nothing

i did nothing and it was everything i hoped it could be.

actually, i watched VH1. big surprise.

the kutch

drew, ben and i watched The Butterfly Effect and we all liked it.

again, for emphasis.

drew, ben and i watched The Butterfly Effect and WE ALL LIKED IT.

VH1's a helluva drug

there is over an 80% chance that if i turn my TV to VH1, i will stay there for at least two shows.

saturday, i watched "Driven: OutKast" and "The Fabulous Life of OutKast" as well as part of "The Fabulous Life of Hip Hop Superstars: 2004."

last night, i watched several episodes of "The Surreal Life."

oh, and i WILL be watching "I Love the 90s." you couldn't stop me if you tried.

disunorganized

i played at a wedding for a friend of Andy Barnett's.

no one brought extension cords, so emergency getting of one occurred.

not much else has happened since saturday, except emilia and i watched some episodes of Stark Trek: TNG, which was good. we watched one in which Geordi got some tail. look out!

715.2 wisconsin miles

by the numbers times:

Thursday
c. 8:30 PM. Drew, Ben and I leave for wisconsin. i drive

Friday
12:00 AM. we get gas and snacks. the gas costs $25.50. drew switches into the driver's seat. i go to sleep in the backseat of my own car.

c. 3:00 AM. we arrive at Drew's debate partner, Marcus's house. drew calls Marcus's cellphone 5000 times and knocks on the door until he comes to the door. UPDATE: at this time, i call Teresa because it is only 1:00 AM in Los Angeles. she begins to tell me a story, but Marcus comes out, and we go into his house.

c. 3:04 AM. we fall asleep, exhausted.

c. 10:00 AM. we wake up to find that Marcus's mother is making us a breakfast of eggs, sausage and biscuits. showering occurs for drew, and myself, but not at the same time :(

c. 11:30 AM. we leave for Milwaukee

12:00 PM. the Summerfest grounds open.

12:10 PM. we arrive at the Summerfest grounds to find that the first two rows of the Piggly Wiggly Music Market with Leinenkugel's have already been taken. we settle in at the 3rd row.

12:30 PM. a local high school "show band" (read: pep band) plays such favorites as "Rock and Roll Part 2 (the Hey Song)," "Gimme Some Lovin'" and a medley of Jackson 5 hits. we ask to be killed. Ben takes picture of a sad girl playing xylophone.

1:00 PM. the same local high school's "rock band" plays such favorites as "When I Come Around," "Foxy Lady," and "Hands Down." the lead singer sings an imperfect 5th below what the melody should be. we all kill ourselves.

c. 1:30. a girl with a grotesque amount of butt-cleavage entertains/disgusts many.

c. 2:00 PM. said girl puts a sweatshirt around her waist, to the delight/chagrin of many; "show band" takes the stage once more, playing such favorites as "Sell Out," "What Is Hip," and "25 or 6 to 4." we would ask to be killed, but we are already dead, remember?
c. 2:30. a slightly altered form of the "rock band" comes out and introduces themselves as The Flying Penguins. they play punk-rock "originals." drew, ben, and i ressurect ourselves only to kill ourselves once more.

3:30 PM. comedy/irish drinking song artist Pat McCurdy takes the Piggly Wiggly Music Market with Leinenkugel's to play his brand of humorous-campy-music. it is bizarrely entertaining.

5:30 PM. Rock/Country artist Michael McDermott takes the Piggly Wiggly Music Market with Leinenkugel's to play his brand of formulaic-too-many-high-guitar-solos-whatever-he-does-music. it was meh at best.

8:00 PM. Rufus Rufuth Wainwright takes the Piggly Wiggly Music Market with Leinenkugel's to play his brand of contemporary-and-at-times-beatlesesque music. i enjoyed it, and would've enjoyed it more had i known some of the songs better. Rufuth makes anti-government statement. Young, drunk crowd cheers.

c. 9:41 PM. Ben and I amuse ourselves playing "guess what time it is" and by repeatedly doing "the Sorbo" (read: Hercules Handshake).

