"Philip wanted to find out how he ought to behave, and he thought he could prevent himself from being influenced by he opinions that surrounded him. But meanwhile he had to go on living, and, until he formed a theory of conduct, he made himself a provisional rule.

'Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.' "

- Of Human Bondage

I'm a sophomore lit major at heart. Kill me.

Conan O'Brien to take over The Tonight Show... in 2009.

Also, I'm listening to Unrest's Perfect Teeth for the first time in a few years. This was my favorite album for a while just about ten years ago. It's a great record. Listen to it. I was excited I almost peed myself when we got Mark Robinson to do the artwork for the Olive Group cd. (thanks AMG even if you can't read album credits correctly)

The problem with blogs is that their default setting is "whiney" and I, in particular, am guilty of that. So fuck all that. I had a great weekend. Some interesting possibilities kinda opened up. I drank a lot. Ran around with friends (old and new).

We didn't go to Shaun of the Dead yesterday but it'll happen sometime soon. Instead I took it easy for the day. Went to lunch w/Amanda at Katz's then napped then back over to watch Kill Bill Vol. 2.

I woke up early this morning (or was woken up by the phone) and wasn't able to get back to sleep. So now I've been puttering around. I don't plan on doing shit today except maybe the dishes and some reading. I got the new Stephenson book but it's just gonna have to wait until I'm done with Of Human Bondage. I started it while waiting to get the Stephenson book and now I'm hooked.

OK, what's going on? It's been a whirlwind couple of days. We had A's party friday night and it was a rousing success. Lotsa folks and lotsa craziness - trash can races and mexican wrestlers.

Woke up with a weary dizziness yesterday just so I can start it all over again. After putting around the house all afternoon I went to the church of the friendly ghost where it was "denton in austin" for a night. Several bands all came down together and played a show. Most of 'em weren't worthy noticing but jetscreamer was really good as I knew they'd be. I played a show with them 4 1/2 years ago in a meat locker in denton. Fun times.

Afterwards there was a house show/party. I totally missed the opportunity to watch some great rock when the fatal flying guilloteens played in the basement. I went in for a minute but it was just too crowded and claustrophobic for me. I wish I'd stayed in there, though.

Then later later, well, it's not even worth mentioning but I think we were insulted by a Nikki Sixx clone (he was going for Johhny Thunders but missed the mark a bit).

I think we're gonna go see Shaun of the Dead today. Maybe.

Hey, I know this is rather whore-ish, but I put up google ads on the side of my page so if you don't mind, please click on those when you come through here. I get paid! Haha!

Hmm, went out to side bar and jackalope last night. Somehow I managed to get really drunk - or least it felt like that this morning. I remember Jason buying everyone shots. Ouch. I had to do it, though, as it was my last day of work and I knew I could sleep until noon today. I ran into my friend Stacy and kept calling her Sarah by mistake. Oops. We ended up the night at star seeds after everyone kept talking about burgers. Mmm, bacon cheeseburgers are great when drunk at 3am.

We're having Amanda's birthday party at Tom and BJ's tonight. Come and drink with us. No bands due to the neighbors nixing the idea.

I think we decided on Sat Nov 6 as the 5th Annual Scorpio BDay Party. Details to come. I'm turning 30. Everyone buy me handguns.

OK, chumps, today is my last day a work. Yay. Goodbye. I'm getting a resume together to look for a real job but, really, who am I kidding? I'm way too lazy.

Today is Amanda's birthday. She is 16. She's so precocious. Apparently, I really missed out on some post-midnight bday festivities last night. Next time I try to go home early just smack me on the head.

Last night I watched the premier of the show Lost. This shit is good. Watch it.

(For some reason after I read this, I feel the need to let the blog reading world know that Amanda is not actually 16, but rather 24.)

They're showing The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years at beerland tonight. If you haven't ever seen this movie you should go. It's funny and sad and ridiculous, kinda like When Harry Met Sally but with the guy from WASP piss drunk in a pool. I used to watch this in middle school and even then I recognized how absurd this shit is. Except for the Megadeth part which I thought was about as cool as cool could get.

Dear Rory,

You fucked him again? You're such a hussy.

xoxo
dave

Arhhhr. My head is a little wobbly today. We went out last night for Tim's b-day or least that was the excuse for going out on a monday night. Well, this week's excuse anyway. Met up at casino then over to beerland for alcohol fueled karaoke. It was a pretty dead night over there so we made the best of the opportunity and several of us took our turn on the mic (some twice!). I sang "get back" and "sweet child o' mine" both of which went ok especially compared to my butchering of Pulp last friday night. I spent all my money. I don't wanna be broke. I guess I should look for a real job. Eventually. Maybe.

