self-titled: ^_^

haha
word up for wifi in the shitty hotel by the airport!

yeah, so i'm in providence at the moment, trying hard to write on the pocket pc as fast an accurate as i can.

we fly to philly at, umm, 7am tomorrow, so it sort of made sense to come down to RI tonight instead of like 4am tomorrow ..

i tried getting the itrip to work on the clock radio ... that was a losing proposition.

hmm yeah, the novelty of wifi is wearing thin, i should probably get to bed. i also should probably not have had a coke and a bunch of candy on the drive down.

so jude and his 2 30+ year old divorced father (!) friends came up for the weekend.
i was a little not totally amped for it, what with it being the three day weekend of george and all, but it turned out to be perfectly agreeable. they went to the red sox on saturday while i went grocery shopping and then to newbury comics for cds and comic books, including a collection by joss whedon about a 23rd century slayer.
then back to the apartment where jude's friends slept and i got jude hooked on Powers. we were just lazy the rest of the night, reading comics and watching crap on tv like prom date.

$unday we went to try for sox tickets to no avail, instead settling for a couple beers at boston beer works and then back to coolidge corner clubhouse to eat and watch the game.

then they left, i napped and then played computer, eventually stopping around three to watch some adult swim and i'm happy to say i finally found aqua teen hunger force quite amusing.

today i just hung about and hit up the comic shop a couple of times and bought a bunch of crap. comics rule.

seacrest out.

today i did my laundry. after loading the crap in the washer i came back upstairs and settled back down to play more thief2. Then i noticed a laundry basket on my bed and realized that i had put the basket with clean clothes into the waster. i'm so awesome.

tim visited this weekend. and by visited i mean katie and i saw him a total of... maybe 6 hours. he was here like 3 or 4 days. per usual he slept on our couch the first night and then disappeared. i'm unfazed.

today i got my haircut. such a relief. now if tomorrow i can just get to star market then man, i'm set for life.

boy i can't wait for this season of american idol to be over. i'm not even going to watch all of the finale tonight. that's right. I"m going to finish my tortelloni medley, and then turn it off and go back to sweet, sweet thief2.

that latoya chick, you know, the really good one who got kicked off because she wasn't a fat white chick or a retarded black chick with bad teeth and like 5 children at age 19, yeah her, she must be pissed as hell that she has to come back and sing in the retarded reject medley. ALso, ryan seacrest is like way short.

eww gross i just got my first asparagus tortapalooza. it sucks. now i'm afraid to eat the rest of them, because each one could potentially be an explosive pocket of asparagus nastiness.

OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST MAKE THIS MEDLEY END.

So yeah, i got my haircut. and then i bought the josstacular x-men #1. If i were on american idol, i wouldn't last, because i would kill myself out of embarrassment when the producers made me do these gay medleys, or worse, those fucking commercials that make me want to pull an elvis on my tv.

hey look, it's the white ruben studdard.

saw mean girls this weekend, it was like, good and stuff. my favorite parts were when you could see through tina fey's shirt and lindsey lohan's breasts.

So i determined this over the past few days as I've listened to lots of the microphones. 1.) Mt. eerie mostly sucks. 2.) it was hot... has an exceptionally strong first "side," for lack of a better word (ok, "half" is a better word, but not nearly as pretentious) and then the second side mostly sucks 3.) the glow pt. 2 has a super exceptionally strong first side, and a strong second side that runs the risk of being too same-sounding. 4.) I may give phil elvrum too much credit, but he makes me feel funny, he's like a weird, hippy earthy jeff mangum without the drugs and with slightly less esoteric lyrics. what does esoteric mean?... i don't know.

if i get another asparagus one off guard i may vomit. and if i film it, i have a great shot at being cast for a show on mtv.

thank god for this the casino show. I'll finally have a reason to watch tv again. bless you mark burnett.

whoa, ruben studdard just sang "i love you like i used to love cake." i swear. also, this song is EXACTLY like that super retarded "i'm sorry for 2004" song i heard on the radio. they are even playing it in the background. he's fat and sucks.

yes rubarb, what if you did have to use the pay phone?

