I intended to cook steaks the other day, on the grill out on my balcony, but there was a bit of a fiasco with the briquettes.

When I went to dump them onto the grill, you see, not that many fell out.  By which I mean, there were fewer briquettes than I thought I had, and fewer briquettes than I needed.  So I quickly called Dave (who had called a few minutes previous, to ask if I needed anything from the grocery store), and asked him to pick up a small bag of briquettes, and he said okay.

So a little while later, Dave arrives.  The bag he has aren't the fast-lighting kind, they're the regular kind, but the ones that I have already are self-lighting, so I don't see this as a problem.  Until I try to light the darn things, and nothing happens.  Nothing!  Man did I hold a flame to those suckers, like, forever!  They were a few weeks old, but man, the bag was totally folded over, I was not at all expecting them to be not self-lighting.  So now it's getting late, and I don't know what to do.  Dave volunteers to run to the Nik Nak which is across the street from my apartment complex.  I'm pretty sure they'll have something -- it's a pretty thorough convenience store.  I mean it's no Wawa, I wouldn't buy a hot dog there, but it's much better than Wawa in terms of having random items that I forgot to get at the grocery store.  It is, in a word, convenient. 

So ANYWAY, a few minutes later Dave arrives with lighter fluid.  (I try to pay him, but he doesn't take the money).  Now, I am a real pussy when it comes to -- well okay pretty much everything.  So I spurt a teeny tiny amount of lighter fluid on the coals, and then light them.  I quickly realize that this isn't going to do the job.  I wait a few minutes until the flames burn down, and then I douse that bitch with lighter fluid.  I light the coals again, and WHUMP! they go up in a beautiful tower of flame.  I am pleased, for a bout 2.5 seconds, until I realize that the tower of flame has angered the hornets nest (no this is not an analogy, there really is a hornet's nest above my balcony) and they are all swarming out, and towards me.  I yell "ahh!" and lunge for the door.  In my haste I kick over the bottle of lighter fluid, which is open (I closed it so carefully the first time, too), which spurts over my balcony floor, so I right it and run inside and close the door and announce that I will be cooking in the oven.  And then I lock the door, so that the hornets can't get in.

So we ate a little late, but the steaks were still very delicious.  I had marinated them overnight in Stubb's marinade.  And then yesterday someone came and got rid of the hornet's nest.  So they're all gone.  They still haven't fixed my kitchen drawer, though.

OH and at one point, whilst the oven was warming up, Dave looks out the tiny windows at the top of the door to the balcony and says "I think you can go back out there, the hornets are gone" and I come over and there are two hornets on the freaking window, which he must have looked right past, and one on the screen door.  So if Dave Mitchell ever tells you that there aren't any stinging insects waiting to attack you outside your door, for God's sake don't listen to him.

---

So I'm always talking about how I go to my lake for lunch, right?  The only wildlife I encounter are a) fisherman who are not catching fish, b) mallard ducks and c) Canada geese.  All summer long.  But then on Wednesday I saw a LOON and yesterday I saw a heron or stork or crane or some shit!  Bright white, he was!  The geese were following him around and honking at him as though they wanted him to go away, which seemed silly to me, because geese eat wet soggy weeds and cranes eat shiny little fish, but whatever.  I tried to get a picture of the loon, but he dove underwater one time and I never saw where he came up.  The crane was on the opposite side of the lake from me.  ( here is a picture )

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Man, I FUCKING HATE THIS JOB.  And by "this job" I mean "answering the phone because the bosses aren't here and the drafters don't bother."  We are not big enough to have a secretary.  People on the phone are stupid.  Stop telling me your problem!  I don't care!  Stop telling me that my boss refuses to call you back!  I can't do anything about it!  Man.

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Also I hate Amazon's "look in the book" shit.  I searched for "motor scooters" and it turns up over 4,000 books, because it includes, apparently, every book that contains the phrase "motor scooters".  Gee, that's really useful, Amazon, thanks!  Can I turn that off or something?

