X I A N

I'm sooooo bored I ended up back in LiveJournal to fuck about... how lame is my life?? It's been 162 weeks since the last time I visited... glad I still have an account. :)

That is all.

( My Interests Collage! )

www.myspace.com/geekxian for the few Chicago pics I managed to take before my batteries died.

http://www.myspace.com/geekxian

Blog: http:\\www.myspace.com\geekxian.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&pop=1&indicate=1

I've decided I need a change of scenery and I'm abandoning LiveJournal. My blog is moving to its new home:

http://www.myspace.com/geekxian

Come with me! :)

-- Geek Out

Just in case you were wondering just how pathetic the Blues are right now, I offer this humble anecdote for your amusement:

This evening after getting home from work, exhausted, I checked my voice mail to find that the St. Louis Blues had called me. That's weird, I thought -- did I apply for a job I don't remember..? I know some people who know people who work there -- maybe they referred me. Hmmmmm... So I played the message...

Hi, Christian, this is Bob Jones with the St. Louis Blues just calling to let you know that there are great seats available for most of the upcoming games, plus we have some three-game packages and one of them includes the night we're retiring Al Macinnis' number. I'd love the opportunity to talk with you about buying some tickets, so please give me a call back at your earliest convenience...

Ok, they're calling hockey fans ONE BY EFFING ONE NOW?? How utterly sad! I guess someone should've thought harder before they tanked this team. I used to love Bill Laurie but I'm really happy to watch his $140M asking price go down the toilet while he continues to lose money because no one wants to watch the team that he didn't invest in.

. . . . .

In other news, Mairet is the BOMB and my boss is a close second for letting me off work so I can bum a ride to the DM show in Chicago with Ms. Thang. Sometimes, you know, life takes a break from sucking so utterly badly. :)

It's a free show, it's good music, plus you get to see Johndt and I -- for which YOU should be paid, but still....

I'm sure I'll see everyone at The Phoenix in Soco, yes..? :)


***STL Album Release Show***
Thursday Oct. 6th, 2005 (9:00-10:00) @
The Phoenix; St. Louis, MO

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html

Amen.

Check out this video of police looting a Walmart in New Orleans getting busted by Channel 4 news. :-)

http://www.frycookonvenus.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1068

..sigh..

Yeah. That's it.

<<< I am sooooo on vacation for the next two weeks >>>

It will be a LiveJournal Triple Threat on the beach -- Ranidae and Johndt will be joining me for lots of doing nothing important.

Blogging when depressed is the absolute worst time to do it, and yet here I am. In my own defense, it's mostly my job's fault for being uninteresting on a Friday afternoon... or any other afternoon but particularly today. :) And it's also your fault for not updating your blog -- I wouldn't have to write if I could read right now, dammit.

I won't dwell, but it's kind of interesting being depressed these days because, while it's not exactly tempered by having such a great family at home, it certainly makes me at least half-glad that not everything is shite and it keeps me motivated to get out of bed in the morning. I think I would have had to saw off my own head with a spork if I had married some bitch and had bitch-children, followed by the ugly divorce and crappy kid-sharing bullshit -- aka, the American Reality.

I'm also apparently one of the most unhealthy people you know... There was a company with a laser scanner that would analyze your blood content for anti-oxidants and general nutrition crap at this vendor fair I was working yesterday. I watched people getting scanned all day and finally did it myself. Well, my levels are so low they didn't even register the first two times I was tested, finally when they got a number my results lay sandwiched between the anecdotal woman who had a heart attack the same night she was scanned (on the high end) and the anecdotal woman who had flaming cancer throughout her body (on the low end). So, at least I'll be out of my misery soon -- God isn't completely without compassion!

Demon actually called me this morning which I half expect is Johndt's doing since I was just speaking to J about not being called on Wednesday night, but maybe it was just weird timing. At any rate, it was too late to be helpful anyway, of course... I've always subscribed to the "Something Always Comes Along to Save the Simpsons' Kids" philosophy for years and it always works, but I'm not sure it will this time... of course I always feel that way, too. Suckin'.

So I keep doing favors for people for no real good reason... I'm going down to hook up more electronics in South County this weekend because I'm a sucker who likes to help. I think maybe i'm just too self-sufficient to need anyone to help me with most things, and so the only stuff left is the tough stuff that no one can or wants to do. J is right insofaras that if I made a nuisance of myself (er, if I were more assertive) I could motivate people to do the things they say they're going to do, but I just can't bring myself to care enough about how crappy they are. I do what I say I will and I expect everyone else to do the same -- that they don't just makes me the only decent person on the planet. :) Ms. Weekend Electronics was giving me the same advice this week, actually, about a particularly pesky person who asks for a lot and hasn't come through for me once -- she wants me to have a "what's in it for me" conversation with the guy, but who the hell needs that?? I'm just going to stop answering emails or phone calls from those people... so if I don't call you back, you're on my shit list. Heh...

