charlie in the trees

Omaha

2006-10-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Back in Omaha.

New Blog

2006-09-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

New Blog.

Touche

2006-07-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

I almost bought a mac. I hope OS X comes out in a PC version. Touche!

Click here to view!

1993 Details Man Of The Year

2006-06-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

Tada!

Rainbow Gathering

2006-06-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

So there's the national Rainbow Gathering in CO this year and Boulder's all raging about it and everyone and their mom's pimp is all going. I have no interest in it and could care less. I see enough fucking hippies where I work and the surrounding areas to last me a lifetime or twenty.

I actually do want to go and narc people out. Like, "Hello, 911? Yeah, I can't talk any louder, but I'm at this Rainbow Gathering and there's a car next to me and I think they're smoking the pot. Yeah. One's wearing a tie-dyed shirt. One's got a Hendrix shirt. They've got dreads..."

Or start some race wars or something. How's your OM, bitch!

I sent Henry Rollins an email. I told him that we've been showcasing soups named after him or his songs or album names. I said we like to put the sign out before the soups ready, because people ask, "Who's Rollins? Is that the chef?"

"Rollins is a world reknown spoken-word artist, lead singer of the Rollins Band, former singer for influencial punk band Black Flag, DJ, TV Host, Actor, USO man, and 1993 Details Man of the Year."

To which they reply, "Oh. What's in it?"

"Two pounds of intensity. 25 years on the road. Three cups of raw energy. Garnished with pure testicular fortitude."

I haven't gotten a response yet.

Shizzle

2006-06-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

Hopefully, if my check is enough tomorrow, I'm getting a new Minidisc recorder. Just over a month left before Rollins/X and I've been told that my bro's wedding that it was coinciding with isn't happening then due to his fiance not being able to leave Korea.

Hopefully it comes about at a better time. I'm pretty bummed out that I won't be able to attend Vince and Mary Jo's wedding.

Nuggets of Wisdom

2006-06-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

So apparently this last Sunday was Rainbow Rowell's final column in the Herald (thank fucking Christ) allow me to share some of her parting wisdom as she departs into the sunset of a new advertising job. . followed below is the most idiotic thing I have read in years. .. .

"And, for me, getting to work in advertising isn't just something else. I get kindof stupidly excited about advertising. I appreciate a nice billboard more than I do about a nice painting. I consider it public art"

Yeah. . . that's nice. ..

Remember This? Arnold's Pizza Shop

2006-06-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

"...maybe I'll give you a pizza; maybe I'll break off your arm!"

Click Here to listen!

I Hate People

2006-06-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

I can't escape from anyone. I left the kitchen to come into the office to get some work done. They follow in, because it's slow. They're all asking me about the tips and I say that I'm working on it. They keep asking about the hours and tip amount and I keep telling them I have it all here and that I'll get it done. Then they tell me that I may have the wrong hours. I yell at them to just go back to the kitchen and leave me alone and they're distracting me and making me mess up and taking longer.

They leave. I go to the kitchen to ask another manager about something and it's literally one step in and, "Where's the tips?"

I come back into the office. Someone else comes in to do stuff that he can't figure out on his own and continues to ask me stuff including how to spell really simple words. I hate people.

Back the Fuck Up

2006-06-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

Blogging from work. I don't know why, but the new, used laptop we got is all fucked up. I had money planned on getting a laptop or a new minidisc player but all these unexpected expenses keep popping up.

I found a letter that X Headley wrote to Kim Thayil during junior high. I'll post it someday. It was all about how he doesn't play an instrument, but his instrument is his pen, and hopefully he'll be able to write as avant stuff as Kim does on his "silver six-string." Some other great lines from the Headley letter was "awe-inspiring" and "total sex god."

There's a lot more to blog but the co-workers won't leave me alone about the tips.

Godzilla: Woo-ah!

2006-06-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Godzilla: Woo-ah!

Click here to watch!

I'm Rick James, Bitch!

2006-06-04T03:54:00.000-07:00

This is the funniest skit on the Chappelle Show!

Click Here to watch!

D'oh!

2006-06-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Social Distortion isn't until July. What was I thinking?!

Jeanne's mom's in town this weekend and I work all weekend. I'm going to set it up at work tomorrow so I can get off early and go to dinner with them.

Jigga-who?

2006-06-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

So I'm back on the computer now. First off, Outlaw con Bandana just stopped into Boulder and played a show at my friend's parents' house up in the mountains in Lyons. It sucked because I had to work until close, so they all waited for me to get off and then we headed up there.

There were six of us in this old cop car (now apparently a clown car) with a stand-up bass in the backseat going up front. We stopped by our place to grab food and then to the Taco Bell turned drive-thru liquor store to stock up.

Jared's parents' place was seriously up in the mountains. Up here, turn there. This small opening in between the weeds is a street. Up a 90 degree incline and then we see a vehicle just on the side of the road but no house. We stop and get out and noticed a house down the hill. There's a hot tub and Peter (aka Boulder's Chris Stoll - ask Brendan about it) was getting out.

So we parked along the road and got in and because we got there at 9, a lot of the people had left. It was supposed to be Symposium (open mic/spoken word) then Outlaw, but since we got there then, it was just Outlaw and it was starting to rain. As a result of that, they weren't able to play on the wooden outdoor deck and played in the living room instead.

The show went really well and they sold a couple of records and CD's. They were all into them. I ate all our food we brought and hung out by the table eating all the rest of the food I could get. It was dice.

We drove back to our place and hung out.

Next morning we woke up and the Outlaw entourage and I walked to Safeway to get provisions. I was making them breakfast so I bought all that stuff and it was ridiculous. The Safeway manager was showing all these other suits around the store. I thing they were Safeway CEO's or something dumb. All I heard was, "...and this part here was an extention. This is where 75% of our business..." I was so tempted to make a loud statement about there not being any ripe avacados. "Well, uh...you see the thing about that is..."

I should've anyway, because Rooney bought a Ruby Red Grapefruit that was just a grapefruit on account of there not being a border between them.

So we got back and the way it turned out, Brendan ended up making the breakfast. It was a mountain of food. After breakfast and hanging out a bit, they packed up and headed off to the next night of camping before hitting Salt Lake.

It was good to see Outlaw and made us miss Omaha a bunch. Speaking of that, I just got a call from Vince Tafolla about his wedding. If only we had a ride.

I listened to Outlaw's record, too, Life Without Outlaw, and my non-biased opinion aside, that fucking record's good as fuck. My friend who bought a CD as well told us tonight how much he loves that CD.

On a cartoon villian note:

For those in Omaha, I'm not sure if you know what Safeway is, but it's just a huge chain grocery store. In Boulder, its main competition is Whole Foods. Jeanne told me that Whole Foods initially started off as Safer-way.

Also, besides Social Distortion playing Red Rocks, I think, next week, I bought tickets to the Rollins Band/X concert for Jeanne and I. Super stoked about that. I also don't know the station's name, but my alarm is on it for some reason. And for some other reason, they love the Offspring. I kept the station on the other morning because they were playing some jams that included Ween. They fit in three Offspring albums. The next morning when my alarm goes off, the first thing I remember hearing was, "My friend's gotta girlfriend and he hates that bitch."

Anyway, the station played an acoustic version of "Prison Bound" that Mike Ness did in the studio. Fucking awesome.

The Flaming Lips & Ween are also playing Red Rocks this summer. I need money and a non-demanding job.

Bloggy Mcghee

2006-05-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

Computer went down. Got another one. Be back on the flipside. Current situation: Rollins Band (with original line up) & X playing in Denver on the same day as brother's wedding.

Are you kidding me?

They're also playing in Omaha at Sokol Auditorium. Head and everyone should go. Also playing in Chicago.

I was planning on picking up an X album at the record shop the other day. They're good album. I think it was a sign.

Best Party Ever

2006-05-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

So I was at this party recently and who should turn up, but none other than Kim Thayl of Soundgarden fame. So I asked "Kim Thayl, what the fuck are you doing here you clown?" And he said, oh I'm just going through the country, getting into adventures, playing over-rated guitar. And through our conversation he mentioned he was in Boulder recently where he met his biggest fan. I asked him to describe this human cypher, and he begun to describe him.

"Well he's got long black hair, a beard, he's married, I think he's Japanese, he laughs alot, and he kept asking me about the Matrix and how much Superunknown was his favorite album of all time."

I asked if his name was Brett Ohira, and you know what? He said it was. . ..Bad form Brett. . .bad form indeed. . .

kfdsa

2006-04-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Jukebox: Rolling Stones - "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"

So last Thursday, the original Delfonics guys were at my work talking to Cornelius, who is our juicer and musician. He's played music with tons of people, and a lot of musicians all over the world know him. They told Cornelius that they were going to come back on Friday and perform. He didn't think they would. That night, they were hanging around in the cafe and one of the guys was freestyling-singing along, with his falsetto voice, to the songs on the sound system of the cafe. It was dice.

On Friday they came and performed. There were three of them and they had a boombox playing the music. One of the other guys had a keyboard and played the piano parts. The two other guys had this microphone thing. It was big, echoey, golden, and had a built in amp. They played, pretty much the greatest hits. They played three sets and the fourth one was actually them just sitting in the corner hanging out with some other guys. Like the local hand-drumming on the corner guy.

Day off number one yesterday was stupid. I had an excrutiating tooth pain that made me call the dentist and set an appointment, even though it would've cost me tons, since I'm not insured. I also don't have money or a credit card, so I couldn't just do that and they don't finance. There's a place online you can try and get financed, but I have bad credit so that helped not a bit.

Jeanne came home and found a dental place that caters to low-income/non-insured people. I was going to set an appointment up but they were closed by that time. I ended up making a tincture of tea tree oil and water and rinsed out my mouth with that and it's completely gone now. I have this tea tree oil book and it's helped out tremendously with everything. I'm a big fan of the oil. It seriously is a first aid kit in a bottle. I'm pretty sure if your arm gets amputated, you can rub some on and it'll grow back.

Jukebox: New York Dolls - "Puss N Boots"

Happy Earth Day?

2006-04-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

So Earth Day in Boulder was a happening event. Most dumb, but some really beneficial stuff. One being the Naropa bike guys who were tuning up bikes for a donation to the Co-op. Speaking of, on an earlier blog, I mentioned that Naropa was that Jack Kerouac school. I was wrong. It seemed like it, but it's not. There is a separate Jack Kerouac School for Writing, or something like that. I got my bike checked and trued, so now I can ride my road bike. Super stoked, especially since I wanted to take it to a bike shop and wait, possibly, five days to get it taken care of at probably $50 or so. I paid only $10. Super dice!

I had to be at work at 7am today, but since it was Earth Day, I knew it'd be busy so I decided to come in at 6:30am. I forced myself to go to sleep at 12:20am. I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't get back to bed, so I decided to go to work early and arrived there, freezing cold, at 6am. I got off at 4pm, because of how busy it was.

420, dude!!

2006-04-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Past all that commercialistic holiday shit like Valentine's Day or Christmas, I would rather sit through any number of those celebrations rather than one day of 420. This stupid fucking day kills me to no end. Being who I am, also, if I were a pot-smoker, this would be the most pot-free day in my life.

Being in Boulder, the place where it's legal to carry an ounce of weed on you and, probably, two out of three people are pot-smokers, you can imagine what kind of horrible day I've had.

Here are some comments I've heard today:

"Dude, I thought you'd be down by now."

"Are you off today? How come you're not stoned?"

"Almost everyone I see on the street is wearing sunglasses."

And the likes.

My roommate and I didn't even go to Symposium tonight because of the whole 420 deal. Fuck this all. Everyone should die!!!!!

Wha?

2006-04-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot I had a blog.

So anyway, tomorrow is a big day. I get paid and none of that needs to go to rent. So I'm riding my bike to work to pick up my check, cash it, take my bike to the bike shop to get fixed, and buy groceries. Come home and re-start Netflix. Go to the YMCA and get memberships. Pay cell phone bill and part of utilities still paying off in LA, which totals to about a little over $1,000.

Silver was at a high last week and my boss cashed in the silver dollars that we had in the tip jar and got $11 each.

It's very cold here today.

Lot of movies recently. Here's what I thought:

the Weather Man - I'm the hugest Nicolas Cage anti-fan. I hate this man with a passion. I did, however, like this movie enough to watch it twice and recommend it to several people.

Lord of War - I'm the hugest Nicolas... Another great movie. It's very intense and awesome except when he's trying to date that model. That whole scene was stupid. Along with the emergency landing and the planning stopping inches from an infant who was sitting in the middle of a road. Also, the second disc says there's this documentary about the arms industry. I got excited and watch it. It's five minutes. There is a thing on the second disc with guns in the trades and they have profiles on them, which is sort of dumb.

Chronicles of Narnia - Stupid.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Round II of this movie still made me think it was just as dumb as the first round. First round was fun, because my sister-in-law Angela, her frind Cathy and Cathy's husband Kevin and Cathy's sister were watching it very intently. Joe, Chad, and I were in the back laughing and making jokes the entire time. All I know is, on the hottest day, if I were starving and had no money and someone bought me a snowcone, I wouldn't devote my life to have sex with that person.

Capote - Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What more do you need for a great movie?

Good Night and Good Luck - Good movie, but way short and not as exciting as I was expecting. The extra where they talk to actual workers that worked with Edward Murrow was better, I thought.

I'm outs. I'll be on later, I think.

Blog-face

2006-04-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

So our computer here was on the fritz, but it seems to be going a lot better now.

Best Pool Game Ever!

2006-04-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Current Listening-Simply Saucer "Cyborgs Revisited"

So I was at the Brother's on Friday night playing pool with Bill and a few other people and I seriously was playing my best games of pool. I was making non-slop shots that normally I wouldn't have made but it seemed like every shot I made was unstoppable. It was the best, the only thing that I can think of that effected my game was that I was drinking scotch instead of beer. . hmmm. . I'll have to test the theory again tonight. . .

Where you at?

