yesterday was the first day i actually drove straight to my new home after work. i've been living in the new place since Thursday, and there really hadn't been any adjustment difficulties at all. it didn't seem strange to be waking up in a new place, or altering established routines to fit the layout of the new apartment. but yesterday, when i didn't take the normal I-64 to Watterson expressway exit (the one i've been taking for over two years now, on an almost daily basis), that weird feeling hit me that i was living in a new place. it didn't last too long, but it was enough to color the rest of the evening. of course, then once i got home, i fixed myself a sandwich and trudged up the steps to the living room to sit and watch some TV with paul, and these actions again just added to the weird feeling i already had.

we're getting settled in. i got several boxes of books unpacked and shelved in the upstairs "library." i held back my extensive collection of star trek novels to put in my room so that (as i explained to paul) it doesn't "negatively reflect on you and brax." i figured i'd just keep my intellectual literature up there, and keep the trek stuff safely hidden away. i still have a few things to pick up from the old place, but since brian has his visitor here and i don't want to intrude, i'll just get them in a few days.

tonight at least brax and i will be heading to phoenix hill (a place i generally try to avoid) in order to catch the reverend horton heat show. if you're in the louisville area, you should definitely go check it out. i think it's a 21 & over show, so if you can get in, do.

the good: tomorrow is the day the puffin and i go up to st. louis for my much anticipated Amiga convention… amazingly enough, the first i'll ever have attended. i've always wanted to go to the st. louis con, but never seemed to be able to afford it. well, now i'm in a little better place financially, though i still seem to have a non-paying roommate on my hands. so anyway, big announcements are expected, but mainly i'm going up there to have a little fun and maybe get some new computer equipment to finally fix up that Amiga 1200 i was bragging about a few months ago. i'm not sure if we'll have net access up in the hotel up there, but if we do, we'll try to keep you posted on our blood/alcohol level.

oh, and as paul mentioned in his blog, he's burned an MP3 cd for our trip, so i've basically got a 10 hour puffin mixed tape to look forward to hearing. i've never known him to build a bad mix tape.

the bad: well, it's official. she's moved in. we got home from dinner tonight and lo and behold there's a moving van out front of the house of the formerly ugly orange doors. we had the pleasure of seeing "idiot jerk" walk out of the house to the moving van… er, well, brian and paul had that pleasure. i was trying to just kind of ignore the whole thing, lest i do something rash. brian however, took great pleasure in glaring menacingly at "idiot jerk" until we got the front door open. i'm pretty certain that without any of us doing anything outright, the guy will certainly know that he's not welcome in my neighborhood.

but, as i said, i'm trying not to think about it, and though i did feel that little pang of… i don't know… maybe jealousy… or something, and though i do know that at some point, i am most certainly going to freak out about this, i'm doing fine right now.

ok, here's a reduced calorie version of the post i attempted to make the other day.

( or, the story of the year 2000 )

other things that happened pre-bipolar:

started the year in the arms of a beautiful woman, who i ended up falling in love with, and who ended up leaving me a couple months later.
lost my job of two years at the local bookstore, because of my own negligence.
spent two months off work, before breaking down and taking the Kinko's job (around the time of bipolar's first month).

so, now it's a new year, i've got the perfect job, and i'm making good money. hopefully this year will be a little better than the last.

just found this interview with mark arm — you remember, that guy i drove 6 hours to a little dive in chicago to go see? — anyway, read this and you'll understand part of the reason mark arm is my favorite rock'n'roll frontman of all time.
i mean, aside from the fact that he just simply fucking rocks, that is.

james hetfield — ( i get this one quite a bit, so there must be something to it )

brian johnson — ? ( lead singer of AC/DC — i've gotten this one once, and i really don't see it. )

christopher walken — ?? ( again, once. again, HUH? )

i don't know how i feel about all this…

well, i'm at home now. thankfully i had enough foresight to find out the 800 number for my ISP before leaving the 'ville, so i can post for all you lovely people to read.

enjoyed the ride down immensely, what with the new MP3 CD player I got and all. it's a little quirky, but it does well enough i suppose. earlier today i scoured through my mp3s on my computer at work and pulled out just enough to fill a cd, which i think came out to about 165 songs. slammed them all into the root directory of the disk, deleted the track numbers from their filenames, and pretty much wrote them to the cd in alphabetical order. the funny part was that, with the player set on random, the first hour was pretty much Billy Idol, Liz Phair, Chris Isaac, Beastie Boys, NIN, & Bloodloss, then when i see the first signs for Princeton, it suddenly becomes Kid A time. three songs from Kid A–almost consecutively–played me in on the last leg from the parkway to my parent's house. i was excited and amused by how appropriately the mood was set. another funny observation i made was that, despite the number of Mudhoney tracks on the disc, i don't recall any getting played. apparently hour four would have been Mudhoney hour if the trip had lasted that long.

walked into the house, gave my mom and my little bro a hug, then pretty much just submitted myself to my brother's always animated discussions. i see a lot of myself in him, and then there are other things that he's not managed to avoid like i did when i was his age. i walk back into his bedroom (which used to be mine, ages ago.) and hear Hank Williams, Jr. playing on his stereo. i informed him that i was going to take him to Wal-Mart (the only thing that passes for a record store in these parts–that i'm aware of) and buy him a cd or two. i've decided that Kid A is at the top of my list. (paul will love to hear this.)

after somewhat settling in, we set up the laptop, logged on, chatted with brian (& paul, very briefly) for a bit, started doing some remote setup of the new x:13 server (soon, soon), and had what was basically a warm-up round of political discussions with my little bro… a mini version of the large discussion/argument i'm likely to have with my father tomorrow night after all the guests leave. thankfully, my brother's only 13, and still has quite a few years to figure things out.

