Maybe-Someday.com

Posted on September 28th, 2009 at 1:09am

Not yet dead yet, but I certainly feel very zombie-like as of late.

It still feels weird saying it out loud. 28 years old. Egad. I wonder where I thought I would be today, ten years ago. At least now I’m smart enough not to ever predict where I’ll be when I’m 38. Just between you and me, I’ll be surprised if I make it that long.

All emo comments aside, this has actually been one of the best birthdays in a long, long time. If ever. Nothing mind-numbingly huge or jaw-droppingly shocking happened. Rather, just a string of really pleasant, smaller events with all the people that mean the most to me in my life right now.

Festivities began on Thursday, which is actually Jamie’s birthday. I took the day off work and the two of us went up to Disneyland. He hasn’t been to Disneyland since moving to CA, but had been to Disneyworld plenty of times. So there was a lot of compare and contrast happening. He called my castle small. Then I showed him the walk-through and told him the obvious: it’s all about how you use it.

The park was extremely empty. Everything we went on was quite literally walk on. Even Splash Mountain, and that just never happens. We ate lots of delicious and horrible foods. Most of our meals were covered in chili and/or cheese. Sadly, the Mansion and Space Mountain were closed. All the more reason to try and make this happen again sometime soon, right?

Friday was my actual birthday. I woke up to a half dozen texts and e-mails; birthday wishes from my friends around the globe, which is such a great way to start a birthday. I had to work, which was kind of unfortunate. I also had to *really* work, which was extra unfortunate. Friday was a huge deadline for something I’d been working on for weeks. I half-expected I’d be staying late, which would be extra-double-unfortunate, but I was able to leave work at a very decent hour.

I went to Disneyland with Tera. I had wanted to go into the park and ride the new Space Mountain, but the damn place was way over-packed. I didn’t even want to deal with it. We did a small bit of shopping for myself to spend my Disney gift card, but the most of the night was spent at ESPN Zone over beer and long islands. In that order. I haven’t seen her in far too long, so it was extra good to sit down at a table and have laughs with her.

Saturday.

I slept in like a motherfucker. It felt like I hadn’t done that in a month, so it was extra nice to shut the blinds and bury myself under my covers for as long as my eyes would let me. The bulk of the day was spent lounging around the house, eating meatball subs and watching a CSI: Miami marathon. Around 7, I left to go to Sarah’s for a little shindig at her place. Bianca’s birthday is Saturday, so there was some dual-celebrating going on. A few older familiar faces showed up, and it was good to see them again. There were also some people from the current Borders generation who I met for the first time.

Sarah kept pouring the drinks, and they were as absolutely delicious (and dangerous) as they always are when she’s bartending. It was a very low-key kind of night, with lots of laughs. Jumping from room to room, from conversation to conversation. At one point we played that game where you’re given a famous person’s name (fictional or real) and we try to guess who we are. I was sitting next to Sarah, which meant that she would be writing down the name and passing it to me. And her big book-worm smarts meant that I was sure to never guess who she gave me. But after someone finally slipped me the clue “The name of Morpheus’s ship in The Matrix,” I was the 2nd person to win.

The night kept going on, and I kept drinking. Around 4 in the morning the few people that were left slowly started to curl up and pass out. Sarah offered me a side in her magical bed, which I happily accepted. I’ve heard the stories from Charrmaine and Bianca about how comfy her bed is, and now I can totally say those stories were under exaggerated. I slept like a damn log. But that may also have a little something to do with the vodka. So much vodka.

The party was totally the highlight of the weekend for me. Sarah kept telling me she’s just out to make sure I have a good birthday, and she totally succeeded. I was completely comfortable, having fun with old and new friends, and just having a great time. She spoils me.

Sunday was a major recovery day. We didn’t get out of bed until 1030, and I was back home by 11, only to crawl back into bed and sleep away the headache. I put myself back together around 3, and headed over to the parent’s. We did our usual Sunday routine, with dinner at Boston’s. I got a $300 gift certificate to the Apple store from my parents, and $40 from Todd and Beth to but towards a Mac Mini. Excited to get that up and running. Todd and Beth also gave me a cute stuffed creature thing, whose name escapes me right now. But it’s super cute and goes great on my shelf with some of my other vinyl dolls. Didn’t get anything from Danny… 2nd year in a row. Oh well.

