i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but–aside from all the hot girls in skimpy clothes–i really fucking hate summer. especially summer in the Ohio Valley where the humidty reaches claustrophobic levels. and especially when the AC in your house has decided to be lazy. factor in the fact that my AC in my car is also not working (and that i'm too broke & lazy & anti-spending-more-money-on-my-car to fix it), and you can understand why i feel this way.

there's something about waking up sweating, taking a shower and sweating when you get out, then sweating in the car on the way to work–where it takes about 45 minutes before your body cools down enough to stop sweating. then, at the end of the day–after your car's been sitting out in the hot sun all day under it's direct harsh radiation–you leave the comfortably cool confines of your workplace for your iron-smelting factory of a car, drive home sweating your ass off, then walk inside the house only to realize it's about 1 degree cooler than outside and just as fucking humid.

the something that i was talking about is this:
it sucks. i hate sweating when i'm not doing anything to deserve it. i don't mind a good healthy exercise sweat, i don't mind a good sexual escapade sweat. but i do mind a walking down the stairs, or sitting in front of the TV sweat. blah.

so, anyway, it's hot and i hate it.

our good friend Nate came down this weekend for the cookout that wasn't. so we decided to just hangout and drink friday, and we did a good job of it. as brian mentioned, i got quite quite drunk (as did most everyone else) having consumed a total of (i think) 5 moonbeams most of which were at least 50% whiskey. i'd have to guess that i probably drank about 15 shots worth of whiskey. not too shabby.

and yes, despite the fact that i actually went to bed drunk (which is extremely difficult for me to do), and that i only got in one cup of coffee before doing that, i still woke up with no hangover. i wasn't completely unaffected, but i didn't have a hangover. i had maybe a love-letter from a hangover, or a picture of a hang-over, but not the actual hangover itself. a hint of a hangover.

saturday saw us recovering, and Nathan and I played a *lot* of GTAIII. We went to ZA's about 11ish, and saw Green Formica Table play. I'd heard Paul playing some of their stuff the past week or so, so i had an inkling of what to expect, but they were so so much better than my expectations. They were really good. right up my alley. Take a heavy smattering of experimental Sonic Youth (loud, raucous sound-scapes) tossed with a mixture of esoteric japanese girl-group pop, and you're in the same Zip-code as these guys. The guitar playing was at turns phenomenal and "dreamy." and the drummer was amazing as she sang half the songs while keeping a solid inventive beat. needless to say, i was impressed, and if you're in the Louisville area, you need *need* to check these guys out.

after the show was mostly over (all of our other friends had left when the 2nd band was playing, and we left later on in their set when it became obvious that they weren't going to be able to break out of the formulaic punk music theme) Nate, Brax, and i walked down to the Backdoor so they could split a pitcher. Having drank too much on Friday, i'd declined alcoholic beverages all night, and continued this trend at the bar.

I ran into Geoff there, not having seen him since the day a couple weeks ago when he was laid off from work. It was good to see him again and see that he was doing well. We chatted and joked for a while about various things and generally just took some time to catch up and have a mutual support & reassurance party.

Since Brax & Nate are the only sports fans in our little cloister, they were busily yapping away about sports stuff, so it was just as well that i'd found someone else to hang out and talk to for a while. The rest of the evening, i just kind of hung out and did some people watching. Sipping on my plain coke.

After the bar–more GTAIII. After the GTAIII–the sleep. After the sleep–the call from my sis in France. After the call–you're caught up.

It's been a fun weekend. I've had to set aside my projects, but i'll be back into them hard-core this week.

Ok. It's time for lunch. Gotta go get my Kefc on.

so, yes, this past week has been anti-social matt week. beginning with last Friday and the weekend i was lamenting in the last post.

as it turns out (i think i can finally write a little something about this), two *more* of my co-workers were laid off last Friday. this seriously threw me for a loop, considering that a month ago, when my boss (and two others) were laid off, we were told "well, that's the last of them for a while. don't worry about your jobs, we won't need to take such drastic measures again."

obviously, that wasn't quite right. so Friday was at least partly a result of that little tailspin i was in. and this week, the one guy in my "department" (such as it is) is on vacation. so, in a little cube world that once was home to five people, it's now been just me all week. sitting at my little desk, doing the work of 1.5 men (since i couldn't possibly pick up Geoff's full workload in addition to my own). it's been lonely. i've gone out to eat more than usual, just to have an excuse for some human interaction. unfortunately, i'm not the world's most entertaining conversationalist. i function, but only just.