BROTHER!

c. 9:50. Ben Folds takes the aforementioned Piggly Wiggly Music Market with Leinenkugel's and rocks out with his cock out (figuratively). the show is excellent due to the fact that he doesn't play "The Luckiest," that he does play "Short Bus Benny," and that he does not one, but two encores.
c. 10:00 -11:59 PM. legs die.

Saturday

c. 12:30 AM. Ben, Drew and I sleep at Marcus's House.

6:30 AM. Ben, Drew and I awaken and eat cereal, not waking up any members of Marcus's family.

7:00 AM. stealthily, we away.

10:00 AM. we fill up on gas. the price for gas this time is $25.51. we have shakes at a Culver's in Tomah, Wisconsin. i proceed to make Ho-Chunk jokes. Drew drives the rest of the way.

c. 1:15 PM. all parties arrive home safely.

roadtrip pt. 1

we are in Wisconsin. we got in at 3 AM and fell asleep.

we ate biscuits and sausage, and YOU DIDN'T. lol

embark

drew, ben and i are going to milwaukee. we'll be back saturday.

yamagata

the kristi yamaguchi rachael yamagata concert was good.

ask drew, ben, jake, or i about the "falling in love at first sight" look.

gar, tickets

within the last 24 hours, both LJ and J-9 have told me they can't go see Rachael Yamagata. need to find people to buy tickets, but have called everyone on the face of the planet who might have the slightest interest.

mental thing

my waking up situation during the week can happen two ways: by alarm, or by my mom.

i've found that if i'm woken up by my mom saying "john, get out of bed" i find it hard to stay awake during the day. differently, if my alarm clock wakes me up, i reach a state of lucidity much quicker. it's weird.

events for this week are:

Tuesday: Pick Up Frisbee at Concord. 6:30 PM
Wednesday: Rachael Yamagata concert
Thursday: Ultimate/Driving to Milwaukee
Friday: Ben Folds at Summerfest
Saturday: Driving back from Milwaukee
Sunday: Playing at a wedding for 50 bucks

i got my oil changed today in anticipation of the 800 round trip journey the Lumina is about to take this weekend.

P.S. Hi, boys and girls! I'm Jimmy Carl Black, and I'm the Indian of the group!

busyness/movie weekend

Friday

ben, drew and i saw Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which was hilarious. i thought it was funnier than Starsky and Hutch, but that Ben Stiller had (and nearly used) the capacity to ruin the movie. his character and voice were just so completely forced, and the jokes that would've been funny, i'd already heard two dozen times on the commercials.

after that movie, was Halo night at ben's. ben, adam cowing and i played a 3 v 7 King of the Hill game that was fun despite us being completely outnumbered. we played a few varieties of game until about midnight, when i went to Wendy's with Q, Phil, and Jake. we were going into the parking lot, when all of a sudden there was a FOX running around. i tried to get Q to pull over so i could chase it around, but food was priority. we went through the Drive-Thru, and the FOCKS WAS THERE. within a minute, the FAACKS was by a parked car on the other side of the parking lot. phil and i got out and chased the FAWKES. some girls in the parked car yelled at us for chasing it.

"follow that car, Q" i said.

so we did for a few blocks, then said "FOX" way too many times, and played more halo at ben's.

Saturday

i went to Kyle Olson's to jam/work on stuff for some gigs i guess i have. that was good, if unorganized.

in the early afternoon, Ben and i went to Best Buy and i picked up a CD player for my car. no more portable CD player plugged into the tape deck! i got an Aiwa model that plays CD, CDR, CDRW and MP3 CDs. huttah. there were some appointment cars that had precedence over mine, so the guy said it'd be a few hours. ben and i browsed through Best Buy. i purchased Clerks: The Animated Series and The Big Lebowski for $10.00 each, then Drew picked us up and we went back to my house.

we played some Power Stone 2 on the Dreamcast that currently inhabits my house, and a little Halo. Eric came part way through. i had to mow half my lawn during some of the festivities. we ordered Davannis and Ben and I picked it up after picking up my car with its new gear.

