tour looks like it's shaping up. it's a wonder what a booking agent can do for a few lazy guys. talk of the tour sparked an interesting conversation:

me: damn…i'm gonna blow a lot of money on booze.
ben: no you won't…"drink tickets."
me: oh yeah…i forgot. that's why we're going on tour. free drinks.
ben: hahaha
me: you think i'm kidding, don't you?

let me just say…i'm not kidding. not by a damn sight.

anyway…matt and i went out for coffee and discussed all the usual topics, plus a few hundred more. we went to target. we bought batteries and cd-rs. now the coffee is starting to burn it's loving hole in my stomach, making it pretty imperative that i eat soon.

today was a beautiful day. i spent the majority of it riding around in the car, blasting the sultans at right around "ear bleed" levels. yeah…and it's supposed to snow tomorrow. mother nature seriously needs to work on her image. i'm thinking she's hovering right around "crack whore" these days. not a good thing.

i could think of a million better ways to be spending a saturday than sitting at work. a million. hell…most of them would include not even being awake yet. ahhh…to live the life of an unemployed drain on society…

my main beef with this job is that they have completely screwed my sleeping schedule. i work in the evenings every day except saturday, when i have to be in this joint at the brain-numbing hour of 9am. needless to say, i'm pretty tired.

and hopped up on an insane amount of coffee.

speaking of coffee…it seems like they were training a new guy at the coffeeshop, this morning. it took forever to make my mocha, mainly because the guy had two of the ever so hard to make "iced cappucino" lined up in front of my l'il order. not that i'm complaining…i just hung out and shot the breeze with tara. i guess my only real complaint is that when i got into the car and took that all important first sip of coffee…there was a total separation of steamed milk and the good stuff (also known as the espresso and chocolate). stir, man…stir! better luck next time, chief.

problem: i have once again finished all the work in my department. this is a problem since it is only noon o'clock. my ass still has to sit in this joint for five hours. five long hours where i have to pretend like i'm doing something. this isn't gonna be easy…

the most pathetic thing about the preceding paragraph is that it takes more effort to pretend like i'm doing work so that i can slack off than it actually does to go find some other work. semantics.

but then again…that's just the way life goes, sometimes.

just to fill up space and provide subtle clues as to my mood, as of late…here's the tracklist for the mix cd i made over the weekend:

february 2002: a musical retrospective
pigs on the wing (part 1) – pink floyd
i am trying to break your heart – wilco
like spinning plates (live) – radiohead
needle in the hay – elliot smith
sweet and low – fugazi
quit – hey mercedes
superstitions in travel – elliott
pigs (three different ones) – pink floyd
open all night – son volt
turnip farm – dinosaur jr.
how i made my millions – radiohead
the missing piece – faraquet
wild horses – the stones
reservations – wilco
pigs on the wing (part 2) – pink floyd

yeah…that should bring you up to speed…

friday evening. i'm really hating this "working on friday and saturday" business. i yearn for the days where i just had to pack it in and truck my ass into work on sunday morning. those were the days…

so there were a bunch of ladies in earlier. they had these huge hats on. they were insane. i was seriously thinking it was derby day or something, and no one had told me. really. big hats.

i'm digging for material, these days…i really must be. i'm talking about big hats.

but then again…the big hats are probably way more interesting than the endless tick tock of seconds clicking their way through my life. or the petty dramas. or my recurring insecurities concerning just about everything.

yeah…where the hell is "hook guy" when i really need him?

whew. i tell ya what…i had some crazyass dreams, last night. i don't know if it was all one long dream or if it was a bunch of insanity run together, but i'm gonna make my best attempt at reasoning it out…

it seems that scott and i were looking for a new apartment. i think we had a girl with us that may or may not have been dating me. we found this really big spread somewhere, and we were looking at it. i guess the prior occupants were the guys from the casket lottery, because they were all there. we wanted to check out the bathroom, but heard nate senior in there taking a shower and singing something. there was a lot of noise coming from downstairs, so we went to check it out. on the way down, one of the neighbors told us that lenny kravitz lived down there, but he's a cool guy, so don't worry about it.

well we get all the way downstairs and we hear what sounds like a lenny kravitz version of body count. from what we were to understand, lenny was starting a straight-edge hardcore band, complete with bandannas. yeah. weird.

and at some point, i was on letterman and there was a black woman breast feeding a child. then she looked at me and said it was my child, and that i would have to breast feed it. i said to her "baby…i don't lactate."

i seriously hope none of this makes sense to any of you.

i was walking around the house, minding my own business, singing "the gambler" by kenny rogers. who knew this would lead to a strange confrontation with my roommate?

me (singing "the gambler"): there'll be time enough for countin'…
scott: what are you singing?
me: "the gambler," man…kenny rogers.
scott: you're gay.
me: yeah? well…your face is gay.

