so nice...

i've posted this link TWICE. it's also on ye olde cadaver politik, so give it a look-see...

muggy. so muggy.

and yesterday's storms were nice.
tom cruise is a f**king idiot. "i know that psychiatry is a psuedo-science." lunatic. "you don't know the history of psychiatry i do. there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance." idiot. like louis black just said regarding tom cruise..."what do you think is happening to you right now?"
i don't tell people like tom cruise not to use scientology, even if i do think it's a load of crapola. so why is he handing out the idea that:
1. he knows the history of ANYTHING.
2. vitamins are better than antidepressants.
i just hope that anyone who honestly needs medication doesn't listen to a word he says.
so yeah. i wish there was a way i could see "war of the worlds" (i'm a sucker for the apocalyptic movies) without sending any money his way?

things i'm really tired of today:

people who are "..........than thou."
hipper than thou. crunchier than thou. punker than thou. holier than thou. more socially conscious than thou. why? b/c it's condescending. it's hypocritical. you know what i'm talking about. the morons who are against animal cruelty but wear leather belts and shoes. the tossers who complain about shopping at certain retail outlets (i hate walmart too) b/c of their poor human rights record, but then act like total douchebags to other people.
i'm in a foul mood, so watch your back.
sleep is necessary.

a movie theater to try out

Mounds Theater
so we're going to check it out one of these weekends.

but this weekend we'll be in minot.
and next weekend in grand forks.
so after that sometime.

we're having some nice storms today. the sirens actually went off whilst i was finishing up my therapy appt. today -- how soothing.
and we saw "land of the dead" and it was pretty righteous. and "bewitched" was funny as well -- it made abbey giggle a lot. and that's just fun.
and yes, i'm watching "newlyweds" again. i know, i know. you don't even have to say it.

and it's one hellacious work week, getting ready for deadlines that are moved up. but having monday -- wait, TWO mondays in a row off -- will be worth all the crap that this week will entail.

funny story, courtesy of meaghan.
my sister and her boyfriend moved in together. and they purchased a countertop dishwasher. this dishwasher has a little window on the front of the door that's tinted dark, but if you look really hard, you can see the magic happening on the inside. well meg said she woke up one night around 4 a.m. and came out to the kitchen to see her boy holding a flashlight up to this little window, just watching the magic happen. that's good stuff.

i've not blogged for many moon.

i wish i could be a jogger. but everyone i see jogging look totally f**king miserable. there is no one with a glad look on the face whilst jogging. jeez-- i've not even seen a glimmer of contentment on a jogger's face. usually just a grimmace denoting some sort of misery. so why do i want to be a jogger? it seems like it would be both masochistic AND good for me at the same time.

our central air is kicking arse. and there is a story as to why it is functioning again.
as new(er) homeowners, there are things we don't know about. like filters that are in our gas furnace. and if they haven't been changed -- since we've moved in -- well, not only will our heater not function properly, but the central air WILL NOT WORK AT ALL.
thanks to my sister amy, it's all okay now, and it's so chilly in my house now that i may require the services of a sweater.

i guess we'll list that under "things we wish we knew hundreds of dollars ago."
maybe that's a new category altogether. okay, that's the first (and hopefully only) entry under that category.

nick and jessica are at a ski resort. and although skiing could only do me harm, their little hut (or townhouse, really) looks nice and comfy and, well, vacation-esque. abbey asked me when my summer vacation starts. i told her that my summer vacation is every saturday and sunday.

gee, having just returned from "vacation" yesterday, you would think i was well-rested. not the case at all. must sleep. maybe i'll write entertaining blog entries again someday...

...sigh....

another day, another trip to the neurologist

well it appears that we are increasing the kiddo's dose by a mL, from five to six, in an effort to eradicate the seizures that she is continuing to have -- even if it's less, the dr. says "one is too many." so we'll try this for a few weeks and hopefully it works out. ERADICATOR! -- a nice little kids in the hall thought.

it's been hot. really hot. so hot that we finally realized that there is a filter in our furnace that needed changing for our central air to properly function. it's like a whole new house. or a house that has functioning central air, anyhow.

tomorrow if friday. HURRAH! one day closer to another pre-monday holiday deadline crunch week at the office. and after the discovery that i was, in fact, responsible for the horrific f**k up at work, it makes my stomach, well, queasy, to say the least.