Ben wished to go home, but Eric, Cra Hogle, Drew and I went to see Super Size Me, which was interesting/funny/disgusting all at the same time. i decided i'd like to go back home after that. i thought i'd just chillax at home, but apparently Siri Hellerman had stopped by not 10 minutes before i arrived. i returned her phone call. she and two other Lawrence students were looking for Ben. they found him and came over. we talked for about an hour, then went to Perkins. i came home and finally went to bed.

Sunday

woke up after noon, and went to see The Chronicles of Riddick with my dad. i enjoyed it, and so did my dad. it wasn't spectacular, but it entertained me. Vin Diesel's badassery is always entertaining.

fulltimate

we finally had most of a team for TC ultimate. we lost 10-15, but it was still fun, and that's what the game is about.

Short Answer Question

I presented this to the occupants of my car on the way to ultimate: What's the most overrated band? Bands mentioned were Metallica, Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band.

keys

today i listened to Alicia Keys's "If I Ain't Got You."

THAT SONG IS FANTASTICALLY AMAZING.

i must proceed to buy The Diary of Alicia Keys soon. also, i must learn to play and sing "If I Ain't Got You" even though i am not a soulful black female singer/songwriter.

janine's party house

janine's house is the place to be in the south MPLS. sunday night we cooked up hotdogs and burgers. this evening we did up corn and barbecue chicken. after eating at watching the twins edge out a victory against the expos, we popped in the DVD counterpart to Dane Cook's comedy CD, Harmful If Swallowed. hilarity ensued.

tomorrow i work, get off early for a haircut with my dad (YES) and play frisbee with a full team!~!

p.s. do you like how i sort of outline what my next day's post will be? the joys of having a schedule. glad my life is so interesting.

p.p.s. hey QINGSHUO, i still need to pay you for hosting me. i can paypal you the money if you want or something. let me know.

new music 06-15-2004

The Killers - Hot Fuss

i bought this CD today, the day it was released. it is really good from my first initial listen. it's four guys: bass, drum, guitar and SYNTH. it's not cheesy synth though, it's appropriate. it's like taking some modern rock and adding in just enough new wave to be totally sweet. i reccommend.

tonight is frisbee, then halo.

score

my score today is two-fold. A.) i got info on parking permits. gonna send it in, and get me an R parking permit. B.) i got an extra $750.00 in scholarship, bumping my total to $1750.00 (i think that's the number. maybe its $725.00), taking more money off of my relatively-dirt-cheap-tuition.

went to ben's and did nothing after chipotle with drew. we had a deadly triangle and other such fun things. hagen showed up later with taco bell. way too much taco bell.

tomorrow is pick up frisbee and halo at Q's house.

back to work

had to wake up quasi-early to drive shannon to the airport.

k-nuts was at work, but no Cra. it was busy, but i'm done now.

now begins the good days of summer, AKA never have anything planned so i go over to ben's to do nothing.

old people time

follow the progression. Halo. a game of violence and machisimo. i kill virtual people in a virtual world. rock on. what do i do when i wake up the next morning? go see PIRATES OF PENZANCE. just when you thought i had a good thing going with the Halo thing, i had to just fruit it all up with some musical theater! huzzah!

Pirates of Penzance was good. i much preferred it to that Pirates of the Carribean movie. at least Pirates of Penzance was designed to be ridiculous.

Shannon and I were surrounded by a sea of people older than 60 years old. nothing like a saturday matinee to bring out all the young clubbers, huh?

visitor

shannon got in yesterday to our wonderful rainy weather. she patiently watched as i played frisbee in the rain, then we watched the twins go into 15 innings at eric's house.

i slept in past noon today and was woken up by my sister. after some eggs, carly, shannon and i went to the mall of america. we ate at P.B. Loco, an all peanut butter restaurant. i died. before that, though, i bought some discraft disc golf discs.

i went to max's party for about 20 minutes. tonight i'm having hagen pick up my equipment for halo because i may or may not be playing a gig with dan groth and the barnetts at centeniall lakes. it really depends on the weather, so we'll have to see. after that, the plan is to play halo (shannon says she does not mind watching). we'll see how that all pans out as well.

