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Posted on

i’m a jerk

fried = good
I’m a jerk. I overcommit, I don’t call people back, and I sometimes don’t answer the phone when people call. No one in particular, I’m pretty impartial. I forget stuff, I pretend to forget stuff. I get in moods where I just wanna lock the door and be in my box. Other than that, I’m a fairly social person I guess.

Weekend roundup: Friday night Sharaun and I did a “double date” kinda thang with Eric and Suzy. We grabbed some dinner and then took in a show of the new Matrix. And yeah, what you’ve read is true – the new Matrix sucks pretty bad. Saturday Pat and Eric came over and we watched college ball and drank a few beers from the neverending keg (all served up without pumping the thing once). Sunday I woke up feeling pretty crappy, this cold seems to have migrated into my chest. Time to call the doc I guess. I tried to work in the backyard, but it was too muddy to get anything done. So I took a nap instead because I wasn’t feeling well. Sunday night is “Alias Night,” where we rotate houses and cook dinner for each other before we watch Alias – it was at Kristi’s last night and we had some yummy fried chicken. Wow, what an exciting life I lead.

Why the heck does Word always open up with the “reviewing” toolbar active? I don’t think I’ve ever used the stupid reviewing toolbar – yet every time I start the program, there it is, just takin’ up space up there in the toolbar place. I mean, I’m starting a new document from scratch, there’s nothing on the page, what the crap could I be reviewing? Stupid Word always doing the wrong crap. Why is the third bullet in my bulleted list a different color and size than every other bullet, seemingly for no reason? Why, all of the sudden, did the font size of the last sentence I typed increase by 1.5x when I hit the carriage return? Stupid stupid Word. How many years has Redmond been working on this dang thing anyway? No, I don’t want that little lightning bolt by that address, and get those red mountains out from under my wife’s name – I think I know how to spell it, thank you.

Finally got a haircut last night, and shaved this morning. With the addition of wearing a newish shirt, I figure I’ll probably get several phone numbers today. I did that “oops I don’t have that much hair anymore” thing with the shampoo this morning, squirting out a nice huge glob and having it run off my no-hair down into my eyes. I swear… While I was in the shower, I got to thinking about various diseases – and had a funny thought. What if all diseases could be cured by something that rhymes with the disease? Like, you could cure the flu with stew, or pneumonia with ammonia… yeah, those were really all I could think of. I thought maybe AIDS with parades or arcades, but I gave up on cancer and bronchitis.

So as you can tell I have nothing to write. I didn’t scan in any love letters, or write any short stories, and I can’t think of anything more to write. A full Halloween pictorial is upcoming, but other than that I don’t really have any planned topics. Guess I better start doing something interesting soon. It was cool to see my dad comment on the blog the Friday past, but I still see he maintains hi innocence in the Niagra debacle… shame pops, shame. Man, I’m even too lazy to go back through this entry and do the customary hyperlinking thing. So that’s it, I’m done. Dave out.

Posted on

ok… but… where does the water go?

see what I'm saying?!
I remember when I was a kid, I dunno, let’s say 4th grade or so – my parents and I having the (now-infamous) “Niagra Falls Discussion.” I think I remember it so vividly because it was so supremely frustrating to me, and to this day I can’t understand why my mom and pop couldn’t help me out with it. Lemme set the scene: I was a curious child, prone to asking crazy questions. I had always seen pictures of Niagra Falls, but had never been there. In every picture I’d seen, the falls were always shown as this massive half-circle waterfall with tons of water gushing over the edge. I’d even seen flyby’s on TV where a helicopter or plane would follow the semicircular edge of the falls taking footage. I was always totally impressed with it, but a question began to nag me.

See, in my head, since the only image I knew of the falls was an arc with water pouring over – I for some reason got the impression that the entire falls must be a complete circle. I mean, in my mind – Niagra Falls was a large “cup” in the earth with water constantly pouring into it… like a crater or something. I just never considered anything else. My question? Why didn’t it “fill up?” So one day I posed my question to the folks: “Hey folks… why doesn’t Niagra Falls ever fill up?” I can see now how absurd it must have sounded, but holy crap. We went around and around on this for over an hour. I went so far as to get out paper and draw them what I was asking… with a huge circle representing my concept of Niagra Falls, and arrows showing water rushing in from all 360?. Their initial answer was that “there’s a river at the bottom.” Fine, I thought: “So there’s an underground river that takes the water away?” “What do you mean ‘underground?'” my day would say. This went on and on, and I can remember being so frustrated that they did not understand what I was asking.

