Saturday night I dreamt that I was in Florida on the spring training squad for The Yankees. I was hoping to make the roster and have this season be my rookie year. Joe Torre started me at 2nd base and I immediatly made two errors in one inning. The third time the ball was hit to me Derek Jeter sprinted over and made an amazing catch, clearly trying to ensure that my errors did not continue. In between innings Torre and Mattingly talked to me about calming down and just playing instead of worrying about it. I stepped up to bat as the lead-off and was walked. I instantly stole 2nd base. I'm not sure if I made the team, but I remember thinking that I had finally calmed down and was ready to play for real.

Last night I dreamt that I was walking on some anonymous boardwalk somewhere in Jersey and stumbled upon a bandstand. Jughead from Screeching Weasel's new-ish band Even In Blackouts was playing. I've never heard them before. There were lots of aging punk rockers there looking to have their guitars signed and a huge sign near the merch table that said you had to buy your merch no later than the ending of the fourth song. I left the stage area to head "home", which ended up being a walk on the beach similar to a dream I've had many times.. where I'm am walking slowly home along the beach. This walk home has occured in Jersey, Manhattan (no beaches), and Las Vegas (also no beaches). I'm always by myself, heading home sorta bored/dejected, and seeing lots of other people having fun. I have no idea.

I know that I had a fairly vivid dream on Sunday night, too... but I can't remember the details right now. *

My PSP and I are getting married. Details to follow. --

Tracked down two leaked releases over the weekend...

Alkaline Trio's Crimson and Hot Hot Heat's Elevator. After one listen I've decided that the Alkaline Trio record isn't worth the bandwidth I used up downloading it. I didn't really expect any different, though.. so it's not like I'm dissappointed.

The single from Elevator, "Goodbye, Goodbye" led me to believe that the HHH record would be a lot more of the same sort of stuff that was on Make Up The Breakdown. However, the spastic rhythms and dancy feel has been traded in for more polished tunes that border on classic rock meets funk. It's definitely not as fun, but still very decent. I'm hoping that repeat listens will provide hidden treasure chests filled with staying power.

While I'm on the subject of records released in 2005 I've also spent some time listening to the new M83, Decemberists, and Crooked Fingers, with varying degrees of likeability. In order: M83 (which most definitely unveils treasure chests with said staying power), Decemberists, and Crooked Fingers. **

It looks like my commutes, at least for the short-term future, will be filled with PSP-time, rather than iPod time.. so I expect my musical ramblings will be temporarily replaced with rambling about making colored boxes line up and racing imaginary hover crafts affixed with lasers really fast around a track.

Since I've lost all of the eloquence I'd like to believe I once had whilist writing, take Tycho from Penny Arcade's words about the PSP instead:

If you want to know whether or not the Playstation Portable is good, it's a topic beyond debate. It isn't "good." It's important.

We have a relationship to the future that is odd, in that we are constantly trying to create the preconditions for events we expect to happen. We collaborate with linear time to engineer outcomes. There are, however, coordinates in this progression which serve as milestones of a sort: points we can refer to and declare as evidence of forward momentum. Holding the device made it clear. The "future" envisioned by my eight year old self has arrived. Now, we must invent new futures. **

Rainy monday in NYC. Feels strangely refreshing. April showers bring May flowers and hopefully this week will bring my body sobriety. I've been drinking far too much, far too often lately. --

* hap·pi·ness(n): a state of well-being and contentment
* un·hap·py(adj): not cheerful or glad

I lasted less than 48 hours. My PSP is fully charged and I'm ready to welcome Wipeout Pure and Lumines to my morning commute. --

I didn't buy a PSP today. While I stand by my "adult" and "responsible" decision for not being an early adopter of a new video game system for the first time well, ever... I'm very jealous of everyone else in the world that has one. Lumines just looks too damn good to keep me away for much longer. I give myself until memorial day before I've got one in my clutches.*

Last night I dreamt that Bill Murray killed himself and nobody cared. *

You can watch a video of The Hand That Feeds on NIN.com, if you'd like. I say "a" video and not "the" video, because I'm not 100% sure that this is going to be the final version. It looks like they more or less filmed a live band performing the song in their practice space. While that's not usually up to Trent's standards, perhaps he's come to terms with the fact that there's not much room in the world of music for videos from rock bands? Ya know, no bling-bling or booties shakin'...

I kinda dig the song, though. He changes his vocal melody at the end into something that sounds unintentionally bad... but it's at least left me curious about hearing the rest of the record. *

Since today is shaping up to be a lazy Saturday filled with missing day's past, let's play the "What was Chris doing on (or around) this date years back?" game. From ye blogges of olde:

3.6.00: I somehow managed to sleep for roughly 14.5 hours last night... i don't think i have ever done this before. At around 9:30PM i hopped onto my bed to relax and watch TV. The next thing i remember is waking up in my clothes and looking at my clock and seeing 1:30 AM. I quickly changed into my pajama's, washed my face and hopped into bed. In what seemed like only minutes, my alarm went off for 12:00 noon. I honestly have no idea how i managed to so this...i had a nice, sober sleep the day before, and didn't do a goddamn active thing all day.

3.24.01: Winter seems to be fading, as well as the bitterness that so often embodies that ever-lagging season. My bones are warm and my bedroom is clean. This weekend has been a mixed bag of all things good. My roomate was gone for the weekend so there was privacy, which was incredible. Everything is A-Alright!

3.25.02: All this week I will be blessed with visitors from the fine town of Wayne, New Jersey. My apartment will be their makeshift motel for the week, while I sit at work and well... sit at work. I will live vicariously through their daily adventures as they re-tell them to me in the evenings. They arrived early yesterday, and without much delay, bottles of Bud Light were being emptied left and right in a fairly speedy fashion. When the fridge ran dry, we walked over to Chili's (why aren't any REAL bars open on Sunday's in Georgia?) and proceeded to empty more bottles, shot glasses, and full-sized glasses of a wide array of adult beverages. It was Paul's 21st birthday, after all, which justifies forcing him to drink things with names like "three wise-men", "surfer on acid", and an "el presidente", right?

Before the binge-a-thon began yesterday, I managed to pick up "The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker. I've heard it's a sort of "Infinite Jest"-Lite and perfect for the run of the mill obsessive compulsive. Although not quite as much as I when I was younger, I am indeed obsessive-compulsive, and most certainly run of the mill. Flipping through the pages I see footnotes that go on for pages on end... let the insanity begin! I'll let you know how it goes...

2003: Apparently I wasn't updating during March of 2003, although I remember doing so. I was living in Cleveland at the time.

3.22.04: 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. *

--
Longest.Post.Ever.

Thirteen things that do not make sense, from The New Scientist via Slashdot. A pretty interesting read that'll make the sci-fi geek in all of us excited about the prospect of people smarter than us figuring out things that we don't really understand.

The fourteenth thing that doesn't make sense is how I'm still living and breathing after this weeks (mis)treatment of my body. I Haven't slept more than 5 hours any night this week and I've been at least a little bit intoxicated upon falling asleep three times. I don't think I'll be ready for another St. Patrick's Day until next year. --

Last night I took part in my first ever fantasy baseball draft. The chaps in my league were all seasoned-pros, which left me a bit uneasy about the whole thing. I went looking for advice from a few sources, but I found a lot of contradictory stuff, so I just decided to go with my gut and a little pre-planning. I don't know how much the pre-planning helped, but my team(for now, at least) is as follows:

Hitters
J. Lopez - (Bal - C)
C. Delgado(Fla - 1B) 
M. Loretta(SD - 2B) 
A. Ramirez(ChC - 3B) 
O. Cabrera(LAA - SS) 
G. Sheffield(NYY - OF) 
C. Jones(Atl - 3B,OF)
M. Alou(SF - OF)
S. Finley(LAA - OF)
T. Hafner(Cle - 1B)
R. Hernandez(SD - C)
A. Jones(Atl - OF) 

Pitchers
J. Santana(Min - SP)
M. Mussina(NYY - SP) 
J. Nathan(Min - RP)
E. Guardado(Sea - RP) 
C. Carpenter(StL - SP)
T. Glavine(NYM - SP) 
C. Cordero(Was - RP) 
F. Garcia(CWS - SP) 

My hitters are probably a perfect sampling of some of the slowest guys in Major League Baseball, so I don't expect to be winning, or even to be able to compete for stolen bases points. Aside from that the team is pretty well-rounded, though.. so hopefully I'll be competitive. If not, I can chalk it up to experience and cry about the $100 I spent in October. **

Been listening to the new M83 and Crooked Fingers a lot. Going to see the amazing Thermals next Tuesday, which I couldn't be more excited about. *

It's St. Patty's, time to get my drink on. Cheers. --

i went to the botanical gardens in the bronx the other day, i have here pictures from that trip...

its times like this i wish i had a better camera. i only post a select few out of all the ones i took.

let me tell you, as you can see by my last post, my state of mind has been with the foliage lately. this little excursion let me get some quality time with my buddies. dont call me crazy when i tell you that these guys spoke to me. hopefully you can see that by the pics, they are truly my pals.

here

I don't know if any of you read the comments, so I thought I would post this link that Joe had left out into the forefront here. It's a video of Ted Leo covering Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone"... complete with a bridge consisting of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's "Maps". Fucking weird. He actually almost tricked me into liking the song for a minute or two, though. **

I enjoy it when Paul updates, too. He lulls you into these periods of non-updating.. just to the point where you've almost forgotten that he has the ability to write nonsense here on the blog. And then, just at the cusp of your mind forgetting all about his words, he treats you to line after line of genuine insanity. His methods of delivery are exceptional and for that I am grateful.

