OK, so I finally have the news about my job status. It seems that while there is a miniscule chance that I might get a job in Duluth, it is highly, highly unlikely.

So, should I desire to move, the USPS is willing to set me up with employment in one of these fine locations. Hoo. Ray. I think I'll move to Warroad. After all, this site says there is at least one place for nightlife -- any camping spot. "Insect repellent is about the only required attire." Racy.

West Fargo, ND
Warroad, MN
Stillwater, MN
Willmar, MN
Fairmont, MN
Grand Marais, MN
Lakefield, MN
Lakeland, MN
Madison, MN
Mankato, MN
Mound, MN
Oronoco, MN
Maple Grove, MN
Park Rapids, MN
Rochester, MN
Saint Cloud, MN
Saint Peter, MN
Sartell, MN
Sauk Centre, MN
Bemidji, MN
Benson, MN
Chanhassen, MN
Eau Claire, WI
Galesville, WI
River Falls, WI
Shell Lake, WI
Spooner, WI
Tomah, WI
--------

| Comments (0)

Back when I was a poor college student, I couldn't afford a computer, and I hated writing my papers in the computer lab. So, I scraped together what money I could and bought a Brother word processor. It was on this clunky machine that I wrote all of my college papers, as well as my own recreational crap, and even some of the first articles published in newspapers after college.

I still have the machine as well as a stack of floppy disks full of stuff I wrote back then. I pulled the whole works out today and did some reading. Wow. I don't remember writing any of this stuff.

I used to do this thing where I would just sit down and start writing, with very little as far as a plan. There was no point to this, it was sort of a brainstorming exercise to see what weird BS I could come up with if I let my mind run free. Check this out:

Father Knows Best

I always wanted a father like the fathers on TV: Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady. I wanted a father who wore a tie and carried a briefcase and went to the office. I wanted a father who called "family meetings" and talked to me "man-to-man."

But my old man was different. He came home at five fifteen with sawdust in his hair. By five twenty-five he was asleep. At five forty-five I'd wake him. He'd take off his coveralls and we'd eat.

His hands were greasy and tipped with thick yellow nails. They looked like a mass of molten black iron and glass: something found in the ruins of a burnt house.

In spite of all this, I tried to act like a TV kid. "Did you bring me anything?" I'd ask. He looked at me as if I were naked.

It occurred to me one day, "Charles Ingalls works with his hands. Maybe he can be like Charles Ingalls."

"That jackass," my old man said.

I stopped my dreaming one Sunday when my old man called from the basement. "Hey junior," he said. "Come down here and help me with this."

He had built this weird looking thing out of a lantern battery, a black metal cylinder, and a mass of copper wire. The whole thing was mounted on a sheet of plywood. "Here, hold this wire," he told me. I did. What did I know? I was ten.

He picked up another wire and grabbed my free hand. The shock hit me like a medicine ball.

Before the electricity left my body, I started to imagine the potential this new toy held. Almost immediately, I was calling for my brother, my mom, the cat.

I wanted to shock the world. Put the fear of Frankenstein into every man and beast. Most of all, I wanted to jold Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, Charles Ingalls.

"That jackass," my old man said.

I think I will post some more of these in the coming days. I do remember this one, since it is a true story, but there are so many that are completely new to me, as if they were written by someone else.

This is fun.

| Comments (0)

--------

| Comments (0)

"I'm sorry," the drunk guy at the bar said to his friends as the Kid Rock song came on the jukebox for the second, perhaps third time that night. "I just love this song so much. I can't help it." Then he stared off into space with a look of sheer ecstacy on his face as Kid Rock did whatever it is that Kid Rock does.

This really struck me, because I think Kid Rock is pretty stupid. I started to think about how even though he does nothing for me, people obviously like something about him, because they consume his albums like crazy. The same goes for so many others.

I've come to the conclusion that a person's chances of liking a particular song or not depend on two things: 1) the person's life experience, and 2) the person's previous exposure to, and appreciation of, other songs up until that very point in time. The variables and elements in this equation are too complex to pin down, exactly. I ask myself, why do I love Gary Jules' cover of the Tears for Fears song, "Mad World" so much? Part of it has to do with the excellent movie Donnie Darko (the Director's Cut was released today on DVD--mine is on the way!) and the scene at the end where that song appears. But I'd go nuts over the song anyway. Why? I have no idea.

I want to make a mix CD consisting of songs that completely grabbed me the first time I heard them, and continue to grab me throughout the years. Hm. This sounds like fun.
--------

| Comments (0)

Here is the post where I'm supposed to brag about what a great weekend I had, all the stuff I did, yadda yadda yadda.

My god did it kick ass. Still, I don't really feel like writing about it, because words can't do it justice.

Video, however, can describe it very well. It pretty much went a lot like this. [WMV, 283Kb]
--------

| Comments (0)

Man, am I ever gleeful today. Today is the first day in my four-day/three-night vacation, which I began last night when I got off work a full two hours early and went immediately to sleep after coming home. I sprang out of bed at the bright and early hour of 10am, and I've been tossing back the caffiene and slacking about ever since.

One of the things I impulsively did today was to wander into Central Sales. I love that store. I don't think I've ever purchased anything there, but holy crap they have a lot of crap there, and luckily I had my camera in tow. Check my Flickr photostream, man. Cherubs playing basketball. 'Nuff said.

In case you missed the overwhelming amount of press coverage, you all need to get yourselves down to the Play Ground (brand spankin' new joint located in the Technology Village) on Friday night at 10pm for the Duluth premiere of Blogumentary a film by my close, personal, warm, fuzzy friend Chuck Olsen. If you're reading this, well, you have an interest in the subject matter, so you need to, like, go and stuff.

AND THEN. I have decided to venture to the Shitties on Saturday night to see Low w/Pedro the Lion at First Avenue. It seems that mucho Duluthians are herding down there, which should be fun.

But as for tonight, I'm headed to Starfire Lounge, where I will play a limited selection of songs, I believe, though Master Lumpy G will be cranking the wheels and punching the knobs for the majority of the night. Come down and join in.

