I like this blogging during the week, not blogging on the weekends thing we've got going on. It makes it look like we have lives and things to do on the weekend. I'm pretty sure we don't, but the illusion is nice.

I've tried twice to buy Lynyrd Skynyrd's "(pronounced le-nerd skin-nerd)" album. The first time, I didn't look at the record inside the sleeve and came home with a Who album I already own. This time, I bought it for a dollar (which should have been my first clue) only to find out the record is scratchy beyond belief. You can make out the music over the scratches, but it ain't pretty. So hopefully the third time is a charm because I'm not going to let this be my copy of this album, and this album kills. Go to hell if you want to make fun of my classic rock like my brother. He made fun of the fact that I got Jethro Tull's "Aqualung." Whatever man.

I have another hilarious anecdote from Skype at work:

[4:11:33 PM] Adam Jones: on an application to go to this school:
SPIRITUAL INFORMATION
13. Date of your salvation (or approximate):

[4:11:56 PM] Marta: you're joking right?

[4:12:07 PM] Adam Jones: nope

[4:12:09 PM] Marta: OH

[4:12:11 PM] Marta: wait i see

[4:12:23 PM] Marta: the day you said "yes, i take jesus to be etc so on and so forth"

[4:12:34 PM] Marta: not day you will be taken up into heaven in glowing white robes

[4:12:37 PM] Marta: hahaha

[4:12:38 PM] Marta: that's fantastic

[4:12:45 PM] Adam Jones: haha. yeah i think that's right

[4:12:46 PM] Marta: can i put down 12/4/1807

[4:12:48 PM] Marta: and claim previous lives

[4:12:51 PM] Adam Jones: if you're a WITCH

[4:12:57 PM] Marta: or will they look down on that?

[4:13:02 PM] Marta: i'm a heretic

[4:13:03 PM] Adam Jones: i think you probably will not get accepted

[4:13:11 PM] Marta: damn

[4:13:13 PM] Marta: oh wait

[4:13:20 PM] Marta: do you think they look down upon cursing too?

[4:13:27 PM] Adam Jones: they also require a current picture, so you can always hope that will overcome your going-to-hell-edness

[4:13:42 PM] Marta: what if it's a naughty picture?

[4:13:47 PM] Adam Jones: i think they do. they actually ask "19. Do you use the lord's name in vain __yes __no"

[4:13:48 PM] Marta: think that will help or hurt?

[4:13:51 PM] Marta: wow

[4:13:55 PM] Marta: what school is this?!

[4:14:03 PM] Adam Jones: i think that will help actually, from what i hear about pastors in the news

[4:14:20 PM] Marta: if i were a 8 year old little boy that might help too

[4:14:21 PM] Adam Jones: this is champion baptist college, and i made up that number 19

[4:14:29 PM] Marta: Champion Baptist

[4:14:30 PM] Marta: wow

[4:14:33 PM] Marta: wow

[4:14:34 PM] Marta: that's all i can say

[4:14:39 PM] Adam Jones: that's true. i bet if you sent in a picture of a naked 8 year old you would A)get into this school, and B)go to jail
---

Christian colleges are so weird dude. So weird.

I saw Funny People last night finally. Kind of funny, lots of good dick jokes, as per the usual with Apatow and crew. I appreciated what they were trying to do by making a serious funny movie, but Adam Sandler played his character with such despair that it was hard to be jovial, and I don't think the movie reached the goal it set for itself. Still not bad. Next up: Inglourious Basterds. Tomorrow, Cam and I brainstorm ideas for movies or shows that will make us so filthy rich I will spit on all of you poor jerks. Thursday, John and I catch up on what it's like being married/not married. Then the weekend. Partay?

Seriously, this blogging thing is out of control. Check it out: updates on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, AND Friday of this week? That's almost a full week, according to my sources who know how many days in a week there are. (These sources, however, fail to tell me when something is horribly, horribly not funny. Which is why the joke you just read made it to press.)

The milk I buy around here has a weird name. Every time I go to pick it up, I always question my purchase. "Do I really need milk?" I say to myself. Because it's called Cream-O-Land. Yeah, kind of gross.

I went to the Museum of Modern Art today to check out an exhibition for grad school. More on this in a second. But, afterward, on my way home, I stopped to get some food. I ate in the restaurant and watched people, as I normally do. As I sat there, in downtown Flushing (which is the largest Chinatown I've ever seen), an Asian-looking guy came in. Now, this guy is probably close to my age, maybe a little older. But his distinguishing feature is his hair. It's like a mix of dreadlocks-meets-Marge-Simpson. It's ridiculous. And right there along with him was (who I can only presume to be) his attractive (and normal) looking white girlfriend. What gives? Why's he lucky enough to find a relationship while I, with decidedly average hair, am not? No justice, I tell you. No justice.

