

and he was really funny. He's 32. I thought he was 12.

The End: Or is it?

Movies this week

2006-02-02T15:04:00.000-05:00

In reverse order.

Transamerica. Very good. Funny, touching, all that stuff. Felicity Huffman didn't really pull the whole former male thing off, but it didn't matter. Also, I had a weird dream in which people turned into robots to facilitate the easy change of gender via modular parts. So that was weird.

Nine Lives. Good, but not really my thing. Out of the nine stories, I guess about six of them were good. A few of them bored or irritated me. I dunno. I think I was hoping for something coming together, but it was really just nine more or less unrelated shorts. I think I had it too built up.

Heights. It was okay. Nothing special. You can't expect me to feel much for a character who cheats on Elizabeth Banks.

Ocean's 12. Holy crap. Julia Roberts playing a character who, in the universe of the movie, exploits her "resemblance" to a famous actress named Julia Roberts to pull off a heist. I was a big fan of Ocean's 11. This one was crap.

Tonight I'm gonna watch Keane, although I have no interest in seeing it. Maybe it'll change my mind. I dunno.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend money on a guitar pedal. I shouldn't, but I'm going to. Because I'm fucking ROCK.

Movie #5

2006-01-27T01:12:00.000-05:00

It's like Mambo #5, but not horrible!

Steven Soderberg's Bubble. Short, real, and, yes, surprisingly not horrible. I mean, I like Soderberg and all, but I really hate the whole distribution thing Mark Cuban's doing with it. The son of a bitch. So, yeah, in summary: a very simple, real feeling movie. Beginner's Law and Order.

I'm tired.

Questonomony

2006-01-24T01:12:00.000-05:00

Week two of the whole movie watching thing was called off due to Netflix problems and existential crises. Week Two: The Return is going well, and I've seen two movies so far.

Brokeback Mountain. Hey, it's a movie. There's nothing special about it. There's nothing all that wrong with it, either, I guess. But there's nothing remarkable.

Underworld: Evolution. That shit was ridiculous. I mean, come on. Kate Beckinsdale making out with some guy that looks like Scott Stapp? I mean, COME ON.

Zinda. The bollywood remake of Oldboy. No, I'm not joking. This one doesn't count. I watched forty minutes before giving up on it. It wasn't bad, for an Indian flick. But it didn't come close to Oldboy.

Time for bed.

Salsa shark

2006-01-22T01:30:00.000-05:00

In the past week:

I was contacted by the lovely thetans of the Church of Scientology and told to give them my domain name, http://www.scientlology.com.
My dad came to stay with me. We have never had a good relationship. You could lightly describe the weekend as "taxing".
Months after my cat, Sgt. Grumbles, died of FIP, I find out that my other cat, Wheezy, has FIP and is going to die. I have been given antibiotics and prescription food to help her as she dies, which is basically like jumping as hard as you can to avoid dying in an airplane crash.
A part of my computer literally melted while I was not even using it, causing severe damage to the most expensive components.

I basically feel like I am under attack. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's just how I feel. I can't shake the feeling that something worse is on the way, but I can't imagine what. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It reminds me of Dante at the end of Clerks, the way he's bemoaning his whole existence. And then Randall calls him an asshole. And Randall is really what makes that movie worthwhile. Anyway.

That's weird

2006-01-15T03:13:00.000-05:00

I just watched Lucas (in my new quest to see five movies a week I haven't seen before). It was good. The girl in the movie, who was also in The Goonies, went on to write and direct a film called Bellyfruit, about pregnancy, which basically makes it the worst film title ever made.

Night before last I watched Shaolin Soccer, which I didn't really like. Parts were good, parts were terrible. I know a lot of people like it. A lot of people probably like liking it, if you catch my meaning.

The Octobers show last night was good. I ducked out before Nola and the other band because I was suffering from acute birthdayicitis. I'm cured now, though.

Wow, it's late.

My new year's resolution

2006-01-12T02:39:00.000-05:00

It totally even isn't. A new year's resolution, I mean. But I do intend to watch more movies.

Lame, right? Don't judge me.

My goal is to take in five new movies each and every week, as in five movies that I have never seen before. I'll go from Sunday to Monday, I guess.

