Look, a blog.

Don't call it a comeback, but I'm back in the writing saddle again. It's all rusty and cracked (making the writing saddle an edifice made of iron and uh, porcelain?), but I'm sitting in it again, and slapping the reins.

If that didn't make a lot of sense to you, you're not alone.

Anyway, I had five or six beers earlier while watching my friend's band play at a fancy grocery store. The kind where the rich folk in your town send their hot wives to grab fresh fish and fennel after their tennis matches. It's true. I've checked their carts. But yeah, the beers have given me a headache.

Jackie is asleep right now because she got offered a long-term sub position, for which she gets training early tomorrow. I'm so stoked for her!

I started reading Kevin's Smith's blog today, and on paper, he's an amusing motherfucker. And honestly, Clerks was pretty damn funny (and uncomfortable, since I rented and watched it with my parents--should anyone's mom ever have a snowball explained to her?); his other movies have been hit and miss for me. That led me to read about Jason Mewes' struggle with drugs, which was equally fascinating, only because it showed how much Tons o' Fun cares about him. It does not, however, make saying "snootchie bootches" funny.

Sorry about the lack of links. I don't feel like futzing with the code.

Band is set to record in November with a guy who's pushed levels and twiddled knobs for Edie Brickell (known for shooting rubber bands at the stars and other egregious album titles) and Pantera's Reinventing the Steel album (whose title is the opposite of egregious). So that's pretty cool. I can already foresee a few headaches and headbuttings over stylistic differences, especially when it comes the mixing part, but I guess that's part of the fun of having a band.

In other band news, the Grampus (our beloved touring van, not that we go on too many tours, and by "too many," I mean "any") needs its balljoints replaced. Before you get too caught up in laughing because "balljoints" is a funny word (as are scramble, dribble and drapes), consider that replacing them costs over $900, and not replacing them eventually causes the wheels to fall off. Not so funny now, is it? In hipster parlance, broken balljoints is the new broken A/C. It's a really hot repair right now.

And finally, since I mentioned hipster parlance, check out this video, entitled the hipster olympics. Normally, I am leery of such deliberate parodies, but this one is right on the money.

Oh and also, I've become obsessed with modern archecture, particularly Googie. I hate that word. Googie is essentially the future as envisioned in 1955. If you've ever been to Tomorrowland in Disneyland prior to the late '90s, then you've seen and enjoyed this type of design.

While I am obsessed with Googie, I'm even more obsessed with as I am with hoarding and hiding change. I'm like a dragon in a D&D campaign.

--The Robo-Pirate

The Frost Giant's Daughter

I'm apologizing in advance, because this post is pretty much a repeat of the one last year about how people can’t drive when it’s cold. Not surprisingly, I really can't complain enough. Why is it that in this dumb town, whenever the weather is rumored to freeze, people completely lose their abilities to make rational decisions when sitting near the wheel of a car? Last night, I went over to watch a movie with Kerry (funnily enough, it was An Inconvenient Truth). He lives about five minutes away, and that's if the lights are bad. But last night, the traffic idiocy was such that my trip took fifteen fucking minutes--all because the mercury dropped down to 45 degrees. Every four-way stop featured retarded jackoffs simultaneously barreling into the intersections as if right-of-way rules have never existed. Imagine a bunch of near-sighted old people on acid driving bumper cars, and this is a little bit like what happens here every goddamn winter. I'm not saying I am the best driver, and frankly, I am terrified of driving on ice, but at least I error on the side of caution. These other assholes, though... it's like they forget/ignore all prior knowledge and experience of physics, traffic decorum and common sense.

I wish I lived in Hawaii.

--The Robo-Pirate

Doppelganger

If you go to this week's Onion A.V. Club, there is an interview with one of my heroes, Chuck Klosterman. Read the interview if you want, but the most important thing is that he looks a lot like my friend this guy.*

--The Robo-Pirate

*That guys is my friend, Walker. He writes songs and hangs around the bar I work at, and is an all-around nice guy.