Friday, December 27, 2002

Deutchland

Been awake now for a long time, but actual, factual data on that will require subtraction, something I’m not yet in the mood for…1:15 PM EST, so I’ve been up for 27.25 hours. There. Writing this on a train from Bielefield (sp?) to Berlin with a broken dinner tray—excuse the poorer handwriting. The flight in got a little bumpy but overall it was great—even got a free continental breakfast! It was plenty better than that reheated chicken hide or whatever for dessert. Anyway, Deusseldorf International is awful quiet at 7 AM. Haven’t seen the sun yet; maybe I will in the morning. Ed Jr. has confused everyone by doing errands while he tries to show us around the place. We went to the bank like 4 times today, for example. And speaking of the bank, and of subtraction, my debit card does not work here; dangit. We were able to go to the bank and get 100 bucks out of a credit card but we tried to pay for a hotel with it and it got denied. Don’t know what that means, exactly; will have to make a few meaningless phone calls. Since I can barely keep conscience [sic] I better go before I go comatose.

Thursday, December 26, 2002

$7 for a battery? A battery? This trip is already expensive. I wonder how many surcharges my credit card will tack on when I’m buying waffles in Belgium. Anyho, the trip will start in about 1 hour when I start taking my Dramamine. Actually, it’s the generic, Wal-Mart Dramamine that comes in packs of 100, instead of 8. 8? I’ve got more traveling than that to do! H*ck, I was feeling a little queasy on the ride here…So in this next hour I have to find something to do:

1) The Landmark Bar, right across the hall. Dressed up in that Art Decoish, Frank Lloyd Wrightish stuff. I feel like getting’ me a sandwich.

2) GAMEBOY ADVANCE! Just got it for Christmas yesterday. Now I bought 3 more games on the way here! There is no way I’m going to have a boring flight, not with Donkey Kong, Tony Hawk and good ol’ Gradius to keep me company. And sure, I could talk to Joe as well, but Joe is, well, kind of a tool. Good thing I bought lots of batteries.
CD: Weezer, compilation CD

This is it, and yes, Jeff, I'm writing a weblog a day ahead again. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Europe for two weeks and I assuming I die on the way there you'll at least get to look at this and think I had some divine intuition about the whole think. It's been snowing for two days straight anyway, so maybe a plane crash isn't such a far-off idea. But if I'm going to go put myself at risk of death, I'm hoping it'll be while saving my fellow Americans from a crazed terrorist. I've already planned out that if there's a terrorist on board, I'm going to beat him up (to put it mildly). I'm gonna get all Delta Force on him. On the upside, I'll become a hero to America, and make everyone feel better about this great land of ours. On the downside, my friend Joe will probably be next to me on the plane, sleeping the whole time, and I'll have to explain to him the whole story about how I became an American hero while he snoozed AGAIN during a trip. Alas. So anyway, I'll try to write a trip journal and post it up here when I get back. You'll probably see some pictures as well; have a Happy New Year. (I'll be under the Eiffel Tower when the clock strikes 12:00.)

"This one's for the Constitution! This one's for freedom! And this one's for your friends!" --Me, during the dramatic scene from the future movie depicting me whacking the thwarted terrorist assailant unconscious with his own gun.

Wednesday, December 25, 2002

CD: Jimi Hendrix, "Merry Christmas And Happy New Year"

I got a Game Boy! My brother is getting stranger all the time: first, he never has any money, second, he's the only person that bought anyone any Christmas presents this year. He must have collaborated with Dad or Santa Claus or Colin Powell or someone. These aren't cheapo gifts, either; we're talking a Game Boy for me, and a DVD player for Dad, etc., etc. Though I'm happy as h*ck to finally get that Game Boy Advance--I thought this day would never come! I can play Tetris anywhere!--I just had to ask my brother what was up. After watching so many Christmas specials in my life, and going to too many O. Henry plays, it couldn't be true, you know? "So Tim," I asked humbly, "tell me the truth: how long did you have to sell drugs to get all this stuff?" Tim just laughed. Which could mean anything... And Mom got a big candle!

