well, after almost a month of little-to-no internet connection at the ol' homestead, we've finally switched to evil cable broadband access. seems pretty good so far… and it works, which is a big improvement at this point.

it's been a busy few weeks beside, with me finally taking the time to start entering comics into the database program after over a year of neglecting the task. (which i did pretty-much simply because i had no 'net connection at home, thus no ready distraction).

i also finally managed to get out of the house long enough to go visit my friend nate (a formerly frequent commenter who's been too busy trying to make people call him Doctor to pop in for inane chatter.) it's been a while since i've seen him, and we had a good visit where we did next to nothing but watch TV and video games all weekend, which, in and of itself was pretty much an off-continent vacation for me, as little as i do either of those things.

and the most wonderful event of the past weeks has been the celebration of my one year anniversary with my incredible girlfriend. i've never managed to maintain a relationship for more than 5 or 6 months at the most, so this is a major accomplishment for both of us–her, for putting up with me, and me, for not screwing things up. being with her has made this the best year of my life–one that i want to repeat and improve upon as many times and as much as possible.

in other news, the kentucky gubernatorial race has been really ticking me off. personal attack ads are (unfortunately) not uncommon in political races, but usually they're at least defensible. the Fletcher campaign has been participating in quite a bit of it's own misrepresentation (of the candidate himself, and of his opponent), but the most egregious example has been the ads put out by the Republican Governors Association. most of these ads have been denounced as outright falsehoods by every responsible media outlet in the state, and some of the statements made in them have even been denounced by RGA members themselves. but don't take my word for it, pick up a newspaper, i'm sure you'll find mention. or better yet, a page on Chandler's site collects several quotes from papers around the state. to top it off, the RGA isn't even authorized by the Fletcher campaign to place these ads (though of course, he doesn't ask them to pull them) which are also not paid for by campaign funds. is this legal? unfortunately, yes. what it amounts to is "legally" untraceable donations to a political campaign. what it amounts to is soft-money spending to promote a political candidate. they've taken steps to ensure that the ads are technically legal (they never say "vote for Fletcher" or anything like that). and now, it's prompted similar assistance for the Chandler campaign. but at least we know that Chandler is capable of acting independently from his party and any special interests, which is something Fletcher has shown no ability or desire to do.

Restoring Truth is an interesting (if poorly constructed–hey, i'm a web developer, it's a big deal to me) site run by the Chandler campaign showcasing many of Fletcher's misrepresentations, and outlining how his political speeches don't necessarily reflect his voting record. on one of the pages of this site, it mentions that it was put together for about $50, which is pretty believable when you consider the number of typos and misspellings i caught while going through it. the navigation leaves a little to be desired as well, but the information is valuable and worth the effort to retrieve.

one of the things that Fletcher constantly tries to push on Chandler is an association with the scandal-ridden Patton administration. for anyone who actually believes this line of bullshit, i'd recommend you read (at least) this page outlining Chandler's Ethics Plan. overall, it outlines Chandler's commitment to government ethics, and in several places lists supporting evidence from his years as State Auditor and Attorney General. like specifically, how he has cracked down on members of his own party when they've done wrong.

in the end, you need to get out there and vote for who you most agree with. and keep in mind while reading that a "spin-free" forum doesn't exist. Chandler applies spin, Fletcher most certainly applies spin, i apply spin. try to get the facts, and when you can't build a complete picture, at least be aware that you can't.

i'm going to vote against Fletcher because i don't like his politics, i don't like his ties to the special interests, and i don't like his lying to the public. i'm going to vote for Chandler because i generally (though not totally) agree with his politics, i love his ability to break from strict party loyalties in pursuit of justice, i like his committment to ethics in government (self-policing and watchdogging), and i like how he's tried to run a "clean" campaign (if you disregard that mess during the primaries) promoting his own merits and outlining his opponent's record without resorting to snippy and erroneous personal attacks (as far as i've seen).

but again, to reiterate, read shit for yourselves, get the facts, make your own decision. what's right to me may not be for you, which is what democracy is all about.

so, there have been a whole slew of things i've wanted to post about the past few days, but i've been Biz-AY. i'll attempt to recap.

