Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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nickel and dime

It even comes in a bag.
Monday come and gone, busy again at work. Got home and found my mother-in-law had sung me “Happy Birthday” on the answering machine, complete with custom lyrics (sounded freestyle, y’all) about missing me and whatnot. A nice thing to come home to, makes a guy feel good.

Saturday night I spun a big wheel at the sushi joint and got a free bag of rice; Monday morning I got a hard rock in my chest, the kind I get when I feel bad about things… things like fucking over 9 people reveling in my honor. It’s lunchtime on Monday right now, and that sentence came to me on the drive home from work. I put “No Cars Go” on the wireless-thingy, made a yummy sandwich with Italian turkey and pepperjack cheese, and sat down to watch last night’s Arrested Development. Remember I said it was the anniversary of my birth this past weekend? And that we all went out for sushi? This morning I caught wind of some unhappiness within the group, seems the meal-ending activity of bill-settling had, in fact, unsettled some.

I hate settling bills from large group-meals, it’s tough, and people inevitably pay more than they should. It may seem so small, but I can understand the frustration of paying 4x the price of your personal repast to keep from making waves. Anyway, being that it was my birthday, I had decided to splurge and get four rolls between Sharaun and I (the breakdown of who ate what isn’t that important, but yes I ordered three and her just one). Beer, sake, and seared tuna appetizers also filled the table. In the end, people kindly decided to chip in and cover the expense of my meal (a very much appreciated sentiment). Come Monday morning, the birds were singing in my ears of discontent over the bill’s breakdown; and I was left feeling the summary heel for over-indulging and passing the cost onto the very people who had gathered to applaud me into another year of breathing.

Two paragraphs. Two paragraphs on the details of a weekend’s sushi meal and the fallout. Ahh.. the problems of the modern American man. No longer do I fret about being able to kill enough meat for the clan before winter comes, or dodging tyrannosaurus rexes while moving my nomadic family to greener pastures. No longer do I worry about my crops, polio, communist superpowers, nor the black death. Nay, what worries me, friends, what worries Joe America 2004, is the division of the damn multi-hundred dollar check from our gluttonous meal of hand-prepared delicacies and the alcohol of other countries. What’s that brain? You want me to write “fuck it” and be done with this subject? Well, let me consider that.

Fuck it.

Saturday Sharaun and I decided to go grocery shopping together. We don’t normally do this. But, I had been getting frustrated with the lack of food in the house. Not that there wasn’t food, if we were for some reason locked inside the house I’m sure we have enough provisions to last several months (we could live on rice alone for quite a while, thanks to the bag I won at the sushi joint. “Fuck it.”) My complaint, however, had been that there wasn’t any “easy-access” foodstuffs that I could enjoy for, say, a low-cost lunch or perhaps pre-dinner snack. So, we hit the local market together. In my mind, I was there to stock up on things I wanted – this was to be one trip to the grocer that I would do right. I wanted the makings for escape-from-work lunchtime sandwiches; breakfast materials; and small goods to nibble in anticipation of the evening’s meal.

Sharaun and I, however, shop very differently. For instance, did you know that, for some reason, you can only have one type of cereal in the house? Yup. And, it should be a cereal that you both can eat. Not Cocoa Pebbles, because I love it and she hates it; not Mini Wheats, because she loves it and I hate it; not Raisin Nut Bran, because despite the fact that we both like it, it costs like $12 a box. Nothing from the “Bed and Breakfast” line that looks so regal in its ridiculously small-sized and high-priced miniature boxes. Nothing with dried fruit, nothing that’s too sweet, nothing that leaves that nasty slick film on the top of your mouth (you know who I’m talkin’ to… Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, and gum-rending Cap’n Crunch). Apparently, it’s against the law to purchase, prepare to recoil in horror at the mere suggestion, two completely different types of cereal – one of each that best suits the tastes of each eventual consumer.

I also was not aware that you are always, regardless of any rational reasoning, supposed to buy the store’s own generic alternative to name-brand foods. Even when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the “Sunshine Pride” version of Suddenly Salad’s “Ranch ‘n’ Bacon” pasta salad is repulsive in comparison, the $2 price differential is reason enough to buy it instead. I am not allowed to pay more for something that tastes better, which, to me, makes no sense. Sometimes, things cost less not simply because they are a deal, but because they suck butt as a product. There’s some truth to the saying “you get what you pay for,” even if we are just talking about mayonnaise.

