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 i got up at six-fucking-thirty in the am on friday to go down to the hospital for this x-ray/ultrasound shit and what do i find out? i'm not supposed to be there until next friday. the splendid part about the whole thing is that i sat around the hospital for a goddamn hour before they finally discovered the shceduling snafu. like i said…splendid.

i left the hospital and went home and went directly to bed. i did not eat. i did not pass go. i did not collect $200. sleep.

what i did get done this weekend, however, is i finally encoded and posted the braid show i recorded back in 1999. yep. five years ago. i get a little behind, sometimes. either way, there it is. download it. enjoy it. i even posted a copy in the aac format, for all you itunes users.

this weekend was filled with good times with friends. brent had a party saturday night and danny had a chili supper last night, out at his grandad's place down on the river. good chili, good beer, a bonfire down by the river…good times.

but now it's monday and i'm supposed to be working. not so…splendid.

man…there's this creepy dude that sits right by the door into the office. every time i come through that door, he turns around and stares at me. i know that's normal if you sit next to a door that's constantly opening and closing, but jesus…this guy is just creepy in that wormy little nerd way. either way, i wish the little bastard would stop. or move away from the door. creepy little fucker.

so…we went out bowling with some friends for the girl's going away party, the other night (photos and video here). a lot of fun was had, a lot of beer was consumed, a few strikes were thrown (one of which is actually on video). pitchers of beer were only $5, so needless to say, we drank a lot of 'em.

while we were boozing and bowling, a friend of mine that works at a local comic shop looks over at me and says "didn't you have everyone at the chicago con draw hellboy for your sketchbook?" i confirmed that that was, in fact, exactly what i did. he says "man…i think you were mentioned in the introduction to the new hellboy weird tales trade."

so the next day, i go into the shop to see what the hell he's talking about. lo and behold and lots of cool other revelatory words, i'm mentioned as a "young writer" (despite having nothing actually published) and he talks about my sketchbook a bit. since i wasn't mentioned by name, i wasn't convinced that it was me, so i wrote scott allie (the hellboy editor and the one who wrote the introduction) a little email and he sent this back to me:

Yep. Didn't wanna mention names, as one time I did that and the person got angry, when I thought he'd think it was cool. You never can tell.
S

so…yeah. i feel super fucking cool. totally. the funny thing about this whole thing…i bought the singles of the weird tales books, so i didn't even really consider picking up the trade. i flipped through it and noticed the stories were out of order and marvelled at the sketchbook pages, but i never looked at the introduction until after said friend mentioned it to me. now i have to go out and buy the fuckin' thing.

oh yeah…there's also a new show over at transmission3000. oxes. recorded in france. it's bitchin'.

have a happy new year, suckers.

well…at some point it was decided that my life needed a bit of an overhaul. it was suffering from some severe schedule issues. so now i work mornings. i come in at 10 and i'm off in the evening by 7pm (which will be awesome in the summer, i'm sure). this will enable me to have band practice any day of the week, which is nice. trying to cram that in on saturdays was starting to suck, big time.

of course, now i have to deal with the fact that my body doesn't want to go to sleep by midnight. i figure staggering through this week all tired and stuff will eventually train it to shut down a bit earlier. i hope. fucking god i really hope…

this all leads to another decision i've made, recently. no caffeine. at least not for a little while. it's making me nutty. it makes me miserable. i stopped in to get a mocha, yesterday morning. i thought i'd make a ceremonial return to proper "life." cue the misery. i was jittery and my stomach felt like shit all day. then, of course, i remembered when i was working in the coffeeshop and i came to this same realization and started drinking non-caffeinated herbal teas all the time. so from here on out it's water, juice and non-caffeinated bubbly beverages like sprite. i'll stick to that for a little while and then re-evaluate where my beloved coca-cola fits into my life.

