ON-LINE JOURNAL OF CHARLIE DANGO: YEAR 2003

This is a period in which I didn't maintain a website so no journal entries are available.
Sorry!

This is a period in which I didn't maintain a website so no journal entries are available.
Sorry!

September 11th, 2003
2 years have passed since the WTC attacks. Thankfully I don't have cable so I can forego the stupidity that will be broadcast throughout. My amp will arrive monday. Yay! I'm happy about that. This is the last day I have off before going back to work. Of course today is Thursday, so I'll be going back for one day and then it will be the weekend. Next week is going to be tough because it will be the first full week I'll have had in two weeks. Hopefully it will be okay after Monday. At least then I won't be waiting around for something to happen. Sariah's B-day is in 6 days and I haven't gotten her anything yet. I was going to bid on this purse that she really liked from Ebay, but the auction ended before I could bid on it. I've tried contacting the seller about buying it outright (no one bid on the purse), but they haven't returned an email to me yet. Hopefully they will soon. Sariah really wanted that purse and I would really like to make sure that she gets it.

My mom is watching Contact and I'm trying to find something to get Sariah for her B-Day in case I don't hear back from those fucking sellers.

September 9th, 2003
I'm sick. I took yesterday off and will be taking today off as well. It's a shame because I need the money and can't really afford to miss any work, but I feel like utter shit. This also means that I won't come off of discipline for another 3 months. Woo Hoo! Not like it was that big of a deal to begin with. So tired. I'm going to bed now......

September 6th, 2003
Paid for the amp today. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I won a bid on ebay for a Marshall JCM 900 100 watt tube guitar head. I was quite blown away by the fact that I had won it. My bid was for $450.00 and the bidding stopped at $425.00. It hit me at a bad time due to having to pay the taxes on our new home, but we were able to get a loan to cover the cost of the amp so it all worked out. Now I just have to wait a week to get the amp. It's going to be sweet, that's all I know. I didn't get a cabinet, so for a while I'm either going to be borrowing cabinets or not using the amp at all. I might be able to talk Tim into letting me use his cabinet until I can get one of my own. Maybe he would even sell it to me. It's hard to say at this point. Perhaps I will talk to him about it sometime in the near future.

I still have yet to send Non-Thought a copy of the CD from the live stuff at The Place. It's not the greatest sounding stuff on the planet, but then again I was working with my hands tied behind my back (as usual). They want to record with me, but I don't have the necessary space or equipment to make it happen. Once I rennovate this computer room into a "studio" and my basement into an area where I can track drums then maybe something will work out from there. I don't know really, I'm just going day to day here. I wonder if doing all this will be worth it? I mean, how many people are going to be really enthusiastic about recording in some guys house? Worse yet, how is a band going to feel comfortable chilling at my house when my mother is wandering around? I guess I could kick her out for the duration of the hardcore tracking that way it didn't seem to weird to the bands recording there. Just a bunch of ideas, that's all everything is right now.

September 3rd, 2003
I think it's safe to say that I am done with the Non-Thought stuff. This is the last CD I'm burning of the live stuff from The Place. If this isn't it, then I'm giving up. No one should dedicate this much of their free time to something like this. I just hope that talking with G-Roc at Barnfest helped things out a little in regards to recording Non-Thought's next CD. I would really like to do that, but I have to be sure I can at the very least get some decent monitors first. I want the tracks to be awesome right off the bat. Hopefully I can arrange to get all the equipment I need that way I don't have to separate the band while tracking. I really think that bands are more into the groove of things when they all play together. I want to minimize the amount of overdubs needed. This is all wishful thinking at the time however. Nothing has been set in stone as of yet, but hopefully that will come with the arrival of this CD.

Funky are anxious to record their new stuff. I still think they need to write some new songs and most definitely refine the songs they currently have. They keep wanting me to come to their practices to help them arrange stuff, but I'm not really interested in doing that anymore. It's their music, I just press record. I like a few of their new songs, but the last two just seem off. I started writing Charlie Dango stuff tonight. Just playing around with Sean's acoustic guitar that I borrowed. I'll probably record some tracks by the end of this week. That ought to be a riot to say the least. The riffs I was working on tonight were rather somber. I wrote them while sitting in my bedroom in the dark with only the light from the fish tank to illuminate the room. Watching the fish, I plunked out the few chords of the song that would become...........the first song I will write. Huh! I'm getting ahead of myself.

September 1st , 2003
Recovering from Barnfest. It's 10:38 A.M. and I just got up from the first really long stretch of sleep I've had all weekend. I go back to work tomorrow, which is a real drag. I don't know what we are going to do today, but I hope it's better than yesterday. It's still raining outside which really means whatever we hoped to do on this 3 day weekend has really been hampered. It always works out this way though. I kinda wished we would have went to Shedd Aquarium this weekend, but then again I had a good time at Barnfest. With the font this small it looks like I'm typing BAMFEST instead of BARNFEST. Well, just to clear up the confusion, it's BARNFEST! Ah, what else? I'm not doing anything. Sariah has disappeared into the morning. Sean and Jessie stayed the night here last night. I thought it was going to be a whole bunch of people at first, but that tapered off. Everything was cool at Barnfest until it started getting dark. For some reason around that time everyone wanted to leave, so we packed up and left during Mindfold. Here is my capsule review of Barnfest:

"The Special Guests" - I would say that they weren't all that memorable. Of course, no one is ever going to remember the first band. I guess you could say they were mediocre.

"The Timmys" - Awesome. This is my first time seeing them and I had a blast. Or maybe it was due to the fact that it had started raining and my drunkeness had just kicked in and I was dancing in the rain. I don't know, I still thought they were good.

"Funky Circus Fleas" - By this point I was fucking wasted. They took the stage and it sounded really kick ass. They played "Taken" first, which I think is one of their best new songs next to AOK. We were all going apeshit and trying to mosh in a mudpit. We all got real muddy, it was a blast.

"Clone" - By this time I was coming down off my high horse because I was wet and muddy from head to toe, I didn't have anymore dry cigarettes and it was raining really bad. Clone got the best response of the day, but I really don't understand why. Their music isn't really entertaining. It's almost like they are a band that just started playing music 6 months ago. I don't know why but everyone thinks they're great, but I attribute that to the Springfield logic of "If they are cool people then they are a cool band". This is stupid because I know a lot of cool people in bands that suck. Saying they suck doesn't mean I don't like them as people, I just don't like the music they play. Clone doesn't even fall into that catagory with me because I've never met them. Oh well.

"Mindfold" - This would be the last show we would catch for the evening since the rain was getting worse, we were all running out of beer, it was dark as shit and no one could see anything and we were all tired. I guess they put on a good show. I'm not really into Mindfold either. All I know was that toward the end of their set (which was right about the time we were leaving) There were hardly any people up front. I felt really bad for the rest of the bands who were playing later. I'm sure some of them probably decided to cancel since half of the people who showed up originally were gone by nightfall.

That's it for my report of Barnfest. I think Trip Rod was playing by the time we got to our car. The funny thing about Barnfest is that it seemed really well put together, but by the end of the night you realized that things were not thought out very well. The first downer of the day was having to walk a half a mile to get to the show grounds since their original parking lot flooded overnight. Thankfully one of the guys in Hot Iron Skillet took our coolers to the site for us on a golf cart. That was very helpful, but I knew we would have to carry them out sooner or later. Anyway, as we hiked up and down the trail through the forrest we noticed a lot of people setting up camp. I thought this was kind of weird since this is where all the water was going once it started pouring. Oh well. We finally get to the site and it's pretty decked out. The stage was huge and it actually looked like a professional setup. Anyway. As the day progressed the grounds turned into a mudpit and the frigid air caused a lot of people to get extremely cold. We decided to leave and hiked our shit down the now muddy trail through the forrest. This probably took 10 minutes to accomplish because it was so muddy. Toward the end of our little hike through the forest the lights went off on the trail and it went pitch black. Thank god we were near the end though. I felt sorry for the people on their way through going the opposite way. They probably had to sit there for a little bit and wait for someone to turn the lights back on. Anyway, we got back to our car and stripped down as best we could and then made the trip home, ordered some pizza and watched a few episodes of Mr. Show before Sariah and I couldn't hack it anymore and we went to bed.

All in all it was a fun day. Could have been better, could have been worse. The Hot Iron Skillet guys did a phenominal job on this show and I would really look forward to going back next year. I just hope it doesn't rain cause it's cool when it starts, but after 5 hours in it, it's not very cool anymore.

Nothing much has been going on in the Funky camp and Sean is getting bitter again. I think every once in a while (when things slow way down) he is confronted by the fact that he doesn't work and really doesn't do much of anything to improve his station in life. Sean dedicated his life to playing music, so he is doing what he's always wanted to do. I guess that's all you can really ask for. I can tell he's getting depressed by the things he's posting online. I know him well enough to know that things are really getting to him. Not much I can do about it. I'm just trying to keep happy.

I have to start packing, I think.
I really don't want to.

May 5th, 2003
It's May, and this is the last month of saving money before we get our house. People want me to put my site back up and I dont' know why. It's just lame attempts at insight into things I don't comprehend or care to learn about. I'm an asshole, what more can be said about that?

April 30, 2003
I've spent the past week or two downloading the entire 4th season of Mr. Show. That is some funny shit. I'm going to have to take it to B-town and let the guys see it. I know they'll laugh their ass off at it. I've got to help my mother move some shit out of Mary Lou's this weekend and then help my sister clean out the basement of her house. I took Monday off so I didn't end up spending all day moving shit on Sunday then go right back to work. Guhhh.........I need to start excercising and stop eating all the shit I eat. I'm going to wait until after Sariah and I get the house because I know it's going to be more expensive for me to cut out shitty food. I've planned it out. I'm going to take a cooler to work and just pack a sandwich and a drink then I'm going to park at the big hill down the way from Cingular and I'm going to climb it once a day. Sounds fun.

April 28, 2003
This is going to be short because I have to go to work. It's Monday again, that means it's time for another week of glorious work. The weekends just keep getting shorter and shorter. I need to get out and do something. I'm so out of shape that it's not even funny and I've let myself get out of control with my weight. I'm so out of shape that when I walked home from Jill's last night (4 blocks) my ankles were on fire and I was huffing and puffing quite a bit. I've made a decision to end it. I'm going to start taking advantage of my hour lunches and take that time to excercise. I have to do this or I'm never going to get in shape or cut weight. My biggest problem is that I don't do anything during my workday and when I get home I don't want to do anything. A week of not doing anything physical usually means that on the weekend I don't do anything physical either. It's to the point where I stay indoors 85% of the time. It's insane and it will drive me to madness if I don't stop now.

Man I better be on the clock for 10:30. If not I'm going to be pissed when I get to work.

April 24, 2003
What to say, what to say. I guess the only thing to say would be this; life is a beautiful thing, it's those who inhabit it that make it something to woe. My mother had her talk with Mary Lou and sealed the deal. She is leaving Mary Lou's Country Abode behind and moving on to greener pastures. It's a victory for the most part. A triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. Sariah is one of the nay-sayers who never thought this day would happen. I had my doubts, but I remained confident in my mother's resolve. Soon Sariah and I will own our first home and my mother and we will be on our way to starting our own business. I'm happy about this development and I finally feel that we are going to make this happen. For the first time in my life the work I've put in has not been in vain. I just hope that we can sustain the energy we need for the duration until we can finally open the doors.

