amplified to rock
Okay, this is likely my last post before vacation because I've got tons of last-minute work-type stuff to deal with. I don't know how often I'll be posting while I'm away--definitely not this weekend and possibly not for the entire week. This means I'll have plenty of crap to ramble about when I get back, though. If you emailed me and I haven't emailed you back, expect to hear from me after vacation--I'm trying to get better about responding to email but it's hard because I'm actually a very shy person. (Not that you'd know it from the weblog...)
Anyhow, instead taking a blank book or a notebook on the trip with me, I'm taking along a bunch of postcards. After the trip, I'll be copying down all the postcard writings and then I'm going to send the postcards out to people. If you want a postcard, email me at this email address, not the regular one, and I'll send you a random postcard. (I created the separate email address to keep postcard requests straight.) I have a few postcards that I wrote out at the Yo La Tengo show a few weeks back, if you want one of those instead you can have one. Just let me know!
I hope all of you have a great week and I'll be back for sure on the night of July 7.
-n.
P.S. Chicagoans, don't forget--I'm having a birthday party on July 8. You're invited. Email me to RSVP or get directions.
Steal this Blog! linked to this handy
complaint letter generator, which composes a charming pompous windbag-style complaint letter using any name you like. So I sent a letter of complaint to Ray, who in turn sent me the following:
Nanette's vituperations are based on hate. Hate, immoralism, and an intolerance of another viewpoint, another way of life. Nanette's henchmen all look like Nanette, think like Nanette, act like Nanette, and violate her pledge not to withhold information and disseminate half truths and whole lies, just like Nanette does. And all this in the name of -- let me see if I can get their propaganda straight -- INDIE ROCK!
Heh.
I'm going to email
this link to Ray (AKA Mr. "I don't read your weblog because you talk about
other boys you like").
Indieshite described them as "a wank mag pretending to be a music rag." I thought maybe they were being slightly harsh (they do that sometimes), so I checked it out. What's with all the pouty models wearing tight t-shirts? You can see the nipples of the chick on the
index page. Ray will like that, as will anyone else who likes boobs. Then there's more nips on the
features page and the
sexxxy go-go chick on the reviews page. If I can earn some indie cred by displaying some nipple action, hand me the ice cubes, yo.
Content-wise, it's the same old business...buncha music reviews. The only thing even remotely different about them is that the writers don't use capital letters. I don't usually read music reviews, everyone and their brother writes them and they're generally crap. There are a few reviewers out there whose opinions I respect, but they're few and far between. I'm not naming any names or being specific about this, so don't ask. I used to write reviews way back when, then I decided that it really wasn't worth the trouble or effort. Well, that, and I wasn't very good at it.
Today's the last day before my vacation, and I'm extremely tired. I was up until 12:30 AM last night packing and getting things ready. I keep having these weird bursts of melancholia--just realizing that Ray's not going to be within driving distance any more. I won't be able to just take off and go visit him for the weekend whenever I feel like it.
I was flipping through the radio this morning looking for something mindless and upbeat to listen to. The rawk station said that they were going to play Boston, so I was all "yeah, 'More than a Feeling'!" so I kept the radio tuned in. After the commercial, they played that Simple Minds song from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack! That is so NOT rock! What in the heck was it doing on the rock station? Don't get me wrong, it's an okay song, but it seemed a little out-of-place on a radio station known for its AC/DC Weekend and its belief that Ratt's "Round and Round" is a lost classic rock deep cut.
Good freakin' morning.
My basement is infested with baby mice. I saw two of them last night. I was walking upstairs from the garage, and there was one next to the rug. It was so small that I thought it was just some crap on the floor. Then I saw that it had a tail.
I sent my dad to investigate, and yeah, it was a mouse. He took care of it.
About three hours later, I went back downstairs to make a photocopy of my flight itinerary. And there, back behind my dad's desk in front of the photocopier--another mouse. Once again, I dispatched my father to deal with the problem.
Mice really don't bother me or scare me, I just don't want them living in my house. They might eat my books.
Oh, now I'm pissed.
