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I’ve never been good at high-fives. It’s true. Ask anyone who has ever attempted to share a triumphant moment of victory with me. Go on… ask ’em. They’ll say something like, “Yeah… Sam and I won that tournament thingy and, in celebration, we attempted a high-five. That’s how I got this terrifying, Xamot-like scar on my face. If I ever see that bastard again, I’m gonna rip his…” You get the idea.

I don’t really know where the culprit lies. Is it depth perception? Hand eye coordination? Lack of coolness? Well, regardless of the cause, I feel that this ineptitude has the tendency to squelch all of the excitement from the moment that instigated it in the first place. Essentially, after the high-five failure, it’s hard to carry on with the original joyous moment. I killed it. I killed all of the fun. Damn these hands!

Before I go off to grad school, I feel as though I should attempt to smooth out my high-five skills. I can only assume that there will be a lot of high-fiving during class. Like, “Hey Sam, way to go on your thesis! *high-five* ARGHHH!!! My eye!”

FUN FACT: In the process of looking for a photo… I mean, drawing of Xamot, I discovered that the name of the Cobra Emperor (from the G.I. Joe cartoons and comics) is spelled “Serpentor” and not “Sir Pentor.” Initially, I had just assumed that some dude named Pentor had been knighted (like Sir Bill Gates) thus creating “Sir Pentor.” I’ve been living a lie for the past 20 years.

I’m trying really, really, really hard to not blog about how crappy things are at work right now. Oh… I guess that I just did. Ah well… and now for something completely different…

WARNING: While the following entry is brilliant in every way, the subject matter has been known to make queasy those with weak stomachs. Read with caution.

Flesh. Not only is it chewy and delicious, but… wait, that’s not it. Let me start over: Flesh. Living tissue. Miraculous, regenerative, living tissue. When I crash my body into something, I bruise… sometimes I bleed (often I swear). But amazingly enough, I heal. Give my body time and I can heal almost any flesh wound. Truly amazing!

When I crash my car into something, it dents, scratches, or cracks. That costs me money and time and aggravation. I need to have it fixed. I need to bring it somewhere and pay someone to fix it. That’s lame! Totally lame and totally antiquated. Imagine however, that the body of my car was made out of living flesh instead of cold, dead steel and plastic. I could simply give it some time (maybe rub in some Neosporin) and it would heal itself. Problem solved.

Sure… why not? I’m no fancy shmancy bio-engineer or anything, but come on… how hard could it be to graft some living tissue onto a car’s framework. (And just think, you could get your car a cool flame tattoo.)

As far as maintenance? Well, I’m not really sure. I’d assume that one would have to rub on some protective balm for the cold winter months… maybe some sunscreen during the summer… and then there’s the occasional pimple to attend to… it’s a labor of love really.

Hmmm… since this is living tissue that we’re talking about, we’ll have to feed it somehow. Our flesh car needs nutrients. And since we’re feeding it, it’ll most likely create some kind of waste material. Uh… I guess that’ll need to be disposed of. And can the flesh die? Can it contract disease? Will it start to rot? Flesh cars will rot instead of rust… weird. And creepy.

Ok… admittedly, this Flesh Car idea of mine is a tad underdeveloped. I recognize this and I’m ok with it. In fact, this is specifically why I’m blogging about it. I am generously open sourcing the Flesh Car. Yes! As of right now, the Flesh Car is open source. Go internet, go! Take this idea… run with it! Frolic in the autumn mist! Do whatever you need to do to make Flesh Car a reality.

Anyway, I’m kinda grossing myself out… so, I guess that’s it.

I’m feeling… ummm… less bad than yesterday. Thanks for your concern, thanks for letting me vent, and thanks for sending the good vibes my way (I didn’t actually receive any of the aforementioned “good vibes”… my personal firewall probably prevented the vibes from making it through. I’ll have to check with the admin).

And now… on to more important things. Like The Mars Volta.

My pal, Mike, introduced me to The Mars Volta some time ago. He handed me a burned CD (for purely back-up purposes, of course) and said, “Listen to this. It’s interesting. You’ll like it.” It was a copy of the album De-Loused in the Comatorium.

I listened to that CD for about two weeks straight. Every track turned corners into areas of sound that I would have never expected. It kept me guessing. And Interested. And, just as I thought that I had them figured out, The Mars Volta pulls something completely amazing out of nowhere.

