My favorite thing about payday is paying all my bills; I get to work, get myself a cup of coffee, and get right to it. This morning, however, I kept getting distracted by, um, work, and now I can't remember if I paid my Amazon card or not. Like, I was logged in and kind of remember paying it but then this guy came in and we worked on something for like 20 minutes and then when I went back to the computer it was logged out. But I don't remember logging out so maybe it logged itself out due to inactivity? And now I can't remember if I paid it or not, so I'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Like, sometimes I feel like I'm going a little nuts but whenever my routine is interrupted it totally knocks me out of commission. Also, I forget things like minutes after they happen.

I shouldn't even post this because it's ridiculous but wth.

I reread Bram Stoker's Dracula last month, finishing right around Halloween. This is possibly the most chilling paragraph in the book (in my opinion), especially considering the monstrous aspects of Stoker's vampires, as well as the very real idea of damnation in the book:

from Jonathan Harker's journal, 3 October:

"To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks."

Also, Van Helsing is very DRAMATIC. It'd been quite a while since I last read this book; I'd kind of forgotten.

Anyway, Susan demands my attention; also, she says Dracula scares her so I should quit talking about it. In order to make her feel better I'll use my Chococat icon, which she secretly adores but would never admit to.

Happy birthday, bertine! Have an awesome day!!

I put $10 worth of gas in my car Tuesday morning and it only lasted 'till today.

BACK IN MY DAY U COULD FILL UR TANK FOR TEN BUCKS OMG. :-[

Anyway, I just filled the damn tank this morning for close to $40. Sigh.

I just listened to the new Alice In Chains album here, and was pretty blown away; it's at least as good as the last one they did with Layne and possibly better. There's some really sick and twisted riffs on there, as well as some awesome acoustic stuff. The new singer's voice blends with Jerry's in a similar way to Layne's, but he's definitely not trying to just copy Layne. Very cool.

The new Slayer album is really good too; it's a little more varied than their last one. They do the metal/hardcore hybrid better than anybody, but you also wanna hear slower, spookier stuff, and they deliver a good dose of both on the new CD.

Also, I just think it's cool that bands I listened to in 1990 on my Walkman while walking to high school are still relevant.

I hate when I'm just about to tell the Internet something and then forget what I was going to say.

Uptown Monster Ballad

*sniff* :-(

lonely_doll and I have a framed poster of the CBGB's toilet in our bathroom; it's situated in such a way that you can't help but stare at it while sitting on the actual toilet. Is this meta?

Up 'till fairly recently, the toilet in the Uptown Bar's men's room didn't really work, and I think the stall was missing the door part. It's a shame they're tearing the place down after they finally got the bathroom all fixed up.

One time at Liquor Lyle's, the stall in the men's room was torn down in what was presumably a drunken rage, so that you'd walk in there and there'd just be a toilet sitting there in the corner of the room. Would you ever use this toilet? I mean, think how weird it'd be to walk in the bathroom and some dude's just sitting there taking a dump and reading the City Pages...

For the most part, dudes in bars just use urinals so none of this matters all that much. After 11 p.m. or so on a Saturday night, however, the urinal becomes more of a "suggested target."

Good times, man...good times.

When I was a kid I had a cat named "Topsy." After I was like 13 or so I decided that "Topsy" was a dumb name so I just started called him "Kitty" or "Cat" or "Hey You There" or whatever. Anyway, he was my best friend in the world; every night, he'd crawl under my covers and then crawl back out so only his cute little black and white (and pink nose!) head was sticking out, and he'd lay his head on my shoulder and fall asleep.

Lately, Susan has been super affectionate with me; I don't know why. Just now, she was like, OH HEY THERE with her little paws and all and so I picked her up and put her on my lap. That's where she is now, and that's where she'll likely be 'till she decides she wants to be elsewhere. She also likes laying on my pillow right above where my head goes and tickling me with her whiskers.

The end.

I was going to listen to Mötley Crüe this morning, but figured why waste a perfectly good gloomy morning and listened to Switchblade Symphony again instead. Anyway, I kind of have mixed feelings about the Crüe; like, if I'm going that route I'd almost rather listen to Twisted Sister. If I'd have been thinking maybe I'd have grabbed a Type O Negative CD on the way out. (yeah you wanna go out 'cuz it's raining and blowing, etc...)

