4-29-03 (01:28)
found a good city job to apply for.
looking for a new job is a really depressing process.
kings won today and that was both expected and pleasant. i only saw the
last 29 seconds, but seeing the score was nice anyway.
my life seems to be in a state of suspended animation right now.
kdvs fell short of last year's earnings. that is pretty lame.
4-28-03 (13:00)
it's raining pretty hard right now...actually hailing too.
4-28-03 (01:38)
the new madonna single is one of the worst singles i've ever heard.
the newest boards of canada, which is actually a reissue of the oldest
boards of canada, is quite good.
4-27-03 (00:55)
kings lost today which isn't good, but as long as they win the next game
everything will be okay.
updated movies list.
saw four movies yesterday, one today.
kdvs is way short of its goal. may even come short of last year's earnings.
that would be tragic.
back to work tomorrow. oh well.
4-25-03 (01:10)
started looking for jobs again. i don't know what to look for, but i started
looking anyway.
today is my friday and that means that the weekend starts now. yay.
got to see the lakers lose today. i should say that i got to see the timberwolves
win since it was more about them doing what they needed to do rather than
the lakers self-destructing. it was one of the most poorly officiated games
i've seen and the timberwolves still won, in overtime, in la. they should
feel pretty good about that, but not so good that they get sloppy. as much
as i love to see the lakers lose i really want them to win this series
and the next series so the kings can play them. it just won't be right
if we don't get a chance to avenge our previous losses.
saturday is a big sports day with three playoffs games and the nfl draft.
i haven't seen a movie in the last two weeks.
i should get some rest.
4-24-03 (00:58)
about half way through the new prince paul album right now and i'm not
impressed. so far it seems to just rehash a lot of the old hip-hop conventions....inter-album
skits, posturing, and stripped beats. granted he helped create some of
these conventions, but i'd like to hear more progressive stuff coming from
him. it also has more of a gangster rap feel than i expected considering
the direction he seemed to be going with handsome boy modeling school.
today wasn't too shabby. pledged to kdvs twice for a total of 55 bucks.
michael moore is coming to the mondavi center in october so i'll pick up
tickets for that asap.
now that i've looked at the liner notes in the prince paul album i might
have to rethink my first impressions of the album. it seems to say that
the album tries to use a lot of the same methods that have become cliche
as a way to shed light on the fact that those methods are, essentially,
wack. at least that's the way i intepreted what he said. how much i buy
into that is a question that time will answer.
"Yes, we have a new 16x9 20th Anniversary CHRISTMAS STORY special edition
coming in time for the holidays."
lots more interesting WB DVD news here
if you're want. WB is the biggest DVD distributor so it's cool to see what
they're up to.
"SHAWSHANK and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN are under consideration for the
SE treatment subject to talent availability. No plans for revisiting Kubrick."
4-23-03 (00:44)
too much happened in the last four or five days to sum it up here. it was
good to get away from work and see the family. sarah is a lucky little
girl and she's also my buddy.
lakers lost big today and that's great.
don't forget to pledge a few bucks to the kdvs
fundraiser this week.
gotta sleep.
4-17-03 (02:22)
my cold seems pretty under control right now so that's good news. that
cold ease stuff works pretty well.
saw most of the final kings game of the regular season today. also saw
part of the final michael jordan game today. that guy is pretty good.
i'm really anxious about the playoffs. they're going to be pretty hectic
and fun. i feel good about our chances, but the west is so stacked it's
not going to be easy for anyone.
this time tomorrow i'll be half way to LA.
4-16-03 (01:23)
just another day.
listened to my new saul williams and dr. octagon cds today. very good stuff.
zach came by and visited me at tower today. he's moving to la on saturday
and i'll likely never see him again.
my cold hasn't gotten too bad yet.
bugformance called today to ask how the car was. i told them that the engine
sounded quieter and seemed stronger. i said thanks. i'll miss the bug.
reading over past updates i notice that my days were once more eventful
and yielded more noteworthy items for this page.
