Dear World,

Go to Hell.

Warmest Regards,

Dave

Blah. What a long day. Still got 2+ hours left at work. The show was great last night. Oh, Beast! has a slightly new line-up with Bryan recently added. Still very weird, though. I was hoping for a Steve Albini sighting as he's in town recording the new Bellini record but no luck. I did, however, see a girl who is a regular on the Gilmore Girls. I kept seeing her and trying to figure out where I knew her from and then I realized that the people on tv really are my only friends. Haha. BTW it's this girl (although this is a terrible pic).

Also, Amanda is back from a tough work trip to Vegas. It must have been awful. It'll be good to have my partner-in-crime back.

I had my second band practice with Adam, Zach and James last night. Despite there always being technical problems, it went pretty well. I got to put my new bass amp into action and it performed admirably. I pretty excited about this even though I'm playing some else's song. I like the idea of playing with people in a band that might actually do something worth while. I'm also in the middle of getting "my" band together. It's going slowly but surely. We may have a bass player but we'll see how things work out.

I went to Beerland for karaoke on monday night. I ended up doing a karaoke duel with these two girls who had also signed up for sweet caroline. I lost but sang pretty well - I just don't have boobs and apparently that's what is important. I also sang a very bad version of the Kinks' Lola and a pretty ok take on Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back in Town.

I'm going out to Emo's tonight for Oh Beast and Bellini. Hurray for weirdo rock!

I think that last entry may qualify as "most boring/pointless blog entry" ever. Until this one.

I actually wrote a post last friday but blogger ate it and there was no way I was going to type it out all over again. It really didn't say anything interesting anyway. Having said that, I don't have much worth saying today either.

The weekend was rather uneventful. I went out bar hopping friday night and ended it very late at a party by the university that was dying down and populated by no one I knew and no one over 23.

On saturday I went to see the Bourne Supremacy which was fun and fast in all its faux-cold war spy film goodness. Both of those movies have been surprisingly good. That night I went to watch some bands downtown. Yep. None of them really interested me in the least. There was a party around the corner from my house but I only knew a couple of people there and it seemed kinda crusty. I didn't stay long.

Sunday I was recovering from a cheap beer hangover and sitting around watching tv. I took a GRE practice test and did pretty much how I expected. It's scored like the SAT and I got 720 (out of 800) on the verbal section and 450 on the analytical part which is mostly math/geometry problems. At least I know where I need to concentrate my studying.

Also last night we had people over to play poker again. I think I was a little over confident after last week and I didn't do so hot last night. I came out $5 ahead but I hoping for a bit more.

I was going to go out to see the Black at Hole in the Wall last night but instead I fell asleep while reading at 8:30. So, to recap, I slept from 8:30 last night until 8:30 this morning.

Yesterday during lunch I went and bought a bass amp + cab on the super cheap. The amp is ok - it's a used GK but the cabinet is freaking sweet. It's a Marshall 1x15 bass cabinet - real old school style Marshall goodness. If I could find a link I'd post it but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Tonight I'm planning on going to Emo's to see Camp X-Ray and the Kodiaks. Good bands. The Riverboat Gamblers are playing also but they don't do much for me - pretty standard, by the numbers rock-n-roll punk (which isn't a bad thing but you have to be in the mood.) Burning Brides are headlining but I don't know anything about them except that they have an awful name.

When is the weekend?

I found this nice site last night - Stillmania! The World Wide U.H.B - while looking around to find hopeful release dates for the remaining two Whit Stillman's films which either aren't in print on DVD or have never been released. They came out with a decent version of Barcelona last year and Last Days of Disco was in print very briefly (and can be bought used for $89 on amazon) but what I really need is Metropolitan. Stillman may be my favorite modern filmmaker. Yes they're stylized and about yuppies and preppies and don't have much in the way of plots but I still love the way I love few films. So tell me, why, oh why, can I not get them (save Barcelona) on DVD? And how about the fact that he hasn't made a movie in six years? The latest news is that he's working on an adaptation of an unfinished Jane Austen manuscript for the screen. Before that last I heard was he was working on a film of Red azalea which is set in China during Mao's Cultural Revolution but I guess that was abandoned.

Sorry for the delayed update. Went home early from work yesterday and had a meeting all morning today. Also, there's nothing much to say. It was a nice, if uneventful, weekend. Friday night started with Amanda and I going to Factory People for free drinks. It was a great way start the evening - Chris and Stephen from Young Heart Attack were dj-ing, we were on the roof deck overlooking congress ave, the sunset was nice and we were drinking free booze. Yay! Blah Blah ran around all night.
 
Saturday was much the same. Sat around all day then went to the Camp Fig art opening. The show was all fabric and textiles, etc. Several friends had stuff in it and everything was great. Went to the Emo's beach party later on and caught the end of Summer Breeze playing the best of 1970's soft rock hits. Ended up at Clarke and Greg's drinking and bullshitting. Erik R was there and I hadn't seen him in like 1 1/2 years. Nice.
 