2006-04-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Huh??? Seriously!

And finally, "Do yall's people eat Oatmeal?"

Ricky Gervais vs. The Simpsons!

2006-03-24T17:42:00.000-08:00

Hey I know I called you early, but the connection sounded bad on your message. You cannot miss this sunday's "The Simpson's." Remember last year I told you he was writing an episode of the Simpsons, but I didn't know when it was going to be on, well it's this sunday, I know you have rabbit ears for your TV and several blank tapes, get recording!!

Aghhh!!!

2006-03-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

Jukebox: the Jam - "That's Entertainment"

I really love this song. I got sort of irritated that Indie 103.1 used to play this often. Tracks like this are a treasure and you should have a playlist that doesn't play a song more than once in a week. I don't care if you're Dicky Barrett or not.

In highly elating news, my sciatica has taken a drastic turn. It's hardly here anymore. It hurts a little, but not that much. I'm so excited about this. Also, in my budget, I'm down to about $20 to last the next month, but here's my solution:

1) Eating a bunch at work.

2) Making good use of the free product section of the shop.

3) Hope that the tips work out well.

Anyway, there's this beer that I've been thinking whether I should try it or not. I mean it's called "Ska Brewing." That was enough to deter me from it. Also, the packaging is this black & white checkered box with these pulp style drawings on them. Let me just say that one of them has this Rude Boy on a Vespa and a Rude Girl dancing or running or something. What would you do? What would Dicky do?

I just watched EdTV last night. Some funny shit. On the deleted scenes, too. I usually don't watch the deleted scenes because everytime I watch them I say, "This is stupid. No wonder they didn't put it in." The scenes rarely have anything beneficial for even entertainment purposes. Oh, not the EdTV one. There were actually two scenes that I really wish they did put in the movie. I couldn't stop laughing.

I started, and am almost finished with, reading Wouldn't It Be Nice for the second time. I cannot express enough in words how much I hate Mike Love. To no end. Everytime I read anything about him, I just want to tear that fucker's head off. Not too mention, that I just remembered, per this book, that now he's a conservative Republican. If that ain't enough to get you riled up...

Makes sense, though. He's rich and egotistical. There's no way that he could consider poor people at the same level as him. I wonder if he's realized yet that he's really not that talented? What's the one thing I can give him credit for? Convincing Brian to start writing his music seriously. Other than that, he can go die! And I think that the only reason that he did tell Brian to do it is so he didn't have to pump gas.

If Brian listened to anything else Mike had said, there'd be no Pet Sounds and no Smile and who knows what else, since a majority of bands had been influenced tremendously by those two albums.

Naropa

2006-03-20T15:49:00.000-08:00

So, a lot of the people I work with and friends we've met have gone to or are going to Naropa, which is that Jack Kerouac school that Allen Ginsberg and all them hung out or worked at. Anyway, the hippie-type, literary kids who are into all that poetry and equality and all that sort of stuff. Really great people for the most part, and I haven't experienced it here, but they're usually really pretentious and preach all the time. At least the ones that I've met haven't been like that. I've been toying with the idea of seeing how far I can take their good nature and maybe take that up a notch.

At the next Symposim (open mic), I'm going to go up and this is what I've come up with:

You know the Space Shuttle Challenger? I remember that like it was yesterday. I was in, I think 3rd grade. I remember thinking that it was amazing not only that they were sending a teacher up to space, but a woman. Now think about that for a second, a woman in space. Women have come a long way and now one's going to space. I don't know if there was ever a woman in space, prior, or if she was the first. She's the first that I've heard of at that point in my life.

So I was thinking about a woman in space and looking at the space shuttle and thinking, "Wow. A woman in a space shuttle. I guess they got rid of all those dehydrated food and now have a real kitchen on board. Maybe laundry or something. Are they trying to have babies in space?"

But, I guess God was thinking the same thing, "What?! A woman in space! Are you kidding me? I've got to stop this!"

Something along the lines of these is what I was thinking.

The Catch!

2006-03-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

I knew there had to be a catch to Boulder. As I got off from a LOOOOOONGGG shift last night, I bumped into my roommate who was just starting his shift. He asked what I was going to do and I told him that my back was killing me and I was going to get a six-pack and chill out.

"It's Sunday," he said.

I said, "I don't care. I need a beer." As I said that, I understood and continued with, "Wait, are you fucking kidding me? You can't buy alcohol on Sunday!"

"You can go to the bars."

That sucks.

So I only have a debit card with no PIN yet, and the bar he was mentioning that we go to later, probably didn't take cards. It's called "Outback Saloon."

Lots of funny shit happened at work today. I'm not going to list them all, but one was this small pot on the burners with a little oil in it and the burner on like full blast. The flames were flaring up the sides of the small pot. Shawn, the cafe manager asks me what I'm cooking. I said nothing. He points to that and I start rolling. He asks Francisco, the guy who was actually using it, "Are you using this?"

My back hurts, I can't finish writing this. Ask me later, I'll tell you.

Hey Dude!

2006-03-18T19:04:00.000-08:00

So I don't know if I mentioned it, but I got hired yesterday at the Co-op. Super dice. The best part of the job is, I don't have to deal with customers. I just stay in the back and cook and make sandwiches and barista when needed. I got started at a good rate, too. Chill workers. All that jazz.

I don't know how Budweiser, Miller, or Coors can stay in business in Colorado, since there are all these really great micro-brews here. I don't know how Coors even took off. Unless the micro-brew thing happened way after, which is potentially true. Remember in "Smokey and the Bandit" how they had to sneak Coors to the East Coast? Like it was that much in demand. I didn't have much money with me on the way home tonight so I bought a 32 oz. Budweiser.

Speaking of, I went to work today with just a jacket because it was such a nice day out. I start heading home and it's raining. No problem, I've ridden in the rain many of times. But it's cold as hell outside too. Cold enough that on the way home it started snowing.

What this place really needs is...

2006-03-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

Last night at the open mic, Symposium thing was pretty wild. Lots of people showed up. Lots of funny shit happened including this:

Peter, guy whose apartment it was at was standing across from me and he was standing in front of this Japanese poster of rocks and waves crashing. A couple showed up. The female stopped by where I was laying and the male proceeded to go towards Peter. He put his bag down and pulled out his notebook. His girlfriend shouted, "Oh my god, Jon, look." As she pointed to the poster behind Peter.

Jon says, while pulling his notebook out, "I know. I'm going to show him."

He shows Peter and says, "Check this out."

Peter says, "What's that?"

I start laughing my ass off. Jon points to the huge poster behind Peter and says, "It's that!"

I couldn't stop laughing for a while.

There were more funny stuff but I forget. I told them I'm just going to sit in the corner with the keyboard and play church organ music all night during peoples' poetry reading.

My neck and my back

2006-03-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

My fucking sciatica is back with a vengeance. Sucks, because I started working at the Co-op and I have an interview at the Army Surplus place on Monday. It's really hard to do your best when you've got this ever-going pain going down your leg.

My back wheel is totally out of true.

I've been thinking of stuff for the Symposium tonight. I'm helping my roommate cook for it. I've been contemplating doing open mic tonight there. I could talk about this. Or I could talk about how I hope Dick Cheney goes down in the Hague, because I want someone to go down for war crimes and Slobodan just died. But Cheney has a bad heart as well. Oh well.

Or I could just review the beers I've tried since coming here. Like this one:
Old Jubilation Ale. I don't what I did. Maybe it was the empty stomach I started drinking on. Or that I drank excessively fast. Or the alcohol content. Whatever it was, this beer kicked my ass and had me in bed and passed out like a baby by 9:30pm. The taste is very stong, but not that strong that you can't taste it. Strong enough, though, that anyone with a brain would've known not to drink it that quickly. And at $5.99 for a six-pack at the old Taco Bell, turned to drive-thru liquor store on 28th, this one's got my last $6.

Oh, about working at the Co-op. They're a lot busier than Jane's ever was. But they got like six people doing what I did myself at Jane's. It's quite a relief to not have to deal with customers, especially while dealing with food. I have quite a foot in the door. I have experience with cooking vegetarian. I'm one of like two people there who can barista. I think someone just got fired. I volunteered to take this girl's shift who'll be gone next week. Everything's falling into place.

Now all I gotta do is get some hours at the surplus store so i can get discounts. Dickies, jackets, sweaters, coats. I don't know if I've mentioned before that surplus stores are my favorite places to shop at.

I had a oouple of those aforementioned beers and my back's not bothering me as much. Hoepfully I start getting better soon. I can't deal with my back.

Peace.

Guess Who's Going Down!

2006-03-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

Red Knight's Going Down!

A Mexican Tuesday

2006-03-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

My roommate has been playing this band called Mungo Jerry. They're really awesome. Their hit song is that "Summertime" song. His friend Jared played this the other night and I said it was good and they told me of the hit song. I didn't know what they were talking about. As soon as the song came on, I couldn't stop laughing. The rest of the album's really good. Their name, as well as the album, sound like a bunch of friends just went into a recording studio and jammed and came out with this. Super good. I need to record this one.

I bought three records from this thrift shop down the road that I applied at: ELO "Discovery," A Groucho Marx one, and Adam Ant's "Friend or Foe."

Today I walked Jeanne to work. I stopped at a Foolish Craig's for breakfast. Boulder's Pearl Street area never ceases to amaze and impress me to no end. I asked about employment there but they're not hiring. In fact, they're "having enough problems as it is trying to work out hours with their current staff." That place is great, though. I just had the normal eggs, potatoes, sausage, rye toast, and coffee.

I'm going to stop by the Co-op on the way to or from Jeanne's work. I'm going to talk to the deli manager and ask if I can volunteer until the position opens up. That way I can get all the getting-to-know stuff taken care of not on their dime.

I still have yet to ride in this place. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to getting a rack and basket for my bike.

Right now I'm drinking a Left Hand Brewing Company's "Sawtooth Ale." Super good. I've had some really great beer since I've been here. I told Drew he should move here, or at least visit, because I think he'd fall in love with this place.

Fat Tire/New Belgium I've found a new respect for them. I just liked them because they made awesome beer. I've found out very good things about them.

Job Fair

2006-03-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

So Jeanne pretty much got a job at Falafel King (I've already made the jokes about the name). I also pretty much got a job IN THE DELI at the Co-op. Fucking stoked. The guy whose job I'm taking over is out on April 1st, which isn't that far away, but I'm still going to apply at that brewery place tomorrow.

At four in the morning, I woke up and took a piss. On the trip back to the room I got very startled at some deer walking by our window. There were like 10 of them. I'm going to try to keep an eye out tonight and then go out and follow them. I'm very interested in seeing what animals do when they're out of their element.

Jeanne also seems to think that I can't take on a goat. I told her I'd beat the crap out of him. She still thinks otherwise, so I'm on the lookout for one that I'm going head-to-head with.

I made this awesome little nook today and spent an hour reading various books. It's on the floor right next to the bookshelf. I threw one of those pillows with the arms on them on the floor. It's right under the window, so there's all this great light coming in.

Fun Day

2006-03-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

Last night was nice. Our roommate Jared made dinner for us. I helped. His friend, also named Jared came over. We talked for a while about punk. He said that he wants to start a punk scene here. Just something rocking, because all they've got here is jam bands and he's sick of that. I told him that'd be fun and we should tear Boulder apart. Like start tagging up the place and write "Punk's not dead!" or stuff like that around. Start slashing tires. Just be ridiculous.

All of Jared's friends are awesome. He totally reminds me of Mike (T-Money), my friend from LA.

So today we went to Target so Jeanne could get an interview and it just furthered our whole belief of staying away from corporations. We walked towards the "Old Market" area of Boulder. On the way, Brian, another friend we met last night who had me in stitches all night, drove by and met up with my roommate and we met them a block ahead and walked with them to the Pearl St area. We stopped by the house that "Mork & Mindy" was filmed at. I didn't recognize it, because I never really watched it. But it was based in Boulder and filmed at that house.

Jared told us that the house is now a historical landmark and it sucks because no one's allowed to live in it. So we walked up and hung out on the porch and looked in and kept saying stuff like, "It looks like someone does live here." "No. No one lives here." "I don't know. Look at the way the pillows on the couch. Someone totally lives here."

All the while, Jeanne's saying, "There's two mailboxes on the fence here. Both with names on them and mail in them." No one hears here. Jared tells us that it is a nice house and nice porch swing and how a couple times he's just stopped by and hung out on the porch swing. We started contemplating on ringing the doorbell but didn't.

As we walked away, that's when we noticed the mail. I wonder how often that happens at that house? It's like that place in Chicago's bad ghetto area that Al Capone had a house and everyone stops by that guy's place to see it. I'd be annoyed. But, if I knew that about the places, I wouldn't move in.

We ate at this brewery called Mountain Sun. They have like a million beers on tap. I talked to the owner who said they were hiring, but I need to come on Monday and talk to Tim. This place is almost exactly the type of place I'd like to open up. Awesome food. Thick, crispy bacon and huge quesadillas. They have a ginger beer. I had this Java stout that was fucking bomb. They also feature beer on tap that, I forget what the process is, but it's the way that Guiness is draught, that it makes a smoooth, creamy, foamy head.

I applied at the Co-op as well and an Army Surplus store. Jared said that he knows the owner and workers at this place called Trilogy, which is like La Buvette if the Upstream owned it. But it's cool. There's a great video shop there, too, that has "Decline of a Western Civilization." I've not been able to find that movie anywhere. On the net or anywhere it just doesn't exist. I had an opportunity once in LA to see that, part II, and Suburbia at the Egyptian Theatre with Penelope Spheeris there for Q&A. I had to work instead.

The only thing I haven't found yet, but haven't really been looking for, is an awesome diner or someplace cool for Sunday brunch.

I also read that Boulder was the setting that Stephen King used for "The Stand." Also, it's thought to be known as the setting for "South Park," because those dudes went to school here and it's a small mountain side city.

