amplified to rock
I lost the post I was writing. I'll try to replicate it.
Two places to find Valentine's Day ecards that aren't lame: eCrush.com and evolution bureau. I love card #4 at evolution bureau, it's absolutely classic.
Also, I have updated my crush list at eCrush.com. Maybe you're on it. Wouldn't hurt to check.
Thank you to everyone who emailed me and messaged me today, thus alleviating my boredom. I'm going home now. In the sleet. Wish me well.
The next eight hours: slow, boring. That's my prediction. I know that those of you who have incredibly busy, high-stress jobs would probably kill to have a day like mine--eight hours of nothing to do but sit around and read and play on the internet and try to look busy. But let me tell you, after a while, it really gets to sucking. I came in this morning, checked my appointment book, and was immediately filled with dread and irritation when I noticed that I have NO appointments scheduled today. None. And Fridays are really slow days for walk-ins, so it's unlikely that I'll have any appointments today.
If you'd like to help me pass the time, feel free to email me or message me. I'd appreciate the distraction.
The moment you've been waiting for: the winners of the Amplified to Rock "Be My Freakin' Valentine!" contest.
Man, I hate to pick a winner. It drives me crazy. I got a pile of awesome entries, stuff that made me laugh, stuff that made me sigh, stuff that made me want to get my freak on in the romance languages section of a library. But only one person can have the jellyfish and the card, because I have only one jellyfish and one card. But I can give out multiple mix tapes/CDs, can't I?
I've gotta give the jellyfish and the card to Krystyn. I haven't laughed that much in quite some time. Was it the promise of dinner at the Flat Top Grill? Was it the thought of being in plays at the Neo-Futurarium? Was it the references to wizard's caps and "Groovy Kind of Love"? We may never know. Krystyn, let's meet up at Barnes and Noble. I'd like to ask that one guy who works in the music section if Kid A is any good.
However, there are runners-up in this contest. They'll all get a mix tape (or CD) and my eternal love. These runners-up are:
Phil from yahtzeen, my boy out there in the wilds of Fargo, North Dakota. Hard lemonade, karaoke, and cute indie boys...what else do I need?
Greg from you look good in black, who promised me a private screening of Run, Ronnie, Run, pyrotechnics, and a rockshow similar to the one described in my dream date.
Ashur from lysdexia, whose platonic date included a trip to Austin, Sifl and Olly, and plenty of talk talkity talk talk talk.
Paul from Puffin-a-go-go, who mentioned milkshakes, which I love. His entry accomplished the most in the fewest words.
Andrew, who apparently has no website, who promises me lots of travel, a couple of really good rockshows (Galaxie 500 reunion!), and art museums.
You are all much beloved. You are all my Valentines.
Wonder of wonders, it's raining right now. It's been so long since it's rained here--and I mean REALLY rained--that I'm enjoying the sound. We've had some of those misty "it's just below freezing" rains in the past couple of months, but nothing like this.
Every winter, it seems like there's one token warm day in the middle of the cold. A day when it's not all that warm, but it's comparatively warm, so I feel the urge to put the car windows down and drive around. Today was that day. It was kind of nice.
There's one warm winter day in particular that sticks out in my mind: during the winter of 1997. I had just gone through an absolutely devastating breakup, something so painful that I hope it never happens to me again. I was unhappy, I was trying to figure out how I could get this boy to love me again, and it was a beautiful day. I just drove and drove and drove aimlessly, playing the happiest music I could find on the car CD player, trying to make myself feel a little bit better. I don't know why I remember this day so well, but I do.
Today was comparatively unmemorable.
Two more things: I got another CrushLink crush yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I love anonymous crushes and all, but I hate those CrushLink things because I cannot make guesses without that system sending an email to everyone I guess. This is potentially very embarassing. Amplified to Rock supports
ecrush.com for all your anonymous crush needs. Ecrush.com allows you to add people to your list without sending them that "someone has a crush on you!" email.
Also, some chick is showing her ass for cam survivor over at Makeoutclub and she is potentially beating my favorite ex-boyfriend. (Sorry, other ex-boyfriends, BRIAN gets to be my favorite today.) Brian doesn't stoop to such base tactics, he's just cute. I recommend you vote for him.