Today I saw Hostel (yeesh) and The Island (yeesucks). I guess I'll do this thing Monday-Sunday, so I've got four days to watch three movies. I've got Blow Up on Netflix and a couple more on the way in the next couple of days. I might screen Nine Lives on Thursday, too. We'll see.

Week 1. 2 movies (so far).

Also, I went to the dentist today and am in sort of horrible pain. I took a shitload of otc painkillers, but all I had was excedrin, which has caffeine in it. I think I've had about the equivalent of four cups of coffee since this afternoon. WIDE AWAKE. Hey, that's a movie, isn't it?

Sweet Jesus

2005-12-31T10:44:00.000-05:00

So I got home from work at about two a.m. last night. That's fine. That's what I'm used to. I was up for an hour or two after I got home, too. What I'm saying is I was asleep. And then the doorbell rang.

Now, normally, and when I say normally I mean always, the doorbell this early means UPS or one of those guys. I just go back to sleep and go see later what bonanza of shipping I have received. But today, the doorbell rang and there was stomping. Lots and lots of tiny feet stomping.

After about two minutes, I decide to go open the door. Oh crap, pants. I should put on pants. So I do that, and then I open the door. Oh crap, the security alarm. Say hi to the women (two middle aged women, one with two small girls, the aforementioned stompers), go and answer the phone, tell the security people to please not send a SWAT team, there's just a mysterious group of ladies, no burglars or anything like that.

Back to the door. "What can I do for you?" Oh, right, the only reason anybody goes door to door anymore.

"Were you sleeping?!?" (holy crap, I'm the only person asleep on a Saturday at ten a.m.)

"Yeah, it's okay, I work late."

"Well, we were just feeling positive today, so we wanted to go around in the neighboorhood and share our positive message with our neighbors. Would you say you have a positive or a negative outlook on the future?"

"What? I don't know. I have no particular feelings on the future."

"Well, we have a positive outlook and we hope other people do too." (is this a religious thing or like a weird positivity whatever....what's going on?)

"We just think, with the earthquakes and the tsunami, and with how negative people are being these days, well, that it's not long before this world goes away and we live in a great new one in heaven. And that's exciting!"

"Yep."

"Well, anyway, here's a pamphlet. Look it over when you're not so sleepy! Byeeeee!"

Holy crap.

It's been a month

2005-12-30T03:20:00.000-05:00

Work = stress. Whatever happened to winter. I got presents. I've been lonely. I just started watching a movie I was unable to finish.

And that's about it.

Exhibitionists

2005-11-26T23:19:00.000-05:00

The act of performing in front of people is a strange one. I'm a pretty self conscious person, in my own way, so to get up on a stage in front of some amount of people to play bass for some sort of noise-rock outfit--Exxon's Shock and Awe!!?!??! in this case--was kind of weird. I kind of had the feeling at one or two points that it would be pretty okay if I would just disappear forever. Or at least until the set was over. This new guy was added on the day of the show, and while he was totally badass, you could tell by the way he wore a glove with a skeleton hand on it, he drank a bottle of orange flavoured fortified wine in about ten or fifteen minutes before the show. He switched with the drummer at one point, and although he's a great drummer, he kind of lost the beat going into the numerous and badass fills.

Not that technicality was what we were going for.

Anyways, it was a neat experience, and I'm glad I did it. Maybe I'll do it again in some number of years.

Speaking of which, November is National Solo Album Month. I found that out yesterday, and I was pretty much rarin' to go to crank one out before the Nov. 30 deadline. Alas, the web site didn't allow entries after Oct. 31, which I think is basically bullshit. Who says you have to use the whole month? I don't. So anyways, now that I can't sign up on a website that is completely meaningless, I have no interest in recording 29:09 of awesome. Oh well.

Maybe next week.

Starring Jim Carrey as The Cable Guy

2005-11-11T11:16:00.000-05:00

My cable's been on the fritz lately. My favorite channel, Cartoon Network, hadn't been showing up at all.