My Bally membership dropped to $12.87 a month! I used the extra cash I wasn't counting on having to buy a six-pack of PBR tall boys. :-P

Fire drill at 2:15 p.m. Exciting times, guys.

I must be productive today...

Yay, I fixed the Internet! I was planning on calling tech support after work last night but it looked like it was working, but REALLY slow (like, dial-up slow). I managed to open an e-mail I got from Qwest yesterday morning, which linked me to a site where there was a "reboot modem" button, which totally worked! (don't laugh if this is all really obvious; I was using an AOL dial-up connection on a 1998 PC 'till 2007...)

This morning I slept 'till my alarm went off at 6 a.m. Yay! I arrived at work only to find that we've somehow lost access to all the really important network folders and apparently they don't know what happened.

I listened to the first Switchblade Symphony CD on the way to work, which I got at Hot Topic around 1995 or so. Hot Topic used to be a lot cooler; like, back then I don't know how else I'd have found stuff like this. Lately I've been listening to a lot of darkwave/goth/ambient/whatever via last.fm, which is cool; I've always liked that whole aesthetic.

Happy belated birthday, phankrod!!

Nikola Tesla perceived the earth to be a conductor of acoustical resonance. Also, the rock band Tesla filmed a performance at the Myth and released it on DVD.

I hope they release It Might Get Loud on DVD with tons of bonus features; I loved that movie.

It's nearly Halloween and I haven't decided what I'll wear yet! I still think it'd be funny to go as lonely_doll, but I'm just not sure those wigs they sell that look just like lonely_doll's hair would fit me. I mean, I figure they're really made for girls and all.

Paul Stanley: The only thing I'd want anybody to learn is to not listen to anybody. Don't listen to me. Your answer will be yours alone, and mine is not yours. If there is anything I hope people get from us it's that you have someone very unique inside yourself. Believe in that person.

Possibly I'm interpreting this far too literally, but I really feel like showing up at the office in KISS makeup now...

ETA: oh and also: "I know life sometimes can get tough! And I know life sometimes can be a drag! But people, we have been given a gift...we have been given a road. And that road's name is...ROCK AND ROLL!!"

Preach on, Brother Paul.

Well, Tuesday night's Metallica show was easily the best I've seen since their 1994 performance in Somerset, WI (though to be fair, I only went to one more show after that one before kind of losing interest). Here's what they played:

That Was Just Your Life: The leading track from the excellent Death Magnetic album (I was hoping to hear a lot of new shit and wasn't disappointed; they ended up playing slightly over half of the new album).

The End of the Line: Second cut from the new album; as if to prove that the Metallica we know and love is back, they segued brilliantly into another mid-tempo tune that makes similar use of the tritone in its verse riff...

Ride the Lightning: This one brings me waaaaay back; when I was taking beginning rock guitar at the Brooklyn Center Schmitt Music in the late 80s, they taught us a lot of classic Metallica riffs.

Holier Than Thou: Ah, the Black Album! So much of this record got overplayed that it's hard to remember how good these songs sounded back in 1991 (for the record, I was a big fan of this one; Metallica fans still seem pretty divided over it). The slower tempos allowed me to play along with this record when I was learning, which gave me a lot of confidence.

One: This was the only song they played from ...And Justice for All! There was some massive pyro going on during this one; I had to wonder if that sort of thing makes Hetfield (who was once badly injured by pyrotechnics) nervous at all. At one point he was facing this wall of flame rather defiantly, as if confronting his past and mortality all at once, or whatever.

Broken, Beat & Scarred: Third track from Death Magnetic.

Cyanide: Sixth track from Death Magnetic.

Sad But True: This was always one of my favorites from the Black Album. It was kind of a pain to play along with the record, because you'd have to tune down a full step, which is a pain when you've only got one guitar.

