Category: general

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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fun run

It goes with the running theme... you'll see.
Wednesday goes by without fanfare, and finds me again on the couch… typing. It’s a seemingly extra chilly night, so we flipped the switch on our state–mandated environmentally-friendly gas fireplace. It sucks. I mean, it puts out a lot of heat, but it’s so fake. Fake logs, fake ash, fake fake fake. Really… isn’t there something going on tonight? Am I really still sitting here at 9pm? Crap.

Guys, no… for real guys… check this out… Here are some of what I consider to be the best “search engine referrals” to my blog. I track this kinda crap, these are actual search terms/phrases people have typed into Google or Yahoo or MSN that have somehow led them to my page. They are a comedy goldmine:

removal of caked deodorant
bedroom making love sounds mp3s
Home remedies for treating bumpy toenails
Cold-induced urticaria
pictures of black hairy clits of women
pictures of Jennifer anniston’s hair
candy washing machine faults
new bright eyes leaked
data structures stacks rearranging railroad cars
poop sounds
Gaming Referendums
bananadine
Alchemic Transmutations using cheap materials
The sounds I should make when masturbating
hairy ladies clits
sounds that a giraffe makes
nude native american
free dirty lesbo stories

What’s with the guy obsessed with hairy clits? And worse, how the hell is he getting to my site by searching for them? It’s not an all-inclusive list, but I liked the spread of topics. Nice to know that people may be led to my writing by searches on alchemy, music, rare diseases, and porn. And the number one search string that led users to my site? That honor goes to “poop sounds,” a phrase which has somehow referred searchers to my pages over ten times in the last couple months. I don’t remember talking about poop sounds. Let’s change subjects, shall we?

I interface with people much easier in writing than I do in person. Not to say I’m not personable, as in a social setting – but within the confines of a business environment I feel I can communicate much better in writing than in person. I don’t clam up, or stammer or stutter when I have to talk to someone, I just feel so much more comfortable handling things over e-mail or IM. I think it’s the physical detachment factor, and the underlying escape clause it provides. If I don’t want to deal with something, I can write on it later. Reply later, think about it later. Luxuries you’re not afforded in real-time face-to-face communication. I’m a big proponent of informed communication. I don’t like to go into a business conversation without a decent amount of knowledge on possible subjects.

I think it comes down to a basic confidence issue. In writing, I have the entire world as my backup knowledge. Between two sentences in an e-mail, I could’ve done three hours of research. Like I said, I like the optional “safety net” that written communication provides. The chance to resituate my testes while considering an answer, should I so desire. The wall of distance separating myself and the party whom I’m “conversing” with. Taking the idea one step further, I could generalize like this: to me, written communication offers one particularly attractive option over in-person communication – the option to run. Something I’ve known for a long time: in the right situations, I’m a runner. Now, I don’t really like the term “runner,” but I think that’s the term most would relate to. I like to think of it as more of a “pragmatic” approach to things.

Whatever you call it, the symptoms are the same: Occasionally, when things get to a certain point – I cash in and take off. Simply put, it’s giving up; quitting. When things get too uncomfortable, too un-fun, too hard – simply do an about-face and leave the whole mess in your wake. Sounds terrible right? In some ways, it is. You can equate it to being a chicken, soft, milquetoast, a pushover, whatever. On The Rifleman, they’d call it “yeller,” and any cowboy worth his whiskey knows it’s better to be dead than be yeller. That’s the level of shame we’re talking about here.

Surprisingly though, when these rarish situations come about, I manage to feel minimal shame. Probably from years of honing the skill of folding. It’s an interesting two-sided coin though. In some ways, I consider “running” to be both one of my most shameful traits, but also one I’m kinda proud of. On one hand, there’s that aspect of self-preservation, looking out for #1. The great selfishness that most of us possess, but usually try not to acknowledge. In some cases, the shame associated with taking an easy out may be bearable when compared to the pain of the easily-outed activity. Sometimes, I can live with that balance. On the other hand, there’s this whole you-joined-the-little-league-team-and-you’d-be-letting-them-all-down sense of honor that we’re instilled with from a young age. Bailing out, taking the “cowards road,” flies in the face of that notion. That concept of honor is so well ingrained in people, that often it’s the thought of other peoples’ projected shame that can be enough to make me stick to something.

I’ve run away from jobs, from people, from social engagements, from obligations, from responsibilities, from just about everything at some point. Looking back, I am indeed ashamed of the more rash of these choices… but I also look back on them with with something not unlike a sly sense of pride. I did it, and it made it easier, and it’s done, and I don’t have to deal with it, think about it, talk to it, go with it, etc. I escaped. I overcame the shame and did something that made me happier in the long run.

I know, from the outside, where we’re all great human beings – that those paragraphs may lay me bare as a self-centered asshole. I don’t mind. I’m actually done with this topic, but, as often happens with introspective topics, I feel I didn’t do it justice. Whatever. I don’t even care.

Well what do you know. Tonight didn’t remain on the couch, despite starting and ending there. Here are the images from this evening, as part of the “week in pictures” project. Check out the fun, courtesy of “pint night” at the local brewpub. Highlights include: Ben through a pint glass, me finishing off one of the same, Erik in situ, and some artsy attempts at capturing the group, as well as the ride home. Enjoy.




And we’re done. Sharaun’s asleep on the couch, I’m writing with the laptop on one knee, and all is right with the world. Goodnight all, Dave out.

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300 babies


Tuesday night and, as promised, I’ll post some pictures of the evening’s goings-on. I did however, fix the images I posted of last night’s thang, making the clicky ones bigger for your viewing pleasure. Nothing exciting mind you, but I gotta stay true to the project. And tonight, the project is good, because I don’t have much to write. So, let’s to it then.

