Test

I beg ye!

I apologize if you're already read this on myspace.

Okay, so there's only one more day left for my threadless submission to be scored. To all those people that have already scored my design, thank you SO much for your support. To those who haven't, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? Go to:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/108352/If_at_first_you_don_t_succeed

In order to score my design, you will have to register with the site, but it's free! So register and score my design and make sure to check the "I'd buy it!" box.

I'm pretty sure my chances of winning are slim now, but there's still a chance. I'll probably be beaten by this:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/108598/hungry_hungry_hedgehog

Which I think is lame, but whatever. It's all about designing something that people like.

I also get a 300 dollar gift certificate to Threadless to buy some of my shirts and while I can't promise EVERYONE a shirt, I can promise MOST of you that you'll get one if you vote on it. So please, vote on my submission!

Pardon my dust

As you can see, I changed the colors around on my blog. It's nothing permanent, I just wanted to see if I could edit the style sheet on my blog successfully. I did it in Dreamweaver, but I'm not sure I want to go about it that way. I'll mess with it more tonight.

In other news, I submitted a design to Threadless. I'm sure I've already told you, but I really need everyone's support in order to win this. You can check it out here:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/108352/If_at_first_you_don_t_succeed

Pardon me for being rude

In Fort Worth at the moment. Had to drop in on the rents to pick up housing supplies. Yes, that's right, I found an apartment. It's right next door to my best buddy Nick. So convenient! For the past two weeks I've been staying at his place and soon I'll be staying about 15 feet next to it. Weird.

Driving up here and hanging out have profound effects on what I tend to think about. Three hours in a car and quiet nights outside of your comfort zone tend to do that. I've noticed that I tend to get very anxious on the eve of leaving Fort Worth. Unfortunately the eve of leaving also happened to be the day of arrival so I've been pretty anxious all damn day.

Like the title says, I apologize. Not necessarily for being rude, but just for babbling. There are things I could blog about, but it would only benefit me and not you, dear reader. However, it is nice to sit and type. I need to do that more.

Which reminds me, I may have said this before, but today I revisited my desire of acquiring a domain name again and setting up a portfolio. I decided that in addition to the portfolio I could set up a space to blog from and display pictures I've taken on my camera. It probably won't amount to anything other than an idea, but one never knows.

every time I look in your eyes, everyday I'm watching you die

The End of an Era

As the 2006th year of human existence since the invention of the Gregorian calendar is coming to a close, I sit in a room filled with every single possession I own and wonder what I'm going to do.

Yesterday I returned from a trip to the North where I visited my kin. It was fun and exciting but it really didn't take the edge off things like I thought it would. I thought I'd finally feel relaxed when school was over, but I didn't and so I hoped going on vacation I would finally find a state of mental repose. It wasn't until I spent time with The Q that I finally felt a little relaxed. However, with the question of where I will find lodging saturating my thoughts I have a constant knot in my stomach.

I was supposed to have a place to live before I left for Michigan. A friend at work asked if I would like to sublet his apartment and after viewing said apartment I agreed. He had only thought about it that far. Now he had to find a place to live himself. I didn't formulate any kind of backup plan due to the trust I placed in him as well as my own stupidity. As it stands now, I will be without a permanent place of residence come December 30th. My current plan is as follows:

- Pack up as many belongings that are not needed.
- Move belongings into a storage unit.
- Couch hop between friends until I can find an apartment.

I've been scanning the usual spots: Craigslist, Austin Chronicle, Statesman, but seeing as how I didn't start my search until 6pm today, I was unable to contact any of the potentials I found. Tomorrow is reserved for finding a storage unit and a place to live if possible.

On the positive side of things, I made a pretty nice haul for Christmas. I got a Black & Decker adjustable wrench (*glee*), a new comforter, various articles of clothing, giftcards, a Back to the Future model, and two really kick ass books. The one I'd like to mention is "The Haggis-On-Whey Animals of the Ocean, in Particular The Giant Squid". This book is absolutely hilarious and a very fast read. The Haggis-On-Whey (HOW) series also includes two previous volumes, "Volume 1: Giraffes? Giraffes!" and "Volume 2: Your Disgusting Head: The Darkest, Most Offensive and Moist Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose". I haven't had the pleasure of reading either of these, but I can't wait to get my hands on them. *glee*

And father had had such hopes for a son who would take the ropes

Rich people die unhappy

So many things going on right now.