I went at lunch and bought The System of the World. Yay! Now I don't have to leave the house for a week. Of course this brings up the eventual sad day when I finish it and have no more Neal Stephenson to look forward to in the immediate future. If you haven't read these books yet, go read 'em dammit! Skip all his other shit because it sucks but the Baroque Cycle books + Cryptonomicon are some of the best modern fiction. As a matter of fact, Stephenson + Umberto Eco are really the only fiction writers past 1960 that I can really recommend as worth reading. The first Donna Tartt book, too. OK, whatever, VS Naipaul, too. I should be more careful with declarations because I always find a way to contradict myself.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

I was correct and this friday is my last day of work for this season. They're doing this thing where they're considering bringing some of us back in oct-nov for a week or two and then letting us go again until january. That really sucks. It's all "we might" and "depending" so basically I'm at their beck and call if they decide that need some people back. I can't make plans or travel or do anything because if I don't come back it'll mess up all sorts of stuff for at work. Arrgghh.

This weekend sucked. It was boring. Blah. The only kind of interesting thing was going to the jane magazine acl festival party friday night. It was an open bar. Rumors were surrounding who might be there and such but I didn't see anyone interesting.

I have done somewhere between "a little" and "no" work today. My heart just isn't in it. Unless something changes it looks like next friday will be my last day here until next january some time. That being the case, I just really don't give a shit about being here.

I really don't want to have band practice tonight. I might make up some bullshit story to get out of it. Maybe.

Right now I'm listening to The Who Sellout. Rock. Although I got sick of "I Can See For Miles" many years ago when it used to play on the classic rock station something like three times a day.

I kinda just want to sleep all weekend.

People need to stop leaning in my unrolled windows at stop lights to bug me for change. Get a job! or lacking that, at least some goddamn manners.

The new Neil Stephenson book comes out two weeks from today!

So I had sushi last night for the first time. I'd tried it a bit once before but I was drunk and don't really remember. Honestly, I can't see what the big deal is. People swear by this stuff and at best it's ok. It was just too chewy and tasted kinda bland except when you dunk it in wasabi and soy sauce but then that's all you taste. I could douse rice with that stuff at home for way cheaper. Oh yeah, the price. What? Come on. That shit is for suckers. No more for me, thank you. I think Amanda had the right idea, we shoulda ditched that stuff and gone to casino for buffalo wings.

I went to the doctor and got some more allergy meds including one that I spray up my nose. Fun! Maybe that should be the only thing that goes up there for a while. Haha. No, really.

I have some gmail invites. If anyone wants an account just leave a comment or email me.

Are you my tiger?

I really am sick. How sad. I cannot miss work so I must whine to everyone here.

I do believe I'm getting sick. Of course, I'm also a bit hungover but I think it's the combination that's making me feel so shitty this morning. Arrrg, I don't want to get sick. I only have 5 hours of leave from work of which I'm going to use several to go to the doctor on thursday. I can feel that little itching in the back of my throat. All I can do is take it easy and drown myself in orange juice.

The weekend was boring. Nothing doing... Until last night when I got go see the Shins tape their episode of Austin City Limits. I missed their show saturday (sold out) and had resigned myself to not seeing them when my roommate was nice enough to give me and our other roommate tickets to the ACL taping because he (the first roommate) had gotten on the list for the actual show.

So we went down sunday evening to line up and wait. The show is shot on the UT campus and I think that was the first time in several years that I had been there. Weird. Anyway, there were a bunch of delays and we had to sit directly in the line of the setting sun for 1 1/2 hours (we were supposed to only have to wait 20-30 minutes). But we finally got in. I think I may have been the absolute last person in which case I sure am glad that we cut in front of those people when the line started moving (they were taking too long so we by-passed them). I felt kinda bad but not really.

So we get in and find some seats. I end up on the left side of the stage in the front row - maybe ten feet from the band. One of the camera guys was right in front of me (he moved around alot so only blocked my view every once in a while). During the show, after each song was done the cameras would swing around to show the audience and inevitably it would be right in my face. Let's hope the editors are smart and cut that shit out. Then after a brief intro the band came out. They were great. Played all the hits and it sounded great in that room. I like that this is the same band that I saw do a in-store three years ago to 30-40 people. Now they sell out stubb's and play on Austin city limits. Anyway, they were good - they were the Shins and no amount of college kids liking them will make me like them any less. They played and took a brief break and then came back out and re-did songs that they had flubbed on so we got to see them play a couple of songs twice which was kind of interesting. So that's that.

When I was in eight grade drama class, we did a dramatic reading of the script of Red Dawn. Really.

This was my 400th post. Hurray.

Another can't-see-straight kinda day. And since I'm wearing the same clothes as last night I smell of cigarette smoke and beer. Hmm, a great day at the office all around. The evening started off with getting toasted w/A at trudy's. It was nice. We talked bullshit. I made an embarrassing confession. All the usual stuff. Then I dropped her off (cause she's a lightweight, haha) and went downtown.

First stop was Emo's to see Tina's new band. I can't recall their name but they were good. Played really light shoegazer-y stuff and wore matching outfits that Tina made. So I hung out there for a while talking to folks and getting progressively more drunk. Aaron, whose used to be in Those Peabodys, is playing with the Transgressors now and they were headlining there but I was a bad friend and skipped out even though I've never seen them play.