4-15-03 (01:57)
today's tax day. i guess that's a big day for some people.
listening to dr. octagon right now...that's one of the aliases of kool
keith of the ultramagnetic mcs. he's got some crazy flows. some mcs have
such dense lyrics that it's really tough to keep up. beastie boys on paul's
boutique, saul williams, kool keith, and sage francis all come to mind.
going to see anger management on wednesday.
the loss prevention person at work no longer works at our store. he does
less work that alex did which i find odd since alex was basically fired
because he didn't do work while on the clock. he made friends with a bunch
of local teenagers and never made an attempt to be anonymous. in other
words this guy turned out to be worse than alex was even by joe's standards.
i'm not sad to see him go since all he ever did was talk to me about transformers
figures and wishing he was black. i'm not kidding.
abby asked me why i always wear the same thing to work - blue jeans and
my blue hooded sweatshirt. i told her that i only have two pairs of jeans
and two of my sweatshirts are blue hooded sweatshirts so she might get
them confused. for a moment i considered asking her why she never wears
a belt or underwear thereby exposing her ass crack to the world on an hourly
basis, but(t) i decided not to. i didn't really mind her asking the question,
though i did find it funny coming from her considering her clothing choices.
i have a cold.
4-14-03 (00:32)
updated movies list.
saved by the bell seasons one and two are coming to dvd. also the simpsons
third season will come out sometime in the second half of this year. the
new led zeppelin dvd comes out may 27th. i hear it's really good with plenty
of footage that wasn't used in the song remains the same.
fixed the latch on the hood of the car so it actually locks up when you
close it now.
i also built a dvd case for the living room this weekend since the old
one was too small. took about two hours and it looks just like my cd cases,
only six inches slimmer.
picnic day was rained out this weekend for the first time since i've been
in davis. odd since plenty of other years it looked as if it was going
to be rained out only to have one good day of sunshine fall on the same
day as the event. this year was the exact opposite - the day before picnic
day looked bright and sunny and couldn't be better, but the day of picnic
day looked dark, grey and very wet.
i think i might be getting sick. it would suck to be sick during my mini
vacation.
4-11-03 (11:03)
picked up the car this morning. drives real smooth, the brakes are strong
and it doesn't pull as much to the right as it used to. overall the car
is pretty damn good shape, especially relative to its sad past when it
looked like the pictures below and had squishy axle boots in the rear,
ran poorly, had a shitty transmission, had very bad alignment and just
looked like crap. since i've gotten it it's gotten: a new paint job, three
out of the four quarter panels replaced, new running boards, new 009 distributor,
new transmisision, new body trim, new chrome fixtures all around, new rear
bumper, new brakes, new axle boots, new steering coupler, new spark plug
wires, new steering wheel, new engine compartment seal, new seat belt and
plenty of engine work along the way. thanks are due to my mom and my grandmother
for funding the majority of those projects. sarah will be the recipient
of all that hard work and money. lucky little shit.
speaking of lucky little shits...i scored two suite tickets to the kings
game tonight from my boss (see not even my boss is as evil as he seems).
he has to be in LA or something so he couldn't go and they got passed down
to me since i'm a swell guy and the only person left at work who likes
basketball (or sports in general for that matter). tower sponsors kings
basketball (since the first tower was in sacramento) and they have season
tickets to the kings home games and i guess usually only the managers or
big wigs get to go, but this time i got lucky.
onto the bad news: the kings lost to the lakers yesterday and that was
tragic. we settled for too many jumpers, couldn't make any threes, and
the supporting cast for the lakers had a pretty good night. i don't think
we'll face them in the first round of the playoffs which gives us time
to get our shit together against a lesser team, but it also gives them
a chance to build more momentum and that's not good. at any rate the playoffs
should be good as always and we've got an easy opponent tonight so it should
be an easy and fun game to watch.
4-10-03 (01:48)
updated movies list.
well the war is mostly over now. so i guess the public will take the "i
told you so" approach and lose even more faith in the UN. i hope not, but
that's what i expect.
"give peace a chance" is a pretty lame anti-war slogan. so is "violence
never solved anything." the second one is false and the first one just
defies reality. the reality is that peace is almost always given a chance
first and that we have more peace time than we have war time. furthermore,
peace just isn't interesting - the media doesn't do a very good job of
reporting diplomatic successes...just like they didn't do a good job of
reporting all the terrorist attempts that were thwarted before 9/11. we
only hear about the times when diplomacy or our safeguards against terrorism
fail and that gives the impression that diplomacy isn't employed or that
the fbi/cia don't thwart terrorist attacks.
i guess "give peace more time" just doesn't sound as good as "give peace
a chance" even though the former is more accurate. violence has solved
plenty of problems and we're all aware of this fact. whether it's the best
course of action or not is debatable (i happen to think that it almost
always isn't), but saying unequivocally that violence hasn't solved anything
is a lie.
