The Days Are Just Packed

It's not clear how today became rather busy after all. This week started rather fucking lame, and it seemed evident early on Monday that it was going to be the longest week of my entire life. This turned out not to be the case. Huh.

On Monday, it was announced that I would be procuring lumber for to build a wall so that when the dudes come to my house in 10 days to replace the shitty excuse for a skylight that has been slowly destroying the third floor since before I bought the house, they will have somewhere to take a leak. It was with the best of intentions that I met my friend, also in the market for some lumber, for dinner at the somewhat spotty Golden West, which has been performing well recently, so maybe I'll lay off it. Provided I never get that lazy-ass lovechild of Pauly Shore and Lisa Bonet as a waitress again. God she sucks. Anyway, it turns out that two pitchers of IPA is slightly more than is really advisable before a trip to the hardware store, so that was rescheduled, and instead, further beer was consumed. I know, I'm as surprised as you are.

Tuesday was one of my oldest friend's birthdays (as in, I've known her a long time, not "she's old" because she's only a year older than me, and everyone knows I am a veritable Spring Chicken), which was celebrated by emailing her and saying, "happy birthday, let's meet for lunch. What do you mean, you've become a Stepford Wife and are now going to Mother's Groups? Good Christ!" At which point we decided to meet for lunch on Wednesday.

Lumber! Tuesday was much more successful. A ridiculous quantity of lumber was stuffed in the back of my friend's Explorer (last seen as the probable instrument of my imminent death on the way home from an O's/Yankees game) and we made it back to our respective houses without dying, despite our best efforts to hurt ourselves really badly by handing 2x4's up the fire escape to the third floor. Yay.

Wednesday involved the aforementioned lunch, at Tamber's, which I hadn't been to in many years. 'Tis still a nice place to go. We had shakes, news was revealed and commented upon, and then she took me back to work. She didn't seem any older, which I guess suggests that having a kid does NOT destroy your body, as we've all been told.

Meanwhile, Blogger just ate the rest of my fucking post, and it's 1:39 am, so you'll probably never hear about Thursday and Friday. They were really exciting, though. No, really.

Officially On Board

Friends, Lurkers, bizarre Google Searchers:

We must act, and act quickly. We have nothing to fear but massive liver failure. Some of us are less concerned about that eventuality than others, having successfully given up our livers for Lent.

Go on, take a case of Shiraz for the team. I'll be in the French aisle.

Yet Another Coolest Thing Ever

Under pressure from all those that post more than once a fortnight, here you go, you slavering band of zombies...

This is so goddamned cool. This is exactly why I am not as down on capitalism as many of my frothy liberal compatriots; Honda is already leading the pack in ULEV and SULEV and even ZLEV vehicles, but rather than sit back and be smug about it and wait for Daimler-Chrysler to eventually crush them, they continue to innovate.

Sure, hybrids aren't going to fix everything. They may not alter anything except people's attitudes, and even that slowly (although kudos to Lexus for making high-HP hybrid sports sedans). And natural gas still isn't as renewable as, say, hydrogen, but the way to go here is to saturate the market with alternatives, and that's what Honda and Toyota are starting.

Eventually, after all the smug early-adopters are rendered irrelevant by all the people who've bought generic-looking Hybrid Civics and biodiesels and now, Civic HX's, the full-gasoline IC engine will start to look less like the way forward and more like outdated technology, and normal people who just want to spend less at the tank will start to drive sales.

And that can't be anything but good.

Goddamn I wish I had a garage.

Longer Than You!

Happy Birthday, decrepitude!

(It was actually yesterday, but my home internet connection was not cooperating. Did I call? No. I blame this guy, and his Shiraz. Also, I am a crap friend. Ask anyone.)

Old People Do Not Get Punk

So on a whim, and because I had no other real plans, and because they sounded relatively entertaining in the few clips I could locate online, I agreed to go with Linda and her blogless pariah friends Mark and Steve (I'd make up names for them, but what more generic white guy names could I come up with? Rob & David? C'mon, nobody would believe that) to a Fiery Furnaces concert at the engagingly filthy 930 Club. I am almost over the fact that it's not at 930 F Street any longer, thanks. Give me another decade. Well. That was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Really.

Apparently I had just about the right amount of Guinness in me, because the opening band made me happier than lots of bands of my recent acquaintance, despite their dorky name. The leads were brother and sister, and could not have less rockstar presence, and clearly listened to way too much Pixies and Sonic Youth, but conveniently, so have I. So midway through their righteous set of screechy noise, when Steve and I were geeking out over the set's resemblance to Surfer Rosa, Linda started deriding them for their over-reliance on simple chord progressions. I'm not sure what kind of show she thought we were in for, possibly An Evening With Andres Segovia, but what I do know is that she got so agitated that I thought she might break a hip...