The cable guy comes out this morning and he sees my guitars. He starts talking about how he used to play guitar, and how the producer of The King Biscuit Flower Hour was like guiding his band, and they were going to be the next big thing. They were gonna go on tour with Stryper! Before the tour, they had to record a demo, and after months of practice they took a four day sabbatical (his word). When they came back to the studio, their gear was gone. All of it! Some motherfuckers stole it. And that was it for his music career. But now he fixes cable. And tells people about his hair band. Which is awesome.

Things I don't remember

2005-11-06T00:22:00.000-05:00

I have this horrible compulsion which causes me to correct people who mispronounce words whether it is polite to say so or not. That sort of implies that in some circumstances it IS polite, but, honestly, unless somebody's about to give a speech to the U.N., it's really unnecessary.

Anyways. If I have ever done that to you, kind reader, I'm sorry. I'd say I won't do it again, but we all know how that goes.

So last Friday I had a Halloween party (pictures of which can be found here). It was the first time a lot of people had been over to my house, and I think it was actually the first time ANYbody had been over to my house except for John and Chad and one or two other people. So I was really stressing out over it, but it went pretty well, except that at about 2:00 in the morning I realized that my cat was dying. I'm not going to go into the gruesome details, but I will say that I had known for about a month that he was going to die, that I'm glad he died fairly painlessly, and that I'm glad I was with him when it happened. Wheezy is still alive and kicking, and although I am nervous that she caught FIP from Sgt. Grumbles, I sort of know that it isn't very possible. So there's that.

All sorts of work stuff has had me stressed, too, so between that and the cat and the usual old stuff I've been in some pretty bad moods. Two quotent quotables from work tonight were "Don't talk to Jon, he's grumpy," and "What crawled up your ass and died?" So, yeah, I guess it was apparent I was in a bad mood. Whatever. People are forgiving, hopefully.

Ellen sent me a letter. Like, ON PAPER. I plan to write her back. I don't have a typwriter, though.

I want to study math again, so maybe I won't feel so stupid anymore. I'd like to learn a language, too, but that's pretty hard to do on my own. I still have these horrible anxiety-inducing dreams about being in classes that I don't know anything about because I never went to class, which is basically like real life was five years ago.

And speaking of five years ago, I do believe that Jessica the girlfriend of olden days of yore was mentioned on TWW in the "campus weirdos" thread. In a way it's embarrassing and in another way it makes me miss her. But not really. Life's complicated.

Seacrest out.

I haven't blogged in a long time.

2005-11-05T01:17:00.000-05:00

Yeah.

Thumbsucker

2005-10-07T02:07:00.000-04:00

Tonight we watched Thumbsucker. I really liked it. I would put it in my top three movies of the year, which is to say the three movies I liked this year. It was really really good. I'm going to listen to the Polyphonic Spree. Nobody else likes them, and that's not really true, but it sort of is.

It rained tonight, and it seemed so nice. I would like it to rain for 167 days. (Ideally.) A little less would be okay. But a little more would also be okay.

I'm really frustrated with some things and the way they are, and the biggest part is that dating is a club that I'm just not allowed in. It's this whole part of life, and I have nothing to do with it. I don't know what you're supposed to do instead. That's the way things are, I guess. People make choices. Or maybe they don't.

It's one of those moods.

Things that happen to me when I am asleep.

2005-10-03T10:16:00.000-04:00

There was a story in the news about a local man dying, trying to defend his home. We were in the northern part of the country, New England perhaps, in a big white house on the water. Ships were moving past, incredibly quick, one hundred, two hundred miles per hour on the water. They had cannons and they were shooting at us, the people of the town, and the shots came so quickly, so surely. I got a rifle, there were a few of them, but I picked one, old and beautiful, and I fired on the ships. All I did was stay in one place, and they knew where I was, and the cannon ball came right for me. I tried to jump, I tried to dodge, but moving was a trick, it was something that some people knew how to do but I was not one of them. I turned away slowly, it took such effort, and the blast hit me in the back and I bled through the front. It killed me, I realized, and that was what was always going to happen. Time was fluid, tricky, and I did it again and again. In different ways it happened, but again and again.

Later, something went wrong, we made someone angry, and the people in power, the people you don't want to mess with, framed me for murder. And then it was that thing where they've already framed you so you might as well kill somebody, make them feel it for what they did to you. It wasn't very nice.