Also, within the past 6 months I have bought every original cast Star Trek movie from Amazon, not to mention at least 10 Star Trek related books.  But when it sent me an email telling me about new DVD releases of old TV shows, it didn't mention that the first season of the Original Series was released on Tuesday.  OH MAN AMAZON GET A LITTLE STUPIDER WHY DON'T YOU.

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I will end this on a good note.  The other day I saw this article about how we've finally found evidence of extra terrestrial life (no really!), and it reminded me of that SETI@home thing, which is where your computer does work to analyze data from the SETI array, or whatever.  I'd thought about doing that years ago, when I first heard of it, but then I got distracted and never did it (who, me?) but now I have it on my work computer and I feel useful.  I hope I find aliens!  That would be awesome.

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Using all of these hr's makes me feel like the Ill Scientist. Also, how come I always think I'm composing a short entry and then it turns out to be the opposite of that?

Man, so I have about fifty or so chigger bites on each leg from last week's camping trip.  When people see them they say "ahhhhhh" but they don't itch at all (the bites), but at some point in the last couple days I've been gotten by a genuine mosquito so I'm scratching like mad at like three bites in the middle of all these totally unitchy bites and I don't know, it just seems odd.

This is the first of at least two entries about bugs.

Did you know what not all insects are bugs?  'Struth.

FYI, Lewis Black is playing the Tower Theater on Sunday, October 3rd.  I ain't going -- I'm going to two shows that week as it is -- but I thought I'd mention it.

I am feeling grumpy and cranky this morning, and then remembered that I did a bunch of ecstasy Friday night, so that's why.  That's enough e for me for a while, thanks.  I'm too old for this shit.  I remember saying eight million fucking ridiculous things on Friday night, which I heartily regret saying.  (Possibly) fortunately, I also remember watching people babble on and on to me, and I remember thinking at the time that they might regret saying all of these things later, but I can't remember the specifics of what anyone was saying.  So hopefully no one remembers what I said, either.

My electricity went out yesterday for a few hours, whilst I napped on my couch.  Finally I got up and took a shower by the light of a camping lantern, and got ready, and just as I was about to leave for a house in which at least a fan worked, the power came back on.  So I stayed home and turned on my AC.

I ended up watching almost the entire VMA's last night.  Good lord am I out of touch with the youth of today.  I didn't know what any of those songs were, let alone what the videos looked like.  I was watching just to see the Polyphonic Spree perform, the idea of which, as hip-hop act after hip-hop act performed, became more and more absurd.  Man, how out of place were they?  Especially considering that they didn't seem to have any actual videos nominated?  Like, totally.  And the sound was shit for the first part of the song.  I don't know, it was weird.  And it ended anti-climatically.  I think Tim DeLaughter was like "you guys have wires?  Sweet, hoist me up."  The end.

Also, I totally forgot to watch Enterprise last night.  Like, just plumb forgot.  Weird.

I'll be glad when this day is over.  I'm doing drainage areas, though, and that's about my favorite thing to do at work.  Perfect amount of logical thinking vs. autopilot.

P.S.  Oh yeah and I just remembered, my dream was totally fucked up this morning!  My family was trapped in a castle owned by a madman, who kept killing people an a whim!  Bad/weird dreams always affect my mood for the whole goddamned day.

It was my half-birthday yesterday, and not ONE of you ingrates got me a gift.

I'll forgive you, if you buy me this.

So Jeff and I went to see Garden State last night.  It was good!  Man, Zach Braff's lips sure are funny.  The dialogue was good, and the acting was good (as Jeff said a while ago, it's nice to see that Natalie Portman can indeed act, when she doesn't have Lucas directing her), and I liked that there were so many little moments of just a few seconds where nothing happened, but I was pretty sure I got what he was saying.  Like the shirt with the wallpaper, and the faucet dripping, stuff like that.  And I liked the dude who was an asshole, because he wasn't just an asshole or just a nice guy, he was both.  And the rich guy's house?  I've been there, that's in Upper Saddle River, he was a friend of a friend.  We watched a lot of MST3K.  Haha just kidding, I don't know really, but I have been to a house that looked almost exactly like that.  Man, I gotta say that I sure do like movies about New Jersey.  Is Zach Braff from North Jersey?  I mean he must be, right?  I can't imagine that anyone visits Jersey and is like "holy shit I need to make a movie about this place."

