wow…fun weekend. what i remember of it, anyway…

friday night we ended up over at joe's house, drinkin' and carryin' on. from there we walked down to cahoots until they closed, and then over to blaine's. blaine cooked some pizza and apparently i passed out on the floor. i woke up at 7am when blaine had made the decision to go ahead and pass out, himself. brooksie and i then walked back to his car and went home.

i ended up sleeping incredibly late and missing the majority of the 9/11 memorial pool party (never forget!), which is fine by me, honestly. i love my friends and all, but that water was fucking cold. freezing. hardly anyone was swimming due to the ridiculously cold water. we did play a half-hearted round of pool volleybal, but that was about it. after that, i ended up heading home. i puttered around the house for a little while and thought about playing some videogames, but ended up laying down for a nap, trying to recuperate a bit more from the night before. danny called and woke me up a couple hours later and then we ended up heading out for a could rounds of lazer blaze. also known as "a couple rounds of getting shot by nerdy 14 year-olds." i'm getting too old for that shit.

after that, danny and i just hung out and shot the shit for a while. i ended up going home and to bed pretty early.

sunday was the blaine baby shower, which was, honestly, terrifying. i can't imagine what's been going through his head, lately. i spent the afternoon stealthily avoiding having to play baby themed games and drinking free beer. from there i went home and then over to danny's for some halo. everyone left early from halo, so we just sat around and watched some family guy and aqua teens.

and now i'm at work. damn it.

in closing: the new hot snakes record fucking rocks.

ahhhh…sweet friday. how i long for you all week long. at least i only had to work three days before getting to you, this week. i will get no such pleasure, next week. but the week after, sweet friday…i won't have to go to work. i'll be hanging out with you at my house. and then at a show. that i have no clue who else is playing or what time to be there…

tomorrow brent is having a 9/11 memorial pool party. we will never forget.

other than the pool party, i don't think i'll be doing much of anything, this weekend. i want to try to shcedule a band practice, as we haven't gotten together in a couple of weeks and we have that show in a couple more. i'd like to practice a couple of times before that, at least.

i'm fuckign boring today. i ate chinese food for lunch. see? i have nothing interesting to post except the fact that i had chinese for lunch.

oh…i've heard the new hot snakes record. it's badass.

last night when i got home, i downloaded western digital's "handy" little hard drive diagnostic tool and ran it to see what the fuck is wrong with that thorn in my side. this yielded disheartening news, sneding me to a page instructing me to fill out an rma form for an immediate replacement and all but filling that form out for me. it also had this helpful little bit of advice: "back up your data immediately." yeah? no shit? well let me tell you, western digital…I WOULD LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN TO BACK UP MY MOTHERFUCKING DATA, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! BUT IT APPEARS, SADLY ENOUGH, THAT THAT IS THE WHOLE FUCKING PROBLEM!

ahem…

the hard drive is in the hands of a co-worker who has pledged to attempt to salvage my data for me. i'm praying to whatever technology gods there may be. hopefully i don't have to sacrifice anything. well…i guess i could sacrifice that old 386 matt left in the closet. you got a problem with that one, matt?

other than that, just work, work, mountain dew pitch black and more work. i really need to cut back on this cracked out grape soda shit. it was almost impossible to get to sleep, last night.

there's a new pizza-by-the-slice place in town. the difference between this place and your local, mall-anchored sbarro's is that this one is two doors down from kopilot and smack in the middle of the highlands' bustling "bar district." oh yeah…and it's open until 5am. i went down there last night at about 1 to give it a test drive. honestly, i wasn't really optimistic after danny said it wasn't that great and kevin labelled it "the worst pizza he had ever had," but i went anyway. and…those friend sof mine were proven wrong, to an extent. i though it was pretty decent, especially considering it's a brand new place and that most of their clientele will be raging drunk when they eat the food, anyway.

now…i need to get back to work.

