Thursday, January 31, 2008

Shit, shit, shit

I really can't handle my job right now. I feel like contriving ways of getting fired just because it'd be entertaining. That, and I'm really stressed and secretly want to leave this place forever.

Alert! Free Album!

You have to download the amazon mp3 downloader, but you still get the raw mp3s. No crazy digital protection as far as I can tell.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W1WPMS


That is all. Just thought you music junkies would appreciate this.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Correction

The trip will be Feb. 8 to 10... not Super Bowl weekend.

I'm actually working during the Super Bowl. :(
Yeah, I need a new job.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I think I'm going to Indy/Bloomington/Fishers/Avon next weekend

Who wants in on the trip? Who wants to host me?

That, and I think the marketing plan for MacBook Air is based off of Nike's Air Jordan advertising campaign.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Women and children first

My mom's basement apparently got flooded. Many issues of my Collins Columns were destroyed. Some of my grandma's books (now under my possession) were ruined, including an old-school illustrated Grimm's Fairy Tales collection. A bunch of stuff from college could not be salvaged.

On the positive side...
my Super Nintendo went unharmed.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Ambulance LTD?

Has anyone (Thom? Brad?) heard of a band called Ambulance LTD? I don't think they're well known, but I heard them once when I was listening to last.fm online and really liked what I heard. The more I hear (listening to free music on napster.com), the more I like. They're described on last.fm as having "stylistic influences from the Beatles and the Stones to Spiritualized, Elliott Smith and the Smiths." Comparing them to all those artists that I really enjoy obviously got my attention. If anyone's got any of their music (their main record seems to be called LP), I'd love to have it.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Five signs that I'm old

1) I tweaked my neck for the second time in as many weeks and it is taking a long time to fix itself.
2) I have an IRA.
3) People call me "Mr."
4) I complain about "kids these days"/see no. 3
5) About half of my socks are not white.

How do you know you're getting old?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I want a new job.

I think Mike does too.

Any suggestions, ya'll?

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Hey! Check it out!

With this post, January 2008 has tied the entire year of 2007 in terms of total posts made at smithground's blog! Sweet!!!

I'm going to vote for Mitt.

Because he'll say whatever I want him to say just to get my vote.
And he's named after an important piece of baseball equipment.

I'd rather go bland than taste them...

The following things I loathe to eat:
1) Plain tuna, with nothing on it except for the tuna ooze that oozes from it. I think they call it "brine with ingredients."
2) Most people, the exception being myself.
3) Anything off another person's plate. Yuck.

Monday, January 14, 2008

I'd rather go deaf than hear them...

Now, I like all sorts of music. But I decided the following:

-My Chemical Romance is the worst band ever.
-"Thrash Unreal" by Against Me! is the worst song ever made.

I can't stand that band and that song, and it's gotten to the point that within the first second of hearing anything by MCR or that song by Against Me!, I scream "Horrible song!" and I shut off the radio.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Did Anyone See This Movie?

Being a movie enthusiast (at best) and a Beatles fan since childhood, I was extremely "enthused" to see this movie when it came out:



But as usual, too busy to get out to see it in theatres. Now, its DVD release date is coming up in the first week of February and I was wondering if any of you have seen it. It looks beautiful to me. My parents saw it and said they loved it as well, so I have that.

Resolutions that weren't even made...

I'm already focused on my No. 1 resolution (to write more fiction), but as for resolutions I didn't clearly make - I'm getting more disciplined about reading again. Read "No Country for Old Men," almost done with "Into the Wild." Of course, seeing the movies was a driving force. I'm still chipping away at "Gravity's Rainbow." And I've been adding to my exercise routine - it's not just push-ups anymore. I can't wait for spring to get here. I'm ready to run again.

In really disturbing news, my news group is laying people off like crazy. Under normal circumstances, someone in my position would be the last on my desk to lose his job, but some of my co-workers know that I intend to have other plans come next year, which could fuck things up. Please, pray for me.

And yes, I've been posting a lot, but that's because I've been checking often. I hope it's not too annoying...

Friday, January 11, 2008

To amend that...

OK, I was just being flippant. I appreciate those of you who have purchased and read my books up to this point. I hope you do so with the new one. As for those of you waiting to buy the new one at my upcoming book release party, I'll keep you updated. And, finally, those of you who seriously don't give a shit about my writing, then I'm guessing you wouldn't have read this anyway, so I needn't dignify you in my commentary by mentioning you. (Wait, does that make sense?) Um, let's play hallball.

