CD: George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass"

I didn't really feel like going out the other night so I told my friends to just go along without me and "get drunk." I instantly thought that they would have a great time without me. Have you ever heard the one comedian talking about how you always leave the party at the worst time, and how your friends call you up the next day and all their stories start with "Ten minutes after you left...!" Today I thought ahead and called the friend up first. Of course, what do you think I heard? "DUDE FRED YOU MISSED IT! It was like the BEST NIGHT EVER! Blah blah blah we met up with and blah blah party and blah blah we got on TV and blah blah SOOOO funny bork bork bork." Worse? THEN you have to tell them what you did, and it was "I read the paper and went to bed early." Bork bork bork.

CD: Beatles, "Past Masters Vol. 1"

So my father was flipping channels and got to some old movie about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. So he watches it for a minute and he goes "Did they ever get their baby back?" [ed. note: This is where the reader starts thinking "Barbeque Sauce."] And I tell him "No." Then I add, "They found it later." So then he goes "Was it okay?" Well if they didn't get the kid back, I don't know!! And THEN he goes, "Was it dead?" Oh my. I myself have tried to stop asking The Redundant Question. You know, comments like "Really?" or "You don't say" or "Are you sure?" I know it annoys some people to no end, while for others it is 90 percent of what they might deem--with conviction--"conversation." It's worse on the phone, where if you don't INTERJECT with banter like "Yeah," "Uh-huh," or "HAHAHAHA" people will think you're not listening and get all "Are you still there?" at you. Yeah, whatever, okay, bye-bye, see you later then. Have a nice day!

CD: Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"

I just finished vacuuming. My father has taken quite a liking to eating popcorn, and he's also found a fine hobby in not picking up dropped kernels. 'Tis sad that I must clean up after others, especially with a college degree, but I do live here rent-free. I guess I should really be complaining that I don't yet have a career, especially with a college degree. Well anyway, I was sucking up all these unpopped kernels when one of them got inside the machine and made this giant POW. Then I thought to myself, "What if it's extremely hot in the vacuum, and it's actually possible to make popcorn INSIDE THE VACUUM CLEANER!?" I tried again as I drove over some more kernels but I couldn't get the same loud noise. Maybe I can get a scientist to work on it. With an unused vacuum bag, of course...

CD: Bob Dylan, "Love And Theft"

I'm stupid, stupid, stupid. I've complained about this problem with my computer for about a month now. According to my stupidity, the modem wasn't working correctly, as every time I connected my telephone line to the machine all the phones would go dead. Well. So they sent me a new machine, and the first thing I saw when I opened the box was a big sheet saying "How to set up your computer." On that was a diagram showing all of the ports and jacks and whatnot, but it didn't seem right...after all, my phone jack was on the side, not the back...OR IS IT. You know how an Ethernet jack looks a lot like a phone jack? Well, that just shows how stupid Stupid STUPID I am. Here I've been making calls for about a month when all I had to do was put the phone cord in the slot marked with a little picture OF A TELEPHONE NEXT TO IT. This is stupidness of "Did you trying plugging it in?" caliber. No, worse. Almost to the point of it being, "It's loaded, but I clean it real fast." Bah!

CD: Dan The Automator, "Wanna Buy A Monkey?"

I have developed a theory which I call "Denny's Late Night." Research for this theory has taken about five years and possibly hundreds of dollars. The theory is as follows: when it's the weekend, it's after 11 and no one knows what to do, we end up at Denny's. Sad, yes, but true. I thought the theory was only applicable in the Buffalo area, but apparently it works in the Southtowns as well. I'm almost positive it works on Transit. Anyway, after arguing in a parking lot for near half an hour, the theory kicked in like clockwork. We TRIED going to Applebee's. We TRIED going to Chili's. We TRIED looking at shows and considered hanging out at someone's house. But the Theory, man. Maybe it should be declared a Law of Nature, like gravity and the Yankees. We need more stuff to do.

CD: White Stripes, "De Stijl" [again]

This is my post about paper clips. First you got your dinky clips. These are the ovular ones that are too small to ever be used on more than 3 sheets of paper. Can’t stand them. Then there’s the medium size. Those are almost okay, but sometimes they have little ridges or niches and I don’t know why. I don’t see it helping the clips’ semi-dinkiness any. So then you get the big ovular ones, which are cool. You can put like 25 sheets in there securely. Awesome. You also have those ones that look like two triangles welded together. I may prefer these. In this case the mediums are probably best because the large ones tend to let sheets slip out if don’t use them on enough papers (ten minimum is probably good). Then you got the black clamps. They usually only come in one size, unless you’re some sort of industrial secretary. You need at least 30 sheets for those. Ever use them with only 15 sheets? Schwag. So my pick goes to the medium-size triangle clips. Word is bond. And with that, I have written a post about paper clips. We can only go up from here.

CD: Justin Timberlake, "Justified"

[It's actually not half bad. It's not half good, either, but it's not half bad.]

The best part about talking to other teachers is hearing their stories. There are a lot of odd children out there….Anyway all you have to do is mention one interesting thing that happened “in my school today…” and they will all chime in. It reminds me of a pick-up game of basketball, actually. It starts out with you just shooting around, nonchalantly, at an empty hoop. Then some friends shoot around with you. That’s cool; you’re just enjoying the company. Then it gets competitive. They want to play a real game. But you wanted to just shoot around, dangit, you didn’t want to work up a sweat or anything. But now you have to do it. And then someone’s playing defense on you and they get all up in your face, thinking their story, I mean their game is better than yours. And then you have to fight them. They chose knives. Stay cool, boy. Bernardo, no!

CD: various, "The Roots Of Rap"

This is going to sound extremely disgusting but I think I’m sick again. This time it involves the collection of metric tonnes of mucus, phlegm, snot, spit, and other things that are pretty much the same thing in the way that magma and lava are synonyms. No later than every thirty minutes of every day this week, I must go through the process of draining myself. Blowing my nose has become a marathon event—and no, it’s not running! Each nostril, one at a time, must be configured to give ample space for “release”; basically meaning that it’s like a canal lock in there. It will take days to get there, sure, but eventually the stuff will reach its destination. Unless it goes the express route, which is a singular violent, unexpected and potentially embarrassing cough. But that’s enough about that.

