Ahhh.. I just need to stretch out here for a second… unnnghhh… okay there we go.

My holidays weren’t as busy as my lack of blogging may imply. Nevertheless, they were good. Here’s a brief list of my booty:

1. Money for my trip to Hong Kong
2. Flight Simulator 2004
3. The Simpsons Hit & Run (video game)
4. Fingerpicks for my banjo
5. Boxer shorts, socks
6. Huge-ass tub of popcorn my Grandma always gets me
7. A fuckin’ pound and a half of beef jerky from John… real shit from Michigan
8. Things I forgot about

Yes, I spent the latter half of Christmas Day, and most of the next day playing Flight Simulator and the Simpsons game. Unfortunately, you need a $50,000 PC to run FS2004 well. I spent more time trying to speed up my system than I did playing the game. The Simpsons game was crashing all the time, too. I actually played the Simpsons game more, because it’s one of those addictive, “gotta get to the next level” games. I usually finish those in a matter of 3 days and then never play them again. If it hadn’t kept crashing and forcing me to replay the same missions over and over, I probably would have beat it.

Speaking of beef jerky, how about that USDA shit? Full of Mad Cow? You betcha. This article talks about the shadyness that’s going on right under our noses. I won’t stop eating my jerky, coz it’s been ‘jerkified’ and will magically not contain Mad Cow, but if I were you, I’d avoid beef for a while. The thing is, it’s not the slaughterhouses that are all that shady. It’s the freakin’ USDA. They’re bigger sellouts than Mr. T! To quoth some guy: “It was almost like they didn’t want to find mad cow disease.” Gee, ya think? It doesn’t take a “rocket surgeon” (quote from my friend’s little sister) to figure out that if America freaks out about their beef, we may all collectively stand to lose a few pounds. And when Guinness arrives to award us the World’s Fattest Country awards, we’ll have to pass it on to Canada and accept the next best award: “Country with the Most Meat-filled Colons.” Really though, tell your friends… don’t trust the USDA on anything. Don’t tell people you dislike; maybe they’ll get Mad Cow and you can laugh at them. Even the Japanese are wise to the USDA’s shadyness: Japan refuses to discuss lifting beef ban. Good move. Wait until we’re all running in circles, eyes rolled back in our heads, spewing out pop lyrics, and then move in for the kill.

Amidst all these lame-ass “news stories”, I managed to find one that I actually gave one-tenth of a shit about: World’s Largest Snake Caught. Awesome. The best part is that it eats three to four DOGS a month. Who gets to keep it? I want it!!! I wanna feed it stray cats and all those mice in my house!

The band’s old drummer, Humes, came into town last night, and we ate delicious burgers together, then went to the Pirate’s Cove to see some high school band that featured the cousin of my friend Abby. They were OK. Of course their jobless, out-on-break, teenage crowd was bigger than ours. Assholes.

If you haven’t noticed that I added AlterNet to my links on the side… NOTICE. Sure they’re “playing my song,” but I can’t get enough of their articles. Get over there and read the latest article from Michael Moore. I’m not even posting a link to it, you lazy shit.

Some Cleveland residents took matters into their own hands over the past few days, spraypainting on SUV’s. Having just seen a show about alternative fuels, and knowing guys are already driving around cars powered by restaurant grease and soy products, I can’t help but support the stamping out of these gas-guzzling land yachts. Of course, spraypainting some rich scmuck’s car over in Cleveland Heights is likely to only benefit an overpriced auto body shop, not the environment.

Gotta get wrappin’ tonight. Christmas is closing in fast!

Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so excited about our show on Friday. heh. The weather turned out pretty sour, turning downtown into an ice-rally-inspired demolition derby of sorts. We were pretty much on time, but of course, nobody else was. It only got worse from there. The sound guy was apparently quite bitter, after returning from a tour with some band. He decided to leave the sound booth after the initial check, and our sound was completely fucked the whole time. I was louder than John, even though I was only singing backups… my guitar was all treble and nobody could hear my solos… the drums were all uneven and there was no hi-hat or kick drum in the mix… and to top it all off, none of us on stage could hear anything. We requested some fixes, but nothing was done for us, or any other band for that matter. Dan’s band sounded pretty good, but they lost the main microphone mid-song, and Dan whipped the mic at the ground and grabbed the backup mic. All in all it was a disaster. I think we managed to sell a couple CD’s though, and gave out some stickers.

