Saturday, December 10, 2005
Cologne Anybody?
It’s funny because my boss is the epitome of work professional. He’s sharp, smart, to the point and arrogant. He’s sharp because he is fast. He’s a manager and just watch his ten-key skills…they are faster than most of the auditors. Smart…well everyone in our building seems to come to him to ask questions. See, this also ties into the arrogance and the to the point attribution. He knows how to professionally handle questions. He is self assured which is half the battle and he knows how or will go the source to find the answer for you. If he doesn’t know the answer he’ll logically try to solve it in his head…this works 99% of the time but there are times this is bad. My boss was responsible for a $2 million error that fortunately, as a company, we were able to correct and recoup…but part of the reason this error persisted for so long was because of his arrogance, because of his inability or weakness in questioning himself. He is unable look at something holistically as opposed to a piece of information to be proceeding and moved to the side. It was like in February or March of this year??? He brought me and some of the top employees of our department and he told us about the mistake then and he told us we were all responsible. Now, this doesn’t mean we got in trouble it meant that just because of our positions we are responsible when mistakes like this occur. My manager had a change from what we call in the office as a Panther personality to…well to a subdued Panther personality. (See in our office we seem to do this personality profile thing all the time. Panther’s are assertive, aggressive and strive on pressure. Owls are scientific orderly and logical. Peacocks like to show their feathers and be the center of attention. They are the social ones. Dolphins are the kind peaceful slow workers that want everyone to be happy. I used to be a dolphin then I took the test again and I was and owl…next time I plan on being a Panda Bear.) So I wouldn’t say my manger’s personality was different…it was weird it was like the Panther smell covered up with a gallon of cologne daily. I knew it was him but now he was acting courteous, making small talk and listening. He wasn’t teasing people over their intelligence daily. He wasn’t harping on people for their small mistakes like typos, grammar and clothe choice (…mistakes he makes no less. I just don’t think his brain is hardwired to see himself as an equal to the people he is around…it’s called arrogance. ) So, his personality changed and I felt like I could ask a questions (and god-forbid) be me a little more.
I’m not sure what major event transpired recently but the cologne is wearing off. He is going back to his old ways. See a guy in our department (who has now decided to work at home for us) went to HR and starting complaining about… well… our manager and about everyone basically. I was gone this day in September when co-workers in the department gave someone a birthday card. It was a gag card that said something like, “I got you a hot companion for your birthday.” Then when you opened the card it was a naked drawn picture of an old guy who was covered by the newspaper. It was a cartoon first of all and it showed nothing second of all. He complained and got our whole department and specifically our group in trouble. I found it funny how the picture of (let’s call him) Dick standing next to Bronco cheerleaders was down soon after he told on our group.
That forced our company to send us to teambuilding training. Unfortunately, my manager took away something from the training which completely different from what I took away. The managers had a different class more directed toward them. In a private discussion he told me a story in which I interpret that he saw the power of arrogance. I took away from mine the fact that for in order for a group to be successful as a team it has to have a variety of personalities and it has to value those personalities. In my private discussion with my manager his advice to me was to be more arrogant, abrupt and pushy. That’s advice at trying to make me someone who is actually more like him. But I appreciate the fact he tells me such things, I respect my manger, and genuinely am interested in his opinion. I look up to him…I think he is fucking cool. The genuine part is big, because I really don’t say these things because this is the company that pays me…But its there that lays my strength. It’s funny because someone made the comment yesterday that, “Nick is too nice.” My manager said, “We are working on that.” Don’t worry I may respect what they say but I’m not going to put cologne over my natural smell…I’ll still be a human working in an inhuman place.
It’s funny because my boss is the epitome of work professional. He’s sharp, smart, to the point and arrogant. He’s sharp because he is fast. He’s a manager and just watch his ten-key skills…they are faster than most of the auditors. Smart…well everyone in our building seems to come to him to ask questions. See, this also ties into the arrogance and the to the point attribution. He knows how to professionally handle questions. He is self assured which is half the battle and he knows how or will go the source to find the answer for you. If he doesn’t know the answer he’ll logically try to solve it in his head…this works 99% of the time but there are times this is bad. My boss was responsible for a $2 million error that fortunately, as a company, we were able to correct and recoup…but part of the reason this error persisted for so long was because of his arrogance, because of his inability or weakness in questioning himself. He is unable look at something holistically as opposed to a piece of information to be proceeding and moved to the side. It was like in February or March of this year??? He brought me and some of the top employees of our department and he told us about the mistake then and he told us we were all responsible. Now, this doesn’t mean we got in trouble it meant that just because of our positions we are responsible when mistakes like this occur. My manager had a change from what we call in the office as a Panther personality to…well to a subdued Panther personality. (See in our office we seem to do this personality profile thing all the time. Panther’s are assertive, aggressive and strive on pressure. Owls are scientific orderly and logical. Peacocks like to show their feathers and be the center of attention. They are the social ones. Dolphins are the kind peaceful slow workers that want everyone to be happy. I used to be a dolphin then I took the test again and I was and owl…next time I plan on being a Panda Bear.) So I wouldn’t say my manger’s personality was different…it was weird it was like the Panther smell covered up with a gallon of cologne daily. I knew it was him but now he was acting courteous, making small talk and listening. He wasn’t teasing people over their intelligence daily. He wasn’t harping on people for their small mistakes like typos, grammar and clothe choice (…mistakes he makes no less. I just don’t think his brain is hardwired to see himself as an equal to the people he is around…it’s called arrogance. ) So, his personality changed and I felt like I could ask a questions (and god-forbid) be me a little more.