And before, I was with a girl, and she was crying, and I made her feel better. That was the nicest dream of the night.

Things that come to mind when the dark meets the light. OR, why a song is never just a song.

2005-10-02T01:27:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since I've posted. There's an odd reason for that, I guess, which is as follows: it used to be that I would post to the blog on Friday and Saturday nights towards the end of work. But now, for whatever reason, Blogger destroys the router at work. I have no idea how. If you go to Blogger, the internet dies for 15 or 20 seconds. It's the damnedest thing.

So! What have I done in the past three or four weeks? I got some cats. There's a boy cat and a girl cat, and their names are Sgt. Grumbles and Wheezy, respectively. Their "square" names are Watson and Rosalind, meaning that those are the names I give to the vet and older relatives and such.

It's fun to have the cats, but it's killing my sleep. I spend about half the day, now, trying to sleep, that is if I have the time. But the kittens mainly sleep when I'm at work, and they're in Kill all Balls of Lint and Deadly Pieces of Paper mode when I'm home. I think they smoke PCP. That's a "gateway drug".

Work had gotten really slow, but on Friday it picked up. We've got this new movie, Proof, with lady-I'd-like-to-hold-hands-with #1, Gwyneth Paltrow. And Anthony Hopkins. And Jake Gyllenhaal. It's got pretty mixed reviews, but there's commercials for it on TV and that's all that pretty much matters.

Pretty Persuasion is my pick of the week, because it teaches you that teenage girls are hellish bitches, and that hellish bitchery is freaking hi-larious. And it has James Woods masturbating. Which, you know...that's a plus.

I went to Sufjan Stevens with Jeff on Sunday. It was good. They dressed like cheerleaders. Sufjan rocks. It would've been nice if he had touched on some of the more religious stuff, though, which is the material I really like.

On a related note, I'm reading American Gods, which is really really good. I hope to finish in the next day or two, so I'm taking suggestions for what to read next. Fantastic realism is a necessity. (For life.)

And so on and so on. Life rolls along.

The end.

Jonfen Fur

2005-09-02T21:53:00.000-04:00

I'm reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and it's really quite beautiful. I just finished Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. It's a book that will make you believe in God, and if it doesn't do that it will make you wish you did. Don't be fooled by the cover, the boat in the story is actually twenty-six feet long.

I got turned on to Mssr. Foer by a film entitled Everything Is Illuminated, which is a wonderful film. It's coming out in a few months, and I highly recommend that anybody who can see it does.

The new Sigur Ros is really good.

The new Broken Social Scene is really good.

The new Death Cab for Cutie is pretty good.

The new New Pornographers is pretty average.

But the new Broken Social scene is really really good.

And that's the end of my tale for today.

Cheerwhat?

2005-08-16T23:43:00.000-04:00

Chapel Hill has a touch of the North Wests about it. During our show we make comments about how much we love the local delicacy, Cheerwine soft drink-- a cherry/cinnamon-flavored soda with a fabled power to induce extreme sugar rushes. Almost as if on cue, two guys walk to the front of the stage through the audience carrying two large cases of the very drink of our desires, and we proceed to crack a few cans.

So Grayson and I got mentioned in Architecture in Helsinki's tour diary on Pitchfork, which I think is pretty sharp.

Somebody give me $550

2005-08-16T16:04:00.000-04:00

So I can buy this.

The Best of Youth

2005-08-12T06:39:00.000-04:00

We screened The Best of Youth tonight, which was cool because it's six hours long. We actually had four people stay, myself included, which is pretty hardcore. It ended at about 5:30.

The childrens are sleeping at the theater, so I've gotta stay here, too. I'd kinda like to go home. I'm not tired now, but I'm sure I would be gone the minute I hit the pillow. (or desk)

(which is what I'm about to do)

(on a pillow of tomatoes)

(and fresh peppers)

(provided by Brantley)

Another dream

2005-08-08T11:53:00.000-04:00

In a dream I was Nate Fisher, and I had just realized I had died. I walked around town to find people to talk to, but nobody was anywhere. It was frustrating to not know what to do. Nobody had told me what to do.