Funky are playing the Bandemonium sponsored battle of the bands in Springfield. They are convinced they will win. Of course they are. If they weren't then they wouldn't have even bothered entering. This is one of those things that Sean will hold on to for a while because he was the one that put in the work to get it done. All it took was swallowing his pride and conceding to the fact that Rob Hansen is his master and ruler of his future destiny. That is something I would have never done because Rob is nothing and I'm would never give him special treatment as if he deserves it. People in this area make little accomplishments, then stake their claim and ride on the shirt tails of their own limited success. Rob is doing it with the Springfield Concert Web. In his mind he has provided a great service to the local scene by connecting bands together. Yeah, a guy makes a website and hosts links to bands websites from it, now he thinks the musicians of central Illinois owe him something in return. It's pathetic to the point of stupidity. Most bands around this area are the same way, so they can relate to Rob and his low expectation having ass. A band hears one of their songs on the radio and now they feel they have accomplished something. What have they accomplished? They sent a fucking CD to a radio station and it got played on a show that hosts local music. Wow! It's almost as amazing as puting change in a soda machine and getting a soda in return. I cannot stand to be around people who celebrate every little fucking accomplishment like it was the greatest acheivement in history. Come on! Set the fucking bar a little higher why don't you.

I've spent too much time ranting about Rob Hansen and his circus of fools. Taking advantage of people's dreams, that's all that piece of shit is doing. It's sad that I know people who don't understand the reality of their own situation. It's even sadder that they don't listen to reason and insist that they know exactly what they are doing. Craziness! It's all crazy. I need new friends.

April 21, 2003
I'm starting to wonder how much longer all this will last. I mean, I've been working for nearly a year now and Sariah and I have bought some shit, paid off a loan and are now buying a house. This coming from the jobless wonder. I spent so long convincing Sariah that she doesn't have anything to worry about with me quiting my job, but now I really want to quit my job. I don't know. Sariah has been a hard case for months now. It seems like no matter what we do Sariah always has to think we are doomed. It's a real bummer. I'm hoping she changes because I really don't like her attitude and I think it brings mine down as well. I never used to be so angry at the world. I never really used to care about anything. Gradually I slipped into this mode that I'm in and I just stuck. Am I blaming Sariah for my current attitude and outlook on life? Maybe. It doesn't help things any when she is always so negative about everything, regardless of how positive everything looks. It's bad and it only seems to be getting worse. I thought that when I got and kept a job Sariah would change, you know, be more happy and easy going about things. That hasn't happened, but for some strange reason I keep waiting. I keep thinking that maybe if I do "this" right or "that" right she will come out of it. Maybe once we start the business she'll come out of it. Maybe I'm just dreaming of something that can't happen. I can push buttons and I can try my best to arrange pieces to make things happen, but I can't change someone's behavior. I'm not a magician or anything.

The only reason I bring all this up is because I went on a written warning today for attendance and every day I go into work I keep thinking about turning that into a final. I don't know why but I'm in a slump and it's going to end up costing me my job if I don't pull out of it soon. I guess I've just been a little sour because March took so damn long to get through. The funny thing is that I had my vacation in March and it still took forever. April is flying by really. I can't believe it's the 21st already and in one more week it will be May. I imagine may will take forever because Summer is getting married and Sariah is going to be doing that shit up. I'm not looking forward to the wedding because, well I don't really know why. I guess I just feel like I can't be myself at things like that. I would love to get my hands on some LSD for that weekend. That would be the shiznit! HA HA!! I thought about it and getting drunk wouldn't be that entertaining, I won't smoke pot (if I did I wouldn't enjoy myself), meth sucks and I don't do coke. What's left really? I would be happy tripping my nuts off at the reception. Enough of that kind of talk already! It's not happening so why discuss it.

My mom informed Mary Lou that she has had enough and that she is leaving. My mom is already starting to get freaky. I don't like the fact that she is staying there for a month till Mary Lou fills the position because it gives Mary Lou ample time to try to convince my mom to stay. My mom, being scared to death as is of re-entering the job market will allow her to bend her ear and the closer it gets to that magic day the more worried my mom will get and the more power she will give to Mary Lou's persuasion. I've got to be there as much as possible to counter the effects and keep mom on track. I didn't spend all this time at Cingular just to watch my mother fold at the last minute. If she does, so help me god I will be pissed beyond belief. Sariah and I are not buying a house here in Jacksonville if my mom is not going to start the business. I'm moving out west if we don't work on the business. I've already made up my mind about that. No business, no reason to stay.

In my eager anticipation of the Mr. Show Season 3 DVD that's not coming out until August, I am downloading one of the episodes from season 4. This brings me to another topic: BROADBAND INTERNET!!! I'm sick and fucking tired of dial-up. I said I didn't want to pay for broadband just to never be home to utilize it, but damn it I could be doing so much more with the net if I had broadband. Downloading things like these would only take an hour or two instead of a day (week) or two. It's starting to seem worth it to me. Who knows? We might get over to the new house and realize that it's not worth it. Come to think of it, this weekend Sariah and I drove by the house a couple of times. It is very, very clear to us that we live on the edge of the hood. I really wonder if we are making the right decision in buying this house because the neighborhood might be what is driving down the value of the property. We are kind of diving in head first without checking to see how deep the water is. I put my foot down about buying the first house we were looking at, but am I compelled enough to not get this house to say something? I really want a house, but I just don't want to live in the hood. Sariah and I have lived in the white projects and little mexico in b-town, we lived in a trailer court in J-ville and now we are getting ready to move into a home on the outskirts of the hood. The biggest difference to me isn't the hood itself, it's the fact that we are buying instead of renting. I don't know, maybe I'm getting cold feet about the whole thing. Talking to myself about it isn't going to make things any better.

April 18, 2003
Sammy is doing much better now. My mother just got off the phone with me and she is putting in her resignation tomorrow. I guess she expected a bit more a response from me. I really should learn to root people on when they are doing good things. I really have a problem expressing feelings. I guess it's because I'm so far gone that I don't really care about anything anymore. If my mom quits, big deal. If she doesn't, big deal. I am pushing forward with everything and we are finally making progress on getting this business started and all I can think is big deal. What do they call that, Jaded? Ah fuck it!

The sellers approved the contract and now we are down to just saving money. Sariah and I are going to own a home. We are going to be home owners. It's going to be weird. I'm checking my hotmail right now. I got an email from Sean asking about recording. I'm not recording a god damn thing until this house is ours. Then and only then will I even consider doing something like that. I post a lot of stuff passionately. It's a diary, really. It's just a means to an end. I should really learn to scale down my posts to just things that mean something instead of rants.

I finally finished my game of Civilization III last night. I'm glad because I was sinking way too much thought into it (I was dreaming about strategies, okay!). I haven't really given much thought to recording in a while. I'm convinced that there is a bunch of stuff I need first. I would like to aquire a Lawson L251 before I start recording again. It's a cool mic and it's relatively cheap when compared to other high-end large diaphragm condenser mics. That and a nice mic pre-amp. I think that is something that I've been lacking from the get go. That alone would run me $4000. Would I spend another 3 months saving all my checks just for recording equipment? You bet your ass I would. First things first, I have to buy the Mackie MDR-24 and HD824 monitors. I NEED monitors and I would absolutely love to have a hard disc recorder since I'm always mobile when I'm recording. Come to think of it, I've had my mixer and my mics out in my car now for over a month! I should really bring that shit in someday. I'm glad I don't have this up on the internet because if someone stole my car they would be getting pretty much all my recording gear with it.

April 16, 2003
It looks as though I won't have to sell my equipment after all. That's good news because I was starting to worry there for a little bit. I would really hate to have to start from zero again. It took so long to build up the equipment I have now and I don't even have that much. Hopefully from here my inventory can continue to grow and once I finally have enough to where I feel comfortable, I will begin to advertise my services. Why not?

Sammy continues to do well, but he still isn't eating. Well, he's not eating while I'm around anyway. His wounds are healing and he's getting his spunk back. He's been swimming around with Spike all day. I'm glad he didn't die. As for the house, the bank and the realtor are working together to secure the interests of both us and the seller so we can both get what we want. The bad part is that it looks like we will be taking out more money than we had previous figured. I hate these sort of deals, but what the hell are you gonna do when your credit is as bad as ours. At least we will be able to get the house now. That's one concern down at least. We still have to pay Sariah's grandmother back the thousand we borrowed from her. That won't be too big of a deal, but I am really itching to buy some new recording equipment. That MDR-24 will be mine very, very soon.

I'm rapidly approaching a full year at Cingular. I got a call from the director of HR from Security Bank in Springfield and they want me to apply. HA! I saw something on the Illinois Skills Match website about this job, so I said I was interested. They must be desperate if they are calling me at home to come apply. I decided I would send in my application, but I really don't have any intention of leaving Cingular at this time. That is, unless they offer me a lot more money, but it said on the website that the positions starting pay tops out at $10.25. That's just not enough to entice me to leave.

I said a lot of shit about my friends in this last entry, didn't I? I know they won't take it well when they read it. I don't really expect them to. Not that I'm intentionally trying to upset my friends, I just know that they won't like my opinions of their situations. I don't expect anything from my friends at all, I just wish that they would give me the same respect. My friends have a problem with me and a lot of the time the don't make it vocal. Animosity grows from hidden feelings, that's why I like to purge every once in a while and just get it out there. My life isn't interesting at all, I just make it seem that way.

April 15, 2003
Ha. Sammy is still alive and actually getting better. Now if only he would eat. We will probably need to do another water change tonight. The water in the tank is pretty stinky so it has to be polluted as hell. Hopefully Sammy will come out of the funky he's been in because Sariah has been really depressed because of it. We both thought Sammy was as good as dead a day or two ago. He was lying upsidedown on the bottom of the tank barely breathing. Now he's swimming around, breathing normally and his color is starting to come back. If he would start eating again, then I'm sure he will be back to normal in no time.

In a way I'm not happy that Sammy is pulling through. I had this idea that I would sell Spike once Sammy passed on and Sariah and I would get some new oscars. Baby oscars. About 4 to 6 of them to be exact. That plan is now history. With the advent of our convicts having a bunch of babies again (this is the third time in the past 6 months), we will be needing some more tanks soon. I'm trying to convince Sariah into getting another 55 to put in the bottom of the stand we have our 55 on right now so we can put all the baby convicts in that tank and give them more room to breathe. I don't know what we will end up doing. With me possibly having to sell all my recording equipment including the Layla (something I never factored in before) I don't know what to think. I would prefer to not sell my equipment, but what can I do? Sariah really, really, really wants this house. I kinda want it, but I'm more intersted in the business. I'm almost using the house as a ploy to get my mother to leave Mary Lou's. Not like she hasn't been thinking about that on her own already, but I think I had something to do with the inevitable decision on her part to leave. Even if the business doesn't work out, mom will be making more money at a better job. I ignored my mother's jobs and whatnot for years as I tried to concentrate on my own future. Once I realized that my future was limited I guess I had to open my eyes and start looking around at the world. Everything should work out. There are a lot of obstacles in our way, but I'm not letting that stop me from achieving my goal. I didn't let it stop me two years ago and I'm not stopping now.

I'm debating on whether or not to start my game of Civilization III back up. I know if I do I'll be playing the fucking thing all night long. I need to go to the store and get some food. GRRRRRR!!!! I WANT TO FINISH MY DAMN GAME!!! I'm really, really close right now and I would like to think that I have a shot at finishing it tonight. Yeah right! Who am I kidding. The game has slowed down to the point where each turn is taking nearly 15 minutes to make because of all the players in motion. I've already said too much. Anymore and I'll start to come across as a hopeless nerd.

