i was screwed by legos growing up

friday i went to toys r us to find a nerf gun for my 8 year old neighbor, oisin. he picked up my leaves while i was gone in asia, so i think i owe him something awesome. the biggest gun is always the prefered gun of choice to purchase, but there's a problem: it takes 6 - SIX!!! - 1.5v batteries to operate. that's fucked up, and who knows how long they'll last in a nerf gun that shoots out three darts a second! but i feel bad buying a nerf gun that requires a ridiculous amount of batteries, but aren't included of course, requiring in return this kid (or his parents) to buy batteries every time they go out. i think i'll get the second largest nerf gun; it's still kickass, and apparently shoots farther than any other nerf gun. also let me just say that nerf guns are awesome now, and i wished they had the cool ones now when i was a kid.

but that's not the only cool shit i saw at toys r us. actually, if you have time one of these days, i highly recommend going into that store; the nostalgia will almost choke you to death. lego owns the toy world. seriously, they have the coolest shit in that store. star wars legos.. you know i just missed the star wars period growing up. the first movies came out pretty much before i was born (definitely before i started playing with legos), and episode one didn't come out til my lego phase was over. but it kicks ass; they have ty fighter legos, and death star legos. haha i actually saw a darth vader mr. potato head. that shit was hilarious. but back to the legos... what legos has come out with these days makes me wish they did similar things when i was growing up. okay, example. they have limited edition sponge bob squarepants lego characters. tell me that's not awesome, and i'll call you crazy. i feel sponge bob is kinda in the same genre (though not quite as gross) as ren n' stimpy; legos could've created limited edition ren and stimpy lego characters! or powdered toast man, or the talking horse -- can't remember his name, the one from the rubber nipples episode. or even another show, like doug, or rocco's modern life. *sigh* oh well i guess, but it would've been really cool.

while reading the warnings on the gigantic nerf gun, it stated "do not aim nerf gun at the face," to which i laughed and said out loud, "yeah right, you have to aim for the face, otherwise what's the fun." this woman standing next to me promptly put the nerf gun package in her hands back, and left the aisle. priceless.

manic depression is touching my soul

in the 8th grade, i played in a band with travis lilley and andrew brown, and for the talent show we played purple haze by jimi hendrix. it was fantastic, and this is due to a couple reasons. playing good is not one of the reasons, because we honestly only played alright. first, playing music, specifically rock n' roll, in front of peers (girls) when you're 14 immediately makes you cool. we weren't playing trumpet, or alto sax, or the trombone, even though i think the trombone is a super cool instrument. nope. we were playing cool instruments, instruments that didn't require planning out breaths, instruments that were loud and in your face. second, we were playing purple haze, a super dope song that is disputedly about, well, a drug trip. the teachers were either a) shitting their pants hoping nobody understood what i was singing about-- that's right, i sang.. not too bad either -- because we were such innocent 14 year olds, or b) were smiling ear to ear loving the fact that we decided to play an incredibly popular song by arguably the greatest guitarist, and one of the best classic rock bands, in existence, instead of guns n' roses, stone temple pilots, or *gasp!* nirvana.

let me quickly say that any of those choices would've also been alright. nirvana would've been crazy cool, because nirvana were ridiculously popular then (cobain had only killed himself two years prior. quite sad, really). but we all loved hendrix more, probably because our parents beat it into our heads. and why not? jimi hendrix was an unbelievable guitarist, noel redding pumped out some seriously awesome grooves on the bass, and mitch mitchell, well, he just about did it for me. i remember listening to classic rock growing up; between the licks of mitchell, keith moon, and john bonham, it was at an early age when i decided i wanted to play the drums. purple haze was the first hendrix songs i learned, because it had probably the easiest beat. mitch mitchell is a freak when it comes to creating awesome beats. hey joe is a great beat; fire is fantastic; manic depression is absolutely fucking stellar, and probably my favorite beat of mitchell's. it was the perfect combination of oddities with a 3/4 time and triplet groove between the snare, hi tom, and bass drum. and of course the song itself grooved. truly magnificent.

mitch mitchell, the group's last surviving member, died this morning; he was found in a hotel room in portland, oregon. he was 61. i'm really sad right now. i've never been in the position where an influence in my life has passed. this is not to say a joke or two weren't influenced by mitch hedberg, or that my grandparents weren't a positive influence on me. what i mean is i've been playing percussion for 14 years, and the drums for almost 13. i started with jazz, and slowly incoporated rock/funk into my style; mitch mitchell constantly came out with awesome licks that meshed rock with jazz, and he opened my eyes to the limitless possibilities of using multiple styles to create beautiful drumbeat compositions. i mean, shit, my drumset is set up the same way his is.



rest in peace, mitch mitchell, and may your awesome drum style live on forever in those you influenced most. i for one am going down to my basement right now to groove on your manic depression and hey joe beats.