CD: White Stripes, "De Stijl"

Joe’s making fun of me because he’s a stupid idiot. Here I am at his TA office at UB, just making sure he’s not minding his own business and working hard, and here he’s all “bork bork bork chemistry bork bork” and trying to correct papers. Well phooey on him. I’m looking at him right now, the big oaf. With his big, reddish sideburns and $110 blue jeans, telling me how he finally got this ONE problem done after working on it all day. Oh, now here he goes, out the door. Going to be stupid elsewhere. What a moronic imbecile. I’m not sure if I believe this “chemistry” stuff exists or he’s just writing a bunch of arrows and numbers on a page. Real scholars are going to look at his notes one day and tell everybody he’s King Tut. Wherever he is now, I hope he falls in. Hi Joe, I know you’re reading.

CD: Dan The Automator, "Wanna Buy A Monkey?"

So anyway the good folks at Dell are like anyone else when you have a complaint. First they actually try to help you, because chances are you're dumb and fixing the problem will only take a second. When it's something worse, they'll try to sound like they're helping but they really don't know what they're talking about. They will offer you a solution that might not work, but it pacifies you and keeps you off their tail. They sent me some replacement parts, but in a couple days I would have to call them back and complain again. So they tried Step 2 on me again and I was like "been there." That means I had to step it up by myself, and demand to see a manager. Of course I had to tell the operator that "it's not your fault, but I have to speak to them," because if you don't they either think you're hostile and need more psychologial support than technical, or you want to get them fired out of blind vengeance. If you keep bugging the manager--who will try only to reiterate all the bad solutions you've heard before--they WILL help you out, but only according to protocol. In this case I learned that the company's last resort is to give you a new hard drive. It has nothing to do with fixing a modem, but play along. The next day the hard drive came in the mail, the modem still didn't work, I called in again all formal like, and it was all wham, new computer, thank you ma'am. And to think I didn't learn anything while working at Burger King....

CD: Jurassic 5, "Bonus Tracks" promo

There's a commercial playing on TV nowadays that supposedly shows the Dell Tech Support Center (the Interns turn the lights off on them at night). The point of the ad is to show that the good folks at Dell work 24/7 to handle Your Call and help you get on your way. Like all ads, half of it is true. Yes, they're actually quite helpful and polite and whatnot, but there is a glaring error in this one. In the commercial, everyone speaks English! I dare you to call Dell Tech Support and get someone who speaks English as a first language! And after about a month of pondering it, I've finally decided that the people who DO work there in Real Life are all Korean. Why are they all in Nashville? No clue! But it sounds like I keep calling the Wong Family Reunion because they all sound the same, and they're nice as h*ck but NONE of them can get my laptop working. Oy!

CD: Blur, "M.O.R."

It’s around President’s Day, so here’s my attempt to remember all 43 Presidents by the end of this television show. Ready? Harrison (2), Johnson (2), Roosevelt (2), Bush (2), Adams (2), Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Fillmore, Polk, Arthur, Lincoln, Pierce, Cleveland (counts twice, non-consecutive terms), Van Buren, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Grant, Hayes…uhh, Letterman, Shaffer and, uh, Schrock. Nuts, I was THIS close….Stupid 19th century.

N.B. Missed: Tyler, Taylor, Buchanan

CD: Mahalia Jackson, "Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns" disc II

My first decree as Emperor of the Free World will be to suppress all those who dare question my power. That goes without saying, really. All opposition must be squashed. How to destroy these rebel forces is the problem. Should I simply isolate and ostracize them? Should I infiltrate their infrastructure and tear them apart from within? Should I kill off their leadership and let the society fall into riotous turmoil? Should I bribe the populace with weapons, food, and lower taxes? Oh well. The second decree is to ban nuclear weapons, because everyone who opposes me will be gone so I won’t need them anymore. That was hard. Third? I’m buying the Buffalo Sabres. They will also get 25 points added to their season record so when they don’t make the playoffs this year it won’t look so bad.

CD: Mahalia Jackson, "Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns" disc I

If you have a satellite dish, you can watch tons of sports you’ve either never heard of or never really cared about. Right now the World Cup of Cricket is playing a reel of highlights. I still don’t know what the heck they’re doing over there, but they seem to be training pretty hard. I can watch handball, curling, lacrosse, and something that I think is called slamball. Slamball is basketball, but with trampolines built into the floor. So now the players can dunk from three-point range, assuming someone doesn’t try to block them in midair, causing them to collide twenty feet up. And hit the ground. And bounce back up. The first time I saw it I thought it was a Gatorade ad, but then they cut to commercial. I just sat there thinking “Wuh?” Have you seen this sport? Oddness.

CD: Pete Seeger, "American Industrial Ballads"

The President used to look really stupid, like the kind of guy that needs extra time to read things. But since that whole September 11th thing, and that whole Iraq up the wazoo thing, it looks like he’s been thinking a lot more. You know, really pondering stuff and doing some problem solving. So now he looks smarter, but he also looks angrier. It’s been my racist opinion that dumb people are usually happier. I think it’s because they know of more problems in the world, like war and famine, while the not-so-thoughtful people watch American Gladiators. And while looking at this weblog a second time before posting it, I can see that my lack of word variety, such as the using the word “thing” three times instead of using more descriptive diction, just proves that I’m at least borderline inside the American Gladiators group.

CD: Coal Chamber, "Chamber Music"

Sometimes sentences seem really strange out of context. I heard one of them from a friend several weeks ago. He said, “I got addicted to sushi in Nashville.” Addicted? Sushi? Nashville? Those are three nouns I never thought I’d hear in succession. Anyway, it’s just a fun game to play with yourself if you feel bored at work, school, or especially while talking to your parents. (They always end up bringing up medical stuff, and that’s hilarious.) So the newest addition to the canon was at church the other day. At the end of the sermon the pastor gave this big, involved story about, um, lots of stuff. To sum up, he said: “God may not need your baloney, but he wants to give you his chicken.” Yep. Goodnight.


Edited by: TomServo0 at: 2/18/03 5:49:19 pm

02 07 03
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CD: Ben Folds Five, "The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner"

I haven’t added to this weblog thing in a long time. And you know what? I don’t really want to! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! But I’ve been thinking about a few things. Like, would you rather find mayonnaise in your peanut butter jar, or peanut butter in your mayonnaise jar? Think about it. What else was I thinking about? I forgot. Ooh! Why is a bicycle called a bike and a tricycle called a trike but a unicycle not called a unike? I need answers! Why do animals follow kids home, but don’t follow adults? Why did that one guy quit Limp Bizkit? Why are they called Limp Bizkit? Why did they spell Bizkit with a Z? Why does everyone else call Z “Zed”? Who thought up all these silent letters? I DON’T LIKE SILENT LETTERS. Especially when it’s P. Silent Ps are messed up. Hey, I wrote another post!


