people seem to be visiting this little cove of unreality, so I feel bad if I go too long without an update. unfortunately, I've not been doing much other than working most of this week. on the positive side of that, today I got my first paycheck in over two months! and on the negative side of that, after paying rent and bills, I'll have about 10 bucks to get me through the next two weeks to the next paycheck. i can't win.

if anybody gives a shit and has a moment, check out a possible redesign direction I'm working on for coffeemonk.com. and let me know what you think… I'm not the most experienced, self-assured graphic designer on the planet, and I'm terrible with decisions…

quick update tonight, as if anyone cares. I haven't heard back yet from Corvus, but that's no big surprise since Jim said he'd contact me "by the end of the week." I'm planning to call him in the morning just to "check in."

haven't done much browsing lately, mainly because of the weekend's activities and the new job/new schedule I'm still adjusting to.

for your surfing pleasure, here's a link to another of my daily visits Mudhoney from Seattle, WA. This is one of the best news sites related to my all-time favorite band, Mudhoney. For those of you who aren't familiar, may I suggest picking up their best of compilation "March to Fuzz," a killer two-CD set encompasing their 11+ year career. You won't be dissapointed.

it would appear that blogger is back in working order again, finally allowing me to post that mile long rant about my trip to pick up my sis in cincy. read it if you've got 15 minutes to spare…

oh, and brian summed up the lexington trip better than I could have (but then, I never seem to "sum up" anything, I pretty much go off on every little thing, when I do write). I'm back at work, once again pulling the unholy third shift routine, and I've just stuffed 700 envelopes, what fun.

like brian, only with a different company, I also had a job interview earlier today. I thought it went rather well, and hope to hear something positive in the next few days. Jim–the interviewer–said he had another person to interview tomorrow (today really, damn this third shift, it's like living in a different time zone from reality) and would make his decision later this week. brian says he probably just said that to make me sweat a little so I'd feel really grateful when he gives me the job, but I think he was being on the level. we'll see I guess. if you get a chance, drop by the (apparently recently) redesigned Corvus website, drop them a note, and tell them to give me a job. it'd be pretty funny for Jim to call me up and tell me that fifty people had written him singing my praises. you now have a mission.

well, gotta get back to work, lest they think I've been abducted and forced into slavery by Latino whores. g'night.

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.

once again, it's been a few days since I've updated. seems like it's going to be an ongoing struggle with me to come up with stuff to talk about on a daily basis.

brian pointed out to me that there are some .wav files on the Chester fan site I linked to in my last post. You have to go to the "And Now" sound files section.
**update 12/17/2004** again, that site is now down, check out the official site.

friday was an intriguing day. brian and I have been discussing the high speed internet options for a while now, and have finally decided we're going to go with something when he moves in. well, on friday, I received a call from Bell South "whoring out" (as brian said) their FastAccess (DSL) service. Since we'd already discussed going with Bell South for the "good deal" they were proposing, I went ahead and signed up. Little did I know that only that day, brian had been in discussions with our system person about setting up all kinds of whacked shit like firewalls and a "complete" home network outfit so we can all use the same high speed modem. I signed up for the service, thinking we'd just install the modem on brian's new system and network it from there. No Dice.
      if only art could imitate life. when brian showed up at the house and we discussed the situation, he called up Bell South and tried to talk them into giving us the special setup we'd need, at the price they'd offered. what followed was almost an hour long crusade against the corporate establishment that would have made Tyler Durden proud. he talked to one rep. who obviously had no clue what she was talking about, then called back and spoke to Roland.
      to Roland's credit, he worked very hard to get us the setup we needed. it finally came down to the point where we'd worked out our hardware needs, but they were going to have to charge us another $150 for "professional installation" on a product that only required plugging two wires into two boxes–one to the modem and one to the computer. obviously, since we have a bit of technical savvy, we weren't really into paying someone that much money to do something we could do in about two minutes.
      brian very calmly explained that fact to Roland, and logically requested that he waive the "installation" fee. Roland had a bit of a problem with that, so our faithful corporate dominatrix proceeded up the ladder to Roland's boss.
      once Roland's boss was on the phone, brian was quick to praise Roland for at least attempting to assist us, and at least partially knowing what he was talking about. then the war truly started.
      flabbergasted that our needs couldn't be met, the supervisor continued to try to talk brian into accepting their offer (incluing the "install" fee). brian, of course, would have none of it, and made several counter offers, none of which could be done. in the end, brian finally ended with the comment that if Bell South couldn't meet our needs, we could just as easily go to one of several other ISPs offering high-speed access and get a competitve rate. whether this is really true or not, we don't know, but he had a great time flogging the corporate "whores" in a very professional and courteous manner. it was a joy just to watch and listen.