and i just thought i should give a shout out to my chica of chicas, Aimicita, for taking bold steps and securing a job AND a freakin' house in a new state! and dave swenson reminded me of a great amy moment at Campus Lab School, where our friend, Nicole, referred to herself as "Nicole the Great" and i believe Amy referred to herself at "Amy the Supreme." or was it "Amy the Superior?" anyhow, here's my shout out---- whoop whoop!

as a side note, be sure to catch Dave's band at the Turf on July 21.

movies i aim to see this weekend

1. Bewitched
2. War of the Worlds
3. High Tension
4. Land of the Dead

...it's going to be a busy and expensive weekend... but SO WORTH IT.

Definition of a guilty pleasure

i'm wathing disc 2, season 1 of Newlyweds. my own little spiral into hell begins now.

eek!

To read about a living, breathing monster...

evening update:

"Batman Begins" kicks total arse!!!!!!!
that is all, i must sleep.

f**k...

...b/c it's been that kind of a day. holy hell. possibly taking wednesday off to recover from the complete shite that covered me from head to toe on tuesday afternoon. can't even think. holy crap. must find alcohol immediately. and if i let myself think that things are okay, even for a milisecond, i tempt fate. must be prepared for absolute stinking worst.

tour dates!

tour dates!
Originally uploaded by kllnin.

note: oct. 11 at the Xcel center! wheee!

a day of little accomplishment

woke at 11 or so this morning. napped from 12:30 until 5 or so. got some groceries -- mowed the lawn....now it's time for bed. again. wow. little accomplished today.
well, the lawn is no small feat, now that i think about it. the front yard is not so big, but our backyard is:
1. up a hill, requiring the hauling of a lawn mower up stairs;
2. made up of tall grass. very tall. tall like "maybe it'd be easier for it to go back to the way our forefathers saw it" tall.
3. a bit bumpy.

so yeah, no good times there. i'll need to make EWP come on over and mow sometime, as i've decided i just don't want to.

i also have loads of weeding to do. will i get it done? time will tell.

hard to believe that the weekend is over so fast -- but i suppose when you sleep away half of the damn day, monday will sneak up on you. mondays. crunch days at work. and i like the crunch...but it makes sunday nights tough. i was considering going out to watch movieoke tonight, but i lost momentum, somewhere between weeding the garden plot in front and weed-wacking the yard in back. yes, it was so long, we needed to weed wack it BEFORE taking the mower on it. gross. bad homeowners! bad!

oh, if anyone out there needs a website done for a FRACTION of what most places will charge, please consider checking out Platypus Man for your web design needs. dustin is working hard to start up his own business, so feel free to toss his name around to people you know.

10:53 p.m. crap. must...rise...by...6....

speaking of boba-fett...

i had the pleasure of seeing mr. dave swenson when he was in town briefly this weekend! we ate some grilled yummies at terry's place and dave, as usual, made me laugh until my gut ached. can't wait to see him at the Turf this july!

ahhh, shucks...

five months

five months
Originally uploaded by kllnin.

five months it has been.

death by lucky charm?

so i was eating lucky charms and i somehow and quite literally inhaled a marshmallow -- i'm unsure as to what shap -- but for a moment the thought of dying because of a lucky charm did pass through my mind. then i coughed really, really hard and it dislodged.
now my throat hurts.
now what am i watching? why it's "young guns" on bravo!
what does this find sunday hold for moi? i'm not certain, but i'll bet that my night includes a little Movieoke at the local. if i'm still awake.

thank you, corporate chain restaurant!

no really! abbey and my mom went to a movie today, so in lieu of driving all the way from eagan to st. paul and then back out again, i'm killing a good hour or so at Panera, utilizing their free wi-fi and eating a cinnamon crunch bagel with honey walnut cream cheese and a cool dr. pepper to drink. ahhh, it's all about me (for 55 minutes)!
i need to do this more often -- get out of the house to write, to enjoy air conditioning that is nearly blowing me off of my comfy booth spot. i almost went to a park to just write -- not blog, but WRITE -- but in humidity? no good can come of that, i say.

