what the fuck is "Straight Edge"? is this some new pop culture thing? i hate pop culture...

i'm such a recluse. GOD.

people have this thing where they hate whatever is popular. i hate that. in a sense, i do it too, because hating popular things is so trendy now... so in effect, i'm hating something that's popular. i just can't get away. NO ONE CAN! society has become one large conundrum.

to even ponder this would be about as effective as beating myself over the head with a frying pan, but i'll do it anyway. i really have nothing else to do... and all my frying pans are in the dishwasher...

i wrote a story tonight... or at least, part of a story. mally and i were just talking about stories and writing the other day (haha, "other day") and it inspired me to actually WRITE SOMETHING OUT. that girl makes me happy.

none of you can see it, though. you don't love me. well, some people love me:

groupie pics! i'm so not deserving of that... but i'll take it anyway. thanks bri.

dude, i got that EXACT pron icq the other day.

funny: people who say "the other day" for basically any time in the past, like from yesterday to the day you were born. example:

A: "i have a funny story about the other day, when i went mountain biking with my friend david from grade school.."

B: "recently?"

A: "no, in grade school..."

the other day i met some people who do that. those people are the best and i'll do anything to become them, like eat their brains or whatever.

another funny story: i was driving and i heard a song on the radio. never heard it before. i was all thinking "this is the exact kind of song i tend to write." then the dj is like "That was VERTICAL HORIZON's new song!"

well, i guess there was a reason i kept joking about sounding like vertical horizon...

p.s. earlier when i said i met people the other day, i actually meant i met them on winter break. see? see?

i just got another one of those porn icq's again. you know, the one's where they pretend to know you:

"hey brad! thanks for the SECRET teen sex link!"

this one happens to be for a live chat/show, i guess. at the end of the message it says, "And I've just had a video-chat with their sexy teen Jenny! She's really been doing for me everything what I asked! %-)"

since when did 5 year olds start promoting teen sex sites? "She's really been doing everything for me what i asked!"??? i'm not a grammar whore, but COME ON! i want my teen sex sophisticated DAMNIT!

and what the hell is "%-)"? is this some kind of secret teen sex emoticon that i've been left out of the loop about? if so, please KEEP me out of the loop.

oh, and i woke up at 8 am today. that's weird for me. i'm sure all you kids in school are saying, "you suck, jacob. i have to wake up at 6 am EVERYDAY!" but i'm just gonna plug up my ears and pretend that my pain is bigger than yours. so, hahaha.

and no one has suggested any band names to us yet. even though mal didn't SAY that's what he wanted, he meant it. or at least i mean it. we're pretty adamant about the fact that our band name has to be fucking incredibly STUPENDOUS, and we probably wouldn't use any name that someone just threw out to us... but still...

re what jacob said: too bad i sound like VERTICAL HORIZON. i bet no indie labels would sign me because i'm too mainstreamy, and at the same time i'm too shitty and non-mainstreamy to get signed by a major.

yeah, i very much hate those fake fanmails. i don't seem to get too many of them lately, though. another thing that sucks is that the London, Ontario charts got totally swamped with new shit, and its really popular and stuff, so I got bumped off the charts. I checked out one of the new London, Ontario bands, and i like know one of the dudes in the band... that's fucked up. But i didnt listen to their songs because i'm a spiteful bitch.

hey, i got a fan mail yesterday and I just realized it was one of those FAKE ones!! it took me this long to figure it out! those sneaky fuckers. they're like "You rock!" and i thought i rocked... but it was all a lie.

so anyway, my sister played songs at school today. i video taped her. she did "Losing California" by Sloan, with this one dude, Ben Wilkins, who looks like the main kid from Almost Famous. it's actually funny. he looks so sixties, like a member of the velvet underground or something. stacey says that he wants to start a band with her, and she's probably gonna go for it. they're all into the indie pop thing, so maybe they'll make something really cool. I think they should call their band either Sparkle Tots, or The Ben Wilkins Bunch. ha hahaha.

me and jacob are trying to come up with a good name for our band... jacob was thinking of naming it something heavy metal, which makes me think of things like SCORPION or KINGS OF DEATH... or something with "Axe" in it. but i would be scared that bikers and thrashers would come to our shows, and then kill us when we turn out to be folky indie losers.

so here's a few ideas:

never mind, i can't think of any. just as long as it's nothing as nerdy as Kupek. maybe we can call OUR band The Ben Wilkins Bunch. hahahahahhaha.

p.s. the thing about me sounding like VERTICAL HORIZON is a joke. nobody ever seems to get that joke, though. i am cryptic.

speaking of mp3.com: what's up with all the people that send fake fanmails? the ones that go, "I listened to your song and liked it!! now listen to mine!!!"

it's bad enough that no one has ever sent me a mail saying they liked a specific song of mine (always "your song!!"), but they always want me to listen to their mp3.com radio station all day long also. i've a feeling these people just mass e-mail mp3.com artists. there's one guy who i just got a mail from. he said he really liked my song and that i should listen to his.

