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.

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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.

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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…

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(10th anniversary of heaven's gate)

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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

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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: 28% [?]

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: 28% [?]

wow. what a weekend. probably the most solidly fun couple of days I've had in a while. friday night i ended up at a party in some friends' practice space. lots of booze, lots of other stuff. lots of fun with lots of friends. i was up until about 4am.

and then i was back awake at 9am to go shooting at the knob creek gun range. before saturday, i hadn't shot a gun for a good 10-15 years. i guess it just doesn't come up in daily life in the city. well…at least not the parts of the city i've lived in. despite my long lapse, i think i did decently well. i hit within the circle 11 out of 18 shots (one of them on the right side got ripped off when we removed the target from the box it was taped and stapled to) I fired 20 rounds, but I wasted two shots blowing up a dr. pepper bottle that was on top of my target. here's a gratuitous shot of me glockin' it up.
after that, we went to ernesto's for some mexican and a couple pitchers of dos equis. i ended up getting home a little buzzed and alot tired, so i took a nap.

i woke up from my nap at around 8:30. from there it was out the door to pick up some equipment and then head out to the dead child show. i will go ahead and say that this show had the best line-up of bands that this city has seen in years. pusher, lords, blade of the ripper, dead child…wall-to-wall metal mayhem. i recorded the whole thing. expect the sets to start showing up on transmission3000 soon. after the show, i ended up staying up until 6:30am, generally getting up to no good.

fittingly, i didn't do jack shit, yesterday.

today…back to work. i have to take my car back into the fucking shop when i get off work, as the door handle stopped working about 4 hours after i picked the car up, last thursday. i think i got about 5 opens out of it before it died again. splendid.

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man…i fucking hate it when my car is in the shop. i feel so stuck. so…helpless. bumming rides just to do the mundane shit, like picking up dinner. lame. i made plans to go hang out with a friend, last night, then realized i didn't have wheels to get over there. luckily brooksie was home and let me use his.

and the calls from the technicians working on my car, asking me stupid questions they should have already answered for themselves…ugh. just fix the fucking thing, already.

they're laying down some shitty tile at work. the fumes from the glue are insane, so they sent everybody home. i better get paid for that time, though.

i forgot to mention a couple of new shows up at transmission3000: wolverine brass and lords. both rockin', both badass. enjoy.

i'm gonna go sit on the couch and watch last night's daily show…

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So…life's a real bitch, ain't it? Today, when I got off work, I went out to my car and hit the unlock button on the ol' keychain, just like I do every time I get into my car. Mark was riding with me, and he was a little slow opening the door, so he got it right when the car was relocking itself. Well, the alarm started going off. No problem. You just shut the door and hit the disarm/unlock button and the shit goes off, right? No harm, no foul, right?

Nope.

The fucking thing kept blaring. We both get in the car and I'm maniacally hitting the unlock button, trying to get the motherfucker to turn off. No such luck. Finally, it just…stops. Strange. So I go to start the car, and the fucking thing starts going off again. It won't even let me start the car. The ignition is locked the fuck out. Awesome. So I climb out, still pushing that button like a madman, and nothing is happening. So I do what any other sane person in my position would do.

I kicked a dent in the side of my car.

Oddly enough, this had no effect on the blaring car alarm. It would go off for about 30 seconds to a minute, then stop. As soon as you tried to open one of the doors again, it would start right the fuck back up. I walked to a pharmacy down the street and they miraculously had the right battery for the remote. So I bought the battery, replaced it, went back to my car…nothing.

I called St. Matthews Imports and they referred me to Swope. Swope then tells me it's real easy to fix.

"Just insert the key into the ignition and push and hold the security button on your stereo…"

This is when I interrupt him to let him know that I no longer have the factory stereo installed.

"Oh. Well. You'll have to get it here so we can have a technician take a look at it."