yeah…scott and i aren't always the best at witty comebacks.

work was stupid. i ended up getting all the computer services work done today, leaving me with nothing to do for the last two hours that i was there. oops. so i worked on a cover for a mix cd i made over the weekend. nothing better than doing personal shit on company time.

and now i'm sitting around eating some cheesy potato, chicken, and broccoli soup. yum.

and life…she is not interesting at all…

a few months ago, sebastian and i were joking and decided we were going to start calling people "chief" and "champ." we laughed and laughed about it, but the funny thing is…we put it into practical application. little by little, people around us started picking up on it and using it. why not, right? it's funny.

well the funniest thing happened, yesterday. i opened up a copy of entertainment weekly and starng me in the face on their "hot list" is "calling people 'chief'." i was astonished. after all that work, sebastian and i have finally gotten our due. even if it's not by name.

and yes, jimmy olsen…we are totally stealing your word. if you want to do something about it, you little redheaded punk…bring it on.

yesterday was a classic high drama day for me. i really don't know how certain things are going to end up, but…oh well. the only thing you can do is sit and wait. it's always a pain in the ass when someone thinks they know the complete story when they don't and they start shooting pretty intense accusations in your direction. that's never what you'd call "a good thing."

today is my last day off, this week, so i plan on doing as much nothing as possible. i really don't want to completely hate my job before i'm through with an entire week. that would be a mess. and i have enough messes i'm dealing with, at this point.

time for me to shut the hell up and eat my pop-tarts.

forgotten story from yesterday: while i was sitting up in the self-serve computer services area, printing some oversizes, this crazy guy with a hook for a hand came over and needed to use a computer. no problem, right? well when i asked him his name so that i could log him in, he got all exasperated…

hook: i can type it! i can type my own name!
me: i understand that, sir…i'm just logging you in.
hook (getting exremely snippy): dude. hey, dude! i can type it!
me: alright, chief…be my guest.

i just put the password in and let him type his own damn name. he then proceeded to not know how to use anything on the computer. every few seconds i heard "hey, dude! i need some help over here!" getting increasingly more shitty. well…by this point, i was pretty fed up with mr. hook. so i just ditched him and charged him full price because the dumbass was sitting at the design station for half an hour, trying to surf the internet for hook porn or something.

yeah…fuck you, hook guy. stop calling me "dude."

(no offense to any of you out there that may or may not have a hook for a hand)

last night i went out to a big post-valentine's day acoustic showcase at the rud. quite a few people were lined up to play, but i only ended up sticking around for dennis (from blue goat war) and kelly scullin (from tha lways awesome second story man). both of them played awesome sets, with dennis whipping out a calssic dinosaur jr. tune and kelly was joined onstage by carrie, who is also in second story man. it was dandy.

and then i went to cahoots and got some chicken strips. i can't help it…i'm addicted. they're just so damn good…

and now i'm at work. bummer. oh well…ive only got another 3 hours and then i'm free for the next two days. can't beat that with a stick.

did i mention that ign sucks now? completely. they've switched over to some crappy pay service where you have to be an ultra-premium ass-lickin insider to even read a review of a frickin' playstation game. that's just plain stupid.

no concrete plans, at this point. maybe i'll rent a movie tonight…

note to self: get back on a regular schedule. staying up until 5 or 6 am just because you don't have to be at work until 2 in the afternoon is just not a good idea. not at all.

sitting at work in the back office, blasting circa now!, and eating these weird oat bran pretzel nuggets that scott gave me. they're supposedly healthy and stuff, but they're damn tasty, so who knows? they sure do dry my mouth out, though…

did i mention that i hate pepsi? well…consider it mentioned. why am i mentioning this? because the only refreshment machine we have in this stupid building is a (you guessed it!) pepsi machine.

damn these pretzels! i'm dying of thirst!

i have been listening to the stones pretty much nonstop for the past week or so. it's kinda cool, as well as scary. i do have a copy of that new wilco record that's deserving of a few good spins…maybe i should review it for 75 or less. if someone hasn't already…

one month without a job. i finally score a job and it's driving me batshit by day 2. this does not bode well…

sitting at work. this must be a common theme, for me. at least it's a new (old) job. change of scenery is a good thing, every once and a while, right? damn it. not nearly as good a thing as i would want it to be.

more than halfway through with my day, now. working these 8 hour days instead of the long 11 hour days i worked at the old place is gonna be a nice change of pace. except i don't have that extra day off, anymore. damn it. enough about this stupid job change.

valentine's day. what a load of horse shit, huh? it's all a corporate conspiracy to make all of us either (a) buy lots of candy, jewelry, and greeting cards or (b) kill ourselves. i'm in the (b) category.

this haircut is really starting to piss me off. it's doing that "flippy wing thing" in the front. it's drivin' me apeshit.

will you kill me, valentine?