and the agenda for the remainder of saturday? a mid-afternoon nap, perhaps, after i take abbey to her dad's. maybe a stop at the cherry pit -- an interesting bar near my house. by "interesting" i mean to say "has sign on the door banning any gang colors from entering the premises." so yeah, a precedent has been set, i guess -- but the general crowd SEEMED alright. (except for that one guy with a white supremacy tattoo singing really bad metal karaoke -- that's a bad apple, that one.)

i see a girl across the way coveting my ibook. that's right, rich girl, i've got one. wait, rich girl --- okay, she's probably not coveting, as i'm sure she's got one at home -- she's PITYING me for not having a powerbook, only an ibook. wait. i'm crazy.
another panera sight: a girl wearing a shirt that reads "SAVE WATER. DRINK BEER." i have nowhere to go from there.

props to jeggie!

THIS SITE made me laugh so hard that my stomach hurt. but it's a beautiful thing.

the list of 5

okay, mr. chris cope has mentioned the list of 5, so i thought i should list mine. sort of a like a living will. but a living will that includes famous people i can have consequence-free sex with. (and dustin has one too, to be fair...)
1. trent reznor (you totally saw that one coming)
2. zach braff
3. ewan macgregor
4. john cusack
5. (empty slot)
dust and i discussed the idea of the five in great length once, and established that it must be someone with whom you otherwise have NO CHANCE in meeting. for instance, you can't go to a Rasputina show and decide that the cellist in the opening band is someone on your list. that is not a celebrity, that is just some stranger you want to nail. and dustin has objected to the inclusion of john cusack to my list b/c as he lives (i think) in chicago and we go to chicago once or twice a year, i could potentially meet him. yeah, location is the only thing that would keep john cusack from sleeping with me. sure...right.
as far as the empty slot, that is sort of kept as the floater spot. so i can see whatever movie with whatever star and say "he's so on my list," b/c there is always room for one more.
who is on YOUR list of five?

sure, SURE she meant it to be ironic.

Transcript from VH1 interview with that alanis singer girl:

VH1: You also did "Ironic." Do people still give you a rough time over it?

AM: God bless that little non-irony song! The sweetest irony is that it's a song called "Ironic" and it's not filled with irony. The best moment I had surrounding that song was in a bookstore in New York. Someone came up to me and said, "You do realize that song is not filled with ironies." I just nodded my head silently. And she said, "Is that the irony?" I just nodded my head and she walked out! [Laughs] It was such a sweet moment.

yeah, SURE she meant it that way.

Watching Kept

so i'm watching crap on tv right now. (as opposed to that high quality tv that i've been known to enjoy.) we were planning on checking out movieoke at the local, but i've since lost motivation to do things like find shoes, put on shoes, etc. so we'll try again next week. and it's always more fun to go out when you don't have to scrounge for coins in the couch.
but i digress. i'm watching that f**king Kept show on VH-1. basic premise: jerry hall wants a boy toy, so she's auditioning "hunks" and giving them tasks to win a place at the foot of her bed, apparently.
so i'm sure right now we're all in agreeance that it's crap.
and what's on vh-1 next? Strip Search -- finding "homegrown" men for a dance revue show. oy. sunday nights are something else.
just heard that sarah m. and andy might be putting an offer in on a house -- neat!
and this dolt on Kept is speaking about himself in the third person ---- that is SOOO three years ago.

sunday sunday

i'm watching "sabrina" on one of those classic movie channels.
humphrey bogart. ahh, sweet humphrey bogart.
i feel like i have nothing to say. i feel like there is nothing in this noggin of mine to offer.
i'm a bad blogger lately. bad blogger! bad blogger!
i'm somewhat inspired to remove the carpet from my room today. hmm. we'll see how long this inspiration lasts.

a nice lil' column

i'm not a huge fan of this columnist, but i like what he has to say about my 'hood, St. Paul's East Side...East Side, Represent!

Neighborhood snobs slander East Side — again

JOE SOUCHERAY

A lot of people in St. Paul are snobs when it comes to the East Side. The south, the west and the north come out all right, although the North End does occasionally experience the turned-up nose.

Just for the sake of conversation, let's go with specific compass designations. The west side of St. Paul is Highland Park, Mac-Groveland, Merriam Park, King's Maplewood, out that way. Man, oh man, they never get the snob treatment. That is west. Stand in the middle of town with a compass and you will see that west is west.