saturday was one of the most kickass days i've had in a long time. i got knocked from sweet slumber by a phone call telling me that i got the new morning schedule i asked for. i went back to sleep and stayed there until probably about 3pm. maybe 2:30. either way, it was late. when i finally drug myself out of bed, i decided to go out and get some lunch. i went down to the local deli where one of my friends worked. i figured that i could get some conversation to go with my lunch and everything would be cool. he ended up hooking me up with my sandwich and soda, gratis. super deal. i then rolled out to circuit city to see about getting my car stereo replaced. i've been trying to get them to replace the thing for a few months now. i don't like the sony model i ended up getting after the car was broken into, last year. it has a problem playing some of my cds (mostly stuff burned in itunes on the mac). it's ugly. i just don't like it. i wanted the pioneer model, but at the time, circuit city didn't carry it. well, the other week the girl and i were in there, just looking around, and i noticed…the pioneer model (not the same one i wanted originally, but the new model of the same thing, which is actually a bit cheaper). so i went in on saturday, talked to them about it, explained that i've been waiting for months to get the damn thing replaced. they just said "okay," took the old one out, swapped it even for the pioneer model (which was about $40 more), installed it and gave me a new two year warranty on the new stereo.

total expenditure for the day: $0.00.

will someone buy me this? I wonder if there's a way to add that to my amazon wishlist…

oh…a new (old) rodan show has been posted to transmission3000. i'm just sayin'.

i know, i know…it's been a while. whatever. we stopped kidding ourselves about how often i was going to update this place a long time ago, didn't we? no? well get with the damn program.

anyhowways…i'm excited. they launched itunes for windows today. i fell in love with the program when i was using brooksie's computer all the time. i wish he'd upgrade to os x so we could sync up our playlists, though. just another factor to make me wish i had an ipod.

note to those that care…there is an ipod on my amazon wishlist. i'm just sayin'…

i've also found a plugin for winamp that will allow it to play aac files encoded by itunes.

as many of you may have already discovered, there's an awesome online game that's sprung up surrounding the release of the newest matrix movie. you can start out on the metacortex home page. if you're looking for more information on the game and what has been discovered so far, check out the aptly named the guide. happy hunting.

i narrowly avoided getting brained by a shower of hedge apples on the way into work. i was riding down the road with my moonroof open and then, all of a sudden about 5 feet in front of my car, about 40 of the suckers came dropping out of a tree up ahead, smashing to the ground. i stopped short and closed that moonroof right quick.

other than that…i bit the bullet and added google ads to transmission3000. we've got some pretty hefty service bills to pay (considering we did around 92 gigs of traffic last month and we're on pace to break that this month), so we can use all the help we can get. they're little text ads and you can find them under the right hand side bar on the main page as well as on the radio, info and links pages. the bands page remains ad free. as if there's anything important on those other pages, anyway. feel free to click them if anything being advertised catches your fancy (hint, hint). you can still donate to the transmission3000 server fund directly, as well.

and…that's about it, i think.

okay…i can't seem to follow through on my promises to update this thing more often. work's been busy, i've been busy with other stuff, blah blah blah, generic excuse, whatthefuckever, etc. either way, here i am attempting an update. let's see how it goes…

i really don't have a clue what all has gone on since my last post. i know that billy and kevin left for tour (europe with elliott) yesterday. i hope they have a ton of fun. with them gone and the girlfirned spending the next month at her parents' house, that leaves me with no one to hang out with through the week aside from my cat and brooksie. i guess i'll get a lot of reading and videogame playing done. i'm working on a few writing projects, so maybe i'll be able to make myself finish those up…

margaret cho has a blog. margaret cho is funny. so is her blog.

i was really sad to find out that johnny cash had passed away. the girlfriend and i were actually just talking about him getting released from the hospital the day before. it certainly was a shitty way to start the weekend. i ended up down at the bar most of the day, drinking with my cousin, saluting him in the only way we really knew how.

new fugazi show up over at transmission3000. it's from 1999, but it'll blow your socks off. download it asap.

i'm really trying to be better about updating aruond here. i realized that before my last post it had been a full month, so under a week isn't so bad, right?

right?

oh well…

a minor brouhaha has developed over my now aborted attempt to post all the issues of the alan moore/neil gaiman class miracleman online. it's out of print and the rights to the series are currently tied up in court because of a certain ex-spider-man artist who cares more about homerun baseballs and toys than drawing comics. i even got a cease and desist from neil's lawyer. this nice little letter was picked up by a few comics news sites and has been labelled "the nicest cease and desist ever." whatever.

we're going back up to chicago this weekend to see radiohead. they're actually playing in east troy, wisconsin, but who's keeping score?

there's new sets up over at transmission3000. two rocket from the crypt shows from 2001. i've got a rodan set on the way.

here's a few short reviews of some of the comics from last week…

GOTHAM CENTRAL #10:
Great issue, but I thought Batman's involvement kinda ruined it. I'd like to see the cops take care of things on their own.

