amplified to rock
The Broke Person's Guide to Getting Your Own Domain: A couple of weeks ago, I asked you about cheap places where I could renew my domain. I couldn't afford the $70 that Network Solutions was trying to make me pay, and I didn't want to lose my domain. A bunch of people asked me to post my findings, so here goes:
I ended up going with GANDI to renew my domain. The renewal cost 12 Euros (approximately $10-$15) and it went very smoothly. Jared recommended GANDI, as did Jake.
Stef and Annie both recommended Joker.com, which is one that I had heard of before. They run about $11 per year. Both Stef and Annie mentioned the fact that the directions on the site are not so clear, especially if you're new at this whole domain thing, and the company is German, so I don't know how good their English language tech support is. But it's a good deal.
Amanda recommended Godaddy.com, whose Swingers-esque name was kind of a turn-off, but she had a good experience registering a domain with them.
Jim recommended both Dotster and IntuitiveISP. Dotster will cost you $15, IntuitiveISP has an $11.95 deal. (Oh, and his site is pretty cool, and it's one that I haven't seen before. Check it out.)
Chris recommended Atomic Cow, who will register your domain for $30 as long as you host with them. Hosting is $20/month.
Laura recommended Directnic, where domains are $15/year and they don't make you renew for more than one year at a time. Good deal.
Jay recommended enameco, where domains are $16.99/year.
Finally, Dan recommended Domainmonger, which offers domains at $17/year.
As far as hosting, Dreamhost still rocks my world. I've never had any downtime, they've always responded quickly to any tech support questions I've asked, and their prices are good. They're not the cheapest hosts out there, but the prices are pretty darned low, and sometimes it's worthwhile to pay a few bucks more per month to host with a company that isn't going to disappear suddenly.
Hopefully this information is helpful to people who, like me, are too broke to afford their rockin' Internet lifestyle. Thanks again to everyone who emailed me with recommendations--I appreciate it!
Scratch that: Hellsbelle *is* going to make it out here for a visit, and earlier than she had thought! Insert loud cheer of gladness!
If only I could get the coveted acceptance letter from U of I School of Library and Information Science, I could plan to spend a couple of days down in Central IL doing some apartment-hunting and friend-visiting...there's so many people to see down there. Of course, most of them will be busy with their end-of-semester stuff, but I'm sure they'd be able to spare an hour for dinner.
Colin told me a grad school acceptance horror story last week...he told me that he wasn't accepted to the biology program at UIS until ten days before the semester began. Yikes. I have a source on the "inside" over at U of I SLIS who tells me that they're behind in admitting applicants for the Fall semester...but still, that does little to ease my mind. I just want to know so I can continue making elaborate plans. (And if I'm getting decent financial aid, I can take some money out of savings so I won't be so damn broke all the time.)
Well, poop. I got an email from
Hellsbelle the other day. It seemed that she had the opportunity to go on a business trip to Champaign in May, and she wanted to know if I would be able to hang out with her while she was there. Of course I said yes, because Hellsbelle is one of my very favorite web people, and I'd love to hang out with her. Then this morning I got an email saying that it's all off! Well, poop!
Hellsbelle has just started a new Diaryland journal called Diversions, in which she writes about books and music and movies. And of course it rules, like everything else she does.
Icelandic music news: Bjork is
working on a picture book. Hopefully this will be out in time for Christmas, as it will make a good gift for a number of Bjork-obsessed people in my life, several of whom are reading this. So I just spoiled the surprise. Link from
Quiddity, which is chock full of great links and clever commentary. (I'd also like to thank Megg for helping me figure out who the heck is singing that awful cover of "Lady Marmalade" that I keep hearing on KISS-FM. Ugh. Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya, and Pink are now responsible for teaching a whole new generation of 12-year olds how to proposition people in French, but none of them has a voice even close to Patti LaBelle's.)
Also, Sigur Ros is playing on May 6 at the Park West in Chicago. I figured it would sell out fast, so I didn't mention it last week, but it hasn't sold out yet. I assumed that Brent would buy all the tickets so they could have a private performance for him or something. But they're probably already playing a show in his apartment anyhow, I'm sure he has no need to do anything so plebian as purchase tickets for a concert*. For other Sigur Ros tour dates, check out their official tour dates page. I'm surprised that this didn't make the Pitchfork News page.
