scott, guy, and i went out to the mall today. we were on a mission. a mission to acquire the cover photo to the transmission3000 christmas cds. a mission to take pictures of santa. scott informed us that it's against the rules to take pictures in the mall (as a matter of fact, i remember being with scott when we were told that. it was him, lauren, and myself…sitting out front of the mall after his car died), so we decided to be secret agent about it. we set ourselves up in the food court, hopping from open table to open table until we scored the seat with the best view of the plaza below. the plaza where sat the fat man himself, don clausioni. scott snapped off a few pics before the other co-founder of transmission3000, steve, happened to show up on the scene. he hung out for a bit, while scott snapped pictures of the don endorsing pepsi and terrorizing children. after a few more snaps of "the man", scott decided to get ballsy. "let's get pics of that animatronic elf." this, of course, required us to leave our roost and proceed to the main floor. this held an element of danger and inspired a debate between guy and myself: should we provide scott cover? or should we wander apart from him so that we don't look so conspicuous?

and then scott lost his mind. "let's ask santa if you can sit on his lap while i take a picture." this boggled the mind. not only is it against the rules for a civilian to snap photos in the mall, but we were seriously cutting into 'ol jolly's livelihood. he was charging $10 a pop for his pics! i obviously couldn't resist a challenge and buckled, under the condition that scott would do the asking. a short second standing in line and we scored! the fat man's wranglers didn't give a fat shit! next thing i know, i'm sitting on the ol' toothgrinder's lap, asking him how shit's been. i informed him "i think i've been pretty nice," and then i was out of there. scott snapped a couple of pics, but missed the shaking of hands…true proof of a pact with the gift giving devil. high on our conquest, we decided to scram.

guy and i squeezed by ups to pick up the package that i missed the other day when seth was here. it turned out to be a mallrats dvd sent out from none other than my pal jack. this is a welcome addition to my dvd collection, and i think as soon as matt gets home this evening, i'll throw it in.

interesting addendum to my post about freezing doors: when i got home from jim's house sunday night, my door had frozen shut yet again. with me inside. i had to actually kick my way out of the car. joy of joys.

i'm gonna go get some warmth on…it's freezing in here.

just found this interview with mark arm — you remember, that guy i drove 6 hours to a little dive in chicago to go see? — anyway, read this and you'll understand part of the reason mark arm is my favorite rock'n'roll frontman of all time.
i mean, aside from the fact that he just simply fucking rocks, that is.

i decided to stop being so boring and go over to jim's tonight. matt and paul weren't there yet when i got there, but they arrived shortly. we had a delicious spaghetti dinner, cooked by jim's wife lori. we watched some simpsons and king of the hill. i decided to bail before x-files, partly because i haven't really enjoyed this season as much as i have in the past. i think the show's really on it's last leg.

when i went outside to get in my car to leave jim's, my door had once again frozen shut. i went back into the house to the expected "that was quick", and retrieved a pot full of scalding hot water. jim decided to come out and give me a hand, just in case. of all the friends that i've met in the past couple of years, i'd say jim and brax are the guys that i wish i spent more time with. this is no slight to matt or paul, because god knows i'm with them virtually every day. i just don't see jim and brax often enough for my tastes.

it seems the brax part of the equation will be solved soon, though. i was shocked to find out that when bob (our "chronic"ly toking hippie roommate) moves out at the end of this month, brax will be moving in. this is what is called "a good thing". brax and i are already planning on starting a season on nhl 2001. lots of hockey fights will ensue, i'm sure.

i'll be going to bed soon. i hope you all have visions of sugarplums dancing through your heads. whatever the hell a sugarplum is…

okay…it officially cold as shit outside. i went out to go get a coke earlier and my driver's side lock was frozen. i was actually able to unlock the door on the passenger side, but the door wouldn't budge. frozen solid. one of my roommates decided that windex would unfreeze my door, apparently speaking from personal experience. well…let's just say that this only resulted in some frozen windex on the outside of my car. not a good plan. so i got a gigantic pitcher of scalding hot water and poured it around my driver door. success! door unlocked! score! only one problem….the door still wouldn't open. so i trudged back upstairs to get another massive pitcher of water which i then poured all around my door, hoping to trick it into opening. finally…success! for real this time! i used what was left of the water to thaw out the ice on my windshield. this turned out to be a "not so bright plan" due to the fact that the water promptly re-froze in the -15 degree wind chill. really slick, brian.

so i let the car warm up for a while. this was a good plan, except for the fact that my car door was almost re-frozen shut when i came back out! and when i got home, even after running the car and being all toasty warm…my door wouldn't lock! frozen again!

so that's about the only little journey i want to even think about making. matt and paul went over to our friend jim's house to have a little friendly get together. after my journey, i've opted to stay home. not because i don't want to be with my friends. mainly because i've been with them all weekend and i want to stay home and do my own thing.

so the moral of this story is: if you know where i live, you can come steal my cds…if you can get the door open.

we stayed up late drinking last night. just me, matt, and paul. we got pretty fired up and i ended up shirtless and bellowing about god knows what. we closed the night out at the twig and leaf, indulging in a mass amount of cheesy twig taters. nothing beats the twig after a night full of drinking.

today i've had a tiring day of doing nothing. i went and picked up my younger cousin when i got up. we hung with matt and paul, playing guitar and video games.

