Let's just do this in list format, shall we?
Martha Stewart will suggest on tomorrow's episode that you have a "sausage buffet" for a super bowl party. that's disturbing on so many levels.
current music choices, almost exclusively:
at home: vasant's mix of old(ish) music i should know. developing music critic cred as i type.
in car: mountain goats--half of the coroner's gambit. half, because i taped it, and the first half--up through midway through "horseradish road", to be exact--is inexpicably warped, although the flip side of the tape is fine. go figure.
at work: the mall. we can't get kdhx or kwur on the lab's stereo. i linked to the last two in order to regain some of my sanity after linking to an emmis communications radio's website. they're evil.
in my head: til tuesday, "voices carry." not bad for the first fifty times, but then becomes noise. hopefully gang of four will knock it out before i go to bed.
i thought it was really funny that u2's "the edge" (in quotes as i hate calling people by fake names) talked about the bledsoe/brady quarterback issue in a press conference the band did.
it rained pretty much all day. i locked myself out of the camera store when i took the trash out after the store closed. people laughed at me, then let me back in.
sarah had a link to this on her weblog. i spent much time laughing at it.
did my taxes today. i'm getting about $100 back from the federal and state governments. dave's getting about $400 (after noticing an accounting error on my part) back. i'm bitter.
missy (with her very long blogspot name...i'm winded) linked to this today. i re-link it for two reasons. one, i think the page is great. and two, it reminds me of another website (coming from a newspaper column/book series) that has sucked me in for over ten years. the straight dope. there are several books out, and i swear i've read each one multiple times. i'm a sucker for answers to strange, yet pressing, questions. thanks for indirectly reminding me, missy.
nothing interesting happened today.
i like putting things in list format.
Okay
despite the many people (okay, two...but hey, two's a lot, right?) that requested that i start with word freak (not "freaks", as originally posted), i started the other book last night. this one should be a fairly quick read, though, and then i can focus on the wonderment that is scrabble and scrabble-obsessed people.
strange, strange day--but for no real reason. admittedly, i was awakened this morning by a female voice (sounding quite a bit like nicole--which is odd, since she's in chicago and i haven't seen her in a loooong time) insisting that i wake up. and yes, as i'm sure you can imagine, there was no one in the house. a blank message on the answering machine, dave asleep, etc.
so let's just say that i was off to a queer start. was i awakened by the ghost of whoever died in my bedroom (i did talk about the strange blood/paint/ketchup stain on the floor of my room, didn't i?)? was it the end of a dream? was it a strange hallucination? whatever it was, it turned the rest of my day into one long "huh?"--people seemed to be talking to me about nothing, speaking gibberish, making weird logical jumps, et al.
if the people at the https://www.chaturbaterooms.com camera store don't think i'm insane yet, well, today may have made up their minds for them.
several notes:
i've been told that i have to go to a strip club with two women who work with me. it's too long of a story to actually tell, so i'll leave it at that.
yet more good mail today--this time i finally got the wedding portrait of my sister and her husband. now i just need to find a frame for an 8" x 8" print...
dave is just flying through final fantasy x. he named a big dragon-looking thing with a necklace after me. i'm touched.
i ate chinese food for lunch where the chicken had grill marks on it. it was unsettling, but tasty.
i always feel a little goofy when, looking for a snack, i end up settling for a spoon of peanut butter. i mean, it's not frosting, but still...
my new pants fit fine. thank you for asking.
today's post has been a study in synonyms for the word "strange." i have a feeling that should tell me something.
i really wanted to be asleep by 3:00 tonight. dammit.
is there a beauty in promises broken?
I'm getting pretty disturbed
one library book down, two to go. just so you know, the books are rock til you drop and word freaks. both seem interesting, but i think i need a break after one music book. on the other hand, rock til you drop is due before word freaks...
you see the things i think about on a regular basis?
actually, that's not true. i had trouble sleeping last night due to the monthly (or sometimes, if i'm blessed, bi-monthly) worrying about money issues. if i wasn't such a goddamn dullhead (i looked up synonyms for "idiot", and there it was) when it came to financial matters, i'd be all right. but no...the allure of buying un-needed shit is much more seductive than the allure of being able to sleep at night.
got yet another mix cd from vasant earlier today--along with a pair of pants from my mom, making this a fine mail day as long as i didn't open the actual mailbox. anyway, i'm currently rocking out to old british punk/post-punk stuff, and enjoying it thoroughly. thank you, vasant.
i've been tired all day, so i believe that i will retire a bit early.
I do believe
i do believe that i have now reached the critical two-and-a-half-month point in my jasminelive webpage. you see, at about this time every time i design/redesign my website, i begin to second-guess myself a lot. should i be updating more? should i change that huge-but-not-doing-much flash on my main page? should i redesign the whole thing, because the current design is getting tiresome to me? that sort of thing, but a million questions more.
i hate this time, because i feel like i have to start over again. and i don't want to start over again, because it takes just too much damn time. time that i should be spending reading the multiple library books that i have out that are all due in the next week or so, quite frankly.
so we'll see if i do that.
rented some movies the other day--smoke, 8 mm, wonder boys, and miller's crossing (god bless you, schnuck's, for having 50 cent video rentals!). the latter three i rented because i wanted to see them. the first, smoke, i rented because i have a tendency to tell people about the part of the movie where harvey keitel's character takes a jasmin live picture of the same scene every day, an aspect of the movie i find incredibly cool. inevitably people would then ask me if i liked the movie. and i wouldn't remember.
there's something to be said for a part of a movie that you find so interesting that you can't remember the remainder of the film.
for the record, the movie's only okay.
did my first radio show of the semester, over at kwur. sunday nights, 6-8 pm, central time. be there, and i'll bring the guacamole.
if i ever want to drive myself insane
all i have to do is watch you breathing.