This is similar to a discussion I had with a mutual friend of ours last night. We were discussing Paul's punctuality and/or attendance at social events. The short of it is that you never really know for sure if he's going to show up. If he doesn't, it doesn't really bother you at all. It's understood. But if he does, you actually become genuinely happy. Consistency doesn't allow for that kind of thing. And for that, we were both grateful. --

I am incredibly hungover this morning. Time to brew up a pot 'o coffee.

wiping the chalk off his hands.. "well that is the nature of the beast."
"certainly is, and i would assume it wise not to tangle."
"well sir, if i may, great minds have said that in order to realize you should get your hands dirty."
"hahaha"
"hahaaha"
CHUCKLE HAHAHHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHGahahhahahfhahhhhga

weel ok sure whatever why not.

well since there are new sources for just about everything and no sources for just about anyone, you see what happens.

most people wouldnt just stomp up to the desk like that and resign. well you do just resign sometimes, in thought and in theory.

i kno, know. but let me tell you this. there was a little gnome. he was constantly looking for something to idle and wile his time away. most of the time, however, he would pick different botanicals, grass blue green hood, other paraphrenalia. most of all if it was something out of the ordinary round his hut he would take a dirt sample too. when his collection grew impressive and he studied the growth of the various plants and the soil they were growing in, he carefully planned a stew. purely veggies.

the night he consumed his tea/stew, the neighbors heard awful sounds from his hut. crashing thrashing and herbal pot fasting. the next day the gnome emerged no worse for wear but his neighbors were worried. he collected the eggs now, the seeds of the various plants, their births. he studied the dimensions of the seeds, the nature in which they embedded themselves after leaving the proverbial womb.

then, as sure as sugar, he cooked up the seeds, a careful selection. no noises this nite. the fucker died. he was poisoned by some mother fucker that brokeinto his hut and tampered with his seeds. they left his body where it was cause everyone agreed on poisoning the bastard. diane julie beth susan jenifer donna gertrude genevive all those bitches wanted him dead. they just left him there. time passed and all that shit he grew sprouted. no shit, good compost. turned out some even grew from him. but that shits funny. just eating berrys and fruits and leaves and shit and people get all suspicious. so as kites fly these days, people muse and puruse and enjoy the dance of the gods in those light hearted paper doilies. shrugging away. strap a cat to the fucker and it wont fly. but billy the bad blooded cat. that mother fucker flew.

one day a bunch of kids were in the alley, knocking the cobbles like a xylophone. rocking out music with crude instruments and crude haircuts. sky above cobbles below. enter x, the cat. thing is the cat was schizophrenic. it would recline in the branches of a tree and treat it as an entity of animation and soul. the limbs speaking a language all their own which the cat abruptly learned. as the tree aged and the rings in the trunk spelled out the destiny of souls everywhere the cat was the only one privy to the secrets behest.

im just really bored and havent updated in a while. i apologize.

but really folks. im an uncle. my sister had a little girl. very cute indeed. i bought her an ipod mini and loaded it up with some hits. she listens. mostly white hassle, echo and the bunny men and select recorded shamanic rituals in flac format. ive read some carlos castaneda, and i just finished a book, the psychology of kundalini yoga. it really is an awesome book. i enjoyed it alot and tried to make it a part of me. but even at a hundred or so pages it is fucking dense. i dont think ill fully get it all even after 20 reads. but there are certain people i want to read it and no one here is one of them. so why bother. been doing crosswords, took me forever to figure out that what makes later days in the week difficult is not the nature of the words but just the distant way they clue you into them 32 across is lexicon topic. on monday that answer is always words. you get that shit on thursday and its something like usage. just very roundabout.1 down, route revealers.. maps. you get it. already im tired of this. i sub at the highschool on a fairly regular basis and its probably not doing me any good. im not doing me any good. im stuck. chris seems to be a sport tho. i like reading his updates and im glad he does. i appreciate the energy. movies, songs from teh second floor, i saw it. i like it, its subtitled in swedish and all, and even tho its a little over the top, there are some scenes that really rock your socks. notorize it.

Tonight I put on The Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good. A record I remember thinking was so refreshing and so novel at it's time of release. Tonight, perhaps fittingly, it didn't make me feel good. It made me feel old. Perhaps things that I thought were fun or interesting in 1997 don't quite translate to 2005. *

As I was told tonight in a completely random instant message from a complete stranger...

"for student exchange kyoto university"

I don't know what teh fuck that means. *

Nothing feels good like you in....

Dear M.F.er who stole the $18 out of my wallet at the gym,

I hope you stole that $18 out of my wallet for drugs. And I hope that when you go buy those drugs you get yourself into a sticky situation, have the money stolen from you, and get a nice proper reaming of your arse. And then get arrested, end up in jail, and have many more years of proper arse reamings.

With Love,

Chris

At least they didn't take my credit cards. I guess I put too much faith in the fact that I was going to a fairly expensive gym in a nice neighborhood. Looks like I need to pick up a lock. Aside from the theft thing, running and lifting weights has thus far left me fairly sore but feeling very happy. *

So, after a brief delay the band that we've put together is back on its feet. This lineup has only had one practice, but I think it went quite well. We upgraded from standard 12 oz. Bud bottles to the long neck Bud 16 ozers, which might have helped things along. Perhaps next week we'll give 40's a try? All in the name of bettering ourselves, of course. The current batch of songs I've worked up are in the same vein as bands like Superchunk, Beezewax, The Posies, and Starmarket tinged with a little bit of that pop-punk goodness from bands like Sicko and Cub. So I guess you could file us alongside power-pop bands, but you might be inclined to just throw us in the cluster-f file labeled indie. With any luck we'll be seeing you at shows, or at an AA meeting within two months time. What better time than the beginning of spring to unveil your new band? Exactly. --

Sorry it's been so quiet on los bloggos front. I've been busy trying to learn how to be happy with this being an adult thing. The first thing I'm trying to nix is my after-work computer use. It was pretty depressing when I realized that I'd been spending most of my free time the same way I spend it at work, hunched in front of an LCD screen. So I'm doing my best to ensure that my evenings are spent doing something physical, at band practice, or at least doing enjoyable things with enjoyable people.

Besides, the blog has always been best when I update from work.. and once I get a handle on my newish job I hope to keep this site up as part of my daily routine.*

I was looking through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive and found a very old version of in.circles present. You can find it here. That was the second incarnation of in.circles you see. Spanning my sophomore through middler (Northeastern speak for the third of five years) years. The first version of in.circles consisted of material from Ryan, Imri, and myself, mostly from my freshman year of college. The third version featured Paul and myself with rare updates by both, spanning from the summer of my middler year through the following summer. And the fourth is what you're reading right now. It features mostly me, sometimes Paul, and Jimmy once. It's Spanned from the summer of my junior year until right now. [end pointless tangent] --

Ben Weasel has the nerve to criticize Hunter Thompson for "playing up the cartoonish aspects of his persona" while also claiming that his artistic output "went from medicore and lifeless, to slightly embarrassing, to painful..."

This, coming from a guy who intentionally placed a cartoon image of himself on nearly half of his recorded albums and has issued a handful of lifeless, less than mediocre, or just painful albums in his day. I brought up Ben's "obituary" to Paul who responded, "sometimes a persons harshest criticisms are their greatest insecurities." I think he nailed it right on the head.

I think that Pitchfork did a much better, and classier job. **

Speaking of hype, I am enjoying the hell out of Bloc Party's Silent Alarm. **

Happy Birthday to me. I'm 24. But I feel like 23 1/2. --

I feel guilty posting here above paul when it comes to speaking of Mr. Thompson. Everything I learned about the man came through Paul. But I loved everything about the man. Never ceased to make me smile. Never ceased to say something that didn't teach me how to live life a little bit different. HST gave me a hero in a time when there are no heroes. I am thankful to have lived in a time in which he did.

"I always felt like I was born in defeat. And I may have written everything I've written just to win back a victory. My life may be pure revenge."

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."

RIP.

hst uber alles



worst loss ive suffered.