I’m not sure what major event transpired recently but the cologne is wearing off. He is going back to his old ways. See a guy in our department (who has now decided to work at home for us) went to HR and starting complaining about… well… our manager and about everyone basically. I was gone this day in September when co-workers in the department gave someone a birthday card. It was a gag card that said something like, “I got you a hot companion for your birthday.” Then when you opened the card it was a naked drawn picture of an old guy who was covered by the newspaper. It was a cartoon first of all and it showed nothing second of all. He complained and got our whole department and specifically our group in trouble. I found it funny how the picture of (let’s call him) Dick standing next to Bronco cheerleaders was down soon after he told on our group.
That forced our company to send us to teambuilding training. Unfortunately, my manager took away something from the training which completely different from what I took away. The managers had a different class more directed toward them. In a private discussion he told me a story in which I interpret that he saw the power of arrogance. I took away from mine the fact that for in order for a group to be successful as a team it has to have a variety of personalities and it has to value those personalities. In my private discussion with my manager his advice to me was to be more arrogant, abrupt and pushy. That’s advice at trying to make me someone who is actually more like him. But I appreciate the fact he tells me such things, I respect my manger, and genuinely am interested in his opinion. I look up to him…I think he is fucking cool. The genuine part is big, because I really don’t say these things because this is the company that pays me…But its there that lays my strength. It’s funny because someone made the comment yesterday that, “Nick is too nice.” My manager said, “We are working on that.” Don’t worry I may respect what they say but I’m not going to put cologne over my natural smell…I’ll still be a human working in an inhuman place.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Sudoku
I lost my mind to Sudoku. I suck right now but I will get better. It took me 27 minutes to finish a puzzle where the average time is 7….It’s finals week…why do I always do this (self sabotage)??? I must tear myself away from the games and begin my homework.
No more sudoku...haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I lost my mind to Sudoku. I suck right now but I will get better. It took me 27 minutes to finish a puzzle where the average time is 7….It’s finals week…why do I always do this (self sabotage)??? I must tear myself away from the games and begin my homework.
No more sudoku...haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Almost there...
This is almost it. This is almost the close of a semester of full time college curriculum embedded with the looming 40 hours a week work schedule. Not to mention my horrible 48 mile daily commute. This has been one crazy 3 and half months. Through all this hectic hurdles I still made time to write daily here on this Bloggers of the World Unite page. This was no small accomplishment and it’s left me of a little record of events. That’s the next stage of the many processes I’m involved with in life…the next step in so many areas of livelihood that I must begin strengthen. I must review. It’s so hard to be stuck in one hectic moment to the next that we can’t see the blurry picture for what it was. Now I can step back and read my entries and see what worked what didn’t and begin a little hindsight bias to these volumes. So, today’s journalism final went sketchy. I really hope I got an A but I know I’m on the cusp from A to B’s in all my classes. I’m really burnt and I have two huge exams to study for so I better stop…for tonight but not after I write about something tangible anything…
OK so James called me tonight saying he got my message having to cancel practice because I had a journalism final tonight. He asked me last week if we could jam tonight and I was so brain dead I said…”sure.” Add this mistake to the other major one I made this week in regards to OK soda…God it makes me want to cry. I really need to get back into my scheduling the week mode. So I realized I couldn’t jam and had to call and cancel…why go into it? I need my sleep. I need my sleep. I’ll have to save my MacGyver joke for some other time. NO must type on…OK so it’s cold in his garage where we have Gout practice. I joked what would MacGyver do? (I did this because apparently James is a MacGyver fan.) So I said we can heat the garage by hotwiring a car battery to a flashlight and circuiting that to a fan. Then we can insulate the garage with aluminum foil and attach conductor construction hats to our head. Once we plug in our equipment and turn on our contraptions the static kinetic energy will increase at a set expediential function and we will have a heat efficient jam session. ….and you thought I was just another pretty face.