happy smallpox and genocide day to all you turkey (& mock turkey) eaters out there.

g'night.

quick update from the house of the Matt's–nanette's friends who have been our kind and gracious hosts for the majority of this evening.

i just have to say that brian is my new hero. after last night's 25 minute discussion with Mark Arm, the single greatest vocalist in music today (my opinion) and subsequent picture taking… tonight he walks in from a quick trip to the liquor store with the thing we've been searching for since moving to Louisville–a 40oz Mickey's. all hail brian.

good to see Paul has been keeping himself entertained while we've been up here. also good to see he's hanging out with Brax, our frequently otherwise-occupied friend. as much as i'm enjoying Chicago, i miss my friends after only a couple days away.

we'll post much more later. i've got a fohtee to drink.

i think i may have a new monkeywrench convert on my hands. brian really seemed to enjoy the show as much as i did.

for those of you who don't know, the monkeywrench fucking rock. that's all there is to it. i was concerned since i thought the latest monkeywrench album Electric Children didn't rock quite as hard as Clean as a Broke Dick Dog… boy was i wrong. they brought so much out of those songs it was just amazing.

we had a great time earlier (before the show) hanging out with nanette who showed us around chicago a bit before we had to go to the show. looking forward to spending some more time with her tomorrow seeing sights and hopefully doing some (cheap) fun stuff. it really sucks that i had to spend all my money on my car, but, i suppose if i hadn't, we might not be here right now. luckily brian's got a buck or two, so we should be alright. if our luck holds out (it's been pretty good so far this trip) we'll have a place to stay tomorrow night that doesn't require money–if nanette can swing it for us. right now, my primary concern is finding our way out of chicago, to a hotel, and getting some damn sleep. i was so tired & hungry before we had dinner with nanette that i was starting to get dizzy. that doesn't happen too often.

there'll be more to write about, we're attempting to keep a trip log of some sort, so we'll probably have a lengthy update when we get back home.

gah. gotta get outta here. need sleep.

thought i'd actually use a song lyric for the title this time, even though that's brian's m.o. it fits, especially considering the fact that we're going to chicago to see the monkeywrench.

well, i haven't updated in a few days again. seems i've actually been finding things to do at work this past week. or, i guess, "having things forced upon me" would be a more appropriate statement. that, and i guess i tend to have less to talk about when i'm not allowing myself to be snubbed by women.

i know brian's already been touting puffin-a-go-go over on his side for a few days now (he's also been updating much more regularly and voluminously than i have, of late) but i'm gonna mention it anyway. it's nice to finally be able to link to Paul without having to resort to that out-dated crappy coffeemonk.com site. oh. wait. that's one of mine. it's crappy and out-of-date because i'm a lazy bastard. BUT puffin-a-go-go is neither crappy or out-dated, in fact, it's pretty damn snazzy, and you should check it out. knowing Paul as well as i do, i know it'll be a neat place to visit.

ok. i think that's four. that should just about catch me up to brian.

let me just state for the record that i am frightened as hell that g. dubya might be our next president. if that happens, brian, jack, and i may be on the earliest flight to australia following the announcement. hell, maybe we could even get walk-on parts as stormtroopers in the next Star Wars flick.

my day today has been interesting i suppose. woke up late, as usual, got to work much later than usual since i had to drive brian's non-car-repairing ass to work. checked my daily sites and then looked up the nearest locations of valvoline and big-o tires so i could get my car in tip-top shape for the arduous journey to chicago. on lunch, i went and got four new tires. unfortunately, i couldn't get them on credit, so i ended up spending more than i'd wanted to.

after work, went to get the fluids checked/changed/whatever expecting like $30 – $40 or something. nope. i let the guy do what needed to be done, and it ended up costing me over $70. again, more than i expected.

now, of course, my car's in good shape, but my wallet is looking a little ill. this will have to be a cheap chicago trip. i'm just hoping they sell mickeys up there. it's cheap, but it's oh so good.

though we'll be gone for the weekend, we'll be at least attempting to update bipolar while we're up there. i'm gonna pack up my trusty laptop so you all can revel in the avalanche of joy we are sure to experience. i'm really looking forward to hangin with nanette and co.

MARK ARM!

well, i'm back on the job today, after taking two days off for that whole birthday thing. thinking, yeah. i'll take two days off, come in on Friday, then have TWO MORE days off… well guess what? we're on a deadline. "we need help and you're the only man who can do it, you're the last man available, can you, maybe, work this weekend? please?"

"yeah, i guess."

ah well, this'll make it much easier for me to get next Friday off to go up to chicago and watch one of my absolute most favorite bands in existence, the monkeywrench. their latest album is pretty kick ass, btw, but i've long considered Clean As a Broke Dick Dog to be one of the greatest albums of all time. it's definitely in my (not-really-defined) top-ten.

hm. this week has been a little odd, both nights that i was off work, i ended up getting drunk (not wasted drunk, but pleasantly drunk). this is not like me. my friends usually bitch about me "never drinking with them." sad thing last night was i was drunk after only two pints of Bass. i guess i've become a lightweight again. well, we'll have to fix that.

oh, and i still haven't heard from her. i'm trying not to think about it, because, y'know, fuck her if she can't make a little effort to at least pretend she cares. lip service is all i've gotten (and no, not that kind of lip service). a person can talk about how much they care until the mad cows come home, but it doesn't mean shit if they can't make a little effort to show you. yeah, maybe she's busy, maybe she's got stuff going on. she could still take five minutes to call & leave a message, or just say hey, can't talk right now, but wanted to say hi. even that would at least be something. can't you tell i'm trying not to think about this? oh yeah.