so how many people think you're a total metal kid because you have long hair, wear a leather jacket, and have a name that rhymes with death? is that a problem?
that used to happen quite a bit. it doesn't happen so much anymore since i started killing anyone who tries to talk to me about metallica. the name rhyming with death thing… well, i think that's pretty appropriate.

where would dinosaur jr.'s album where you been? fit into your top albums of all time list? and why?
even though i don't listen to it very often anymore, every time i do get it out, i think "damn, this album is awesome. i should listen to it more often." in terms of stuff i think i'll be able to get out in 20 years and still want to listen to, it's pretty up there. in the top fifteen, for sure. thinking about what albums i would want if i were stranded on a desert island with only a record player to entertain me, it'd definitely go. why? mostly because it rocks, but also because it makes me recall a time in my life that i really enjoyed, and i know i'll never experience again. so it's kind of a bittersweet experience for me.

how did it get to the point where you fix everything that i happen to break (cars, amps, computers, etc.)?
i think that's just because you break everything in a manner in which only i'm willing to fix it for less than the price of a new one. that and you're broke and i work for free. maybe that's the same reason.
heh. you never fix my phones, though.
i tried. but you break those on purpose, so i think they're a little more broken that everything else
true.

if you were on a tv show like fear factor and they said you had to eat some pig assholes to stay in the game, would you actually do it? or would you just punch the host in the eye and say "who's afraid now, motherfucker?"?
what the fuck is fear factor?
that show where they make them do all kinds of crazy shit to win not much money. like shoot guns, eat pig rectums, climb all the way across the underside of a helicopter while it's in the air, etc. it's a redneck's dream, man. one week they made everyone walk around naked in public. man i wish i could get paid to do that shit…
i'm going with option b: punch the host in the face and say something witty. then i'd punch the cameraman. just because he was filming it.

what's the longest you think you've ever gone without taking a shit?
when i was little i wouldn't use public bathrooms. and we'd drive cross country on vacation every year. i think about a week.
jesus. that had to be one hell of a dump at the end of the road…
let's not discuss that. it's an unpleasant memory and i'll thank you for not bringing it up again.
moving right along…

what's the last thing that you've done where you sat back and thought "yep…i'm the baddest motherfucker that has ever lived"?
i think that every day. i sat down in my chair today and thought, "yep…i'm the baddest motherfucker that has ever lived." i don't have to do anything special to think that, because i am the baddest motherfucker that has ever lived.
samuel l. jackson has nothing on me. i'd kick his fucking ass.
that's a bold statement, man…he's mace windu.
my dark jedi powers have not yet been unleashed upon the galaxy. or something.

if you could have an infinite supply of one snack food, what would it be and why?
ooh, hard one. probably pig rectums, though.
no fudgie-os?
my second choice, if pig rectums weren't available or didn't count as snack food.

[seth runs wraithsys and has been the stalwart host for transmission3000 for pretty much the entire time of it's existence. he's also stuck out bipolar longer than anyone else (even when we were doing terabytes of traffic), which we're eternally grateful for. he also fixes pretty much everything i manage to break without complaining too much. what a guy.]

the unemployment office revealed itself to be the institution that i should direct my ire toward. it seems that, while i did everything how they told me to, they still haven't issued me a check. i even called to check the status of it, on this little automated thingie. it said "you have received credit, but no check was issued." well why the hell not? credit isn't getting me anywhere.

i did absolutely jack yesterday. i called a bunch of advertising agencies about showing them a portfolio, but i haven't heard anything back. typical. it is my week of talking to answering machines, no matter who or where i call.

it seems that the only thing keeping me sane is super greg. he's even made his way onto our answering machine, here at the apartment. yes…he is indeed "da numba one."

i've gotten into a really bad habit of eating only one meal a day. the problem is (aside from being on the broke side) that i end up eating so late in the day, so by the time i'm hungry again, it's late and i'm ready to go to bed. this is bad because now i look back on yesterday and realize that all i had to eat was taco bell. that is not a good thing.

plans for today: eat more than once…and no taco bell.

thanks to laura for mentioning we were back. it's nice to know someone cares.

