Hey, hey, hey!

Tonight I ran into the girl I last went out with. Remember her? The one with whom I thought things were going well, only to find out otherwise?

We must have been meant to meet tonight. I was going out to dinner with my family, and we'd first decided to go to a Mexican restaurant. On the way there, my sister suggested we go to a new kebab place instead, and we agreed, but we found out that it was not open for business yet. So we went to the California Tortilla next door instead.

When we'd taken our seats, I thought that the girl seated behind us with her back to me had a familiar build. I thought to myself, "is that ________? Probably not. Or is it?"

She must have had a good look at us when we were ordering because the counter was directly in her field of vision. If she did, she didn't say hi. Nevertheless when she and her friend got up to trash their mess, I saw her face and was like, "oh, fuck."

I'd played this scene in my head over and over in the past. The inevitable reunion. The world is a small place after all, as they say. But I always imagined that when it did happen, I would be with my hot girl and I would be totally confident and there would be a tacit "take that, you!" hovering in the air over us. But of course I was with my family, presumably single (and rightly so). But hell, for all she knows, my sugar mama is at home with her family.

Anyway, we waved her over. It took her a while to look our way. Unless I was mistaken, she was trying to avoid looking our way. But really, she couldn't, and so she came, and we made brief introductions, and she caught up very quickly with my sister (they were co-workers, if you recall). And we said our goodbyes, and she looked at my sister and my mom, but not at me.

I understand if she felt uncomfortable. After all, she did tell me to fuck off. It feels good writing about it, too. Looking back on the incident, I realize that I am indeed over her. It did not make me sad to see her. I have to admit though, I was nervous as shit.

The Evangelist

I finally got my hands on a copy of Robert Forster's new album, the Evangelist. I found it at Borders, which surprised me. I thought that I'd have to order it online since there aren't any more plain ol' record stores round here. The album is really, really good. The song Demon Days, which Grant wrote part of before he died, is one of the most beautiful songs you've never heard. Robert's voice sounds so much like Grant's on the song, and at the beginning of the first verse for a split second I thought it was Grant singing and I nearly cried (for real) and then I woke up and I knew it wasn't Grant but for that one second he was alive again.

Shipbuilding

I finally got around to modifying the Gretsch. Remember this puppy?
Well, I ordered new electronics for it. The stuff came in the mail yesterday, all pre-wired, and all I had to do was remove the old stuff and drop the new stuff into the guitar. Easy right? Well, no. I hadn't expected it to be a cakewalk, but it turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined. Taking the old stuff out was easy enough,
but everything else was tough to do. First, the new potentiometers were slightly bigger than the old ones, so I had to drill wider holes into the guitar face. Getting the components to their proper locations was the hardest part, since I had only the pickup cavities and f-holes to work through. Now I have an idea of what it's like to build a ship in a bottle. After about 8 hours worth of work, I finished, and here's what the old lady looks like now:
She looks like a high-end Gretsch, sort of a mix between the Chet Atkins and Anniversary models.

When I was all done, I worried that I might have broken a solder while trying to get one thing or other into the guitar. I also worried that I might not have grounded the guitar properly, in which case I would get electrocuted and die. So I hesitantly plugged it in and...well I'm alive enough to tell you about it. It sounds great and, of course, it looks great too! I must say I'm proud of having done this all myself, and in a relatively short time, too.

If you're curious, my pickups are now TV Jones TV Classics. They're meant to look and sound like the old Gretsch Filter'Trons. Peace.

Oh yeah--I also replaced the old (and ugly) Tune-O-Matic bridge with a supercool rocking bar bridge. Everything else is stock. Time now to buy an Epiphone Casino!

Banana Theme Entirely Unintentional

This would have been a number of separate short posts had I been better about getting on this thing. Let's start with the earliest developments, shall we? We'll work our way to the present.

1. A few nights ago I made banana bread. Num num! It's all gone now. I could have left it in the oven a few minutes longer, but good nonetheless!

2. Anyone read the July issue of Mojo? Sylvie Simmons wrote like every other page of it! Which is great, because she's my favorite writer on there, probably my favorite music journalist, period. The issue is the one with the Pistols in the cover.