BRIAN: BECAUSE HE'S CUTE.
(paid for by the amplifiedtorock fund for putting brian's webcam next to mine on makeoutclub, because that would be really funny.)
The contest is now officially over, and I've got some good entries. I'm going to read through them one more time, then I'll pick the winners. Yay!
Now I'm going to tell you about my dream date.
My dream date is with some cute boy or another. I can't even tell you what he looks like 'cause I like so many different types of boys. I can only tell you that he is cute. He is also smart. And funny.
We meet up somewhere. I don't know where in particular we meet up. Let's say we meet at Reckless Records on Belmont and Broadway in Chicago. That's as good a place as any. So we meet up, and he recognizes me right away and he comes up to me and says something like "hi." Then we stand around talking about music. He makes a joke like "hey Nanette, here's that Marky Mark CD you've been looking for" and I respond with "hey Boy, here's that Destiny's Child CD you've been looking for." And then he laughs and says something like "I *have* been looking for that Destiny's Child CD!" and we laugh some more.
When it is time to buy our CDs (since this is my dream date, I can buy as many CDs as I want) we go up to the counter. I notice that my boy has some rare CD that I'm after, and I admire it.
Then we go for a walk. Since this is my dream date, the weather is nice. It's one of the three days every year in Chicago in which the weather is not too hot and not too cold and not raining. It is a good day. So we walk down the street, and we make jokes about things we see, and we talk and laugh and have a good time. Eventually we end up holding hands and that is very nice. My boy has nice fingers. We stop into some stores. I look at shoes and he doesn't stand around looking exasperated with me. We talk a lot and laugh a lot. He listens to my stories and I listen to his. We are amazed at how much we have in common.
All this walking has made us both hungry, so we walk up Clark Street to the Thai Classic. We sit at one of the tables where you take off your shoes and sit on cushions. We eat tasty food, and they have that one dessert with the sticky rice in coconut milk. I manage not to spill my Coke everywhere.
Then, the Boy recommends walking up the street to Metro. "Who's at Metro?" I ask. He says, "I don't know, let's check it out."
The sign at Metro says "CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY." "We wasted our time," I said. "Maybe not," he replies, and he walks up to the door and knocks. The security guy comes and lets us in. "I've been waiting for you," he says. "So have the bands."
Inside the Metro, there is a rockshow to end all rockshows. All of my friends are there, even the ones I've never met in person. Even the ones I haven't seen in years. All the bands I like are playing. Every one of them. And they're playing whatever songs I request, and they're letting me sing along and pretending that I sound good. It is the greatest rockshow ever. And after I leave the stage when I'm finished singing along with Sleater-Kinney, Boy puts his arm around me and we look at each other and we kiss and it is the best first kiss ever. Neither of us is clumsy or has bad breath and nothing is awkward about it. And nobody says anything annoying like "get a room" when we keep kissing for a little while.
Finally, the rockshow comes to an end. Wesley Willis comes up at the very end and performs a song that he wrote about my rockshow. MY rockshow was whooping on a cheetah's ass with a garden hose.
The Boy and I decide to take another walk. It's dark out now, and it's late, and everything is quiet. We are still holding hands and talking and laughing and discussing our favorite moments of the rockshow. He has met all of my friends and they all like him.
The Boy is kind of shy and not sleazy, but when we get to his building he asks me if I want to come up and talk some more. Neither of us is really tired so I go up there. He gives me the tour and I excuse myself to use the bathroom. Of course, I notice that (in typical boy style) he seems to be out of toilet paper. When I point this out, he says "no I'm not" and he pulls the last little bit off the roll and *poof* a new roll appears.
"So you never run out of toilet paper?" I ask.
"No, never," he replies.
"So I'll never have to run to Kroger late at night to buy toilet paper for you?"
"I would never, ever make you do that," he says. "I read your girlboy list. I've been preparing for this night since that moment. I am completely aware of how much you hate being told 'there's a roll of paper towels in the kitchen, you can just use those.'"
Suddenly, I forget that I need to use the bathroom. I am so overwhelmed by his caring that I cannot handle it. So I say to him, "most amazing and beautiful Boy, this was the best date ever in the history of dates. This is better than that time I went on a date and we rode elevators in the downtown skyscrapers all day. I would like to spend my life with you."