Boulder, CO

2006-03-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

Got in and almost settled in Boulder. To give an idea of how thing's are going, we got a great wireless signal from out apartment. The drive here was very tough. Going through the mountains with snow, icy roads, and a Uhaul with no wiper fluid, which, when driving on snowy, slushy roads, your window gets dirty quickly and at a lot of points there, the window wasn't wet enough to do anything but smear all over the windshield. I had to keep stopping of at gas stations to wash the window. Sometimes, it got so bad that I had to stop on the side of the road to use the snow to wash it, with the hopes that we wouldn't get stuck in an ice patch and not be able to pull back out, being that we were on an incline in a heavy Uhaul.

Aside from that, and the "gas next exit" signs that when you exit you see a sign saying, "Gas 10 miles <--." Thanks! Why don't I keep driving to the next one. The worst one was 25 miles. Serious.

Our roommate is super awesome. He works at the Co-op and is super chill. Got me some good beer last night and we had whiskey shots. He's planning on being an organic farmer and he's vegetarian and, pretty much, like the anarchist kids in Omaha, sans the very militant, pointless activism they did. He reminds me of Dilley and Drew.

Boulder is also flat ground and pretty nice in the part we've seen so far. There's a hip area that we haven't been to yet, but plan on. We also do not need a car! Our roommate works at the Co-op, which I've said, but I didn't mention that he said we don't have to worry about produce because he gets a lot. We can just ask him if we want something. All organic, too.

Let you know more later about the trip, in detail, and how everything's going on.

Peace

Working in Vegas

2006-03-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in this weird building that my brother works in. Not weird like it's bent or crooked or anything like that; it's weird because it's like someone owns this floor and got all the desks, computers, kitchen complete with coffee makers and microwaves and vending machines, receptionists, copy room, etc. Then they just rented out the rooms to different professionals of all sorts.

It also comes with a lady who stares straight ahead when passing you in the hall. I keep looking at them to catch a glance and then say hi, but no dice. This one had taken the coffee pot to her boss and was taking it back to the kitchen. "Must...take...coffee...back....can't...get...distrac..."

Angela just brought me some In-N-Out. This day is awesome thus far, except for the fact that I don't have my usual music set up, that consists of minidisc player, battery charger, minidisc folder, and speakers. I have a low battery, one minidisc, and earphones. Which is no fun because I just want to sit back and do my work and listen to stuff.

Jason

2006-03-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Met this kid Jason, from Utah, the other night. Awesome guy. Need to tell about "the arrest" that he told me.

D'oh!

2006-03-07T10:09:00.000-08:00

I usually have a good amount of music mediums on my person at any given time for the whole purpose of not being stuck without something. Like riding in a car and they have a tape deck and radio sucks, I pull out a tape or my minidisc player hook-up. Before coming to my brother's place this morning, I thought that I should grab my speakers and my minidiscs. Now I'm at his office, by myself, without any other minidisc other than this one radio show.

The move's going well so far. I'm working for my brother today and then heading out tomorrow to arrive in Boulder, CO on Thursday. Hope everything works okay there.

Squagels!!

2006-03-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

Don't be oppressed by the tyranny of round! Here's you eating your bagel: Humpf, drop, roll away!

WWWWWahhhhhhhh

2006-03-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day of work. It's going surprisingly well. I got the Uhaul pick-up scheduled and can't wait to do so and then it will be anticipating Monday morning when we can get the money from my bank and get the fuck out of dodge.

Tonight should be interesting as I have a bottle of Jim Beam.

We got an apartment in Boulder, CO for $325/mo. Super dice and super nice for our dilemma of getting out of debt and stuff. I'm tired of working more than overtime just to barely get by. That's not how to live. No one should have to be in that situation which is why I hate that minimum hasn't gotten to the point to compensate for inflation.

And any boss who is against that should not be running a businees, as far as I'm concerned. These people are making you your money, you should treat them well. Not like the Marriott in Beverly Hills who admittingly said that employees should not be treated as guests.

This is Funny. . .

2006-03-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the funniest thing I've read all day long. . .

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17585,00.html

If getting sued is the hallmark of making it in Hollywood, then Arrested Development star David Cross has definitely arrived.

The comic actor is the target of a federal lawsuit launched by a former Nashville club manager, who alleges his image and voice were used without his consent on Cross' 2002 comedy album, Shut Up, You F--king Baby!, and his 2003 DVD release, Let America Laugh.

Thomas Weber filed suit Oct. 7 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, accusing Cross, label Sub-Pop Records and distributor Warner Music Group of invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, misappropriation and piracy of his voice and likeness. He is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction preventing the further distribution, marketing and sale of the Grammy-nominated comedy disc and DVD.

According to his complaint and Website (WeAreNotLaughing.com) dedicated to his legal battle, Weber was managing the club Exit-In during the comic's May 2002 stand-up performance there, which was recorded for the album and DVD. That's when Cross allegedly crossed Weber.

Per his complaint, the comic "purposely engaged Mr. Weber in front of the club in a conversation about the venue marquee and audience seating arrangements so that his cameraman could tape the conversation with a hidden camera."

Weber then alleges Cross let cameras and recorders roll unbeknownst to Weber. "Mr. Cross and his production team wanted to recapture a previous conversation the two had had, which had not initially been videoed. Mr. Cross, upset by their conversation, ridiculed Mr. Weber and his managerial decisions during his stage performance. After the show, still upset with Mr. Weber, Mr. Cross and his video crew hid a camera in the club’s green room and taunted and mocked Mr. Weber for 35 minutes, refusing to leave the Exit-In as it was closing time."

The crux of Weber's suit revolves around privacy rights, which he feels were violated by the "surreptitious," "sleazy" and "vulgar" unauthorized recording.

"Mr. Weber was never informed he was being taped and recorded and neither Mr. Cross, his production company Liberal Run Jew Media Productions, Sub Pop Music that produced the CD and DVD company, or Time Warner and Warner Music Group that distributed the CD and DVD requested written permission from Mr. Weber to use the video footage of him in their project," he states.

While Cross has not commented on the suit, Sub-Pop released a statement Friday to E! defending him.

"The truth is that the club manager was fully aware that filming was taking place and he consented to it, but years after the fact he's trying to distort the situation to his financial benefit. David's lawyers plan to vigorously defend this claim and we're confident that the truth will come out in court."

Calls to Weber's Nashville phone number posted on his Website went unreturned late Friday.

In court papers, Weber paints his suit as "important not only because of the unlawful use of Mr. Weber’s actual likeness and voice for profit, but also to hold accountable an arrogant music industry which, itself, regularly sues individuals for downloading music and videos from the internet without paying for it and then claiming copyright infringement."

While Weber apparently considers his lawsuit high-minded and precedent-setting, he is not above baiting Cross via his Website.

In addition to information pertaining to his suit against the comic, the site features a "David Cross Halloween Costume" replete with bald wig and bad teeth.

Bookless

2006-03-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Everything is packed up and I don't have a book. I need to go pick one up for the road, lest I'll be bored out of my mind!

Bible Days of Yore

2006-03-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

What if Charles Cullen actually lives to be like 800-900 years old like Adam and his sons? Like the judge throws this 11 life sentences with 400 years before eligable for parole like it's this ridiculous length of time and there's no way that he'll ever get paroled. But he does, and it's the year 2406 and he gets out and he's heiled as the first person to ever beat the system on a multiple life sentence.

Are you kidding me?

2006-03-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

This was posted on MSN's page today. This groundbreaking exclusive. Who the fuck did this, a third grade class?

While you're at it, why not add Shooting boss in face. Replacing non-dairy creamer with anthrax. Parking in "Employee of the Month" parking space when you're a janitor.

I can't believe someone got paid for this article. Besides, anyone that does any of those listed things, would probably not have gotten the job in the first place.

"Uh-oh. Uh-oh.."

2006-02-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

Need any spiritual uplifting?

Awesome

2006-02-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

We just went to a friend's birthday party and I saw the awesomest thing ever. It's this remote control rock climbing toy. There's this craggy wall thing to put up on a door and this guy you put on it. Then, with a remote control, you climb the wall. The remote has controls for each leg and each arm.

Dumb Mother Fuckers

2006-02-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

So the move is rapidly approaching and I am in great anticipation for any and all disasters that will come my way, which is the normal thing that happens when I move. My last day of work will probably be like a day in Auschwitz.

I got a call today:

"Hi, can I speak to Sean?"

"He's on the other line. Can I take a message or can I help you with anything?"

"I emailed him my resume last night and I was just checking to see if he had received it."

"I can have him call you back as soon as he's off the other line."

"You can't just check to see if he received it?"

"No! Emails are specific to certain addresses. I'm not Sean, so I don't get his emails. I could ask him but he's on the other line. Give me your number and I'll have him call you back."

I always get these calls from people asking about positions. I let them know that I am reservations/dispatching and they need to fax or email their resumes to Sean. Then they start asking me about the position and pay and I have to tell them again that I don't know; I'm not hiring. A lot of them get really rude, too. The people asking for jobs are being very rude. What the fuck?

"I'm calling for the driver position."

"Do you have a copy of your DMV report?"

"What is the pay?"

"I'm not sure. I don't do the hiring."

"I'm not going to waste my time getting a DMV report if the pay's not good."

"Well we don't waste our time with people with no DMV reports so don't call back."

I miss the days when trying to get hired for a job required at least a little common courtesy. Not like, "Hey Fucker, if you want me to fill this position for you, there's going to be some demands on my part."

the Island

2006-02-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

Watched a "Babar" movie this weekend. So fake. This English speaking elephant goes from the safari to the city and no one seems scared or thinks anything about a talking elephant wandering the streets. This rich lady just gives him her purse to go to the tailor to whip him up a suit. "Here Talking Elephant that I've never met. Take this purse and go to the tailor and he'll make you a suit."

In other movie news, I watched "The Island" last night. I wanted to watch this movie because Ewan McGregor was in it and he's always in good films. He has that thing with not doing typical Hollywood films. But the thing that threw me for a loop was that it was a Michael Bay film. Michael Bay films are usually stupid, non-stop action, very predictable movie with just ridiculous, really unneccessary action scenes. The movies just go on and on and just really bugs the hell out of me (although, no matter what, I will watch the live-action Transformers movie he's directing). So at this point of my movie watching moral dilemma, I'm in sort of a big bind. I walk by it at the video store everytime and look towards it.

I read that it was one of the first movies that Michael Bay did without Jerry Bruckheimer, so that's an added reason to give it a try. Jerry Bruckheimer also only does stupid movies that fit the Michael Bay description with movies like "The Rock," "Armageddon," & "Con Air." All those type of movies. I read a Jerry quote that said, "If I made movies for critics and people, I'd be living in a small apartment in Los Angeles." Basically, if he made a good movie, with an actual, believable story, that flowed really well and had great believable characters that don't save the Earth or takes down an entire plane full of hardened criminals, he wouldn't be successful. Respectable, yes. But not successful. Fuck you, Jerry. Formulaic asshole.

Here's Jerry's movie checklist:

1. Huge action star, who's a regular guy in the movie, but has to go up against ridiculous odds to save someone/something he loves very dearly.

2. Someone who has a problem following rules, whose problem following rules will come back later in the movie to help out the situation.

3. Funny guy.

4. Hot girl.

5. 80 kajillion dollars worth of explosives.

6. 80 million cars that will be destroyed.

7. Shitty soundtrack.
8. ~~Guy drives through the drive-thru and orders a taco~~. Guy drives car with his feet while shooting , with very great marksmen skill, a gloch 9 at a stealth bomber miles away and bringing it down, and ~~drives~~ flips the car through the restaurant, while making out with his girlfriend three towns down.

The movie was really good. I think I'm going to watch it again tonight. I first thought that it was going to be something like "the Prisoner" because I thought it was an island they were trying to escape. And although they weren't trying to escape the island, the underlying message of this was very similar.

Ooops!

2006-02-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to blog this from the other day but I keep forgetting to do it:

There's someone blasting at top volume, some shitty bar-blues bands shit. It's so horrible. Yeah, great sound system guy. It sounds like that Blues Hammer band from "Ghost World."

I like when people have a dispute with a run and they get their lawyer friend who was there call or email the complaint trying to get something out of it. Like I'm scared of a lawyer. Well, I could be, but not for something like charging you a clean up fee.

Something about Yuban. It's not as if it's a great coffee, but it's okay for a fresh pot of coffee. Anything after an hour, it tastes like shit. Folgers is pretty good later on, but it's still not that great.

Now it sounds like Chump-styles is playing electric guitar to the shitty music.

I'm in the process of cleaning up my car and selling it back to my boss. With the history of me and this car, I want nothing more than to do that quickly. But if you know me, something will come up. Monday morning, car won't start. Tuesday morning, car starts, but co-worker doesn't come in, hence I don't have time to go on a long break to clean the car up. Today, car won't start.

It's been really cold here recently. Not unbearable cold, but cold enough that when I ride to and from work, my hands get ice cold and numb. I don't want to use my winter gloves because it would look really dumb. I'm thinking of going to a surplus store to get those thin black wool gloves. They're like $2 and would do the job.

I watched "In Good Company" the other night. Really great film. I couldn't stop laughing at that scene where they were getting a second mortgage because Randy Quaid got demoted, had another child on the way, and his daughter was going to NYU, and they couldn't afford it all. But it segued into another "sign here, sign here" scene within that montage and I was thinking that maybe even that second mortgage wasn't enough. But it was Topher signing for a divorce. LOL!!!

Today is one of those days you wished never happened and can't wait for it to be over. Looks like I'm in for overtime tonight. No surprise. I've thinking recently about my life and how everything that happens is one continuous cycle, and I've been picking examples that work as the best analogies for all the bad things in my life that continues to plague me. The best example is my relationships with people which is sort of like my position now with this job.

Eat My Dust

2006-02-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

The following was something I was going to blog the other day but forgot about it:

We watched "Gingerdead Man" the other night. Of course I knew it would be bad, but I figured it be bad in a good way. Not one thing in this movie was worth it. Everything was stupid in this movie. And not stupid like, "That's so awesome." More like, "I can't believe I'm fucking watching this."