"you'll like it, i promise!!!"

thanks a lot dude. you sent me a carbon copy of that same e-mail two months ago. and i listened to that song... it was ok. not amazing. i wouldn't stick it on a radio station and play it on repeat all day long just so you can get some "payback for playback"...

just to get it out in the open, i'm the last person you want to co-op with to get payback. did you see the payback numbers on my site? $0.00. and i'm fucking PROUD of it. if i could get paid with food and a place to live just for playing music, i'd do it... same with drawing and designing and programming and... and... playing video games...

me and my friend ron had this big discussion about how you have to sell out a little bit just to get to a place where you can finally do whatever you want creatively. that was his stance anyway. i still disagree and, sadly, cannot say exactly why. i mainly can't articulate why because i almost agree with him. in a painful way. i guess my biggest concern is ending up like i did at Universal...

it was Universal... i made a lot of money at a really big company... doing what i didn't want to be doing. i mean, it was a childhood goal to work at a place like that... but it was really all diluted childhood goals. the job sucked, but it looked good on my resume.

i mean, i don't WANT to become a big famous MTV musician. i've seen that "making the video" show. i don't want to make stupid videos like those. i don't even want to BE in videos for my songs. i just wanna make crazy ass Paranoid Android type videos. those big name music labels rape you. they MAKE you do shit. you sign a contract, they give you money, and you're bound to do what they say...

luckily, no big label would ever sign me. i don't make kroq music. but that's what that conversation me and my friend had was about. changing the way you sound just so a big label would sign you.

here's the formula ron layed out (in so many words):

1. create a mainstream sound that everyone wants to hear.
2. get signed. cater to the big wigs for awhile.
3. when the third or fourth contract album comes around, do it the way you want it...

but, no. that can't always work. i've heard of musicians getting sued by the labels because they "changed directions." it was "not an accurate representation of the band they signed"...

i could go on about this forever and ever. i have this bad habit of being on both sides of an argument. i'm right, but then there's a reason i'm wrong, but then yes, i'm still right... but not. it's terrible, really.

the point is: i want to make music for a lot of people, but done my way. saying what i want to say. i want the ears, but i don't want the cash that's in their wallets... but i still have to wake up everyday and EAT, though. living under a roof is nice, too. walking around with clothes on is cool also...

god, dude... that's fucked up.

i'm trying not to remember my childhood. but whenever you talk, i get like these vivid memories exploding in my mind like deadly crystals of flavor and childhood trauma. yesterday we were talking about You Can't Do That on Television for some reason, for example...

anyway, so now you made me remember that my best friend in grade school dressed up as a woman once, and it was fucked up. i wonder what that dude is doing now. David Mathias. if you're reading this... well, there's little chance of that, but hey. if so, i'd appreciate an e-mail.

so it was my birthday the other day. i'm 22 now... and like a full 7 months or something older than that weak young pussy jacob. i told my parents it was the 2nd best birthday ever, after my 2nd birthday when i had a cookie monster cake.

i just remembered that i didnt even have any of my birthday cake yet... shit. it's been like 2 days.

in a completely unrelated story, is it just me or is mp3.com really shitty? not only did they bust me for copyright infringement yesterday, but it took them like 3 days to process my songs, and any changes to my page take like hours to go through. if they ever get on the ball, i'll have a new song up, and shit. that's at http://mp3.com/kupek.

my mom sent me this binder full of old pictures of me recently. a few things i noticed as i looked through it:

- my uncles seemed puzzled by my tiny 2 day old body.
- i had big ears as a child.
- did they keep me permanently stoned as a baby, or is it normal to look like that ALL the time?
- me and fake santa clause DID NOT get along.
- i'd like to think that's my package, but i know it's just my diapers under those trousers.
- i really liked raisins (?).
- i slept beautifully.
- innertubes were a big part of my childhood.
- what compelled me to wear a red bandana around my neck?!? and a tight knit white wool sweater? it's a good thing mom never drove me through compton, cuz i'd get CAPPED, yo.
- fake mickey mouse birthday cakes = C+ for effort.
- i looked coolest in my 4th grade school photo. i was so shaggy indie.
- after 4th grade it all went downhill.
- by the looks on my cat's faces, you'd think they didn't like me...
- my mom called my cousins pink care bear "tender heart." i don't remember exactly what my cousins care bear WAS called, but tender heart was fucking BROWN. not PINK. *ahem*
- my diamond back bike kicked ass. kicked MY ass. i have the scars to prove it.
- my dukes of hazard birthday cake was the best thing i've ever gotten.
- we had a pool.
- i wore a shirt that was blue and neon pink/green. it said "V-BALL" on it. what?!?
- i've dressed up as a woman for halloween far too many times...
- i made this shirt for halloween. it had bats on it. it sucked.
- i danced with this parade chick at disneyland when i was 12. by the look on my face, it seems that this "girl" creature was amazing to me. THUS BEGAN PUBERTY!
- i've never BEEN to nazereth, but i've dressed the part.
- i actually DID play sports. A LOT. oh my god.
- i don't know how i survived all those sports, because when i look at myself, the term "frail wussy boy" comes to mind.
- during high school, i thought i was cool. let's pretend i was for the sake of my ego.
- after the age of 16, it seemed impossible for me to take a picture without blinking, sneezing or falling.
- i don't know why, but there's a really cute picture of me when i was about 6 (and blonde for a short time) mixed in with my high school pictures. what could my mother be trying to tell me?
- my mom is a nerd.
- but i'm a bigger nerd.

there seems to be a brief period in all this where i was a bit awkward. my roommate would probably tell you that 21 years wouldn't be considered brief, but she isn't writing this, now is she?

the comments work again... and i have nothing to say... except:

mal makes me tingle all over. *orgasm*.

happy birthday you sexy bitch...

this is new. i was tired of the old. you may notice that the page takes a while to load lately. that's because of the comments. blogvoices.com hosts them, so everytime you load the page, you're loading the blogvoices url as well. it seems that blogvoices is broken at the moment. hopefully it get's better, because i'd hate to have to lose the comments...

in my dream, she confessed her love. and i was shocked and i could sense right away that she was probably lying, or at least lying to herself. there was this hard gleam in her eye, something that instinctively scared me.

we made out for an hour anyway.

"you'll take care of it, right?" she said, later. she was talking about the fact that she had a boyfriend and she hadn't done anything about it. she wanted me to tell him that she was leaving him for me.

this is a dream, there was other shit, like she was secretly a transforming robot fighter, but this part sticks in my mind. it was important. it shocked me and that gleam in her eye was still there.

"you'll take care of it, right?"

i said i would take care of it.

i was probably lying.

inside i was thinking that the kissing was nice, but that it wasn't going to stop me from leaving in a few days.

later, things started setting on fire. there were accidents. it was a dangerous time.

i woke up this morning feeling sick. i spent half an hour on the toilet. then i went back to bed and had this dream, in the middle of a mess of other dreams. i woke up feeling sick again some time later, but i remembered this part clearly because it's important to me.

i made up a story like this about a year ago. a story about a guy named Mark who plays bass guitar and who's going away to the big city to try and make it big with his band. a few weeks before he leaves, he runs into a girl that he used to know in high school, this girl named Andrea. he's been in love with her as long as he's known her, for no reason that he can really determine.

they hang out and talk, and he tells her he's going soon. then, the night before he leaves, she calls him up and begs him to come over. when he gets there, she says she's in love with him and throws herself at him.

problem is, she's lying. she doesn't find him attractive and she can barely tolerate him as a friend. the truth is she sucks balls at interpersonal relationships and has basically run out of friends at this point in her life. and she's stuck in the same rut, with her shit job at the grocery store, while he's getting away. this is something she can't handle.

anyway, it's probably not the greatest story ever, and there's a little more to it, but the basic germ is: if you were leaving to follow your dreams, what's the one thing that would make you reconsider?

a girl who's perfect, like jacob was saying.

but she's not perfect. we all know that. in the story, just like in my dream, Mark realizes it right away: his perfect dream girl is probably lying. this can't possibly be real.

maybe it's a bad psychological thing on my part, maybe i just can't imagine anything so beautiful being pure and real and everything.

i dream about it all the time, though.

have you ever listened so hard that you knew exactly what they were saying? what they were saying was so true, it scared you? there was an unrelenting air of realism. only, that realism came with a lack of hope...