Boy, this not working thing is great. If only I didn't have a job anymore. Oh, wait...
--------

| Comments (0)

I have no idea when and if this will run in print, since The Ripsaw is having a little trouble at the moment.

What I want to know is, when writing this story, why did the Trib decide to interview the publishers of Milk, a zine that has no advertisments and has had only one issue? Does the paper really place The Ripsaw in that category? Is all alternative media the same thing? At what level do the two publications compete?

And why not mention The Wave?

I'm so inquisitive.
--------

| Comments (0)

Excuse the blurriness. I'm learning this new image program.
--------

| Comments (0)

On Sunday morning I woke up at an ungodly hour and couldn't get back to sleep. So naturally, I wandered the streets of downtown Superior, Wisconsin.

Like most Duluthians, I rarely see Suptown in the light of day. Or sober for that matter.

Here is the obligatory video. [WMV, 4Mb]

Sweet, gentle lord. Look what we've done to this city.
--------

| Comments (0)

--------

| Comments (0)

Ok. First things first: I almost got killed.

So I'm standing in my kitchen, kind of groggy because I haven't been awake for very long. I'm sipping some good coffee, waiting for a friend to pick me up, peering out my side door now and then. I can't actually leave the house that way at this time of year, because the steps are trecherous. But the window is convenient to peer out of. It's warm outside, so I think for a second about hanging out on the side deck to wait, but for some reason I decide against it.

Just then, there is a sound like the world is ending. The house literally shakes, and I go immediately into panic mode because ... well, what IS this? An earthquake? I'm darting around in circles not knowing what to do.

It takes a few seconds for me to realize what has happened: the gigantic ice dam on the roof has slid off onto the deck where I was just going to stand. Not only that, but a lot of it has also slid across the deck and down the stairs, since the whole works is glazed with ice. We're talking a whole effing lot of ice here, folks. Ice that almost decapitated me, or at the least, knocked me down the ice-glazed, ladder-like staircase.

I'm sure my new neighbors heard it and thought, what the hell is that guy upstairs doing? Yeah, that's right, I have new neighbors living downstairs -- the landlord actually rented the place out immediately after the remodeling was done, which is outrageous considering the inflated price he was asking. Maybe they talked him down, I don't know. I haven't even laid eyes on the people, and didn't even know there was anyone living there until the landlord called yesterday and said, "Uh, there are people living downstairs now. Why don't you limit the shoes you leave in the front hall to like, three pairs."

I suppose they're good neighbors, since I didn't even hear them move in and haven't heard anything more from them than an occasional door closing. The trouble is, they smoke, and now the whole place reeks like cigarettes.

It's really weird. I've been living here without neighbors for a year and a half; most of that time, I've lived completely alone. Now suddenly there are these strange people living here with me.

I don't like entering into relationships that I haven't chosen. You chose the people you want to have as friends, and hang around them only when you want to. You chose your romantic partner, too. But when you rent, you normally have no power over who lives next to you or beneath you. Fate has chosen what kind of person has sex four feet from where you eat breakfast.

You don't choose your family, either, but that's a lot different. I'm reminded of this Kurt Vonnegut novel, Slapstick, which is about a set of genius twins who are so smart that they discover as toddlers that their lives will turn out much better if they pretend to be drooling idiots who can't even feed themselves.

Anyway, these twins invent all kinds of things that make the world better, and one of their ideas is a smashing success. One of the twins becomes president, and has everyone in the US assigned a random middle name. After that, everyone who has the same middle name is officially related according to the government, so now everyone has a large extended family that they can call upon wherever they go.

Someone brings up a good point. What if people keep coming to you and making demands on you, and they're crazy? Or what if you just don't want to help them? The president simply points out that these people are family, and under such circumstances you should do what people in traditional families do: "Tell them to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Tell them to take a flying fuck at the MOOOOOOOON!"

So all I'm saying is, I'd be a lot happier in this situation if my neighbors would go on the patch. And I'd be a lot happier in general if I could reserve my flying-fuck rights as well.
--------

| Comments (0)

Literally. I have almost always done this. I sit in the computer room/office/man-den, and the only light in the room comes from the screen. It's as if the rest of the room, or even the world, doesn't exist and whatever I am typing is confidential, just between me and the blog, with no one else involved. I suppose it's the same concept as the psychiatrist's couch.

Somewhere off to my left is a cup of tea. The optical mouse has a faint red glow to my right. Everything else is dark, especially after I've been staring at the bright screen for awhile. Eventually the room ceases to exist and I become the Internet. This is when the magic happens, for me at least.

Now and then, however, I'm forced to turn on the big overhead light or enter this room during the day. It is at these times when I look around the room, my eyes exploring all the random objects, and realize that this room is a total fucken pigsty.
--------

| Comments (0)

So, what happened was, after I got my big cable upgrade, my Internet connection didn't seem fast enough. Not that it was slow. It just wasn't the lightning-speed connection I was promised. As is my wont, I delayed any kind of complaint. I just wasn't ready to hear the inevitable: That's as fast as it gets, hon.

Anyway, this morning I called the demon cable company and complained. The woman who answered was all like, "Did you do blah blah blah?" And I was like, "No." And she was like, "Well, you do bliddy blip, and I'm gonna skip dee skizzy do, and we'll see if that works."

Long story short, my connection is now so fricken fast I have to wear a seat belt. I'm searching for all kinds of junk to download now, just so I can watch the green progress bar zip from left to right. God bless Starfire for continuing to vlog, is all I have to say.
--------

| Comments (0)

At risk of belaboring a point, here are some things I've learned during my vampiric winter:

- When you sleep in the day, it's really difficult to keep track of time. I think that the variations in light during the day help us remember which day is which and what happened when. In other words, if Tuesday is cloudy and Saturday is really sunny, it's easier to hold those days individually in your mind than if you always are asleep during sunlight hours. Nights always look the same, unless you're really into stargazing or something. When you combine this with the fact that I work six days a week, I really can't keep track of time at all. Ask me what I did on the weekend, and I'm like, "Uh. Um. When was the weekened again? Oh. Uh. OK."

