A couple of summers ago, I was minding my own business, walking into the house or something, when I looked over at one of her big, boxy evergreens and noticed six or seven snakes sunning themselves. It didn't scare me, I was just like "damn, that's a lot of snakes," and I went in and told my dad that he needed to do something about them. He went outside with a shovel and chopped them up into little snaky bits.

I have had many other encounters with snakes over at my grandmother's. Last summer, I saw one slither past as I was walking across the lawn. It stopped and looked at me, and I looked at it, and I said "go away, snake, get out of here," and it looked at me for a second longer and then slithered away into the neighbor's yard. Then today, I saw a snake sunning itself in a patch of dirt by the garage. When it noticed me, it slithered into the garden somewhere, and I walked around to the back to inspect the bleeding heart plant. (Bleeding hearts are the most emo flowers in the world. They're also the only flowers that I am capable of growing. I should take pictures of my bleeding hearts and post them here, they're really very pretty. And kind of emo. Anyhow...) When I was done admiring the bleeding hearts and gloating about the fact that mine look better than my grandmother's, I walked back past the garage and saw the snake in the same place it had been before, basking in the sun. I looked at it and said "you are the dumbest snake that has ever lived. You should have just stayed hidden." My grandmother's neighbor stopped doing whatever he was doing and looked at me funny when I said that. I guess talking to snakes is not cool or something.

So I went in and told my dad that there was an S-N-A-K-E by the garage. (Yes, I spelled it out like that.) He went outside with the shovel, but it escaped his wrath, never to be seen again.

The snakes, however, aren't as bad as the wasps. There's some wasps trying to nest somewhere in my grandmother's backyard, and they get all up in my business whenever I go back there. I hate wasps. I've never been stung by a wasp, but considering that I raised holy heck when I was stung by a sweat bee (and I was nineteen years old and shouldn't have made such a fuss about it) I would probably wither up and die if a wasp did sting me.

Don't even get me started on those fat, hairy bees...

I think I'm going to do some CD shopping this weekend. I haven't done any CD shopping in a while.

My favorite Brian has updated his weblog. If he quits his weblog, I'm going to go up to Minneapolis and kick his ass. And after I'm done kicking his ass, we'll go bowling or something.

Bob, if you read this, I tried to email you and it bounced. What up with that?

I'm going to go enjoy the fabulous weather now. I feel sorry for those of you who are stuck inside working today. I'll think of you, sitting at your little desks, slaving away for The Man. And I will laugh!

Fugazi, Shellac and the Ex are playing Congress Theatre on June 23. Tickets go on sale on May 1, they should be reasonably priced. You have to go through the Congress Theatre's box office for this one--these bands don't support that corporate bullshit, yo. The Congress Theatre phone number is 773/539-9429. Both Shellac and Fugazi are great live bands, and tickets will likely be affordably priced.

Red House Painters at the Double Door, June 13. You can probably do some Bobspotting at that show. Those tickets go on sale at noon on Saturday.

Apples in Stereo at the Abbey Pub, May 25. You have to go through the venue box office for that show as well...I'll probably be headed over there this weekend or next week to get tickets, so if you want tickets but can't pick them up yourself, email me and we'll work something out.

The Sigur Ros and Yo La Tengo shows are both sold out, so if you waited too long to get tickets, you're out of luck.

After realizing that I completely missed last Monday's Spoon show at the Empty Bottle (I thought it was NEXT Monday), I've decided to keep a running list of shows over there in the sidebar. This is also good news for those of you who like to stalk me at shows. Or whatever. I've included links to the bands' websites so you can see if they're playing your town any time soon.

I don't talk to the Classic Rock Boy all that much any more--he moved away and we broke up for reasons related more to my bad taste in men rather than our differences in musical taste--but he really opened my mind to classic rock, and I opened his mind to indie rock just a little bit. Thanks, Ray--you will forever remain my archetypal Classic Rock Boy, and you did look cute that time I asked you to wear my GBV t-shirt.

Champaign-Urbana people, I'll be down there again a week from tomorrow. If you're not busy with finals and all that, we should get together. I'll be doing some apartment hunting and talking to my advisor for a little while, but otherwise, I'm free. Lunch, maybe? Or dinner?

