Ahhh…the year-end wrap-up. Where to start? To be honest, most of the shit that happened to me I didn't post about. Why have I been maintaining radio silence? Who knows?

I finally joined the rest of the web-using world and started utilizing digg. I even dugg a post I posted here. Oh…I'm such a whore.

Today I'm bemoaning the fact that we're not a more regularly updated, noticed "blog." I mean…they could have sent us a couple of these, for fucksake.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time listening to Neil Young, lately. Mostly Crazy Horse material. It's speaking to the parts of the brain Brooksie and I have started activating for the new band. Speaking of the new band, it's tentatively titled "Birth Machine." We expect to rattle the foundation of a local venue this spring.

I guess the biggest news of the season is that i had to have Clyde put to sleep (the Thursday before Christmas; it made the holiday even more fun). Some of you long-time readers (if there's any left) will remember Clyde as my beloved cat of the past decade. She had a tumor on her chest that spread to her lungs. Toward the end she was having trouble breathing and would only eat fresh turkey and "catmilk" (speaking of which, I have two things of that stuff left, if anyone needs/wants it), which made us think it was all just some elaborate scam on her part. Regardless, we couldn't take it anymore and took her back to the vet. He gave us the dire news and we all endured a bit of pre-holiday heartbreak.
Needless to say, she's incredibly missed.

Clyde – 1996-2006

while i sit here at work, waiting on a simple answer to a possibly not-so-simple questions from someone higher up the ladder, i figure i'll write up a post for ol' bipolar.

this weekend was chock full of shows. too many shows, as fate would have it. i saw shellac and uzeda friday night. the sound was glorious, the venue was unbearably hot. it all ended up being worth it, though. shellac really kicked out the jams. i noticed that it doesn't really matter what albini does on the guitar, as the rhythm section just locks in and keeps burning along. i think i'd kill for a bass player of bob weston's caliber.
friday night ended up with all kinds of drunken chicanery that i can't be bothered to try and remember clearly.

saturday was another hot one in st. john's for shipping news and wolverine brass. for some reason, that night the sound was fucking terrible. you take the good with the bad, i guess. after that show, i headed over to za's to see arch and buffalo bill. buffalo bill covered motley crue's "wild side." i was most pleased. after that…more drunkeness.

sunday my allergies put the hurt on me. probably the multiple days of drowning myself in second hand smoke. who knows? either way, i ended up having to skip the young widows show. i took some allergy medicine and actually passed out during the car chase scene in ronin. i really didn't know that was humanly possible.

but sunday night, i got my sea legs back under me and was able to hit up the crack of doom reunion show, which was a total blast. i think it even caused more permanent hearing damage to my right ear. always a sign of a great show.

well…i got that simple answer i was waiting on.

wow. what a weekend. probably the most solidly fun couple of days I've had in a while. friday night i ended up at a party in some friends' practice space. lots of booze, lots of other stuff. lots of fun with lots of friends. i was up until about 4am.

and then i was back awake at 9am to go shooting at the knob creek gun range. before saturday, i hadn't shot a gun for a good 10-15 years. i guess it just doesn't come up in daily life in the city. well…at least not the parts of the city i've lived in. despite my long lapse, i think i did decently well. i hit within the circle 11 out of 18 shots (one of them on the right side got ripped off when we removed the target from the box it was taped and stapled to) I fired 20 rounds, but I wasted two shots blowing up a dr. pepper bottle that was on top of my target. here's a gratuitous shot of me glockin' it up.
after that, we went to ernesto's for some mexican and a couple pitchers of dos equis. i ended up getting home a little buzzed and alot tired, so i took a nap.

i woke up from my nap at around 8:30. from there it was out the door to pick up some equipment and then head out to the dead child show. i will go ahead and say that this show had the best line-up of bands that this city has seen in years. pusher, lords, blade of the ripper, dead child…wall-to-wall metal mayhem. i recorded the whole thing. expect the sets to start showing up on transmission3000 soon. after the show, i ended up staying up until 6:30am, generally getting up to no good.