I had a very productive lunch hour.  I dropped something off at the mall to be engraved, and I dropped off some medium-format film to be developed (I have a feeling it will turn out absolutely horribly, but I'm still very excited to see).  And since I was at the camera store, I told the girl that my digital camera was "totally filthy" so I left it and they're going to clean it.  I don't know that the filth was affecting the photos, but it really was totally grimy to look at, the lens and whatnot, and I've had it for a year and a half (and I don't have a camera case, thank the lord for metal cameras), so hopefully this will turn out to be worth it.  We'll see. But in the meantime, it feels very strange not to have my camera on my person. What if something totally fabulous happens right in front of me and I can't take a picture of it?? Oh the horror.

I also made ( more Kirk icons )

That's it, though, I'm done, I swear.

So yesterday, I told you I was sick, right?  It must be an Irish cold, since I started it feeling it the day I left Ireland.  Irish colds are weird!  I'm sniffly, but I'm not stuffed up!  My head hurts, and I feel so, so tired, and last night I kept BURPING!!  Man, Irish cold!  Burping??

So yeah, yesterday I continued to feel worser and worser.  I took a nap during lunch, but that did the opposite of helping, and for most of the afternoon I was convinced that I was dying.  I went home and took a four hour nap, and then sat dazedly on my couch and watched some Bolympics, and then fell asleep.  I told myself that if I felt worse the next morning I would stay home from work, and I was convinced that I would, but dammit, this morning I felt better!  I mean I suppose I'm happy that I'm getting better already, but I was already looking forward to sleeping late and watching Star Trek.  Oh well.

So a few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted a Kirk icon for LiveJournal.  I went to this site that has screencaps from TOS episodes, and started saving a bunch, and when I looked at my collection, I realized that I had a few beauties.  I mean, this is William Shatner here, renowned for his overacting, the type of guy who, when someone else does an impression of his Jim Kirk, you say to yourself, Haha, that's pretty funny, but it's a little over-the-top and unrealistic and then you watch an episode of Star Trek and realize, Good lord, that actually is how he acted! Amazing!  So here is an icon set that I made, entitled ( The many emotions of Captain James T. Kirk: ) I dunno, I thought they were really funny a few weeks ago, now I think they're just okay. Also, I think some of the comedic value is lost because of the way the table is breaking up the captions, but I've been messing with it and can't get it work right so fuckit. Fixed it. Any lack of comedic value is now entirely my fault.

Also, if you have a favorite one, tell me which one it is.

Man, so it turns out that I am SICK!  Can you believe that?  My throat hurt on Sunday but I attributed it to singing in the car at the top of my lungs for two hours.  Turns out I was coming down with a cold.  My head feels weird, and my eyes feel raw.  It sort of sucks, but I'm very very very grateful I didn't have a stuffed head on the plane, because that's just about the worst kind of torture there is.  But man, seriously, I'm very sick.  I should stay home from work.

I updated my Photo du Jour page last night, so if you would like to see a picture a day of Ireland, they're August 14th through the 21st.  Here's the one from the nineteenth:



Oh and I saw Kill Bill Vol. II last night and it was totally awesome.

Man, so Ireland was very beautiful.  And I made it in time to see the Polyphonic Spree last night.  The performance was very good, but the entire center section of the church sat on their asses the whole time, which was frustrating (as well as mind-boggling).  I tried standing up during one song but no one else followed suit and then a slow song came on so I sat down and I am shy and incapable of bringing hundreds of people to their feet.  So I wish that everyone would have stood up.  People are stupid.  After the band left the stage, the people started clapping to get them back out for an encore and THEN they stood up and I wanted to hit them.  NOW you stand up, now that there is no one up there?  Jerks.  Oh well it's okay, the performance was still very wonderful and energetic and sweaty.  It's funny now that I know their songs, though.  Before I'd be sitting there amazed at how things flowed together and came back around and got all big and now I know what's going to happen.  So on the one hand some of the romance is gone but on the other I can sing at the top of my lungs for an hour, so that's nice.