Tomorrow night, Sarah and I will be heading up to Irvine to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in 3D IMAX. I’m pretty excited about the whole night.

I’ll be having lunch with Charrmaine and Jared on Tuesday. Charrmaine let me take her laptop home with me to clean it up and make it work nice and fast again. Jasmine also has me reserved for a dinner sometime in the coming week… I’m thinking Famous Dave’s again. So, I’ve still got little pockets of celebrating to do in the next week or so.

All of this leads to the sad conclusion that I really need to get my ass back on the treadmill and start eating better again. The party is over, gotta get back in gear. It will be done.

So, yeah. Definitely the best birthday I’ve had in such a long time. I really do love these friends of mine.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on September 16th, 2009 at 1:29am

I still don’t know if nine inch nails has completely ended, or if it’s some many-year-long hiatus. Everyone is quick to say things like “No, that’s just what bands do. They’ll be back for the final-final goodbye shows in a year or two.” As much as I may sound like a rabid-fan-boy crying “no, not my band!”, I’m gonna cry out and say “No, not my band!”, all the same.

So for the last few days in August, when the “Wave Goodbye” tour started in New York, I followed online all the talk and happenings of the final shows. The second show into the tour Trent plays all of The Downward Spiral from start to finish. I remember reading that online and groaning aloud in a jealous, frustrated “god I wish i could have seen that!” Trent even made a point to say it’s something he’s always wanted to do live, and will never be done again.

I also read about the special guests Trent brings on stage each night. It’s starting to look like he’s got at least one solid surprise up his sleeve for each night of the show (Peter Murphy hung upside-down?!), which of course begs the question “What’s in store for the show I’m going to!?”

It was a half day at work for me. I drove home, picked up my brother, and then hit the road north to LA. It was all so casual to me. It was weird to me then, just as it’s weird to me now, but I didn’t really start to get excited until maybe an hour before the show started. Driving up to LA, finding the venue (where I previously saw Sylvia Browne years ago), stressing to find a place to park, getting the tickets from the box office, and waiting in line to be let in for almost 2 hours… I was just cool as a cucumber the whole time. It felt almost routine.

The two opening acts were bands I’d never heard of before. Queen Kwong (the only notable thing to say about them is the lead singer girl is super hot, and I rarely ever say that about girls), and Mew (who I could never, ever take seriously because they took themselves seriously enough for the lot of us).

Lights go dark, everyone rushes the stage and Todd and I turn on our cameras. Trent comes barreling down the center of the stage, strobe lights flashing, and so begins Mr. Self Destruct. Mosh pits, shoving, jumping. Fighting to stand still. First song ends, Piggy starts. It wasn’t until the end of the song, drowning in a sea of people singing “nothing can stop me now” along with Trent that I fully realized where I was. It hits me, just as Heresy starts… nothing quite like being surrounded by hundreds of people screaming “your god is dead.” I’m noticing a pattern, but don’t wanna say it out loud. Don’t want to jinx it.

I warn Todd, “Next song is probably going to be March of the Pigs. Hold on.” And it was, and we did. We were shoved around, pushed and pulled. It’s sometimes better to just go limp than to fight it. After Closer ended, and it jumped right into Ruiner I figured it was safe to say it: The Downward Spiral from start to finish… he’s doing it again. And I’m ecstatic.

Some of these songs I never in a million years thought I’d hear performed live. The crazy instrumental ones on the back-half of the album. Suddenly its 1995.

By the time Hurt ends its easily been an hour and a half, but they keep going.

Another hour later (of mostly old material, no less) Trent brings out Gary Numan. Together they perform Metal, and then Cars. I assumed that would be the end of it, but the show kept going on. The show ended with Head Like a Hole, fittingly the first song on his first album.

There was no encore. Just played straight through what had to be close to a 3 hour setlist.

1. Mr. Self Destruct
2. Piggy
3. Heresy
4. March of the Pigs
5. Closer
6. Ruiner
7. The Becoming
8. I Do Not Want This
9. Big Man With A Gun
10. A Warm Place
11. Eraser
12. Reptile
13. The Downward Spiral
14. Hurt
15. 1,000,000
16. Terrible Lie
17. Lights In The Sky
18. Burn
19. Gave Up
20. Suck
21. Metal
22. Cars
23. The Hand That Feeds
24. Head Like a Hole

When the lights came back on, Todd and I picked our jaws up off the floor and limped our way out and back to the car.

