July 30th, 2004 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "I Take You To Sleep" by New Fast Automatic Daffodils.

One of the most powerful forces in this world is "bed gravity". I firmly believe this. It took some serious strength of will to get out of bed this morning. It's been like that all week, really. But I hit the snooze button 3 times before I finally crawled (literally) out of bed. After a very draining Japanese class (we learned how to tell time), I went over to Ayca's new apartment for dinner and general hanging out. She's got a nice space that's bigger than most studio apartments I've seen. And considering her location in Old Town, it's one hell of a deal. Huge roof that has an amazing view of downtown. Just watch your feet because there's at least one tenant with a dog and the dog shits up there and it doesn't get cleaned up. But despite all that, it's a great place.

We made lasagna and salad and I drank a bottle of shiraz. That's why I feel like ass today. I forgot what a wine hangover feels like. We're supposed to get a free lunch in the office today and I'm praying that it's Potbellies and not Burrito Beach. The latter would be bad news. The diet coke that I've been nursing is finally starting to kick in, as is the Advil. I also got a great text message that is making me smile. I cannot wait to get to Japan.

The weekend plans so far are to see The Village right after work with John. Then I'll probably go over to Maria's to give her the homework from class. She missed class last night due to a meeting. Saturday I'm helping Ben move into his new apartment, then I'll go to Subterranean later that night to see Zelienople play. At some point on Sunday I'm going to that festival thing in Wicker Park with Griff. That should be a good scooter day. Rock. \m/

Hope made rad flyers for the airiel show on the 20th.

** UPDATE ** 11:35 hours CST - a coworker came to my desk with a disc she wanted me to copy. After she left I put it in my drive. Turns out it's a DVD. Turns out it's an advanced copy of Catwoman. Turns out Catwoman is a flaming pile of shit. Not that that is much of surprise to anyone. She follows a bad guy into a dance club, approaches the bar and asks the bartender for a White Russian. Then says "hold the ice, hold the vodka, hold the kahlua." This movie is a crime against film making. Halle Berry, you suck in ways I never though possible. I don't care how hot you are.

July 29th, 2004 09:40 hours CST currently listening to: "Private Road" by Bent.

Let's see here. Not much news to report. Our nice weather is quickly going away. We're going to have hot and rainy next week. Oh joy. Just in time for me to be helping Ben move into his new apartment. Grrrrr. At least we're moving him into a garden apartment and not up to some 4th floor or something.

I'm a little behind in my Japanese studies. However, on my walk home from the train yesterday, I realized that I already know numbers 0-10. Zero, ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roko, nana, hachi, hyu, ju. I may not have spelled those correctly. I'm heading over to Ayca's new place tonight after class. We were gonna cook dinner and watch a movie, but apparently she made lasagna last night. How can I compete with that?

July 27th, 2004 16:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Dark Train" by Underworld.

I'm still wondering what it was that comprised the icing on the vegan carrot cake that Maria and I split at Ear Wax last night. That is without a doubt the worst place where I've tried to study. The servers were loud, the music was loud (and terrible) and the doors were open, so the cars driving past on the wet pavement were also loud. I could not concentrate at all. I got a bunch of my work sheets done and made the rest of the flash cards. We realized that we were given a lot more vocabulary that we don't know the hiragana for yet. I think she went ahead and gave us stuff from chapter 3 as well. Hmmmmm.

I got home and more or less went straight to the couch. I needed to relax. I finally got out a game that I love that I haven't played in a long time. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly. As soon as the title screen loaded, I was glad I got it out. This game is fantastic. Great story. Incredibly spooky atmosphere. Good game play. It's just creepy. All I want to do right now is go home and play it. Zeeshan is coming over to learn some guitar parts after I get back from the gym. Mischa is inviting people over to Rainbow for drinks since today is his last day at work. I absolutely have to do at least one load of laundry tonight. Grrr. I don't like suddenly being so busy. I'm also supposed to go over to the studio (BBQ location) to pick up my Rubbermaid containers and talk to David about the next airiel release. Busy busy boy!

** UPDATE** July 26th, 2004 17:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Deep Honey" by Goldfrapp.

I just ran out of flash cards. We were given a TON of new vocabulary. I still have more vocab to make into cards and I haven't even gotten to the numbers yet. Good grief. Maria said it best: "I love that they have a word that means the day before yesterday; 'ototoi'". Yeah, that's very cool.