Sunday started early with Maragritas. Then over to Casino as soon as they opened. Everyone else went to play kickball but as anyone who knows me at all with tell you, I avoid the summer sun like, well, something that you really, really want to avoid so I went home. Eventually, some Waterloo peeps came over and we had our inaugural Sunday Night Poker Showdown. We played a mix of 7 card stud and texas hold 'em. I think the night was an unqualified success - of course, I also started the night with $6 and ended it with $28.

I just had the best lunch. While driving around I caught They Might Be Giants playing/talking in the studio on KUT. They always put me in the best of moods. They're playing at Stubb's tonight but I don't think that I'm going to go. I really, really hate outside shit like that during the summer. Besides, I saw them a couple of months ago during sxsw. TMBG always put me in a big nostalgic mood. Listened to them a lot my last two years of high school. They especially remind me of a certain super smart and cute girl who I was crushing on for like a year and then during my 1st year of college I finally had a little thing with. She killed me and so do they. Well, now they make ok but kinda mediocre records and she is married and a doctor or some shit and I'm sitting at a desk with a crappy job that I'm not doing because I'm writing this.
 
I had two different band practices on two nights in a row. This could be good.

Amazing how a full night of sleep will make you feel. I went out for a bit last night but was home by 12:30am. After playing some music with Chris I went to Barfly's w/Amanda to watch SB and Tim lose in the pool tournament then we headed to Beerland for a benefit for Lisa Kodiak. After having a few drinks and playing tri-towers on the ubiquitous touch screen bar video game, I was nodding off so I demanded we leave so I could go home and sleep.

I got the new Fiery Furnaces record yesterday. Very good. Very different. It reminds me of Olivia Tremor Control with it's sprawling everything-ness.

Everyone's an apologist for Europe these days. I can ignore the entrenched bureaucratic socialism. I can maybe even ignore the rampant anti-semitism. But to send a man to prison for shooting himself in the nuts is unforgivable.

I am no longer a karaoke virgin. I passed on what I always swore would be my first song, Sweet Caroline, in favor on the David Lee Roth version of Just a Gigalo. I was second to last and Danielle finished the night off with a rousing rendition of Pulp's Common People. Maybe some Neil Diamond next week.

This isn't the first time I've written this and it won't be the last - lone star and whiskey hangovers are the worst. Bleh.

More than a few times in the past couple of weeks I have sat down at my desk and noticed that upon leaving the restroom, I had forgotten to zip my fly. I've never had this problem before. I should work on that.

Yadda yadda yadda. Drank all weekend. Peabodys were good friday night. The Arm was good saturday night. Too many people in general. Caucus Club was entirely unnecessary last night.

Watched Mystic River yesterday afternoon. It was very OK - more than a little heavy handed. I'll tell you one thing, it was no Mystic Pizza.

I'm going to lunch.

This is pretty funny but at the same time very college-y. Here you go... a softer world

It's early still. Well, it feels like it anyway. I need to go visit my parents. I can't remember the last time I saw them but I'm pretty sure it was several months ago. That can't be good. They went to visit my brother in Houston this week, though. I forgot I had lunch w/my mom and niece last month. It was too quick, though - doesn't count.

Does anyone want to play bass in a band? Write me. The songs are pretty a-ok, good.

It's been a slow-as-hell day. Being awake all the time sucks. I have no plans for tonight and don't really want any.

That whole thing sounds way more depressing than I meant it to. I just want the world to slow down a bit (except while I'm at work.)

I really need to clean up and settle down a bit. I've been running myself ragged for months. I pretty much continually feel like shit. I miss work. I get sick at the drop of a hat. No good.

In other news, I'm rather pleased the Kerry picked John Edwards as his running mate. I like Edwards despite his car salesman-like demeanor. John Kerry is a chump but he's better than the other chump so it's nice to have someone to vote for instead of against. Good god, can you imagine if he'd picked Gephardt? The man has no eye brows. No one would ever vote for a man without eyebrows. He looks like some kind of cloning experiment gone awry.

Why didn't this happen to me when I was in middle school?

In other news, I saw Spider-Man 2 this weekend. I liked it much better than the first mainly because I hated how they did the Green Goblin in the original movie.

Yesterday we had a bar-b-que. It was nice. Friends came over and ate and drank. The weird thing is that the events of the day started off with drinking at 4pm at the cook-out but somehow managed to end at 2am while drinking at the crazy lady. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't think I was made for strip clubs. For the record, it was not my idea. We left the house to go to the store for beer for swimming. We never made it to the store.

I'm not sure but I think last night wins for "Most Absurd Monday Ever."

Also, my head's a little spinny.

Modern Drunkard Magazine