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* But what would I know? I keep a DIARY on the INTERNET. (Note: This is a reference to an email that Brent once sent me that was possibly intended to shatter my credibility, but it just made me laugh instead. I should have printed it out and hung it up someplace prominent so I could refer to it on a regular basis. Whenever I get to the point where I think "oh wow, I'm on to something," I could just look at it and think "oh, that's right, I keep a DIARY on the INTERNET, what do I know? It's not like I do something vital and important, like write RECORD REVIEWS for an E-ZINE.")
Three words: European corn borer. That is all.
Oh, woe is me: I've only been up for 40 minutes and I've already had to deal with a dead mouse in my kitchen and a whiny college kid bitching about how awful I am in her little online journal because she didn't like my old, outdated
bio, which I unlinked when I redesigned the sidebar because it was so old and outdated. It contained a bunch of inside jokes directed at an old friend who used to tease me about being a "snotty, elitist indie rocker" because he was all into classic rock. Back when this page had 30 readers and most of them knew me, nobody ever pitched a bitch fit about it. I'm assuming it's because they recognized it as being tongue-in-cheek, just like however many other people who have read it in the past, oh, year or so.
I think this (which is from the email that I sent the girl who wrote about me in her journal, of all places) sums it up:
but hey, i'm flattered that you chose to devote a whole entry in your online journal to talking about how awful i am! i'm glad that my tongue-in-cheek bio is so important that you'd choose to critique it in a forum that, judging from the five or six other entries that i read, is otherwise about your life.
Insert snide comment about how her life must be really boring if she's devoting webspace to talking about me, and how maybe she needs to get out a little more.
Make your living space look classy: Aesthetic Apparatus is a company out of Madison, and they make rad screenprinted posters for bands that everyone but
John likes. Bands like the Dismemberment Plan and Spoon (and At the Drive-In, Calexico, Hey Mercedes, Pedro the Lion, and Rocket from the Crypt, among others). They're all one-of-a-kind, they're all handmade, the designs are way cool, and they're more affordable than those expensive mass-produced concert posters you can buy at stores. What's not to love? I am always more than willing to link to people doing cool stuff like this (hint hint--if you do cool stuff like this, you should let me know). And hey--if you can't buy a poster now, you can always use one of the images as your desktop wallpaper or something.
Sometimes, people will just send me links. Usually they're pretty darned good, and it makes me wonder why the link-senders don't start their own weblog where they can put their good links instead of giving them to me. But I'm not complaining. For example, Mark sent me this link to a GBV quiz/tribute/humor piece, which is funny indeed. But probably only funny to GBV fans.
I'm not sure where I got this link, in which a bunch of bands are asked how they came up with their names. But it's in my bookmarks because I enjoyed reading it. I also enjoyed reading about the Satanic roots of rock. Be sure you check out the accompanying article on 666 and rock music as well. That whole 666 thing reminds me of the time when I was working at my local public library, and we interlibrary loaned a book all about how 666 was in barcodes and how everyday office staplers could be used as surveillance devices. I think I photocopied the page about the staplers. It was too funny. There's a whole 666 Watch section on that site. I can't help but think that maybe these people should spend more time helping people in need and less time worrying about having biochips implanted in their bodies.
Anyhow, I updated the sidebar with a few new weblogs. See if you can pick them out of the ten-mile-long list.
I am glad that I did not challenge Adam Kempa to a bet about tonight's episode of Survivor. He predicted that Amber would get the boot, and he was right. I was so sure that it would be Elisabeth. I figured they'd keep Amber for a couple more weeks. I am no good at predicting strategy on these silly reality shows. But I loved watching all their shit get washed away in the flood. I was totally cheering for the water.
Is this thing working? Just checking. I got a haircut this afternoon. I don't have time to post anything exciting right now 'cause I have to pick my brother up at the train station, then I have to vacuum the kitchen. I was hoping to go out tonight to see my friend Roxane, who is in town from New York, but I don't know if I'll be able to go because I have approximately $0. In other words, I don't have enough money to put gas in my car AND drink at a downtown bar.
