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Showing posts from June, 2008

We Have Lots of Books

I just got back from the mall/movies. I opened the bag from H&M (I am a stylish dresser, what can I say?) and took out three shirts and a pair of pants. I proceeded to remove the tags and discard them in the trash. Shirt number two did not survive the tag pulling. Instead of the little pop that you hear when that little plastic thingy breaks, I heard a rrrrrripppp that reminded me of the Hulk busting through his clothes. I hope to be able to return the shirt... Anyway, the ripping of the shirt was the perfecting ending to a horrid day, which began with Stephanie finding out that she didn't get a job that she should have gotten. Which is why we went to the mall and the movies -- to get our minds off of it (I told some friends that Stephanie and I needed some time to reassess things and decide if life is worth it enough to continue or just throw in the towel all together -- jokingly, of course). We saw Get Smart , which -- seriously -- turned out to be an incredibly funny movie

Argh

On the street where I live, the houses are mostly dark in the incredibly ungodly hour of 12:30am. From the window of one house, blue light spills onto the front yard. The blue light is from the TV and the window belongs to my living room. I shut the TV off three minutes ago and wandered blindly through familiar rooms to the computer. I don't know why I am still up. I haven't been able to sleep for the past three nights. I yawn like a tired person would yawn, but I don't fall asleep. Actually, that is a lie. I came home from work today and barely made it to my bed before I completely passed out. It was a short nap, but it pretty much sealed my fate for tonight. In the last two nights that I couldn't sleep, I eventually did fall asleep shortly after midnight. Tonight, I don't feel the least bit tired. One good thing that comes from sleep deprivation is song writing. Monday night, I came down stairs and lyrics hit me like an ocean wave when you're facing the beach.

Episode 4

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The following is Episode 4 of Inside the Open Mic (my video documentary project/experiment/thing). Gary moon was interviewed and it came out really well. I'm getting better at the editing and the whole process of making the video took less time this time around, which is awesome. I'm also getting more comfortable with my computer being slow while using Movie Maker. Some times I move a clip with my mouse and then get up and get a glass of juice. When I return, I put text over the clip then get up and make some toast while my computer gets ready to play it. My late night rambling two nights ago (see previous posting, which is below this one) has thrown me off today. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to write about now. I'll quickly throw down what I played at open mic: Dying on the Outside (the new one) and Wildflowers by Tom Petty, which I screwed up due to thinking when I should have been playing. Speaking of thinking when I should have been playing. A friend of mine

Lateness

It's late at night and I feel like writing. Not exactly sure why... there is a lot on my mind, I guess. A lot has been going this past week. On Monday I had to go to a conference in Lake Placid for my work. Overall, it was okay. I learned new stuff for work. I bonded with my bosses. I made some new friends. But, I didn't want to go in the first place; so, all the good that came of it just sort of evened out my overall feelings instead of boosting them. While at the conference, I had a rock star experience. I had my guitar with me and I played for a large group of conference attendees. They were drinking and some or most of them might have been wasted. After playing a song and receiving an intense round of applause, I found the hooded sweatshirt that I was wearing on top of a long sleeve polo shirt to be too much. So, I took it off... and, in dramatic fashion, tossed it into the center of the group. The act caused much excitement and they clapped and were generally noisy when I

Summer Night Blue

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I just logged into blogger for the first time since posting my 100th posting and there beneath This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride was 100 Posts . Exciting stuff. What's also exciting is that this past Thursday at Caffé Lena I got to say, Today is, no joke, five years to the day since my first performance at Caffé Lena's open mic night. And it felt pretty cool to say it. I referred to the performance as my Lena-versary and I played the same two songs that I played for my first ever performance: Crayons and Saving the World . Saving the World was quite different when I played it five years ago. I decided -- not long after playing it for people -- that I hated the song and so I re-wrote it... twice. The current version of the song is definitely the best version and sometimes I like it. I received some nice compliments on it, which must mean it's not as bad as I sometimes think it is. Stephanie took a few pictures outside of Lena's to commemorate the anniversary. I th

100!

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Happy one-hundredth posting, to you... happy one-hundredth posting, to you... happy one-hundredth posting, oh, blo-og... happy one-hun -- ok, this has to stop. Yes. I've reached one hundred postings here in blog-blog land. WHOOOOOPIDY DOOOO! To celebrate, I decided to spend the day in front of my computer trying to figure out why Windows Movie Maker wasn't making the movie that I asked it to. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's muggy and in the 90s outside and there is air conditioning in the computer room, here. I did mow the lawn earlier, which finally looks green (although, it's mostly weeds -- but that's a thought for another blog posting), but I've done nothing else since. This past Thursday at open mic, I interviewed Willie the Moak for my documentary series, Inside the Open Mic . I spent about 4 hours, yesterday, editing the video. Then, I clicked on "save movie" and waited the usual 30-35 minutes for it to actually make the movie. When

Ninety-Nine

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This is the ninety-ninth posting on this blog. I haven't decided what to do for the 100th posting yet. It will probably be nothing... or I'll do some creative editing on a picture in photoshop and post that or something. But, it will probably be nothing. What is also exciting is that in two weeks, 6/12, I'll play at Caffe Lena's open mic (as usual) and it will be the five-year (to the day) anniversary of the first time I played at the open mic. Which is to say, that it is the five-year anniversary of the first time that I ever played for strangers. And that is a pretty cool five-year anniversary to have, I think. It's pretty amazing to see how far I've come in five-years. I have a video taken from my first ever performance. I'll never show it to anyone, though. It's that bad. ----- This past Thursday, there was no open mic at Lena's and so I didn't get to record another interview/performance for Inside the Open Mic. I'll do it this coming Thu