"Before you think of Eminem as the baddest rapper of all time, remember he lived with his mom until he was 26." --Eminem's Mom

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

CD: Beatles, "Past Masters Volume 2"

Rock and roll! Tonight's Christmas Eve service was part revival, part talk show, part Osbournes. Our church is one of the ones with a Praise Band and a big computer projector that can broadcast PowerPoint. Combine this with some decent, practiced segwaying and a few hundred people with candles, and guess what: pyrotechnics. With each song, the lights went down or up depending on the mood. "Everybody get up and let's...!" started a number of songs. During the big finale, the great rock ballad "Silent Night" was sung along to with the Methodist equivalent of lighters. My brother, who avoids church depending on the decade, participated louder than everyone else, clapping louder, singing louder, getting really psyched. "Yeah!" he said to the family sitting in front of him as the lights came down. "Are you ready to rock?!" Ooh, and I love when they do the medley of hits from their Christmas album!

"I haven't been here in years! Whoa, that guy's old now!" --my brother

Monday, December 23, 2002

CD: Grateful Dead, "Terrapin Station"

Nobody in my family is getting any other member of my family anything for Christmas. Finally, after years of half-hearted giving, we have given up. Well, almost. We may share a dinner or something. And though we don't even have a tree up, we have already watched more Christmas specials on TV this year. I am going to Europe the day after Christmas, so I promised to "bring back stuff;" these poor substitutes for Christmas presents will probably come in the form of mugs and trinkets like miniature Eiffel Towers or little pieces of cheese with the word "Geneva" on it. I dunno. But we told our father about the Greatest Gift of All--a new shower stall for the bathroom--that would suffice as an all-encompassing gift substitute. We went to Home Depot and looked around. So I guess what I really want for Christmas involves plumbing and grout. For some reason, there aren't many Christmas sales at Home Depot....

"I DON'T KNOW WHICH WAY!! WHY ARE YOU GETTING UPSET AT ME?!!" --according to Dawn, a somewhat paranoid taxi driver

Sunday, December 22, 2002

CD: Jimi Hendrix Experience, "BBC Sessions"

There isn't much to do here. I've already spent like two hours on the internet, and I've played pinball on the off-hours. Remember "3-D Space Pinball" from your Windows 95 disk? It's still on Windows XP! What a great game. I got to something like six million points today, which is probably my third-best of all time, even when I was using it on Windows 98. It's so dead over here that I've started doing homework for next semester, and am about a hundred pages ahead so far. Mmm...Historical Research Methodology. Just saying it makes one feel envigorated. Besides that, well, I found some chocolate, and opened up a few letters. Three checks came in the mail, woohoo! I guess I could organize my "To Be Filed" file folder, or just go to bed and get that full six hours of sleep. Goodness, I have a pathetic life. Even on my time off work I find ways to suck life out of things. Hey, where'd I put my stampbook?

"Congratulations, you are a complete nerd." --the results of my online Test of Geographic Knowledge

Friday, December 20, 2002

CD: Mexican Cession, "Full Color Bitch Slap Attack"

Since school is out and the work has been slow, I've decided to do some spring cleaning early. No one helps. Nevertheless, I pick up other peoples' messes, some of which have been lying around for years. Last night's goal was to be the room just above the stairs, which has unofficially become "storage;" a.k.a. "there's no room to walk in that room." My problem with cleaning, however, is that I'm the worst person to do it. I get so allergic to flying particles of who-knows-what that I go through about fifty Kleenex in an afternoon. Last night, I went to that room above the stairs and turned on the lights. I immediately started hacking, sneezing, and swelling around the eyes. Dang. Twenty-four hours later and I want to jump back in the trenches. This is the part of the movie when one of my platoon buddies goes "But you'll never make it! It's a suicide mission!" and I'll say something in return, like "I've got to avenge my father's death" or something corny like that. Mmm, corn. Maybe I'll eat first; I'm hungry.