Now that my vacations are over I have to attempt to get my freaking shit together.  I doubt that I will ever get my shit entirely together ever in my life, but I have to at least try.  I have to move toward the goal of getting my shit together.  I must, at the very least, gaze in the general direction of my shit having gotten together.  I came home from Ireland to find that the payment for my student loan overdrew my checking account for the second time in three months.  I have a savings account that I started at the beginning of this year, but I am unable to access it because I can't find any of the information for it, i.e. account number, password, etc etc.  I need to clean my entire apartment.  I need to Drain-O my tub, and then clean that too.  I still have a hornet's nest above my balcony, and a kitchen drawer which has been broken for months.  I have somewhere between six and eight loads of laundry that need to be laundered.  I bought Ikea shelves two or three months ago, and have yet to put them together.  As well as a spice rack that needs to be hung, and a big leaf to install over my bed so that I feel as a little bug.  I have emails to return, and concerts for which to buy tickets.  My car's oil needs changing.  I have to find a way to repay my dad for part of the Ireland vacation.  Oh, and I'd like to buy a house?  Ha ha.  For what, so that THAT can be really dirty?  I think that maybe the only way I can own a home is if I also budget enough to have a maid come in twice a month.  The idea is at once absurd and completely necessary.

Ireland was beautiful.  We did a lot of driving around.  I took about 400 pictures, which means that they will almost certainly never see the light of day.  I had a great time, but I don't really feel like I have a lot of stories to tell, which is sort of a shame, but not too much.  We saw a lot of gardens, a lot of old-rich-peoples-homes, a lot of ruins, and a lot of sheep.  A LOT of sheep.  I even ate one on the last night.  Oh man, what a delicious leg of lamb that was, let me tell you.  Here are the things I went nine days without:  smoking (dope), drinking Jim Beam, whackin' off, sleeping past nine, cooking, smoking cloves (well, I had one), being on the internet (well, except for that one time), watching Star Trek, eating from Wawa.  It was a good week, and my family got along even better than I could have hoped.

Oh, and in addition to all that stuff up there that I have to do, I forgot to mention two things involving my job:  number one, see about taking the goddamned P.E. test (that's the test that will give me my Professional Engineer's license), (oh! and also one ay, figure out if I ever really did get my E.I.T. or what, I have a sneaking suspicion they never sent the thing, even though they told me I passed the test), and two, figure out what I want to do with my career.  I don't want to turn farmland into housing developments for the rest of my life.  It's embarrassing.  I can either do something more hippie-ish with my civil engineering experience, or blow it off altogether and go join the circus and become a lion tamer.  I am going to sit down and think really hard about that, right after I finish cleaning my tub.  Oh and also I have to cut my friends list down, sorry folks.

Oh and also I have to get back to writing LiveJournal posts that are actually interesting, and not entirely self-serving and annoying.  Bleh.

MAN I cannot wait for a balogna sandwich for lunch!

P.S. Here is a picture of Ireland that I took (from a boat):

hi!

i am in an internet cafe with my brother in dublin. the keyboards are funny here. you've heard it all before.

tonight at dinner i had a garlic burger. it came with an entire roasted garlic head. i squished out two cloves onto the burger, which i believe also had garlic in it already. there was some sort of garlic mayonaise jawn on the fries i mean chips, and they were really good too. i was going to make out with cute irish boys today but i guess i can't now.

in the middle of dublin castle there were lots of sand sculptures and all of the boys who made them were really cute and one in particular had red hair and a sort of haircut. he was adorable. and, apparently, a professional sand castle maker.

tomorrow we rent a car and head south. i think that my dad is going to drive, which is relatively terrifying. he does not have the best driving record in the universe, and i can sort of picture him forgetting to drive on the left side of the road. (i can sort of picture ME forgetting that too, but that's neither here or there.) hopefully we will be fine.

i think i'm going to try and kiss the blarney stone. when the time comes.

i guess that's all i can think of. sorry to hear about that hurricane, guys.

