Don’t you think? The people that go to these rallies (or whatever they call them)– have they, y’know… er–read books? Can they? Do they not have time to think about things around them, or do they maybe have too much?

I didn’t really show up here to talk about that, but I’m watchin a show on History about the Book of Revelation.

Uh, quite different topic here– wanted you to know that my record is almost ready to come out:

All I need to do now is form a band, learn to play, and cut an album.

Had peanut butter for dinner today. Didn’t want to make more dirty dishes. I should probably wash the ones in the sink. I really, really, really wanna get done with putting all the crap away in the apartment here, but I *just barely* feel like getting up out of my chair. Yeah, it’s hard to get up for this crap.

Oh, damn– the Brewers are on. See ya later. More tomorrow.

Somehow, I’ve managed to keep the apartment fairly cool today…

As you will notice, given the weather radar image below:

But I also didn’t blog yesterday; I got caught up in a little project of trying to squeeze more music on to a CD for the walking (in case it works out in the long run). My player can play mp3 discs, so I can theoretically have 700 MB or so of music on one CD.

The first one I whipped up the other day only ended up with about 6 or 7 albums on it. Not that many to choose from. I was also working with a slightly lower-capacity CD. So what I did is I went through my tunes on the server and pulled out about 20 or 25 that I thought would be nice to walk with, and I’m re-encoding copies of them at a lower bit rate. I think 96 should be OK. Mundschau would tell you I should have gone with 64, but that seems really low. Considering that I’ve done a bunch of these over time at 256 or higher, going to 96 will make a big diff.

Then I was watching this show on the History channel about salty snacks. That’s right, I watched an hour-long program about how popcorn, potato chips, and corn chips are made and became popular in America (part of a series called ‘America Eats’). Mid-way through, I felt like quite a dork, but I also felt like popcorn, so I made a bowl. Stupid shows about food…

I’ll pretty much be at home this weekend, but y’know who won’t? Joe Knitt. That dude is workin two part-time jobs on top of going to class right now. He’s frickin nuts.

But anyway, I gave you the shaft on the blogging yesterday, so I’m sure I’ll be back as the day wears on…

Yeah, it’s that time of year again. Time for a morning and afternoon shower. This wouldn’t be necessary if I had a pool. But, if I had a pool, that would mean a bunch of other shit is probably all taken care of, too, so…

But have you seen the forecast for the next few days? My ma said it might get up OVER A HUNDRED in E.R. That is nuts. They’re forecasting 90s over the weekend here and advising everyone who’s sick, dying, young, too fat, too thin, or ugly to stay indoors or drink plenty of non-alcoholic fluids.

When there is a week every summer that we break all the all-time heat records from the previous summer, it really makes you feel more like this global warming shit is the real deal. I think that I mentioned I went to An Inconvenient Truth over the 4th weekend, and I would definitely recommend it to everyone I know. If you’re a neo-conservative of any kind, you’re going to think it’s just a lot of liberal propaganda, but… in that case, you were probably gonna keep being a dick about global warming anyway. So why not see the movie and pick up some fresh ammo for tearing liberals/Al Gore/hippies to pieces?

Even if not everything in Al’s movie is scientifically 100% true (and really, when you talk about scientific theory, how can anybody know 100% for sure), there are truths within it that we should all probably think about.

Anyway.

Bloggin early this eve because I plan to see the pirate movie with BryGuy? in a bit. Michelle didn’t wanna see this one, and that’s fair, because I flat-out refused to see The Devil Wears Prada. The reviews on Johnny & The Pirate Hoard have not been stellar this time around, but if it’s fun, that’s all I’m looking for. I will let you know.

Meanwhile, I just got a message that my student loans are all consolimadated, so, WHOO-HOO don’t have to pay Great Lakes or D-Loans? this month…

I walked in to work this morning, for the first time since I moved. One of the things I knew I would like about the new place is the garage/free parking, because it means I don’t have to park in a damned city-owned lot anymore. However, today was the first time I actually got out of bed and got ready fast enough to have time to walk.

Or so I thought.

Turns out that walking takes all of 5 minutes more than driving from where I live now, so really I don’t have an excuse. Good to keep in mind for the future (when I will undoubtedly run late again).

But I thought this would be a good idea – wear my Nike cross-trainers on the walk, and carry my dressier shoes with me. I have a couple pair that I only wear to work, so I’m thinkin it’ll work just as well to leave my shoes here and change when I get in. Sitting at my desk changing my shoes at the start of the day does make me feel like Mr. Rogers, of course. Maybe I should start wearing sweaters every day, too. Hmm…

Something else that goes along with this walking in: I am a member of a culture that seems to require a soundtrack at all times, so like everyone else that walks anywhere these days, I packed my CD player (most of you have an iPod, this I know) and earbuds so I could listen to tunes during the walk. Really didn’t seem to be worth it to me. Maybe it’s the short length of the walk, or the fact that I never really was one of those people, but I walking in silence seems just as agreeable to me.

If you ask me, there’s an extent to which being plugged in to your music player all the time is a way of saying, “Hey world, piss off—I’m busy…” But hey, whatever you wanna do… I give myself three days or so of this walking with music before I tire of it.

However, if you do need to walk somewhere and must have music to do it, I would highly recommend Wilco’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.’ Seems quite conducive to an average walking pace…

Oh, and I googled my route-by-foot to work to see if the Googlators would do the same thing as me. They’re going all the way up to Algoma for some damn reason, but I changed it a little with a highlighter. In case you’re interested.