-Thanksgiving was thanksgiving-ish and awesome.

-I got my Wii. It's even awesomer.

-It's really fuck-tardedly cold right now.

-Corley's christmas present is going to be rad.

-I made a neat hat today at work and plan on making another tomorrow.

Why my girlfriend is awesome

Because she bought me a mini tinsel Christmas tree with lights and mini ornaments. I was tickled pink to receive it and put it up immediately. Now if I only had a digital camera instead of a stupid camera phone....

What's with these goth kids?

As Corley mentioned in one of her recent postings, I have indeed been working on a template for her blog. I wouldn't go so far as describing it "gorgeous". In fact, it's very plain and simple. And she's right, I'm not happy with it. To me, knowing how it's coded, it feels very slapped together and I'm worried it wouldn't hold up when viewed on a PC through Internet Explorer or Firefox or any other sort of browser. Then again, I'll never be satisfied with anything I do artistically.

Which brings me to my next topic. All my friends and classmates regularly compliment me on my projects, creations, etc. They tell me I have the talent to do it as a career. If only my friends and classmates were the people hiring me.

The only method I have for conveying my abilities to a potential employer is a resume and a portfolio. The resume could say all kinds of things related to how proficient I am at this or that, but everyone applying for that job probably has a resume saying the same thing. So it comes down to the contents of you portfolio. I haven't done any sort of design work for a company so the only thing I could put in a portfolio are examples of stuff I've done in class; not what they want.

But I'll keep chugging along on my dear, sweet Corley's blog redesign and maybe I'll end up liking the end results.

In other news.... Well, there really isn't much else going on. The Nintendo Wii comes out this Sunday, but that's only interesting if you like video games. I still have no idea where I'm going to live come this January and I'm still stuck at FedEx Stinko's.

Oh, Shit.

I am a writer, a writer of fiction

I've never been one to acknowledge any sort of talent I may or may not possess. Most people who know me know this about me. I'm sure it annoys some of them but a lot of them tend to ignore it.

Lately, my girlfriend Corley (I can use her real name since she revealed mine. HA!) has expressed much discontent at this character flaw. I don't believe I'll ever think I do anything well, however, I am endeavoring to acknowledge that I do in fact have talents.

I've started this process recently when I confessed to Corley that I have a knack for saying I'm not good at things. So there's one talent, though it's almost an oxymoron. Here on my blog I would like to declare another talent I have: I can get along with virtually anyone, in other words, people tend to like me.

I came to this conclusion after watching the movie, Find Me Guilty. From IMDB.com, "Based on the true story of Jack DiNorscio, a mobster who defended himself in court for what would be the longest mafia trial in U.S. history." In the movie, everybody loves Jack and for some reason I found myself relating to him. Whenever I come to work everyone greets me with "Hey! Casey's here!" as if work has suddenly become ten times better now that I've arrived. In high school everyone knew who I was and while there were some that didn't care for me, most enjoyed my company.

However, all this brings me back to the problem I have. I feel like I'm bragging about myself when I admit these things and I suppose that's why I never like to admit I might actually be talented. It's such a fine line to walk between saying you're good at something and bragging. I don't think I can walk it. Oh well, baby steps.

Anyway, enough of that. After talking with Corley I am know fairly determined to learn CSS. It's always been something I wanted to know and I feel like it could be a stepping stone to other programming languages I've yet to learn. I looked over some primers and beginning tutorials on it and it seems simple enough and I've heard as much. It's easy to use but difficult to master. One of those things. I'd like to direct you to the CSS Zen Garden. It's pretty rad and very inspiring. You can look forward to a new look for both Corley's blog and mine.

