Sensual Tech Support

I found out about this ad for women to provide "sensual tech support" over on Something Positive. This is a weird way to start my day. Seventy-five cents a minute, huh? That's not bad money if you can keep 'em on the phone for a while.

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Listening to: See the Constellation from the album Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants

A Good Day For Bad News

So if you get home late and tired, don't check the news "just to get the headlines:"

• U.S. Base Attacked;11 Wounded - Guess the Iraqis are still angry about something
• Fumes From Texas Train Kill 3 - Train crashes, releases fumes that kill 3 people. From bad to worse.
• Cops: Ice Cream Man Raped Girl - Sick fucker raped a 9 year old girl, who is now pregnant, in his ice cream truck. Nice.
• Teens Kill 6 Puppies With Fireworks - Someone stuck fireworks into the mouths of puppies and exploded them. If there were any kind of justice in this world, the firecrackers would go into their mouths.
• Mobile Phones May Damage Sperm - Thank goodness, a story that doesn't affect me at all.

The moral here is go home, hide your head. Maybe the world will ignore you for a while. I need djam karet - the hour that stretches Hmm, need to re-read eidolons (from whence the hyperlinked passage comes) again.

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Listening to: All The Madmen from the album The Man Who Sold The World by David Bowie

And Another Thing...

I'm out of coffee. Damn it!

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Listening to: Beautiful Freak from the album Beautiful Freak by Eels

Hummingbird Mode

Well, not exactly. But very busy lately. Got up late Sunday (after having worked through most of the night). Worked a little Sunday. Had fun a Noelle's game night, though Team Girl proved unstoppable as usual. Read some Hellblazer. Worked most of yesterday and have a nice slate of work the rest of the week. Yay!

Milestoneses, we hates them!

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Listening to: Water Of Love from the album Dire Straits by Dire Straits

Mallrats

Mallrats was ok, not as good as some Kevin Smith's other movies (Clerks, Dogma, J&SBSB), but a nice break from screwing around with work (which kept me busy until sunrise). Next week is The Crow and you know I'm going to be there for that. Got to prepare for more work.

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Listening to: Pushit from the album Ænima by Tool

Foamy!

I added a link to Foamy in the sidebar for Aki. Check out the toons. Five more minutes is a classic. Cheesy-cheesy-creamy-cheesy-cheesy-cream-cheese!

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Listening to: Angel from the album Mezzanine by Massive Attack

TMBG Playing the Fillmore

They Might Be Giants will be playing the Fillmore August 14 in support of their soon to be released new album The Spine (out July 9). Who wants to go?

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Listening to: Skating from the album A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio

Quote of the Day

(Of Hoobastank's eponymous album) "This CD is so terrible, it makes Incubus look like Led Zeppelin." A-men, brother. Too bad I found out about this by seeing them in concert. Oh well, a least I got introduced to the interesting band Ozomatli.

I found this little gem over at Matt's CD A Day Project which I found in recent blogspot entries, since no one seems to be blogging today and I'm avoiding going into work.

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Listening to: STtP_new from the album Brian Koppi's Album by Brian Koppi

Jealous

I heard some new songs on MacJams last night and it made me really jealous. Songs like this and this and even the slide guitar in this cover of Love In Vain (though the vocals could be better). Just random folks with instruments and GarageBand.

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Listening to: System Failure from the album Tense by Tense

Napoleon Dynamite

Saw Napoleon Dynamite the other night with my friend Mike (E not H). I found it pretty funny. Napoleon is the nerdiest of nerds in high school.His clothes are dreadful and he runs around with his mouth open through the whole movie (and not in that dramatic Bruce Willis way). Most of the people in the movie are also spectacularly maladjusted in one way or another. I don't know if they are trying to make some kind of comment about Idaho or not. It seemed nice enough when I was there. The time is unclear to me because they referred to chat rooms at one point, but everyone seemed to be listening to 80s music. Napoleon lives in a fantasy world to cope with his crazy inadequacy. The movie's plot is a little weak, it just kind of drifts between moments in his life. One thing that annoyed me was the review I read in the Merc complained about the "Frito bandito" stereotype of Napoleon's friend Pedro. Uh, all of Napoleon's friends are kinda messed up, dumdum. Pedro just happens to be Mexican. Sheesh. Anyway, if you like odd comedies about weirdo outsiders (Rushmore comes to mind for some reason), I think you'll probably like ND.