it didn't start that way, though. the story started with a love. with a girl probably. you would sit and stare into her eyes, and she'd quietly ask, "what?"... but she already knew the answer to that. she just wanted to make sure it wasn't a dream. and you were glad she made it clear that it wasn't. then you probably brushed her hair aside and kissed her.

but this isn't about kisses. this is about perfect. god damn perfect.

it doesn't exist.

that's just a moment. you told her she was perfect, and she was. she was perfectly flawed. maybe you even said it to her, "what i love about you is that you're NOT perfect." but you know you didn't mean it. you thought she was perfect.

that was the first downfall. the first moment that she would never be able to live up to again. and neither would you. that was the breaking point. the place where all of your inadequacies were caught, fighting to break free, and you foolishly tried to shove them back in their hole.

it's funny how this moment we all strive for is the moment that eventually kills us. the moment we look back on and say, "what ever happened to those days?"

"you can't stay mad at the setting sun, because we all get tired, i mean, eventually there is nothing left to do but sleep..."

i sit here shaking, unexpectedly. i've been doing that a lot lately. i hope it's some disease rather than pent up anxiety. because i can't handle it. i've come into a large realization of the truth lately, and i hate it. i hate the truth. i hate what it does to me. hopelessness. helplessness.

"i sat watching a flower as it was withering. i was embarrassed by it's honesty..."

this is all a lack of simplicity. THAT is what i strive for now. simplicity. no expectations. i've been fighting a long hard battle with my expectations. i believe this is what prevents love. this is the evil. and it's an evil that is entirely human. entirely expected. expectations are expected.

"i'd like to make some changes before you arrive. so when your new eyes meet mine, they won't see no lies. just love."

really, i do. i want to believe that this is all for the greater good. these marks that are left on my face, they've pushed away the many, and held close the few. but i can't help but think of the many. so many. do the few make up for the many?

that question isn't even relevant. they're all in the same place. there is enough room. i promise. i'll make room. even if i burst. not like i haven't before. and all those that trickle out my eyes, i'll catch in my hands... maybe keep it in a glass next to my bed...

"so i would like to be remembered as a smiling face and not this fucking wreck that's taken it's place."

whatever did happen to all those good days? did they ever really exist? even though it felt like complete happiness, it seems like a lie now... or, maybe it seemed too real. too god damned perfect. now it seems wrong. you call yourself foolish as if you were a different person back then. as if those nights you stayed up late thinking about her weren't justified. "how could i be so stupid?"

i'll let you in on a secret: you're still stupid. in the best way. in the way that you're willing to sacrifice the reality of her defects just to experience perfect love.

but i say: it wasn't a lie. you smiled, you were happy. there was once a time. but expectations ruined that.

i think you're ready. i think you're ready to go out there and make a complete fool out of yourself. without that, what else is there? if you found exactly what you were looking for, where would you go from there? if they looked at you and expected that you already knew what you were doing, how could you ever surprise them? nobody listens without surprise.

surprise. you're new again.

not to rant like a terrible fuck again, but:

i ran into a girl i used to know in high school. currently she works at wal mart, she has short hair, she lives with her high school sweetheart. she requested my e-mail address and that of the friend i was with. we complied. a few weeks later, she sent a probing e-mail about basically nothing (to both of us).

ok wait, why am i writing this?

the point is, she started sending me forwards. the gay kind, like "BEWARE OF THIS VIRUS!" so after the 2nd forward, i replied politely asking her to please stop including me in that shit. and she got back to me in a fit, pissed that i replied to berate her, but never replied to her initial "Hi how's it going your friend died are you sad???" e-mail.

well, sorry.

in other news, i'm fucking tired of everyone else, too, and i'm about ready to ... to... anally rape them with a jackhammer.

so, my birthday is next week. la la la.

i want to address what jacob said earlier: mally is cute, witty and smart. those are rare and enchanting qualities in a girl. she also seems to be fun and interesting. a common problem is that a girl will be cute, witty, smart, and COMPLETELY PERSONALLY REPELLENT. or, more frequently, she'll be dumb and dull-witted as well. or she'll be completely fucked up and have emotional problems as deep as the seven seas if they were all stacked on top of each other vertically.

i think this is a problem with all people, so don't think i'm being sexist here. and i didn't even talk about the possibility of the girl being ass-ugly.

it's incredibly hard to find someone that's really great all around. ok, i acknowledge that i'm picky, but come on. i have standards. but then, i can hardly even imagine dating anyone, ever, and the last person i had a meaningful relationship with is a complete alien to me now.

this blog shit is getting kind of fun. yo jacob, i think we should become like, the most popular blogger site ever. we'll get millions of hits every day.

check it out. mally (philosohead) is as cute as she is witty and smart. how does that work? that's impossible. i feel duped...

or maybe it's an illusion and she only looks cute because she IS witty and smart.

if i lived close to her, i'd totally not hit on her. i don't hit on cute girls. i don't hit on ANY girls for that matter... i'm such a nerd. i couldn't be suave if my life depended on it.

and if my life DID depend on it, i'd wonder what kind of fucked up situation i've gotten myself into where i better be SUAVE or i'll die...