We got our asses handed to us, and we’d do it again in an instant.

I took over 140 pictures, and most of the turned out just like you would expect pictures from within a pit to turn out. The small handful of photos worth passing on can be found on my Flickr. Todd recorded a lot of video, and while the quality is pretty great, most of the audio is shot. Simply too loud for a tiny mic to handle. I might try to clean up a song or two and post it, but pretty much every angle of every song is already online somewhere.

It was my fourth time seeing nine inch nails live. I know it won’t be my last, but it’s going to be a very, very long time.

Goodnight Moon.
Oh, my precious whore.

Posted on September 13th, 2009 at 12:34am

Animal Collective – My Girls

There isn’t much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don’t care for fancy things
Or to take part in a pressured race.
But to provide for them when they ask
I will, with heart, on my father’s grave

On my father’s grave

I don’t mean
To seem like I care about material things,
Like the social stats
I just want
Four walls and adobe slabs
For my girls

Goodnight Moon.
I Miss You.

Posted on September 8th, 2009 at 2:14am

I’ve got a big update coming down the pipes. Not just a followup to the NIN show I attended last Wednesday, but there seems to be some new girl-related gossip (or is it “new-girl related gossip”?) to try and talk very vaguely about, as I usually do when it comes to girls.

A lot going on in this old head of mine. Perhaps even more than I wish to discuss publicly at all. The longer Emily’s been out of town, the closer I’ve been to just spilling my guts to anyone who will listen. And that’s the quickest way to get in trouble.

As evidenced by what happened on Friday before I left work.

But that, too, will have to be a story for another night.

Until then…

Goodnight Moon.
I Love You.

Posted on August 31st, 2009 at 10:44pm

Posted on August 31st, 2009 at 1:17am

Holy hell, it’s hot tonight. It’s been stupidly hot all weekend, and I’ve tried my best not to be a little bitch about it, but it’s 1am, I’ve got two fans going and my window open and it’s still too warm to sleep. To top it all off I’ve got a crazy bad headache right now, and the light from the monitor alone is enough to make me squint and hurt my head. So why the hell am I even making a post now?

I don’t really have an answer for that.

This has been a pretty gluttonous weekend—and I’m pretty sure it started Thursday night. Sarah and I went out to dinner at Famous Dave’s. Against my better judgment I got the sweet tea, and a very spicy hamburger slathered in spicy BBQ sauce and it was completely delicious. Afterward we moseyed around Target for a while to kill time before our movie started. We saw Inglorious Basterds, and oh my. I do like this film. Once again, I’m just struck by how great Tarantino’s dialog scenes are. The vast majority of movie was in French, and as a result I suddenly really want to teach myself French.

I kept forgetting that it was only Thursday night, so that’s a good sign that I was having lots of fun. We decided to try and have another movie night at my place Friday night and invite Carrie over. Carrie said she would bring her friend Ariel, but then the both of them ended up not being able to make it. So once again, it was just Sarah and I for the night. We drank rum and coke, and topped it off with a bottle of red wine. Keeping the Tarantino vibe alive, we watched True Romance… and when Tera catches wind of me watching that movie for the first time with someone else, she’s gonna have my head.

Friday night was super great. We both got pretty giggly and talked most of the night away. Small bits of Mario Kart, and Smash Brothers mixed in. Sarah had previously told me that she was a pretty straight-laced girl before she met her friend Bianca. Bianca was the one that got Sarah into drinking, and smoking, and tattoo…ing. I then made the joke that I am now the straight-laced Sarah and she is my Bianca trying to motivate me into something… supposedly… better. So on Friday night with a half a bottle of wine in my belly, when she handed me her cigarette to try, I took a hit off of it before I even really knew what I was doing. So… yeah. That happened.

Saturday night we celebrated my Dad’s birthday. Danny, Todd and I got him a ticket to a baseball game sometime the week after next. It will be just the four of us, and I’m looking forward to it. Our tickets are in the all-you-can-eat section which spells out trouble for me. I’m a sucker for hot dogs and nachos… and hot dogs. And nachos.

Tonight was pretty low-key. I spent most of the day sprawled out on the couch, sweating. This heat is almost over. Just a couple more weeks, I hope.

One more week of crazyness at work, and I’m promised things will start to even out. Work has actually been extra-great lately. I’ve been out of my office a lot more and getting involved. It’s been fun.