Edited by: TomServo0 at: 2/18/03 5:47:47 pm

CD: Liz Phair, "Whip-Smart"

For those of you that don't know, I'm keeping my eye on you. I have saved, with several exceptions, every IM conversation and every personal E-mail from the past 4+ years. That means you can pick a day--any day--and I can tell you what you said to me. (I can also tell you what other people said about you, but that would go against my principles.) When I sent my computer in for repairs I kept these texts online, stored in my online mailbox, but after a month without a base the mailbox is getting full. Now I must transfer almost 200 correspondences to permanent data storage (a disc). That's going to take me a long, freaking time. Nuts. But if you ever DO want to know what you were saying (especially when you weren't sober, which happens more offen than you'd like to admit it) give me a ring. (P.S., I don't record phone conversations.)

jeoffroi (4:21:49 PM): the language of blog is a language of paradox
jeoffroi signed off at 4:21:52 PM.

CD: Squirrel Nut Zippers, "The Inevitable"

I was just thinking back to about a month ago when my father enlisted my help to get a desk out of my church in the middle of the night. It was one of those larger secretaries' desk with the filing cabinets built in. Also remember that it was around 0 degrees outside and windy, and the path from the door to the car was uphill and covered with about six inches of ice. The desk took an ample amount of pushing just to get it through the door (it technically did not fit), but it was the freezing cold and the absolute lack of solid footing that did me in. And I must be honest: right there, in front of my father and on church property, I still yelled out "F*CK!" as I slipped and let that 250 pound piece of office furniture fall on top of me. The end.

CD: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Xtra Acme USA”

For some reason this little light has been on in my car that says something like “Service” underneath it or something. I had no idea. Eventually I had to pull out the manual and find out what the bloody thing actually WAS, let alone what it meant. After searching through a few pages of hieroglyphics, I found out it was the Engine light. That could mean a lot of things, like “the car’s computer needs tweaking” or “it’s going to blow up.” I figured it was closer to the first thing and only yesterday got an appointment at the dealership. After setting a time they gave me some line about the gas cap not being on tight enough or something, and to check that, but it’s almost an insult to my intelligence to suggest I missed something like that (of course, I once drove from Indianapolis to Columbus with the tank door upon). I then tried to think of something quick, almost an excuse to say I was in there for a Reason other than ineptitude. “Well, I, uh, hit a couple mailboxes a while back.” “Oh!” they collectively cried. That was a couple months ago, but I got those guys on my side now. Plus, now they’ve got a story to ask me about when I’m hangin’ out over there tomorrow! Keen!

CD: Black Label Society, “Black Label Society”

Joe was in my room the other day and commented on all the books I had. Well thank you Joe! Looking at them right now it does seem like I have a lot of books--like a wall full. I must admit, however, that it is an illusion. For instance, about a quarter of my shelf space is taken up by vinyl records. It means I’m less of a reader, though it does make me cooler. There is a small section at the top corner which is really not books but old magazines and yearbooks, which are only worth looking at once every couple of years. My stereo takes up the rest of the top shelf. So that leaves only three small shelves worth of books. Now I must admit that I read a whole shelf of me. I did NOT, however, read the other two shelves! For example, about one shelf is a bunch of history textbooks I took for free from a teacher that wanted to get rid of the promotional stuff she’s saved over the years. And the third shelf? On the bottom of each book is a little sticker that says USED SAVES. No REAL book-reader in their right-thinking mind would proudly display Used Book stickers on their Used Books! Take a second look, Joe, I’m not as smart as I look!

CD: Eminem, ¡§The Eminem Show¡¨

I¡¦ve been going back and forth with the good people at Dell because my computer is messed up. I thought that they must have these giant banks of people in Customer Service, but apparently there¡¦s just this guy named Walter that handles all my calls. Poor Walter. He has an accent from who-knows-where, and he does this weird thing where he slows down and speeds up what he says in mid-phrase, sometimes pausing in between. If I knew what the accent was, I might be able to translate! Anyway, the first couple of times I called Walter seemed all chipper and ¡§How may I help you?¡¨-ish. (Kind of cocky, too, if you ask me.) But today he seemed depressed. He talked slower and signed before he said stuff like ¡§Thank you for calling Dell. How may I help you today.¡¨ „²Note the period! I hope everything is all right at home. Walter seems like a decent guy, and having to work at Tech. Support you gotta feel bad for him. Sadly, the two hours I spent with him today probably just made him feel worse ¡¥cuz he couldn¡¦t help out at all. He seemed happier at Wegmans.

CD: U2, "Best Of 1990-2000"

This afternoon I finally got my voice back enough that I can speak whole sentences with cracking or going into a coughing fit--well, mostly. But it has also given me an extremely low voice. Maybe I have somehow widened my voice box or something, I don't know, but when I can talk I sound like Barry White. So my brother met one of my friends at his work today and they decided to call me. First they didn't know who it was, but once they figured out the situation they put me on Speaker Phone at Guitar Center and had me say stuff for fun like "Ohhhhh Bay-bee" reeeeel slooooow. This is the one part about strep throat that I'm going to miss. That and sleeping in until... well, sometimes I didn't "technically" get up. I wonder if it's possible to get my voice box surgically widened so I can talk like Barry White all the time! Oh baby! Or James Earl Jones at least! "THIS IS CNN." Cool!

CD: Cucumber + Ginseng, "El Presidente 2: Thology"

So Jeff and I were discussing the show "Inside the Actors Studio" and the part at the end where they ask the actor those Bernard Pivot Questionnaire. The last question is always: "If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?" I misread it and though it was "What would YOU say when..." But we both agreed that the least inspired answers came with this question. Always something cheesy and humorless. So he brainstormed the real question while I took the dead guy's point of view... Here's some of what I came up with.

Q. If Heaven exists, what would you say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

"This is already better than the 'Taxes'."

"You mean I'm never going to see my wife again?"

"I seek the Grail."

"Hey! You're just James Earl Jones behind a curtain!"

"Will I have to live next to Italians?"

"Hell yeah, I'm in! Rock on! (makes devil horns with hand)"

"So the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door too, huh?"

"What's the meaning of li... oh, now I remember. Never mind."

"It smells like couscous up here."

"So you tell us to build our faith on a foundation of solid rock, but then you built the Kingdom of Heaven on this CLOUD?"

"Now look, sir. I may be just po' country folk, but I know that back in Kansas we got long hard days on the dirt farm, bland food, and boring children. But we're a community, gall-dungit. A good one, with good people. And no, God, it don't matter how much influence you may have got o'er the universe, or what power you have o'er life and death, or what any of your fancy "Commandments" say, you're not going to take a God-faring American man and his family from the farm they've worked for four generations to save and move them away to some 'Heaven' place just like that! Not today, not ever!"