So, this MoMA exhibit. It's by a Chinese artist named Song Dong (let's keep the chuckles to a minimum, please). Here's a link with some pictures and a video. It's really an installation piece more than anything. It's a collection of stuff -- clothes, bottles, records, chairs -- that Dong's mother collected over the years. It's based around the Chinese concept of "waste not," which was part of their idea behind survival. So his mother would collect these things and never dispose of them because she never knew when they might end up being useful. Of course, most of these items are, admittedly, junk. It's stuff that you normally wouldn't ever find a use for. But Dong explains in a little mini-essay printed along one of the walls that the exhibit has two purposes. The first is an environmental message: look at the waste we accumulate. That's the easy one to grasp. But the second purpose was a surprise. After Dong's father died in 2002, his mother went through a severe grieving process. So what Dong suggested was that he and his mother sort and inventory all of their possessions. And that's what led to the display in the exhibit. It was a way for his mother to literally and figuratively reconstruct her life. To re-establish herself. To get her life in order. Dong also put a neon message along one of the walls written in Chinese. It translates to: "Dad, don't worry, mum and we are fine."

Maybe it's because my own dad died so close to Dong's. I don't know. But, for whatever reason, after reading that essay, his one piece -- a collection of junk -- evoked in me the most emotional reaction I had my entire time at the museum. None of the other pieces of art in that museum came close to affecting me as strongly. Oh, and the post-script to this is that his mother died just recently -- within the year.

But here's the reason I bring it up. (Finally! A point!) I feel like Dong's installation perfectly represents my view towards fulfilling works of art -- be it a book, movie, TV show, painting, whatever. It requires effort from the viewer. In this case, you have to read. You have to stop and spend fifteen minutes to read. But you're rewarded by learning about this very personal experience. However, other people who don't put in the effort, all they see is a collection of junk.

I'd just like to share a couple of conversations from work today with you all:

[3:05:43 PM] Adam Jones: yeah i've started checking out the gym at the top of my building because i have finally decided it would not kill me to lose 30 pounds or so. it also would not kill me to be able to shit gold, but both of those things have an equal likelihood of happening
---
That's not really a conversation, but I'm fucking hilarious. Next!
---
[4:18:00 PM] Adam Jones: only one of the three black people who went to school at this place graduated

[4:18:19 PM] Kelly: that is a horrible statistic! they should try and remove that one

[4:18:33 PM] Adam Jones: whereas one of the two hispanics did. therefore, hispanics are the superior race

[4:18:45 PM] Adam Jones: oh those are just the men

[4:18:55 PM] Adam Jones: every single one of the one black woman who went there graduated

[4:19:06 PM] Kelly: hahahah! women rule

[4:19:07 PM] Adam Jones: and neither of the two hispanic women did

[4:19:11 PM] Kelly: oh

[4:19:45 PM] Adam Jones: so actually the black race is far superior with a total of two out of four, versus one out of four for the hispanics. glad i settled that debate

[4:20:20 PM] Kelly: i don't really feel is was a participating member of this debat...but i'm glad you settled it
---
Also, I've listened to two of the three Bouncing Souls 7"s that I have from this 20th Anniversary series, and both of them have a weird thing where the record will not go onto song 4 from song 3. This is annoying because I have to get up, push the arm forward over the weird skipping part, and then I miss the first couple seconds of the song. I'm going to listen to the 3rd in the series in a couple of minutes, so we'll see if this is some kind of weird attempt at a "secret song" or what.

I don't really think I know very much about Ted Kennedy, but I was surprisingly saddened at his death. I mean I knew he was sick and probably at the end of his rope so it wasn't a surprise, but I kind of feel like a lot of the intelligence and grace was sucked out of the Earth's atmosphere.

Got my tickets in the mail for the Gaslight Anthem/Murder By Death/Frank Turner show today. That is going to be so good. Speaking of shows, the Avett Brothers (pronounced, much to my dismay, AY-vet) show was awesome. Wasn't real big on the first band, someone something and the Sound Outside. But the Avett Brothers killed it man. They take FOREVER between songs, but that's because they're switching instruments. The banjo player runs to the drums, the guitarist goes to a keyboard, the bass player goes from standup to guitar style bass. The crazy Asian cellist was awesome even if I didn't imagine a kung-fu master from the 80's to be in their tour band. The new album I and Love and You is going to be awesome from the few songs they played at the show, if a little more rock and a little less bluegrass. It was weird that they were on tour right BEFORE the album comes out so you couldn't buy it at the show and nobody knew any of the new songs. But whatever. Soon I will be getting tickets for Lucero in October. I'm glad they're coming back so quickly after the last debacle where I didn't buy tickets ahead of time and we went and could not get in. Lesson learned! Their new album sounds promising too, even if I'm not totally sure about the inclusion of horns and keyboards on almost every song. I pre-ordered the album and got like 5 songs in mp3 form and a couple of those are some of the best Lucero songs I've heard.