Along with learning CSS I'm also working on a t-shirt design as previously mentioned. Nothing on paper yet, save for a few sketches. I'm really drawing a blank on this whole thing. I'm to the point where I feel I should just do it and see what happens instead of spending so much time thinking about it. Sometimes your best works come from five minutes of actual work. I'll let you know when I finally throw something up there.

And at the gate of the embassy, our hands met through the bars

I hate band-aids

I recently signed up on Threadless and plan on submitting designs soon. I'm letting my subconscious churn away on ideas and hopefully that will bear fruit soon. When I do finally submit something I beseech you to help me out by voting. I can win 1500 dollars if my design is picked as well as a 300 dollar gift certificate to the site which would allow me to buy all my voters a shirt with the design on it. Well, not ALL of them, but definitely the ones that I can hand a shirt to. Stay tuned for that.

Saw The Decemberists on Tuesday at Stubb's. I'm in love with them currently. If you haven't heard them I high suggest you check them out. Catch me online on AIM and I'll lend you some. As for the show, it was really rat. I admit I only recognized two of the songs they played. A lot of the stuff they did play was off the new album which I didn't realize existed. Rest assured, I own the album now and through the goodwill of a fellow fan and friend, I have two of their other albums.

Speaking of December, it is almost upon us and that means my lease here at the Metropolis is almost up as well. I've been searching on Craigslist (So has my bad ass girlfriend) and come up with a lot of great deals. My current and most favorite idea is to move into the same apartments as my good friend Bruh. I met him when I moved in here at the Metropolis and we've become really good friends ever since. It would be great living within walking distance of him again. I hope I can find and afford a place there.

And if anybody knows of a good deal on a drum kit, please let me know. I'm in the market for one since I lost my old one. I've got cymbals, I just need a kit with (hopefully) hardware and a pedal included. I'm not exactly financially able to purchase one right now, but plan on being so in the near future. I'd appreciate any leads.

Go to sleep now, little ugly. Go to sleep now, you little fool

I'm sorry, what's my motivation?

Finter, fall and winter together, has pretty much arrived. It's been really nice and cold at night, 50-60 degrees and such. It's my favorite time of year. I was actually able to break out my leather jacket on friday. I love my leather jacket. It's the greatest. Almost as great as 3D movies.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should go and check out Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. It's effin' rad. I think what I liked most about it was that it didn't do any of that gimmicky 3D crap where they shove stuff in your face trying to freak you out. Okay, so maybe they did a little bit, but not so much that it felt cheesy. Mostly they did a whole depth-of-field thing. It was really cool. I never enjoyed the movie as a kid, with all the singing, but I certainly appreciate it a lot more now that I'm older.

The best part about seeing the Nightmare Before Christmas is that in return for buying her tickets, Karla has in turn bought us tickets to see The Decemberists on Tuesday. I'm totally, bodaciously excited. We saw them at ACL two years ago and since then I've loved them. Can't wait!

And if you haven't heard about it, The Mark DeAnda band is no more. Mark decided that he needed members that could devote more time to being in a band, i.e. people who don't have a job OR go to school. I think the part that hurt the most was his comment that I'm not a serious musician. While being a true statement, I liked to think that I was serious about being in a band. I made concessions to have Fridays and Saturdays off so I'd make it to gigs. I made promo packs, I designed our website and I always showed up to practice. I didn't practice on my own as much as I should have, but honestly, I never saw a reason to because I had no motivation. Why should I have practiced as much as he practices guitar if we never had a gig? The answer to that is, because I'm not a serious musician. But I was in a band to play shows and have fun, neither of which was happening. It sucks not being in a band anymore and I admit I am angry with Mark on the subject, but I suppose I can't complain considering I never put enough energy into playing my drums.

What it all comes down to is motivation. I can never motivate myself enough to continue doing something. I was all gung-ho about the drums for the first four or five months and then, like clockwork, I lost motivation. I love playing the drums, don't get me wrong, but I can't find a reason to try and get better anymore. Hell, I can't even motivate myself to practice Actionscript. The only reason I'm still good at Photoshop or Illustrator is because I'm using them for the classes I'm taking. That's my motivation. But without classes, I'd probably do nothing more than play video games, work, and sit on my ass. In other words, I'd be a loser.

