Monday, September 28, 2009

Au Revoir Simone

So, you kids should hopefully be aware of the band Au Revoir Simone. True, you have to be somewhat in the know when it comes to modern indie music, but damn are they wonderful. It's three drop-dead gorgeous hipster girls from Brooklyn playing indie synth pop exactly how it should be played. While all their music is just gangbusters, there is one song in particular that especially sets my heart aflutter, and they just released a video for it:



Now, since my dear sweet Zooey D is married away to Mr. Death Cab, these ladies are now the cutest thing since bite-sized sliced bread.

So here's my plan: I own a MicroKorg, which is a pretty respectable keyboard in it's own right. I'm thinking that sooner or later I'm going to book a flight to Brooklyn, find these lovely ladies' rehearsal space, keyboard in tow. In due time, I'll convince them that what they really need is a fourth member. A male member. From San Francisco. (hurr hurr hurr, I said "member".... twice!)

Then, after a little time of learning all their songs, making myself a productive band member and trusted friend, we book a tour. Said tour will inevitably swing through Utah. Once we're in Utah, BAM! I marry all three of them on one fell swoop.

Then we start a family band and live happily ever after in music and looooove. And maybe kittens. Those girls have gotta love kittens.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

So Bill...

... what have you been doing all this time since you last raved about chili cheese tots?

I suppose the best answer would be "a little bit of everything." Things have been kicking in the music world, with Hello Monster putting the finishing touches on our still-yet-to-be-named EP. The Lava Rats are practicing regularly-ish again, and the Reducing Agents still rock out when time allows. I've been going to a lot of shows, hanging out with the fellas (successfully) and chasing the ladies (unsuccessfully). And work work work. Oh, and I've been building bookcases
for Nate.

But tonight I'm back in my element: somewhat sleep deprived and sipping a cup of coffee at the cafe. And dammit does that feel good.

So as I tend to do when I have issues coming up with what to write about, I went back to the archives and looked for inspiration, and today I noticed, no surprise at all, just how much this blog reflects what my main focus in life is: while I was writing the thesis, I wrote a ton of posts about books and literary theory and all that jazz. When I was unemployed, I wrote mostly about the interesting things happening in the world around me, and all throughout I've had music stuff interspersed pretty often.

So what have my posts been about for the last little while? Pretty much nothing. And that's when I realize I'm in a bit of a rut. Much as I feared, free time has not treated me well. I tend to be the type of person who needs a fire lit under their ass, and my buns are barely warm at the moment. So I'm hoping to get something new going, I don't know what. I have a few ideas scattered about, so I'm hoping that once I figure out where my energies might go, it will kickstart a little bit of creative life again, and I will be that much more engaging here on the blog. So with that bit of a downer, I'm calling it a night because I don't really know when I'll be able to get some sleep in the next week or so. Which makes pursuing new projects harder still. Humbug.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Tots, Part II

A quick one before I succumb to exhaustion. You may recall, and I'm reaching way back into the vaults for this one, but I wrote a year and a half ago about cheezy tots. Unfortunately, up to this point I have still not ventured into the flavor country known as cheezy tots. Alas, I tend to not be around Burger King in the mornings, and I don't necessarily think that will be changing any time soon.

However, today I happened upon another fast food place I pretty much will never go to again: Sonic. (before going on, I will say that I'd love to go to Sonic a lot more often. However, considering that the closest location is about sixty miles from my house, I don't have a lot of chances to make it out there) At said Sonic, I discovered one of the most wonderful taste sensations from the advent of those golden-brown crispy goodness known as tots. For those of you who know Sonic, you might know where I'm going with this one. For those of you who don't know Sonic, I present you...

Chili-Cheese Tots. That's right kids, cheezy tots are soooo 2008. In the past year, scientists the world over discovered that mere cheese was not enough for tots. No no, good friends. They realized with the addition of chili to said cheese and tots, that the flavortastic wonderment was increased tenfold. Now we can chili-fy our hunger zones in new and fantastic ways for under five bucks.

So, while I still would like to try the King's attempt at injecting the pillowy potato treats I love so dear with cheese, I thumb my nose at them for not having realized the utopia of flavor that is gained by adding chili to these delightful treats.

Thank you, flavor science of the future, for giving my taste buds a five minute siesta from the workaday world while providing me hundreds of empty calories that I can carry around just above my belt for weeks to come.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

What's Wrong with This Picture?


I will be brief, as it is once again late, but man, this cracks me up.

I happened across this image in the course of my work day. The writer of the list is a nurse, writer, and blogger from the North Bay, and I'm sure she's a wonderful woman. I really appreciate what she does for women, and I even feel bad snickering over her, as I believe she does a a lot of good. But problem number one: she's a blatant hippie. Like, really blatant. Also, she put on her to do list, which she shared publicly on both her blog and her twitter account, to have sex with her husband. I mean, tally ho -- good on her for rockin' the Casbah still after all these years -- but to put it in a to do list?

At least it out-ranks catching up on Twitter.


(plus, did she miss my post yesterday about how once you say something publicly on the internet, the universe conspires against you? How can she jeopardize her sweet nooky by telling the aether that she's gettin' some tonight?)

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Minor Fail

Well, I made a tactical error in writing publicly that I would be able to achieve epic amounts of blogging this evening. I forgot one of the cardinal rules of the internet: never claim you're going to get something done, because once you hit "publish", the universe will conspire to keep you from achieving anything you have said you would.

Kind of like when I said tomorrow I was going to NOT become a millionaire....

So I'd cooked up this plan to write up a ton of blogs and pre-date them so that they'd publish throughout the week, since I know I won't have time to write much this week. Again. Then I came home, and the passenger door of my car was in pieces. So, since I cannot hardly write to save my life when in my humble abode, I got this blog done and that's it. Because I'm horrible and unproductive. But on the bright side, my passenger window now rolls both up and down. First time in... oh, a year and a half. Maybe more.

There is one thing I wanted to discuss tonight that I suppose ties in somewhat to my blog inabilities of the evening. See, no matter how much I want to or how much I may plan, I seem to lack the general ability to get to sleep at a time most people would deem "normal." See, I am a night person. You know that. You see when I usually write these blogs. Myself and night time go together like peas and carrots. But this is the thing: I've kind of been exhausted for a good two weeks or so. Tonight was one of those rare nights where I have not spent the night out somewhere. I did not have band practice. I didn't need to meet anyone for drinks (and yes, I do need that from time to time). I didn't have tickets to a show...

But guess what? It's currently 12:55 in the flippin' morning, and I am not asleep. I am horrible at this. Could I have written this anywhere in the five and a half hours since I finished dinner? Absolutely. Did I? No. Because apparently I have some dire need to make each morning at least as miserable as the morning before if not moreso. I know I wrote that blog about a month ago about that whole "getting up in the morning and being well rested" thing, and I believe that's probably the last time I woke up well-rested and chipper when waking up to an alarm.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go try to make up for my never sleeping. By sleeping. I hear it's the bee's knees.