This is almost it. This is almost the close of a semester of full time college curriculum embedded with the looming 40 hours a week work schedule. Not to mention my horrible 48 mile daily commute. This has been one crazy 3 and half months. Through all this hectic hurdles I still made time to write daily here on this Bloggers of the World Unite page. This was no small accomplishment and it’s left me of a little record of events. That’s the next stage of the many processes I’m involved with in life…the next step in so many areas of livelihood that I must begin strengthen. I must review. It’s so hard to be stuck in one hectic moment to the next that we can’t see the blurry picture for what it was. Now I can step back and read my entries and see what worked what didn’t and begin a little hindsight bias to these volumes. So, today’s journalism final went sketchy. I really hope I got an A but I know I’m on the cusp from A to B’s in all my classes. I’m really burnt and I have two huge exams to study for so I better stop…for tonight but not after I write about something tangible anything…
OK so James called me tonight saying he got my message having to cancel practice because I had a journalism final tonight. He asked me last week if we could jam tonight and I was so brain dead I said…”sure.” Add this mistake to the other major one I made this week in regards to OK soda…God it makes me want to cry. I really need to get back into my scheduling the week mode. So I realized I couldn’t jam and had to call and cancel…why go into it? I need my sleep. I need my sleep. I’ll have to save my MacGyver joke for some other time. NO must type on…OK so it’s cold in his garage where we have Gout practice. I joked what would MacGyver do? (I did this because apparently James is a MacGyver fan.) So I said we can heat the garage by hotwiring a car battery to a flashlight and circuiting that to a fan. Then we can insulate the garage with aluminum foil and attach conductor construction hats to our head. Once we plug in our equipment and turn on our contraptions the static kinetic energy will increase at a set expediential function and we will have a heat efficient jam session. ….and you thought I was just another pretty face.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Stream of poop 3…while listening to Nada Surf’s Let Go
The business world is cold and brutal and anti-social. It’s self driven and curt. It’s impersonal to the point and arrogant. I never joined the military due to my heart problem and thank God. I probably would have. Not because I knew anything about what it was all about. I would have done it out of ignorance and the simple fear of my humble past of…how else would I get myself out of A-Town? Nada Surf’s Let Go is flowing out of the boom box in the kitchen. He is falsetto-ing “What else can you do but go on?” This song is about watching fruit flies “form jerky patterns like snowflakes in the air.” I guess somehow that observation made him think of a friend he had to let go out of his life. This is something that’s been on my mind for the last week or so. Last night I dreamt that I finished my psychology final. My teacher Lana gave it to us but I was in some strange room I never had been before. I finished the test and as I walked out down this long corridor of a building that felt more like a mall than a school my old friend E. Mon*** was leaving class. He calls out to me and I try to avoid him. Finally we connect and for the first time since the beginning of our friendship…he seemed genuinely interested in me. I’ve tried to relate to my friends like E. I’ve sold out in my life and attempted to relate to my peers by playing a little Grand Theft Auto. A game where you fuck prostitutes and gain health to continue to shooting cops on the street…no it’s not utterly morbid. Then when you’re done, if I remember correctly, instead of paying the hooker for your fun 60 seconds you shoot her? Needless to say, it’s really something that I guess one could find the sick humor in for a few minutes but it’s by far nothing I could play for hours with my buddies. It’s just that my friends never seemed to embrace my culture…Nada Surf snatches my attention again I catch the end of a verse “…to see why you cry.” people associate this band with emo? I don’t really understand the concept of emo music. I guess there are some bands I have heard and my knowledge of the generality was good enough to label the band properly…but seriously out of all the damn shows I’ve been to and I’ve been to millions…I can only peg one band that I saw in that last year as emo. They sounded a lot like early …Get Up Kids.
Nada Surf-
“On a plane ride
the more it shakes
the more I have to let go”
The point I wanted to force…is that the business world is cold. But it’s like a stylistic identity. I associate it with someone hating the blues because it has four chords. You can’t really deviate much from the four chords in the blues…it is what it is. It has little nuances like that damn flattened third…those guys love that sound. Jazz cats came around and weren’t’ satisfied with limited harmonized palette so they made all this chord substitutions and the birth of the Jazz Blues came about. But see once people came in and changed it they stopped calling it the blues. It was something different it was the Jazz Blues.
Nada Surf-
“I talk to missionaries when they are standing at my door
They tell me what I should be reading I still don’t see what for
We both stand there politely
Trying to change each other’s core.”