- There is a strange sleep/wake window at certain times of the day. In other words, if you stay awake until it's fully daytime, like after 9:30am or so, your body then believes that it is DAYTIME, and you should NOT BE SLEEPING. Likewise, if you sleep past dusk, it becomes very difficult to get up even if you've had 10 hours of sleep. Sometime I'd like to do an experiment where I wake up at 6pm, then just allow myself to go back to sleep and see how many hours I can remain unconcious. I suspect it's around 14.

- Lately, I've been experiencing something I like to call "Daylight Cravings Time." It works like this. I go to sleep at my normal time, around 7-8am. I wake up around 9-10am, and I am WIDE AWAKE. I feel fully rested and ready to start my day. I force myself to go back to sleep only to wake up again, feeling wide awake again, around noon. After some struggle, I go to sleep again, then wake up in the late afternoon with daylight either gone entirely or rapidly waning, and I feel like I haven't slept at all. I'm tired all night until dawn approaches, at which time I am filled with energy.

--------

| Comments (0)

So a mere 12 hours after I get into a conversation about whether or not men can, in fact, breastfeed, good ol' cable TV comes to the rescue with the Discovery Health program, Men With Breasts. Yes, it turns out. Some men under some circumstances can indeed lactate.

Discovery Health is the weirdest fricken channel on the dial by far. Tonight, for example, there's a big double feature: You Swallowed What? followed by When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind.

No wonder I can't sleep.
--------

| Comments (0)

I am completely hooked on podcasts. Completely. Obsessed. Hooked. Infatuated.

If you're unfamiliar, here's the skinny: Invented by former MTV VJ Adam Curry, podcasts are basically radio shows recorded at home by amateurs and posted on the Internet, blog-style. You can go to each site and individually download each podcast and listen to it on your computer, but the best way to listen to them is to get an aggregator such as iPodder, which automatically downloads all of your favorite podcasts for you whenever it's convenient. I set mine to do it while I'm sleeping. I wake up, update my iPod, and now I have hours of shows to take with me.

See, I am the ultimate podcast audience, since I listen to headphones for 5-7 hours a day, 6 days a week. I'm always needing new content, and podcasting provides it for me, with no financial or time investment on my part.

Anyway. Here are some of the podcasts I've been listening to. I'll probably end up posting more in the future.

The Dawn & Drew Show (website | feed)
The A-1, most popular podcast in the world, with good reason. It's funny as all hell, and I could listen to it all night. Drew Domkus of Wisconsin was one of the first geeks to do a podcast, but the problem was, it was really boring. Then his wife, Dawn Miceli, stepped in and turned everything around. The show consists of the two of them sitting on their living room floor and talking about whatever, and it's always hilarious and usually raunchy and juvenile. As they describe it, the show is just how they talk all the time. Sometimes they have guests, like the time they called up a friend of theirs to describe the time she did crack. But mainly it's jokes about leprachauns, Coca-cola, and blowjobs.

Daily Source Code (website | feed)
This is Adam Curry's podcast, which deals mainly with the subject of podcasting. There's lots of techy, geeky talk about gear and software, but there's also a lot of suggestions about other podcasts to listen to, which is the best part. It has a professional feel, mainly because of Adam's VJ voice, but you get the real podcast feel too when he starts yelling at his dogs or has to stop recording to answer his phone.

Tracks Up The Tree (website | feed)
Funtime Ben and his buddy Josiah play indie music and jabber on endlessly. It's sort of funny, but what this show is lacking is any kind of serious discussion of the bands that are played. Since this is all "podsafe" music, the bands are all people you've never heard of. I'd like to know some more background stuff about the bands, and why they are chosen, since if all I wanted was to find anonymous indie music, I could just surf around on the web and find it myself.

Coverville (website | feed)
At first I was a bit put off by the amateurishness of this show. Brian the host is sort of a nerd, but he really knows his stuff. Each show features about 5-6 cover songs, many of which are played by request. I like this show and now it doesn't seem amateurish at all.

What They Sang To Me (website | feed)
This podcast is a good idea, but very poorly executed. The host David Johnson chooses one song, describes what he likes about it, then plays the song. The best part is when the description is really personal, like when he tells an anecdote about the first time he heard the song, or something like that. Trouble is, these descriptions are rare. Usually, he just tells the "story" of the lyrics, and talks about how cool the guitar part is. But the worst part is that when he plays the song, he talks over it. "OK. OK. Here's where the drums come in...YEAH! OK. Now this is that one part I told you about, where his girlfriend dies... OK. OK. Check out these background singers..." I've stopped listening to this show, but I'd like to see a podcast similar to the "My Life In Music" blog posts that I and a bunch of other bloggers did a few months back.

The Daily Download (website | feed)
Host Chris Rockwell is a great multi-tasker who makes efficient use of his time. The gimmick here is that every day, he records a show while going #2. (His goal is to get a sponsor to give him a year's supply of TP--the really soft kind.) There's the inevitable poop and ass jokes, but there's also telephone interviews, sometimes interrupted by Chris saying something along the lines of, "Hang on a second, I gotta push." God bless the Internet.
--------

| Comments (0)

But I won't leave you empty handed.

Go here.

Then come back and thank me very much.
--------

| Comments (0)

Microsoft Word comes with a speech recognition component, which must be "trained" to recognize your voice. It also helps a lot if you use a good microphone. However, after some experimenting, I've found that when you speak into an old set of headphones and don't train it at all, MS Word makes its own poetry through not understanding a single word you're saying.

Here's the result from reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 48 into speech recoginition. [Tip for schoolkids: This isn't even plagerism!]