CRA!

Cra Hogle came in to work today. it really lit up the workplace. nametags and rubberband shooting contests abounded.

after working until close, i came back and had enough time to burn a few CDs, shower, and dry my Joe Mauer T-shirt before hitting up the metrodome with drew, janine, and lisa johnson. we had a grande olde tyme at ye olde metrodomeee. highlights included yelling for joe mauer, yelling "Yankees suck!" despite the fact that we were playing the Mets, and yelling profanities at T.C.

You go to BEAR HELL

that bear shot a free t-shirt within probably 10 or 15 feet of where we were sitting. WHY NOT ME, TC? WHY NOT MEEEEEEEE

tomorrow i work until 3 or so when i go to pick up Shannon from the airport for her visit to MN. she will see the great sights of the land of 10,000 lakes. BOOYAH.

new music 06-08-2004

after work, i picked up my friend from camp, Anna Kneen and we hightailed it to my favorite three music hotspots, Half Price Books, Cheapo, and the Electric Fetus.

Half Price Books

i didn't buy anything here, but there are two copies of Whatever and Ever Amen by BFF and one copy of When the Pawn... by Fiona Apple. if any of you don't have either of those two albums, get them.

Cheapo
i went to cheapo looking for the Rachael Yamagata CD that was released today, but they were sold out, so i got these.

Pedro the Lion - Pedro the Lion's Achilles Heel. this is a little more upbeat than most Pedro stuff, but it doesn't matter because David Bazan could be singing about how he is about to get married and have a child and it's the happiest day of his life and it would still make everyone want to cry from ultimate sadness.

Spy Mob - Spy Mob. that's right, i found their self titled used next to copies of Sitting Around Keeping Score (which are now in jewel cases, rather than those hallmark card sized things the preorder ones came in (jealousy)). Spy Mob has earlier versions of 5 songs from Sitting Around Keeping Score, and one song that was not on there. The differences are noticeable for most of the songs, but a couple are changed very little.

All That: The Album. I'm not even joking. music and skits from the Nickelodeon Television show All That. Superdude, Good Burger, Earboy and Pizza face, it's ALL THERE. i would've had to hire someone to kill me if i didn't buy this album. how could i NOT purchase it right away.

Electric Fetus

Bob Dylan: Another Side of Bob Dylan and Blonde on Blonde. these were in the "Cut-Outs" bin for $10 each, so i could not resist. I already purchased Blonde on Blonde from the iTunes music store, which i have deemed a mistake. you get no jewel case, no liner notes, no real proof of ownership other than the files on your computer which can be irretrievably deleted off your computer. i would only use the iTunes music store for absolute exclusive tracks. i would much rather have a hard copy of the music. luckily, Blonde on Blonde was the first and will be the last album i buy off of iTunes.

Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance. it was heavily stocked at the Fetus. go Fetus! a couple of her songs have a Fiona Apple vibe to them, but she's not a ripoff or anything. her voice does sound similar to Fionas sometime but as you listen, you notice the differences. kind of how the first time you (I) listen(ed) to Ozma, you think that Ryen Slegr's and Daniel Brummel's voices sounded exactly like Rivers Cuomo's. they end up being different, after the shock wears off. Ozma left the theft of Rivers's vocal chords to the guy from Rooney. you're sh-sh-shakin'? well i'm sh-sh-sure that the Rivers voice is just coincidence [/lying].

Rachael Yamagata - Live at the Loft. this is a 5-song live CD that came free with Happenstance.

today was a great day for music buying. next week i'll hit up the stores for the album Hot Fuss by the Killers.

the art of my mix

in this post i shall divulge my greatest mix CD to date.

