Written on Wednesday, the 13th of July, 2005 at 10:45 pm and was filed under:
Music,
Bikes
Did I say “lay down some tracks”? What I meant to say was “knock the dust off of the four track, take it downstairs, and screw around for a while.” Noah came downstairs because he loves the drums and thinks that my set is his. Eventually I convinced him to let me play my set, but after only three songs my right shin started to burn out. This is no good at all, since the Four Negations is supposed to be a punk band, and I will have to play fast and hard with no practice through our setlist. We haven’t written any songs yet, but at least we have enough titles to get started, plus a rough sketch of an album cover. That has to count for something.
However, the drums that I recorded weren’t punk at all — I was just playing along to “Merchants of Soul” by Spoon, something else, and “Daft Punk is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem. More generally, I was freaking the funk rather than slamming a beat along to move a pit. Uh, I’m not a great drummer, but sometimes you have to go have some fun. I will theoretically be able to slice these beats up later in one of the many music programs on my computer that are merely gathering electronic dust, so it was worth my time.
Lisa has been ragging on me to go visit one of the apparently many thrift stores nearby. I almost took the blue meanie (eventually I will settle on a name for that bike, but not tonight) and even got as far as bringing my helmet to the bottom of the stairs before remembering that I am a lazy bastard. I took the car and surveyed the array of bikes loitering in front of the thrift store. They were a dirty and ragged lot, and only a Raleigh ten-speed even slightly caught my eye. I gave it a miss, though, because the last thing that I need is another basket case of a ten speed locked up in the garage and giving me the evil eye when I don’t ride it. Apparently Boot is coming over later, maybe he can advise me on wheel purchases and derailleur adjustments. Maybe he will turn up his nose because I didn’t come out to see the nonet play (although he will likely just chalk that up to my general lack of class).
Back to the Four Negations, since that was how this all started. Currently I have Andy and Adam vaguely on board, which is the best that one can hope for, given that this is all just the fever dream of a sleepy student stuck in an extremely tedious class. Yes, I can play several instruments, no I can’t play any of them well. Yes, I can dissect a beat in infinite ways and reassemble it in horrific patterns, but honestly, where has that gotten me since 1991? This, like everything, is just a joke, a grand ruse, a terrible scheme to distract myself from the tedium of day to day life.
Noah got a tiny acoustic guitar for his birthday. I have seen them before and I know that they cost around $30. I can’t keep it in tune, but I can tune it and play it, which is endlessly entertaining. Maybe I should take beginning guitar next semester as an elective so I can spend loan money on an acoustic. It’s just so much work to plug in the electric guitar, and then I always worry about pissing off the neighbors. On the other hand, my neighbor Jesse (hooray) plays the trumpet, so he might not care so much as long as it is during normal hours. We’ll see what happens.
Oh yeah, I had an EPA and a Hefe, because we have both in the fridge all the time. Did I mention that I get free Summit? If you were to come over and relax on the deck you could enjoy one with me. I also deliver.
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Written on Wednesday, the 13th of July, 2005 at 7:22 pm and was filed under:
Music,
Food
Rumor has it that I might be heading to the basement to drink beer and lay down some tracks for the new band, since I have the four track, a cassette, a microphone, and a fridge full of delicious beer for the drinking. I sure hope that I like Summit, because that is what I will be drinking. Is today a Pale Ale day? Perhaps Hefe Weisen?
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Written on Wednesday, the 13th of July, 2005 at 1:44 pm and was filed under:
Music,
school
We call him him “New Gabe.” I was listening to mp3s, but then he told me that he had found out the name of the song that I remembered from Radio K back in the day: “Make Me a Sandwich” by TS/MattiX, probably off of the Mechanical Man E.P. released on Deviant Subculture. Zach said that he would use his secret former-DJ powers to see if he could get more info for me so that I could acquire that song for my own nefarious uses. After that, I put on Radio K, and Zach told me to turn it off because his speakers were better, so he put it on. Gabe should be gone every day.
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Written on Wednesday, the 13th of July, 2005 at 12:28 am and was filed under:
Photography
Seriously, I’m going to do my homework now, but first I wanted to put my final project from Rhet 3102: Digital Photography online in a non-pdf form. OpenOffice exported my slides as awful html. I should just replace them with a php page, but I am too lazy, so I made an album in my gallery.
http://gallery.jpmullan.com/2005RhetPhotoProject
Yes, I was up until 6am finishing this back in May. The captions are on the last page on purpose.
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Written on Tuesday, the 12th of July, 2005 at 11:25 pm and was filed under:
Diversions,
Cars,
Bikes
Going up the hill in front of the house felt like flying. I feel like I could use a taller top gear like I had on the black devil bike that would chant “faster faster” as I chased cars in the few flat parts of Stillwater in 1991. I’m lucky that I never died, what with the helmetless riding and all. I think that bike was stolen or I just broke too many teeth off of the chainring. Maybe both. I hope so, bike stealing jerks — let’s see you sell my $5 bike that my dad bought in some random dude’s back yard. That bike didn’t shift properly either.