I got a wee bit more shopping done this weekend, and I’m closing in on the finish line. It’s gonna be a photo finish though, for sure.

I don’t need to describe the Browns game in order for someone to understand what happened… I need only to state the score: 35-0, Ravens.

Saturday was the Toledo gift exchange for my step-family. The theme this year was “Body Parts”, and I got a Sam Adams Apple (Six pack of Samuel Adams and an apple). Not bad. Other highlights were: my stepbrother Jay getting a full-on vibrator called “Finger Fun,” my stepmom getting penis-shaped cookie cutters and then seeing my grandmother holding them ! , people trying to keep a straight face while one of my uncles received a Dick’s gift card, and my dad getting the “Stress Chest”, a set of boobs to squeeze when you’re stressed out! It was admittedly akward at times, but it proved to be pretty damn funny by the time we arrived back home.

Explain to me why THIS was listed under “Top Stories” from AP! Sounds like somebody needs to get back to work!

I’m posting this link for my girlfriend. It’s a really interesting picture if you read the caption. Ghosts seem like a crock of shit, but deep down, I just want to see one.

Big ass Moon show tonight. I really wish that my amp hadn’t started smoking yesterday. Damn did it sound good. It even sounded better than it did when I first got it. Oh well. I’m borrowing an amp (which sounds great) and hopefully all will be well. It’s been such a long time since we played a show. I think all but about 3 of our songs we’re playing are new enough that nobody’s heard them live before.

My girl is in LA right now, but her company just changed the hotel the crew stays in to a really nice place right on the edge of Beverly Hills and Hollywood. I guess actually it’s on the walk of fame! I have to pretend I’m enjoying this shitty, grey-skied winter weather while she shops on Rodeo Drive!

There’s really no news worth mentioning today. SARS might be back in some areas, Bush is still an imbecile, the new Lord of the Rings set a box office record, Kazaa got let off the hook, and siding with China on the whole Taiwan issue is proving my aforementioned Bush comment true.

I don’t care if you’ve sworn off TV and have anti-TV tattoos all over your genitals; Family Guy is a great fuckin’ show. Last night I damn near shit mah drawers watchin’ it! You may have to shush people to fully enjoy it, however, because many of the really funny jokes happen very fast.

Though we just recently had a Holiday Luncheon at work, the past 3 days has been what’s called “Holiday Grazing.” This just means that people bring in mad goodies and leave them in the cafeteria downstairs. At will, you can go down there and gorge yourself on cookies, cakes, pasta salad, dips, pastries, crackers, cheese, candy and all kinds of other crap. My weakness thus far has been these cookies that are covered in pecans and have a little dollup of chocolate in the center. Oh god. Well, we get to leave early today, so I can avoid them for now.

My god damn amp is fucked up again. I got it back from the shop yesterday and it sounded great. I played on it for about 20 minutes, went home and then came back for practice. About 45 minutes or so into practice, it sounded like it was getting quiet. I turned around to see it SMOKING and making buzzing and popping noises! UGH!!! I am so fucking pissed at it. The guy who’s working on it has given it back to me FOUR times already, and this time I thought it was finally fixed. He said he ran it all day yesterday before he gave it back, just to make certain that it worked. Well, I have an amp to borrow for the show tomorrow, but for christ’s sake, I don’t have money to buy a new one!

I can’t wait for my travel tea press to arrive:

My tea ball is really sucking today. The tea’s all weak and watery. Dammit. Hurry up with that thing.

When a discussion moves to the topic of eating dogs, no group gets accused more than asians. I mean, my girlfriend’s asian, and I asked her if she ever tried it! (She hasn’t… but she does like to eat cow lung.) Well, Taiwan apparently realized who man’s best friend really is. I’m sure we have plenty of dogs around, so I don’t really care if people eat ‘em. I just can’t image it tastes good!