LATA.

So I'm going to go ahead and say that the fact that I'm leaving work right now is a good thing, because now I've made up the hours I'll lose tomorrow when I depart from this jobby job at noon, and I am all golden and forty hours for the week.

I get to go to Ireland tomorrow!  I probably won't sleep very much tonight!  I do this before every vacation. 

I think I should bring my Spree robe to Ireland and wear it around and tell them that that's what Americans do.  Is that a good idea, you think?

Oh, I'm sorry, did you say you were looking for the new hot shit?  Well I've got the new hot shit for you right here:

Niagara Falls Girlfriend

All the files are over three megs, but if you don't have broadband, then you're not geek enough to enjoy these songs anyway.

lead guitar: illscientist
vocals: mordicai
film auteur: littlewashu

Man, my boss keeps saying "flat-bottomed basins" and it makes me think "fat-bottomed girls".

Last night was the fantasy football draft.  There are only eight teams this year (last year there were twelve, and the year before that fourteen) so it went very quickly.  Also there weren't dudes there who I HATE like last year so that was nice too.  I drank during the draft and then I drank afterwards and had McDonald's at like 12:30am. 

It's neat to still have starters (or, rather, "dudes whom I've heard of") left on the waiver wire at the end of the draft!  With twelve and fourteen teams, man, you are digging DEEP in the last few rounds.

Yesterday morning there were two people at the exit driveway of my apartment complex, handing out paper bags with breakfast in it (a breakfast bar and a Hi-C juice box).  According to both the man who handed me my breakfast, and the sticker on the bag, it's courtesy my apartment complex.  Isn't that weird?  They did something like that about a month ago but I didn't accept because I thought they were religious freaks.  What is my apartment complex doing giving out breakfast?  I don't get it.  Oh that reminds me I have to call maintenance, I have a HORNET'S NEST above my balcony!  It totally freaks me out.

On Monday night I went to the new Phillies ballpark for the first time with Culann, Neil and Mitch for dollar dog day.  The Phillies lost, which was incredibly disappointing.  It was a pretty boring game.  But I did eat three hot dogs.  Also it was Gay Community Night and the section next to us was filled with cute, drunk lesbians.  When I'm hanging out with my guy friends I look at cute girls all the time, but this time *I* had the advantange!  Ha-HA!

I finished Shogun last week.  It was good, and I miss it, because I had only recently figured out that if I read it before bed, I'd dream that I was living in feudal Japan and drinking sake and cha and wearing kimonos and whatnot.  Man, and the book had a super surprise ending!  *I* was surprised, anyway!  I have the miniseries in my Netflix queue.  It is twelve hours long!  That's hot. 

Speaking of miniseries from Netflix, I watched episode 9 of I, Claudius the other day, which is the one where -- **SPOILER ALERT!!** -- Caligula ties up his sister and cuts open her belly and tries to eat his unborn son.  I hadn't technically seen this scene before, because the first time I watched I, Claudius was in Latin class in 11th and 12th grade, and Dr. Rose stood in front of the TV for that part.  So I was a little nervous about it, to be honest -- it turns out I had nothing to worry about, they don't show anything.  It's just that -- um, I forget the chick's name, but Caligula thinks she's Hera, so we'll call her Hera (it might be Livillia or something, I think that Livilla was her mother) Drusilla, it's Drusilla -- Caligula rips off Drusilla's toga, so she's standing/hanging there naked.  Dr. Rose just didn't want us to see butt.  But there's no gore or anything, Caligula just has a bloody mouth when he answers Claudius at the door.  I was more relieved than disappointed, I think.  Dead fetuses make me feel icky.

Man, just today to do laundry and pack and then Thursday to pack and then Friday I go to Ireland!  Also I get to see mein Bruder whom I haven't seen since I visited him in Germany!  Man, I'm going to miss the first week and a half of the Olympics, which is a shame, but still, man, Ireland.  I'm hype.