This afternoon in the inbox: email from a friend of an ex-girlfriend of an ex-boyfriend. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it's actually someone cool, and I got to vent my spleen a bit, which is always a good thing. Also: an email from one of the writer boys I liked in high school. And email from Mike Quinn, he of THINKING of Hesterman. I'm actually trying to keep caught up on responding to new email that comes in...of course, there's still the question of all the old email that's sitting in my inbox rotting. I am a bad correspondent. Forgive me.

Those of you who like Sifl and Olly, get excited: there are videos in the works. Rock! Those of you who don't like Sifl and Olly, what's your problem?

The Shipping News is playing at the Empty Bottle on Saturday. I'm probably going to be there.

I watched the movie Titus this afternoon. Colin has been raving about it for a while, and for good reason--it's really amazing. It's Shakespearean tragedy at its bloody, gory, most vicious best. It's very long (almost three hours) but the time will pass quickly because you'll be so absorbed in the story.

Oh, did I mention I'm off work *and* school for the next ten days? I got my summer schedule, and it's pretty cool: I work 9-3:30 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I only have classes until late June, so starting in July, I'll have four-day weekends EVERY weekend. Of course, I'll be spending those weekends busting ass to get my two theses done, but still...it just sounds good. I'll probably head out to Arizona to visit Amanda in mid- or late July, and I'll probably do some local roadtrip-type stuff as well. I intend to storm the Mars Cheese Castle in Wisconsin this summer!

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to say pretty much the same things I tried to say last night, only hopefully they won't get chewed up by Blogger this time.

I haven't been updating much lately. It's a combination of lack of time, lack of interest, and lack of anything going on that's even remotely worth writing about. It's my last day of work before trimester break today, so after today I should have a little bit more time. Of course, that doesn't mean that anything worth writing about is going to happen.

I'm meeting up with Hellsbelle today. She's down in Champaign on a business trip, and as soon as I get out of here I'm going to drive down there. I talked to her on the phone for a little bit last night--there were moments where we just laughed and laughed and laughed. So I'm looking forward to meeting her in person and laughing some more.

I've gone on a movie-watching spree lately. In the last two days, I've watched three movies: Dancer in the Dark, Hamlet (the new version with Ethan Hawke), and Wonder Boys. I loved Dancer in the Dark and Wonder Boys. Hamlet could have been better. Unlike the "modernized" version of Romeo and Juliet that came out a couple of years ago, it was actually watchable. I think I made it through about 10 minutes of Romeo and Juliet before I turned the TV off in disgust.

My problem with Hamlet was Ethan Hawke. Will somebody please explain to me why he can't stop workin' that Slacker Guy Circa 1993 look? I wanted to tear that stupid stocking cap off his head and shove it down his throat. Ethan, m'dear, Kurt Cobain is dead and so is grunge. The early-90s retro craze is a few years off. Please give it a rest.

I love my stats tracker, oh yes I do. Thanks to my stats tracker, I know that someone from Orland Park is reading this webpage. If you are this person from Orland Park, please email me. I'm just wondering who you are, that's all. (If you're not the person from Orland Park, but you want to email me anyway, you can do that too. Heh.)

What else to say? Not much else, really. Maybe later.

I fed goats and had my picture taken sitting on a tractor. I went to a goth/industrial club wearing a bright orange t-shirt and matching bright orange Doc Martens. I ate at Steak 'n Shake twice. I played Atari. I met Jake, who is not only awesome, funny, and highly entertaining, he is also Lou Barlow's cousin. Not that that matters. Really. I mean, I never stood around thinking "I'll bet Jake has eaten Thanksgiving dinner with Lou Barlow" while I was talking to him.

We went to this hippie town a few miles outside of Beavercreek. There was a record store there called Dingleberries and I laughed a lot about that. Seriously, my sense of humor is stuck in grade school sometimes.

I'm sick. Sick in the physically ill sense. I'm hoping that it's an "I ate something bad" sick and not a "stomach flu" sick. I'm leaning towards "ate something bad," although my stomach still feels a bit queasy. I'm going to eat some ramen noodles and see if that helps me feel better.