Change of plans: We will not be driving through Canada. According to the Canadian Consulate, you need a photo ID AND a birth certificate or passport to cross the border. Ray doesn't have a birth certificate or passport, so we aren't driving through Canada. Even though plenty of people have told me that they never check these things at the border, it would be a very bad situation to be stuck in Canada with a beat-up Subaru full of Ray's belongings.
This mean I have to drive through Ohio. If I come to an untimely end in Ohio, you should, as the classic South Park song goes, blame Canada. I was really looking forward to going to Canada. This totally sucks ass, Terrance.
I found the perfect gift for any math person: a genuine blown-glass
Klein bottle. I got one for Ray as a graduation gift.
Someday, when I marry the math boy of my dreams (whoever he may be) I will have little Klein bottles as party favors at the reception. They can engrave your name in these things, y'know. And there's nothing nicer than a closed, non-orientable, boundary-free manifold, is there?
One of the things I intend to do on this vacation is gorge myself on ice cream at
Friendly's. I would eat any of
these. Any of them! My favorite, however, is the Reese's Pieces sundae. I think it's the peanut butter sauce that does it for me.
You know what? I'm looking at stuff about Fourth of July in Boston and I just got really emotional and realized what's going to happen within the next week. I think this is the first time that it's really hit me. I am going to Boston with Ray, and then I am leaving and he is staying there. I won't be seeing him every few weeks any more. He'll be 900-some miles away. I really hope I don't feel weird the entire time I'm out there. That could potentially ruin the entire trip.
I got my day off to an inauspicious start. I heard Journey on the radio on my way to work. I am haunted by that band, I tell you. At least twice a week I hear Journey on the radio. Today it was on my beloved 80s Channel. They usually don't do things like this to me, but this morning...it was "Don't Stop Believing" and I screeched and put on my Sarge CD to counter its ill effects.
I'm imagining a Great Indie Rock Punisher who sits on a big throne and doles out punishment. He said "Nanette! For being a snotty musical elitist and making fun of someone for owning a Journey CD, I sentence you to hear Journey on the radio at least twice a week for the next ten years!"
And so it has been. I have not taken my punishment well, I fight it every step of the way.
For
Paul:
The Unofficial Burger Time Home Page. We agree that Mr. Egg is the most sinister of the villains. He considers the pickle "lame," and I insist that the hot dog is nothing unusual. A hot dog with feet is not even funny. A fried egg with feet, however, is creepy. Fried eggs are NOT supposed to have feet.
Old video games are one of my peculiar obsessions. How 'bout you? Yak it up in the forum.
In
Pearls That Are His Eyes: Vote for the most repulsive man in rock. I voted for Shane McGowan, whose lack of teeth has always sort of frightened me. However, after seeing the new Richard Ashcroft video, I'm tempted to vote again or change my vote. That man has a perpetual "duh" look on his face. And there are few things more unattractive than the "duh" face.
Okay, I've been hanging around watching M2 for the past hour or so (well, excepting the four minutes in which there was a Third Eye Blind video playing--during that time period I was watching the Blame Game--that's one of those situations where muting the TV just isn't enough). My addiction to M2 has faded considerably since M2 A-Z ended--I don't think I've watched it for a few weeks now.
I lucked out and got to see a big ol' block of videos by Prince, which was kinda cool. They teased me by playing part of "Jungle Love" by The Time in a promo. I like that song. (Here's my indie cred punch card, go ahead and take a punch away for that confession.)
Then they played the new(est) Nine Inch Nails video--"Starsuckers Incorporated". Now, I won't deny that Trent Reznor is a good musician (it sounds like I'm trying to defend Rush here, geez) but this angry young man business is getting really tired. I was a huge Nine Inch Nails fan when I was 19 or so, and I thought that Trent was really truly articulating my feelings about the world through his music. I grew up, though. He hasn't.
I think that what bothers me about the song is the broad targets. Trent Reznor making fun of Courtney Love is analogous to Eminem making fun of boy bands. It's not making any sort of new statement, it's just the same old crap over and over. It's about as effective as those stickers of Calvin pissing on the Ford/Chevrolet/whatever logo. The whole time the video was on, I was thinking "hey, Trent, who cares?" With luck, someday he'll grow out of the ranting and just make music.
