I wish Mrs. Julian Casablancas hadn't deleted her livejournal.

My sister saved my ass from becoming grass. The night before, my friend backed out of allowing me to take his portrait, simply because he wanted to sleep in the next day and the morning in question was essential to getting the photos I needed for my project.

Before I could descend into anxiety, my sister agreed to let me take her picture. All of the photos turned out pretty well: my sister can effectively channel a Sally Jesse Raphael meets Margo Tennenbaum spirit when she feels fit. My sister has a sailboat next door to her house, named 'Upward and Onward', which I totally photo-ed. We also captured the aftermath of a visit by neighborhood racoons when her roommate forgot to take the trash off the back step where he had left it instead of placing it in the proper recepticle. The assignment was about portraits, but I elected that a potrait amidst racoon shit and strewn trash is a portrait, nonetheless.

In summation, my sister is awesome. If you do not know her, you should meet her, she is quite awesome. We used to get into some awesome fights when we were kids. One time, she removed the curtain rod from above her window and then charged me with it.

Down-ward-ly Mobile Splendor

A few days ago, I went to my storage locker and began emptying it out, as the price to insure a storage locker with a little couch (loveseat) and a full-size slightly burned IKEA bed has risen to $20 a month (as my dad explains in one word, Katrina). I brought home my loveseat, carried it in solo, risking a back injury.

The day of the purchase of the little couch was a joyous triumph in my life. When fire gutted my apartment, I was able to clean the soot from it's cushions. When cans of lonestar and bottles of shiner were spilt onto it, I quickly cleaned it.

Last night, I came home from work, and quickly made white russians with vanilla rice milk. Sat down on my couch with my feet up, while reading the new issue of the New Yorker. I quickly fell asleep, leaving half a white russian, but I awoke with such a painfully bent spine. Such a weird happiness is gained by such a simple lonesome night, but I did miss it indeed. Though, if you are gonna feel a little lonely, vices are prime outlets. My three are alcohol, reading, and my little couch which, I haggled down from $185 to $100 at a Salvation Army.

Little couch, you are the closest thing that I have to an awesome dog.

Lazer Lazer Lazer Love.

I've been on the internet far too often lately, and in my travels I've been however fortunate one can really be when one stumbles onto WickedLasers.Com This is indicative of a growing subculture, - a laser subculture. The site sells high-powered laser pointers that shoot green laser beams. These green lasers are more powerful than your standard Office-Max red laser. Green lasers can ignited matches, burn through euro-format office paper, and 'disperse' birds.

With the utility of lasers becoming more and more consumated, one can wonder when exactly they will become instruments of violence. Which begs, will we call them 'laserings' or 'zappings' as opposed to 'shootings'? I for one would prefer the term 'laserings', but I do not welcome laserings, the inevitable drive-by laserings, police officers lasering innocent bystanders, or epic laser battles fought on the surface of Mars. Hopefully by that time, the US will have refined its own foreign policy and the roads will be dominated by hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars.

Here are some videos from the site's video page:
Green Laser on CSI Miami, Laser + Bling + Porn Groove (vaguely reminiscent of the Knight Rider theme), and never do this, because it is not cool.

C'mon, you like Bjork, right?

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1518556&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Oh, I love you, Iceland. Do you have Grain Belt Premium there? Just let me get my BFA and gather up my records.

You sauced your office, Winston

I've been bummed out a lot lately. School, work, and an attempted move have Sea-Living straight up dog-all-alone-out-in-the-yard feelings shooting through our aching back. What I need is an ass-kicking, but I'm not about to ask for it. Instead, I need some quiet moments and a lord of the rings viewing to bust up the beaver dam that's blocked up the river of my human heart. That should work. If you went to that diner with me last night, that was the lowest things have been for a while. I think a day off or two is in order, before setting off on some projects. I miss my couch.

Things are on the upswing. We get so down, we forget we have the records, the bass guitar, and the books to distract us when we slip into tunnel vision and can't help but focus on the anxiety attack potentially at hand.