Looking back, I place the blame entirely on my parents. I mean, I was drawing a circle for pete’s sake, calling it a “cup” and “crater,” and asking why it doesn’t fill up – how hard would it have been to figure out that I was mistakenly thinking of it as a closed hole? I wonder if they were just messing with me the whole time? Even to this day, whenever I struggle to understand something they’re talking about, one of them inevitably says “Is this going to be like the Niagra Falls thing David?” Punk parents, screwin’ with a little kid’s head. When I explained to them many years later why I was confused, they acted all like they didn’t know I thought the thing was a crater… punk parents. (Not really guys, I love ya. Punks.)

Last night was the Beulah / John Vanderslice show in SF. We had six people going, so we borrowed a larger vehicle from Anthony’s sister. The night started like most other SF concert outings: a stop in Davis at the House of Chang for some eats, and the commute to the Bay for the show. Anthony was driving on the way there, so we didn’t get the least bit lost. After the show, however, he wisely (considering his narcolpetic tendencies) let me ferry us home. At which point I immediately, and confidently, got us lost trying to leave the city. I somehow ended up on the 101 towards San Jose. After making a u-turn on Caeser Chavez Blvd. NE #1c, we hit the Bay Bridge and were on our way to Krispy Kreme and home.

As for the show, it rocked pretty hard. We had great timing, getting there about 15min before Vanderslice took the stage. When we walked in, Ben spotted him milling around in the crowd – checking out how his cd’s were selling and whatnot. He played for about 40min, and sounded excellent. I was impressed with the harmonies and sound quality, plus the tunes were catchy as all Hell. Ben and Ant each bought a cd. Beulah came on around 10:30 or so. They sounded really good, even though Miles was coming off a case of food poisoning. They played a pretty mixed set, material wise – pulling from all four albums. By the time they finished their marathon set, it was 12:30 and the crowd was duly pleased. I really enjoyed ’em, they rocked, they sounded good, and they were really interactive and fun. Worth the $15 and more.

Yesterday I caught myself reading nearly the entire 138 page Prosecutor’s Summary of the Evidence from the Green River Killer case. Sorry, I’m fascinated by crime, serial killers in particular. Yeah, I’m a forensics show nut, and frequent crimelibrary.com. Whatever, step off. Anyway, it’s some really interesting reading, although at times disgusting, I was totally enthralled.

In keeping with the spirit of sharing old love letters, here’s one from late 8th grade. Found it the other night while digging around for pictures for the Astro story I posted yesterday. Reading it now, I’m totally thinking I coulda got some play back then. Jeez, it’s pretty embarrassing to read, so I tried to pixelate a name or two. Beware: contains coarse language!

Holy crap that’s painful. See all those song lyrics and crap? I was a Beatles nut way back then, and I guess so was she (no, it wasn’t Sharaun). Anyway, I have some good memories of them days… and that kinda brought ’em back.

OK, this thing is turning into a blog of Beulah-concert proportions… Dave out!

Posted on

a dead dog with sticks in its eyes

i think these things are bruising my ears
Yesterday my headphones at work broke. That sucks, I knew $20 Target headphones wouldn’t be the pinnacle of quality, but c’mon… I’ve only had ’em for like a month and half now. It sucked, because I was totally groovin’ to some old Beulah at the time – and then I realized I couldn’t hear the left channel. Turns out I’d been listening to one channel for like two days and handn’t even noticed it. I thought the chorus on those Vanderslice songs sounded kinda weak.. sounds much better with the left channel. Sheesh.

Anyway, Anthony had an old pair of Kenwood noise-reducing headphones that were broke. He gave ’em to me and showed me where to order the replacement part, $25 for $150 headphones ain’t bad… sucka. Since I need music to survive at work, I’ve got these things taped up and lookin’ way ghetto on my head – but I’ve got tunes.

