amplified to rock
No, I didn't update yesterday. Between deadlines at work and that huge paper I had to write, I didn't have a chance. I missed it, but there wasn't much going on yesterday anyhow. Just the usual. Updates will probably be sparse again today, I have a lot of work to do and in my off time I have to re-read my paper so I can turn it in this afternoon. There's also the annotated bibliography (which I have to prepare, but I didn't use many sources so it's not a big deal) and the two book responses that I didn't write during the semester. I'm absolutely thrilled that this will all be over as of 5 PM today.
It looks like I'm going to Long Island on Thanksgiving night. I'll be attending Ray's famous Day After Thanksgiving Party. I found a reasonably-priced flight, which was kind of surprising, given that it's a holiday weekend. I was expecting to have to pay $350 or so. Ray wanted me to fly into JFK, but all the flights into JFK involved small commuter planes, and I'm terrified of small commuter planes, so I'm flying into LaGuardia. It's only 14 weeks until Thanksgiving (well, 13 weeks and 6 days), that's not very long at all. It will be good to see him.
Ever want to tell someone they have bad crotch hygiene, but just couldn't think of a polite way to say it? Try
Just a Tip, where you can let people know (via anonymous email) what their problems are and give them a few hints to solve them. Amanda sent me one about my
"large bush" (the shrub kind, not the pubic kind, though the double entendres were hilarious). I decided to share the love and send one to Ray telling him that he's
bad at math. I'm really tempted to send the "talks too much" one to a girl I work with, but then she'd never shut up about it.
Amanda, who needs to start her own weblog and stop letting me take all her great links, sent me this one.
By the way, I do feel really stupid for saying "a-hole" in the previous post. Unfortunately, that's what Insound's survey is called. I feel the need to say "asshole" just to prove that I don't censor dirty words in this weblog. Asshole, asshole, asshole! There, I feel much better now.
Over at
Insound:
who is the biggest a-hole in indie rock? No, silly, not in indie rock webzines...just musicians. Though it would be kind of funny to have a "biggest a-hole in indie rock
zineblogs" survey...I'll have to think about it. If you'd like to steal the idea, go right ahead. Then you can deal with the whiny "I can't take a joke" hurt feelings email that something like that would inevitably cause.
Another busy workday, so I probably won't be posting much here today. You'll live. There's plenty of other things to read today, though I've gotta agree with Mark over at
us|against|them: there isn't much going on in the world of indie webzines. Maybe it would be a good day to expand our horizons beyond the world of indie rawk.
Southwest Airlines has finally put airfares from Chicago Midway to Manchester, New Hampshire on sale. $94 each way isn't too bad. I'm just waiting for Ray to email me and say "yeah, come out and visit." You'd think he'd want to see me, y'know? I don't want him to get in a snit because I'm inviting myself to come and visit again. It's pretty likely that I'm headed out there for New Year's, so at least I'll be able to get the cheap fares for that visit.
There will be much rejoicing tonight when I finally finish my 20-30 page paper on Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund. Hesse sucks, but he sucks less than Graham Greene, so there wasn't much of a choice of subject matter there. I'm on page 15. I'm sure I can add five to seven pages of gratuitous quotes and redundant bullcrap, and then it will be done. I will be able to breathe a sigh of relief, then I have to get going on my thesis. And the Fall semester at Governors State starts in two weeks. No rest for me. No rest at all.
Okay, so I lied.
Tickets for the Chicago Sleater-Kinney show are already on sale. I don't know when they went on sale, but I was just over at Metro's website and I noticed they were on sale. Get yours soon, it's going to sell out. And let me know if you're planning to be there, I think a post-show gathering at the Ginger Man might be in order.
Also, while over at the Metro site, I discovered this, which looks like it could be a lot of fun. Anyone out there planning to go to this? Hey, it's the weekend when Jeff from Delusions of Adequacy is going to be in Chicago. It could be cause for a monumental (heh) indie webzine/weblogger gathering in my fair city.
I'm taking the rest of the day off from blogging. I've used up too much of my morning following this whole Indieshite thing, and I'm really busy at work. There's plenty of other stuff for you to read today. I'll be back tomorrow.
Feces-hits-fan at
Indieshite. I don't know about you, but I read them because they're funny. Whoever they are, I've had some fun conversations with them via email. If it's all just a prank, then it was a good one, and it was fun while it lasted. Now that Greenspun's back up, you can
chat it up in the forum.
Indieshite is (was?) great fun, if you are a writer who is capable of accepting what was often very honest (though sometimes brutal) criticism.
I have a copy of the print version of Stop Smiling in the bathroom. It's not bad--a decent mix of pop-cultural commentary and music stuff. Editor JC is kind of cute, but he's almost too much of a pretty boy for me. And Brent, it's EXERCISE, not excersize. Spell check is your best pal. And I'm a little ticked that I didn't get the email that you sent to other people. Keep me in the loop.
And hey, if the creators of Indieshite happen to live in Chicago by chance, I'll have some fun new people to hang around with. We hate the same things: bad writing, bad editing, pompous, overblown writing...I imagine we'll have tons to talk about.
Via
Fred, who seems to be a hotbed of link action today: an MP3 of one of the new
Go-Betweens songs. It's only available today, so get it while you can. I've listened to it a couple of times and it's really good. I'm looking forward to hearing the full-length CD.
Sorry about the lack of updates this morning, I was trying to do some Actual Work.
I made a huge impulse purchase yesterday. I bought myself a ruby iMac DV+. I saw it in the store and I fell in love. It's not set up yet, I need to clear some space off for it, but soon I will bid the Old Lumbering Mac adieu and start using the new iMac.
I missed the Mythbelievers show on Saturday because I am a total ass. Colin said that it was great. They'll be playing again soon, hopefully. And with luck, the opening band won't feature some guy I used to date who has a weird fetish.
Contrary to what some people believe, I'm not "above" popular culture. I've been checking out the Big Brother Blog pretty frequently. The show is always so dull--I usually only watch on Wednesdays when they announce the banishment stuff (I like watching the houseguests squirm). I've heard that a lot of crazy shit happens on the live cam feeds, but every time I tune in to them, nothing's going on. So now I let the Big Brother Watchers List tell me what's happening. They seem to be tuned in to the feeds at exactly the right time.
Big Brother Blog is hosted (and, quite frequently, updated) by Manda, who has her own blog at adulation.net. She has links to piles upon piles of quizzes and she updates both blogs pretty darned obsessively. Fun stuff.
Fred links to
Rate My Picture, a site where you can let people judge you based on your photograph and your answers to a whole bunch of (fairly insipid) questions. It's entertaining in a weird sort of way. I can't explain what I mean...go there and see if you feel the same way. And make sure you rate Fred...er,
Jack Steele, while you're there.