In stream of conscious mode it’s so damn difficult to get the point across. I need to learn the damn game of the business world’s heartless conventions. Even Taoists and the inventor of the Taoism believed in the cycle of life of contributing to the “real world” before submitting ones life to one of no obligations one of utmost freedom off in some secluded remote forest to take on the next spiritual stage of life. I guess in our country we created one such opportunity and it was called retirement. Now as people in our culture grow older…they have seemed to have lost that freedom…out of greed we’ll keep our parents/grandparents working past the day they are shitting in their diapers….O.K. enough.
Nada Surf…”I’m just a happy kid stuck with the heart of an old punk.”
Pavement Inspired
June 14, 2005
All this quest for happiness and all the monks would do is give a slap to the face of an unsuspecting disciple…After all awake is happy. Their actions tell us that every instant is sewn in the fabric of spiritual bliss and does not elude one moment in time. When? One might ask… that instant is now. Tonight my cheeks have lost their luster as this computer screen sucks the pigment from my skin. The sun rays I stole at lunch had an equaling parasitic relationship to draining the moisture from my body and I sit here parched. My leg cannot stop twitching in its personified nervous contemplation. I’m thinking of the new global market and how we Americans feast on the buffet of resources in which the slaving world so diligently provides for us…and for what. Is there not one person that doesn’t mistake the menu for the meal? As if the plentiful of our life is not enough the overgrown stomachs of capitalistic hunger eats at every human quality that lingers. We are always rushing and always consuming that we are forgetting to rest, to love, to enjoy..to be human. We drink the beer for the price and the wine for the social status. But is there one person that would tell me in spits of laughter what that very wine’s body tastes like as it soaks up in the sensation of her mouth? I watch all the scenesters decked in blind adherence of social rags and in an anthem of slumping moral. They go to the show and pretend to be above the time offered and get mere enjoyment of saying they were there…it’s nuts. Maybe I’m just bitter because it’s been 15 years since I took off my socks in a scorching summer day and raced a friend on Aurora’s black asphalt. Maybe I’m bitter because I miss the those Denver dry nights where my eyes were glued to the canopy of the Colorado sky and God rained down showers of falling stars for viewing of best friend’s delight. Maybe I’m mad because I spent my embryonic years peering over my younger brother wondering what his personality would be like when he could speak…To my dismay he grew up in young man’s jail and part of that damn I.C.P. cult. I should stop typing now and lubricate my dehydrated body but before I do I close my eyes and see the check list of life before me. 1st mow the lawn 2nd do the dishes 3rd practice Jazz guitar 4th finish transcribing that Dillinger 4 song I was working on 5th eat 6th get ready for the show 7th call Janet 8th go to the show 9th watch Spoon 10th get about 4 hours of sleep 11th start my day at 5 am and spend 8 ½ hours in a cube. Once this menu of to do’s has squashed every juicy morsel of life tasteless…I wake up and do it again. I know it’s just a passing phase but I really need a Zen master to give me an enlightening slap in the face…my cheeks have lost their luster.
June 14, 2005
All this quest for happiness and all the monks would do is give a slap to the face of an unsuspecting disciple…After all awake is happy. Their actions tell us that every instant is sewn in the fabric of spiritual bliss and does not elude one moment in time. When? One might ask… that instant is now. Tonight my cheeks have lost their luster as this computer screen sucks the pigment from my skin. The sun rays I stole at lunch had an equaling parasitic relationship to draining the moisture from my body and I sit here parched. My leg cannot stop twitching in its personified nervous contemplation. I’m thinking of the new global market and how we Americans feast on the buffet of resources in which the slaving world so diligently provides for us…and for what. Is there not one person that doesn’t mistake the menu for the meal? As if the plentiful of our life is not enough the overgrown stomachs of capitalistic hunger eats at every human quality that lingers. We are always rushing and always consuming that we are forgetting to rest, to love, to enjoy..to be human. We drink the beer for the price and the wine for the social status. But is there one person that would tell me in spits of laughter what that very wine’s body tastes like as it soaks up in the sensation of her mouth? I watch all the scenesters decked in blind adherence of social rags and in an anthem of slumping moral. They go to the show and pretend to be above the time offered and get mere enjoyment of saying they were there…it’s nuts. Maybe I’m just bitter because it’s been 15 years since I took off my socks in a scorching summer day and raced a friend on Aurora’s black asphalt. Maybe I’m bitter because I miss the those Denver dry nights where my eyes were glued to the canopy of the Colorado sky and God rained down showers of falling stars for viewing of best friend’s delight. Maybe I’m mad because I spent my embryonic years peering over my younger brother wondering what his personality would be like when he could speak…To my dismay he grew up in young man’s jail and part of that damn I.C.P. cult. I should stop typing now and lubricate my dehydrated body but before I do I close my eyes and see the check list of life before me. 1st mow the lawn 2nd do the dishes 3rd practice Jazz guitar 4th finish transcribing that Dillinger 4 song I was working on 5th eat 6th get ready for the show 7th call Janet 8th go to the show 9th watch Spoon 10th get about 4 hours of sleep 11th start my day at 5 am and spend 8 ½ hours in a cube. Once this menu of to do’s has squashed every juicy morsel of life tasteless…I wake up and do it again. I know it’s just a passing phase but I really need a Zen master to give me an enlightening slap in the face…my cheeks have lost their luster.