If you're still reading this rambling crap at this point, first I apologize, but second -- if anyone has some good ideas for a band name, please send them my way. Axl Roach signed away 'The Adored' and I'm afraid of what he'll pick instead for his major label debut (frankly The Adored was a stupid name).

I almost called my good friend Ranidae concerned about the news report that there was a severe heat warning for Seattle for the first time in the city's history... almost, because then I read farther down and saw that it was 89 friggin' degrees. What the hell is wrong with you people??

Johndt and I made a last minute trip down to the Roberts Orpheus Theater last night to catch Bill Maher's act which was utterly fantastic. It was far far better than I even thought it would be... and it was just nice to be with a large group of people who aren't either stupid or suffering from a neurological disorder. Props to my man, Bill.

In other news, there's another premie in the family as of this morning. My sister-in-law went into labor (8 weeks early) and gave birth to little Abby this morning: 5lbs 6oz. So, not Nina premature, but still scary until she arrived -- she's doing great, no problems, and they don't anticipate any.

Finally, the cover of Entertainment Weekly this week asks the question: Coldplay. Are they the next U2? And I thought I'd answer that question for the American public before anyone spent too much time pondering that one.

No. No, they're not.

You know, as sucky as things have been lately the universe really came through for me this week. Joy Division / New Order have been my favorite band for over 20 years now and I have never ever gotten to see them live. I was stuck at school in Columbia the last time they toured and that was 12 years ago. So when they announced their new North American tour for this year and then announced only three dates - I was pissed. No matter how I tried I couldn't figure out a way to make it happen -- with vacation days scarce and money even scarcer I couldn't find a way to get to Chicago to see the holiest of bands on a weekday. Until providence gave me a helper in the form of an email from my boss directing me to attend a global meeting in Chicago on the very day that New Order was playing. YES!! Free plane, free time, free hotel... PERFECT! I immediately bought a ticket for a show that would sell out the very next day.

The only problem I had was that it was a two day meeting and at the end of the first day we were supposed to attend a dinner with all of the regional bosses and all of my colleagues. My boss was already irritated with me for ducking out on the first day of the last regional meeting we had in Chicago (so that I could see Interpol in St. Louis.. heh) and I couldn't think of a way to ditch the after-meeting goings on without risking getting fired. Luckily I didn't care. Even MORE luckily, my boss fucking quit 3 days before the meeting and none of the regional bosses know me, so I told my homegirls from the central region that I wouldn't be there and skipped anonymously out of the meeting to go see my longtime idols. :)

It was a general admission show and I got fairly close to the stage; not as close as I wanted to but it worked out perfectly because I ended up in a group of completely crazy people who were as into it as I was. During the opening band I caught a glimpse of Peter Hook at the side of the stage watching the show -- totally weird to see someone I've idolized for over two decades just standing there. I can't even tell you what it was like when New Order finally took the stage -- I was blown away from the first notes of Love Vigilantes on Barney's recorder... I've never been terribly impressed with New Order as a live band via DVDs and CDs I have of them and wasn't expecting much, but they were either really fucking on that night or they just don't translate well onto tape. I suspect a little of both as some of the people I talked to afterwards said that they had seen them 3 or 4 times and this was the very best. The playlist was PERFECT, the band sounded great, and I danced my fool ass off for almost 2 hours straight. Hearing them play Joy Division tunes live was a spiritual moment. And Peter Hook is just a rock GOD -- the man plays his bass like no one else, and he has a real sense for looking like a rock and roll deity. He found this spot way off to the side of the stage where one of the fixed spotlights on the stage hit him in the most dramatically awesome way -- just watching him bathed in that light with his guitar so low it was scraping the floor is an image that will never leave my head. I'll be senile and still remember that as long as I live.

Here's something you may not know about Chicago, though -- the El is a really scary place after midnight, I recommend skipping the late night tour of Chicago by ghetto-train if you're ever visiting. :)

Finally I can catch enough of a breather to get the Seattle Saga story out there -- things have been fairly weird in my life of late. And I hate that... plus, I'm going to add pictures so I'm either calling this post "The Seattle Saga" or "Geek's Big FUCK YOU to Dial-Up Bitches"... can't decide.

My trip to Seattle was a much-needed breather from weirdness.