next week, me and my remaining buddy move our stuff into an honest-to-god office, with windows (which our present space doesn't have). this is assuming he shows up on monday. i have no reason to think he won't, but i won't be surprised.

anyway enough of that depressing shit.

at some point this week, i was discussing music with nate, and he was, once again, trying to sell me on the whole ska thing. called it his "number two" favorite musical genre… after big band jazz. somewhere in there, we hit upon the idea that he should write up a list of albums he thinks i should check out, new artists i haven't given a fair shake to, or who i may have heard but don't own.

i have always freely admitted that my musical knowledge is not what i'd like it to be. there is so much out there, that i've pretty much just stuck with what i know. everyonce in a while, someone would introduce me to a new band, or i'd hear them listening to it enough that i'd get hooked. so now, i've got this list, and i've decided to make it a project. yet another of my infamous projects.

my plan, such as it is, is to buy an album from each of nate's recommended artists, live with it for a few days, then write up a review. i'm also planning to document this somewhere here on bipolar, and i'll probably use the reviews to up my monthly posting stats.

I managed to get out to Ear-X tuesday and picked up Al Greens' "Let's Stay Together," and Big Black's "The Hammer Party." i thought they were appropriately dissimilar selections.

I'm going to work on the master list page tonight, after (AFTER, damnit) i finally get off my ass and finish my passport paperwork. if i don't get my passport soon, i won't be able to make it to my sis's wedding in September. those of you who know about passports are probably already laughing. yeah, yeah. keep it up.

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.

well, not much has been happening, i'd have to say. busy at work, busy at home. i finally managed to finish entering about 3 months worth of comics into OmniComics (that's about a 2 ft. high stack.) got them all entered, bagged & boarded, and now sorted into their appropriate boxes.

and wednesday night i cleaned my room. doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that i hadn't vacuumed the carpet since i moved in… over a year ago… you might understand why it's a "big deal."

of course, our cats are constantly in heat, rolling around, and shedding like crazy since it's summer, so my nice black sheets & comforter are already caked in cat hair. good thing i never have to worry about entertaining female guests. har.

today has been a bit on the depressing side… i took my car into the shop yesterday (saturday, today being sunday of course) expecting to have about $275 worth of work done. got a call earlier today from the place and they informed me of all the other things that are wrong with the car and how they "need" to be fixed immediately. so, now the total for the repairs will be closer to the $700 mark, and i've realized that i've made a huge mistake.

doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that i've had a pretty good run of luck most of my life (big decisions wise, anyway–never having made a "really bad" one, or at least not many)… you might realize why it's a "big deal."

i decided a while back (you all remember the ongoing "new car" debate, right? right?… anyone?) that i would not get a new car, would, in fact, fix my Tercel run it for another year until i can save up some scratch for a downpayment, and everything'll be hunky dory. i knew going into that decision that there was some work to be done… brake pads, axle replacement, possible engine trouble to overcome… well, now out of the gate i've spent yet another $800 on the damn car. (just spent $800 three months ago-ish getting the clutch replaced)… so now i'm $1500 additional dollars into the car since the beginning of the year. i realized today that this decision was a mistake, and thinking about the consequences of making this mistake has gotten me a bit depressed. i don't like making mistakes. little mistakes, maybe, but not life-impacting mistakes. i don't like it one bit.

couldn't get ahold of Jim tonight to get a ride to band-practice, and brax had errands to run and work to do Tuesday night, so we've effectively just missed a week of practice four weeks before our first show… bleh.

bleh. bleh. bleh.

time for bed.

well, the puff and I took a little trip up to bloomington this weekend to visit (frequent commentator, and long-time best friend) nate, and had a grand ole time. friday night consisted of a lot of PlayStation playing and beam/beer drinking, and just general hanging out. on saturday, after lunch, we met up with a gaggle of nate's friends to go see the new Star Wars flick, at an almost-nice theater (much better than the should-be-condemned Showcase Cinema on Bardstown Road, which is where paul & I–regretfully–saw it the first time).

whether it was the better theater, or some other factor, i liked the movie much better the second time around. i was a bit dissapointed at first viewing… i didn't feel like it fulfilled my expectations from all of the great trailers they had for it. it was quite slow in places, and Lucas' writing has been getting more & more juvenile with each successive film. well, at the second viewing (much like my third viewing of Spider-Man), i was able to forgive some of those faults and just "enjoy" the movie. needless to say, it was, as brian said, 100% better than the crap-fest known as Episode I: The Phantom Pants-Mess. but, unfortunately, it also didn't entirely redeem that movie (in my mind) as i was hoping it would.

it was a bit funny though, coming out of the movie… pretty much all of nate's friends had largely negative reactions to the movie. it seemed a bit absurd, really.

