that review of the new hot snakes record? in the can. expect it up on 75 or less tomorrow. jon didn't want to run it today because he was busy being a corporate whore.

i git my new dvr box all hooked up and running, last night. it's nice to know that the headache of getting all this cable shit hooked up and working is pretty much over. now we just have to sit back and enjoy endless channels of absolutely nothing to watch. excellent.

i had some thing i was going to write about yesterday and ended up going off in another direction. i made a mental note to post about it today, but i seem to have…ummm…misplaced that mental note. maybe i'll remember tomorrow.

congratulations to the winner of the ansari x prize. blaine and i are stoked about this. i wonder if they're taking bookings for virgin galactic yet…

wow. so how about that debate? bush came off like a little monkey hopped up on pixie stix, lying through his teeth and out his ass at the same time, while kerry came across as strong, calm and confident. i was quite pleased with it, really. that and angered by bush and the thought that so many people still believe his bullshit.

i've been listening to and digging a lot of early smashing pumpkins, lately. 10 years after the fact, i'm finally giving siamese dream a fair shake. good songs. lot of heavy guitar. right on.

tonight i'm going to see the melvins after work. i'm kinda stoked, as i've never seen them. i'm thinking of trying to slip buzzo a copy of the L&N demo.

other than that…i'm a boring individual.

seems like the last month has been a major upheaval, lots of crap going on, but it's mostly just busyness, frustration, and happiness.

the band's been practicing, and though i've totally neglected the site since before the last show, we're really not dead. in fact, we've a show coming up this weekend, which i've only just finished making flyers for, that i hope to get up around town tomorrow before practice. our second show with a drummer, and we've been coming up with ideas of how to change things around to make us happier… more on that later.

sara's and my wedding plans are proceeding apace, and we've actually been talking about the possibility of buying a house or condo prior to the festivities (once the lease is up at the current abode). we're getting ready to send out "save the date" cards, and she's been dress shopping. we finally finished "catholic wedding school" so that's thankfully out of the way, and we didn't even have to endure a great deal of that "natural family planning" crap the popesters like to foist on people. yippee.

add to all that fun the fact that sara's finally started back to school, and our schedules have been in major flux trying to adjust back into that whole routine. we're starting to settle in now, so i'm hoping to start getting some work done again.

which leads me to the next exciting thing (for me, anyway). i finally, after years and years of wishing, finally bought myself a swanky new laptop… an AMD Athlon 64 beast of fury and brilliance, that has caused me no end of heartache the past couple weeks mainly due to my insufferable need to wrest complete control over my machines from the great satan (Windows). So i got the machine and proceeded to poke and prod at it, uninstalling as much as possible and deleting a bunch besides. It was becoming a stripped down monster, but then i made some networking change trying to surreptitiously get a 'net hookup at work, and then i couldn't connect to any of my machines on the home network… so, a couple reinstalls later, a much more cautious takeover attempt, and i've finally got it in order again. i'm still installing some of the day-to-days, but it's mostly up and running. thus, this, my first blog post on the new champion. (named the hard drives after the members of Mudhoney, for those who wonder those things)

also, somewhere in there, i got to hang out with my brother who came up to the fair with the FFA, and i managed to get myself in to see the eye doctor, who told me absolutely nothing helpful. in fact, he said that, not only was there nothing that he could do about the problems that i'd come to see him about, but there is another issue that i wasn't even previously aware of, and which, surprise surprise, he also can't do anything about. some retinal specialist, eh?

and the last bit of life complicating news is that i managed to get started working on a little freelance project for some friends (and with an old Corvus coworker–ben), a thing which is currently moving slowly, but positively. i've been wanting to try to take on some freelance stuff, so this should be a good opportunity to see if i can manage to balance the leisurely bits of my life with actual obligations to others.

so, bunch of stuff going on, a lot of it just tedious, time consuming, and schedule wrecking, but thankfully enough of it happy and fun that i've not minded the other bits too much. so, here's to another 'bout of time wrestling.

i wanted to write a post, but i don't really have any (not-so) unique insights or anything to share.

i spent this past sunday in bed for pretty-much 24 hours, interrupted only long enough to get out of bed to throw up, or later, to try to eat, or to just feebly walk around the house because i was sick of being sick in bed. now i think i'm still trying to recover from being in bed so damned long. my brain is tired.

i did find an interesting site last week, http://www.last.fm/. i suppose not an entirely original site, in that it's basically an online radio station, or live365 style multiple radio broadcaster. what makes it interesting, perhaps even unique, is the fact that you can get online, tell it the artists, albums, etc. you like, and it'll suggest other user's "radio programs" to listen to. then, as you listen to the station, if you keep a window open (you can pop up the "portable" player and minimize it) you can tell the site which songs you like, and which you hate.

as you continue to make judgements, the site can make better suggestions, and, in fact, can create a "profile" radio program for you, where it'll pull songs and artists from other user's profiles who have similiar tastes.

so far, it's been picking some interesting stuff for me, though it did throw a Christina Aguilera at me earlier that i had to ban the fuck out of.

oh, and i think they've been getting more attention lately (i found them via daypop, so they're getting linked all over creation, supposedly) so they're still working out some of the kinks (my profile has been telling me i've been listening to "Tool – Forty Six & 2" all day now, so the love/hate marker thing hasn't been functional for me today).

but, you can go in and add individual artists, albums, and songs to your profile "by hand" if you want to take advantage of the "profile radio" portion of the site.

pretty cool stuff.

it seems like my review of black sabbath's paranoid is getting some interesting responses, over at 75 or less. gotta love stuck up indie kids with no sense of humor or love for real rock and roll.

