good ol' march. good ol' nice weather not hanging around. thanks a lot, mother nature. you bitch.

anyhowways…

i've decided that i hate "mary-oke" at seidenfadens on wednesday nights. mary insists on singing every third song herself and, well, she can't sing. i had to tolerate her butchering "free bird" and sweet child o' mine." the last one was almost enough to make me go over there and knock the girl out. and the other people doing karaoke? they're no better. it's no wonder i never do that shit.

ahhh…sweet thursday. i'm off work on fridays and saturdays, so this is the last day of my work week. my friday, if you will. i'm sitting around, enjoying not thinking about anything, just taking it easy. i'll be off for 5 days, after today. i'm headed up to columbus to spend some time with the girl. should be a lot of fun.

before i do that, though, i have to fix my fucking brakes. in the past two and a half weeks i've had almost the entire front end redone on my car. it's like, all at once, it became a money pit. i had the clutch replaced (something that i've needed to do for almost a year now), both front axles replaced, a new ball joint put i on the driver's side and a realignment. i also got the tires rotated and balanced to get rid of a nasty shaking that popped up at around 75mph. not cool. but the shake is gone now. and now the brakes are grinding. i'll replace those friday, though. shouldn't be a big deal.

to help offset all these crazy repair costs, i've put some old 7"s from my collection up on the ol' ebay. take a look, see if there's anything you're interested in, and if so…buy it. all of those are out of print and generally pretty hard to find.

okay…i need to get back to (not) working.

i know, i know…it's been a while. blah blah blah…get off my fuckin' back. i've actually been really busy, lately, so i have something of an excuse.

before i get into all that stuff, i'd like to point out my annoyance with nader entering the presidential race as an independent. don't get me wrong…last time around, this guy woulda had my vote if my voter registration wouldn't have been screwed up. but this time…damn it. he knows he's not going to win. why bother? why waste all that time and money to only muddy up the field and make it easier for bush to waltz right into a second term? i mean…it's a tight race, as it is. i just pray that everyone that talks the talk about kicking bush's ass out of the white house makes the right choice on election day. seriously. do not fuck this up for me. i don't like canada. don't make me have to move there.

okay…now i'll step off the soapbox and get into all the retardedly mundane things that it seems populate this "blog"…

last weekend i went up to columbus to spend valentine's day with the girl. we had some nice plans that we ended up scrapping, mostly due to the fact that we can never do anything as planned. we decided to go out and catch big fish and then go home and make a nice valentin's dinner, saturday night. dinner was delicious, mainly because i had precious little to do with it's preparation.

Sunday we ordered pizza from a place that seems to be everywhere up there, donato's. let me tell you…i will never order another fucking pizza from donato's for the rest of my life. ever. first off, the pizza took a goddamn hour and a half to travel two blocks. two blocks. the place is literally spitting distance from the girl's apartment. an hour and a half. when it finally arrived, it was ice cold. they shouldn't have even bothered cooking it, because all that "work" went completely to waste. so i called up donato's, told them i was a little unhappy with the fact that they just took an hour and a half to deliver me a cold pizza. the manager got on the phone and gave me a halfassed apology, saying "these things happen." he said he would make us a new pizza, which i told him i would come and pick up.

when i got there i asked about a refund, since i just had to pick up a replacement pizza which was originally scheduled to be delivered to me. i informed the manager that this was the first time i had ever ordered from his company and that i was extremely disappointed with what they considered an acceptable level of service. he said that i could not get a refund, since he was making me a new pizza, but he would put a credit on the account for the next time we call in. splendid. now we're trapped into eating their shitty pizza again to make sure we get our money's worth. well, after he handed me the replacement pizza and i was walking out to the car, i was thinking "this is awfully small…" so when i got into the car, i opened the box to make sure it was the right thing.

which it wasn't.

grand.

i marched back inside dropped the pizza on the counter and waited for them to make me the right pizza, in the right size. after all this trouble, the pizza ended up being pretty damn terrible. moral of the story? don't eat donato's if they have it in your town.

other than that, i've just been hanging out with billy and the viking. this usually involves lots of beer, pizza and videogames. as always…amazingly exciting.

oh yeah…my review of the probot record is up over at 75 or less. check it out.

here it is, the second month of the new year. has anyone spotted any 2004 pennies yet? that's always a good judge of the year being underway, i guess.

punxsutawney phil saw his shadow, which means, if legend proves true, that we're in for more winter. my question is…how the hell can that little guy not be startled? i mean…shit. tons of people swarmed around, tons of lights…there must be shadows everywhere. i think it would be funny if they just started doing the same thing to some guy down the road. every february 2nd, the guy wakes up and groggily goes out to get the paper and then realizes he has a million cameras in his face. he'd freak out, run inside, and we'd be stuck with six more weeks of winter.