I'm reflecting back on things I've written and decisions I've made. I haven't been to B-Town in over a month and I don't know how long it will be before I return. The question isn't when will I go back, it's will I ever go back. I really wanted to stop drinking and have succeeded at that, since I only drink when I'm around my friends. Come to think of it, that really is the only time I drink. I never just hit a bar on my own or have a few with Michael whenever he offers or anything. I only drink around my close friends. I wonder what that says about our relationship? Perhaps we've been drinking together for so long that I can't think of doing anything else with them. Our drinking experiences have changed however. We are all the "old guys at the party" now. I remember those guys at parties I went to. They always huddled hung out together in one room and really didn't associate with the other people at the party. That has become us. If not that, then we just hang out together at Sean's or Ottwell's house and drink. When I was younger I remember having fun while drinking - going out and getting into silly adventures. Now the fun is gone and the sobering reality of age is creeping in. I can't hold on to my teenage years like some of my friends desperately try to do, but I can move on. I guess that's kind of what I'm doing. My friends will always be my friends, but how much a part of my life they are will essentially be up to them. I've been seeking out my friends for years now and I'm just burnt out on it. Which brings me back to another reason why I took my site down. I feel the need to type this bullshit out all the time, but I no longer wish to defend my feelings about others in my life to people who will never understand where I'm coming from. My site being up for all my friends to see prevents me from really engaging subject matter that I want to type out due to who's feelings will be hurt or whatever. Everytime I post something about FCF, I get the band, one member at a time, contacting me and asking me what I meant when I posted yadda-yadda-yah. I've said it before and I'll say it again; The members of FCF live in a fantasy world that is as frail as an eggshell. I'm not catering to the egos of my friends and their band. They don't want to hear things like: they will never making it as musicians staying in this area, or they are wasting time chasing small dreams when they could be doing so much more.

Chris is going to be getting married soon. Is it a mistake? Sure is. Why? Because Chris is taking for granted what marriage is and just waltzing into a situation that he isn't prepared to handle. Tracy is okay, but she does have a temper. She reminds me of Sariah in some ways, but Chris is in no way like me. I don't let Sariah dictate to me what I'm going to do or how I'm going to act. And no I don't do what she says and try to pass it off like it's something I want to do to make her happy. I do things because I want to do them. Tracy isn't fond of the band and that is a fact. No girl in a relationship with a memeber of a band is cool with the band. Ottwell thinks that he's going to get married, continue to live on his unemployment until he gets a settlement from his former job which he can also live on for a few more years. This is all well and good, for a single man. He doesn't realize that once he get's married he will be sharing his life with Tracy. Not that he doesn't do that now, but really and actually they are independent thinkers as they exist now. Once that bond has been made.........the union dictates all. Chris will find himself doing things he never dreamed he would do or caring about shit he never thought he would ever care about all due to his plans to wed. Is this what Chris really wants? I don't think he even knows himself. He's got a pretty good idea, but I truly don't believe he really knows at all. I do know one thing for sure; his marriage will either cause him to leave FCF, or Tracy to leave Ottwell. Tracy hates Randy with a passion. I've heard the way she talks about him and the things she says doesn't come from someone who is just a little peeved. She hates Randy with a passion and I'm sure that once Chris and Tracy tie the knot, she will drop the hammer about Randy. It won't be anything big, just little things like "I don't want you to invite Randy to parties at our home anymore". Randy, being the emotional sponge he is will obviously respond in some not-well-thought-out over-emotional way and that will escalate things to "I don't want Randy IN our house anymore". Follow this path to conclusion, you see only two roads ahead. Randy will give Ottwell enough shit about his old lady's opinon of him that Ottwell won't be able to take it anymore and will leave the band, or Ottwell will surprise everyone and take up for Randy, forcing Tracy to re-evaluate her position in the relationship. If Tracy is emotionally overreactive like Randy (which I'm pretty sure she is) then she too will react in a not-well-thought-out manner. Can Ottwell and Tracy live together in harmony. Sure. Can Ottwell, Tracy and FCF live together in harmony? I sincerely doubt it.

I watch my friends make mistakes like they meant to do it, then they come to me and ask me to pretend that they meant to do it. I don't care what my friends do with their lives, but I'm not going to shut my eyes and live in fantasy land so my friends can feel better about the mistake they've made. It's called being sensitive I suppose, but I don't believe in all that. Tim's relationship with Mandy is something I don't even want to get into because that is just mistake after mistake after mistake. Who am I to judge? I've made plenty of mistakes in my life so where do I get off judging Tim or Ottwell on their decision making process. I guess I have about the same right to judge them as anyone has to judge anyone. What difference does it make? I had a lot of high hopes for Tim and truly believed that he could make it if he tried. The problem is, he didn't try and it became very obvious to me that he wasn't going to try either. Tim's life is made up of doing what he could to find a place in life, then settling and settling and settling again. If the boy had ambitions in life, I would like to hear what they are. In case you haven't noticed as well, I'm not an advocate of child birth. My mother spooked me when she told me that my dad agreed to have children to make my mom happy. It didn't spook me in the sense of "My daddy didn't want me", but more along the lines of how I knew exactly how my dad felt about the matter. At every turn I end up making the same decisions my father made before me, although I have literally no contact with him and haven't in years. I tell Sariah that I don't want to have kinds until this, or until that. The truth is, I don't want kids. I would be a horrible father because I'm lazy and I'm too focused on myself to actually care about a child. The childs upbringing would suffer because of it and in the end I would have produced a child with the same problems and difficulty that I have. This is the biggest turn off for me. I have a hard time coping with life because it doesn't make sense to me at all. I don't understand why people live the way they do. I don't understand why people just cope with a flawed system and silence talk of creating a different one. I feel utterly alone and I would hate to think that I would have a child who would grow up to feel the same as me. A child who recognized the world in the same way.

I always go back to my childhood when I was tested at genius levels and try to determine at what point things started going wrong for me. My mother blames my father and herself for not making enough money to nurture my intelligence. I can't blame either because this is the society we live in. I think at a very early age I understood how silly school was and how the things they taught us didn't really amount to much of anything. There were some things I learned and learned well, like english and grammar. When it came to composition, sentence structuring, grammar and basic english studies I had a 12th grade level of understanding in the 6th grade. I used to do my sisters high school english homework for her because she was struggling with her typing class at the time and wasn't doing well in english. Little things like that stick out in my mind. Every english teacher I've ever had has praised me for my level of competence of the subject matter. The one constant problem that always seemed to linger however is that I would never do my homework. Teachers couldn't understand the rationality behind it and my explanation was never suitable. I have always felt that knowledge is not something you flaunt. This is not the ideals they teach you in school, in fact it is the opposite. They teach you one of the most disturbing and destructive ideals you would ever learn throughout the course of your life and pass it off as a good thing and something you should strive to adhere to. That flawed ideal is that of pride. They sell you this idea that doing good in school and going the extra mile is something that you can be proud of and people will respond to that. Yeah, people who's pride you've just crushed will respond to it. Learning concepts like pride begins seperating the college students from the factory workers early on. Does a child take pride in his or her grades or are they more mindful of their image? Do they act out in school to get attention or do they bully the other students who are weaker than they are? The dividing lines are drawn very early, but not before pre-conditioning is imposed. Bah! I never really subscribed to any of that nonsense. In fact, it didn't make sense. Things like valentines day were a bizarre and foriegn concept to me. Why would people exchange little cards saying "be mine" and "I heart you" to one another? We learn the value of popularity and attractiveness and how it will effect our lives, but moreso we learn to now harbor resentment and jealousy toward those who are no better than we are. Schools make sport of children and get paid to do so. This is an evil establishment and should rightfully be brought to it's end.

The concept of doing idiotic homework assignments to me was stupid because I had to spend all day in school just to come home and focus on MORE SCHOOL! School for me was like a prison they depict in the movies (without the rape, of course). I hated school and everyone in it because I was different and being different is not rewarded. I never really wanted rewards. I just wanted to be myself and co-exist with everyone else in a normal environment. No one would let this happen because people are cruel and evil by nature. People love to inflict harm on others, that is one of the barbaric traits we still carry to this day. We have invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam's regime in no more than a months time. People were frothing at the mouth over this action, for and against. In many ways, it resembled the last presidential election we had. People violently conflicting over what? Nothing, that's what. A flawed idea is for a few to live comfortably while the majority live by any means necessary. It breeds hate, deception, crime, drug abuse, murder, rape and all the bad things the so-called conservative right seem to feel they are here to oppose. Hate begins by drawing a line in the sand. Partisan politics is as much a breeding ground for hate as race, color or creed. It's labeled as competition, but competition is merely a polite term for war.

April 14, 2003
I've been away for a little bit. I'm replaying an old game called Civillization III and most of my time has gone into that. One of our Oscars is dying. It must have contracted some sort of disease because it has been freaking out for the past week or so. It's finally to the stage of no return. I guess we never really considered the possibility that Sammy might actually be dying. We just thought that he was acting a little funny. Anyway, I'm sure he will pass on in the next few days. Sariah and I have been looking on line for a way to put down a fish, but the ways are either too gruesome or we don't have the means available. It's kinda cruel, but we are just going to let him work it out. You never know, he may actually survive!

More on the house. My mom was looking into this management position at an agriculture store in Virginia, but the position was already filled before she was able to apply. What does that have to do with the house? Well, Sariah and I got turned down from the mortgage broker because of our credit so we have to go with the US Bank offer which requires us to pay 20% down. We will be able to come up with $4000 by the time we close, but we need $9000. Our realtor is looking into a few options, but what may have to happen is I will end up selling all of my recording equipment in order to get enough money for the downpayment. The seller has already agreed to put $1700 forward and out of sheer coincidence if I am able to sell all my equipment for the price I will be asking for, we will hit the marker exactly. That pretty much means that either I won't be able to sell it all in time, or I won't get what I'm looking for out of it. This all really sucks because I have to re-buy everything I sell. I won't be buying it all back though. There were a few things that I could have reasonably done without and not thought twice about. The Rode NT4 was probably never going to get used again. I wasn't very fond of the sound of that mic right off. I'd gone into recording situations blind and ill-prepared in the past. I would like to correct that in the future. One of the ways is making sure I'm not in the same room as the instruments I'm recording. If I can get that luxury, then I really don't need a fixed stereo condenser. I'm also not going to re-buy the Alesis Studio32. For a mixer, it's unreliable and not very good sounding. I'm going to save the money I would spend on that and get some nice pre-amps. This time around I'm not going to get crap, I'm going to get a lot of the things that I want. I've been thinking about whether or not I'm going to re-buy the Solidtube. I liked the sound of it, but let's face it, I'm not in the greatest of environments when I'm working with this mic. I don't know really. I don't even know if I'll re-buy any of it. It's not like I was doing a whole lot of recording before I offered to sell the stuff. I like to work with audio, but unfortunately I live in an area that doesn't provide the greatest habitat for talent. Most of the bands around this area are rock and roll rejects who wouldn't know a good song if it hit them upside the head. There are a few cool bands who I have had the pleasure of working with in the past, however there are only like 30 bands in this area and 28 of them blow. I know I'm not supposed to have an opinion in the matter, but when the bands write the most uninspiring songs imaginable it's kind of hard to not knock them. I guess you would just have to hear a few of them yourself to know what I mean.

April 06, 2003
Okay so I didn't have an update tomorrow. Sue me! It's not like I'm uploading this shit anymore so it doesn't really matter. Sariah and I are still waiting to find out about the house. We find out tomorrow if this mortgage broker will be able to work with us. The realtor has high hopes, but that's not saying much. Everyone has had high hopes about this. The only ones who don't have high hopes anymore are Sariah and I. Fucking business. It's all bullshit, you know. Nevermind the fact that Sariah and I have held jobs for a while now, Sariah even longer than me. It's all bullshit, once again. Sometime's I really miss Four Pointed Sisters for the simple fact that it let me express my bitter hatred of everything in musical form. I can still listen to the old stuff, but I just don't have that outlet anymore. I imagine if I wanted to do it again, the guys would want to get back together, but I just don't want to. I keep thinking that maybe if Sean had FCF to rely on for shows and the whole "real band" thing, 4-PS might work again. Alas, that would never happen because I'm tired of betting on hunches. Sean would be tied up with FCF and that would be that. I only have the weekends free and that is not changing. It would be like CWT, only more frustrating because it would be practices instead of writing stuff in a sequencer.

