I am exactly .013 GPA points away from graduating with honors this May 1st. Cum Laude or whatever they call that shit. It puts me in an interesting position because the train that's keeping this educational journey of mine moving along has run out coal, gas, or any other kind of earth material that somehow enables big metal machines to move. In the fall the conductor came outside and pushed a little bit... but now he's tired, unshowered, and hung over most of the time. - I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope that the BS still sticks to the wall a little while longer. *

I was very happy to see Mr. Jimmy finally accept my invitation to write for this weblog after about a years worth of begging and pleading. He's not just a pretty face anymore, ladies and gentelmen... he's a living breathing human being and fucking-A he knows how to use BOLDFACE! *

Apparently I'm going to be visiting Europe for about a week after graduation. My parents have offered this to me as a present in lieu of something like a down payment for a car. But my question for them is... how the fuck am I supposed to get to the airport?

Har, har, har. *

Someday soon I will not have to force these entries into the five free minutes I get once every three days. I will no longer be balancing three jobs and school but will be working one job, with normal hours that allow for normal social interaction with other individuals and even time for relaxing. When that occurs, folks, I promise you a more well thought out in.circles that relies a whole lot less on the words 'fuck' and 'shit' and a whole lot more being worth reading.

Until then... fuck. --

"Did you guys hit the deer?"

We're trailing a cop home from a local hippie-type watering dookie. Gunna get pulled over. Gunna fall asleep. Tasty beer, strange people, good juke, early last call. I'm thinking, 'ah, a turn-a-bout of the controls, he can't do anything to us from up there.'
"You guys see the new cop cars?"
A minute later I'm sneaking through some bushes to watch a female officer laugh with her co-workers, and proceed to shoot a deer in the head. I've never actually heard a shotgun blast before. Much more quiet than in the movies. Even quieter than the first one. The other one got away. Alive. Dead. Probably the best thing to do, hell I wasn't gunna nurse the thing back to health. Care enough? Lazy. I did make sure my kitty was around to greet me when I got home. It's way too late, and I'm way too tired to make any sense of it. Doesn't matter either way. this beer. that beer. together. apart. dead. alive. I started reading 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus and I'm listening to 'Charles Manson - Look At Your Game Girl'. I'm gunna sleep a little closer to her tonight, and make sure I pay more attention when she gets out.

Last night I dreamt that I was record shopping at The Sound Exchange, a record store I grew up frequenting. There were new owners, not the guys that at my tender young age of 13 would correctly insist that I'd be better off picking up records by Pop Will Eat Itself, Pigface, and Fugazi instead of whatever other crap I was probably buying at the time. I went to the register to pick up my copy of the Iron & Wine album and had an altercation with the gentleman ringing me up about the amount I gave him, the cost of the album, and the disparity between them and the amount of change he gave me.. I ended up leaving the store without the album, claiming that I would never listen to music ever again.

Sorry, I just wanted to see if that dream was just as fucking stupid written down as it was in my head. Turns out it was. *

Yesterday I drank my balls off. I'm talking non-stop from like 10:30AM until about 7 at night. I suppose that's par for the course in South Boston on the day of their big St Patty's parade... however, the fact that I was on the clock made it quite interesting. Four of us were DJing a bar on the parade route. The initial gig-time was 12-2, but the owner offered us $250 cash, on top of our (shitty) hourly wage if we stayed until 5. As much as I get annoyed with my part-time job for eating away at my precious and few college weekends... playing rock music for five hours, getting shitey with a bunch of Irish cops for free, and making about $200 ain't a half-bad way to spend a Sunday. *

Why is Jimmy's picture over there on the left side of the weblog, a few folks have wondered, when he's never actually contributed? The answer, my friends... is to promote traffic to the site. We needed a pretty face to lure in the little lovelies, and I couldn't think of a better way to do it. --

So how do we all feel about Braid getting back together for a reunion tour? Personally, I'm excited to be able to see one of the many bands that I've always wanted to see live but never thought I'd get the chance to (believe it or not my band was asked to play a show with Braid in 1998 at the Melody Bar in New Brunswisk, NJ and we turned down the offer because we thought that the haul to South Jersey was too far for a school night!?). Although I must admit that the whole thing is a bit curious in an out of left field kind of way. Regardless of the intentions, hearing songs off of Frame and Canvas live will probably bring me right back to being 17... which I remember being quite fun. If I had my way, this tour would turn into more than just a one time thing, spawning a glorious follow-up to Frame and Canvas that far surpasses anything that Hey Mercedes or any of Chris Broach's side projects have been able to attain. *

Don't forget, new Iron & Wine album out Tuesday. --

If there is one thing I've learned from doing this weblog - and I'm sure it's fairly obvious that I haven't learned much more than that many things as long as i've been doing this - it's that if you talk too soon or too much you'll most likely end up kicking yourself for it later. So excuse me if I've been quiet lately... I've been pleasantily, ableit busily, living my little life.

I know that not talking about things going on in your life goes against everything that a personal weblog stands for, and I'm fully prepared to respond to that statement by saying: sorry, i'll figure out how to deal with that later. *

One thing I can always talk about, though, is music. Musica, if you will. These past few days I've been listening to Holopaw, Plow United, and new tracks from Reubens Accomplice and The Descendents. I usually tend to stick to one genre at a time... so I honestly can't explain the delving into electronically-tinged southern folk, hard pop-punk, wimpy emo, and melodic pop-punk all at the same time. But it's been the happy little soundtrack to the life that I'm restraining from talking about. *

I will tell you that I blew out my much beloved Marshall Valvestate guitar amp on Friday night, while drunkenly performing an improvised Happy Birthday death metal song for my roommate. --

Hello there. I'm home safe and sound. Back to the east coast where March snow pounds down with a bitter and moist vengeance, you're likely to receive a "what the fuck?" if you bump into someone accidentally on the subway, and where cab drivers seem to be doing their best to ride over pot holes filled with water for the purpose of splashing you for kicks. Ahh yes... home sweet home. I spent a week in a place where the weather drifts from warm and sunny on low ground to pleasant powdery snow in the mountains, people almost always apologize when bumping into you... even in bars, and the closest thing to a pot hole is the place where some hippie college student stashed his gram of cheeba.

My vacation to Colorado was excellent. I slept an average of about 4 hours a night, skied four of the most amazing ski mountains I've ever seen (Arapaho, Breckenridge, Copper, and Vail), consumed more alcohol than I ever believed possible, and ate lots and lots of Mexican food. Most vacations I've taken in my life have been of a restful nature... but last weeks balls to the wall spring break trip has left me ridiculously fucked up. My body is sore in places that I didn't even know existed and there is a lump in my throat the size of Texas. Today's extreme discomfort is in no way directly proportional to the amount of incredible fun I had on my final spring break, though. To be honest, I didn't know I had that much college-kid left in me. Graduation is in 7 weeks... glad I'm going out with a bang. *

Much to write about, but not much time to do it. Gimme a few days to get back into the swing o' things. --