Woah-diddy, Woah-diddy Rocket

...I wanna be your sprocket

is how this Distillers song (found on their new website) goes. Don't think it's on any of their albums. It reminds me of that Nirvana song "No Recess," in a good way.

Nina got into Columbia!

The past few times I've gone running in the Park it's left me totally exhausted the next morning. But last night I saw the first (I think) fireflies of the season, and the whole park smelled like lavender and other nice things. Whenever I see fireflies it reminds me of this one particular time in high school that Asta and I went to Shakespeare In The Park, walking down this tree-lined path towards the Delacorte in Central Park, literally hundreds of fireflies winking on and off around us in the warm air. So that's nice. But Prospect Park has bunnies, too.

Does everyone know about Ted? Guy should be getting out of the hospital this morning after a 3-day bout with "spontaneous pneumothorax." Jesus -- just read the article on Wikipedia. Excerpt: "The flopping sound of the punctured lung is occasionally heard." So that's where I (and most of The Friends) were on Sunday; would've gone on Saturday, but it happened to be one of the few times ever that I let my phone completely die before recharging it. Anyway, though, Ted is fine, but I might not be -- according to the doctors he talked to, this is something that tends to "just happen" to young men who are tall and skinny. I'm drafting my will right now. (Just got a texto from him in the handicrapper: The tube is out.)

After visiting Ted, some of us went over to my parents' house for dinner. Tom, Emma, and Katharine got to meet mom and dad for the first time, practically. Predictably, the 'rents went a bit overboard -- my dad made this complicated mediterranean chicken thing and my mom bought three pies from Trader Joe's. But I think a good time was had by all.

Links:

• I know it's a little creepy of me, but I am totally into this video.
• Little bit too late to do this now; maybe next time
• Bugs.
• Literally a fairly awful tattoo.

Kind of heavily fucked on projects at work, but started working on the communications layer of my rewrite of gzochi again, after a few-week hiatus brought on by frustration with this one library I was using that wasn't giving me adequate debug information for a problem I was having. What snapped me out of it was giving up on that and just trying to figure things out from the top down -- turns out I'd made a really obvious mistake that only took a second to correct (and revealed more and juicier things to fix elsewhere).

Reading The Amber Spyglass. Considering buying tix to the Rancid show on Aug. 25th.

Elevator Action

I made roasted asparagus and baked beans tonight. They were pretty good! The Rase bought a whole bunch of episodes of Lost on iTunes. I think Hurley is pretty much my favorite character, even if he's forced to play the fatso minstrel when comic relief calls for it -- case in point, "These leaves ain't for eatin', man. Oooh, my stomach." [Diarrhea, stage left.]

Nina's been closing her magazine, which means she works really late every night. I stopped by to see her last week and we got coffee. The elevators in her office were all screwed up, and when we got back, one elevator had been shut down completely (with, she claimed, someone stuck inside waiting for the fire department to show up), and the other was racing between the first and the sixth floors at an alarming speed, totally on its own, making a buzzing noise that would get frighteningly loud whenever it came close. Nina took the stairs.

Finished the Nick Flynn, and ended up buying a copy of The Amber Spyglass, which Eve says is the best book in the series, because the library was giving me a hard time tracking it down. So we'll see.

One thing I've been digging on at work is listening to and sort of watching videos on YouTube, while I'm waiting for something to finish building or something. You guys remember the video for that Foo Fighters song Everlong? It's weird and cool. Also checking out episodes of what looks like a Tenacious D "show" on HBO, which is totally hilarious.

The Starry Machinery

Everyone's finishing videogames, it sounds like. Inspired by the fact that I never fucking finish any but the easiest of games (and that Nina's beaten The Warriors, past level 11 of which I cannot seem to get), I sucked it up last night and kicked the shit out of the four fiends (and their dumb boss, Garland) in the Temple of Elemental Chaos in Final Fantasy I from the FF:Origins collection. I sort of remember the ending from watching my friend Jay beat the game in elementary school, but I didn't remember this cute little section of text that scrolls up the screen:

The Warrior who broke the 2000 year Time-Loop is truly a LIGHT WARRIOR -- That warrior was YOU!

May the ORBS always shine!!

You betcha.

The Buzzcocks are playing Warsaw On July 11th, and I've got tickets! They also have a new album out called Flat-Pack Philosophy. All the critics are kind of ho-hum on it, but I really like (what I think is) the single off of it, "Wish I Never Loved You." You can hear it on their MySpace page.

Everything Old Is New Again

Rancid is touring again, with dates listed on their site that are bringing them propitiously close to New York. The Distillers' site, if not yet the band, is working again. So things might be kind of looking up, yeah?

Nina and I went to see Joan Jett at Southpaw on Tuesday. I'd never been there; the place has sort of a novel layout -- a sizeable stage and "pit" area with a low balcony thing at a small remove, which is ideal for short people and their chaperones. I had a great time, but I guess I'd forgotten (or had willfully never noticed) that Joan Jett just doesn't really... rock, you know? Somehow she's gotten herself crowned "the queen of punk," without actually having written any punk songs (except for "Bad Reputation," maybe). The stuff from the new album she was promoting was okay, but her band is stocked with douchebags and it's not clear why she needs a second guitarist and a keyboard player. Final complaint: She was real keen on the audience "having a good time," and kept checking in with us to make sure we were "ready to rock." Ugh. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine -- nothing inspires contempt in me for a band I'm going to see like them not having contempt for me.

Been going to BBQs are little parties and things on the weekends -- just the way summer should be, really. I caught the season premiere of Deadwood at Joel's place last night, in addition to the last episode from Season 2, Boy-The-Earth-Talks-To. I know a lot of you haven't seen Season 2, so I won't spoil anything, but, man... great writing in the scene between Hearst and Wolcott; great staging, great writing when Hearst is talking to Tolliver in the ruined, lamplit hotel room.

Just came down from the roof. It was mercifully light out when I got home at work, so I bought a six-pack of Yuengling Lite (which is actually kind of good) and went up there to do some reading and writing. It was pretty blissful and nicely productive.

Finished the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. I'm taking a break before finishing it up with third (in which some kids with a computer and a really sharp knife fucking kill God) by reading Another Bullshit Night In Suck City, which Eve lent me. Very much enjoying it; an excerpt:

The night he showed us his photo album, after the house went quiet, I crept into the kitchen for a glass of water, the sink still full of sea clams, forgotten. Under the fluorescent hum they'd opened their shells and were waving their feet, each as think and long as my forearm. A box of snakes, some draped onto the countertop, some trying to pull themselves out.

That, I think, might be worth the price of admission alone.

Tentatively, I think I'm ready for some adventure. It's been a long time since I've been able to say that.