Tonight we finally finished the Christmas tree. And I gotta say, it looks awesome. While we decorated, we tried to listen to the year’s best album (IMHO) over the new wireless media-thingy. Much to my chagrin, the thing almost immediately began sputtering and freezing during playback. Several times it completely restarted the song only a few seconds in, only to freeze again. I didn’t do any comparison testing, but I think the “buffering” problems may have had something to do with the fact that I was downloading mass amounts of MP3s at the same time (the entire Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas canon for a friend). Not that I was in any way saturating the wireless connection in downloading, since it was all happening on the wired PC, but I can’t think of anything else. It did a similar thing yesterday, but not quite as bad… I’m gonna keep an eye on it – but I’m hoping it changes its attitude because it’s a really cool idea..

In the third letter Shaine has managed to scan in and send me (background here and here), it seems I have become a 6th-grade fireworks salesman. I can remember when we discovered that the fireworks store on the island about 15 min away would sell illegal fireworks to kids. We would ride all the way there (which was a daunting ride, over a huge causeway and probably taking an hour or more), and ask to see the “back room” where all the “boomers,” bottle-rockets, and roman candles were hidden. I guess I thought being able to score fireworks made me cool, so I decided to get into the resale business (across state lines and through the postal service, no less). I doubt Shaine ever really purchased anything from me, but the letter is hilarious nonetheless.

A lot of writing tonight. Time for bed now, midnight says so. Goodnight.

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just plain green

Heehaaw... am I really an ass?
Saturday night, just got half-done putting up the Christmas tree. Since it’s fake, there’s about an hour of setup time sorting, attaching, and “fluffing” the branches to make the tree look its best. Sharaun’s not been feeling well and has picked up a cough, so we only went halfway tonight and will finish tomorrow. Today was a day of Christmas shopping, Kristi lending me her chick’s-eye and helping me with Sharaun’s gifts. And tonight we all went to the local sushi joint for a meal in honor of my nameday. Some of the gang went in and got me an awesome dart set as a gift, with all sorts of interchangeable shafts and barrels and flights and other pro-sounding dart parts. I don’t know if I mentioned, but we brought back a really neat pub-style dartboard with us from Florida, y’know the kind that is inside a little wooden enclosure with foldout doors and chalkboards to keep score and whatnot. So, the dart set was particularly thoughtful and prudent.

I’ve almost decided we’ll never get our tree fully decorated. Sharaun’s sick, and when she’s sick she’s miserable. Not to be mean, she can be the “strong woman” and all, but when she’s sick she plays it for all it’s worth. So, we erected the tree yesterday and strung the lights today, then gave up due to sickness. We have boxes strewn about the living room, half-opened with ornaments ready to be hung. Maybe we’ll get to it one evening this week, I’m not sure. Sharaun’s pretty wrecked when she gets home from work. Ho-hum… despite all I do y’all, the place still looks like I live with a teenager. Clothes on the floor; half-hung decorations littering the living room; the cabinet from which the bowl, still holding the darkened-milk results of a mid-day bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and left out on the coffee table, was removed still hang open. Ahhh… whatever, I know the rest, you know the rest… no point in writing.

Back to the subject of my bday loot, I got some really cool stuff. Friends Kristi & Erik got me the Daily Show book, America, which has ousted the “Trump Girls” edition of Maxim from the tops of the bathroom reading list. The book is clever and hilarious, and the fact that a couple of pachyderms bought it for someone who tends to favor donkeys shows that humor can transcend partisism… or something else, I dunno. Sharaun got me this, which is really cool. Kind of like the portable jambox of yore, this thing uses my wireless internet connection to sync with all the MP3s on my computer, making them available to me anywhere (within range, that is). The portable speakers are passable for working-in-the-garage or grilling-outside scenarios, and it can also plug into the home stereo via optical or RCA when more volume is required. Not a bad invention, and from initial tests yesterday, it seems to work pretty well. An awesome gift, something I completely didn’t expect.

I guess that’s it for today, because I’m done with ideas. Tomorrow maybe, maybe it’ll be better then.

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a mac mac

Yaaawwwn....
You guys see that some armchair commenter laid down some pretty blasphemous comments on yesterday’s entry? How dare he call into question the official judging procedures? You have insulted the integrity of the ruling body. And, believe you me, this is one integrit body… that rules.

A while back my buddy Shaine sent me a raincoat as a gift. A strange gift, perhaps, but this raincoat was a little different. It’s a Bernie Mac Show raincoat, and one like it was given to all the cast and crew for the 3rd season. I’m not the biggest Bernie Mac Show fan, but I’ve seen it before and laughed, but the raincoat is nice – made by Columbia and heavy duty and stuff. If you remember, there’s no love lost between umbrellas and I, so when I awoke to a howling rain this morning I decided to pop the Bernie Mac Show raincoat’s cherry. It’s a super-nice raincoat, traditional raincoat-yellow with a snug hood and warm pockets. The emblazoned Bernie Mac Show logo is only on the left breast and isn’t overly garish.