Another thing I remembered from the MarioKart night on Friday was the bottle of wine that Yasemin and Tobias brought with them. They actually brought two bottles, but the first one had a bad cork and it broke 4/5 of the way down as Tobias was opening the bottle. After a desperate search, I found the one paper clip I had in my apartment, but I arrived too late. The cork had already been pushed down into the wine. Then, the paper clip fell in as well! Hahahaha. It was a wine filled with debris. They didn't drink it. A bottle of wine with a bad cork is never going to taste right anyway. I only drink red wine, so I didn't even have good glasses to give them as their other bottle was also white. I have a bottle of Shiraz in my red room that has probably turned into vinegar by now. :(

Ok, that's it for today. Sayonara! ^_^

July 26th, 2004 09:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Inside My Mirror" by Absinthe Blind.

Ohayo gozaimasu. I have a lot to study for Japanese. I still haven't made my new set of flash cards. I have to work late tonight, so I'll do them then. I'm studying with Maria later tonight anyway.

I'm starting to dislike my hair. Or maybe I'm just having a bad hair day. Yes, that makes me sound shallow and vain, but maybe I'm just having a bad day in general. Not sure why. I didn't sleep very well. That may be it.

Mariokartathalon 3: Die Jeremy Die went very well. There wasn't a lot of me getting my ass kicked (like that would EVER happen), because we simply had so many people in my and Mischa's apartments that we had to trade places a lot. Whoever got 1st and or last in each apartment had to sit out a turn. This was rather nice as I got to run around and take goofy pictures, or answer the door or deal with the pizza orders. I served drinks as well. We (well, Mischa) decided to use Smirnoff Ice as the units for the drinking game. That was the component of the evening that we completely forgot about, so now I have a nearly full 12 pack of that crap in my fridge that is going to sit there until Mischa comes over and drinks it. I swear, one of thee days I'm going to make him into a man and he'll forget about all this malt beverage bullshit. It's going to involve me kicking his ass at some game with several of our friends as witnesses, then I'll knock him down, grab a bottle of Jack Daniels and a funnel and go to work on him. I don't mind the taste of Smirnoff Ice, but it takes 8 billion of those sugary bastards to get you drunk. And the accompanying sugar crash never helps either. The whole idea is bankrupt.

Saturday was nice. The weather was outstanding, yet I didn't get on my scooter until later in the day. I had bought a bunch of stuff to make veggie kabobs. I did forget the marinade, so I got on my Vespa and made a quick trip to the grocery. I fell asleep on the couch for a half hour with Stella on my lap. Those moments are precious. The BBQ at Kindesign was nice. David told me that they're all moving out of that place at the end of September. Airiel is going to have one last recording session there and then the next time will be at whatever place David and Jaime move into. Nice that they're finally getting a place together. They've been dating for 5 years. I salute them. I ate a lot of food that wasn't good for me. Rice Krispie Treats are awesome. It was a part for David's 30th birthday as well. There were a ton of elaborately decorated cupcakes. Around 10:30 I met up with Cara at another party to discuss Japan. She'll be living in Osaka for a year which she described as being "The Chicago of Japan". I also learned to avoid eating natto at all costs. hehehe. Sorry, Yuka. ;)

Sunday was nice. I talked with Yuka all morning and then took a nap. Went to the gym for a long workout. I ran for almost an hour. Band practice went really well. I just realized that I didn't get enough done this weekend. I need to take pictures of my Ric 300 and get it listed on ebay. I bet I can get at least $450 from it. My day has improved. Arigato gozaimasu.

July 23rd, 2004 08:35 hours CST currently listening to: "Be Still My Beating Heart" by Sting.

This weather couldn't be more perfect. Sunny and 68 degrees. It's heaven. We should be able to keep the windows open tonight for the MarioKart event. Which is good, as Tobias can continue to shout "you guys suck!" at full volume every time something happens in the game. We're including a drinking game this time. I'm not quite sure what all the rules are yet but I think we're using Smirnoff Ice as the "playing pieces". So far, when the lightning gets cast, everyone hit by the lightning has to take a drink. The sender and receiver of the Blue Shell have to take drinks, and there are drinks for places 1st through 3rd. That last one is where I'm going to be screwed. Last time we played, I finished first 90% of the time. The subtitle of the event is "Die Jeremy Die" in an effort for the other players to kick my ass...