Weblog Cliches: The Return
[In which Nanette gets in on the Grand Weblogging Tradition of direct-quoting IMs that are amusing to nobody but herself and the person she was chatting with]
Tang29: I'm determining what exactly I can/want to reveal about myself in the metal forum.
Nanette e: confess your dirty metal secrets!
Tang29: augh! Wanna see some dirty secrets, check out this loser: http://lightning.prohosting.com/~receipts/index.shtml
Nanette e: you need to start a weblog. you find the goofiest shit.
Chicago people (or people able/willing to travel to Chicago): I am having a birthday party. Saturday night, July 8, at the bar at the Marigold Bowl on Grace just off of Halsted. Festivities will likely kick off around 10 PM. It's karaoke night, but nobody's going to make you sing. My friend Abe has committed to a little bit of singing action, and I might regale you with a charming rendition of the theme song from
Fame or
Flashdance or maybe something else. Heck, I could take requests! Pre-karaoke, I'm going to have a dinner at Leona's, though I'm not sure which Leona's we're going to eat at. Why Leona's? Because I can get a sundae with a sparkler in it, and the wait staff will sing "Happy Birthday" to my attention-hungry ass.
Think you can make it? Send me an email and I'll count you in. I can probably work out accomodations for an out-of-towner or two if necessary.
I am so tempted to join the Rock Chicks webring, but for now I will settle for looking around the
ringmistress's page.
Maura would be envious, she met Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns. I, on the other hand, am envious because she
met David Lee Roth, King of the Assless Spandex Pants.
And don't forget...If goats had a choice, they would listen to rock.
More metal mayhem for the masses:
Buddyhead places a fake "metal dude wanted" personal ad on Love@AOL, the
metal-up-your-ass mailing list at egroups, the
fade to black metal (up your ass) page (check out the photos, that kid looks fucking sinister), and this
simple and to the point page.
Or you could go over to eBay and bid on this old-skool metal up your ass t-shirt.
Jeff Krulik, the man behind the aforementioned Heavy Metal Parking Lot, has
an entire website full of his documentary films. You can watch them in RealVideo or QuickTime. There's some great stuff here, I plan on killing quite a bit of spare time watching this stuff.
Behold, the genius of
Heavy Metal Parking Lot. It is all that I expected and so much more.
Speaking of "metal up your ass" experiences...Hellsbelle has had a few, and she's not afraid to
admit to them. And I'm dying to see this Heavy Metal Parking Lot movie she mentions.
I'm gonna go tie a bandanna around my ankle now because that means "metal up your ass." And I am so totally metal, y'know. My friend Andy actually made me some magnets that say "metal" on them. I will take a picture tonight so you can bask in their glory.
While I'm doing that, you should go to the forum and tell us your metal story.
You must vote for the worst band in the world over at
Duel!. It's Smashing Pumpkins vs. Travis. Being from Chicago makes me hate the Pumpkins even more. They're hyped to death around here, it's just obnoxious. I admit that I owned
Gish, their second album, back in 1991. But I gave it away after realizing how tiresome it really was. In the summer of 1993, everyone and their brother "discovered" Smashing Pumpkins, and they became this huge phenomenon.
Siamese Dream always brings back nasty memories of my junior year in college, which was just a bad, bad time. I lived on a floor full of freshmen and sophomores who played the hell out of that CD and drove me nuts with it. Then came all the other crap, that awful "1979" song and that one that starts "The world is a vampire..." and the two-CD "look everyone, it's art!" thing they put out.
Vote for Travis if you like, but my vote for worst band in the world goes to the Pumpkins. It's no contest in my book.
I want a math t-shirt like
Josh's.
Actually, Ray got a cool "math@msu" t-shirt for graduation. All the math people got them. It has some math art on it! I am going to swipe it and wear it because math is sexy. Wearing a math t-shirt will boost my sex appeal by 100 points.
From Amanda (who needs to get that webpage of hers going already):
Ask Jesus. The search thing isn't the funny part about it. What's funny is the part where you type in a URL and let it be Jesus-ified. Here's
a Jesus-ified version of amplified. I especially like the part where it refers to
us|against|them as "us|unto|Satan."