whoa, coca-cola c2? i'm so intrigued. i need that commercial IMMEDIATELY. ok here it is. what is it? apparantly it plays the rolling stones and makes it rain. and it contains 1/2 the carbs and 1/2 the calories... but it's not diet! oh my god!!@$Q@JMA U)(IUDF@{! M21390u[43

should it be coca-cola 1/2?

i'm on a new cigarette diet. i smoke when i'm out drinking or whatever, and then until i run out of the pack. but even on those off days, i'm not smoking like normal. sunday, monday and tuesday i had one before bed, and only because i had them. today i've had none and will have none until friday when i play poker. now i used to, as of like 2 weeks ago, have one in the morning, one on the walk home and one at night on normal days. so what's my point. oh yeah, i don't need to stop to buy cigarettes as much and that rocks because unless i needed gas, it was a real pain in the ass. also, i think this proves, on some level, that if i really gave a shit about doing it, i could quit.

i go to philly next week, i'm going to deliver packages and stuff heh.

ok crap my ipod is taking FOREVER to load, i may be forced into watching the end of idol. oh eff it. let's see how bad thief runs with ipod crap in the background.

whoops. forgot about this nonsense.
Played poker at tony's last night. Won a whopping $22. The streak continues.

this fridya i played a lot of video games and then watched donnie darko. i had some unresolved questions after watching it that I've now forgotten. but jude isn't online so even if i remembered it would do me little good.

on saturday i did a lot of the gaming until i started getting restless around 7. pat was supposed to have a game but i couldn't get a hold of him, so i started trying to convince myself that whoever was playing great scott would be a good show when tony called. so i went over there, drank ate smoked had an alright time. after all that nonsense i walked home, got some redneck's queso fries and went to bed.

blah blah.

so i get to go on my first business trip to philly in the next couple of weeks. it's weird, i can go pretty much whenever i want to. i haven't worked out the specifics but i figure most expenses are covered. i'm going to eat cheese steaks like it's my freaking job.

live in philly? got some rad indie places for me to go? didn't think so.

my old roommate john and diana are getting married apparently, which is freaking weird. they're getting married and i'm... well, i have a steady job.

TS is coming up this weekend, which is rad. i guess he's up tomorrow and he katie and i are going to dinner. yeehaw.

um yeah. i saw of fox tonight that they are trying to replicate the The OC phenomenom with some show this summer called the north shore. now, for one thing, it's impossible. for another, the oc was unexpected and wasn't trying to live up to anything. and for yet another, i'm totally going to watch it. but unless it stars seth cohen as himself, it probably will just be waste of my time.

so it was cool when the OC name dropped and played death cab for cutie, it was cool when they played spoon.. but tonight, (well, last week) they played an iron and wine song off the between album ep... that's just weird. but it was good. and the oc was good. and i've been watching that show since randomly stumbling upon it this summer when i was playing everquest and watching Fox from 7 until 10. it was after an episode of paradise hotel i believe, this crappy little show... and look what it's turned into.

yeah, that's all i've got. i'll be 23 in a couple of months. that's officially not a young kid anymore, and that depresses the hell out of me because i've got nothing to show for it. i'm pretty convinced at this point that i'm dying alone. rock on.

well, tonight is an unfortunate day as it marks the day that i become a vehement apologist and fanboy oh yet another publically maligned medium. i finished up the 5th trade paperback of Powers tonight, (issues #21-#24), and i am ready to say that in the course of reading the story arc, Powers finally hit the point where I can say it is as valid, as visceral, and as powerful as what i have seen on tv and movies, and yes, even read. and once my ebay'd issues arrive in a week or so, I will be getting one lousy episode a month and then having to wait around drooling. like, even tv shows don't always end on a cliffhanger, and even when they do, it's only a week till the next episode. these comic books end on a not cliffhanger once every 6 months or so. that blows.

friday night i played poker in southie and won like $700. Last night i played in allston and won like $15. I cannot be stopped. until i am stopped, and that will be the sad end to a very lovely streak.

on saturday i went to some part with jonathan and tony out around mass ave. place had a private roof deck with a stellar view. gorgeous apartment too, only $1,400. Guess the neighborhood is rough though, jonathan and i got pizza and heard about some dude ordering pizza who shot another dude. i think they're called gangbangers.

party was fun, some girl asked if i was a closet closet badass. and i'm not quite sure what that meant, but apparantly her friend was hot for that kind of thing and wanted me. there was a pinata and the original plan was for the pinater to not wear a blindfold. that was retarded. we left around 12 or 1 or something, nicely soused. i came back and went to sleep.