When I arrived home last night there was a monster sized package on my doorstep. I knew instantly that it was my air purifier... and was instantly annoyed with the size of the thing. Now, I know that this site clearly labels the dimensions of the unit... but the image on that page as well as the very misleading images on this page led me to believe that I would be able to safely stow this sucker behind a chair or in an out of the way nook and have it invisibly whisp away all of the dust, allergies, and other bad stuff that's been keeping me up all night. Not even close! This thing is big enough to be a chair. I'm considering getting rid of my night stand and just using the Whispure to hold my overnight items... or maybe I'll even hock my computer desk and replace it with this breathing machine. However, there was a significant improvement in the air quality in my bedroom last night.. which despite it's ginormous appearance, is exactly what I bought it for. *

I was re-reading some of my older blogs last night and noticed that any sense of excitement or optimism in my words is completely gone these days. As much as this blog is nothing more than just a pot for my brain to puke in every once in awhile, reading last year's entries has very much confirmed how blah I feel about everything right now. It's been nine months since I graduated college and moved back home... and I still long for living the life I did before graduation every day. I would've figured that the amount of time to conceive, carry, and deliver a child would've been more than enough to accept my post-graduation predicament... but apparently, there have been some complications. I don't really have a solution... so empty whining will have to suffice for now. I'm banking on warm weather aiding my cause... and days off from work. Often. --

God Don't Make No Trash or Up Your Ass With Broken Glass. Five tracks from The Falcon, a band that is 1/2 Lawrence Arms, 1/4 Alkaline Trio, and 1/4 Anti-Flag. $6+ shipping for a short EP was kind of a bummer... but worth it considering it was virtually impossible to find on ye olde interweb. *

I'm still battling off the remnants of what has become the cold that won't go away. It's like two steps forward and one step back with this thing... and then every once in awhile 27 steps backwards. Winter's lame. Bring on the warmth and short sleeves. --

hay hay hay

ive been fishing for music in the lossless boneless section of newsgroups.

i finished that rushdie book and i have to say rushdie is one of my favorite writers. that book was great. especially at this point in time. i realize now that it may not be that the books i read are good at the time i read them, i just apply my current thought, et cetera.

but hay, end of world time

one

two

My research concludes that (drumroll) the ionic breeze is a waste of money. I read two separate Consumer Reports articles that tested it. The first time C.R. tested it for short-term effectiveness and found it basically worthless. Sharper Image, who makes it, responded and said their testing wasn't suited to their product. So Consumer Reports did another test on it and concluded the same thing.. it doesn't actually improve breathing conditions or remove anything harmful from the air. All it does is emit ozone, which essentially tricks people into thinking the air is cleaner because it smells different (and not always better). They essentially say that the whole "ionic" thing is just a fad, and that in most cases ends up taking dust from the air, doubling it in size with ion particles, which makes it heavy and fall to surfaces like beds, couches, carpets, etc.

They gave the highest rating to The Whispure filters from Whirlpool. I ordered the strongest one today for $299... significantly cheaper than the $500 Ionic Breeze.

All said, I paid $200 less for a product that an impartial consumer publication says works very well and I don't have to have a big noisy phallic thinga-ma-doo-hicky in the corner of my bedroom... so all is well in the world. *

I had band practice last night. That's right, you heard me correctly, band practice. It's been about 5 years in the making (no joke) but myself and two other individuals whom I couldn't imagine not being in a band with got together and played some rock-n-roll last night. I had a blast and I'm pretty sure they had a good time, too. It went well enough that it seems as if practice will become a weekly event.. and hopefully things like recording and playing shows happening not too far down the road. Get ready to be (pop) rocked. 1,2,3,4! --

Does anyone know anything about Ionic Air Purifiers? Or any kind of air purifiers at all? Having a basement "apartment" has taken a serious toll on my breathing... it's to the point now where I wake up more or less every night gasping for breath. On saturday I opened my blinds to let the sun shine through the windows and was astounded by how much dust I saw fluttering through the sunshine. For someone with allergies as terrible as mine, I figure investing a couple hundred bucks into one of these miracle machines is a no brainer. However, the Internet is a mysterious place sometimes and I haven't been able to find anything credible as evidence to pick up one machine over another. Consumer Reports wrote an article back in October 2003.. but I figure new products have come along since then...

Any ideas?

Ben Weasel offers up a fairly lengthy blog over at Weasel Manor today. It'd been awhile since I heard anything out of him that didn't have to do with his NHL sim league... and while the indication is that he will continue being sporadic with updates, I enjoyed a little bit of Weasel in my day. *

Although I have a new job... I don't quite have a new desk just yet. Seems as if the IT people are rather busy and haven't been able to set up my new git up, so to speak. So I've spent the past two days sitting at my old desk, surrounded by my former co-workers.. with absolutely nothing to do. I think I've read the entire internet. Twice. *

The sun is shining quite bright in New York today. Although the chill is still in the air, there is a definite spring like feeling to it. Now, I know it's too early for an early spring even by the earliest Punxatawny estimates, but it's refreshing to not feel like your eyeballs are going to freeze upon stepping outside.*

I'm working out again. And I'm sore. --

I have not learned anything of value since May 5th, 2004, which was the approximate due date for the last of my undergrad assignments. I've worked one job for five months, tackled a two month internship prior to that, and do not feel I have learned anything memorable, anything that's made me feel more intelligent, or anything that's given me a sense of purpose. 8 months is a long time to feel mentally stagnant. During that time I've read books to try and feel stimulated... but without a general undercurrent of learning in my life I feel I've gotten far less from the experiences than usual.

Tomorrow is my last day at the mindless job which has taken away any semblance of intelligence that I thought I once had. Monday starts a new job, with new people, doing new things. There are responsibilities. Things that need to be learned. And while I'm still not 100% sure it's what I want to be working at for my entire life... the idea that I will be learning anything at all at this point is very, very welcome. I miss feeling passionate about life when I wake up in the morning. I miss living and breathing to learn and care about everything around me instead of keeping my gaze firmly set on my shoelaces while I meander around from point(less) A to point(less) B.

So far, being an "adult", at least in the sense that I'm through with college level learning, has been incredibly disappointing and sad. I'm hoping that this Monday is not another step in that same awful direction. *

Two quick other random things...

Firstly, I just received spam, in the form of a text message, sent to my cell
phone. "For a chance to win a free spring break trip..." Are you kidding me? What's next? "Feeling inadequate as a male? Dial 69 Send to find out about our wang enlargement pills.."

Secondly, did I really hear Wes Anderson in an ad for Guitar Center this morning? [terrible rap/metal being blared in the background] "Hi, I'm Wes Anderson. For a chance to win a Gibson guitar, autographed by me, stop by your nearest Guitar Center... and don't forget to see my newest movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, playing in theaters now." Has this world truly gone mad? --

PC Update: still not fixed. Not that anyone cares but me. (incircles... in 2005 celebrating six straight years of rambling about PC problems that nobody cares about). That's right, I've been doing this since '99.*

What records are people anticipating this new year? The only thing that comes to mind is the new Crooked Fingers, which just so happens to come out one day prior to my birthday. I predict that this will be the year that I further fall out of step with rock music and descend further into the depths of 'aging rock guy that liked all of those bands that played guitars in the Mid-90's'.*

My 24th birthday. The number 24 seems staggering to me. Like at one point in the past someone would've asked me about being 24 and I would've been able to equate it with a time in which cars would be flying, space travel standard, and robot maids being sold in the same department store aisles as common appliances (talking ones, of course). My parents were married and owned a home by the age of 24. This petrifies me. How in the world were people of that generation able to do that at 24? Isn't marriage complicated? What does this say about our generation... are we lazy? Are we smarter? I can count on one hand (two fingers) the guys that I'm friends with that are engaged.. and well, they're both lunatics. So hopefully it means that we're smarter.. or more patient.. and if that's so I guess I can understand why everyone was smoking pot in the 60's... how in the world can you all have been dumber than us? *

Amazing IT guy from work says that my hard drive is tip-top. Bootable, readable, and very secure and stable. I'm clueless... could it be as simple as a bad ribon or power being sent to the drive? I will have to investigate tomorrow on my day off (sorta) from work. *

The "sorta" is because it's a day off to attempt to get my butt back into an IT type role, as I mentioned in a previous post. Wish me luck. (anything at all will help when it comes to my luck) *

I've gotten pretty far into the songwriting process with a batch of songs that I'm really, really excited about. I've recruited two individuals to help me make it happen for real. I'm so obsessed with the progress of the tunes that my desk at work is littered with all kinds of insane notes to myself that pop into my head throughout the day.. "chorus needs to be Bb minor, G, A for two measures!... strummed like that Sicko song off of Chef Boy RU Dum" and "structure = 1X just guitar, 1X with bass and symbol crashes 2x all together, 4x with vocals before kicking into bridge to chorus." Yes, this is all jibber jabber.. but for the past few years I've written a four chord progression and passed it off as a "song". As in, "dude, i've got songs" or "hey babe, i've written dozens of songs". I've just recently really started finishing things the right way and I couldn't be more excited about it. I'm really ready to put my money where my mouth is this time. --

For better or worse... (i'm of the opinion that it leads towards worse) I haven't played videogames all that often lately. However, I have odd memories of experiencing the same sort of feelings that are addressed in this article from back when I did. The most severe case I had was when I was obsessed with creating my own world maps for Duke Nukem 3D. I remember looking around classrooms and my home intently to figure out which vents might be good for secret passageways and whether walls were "real" or "false". I even got so obsessed with looking around my own home that I spent about a month creating a level that was pretty much a replica of my house. Except for the secret passages, false walls, and dozens of dancing cheerleaders that were hidden in my ceiling.