I kind of dig blogging again. I've been emailing myself stuff from work to blog about on here when I get home. About a third of that makes it, but at least I'm trying. Also I was motivated by Des in two ways. First, she started blogging. Second, she said "Brian blogs way more than you and I don't even know that guy." Take that, Brian! Or me. Take that, The Irreverent Times editorial staff.

Alright, here's the "thrilling" conclusion to this little trip to Arizona.

You come over a hill and there's Old Bisbee, houses seemingly placed at random on a mountain side. One day we drove around there. Terrifying one-lane-but-two-way streets at 70 degree angles lead from old colorful house to old colorful house. Bisbee has burned to the ground 3 or 4 times in its history, and it's no wonder. Not only would fire just work its way right up the mountain from the floor to the highest house very quickly, but there's no way a fire truck could make it around these hairpin turns at these angles. All you could really do would be stand back and watch until everything was gone, then rebuild.

Bisbee is an artist colony now, and artists are fucking weird. Houses are brightly colored and "interestingly" decorated. There are "art cars" (maybe you've heard of this, but I hadn't) that are basically old junkers with all kinds of shit glued to them. one had the Arizona desertscape "painted" on the side in differently colored bottlecaps, and lots of figurines glued to the top. One is a lion, one is a shark, one is Hillary Clinton. You'd think these cars would sit at a visible juncture as a testament to the artist's creativity, but these people actually DRIVE these things around. Artists are fucking weird.









The border to Mexico is pretty much what you'd expect, except that it cuts the town of Naco in half. There is Naco, AZ and Naco, Mexico, and the only difference you can see is the border guard station right there making sure you're not taking things into or out of either country. I did notice the people coming from Mexico into the US were detained longer than people headed into Mexico. Mexican school children were walking from their school in the US to their homes in Mexico. I wanted to walk into Mexico but I was told either I would be killed in drug violence immediately upon exiting the station, or I wouldn't be let back into the US because I didn't have I passport. I decided staring longingly into Mexico would do for now.

My hotel sits about 5 miles from the border. If you look out the window at night you can see the border wall all lit up. The wall is six miles long. Past the wall on either side is barbed wire, easy enough to cut through. Then there is miles of desert. Bushes to hide in. The border patrol is everywhere in southeast AZ, but it's easy with such a vast expanse of land to see how a lot of people could sneak by. Or die in the desert. Hundreds of people die out there each year. A couple of nights there were ferocious lightning storms behind a mountain miles into Mexico. It seems a world away, impossible to ever reach or see. I stare at it for minutes at a time and wonder what is happening there, only miles form here but another universe entirely.
The last morning in my hotel sink there is a scorpion. I scream like a little girl and run out. I don't shower. I'm sitting in the Tucson airport feeling pretty dirty and pretty wussy, but a two inch scorpion is basically the single scariest thing I've ever seen. I stared at it for a few minutes and could feel its beady eyes staring back at me, sizing me up. It was not as scared of me as I was of it.
Ev is a fascinating man. He worked for NASA for a while and let me hold a piece of the space shuttle's heat shield. It's surprisingly light and feels like a harder version of styrofoam. You can hold your hand under it while a blowtorch heats it until it turns bright read and you won't feel anything. It's about an inch thick.
I had several awesome meals. The best Italian food I've ever had was at Rosa's, a restaurant that' open when it feels like it and requires reservations - a strange combination. What wasn't a strange combination was the chicken and what seemed to be pounds of cheese. The next night we ate at a place called the Outside Inn, which, aside form its stupid name, was an awesome meal of veal and shrimp in sauce made from what I can only assume was God's blood. Well, back to Denver. Adios.


So that's the end. Pardon the changes in tense, as I wrote it at several different times and couldn't remember what I'd been doing. I am not a good writer. Also, please forgive the formatting. I give up.

The Christopher O'Riley show last night was awesome. He played for about two hours, not including the ten-minute break between sets. The first set was mostly stuff from his new album, but the second set was largely Radiohead-based. He opened the second set with "Airbag," "Subterranean Homesick Alien," and "No Surprises." Then he jumped into a three-song Elliott Smith block, circled back to a few songs from his new album, then closed with "Paranoid Android." His encore was "Fake Plastic Trees" and "You." It was pretty fantastic. If you feel like reading essentially the same thing, but a little bit longer (and with a picture), then you can check out the review from The New York Times.

The new Weezer album -- I can't even make myself say the title -- is just sounding worse and worse. The first single is apparently titled "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To." That's funny, because I most definitely DON'T want you to. Release this record.

