Things that have been irking me, lately (aside from Mr. "Take Down Your Domain")…

CNN's Campbell Brown. I don't know why she gets on my nerves so bad. Her "outrage" just comes across as hokey and insincere. She's CNN's mad dash to try to court the rabid fanbase of Keith Olbermann, and it shows.

I've also sickened of the suffix of "gate" to any scandal. Just this morning I've read multiple articles about "Zunegate;" there's a rumor going around that Obama uses a Zune, rather than an iPod. GASP!

And, further along that thread, the adding of "punk" to denote some sort of (usually literary) movement. Sure, we had Cyberpunk, then Steampunk, but now they're trying for Atompunk. That's just getting stupid. What's next? A gay porn literary movement called "Dickpunk?" Cat fiction called "Catpunk"?

Of course, this just helps to create a Punkgate. And I've now become part of the problem.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Dear Jackass That Decided to Harrass Our Hosting Company to Bring Our Site Down,

Fuck you. Eat a bag of dicks.

Sincerely,
x:13 design

Popularity: unranked [?]

This morning when I went out to my car, my driver's side door was frozen shut. This, of course, agitated me. I grumbled, of course. What a shitty way to start my day, right? So I climbed in the passenger side and I was on my way. I forgot to get out to Kroger, last night, so I had to stop into McD's for a sausage biscuit. I hit the drive through. The girl starts talking…and my window won't roll down! Frozen! FUCK!

I try the door…STILL FROZEN! DOUBLE FUCK!

So I pull around and park the car, bitching up a storm to myself. When I get to the door, the one on that side of the building…LOCKED!

MOTHERFUCKERS! What the fuck is up with this shitty day?!

So I walk around. I get inside, the transaction takes 30 seconds, tops. I have a little laugh with the girl about my morning, and I was out the door.

When I went outside, I saw ol' Bob S. across the street. I had seen him waiting for the TARC there a few times, but never thought to stop. I asked him where he was headed, and it was on my way to work, so I gave him a ride.

I hadn't seen Bob in a while, so it was nice to catch up. He's not really drinking, anymore. He's got a good job. He's living with his girlfriend. He's got a good new band going. He's in a good place. I dropped him off at work and told him he's always got a ride in to work, if he wants it, as it's on my way. No sense in standing in the cold, waiting on a TARC.

I turned it over in my head, on the rest of the way into work. It was nice to see Bob. To reconnect. And then I realized, had my car door not been frozen shut, I wouldn't have had to get out of the car. Had the door not been locked at McDonald's, I wouldn't have walked around. Had I not walked around, I wouldn't have seen Bob and had that chance to reconnect.

This isn't one of those "all things happen for a reason" type of things. I mean…it's fairly simple: Had those things all not happened, I would not have seen Bob. There's a stark zen-ness to it.

And, of course, through the magic of thermodynamics (and/or karma, if you so choose), my car door opened fine, once I got to work.

Good things happened, though I thought they wouldn't.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I probably should have been like everyone else and posted my big political post yesterday, but I just had to take a day off and reflect. That and I'm intensely lazy.

Yeah. So. Wow. How about that? The American people stepped up, said they had had enough of this Bush/NeoCon bullshit, and elected a man who has spent the past two years inspiring voters from all walks of life, all across this country. I'll be honest…I didn't always have faith that it was going to turn out this way. More often than I would care to admit, I lay awake in the dark, thinking about stolent elections, extended wars, and complete economic collapse. I actually (in my head) started preparing for a possible Mad Max style future where I was going to have to convert a motocross bike to run on vegetable oil and live out in the woods, eating squirrel.

So, obviously, I was pretty overjoyed, tuesday night. True, the good people of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky did not oust Mitch McConnell, but I figure it's still a win.

I still don't have much to say about it. I'm probably still in shock. I've come to accept that it happened. That it's reality. I just can't quite put all of my thoughts in order to say much more about it.

Popularity: unranked [?]

What a week, huh? The House fails to pass the bailout bill, the markets crash, and there was a period on tuesday where I wish I had $10,000 for about 15 minutes (Google's stock crashed right at close, then rebounded almost immediately in after-hours trading).

And most people are putting the blame for the bill failing the House squarely on John "Maverick" McCain. They had a provisional agreement until he touched down, then the shit hit the fan. Then again, they're also trying to blame Next Gingrich, so what does anybody know? I know that I'm really glad I never started a 401k, that's for sure.

Speaking of Google, I have started to covet the T-Mobile G1 (not in that ugly white, though). I thought, a few times, about switching to AT&T for the iPhone, but it looks like I've been rewarded for my patience. And my upgrade should make it more than affordable. Good thing, too…my RAZR is showing its age. Either way, it should make Matt's Treo look like it has some sort of childhood developmental disorder.

Popularity: unranked [?]

You know…I almost forgot the form I used to use on these things. Gone is my staunchly anti-upper-case stance. I think that went out the window, once I started writing record reviews (first for 75 or Less, now for local alt-weekly LEO). Who knows?

