the ascii fish

after all the comments regarding this post, the author decided to write this one. below is my comment on it - putting it up here for prosperity, and because i'm still trying to find the best way to describe why i'm doing this.

Thanks for this post, Sam. Fortunately I'm already doing most, if not all, of what you suggest. ever since i was old enough to read I sponged up anything aviation related. As for goals, mine is simple - fly without having to pay for it and if possible, have flying be my major source of income. whether that's as FO on an RJ, dropping meat bombs on the weekend, or pulling ads through the sky, it is what it is. my love for flying goes well beyond money, and as far as a comfortable lifestyle...let's just say i don't go to bed at night with a smile on my face because I had a really productive day in the cubicle / computer lab / what-have-you, it's usually because i learned something new with my cfi, or demonstrated something in the air that i've only read about in the text books. when I fly I still get the same feeling everytime - *everytime* - that this is the best thing ever, and this is after 12 years of being a professional student. the mix of physics, radios, structure, adventure, whim, and serenity of being up there will never get old. it might get clouded by company politics, low pay, and god forbid, other's cynicism, but it will always be there to find again. call that sentiment naive, but the grass is always greener. luckily i have a fallback career...but frankly, i'm sick of doing it!

becoming a private pilot made me a better person. it effected everything i do, adding structure, analytical thinking and a calm under pressure - things i don't think i'd ever have uncovered in myself. so that, mixed with what i wrote above, tells me there's nothing else i should be doing except to continue...IR, CPL, CFI, MEI...and on and on.

oh, and I guess ATP now as well :P

early saturday morning - 8am - i departed in N3572M, type PA28-161, from KBED and tuned in the concord vor, setting my heading to match it's 359 course. half way to manchester, boston approach verifies that i'm direct to lebanon. "via concord" i reply, "...but i'll take it directly there at this point." as i glanced at my watch, the thought of my mother waiting in that terminal in lebanon, wondering why her newly minted private pilot son is 15 minutes late. "roger" back from approach. i can pick up the lebanon vor at this point, so it's direct there, with route 89 in sight, following me along on the right - a nice would-be curvy emergency runway, should i need it. my co-pilot is claire, she's probably logged about 20 hours passenger time at this point. she's good at finding us on the map, great at spotting gliders and other intruders, and is a fantastic companion to have up in the air. about 10 miles out and 5 minutes late already, i ask lebanon tower to call the fbo and tell them i'm 15 minutes out...my mother doesn't need more to worry about. the very chipper controller gladly agrees and i wonder if everyone is like this at this hour of saturday morning...should i start drinking less on fridays?

my mother is elated. it's her first time up with me, and i can only wonder at what it's like to have the toddler who once flew little metal jets around the living room now be piloting a full size airplane with her in it. she's amazed that i instruct her to keep the warrior's only door open until we are ready to lift off. it's hot out, and once the door closes, the tempurature rises sharply in the little greenhouse cockpit. runway 18 is long at KLEB, but one notch of flaps, just to be on the safe side, as the sun is now fully risen and the days heat is upon new england. as we are about 300 feet above the ground, my mother is glued to the window. claire casually explains where the air vents are. i'm trying to ignore that i have the two most important women in my life at the mercy of my flying skill, and doing my best to excersize that skill. i always hate climbout with rising terrain - this departure is one, not as bad as 14 at fitchburg, but close. the warrior lumbers up to 5500, and we are playing with the clouds. along the way i'm pointing out various towns and landmarks, and over KMHT an ERJ-135, the same as my childhood friend flies, passes 300 feet under us "...traffic in sight," the weary and underpaid FO says concerning us over the radio. at KBED i do a touch and go, and a landing, the 3rd of 3 great landings. it's only 11am.

we met up with dad, headed to the country club in new bedford where my sister in law's baby shower was being held. on the way i finished my logbook entry, made a new page, and realized that my total time had passed 150 hours somewhere over new hampshire. dad and i were tipsy by 2pm, and jon drove us to eat downtown. after that, we headed over to someone's friend's house and had a few more. by midnight, i had been home, eaten, sobered up and was back out with claire at the lodge, barely able to stand being so tired after such a long day. i had a couple greyhounds and headed to bed.

boss: hey, can you find out what mailbox server j is on?
me: sure, what's up?
b: well, some people are on 10, others on 12, they're, some on 8, you know, its all done alphabetically.
m: yeah, i'm on 10, right...
b: well, 9 and 10 are down right now so some people aren't getting mail.
m: right...
b: but j says she's on 12 and she's getting mail.
m: that's because 12's not down.
b: but j's last name begins with c, so she should be on 10.
m: but she's getting mail, and she knows she's on 12, and 12 is up.
b: well i think she's supposed to be on 10.
m: um...ok...
b: it's no big rush, but can you just let me know which server she's on?
m: ....

from them:

I am Barrister Grey Williams. I have been waiting for you to contact me for your conformable Bank Draft of $780.000.00 United States Dollars. Contact me for more details. Contact E-mail:bargreywilliams@gmail.com

reply from me:

you've been waiting? I'm not sure why, I haven't been told to contact you...at least not that I know of. I apologize because I suffer from acute and sporadic synaptical homo-amnesiatic terror syndrome, or A.S.S.H.A.T. syndrome as it's call here in the great Godly and Righteous country of America. The disease is horrible and causes huge lapses in memory. Just the other day I forgot the face of my own child!

What do you want first, my bank account number, or my social security number? I apologize as I have neither, because I am not a citizen and I don't have a bank account, just lots of cash lying around. so let me know what else I can give you to help out with this conformable transfer of funds.

thank you, and may God never strike you with ASSHAT syndrome as he has with me.

-Lawrence

lucky me - i get my very own scammer to play with. here is the correspondence so far - hopefully he writes back:

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 10:48 AM, frank rebery wrote:

Thanks so much for the update.The price is not the problem but i think i have to be very careful this time when am transacting on the internet. I had fallen into the hands of some fradulent seller that,collected my money and ver ships out my item. I hope i can trust you? Anyway, i intend to make fast payment as soon as i can before i travel to Bahamas in 2 weeks time. I will making my payment through US Certified check and i will wait till you receive and cash it before i arrange for the shipping.

Shipping will be solely funded by me without you paying a dime, if you are okay with this, let me have your full name and address plus your reachable telephone number as it will be written on the check so that,i can forward it to my finance house to prepare your check immediately for you to receive it on time. Do get back to me

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 6:34 PM, Pete Kemble wrote:

Wow! this almost sounds too good to be true! you'll pay shipping?! that's great.

Something has come up, though. another suitor for my guitar has written and is interested in buying the guitar. However, he is not going to pay shipping, but is going to pick up the guitar as the ad said, since he lives close by. fortunately though, frank rebery, not all hope is lost. he has graciously agreed to have a contest with you so that i may judge who is most worthy of purchasing the guitar from me. He is currently preparing a video of himself playing the guitar, just a brief few minutes, and wishes you to do the same so that i can judge who deserves the guitar more. please let me know which song you will be performing in the video, and get it to me as soon as possible as you only have two weeks before moving to the bahamas where there is no mail to ship things. thank you, and god bless.

-p

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 2:04 PM, frank rebery wrote:

hello are you selling this to me or not..

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Pete Kemble wrote:

I hope so! you offered free (paid for shipping) which I cannot turn down! Are you going to send me a video of you playing guitar so I can decide who gets it or not?

forgive me for using vb.net, but here's a quick and dirty way to get a nice login with password masking (the latter being the point of this post)

Sub Main()

Dim strU As String
Dim strP As String
Console.Write("Username: ")
strU = Console.ReadLine()
Console.Write("Password: ")
Dim strPkey As ConsoleKeyInfo
Do
strPkey = Console.ReadKey(True)
If strPkey.Key <> ConsoleKey.Enter Then
strP = strP & strPkey.KeyChar.ToString
Console.Write("*")
Else
Exit Do
End If
Loop

End Sub

verizon's not happy with me, but that's fine. while they were reliable and low maintenance, they were also pretty vapid and flashy. too much makeup, and not enough substance, if you will. i'm speaking about my now dormant samsung u740. at first i was seduced by it's confusing keypad and ability to go both ways. in fact, the keypad alone brought back fond memories of the motorola timeport i had in the earlier part of this decade. (i still say that screen is the best to date for a lowend clamshell.) it also got me out of a long term contracted commitment with sprint, the crazy company that sends you feces in the mail, surprises you one day by doing all your laundry and then sleeps with your friend because the birthday present you stole for it wasn't expensive enough. verizon was good, and fair. the u740 did it's job and was a breath of fresh air after my sprint razr. (btw, sprint puts their own UI /over/ the existing motorola one. it was like running doom II on a 386 with 4mb ram. some of you know what i'm talking about.) but after a while, i became a little frustrated. you pay for a piece of solid state, it has an OS, it has removable storage, some of them have wifi, gps and a keyboard...but you're not allowed to access all these things. you want to connect your phone to the computer? that propreitary cable costs money, my friend. you want to import a ringtone of circuit bent malaise you created yourself? no, i don't think so. here, have this kanye west ringtone from the verizon store. only $0.99. my xv8600 at work has gps, but verizon blocks it...yet it's running wm6. not even a registry hack will enable it. wtf, verizon? do you want to read my mail before i open it, and perhaps it'd be ok if i spend some time with my guy friends? oh no, of course...i forgot you need someone to help you blow-dry your hair and scrapbook, and yes of course i like this sweater you bought me and are making me wear. when some of my friends started getting iphones, i should have been jealous, but meh. it was only until android actually became a reality that i could be swayed to grow dual nuts and leave the stalwart vzw controlling ice-queen.

here's my take on the g1 THUS FAR;

cons:

camera: completely useless. 0 settings, no flash, has the exposure capabilities of a flashless holga. at night. in a cave. with the lens cap on.

UI: i'm 'clicking' a little longer than i'd like to (more like a brief touch) to activate things. it occasionally will be a little sluggish, but i would like to attribute this to the few custom apps i have running.

battery life: like driving a hummer with the gas tank of a moped.

customization: a few things could improve here. i'm finding that some things that should be obvious aren't available. such as, i would like a vibrate when i receive a notification; new e-mail, new text, new g-talk message (oh yes. FUCKING AWESOME.) you can't edit desktop shortcuts (maybe getting ahead of myself there...it is still just a phone) and the trackball is too slow in regular menus (great in the browser, though.)

durability: eh...i guess it could be worse, a little on the flimsy side but i don't really care. nice looking phones get stolen.

which brings me to the pros:

HOLY CRAP MY PHONE IS RUNNING LINUX! OH MY FUCKING GOD! everything besides what's listed above is so totally worth the some $400 this whole conversion has cost me. it's beautiful, the 3g is fine (although i'm sure there are people who will debate this) it has the full size web, the sound quality is great, and getting around the phone is intuitive and easy. the keyboard is nice (i still say the rubbery XV8600 keypad is the best) and the trackball is a nice addition. overall, i'm pretty psyched to have this phone.

well according to this picture from ryanair's website, the emergency landing described here shouldn't happen for a good ten years. however, i'm still wondering how the gear collapsed...both engines out?

after the bird strike as outlined in my previous post, the following day i went to get a bird feeder and some seed to even out my place in the world, and pay my debt to bird society. i feel somewhat better...

in what was supposed to be my solo sign-off unfortunately became my first bird-strike while flying on saturday. on my 3rd (and what was going to be the last) dual pattern on downwind for runway 29 at hanscom, a large seagull / bird met it's fate with my right wing. for a split second i saw the flash of feathers and bird-ass about 20 feet ahead. i was traveling at roughly 100mph, and it seemed the bird about 25mph. as close calls with birds are not uncommon, they usually will dive off to a side and avoid the plane. we were about 5 feet underneath it, so it basically dove right into the wing. with a sound that was very similar to a "GORPH" the bird literally exploded and left a sizable dent in the wing. fortunately i never lost control of the plane (the strike itself was more like a tap on the shoulder) and bog-bless the designers at Piper, because the plane flew without a problem back to the ramp. below are the pictures of the plane.

as a side-note, i'm bummed not just because i have to wait 3 weeks to fly again (being signed off to solo would be great because i could work off just my schedule) but also being a vegetarian; i'm not supposed to kill things!

well, hallelujah, you can see an un-pixelated hanscom field now on google maps. the two blue planes are the tomahawks i usually train in. here!

hangover categories:

category 1: wake up sleepy, feel fine before leaving for work

category 2: wake up sleepy, head clears up around 10am

category 3: wake up groggy, slight nausea, coffee is of no help. possible headaches

category 4: wake up tipsy, dry skin throughout day, persistent headache, high water intake, head clears around 4pm. possible side effect is being in a great mood, and having a sense of well-being

category 5: wake up drunk, dry skin, bowel troubles, "real" hangover kicks in mid-morning, severe headaches, human interaction confusing and troublesome.

cateogry 6: wake up sober and unhappy the next night.

loving youtube today...

it's like Tim and Eric, only....

aw....i was kind of hoping it was real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zladko_Vladcik

there are so many things wrong with this. being a vegetarian, i'm not only grossed out by the main course, but mostly by the total lack of respect. "squirrels like nuts..."

today house robot cleaning unit ran amok. i came home to find the mail in disarray (see below), the cat's food and water pushed into a corner, and her bathroom box pushed to the side so she couldn't get in. tsk, tsk...

got this from a staffing agency today:

Our client, a leader in the legal services industry is currently seeking document coders or non-traditional data entry candidates in the Burlington MA area. We state non-traditional because no mouse will be utilized and you must have a working knowledge of keyboard shortcuts i.e. CTRL+C (Copy)CTRL+X (Cut)CTRL+V (Paste)! Candidates will be working within our client’s cutting edge proprietary software which is very similar to Excel. We are seeking numerous candidates/coders for 9am-5pm shifts M-F + some evening shifts, 5pm-10pm! Must be able to work with highly confidential information; qualified candidates should have a strong knowledge of Excel and be able to type a minimum of 25wpm. This is long term temporary/ temporary-to-permanent work! Reliable transportation required. 10.00/hr

some things jumped out at me; cutting-edge, no mouse, data entry coders...

well, gosh, if it were $10.50/hr i'd consider it...

i am typing to you from my virtually indestructible keyboard. this is going to take a lot of getting used to.

from the FAA advisory circular "Aviation Weather" published in 1975 - the title picture for the chapter on "Pressure..."

it's the symbol for well being....on my noodles.

i'm not the only one who insists on using the old school manual E6-B! huzzah!

found a picture of one of the tomahawks i used to fly out of north hampton airport.

currently i'm flying this guy a lot:

about 10 years ago in college i was talking to an old high school friend over the phone. the topic came to some of my gay friends and she muttered something along the lines of "they'll burn in hell". confused (yet sensing where the conversation was going) i asked her why, and she went on about how she had really connected with her inner methodist in college. i hung up, and had no desire to ever speak with her again. i had lost a friend not to religion, but to prejudice (and general retardation, if you ask me.)

well, she found me on facebook a couple weeks ago, and sent a friend request. i was ignoring it, hoping it would go away, until i got a message. here's how that went (she's in red, i'm in blue):

You must not check facebook very often. Log-on when you can - I'm dying to catch up!

August 13 at 10:34am
Hey,

Good to hear from you. I'm a little apprehensive to get back in touch with you after the last time we talked about 10 years back. I remember you saying some pretty offensive things concerning religion and homosexuality that I have great issue with and cannot forget. I have several gay friends and seeing the prejudices that they have to go through can be heartbreaking at times, especially when the core of them are based in religion, an institution that is supposed to promote love, compassion, and relief for oppressed people. I understand that it might be unfair for me to put this on you, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that your views on other people's lifestyles from a decade ago has taken a more positive route. But please understand that I have no room in my life for any forms of hatred or prejudice, even when it's veiled behind a mask of religion.

August 13 at 11:37am

Wow, well that's quite a "hi, and how are you". I guess I would answer you like this. I'm still a christian, and I still feel that homosexuality is a sin. However, that doesn't mean that I hate people - nor do I treat people unkindly. I wish I knew what I said ten years ago to give you that impression. I don't know about other "organized religions", but my faith calls me to follow the bible - which tells me to love all people. It's not my place to judge. Like anyone else's sin, it's between them and God. I do feel strongly about that. But I don't hate people. I do my best to treat all people the same.
I'm sorry if my views on the bible will keep us from catching up. I do hope that isn't the case. I would really like to know what you've done with your life.

August 20 at 9:22pm

Hi again,
I am going to presume that you read my last message, and have decided that you will not or cannot write me back. I just find it interesting that what you seem to be most upset with me about is intolerence of a different lifestyle - when you are unwilling to speak to me due to my choice of lifestyle(Christian). Isn't that, in itself, intolerant as well? I can't pretend to be something I'm not - or that I agree with a lifestyle choice that I do not. At the same time, I'll reiterate that I don't hate people - reguardless of their sexuality.
I had hoped we could reconnect, as we were such good friends in highschool. I'm here if you change your mind.
God Bless,

Today at 12:00pm

I don't really know how to respond to any of what you wrote, but i'll try to be more clear: homosexuality isn't a choice. a christian lifestyle is. but that's not what i'm intolerant of - i am intolerant of anyone who is judgemental of people without knowing them personally, there's a word for it - prejudice - and it's a problem i have with you, regardless of religion or choice of lifestyle. in your last message to me you claimed that it's "not your place to judge", yet a few sentences back you call homosexuality a sin...am i starting to make sense here? again, it has nothing to do with your religion, more your choice of intolerance, prejudice, and no doubt a little ignorance of homosexuality on the side. you're a very minor example of this - an extreme example of this would be the 'god-hates-fags' cult - but the same mindset is there. don't kid yourself.

that being said, there are many churches in new england that celebrate gay marriage (equal rights made this country great, right?) have gay priests, fly rainbow flags, and are generally just nice people because as religion should be, they believe in loving your fellow man, and being tolerant of 'all of god's children' regardless their walk in life. again, your prejudice has nothing to do with religion. don't let them tell you that it does.

for a while i was volunteering at a homeless shelter, and a fair amount of young, gay teenage boys would come through from time to time. they weren't on drugs, and they weren't committing any crimes. they had simply been thrown out or had run away from abusive parents and family who, (no surprise here) were hiding behind the angelic veil of untouchable religion and rejected their own children, instead of loving and accepting who they are, as i thought religion existed to do. until you experience this with your own eyes, and feel their pain and suffering firsthand, don't you dare call homosexuality a 'sin'.

yes we were good friends in high school, but somewhere along the line either you stopped thinking for yourself and let someone else do it for you, or you really did develop a prejudice intolerance for something you know so little about. i hope one day you look beyond the bible and start thinking for yourself. afterall that book was written thousands of years ago when slavery and genocide were common practice, has been translated countless times from forgotten languages, and has been misinterpreted over centuries.

because of all this, i have no desire to reconnect with you, the same as finding out that an old friend has become racist, or blindly extremist. i'm sorry, and i wish you could understand.

I'm hoping there won't be any replies (arguing with prejudice, especially when it's masked by religion is usually pretty pointless) but should there be, i'll be sure to post them!

If anyone would like the original windows 95 screen savers, they can be downloaded here. If this is a violation of M$, or if they would like them taken down, I'd be happy to oblige. Enjoy!

