self-titled: ^_^

so with all the roommates here last night, we officially christened edmonds 308 with a lot of drinking. started out with the four of us playing beirut, eventually the girls across the hall came over, much drinking ensued, and we winded up across the hall. Guest appearances by dan everett and o'kane and the guy whose name i think is sean. while in 830, i got to play the strokes and the pixies with no complaints, gybe even lasted a while, and it just wasn't the right mood for shuggie otis. lots of drinking, lots of fun, and i stumbled into bed around 5am.

I apparently had forgotten to set my alarm, because at 10:30 i was woken up by the phone. then it rang again and i disconnected it cause it was freaking loud, and then i lied in bed for a bit until i could calm my headache enough to let me stand up. showered, went to work, with a huge headache and still probably drunk.

i did jack shit at work today except feel awful. oh no, that's a lie. i added a random feature to this site, because i'm so vain and i like to read old entries and be amazed by what a visionary i was. And i'm sure you want to do it to. i worked super hard learning all sorts of perl for retards and stuff to bring you this random thingy. it's up at top, have fun.

after work, caught dinner with katie, still not at the top of my game. back to the room, bs'd with the roommates for a bit and then napped to rachel's. oh yeah, i also found out that i most certainly did set my alarm. After it was beeping for almost an hour, john says he woke me up and said my alarm was going off and i said "it's ok, i'm wearing my headphones" and then i went back to sleep. I of course have no recollection of this transpiring.

after my nice nap, i fixed all the messed up shit throughout these 500 or whatever pages, so now, except for a few black sheep, every page should look the same except for the writing.

Dunno what i'm up to now, it's 9:30 and good sense tells me to go to sleep, but i dunno. sean's coming and maybe something fun will happen.

can't wait for tomorrow. the list of CDs i want is massive, new bjork, mercury rev, stars, preston school of industry, the radiohead singles are cheaper now, new stereolab, and maybe i'll check out the faint. all this AND a free ted leo show. woohoo.

so i know i have a tendency to talk a little overmuch about how great farscape and buffy are, and while yes, they do get me all pumped and wrapped up and emotional, i understand there's a certain amount of humor to me ranting on about them and that when it comes down to it, they aren't really the most moving things on the earth.

i wanted to address that because today i want to talk briefly about the book i'm reading and those of you visiting this site, i want you to know that i'm quite serious. The book is The Perks of Being a Wallflower and it's by a fellow named stephen chbosky. The book is a series of letters from a high school kid, written anonymously to a vague person not yet revealed. It's his freshman year, i'm 60 pages in and just read thanksgiving. naturally, it's about a kid who isn't captain of the football team. He's met a couple of friends, the kind of friends that you wouldn't think would normally hang out with a kid like charlie, and he knows it, but it's all good. they took him to his first party, some dude fed him a pot brownie, and while he was stoned out of his mind, all the high school kids are hanging around laughing about a stoned freshman, and then Patrick, his friend, well:

Then, Patrick pointed at me, and said something to Bob.
"He's something, isn't he?"
Bob nodded his head. Patrick then said something I don't think I'll ever forget.
"He's a wallflower."
And Bob really nodded his head. And the whole room nodded their head. And I started to feel nervous in the Bob way, but Patrick didn't let me get too nervous. he sat down next to me.
"You see things. You keep quiet about the. And you understand."
I didn't know that other people thought things about me. I didn't know that they looked. I was sitting on the floor of a basement of my first real party between Sam and Patrick, and I remembered that Sam introduced me as her friend to Bob. And I remembered that Patrick had done the same for Brad. And I started to cry. And nobody in that room looked at me weird for doing it. And then I really started to cry.
Bob raised his drink and asked everyone to do the same.
"To Charlie."
And the whole group said, "To Charlie."

I welled up with that one.

My car's all emptied and ready to go home tomorrow, i'm going to clean up the room since i think at least Darren will be here tomorrow.

and then i think i will read some more.

a couple observations.

i hate myself. well, not completely true, but the tv shows i'm catching up on are leading me down that path.