Through the Dark

1. Jimmy Eat World - For Me This is Heaven
2. Ben Folds Five - Birds
3. Semisonic - El Matador
4. Mercury Rev - Holes
5. Bob Marley - Waiting in Vain
6. Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
7. Foo Fighters - Walking After You
8. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
9. Jump, Little Children - Cathedrals
10. Bob Dylan - I Was Young When I Left Home
11. David Gray - Babylon II
12. Björk - Hyperballad
13. Elliot Smith - Morning After
14. James Taylor - Sunny Skies

normally i make mixes for a specific person, matching the flow of the disc to how i think they'd like it. this mix is for no one and everyone. a lot of the songs on here immediately remind me of a certain person or event in my life. a few of the songs fit the flow so well i had to include them even if they didn't have such a nostalgic effect.

i've labored over the exact song choice and placement of this mix for months and months, until i made what i believe (at this writing) to be the final selection.

this mix is meant to be played while driving at night. ideally, the sunrise would occur at "Hyperballad." obviously not a lot of people drive and start hour-long mix CDs in their stereo at 4:40 AM, so this mix works as a nighttime-in-the-car mix, or simply a nighttime mix. in any case, the feel and flow of these songs work with the darkness and quietude of the night. there is too little mystery and too many cars on the road during the day.

if anyone wants a copy of this, call or stop by my house. either bring your own CD or i can just use one of the blank ones i have near the computer, it makes not a lot of difference.

BVSC

um, there are songs from the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack on my computer and i'm a little weirded out because i have no memory of downloading or ripping any such songs.

11:27

i was told to be at eric's at 11:30 to drive to the ultimate state tourney. i woke up at 11:27, put on pants and shoes and grabbed s'more pop tarts and darted to eric's house. they were about to leave. i decided to change into shorts and to go to the bathroom, seeing as i didn't know where the tournament was.

both of those choices were good ones, as it was hot AND the tournament was in St. Cloud, 1.5 hours away.

tournament was fun. DVM lost 2 and won 2, but it was just seeding for tomorrow. tournament play brings out some sweet efforts by some people. eric, drew, krissy and i played a lot of the greatest game.

i came back, rocked it out at the Lydons's grad party and then played intense pictionary at krissy's house.

got some more grad parties tomorrow.

it's early to be home

GAH! GET THE FLAG!!!

i played 16 person halo for the first time in a long time. it was fun. lots of yelling. max was there, which upped the hilarity. me+max+billy=hilarity.

Words of the Night

• roofies
• quaaludes
• GAHHHHH
• Shut up Hagen
• Shut up Wicklund
• why does that kid say everything is "gay"
• i'm glad that kid left
• ooh ooh, y'see (bill cosby impressions)?

and more

thank you weekend for starting off so sweet

new mower

our family got a new lawn mower. a SELF PROPELLED lawn mower. this not only cuts my time, but my effort in half (approximately).

tonight is halo. i'm excited. (girl) it's been a long time (since we had it goin' on that way).

mauer power

after work, drew, janine and i went to the twins game. we paid $3.00 for upper general admission (with our college IDs for the discount) and paid $2.00 for two hotdogs each (God bless you, dollar-a-dog night). in the 7th inning we managed to get ourselves down to lower GA, which was sweet.

Twins lost, unfortunately. i got a Joe Mauer t-shirt. as soon as it gets washed it'll be worn. for some reason i dislike the feel of a new shirt.

work tomorrow, then frisbee (which i haven't done for a week. ugh).

caffeinsomnia

three mountain dews plus me sleeping in past noon on saturday and sunday meant that i didn't get to bed until after 4:00 AM this morning. this day has been meh.

as predicted, there were lots of packages to be done at work, but not an overwhelming amount. i actually like it when it's busier. it passes the time a lot faster.

my sister is sick. this means i have a HIGHER CHANCE OF GETTING SICK THAN NORMAL. gar. must stay away from her germs at all costs.

i jammed it out with dan groth, the barnetts, trevor haining and this girl lana, who is apparently the new graham chapman (resident bass player) of the school, as she was in pretty much every single act in Current Jam. jamming is fun. people say i've improved, which is fun. talking about esoteric jazz things like GUITAR IN THE STYLE OF FREDDIE GREEN is also fun too.