i need to work on a new seven questions…

so, what have i been up to the past couple weeks…

well, amazingly enough, i've been planning for a trip to france to visit my sister (who hasn't updated her blog in quite a while…). i've finally managed to drag out the Berlitz "Basic French" cassette learning program i bought on remainder at Hawley-Cooke a couple years ago, and i've been listening to them regularly for the past two weeks or so. the first week, i think i probably heard four times as many words in french than i heard in english. now, my big project is digitizing the four tapes in the program and making MP3s out of them, so i can take them to work and listen without having to drag a cassette player and headphones everywhere i go. of course, i've primarily been just listening and figuring out the sound of french. i haven't gotten into the writing or vocabulary study yet. so, if anyone gets the bright idea to write me an email in french… i'm not quite ready for that yet. but hopefully, by the time July rolls around, i'll have at least a passable knowledge of the language. i may look like a fool in france, but at least i'll look like a fool who's trying to be polite.

i also finally finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which i kicked off with "The Hobbit" back during christmas at my grandmother's, and i just cracked open the introduction to "The Iliad."

i've been hanging out with brian quite a bit more recently, which i enjoy. we've actually been throwing around some ideas for a screenplay, since we have a commitment from a friend of ours to "shoot whatever" we write. of course, then we also had a conversation with another person a "playwright" apparently, who was asking us all kinds of questions about sub-stories, and plot-driving stories and all that jazz. this is something i'm rather torn on. i can't say that i've ever consciously tried to write anything using sub-stories, but have relied more on the primary story and the characters themselves to drive the plots… such as they were. anyway, i think we've come up with some good ideas, now we just need to corral them into a story.

my band and i have finally buckled down and gotten a digital recorder–rent-to-own style. after talking with some knowledgeable friends, i'm more satisfied that we made a good choice picking up the one we did (being the only one presented to us and immediately available) and that we'll not regret the (ongoing) purchase. hopefully, it'll allow us to finally make a decent recording and get some demos out to whomever the hell it is that books shows around these parts. also, it's entirely conceivable that i might throw a couple tracks on the site (probably once we get to the permanent server) so that anyone with a healthy masochistic bent can listen to "the prick" all they want. also hopefully, it'll allow us to get some gigs and actually start playing out. if we get really lucky, maybe we'll get Old Man (paul's band) to let us play with them (or vice versa).

ok. y'know what? it's late, and my boss bitched me out this morning for being late, so i'd better close this up and get my irresponsible ass to bed.

au revoir! a bientot!

after much deliberation and frustration with either (a) the unemployment office or (b) the united states postal service (which employs my cousin, might i add. hello, chris)…i've decided…i want a job.

i seriously can't stand being unemployed any longer. it's boring. i read all the time, which is good. i sit on my ass trying to avoid watching tv. i waste away the hours waiting for someone to get off work so i can actually have human contact. i'm going mad, i tell you…mad! i forgot what being unemployed was like. i mean…what glamour did it hold for me? it means being broke, bored, and pretty much worthless. all the time.

this shit is for the birds. not at all how i thought it would be. i was looking forward to it, thinking "man…living like billy madison is gonna be frickin' great!" the only explanation is that i was under the control of total delusional fantasies. so what else is new?

so i started calling local advertising agencies, trying to see if anyone needs a graphic designer or otherwise generic "creative" person. i figure…go big, or don't go at all. and at least it gives me something to do all day long. job searching sure as hell beats watching oprah.

last night scott and i puzzled over what to do until we finally settled on getting hammered and watching gimme shelter. we somehow found our way up to cahoots before the night's curtains finally got drawn. we hung out with chris, the other unemployed member of kilowatthours. a fun, yet very drunk, evening was had by all.

scott and i ended up back at the house and finished watching the movie.

today has been one of the laziest days in recent memory. which is saying a lot, considering i've just been sitting around reading for the past couple of weeks. nothing overly exciting. we grabbed some grub at the grape leaf and then walked around the record store for a little while. like i said…nothing overly exciting.

i need to get out and do something. there doesn't seem like there's gonna be much chance of that, tonight, seeing as it's sunday and i'm pretty much broke.

maybe next time…

so…yeah…the server disappeared again. it seems like we've been through this, a couple of times before, huh? oh well. it'll probably be a repeating pattern…

what have i been doing in the past couple of weeks? not too damn much. i've been existing on a steady diet of almost famous (untitled cut) and gimme shelter on dvd. i've come to the conclusion that i want to be a rock star. but who the fuck doesn't, right? keith richards is my hero.