Speaking of cookies, I heard Danzig on the radio the other day. How fucking awesome is that? I haven't heard them on the radio since high school and I get in the car and "Dirty Black Summer" comes on. Dice! It's especially dice because I've been thinking about Danzig recently and wanting to buy their albums again.

I've also been hearing a lot of Sabbath recently. I listened to Paranoid the other week and then since then, I've heard almost that entire album again via Indie 103.1.

I called an email request that we received today. I got the voicemail that goes, "Hey it's Paul." Then a pause and you start talking and the message goes on. Funny joke. Fuck you asshole. I was kind of thinking if I should leave a message or not because I fell for his lame fucking joke. I didn't know that grown men still do this 40 year old joke anymore. I'm usually privy to things like that and don't fall for much of them, and I can't validate this guy's thing as a victory. No way.

This is from an email request:

Customer Comments: Take my girlfriend out to dinner and then to where we
had our first date

Why do we need to know it's where your first date was? So fucking lame.

If I ever work at a restaurant or somewhere like that, I'll work holidays. I just don't want to work on Valentine's Day and during prom season. Two things I just can't deal with. Every one doing stupid stuff like, "Oh, Sweetie Pie. I got you these flowers and a box of chocolates. I love you." I remember last year when I was working at Ted & Wally's. This guy called and said, "My girlfriend loves your ice cream. I was thinking of bringing her in tonight. Could you put her name on the flavor board?"

"Like, just her name, nothing else?"

"Yes."

"Sure. Just call before you're coming in, because we can't just keep the name up there all night."

What the fuck? How the fuck is that romantic? That's just fucking stupid. "Hey, you want to get some ice cream? Oh, gee. I wonder what flavors they got tonight?" I'm glad as hell I was not that guy's date that night. How do you react to something as stupid as that? Why not get a chalk rock and write her name on the sidewalk. "I knew you liked to walk this way, so I wrote your name on it to show that you like to walk here and it illustrates my love for you in a way that no man in the history of world has been able to do."

I don't understand why these people all want to take a limo service but refuse to pay how much it costs or make comparisons to cabs. Everytime I drive around I can't help but realize how much it would cost for a cab and think that it would be the same that we charge for a luxury sedan. If I were to order a sedan and was told it would be $70 from Sherman Oaks to LAX, I'd go for it. I'd be like, "Damn. That's fucking cheap. I was expecting like $200." Or, "$95?! That's too much. I'm going to bill my company, but they'll think $95 is too much for a trip to the airport." Yeah, fuckhead. If it's too much for a company to want to pay for something like an airport run, they probably want you to take a cab. You're not a fucking rockstar you fucking corporate slut.

People want to pay $20, I'll fucking pick them up on my road bike. You get what you pay for, bitch. You want to go to the Grammy's and pay $400 for 10 hours in a limousine, I'll fucking send my neighbors pick-up truck to haul your ass around.

Ask the Dust

2006-02-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

So I was reading today they're making a film verison of "Ask the Dust" by John Fante with Colin Farrell as Bandini and Salma Hayek. . . .this is going to be really fucking bad. . .

"Oooh, on the TLC tip"

2006-02-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

There was a car across the street at Westchester Golf Course whose car kept honking. At first I was pissed because it sounded like someone honking for someone to come outside. But it kept going and going and I thought about getting a baseball bat and walking out there and smashing whoever's car it is. But Jeanne looked outside and saw that there was a guy with his hood up and that's his car. It won't stop honking. Okay. But the thing is that I think it was his car alarm that malfunctioned and car alarms are so fucking futile that I still hate him for that. But the good thing about it is it was at a golf course, right by the driving range. I have this thing that when I drive by golf courses, if someone's about to tee off, I honk to throw them off. So all these guys at the driving range have this continual honking in the background. It was nice.

It made me remember that time Drew and I were in Lawrence, KS. We were wallking around Massachusettes Ave and heard this long continual honking. Like someone had his hand on the horn and was driving through the street. We thought it was some kids trying to be funny. It kept going and going and getting closer and closer. When the vehicle drove by us, there was a guy in the truck hitting his steering wheel. The horn wouldn't stop and he kept hitting it trying to turn it off.

Here's one of the last phone conversations from Saturday night as I was getting ready to leave work:

"I need a car tonight."

"I'm sorry we're all booked up. There's some high school dances going on tonight so everything's booked."

"I just need a town car."

"We don't have any town cars available."

"Do you know any other companies that you can suggest?"

"All of our affiliate companies are booked as well."

"You know this for a fact?"

"Yes!"

"Give me one of their numbers. I'm going to call them."

"I'm not giving you their names or numbers."

"Why not?"

"Because. We don't have to tell you who we work with or give you the names of our competitors. There are hundred of companies in Los Angeles. You'll be able to find one, but I'm not going to find one for you."

Very angry and sarcastically, "Thanks a lot. You have great customer service skills."

"Thank you. I take pride in that. Have a great night sir."

Another one I had from Thursday:

"I called a little while ago and got a quote and I'd like to book it."

I quoted this guy so I start taking his reservation. "What time is your pick up?"

"4Am."

"All right, at that time the rate is different. It's going to be $20 more."

"Why is that?"

"That's our rate at that time."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because we don't have drivers on shifts. They're all on call 24 hours a day. No one will do it for less than that price."

"Okay. You just lost a customer."

"You were never our customer. Thank you. Have a nice day."

Another Idiot

2006-02-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

"Hi. I'm looking for a ride from LAX to Yorba Linda. What do you charge for something like this?"

"All right. That'll be $136.84."

"Okay. And that's from LAX to Yorba Linda?"

"Yeah!"

What the fuck other rate would I be giving you if you asked for this? "Oh, no. Sorry sir. That was from San Francisco to Berkeley. Hold on while I continue through my list of prices before I get to the one you're looking for. I usually like to warm up by quoting several other type of runs then quoting the one you're asking about."

Another Moron

2006-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Got another request for rates via email. The person listed the distance between the two addresses and how minimal the travelling time would be, showing a transportation company how close it is so we would possibly quote them a lower rate. Like we wouldn't look up the addresses ourselves.

Seinfeld

2006-02-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

As many Seinfelds as I watch, his stand up bits between segments are just not funny. They're like a bad amatuer comics. There was an episode that Kramer came in and told Jerry that he had a new bit for him. That was more funny than anything I've every heard Jerry do in those segments.

The point of this blog, though, is that I watched an episode that Jerry lost $1500 in his laundry and got upset at the laundry guy. So he and Kramer go back in and Kramer puts cement into the washer. I was rolling for quite a while. Not even at what was going on, or at Kramer falling all over the place. It was just because of the idea of putting cement into the washer. Kramer's explanation of doing it was excellent as well.

Hell yeah

2006-02-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

I started some shit over here as Walter.

Get You!

2006-02-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

I told my boss I was quitting at the end of the month. I hope everything works out with the move. This weekend, I need to put together our finances and hope that it does. I talked to Vince last night. Super good. He and Mary Jo will be staying in Berkeley for a few years, so it'll be super dice that we're moving towards that area. Speaking of, he's getting married in July in Omaha. That sucks. I want to go back for it, but my brother is getting married in Hawai'i around that same time. D'oh! Hopefully I'll have money for both since my Hawai'i ticket's only going to be $150 r/t and Omaha flights are cheap as well.

I had this thing with my Netflix account where I was going to have one of my rentals be a TV series, but I forgot to move some stuff around, so I'm getting two in my next shipment of three.

Watched "Murderball" the other night. By glancing at the cover, I thought it was a dumb movie like "Rollerball." But it was a really great documentary. Best guy in it is Zupan and Ashton Kutcher's doppleganger. Also the bitter coach that looks like Woody Harrelson. The best part was during this montage of events at the paralympics, they showed women's volleyball. They look like slugs. The documentary itself is great. A lot of funny shit going on in it. Watch it yourself. You'll see. One part had a guy who had no legs and no arms past his elbows. He got on top of another guy who was on all fours and proceeded to do mechanical bull ride with him.

Anyone into watching a shitty movie, rent "Must Love Dogs." I've been wanting to watch it because John Cusack is in it and I even said to Jeanne while walking to the register, "He's never been in a bad movie." Right there I should've taken it back. The movie is the stupidest movie ever. Bad dialogue. Bad actors doing bad acting. Every scene you see when you think it can't get any worse it does. It made me wonder whether John adlibbed his lines, because his lines are awesome, especially compared to the other ones. Christopher Plummer was great as usual.

This fucking asshole is in this movie. This guy is one of the worst actors in the history of film. He looks stupid and is always casted as this hunk. Like the father in "Angels in the Outfield." Give me a break. Whatever tough guy! I wouldn't doubt that he adlibs his lines because he always says something really stupid and looks stupid himself saying it. The only character I could see him portraying would be a retarded kid who says nothing and just gets his ass beaten. That's a guaranteed Oscar right there.

Got into an argument with a customer the other day because he got an "automated, non-binding estimate" the other day in his email. He called to book the car and when I told him the total, he got upset saying that it's almost double the quote. I told him that "the rate is an estimate and it's just the hourly rate for the car requested times the amount of hours you're requesting for. It doesn't include any tax, tip, or other fees; it's just a basic rate, that's why it's an 'estimate.'"

State of the Union

2006-01-31T21:54:00.000-08:00

I missed the State of the Union address, but I started watching it via internet. It was all choppy so I think I'll try again later. The first part wasn't that great. Bush still thinks that Democracy is the only way to prevent terrorism. Because we all know that Timothy McVeigh was from the Middle East.

I read an article in the Times today about Evangelist and how there are a huge group of them throwing "watch parties" for the State of the Union Address. They are Born Again groups that think that God wants more than just to protect the sanctity of the family and protect marriage; it doesn't stop there. He wants other things like a cleaner environment, better welfare for the poor, and that sort of things. The things that mostly Democrats work for.

I always wondered this. Why are all these conservative Republicans all rich and not-caring about poor people and drive around in SUV's and do everything immoral and non-Christ-like? How can they be of God? God isn't about money and corruption or a caste system. How do they justify themselves? I surely hope that God exists so that when Judgement Day comes around, all those assholes go to Hell and get anally raped on a continual basis in a poor neighborhood by a black person who doesn't want a Ten Commandments Statue in his face.

My favorite guy is Rick Santorum. I like this fucking Christ photo I saw of him with a solemn face with his hands out like Christ showing his wounds. The caption said about how he compares homosexuality to beastiality and incest. Who the fuck is he to make that judgement? Has he partaken in incest? Has he had sex with an animal? Has he had gay sex? To gays, what he does may be comparable to that, but they're at least nice enough not to say that or judge you on things like that. The way these assholes view anyone with an opposing view or lifestyle is comparable to Hitler's take on the Jews.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

2006-01-31T17:07:00.000-08:00

Everyone loves "Curb Your Enthusiasm" because Larry David just says what's on his mind and is funny. What's not funny is when you live in Los Angeles, you're around all those assholes all the time. So in essence, it's a reality show. What I don't get, is when I'm like that to people, they all get offended and touchy and tell me "that's not good customer service." I'm just telling it like it is. I don't see how it's not funny when I do it.

Alito Confirmed

2006-01-31T10:45:00.000-08:00

It's a sad day.

Ohira Film Festival 2006 Vol# 797

2006-01-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

Among the myriad of films viewed this weekend, we saw Little Otik. This movie is the funniest shit ever. Very, very good. Characters, so well developed and awesome I hated almost all of them. Almost all of them I wanted to die. Except the Otik's father was great. He's probably the only sensible person in the entire film. Also Alzbetka´s father. That guy was great as well.

Renting this movie is totally worth it just to see the father's reaction when he made the wooden kid for his wife and his wife all of a sudden reacts as if it's real and goes with it.

Have you heard "I Can't Get Behind That"? That song is bomb. The drumming reminds me of the 411 Theme song/Hawai'i Five-O theme song. Then the lyrics are just great in itself. Come on, Henry Rollins and William Shatner ranting about stuff they can't get behind? That's probably the most fail-proof song in the history of mankind. It could be just Shatner and Rollins ordering food from a Chinese Menu and it'll go platinum. "I can't get behind student drivers using my streets to practice driving. When you learn to drum, you don't go to the studio. Use the parking lot!"

I watched Rocky & Rocky II yesterday as well. Like everyone, every time I watch that movie, I get super inspired and start working out more and harder. Unlike everyone who watches it, every time I watch it, I always think about drinking that five raw eggs drink he did before he started his five-week training regimen.

Added to that...

2006-01-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

I forgot. Last night, while Jeanne was talking to one of Susie's friend, one of her other friend sat down and asked, "What are you guys talking about?"

"Work, clothes...all that stuff," the girl replied.

"The Matrix," I added.

They looked at me and asked, "What? Did say chick stuff?"

"I said 'the Matrix.'"

"Oh." Tumbleweed

Another Day

2006-01-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

During the period of time that I was listening to "Get In The Van," I went to Chicago. While strolling through the Wicker Park area, I went into Myopic and they had the book of "Get In The Van." I didn't buy it but I looked through it briefly. I'm not sure if it said it or not, but I think it said something about Greg Ginn telling him that he should keep a journal.

The reason I'm not sure if it said that there or not is because I had a dream shortly after that I was hanging out with Black Flag. In my dream it was in '83 or so. I went on tour with them, and it was right before we left where I think Henry might've told me about the journal thing. So I was really excited to go on tour because I've listened to this CD a bunch of times. So we're in Europe somewhere and I'm in the car with all of Black Flag and everyone is writing in their journals. I tried talking but wasn't allowed to, because they were all hard at work. It was a real let down.

