self-titled: ^_^

at work today i spent my entire 4 hours staring at code for bostonians web stuff. and in the alst hour, the indian women who works for ahana career services was gabbing on the phone in her native tongue, and it caused me actual physical discomfort. i think the fact that iw as staring at code and hearing her talking a mile a minute in indian just got together and made me want to die.

then i left work and went to katie's where we made spaghetti and i drank an entire bottle of red wine. an entire friggin bottle. and truth be told, i wasn't all that drunk. we had rehearsal, got superman near complete, and then went to lower with katie mike dimitrios and sean. we walked by rob chi's mod, which is ridiculously decorated for christmas, so we went to the door, knocked, and sang silent night. then we walked the rest of the way to edmonds singing other christmas songs, namely sleigh ride and the christmas song.

then some survivor was watched. it was a recap episode and was actually quite good. and it prompted mike dimo and i to do the challenge from last week and hold our arm straight up in the air to see who could last the longest. after about 45 minutes, katie left and dimitrios quit. mike and i kept goign strong until the two hour mark when, in true survivor fashion, we finished it out with a game of rock paper scissors. that was mike's great mistake because no one takes me on in rock paper scissors and lives to tell about it.

and then i helped brenda with some theory and we just chilled in the common room talking and drawing geometric shapes until a fire alarm broke our meeting. our floor didn't have to leave, but brenda went to sleep and i went out for a smoke. chatted it up with some folks outside and then came back up here and sat to write this.

and now, bed. recording tomorrow. mass website stuff on saturday and possibly the mall. peace.

hi

today went pretty smoothly. Woke up hungover, went to class, did the chopin presentation and that was whatever. then i hung out in the office for an hour. Sean and i did a dramatic reading from Richard III, that was a lot of fun. Carolyn was the only person to see any of it and she quickly left when she saw what was going on. Then I went home. I lost myself in my music for a couple hours and then some more in the nazi killing game. and then i went to work.

Ah work. What'd i do? not a hell of a lot. Listened to the AM/FM record and it passes with high marks. I also spent over an hour looking at joey potter's desktop and all the dawson's creek kids' web pages, very interesting stuff. i learned a lot about the game. Also, as i was looking at dawson's pictures from last summer i, well, i got nostalgic looking at the guys, as if i was there for the pictures. it was really, really, really sad. Then i met up with katie and steve for restaurant night at lower. A disappointment to be sure. The chicken thing i got wasn't very good, the salad was decent, and the garlic bread was too hard. Then i came back for dawson's and felicity which were superb.

then it was time for movie night. throughout the day, katie said she'd be there, dimo said he'd be there of course, tim was in, brenda was 85%, tara had nothing to do really. then katie bailed. then dimitrios. then tim. then kate. then tara. then brenda. so it was me and sean, sean bailed. woohoo. i feel good when people come, rotten when they don't. it's all about putting yourself in my hands for a couple of hours and trusting that i'll show an interesting, even if not enjoyable to your specific tastes, movie. it's all about exposure. it's all about making me feel happy. but wahtever. i got pissed but hey, lex was playing at harper's ferry.

so i went to go hang out with katie and here steplight. got to harper's ferry. didn't have my wallet. the guy at the door was an asshole. he apparently didn't believe i was over 18. I understand they have policies and whatever, but i've slipped by places before. so great. i left, walked back to the t in the rain.

came home and am currently drowning myself in music. It would be beer, but tara came by and took 3 of the last 4. I'm pretty sure that 3 beers for 3 girls will go a lot further than they'd do for me. but it's ok. jim o'rourke soothed my injured soul. After reading all the shit about him as a media figure, i was a bit surprised when i heard his music. insignificance is a winner.

ok, i'm peacing out. big night ahead of me, umm, listening to more music. cheerio.

oh, also, i'm an asshole. totally forgot jude's birthday. i mean, that's great right, one of my few good friends and i completely overlook 11/28 for like the hundredth time. i'm such a swell guy.

so today was mildly long.

woke up, went to systems analysis, learned some database stuff and then i kicked it to work where i did a lot of web stuff and then finally worked on my arrangement for superman and got it all pretty and stuff. and then i went to katie's and had spaghetti a-z-and-a-lot-of-o's and a pb&j and then came rehearsal. learning superman went pretty well actually, it's always nice when an arrangement comes together and doesn't suck. the kids were really loud and i had to yell a lot.