right now, I'm at work, going through the first day of a week long training session, where corporate types are trying to pound their propaganda into my head. I survived the Army, this is a walk in the park.

yes my friends, it's come down to this. I have absolutely nothing of importance to say this evening, so I'll just leave you to explore a fancy little site I found honoring one of the funniest characters to exist on TV in the past few years–Chester, from Sifl & Olly. This little site seems to be a great source of sound bites and other Chester related thingies, but since my computer at home is so CRAP, I haven't really been able to download the sound files (which are in RealAudio format for those of you who might care.)

check out Stolen Holiday and have yourselves a few laughs while I'm working my ass off at my new job.

**update 12/17/2004** stolen holiday is gone, so have this link to the official Sifl & Olly site instead.

g'night.

well, I'm sitting here at work once again, on my "lunch break" at 2:40 am. you'd think that after two months of being unemployed and having no money, and having to beg, borrow, and/or steal to pay my bills (I never really had to steal anything, but I did have to beg & borrow a lot), that I would be thrilled to be back at work, making money. i'm not. there are much more important things I'd rather be doing with my time, but most of them aren't things I'll make any immediate money from. I'd love to be able to devote more time to coffeemonk.com and get it to where I'd like it to be design and feature wise. I'd like to be able to devote more time to web development and finding new clients for x:13. I'd like to be able to spend more time working on my writing, finishing the novel and short stories I've started, and maybe even write more poetry. I'd like to be able to finish my second poetry book, and get that out on the shelves and on the site. there are lots of things I'd like to do, but "real life" seems to get in the way. maybe I don't try hard enough, maybe I don't take enough risks, maybe I'm too much of a dreamer and not enough of a do-er.

'til I get that figured out, I guess I'm stuck working a job I don't really enjoy, making less money than I should be, and wishing I could be doing something else.

I swear to god the majority of this post was written two days ago. brian made a mention about my review of Fight Club 'cause he thought I'd be able to post it after he'd read it… not so. my phone has been disconnected for two days now, and this time it's actually not my fault. so, I'm writing this little preface to this post FROM WORK (yeah.) at Kinko's. It's like 3:00 in the morning…

Here's the rest of what I'd written before.

I promised a review of the Fight Club DVD for you today, so here it goes.

buy it. now.

there's so much on those two discs, including four commentary tracks, one of which is with David, Ed, Brad, and Helena. Listening to this track, I realized that Edward Norton is a really smart guy. He pointed out some things that I hadn't caught in the movie or the novel, and made some fantastic connections between the movie and different philosophers. what really struck me the most, though, was the relationship between Ed, Brad, and David. they carried on like they were the best of friends, making comments and cracks to and about each other the entire time. "It's a little dark, Finch." "Shutup guys."
      I'd really loved the marketing campaign for the movie, and the stuff they've included on disc two is great. The highlights for me were the promotional catalog with "products" from Fight Club, the PSA's, and the poster art.
      the deleted scenes were interesting, but most of them were deleted with good reason. some of the production stuff (videos and commentary tracks) were interesting, especially the one about the sex scene… they put a great deal of work into a scene that ended up being only about 10 seconds or so.

so the DVD is definitely worth the purchase price, and even more so if you buy it while it's still on sale. not only do you get the movie itself (which would almost be worth the price on its own) you also get all the other stuff, and through the extra stuff, you can gain an insight on the movie that you might not have gotten on your own. The commentary by Ed Norton (with David & Brad) will help you understand the movie, and will also impress upon you the intelligence and character of Edward himself.