Every morning I swear I’m gonna start to get on the treadmill just a little bit before work. But every morning I choose sleep instead. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow…

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on August 27th, 2009 at 1:01am

Once again I seem to be going through a dry spell of journal-writing. Lately my days have been far more normalized, so maybe I can get back into the swing of things. But really… how many times have I said that?

Completely unrelated and dorky as hell side note: This song just started playing randomly, and every time I hear it I immediately get taken back to 1995. Ripping apart Doom 2’s WAD files, designing custom levels, testing. I find it fascinating how strongly memories can be attached to music.

So, I guess I should work backwards.

Middle of the day Sunday I got an e-mail from Mallory inviting me to her going away party at Pizza Port. After the initial shock of that, I got on the horn (who says that anymore?!) to see who else was going. Sarah suggested we go together. Buddy system, and all. The party was Monday evening, and it wasn’t half bad. I spent most of the time sitting at a table catching up with all the other familiar faces. Mallory and I had a few small conversations here and there, and stayed completely civil.

Everyone started to leave around 10:30. Sarah and Michelle decided it was way too early to go home, so the three of us met up with Michelle’s boyfriend at another bar down the street and stayed until last call. I’ve never had so much beer in my life. And, to be honest, it all still tastes the same to me.

When it was time to leave Pizza Port I gave Mallory a big hug goodbye. It was good to see her one last time. Truth is I still miss her from time to time. I hope she knows what she’s doing out there in Oklahoma.

Saturday was yet another movie night with Sarah and Carrie. Sarah was supposed to bring her big binder of movie wackiness, but sadly forgot. I had just got The Spirit in the mail from Netflix so we decided we’d give it a shot. What an odd damn movie. Just so oddly paced, and almost badly acted. I just couldn’t get into it.

It was a short night, the girls left right around midnight. Leaving me with a huge punchbowl still full of Sarah’s new concoction. Delicious as it is dangerous.

Late Friday night I met up with Jasmine for dinner at Boston’s. We split a pitcher of beer (seriously, what’s with all this beer in my life lately?) and took a good few hours to drink it all and got caught up in each other’s lives. We came back to my place and she put in another hour or so of Portal. It’s so much fun watching her play.

I’ve made a new online friend, Erica (no, seriously). She lives in Sweden and is lots of laughs. She told me she is good at Mario Kart, so I challenged her to a Kart-Off first thing Sunday morning (about 8pm in Sweden, I think). First one to win 2 rounds wins. I expected this to take no more then 20 minutes; Play a few races, show her who’s boss, and send her home with her tail between her legs. Turns out… the girl’s actually damn good and we kept getting tied. Two and a half hours later, I finally got my 2nd win! And god damn, was it ever a relief.

Tomorrow night I’ll be headed out to see Inglorious Basterds with Sarah. There is talk of getting some food as well. I’m really excited for multiple reasons. I’m excited to get some delicious food. I’m excited to see that movie. And, of course, I’m always excited to hang out with Sarah. I’ve been seeing a lot of her lately, and it’s been truly awesome.

Work is work. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime in the immediate future. I’m keeping my head above water, and making great strides in some of the relationships I have there. It’s been pretty great, actually.

Nine Inch Nails concert with Todd is coming up next week. I’m excited for that. I’ve been following the current shows on Twitter, and Trent seems to have one or two big surprises at each show. The following week is my big dinner at Disneyland for the Haunted Mansion. I just bought a spiffy tie online, now I just need to grab a new black button up dress shirt.

Blacks and greens.

My birthday is less than a months away. I should be responsible and tell myself the NIN show and HM dinner are my presents to myself… but I probably won’t.

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on August 17th, 2009 at 1:58am

These kinds of weekends seem to happen when I need them most.

Friday after work, Carrie and Sarah came over for movie night. I supplied the movie and the pizza, and she brought the booze. And man, did she ever.

Sarah claimed to have a new idea on how to increase the “fuckupability” of her punch. We ended up calling it Russian Sangria, as it was basically lots of red wine and vodka, with lots of berry flavored juices and sodas. And yes, it ranked pretty high on the fuckupabilityometer.