I thought maybe I should travel, so I went to the edge of town to find the highway. I could move pretty quickly, so it didn't take long to get out in the middle of nowhere. It was nighttime now, and I noticed there were these travelling blue lights. Light headlights with no cars, if I rose up from the earth I could see these pale lights racing in one direction, moving toward the same goal. I decided to follow them, to see what was up.

I got off the highway and followed them to a clearing, and I rose up to see the region they were all coming to. They were dense, now, millions of them at once, and they were all you could see for some ways around. They were flying, racing, into a forest, so I went after to join them.

There was a point where they all converged, where they seemed to disappear, but there was nothing there as far as I could tell. I started staring, fixating on the nothing these lights were so surely finding, trying to see what was really there.

It started slowly, as an orange circle revealed itself. Brighter than the sun, growing to a few feet in diameter, it seemed to draw me in ever so slightly. I looked into it, growing, and felt the most indescribable contentment I could ever imagine. It grew, and grew, and I moved closer, becoming overwhelmed with this feeling of happiness and peace. In a split second I realized that if I did this there was no going back. I lifted my head, almost falling backwards, releasing myself from the pull of the light. I sat down on a log and put my head in my hands.

July, July

2005-08-05T01:55:00.000-04:00

Me and You and Everyone We Know is one of the best movies I have ever seen. I told that to Shane and he said he hated it and that doesn't really surprise me but it doesn't phase me either. I think it's really beautiful. I really really do.

It got me thinking about what I'm going to do with my life, as silly as it sounds. I feel like it's pointless to have a job and work and get paid and whatever. I mean, even if you have a job that you like, and I do have a job that I like, even though I also hate it, kind of like a relationship that you know isn't going to last forever...you're past Tyrone Street...but it's still good for the time being...

I feel like a job, even if you like it, is just something you do, something you have to, because you need money to survive. I feel really overwhelmed to think that you have to do it for the rest of your life, until the day you die. It is frightening to think that that is what life is about.

Making things, I think, creating things, is something that makes life worthwhile. People who make things are people I admire and I little other purpose to life than to make things. I think that sounds crazy. Whatever. I really look up to people who find fulfillment in their own little creative outlet, be it art, music, whatever. Film. I feel like, or I hope that, I have an outlet like that, and I just haven't found it yet. I really hope so. I think a lot of people go through their life without anything like that. I hope I'm not one of those people.

What I'm saying is that it's a really good film.

w00t!

2005-07-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

Once again, we've broken a record at the theater. All the shows yesterday did comparably with the other independents in the area as well, which is really cool.

There's a girl on my staff, Carolyn, and she asked me if I'd mentioned her in my blog. I hadn't, I said, and I thought that would be the end of it. But tonight, Carolyn ate 25 Chicken McNuggets. In a row. So now, being the petite lady that she is, she has done something blogworthy. ENJOY IT.

Work work work worky work work is what I have done this past week. It's what I'm doing for two more days. But then I get a couple days off for the first time in two weeks. So that'll be awesome.

Hurray.

How to run a movie theater:

2005-07-26T19:55:00.000-04:00

"They ain't gonna come if we got suck movie."
-words of wisdom from the boss

Tips for moving to France (from a dream)

2005-07-24T11:18:00.000-04:00

1. Sign up for classes! I know this is hard to do, and finding a computer is extremely difficult, but if you do not sign up for classes in France you may not move to France. Upon locating a computer, you might find yourself confused. This is natural. Exert the utmost of willpower and concentration, and you can register online. I signed up for four history classes. Maybe.

2. Don't get lost! People get lost inside their homes EVERY DAY, but if you are in a hurry to leave for France it is would serve you to carry a map. You should move quickly, surely, so you reach the door before it changes.

3. Take your own car! Do not steal a car. If you steal a car to drive yourself to France, you might get nervous and wreck it several times per minute. This can cause problems because...

4. It's going to snow! Driving in the ice and the snow is very treacherous. Use caution or you will wreck your car even more than you were before.

5. And, finally....I don't know! I never got past number 4.

Hurray!

Doobie doobie dooooooooo

2005-07-24T01:08:00.000-04:00

Today was the busiest day yet at the theater, and it's all thanks to March of the Penguins. I'm gonna start a penguin factory, cuz people love them, apparently. Or a penguin-themed restaurant.

