life has been good. the trip to illinois, even if it wasn’t a thrill-a-minute type of vacation, was a very pleasant time. jessica was nice enough to at least pretend to get along with everyone, and several people made a side comment to me at some point about how cute she was, to which i invariably replied, “i know, it’s hard to believe i’ve held on to her this long.” also, the large amounts of food and beer and lawn games made for a satisfying midwestern weekend.

almost the whole time i also had a song in my head by islands, so i thought it was only fair to make ‘rough gem‘ the pay day song upon my return. that descending ‘doot-doot-doot’ part between verses gets me every time.

in los angeles news, now that we’re back, i finally got my reimbursement check for the car i rented after the accident i had in FREAKING APRIL. but at least i’m squared away now so i can’t complain too much. if only they paid ME interest the way i got to pay the credit card company.

oh no, i’m just now realizing how many other cool things there are to mention, so this might get long real quick.

for example, the comedians of comedy show last night at the troubadour was outstanding. patton oswalt and brian posehn were huge highlights but the rest were all pretty solid too. a great full night of laughs i’d strongly recommend you go out to see if they come around again — so incredibly worth a ticket for less than 20 bucks (which doesn’t include the 4 beers that happened to make it even funnier, unfortunately).

also, i just realized moments ago that both the mountain goats and cursive have new albums coming out the same day, and that day is NEXT WEEK. i really hope my head doesn’t explode.

and finally, in the unending stream of mountain goatsnews i can’t help but spread, their site has a link to their ‘woke up new’ video on youtube, which is directed by rian johnson of brick fame, and quite quite good.

whew. done.