Sean is starting his "phase" thing again. It usually coincides with the time I decide to stop coming to Beardstown so much. Sean can't fathom burnout. He's way to obsesive to get burnt out, also he's the type of guy who would fight through those feelings just to keep the group doing stuff together. Not that it's that much of a counterpoint, but no one is breaking their backs trying to get over to J-Ville to see me. It's pretty much a one-sided issue with Sean that can't be discussed because he doesn't understand and never will. I could come to B-Town and hang with Chris, but lately he's been really obsessing over the band and more or less his hatred of Randy and I really get tired of hearing it over and over. Ottwell's a great guy, he just needs to find an outlet for his frustration (other than dumping it on a bent ear). I can't hang with Tim because for years now I've got this feeling like Tim really doesn't like me and I can't shake it. Either he doesn't like me or he feels threatened by me. Something like that. Either way it's a very uncomfortable feeling that I don't like feeling. Tim's got a kid now so I imagine that his time will be well consumed with that. Everyone probably thinks I'm a dick because I haven't gone over to see Tim's child. Well I didn't rush over to see Tim's XL-1 when he got it either, it's just something I know will happen in time. I could go over and hang with Chad, but Chad has become reclusive (almost as much as me except he's that way 24/7 where I'm like that in waves) and he's hard to hang with now. When it's just you and him hanging out and drinking the fun ends pretty quick in the evening. That reminds me, another big reason I stopped going to B-Town was to quit drinking. I'm really fucking sick of drinking all the time and after a while it becomes the never ending habit of every weekend travelling to B-Town and drinking with whoever will have me. I hate it and I'm sick of it. I want to do something that doesn't involve drinking for a change, but no one get's up early enough during the day to do anything. Not to mention if they actually do get up early it's not really that big of a deal because they spent the night before partying it up and are completely spent the next morning and in no shape to do anything other than mope around their own house. These are my friends. Drunks and drug addicts all. I really need to find a life that's right for me.

Damon. Well, with Damon it's different because he doesn't drink and doesn't do drugs, but we always end up not doing much of anything. Perhaps it's me, I don't really know for sure. I just can't believe that we never do anything when we hang together. It's always going to Springfield to get something mundane, then going back to either J-Ville or B-Town and standing around and talking for hours on end. I don't really have any complaints, but I would still like to do something else once in a while. Well, we do go to movies and whatnot, but I'm talking about something like we used to do. Then again, we aren't kids anymore and hiking and shit at our age is probably not such a great idea as people aren't so forgiving of 30 year old people trespassing on their property as they would with 13 year old kids. It would be fun, but I'm so out of shape that it's not even funny. I've been thinking about signing up at a gym for some sort of excericse/work out program, but I just don't know when I would find the time to do it. I would like to because it would give me something to do when I get home from work, that way I'm not just sitting at home and stuffing my face all night long. I sit all day at work and then come home and sit all night till I go to sleep. Too much sitting and snacking. I'm a heart attack waiting to happen. I need to get out and get active. I know I would feel a lot better if I did. I think I would really enjoy myself a lot more if I could just take to first few steps. I'm really starting to realize that I can accomplish things in the long term if I just keep at it. The only problem is that food is SOOOOOOO good! I would put addiction to food over an addiction to heroin anyday. I've broken free of cigarettes, soda and alcohol already and now it's slowly approaching the time where I have to get out there and excercise. I'm not looking forward to that, but it's all part of the great plan I suppose.

Assuming the house thing pans out, we'll all be on track to begin working toward the business. I've been thinking that with all the free time the business will afford me, I should really take advantage of it and start working out then. Sariah and I could both do it that way we can keep each other going. I think it would work out, it's just a matter of time really. Speaking of time, I've got to go to the store.

April 06, 2003
Spent another weekend doing nothing. I'm so cold I am typing really slowly and I can't seem to speed up any. My fingers are almost numb. I don't know why it's so cold in here. GRRR!! I'm out! Nothing much going on here. I'll have an update tomorrow.

April 04, 2003
I've decided to not upload the site. I'm going to just add to the journal offline. Eventually I might put it back up, but right now I find that I have nothing to really say and no one to say it to. My friends come to my site and read my stuff, but that's about it. I'm sort of on the outs with my friends. I'm trying to let go of my youth and move on but with my friends it's a hard thing to do. My friends have the band, so they don't take responsibility very seriously. They don't have to. They are in a position where they can focus on the band and not have to trouble themselves with jobs and shit. I used to live there. I was happy for the most part when I was there. When you are there you can dream incredible dreams and push for a future that will never possibly happen, but in your mind you are always "so close". I live in the real world now and I hate it. I don't have it enough to ever go back to where I was 3 years ago, but I still hate it. My life is pointless, but you know what I've learened? All Life is pointless. Look around you.

People who say "God bless our troops" are so delusional that you can't even talk to them. They believe we are in Iraq fighting a war against the new Hitler and bringing salvation to the middle east. When someone is that out of it, it pays to just ignore them and continue on with your day. When you realize that the majority feel that way, you realize that the other inhabitants of the country you dwell in are complete morons. If you draw a line in the sand, 8 out of 10 people will walk it on instinct. They'll think that it's there for a reason and this opens the door wide for them to create the reason in their own head. Scumbags wait for a popular reason to pop up then lay claim to it like it was there idea or they speak on behalf of the line drawer. Naturally people seem to think that these people are more in-tune with the line than they are so they naturally follow them since people are too make their own decision and be wrong. That's pretty much what it comes down to. People are too afraid to be wrong so they follow others who claim to be right that way if anything happens, they can pass the responsibility of fault to the guy they were following. Playing stupid is another word for it, but with America it's not just an act. 8 out of 10 people in this country are stupid. They're stupid because they limit themselves. What kind of moron limits their own capabilities? If you don't understand why we have laws that say we have to have insurance then say something about it. If the answers that are given don't really answer your questions then don't just cope with it, search for the answers you are looking for. Don't just agree with people for the sake of agreement. Follow you're own ideas.

There are people out there who feel that we are doing the right thing in Iraq. These people didn't even know where Iraq was 2 years ago. People don't bother to learn about history because it's too hard, or they just don't have the time. Why study history when you have politicians to pass the blame on to. Republicans are the best because they act like this is all Clinton's fault. 9/11, soaring gas prices, massive layoffs, deficit, outrageous taxes, etc. All Clinton! Yeah, you know those terrorists were just biding their time with Clinton but it was Clinton's lack of going out and finding these people and eliminating them that made him bad. Now does that sound like something a rational person would say? No. Well republicans say it all the time. Who needs Saddam when we had Clinton. When republicans go to sleep they have nightmares about the guy. Anyone who says Reagan was our greatest president is a moron. Correction, anyone who says Dubya is our greatest president is a moron. Dubya hasn't done anything but step back and let the military run the show. Think about it, Bush was a moron for the first year he was in office and that is how most of the world viewed him. 9/11 came along and all of a sudden Bush is "Mr. Baddass". He's been riding the backs of the military for 2 fucking years. Bush has approved so many government altering bullshit bills that he has literally wrecked this country. We are living in a country that is run by it's national security agencies. Bush just opens his mouth and delivers to the American public what they have been trying to say for years. Like zombies the citizens of the US sing "YEEESSSS MRRR. PRRREESSSIDDDENNNNTT!!!!" and we throw away any progress we were making with the Clinton administration. Intelligent people of the nation are attacked for being smart enough to not accept what Bush is doing and having the balls to question it. The freedom that these idiots go on and on about, but are afraid to take advantage of themselves is what they are attacking and they are too stupid to realize it.

GRRRRR!!!!!!

Enough! I'm tired of talking about how stupid people are. It just makes it so hard to do anything in this world when there are so many stupid people in your way. God bless our soldiers. Fuck that! I wish with every fiber of my being that someone launches all out nuclear war against the United States. Why would I wish for something like that. Because people here are driving me nuts with there stupidity. Does anyone else notice how the UN is now slowly being headed by Germany, France and Russia. Doesn't it bother anyone that most of Europe and Asia will soon be united as one under the UN and we will be the defiant outlaw country? No, because people don't get bothered with anything until it's right in their face and there is nothing they can do to stop it. The US is the only country to use nuclear weapons in a time of war. Think about that. The US destroyed 300,000 civilian lives in Japan to protect it's armed forces from staggering casualties. Think about that. We are a juggernaut that is hell bent on world domination but the methods are so slippery that they can't simply be exposed in the light of day as with other nations faults. We have the best minds at work in our nation and most of them are used covering up the shit our government gets us in.

April 03, 2003
Well, I guess I should just put the damn site back up if I'm going to keep adding shit to it. I thought I would just give it up and let it go, but I really don't have anything better to do. I'm at home, alone. Sariah is at her mom's house and she is just visiting. I guess the bank is going to clear the loan as long as we come up with 20% down. We can't, but the way they have it set up we might be able to work with the seller to get it done. That is, unless the seller decides that they don't want to deal with the headache. I wouldn't blame them if they backed out. It's a bad deal and it sucks that it's the best we can get, but what the hell else are we supposed to do about it.

My mother might be moving with Sariah and I very soon if things between her and Mary Lou continue to deteriorate at the rate that they are now. My mother said she was going to try to look into a job at Horace Mann as a customer service rep. I wouldn't. Not for an insurance company, no way. I mean all I have to deal with are assholes who don't want to pay their bill. Customer service for an insurance company has to get some real shitty calls from people who are really suffering. I would run screaming from a job like that. Mom's like "It's $10.25 an hour!". So? It's not like 10 bucks an hour is really anything anymore. Shit, they're talking about raising minimum wage to 6 something an hour. That should tell you where the state of our economy is headed soon.

I'm getting deeply involved in Hot Talk 970 AM. I can't help it, FM stations in this area suck and I'm sick of bouncing around between these god awful stations looking for something decent. Hot Talk 970 is becoming more and more entertaining to me the more cynical I become. I guess it's the older I get too. I'm only 26 but I feel like I'm 46. I never was partial to the fast lane really, but some excitement would be nice for once.

April 01, 2003
April Fools Day, and coincidentally polling day for local government elections. I've decided to pull my website from the internet. So why am I continuing to add to this journal? Well, I don't really know anymore. That's the whole reason I took down the site. I don't know why I'm doing any of this really. I guess I'm just taking drastic measures to stir up some change. I don't know. We find out tomorrow (or the day after possibly) about the high risk financing to get the house we signed a contract to purchase. Hopefully all works out well and we get the financial backing we need. If not, I think I'm going to buy a Mackie MDR 24. There is one for sale on ebay for $1,290.00. That's a pretty good price and I would be a fool to not snatch it up for that amount. This is really assuming that we give up on the house all together if we get denied by the high risk people. I suggested going back to them with a higher downpayment, but I don't even think we would be able to pull that off. All we can do now is wait and hope.

March 29, 2003
Sariah found out Friday that paying off the Household Bank loan didn't do a damn thing. So now we have to try high-risk financing to see if we can get approved through them. We find out Wednesday whether or not we are going to be getting a house. It's not looking good really. I regret putting Sariah through all of this, but I think she wanted to go through it just to see if we could get it. Things are not looking very good on that end, but this may well be what opens up plan B. I'm 10 months in at my job and in another two months I'll get my second vacation. More importantly, I'll finally have been at a job for a year. More important than that, I can transfer to a different call center. If Sariah and I can't get this house, then there won't be a business. If there is not business, then there is no reason for me to stay in Illinois (at least not central Illinois). So Wednesday is really the realization of two different things.

Today is Saturday and it's 2:58 P.M. Sariah is just now waking up and I've been working on this damn website for a while now. I bought the game "Rainbow Six 3". It's okay, but I would rather get Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. I looked for it Thursday (when it was supposed to have come out), but I couldn't find it anywhere. I've been playing Rainbow Six for the past 2 days and it's intense, but it's also really frustrating at times. It's the first game I've played where I have to use the entire keyboard to play it. Nothing sucks more than being trapped under enemy fire, getting the bead on an enemy soldier and realizing when you pull the trigger that you forgot to reload your weapon. D'oh!