All we would serve is penguin.

I started writing a story, and remembered I'm really bad at writing. I started making a song, but my good amp is wonky. Arg. I TRY! I'll just ghetto COSM the guitar shit and get something together. I need to make something, I think. I need to earn my keep. My staying alive keep.

Van Helsing is a hell of a film and anybody who says different just doesn't appreciate the use of Frankenstein to animate a bunch of vampire babies or something. I dunno. It was crazy. I mean, clearly if you are going to harness the power of lightning to bring your vampire babies to life you have to have a previously animated horror in the circuit somewhere.

Clearly.

Brantley's fininto get out of town, so I'll be working every day this week. That forms a solid block starting this previous Thursday and ending a week from Monday. Yikes. Or maybe I'll play hooky. On the moon. Or something.

Yeah.

Bed.

OMG it's teh half blood prince!!1@

2005-07-17T03:20:00.000-04:00

Wow.

With regard to Harry Potter:

WOW.

Gangly awkward muse

2005-07-16T02:01:00.000-04:00

I just got inspired for a story, or maybe a book, that I've been thinking about for a while. A loose concept, I guess. A collection of imagery. We're talking loose.

I was at the Harry Potter thing, after work, and I saw this ridiculous awkward kid. And I was like "Oh, THAT'S what she looks like." One of the two characters in the story was at the Harry Potter presale. Metaphorically, I mean.

Anyways. I'm feeling like writing.

It's been a while.

Janitor Adventures!!!!!!!

2005-07-14T11:07:00.000-04:00

!!!!!

!!

!!!

Ahem. Exciting, isn't it? The ADVENTURE and WONDER of hiring and firing janitors? Let me tell you guys a little story.

We had this janitor, let's call him Frank. Because that's his name. Frank cleaned at the old theater, so I hired him for the new theater, because, well, it seemed like he owned several mops and brooms and such.

Speaking of janitors, I was just interrupted by the new janitor. I was mentioning that they wouldn't take my leatherman into the courthouse yesterday, and the janitor was like "In Jackson county they don't have metal detectors or anything." He then mentioned, ENTIRELY needlessly, that he had to go there because his wife's cousin raped somebody.

Tip for janitors: do not mention your family raping people in polite conversation. This tip brought to you by Emily fucking Post.

Anyways, Frank, he cleaned the theater with his wife and some other peeps. He did an okay job.

One day, his wife calls the theater and tells Eric that Frank is stealing the money and spending it instead of feeding her baby. Eric tells me, and I decide, despite being a damn liberal, that it's Frank's company and I don't give a shit what he does with the money. These people are married, and I guess they're having problems, like not feeding their baby (tip for janitors: feed your babies!), but if it doesn't relate to Windex or mopping I don't really give a shit.

So one day the janitor lady comes to the theater and one of the owners is here, and he gives her the check for the cleaning. And then Frank calls and tells us he didn't get his money, and that crazy lady (his words) that used to work for him is stealing his money. DRAMA!

My point is view is, and I think this goes without saying, how can you fire your wife? Is there a piece of legal software with a template for a combined firing/divorce? Can you slap the woman, too? Because, I mean, these things should come in threes.

Tip for janitors: if you don't want crazy ladies stealing your money, don't put their name on your company's account! They will steal it to feed the babies! omg!!!

The End.

So much violence!

2005-07-14T08:13:00.000-04:00

I just had two really violent dreams tonight, which is unusual. One ended with a guy on a bicycle throwing a bucket of flaming gasoline at me. I deflected it with a piece of cardboard. The second involved me stabbing two obese women, one with plastic chopsticks and the other with two butter knives. I did it to protect this girl I was with. I can't remember why.

God, I'm sleepy.

Boom.

2005-07-07T11:07:00.000-04:00

In hearing about these explosions in London, I really don't know what to feel. It saddens me to think that anybody would do something like this. It saddens me, too, to think that if this had happened in Iraq, or Israel, or wherever, it wouldn't be the only thing at the forefront of the news cycle. I just don't know.