If I get reincarnated...

...I want to come back as someone who reads my books. Seriously. At least then I'd have someone buying my books on LuLu... *hint hint*

Hmmm.

Well, I opened up my e-mail this morning to see an explosion of activity on this site- assuming someone had died given how much there was, I logged in only to be greatly disappointed with you all driveling on about your lives.

Kidding! I luvs it.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to say. I'm still working...finally getting out of the hole on the nutso hours I've been pulling lately because I got to hire some help. Which is good. Except now I have to manage them, and half the time I feel like they look at me like "what the hell are you doing?" We moved into our new office finally as well, which is exciting because we were supposed to do that in August. We've been there for a week now and things are looking up.

In other news, I've been meeting with some guys pretty regularly about a new business concept I came up with, and we're all pretty sold. Most of my weekends have been going to being as lazy as possible or alternating with working on that. We're hoping to be able to quit our "real" jobs in 6 months, but who knows?!

Anyway. Werk werk werk. I truly understand the meaning of rat race.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The life of a music critic

In case you didn't know, one of the new things I'm doing at my job is writing music reviews. Through doing this, I realized the No. 1 equation regarding being a music critic: research = listening to music. It's pretty sweet. Of course, reading lyrics, biographies, and artist interviews are all important, but listening to the music is the most important part. And that's all kinds of awesome.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

I am for real sticking to this plan.

Every time I check this, I will post. Seriously. I won't even cheat, not even once. How 'bout that, Waple? Too bad there's no way to prove it...

So, I'm flipping back and forth between the New Hampshire primaries and the Bulls game. The Bulls are barely beating the Knicks, and Clinton is barely beating Obama. My analysis: The Bulls need Deng to be healthy. As for the primaries, if you're going to vote blue, it's safe to already start thinking about voting for the Democrat who will appeal to the most people in this country - no matter the political party, the race, the gender, etc. Why? Because no matter how much you love one candidate, there's the slight possibility that another candidate stands a better chance (and it just so happens that the candidates are strong this year). As for voting red, I always liked McCain, at least until he became Bush's lapdog.

That's it for now.

Until we meet again, whoever's reading this...

Saturday, January 05, 2008

hi


I guess I'll update just 'cause everyone else is... I really don't have anything new and exciting to report though. I spent winter break knitting some green and blue leg warmers, baked a TON of xmas cookies, watched the movie hairspray many many times (I have most of the choreography memorized), and built an army of adorable tiny snowmen, although they have sadly melted away at this point. Next week I return to school for my last semester of grad school. I graduate in may and therefore need to start job hunting like now, but I'm hardcore procrastinating. I too am looking forward to the dells trip with thom waple and mike, too bad everyone else can't come as well. I'm sure we'll have lots of pics to post afterwards, so until then, peace out.

Friday, January 04, 2008

So this is the new year...

I spent my New Year's Eve at a rock club in downtown Chicago, watching a reggae band perform, alone, by myself. I had such grand plans that night, but none of them worked out. As I stood there, I realized I had become that awkward 25-year-old seemingly past his prime without any real reason to be at the show anymore. At least I was dressed more for a business conference than a concert, which made it such that I appeared successful. Usually those creepy old dudes at shows who don't belong there anymore wear some hideous tight shirts they found in the Dumpster behind the thrift store, making them appear to be at least one of the following: 1) An alcoholic 2) Unemployed 3) A sex offender wanted in at least three states. At least my formal attire and bling-bling IUB ring discounted any accusations of such.

Other than that, I'm OK.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

... 2008!

Please accept my warmest and frothiest New Year's toast from a juggled snifter of V.S.P. Cognac given a good to-and-fro, dancing with a tall glass of bubbley pronounced like Christopher Walken's "champagnye."

I seem to have a recollection that my parents were visiting me over here in this god-forsaken country, but they flew back sometime today.

So that's good that they came over, right? But you know it sort of makes me feel guilty, like i should have just come back to visit them instead, but whatever, you know, parents, right? uff.

Etc.

So I think I can echo what Brad said about grad school: i won't know until another 3 months at least, until then I feel like these professors are just shredding up my applications and smoking them like cheap, homemade cigars and getting kicks with my fate in these wooden conference rooms with wooden faces. Cheers to that.

And so forth.

Oh i forget about the port
where is the port?

-Ben