Last night we went to Echo Park and hung out with Susie at a place called the Gold Room. Echo Park is an awesome neighborhood. It's the mexican/hipster area. The bar we met Susie at was a small bar and they had a mariachi band playing. We walked in and Susie was talking to a group of people. We stood somewhat behind her and a waitress wearing this netted top with disgustingly huge breasts and a short red skirt asked what we wanted. I ordered our drinks and she escorted us to a booth. On the way there, Susie noticed us and told us to come sit in their booths. The netted top and short red skirt thing seems to be their uniform at this bar.

But back to her taking our drink order. The mariachi band was performing to the table right next to us and she says, "Can I get you something?"

I ask Jeanne what she wants and as soon as she is about to tell me, the horn player starts playing his trumpet right in our faces. So the waitress again asks what we want and as soon as I try to tell her, the horn player bramps again. This goes on for about a minute. It's really awesome because this place is not that big of a place and you can barely hold a conversation with anyone without yelling at top volume. And I'm not complaining. I've never been to Echo Park before. It's a nice place. I can see why all the hipsters live there.

Susie's friends were all very nice. Especially the one who bought us drinks. Probably not because he knew us or talked to us at all that night, but because we were on the table Susie was at and he was going to buy drinks for her and just so happened there were six people at that table. Cheers! Her friends are apparently all musicians, designers, and all that jazz. One of Susie's friend who, at that point, was sitting right next to her said something to me and I couldn't hear what she said. I smiled and nodded at her. She kept looking at me like she was waiting for an answer. So I said, "What?" She said it again. Barely audible over the noise but I thought she said, "So, you know Susie?" I smiled and nodded again then continued to look around. I turned back to her direction and she was still looking at me with the same blank expression, so I said, "What?" She pulled in closer and said, "How long have you known Susie?"

"Oho! I don't know. A year?" Looking at Susie. She shakes her head. "Uh, Six months?" Susie nods.

I talked to this one guy who I immediately liked. His name is Shawn and he's an apprentice for this tattoo guy down in Anaheim Hills. He gets paid $150/hr as an apprentice and once he becomes a tattoo artist there, he'll get paid $300/hr. The place he works at isn't like a small tattoo place where people go to get "Mom" tattooed on them at. It's a place that people go to to get like a full-body tattoo. Or like a Dungeons & Dragons scene on their back (which he did do). He said once that this Mexican kid kept coming in and wanted an F-18 or something (it's this big Mexican gang name) tattoo on his head. He said they couldn't because he's 16. Then one day, this huge Mexican guy comes with him and he says, "This is my son. Give him a tattoo, or we're going to have a problem." He told him to hold on. He asked his boss and his boss looked out at this guy and said, "Do it. Do it for free."

Anyway, the thing about this guy that got us into conversation initially was because he mentioned something about skateboarding and we ended up talking for a while. It started out talking about Danny Way clearing the Great Wall of China. He said he was at that DC premiere. Then we started talking about Plan B and how we remembered Danny Way from H-Street days. Then about the Plan B team from the early-mid ninties and the New Deal team. Then about Rodney Mullen and how he used to do demos and be sponsored by Billabong or something.

Susie's friend Darryl is having a party tonight and we might go to it. Depending how we feel. I'm really looking forward to going, as we don't do much here and I really like going to new places and meeting new people.

I talked ot Susie for a bit about how Kaiser Permanente is surrounding the Hubbard Dianetics place. She said it happened to be that way, but I was kind of curious as to how a plot of land would be available right in the middle of the Kaiser industry there. Maybe down the street I could understand, but not there. She was telling me that she's going to a party today who the director from "But I'm a Cheerleader" is throwing. She said she hadn't seen that movie. I told her that it was a Don't-be-gay-anymore-camp movie and the main character found out she was gay by going there. And that one girl with the horned-rimmed glasses is hot.

Speaking of cheerleading, a while ago I thought I saw Joe Knapp walking down the street here. Last night at the gas station, I thought I saw Chris Harding.

I got an email at work that was a girl's response for a rate we're working on with her. My co-worker asked her to send her the name of the company and the price because we do price matching. She responded saying, "Why would I do that. To lose a good opportunity and reveal your competition. I search for the BEST rates..."

I could easily respond to this nicely and explain, but fuck her. This is what I responded with:

Because we do price matching. If they are a legally licensed company and the rate you say they quoted you is real, we will match it and give you a 5% discount on top of that.

We need to know what the rate is because then anyone can just call us and say, "Oh, this limo company said they would do it for $5 and hour." What proof do we have?

We are trying to help you, but if you don't want it, you can use the other company.

Thank you,
Brett

This is what I ended up sending. It took some revisions, but this is the final one. I had to tone it down a lot. I don't want to help anymore, so I should just send her the original one I had typed up. It basically said to fuck off and we don't want her business because she's so fucking stupid. I might end up doing that. As I type this blog up I'm getting more and more upset because I really want to email her and put more stuff like, "Yes we want to know our competition. Do you know what a fucking business is? If someone's cheaper than us, maybe we're overcharging and need to make more competitive prices...so fuck you, bitch! Don't think you're all fucking smart. I'll fucking drive a limo up your fucking ass, slut!"

Arghhhhh!!! I need to stop thinking about this or I'll send something bad...I can't wait for a reponse from her. She has waged war. She will rue the day she ever thought she was fucking clever.

Wacky Day

2006-01-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

I just saw two of the most ridiculous things ever. Living in Los Angeles you just can't avoid being surrounded by idiots. Stupid fucking people who just don't know how to think. Like if you're trying to parallel park on the street with your blinkers on, people will honk. They drive by and flip you off or yell at you. If you stop to let people in the crosswalk cross, the people behind you honk, as if you just decided to stop for no reason. Just stop and meditate for a while. Which is probably why, to quote Bill Hicks, "California's the only place where common courtesy has to be enforced." That whole pedestrian right-of-way law.

So I was on the way to the mechanic to give him a check for one of our limos. I caught a red light. So did this van that was in the left turn lane who was waiting to turn. I stopped at the line. He stayed stopped in the MIDDLE OF THE INTERSECTION!!! Swear to god. I thought maybe he stalled or something. So the cars with the green had to go straight or turn left while driving around him. Then the next set of cars got their green and drove around him. Then we got the green and he made his turn.

This fucking idiot didn't want to turn on the red light, so he decided it better to stay in the middle of the fucking intersection. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? The other phonomenon that occurred at this point was that not one person honked. Not one. Maybe people just couldn't believe someone could be that stupid.

I can't even get away with doing something as reasonable as parallel parking without furrowing a lot of brows and almost getting assasinated and this ass-clown does the most ridiculous thing ever and people act as if nothing's going on. Did this guy close his eyes and pretend no one was there?

Going to hang out with Jeanne's friend Susie and Alex tonight. Wonder what we're doing? I don't have money. I was trying to save money because next week, Alex's band Irving is playing a show. I was really looking forward to that show. I have a big interest in seeing bands in their hometown. It could be really great or really lame. This is Los Angeles. I'm not expecting much.

J. Mascis

2006-01-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

There are a select few people who can use a wah-wah pedal very effectively and beautifully. J. Mascis happens to be one of them.

Pogues

2006-01-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

Hey Headley,

Looks like the Pogues are playing in the US in March. All their shows are sold out except one in Boston.

Morning Commute

2006-01-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

I was driving home from the vet this morning and was listening to 103.1. Someone called and said, "Dickey. I'd like to request something." He asked what. The guy says, "Pogues! Pogues! Pogues!"

I haven't heard a Pogues song on the radio in over 10 years, let alone someone requesting one. I got super excited. I kind of bummed out when they played "Haunted." The version on the "Sid & Nancy" soundtrack, no less. I dealt with it. Leave it to fucking Dickey Barrett to play that song. Then he gave his psuedo-knowledge of the Pogues upon completion of that song.

Then a little while later some ass-clown calls up and says, "Hey Dickey. You're doing a great job. I don't get the radio station out east so I'm listening to you online. Who did that song you played a while ago? It was something like Mars Walters."

Then someone else called and said, "Can you play some Operation Ivy?"

Sure thing.

I got excited again. Operation Ivy is one of my favorite bands. Leave it to fucking ska-man Dickey Barrett to play "Sound System."

Pierce Brosnan: Round 2

2006-01-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

I just noticed on that cover for that "Grey Owl" movie below that it says, "Special Edition." What the fuck does that mean for that movie? The good version? They got an actual actor for it? Got the movie to be, at least, interesting?

Dream Boat

2006-01-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

I don't remember most of my dream last night, but I do remember one part that I bought a gram of crystal meth and smoked a bit. Then I felt the high again, in my dream. I have this thing in my dreams that if I take drugs, I get high. Like before I ever did acid or coke or crystal meth, I had dreams that I did them, and I was able to feel the high in every aspect and all the physical sensation. It was kind of a creepy and weird. But anyway, the same thing happened last night with the meth and I thought I was going to get addicted to it again, because I had a whole bag left. I was walking down the street and there were cops who were approaching so I stashed the meth in this thing of oregano that I happened to have with me. I figured that the oregano would hide the smell of the meth if I get searched. But after I placed it in there, I realized that the bag of meth was a little damp and the bag was a tea bag. Therefore the meth would be covered by the oregano, thus ruining it for any further use. So I took it back out and wiped it off. I have no idea what this dream was about.

Another part of it, I was looking through some book that I thought it was a yearbook, but found out that it was, in fact, a book of people who died in the Iraq war. Amongst them was Sharnelle. This girl I went out with for a spell in high school. I was sad. I don't know what this dream was about either.

Another part was me as a great warrior destroying the evil warlords single-handedly. All my men were killed, and I was being attacked left and right and I could not be stopped. Then I woke up and I was at Club Nico and Chris Headley was there. I asked, "Head, what are you doing here?"

He replied, "I loved this place so much, I bought it." This dream, I understand very well.

Anyhow I'm very excited about getting off tonight as I get to do laundry. I also have not wanted to work this entire week, so this week just dragged on and on and as you could probably tell by my blogs, it's been very miserable and taken in stride. Also, tomorrow is my day off. I've been reading "The Trial," which is really great so far and I'm only in the first 30 pages of it. I plan to put a huge dent in that one tomorrow. We're getting two of our Netflix movies as well: "Little Big Men" and "Seinfeld: Season 1, disc 2." You know those old Seinfelds where they throw in the comedy act in between scenes? I never thought those to be funny. I really hate stand-ups for the most part. There are a bunch I like, but most of them are not entertaining. I actually want to beat them in the head with a shoe. But on the first Seinfeld disc, he did a bit that actually made me laugh.

Headley, thanks for the records. I like the huge shipping contraption you sent. At first I thought you just sent me a piece of cardboard for me to practice breakdancing on. Then I thought that maybe it's that glass prison thing that those bad guys from "Superman II" were in.

Speaking of "Superman II," there's this liquor store next to the laundromat and there's this cool guy that works there. I think that he likes me. I kind of joked that he was my lover because whenever I got there he looks at me dreamily and we talk a little. There's kind of this weird thing in the air. But I went there last week and I didn't really notice anything different at first and then he said, "Nice beard." I said, "Thanks," but as I said that I noticed that he had started growing a beard as well. Very weird, I must say.

Stupid People Part 8,000,000

2006-01-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

All the men have Bill O'Reilly and all the women have Oprah. The two figures that say stuff and no matter what it is, their legions of followers comply without a whimper. Ooh, Oprah's new diet. How's she doing it? And it's something that's been around for ages and readily available for anybody who is actually interested in losing weight or whatever. They're just too lazy to look up the information themselves. Which is probably why they're so fat in the first place. "You should do this."

"But Oprah said that she does this."

Funny thing. There was this huge Oprah billboard by the Culver City Denny's by Jefferson/405. It has her huge ugly face and the topic of the show that week or day. One day it said something something funny like, "Child Molesters" or something like that. But if you didn't know she had a show, you might think that's a declarative billboard.

I've mentioned before about how people get all meticulous about our rates here when I quote them I say that the rate includes gratuity, tax, and other fees. Then they ask what the other fees are. I hate that because it doesn't matter what they are. Why does it matter? You asked how much it costs for a particular service, I tell you. If the price is great for you, take it. If not, move the fuck on. They all try and get all business-like on the phone like, "It'll be $400."

"So what does that break down to hourly?"

They ask you that because they are comparing the hourly rate with another company's. Which is dumb since I've already told them the total price. By their rationale, If Company A charges them $75/hr and for the amount of hours they rent it for plus fees and comes to $500. And Company B charges them $60/hr and with fees and all comes to $800, they'd go with Company B. Is that a bit much of me to make out of all this? Not really.

Or there are some people you quote and give them the total and then on their end they're dissecting the rate you quoted and trying to break it down. So they're thinking outloud going, "$400. And that's four hours at $65/hr..." And I just say, "And there's a 10% fuel surcharge, 8% tax, and 3.9% administration fee."

In fact, anything anyone says anymore, just infuriates me anyway.

Beverly Hills Sux!

2006-01-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

So Jeanne quit her job this morning. Again. But this time it's permanent. The reason she stayed was they told her that they'd hire someone within a week or two and give her a few days off to fix up her sleep schedule and then start on day shifts just doing the auditing. Meaning that she would not have to deal with any customer at all. And get a raise. How can you turn that down? So she agreed.

Two weeks later, still no hire. Still the same stupid management thing. Still the same stupid problems that never get fixed. Still the same stupid Beverly Hills customers. I'm not sure if people are just genuinely dickheads or if there's some transformation process they or their minds go through upon crossing the threshold of the normal world and that of Beverly Hills.

Same way that I wonder about people that I deal with on an everyday basis at home or on the road or at the grocery store. Everywhere I go it seems as if I have this dumb spell following me around that infects everyone in a mile radius. It also has the ability to travel via phone lines. It's like Pennywise but instead of torturing me by my fears, it gets me by making everyone around be way dumber than usual. Like they're dialing the number here at work and while the phone's ringing they're talking to their partner saying like, "...then it split so I sold half my stocks [ring] and put it into a futures account. If you [ring] keep it there, you have this option of diversifying the [ring] contract and then..."