Boy, you wouldn’t believe how many questions the Bernie Mac Show raincoat elicits. Upon getting to work, I hung it on the hanger near the front of my cube. Almost everyone that stopped in the cube asked about the Bernie Mac Show raincoat. “I know someone who knows someone who works for the show,” I’d say… not planning to brag about the Bernie Mac Show raincoat, but none-the-less kinda happy I’d worn the Bernie Mac Show raincoat. From now on I’ll wear the Bernie Mac Show raincoat more often… who knew it could make me cool…. -er… cooler.

Well, the Arcade Fire show was last night at the Bottom of the Hill. Oh my lord people, sold-out show, packed wall-to-wall with people ready to see this band. And my word did they rock tits. They sounded great, and had the energy and on-stage enthusiasm I love to see in bands. Seven people on stage running through the encyclopedia of musical instruments: steel drum, upright bass, violin, accordion, even then ventilation pipes made cameos as percussion. When the songs called chants of “ahhh-ahhh-ahhh” or “ohhhh” the whole band would rear back or lean open-mouthed into the audience, singing loud and happy – six people standing in a line playing music and howling their lungs out, it’s a sight to see. Aside from that, they sounded excellent, with the songs coming off pretty much standard to what I’m used to on the albums, and played a long set with a couple encores. I mean, I went to the show hoping to see what I think is this year’s best band – and the Arcade Fire did not disappoint me. Judging from the reaction from the crowd, the feeling was shared by more than a few last night. Go see this band, go buy this album. What more can I say? They rocked tits last night.

I make the bed every morning, and for some reason the activity it’s lined itself up in my routine right after the boxers go on. So I’m always making the bed in my boxers, before I continue getting dressed. Some mornings, as I throw back the comforter, the sheets are still warm where I had been sleeping just a few minutes ago. You’d think a shower would be enough time for the bed to go cold. It’s mornings like today when that lingering warm spot is so tempting. The show didn’t end until 1am, and I turn down the sheets until 3am. It was a real struggle to stay awake on the drive last night, with the two girls asleep in the car, I had to crank SMiLE and crack the windows so the combination of sunny harmonies and icy air could poke at my brain. More than a few times I found myself realizing I had unwillingly changed lanes on the deserted highway… scary. Now I’ve got my Starbucks crutch holding me up in this I-swear-I-just-went-to-bed morning hours. I have no room to complain though, Sharaun’s alarm goes off at 4:44am, less than two hours from when we’d finally retired.

Nothing more, too tired. Until tomorrow then.

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dave’s top 10, 2004 edition

Winner!
Christmas is sneaking up on me… and I have no gifts yet. Luckily, and wisely, Sharaun gave me a wishlist this year. From past gift-giving performances, I suppose she decided a pointed-list would be her best bet. Not that my gifts suck or anything, but sometimes I have a hard time remembering what she’s hinted at wanting in months preceding holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. With me, a list is definitely the best bet. As specific as possible really, because even if the list says “scarf set,” I’ll still mess it up. I need things like ISBN numbers or other unique identifiers, or I’ll get it wrong. Undoubtedly, I will recruit some female to come shopping with me, as I always do – because I simply don’t trust myself to buy things that are “hip” and relevant. I have no taste, and I don’t really mind… taste is overrated or something.

Here I sit… talking on the phone to some people in Taiwan. Somehow, the sound of my voice is being turned into little pulses and funneled under the ocean or bounced off satellites in the sky, over to a little island where it’s morning instead of evening. And even though I’m the only whiteboy on the call, ten native Chinese-speaking people are speaking broken English for my sake. Could give you a big head, y’know. How much more important, how much more intellectually superior must I be to warrant such treatment? Yeah, I know… not very, but it’s fun to take the notion to extremes. I feel this tired theme of the differences between Taiwan and the US is played out here… I will end this paragraph now.

Ever since writing about SMiLE last week, I’ve been admittedly obsessed with it. I broke out the old bootleg version I’d had (what I now know as the “Guidry Mix”) and meticulously compared the ’67 tracks to the ’04 tracks. I researched at high-volume, comparing verse and chorus and hi-hat and cymbal. I read volumes, headphones blaring, amazed at the amount of data and writing that exists in the electronic-ether of the Internet on the subject. What made me dismiss the sessions when I first downloaded them, I have no idea. I submit though, that I may be a victim of the hype here. There’s some truth to the notion that if you’re told something is Godsend often enough and by enough people, you may just tend to be a little more willing to proclaim it Godsend yourself. I don’t know if that’s it, but I genuinely like the album… and I don’t like the Beach Boys, they are sooo… whitebread. Oh god, someone stop me… I can only write about what consumes me.