First came friday's farscape episode that i watched first today, it's the last ep before the 3-4 month hiatus. at one point, i got teary eyed. AGAIN. it's like the 5th or 6th time it's happened. Can I please stop almost crying for a show set in space with people in costumes, heavy makeup and muppets? please? while i still have a shred of dignity left? and then, at the end of farscape, it was like the best ending ever. i wanted to stand up and cheer. it was like james vanderbeek's speech in varsity blues, except i was honestly motivated by it and had i gotten up and started to applaud it wouldn't have been mocking in any way. that show kicks ass.

and then buffy. oh, buffy. i'm in trouble with this show. big trouble. after ogling her in her cheerleading outfit (damn those coaches putting her at first alternate, she deserves to be on the squad!) the real big trouble happened in episode 5. first of all, she's got this look, that's like 1 billion times better than any look i've seen in real life. and then comes the part that makes me angry with myself. it was buffy's first date and i was torn. part of me wanted it to fail miserably, and then the other part didn't want to see buffy sad. then it turned out that owen was screwed up and buffy decided not to see him anymore, and i was secretly happy, but so guilty, and also so sad that she was heartbroken. and i'm only on the 5th episode.

and finally, an observation that doesn't make me look like a total gay. Pacey Witter, the lovable goof on Dawson's Creek, i swear to god was patterned after Xander on Buffy. It's too much for it to be a coincidence. they're identical, except xander is way funnier and less secure and also doesn't do incredibly stupid and insensitive things.

ok, this is serious. i just found out that aaliyah died in a plane crash. i mean, i'm not really in tune with aaliyah's music, but whaver, just two days ago i was kicking off a powerhour to "try again" and now she's dead, and quite frankly, i don't quite know what to do with myself.

katie and i went shopping today. first to a yard sale where we scored 3 strands of christmas lights for a buck. then we went to bed bath and beyond and k-mart. i bought a bathmat, a toothbrush holder, and some of those eggshell bed thingies that are all the rage.

we got 4 cases of rolling rock, and drank only one of them while we watched rushmore and saturday night live and an unbelievably good your big break. then aaliyah died. i cried. then katie cried. and then tim laughed, he's such a little trooper.

longest day ever.

i have an amazing internal clock. every day this week, and this it the god's honest truth, I have looked at my alarm clock to see that it was 7:59, one minute before the alarm goes off. That's freaking bizarre how stuff like that happens, but it's happened for 5 days in a row, and it happened a good deal last week.

went to work, went to lunch, got my new room assignment, and with tim, moved my shit from walsh to edmonds. then i helped katie move into voute, then the three of us went to cambridge. they were not entertained by my cd buying so went off to do other stuff, meanwhile, i bought:

vic chesnutt - about to choke, elvis costello - my aim is true, nick drake - pink moon, guided by voices - mag earwhig!, looper - the geometrid, make-up - save yourself, mansun - six, shuggie otis - inspiration information, the pixies - doolittle, sleater-kinney - call the doctor, sunny day real estate - lp2, the secrets - thin cities, and that very well could be it.

then back to bc and tim mike oly and i caught jay and silent bob, which was painfully funny.

then back home, where i spruced up my room, looked at internet, got reintroduced to some stupid old insecurities, and listened to music. i'm like 8 cds away from filling this shelf, then god knows what i'm to do. and now the internet is broken, fucking great. i'm gonna go smoke a butt and when i come back maybe things will be working once more.

so work blah blah blah

then katie and i drove out to the airport to pick up tim, we picked him up and then drove back, catched dinner at presto's and bought a case of beer.

back at bc, i burned a powerhour cd, did a powerhour with katie mike and tim, got drunk, we went outside. it was 10pm, ben was supposed to still be at work, so we walked over to more hall, ben's t-bird was nowhere to be seen, the bastard, so we alked around.

went over to vanderslice, surveyed the old room, the window to my bedroom was open, so we opened it mnore. unfortunately, the regulators were on, so we couldn't open it more than about 8 inches. mike thought he cold fit in the gap though, so he tried. and tried and tried. then this kid with a whistle came byand yelled at us., he was talking mainly to mike, and katie and tim faded out into the background, i tried to ut with less success. luckily, whistle boy was only interested in mike, ut i did give him my id. he said i looked familiar. i didn't recognize the schmuck at all. anyway, he gave me backa\ my id and then kept talking to mike, it was like freshman year with the stop signs all over again. eventually, he too mike with him somewhere, and they left and tim katie and i died laughing. +

mike came backa bit later, and he sold us all down the river. whatever though, katie mike and i will go see dean ryna again and it'll bhe fun.

what a crazy thing though, seriusly, it was wild, w had no idea what awas going to happen to mike. just a stern leture i guess.

then we went back to katie's and finished the beer and listened to tunes and chatted and shit and then i eft and filled up y laundry basket for tim to help me move out a little tomorrow and now i'm going to go to sleep and tomorrow i move into edmonds and buy cds nad whw

i'm not looking at the keyboar anymore so whatever i'm going to sleep now.

if you've even been paying a fraction of attention to the entries this summer, then you will recognize how me not writing one last night was saving us both time.