TEEN TITANS #2:
I'm hooked on this series. I thought the whole "I'm the leader" argument was a little truncated, though. I'm guessing Johns wanted to throw it into a few panels and then trot it back out later on down the line.

KINGPIN #3:
Bruce Jones is writing a tight little series, here. I've always been interested in the Kingpin when he's written properly (like in Bendis' current run of Daredevil), and here I think he is. I love Sean Phillips' art, but his Kingpin just looks kinda dopey. There's no real menace there, i guess. This could be just because Sean's only doing breakdowns, but…

MARVEL 1602 #1 (Of 8):
Great first issue. Gaiman sunk his hooks into me right off the bat. I'm really into the various mysteries of this story. Andy Kubert is really kicking some ass on this one, as well. Helped in no small part by Isanove's brilliant colors.

TROUBLE #2 (Of 5):
I don't know why everyone is bitching…I really like this book. It could just be that I'm a total sucker for the Dodsons' art, but whatever.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #36:
Oh boy! Another issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-up! I'd much rather this book actually be about the X-Men, you know. It's actually starting to get on my nerves.

POWERS #33:
Bendis is starting to tie this arc together nicely. I almost forgive him for that whole monkey thing.

PUFFED #2 (Of 3):
Crosland's art blows me away. I'm really enjoying the story that Layman's telling here, as well. That giant dragon about made my eyes pop out of their sockets.

alright…now that i've cheated and made this post longer…i'm out.

i've added a set from drive like jehu to transmission3000 yesterday. it's from '94 and it doesn't sound half bad. thanks to sebastian for donating it.

speaking of donations, transmission3000 is in sad need of funds to upgrade the server and for more bandwidth. if you can donate, please do.

on to the "real world"…last night was a lot of fun. i ended up coming home from work early, only to have steve and billy show up at my house shortly thereafter. we all hung out and drank beer on the front porch for a while before heading down to the bar to close the place. brooksie labelled the night the beginning of his summer, so as you might imagine, everyone got pretty drunk. fun was had, chips and salsa was eaten, and hollow threats to beat up an asshole bartender were made. all in all a good night.

the girlfriend and i slept in today, as this was her last day in town for a while. she'll be back in a couple of weeks, but it always sucks when she leaves. i'm just glad i don't have to come into work until 4 now. it gave us a little longer to hang out, even if we were doing absolutely nothing.

yeah…i'm also in the middle of 8 straight work days. this happened because i switched my schedule up so i could have fridays and saturdays off. i would complain, but…i now have fridays and saturdays off. this will help a lot when august rolls around and i'll end up being out of town or busy every frickin' weekend. hell…at least it'll be something to do.

guess i better get back to doing what they pay me for…

transmission3000 is finally back up. it's been a long, slow crawl back but at least there's a new show up. i launched the hot snakes show the other day, which i was going to do over a week ago before the site went down. either way, the site is back up now, so everyone can go over there and enjoy the music and whatnot.

matt hooked me up with the gallery script he's been using, and i've slowly been going through my various image directories and applying it. you can find the two i've completed here. that's the main gallery index, which you can get to both individual galleries through. that matt is one badass codemonkey.

sorry for the lack of posts, as of late. the girlfriend has been in town, so i've had little time to monkey around on the internet, as you might be able to imagine. we did get out to have some pizza at za's the other night. matt and sara showed up and it was a damn fine evening. we then went out and bought lottery tickets, only to not win. hey…you can't win if you don't buy a ticket.

we've also been spending time out at a variety of drinking establishments, hanging out with the various friends that we don't see often enough. the girlfriend sees them even less often, since she's moved away.

so…yeah. very little internet time. sorry about that.

i haven't finished reading this week's comics, so i haven't had a chance to review them all. expect that over the weekend.

i guess i better get back to work, or something.