then i came home, got an extension of last night's coldness, which quite frankly, makes me feel like shit, but hey, whatever. then i worked on the chopin analysis with sarah and then the dude, justin i think his name is, came over and we worked more and came up with some decent things to say tomorrow.

then we all went out for a much deserved musical cigarette and now i'm back up here, getting ready to play some one on one beirut with sarah.

yay college.

also, i would like a radio show. mainly, i just got interested when sean said that they have to play 2 songs that have been released in the last 6 months and i could totally do that. tonight i would play les savy fav - adoptduction and ted leo - parellel or together, or maybe under the hedge. definitely under the hedge. and probably a bunch of other tunes.

also, that foxwoods gig i spoke of last night? cancelled. however, we're going next sunday for a cool $700. but this means no chorale concert for me, with bostonians on saturday and rehearsal that week. it's just not worth my time to go to rehearsals and sing my voice out friday for one show. but this also means i don't even get to go see the concert because friday is only for alumni, which is pretty weak.

edmonds 830 at the movies returns tomorrow night with brazil. woohoo

yayayayay i had classes today! woohoo.

katie and i got yelled at in Hibbs. He asked us to "please finish your date later," and invited us to leave. It was awkward for a moment, because well, i didn't want katie to think it was a date, we're not really at that stage yet and i hope it didn't fuck anything up...

and then i came home and killed nazis for a while with sean and john looking on. then tim made dinner and we had a big thanksgiving feast. the girls across the hall minus sarah, and the guys from here plus sean. We sat at the beirut table, it was chicken and rice and a vegetable medley, and it was lovely.

then tara made jello shots and i watched some tv and listened to music and now i'm waiting for the jello shots to freaking set already.

also, apparently foxwoods casino wants the bostonians to come up for the weekend, sing on the floor for 3 hours each day, and eat and get hotel rooms for free. and they're gonna pay us close to two grand. not bad, eh?

i return.

on wednesday, i watched some movies. the searchers, the color of money, bridge over the river kwai, and i started cabaret.

thursday, i ate turkey and drank some and finished cabaret and listened to the vincent gallo disc while on the phone.

friday i left at around 4 to drive up, collect tim and go to kate's in central new york. we got there, played a little pool and i kept singing "it's in the way that you use it" so i could pretend i was in the color of money. tim and peterik beat the sisters keyser twice. then we went to some party. opened the night with some beirut. i didn't know anyone there, but neither did greg, who was up here a couple of weeks ago, so we hung out a lot. fun time. back at kate's i was drinking beer on their porch smoking which was funny. then i made a bad phone call. whoops.

saturday i slept and then slept some more. we left for syracuse at around 3, did a little old-fashioned tail-gating, then we watched bc get trounced by syracuse in a horrible game. it was at the carrier dome, and it was really bizarre watching an indoor football game. because every now and then it'd look like it was a gorgeous outside day and then suddenly you'd be flooded by the artificiality of it all.

then we drove back to kate's, then at 1 we departed for boston college. i kicked off the evening with big tobacco, then as things got quiet and it was really dark i threw on pinback, then as things got even quieter it was vincent gallo, then as the fog started to roll in, things got creepy with the microphones then finally, i brought us home with the triumph of spiritualized.

5am is when we rolled in. i had the jitters - nothing but coffee, cigarettes, and a slim jim will do that for you.

so i slept late today, got up, did a fair amount of work, went to ice cream night, did some web stuff, and now i'm here. listening to rachel's.

i'm so not looking forward to a full week of school.

today i was in the car for 8 hours. then i went to the rockaway mall where i had cheese fries, a hot dog, a cheeseburger and a cinnabon. then i went home and sammy went insane when she saw me. then i went upstairs and watched tv while i fucked around with internet stuff. i saw 3 episodes of cheers, two episodes of snl, seinfeld, stern, 2 episodes of family ties and two episodes of three's company. i'm going to watch the flinstones soon and go to sleep.

i did a lot of stuff with cgi today, changed the random link code, changed the search stuff so it's much more robust and completely held on my servers, and also added a guestbook for shits and giggles. until i get back to school, the search and guestbook features are only available on the current pages, but i'll do a mass change up when i get back to school.

ok, flintstones in bed then sleep, which i have a feeling i will be doing for a long time.