I always feel like I'm entering some sort of weblogging ass-kissing circle jerk when I link to someone who recently linked to me. But I'm going to do it anyway, because I've now killed quite a bit of time reading through old posts of Jeff's
Life is Like.... If you like my weblog, you'll probably like his, because we both have that "some indie rock and a lot of personal stuff" format going on. Jeff also does the indie rock webzine
Delusions of Adequacy, which has piles of reviews and columns and stuff.
Seeing the phrase
Metal Up Your Ass in an indie rock weblog cracks me up. I remember in 8th grade when Nick Monaco wore his Metallica "Metal Up Your Ass" t-shirt to school and got sent home for the day. Of course, everyone got to see it first, and we were all shocked, amazed, and amused at the knife coming out of the toilet. I mean, when you're 12 and 13 years old...that sort of stuff is really, really funny.
I've been talking for ages about creating variations on that shirt: an "Indie Up Your Ass" t-shirt with the hand holding some 7" records instead of a knife...an "Emo Up Your Ass" t-shirt with the hand holding a backpack...a "Twee Pop Up Your Ass" t-shirt with the hand holding a bouquet of daisies with butterflies and bumblebees flying around them.
Unfortunately, I'm not an artist and I can't make these drawings a reality. If you can, please, by all means, email me and let's get this thing going. It could be the next underground fashion phenomenon. Except Metallica would probably sue our asses for parodying their idea in the first place...
My family is very big into celebrating birthdays. Today is my brother's birthday, and we just spent a few minutes reading
Happy Birthday to You by Dr. Seuss. On every birthday, we read it out loud. It's one of my favorite family traditions and one that I try to encourage with my friends. It's one of the things that I know I will pass on to my own family someday.
If you're familiar with the book (and if you're not, you should familiarize yourself, it's classic), my favorite page is the one with Dr. Derring's Singing Herrings.
"Dr. Derring's singing herrings
Derring's singing spelling herrings
See what Derring's herrings do
They sing and spell it all for you."
[Incidentally, I think it's the spelling bee champ/wannabe karaoke goddess in me that loves the idea of fish that both sing and spell. And all for me, so it appeals to the selfish pain in the ass in me, too.]
And, you know, after reading that book out loud four times a year for the last 22 years, I've pretty much memorized the whole thing. I only have to glance at the page briefly and I can just recite. It's wonderful. I admit it, I'm sentimental and a sucker for funky traditions.
I wrote
this about a month ago. I was frustrated. I was annoyed. I was sick of dumb girls.
It's no secret that I don't hang around with girls very much. I rarely find girls I can stand. I'm a lot more apprehensive about entering into a friendship with a woman than a man--I'd rather deal with sexual tension and super-secret crushes than the catty crap that girls tend to pull. I've just been dumped in favor of a boyfriend far too many times to be trusting any more.
So tonight, it was Dumb Girls, Part Two. Ray had told me earlier that one of his former students suddenly wanted "help with her math." She wanted him to come over to her place and have dinner, and when he turned that down she asked him to go to a bar with her. The bar thing should set off your dumb girl alarms right there. She wants help with her math, and she wants to get it at a bar? Yeah. Okay.
So she met him at his office tonight, and of course she confessed to having a crush on him. Absolutely predictable dumb girl behavior. Hide behind one thing while trying to go for another. And, of course, he seems to have found this absolutely endearing.
People, help me with this. Please. I don't understand why males seem to find dumb girls so endearing. I have never dumbed myself down for anyone. I consider that an insult to my intelligence. I try my best to be up-front, I avoid ulterior motives and game-playing and all the standard dumb girl moves. I don't understand why any intelligent male could find a woman who dumbs herself down for the sake of being more attractive to men appealing.
Are men just looking for stupid girls in tight tank tops who giggle a lot and hang on their every word? Or are the dumb girls really doing something very smart here?
Get thee to the brand-spankin'-new forum and enlighten me, people.
From the boys at
us|against|them--Maxim Online's predictably smarmy and completely useless
review of the new Sunny Day Real Estate CD. Did Jeremy Enigk out-suave the reviewer or steal his woman or something? Is that why the reviewer seems to have such animosity toward the band? I mean, if you're gonna dislike something, I've got no problem with it, just give me a good reason for your opinion.