I’m glad to see that some people are impatient enough about space travel to take matters into their own hands. Few things piss me off more than the drag-ass, lethargic space policy of NASA and the USA. Yes, I’m selfish as hell when it comes to space travel… but at least some of that selfishness is rooted in the fantastically optimistic lifestyle predictions of the 1950’s. I may have not lived through that era, but I know we’re nowhere near flying a car to work, taking a vacation to the moon or Mars, or teleporting. If we dreamed it back then, dammit, we should be doing it by now. So, keep up the good work, guys. You can bet that none of us will go to space unless we do it seperate from NASA. (No offense to NASA! At least they managed to make it LOOK like we went to the moon! haha.)

Not only did I get my Christmas shopping just about done yesterday, but I got a new phone and cell provider. After about 4 1/2 years of loyalty to Sprint, the recent decision to allow porting of cell phone numbers to different carriers made me decide it was time to tell them to fuck off. For the past several weeks, my phone had been dropping calls, getting lousy reception and even LOSING reception in my house. I learned that it was not the phone, but the local service. Plus, every time other people can get a signal, I can’t. No longer! I signed up with Verizon, and got a phone that just came out last Friday.

Here’s a picture of her:

It’s an Audiovox CDM8900.

So far it’s working pretty well, except I learned that in order to get new ringtones, I have to use Verizon’s service thingy. I’m finding out if this one piece of software will work with my phone or not, and if it does, I’ll keep the phone. Otherwise, it’s going back. I need to be able to make my own ringtones, and get them for free! I did get one thing from their service: Tetris. I can play it as much as I want. Whee.

If everything on this phone starts working right, I’ll be able to post the pictures I took with it here on my blog. Right now it’s not letting me send pix, but the tech support says it’s so new that I have to take it back to the store to troubleshoot the problem. Ugh.

Today, the 100th anniversary of flight (supposedly), Boeing decided to finally take orders for their new plane, the 7E7. In the past, they’ve waited to name their planes until they were ready to sell. I hope they change it from 7E7 to like…787 or something. Anyway, they’ll need some good luck to compete with Airbus, given that Airbus is already making a similar plane. I think the only thing that will give them an edge is fuel economy.

I can’t find an article right now, but dammit, I called it. Bush managed to offend the entire world by stating that he believed whoever decides Saddam’s fate should give him the death penalty. A loud “WHAP!” could be heard across the world, as people struck their foreheads with their palms, all at once. Nobody asked you, jackass. On top of that, most of Europe has abolished the death penalty. Lastly, does this mean you’ll be commenting on every trial that goes on around the world? Or, since you keep clinging to the fact that Saddam’s reign included “rape rooms”, how about the death penalty for every rapist?

Just wrote a Haiku about Ween:

My sweet dearest Ween
You are my personal god
Please don’t stop rocking

Since the Browns’ season was pretty much over last week, this week’s game didn’t matter too much to those of us watching it. We started out naysaying everything we could… like: “watch, we fumble it, and they run it back,” or ” 10 bucks says we go 3 and out.” We then came up with a few rules to understand before watching a Browns game:

1. The Browns don’t get 4 downs, they get 3.
2. On first down, we have to run it, and if we get more than 2 yards, it’s an automatic penalty.
3. If we convert on 3rd down, there has to be a flag thrown or a disputed call.
4. When we intercept the ball or recover a fumble, we must squander the opportunity in the first set of downs, and then punt.
5. Whenever possible, the Browns will let you down.
6. All games must be lost within the last 3 minutes. (Except for games against Arizona.)

If you keep these rules in mind, your Browns watching will be much more enjoyable. Needless to say, we lost again. This time we repeated some famous game from the 80’s, which they actually showed footage of not even 5 minutes before the end of the game. Same teams, same score. Go figure.