Holy crap I didn’t get dick done at work today. I was tired in the AM and lazy in the P. Count yourself very fortunate that this here bloggerino is happificating.

Have I already mentioned the weekend? Seems that I did. Yes I did. OK, next topic.

I’d have to say that what frustrates me the most about the days spent at work, even if they’re not all too stressful, is that they make me wanna not do stuff when I get home. I have this whole new apartment to “settle in” to, and my interest in taking care of that is very close to zero. In a matter of days, I’ll have to worry about laundry again instead, and that right there is one thing that makes me wish I was a robot. Or, at least I wish that I smelled like a robot and had the sweat glands of a robot.

Because everyone knows that robots sweat battery acid, so when you go up to a robot and say, “God, man—you stink…” the robot just smiles, reaches under his or her armpit, and then jabs an acidy finger in your eye. This is why people don’t often fuck with robots.

And naturally, if I were a robot, it would not only eliminate the need to do laundry, I would have an endless supply of energy with which to finish the apartment settling. That is, if robots lived in apartments. I’m fairly certain that if I were a robot, I would live in some sort of swanky Robot Commune, where we (me and the other robots) would spend our evenings drinking beer and plotting how best to kill all the humans.

Maybe this robot thing wouldn’t be that great after all.

Here’s a link for ya:
from the AP

Even though it may be in poor taste to say so, I think ‘The Chechen Rebels’ would be a pretty sweet name for band.

Missed the blogging yesterday, mostly due to being out of town for the day down in MKE… I went to a little shindig at Grandma’s house for three purposes: a 50th birthday, a 75th birthday, and a college graduation. None of these events actually occured this weekend, but it was a nice little get-together anyway.

I did manage to get a campsite reserved at Yellowstone for our vacation at the end of the month. I have to remember to ask off for that Monday the 31st instead of taking a half-day on the Friday before.

But yeah, apparently it’s really really difficult to book space at that Park in the summer. The woman on the phone told me that they are generally booked a year in advance. I guess I was lucky. So now, at a minimum, we know where we’ll be sleeping each day for that week.

And speaking of the Brewers, they have play two fairly frustrating games against Cubs pitchers that they should’ve handled the past two days… although I admit that I was not in much of a baseball-watching condition for last evening’s game. I wonder if part of the problem was a relative lack of food. Hard to say, but I was pretty happy when the game ended last night.

But today Doug Davis pitched like crap. I’m starting to think they’ve gotten the best two years of his career out of him, and it may be time to move on.

I forgot my camera in the car again when I was on my way to something fun and social yesterday, so no pics available. However– do you or does anyone you know have a digital SLR I could borrow for the trip out west?

I wanna just get this really brief rant off my chest:
I farking hate it when a kid’s parent gets mad at me for crap that was totally within their control at a certain point, but because the kid is an idiot, now they’re in a world of shit. Do me a favor and get mad at your stupid kid. Cuz that’s the person who messed up.

Right, so… other than that, it’s Friday.

I also made a call today to the cable company, because my RoadRunner? email address had stopped working, and it was confirmed that the person who moved my service for me didn’t do it exactly the right way. All is well now, and it turns out I’ll get to watch the Brewers on TV until the end of the season. So that’ll be nice.

I’m going to another game tomorrow, in addition to attending a party at Grandma’s house. So those things will be fun. Maybe I’ll get in a fight with a Cubs fan. Man, I really hate the Cubs. And the amazing thing is, the Crew hasn’t even been in the NL for 10 years yet. Doesn’t matter. Chicago. Hatred. It goes hand-in-hand.

I also spent some quality time on the p-hone with my lady this evening, and we did some more planning of our summer vacation (on the calendar for July 22-31). We’re doing a western National Park tour and stopping off in Nebraska and Bozeman, too. I’m really looking forward to it. A lot. The only thing I’m nervous about is, well, wait– two things I guess– I’m nervous that I might wanna do so much stuff that I don’t relax enough and end up acting like kind of a schedule-driving dick, and I’m also nervous that Michelle might not be good enough at driving my car in time.

I can’t believe this trip is only two weeks away, too. Crap-tastic. Have you seen all the stuff laying around my apartment? I kinda need to clean this stuff up before I leave. Maybe I can do that next weekend…

So the Brewers are down 4-1 right now, with two out in the bottom of the 7th. I know they’ve come back a lot this year, but this doesn’t look very good today. I’m gonna finish watching it, though.

Might have some new pics posted soon, so look for those.

Hope you had a nice 4th. Mine was dandy, per usual. Went to Veterans Park for the fireworks on 7/3, went to see the Brewers on 7/4.

Michelle came up earlier in the weekend and helped me unpack some stuff around the house, among other things. I should probably get the bills paid for this month so I know exactly where I’m at in advance of leaving for Montana at the end of July.

Did I mention I was going to Montana at the end of July? Anyone I should say ‘hi’ to?

Oh, and did I mention that I moved? Thanks to all those who helped, particularly Joe, for the use of the Jeep and whatnot.

I will post some pics of the new digs once it’s a bit more “put together.” Meanwhile, if you had a key to the crib before, you are welcome to pick up a new one…

Next and finally: I am going to make a concerted effort to post daily for the foreseeable future. Stop back in a week to check on my progress.