Hell, i'd be doing the same if i passed on tonight, but i'm driven.

woke up and went to work, did another AR, but am too lazy to post it. Then i left work and went to dinner, where katie and i lamented about the mind-numbing routine that is our life. and then we started talking about her nintendo and the gun thingy for duckhunt, and i was struck with a question: how the fuck does that gun work? after being overtaken with idiotic wonder for like an hour, we went to katie's where i got the gun and started running some tests. i still couldn't figure shit out, and then we hit the internet. turns out it has something to do with electrical patterns of the television, and wasn't half as interesting or understandable as i thought. so then i played mario. got to level 5-4 and this super long fire thing kept railing me. or maybe i died on 5-3, i don't remember, and frankly, i don't care.

i then watched the most recent farscape episode. i'm still bothered about something that went down 2 episodes ago that they haven't properly addressed, but i'll live. can't wait for friday night. katie seemed to enjoy the episode as well. i told her that i have 60 others waiting for her, but i don't think she'll bite.

we then visited ben, who had no cigarettes for us, so we went to maddie's and back to her room where i got dumber as i watched big brother and now i'm up here. getting ready for some buffy penetration.

picking tim up at the airport tomorrow, moving into edmonds on friday, and hopefully drinking a bunch in the meantime.

barely got out of bed today and kicked it to work. i have the entire basement all to myself, so i was sitting out at Peter's desk. Didn't listen to that much music, just 2 albums 2 or 3 times each. there was the strokes album that you can read my track by track if you are so inclined and then there was the johnny cash disc i picked up. Johnny cash is the man. The CD is a concert he recorded in 1968 at Folsom Prison. It's great. The songs are all about murder, women, booze, sex, drugs, hangings, prison, mothers and God. Listen to the inmates cheer is awesome in the non-radical meaning of the word. In the song "25 minutes" in which Cash counts down the 25 minutes before a hanging, around minute 8 or so there's a line about a prison guard saying something about last words and the prisoner spitting in his face, the rise he gets from the crowd is amazing. there are moments like that all over the disc. there's just something frighteningly real about what he's singing and to who he is singing it. That, and the music is cool. Plus, in the background you hear metal doors being slammed shut, announcements over the PA calling inmates to certain areas, and all this shit. then at the end, the warden comes up to say thanks to "john" and the boos give me chills. what a fine, fine disc.

then i went to dinner and then i went to work2. oh no, i didn't. didn't feel like it and i don't know that i'll ever feel like it again. inseead i came home and watched farscape. 3 or 4 episodes left till i'm caught up, and i'm gonna hit up two of those episodes tonight.

oh, also, the get up kids album was on the nomad today. i heard 12 bland tracks of whiney punk-pop. it reminded me of a watered down jimmy eat world's latest disc. and i don't like the latest JEW disc. Clarity is aweseom, bleed american notsomuch.

ok, i'm out.

man, do you remember the days when hollywood squares was a respectable show? where there was actually a structure to it, with a final round, where the winner of the tic tac toe games would have a chance to win a car? and they'd return until they won a car or lost the game? and when the squares, even the center square rotated? and there were actual stars who would take turns in the center, like ALF and Betty White? and not fucking whoopie goldberg who's only schtick is to make a black joke before answering any question? the show now makes me want to kill myself. i hate whoopi goldberg, i hate everyone else who's on the damn show. i hate how low-rent the whole thing has become. oh, surprise, whoopi just made a black joke. go to hell, bitch, i hope you wake up white one morning and don't know what to do with yourself.

i went to bed at like 3 last night, and apparently this morning, some time during my normal process of hitting snooze 4 times, that i turned off the alarm. luckily, i woke up at 8:45. for some reason, when something happens like i turn off the alarm, or forget to set it, or set it for AM instead of PM, i can't sleep too far past when i'm supposed to be up. It's bizarre.

got to work, listened to some tunes, and then went to cambridge. I don't feel like getting up to check, so i'll try and list what i got by memory:

johnny cash - at folsom prison
pavement - watery, domestic
sugar - file under: easy-listening
kristin hersh - sunny border blue
galaxie 500 - on fire
the strokes - is this it?
white stripes - white blood cells
jeff magnum - live at jittery joe's
circulatory system - s-t
the wedding present - registry (4 disc box set)

and then i got mcdonalds and drove home, got to work, walked in, there were two people there and no ben. so i left.

at home, unwrapped my cd, listened and loved the magnum disc, and then watched tv, and farscape, and tv, and soon farscape once again.

tomorrow is the best morning of my life. i just get to sleep until i wake up and feel like getting out of bed. That will quite possibly be never.

tonight's concert was $10 very well spent. damn good thing i happened to check the middle east page yesterday.

after work today i took a quasi nap to the sounds of sigur ros, and then hit presto's and then cambridge. the first act, michael brian ruff, was a 4 piece, kind of country rock n' roll sound. Very midwest/central US. all pretty slow and midwesty, they had a film projecter running somebody's old old home movies during the show. i enjoyed the ancient footage of disneyland. nothing was bad, and one song was extremely extremely good. it's not on record yet though.