So here's how strongly I dislike the idea of smoking cigarettes: The butane lighter I stole from a drunk guy at 5AM in Richmond back in 2002 finally ran out of butane. (Okay, okay. I can't just write a sentence like that and not reveal an amusing anecdote: This guy was so drunk that one of his friends, wanting something from the vending machine, told the guy that he had to fork over some cash quickly because "the vending machines are closing soon." It worked. Because this guy was just that drunk. So my stealing his cool lighter wasn't some deftly performed theft, it was just me waiting until he passed out.) Anyway, so I had to buy a new lighter. I figured the local Walgreen's would be a good place to go. I walked in and quickly realized I had no idea where they would keep lighters. I had a hunch that they'd be behind the counter along with the cigarettes, but I wasn't sure. So, after a couple minutes of searching, I went up to the front with nothing in hand. I confidently asked the cashier (because, come on, I didn't want to make it seem like I had no fucking clue where the lighters were) for a lighter. The cashier turned around and there, practically on the floor, completely not visible at all, were the lighters. Then she asked me what color I wanted. This question threw me off. "Uh, whatever," I said. "Red okay?" she responded. "Yeah, sure," I said. So I got a red lighter. People who know more about these things than me: does the color of a lighter mean anything? If so, what does getting a red one mean? Is this like reading one's tea-leaves?

Anyway, the point is, buying the lighter caused extensive-and-long-lasting psychological trauma that will require years and years of-- okay, I'm over it. I just felt weird, that's all.

Weezer has announced the title of their new album. The one with the previously mentioned "I'm Your Daddy," "The Girl Got Hot," and "Can't Stop Partying." The title? Raditude. However, using the power of the internet, I was able to obtain a list of other titles Weezer was throwing around:

• Slushie Bong
• Tuboobular
• Brahsome
• Radical (Rivers Cuomo deemed this title "too tame.")
• Rock Cock
• Funksicle
• Charles Gnarly (later scrapped when the band worried too many people would confuse it with popular musical act Gnarls Barkley.)
• Booze Groove
• Rockrageous
• Roid Rage

Edit: Whoa. In the time it took me to come up with these stupid names, Adam made an actual post. Sorry, "brah," didn't mean to steal your thunder.

So I'll be posting this travel journal in sections, because I'm lazy and it's a lot to read at once. I'll also be putting in images, provided I can figure that out, where appropriate. Prepare to be dazzled! But first, the intro. I called this "Prologue" in my journal, but I'm going to amend that title to "Adam Bitches About Flying." Enjoy!

The thing about flying is it sucks. Not the actual flight, but the amount of time you have to prepare for it. An 8:17am flight on the surface doesn't seem that terrible, but when you factor in getting to the airport an hour in advance, you're at 7:15. The shuttle from the parking lot makes it 6:45. The drive to the airport makes it 6:00. Waking up and getting ready makes it 5:30. At the latest.
Then there's the airport. People don't know what the fuck they're doing in the airport. I'm not saying I'm the world's most experienced traveler, but so far I've yet to meet an airport that was exceptionally difficult to figure out. Signs point you to check in, baggage claim, your airline, etc. People stand dazed in front of the self help kiosks, as if the concept of reading and hitting buttons on a screen is totally new and foreign. I wouldn't care about any of this, but the legions of the lost and the damned milling about in the airport makes it a maze of zombies and a painful waiting game behind the clueless.
Flying is by far the most painless part of the experience. After paying $10 for an eight inch sub at the airport and waiting for 45 minutes for the gates to open with children screaming and running around and their parents pretending not to notice, you can finally board the plane and wait for another half hour on the plane for grown adults to figure out the plane's cryptic seat numbering system. Inevitably, someone will ask you to switch seats with them because somehow they didn't get seats with their companion, and God forbid they have to be apart for an hour and a half. I've gotten used to saying no and not feeling guilty about it because it's always someone who wants me to give up my aisle or window seat in row six to move to their seat between the two largest people on the plane right in front of the rear bathroom, so A) you can't lean back, and B)you can tell what 50 people had for dinner the night before. The reason flying is the best part of flying is once all that's over with, you can put on headphones, close your eyes, and ignore everyone until it's time to land.

And now, I present Section A, Part 1, The Drive from Tucson to Bisbee, or, Why Does Adam Love the Desert So Much?