louisville is still bathed in ice and slush from last week's little arctic blast. we had ice raining down from the sky last sunday and monday, a slight thaw on tuesday and then snow later in the week. lucky me, i slipped on the ice and fell down the stairs in front of the house. slammed my ass on the pavement hard enough to ring my head and hit the side of my back on the corner of the bottom step. bruised some muscles in my back enough that i had to go to the doctor last thursday. he gave me muscle relaxers. needless to say, my back now feels great.

i spent the weekend hanging out and drinking with joe and billy and practicing with the band. fun times.

i really haven't posted since the girl made her move up to columbus, oh. she's doing some art school up there, and now we're having to deal with having quite a bit of distance between the two of us. it's not something i'm enjoying, but there's not really anything i can do about it, short of moving to columbus, which i'm not going to do. so i'm stuck working my job every day and missing her all the time. sounds fun, doesn't it?

speaking of my job, i found this great little time waster. it helps keep my mind off the fact that i'm actually working. it's no bookworm, but it'll do in a pinch. zuma also looks kinda neat, but i can't get the game to load, here at work. oh well. shit happens.

back to work.

i woke up this morning and realized that i hate mornings. more than that, i hate work. scratch that. i don't hate work, i hate my job. i hate having to scrape myself from the cozy comfort of sleep to shackle myself to a desk and make someone else money. i know it's the way of the world, but it drives me nuts. puts a real burr in my saddle, so to speak. work…it's a bitch.

this weekend went pretty well. it snowed quite a bit thursday night, so brooksie and i did what any reasonable people would do…we went to the bar. we had a couple of drinks and discussed some of the songs we've been working on. the place was pretty dead (one would assume because of the snow), so we settled up the tab and went home. friday was just general laziness. i renewed the tags on my car. i ate q'doba. i didn't do much else, really. i started the arduous process of actually finishing joycam project, but didn't get very far.

friday night brooksie and i headed back out to the bar, with much better results. we hung with paul and mr. norman for a while and acheived our goals of getting suitably drunk. remember: it's important to set goals.

saturday i woke up before noon, which is a genuine miracle for me on a day off. beyond waking up, i decided to actually get out of bed and go out and do stuff. the previous night when i was working on joycam project made me realize i needed a scanner pretty badly. i did some research, found a really good scanner for a really good price and headed out to do some shopping. also on my list was a new phone to replace the piece of crap that died after only about 2 months of service.

a little shopping and a quick lunch from mcdevil's and i was back home with my new goodies. i hooked up the scanner since i had to wait for the phone to charge. i didn't get much time to mess with either, since i had to head off to band practice, but i think the scanner was a nice purchase, overall.

big problem i had when i got home was that my new phone would ring when a call came in, but i couldn't answer the call or get a dialtone. this is exactly the same problem i was having with the old phone, so i came to the pissed off conclusion that the phone company just didn't fix my jack when they came to repair the damage that the painters had done. this pissed me off, since i essentially just dropped more money on a phone i didn't need. i really like the new phone, so i split the difference and gave the old phone (that i never really liked) to brooksie to replace his cordless phone that was blown up by lightning a few months ago. then we rigged up some lengthy cabling to get my phone connected upstairs. i'll probably call the phone company later and try to get them to come out and fix my jack, since i'm sure the problem is outside, anyway.

after all was said and done, brooksie and i decided to watch donnie darko.

and now it's sunday and i'm sitting at work. i hate this place.

man…there's this creepy dude that sits right by the door into the office. every time i come through that door, he turns around and stares at me. i know that's normal if you sit next to a door that's constantly opening and closing, but jesus…this guy is just creepy in that wormy little nerd way. either way, i wish the little bastard would stop. or move away from the door. creepy little fucker.

so…we went out bowling with some friends for the girl's going away party, the other night (photos and video here). a lot of fun was had, a lot of beer was consumed, a few strikes were thrown (one of which is actually on video). pitchers of beer were only $5, so needless to say, we drank a lot of 'em.

while we were boozing and bowling, a friend of mine that works at a local comic shop looks over at me and says "didn't you have everyone at the chicago con draw hellboy for your sketchbook?" i confirmed that that was, in fact, exactly what i did. he says "man…i think you were mentioned in the introduction to the new hellboy weird tales trade."