So yeah, we were really bored tonight.

CD: Cucumber + Ginseng, "El Presidente: Anthology"

The group Cucumber + Ginseng has rocked audiences around the world, but that is nothing compared to what they will do next. With the world at their oyster, record sales in the teens, and live shows that--literally--shocked their neighbors, C + G took an unpublicized long-term break from the music business. Dave "Dio" Hill has built a second cult following in his side band, "Tops Markets." Joe "Licks" Ferguson just performed at the world-famous Grand Old Opry in Nashville, only to be kicked out for being too "Rock & Roll." Frederick Charles Thomas "John Paul Jones" Schrock has taken up award-winning photography and hosts the popular game show "Name That Smell." Well guess what. The band has reunited with a new member, Tim "Novice" Schrock on drums, a new name, The Squeaky Divas, and a new mission: To rocK with a capital K. Because K is a really tough consonant.

CD: Soundgarden, "Down On The Upside"

Right now I am looking at my Gorby Dolls. Actually I guess they would be called Yeltsin Dolls but I've wanted a set for a long, long, time. You know those Russian wooden people witht the people inside, and when you open up one you get a smaller one and a smaller one, et cetera? They also come in a "Leaders of Russia" set. You got your Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Brezhnev, Kruschev, (sp?) Stalin, Lenin, and I think that's Czar Nicholas II in the very center, or just maybe they made Karl Marx instead. It's not up-to-date--no Putin--but hey, i's got all the Communists I need! I got it in East Berlin anyway so I wasn't expecting full modernization of doll technology anyway. But here's the Catch-22: You can't fully enjoy them unless you take them out and display them simultaneously, but the only way to have real fun with them is to keep them inside the big one to play with them later! What's an American to do?

CD: MC5, "Kick Out The Jams"

People still don't get it. After almost five days of barely speaking because of strep throat, people are still calling at me from opposite ends of the building and expecting to hear me yell something back. "WHO IS THE PHONE FOR?!" is probably the most frequent utterance. Well, I can write it down for you, or I could completely ignore you if the phone isn't for you. And since I'm running a fever and am really not in the mood to entertain such trivialities, I think I'll just lie here and let you keep yelling! In fact, what am I answering the phone for anyway, you lazy bum?! The best I can usually get out is a raspy, "Hall--hallo?" These past few days of near silence has given me a greater appreciation for Actual Silence; maybe by the end of the week I will discover it, too.

CD: Queens Of The Stone Age, “Songs For The Deaf”

I took 26 rolls of film in Europe. About 8 pictures came out well. First, I turned them into the good, unpaid and ununionized folks at Wal-Mart, which required that I fill out 26 of those Photo Envelope things. I told the girl I’d be back in “about an hour” which is AN IRONIC TWIST OF FATE completely lost on her. Then she said they’d be ready by Saturday, which they weren’t. So I came back Saturday and they said “That girl CRAY-zee, they’ll be ready on Monday,” which they weren’t. Then I came on Tuesday and yes, they would be ready, but not for two hours. What to do? I looked at the (censored) CD section. I ended up buying a Game Boy game and being quite upset at myself for “wasting my money.” I then bought a Veggietales DVD, and by then my good sense nearly walked. Ninety more minutes. I decided to take a walk outside. I checked out the dollar store and then—ooh!—a discount shoe store. I bought me some sneakers for the first time in 2 ½ years and somehow felt like I accomplished something. One of the most fun ways to spend an hour and a half is “trying out” new shoes, skipping and jumping up and down and basically doing the mating dance of the dodo bird in a back aisle near the storeroom while playing with new toys like shoehorns and ankle stockings. By the way, developing 26 rolls of film costs about $200, give or take a dollar. Just enough left for a set of 20 pencils at the Dollar Tree next door.

CD: Radiohead, “Amnesiac”

I’m quite proud of the fact that I skipped the Super Bowl for the first time since 1988. Maybe if I stop watching it altogether, the teams I want to win will actually do so…Nobody talks about the game the next day anyway; they only want to talk about the commercials. But since I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, here are some other commercials I like (see how I’m scraping for blog subjects?):

-“WHERE’S THE BEEF?!” Still the best.

-The one where the guy is sniffling, sneezing, headache, cough, etc. That guy looks like crap.

-The Hose Roller thing where the “Other Guy” keeps fumbling with his hose, eventually dropping it, whereas the lady next to him has that Hose Roller thing and can do it with one hand. Note how the guy also has an untucked shirt and ratty hair. He just can’t keep ANYTHING together!

-I miss the Pets.com dog.

-You know, the one where the mother in the family is all happy to be doing the laundry or the dishes or making breakfast that no one has time to sit down and eat? But thank goodness she spent X dollars on the brand name version of X that somehow makes banal chores like cleaning up after, feeding, and washing her family (something they should really learn how to do by themselves) just plain magical. Remember that one? As magical as dancing stuffed teddy bears, floors with animated bald men looking at you through their shine, or flying cereal bowls that metamorphose into granola bars mid-flight. Hey mom, whatever keeps you off the Vicadin.

-Sign up for the Army, get a free pair of socks!

CD: Beastie Boys, “Check Your Head”

School has only been going on for a week but I’ve already noticed some trends. In one class, the professor felt it necessary to warn us about the courseload; he wants us to know as soon as possible that readings of up to 75 pages per week will be assigned. Gee, I know this is Grad School, but why is he demanding so much of us? Seventy-five pages might take over an HOUR to read!! In another class, I told the teacher in her office that I had Strep Throat and probably should meet her at another time (it’s an Independent Study Course) and then noticed she had been smoking and drinking coffee for the past hour and had a hoarser voice than me. I didn’t feel so bad then. A third teacher was impressed that I was the only one who had taken the cellophane off the textbook. I told him Chapter 9 looked pretty interesting, to which he replied “Oh yes, that’s written by a very good author.” Nobody else in the room knew that he was the author… Umm… there was one more class. AH HA! The guy with the accent. Very bright and entertaining, but he writes with his left hand like it’s his left hand, y’know? The text slopes upward at about a 55 degree angle. It’s a Arab studies course, so I’m assuming that writing English for him really IS writing backwards. And that wuz me furst wik at skool.