i've been eating (too much and not enough, depending on what day it is). sleeping (just plain too much). brushing my teeth. checking email. my life is fairly boring, really. it's good that i have to play 2 weeks or so of catch up on bipolar. except…i can barely remember much of it. yep…that boring.

i'm still single and unemployed. what else is new?

the "coffeeshop girl" at some point failed to mention she had a boyfriend, making me feel like a dumbass. she's still cool and all, but i figure that's an important fact that you might not want to leave out. better luck next time, champ.

last weekend was spent in bars. friday night matt, paul, and i went out to cahoots after going to some really lame thing at headliners that i think we'd all rather forget, especially the astronomical drink prices. we hung at cahoots for the rest of the night until we were fairly plowed and ready to leave.

the next night was spent bouncing back and forth between cahoots and the back door, as it was both paul and laura's birthday drink-a-thon. too bad they couldn't cooperate and have it at one bar, huh? i finally settled in at the back door and laura ended up coming over there to crash our party (which grew to two tables and a booth) for a few minutes.

other than that? i saw some really bad band, last night. they opened for your black star. i wanted to go to their house and smash all their king crimson records. 10 minute rock epics with horrible changes. they just went on and on, whacking off onstage for everyone to see. your black star was great, as usual.

i think that's about enough recappage. you'll get sick of us again, soon enough.

bet you thought we were gone forever…

well, don't count on it, sweethearts.

we found out around the 9th of Jan. that the ISP that controlled our host's 'net connection was about to remove it. it was supposed to happen on the 14th, so i thought i had plenty of time to sit down and write a post to let everyone know what was going on. (you know where this is going) so, of course, things aren't quite working right the entire rest of the week leading up to the deadline, FTP server's up & down, the whole site's up & down, and then, on Sat. or Sun. i guess it was, the plug gets pulled.

well, thanks to the boys at wraithsys (our once & future hosts) things were already in the works to get everything back up and running. now we're set up on a temporary server until such time as the final arrangements can be made. and hopefully the transition from this temp server to the new permanent server will go much more smoothly, since we can actually plan for this one. wish us luck.

this is just a quick note to let you all (those of you who can actually reach the site at this point… DNS is still propagating right now) know what's been up, what's currently up, and what will possibly be up in the future.

oh, and i'd like to say thanks to tim from sounds from a heart murmur for actually noticing that we were MIA. it's good to be loved!

more tomorrow. now, i sleep.

well…it looks like the webserver died for most of yesterday. oh well. shit happens. life goes on. it's a fuckin' drag, ain't it?

why are there always garbage men outside my house? it's insane. they must really like to hang out here. they sit in their loud trucks, idling in the streets and shaking my windows. this has to stop.

i have watched rushmore twice in the past two days. i watched it with scott the other night, and then i somehow ended up viewing it again with one of the often mentioned "beautiful coffeeshop girls." how i made that conversion, i'll never know. it seems like it happened organically, though. which is good. i also have no clue if she's into me, at all. not that it really matters. i really enjoyed hanging out with her. which is good.

other than that, i haven't done jack shit. i'm collecting unemployment, making almost as much money as i did working that job that i didn't really like. which is good. now i have time to sit back and relax, write more on the screenplay that i want to do, write more music, and just generally take a break for a while. i plan on looking around for a good job before tour, but i'm hoping to just wait until after we get back and then grab a nice paying job. it would be silly to find something good and then drop it to hit the road. we'll see how it turns out.

my driver's side door is broken, which is going to cost me some ridiculous sum to fix. which is not so good. the hinges are going out and i can't shut it from the inside. i have to be outside of the car and lift up on it and then slam it shut. needless to say, it's a huge pain in the ass. the mechanic can't get to it until monday, so until then i'm climbing in and out the passenger side door. talk about humiliating. if it were warm out, i'd just leave the window dwn and dukes of hazard it. might as well go the total fool route, huh?

i guess i'm trying to temper all the bullshit of the last couple of weeks with a wee bit of good. who knows…

after a second viewing in as many days, the royal tenenbaums is still an amazing flick. of all the good movies that came out toward the end of 2001, royal tenebaums still tops the list as best movie of 2001 (even though it didn't come out here until just this past friday…).

now i'm going to go spend money i don't have on joycam film and the soundtrack to that wonderful movie. you have to stave off depression somehow…

the royal tenenbaums is a really good movie. i may be in the minority when i say that i liked it better than rushmore.

amazing movie.

that is all.