I worked for Hertz but I'm renting a car from Enterprise. The Tucson airport is so insignificant that I don't actually remember anything before getting to the rental car place. I must have walked through an airport to get there, but your guess is as good as mine as far as what it was like. In Denver when you rent a car there's a manned gate when you're leaving the lot with a guard who verifies that you're in the right car and have permission to take it. In Tucson you get in and drive away.
I fell in love with the desert the first time I saw it at 17 during the Trista years. I'm reminded now of why that is. This place is the Old West. On the two hour drive to Bisbee there are few other cars. Aside from the highway you can look as far as you can see and see nothing but bushes, short trees, and dirt. I have never been able to do the desert justice. It is nature untouched. It's so easy to imagine the pioneers and their wagons making their way to their new homesteads.

Tombstone is a tourist trap full of leather clothing stores, trinket shops, and cowboy hats. That said, standing at one end of the street and looking down it, it's easy to imagine you're back in the Old West. Some of the more well maintained buildings are full of interesting 1800s memorabilia. Bullet holes still in the walls and roofs, stairways to the whore rooms. I looked into the mirror at the bar that every famous wild west cowboy sat at and stared into. I also saw the least appetizing fudge I've ever seen. Dead bees in the food case is not good.

Bisbee is an old copper mining town. I had no idea there were mountains down here, but this town is in them. It reminds me of a Colorado mountain town the way it is just built onto the side of a hill.

The directions I had said "you will pass a big hole in the ground." The Lavender Pit is not a big hole in the ground. It is a slice carved out of the earth. More than a mile across and hundreds of feet deep, it shimmers copper and silver. There is a 12 foot deep "lake" at the bottom that looks like a small puddle from above. You can see turquoise shining in places that the mining company abandoned because turquoise is of no use to copper miners. There's a turquoise jewelry store right aboce the pit that I didn't go into because I have no use for turquoise jewelry. From the road you can't see the bottom of the pit. I'm pretty sure jumping in would be a good way to commit suicide.


That's enough for today. I'll do the rest, or part of the rest, sometime soon. Tonight I go see the Avett Brothers! Tomorrow I go see District 9! Alright!

I am back from Arizona. I have pictures and I wrote a little journal while I was out there. That will be up sometime. I'm filthy and need to take a shower, so that's what's happening now. But be prepared for the most intense blog entry I've ever made. Maybe. (Maybe as in, maybe it's the most intense, and also, maybe I'll actually do that)

Top 5 Beatles Rock Band Songs:
1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help from My Friends
3. I'm Looking Through You
4. I am the Walrus
5. Helter Skelter
6. Get Back
7. Don't Let Me Down
8. Come Together
9. Back in the USSR
10. A Hard Day's Night

Those are not 5, nor are they in any particular order, but they're the 10 I'm most looking forward to. 11 is the fucking Abbey Road full album download, because fucking Abbey Road is the best fucking album ever made. Pardon my french. Fucker.

Greetings. It's been a busy week around these parts. ("These parts" being New York. Not Bisbee, AZ. Though I can assume that Adam had a non-stop week of drunken debauchery in a place called Bisbee, AZ.) Tuesday night wasn't a huge deal. Just went to the gigantic Barnes and Noble in Union Square where Regina Spektor played a handful of songs for free. You know, your typical yawn-fest. Tell me when something exciting happens around here.

In all seriousness, though, it was awesome. It was part of the Upstairs at the Square event, where writers and artists share the stage. Sadly, the entire crowd was there for Regina. No one seemed to know the name and/or gender of the writer. (It was a guy. Don't ask me for his name, because I don't know it. But hey, I do know it's a guy, at least. [Actually -- and this is just an excuse for me to use an embedded parenthetical -- his name is Kurt Anderson. You can check out a video of the performance/reading here.])

Yesterday was another big day. I went to go see a taping of The Daily Show. It involved lots of waiting around, but it was totally worth it. After the show, Jon came out and discussed the health care issue with us. He wanted to hear some people's opinions in the audience. I already admired the guy, but this was just incredible. It wasn't a long discussion -- five minutes, maybe -- but still. Just the fact that he took the time to hear what we had to say, then to respond extemporaneously and articulately. Damn, it was cool.

After that, I went to the movie theater in Union Square for the nation-wide live screening of the Rifftrax event. I can see I've probably lost most of you. You were on board for Regina Spektor and The Daily Show. But what the hell is Rifftrax? After the (second [and final]) cancellation of Mystery Science Theater 3000, three of the primary writers/cast members formed a similar venture called Rifftrax. Same exact idea as MST3K: they take cheesy movies and add their own commentary that makes the movie hilarious. Last night they did a live riffing of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Now, I had never seen Plan 9 before, but I'd heard it's considered one of the worst movies ever. And, sure enough, it's bad. Real bad. But it's so bad it's funny. The commentary was pretty good, but there were times when I just watched the movie itself and laughed.

