i'm sitting here, listening to a playlist of kilowatthours songs that i've rearranged into a prospective "set list," trying to memorize the song titles with the songs, that way whenever i end up looking at a real setlist i won't sit there thinking "how the fuck does this one go?" it doesn't help that we don't go by the album titles on some of the songs. bet you can't figure out which songs are referred to as "dead" and "dan is…"

and now i'm just utterly exhausted. two straight days of intense band practice and i think i've got a solid handle on the material. let's just say it's incredibly rough momrizing an album and a half of material in…a day and a half. we'll be playing through a set or two before we load the van up, so hopefully that'll be all i need. if not? well…i'm fucked. but i'm going to go to sleep to this shit if i have to.

on the fun side of things, most of the "guest hosts" have been set up and locked in. some of the posters will be unknown to most, but this is, after all, just to amuse me whenever i can check in from the road. that and to "drive away any audience we might have," as has been stated at least once over the past couple of days. so with the first show later tonight and us leaving early saturday morning, this will be my last post for a while. bring on the dancing monkeys…

"let it begin."

it's amazing how good you feel after a full night's sleep. to be honest, i probably would have slept a while longer, had there not been some guy that sounded like he was directly outside my window (no easy task when i'm on the third floor) with a chainsaw, trying to audition for jackyl. but at least now i get to sit around the house with a solid grogginess, knowing i don't have to do jack shit for another…20 minutes or so.

ben gets in at around 3pm, with practice starting up as soon after that as possible. word.

the list of guest posters has grown. keep your eyes peeled for scott's big "blog debut"…it's not going to be something you'll want to miss. there are also a few other interesting people who will remain shrouded in semi-secrecy until they actually post.

so…yeah. i have to go get my hair cut…

i woke up this morning, freezing my ass off. apparently it went and decided to get really cold in the middle of the night, all while i had the fan on the air conditioner running and the windows open. needless to say, i was a tad bit cold.

but i guess i said it anyway…

i feel like i've been grinding myself down to nothing over the past few weeks. i deprive myself of sleep, living for the weekend, and then when it finally gets here, i stay up even later. then, of course…i still end up not getting enough sleep. i haven't had a full eight hour block of sleep in at least three weeks. i really need to work on that…

today is my last day at the ol' workplace for a while. tomorrow we start practicing and all that and then we play a show friday night and then hit the road sometime after that. here's the tour dates if you want to try to catch us…

kilowatthours spring tour:
4/26 louisville, ky @ rudyard kipling's
4/27 greensboro, nc @ unc
4/28 washington, dc @ black cat
4/29 arlington, va @ galaxy hut
4/30 boston, ma @ middle east
5/1 new york, ny @ brownie's
5/2 tba
5/3 akron, oh @ lime spider
5/5 indianapolis, in @ melody inn
5/6 chicago, il @ empty bottle
5/7 st. louis, mo @ creepy crawl
5/8 nashville, tn @ spring water

checklist of things i need to do before tour (not in order of importance):
buy extra bass strings
do laundry
buy a spare cord
get my hair cut
burn some cds
find a new book to read
buy a cd walkman
practice
forget something
sleep

i have already made arrangements for some guest posters while i'm gone. you can keep your eyes peeled for a certain puffin and maybe, if you're good, jon will drop by and make fun of everyone, including me. good times, good times.

now i need to go pretend like i'm working…

today is one of those days where you wish you had an out of control heroin habit. y'know…something to take the edge off. but, alas, i don't have a heroin habit at all, so i guess i should just sit in the back, drink my coke, and chill out on my own…

this morning when i was coming into work, i was getting off my exit, which happened to be pretty clogged up with morning rush hour traffic, when this suv in front of me (not exiting) decided to lose its front passenger side wheel. like…the whole wheel. as the wheel rolled across the highway, the truck screeched out and slammed into the concrete barrier. luckily he was in the slow lane, so he didn't have to avoid any of the other lanes of traffic. or rather…they didn't have to avoid him as he veered out of control and crashed into the wall. as i drove by, it looked like the only things severely hurt were his truck and his pride.

i tell ya…there's something surreal about watching a wheel roll across the interstate at 9 in the morning. especially when it's not attached to a vehicle.

other than that, i was in a great mood when i rolled into work. of course, with this being work, it didn't take me too long to get incredibly pissed at a select few people. but i took care of business, ate some lunch, and now we're back to the heroin-less cool down period.

this weekend is thunder over louisville. this is the big kickoff to the derby festival where we shoot a veritable fuckton of fireworks over our medium sized midwestern city. trying our best to blanket the place in smoke for the next couple of days. my tentative plan is to go watch the event from the top of the elliott warehouse. great view, fun people…sounds like a plan.

only two hours and i'm outta this joint…bitchin'.