CD: Liz Phair, “Exile In Guyville”

When Donald Rumsfield said that France and Germany were the “Old Europe” and didn’t know what they were talking about when it came to the War on Terror, he shows he apparently hasn’t been to Berlin. I don’t think half those buildings are more than twenty years old. Not to mention their parliament building has only been in use since 1999. And as for terrorism, I think the Germans know darn well what a terrorist regime is! Dang! Who hired this guy? And isn’t this the wiener we have a picture of shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s? EWW. Those are cooties of the highest order! Did you wash your hands, Donald? Because you’re not getting dinner until you wash your hands! And take off your shoes, they’re all mudd…DON’T SLAM THE SCREEN DOOR! How many times do we have to tell you? You better learn some manners, young man!

CD: Outkast, “Stankonia”

Today I went to the doctor and for the first time in over five years I didn’t have to take off my pants! Whoo-hoo! It’s about time, cuz that lady must be bored of me by now. (That poor receptionist… Just kidding.) For some reason my REAL doctor is either too busy to see me or I’m just not bleeding enough for him to be interested, so they send me to the nurse practitioner. Last year I busted up my knee, and had to take off my pants for her to look at it. She had some weird system where she gave me one of those paper blanket things to put on my lap, but she also needed me to lift my leg and twist it around…it was inevitable that she see my underwear. But hey--I’m an adult, you’re a doctor—and they’re boxers! Not a problem! Before that, I came in for my college physical, and, well I’ll leave the details of that to myself. So it was really great that I could walk into that room and hear “Fred, nice to see you!” instead of the regular “Drop ‘em.” Or whatever the medical term is.

01 22 03
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CD: Alicia Keys, “Songs In A Minor”

I can’t speak. Some weird throat infection has taken control and all I can mutter out is a painful cough once in a while. Ironically, once you get a throat infection you have to do more talking. You have to explain to people you meet that you can’t talk because of your throat infection. You have to call in to work and explain to them that you can’t go in today because of your throat infection. You have to call the doctor and tell the receptionist that you have a throat infection and you need to set up an appointment. Your friends call and want to know what you’re up to and you strain to tell them that you’re doing nothing because you have a throat infection and you can’t do anything later. And, of course, there are the jerks that keep asking you, “Hey, is your throat feeling any better?” from the other side of the apartment and expect you to yell back “No, I still can’t talk!” at the top of your lungs. I gotta go make some calls now.

CD: The Strokes, “This Is It”

There is a house on Main Street that was abandoned a few years ago. It was pretty downtrodden and finally the property was sold—so I hear—to put up a new Dunkin’ Donuts (YES!). So the building was torn down last fall. Its remains sit there still, covered in several inches of snow. Apparently, but not shockingly, that’s illegal. The big bad town of Newstead is trying to bring the owners to task for getting rid of the debris. The weekly Akron Bugle seems confused, however. Sure, what’s left still legally a “building,” but it’s like they don’t know that WE know it’s really a pile. This week’s paper reiterates that “Owners of the property will have an opportunity to appear in person and provide evidence that the property is not in violation of the provisions of the Unsafe Building Law during the hearing.” Good luck, guys! It also outlines what the Unsafe Building Law STATES, like we need to know that? I was originally going to list all 12 possible violations of this “building,” but come on. There is no building. The walls and roof are parallel to each other. If you wanted to vacuum the carpet you’d have to rent a forklift. To light a fire in the chimney, you would use the master bedroom as kindling. This is a Late Parrot!

CD: Tenacious D, “Tenacious D”

Ladies and Gentleman, the new college semester is now upon us which means one important thing and one important thing only: Late Lunch at Subway! Oh Subway, how I’ve missed you so! For so many long and torrid weeks I have yearned for your fresh lettuce and cucumbers! Oh how I have desired your choice of choice of five kinds of Subway™ breads and sauces! Great Subway, do I not rejoice at the speed in which your Subway Sandwich Artists create such wonderful delectables? Do I not stand in awe at the amazingly low number of grams of fat in your sandwiches, not including, of course, the addition of cheese or condiments? Yea to your Hot Chicken Teriyaki sandwich! Yea to your Italian B.M.T.! And yea to your Three-for-a-Dollar deal on chocolate chip cookies!

CD: Presidents Of The United States Of America, “Pure Frosting”

I am “teaching” a study hall right now. There is this one kid—where did he go? Oh, there he is—that just keeps staring at the computers longingly, as if at a picture of a long-lost lover. See, he spent the first ten minutes of the period typing OYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOY into the computer and turning on the computer voice to read it to the class. So we kicked him off. When it comes to computers in school, kids don’t think to themselves, “Yay, research!” It’s more like, “Darrr, com-pyoo-trz r fun!” and their brains stop. Computers are an excuse to NOT do work; four years in a wired dorm has taught me that lesson well. Now he sits in the back muttering “Now I’m so borrrrrrrrred.” Aw.

CD: Radiohead, “I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings”

The dentist is all proud of me and stuff. I hadn’t been there since—lemme think—August 13, 1996, but man, he took one look at my pearlies and was like “Wow, you’ve really kept up your teeth; what’s your secret?” Well, Dr. Dentist, it’s ancient and Chinese. Actually, it’s because I didn’t follow doctor’s orders. Once he told me that it looked like I had weak gums and should switch to a soft-bristled toothbrush. Then I did, and when I went back he said the exact same thing. Forget that! So last year I decided to go for it and bought myself a MEDIUM strength brush. I bleed every once in a while, but it’s worth it! That’s my secret: I don’t go to the dentist and I don’t listen to a word he says!

CD: Bikini Kill, "The C.D. Version of the First Two Records"

Today I spent 2-3 hours with the good folks at Dell trying to figure out why my laptop has suddenly gained the ability to disable every telephone in my house. Somehow, whenever I plug a cord into my modem our number loses its ringtone. Now I have to wait a week to get a new modem sent to me. It also means that I will be subjected to sitting up when I use the Internet, an act that, once you're given the option of lying down and take it, is something you hate to go back to. Therefore, since I am lazy and have also just written ten pages on what I did on my winter vacation, This is a perfect excuse for me to stop doing daily blah blah blogs for a while; about a week to be exact (I hope) before I get the computer fixed. I will also take this chance to officially retire the Daily Quote because it just makes this post thing that much harder to write. I'm still surprised people read this stuff, anyway! Maybe I'll try some new things this year, like rhyming what I right, if I can get my timing right. But if the Dell folks spoke correctly, I'll go right back to my writing directly.

The other day I bought a black shirt and some black socks. The day before that I applied to the University of Rochester. I'm turning into Steinman.