1. start a cup of basmati in your new $100 rice cooker
2. start preparing a bunch of kale, chop it up
3. slice some fresh shitaki mushrooms up
4. slice off about 6-7 pieces of ginger root
5. start steaming the kale
6. start sauteeing the ginger in whatever oil you have
7. start sauteeing the shitake in the ginger laden oil
8. wait for the rice to be done
9. put the finished rice on the plate, followed but the steamed kale, and then the mushrooms
10. put soy sauce all over it if you want
11. you should be here now:

12. put on the latest DVR'd episode of mad men, and pour yourself a drink.

i'm back in my room after experiencing a thunderstorm in midtown manhatten. the thunder doesn't bang as it does back in the sticks, that is to say, boston, but rather rumbles and reverberates through the tall buildings, creating a jetliner type roar, rising than falling with each fashion-shoot photo-like flash of lightening.

the acela train was shit. uncomfortable church pew like posture seating with 30 minutes waiting in line in the dining car for a couple of beers served with the zeal of a ticket-taker. in fact i wish the woman who gave me my ticket in south station served my train beers. she at least had an ounce of life in her, and was aware of the huge line waiting.

as i left penn station and grabbed a cab outside of madison sq. garden i was reminded of flying through madison, ct, my hometown at 150mph, passing over the bridge which as a teenager greg and i staked out sitting stoned beneath the railroad ties as trains zoomed over us. this was before the acela tracks were built. these were old school new haven metro trains that burst our brains and ears.

the chic shoreham hotel bar staffed with hip lighting and super skinny gay boys was no comfort. the woman who flirted with me in the elevator for about 3.5 seconds on the way up to my penthouse suite before she got out at the 6th floor was none either. 'huh, there are 6 rooms on my floor too' was all she ended with after answering her question of how many penthouse suites there were on my floor. and now i'm about to oversee a software deployment. a bit drunk, tired at 1055pm, there's 5 minutes left of decision time. 630am will be a bitch to arrive at the office on 53rd.

I can’t believe it was so simple, and I missed it for so long.

After referencing and importing mpsLLC71.dll into the namespace, you add:

Shell("C:\Program Files\MPS\Prolog Manager 7\Program\mpsRbl71.exe -q -u", , True)
Dim reg As New CLicV3Com()
reg.SitePath = "C:\Program Files\MPS\Prolog Manager 7\Program\"
reg.RegisterToServer("\\your-license/app-server-UNC-name\MPS\Prolog Manager 7\Program\")

completely silent and working Prolog license registrations!

set the publicDelegates field in AD using dsquery to have something first. In this example, my mail server is "mailserver" and the address to get reviewer rights is all allusers and is a distribution list:

Private Sub SetCalendarPerms()
Dim sMailServ = "mailserver"
Dim oSession As New MAPI.Session()
Dim strMBX = Replace(g_cn, "\", "")
Dim oStore As MAPI.InfoStore
Dim oRootFolder As MAPI.Folder
Dim oFolders As MAPI.Folders
Dim oFolder As MAPI.Folder
Dim oACLs As New ACLObject
Dim oFolderACEs As IACEs
Dim oNewACE As New ACE
Dim oAddrBook As MAPI.AddressList
Dim oDelegate As MAPI.AddressEntries
Dim oAllSDC As MAPI.AddressEntry
Dim i As Integer

Try
oSession.Logon(, , , , , , sMailServ & vbLf & strMBX) '("", "", True, True, 0, True, sMailServ & vbLf & strMBX)
oStore = CType(oSession.GetInfoStore, MAPI.InfoStore)
oRootFolder = CType(oStore.RootFolder, MAPI.Folder)
oFolders = CType(oRootFolder.Folders, MAPI.Folders)
oFolderACEs = CType(oACLs.ACEs, IACEs)
oAddrBook = oSession.AddressLists("Global Address List")
oDelegate = oAddrBook.AddressEntries
For i = 1 To oDelegate.Count
oAllSDC = oDelegate.Item(i)
'If oAllSDC.DisplayType = 1 Then
If oAllSDC.Name = "AllUsers" Then
Exit For
End If
' End If
Next

For i = 0 To CInt(oFolders.Count)
oFolder = CType(oFolders.GetNext, MAPI.Folder)
If CStr(oFolder.Name) = "Calendar" Then
Exit For
End If
Next

oACLs.CDOItem = oFolder
oNewACE.ID = oAllSDC.ID
oNewACE.Rights = ACLRIGHTS.ROLE_REVIEWER
oFolderACEs.Add(oNewACE)
oACLs.Update()
oSession.Logoff()

Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.Message & " --error setting delegates")
End Try
End Sub

Worked on airworks again yesterday in the practice area with my instructor. Trying to do turns around a point using this baseball field as a point with about 13kts of wind. brought back memories of flying around southern connecticut in a 152 with my first instructor about 12 years ago. managed to snap a few pictures during the pre-flight.

In trying to find a way to enable the quicklaunch toolbar automatically during WDS, BDD, MDT, MDS or whatever you want to call it this week deployment, I've created the following:

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Public Class Form1
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Integer
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hWnd As Integer, ByVal nCmdShow As Integer, ByVal wParam As Integer, ByVal lparam As Integer) As Integer
Const WM_USER As Int32 = &H400

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
SendMessage(FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", vbNullString), WM_USER + 237, 0, 1)
End Sub
End Class

Just create a basic form with one button (button1 as above) and that'll do it. Customize it all you want, make it automatic, but that's the "root veggies" (as a vegetarian, i feel weird saying that that's the meat of the program :) )

well, look who's all of a sudden afraid of thunderstorms...

finished "restoring" the phantom teardrop (made by phantom guitar works). at the time i got this guitar back in september 2002 it was the nicest thing i owned as far as instruments. the original pickups broke where the screws mount them, so i just bought some stratocaster replacements - they are mightymites (their website has a picture of a very angry looking woman on it) and they sound great.

in addition, my yamaha fx500 also arrived today...now the question is, do i play the strat, or the teardrop...

yesterday i got off the silver line bus at temple place, downtown boston as i do everyday to walk right into a blood trail. the trail lasted about 40 yards before disappearing down a wet washington street. it started on the manhole on the right of this street view, and lasted well down the street, and out of site where it seemed to have originated. around the fire hydrant was a dropped / broken cell phone. a guy getting off the bus picked up the phone and put it in his pocket, i'm guessing to return to a vendor or something. i suppose he didn't realize that he could be holding evidence. the trail itself was easily a full pint. a co-worker of mine suggested it might be a leaky something or other, and i suppose it might have been, but there was a definite creepiness to all of it, and given the area, it wouldn't surprise me. later on the subway, a crackhead sat next my co-worker and stared at him the entire ride (ironically?) eating a bag of cracker jacks, and chuckling to himself. he finally got off one stop before us. my co-worker was the real winner in the end though, as the crackerjack-head left the prize behind for my co-worker to reap the reward...the reward of discarded cracker jack prizes. here's some inconspicuous cellphone shots of the trail:

after 18 years of crappy second hand guitars and asian knock-offs, i finally have an american made standard stratocaster.

...now i need a better amp than my fender g25r to play it through...

finally fixed this:

in the GPO, changed the "remote desktop help session manager" service to allow authenticated users read access - adding "NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users to the list. Now we longer have the "A program could not start" error message.

Labels: GPO, group policy, microsoft, remote assistance, windows

Rainn Wilson + Tim and Eric! Worlds collide!!!

I call it '1984 toast', or 'i was too lazy to go to the store yesterday and buy more soy buttery whatever it is spread and now i have to ration a tiny bit between two slices of victory wheat'.

follow it up with a piece of victory chocolate and a shot of victory gin.

move over olives, olive oil and feta...

fresh mozarella, fresh basil leaves, and cherry tomatoes halved. drizzle some olive oil and hellz yeah!!!

this is the elaborate version:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000578heirloom_tomato_basil_mozzarella_salad.php

thanks to the greenlight cafe in the south end for that one. i don't want to really promote though...their vegetarian options as far as variety and availability warrant some serious thought and action.

i had a thought earlier today. i have probably said the word "saucepan" less than 20 times in my life. adding to this list i believe would be "sconce" and "potpourriffic"

valentine's day is awful on so many levels for so many differnt reasons. this year i'm going for the awful russell stover's commercials with these beaten sappy sucker husbands talking about how their wives would be nasty bitch-holes if they showed up at home on VD without any chocolate. i'm picking that aspect of the most useless holiday to be most offensive on all five senses;
sight: the fear and hoplessness in the husband's eyes
sound: the sound of desperate pleading in their voice
taste, touch and smell: the bile in my throat that surely ensues

and to think my room mate wanted to throw this away...

there's been a long time that i haven't cooked anything for myself, for reasons far too boring and personal to get into, but last night i slapped myself in the face for being so stupid for so long. i made seitan piccata found here on chow.com. it came about as i was searching for mobile vegetarian recipe sites on the redline on my new work PDA (please follow that link for the awkward picture on the subject of freedom) and I came across this one. stopping at harvest market in central, i grabbed every ingredient i didn't have already. after about 30 minutes of cooking i had by far the best meal i have ever made for myself. ever. now to find less expensive seitan...

accompanied by the last glass of homebrewed amber ale (and some hastily prepared horrible vegetables) I'd say i ate like a king!

ash wednesday always sneaks up, much like the college NBA playoffs (i said this earlier to a co-regular at the bar, 'i know march madness will be happening soon because march is next month...' thus solidifying my knowledge of sports) but ash wednesday is one of those days that i never know when it happens. if you said to me in june 'next wednesday is ash! wednesday...' i would believe you with no question. usually it has been known to me as 'oh no...not you too!?' day at work. but today i didn't notice the first black forehead smudge until shopping after work. then on the T ride home, two girls were stroking each other's hair, hands on thighs and stuff; one of them turned to look at me, and like children of the damned...a smudged forehead. oh no!! not you too!?!?!?

From here:

http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Other_Articles/Win2K_Tips/Explorer_Shortcut/Explorer_Shortcut_08.htm

Fantastic way to not have to always start in My Documents when using Windows Explorer which I do a lot.

i bought a 30gb zune with a gift certificate the other day. i'd been thinking about it for a while because i need more brown things in my life. they were all out, so i got a black one instead. have used ipods for the last 3 years, i had gotten used to the interface, and the bulky behemoth itunes software. changing to the zune was fun, new exciting and fresh, like a brand new girlfriend. then i found out that my brand new girlfriend weighed twice as much, and didn't know half the tricks that my old girlfriend knew. like shuffle by album? are you kidding me? having a fair amount of radiohead and pink floyd (college days) this is a key function in an mp3 player to me. i want to like the zune. i want to so badly! it has an fm tuner, and a nice big bright screen. fuck the wifi crap, i don't even care about that. but seriously, the lack of being able to shuffle by album, which good old pokey 30gb ipod has, is enough to make me sell the zune off. prognosis....

you have to appreciate the whiteboard backdrop i made...

i gave the cat her first bath today:

she eventually calmed down:

never ever again....

this is me:

the other night i got really drunk and tired and tried to brush my teeth with my cat's brush:

the cat and i usually have a good rapport:

but she wasn't pleased:

here's a closeup. notice the toothpaste and cat hair:

this is the weleda toothpaste i used:

here's a re-enactment:

but i had so much

yes, questionable at best

but then you said so

"i want a challenge"

i could be your challenge

can't you be mine too?

a row of overweight people are eating adjacent to the row of fast food stands, all of which are promising local flavour, and attitude. every sandwich, wrap, pile of food is littered with animal carcass. so much meat in this state. there are burger joints on every block, all of which provide "drive-thru" service. pickup trucks and beat-up sedans with tinted windows are parked outside. as i weaved through the back and forth cloth fenced and empty crowd control pathways to airport security, i noticed at each turn there was a sign on a stand. one would tell you what things you were not allowed to have on the plane. another gave general warnings from the TSA. a third had the task of informing passengers that the current threat level was orange, or 'high'. this sign wasn't like one of those "will be back in..." signs with the movable clock hands. this was printed out. keep fat texans scared. they might just buy another chili burrito with extra cheese and texas bbq sauce.

here are the steps:

first get your MSL code from Sprint technical support, or using a seem editor at seem 55 (the only 6 digits that show up).

* enter ##786# to go to the RTN menu
* go to Reset
* enter your MSL code and say Yes (This will erase just about EVERYTHING important on the phone
* once the phone has reset, enter ###
* Choose Edit
* for the MDN / Mobile number, enter your number
* for the MSID, if you have not changed carriers, enter your phone number again (i'm not too sure if this is correct for everyone. it worked for me, though)
* select Done and the phone reboots.

To remove windows powershell 1.0 from your system using add / remove programs, you have to 'show updates', and it's listed with the windows updates...good to know.

if you are in a group policy controlled domain such as myself, and let's say you haven't pushed out ie7 yet, your ie6 security settings might drive ie7 batty with the "information bar" ("information bar" is equivalent to calling telemarketers "considerate salespeople") popping up the following on EVERY page:

"your current security settings put your computer at risk. click here to change your security settings"

To get rid of this nonsense, just add the following key to the registry:

in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Security\

DisableSecuritySettingsCheck, REG_DWORD, 1

Restart ie7 and voila! you can now surf the internet like a big kid without your browser displaying it's overbearing mistrust in you.

i have finally found a way to edit the registry in such a way that with our new builds, the address book can be set up via the post build utility instead of manually. I used this bit of code to help, along with this description of the OL registry.

In the key 9207f3e0a3b11019908b08002b2a56c2 there is the value name 01023d01 which lists the arbitrarily assigned guids for address books loaded in outlook. In my case, one of them is the Exchange Directory AB, and also my Personal Contacts folder, creating a hex key length of 32, i.e. 16+16. In order to add the personal contacts AB into the search order, I needed to grab the 2nd guid, bind to that in the registry, and then query the value name 01026601 which is some sort of reference key to be used later in the search order.

There are two things that I wanted to change in Outlook:

1) The "Show this address list first" and
2) The Search order for resolving e-mail addresses.

The corresponding key for these are under 9207f3e0a3b11019908b08002b2a56c2, and are 01023d06 and 11023d05 respectively. Once I had the reference key 01026601 from the Contacts key, I needed to plug it into the middle of 11023d05, so that the search order would be 3 parts; ##specific part of the GAL##, Contacts, ##the entire GAL##. Admittedly, I would have to use dummy keys, so I set up one machine manually, and then exported the values 01023d06 and 11023d05. 01023d06 didn't need editing, when imported into a clean machine, it set the "Show these names first" setting just fine. 11023d05 was proving to be a huge PIA. I took the exported key, and set 16 0 pairs from the 124th bit. The next task would be to import the 16 pair reference key found earlier in 01026601 which references the Contacts AB. I'll let the code speak for itself here. Sorry about the formatting:

'### Just start out by grabbing the used Outlook profile, and bind to the base key.
Dim profKey As RegistryKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles")
Dim defProfile As String = profKey.GetValue("DefaultProfile")
Dim OLbaseKey As RegistryKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\" & defProfile)

'### Next, grab the backup key, and it's various value names

Dim OLBackupKey As RegistryKey = OLbaseKey.OpenSubKey("9207f3e0a3b11019908b08002b2a56c2")
Dim OLBackupABProviders = OLBackupKey.GetValue("01023d01")
Dim OLContactsProv As String = ""
Dim num As Integer
Dim hex As String

'### Here we are going to grab the second guid in the value, i.e. the Contacts guid

For num = LBound(OLBackupABProviders) + 16 To UBound(OLBackupABProviders)
hex = VisualBasic.Conversion.Hex(OLBackupABProviders(num))

'### I found that leading "0"s were being omitted, so I added this workaround:

If hex.Length = 1 Then
hex = "0" & hex
End If
OLContactsProv = OLContactsProv & hex
Next

'### At this point OLContactsProv is the complete guid keyname for the AB we want to add.

OLContactsProv = OLContactsProv.ToLower() 'just so it's formatted nicely
Dim keylist() As String = OLbaseKey.GetSubKeyNames()
Dim oOLContactsProv As RegistryKey = OLbaseKey.OpenSubKey(OLContactsProv)

Dim OLContactsKey As Byte() = oOLContactsProv.GetValue("01026601")

'### now let's set the AB search order. OLContactsKey holds the reference key.
'### but first import the default settings
'### For security purposes, I can't show you the reg file as it holds our DC info :)
'### But, as I mentioned earlier, it's an export of 11023d05 and 01023d06 on a set up machine.

Shell("regedit /s BackupKeySet.reg", , True)
Dim ABSearchOrder As Byte() = OLBackupKey.GetValue("11023d05")
Dim n As Integer
Dim p As Integer

'### Here's the piece that puts things in place. Setting the 124th - 139th set of pairs to the reference key; "OLContactsKey"

For n = 124 To 139
ABSearchOrder.SetValue(OLContactsKey(p), n)
p = p + 1
Next
Registry.SetValue(OLBackupKey.ToString, "11023d05", ABSearchOrder)

...And voila! Start up Outlook and you should have Contacts in the search order, as well as a custom "show these addresses first" setting.

Of course, I'm not responsible for any data loss, and you're doing this stuff at your own risk. Also, if I'm wrong about any of this, or you see room for improvement, please let me know!

in the aftermath of the VT massacre, the media is once again trying to make our minds up about something that they are not making much of an effort to grasp themselves. the easily spoonfed public must not buy into this! in our TV tempered lives, we expect things to wrap up neatly in packages of .5 to 1 hours in length, leaving of course plenty of time for bombastic and invasive advertisements. every crime portrayed on television is neatly wrapped up in this familiar time frame, decades of barney miller, tj hooker, nypd blue, CSI and whatever spin-off of that show is on these days. in the case of cho seung-hui the media is pulling the wool over our eyes by interpreting his character, in all it's theatrics, poorly written plays, and sloppy manifestos sent to the wrong addresses, all the dumb world is waiting to hear the expert network news journalist's final decree on why this murderous asshat went berserk and shot machismo into his fellow co-eds. most likely we will hear the same story as we did with columbine; that he was a loner, (i believe i have already heard the phrase 'lone wolf' used on NPR or CNN - *vomit*), that he was disturbed, had no friends, kept to himself, and so on with the textbook qualities of an anti-socialite. the easily duped public (and my, how they love to be duped lest they have to start manually reasoning situations) will assume that anti-social behaviour, that hints of misanthropy, or just a character who enjoys waxing reclusive are indications of murderous / suicidal tendencies and impending shooting spree.

already the saturated ionosphere has carried disturbing stills from the killer's adolescent style manifesto, shocking it's viewers with the subtext that this is the last thing that his victims saw. has hollywood that much of a grip on the news? has hollywood that much of a grip on reality? isn't the news supposed to be born of information sans opinion? are we going to give this murderer the spotlight until officer mitchell solves the case and at 57 minutes (not a moment too soon!) we freeze mid-laugh while the credits roll just waiting for the theme music to start so we can all return to our normal lives, and go make a sandwich?

i think in order to understand why he murdered those 30 plus people we have to spend time studying the victims as much as we've studied the killer - moreso even.

we're in constant reactionary mode, never having time to really set aside time to think about something fully without constant interruption from other media in the world around us. instant communication gives way to not thinking before saying. and not just thinking, but having an array of moods, being able to decide what's right, to decide what's the most humane, or how we really want to convey ourselves. if we were writing each other letters like they did 50 years ago, we'd be much kinder to each other. this is why i think text messages that say more than making evening plans are the worst form of communication to date (unless they decide to develop text messages which you can't reply to). it's a passive way of saying something spur of the moment to someone with no obligation to respond or continue the "non-versation" (you can even concoct an understandable or even honorable excuse as to why you couldn't reply back (same exact thing goes for the sender as well)) and to top it off, it's heralded by a cold mechanic ring, a low quality, heartless sound file that is uniform to whoever sends you a text message (bypassing the meaningful and unique timbre of someone's voice.) we are becoming robots, and not the good kind!! imagine leaving a post-it note for someone on their door frame attached to a bell that rang until they picked it up - it's a similar thing when you leave someone a text message from a cell phone.