I have two questions:
1. What sort of music do the readers of Maxim listen to while they play with their hip gadgets, drink martinis, and swap tips on how to get women to sleep with them?
and
2. What was Mark from us|against|them doing at Maxim Online anyhow? Downloading pictures of some nubile young starlet's cleavage to use as desktop wallpaper? I mean, he certainly wasn't there for intellectual stimulation...heh. [insert cheesy "smilie" here]
today is my little brother's birthday. he's 22.
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear BUN
happy birthday to you!
Hooray for
Ray!
I've seen him teach before, and he is a good math teacher. And cute, too!
Nanette's Top Three Non-Sexual Fantasies of the Day:
3. Someday, I will be a full-time student again and all of this will be a distant (yet nightmarish) memory. My major decisions will involve choosing what flavor ramen noodles to eat for the day's meal, or perhaps deciding between regular and spiral macaroni and cheese. I will get to spend lots of time in the library. I will not have to get up at 6:50 AM.
2. Someday, my boss will decide that maybe it isn't cost-effective to have me lay out the same chapter four different times because he doesn't like the way he structured the text. Maybe he will structure the text the way he really wants it before he gives it to me to lay out. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
1. In one week, I will be on vacation. I will be in Boston with Ray. We will get along well. We will not fight. I will not feel like complete shit because he's going to be staying there and I'm going to be coming back home to Chicago. It will be a good vacation. I will have fun. I won't be here.
Why I will never succeed in business:
My boss: "I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about the content of this chapter. I don't think it works this way. I think it needs to be reorganized."
Me: [thinking] "I woke up at 5:37 AM because there were two cats fucking in a very noisy manner in the side yard underneath my window. I spent the rest of the night (er, early morning) with a pillow over my head to drown out the racket."
Look, I don't know if it was really cats fucking, but I'm assuming...It had to be cats, no other creature in suburban Chicago makes that kind of noise, and it wasn't the sound of cats fighting, it was a much more guttural sound. Actually, it sounded like small screaming children, but it was a little early in the morning for that, even in my neighborhood.
From Ray:
> The car is now shaking and making
> ugly noises when sitting in drive, the radio has started only playing from the
> left speakers until I hit it and then it only works right for a few seconds, the
> tire wasn't bolted down in the engine compartment and it slid around bending
> things until I just noticed it, and the rear gate door wouldn't open without me
> putting on a big show.
This is the car that we're driving from East Lansing to Boston next weekend.
Cross your fingers for us, please.
[At least the non-functioning speakers will alleviate any classic rock vs. indie rock tensions that might develop on the trip.]
I'm sure there's got to be some Mac person out there reading this. I need some help.
My poor Mac is having problems starting up. I turn it on, see the happy computer face and the OS 7 screen. It begins going through the startup procedure, and the little bar that shows the start-up progress starts to fill in, but the computer gets to a certain point in the startup and goes whirr-click, whirr-click over and over again. It's stuck somewhere in the start-up.
If you know how I could fix this problem (or at least figure out what it is so I don't sound like a fool at the computer repair shop), please please please email me. Thanks.
I had a good weekend.
Ray was in town visiting. This is his last visit before he moves (he's leaving next weekend) and it was a nice one. We didn't fight, we didn't bicker, we didn't argue, we didn't disagree. We just hung out watching movies and eating like pigs.
I did get kind of emotional just before he left. I tried to hide it and I think I did a pretty good job. It's just that I'm such a horribly sentimental person sometimes. I kept thinking things like "this might be the last time he walks out my front door" and "this might be the last time I kiss him on the landing before he leaves." After he walked out I sat down on the stairs and my eyes started watering. I couldn't help it. I made myself go upstairs and raise the blinds and wave good-bye to him out the window. I don't know if he looked up and saw me.
Just before he left, we were standing in the basement and he told me that he didn't have to say goodbye because he would be seeing me in five days.
And all I could think was that the past eight months have been a long, slow goodbye. I knew he was leaving the entire time. It was no surprise. I'm dealing with it a lot better than I thought I would, I figured I would be a wreck for the entire month of June. I'm looking forward to spending Fourth of July week with him, though I know it will be hard for me to say goodbye. I'm not good at goodbyes at all. I'm too emotional for them. I always end up breaking down at the last minute and crying my eyes out as the plane takes off. I suspect this one won't be any different.