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Listening to: Low from the album One By One by Foo Fighters

Midnight Movie Madness Is Back!

Midnight Movies are back at the Camera Cinemas. Tonight is Mallrats at the newly opened Camera 12 in downtown SJ. I plan on going to see it, if anyone else is interested.

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Listening to: Battle Of The Mounds from the album Conan The Barbarian Soundtrack by BASIL POLEDOURIS

More Notes From the Beginning Guitarist

Went to David and Nancy's in Redwood City last night and had dinner with them (note to self: Thai mint chicken is good, get that in future). It was really great to see them again. Haven't seen David in months and Nancy has gone on to better things at shutterfly, so no more impromptu lunches with her any more. :-( They both seem to be enjoying their respective gigs, so that made me happy to know. I got there kinda late because I was representing my peeps in the coretech band at their sweet gig Friday night.

(Side note: Work was actually tolerable Friday (sort of) given I didn't get in until late and left early (5pm) and there was a baby shower in between. Not that I got much work done, but that's another story.)

After dinner I went into David's recording studio (formerly their 2 (3?) car garage before the Great Remodel) which is now stuffed with gear. I learned a number of things:

• My hand position is pretty bad:
  • My left thumb needs to pinch the guitar more (with the flesh pressing along the neck, not the the thumb tip) to allow better rotation and put less stress on my wrists, instead of rolling over the top (except for barre chords) or pointing down the neck of the guitar.
  • I need to loosen up my stance on my picking hand, letting my ring finger and pinky drift onto the pick guard as needed.
• You can make different sounds (and I mean really different sounds) with the same chord pattern just by changing how you strum.(!) I was watching David strum some riffs and noticed his chording hand wasn't moving at all. Damn.
• Chords are based on mathematical relationships between the harmonics of the primary notes. What exactly this relationship is is not clear to me (got kinda lost) although I guess frequently (often?) they use the odd numbered sections (1-3-5-7) parts of the subdivided frequency (in triads - groups of three notes) in scales. Like I said, I got kinda lost in the details. I need to get a book on music theory or something, because it's all very mysterious to me.
• Guitars are strung to make these chord patterns easier to play physically (and it mostly works out).
• I need to get a metronome.
• Try playing sus chords (which differ from their related chords by 1 note) to learn how to be able to do transitions from chords. Also, get the muscle memory of where the chord patterns are so I can move between the chords without having to think about the hand position. (duh)
• Scales (chords?) are frequently arranged to create tension (dissonance) that we want to hear resolved (consonance).
• Pay attention to my practicing and I if I get sloppy with my hand position or the sound or the timing, stop and reexamine what I need to be doing. Do lots of fingering exercises to improve my strumming patterns, timing, and stretching.
• My guitar strap, despite my earlier claims to the contrary, can be lengthened. Dumbass.

Well, guess I should get to practicing some more. :-)

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Listening to: N.I.B. from the album We Sold Our Soul for Rock'n'Roll by Black Sabbath

I Should Brush the Cats More Frequently

Yeah, that's my 10" subwoofer behind it.

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Listening to: Under The Influence from the album Surrender by Chemical Brothers

Tension Head

Sometimes I feel like this. Today was one of those days. I feel like I'm roller skating uphill. Got a stomach full of bile, but I'm too tired to vent.

Good things:

• Had lunch with my friend Mike whom I don't get to see much lately
• Seeing some friends of mine in a band tomorrow and it'll be great. Great, you hear me?
• Going to see my friends David and Nancy this weekend (I think)

Bad things:

• Job is making me crazy
• Tired, so tired
• More, but I can't think very well right now. Maybe that's it.

Ok, must sleep now.

Fully Engaged

Noticed a smoky odor in the air on the way home tonight, which is peculiar for the summertime. As I was driving over 280 on Meridian, I noticed that one of the strip mall buildings on the left near Fruitdale (donut shop? tire store? who knows) was "fully engaged" as the fire fighting folk like to say. Several trucks there as the flames lit up the sky. Better there than my place.