Ok, the next (and final) stop was over to Beerland to see Oh, Beast and Migas. I got there just as Oh, Beast was starting. They're such a good/weird band. I find them to be entirely uncategorizable. At some point while they were playing I decided to rip off the tab of my beer and throw it at them but instead I cut the shit out of my thumb. It doesn't look too bad today but it bled like a bitch last night. As I was walking to the bathroom to get a paper towel for my hand I ran into Tom and Lisa of the Kodiaks to whom I proudly displayed my bloody thumb. Well, so I watched the rest of the band and talked to folks for bit. I ended up leaving during Migas' first song because it then that I realized that I had to drive home and I was tired and I wanted to get home before the last couple of beers kicked in. The end.

"Spirit-crushing foolishness from my candidate, John Kerry. The nation is trying to figure out how to fight global terrorism and he's talking about having "not just a Department of Health and Human Services, but a Department of Wellness." How about a Department of F***ing Perspective?"

-kausfiles

I want to vote for John Kerry, I really do, but he's just such a clueless dud. This is as close as he has come to having an actual position or proposal about anything. I wish he would get some fucking balls. What kind of wishy-washy bullshit is this? He's going to lose in November. By a lot.

Sometimes it's all I can do just to get out of bed in the morning.

What do you know, I can't tell which day is which. Yesterday was a whole week of non-blogging because yesterday was tuesday, dumbass, not monday. And how did I spend my tuesday evening? Sleeping. I took nap when I got off work. Woke up, fixed dinner, watched some tv, and went back to bed. It was nice. I didn't sleep much this weekend.

We're having a no-drummer band practice tonight in order to learn a few new songs. It was supposed to happen last night but I called it off due to excessive sleepiness.

I'm very stressed out these days. I think it has to do with the imminent coming of being 30 years old. I've been having lots of "what do I want to do with the rest of my life?" conversations with myself. You know, the same one I've been having with myself for the past 8 years. I'm planning on trying grad school in the spring. We'll see how that goes. I am not optimistic. I'm trying to take positive steps, though. GRE next week. Thinking about narrow areas of study for a thesis.

Also, getting my own place. I like my roommates. I like the cheapness. I like the company but I feel like it's keeping me from becoming a truly adult me. Like I'm stuck in some adolescent fantasy where a room full of empty beers is a cool thing instead a irritating gross thing that really, really needs to be cleaned up. At least there are no bongs involved.

Aw hell, I dunno. I just feel like I need to grow up a bit. I need to get used to the idea that certain things just aren't going to happen and fucking move on.

Umm, ok weekend story continued. Friday I drank a lot and went to see bands. Saturday I went to see bands and then drank a lot. Sunday I was good and stayed in (mostly from exhaustion). Yesterday aka Labor Day aka monday off was nice. I went over to Rand and Choo's for Rand's b-day bbq. I love, love, love cook outs. I brought over some sausage and set to grilling. So 6 beers and two sausage on buns later Amanda showed up and we went over to Tom and BJ's for another round of grill action. I did no actual eating or grilling over there, though, just some lone stars. We stayed for a bit and looked at where some kid in a touring band tried to knock the pillar holding up their front porch down with a rubber mallet.

Ok, we leave there and decide that maybe we hadn't eaten or drank enough and head down to Casino for some wings. Yum. I ruled the mega-touch game. I couldn't stand up straight but I scored 60 million on the general trivia quiz. I also beat Amanda at tri-towers. It was sad to see her fail so badly. So finally we head to beerland for karaoke which sounded like a great idea until I got up to sing a pulp song and couldn't figure how it started. "Mumble, mumble, Common People!" Oh well, I guess a person can only kick so much ass in one night and I used up my quota while winning on tri-towers. I decided that maybe destroying only one song per evening might be the best so we watched a couple of people sing for a bit then we took off. Ouch, my head hurt this morning.

Some good non-personal blogs that I like to read...

Kaus Files - politics - technically part of slate now but existed before as an independent site

Volokh Conspiracy - politics, law - libertarian law professors talk about stuff - these people are too smart for their own good

Instapundit - politics - another law prof talks random politics


fyi, this probably goes without saying, but I am not saying I agree with everything these guys say or that they necessarily reflect my own ideas (although they sometimes do), these are just the people I've found to be the most interesting/informative on a consistent basis (especially volokh).

I made it close to a week w/out blogging and didn't really miss it. I thought perhaps if I put more time between posts, then I could weed out the mundane stuff and just write about interesting things. The problem with this plan was that I generally don't remember past the last day or two anymore (or hell, last night). But I will try...

The show last wednesday went pretty well. There were some people there despite being early on a weeknight at an out of the way venue. We played well. Our set didn't seem as short as I thought it would even though we only played five songs. So now Adam is leaving for three weeks on tour but we're going to take the time to work on adding a couple of more songs to the set for our second show which apparently will be in october at emo's with trail of dead. I like how I've been playing in bands in this town (and others) for years and never really done shit but with this band our second show will be on the big stage at emo's with several hundred people watching. Weird.

more later