managed to catch a little bit of the anti-war protest on the boston common yesterday. well, let me put it in a more accurate light: i was almost run over by a parade of sign-carrying shouty people with colourful rainbow attire and 70% glasses rate anti-war protesters yesterday as i tried to get out of the park street T station to meet J. we were on our way to the old north church crypts where she works. after the parade of nü-hippies had safely past, i was able to exit the station doors without become a rainbow flattened pancake, i noticed that the SWAT team was there, mounted police and a whole bunch of motorcycle cops. i started to get annoyed with these people. the signs pretty much all read the same message - "u.s. troops out of iraq, now" was pretty much the gist of it. i don't think these people pay much attention to the news. yes; war is bad, yes; i would love it to be over, see all the little piggy henchmen in the white house get impeached, put on trial for war crimes, executed, or whatever else they have coming to them. no; i am not pro-war, no; i am not anti-peace. the country that used to be iraq is now on the brink of a civil war. similar to the problems faced in israel, this is a case of the few who ruin it for the many. as we all know, people are the same the world over. they want to provide for themselves, and their families, and every now and then copulate and copulate again. however, with every 10 cool hairless monkeys out there, there comes at least 1 asshole who has to fuck everything up for everyone else. they usually are the ones who show a blatant disregard for anyone around them, sit in the aisle seat with their bag next to them instead of on their lap on a crowded bus, some will get annoyed that you are legally using a crosswalk, they are the people who can't believe they have to put up with this shit, because dog-gone it, they're just too special for this crap! some of them even like to blow themselves up - get this - for their beliefs! not your's, but their's! pulling troops out of iraq at this point would cause more iraqi civilians to be killed then currently because the already starting civil war would blossom into a full blown clusterfuck. do anti-war protesters need a history lesson as much as our government officials do? again, it's assholes causing these problems. the world is run by assholes, and this is proof! and religious assholes, no less. i once again have to reiterate that as we as humans slowly get smarter and head towards an atheistic point of view the world will get better. that is one little hope that i have at least. but for now there are still people who want to inflict their belief system on other people as effectively as possible. thankfully, we who live in america don't live in such a freedom-hating country (and note the doublespeak in that article taking place; "protecting marriage")

that wasn't the worst of it though - the ones who really get me are the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. now, again, i love conspiracy theories just as much as the next dissident, but seriously, there comes a time when you have to ask yourself if you buy into the theory because you really believe it, or because you like the attention of being "really outrageous and OMFG, LOL!!1 i can't believe i'm so anti-establishment!!" maybe i'm just aging and bitter, but it seems that the protesters these days are more interested in emulating those of the past, and making an appearance, rather than really believing in what they are shouting about. besides, protesting the war in boston is essentially like pissing in a wetsuit - you feel warm all over, and no one besides yourself knows about it! for fuck's sake, if you want to make a difference travel to D.C. and protest, throw some bricks through some important windows. i once had a german guy outside of the common ground tell me, 'i can't believe the americans aren't out rioting in the streets and causing a revolution over what their president is doing...trust me, we germans know the signs!!' the whole parade just seemed cheap and lame. also, bush doesn't care that 'almost 5000' protesters disagree with his foreign policy. in the words of lif,

"The purpose of our life is just to serve the economy
They misinform our minds to paint a picture of harmony
But if you listen then you know that shits out of tune
Cuz the function of our life is just to work and consume
Fuck reaching out to help the next, there ain't any room
Just close your eyes and block your ears and march to your doom"

After all the work was done, there was drunken hijinks, almost every night. i've always kept with my routine of drunken debauchery on caligulan levels (pertaining to alcohol, anyway) whenever my employer is picking up the tab. although i didn't wake up on a doorstep in new hampshire this time, i did wake up at 3am in my tub. twice in as many nights. i thought that after a "few" beers and such it would be a good idea to take a nice relaxing bath. i would promptly pass out. kids, i don't recommend this one, it's very dangerous. although the hard porcelain was enough to wake me up, i don't see how a lung full of hot bath water would lull me into deeper sleep. there was also a trip to the best buy next to the walmart to pick up a projector and following that night's drunkening was fun with laser pointers, as attempted, but failing to be shown in this picture. drunkenings were often fueled by bartenders who were very perceptive to when a beer is almost finished...not something you get very often in barfston. if you looked at the laser pointer picture you can guess that that might be a view from the eighth floor to the inside of the hotel, where people would sit lounging around and wonder if they're going to be assassinated. assassinated because of an innocent little red laser light dancing on their crotch / keyboard / hand / or partner companion person. this provided hours of teenage belly laughs. hangovers included.

speaking of assassinations, i also visited dealy plaza and the kennedy museum. creepy stuff, and a reminder that our government is into some pretty creepy stuff. it's sad that the truth will most likely never come out. K bought a CD containing a large book on the conspiracy theories along with every picture, video and any other piece of media imaginable concerning the events of that day, and subsequent days thereafter.

the previous night K and I had gone to a restuarant known as the 'saltgrass'. it was your average steakhouse, i suppose (i recommend the spinach dip and nachos with meatless sauce), but the decorative motif i question. in it had all sorts of pictures of cowboys, horses, farm life, and just about every cliche imaginable from the laura ingalls books painted with expert mediocrity. The most surprising thing about these bland murals was the one painted on the door leading into a back room. unfortunately the treo 700p doesn't capture so well in the dark night lighting of a steakhouse, and a few beers in the system does not help either. but if you take a look at the picture below you can just make out the image of a mexican dishwasher, framed by the door frame amidst the john waynes and clint eastwood-esque cock-douchery (yes, i grew up in new england.) the bright part is the dude's face - click for a larger view:

yee....haw?

USB memory stick on a lanyard?

check.

Treo clipped to the belt?

check.

Screwdrivers in shirt pocket, readily available to dismantle a laptop whilst sucking back slobber under a furled brow?

check.

Man-boobs?

check.

Today I am a hero.

Today, I am "that IT guy".

Arrived in Dallas a couple hours ago. ran into a friend from high school on his way to play at SXSW, which is pretty cool. he said he was playing for casey desmond and that it's fun, but he's always poor, and life as a musician is hard, etc... i explained that i was here for work, to play IT funtime with our traveling superintendents, and that i will not be playing any instruments, doing any live shows, or leaving the hotel in Dallas for 4 days....and quickly questioned myself what i was doing with my life. what mistake did i make...i did go to college for music in the end, so it's not like i didn't have direction. and yes, she was on the plane too. the flight over had it's usual drawbacks, complete with senior put-your-seat-back-as-far-as-you-can sitting in front of me. i get a kick whenever the plane pulls up to the gate after landing. there's three sets of sounds; 1) the rumble of seatbelt detachments, 2) the sounds of cellphones being turned on, and 3) when all those cellphones receive their text messages and voicemail alerts. and so here i'll be until Sunday. I will hopefully get some more work done on the remote backup utility executable, some documentation, and pump out a few heard worlds as well. at least my room has a view:

i also ended up eating at a taco bell, well, the pizza hut version of it anyway. enjoy the view from that on the left. they have the only vegetarian food i've seen so far. a personal pan cheese pizza. with bread sticks. that's the 3rd personal pan cheese pizza i've had all day. i feel fat. time to go to the pool.

the day was filled with coffee tinted swamp-ass thanks to the douchecock business guy sitting in front of me this morning on the 7am flight to la guardia. as i sit in the bar now, i still feel the slight pull of stickiness in my nether regions that has had me cursing this anonymous rake all day. there is a muzak version of 'roxanne' by the police playing which is god-awful. it's like a landslide of sludgy wedding singer quality samba driven nostalgia that will make even the most ignorant of musical elitism choke on their lucky charms.

i'm still trying to find a way to publish msi's along with the setup file in my visual basic .net applications. it's been troublesome to say the least. the pst utility that i wrote went out to 5 users today, and we'll see what happens. i needed to include the interop office dlls to make it work, as well as install the 2.0 .net framework. soon it will be released over WSUS anyway.

i usually enjoy coming to our NY office, but not today. people were especially whiney and demanding, and in the end it's really not their fault, it's just that the network sucks. how it seems that they only use 32% of their bandwidth at peak times, yet things are so slow is beyond me. but still, i enjoy the laid back feel of the boston office much better.

what a joke. IE7. so far it seems to be a watered down version of firefox. it even has it's own extensions! just like a real browser! except most of these actually cost money. why would you ever stop using firefox for this POS browser?

2150:13.9.06 shitty hotel bar, holiday inn at thistle
leaving tomorrow. there's a huge hole in my heart. it gets harder to leave each time. extremely depressed, and the hotel bar isn't helping at all. it's making things worse. becky was right. i don't want to leave. i have to be awake in 6 hours, but i don't want to be. i want to ride the european rail system for the rest of my life. i want to see edna and alec again. i heard lots of good stories about dad today.

readjustment will have to take place.
why was there a shooting at a canadian college?
this hotel bar is terrible. it's sterile. it's horrible. and the service blows.
how am i supposed to get to sleep tonight?

11.9.06:1303 cafe stevens, der waag
hasn't changed one bit. i miss becky terribly. the 'mozarella'...damn good sandwich.

1425: dan murphy's
went to de sluyswacht before. the beer was better than march '05. it's getting very very lonely.

0005: sitting on the amsterdam night train at hoek van holland.
the quiet is killing me. stuffy. they have just turned on the train. no they didn't. i need a shower like i have never before. i miss becky very much.

stena line: stena discovery harwich -> hoek van holland
'the 10ccs' play on a very large screen in the lounge area of the ship (dreadlock holiday?)
the stena discovery shakes below. rather unnerving. i have no idea how i'll get by on €40 for two days. we are at full speed now, heading towards hoek across the north sea.the ship lists and rocks.

remember
* old man begging at an ATM in seaford. what's the point? people don't get change out of them.
* clydesdale foal outside of diss.
* lots of sleeping cows with their heads together.

9.9.06:1732 on a onerail between ipswich and norwich. a bunch of soccer men & boys just got on at ipswich. footballers. half got off at the next stop. a few of the boys are playing between the cars out the windows.

i'm on beer #2. be careful boys. this is how decapitation happens! beer #2. you can't drink beer on american commuter trains. i'm on my wya to see my friend toby. bringing a bottle of shiraz. the soccer boys. "little terrors, they are!" as dad would say if he were here. there are a group of male soccer adults by the bar on the train. i wanted to tell them there's more to life than soccer. there's noise art too.

Premiere Travel Inn, 8/9/2006, 0050 at the hotel bar.

"but what if she's shagging another woman, mate?"
"well, if I'm there, then i'll have a good wank."
"Yeah, that's the difference, mate; if you're there."

pregnant women are coming into the bar. welcome pregnant slags!

i'm trying to feel like it's 1255am....0055

So now all the terrorists have to do to cause panic, delays, and huge losses to the airlines is board with an ordinary writing utensil.

this makes me a little less comfortable about my upcoming trip to the UK in september. i can't stand plane delays.

most confusing spam ever, and i see hundreds at work everyday. the weird thing about this is that it's not sex related at all.

FYI: this is unedited - the asteriks are in the original:

Hello.
hypo dinah fed turkey
We have found your resume on Job web site, and would like to offer you vacancy in our company.
If you interests, more detailed information you can receive on ours web
site: http://www.****.us/ ( please send us email for more information )
vacancymillermorgans@Go.Huskies.com
mote rods maize claw
We look forward to your reply.
loaf morn scrap allot
Thank you.
Best regards,
Miller & Morgans inc.

about 6 years ago i was driving home late one night as a composition student thinking about what i could do for the next great piece. i came up with the idea of having a symphonic-esque piece composed entirely of grunts, gutteral whoops, shrieks and the like - ghastly noise but texturally (not tonally) like beethoven. this evolved over the next few days to include words as well, and i wanted to keep them as random as possible. when you think about it, the words would never be random - they would have to be thought out somewhere - some sort of mental spillage. this kind of automatic writing is something i need to get back into, as i used to do it in high school.

from a dream: after a work related outing bus drive to my childhood best friend's house (his name is gilbert) we all got out and walked down the driveway. there was some new girl who reminded me of irina there who i guess had the hots for me, and i thought in my head that i was going to cheat on becky, and i really didn't feel like i wanted to. we walked down the driveway and everyone was anticipating some famous burgers that were rumoured to be served. single file people walked into the garage where symmetrically laid out were about 15 burgers and matching buns. i remembered upon seeing the burgers that i am a vegetarian and instead gave an excuse about not wanting to eat food from the garage floor. i stepped out of line and walked up a familiar flight of 5 steps into gilbert's house, as i had in real life for so many years. when i got into the house, i saw an image of gilbert and i as kids. as 6 year olds about, (which is strange because we met when we were 10). before the image could vanish, i had a thought - grab them/us - then they have to be real. i grabbed myself and gilbert yelled. i had them/us! i was about to give a message to my 6 year old self. i always wished i could, and now i was going to. i grabbed my shoulders, and looked into my own face which was fearful, but kind of curious - and i was wearing my old brown rimmed nerd glasses. i said something forceful along the lines of 'you're going to make some mistakes, but take some chances, or do the right thing' or something along those lines. it wasn't as poignant as i'd hoped. gilbert's mom came downstairs from the kitchen (it's a split level house) and asked who i was yelling at. i told her that i had caught my hallucinations, that they were real - see? here's gilbert and here's me i said showing us off. she thought i was crazy, and instantly the young gilbert and i vanished. she asked what the hell i was talking about. i said, oh yeah, of course we weren't here...just ask eve (gil's sister - who i also just started to see) gil's mom looked at me like i was really crazy, and i said, 'just kidding'. i walked upstairs with her into the kitchen and she started telling me that she was pissed at me. i didn't know why. she said 'it was meg's last day in may, and you never wished her well'. i didn't know a meg. 'she was the intern!'. now i remembered - meg was a girl that gil's mom hired to help with the housework (not true in real life, obviously). i apologized, and she started yelling at me in tagalog. i said i don't know tagalog, and she continued to answer me in it. thinking it was a loss, and that the party and house had dissapated into a scene of severe urban decay, i decided to leave. before the dream was out, i tried to break up a mass beating of a kid by a group of catholic school students in an alley set in the severe urban decay. before i received my own beating for doing that, i woke up.

sometime over the winter i had told gil's little sister that i didn't want to receive her multiple daily forwards about how great america is, and how our troops are defending freedom by decimating iraqi children...because they had everything to do with 9/11. they were e-mails filled with hatred, and an extremely telling ignorance that runs rampany through this country when it comes to the war. the one that got me was a forward written in outrage about how the qatari oil-lords were building giant mansions etc, with the money they got from oil. so? it's their oil! it's from their country! america has no right to it...why the outrage? anyway, not to go on with that argument, i told her that i'd rather have real e-mails from her, so i knew how she, her 3 kids, and her husband who's in iraq at the moment were doing. i never heard back. i don't understand. i just wanted real e-mails from her, not forwards.

i'm sick of commercials that portray couples fighting, and the man is always the one who has to apologize. whether it be flowers, cell phone service, or hallmark cards, the man is always the one who assumes responsibility. this is simply not the way things work. i'm sick of marketing that assumes men are overgrown children with nothing on their minds but sports, sex, power tools, and how not to screw up.

last day today. weird. first day monday. scary.

i had a couple ideas for some games a little while ago. i thought i should write them down before i forget.

the first one is called 'recite the dictionary'. it can be easily turned into a drinking game. i had the idea a few nights ago when i was out drinking with a few friends and spotted another group of people that we're posing to look cool. they were doing an OK job of this by most people's standards I would imagine, but i personally thought it looked like they could use more fun. they were standing around looking bored, and afflicted so i thought, 'hey, they could use a game...i bet you can't recite the headings of the dictionary!'. nobody really can when you think about it. but it would be fun to try. you have to recite alphabetically every word that would appear in a dictionary (you can leave out definitions, and grammar information) and if you miss a word or 3 you can't go back. i suppose it could be a drinking game if you want - a shot for each word you miss. that would be brutal. brutally fun! obviously someone would have to have a dictionary to follow along with.

i can't remember the other game, so i'll leave it out for now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4684652.stm

"They want to test our feelings," protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC. "They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.

I wish the news was all about feeding tubes again like it was a year ago with schiavo and the pope.

the world needs more humanitarian atheists.

religion is not turning out to be the best idea it seems.

can the word "blazing" be applied to describe a hangover?

have you ever tried changing your handwriting? i just did. it's refreshing. after about 15 years of writing a certain way, i've changed my handwriting. the above line is the old way. the subsequent lines are the new way. comments are welcome.

Its not a country its not a place the utopia is in your head.

Kelly
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Kelly
Date: Dec 23, 2005 6:22 PM
Subject: what's up

do I know you?
...........................................................

RE: what's up

no, i'm pretty sure you don't. it says in your profile that while we at least live in the same country, you enjoy going out to clubs, parties on the beach, and anything else that is fun. i however have spent the last 8 years locked in my closet trying to locate alternate dimensions other than our own, and sharpening my toenails with an old brick i found in the corner, you know, just in case. do you like books about faeries? i do.

best wishes.

holiday message:

it is the holiday season. this means that it is the season where chanukah, christmas, kwanzaah, saturnalia, and other various pagan based festivals happen. this does NOT mean that it is NOT a time to bid good wishes towards jews, christians, pagans, and anybody else who deserves it. it is NOT a time to take your religious agenda, your holier-than-thou moral agenda, your 'i'm more politically correct than thou', your 'i'm getting more presents than thou', your 'i give more presents than thou,' your 'you better participate in our office christmas party, or you'll get on my bad side' attitude or your 'what do you mean you don't have plans for the holidays!?' questions, and foist, yes foist them on your fellow man....or fellow woman....or fellow were-man....for those of you listening to this from halloween town. it is a time to say happy holidays, and have it mean nothing but that....happy.....holidays.....it's times like these, i wish my atheist bretheren and i could rule the world, and show the devout that it is much better to chill up in your crib with a jug of tasty nog, vegan nog, if it need be, and say, hey non-denominational background for tax purposes only fellow man...happy holidays, and a happy new year. and if your neighbor is sporting a crucifix hoodie...and they're serious about it....wish them a merry christmas, and remind them that even though christ was born in the spring or summer, and not in winter, they're still expected to have a merry mass of christ. and tell your other neighbor, the one with the menorah in his window, that even though chanukah is a minor jewish holiday, you hope he has major fun on it. and to all my atheist brothers and sisters....lets continue to reap all those free cookies and candy canes those religious nuts keep leaving around the office. peace, and goodwill, 2006.

First:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#The_origins_of_Christmas

"This celebration of the winter solstice was widespread and popular in northern Europe long before the arrival of Christianity, and the word for Christmas in the Scandinavian languages is still today the pagan jul (=yule).

Rather than attempting to suppress every pagan tradition, Pope Gregory I allowed Christian missionaries to synthesize pagan traditions with Christianity, allowing many pagan traditions to become a part of Christmas.[2]"

However:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_christ#Chronology

"Based on the accounts in the gospels of the shepherds' activities, the time of year depicted for Jesus' birth could be spring or summer. However, as early as 354, Roman Christians celebrated it following the December solstice in an attempt to replace the Roman festival of Saturnalia."

So:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia

“The Saturnalia originally were celebrated with a public banquet. It became one of the most popular Roman festivals which lead to more tomfoolery, marked chiefly by having masters and slaves switch places, which led to widespread drinking which degenerated sometimes to debauchery such as homosexuality and men beating their wives, so that among Christians the (lower case) word "saturnalia" came to mean "orgy".”

Sadly, thus….

The orgy continues in other, more puritan ways:

http://www.personalshopper.com/jsp/index.jsp

More like this

Lauren by Ralph Lauren
- Rosella (Dark Brown Split Suede) - Women's
$228.95

Because:

"The terrorists do not merely object to American actions in Iraq and elsewhere -- they object to our deepest values and our way of life. And if we were not fighting them in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Southeast Asia and in other places, the terrorists would not be peaceful citizens -- they would be on the offense, and headed our way...... And I have never been more certain that America's actions in Iraq are essential to the security of our citizens, and will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren."

joseph goebbels says....