FRIDAY, APRIL 22:

I wake up at an ungodly hour (3am Pacific Time) to catch a plane to Seattle -- I want to sleep on the flight, but of course can't and so I manage to read a lot of my Management Accounting text book while iPoding U2 tunes. My boy, Ranidae, picks me up from the airport and drives me downtown -- he actually slowed down to about 20mph to shove me out on the curb before whizzing off to fuck up Amazon's sales data at work (btw, buy your questionable accounting practices at Amazon.com!!) He may have actually stopped the car, but exaggerration is in my nature.

At any rate, I'd asked Rani to drop me off at the Monorail station furthest from the Space Needle so I could ride it through the city over there. Really great plan except for the part where the monorail is broken. :) So, I hang out at the mall for a bit before trudging off to the Space Needle on foot following the monorail tracks. This is when I first noticed that Seattle residents are huge pussies... but in the good way. At every corner -- there is no traffic whatsoever, but all the people are sitting patiently waiting for the "Do Not Walk" sign to disappear. Don't get me wrong, I still laughed at them, but it was actually kind of refreshing.

I putzed around Seattle Center for a while -- it was really early still and very deserted -- before I finally jumped into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Museum, which is an orgasmic experience for any true geek (sorry for the mess). It was really pretty cool -- it took me almost half an hour to get out of the first room. And, yes, I got to see the original captain's chair from Star Trek... ok, fine! There was some dry humping, too. Happy?? The girl who was selling the tickets was a transplant from Austin, TX and was very cool -- we talked for 20 minutes about Seattle before I went in and when I came back out to buy a ticket to the Experience Music Project we talked for another half hour about SciFi (and the cultural significance of Godzilla... which is always a strange conversation to find yourself in). The Experience Music Project was pretty cool, especially once you get the hang of avoiding the 'music you don't care about' sections. :)

By this time Seattle Center was filling up with people (and a lot of kids on field trips or something) -- there was a Japanese Cultural Festival going on so there was some cool stuff to see and cool people to talk to. I actually spent a couple of hours with this girl from China who couldn't speak much English -- she asked me to take a picture of her in front of the International Fountain and then we hung out for a while saying weird stuff that the other couldn't understand.. :) The fountain is hella cool, btw -- I could sit there all day.

I had pizza and Thai food for lunch before setting off on foot to see if I could rumble with some local gangs. Never found a gang, but I did find my way down to the water and went for a long walk in a park or two -- stopping under trees now and again to ponder or read. Very relaxing and just beautiful scenery... I never could get used to looking up and just seeing mountains everywhere.

Rani finally got done cooking the books at Amazon and we arranged to meet at a restaurant that was apparently close to where I was (I wasn't really sure where I had wandered myself, luckily I was near landmarks that he recognized). We had a pleasant lunch/dinner at a cool seafood place on the water just catching up and saying bad things about JohnDT as one does, before we headed off to meet some Amazon-dot-com co-workers at a bar. Problem -- the wrong group of co-workers were at the bar... so we hung out there a bit before excusing ourselves to jump to the next bar where the actual group of people Rani was looking for was hanging out. Much fun and more beer was had by all -- details of Rani's twisted sex life were revealed (buy your unauthorized sex-bio at Amazon.com!) AND we made the holy pilgrimage to Amazon.com (see view from Rani's desk and profile of alleged sex fiend below... yeah, I'm totally making shit up about you now, boyee, but just wait a couple of weeks and my lies are going to get very detailed and believable. :) )

Finally we headed out to see the Velvet Revolver show (cleverly arriving too late to see Hoobastank). VR played an awesome show -- Duff and Slash are definitely cleaned up, they've never looked that good in their lives and they definitely know how to put on a show. Mix in some GnR tunes and STP's always-necessary Crackerman, and I'm a happy guy. The crowd was an interesting mix of old and young -- two teenage girls beside me left when they played "It's So Easy" one saying to the other "What song is THIS??" Um... damn.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23:

This day was a clusterfuck in that nothing that was planned went down the way it was supposed to, but it actually turned out perfectly for me even if Rani was a little dismayed at the whole thing. We were originally going to go on a mountain hike but a friend said he had keys to a boat and we were going to go out on the lake -- at the last minute he found out he actually DIDN'T have the keys which meant no hike, AND no boat. We had a lot of time to kill before people started showing up at a last-minute party/bbq Rani set up and so we walked down to a place on the lake to have margaritas and calamari because they allegedly have cute waitresses. I say allegedly because THAT didn't work out either -- so, no boat, no hike, no cute girls. -sigh- But given the hectic suckiness of my life lately, sitting around having margaritas on a lake, followed by a haircut and shopping for party supplies was just what I needed -- no pressure, no responsibility, no schedule, just sitting on my ass wondering where all the cute girls are (Johndt has a lot of days like this, and now I see the appeal. :P)