...

the following is a scripted presentation, brought to you by a faceless internet producer:

my review of Cecil B. Demented: it sucked. haha. i ripped off corey. haha.

thank you.

yea, mal is posting here now. this kind of signifies step 1 of our evolutionary process to take over the world...

and it's not really a departure. i've bashed my share of teen/crime films in the past week and a half.

speaking of Dinosaur: that film represents what a bad movie is. not just because it probably has a bad story/effects/title sequence/whatever (i've never seen the movie actually), but because i know what kind of movie it is. when this idea get's pitched to disney, this is what is said:

producer: so this movie will be called $$$$$. it's main characters will be $$$$ and $$$$ with a $$$$ for comic relief. the basic plot is to get $$$$$ out of the $$$$$ in the $$$$$ while $$$$$ makes it's $$$$$. we really don't have the script written yet. but, you CAN have a look at these toys, which have already been produced and are being shipped as we speak.

writer: what about $$$$$? will there be $$$$$?

producer: i thought i just said that...

and THAT is why i tend to enjoy independent films. when they pitch a film it goes like this:

writer/actor/director/producer: i've been writing this script for 5 years. it's the cumulative total of every emotion i've ever felt. this is my pain. if this movie gets made it will say everything i've ever wanted to say.

producer: will there be any $$$$ in it?

w/a/d/p: no... uhh... that has nothing to do with the script...

producer: i'd really like to see some $$$$$$...

w/a/d/p: well... i have some bananas in the back seat of my car. i think i know some actors that like bananas...

producer: you know why i have my thumb pointed down? you should. it's the universal symbol for "your picture has no $$$$, so you can go to hell." if i had a button that would throw you out of that seat and send you to a bottomless pit, i'd press it.

despite that, he'd work for years, get the money and FINALLY make the movie. and that would be his first step to making a masterpiece.

after Disney said, "let's make a movie with $$dinosaurs$$!" they should have thrown the whole fucking thing out the window. of course, they're only making product, so i guess they DO know what they're doing...

i wondered why i liked Perfect Storm so much, since it does seem to be a money making movie. but i saw something. and when i listened to the dvd commentary with the author of the book Perfect Storm, i knew exactly why i loved it. HE had the passion to make something great... and a lot of that came through in the movie. some got lost, but i think enough stayed...

so let that be a lesson: bananas make good movies.

i watched this disney movie tonight. it was called Dinosaur. ok wait, before that, i watched a tv show called "The Practice", which i should mention. my dad's a lawyer and he doesn't like me watching law shows because he says they're full of shit (and he's right). and i don't watch these shows, usually, or tv at all. so there's that. and then there's the fact that this show is particularly bad for canned drama. ie tonight's episode was not only an EPIC crossover with "Boston Public" (presumably another asinine hour-long drama), but it also had one of the main characters go into labour and deliver a baby in the courtroom. this happened, on my clock, between 10:47 PM and 10:53 PM. yes, it was like a 6 minute labour and delivery ALL INCLUSIVE, and there was even another unrelated scene in the middle.

this just brings me to the point that tv is generally created for the purpose of making more tv. and of course it ties in with comics, which are made for the reason of selling more comics. like, ooh, cliffhanger! you'll have to watch Boston Public to see what happens to your BELOVED character from The Practice. or fucking Wolverine is kissing Jean Grey at the end of this issue or on the cover of the next one, so OOOOH, you better pick it up.

so my original point was about the movie Dinosaur. me and my friends said the word "twat" entirely too many times while watching it. and i think the 6 minute non-scientific labour in The Practice foreshadowed this entire movie's substitution of Family Fun for science and anthropology and whatnot. nice movie, Disney. too bad it sucks ass.

this is probably too much of a departure from what jacob has been talking about. oh yeah, jacob invited me to contribute to this. now we're playing for the same team. i don't have much interesting to say, ever, except cranky bitter ranting, but maybe that will change eventually.

i've been unusually giddy for the past few days. i think it's from the impending meet with my good friends. i can't wait to get away from here for awhile. it's making me a tad worked up.