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

this at least explains the high price of oil and the patriot act - the economic consequence, and the governments way of repressing dissent.

an im conversation i just had with my girlfriend. i thought it was funny....

me: can we do nothing tonight?
her: sounds GREAT!!!!!
her: oh...
her: you'll probably record, huh.
me: maybe
me: maybe not
me: but maybe
me: er...meaning probably
me: translating to definitely
her: all night?
me: definitely meaning without you
me: without you meaning you're fat
me: you fat = you dumped
me: so yeah, i might record some stuff tonight.

currently overhearing at a coffee shop:

one guy on his phone saying, "yeah, it was crazy, how are you feeling? you were punched repeatedly...huh? well, do you remember anything from last night? ...you sure you're alright?"

yes, the threats were true; now i can whine in audio format! this be my podcast! it's not the greatest, but it's a start.

yes, you do it too....

i adopted my department's test palm pilot as my own to use since it was just sitting aronud collecting dust. when trying to break the monotomy and clear my head in the bathroom - time spent mostly just sitting and relaxing rather than evacuating - i sometimes take out my palm pilot to doodle. here's my latest creations so far:

last night was my 10 year high school reunion. after leaving high school i always described the town i grew up in as kind of accurately displayed in such 80s movies as weird science, or 16 candles. it was a rich town, and had rich people, yet you still had your blue collar workers from times prior to reganomics. while i wasn't taking any clothed showers with kelly lebrock or selling whiffs of molly ringwald's panties, i was....well, you see where i'm going with this. at first the reunion was a little overwhelming - i had no idea i retained so many first and last name combinations. and for the most part people still looked the same, if not better. it dawned on me, however - this wasn't a 'high school' reunion per se, but a childhood reunion. these people were our lives growing up; the people we spent the most time with that weren't family, the people that shaped us the most. while the reunion was very high school oriented with the class colours and pictures from those badass hair days of the mid nineties, i found myself remembering stories about people from elementary and middle school. it got me thinking about how much these people had effected my development as a person, and maybe how i contributed to other's. i talked to leslie, a girl who lived down the street from me, a girl who i knew since she was 4 and i was 5. as an interesting side note, her brother is blowing "scientific glass" - that's beakers and viles and test-tubes and the like. i looked at my own personal bully from high school, terry, and i was reminded that he had people picking on him as well, just as i had done my fair share of picking on people throughout elementary school. of course, i stopped somewhere in middle school...i guess it just takes some people longer to grow out of that sort of thing. i saw my super-hot crush from sophomore year, the proverbial girl that floored me everytime she was around. i never really approached her last night because i really had little to say, and i'm sure that went both ways, as did the appreciation of that most likely. i was reminded of the only phone conversation i ever had with her in high school - she spent the whole time laughing out loud at fresh prince of bel-air, a TV show that was on at the time, while i tried to get a word in edgewise. i'm not bitter though - although it's one of those moments that sticks with you through the years it actually turned into a good story through college and beyond. on lighter notes i got to tell my 7th grade crush about how i wrote her initials in pen on the sole of my sneakers while riding the school bus home. she in turn showed me a picture of her 8 year old son. i got see another guy i was friends with who clearly,...we needed to hang out somewhere other than a high school reunion, and there would have to be a whole mess of drugs and musical instruments involved.

so i guess it all made a lot more sense to me when i was leaving and a girl named betsy stopped becky and i on the way out to chat a bit. she had moved to our town in 8th grade, and had no trouble fitting right in with the popular girls. she was friendly, really pretty, and for the most part outgoing. but last night she told me how it was hard for her to fit in because our town was so clique-y and not very welcoming to those who came in late in the game. this, is absolutely true. so true about my hometown that it actually begs to be the definition of madison, ct. she went on to say how awkward and insecure she felt in high school, and everybody was lame in their own way back then. dude, you don't have to tell me. i'm 29 and i still feel that way when interacting with gas station attendants, bartenders, my girlfriend, and pretty much anyone who doesn't share my last name. so now i'm intrigued to talk to those people i graduated good ol' danny hand with but never really talked to in high school or the reunion and find out what their up to. i was kind of surprised at the number of people who told me they visited my website after seeing it in the e-vite. so hopefully some will make it down to here and drop me a line.

a co-worker of mine passed away from a heart attack a week ago last tuesday, the 25th of October. i had only been to one open casket wake before, and i was about 14 at the time. i didn't really take toll of what it all meant, so i never looked at my father's friend's body, lying there in the coffin. i did look, but only long enough to notice that he was buried with his favourite fedora. this wake was much different. when i first arrived with kevin we stood in line, waiting to pay respects. i think i was doing it right, i've never done this stuff before, thankfully. i looked over at KC, lying in a coffin, not smiling (he never stopped smiling), and his skin looked greyish, and dry. clearly this was not KC. i started to feel faint, and was afraid that i was about to lose my shit right there. fortunately (and maybe by design) there was a wall mirror right next to me. i looked at myself, and all i thought was, 'you're still here, you're sitll real.' it was at this point that i noticed that i was in a sort of panic, and i had lost control of my thoughts. i was in auto-pilot, mental instincts would get me through this. i approached the casket, my brain doing flips, not being able to look at his face, not being able to look away. the way his hands were placed, the way he wasn't smiling. mental instincts kicked in, 'do the undertakers put underwear on people before they bury them?....no this isn't a time for that....say what you came to say, you're holding up the line....(everybody deals with this in their own way, don't forget what jamie, and clint, and corina said on three separate occassions...why did they say that to me?)...ok KC, i'm freaking out here, seeing you dead when you're not supposed to be...i'll never forget you, i'll never fucking forget you, and how you were always happy....'

at this point, i was either going to bawl my eyes out, faint, puke, or some combination. i got up, which i remember was physically one of the hardest things to do, and walked over to join corina and kevin. we stood in silence, looking over at the casket. another angle to remember KC by. this fucking sucks....i don't want to remember him like that. i closed my eyes, and began erasing the images of him laying there, grey, not moving, not smiling. i noticed my knees shaking, i could keep still, i was biting back tears, (it's ok to cry, it seemed before like kevin would get pissed if i didn't because i held it back) i was trying to keep my balance. then it happened. someone started playing a casio keyboard, organ preset completely off-key, off tempo, and with all the wrong notes. i wanted to turn around and look at kevin and corina to see if they noticed, or were laughing on the inside too. this was weird...i was in a state of mild panic, sadness, and now laughter. yeah, i could imagine what KC would say about the casio keyboard, in his accent, and his mannerism, "what? are you joking me?" i heard kevin whispering to corina, something along the lines off, "you'd think he'd get the practicing part out of the way at home".

later on, the ceremony involved family members getting up and speaking for a couple minutes, remembering KC, and what joyful person he was. one thing that stuck with me was his brother saying that KC had four different facial expressions, all of them smiles. (he really did smile alot, and i wished at that point that the practitioners had known that, but maybe that would be creepy....then i started thinking about how i'd like to be at my wake....eyes wide open, sitting up, staring at the audience as if intently listening to a really good joke, anticipating a gut-bustin' laugh, a huge gaping smile...my mouth open so that people could throw pennies down my throat for good luck. but i can't think about this now, it's not appropriate....but everyone deals with it in their own way....mike never missed a beat....we found out that tuesday morning that KC's death, and he was right back into complaining about work 5 minutes later. everyone deals with it in their own way....) four smiles....that was KC. a family member of his started crying, then wailing, and shouting in krio (creole). it was so sad to see, i started getting choked up. two other guys picked her up, and helped her out of the room, one on each arm. i almost lost it at that point, seeing that image, with KC behind them, strangely grey, not moving, not smiling. mental instincts kicked in...i noticed how similar this image was to last night at the common ground, when i saw some douchebag get severely ejected from the bar, kicking, punching, screaming, wailing in english. that's not appropriate to think right now, though....but everyone deals with it in their own way. i wanted to laugh. i wanted to smile. i wanted to have KC live on in my remembering of him, as he had lived so recently ago. i had no idea how much was going on in his life. i thought about going up to the casket a second time....i couldn't let my stuttered cliche thoughts of before be all that i say to him. no, fuck that. KC wouldn't want me to see him like that more than i needed to. or was i just justifying being an asshole? no, everybody deals with it in their own way. 3 people told me that tonight. why did they tell me that? did i say something?

afterwards, a former co-worker of mine who i hadn't seen in a while joined us, and invited us over to a chinese resteraunt where he and KC used to go frequently. about 8 or so of us ssg guys sat and drank beers, talked about our first porno mags, about child rearing and wife handling (neither of which i was able to contribute anything more than a, 'ha ha! i'm not married! you guys suck!') we also talked about KC.

when i got home, i went right back out to harvard square to meet becky and some friends. i was able to formalize what i should have said to KC in that time:...i'm sorry i was such a fucking prick to you...i had no idea how much you had going on....i'm sorry that i ignored what a good person you were, and concentrated on how you were fucking up at work....i'm sorry i never asked if you needed help, or if everything was alright, like charles did...i'm happy that you were such a happy person, and that even though you left us young, you were at least able to spread some happiness around for 45 years...thanks for teaching me the only krio i know....'mea gladdy'. it means i'm happy, or i'm glad. how typical for you to teach that to someone, KC. i'm not finished being sad for you not being around anymore. but i have to admit, in the last week or so, i've had a lot more patience with everything....looked a lot longer at beautiful things, and took a step back from my own problems to realise how many good people i know, and how happy i am that they are around me. cool....

...hey, thanks KC.

i'll admit that this last week i've become infatuated with podcasts. although most are just audioblogs, which are tiresome, my favourites so far are chub creek, the zedcast, marvin suicide, the npr science fridays, and quirky nomads. quirky nomads is the only real audio blog, but the chick took her family up to canada when the republicans "got worse". something i've thought about myself. chub creek and the zedcast are both canadaian podcasts, and highly amusing. marvin suicide, however, is shaping up to be my favourite, as i am now being played music that is fresh, new, and freely available on the web. the title i have above relates to batfink - the album i'm guessing is called "the one towards the Garrick from the Bird" it is Hippocamp HC042 from hippocamp.

so of course, following suit, i feel that i should do a podcast - for a few reasons. i'm more talkative than i am typey, and more interesting. maybe not so refined (heh) but hey, what do you want. it would be a great way for me to release my own stuff, in small tolerable amounts. the only problems would be storage. i'd have to clear up petekemble.com, and i'm not looking forward to that. we'll see. i have the equipment, the software, etc...

after the accident on the 12th of august, when a jaywalker saw to it that my little 550 would never ride again, i didn't know what to do with it. this was my first motorcycle, and i didn't want to call it a loss, but parting it out seemed the only thing to do. the frame's integtrity was compromised, and the ignition key wires had fused themselves to the frame causing a little fire when i tried to short the main fuse which kept blowing out. after a good friend and co-worker helped me get it home on his trailer, i began a plan to part it out - carbs, recifier, and then anything else i could get off it. it turned out that someone was interested in the whole bike as a chop project. so i'm happy to say that my little 550 will ride again someday in what form, i don't know. RIP little honda - you were the best.

on the way home today, i got off the commuter rail at kenmore so i could walk to the green line and catch a free train closer to my house. well, it seems the rolling stones were playing their second show at fenway, and boy did people come out for it. on the platform at natick there was a guy who looked vaguely henry winklerish, and his 3 teenage sons. on the train were a bunch of wellesleyites, but i don't think they were making it to the stones. when i walked up to yawkey, and down brookline ave towards the green line, it was pretty crazy. the thing that got me the most was the amount of americana mixed in with the stones logo. that, and the pile of SUVs in the parking areas - concert parking $25....you paid $50 to fill up your mammoth sellout-mobile, why not pay $25 to park it to see the stones, in addition to the $150 ticket prices. it made me want to go out to see a local show tonight...one of those $7 deals (expensive) at o'briens or something.

another productive meeting, for me, anyway.

From today's Daily News. Somewhere a copy editor in England is going to get a talking to, considering the way the last shuttle landing went.

there are explosions around london right now and nothing seems to be clear yet. but then i saw this in another news article on the BBC website, and i felt a little better:

in the words of john cage, i have nothing to say, and i am saying it.

i just have to write something here every now and then so i don't forget to.

it just hit me.

before i do the math, i can't remember whether i'm 28 or 29.

9/2/76....so i'm 28 still.

well that's good.

no, it's just the coldness of significant lonliness - i dreamt this line a few weeks ago.

i'm awake now because of a dream that i had, about jessie. i was getting out of a club with a few drunk friends, and we were going to a restaurant to eat. i got there and went to the bathroom, which had a shower stall in it. i ran into jessie in the bathroom, and i asked if we could start being friends again. she said no, and so i was like, well since this is the last time we ever talk again, i had a few things to say to her. i don't remember what exactly that was, or what it would have been, but i was like, so yeah, sit and listen. we actually had a nice talk, talking about how you need to take things slow, casual dating is better than what we did, and the like. i told her about becky, and that we were moving in together. after a few minutes she moved into the shower, and i was going on about something. i said, '...you know?' and got no reply, so i openedd the shower stall, and she was gone. i guess there's a few ways to interpret this dream. was i making peace with myself? telling myself that she's gone? was it just interpretation of the current state of things? or was it just manifestation of fears? i told myself about a week ago that if i still wanted to talk to her (something which only recently i wanted to do) in a week, which would be tomorrow i think, that i'd do it. i might still, or is it not a good idea? the thing that sucked about the dream is it put me back emotionally (in my dream, not now that i'm awake) a few years ago, feeling that loss again. i guess things like that never stop hurting, but they get put in a good place. this thing just got pulled out of that place for a few minutes during my dream.

i really need to try and go back to sleep.

i just finished Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and i'm really into it. Chris Ware's artwork and story line, as personal as it is, leaks a lot into my own life - mostly the idea of a distant father, the inner dialog and things that the hero of the story recognizes that other's dont. the montage including the tape recorder - where the main character records birds chirping and planes flying overhead - the tape recorder becoming an instrument of freedom in a way. but then he manages to record a couple walking by, where the female is telling her male counterpart how she's falling in love with him. we next see Jimmy in his room playing back the girl's words lovingly and sadly. Ware's representation of Jimmy's grandfather in turn of the century Chicago even made some correlations between his thought process and my own. this is best displayed here. the way that lonely summer mornings pass when you are a kid. also, his cruel love interest brought back memories of my own childhood crushes, teaching me at an early age how cruel females could be. i need to find more of his stuff.

intersting....an ad on an evite had this:

something seems a little off....i sure as shit didn't have $50 to tote around after college. and besides, money clips are a little snotty, i think.

So I made this - a little more realistic in my mind:

i don't have a lot of time to write about this, but....

From this article:

"The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis"

-Donald Rumsfeld

"The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff said there were 50 to 60 attacks a day, the same level as one year ago."

""I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time," General Myers said."

what the fuck.

so the new pope has a shady background...no, not molesting kids in the rectory basement, something much more popular and public for it's day - he was part of the hitler youth!

every now and then i have linked to perhaps one of the most heinenous "professional" websites out there known as the presidential prayer team. likewise, everynow and then i like to peruse anti-religious comments made by the U.S.'s founding fathers (a group of capitalists yearning to be free of english taxation). a giant collection can be found here. among my favourites are:

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." -- -- "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard, 1758

TESTIFY!!

"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."--Benjamin Franklin

TESTIFY!!

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."--Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Samuel Miller, 1808

TESTIFY!!

i wonder what the founding fathers would say about the presidential prayer team, or about the faith-based meddlings of the president with the economy and the constitution. of course, they might be surprised that the "negros and womenfolk" are voting, but i think they would be smart enough to realise this as progress - as in their time they could express the quotes above without being stoned to death or ending up in the iron maiden.

so basically - in comparison to colonial america, we're Fucked.

the words of César Vallejo. i'm watching 'songs from the second floor'. it's a lot to take in. confusing at first, but i'm starting to get it.

ok, maybe not. a modern day norwiegen virginal sacrifice?! wow. this is a lot to take in.

at 1:19 into the movie there is the best shot ever.

the symbolism in this movie is as abundant and easy to pick out as pink floyd's the wall.

great movie - the last scene is visually stunning.

last night beck and i watched good bye lenin! a film where a son tries to hide his mother, a true DDR comrade, from the knowledge that the berlin wall has fallen after she wakes up from an 8 month coma. the movie is very good, and i recommend it. i think a similar one should be made for america, where a son has to protect his ultra right-wing father from the knowledge that bush has gone bye bye! and the country has taken an ultra-liberal turn. SUVs have been recycled into free bikes, and small, sensible electric cars for everyone, and the constitution has been amended to recognise marriage as a commitment between two humans that love each other. yeah, ok, i know. but still, one can dream. although, this movie should be in german too. i liked working on my 2nd language while enjoying a good movie.

Check out this this NY Times article

i don't know whether to be happy or saddened by this - the shiavo parents, or more commonly marketed by the media as "the schindlers" are going to sell the list of pro-life donors that helped them in their fight to keep theresa shiavo alive, so that she may one day think, feel, run, and play in the sun again. give me a break. this guy summed it up perfectly for me:

"I think it's amusing," said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. "I think it's absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information."

did anybody find out why she had an eating disorder in the first place? the most ironic thing is that all the attention she was craving, she finally got, but wasn't even cogniscent of it. jon stewart had a good one too, saying that now that terri shiavo is dead, CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews have had their feeding tubes removed.

i can't believe i've enjoyed commuting as much as i do. since i gave up a car last may, despite the brief month i drove (okay, the CRX was a special case, and i loved driving that car, but i digress) i couldn't be happier. biking was fun and kept me fit, but i was way too tired to do anything in the evenings. the motorcycle was definitely a lot of fun, and i can't wait to ride a whole lot this season too. yesterday i took it to work for the first time this year, and i noticed something. i was still stuck in traffic, and getting annoyed. i also noticed the lack of music, and the lack of cranial stimulation. i like to read now. thank you, MBTA...for that at least. so today when i took the train (actually, bus, subway, train, shuttle bus - and that's one way) i really enjoyed the time it took, hence the time i had to stimulate myself, free of outside forces, other than time....or space-time (i'm reading a brief history of time by hawking.) i have to be at work by 0900. i get there around 0840. my day starts at 0600. i'm out the door at 0630. at 0644 the 66 bus takes me to harvard where i catch the red line to south station. at 0735 i catch the 507 framingham local to natick. at natick there's a shuttle bus going from the train station to work. the trip home is the reverse, starting at 1730 and ending at around 1900. there's a rhythim to it, i see the same people almost everyday, the bus driver, the passengers, the metro lady, the coffee lady, the conductor, and the shuttle bus driver. if i learned names i'd know 5 more people. this connection with people is pretty valuable, i'm finding. somewhere along the way i became embittered with society and culture outside of my immediate friends. this is starting to shed off, and i think i'm the better for it. it might be that, or it just might be the joy of routine. but perhaps the joy of routine mixed with the music that i'm listening to as well. i enjoy minimalism immensly while riding the train. steve reich, terry riley, mikael stavöstrand, or the kraakgeluiden CD i have, penderecki, and even some szymanowski at times. the timing of the music is important. the best thing to listen to is the stavöstrand. it matches the train very well. jens lekman is good for walking through harvard square to the bus.

commuting by train. love it.

the minuteman project is a very scary thing. A group of yokels, diehards, racists, vigilantes, steer chowin' 'mericans or any combination of the above are convening on arizona's southern border to "bring national attention to the fact that the U. S. Federal Government is not fulfilling its mission to protect American citizens from the economic and physical danger of porous borders." what i see is vigilante law being practiced in this area. how soon till we hear about slaughtered illegal immigrants or some knuckle-dragger who blew his own fred flintstone foot off? this may come off as presumptious, but perhaps you should check out what 'Jack, a border area resident' has to say of the current situation;

"Most of the Democrats here are more conservative than urban Republicans."

okay....