while i was searching the small brown bike site for the exact date of their show in chicago with the casket lottery, i was stoked to uncover an advance download from their coming record, "dead reckoning." it's a track called hideaway, and it rocks…just what those guys are known for doing. i can't wait to see them on the 12th of next month.

i'm officially sick now, i think. the sniffles have come on hardcore, and they're not abating. i've been expecting this, really. this damn cold has been trying to sneak up on me for two weeks now. just in time for me to go back to work. yay.

everyone went out to see requiem for a dream. i stayed home. mainly because of the illness, but also partly due to the fact that i'm a brokeass. it's okay, though…i could use the downtime.

i spent today sorting out various financial holes that i've dug myself into. i have an annoying habit of mismanaging my funds and it all came back to bite me in the face this week. but it should all be straightened out now. should. i hope.

on the good side, i'm now the proud owner of a cd burner. yes…this is somewhat related to my financial problems. yes…i am an idiot. thank you for noticing. can we just let that drop now?

matt spent all day at work not doing any work. he did, however create me this. it's a radiohead desktop for my computer. it's an html file and it's been zipped, so unless you mac users can use that business, it's for pc only. sorry.

i missed a package from ups today. it was something from amazon.com, so i can only assume that it was something purchased off of my wishlist. i'm fairly excited to see what it is, and i scheduled to go pick it up on monday. i wonder who it's from?

the last track of the radiohead reworkings for the bbc is up. it's an awesome version of idioteque. once again, it's remarkably similar to the live version of the song. paul and i are referring to these tracks as kid bbc. [thanks again to planet telex]

i'm generally not a violent person, but every once in a while, if the wind is right and the planets are aligned, certain people–just by their being within my sphere of perception–cause me to imagine bashing their head forcefully & repeatedly against the metal corners of my cubicle until their blood stains the fabric walls and bits of bone and brain collect on the floor at my feet.

mind you, this doesn't happen very often.

i came across a link today that reminded me quite a bit of brian, & some of the online shenanigans i've participated in or been privy to. shauna of flaunt.net (along with a friend) has recently created whowouldbuythat.com which is dedicated to uncovering the strangest of online auctions.

in other news, i spent a few minutes last night (or hours, really) helping paul with the puffin-a-go-go. he's added a few links to his "go-go-to" section, and I managed to get his archives up and running, so all you puffin readers run over there and check up on any posts you might have missed.

well, i suppose since i'm here at work, i should probably do some.

how pretentious is that title… oh well.

it's nice to see that some people have gotten into the spirit of my last post. kinda makes me feel special (in a egotistic kind of way, not a short-bus kind of way). perhaps i should post more often?

you'd think that now that i've got a workable new system all for my lil' ol' self at home, that i'd be more conscientious about it, but i can't seem to actually get anything done. i'm trying to catch up on all the email that's been neglected for the past several months, to all my friends who are probably pissed at me for not writing before now, expect to hear from me soon.

things at work are kind of slow right now, and it's sapping my energy and inspiration. we're in a "lull." at least, that's the word that's been used. i had a much better ending to this paragraph, but the link that it hinges around is apparently dead. if it "resurrects" itself soon, i'll come back and replace it. ( how're you supposed to do a weblog when the links spontaneously combust? )

oh, and don't worry too much about brian over there, he's just not getting enough sleep lately–it's affecting his mind.

and paul, tell dennis to send some MY way. i think we can afford a san-fran trip between the two of us.

i was standing in the kitchen fixing myself a bowl of ice cream when it hit me…the things you liked so much when you were a kid all seem rather ludicrous now. i know everyone has had this revelation a million times. but i just stumbled on one of my darkest secrets from my childhood. it all came to me while standing at the sink, rinsing out the ice cream scooper.

i used to think alan thicke was the funniest man alive. he's kinda dropped off the face of the earth, but i mean…i was up on all of his shit. the obvious growing pains, but also the lesser known hosting gigs on animal crack-ups and pictionary. i even remember getting all excited when pictionary had a bunch of comic book artists as the celebrity guests. i was surprised to find out that they did a growing pains reunion movie this year. but when you get down to it…how funny is alan thicke? i mean…yes he is the host of his own game show on the game show network, but really…it's not like it's "win alan thicke's money." in a nutshell…he just doesn't hold the allure that he did to my young mind. now that i've experienced comedy in it's purest form, alan thicke will forever remain a figure of the past. a grim comic lone wolf forever chastising mike for staying out too late with boner.

a disturbing footnote to tonight's post: while searching for my various alan thicke links, i ran across this page. i really don't think he's that bad, is he?

there's nothing like a skidding semi to get your blood flowing in the morning. it snowed a lot earlier than everyone expected it to this morning, so rush hour traffic was a mess. i drove a constant 20 mph into work today and still narrowly avoided three collisions. people just can't drive when it's cold out.

and apparently i'm one of those people. i went home for lunch and ran off the road. nothing was hurt (on me or the car) and i didn't end up hitting anything. i was just going around a corner and my car decided to keep going straight. once again…everything is fine. too bad, huh?

as i drove back into work today, i noticed a huge black cloud of smoke off to my left. as i closed in on it, i was startled to find out that one of the local hospitals was on fire. like those people need any more problems.

more new radiohead tracks: reworkings of both "how to disappear completely" and "everything in its right place". [courtesy of planet telex via green plastic]

that's about it for this evening. maybe more later…