When I was in a band and we practiced, I saw a future of playing gigs, having fun, and potentially having that be my career. Now that that is gone and I look at where I'm going in school, I don't see any sort of future. I don't feel like I'm good enough to be any sort of designer. So now I just feel like I'm going nowhere. I'll graduate and have a degree and probably still work at Kinko's. Woo hoo.

Pam got a house. I'm supposed to live with her but I really don't want to. The house is in Buda. I work and go to school in North Austin. That just doesn't appeal to me. So to alleviate the problem, I thought I could get a place with Nick but I just don't see that happening either. I don't feel like were as close as we use to be and I'd probably just annoy the hell out of him. Where does that leave me? I don't know. I'm trying not to think about it. But thoughts of moving elsewhere, somewhere other than Austin, sound really appealing. I'd be pulling a T.J. but maybe that's what I need.

I apologize for the tone of this post. I know I said I wouldn't do this anymore. I promise the next one will be more uplifting, inspiring, whatever.

Was he robbed of the asphalt that cushioned his face?

Ask and ye shall receive

I love cigarettes but they don't love me

I'm sure a lot of you have done this. There was a particular show, movie or cartoon you watched as a kid that you loved. You have really fond memories of it and haven't seen it in forever. You think, "Hey! I should watch it again!" So you do, and what happens? It's no where near as great as you remember it. I've done this several times since I've grown up. I watched an old video of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and couldn't believe I ever found that junk even mildly entertaining. The animation was awful and so was the voice acting. Sure, when you're a kid you don't care about that stuff, but still. They put no effort into making that crap.

With that being said, I just bought the Ghostbusters collection. They're two of my all time favorite movies. Now those wonderful pieces of cinema have withstood the test of time. In fact, I like them more than I did as a kid. There's a whole mess of jokes I understand now as a semi-adult that I never caught onto as a kid. Anyway, the Ghostbusters 2 DVD has two episodes of "The Real Ghostbusters" or in other words, the cartoon based off of the movie. Pam and I watched the movie and after she went to bed I thought maybe I'd check 'em out. I was cautious after the fiasco with TMNT. So the opening mosaic opens up and memories start flooding back. Hell yeah! The mother fucking Ghostbusters! I first notice that while the actual drawing is pretty good the animation is about as bad as TMNT, i.e. It's kind of choppy. As it goes on I realize that Venkman, Bill Murray's character, is voiced by the same guy that did Garfield. After only five minutes I just couldn't stomach anymore. Once again my childhood memories have been tainted. I think from now on I'll stay away from any cartoons I watched as a kid save for Tom & Jerry. Maybe I'm a simpleton, but I just can't get enough of a mouse beating the hell out of a cat with a large wooden mallet.

Lucky Strike indeed

Smoking my last cigarette here. It's a sacred moment for many smokers. Knowing that you're completely out of cancer sticks and unable or unwilling to go get more. As for me, I'm lying in bed about to go to sleep and I have no desire to get dressed and drive to Walgreens. Better make this one last.

My first day on first shift was awesome. I haven't worked during the day in almost a year and a half. It was definitely strange being at work with nine other people but fun none the less. I look forward to a full work week this Friday.

And to remind you one final time, we have a show tomorrow at 9pm at the Poodle Dog Lounge. I'll make sure to make another bulletin on Myspace so you don't forget. Nick won't be able to join us so we've got a stand in bass player lined up for him. Hopefully he'll show. I don't mind White Stripin' it, but there's something lost without a bass player: the bass line.

Night time isn't my favorite time of day. My mind wanders down paths it shouldn't and I feel stupid feelings. I guess it won't be a big deal anymore since I'll be sleeping at night, but there are still these moments on the cusp of falling into my dreams that silly thoughts linger and tease me. But I won't go into any of that nonsense. I promised at the get go of this blog that I wouldn't fill it with depressing material and I'm generally a man of my word. No, those special comments will be saved for a different outlet I'm afraid.

Hope to see you all at the show.

My heart is yours to fill or burst

When will fall get here?