"Virgo: (Aug. 23—Sept. 22) Certain shortcomings in your education and upbringing cause you to read meaning into the relationships among various celestial bodies." --The Onion

Thursday, December 19, 2002

CD: Foo Fighters, "One By One"

Son of a gun. I was going to write about Morning Hair. You know, when you wake up in the morning and your hair is about ten feet up to one side. Today mine was especially cool, as twelve hours of sleep pushed everything to the left side of my head, leaving a monstrous apex about two-thirds of the way over. It was magnificent. I had also gotten a haircut two days ago, so instead of a Rocky Mountain of hair it was more like an Appalachian Mountain of hair. It looked like a Mohawk, like the one Eddie Vedder has been sporting lately. But, NO! I can't write about my hair. Joe beat me to it! What with his new haircut and his Dave Grohl stylist and it's only a coincidence that I was listening to the Foo Fighters last night, it really was! Now no one will believe me; I'm just ripping of Joe's weblog. Son of a gun. Son of a gun.

"It used to be, we couldn't wear sunglasses during an interview; no, no, that would be so rude. But now we realize: it's not that you're wearing sunglasses during an interview that's important, it's what KIND of sunglasses you're wearing during an interview." --U2's The Edge on humility

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

CD: Meat Puppets, "Meat Puppets II" [enhanced rerelease]

Did you know I'm Spider-Man? Not even I knew my secret identity. During the course of the average day as a substitute teacher, I am inundated by numerous odd questions such as "Do we have to do this?", "Are you married/How old are you?", and my personal favorite, "Are you a REAL teacher?" But most of all, the kids love the fun of celebrity look-a-likes. Keanu Reeves I've heard before. Excellent. Recently I've also heard I look like Jim Carrey, and since Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey don't look anything alike I have no idea what's going through their developing minds. But last week I heard that I looked like Spider-Man. They later clarified that I look like Tobey Maguire, the guy that played Spider-Man in the movie. Whew. That makes much more sense than what I was thinking. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "The Tobey Maguire before he got bit in the lab, or after?" I think I already knew the answer. Everyone puts on a few pounds in the wintertime...

Sign outside a Dodge dealership in Clarence, New York: "THE BOSS TOLD ME TO CHANGE THE SIGN, SO I DID!"

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

CD: BS 2000, "Simply Mortified"

I am astounded by the quality of parking at the American Automobile Association. Really. First, entering the lot is easy. It's right out in front, and the parking lot has several enterances and exits. The spots are very big, and the lot is also full of large trees making for an almost uncorrupted canopy. There are so many trees around the cars, in fact, that you can barely see the building. How wonderfully car-centric. I think it's good to see an organization that is so dedicated to their line of work...That is, compared to the American Legion, which has its own bar. Would AAA have a bar? I don't think so! I think they have better things to do. Anyway, they're high-class enough to serve champagne instead. Did the troops drink Budweiser as they attacked Pearl Harbor? I don't think so!

"SHITFUCKDOPEAINTCOOLCRACKASSDANG!" --Jeff

Monday, December 16, 2002

CD: B.B. King and Eric Clapton, “Riding With The King”

DIVINE INTERVENTION OF THE YEAR POST

Someone asked me to go to their church on Sunday night. I told them thank you for asking, but because of work I would miss a good part of the service. Also, I had a radio show that night at three in the morning; I couldn’t do all three things. So I said I’d visit another time when I’m not working weekends anymore. Instead, I went home and set the alarm for 1 AM to get up and be a DJ. Meanwhile, while I slept the snowstorm moved in. They said it’d be something like six inches that night, but why think about something you’re going to miss most of?