Ahem. The second band was notably more languid and far less of a cheery amalgam of my CD collection, so I rocked out half-heartedly and drank more beer, which was being helpfully provided for me by the aforementioned antique punk-hater. Yay! Free beer!

The third set. The Fiery Furnaces. That was a near-religious experience. I can't possibly do it full credit, because I was pretty well lit by then, boy howdy, but that was just a great fucking set. It was, for those of you who were there, Mr Other Generic White Guy Name Fellow, and you know who you are, very much like the first Stereolab concert we went to in sheer transcendent awesomeness (yes, I know I should have a Rock Writer job, but what're you gonna do?). Just really very excellent and, um, good.

The ride home featured more wistful band name-dropping amongst those of us who were still capable of speech, and some excellent car music, and some rather weird random car music that was quickly mocked off the stereo from the uppity back seat, and then I woke up still drunk the next morning. Awesome. My life is absolutely commendable.

And for those of you in the twilights of your respective lives, that are trying very hard to maintain focus on your outrage while simultaneously trying not to drop off, I wouldn't be mocking Linda at all except that she was in her early teens during the Punk Explosion, and there is therefore no excuse whatsoever for her Old Coot disdain for what These Kids Today are getting up to.

Also, after the last time I went to the can (this just in: beer makes you pee), feeling a bit unsteady and claustrophobic, I hid out at the back of the hall and got to see the opening act collect their merchandise. On their way out, I slurred to the female singer that they were really great, one of the best opening bands I'd seen in years. She smiled and shook my hand, and I flawlessly executed one of those cool-person handshakes that usually elude me.

Solid.

People With Too Much Time on Their Hands

This is delightful.

We'll just go ahead and ignore the fact that I've never checked out the blog, since I am lazy, and focus on the fact that my own house assessment went from $88,000 to $270,000.

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the TrollJWER was someone who was deeply offended by the fact that I put forth a contrary (and liberal) opinion on, say, this blog, which I haven't done since before the election. You know, the one 5 months ago?

Wouldn't it have been easier to just let it go?

When In Doubt, Link...

Since I am no doubt up for my weekly non-posting vilification, and since I've been very good this week (only one beer since, um, Sunday!), I decided that I should have something else at the top of my blog than a drunken cut-n-paste. Go figure.

Anyway, so I'm reading this book, right, and it has this quote in it:

How, though, might the demystification of consciousness be something to regret? It might be like the loss of childhood innocence, which is definitely a loss, even if it is well recompensed. Consider what happens to love, for instance, when we become more sophisticated. We can understand how a knight in the age of chivalry could want to sacrifice his life for the honor of a princess he had never so much as spoken to - this was an especially thrilling idea to me when I was about eleven or twelve - but it is not a state of mind into which an adult can readily enter. People used to talk and think about love in ways that are now practically unavailable - except to children, and to those who can somehow suppress their adult knowledge. We all love to tell those we love that we love them, and to hear from them that we are loved - but as grownups we are not quite as sure we know what this means as we once were, when we were children and love was a simple thing.

Which I think about sums up my life. Also, while I feel very guilty for having here aired what cannot be a very strongly held belief of one of my dearest friends, I continue to be entertained by the flimsiness of Creationism, and so I fear I must post this.

When In Doubt, Plagiarize...

Oh God, it's raining
But I'm not complaining
It's filling me up
With new life

The stars in the sky
Bring tears to my eyes
They're lighting my way
Tonight

And I haven't felt so alive
In years

Just for a day
On a day like today
I'll get away from
This constant debauchery

The wind in my hair
Makes me so aware
How good it is to live
Tonight

And I haven't felt so alive
In years

The moon
Is shining in the sky
Reminding me
Of so many other nights
But they're not like tonight

Oh God, it's raining
And I'm not containing
My pleasure at being
So wet
Here on my own
All on my own
How good it feels to be alone
Tonight

And I haven't felt so alive
In years

The moon
Is shining in the sky
Reminding me
Of so many other nights
When my eyes have been so red
I've been mistaken for dead
But not tonight

UPDATE: It's probably not the best idea to get really hammered and then walk home from Fells Point in the rain. Eh.

UPDATE TWO: I'm sorry, this is one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs, and yet, I hate to quibble, but there were neither stars nor moon visible last night. There was rain, though. Lots and lots of rain. I shall leave it to you to guess what song was stuck in my head for the entire walk home. Go on, you can do it...

UPDATE THREE: Yes, you're right, I actually really enjoy quibbling. Quibble, quibble, quibble, quibble...