Oh also I think I'm going to get rid of all of my icons.

On Saturday I went up to Manhattan I mean Brooklyn to hang out with illscientist and mordicai.  We had Ethiopian food, which Ill and I had never eaten before.  We all liked it lots.  Then we mosied over to Brooklyn and formed a band and recorded demos.  I'm not sure what my role in the band is, yet, but I will think of something.  If worst comes to worst I will play the banjo.  Because I've already got one.

You can see the Statue of Liberty from the roof of Dave's new building.  We went up there to smoke and to talk about doing drugs, and not doing drugs, with Ill's new roommates.  It was a night of Communal Drinking.  We shared a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at the restaurant and then on the way to Ill's place bought a liter of Jim Beam and two liters of Pepsi and we almost polished everything off, which was pretty good, since we didn't get started on that until 10:30 pm.  This story is out of order, mostly.

Mordicai wandered home at around three, because he had to go to a wedding in New Jersey (he kept saying New Jersey as if it were the name of another country or possibly even another star system.  "Where is the wedding?"  "New Jersey.") the next morning.  Via bus.  Dave and I woke up and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and then wandered around Manhattan on subway trains that did not run as they should.  He was late.  I hope that he was not fired.

But the best event of the whole trip took place while I was walking from the subway to Penn Station.  I was waiting on a corner for the light to change, and so were a lot a lot of other people.  And then the light changed and the walk sign didn't come on but whatever and 20 - 30 people entered the roadway at once from both sides and then this minivan with Vermont plates made a right turn to go down the street, and instead of stopping for the pedestrians like a normal person this guy slowed a little bit, laaaaaaaiiid on the horn, and then just started to plow through!  He didn't hit anyone, but you KNOW he had to be going in a dangerously fast way, because pedestrians surely do not get out of the way of slow moving vehicles.  Everyone in the street looked at him like he was fucking crazy, and from watching TV and movies you should know that it takes something pretty crazy to shock New Yorkers.  The thing that made it the best was that there were two cops standing RIGHT THERE at the intersection, and a large black female cop immediately told the Vermont guy to pull over, and she gave him a talking-to.  Man, Vermont drivers!

Uh, I just came across this Amazon review for a Kurosawa box set (Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortresss, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro):

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0 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars Tony the Tiger would say, GRRRREAT!!!!, April 29, 2004
       
Reviewer: J. Cournoyer "History J." (The Queen City, USA) - See all my reviews
                 
Awesome films by Kurosawa! It would have been nice if they were all digitally remastered with color added, but you'll have to settle for black & white which isn't too bad.
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I don' t know about you, but my response to this review is

...

Hello.  I feel a bit gloomy today!  I'm not sure why.  It's almost quittin' time, I can't wait to go home and take a nap!  That will make everything better. 

Today is a birthday day!  Today is the birthday of my good friend Culann, one of the cutest of all my friends:



And Mitch, one of the bestest of all my friends:



And also Wil Wheaton.



Happy birthday, guys!

I was in the field this week, Monday through yesterday.  Delineating wetlands and whatnot.  It was sometimes frustrating, oftentimes wet, and always hot.  I dug many holes.  I was a ditch digger.  I liked it a lot; there weren't many ticks at this site.  I hate ticks.  Mosquitos I can handle.  And I feel much more satisfied at the end of a day where I did some actual physical labor.  Much more satisfied than sitting in front of a computer.  And I saw many animals!  I saw three deer, a frog, eight thousand bunnies, eight million birds, lots of butterflies, a cat, and a lone kitten, as well as a roving pack of wild dangerous kittens.  Haha, I'm just kidding, they weren't feral or anything, they were probably just farm cats, but they really did travel as a pack of yittle 8-week-old kittens, who scampered into the woods when we came close, and that was funny.

Here, let me tell you about this past weekend.