So here’s something people like me have to learn about snowstorms in Buffalo: there is an army of men and trucks that get rid of the snow, but they don’t start until about four in the morning. People that want to be somewhere at three, shouldn’t. After getting several inches of snow and freezing rain off my car I set out at 2 AM. Visibility was low and the roads were vacant of travelers. Somewhere outside of Millgrove on Genesee, I lost control of my car, slid to the left and rammed into someone’s mailbox. I never did find the mailbox. Anyway, my car only suffered two small scratches and wasn’t stuck, so I got back in the car and kept going. (I wondered, should I leave a note? And then I realized: where was I going to put it, in their mailbox?)

About three miles later on Genesee, a little past Ransom Road going towards Buffalo, my wheels got caught. I started skidding again, and this time spinning as well. As the scenery spun around I saw an oncoming truck, an awfully close, reinforced road sign (the kind with two metal posts, not one), then my own skid marks, and then the snowbank stopped me. I thought, “Huh.” The truck that saw it happen stopped, and he had a cell phone; I called my father to say I ran off the road, that I’d probably be all right but that he might want to come down just in case. As the guy drove off I then I got out of the car to look at the damage. There was none. None. Underneath my back passenger tire, however...another mailbox. I propped it up against the reinforced road sign and pulled out my shovel.

I was able to dig myself out quite easily and it wasn’t hard to decide I was going to turn around and go back home–the car was already pointed in that direction anyway, so the car decided for me. I waited half an hour for my father, then decided he was either going 22 miles an hour or got into an accident myself. Of course, one minute later he came down the road the opposite direction from me. And, of course, he didn’t notice me. That meant I had to go follow him, hazard lights blinking and horn honking. I caught up to him and he still didn’t notice me. Eventually I had to try and pass him in zero visibility to get his attention and make him turn around. I caught him another two or three miles down from where I hit the second mailbox. By now it was 4:30 in the morning, and the snow plows had passed by me, clearing my way home.

So in retrospect, here’s what happened: I got in two accidents with little more than a scratch. The only other person on the road in twenty minutes just happened to see my last accident and also happened to have a phone the second I needed it. If I had spun off the road two seconds before I did, I would have hit a sign that could of done serious damage to my car; five seconds later, and I would have hit the truck that helped me. And when I finally got a hold of my dad to end my little adventure, where was I? Right across the street from the entrance to the LoveJoy Gospel Church, where I was asked to attend just hours before. Coincidence? And the CD that just happened to be in my rotation on the ride back? The one listed above: B.B. King and Eric Clapton’s “Riding With The King.” The King of Kings, folks; ‘tis the season!


F: “Jerry?”
J: “Yeah.”
F: “Um, I’m here on Genesee. I, uh, I’m off the road.”
J: “GREAT.”

Sunday, December 15, 2002

CD: Johnny Cash, "Orange Blossom Special"

Christmas is coming, and I've finally solved the great Christmas mystery. No, it's not where Baby Jesus was born, or how Santa gets down the chimney. I'm talking about socks. Every year myself and my siblings would get socks by the dozens, and by Christmas the next year, we would all be out of socks again! How does it happen? I found the answer. First, my siblings would never pick up their socks. I would, and throw them into a large box marked "clothes." Then, they would take MY socks, and I would vicariously put them in the "clothes" box. Each year I would fill a new box. This year, I opened all the boxes to see what I could give to Goodwill, and you know what I found? One pairs of danged socks, that's what! White ones, ribbed ones, elastic ones, white ones, reinforced toe ones, white ones, tubed ones, white ones, crew ones, and white ones. Ever sort one hundred pairs of socks! It's a rush! Whoo! Get back! Hurt myself!