Anyway, it's getting kind of late so here's the rest, without commentary:

Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
All Nightmare Long
The Day That Never Comes
Master of Puppets
Fight Fire With Fire
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman

I'd never seen them do Fight Fire With Fire before; awesome! Also, I can't remember the last time I saw them do Master from start to finish, with the interlude and harmony parts and everything. I'm pretty sick of Enter Sandman, but I have to say it sounds really good live; the simplicity of the riff really goes over well in an arena setting.

For their encore they did:

Die, Die My Darling, Motorbreath, and Seek and Destroy.

\m/

In the Star Trek: TNG episode Contagion, an increasingly erratic Enterprise is fixed by essentially doing a shut down and restart.

The episode originally aired in 1989. Was this before or after every call to IT resulted in the question, "Have you tried shutting down and restarting?"

Hooray The Decemberists! Last night lonely_doll and I saw The Hazards of Love performed it its entirety for the second time; therefore, the only album I've seen performed in its entirety more often is Operation: Mindcrime (somewhere in the neighborhood of four times, I think).

The show was amazing and we had awesome seats (like third row)! At one point it struck me that The Decemberists sort of exist somewhere between The Beatles and The Doors (heck, even alphabetically), but minus the pathological dysfunction and romanticized self-destruction. It's hard to imagine breaking Hazards up into smaller pieces; the album really begs to be listened to from start to finish. It's probably my favorite of theirs, but it's also the one that I'm most familiar with. Also, it's the closest to something Pink Floyd might've done, I suppose.

Also, lonely_doll bought me a shirt!

After the show, we hung out at the Hard Rock with lupinlover and phankrod; srsly good times! We ordered ridiculous drinks and went home with souvenir glasses.

This morning I slept in 'till 10 a.m. or so (wow!) and then watched an episode of Star Trek with lonely_doll. I was thinking of going for a run outside but chickened out due to the cold and the wind; I went to the gym instead and had a really good workout. I also went Monday thru Thursday this past week, which means I'm finally getting back on track after a period of being sick and/or lazy. I stopped at Half Price Books and bought Disapproving Rabbits for lonely_doll, then had lunch at Panera while reading Dracula. Also, I found a copy of The Best American Comics 2006 for $4.98; man I love that store!

I'm seriously excited about seeing Metallica on Tuesday; it's been about fifteen years since I could last say I was excited about Metallica. I actually never hated Load/Reload and St. Anger; on the contrary, as an audio document of a band exploding under the weight of its own absurdity and desperately trying to piece itself together again, I think St. Anger succeeds remarkably. BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT MUCH FUN TO LISTEN TO.

Tonight we're going to the new Coen Brothers movie, which was filmed in St. Louis Park, which is where I used to live. Yay!!

YOU GUYS, guess what lonely_doll gotted me??

...

A Chococat Pez Dispenser!!

This is a fine addition to my collection. I also have a Darth Vader one and a Halloween Skull one I got from agent_jl36 back in the day. Actually, that's my whole collection right there.

In other news, I'm forgetting stuff in my old age; I got a message from Jenn that we may have to cancel Saturday's gig 'cuz she has a cold and I was like, "What then? We have a gig?!" But then after talking with lonely_doll for a while I was like, "Ohhhhh, that's RIGHT!" Anyway, it is now scheduled for Saturday, November 14th, 2009.

Flu shots today! Right underneath the header on all the flyers it reads:

Given by licensed heathcare professionals

It's like, who else would give them, the maintenance crew??

So last night we headed back to THE MALL so lonely_doll could buy new boots at Clarks. They are super cute! Also, I don't know why I never really noticed this before, but there's like 50 shoe stores at the mall.

We stopped at Best Buy and I bought the new Kittie and Lita Ford CDs. I've listened to about half of Lita's new album; it's kind of a mixed bag. It sort of has this pseudo-industrial Rob Zombie-esque vibe, which works at times but sounds really out of place much of the time. Former Nitro vocalist/current Lita Ford husband Jim Gillette does additional vocals on much of the album. What's frustrating is that with the resurgence of interest in classic hard rock and metal, she could have easily picked up right where she left off, rather than reinventing the wheel. There's kind of a dark, fetishy vibe to some of the new songs, which definitely bumps it up a notch. I'll probably listen to the Kittie CD sometime this afternoon.