HighSchoolJenn is now my favorite. This was her (belated, but worth it) Birthday Present to me.

FUCK COMMUNISM.

The other day, I went to the park and chilled for a bit while the sun started to set. Here’s some pictures.

Saw this on my way to get coffee this morning.

Pet Monkey For Sale – Primates For Sale. Well, I know where my money’s going. Fuck the war, I want me a monkey!

According to the US Census Population Count site, there’s 292,025,610 people in this country. Bush is wanting $87,000,000,000 to “help stabilize Iraq further and fight terror,” right? So, he’s wanting everyone (even the kid that just popped out of mama) to fork over $297.92 each to make things A-OK #1 GO TEAM USA in the region.

Oh, fuck him. I’ve got like $4 in my wallet and the bank account is earmarked for food, shelter, clothing, and disco.

Man, Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is beautiful stuff. I feel like such an ass for being suspicious when I heard someone descibe them as “Radiohead doing country, but good.” I listened to the record at least three times last night while lying in bed, the tiny earbuds filling my head up with widescreen poetry. I’m suspiciously happy of late.

Kristin gets back tonight. The wine has been selected, a nice Cab Sauv (none of that Arbor Mist shit, thank you) from Koala Creek. The menu has been planned – probably pizza; we’ve not devoured a couple of slices together in a week and that’s forever for us. And maybe we’ll get around to celebrating our five-year anniversary properly since cruel fate intervened the weekend of.

Cheer up, honey, I hope you can

There is something wrong with me

My mind is filled with silvery stars

Honey, kisses, clouds of fog

Shoulders shrugging off

Cheer up honey, I hope you can…

“We did a survey recently of both adults and young people and were able to identify two groups of downloaders,” said Mr. Bernoff of Forrester. “One that reduced their CD purchases and one that didn’t.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

“We recently identified two sorts of people, living and dead.”

“We recently identified two types of tortillas, corn and flour.”

“We recently identified two types of ninjas, good and bad.”

“We recently identified two types of music, country and western.”

This is one of the regulars at the shop. Gollum wants what she has. Precious!

Aaron’s the “real” part-timer at the shop. I just show up when he’s not able to do his duties. You know, like when he runs off to Chicago for the summer to be with his hot girl. Wanker.

He’s at the shop pretty often. He has a massive head and likes to leave his money lying around. He’s adorable, isn’t he?

I was reading comics when college posse stopped to talk to me. One of them took my picture because she wanted to play with my camera.

Tufts does its Dump And Run thrift sale once a year. I’d heard it was good. Sadly, it was not.

Here’s some pictures of flowers. (I know. I kept trying to take pictures of bees, but the little bastards won’t hold still for me.) Some of them get clickybig.

You are The Cap’n!

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn’t eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you – but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones’ locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed – a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

What’s Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

Sep 04, 2003 — A Department of Motor Vehicles employee reported to police Tuesday that she received a suspicious postcard from a customer that showed a banana being shot with the wording (banana=DMV). Investigators are trying to locate the man for questioning.

In the middle of the night, I awoke with a charley horse. It was about three AM. I started screaming, of course, because I assumed someone was lopping off my leg with a dull axe. (Sensible, really. Have you ever had a charley horse?)

I am still limping today. Gah.

Yesterday, I started idly planning a CD with HighSchoolJenn. It was roughly designed as a “break-up” CD. Music you’d hear during a breakup during our teen years plus some newer things that I’ve come across (“Bad Cover Version” by Pulp being on that list) that would suit the mood well. It’s put me in a funk, so now I’m designing the Happy New Love CD that’ll be all poptastic and happy. Tracklisting will occur once she gets her copies.

Selling two Joy Division / New Order related items.

HighSchoolJenn asked me about Underworld. Oh, the girl had no idea what she was getting into. Here’s what I wrote.

Here’s the brief on Underworld. They started off as crap and added Darren Emerson to their lineup to eclipse Depeche Mode in the “my favorite band” category with their release Dubnobasswithmyheadman. This record took things I liked – electronic rhythms, stream of conciousness lyrics from Karl Hyde, and production (mostly by Rick Smith) that never strayed from beyond excellent and put them together, causing much orgasming in my truck whilst I tootled around in 1994. (The track “Dirty Epic” on your CDs is from that album.) They followed up with Second Toughest In The Infants, a harder album that explored more and more electronic territory and jumping genres with ease.

Then, it happened. The song. The one Underworld song everyone knows. “Born Slippy” was a single that came out between the two albums and while it got Mixmag’s “Tune Of The Week” award, it didn’t do much business in the charts. It was a heavily-remixed b-side version (with vocals) that was attached to Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting that exploded. Pete Tong seized it and played it every week on his top-rated BBC dance program until JBO re-released the “.nuxx” version as a single in its own right. DJs played it. Radio loved it. Football hooligans sang the “Lager, lager, lager” chorus. It hit #2 in the charts. Pretty good for a band whose big step into electronic music was an ambient remix of a dodgy Simply Red tune.

1998 brought Beaucoup Fish and even more album sales. In some places more sedate that Second Toughest, this album proved that Underworld knew exactly what they were doing, better than anyone else out there. A massive tour ensued, documented on the album and DVD Everything, Everything in which the band proved that techno can be live and it can kick your puny ass. It also marked the departure of Darren Emerson, who left to pursue his DJ career and run his own label, Underwater. Last year, A Hundred Days Off came out. The first album by the core duo of Smith and Hyde, it was received well and managed to garner a few critical raspberries for just being excellent instead of unexcelled. This year sees the release of the anthology mentioned in my blog and, hopefully, a new album being recorded.

I don’t talk about work at Merchant Warehouse much. It’s nice. I like it. But then there’s days when shit like this crosses my desk as a lead:

Business Name: art business

Legal Name: Same

Principal Owner: ikediuwa clinton

Title: clinton’s art

Real Name: clinton c ikediuwa

Email: mcblondedormain@epals.com

Business Address: 20 douglas road owerri,imo state,Nigeria

City: owerri

State: IMO STATE,NIGERIA.

Zip: 234

Day Phone:

Business Fax:

Product: manmade art

Business Age: 1

Retail Percent:

Phone Percent:

Accept Visa: No

Processor:

Volume:

Average Sale:

Comments: please I will like to get a free credit account

Amazing, how bitter I can actually be. Ya’ll best stay on my good side. I’ll be in the corner, listening to Nine Inch Nails on my headphones and flipping you off like a surly babboon.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution apologized to readers Sept. 1 for using a small picture of Britney Spears kissing Madonna on the front page. The picture, not much bigger than a postage stamp, was near the top of the front page Aug. 29. It showed Spears and Madonna in an open-mouth kiss they shared at the MTV Video Music Awards the night before.

Kristin wants us to buy this place. As I have no cash, this makes things easy. “No.”

Still, it’s cute.

Holy shit. A page from the new issue of Ministry Of Space. Maybe it will come out!