Hotmail Boosts Storage

According to this story Hotmail is boosting the storage they offer to their free and paying customers. Any day now and Excite will get on the bandwagon. :-)

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Listening to: Even Better Than The Real Thing from the album Achtung Baby by U2

Tired and Crabby

Worked some sick amount of hours yesterday and felt totally disappointed at the end of the day with what I had accomplished. Didn't do anything fun when I got home. Oh, well, I did watch ATHF. Half hour of fun. Yay. Starting to feel the weight of things piling up on me. And I signed up for more! "Getting paid by the hour, getting paid by the hour, getting paid by the hour..."

Today will be better. It must.

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Listening to: Letter Read from the album Happenstance by Rachael Yamagata

A Sickness Has Come Over Me

Gui-tar fever, that is. I imagine this is probably quite tedious, but it's really weird how putting on an axe and watching Tom Kolb on the TV fuels my desire to learn more. Just the basics, I've seen, but I've so much to learn. Mmmm... minor chords. Power chords! Palm muting! Pentatonic scale! In the words of Mark Mothersbaugh, "How long can this go on?"

7 of 9: Ex-husband Took Me to Sex Clubs

Jeri-Lynn Ryan, the soon to be ex-wife of GOP candidate for Senate in Illinois claims in her divorce papers that her husband took her to sex clubs and asked her to have sex in front of other people at them. (She says she refused.) You may remember Ryan as the busty, spandex-clad 7 of 9 from Voyager. Here's a clue for you dude: if you are going to take your wife to a sex club you should probably: a) tell her about it in advance and b) make sure she's into it. Jackass. [article]

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Listening to: It's On The Rocks from the album Spend The Night by The Donnas

Tub Kitties

There's something cute about kitties in the tub. I will try and refrain from too many cat pix, honest.

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Listening to: Waydown from the album Happy Days by Catherine Wheel

Signs of Summer

You can tell summer's here...

Wake up

"I might vote for Kerry if he changed his position on gay marriage, so it would be illegal. You know?"
This is what I woke up hearing some woman saying on NPR this morning, in an article about how polarized the electorate is this year. I have to wonder: Lady, what personal stake do you have in gay marriage? You think you're in danger of losing your inheritance to your gay brother's "friend" if they could get married? People used to mind their own business where I come from.

Fairly Productive Day

Today was pretty productive, for a weekend, especially since I didn't really get going until the afternoon. I:

• got tickets for the Hives Show
• bought lots of new comics at the comics sale ( reading comics... go away)
• got some new clothes
• joined a gym at long last so I can burn off some of the winter fat that's been kicking around
• did some housework (not enough, but some)
• went for a brief jog at Almaden Lake
• got some badly needed groceries
• did some practicing on the guitar - There's a magical period of time where my fingers seem to go the right spot without spilling onto other strings, but rapidly they become fat, clumsy and slow. That period seems to be getting longer and longer, though. I can almost play two chords in a row.

Now it is late and I must sleep. So, to sleep, perchance to dream.

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Listening to: 10 Seconds Down from the album Escape From L.A. Soundtrack by Sugar Ray

Private Space Flight Just Around the Corner

Burt Rutan, the guy who first flew nonstop around the world in one go back in 1982 is currently working on making commercial space flight a reality. He's teamed up with Paul Allen (yeah, that Paul Allen) to form Scaled Composites, a company to build prototype spacecraft for suborbital flights. One of their prototypes, Spaceship One is set to fly today, perhaps in the first commercial manned space flight, over the Mojave Desert.



Looks kinda like the ship Steve Austin flew in the Six Million Dollar Man. Hopefully this one will work better for the test pilot than it did for Steve.

Space Review article
another article

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Listening to: Deus Ex Machina from the album Strange Cargo III by William Orbit

And This Is Why I Won't Fly Northworst

A pilot for Northwest airlines mistakenly landed a flight at Ellsworth Air Force Base, a few miles away from its intended destination, Rapid City Regional Airport. I guess a few miles difference doesn't matter much to them. [article]

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Listening to: 7minutes from the album COWBOY BEBOP O.S.T. FUTURE BLUES by シートベルツ

Beautiful APOD on Sunday 6/20

More info here.

