Category: Uncategorized

i’ve been writing less this week because i’ve been consuming words at a mad pace instead of pouring them out onto this page — that is, i’m trying to fly through the home stretch of the mighty infinite jest, and doing a good job considering the time i have to read while still maintaining normal social relations. on page 827 right now (out of 981 not including endnotes). my goal is to finish by saturday afternoon, which will be the exact six-week point from starting. an approximately 1100 page book in six weeks? calculator tells me that’s about 183 pages a week, which is not far off from one normal book a week, which means i’m doing just fine. especially considering the whole finals/moving/visiting father things that kept me from reading much during certain spots in there . . . i fucking rule.

since i’ve written little lately, i’ll continue without feeling longwinded.

we have this joke amongst a few of us that i think you will find fun to try out with your own circle of friends, perhaps, so i will share it. i have this friend, who is a girl, and who happens to be my girlfriend, whose last name starts with your typical irish prefix. she also happens to fall asleep and/or intentionally take naps pretty much all the time, so when she did this, i would call her “nappy mcnap” instead of her real name, because i’m so unbearably clever. this has since developed, over time and creative twisting, into a full-on compulsive habit of describing many of my friends. for example, when someone is being lazy, they are called “lazy mclazy”, and so on. eventually, this got boring, and so it’s gone farther to where the first and last words are not the same, making it even more fun and verbally showy. an example: my roommate left to go running, and i said, “later, joggy mcfitness!” a tired girlfriend can now be called “sleepy mcyawn”. see how much fun this gets to be? well i hope so, because i can’t stop. i’m a regular punny mcGENIUS.

but try it out and tell me it’s not funny. i dare you.

umm, song of the week later, after i read more.

[now hearing this: houston: “water” from head like a road map. this cd is seriously good.]

strange the things that get under your skin when you spend five days a week in an office setting. i never would have imagined myself as someone who gets annoyed at the littlest things here and there, like someone leaving a bunch of pages they’ve printed in the printer tray, just sitting there, all day long. but, there i am, slowly shaking my head and wondering who the irresponsible printer is.

also wishing it was time to eat the turkey & cheddar sandwich (on a kaiser roll — magnificent) waiting for me in the refrigerator.

[now hearing this: typey typey.]

two things i lack pretty much without fail: patriotism/nationalism for one, and its watered down substitute, loyalty to a local sports team for another. i’m sure i could dig up lots of scholarly essays on counties’ substitution for fanatic soccer-team devotion after the general decrease in international warfare, but i’m assuming the majority of readers get it without my having to find essays in my support.

anyway, the lakers are again plowing through the nba finals, and i cannot possibly muster up a single ounce of energy for caring. people left and right talking about this game, that shot, kobe this, shaq that . . . i just find it all so boring and silly. grown men that play a sport for a living and make more in a year than i’ll probably ever make in a decade is just kind of sad to me. more sad the more i think about it. but then i think of all the joy those big sweaty men bring to so many middle-aged guys with nothing better to care about, and . . . wait, i’m still sad.

and as far as patriotism, i’m only especially glad to be an american when it results in three day weekends. memorial day, to honor those who have fallen in war to protect our freedom, and if you’re me, to barbeque beef and enjoy a book and not go to work. also, to make another trip to cold stone creamery (cold stone combo #2: sweet cream ice cream w/ twix bar and caramel. holy dairy dessert, that was a delicious combination).

fantastic.

[now hearing this: back to the future on tbs. even fantasticker.]

i keep forgetting to write until the next day. maybe you could say i’m taking a day to digest everything before i lay it out in a public forum. really i just keep forgetting.

yesterday was far less eventful but still a wonderful thing. when you know monday isn’t a real monday, the weekend is even more fulfilling. i spent about 4 hours making a new mixtape for my cd-playerless car so i can avoid the pit that is broadcast radio and not get too sick of the mixtapes i already have. have to road test it more before i can tell if it’s good or not. other than that i read almost the entire day (outside a trip to the airport to drop off josh). the only other excursion was to ralph’s to pick up some of this new vanilla coke stuff for a taste test, after being reminded by justin. i have to say, it’s pretty damn good stuff. i was afraid there would no real detectable vanilla presence, but it’s pretty sweet. i’ve had a vanilla coke fetish for some time, and it’s good to know that i can buy it pre-bottled now and save myself a trip to denny’s or ed debevik’s or something. mmm.

today is for books and barbeques. outstanding.

yesterday was the shit. seriously, why can’t more days be like this? i went to work, which isn’t great, but is better when the first thing of the day is the friday breakfast meeting that includes breakfast. the bagel wasn’t great, but it was free, get it? plus it meant not sitting at my computer for that hour.

then, at one, instead of working at my desk for five more hours, i got to go to E3, which to the non-loser population means nothing, but to fans of video games is an exciting opportunity. for the undorky, E3 stands for electronic entertainment expo, and it’s held at the la convention center, and it’s the hugeass industry conference for all the video game makers. that means they have huge flashy displays, crazy lights, loud music, and most importantly, test-builds of all their upcoming game titles running on huge, expensive, very choice flat panel tv screens. yes, i’ve seen a bunch of games being played that won’t even be on the market until november or even later in some cases. didn’t play any because it’s more fun to watch people that are more or less proffessional game players testing out stuff and showing off what it can do. so that was awesome.

things to check out this fall, based on what i saw (for ps2, which is my system of choice): the getaway and star wars: bounty hunter. there were of course some expected things that are cool but not that exciting or revolutionary, like tony hawk 4, and some i will get just because they look fun but other people might not like as much at all, like superman: shadow of apokolips, batman: dark tomorrow, and a game based on evil dead. also, although they didn’t have the game on display at all, i did find out there will be a sequel to grand theft auto III out this fall too. hot damn. (if you’re dorky enough to want to find out more you should check out gamespot, they have a lot of E3 coverage over all platforms.)

