oops!

i made the mistake of reading some right-wing blogs today. they were enough to make me grind my teeth down to the gums.

halloween

is ok in my book, but making your own costume is kind of a pain in the ass.

why i hate pitchfork

this from a "best new music" blurb on pitchfork's front page today:

"This Brooklyn four-piece follows its fantastic single '2080' with a debut packed with similar moments of pan-ethnic spiritualism. Like Midlake, Grizzly Bear, and Animal Collective-- who have all recently re-shaped tribal, primitive sounds into ultra-modern forms-- Yeasayer channel both a dystopian science-fiction sensibility and deep appreciation for the natural world."

oh. my. fucking. god.

i mean, i understand: if you don't like it, don't look at it. no one MADE me read pitchfork this morning. but come on, pitchfork. meet me halfway here. use your powers for GOOD, please. there's no need to use the fucking term "pan-ethnic spiritualism." this is rock music, not a fucking anthropological dissertation. you ain't smart for writing that.

dammit

on the way to work i was lost in thought, remembering this and already composing a blog entry, but then i read this which says it all better than i could have, and so instead of writing an awesome blog entry i bought this off ebay for way cheaper than its regular price.

it's a pretty guitar.

you've never seen happy

until you've seen an autistic kid who, until this year, had problems with eye contact and speaking directly to people, giggles and does a little dance at his seat while listening to the strokes.

TEAM RIPTIDE

since getting my new faraway job i've all but given up on weeknight drinking, which, if pressed, i suppose is for the best. but tonight my illustrious Better Half is leaving for a week, so what better way to say goodbye than have a miserable, hungover day tomorrow? i have a feeling that's a trick question, but since i asked it, i guess... something. i dunno. shut up.

my asshole sister had her second baby. maybe now she won't be as much of an asshole. just kidding. my new niece, grace, was a couple weeks preemie but came out ok. i'm visiting on saturday.

my car got broken into. again. i have a beige-y grey '96 nissan sentra -- a.k.a. the car that looks exactly like every other car in my neighborhood -- which i bought for the grand price of $600, give or take a couple hundred for parking tix. a while ago someone broke into it near Better Half's old place by exploding the passenger side's door lock with a screwdriver and stealing a visibly broken digital camera and the $1.48 in my ashtray. they left the screwdriver. on monday night someone smashed a back window and took the .75 cents in the ashtray, completely ignoring the screwdriver and thus robbing me of something far richer than all the change in all the ashtrays of the world: the opportunity to sing "the circle of life" while telling this story. those bastards.

but now i have to fucking buy another window. i feel like putting a sign up in the thing saying, "dear people who break into cars: there really is nothing in here worth breaking any part of my car to get to, so please don't. if you DO see something in here and you want it, please leave a note because chances are we can work something out. but breaking into this car will be a waste of everyone's time, and although you most probably live in golden gate park and have quite the surplus of time, it's still a waste."

i got some new records... and actually BOUGHT a few, instead of downloading! i actually kind of amazed myself there. i got:

the new jose gonzalez, which manages to be simultaneously more nick drake-y and less nick drake-y. the new iron and wine is balls-twirlingly good, except for a couple songs that kind of made me forget what was happening because there was too much going on. i got that kevin drew, broken social scene-connected record, and it's ok, i think. i haven't been able to listen to the whole thing in one chunk yet. the new aesop rock is awesome, too. it's way bouncier and more fun than the other stuff i've heard by him. i had all this shit i was going to write about these records, but i'm too tired and annoyed to try right now. maybe later.