after a really nice weekend in columbus, i come home to my computer deciding that it doesn't want to work anymore.

actually…that's not entirely accurate. the computer itself seems to be working. it's the new 80gig western digital hard drive that seems to be failing in a most grandiose way. the best part about it? i had just deleted all the stuff from the other hard drive that i had moved to the new one. i figured "it seems to be working fine, i guess i don't need these incredibly useful backup copies of all of this important data of mine…"

which is to say, in layman's terms, that i'm a fucking moron.

i have someone that has volunteered to try to retrieve and back up the data on the drive for me, before i send that fucker to the big computer junkyard in the sky. well…more accurately, back to western digital for a warranty replacement.

let me tell you…i actually picked my computer up off the floor last night and almost threw it out the fucking window. i was, in the parlance of today's youth, pretty fucking pissed.

but now i'm at work, under the calming influence of assholes who can't get their email…hrm.

but i did have a wonderful weekend in columbus, despite my allergy attack / sinus infection. it's always good to spend some quality time with the lady.

tonight i plan on spending some quality time kicking the shit out of my computer.

as soon as i get excited about something and post it, it instantly gets debunked. splendid. i was really excited about that one, too.

ahhhh…friday. if saturday didn't have such a dear spot in my heart, i might consider calling friday my favorite day of the week. i love friday because it means that, no matter what happens, it's the last day of my work week. i also try to do as little as possible. good ol' friday, indeed.

tonight i figure i'll cruise over to the rud, after work. follow the train is playing with your black star. gotta fulfill those friend obligations, i guess. i'm actually rather excited about seeing follow the train, as i haven't gotten to witness dennis' new musical endeavor. i've heard they're really good.

got the new isis record, last night. listened to it on the way into work today…great stuff. look for it when it comes out in october.

tomorrow i'm off to columbus to spend the holiday weekend with the girl. i'm looking forward to just hanging out and decompressing for a while. it should be nice. i'm trying to think of a nice dinner we can cook, but i'm drawing blanks. i'm sure it will have something to do with chicken and mushrooms…

maybe stuffed chicken breasts over cheese tortellini? mmmmm…

there' nothing like a late summer get together over at a friend's house. especially on a wednesday. i think midweek gatherings should be mandatory, that way the weekend dosn't feel so far away.

last night, while sitting in joe's floor, listening to dark side of the moon, i had one of those moments of clarity. i thought back to my childhood and saw those memories for a different perspective. i saw life as my parents probably saw it: good times and hanging out with friends, listening to music. noble pursuits.

on another note…this mountain dew pitch black shit is like grape soda with some amphetamines thrown in. it's pretty crazy. add the fact that they were "2 for $2" at K's, this morning and you have the makings for a pretty wired day. excellent. or not so excellent. i guess i can't make that call until later…

and on a completely different note…"an unexplained radio signal from deep space could — just might be — contact from an alien civilization, new scientist magazine reported on thursday". whoa. and, for all you geeks out there, the signal was picked up therough the seti@home project. awesome. i knew there was a reason i ran that screensaver…

okay…this is getting freaky. the power has gone out in the morning, two days in a row. today it wasn't as freaky as yesterday, though…

yesterday i was up, about to head out to lunch before work and the power went out right when i was checking my email. no big deal, i guess. except! right when the power went out, the phone started ringing. weird. i fully expected to answer the phone and have some crazy dude start screaming on the other end "this is what you get when you fuck with me, motherfucker!" you know…some serious twilight zone shit. so anyway, i run downstairs to answer the phone (due to the fact that my phone is cordless and useless without power) and as soon as i pick it up…the power comes back on. on the phone is mr. mike blaine, telling me his expected baby will be a boy. if that wasn't some kind of fucked up divine message, i don't know what is. harbinger of the apocalypse, anyone?

so…yeah…the pwer went out this morning, as well. but there was no phone call, so it was nothing special.