I get paid tomorrow, though, so it's only a temporary situation. Of course, I'm going to spend tomorrow night helping my mom cook stuff for Easter, because I know she'll give me shit if I don't. I'll be hearing "it's your friends who came to visit, and you didn't help cook or clean at all, blah blah blah" for the next eight months, and I don't want to deal with that.
I think Matty and I are going to see Kleenex Girl Wonder at the Hideout on Saturday. Rar. Sunday night, post Hamfest 2001 (that's what my Easter party is called, even though a couple of the people who are attending don't eat ham), I'll probably go see Lefty's Deceiver at the Empty Bottle.
Indie rock girls gone wild: No, I'm serious.
Champainful and
Monosyllabic both linked to
Supercult, which bills itself as porn for people who get laid (or something like that). The girls are all supposed to be "normal" (i.e., no fake boobs, no stripper types).
Now I like looking at naked people as much as the next pervert. But there's something about Supercult that's just kind of an icky turnoff. Maybe it's the poor quality of the photos--they're just plain digital camera shots, and the women don't even seem to be interested. They're all "yeah, you can take a picture of me in my bra, I'll just stand here and look really bored. Maybe if I look really really bored, it can pass for jaded." No, porn doesn't have to be carefully posed and artsy, but some effort is always cool. I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay money for a membership at this site, especially when you can find plenty of photos of nekkid everyday people all over the Internet.
And this one? That girl should have taken a look at the photos before they were posted. That's a really unflattering look--she looks like she's grimacing.
Good morning, sunshine: I did not want to get up this morning. Okay, so that's pretty typical, but I especially felt it this morning for some reason. Probably because I woke up three minutes before my alarm went off. I dreamed about being back at my old shitty job last night, about dealing with the Mosquito on Meth buzz-buzz-buzz of my idiotic former boss and the dumpling-like roly-poly faux-affability of the company president. Why can't I have pleasant dreams?
It's my long day of work today, but it's my second-to-last long day of work. My schedule changes in a couple of weeks when the new trimester starts. I think I might actually have some time off for trimester break--since classes aren't in session, the writing center might not be open. And even if it is open, it's not like anyone's going to be coming in for appointments. It really sucks to wake up in the morning and think "ugh, I'm still going to be at work twelve hours from now."
There's a bunch of little kids here on a field trip. These kids aren't as loud as the ones who were here last Friday--those kids screamed and yelled the whole hour they were in the atrium, and it was really hard to do anything because of the noise.
I'm going to attempt to do some reading now. I'm still really overwhelmed with school stuff, but it will be over in a week or so. Well, it won't be over, but there will be a slight lull for a couple of weeks. Yay for that.
It's Kenoki's birthday today. Wish her a happy birthday, willya?
One down, two to go: I was going to post about the Radiohead
tour dates but that's, like, yesterday's news, and besides, Radiohead fans are a bunch of sniveling bedwetters* anyhow. Except for
Jon Montague. He's one of the good ones.
I finished one of my classes today. Actually, I was done with it two weeks ago when I turned in my last paper, but now there's no more classes left. I still have a 20-25 page paper left to write for one class (and I wanted to turn that in tomorrow, but I've only managed to write one measly page so far) and a fairly lengthy annotated bibliography to prepare for another, so I'm not anywhere near done with this trimester. And when that's done, it's time for Thesis Mania 2001. The insanity will never end.
A nearby Crown Books is closing, and all the books are 50% off, so I decided to stop by and see what was available. I managed to spend $86 that I don't have on a bunch of books that I don't really need. Story of my life: I always spend money I don't have on stuff I don't need. I picked up that Lester Bangs biography that people have been reading, I picked up a Jonathan Lethem novel (recommended by Brian), I picked up...uh...a cheap paperback copy of the Geri Halliwell (you know, Ginger Spice) biography (it cost me $3, okay?), I picked up a couple of other biographies (Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire and Nora Barnacle Joyce), and I picked up some trashy books that aren't even worth discussing because I am embarassed that I bought them. Even snooty elitist English majors need to read trash sometimes.