March 25, 2003
You probably have noticed a change with the site. I'm hoping to leave it this way. I was getting pretty tired of the whole flash thing. The old flash chooser was okay, but I felt it needed to be updated. I tried, but it just wasn't working out for me. I replaced it with something I kinda whipped up in photoshop. I like the new frontpage a lot more, but that's just me I guess. I might go back to a flash chooser, or maybe I'll just make a flash site. I don't really want to do that because I will not update it once it is done. Maybe I'll think creatively and make something cool out of it. Who knows. Definitely not me!

March 24, 2003
Guh. Back to work. I'm really sick and tired of this same bullshit. Every week it's the same thing. Go to work, come home, dick around on my computer till Sariah gets home, watch a movie, go to sleep, wake up and repeat cycle. My weekends are either spent drinking in B-town, or doing nothing in J-ville. This weekend was eventful. Tim is now a father and Chris Ottwell had his bachelor party. I didn't go to the bachelor party. Call it what you want it's basically just hanging out and drinking as usual. I'm trying to stop drinking and I'm finding it nearly impossible whenever I'm around my friends because they all drink. Once you spend a sober day you would otherwise spend drinking or drunk, you start to realize "Hey! I'm doing the exact same thing I was doing 10 years ago! I've made absolutely no progress!". Well, maybe that's just me. I look at my present situation and I wonder if I can make it better. It's been an uphill battle and a lot of it has been breaking free of the temptation that has kept me bound up for so many years. I've been slowly trying to get rid of bad habits like smoking and drinking, but it's hard when everyone around you does it. I've managed to quit smoking, but I still drink and when I drink I smoke. I've stopped drinking soda and would eventually like to cut all junk food out of my life. These are all just steps to personal recovery, but what I'm more concerned with is my place in life. I've done what I could to get out of Beardstown (obstacle one), now I've been successful at staying at a job. The next phase is realizing my future and making it a reality. I'm still stuck at the crossroads wondering if I'm making the right decision. Buying a house and trying to start a business are huge responsibilities. Not to mention, if the business fails, I'm in debt for well over a quarter of a million dollars. I don't make enough money myself to payback that kind of debt so once again I will be putting undue financial stress on those around me.

The way I look at it is this: I'm not making any promises as to the outcome of this business. I'm simply saying that it is a chance to do something rather than eek out a meager existance playing it safe. I don't mind taking financial risks because it's just money. I think that this business can succeed if it has enough people who believe in it backing it up. I believe that if done right this business can flourish into others. It's all just a few years away to me and it's well worth the effort in my book. I've almost worked a full year at Cingular in an effort to make this possible. Buying a house was my idea because it gives Sariah, my mother and I a place to live until we have enough money saved up to start the business. I wouldn't even dream of buying a house if Sariah and I were just going to be moving, which may still be a possibility as well. I don't want to trap myself here if this business is not going to happen. I'll never last at any job without an agenda or something to believe I'm working toward. Working for financial gain and material possessions is not enough of a drive for me. Either this business is going to happen or I'm moving. It's basically that simple.

Blah, blah, blah. I've said all this stuff so many times before I'm starting to get sick of hearing it. If you asked me if I thought Tim would ever have a kid, I would say eventually. When I was buying things left and right on Ebay, Tim told me that I should watch myself. He said that I was digging my own grave with that stuff. His point was that I was eventually going to get in over my head like he felt he did. This perplexed me because everyone knew I had already went in over my head with Full Sail. I thought it was odd then now I think it's even more odd with Tim having a baby. Not saying that it was a mistake, but I know I would never have a child in the current financial situation I'm in and mine is better than Tim's. I guess I'm just afraid of having a kid. Why not? I think that having a child before you've acheived your personal best caps your childs ability to go the distance. Everyone says, you've surpassed your parents so why do you think that your child won't surpass you? Have I really surpassed my parents? I would be my father if I had nothing left to believe in. I'm idealistic just like he is. I work for a living and will have nothing to show for it when I get laid off just like my mother, so really the only way I've surpassed her is that I've went to college. Big deal! I may have surpassed my parents, but not by much. Not enough to truly believe that if I had a child it could go on to do great things. Everyone has that delusion in their mind that their child can be anything. Yeah right. If you come from nothing, chances are your staying in nothing no matter what you do. Damon is my proof of that. Damon has been going to school for 10 years and has struggled with jobs, school, cars, debt. He still lives in the projects and still works at a measly paying job and is still going to school trying to do something with his life. It's not like he has never had the opportunity, he has made these decisions himself because once you've exceeded the expectations of everyone that you care about, you've got no more direction so things start to become more and more cloudy. Damon lost sight of what he was trying to do and therefore his future didn't materialize.

I've got to get to work.

March 21, 2003
Garageband should change it's name to loserville. It's forums are highly populated with nothing but 40 year old, mid-life crisis having mother fuckers who claim to be things that their not in a vain attempt to make themselves seem important. How can someone be that delusional? Ugh!

Today is Friday and payday for me. Another paycheck going in the account. In one more week we will get the notice back from Surpass about the paid in full balance so we can take that to our bank. From there it will be a long wait for us. Even if we have to wait a week it will be a long wait. Sariah should be coming home soon. I've been debating whether or not I should go to B-town this weekend. I probably will, but who knows.

I'm having a bit of fun with pictures of George W. Bush. I've been superimposing a zombie face over Dubya's and calling it "Zombie Bush". Here's one of the pics.

March 18, 2003
I guess it hasn't been that long since I last updated my news column. I just realized how crappy it is to try to get really intricate with flash design. Now I have to keep changing the preliminary chooser to keep it updated with the new news entries. I've been thinking about ditching the whole thing, but I don't know. I might just go back to the old one. Still trying to decide.

I haven't heard from Tim recently. He's supposed to be having a baby but I haven't heard anything about it other than his girlfriend was going to have labor induced this past Monday. Sean posted something about not hearing anything either. I'm sure he'll be the first to know since Tim's girlfriend and Sean's wife's sister are good friends. I haven't really talked to Sean in almost two weeks, maybe even longer. The last time we met up was really strenuous on everyone and I think we were pushing things too fast. Funky is back in full swing again so they are going to need their time to get back into shape and get in tune with one another.

On the Funky side of things, I guess they have not only closed off practices on Wednesday, they are not even practicing anymore at all. They are getting together and venting with one another. I guess they consider their personal problems with one another something that can rationally be worked out. To me it's like forced denial. You can't force yourself to like someone you just don't like and you can't suddenly have something in common with people who you really can't relate to. I remember being in situations like that. Try to struggle with misery to make what you think is a good thing work, or bolt from the whole thing and be happy. Those were decisions I had to make a lot considering the fact that many times in the past I've been in a band with big babies who didn't want to actually practice their respective instruments, but wanted you to acknowledge them as good musicians.

In one of many "Randy" discussions with Chris Ottwell, the subject of musicianship came up. Do I think Randy and Aaron can play guitar? Well, yes and no. Both Randy and Aaron can play what they are comfortable with, but they cannot learn how to play other styles of music and can't learn guitar parts that they themselves did not write. You can't really condemn them for that, though. A lot of guitar players have trouble learning songs that they themselves didn't write. Even Tim had problems with that. Not really learning the notes (sometimes he had trouble with that too, but....) but rather the character of the part being played. Tim for the most part would play notes without much feeling and never really experimented with what a guitar can do. Tim was and still is a great guitar player, but in some area's he really isn't all that great. I'm the same way too. I can learn a bunch of different songs and mimic the characteristics of the player, but I can't really create anything original. I try, but it's usually a blatent rip-off of a song that I like. Randy and Aaron are the same way as well, but they are different breeds of guitar players even between themselves. Randy has been playing guitar longer than Aaron, but that's not really saying much. Randy is more or less a song writer and not a guitarist. The guitar is his instrument of choice to drive the melody of the songs he writes. Aaron is a guitar player who tries to focus on the parts being played. Unfortunately with Aaron a lot gets left behind in the process of the parts he writes. Aaron developed a style of his own that really only he can play. When played by someone else the character of the parts isn't the same, especially when played by Randy because a strange rock riff becomes power metal. Neither Aaron or Randy really practice their instrument in the traditional way, but neither did I (on guitar, at least). Do I think that Randy and Aaron could get better? Of course! We all can get better.

Speaking of getting better, Bub really needs to do this. I'm sorry but Bub's been playing bass for damn near 10 years now and he still has no concept of the beat. The shittiest part about the whole Bub thing is that he gets pissed off when people tell him he needs to practice so that translates into people avoiding the subject all together. By avoiding the topic all together, Bub never seems to feel like he has a responsibility to actually learn these things that he is lacking, hence he will never get better as a musician. He buries himself in low frequency grumble and zero tone and just follows the prominent guitar line through the whole song. What Bub doesn't seem to realize is that by his own neglegence he is bringing down the quality of the sound. Working with him on the CD's is worse and sometimes I feel like I should just track the bass myself, but it's not my band, therefore it's not my problem. It brings me back to everyone looking to me for a great recording. I can't turn a shitty, sloppy and thrown together sound into solid gold. No one can. The performances have to be right from the get go or it will all sound like shit in the end. It will be pointless to record another FCF CD if none of the people playing the songs get tight. You can hear confidence. When Bub does the old stumble-about on the fretboard, comes in a milisecond or two (or three, or four) late or allows a note to trail off when it should have been abruptly stopped, he makes the overall sound sloppy. It's the same with Sean and his wild kick drum foot. He's either driving the beater through the head or rapidly tapping the kick drum head with little variation in between. That is hard shit to work with folks and it's indicative of how well they can hear their own instruments really. Sean has never really been able to hear his kick over his BLAZING HI-HATS!!! So natuarly he's not going to have his kick drum beats refined. Bubba can't hear anything he does hardly so he can slop on through with little to no effort. Randy is always tight when it comes to the guitar parts and Aaron does a good job too, except when Randy and Aaron haven't collaborated and neither person knows what the other is playing.

RAG RAG RAG!!!! I'm just venting. I haven't even gotten to Ottwell, yet. Ha! Ottwell is a good singer, but he has this tendency to sing these really annoying high notes ALL THE TIME. I've been trying to get him to bring it down in register, but he can't do this during practices because he can't hear himself. I don't blame Ottwell for singing the way he does because he's just trying to hear himself and it's kind of hard when you have the INSANELY LOUD HI-HAT, dualing loud guitars and a big boomy rumble surging througout the room. Ottwell can be really fucking amazing when you get him to really work out a song and set it in stone. He can come up with vocal lines that are absolutely great and even put harmony lines over them as well, which makes him nearly invaluable as a singer right there. Of course, Ottwell can also blow big time too. When he's just going off with no direction in a room with other instruments a lot of the stuff he comes up with are lackluster at best and the rest is pure shit. Some people think the vocals for "Solid" were basically me telling Chris what to sing, but this is not true. Chris created ALL the vocals for that song, the only thing I did was paste different takes together to create a frankenstein-like master of all the prime cuts. To me that song is magic, but others seem to shrug it off as nothing special. Ottwell definitely did something good with that song and a lot of the CWT tracks as well. I remember once he asked me if the only reason he was the singer of CWT was because I coudn't find anyone else. He really lacks confidence in himself.

I think I'm going to upload the Allen tracks tonight.
Yes, I think I will....

March 12, 2003
Well nothing new. Still working. My new schedule sucks ass! I'm sitting behind the guy I first sat with when I was in training and learning the ropes, ha! I'm coming off a cold that has drained the life out of me for the last 6 days. I'm glad for that at least because it's harder than hell to work all day while sneezing every 5 minutes and wiping my nose. I need some tea. I finally listed to the Allen stuff. It's pretty good. The new song sounds better than I thought it would. The newest riff I'm working on is cool, I think we've got the layout for the whole song though, we just have to solidify it. That would put the total number of songs up to 3. I'm supposed to be writing more riffs, but I think we are taking a break for a little bit. I might bring the guitar in and just goof off for a while, but that's about it. Maybe if I come up with a decent riff or two I'll record it and run over it with the guys when we practice next.