Sara's race went well… er… except for the whole knee-collapsing-almost-falling thing. but she was a trooper and finished the race anyway. she may not've gotten the time she wanted (it's not like she was really doing it as a competition anyway), but she finished, and that's the important thing. i'm really proud of her. she didn't even start training until January, and she did the whole Louisville Triple Crown. have i mentioned what a lucky guy i am?

our trip to visit the fam went well, also. the entire family, of course, was thrilled to see my sister (the frenchie) who gets to come home twice a year if we're lucky. i'd like to think they were thrilled to have me home as well, because they've probably seen my sister more recently than myself (she went with them to visit dad's side of the family at christmas, i believe). but this is, of course, because i'm just a bad son who never calls or writes or visits without some sort of prompting. i don't do it on purpose, really. i just allow my life to interfere with itself too much.

anyway, the trip went well. sara had a good time i believe, and likes my family, so that's good. they definitely like her, so that's good too. it was also very cool to get to take an extended trip (24 hrs, but still) with my girlfriend. i'm looking forward to many more road trips with her.

i was visiting sharon's site the other day, and she had a post talking about how some scientist in America was getting "boycotted" by a scientist from Italy because of his citizenship. basically, the italian scientist pointed to the questionable foreign policy of our government, and in fact, to the current American cultural climate as a whole as reason enough to entirely boycott American science. i many ways, i understand and agree with this Italian scientist. there is not much in our current political administration or in our current cultural mainstream that i would agree with or support in any way. our leaders are insane, greedy men. our people are needy, greedy, and largely self-centered. the "upper class" won't make an effort to raise the standard of living for the "lower class", and the "lower class" finds it hard to break out of the habits established by their predecessors. we all apparently want to be fat & lazy & get everything for nothing. (these are broad statements, probably too much so. there are almost always exceptions). anyway, go, read the post.

yesterday, i finally got the latest lucifigous prick demo tracks online. go check 'em out. these are definitely our best room recordings to date. we're really really pleased with them. they sound great for room recordings. i can't wait to actually lay some real tracks down.

today, i just uploaded and updated Old Man's site, for the sole purpose of adding their new demo track. they just got to play around with Pro Tools a bit over the weekend while i was out of town, and they really put together a stellar track for their first experiment with the new equipment.

i've a good feeling more tracks will be coming very shortly from both bands.

ok. i think that covers it.

woohoo! i finally found a plugin for WinAmp3 that will let me update the MP3 of the moment thing. (look at the bottom of the most recent post, and/or my webcam "portable"). i had switched to exclusively using WinAmp3 for a while, then i decided i wanted to do the MP3otM thing, realized there weren't any decent plugins to do that with WinAmp3, so i had to switch back to WinAmp 2.x. (which has just been updated to 2.91, for those of you still using the 2.x version). anyway, i finally found What's Playing today, and did some quick hacking to get it working with the existing javascript code. When i get a chance later, i'll probably move it totally over to PHP scripts, but it's working right now. yaay!

tomorrow (today, technically–the 26th) is the day when Sara finally runs the last leg of the Louisville Triple Crown–the miniMarathon. i know she's excited (mainly that it'll all be over soon and she can quit putting herself through hell) to finally finish. i just hope she doesn't hurt her knee any worse than she's already apparently hurt it. in any event, i'm sure she's going to do well.

and, (strange, this was supposed to be a quick update) my sister got in town on Wednesday night and has been staying at the house. it's been pretty wild to see my sister pregnant and to be talking with her about all this stuff, watching her, basically fawning over her to make sure she's got everything she needs. it's pretty cool.

later today, after the race and breakfast, we'll all (my sister, my girlfriend, myself) be driving down to my parent's. this'll be the first time Sara's met my parents, and though she's nervous, i know my parents are going to love her. plus, with my sis being in from France, and pregnant, i think they'll have bigger things to worry about than giving my girlfriend a hard time. i guess we'll find out though, eh?

(A.K.A. mish-mash)

so, i haven't updated in a week or so–as usual, unfortunately–but i'm still around.

sara ran the 10 Miler and finished in 1hour 40minutes, which is better than she had expected (running an average of almost precisely 10 minute miles, which is her normal pace). she did great.

this past weekend it seems like i was just busy busy busy… a party friday night after spending most of the evening with Sara. then on Saturday there was a big shindig at our friend neil's new apartment (neil of Old Man fame), which was quite fun. then on sunday was dinner with sara's family (for her grandfather's birthday) and then the usual sunday night band-practice (with the twist of it being our next-to-last pre-show practice). all in all, it was a fun weekend, but i'm feeling a bit drained today.

protest-records continues to release additional volumes of material, and the Mudhoney track released there is quite good and taps into that almost tongue-in-cheek flair they get when they're writing political/or social-commentary songs. Mark Arm!