Brooksie came and picked me up, thank the fuck christ. We came home, I found my spare remote, made sure to put the new battery in it, then went down to try again. Still nothing. Fuck.

So…the car has gas, a charged battery, nothing wrong with it…and I have to get the motherfucker towed all the way out to Hurstbourne and then pay some dickhead to fix this shit for me.

I swear…I want to find the middle-management asshole that thought up this safety "feature" and smack him upside his damn head.

Irony? The car is officially paid off, as of today.

Popularity: 25% [?]

well, i took a couple days off work last week (thurs. and fri.) for a little post-birthday mini-vacation at the ol' homestead. had a nice visit with my parents, and managed to not do a damned thing for two days straight. never even got dressed. i happily wandered about the house in my ratty robe, watched a little (ok, a lot of) TV, helped my little bro get his computer back in working order, and also taught him some guitar exercises to help hone his skills. of course, this is not to say that my skills are anything to write home about at this point, but i have picked up a few things here & there. altogether it was a very nice, fairly mentally healthy visit… my parents and i didn't get into a single argument. of course, we didn't talk about any "controversial" subjects either, but that's beside the point.

we (that is, the band and i, that is, lucifigous prick) attempted on sunday to get a recording by just mic'ing the practice room using a single mic and jim's crappy tascam 4-track cassette recorder. needless to say, the setup was sub-optimal. right now, we're hoping to copy-cat Old Man (that would be our dear blog-departed paul's musical concern with family funny-man neil) and rent a multi-track digital recorder so we can… i was about to say "do our songs justice," but i hardly think that applies… i'll just say "get a decent recording," and leave it at that.

but, at the very least, we do seem to be happy with the songs we've got so far, and everyone we've played them in front of has enjoyed them (at least, they've told us that…). we're thinking it's time we got out there to strut our stuff a little bit. we're also very seriously considering duping out whatever eventual "good" recording we can hack together, with the intent of supplying our friends with copies, sending them off to a bazillion independent labels, and possibly sneaking them onto the racks at the local record stores. perhaps i'll upload some tracks here for your listening pleasure as well.

but enough self-promotion and acting like i'm some silly rock star.

i've been attempting to motivate myself today (having nada to do at work) with getting a new (non-amazon-specific) wishlist together for the upcoming holiday season, but i can't think of a damned thing that i want and that anyone would be willing to purchase for me. not only that, but i can't think of any damned online stores to go to to even find the stuff i might want. i'm drawing a total blank. i'm never good a this sort of thing. but, i have installed the wishcentral.com bookmarklet in my browser, so now, whenever i find something i want, i can just click a little button and add it to my wishlist… wherever i am. ooh! i just thought of something! TDK Mojo MP3-CD Player. there's one thing.

anybody got any suggestions? what cool cheap stuff do i need?

ah well.

the puffin's gone now, it was fun while it lasted. if you do as brian says and , perhaps we can convince him to at least keep the a-go-go going as a record review repository. the man's got a taste and a knack for music, and his reviews to date have always been enjoyable reading in themselves. anyway, sad to see paul hang up the blogging hat, but sacrifices must be made sometimes in the interest of things you're more… uh… interested in. yeah.

fortunately, immediately after he wrote his last post, and shortly before i read the damned thing, i spent 15 or 20 minutes getting his archives fixed up real nice so they're accessible again. so, (and since i'm the proprietor of coffeemonk.com) we'll probably keep puffin-a-go-go up as long as we can, so you can all continue to visit and seek its wisdom.

anyway, i've given my assurances to the concerned mr. hall that i have no intention of turning bipolar into an unbalanced "unipolar" (his words, folks… well, i added the "unbalanced" part). i won't lie. i may be sporadic as fuck, as i have been in the recent past, but i'll keep doing it until my stalkers finally corner me and chain me up in their basement (or, y'know, i really get sick of the whole thing).

boy. what the hell kind of post was that?

Popularity: 2% [?]

- 04:26 pm:: im
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