ok, the thing i don't get for the day is books. in the past two weeks, i've spent close to $150 on books. books of the comic variety. specifically, every available trade paperback of brian michael bendis's(hi-five, seth cohen!) powers. and i really enjoy it and now can buy the tiny $3 book once a month. but what's my point here. oh yeah, books are dumb. i saw a seinfeld episode yesterday that addressed this... when you finish a book, for the most part, you're done with it. and it cost you $10 or whatever and you lug it around with you for many years more and probably never pick it up. it's disposable entertainment that we don't dispose of. and i tried buying the first issue of joss whedon's x-men relaunch today and it was sold out or maybe just not for sale yet... but there was a glaring empty spot in the x-men section.

also at newbury comics today i bought magnetic fields "I" and the season 2 dvds of the office. Now, i already have the mag fields mp3s, and the office is readily available for download, but both items had such very attractive pink stickers on them: one said "$9.99" and the other "$19.99" and i was just drawn to them. Also, i won $30 in the poker tournament last night and felt that i should get rid of that $30 asap so i wasn't reminded of what an awful win it was every time i looked at my wallet. the tournament was fun, about 18 people or so... jonathan sat at the same first table and we both effortlessly were in the top 2 positions. at the final table i got pretty low, but then came back in a strong strong way with about 5 people left, getting jonathan out during the fun. pretty sure i worked up to chip leader somehow. hten after some time, i just bluffed at the wrong hand and went out. and said goodbye to a $200 purse and hello to a $50 one, and i was pissed off. but now that money is gone so i can sleep easy.

that was yesterday, i had forgotten about the tourney until jonathan called on my way home. so i had to forego the season finale of the OC, which is downloading now.

the day before... i watched love actually with katie, which i actually enjoyed quite a bit.

monday i... well i covered that already.

this amuses me. especially the second to last paragraph.

and now, i go to sleep. do i play poker tomorrow night? it's been a month since i've been to southie. i know the answer to the question is 'yes,' but my throat sorta hurts and i do have videogames to play. sigh.

shiiiiiiiit

i just almost got through the first day of the coachella writeup and my browser crashed. totally uncool.

what does this mean to you? well not much i guess. you miss the rundown of my flight over and friday in palm springs (I won $100 in blackjack, but then lost $50 on 2 hands, so really won $50 which is still fun). i guess that was the only interesting anecdote i had.

it was very hot down there in palm springs. the dry desert air helped somewhat, but it was still damn damn hot.

we stayed in friday night after delusions of going out and doing something, and then got up the next morning fairly well rested. jude, you see, had left the tickets to coachella at home so he had them overnighted to the hotel. 9am guaranteed delivery. 9am: nothing. 9:30: nothing. 10:00: jude calls ups and finds out they were delivered to the hotel at 9am signed by willk. 10:05: jude goes down and tells willk what's what.

we got some mcdonald's breakfast and then hit the empire polo grounds.

after waiting in a brief line in the oh-so-hot 98 degree weather, we picked up some water ($2 a bottle, not bad) and then walked around.

as we walked we heard the section quartet play, they were a string quartet that apparantly just plays radiohead songs. ok.

within about 15 minutes jude and i had parted from matt and his sister lisa. and now, our day:

erase errata: saw 3 songs. all chicks, not nearly as atonal and unlistenable as i had thought it would be, but certainly nothing good.

the sounds: bunch of swedes. sounded like a mix of pretty girls make graves, blondie, and the faint. we caught most of the set and i enjoyed it a good deal.

howie day: jude made me do it. i read our free copy of spin magazine during the few songs we sat through. sounded pretty inoffensive.

sahara hotnights: more swedes, 4 chicks, played generic rock music. we saw 3 songs.

the evens: ian mackaye (of fugazi) playing in a 2 piece with some chick. they played embarrassing pussy folk rock. singing about how the police are overstepping their bounds is cool and punk and stuff, but not when you sound like a gay man's simon and garfunkel and ian goes into a horrible falsetto all the time. fugazi weeps. flea played trumpet on a song or two but we missed that.

the stills: aka lunch time. the stills sound remarkably like they do on album.