weird. you know how snl has those weird filmed things at the end that aren't skits? well i'm watching this really strange one now about saying no to joining the army and it has anthony michael hall, bruce mccullough from kids in the hall, and robert downey junior. also, pee wee herman hosted. anyway, i'm out.

why hello there.

i'll admit it, i've been bad. it started out when the guy who was hosting the s-t domain decided he wasn't hosting it anymore. ok, no biggy, i mean, he WAS doing it for free for over a year, and that's a lot to ask of someone. so whatever, i got new hosts, had the nameservers fixed up, but then it still wasn't working. i found out it was because BC is lame, and they just haven't refreshed the listings, so the rest of the world can get here, BC can't unless you do some manual fixy thing. so i was using that as an excuse, but now fuck it, time to catch up.

a lot's happened in the past 2+ weeks. i'll be lucky if i can cover 5% of it.

i finished the first half of my paper late in the evening of tuesday the sixth, like at 4am. Wrote the second half at work and e-mailed it off.

thursday the 8th: bostonians sang national anthem at the bruins game. it's such a rush to hit those last lines and hear the audience start screaming. after the game i went to sean's, had a few beers and proved once and for all that when it comes to old school nintendo sports games, i am an indomitable force. I kicked sean's ass in double dribble, ice hockey (love the 4 fat guy team) AND blades of steel. Then we took a cab to mcelroy, drank beer through straws for the end of the acoustics cafe, and then went to the acoustics party. hell of a time was had there. katie and i lived in and trashed the kitched, i got sooo drunk. people were writing on other people with sharpies, i invented a derivation of pass the ice called "put ice down people's pants." and then i got home at like 3 or something ridiculous and watched brenda finish a paper.

friday the 9th: who the hell knows.

Saturday the 10th: i'm going to guess that this was the BC Miami game. It was so damn close, a true disappointment when after an amazing drive that would have tied it we got an interception that was run for a miami TD. oh well, it's not like they're 1st in the nation and we were down one star running back or anything. oh yeah, kate and sarah's friend greg was up. after the game, i checked out dating games with my crew, that was entertaining. and then i went to adam's with kate sarah and greg unless of course i'm forgetting something. roommates and friends went to diana's and we were all supposed to meet up at 1661. well, no one at diana's was sober enough to make the trip, so at around 12:30 we left 1653 and collected te drunk kids at diana's and kicked it ome.

Sunday the 11th: CLASS NIGHT. man was this fun. the most fun i've had and i wasn't even participating, it was just so cool to send everyone out and hear the stories and all that. kicked off in edmonds where the guys played russian roulette and asshole and then the seniors went to lori's where we played some drawing game where we drank and it was soooo early. wasted, we got back to campus, had late night, then had a power hour in my room, then watched survivor across the hall. went back to katie's heard the stories, got our shit (new cds for the evening: vincent gallo - when, amfm - getting into sinking, kleenex girl wonder - ponyoak, and my morning jacket's christmas album (this one was improvd) ) also, john made out with an othermusic employee. too cool. meeting at katie's ruled, then we broke up and i got home to see a party still raging on in my room. the freshman came earlier in the night to play beirut and the guys and girls kept it alive. hells yes.

monday the 12th: umm, stuff happened maybe, and then i went into harvard with brenda where we saw the philadelphia story at the brattle, which i don't know if i mentioned the last time i went, has new comfy seats.

tuesday the 13th: yeah, who knows.

wednesday the 14th: funny how as i'm getting closer to the present how i'm forgetting things. got a B+ on my papers.

thursday the 15th: see?

friday the 16th: ok, i've got stuff for this. shit happened, and then i went to. OH WAIT. on tuesday, i ordered headphones because my old pair had some unfortunate accidents. so i ordered the $80 pair, they arrived today, and instead of them sending me the $80 pair, they charged me for the $80 pair and sent me the $200 pair. I win. Then i went to ground round and ate dinner with katie, mike, oly, lori, toben, al and some girl. I put a harry potter lightning bolt on my forehead and we saw harry potter. it fucking owned. sooooooo good. as i've told many people, i have only two complaints: fred and george are way too dorky, and prof. mcgonogal or however it's spelled was sooo not foxy. But aside from that, 2.5 hours not a dull moment. Then we went to leblanc's for a bostonians alumni get together. it was also amazing, so many old people, so much beer, so much bullmoose, and blah blah blah.