So what has happened in the past year-and-a-half or so, since I've last posted? Well…I got my shit together, I guess you would say. I met a wonderful girl. I pounded the pavement, and I came up with a pretty decent job. I'm actually pushing the boundaries of becoming financially solvent. That's a scary one.

As far as my last post is concerned, rest assured that I finished off everything on that list. It WAS a good day.

I guess my absence from these hallowed halls could boil down to the mundanity of life. I bore myself typing this shit out and trying to make it interesting. And I'm easily amused. I can only imagine that reading my posts ranks somewhere far below watching paint dry, on the entertainment scale.

I'm really bothered by all the little suggested Wikipedia links below this window, as I type this. Can we turn that shit off? What the fuck? I really don't think I'll find it necessary to post a link to the Wikipedia entry for "watching paint dry." Especially since it just links to the entry for paint, anyway.

Meh. I told Matt I was going to weigh in with my thoughts on ol' John "ex-maverick" McCain today, but I'm going to see how today's economic crisis talks pan out. I'm thinking he's got just about enough rope, at this point…

Popularity: unranked [?]

(10th anniversary of heaven's gate)

Popularity: 25% [?]

Ahhh…the year-end wrap-up. Where to start? To be honest, most of the shit that happened to me I didn't post about. Why have I been maintaining radio silence? Who knows?

I finally joined the rest of the web-using world and started utilizing digg. I even dugg a post I posted here. Oh…I'm such a whore.

Today I'm bemoaning the fact that we're not a more regularly updated, noticed "blog." I mean…they could have sent us a couple of these, for fucksake.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time listening to Neil Young, lately. Mostly Crazy Horse material. It's speaking to the parts of the brain Brooksie and I have started activating for the new band. Speaking of the new band, it's tentatively titled "Birth Machine." We expect to rattle the foundation of a local venue this spring.

I guess the biggest news of the season is that i had to have Clyde put to sleep (the Thursday before Christmas; it made the holiday even more fun). Some of you long-time readers (if there's any left) will remember Clyde as my beloved cat of the past decade. She had a tumor on her chest that spread to her lungs. Toward the end she was having trouble breathing and would only eat fresh turkey and "catmilk" (speaking of which, I have two things of that stuff left, if anyone needs/wants it), which made us think it was all just some elaborate scam on her part. Regardless, we couldn't take it anymore and took her back to the vet. He gave us the dire news and we all endured a bit of pre-holiday heartbreak.
Needless to say, she's incredibly missed.

Clyde - 1996-2006

Popularity: 33% [?]

So I caught a commercial for pillsbury grands earlier, and they showed them making little pizzas on the biscuits. I took the time to look around the internet for recipes, but none of them sounded like they were exactly what I thought I saw.

So I was forced to go to Kroger and get some supplies and see if I could make my own version. Here's what I came up with:

Old Man Hall's Pizza Grands

1 can Pillsbury Grands biscuits (Flaky, any flavor,)
1 jar Kroger Pizza Zip (I went with Traditional)
1 bag pizza cheese
x amount, whatever other toppings you want

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Split the individual biscuits in half (thinner, flakier crust) and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet (I'd like to try making these on one of those pizza stones) about an inch apart. Then spread one spoonful of sauce on top of each one (I went all the way to the edge). Cheese 'em up to your liking, add any other toppings, then bake for 12-14 minutes. You definitely want to check them after about 10-12 minutes, because the bottoms can burn fast, if you're not careful.

Needless to say, these motherfuckers are delicious. I may want to opt for the half-size package of biscuits, next time. Something tells me I'm never gonna eat 16 of these little bastards, delicious as they are.

Popularity: 29% [?]

while i sit here at work, waiting on a simple answer to a possibly not-so-simple questions from someone higher up the ladder, i figure i'll write up a post for ol' bipolar.

this weekend was chock full of shows. too many shows, as fate would have it. i saw shellac and uzeda friday night. the sound was glorious, the venue was unbearably hot. it all ended up being worth it, though. shellac really kicked out the jams. i noticed that it doesn't really matter what albini does on the guitar, as the rhythm section just locks in and keeps burning along. i think i'd kill for a bass player of bob weston's caliber.
friday night ended up with all kinds of drunken chicanery that i can't be bothered to try and remember clearly.

saturday was another hot one in st. john's for shipping news and wolverine brass. for some reason, that night the sound was fucking terrible. you take the good with the bad, i guess. after that show, i headed over to za's to see arch and buffalo bill. buffalo bill covered motley crue's "wild side." i was most pleased. after that…more drunkeness.

sunday my allergies put the hurt on me. probably the multiple days of drowning myself in second hand smoke. who knows? either way, i ended up having to skip the young widows show. i took some allergy medicine and actually passed out during the car chase scene in ronin. i really didn't know that was humanly possible.

but sunday night, i got my sea legs back under me and was able to hit up the crack of doom reunion show, which was a total blast. i think it even caused more permanent hearing damage to my right ear. always a sign of a great show.

well…i got that simple answer i was waiting on.

Popularity: 29% [?]