i've been cleaning a lot lately. that in itself is enough to make anyone who knows me say, "what the fuck are you doing?"

i become an incredibly introspective person when i'm less than happy. that's something me and my friend brought up in a conversation awhile ago. that depression is a huge source of creativity. it's totally true. for me at least. you listen to most of my songs... you think THOSE could've been written while i was really happy? hell no.

most of the things i've done that people really like are spurred from my sadness. or my anger. i've created websites completely out of spite before, not caring if anyone liked it (actually hoping they hated it) and have gotten numerous compliments on them.

but, i think this is a great way to use my depression. i know some people who take it out on the nearest PERSON they can find.

and it's not that happiness can't be an inspiration point... but... it's like... if you played guitar your whole life, and someone suddenly gave you a piano to work with, could you automatically create something with it? even if you've never really played piano before? i'm not sure if that analogy is clear, but i don't really feel like spelling it out.

so, right now i'm happy. when i get happy, i tend to get a little strange. and then i get this fear. it's most likely a totally unjustified fear, but it's still a fear. i rely on my... creativity... i guess. i didn't do terribly at math in high school because i was TOO good at it. (ed.- i was really bad at math. sarcasm.)

i was never a school person. i learned what i was interested in. i almost unconsciously rebelled against anything anyone tried to cram down my throat. which, in high school, was everything. but my rebellion was outside of the classroom. when i was supposed to be doing my homework, i'd be drawing, or playing my guitar. i'd be creating stupid little programs in qbasic. i'd be sitting on my front lawn watching all the people and cars go by, making up their speech as they passed. i'd be watching movie after movie, studying, wondering how i could do it better.

being an only child teaches you how to be alone. it teaches you to think. sadly, it teaches you to create your own seperate world. after high school it took me awhile to get out of this. to talk to people. i had friends in high school, but i was definitely more comfortable staying home on the weekends.

high school is what led to my distaste for commercialism (this relates, i promise). i could feel superficial like it was a plague in that school. that's what drove me out of that place. that's why i moved. to LA of all places...

actually my real distaste came from actually being here. from watching people making six digits, trying their hardest to become more and more happy... but being miserable 8 hours a day because they don't want to give up the security of their jobs. and it is misery. i was there.

so i'm at a point where i have something to say. not about commercialism. yelling about the problem is just wasting time. i want to yell about life. there are a few small words that mean a lot to me. i use them a lot. caring, love, friends... anything hippie and ultra cheese, i'm totally there. i'm far from hippie though... so... yea...

it's just that... these things i want to say... they become extremely clear when i'm depressed. it always leads to a solution. when i say depressed, it sounds bad... but it actually leads to good...

but i'm happy. the best thing to do would be to accept it and just be fucking HAPPY. right? yea, but then that old familiar phrase creeps up and ruins it all. "ignorance is bliss."

i guess it depends on what word you emphasize when you say that. i say it, "IGNORANCE is bliss." which means to me, if you're completely happy, you must be missing something. perspective is everything, and my perspective is a tad skewed sometimes.

so i go back and analyze analyze analyze. bam. heavy heart.

this heavy heart can still muster a smile, though. can still manage a laugh. can still have a good time. it's not really depression. it's just a feeling in my chest. a residual sadness from another time in my life. i'm still happy... just sad for everyone else. it's more of an inbetween.

bleh. this is making no sense. it's 4 am, so this may just be tired talking. no sad, i said i was happy, remember? my friends make me happy. this is all just waiting until things actually happen. bleh. tired. bed. maybe make sense of tommorow.

oh yea. mally is really cool. mal is really cool too. mally is a girl though, you see? they're both different people with similar names that each have thier own unique coolness. i realize after seeing pages from both people you will understand the coolness of each of them, but i just wanted to make sure. it's just so you know that i haven't coined 'mally' as a cute term of endearment for my friend mal. no, the real term of endearment for mal is 'sillyhead', stolen directly from a commentary on this very blog...

there is no term of endearment for mally yet, for i do not know her that well. though, i could possibly call her 'philosohead' as she is a philosophy major, but that might just be plain wrong.

i was going to write this the day before valentines day, but i'm like 5 years old with my attention span.