- - -

Sonnet 48 ("Translated")

So here was winning
Each tried to install and
Then to mine use in mind: They
Prone a N. pearl Olson The issue were words of trust
But now to my age and tried all are
Most were indeed prowl my greatest.
The best of his pen mine only two years
Part (a very remote. The Then revolve. He
The headline not locked up any chance of
They were found not part of the fuel I feel the of
They came again so low assurance]
Phone when south placer No means, and Before
Any even then Bill will he still live here
For truth proves the bench for a broad and so you your problem
--------

| Comments (0)

God bless Russ Stewart. Apparently, he is going to begin an effort to remove the stupid laws from the books, beginning with Duluth's controversial anti-loitering ordinance, which so many people fought so hard to pass, but no one has ever seen the need to enforce.

The anti-loitering ordinance is one example of the misguided attempt of some of our citizens and leaders to mandate civility. See, there are a lot of things that people do that are more or less harmless, but can be somewhat annoying. Instead of responding to these folks by simply behaving as a shining example of kindness and good citizenship, some people respond by getting angry and passing laws to force them to be nice. They're kind of like the father who says "We're going to have a nice family evening together whether you like it or not."

The Trib is sort of spearheading its own forced civility campaign with its series, "The Unshoveled Truth," wherein it invites citizens to submit photographs of their neighborhood's illegally unshoveled sidewalks, which it will publish so to humiliate the neighbors into complying with Duluth's 24-hour shoveling ordinance.

Now, I'm a decent and timely shoveler. Just last night, for example, I brought out the heavy-duty coal shovel to chip a wide path through the 4-foot-high, 6-foot-wide concrete-like mountain left on my boulevard by the snowplow. I'm not legally bound to do this, but I did it just to be nice to the people who visit me, and to myself for that matter.

However, this move by the DNT is insane. Sure, it gives some satisfaction to the shovel-happy nuts in our community, but how many people can that be? And who the hell cares about people who are that mean? Old Lady Anderson down the street hasn't shoveled her sidewalk, and it's been TWO DAYS since the snowfall! What? I don't care if she's 80 years old and has artificial hips! Burn that bitch at the stake! Yeah, let's give that guy some satisfaction.

But then again, I start to think about Super One Foods in West Duluth, and its refusal to clear the sidewalk that runs along the side of its building. This refusal forces me to walk out in the street every day to and from work, with cars whizzing past me, honking and splashing sludge on my Fluevogs. Sure, I could use a different, safer route with clear sidewalks, but I should be able to use the fast route and the sidewalk that is currently buried under four feet of impacted snow. And if that isn't bad enough, whenever I shop there I end up ditching my cart just outside their door and carrying my groceries two blocks home, instead of pushing the cart all the way down the sidewalk and ditching it in the snowbank a mere half-block from my house. They need to accommodate this habit, dammit! One of those bags could easily break, spilling my 18 cans of Chunky Soup all over the street.

Listen, Super One, you are not allowed to make me spill my Chunky Soup all over the street. That's the job of the Rustic Bar.

Fucken A, man. Now I'm upset. To hell with these ideals. I'm reporting the Super One to the DNT, just you watch. And the rest of you lazy bastards in this town better get moving. There's a storm approaching tonight, and I have rather effective digital camera and a big ol' chip on my shoulder. Old Lady Anderson -- I am talking about you.

In the meantime, if anybody needs me, I'll be at the Rustic.
--------

| Comments (0)

- I found this thing recently, and I've been testing it out in a combination of annoyance and fascination. I think it's the interface that I don't like, as it reminds me of awful javascript-based websites, animated GIFs, etc. Why is it so irritating when things move around on a web page? But I like the idea, and I would like to see something similar for movies and books.

- I started listening to Podcasts last night at work, and now I have a whole other thing to get hooked on. I only had time to find and download one podcast, so I chose Coverville which I thought was potentially pretty cool, considering my love of good cover songs. If anyone knows of any other good podcasts, I'd like to hear about them, because I have, like, hours and hours of listening time every night.

- It appears that Spacewaitress has dismantled her blog after some serious reflection. I'd say I'm disappointed, but I completely understand the desire to do that. Plus, my opinion doesn't count for much, being as I just linked to a 404 on purpose.
--------

| Comments (0)

Hey! Remember back when my computer fouled up and I almost completely lost everything?

The thing I was worried about most was my vast, vast music collection. So what I did was, I backed the whole thing up on DVDs. What I didn't report, because I was so sick of posting lousy news, was that after everything was taken care of virus-wise, half of the DVDs didn't work.

HOWEVER. I had a backup backup plan. Only I didn't want to implement it for fear that that, too, wouldn't work. I am ecstatic to say that as of this morning, all music has been restored, along with some new, amazing functionality heretofore unseen.

This morning, I went to this site and downloaded a program called XPlay 2, which is simply awesome.

See, the problem with iPods is that normally you can only move music from the computer to the iPod. However, with XPlay 2 installed, you can move music in the opposite direction as well. Luckily, I was smart enough to keep my iPod intact.

Another great thing (some would say) is that I can now transfer music from ANY iPod to my computer, and from my computer to ANY iPod. Not that I would do such a thing. Oh, no, never.

Uh, call me.

[note: a similar program -- iPod Access -- is available for Macs at www.findleydesigns.com]

--------

| Comments (0)

Burnin' Down the House
Originally uploaded by Barrett.

For years, whenever I've seen my living quarters from the freeway (no matter where those quarters might be) I've always imagined smoke and fire pouring out of the window.

So anyway, this morning as I was walking home from work, there was smoke everywhere. This is no big deal usually, because the Stora Enso Paper Mill is right by my house, and huge amounts of steam billow out of it constantly, especially in cold weather. But this was different. This stuff was right next to the ground. Cars on the street had to nearly stop as visibility was nonexistent.

Then I noticed that it was concentrated around my block, and that there were flashing lights there, too. I ran. I sprinted. In the subzero cold. My iPod still blaring. I couldn't help but think I had left the stove on when I prepared my prework meal.

But I am just paranoid. The smoke turned out to be just the usual paper-mill steam, which had momentarily drifted down to street level. The flashing lights were from a snow plow. I arrived at home a minute or so early, with a numb face and raspy, icy lungs.