There is still some question over what the full line-up of Allen would be, but really I would just like to write some more songs and work them out then lay them down to CD. I don't think we are really going to play shows anytime soon so it's not a matter of life or death if we fill the bass and second guitar position. I really feel we need two guitars in order to reproduce a wall of sound live, unfortunately, with that comes a second opinion so Sean and I are really kind of questioning that move right now. Basically Sean and I want to hammer out the details of the songs and see what becomes. I really need to sit down with Ottwell and go over the vocal parts. I would like a clean recording of just drum tracks so I can get Ottwell over to my house and we can work on a solid and stable vocal line for the songs, Will that ever happen? Who the hell knows. All I know is that it's time for me to get ready for work.

March 10, 2003
Damn! Back to work already! I was really starting to enjoy all that time off. I guess it's better this way since I wasn't doing a whole hell of a lot during my vacation anyway. Today I start that batty new schedule that I agreed to so I could stay on Adam's team. What was I thinking? Grrrrr! I've got to go in today at 10:30, but tomorrow I don't go in till noon. I hate working noon to 9:00, but it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of it from here on out. I get a vacation in 3 months. I might schedule it to fall right on that date, but I don't know. I'll have to wait and see what happens around the homestead.

Sariah and I are still trying to get a house. We might not be able to get it if Sariah's credit rating doesn't improve within the next 30 days. We are doing everything we can to get this done and it's just a matter of time now. Hopefully everything will work out okay because Sariah is really into getting this house. I don't blame her, I am too. I think it will work out, but then again I always think things will work out. If we get approved then all we will need to do is get the money up for the down payment and the house will be ours. Assuming that happens I will probably take my vacation in June so I can move all of our stuff over to the new house and get it all set up.

I'm trying to get my friend Damon to let me borrow his Nintendo Gamecube so I can play Metroid Prime. I won't be doing a lot of recording stuff for the next few months, so I figured that it would be best if I just got my hands on a game system and played some games for the next month or so. I might end up buying a Playstation 2, depending on a few things here and there. Everything is still up in the air. I finally listened to the Allen stuff that Sean, Chris, Bub and I recorded a week ago. It sounds pretty good. I might upload it this week to the site since I won't be playing Metroid! GRRRR!!!

Well, it's off to work I go. Let's hope I can keep it together.

March 05, 2003
Sariah and I signed the contract with the realtor to begin processing the paperwork for the house. We put down $350 in earnest money and are waiting to hear back from the realtor to see if the seller accepts the terms of our agreement. If he does, then it will basically be up to US Bank to approve us for the loan. Everything is looking good and hopefully we can get this all situated so we can get this house.

In other news, Sean got his drums yesterday. They are nice. He still has to order two tom mounts, but other than that he has everything he needs now. Things are getting a bit tense in the old FCF camp, but I'm sure it will work itself out, especially with spring approaching. More shows will mean less conflict between the members of the band.

I just got back from Canton. I went there with Damon so he could pick up his check from work. I didn't have anything else to do at all. I'm just checking out cnn.com, which seems to be a daily habit I've picked up from work. I'm disgusted by the media. I don't have cable and I don't listen to the radio. The only form of news I read is internet news and the only reason I'm really paying attention is because of the whole Iran/America conflict. I say this only to illustrate my absolute hatred for mass media. I find that news that other people chatter on about daily really means nothing to me and shows people are engulfed in are likewise nothing. When confronted about their addiction people will claim that they are not addicted.

March 03, 2003
Today Sariah and I went to look at the house I was talking about on Friday. We found out early this morning that the house was already being sold before we even got in to see it. We got to do a walk-through of the house and I wasn't really impressed with it. The inside was a lot smaller than I had thought it would be. The realtor showed us another house in a shitty part of J-Ville, but the house was bigger and seemed a little better on the inside, but the outside looked like shit. It was the forerunner for the day until the realtor took us back to his office and showed us some documents on a few other houses they were showing. We got a list of a couple houses and we're going to check them out tomorrow. One of the houses we will be checking out tomorrow is a nice one story house that Sariah immediately liked just by driving by it. I liked it too, but I won't be sold on it until we see the inside.

The rest of today was spent jerking it. We went to B-town so I could get my car and I hung out at Sean's house for a while. Sariah showed up after going to her brother's house and then we took off. Sariah came back to J-Ville and I stayed in B-Town. I went to see Damon and hang with him since I haven't seen him in like a month.

I've decided to sell my recording equipment so Sariah and I can have money for the down payment on a house. It's not really that big of a deal because I'll eventually buy it all back, but the key word is "eventually". Right now it's just a liability because I don't make any money recording and I probably never will in this god forsaken area. I need money and I'm willing to make the sacrifice.

To tell you the truth, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I have little to no interest in anything anymore. My vacation is turning out to be exactly what I feared it would be; a dull and boring extended weekend with nothing to do and no-one to do it with. Well there's Sariah, but I don't think Sariah and I have truly enjoyed doing anything together in a very long time. Damon should be coming by this week and Tim said he would stop by after work sometime. All of this brings little comfort and in less time than I would prefer I will be back to work at a meaningless job doing things I can't understand for reasons that are not my own, stubbornly and relentlessly orchestrating a collaborative effort where I end up the sole participant in a naive and silly attempt to secure an uncertain future that I can never fully grasp. Things will begin to spin out of control as I lose focus and tear down everything I tried to build up. I need direction.

What is the point of continuously struggling with failure if you are simply going to fail? The storybook trials of life have a protragonist facing the odds, losing along the way but arrising triumphant in the climax. Life is not this way and you will find that more and more the losers in life are ALWAYS losers. Failure becomes a blanket that you can wrap yourself in and feel some sort of security if for nothing else, the idea that your can always know the outcome of any scenario presented to you. I wish I could just go to someone and ask what I should do. The fact is I don't trust or respect anyone enough to give any outside suggestion weight or merit. I don't believe that fear of failure is what is preventing me from moving on because I'm already failing. I guess I just feel that I have nothing of importance to offer anyone. That's not true, but I don't know what else to say.

March 01, 2003
YES!!! Today is the first day of my vacation from work. The thing I was worrying about is now finished and I can relax and concentrate on getting the house. We are going to be waiting a while (3 months) before we can afford the down payment, but perhaps if some generous persons in our family units would like to contribute, we could get the house sooner than July. This is all just a bunch of hoopla until the house gets inspected by FHA and get's cleared. If FHA will approve the house then I will be a happy happy guy.

Today, Sariah will be going to a hockey game with her sister. Unless I can think of something to do, I'm going to be stuck at home doing a bunch of nothing all day. I might contact Damon. I've been meaning to get a hold of that mother fucker for a while now, it's just slipped my mind every single time I guess. I also need to borrow his Game Cube and play Metroid Prime (Sariah will just LOVE that!). I don't know what else to do. No one is doing a god damn thing, Sariah and I don't have very much money and we have an entire week free to do whatever we want. If nothing happens soon, I'm getting in the car and driving to the rockies. BWA HA HA HA!!!!

Remember this is all coming from your good friend, Jim!

Thanks Bluddy!

February 12, 2003
I would like to take this opportunity to stress the fact that my opinions are my opinions and my opinions alone. If you have a problem with anything that I have posted on this site take it up with me, don't threaten people I know like a coward. This goes out to all of you who can't seem to understand these simple concepts and continue to stir up shit for no reason other than to make yourselves look important.

Why do I have to do this, because of children. Emotionally fueled, ego-frail children who threaten people I know because of things I say. Ridiculous bullshit that I'm not playing a part in anymore. If Rob Hansen from the Springfield Concert Web wants to come to my website, get all teary-eyed over my comments about Ray Lytle (possibly because they are involved in some homo-love pact, I cannot say) and threaten to play tattle-tale and subsequently get some good people I happen to have worked with recently banned from his show, then in my opinion from that point on Rob Hansen will be nothing more than a fucking joke with no sensibility whatsoever and who is only out to serve himself. If Rob Hansen from the Springfield Concert Web wants decide to drop this whole thing and acknoledge the fact that my opinions are my own and not that of others (duh!), then I will applaud Mr. Hansen for making such and obvious and wise decision. If Rob Hansen wants to use the opinions expressed on MY website to hinder the future of certain bands on his show then that is his own doing, not mine.

Notice how everything was nice and quiet then out of the blue Rob Hansen shows back up in my life and I suddenly get "the balls" to post a link DIRECTLY to my "Ray-hating" post on the frontpage of the SCW. Yeah. Just like I claimed that Shane from Quadrapet and I were the best of friends in my post on his frontpage. I bet Rob cries himself to sleep at night. Just a thought. I would post captain dipshit's emails on this site, but he's already taken the liberty of paraphrasing his emails in a post on my messageboard. He says he won't be back to read a response, but I think we know that's not true. He'll be back, just as he was compelled to come here in the first place. I really wish he wouldn't because I'm tired of wrestling with children. I'm going to bed now.

February 11, 2003
Well I just spent the last two hours calculating every single withdrawl and deposit that Sariah and I have made to our checking account because our stupid fucking bank says we did not have the funds in our account to proccess a few checks which is total bullshit. Sariah's figures are accurate and this is a case of the bank fucking us over. We will no longer do business with Jacksonville Savings Bank because they are incompitent. This is the second time we've come up with insufficient funds. The first time was due to an error they made in which they deposited Sariah's check into savings instead of checking. Now there is no reason for it to be screwed up, unless once again they put one of her deposits in savings instead of checking, but nothing is showing in the savings book about it so we are going to have to take it up with the bank. Regardless they've lost our business. Why keep your money at a bank when the bank has no idea how to keep accurate records? GRRRRRRR!!!!

Sariah has new about the house, but I have to wait until she get's home to hear it. She left me a message on my voicemail, but there were so many people talking in the background I couldn't understand really what she was saying. Oh well. It's only a few minutes away so I'm going to finish up here. Oh yeah, I have to make myself a backdoor so I can access this site from work. I hate networks!

February 9, 2003
I finally figured out this stupid MX problem I've been having so as you can probably tell the site has now undergone some definite changes. I hope you enjoy them because I was really getting sick of the old look of the site. not like this new look is much different, but I just like it a little better.

Last night was fun. Sean, Chris and I regrouped as Allen and wrote a new song. There is a part to the song where we do a total homage to The Who, but it's cool and kinda funny. It doesn't matter to us since we are just doing this for ourselves. It's a cool song, nonetheless. I actually starting to look forward to future sessions. I would like to write an albums worth of stuff and then record it, but knowing the way things are around here you just cant tell half the time what is going to happen. We didn't name the new song, but I'm sure that will come with time. Before we got to that, Chris and I worked on a new song for Chinese Water Torture that we are calling "Chess", the reason was because we were playing chess while we were writing the song. Hopefully the song itself will translate the same power struggle feeling that we had during the chess match itself.

Last night we also got drunk (big surprise) and watched the video of FCF's trips to Indiana and their show. Everyone was there (even Aaron). Later that night we played Scategories.It was pretty fun I must say, a nice end to an all-around good day.

February 6, 2003
I don't know if any of you have noticed, but my messageboard is all screwy now. I would like to fix the problem, but damnit if Flash MX isn't giving me grief. I just don't have time anymore for anything.