Then we get in his car and drive to Las Vegas and get married at the drive-up window with "The Book of Love" by the Magnetic Fields playing on the stereo. We never argue about what CD to play next because we like all the same music. My wedding ring is a cherry ring-pop, his is a straw wrapper. And we live totally happily ever after and he never changes his mind about how awesome I am. He keeps all his promises and our life together is wonderful forever. Except that one time when he pissed me off and I threw the toaster at him. But he forgave me for that really fast. THE END.
Oh, and it's only five months until my birthday. Rock.
I have harnessed the power of my weblog to get people to vote my webcam on to the makeoutclub cam page! Hurrah! Thank you to all who voted. I love you like a milkshake.
Now we need to band together and work our same magic and get BRIAN'S webcam voted on to makeoutclub. Why, you ask? Because he used to be my boyfriend, and I derive some sort of sick pleasure out of having his webcam right smack next to mine on the webcams page of the World's Largest Indie Kid Meat Market. Plus, he's cute. Even though he dyed his hair black and I can't get used to it. I keep telling myself that it probably makes his eyes look that much prettier (he has really pretty eyes) but I still can't get used to it. So get thee to your local polling place and vote!
Also, the contest deadline has been extended somewhat until like 3 PM or something. Enter.
I'm going to go eat some lunch. Hooray for my off day! It is so glorious and wonderful. Too bad the weather sucks.
Blog celebrity? Pshaw. And I always thought Dave Coulier was pretty damn funny on
Out of Control.
Gather round, everyone, and I shall tell a story about naked men. No, really.
Back in the Dark Ages, back when I was in college at a small private liberal arts college in central Illinois, there was a tradition. There were many traditions at this school, but this one was special. This one was known as the Mills Hall Bun Run.
I have no idea how it started. I don't know when it started. All I know is that once I saw it, I would never forget it.
Mills Hall was the men-only hall on campus. It was nasty and trashy. Mills was mostly inhabited by freshmen, because anyone older would probably know better than to request to live there. The exception to this rule, for some reason, was the west end of the top floor, which was cleverly known as Mills 3 West. The pot smoking contingent lived up there, at least, they lived up there before they got kicked out for flunking all their classes.
The Bun Run was probably started by some members of said pot smoking contingent. Who else would look out their window on a cold, crappy winter night in Decatur and say "hey! it would be a great idea to take off all my clothes and put a sock over my penis and run around the girls' dorms!"
And that's what the Bun Run was. A bunch of guys with socks over their units running around the girls' dorms making a lot of noise. The best part was when the socks would fall off and you'd see nothing but shriveled unit, 'cause they always picked the coldest nights to do the Bun Run.
One year, a girl I knew took pictures. Of course, this girl dropped out at some point, never to be seen or heard from again. But somewhere, there's a picture of some guy who's probably working for an investment firm or a marketing research company somewhere standing ankle-deep in snow wearing nothing but a hemp necklace and frantically trying to keep a sock from slipping off his schlong.
Once again, reminder: vote for the webcam (I'm finally at the top of the heap, let's keep the votes coming in) and enter the contest. I'll be back again around 4 PM my time.
Once upon a time, way, way back in October of last year, I had a little
contest. The contest was supposed to end on October 31. Unfortunately, my then-boyfriend decided to drop a ten-ton weight on my head the day before, leaving me in no mood to judge a a contest. I was too busy stewing about the fact that, in essence, I got dumped for someone who not only had the personality of a dungheap, but also wore flair as part of her professional attire, to judge this contest. Then I met
Brian. Then I got fired from my shitty job that I hated anyway. By the time all that stuff was over, I had set the whole Cleverness Quiz thing aside. I would look at the folder full of Cleverness Quiz entries every so often and think "you know, I really need to judge that thing," and then I would never do it.
I somehow roped my mom and my brother into judging it last night. It was pretty damn entertaining listening to them read the entries out loud to each other. Since I let them pick the winners, and they don't know any of my online friends, you can be assured that the results were fair. So now I present the winners of the first-ever Amplified to Rock Cleverness Quiz!
First place: Kevin of Kev-Blog. I do still want to see that Bartheleme-esque story, Kev.