"We have about 30,000 Hispanics, mostly Mexican-American, with most of them concentrated in the town of Douglas. Most hate the border situation as much as we do. They've been here ever since the US Cav sorted out the Apaches and know quite well just how unsuccesful the Spaniards and Mexicans were. A lot of them speak very little Spanish. Believe it or not, I have to depend on a Puerto Rican lady at work for any Spanish assistance."

well, for starters here's what the history books define as "sorting out:"

June 27, 1857—Gila River.

"The earliest recorded U.S. Army conflict with Apache Indians in Eastern Arizona was an affair known as the Gila River Massacre. "On June 27, 1857, elements of the First U.S. Dragoons attacked a peaceful camp of Coyotero Apaches who were gathering mescal along the Gila River near Mount Graham. The soldiers, led by Captain R.S. Ewell ... reported killing twenty-four Indians and taking twenty-seven prisoners in this unprovoked attack."

The exact location of this action is unknown.

mescal is a type of cactus used to make food / liquor and the like. so 'jack' doesn't know spanish? well, now that we are starting to see where 'jack' is coming from and what kind of human being and 'merican 'jack' is shaping up to be, one might not be so surprised that he doesn't seem to know spanish. wouldn't that be a prerequisite for this kind of work though? i hope that "puerto rican lady" has a sense of humour.

one of the links off the poorly designed minuteman project homepage caught my eye: team america!! what?! i can't hear you!! TEAM AMERICA! YEAH! a quick perusal through the mostly boring and parroted message boards provided this little gem:

Dear Tom Tancredo,
Since President Bush has sided with Mexico's Pres. Fox against American citizens, will you in Congress please start impeachment for this traitor while thousands of us harmless, but patriotic Minute Man Project "vigilantes" head to Arizona to do jobs that Bush's budget won't allow Border Patrol to do? What Bush is doing to our nation is far more dangerous than anything Clinton did (not defending Clinton). Bush has betrayed Americans. Our veterans did not die so that Bush can sell out our country. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Diane Headrick - GA - freelance videographer

hmm....."harmless but patriotic MMP 'vigilantes'"

and there was this one too:

Dear Team America,
Is there an easy way to report illegals and how do you know they're illegal if they have green cards of are working on farms? Shouldn't they all be illegal? It seems they are taking over our country and everywhere I walk i'm forced to move for these invaders. What is the best way to report them and have them deported? And would I get in trouble if I didn't know for sure they are illegal?

the post went on to talk about getting back to local farms, and not big corporate ones, and i have to agree with that, but i don't think for the same reasons.

so, what i'm thinking is this:

here's the normal mode of transportation for illegal immigrants in the 20th century:

....oh yes, notice the beatings.

and here's the normal mode of transportation for illegal immigrants in the 17th century:

well, the shit would hit the fan soon enough.

here's more native americans welcoming their white illegal immigrant brothers to the plains!

americans, or at least 'jack' and his ilk are short-sighted. what a fucking bunch of horseshit. our only hope sometimes seems like the extinction of mankind.

I don't like that tubes, particularly feeding tubes are making their way into the news. i bet it becomes a buzz-word used to get people's attention. so fucking stupid. i hate everything sometimes.

TuB3z!!!11

M0r3 of TEH TUBB3X0rZ!!!!1112

today my mood is.....

from today's metro - written by mike mennonno:

With the media swarm around Terri Schiavo, we’ve been hearing a lot about one of president Bush’s much-vaunted “core values:” his “culture of life.” There is a certain irony, to put it mildly, in a self-proclaimed bornagain Christian who, in the years since he was saved, has presided over more executions than any governor in recent history, one of which was that of a severely retarded man. And who, as President, has launched a war based on dubious intelligence that has claimed over 1,500 American lives, and the lives of no fewer than 17,000 Iraqis. And who has actively sought ways to undermine the Geneva Conventions. Whose administration condones and currently outsources the torture of detainees. But it has a nice ring to it, this political catchphrase “culture of life,” and that’s what matters, isn’t it? Bush and his people don’t inhabit our humdrum “reality-based” world. They live in that rarified faith-based realm, where neocons create reality for the rest of us by fiat. If Bush says it’s a culture of life, well then, it must be, right? And while we’re at it, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength, according to this new doubleplus goodthink. Yes, there are some inconvenient facts to be dealt with, but faith can move mountains, so what’s a fact or two? Still for you reality based readers, here’s a random few: there’s the racial disparity in health care coverage that, according to a recent study headed by former Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher, accounts for more than 80,000 African American deaths per year. Or take access to condoms in vulnerable populations. AIDS is on the rise again, but forget about the government funding education or prevention measures. Bush’s policy, in a nutshell: Poor people should stop having sex, period. Problem solved. If the poor insist on pursuing their own culture of life, they’ll have to go head-to-head with Bush’s. The odds aren’t good. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 2002 infant mortality increased in the U.S. for the first time since 1958, and now stands as 42nd highest in the world, behind Cuba and China. And what about the natural environment necessary to sustain life? The U.S. ranked 45th — behind Russia and Botswana — in the World Economic Forum’s 2005 environmental sustainability index. What would a real “culture of life” look like? For starters, it would recognize that education, affordable healthcare, and a living wage go a long way toward creating an environment where people can make informed choices about medical care and family planning rather than merely react to crises. And it would not abandon children once they were born. A political culture that shells out taxpayer dollars for half-baked propaganda, one that professes love of life while pursuing costly policies at home and abroad that result in death, that exploits the real misfortune of a family for its own gain is not a “culture of life.” It is a culture of lies.

weird, i googled my old mp3.com name, 'i, sine perversion' and it looks like i had listings in japan too...

http://www.listen.co.jp/artdetail.xtp?artistid=65805

"it appears we're no.1 in japan."

'Video Warehouse is in a location zoned for adult entertainment, but the store isn’t licensed for live nude performances, said Police Chief Robert Champagne.'

call me ignorant, but isn't an adult video store essentially just a gigantic catalogue of nude performances? you can take a trip to peabody's one and only video warehouse and pick up your copy of anal blasters pt.7, but if a naked boob should pop out on the premises, then the cops will be called! what's more troubling than the underlying irony and puritinism is that this is seen as a problem.

this is less stupid as it is just funny. on saturday in hong kong, some dude named 'Wu' got THE DUMP from his gf & decided to empty his 35th floor aptartment on to the street. no arressts were made because no one was hurt. expect poor Wu, i guess.

The Schindlers had urged supporters to spend Easter at home with their own families.

But about 100 protesters ignored the request, instead gathering outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla.

About half a dozen people in wheelchairs left them to lie on the driveway, shouting "We're not dead yet!"

from CNN

talking about vegetarianism with meat eaters is a finicky thing to do. they tend to get very defensive, like they know there's no good reason to eat another animal, other than carnal desire. perhaps that has it's place as well, as we are animals ourselves, but isn't it our plan to evolve? there are alternative sources of protein out there. i will not die of colon cancer, i will not get mad cow disease, i will not be responsible for 1000s of deaths this year. yes, it sounds cavalier, but why shouldn't it? i'd be cavalier in a way if i stopped someone about to eat a pickle that fell on the floor. i don't really care what people choose to eat, just as i don't care what people do in their lives in general, as long as it doesn't interfere with mine in a negative way. but there's 4 ways that people who aren't vegetarians react to vegetarians that i've found:

1) jokes, the most common, particularly jokes like, "you want bacon with that!? ha ha ha! or offering me some nasty meat-based dish. what the fuck? do i shove tofu in your face? do i threaten you with vegetables? yeah it's supposed to just be a joke, but come on. even for low-brow it's not that funny.

2) trying to impress - also just as common. "yeah, i don't eat meat that much either" or "oh i tried that, and i wish i stayed like that." ok, you probably should then.

3) pity - "oh you don't eat meat? that's too bad" oh please. justify that in an intelligent way. seriously. i could say the same thing, but i don't, and i wouldn't.

4) defensive words - probably the worst. some people actually get angry. not often, but it happens.

i don't preach, so please don't do the same. if you have opinions, that's awesome, but so do i.

after paying more attention to collins' website and his fotos i've decided to start looking harder for beauty.

it's friday night and i'm staying in. yet, i'm getting drunk. my goal? to stay in on a friday night by myself, not sick, and not get drunk. i'm setting one year on this goal. yes, i have low expectations.

chalazia sucks ass. it's day 4 and i'm sick of being a hideous looking gimp.

there'a a job opening in my company in germany, and i'm considering e-mailing the IT director about it. i feel unhappy in the states, and maybe it's all in my head, but when i'm back in europe i just feel better. i think it's mostly political, or the fact that i never felt like a loser in europe. there seems to be less of a need or desire to fit in socially. fuck, what the fuck am i going to do?

becky and i got back from amsterdam yesterday. it was a good trip and for the first time ever i didn't feel like going back home. usually after a week I need get back home for whatever reason. so I kept a little travelogue in a marble notebook which goes as follows:

3/10/05 - in amsterdam

becky and i eat - tomato mozarella, lettuce and pesto on a dark roll.
Cafe Stevens. the weather has held up and becky's feeling better. the night before i went out drinking and discussing politics / grand ideas with Kees and Joeri. i started thinking about how these types of situations in general work like the following images:

[placeholder]

3/10/05:18,33 "De Pilsener Club
1615? i hope so

3/11/05 "De Sluyswacht"
Dommelsch tastes like piss. Bikes => google batavus, sparta, gazelle, nostalgie, burco.

15,02 back again at cafe stevens to try the goat cheese sandwich. drinking duvel to Dave Vir. it's raining.

3/11/05:17,00 "Fockink"
gin bar? 1679?
two beers. two more beers. a lady from montreal was trying to give me a quick lesson in dutch. i keep thinking german, and i wish i didn't. i think i'll respect the dutch and stick to english so i don't mangle their language. at night we went to a few bars with Marcin Gajewski. one of them is called "lux" i think. you need an age coin from the bar to operate the cigarette machines in bars it seems.

3/12/05:16,00
at cafe stevens again, raining. if you order the young (or mature i guess) cheese, that's exactly what you get, a plate of cheese cubes with some really good mustard. becky saw a tinker pony around de waag.

3/12/05:00,32 red light district
"drink & sink" what the fuck?!!? if i wanted downtown boston i would have stayed there!!!

3/13/05 artis (the zoo)
the plan is to get to england for the next trip. we want to live there, we really want to live there. but is it for the best? (ja, dat verdomme engelsman -sgc)

3/14/05:00,05 the greenhouse
eminem, woody harrelson, pierce brosnon, fran drescher all smoked here i guess. i keep toying with the idea, but becky won't. hash is here too i guess. it's pretty laid back. it's not raining anymore.

3/14/05:15,30 Cafe Chris 1624 (apparently the oldest bar in town)
they used to drink here after working on the tower (the nearby church) in the original days of the bar. it's on the corner of bloemstraat and erste bloem dwarmstraat; anno 1624.

21,40
de pilsener club with collins for the last night. it's actually from 1893 and not the 17th century. we ate at rose a mexican restaurant, and then headed here. the place filled up really quick with about 30 dutch guys all in their early 20s with the same haircut and same kind of clothes. the two dutch girls that were there when we arrived were very happy about this. eye candy i guess.