It ain't easy bein' me.
--------

| Comments (0)

New Photos Show Titan Has Orange Surface
and chewy bubble-gum center
[ real story here ]

| Comments (0)

Man, it feels good when you look out the window to see about a million feet of snow, then realize you have a snowblower. You fire that bastard up, crank the controls all the way from turtle to rabbit, pop it in gear and you're fricken rolling, baby. It's 6am and the snow in the street is still up to my eyeballs, but my sidewalks are clean, clean, clean. And I stink like a gas-huffer.

And hey, speaking of shoveling, my brother-in-law Paul is a good citizen who shovels with pride.

Now it's going to be -30° to -50° for the next couple of days. When this winter BS first started, I was kind of grumbly about it, but now that it's extreme, I think it's pretty awesome. So stay in and keep yourself warm with the new Low video, Death of a Salesman, which is world premiering on Perfect Duluth Day. (Tell your friends.)
--------

| Comments (0)

portion of a handbill received with my paystub
--------

| Comments (0)

Well, the good news is I am told that I will have a job of some sort when all is said and done.

The bad news is that the location of that job will probably not be in Duluth.

2004, I thought I was through with you.

Details here: Postal Facility to Close
--------

| Comments (0)

So with all this talk about vlogs lately, I started thinking about starting my own, and then realized that the danger of starting a vlog is the risk of turning into the next Colleen Shannon.

For the uninitiated, Colleen Shannon had a public access TV show here in the Twin Ports back in the early '90s called "In My Room." In it, she would just sit in front of the camera and talk candidly for an ENTIRE HOUR. New shows aired weekly, I believe, but the episodes aired many times, so it seemed like she was always on the television.

I was sort of addicted to "In My Room." It was very rambling and disjointed. Most of the monologues had to do with politics. Colleen was very upset with the world, and in her rants she would often break down and cry. Every episode began and ended with music played on her stereo.

Toward the end of her stint on public access, she reached out and invited the public to join her. She wanted others to come on the air and talk about whatever it was they wanted to talk about. No one took her up on it, except a couple of punk kids who made their own version of Colleen's show called "In My Glass Of Puke."

In her way, Colleen Shannon was a pioneer vlogger, and I wonder if she's online. I used to see her around downtown every now and then, but I haven't for several years.

I have to hand it to her for being courageous, though. It doesn't seem that hard to put yourself on the Web, but doing the same thing on television is a whole other story. Especially when what you're doing is describing how you make reusable sanitary-pads out of sponges from Hardware Hank.

--------

| Comments (0)

So I'm reading this book I Hate Bush and So Do You by Reader Weekly columnist Jason Johnson, who happens to be my co-worker (or, to use Jason's word, fellow "postman"). The book is a compilation of Johnson's columns from 1999-2003, and I had no idea it existed until I accidentally came across it at the library.

My favorite parts of the book occur when the subject strays from politics and into a more personal realm, namely that of Jason's job, which is the same as my job. Here's an excellent example from his May 31, 2001 article, "The Decline and Fall of the Midwestern Work Ethic" in which he discusses his award for perfect attendance (an award which I received in 1999, incidentally):

Then, earlier this year, I was given an award for my perfect attendence for the year of 2000. I was told to stand and receive applause from my co-workers for this award. It was a touching, humbling experience until I realized that I got this award for literally just showing up. Ever hear of contests that give awards for crossing the finish line within the lifetime of an elm tree? This is that award!

I wasn't asked to give a speech, or it would have gone like this: "I'd like to thank my co-workers for having some kind of life outside work, thereby rewarding me for my limited obligations. I'd particularly like to thank my female co-workers; if any of you had actually gone out with me, I might not have been free to work all those weekends. And I'd like to thank the rest of you for catching my flu, which I brought to work with me because I couldn't afford an unscheduled absence." I would then eat lunch in the cafeteria alone.

That is gold, Jason Johnson. Gold.

I especially like that last line, because although Jason works in the same place as I do, doing the same things, at the same time of day, often even sitting right next to me, I have never spoken to him in my life. I have never said hello, and I have never even said something as impersonal as "excuse me." I would feel pretty comfortable wagering that we have never even made direct eye contact. Yet we are not merely co-workers, we are both writers of smart-aleck journalism, and we have both been published in The Cheerleader magazine. What are the chances?

Last night I was thinking about this fact and planning to write this post. Then, I went to sleep and dreamed that Jason Johnson came up to me and introduced himself. I got really mad and screamed at him, "What the hell do you think you're doing?! We had a great streak going on here and you just blew it by talking to me! We are NOT SUPPOSED TO ACKNOWLEDGE EACH OTHER'S EXISTENCE!" My rage was exquisite.

I also eat lunch alone in the cafeteria every day. I do this by choice and by habit, and because it is part of the culture of the place. Since talking is prohibited on the workroom floor, you don't generally interact with your co-workers in the lunchroom either unless one or more of the following is true: 1) you are both extremely extroverted, 2) you know each other through some means other than work, 3) you are a smoker, or 4) you are a middle-aged woman who likes to get to work early and drink coffee and eat cake.

Maybe someday I will run into Jason Johnson outside of the workplace and we will have a conversation of some kind. But there's no way in hell I'm going to initiate one on the clock. I have my bubble of isolation to think of.

I'm done.
--------

| Comments (0)

- During the guitar solo, it is important for the lead singer to upstage the guitar player. But it is important to do it right. DO: Bug out your eyes, lean over the guitar player's shoulder and make squiggly finger motions. DON'T: Turn around facing the drums and wiggle your girlish butt.

- Also during the guitar solo it is important for all nonplayer characters to remember that a lead guitarist slowly walking down a darkened hallway is the scariest thing in the world.

- Y'know, in retrospect, that dude from Anthrax can't rap for shit.

- I want to write a short story where the protagonist is the son of that babe who lifted her shirt in Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" video.