Today I got the new dance pads for the DDR part of the console emulator, so I hooked them up and messed around with Stepmania and DWI. I got pretty decent results, but plan to ask my DDR-freak buddy at work if there are any “tweaks” to getting the pads to register better. It’s not that the steps and beats don’t match up, but there’s a small perception of the timing being just a tad “off.” Oh man, I’m such a terrible nerd… when did I get this bad? Help me… As promised, here are the pictures from this evening. Some descriptions, right-to-left, top-to-bottom: cookies (read below for the full story); me, writing this; testing out the new dance pads; how evening’s here usually end up, with Sharaun asleep on the couch. Yeah, here they go:


In one of the pictures, you can see the cookies Sharaun got mad at me for eating. See, every year, I buy a huge tin of Danish butter cookies from whatever warehouse store I happen to be in. Sharaun hates them, won’t even eat them; I love them, with a glass of milk especially. She always chastises me for buying them, and eating them. So, tonight, when I sat down for an after-dinner cookies and milk dessert – she looked at the three or four “soakers” half-floating in my glass of milk (you sink ’em at the beginning and then get a few extra-soggy treats at the end), and with a level stare called me “disgusting.” Then, her gaze shifted to the enormous cookie-tin itself, and a shocked “Oh my God…” slipped past her lips.

See, that tin, the huge one, is almost empty. Being that she doesn’t eat them, I guess she immediately realized I must be the sole party responsible. She picks up the near-empty tin, turning it around, looking for something. “Three hundred cookies,” she says, glaring at me as if I had eaten 300 babies rather than delicious butter cookies. “Three hundred, David. At four cookies per serving, and 160 calories per serving, that’s like… 12,000 calories.”

In my ears, I hear a steady buzzing, but can’t quite make it out over the loud crunch of yummy butter cookies in my mouth. “You bought that like, last week,” she accuses. “Nuh-uh!,” I retort, “I totally bought these like over a month ago!” The timeline doesn’t really matter, of course, I can’t win. So I just down my last slurp of disintegrated cookie-milk with a smile.

Sitting at my desk today, it came to me that we’ll be aboard a plane bound for the other side of the USA in less than a week. I’m ready. I’m big-time ready. There are a couple things I’d like to do when I go home, aside from the usual family-time and kicking back. I want to try and make my way down to what’s left of Astro, and snap some pictures. I’d like to do the same for Rinker. I think it’d be cool to do “follow-up” stories to a few of my entries… like a “where are they now?” for past post topics.

See how I artfully padded out what is essentially one decent paragraph to create the semblance of a multi-paragraph entry? Yup. Artfully.

Dave out.

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slumpin’

You choose the color of Jesus.
I feel like I’ve been in a pretty bad writing funk lately. Looking back, this is the last entry I can remember being proud of when I hit the “publish” button. It’s OK though, things get like this sometimes. I lose motivation. Not just for writing, but for all manner of things. I lose motivation to get work done around the house, lose motivation at work where I should be doing real work, just lose motivation in general. It’s cool though, the slumps tend to be short-lived, and then I’m back in action. Sometimes I need a vacation to “recharge,” and next week’s trip to Florida should be just the thing. Going back to the place I, for some reason, still call “home” always gives me plenty of material to write about. I’m really looking forward to it, Turkey and ham and family and mashed potatoes. Put me on a plane, I’m there.

Got a phone call from an old, old friend the other day. Surprised me to hear from him, although we do occasionally get together for a beer or two when we both happen to be home visiting family in Florida. I’m really bad at “staying in touch,” I don’t call old friends, don’t write, don’t do much at all to “KIT,” as we used to write in yearbooks. So I was surprised to hear from this guy, whom I would call equally as bad at keeping in touch. In high school we were good friends. He was the son of a preacher and I was a bad-kid, it was like an after-school-special. When I found God in my senior year, we at least had something to talk about. Now, it seems we’ve both “lost our faith” to some extent, and surprisingly we agree on most everything. Maybe our common trials put us in a common resultant position or something. Anyway, we chatted about our shaky faith in higher power, in government, and in general. It was a good discussion. He mentioned he’s looking to get out of his current state, being a red one, and move into a blue one like mine. Ahh.. the bennies of living in a rabidly liberal state.

Tonight’s (today’s, whatever) entry needs to be done early, because we’re going to the Blonde Redhead show downtown tonight. My goal is to bring the camera and take some pictures, then post them here on this blog-thing. So I’m ready to go, sitting here in my chinos (what are chinos? I’m calling khaki pants “chinos,” is that right?) and fashionable long-sleeved button-up/down shirt. I look appropriately indie for the evening, I believe. We’ll be dining first at some kinda brewpub with food, y’know the ever-so-popular mix of sit-down restaurant and microbrewery type-thing. We’ll linger sufficiently long at said brewpub, in hopes of missing in entirety the set of an utterly horrible opening act called the Liars. Man, they suck so hard.

Well guess what, turns out I got the opening band wrong, and we missed half a set from an awesome live band Ben and I have seen before – the Helio Sequence. The show was a little underwhelming to me, not that Blonde Redhead didn’t sound good, they just didn’t excite me live. Owell, I did accomplish one thing… which was to take pictures of the evening as my first effort in a “week in pictures” thing I thought of. I’ll take a few snapshots of each evening this week and post them the day after. Most likely won’t be anything exciting, but at least it gives me something to post about. So then, here’s the thumbs from last night’s concert outing.




There ya go then. More to come, even if it’s just snapshots of me sitting on the couch or doing dishes. What a grand experiment. Man, I should go into business. Next they’ll tell me it also functions as a cutting-edge indie music jukebox… and I’ll have been squarely billhooked off my high horse.

Dave is out.