3/15/05:01,30
"Buurvrauw" - one last time with collins. i love this place. collins and i went here the first night and i had been back about 4 times since. we're drunk.....let's drink sliante!!!!slainte!!!
~~~~~
wild peeing is what they call public urination wildplassen.....wildplassen = wild peeing, ricardo, WILD PEEING!!!!! [sic]
(my friend was arrested for unauthorized watching of police arresting a wildplasser -sgc)

that's all i wrote.

today i was in amsterdam. i wanted to write that before i went to bed, because now i am back in boston. more to come...

i can't stand talking on the phone. i never know how long the conversation is going to last, and there's a million things i'd rather be doing than sitting idle while someone talks in my ear about things that i don't really care about. if it were up to me, i'd switch to instant messaging for all that non-essential stuff.

i'm wishing that i had taken more pictures of my old apartment. particularly a 1st person perspective of laying in my bad with nothing but the nightstand lamp onwhile i'm reading before sleeping. i read that camus book a lot and smoked while i did. if i ddi that now i'd wheeze all next day. i really am getting old. it's starting to show. should i be taking pictures of my current place? so that i can remember what it's like to get old? i'm terrified of the day when i don't want to have pictures of my living spaces, because it will just serve to portray how old i've gotten. so what if rob and i don't go out and get pissed together as much. so what.

on the way home last night i stopped by the common ground for a rum and coke. with only 4$ and change, i put my money down and luke the bartender pushed it back over to me. i love that.

yeah, i got the note this morning that specifically called more than 3 occasions where i had been too loud as a neighbor, including the loud sex which was so eloquently referred to as "entertaining guests". i felt bad, i felt horrible. the people who proceeded them once interrupted a night of my "entertaining guests" with a fist fight in which i had threaten the police as a somber dickhead carried a smashed wooden chair out the front door to the garbage. i was too loud for the down stairs neighbors. so they didn't appreciate kraftwerk. i felt like an ass until i read the explanation that they work in advertising, so they work odd hours. advertising, huh? hmmm...yeah, they work in advertising. it must be so annoying to have to live with unexplained, and un-asked for interruptions, isn't it? it must be tough to live with annoyances like being bombarded by something obtrusive that you didn't ask for. what a pain in the ass to have to deal with pop-ups like your loud neighbors "entertaining" their girlfriends at undisclosed hours of the night. sure, my forgotten alarm clock was a pain in the ass, for an hour at a time, on some saturday morning when i wasn't around. advertising takes up a quarter of every hour of TV that i barely watch. ok, ok....i'm being unfair. maybe they advertise for non-profits, maybe they are the 'good guys'. perhaps i should find out what kind of advertising they're in before blasting the organization as a whole, you know, do a little market research first. lumping together occupations, or people is as bad as say...demographics? oops! i did it again. i shouldn't generalize. they extended the olive branch and i should comply. i've got my ice-breaker all planned out - "so what's more annoying? my noise, or commercials?"

i thought all this out on my way to the swillo to meet rob who was high on shrooms as it turns out. at first arrival, after getting a PBR, i headed to the bathroom which had a distinct barn smell. yet, peaceful as it was, i could still hear the bar(n) noise through the slatted swillo door. but peace WAS to be found in the piece of plumbing that looked a lot like a ying-yang. rob went on about hipsters, renee (his new girl) and music. i learned that i have to read some Nietzsche, and so i will. after seeing i heart huckabees i have to get some german existentialism. too much french on the brain.

i hope i'm not typing too loud.

i've noticed a lot of blogger's space being used for advertising now. this is sad, and crappy. i hope blogger gets rid of these accounts, it's pretty low. it's the 11th inning, and boston is tied with the yankees. i'm a sox "fan", i guess. i only really watch when it gets exciting, like now that it's in the ALCS. i want these fuckers to win it finally. it would be awesome if the sox won a world series. if not for the parties alone. the consumers have decided to lay low for a bit and write some new stuff. it's working out really well so far. we wrote another tonight.

Not counting the Vikings, this land, starting with the European culture of which it based these days, was first invaded by Christopher Columbus. He was a greedy tradesman and merchant who was hired by the Spanish Queen Isabelle to find a quicker trade route to India. He invaded North America, and infected the natives with all sorts of new and exciting disease. The outcome? Columbus Day is bullshit. Next to come along and fuck shit up were the Pilgrims. They were thrown / stormed out of England in the mid-17^th century because they were a little too maniacal about their religion for post-Cromwell’s England. The pilgrim invaders needed a place to practice their special brand of religion, which included no dancing or singing in peace. They came, they saw, they conquered the natives more. The outcome? Thanksgiving is bullshit. The early colonists were then known as Puritans. They thought themselves pure, and when this purity was threatened they burned a few women at the stake. They were an incredibly chauvinistic and sexually retarded society. The outcome? A long American history of sexual oppression, and retardation in the religious sect. –Which is bullshit, anyway.

After a few years of life in the colonies, (and that's exactly what they were, colonies; land annexed from those who were already settled. The outcome? The term 'early settlers', unless applied to Inuits coming across from Siberia is bullshit.) things got expensive for the people living here. Taxes were too high, and the English crown was demanding more of its plundered land dwellers. Enter the founding fathers. Hiding behind the idea of liberty and freedom for the common man, they took on the English government. Freedom and liberty meant they wanted to be free of paying high English taxes. The terms freedom and liberty were used a lot to persuade the French to help. They did. The US constitution was essentially nothing more at the time than an economic breach from the English, nice and legal. It also included such an idea that there should be a separation of church and state, something which is widely ignored these days.

Invasion, Puritanism, and economic gain. These are the ideals that this country was based on, and honorably enough, these are the ideals that still stand today. Not Kerry, not Bush, not Clinton, not even Nader don't discuss these things. We still have reservations, for fuck’s sake. Reservations!! Slavery is in our history, witch trials, etc... now that's not to say these things didn't happen all over the world, and they still are, but you don't see those countries touting their policies, their "freedom" across the globe. They are not self-entitled to such things as America thinks it is. America is incredibly self-entitled, and this is what causes the resentment around the western hemisphere, and now into the Arab nations as well. What gives the US the right to invade Iraq? What gives the US the right to have military bases in Saudi Arabia? It’s protecting its assets. By what means did America come to those assets? For what reasons do Americans require these assets?

So my problem is when people say they love this country because they love freedom. We’re not free. We’re slaves. Slaves of TV, slaves to cars, slaves to materialistic 'necessities.' I know I am. And I hate it. That’s one of the many reasons I feel sad that I had to grow up this way. I’m not going to denounce it all, either.

But I wish for fucks sake that Americans would stop kidding themselves with this holier than though, almost martyr like approach to freedom, liberty and justice for all. Instead, I see slavery, reservations, and a severely non-functioning democracy. But that's no need to drastically denounce everything you've grown up with, or even take huge steps to change it. Change it one little thing at a time. The first change you can make is to choose to not be bothered by right-wing hotheads who won't listen to educated reason.

In the end, it's not that bad. Before you know it, we will be at war with both Eurasia and Eastasia, celebrating Dubya-day, the day which remembers when a valiant president saved the world from Saddam Hussein, disarmed his nukes, and freed the masses. And only the bad people died. Just like on the cowboy shows. Soon enough it won't matter anymore that the arts in this country are being run by powerful business majors. Just keep getting spoon-fed the sports/music/TV culture, and soon enough you even care that the earth is rotting away underneath you. We are humans. We are lemmings. We are self destructive. We are weapons of mass destruction.

This is why I occupy myself with Linux and beer and my motorcycle.

So why do Americans get so defensive when someone expresses dissatisfaction with this country? Happyok had a good point above, that her not wanting to be an American affects no one but herself. The negative points are fine, obviously they are disagreements. But that's no reason to dislike someone. I don't like football. Big fucking deal. You probably don't like Edgar Varese. I won't judge. I was raised by English parents in this country as an atheist (3 generations back) and I’ve had my share of shit my entire life. It’s made me bitter, and incredibly disenfranchised with the whole melting pot idea. Sure, America is made up of foreigners, but you're fucked if you don't fall into the mold of a true 'merican. Even the most liberal people in this country get offended when I rudely mention that the name America comes from Amerigo Vespucci, a pirate, and that freedom doesn't exist outside of a marketable word that's thrown around in order to sell cars with "hemis" in them.

Now just because I say all this stuff doesn't mean that the true idealistic and utopian freedoms and liberties can't be a reality. We just need to be aware of the current reality. The reality of the past, and if things don't change, the reality of the future. America’s not such a scary place as long as you know your roots. Only a small population is really malicious, and out to enslave, oppress, and silence others. The problem is that the majority of the population never looks at the big picture. They’re too focused on trivial points, and trying to fill that trauma hole left by archaic religious ideals that floated them up to today. The bottom dropped out for me a while ago. What now? I know of at least one or two others in this very thread who know what I’m talking about. The sad thing is that I’m finding out - life's too short to worry about it. So will anything ever actually be done about it?

it's going to be a while until i have something to write about here. i'm just too tired and too bored iwth it. but i haven't forgotten.

....and said it was me, and sounded like me.....i swear it was my drunk friend claire." that was the alibi of my ex after calling her in return from a strange and unexpected message i received. but i'm a nice person, i'll give the benefit of the doubt, and believe her, i really will. the reason i called her back is because i was concerned. it's been almost 3 years, and the relationship was only 3.5 years, so feelings at this point don't go beyond general concern. the message was to the effect of i'm calling every boy that i think hurt me and i'm blaming them for me hating the male gender. whatever. the last time i heard from her it wasa a message that ended with 'merry fucking christmas'. it instructed me to never call her again, and whatnot. that was about 1.5 years ago. and she still has my number in her phone? for her drunk friend to call me? thank god for girls like becky. i've been missing that for years apparently.

i rode my new bike for the first time today. it's a honda cb550, 1976. the carbs are all gummed up so it's leaking gas as soon as i turn the petcock to on or reserve. i didn't know this until i already got home, had the thing towed to work, and did some research. i thought it was totally fucked, but all the symptoms i'm reading about seem to have solutions. basically the main thing is the carbs need cleaning. i don't know how the hell i'm going to do this. but i think i'm going to make a point to have fun doing it. i don't want to get all frustrated over this crap anymore. i'm going to do it, learn from it, and have fun doing it. god, this bike is awesome.

i've had a fever again for the last few days. beck thinks it's because i don't sleep enough, i'm stressed, and i'm always running around doing stuff. i agree. so i bought some multi-vitamins from trader joes, and lo and behold, they have gelatin in them. fuck! i'll take them anyway, but it still pisses me off, and grosses me out a lot. it's a month's worth too.

the scooter is up and running again. i love that thing. it's pretty reliable once it's up and running. i may sell the neon as long as me P&M can help me out in the fall when i may have to concede to getting another car. i'm looking at a bunch of beginner bikes online too. i may move to just motorcycle only. i've done it before, and i can do it again. mostly looking at old hondas and suzukis.

beck and i saw napoleon dynamite this past weekend. freakin' funny as hell. definitely going to be a good cult movie in the future.

i saw michael moore's farenheit 9/11 last night. it was a great movie in my opinion, although it seemed editorialised to a fault at times. but, this does not take away the anger, and feelings of betrayal i have for the US government. OK, betrayal is a stretch - i guess you have to be loyal before you're betrayed. the most outrageous things i noticed:

the bush family ties with the bin laden family
the soldier who said what a rush it was to listen to music while killing people
the corporate scandals that have caused this war for oil
the mindless and blatant disregard for human life and family
that a republican regime that has created so much poverty over the last 20 years, now calls on the impoverished sons to join the military and fight to protect the ideal of american life, which because of the economy they will never enjoy.

i move to impeach.

i just heard about a fellow cyclist getting hit by a car, and losing her life. i promise to wear my helmet A LOT more when biking around town, no matter how lame it looks. that's no longer an excuse.

r.i.p. lady k. as it went for us at Start!, i never met you, but i think you look familiar.

this weekend was fun. on friday after drinking with teh CL peeps beck and i headed over to the paradise rock club to catch a band her friend was seeing from work cause we were on the guest list. this hobbirle WB / FOX drama ally mcbeal soundtrack type stuff was playing (i won't mention the chick's name, cause it seemed like she'd rather be playing something different). it was bad, but the beers were there, and it was comfortable i guess. we ventured to the bathroom where after doing our business we heard none other than quiet riot's c'mon, feel the noise. it turns out that none other than kevin dubrow was playing that night with his backup band. we "snuck" in (it was late) and caught the rest of the show. AWESOME stuff. metal felt good again. there was a long blonde-haired floozy dancing in front of us, and my inner 13 year old probably popped a woody - i don't know, as it was so high from sniffing gasoline in the garage for the lawn mower. saturday was the usual at great scott for "the plan". saunday we biked all over the city after i further fixed beck's bike up.

today there was a company sponsored thing i had to go to call LIEB - leadership is everybody's business. it was line after line of empty corporate buzz words brought to you by the tom peters company and wrapped neatly in a powerpoint presentation complete with bottled water and "bio breaks". in the afternoon they made us climb trees and walk across ropes. it was scary. i don't like heights like that. i don't like corporate buzzwords being shat at me. i especially don't like the two simultaneously.

kicking my ass around. it is stealing away my youth! i want to be drunk on robin's couch on the cape for july 4th again. not so much this year (although i'd go) but last year. that was so much fun. so much fucking fun. tonight i went over to ricardo and meghan's, and ended up with 6 bottles of booze, and my old acoustic guitar that jenny tse had given me back when i lived 153 brighton ave.. i knew that kara wanted a guitar to play around on, so i got over to her house afterwards, and gave it to her. we had a cigarette, and chatted, and i was out. along the way to kara's i called dana and jess to see if they were up for anything, but it seemed like there wasn't anything really going on. dana's good to have as a friend i decided. it's been too long since the last bout of weirdness for me to have any more problems with her. it's cool. i want to cut my hair again. i'm debating going completely bald - just for fun. but i know i'd catch hell from becky if i did, plus i do kinda want to keep my hair for a little bit longer. all in good time, i'll be naturally bald ;) i just haveto be patient.

biking was very good today. it went surprisingly quick, and i realised i am having more energy to bike around now. after 3 weeks i am able to keep a good pace up, and i think i managed to raise my average speed to 16 mph, from 15.4. tomorrow i'll do both ways - so i better get to bed soon. i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss that around a year ago - or even 6 months ago, i was probably at the model or the sillhouette getting drunk with my friends. i miss that, but that topic is getting old i think. another good thing happened while i was biking home today. i felt like a kid again. i felt like i used to biking around pretending i was a jet pilot or something. the trees were clouds, and i was zooming over the landscape. i didn't know shit about the military back then, i guess.

it's wednesday nigth and i'm home alone. i miss "the scene". i miss mod night. i miss going out on wednesday to a crowded dance floor, and having it all be so new. all of it, so new.

i love biking to work and back.

cars to me are a whole different animal now. when i was driving (like 3 weeks ago) i could identify several discerning features of cars. now, they seem like they're all the same. sometimes i'm on the train and all i see are streaks of colour passing by, all with black windows, encasing their drivers deep within. biking has been great. i have energy all through the day, i'm in a great mood, and i'm feeling a lot more healthy than i did. i can even go out drinking on nights before, and feel better when i get to work. of course, i can't do that too often. but that was true before too.

when i biked in critical mass last friday, i heard one guy chanting to the people on the sidewalks "biking makes you smart." i think he was on to something. when i was in high school, i had to bike everywhere. i didn't own a car, and while other kids were driving in their new cars, i had to pedal my way everywhere. well, it did three good things fo me. i grew some nice thigh muscles, which have reamained good base muscles that can emerge whenever i need them, it taught me humility, but most of all - it made me smart. i guess it was more generating character than anything, but when you have a lot of good time on your hands to think by yourself - bitter and disenfranchised by your driving peers - your mind gets working on overtime, and some pretty good ideas come to mind. of course, if you can remember them.....hmmm....

if you are a boring person, but feel compelled to blog everyday, this may be of some help:

annoy your friends

i've decided to go two wheeled this summer, and possibly beyond. my car has some serious problems now, and i really don't feel like putting the money into repairing it. the gas tank leaks, and the lower link arm, basically an arm that helps connect the wheel to the car has somehow come free. i also need to get it inspected. my conclusion? well, last week was bike to work week and that i did, having been sick with over $2 per gallon gas prices. it just isn't worth it anymore. so, i biked to natick from allston - a 15 mile ride each way. and i realised i could do it. i wasn't bound to my car as badly as i thought i was. so now i've been biking on my 2001 Trek 1000 the last week or so to work. in the morning i bike downtown to back bay station, and take the commuter rail to natick, then bike to work. on the way back home i bike back to allston. when i get more in shape i'll bike both ways all the way. this will be tough, but worth it. as becky says, we'll both be hot by the end of the summer.

not having a car will suck for the consumers, though. i can't lug a 200 pound amplifier on a scooter with my bass. my bass i could bring though. either way, meh, i'm doing the right thing, however impractical it may be.

i love my bike.

i hate my car.

i love my other bike.

that makes me hate my car more.

i love my scooter, even though i never get to ride it anymore.

that makes me realise i can get rid of the car i hate.

i hope i fuck shit up tomorrowduring jury duty selection. i plan to talk about the government, and all it's evils. oh, and i will be hungover, cause i'm drunk now.

somebody found my blog by googling my name. how ironic (and not in a hip way) that i googled my ex's name around the same time. sorry, honey, i was bored, and nostalgic. i cleaned out my bookcase.

i got back on sunday night. during the day the whole family went down to virginia beach, and walked along the boardwalk. i never really feel like i fit in in public when i'm with my parents. i always feel i'm a little off, or weird, and not in the good way that i enjoyed for so many years. the general people were hot girls, (not enough) big muscle guys (aren't there always too many) old people, and trashy people. it's so horrible to be smart sometimes. they all look so content to not notice the military jets flying out of oceana, all the gas the jets were consuming, all the advertising that was surrounding us, the sweatshop clothes, the rampant meat consumption, consume consume consume. that's all it was. i bet that beach was beautiful 150 years ago, or even 400 years ago, before us white folk came and colonised it and fucked it up. it's horrible to be smart. i think i'm missing out on all the fun.

i'm looking forward to driving without A/C -sweating my testicles off. it's socially conscious sweat. the sweat that exists because i refuse to use my a/c. it's not quite as satisfying as the sweat that i get from rising my bike, but fuck it, i'll take it either way. cassie was fighting to stay awake in the car on the way back from the beach. she is adorable. my one year old niece. i can't wait to watch her grow up. she will outlive me. that's frightening in a way, as much as it makes logical sense. i wanted to smoke so bad that day.

There was an old guy on the plane that i sat next to. he was in the air force at one time i gathered, but he never really talked about it. he was from north hampton, and was very happy about that from what i saw. he called the french sons of fatherless dogs because they wouldn't let the americans fly over france on their way to libya. what gives the americans the right? i couldn't open my bag of peanuts over new jersey. he helped me. it was embarrassing. the rest of the flight to baltimore he talked to me like i was his grandkid. i was glued out the window to the ocean. i always look out the window on planes. ever since i was a kid. he started asking me if there were any ships out there....like i was eight years old. "no", i said, and continued to watch out the window. after a 4 hour delayed layover in baltimore and 3 beers, i was in the back seat of the plane to norfolk. it was ghetto. southwest and their ghetto brown and yellowy planes. i sat next to an elderly couple from san jose. i wanted to get them to raise the roof with me on our delayed back seat airplane. we could have been the bad kids. but they were old and not into things like that. they wanted to nap. besides, i wanted to look out the window. i saw lightening after we took off. it was bright, purple and thick. just one line of it, straight down. i had to pay my phone bill online otherwise my service would get cut off. i started stressing about money. now there'll be blood in my stool. that always happens when i'm worried about money. my parents want to pay for the plane ticket down here. i'll have to let them. i don't like to, but i have to. at the birthday party, there was a little toy rolling around on the floor. it was obviously from another planet. people kept picking it up, and wouldn't let it roll around on the floor. when it finally made it on the floor, it rolled around, playing music, and lighting up. the music had a sweet sense of the phrase "mission accomplished, leader..." to it. i think my imagination has taken over. i've had two cigarettes in the past 48 hours. not bad. i bought four packs because they are so cheap. $3 a pack down here. it's going to be $6 soon in boston.

i'm doing a good job pretending to be sober.

if anybody can recommend good alternative free e-mail with more space than hotmail, and no shady advertising like gmail, please let me know: puppybooger@msn.com. i've had it with yahoo. it's been taking days to get e-mails, plus i can only log in half the time, and their customer service dept. is abismal.

i was in a mood for a while last night. i'm so afraid of getting older. as i was scanning the usual (and not usual in a bad way) crowd at the common ground last night i saw all my wonderful friends / aquaintances, those who i see everyday, on the weekends, or just on thursday night, i realised that there will come a time that i will see any one of them for the last time at any given point, whether it be soon, or in a few years, or on my deathbed. i will see ryan, DJ nebula for the last time in my life at one point. even DJ Brian, and (a cautious 'god forbid') athena, i will dance with for the last time. all things end, and usually in the end, it's for a good reason, or for the best, but for some things, that seems like an impossibility for me. i really love it all so much, and i never want it to end. at least not in theory. i wish that atmosphere, that dancing, that music, and those people would last forever. that at any given time, i can go back to the common ground, and they'd all still be there. when things end, they usually end for a good reason. but not always so. there was a time i could go to the common and collins would be there. i could walk out my door, and he'd be there. but he's not anymore. he moved to amsterdam. and it hurts. i miss him, and think about him everyday. all things end, and in the end, they usually end for a good reason. when i was 4 years old i had a similar thought to the one i had in the common last night. i watched a lot of tom & jerry cartoons as a little kid, and that cat would die in every episode. but he was always back a few minutes later to get killed all over again. i was 4 years old in my backyard in madison, ct. and i was next to the house walking up towards the stairs of the deck. i realised that i would die, but i would not come back. at age 4 i was painfully aware of my own mortality. it didn't depress me, but scared a little. at 4 my thoughts of death were simply that you die in pain, crushed under a piano, or blown up with dynamite. but it wouldn't happen until you were really old and in the hospital. my biggest fear about death at 4 was that it would hurt, and there was no way out of it. you cannot cheat death. we will all die. i was 4?! thankfully the thought that my parents would die too was too much for a 4 year old to comprehend, so i didn't ponder that. i think i would have seriously fucked myself up if i did. it is inevitable. as there will be a last time i blink, breath, close my eyes, touch my stomach, or scratch my foot, there will be a last time that i see my thursday night dancing buddies. i just hope these two final events don't conincide. dieing at the bar is uncool. they might call me capt. bringdown and the buzzkills.