"Paramount Limousine."

"Duh, I'm a stupid-head."

Death to Smoochy

2006-01-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

Currently, I'm on hold with a lady who called for a pick-up later today. She asks if we service the John Wayne Airport and I say we do. I ask when it's for and she says it's for today so I ask what time. She's looks through her papers. Can't find it. She looks some more. Still no dice. She's looking for about three minutes, which in on-hold-on-the-phone-time is very long. I hate when people aren't prepared for things they know they need to have ready. For example, people in line ordering something or having something rung up and at the very last minute when they are told the total, they start looking for their wallets or checkbook or whatever they have to make a payment with. Some don't even look for it then. They tell you what they want and then you tell them the total and then they keep looking around at something they may want, additionaly. Which is fine. Except when I'm in a line, I know the cashier wants nothing more than to move the line and the people in the line want nothing more than said cashier to move it.

So I try my best to be as efficient as possible. So I get prepared ahead of time. Looking at what I want and pulling my wallet out. Checking if I have cash and if not, looking around to see if they take other forms of payments that I may have, which makes total sense to do now since you don't want to wait in line all this time and place an order, only to find out they don't accept cards or checks, because a lot of people do do that and when you tell them you don't accept this or that they look at you like they're expecting you to say you're joking or something. Then when they find out you're not, they say something like, "Well you should accept cards. Every where else does." Also, if it's a place I've never been to before, especially if there's a line, I like to observe the ordering process and listen to what and how others are ordering so I don't spend 10 minutes in line and move up and ask, "So what do you guys serve here?" That seems kind of an unreasonable situation to wait in line for 10 or more minutes and get up there and not know what the line was for, but it does happen. Let me assure you of that.

I watched this movie called "Death to Smoochy" last night. Pretty good movie, except the fact that I found some flaws. I won't get into all of them, but one of them was in the end credits. Ed Norton, Robin Williams, and Catherine Keener were ice skating. That's not the messed up part. The messed up part was they started flying around. Flying around on ice skates! That was so fake.

Ugly People

2006-01-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

I saw part of the dumbest movie probably ever made in the history of mankind. I sometimes actually enjoy watching a Ben Affleck films somewhat, especially in comparison to this movie: "The Thomas Crowne Affair." Pierce Brosnan is on my list of most horrible actors ever. He's handsome, like a mannequin, but he's not good looking. His acting skills are nothing to talk about either. Whether it be that fucking dork in Mrs. Doubtfire or playing a fucking Indian. Look at that cover. How can you take that movie serious? Even playing James Bond he's fucking horrible. His IMDB profile says that he was chosen as People Magazine's list of Top 50 Most Beautiful People In the World. This is the magazine that voted Jon Stewart in that list in 1999. Pierce Brosnan I can sort of see how people could find him attractive, but Jon Stewart? Who the fuck chooses these people? Maybe whoever voted Mr. Stewart on there thought it was 50 most funniest people, but couldn't read and thought it said most un-funniest people. Maybe next year Forrest Whitaker will make the list.

Even if Pierce Brosnan wasn't in this, I would not like it. It's as if they gave a group of eighth graders a chance to write a screenplay and this is what they came up with. Not saying that a group of eighth graders wouldn't be able to write a good story.

I'm tired of watching movies with sophisticated guys who just walk through life untouched. They know everything. They have all the money in the world. They have pull around town. Their house gets searched by the cops with a warrant and he's home and he has his lawyer there to invalidate the search warrant. How interesting is that?

MLK Beyatch!!!

2006-01-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot that today was Martin Luther King Jr. day. I saw a picture in the paper of his daughter. Let's just say that she looks like him with a bad wig.

I dropped Jeanne at work last night only to come home and have her call to tell me that she ended up being off but has to work Friday night. So I go to pick her back up. Her work is stupid. She has the same, set schedule everyweek. You would think if they changed it, someone would notify her.

On top of that, they put a memo in her box about these mandatory eight hour workshops on a Monday and a Wednesday where they're having a hired professional to come in and teach them how to be nice to customers, which reminds me of that great "Office" (the real "the Office") episode. Anyway, besides this being a stupid idea for hiring someone for that, the classes are eight hours, I think it was 11:30am-7:30pm. Jeanne would have to work Sunday night 11pm-7am, wait for the meeting to start (because by the time she came home she'd have to go right back), go to the meeting, then get picked-up at the end, come home, and go right back to work. Same thing on Wednesday. I told her that if they make her go to this thing without rearranging the schedule she should quit.

It's so stupid. Customer service is dumb. I think you give a certain amount of respect that's on a normal common sense level. Just the respect you give to anyone. Once they go above that level, fuck them. It's all just because people are too sensitvie, and companies care too much about making the customer happy rather than their employees' self-esteem. Customer satisfaction is totally necessary but how much can you take? I don't want stupid mother fuckers coming back. Unfortunately, Jeanne's work is full of those types. The ones that get mad at her because she doesn't know every single company that offers a Beverly Hills tour.

Anyone who takes a tour of Beverly Hills is stupid. Beverly Hills has nothing. It has big houses, Rodeo Drive, and restaurants and other shops. That's it! Rodeo drive is nothing spectactular either. It's just the same shops you see at any mall, but bigger shops and you pay way more for the same product. Why would anyone want to see this? Because this is the type of culture that they are raised in. If you see 90% of the new money rich people, they're so unoriginal and boring. Everything they do is so cliche. They do stuff like get an ugly car they probably don't even like, but they do because rich people have them. Look at the way they dress too. Or, "I drink wine, because I love art." Okay, dumbass. Wine has nothing to do with art. Well, with most contemporary art, it makes me enjoy it a little. Tolerate is more like it. "Here's a rock. It's a found object. It symbolizes my discontent for the corporate media."

When I go to places, I like to experience and see things that you cannot experience or see anywhere else. Going to shop in a place where the only unique experience you get there is that you spent ten times as much as their shop at the mall and you were around a bunch of vacuous, snobby, fucking bitches all day long is not my idea of a vacation. If that's what a vacation is, I'd rather just stay home and deal with that. It's so dumb.

When Joe went to San Diego and was looking for stuff to do, people would tell him, "There's this mall or this mall...." Doesn't anyone do anything besides shop? Why do you go places to just do what you can do anywhere else? The only place I could justify going shopping at on vacation are record shops. Not Tower Records or Virgin Mega-Stores, but a used record shop.

What else do you see on a Beverly Hills tour? "Here's fucking Brittney Spears' house. Isn't that awesome? Don't you feel so much better having seen her house?" It's all useless things. I'm not going to be the one wasting my time doing stuff like that and actually being impressed. Then finishing it all with a nice cup of crappuccino from Starbucks. Nothing like a day in Lame-ass-ville.

I have an attainable goal for the near future. It's to get full coverage insurance for my car. What I'm going to do is hit every stupid driver on the road. Not hurt them, but just hit them so they realize it was stupid to do what they did. More and more recently, people have been doing stupid stuff around me. Stuff like making a full stop in 40+mph traffic to drive completely across all lanes to make a turn. Not safely done in anyway. And all these keep happening in areas that obviously have another turn just up ahead where they can turn around at. Totally unecessary and dumb. And they always have this stupid look on their face that I just want to crush. I just want to hit them so they pull over and I'll say, "What the fuck are you doing? Are you kidding me?" And the rest of the things I usually say to people while driving. I'd be kind of a vigilante of some sorts. Along with my other plans of hitting people on cell phones that drive stupid. I have no problems with people who drive and talk. Just be able to do it.

Another problem I've been noticing a lot recently are in the merge lanes on the interstates. A good driving tip is if you are not getting off soon, stay out of the right lane. That way, people can merge on quickly and safely and traffic will flow smoothly. On that same note, people merging should know that they are now entering a 65 mph zone that people usually drive 10 miles over that limit. I know some on-ramps are stupidly built at an incline, but it doesn't three miles to gain that much speed. Also, people who merge into the merge lane at the merge point while cars are merging on can go fucking die. I'll help you die, too. Once I get my insurance policy.

Sending Records

2006-01-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hey Brett,

I got your records sent out today, i'll post the tracking number later.

Take it easy yo!

Netflix

2006-01-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but the past few rentals from Netflix has had delays. It's been shipped from sources outside of California, which they do sometimes. It's no problem, but I don't know how it can happen that three of them are like that. This means that in a week and a half period, we will have gotten three movies. That's stupid. We may have to go to Crap-buster tonight. I hope I get my refund check from school. That rental car fucked me up financially.

Speaking of financially, I need to get more boxer-briefs. I can't wear just regular briefs because they suck. I love wearing boxers, but the waist line for me is 34 and medium sized boxers fit into that category. But the leg-holes on them are too tight and it cuts the circulation in my leg off. I don't know what the waist size are for the large ones, but I assume they're like 35+. Maybe I should check?

I was going around the apartment the other night singing "Sound of Music" songs either in a falsetto or tenor. I was getting a kick out of it. Then last night, I was running around the apartment singing Public Enemy songs. First I was actually rapping them, but then turned it into a musical. Jeanne thought it was funny. I wish I knew more words to "Can't Truss it." I started that in falsetto and it was funny as hell.

I'm finishing up "Regulators," by Richard Bachman and starting "the Trial" by Franz Kafka. Both of these books I've gotten from roommates and haven't given it back to them. I didn't purposely steal them like the way Stephan stole my "If I Should Fall From the Grace With God." That is totally unacceptable. "Regulators" along with "Desperation," "Wouldn't it be Nice," & "the Stand," were leant to me by Grant. I had them ready to give it back to him when I moved, but Jeanne packed it up. Andy's "the Trial," I forgot that I had that. And I have every intention of returning them. Not like Stephen totally denying that he ever had my Pogues album. But that was also the period that I couldn't find a lot of my Pogues albums and Headley kept coming over saying how he just got that album off of Ebay. He lucked out on "Rum, Sodomy..." and "Red Roses For Me." But I'm still missing my "If I Should Fall From the Grace With God."

I just got off the phone with a girl looking for a car from West Hollywood to Santa Monica. I quote her and she asks why it cost so much. I tell her it's at a two hour minimum. She tells me that airport runs from West Hollywood are $60, why is this $170. I tell her that the airport runs are $70, and this isn't going to the airport; it's going in the other direction nowhere in the direction of the airport. She starts arguing more and I tell her, "That's what it's going to cost for what you want. If you don't want it, don't get it." I don't understand these people. They call for a rate and you give it to them. If you don't like it, don't use it. We're not the all-mighty, universal rate quoting company.

Next call was equally as stupid. "Hi. How much are your cars?"

"Which ones?"

"For three people."

"Either $45-$50."

"What's the earliest you can get a car out here."

Pause. "That depends where you are getting picked up from."

It seems to me that people in LA think of LA as a small neighborhood or something. It's like they don't realize how huge of a city Los Angeles really is. I told Jeff about calls I get for people requesting rates, and I'll ask, "What city is this picking up in?"

"Los Angeles."

"What part?!"

We started joking about this. In essence it's like, "I need a ride."

"Where do you want to be picked up from?"

"Earth."

Touche Wikipedia

2006-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well I was right about these not being indigenous to Hawai'i. But I guess they do grow them there.

Chocolate Love,

2006-01-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

I have a box of Hawaiian Host chocolate covered macadamia nuts. This is super good. I've got shitty coffee to compliment it as well. Great story. I like that Hawai'i has this huge market with macadamia nuts. So huge that you would think they're indigenous to that place. I know they are to Australia. And I'm pretty sure that they don't grow them in Hawai'i.

Headley

2006-01-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

Headley, this is an excerpt from Henry Rollins' journal:

"I have gone to that Seneca book many times over the years. Always a source of inspiration. I get inspiration from a lot of places. I need it. Whenever I’m onstage and I feel like turning my head to the side instead of running right into the propeller, I think of two words: Bill Hicks."

Tree Frog

2006-01-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

This is the grossest thing I've ever seen. Click on the enhanced picture. I can't even look at it for more than a second without wincing.

I've been having fun recently with parting words. I have this infatuation with things like that. Salutations like, "Hey Chief." But recently I've been fascinated by sign offs (I'm not sure of what you call them). Like say Bill and Tony are talking to each other and then they're done talking and parting ways and Bill says, "Tony." Then Tony says, "Bill." It's usually accompanied by a nod. I've started doing that to my drivers and the fleet manager here. Except he said, "See you later." Then I said, "Tony," and he stopped and turned around. Then I waved and he paused and then said, "Brett." Then he left. I started laughing.

How Monday's should be Spent. . .

2006-01-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

(Or How I Learned to Faux-Paus in whole new ways. . .and we're barely into the new year. . )

So Friday was my ex's 21st Birthday party, which I had been looking forward too and even took some time off, however due to some mis-information, I kept going to the new Dundee Dell instead of going to the Old Dundee Dell. So I missed said Birthday and didn't find out which bar to go to until about 5 minutes before 1 A.M. So the whole night I sat at the Brother's indignat thinking that she didn't want me to come out for her Birthday, and then finding out where I was supposed to be. Yeah sometimes i'm a fucking idiot. But I've since spoken to her and we're going to hang out tonight so it wasn't a big deal.

But the way Monday should be spent is laying in bed to a very late hour, listen to Rhapsody in Blue followed by Leonard Cohen. . .nothing better.

Booze-less

2006-01-09T02:05:00.000-08:00

Stores are closed. I might have to go to sleep.

Whiskey Day

2006-01-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, boy do I wish I had some whiskey tonight! So after the whole car debacle the other day, I got my car back only to have it overheating again. I talked to the mechanic and he said to run it for a while to let the coolant flow through the engine. I did. It didn't. I bought more coolant and filled it to the "cold fill level." Then I drove it around and it was all right. Even today I drove it around and it worked out fine. Then we drove to Hometown Buffet to take advantage of the $20 gift certificate that I have that doesn't cover two people, but almost does. I'm not ungreatful for the gift certificate, but you would think that being that it was given as a gift for two people's meals that it would've covered it. But I digress. So we drove to Hometown and it was packed. Out-the-door packed. So we decided to come back during the week.