- After World War III, supplies will be short, forcing women to wear ripped fishnet stockings. But thankfully there will still be plenty of rouge and Aqua Net.

- Dio, man. Ronnie James Dio.
--------

| Comments (1)

I did this last year with some success. But this year, I have a lot more photographic experience, plus a Flickr account.

Check 'em out here. Hints: Choose the Slideshow option if you please, or just use your mouse. If you choose the latter, you can leave comments on the individual picture.

--------

| Comments (0)

So this year, for the first time in my life, I will ring in the new year at work. And to tell you the truth, I'm kind of looking forward to it.

I think New Year's Eve is my least-favorite holiday. I've had very few positive New Year's experiences. Last year at Starfire's house was fun, up until the point where the party (or at least some of the party) moved to Luce, at which time it was definitely necessary to give up and go home. I'm not going to explain in detail all the reasons why I hate ringing in the New Year, but in general it has to do with two things.

The lesser of these is that New Year's Eve, like St. Patrick's Day, is Amateur Night at the bars. The world is filled with people who normally do not drink often and do not know have the slightest knowledge of drunk ettiquette. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've had 8 martinis and you're the king of the world. Ok. But this isn't so bad, because there's always one or two of these in any establishment on any given weekend night.

The worst is the feeling of desperation among the partygoers. That facial expression, where you can just read the secret, dark, thoughts: I have to have a good time tonight. I must have fun. Am I a fun person? How can I have fun? Oh, God, let me please be a fun person tonight.

I think the ideal New Year's party, for me, would have a cast of about 12-15. None of the desperate, lameoids would be invited, only fun people, like you for instance. And there would be a sworn oath to never give up the ship and go to a bar. And no one would drive home drunk.

Another reason I'm looking forward to working the New Year's shift is that I take perverse pleasure in doing something productive and wholesome when most people are out getting hammered and participating in debaucherous behavior. Even last year, I didn't drink much at all, and felt great when I sprang out of bed the next morning with the knowledge that most of the world was nursing a vicious hangover and nauseating sexual regrets. It's sick, I know, but it makes me feel like a good citizen. Besides, drinking gallons and losing all your morals is much more fun, like, say, on a random Wednesday in August.

This year, I will briefly look up from my computer screen to holler Happy New Year. There is no one at my job I would like to kiss, and if I did I would probably be fired, so that's not a problem, either. Then at 5, I'll finish my shift, come home, drink 0-3 celebratory cocktails, and bask in my sick pleasure, knowing that somewhere out there at that very moment, a naked stranger is puking in your hamper. Meanwhile, I'm safe and happy at home, watching the fucken Smurfs.

I need help.
--------

| Comments (0)

Oh the year was seventeen seventy eight
I wish I were in Sherbrooke now!
A letter of marque came from the King
To the scummiest vessel I've ever seen
God Damn them all! I was told
We'd cruise the seas for American gold
We'd fire no guns, shed no tears
Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett's privateers.

[the rest]
--------

| Comments (0)

I found out today that my nephew Joe has a blog. Joe is a major drunkard and a major computer geek and I took this picture of him at my parents' kitchen table, through one of my mom's curlers.

Check him out. He's the Gootch Monkey.
--------

| Comments (0)

Finally captured on a photograph -- yes, this, my friends, is the infamous "moon pudding" which has been a tradition in my family for generations. I've described this stuff to practically everyone I've ever met, an no one can quite picture it in mind, so here it is in all its glory.

This English dessert looks like some kind of cake or fudge, sure. But keep in mind this is a traditional ENGLISH (read, "kinda disgusting") dessert. It isn't made like cake at all.

The primary ingredient in moon pudding is suet. Yes, suet. Just like the stuff you feed the birds, sans the birdseed. This suet is ground and mixed with flour and raisens. The fatty blob is then plopped on a towel, which is wrapped up and tied at the top. The towel is then put onto a plate, and the whole works is then submerged in boiling water, where it cooks for literally something like two days.

Traditionally, I am told, there is a hard sugar sauce made with apple juice which is supposed to go on top of the moon pudding. But this tradition has been lost in my family. Instead, everyone has developed their own style of eating moon. Most eat it plain. Newcomers generally do not think of it as a dessert as it is greasy and not very sweet by American standards, and so they eat it with gravy. Some wait until the next day and fry it in butter. Some eat it with powedered sugar or Reddi Whip.

The horrific story that goes with moon is that one year my mom was transferring the boiling-hot towel blob to a different pan, and the towel suddenly split open, spilling scalding grease all over the dog's back. Let me tell you, hot uncooked moon pudding is a lot like napalm. It sticks and burns and there's not much you can do about it. It burned the dog pretty badly and the dog lived for about another 10 or 12 years with a bald back.

As for me, I rather like moon. I mean, a cannonball-sized chunk of low-grade fat, complete with raisens? Shaw. How can you go wrong?
--------

| Comments (0)

- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
- Mom said to take this turkey out for tomorrow and clean it.
- DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING?
- No. I've never done it before.
- LET ME DO IT. I KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT.

[20 Minutes Later]

- WHAT THE HELL? WHERE ARE THE GIBLETS?
- You probably left them inside.
- NO. I HAD THEM ON THE COUNTER WITH THE NECK. WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY?
- Well, here's the neck.
- YEAH, BUT WHERE'S THE FUCKEN GIBLETS?
- Maybe you threw them away.
- NO. THERE'S THE BAG IN THE GARBAGE. THEY WERE IN THAT BAG. I TOOK THEM OUT AND PUT THEM ... SOMEWHERE
- What's this?
- THAT'S THE ASS.
- You cut off the ass? Aren't you supposed to leave that on?
- HELL NO. I ALWAYS CUT OFF THE ASS.
- Mom, what do you do with the ass of the turkey? On or off?
- It depends. If anyone wants to eat it, leave it on.
- My grandma said it was the best part. It's all fat.
- YEAH, YEAH. "IT'S GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU."
- No one here is old enought to want to eat the turkey's ass.
- ARRGGGHH! WHERE ARE THE GODDAMN GIBLETS?!
- Oh, hey. I bet I know. [Points at the dogs, who immediately look guilty]
- Yee. Haw. Dogs eating raw giblets. We're gonna have an adventure tonight. Hope you got a lot of paper towels.
--------

| Comments (0)

This year, my family has decided not to exchange Christmas presents. I think this is a great idea. We all have too much stuff anyway, expecially my parents, who certainly do not need any more Jesus-oriented wall hangings or porcelain knick-knacks.

