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.

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.

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…

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.

ahhh…the best laid plans , and all that. i had intended on posting on monday, once i got back form chicago, but work buried me and burnout reared its ugly head, so here we are at the other end of the week.
my weekend went really well. on friday, we drove up to chicago for the big nerd prom (the chicago comic con 2006). when we got up there (which is skipping the unheard of 7 1/2 hours it actually took us to get there), we stopped in at lollapalooza to see hometown boys my morning jacket rock a few thousand people in the middle of downtown chicago. it was a really nice day for it, too. probably one of the best shows i've seen in a while.

the next two days were all nerd shit. wandering around the aisles of retailers and artists, trying to secure sketches for the ever-growing hellboy sketchbook. an artist i'm a bit of a fan of (dustin nguyen) was there, doing sketches and selling original, published pages for $20. to those that have no clue, that's an insane deal. they usually go for a bare minimum of $75, and on up into the thousands.

saturday night, my travelling companion decided to pass out early in the hotel, so i headed down to the convention hotel's bar, to drink my night away with nerds and comic pros, alike. i ended up meeting some hardcore/punk dudes that had the same general plan (they were from ann arbor). drinks were downed, metal was discussed, jack sparrow was brutally cockblocked (bonus!), hot girls disappeared with the one semi-attractive comic pro, and we ended up out in the parking lot with some older metal dude (who claims he used to smoke crack with al jourgensen), blasting the newest celtic frost. a five man heavy metal parking lot at 4am. not bad.

i haven't really done shit since getting home, really. mostly sitting around, though it feels like i've been really busy. busy doing nothing, i guess.

today just isn't my day, it seems. connor and i just got back from lunch. we said "hey, let's try cafe kilamanjaro, today. that sounds tasty." so we mosey over there and jump in line. i ordered what sounded (and smelled) like a real winner: jerk chicken wings. i mean…seriously. that sounds amazing. well…not so much. first off, the wings were cold. barely room temperature. secondly, the things had no "jerk" flavor, at all. they just tasted like grilled chicken wings that had been sitting out on a plate in the kitchen for a few hours. yeah…the rice was cold, too.

so we get back to work and i decide to get a coke. i wander over to the breakroom, plunk my change into the machine and…out pops a coke. standard procedure, right? well…this is where it deviates: the coke was warm. warmer than warm…moderately hot. what the fuck is up with the temperature gods today? are they punishing for something i did that i shouldn't have? jesus fuck christ…

oh…hey. sorry i've been missing for a while. i have a new office job that involves me sitting around, doing a whole lotta work for a little while, then just staring at the walls for a good chunk of time. so hopefully i'll be more regular, 'round these parts.