On the short drive home, the car reached just below overheating point. I started getting pissed. This always happens right before taking Jeanne to work. The rest of the week is all right. I always stress out about the car whether it will start or breakdown or whatever. Everything sucks about it. So we got a rental and almost didn't because we needed a $250 deposit on a credit card, which we don't have. Anyway, the counter guy was very sympathetic to our dilemma (sp) and disregarded the deposit. That guy has a huge place in my heart. Especially being that nothing goes my way it always seems to be one thing after another. If ever there is a good spell in my life, all that means is that I should worry more because something big is going to go wrong. And don't go thinking that I'm just thinking negatively about things and that's why it's happening. Fuck you if that's what you think! I used to take everything with a good sense of humor and just think, "Things will get better."

And they always did, and things always keep happening. But I would still go on. And that was my life. And then since this whole moving-to-California thing happened and more things keep happening and happening and I keep on saying, "At least things can't get any worse. This is probably just a sign that we need to get off our asses and find out what we need to do to progress. Things can't get any worse."

But it does. No matter how bad things get, especially to ridiculous levels, things still get worse and worse and worse and worse. How much of a fucking sign do we need?! Okay fucking God!!! The past four hundred fucking signs you have put in front of me was good enough. I get the point! We're trying to fucking better our lives. Back the fuck off and let us move on. What the fuck must we do to get past this?!!!

I can't take this anymore. It seems I can't get anywhere. We can't get anywhere. Everytime we thing we have a way out, the dream just gets further and further away. I don't want to do anything anymore. I really just want to give up on everything and move home with my parents and curl up into a ball and don't talk to anyone ever again. I don't want to do anything. I can't do anything. We can't even go to school. We're so bad into credit debt and a shitty situation that we seriously can't do anything. We're stuck.

Bad Day

2006-01-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

All right, when you're driving a car and trying to not overheat it, you have to do this thing at redlights where you turn your engine off. When the light turns green, you start it up again. Once in a while you may have trouble starting the car up, and on that occasion, a honk may be necessary for people not in the know of what you're doing. Understandably, because you could be one of those millions of idiots who do their meditating while waiting at redlights. But five honks by each car behind and them angrily driving around you and yelling stuff is just stupid. Like people are out there purposely stalling their cars at traffic lights. That new phenomenom that's sweeping the nation.

The same phenomenom that plagues our gas stations when you're trying to drive a car but keeping it from overheating, you pull into a gas station so you can fill the car up with water to cool it down and the car in front of you pulls up to the pump all stupid so you can't go forward and then you have to stop and reverse a little and go another direction and the asshole behind you honks his horn for a few seconds and when you get around that first car, the honker gases his truck and swerves around you. Then you drive your car up to the water pump and pop your hood and it's all steaming heavily and the honker guy in the truck tries to not make eye contact with you.

It was a long an arduous journey, but we made it to the shop and saw the torn hose that caused all these problems. There was another whole ordeal with AAA that was stupid as well and made us avoid them altogether. I have no money until tomorrow, but I do have gift certificates to Hometown Buffet and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Too bad I don't have one for the grocery store. I do, however, have a cold 24 oz. beer waiting for me at home.

Which reminds me, I was thinking about living in Colorado. Denver area. I read an article a while back about all their microbreweries and how you could go to a local pub and have a huge array of local brews on tap. That would be awesome. A new beer every night. Plus breweries usually have samplers that you can order.

Next paycheck goes to a new Minidisc player.

Perks

2006-01-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

The best thing about working at a limo company at Rose Bowl time is the availability of the drivers and the ability to drink in the limo. On the way to take Jeanne to work (405 northbound) I noticed a smell that was very similar to maple syrup. I asked, "Do you smell that? It smells like maple syrup."

"Maybe there was a maple syrup plant explosion," she said, jokingly.

Then we took the National exit and the hood started smoking. It was our car. I immediately looked at the temperature guage and it was neutral. I pulled into the Ross' parking lot and popped the hood. The radiator intact and everything else, so it was the coolant hose that came off and the steam was it on the hot engine. I'm drunk now, so I'll tell more later. We got a cab to Jeanne's work, compliments of Jeanne's work. I called Tony who was supposed to be dropping off his clients in Beverly Hills about that time. He dropped them off and picked me up and moved my car to a safe zone (more on that when sober). So I jumped in the back of the Hummer stretch and found wine left by passengers and whiskey and vodka and a long ride home. I polished off the wine and had three glasses of whiskey and have one left from before I left the Hummer. Awesome.

I need to go.

I forgot

2006-01-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot one of the main stupid thing for that story. The security guard was pissed because they had the "Do Not Clean Room" tag on their door. That's why their room wasn't cleaned.

Fuck Stupid People

2006-01-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

So Jeanne just put in her two weeks today. Tired of dealing with rich assholes. Aside from the stupidness of her company which would take me hours to list, the customers are way too much for anyone to handle. And her owners don't do anything but tell them to kiss the customer's ass. No matter what. Do as you're told. So there's a reason why their hotel has been rated the worst in the nation with their chain, it's because they have the most stupid, whiney, lame-ass, ridiculous customers.

So here's last night's debacle: For their overnight shift, it's just Jeanne, a security guard, and the valet. They think it's slow so they only need one person. Jeanne is not allowed to leave her desk or go upstairs, so any requests for things, the security guard needs to do it. And there are a lot. And he never gets tipped or told thank you. So last night, this lady calls, after midnight, to say that her room wasn't clean and there were no clean sheets on the couch. Jeanne told her that the roomcleaners aren't there at this time (being after midnight) but she'll send someone up. She sends the guard.

Her husband then comes downstairs to yell at her saying that "she" should be the one bringing the sheets not a security guard. Or they should have room service people to bring these things. "And the drapes were open after the room was cleaned. They should close it." While this was happening, there were people waiting to check in and the phones were ringing, so the guard came in the back to answer the phones to help out. The guy then said, "You should be answering the phones, not the security guard!" This guy, yelling at her. Not allowing her to do anything, is telling her she should be doing something that she can't because this fucking asshole is being ridiculous.

Then the guard stepped in and the guy kept going and the guy told Jeanne and the guard, "You guys should have more employees here around the clock to service more people and not have the security guard do things."

The guard said, "This isn't a five star hotel."

"What's your name?"

"Andre."

"I'm going to tell your supervisor you said that."

"Go ahead. What's he going to do? This isn't a five star hotel."

I thought that was pretty awesome. But anyway, this is a regular occurence at this hotel and Jeanne is the only one there to take all this shit. That's not even getting into the stupid stuff the company does that's dumb.

Rose Bowl

2006-01-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

There was a short but very pointless article in Sunday's LA Times. It was about the Rosebowl, which features USC vs. Texas. The articles was how George Bush is rooting for Texas.

I guess what bugs me about that is that someone actually got paid to find this information out. This information that any fucking person in the world would know. Aside from that, who the fuck cares? It does nothing for anyone to know who the fuck this assclown is rootin' for.

New Year's

2006-01-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

So I got offered a raise here at work. But I'm also in the process of getting my financial aid in order for school, so hopefully I don't have to work as much. It's a good raise, but nothing's better than not having to work as much. Anyway, I got coerced into working tonight. I was into it at first, but as soon as I booked the last car I thought, "Oh my God. I don't want to work tomorrow night."

I told Sean that I didn't want to work and he kept trying to use his sales/managing techniques he always uses on me and fails miserably because it only enrages me further for him thinking I'm dumb enough to fall for that. So I'm telling him that I don't have a cell phone, so I won't be able to meet up with the passengers...Jeanne's off of work and I don't think she wants to stay alone at home on New Year's Eve. To which he replied, "Okay, just tell her, 'I know you wanted me to be home tonight, but I'm going to be making a hundred dollars by doing this job.'" I look at him and I say, "I'm not saying that. If I do the job, it's because I want to. That's not a good reason. It doesn't matter that I need the money, that reasoning isn't going to fly. I work all the time and we hardly have time together. She's not going to want to give up a night that we can do something together so I can make a hundred extra dollars."

It went on for a while, then I said, "Sean. The only way I'll do it is if I can bring her along with me." He said yes. I said yes. So I'm driving tonight. Also, part of the negotiation process was I'm not working all day and then going straight into the job. So I'm here at work for four hours, just to get things done and make sure all the jobs are okay for tonight.

One thing that I told Sean was that I don't appreciate working so much for so little and even if I got paid more, I don't want to work that many hours.

So I did the job on Saturday night and it was pretty fun. I usually end up with cool people when I do driving jobs. The only shitty thing was that everywhere was closed and there are no Denny's in the Beverly Hills area. So after dropping the passengers at this bar, we drove around for a while looking for a place to hang out and wait at, but no dice. So we ended up hanging out in the car doing crossword puzzles. One thing that I forgot was that the car we drove had a TV/DVD player. I was so pissed at myself for not remembering that. It didn't even occur to me until we were outside of the pick-up address.

After midnight, they came back to the car and we drove them to Silverlake. Dropped them off in front of another bar and this couple walked up to the car and started talking to them and asked me if I could take him and his girlfriend home right up the street. I said yeah and he offered me $30. Then one of the passengers told me that they had personal stuff in the car and didn't want other people in there. I said sorry. I didn't know that they didn't know those people, because they were meeting friends at this place and they walked right up to the car and met them as they arrived. Ooops!

So in this area, or 10 minutes west of here, is Hollywood and there were two Denny's within three blocks of each other. So we went there and ate and waited. It was pretty good timing, because on the way back, right as we were approaching the bar they were at, they called for their pick-up and wanted to go a party that was a few blocks away. I drove there and this party was up an incredible hill. We drove so slowly up it and I thought we were going to either slide back down the hill or the car was going to flip over. It was almost at a 90 degree angle, no kidding.

So I dropped them off and decided to drive around this neighborhood. It was kind of fun. The streets were very narrow and the road was all uprooted to the extreme. The roads here would probably be very suitable for a Land Rover or a Hummer. It was fun. I wish I had my bike or probably my skateboard. They called shortly after that and wanted to bail the party. So I grabbed them an headed back to their place passing once again, Hubbard Dianetics, which is completely surrounded by Kaiser Permanente facilities. Hmmmm?

Tom Cruise was outside fixing his spaceship.

2005: With Sexy Results?

2006-01-02T11:44:00.000-08:00

So another dull year has just flown by, and after many music websites/magazines, I feel I should have my own year end wrap up. Last year my friend Brett declared that for me, 2005 would be the year that everything I do would have (for example, Headley goes to the grocery store to get beer. . .with sexy results) would have the aforementioned sexy results. While it wasn't nearly as exciting as one would hope (are they ever? I mean reallY) it did have some big events. Weddings, people moving away, death (rest in peace Michael) and a whole bunch of drinking.

The year began simply enough, with me making out with some girl who was dating someone I knew. Of course I did not know that said girl was involved with said boy, but afterwards I felt incredibly bad, despite the threats of the coming beating I was going to receive if he ever saw me again though mutual friends. You would think that this would have tipped me off on what sort of year I was going to have, but you know me, constant state of denial.

I spent most of the first half of the year just working, getting off work and going drinking. Now while that does imply quite a few drunken nights of debauchery. But generally maybe a couple of beers and a shot maybe. You see this was the part of the year when my friend Brett and his wife were still in town. Incredibly fun couple to go and have a beer with, but then they get this crazy idea to suddenly move to LA. . . (editor's note: psyicatric help is being pursued for these two crazy kids, I can assure you, updates will be posted when they become available)

But moving on, as I said goodbye to Brett and Jeanie, and welcomed Nate and Kathleen's vows of devotion, love, fidelity, etc. I finally get my frist girlfriend. . . well. . .let's just say it was a while since the last. Completely wonderful, lovely, intelligent, beautiful human being. For some reason she put up with my shit and vice versa, well that is until the crazy fog descended upon her and she wanted to play the field. Now I can understand the fact that being younger (I was in her age range myself at one time) and one does want to fuck their brains out, but that is always followed by the self-indulgent drinking which leads to "Why can't I just find a nice guy who won't just use me and treat me like shit" Or "Why do I keep finding these guys who just want to fuck me and nothing more" It's just a vicious cycle that doesn't lead to the happy place.

Now I know I sound like i'm being bitter. Well, yeah who isn't after a breakup, but I am over it. She and I are still friends and we hang out from time to time and grab drinks and I give her tapes of bands I think she'd like. Usually I can manage to avoid complete annimosity after a break up. Usually I don't date a girl unless there is something special there in the first place.

Moving on, all in all it wasn't a complete shit-fuck of a year. Made some new friends, remembered somethings about myself that I had long forgotton (thank you Joy), and for once, i'm not hopeful for a New Year, but i'm not completely full of dread. . .I suppose you can call that progress, that is until the other shoe drops and it all falls apart again, then forget it, all progress will be abandonded and I will go back to emotionally hiding under my bed until the bad man goes away. . .because, you have to have goals.

So was 2005 full of sexy results?? Not as much as I would have liked of course, but not bad all in all. . .well played Clerks. . well played. . .

(Editor's note: This post will be edited when more can be remembered/I'm more in a typing sort of mood)

My Bad

2005-12-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

I made a mistake. Since I didn't have sound on this computer, I assumed the wrong band. I'll find the correct one. You should check out that website anyway. That bands equally as moronic.

If you have like 10 hours to kill and need a good laugh, check out Megadeth's website.

Best Rawk Band, Ever!

2005-12-29T17:14:00.000-08:00

Last night I listened to the corniest, most awesome, ridiculous song in the history of metal, or mankind. Imagine Sepultura, but with ranging vocals from coarse growling to high-pitched wailing, with a women choir, pseudo-harmonizing with the singer in a dueling vocals type thing. Then I found out who they are. I'm pretty sure this is the band; I don't have sound on current computer so I can't listen to it, but the band is called Trivium. The song is called "Pull Harder on the Strings of your Martyr." I encourage anyone to listen to this song or watch the video. The video can only be awesome. I'm going to watch it tonight. The song sings about witches, from what I could make out of it.