Second Place: Parivash Javidian. My mom wrote "excellent" after your name.
Third Place: Teddy from Half-Empty. My brother said you would have won it if your answers had been longer.
Honorable Mention: Owen Scott and someone else who I'll have to fill in later because I cannot read my brother's handwriting.
Beet Bonus (for best answer to the beet question...er...best question to the beet answer): Amanda Herndon.
Thanks to all who entered. Prizes are forthcoming.
Amusing letters in the
Pitchfork reader mail section today, particularly the first one, where the highly erudite writer takes the Pitchfork staff to task for interviewing people he describes as "so excruciatingly white, suburban, college educated, milquetoast, pleasant, pleasant boys." Fortunately, this is followed by the all-too-obvious statement "of course, this describes most indie boys." Yeah, guy. Gotcha. Mmmmkay. The last letter is confusing as heck. At first, I thought the writer was talking about people who criticize Pitchfork, but I guess he's talking about Pitchfork's
reviewers. It was about as clear as a mud puddle, thanks. Actually, the past few days' letters have been pretty good. Lots of "you guys fuckin' suck" kind of stuff, complete with amusing misspellings and weird syntactic deviations. (Don't you love it when I drop my English major science your way?) I must say, I dig the fact that Pitchfork publishes the angry "you guys fuckin' suck" email they receive. I get a good laugh out of it.
Now, reminders: vote for the webcam and enter the contest.
Good freakin' morning. I'm up too early. I stayed up too late last night yackin' away on AIM. I'd like to give los propos to
Kenoki. She's totally rockin'.
My neighbors have decided to do some sort of project that involves a lot of pounding this morning. I have no idea what it is that they're doing, but it involves making a lot of noise. I'm glad they've decided to do it this morning, when I have to be awake anyhow, rather than tomorrow morning, which is my "sleep in and be indolent" morning. If they did it tomorrow, I'd have to kick their asses.
Question: Whose webcam would you rather watch? Mine, or some underage emo kid's? Don't answer that unless your answer is MINE. Anyhow...oh, this is so geeky...I'm part of Webcam Survivor over at the infamous makeoutclub. My lack of backpack and Jimmy Eat World poster has somehow put me in second to last place, so get your heinie over there and vote for me. Don't read anything on that board because it's all pretty inane. Vote early, and vote often. (Disclaimer: Yes, I've gone and posted a cheesy makeoutclub profile. It's part sociological experiment [who messages a 26-year old girl who doesn't describe herself as sXe or emo or vegan], part effort to expand my social horizons [to include more backpack-toting 19-year olds], and part curiosity [see previous]). Oh, and there's the issue of the hits to the webpage. Makeoutclub = mad hits, yo. As a writer, I like my writing to be read. Hopefully, you'll see this activity as tongue-in-cheek, just as I had intended. If not, well, Kenoki and I were brainstorming new profiles last night, and one that we thought of (untrue though it is), was "I eat red meat and wear lots of hemp clothing." That should tell you exactly how seriously we view this little enterprise.
So, yeah. Vote early, and vote often. And vote for me.
Now I'm going to try to exorcize that Aaliyah "If at first you don't succeed...dust yourself off and try again" song from my head and go to work.
Wow. I'm in some kinda mood today.
People I don't know keep saying "hi" to me. That always makes me feel weird. When people I *know* say hi to me, I know how to react. I say "hi" back, I ask them how they are doing, we make some brief small talk in passing. But when people I don't know say "hi" to me, it's different. First of all, I have to figure out if they are indeed saying "hi" to me in particular. Usually, by the time I've figured this out, it's too late to say "hi" back to them. I mean, it's kind of embarassing to say "hi" back to someone and then have them give you that weird "I wasn't saying 'hi' to you, I was saying 'hi' to my friend who is right behind you" look.
But it's happened something like three times today, and I don't know what to make of it. Maybe it's the new hair color.
Back in the stone age, when I was in college, people I didn't know would say "hi" to me all the time, and I would just sort of nod at them. Then I would get to know these people and I would hear all sorts of things about how I was so unfriendly and all that. I'm not unfriendly, I just don't know what to make of people who are overly friendly, saying "hi" to everyone who walks by.