next up, was the pee wee fist. worst band name ever. first of all, let me explain the middle east upstairs. downstairs ain't big, and upstairs is tiny. the standing room in front of the stage is literally the size of a high school classroom. so, the stage isn't that big either. well, the pee wee fist had 8-10 people on stage at all times. the main lineup was, guitar, guitar/banjo, trumpet, random perc guy, two drum sets, bass, and accordion. the music was, very hard to pin down. some times, bluesy country, sometimes easy pop, some times power pop, some times almost post-punk, and some times just balls out rock. all tied together by, strangely enough, the accordion. it was an eclectic set, but quite good. and for the last song, they brought on eef of clem snide and played cortez the killer, further reinforcing how damn good that song is.

then came clem snide. the head of pee wee fist played with them, guitar/banjo/euphonium. eef played guitar, and then the guy who played the tiny drumset in pee wee fist played drums and there was a standup bass. the set was fucking great. the played pretty much all of ghost of fashion, chinese baby, ancient chinese secret blues and the curse of great beauty were left off, as well as the song that's not a song. highlights were ice cube, moment in the sun, weird, and unknown. eef was awesome, the band had huge energy, the bassist was piss drunk, and i had a blast.

got the setlist, bought your favorite music and the pee wee fist disc, and kicked it on home.

i cannot wait. cannot wait until saturday when i just get to sleep.

also, i need to buy bjork tickets tomorrow. and it's cd day. and i want to buy shoes. and i need cash. bye bye paycheck and then some. and god damn the middle east. too many fucking shows coming up i want to see. just looking at posters they had: firewater, the owls, ted leo, gbv, clinic, starlight mints, apples in stereo, the walkmen, and i think there was another. all this before october. and i can't even use bostonians tuesday and thursday as an excuse as the main bands don't hit up till midnight. what i can use as an excuse though is NO CAR. fuck you bc for not providing any parking. and fuck you boston for not running public transportation to normal hours. shit. seriously, if no one has a car for me to borrow i will not be able to see a single goddam show. that is so uncool.

i'm sorry, but i think ""monica and naughty billy / got together something silly / holy wars out of lusty minutes / another cuban cigar crisis / honestly! do we need to know / if he really came inside her mouth? / how will all this effect me / now and later." from the super furry animals' "presidential suite" is one of the best lyrics of the year. even better if you hear the music it's over and gruf's signature delivery of it.

today at work, i fell in love with alison goldfrapp. the music is better suited for late contemplative evenings, but that voice, singing about sex, and then the mental image i have permanently stored in my head, dear god.

i worked straight through today. 8 hours, no lunch. well, i had saltines for lunch, and katie brought me a powerade. then i went home, and was bumming around, doing the internet thing, and i found out that clem snide is playing the middle east upstairs tomorrow. so no work #2 tomorrow, so i went to presto's got some pizza, and then got to work2 today at 6:30. i only worked 3 hours, and got about 30 pledges for a total of over 3 grand, also got 12 credit cards which afforded me this snazzy orange sweatshirt that i'm now wearing.

so hopefully, all will go well, tickets will be available, and i'll be getting my clem snide on tomorrow night. oh, man. all day, i was sitting there wishing i was at the radiohead show. like i know the day you get off a show it's the greatest thing ever, but to be honestly wishing to be back out there, seeing thom skitter on stage and having guitars attacking your soul, well, that's serious shit. that show ruled.

let me tell you something. what i saw tonight was fucking rock and/or roll.

but first, shameless self-promotion. my recent 2cd masterwork This Must Be... POP! has received top honors over at www.artofthemix.com, that's right, mix of the week. fear.

so i left work at 3, left BC at 3:30ish, got mcdonalds, got lost, and got to suffolk downs at 4:45-5. peed, because despite drinking only a cup of coffee and a coke the entire day, i had to pee badly about 3 times, and then went into the racetrack. The inside pit thingy was still open, so i got in there. saw the dude from planet records and then saw gay eric, who i went over to and he totally snubbed me. after that i worked up to the front a little more. i was dead center, a bunch of feet back. i was basically standing at about club's length, which for a 20,000 GA show is pretty damn good.

beta band got on right around 6. the set was fantastic, but real short. six songs. 4 from the new disc, dry the rain, and then one i didn't recognize. they were seriously great, the stuff from the new disc wasn't cookie cut from the recorded tracks, stuff was actually mixed around a whole bunch they had a trumpet player on "dragon" and "dry the rain." the outro for human being was tight tight tight. and then the last song, which i didn't recognize, started off regular beta band style, then steven did a great scottish rap, and then all 4 dudes played various percussion and dj scratchy scratchy did some scratching, and it was cool. Crowd was into it.