Dude, what's been up John's butt lately? He seems pickier and crabbier than usual. At least there's been updates over at Us Against Them, I was starting to worry that they had all fallen off the face of the earth.
I picked up my graduation application for IUN today. Official date of graduation for both schools: August 2001. Shit yeah, I'm excited. If only the U of I School of Library and Information Science would send me an acceptance letter...I'd be set. I'd really like to start apartment hunting and planning for the fall.
I'm watching the Weather Channel again. I'm hoping there's going to be some pictures of tornadoes. I'm starting to wonder if Yahtzeen is down because the Phils and Ryan are busy filling sandbags to help stave off the impending Red River flood.
Brad tells me that Steve Malkmus is going to be on Letterman tonight. Actually he said Letterman or maybe Leno, but I'm too lazy to check it. I hope it's Letterman 'cause Jay Leno creeps me out with that freaky chin of his.
Jason Pettus has a good website. You should read it. He is also good at responding to email promptly, which I am not. I'm trying to get better at it.
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*Before you start whining, crying, firing off angry emails, or writing "fables" about what a terrible awful hypocrite I am, take a deep breath. It's only a band. Besides, I have two Radiohead CDs in my car, which means I'm a big ol' sniveling bedwetter myself, and God will punish me in the end for making fun of the Greatest Band on Earth. I love teasing you Radiohead fanatics, you are so fabulously sensitive. If you'd stop reacting like that, I'd stop picking on you.
Oh, and I still fucking hate that bear. Nyah nyah nyah.
Hey Mercedes/Mock Orange/Nymb, Metro, April 7, 2001: It's the first warm spring day of the year, and it's also the day of the triumphant return of Hey Mercedes to Chicago. Yeah, they say "Hi, we're Hey Mercedes, and we're from MILWAUKEE," but I'll relentlessly consider them a Chicago-related band just because that's where Bob lives. It's the last show of their tour, it's the hometown crowd--it couldn't be a better situation.
When I first arrived at Metro, it was a little before 6. I actually managed to arrive early for once. I started out standing near the stage, but then I realized that the place was going to fill up with a bunch of 16-year olds with more energy than I could handle, so I moved up to the balcony and got seats. Yay for chairs. I felt like an old fart having to sit down, but I knew I wouldn't be able to handle standing in the crunch near the stage.
The show started late. I think Nymb finally went on around 6:45 or so. I saw Nymb open for Sarge way back in November of '99, and I thought they were all right. They introduced themselves as "Nymb from Chicago"--for some reason, I always thought they were from Michigan. Anyway, I liked them. Elaine has a really cool voice, she's very energetic on stage, and they sounded a lot fuzzier and louder than I remembered. I would have bought one of their CDs, but it was a case of "either I can eat or I can buy a CD," and I chose to eat. Their set seemed really really long, perhaps because their songs are fairly long. It didn't bore me, though.
Mock Orange were likeable enough--just four nice guys from Indiana playing the usual Braid-influenced emo stuff with nice harmonies. They weren't overly earnest or cheesy, and they had a decent pop sensibility. The kids seemed to love these guys, I think they've got a lot of potential and they could be very big someday.
Hey Mercedes played a lot of the new songs from their upcoming album, which will be out this summer. They sounded great and were fun to watch. I especially got a kick out of Damon twirling his drumsticks. Tres rock! Bob is very charismatic, and I kind of wished I had stayed down on the main floor so I could get a bottle of water from him. They've been posting the setlists from various shows on their webpage, which is a good thing because otherwise I wouldn't know what most of the song titles were. It was good to hear "Let's Go Blue," I had forgotten what an awesome song that is. (You don't know what song I'm talking about? Go here and listen. A few of the other songs on the upcoming album are also featured there, though it's a fairly old show and the songs may very well have changed by now.)
Judging from the requests for Steely Dan and GBV, there were some weblog readers in attendance. As previously stated, I was the person who yelled "hey, I love your weblog" from the balcony. I wish I had said something more clever and amusing, but that was the first thing that came to mind. I'm amazed at how loud I was.