yesterday i got out of work early and went about the arduous task of finding l&n a new practice space. things aren't looking up. i'm sure we'll find something, but this is a royal pain in the ass.

the more i think about it, the more i'm inclined to call yesterday, as a whole, a wash. nothing good came from yesterday. paychecks didn't come in, i had a massive headache, itunes fucked up my mp3 organization, i didn't find us a practice space…all a bunch of bullshit. today hasn't been much better, really.

the girl gets home tonight. the debutantes are playing at the rud, so i think we may squeeze over there to check out the show. sounds like it should be a good time.

other than that…i got nothin'.

so…we rescheduled band practice for last night, but it ended up getting cancelled. so now we're running down to the wire. we have one more "scheduled" practice tonight, and i think we're gonna have to practice again saturday before we load out and head over to the show. nothing is ever easy with l&n, i tell ya…we always have to cut things as close as possible.

in other show news, we'll be playing a new song. this new song doesn't have words yet. that oughta be entertaining. i was hoping to get another new song ready, but with the cancelled practices (damn you, mother nature!), it doesn't look likely. i guess it doesn't matter since we were only given 15 minutes to play. but, hey, we're not bitter. arch is playing right after us, so it should be a good time.

work has been driving me nuts, lately. since i changed my schedule, everything has been crazy around here. now, whenever i come in, there's always someone sitting at my desk. sitting there, spinning around in my chair. wasting time, refusing to move. they did this new schedule and then realized they didn't have enough desks for all the new full-timers they hired. way to go, people. way to fucking go. now i have to suffer, sitting at some chick's desk that's packed with all kinds of weirdass my little pony bullshit.

my friend mike still doesn't have power at his house. he doesn't expect to have power for another couple of days, as there are multiple trees laying across the street in front of his house. he and i decided to go out for some drinks and shoot the shit, just to keep him from having to sit around, doing nothing in the dark all night. so we spent a few hours and a few dollars wettin' our whistles down at the outlook. i've decided i really like the outlook…on weeknights. i can't stand the place on weekends, though. come friday and saturday night, the place is packed with the most amazing assortment of dickheads and douchebags ever, playing dave matthews and pearl jam all fucking night long. good times, good times.

75 or less is back up. looks like jon posted my neurosis review.

time to go back to staring at that freaky fluffy thing sitting on top of this monitor…

just when i bust jon's balls about not running my reviews, he posts one of them: my minus the bear review is up over there at 75 or less. expect a few more to be posted in the coming days.

we put up a quick and dirty l&n page for everyone to…look at. we'll be listing all forthcoming shows there. the page will be getting a facelift sometime after we get done recording with kevin at the end of the month.

last night was hot wings with the girl and my buddy nate. wings were eaten, beer was consumed, a good time was had. things like last night make me appreciate my new schedule. well…almost.

i am legion looks really good. i can't wait for the english version to come out, though i wish they'd keep it at the same size as the european version. can't win 'em all, i guess.

ahhh…the three day weekend. it's a beautiful thing, really. beautiful, indeed. they do have a horrible side-effect, though…they make you not want to go back to work. ever.

then again, i never want to come into this place. i hate it. it sucks my life out through my very pores. it makes me something less than human. it turns me into a machine that clicks and clacks and types and spits out falsely cheery "hellos."

it's all just clicks and whistles.

anyhowways, practice went well, last night. i'm working on finalizing the lyrics for the show on saturday. once again, we'll be playing saturday, july 17th in tyler park, here in louisville. we play at 6:30pm on the east stage. be there or be square, dude. like…totally.

i just finished up three more reviews for 75 or less. jon is, apparently, a bastard, as he hasn't started running the ones i already have backed up with him. i suppose i will have to kill him.

in other news: danny and ellyn both had birthdays over the weekend, which were celebrated by many (including myself). our drummer had a run in with johnny law. and i'm going to get $.20 hot wings tonight.

life is…something.

not much today, as it's the first day of my three day weekend. i'm about to get to cleaning up the house a bit. other than that, i plan to do as much relaxation as possible. probably won't end up getting a chance to, though. always busy doing something stupid that amounts to nothing.

just grabbed a couple new records. i'll be reviewing them over the weekend for 75 or less to post next week. so with the two reviews in the pipeline already and 3 more i'm writing this weekend, it looks like next week may be nothing but reviews by me. funny how that works out.

here's my initial thoughts on today's new records:

neurosis – the eye of every storm : mellow. intense. beautiful.

rocket from the crypt – circa: now! : remastered. it's a lot louder. i like the new songs.

both great records. highly recommended. but i'll wait until my full reviews to completely convince you.

now i gotta run downstairs and scrub the bathroom…

to say that my blogging habits have become rather poor would be something of an understatement, i'd imagine. nevertheless, i'm still around, things are still happening, to me, just not enough discrete interesting things that i've a fount of fun events to pepper you with.

also, i realize it's a bit late in the day to be "announcing" this, but i figure that anyone who reads bipolar and is interested in my band already knows the website (which also suffers from lack-of-update-itis) so will already be informed about tonight's show.

we'll be at the rud tonight with Chumley and Tipping the Lion which is basically Chumley, just playing free-form improv rock stuff. should certainly be interesting.

the really fun thing is that i've been fighting a cold for a few days, i'm tired, i'm sick, and i may have a slight fever as well. needless to say, i'm going home to take a nap before the show tonight. at least for 45 to an hour, if i can get it.

wish us luck, and get on out to the Rud if ya can.