oh, and after we left there at four i got to go straight home. short days are the shit too. i got to spend some quality time with my lady instead of working until six.

and THEN we went to see the rx bandits at the glass house, and as always they rocked the room. so much fun to see live. follow it with in-n-out burger and you can’t lose.

holy crap my friends are both hilarious and crazy.

both of these things were said within the last five minutes in my bedroom, by one roommate and one darling girlfriend:

“she’s like a mouseketeer: they never die, they just get older.”

and,

“frankie avalon, you son of a bitch.”

time for the song of the week again. missed last week but hey, who cares.

so i like shiner. i went to see shiner. houston opened for them, and i ended up really liking them too. they sounded kind of like shiner, actually. but different enough where that wasn’t a bad thing. i bought their cd, and it is an enjoyable thing too. hence, waves is the song of the week. it’s got that great rising action to climax to soft resolution structure that makes a song very rewarding, and lyrics like “when i proudly go my own way, i’ll proudly make the same mistakes.” good stuff. i don’t have any fancy software for chopping mp3’s up, so it’s 11 minutes due to the silence and then bonus track of a very pitchshifter-sounding remix of their song buddy on the end. sorry about that. but so you know what the original sounds like, i put that up as a bonus track, which is pretty damn good too. love the end to that song. love it.

sort of a further discussion from the music-as-personality i was talking about yesterday, only transposed: driving to work today, i drove past a big billboard/poster thing on the side of a building for the new goo-goo dolls album, which was just a waist-up shot in black and white of the three band guys. the lead singer (of the goo-goo dolls, remember) was front and center, and wearing a ramones t-shirt. what the hell is that?

alright, let’s start here: maybe this guy — i don’t know his name, so i’ll call him goo — maybe goo really likes the ramones. i’m thinking someone who is really into the ramones wouldn’t turn around and make music like he does, so although i think that’s bullshit from square one, we’ll even let that slide for now. the whole other problem is, if goo IS a big ramones fan, why did he or his costume person or record executive or whoever think he needed to wear that shirt in this promotional shot, to be blown up and pasted on the sides of buildings to promote a goo-goo dolls album? it’s not like wearing the ramones shirt will get you more credibility with ggd fans, will it? or have great musical acts like the ramones been reduced to accessories and brand names? i just don’t understand at all. it seems wrong and so very, very stupid to me that i had to cry out for help.

also, driving northbound to work today on a six-lane, median-divided main avenue in los angeles (san vicente for locals), there was a car going south on the northbound side in the center lane, puttering along all by itself, while all the northbound traffic waited at a stoplight farther down. the light changed, and as i was both in the front of the pack and in said center lane, i cautiously advanced but came to a stop after a short distance, while i waited for the two very old ladies in the little poorly-oriented vehicle to make up their minds. the other lanes, seeing the problem, also came to a stop a few car lengths before this confused auto, waiting for the ladies’ reaction. only they didn’t do anything for like a good couple minutes. nothing at all — they just sat there making frustrated faces and not moving, while people behind me honked a lot. eventually they turned to their left, my right, and down another street that i think accomodated two-way traffic. it was surreal seeing this single car going the wrong way down an empty street (empty due to the long red light), and made me pretty sure that old ladies don’t really know how to drive. at all.

at least there was no accident resulting. this time, anyway.

[now hearing this: keyboard clicking, i.e. work and not music.]

the ever-ponderous dilemma of the hardcore music fan: someone you adore, someone you know is definitely one of the top ten or so people you have ever met in the ever-lengthening duration of your life so far, someone you wish you could spend time everlasting just enjoying the company of, goes and says something like, “i know you’ll probably make fun of me, but i really like both the new no doubt song (“hella good”, but we both knew that so she didn’t have to say it) and that nickelback song from spiderman (again, no question as to which [absolutely awful] song she was referring)”

how does a rational yet emotionally-involved music appreciator deal with this? tell me you don’t know what i mean. it’s really hard not to judge a person at least in part by their music taste, especially (perhaps only, i can only speak from my own perspective) if you’re the kind of person who sees music as such a huge part of who you are. and it’s at least slightly hard to ever fully like someone who professes love for dave matthews, or linkin’ park, or fucking anything you would line dance too. i have friends and family who probably fall into all of these categories, all of whom i do love in case they were beginning to doubt. so i guess it’s not impossible; well, i know it isn’t. but all the same i can’t help wondering how it got to be that this hobby of mine at some point gained the power to instill in me such extreme dislike — at least in a superficial way — of those who are musically incompatable with my own style. how somewhere along the line, telling me your favorite musicians fall under the group of “performs choreographed dances with headsets” category was about the same as telling me you think the south should have won in terms of how fast i’ll write you off as a potential close friend.

it’s just weird, is all. and i’m still recuperating from having the girl i hold above all others tell me she digs a nickelback song, but we’ll find a way to get through this.

[now hearing this: some solea mp3’s . . . hearing “former texas is the reason” always makes my head perk up, and i was supposed to see them play at two shows now that ended up being sold out before i could get tickets, so i finally had to settle for the old magic download system. a couple of these are really good, but the song “shiekilish” (i think that’s how it’s spelled) is an awfully poor derivative of “under pressure”. again, we will try to get through this musical faux-pas.]

holy balls, 5 shirts (3 longsleeve, 2 polo) for only $12.77. now that’s a deal. worth celebrating with milk and cookies, i’d say.

[now hearing this: resuming whatever chick corea cd this is. still good.]