q and not you: the first set that really gelled for me. we only saw like 5 songs, but i enjoyed them. it was stuff i knew but played loose enough to make it interesting. 'soft pyramids' especially rocked.

and you will know us by the trail of the dead: i solo'd this one for 4-5 songs. good live presence, but they played a lot of new unreleased stuff. 'another morning stoner' rocked, and i was sad that there was no 'how near how far'

junior senior: by way of the beck tent, which i couldn't get anywhere near. no shouting of 'd-d-d-don't don't stop the beat' in the tent, but it still kicked total ass. i danced way more than i should in an uncirculated stupid hot tent. some dude from sex and the city was dancing next to jude and i. it wasn't until later i realized he was from celebrity poker. anyway, this set rocked, i hat previously written off junior senior as a (wonderfully good) novelty, but this stuff was totally on.

death cab for cutie: disappointing set, great preformance. they played 2 songs off the photo album ('why you'd want to live here' & 'a movie script ending'), photobooth, and then basically the entire transatlanticism album. the build and apex of "transatlanticism" was freaking great. also, how fun was it to see this band and others with a backdrop of palm trees and mountains. totally weird.

sparta: jude and i headed to the main stage to gain ground for the main events. sparta, who i guess is one half of at the drive in, was decent. kind of that emo sound, without the wining and with some rock. oh, and healthy amounts of anti-bush statements. which was a major theme of the weekend.

the pixies: ah yes, the sort-of main event. the f'n pixies. they unassumedly took the stage, and jumped right into 'bone machine.' and the continued to smash through about 25 songs in their scant one hour set. it was pretty awesome. scary how the crowd around us (we were maybe 50 feet from stage) new freaking every word ever. one hell of an hour.

radiohead: jude left, because his feet were killing him. mine too, but not so bad i had to leave. then i waited 45 minutes or so and radiohead took stage. very good set, nice mix across the albums (including 2nd to last song "creep"). don't know how it compares to the suffolk down show, but it was damn good. and thom seemed particularly playful with the crowd, which was sort of odd. hell of a time, it was.

phantom planet: wandering around looking for jude, i caught maybe 4-5 of their songs. nothing really good. and i missed the goddam oc song.

kraftwerk: hehehe just had to see them.

then i wandered around the parking lot for 45 dealing with 0 reception and everyone's phone being dead, until jude finally spotted me as he was standing on the car.

day 2:

we were all pretty spent after day 1, and slept in a bit. didn't really get moving until noon or so. got mcd's lunch and then headed over.

much hotter than yesterday, i think 103 was the agreed upon temp. in line, some douchebags were spraying the crowd with hoses. fun on that first contact, but after that it was quite uncomfortable and they were just being dicks.

sadly, we missed pretty girls make graves.

jude and i got seperated from matt and lisa basically when we walked in, so jude and my day:

!!!: we established a seat early at the outdoor stage (jude wanted to be up close for bright eyes). it was hotter than hell out there. jude and i sat. !!! played. people danced, it was good.

broken social scene: during the interim jude and i moved up pretty close, maybe 20-30 feet off. BSS came on, first song was some song off the album that was mostly guitar noodling, nothing great. then they ripped into "KC Accidental" (i think) and it was ON. god i can't believe i missed them both times they were in boston. this set was amazing. they had 4 guitars going for a lot of the time, FIVE for almost crimes at the end, and it was just stunning... so perfectly put together, everything in its right place. beautiful and totally engaging. emily haines (the chick on the album) came out early on and was sadly very plain and ordinary looking. i was worried they wouldn't do 'anthems for a seventeen year old girl,' but later on they did and, holy shit. i'd like nothing more than to be able to experience the performance of that song on demand. in the "park that call / drop that phone" part, she started off singing it like 8x as slow, then 4x and then by she did it the way it was on the album and oh my god it was just overwhelming. they had all her vocal filters, and the four guitars going, and keyboards and jesus christ, i can't think of a live music moment that i was so moved. it's embarrassing, but tears were running down my face is how powerful it was. anyway, i said at that point that broken social scene would likely be the best of show for the entire weekend. oh yeah, before they ripped into 'almost crimes' which was just unbelievable, one of the guitarists proposed. what a show.

atmosphere: atmosphere followed. some white rapper from MN that jonathan really likes. he started off just played rage's "killing in the name of" really loud, and jude and i, who had moved up since BSS were like 2 people away from the ensuing mosh pit. he wasn't particularly good. i remember driving home from foxwoods on easter hearing some of his stuff and i liked it, but not so much here. after 5 songs or so i left jude to go eat and wander around.