Europe Journal

BERLIN

So what I remember learning today is that the Germans are really, really, really sorry about that whole Holocaust/World War II thing. They can’t apologize for that enough. One large city block is cleared to be a memorial for all murdered Jews. Just flat land. Very depressing. Ate a Berliner (a jelly doughnut, not a citizen) and it was okay; Ed Jr. wanted to stop at a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast which really says “native foods,” don’t you think? What else do I remember? Well, they’re still cleaning up from the war. There are still bombed-out buildings hanging out, especially in the East. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum is filled mostly with old warning signs that told all the Germans that their country was split in half. They all start with “Achtung!” and then they say something like “Do not cross the river under penalty of death” or “Have proper identification ready” or “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” You know, stuff that people would yell under stress if they had to. In East Berlin I bought me one of those wooden Russian dolls that you can open up and find a smaller doll inside. Neat! I always wanted one of those! This one is of Soviet leaders, from Yeltsin all the way down to Lenin and I think Karl Marx, but it’s too small to tell. So far my impressions of German folks are good. Their trains run right on time, which means they’re just like Buffalo’s subway except it works and it takes you somewhere. At the Reichstag (German Parliament building), the placards try to make abundantly clear that “The sham government of the Third Reich never held session inside our government headquarters.” It’s like Okay, guys, we’ve all moved on now! But everyone remembers when the Berlin Wall fell, and there’s a line through the city marking where it was. It’s an odd photo opp, especially as you try to take pictures of it in a busy intersection. Maybe it’s their way of getting the last Americans out of the country.






AMSTERDAM

You know, if you don’t smoke pot, like hookers, or own a bicycle, Amsterdam’s probably not for you. But we tolerated it for a few days. The first thing I remember is the bike garage, which must have had something like 7000 of the things on three levels. What I want to know is, how do these people get from their house to the bike garage? Anyway, I had the pannekoken. There’s the Beastie Boys lyric that says “When I’m in Holland, I eat the pannekoken,” and I always thought that referred (no pun intended) to marijuana. How foolish of me—they’re pancakes. And you roll weed in them. I’m just kidding. But speaking of drugs, we were walking down the street when Joe just kind of blurts out “Hey, as long as we’re here, why don’t we buy some crack?” Two seconds later, a guy walks up to Joe and asks him, “You’re looking for crack?” “No, I was only kidding.” “Are you sure?” “I WAS MAKING A JOKE.” He was very nice for a drug dealer, though. I actually felt bad for Joe because he really wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum but we didn’t have the time. We did make the time for the Anne Frank House, however, and it was a total waste. So these people hid in the attic, right? And fifty years later, someone thinks “Hey, I can make some money off of this,” puts up a couple of guardrails and wham, charges people like $6.50 to look at an empty attic. Whoo. And it brings in people by the droves; they line up down the street to see Anne Frank’s wallpaper. What else? You can’t take pictures in the Red Light District, but for the most part you probably don’t want to. And because property taxes used to be based on how much ground your house covered, all the buildings are really thin and high (in altitude, not under the influence). In order to get furniture upstairs they use a rope-and-pulley system outside, and so the furniture doesn’t hit the wall on the way up the building actually comes out towards the street as it goes up. So every building looks like it’s going to fall on you. That really makes me fell bad for the people walking around on mushrooms…dude.





PARIS

Paris on New Year’s Eve is nothing like Dick Clark does. First and most disappointing, there’s no big clock. People just sort of collectively decide when it turns into the next year, so it is midnight from about 11:30 to 12:30 in the morning. Second, the use of such explosives in New York City would probably get you deported. Paris doesn’t have a fireworks display, but the Parisian citizens compensate by bringing whatever sparklers, M-80s, rockets, or scud missiles they’ve been storing up for the last twelve months. And I’m only kidding about the scud missiles. Under the Eiffel Tower is Ground Zero, and anyone down there has to prepare to dodge everything thrown at them—purposely. We tried to stay away from the action but there were a bunch of kids—Joe and Ed refer to them as Arab terrorists (?) —that would run up to you, light a firecracker in your face, yell “Bonne Annee!” and throw them at you. We did a lot more running that night than we expected to. While trying to leave the area at 12:30, the major road was filled with cars that were scattered in fifty different angles—there was no use driving, the morons—and drunken revelers danced in between the four lanes of one-way traffic, personal champagne bottles in hand, jumping on car hoods and chasing after random girls to, well, French them. The French really aren’t as rude as people say…wait, yes they are. And I completely forgot that they closed the subway there at 1 AM meaning that 3 million people in the street had to walk home in the cold. THAT’S rude. Especially when the riot police is yelling at you to get back while he closes the metal gate to the station right in front of you. ESPECIALLY when your hotel room is like ten kilometers out of town and you end up walking for the next four hours in the cold. Speaking of subway stops, the ones near the hotel happened to be open, where we found two Anglophone girls about our age trying to find their way to Nation station, meaning they were too drunk, stupid, or both to notice they passed that stop twenty minutes before they actually got off the train. One said they were from “Vancouver,” the other from “Texas.” Yeah, right. You sound like you’re from Michigan State. Anyway, they asked what we thought of New Year’s in Paris and Joe says something like “It was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had,” to which Texas girl says, “I’ve partied harder.” So I feel bad for her, since she could have had a much more exciting time in her Michigan State dorm drinking a 24-pack of Budweiser in front the strobe light she bought at Spencer’s, instead of blowing all her parents’ money on a trip to Europe to get the same effect. The next morning we slept until 1:30, mostly because we needed that five hours of sleep to keep alive. Rockin'.






GENEVA

Switzerland is the only place where we had to exchange our money, from the universally accepted Euros to the lesser known Swiss Francs. Darned Swiss. You know they just joined the UN last year? In their attempt to be completely unbiased and peaceful, they’ve stayed out of the EU. That means one Euro is work like 1.34 Swiss Francs, or some weird computation that’s like measuring time in quarts. Our impression of Switzerland is very good, however, even though the city was on holiday that night and virtually empty. After all, they do have the UN there, and the Red Cross, so they must be decent folks. The Francophones there are polite, and every where you go sells Swiss Army Knives and Toblerones. We went to the church Martin Luther preached at after he was kicked out of Germany—I think that’s what happened—but it was closed. So we went to dinner at Movenpick because it was the only thing open and we sat next to an old lady that spent about an hour and a half picking at her $20 dinner (about 34n3.Q Swiss Francs) until she happily asked for her check. Like she was making a sand castle or something. We found a few statues in around the UN-Red Cross area that looked pretty odd so I made Ed and Joe stand next to them and imitate them while I took incriminating photos. I hope those came out. Did I mention Geneva is in the middle of the Alps? I don’t know how we did it, but we walked uphill the entire day. Even when we were backtracking. Strangely, we never saw the Swiss Army, that is until we got to Rome….