In the news today: Our convict cichlids have had their second batch of babies already. Last night I spent about an hour getting all the first batch convicts out and putting them in our 20-gal tank with the scat. What happened to the jewel cichlids you might ask. Well we pawned them off on Sariah's mom. Damn fish, they were so lazy that when I took them out and put them in the bucket for transport they just laid on the bottom and held themselves upright with their fins. We are going to try to keep these convicts breeding and hopefully we can eventually sell these little devils. In the not too distant future I'm going to buy a larger tank for the Oscars. Once the second batch get bigger I'm going to take them and batch one and put them in the 55 gal so they can eventually pair off and we can have multiple breeders. I would definitely like to do that with oscars, but the size of tank you need to properly sex oscars is phenominal (150 to 200 gal!!). Plus you need like 30 of the damn fish just to get started. Oh what a life for fish.

In other news, the guy we are trying to buy a house from is going to help us secure a loan. First we are meeting with his bank to see about getting approved there for an FHA loan then getting the house appraised at $40,000. If they won't go for it, then we are going to approach the place we got approved at in Springfield about the same deal. It's imperative that this house appraises at $40,000 because if we can do this our landlord is putting up the $7000 we need for a down payment in order for us to get the loan (3400 down + paying back our household bank loan in full). I'm hoping that it works out with the bank here in J-Ville so we can start the proceedings and next month Sariah and I can move in. If all else fails, Sariah still believes that the guy will rent the house to us. This is of course speculation on her part. It all still remains to be seen.

Finally, my second AT4050 is on it's way and should be arriving either today or tomorrow. That will bring and end to my wild mic purchases for now. I've got much bigger obstacles to hurdle now.

February 3, 2003
Met up with Ken yesterday and talked about the website. Ken isn't interested in doing a lot of stuff with the first one (their are going to be two phases of the website), he only wants something simple. I'm going to be working on that for him over the next month or so. I'm finished with the Quadrapet CD, I'm just waiting to hear back from Shane to make sure that there aren't any changes or anything he wants done. I'm still waiting for my second AT4050 to arrive. Uhhhhh......I've got to run. I have to go to work. I'll add more later tonight.

UPDATE: Well I took tomorrow off because someone has to go get our stuff back from the detective and it's obviously not going to be Sariah. What am I complaining about? She did the laundry so the least I can do is go take care of that. I'm also going to go to Ottwell's and drop of the long overdue memory cards. I figure with nothing better to do Chris and I could work on some beats if he has the time. You never really know what might happen in a day. I'm now putting the very final finishing touches on the Quadrapet CD. I also mixed down "Suite No!", which I was going to leave to Shane, but this is like the third time he's suggested that I could. I kinda decided he might want me to, so that is what I did tonight, plus I adjusted the levels of the guitar tracks of "Something" and "City of the Sun". I also raised the intro part to "Armadillo" and tweaked the snare on "Monkey" again. Finally, I cut the radio-friendly version of "Get Your Mouth Wired Shut". I guess that's going to be the next song the band puts on Bandemonium. Quadrapet struggle for months and months to acheive the top spot so they could be put in regular rotation on QLZ and they made it happen. Now I hear that Ray Lytle was only talking about the first band to go 6 weeks in a row, not ANY BAND. Fuck Ray Lytle. That cock sucker is a no good brown-nosing faggot. All he ever does is snuggle up to bands who might be going somewhere in a vain effort to try to break his fat ass into the industry. Guess what Ray, MTV doesn't want some fat fuck singing butt rock tunes about lesbians on their network and neither does anyone else. The sooner you get that through your lard-encased cranium the better off we all will be. You're small time Lytle! Deal with it!

Well I feel better now. Hope the worlds ready for "Quadraphenia" because it's going to blow your ass away!

February 1 , 2003
Well today is weird. Today is Chad Knous' 28th Birthday. Today will also be remembered for decades as yet again another day of mourning. The space shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas while re-entering the earths atmosphere. As of yet no details have been gathered as to what may have caused the fatal explosion, but the only thing the public is being told is that It couldn't have been a terrorist attack. Give me a break. If someone is truly stupid enough to believe that terrorists can hit our space shuttle then they themselves are a true danger to society and should be inprisoned!

In local news, Chad's official Birthday party is tonight, but I've already celebrated Chad's B-day with him last night. One long night of Grolsch and a beer that I must say is one of the smoothest import beers I've ever had. It's called Warsteiner and it rocks. I'm going to pick up some more for the party tonight. I really need an antacid!

January 28, 2003
It's 8:47 in the morning and I'm typing this up because some fucking dipshit went down State St. in Jacksonville and slashed everyones tires. I'm waking Sariah up so she can take me back to drop the car off. This is a bunch of bullshit and it couldn't have come at a worse time. Stupid fucks! I swear that if they catch the bastard that did this........Meaningless crime sucks. What kind of loser goes around in this kind of weather at 4:30 in the morning and slashes a bunch of tires? That's Jacksonville for you though. Idiots, every last one of them. I spent nearly an hour dicking around with the tire since I couldn't find the tire jack I went to Wal-Mart and bought a new one (and some gloves, it's cold out there boys and girls!). After that I came home and put the donut on and took the car back to Wal-Mart only to be told that they wouldn't be able to get to the car for 2 and a half hours. Lucky me! I can't call into work because the day is closed. Also, I haven't heard back from the seller about that mic, but I did receive an email from ebay saying I lost the bid. Now I have to find out whether or not the seller backed out on me. It doesn't matter either way to me, in fact I wouldn't mind at all if he backed out now that this shit has happened. I'll fulfill my end of the deal if he wishes to proceed, I have no problem with that, but if he decides to opt out there won't be any complaint on my end.

January 27, 2003
Sariah and I had a nice day yesterday. We really didn't argue once I think (which is good). First off we went to check out the house we are planning on buying. It's old and it's pretty small on the inside. Not too small, just smaller than what I had imagined. The upstairs is pretty cool, although smaller than the downstairs. The steps going to the upstairs are narrow and steep. Sariah wants to put a bedroom upstairs. I'm just thinking about climbing thoses steps every night and decending the stair case every morning. Not that I'm too lazy to go up and down stairs, I just think about falling and what that would do to either one of us. The kitchen is huge and so is the bathroom. It has a deck area on the back and a huge double lot yard (two property taxes). There is a lot of room for expansion, but we don't really want to do too much because we could pour $10,000 into this place and it would still only be worth what we paid for it. The neighborhood isn't eally great, but I would have to admit that the trashiest yard is by far the one we are thinking about buying (which means that it won't be trashy after we're done with it). The big concern for me is the yard. Mowing this yard is going to be a pain and I don't want to buy a riding lawn mower, but then again I don't want to spend all damn day with a push mower either! All in all I think the house is good. It's definitely going to need some decorating and slight remodelling, but other than that it is going to be a good starting house, I think.

After we got done looking at the house we went to Springfield and went to Lowe's and started dreaming. We spent 2 hours at Lowe's going up and down every isle and why we don't bring a note pad along with us so we can write down the shit we want, I will never know. After that we drove all the way across Springfield and I got a sunday from Culvers. I think we went to Pier 1 after that (same old boring stuff). I really don't know why we continue to go to Pier 1 because ever since we first started going there in Orlando the place has not gotten any better (in fact they've gotten rid of a lot of the tuff we liked). I miss GOOD furniture stores. I think one of the things we are going to do when we get this house is get new furniture (god knows we need it!). The old living room set is okay, but it's still not great. I think back to the Orlando for that experience. The couches at Park Studios were the shit and I would love to get a living room set that rivaled the comfort and quality of those. Ahhh, the memories!

Well anyway, after we left Pier 1, Sariah was still deciding where to go while I kept driving nowhere. We ended up at Parkway Pointe so Sariah wanted to go to Target. I refused because I am really starting to hate Target. I've been there one too many times and I'm not really looking forward to going back anytime soon. Well, we then thought about going to Friar Tuck's so Sariah could get some of her favorite wine, Electra. Once we got over to the parking lot, she decided she didn't want to buy any today. Then she said we should go to the Shoe Carnival so I can get some shoes. Naturally I'm like "No!", but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I really did nead shoes. I told Sariah we could go, but she couldn't try on any shoes or look for shoes for herself. She agreed and we went to Shoe Carnival. We tried on a bunch of different shoes, not a one fitting my wide feet. I put on a pair of 14s and they still were not wide enough, but my feet did resemble the feet of a duck. After trying on numerous shoes I came across some Sketchers that looked like something Sariah would wear. I figured I would be funny and try a pair on, but what happened was I had finally found a pair of shoes that fit. Sariah was ecstatic! She definitely wanted me to get the shoes. I tried on another pair and they fit as well. Both shoes were comfortable and all, but they are Sariah-style shoes. Guh! We liked both pair and I didn't want to choose between them. I just suggested we buy both as a joke. It didn't really occur to me what happened until we were walking outside with both pair of shoes. Sariah still doesn't know about the mic. I'm sure if she knew I just spent nealry $400 last week, she wouldn't have been so giving, but Sariah was happy. Sariah was happier than I have really seen her in a long time. I think the shoes helped.

After the shoe incident we watched About Schmidt. A warning for anyone who intends to see this movie: YOU WILL SEE KATHY BATES NAKED!!!!!! I wasn't prepared for it, I just thought they would do one of those bust shots with implied nudity. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!!!! They showed the nudity. Other than that, it was a good movie. I wouldn't say it's worthy of an Oscar or anything, but may a nomination or two. Later that night when Sariah and I got home we rented "Simone" and "Glengary Glenross", I fell asleep halfway through Glengary Glenross because it was already 2:30 in the morning. Simone was funny, but really campy too. All in all, I would say Sunday was a pretty good day, a day I would really like to experience again. I missed Ottwell's birthday party/superbowl party, but I'm sure that I wasn't missed much once the beer started to flow. Today is Ottwell's birthday and although he probably won't read this I'll wish him a happy birthday anyway! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER OTTWELL!!

UPDATE: Huh huh huh. How's it going folks? It's your old pal captain dipshit welcoming you back to another exciting episode of "Who wants to buy a microphone?". In today's episode, we see Charlie Dango blow even more money that he and his lovely wife Sariah are trying to save back in order to hopefully move into their first home together. So what was it this time, you might ask. Well it just so happens that over the weekend Charlie was outbid on a microphone that Charlie refused to go any higher on than $275.00. The following Monday, Charlie received a message from Ebay, the place where Charlie goes crazy and blows his whole savings account that stated the microphone he was outbid on over the weekend was now being offered to him at the last highest bid he made. The person who outbid Charlie retracted his bid due to the theft of his car and the seller took it upon himself to contact Charlie and present him with this great offer. Being the sucker for a deal that he is, Charlie contacted the seller and worked out the details so he could purchase this fabulous mic at a fabulous price. Will Charlie ever learn? Who knows! Stay tuned to the next exciting installment in this on-going series where we find out the answer to burning question; Will Charlie ever tell Sariah about the mics he has been buying without her knowledge?

Ah yes, my pettiness knows no boundaries. I bought ANOTHER Audio Technica AT4050/CM5 off of ebay today during work. You know, for a $600 microphone, the AT4050 really gets hawked for cheap on ebay. I'm sorry, but I couldn't pass up the chance to buy this mic for over half off it's actual cost. The only downside to the deal is that it doesn't come with a carrying case, but the case for the AT4050 is nothing special - not like the Solidtube and DP2 cases. The first AT4050 I bought was so good that I just couldn't pass up this deal. The seller had two, so I imagine if I was really stupid I could have negotiated a deal to get both for like $400, but I'm already going to be in the doghouse over this mic. I've decided that I'm going to tell Sariah about it, but not the first one. Dont' be surprised if my next post is about the upcoming divorce.

January 23, 2003
Well I'm happy. I just got the Audio Technica AT4050/CM5 out of it's box. It's remarkably small! I really was expecting it to be bigger, but that's no big deal or anything. I guess I'm just used to the physical size of the Solidtube which is much larger in comparison. I have yet to test it because it's ice cold. Just so I can note this for future enjoyment (yeah right!), it is currently like -5 degrees out. Today the temperature was either between 8 and 5 degrees and a real pain to be out in (literally!). My mic was in transit all day today in this cold and then it was put outside by my good friend Ewop who I had the mic shipped to (as to not be found out!). Why did he put it outside? Well, because he went to a bar and I had to pickup the mic from his house and I didn't want to go to the bar and drag him away to get it. So, here I sit typing this entry instead of playing around with my new toy. I'll be playing around with it soon enough.