3. This was in the mail today:

Remember the story a year or so back about some Canadian (I think) dude rummaging around some New York basement and finding the mother of all acetates, the Velvets' demo of the banana album? Well, I always figured that whoever bought it on ebay ($100k + I believe), it was his responsibility to get this out on cd for everyone to hear. I always thought it was too important a historical document to leave unreleased. Well, now my wish has come true and it's out! It's been released as 'Unripened' and it's a shitty pun but I'll take it anyway. On first glance it seems like a legit release but upon closer inspection one wonders whether Lou and them are getting any royalties when one sees funny typos about 'vocal infections'. No peelable sticker, and instead of 'peel slowly and see' the little leader at the top of the banana says 'unripened listen slowly and hear' which is really, really stupid but again I'll take it. Haven't listened to it fully yet. So far, not too different from the proper album that followed, and a bit disappointing to be perfectly honest. But so many of these things are. Peace!

Strange Changes are Happening to My Body

I plucked out a white nose hair tonight. I noticed it last week while giving the old snoot a hearty pick, and today after another satisfying pick I decided it had to go. It was quite long (1+ cm), and translucent like a piece of fiberglass from my nose. Age is taking over me. What once was is now no more. So long, old friends...

Starter for 10

Not often I gush about a movie, but I just saw this movie called 'Starter for 10' that I thought was really good. It's about an awkward kid in college. It doesn't have that wink-wink, nudge-nudge, I'm-so-clever feeling that movies about the same sort of thing have. I dunno, I may find some corny stuff when I watch it again, but right now I recommend it 100%, especially for the 80's soundtrack. Watch it!

Updates

First, scratch off my summer movie list--Blade Runner, Prince Caspian, Iron Man, Indiana Jones.

Hooked the Wii up to the internet last night. Man, it's like the future. Turn it on, get news, weather. It's not just for entertainment and it's all in your TV. That's how the future will be--"Computer, give me the news...Now, the weather...Now I want to play a game...Now, go online."

I played golf in a course today in preparation for the tourney I play in on Thursday. Was hitting okay. Had some beautiful tee shots. Got rained out on the sixth hole though...

That's all for now, folks...

(T_T)

Bo Diddley died yesterday.

I sure hope ol' Blues Boy is taking care of himself...

In the shower tonight I thought it would be nice to compile a bunch of Bo Diddley beat songs. When I was in high school I could name a whole bunch of such songs, but now all I can think of is U2(ugh)'s Desire and I Want Candy (Bow Wow Wow and Nuggets versions--whoever does the Nuggets one). The rest are Bo Diddley songs. Huh...where is my encyclopedic knowledge now?

Worth the Wait? Mais Wii!

This was waiting for me when I got home today:


God damn, is the Wii fun. Me and my niece were going nuts over Mario Galaxy. AAUGH! THE MEATBALL WILL SQUISH ME!!!

One More Thing...

This is probably old news in the interweb, but I will post it anyway in case you haven't seen it. Tim Russert is a prominent political newscaster in this part of the world, and maybe even some of you on the other side of the globe have heard of him. Anyway, he farted on TV yesterday. Loudly. Here's the link. I wanted to watch it in the office, but couldn't get myself to turn the sound up, but I was laughing nevertheless. Now with sound I am laughing even harder.

Woo Again

I bought the Wii! Yesterday out of the blue I went to bestbuy.com and they had it in stock so I bought it with the gift card, which I maxed out. At first I thought they were accepting reservations, but it turned out that they actually had some in stock. Then I began to wait for the email saying that my Wii would not come for another month or so. But today I got an email saying that it shipped! Holy shit!!! I also got Mario Galaxy and a second set of remotes, which I will pick up in-store, and which means I will have them before I actually get my Wii.

I also saw the final cut of Blade Runner last night. I really liked it. So scratch that one off the summer movie list. There's this girl who works at the Panera bread shop next to the AFI cinema in Silver Spring who is soooo cute and I really want to ask her out...

I know it's only ten but I have to sleep really soon. I have to wake up at four to get to my cousin's college graduation at the US Naval Academy early enough to park and get seats. We are going through so damn much to attend this kid's graduation, and, nothing against him, I think it's a load of bullshit. I mean, it's like no jeans, no t-shirts, leave at 5 am--what the fuck, man!? To be honest, I'm only going for the diner breakfast and the buffet dinner. If only I can sneak out in between. I'm definitely bringing that Feynman biography I bought last night.

One last thing--the Ramones documentary, the End of the Century, was on cable while I was running on the treadmill and they showed a clip of Blondie's Heart of Glass video, and I realized that Debbie Harry and Elisha Cuthbert look a lot alike. Dunno why I never noticed this before...