Next up was Kid Koala, or as i like to call him, DJ Scratchy Scratchy. he had 3 turntables going at once and did a lot of scratching and phat beating. the coolest shit was when he went back and forth between two tables making a song by playing each one at a time. that, and the solo he laid down on some jazz track with pitch manipulation and scratchy scratchies. he also threw down a couple of radiohead tracks which pleased the crowd. his set was really short, 20 minutes or so.

and then thom and the boys came out.

the short: national anthem / airbag / morning bell / lucky / knives out / packt like sardines... / no surprises / dollars and cents / street spirit / ? / just / i might be wrong / pyramid song / paranoid android / idioteque / everything in it's right place /// like spinning plates / talk show host / you and whose army / the bends /// karma police / the tourist.

so that's what? 6 from amnesiac, 4 from kid a, 6 from OK, 3 from the bends, 1 b-side and 1 unknown. i can't check that math.

anyone who denies the rock n' rollness of radiohead needs to see them live and then stfu. The National Anthem was raging guitars and crazy thom singing, followed by more loud raw 3 guitarness of airbag. even on more recent tracks, the guitars were in full force. fucking morning bell towards the end had an explosion that suprised the hell out of me. you could tell when an amnesiac song was coming up, because thom would trade guitar for tambourine. and he played that tambourine like a goddam weapon.

my favorite song of the night was "paranoid android." the song itself is cinematic as hell, all those different parts, etc. man, that first explosion, thom just started screaming into the mic and the lights and guitars were all over and it was crazy, then the slow part was hair raising, and then that final screaming "fuck you" of guitars. amazing. i was suprised at how well the two electronic heavy amnesiac tracks went, "packt" and "dollars and cents" were both great, thom playing his tambourine and gyrating and singing, strobe lights all over and phat phat beats. "idioteque" was another highlight. the part starting "ice age coming ice age coming" thom was the scariest motherfucker alive. screaming, shaking, it was, well, frightening. so intense. and then after that, it turned into the thom yorke dance party, as the beats got louder and crazier and he was jumping around stage. interesting take on "like spinning plates", all the weird music and backwards singing was replaced by just a gorgeous piano solo. everything rules. johnny greenwood's guitarwork on "knives out" was a force to be reckoned with. hell, his guitarwork the whole night was. not only that, but on the right side of the stage was johnny's house of electronic gadgetry. he had so much awesome shit back there. choruses would swell up at the touch of a button, and he made scratchy scratchy noises, too. but not with a turntable, no, he had this little remote control thing that he'd slide his finger over and it'd go "scratchy scratchy." "everything in it's right place" was a great end to the pre-encore set, the guys left the stage one by one as the layered noise and electronics just self-destructed. uhh, "i might be wrong" ruled, "just" and "the bends" ruled, it all just ruled. i could've taken a little less from OK Computer, or maybe i could've just used "electioneering." i dunno, closing with two OK tracks was eh. even though "karma" is a necessity and "the tourist" was a hell of a closer. I think maybe i would've liked "life in a glasshouse" to end. I would've enjoyed "motion picture soundtrack" or "exit music" a lot, could've traded them for "no surprises" and "street spirit." and "planet telex" from the bends would've been nice. but i'm being picky. it was hella great. also, before "the bends" in the first encore, thom said "it's educational" and ears all over perked up, and then he played the opening chords of the pixies' "U-Mass" and i thought i was going to get the cover, but no. damn tease.

and now that i've seen radiohead, i can never return to a large outdoor concert ever again in my life. the venue was great, the getting there, getting out, and getting home parts that sucked. it was a little tight down in the pit, especially when the moment radiohead took stage the entire crowd moved forward 10 feet or so, but that was all good. after the show, you had all of us in the pit, making towards two exits that were seriously 4 feet wide. luckily, while a security guard was pummelling some dude, i hopped the fence, but then i faced the greater evil. 20,000 people all making towards one exit that was 10 feet across. i've seen bottlenecking before, but good christ.

anyway, i've never really seen a big rock show like this, save for the lollapalooza experience, and it was cool. it was rock and roll, man. but i'll stick to my clubs.

and thank you firewater and spoon for getting me through my billion hours in a car. i love both of you so much now.

Radiohead tomorrow. Dunno when I'm gonna leave, it's GA, and being close would be damn nice, but i don't think i have to worry about getting there before doors, i mean, 20,000 capacity, i'll be able to get somewhere decent. but there is the problem of traffic to deal with, so maybe i'll leave around 3 and get there really early and smoke a lot or something. who knows. alls i do know is that tomorrow i see the beta band and fucking radiohead. and it rules.

today, listened to music. then worked phones. that's my life.

oh yeah, we went to presto's after work 1 and i got a mad deal. i got a slice, and then took katie's last dollar and the 41 cents in my pocket and got another slice, i got that shit for 24 cents off, yo. represent.