Mariokartahalon 3: Die Jeremy Die

the next installment in our continued series of performance pieces investigating the effect of cartoon game violence on group dynamics continues this friday. same place as last time, same time. the theme of this session is to prevent that bastard jeremy from winning every single time.

Class last night was really fun. Maria and I kicked ass because we studied so much. Only half of the class was there, which made it extra nice. The others were all away on business trips. We started learning numbers and also questions. I'm very glad we're learning questions finally. When we got there we had to write all the letters in hiragana that we knew and I got them all right. Then we had to write an introduction of a person with an occupation and I was the only one who got it right! Wooohooo!!! I've never been a good student before. Now I am. Motivation kicks ass.

LATER *09:45* - Holy crap. I just had the weirdest flashback to my childhood. Growing up with an older brother and sister, there was quite a lot of TV watching with more one or more sibling in the room. We used to have this chant when we got up and left for the bathroom or the phone or whatever. "Same seat, choice of what's on and the remote control." Wow. How strange. It used to come out of our mouths in this rapid fire phrase reminiscent of Japanese. Why on earth would that suddenly creep into my brain?

July 22nd, 2004 09:10 hours CST currently listening to: "The Break (It's Been There All This Time)" by Absinthe Blind.

I went to Smartbar last night and didn't drink as much as last time, but I still drank too much. I gotta watch that. I drink too much too fast. In two hours I had 2 whiskey and cokes, a shot of whiskey, a shot of something Cory invented that tasted like pineapple juice, a beer and then another shot of whiskey. Jesus! That's insane!

As I write this, Yuka is in the middle of a Guitar Wolf concert. Jealousy flows through my veins. I've always dug that band as they do nothing but rock 100% of the time, balls out, shit on fire, full force ROCK. And then I saw them in Wild Zero and I flipped my lid. Anyone who gets explosively blown out the window of a 4 story building while strumming a chord on a Gibson SG and screaming "Rock N RRRROOOOOLLLLLL" on the way down is a fucking badass of biblical proportions. I do not deserve to be on the same planet as Guitar Wolf. Hahahah.

Continuing the topic of all things awesome, I bought my tickets to Japan yesterday. I leave on the 22nd of September and then come back on the 28th. It already seems like it's not going to be enough time, but I have to save some vacation time so that airiel can tour in October. Time is a weird thing. I leave on Wednesday the 22nd at 11AM and then arrive in Tokyo at 2 PM THE NEXT DAY. I lose 25 hours of my life getting there. Isn't that weird? And then when I come home, I leave Tokyo on a Tuesday around 11 AM and then get into Chicago at 9 AM the same day! Weirdness.

July 20th, 2004 15:25 hours CST currently listening to: "Train" by Goldfrapp.

Things feel better. I woke up feeling much better than I did the last few days. My stress somehow disappeared during the night. Coming home to a sweet text message also helped.

I didn't go to the gym after work. Instead I went straight to bed for over an hour. I just need to lie in the dark and rest my body. Stella curled up next to me and I was out like a light. Started playing Halo again and that always helps. Went to Pick Me Up on my scooter for a study session with Maria. Japanese is so much fun, you guys. We were there for a few hours. I'm glad I took my scooter as there was a cubs game that night. I watched our waitress expertly kick a drunk cubs fan out of the place because he tried to sneak in and take a leak. He was drunk enough to just do that in an alley, so I wonder why he didn't go that route in the first place.

I'm so close to ordering my plane tickets for Japan. I'm selling a few things soon so stay tuned.

July 19th, 2004 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: the hum of my desk fan.

My mom just e-mailed me and said that my dad is doing OK. He had surgery this morning and they put a stint into one of his blood vessels. He'd been having chest pains the last few days and his blood results were not good. The stint is a nice simple fix. It's like putting a small straw inside a vessels so that the vessel will not contract when under stress, which is what this was doing. He already called mom from his room right after the surgery and she's on her way to see him now. I'll call in a few hours after he's had some rest.