The same goes for when I was rehauling BorisFX.com this time last year.. I was knee deep in Photoshop 7.0 for 10 hours a day and I'd get into bed and start thinking about using filters to change the texture of my ceiling and dying to make it 75% transparent using the layer menu.

I very much need to get into a technology-heavy type job again. I feel like a part of me is missing without it these days. --

Just wanted to thank everyone for the hard drive fixing tips. I've asked the amazing IT guy that covers my floor at work to take a look at my drive and he's going to take a stab at it later this week. At this point I just really want to save the things that are irreplaceable... digital camera photos, projects / papers that I wrote in college. Although 99% of my time is spent listening to music on my computer... losing an MP3 is nothing like losing that amazing digital camera photo I took of my roommates three years ago, etc. etc. Although it's not quite the same situation, when the fire in my apartment had just been put down by firefighters two summers ago and I was told "kid, you've got a about twenty minutes to get the hell in there and grab whatever means something to you"... surpisingly the things I grabbed first were probably worth the least. Aside from my guitars, there was really nothing of any monetary value that I grabbed that first load. Just pictures, important documents... sentimental things. It was warming to have made the right choice so obviously... it was very natural.

I feel kind of silly for not backing the things up that were on my hard drive, when I easily could have duped them onto my 80-gig slave at any point during the past few months, but with any luck I'll end up relatively unscathed just like I did two summer ago on Mission Hill.

It's been wonderful to see posts here that are not my own. *

Today I came home, turned on my PC, only to be greeted with an error message indicating that my two month old 250 gig hard drive had no intentions of booting. I tried a bazillion different things.. and no matter what I did could not find any data on it at all. That's every paper I've written since high school... over 5,000 mp3's, some of which (even in the age of file sharing) will be nearly impossible to replace, and digital photos going back 7 years. None of it was backed up and the thought of losing all of this stuff is seriously choking up. Yes, that's right... a whole bunch of fucking ones and zeroes is almost making me cry. Cheers to two lame cliches of my generation coming together in perfect unison... technology and melancholy.

So, Miss TFL, if you want me to hook you up with some happy pop tunes, keep your fingers crossed that the ace I.T. team I plan to employ on this case can get back those three-chord ditties comprised of ones and zeroes.

For now I'm booting to my older hard drive, which I've been using as a slave.. which for some reason is still bootable to Windows ME. *

The Copyrights, We Didn't Come Here To Die. Find it and listen to it now. Danny Vapid's brother on vocals. Grade A stuff. I also secured myself a copy of the long out of print LP Groovin' Hard by The Crash for $7. Aside from those ones and zeroes, it's been a pretty good week.

oy!

--------------5:46 PM 1/5/2005----------

im listening to bill hicks (amongst other things) today whilst contemplating life. salman just dropped another biscuit on my head, and i researched said biscuit, as i hope to be more inclined to do when biscuits come dropping.

someone went to canada recently, i dont know who this guy is, but he has a funny tale.

seems like everyone is getting sick, whether it be UTI's or the flu or both, time for immuno-shields or something. on an impulse i purchased some astro glide today, large 5 oz bottle. dont know what im gonna do with it but i know i need to own it. cost cutters has been having some weird sale on hockey cards, so i bought 4 boxes. now i have 4 boxes of hockey cards that are worthless. i spent ~100 dollars on these things. its kinda weird to spend money too, especially when you dont have any. definitely a form of coping with depression. i want my goddamn hockey back.

i have so many plans just waiting to take off, but im missing the ingredient one needs for off taking. oh yeah, motivation

pictures from the fray:
boozefire
drunknbusty
goodtimes
gulliver
joshdeadly
pookdome
vistajosh

i have nothing to do except take pictures and crop them with the gimp

ive been reading this book called ground beneath her feet, its really good and i like it. salman rushdie is a wizard. so far its all earthquakes at tequila distilleries and viscous prattling on greek and indian myth. but yeah, its good.

ive been playing a little bit of a game called uru, and its really successful at making me feel ignorant. i also play with my ipod alot, but hate the fact that i cant make an eq preset and have that preset save to my pod.

Today's iPod playlist (thus far):

Dirt Bike Annie - Show Us Your Demons
The Ergs! - Ben Kweller SP
Go Sailor - s-t (discography)
Sicko - A Brief History Of Sicko

Even with new "hip" and unlistened to tunes like the two new Bright Eyes
albums and the (i'm told) awesome Madvillain LP sitting within the caverns
of my massive 40-gig friend, I can't seem to stop listening to tasty bits
of pop-punk fun. The first two were new to me, and very enjoyable (although
I prefer the Ergs! full length) and the bottom two were loved gems that I
haven't listened to in way too long. I think there are two reasons for my
recent pop-punk revival: #1, I'm miserable and hate not being a student
anymore and am desperately searching for happy pop ditties that remind me
of being younger or #2, as I mentioned in my previous post.. all of the
songs I've been writing lately are very much in this vein. Regardless of
the reason.. something about constantly listening to and playing the type
of songs that I spent so many years of my life really enjoying has been
bringing a smile to my face even during the times when I might not have had
a lot to smile about. *

As Promised, my favorite ten albums of 2004 (or something, i guess):

* Ergs! - Dorkrockcorkrod
* Challenger - Give People What They Want in Lethal Doses
* Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm a Machine
* Hot Snakes - Audit in Progress
* Thermals - Phuckin' A
* Methadones - Not Economically Viable
* Arcade Fire - Funeral
* Les Savy Fav - Inches
* Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
* Detachment Kit - ... Of This Blood

.. honorable mentions to Interpol, Prefuse 73, and Dizee Rascal. *

I'm craving video games again. I need a good RPG to zap up all of my free time
and remind me why I stopped playing them in the first place. Tales Of
Symphonia perhaps?

It's fitting that I end 2004 sick for 10 days straight.

Thinking back, 2004 kinda sucked.

I hope everyone enjoys their new year's.

I'll hit you with my 10 favorite songs and albums of the year soon.

Here's to 2005.

I hope everybody had a wonderul Christmas.  Despite being plagued with the

flu and a few (expected) insane family outbursts it was an enjoyable time

for me.  I ate well and my various Santa Claus' were very good to me. I

also watched Napoleon Dynamite twice (once while drunk) and found it very

much ot my liking.  It was just... nice.  *



The internet is always lousy the week after Christmas.  Every website goes

on vacation.  My workload this week is insanely small and without the likes

of penny arcade, gamespot, etc. digitally enlightening me it's a struggle

to keep my eyes open.  I also left my iPod at a friends house in a hungover

fog last week.  I can typically use my little white earbuds of joy as a way

of stating things along this lines of, "i'm not interested in hearing what

you got your cat for christmas"... but now I'm defenseless and vulnerable.

And still carrying a little bit o' that flu around.



I'd like to thank Paul for updating lately.  I like pictures.  If I had a

digital camera I would take some, too. *



I'm really writing songs again.  Really.  And they sound like 1996 or so.

1996 was a good year.  I got all A's, made the basketball team, and bought

my first guitar.  I'm hoping that these songs will end up being good as

well. *



Cheers.

more pictures for your fancy:
antdawg
hatefu
ilovepeteee
newscarf
nicepants
ohholygod
petesbath
puckolator
puckxmas
tree
vanity2

im sitting here watching punch drunk love thinking to myself this movie is so awesome. im also thinking i should explain the new photos but why. then i also realized i cant remember the books i just read, so ill start with what i recall.

ignorance
this little gem is pretty much all about sex. i liked it thoroughly. as far as i know its about people in exile having some sort of extramarrital affairs. there are some quotes in there about music that id like to put in here but i cant really get them in the dark while trying to be quiet. i will tell you this, its hard being quiet when you can type 90 wpm (86 net).

blood meridian
this little doozer is pretty much all about sex. i liked it through and through. it starts out with a young boy and ends with a kiddy toucher confessing about touching said same boy. but the book really isnt about the shit i said. its about westward expansion in mid 1800's and killing savage indians. this guy was the dude who wrote all the pretty horses, which i thought might have been some sort of gaylord thing. if its anything like this book i bet its nasty cause this thing is so fuckin violent and just straight up good its almost criminal, itll bite your face off. matter of fact its where i got the quote from one of my more recent posts, man loving games and all.

perdido
this book sucks. something happened from when i was reading this book, to when i finished it, to now, that just left me with a bad taste. all enthusiasm initially, now i wish i hadnt read it. alright maybe not, but maybe so i dont really know.