We watched The Fall. I’m pretty determined to make everyone I know watch this movie, and I think I’m about close to finishing that goal. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched it, and I’m honestly not even close to getting tired of it. I’ve wanted Sarah to watch it for a long time now because (much like Tera), she’s got a very good eye for art and color. Sarah went on and on about wanting to watch it “stoned as fuck,” which is a high mark in her book. So, I’m quite happy.

After the movie we (sloppily) played some Mario Kart until early in the morning. Carrie was sticking to the beer, and got pretty toasty on that, which left a huge bowl full of this punch for Sarah and I, and we did our damnedest to finish it off.

All in all, it was a fantastic night. With so much alcohol left over, I know we’ll do it again real soon.

Annie, Alex, Me, Kat, Marleena. Photo compliments of Li-Ling

Saturday morning I woke up with my second-ever hangover. Just a small one, but there all the same. I felt like I slept under a ton of bricks. Everything hurt, and felt tight. I took a long time to put myself back together, and then hit the road up to Disneyland for the annual “Best Disneyland Trip of the Year.”

Li-Ling comes to town only once or twice a year, and she makes sure we all get together to laugh our asses off all around the park. The players were mostly the same as they have been in the past, plus 3 new friends of hers I got to meet, all of whom are cool and I got along great with.

Alex came along too, and brought a few friends of her own. She kinda bounced back and forth between the groups, which was ultimately okay. Her group left the park earlier than we did, and Alex eventually stayed with us and got a ride home.

By the time we left the park at 1am, I was beat. It’s been such a long time since I last stayed until closing. And even then, I didn’t show up until later in the afternoon. This was a full 13 hours of Disneylanding in the sun… and I am still kinda tired!

But, it was awesome. As it always is when I go to Disneyland with Li-Ling. And once again I’m left thinking “Dammit, I miss that girl.”

Goodnight Moon.
Dream On.

Posted on August 11th, 2009 at 1:27am

I think the good mood I’ve been having for the past month… the one I’ve been trying not to focus on or make a big deal about for fear of jinxing it… is coming to and end. The pendulum might be swinging back. I’ll take a small amount of solace in the fact that I’m finally starting to see the tide shift slowly, instead of coming-to staring down the barrel of a gun.

That’s a metaphor. I don’t own a gun.

Maybe all this “working on myself” I’ve been doing (to some pretty good success, I might add) is a double edged blade, in the “this is just a reminder of all the things that are wrong with you” kind of way.

All work and no play makes Chris a very self-loathing man.

I’ve been keeping my finances under control lately. Which hasn’t been easy considering the wealth of new Haunted Mansion merchandise that’s been flooding eBay. Damn 40th anniversary.

Not too long ago, at work, a conversation was struck up between Jamie, Marke and I about what my next big purchase should be. It was largely done for giggles, but I was legitimately looking for advice on what I should buy next. Somewhere along the line of this conversation I was struck by how dumb it was. I’ve got enough money woes as it is, but to be looking for something to blow my money on? C’mon, Chris.

So, I resolved to start really focusing on paying off my credit cards. Pretty much for the first time ever. I’ve got around six grand worth of debt racked up between two cards. One card is about 75% paid off already, and that’s pretty exciting news. I’ve already promised myself to dump the vast majority of my next paycheck onto it, and maybe I can get close to knocking one card off by the end of the month. That would be pretty exciting.

A few weeks ago I started to worry that the A/V receiver I got for Christmas was acting up. I spent a whole weekend making sure everything was hooked up properly, that each of my components and cables were working properly, only to finally realize that one of the HDMI inputs in the back of the unit had died on me. Major bummer.

I had to unhook everything (a pain in the ass, for sure) and take it back to Fry’s. Luckily when I got it back in January, we put the one-time replacement program on it. So, no questions asked (didn’t even hook it up to verify it was actually broken), they returned it for the full price paid in January. And 500 bucks today can buy something much, much better than 500 bucks could by in January.

So, I exchanged it for a brand new (and much more fancy) A/V Receiver. I’m still tweaking all the bells and whistles (and there seems to be many), but the thing works wonderfully. Surprisingly better than my old unit. The speakers themselves are huge… almost comically so. For such a tiny apartment, I’m well over-powered in my entertainment needs. I’m certainly not complaining. But it does lead me to wonder –

When can you come over for movie night?

Goodnight Moon.
I Love You.

Posted on August 9th, 2009 at 11:51pm

Attack Of The 50-Foot Heart Broken Octopus
Based on a rough sketch by Tera.