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Listening to: Busy Child from the album Vegas by The Crystal Method

Hives, Anyone?

I've got tickets to see The Hives playing at the Fillmore on 8/1/04. I have one spare available currently. If you are interested in going, let me know.

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Listening to: So Much For The Afterglow from the album So Much For The Afterglow by Everclear

Comics Sale Downtown 6/20

Hijinx Comics is having a comics sale downtown at their third street location (upstairs from Iguana's Taqueria) on Third Street in SJ.

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Listening to: Vanishing from the album Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle

Sweet: Guitar Tab For Trogdor

I found this tab for Trogdor by Strong Bad. Don't know who Strong Bad is? Good lord, start here and check out the rest of homestar's web site. Good Jorb is also great. Man, the whole site is great. Go there. Love it.

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Listening to: Turn Around from the album Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants

Doctor Convinces Patient to Have Sex With Him, Then Bills Her Insurance

An Oregon doctor convinced a patient that having sex with her would "help her pelvic pain" and then billed Oregon's health plan for her "treatment" according to this article.

Hmm, I've got to remember that line. C'mon, baby, it's "treatment."

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Listening to: StarFuckers inc. from the album The Fragile (Right) by Nine Inch Nails

John Lee Hooker

Saw a biopic on TV tonight of the late, lamented John Lee Hooker. Damn, that man was an amazing bluesman. Far and away my favorite, I think. The way his fingers moved on the strings was mesmerizing.

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Listening to: Sugar from the album System of a Down by System of a Down

Amazing Lettuce

OMFG! This image below is not a photo. It was not rendered with Maya or something other 3D modeling software, it was done with Adobe Illustrator. That's vector art for those of you who are keeping track. Props go out to DaveMac, from whose site I snarfed the image below. There are more there, take a look.

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Listening to: I Don't Know Anything from the album Above by Mad Season

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Arrrrrrrrrgghhhhh!!!!!! Dick Cheney has evidently come out criticizing the press about their irresponsible reporting that the 9/11 commission found "no credible evidence" of an Iraq-al-Qaeda link and "no collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Osama.

Cheney: "What the commission says is they can't find evidence of that. We had one report, which is a famous report on the Czech intelligence service, and we've never been able to confirm or to knock it down."

This report he's speaking of has never been publicly released. And what he's basically saying is that this non-existent report cannot be proven or disproven, which is essentially proof of nothing.

Meanwhile, in a speech at the James Madison Institute (as reported in this article, Dick goes further talking about Saddam's long established ties with al Qaida. No elaboration.

Dick, if you know better than the 9/11 commision, then I challenge you to produce the body. You are not the Red Queen, words do not mean what you want them to mean.

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Listening to: COSMOS from the album COWBOY BEBOP O.S.T.1 by 菅野よう子

Bush Still Insists on Iraq-Al-Qaeda Connection

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Bush told reporters after a meeting with his Cabinet.

In the words of Jon Stewart: "Whaaaaaaa?" Does he think if he keeps saying it, it'll become true some day? Or (more likely) that people will start believing it? [article]

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Listening to: HYBRID RAINBOW from the album Fooly Cooly: (FLCL) OST 1 - Addict by The Pillows

Reagan Family Upset Over Campaign Ad

Evidently the Reagan family is somewhat upset about a new campaign ad where GWB is compared favorably with the Ronster. I don't know why anyone would be upset about using the image of a man whose body is not yet cold being used for political advantage. Maybe Nancy is still upset over the stem cell thing. [article]

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Listening to: ONE LIFE from the album Fooly Cooly: (FLCL) OST 1 - Addict by The Pillows

More Gender Equality - She-Pee Urinals

Now there will be more places for wimmins to pee at the Glastonbury Festival (in the UK, sorry) thanks to a stand up, female urinal, according to this article.

"Key to the arrangement is a special, anatomically shaped funnel to be handed out to each user." What, they aren't on a little chain attached to the urinal? Such luxury! I bet the toilet seats in the ladies room are clean too.