2 many djs: my first trip to the dj tent, where people go in 103 degree weather to dance their asses off in a hotter, and non ventilated tent. go figure. when i got there it was some stupid dj playing non-descript drum and bass techno crap. amazing how people were dancing. on the bright side, many of the people their doing their aerobic regimin were cute girls in bikinis, but still... 2 many djs came out, a couple of skinny white guys, i stayed for maybe 45 minutes of the set, which was a little bit looser than the mix albums they put out.... i guess to accomodate the dancing or whatever. but was still a fun little bit of half mash-up dj mix.

belle & sebastian: it should be noted that i listened to a couple of sage francis songs as i walked to B&S. he was better than atmosphere. B&S was adequate. i stuck around for 5 songs or so, and, as jonathan would put it, was whelmed.

bright eyes: i tried to get up next to jude (second row) to no avail. but was pretty damn close. he opened with "don't know when but a day's gonna come" which was super awesome. then came a song or 2 i didn't know and didn't care for. then conor sat at the keyboard and played another song i didn't know but liked, and then 'lover i don't have to love' which rocked house, then 'bowl of oranges' which i hate. and then he played a bunch of songs i didn't know but they were all great. excellent set. also, gideon yago was on stage.

the plan here was to go get up nice and close to air. but both mine and jude's feet really really hurt. so we got food and listened to air. and it was night, with the sun down, air just sort of trickling over the area. they sounded good too... but there was really no need to be up front for them.

the flaming lips: we sat down for the lips. wayne coyne descended from space in a big plastic bubble, and then he rolled out onto the crowd and rolled around on their heads for about 2 minutes. it was very surreal. almost as surreal as the 8 people dressed in animal costumes waving around headlights and dancing, and also the two people dressed in giant star costumes that looked like a cross between nintendo's kirby and some super mario character. i left jude and steadily made my way up to a decent distance. the performance was excellent, but, when all was said and done they played 4 freaking songs. four songs. but oddly enough, the performance made up for it. it all ended with the band playing happy birthday for beck, but not before wayne dumped a decent amount of fake blood over himself.

mogwai: i met jude and we walked over to mogwai. saw a few songs in the classic mogwai formula: pretty guitar line, some keyboard, slow builds, then death metal riffage. i enjoyed it, jude did not.

the cure: we went back and sat down for the cure. robert smith is really just a fat version of himself. what we heard of the set wasn't anything spectacular, but it was good. nice and moody. but i don't think anyone was expecting the second coming.

le tigre: jude and i took a break to go see everyone's favorite lesbian feminist electo-punk go-go trio. it was both as fun and as hard on the ears as one would assume.

and i guess that's it. looking at the list i guess i saw less bands than i thought i had, but whatever. it was still an incredible experience.

if i have on regret, it's that i was not able to find adam brody (seth cohen on the oc). i had a feeling he was there, and just had it confirmed on the message boards. that seriously, would've made my life. i wonder if he could respect a guy who watches the oc. i'm pretty sure we'd be instant friends and it would all be good.

oddly enough, i had a dream either last night during my glorious 3 hour nap before our 4:30am wake up call or possibly it was on the evil plane ride. anyway, the dream was that adam/seth and i were going to see xiu xiu tonight, despite the fact that it would be a bad idea because of how tired and achey i am.

ALSO
ps

why do i have such bad airplane luck? why can't i ever have a seat next to someone attractive, or at the very least, vaguely interesting. this morning's flight from LAX was the worst though, because the old guy in front of me gets to sit next to this devastingly hot girl (in the tattoos and fishnets sense) who also seemed extremely nice and coversational. meanwhile i'm sitting next to some fat old hag. apparently other people get good airplane experiences, i'm pretty sure darren sat next to some hot chick recently and i guess katie was next to some cute investment guy or whatever. it's just not fair. and man, was this chick hot. obviously, i got to see her make out with her boyfriend immediately after leaving the plane, but still, it would've been 5 hours of ignorant bliss.