(btw. Spider-Man is still the top dog. Star Wars only garnered $116.2 million in it's four-day weekend compared to $114.8 for Spidey's three-day total. boo-ya.)

anyway, despite the brush with negativity, we had a great day. went back to the house, watched some Batman: The Animated Series that nate had on DVD, hung out, played more playstation. We had an almost surreal experience later that evening at the local Waffle House (a not-Waffle-House Waffle House), with very strange conversation. I told nate & paul both that i'd mention the rather horrid puns being bandied about (courtesy of Paul). We were, of course, talking about the exquisitely gorgeous Natalie Portman, and paul, in response to our discussions about specific portions of her anatomy, decided to call them her "Naboobies." be mindful of the fact that i would never have written that down or repeated it, had it come from my own mouth.

after dinner, more PlayStation, more drinks, more discussion. woke up Sunday about noon-ish, grabbed some lunch, hung out some more, packed up all our crap, said goodbye to the dog, the cat, and the nate, and hit the road for home. we got back in plenty of time for paul to relax before the X-Files series finale came on, and before i had to go to band practice.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend, very relaxing except for sleeping on the floor (which wasn't as bad as it could've been since i went ahead and bought this huge fluffy comforter and a "vellux" blanket) and dreaming about sex with Denise Crosby (A.K.A. Tasha Yar from Trek: TNG). it was nice to get to hang out with nate, who we don't see often enough.

the final piece of wisdom from the weekend, was also from Paul (who may've been attempting to pre-redeem himself for the "Naboobies" comment he'd eventually make the next evening) who provided the title of this post.

well, this past weekend was actually pretty fun altogether. friday was the usual getting off work and chilling out, then heading up to the backdoor for drinks and hanging out. nothing really crazy happened, but that's just as well as far as i'm concerned.

on saturday, me, the boys, and our friends pat, nicole, and neil, and brax's gf amanda all met up at ZA's for dinner. we hung out, chatted, laughed, and generally had a good time… and, of course, a good meal (except paul, who'd spoiled his appetite by eating about three hours prior… he just had a salad). after that, we all headed up to the rud to see quasi-local (ok, Richmond, KY) band South 75 and non-local band Gaza Strippers. Local band the Glasspack closed the show, but we didn't bother hanging around. all in all, it was a good show, with South 75 pumping out some good classic-rock sounding tunes and pointing at the ceiling a lot. Gaza Strippers came out and put on an exceptional show as usual, their frontman as dynamic and expressive as any you could ever wish for. the Gaza Strippers play unapologetic full-on rock-n-roll, with no fruity twists or hypnotically repetitious stoner-rock "grooves." if you were to ask for the Gaza Strippers at a bar, all you'd have to say is "rock-n-roll, neat." and there ya go.

sunday found me being rudely (… well, ok… politely… ) awakened by my car-less roommate two or three hours before i had any intention of getting up (i.e. around 11:30am) to give him a ride to work all the way across town. since i was already up and about, i figured i'd take the time to get some christmas shopping done, and y'know what i came back with… ? zilch, nothing, nada. at least as far as real presents are concerned… i ended up spending a veritable ass-load of money on silly little stocking stuffers and other little "token" gifts for various people. but… not a damn thing of real value gift-giving wise. am i just unimaginative, am i just looking in the wrong places, or has our culture become so… insubstantial… that no one is making things that i can look at and say… "now that! that would make a great gift!" unfortunately, even i'm leaning toward the "i'm unimaginative" side of that one.

well, hopefully, i'll get a brilliant flash of inspiration in about 5 days and will make a mad dash to all the stores that have just what i'm looking for. i hate, HATE living in the midst of this consumer culture of ours. giving i've got no problem with, it's the damned shopping i can't stand. shopping malls? havens of vanity and vapidity. strip malls? same thing, only with no shoes and more of a backwoodsman's gleam in the eye. mom & pop shops? … right.

damn them all and their little green strips of paper. i want my replicator and i want it now!

it has occurred to me that my creativity is like an anemic little creature hidden away in the basement of my life. at least, that's the way it seems looking back on the past few years. it seems that it's just been feeding off of things from the past–not really growing or coming up with anything new.

i used to write scads of poems every day, i used to run around with a camera and take pictures of mundane objects or contrived still life settings. i used to read constantly. i used to make lots & lots of coffee and stay up all hours of the night talking with friends, writing, and listening to and playing music. i used to live to create new things or experience the creations of others.