This isn’t really bike related, but I’m actually only spending $25 a month on gas plus $70 on parking. That makes the bike-related savings even slimmer if I don’t ditch the green car (another $50 per month if I do). Oh yeah, that is indeed bike related.
There is a wonder called the U Pass which is like unlimited bus riding for a semester for like $90. $70? That right there is the ultimate savings, so that is probably what I will do, except that I can’t afford it right now. HAHAHA I LOVE YOU UNIVERSITY AUTOMATED PROCESSES. Jerks. GIVE ME THE MONEY THAT WAS LOANED TO ME A MONTH AND A HALF AGO.
Time to do homework. I’m not even slightly tired.
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Written on Tuesday, the 12th of July, 2005 at 10:54 pm and was filed under:
Diversions,
Politics,
Bikes
I think that the heat is starting to break. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for my unprovoked lawn mowing and bike tuneup-ing. Tuning up. One of the spokes is broken, but I got a bunch of gunk out of the chain, straightened out the mounting of the rear wheel, and put air in the tires. I rode in circles a little bit, but I was too lazy to go in and get my helmet so I could ride around the neighborhood.
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Written on Tuesday, the 12th of July, 2005 at 10:12 pm and was filed under:
Photography,
Family
Even if he’s just your faux brother. When I was mowing the lawn he got out his plastic lawn mower. When Lisa was watering the flowers with a bucket of water from Noah’s kiddie pool, Noah was following her with a smaller bucket, spilling water everywhere. I didn’t see it today, but every day when Stan comes home Noah screams “DADDY” and gives him big hugs and stuff.
This all makes my uterus hurt.
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Written on Tuesday, the 12th of July, 2005 at 12:25 am and was filed under:
Wallowing
What an awesome day! I overslept and was woken up by a tiny distant voice which dragged me out of unconsciousness into a blurry staggering awareness. My head was full of bricks as I leaned over the railing to see Noah at the bottom of the stairs calling for me to wake up. Normally this is just the sort of thing to make me smile and amble genially into the shower, but I had seen the clock even with my glasses off and I knew that I was very late already. Getting to the stairs without my glasses on might give you an indication of how tired I was — I put on my glasses like some people breathe. If you see me without my glasses while I am awake, you should probably worry about me.
http://jpmullan.com/blog/51
Anyway, somehow I managed to transform my morning routine from an hour to just twenty minutes. I then got into my sauna to drive to work. At work I was crabby, Paul was crabby, and I had to work on the designers’ Mac again, where I don’t have a login. That means that my bookmarks are not my own and I can’t run a real mail client that remembers my username and password, so I had to use the U’s awful web mail client. I can’t plug in my mp3 player to charge it, and Paul uses speakers so I have to either tune that out or buy in completely.
When I don’t have my bookmarks in the browser, I view them online, with a redirect script to hide the bookmarks page from prying eyes. This is usually plenty of protection, except, of course, when I go to read the blog of someone who is as obsessive about viewing their web stats as I am, who follows the referrer back to my redirect script and then figures out the domain name so they can read page after page of my blog but not comment and not email. That leaves me only with my robot friends who visit and try to let the world know the wonders of the sites that they represent. Hint: the sites involve cards. I am suddenly deleting 30 of those a day, which makes the comments of random strangers that much more precious.
I was crabby all day, which is the wrong way to get through life. I took a hard nap when I got home, one that was so good it hurt. My hands fell asleep and when I woke up my mouth tasted like hotdogs. Now that’s a power nap! I got a hold of Paul on AIM and we apologized to each other for being crabby jerks. He had been drinking downtown — possibly by himself. Dear Paul: are you okay?
Later, Cake Woman called me. We had a nice chat, but then what? We have a very strange friendship — she’s one of the few people who can make me laugh my ass off, but I’m like a C list friend so we never do anything, especially now that I can’t hook her up with any more free Maibock. She doesn’t read my blog, she’s never seen my photography (except of her cake and that night when I got super really hammered and walked to the Lake of the Isles). Oh well, I’m not gonna mess with anything that nets me free cake and excellent music recommendations.
As you might have guessed, I’m wide awake again, but I think that I will be able to get to sleep soon. Cross your fingers. I think that tomorrow might call for all the songs that make do the Humpty Hump, back to back, at maximum volume. That may lead to me dancing.
Maybe not.
P.S.: Two whole people did the obsessive thing besides me, so I am at least outnumbered. HAha.
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Written on Monday, the 11th of July, 2005 at 11:53 pm and was filed under:
Photography,
Me
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Written on Monday, the 11th of July, 2005 at 2:30 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
Fine, if you’re going to search, I will have something for you: DeeDee without her makeup.
Hot: http://www.travelblog.ca/photo.php?id=150
Not: http://www.travelblog.ca/photo.php?id=276
Also: a funny epinion about the show: http://www.epinions.com/content_181919518340
Just as a reminder, Noah LOVES this show. I lose brain cells when I watch it, so it’s a bit like drinking, only without the sticky feeling later.
If you missed the earlier post, it is here: http://jpmullan.com/blog/261.
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