saturday the 17th: woke up early went to the massive rehearsal, came home, drank, went to the alumni show, drank more, made an ass of myself apparently. that aside, the show fucking ruled, old people singing cool songs. then we went to the banquet which was also cool. i was in full sketchy form, drank, ate, madeout, danced, drank, danced, drank etc. afterwards we went to a hotel room and it was fun but broke up way too soon. i came home, slept.

sunday the 18th: yesterday, huh? umm, i arranged and rehearsed.

today: got yelled at by brenda for sleeping too much, and she's right. i hate that i require so much sleep. shit, i don't even require it, i went this summer on 6 hours a night, but now, shit, i need to stay in bed for 10 at least. anyway, gorgeous day, here we are november 19th, and i'm outside almost hot wearing a long-sleeved shirt. i went down to harvard to buy cds. got the avanlanches disc, the joe pernice big tobacco disc, the radiohead live ep, and umm, the new silver jews disc. i really wanted the dntel disc but alas, they were out. listening to the radiohead disc reminded me what an absolutely unbelievable show that was this summer. then i came home, ate, went to monsters inc. with tara and the guys, and now i'm here, finally doing this and getting ready for some beirut action to celebrate our last night before thanksgiving break.

so tomorrow i go home, friday i go to kate's with tim, to party and then to see the BC game saturday ,then i guess i come here.

so the weeks in review: two back to back amazing weekends. it's funny how even class night has been eclipsed by the alumni festivities of this past weekend. i forgot to get a job from the alumni, but that's ok. and as for the rest of my life, things are looking up.

peace out and enjoy your thanksgivings.

so it's 1am. i have 12 pages to write. i've written zero. i've done nothing even RESEMBLING work for the past 2 hours. i love me.

umm, yesterday came and went, as did today. and somehow, this paper still looms over me.

i pulled out this entry's titular built to spill album today, and damn, i forgot how good it is. "i can't get that sound you make out of my head / i can't even figure out what's making it / it feels like fingernails across the moon / or do you rub your wings together?" that's just great. namely the fingernails across the moon.

also, the magnetic fields' 69 love songs is just genius. but i knew that.

i set up a messageboard for the bostonians and alumni, because that wasn't writing my paper.

also, i'm kinda bummed about homecoming. i can't believe katie judas'd me like she did. i definitely asked her, mainly because i wanted to go to homecoming, but also because she's pretty much guaranteed to put out. but then she said no, and then i found out she's going with sean. and i'm not going and i've never been to a BC dance and it seemed like a good idea, but i guess i'll wait till commencement. blah.

hmm

katie's going to bed.

that leaves me with little to do, aside from maybe actually looking at this paper, but i'll see if i can find something else, i'm pretty crafty.

"i could make a career of being blue / i could dress in black and read camus / smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth / like i was 17 / that would be a scream"

yay stephen merritt.

recording went remarkably well on saturday, and the tape crisis wasn't a crisis at all. over the course of 12 hours, we laid down 3 songs. everything on them done except for solos and percussion. after laying down the base tracks, we ordered up some beer for the rest of the night as the little parts got recorded. i left at 11 pretty drunk. back at home, i had a little more, watched some britney spears specials with dan and brenda and then came down and watched guffman. because i'm such a smart kid, i went to bed at 5am.

then, 3 hours later, i was in my shower getting ready to go again. couldn't keep my eyes open on the T, got to southie, got a coffee, hit the studio. we were doing best of what's around, so i didn't have to sing or anything - just stand and conduct. we all learned something very intersting about the arrangement, somehow, in the choruses, i selected syllables throughout the parts in such a way, that the larger picture of all the voices singing their parts results in a very clear sounding "vagina." that's right, for the entire time recording the song, everyone was hearing the word "vagina" come through the song. I consider it my finest moment.

we laid it down, recorded amy's solo, and then 5 of us hit up burger king for a last bout of fast food. i fell asleep instantly on the T home, then went promptly to my bed where i stayed for about 3 hours. then i woke up, had spaghetti, did laundry, and i guess i'm going to ice cream night soon.