"Dude, you look weird." --one longtime friend to another, after walking into a room

Saturday, December 14, 2002

CD: Eminem, "The Eminem Show"

I was watching Fox News, which I don't recommend, and "news" about Christmas at the White House came up. There was Mrs. Bush with bunch of kids near a tree, and the kids were asking questions about the White House, but mostly about how Santa gets in and out of the White House. She said there were a lot of big chimneys, or something like that; anyway, she said she really didn't know. And THEN the camera panned over and there was jolly ol' Saint Nick himself. So c'mon kids, just ask the man! You can do it! And come to think about it, if you were three or four years old, who would you want to talk to, Santa or the First Lady? Darn right! This was most definitely a photo op without common sense. Another way you could tell the whole thing was scripted was by the kids' questions. If you're in a room with 20 little kids and you ask them if they have any questions, fully eight of them will not know the definition of "question." One will try to tell a story about how they have a dog, and yesterday that dog was caught eating that night's meatloaf and their mom got mad and hit the dog with a newspaper and made it go outside. Then another kid will sit in the corner sucking their thumb. Within fifteen minutes, three will have to go to the bathroom, or will go without getting up. Someone will cry. But here at the White House? Every kid sits patiently, waiting for their turn to talk. Well, maybe they've been the really, REALLY Good Kids.

"F*** YOU LYNN CHENEY! F*** YOU TIPPER GORE!" --Eminem, who obviously didn't get invited to meet Santa in Washington this year

Friday, December 13, 2002

CD: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, "Xtra Acme USA"

Not doing anything today. Instead, the following self-imposed chores:

Sleeping!

Once again, for another 2 hours, looking for those Windows 98 modem drivers my computer somehow "lost." Mind you, I'm trying to hook up an Ethernet connection with the thing, and why it needs modem drivers is apparantly not my business.

A nice walk to the bank to pick up my seventeen dollars! My, what brisk weather!

My laundry mission continues. I am washing every stray piece of clothes in the house; unclaimed articles will be devoted to the Salvation Army. I'm on my 15th load right now.

Called AAA about buying train tickets in the Netherlands. Surprisingly, they knew what I was talking about.

Reading about the mythical story of Murder Creek, kind of our local ghost story. Check it out at www.geocities.com/newstea...ciety.htm.

Thinkin' 'bout stuff.

Looking into this har thing with the cable that wut brings broadband into my home. Broadband? Is that like, uh, the Andrews Sisters?

Trying to appease my rabid blog fans--all five of them.

"JeffIM: are you on your laptop/
TomServo0: YES i am.
JeffIM: nimbavirus.exe
JeffIM: then click that!"

Thursday, December 12, 2002

CD: Shel Silverstein, various mix CDs

I knew it would happen. Yesterday I wrote about attempting to clean my house despite the adversity posed by my allergies. Today I fought the law, and the law won. But I still succeeded! I cleaned that pesky room, or at least put everything in that room in a manageable place (empty closets are wonderful). Meanwhile, the entire time I was doing this I sneezed and dripped and lost more bodily fluids than I can remember ever intaking within the last two days. So I went to dinner suffering with a sporadic bloody nose; so what? What surprises me more is not the level of the inevitable but the discoveries uncovered. Like, I had no idea we kept enough styrofoam in that room to fill an oil drum. Or enough cardboard products to, well, fill up another oil drum. So I'd like to invite everyone over to an oil drum fire at my place. We'll be making s'mores, dude. You gotta come if there are s'mores!

"You should send ME to space, and then I can run for President of the Moon!" --Rev. Al Sharpton on MTV
CD: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, "Now I Got Worry"

Laptop computers are beautiful things. Today I slept for a full TWELVE hours today. The past few days I have either been writing papers all day, or getting up at ghastly pre-sun times to go to work, or this nasty pain in my back--no, not Al Gore--has kept me in a stationary position. Long story short, I wake up like an hour and a half ago but I'm still not OUT OF BED! I've checked my E-mails, read the news, listened to music, written letters, talked with friends, had a couple laughs, looked at a few message boards...and I haven't even sat up yet! Granted, when I finally DO sit up it will be extremely painful, but think of all the possibilities! I could be the next Howard Hugues! Heck, I could be the next--um, you know, that physicist guy in the wheelchair! Awesome! That physicist guy in the wheelchair was once on Star Trek!