They kept talking on the news about Islamic terrorists, which seems ridiculous to me, but it I guess that's who it was. I had assumed it was anarchists responding to the G8 summit in Edinburgh, but it looks like it's al Qaeda now. At least, one of their branches is claiming responsibility. I don't know what to think.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London and a man I greatly admire, said the following: "I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners." That's how I feel about it. That's how I feel about the whole thing. If you want to wage war with the powerful, do it. But these poor people have nothing to do with them. It just makes me sad.

33 people murdered, 300 or more injured. What a world.

So-oh many things

2005-06-24T01:37:00.000-04:00

So I'm thinking about things, a lot of different things, and I'm sure there is some nice way to organize these things I am thinking. Whatever, I don't give a shit.

I've become a very solitary person as I have very little use for friends. I see John on Mondays for Six Feet Under and other things, and I have fun little tv viewings with Chad from time to time, and that's about it. That's about all I need.
The other day I realized 1) that Anne doesn't see Becky anymore and hasn't for quite some time, and 2) that she, too, is having a really hard time dealing with it. It's kind of strange. I would attempt to console her except I'm pretty past it and don't really give a fuck. It's neat to know somebody's joined the old club, though. (All apologies to Anne, who is a downright sweetheart.)
Man, I am still incredibly uncomfortable being outside of my house when it's dark out. I need to take the trash out badly, and it goes out tomorrow, but I'm just gonna have to wait. I hope I get it before they come by. That shit isn't going out tonight.
The new Stephen Malkmus has quite grown on me. As have many many albums in these past few weeks. Odd. I guess.
I bought a video game, God of War. Everybody's already played it and everybody's already put the game down their pants. They say it's that good. It's got that Devil May Cry style of gameplay, which I quite enjoy from time to time. I'm trying to think of the first game in that genre, which, for lack of a better phrase, I shall coin the "3D action adventure game with twitch reflexes, button mashing, and moments that are Nintendo-hard: non-suck".
"Non-suck" is the sub-category. I think the first of these games might have been the PS1's Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. But there might have been more. And that might not neccessarily fit into the mold.
I'm still off the drugs, for better or for worse. I think I'm doing all right. We'll see how it goes.
Work, at times, is infuriating. Oh well. Such is life.

That's it for now, I guess, and I think it's been a sufficiently random selection. Best wishes to you and yours. Whatever that means. Later.

It'5

2005-06-18T02:04:00.000-04:00

Tonight I went to see Architecture and Helsinki, and they were great. I went with Grayson and Anne and Jackson and we had quite the fun time. Or, at least, I did.

At some point early in the show, the main singer (male) mentioned that they wanted to try Cheerwine. Cheerwine, for those of you who don't know, is a badass soda made by a North Carolina company that until recently hadn't existed anywhere else. I read a while ago that they have it in California now and it's sold as a premium beverage. It's cheap here.

So the band asks where they can get Cheerwine, and Grayson says "Let's go get them some." So we go to the gas station down the road, get two cases, and come back by the end of the next song. We gave it to the band and it was totally awesome. They took a Cheerwine break for a few minutes.

There's something about them that I really like, and it's something I don't get out of most music these days. It's an exhuberance and enthusiasm, I guess, but that's not all there is to it. It's hard to describe. I wish there were more bands like them. But then I might just be tired of that, instead.

I've gotta be at work in the morning at ten for a bit. I'll probably come home and sleep then. I'll at least try.

Autobliography

2005-06-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

I went to Ikea yesterday, and that was pretty fun. I took two trips in and out, catching a show of Batman Begins in between at the AMC down the road. The movie was fantastic. Really. The theater staff was not. Shock!

So I got a lot of stuff from Ikea but not nearly as much as I had planned on getting. I got some cd towers, shelves, a dining room table and four chairs, a bed frame, an ice tray for those big ice cubes they put in liquor in movies and stuff, a quilt cover, some coffee tables, and some other stuff. Two big things I had wanted to get but didn't were a tv stand and a stereo tower. I'll figure it out, though.

Coming home from Ikea was like driving with a very expensive and dangerous game of Jenga in the back seat. Boxes were poking me and a couple times I thought I would die. I didn't, though. So that's cool.

Tonight is the unpacking party, the napping party, the screening party, and the bedtime party. I'm like Eddie Murphy how often I party. HOLLA!