Tonight’s the show in SF, we’re leaving here at 5pm and heading over. Should be a good show – I’ll put a some impressions up tomorrow. Steve asked me this morning what my annual concert budget was like… that’s a good question. I’d say it’s the majority of my “entertainment” costs, and since the little indie bands we go see usually only charge ~$15 per ticket… I think it’s not a bad deal.

I have been getting closer and closer to pulling the trigger on a 4-track lately. My camera sold for $375 on Ebay, and I could get a nice used Tascam for that. I was thinking the other day how I used to just lock myself in the room and try to make songs. I’d like to do that again, only this time I actually think I might be able to put something together. Who knows. I’d probably buy it and use it for a week before it went on a shelf.

Looks like they are finally going forward with the plans to put a mall by our house. Hopefully that will make my property value go up and I can be rich. I keep waiting for that day when I suddenly, and without any effort on my part, become stinking rich. I mean, I know it’s gonna happen… I just have to be patient and wait for the waves of money to overcome me.

Oh yeah, I found a new band to love. Stumbled across a group called The Decemberists on absmi the other night, I did a quick lookup on Pitchfork and saw both albums rated in the 8’s – so it was on. The singer reminds me of the dude from Neutral Milk Hotel, but the music is pure awesome. Beatlesey, old-timey, and very E6ish in general. Dave say: “good!”

That’s about it today, nothing too entertaining. Anthony said I shouldn’t drop this link, that I should rewrite it in first-person. I kinda agree, but I just wanna be done with it, since my writing inspiration sometimes comes in spurts – and that subject has been all spurted out. Anyway, some light afternoon reading.

Dave out.

Posted on

you can judge me

it's supposed to be camping...
What profession is it where I get to think and write all day? Because I really want to try and make a career move into it. I could do this all day, but only if you give me money for it. Sometimes I think I want to be a comedy writer for the Simpsons, or SNL or something. I wonder if that’s as cushy a job as it sounds? All I know is: I love computers and engineering, not to mention money, but sometimes I long for a completely structureless environment. Where I can sleep whenever I’m tired, and sometimes even when I’m not tired just because it feels good. Where I can drop everything and go camping for three days in the middle of the week because the weather is amazing. And also where I have time to learn to play guitar.

Tomorrow night is the Beulah / John Vanderslice show in SF. Should be a good show. I’ve been listening up to some Vandeslice, since I’m barely familiar with his stuff.

OK, I’m not in a writing mood – so I’ll just drop the link and call it a blog. Without further ado – the Halloween Bash ’03 Posthumous Costume Contest. Have fun.

Dave out.

Posted on

pick your own

clash!
This morning I did something a lil’ crazy. See, I constructed a new “outfit,” without external consultation. That’s not something I normally do. Usually I’ll throw on a shirt/shorts combo that is already proven. That means that someone, almost always Sharaun, has already told me that the items I’m wearing “go” with each other. That way, I have preset combos that I know look OK – so I cycle through those. I mean, I don’t even buy clothes. I get a wardrobe “refresh” every December when my birthday and Christmas roll around. That usually lasts me through the year. Since I have very little idea (and really don’t care that much) what looks good, I’d rather take what I get and trust in my gift-givers’ abilities to decide on my accoutrements.

Anyway, today I got all creative and tried to make a new ensemble, and what’s even more strange, out of items I’ve rarely worn before. Ends up I’m wearing a powder blue sweater that’s (in my mind) a tad too tight, and some really dark blue jeans. I have never worn the sweater before (perhaps because it doesn’t quite fit) and I normally loathe dark denim. So, I’m sitting here wondering how gay I look. Note to my gay readers: I ain’t got nuthin against ya, I just don’t wanna be mistaken for ya… no hard feelings? Cool.

Nobody’s really said anything yet, so I guess it’s not too aggregious of a fashion faux pas. But somehow, whenever I stray from my tried and true clothing combos – I end up sitting in my cube staring down at what I’m wearing and thinking “Damn. Do I look like a huge tool right now? Man, I do. I look like a friggin’ tool. Nah… maybe not…” Bottom line I guess is that I could care less really. As long as my junk isn’t hanging out or something, I’m cool with it. I’ll just wait till I get home and Sharaun goes: “Did you wear that to work today?” Then I’ll know.