On Friday I came home from work and took a super-long nap during which I had the totally awesome amazing dream which I have already related to you.  Then I went to the All the Red Wine in the World Party, at Meghan and Mike's place.  I had never been to their apartment before, and it was pretty amazing!  I had a great time at the party.  I got wine-headed enough to be loud and talk about all sorts of things and be animated and excited, but I was still able to drive my ass home at three ay em.  I've said it before, but I like chillin' chillin' with those Philly kids.  Also the party was in celebration of Meghan's not working at her old work anymore, and man, quitting is one of the most deserving of all events to be celebrated.

I drove home and fell asleep on my couch watching . . . um, a DVD.  This is to become a recurring theme.

On Friday I got my hair done (it's not not how I want it, but it's also not particularly exciting.  Oh well) and then Jeff and I drove down to Washington, D.C. to see They Might Be Giants play in the middle of the goddamned road (man, D.C.!)  We drove to the same Metro stop to which we had driven three months ago, to march for women's lives and whatnot.  Taking the Metro is SO much more pleasant without hundreds of thousands of excited feminists on hand!  It took us 45 seconds to get our tickets, rather than 45 minutes.

Remind us next time, when we attend a Live on Penn event, not to bother purchasing tickets.  Dude wouldn't let me in with a backpack!  Sonofa!  This turned out to be just fine.  We spread out my blanket on the grass off the road, and there WAS no grass in the middle of the road, where the "venue" was, so we lucked out.  I used my "ticket" to go in and get us drinks, though, cuz we were thirsty.  Dude, there was ONE tent selling non-alcoholic beverages.  And like four Arbor Mist tents and four Miller Lite tents, it was crazy.

It was a good concert.  They played a shitload of stuff from their new album, The Spine, but this is an album-support tour, so that's okay.  We do, however, wish that they would give certain songs a break.  But maybe they can't?  Maybe people will complain if they don't do "Birdhouse"?  I always say that there's no such thing as a casual Giants fan, but that's self-centered and possibly not true.  Hey, at least they didn't play "Particle Man".

Man, but Dan Hickey was not there!  Is he gone for good?  I totally feel as though the Band of Dans are truly part of the group, and it would make me sad to learn that Dan Hickey is gone for good.  My boyfriend Dan Miller was in fine form.  He was hatless; he played keyboard on "Dr. Worm"; he sang back-up with Flansy on "Stalk of Wheat" (LOVE that song), as well as played that little waggly instrument thing; his solo intro to Istanbul was the best I've heard him do.

As for the album, what do you guys think?  I like it.  And the more I listen to it, the more I like it.  There are some songs which are only okay, and I don't think that any of them have blown my socks off, yet.  But it's a solid album.  Want to hear my suggestion?  "Experimental Film" shouldn't be the first song, but it SHOULD have some horns in there.  Lose the Peter Buckesque guitar in the last few choruses -- gimme some of that HORN, son, BLASTING my shit at the end of that song. You can TELL where they're supposed to go, if you pay attention.  Good lord do I love a loud horn section in my rock-n-roll music.  If it had a proper horn element, then that song would join its brothers Dr. Worm, A Self Called Nowhere, and Spiralling Shape as Songs by Linnell That Are Totally Awesome And I Group Together For Some Reason Though I Couldn't Tell You Why Exactly Because I've Never Really Analyzed It Much.  I mean, c'mon, there are decent horns on ONE song (which I love, "Museum of Idiots") and then a little toot here or there elsewhere.  They Might Be Giants are 50% more rocking with a solid horn section.  Sez I.

We sleepily drove back home.  Jeff asked if I thought I would have a second wind when we got back to the Manse, and I scoffed at him, but it turned out that I did.  We hung out with Flapjack, and then the Chris came home and we hung out with him too, and then Dave came home and we all hung out together.  Dave brought out this little . . . um, plastic doll whose head you could move around, and it would play . . . stuff.  Beats, and lyrics, and scritcha-scritcha record sounds, depending on how you turned her head.  He claimed that she looked like me.  I think it was ( just the hair. )

I made it to three or so, then fell asleep on the couch.  The next morning/noon, Hal came over, and the boys went over to 508 to play wiffle ball, and I went over to watch.  It was overcast.