Oh, don't forget to check out their website. It's everything you would like it to be. It's like the Darklord's domain. Let your mouse cursor roll over the links at the top and see how seriously dedicated these guys are to their cause. Jeff, it looks as if they're coming to Chicago in February.

Dumb Movie

2005-12-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

I watched "Passion of the Christ" last night. That was a dumb movie. I do not recommend anyone to watch it. Story, if you know it, is the same as you've known all your life. Mel tries so hard for unnecessary character developement. Also, the most obvious, super, very, unnecessary violence. I know he probably was just trying to intensify the scenes and show more compassion for what Jesus did, but, come on. There's no reason for an hour walk up to Calvary getting beat the fuck up the whole time. It was just stupid. I wish I watched something else. Something with value or at least a good story going on instead of, "Hmmm, how can we make this scene really ridiculous? Should we bring out a steamroller and run Jesus over with it next?" It was just like a Three Stooges episode, if they re-enacted the crucifiction, and made it Rated R.

X-mas Eve

2005-12-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

So on X-mas eve, after a dumb two hours at work, I drove down to Anaheim to hang out for the weekend. The ride down was great, aside from the fact that my tape deck in the car does not play those tape adapters to play my Minidisc player. I brought my computer speakers, but the noise of the road was just too much for the sound to peak over. So I just listened to "Baby, Don't Be Messing With Those Arabs In My Head" for the eleventh hundred time. The thing I was going to listen to was a minidisc recording of Henry Rollins' "Up For It" DVD that I watched the night before. It's super awesome, but watching it is really dumb. Not Henry, but the camera. It's like they got Oliver Stone to film this. It's just a spoken word gig, but the camera angles come in from all directions. He's just talking about something and the camera pulls in, pans around from the backside of his head to the front, and then zooms in. It's quite ridiculous. Show the intensity of him talking about going to the zoo.

We were deciding where to eat and Charlie kept pitching this place called the Vineyard that they ate at the day before. Since he wouldn't relent on that, we decided to go there. Problem was that it was in California Adventure. Joe was purchasing his ticket and I looked at the rates and noticed that they didn't have separate passes for Disneyland and California. They used to sell differnt ones, but I heard they decided to get rid of that and have the pass be valid for both of them. I didn't see the "Park Hopper" pass. So this is where ignorance would've been bliss. If I previously didn't know about this California/Disneyland thing, I would've asked, but since I did, based on the information I saw and processed, I just went into California without asking. Once inside, Mrs. Pittack told me that the pass we had was only good for either Disneyland or California. Thanks, Charlie. To top that off, the place wasn't even called the Vineyard. Not that it mattered, but I just kept giving Charlie a hard time. So we get seated and we order two bottles of wine. We order food, eat, Joe orders dessert and a bottle of dessert wine. By the time we left that place, and before we even did anything at this park, we're blasted. We make our way over the the water ride which was fun except for the fact that they make the tube/raft thing you're in spin all the time. That was dumb. When the ride stars off, you go up this long incline and you're anticipating this huge, fun drop up a head. Slowly it approaches. Here it comes! You peak over it and slowly get released onto mildly flowing water to start the slow float through the ride.

The California Adventure Park should actually be called "the Beach Boys Fantasy Land." You are just listening over and over to caliope/musak versions of Beach Boy songs. Which was great since Mrs. Pittack hates the Beach Boys! It was hell for her. We walked around the waterfront and went to the rollercoaster. I really wanted to go on the ferris wheel. It was one of those loop-de-loop ones; it looked so fun. The rollercoaster was awesome. It was long, fast, lots of drops and turns, and the g-force crushes your skull in. Right from the start when we took off I yelled, "Fuck yeah, Satan rules. The Dark Lord reigns. Fuck you fat pig. I hate fat people. I'm gay. I fucked your mom." And just regular screaming. It was fun. Oh yeah, you probably realized by now that they sell alcohol at this park, already making it better than Disneyland. Not as crowded as Disneyland either. Then we stopped for some beer. Then went through the Hollywood area and went on a ride in the "Tower of Terror," which is based on a movie called "Tower of Terror." So they have a "Twilight Zone" introduction for it. Makes no sense. So you go in the freight elevator and it goes up, then drops down. Then stops. Then goes up, then drops. Then goes up. Then a long drop. At one point when it shot up and stop, I yelled, "Muh Fayice!" and everyone started laughing. It was a much better response that I ever would've expected.

After this ride we watched a Muppet Movie. Not "the Muppet Movie," but a Muppet Movie in the 3-D theatre. In the lobby, one of the prop boxes said "Indian Bedspreads." We thought that was really funny and couldn't believe they had that there. We got into the theatre and one of the employees was doing his scripted jokes and no one was laughing, except me. I was rolling and saying to us, "Tough crowd." He kept going and still no one in the crowd laughed. It was hilarious. And then I had to just say outloud, "Is this thing on?" The movie started and Waldorf and that other old man were animatronics in the balcony and heckling the movie. Then, in the movie, Fozzie looked up at them and asked, "What are you guys doing here?"

"We entered a contest."

"Yeah. We lost. Hahahahaha"

But like most 3-D movies, they just did a bunch of stuff that would look cool coming at you.

After the movie we walked to the main area and people were standing/sitting along side the curbs like they were waiting for a parade. They were. We got instructed to go to this area. The employee kept yelling at everyone to clear this one area that the parade didn't go through, nor was anyone going through. We got stuck in the middle of this four million mile long parade of lighted floats of Disney characters and this hypnotic, organ/keyboard music, over and over again throughout the parade. My back was sore, I was tired, and that music was driving me insane. Maybe that's why they sell alcohol? They should think about doing that at Disneyland. Unless you're the type of person that likes to be around thousands of idiots, people walking around with no order, just haphazardly bouncing around, stopping in the middle of the walkway, eating fucking food, taking pictures left and right. They walk worst than they drive. And if you know California driving, people have no brains when it comes to driving. Things like shooting out into the road when they could've waited ten seconds till you passed and enter safely. Or slowing down in the middle of the road to turn and not signalling and getting mad at you when you almost hit them and honk at them.

It was funny to see the fat family getting on the rapids ride, all wearing ponchos to not get wet. I was laughing pretty hard with myself at that. Fucking pussies. Can't handle water, don't ride. And it's not as if they were decked out in Armani suits or anything remotely good looking. They were like fucking thrift store clothes at best.

Indie 103.1

2005-12-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight Henry's back on the air. I'm really excited because I've been craving new music. I had to blog about Saturday, but I'll do that later. In-laws left today. Or leave today.

X-mas!

2005-12-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was quite the day. We went to Disneyland which was a dumb idea. I had no idea that was their busiest day of the year. I was told this when I was told that the park had sold out. That's a scary thing to know, if you've ever been to Disneyland. So Wes, Charlie's son, wanted to go to the Haunted Mansion. Being X-mas, they did it up like the "Nightmare Before Christmas." It was so dumb. They had all these X-mas carols that were changed to "scary" things. Like "Silent Night" was changed to "Silent Fright." It was way dumb. The ride was no different. I felt really ripped off. Even the end where they have the, "And finally as you enter the hall of mirrors, you may realize that you are not riding alone. For you see, I am riding with you," and there's a ghost next to you. They had this stupid floating gift with a bat on it, or something very stupid.

We should've went to "Pirates of the Caribbean" next, but we opted to go all the way across the park, through fucking tourists with digital cameras, stopping right in the middle of traffic to take a picture. And they all take like five minutes to set it up to take the shot. It's fucking digital. You have like eight million shots available. Also, step off to the fucking side.

We stayed in line at Space Mountain for nearly two hours. My back was killing me. Jeanne had to leave because she couldn't take it, especially since Wes was being whiney and irritating, so she took Wes and went back to the hotel. Then Jeanne called to say she wanted to leave early to go home before work. In all, Joe and I went on four rides. Good thing I didn't pay for my pass. Even if I did, I wanted to leave. I can't handle being around that many people. I wanted to kill everyone.

So after I dropped Jeanne at work, I met up with my brother and sister-in-law and their friends Cathy and Kevin. They were watching "Memoirs of a Geisha." Apparently Kevin's cousin does make-up and did it for that movie. So they give you a copy of the movie and every once in a while, the bottom says, "For Your Consideration." They give these to the people who vote for the Academy Awards. I would like to think that if you're watching a movie to judge, you would watch it in the theater. Great sound, picture, and no distractions like the phone, street noises, or whatever else. I don't think that they'll win for make-up. All they did was make their face white and put on lipstick. Aside from that, Chad, Joe, and I were just making jokes throughout the movie. It was non-stop. This movie is ridiculous. It was awesome watching Chinese people play Japanese people living in Japan and speaking English. It should probably go up for "Best Comedy." Or "Worst Attempt at Trying to Be an Independent Film."

Does Not Compute

2005-12-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

I quoted this guy on a limo he was looking for to the airport. He said that there was going to be six passengers plus a couple pieces of luggage each. I quoted him and told him that the limos have the same size trunk space as town cars and that amount of luggage wouldn't fit into the limo, it would have to go into the passenger area, but we don't recommend that for safety, liability, damages the interior, not a clown car. So I recommended our Luxury vans, which holds more passengers a lots of luggage. He said, "No, that's okay. I'll look around. My kids wanted to ride in a limo, but thanks anyway."

Like another limo would have a bigger trunk space? Or better yet, "Yeah, my sons really want to be crammed into a limo packed with passengers and luggage; it's really something he's been dreaming of for a while. I'll go with a company who cares about kids."

Stupid Fact!

2005-12-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

I was reading Corey Feldman's profile on Imdb.com and came upon this stupid fact:

"Wears a "Purple Rain" t-shirt throughout the film The Goonies (1985)."

Uh, that movie takes place in one day. And they weren't at home for 95% of the movie. What the fuck? Oh, "Data wore the same trenchcoat throughout the film."

I'm sure this person was just pointing out the fact that he wore a "Purple Rain" shirt in the movie, but who cares? You notice stuff like that in most movies. Was he a known hater of Prince, that Album/song, or movie?

Johnny Damon is a Fucking Whore

2005-12-23T11:05:00.000-08:00

How much money does one person need? Apparently, a lot, if you're Johnny Damon. Why the fuck would you switch from the Red Sox to the Yankees? Well, money is the obvious reason, but aside from that, it makes no sense at all. First, take into consideration the whole rivalry between the two and the fact that you were a part of history with that team.

Not only that, when you're on a team like the Yankees who are a corporate whore of a team with a complete A-list of players, it's hard for you to stand out. It's the same reason why I would not want to be drafted to an all-star team. Why would you? They're good already, you wouldn't be adding much to them. If you get drafted to a team that's not doing that well or sucks, you have something to work for. I think that should be the main focus of an athlete, wouldn't you think? I would think being on the Yankees and making it to and winning the World Series wouldn't be that great accomplishment. Anyway, the only people who care about them is part of New York.

Speaking of, that whole thing with "Intelligent design" in court. One of the guys that was explaining the judge's ruling as "science has to be something that can be tested" used the Red Sox/Yankees analogy. He's a die-hard Red Sox fan. After they beat the Yankees the last World Series many Yankees fans would say, "God was tired of the Yankees winning, so he gave the Red Sox a chance." This may be true, but there's no way to test that. Fuck those "Intelligent Design" assholes.

You could use that David Cross argument in court: "...the Scientists with their facts. Everyone knows there was a talking snake in the tree."

Frantic

2005-12-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

I watched Roman Polanski's "Frantic." I thought it was an all right movie, I mean it kept me into it the whole time. But then again, it's a thriller. Anyway, I started thinking about it yesterday and realized that the whole movie was totally dumb and unbelievable. Not that I don't know that it's a movie, unbelievable, but the story makes no sense at all. Okay, quick overview of the film. Harrison Ford and his wife are in Paris for some medical convention. They go to the hotel. They find out they have the wrong suitcase so he calls the airlines to tell them this, so they're sending someone to the hotel to pick up the suitcase and see if anyone else reports a wrong suitcase.

Harrison Ford takes a shower and while he's doing so, his wife, in the background, answers the phone, gets all wierd and tries to tell him something. He replies, "I can't hear you in here." She then goes off screen. That's the last you see of her. Harrison Ford freaks out and starts looking for her. He goes through all these obstacles and people and finally finds out what happened and it's this: the other suitcase has a piece of something to detonate atomic bombs. It was smuggled in from the US on the same flight they were on and the person smuggling it had the same suitcase, but they picked-up the wrong one. So the one that was Harrison Ford's wife's one got picked-up by the smuggler and put into the locker for the terrorists to pick up.

When they picked it up, they realized it wasn't in there, saw the name on the suitcase, traced it to her at the hotel and that was them on the phone and she went down to see what the deal was an they kidnapped her. All they wanted was that piece. So, these professional terrorists that so desperately wanted that atomic bomb device and were smart enough to trace the suitcase to their hotel and kidnapped her, didn't think to just say, "Oh, you have our suitcase, could we have it back?"

Why does Harrison Ford like being in films with inept professionals?

The thing that's been bugging me recently is people are calling for rates for renting limos. I quote them like if they're looking for Westwood to LAX, I'll say, "It's a $49 base rate. Total price is $71.95 including tax, tip, and other fees." Okay right? No dice. They get all suspicious and defensive and say, "What are other fees?" I tell them. Some of them get very precise and meticulous about the break down of rates, so much that some have cancelled orders because of it. But the thing that bugs me is why the fuck should it matter what the other fees are? I told you the total, if you agree with it, book it. If not, don't fucking use our services. Every business has different fees they apply; it shouldn't matter to you if you agree with the rate. And our added fees are fuel surcharge and admin. fee. It's not like we're putting on fees for fun and they're very reasonably priced. Fuck you!!!!