i'm generally not a violent person, but every once in a while, if the wind is right and the planets are aligned, certain people–just by their being within my sphere of perception–cause me to imagine bashing their head forcefully & repeatedly against the metal corners of my cubicle until their blood stains the fabric walls and bits of bone and brain collect on the floor at my feet.

mind you, this doesn't happen very often.

i came across a link today that reminded me quite a bit of brian, & some of the online shenanigans i've participated in or been privy to. shauna of flaunt.net (along with a friend) has recently created whowouldbuythat.com which is dedicated to uncovering the strangest of online auctions.

in other news, i spent a few minutes last night (or hours, really) helping paul with the puffin-a-go-go. he's added a few links to his "go-go-to" section, and I managed to get his archives up and running, so all you puffin readers run over there and check up on any posts you might have missed.

well, i suppose since i'm here at work, i should probably do some.

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 it's crappy and out-of-date because i'm a lazy bastard.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!

[(- tonight, matt's bipolar update will be executed by the illustrious puffin, read well kids, this shit should be good. m@ -)]

apparently matty has been too occupied with the goddamn spider-man game to deem a bipolar update necessary. don't fret boys and girls, your uncle puffin is here to provide a little insight to the coffeemonk world.

brian transmission3000 madness as of late. it would seem peoples is going nuts over the hey mercedes show. from what i can tell the best is yet to come (mofo better get the three second kiss show up and running soon). he's got the june of 44 show from last year waiting in the wings as well as blonde redhead (and if you haven't pick up their latest album, do so. it's one of my top three of the year).

i am currently recovering from a ultimate nullifier jam session from earlier this evening. full of blisters and fatigued arms. i'm the only one with enough rhythm to play drums, so i pretty much get drafted into that position. bri and matty wailed on axes. much fun was had. however, i'm a guitarist, and my strengths as a musician are more suited there. my other musical project has been developing nicely. it's just my friend neil and i, but we are very happy with the songs we have written.

our friend bob had a letter to the editor of the LEO published this past wednesday. it was good to get a glimpse of the old bob (long story made short: drugs should be an accessory, not a lifestyle). a nice spit in the face of candied know-nothing, dare i say, journalism. well, the ending of the letter was very current bob (all mystic and hippified).

for a good laugh, check out radiskull and devildoll at www.shockwave.com. quite hilarious and oh so edgy. now, if we could only get some new sifl-n-olly stuff i'd be a very happy puffin.

more beer calls. until next time.

puffin

just a quick update concerning my recent happy news.

Jim from Corvus Digital called me yesterday, finally, and at a time when I was awake and home to receive his call. after brief chit-chat, he informed me that he was calling to "offer me a job." glory be and hallelujiah, after weeks of nailbiting and despair at my inability to succeed in the world, I have been redeemed! I am finally a "professional" web developer (well, will be in two weeks anyway), I have landed my first salaried position, and my first official position making more than $9.00/hr. maybe now I'll be able to start paying my bills on time.

in other news, i've pretty much decided to go in a completely different direction with my coffeemonk.com redesign idea. the two people who've responded with useful and detailed constructive criticism don't quite agree on the things I've attempted thus far, and I've come to realize that the old adage clearly is true–"you can't please all of the people all of the time"–and really, you can't please some of the people most of the time. (–this last is not an attack on my friends, whose time, help, and honesty I truly do appreciate–)

also, I've taken some time surfing around in that randomly connected chain that is the web, and have been inspired by some of the really great graphics design people out there, whom I could never hope to equal. my jumping off point for this little sight-seeing trip was saturn.org which is a great example of the type of web design I enjoy, and wish I could create.

I'll be doing more surfing for inspiration, and perhaps will have some new inspiration in the next few weeks (I already have half an idea tickling at the back of my head, but haven't quite got the whole picture yet).

people seem to be visiting this little cove of unreality, so I feel bad if I go too long without an update. unfortunately, I've not been doing much other than working most of this week. on the positive side of that, today I got my first paycheck in over two months! and on the negative side of that, after paying rent and bills, I'll have about 10 bucks to get me through the next two weeks to the next paycheck. i can't win.

if anybody gives a shit and has a moment, check out a possible redesign direction I'm working on for coffeemonk.com. and let me know what you think… I'm not the most experienced, self-assured graphic designer on the planet, and I'm terrible with decisions…

well, I'm sitting here at work once again, on my "lunch break" at 2:40 am. you'd think that after two months of being unemployed and having no money, and having to beg, borrow, and/or steal to pay my bills (I never really had to steal anything, but I did have to beg & borrow a lot), that I would be thrilled to be back at work, making money. i'm not. there are much more important things I'd rather be doing with my time, but most of them aren't things I'll make any immediate money from. I'd love to be able to devote more time to coffeemonk.com and get it to where I'd like it to be design and feature wise. I'd like to be able to devote more time to web development and finding new clients for x:13. I'd like to be able to spend more time working on my writing, finishing the novel and short stories I've started, and maybe even write more poetry. I'd like to be able to finish my second poetry book, and get that out on the shelves and on the site. there are lots of things I'd like to do, but "real life" seems to get in the way. maybe I don't try hard enough, maybe I don't take enough risks, maybe I'm too much of a dreamer and not enough of a do-er.

'til I get that figured out, I guess I'm stuck working a job I don't really enjoy, making less money than I should be, and wishing I could be doing something else.