On the horizon: Christopher O'Riley Monday night. I cannot wait. He takes popular songs (mostly Radiohead, but his new album is a bunch of different artists) and transforms them into solo-piano pieces. Unfortunately, the songs up on his MySpace page aren't my favorites, but it gives you a sense of what he does. I'm really hoping he plays "Fake Plastic Trees," "Black Star," "Let Down," and "Karma Police." We shall see.

Post #76! Yeah! Take that, other blogs that update every day! What?

Time for the weekend update. And by "weekend," I really mean "Saturday," as that was the eventful day of the weekend. Started by going to see Bubble, a band that will occasionally perform as a Beatles cover band. They did the entire Sgt. Pepper's album straight through. Very awesome. They were also accompanied by a full band, which made numbers like "A Day in the Life" all that much better. After they finished Sgt. Pepper's, they performed six tracks off Magical Mystery Tour: "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Magical Mystery Tour," "The Fool on the Hill," "Penny Lane," "I Am the Walrus," and "All You Need is Love." It was a really neat show. And completely free, I might add.

After that, I read in Central Park for close to two hours. Then I met up with Janine, who showed me a cool Venezuelan restaurant called Caracas. They serve some great arepas, but the guacamole-based dip in their chips-and-dip is incredible. Seriously, the best dip I've ever had with chips. Then we washed it down with this sugary-lime concoction that was way more refreshing than Sprite will ever be.

Now to tackle a couple of previously discussed points, starting with the "hall of mirrors." This remains one of Spooky's favorite attractions in the apartment. I took some pictures, thus proving two things: 1)That he really does exist. And 2)That it really is "drippy, dude," as I so articulately stated. So yeah, trip out, man.



(Maybe you noticed I'm brushing my teeth while taking these pictures. Again, professionalism!)

Finally, yes, The Beatles: Rock Band. Amazing. I'll be picking it up and then going to class. That class will feel interminable. Then I will return to my apartment and bask in the glory that will be this game. It's too bad, Adam, that we have different consoles, as it'd be cool to play this co-op. Quick, the top 5 (er, let's make that 10. I had too much trouble with just 5) songs you're most excited to play:

1. Twist and Shout
2. Revolution
3. And Your Bird Can Sing
4. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
5. Octopus' Garden
6. Here Comes the Sun
7. Paperback Writer
8. With a Little Help from My Friends
9. I Feel Fine
10. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

And I'm psyched about the full-album downloads, but I hope Revolver comes out soon. As does Help!.

I'm sitting here listening to the Rise Against 7" that Fat put out and I'm thinking how sad it is that Rise Against is forced to put out their two excellent hardcore punk songs on this medium instead of throwing them onto their CD and breaking up the mid-paced pop-punk monotony that I'm assuming the major label forces them to fill their CDs up with now. I'm not saying that their albums recently have been bad, but it wouldn't hurt to actually put some punk rock songs on there. Listen to the newest one and tell me you don't miss the few harder songs from RPM. That said, Savior is really fun to play on drums in Rock Band.

Speaking of Rock Band, if you're not standing outside your local Best Buy at this point awaiting the release of Beatles Rock Band, you don't know what you're doing. As I type this, the anticipation in this parking lot is growing faster than something that grows fast. And I'm the only one here waiting. So think about that. Seriously though, I might have to quit my job and forsake my friends when that game comes out. I hope no one has a birthday anytime within a couple weeks of 9/9, because I won't remember. I also hope no one wants to go to dinner or do anything, unless they want to come over and play Beatles Rock Band. This game is going to be so sick. So, so sick.

Now I'm listening to the Gaslight Anthem Sink or Swim Demos 7". And I'm excited to report that I will be going to see them with this awesome lineup: Them, Murder by Death, The Loved Ones, and Frank Turner. Hell yes. I'm also going to see the Avett Brothers with my sister in a couple of Saturdays. Hell yes. I love love love being close to concerts. In sadder news, I'm sorry to report that I missed the RX Bandits, et al tour that Brian saw when it came through Denver. Next time. I'm also saddened to report that I missed Gomez when they came through town because I had to go to a work conference. The worst part of that was that we already had tickets and I had to stand up Cam because I'm a loser and didn't equate the dates of this work thing and the concert. Oh well. They'll come around again. I hope.

Now I'm watching Lost. I decided to start it all over again to see if I could pick up on some things I didn't get the first time through or don't remember. I've become aware that there are people in this world who don't watch Lost, and in fact are pretty adamant about never watching it. I don't really understand this phenomenon. Lost is one of the most beautifully shot, interesting shows I have ever seen on TV. It's amazing the job that the show's creators did building mysteries and more or less logically solving them, seasons later. Watching the show again from the beginning, I've picked up on things in season one that aren't answered until season five. It's pretty unfathomable to me that the people working on this show had an entire incredibly complicated six-season story planned out from the very beginning, but it kind of looks like either they did, or they've got a remarkable ability to come up with this stuff off the tops of their heads and make it look like they had it all planned out. With the first four seasons out on DVD, the fifth in the books, and the final season being prepped for early next year, I'd really encourage everyone to go get the first four seasons, watch them from the beginning, and see what you've been missing. If you've already seen the show, I'd recommend watching it again to remind yourself of what happened in the beginning before the soon to be totally awesome or totally terrible final season comes on.