So vasant pointed this out
So vasant pointed this out to me the other day. yippee, i say, yippee! because, in case you didn't already know, i don't think that man has ever written a song that didn't rock my ass right down to the ground. then, of course, those songs would command my ass to get up, then rock it right back down again. the only exception to this is land speed record. sorry.
i am intrigued by the idea of electronic music from bob mould...could be good, could sound like the quad city dj's. we'll see.
went to the south city diner earlier this evening with dave. ran into justin (and got my copy of 13 songs back before he ventures into the wonderment that is kansas city for the next couple of months), had a breakfast burrito, tasted dave's cheesecake--and made a new entry into the list of cheesecakes i actually like:
ed hanson's cheesecake. any kwur-ite from "back in the day" knows what i mean.
llywelyn's bailey's cheesecake. the cheesecake that turned the tide of my otherwise cheesecake-hating self.
the aforementioned hank's chocolate cheesecake.
all other cheesecakes, in my opinion, are shit.
but anyway, south city was good--i had not been there in quite some time, and i missed it. that was the point.
i spent way too much time today thinking about that episode of growing pains where mike is running for student body president and "hires" ben to make the signs for a "rally." ben, being stupid, writes "i lick mike" on all the signs. i lick mike. that's funny.
let's see if the rams make up for the crushing loss the blues had this evening at the hands of the evil empire.
i bought this after i
i bought this after i got off work earlier today, which makes seven cds purchased in the last ten days. what's come over me?
and eventually...maybe eventually i'll listen to a track other than the chisel track. we'll see.
in a similar vein, does anyone happen to know where i can buy a copy of the target shoots first? i have wanted to see this film since i first heard about it, but, well, i haven't. so if anyone can help me out, i will be eternally grateful. and hey, i'll thank you with a mix cd or money or something like that. i just really want to see this.
anyway, slatch talked about the death of the studded belt-as-indie-pointer. i can't help but agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. even a couple of years ago, seeing someone wearing something like the aforementioned studded belt was some sort of sign that they were in all likelihood interesting. now, you just never know. it's been a major sticking point for me, seeing a guy with buddy holly glasses or a girl in a hooded sweatshirt (poor examples, sorry) who ends up talking about the dave matthews band or some shit like that.
i know that atom and his package is (rightfully) looked upon as a novelty act, but the chorus of "me and my black metal friends" is just so damned catchy.
"my films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment, while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives. we have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life. in this country, people die at the age of 21. they die emotionally at 21, maybe younger. my responsibility as an artist is to help them past 21." john cassavetes....so, it's hard to disagree with the man.
Renaissance affair
so i worked today--not exciting. i did random other things both before and after work--again, not exciting. it rained today, and was also unseasonably warm--once again, not exciting.
to stanch the flow of "not exciting"s here (note: i've apparently been misspelling the word "stanch," as in to stop, for several years now--bless you, merriam-webster dictionary online, and bless you again), i'm going to blather on about things i saw/read/heard today. sorry.
apparently, mary lou lord is the one responsible for my inexplicably hearing a female covering daniel johnston's "speeding motorcycle" in a target commercial a while back. weirdness abounds.
other songs in commercials that have caused me either to stare at the television blankly or to hit the person next to me (many apologies to dave, marisa, and maybe justin for any bruises i caused) in disbelief. in no particular order:
"all mixed up", red house painters--gap
"pink moon", nick drake--vw
"modem song", looper--antidrug psa
"kiss me like you mean it", magnetic fields--helzberg diamonds
"boys better", dandy warhols--gap
keep in mind that the above songs are the ones i remember off the top of my head, and were stupefying because i had heard--and thoroughly enjoyed--each song prior to its use in a commercial.
i still think it was funny when the nfl used ani difranco's "32 flavors" in an ad for, well, the nfl.
marissa (not ex-st. louisan marisa, by the way) got to go and see the gloria record in toronto the day after i was wanting to see them in chicago. i'm bitter, jealous, etc. i will now cry myself to sleep while listening to "a lull in traffic" on repeat.
i was unaware (although i seem to remember vasant telling me) that ...and you will know us by the trail of dead is now on interscope. again, weirdness abounds. and just so you know, aywkubttod rocks my ass thoroughly.
missy indirectly dissed martha stewart on 23 january--sorta. i was going to commence hating her, but then i was watching martha stewart living this evening, and some guest chef made really bourgeois grilled cheese, with prosciutto and cheeses i couldn't begin to spell, so she is indirectly forgiven for what would normally be blasphemy. i'm tempted to write to martha stewart and tell her and her haughty guest chef where they can stick their froufrou grilled cheese. and instead of mocking missy, i will just state for the record that she's pretty cool.
i used two, count 'em, two pseudo-french words in the above paragraph. i'm cultured.
everybody congratulate liz on her new apartment, which is hopefully mob-free. i meant to write something earlier, but as usual, i'm dumb and forgot.
brian has issued a list of ten reasons to love j. robbins. truly inspired, which means that at some point i'm going to rip off the idea and use it for myself. apologies in advance.
the newest issue of rolling stone has two pictures of marilyn manson without makeup (in court, at that). he's scarier without the makeup.
for a day in which nothing happened, i sure came up with a lot of crap to say. and i simply must stop, because i keep adding shit.