Weezer * Make Believe* Geffen
For bearing labels such as “Rock’s most dysfunctional band,” Make Believe, Weezer’s fifth full length studio album, would make anyone want to stop payment on those shrink visits. This L.A, based four piece didn’t spend the last 13 years of their MTV rock anthem career at the mercy of the hermitic Harvard educated lead singer Rivers Cuomo without both repercussions and rewards. The climatic journey of law suits threatening the release of their second album Pinkerton to ego raged battles and success laden moves that ultimately yielded a three person bass lineup they live up to their rep. With such a tumultuous, past could the first two-word titled album Make Believe be the epitomized objective of the band? Make believe we hate our metal roots and The Blue Album came forward. Make believe Weezer is immune to the fickle opinions of the critics and the fans and Pinkerton spawned from Cuomo’s Svengali band leader ethics by pushing his Pixie-esque live recording ideals while bringing his emotional forlorn to the forefront Cuomo disregarded most input from his fellow band mates and label. Make believe we didn’t put forth an emotional heartfelt record and The Green Album came along chock full of formulaically constructed songs based on melody and generalized pop veneer lyrics. Make believe we never abandoned our heavy metal rock roots and Maladroit was born exploding with rock riffs and stadium tilted solos. Now with Make Believe, Cuomo, drummer Pat Wilson, guitarist Brian Bell and bassist Scott Shriner have released an anthology prototype of their legacy. This album is the fulcrum of their musical journey encompassing everything they have ever done before, nailing down those lose edges and smoothing out their estranged past. “We Are All On Drugs” is the album's catchiest song. The tune is reminiscent of Weezer’s “Hash Pipe” days while borrowing from the grade school rhyme/rhythms of the diarrhea song. The first verse opens “When you’re out with your friends in your new Mercedes-Benz.” Let us substitute lyrics for this exercise, “When you’re sliding into first and you’re feelin' something burst.” Now exchange “Diarrhea” the hook for the children’s song with “And you’re on drugs.” The emotion drenched “Haunt You Everyday” revisits the band's Pinkerton era. It is a dark song lamenting over a lost relationship and Cuomo’s inability to let go. This number is equipped with droning distortion and a dissonant solo that exemplifies the disappointing emotions by building disharmonized tension. “Perfect Situation” is a polished pop tune written in the vein of Green Album sensibilities with more mature lyrics hailing from Weezer’s progressed sound. “I don’t want to be lonely for the rest of my days on earth” this song confesses. As for smoothing out their estranged past, “Pardon Me” is an open apology letter for Weezer’s list of offenses. Cuomo belts out his cathartic scream “Pardon me my friend” convincing everyone of his genuine apology. The tune “Freak Me Out” pushes Weezer’s sonic palate. This is a slow ballad planted on Wilson’s simple looping drums and splashes of dreamy harmonics. Putting down the bombastic blasts of Cuomo’s rock leads, a fresher more experimental Weezer allows a harmonica to steal the song’s solo. This album shows Weezer at the pinnacle of a career winding down as Cuomo makes no promises of the future of the band and has only obligated them to a tour in support of the album. This is such a pity as Weezer has at last come to grips with their demons and made a record that not only revisits every sound they have ever represented emotional, dark, pop and metal, but has harnessed the reins to ride them further into a musical horizon encompassing an even more eclectic sound. No one knows, this just might be the last album but the fans want to make believe that their beloved band is going to play out through this glorious day.