But I have decided to extend this spirit of ungiving to everyone I know. Yeah, I realize that last year I got all sappy about wanting to give presents to everyone in the world. But this year I feel like it's not even Christmas, really.

Still, I've decided to give a little gift to myself: Cable TV, baby. I figure since I'm 90% less interested in the expensive habit of intoxicating myself, I can afford some deluxe boob tube action. I haven't had cable since I moved out of my parents' house, and that was back in the analog days. Back in my day, sonny, we had only one HBO. And we liked it, dammit.

I plan on having 12 HBOs plus the Independent Film Channel, Sundance, and Cartoon Network. I'm sure there's a couple hundred other decent channels in there (along with about a thousand channels that show nothing but nuns selling cutlery) but those are the ones I plan on watching a lot of.

So come on over and let's watch TV. I'll provide the beverages. You provide your own drool towel and Depend Undergarment.

And yeah, I'm not stupid. I know the introductory price, which is guarateed through 2005, will be jacked up by prolly about 50 bucks a month as soon as the offer's over. But despite Charter Cable's slogan ("Get Hooked"), I'm hoping this adventure will be like joining the Columbia Record Club, and not like establishing a healthy smack habit.

Merry Christmas, Earth People.
--------

| Comments (0)

So, on Saturday night, Paulie Boy and I hosted the Birtday Rally in Spirit Valley. As usual, a good time was had by most.

Here, the brothers Lundgren perform "Come Sail Away." Meanwhile, V-Nick looks on as Maria's face melts.

Karaoke masters line up to dispute Larry Holmes' so-called "Championship." At a nearby table, however, an historic event takes place: sushi is consumed in the Rustic Bar.

Gartman leads a rousing rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer." Paul begins to get creepy.

I suppose this would be a good place to hide the Drunkest Picture of Me Ever Taken.

Rustic karaoke shut down at midnight, which lead to the inevitable plan: more karaoke at the Keyport.

And so the evening ended, as all good birthday parties should, with a nice game of Pin the Tongue on Gene Simmons.
--------

| Comments (0)

...I have this major, major cold sore system working on the right corner of my mouth. It really is prodigious. Seriously, you people are lucky that the batteries in my camera are worn out.

So noticing that I'm out of Ambesol or Campho-phenique or whatever, and being a geek, I casually hopped online to try and discover which brand works the best before going out and buying some. Here's what happened next.

1. Every reputable site I visited said that that stuff doesn't work.

2. Every reputable site I visited warned emphatically that a person with a cold sore should be EXTREMELY careful when touching their eyes or genitals, because it is easy to get ocular or genital herpes from a cold sore.

Great. Like I need this worry. I am a paranoid person to begin with, and among my many frets is the fear that I will do something like this. That I will touch my cold sore, my eyes, and my ... self, and then while the cold sore will run its course, I will be blind and will never have sex again.

Such is the mind I live in. I'm going to the pharmacy.
--------

| Comments (0)

So on Sunday night, the night of my birthday, I realized I was coming down with something. My throat felt a little painful, and I could feel a headache coming on. I also felt pretty tired, but I hadn't slept very well for a few days, so I chalked it all up to that.

I went to work at 12:15am, and by the time I got home at 5:30, I was dizzy and had the chills, and I was very, very tired. So I went to bed and was out by 6.

I didn't get out of bed until I had to, which was at 7:30 the next night. Sure, during that time, I woke up to get water, go to the loo, answer the phone, etc., but for almost that whole time -- 13.5 hours -- I was asleep.

But wait. It gets better. I miserably dragged myself to work at 8:30pm feeling like hell. I put in for an early out, and they let me go home at 1am. By 2:30, I was asleep. I woke up at 4pm.

I've decided that until this goes away, I will be sleeping at all times, unless there is something important I need to do instead of sleeping.

Like blogging.
--------

| Comments (0)

Tomorrow (Sunday) is my birthday. I will be 32.

The party is next weekend, and everyone reading this is invited.

--------

| Comments (0)

When you take a 10-minute shower and the mirror doesn't even fog up...

When a slice of apple on the table turns to leather before it turns brown...

When your knuckles begin to resemble the Alps...

There is no choice but to make soup.
--------

| Comments (0)

One of the joys of working at night is being able to tune in nightly to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and stay informed on all the latest Bigfoot and poltergeist happenings out there. But about a week ago, I turned my radio on a little early and discovered my latest guilty pleasure: The Phil Hendrie Show.

OK, OK. I'm sure there are some of my fellow Democrats out there who probably know about Phil Hendrie and his infamous pro-Bush rants. But let's just set that aside right now, as personally I've never heard any of that. From what I've heard recently, The Phil Hendrie Show is a work of genius.

For the uninitiated, I'll explain. The show is much like any other AM talk-radio show. It's offensive. The guests are idiots and there is a lot of arguing. But here's where the genius comes in: all of the "guests" are portrayed by Hendrie himself. He's fairly open about that fact on the show, but still, every night people tune into the show and are completely duped. They call as if the guests are real (callers are screened so only the duped callers get through) and scream and yell about how idiotic the "guest" is. The more they scream, the more offensive the guest becomes, until Hendrie intervenes, "hangs up" on the guest, and then apologizes to the audience. It's awesome.

Hendrie has about 40 characters that he keeps in rotation. Recently, I've heard Hendrie portray a man who loaned someone $1,000, only to have the guy join the military and get killed in Iraq--so he's suing the guy's family. The angry calls poured in, meanwhile in the background, you could hear the "guest" adjusting his hot tub. What's wrong...can't a man be interviewed in a hot tub? What the hell country is this?