The south side of town is across the Robert or Wabasha or High bridges and up Ohio Street and through Cherokee Park and in there. Very nice. Hardly ever suffers from snobbism.

The North End is out Rice Street or Dale or Lexington or Snelling, whatever gets you north. Yes, once in a while you get somebody who hasn't driven outside of a six-block perimeter in the past 40 years and they level snobby charges against the north side that reveal an ignorance similar to the charges suffered by the East Side.

The East Side is east, of that there is no doubt, but about 90 percent of the snobs who rip the East Side don't even know what they mean, or where. Do they mean Dayton's Bluff? Dayton's Bluff was certainly good enough last year when some big paddlewheel boat steamed into town and people lined the bluffs of Dayton's Bluff with their cameras, and I don't recall anybody getting mugged or anything of the sort.

Do they mean Phalen? I guess Phalen is OK when you need ice to build a Winter Carnival palace. Wendy Anderson comes out of Phalen, as did the late Herb Brooks.

There's Hazel Park and Hayden Heights and Maryland-Arcade, Upper Payne and Lower Payne, Johnson Parkway. In other words, it's just like every other chunk of St. Paul, where you have Mac-Groveland, Crocus Hill and Lex-Ham. The East Side of St. Paul is a vast geographical area east of Interstate 35E that runs from about Larpenteur on the north all the way out to McKnight and then down to Battle Creek.

When officer Gerald Vick was killed last week, I heard the snobs in full chorus.

"Oh, the East Side. That figures.''

No, it doesn't figure. Vick was murdered near Erick's Bar on East Seventh Street. I defy anybody to tell me that they could have predicted that by the neighborhood. Erick's is a neighborhood bar with the classic neon beer signs in a big smoked-glass picture window that overlooks the street. Down the block is the old Viaduct Inn, which is getting new life and good reviews in the newspapers for its menu.

Officer James Sackett was murdered in 1970 on Hague Avenue near Victoria. That about falls into the definition of Cathedral Hill. Back then there was a big difference. We had not yet become neighborhoodists. They didn't have the little fleur-de-lis-shaped street signs back then that said "Historic Cathedral Hill.'' There was no Restoration Hardware selling brass address plates.

These days everybody is so pleased as punch to live in the city and avoid suburban commuting that we have become neighborhoodists who assign a neighborhood name to parcels of real estate no more than a block long.

"Where do you live?''

"Um, we live in the Milton-Chatsworth neighborhood.''

No you don't. You live in St. Paul.

All I'm asking is that the snobs grant the same considerations to the East Side, where there are just as many neighborhoods and neighborhoodists as any other part of St. Paul. And, just like any other location in St. Paul, there are pockets of trouble and stretches of housing in decline on the East Side.

It is interesting to note that around Erick's Bar it is called East Seventh Street. On the other end of town, where there are pockets of trouble and stretches of housing in decline, but more active neighborhoodists, it is called Fort Road.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com

hmm..

the first post in a few days. nothing exciting to report. well, i did see "revenge of the sith" and that kind of ruled. especially when anakin spoke his own version of w's "you are either with me or against me" deal, and obi-wan responded that only a sith speaks in absolutes.
in other news, mtv is into censorship now, after ruling that NIN's performance at the movie awards should not have a "partisan" theme (a picture of w. as backdrop for "the hand that feeds) -- nails dropped out, rightly so.
in other other news, my kid just asked me for "some water for free." apparently she's been charged for water before? wha?
that leads me to a tangent -- i was probably 7 or 8 and walking down to a parade on burdick expressway in minot coming from the hill across from m&h and i fell down, skinned my knee, and went into a building that i think was a bakery or something and they tried to CHARGE me for a plastic cup of ice to mend my knee. "i'm bleeding," i told them. the bitchy, underpaid employee reluctantly gave me ice. i should have bled on the floor.
i want to find out information about my street, my house and stuff around me. i just looked online at Dayton's Bluff, but technically we are not in that area, or not as far as i can tell. any suggestions as to where to look?

what crap.

"If same-sex marriage prevails, I suspect we'll see both a decline in marriage and an upsurge in out-of-wedlock births, as Scandinavia has."

read THIS COLUMN in the Star Tribune and then be very, very glad that the old bat's email address is right at the bottom. i think she needs to be reminded that she is a hateful creature.