Nick D May 29, 2005
April 25, 2005
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. Yes that was the motto for Saturday at least. I woke up and drank the black broth of caffeine way too much. I rolled out of bed and accomplished nothing. While visiting my lovely girlfriend at the bakery she works in I was reading this book on how to record using your portable studio and I realized that I don’t have the gumption to pursue my music from a genuine Punk Rock analog approach. So I went crazy and went to Guitar Center. But that place is about as useful as tits on a boar. Guitar Center is like a hot ex-girlfriend. You see them and say damn she looks good then you talk with her for 2 minutes and realize, “Oh yeah I hate this person.” The service sucks, the place is bright, loud, and annoying. I can find better prices and have twice the service at other places. So I bought a Boba and ditched that corporate rip off facility. I wanted to go to Drum City Guitar Land but of course cool mom and pop shops have lame mom and pop shop hours so I drove across Denver to Wadsworth and Belleview and went to ProSound. That place rules. Every time I go in there I meet a salesman who shots the shit with me for an hour and they have price matching. So I ended up spending a small fortune on my credit card so I could record on digital. In fact every time I think of it I get sick with both excitement and lament. Then I went to the Cherry Bomb to party with my family. My cousin knows a girl that used to work there. She was promoting some band that was playing. So it was the best of times because I was going out drinking on a Saturday night. It was the worst of times because it was at a bar with all 40 year olds. It was the best of times because there was loud live music. It was the worst of times because the music was all SRV covers. It was the best of times because my father has a girlfriend for once and just might be happy. It was the worst of times because I would end up in hotel room next to theirs. It was the best of times because I bonded more with my cousins then I have ever before. It was the worst of times because I think they are going to regret some of the things they told me in their inebriated state. It was the best of times because the guy who owns the Cherry Bomb is a pimp and hooked me up with a free room so I could drink the night away. It was the worst of times because my girlfriend refused to come down and party. It was the best of times because the room had HBO in it. It was the worst of times because there was no spank-ter-vision on!!! Damn it that sucked! After my blissful drunken evening that ended at 4 am I was awoke by a room service girl that looked 13 at 10:30 am. She didn’t speak English and was trying to get me to leave. So I gathered my things and left a dollar tip for her (sorry I was a waiter for 5 years and I can’t forget my tipping roots) and escaped into the cloudy Sunday morning. I then picked up my girlfriend to visit some old friends of mine and there again it was the best and worst of times. But my fucked up past is for a blog to be posted at some other best and worst of times. I guess you don’t have to be Charles Dickens to have A Tale of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. Yes that was the motto for Saturday at least. I woke up and drank the black broth of caffeine way too much. I rolled out of bed and accomplished nothing. While visiting my lovely girlfriend at the bakery she works in I was reading this book on how to record using your portable studio and I realized that I don’t have the gumption to pursue my music from a genuine Punk Rock analog approach. So I went crazy and went to Guitar Center. But that place is about as useful as tits on a boar. Guitar Center is like a hot ex-girlfriend. You see them and say damn she looks good then you talk with her for 2 minutes and realize, “Oh yeah I hate this person.” The service sucks, the place is bright, loud, and annoying. I can find better prices and have twice the service at other places. So I bought a Boba and ditched that corporate rip off facility. I wanted to go to Drum City Guitar Land but of course cool mom and pop shops have lame mom and pop shop hours so I drove across Denver to Wadsworth and Belleview and went to ProSound. That place rules. Every time I go in there I meet a salesman who shots the shit with me for an hour and they have price matching. So I ended up spending a small fortune on my credit card so I could record on digital. In fact every time I think of it I get sick with both excitement and lament. Then I went to the Cherry Bomb to party with my family. My cousin knows a girl that used to work there. She was promoting some band that was playing. So it was the best of times because I was going out drinking on a Saturday night. It was the worst of times because it was at a bar with all 40 year olds. It was the best of times because there was loud live music. It was the worst of times because the music was all SRV covers. It was the best of times because my father has a girlfriend for once and just might be happy. It was the worst of times because I would end up in hotel room next to theirs. It was the best of times because I bonded more with my cousins then I have ever before. It was the worst of times because I think they are going to regret some of the things they told me in their inebriated state. It was the best of times because the guy who owns the Cherry Bomb is a pimp and hooked me up with a free room so I could drink the night away. It was the worst of times because my girlfriend refused to come down and party. It was the best of times because the room had HBO in it. It was the worst of times because there was no spank-ter-vision on!!! Damn it that sucked! After my blissful drunken evening that ended at 4 am I was awoke by a room service girl that looked 13 at 10:30 am. She didn’t speak English and was trying to get me to leave. So I gathered my things and left a dollar tip for her (sorry I was a waiter for 5 years and I can’t forget my tipping roots) and escaped into the cloudy Sunday morning. I then picked up my girlfriend to visit some old friends of mine and there again it was the best and worst of times. But my fucked up past is for a blog to be posted at some other best and worst of times. I guess you don’t have to be Charles Dickens to have A Tale of Two Cities.
My boss tells me I need to be more confident. I'm thankful for the advice.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Pink Rebillion
I still lounge around my room in the pink sweats I bought during Halloween to wear underneath my Woopie cushion costume. I’m not gay/homosexual whatever term you prefer…It’s just my own peaceful and quite rebellion against conventions.
I still lounge around my room in the pink sweats I bought during Halloween to wear underneath my Woopie cushion costume. I’m not gay/homosexual whatever term you prefer…It’s just my own peaceful and quite rebellion against conventions.