Tomorrow marks my return to the day-shift. I know I mentioned this in the previous post, but you must understand, I'm really excited about it. I think my perception of work is probably going to change with this change in schedule. We'll see how it turns out in a few weeks. And yes, I probably should be getting to bed instead of typing this.

My five day weekend was pretty uneventful. Friday I bought dinner for everyone for Nick's birthday that was last Tuesday. Oddly enough, I didn't have as much fun that night as I probably should have. The entire time my thoughts were focused else where and I really didn't feel like being around anyone. I can't even begin to understand why.

Saturday was spent with The Q running various errands. We stopped off at her grandparents in the evening and had a nice little chat with them. The Q seems to be happy that I'm not uncomfortable at their house for apparently past boyfriends have been. I don't know, other than the overwhelming amount of religiousness, I really like her grandparents. They're very nice and generous and her grandpa is hilarious. Reminds me of my grandpa. We were fed diet soda and chips and salsa. I was starving but I did my best at restraining myself from gobbling everything down.

And as for today, I woke up and watched Ghostbusters while eating breakfast. The rest of the day was spent playing Okami on the PS2. At some point I headed downstairs for a few rounds of Guitar Hero and promptly had my ass handed to me by Ray and Sam. I think I just need to practice more. Mark and Pam returned from their trips to Dallas and San Antonio respectively. It seems like whenever Mark gets back from some where he's more of an ass than normal. So for the most part I just avoided him.

I think I'll probably be posting more often because of this laptop. It's nice to sit in bed and type out my thoughts. Helps me unwind my brain so that I can sleep easier.

So to whoever reads this, I hope your ready to read more about my boring life more frequently. Cheers.

I turn my camera on

It's wafer thin!

Hmm. Lots of stuff has been going on. I had previously written two posts in addition to the content of this one but have now decided to hash it all together in one big MEGA post.

I am officially becoming a day-walker again on Monday. No more will I be manning the machines of the CPC in a trance-like state at 3 in the morning. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday from seven in the morning until 5 in the afternoon I'll be annoying the living shit out of the majority of the CPC staff with my singing and yelling. I'm really excited about my new schedule. I'll be able to have a normal sleep schedule and handle a full load of school much easier.

Also, I ordered an old 500mhz G3 iBook from Other World Computing for 200 bucks. It's great so far. Though, I must admit having a laptop is really rad. I'm able to lay in bed, smoke a cigarette and surf the intertron with a steady source of heat warming my crotch. If only I had an airport card so I didn't have to have this damn cable anchoring me to only my room.

I've also made some modifications, embarking upon the perilous journey of installing a 40gb hard drive was a success. There were complications, but overall I was successful.

I began by removing virtually ever bit of casing from the main section. I have to have taken out at least 40 some odd screws. Luckily I was prepared and printed out a little screw guide so I knew where everything went when I pieced it back together. Once I had the case off, it was a simple matter of unplugging the old hard drive and plugging in the new one. What I thought was going to be the hard part, actually turned out to be pretty simple. I even was able to replace two screws that should have been installed but had gone missing.

The hard part was actually getting the hard drive to work. I inserted my install disc and held down the c key, like ya do, and was greeted with a satisfying apple symbol. It locked up on a blue screen with a little spinning icon. I turned it off and on and did this several times as each time I did it I ran into a kernel panic. Those suck just so you know. Finally, after about 4 or 5 times I got to the install screen and ran the disk utility. From there I was able to format the hard drive so a mac can read it properly. Then it told me that I couldn't install OS X on the hard drive because I couldn't boot from it. WTF!? I almost gave up and dismantled the computer. On a whim, however, I restarted it. Another kernel panic. Fuck. Off, then on again. Install screen. Holy Hell! I can install OS X! So now here I am typing this on my laptop that's running OS X 10.3.9. It's not 10.4 but it's better than 10.2.

My next step is to get an Airport card. Fortunately, this will be much easier to install.

Last but not least, I'd like to let everyone know that our band has a show on Tuesday, October 2nd. It's from 9pm to 1am at the Poodle Dog Lounge. I think it's going to be fun but I'm not sure how lucrative it'll be seeing as how it is a Tuesday night.