kerry and i broke up today. i'm sad; i wish it didn't have to end this way. but if your heart isn't into it, you can't lie to yourself, and you certainly can't lie to her. so i guess honesty prevails?

wow this is difficult. i feel like shit.

my marching fuzz folk hero

maybe just because i'm in the zone of listening to his music, but i feel like lots of things i'd like to say, he's already said better than i ever would have been able to. that's amazing, considering he's only had two albums to his name, and not one since '98. jeff mangum, the man, the voice, the guitar, the lyrics behind neutral milk hotel, creates amazing music, and stirs up fantastic feelings of happiness within me. if ever i were to write a movie script (ha), i would ask him to score it. it saddens me he hasn't come out with a follow up to in the aeroplane over the sea. but that's okay. because i love that album, and i'll listen to it for the rest of my life. i think it'll be the first vinyl i'll listen to when i get home. followed closely by the decembrists - the crane wife. or tool. ha.

as i prepare to go home after my extensive 8 1/2 week tour of the far east - and prepare to board an airplane for the 15th time (seriously) - i'd like to leave with a few lyrics from one of his songs, conveniently the title song of the album.

and one day we will die
and our ashes will fly
from the aeroplane over the sea
but for now we are young
let us lay in the sun
and count every beautiful thing we can see

what a beautiful face
i have found in this place
that is circling all 'round the sun
and when we meet on a cloud
i'll be laughing out loud
i'll be laughing with everyone i see

can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

neutral milk hotel - in the aeroplane over the sea

what the pho-ck is an ass hose?

an even better, more perplexing question is how the hell have i survived for twenty-five years without one? the answer: delicately.

i have no idea what the actual name of it is, but in vietnam, people use a water hose instead of toilet paper. well they use toilet paper, too, but it's to dry only. okay, sounds a bit over the top, and flat out weird, right? not true; it's actually ingenious, and households around the world should adopt it as a necessary practice for overall comfort and effectiveness. no more smear. no more clogging due to excessive paper use. you feel great after taking a grove, which is the way you should feel anyway.

it won't work in america, though. half the population's too fat to hit their ass hole with a hose anyway. ha.

going out to a birthday party right now.

koh phangan full moon party - kickin it in thailand

well i've been in thailand for a week now, and on the islands for six days. i was in koh tao until this morning, living it up snorkling, drinking, chilling, and tattoo-ing. (will post a picture of that later). sunsets every day on sairee beach, frisbee in the ocean, parties on the beach, fire spinners.

this week has been one of the best of my life. if i had known how awesome the island was, i actually would've liked to stay in koh tao longer. like maybe a month or two. eric saw two whale sharks while scuba diving yesterday. sadly i'm not certified, so i'm a bit jealous. but yeah, it's certainly not perfect, but it certainly was amazing and a thing to remember. i'm definitely coming back.

this morning we jettisoned off to koh phangan; tonight is the full moon party, a cleverly named party that happens on one specific beach in koh phangan every full moon. it's low season right now, so apparently only about 8000 people are expected to be there. i'm stoked.

mmmm, i like thailand.... errr, at least the thai islands. thai girls are cute, thai guys are cool (though territorial and aggressive at times -- i may expand on that later..), they're cheap, beautiful, and the weather is spectacular.

but the internet is expensive, so i'm getting off. i bid you adieu.

i spy..

i'll write something new about my asiatic journey in a bit. but for now, a picture has been added. what do you think? the inner artisan thinks that perhaps a scenic shot would be more suitable, perhaps of my recent travels. but then again, i like this photo because there's absolutely nothing special about it. and as you can see, i am travelling in this photo, to pingyao. wanna step back in time? go to pingyao, a 2000+ year old city with zero atm's. they even have an international photography festival every year, and what do you know? i was there at that exact time.

but as i said earlier, more to come.. until then, thoughts on blog photo?

a means to an end - overwhelmed in the land of mao pt.1

a little over a year and a half ago, i got a job doing something not befitting a person of my educational background - a quality assurance analyst position with metlife. i'm not dumb, but i was in no position to get this job. with very little computer experience, having not taken a single real computer class in college - i did take a microsoft office class freshman year, booya - and no real idea what quality assurance was in the first place (i looked it up in the dictionary before the interview), i owe it to a good friend of mine, der grossman chucky d, for getting my foot in the door. but i'm not dumb; i still had to nail two interviews, and of course did so convincingly. this job was the best that came my way after moving away from boulder. it was the highest paying job as well, and what do you know, i got to work with my best friend at the same time. i accepted the job with open arms.

i began the job unqualified, but i found out quickly the job was not difficult. i was a pawn, had absolutely zero input on projects and little on strategy, but i was also 24, so whatever. after a while, i realized i dislike staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day, but as it turns out, i got to work with a bunch of really cool people, so this job was totally doable. you also have to remember that a job is exactly that - a job. it was something to do during the day. it provided money. it provided records. records like radiohead's ok computer, beta band ep's, deloused in the comatorium, neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea, and led zeppelin's physical graffiti. but it became more than that; it became a means to an end.