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Listening to: STALKER GOES TO BABYLON from the album Fooly Cooly: (FLCL) OST 1 - Addict by The Pillows

Fishy doings

My friend Manda (aka the Crazy Fish Lady) and her husband have put together a site dedicated to reviewing fish stores. If you are into fish, check it out.

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Listening to: Pushit from the album Ænima by Tool

Yay, My House Is Still Here

I saw a fire at work this afternoon. From watching the smoke rise from the office building where I work, I had some concern about my house, since the fire appeared to be in the same general location as my house. Fortunately, everything appears intact (never can tell with the kitties).

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Listening to: Strangers When We Meet from the album 1.Outside by David Bowie

Panda Boogie! Panda Boogie! (Get It On Now)

Chinese officials used instructional videos to show a born in captivity Panda how to mate and evidently it paid off, since the Panda in question is now preggers. Usually I find that it is more productive to have both partners watching the porn, otherwise, well, you know. [article]

E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A...

That's what you'd hear on my street tonight, wafting out on the (somewhat, for here) humid summer air. I'm surprised my neighbors haven't organized a lynching yet. They claim not to notice the freaky-deaky noises emitting from my house at 1 in the morning. I guess if they'll put up with ranchero music 12 hours a day, they probably won't complain about anything.

Chords are weird. Evidently you don't need to hit all the strings in a chord for it to still be a chord. This must be dominant notes my musician friends keep going on about. The other notes you strike in a chord are just flavoring. Some strings you never hit in a chord. From my guitar book, I recall the chords are organized somehow into chord families. G, C, and D go together in one family, E, A, and D (again, I think) got together in another family. I guess I am learning something.

Tonight I got:

• a computer program to teach you how to play the blues/rock
• a video by GIT alum Tom Kolb
• a slide

in my quest to get guitar learnin' into my head (and perhaps more importantly, my fingers) as quickly as I can. The slide sounds nice, but I am way far away from being able to use it. The Tom Kolb DVD, OTOH, looks much more useful. The book I have been using so far is kinda slow for me to figure out how to use (read: I have a hard time using it to learn because I am an unfocused dingus), whereas the video is at the other end of the spectrum:

Ok, these are the six strings e-B-G-D-A-E, this is an E chord, this is an A chord, strum 4 E, 4 A, good, now strum 2 down (this is where I think the partial chord stuff snuck in) then 1 then pause and repeat, now do that in E twice then switch to A twice, good, but I want to quickly show you D...

And so it went, spiraling out of my control rapidly (he went from E-A-D-G-B-F in like 5 minutes), until I paused the DVD, went back to the little booklet to look at the chord diagrams.

E...E...E-E-E-E (pause, adjust fingers) A (sorta, let's move those fingers a little more and press harder)... A...A-A-A-A (pause) E. E. E-E-E (stop to adjust finger position to stop buzzing noise), etc, etc, etc. At the end I had the pause down to 1-2 seconds. I needs me a lot of work. But, supposedly with E, A, and D I can do a bunch o' songs. We'll see.

Oh, they had free kittens at Guitar Showcase for some reason. Very cute. Guitar kitties (maybe they'll end up like these kittens someday). Not like mine, who don't seem to like my playing. But I guess I can't blame them.

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Listening to: World In My Eyes from the album Violator by Depeche Mode

I Go To Pieces

I must be getting old or something, my body feels like such a mess. Back aches, pains in the arms, elbows and wrists, weird crunchy things in my neck (I know that muscle in my neck isn't supposed to move like that). Maybe it's just from being out of shape and doing weird things with the axe. I would shrug, but that would hurt. Although my plan to live forever has worked so far, I am wondering about its long term efficacy. Wah. And being part of the Cat Highway isn't helping.

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Listening to: Jeannie's Diary from the album Daisies Of The Galaxy by Eels

Cassini Arrives At Saturn

The Cassini probe has entered the outer reaches of Saturn's moons, passing by Phoebe on June 11. Here's a close up shot:



I love NASA mission stories. <sigh>

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Listening to: Time to know-Be waltz from the album COWBOY BEBOP O.S.T. FUTURE BLUES by シートベルツ

Thank You GMail!