Monday, December 05, 2005
MxPx Title
My biggest social problem is my yearning to slowly go the way of the Buffalo. Already at 24 my peers are ready to begin coasting in their life. They want marriage, houses, cars, and kids…oh my! As of yet, I have no desire for any of these things. In fact I have no desire to get hooked on a TV show, I have no desire to smoke pot, I have no desire to partake in football Sunday, I have no desire to play game consoles r.i.p. Nintendo. I don’t want to shop at malls on a regular basis and consider a good night out dinner at Chiles. This renders me a weirdo. I’m not like 97% of my peers. I don’t want to furnish my house with the newest looks; I want to get a new guitar. I don’t want to snort creatine and talk about the bitches I fucked at the downtown club last night; I want to read a good book and talk about it in depth with a person who shares a similar genuine interest. Not that the things I mentioned are at all bad. I’m just at a point in my life where I’m sick of coasting. I’m tired of being mediocre at the things I’m interested in. I’m tired of letting my co-works sneer at my dreams while not having one insightful topic to discuss. I’m at a point where I want to have my life built around my dreams. I’m not sure why this is so hard. I thought it was the next evolutionary step. As kids we played Nintendo and sports; as adults we play music. None of my friends caught on and now it’s to the point I don’t really have any tangible friends. My social difficulty is this unshakable realization that the things everyone around me affiliate with are not right for me. I used to watch MTV but I can’t lie to myself anymore by trying to pretend I still enjoy it. My problem is not that I can’t adapt…I won’t. The scary thing is, is that just because I’m stubborn and resistant to the status quo and selling out…it doesn’t necessarily mean I will ever be an integral part of the Beatle-esque band of my dreams. That’s damn scary. My biggest social problem is my yearning to slowly go the way of the Buffalo…I don’t want to.
My biggest social problem is my yearning to slowly go the way of the Buffalo. Already at 24 my peers are ready to begin coasting in their life. They want marriage, houses, cars, and kids…oh my! As of yet, I have no desire for any of these things. In fact I have no desire to get hooked on a TV show, I have no desire to smoke pot, I have no desire to partake in football Sunday, I have no desire to play game consoles r.i.p. Nintendo. I don’t want to shop at malls on a regular basis and consider a good night out dinner at Chiles. This renders me a weirdo. I’m not like 97% of my peers. I don’t want to furnish my house with the newest looks; I want to get a new guitar. I don’t want to snort creatine and talk about the bitches I fucked at the downtown club last night; I want to read a good book and talk about it in depth with a person who shares a similar genuine interest. Not that the things I mentioned are at all bad. I’m just at a point in my life where I’m sick of coasting. I’m tired of being mediocre at the things I’m interested in. I’m tired of letting my co-works sneer at my dreams while not having one insightful topic to discuss. I’m at a point where I want to have my life built around my dreams. I’m not sure why this is so hard. I thought it was the next evolutionary step. As kids we played Nintendo and sports; as adults we play music. None of my friends caught on and now it’s to the point I don’t really have any tangible friends. My social difficulty is this unshakable realization that the things everyone around me affiliate with are not right for me. I used to watch MTV but I can’t lie to myself anymore by trying to pretend I still enjoy it. My problem is not that I can’t adapt…I won’t. The scary thing is, is that just because I’m stubborn and resistant to the status quo and selling out…it doesn’t necessarily mean I will ever be an integral part of the Beatle-esque band of my dreams. That’s damn scary. My biggest social problem is my yearning to slowly go the way of the Buffalo…I don’t want to.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Writing Assignment 14
Having tangible friends is the most difficult social skill/ability for me. I feel like the human opposite of what our text book explains as the spotlight effect. Whereas most people feel like others are in constant judgment of them I feel relatively invisible. When someone actually notices me I take it as the biggest complement. (Note I’m not clingy like an annoying lost puppy dog. There’s defiantly got to be reciprocity for me to like someone…but it’s usually that reciprocity I don’t receive and therefore don’t implore.) There was this girl at the psychology board from our class signing up for what I call our guinea pig credit. I said hi and just started looking for a test that worked with my schedule. She said, “Hey you’re the guy that sits in the front row of our class.” I thought that was nice that someone actually noticed me. Not that I would ever talk to her again….because there’s no way for me to make tangible friends, but I did think it was cool. It’s because of occurrences like these that I feel I have what I call Anti-climatic charisma. I don’t observe or feel like people observe me in general yet reality always likes to give me its brutal slap on my face at those times my cheeks have become lusterless. Its those wake up calls that remind me to acknowledge that I am a human and people notice me even if I feel as unseen as the tree falling in the forest with no one around…if that’s the case then I guess that tree does make a sound. In high school I was never invited to parties are asked to lunch by any groups of people. I always had friends and girlfriends but it was like this unified collection of juxtaposition entities. My peeps didn’t associate/coordinate with one another. I just felt quite opposite of popular. Yet my class voted me for prom royalty senior year? I guess people noticed me. Of course I lost and my ex-girlfriend (we stopped dating a month before prom) won. Writing this paper makes me reflect on my laundry list of friends and girlfriends who would just rather dispose of me on whim like a defiled empty can of O.K. soda (it was good while it lasted but what was that stuff anyway) than maintain any type mundane connection. I’ve been trying to be in a band for 6 years ever since I picked up my cursed instrument and all the world has shown me is that musicians are more jock than…well jocks. I’m a freak because I don’t think people are disposable. Through years of conditioning that all people want me for is for free buddy passes or nothing at all, I have finally came to the conclusion that I’m different and there’s nothing I can do to have tangible friends or be in a band or any of that nonsense. People may notice me enough to even think they like me…but they certainly don’t want to know me.