Well, I'm off to Bisbee, AZ. I'll be back on Friday. Sayonara.

I am alive and well. I know you were all concerned. Let's all thank Brian for forging ahead with this thing and doing his best to break the single year record for posts on this, the world's absolute best and most essential blog... IN THE WORLD!

Let me illustrate the differences between working at a soulless, faceless, cold hearted corporation and working for a small company. I see my boss every day. I feel like I'm actually working towards something. In three and a half years at Hertz I never did anything fun. Our meetings were held quickly over the phone in the back office and usually involved me getting yelled at for stuff I had little to no control over. In three weeks at Morton Publishing I have been paid attention to, went to Vail for a long weekend/sales meeting, and generally had a good time. Plus I get paid the same thing I used to and I work probably 15 hours a week less than I used to. Ah, publishing.

Also, now I live in Denver, which is good because: A) I can walk to dinner at a number of fine establishments; B) I can get to most concerts in less than 20 minutes; C) The cityscape out my window at night is awesome; D) There are people my age down here, and people of other races; E) I can walk to an awesome record store that specializes in punk and indie records; F) Other; G) All of the above. However, it's also bad because A) I don't know many people here; B) It's EXPENSIVE; C) This place has no parking, which means street parking, which means long walks sometimes and parallel parking, which has never been one of my strengths; D) The water in my apartment is sometimes disturbingly brown. But, what the hell. Might as well try city living while I'm young, single, and oh so sexy.

I am watching the news. The news is stupid. I don't want to hear about why the news isn't stupid, because it is. I'm watching a story about kids going to college. Kids going to college are stupid. I don't want to hear about why kids going to college aren't stupid, because they are. Except I have them to thank for buying our books and keeping me employed. Also, with the news, the stupid little banter they have between stories is stupid. I don't want to hear... well, you get the picture.

I hate not having a DVR. I am watching commercials again, and they suck. I hadn't watched commercials in years and it was awesome. So what I do instead now is watch way more DVDs and Netflix on demand on the Xbox. So let's talk about commercials real quick. Have you ever been influenced to buy or do something because of a commercial? Like sure, when I see a new food come out at a place that I like to eat, I want to go try it. But have you been influenced to buy Charmin because of a commercial? Have you been influenced to get new carpet because of a commercial? I think most people go to the bathroom or talk to each other or change the channel when commercials come on. So it just seems like a weird format. Nobody pays attention to them, but we have to have them because they pay for the shows that we watch. If they didn't pay for the shows, we'd have to pay way more for TV probably. I also take offense with the fact that I have to pay money to watch people try to sell me things, but whatever. This long, winding, nowhere-going argument for and against commercials has been brought to you be Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish: now with Flavor Blasted Xtra Cheddar flavor in those huge cartons that will feed you for six months.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadios

Interesting (perhaps) fun (questionable) fact (undisputed): In my 25 years of existence, I've never once cut myself while picking up glass. Interesting and fun, huh? Now, it's not like collecting and disposing of glass shards is a pastime of mine. This isn't an everyday occurrence. I don't hold the world record for "Most Amount of Glass Picked Up in a Single Lifetime." (Though I often wish I did.) Still, when the situation arises, I can swoop in, get things back to order, and we don't have to break out eight feet of gauze.

Insert the "you can predict what happens next" music...

So, today I cut myself while picking up glass. It kinda hurt. And, for such a tiny puncture, I was surprised at how much blood came out. Not gushing, but definitely flowing. Thankfully, I didn't end up needing gauze (though, while I was sitting by the sink, rinsing out the wound, I wish I had some), but I did go through a few band-aids in about ten minutes. And now I have a band-aid wrapped around the tip of my finger, which makes typing all of this out rather difficult. But that's just how dedicated I am (to the cause of updating you with mundane goings-on in my life).

Also, I apologize for the graphic nature of this post. I should've posted a warning at the top. I understand if you're feeling queasy. I also understand if you laughed just now while reading the word "queasy." It's really very hard for me to take anyone who says "queasy" seriously. Anyway, if you're feeling nauseous, I apologize. As a result, I think we can just gloss over why, exactly, I had to pick up broken glass. No need to discuss the details. It's safe to assume I was acting in my ever-present sound judgment and surely not doing something boneheadedly stupid. Like, say, trying to hang a picture frame containing a vinyl record by a single thumbtack. Ha! Who'd even TRY that?