so the next day, i go into the shop to see what the hell he's talking about. lo and behold and lots of cool other revelatory words, i'm mentioned as a "young writer" (despite having nothing actually published) and he talks about my sketchbook a bit. since i wasn't mentioned by name, i wasn't convinced that it was me, so i wrote scott allie (the hellboy editor and the one who wrote the introduction) a little email and he sent this back to me:

Yep. Didn't wanna mention names, as one time I did that and the person got angry, when I thought he'd think it was cool. You never can tell.
S

so…yeah. i feel super fucking cool. totally. the funny thing about this whole thing…i bought the singles of the weird tales books, so i didn't even really consider picking up the trade. i flipped through it and noticed the stories were out of order and marvelled at the sketchbook pages, but i never looked at the introduction until after said friend mentioned it to me. now i have to go out and buy the fuckin' thing.

oh yeah…there's also a new show over at transmission3000. oxes. recorded in france. it's bitchin'.

have a happy new year, suckers.

i'd like to have a valid excuse as to why i never post. i mean…shit…i'm getting as bad as matt. i used to be the anchor, around here. the "go to" guy when you were bored and wanted something to read. well…i'm failing you. i'm failing you all. i'm a failure.

as if anyone that has ever kept a "blog" could be considered anything other than a failure…

anyhowways…kurp suggested i do a new seven questions or something. i have a new victim in mind, so it's under consideration. keep your eyes peeled.

either way, i figure i should try to squeeze a new post in before the new year. y'know…slide it under the door, real quick. so here it is…a new post. there's been a number of interesting things happening, so i'll try to get to them all, probably way out of order…

it seems like someone was trying to make a buck off of transmission3000 behind my back. i wrote a post about it over there, so i won't get into it too much. needless to say, it's been taken care of.

i've been sick for about two weeks now. for most of the first week i tried to ignore it, tried to pretend that i wasn't sick at all. i finally went to the doctor and he put me on some crazy antibiotics. i finished those off last night and have been feeling a lot better for the past three or four days. hopeully i'm on the mend. the doctor said the cough would hang around for a couple more weeks, but i shouldn't worry about it. that's kinda funny, since i hadn't even developed the cough at the time of my visit. guess the old guy actually knows what he's talking about.

i spent christmas out at the girl's family's house in owensboro. it was nice of them to tolerate my sick little ass, to say the least. they did make fun of how much orange juice i seemed to be drinking. what can i say? i'm a fan of the vitamin c. we had a couple of nice dinners with the family, but i always feel slightly uncomfortable, out there. her family environment is so completely different from what i grew up with. i guess it's just a culture shock kinda thing or something.

i attended matt and paul's christmas bash the saturday before christmas. it was full of drunken buffoonery. i assure you. i'm pretty sure the night ended up with everyone trying to change matt's little brother's political leanings and then playing marvel comics trivia. then i went home and crashed. i woke up the next morning with a horribly sore throat and didn't go to work. alcohol and being sick apparently don't mix too well.

the girl should be coming home for new year's, but i think the plan really only consists of sitting on the couch and watching it on tv. it seems like all we ever do is go out when she's home, so it'll be a nice change of pace. she'll be shuffling off to school shortly after the new year, so it'll be nice to have some quality time together.

i'd make a new year's resolution to post more frequently, but my resolution list is a little long, as it is. i have to resolve to remember all the things i've resolved to do in 2004. it's pretty bad, really.

have a good new year.

i better get a head start on december and get a post in here…

thanksgiving went well. i went out to owensboro to have dinner with the girl and her family. the girl whipped up a feast worthy of kings and i made some killer mashed potatoes. what kind of family regularly shuns the wonder of mashed potatoes for holiday meals? i was quite astounded and was told "if you want them, you'll have to make them yourself." crazytalk.

well i did make them! and they were amazing! ha! take that!

anyway…the trip went well. we spent the next day watching the two towers extended edition and eating popcorn and all that day after thanksgiving jazz. i decided to come home friday night, which turned out to be a less than wise decision.

on the way home it started snowing. now…there's no interstate that goes to ol' owensboro, kentucky. whichever way you may go will involve you having to get off the main highway and take windy little backroads the rest of the way. normally it's not a problem. when it starts snowing like crazy and the roads are all frozen and they haven't salted them…not so great.

the best part was that it didn't get really bad until i actually got back home into louisville. 64 was a solid sheet of ice from the bridge until the 22nd street exit. there were six wrecks in this incredibly short stretch of highway and they actually closed the interstate down at that exit. they made everyone get off and take the regular city streets.

it took me about two and a half hours to get home from owensboro. a trip that normally takes me about an hour and a half. splendid.