If you've made it this far in my post, congratulations. I have nothing to reward you with but an Eric Blase-ish "Thanks for reading".

I don't care if it's right. If you want clean fun go fly a kite.

Guru? Nahhhh

Finally. I own a real, legit copy of Adobe Creative Suite 2. It came in via UPS and is fully installed on my Mac. He was more than happy to accept the new addition. I'm still not familiar with all the new tools and features but rest assured I will play around with my new toys a lot in the coming days.

The one new addition to the Adobe series of software is Bridge. It's essentially a program built to streamline your workflow between Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, etc. I'd really love to utilize Bridge to it's full extent, however, the measly 512mb of RAM currently installed on my computer has a seizure if I open more than one CS2 program at a time. No worries though. I'm hoping that my next paycheck will enable me to purchase two brand spanking new 1gb sticks of RAM. If you do the math, that's two and a half gigs of RAM. I'd like to think that such an amount of RAM would be sufficient to run Bridge, Illustrator and Photoshop at the same time as iTunes, iChat, Safari and all my Dashboard widgets. I guess we'll find out.

My peers at school, specifically in my Graphic Design class, seem to think I'm some sort of "Illustrator Guru". I came to this realization after having several of them commented positively on the work I'm doing for my current project. I appreciate their compliments and humbly accept them. However, I believe my skill in Illustrator is intermediate at best. It's definitely become one of my favorite programs over the past year. Here's some stuff I did in class while the teacher was showing everyone else how to use Illustrator:





It's strange how I draw in Illustrator. I start with a basic shape and then add and subtract bits and pieces until I see something. Once I've seen some sort of figure or design in the mess, I refine it until I'm happy with the results. I'm pretty proud of the alien. I thought he was neat. I also did this little bat dude, but I didn't save it.

Other than that, life is busy as hell. School and work, work and school. I've dedicated Fridays to relaxing and Saturdays and Wednesdays to Homework. So far it seems to be working out. It's funny how when you actually take the medication you're prescribed, life becomes easier and the paths to your goals more clear. I used to hate taking my medications, but I'm beginning to see a huge benefit in taking them. They're not so bad after all.

I've got a rabbit, it likes to hop

Stagnation

There is certainly a plethora of blogs that currently exist on the intertron. Some of them are updated every couple hours. Some have only a single entry talking of how they are going to keep this blog up to date. It is those people that never write in their blog again.

As for me, well, I have the time to write, but I never do it until I've explored every last possible thing I can do with the free time I have. I think I've grown out of the part of my life where I felt I needed to express my thoughts and feelings through such an accessible medium . I believe I did it in the past to satiate some desire for attention. Just like a crack addict will give anyone a blow-job for a few more grams of Colombian Bam-bam.

I don't know why I bother keeping one of these. My only answer is that if I really feel like I have to use a computer to collect my thoughts on, instead of pen and paper, why not post it on the internet for all to see and criticize?

Anyway, I'm in a funk. I'm taking all but three of my previous medications. Working on getting back on the fourth after my doctor and I believed that I could do without it. But four is much better than seven.

Also, school starts next week so I'm stressed out over that. It would be much more exciting and enjoyable if, like robots, I didn't require sleep or brain altering drugs. Between a crazy work schedule and school, I think my body might implode.

No worries though. By September 11th I should be able to work Saturday, Sunday, Monday 8pm - 8am instead of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Tuesdays will still be long, but at least at the end of it all, I can come home and cease consciousness. At least until the following Saturday.

And for anyone interested, as far as the band goes, I've finally come to the decision that nothing is ever going to happen. I've known this for a while, but didn't want to accept it. It just seems we're hit with set-back after set-back to the point where I don't even understand why I pour any energy into the endeavor. Should something actually come to fruitation, you can bet that I'll change my mind.

Bored and Extremely Dangerous

Me - Medicine = Tumultous

So yeah, being without medication is all fun and games for a while, until said fun and games are replaced with shit and shittiness. Not saying that I'm at the point. On the contrary, I'm still riding a manic wave. Work is fun and short-lived. I don't get tired until I get home and I have shit tons of ideas. But I know where it all leads and soon (tomorrow) I'll be medicated once more.