I swear to god the majority of this post was written two days ago. brian made a mention about my review of Fight Club 'cause he thought I'd be able to post it after he'd read it… not so. my phone has been disconnected for two days now, and this time it's actually not my fault. so, I'm writing this little preface to this post FROM WORK (yeah.) at Kinko's. It's like 3:00 in the morning…

Here's the rest of what I'd written before.

I promised a review of the Fight Club DVD for you today, so here it goes.

buy it. now.

there's so much on those two discs, including four commentary tracks, one of which is with David, Ed, Brad, and Helena. Listening to this track, I realized that Edward Norton is a really smart guy. He pointed out some things that I hadn't caught in the movie or the novel, and made some fantastic connections between the movie and different philosophers. what really struck me the most, though, was the relationship between Ed, Brad, and David. they carried on like they were the best of friends, making comments and cracks to and about each other the entire time. "It's a little dark, Finch." "Shutup guys."
      I'd really loved the marketing campaign for the movie, and the stuff they've included on disc two is great. The highlights for me were the promotional catalog with "products" from Fight Club, the PSA's, and the poster art.
      the deleted scenes were interesting, but most of them were deleted with good reason. some of the production stuff (videos and commentary tracks) were interesting, especially the one about the sex scene… they put a great deal of work into a scene that ended up being only about 10 seconds or so.

so the DVD is definitely worth the purchase price, and even more so if you buy it while it's still on sale. not only do you get the movie itself (which would almost be worth the price on its own) you also get all the other stuff, and through the extra stuff, you can gain an insight on the movie that you might not have gotten on your own. The commentary by Ed Norton (with David & Brad) will help you understand the movie, and will also impress upon you the intelligence and character of Edward himself.

oh, and this little note's to brian: great job on the transmission3000 redesign! ('course I had a little hand in it myself, so perhaps I'm just conceitedly patting myself on the back here too)

it's been a couple days since my last post, sorry 'bout that. Life has progressed as it always does, and despite what's been going on, I've been pretty much wordless. still am, in fact.

one thing I've realized is that despite the amount of time I spend "online," I am not an internet junky. I don't have to find a new interesting site every day to keep myself happy. I go to the same sites, day after day, check my email like three or four times a day, and that's about the extent of it. this realization has also made me wonder about the point of this weblog thing–to be interesting, I imagined I must throw up some funky, weird links with every post. well, fuck that. I'm not a link collector really, though I've been trying. most of the sites I visit are functional or purely informational sites that either a) most people probably already know about, or b) most people probably wouldn't care about. maybe I'm just lazy.

for the shameless self promotion section of this post, I'll point out that I finally finished the online version of my first poetry book, which you can happily view at coffeemonk.com. enjoy.

don't you hate it when, despite the fact that you've had an enjoyable, relatively uneventful day, you suddenly get totally depressed about something you can' t even pinpoint or put words to? perhaps it's dissatisfaction with my life, my current situation, the fact that I'm still unemployed even though the manager at Kinko's told me she'd call me on Monday (as in, this past Monday). well, moanin and crying isn't going to make it any better. perhaps I'll post something more upbeat tomorrow.
read my poetry. (that was not a request)

western kentucky is truly a remarkable place. the more things change the more they stay the same. you can read my bio on coffeemonk.com to see what I think of the place I hesitantly call home.

really though, my visit was nice. my parents, being from the mountains of Virginia, are easy going, down home folks (yes, I used the word "folks") who are SO normal it's almost scary. my 12 yr old brother, bless his heart, is the product of his environment, as I suppose we all are. he's going through the phase in his life (which I imagine only afflicts "southerners") where the word rebel and the confederate flag hold some special magic. it seems very disturbing to me now, but I recall going through something similar when I was his age, so I guess it will pass once he gets away from the amber waves and into "real life." I HOPE it will pass.

on my way out of town, i heard, for the first time since leaving Princeton, the word "nigger" used in a real conversation. now, my friends and I, far from being racist, are prone to making racial slurs in the name of humor, usually poking fun at people who would really think and speak that way.

don't get me wrong here. Racism is NOT funny–what is funny (in a sick, hopeless sort of way) is that there are people in this world who are ignorant enough to believe they are in some way superior to people with different color skin or different religious beliefs. I could go on on this subject for days, about the ills of the world and the sicknesses that infect our society, but I sincerely doubt anybody wants to read a weblog for that long.

i had a chat with my little brother, hoping to impart to him that thinking, speaking and acting like this was wrong. he is young, and being raised in that town where things like this are not only commonplace, but almost expected. it is one of the sad reasons I don't visit my parents much, and when I do, I usually stay cooped up in their house for the duration.

in other news, as brian pointed out in his log, over there Steal This Blog. brian wasn't sure if their mention of our site was favorable or not, but after reading it, I'd definitely say it was. thanks to Tom for noticing us. I guess I'm the "journal" and brian's the "weblog." so be it. I'm just glad someone was "amused." that's all I can ask.

i need your help: I'll admit it, I'm lazy. If anyone knows of a good place that can process online transactions cheaply (or for free) please . The three-toed sloth that is coffeemonk.com needs this capability. I'm almost finished putting a web-based version of my poetry book online, and would like to be able to sell some physical copies of it as well. oh, and if you're interested in art, literature, music, or film, go check out the site. there's not much on there right now, but we've got big plans.

damn, if any of you are still reading this long ass thing I've written here, thanks for sticking with me. time to hit the sack and hope I get a call in the morning telling me when I can start working. I need a job.