birthday present suggestions

so people never know what to get me. really, i don't need anything. i have my weasel here at home, and i have great friends and family. i even have a great job. what more could i need? well if you absolutely must get me something, here are some ideas.

- gift cards. you can't go wrong with money. Chick-fil-a, Sonics, iTunes, Target, etc. i love iced tea and sammiches and stuff.

- beverages. i love me some Rockstars, coffee, beer. just buy me a case or something.

- body art. i love piercings and tats. take me to get one. just don't expect it to bear your name or something creepy like that.

- food. who doesn't love to eat? make me some dinner. i don't cook. people who cook are awesome.

- movies. i love movies. i'm dying to see the new Coen brothers flick that comes out the weekend of my birthday. how perfect is that? or we could go see The Dark Knight again. i've seen it twice, but i'm for a third. bring a thirty pack.

- massage. i need a whole body massage. i'm stressed. i'm pissed. i'm crabby. well, i'm always that way, but maybe a trip to the masseuse will help.

- trip. i love to leave this crap town. buy me plane tickets to visit you if you don't live here. or take me somewhere if you do. it's named Lubbsuck for a reason.

- candles. i live in the dark. light bulbs burn my retinas. i really like candles that smell like cookies or cake or something like that.

well these are just some suggestions. like i said, i don't really need anything. i'm pretty content.

that can't be good

-in my office, we are routed calls randomly depending on who's available. so i get a co-worker who says to me, "hey, i was just thinking about you." when i ask why, he says, "because they were just playing Ministry's Filth Pig, and it made me think of you." yeah, that can't be good.

- yesterday, as i started my car, i heard a loud 'thud, thud.' (that's not to be confused with the Law & Order 'thoink, thoink.') i thought to myself, "that can't be good." then i saw that same orange cat that i almost poisoned to death running away at 500 miles an hour. he had been hiding under my hood. so that's two lives, Tabby!!! you can't live forever!!!

- i was hungry last night after work. like super hungry. and i had to go grocery shopping. now i have a house full of Cheez-its, brownies, trail mix, and cereal. any visitors will think i'm a pot head. that can't be good.

the NIN show plus some other crap

so it's been precisely 4.4 billion years since i last posted. in my defense, i have been swamped at work barking at people for having to clean up their messes. it also took me quite some time to heal up from the NIN pit. (more on that as you continue reading.) so without further adieu, here is my NIN review:

i have been to a lot of shows in my short little life. and i have been to a lot of NIN shows specifically. but i must say that this one was perhaps the best. it was up there with their Fragile tour back in the day.

i was a little apprehensive going into the pit because it was just me and Tangerine Dream this time. i had no date to make sure i wasn't too badly injured, and i figured ol' T.D. would throw me to the wolves at the first chance he got. but he surprised me! he kept track of me and checked up on me. is this a sign of maturity? well as mature as one can be while we're moshing to an industrial band like we're teenagers. in addition to that fact, this particular crowd was comprised of seasoned pit dwellers. (i think part of this was due to Reznor's way of selling tix to avoid scalpers. prior to the show we ran into quite a few people looking for tickets and absolutely no scalpers. everyone in attendance at this sold out show was a fan!) so this pit was very polite as far as moshers goes. if you fell, which i did once, you were picked up in a nanosecond. when one dude lost a cell phone, everyone was careful until it was located. otherwise, it was murder and mayhem in there.

the set list was awesome. my favorite live song, Burn, was no where to be found, but the band pulled some old school songs out of their ass to make up for it. we heard Down in It which, in all of the shows i've seen, has never been played live. i think T.D. creamed himself. he's been waiting for that song for about ten years.

which brings me to the actual stage show. wow! there were three LED screens. one was at the back of the stage, one in the center, and one right up front. they were transparent so all kinds of crazy visual effects were produced. they appeared interactive as they often changed when Trent waved his arm or someone shone a flashlight on them. at one point, the front screen showed a lot of visual noise while Trent's mug was displayed singing, and T.D. commented that Trent was prob eating nachos in the back while we watched pre-recorded crap. But then Trent came out and stood at the edge with a camera in his face showing we were watching exactly what was happening.

you may think i'm just fawning out of my love for the band, but i disagree. in fact here's what the Dallas Morning News had to say:

Put this in lights: Thinking outside the big, bad music-biz box can pay off.

It's not a coincidence that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails – the two acts that have usurped the traditional music-sales model to the grandest effect in the past year – have also staged the two most visually dazzling concerts of 2008.

But Radiohead's static forest of dangling neon icicles feels like a half-baked, budget-conscious collegiate gallery installation compared to the multipanel, megastrobed mastery of Trent Reznor's multimedia vision, as executed on Monday in front of roughly 7,000 people at American Airlines Center.

for the rest of the article click here: Nine Inch Nails show is a multimedia vision, come to rocking life

so i got hit in the face pretty good once in the pit. but i kept my ribs in good working order. (i'm not sure how ribs "work" but whatever.) i remember getting hit in the shin really good, too. on the trip back to Lubbsuck, i noticed a huge bump on my shin. it looked like i was turning into the Elephant man. after a few days, the swelling went down some, and it turned black. now it's an attractive grey color. and for a while i couldn't move my left arm. i think i tore something in my shoulder. it seems better now. i can raise it enough to drink a beer which is all that really matters.

overall, i feel like i screwed NIN over by only paying fifty bucks for my ticket.

random crap:

it's about time for everyone to start realizing that i don't want to spend my birthday with you. quit asking me. i want a nice peaceful, quiet September 11th with maybe some family.

i got a poster of that hottie from Entourage for my Dilbert cubicle. i spend my day drooling. it's the only think keeping me coming to work at this point.

i was in a fantastic mood in Dallas. in somehow vanished the second i saw the Lubbsuck county sign. i need to move.

i am starting a food journal. clinical studies have shown that it's a good way to stop over eating. i need to lose some weight before the fair next month. that way i can gorge and not feel bad.

vacation

so i am on vacation. i have been on vacation for about five hours, and i've already been cut off at one bar. in my defense, i was only gloating about my superior math skills (quite loudly i must say) which may have made it seem as if i was a drunken buffoon, but i was only a genius. anyway, i hope to stay out of the clink. i will blog more later.

sick joke

i woke up today in a pretty good mood after a little bit of a downer weekend. i was going to blog today about all kinds of things and enjoy my work day.

then i heard a friend of mine killed himself yesterday. life is one sick joke.

don't know why i bother getting up in the morning.

liver practice

i have been too busy giving my liver a workout to be of any use on the blog front. i'm sure getting lit at a church picnic old school with a topped off Sonic cup proves that i'm regressing back into my teenage years. last night's visit to the movie theater with a shit load of beers stuffed into a diaper bag doesn't paint me in a good light either. there was also Saturday's drunken buffoonery that i have yet post about. all in all, though, it's been a pretty good week. of course it's barely Wednesday, and i'm already looking like one of those celebrity mug shots that everyone loves so much.