I’ve finished the code portion of the Halloween costume voting page. And don’t complain about it not being ready yet, I put a lot of effort into that mess. For the nerds who appreciate it: involved a masterful combination of cookies, Javascript, ASP, and JetSQL. Probably all for a page that will be stale from inception anyway, but whatever – like I said before I love projects. So working on it was fun enough. I should have it ready by tomorrow morning. You’ll be able to vote on the best costume, as well as leave comments for each individual costume. Should be cool, but I’ll let the end user decide. There were some awesome costumes, so I think they should get some time on the web – as all awesome things should.

Last night Anthony and Ben and I put our best effort into finishing off the Halloween keg. From the “liftability” of it, I figured it wouldn’t be very hard. However, turns out it had me fooled as it easily served up two liters of tasty brew for each of us (that’s six liters total: dave conquers multiplication) without hinting at being dry. I mean, it feels empty – but the beer keeps coming. Could it be I bought the fabled neverending keg? Who knows… I’ll keep testing it though, just to be sure. Then we watched some TiVo’d Reno 911 and threw in the Matrix Reloaded. Bah… Reloaded blew to me… too much mystical crap, and that orgyrave scene seemed really dumb and gratuitous. I like the first one a lot, but the second one either went over my head or I’m not interested enough in it to invest the time to appreciate it’s intricacies.

OK, I’ve got lots more to say – but my fingers aren’t willing. Look for the Halloween page to be linked in tomorrow’s blog, promise. Dave out.

Posted on

mizouse in the hizouse

dave is tiiiirrrred....
Man, that weekend seemed looooong… which is awesome. The party on Friday night went off without a hitch, and I think it was a rousing success. At least, everyone I talked to seemed to have had a good time. If you were there, thanks for coming – if you missed it, you are one sorry sucka. Anyway, Ben and Anthony had a great idea and suggested I code up a belated costume contest page with pictures from the party. I thought it sounded awesome, so I started coding on it right away. I’ve got it working to the point where you can make comments on each costume, and almost have the voting taken care of (involves some cookie-work to stop cheaters from voting more than once). Anyway, I hope to have that up by tonight – because the longer I take to get it done, the less fun it will be.

As for the party itself, it was rad to the bone. Nearly everyone showed up, and there were only a few non-costumed bums. Sometime during the night my neighbors even dropped by to enjoy themselves. We played Pac Man, danced in the fog and strobe light, drank copious amounts of beer and other… it was a good time. One reason I wanted to do the costume page is because so many people were good sports and dressed up for the occasion, and there were some great costumes too! A lot of effort went into them, which made the party even more fun. I got a lot of pictures, and there’ll be a proper page about the whole fête as soon as I can cobble something together.

The remainder of the weekend was cool too. Saturday was cleanup. The carpet got pretty trashed from the night’s activities, so we busted out the steam cleaner that my folks had given us as a housewarming gift. We hadn’t used it yet, but we were both really happy with the results. All the party-stains were erased, and the carpet was nice and shiny new. After some more sweeping, mopping, and general tidying – the place was brand new again. Saturday night was a recoup night, since this cold is still dogging me.

Last night was the Modest Mouse / Shins show in SF. Ben and I had originally got tickets a while ago, and it was set to be just the two of us for the outing. The show last night was the 1st night of a three-night stint at the Fillmore for that lineup, and all three nights had completely sold out. Just knowing that made me a more excited than normal about the show. At the last minute, Sharaun and Anthony decided they wanted to come along and try to pick up some tickets outside the Fillmore. The chances were slim, since the show had sold out three nights, but they both figured they could hang out and have fun somewhere even if they didn’t make it in the door.

Once again, traffic was terrible on the way out there. We parked and walked through the cold drizzle to the Fillmore, where millions of people had the same idea as Anthony and Sharaun. Ben and I said our goodbyes and goodlucks, and headed indoors. Unbeknownst to us, there was a 2nd opening act – the Helio Sequence. Now, I’d never heard of them, but Benz seemed to know who they were.