I can’t turn this in to my psychology teacher…she would check me into the psyc. ward so below is what I’m turning in.
Nicholas D in tha House
PSY 1001: 28, 034
Dec. 7, 2005
Writing assignment 14
The laughing gallery called my social skills. Simply put, I don’t have a problem with social skills or abilities because I don’t have any. I used to blame for others for my follies but through the trials and errors of life I have collected enough evidence to conclude it must be my fault. You said in the beginning of class some things touched on might be harsh to deal with…well this is my topic of avoidance. I guess I can say it reminds me of two songs:
The Smiths, That Joke isn’t Funny Anymore
“That joke isn’t funny anymore. It’s too close to home and it’s too near the bone.”
The Impossibles, Hey, You Kids!
“Held on to yesterday so hard (Let it go, let it go) Can't keep the promise of tomorrow (Let it go, let it go)”
Having tangible friends is the most difficult social skill/ability for me. I feel like the human opposite of what our text book explains as the spotlight effect. Whereas most people feel like others are in constant judgment of them I feel relatively invisible. When someone actually notices me I take it as the biggest complement. (Note I’m not clingy like an annoying lost puppy dog. There’s defiantly got to be reciprocity for me to like someone…but it’s usually that reciprocity I don’t receive and therefore don’t implore.) There was this girl at the psychology board from our class signing up for what I call our guinea pig credit. I said hi and just started looking for a test that worked with my schedule. She said, “Hey you’re the guy that sits in the front row of our class.” I thought that was nice that someone actually noticed me. Not that I would ever talk to her again….because there’s no way for me to make tangible friends, but I did think it was cool. It’s because of occurrences like these that I feel I have what I call Anti-climatic charisma. I don’t observe or feel like people observe me in general yet reality always likes to give me its brutal slap on my face at those times my cheeks have become lusterless. Its those wake up calls that remind me to acknowledge that I am a human and people notice me even if I feel as unseen as the tree falling in the forest with no one around…if that’s the case then I guess that tree does make a sound. In high school I was never invited to parties are asked to lunch by any groups of people. I always had friends and girlfriends but it was like this unified collection of juxtaposition entities. My peeps didn’t associate/coordinate with one another. I just felt quite opposite of popular. Yet my class voted me for prom royalty senior year? I guess people noticed me. Of course I lost and my ex-girlfriend (we stopped dating a month before prom) won. Writing this paper makes me reflect on my laundry list of friends and girlfriends who would just rather dispose of me on whim like a defiled empty can of O.K. soda (it was good while it lasted but what was that stuff anyway) than maintain any type mundane connection. I’ve been trying to be in a band for 6 years ever since I picked up my cursed instrument and all the world has shown me is that musicians are more jock than…well jocks. I’m a freak because I don’t think people are disposable. Through years of conditioning that all people want me for is for free buddy passes or nothing at all, I have finally came to the conclusion that I’m different and there’s nothing I can do to have tangible friends or be in a band or any of that nonsense. People may notice me enough to even think they like me…but they certainly don’t want to know me.
I can’t turn this in to my psychology teacher…she would check me into the psyc. ward so below is what I’m turning in.
Nicholas D in tha House
PSY 1001: 28, 034
Dec. 7, 2005
Writing assignment 14
The laughing gallery called my social skills. Simply put, I don’t have a problem with social skills or abilities because I don’t have any. I used to blame for others for my follies but through the trials and errors of life I have collected enough evidence to conclude it must be my fault. You said in the beginning of class some things touched on might be harsh to deal with…well this is my topic of avoidance. I guess I can say it reminds me of two songs:
The Smiths, That Joke isn’t Funny Anymore
“That joke isn’t funny anymore. It’s too close to home and it’s too near the bone.”
The Impossibles, Hey, You Kids!
“Held on to yesterday so hard (Let it go, let it go) Can't keep the promise of tomorrow (Let it go, let it go)”