so, my perfect valentines day would start at about 2 in the afternoon, because me and my girl (yo) would be, y'know... sleeping until that time. then we'd wake up and i'd fix her some lucky charms and we'd sit down JUST in time to catch fox kids. then at about 5 we'd skip full house or family matters or whatever and walk to the 7-11 on the corner. we'd sit down and talk about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (which would consequently be the most enjoyable conversation either of us has ever had) until they kicked us out. which would be about 4 hours later. then we'd sit out in front of my apartment complex and talk and kiss and bullshit until 2 am. following that we'd go upstairs and like, make love or sleep or have an incredibly cheesy tickle fight. one of the three. then i'd wake up the next morning, look at the calender and say, "yesterday was valentines day?"

i hate valentines day. and no, i don't have a girl (yo).

i'm drinking a red bull. i was gonna make some lame joke about how it doesn't give me wings, but i opted out of being a retard.

i finished parasite eve the other day. i think i've had the game for like 2 years. whoever said square doesn't make bad games must not have played all the way through parasite eve. i realize they just adapted the story from a book... but if the book was that bad, why did they choose it?

the dialogue was terrible. i think they tried thier hardest to sound like they knew what the were talking about by not actually saying anything at all. this was extremely common:

"you mean i..."

"yes, you are."

"then, that means..."

"you're catching on, my dear."

"NOOOOOO!"

noooooo what?!? christ. what the fuck were they talking about? i never knew what was going on until the very end. it seemed like they pointed to random words in a medical dictionary to come up with the final explanation, though.

"let's see. close eyes. point.............. cornea. okay. aya got maya's cornea implanted into her eye. that sounds reasonable. right? no? well, i don't pay you to think, so go away. why do i even ASK the janitors for advice?"

oh yea. guess what. there were about 5 last bosses. i bet you didn't expect THAT from a square game. one of the last bosses was a little baby. i had to shoot at a little baby with a machine gun. i have morals (seriously). shooting at babies is not my idea of a good time. granted, it was an evil mitochondria baby, but it was still a BABY. old people are a different story completely. but babies? no.

anyway, i better stop giving parasite eve a bad review. i can feel my mitochondria rebelling. I'M GETTING HOT! NOOOOO!

music i want:

sade: lovers rock - sade was portishead music before portishead music was portishead music. and she has a new album.

dave matthews: everyday - i guess it won't be out until late february. but ya.

weezer: whatever the new album is - weezer! weezer!

bright eyes: collection of songs - besides all the split ep's, this is the only one i don't have.

our lady peace: spiritual machines - i already downloaded the whole thing and burned it on a cd, but i want THE REAL CD. damnit.

matthew good band: beautiful midnight - mal sent me a song and i looked for some others. now i want it.

and suggestions. suggest music for my ears. please.

right at this very moment i'm listening to stabbing westwards "darkest days." if you listen to the whole album from beggining to end you realize it's a story. a story of a really bad relationship. from start to finish. it's really depressing and, consequently, one of my favorite albums. i remember when save yourself was on the radio, i loved it. i cannot save you/ i can't even save myself. and then everything i touch was totally how i felt at one time. everything i touch, i break. haunting me is a song that EVERYONE knows at one time or another.

oh yea. i watched way of the gun and spinal tap.

way of the gun was... well... i like benecio del toro a lot. ryan philippe did a pretty good job. it's too bad the whole movie played out like a soap opera with lot's of guns. the plot twists were just too predictable in thier shock value. i can't believe this chris guy wrote unusual suspects (a fucking brilliant movie). the acting was great, but the story wasn't that great. it was pretty good the first half. then it decided to turn into days of our lives. bleh.

spinal tap. i can't believe i've never seen this movie. why? why have i been kept in the dark so long. this movie is brilliant. these guys have got to be some of the BEST improv actors in the business. the whole movie was a beautiful parody of 80's rock. rob reiner directed it. reiner did this, stand by me, princess bride, misery and a few good men. great movies. and the actors really are great musicians. playing all thier own instruments, singing all the songs. it makes the whole thing that much more hilarious.

if you have any M.U.S.C.L.E.'s laying around, SEND THEM TO ME!!! I WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU IF YOU DO!!! or i'll try my hardest to get the person you like to have sex with you (no promises). my entire collection was lost in a giant house fire... i think... or maybe not. i just remember that i woke up one day and THEY WERE GONE. i would've cried were i not such a manly man.

i saw two movies tonight. perfect storm and final destination. those are the two i expected to be not that great. i got two more, which i expect to be good. spinal tap and way of the gun.

i actually came away with something after watching final destination. not from the actual movie itself, because it was bad. but just from ideas that it TRIED to convey. it did a really bad job of it though. it COULD have been good. but they fucked it up. it WAS pretty suspenseful, if that's worth anything. but they never had a clear vision of what the movie was supposed to be. is it a suspense teen thriller? or is it a message about death? the makers of this film had no idea, and that's what makes it bad.