But whatever. I'm in a mood today. Give me a 10-foot berth, if you don't mind.
I'm working in the library today, learning some cataloguing stuff. It's been interesting thus far, and I've been allowed to use a roll of barcodes to barcode some books, which excites me for some weird reason. After that, I've got class, so it's a long, busy day. Bleh.
Don't forget to enter the contest. I know everyone else is having contests right now (well, Bob and Greg are having contests) but you should enter mine too.
And I still love my new hair color. It's exactly what I wanted.
The hair, it has been dyed. You can't see it all that well on the webcam, but it's exactly what I was after: a rich, deep scarlet. Thank you, Jerome Russell's Punky Colors in
Pillarbox Red.
The dyeing process went like this:
1. I took all the rugs out of the bathroom. I replaced the good towels with crappy towels.
2. I gathered the materials: rubber gloves, tinting brush, old butter tub, saran wrap, conditioner.
3. I put on an old t-shirt.
4. I put conditioner around my hairline and on my ears. Then I put the saran wrap on my ears. (Yes, this looked totally stupid, but not nearly as stupid as red-stained ears.) Then I put on the rubber gloves.
5. I squeezed some red dye into the old butter tub and used the tinting brush to apply the color to my hair.
6. I applied the color to my hair. Then, I took the saran wrap and put it over my hair so I wouldn't get hair dye all over everything.
7. I sat in the tub for half an hour and read a cheesy fashion magazine.
8. I rinsed my hair. Voila! Scarlet hair!
I finally got a couple more entries for my contest. Keep 'em coming in. You know you want my jellyfish.
It has been decided: tonight, I dye my hair scarlet. It probably won't turn out scarlet because my hair doesn't take color very well, but it will be a much brighter and more unnatural red, though.
There are moments when I really, really love my job. I just had one of those moments a little while ago. I have a standing appointment with one student, I see her every Monday at 5 PM. She's in the Basic English Composition class, and she's a pretty decent writer. The problem is, she lacks focus. So every week, I work with her, talking through her assignments, helping her edit her papers, and giving her guidance. And it's amazing how much she's improved over three sessions. I wish every student I worked with was like her.
You people aren't entering my contest! The prizes are cool, I assure you. I'm starting to feel cold, alone, and unloved!
I have no more appointments for the rest of the evening, unless someone walks in. I think I'm gonna do a bit of reading, then I'll be on AIM. Feel free to message me, the link is down there at the bottom of the post.
Well, I've managed to get that blasted
CrushLink to tell me that my crush's first name has five letters and his last name has five letters. I can't think of anyone who fits that description. Bah! How frustrating!
All I can say is this: If you are the person with the crush on me, 'fess up. I want to know. It's not like I'm going to be grossed out about it.
Also, did anyone see the wizard's caps on The Simpsons tonight? Heh.
From the Department of 'I Thought I Smelled Something Burning': Apparently, love is in the air. I got a message from
CrushLink letting me know that someone out there has a crush on me. Maybe it's the fluffy purple headband I was sporting yesterday. Or maybe you just want my
jellyfish. I do have an extra jellyfish, you know. And the extra jellyfish can be yours if you
win my contest. Competition may be stiff, so make sure your answers are good.
Speaking of contests, I'm going to award prizes for the Cleverness Quiz tomorrow morning. My mom is going to be the judge, so I hope you've all appropriately impressed her. So watch for the results tomorrow.
First things first: To the person who came here
searching for "how do you write punk rock music?"--I can't help you with such matters. Sorry 'bout that.
So yesterday, I actually left on time and I actually got to where I was going on time. It was shocking. I told Matty that I would pick him up at 12:45, and I was actually there within a few minutes of 12:45. This is unusual. Anyhow, we drove down to the Flat Top Grill, secured a choice parking spot, and met up with Paul, who had saved a table for us. We ate and chatted for a while, then we headed out to Uncle Fun for some shopping.
And shop we did! I bought prizes for the long-awaited Cleverness Quiz (I'm going to pick the winners today) and for my new contest, which should also be posted later today. This new contest was somewhat inspired by some crap that Matty and I were watching on MTV last night, something that involved winning a dream date with Jennifer Lopez. It's going to be a pretty quick contest because I have to mail the prizes so they'll be there in time for the big V-Day next weekend. But more on that later.