That night, I watched the rerun of Enterprise, a new (to me) Voyager, and then I fell asleep on my couch.

I also fell asleep on my couch in front of the TV on Monday and Tuesday nights.  I need to just go to BED, man.

OKay, I must make this quick because I have to get ready to go to a party and I am late in getting ready because I took a nap that was an hour and a half long because I was having the best dream and I kept snoozing! Here it is, the dream I mean!

I should mention I was was looking through The Art of Star Trek before I laid (lay?) down.

Okay! So I was on a starship, I guess it was a Federation starship. I don't remember much of it, but the area of the ship that I was in was laid out exactly like my (real-life) office at work. And there were two Klingons on board, and they were being all rough and Klingon-y, but they looked like TNG Klingons. Right now in my head they looked just like Worf and his son Alexander, but that might be because I'm projecting backwards and think that all Klingons look the same because I'm a damned racist.

So they were on board and they were gruff but the kid grew to like me, so he would seek me out so that he could talk to me about stuff. And I'm not sure what I was doing on the ship, I don't think I was a member of Starfleet, so I guess I was a visiting expert or something. And we were communicating with this other ship that was next to us, it was some first contact bullshit or something, and the other aliens were very nice and they were all, everyone on their ship was female. And we couldn't really speak their language but we had this translating device with a dial on it, and you could turn it and then push it (it looked like a Scattergories timer with a handle) and then these phrases would come out, in the alien language and also in English so you knew what it was saying to them. And I was the best at sort of figuring out how to work this device by trial and error, and the aliens liked me best too, on the ship, I was a liason of sorts, though we never visited each other, we just talked to each other over viewscreens.

And so I don't remember most of the plot, or what the hell was going on. But the captain of my ship was a chick, and she was really nice to me. And there was some sort of near-catastrophe but I saved the day. And then somehow lost my shirt. So I needed a shirt, because I had no shirt on, and I was trying to hide from the Klingon kid because he liked me and was trying to hang out with me and tell me stuff but you know, that's highly immodest. So -- and this happened just like in a TV show or movie -- the captain had a brainstorm, and was like "I know!" and then leaned down to tell me her plan but we don't hear the plan. I mean I, as a character heard it, but I as the audience to my dream did not. So then I'm like "of course!" and am smiley and excited and I get to work with my translator, and I talk over the viewscreen to these chicks and they're confused too at first, but then I get the translator to say what I want and they're like "ahhhh! ah ha!" and all excited and talking to me and are going to help me with my plan.

Well, apparently the plan was that this other alien ship was somehow in charge of manufacturing Starfleet uniforms. So they send over a box via transporter and I open it up and it's a blue uniform and I am absolutely ecstatic. I pull it on and it is so blue and soft, and I'm so happy that it's blue because that means it's Science/Medical, and if I were to serve on the starship Enterprise (not that I've ever thought about that), it would be in the Science Department, because 1) if this is a dream, then I would rather be a scientist than an engineer and 2) I would be more likely to have interactions with Mr. Spock and 3) I look better in blue. So I pull it on and look down abd at first I think "oh no, I bet this isn't a science uniform at all, I bet it's a freaking nurse's uniform like Chapel with the weird big collar" but it isn't! And miraculously, I am also thinner and my boobs are larger and rounder and perky, I look freaking great. And then my mom is there and she's like "there's just one more piece, the bloomers" only she thought I should but them on UNDER my underwear which doesn't make any sense so I tell her so. (I can't remember what I did with my hair). And then along with the uniform came this, like, accessory kit, there's a phaser and a holster and a phaser RIFLE and a tricorder and a communicator and I am SO excited. So I use my viewscreen to show the lady aliens and they are all excited and clap their hands together, and my captain is all excited and happy for me and so is my mom, and then I go over to the Klingon's room and show him and the kid and they smile and are impressed and think I look great.

Then there was some other stuff after that but I don't really remember. Okay! I have to go! And I'm not sorry that I had that dream, even though you are sorry that you read about it.

Me and Dave This is me and my friend Dave, camping last weekend.

(Click on the image to see it full-sized)