i hope it never ends. i want to go to the common ground when i'm 40 and walk in on a thursday night, and there would be brian, spinning some god awful hair metal, and beautiful cure, and all my wonderful friends / aquaintances, those who i see everyday, on the weekends, or just on thursday nights were there - not a day older than when i last saw them - never growing old, never going grey, never getting married, or divorcing, or having kids. just on the dance floor having a great time, spilling beers, creating drama where there doesn't need to be, and rushing to the dance floor every time new order comes on. i hope these days never end, but they will. all good things come to an end, and sometimes there's a good reason for it. or at least a tolerable one.

people have finding my blog with the following:

fuck arab air force

rocked air force

bettersweet --- i see you :P

on saturday the peeps of freezepop had a party at their house in upper allston. good times. beck got so drunk that i literally had to carry her home with hallie. at the bottom of the foot bridge i was sobered up enough to go and get my car and drive us all back. i noticed as i drove out that the sun was coming up. 5:15AM.

the party was cool. before was cool AS WELL. athena and i went to transmission, and danced the whole night. it was great. so many hotties. beck was with hallie and kimberly at the model before. apparently that was filled with hotties too.

at the party i got talking with a guy named omar who was leaving for iraq at the end of june. i told him good luck, and repeatedly told him to 'do the right thing.' he said he wanted to be around to vote for nader. they better leave his shit alone over there. he was cool. why he was in the army, i'll never know. another guy just got back. we talked politics for a while. a long while. i still stand by my points, but he was very conservative, and made some good ones himslef. but one thing i never understand is that all the conservative points seem very one-sided. very USA-centric. one thing we did agree on though was that the US gov. doesn't understand that politics in the iraqi culture is more religious centered than american politics. but not by much.

my rent check bounced. she was late cashing it. i should put a stop payment on all checks that aren't cashed within 15 days of being mailed. even that's lenient.

my check to the IRS might bounce. but either way, i get paid tonight through direct deposit, and tomorrow, most of that will be gone. at least i have no checks out there any more. i totally forgot about the rent check because i sent it out almost a month ago. fuck this shit. i hate money, i always have. i think about a second job, but that would fuck so much of my time up. maybe just saturday and sunday mornings or something. i haven't been going out as much, and i don't spend as much any more. not buying lunch helps, and not buying cigarettes as often helps too. but goddam, this is no way to live. i'm getting sick of crappy, cheap food. hey, at least it's vegetarian / organic. thanks, trader joes. i think mark's rent check bounced this month too. at least i'm not alone. it makes me feel a little better. a little.

so this blog is getting a lot of hits from boston university. i know a couple peeps out there, but i wouldn't think it's them. what's up BU? please stop bunging up the green line. move to the back of the trian.

move to the back of the train.

i just filed my taxes.

me me me me me

whine whine whine whine whine

fuck the IRS.

listening to joy division, and remembering mod night at the comon ground. next week will be the last mod night ever. 7 years it's been going, almost 2 and a half of those i've been a regular at. it started to drop off aout a year and a half ago. when it was good, it was good, though. i came to boston, not knowing anyone, and mod night introduced me to many. athena being the most prominent i guess. i was out with her tonight, listening to her ramble on about whatnot. it was kind of nice. i saw a girl i went to high school with. 3 times i yelled her name, and she looked at me. yeah you went to hand high school. but nothing. i guess she didn't want to know. but she is a cokehead from what i heard when i met her sister over the summer. either she was kristen and her sister was katherine or vice versa, i don't remember, but they were sisters.

anyway, knowing that mod night is ending is really sad. it's trully passing of sorts. first start! ended, and now mod night. when the pill and 80's love night go, it's time to move out of boston, i guess. everything's different for me now, than since i started at mod night. back then collins was here, jenny, amy, rob, and everyone else who lived / hung out at 153 brighton ave. in allston. the allston chronicle, the constant turmoil of emotions that was the opposite sex. eating at china garden, despite my better judgement. having emotional meltdowns on a daily basis. forgetting jessie, making new memories, escaping with PBR, and living in that blessed studio apartment, 153 brighton ave, #3. i miss those days, but these are still better. but, i miss those days.

how appropriate. day of the lords, joy division just came on winamp. the first joy division son i ever downloaded, after a recommendation from my sister - an old manray goer from the 90s.

the memories are flying by quicker and quicker it seems.

i'm sure i will elaborate next week after the last one. i'm going to do my best to rally all the people i met there to get out to the last one.

i'm sitting on the phone with a customer while they install the our product in the most simplest of ways. a stand alone demo installation on windows. yet, they have the need to make me sit through it. it's torture. he keeps trying to make small talk with me, but i have no desire to participate. it's horrible. the silences. well, maybe for him anyway, i'm happy sitting here writing. i don't need to know, nor do i care where he grew up, or what the weather's like wherever the fuck he is. oh, and the douche feels the need to call out what percentage the installation is at. what a douche.

two more days, and that's it. two more days. two more days of bullshit tech support for our external customers, and then i get to sit in my own office, and do interesting work.

i'm so scared for the world sometimes. i almost feel it's my responsibility to quit my job and become a full time protestor to this regime.

I just realised that run of the mill blogging to no one in particular is the epitomy of attention whoring. whatever I write on here may be read by people who know me or not, but despite this, these writings are more thoughts I have, and shame on you for reading them! ha! whatever - it just seems weird that I feel the need to have my thoughts public, no matter how cathartic it is, and no matter how much it fulfills my love-me-daddy inner child. I embrace my self indulgent behaviour with everytime I click Post & Publish. read it, bitch. read it and like it. I know it's boring. and so, I shall continue to blog. there. still reading? good.

i'm so sick of my job. i have 3 more days of afternoon phone shifts before i'm 100% in the internal IT position. no more idiot mac users to walk through copying files, no more unix admins that think they know the installation better than i do. i will have my own office! no more cubicles!! i'm sick of these retards. i wish i could talk to the smart ones who never call. the one's who don't need help. i found that i smoke more when i'm working this job in the afternoons. i have a smoke every hour it seems. and the time drags and drags. 3 more days. just 3 more days.

"I agree with you but in my case it is Jazz musicians that piss me off. There is Charlie Parker, Mile Davis, John Coltrane and the harmonic efforts to wrestle the blues out of jazz. Cool shit but it's time to move on, the course has ran. R."

Word. i forgot to mention that like there's an exception to every rule, there is some jazz that i like. the one's mentioned above by my friend are cool, and for a while in my "experimental college days" i experiemented with enjoying jazz. jazz musicians piss me off, and that's what i was getting at before i fell asleep last night with my laptop. the popularity contests at school were the most brutal. the composition majors were obviously the equivalent to the freaks / nerds and art shool kids in high school. the jazz musicians were the jocks. the singers and instrumental performance majors were everyone else.

must have been all that mahler and wagner.

but let's face it, a lot of music is shit. it's the most expendable art form. you don't have to be a genius to create it these days, and you definitely don't have to be talented to be successfully marketed. it's too bad, christina aguilera has a really nice voice, and her talents could be used much better in either a more experimental genre, or old skool blues. skinny little white girls probably shouldn't sing the blues as much as they do though. maybe she could be on stage with some old black guy singing the blues, and in a a fit of rage the guy could lash out at her like she's the master's daughter or something. i don't know. i'm all about poetic justice, in it's most absurd setting i guess. but violence isn't cool. maybe he'd spit on her new shoes, or make some lewd yet witty and ironic comment about her cotton panties.

i worried once that it isn't jazz so much that's pissing me off, but the freedom of expression, etc... but i learned pretty quickly that that's not true. freedom of expression is far more evident in contemporary classical, experimental, noise, minimalism, avant garde, etc... jazz is not free. jazz is a look, a sound, a style that sticks to super pretentious standards, (at least the jazz i was versed most in at Hartt) and worst of all long fucking boring as snot solos . at the hartt school we were forced to sit through an hour and a half every thursday in "musicianship" class, or as it quickly became known as "musician-skip", becuase if you had any common sense on the matter, you wouldn't waste you or the performer's time suffering through a concert that you wouldn't go to unless someone made you. yeah, sure, it's great to support your peers and fellow students, but come on, you can't force people to do that! you just create musicians like myself. anyway, whenever my department, composition, would have their thursday, the audience would groan (except the percussionists, of course) - 'oh shit, here come the weirdos, what are the psychotic freaks going to do today? another smashed amp? smashed guitar? smashed records? smashed umbrellas? yeah, composers like smashing things. especially things that represent conventions. like Fender Stratocasters, amplifiers and rock and roll. when the vocalists were presenting, it was another snore fest for most, because who wants to hear opera at 1130 AM on a thursday? oh, but when it was the jazz department's time to present, look out - it was like the crowned king and queen of prom night were stepping forward to allow the peasants to be so greatfully shat on. fuck jazz. it pissed me off. everybody thought it was so great, because they were afraid of the possible reprocussions of being called a racist, if god forbid, someone didn't enjoy the most "diverse" department at the Hartt school. bullocks. great bolshy bullocks, they are. my friends and i didn't buy into it. the solos, which ordinarily were painful to sit through, were especially painful because they were student solos. anyway, i could at the time appreciate jazz. that wasn't too hard. i was in love with zappa at the time, so it didn't seem that hard to appreciate solo lines, and pick out the melodies. doing musical math - maybe that's what got me through the 18 minute power solos of these novice douchebags. so constrained and tied down to the image, the image of them trying their best to impress their elder professors. what a bunch of bullshit. ok, i just fell aslepp for a seond.....maybe i'll continue this later, if the mood strikes me.

"jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" - F. Zappa

heh. some time around 1am last night hallie and becky were dragging me out of the plan at great scott to a party that the guys in one of the bands that played that night. reuben, a friend from college had already left with his girlfriend, let's call her J. we were packed into this converted van with no seats, as a bottle of jack was passed around, and the members of head quarters were trying to find parking around lower allston (thank god it would be near home). somewhere along the way the floor tom fell off the raised shelf in the back and on to hallie's head, which incurred a minor bump, but i manager to stop the falling tom before any major damage took place. becky seemed quietly optomistic through the scary van ride. all the while this one guy in the band who looked an awful lot like the lead singer in the hives kept screaming if anybody knows anybody who has some coke. jesus, i wanted to yell at the prick for being so stupid. but whatever, be a mediocre rock star while you can be, i guess. so we arrive at the party which is on alcot st., and there's a couple people there instructing us that we were all going to another party, an underwear party, in a little just soon after, so we couldn't drink any of their booze. after 20 minutes of standing around and doing nothing, we start to get ancy, so me and this guy charlie from head quarters start taking their liquor cabinet stuff. all of a sudden there's this screaming match between reuben's girlfriend, and some of the people that live in the house, and she's screaming how she can't find her shoe. her fucking white shoe. the guy who lived at this house was seriously coming close to smacking this girl who seemed to get more and more frantic. she ended up leaving - finding her shoe outside in the bushes. we started heading out to the next party, because the people who lived at this house were wanting to head out themselves. beck hallie and i go outside to wait, and there's reuben, poor reuben and his girlfriend who is screaming her head off on the phone for some reason. it was weird. i gave reuben my number in case he needed to call or anything. we go back a few years to early college, '95, 96 or so, but haven't exactly stayed in touch or anything. so then we're all wondering what the fuck it's going to be, where's the party, how are we getting there, etc, somebody already had come out of their house to tell us to shut up, and standing around outside wasn't cutting it. i was sobering up fast, and so were head quarters. the coke kid was merely wanting a ber at this point. after a little while someone comes out and tells us that the party's a bust, and we're not going. just like that, we head out, and the band drove back to new york.

yes, i know you're bored, beck. i'd like to just keep sitting here for some reason. franz ferdinand is pretty cool. i'm digging it. i'm comfortable. i could sit here and write inane, boring babble all night if i could. we're missing the pill. so sad. we're poor. even sadder.

so now you're going to read my blog? are you hoping to see something you don't already know? are you going to try to decipher my lame-o ramblings into something interesting? i don't mention your boobies anywhere. go on, read it. READ IT!! HA!

okay, fine, i'll come and pick you up now.

listening to the ruins. it sounds a lot like zappa.

i still have no money. i just a check to the IRS for $500+ which should pay off the rest of my bill to them. then it's time to go after the credit cards. something like $4k. not too bad considering the state of some of my friends. yikes.

i wanted to start recording some stuff like i used to today. i managed to get out one song. not like the stuff i did last year, so much as the stuff i did in college, and before. i want to start a resource for the super lo-fi people. i love lo-fi art, and everything that is severely under-produced, displays a crippling low budget, and generally unpresentable for public consumption. the recordings your roomates did in college, or the high school garage band. sweet. i want to write little songs like i used to, except be more experimental about it. now that i'm not afraid to use synths, it should be fun.

my lyrics for tonight:

this was our house
this was were your black eyes shone
taken 7 steps back
it looks a lot like home now

i lay on my back
i wouldn't say it like that
you tripped on your feet

and it was fine until the start
and it was one for us to take
it never lent itself too much
but it lingers in my head a lot

i said you'd never see us through
but that was before you came back
short hair and pieces
of my thoughts of you

leave some under your feet
leave some for the ones there now
take some for your head

this was our house
this was were your eyes shone black

becky's coming over tonight, so i'll hopefully have some more. i can't wait, actually. it'll be fun to have someone record with me. yes, it's about total control over the art. she'll be the, uh talent?

fuck memories

in ray bradbury's Illustrated Man there was a story about a two astronauts stranded in their craft. one kept saying how memories are no good. how they're like porcupines. you kick them around, but end up with a foot full of sharp, painful quills. even the good memories give you some level of strife. the last few months i've been thinking about jessie again, and it's bugging me. i'm getting more and more curious to know what she's up to these days, but without starting shit, or getting back in her life. i still think about holly too. yeah, and even tanya occasionally. i only sort of dated her for a few months, and word has it last night that she's an alcoholic with not too many friends left. she spends most of her time at the model. big surprise. i'm a pretty nostalgic person for thre most part. i'm not sure why, but i've always been like that. i always idealise the past, and while i guess that's an optomistic way of looking at things, it drives the people close to me a little crazy sometimes. all in all it leaves me with some feelings of emptiness, like the past is lost, and things will never be as good. fuck the greener grass. the grass is just as green now as it was then. but then again all i have to think about is my balding head. it's slipping way dude. it's slipping ever so slowly away.

last night's show:

the consumers with steel ponies and bettersweet at the choppin' block in brigham circle, boston.

i showed up and noticed that one of the guys in the first band looks a lot like becky's ex-boyfriend. sure enough, she walks in and it's him. turns out she always thought he was gay, and so does everyone else, including a girl he dated once...who was also at the show. awkward, i bet. anyway, we rocked out, prolly one of the best shows we've played. until april 10th....

last night's show:

the consumers played at o'briens in allston with some nü metal bands that i can't remember the name of. it was too much alice in chains / bad metallica / bad led zeppelin / guns 'n' roses crap for our 4 fans to handle. we played well as a band, despite the sound guy completely fucking up our set. i couldn't hear myself, even though i was standing next to my amp, and matt couldn't hear norah. i don't know what norah heard. anyway, we're playing again on thursday the 18th with the steel ponies, and some other band at the choppin' block near mission hill. i'm looking forward to it, promoting it, and getting people to go. that's it....i'm keeping my hopes up.

holy crap.

what a crazy, unexpected reunion type weekend.

on friday i went back to the university of hartford to catcha show at the hawk's nest with becky. the band was big bear, with joel roston, his girlfriend jordan, rueben and dave altman. the audience also had noel dorsey, some girl that looked really really familiar, lacey, a girl named rochel that was friends with john morowitz, carmella, and dan friel. weird to see them all again, considering i thought i had seen dan in an onion article earlier that day. it was him, and he said that if i ever made it down to new york he could have them take my picture too. apparently ty braxton is also in another onion article. after that, on saturday, it was the last Start! ever. it was phenominal. everybody looked great, rob and krista showed for a little while too, and athena brought shawn, who was scarce throughout. of course athena was all upset, but big phooie. she had 5 months to dance with me, but kept the upholding friendship which let to cheesmo 6th grade dance style. i wanted to get dirty, and becky was perfect. she had an amazing time, as well as i did. i will miss Start!, i will miss the trashy people who look great, the electroclash, the expensive beers, the drunken dancefloors, but most of all, the coked up emerson scenesters. so much fun. RIP, Start!. Sunday Becky and I developed film, and tonight i'm getting together with collins. i cannot wait. i haven't seen him in a year when i visited amsterdam. shit. work beckons.

reminder for myself:

work on more of your electro shit, pete. jesus christ already.

last night - the consumers - we played at all asia in cambridge. it was a good show despite two screw ups on my part. feh.

it was for a women's benfit concert. before the set i was in the bathroom doing my business. ironically enough (and isn't that what rock n roll is all about these days) there was a sticker for some band right in the line of fire on the back wall of the urinal depicting a chick in a leather thong or some shit bending over. you had no choice but to pee on the sticker. it was inevitable. women's rights concert. i'm pissing on chick before the set. funny. ironic.

but is it art?!?

Big Surprise for.......YOU!!!

"i'm proud and ashamed
every fourth of july
you got to know the truth
before you say that you got pride"

-Descendents, "'merican"

fuck it all. i'm losing my hair still. not that i expected any less. well, nice pun, pete. i guess i did expect less. hair. i can feel it thinning. fuck. soon it will be time to go bald. when the light shines on it, the bald spot is pretty prevalent. fuck.

Musing on the Consumers and my bass playing with the band:

after reading some of Norah's blog (the singer) it's no joke that i haven't given her the amount of respect deserved as far as the songwriting process goes. matt and i will come up with a bridge verse chorus, etc... and norah will fit whichever lyrics she's working on to what we're playing. this works, although i have to admit i haven't given the actual 'songwriting' process much thought in the beginning. more and more lately, now that we're recording, i'm paying attention to what norah's singing. i'm becoming more and more insterested in what she's actually singing and how it relates to what i'm playing. this is impressive considering the songwriting process for our songs has consistently lasted in the span of about 1-2 hours. every song we've written so far has been born like this. one a rehearsal would be ideal, and more and more the process becomes second nature. the band's writing is getting better, as the process gets more familiar as well. each time i write some bass lines, and matt starts playing i think it's real great, and then when norah's lines come together i think that this is the greatest thing we've written so far. and today for the first time, chills! chills down my back at 4:21 PM. the song will be called waiting for ethan. good stuff. norah had a date with a guy named evan when she wrote it.

my playing basically comes from three things: peter hook (happy belated, btw) simple duotone harmonies and minimalism. the theory minimalism is inherent. we're just bass, voice and drums. i'd like to try some minimalism in practise, but when you're playing dive bars in boston, you don't want to fuck around too much with the "1, 2, 3, 4!!" approach at Rock & Roll© until you've made a name for yourself. of course being experminetal is one way to make a name for yourself, but i'm trying to raise an army of fans. not a few nouveau-intellectuals. at first it seemed as though the possibilities were endless, becuase i had some degree stating that i spent a lot of money to call myself a composer. as time went on, though i was thinking that there's not a lot left to offer after some 9 or 10 songs. the tempos were all pretty much homogenized, and the style of my playing (eighth notes - 2 notes at a time) was static across the board. lately i've been playing with simple effects; delay, and distortion. i guess that's a tiny step away from minimalism as far as my sound is concerned, but it will be a long time before the playing or god forbid, the lineup of the band changes.

and now for the ramblings:

i think i'm performing a service to people by not writing too much on here. i've decided that i'm a boring writer. i try to reread my posts, and i just end up skimming, because it's THAT boring. OK, to be fair, my first posts on blogger were pretty entertaining. that was almost a year ago. my post on the gay music that was listening to is hilarious in my book. yeah, the two first posts are genius. i could write about how i still think of my ex-girlfriend from time to time, or how i'm never really sure if i'm in the right relationship currently, or how i'm totally paranoid that she's thinking the same thing, but who doesn't think that stuff? who would want to read about someone else thinking that shit. that's why livejournal makes me furl my brow with simian-like confusion. i read that stuff for about 2 minutes, and i don't know whether i'm amused, or just a few more IQ points in debt. hey, look. i'm posting on a "live journal" of sorts. feh. it's not a goddam journal for me. hmmm....2+2. "i've decided that i'm a boring writer." i just put them together. all my questions asked have been answered. by me. why am i even writing this now. i could just think it, and save the both of us the pain. great. now it is a journal. one of the requirements of a journal, i think, is where the writer addresses the reader while pondering a subject that nobody besides the reader should really care about. my name is pete. this is now my journal. crap. i knew it would end this way. i need to write all up in this shit more.

Sometimes working in Tech Support can be fun:

Hello,

I'm a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Upon arriving here my dimensional warp generator stopped working. I trusted a company here by the name of LLC Lasers to repair my Generation 3 52 4350A watch unit, and they fled on me. I am going to need a new DWG unit, prefereably the rechargeable AMD wrist watch model with the GRC79 induction motor, four I80200 warp stabilizers, 512GB of SRAM and the menu driven GUI with front panel XID display.

I will take whatever model you have in stock, as long as its received certification for being safe on carbon based life forms.

In terms of payment:
Payment can be made in Galactic Credits, Platinum gold, or 2003 currency upon safe delivery of unit.

INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE FOLLOWED EXACTLY:
Please transport unit in either a brown paper bag or box to below coordinates on Saturday August 9th at (exactly 3:00pm) Eastern Standard Time on the dot. A few minutes prior will be ok, but it cannot be after. If you miss this timeframe please email me. I will not be there prior to 2:45pm EST,
(so do not transport before then).

Item is to be delivered at Majority Lane in Woburn, Massachusetts located at: Latitude N 42.49430 & Longitude W 071.14275 and the Elevation is 140 feet.
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRANSPORT ITEM BY REGULAR MEANS OF TELEPORTATION. THEY ARE MONITORING AND WILL REDIRECT THE SIGNAL!!
I DO NOT CARE HOW YOU HAVE TO GET IT HERE, JUST DO IT IN A WAY THAT NO SPYING EYES WILL POSSIBLY BE ABLE TO REDIRECT or BLOCK THE TRANSFERENCE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU BE ABLE TO MONITOR THE TRANSFER.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SEND IT SO THAT THEY CANNOT REDIRECT OR BLOCK IT??? If in doubt do not transport actual unit until your method of transfer can be confirmed as a success. You just might need to send a intergalactic courier to deliver item safely to me. If so be VERY careful at how they approach me.

It is best if you send a intergalactic courier to deliver, this way you can be certain the unit arrives ok, However If you are certain that you have the means to teleport unit in a safe manner please send a (separate) email to me at: webmaster@federalfundingprogram.com only after unit has been safely delivered with payment instructions.

Do not reply directly back to this email as it will only be bounced back to you.

pyramidud pc gwega

a neon light sign that reads: "The Food Experience" at the food court in downtown crossing, Boston. very cheesey.

when i woke up i was shivering under 3 layers of blankets. the fever was bad. my skin was burning to the touch and my chest was red because of the heat that was coming off it in curtains off discomfort, sending my brain into fever-induced delerium. i started freaking out a little bit, hearing myself groan, and toss in an effort to find some comfort in my bed. i was surprisingly not drenched in sickly sweat - but this was not a good thing. this meant i was dehydrated. slowly coming to, i realised that i had to lower my body temperature. but wait, that would make me shiver more, i though in a daze. perhaps, my other brain said, but only for a short while. the most importrant thing is to get the pills in you and reduce this fever. then things will be normal. after convincing my body that i needed to take off the blankets, things started to improve a bit. my temperature lowered and i started to feel more with it. i downed a glass off water- cold water, to try and rehydrate myself. becky would be over in a few hours with gatorade. that would be calling in the big guns. like taking penicillin. god, i hoped it would act fast. i wanted the penicillin to reboot my immune system like last time. i managed to pee some - it was hot sickening urine. the kind that burned a little when it came out. i have to get better. i have a show on saturday. a benefit concert for allston-brighton free radio. this has to stop. tomorrow i will attempt to go to work. we'll see how it turns out.

it's been too long

i just got back from another dead mod night. i'm wondering if it's still worth it. i'm wondering if i'm still into the style, the scene, the music. is it natural, or is it because she's around. i long for the days of lonliness sometimes. of going to Our House with norah and ricardo, having a smoke, drinking brubakers.sometimes i long for the emptiness of being hurt, the longing for that someone that you think you need in order to fill the hole in your life - until you get them, and you feel nothing of the pain that stayed with you so long. i remember the joy of a full dance floor, and thinking in terms of wanting, hoping, dreaming, yearning, hurting. that is no more. is that because i'm growing out of it? is that because it's too late. is that the way things happen? if i ever feel that again, will it be too late? will i bee fatter, older, balder, and more unhappy than i've ever been? happiness is strange, so i don't know how to take it. in defense my mind, my heart, and my soul feel little but the occasional joys when she's around. i'm 27. i long to be 26, to be 25, to be 22 again. to do it right. but i thought i did it right. i thought i did it all. but no more, shall i do that. this time has past. it keeeps passing. it keeps feeling right in the way that it feels like it's the wrong timing all the time. holly, tanya, sarah, lauren, they are all past. but they feel right in the way that they were wrong. crap. now this is turning into a lame livejournal. i miss being a scenester. i'm only pretending now. fuck. i want to be shallow again. it was more fun.

apparrently saying, "we need a national tragedy so everyone can go home early today" isn't a funny thing to say at work.

getting blown off by your two best friends 4 nights in a row really sucks. even more so though; it's because they are chained to each other's genitalia. that's fucking weak. i'm above the drama, but if only they knew what they said about each other behind their backs, and stopped living in a fake pipe-dream. it's all a front to me that i'm supposed to believe they have some shred of self confidence, but they're fooling no one. just don't tell me how much you're above the bullshit, when you can't stop runnning back to it.

art is a fart from the heart.

1."hey man, is that freedom rock?"
"yeah, man!"
"Well turn - it - up !"

2. An elderly lady in pink pajamas claps her hands together, a light goes out, and as she quickly rolls over, she is instantly asleep.

3. "Help! I've fallen!

and i can't get up!"

as i walked home from a friend's house around 1am there was a street fight. ordinarily i'd stand around and gawk, but instead i barely looked at it. i just sort of walked around it and kept going. i only stopped a few yards away to onlook at it on my way out because the girls the two guy were with started bleating and hooting for the apes to stop fighting. it was like an old movie. they were grabbing at them yelling 'no joey, no!' - or something to that effect. then this little skinny kid started trying to pull them apart. at one point on of the fuckers started making a noise like, 'stop pulling at my sunglasses!'. it was so wussy. then i turn the corner from commonwealth onto harvard street, and outside the 'wonder 'bra'' there were couples making out. dycotomy. i just got an idea for a song that has nothing to do with any of this....have to write. no matter how late or what state of mind i'm in.

the smoking ban in boston sucks big fucking balls.

plain and simple. what a piece of crap legislation that not only takes away a personal right to destroy one's lungs, but also opens the door for similar stupid-ass rules that will only further facilitate the ridiculous the "we have your best interest in mind" kind of legislation. you know who's got the right idea? the fucking dutch. they are geniuses. you're free to fuck up your life in any creative way you can come up with. walk in fron of a speeding trolley and get squished? sorry, no lawsuit - it's darwinism, and besides, you should have been paying attention. there are no railings to protect you from falling in a canal. just don't be stupid and fall in! jesus! but here we have to keep the best interest of the servers and bartenders in mind (most of whom smoke and are also against the ban as far as i can tell). you know what's pulluting my air more, and makes me sick? SU-fcuking-V's! how about we get rid of them! the car companies are making more than the tobacco companies...oh, and they pay more taxes...hmm, maybe that's why they're still around. fuck it. i can't think straight. i'm pissed now. fuck......

okay....so anyway, last night at retroactive was good, because more and more of us as the night went on defied the stupid kindergarten-esque rule and smoked anyway. the servers were cool - it was fun. it better start a trend. plus i got to talk to a cute scenester chick who i've been looking over at since january at Start!.

going bald sucks big friggin' balls!

on the way to work today, i saw a luxury car with a "god bless america" bumper sticker.....yes, god bless your lexus LS 400 indeed.

beautiful people piss me off. it's a tired comment, but it's a pain in the ass when some hot person, boy or girl, is complaining about how their life sucks. the one thing we can't truthfully ever improve on are our looks. we can lose weight, get nice clothes, develop better personalities, basically become über-cool, and have everyone want to be our friends - except if you have an ugly mug. you're screwed. you can't change that. plastic surgery is an option....but c'mon....that shit's too 90's. i'm not all that ugly, but this guy comes up to me last night and starts complaining about how all these 35-40 year old women keep hassling him because he looks like a rock star. all i could do was shut him up by telling the fucker he had a charmed life, and everything will always be easy for him, no matter what. this is especially irritating when girls do it. "oh, i'm so depressed, oh, life sucks, i'm so unhappy...."

yeah?

SHUT UP, BARBIE!

Got tell that fugly in the corner, who wishes she was you, that your life sucks! go tell her that you're depressed! get a fucking grip, and use what you got. People are Shallow Deal with it. i can appreciate the inner beauty of someone, trust me, i do a whole fuck of a lot. but i'm just as shallow as the next guy. if you're hot, or part of you is - use it! if you're not hot at all....then read a lot of books, and develop a great sense of humour.....you'll need it.

The following quote was from Yahoo! news, which they apparently have now fixed. Too bad, cause it's a great typo:

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday accused Syria of carrying our tests involving chemical weapons over the past 12 to 15 months. He gave no details."

This goes along great with a joke my neighbor told me the other day:

Bush is on the phone with Shirac:

"We've gotta get Iraq! I know Saddam has nukes!"
"How do you know? How are you so sure?"
"I've got the reciepts right here!"

The Invasion of Iraq - through the eyes and hearts of those plundering on:

Officers of the 101st Airborne Division said most of Saddam's Fedayeen fighters had dropped their weapons and fled.
"Ideally, we would kill them all," said Col. Joseph Anderson, a brigade commander of the 101st Division. "But if they choose to change their mind and flee, there's not much we can do."

"The preponderance of the Republican Guard divisions outside of Baghdad are now dead.", "We will continue to apply decisive pressure. We will continue to kill these guys until they give up," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley. "I find it interesting when folks say we're softening them up. We're not softening them up, we're killing them."

This guy's son has years of therapy ahead of him.

Guess the dreams always end
They don't rise up just descend
But I don't care anymore
I've lost the will to want more
I'm not afraid, not at all
I watch them all as they fall
But I remember, when we were young
-i.c.

in the words of collins, isn't it sad that past relationships have a way of sabotaging future ones?

r.i.p. edwin starr.

it sucks that he died while the u.s./british led invasion of iraq flames on. last night at mod night vinny played 25 miles, while one hipster-chick danced by herself. it was kind of artistic in a way, but then again, i was only on beer 1. edwin had this to say about his life:

"I just take care of myself," he said. "I never drink. I've never been involved with drugs."

shit.....so i guess i've only got a few more years?

other than that - last night me and norad embarked to filene's basement to find the not-so-perfect pair of scenester jeans for me. the ones i got are made by swiss, of the army knife fame, and once washed, should be adequetly tight.

when the hell am i going to grow up? if i keep up this lifestyle of go out at midnight, get sauced, stumble home at 2, pass out at 2:30, and wake up at 7 for work much longer, i'm gonna crash really bad. well, at least i'm finally "cool". it took me 26 years, and countless paychecks worth of shitty beer, but i think i'm finally accepted by a few of the scenesters. maybe now i can bask in this glory for a month or two, before i work up to the level of it being socially acceptable to get some fucking sleep. my head's swimming - my eyes ache - my skin is dry. boy, isn't partying on a weeknight fun? especially when it's 4 out of the 5 weeknights? shit.....i need to live not by myself, but with like 6 other people, and work a shitty crap job in my neighborhood or something. enough of this cubicle crap. it's seriously cramping my style.

what a weekend. i would like to think it's not sleep deprivation that's causing my thumb to twitch a full half inch every 60 bpm's, and it's not the sunday night beers that's making my right eye ache.

on saturday the protest in boston was amazing! 25,000 of us to 50 of the prowar people - i hope to have pictures someday, as soon as the roll is finished, developed, and scanned. the march was surreal, yet it was *so good* to be surrounded with so many passionate, like-minded people. i found the prowar slogans / posters to be pretty childish and violent: "smoke saddam - not crack" was one of my favourites. my favourite anti-war poster was "W, is this war part of your faith-based initiative?" - at least the anti-war slogans were somewhat witty and thought out. the most moving part were the veterans from past wars who marched with us - if that doesn't send a statement, then what does? there were no arrests, and the weather was perfect. all in all, a spectacular success. i said to friend, we may be losing the invasion in iraq, but at least we seemed to be winning the war at home.

oh, and apparrently, if you don't support the war, you're a "commie" who should get a job. this i verified with at least 2 pro-war sources. a third declined to comment. i think he may have been homeless, though.

i ran into a crack / coke head on friday night after last call in mission hill. i'm sure there's a good blog in here somewhere, but all i can remember is telling him that c3p0 was probably into heroin, since he was all gold. i was really drunk.

Pet names should be a punishable crime.

I recently started seeing an awesome girl. she's fun, she's arsty-fartsy and really laid back (no drama, ok?), and has the coolest hair i've seen in a while. but last night she developed a really bad habit. she called me "sweet pea". it was cute at first, but then i realised; i had just been a victim of a pet name. my oily shredded rag that i call my dignity fell out of my ass and into my sock. hoping it was a one time deal, it unfortunately wasn't. on our way out this morning, i was victimised yet again. same name too. when will it end? rather than bring it up with her, which i should, and well...we'll see, it's much easier to be passive aggressive these days - what with street-beatings, gay republicans, and the polish - and bitch about it here.

Drama......cripes.

there's a lot of things that annoy us in life. for instance, when i go to drop the kids off in the pool at work, i often have to halt the brown baby boy mid travel because someone comes in to the bathroom. sounds weird, but the bathroom is one urinal, two stalls, and complete silence. the place is like a sound-proofing chamber. i swear you can hear the bacteria growing in that bathroom. so, if you're sharing the space, the other person can hear everything, and i mean EVERYTHING! highly annoying. oh, web sites about alarm clocks and pet rocks are annoying. so are hangnails, street-beatings, evil sarah at last call, bad art, and war. but most of all, the most annoying and tiresome thing has to be drama. i am sick to fucking death of drama. i used to surround myself with it. it was so exciting. he said, she said - oh it was so great being mopey, and quoting smiths songs that applied to the situation - feel sorry for me, pay attention to me, i can't believe he did that, why is she like that, blah blah blah fucking blah. heaven knows we're miserable now. but then i went to amsterdam. i took a week off from the boston scenesters - and it was great! no little black haircuts, not a little pocket-mod (thanks grish) in sight, not one (well, a couple) man purse to be seen. i realised that i, in my head, am a picture of perfect mental stability. i found serenity in half-pints of fresh heineken, and peace in stumbling all sauced up past the anne frank house, talking about her diarrhea in the attic. i noticed that no-drama is super cool. i don't have problems, i'm not crazy....but the rest of the world is fucked! Word up!! when i got back, the drama attempted to start again.....but i was now prepared. instead of the chocolate flavoured dignity-free guilt shake i'd have for breakfast, i now replaced it with a healthy bran-brick of fuck-it-all. 'oh crap, what do i do, i feel so guilty, i think i'm gonna cry, where's my velvet journal?' was quickly replaced with, 'dude, you're nuts. seek professional prozac.' yes, living the drama-free life is the life for me. i couldn't be bothered. it's all about avoidance, and pretending to be at least a 19 year old at age 26. let's see how long i can keep it up.

who's up for some PBR?

time to take inventory of my time in boston. a 3.5 year relationship with what i thought was my future wife that bit the dust after i moved here, the coke-heads i've encountered, dancing in the rain to plastic bertrand in a s&s parking lot with grish because we didn't want to stay at the party, my cubicle job, a recital that doesn't seem to be happenning anymore, because i wouldn't record the girl who's putting it on having an orgasm, holly, nina, nice sarah, julia, kimberly, driving from florida to boston with rimmer, start!, mod night, 80's love night, the smiths, the cure, *joy division*, wire, le tigre, my one man band, experimental electronic sound collages, being rude crass vulgar and now drunk, being entwined and lost within each other to an entire new order cd, refusing what's-her-face of "coke, life sex and babies", my awesome and gigantically pregnant sister, brian's good ear, beardo saving me from making not too much of an ass of myself, binge drinking all too often with the most critical, emotionally fucked up, and best friends i've had in a long time, norad's pretend brain drugs, 60-80% bullshit, robin's silent monologues, waking up at 6am to go to planned parenthood before i have to give a presentation at work 2 hours later, athena, (my perfect little goddess), dancing all night, twice a week for the past 5 months with busy little athena....being dangerously and excitingly close to suicide for 10 months, nina's beautiful, laughing eyes in november, dancing to peter shilling, and observing silverback gorillas one sunday for three hours, all the time, thinking about humanity, evolution, and how much i would love to touch her heart, overcoming the past, overcoming, overcoming, overcoming, and living like i have never before.....

last night at start! was awesome. athena and i jumped around drunk, and the music was the best it's been in a while, despite the couple of hip hop songs, and the extreme lack of electro. but the thing that bothers me, and is something that i need to get over is putting too much into something that's not giving back in the same way. to cut your losses and move on is tough, and to do it in a highly mature way is even harder. having been on both the recieving and giving end of such a mess i know that it sucks at first, but gets better as time goes on. christ, i have to thank norah again for the virtual prozac she gives me. these chicks help too. they made everything make sense. well....i'm off to enjoy the nice weather and pretend everything's OK....you're OK....OK.

there's something wrong about this. i'm sitting in my corporate cage, cubicle, sweet cubicle, eating some extra frosted baby shower cake, and watching a live feed of the population decrease in baghdad. it's creepy, there are bombs, explosions, and gunfire. oh, the feed has sound too. the guy next to me that i work with, is getting all excited cheering, and turning up the volume, so it seems as if the tax-funded munitions are going off down the hall. this is totally creepy. morrissey's attempting to drown it out, but to no avail. 'louder than bombs' he is not. bush can officially be tried as a war criminal......yeah......

so my mother got me a a desktop calendar for work this past christmas. the theme is 'don't sweat the small stuff', by richard carson. he's a cool guy, he wrote a book called 'taming your gremlin' which is really good. but this calender is something that does not gel with my super-hip, and comically bitter mindset. for example entries like:

"smile at children more often! you'd be surprised how much they understand, and can in turn make you feel like a child again."

w.t.f.? yeah, i'll smile at children....the next thing i know i'm in a paddy-wagon getting the snot beaten out of me by the boston PD.
So I had almost lost faith in the calendar, until yesterday, who's entry seemed somewhat interesting:

"Sometimes, when you're feeling a bit overwhelmed or burdened by your responsibilities, imagine what it will be like when you no longer have those supposed burdens to complain about."

hmmm.....did carson go of the deep end on March 20th, and is quietly suggesting murder-suicide?

weird,

looks like under the U.N. charter Bush is now a war criminal for invading Iraq. something tells me there won't be a trial, though. jesus.....

but it's the little 'Unknown Pleasures' that keep my head up - I got to send out my joy division solution to another MATLAB using engineer yesterday, a tech doc describing the combination of two different license types:

...If, for example, the INCREMENT line for the USER_BASED (Group) product MATLAB that is assigned to users icurtis, shook, smorris and bsumner reads as follows;

INCREMENT MATLAB MLM 13 01-jan-0000 4 CCDD5325P14938BEL316 USER_BASED \

-Then you would make the options file (MLM.opt) read as follows:

GROUP Division icurtis shook bsumner smorris

INCLUDE "MATLAB Key=CCDD5325P14938BEL316" GROUP Division....

i guess that makes me a post-geek.

Next time it's a rainy morning, try listening to the smith's 'william, it was really nothing'....made my day.

war.....hua....good god....what is it good for?

absolutely nothing

yeah, except maybe more of a choice of what to goggle at the box at prime-time. hmm....will and grace, or the war on channel 4? i think i'll write some music, or wait for the simpsons to come on again. last night at mod night DJ vinny even had some awkward moments, a request came in to play 'killing an arab' by the cure, followed immediately by the clash's 'rock the casbah.' har har har. that's as political as the scenesters get, i guess. either way, it was surreal dancing to joy division and blur, drinking a beer, smokin' a butt in the bar, while in the background there's a TV showing saddam "defying little bush". good god, what is it good for? lower gas prices? yet another puppet government? enough oil for one more truck commercial? yes, that's right people, if TV and the US gov. has taught me anything, it's that tearing up the woods in your massive cock-mobile is worth a few thousand "collateral lives". my big truck - built iraqi tough. i wonder if in 10 years we'll be invading Syria, to steal their solar power, because the US is dangerously low on wind machines and ethanol for our cars.....prolly not, but hey, you never know.

"i'll take peace with a shred of dignity to go....super size it, please."
"ok, would you like freedom fries with that?"

give me a f*cking break...

well, due to the nice weather boston experienced yesterday, i was able to drive my crap-ass 95 neon around with the windows open, obnoxiously blasting some tunes, making the 17 mile commute with MA.drivers a little less craptacular. i caught some strange looks from other drivers....or at least i thought i did. i was stopped at a light, and as human league's 'don't you want me baby' segued into 'regret' by new order, this lady in the birdshit green taurus next to me lowers her sun glasses to give me a quick, confusing glance above the gold frames. haven't you ever seen anyone mouthing lyrics on the drive home before? then it hit me....the human league, the smiths, the cure.....my musical tastes have sincerely come out of the closet this winter, and weren't prepared for the public scorn that commuters are so easily capable of dealing out (commuters (myself included) are swift with their arbitrary actions, both with middle fingers of justice and expert racecar driver judgement of fellow motorists.), now that open window driving season is upon us. so i guess it happened so slowly that i never even saw it coming. first there was the occasional smiths song or two in august, breaking through the thick curtain of joy division that i wrapped around my 'tortured, black velvet soul'. in september the cure managed to take over the now 7 or 8 smiths songs in the mix. well, by february not only was new order having it's way with me, but human league, nena, blondie, soft cell, and (dear god) even depeche mode had managed to creep in to the playlist; wearing a striped shirt, daisy dukes, and a bushy moustache. it was around the 3 mile mark that "just can't get enough" by depeche mode had come on, and well....i just did "have enough." i turned of the radio for a minute, cleared my head, thinking about ladytron, miss kitten, and even DJ assault, trying to talk some sense into my rather flamboyant musical taste. it sat, it listened, it thought. then it got up in defiance, and said, "this is the way I live my life!". with that, general public's 'tenderness' came on, and there was nothing i could do, but remember the days of metallica, or throwing the old pig-skin around to black sabbath. yes, things would be different from now on. i'm here. i'm not queer. but goddam...is that morrissey blasting out of my car windows?

okay, i'm not as anti-social as i hope to be one day, but if there's one thing that turns my stomach, it's small-talk concerning the damn weather. every time i'm out having a smoke at work one of my co-workers has to mention the weather. sorry, but i choose silence over the daily comments about how friggin' cold it is, or how we're all ready for spring. i hear the phrase, "boy, am i ready for spring" more times than my own name at work. at least keep it down to once a week. let's have allotted time to discuss the weather as a company. we'll schedule a conference room, enough to fit all the smokers, and start with a pie chart or something. "okay, so...let me get a hands-up, who's 'ready for spring'?".

Actually, what i'd really like to discuss with these people is their crippling lonliness, and social ineptitude - the underlying reasons about why they talk about the weather. i hear subtext - maybe it's my love of dramatic theatre, or maybe i'm just really friggin bored, but when craig from sales takes a drag from his camel light and says in a robotic voice, "boy....spring would be nice right now. i'm sick of the snow" i hear: "boy.....a hug from a man-father would be nice right now. i'm sick of my wife." c'mon, people? no one cares about the goddam weather! it's there! you can't change it! let's talk about why you wet the bed last week! sheesh!

oh, and it's finally warming up in boston! thank god, cause boy am i ready for spring!

- update! there was a break in the monotony. i was outside, not talking about the weather when an atmospheric comment made by a co-worker definitely revived the idea that small-talk can be unexpectantly avant-garde! he farted! out loud!

we, of course, ignored the 'comment', not talking about how methane being realeased into the open air is still a 'change in the weather'.