another roadside attraction
i read this a long time ago. tom robbins will always entertain. i know i had intended to write this post with certain books i had read from x to y in mind. this book is outside that realm but certain books that were inside are gone and forgotten. its about a kidnapped jesus corpse ending up in washington state and mushrooms, edible, poisonous, decorative. robbins characters are always sharp. yuh heard

so i saw life aquatic. good stuff. its getting panned at rotten tomatoes which i kind of predicted. watching it i knew it wouldnt be liked. odd, cause i liked the hell out of it. im also so fucking eager to see this movie, ive been eager, and its just unthirsted. someone watch it and tell me its good. the video store i freq. always has it, staring at me, and it just stopped being in. (for good). toys

pictures:
nightsky
muddywater
rockpit
hazywayne
vanity
metal
naughtyme
techno
ptincoming
origamichess

www.armygame.com. *

My kitty just jumped into the blinds.. but the lights were out (it was less dangerous) and I didn't see her. I assumed that it was a burglar. I grabbed an empty wine bottle from the floor and prepared to smash it in the face of my intruder. There was no intruder. Just a damp, wet, slightly warmer than normal December night that I viewed through the sliding glass doors that are the lame entrance to my pseudo-apartment. The bare (bear?) trees looked wonderful. I forgot to notice them changing to orange and vaguely remember them being green. I haven't been very much alive lately. I haven't noticed much. *

I ordered the supercult video. That shit is so '01. But Mary Anne from Vegas is full of shit... and I used to hang out with her and her goddamn North Shore Mass. accent doesn't sound like Vegay to me (baby). She used to go see lame bands like The Get Up Kids and Juliana Theory. I went too... because I thought she was hot. I was 18 and stupid. Aberdeen City, friends since the age of 6 or so are on the soundtrack. Too many personal connections to not order this pornography. Full report later. *

Four hours isn't sleep at all. --

"Men are born for games...

...Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.
Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god...."

A few months ago my mom decided to try to treat herself on her birthday to a pair of tickets to see Saturday Night Live. She was lucky enough to actually get a pair of seats on her actual birthday, which is pretty snazzy. Probably not blogworthy except for the fact that the musical guest was Modest Mouse. Hearing your mom come home and say "Wow, that Mouse band was pretty good. Your aunt and I really like them. Have you ever heard them? Were those pretty girls playing the Moraccas in the band?" So after six years of Mouse adoration, my mom gets to see them live before me. I actually considered suicide for a few minutes when this all occured because I'd temporarily lost all faith in the universe to function in a logical manner. I snapped out of it, however, when I rememberd that I've never really had all that much faith anyway. *

On the suggestion of one time blogger Paul and the likes of Penny Arcade and all of the other loonies I know personally or digitally I picked up Katamari Damacy for the Playstation 2. The game is just straight up fucked up. Read the synopsis on Gamerankings I linked above. If you see it, buy it... it's only $20 and hard to find, I'm told. *

I've made the decision, for all of the right reasons, to keep my short-term post-graduate life right here in Wayne, NJ. My plans for grandoise far-away cities and such have been negated by the fact that there's no better place than this part of the country to begin a career... and the fact that living at home for a bit will allow me to choose a job I want based on how much I like it rather than its short term earnings potential. Besides, I've already lived in some of those other places and have found that once the luster wears off, it's still the same ole BS. So let's hit up the diner on our way down to the shore after a night of clubbing in the city because I'm a bona-fide Jersey-ite again: Disco fries. Well done with gravy on the side please. *

There's also music on the horizon again. This much I can confirm. And no, this time I'm not going to fuck it up. --

6:16AM and the count is currently 254 to 252 but just about everyone is reporting a Bush victory. Kerry's people are adament and dispatching lawyers as expected, but it's not like last time and hopefully won't take as long as last time to be decided.

The last thing I heard before going to sleep last night was that 17% of of voting population were between the ages of 18-29, the much hyped youth vote. Guess what that percentage was in 2000? Yup, 17%. No one seemed to think that the increased in youth vote would be offset by an increased in stubborn conservative grandma's that haven't votes since 1984.

So it holds true. My generation knows how to whine and make a lot of noise. But when push comes to shove are ultimately lazy and dissapointing.

Weak.

Greetings. I hope everyone took a few minutes out of their day to go and vote today. My candidate won my state, which was one those pesky battle ground states... so it feels good to have participated for the first time. Now I just have to hope that the rest of the country follow suit. *

I was finally settling in to my job here in New York. Just about ready to start looking for apartments in Manhattan and begin this supposedly wonderful post-graduate life I've been waiting for my whole life. No more than 48 hours before I had solidified my desire to become a Manhattanite did I find out that my job had been outsourced to Paris and that if I wanted to keep it, I'd have to move there. Thing is, I don't know French. And Paris is expensive. And they eat fucking snails. And... well, shit... I didn't want to move to fucking Paris. While I can still remain employed at my current job well into the new year, the fact that it was a ticking time bomb has sorta soured my current mental state. The positive of not having to give a good goddamn about my work performance doesn't offset the prospect of unemployment quite as much as Office Space or Fight Club might have you believe. Dreading the process of Monster.com and the goddamn Sunday New York Times I decided to hit up all of my former employers and see what they had brewing in the pipeline. Fortunately, one of them turned up a very good opoortunity. However, that opportunity just happens to be in Atlanta. Now don't get me wrong... I love Atlanta. I loved living there for six months and I know I'd enjoy living there for a longer period. I guess I'm just kinda torn about the fact that for the first time in my life I don't feel like leaving my friends. Or my family. Or my girlfriend. I've done that a million times before and everytime it's been a crazy adventure. Unfortunately, where I sit right now I'm just not in the mood for an adventure. And I guess that sorta goes against everything I've done for the past five years... moving to Boston... doing internships in Georgia and Ohio... but I had grown very ok with the fact that I would be living in New York for a few years, close to friends and family and almost indefinitely settling down near the place I grew up. Thrusting myself into uncertainty at this time in my life is a mix between exciting and frightening and I'm not 100% how I feel about it yet...

Jesus... It's just an interview and I'm acting like I have the job already. Excuse my poor blogging, I'm rusty. --

You see, the thing is, blogger is blocked from the PC's at my new(ish) job. I essentially wake up at 5:45am, commute my ass to The Port Authority by bus and don't arrive home until just before 8PM. By that time I'm trying so hard to squeeze all of my little "chores" into the course of a few hours just to hit a reasonable bed time. Blogging takes a back seat, is what I'm saying.

However, I am definitely not willing to let this little outlet go. It's meant too much to me over the years and I know for a fact that I can make it important to me again. I don't plan on living at home in Jersey and commuting into the city for too much longer. And once I can cut my commute down by a large amount, I'll be back in front of here kicking like back in the day, only a bit more mature-like. Ya dig?

So, until then.. check back every once in awhile. I do plan to try and hit in.circles sporadically until my full scale return. Who knows, maybe Paul will write something, too. Or Jimmy. *

The Sox are creaming the Yanks as I write. Hell has surely frozen over. --

MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES. REALLY. WRITING HERE HAS TAKEN A BACKSEAT TO JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW AND IT'S GROWN TO BE A BIT OF A JOKE. HOWEVER, AFTER LOTS OF THINKING, I AM MAKING ONE (NOT QUITE LAST DITCH) EFFORT TO SAVE THIS HERE WEBSITE. WITH ANY LUCK, THERE WILL BE ABOUT THREE UPDATES A WEEK... BRIEF AND ENTERTAINING. SOMETHING I'VE NEVER QUITE SEEN ANYWHERE ELSE AND I'M EXCITED ABOUT IT.

THANKS FOR HANGING WITH ME. GIMME A FEW DAYS AND THINGS'LL BE SWELL. I PROMISE. --

CHRISTOPHER

You've got to sneak your blogs in when you can, folks. Even if that means at 6:54am, just 6 minutes before you need to be out the door and off to the bus station where you will inevitably be lulled back into a slumber by the darkness of the bus and the sweet hum that the gears make while navigating through Rt 46 / Rt 3 traffic only to wake up sweating and a little greasy at the Port Authority 10 minutes later than you needed to be. Sneak the blogs in kids, sneak 'em in. *

More later... it's time to roll. --

Fall. Football. Relaxation. Everything, yay.

Work is tough and the hours are killing me slowly. It certainly makes me miss playing ping-pong with jimmy on the daily and wish that I had used my downtime a bit better. But I think I'm learning how to balance out my newfound lack of time with precious care for my newfound free time. Read lots. Listen to good music. Enjoy friends and loved ones more than you've ever enjoyed them before. Savor their time and presence.

Sorry I don't write as much as I'd like to.. and believe me I'd like to, but I haven't quite figured out how to fit it into my schedule yet... but I'm working on it.