Speaking of work, I have regained my three-day, 12-hour schedule! Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: 8pm-8am. I'm gearing up for school and since the three-day thing worked much better than the four-day schedule, I got it back. I've wanted it ever since Kedex Finko's decided to switch me. However, everytime I asked, I was denied. Understandable considering we only had 2 key ops to cover the whole week (3 days for one person + 3 days for the other does not equal 7) But since there's one day a week that the other key op and I share AND because I'm starting school I was approved. I also learned that the document creation position I didn't get might be available again in December at which time I could apply....the CORRECT way and potentially have a new position. ACIN'!

In band news, it seems as though my best buddy in the whole wide universe, Nick, might be our new bassist. His harmonizing ability needs a little work, though the other day he was doing very well, and he needs to brush up on bass and then hell, we might actually start playing shows. Weird.

In my gadget fetish news, I got a new phone. A Motorola PEBL. I think it's much cooler than a RAZR strictly because the flip part opens mechanically. The only qualm I have with it is that it turns itself off randomly. Don't know why. Not really a big deal. It feels really good in your hand. It's got weight to it and it's very smooth. Like a pebble! I mean, Like a PEBL!

Holy shit, it's Dr. Tran!

Happiness is a red gun Bang, bang, shoot, shoot

Hmmm. It's been a while since I've done this. Mostly because it's been a while since I haven't been busy at work. So let's see....

Saturday was Strawberry King's (The Q's best friend) birthday. The Q and I joined her and a slew of her friends for drinking at The Sidebar. Nice place. They had Bootlegger there so I couldn't really complain. I was supposed to be the designated driver, but my love of Bootlegger led me to down about 5 or 6 pints of the stuff and I was three sheets to the wind. Needless to say, The Q drove us to Starseeds.

Yesterday was spent showing my love for The Q by shaving my arms and legs and letting her begin casting parts of my body. We started with the hands and feet. The rest of the week will be spent casting arms, legs, torso and head. Luckily I won't have to shave my eyebrows.

I actually kind of found it amusing shaving my legs and such. I haven't seen my legs hairless since puberty. It sure is itchy. I salute all the woman out there who shave their legs and other areas for their respective men. I've got to finish up my legs when I get home this morning. I'm looking forward to it.

In work news, I applied for a new position that opened up. If I get it I'll be working 9am-4pm Monday through Friday doing document creation. Meaning I'll be doing production design for all our commercial customers. I really hope I get it. It'd be nice to work during the day again. It'd allow me to go to school and still have time for the band. Which brings me to my next subject:

The band looked like it was going to finally take off a few weeks ago when we obtained a new bassist. He could nail all the harmonies and was pretty fast at learning the bass lines. Unfortunately he stopped showing up to practice and didn't really return our calls. I've kind of resigned myself to believing that our band is destined to never have a bass player. I don't know what Mark's thinking. Today he asked me if I felt let down by him. I didn't know what to tell him. He's brought me places I'd never thought I'd be and given me confidence to do things I didn't think I could do. I've stuck with him for the past year and almost a half without ever really seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and I suppose I'll keep doing it. I like playing music. I just don't know what we need to do to get things moving in the direction we want them to. I've always relied on Mark to figure that out.

Anyway, on Thursday I'm leaving to go to Michigan again. This time I'll be gone for a week. The Q is tré sad about this. I apologize to her. It's going to be fun. I'll be up there during the 4th of July and seeing as how they don't have burn bans, I'll be able to blow stuff up! I love fireworks. Plus I get to spend more time with my half-sisters and that's what I'm looking forward to the most. I'll be returning on the 8th should anyone wish to know.

Oh yeah, and The Q's birthday was earlier this month. June 18th, 1984. A glorious day in history. I got her Sofia Mini's, a tiny cake, and a Nintendo DS Lite which so far she seems to love. I got myself one as well and we enjoy crossing animals.

I'll post some of the pictures the Q took of me shaving myself in the tub and getting casted soon.