As a nice recap. Here are the mics I own to date:

AKG C1000s (x2)	AKG D-112	Shure SM-57 (x3)

Audix DP2	AKG Solidtube	Rode NT4

Samson R11 (x6)	Audio Technica AT4050/CM5

......and that's about it. Pretty soon I imagine I will be buying another mic assuming an act of god happens I could wind up getting another AT4050/CM5 for $200! I'm crossin my fingers! I really want to get a quality large diaphragm condenser. Not that the Solidtube and 4050 aren't nice, I would just like to get one that screams FUCKING FANTASTIC!!! I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I'm getting close. (The finale will be the Brauner VM1S which costs $8700.00!!!)

January 21, 2003
Man! All day yesterday my phones were suspended. I didn't even know until after I got off work and tried to call Sariah. Cingular suspended my account due to a past due balance that was in error. I knew about the discrepency about 10 days ago, but we didn't get the bill until about 5 days ago. Yeah. 5 days after receiving our bill and they suspend my service! I already had the employee rate plan group "working" on it (yeah right!), and my manager was looking into it. This thing didn't get resolved until I called customer service (using someone else's cell phone number because thanks to Cingular's stupid IVR my number kept getting routed to a department that was closed, but the recording said it was open till 9:00!). The person I spoke to was able to issue the credits appropriately, unlike the first customers servcie rep I spoke with who couldn't help me due to policy in Cingular that you can't handle an employees account when you work in the same call center as them. Very stupid! If I wasn't an employee I would leave Cingular for this exact thing. What makes matters worse is that Sariah called in and got some bitch on the phone who gave Sariah a hard time and said "If your husband really works for Cingular then he should know that suspended accounts are charges full price". What the bitch didn't bother to realize is that I suspended my own account on vacation status where the price drops to $6.95, but since she was so stupid that she refused to assume that the customer may be right, she spouted off some bullshit from a viewpoint that was neither correct, nor in any position to know the truth. She continued telling Sariah how we owed everything that was shown and when we paid it back we would be charged $39 dollars per line for restoral fee (it's $36 dollars, she's a moron!). It's ridiculous because the department Sariah was speaking with was collections, and they don't know their own ass from a hole in the ground. The collections department costs Cingular so many customers that it's not even funny. You know, in a competitve market such as wireless phone service, you would think that Cingular would try to be a little more lenient with their customers, especially when it was a mistake on Cingulars part that is causing all the problems.

This is the bullshit I have to deal with in my job everyday and I'm experiencing it first hand now. I can truly relate to the customers who have had this problem. Cingular needs to get their act together and put collections and customer servcie on the same info track instead of telling collections to cancel and suspend without remorse and let customer service clean up the mess, then telling customer service to save as many customers as possible. How can we keep these people as Cingular customers when they are already pissed because Cingular just fucked them out of a bunch of money? Some common sense needs to be injected into upper management soon or this company is going belly up quick!

January 20, 2003
Christ almighty I drank WAY too much Saturday night! 2 cases of beer in about 3 hours! Craziness! Well, Sariah got to talk to the guy who is selling the house. He is going to figure up how much he has left to pay on it and then pretty much is going to let us rent it until we can pay back our outstanding debt and improve our credit rating. That's cool! We should be able to move in within the next month or two. I'm hoping it falls somewhere around my vacation so I don't have to spend an entire weekend moving then go right back to work exhausted.

My mic hasn't arrived yet. I'm anticipating it's arrival either today or tomorrow. The tracking number that was given to me doesn't work, so I'm once again placing a lot of faith in an ebayer (something I swore I would never do after the Raymond Borgfeldt incident!). I just hope it doesn't turn out that way or worse this time.

I've got to get to work.

January 18, 2003
So much typing. Man I'm in debate city right now on garageband.com and it's not even over music or something I said. I'm also debating a bunch of Cingular-bashers on a yahoo group forum (not that Cingular doesn't deserve a good bashing, I just don't agree with the reasons). Likewise I am chatting it up on two seperate audio forums homerecording.com and artistpro.com, both of which are really pretty stale, but sometimes interesting. That's about it for now. The cymbal that I ordered for Sean arrived yesterday and they got it before the show (thankfully!). The ebayer received my money order and shipped my mic out yesterday. I should be getting that fairly soon (it's going to B-town so I don't have to hear it from Sariah!). About the house, I don't know if I've discussed that before but Sariah and I were looking into buying a house soon. Well the bank told us that we have no chance in hell of getting a loan with my loan default. So, it's time to pay the fucker off! It really pisses me off that it has to be this way but I don't have a choice anymore I suppose. If I want things that involve credit, then I'm going to have to bite the bullet and repair my credit. Since we can't get the loan until we repair our credit, we are going to talk to the guy selling the house we are interested in and see if he will lease the home contract for deed or if we can rent it until we repair our credit enough to get the loan. I sure do hope he will let us because that would be super cool!

Ugh! Too much typing! I'm going to go watch 12 Monkeys! Later......

January 12, 2003
Wen't to the movies last night and saw Adaptation. It was hilarious and cool. The movie is a real smart movie (kinda like Being John Malkovich). You really have to pay attention to get the joke, but it's an extremely funny movie. Today Sariah and I are going to go see About Schmidt. Hopefully that is good because I hate sitting through really bad movies.

I'm in a bit of a jam. I bid on something on ebay that I didn't really expect to win and now it looks as if I'm actually going to win it. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have (especially at the price I'm getting it for) but still I didn't want to spend any more money on recording stuff for a while. Sariah is going to kill me. Oh, it's an audio technica AT4050/CM5 large diaphragm condenser microphone. It's supposedly really good and a close rival to the top of the line Neumann models. If I win, I'll be getting the mic for $380 dollars (It's price in Sam Ash is $600!). I would like to win, but then again if I was going to spend nearly $400 on something through ebay I would rather it be a Line 6 Pod Pro, you know something that I don't already have but need. Oh well.

January 09, 2003
I'm waiting to go to work now. I have to get some money out of the bank and put gas in my car. It's Thursday, but I wish it was Friday. Why? I really don't know.

I tried downloading lightwave from Kazaa last night, only to find out after I spent 4 hours downloading the piece of shit that the file was corrupt. Damn! It's my destiny I suppose. I'm still working on the new chooser for this site. I can't get any of my html links to work, so I'm going to have to study the help portion. I can't stand the fact that Macromedia has to change their scripting language for Flash everytime they release a new version. Why they can't be like Adobe I'll never know. Anyway, I need to start learning all the new functions anyway so I can utilize MX to create the site for Ken. A lot of the stuff I used to do is still there, the scripting is just different. Hopefully I can get started on that soon.

Ugh! The alarm is going off. That means it's about time to go.

January 06, 2003
I'm currently working on a new design layout for my website. It will keep a lot of the same stuff (since it's already in place), but the main chooser has changed. I hope everyone enjoys it because it took me a while to create.

I will probably finish up the chooser tonight then move on to start work on Clown's Folly. Assuming I can get a good mix of that going and Shane and the guys like it, I will be pretty much finished with the CD (a few minor changes aside). We did the psuedo karaoke jam at Tim's apartment Saturday. Sean, Jessie, Shannon, Little Sean and Adam, Chris, Tracy, Jake, Loren, Tim, Mandy and I were the parties involved. We went through nearly 54 beers and were REALLY REALLY LOUD!!!

January 03, 2003
I'm nearly finished with the Quadrapet CD. It sounds good, I think. I'm going to try to drum up some interest in holding a stupid karaoke party this weekend. Am I doing something cool, or am I digging a grave? Only time will tell.

I don't have a lot of time to finish this post, I probably won't even upload it right now. Shit! I've got to burn off a copy of that Quadrapet stuff!!!

Well it's Friday night, 10:54 P.M. and I'm at home fixing the mix on some Quadrapet songs. I fixed the mudiness of Mouth and now I got a good mix of Armadillo finished. I made some additional changes that the guys requested, but other than that I've just got to remix the song Quadrapet and mix Clown's Folley and I'm done. Hard to believe that it's almost over really.

Sean emailed me today about starting a record label. I sent him a huge 6-page manifesto on starting a business. I would like to start a business like that, unfortunately it takes money and lots of it (something none of us have). If things go well this year Sariah and I are possibly going to buy a house here in J-Ville and I'm going to convert one of the floors into a recording studio (so we'll be looking for 2 story houses). Assuming that we could do that, it would tie up all the money I would be making probably all year. Hell, the downpayment on the house alone would take a few months to save up anyway. I don't know. Building a studio seems like a stupid waste of money if I couldn't get any clients and around here that's a strong possibility.

January 01 , 2003
Happy New Year. It's the start of a brand new year for all. Weeee!

Anyway, the NYE party at Ottwell's wasn't really all that great. We all hung out and drank and talked. Other than that what is there to do really? Funky didn't jam because Sean didn't want to and Aaron left early. There was no real highlight of the evening, just some stuff that happened. Sean, Tim and I spent a good portion of the night upstairs playing acoustic guitars and having a good time. We all wanted to do karaoke, but Wal-Mart was closed by the time I got home from work so I wasn't able to pick up any karaoke CDs. I'm going to get some this weekend. Before we can really do it right I need to also invest in a little portable PA system and a TV. It will be a lot more fun that way than trying to rig everything through an underpowered stereo. When we did that stuff at my old apartment in B-town we blew the tweeters in my speakers. I would really like to have a system that is portable and can be all-inclusive. I'll do it one of these days.

In the meantime, I'm continuing my work on Quadrapet's CD. I got a mix of "Get Your Mouth Wired Shut" with the new tracks up. That leaves only "Gag Reflex" and "Clown's Folly". I still need to fix the mixes of both "Armadillo" and "Quadrapet", but that shouldn't take any time at all really. Beyond that, Chris and I worked on some of phase 2 of the Chinese Water Torture CD. If we get some more time like that to work on stuff then we will be able to whip out phase 2 real quick, but then again we didn't really do much. I added beats to the melody line Chris created on one song and started a new song. Chris had already passed out by the time I went into writing the new song. We still need to finish our work on phase 1 so we can get that all mixed and ready to go. It will be a while.

Tomorrow I find out just how much discipline I will be put on at work since I missed a few days last year. If you've read my message board entries as of late then you know what I am talking about. Assuming that I do not lose my job I will really need to start focusing on work for a while. I also need to get on the ball and schedule my vacation pretty soon. I'm kinda worried about it because taking that long of a break from work will likely cause a shock to the system when I return. I'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Sariah and I might be moving. Sariah's mom and her husband are looking for a home and we are possibly going to move into his old apartment. It's an upstairs apartment on the other side of town and it's $50 more a month for rent, but we do have on-site washer and dryer hook-up. That would be worth it if you ask me. Especially since we spent about $50 a month doing our laundry every month at the laundromat. We're still debating it. I guess we will be making up our minds within the next week.

2003 is going to be a long year. Yeah right! I say that, but the past 7 months have flown by. Oh yeah, I noticed I didn't add this in the news section for the time I went without Dreamweaver. I got a Rode NT4 stereo condenser mic (It's cool, but I've only used it once so far!) and an AKG Solidtube. The Solidtube has already paid for itself if you ask me. it's a wonderful mic and was exactly what I was looking for when it comes to vocals. The only other large diaphragm condenser mic I've used lately is an AKG C3000 and I wasn't too impressed with it's performance. The Solidtube is nothing like the C3000. It's really nice and quite to boot. I love it.

Well, enough of my yappin. Let's Boogie!