Shortly here, folks. Shortly here and I’ll be another year on this orb. I think the ones I’ve spent here thus far have been pretty good, all things considered. My parents are still married, I’ve never been to a funeral, and I’m happy. I can only hope things go on as swimmingly as they’ve been, and I really have no reason to think they won’t. Birthdays are cool, they kinda make you feel special. I don’t think I’ll ever be one to fret about aging, just like I don’t fret much about balding. So what. I get old, I get bald. Now, tease me about back-hair or lack of athletic-acuity and I’m a sniffling mess… but stay away from that and I’m indestructible.

The Arcade Fire show tonight is sold out, and I love that. As Pat put it, I find it awesome that we get to go and others don’t. I mean, some people wanted to go – but couldn’t. We can; they can’t. And while yes, I’ve been on the other end of that concert-elite, and it sucks, I’m glad to be on the rad-end of it today. Since I’m on the musical theme for this entry, and I because I think it’s safe to call the year at this point, I’m gonna go ahead and do it. The top albums of 2004, according to me, ranked from #1-best to #10-10th-best:

1. The Arcade Fire – Funeral
2. The Killers – Hot Fuss
3. Brian Wilson – SMiLE
4. The Radio Dept. – Lesser Matters
5. Interpol – Antics
6. The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike
7. Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
8. The Stills – Logic Will Break Your Heart
9. DJ Danger Mouse & Jay Z – The Grey Album
10. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

As always, these are ranked relative to a few criteria: longevity (how long the album lingered in the player), content (further subdivided into emotional, musical, production, etc.), personal-impact (did it make me feel good, sad, fix itself as the soundtrack for new memories?), and finally artistic-impact (how important was the album in the musical landscape?, groundbreaking?, etc.). I know no one cares… but I love making the list, so whatever. Yeah, I know the Stills’ album was late 2003, but I didn’t get it until this year… so yeah. And that’s it… seems kinda anticlimactic now.

Goodnight everyone… I’m tired.

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my kingdom for a pagerank

Damn... this heart burns for you baby.
Work continues to be relentless, what a week. It’s 10ish on Wednesday night and the dirty dishes from our dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches are still sitting on the coffee table where we supped. Sharaun’s left the kitchen cabinet open again, and I keep glancing up at it, getting more disgusted each time. I can see a pile of trash (a pizza box, an empty Diet Coke “fridge pack,” and a plastic bag) on the kitchen counter, and although I haven’t actually gone in there to look – I know there’s a pot on the stove with a thin red film of dried tomato soup clinging to the inside. Who’m I to complain though, I’m just sitting here talking about it and looking at it.

Tonight I began serious work on a long outstanding project I’ve been kicking around for a couple years. I’ve talked about it before, but back in high school we (a motley group of ragtag drunks and stoners) made some recordings. Mostly we spent our time tape-recording prank phone calls, but we also managed to lay down a fair amount of “musical” material. Anyway, I’ve collected every bit of our stuff, a pile of five tapes, and I’ve been meaning to compile it all into one grand “box set” covering our recorded career. Meeting up with members of the prank-call-crew again while in Florida last week made me want to pick up the torch again. So I downloaded some great audio-editing freeware and started capturing. I’m working with Andy and Kyle to get pictures of the prank sessions, which will serve as liner art for the CDs; and we’re all gonna do a little writeup to serve as liner notes. Anyway, I got three of five tapes encoded and cleaned up just tonight… amazing what you can do when you get down to business.

Last night I was awaken in the middle of the night. Know what woke me up? Old age, that’s what. Old age by way of heartburn and indigestion. Worse than I’ve ever experienced before… bad enough to wake me from my sleep. So as I stumbled from bed at 3am and chewed four chalky generic Wal Mart Tums, I found myself cursing the bizarre combo of apple-flavored hookah smoke, beer, and the creamy shrimp pasta that was dinner. I guess I’m thinking about age lately… stands to reason.

Another curious piece to the “hairy clits” puzzle I wrote about last week… just go to Google or MSN and search for the phrase “hairy clits,” just do it. Can you believe this website is the #1 return for “hairy clits?” I don’t get it. I mean, I realize it’s the #1 return simply because of my entry about the fact that it was one of the funny search terms that had led people to my site. See, this very paragraph… the one I’m writing right now about hairy clits… will further bubble my site to the top of the search engines for said query. Strange, but increasingly hilarious.