As a kid I was restless, and unable to focus on things, because I was always trying to get something better. It never went away, it made me move to Texas (which was good and awesome), but I need to learn patience. I need to focus and relax. I'm in school for chrissakes.

The barbarians are at the gates
The barbarians are on line two
And no, they will not hold for you

I've been stressing out lately, big time. There's a lot of factors about that I've been feeling anxious about, but I've been dumb enough to forget about all the good things I have going for me now, and this weekend will have several awesome things in store for me.

This morning, I awoke late and had to shoot two rolls of film double for today. I forgot how good it can feel to lose yourself in that creative trappings. Anyway, I snapped off 72 exposures in like 45 minutes. It was about 10 am, so I plugged in my bass amp and played away, hoping that my neighbors were already awake.

Anyway, it feels good to know that there are controls in place before your job smashes you down to earth, school eats through your meager bank acount. Now, if I could just change my living arrangement.

My friend Josh won a Pulitzer: I remember a particularly hot Austin TX afternoon when he and I smoked honest-to-goodness cuban cigars in 96 degree heat. Way to go, Josh.

The last few nights have been pockmarked by my mistake of being drunk, then consuming cake. I had several beers on friday, then I ate this delicious cupcake with espresso and caramel frosting. The result: the gut-rot of the century. Fer crissakes. You'd think a handsome and smart boy like muhself would have the wisdom to avoid that fate twice, but no.

The next night, I gladly drank several Pabst Blue Ribbons with my grandma while we looked at slides from her trip to African in 1979. When divorced, my Grandma had a good idea: take the first alimony payment to the other side of the globe. My dad brought a slide projector to show all of her slides. So I sat transfixed to projected images of all the animals of the mighty African continent: elephants, cheetahs, baboons, zebra, giraffes, and lions. It's crazy that my Grandma got close up photos of lions and to this day will chat with you over cans of PBR if you've got the time.

After beer #5, I indulged in a pineapple cheesecake, followed by another slice of a more traditional chocolate cake. The next morning, I again clutched my aching stomach, cursed the appeal of cake upon being heightened by wonderful PBRs.

Anyone want to grab beers with my grandma sometime? She's more of a leftist than I, you will be shocked.

I'm sitting down after an hour-long expedition into the skyway, a little parched from hauling my mobile scoliosis-inducing slack-cave on my back (camera, ipod, books, smashed sammich). While walking, I enjoy being exposed to the colloqiual shop-talk of the American Business person.

From what I gather from overheard conversations, the firm has lost partners, which has development worried about cut backs. As a result, second and third quarters could be the worst since the first half of 2003. Tough times, I know.

Though I don't fret much for the business person: so long as there are plenty of steaks and fine dress shoes in convenient supply, I think that the troubles concerning the expense reports and the switch from the Denver office will simply melt away like a pad of butter on so many aforementioned fine steaks.

It's times like these that I am glad that I've accepted my more lowly fate.

To all Sea-Living stockholders, you have a cause for joy. I made my return to academia today, and I was neither late nor compelled to skip out. It is true that I was quite tired from a late-night malaise of academic-anxiety, and though I faded in and out during the first few minutes of my first lecture, I was able to regain self-control.

Some of my old classmates are still there. Some people I didn't like two years ago are still there, though they have mustaches now. My friend Eric, who was once a print shop attendent, now runs the place. I forecast drinks @ Mackenzie's in the not so distant future. For the uninformed, Mackenzie's touts itself as a 'Scotch Bar With American Flavor'. Which means they want to evoke the conglomeration of the flavors of single-malt Glenfiddich and state fair corndogs. The places I drink so you don't have to...

I enjoy the Minneapolis skyway system: it's somewhere between Cloud City from the Empire Strikes Back and a habi-trail that your 3rd grade class used to have for hamsters to bridge between two cages. In 3rd grade, our class hamster had babies. Shortly thereafter I learned hamsters, of course, live for nothing more to commit infanticide.