i keep finding things that i think i should post about, then forgetting what they were before i make it back to a computer or out from under my workload long enough to type something up. but this little tidbit i *just* found, and am surprised that i hadn't heard of it's existing before now. it's the annual human-rights report compiled by the U.S. State Department which lists all known human-rights violations perpetrated by all countries in the last year. If you're a human rights activist and *aren't* aware of this (and have several hours to spare, reading) you should get your ass on over to the 2002 Human Rights Report to see which nations you should be pissed at, and which nations you might want to reconsider taking your vacation in.

and later this week: lucifigous prick rocks the Rud. Apr. 11th (that's this coming Friday, for you slow people), 10:00PM, $4.00 cover. it's gonna be a great set, and we're opening up (which means get your crazy little asses there before 10:00PM) for a couple great bands: blue goat war and front porch campaign. come with your rockin shoes on.

well, tomorrow Sara runs the Papa John's 10 Miler, which means that i get to get up before 7:30 am again on a Saturday. Thankfully, she's only planning on doing the Triple Crown once. 7:30am was not meant for Saturdays.

found out about protest records the other day–it's a site run by Thurston Moore to collect the anti-war projects of different musicians. so far, there are two volumes of mp3s on the site, and there's some really good stuff in there. I originally found it because Mudhoney will soon be releasing a song as part of this project.

i've been having one of those weeks where i just haven't felt right all week. i'm not sick or anything, i just can't seem to get to bed before 3:00am, and my body feels like it's turning on itself. as if no matter what i'm going to do, i'm just going to feel miserable & uncomfortable. i think i just need more regular sleep. i think that would help a lot.

don't forget: April 11th, the Rudyard Kipling, 10:00PM, $4.00 cover.

ok. now that paris is out of the way, i can get on with the real business at hand here on bipolar, which is–or rather, should be–interesting and regular posts about inane facts of my life. in honor of St. Patrick's day–which i may or may not have any real right to celebrate (the question of the Rasnake wick having been dipped in an irish well at some point in the past has never quite been answered to my satisfaction)–i give you my first post Paris posts post.

this weekend i had the extreme pleasure of getting to see several old friends again, people who i don't see nearly often enough though some of them only live 30 minutes away. on Friday, after a lovely evening attending a catholic fish fry with Sara and family, and after leaving her at home so she could rest up for the Rodes City Run, the first leg of the Louisville Triple Crown. after getting home, i had planned to just eat some dinner (one piece of fish between two slices of bread not being sufficient), watch some TNG episodes on DVD, then go to bed myself before 1 in the morning so i could get up early and awake enough to go meet Sara at the race and be there when she crossed the finish line.

well, as luck would have it, Kenny, Christanne, Shawn, and their friend… Rosanne, i think… decided to come over after the show they'd gone to was over. then we all went out to wicks so they could eat and we could all hang out, drink, and have a good time. this is exactly what we did, and amazingly enough, i was still able to get up in the morning and go down to the race (though i didn't get to see Sara before-hand, as an ungodly number of people were there). i did end up meeting up with ben who was there to support his wife, and we palled around town down to the finish line where we waited for them to appear. both Sara and Kelly finished the race in good time, and none the worse for wear. afterwards, we went out for a celebratory breakfast at the cracker barrel.

by the way, for those keeping track (all… none of you) this whole race-day thing involved me getting up by 7:15 on a Saturday. the fact that hell has not yet frozen over still somewhat surprises me.

anyway, and to continue, later that day after showers and relaxing, we met up with Ben & Kelly again at the St. Patty's day parade. ben took some pictures with his handy dandy digital camera, a few of which were of sara & me. Sara was very excited by the possibility that there would be things (candy, beads) thrown from the floats, and i had to explain to her that in pretty much every parade in my hometown, most of the floats were well stocked with (at least) candy. i can't remember a parade where candy was not thrown. (finally, something my hometown does better than a real city!)

during the parade, we met up with geoff and his lady-friend, and geoff offered up a little of his stash of irish whiskey with which to increase the potency of the celebration. needless to say, it did the trick. after the parade, we all retired to geoff's girlfriend's house (i hesitate to attempt spelling her name, as i know i'll get it wrong), where more irish whiskey (bushmills, for those interested in that sort of thing) was consumed and a pleasant time was had by all until stomachs started grumbling.

we decided to walk homeward, and stopped at the newly re-opened Wendy's for a bite of dinner. this Wendy's has been closed for over three months… you have no idea what a traumatic experience this has been for me, but it is finally over, thank goodness.