I was amazed to find out that Saddam Hussein was captured! Of all places to learn this news, I first read it on the message board of the flight sim group I belong to. *cough* DORK! *cough* I didn’t want to believe it, just because of all the look-alike stories I’ve heard about Saddam. When I saw the crazy Castro-beard pictures, I knew it was him. No DNA test necessary. I’m glad they caught him and all, but … I could have sworn we were looking for Osama and Al Qaeda members. Right? Amazingly, Bush’s speech did not trivialize the event, nor did it insult the Iraqi people. Thank god he didn’t answer questions like they’d planned. I can just see him gloating and bragging like a child.

The band finished up printing all the demo materials yesterday. We have an official demo CD, band photo and cover letter. For now, we’re just going to send them out to get gigs. Later, it’s on to the high profile record deals.

I discovered my new drink for life over the weekend: Yerba Mate. Mate is a tea that comes from South America, where they drink it constantly. It’s supposed to do a number of things for you, like curb hunger, deliver plenty of vitamins… and most importantly, wake you up without jitters. I guess it has a relative of caffeine in it… mateine.. which works without jitters. I can tell that it wakes me up just great… plus it tastes fantastic. I’m going to order the official drinking accessories, so I don’t have to use my tea ball and crap. They use a metal straw called a ‘bombilla’ which has a filter at the end, and they drink it from a gourd! Here’s a picture: click this. Yeah, so if you see me with a metal straw stuck in a gourd… you’ll know what I’m doing.

A wee bit of snow is falling down outside, but I’m hoping it comes down like a mofo. I’m aware it’s only December, and that by the time April rolls around and the snow is STILL coming down I might be tired of it… but for right now, I want so much snow that I can sled down my street!

Lots of interesting things going on right now… for one, Bush is fessing up to the whole Haliburton thing, and attempting to justify it in his own misconstrued manner. At this point, I think his press agents (or whatever you call ‘em) are just hoping he’ll contradict himself enough, and use ‘big’ words enough, that the majority of Americans won’t even understand him. Well, maybe they think he’s fantastic, but that’s what I’D be thinking if I were them. Of course, I wouldn’t get any sleep either, and my family would have disowned me…

Speaking of Republicans… how about them SUV’s? Well, it seems there’s a loophole in our tax laws, which allows businesses a major league tax writeoff for any vehicle over 6,000 lbs. We all know the Ford Extrusion and other land yachts have got to weigh more than that. Not only is there a loophole, but Bush made it bigger. Of course.

Personally, it didn’t take too long for me to realize that Santa wasn’t real. As a kid I slept on the stairs all night one Christmas Eve, knowing full well that the man with a beard who ate our cookies and milk was really just my mom. Sure enough, I was right. It’s about time someone put this stupid-ass myth to rest and stopped giving kids a good reason to believe they’re getting a Power Wheels truck for Christmas. That’s just what South Africa has done.

I’m surprised that Jean Chretien stepping down is not bigger news than this. I guess Canada isn’t as exciting as, say, Britney going to Japan, or Ben and J-Lo getting back together. (Which by the way, Ben says they never broke up… heard it on Howard this morning.)

I’ve never gotten a flu shot before this year, but I guess it was a good call on my part! It appears half the fuckin’ country has the flu. Of course I’m grateful I’m not sick, but god dammit, with all the amazing things we’ve done with medicine and technology… you’d think… ahh fuck it. Our priorities are obvious.

In an alarmingly lame turn of events, I’ve taken to filling my late afternoons with games and gaiety over at Neopets.com. It’s a site that I discovered a while back, but at the time it was just in the beginning stages. Basically, you get a Neopet, which you take care of and feed, etc. That’s the smallest part of it, though. I think you can have multiple pets, as well as ‘petpets’, which are pets for your Neopet. Follow? Anyway, the cool part are all the cheesy-ass games and stuff. My favorite right now is the Poogle races, where you bet on a particular Poogle just like a horse race. So far I’ve won 4 times on #3, by feeding him different foods before the race. If you are stuck behind a computer one day, try it out. Or stick a knife in your leg… that’d be fun too.