"And after our perfect day, we could go to the movies, we could...get a hot dog....Have you ever had a hot dog, baby? With onions, and saurkraut?" --Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

CD: Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Mother's Milk"

A couple of nights ago I bent down to get into my car (because I drive a Cavalier, gall dang!) and something in my neck went "crack." Not a loud, angry crack, like Marion Barry, but kind of a "crik." I might have said something like "huh" or a real small "ow" but I really wasn't worried. Then it hurt to raise my head. Then it hurt to move my head left and right. Then I had to roll over every time I wanted to stand up because if I didn't it would feel like someone had just jammed a sword down my spinal column. Though it's slowly wearing off, at its peak the entire top half of my back, my shoulders, my neck and head were incapable of moving anywhere without me going "a a a aaaahhhhHHHHHH!" "Ow." "Aw ahhhw ow!" and then I would gasp for air, though I still have no idea why, since I couldn't do anything less physical than lying prostrate on my bed.

"Sorry Fred, I Kid! I Kid! I Kid cause I love!" --Ed Snyder

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

CD: Queens of the Stone Age, "Songs For the Deaf"

Nothing says "I'm an old man now" like getting up at 5:30 in the morning, putting on some dress clothes and going out to breakfast. Firstoff, I didn't even know restaurants were open that early. Second, where did all these people come from? They're older, of course (I went with my father), but even though they've still got to go to work right after they eat they aren't rushed, they take their time eating, they make conversation with the waitress, they read the paper real slow, they say hi to the other two or three people they know in the diner, they sip their coffee every minute or so and even have time for a few refills. Freaks! You can drink coffee while you drive, you know, and there's NPR if you want to stay informed. These people pretend like they have nothing to do! I wonder how they act after work, when there really IS nothing to do. All the relaxing stuff has already been done! Crazy.

"Hey, how's your drivetime commute? What's the SAGA. I need a saga! It's Songs for the Deaf. You can't even hear it!" --Queens of the Stone Age

Monday, December 09, 2002

CD: Blur, "Parklife"

For shizzle my nizzle! So I was watching the show "Rock The House" on VH1 the other day, which is another cheesy attempt by the music industry to cash in on one of its twenty or so profitable acts... anyway, the idea behind the show is that a music star redecorates a fan's house without them knowing, and then the fan comes home and gets all shocked and stuff and then meets the artist and is all shocked and stuff and they love the house and they get a free Sony Flatscreen TV and everyone lives happily ever after. But Snoop...I'm worried about Snoop Dogg. He redecorated a girl's house, but during everything he did, he spoke with that "izzle" talk only he seems to use and understand. "I gotta mizzle my tizzle for shizzle cuz my heezy weezy! A Lizzle my nizzle!" Wuh? I used to think he might have learned this think during his stint in prison. Since phone conversations are taped in jail, I could he him and other prisoners using the "izzle" stuff so nothing they say could ever be used in court. But now i'm pretty sure he's making the crap up as he goes along. No one talks like that unless they're either too rich to care about reality or they're mentally retarded. Then again, Snoop did say he was giving up marijuana because it "makes you stupid." Yep.

He [Bush] recalled the last time he was in Florida, on the morning of Sept. 11, and what went through his mind when the first plane hit New York's World Trade Center: "I used to fly myself, and I said, 'Well, there's one terrible pilot.'"
--Associated Press, Dec. 4, 2001

Sunday, December 08, 2002

CD: Sleater-Kinney, "One Beat"

I give up. Since I started doing this weblog thing I've been putting the CD I'm listening to (or listened to that day) up on the top of each post. Well, at the beginning it was easy; in the summer I had time to listen to like five albums a day while I read, drove, or painted the trim on the house. With school starting, however, I narrowed it down to about 2-3 albums. Now it's final exam time, and I just don't have the energy. Not even the energy, it appears, to get up and change the CDs in my player. So if you analyse all of my posts from the start, you will see the first fifty days with fifty different CDs, then the next fifty with a few repeats (Natalie Imbruglia! Yay!) and now, well, it's like listening to my own personal version of KISS 98.5. Sorry, kids. But seriously, Sleater-Kinney made a kick-arse record this year. Dig!