I've been stressed out for the last few days, it seems. I think that's why I didn't do much of anything on Saturday. My car is slowly being chewed up by Chicago. I still have that messed up bumper and front left light. My left side rear view mirror is hanging from the wires, thanks to someone clipping it while airiel played at the Double Door last week. I also have an oil leak. I received a parking ticket for not having a valid parking sticker which pissed me the hell off. I looked up my transaction history at the city of Chicago site and sure enough, I paid for a sticker on JUNE 6th and they never mailed it to me. So, now I'll have to deal with someone at the DMV tomorrow who will probably tell me that I'll have to buy another one and that they can't void the parking ticket, which they absolutely should. I'm also a bit worried about money. I'm going to sell my Rickenbacker 330 to help get me to Japan. I'm also calling those assholes at the Tree House and I'm going to get the money they owe me for Stella's medical bills.

You people know me and you know I'm not normally this down or pessimistic. There are things going well in my life and though I'm keeping them secret, they have given me smiles every single day. You know who you are.

UPDATE - Dad just called from his room and he's doing fine. He said the vessel where they placed the stint was 95% closed. Wow. That's scary. He didn't technically have a heart attack, but a minor cardiac episode or something along those lines. Unless something weird happens with the sting in the next 6 hours or something, he'll be just fine. He has a condition where once cholesterol collects, it doesn't go away even if you change your diet and get a lot of exercise, which he has done in the last year. It requires medication that has little to no side effects. He also told me that this condition is hereditary, and that I will eventually face this problem as I get older. Shit.

July 16th, 2004 10:23 hours CST currently listening to: "Crotch Deep Trash" by The Soup Dragons.

I now have a reason to vote. George W. bush and Zombie Reagan in 2004. What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want them? BRAINS!

My first Japanese class went very well. My brain was about to explode towards the end. Sensei is not very fluent in English but she's wonderfully animated and enthusiastic. Including Maria and myself, there are only two other people in the class of about 10 who are making an effort to sound remotely Japanese. There's one guy in there who I swear was about to set himself on fire. He was so utterly confused and I think he was forced to take this class because he's going to Japan for his job or something. Poor guy. He's doomed. We went over some basic alphabet items and some simple vocabulary. Then we started doing greetings and learning countries and such. I'm very excited. I'm going to go buy lots of flash cards tomorrow. I hate my handwriting. My notes are so disgustingly ugly. Looks like they were written by a 3rd grader.

Afterwards, Maria and I went down to Hyde Park and had some of the best pizza I've had in a long time. Thin crust, with fresh basil, tomatoes and loads of gooey garlic. It was nirvana. That campus is really pretty and reminds me a lot of where I grew up. The restaurant itself made me miss Garcia's Pizza. I got a well timed text message on my phone on the way down there that reinforced my whole desire for this adventure. *sigh* I'm a happy and very smitten boy.

July 14th, 2004 14:00 hours CST currently listening to: the soft hum of a desk fan.

Two of my favorite movies are Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Requiem. There is a fantastic site, located here, that has a wonderful ammount of information on the cast members and how to find the DVD's and all sorts of other information. In their section for the first film, there is a spoiler section that details each student with where they died and what weapon was used in their death. The section for the second films lists the students again, but without their death information. There are so many cast members in the 2nd film that you don't get to know them as well as in the first one, so I printed out a list of the students for BRII and marked each one for their order in dying and how they died. I did this before completely passing out on the couch last night after running for nearly and hour straight at the gym. My legs are pudding.

*** SPOLIER WARNING ***

Pre-Game:
• Boy #15 Shintaro Makimura - GSW
• Girl #15 Kazumi Fukuda - Neck Collar Explosion
  
  Mission One - Beach Assault:
• Boy #17 Yosuke Miyadai - GSW (on boat)
• Boy #19 Tatsuro Morishima - Boat Explosion
• Girl #19 Ayane Yagi - Boat Explosion
• Girl #20 Ai Yazawa - Boat Explosion
• Girl #21 Hibiki Yano - Boat Explosion
• Girl #22 Kana Yuki - Boat Explosion
• Girl #23 Eri Yoshiyama - Boat Explosion
• Girl #17 Yuka Mifuna - Neck Collar Explosion (falls back and causes Boat Explosion)
• Boy #16 Kiyoshi Minamoto - Neck Collar Explosion (jumps off boat)
• Girl #16 Shiho Matsuki - Neck Collar Explosion (due to Kiyoshi jumping off the boat)
• Boy # 18 Wataru Mukai - Boat Explosion
• Girl #18 Asuka Motomura - Boat Explosion (also the one that gets shot in the eyes and yells for Nao repeatedly)
• Boy #7 Tetsuya Shimura - Mortar Explosion (chases after Sanae when she tries to escape)
• Girl #7 Sanae Shioda - Mortar Explosion (tries to escape and runs back to the boats)
  
