I purchased a laptop a few months ago. My dad was in the hospital (he's doing very well, thank you for asking) and in an inspired bout of retail therapy highly rationalized by the need to get work done at the hospital, I bought a Powerbook G4. It's been great, I've been able to surf porn at work without IT getting on my case, and as evidenced by my last post, write about things pretty much as they happen. OOOOH.

Portability doesn't stop however, once you get home. No sireee, you can read/write blogs on the can, IM on the couch, compose music while eating/cooking, and work in bed. Time flies when you're working in bed though--this is a bad thing--it's 3am before you realize that you really really need to sleep. I've solved it though--don't plug in. Let the battery die. Let the battery life tell you when you need to go to bed, which is right about now.

Cheap Bastard.

If you've never been in therapy (college. Long story, maybe later), this entry in which I am in fact a cheap bastard at heart will not look familiar.

Ok so I'm like sitting here in the lobby of The Standard again (waiting to get my hairdid), and laughing my ass off AGAIN at the latest issue of VICE magazine, in this case the "I call bullshit on..." article and the "do's and don'ts". The do's and don'ts almost never fail to disappoint, but there are always a couple of gems of articles in there that make me look like a complete idiot in public-it never fails. I'm always reading Vice in public because when I get it , I pretty much have to read it right there.

This isn't the point, however. The point this time is how fucking often I get my hair cut. It's literally been (I don't know exactly how long, since I don't have internet access at this second, nor do I have fact-checkers at my beck and call, but oh well, it was right before E3, which started the 13th, so it was probably right around then, you know, I had to look good on-camera and whatnot. Did I, who knows, I bombed. Now I've totally lost the flow of my sentence in that overly-long parenthetical aside, now to jump back into the sentence, I think I was talking about how long it's been since I had a haircut) like two or three weeks, though my guess would be two weeks on the nose. TWO WEEKS. It's not like I'm trying to overdo the grooming thing, I'm not trying to become some �ber-groomed, hi-maintenance kind of person, but seriously, sometimes you just have one of those days where I wake up and say "OK, I have the asian fro going on right now (where my hair just sticks out like a porcupine)the only choice I have today is to wear a fucking hat." This is ok in winter (or what passes for winter here in LA), but on the day after Memorial Day? Beanies don't work. Sneaks up on you, it does. This is why I get my hairdid here. $19. I can do that, every couple of weeks. I used to pay more, but that adds up. What is the point of this post? I don't know, I'm bored and I've already read my magazine and I'm bored, I've already had an $11 Ketel One on the rocks and don't really want to pay for another but I don't want the fucking waiter to think I'm cheap by changing up my drinks. Even my tiBook is eliciting "Oh that's not a 17" Powerbook" look from passers-by. Maybe the fact that I was reading a free magazine adds to that cheap-bastard stink I have hanging around me. I drive up in a dirty car for a sub $20 haircut, order JUST ONE $11 drink, and type away on a 15" tiBook. It's not even a 12", which would be cool because it's small. It's the middle-child one, the not-nearly-as-sexy one.
Epiphany! I'm a cheap bastard. I had no idea!

addendum:
One thing popped into my head as I looked the mirror at my new haircut. I never watched the show, but I saw the fucker on like, the news or something. Ready?

"Clay"

don't that beat all? Except for Ruben, whoever that is.

feeling dorky about:
Wanting a VW Eurovan.

e3.
I did some reportage on e3 for Sony yesterday. They stuck a pen and pad of paper in my hand, put a Sony Cybershot U digital camera around my neck (these things are SWEEEET--so tiny) and sent me off to go play videogames and write horrible little stories. I mean, horrible game reviews. In the middle of the day, we shot a story on Gran Turismo 4, where I layed the smackdown on 3 other videogame dorks then interviewed them on-camera. I was sweating like a german tourist at disneyworld in the summer, which you know always looks good on camera.

Every year, I go to e3 for an ego boost. Here I am surrounded by thousands of people that share the same interest as me, BUT THEY'RE ALL HUGE DORKS. I can look around and smile, safe in the knowledge that no matter how dorky I can get, I will NEVER be as bad as the people at this joint. Me, surrounded by a convention center full of dorks and booth babes . pictures to come soon.

laughing like an idiot.
why yes, that WAS me sitting by myself in the lobby of the standard reading a magazine and cackling away uncontrollably on saturday morning. this is what i was reading.
-example
M: MIX TAPE ALERT!
Do not make a mix tape for someone you have not fooled around with yet (said in an "emergency, emergency" robot voice). If she has a boyfriend and you are just courting her, she will put on the tape and they will lie in bed listening to "Ne Me Quittez Pas" and laughing their fucking asses off.

now, i realize that saying "i think vice is funny" is a cultural signifier that means almost nothing these days, somewhat like having a poster of a glass of water but this article is.just.so.funny. seriously, all that and they recognize my boy billy bragg. dayum. ("emergency, emergency"! ha!)

dammit, i accidentally erased the "i have a fine ass" post. i do have a fine ass.

repost (i really did accidently delete it):
so this girl was staring at my ass in the elevator today...
there are shiny doors in there, and i was standing there trying to avert my eyes from everybody else's (i'm shy--heh) and minding my own business. they say (whoever "they" are, i agree with them completely), you can tell when people are looking at you--you feel their energy or some shit, and if you look around, you more than likely will see someone looking at you, whether they be checking you out or staring at the piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

so there i was, standing there (averting my eyes) when i felt that someone-is-looking-right-at-you feeling, so i look at the doors in front of me to try to see in the reflection who it might be--lo and behold, this girl's had her head cocked slightly to her left (does that mean in reverie or in analysis?) and her eyes aimed squarely at my ass. i furrowed my brow and slightly smirked right as she looked up to see me watching her, then she quickly looked at one of the news articles posted in the elevator. BUSTED!

i walked to my desk, smug in my fine-ass-having glory (maybe it was the paper jeans?) only to realizewhen i sat down that i had a t-mobile brochure in my back pocket.

what's the point? it's not that i don't have a fine ass. i do. it's just that now this girl is going to feel awkward because she thinks that i think she was staring at my ass (she was), when she was probably just puzzled at what i had in my back pocket (i'm giving her the benefit of the doubt). so what the hell am i supposed to do now?

me: "hey, hi... yeah, um, i know you weren't staring at my ass the other day in the elevator because you think it's fine, or maybe you were, i don't know, i just realize that i had something in my pocket and maybe you were looking at that instead, but in any case, i don't mind, really, you can stare at my ass any day--oh shoot, that came out wrong... uh..."
her: "what are you TALKING about? i'm going to human resources!"
me: "oh, uh..,"

maybe i'll just shut up.

Dear Exotic Dancers,

Here's a tip: If I'm in the house and you want to earn lots of money, it's easy. You don't need to put on extra Designer Impostors perfume, your cho-cha don't need no fancy do', all you need is to dance to Portishead. Numb is particularly good. got it?

look, i'm back for the most part and i've even done a little redesign. i'll probably even start posting again soon.

audblog audio post