But, what do they sound like? It’s impossible to put these guys in a little box like that. Standard rock setup; vocals, guitars, bass, drums. What are they though? Punk, emo, hardcore, prog… The Mars Volta consists of components of hugely unrelated musical styles. But not in the way that their style might seem unfocused or scattered. No. On the contrary, it is intensely focused, densely layered, and impossible to ignore. The Mars Volta is not background music.

Their newest endeavor, Frances the Mute (which I was able to get a preview of a couple of months ago), is out now. In many ways, it is an extension of De-Loused. This album however, has the potential of being its superior, emotionally matured, successor. I have been listening to the full work, without rest since yesterday.

Frances the Mute is amazing. Go buy it. Now!

This weekend was strange. In everything that I did, I continuously felt as though I was one step behind everyone else. I couldn’t keep up with anyone… physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a lot on my mind… actually, I know that I had a lot on my mind.

Have you ever felt that way? Like, no matter what you are doing, your timing is just off. And it is off by such a minute amount that it’s hardly perceptible, nevertheless it is fucking everything up.

Grrr…

Well, anyway… it is Monday morning. It is sunny outside, yet the looming workweek hangs overhead like a bleak storm cloud… about to rain bricks on the unsuspecting masses below. Ok… I really need to stop listening to Lacrimas Profundere first thing on Monday morning (Lacrimas Profundere translates into something like “weeping profusely”).

I don’t know. Maybe when the coffee kicks in I will be feeling a bit more cheerful.

Oh my god. Y’all have to see how the upcoming version of Mac OS (10.4 Tiger) integrates an rss feed with a screen saver (from Engadget). I’m feeling dizzy.

Apple, I love you so much. Let’s marry and have fruit flavored babies.

Ughhh… actually, nevermind.

By now, everyone knows that I will be going to grad school in the fall. And in my wake, I will be leaving a lot of things behind. I will be leaving Massachusetts. I will be leaving Northampton. I will be leaving my radical housemates… etc. I will also be leaving behind my job. And while it is not a bad job… the people that I work with are awesome, they buy me whatever toys I want, the pay is good, they leave me alone enough to post blog entries whilst at work… I am simply not happy here. I am not being challenged and I have a lot of skills that are just rotting away. In short, I will be happy to move on. And now, I have come to the point of this post… the crux, if you will. So, pay attention. As of right this instant, there are exactly 85 days, 5 hours, and 52 minutes until that last glorious moment of work. And how do I know this (without doing any of that hideous math)? Well, I simply looked at my menu bar, of course (see photo). Now it reads, “85 days, 5 hours, and 50 minutes until the end.”

The little app that is allowing me to have this customized countdown (constantly taunting me with its promise of freedom… so close, yet so far) is a piece of freeware, aptly named Countdown. This application only does one thing, but it does it well.

If you have an impending moment of glory (or doom) in your future, you might want to play with this little app. It is helping me to remember that there is hope in my future… and I only have to suffer through a painful 85 days, 5 hours, and 43 minutes to get there.

The paper clip is obsolete technology.

Long live the BINDER CLIP!

Hip hip hooray!

I’m tired of sitting. All I do, all day long, is sit.

One of the many freelance projects that I worked on in Berkeley, had an amazingly efficient and comfortable workspace. The studio area that I worked in was truly a breath of fresh air. The outer wall of the space was lined with a huge desk surface that wrapped around most of the wall. It allowed for a massive surface area on which projects could be spread out. The most impressive part however, was that the wall desk rose to about four to five feet high. The surface of the the desk was slightly lower than chest level (and as I recall, the desk surface was fastened to the wall in such a way that its height could be adjusted to plus/minus six inches or so). The chairs that accompanied the wall desks, where these awesome adjustable, rolling, comfy stool chairs. You could work sitting down… or you could stand and let your legs stretch out. Surprisingly, that small feature was hugely conducive to productivity. It kept me awake… kept the blood flowing and my brain active.

I would love to employ that type of workspace environment here… I’m afraid however, that that kind of forward thinking would clash with the beige walls.

From the depths of the tepid inferno, my pal Mike, proponent of the almighty flamethrower, blogs about the wintertime benefits of flamethrower ownership. Words and illustrations by Mike himself… this is a blog entry not to miss.

As a winter related side note, three quarters of the crew at my homestead are going snowboarding tonight. Yea! I haven’t been in more than two years. But my board is freshly waxed, my snow pants are one size too small, and my boots are just as uncomfortable as ever. So I feel ready. My only question is whether I’ll be able to blog in a full body cast… and whether the hospital has wireless internet. Let’s hope so, because that is where I will be inevitably spending my weekend.