now, i really miss that. now, i really want to find that part of me again.

the past few years i've been showing people old books of poetry, old short stories, old barely begun fragments of novels, old photographs, old paintings, and talking about how much i loved doing them and how much i still enjoy the creative process.

the most creativity i've expressed in this time has been here in this weblog or with the band i'm playing in. even these things, half the time, just feel like i'm going through the motions.

and, of course, the time of year doesn't help matters any. during the summer month's i'm always too hot, always just wanting to sit down and escape the heat and humidity. in the winter months i always get soulful and introspective, more often than not going beyond the point where those things are able to fuel the creative processes.

i keep thinking about it though, and i know that at some point it's going to be me, a notebook, a pack of cigarettes, and a cup of coffee. again. just like old times.

well, it's time for my bi-weekly post to what was once my daily obsession…

i've been so disconnected for a while… between a few months of hell at work (which are now thankfully starting to slow down and normalize) and the "free time" that seems to be slowly dwindling away from me through some unknown time vortex, i've barely been on my computer in a communicative, productive capacity at all in the last several weeks anyway.

of course, i spend 8 hours a day on the computer, and perhaps that's part of it… perhaps i'm finally starting to burn out on the whole computer thing. i really don't think that's the case, but i have to entertain it as at least a possibility.

really, though, after the events of Sept. 11th, the aftermath of that, and between buying DVDs, PS2 games, and not one, but two games for my PC, i've basically been doing the late 90's teenager thing of vegging in front of the boob tube or drooling in front of a 3D computer gamespace.

maybe i'm due… i never got into this stuff all that much in the past… was never much of a computer game player. of course, occasionally a couple days of my life would get sucked out by the PS1 at a time, but that was usually a rare every three or four months thing. it's just been happening a bit more often lately.

but yeah, so, we saw the series premier of Enterprise last wednesday, and it was pretty damn good. except that opening theme music which was utter crap. in fact, it was worse than that. the opening theme to Enterprise is so bad that i can't even conceive of the words to adequately describe level of disgust i feel for it.

and i bought the V mini-series DVD a weekend or so ago. it was just as good though even more cheesy than i remembered. the scene where the alien 2nd in command swallows the gerbil, or whatever it was, was just laughable.

and i've been having weird dreams lately. the first i remember was one i think i had the night i watched the first half of the V DVD, which apparently was my mind combining the World Trade Center attacks with the V story. we were up in a tall building some 200 stories up, and all of a sudden the building just leans over and falls to the ground. we're alive but scrambling to get out and to find people with our high-tech devices. we eventually make it to a house, but it's quickly taken over by what is apparently a human militia group and we're kicked out on our ass.

not sure what that all means, i guess it was just my subconscious trying to come to grips.

other dreams have come and gone, but this morning it was dreams about my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend (previously dubbed "idiot-jerk") who were being nice if not overtly friendly towards me. i'm guessing that this dream was trying to tell me to forgive "idiot-jerk" and get over it and on with my life or whatever, but i don't think i can do that. forgive him, i mean. i think i'd like to hold onto that for a little while longer.

otherwise, i've been happy and healthy (a little too healthy if my expanding waist-line is any indication…) and apparently never without something to do.

and now, it's time for me to get out of here a little early so the systems guys can rape my machine and infect it with the Visual Studio .NET virus. apparently, i'm going to have to learn to deal with even more Microsoft crap. bah. bill gates, i spit on thee.

for all of you, our dedicated readers who have shown extreme patience in continuing to visit us here in lovely lovely bipolar land of the decrepit finicky servers… here's your reward. this is an email exchange with one of the guys at our web host.

From: "Justin Ramsey" <jramsey@dbwired.com>
Reply-To: <jramsey@dbwired.com>
To: <coffeemonk@hotmail.com>
Subject: x13design.com
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 17:12:02 -0400

Real traffic: 8096603999183.844 MB

—

and my response…

—

Justin,

thanks for your reply.

wow. that is a completely inconceivable number. according to my server stats, we only get around an average of 120 visits per day. And, again according to my stats, we've done a maximum of 98MB over the past nine days. i don't see how this can tranlate into that impossibly large number.

Eric indicated that the server we were hosted on was experiencing Denial of Service attacks. I would tend to think that that might be the ultimate cause of this outrageous number.