Woo

So I go to Best Buy today hoping to get that Wii. I figure it isn't so hot anymore. So I go there and I see some big boxes with the Wii logo on them but they turn out to be copies of Dance Dance Revolution. So I pull a foot soldier aside and ask him if they had Wiis and he says "we have a shipment of 50 coming in tomorrow." And I ask him how quickly they go and I think he says in an hour or something and basically he tells me that I should be in line at the door by six tomorrow morning if I want to get one. So I figure, fuck it, right? I don't need one right now (although I really want to play Mario Galaxy).

I saw Baby Mama today. Scratch that one off the list. That's all for now, SNL is on.

How could I forget?

Another movie--Batman 2

Dot dot dot...

Following up...

Called post office today--mailbox lock will be changed next week...

Add to summer movie list: Speed Racer and Star Wars cartoon. Am sure I'm forgetting more still...

New stuff...

Had Quiznos today. Disappointing. Shocking, yes. The dude covered all that steak with this sweet sauce that just ruined it. It's worse than slathering meat with A-1. Let the beef speak for itself, man...

Called Best Buy earlier. We signed up for Verizon TV and got a $200 BB gift card. I was told that I can't use the gift card to help pay off my LCD TV so I will use it to buy a Wii. I really want Mario Galaxy...and Mario Kart looks fun, too. Dunno why I want a Wii, haven't played video games in ages...

Caught up a bit with episodes of Reaper. Those of you in foreign lands, watch it if you get it. It's very funny. Glad they didn't cut the season short because of the writers' strike, like Pushing Daisies (another great show). Nice to look at Missy Peregrym, but--SPOILER ALERT--when she finds out Sam's deal and she starts talking to him about the devil she just sounds so fake, as if as an actress, she's just not into the dialogue and finds the premise silly. Dunno, just got that vibe...

Tuesday, the 13th

Today at work I was so gassy and my stomach was killing me and I wanted to go home but figured I'd stay the full day and save the sick time for when I would really need it.

When I got home I was told that when my niece's nanny went to get the mail, our box was already unlocked. I don't know what to make of this. It could be identity theft, but, God, I hope it isn't. Could be the mailman, but doesn't seem likely. Could be kids practicing picking locks. Could be that whoever got the mail yesterday didn't close it well, but that might not be, because you need to lock the mailbox before you can pull your key out, but today the box was unlocked and open not locked but open. So I dunno, really. Wait until tomorrow. I'll give the post office a call, maybe they can change the lock. Hopefully it's nothing. Lord knows we don't need the grief. It niggles, yes.

So I think the new Indiana Jones DVDs come out today or tomorrow. I am so buying those. I wonder what's so special about these "special edition"s...I hope they didn't put in useless extra footage and computer graphics like they did in Star Wars. Georgie can be a bit of an ass that way. If they did, I'll try to buy the box set they came out with a few years ago.

And of course this is all because the new Indy flick comes out this week, right? Jiminy Christmas that is going to be so awesome. I'm trying something this summer--whatever blockbuster comes out that interests me for one reason or other, I'm going to the movies to watch it. The list so far:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Harold and Kumar 2
Indiana Jones 4
Iron Man
Baby Mama
Tropic Thunder
Pineapple Express (that's coming out this year, right?)
2001
Blade Runner ('final cut')
Prince Caspian

I think there's more. Will update as necessary, and review at the end of the summer.

It's Been a While

Wowee. Four months. I've meant to write a lot of times, but stuff always came up. Tonight seemed like a good time to get this thing rolling again since I've kinda sorta began a new chapter of my life: I've applied to grad school. The essay is sent, and all's left to do tomorrow is to send in my college transcripts. So it's back to school for me, and I'm actually looking forward to it. I miss learning. Two years more or so in engineering school.

So what's new since November? Well, I decided to take advantage of my steady income and buy furniture for the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Now the house actually looks like a house. I also got a widescreen LCD HDTV and a surround sound system. I also got an upconverting DVD player to watch DVDs in 1080p and that works rather nicely. Waiting a couple of years for BluRay to get cheap.

I also very recently bought an electric Guitar. It's a Gretsch G5120 Electromatic. I like it. Hollowbody--f-holes and all.



Tomorrow night I get to see 2001 on the big screen. That should be something. *Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra* But I'm really looking forward to the Blue Danube scene.

Sorry for the crap post. Just telling you what's up, peace