The weather turned bad late in the day of course -- the bbq was cool despite the weather. Low key.. good burgers... sitting around making fun of jackasses on TV. And we'll just skip over the whole me nodding off and bailing on the whole night once the party moved to a bar. I claim central time zone probs. :)

SUNDAY, APRIL 24:

Day of the U2 show -- totally stoked. We woke up hella early to go hiking but got hella lost on the way to Mt. Si so we ended up getting a later start than we planned. The hike nearly killed me but it was unbelievably worth it.

I started sucking air in a major way by mile 1 hiking up that fucker -- Rani set a fast pace and it took me a while to find a zone to just plow through in. I found that on the uneven parts I could actually use a skating stride which helped get me through since those muscles are a lot stronger than my mountain hiking muscles. :) By the last half mile I was slowly putting one foot in front of the other chanting "Johndt sucks.. Johndt sucks..." with each step -- mostly because he'd warned me to go on the shorter climb and I know he knew that meant I was totally going on the long one, but partly because it's fun. The top was just stunning -- it was an absolute euphoric feeling to have battled up that mountain and to be standing there taking in that view.

Euphoria having taken over we ran the four miles back to the base of the mountain... highlights being that a) I could do it after the hike up, and b) the German guy huffing and puffing his way up noting to his friends "Wow, those guys are really fit!" (soooo glad he didn't see me on the way up).

Sitting in the car I knew I was going to be in trouble... I could feel my legs knotting up and just prayed that I'd be able to stand for the U2 show. We cleaned up and headed over to see the Mariner's play with T & Co -- T is ever the cool chick. As most of you know I usually abhor baseball but I had a great time at this game -- the Indians totally imploded and I may not like baseball but I -love- bad baseball. :) Completely hilarious -- if there were another four innings to that game they would've had to raid the stands for pitchers.

Off to Rani's family's place for a bbq -- cool people, cool kids, and an awesome place with an awesome view. Had a good time chatting and watching the kids do kid stuff. We stayed probably longer than we intended and therefore cleverly missed seeing the Kings of Leon who I have since heard horrible things about. (See? I'm skipping right over the part where Rani lost our tickets and found them just as I found a knife sharp enough to kill him with. I'm that big of a guy. :-) )

By the time I got to my seat for U2 I knew I was in trouble -- my thighs and calves were on fire with pain. But the second the lights went out, I couldn't feel a thing.

I had a pretty good seat -- basically stage right, 10 rows up by the top of the 'ellipse'. The show was excellent -- I was disapointed not to hear 'Bad' but happy to hear An Cat Dubh and Zoostation which are personal faves. I was also very happy that they played the text of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (even though they didn't get as far as the courts/representation part) -- does anyone know if Bush is going to make it out to any of these shows..? He could stand to have it read to him.

Without exception, a very cool weekend -- many thanks to Ranidae for having me and putting up with me and organizing the entire weekend. You are the best!

That's troubling. I hate to be so easily pegged, even by a ridiculous, non-scientific idiot-poll.

I am: 8% Republican.

"You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure. (You hope.)"

Are You A Republican?

So the last two weeks have been... fun. Think about the most fun two weeks you've ever had, take all the fun out of them and then insert a lot of crappiness. I guess that better describes them. :)

Mother in severe car wreck; Brother recovering from surgery; Family acting like douche bags in the most extreme way; Nina's been sick for a week....

Although, as bad as it's been, I have to say that I am grateful that *I* had an awesome time at the Interpol show... Got to see some people that I haven't seen in waay too long including Suzi and EmilyAnderson. I was only with Adumb and his stupid friends for about 2 minutes and only while they were still being cool; I parted ways with Dana and Johndt so I missed Johndt's near-fight with Adumb's gang and didn't know Dana spent 3 hours getting robbed in the restroom until later; and Ann left me by myself before she went to go get thrown out for being drunk and disorderly. The music was great, the band was on, and although they need to rethink their light show, I loved it.

Later sucked, though, when Ann was having fits outside; no one could find Dana; and I got an inkling that something had gone on between Adumb's friend and Johndt when he started talking smack about my brah and I almost had to instigate a fight myself... can't we all just get along..?? :)

I'm also pretty pleased with how LittleWinds (Home of Salerio and Solanio) is coming along. It's not perfect yet, but it's coming along... a few more re-designs and a few more content additions and I think I'll be satisfied.

One month to Bomo... one month to Bomo...