"I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I’m concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!" --"Weird Al" Yankovich, on Napster

Edited by: TomServo0 at: 12/7/02 9:21:34 pm

Saturday, December 07, 2002

CD: Danko Jones, "Born A Lion"

It's coming! I bought me a brand new laptop--dude, it's a Dell!--online last week. Making the anticipation even tougher to deal with is that wonderful technological advancement known as the UPS Shipment Tracking system, which can tell me all the little stops my laptop is making on it's journey to my house. It's an adventure, just like on that show Belle and Sebastian! Remember, the cartoon about the little boy and his dog that took like 64 episodes to get home? Now my little laptop is in the UPS center in Buffalo (as of 10:40 PM last night) all alone, cold, shivering in the back of some brown, windowless truck. I hope it's doing alright. I wonder what it's thinking... Somewhere, out there/beneath the pale moonlight...

"Is it going to be about food?" --Kurt Cobain, when Weird "Al" Yankovich asked him if he could parody "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Friday, December 06, 2002

CD: Cee-Lo, "Cee-Lo Green And His Perfect Imperfections"

Over the past few years I would come home from breaks at school, and the house would be extremely messy. Of particular distress was the amount of peoples' clothes on the floor; sometimes washed, sometimes folded or in a hamper, but sometimes not, these clothes would be kicked around, tripped over, and otherwise unclaimed by anyone. And during each of my breaks I would pick up these clothes, put them in a large cardboard box, and tell everyone that if they didn't claim anything in the box it would go to Goodwill. Like I said, years have passed. There are now so many boxes of clothes that they take up a pile, ceiling-high, covering half of the laundry room. I am now in the process of washing all of these clothes. They will be sorted and put on tables, GAP-style, with signs proclaiming "CHRISTMAS CLEARANCE! EVERYTHING MUST GO!" In a psychological kuo, I'm think of charging rock-bottom, warehouse prices for these things I don't own. We'll see what happens.

"If the Good Lord strikes me down tonight, and I still haven't found my true love, I'm gonna die a happy man!" --a somewhat jaded Danko Jones

Thursday, December 05, 2002

CD: The Apples In Stereo, "Her Wallpaper Reverie"

Someone recently wrote in an inferior weblog (it was you, Joe!) that they could not decide was good music was anymore. Strangely enough, they asked me for advice. During college, my roommates warned other people that my taste in music was deplorable and probably, since I listened to anything I could get for cheap, nonexistent. The problem is compounded when a young adult, as the male psyche switches from preferring mindless, ear-shattering crap rock (your Limp Bizkits and Korns) to preferring mindless, sleep-inducing acoustic pop (your Travises and Dave Matthews Bands).

What is good music now? If it gets your attention and keeps it, that's a good start. Danko Jones is a good example of that; you can't get bored with it nomatter what you do. Outkast, Har Mar Superstar, Foo Fighters can usually do this. But also consider the work of The Neptunes, who have done work with Britney Spears, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Mystical, as well as their own N.E.R.D. project. Try them out. The Flaming Lips are also doing things that haven't been heard before.

Depending on your mood, maybe you shouldn't listen to music. Get into some older music; jazz like Count Basie, Horace Silver or Dick Hyman. Folk like Ledbelly or Memphis Minnie. The best thing you can do is to go to the public library and find the most obscure-looking, dust-encrusted albums they have. Sounds of the Ancient Incas, for example. Hungarian polkas. And then, if you still don't like music, play two records together and see what happens. My friend Dave and I found a great album that remixed traditional sounds of the culture of Mali with a broken melodica. Either way, stop looking for music and start listening to it....

