last night i went up to cincy with some friends to catch hey mercedes on their closest stop to louisville on their current tour across the usofa. sadly, we arrived too late to catch koufax, which was a big downer. i did see rob-dog and we hung out and shot the shit for a little while. he's really excited about their new record that they just recorded. the record, by all accounts, is fucking great, so i'm looking forward to hearing it.

piebald played a great set, which made me wonder why i've avoided buying their records for so long. a friend from boston sent me one of their early records a few years ago, and i was thoroughly unimpressed. then again…he sent it when i was in a phase of listening to nothing but pink floyd and neurosis…maybe i didn't give them a fair shake. regardless, they played a great set and i'm sure i'll end up picking up a record of their's in the near future.

hey mercedes rocked the house, as usual. they played all the hits and pulled out some stuff from the new ep, as well as a song i had never heard before. classy. after the show we hung out for a while on the bus, just shooting the shit and drinking whatever was within arm's reach. dan made me feel guilty because i never update this crazy little site, mostly due to my own laziness. so as i told him last night over "cold ones"…this post is for my man kan deehn. hopefully i'll catch up with them tuesday in chicago…

much ac/dc and jawbox was listened to, mike tried to get bob to be a hey mercedes underwear model, etc…the usual shenanigans. now i'm home, waiting for 6:30 to roll around so i can go to the park for the weekly cookout/kickball festivities. you have to love the weekends…

it seems i keep wanting to post whenever blogger decides to be uncooperative. well…now i'm taking that wild plunge, hoping that everything comes out okay…

the fourth of july was a pretty eventful holiday. i spent most of the evening hanging out at a friend's warehouse party, getting thoroughly trashed. i was there from about 9:30 until around 3am. we capped the night by crashing a pool at some apartment complex. a perfect finish to a hot, alcohol fueled night. i woke up the next morning feeling like death warmed over after it had been frozen and beaten with a hammer. it probably had something to do with hanging out all night, sweating my ass off, and only replacing those fluids with…you guessed it…beer.

the rest of the "weekend" seemed like it drug on forever. i kept thinking it was about damn time for monday to get here, and i'd still have a day or two left. and then when monday finally rolled around, elizabeth came back into town and made me go out drinking with her. i can't win…

the royal tenenbaums finally came out on dvd. i ended up watching it with my friend katie tonight, which was really fun. she's one of the millions of girls on the face of the planet that think that luke wilson is the hottest thing since grilled cheese. needless to say, we both enjoyed the movie (my fourth viewing, her third).

scott and i have been devouring veggie burgers like mad, lately. it probably has something to do with this whole "summer" thing we're currently stuck in the middle of, but who knows. we've decided on a definite "burger of choice," though…the flame grilled gardenburger. it is, qquite simply, the most delicious slab of vegetarian burger you will ever find. big bonus for scott: they're completely vegan. we recommend them with a1 sauce and pickles. amazing.

i think i need to get back to listening to the ramones…

well now. i am officially back from Vacation (though i never technically went anywhere). sitting here at work, struggling to find things to keep me busy, and since i am currently not being very successful at that endeavor i figured i'd take my lack of success to other ventures–like this weblog.

i hesitate to say that my vacation was "shitty." it really wasn't. but it also wasn't "exciting" either. basically i took a week off from work, sat around the house, stayed up way too late at night (usually 'til dawn) and slept too late in the mornings (usually 'til 3 or 4). i had the grandiose plans for a week of relentless productivity wherin i'd finish several chapters of my novel, whip my 2nd poetry book into a publishable state, make more copies of the LP demos and send them out to all those labels that are just waiting for a band that sounds like us, and probably some other things as well–as i discovered them. what actually happened was that, a few days before i "went" on vacation, a co-worker "let me borrow a copy" of Grand Theft Auto III for the PC. needless to say, despite the fact that i'm not much of a gamer, i quickly became addicted to the game and proceeded to waste almost every second of my vacation playing it. stupid stupid stupid.

now, i did manage to get a few things done despite the new techno-crack. i created and made copies of some handbills for the LP site, took the remaining copies of the show flyer & handbills to different places around town, we had a 4th of July cookout complete with illegal Indiana fireworks and a near disaster that involved a largish bottle rocket (not a tiny firecracker sized bottle rocket) falling over on it's side and shooting directly into the garage where we were all "taking cover." of course, not everyone noticed the fallen rocket, and not everyone got out of the way. it hit my friend directly in the abdomen, caught her shirt on fire (or smolder, really) and singed her "favorite shorts" and her skin in the process. she was alright–no permanent damage done–but she was a little burned, bruised, and understandably shaken.

the band practiced several times over the course of the week, including at the cookout. then finally, Friday rolled around and it was time for the Prick's big 1st show. all i'm going to say right now, is that it went well, and we are grateful to all of our friends that showed up to give us support. i'm going to save the rest of the story for tomorrow. i've really got to find something to do, lest i begin to fear for my continued employment. also, hopefully, in a few days (as i think i've said before) we'll have some pictures from the show that i can hopefully include in a post.

how wonderful is a friday that happens to fall on wednesday? today was a lazy day (as they all tend to be). i just got back from hanging out over at matt and paul's crib, which was an interesting change of pace. we shot the shit, hung out, and watched some star trek. i think the plans call for us doing some hanging out in some sort of drinking establishment later this evening.

ahhh…the 4th of july…independence day…more reason to slack off than i really need. it's kinda scary to think that everyone is going to go outside tomorrow and blow shit up and preach about how we're gonna pave over the middle east and whatnot. aside from the big barbecue i'm hoping on having tomorrow, i'm not overly excited about the impending holiday. i'm actually getting quite sick of all the blind patriotism i see around me. flag waving rhetoric that's keeping people from taking a long hard look at our own government. it really bothered me to hear people ask "how could they do this to us?" and "what did we ever do to them?" well…i'm not going to sit here and preach the gospel of whatever, but i will say that it's no big surprise that they hate us. take a look, sometime…it's all there. true…terrorism isn't a very constructive way to have your ideals heard and paid attention to. i dont endorse in any way what happened back in september.

but i will say that it was bound to happen. it was just a matter of when. and what are we stuck with now? a halfwit president who gets to make up his own rules as he goes along. and if you don't like it? you're a terrorist. you're with them.

bullshit.