The best purchase? A rubber jellyfish on an elastic string. I'm going to hang that from my car's rear view mirror. My lucky Valentine will get the same jellyfish to hang on his/her rear view mirror.
After Uncle Fun, we drove over to Reckless Records. We ran into Famous Chicago Rock Star E.F., formerly of the Mythbelievers, who was buying the new Wu-Tang Clan CD. As is my custom, I spent money that I don't have on CDs that I really don't need. I purchased the following:
The Shipping News - Very soon, and in pleasant company.
Pedro the Lion - Winners Never Quit
Low - Things We Lost in the Fire
Superchunk - Tossing Seeds (singles 89-91)
The For Carnation - Fight Songs
the new Kill Rock Stars cheap-o compilation (I'm a sucker for cheap-o compilations)
I've only listened to The Shipping News and Pedro the Lion thus far. Both are very good, and I'm looking forward to seeing Pedro the Lion open for Low next Friday. Matty called Pedro the Lion "Sebadoh-y," which is a compliment.
I also found out that The Shipping News is playing at the Fireside Bowl on the 16th. Raise your hand if you're going with me.
So we stood on the sidewalk in front of Reckless, Matty, Paul, E.F., and I, and we contemplated what to do next. Paul went home, E.F. went to get some food from Chili Mac's, despite our warnings that the place had been closed by the health department a couple of months ago. I'm sure he got plenty of extra rat droppings and roach heads with his meal, and he probably didn't even have to pay extra for it.
We ended up at Matty's apartment, watching Mr. Show. It was just like the old days when Matty lived in Andersonville, back when I used to park the car and hang out for the entire evening watching Mr. Show and listening to music. I don't do that as often these days, mainly because it's hard to find parking where Matty lives. I called Steve to see what he was doing, and I called Aaron to see if he woke up in time to buy Nick Cave tickets. Steve was on his way to the suburbs to go to a surprise party, and Aaron got the Nick Cave tickets even though they were more expensive than he had planned.
This order of business being finished, we watched some more TV.
Somehow (and I don't really know how this happened), we ended up watching the XFL game. I assure you, we were watching it for the pure irony of watching it. I don't understand football in the slightest, but when I heard that this XFL stuff might involve fights and injuries and fat guys running with a ball, I figured that it might be kind of okay. Matty and I have a favorite player already: the guy whose jersey says "HE HATE ME." I cannot believe that we sat in front of the television for an hour and a half watching XFL. But we did.
We were finally hungry enough to force ourselves to leave and find something to eat. We walked around aimlessly for a while, stopping in a few of those cheapie used CD stores that line the Belmont/Clark area. We ended up walking up Clark to the Thai Classic. We hadn't eaten there in quite a while, so it seemed like a really good idea. It wasn't as busy as usual, which was kind of nice.
After dinner, we ended up back at Matty's apartment because we couldn't think of anything particularly thrilling to do with our evening. We watched (embarassingly enough) more XFL, we watched Sabado Gigante, we watched some program on UPN that involved real fights caught on tape, we watched M2, we watched MTV, and eventually, we turned the TV off.
Matty played me a song that he recorded a couple of weeks ago. It sounded really good, but he still needs lyrics. We made up some nonsense lyrics involving beans and rice (a Matty staple food) but they weren't really appropriate for the song. Then he played guitar and we sang a couple of songs. It really was just like the old days, back when he was living in Andersonville. We used to do this kind of stuff one night every weekend. These days, we get so involved in always having to do something when we get together that we rarely spend evenings just sitting around and doing nothing. I had really forgotten how much I enjoy just sitting around not doing anything in particular with Matty. We always have a good time.
I would have stayed even later than I did, but we were both tired and I had a long-ish drive home. So I left around 1 AM. Matty walked me to my car and we talked about how quiet the night was, how still everything seemed, and how we're both really, really looking forward to winter being over.
Long, rockin', crazy, fun day. But it's time for me to sleep now, so I'll have to write about it tomorrow.
(Yeah, lame post, I know...but it's 2:15 AM and I'm freakin' tired. Nothing happened that was so earth-shattering that I have to write about it NOW, but it was a pretty cool day.)