oh, and this little note's to brian: great job on the transmission3000 redesign! ('course I had a little hand in it myself, so perhaps I'm just conceitedly patting myself on the back here too)

as promised, today's post will concern more of my thoughts from my recent trip to St. Louis.

driving through the farmland of Missouri and Illinois, I was struck by the beauty of the land and the green fields of new corn as they passed by at 70+ mph. since I rarely get the opportunity to be a passenger, I spent the majority of the trip back to Kentucky silently watching the scenery.

damn. my words are completely failing me at this point. I wanted to write about the fields and trees, and the beauty and profundity of it all, but it wasn't coming out right. sometimes, you just have to watch, listen, feel, and understand, but you can't say anything–you can't describe it. go out, drive, watch the land, and don't say a word.

ok. now, after my hours of communing with nature, developing the mother of all passenger's sunburns, and taking a short nap, Paul and I got off talking about all kinds of stuff. for hours we talked about cops, criminals, abuse of power, use of force, government corruption, capitalism, communism, socialism, marxism, and the political future of america. I think we started talking about unmarked police cars and ended up with america evolving into its necessary and inevitable socialist structure.
      then for some reason, we talked briefly about the weather, the probability that it's going to be a scorching summer with a possible drought, and I started feeling really xerophobic and basically fearing not only for my life but for the future of the entire human race.
      i saw this future where all the vegetation on the planet died off, the atmosphere filling with noxious fumes and the human race slowly dying out. Paul slowly talked me away from my fear by insisting that we humans are too crafty to allow our atmosphere to wither away. I only hope he's right.
      to top it all off, when we got home I phoned brian to tell him about the trip and to make sure x:13 was still in one piece, and one of the first things he tells me is that a large solar flare is heading for earth and will cause some "atmospheric disturbance." considering my terror from earlier in the day (which i still hadn't fully shaken despite Paul's reassurance), this was the last thing I wanted to hear. brian seemed a bit surprised when I made a comment about this solar flare burning off all our atmosphere and annihilating the human race.

fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) we're still here, and still seem to have adequate oxygen for at least a few days of regular breathing. after that, we'll see.

in tomorrow's post, I'll briefly review the Fight Club DVD, and probably go off on something totally uninteresting

sorry for the lack of updates here on my side, I intended to do one last night, but ended up taking about three or four hours sifting through my email from the past three days.

I've got quite a bit to talk about, so I'll probably break it down over a few posts… give you something to come back for…

the cure are truly an awesome band. I am not their biggest fan, I only own a couple of their albums, and those have only been purchased in the past year; but Paul loves them and offered me a chance to go see them with him, so I took it. I had a great time.

there were lots of beautiful women running around, which enhances any concert going experience (for me, at least), and of course, there were also lots of rather repulsive members of both sexes running around as well.

I can't understand how 5'4" 250lb women can believe they look good in tight fitting dresses, or midriff tops and skirts. it is totally beyond me. I personally don't feel that I would look that great running around with my belly and chest exposed, and I'm not even really overweight.

another thing I don't get is spending a bunch of money on a concert for a band that you don't really like, listen to, or even understand; then showing up completely wasted to the point where you spend the majority of the concert either with your head between your knees or slumped over passed out in a chair. I CAN understand getting a little drunk and having a little fun, but if I wanted to get wasted and throw up, I could do that at home and get an equivalent musical experience from my CD player.

it almost ruined the show for me. we had been waiting for the doors to open for two hours or more (we got there a bit early, and had nowhere else to go, being in a strange city…), then finally we get in, find our seats, and wait another hour for the show to start. 20 minutes before the band takes the stage, the stands begin to fill up, and a group of people take the seats in front of ours. they're laughing, drinking their beers, having a good time. they break out a joint and pass it around. the band takes the stage and get started on the first song. I look down and the little eddie vedder lookalike in front of me has his head between his knees, puking his guts out. We're barely three minutes into the first song, and already the stench of puke is wafting up to my nose. I feel sorrier for the people in the next row up, they were in splatter range…

well that's enough for tonight.

in tomorrow's update:
corn fields, car talk, & fear of worldwide devastation