So yesterday i slept really later, did laundry, and then i think played computer games for a long long time till eventually katie and i went to presto's for pizza and then with mike we went down to cambridge. I bought goldfrapp - felt mountain at othermusic, and then we checked out the others. it was retarded. some decent scares completely ruined by a go-nowhere plot that completely self-destructed with a series of idiot twists that made me gag. also, our theatre was filled with more bizarre characters than i've ever seen. i say "bizarre," and that's incorrect, i mean to say "annoying as shit."

then we went home and i ordered a book. oh yeah, after the movie we ran into aj from work and fran who i've met at lex's on a couple occassions, anyway, a book was mentioned, a book about some high school kid who tells the story through letters to a friend, so i was intrigued. read up on it at home, found it used on amazon for like 6 bucks and bought it. seemed appropriate. it also seemed appropriate because earlier in the day while i was listening to cex - role model, i was reading cex's web journal at http://rjyan.com, and that was fun.

also, as we were leaving the theatre, we saw the line for the midnight showing of rocky horror picture show, which we need to go to next fall.

today i slept late and then watched many episodes of farscape. at 9 i watched season 2 ep 9 and laughed so hard. best episode ever.

new music: John Oswald - 69 Plunderphonics 96, the stroked - the modern age single, super furry animals - rings around the world, chappaquiddick skyline - s-t, cex - role model, afghan whigs - gentlemen, firewater - psychopharmacology, eels - electro-shock blues, the flaming lips - the soft bulletin.

saw american pie 2 with the kids. it's exactly what you'd expect. lots of laugh, some unecessary feel good parts, some clever new jokes, some overdone old jokes. don't expect something groundbreaking and you'll leave very happy.

also, during a party scene, the music playing was off the afghan whigs - 1965. that's just fucked up.

i have to do some serious ass laundry tomorrow. I will do that while katie is having the worst time of her life at work. work today was decent, we didn't do much, and for the last 5 minutes katie and i were singing christmas songs at the top of our lungs. also, i called obie several times, he actually came up on my call list. he was never there, but many messages were left.

time for super nintendo.

waking up this morning was amazingly easy, i just kind of got up. i ached a whole bunch, and was burping up the taste of queso fries, but aside from that i have no complaints.

at work i did many things. and by many, i mean two. i worked on the cover art for the pop compilation (which is ready to be sent out to adam tomorrow) and i secured a ticket to radiohead for $50, which includes overnight shipping. not only am i seeing radiohead, but the beta band is opening. totally psyched for tuesday.

i left work 1 early to catch lunch with the fam at the cheesecake factory. i had some excellent shrimp scampi, and then i went to borders, where i bought jeff buckley's grace, the clash's londing calling and radiohead's amnesiac for some low prices.

went to work 2 which sucked balls. then got pizza with katie and then i went over to rob's to party with the work crowd.

drank a beer and watched tv for like half an hour and then the power died. so we all went out to the stoop and drank and talked and shit, then some kids ran by and said there was a fire on the block. soon thereafter, 8 firetrucks came. the apartment building next door was a raging inferno. and we all stood across the street drinking beers and watching.

finally, close to 2, the trucks left and we could go back into the apartment. about 20 minutes later the power came back on, and then soon thereafter max and i walked back to campus.

how weird is it that i walked back to campus with max. max was in my orientation group. since orientation 3 years ago, we haven't exchanged a single word. but i knew that he was in bc bop and had been keeping up to the best of my ability, and he knew i was in bostonians etcetera. and now, we're hanging out and walking back to campus together. crazy.

hopefully tomorrow will be as easy to get up as it was today. and i'll go to work one and fuck around and then i'll go to cambridge and spend spend spend. woohoo.

so i worked, listened to music (ars tomorrow) and then worked some more and then dragged katie's ass to rob's to hangout with rob and ben (boss #2). we drank and drank and then went to some gin joint called rednecks at 2am and got fries and poppes and roast beef sammiches and shit and had a rollicking drunk good time and now it's 3am and i want to got o bed and i dread the hangover that is going to hit me like a pile of bricks when my godforsaken alarm goes off in 4.5 hours. woe is me.

Listened to some tunes at work, then came home, napped, and went to legal with the fam. had some salmon which was fine, but seriously not all that great. Dimitrios' cuisine still reigns supreme.