i spent the entire pre-work portion of my day seemingly running late, but everything worked out to be right on time. that's a great feeling, especially after you're rushing around, stressing your shit, trying to get to where you need to be. then you show up right on time and you're like "hell yes, motherfucker! eat me, time!" and then you do a victory dance, poking your finger in some random passerby's face, yelling "motherfucker!" a couple more times, for good measure.

at least that's what I do…

ahhhhhh…wings. i really love monday nights. there's just something about $.20 wings, $5 pitchers of beer and hanging out with friends. it really can't be beat.

well…maybe being able to get more sleep beats it, but it's a toss up.

other than that, nothing really interesting is going on. after wings joe and i went over to blaine's house and ended up watching the wall in high definition. it was…engrossing. to say the least. i didn't end up getting home until after 4:30am.

and then i was back up at 10am (and then back to sleep until 10:30) to go to lunch with my grandmother before work. right before i left the house, blaine called to tell me that his impending spawn will be a boy. yep…there will soon be "son of blaine." i told him i'd buy the baby an assault rifle if it's a boy. guess i better start shopping.

man…i'd love to get derek hess to design a show poster for L&N…

not much else going on. i'm going to columbus on friday or saturday to spend the long weekend with the girl. just takin' it easy until then…

yesterday was one of those awesome late summer days. my buddy brent had a small little pool party. we all converged on brent's house on what was supposed to be a horribly rainy day and ended up having a blast. the rain held off and the sun even came out for a little while (giving me a bit of sunburn on my shoulders and some on my face). many games of pool volleyball were played, and it was just a whole lot of fun. we're hoping to have another one the weekend after next, as a "last pool party of the year" kinda thing.

prior to yesterday, i had not been swimming at all, this year. my legs are now profoundly sore. i really need to start getting more exercise.

the show went pretty well on friday night. we butchered (or rather i did) the second to last song we played, but brought it back home with a new song. i broke a string on the second song and dropped about a million picks. oh well. there were a lot of people there, we didn't sell any shirts, we met some new friends (a band called christine from nashville)…everything worked out.

speaking of L&N, we've finished the demo (aside from mastering) and posted one of the songs on our myspace page. we may offer the full demo up for download when we launch our full website.

and now we're playing another show at woody's on sept. 24th. we're keeping to about a show a month, at this point. i'd like to play somewhere besides woody's, but at least we're not having to expend any effort to play these shows. all we have to do is show up and play. not a bad deal, really.

even though i'm at work and i hate it, i woke up this morning to an email from the girl. i'd say that balances out just about any amount of crap i get dealt today.

jesus. i've completely dropped the ball on posting, this week. i wish i could say i've been busy, but i really haven't. i've just been sitting around the house the past couple of days, doing nothing. i've had a shitty stomach thing going on, so at least i have a quasi-excuse.

i did go see garden state with the girl on tuesday, though. it wasn't half bad. i'd even say it was good. but brooksie seems to think it's the greatest thing since they started slicing bread, which i'm not really agreeing with. he's also saying it was better than eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, which has me thinking he's gone completely insane.

for the record, i actually started a post on monday, but i closed out of firefox without saving it, so it was lost. oddly enough, it had the same title as this one.

i've come to the conclusion that i really, really hate my fucking job. even after having a rather long mid-week break from it due to my illness, i hate it. i think i actually hate it even more. i swear…if my job were a human being, i'd kill it. i'd kill it and spend the rest of my life in prison laughing to myself, saying "i got you in the end, job! you ain't ever gonna fuck with me again!"

or maybe i'd just punch "job" in the face and tell him i fucking quit.

either way, we have a show tonight, which i will probably be late for, due to my ridiculously shitty job. i asked them if i could squeeze out a little early, due to the fact that i have an obligation to rock a few total strangers over at woody's, but they declined, saying "we're too busy."

yeah…i'd also spit in "job's" face right after i quit.