ROME

Rome is nuts. I’m a history major, and I almost went into shock. There are so many historical thingamabobs, or monument whatchamajiggers to commemorate the historical thingamabobs, that we eventually stopped walking around for fear that we’d find more stuff to look at. I wore a light brown, cordoroyish shirt with large breastpockets, where I put my oft-used camera and my daily allowance of five rolls of film. I went trigger-happy for two full days and Ed started calling me Generalissimo Photog, which kind of stuck. We had a tour book that said one of the hostels was called “Fawlty Towers,” coincidentally just like the old British sitcom. Then I found out it was actually based on the British sitcom, so it was even funnier. Then I found out that’s where Ed made our reservations and it was like winning $5 in the lottery! Sweet! The Roman subway has less stops, more people, less seats, more graffiti, less reliability and more sudden brakings than the one in New York City. Rome has the Pinto of subways. Still, whenever you get off, there’s tons of cool stuff! We went exploring around the Coliseum and found a 16th century chapel that was just covered in murals and other interesting artistic endeavors. We found the archaeological remains of a pagan temple and the Circus Maximus within a couple minutes walk. One of the best things was outside the city—the catacombs—and I was happy to have dragged Ed and Joe to it. I don’t feel bad about getting off at the wrong bus stop, or making them walk down a rural road with no shoulder while little Italian cars missed them by inches going about 70 miles an hour, because we got there, right? It’s weird finding a cave that second century Popes were buried in. A Spanish lady who spoke decent English told our Italian tour guide that we should pray and that made all the opened graves seem a bit more homey. Still, the tour guide told us that she once took a group of British folks down there and she hasn’t found them yet. Nuts, I tells ya!






VATICAN CITY

The Vatican is the shiznit. Word. It is the smallest country in the world, but per square mile it is ten times cooler than anything else out there. Even better then Luxembourg. The Vatican is also where I was the least able to get along with, and Generalissimo Photog should apologize to his comrades for acting like a military sergeant as I tried to make time for everything. First off, the country is protected by the Swiss Guard; how cool is that? And you wonder, if the Swiss never fight, are they good? Then again maybe the Catholics hired them because they DON’T want them to fight. Either way they’re armed with axes. Yeah. We took the elevator to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica…well, not exactly the top. That takes you to the rim of the dome, probably the most impressive sight of the entire trip. It’s crazy stepping into that doorway and realizing you’re ten stories up and there is a 300-foot chasm right in front of you. And that chasm, and the dome over it, is covered in gold, mosaics, and Who knows what else. The extra 330 steps to the very top were almost as interesting, as you had to walk up stairs sideways as you went up the side of the dome. I could talk all day about this place. In the Vatican museum, Joe had to walk against traffic for 20 minutes to get back into the Sistine Chapel because he didn’t know “the picture with the two guys almost touching” was in there and he had to see it before we left. There were wall paintings and carvings at every step. Even if the museum were empty it’d be a great museum. And what supposedly remains of St. Peter is underneath the Basilica, in it’s own special room with golden everything and diamond encrusted stuff that nobody can look at except through a window. I’d like to spend another week in the Vatican, just snooping around, trying to sneak into the Pope’s basement, but the Swiss Guards would probably hack me to death. The next time I go I’m going to bring a bunch of postcards with Martin Luther on them, just so I can get them stamped with the Vatican postmark.






AUSTRIA

After two very long days in Rome, it was actually nice to get stuck in a stuffy train car overnight. On the way down from Rome we were put in a sleeper with this Italian guy and his snoring, four-year old son, and some girl named Ja Young, who didn’t say a word the entire time but had a stuffed koala bear attached to her backpack next to the name tag that said “Korea.” Nice people, but too many for a 6 by 6 by 8 cell. So this time Ed tried to make sure no one got in the cabin. He had us shut the door, close the curtains, turn out the lights, and stretch waaaaay out over the seats so it looked like there was no room. But first we had to get rid of three guys from Senegal, or some other country. Their language sounded like a mix of Spanish, French, Swahili (though I’ve never heard Swahili and don’t really know what I’m talking about) and Mooklar, a language I just invented. But they seemed very nice. One they left we put our plan into action and took over the cabin. We slept head to head to head, just like the Beastie Boys’ “Hello Nasty” cover, and talked girl talk all night. At about six or seven in the morning an Austrian border guard—the real freaking military—threw open the door and yelled “PASSPORTS!” Joe and Ed didn’t wake up fast enough to notice, but he was smiling the whole time. It must have been really funny watching Larry, Moe, and Curly fly around leap up from a pile of coats and luggage like startled moles. Bumping into each other for no reason other than we were still dreaming, Joe gave him his ticket, or the first piece of paper he could find, to which the border guard yelled at him again until he figured it out. I had mine but he barely looked at the thing; his smile just got BIGGER. Then he yelled “THANK YOU!” and we never saw him again. So that’s what I remember about our 45 minutes in Austria.






MUNICH

Munich¡¦s a good, hearty town. I think it was Sunday that day, so everything was closed again. We got there about eight or nine in the morning and Ed knew of a nice pub that we could go visit, and since Joe and I didn¡¦t know where we were going (a normal occurrence) we just followed him. The pub makes its own beer, is about five hundred years old and prefers natives to tourists. We forced Joe to drink a liter of beer for breakfast, and Ed already posted about that; it¡¦s as funny as it sounds. ƒº A great part about this tavern was that certain tables had a coat of arms hanging over it. We found out that certain groups of local men claim these tables, and no one else is allowed to sit there. Ever. Their own special beer mugs are kept locked away for when they come. And there a group of them was, 10 AM on a Sunday morning, preparing for a long day of drinking beer. One guy even had a drinking glove so as not to get repetitive stress injuries in his hand. That¡¦s Messed Up. There was a band and everyone was having a pretty good time, but we had to go, especially Joe, who had to pee like nobody¡¦s business. Outside at noon we watched the town clock go off, especially interesting because it¡¦s one of those old ones with little people in them that dance around every hour. About fifty people came out to watch it, and it was interesting for a full two minutes; good thing we ran out there in the blistering cold to go see THAT. I can¡¦t really remember anything else about Munich; Joe was drunk enough for all of us. Now where did we go next?