fittingly, i didn't do jack shit, yesterday.

today…back to work. i have to take my car back into the fucking shop when i get off work, as the door handle stopped working about 4 hours after i picked the car up, last thursday. i think i got about 5 opens out of it before it died again. splendid.

man…i fucking hate it when my car is in the shop. i feel so stuck. so…helpless. bumming rides just to do the mundane shit, like picking up dinner. lame. i made plans to go hang out with a friend, last night, then realized i didn't have wheels to get over there. luckily brooksie was home and let me use his.

and the calls from the technicians working on my car, asking me stupid questions they should have already answered for themselves…ugh. just fix the fucking thing, already.

they're laying down some shitty tile at work. the fumes from the glue are insane, so they sent everybody home. i better get paid for that time, though.

i forgot to mention a couple of new shows up at transmission3000: wolverine brass and lords. both rockin', both badass. enjoy.

i'm gonna go sit on the couch and watch last night's daily show…

So…life's a real bitch, ain't it? Today, when I got off work, I went out to my car and hit the unlock button on the ol' keychain, just like I do every time I get into my car. Mark was riding with me, and he was a little slow opening the door, so he got it right when the car was relocking itself. Well, the alarm started going off. No problem. You just shut the door and hit the disarm/unlock button and the shit goes off, right? No harm, no foul, right?

Nope.

The fucking thing kept blaring. We both get in the car and I'm maniacally hitting the unlock button, trying to get the motherfucker to turn off. No such luck. Finally, it just…stops. Strange. So I go to start the car, and the fucking thing starts going off again. It won't even let me start the car. The ignition is locked the fuck out. Awesome. So I climb out, still pushing that button like a madman, and nothing is happening. So I do what any other sane person in my position would do.

I kicked a dent in the side of my car.

Oddly enough, this had no effect on the blaring car alarm. It would go off for about 30 seconds to a minute, then stop. As soon as you tried to open one of the doors again, it would start right the fuck back up. I walked to a pharmacy down the street and they miraculously had the right battery for the remote. So I bought the battery, replaced it, went back to my car…nothing.

I called St. Matthews Imports and they referred me to Swope. Swope then tells me it's real easy to fix.

"Just insert the key into the ignition and push and hold the security button on your stereo…"

This is when I interrupt him to let him know that I no longer have the factory stereo installed.

"Oh. Well. You'll have to get it here so we can have a technician take a look at it."

Brooksie came and picked me up, thank the fuck christ. We came home, I found my spare remote, made sure to put the new battery in it, then went down to try again. Still nothing. Fuck.

So…the car has gas, a charged battery, nothing wrong with it…and I have to get the motherfucker towed all the way out to Hurstbourne and then pay some dickhead to fix this shit for me.

I swear…I want to find the middle-management asshole that thought up this safety "feature" and smack him upside his damn head.

Irony? The car is officially paid off, as of today.

wow. wordpress. i think i remember sending matt a retarded email like "have you seen this shit yet?" so long ago. of course, he had, and he had his own reasons for not wanting to use it, but those reasons have disappeared and here we are.

i've had an incredibly eventful past few days. i spent all of sunday being a production assistant on the shoot for the my morning jacket dvd. that was a lot of fun and i have a ton of photos. i'll actually post a whole diary type thing about that in a few days. i've also spent the past couple of nights hanging out with our friends from japan. they're here for vacation. we've been having a blast, drinking beers and speaking in broken english to each other. i've been snapping photos of the fun and you can find them here.

i'll do a real post soon, i promise.

fuck. my life has been an absolute wreck for about a month now. at some points, i've actually reveled in it, which is probably the wrong way to go about things.

so let's run down a list of the bullshit, shall we?

* i'm still unemployed. this one actually isn't as bad as it seems, as i'll soon be drawing unemployment until a pending design job materializes. until then, i'm rather broke, but shit happens. no big deal.

* the ex is having a tough time and we're not talking. the last time we had an actual talk, i was less than nice. we're doing the mature thing and trying to maintain a friendship, but it seems to be an uphill battle for both of us.