Also, I'm working on finishing my songs. Seeing Mitsuko (go. click. now) made me miss playing music. Jimmy said he would help me with my tunes. Maybe we can set aside one night a week to work on these songs. Maybe we could perform them. Or I can perform them if he's too busy. Maybe the band name could be either August De Meyer or The August De Meyers. Maybe it could be acoustic pop with keyboard and no drums. Or electronic drums, if we're so inclined. Maybe I could sing about the things I don't find the time to write about here. Maybe you can come see us and it'll be fun.

Fall. I love fall. --

You've got a new thing going!
And I can't go with that!
And the scars are showing!
From the memories gone bad!
And I say... go on! go on!

3:24am and the Ergs are still inspiring enough for me to accentuate their lyrics with exclamation points. Amen.*

New 250 gigger is installed, up and running. Old 80 gigger's been left on as a slave. WindowsXP is installed as the OS on the 250 gigger. WindowsME was left on the 80 gigger. I can boot to either.

I started installing all this shit at about 5pm tonight and I've only just finally gotten everything more or less back to normal on the PC front. I used to think I was good at this shit... but as the years have gone by I've considerably gotten stupider and stupider with it.

At any rate, iTunes seems to be functioning just splendidly... which means a little bit of anal MP3 organizing and rabid ripping of the CD collection will be commencing for a good two weeks until I get my sweaty little hands on my itty bitty Pod. Yay. --

Tired and hungover...

but just fine thanks to The Ergs! *

Going to pick up a new hard drive today... which is step #1 towards joining the ranks of all you white headphoned iPod sporting hipsters out there. Excellent. --

For as long as I've known Paul I've consistently offered up (usually misguided) musical advice to him. He is almost always kind enough to give a listen to, and weigh in on, whatever I'm recommending. In return, Paul generally points out books that I should be reading and video games that I probably should be playing. The whole system seems to work pretty well. Keeps us cultured, up to date, whatever.

In one rare instance of Paul laying some tunes on me, he offered up The Paper Chase around the release of their phenomenal sophomore album, Hide The Kitchen Knives. Whereas most music I stumble upon these days finds me dis-interested after a few weeks, The Paper Chase has again and again found itself on my playlists. My respect for this band has multiplied tenfold since I first found myself enamored with that shakey but disturbingly determined voice scream "YOU BETTER HIDE THOSE KITCHEN KNIVES!" out of my speakers two years ago.

I don't know why it took me so long to get myself a copy of their latest, God Bless Your Black Heart, but upon spinning it from front to back for the first time it's completely monopolized all of my listening time and playlist space. 90% an expanded Hide The Kitchen Knives concept, 5% Modest Mouse and 5% Connor Oberst, God Bless Your Black Heart is for anyone who likes their dementia sincere and honest or their heartbreak sickening and scary.

I listen to it more than the new Faint. More than the new Ted Leo. More than the new Interpol. Cure. Hives. Blah-blah. Blah-blah. Bands with visions and talent like The Paper Chase are an all-too-rare example of why music plays such a big part in my life.

So thanks, Paul. --

It's with caution that I admit to have been bitten by the Dan Brown bug. It started obviously enough, with The Da Vinci Code, and has moved forth to Angels* & Demons and then to Deception Point. I can only guess that the madness will end with Digital Fortress. Being the type of kid in high school that spent hours on the internet before it was cool for you to check out espn.com while at work, I'd previously stumbled upon countless websites about the Illuminati, Free Mason imagery on US Dollar Bills, etc. If you're a bit geeky, don't mind being caught on the subway with a paperback best seller, and have a few hours to kill (literally, you can plow through these puppies in hours) I highly recomment seeking out this shit. Your Dad's probably already bought it, so just borrow it from him or whatever.

Read it before Ron Howard casts Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon and ruins the whole damn thing. *

They sell shirts that have "I'm Rick James, Bitch" silkscreened along side an image of Mr. James on the Seaside Heights boardwalk. Last weekend, two days after the death of Signore James I saw a person walking along the beach that crossed out the "I'm" and replaced it with "I was" "I was Rick James, Bitch". Charming.

I might just be the only person in the United States that has not yet seen the David Chappelle skit that spawned that initial phrase. *

I'm employable, it turns out. Not only employable, but employable by multiple companies. When it rains it pours... and now I've been offered two wonderful positions with wonderful companies doing things that I know that I will enjoy. It's a wonderful problem to have... and once I make the final decision (it's 99.9% made), I'll let you hear about it... then the unemployed whining will end. Yay. --

* I'll have you know that the exact second that I began typing the word Angels, Ted Leo yelled the word "Angel" in song #2 off of his new album Shake The Sheets which I have not listened to enough yet to comment on.

Touche!

I wish I could play off my last post as a successful test of faith, but I cannot honestly do so. The truth is that I wanted my first blog back to be inspiring enough for me to stick to my word, but I just kinda froze up. Straight up writers block. For a few days I took a mental vacation, keeping me from blogging. Then after that I took a physical vacation to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I'm happy to say that I have returned with 1/2 lb. of peanut butter fudge, a red fighting fish won from a boardwalk game that strangely resembles beer-poing that Marissa and I have named "rar", a wicked sunburn, and a newfound desire to write. I suppose that you can get any of those aformentioned items just about anywhere in the U.S., but I think those who are in the know understand that there is no better place to do so.

Fudge, fish, and sunburn aside, I state that Seaside Heights, NJ is the perfect catalyst to my rekindled interest in blogging becase the duration of the time I spent there had me asking the very same questions that I've found myself asking a lot since leaving Boston and moving back home. #1 - Who are these people? and #2 - What the fuck am I doing here? While I am still not far removed from the inherent craziness that comes with being a senior in college living in Boston I am sure as hell not ready to take up any kind of suburban residence and begin living the way that so many middle-aged white people do. The desire to hit the town, to get out and see people in different situations has been such a huge part of my life the past five years, and it's tough to be faced with the truth that it's not really possible in my current location. Yes, technically on paper I live in a rather large town that offers a fairly diverse set of people(s). I have great friends whom I enjoy spending time with more than they probably know. But the scale to which I have become accustomed to enjoying my time on this planet has been greatly scaled down.

So there's the backdrop for going forward with in.circles. Knowing what's behind me - knowing what I want in front of me - and this bizarre little time in between called 'right now' in which living as an NYC commuter in North Jersey has me asking myself questions #1 and #2 a lot. *

Due up, more on the Jersey Shore, the statistical chance of getting on a subway train with a raving lunatic, and how much more ass my fighting fish can kick than yours. Stay tuned. --

Chris

Ahem... excuse me.  It appears as if i've lost my voice.  I'm sure that my lack of regular blogging makes that fairly evident.  The infrequency, I can deal with.  However, looking back at the substance behind my scant blogging and being embarassed and sickened, I cannot deal with.

The lack of voice or substance or whatever you want to call it behing my words is due to a million things.  However, lately I've felt an urge to get back into the daily, or almost daily, saddle. So rather than can this whole project that I've worked on more less for five years now, I'm going to give it one more shot.  The blogs will be coming.  And hopefully they will be interesting.

Hope to see ya around more.  Thanks,

Chris.

Technically I suppose you can say I'm employed. Generally, employment consists of regular payment in a paper check or electronically dispersed sum of money. If you're lucky, employment will also consist of health care benefits. My current 'employment' consists of none of those things, short of a few bucks to cover the insanely expensive commute from Jersey to New York everyday. However, I am being paid in "learning". And "experience". I am also getting to "rub elbows" with some influential and important people. I guess the idea is that giving up the above stated generalities of employment will pay off sometime in the future with larger payments in either paper or electronic forms. Despite the exciting work in which I get to do, which I'm not quite ready to reveal up in ye olde blog, it's tough to be working pro bono when there have been multiple offers that allow for pay and benefits in the here and now. *

If you take a look at my blog entry dated October 20, 2003 you will find a pretty accurate and quite pissed-off description of the night I was robbed at knife point. Last week, just over nine months after the incident, I took the witness stand to testify against the four assholes that pulled knives on me and a friend in search of a few bucks. I spent one hour and 45 minutes on the stand. I was cross-examined by four sleezy defense lawyers that had prepared questions intended to confuse my memory of the night. Questions designed to paint a false picture of me wanting to face off with four huge scary looking dudes because I had quite a bit to drink. I think I held my own on the stand... and I'm pretty sure that the few places I slipped up due to the sleezy questioning will be fixed by the bare facts of the case... my 911 call and the police reports... order of events, etc. I don't like to try to knock anyone trying to make a living... and I am sure there are lots of defense lawyers that are truly looking for justice in the world. But I don't know how these four particular people can be OK enough with themselves at day's end to have a decent night's rest. --

Tonight a handful of us will be heading up to the Catskills for a camping weekend and i'm pretty psyched about the whole thing. Of course, when your life consists of balancing time between Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and a pirated copy of Rez for the Dreamcast, anything that involes being outside of these bedroom walls warrants "psychedness". So Boo-ya. Bring on the mosquitos, campfires, and creepy New York state hicks. *