Saw another awesome open-source app on /. the other day, who needs a Windows Media Center PC when you can have the same for free? I really have nothing more to write, and I’m surprised I got this much anyway. Time to climb wake up my wife and move her from the couch to the bed, climb under the covers and fire up the booklight for a few chapters before hitting the hay.

Goodnight y’allz. Dave out.

Posted on

on a mushroom

Wonderland.
Work’s been busy since being back. So much so that I’ve wasn’t motivated to write about anything yesterday night, or at least that’s what I’m blaming it on. Tonight’s no better, really. It’s late right now and I want to read a chapter of my new book before going to bed. Anyway, I’m only here to unload some ones and zeros from this evening, because in my head that is a suitable substitute for writing.

Evening started out going to a social dinner at one of the larger brewpub/eateries around. Within walking distance from my house, I set out around 7pm. Walking pointedly through the cold of evening, I arrived at the party-locale a couple minutes later and a few degrees colder. The evening’s festivities were to be as a fare-thee-well meal/gathering for the Suze. We would meet, talk, drink, eat, and finally part ways with have-a-safe-flights and see-you-soons. Before that though, we’d end up drinking homemade eggnog at the Cassleman estate, and burning apple tabac in the “hookah-tepee” (read: garage):




And… that’s it. Really. I have nothing more. Might be a sparse week for writing, if this goes on. Hey, there’s a $30 charge to my debit card from some gas station in Philedelphia, PA. That can’t be good, right?

Dave out.

Posted on

sleepless

Run down, up, and around the block.
Sunday night, dead tired. Tired from a mere two hours of sleep the past 48 hours, tired from a full day of wedding rehearsal attendance and backyard cookout. Tired from jetlag. Good to be in Florida though, the weather is awesome, a balmy 80ish degrees and sunny. Already been to the beach, already driven the old roads and seen the family. Now I strike a familiar Sunday-night pose: laptop cradled in legs bent at the knee, earbuds in ears, fingers on the keyboard pumping out words about mostly nothing. The newly leaked Earlimart album provides a so far excellent soundtrack for wordsmithing. The connection is 33Kbps dialup, painful-slow and reminding me how nice it is to have broadband.

As much as I’m looking forward to this week off, that is, once I’ve used tonight to get properly caught up on sleep – I’m dreading the fact that I have some work-work to do tomorrow. See, there were some loose ends at work before leaving on Friday, and I just didn’t get all the things I expected. Without those things, I couldn’t make commitments I’d made, and was stuck having to phone-it-in on vacation in order to meet the deadline. It’s not much work, but any work on during vacation is blasphemy. Still, no worries. I think we’re waking up ridicu-early tomorrow morning (a’fore the sun here, which is something like 2am to my west-coast brain) to go fishing with my brother-in-law. Should be fun, I haven’t been fishing in forever, and I’m excited to head out on the river with the sun. Even if we stay out through mid-morning here, I’ll be way ahead of my unlucky 3-hours-behind coworkers just coming in. Should give me plenty of time to find a Starbucks or wardrive until I can get a suitable high-speed wireless link where I can do some real work. Work sucks.

You know, I was thinking on the un-sleepable plane flight out here, thinking about one of the stranger things that I enjoy so much about vacation and travel. It may sound funny, but I really enjoy not having to carry keys around with me. For some reason, hate carrying things in my pockets… call it some weird psychological thing or whatever – I just prefer empty pockets. And on vacation or business travel, I have no car to drive, no house to lock, no nothing. So I lose the keys and gain an empty pocket. It just struck me as funny, because it really is one of those things I actually look forward to about vacation. Easily pleased I guess you could say.

Only a few hours driving up and down the Space Coast today, and already I’m struck by a lot of the same thoughts I had last time I was here. Only now, things are compounded by the fact that this place is still pretty beat-down from the multi-hurricane hurt this storm season put on ’em. Boarded up windows, leaning stop signs, twisted metal and piles of debris. I can’t quite figure out it out – but it’s all somehow attractive. So different than shiny-new master-planned northern California. Maybe it’s a welcome change from all that or something. I think stuff just happens slower here. People don’t mind buying a new car from a dealership where the Ford sign is missing the ‘F’ and ‘R,’ don’t mind that the supermarket is all chipped paint and flickering neon. It’s a different mentality or something. And, to graciously exit this thought without plagiarizing my own previous entry, it still all very charming and somehow welcoming.

The rest of the week is roughly planned out: visits with old friends, family, holiday meals, weddings, dinners, naps and relaxation. And, despite my fatigue – I think this entry came together OK. Chalk at least one day up for vacation writing, let’s see if I can stick to it.

Dave out.