I had a very emotionally mixed day yesterday, and a very draining one. I went to pick up my sister at the airport, on her flight in from France. she'd been there a year, and I must say I'm very happy to see her again. unfortunately, events leading up to our reunion really ruined everything for me.
      waking up, I was in a decent mood yesterday, and went to run some errands before leaving town for Cincinnati. got the oil changed, got some grub, and hit the road. the night before, I had gotten online to get a map to help me find the Cincinnati airport, since I'd never been there before. I had a little trouble on mapquest since I didn't know the airport's address. I eventually navigated my way to a superpages listing for the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport, and followed the link to get a map. Everything looked good, there was a star on the map in Cincinnati, near I-71. I assumed I had the problem of finding the place licked. If you live in or near Cincinnati, you probably have some idea of just how wrong I was.
      so anyway, I'm driving up I-71 from Louisville, cruising down the highway with my map at my side, the sun scorching my skin, and the wind blasting my hair into some unimaginably tangled mass of insanity. Just outside Cincinnati, I meet up with a 10 or so mile traffic jam, which, of course, I hadn't really taken into consideration since it was around 2:00pm. on a Friday–silly me thought most normal people would already be at work… I got through that, and made my way perilously through the maze of construction detours and bridges and underpasses that is what passes for an "expressway" through southern Cincy. Once out of the construction zone, I expected to see signs pointing my way triumphantly to the nearby waiting airport and my most likely already disembarked sister.
      once I got out of Cincinnati proper and hadn't seen any signs, I turned around and went back down I-71, again thinking perhaps I'd missed the signs, or they hadn't posted them on the North side of the expressway (believe it or not, we have run into this problem when driving through Cincy on other occasions, it's a fucked up place, and I've decided that I hate it and if I never ever go back in billion years, it will be too soon). before getting back down 71 too far, I exited the expressway and stopped at a gas station to ask the clerk how exactly to get to the airport. she kindly pointed me back onto the expressway and explained that I'd see the signs that would direct me to it in about five minutes or so. cool. now I knew where to go.
      I took off and followed the glorious signs that said International Airport, took 471 south, and cursed profusely when I almost immediately crossed the river to Kentucky. Logically, I thought, the Cincinnati airport can't be in Kentucky, since Cincinnati is in Ohio. I thought I was on top of things. I looked again at my map, and specifically noted the street names near the big blue star marking the airport in the middle of the city. I drove back up I-71, and didn't see any airport signs again, didn't see any signs for the streets I wanted, so I pulled off again, and then had a wonderful adventure driving 20 minutes through over 100 blocks of city streets following neverending signs leading me back to the express way. Needless to say, the trip just kept getting more and more absurd. At this point, I was already over an hour late to meet my sister, I was hot, sweaty, and smelly from sitting in my damn non-air-conditioned car for three hours. And I was really getting pissed off.
      once I finally got back on I-71, I almost immediately saw the sign for one of the roads that was supposedly near the airport, so I pulled back off and into the city. two blocks later, I was back on a more southerly section of the street I'd just left. I found the expressway once more, drove back north, passed where my earlier excursion had started, and pulled off and back on to the expressway once more going south. one more road to try, this one supposedly passing directly by the airport, I should certainly be able to find it from there.
      I pulled off, and followed the road right into the heart of the downtown area. as I realized I would never find the airport in the middle of the downtown district, I pulled behind some guy on the side of the road, and asked him where in the hell the airport was. he kindly told me generally how to get back to I-71/75 south, and proceed into northern Kentucky. he explained to me that the "Cincinnati airport" isn't really in Cincinnati at all. If I wasn't pissed before, I was burning hot now. That guy is pretty lucky I was too pissed off to get out of my car, and I was so late meeting my sister that I didn't have time to kick his nice, sincere, helpful ass.
      I quickly found the expressway, and drove quite a while into Kentucky, then again pulled off and asked a gas station attendant to more fully explain where this damn place was. she told me more about how to get there, that I hadn't yet gone far enough away from Cincinnati to get to the Cincinnati airport. with her instruction, I finally found the actual expressway the airport is on, 20+ miles from Ohio. I drove into the airport, parked the car, and was unfortunately so frustrated and in a generally foul mood, that when I found my sister, I gave her the most cursory of greetings and made her carry her own bags to the car. probably due to nearly passing out from heat exhaustion, the rest of the drive home and my memories of the trip in general are pretty hazy and surreal.

to make a long story short (a little late now, I know) I fucking hate Cincinnati, if I meet the people who named the Cincinnati airport I'm going to fucking kill them, and I'm glad my sister is back home, if only for a little while. I did miss her.

Popularity: 2% [?]

- 11:06 am:: im
share this :: permalink ::

:: no comments

categories ::

Angry/Hate - Family - Rants - Travel

latest del.icio.us links:

• macfuse - Google Code
• What a Lovely Name, The perfect name for your baby.
• A List Apart: Articles: Progressive Enhancement with CSS
• NASA eClips
• RarCrack!

Follow this post via RSS 2.0