Then i went to pick up Katie at the airport and what a fuckup that was. After waiting 25-30 minutes at the ATA gate in terminal B, i found out that flights from chicago were arriving at terminal D. So i went to terminal D and waited there for a while. A pilot guy suggested that maybe I check back at B since katie may have heard about the screwup and walked to where she was supposed to be picked up. I went back to Terminal B and there was no one there. I went back to D and looked around some more. and then i did one last sweep of the two terminals. No katie. So, after an hour, i went home.

I learned some important things tonight. First, the goodness of the spiritualized album i have was reinforced. it's some over the stop glitzy stuff, but i love it. they've got an orchestra AND the london community gospel chorus. you play those songs loud and it's just like "hello. we are spiritualized. we are here to own your sorry ass." and i also learned that the whiskeytown disc i picked up is perfect night music. perhaps even moreso than the twilight singers.

And finally, I've got some news. Ever since 1997, music critics and fans alike have been searching madly for this like the holy grail of the music world. I'm not sure why they felt the need to fill this void, but they did. They tried to say they had discovered it time and time again, except it never fully panned out. And there is a reason. They were looking in the wrong place and finding false prophets. After four long years, their search is finally over. They need look no further because I am the grail they were seeking. Yes, I am the American Radiohead.

Now I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but it's not going to change me. I'm still going to be the same old me, except now i will be jaded with fame and in about 3 years I will begin my dizzying spiral towards ruin. But until then, autographs are free and photo opportunities will be arranged in exchange for sexual favors.

Cheers.

it's hot as hell and I need to go to sleep.

at work today, i listend to muchos cdos. first up was the beta band album, which despite having a horrible title (hot shots II) and some of the worst cover art i've ever seen in my life, was such a spot on CD that i just want to listen to more and more. then came the pollard disc, which was fucking good old garage rock n' roll, god bless you Mr. pollard. and then came spoon, which you can read about on the front page if you like. listened to each album twice and they all made me quite happy.

then i went to dinner and then i went to work #2 where i learned that BC is doing some "whacked out stuff" including having feminist classes. and i learned from another man that Tip O'Neill was a "fat buffoon."

Then i went from work 2 to the golden temple for steph's birthday, i spent about oh, 45 minutes there and it was well worth my time. well, not like i really had anything better going on.

it's so hot in here and i want to die.

looks like i'm going to the airport to pick katie up tomorrow, and let me tell you, i can't wait for that.

i've also been typing up tons of resumes at work. i never want to write a resume. i have too much dignity. one kid's resume i typed up today included that he "collected amounts due from customers and returned appropriate change completing the transaction." and another who went on for two lines about the halloween party he organized in the tenth grade. and don't get me started on the fucks who in their "skills" section list "internet explorer and netscape" among their many talents. and the people with experience with "windows 3.1" and then everyone and their mom who are "proficient" with "MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access" who i'm sure don't know jack shit about any of them to be called anything but "uses it as well as my grandmother." and i do love the people who are very experienced in "internet/WWW research." I swear to god, i'm far too self-respecting to write a standard resume, and far too modest to actually indicate my real strengths. I hate everyone.

also, working in the career center, i've entered in a shitload of internships and i've been inspired. I should really advertise the fact that I am hiring a girlfriend. I plan to draw up a formal posting soon, i'd love to post it on our database under the "travel/recreation" category, but i don't think people would appreciate it if it got traced back to me. so i guess faxing me resumes is out of the question, but i do plan on advertising this open position. It will be a possible temp to hire opportunity, so all you gals get working on a good cover letter and mix tape.

today i moved. and i wanted to die. and then it ended and i showered, and felt a little better.

then i went to kendall to see ghost world. ebert wanted to reach out and hug the movie, whereas i wanted to reach out and hug thora birch. i wanted to make her smile. and then do her.

the movie was pretty good, but a complete downer. thora birch has just graduated high school, she and her best friend (who i just hated, thought she really sucked) made a life for themselves in high school being on the outside, making snide comments and zero friends. Thora is definitely "the weird girl." high school ends, friend gets a job and starts focusing on the future, poor thora is left without even that one outlet that was her similar minded best friend. She meets steve buscemi, old guy, really messed up, lives in his collection of antiquated records. a friendship ensues. it's a movie about people who can't connect. it's really funny, but also really really really sad. A real downer. Reviews I've read kind of push this positive aspect, but i don't see it. thora birch doesn't talk to a single person in the movie. The closest she comes is with norman, the old man always waiting for a bus that never comes. She hangs out with steve buscemi, and talks about his records, and talks about what he needs to do to get women. But she doesn't really communicate ever. her best friend might as well be a stranger. her father is well-meaning but a weak-willed little girl. and steve's got his own problems. and the ending is just super depressing. I really enjoyed it, it was great, it was just incredibly touching and i was really sad exiting it. i don't know what i'm missing that all the other people out there seemed to pick up on, i just failed to see the glimmer of hope.