I've put together a handful of mix CD's to listen to on the trip. I've put one together that consists of mostly new music and a few old favorites to round out the collection... here's the tracklisting:

01. Wilco - At Least That's What You Said
02. Interpol - Slow Hands
03. Clinic - Country Mile
04. Mike Park - On That Stage
05. Single Frame Ashtray - The Slip
06. Mirah - Look Up!
07. Secret Machines - Light's On
08. Ramones - Do You Wanna Dance?
09. The Misfits - Bullet
10. Ramones - Needles and Pins
11. The Misfits - Death Comes Ripping
12. Two Lone Swordsmen - Sick When We Kiss
13. Clinic - wdyyb
14. Apollo Sunshine - Blood is Wood
15. Interpol - Not Even Jail
16. Single Frame - Floral Design in a Straight Line
17. The Cure - Before Three
18. Detachment Kit - Music for Strobelights
19. Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat

Enjoy your weekend. Happy Summer. --

Go and listen fuckwads. --

I just wrote an entire album's worth of power-pop songs. Think 1997. Two minute, thirty second long songs that pack in at least two verses, two choruses and a bridge or intro in the more inventive tunes. Think Plow United meets Beezewax. *

I'm four songs into the new Cure album and enjoying it a whole heck of a lot more than I thought I would. I guess Ross Robinson isn't all that terrible. I mean, he produced Burn Piana Island Burn by the Blood Brothers, right? *

I'm still unemployed. Although I finally have an attractive offer in front of me from a very respectable, well-known company. The job is marketing and sales related whereas lately I've had an unexplainable urge to dive into the finance industry a whole hell of a lot. A friend of my parent's trades on the commodities market (think oil. think the people who terrorists want to blow up.) and offered to sign me up as his unpaid clerk so that I could run around the trading floor for a few weeks to see if I can find anyone willing to hire me to do whatever the hell it is that they do over there. The whole scene is pretty exciting. But it's also pretty damn risky and can end up being a total, total bust. Whoa is me. --

And so it begins.

* 'At Least That's What You Said', the first song on the new Wilco album pleases me.
* I am still unemployed. But I'm coming closer to real employment by the day. I could be in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Jersey. It's heating up... the decision will come soon... which I'm sure will either lead to a new, fun blog that I will use to bitch in ad nauseum... or completely kill the damn thing. Either way I'm sure no one's too broken up.
* I enjoy playing Mario Golf more than I care to admit.
* Marissa will be heading my way with a truckload of her goods to come live with me while we sort out our employment and living situations. This pleases me very much.
* Word of advice... if you have the word "Sales" in our resume and want a halfway decent job... do not post your resume on Monster.com. You wil be flooded with calls from idiots who want you to sell shit to other idiots and pay you nothing for it.

Bitchin'. --

Passable verses. Catchy choruses. Blues riffs. Fuckin' A.

Catchy voices. Passable musicians. Blues. Fuck me. --

I don't know why it took me so long to actually command myself a copy of Single Frame Ashtray's 'Wetheads Come Running'. Better late then never. That's advice, folks. *

Being solitary all day long and most of the night makes my head wander down paths that I haven't allowed it to wander down much these past few years because of how goddamn busy I've been. Given the choice, I'd opt for the latter. Working hard enough to not have to try. The Good Life. Etc. *

That said, I'm still jobless. Still sitting in the sun. Still letting my head wander, fueled by bitter literature and hip music. *

This evening I'll be visiting some family in Kinnelon and later heading to Maxwell's in Hoboken to see Army of Me. A band I've never heard of. A band that nobody I'm going with has ever heard of. I'm psyched. --

12:21am. My skin is quite suntanned. That's what happens when you have nothing to do and read Palahniuk and/or Kafka every day on your parents deck from 12:30pm - 2:00pm in the early summer. I should probably start wearing lotion. *

Anyone that didn't download the Mitsuko MP3, you make me sad. Fix that.*

Today I had a musical eureka! of sorts. Funny thing is it came while fucking around with musical instruments that were all borrowed. Mostly Jeff's Martin. Knowing that I was going to be borrowing Jimmy's drum machine also led me there (which is sitting in my mailbox as i type. I forgot to take it out when I came home tonight. One last thing to do before bed). Plus synthesizers and borrowed copies of recording software. Use the tools at hand people. The future is now and tomorrow. So why live for yesterday? The project I plan on unleashing in time will most likely end up being dubbed The Metamorphosis, which looks a little bit funny when I type it. The name might have something to do with my newly rekindled interest in Kafka short stories or the idea of an unemployed white collar hopeful's desire to rock the fuck out in his off time. Regardless of the inspiration, I think it would look nice silk screened across your ass. *

I like the new Detachment Kit album. It sounds pretty much nothing like the last Detachment Kit album... which sounded like a less developed and less together Les Savy Fav. I've heard it dubbed as the coming of the new Modest Mouse. Which we apparently need because Modest Mouse's shittiest album ever is currently topping your US of A's Billboard 100 chart. I suppose if I had to stretch I could find some similarities between the controlled insanity of Of This Blood and The Fruit That Ate Itself EP... but it would be a stretch of Armstrong proportions. Comparing four songs and a few backwards tape looped intros to an exciting sophomore effort from a relatively unknown band that has recently taken residence just a few miles to my east in Brooklyn is just silly time-wasting. Let me not waste any more of your time then, go to the french kiss records site and find out more. Or Soulseek. Or BitTorrent... or whatever the fuck you crazy fuckers are using to get your kicks these days. I used Soulseek. *

G'Nite, it's time to try and beat that nasty fifth course in Mario Golf again. *

ladies and gentlemen, this life is dangerous. --

So, it's been awhile. I'm sorry about that. The truth is that when faced with the option of signing on to your parents AOL account via modem to go on the internet or sit on my ass and do nothing all day, the latter ends up winning almost all of the time. This afternoon, however, I am painfully hungover and the thought of sitting outside in the bright sun makes my head want to explode. *

One-time in.circles poster Jimmy has been playing in a band called Mitsuko for the past few months. Band is italicized because the whole shi-bang pretty much seems to be a two person operation with a few outside contributors here and there. At any rate, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check out this MP3. The song is entitled "Wallflower" and is bound to go bouncing around your head for days and days once you hear it. Think the Postal Service with Stephen Malkmus vocals and J. Mascis guitar noodling. A+. They don't have a website or anything just yet, but I'm sure if you left some feedback attached to this post Jimmy would be glad to address all of your questions. *

I've been interviewing for jobs. Looking for jobs. Posting resumes. Writing cover letters. It sucks and is no fun and I'm sure you don't want to hear about it. *

One of the coolest things about coming home has been that I have my entire record collection at my finger tips again. I only had a small portion of my entire collection with me in Boston. Being able to combine records old and new onto a cd shelf (or ten) has yielded come incredibly fun playlists. I mean... seeing J. Mascis and The Fog alphabetically next to Marilyn Manson, Kind Of Like Spitting next to KMFDM, and Ugly Cassanova next to Type-O Negative is incredibly amusing. *

I want to buy a car. Thing is, even if you have enough money for a very generous down payment, people don't sell you cars unless you have a job. So for now it looks like I'm still going to have to mooch. Sorry friends, I'll split gas with ya and pay you back once I get wheels. *

Marissa's gone home for a little while. I'll talk to you more about that next week... for now, I'm heading down the shore. --

The last time I really checked in I was sick as a dog due to excessive drinking and severe lack of sleep. Now, however, I am incredibly well rested and quite healthy. Instead of drinking until 4AM and being woken up far too early by the #1 bus rolling up and down Mass Ave I lay in bed unable to sleep due to the intense silence that comes with living smack in the middle of the burbs. I'm a college graduate, but I'm jobless. I don't have a car.

And it's all pretty much perfect. While it's sometimes frustrating being stuck in the house... I'll take reading a book outside in the sun over having to run out to work 8 hours a day fo-sheezy.

This is the longest vacation I've had since the summer of 2000. And I'm enjoying by doing nothing at all. Unless you count playing ping-pong with Marissa until 2AM doing stuff. Either way, like I said before... it's pretty much perfect. --

I'm alive. Haven't left the house much and am getting a little pastey down here in my parents basement. But I am indeed as alive as one can be without a high speed internet connection. I've been doing a lot of packing and unpacking.