don't get me wrong i'm not a proponent of war, but just because you don't
like drugs because it tore apart your family doesn't mean that drugs are
bad. drugs have done plenty of good things (including at least the last
five beatles albums) and ignoring that fact is just silly. sure it's easier
to say that violence hasn't ever done anything positive, but if you're
committed to at least a modicum of rational thinking then you can't say
that.
all that being said, despite the apparent outcome of this "conflict," i
still disagree with the way the bush administration approached the situation
and the unilateral way in which they acted. i think that in the long run
the UN is going to be necessary for global peace and to undermine it in
such a way at a time when immediate action wasn't necessary is short-sighted,
arrogant, and damaging. i don't think that every action condoned by the
UN is "just," but it at least gives the illusion of justice and in this
world we need that because i believe there's a fine line between "justice"
and tyranny.
tomorrow is my friday. kings play tomorrow and that's been eagerly anticipated
for a while now.
i get the car back from the shop on friday. an amazing amount of work has
been put into it so it should be in as good shape as its been for quite
some time.
heard the new blur album today and it sounds pretty good despite the departure
of coxon.
4-9-03 (02:12)
got the new autechre and aphex twin albums today. had to buy them.
the new autechre is more along the lines of confield (their second most
recent album) than, say, incunabula (their first album). it's not exactly
background music.
haven't listened to the aphex twin yet because i watched a movie so that
killed most of my night.
there's a hip-hop song called bush and blair which i heard on kdvs, but
i haven't been able to find it on kazaa yet.
speaking of kdvs...the annual fundraiser is coming up april 21st through
the 28th (i think). so save up so you can contribute. www.kdvs.org
kings kicked some ass tonight. i'm psyched for the game on thursday...i'll
tape it and watch it after work.
4-8-03 (00:37)
new autechre album comes out tomorrow.
i went 47-16 in the tournament. had i chosen the higher seeded team every
time i would have gone 42-21 so i did okay.
i finally picked up the run lola run soundtrack after having a tape of
it in my car for so long. a wise purchase.
4-7-03 (22:44)
so i have pictures of malcolm (the name i attached to my vw beetle) up
on this page. apparently someone found
a link to those pictures from some search engine and here's what she had
to say about seeing them:
subject: you should be ashamed
"How dare you post pictures labeled el hajj malik el shabazz.
A educated and well respected man that stood for justice and you use
he name to represent otherwise. You need to educate yourself first:
When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing
under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you
hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going
to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing
in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in
freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his
freedom. el hajj malik el shabazz"
some people are just plain funny.
tom waits came into the store today. he wanted the new lucinda williams
cd, but i told him it didn't come out until tomorrow. he asked if i could
bend the rules and i explained that i'd get in trouble because breaking
street date is against the law. he asked again and said "i come in a lot,
come on...i gotta be here for a couple weeks and i gotta get that cd."
i asked joe and he said it was okay as long as i sold it as a used cd so
it wouldn't come up in the computer as having broken street date. it was
funny to see tom waits begging me for a cd. i would think a) he would be
able to get the cd for free b) he would know about street date violations.
he wasn't an ass about it or anything...the whole asking over and over
was done in a more cutesy way than an annoying one.
didn't get to see the basketball game tonight and that sucks. i always
miss the good ncaa games. i didn't get to see ucla's run because i had
some stupid youth and government meeting to go to.
i'm hungry. dinner at 11pm is lame.
4-7-03 (01:52)
"In what may be the worst industrial accident in Brazil's history, a massive
chemical spill into two rivers has cut off the supply of clean water to
some 600,000 people in three states near Rio de Janeiro. A reservoir
at a pulp and paper factory leaked 320 million gallons of caustic soda
and chlorine into the Paraiba do Sul River last weekend before being contained
on Monday; the toxins then worked their way into the Pomba River and will
soon reach the Atlantic Ocean. Fish and other river species are dying
in high numbers in the rivers, and fishing and irrigation have been banned
in affected areas. Scientists say it could take as many as 15 years
for the ecosystem to recover. The pulp factory was shut down and
fined nearly $15 million and criminal charges could be forthcoming, but
that's done nothing to allay fears that heavy rains could trigger another
spill from a second reservoir at the facility."
updated movies list.
i like the spring forward portion of daylight savings a lot more than the
fall back part. i don't like losing the hour of sleep, but i like having
daylight later into the day...i think that most people feel the same way.
saw a preview for an episode of dragnet that takes the same story that
was used in kurosawa's "high and low." for those who don't know it's about
a wealthy industrialist who has his son kidnapped and is forced to pay
up a large sum of money as ransom. shortly after the ransom is requested,
though, the industrialist discovers that the kidnapper took his private
driver's son instead of his son. so he faces the dilemma of going broke
to save the driver's son or not. it's a good story and a good movie.
saw tom waits hanging out in davis today. also saw jordan of the sorority
girls show on mtv.