This article explains the show much better than I can, and lists some of Hendrie's characters. But maybe this article from the LA Weekly says it most eloquently:

"Hendrie has said he is not worried that exposure might ruin the show by tipping off potential callers — he believes you cannot overestimate the stupidity of the AM-radio audience, and his work is enduring testament to that fact. But his point is not to expose simple stupidity. His “guests” are sophisticated parodies designed to incite the easy anger of the self-righteous, whom he expertly lures by creating characters who run roughshod over their pieties — the sanctity and safety of American children, the meaning of patriotism, kindness to animals. He likes to create characters who have thinly veiled ulterior motives, which he reveals little by little, as if in a well-constructed one-act play.

Listening to Phil Hendrie combines the pure, illegitimate pleasure of making prank phone calls with an intense, stoned reading of Marshall McLuhan. Hendrie’s show is a scathing and wholly original critique of what passes as dialogue and debate in vast portions of our culture. He uses the AM-radio call-in audience as “found objects” to reveal their own prejudices and susceptibility to manipulation, and he in a sense bestows on them an eloquence they themselves do not possess. Hendrie takes the average, depressing predictability of the average American psyche and somehow makes it into joyful comedy."
--------

| Comments (0)

Earlier this evening, the old man who lives across the street came over with a shoebox full of ornaments for me via Predicate Nominative. Then, like 30 minutes later, Ms. Nominative herself showed up with an additional paper bag full -- FULL -- of stuff ranging from antiquey breaky things to cutesy wooden stuff to creepy yarny wonders, all to adorn my tree. Let's hear it for PN!

I'm setting all this stuff up this weekend. And making a diorama. And exploding from excitement.

--------

| Comments (0)

I've become obsessed with anagrams recently, and I would like everyone to know my new name is Abe Hartcrest.

Also, if I ever start a band, I could call it:

Crab's Theater
Teacart Herbs
Rehab Scatter
Breast Rachet
Charter Beats
Catheter's Bar
Cheater Brats
Saber Chatter
The Arab Crest
The Rarest Cab
The Bear Carts
The Bar Reacts
The Brat's Acre

I encourage everyone to find their own anagrams. You might find out your new name is:

Dr. Neal Unplug
Eli Cheetah
Jam Reseller
Drama Nazi
Cheney Zoo
Milk Canon
Neutral First
Weighted Moods

or my personal favorite:

Regis Barleycorn

--------

| Comments (0)

There were about three or four times when I had this thought as a youngster. I remember being about 13 or 14 and laying in bed thinking about how old I would be in the year 2000, and about some kind of stereotypical Jetsons-like future that involved jetpacks and moving sidewalks and all kinds of fun stuff like that. I figured that maybe, at some point during my life, time travel would become possible.

I figured there was an easy way to find out immediately if I would ever get to travel through time. I made myself a promise that if I ever got the chance to use a time machine, I would travel to that exact moment. I made a point of thinking about the year, date, and time of day, and then I waited. Nothing happened. I never showed up.

The thing is, as an adult, I don't remember those dates and times. I'm not even sure how old I was. I think I was 13 or 14, as I said, but I could have been 17. I have no idea. I let myself down.

So, here I at the end of my 31st year, thinking about this again, and writing it down on the Internet for my future self to find. Here it is, with the date and time and everything right there for you. So c'mon, future self. Go ahead and hop in that machine. I'm right here.

If there were a knock at the door right now, I would literally collapse from an aneurysm.

Waiting...

Oh, god. I gotta go.
--------

| Comments (0)

--------

| Comments (0)

Oooo. This is the year that just keeps on giving. It's been a banner year here at the ol' Chase residence. Oh, yes. Let's look back on it, shall we? On second thought, let's not. At various points on this blog, I've already recounted a good 25% of all the horrific shit that went down this year so there's no need to relive it.

Nonetheless, 2004 just keeps rolling on with all its wonder, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately. It's not that nothing good happened to me this year--a lot of great things happened, in fact, mainly having to do with the people around me and how great they are--but 2004 ate, there's no doubt about that.

I have written several times about how in the mid-late 1990s, I was a very unhappy person. My plans to actually use my major had fallen through (this is a story of its own, one I'll tell some time) and I was poor and underemployed. I felt like I was in a holding pattern, frozen there not knowing what to do. Back then, my "workdays" would usually last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. The rest of my time I'd spend reading, listening to music and fretting. Oh, and doing housework. I'd prepare two healthy homecooked meals every day, and the apartment was always immaculate. The books I read were always very thick and very difficult. And almost every day, I'd listen to Jerree Small's Sleeping Giant album, not that I even knew who Jerree Small was, only that she was originally from Duluth but didn't live here anymore.

Recently, I was laying on a chaise (ironically, the kind of couch you see in psychiatrists' offices, at least in the comics) in a room lit by only one candle. A few feet away, Jerree practiced for an upcoming show. I didn't say much; I just laid there listening and enjoying the music. Every now and then, I'd make an unorthodox request, not for a title, but for a subject. I'd ask if she would play a song about ice cream, for example. "Well, none of my songs are about ice cream," she'd say, "but I have this song that mentions..." And so on.

"Could you play a song about a foreign country?" I asked. It had been years since I had listened to Sleeping Giant, so I had completely forgotten about the song "Romania." As soon as I heard it, I was instantly transported back to that unhappy time, and the difference between my life in 1998 and 2004 was practically enough to unravel my mind. It's unbelievable to me how different my thinking about the world was back then, and how it worked to my detriment. If I had those fears and concerns now, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed.

...I am trying to forget where I'm from
But all around me are familiar sounds...

The oddest part is how now that I have been facing real issues as opposed to mid-20s life-crisis bullshit, I seem to have summoned a reserve strength that I didn't know I had. My two concerns now as I watch the sun set on this year are 1) whether or not this year has still more in store for me and mine, and 2) whethe