now, it is shortly after this point that the carousing and consuming that i'd been doing over the past 14 – 16 hours started to catch up with me. once we got home, my stomach was expressing its displeasure with me, so we lay down for a nap–sara, myself, and my stomach. at some point a bit later, neither of us is sure because we both were out like rocks, paul called to let us know where everyone was (we were planning on meeting up with my friends again and having another night of revelry to celebrate Christianne's 30th, but no plans had been established or expressed to me), so we got up and went to meet the gang at applebees.

after applebees, we adjourned to the crapfest that is Jillians where we played several video games that cost way too much money, and otherwise sat around, drank, and hung out. after soaking in the Jillian's atmosphere (such as it was) for long enough (too long) we decided to again adjourn to a more familiar, more lively, less expensive locale–the backdoor.
we got there, got some drinks, hung out, carried on, had some fun, and then it was time to go home. All-in-all, it was a very enjoyable day.

Sunday i slept 'til three. PM. as usual.

in other news, i'm going to be an uncle! yup, my loving sis is finally pregnant. in fact, here's a picture of my little niece or nephew:

this wasn't too much at once, was it? sorry, it was a very eventful weekend.

it's taken me nearly 30 years, but i've finally figured out a few of my favorite things. (i have a hard time limiting myself to just one favorite, so the fact that i've finally done this is a big deal for me.)

Movie – Amelie from Montmartre : the first time i saw this movie, i fell immediately in love with the main character. i knew that i liked the movie a lot, but before i rented it and got to watch it again, i had settled on "So I Married an Axe Murderer" as my favorite movie. shortly after i finally decided on "So I…", i rented Amelie, and my recently picked favorite was quickly deposed.

Album – Monkeywrench – Clean as Broke Dick Dog : i've been saying for years that this is the greatest album of all time, largely tongue in cheek, but i finally realized that this album–of everything i own–is my absolute favorite. This first disc by some of the influential players from the Seattle "grunge" explosion, was an exploration of blues music as the roots of modern rock & roll, and particularly of grunge–the "Seattle sound."

Restaurant – Irish Rover, Louisville, KY : I've long held the Irish Rover to be "one of" my favorite restaurants, but i've finally taken the plunge and singled it out as the numero uno of restaurants in my personal pantheon. In fact, as i was thinking this morning, and to pull out an inside joke from the old days… if Jesus were to give me a plate of fish & chips, he would've ordered it from the Irish Rover.

i've been trying to decide for several years on a favorite color, and it's either black or a dark purple… but then, i don't know if you can really *pick* black as a favorite color. it seems like it's one of those staples that you just aren't allowed to pick… i dunno.

those are the only favorites that i've managed to settle on (well, i've got my favorite girl now, but she knows who she is). just don't ask me for top ten lists, 'cause i don't work that way… i like too many things too much to narrow it down that far. that's why these favorites are such a big deal to me–it's a miracle i managed to figure them out at all.

in other non-news, there's a fun little discussion going on over at the new louisvilleshowcase.com where we started out talking about all the crappy emo rip-off bands, and moved on toward rip-off bands in general.

and yeah, still haven't got the last Paris entries up… i know you're just dyin for 'em.

well, christmas time is upon us, and i'm heading out of town for the (now twice yearly) visit with my grandmother and extended family. i'm looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy the holidays, because it seems like i've been just running about like mad for the past two or so weeks… christmas present shopping, christmas party planning, lucifigous prick show planning & practicing, and website moving. feels like there've been too many stops & starts in the past few weeks–run about like crazy working on five things, then briefly stop, slow down, and enjoy one of these things that i've worked very hard to make or help make happen. then crank it back up and work some more 'til i can enjoy another one of them.

i've also been spending a large amount of time with the new lady in my life–a wonderful beautiful girl with whom i have fallen deeply and blissfully in love. i'm trying to take advantage of her free time right now, because i know that when she starts school in the Fall, i'm not going to get to spend nearly as much time with her. and speaking of this new love of mine, this will be the first christmas in many years when i've actually been with someone and had to leave them behind during the holidays. it's going to be such a mixed emotional bag, this christmas, but i think i'll survive.

anyway, it's been such a ghost town around here lately, what with the server problems and us both having new ladyfriends and thus not posting a whole bunch… i just wanted to make a post before i head for the mountains of Virginia to wish you all happy holidays.

may you all find warmth and happiness among family and friends.