  Mission Two - Secure Ammo:
• Girl #2 Miki Ikeda - Collar Explosion (pees herself and runs in a panic)
• Boy #2 Shugo Urabe - GSW (sacrifices himself so collar Explosion won't hurt fellow students)
• Boy 9 Masakatsu Taguchi - Trip Wire Explosion (found hanging from a beam, without his legs)
• Girl #9 Honami Totsuka - Collar Explosion
• Boy #11 Tatsuhiko Hasegawa - Massive Trip Wire Explosion
• Boy #14 Kenji Maezono - Massive Trip Wire Explosion
• Girl #11 Rena Niimi - Massive Trip Wire Explosion
• Girl #14 Ryoko Hata - Massive Trip Wire Explosion
  
  Mission Three - The Assault:
• Boy #8 Naoki Jo - GSW (pool)
• Boy #10 Jun Nanami - GSW (pool)
• Girl #12 Maho Nosaka - GSW (pool)
• Boy #13 Yasuaki Hosaka - GSW (pool)
• Boy #12 Shota Hikasa - GSW (pool)
• Boy #4 Ryo Kurosawa - GSW (pool)
• Girl #31 Yuko Natsukawa - Collar Explosion (pool)
  
  Post Assault:
• Girl #6 Nozumi Sagisawa - GSW (friendly fire from Taku)
• Girl #5 Haruka Kuze - Trapped Under Debris (during missile attack)
• Boy #6 Masami Shibaki - GSW's
• Boy #3 Osamu Kasai - RPG Explosion
• Girl #4 Shiori Kitano - GSW's
  
  Survivors:
• Boy #1 Takuma Aoi
• Girl #1 Nao Asakura
• Girl #3 Kyoko Kakei
• Boy #5 Haruya Sakurai
• Girl #8 Risa Shindo
• Girl #13 Mayu Hasuda

So there you have it. I'm a Battle Royale nerd.

July 12th, 2004 14:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Sublime" by The Ocean Blue

Photos from the Double Door show are up. Nikola is amazing.

July 12th, 2004 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "World Cup" by Airiel

The show on Saturday was Fox Force Five Fantastic. We had an absolute blast. We were rock solid and the crowd loved us. E-Music did a web cast (I'll have the link soon) and gave us an audio CD of the set. While the mix is a little weird, there is an intensity there that I never knew we had. No more drum machines! Man, it's so great having a full band. I think I rocked out more than Cory expected me too and that made him rock out even more. I think you would have to take an industrial jackhammer in order to get the smile off of Zeeshan's face. The temperature was through the roof. I brought an extra t-shirt to change into after the show. The dressing rooms downstairs were almost has hot as the stage. I could barley pull my shirt off because it was soaked. And get this.... we sold out of our copies of Crackled because I didn't bring enough. I couldn't believe it. We sold a ton of CD's. The mailing list page was nearly full by the end of the night. I had to run the merch desk at first because Linsey was nowhere to be found. Zeeshan too over for a bit, then Cory and finally Cory's sister Sarah stayed back there the rest of the night. While it would have been fun to mingle with the crowd more, it's also fun to be all business and sell people CD's when they just saw you play. The only bad thing that happened that night was that the driver side rear view mirror on my car got busted because some car clipped mine while it was parked on Milwaukee. Crap. Oh, and I also ate 6 Krispie Kremes when I got back and went right to bed. That's sort of awesome, but I'll file it under "bad".

Friday night was so-so. I had a headache, but decided to go to Lava Lounge anyway. It was Miguel's birthday celebration, so I did a couple shots with him and Tobias and the bar tenders. Despite not getting caught in the rain on my scooter coming home from work that day, I'm glad I drove my car to Lava. As soon as I got there the rain came down in sheets thick as lead. Thank you, Jack Burton.