We'll talk more later, for now it's off to a rock-n-roll show. --

heres my response to that question. if you're someone learned in this stuff you will see right away i had no idea what i was talking about. i got a b+ on the exam. upper respiratory infection drifting to the stomach, nuff said...

anselm of canterbury is as immortal in today's world as any god to grace the pages of history and literature. his piety earned him a permanent place in the minds of humans in the wake of colonialism and western conquest. the reason for this perpetual romantacized image of pure-white virtue is not rooted in exaggeration. during a time when greed held tightly to the masses and even infected the impenetrable piety of the church, anselm maintained his focus. as a theologian noone could better understand the human being and it's relation to divine mandate as did anselm. when education was not mature enough to recognize self confidence as the end to a means anselm wove this important facet of human existence into ideas fashionable to all alive during his time.
the apocalyptic myth which anselm rejected was regarding christ and satan in a struggle for man's salvation. to examine the ideas rooted in such an ideology one looks no further than humans themselves. the struggle of life is evidenced in the appearance of flesh and bone. what is life but a struggle for a cell to perceive and thus reproduce to manifest a physical appearance reflective of eagerness to understand. satans position laid foundation in the purely physical. eternal life is a symptom of satan's evil grip. one under this influence seeks to hold close all that defines them as a being.
christ comes in where selflessness is present. christ recognises the necessity of the being to cling to physical indulgences, but one absorbed in christ does not make the physical a habit. one rooted in christ uses their physical form as a vehicle to save themselves through self confidence and afterwards to promote this into the minds of others. man's salvation lies in an understanding and awareness; the fact that one cannot escape sin but may deflect sin in a manner which may be productive. thus two types of sin were cast.
criminal sin is in conduct of direct malice. one seeks to reinforce their physical existence through unjust means. sin, however, is pervasive; it washes over every human in the act of perceiving. greed can be vision, touch, and other sensory indulgences, but they are unavoidable because this sin brought the being into existence. the vibration of an idle cell reflected its rejection of eternal boredom in exchange for a predictable jaunt through a world of temporary sensory experience. the end is known, but soon as the being (cell) gets unsettled and seeks the physical it is cast into sin because all it can harbor in this plane of existence is futile as a result of impending death.
anselm understood these fundamentally HUMAN impulses and causes. what he presented to the masses was far different than what he felt, deep down, at the seat of his soul. in order for a harmonious experience in the physical realm this distinction had to be understood by those unable to grasp it.

For the record, Mr. Paul, not only are you welcomed here... I honestly feel that content from Jimbo and yourself is probably the only thing that will save me from shutting this thing down in the long-run. So ante up, biatches. Step to the plate if you'd like.

So here I am at work, on my very last day of a job that I have quit and returned to three previous times. I'm sick enough to feel like I have something the size of a tennis ball stuck in my throat and fear that drinking anything other than water will feel like razor blades in my neck after being swallowed. I've spent five of the past six nights living the dream, so to speak, that is... acting like a college student one last time: drinking approximately 8 hours each day and sleeping approximately 4 hours a night. It's been a freakin blast, but it's also caught up with me. On my last days of work at previous jobs I've spent the day going through all of the work I've done and building a portfolio of my work, etc... today I'm just going to stare at my monitor and watch the clock move slowly towards 5 o'clock, the time in which I will leave one hour early.

I graduate college in four days and move out of Boston in eleven. Ga-damn. --

im at school and i just did a midterm during the second to last week of school. im pretty sure i did not do well but i enjoyed responding to the essay question. there were 3 essays you pick one. since i had no clue about any of them ill show you the one that i had the least, no-clue about.

iv. although anselm of canterbury was a monk who rigorously followed the rule of st. benedict, nevertheless he argued as a theologian that we must take responsibility for our own eternal salvation.
(1)describe the apocalyptic myth (which anselm rejected) of the cosmic struggle of christ and satan for man's salvation;

(2)the ecclesiastical courts of the time, following abelard's theology, distinguished between criminal sin and sin: contrast the two

(3)why is this distinction important?

you know, writing this im curious if chris even welcomes me here anymore. between doing presentations on desmond tutu and biting my ass for nicker nockers its like shooing my zooble dew. ya see.

as much as it seems i dont, i really do.

have a passion for the material that was on the test. thing is everything i read(yesterday), of course, was not on the test. i got as far as the norman conquests. taking this class and arabic history at the same time has really helped me see that history is stupid and amusing at the same time. could you see juicy coutre pants on my plants. well, cnut was cool, i just dont really recall the cool stuff he did. i know i underlined fulk, of the angevins, too... you know the story, he did cool things. the other day i was reading a book and a name came up, margaret clitheroe, 10 pts if you can tell me who the fuck she is and how much weight they pressed her under. 1586, irrelevant to the reading im doing for school, anthony burgess wanting seed shit.

i swear tho, if there is any chick hotter than eleanor of aquitaine i will kill puppies in a puppy store and become a druid preist. we need people to read about her so they can be just as hot as she was. after i do my paper on her ill give you the degrees... see you in a year or so

Update: It has been released and is quite good.

My Internet ADD is out of fucking control. Three sentences into reading the Les Savy Fav "Inches" review on Pitchfork I open up a new browser window to check my main Hotmail e-mail inbox. Once I see that I have no new mail there I check my secondary Hotmail inbox and then flip over to Eudora to check my work email. As that happens I get an MSN Messenger IM from my boss asking me what I have on my plate today.. which I promptly ignore so that I can use AOL Instant Messenger to ask my friend if the LSF disk is out yet. He doesn't respond, even though he's not idle, so I open up my third browser window to check out frenchkissrecords.com for an official release date. As the Frenchkiss site is loading I realize that I never finished the review, so it's back to Pithfork. Two sentences into the second paragraph I don't feel like reading the review anymore because there's already no doubt in my mind that the comp. is going to rock the fuck out, so I close that window and click back to Frenchkiss. The splash page looks awkward on my high res screen and 5 seconds into trying to locate the link to get past it I get an IM from my girlfriend telling me that she's going to sign off for a bit. I send my goodbyes to her and on my way back to Frenchkiss I receive an email via Eudora concerning the Pub Crawl in which I will be participating in tonight. I write a quick response and realize what the goddamned-fuck have I accomplished in the last twenty minutes? Absolutely nothing! I should be fired! I should just leave and go to Newbury Comics and pickup the Les Savy Fav disc.. but shit, I STILL DON'T EVEN KNOW IF IT'S FUCKING OUT YET!!!! *

So this is how I find myself now, on the waydown off a three hour caffeine high prompted by this morning's 24 Oz. iced coffee with extra cream and sugar. And the people in the cube next to me are watching porn. The boss is at a trade show this week and my entire office is out of control. PORN, for Christ's sake... can't you get arrested for that kind of shit? *

I will be participating in a Pub Crawl tonight, Northeastern / Boylston area bars. It should be pretty boss. - I will be going to Mohegan Sun to gamble and drink my ass off next week. - I will be going on a booze cruise next week. - I will be enjoying my "last day of work" and entering the large population of unemployed folks out there next week. - I will be graduating in one week and two days. - I will probably develop liver cancer *

It looks like both my beloved Devils and Yankees are suffering from hypocrisy issues and lack of heart as of late. It's difficult to watch one time heroes fizzle out and become shells of their former selves, but it seems like what I'm looking at here. *

I didn't get through the whole thing... but I'm guessing that this article has a quote from a music industry momo attributing increases in record sales to the crackdown on file sharing, while anyone who's attended approximately one business or economics class knows it has everything to do with economic turn-around. *

Within the next two weeks I will have decided whether or not to quit my current job, buy a car, or move out of boston. Just after that I'll have graduated - and if all goes as planned, I could be moving to one of a few cities including Atlanta (keepin my fingers crossed there), Philly, or Chicago. I could very well be living with Marissa in one of those places. It's all very exciting and scary and I don't even want to write too much about it in fear of jinxing it or making myself look like an idiot later.

If none of the following works out I've decided that my plan B is to drive my dads old shitty car and spend my weeks after graduation bouncing back and forth between my parents house and my aunts house on the jersey shore.. or just bumming around Boston jobless until I find something. Even my plan B is fucked up... shit's crazy, dogg. *

So, how do we all feel about the new Modest Mouse? --

This morning, while racing down the four flights of stairs I must combat every morning to get to work I turned my ankle in an insanely awkward way and fell down like a feeble old man. My usual 15 minute walk from Downtown Crossing to the office took me about 45 minutes, with a quick stop at CVS for some Maximum Stength Advil. I've spent all day here with my keyboard on my lap and my bare foot covered with an ice pack elevated on the chair next to me. Everyone feels too bad to give me more work to do, which I'm enjoying.

However, I don't currently have health insurance... which I'm not enjoying. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that this sucker starts to heal asap so that I can avoid that whole X-Ray / put me in even more debt thing. *

Yesterday I downloaded Type O Negative's Life Is Killing Me, KMFDM's Xtort, and Pig's Sinsation. I also played the brutally bloody Manhunt for Playstation 2. Throw that on top of last night's squirm inducing Sopranos episode and you have a slightly shell shocked Christopher. Is it a coincidence that I fell down the stairs this morning? Was it God trying to turn me around from descending down the path of transforming into a 14 year old goth girl? Don't worry, big man... I outgrew wanting to dye my hair black about 11 years ago. So, as much as I appreciate your concerns... no more bone injuries please / thanks. *

"Did you see what God did to us man?"
"That wasn't God, it was you...you're a fucking narcotics agent, I knew it!"