Not because I especially want another e-mail account, but Yahoo decided to up my quota to 100 freakin MB, which should last me another 20 years at my current rate of consumption. I guess I could get a GMail account (blogger seems really hot to get rid of them), but it doesn't really seem necessary.

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Listening to: Deep from the album songs in the key of X by Danzig

They Are Dogs...

This is what I woke up hearing on the radio this morning. I sure hope this story turns out to be overblown, although I fear it won't be. Most of the people picked up and dumped into this foul shithole were later released because it turns out, they hadn't done anything. (If the news stories are to be believed.) I do enjoy the picture of Bush (or is that Rumsfeld?) stepping into a cell, however. Seems oddly... appropriate.



Edit: The BBC alt tag seems to indicate that it's Wolfowitz, although it doesn't look like him to me.

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Listening to: Wake Up (It's 1984) from the album Skeletons in the Closet - The Best of Oingo Boingo by Oingo Boingo

Ok, I'm Out

I've been home over three whole hours (man, that sounds pathetic when I read that) and have done almost nothing of note other than... blogging. Changed the sidebar a little bit, added a suitably Lovecraftian image, commented on some other people's blogs. Woo hoo, what an evening. No practicing tonight, wrists and elbows are still a bit sore and I'm really too tired to do much of anything.

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Listening to: After The Flesh from the album The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult

Wah, My Base Station Is Sick

My poor widdle graphite Apple Base Station is sick, very sick. It is extremely annoying to have to wait until it shakes off the fit it seems to get about every 15 seconds to get my internet access back. I'm thinking about getting an Airport Express as a replacement, if it can work as an 802.11g base station (I find their specs a little confusing, sometimes it looks like it can act independently of any other access points, other times they imply you need another access point).

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Listening to: Anvil Of Crom from the album Conan The Barbarian Soundtrack by BASIL POLEDOURIS

Low

Couldn't post this directly on my friend's blog comments, so I'll stick the link here directly: Cracker's Low

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Listening to: Because I Got High from the album The Good Times by Afroman

Systems Status Report

Ugh, what a weekend. I wanted to get a lot of stuff done, but mostly I rested. A lot. I've been burniing the candle at both ends (and looking at the clock, I'm not sure things are getting better) so I've been pretty exhausted for the past couple of weeks now. Anyway, game night at Noelle's was fun as usual. Carl cooked up some yummy steak and chicken and Apples to Apples and Settlers of the Stone Age were suitably entertaining. Annnnnnyway, I need to get to bed cause I am tired again and that's no way to start the week. Oh, and my wrists are a little less sore now. Ok, ending blather.

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Listening to: N.I.B. from the album We Sold Our Soul for Rock'n'Roll by Black Sabbath

What a weird set of friends I have

So, after having added links to my friends blogs, I have come to the conclusion that I have a really strange set of friends. I guess this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, since my tastes in music to art to books to movies run the gamut. Maybe in the words of Rodney King we can all get along. This is cheering news in these times where it seems like people are increasingly at odds with each other politically, at least in here in the United States of 'merica. I guess my core beliefs let me associate with anyone who isn't an obvious asshole.

Oh, wait, I'm a civil libertarian, that probably explains it best.

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Listening to: Go With The Flow from the album Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age

New Template

This needs a bit of work, but it looks better than before.

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Listening to: The Great Below from the album The Fragile (left) by Nine Inch Nails

Testing, testing

Trying out a blog client ecto which promises the ability to locally save blog entries and has a cool print what I'm listening to on iTunes feature. :-) I think I may even have it configured right now.

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Listening to: Fire In The Hole from the album Escape From L.A. Soundtrack by Orange 9mm

Progress Changing to Thunder

&rarr
So, here it is, the first post of my first blog. I am not entirely sure why I have embarked on this course at this time, but it's something that's been building in me for a while. Consulting the online I Ching (on a whim), my reading was Progress changing to Thunder. Not entirely sure if that's positive or not, but it has pleasing sound to it. Anyway, life has been in flux for me of late (more so than usual). So we'll see how this blog thing goes.