The show was definitely $8 well spent. They'll be touring again this summer, so keep an eye out for them.
The end of the Great Minneapolis Saga: We decided against going back into Minneapolis on Sunday. We only had vague ideas of places to go, and we didn't really know where most of the places were or how to get there, and we were all running low on cash. Since the Mall of America was so close, we decided to spend the day being mallrats.
We started off the day by eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. Since I had eaten breakfast, I wasn't all that hungry, so I mostly sat and watched the boys eat. MJ found some paper in his salad, and when he told the waiter, the waiter blew him off. Aaron told us that it was not good waiter behavior.
Post-crappy lunch, we started our mallwalking. For all intents and purposes, the Mall of America is just like four malls stuck together. There are a few things there that you won't find at a typical mall (like the amusement park, the aquarium, and the Legoland), but most of it is just typical mall stuff. Matty had a good time counting the Sunglass Huts (I think he counted four). We went to a book outlet place where the boys bought some cheap books and I bought a couple of Mad Libs books. Every language geek loves Mad Libs.
I think that the high point of my mall experience was discovering Basin, which is essentially a Lush rip-off. I have an unnatural fondness for bath stuff. They didn't have quite as many products as Lush, and they were a little pricey, but I was able to pick up a few fun things for myself and some birthday/Mother's Day gifts for my mom.
We spent something like five hours at the Mall of America. The charm did start to wear thin after about three hours, but it wasn't like we had anything else to do.
We went to the airport a little early so the boys could have a few pre-flight drinks. I opted not to drink because I was already way too tired for my own good, and I knew that a drink would knock me out completely. We spent some time at the airport bar, where we played Mad Libs. And got a little rowdy. We spent so much time at the airport bar that we almost lost our seats on the flight--they were about to release our seats to standby passengers when we showed up to board the plane. The flight home felt like it took forever, probably because I was so stinkin' exhausted that I just wanted to be home already. We played some more Mad Libs, though it was kind of difficult because the boys were on one side of the aisle and I was on the other. It seemed like Matty took the flight home better than he took the flight there. It was a lot less bumpy.
After the plane landed, we had to walk ten miles through Midway Airport to get to the shuttle to go back to the remote parking lot. The more I walked, the more annoyed I got. I hate Midway Airport.
We got to the car, and I drove the boys home. Aaron and MJ still had a three-hour drive back to Decatur, so their night was far from over. I got home, showered, and collapsed from exhaustion. I expected to sleep for fifteen hours just to catch up, but I woke up bright and early the next morning, ready to face the day.
Thus ends my Minneapolis trip chronicle!
All this, and a dead mouse in my kitchen: So I'm sitting around, watching
Eco-Challenge and half-heartedly writing my paper about Hemingway's female characters (particularly Lady Brett Ashley in
The Sun Also Rises and Pilar in
For Whom the Bell Tolls) when I hear what sounds like a snap from the other room.
"Oh shit," I think, "I hope that isn't one of the mousetraps in the kitchen."
So during the next commercial break, I muster up the courage and strength to go check the traps. I think, "Oh, I've been watching these people on Eco-Challenge walk themselves to the point of collapse and bandage their horribly blistered feet, why am I afraid of a mouse carcass? Besides, it's probably nothing, I'm probably just hearing things again."
I check the two traps nearest the door, peering slowly around the kitchen wall. Nothing and nothing. I walk around towards the fridge, and I don't even make it around the corner when I see the carcass. Ew. And nobody's going to be around to clean it up until late tonight, so I can't (or, more accurately, won't) go near the kitchen for the rest of the night. This means no tea, no pop, no cold water, no cooking dinner for myself...Why did this have to happen today when nobody's around? And why the fuck was that mouse in here, anyway? It's a beautiful day, it should have been outside frolicking around doing mouse things.
Show review pending, as well as the end of the Minneapolis story, etc.: But before I go to bed, I want to say that I was the person who yelled "I love your weblog!" to
Hey Mercedes at the show tonight.
Tomorrow, many posts. Now, sleep.