9: the number of movies i've seen this month.
50: the number of new (to me) movies i've seen this year.
tomorrow i should find out whether i'm going to get the 18th-21st off so
i can drive down to la. i've seriously considered just quitting if i don't
get the time off, but i'm too rational to do something like that without
having another job in place. maybe i'll surprise myself. maybe i won't
have to.
241: the number of dvd movies i have in my netflix.com queue. netflix is
the best thing to happen to me in long time. being able to have a constant
flow of new (to me) cinematic art is such a nice thing.
zach called me at work today. it was good to hear from him...i thought
that after he quit work he wouldn't keep in touch. he's a pretty cool guy
it's too bad he's moving to la to be a rock star.
i should get some sleep.
4-6-03 (03:00)
it just turned 3am. i didn't know about daylight savings until just a few
hours ago. that sucks.
updated movies list.
watched six movies in the last two days.
picked both the winners in the tourney today. i pick kansas to win it all.
lakers vs. kings this thursday. i'll have to tape that one and watch it
after work. should be good.
4-4-03 (01:33)
right now i'm listening to dr. timothy leary's "turn on, tune in, drop
out." i also dropped some acid. earlier today i watched apocalypse now.
well the last two statements are false, but i am listening to dr. tim and
it's pretty trippy. kinda cool, but nothing profound so far.
updated movies list.
a short list of movies that are all the more relevant given the times we
live in:
network
1984
Dawn of the Dead
koyaanisqatsi
all quiet on the western front
modern times
cdlist updated.
all the movies i've seen since
i started keeping track in 2000. in the last three years i've seen american
movie more than any other. it was one of the first dvds i owned and it's
a great movie.
i'm tired.
4-2-03 (00:51)
"Not content to let timber companies chop down trees in the name of fire
prevention, the Bush administration now has a new rationale for clear-cutting
in national forests: preventing terrorism. According to the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, overgrown forests could be used as
hiding places for terrorist cells planning attacks on U.S. cities and civilian
populations. The department has proposed creating tree-free "clearance
zones" of at least five miles around major population centers and reducing
the acreage of dense, overgrown forests on federal lands by at least two-thirds
by 2007. The administration is also considering transferring control
over parts of the national forest and park systems to Homeland Security
agencies, and replacing trained foresters with "security rangers" who would
cruise forests looking for suspicious activities. Enviros expressed
outrage that the administration would use fears of terrorism as an excuse
to open up national forests to more logging."
har har har. thankfully that's just an april fools joke.
kings won a close game today. scot pollard, from my point of view, was
the mvp of the game - 13 points and 16 rebounds (8 offensive). scot has
always been my type of player...i love players who come to play every day.
malik rose is a lot like scot pollard like that...not necessarily blessed
with atheletic ability, but plays hard nosed defense and has good fundamentals.
this week i'm doing well in fantasy baseball. i noticed today that i have
seven yankees players.
4-1-03 (00:29)
updated movies list.
another dvd version of vertov's "man with the movie camera" is coming out...this
time it'll have a different score (since a score wasn't recorded when it
was first released in 1929) done by michael nyman a minimalist composer.
so i'd like to hear the score for that version, but the score done by the
alloy orchestra was good and that dvd came with an excellent commentary
from a film historian so if i were to buy one i'd buy the one that has
the alloy orchestra and the commentary.
new prefuse-73 album comes out in may sometime. some good guests are supposed
to show up...mr. lif and tommy guerrero are among them.
kurosawa's throne of blood is coming to criterion dvd in may.
zach de la rocha has a new war protest single out...produced by dj shadow.
get it legally and for free here.
this one song is better than the entire audioslave album that was put together
by chris cornell and the remaining members of rage against the machine
so you might want to check it out.
the new soundtrack put out by the guy from the eels sounds pretty good.
the truth about charlie is coming to dvd tomorrow and will include
charade - the movie it was based upon. i think that's a pretty good idea.