* i got pulled over and got another ticket, last night. my traffic woes are beating down on me, conspiring to never allow me to drive a car again. for the record, it was a really minor ticket that i can clear up immediately, it's just bullshit. i hate getting pulled over.

* i've been drinking way too much. then again, i'm making it home safely every night and i'm really not suffering any hangovers, so i guess i'm not drinking as heavily as i seem to think i am. still…geting absolutely shithammered three times a week might be a bit excessive.

* girls, man…they're always giving me the business. if it's not one, it's another.

on the upside, the new record by the sword is totally kicking my ass. a blistering slab of stoner rock like i haven't heard in a while. sorry for the myspace link, but they're site doesn't actually seem to be up yet.

i worked up this little thing, using an open source flash player (click the title bar to get it to play). i've embedded it into my myspace profile, just as a place to stick it, for right now. i plan on doing a monthly 10 song mix, trying to get back to a semblance of the old mailed out mixes i did when i worked at kinko's (02.2002 & 03.2002). matt and i plan on getting those working over here, in some capacity, so keep your eyes peeled. we also have some other goofy stuff that we were talking about, the other day. hopefully it pans out.

man…somethings i just don't understand. try as i might, i just don't get it. one of those things: spam email and, relatedly, spam comments on blogs. i mean…honestly. how many people actually even read that shit? in the entire history of spam, they've sold, what, one order of viagra? who cheks their email and says "well, shit! i was really wondering where i could get some cheap viagra and find out how to make my penis larger…now i know!"

i know i'm stooping to a blog low by bitching about spam and whatnot, but i just deleted 45 comments, all full of the shit. pain in my ass, i tell you.

saw vrktm play with their new line-up, last night. the new drummer seemed to cut the mustard, but it's hard to measure up to their original drummer, tony bailey. the man is a titan.

after that it was out to the bar and to the process of destroying certain parts of my brain. i believe, last night, i damaged my ability to spell. if only you knew how many times i've had to correct shit in just this post…

yeah…i spent the last part of the weekend in ohio, helping someone move out and back to the motherland. as often happens in this world, timetables got fucked up and i didn't make it home in time for band practice, so we had to reschedule for tonight. i got a steak dinner out of the deal, so it's not all bad, right?

oh…wait…i also had a huge allergy attack which has left me with a sore throat/possible sinus infection this morning. great parting gift, ohio. fuck you, too.

friday started with a bang: i lost my job. i spent the rest of the night getting shithammered with mark and brooks. you know…"boys night out" or some shit.

anyone have any job openings for a newly employed sorta-graphic designer-slash-general computer monkey? i also have experience in the music journalism/criticism field and i've been known to snap a few pictures every now and then.

saturday evening was the wolverine brass/black cross show, which was really good. i snapped some photos with the cameraphone and they're now up in both of the galleries linked above.

and a few minutes ago, i accidentally stuck my finger in my eye. i tell you what…this month has been the shittiest i can fucking remember, and it just won't go quietly. i'm almost afraid to leave the damn house.

been a long time since we've rock and rolled, huh? I just wanted to check in with various top…somethings for 2005, the (incredibly shitty) year that was.

Top 5 Albums of 2005:
Boris – Pink
The Constantines – Tournament of Hearts
Spoon – Gimme Fiction
Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies to Paralyze
Low – The Great Destroyer

Best Movie I Saw This Year:
Batman Begins (I saw it twice in the same day)

Best Movie I Didn't See:
Good Night and Good Luck (I should really go see that fuckin' movie)

Best Show L&N Played All Year:
Joe's birthday party at Uncle P's. A close runner-up would be the show with Breather Resist and Lords, but only because we broke up immediately after we got done playing.

Favorite New (to me) Restaurant:
Stan's Fish Sandwich or #1 Asian Buffet. It's a toss-up.

Favorite Band of the Moment:
Boris.

Best Reason For Not Updating This Blog:
Didn't feel like my life was very interesting. That and the bitter, bitter self-hatred.