OK, so in less than a week I will officially be a homeowner. I'm closing on thursday next week. From there on out expect nothing but discussions of home improvements and such cause my house sure does need a lot of improving. I've set up a vague plan, though. Since I will own the house next week but don't have to be out of my old place til january, I will dedicate my weekends to making my new place a crazy thing called inhabitable. I will do things like call a plumber to get the hot water heater running. Also, I will re-attach the soap dish in the bathtub. I will clear leaves off of, well, everywhere. I will replace the window sills that have rotted away due to water damage and termites. I will make sure the stove isn't leaking gas into the house. I will take up Bridget on her kind offer to loan/give me her old CO meter to put next to the 40+ year old wall furnace in my hallway that is the only heat source for the house (until I buy a few space heaters, anyhow). Then after I move in, I can worry about things like paint and, well, paint.

There's nothing like having a naked face once or twice a year to remember why you normally grow a beard (even if it's turning white at an alarming rate!) I swear I look 10x chubbier minus facial hair. I never had a strong chin, but at least having a beard sometimes gives that illusion. Now nothing hides my round double chin and the fact that my neck is wider than my head in several places. I have a new inner-mantra... "Grow, face hair! Grow damnyou!"

I'm almost through getting the house. Apparently, mine has been a near painless process, but it was still pretty awful. There were several times when I almost called the whole thing off, letting my extreme anxiety get the better of me. I know I have lots more ahead of me once I'm in there. It's a pretty bare-bones place. No central a/c, old carpet (with questionable tiles underneath), plus about 1000 other things I'll either have to fix or just live with. I'm excited and have lots of plans but, the again, I often get excited and lots of plans for things that I never follow through on.

Interview w/ex-judge Andrew Napolitano (yeah the fox-news guy) at reason.

Just an observation...

 

Do those people who beg for money at stop lights really think that rush hour is the right to time to do it? After working 10 hours and getting stuck in traffic for another half hour, the only money I'm gonna give those jerk-faces is the pennies I'm slinging at their foreheads. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

 

My four-day weekend was nice and relaxing. I pretty much didn't do anything worth anything the whole time. Except for Friday morning when my head exploded. It was just a sad confluence of events that morning which I'd taken off of work in order to nurse my hangover that I never got. It was just too much too fast that morning - (1) my car died at the grocery store which meant I had to walk home carrying multiple bags of foodstuffs, (2) I was trying to make an offer on a house and somehow I hadn't realized that, um, you need to have money on hand to do this - not in some online savings account that, while does pay 4.5% interest, takes 4-5 days to transfer funds, (3) I had to walk back to the store to meet the tow truck, and (4) target didn't have any fans - I mean, none - my room is the attic and it gets stuffy (my old fan died last week). All of this worked out fine since my car only need a new battery cable, the house I want is already under contract, and ,well, the fan thing has yet to be rectified.

 

I don't recall much of the rest of the weekend. I went to see the Evens on Sunday. That was ok, I guess.

I have found the most depraved and disgusting show on television. See it here.

us at fun fun fun fest

We're finished with the new record. All mixed and everything. It should see the light of day sometime early next year. I think it's really freakin' great and I'm gonna be so disappointed if it flops. I really feel like this is the thing that's going to make a change in my life one way or the other. Either it'll be huge and I can quit bothering with a day job or it will get lost in the haze of crappy music and I'll give it all up and stick to my dumb desk.

I knew there was a reason I liked Austin.

 

http://www.city-data.com/top2/z52.html

"Are America's public schools better today than they were in 1980, when the Department of Education was created? Anybody really feel safer since DHS came along in 2003 to take away our toothpaste, put 700,000 names on the terrorist list, and mismanage FEMA? Anyone think the free market in America would buckle if we abolished the orgy of corporate welfare that is the Department of Commerce? What would happen if we got rid of the Department of Agriculture, which has more federal employees on its payroll than there are actual farmers in America? Here's my guess: No one would starve to death."

 

via The Agitator

Ron Paul Raises More Than $4 Million in One Day

Sure he has no chance to win anything, but if he does well enough in the primaries, they'll have to let him speak at the Republican convention. I think the look on the faces of the little old lady party faithful would be priceless.

Fun Fun Fun Fest was amazing. I had a great time on Saturday. We had to get there fairly early to load in our gear, then played at 2pm. As I was drunkenly saying to an equally drunken friend on Saturday night, it was like me and all my friends and all the people we've been playing music with and hanging out with for the past 10 years decided to put on a huge music festival. It was appropriately diverse in its performers. I mean, how many times do you to choose between watching the Sword and the New Pornographers? That's a good problem to have (I choose N.P. just cause they don't play Austin very often and they were awe-sum.)

 

Sunday, everyone was dragging ass a bit as Saturday will probably go down as one of the great party nights in Austin history. I just wish I had been able to stay up to participate (I went home and collapsed around midnight). But we got there early Sunday to watch Attack Formation who were excellent as always. I watched a couple more bands but went home fairly early out of tired-ness.

 

Also, JD from the Sword told me he saw footage us on the news during a story about the festival. I tried to find it online to no avail. It was on news8austin.com so if you find it, send me a link.

After talking about it for years, I am finally going to buy a house. I don't know which house yet, but that is totally incidental to the bigger picture. Today someone who obviously doesn't know any better agreed to loan me a large amount of money to be paid back over the next thirty years. WTF? 30 years? Wait, maybe this isn't a good idea after all.