I rested most of Sunday. Despite going to sleep at 4:30 in the morning, I woke up about 4 hours later, for some reason. Cory and John both called, still jazzed about the show. I think that's why I was awake as well. I started playing Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay again and I'm now so frustrated that I'm starting to throw my controller across the room. I finally went back to sleep around noon for nearly 4 more hours and woke up feeling much more normal. I had taken a shower as soon as I got home, to get the cigarette stink off of me. I realized later that the horrible stink in my apartment was all my gear. My pedal board, guitar cases and amps all reeked. Even Stella wouldn't go near them. Hahaha. I took my friend Lisa out to dinner and we went to Penny's for noodles. As I write this, I'm realizing that I left the extra food in my car and since it's going to be almost 90 degrees today, my car is going to stink in a way that's making my head hurt. Maybe it won't be that bad. It's not like I left dairy products in there or anything.

Oh, I got my haircut and I love it. Yuka also got her hair cut and she's even more adorable, which I didn't even think was possible.

July 9th, 2004 08:40 hours CST currently listening to: "Supersonic" by Oasis

I finally got my hair cut. Sam did it and not Sheba. Same rocked my head out. Hahahaha. I have my old mod cut back. I like it a lot. I think I lost 5 pounds of hair.

Jeff Moore and Kim Garner got engaged over July 4th weekend. I'm so happy for them. It's about damn time.

I took yesterday off because I was so hung over from being out at Smart Bar the night before. We had I think seven people crammed into a photo booth. It's mostly these dark shadows with the occasional face of someone who managed to stay in frame. Insanity. I didn't do much on my day off. With the weather as nice as it was, you'd think I'd hop onto my scooter right away, but noooooo. Yuka and sleep took up most of my day. Hey, I was hung over, after all. \m/

Neo was pretty lame last night. I did go out and dance for a couple songs, but that was it. I gave DJ Dave Roberts a couple airiel tickets. He seemed wildly enthusiastic. \m/

I've started to diet again. Lunch is now consisting of some home made tuna salad (fat fee miracle whip) and a protein bar. By about 2:30 I'm ready to murder people.

July 6th, 2004 14:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Morning Glory" by Oasis

The wedding last weekend was rather nice. The ceremony was graciously short and completely free of religion. My kind of event. It was super humid out. The string quartet was a nice touch. Shawn and Heather looked very nice. I caught up with a lot of people at the reception, which was also outside. The jazz band was pretty good. I'm glad there wasn't a DJ.

I came back to Chicago on Saturday to find that I once again had money in my checking account. Tears of joy were almost pouring down my cheeks. The plane tickets did get charged to me on Friday and I had to fax in the dispute form. Everything that was fraudulently charged to my account was removed and I had dear sweet money again. After a much needed nap, I went out and bought two video games, rented three movies and ordered a pizza. Stella and I spent the evening on the couch, changing guitar strings, watching Return of the King, playing Megaman and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Awesome.

Webcams kick ass. *wink*

Sunday's practice was a small disaster thanks to me forgetting both my capos at home. Me not having a capo is a pretty serious problem. We called off practice an hour early and went to a bar. Cory bought us all a round and then I followed suit. Cory and I went to some local fireworks display and then the rest of the band rendezvoused at BigWig. We had a pretty good time. Watching Cory and Jason dance is utterly hilarious. I stayed up talking to Yuka for a while until I was stable enough to go to sleep without getting sick.

Monday was a hangover day. I finally went to the grocery and cleaned up the house a bit. Did some laundry as well. It was a productive day. I finally bought food that's good for me. I didn't buy any crap cereal. Well, that brown sugar maple frosted mini-wheat stuff, but that's the extent. I bought several cans of tuna and stuff to make tuna salad while at the office. I'm determined to get on a diet. I have carrots waiting for me at home. Oh...... joy.

Tonight I get my haircut. Rarely am I so excited about such an event, but I've decide that long hair just isn't for me and I want my mod cut back. Nikola is gonna take pictures at our show on Saturday and I want to have a better hair cut. This week has the potential to be exhausting. Tonight I'm going to Neo to hand out tickets. Wednesday after practice, we're going to SmartBar to do the same thing. Thursday night is Neo again. Friday night is that monthly night at Lava Lounge. I'll be sleeping all day Saturday at this rate.

The Winks & Kisses: Crackled CD's arrived today. They look great. I love this color. It's so much like that "tinderbox" (rust) color in my living room. Dan also sent me these fantastic postcards to promote the series. I'll be sending them out as soon as I buy more stamps. I went out at lunch and bought some CD's. I hadn't done that in a while. New food for my iPod tomorrow. I've been too busy today to rip any audio.