and what does a job end with? a beer on the last day? think bigger. getting the afternoon off on the last day? way better. vacation! and when you're taking care of your parent's house while they're living abroad, you're able to save up for a most excellent vacation. on that note, since you've mooched off your parents this long, why not mooch a little further by visiting them and letting them pay for almost everything?

side not: i wasn't the only one doing the mooching. they didn't want to sell the house, so in exchange for me living at the house rent free, i had to maintain it so that my parents would have a place to come back to when they're done living it up in beijing. doesn't sound like a bad trade off for me, but do you think i like living in littleton? that town is flat out boring. i'm serious. it's an hour away from boulder, 30 minutes from denver, 45 from golden, 30 minutes farther from the ski slopes, has zero hiking paths, zero breweries, zero coffeeshops (starbucks doesn't count), and i only have one good friend that lives near me. but i do have a neighborhood pool...

when metlife decided to stop hiring contractors on site (aka in the usa), and started hiring them offshore (aka india), i knew my days would be limited. so i discussed some ideas with my bro and his now fiance, and together we agreed on a time to come out to china to visit the 'rents, and when ev went back to his comfy newsanchor position in lubbock texas, i would stay in the land of yao ming a while longer. then i thought to myself, patches is teaching english in ho chi minh city; i outta make one trip into two and go visit him as well. after a lengthy discussion with both eric and the parents, a two month trip was booked.

my assumption was correct; shortly after metlife "extended" our contract from the end of june through the end of the year, they promptly let go about half the contractors in about a two week span. i was not one of them, because the projects i was working on were huge and required my assistance. luckily i was not let go before i quit. when i left, our group was down from 10 (i think) to only 5.

a week after quiting, my bro and his fiance flew in from texas, and the next morning, we were gone. unfortunately you aren't beamed there; it was a shitty plethora of planes and airplane food. the flight alone from minneapolis to tokyo was a ludicrous 12 hours. why the hell we went from denver to minneapolis and not a west coast city is beyond me. after leaving friday morning early, we finally arrived in beijing saturday night.

beijing has 16 million people. and i couldn't understand a single one of them...

starting over, blog-wise

well i've decided to create a new blog. not that my livejournal didn't pan out well, but a new set of entries might help stir up, oh i don't know, activity in one form or another. so here it is, brand spankin' new, and this is the first post.

the last book i read was the day of the locust by nathanael west; that was three years ago ***gasp***. it was good, though sadly i don't remember much about it. i tried reading matt's copy of the brothers karamazov but only got through about 300 pages before being sidetracked by god knows what.. probably a season of seinfeld, or a mars volta album. by the way, matt, i owe you a copy of that book, seeing as i still have yours. my favorite books are books i read in high school and early on in college. i'm a slow reader; sometimes i mouth the words. so while i like reading, i rarely do it, and that probably has a hand in it. the fact is reading proficiency (big word considering my vocabulary, um, sucks) improves by reading more often, and i've decided to do just that.

i always bring a book or two or three whenever i travel, and usually open them but rarely read more than a page or two. it's pathetic, i know. right now i'm in china, which i'll write about another time, and the books i've brought with me are dienstags bei morrie (tuesdays with morrie in german) by mitch albom -- as well as a couple german grammar/vocab/phrase books in an attempt to keep up my german speaking capabilities -- 101 countries: discovering the world through fast travel by p.j. parmar, dubliners by james joyce, and the simpsons and philosophy: the d'oh! of homer by about twenty different philosophers each writing a chapter.

i've decided to read both dubliners and the simpsons and philosophy while out here in china and vietnam. so far dubliners is good, though i haven't really gotten into the meat of it. what meat? it's a collection of short stories... but anyway, i like it so far. i read parts of the simpsons book a few years ago. i took an ethics class when i was a sophomore, and this was the required book to purchase. it was actually a super cool class, and i wish i had been awake during it more often. 8am classes are never the right fit for someone who doesn't go to sleep before midnight, and doesn't drink coffee. but the book is solid, so i've decided to read it from cover to cover this time, instead of skipping a chapter here and a chapter there. the first chapter deals with homer's character in regards to aristotle's moral evaluations. i'm only a few pages into it so far, so for now, i'll leave you with a quote from a very wise person. by the way, i'll be gone until the beginning of november, and by then i hope to have finished both these books. if you have a suggestion for my next attempt at mindful self-nourishment, please don't hesitate to give your two cents.

i can't live the button-down life like you. i want it all! the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles! sure, i might offend a few of the blue-noses with my cocky stride and musky odors---oh, i'll never be the darling of the so-called "city fathers" who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "what's to be done with this homer simpson?"
~ homer simpson