i'm a zombie. i'm a giant ache. i need to sleep in tomorrow like nobody's business

the movies:

in waking life was interesting. it was all shot live-action and then animated over with this fancy-pants rotoscoping technology shit. so it all definitely looked like live-action but had the feel of something that's been animated. as for the content, it was really all just a series of monologues on different philisophical levels. it began and it was overly expository and seemed rather contrived, but it got less pretentious and focused more on the nature of dreams as it went on and i got into more.

mulholland drive was a goddam freak show. seriously. it scared the fuck outta me. i'm not sure what i just saw, but after 2.5 hours, i wasn't tired and all i wanted was to see more of this fucked up cast of characters that lynch created for me. but i left really really really scared. everyone i saw was just a walking lynchian creator and i was scared.

i walked past this bum asking for a quarter, and naturally, i ignored him. as i walked by though, i was like why, why did i just not give this poor dude a quarter. and then i turned around, walked back a half a block and gave him one. later, when walking to othermusic (picked up the mum remix cd and the new silver jews ep), some dude came up and offered me a quarter for a smoke. i would've given it to him for free, but he gave me a quarter, that's karma or something.

then the show.

first band was the APES. keyboard, bass, drums, and screamy guy. the music wasn't great, but the energy was high and the crowd was into it. the lead singer was another lynchian creation. over the course of the show he stripped down everything but his jeans, was all over the floor and the kids in the audience, made everything he could find into a phallic object, and spent an entire song with both hands down his pants.

next band was !!!, a 3 piece rhythm section, sax, trumpet, 2 guitars, and bass. they turned the middle east into white kid dance party, USA. it was sweaty, and fun as hell. in front of the stage was seriously just a big dance floor. it was wild just letting loose like that, and there was one girl who made it her job to grind with every single member of her surroundings. that's what i've missed at bc this year, crazy ass dance parties. in fact, i may have missed them every year hear.

and then came les savy fav. now, i was shocked when i found out that doug martsch from built to spill looked like doug martsch. but nothing in the world could have prepared me for when i found out that tim harrington of les savy fav ALSO looked like doug martsch. a big, fat, bald, bearded mountain man. he was insane. dancing like a motherfuck, running all over the place, writhing on the floor, running across the bar, running through the audience, standing and hanging from anything he could find. it was great, they rocked the fuck out.

and then i came home, wrote this, forgot to save it and wrote it again. now i sleep for tomorrow i have to get up early to record.

also, if anyone has a reel of 2" tape, and can let me know before 8am tomorrow, i'd really really appreciate it.

and the song of the day is "following through" by the d-plan.

uhh, just listened to the new les savy fav at work today a few times, pretty damn psyched for the show tomorrow night.

listening to the song "adopduction," i learned what the stockholm syndrome was. i should listen to the yo la tengo song with that in mind.

after work was a multitude of rehearsals. then home for survivor. i hate most of the young kids on samburu, love everyone on boran, hate theresa, am growing fond of frank, and miss carl. after survivor i watched the diamondbacks suffer another sad loss, and then john and i watched some buffy.

hmm

recording this weekend. locked up in that box. eating burger king. except this time, it's me running the show. no more goofing off, no more reading and taking constant cigarette breaks while people are laying down incidental stuff. it's gonna be a long weekend, and it's probably what i need. concert tomorrow, and then saturday i will go see mulholland drive and/or waking life, and sunday as well if i don't see both on saturday.

today, first thing i did at work was fire up notepad and write something. for the first time ever, i've written something with the intention of showing no one. it's strange. actually that's a lie. freshman year i wrote two e-mails to someone, but sent to them myself as i had no intention of actually sending it to the addressee. but this was different, i was writing for an audience of me. and you should thank me, because what i wrote would change the world, and it'd be a scary and unfamiliar place for you. of course eventually you'd see that it was a change for the good, but it'd be a long and difficult road, and i'm too nice a guy to set the world on such a course.

actually that's a lie. it's just that it contains some names and situations that aren't for public consumption, or any consumption at all besides me. but you can consume this nightly, and i encourage you to do so.

so, so what? sew buttons. HA.

Also, it's recently come to my attention that i don't receive enough e-mails that weren't generated by a machine. so write me. tell me your hopes, your fears. send me naked pictures, or pictures of your dog. song demos. call me gay, call me a visionary. tell me who you are, how you found me, why the fuck you ever visited more than once. also, no naked pictures please. unless they happen to be naked pictures of your dog, which i suppose is acceptable.