I don't know what it takes to become an honorary British citizen, but I feel like I'm halfway-to-six-elevenths of the way there. (Fractions were never my strong suit. Maybe because, deep down, I'm better tailored for the METRIC SYSTEM? [I realize they still use fractions with the metric system, but I was going for the cheap joke. (Guess it didn't PAY OFF! [Sorry. (Man, I really love embedded parentheticals, huh? [Totes!])])]) (Speaking of embedded parentheticals, when I finally tie the loose ends together, it looks like some tricked-out emoticon. [Maybe a double-or-triple chinned emoticon? (I like that!)])

What the hell was I talking about five minutes ago? Oh, right. Honorary British citizen. I saw In the Loop and I've been rewatching "The Thick of It." I'm reading The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis. I've been listening to a bunch of Beatles records to prep for the sure-to-be-awesome Beatles: Rock Band. And... I feel like there's one more thing, but I can't think of it.

So, next time you see me, you can go ahead and call me Sir Brian. I'm sure the whole knighthood thing is customary with becoming an honorary citizen, right?

I thought In the Loop was fantastic. If there's a theater around you that's showing it -- and you're not offended by some goddamn, motherfucking, cock-balls-arse language -- then I'd recommend checking it out. Seriously, there's a shitload (sorry, had to) of obscenities. Makes a Kevin Smith movie seem PG. Still, it's all in the name of hilarity.

Okay, now for the real reason I'm posting. I've started writing a quasi-joke poem and I couldn't think of the word I needed. In fact, I still don't know what the word is. Something along the lines of "to say something deep." But in one word. I had "philosophize," but that just doesn't quite seem right. I feel like there's a different, better word. After a few minutes of fruitlessly searching dictionary.com, I type in "say something deep," knowing that it's not going to give me what I need. Instead, I get the following result, via Ask.com: "What are some deep things to say to a girl you want to hook up with?" This is the question posed by a user at Yahoo Answers. Here's the post, verbatim:

Theres this really cool girl ive known for about 2 years and i think we both really like each other but were not officially bf&gf what should i say to her thats really deep ive already tried alot X-x help?

After a handful of answers along the lines of "be yourself," "be nice," blah blah blah, we get to the REAL helpful advice:

Oh dang lets bang

tell her you want to feast on her snatch like thanksgiving dinner BOOOOYAAAA!

i love u and suck my cock pls

Man. If only I had Yahoo Answers in high school.

Check it out. Soon enough, we're going to break our own world-record-setting 75 posts in a given year. This one right here is number 70. I guess I shouldn't jinx anything, though.

I don't know how they run shows out in Colorado (yes, I'm using the ambiguous pronoun "they" because, honestly, I don't know all the intricacies of running a concert), or, for that matter, wherever you're reading this right now, but here's how they run them in DC: If the website says 8PM, that usually means doors are at 8 and music won't start until 8:30, 8:45. Also, if the website says there are four bands playing, I would assume the first band gets maybe 25 minutes, the second band gets 35-40, and the third and fourth bands get an hour or so. Now here's how they do things in New York: If the website says 8PM, the music actually starts at 8PM. If the website says there are four bands, they're lying, because there are really only three. So when an unsuspecting audience member (me) arrives at 9PM expecting to see the second band, it turns out he (me) missed that second band (As Tall As Lions) because they were, in fact, the first band and, moreover, they began promptly at 8. Damn.

I did get to see Dredg in their entirety, as well as Rx Bandits. Both put on a fantastic show. I was surprised that the majority of the crowd was there for Rx Bandits. They went pretty wild during the Bandits' set. Lots of singing along, some crowd-surfing, and even some borderline moshing. Pretty wild. My thanks to Justin Bridgewater, who put me on the guest list and got me VIP status. (i.e. I got to stand on the not-at-all-crowded balcony right by the stage. It was nice.)

My ongoing enjoying-the-fruits-of-the-city-as-well-as-using-hyphens-to-join-words adventures continue today: I'm going to see a movie that's only in limited release. I'm expecting good things from "In the Loop," a British satire/farce of politics/war. It's written and directed by the guy (team?) who did "The Thick of It," a British TV show that's a satire/farce of politics. And since I enjoy "The Thick of It," I'm expecting to like "In the Loop."

My cat is adjusting to the apartment pretty well. I'm on the first floor and some landscapers just came by to mow the lawn, which freaked him out. But, other than that, he seems relatively mellow (for him, anyway). I still worry that this space is too tiny for him, but there are a few attractions that seem to entertain him. Of note: jumping from my bed onto a bookshelf, hopping on counters in the kitchen, and the "hall of mirrors" I make in my bathroom. That one even entertains me. It's trippy, dude.