I have an all new brand of idiot in the room next to me. so far, everything they've done today has been at excessive levels of volume. First was the game of Madden that was so loud i don't understand how they sat through it. then came the music. now i don't mean to make some sweeping generalization about "black music." but good god, i didn't here one song that wasn't a remake or a direct sample. i heard lion king, this woman's work, for what it's worth, michael jackson (you'd think THAT at least could be avoided) and god knows what else. All i do know is that none of it was an original song. And now they're watchign some movie. no matter, i have headphones.

it's almost time for SNL. and neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea is damn near perfect.

so how's this for lame: it's midnight on a friday night and 'm getting ready for bed. got a big day of moving from one room to another tomorrow, probably in the midst of fucking thunderstorms. woohoo.

i got my paycheck, got off work, went to cambridge, and promptly spend the whole damn thing. New to my collection: Mark Eitzel - The Invisable Man, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, The Walkmen - The Walkmen (ep), Spoon - Girls Can Tell, Whiskeytown - Pneumonia, Destroyer (Dan Bejar from New Pornographers) - Streethawk: A Seduction, the Beta Band - Hot Shots II, Robert Pollard and his Soft Rock Renegades - Choreographed Man of War, and then on vinyl: U2 - Boy and The Unforgettable Fire and REM - Green and Document. All in all, not bad. All in all, not a bad day. Came so close to picking up the New Super Furry Animals disc, but at 25 bucks, it'll have to wait a week.

When I got off work 2, i came home and played nintendo. that's what i was doing until now, at which point i will be going to sleep.

oh yeah, in cambridge i went to audiolab and found out that the solution to the evil machine noise coming from my record player is just to run a piece of stereo wire from a hole in the player to the ground switch on my receiver. woohoo, nothing left now but "the love."

revised my final piece for class today during work. i'll post it when i'm not so goddam lazy.

i had actually built up a marginal amount of excitement about going to karleen's post-class for pizza and beer, too bad the plans died. So, i came home, and now i'm listening to side to of the GYBE! album, and pretty soon i will be playing video games. woohoo.

tomorrow is the best day of my life. And i say that because after work and before work i get to go to the holy land and spend lots of money on little plastic discs, and maybe even some larger vinyl ones. It's sad that this is what my life has become, but i'm really not too bummed out about it.

The worst part about tomorrow, is that if i'm responsible, i really ought to do some packing up after work #2, to make saturday, my day of hell, the day i pack up all my belongings once again to move to another god forsaken dorm, a little bit easier.

blarrrrrg.

i think i'll spend most of my money at othermusic tomorrow, because i'm in the mood for new new new. although i will hit up the used stores for a copy of liz phair's exile in guyville, because i recently found out that in the liner notes there's a topless picture of her. Also, it's a wonderful album. But topless picture! woohoo!

i just listened to side one of godspeed you black emperor's lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven. I believe side one is called "storm." i was lying on my bed with headphones, eyes closed, wasn't thinking about a damn thing, except for occasionally commenting internally about how cold it was. I think the fact that i was tired and coming close to drifting off helped keep my mind off anything but listening. The first part is great, this awesome processional that just keeps building and building and building and building and building and then just stops. all those instruments, it's a non-tet and i bet i could pick out each one, they're all going off doing their thing and it's just rising and rising, it's too majestic for words, and then poof. it's gone. replaced by some atmospheric guitars looping endlessly and then a beautiful picked electric. IT evokes a calm, either before or after a storm, military drums slowly start up and feedback washes over, this erupts. it's not the majestic build of the first part. an actual rock drum part kicks in, and then for minutes we just hear rolled timpani, the guitars tremoloing, various noises coming in and out, all sustatianed for minutes, scratchy violins wax chaotic, sharp violent hits from drums startle the shit out of you. from chaos comes more chaos. the drum embarks on a two minute drum fill as the instruments continue their holding and screeching. the drums slow and stop, the instruments die down one by one, and then there's silence. The sounds of cars, of cars on wet asphalt, and a recorded greeting from a supermarket. all ambient noise, trucks rumbling off in the distance, doors being shut, the recording looping over and over, cars starting, a feedback wash enters, the ambience goes away, the supermarket fades out and is overrun by indecipherable ranting through a distorted megaphone. piano chords heavier than god drop down. the feedback continues, the piano plays a dirge, huge minor chords dropping and being followed by solitary notes on the extreme high end of the keyboard. the man on the megaphone continues to rant, his words continue to be indistinguishable. the piano plays a final cadence into silence, the feedback grows, the man fades out, the feedback dissipates.

it ended and i lay there, weighed down and extremely sad.

this my friends, is music.