waking up on a thursday isn't nearly as bad as on a wednesday. the only problem i had with today is i woke up from a dream about an ex-girlfriend (or was it a new girl? could be one and the same…) and had to piss like a racehorse. unfortunately this was a half hour before my alarm is set to go off. curses! by the time i get up and walk downstairs and take a leak and get all the way back upstairs and into bed, i've wasted five minutes and i'm kinda awake. and then i only have 25 minutes until the alarm goes off. so i tried to go back to sleep, but i'm pretty sure i failed miserably until about one minute before the alarm clock went off. curses again!

so i left the house and had a big mocha on my way into work. coffee makes everything better:

coffee = happy brian

but…

coffee + two hours at work = hungry as fuck brian

yeah…a little math for that ass…

jon pointed out this cool little website. i've been dicking around on there for most of the day. i think they're reaching pretty far on some of their references, but it seems fairly accurate, otherwise. this led to a discussion of the fact that i have one of the original tape copies (that came out a year or so after the 7") of polly wog stew somewhere around the house. probably in one of my boxes o' crap that i never bothered unpacking for one reason or another. we also decided that the beastie boys are now nothing but watered down old men. it doesn't seem like they'd even put up a fight for the right to party, these days.

all of this beastie boys talk, and i'm listening to pink floyd. this is never a bad thing.

last night i finally settled down to watch a full episode of greg the bunny. it's not a bad show, but it's nowhere near as good as the original ifc shorts (thanks to tim for the link). at least warren is still an egotistical alcoholic…

did i mention that pepsi tastes like fucking toilet water? well…consider it mentioned. this shit is gross. i'll take the pepsi fuckin' challenge any day of the week.

yeah…that's it. i got nothin'…

i seriously hate waking up and realizing that i'm barely halfway through the week. sometimes it's the other way around…sometimes you wake up and you're smacked in the face with the fact that it's friday and you don't know where the week went. well…today isn't one of those days. damn you, wednesday…

last night i got home from work and ate some ice cream. then i took a nap. seriously. my life is that interesting. chris ended up calling and we worked on three of the songs from strain. i tabbed them out pretty roughly, and then we went to go hang up these swank tour posters (once again by jay ryan and his bird machine). hopefully these nice posters convince a few people to come out to the show…

did i mention that i'm extremely tired? well…consider it mentioned.

when i got home i saw that scott had received the marshall head from his lover. we took it down to the practice space to test it out. much rock was thrown down. then we went to kroger and bought a bunch of dumb crap. scott is currently kicking my ass by almost $9.00 in our battle to see who can save more with kroger plus by the end of the year. little does he know that i plan on going and buying a shitload of ramen in the next few days…that'll teach him…

then we went home, i ate, and then i went to bed. end of completely unexciting recap of how boring my life really is.

i almost completely forgot about the sparta show, last night. that is…until i got an email in my box asking if i was coming out. so on short notice i rolled out to the show and hung out with a couple of people i know from here and there. it was altogether a pretty uneventful evening, with sparta being the only band i was really able to get into. yeah…they sound a lot like at the drive-in. i hung out with tucker from thursday and jim from sparta for a little while after the show, then i headed straight home because i was tired as hell.

then i got home and realized that i completely forgot to get cat food, which made me have to turn right back around and head up to kroger. luckily scott decided he wanted to go, as well, so i didn't feel so bad. there was a couple making out in the parking lot. they were still making out when we left. they must really like kroger.

scott and i laughed about the fact that this was the second night in a row we had gone to kroger late and he spent $3.50 exactly each time.

last night scott and i were out and i was hungry, so i decided to hit the drive thru at burger king and try one of those chicken whopper things. after i ordered and scott and i were sitting there, waiting on the cars in front of us, i looked and scott and said "i bet the chicken 'whopper' is just a regular chicken sandwich."

scott: what is a whopper, really? does it have special sauce?
me: i think they put both mayo and ketchup on it.
scott: hmm…we'll see when you get it.
me: fuck! gross…i hope they don't put ketchup on it…ketchup on chicken would be fuckin' nasty!
scott: this is a bipolar post waiting to happen…
me: oh god…onions…i think the whopper has onions on it…i fucking hate onions…

needless to say, all of my fears were unwarranted because the chicken "whopper" is just a grilled chicken fucking sandwich. what a crock of shit.

well…i'm kinda glad it didn't have onions or ketchup on it, though…

wow. the weekend somehow spun way out of control, but it was 100% fun, so i guess i'm not complaining. somehow i'm sitting here on monday morning, not hurting, not hung over, not cursing existence…it must have been a good run.

friday night i hung out with this girl here at work that i've had a case of simmering hots for since she started. it was a nice evening spent at cahoots, taking down beer after beer. she hung with my insatiable liver for the entire night, and was a great conversationalist. she, like every other girl on the planet, just happens to not be looking to get involved with anyone at the moment. she's busy with school and all that or whatever, and i think she's moving away soon. she's still super cool, so i'm sure we'll hang out again.