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...24-4878443

"Hey, the McRib is back!" --Jack Osbourne

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

CD: Stevie Wonder, "Songs In The Key Of Life"

The shining moment of my Graduate school career thus far (other than the "Shaft" tribute on my radio show a few weeks ago) must be the thesis proposal handed in this Tuesday. Granted, it is probably not that good. It will probably just get a B because I handed it in on time (Education majors can't get lower than a B [I hope] as long as they pay their tuition bill on time). Why so proud of it, you ask? Well, I had all semester to write this twenty-page paper, and did not write a word until the day it was due. I got up at 6:00 AM (I was going to get up at 5 but you know how it is) sat down and churned out not twenty, but THIRTY-TWO pages of text in ten hours. How 'bout them apples? Eh? That includes a bibliography, people!

On a final note, I'd like to thank this weblog for teaching me how to pull words out of my nose at the last minute. And the Academy....


Shaft's woman: "I love you."
Shaft: "Yeah, I know...take it easy."

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

CD: Dandy Warhols, "Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia"

Tonight the snow was so bad you couldn't see twenty feet in front of you. This happens every once in a while here in Buffalo. First, you hear a little something about some snow, then you kind of forget about and go about your daily business. In most other cities the grocery stores are packed with people trying to buy bottled water at this point. Buffalonians, however, are astute. They know that a steady diet of chicken wings, pizza and the occasional tailgater's feast insures that their body can go three, four days without nourishment. Being trapped in your house for half a week--which happens once a year now--is no problem as long as you have cable. But there was one strange thing I saw that grabbed my attention on the way home. Through the cloud of swirling snow I spotted a man running across the intersection of Main and Salt wearing nothing more than jogging shorts. No shirt, no shoes, no s***! It's 20 degrees outside and there's eight inches of snow! That must be one heck of a frat.

"...and I'm just about to kill someone if I don't buy that notebook!" --Guy who put me on hold, talking to himself

Monday, December 02, 2002

CD: various, "OzzFest 2001 Summer Sampler"

Somehow, I'm going to give two important presentations and write two papers in four days. This doesn't mean that I've done any real prep work yet; yes, I do have all the materials on hand, but no, I haven't put one word down. I also have to work during those days, as well as a few other things including a heck of a long stay a Kinko's; we'll see how that works out. Thank goodness for 24-hour Kinko's! Who is Mr. Kinko anyway? What kind of name is Kinko? Is it anything like Chi-chi's? It was a sad day when they closed Chi-Chi's around here. I only went once, though, with my 7th Grade Home Economics class. Why, I don't know, but it involved free samples so I won't complain. Do you ever look back at your grade school field trips and wonder why you took them? I do, and I have no idea why I went to the zoo, museum, etc. Kind of like this post...I wrote it without knowing what today's "theme" would be, and now I'm done. And it even has a theme! Kinky!

“Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” --Ambrose Bierce

Sunday, December 01, 2002

CD: Portishead, "Portishead"

Credit cards are scary. Scarier are credit cards mixed with internet shopping. It's waaaay too easy. So I sit there in my pajamas, looking at my card, looking at the screen, looking at the price, looking back at my card, looking at the clock, checking my mail, looking back at the price, looking at the card again, looking at the button that says BUY IT! and thinking, "Aw man. This is too easy. This isn't right." I had to bring someone into the room and ask them if I should go through with it. "Yeah! Go for it!" they said. Somehow that made me feel worse, but I don't know why. "Free Shipping!" is tempting, yet that BUY IT! button reminds me of Stimpy's "History Eraser" button. Remember that one? The big, shiny, candy-colored button that just HAD to be pushed? It erased all of history, dude! That's freaky!

"Ding dongs, man! Ding dongs! Ding dongs, yo!" --video for Weird "Al" Yankovich's "Fat"