Helio Sequence took the stage at about 8pm. It’s just two dudes, lead guitar and drums – with the remaining music being served off a PC loop. Man did they rock, they made a lot of noise and sounded really good. I was super impressed with their stuff, and they were really entertaining to watch. I’m sure it helps that the sound in Fillmore is always amazing, the acoustics in that place make live music sound great.

We called Sharaun and Anthony after the first act, and let them know there was still time. They had wandered into some dive-looking place called the “Boom Boom Room” and were staying warm and dry in there – but said they’d poke around for tickets again soon. They mentioned the outlook was grim, since everyone seemed to be wanting tickets and not trying to offload any. They found a couple people taking some $75/ticket noise… and promptly shut that down – it was a $20 show! They never did make it to the Fillmore, and ended up hanging out in the Boom Boom Room for the whole time.

The Shins came on around 9pm and played for about an hour. They also sounded in top form. The singer’s voice was a dead ringer for the album, and the only thing missing were some of the fancy harmonies and overdubs from the studio. The set was a pretty good mix of old and new, with one track that neither Ben nor I could spot. It was a nice long set, with a couple slow songs to give the stoners their chance to spark the tweeds. Man, I think Benz and I were the only two dudes in there not puffin’ chronic… it was more evident than normal it seemed.

After their set, people started pushing up front in anticipation of the headliners. As the Shins’ keyboardist said… it was about to be “… Mizouse in the hizouse.” Yeah, he was funny. Ben and I managed to stand firm and push up pretty close. We had a nice spot, right next to some girl who I had halfway fallen in love with by the end of the evening.

Modest Mouse came on around 10:30pm, and played until 11:30 on the dot. Right off the bat the singer apologized, saying he’d lost his voice at a previous gig – and would do his best to “Lou Reed through this.” Well, it was hit or miss… this is the 2nd time I’ve seen them live, and neither time was particularly stunning. Musically, they rocked – crunching guitars and heavy drums, but the vocals were seriously marred by the whole laryngitis thing. In fact, they couldn’t even do an encore it was so bad at the end, they sent some roadie up to apologize as the house lights came up and people started booing.

We rounded up our other two from the Boom Boom Room, and headed home. After our requisite getting lost in SF, we eventually found the Bay Bridge and were off. We made the traditional stop at Krispy Kreme for donuts and coffee – and were back home in bed by 2:30am or so. ‘Twas a good night.

Well, as I promised – more about the Halloween party to come. I wanted to do a special blog about it, and I just haven’t had time to craft it up yet. I’m going to try and throw it together tonight, so keep an eye out. Sorry for the long boring entry.

Dave out.

Posted on

trick or treat


Ahhh… the day of the party is at hand. Happy Halloween all! As you can see, blog got all up in the festive mood also. Go blog.

Heard a band on 3wk yesterday that piqued my interest, so I looked ’em up with the trusty Google. They are called The Potomac Accord. I have no idea if the name refers to an actual event in history (forgive my ignorance). The music is what Sharaun calls “the stuff you listen to that makes me wanna kill myself.” Yeah well, I do kinda dig that dragging, minimalist, hushed/sad sound sometimes; plus they play the quiet-loud-quiet card really well, and I am a big fan of that. I’d maybe put them on a comp with Kepler, Early Day Miners, Low, Mogwai, Godspeed, A Silver Mt. Zion, etc. Hmm… describing that imaginary comp makes me wanna actually put it together. They have some mp3s on their site, which I downloaded and have been listening to a lot. Who knows, I may break down and order the disc. Check ’em out for an idea of the post-rock (whatever) “sound” I’m talking about.

I don’t think it’s strange that I put whatever I want on the blog. I’m not worried about who sees what or what impact it might have on whomever. I’m not concerned about people reading the blog and thinking I’m crazy. Yeah I write it for an audience, but I also write it for the hell of it. I would write it if people didn’t read it, I’ve been doing it for years – just not online. I’ve got 500 pages of shit that’s not online, and this is jolly #60 of the stuff that is online. So all you blog haters, take note of my cool and aloof rebel attitude – and don’t step to me… we clear?

Wouldn’t it be cool if people dressed up as you for Halloween? I guess when you see a you costume in the Halloween shops, it’s just another sign that you’ve “made it.” I think a Dave costume would be fly.

Dave out. Party on.