tonight: the girl gets home. we'll go see billy's band play and then tomorrow night we're all going up to cincy to see low. should be fun.

okay. mother nature? are you there? could you do me a favor and calm the fuck down? seriously…this warm, cold, warm shit is getting old. quick. first it's warm out. then we have a big crazy storm blow through with insane winds and then it's cold as fuck out. then we have a little bit of rain and all of a sudden it's warm enough to go outside without a jacket. what the hell is wrong with you, woman? that is all. thank you.

moving right along…the new schedule is ace. i love it. it still boggles my mind to be off work as early as i am now. then again, it also still boggles my mind to have to go to bed by 1am every night and get up again at 9am. i'm not used to seeing the world at that hour. it's like i up and moved to some other country or something.

after about a week without any caffeine, i've started phasing it back in. i'm now drinking about one coke a day, never any after lunch (2-3pm). it seems to be working out pretty well, so far. i cheated on that big time over the weekend at the girl's house, but hey…it was the weekend.

speaking of weekends, the girl may come home this weekend, which is great. seeing her two weekends in a row will never be considered a bad thing.

we went up to see the twilight singers in cincy, last week. the show was awesome and came dangerously close to being a full-blown afghan whigs reunion. they played quite a few whigs tunes and were actually joined on stage by the original whigs bassist and their last drummer. sebastian was sufficiently jealous. paul probably will be, as well.

check out raj's blog. he's a great guy. really.

shit. i meant to post an explosions in the sky show to transmission3000, last night. guess i better get on that, huh?

well…at some point it was decided that my life needed a bit of an overhaul. it was suffering from some severe schedule issues. so now i work mornings. i come in at 10 and i'm off in the evening by 7pm (which will be awesome in the summer, i'm sure). this will enable me to have band practice any day of the week, which is nice. trying to cram that in on saturdays was starting to suck, big time.

of course, now i have to deal with the fact that my body doesn't want to go to sleep by midnight. i figure staggering through this week all tired and stuff will eventually train it to shut down a bit earlier. i hope. fucking god i really hope…

this all leads to another decision i've made, recently. no caffeine. at least not for a little while. it's making me nutty. it makes me miserable. i stopped in to get a mocha, yesterday morning. i thought i'd make a ceremonial return to proper "life." cue the misery. i was jittery and my stomach felt like shit all day. then, of course, i remembered when i was working in the coffeeshop and i came to this same realization and started drinking non-caffeinated herbal teas all the time. so from here on out it's water, juice and non-caffeinated bubbly beverages like sprite. i'll stick to that for a little while and then re-evaluate where my beloved coca-cola fits into my life.

saturday was one of the most kickass days i've had in a long time. i got knocked from sweet slumber by a phone call telling me that i got the new morning schedule i asked for. i went back to sleep and stayed there until probably about 3pm. maybe 2:30. either way, it was late. when i finally drug myself out of bed, i decided to go out and get some lunch. i went down to the local deli where one of my friends worked. i figured that i could get some conversation to go with my lunch and everything would be cool. he ended up hooking me up with my sandwich and soda, gratis. super deal. i then rolled out to circuit city to see about getting my car stereo replaced. i've been trying to get them to replace the thing for a few months now. i don't like the sony model i ended up getting after the car was broken into, last year. it has a problem playing some of my cds (mostly stuff burned in itunes on the mac). it's ugly. i just don't like it. i wanted the pioneer model, but at the time, circuit city didn't carry it. well, the other week the girl and i were in there, just looking around, and i noticed…the pioneer model (not the same one i wanted originally, but the new model of the same thing, which is actually a bit cheaper). so i went in on saturday, talked to them about it, explained that i've been waiting for months to get the damn thing replaced. they just said "okay," took the old one out, swapped it even for the pioneer model (which was about $40 more), installed it and gave me a new two year warranty on the new stereo.

total expenditure for the day: $0.00.

will someone buy me this? I wonder if there's a way to add that to my amazon wishlist…

oh…a new (old) rodan show has been posted to transmission3000. i'm just sayin'.

so we still have painters banging on the side of our house every day. this has been going on for what seems like a couple of months now. they were even out last sunday, which completely drove me nuts. sunday morning, i want to sleep in and i have a "painter" ripping the side off of my house at 10am. not my idea of a good start to the day.

we ended up not playing the halloween show. things didn't come together, which is still something of a sore point with me, but whatever. there's always next year.

the girlfriend is back out of town, so i've been moping around the house, missing her. i'll probably see hernext weekend, though, so that's always good.

i'm trying to think of an amusing story, but i'm coming up empty.