in the end they decided to kill the "bad guy" (who really wasn't that bad of a guy at all) and left you wondering whether everyone in the movie died or not. for some reason they felt they needed to keep going on and on, when they could have just cut out a whole scene at the end. they tried to give more closure, but only ended with more questions.

they inserted a documentary about test screening the movie into the dvd which only served to prove that the movie was designed to be a cash cow and nothing more.

oh yea, they also had a questionaire that you can fill out on the dvd. it 'calculates' when you're going to die. i'm dying on march 12, 2019 @ 12:00. just for kicks, i went through the questionaire again with my eyes closed, randomly pushing the arrow and enter buttons... and i got THE SAME ANSWER. isn't that creepy? my dvd player is fucking PSYCHIC.

even in it's lameness, i'd still recommend you see it. it's a movie. someone put SOME sort of effort into it. it won't kill you to watch it.

oh, and perfect storm was good. i don't know who said it was bad, or why, but i think they were wrong.

spinal tap and way of the gun tomorrow.

check this out. circa: a long time ago. it doesn't really seem that long though. check out the description of the site at the bottom and get a glimpse of me before i was publicly jaded. you know what really bugs me about it? i kept saying "allot". oh yea, and i titled the site "Design!"

fucking exclamation points should never be allowed to emphasize a title. unless it's a japanese title of course (chibi kawaii ganbatte!). why didn't someone shoot me?

big achievement of the day: learning how to scroll dynamic text in flash... and finding a better way to do it than how the lame flashkit tutorials describe it.

now i have to do my taxes. here you go government. here's all the money that i earned over the past year. i know the money will go toward absolutely nothing that i want or need, but i'd rather not go to jail. thank you for the free country, sir. please don't incarcerate me. when i say i hate you, i mean it in the nicest way.

news worthy of mention:

i got "oh, holy fools" (bright eyes/son, ambulance split ep) last week. finally. don't ever order independent cd's from cdnow. i ordered the cd back in december. always order direct from labels if possible.

so, anyway... i love all of the bright eyes songs, which is less than surprising. son, ambulance... i'm not really sure of. lyrically, it's got some cool stuff. they remind me of ben folds five, but not quite so upbeat. i guess they can't be that bad though. after a few listens i was singing along.

also, i saw snatch... last week, i think. it was pretty great. it wasn't hard to see the directors (Guy Richie - Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) style shine through. visually it was amazing. brilliant editing. the story was also great. great cast. everything. i was only a little dissapointed when benecio... uhh. nevermind.

i went to this open mic night in melrose. a place called "highland grounds." i waited 4 hours to play. by that time, everyone had left. my back hurts. i played a new song that should be on mp3.com soon. it was called "not a love song, i promise." my guitar was even more horribly out of tune than it was in the recording for mp3.com. and to top it all off, every single person there were like, amazing guitar players. unlike me. i feel low.

i felt like such a punk kid in that place. guitar strings all a mess, guitar majorly out of tune... there was one girl who i thought was fucking amazing. i don't remember her name though. she was asian. she ripped out my heart, kissed it and put it back in place. she didn't even know it.

i don't do well in PA environements. i admit it. i have zero experience with live mics. and with acoustic pickups for that matter. i love singing in circles of people. small groups. i'm simple. i don't create elaborate guitar riffs. the only thing i hope you're actually listening to are my lyrics. those are what i mean.

so i'm bad at live performances. i'm a pretty shy bastard as well. i'm not really a musician. i guess i'm closer to a poet that likes to put a melody to his poems. more like prose i guess. but i have a tendency to badly tune my guitar.

i'm like this introverted guy who beats himself over the head to experience extroversion. there's something to that i guess. i have something to say. something even deeper than a million songs about girls. you just have to listen to all those songs. like, actually listen.

oh yea, this chick was there. she... like... tore up the fucking floor. girls who can play the guitar that well should be illegal. haha. not really.

fuck.

all in all i was happy to play. whether badly or not. my friend was there so i wasn't completely alone to wither in my mediocrity.

the funny thing is... i'm supposed to be a fucking designer. like web pages and shit. they told me it was my proffesion. i'm GOOD at that. i'm never happy with anything. i'm such an asshole...

and i'll keep writing songs. even if they are all terribly out of tune. and maybe i'll learn how to tune my guitar along the way... but probably not.

so... i should probably plan on finding another place where i can play badly. haha.