COLOGNE

Ed really hyped up the cathedral in Cologne, Germany (which is Koln, Deutchland to the natives). “You really have to see it, Fred.” “It’s really cool, it’s the biggest Gothic cathedral in the world.” Blah blah blah. So one day we step out of the train station and Boom, there it is. This 700+ foot church is standing right in front of us. Big, black, pointed, covered in gargoyles. It’s so big it blocks out the sun. And we just stand there, staring at it. “Holy CRAP.” And nobody says anything for like three minutes. Then Ed says, “Yeah, the first time we saw it we were like ‘holy crap’ too.” Ed and I came back a couple days later and I was still like “Holy CRAP” for a full day. I just kept repeating, “It’s so BIG!” But inside was sweet. Imagine a building like that full of mosaic floors with stones no bigger than your pinkie fingernail. The thing took 600 years to build! They also just opened a museum in the basement with some funky relics, like some cattle brandings from the 17th century that’s supposed to cure Mad Cow Disease. Wuh? The rest of the city was pretty nice as well; there are hardly any cars downtown because like most cities in Europe, the streets are too small for ‘em. They tried the same thing in America: they call them shopping malls and since they’re away from population centers the parking lots and highways needed take away the convenience they supposedly make. Ed and I went to a store called Media Markt, kind of a Circuit City. Over there they still have a “Black Music” section for CDs. That really isn’t a big a problem as Ed and I going CD shopping, because we both have serious problems in that category. I think we got like 12 CDs total and then went to Pizza Hut. Ed has been hankering for American food the whole trip—he forced his parents to go to Dunkin Donuts in Berlin for breakfast—so I let him succumb to his urges for once. I took the plunge and had the pizza with pineapple on it, because I figured, hey, yesterday I had pizza with tuna fish on the top; how could this be any worse? I came out of there a convert. Bathrooms cost no matter where you go, and I paid the attendant double because I just felt bad. What else happened in Koln? Well, it was settled around 60 AD by the Romans, but that doesn’t have much to do with my trip.






AACHEN

Aachen always reminds me of the Castle Aaaaaaaaagh mentioned in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” It’s almost as historical! Here we saw remnants of an old Roman watchtower (still in use), and the church that Charlemagne used to control the Holy Roman Empire from. There’s a bust of Charlemagne in there that actually contains his real skull; Ed found out that whenever a new king took power they would bring out Charlemagne’s head to welcome him. Geez. There was some other story about how the church was bombed during World War II but the late Charlemagne’s Magical Powers deflected everything off the roof. Instead, the bombs all hit the church next door! Ha ha ha ha ha! Ahem. I took pictures of quaint streets and old stones while Ed bought postcards. After all, if you take a bunch of pictures, why buy postcards, and if you buy a lot of postcards, why use a lot of film? We dropped off Joe a day or two before, and realized that our conversations focused more on history, school, and big words compared to when Joe was with us. By the end of the trip, a good 80% of what Joe said involved the word “Bork!” Remember the Swedish Chef from “The Muppet Show,” and nobody knew what he was talking about? In Europe, it was like we were meeting 1000 new Swedish Chefs every day, and we imitated them often through our brash American ignorance. France: “Qu’est-ce que le bork bork?” Germany: “Borken ze bork?” Italy: “Borka borka! That’s-a spicy-a meatball.” Ah, Aachen.






BRUSSELS

Brussels was cold. Hot d*ng, it was cold. You know how cold it is outside now? It was COLDER there. Ed normally prefers walking to the subway—What better way to see the sights?—but we gave up quickly because we were turning blue. So anyway, we kept going into a bunch of churches for no real reason other than they looked neat…and because we were COLD and trying to stay warm! The only thing colder than the weather was the reception we got at the Court of Justice, a really great building where, apparently, some serious shizzy was going down. In Flemish, “shizzy” means depositions, asylum requests, and other international Serious Business. We scrammed without taking pictures because we were afraid of getting arrested. Earlier that day we had the totally required Belgian Waffles and some chocolate (good!) and made our vacation compete visiting the Mannekin Pis. At the waffle place we realized that all the nice French people left France, for several reasons:

1.) The store was closed, but they let us in and took our order

2.) When we left a tip, they got all upset and tried to tell us in French that we paid them too much!

3.) A fellow American tourist’s credit card didn’t work and she “had no money” (sounds dubious) and was allowed to come back later when she found a cash machine

4.) They were awesome waffles!

We also went to the new EU complex, where we found a Tourist Information center with more free stuff than I could carry. So I made Ed carry it for me! Ooh, what else? BRUPARCK! A leftover from a World’s Fair of old, BRUPARCK! has the greatest movie cineplex in the work, a 300-foot tall model of an atom, and fish and chips (good!) for only 7 euros 50.






FRANKFURT

I went to the airport in Duesseldorf to fly home, but not only did the flight get canceled, United Airlines declared bankruptcy and by the time I got there the company had packed up and left. Somehow I ended up in Frankfurt. Frankfurt’s airport has about 400 front desks, and that’s not an exaggeration. I don’t remember how I got home. I mean, I took a plane, but other than that I’m pretty clueless. All I remember is having a cold, running about a mile down a hallway, and having about ten security guards get friendly with me in the course of seven minutes. I played a lot of Game Boy on the plane and tried not to throw up. And that’s the end of my trip! Thank goodness, because I’ve written ten pages about it and I don’t want to write any more. Time for a nap. Bonne annee!

2003

CD: various, "All Areas Volume 35"

Hey, folks. I decided to skip out of the country for a couple weeks, so, Jiminy, I'm really behind on my posts. So the first posts will be about my trip to Europe, done on a per city basis. I also have an aborted trip log that lasted two full days (don't laugh, it lasted longer than the "running schedule" I instituted last summer). But I'm stuck in the house with a cold and I'm determined to make up the sixteen days I missed. Including this post: Happy New Year! 2003 is shaping up to be a real humdinger of a twelve month cycle. Speaking of which, a more accurate calendar would have thirteen 28 day periods based on the cycle of the moon, which was the intent in the first place. The problem was that 13 is an unlucky number, so they cut it down to twelve and made sure Black History Month got the short end of the deal. So what should the thirteenth month be called? Here are some suggestions, in brainstorming order:

-Bush!
-Rocktober
-Winslow
-Lavigne
-Bork Bork Bork!
-Shibby
-Stern Rules!
-Friday
-Dick Hertz
-The Extra Month, brought to you by Pringles New Sour Cream and Onion Chips. Pringles: Once You Pop, You Can't Stop!
-Month of the Llama
-Grunge
-Danko
-H (the H is silent)
-Atari
-Hammertime

That's enough of that. Finally, the quote of the year so far:

Margaret: "You smell!"
Jerry: "What do I smell like?"
Margaret: "Like the inside of a turtle!"

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.

$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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!"

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

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.”

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

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

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!"

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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."

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

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

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"