saturday began innocently enough…scott and i rolled up to the guitar store, then over to za's for some calzones. the saturday ritual was dusted off in honor of him actually having a day off. i seriously think it was his first day off in a month. after za's we walked down to the record store and just generally dicked around for the rest of the day. i was supposed to hang out with a friend of mine later that night, but she flaked on me, which is pretty standard. so i went to go check out the parlour show (which i had promised to do, anyway). when i got there, i was informed that the show would probably be starting pretty late, so i went up to the back door and hung out with matt and paul for a bit, then went back down to the show. on the way i decided to stop and get one of those 24oz cans of high life, also referred to as a "tall boy." you gotta love a big ol' can of beer. so the show rocked. connor made an ass of himself, which was awesome. did i ever mention that connor is one of the baddest motherfuckers who has ever lived? well…consider it mentioned.

after the show i rolled back down to the back door to embibe more beverage with matt, paul and the gang. then i went to cahoots, met up with some other friends and drank some there. after a while we all started chanting "video poker" and harrassing passerby, all for no good reason. all fun and games until a frat boy gets pissed. keep in mind that there was about 8 or 9 of us standing in the hallway…we had safety in numbers. when cahoots decided to close, everyone decided tthat we should go back to the elliott warehouse and make more party. so with a random assortment of party-primed peoples gathered in the warehouse, we ended up building a ramp over the stairwell and jumping a wheelchair and minibike over it. we fell. a lot. rob cut his hand open and didn't notice. when he went into the bathroom to clean it up, he poured a bunch of alcohol on it and apparently came to the following conclusion:

rubbing alcohol + bloody open wound = intense pain

yeah…not the best idea…

lesson, kids: don't get wasted and jump over stairwells in a wheelchair. or on a minibike. it's just a bad plan. damn it…now i'm starting to sound like jon…

some days just start all wrong. i got woken up at 5:30 this morning by my crazy cat because she decided to start wailing and making as much noise as possible. it's springtime and i think her bitchass is going into heat. this means she'll be spending the night sequestered in the bathroom and i'll be keeping my bedroom door closed. this usually doesn't help much.

so i didn't get enough sleep. other than that, my morning went smooth enough. scott was running late for work, so we competed for the bathroom. no big deal. he was pretty much done by the time i got downstairs, anyway.

i decided to go grab some doughnuts on the way into work. like a dumbass, i decided to go to the speedway (super america r.i.p.) instead of actually going to krispy kreme. i figured speedway had a big krispy kreme "kiosk" or whatever, so i should be able to get plenty of good shit at the early hour. well…some asshole was standing there grabbing his dozen doughnuts and he was stockin' himself up on the custard filled. these are my favorite doughnuts, see…so i was pretty stoked when he left two in there. those two had my name on them…totally. so he shuts the door after choosing his complete dozen. then he looks around, opens the door back up, and grabs one more custard filled, leaving only one! the fucker went for the baker's dozen, knowing he was totally going to get away without having to pay for my doughnut that he fucking stole. i said something about him being a cocksucker. apparently i said it too loud, because i think he heard me. he gave me this redneck sneer and i wanted to knock the shit out of him. he needed a good cock punching, that's for sure.

so i grabbed my one doughnut and some chocolate milk and headed into work.

and i had to park on the top floor of the parking garage. that sucks.

so now i'm just sitting in the office, listening to the misfits, wanting to kill someone. i was planning on going up to the skatepark after work, but it decided to start raining.

jon is running my review of the new weezer record today over at 75 or less. there may be some choice kinko's stories running on slatch later this afternoon, as well.

oh…wait…this is friday. that seems to help make everything a little better. now all i need is a switchblade…

ever have one of those days where you just feel like someone threw a bag over your head? like you're just sitting around in a confused stupor? and i don't mean after smokin' some righteous weed, either. i mean…that's just your purely exhausted point of view…

yeah. that's where i am. i spent a great deal of my work day just sitting there with a confused look on my face. this, of course, prompted a few of my co-workers to ask if i was heshin' it today. "dude…are you stoned?" no, but thanks for asking. i kinda stood around production and talked to this girl that i work with that i kinda think is awesome. mainly i just stood around. or sat around. but somehow i managed to get a ton of work done. weird.

and then i came home and fell asleep on the couch.

clyde seems to have adjusted to my new sleep schedule. she now wakes me up at 6am instead of the customary 8am. she knows she has to try to kill any chance that i will sleep soundly through until my alarm clock goes off. fuckin' cat. she also has gotten to the point where she cries for food, even when her bowl is still half full. i try to reason with her…

me: there's starving kitties out on the streets and you're giving me shit because your bowl isn't filled to the brim?
clyde: you think i give a fuck about starving kitties? i'm the one in the house.
me: you should give a fuck. what if it were you?
clyde: shut up and fill the bowl, fucker. meow.
me: yes m'am.

and such is my life…