If you can point out exactly what's being downloaded from our site that is causing this unbelieveable amount of transfers, please let me know, otherwise, don't try shifting blame for your inability to control malicious users from hacking your servers.

thanks for your time, and i look forward to your reply.

m@
—
Matthew Rasnake
x13design.com

as you might imagine, i really do look forward to his reply.

and…

life remains interesting.

well. i never did manage to write anything about that dream that i had… or anything else for that matter. another week has slipped by with me, once again, thinking about writing a post every day, but never quite managing to pull up blogger and actually do it. and what a strange week it's been as well. right now it's friday night, but it feels like a tuesday or thursday except that my belly is full of Denny's and there's a bag full of comics sitting on my bed in my room downstairs, so it kind of feels like a wednesday too. i'm just all messed up. the past couple of days have been fairly depressing.

now, don't get me wrong, first off my sister did come into town (from FRANCE, no less) and spent the first few days of her American vacation here at the house. i love my sister to death, and i'm really glad that i got to see her. unfortunately, visiting with her was probably the happiest part of the past few days. we all had a grand time hanging out on Tuesday night; me, my sis, paul, brax, and mr. norman (not sure how he feels about us using his name on these blog things, so i'll just leave it at that). we all sat around (as described in paul's blog) and played a game of drunken trivial pursuit until the attack of the evil succubus. after that, the party kind of devolved into bitching, whining, pissing, moaning, laughing, chatting, and generally haphazardly carrying on. of course, brax and his cancerous growth were arguing on the front porch (which is my only smoking area) so i had to interrupt them and then walk around the block while i smoked. nothing like not being able to enjoy your only refuge to really twist your spine.

then, of course, came the 4th of july. big plans for a big party with a bunch of our friends, some good food, drinks galore, and fireworks spectacularrr. so i got up around noonish figured i'd have a lazy kind of day until around 3 or 4, y'know, relax and enjoy my day off, which i did. of course, this entire time, brax is locked in his room having his soul ripped away. around 4 my sis started complaining about being terribly hungry, but i was hoping she could hold off until we got the grill fired up at jim's house around 6. i mentioned to paul (who'd already gone out and gotten some grub himself) that we should probably start gathering up the troops for the trip to jim's. his response was that it was "too late." so, seeing my big plans effectively dashed against the rocks by brax's disappearance and paul's bad mood (we could have done the cookout without brax, and perhaps that would have served to point out the stupidity he was subjecting himself to…), i got dressed and my sis and i went out for dinner. we didn't get to go to several of our first choice restaurants because they were closed for the 4th, but finally settled in at Mark's Feed Store for some good Barbecue. after getting back home i called up jim to tell him about the failure of my plans, and to suggest we might have a more intimate little gathering to watch movies or something. i also tried to call my former roommate jess to be sure she was aware of what was(n't) going on, but didn't actually get to talk to her. a few hours later, jim called back and said that she and her beau were already over there. i woke my sis from her food and jet-lag induced slumber, grabbed some movies, and hit the door. we stopped at the grocery and picked up some ice cream, then got to jim's.

after we got there, we chit-chatted with jim, jess, and john, the polite conversation eventually turning into an enjoyably heated discussion about stereotypes, homosexuality, religion and religious fundamentalists, theology, and philosophy. lori (jim's wife) got home and jess and john left shortly thereafter to go to another friend's party. so the four of us hung out and chatted a bit longer before settling on "Heathers" and plopping ourselves in the living room to watch it. after the movie we just came home and called it a night. not quite the fun, enjoyable time i'd been looking forward to, but at least it wasn't a total bust. at least i was still able to get sara out to socialize a little bit. the day had pretty much pissed me off, because my sister had decided to spend her time with me on the 4th of july rather than with her friends who were also planning (and probably actually did) some exciting things for the holiday. i'm glad i got to see her and hang out with her, but i think she'd have had a better time with her friends.

and of course, the other reason i was in an ill mood wednesday and thursday, is the conversation that my father & i had had on the phone on wednesday. i know i've talked about it before, but a bad familial relationship isn't something you can just sweep under the rug and forget about, it just keeps coming up, each and every time you interact with that person. as i said, i've already talked about it in this forum, so i'll not drown you with the details. if you're a glutton for this type of thing, you can freely search through the archives for it. but i did eventually take off from work an hour early on thursday so i could be home when dad got there to see him and so i could tell my sis bye. hanging out with my dad was worse than the phone conversation. we hung out, we talked, he made jokes, i made jokes, but when he left i was just completely depressed. i almost just shut myself in my room to read a book, but instead i immersed myself in a game of bridgebuilder.

anyway, i'm not so depressed today, it's actually been a decent day. i'm a little tired. i'm very broke. i'm going out for a smoke.