book words

again, another fun filled weekend in santa cruz. i really hope my boss doesn't read this blog because he's going to get pissed at all the "work" i've been getting accomplished. the highlights of this weekend included a pretty awesome show/party and rockets.

the show on saturday was pretty awesome. a great deal of friends showed up to watch me wrench my heart out over the microphone. as usual, i wasn't in the most sober of states by the time i was ready to play. due to the fact that i haven't been playing music recently, i was quite nervous and afraid of the intimacy of sam g's front room. before i went on, there was a nice meandering set played by another victor (and someone else i didn't meet) that warmed up the crowd. upon sitting down to play, i was immediately bombarded by real talk quotes. it was really really funny and fun. although the content of the music was watered down by the overall crowd interaction, i believe the show was a lot more entertaining for everyone involved. it was incredibly difficult for me to play with the distractions and eventually led to me making a few mistakes (but whatever). in the middle of the set, it was decided that my new name was book words, something i took to well. after being thrown up and down towards the ceiling, i received accolades from the people at the party and was in what, as my friends girlfriend stated, a pussy tsunami. it's funny because i'm not even sure anyone heard the music over the antics, but everyone was giving me smiles and thumbs up. it was great fun.

cliff greenwood and miles went on after me and played an, as usual, amazing set with several young college students sitting around sighing dreamily at their country-punk. pretty awesome. check out their music.

i stepped outside to do a jay and came back in to see luke janela sitting with his shoes off with cello in hand and 808 by feet. there was a throbbing techno beat coming from the 808 and i was waiting for luke to turn off the beats and start playing the cello. to my (and i believe the rest of the party's) surprise, luke started jamming with the techno, playing a distorted cello accompanied by heavily effected and delayed vocals. it was really cool and really, really blew my mind. he weaved through his set, changing the effects on the cello and his voice, mixing up the beats (with his bare feet) and generally being totally awesome. i could see this music going off at dance parties across the world. his speakers on the PA were clipping but the distorted quality of the music added to the overall sound and made it that much more sweet. i hope his speakers are okay. he ended his set by jamming to some sweet beats and we danced. it doesn't get much better than that. after we left, i guess some sc locals came and gave the ol, "i'm a local" argument at the party. you can read more about that at luke's site (linked above).

the following day, that'd be sunday i think, trevor called us over to the high school to witness the launch of his model rocket. there were three successful launches with two successful recoveries. this led us to head out to capitola to the hobby store to get rockets. i got the big bertha and trevor got one that came Ready To Fly (RTF). the guy at the hobby store was trying to tell us that estes has a monopoly on rocket engines so they can charge as much as they like. at first i thought that because they were the only hobby store in the area they were the monopoly, but, after some research, it turns out that it's difficult to get the rocket engines for less than three bucks a pop. i really wanted to spend one hundred dollars on the rocket with the digital camera, but i decided to wait and work out my recovery skills first. i'll have some pictures of the first launch once i get my rocket together.

music this saturday

i guess i should let my millions of readers know that i'm playing a show this saturday, december 1st at sam g's house at 403 almar street in santa cruz. luke g and cliff g (no relation) will be playing also. i'm pretty excited. it's been almost a year since i've actually touched my guitar or sang so it's going to be pretty interesting.

in other news, i've been getting a lot of grief for my lack of punctuation that i use in this blog-pile. what is it that drives people nuts by not having a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence? what is so frustrating about not having a indentations at the beginning of the paragraph?

what
          if
                i
wrote
        like
this?


is it so difficult to notice when i finish a sentence and change thoughts? i don't think so. i think it offends the reader who doesn't realize that this blog-pile is most unlike literature in the sense that it totally isn't. as if. when i write fiction or science, i always follow the rules but in this bloggy-blog-blog, i don't really feel like i should or need to. it's liberating, like burning your bra or not wearing underwear. you should try it some time.

of montreal. tall cans. taxi crashes. crack rats.

tuesday november 12th i went to see of montreal at the great american music hall. i'm not the biggest of montreal fan, and to be honest i was really only familiar with one of their songs. regardless, or irregardlessly as it might be, i had an awesome time. they put on an eccentric show with strange costumes and stage players that would either act out some type of scene or entertain the crowd. the opening band was some rap group called grand buffet. they were pretty funny, reminiscent of Hawd Gankstuh Rappuhs Emsees Wid Gats, but a little more well rehearsed and a lot more off the wall.

after a fit of dancing, my posse and i decided to go to the hemlock to enjoy a drink or two. this, as usual, ended in drinking tall cans and puffing tuffy outside the bar. as the bar closed we decided to hop into a cab. across the street, a homeless man was flagging a taxi while a car service car pulled up to give us a ride. for those from the east coast, while a car service sounds benign, they do not actually have medallions (as the other cabs do in s.f.) and they are viewed as the scumbags of the taxi service by other taxi drivers. the taxi driver flagged by the homeless man began yelling (in some obtuse accent), "don't get into that taxi, they are not insured!" i was like, "whatever." i take car services (or is it servi?) from the airport all the time and they are pretty well behaved. as we depart the block, describing to the car service our destination, the drive proceeds to take a left, contrary to the directions we had just provided. as i'm about to say something to the driver, he slams into a car driving approximately forty miles per hour launching my unseat belted ass into the passenger seat and my friends leg into the driver and passenger seat divider.

it took a moment to fully realize what had occurred. i've never been in an accident in a taxi in my life. being pretty old, one would think that it would have already happened. my friend and i got out of the cab to see the total destruction of the service car and the late nineties mustang we had collided with. it was at this point in time the obtuse accented taxi driver from before started yelling, "i told you so, you should never have gotten in that car!" no shit. not wanting to wait for the cops, we walked to the corner where taxi cabs started to accumulate to gawk at the accident. at this point, i realized the driver of the mustang was not wearing a seat belt, either, and had suffered a major concussion. the ambulance and cops were on their way there. we were on our way out. i know that fleeing a scene of crime is against the law, but there were plenty of witnesses and our lack of seat belts prevented us from filing suit. besides, we were relatively uninjured. we got in a cab and headed home, still in disbelief that that had even happened.

the next day, while riding the bus, a large sweaty black man got on carrying a microwave. he proceeded to tell us about the rats that hang out next to a wall (i forgot where, sorry) that crack addicts perch upon. when a crack head drops a rock, the rats run over and grab them and immediately gobble them down. he further established that the crack rats are so strung out that they refuse saltines and only eat crack. he claimed that he was going to get his camera and go down there and take pictures of the crack rats. but not before he goes home, smokes some hash and watches forrest gump. all of this in the middle of the week. my boss will be proud.

3 am and all is gay (happy, you homophobe)

i awoke this afternoon, still drunk and reeking of whiskey, trying to piece together the weirdness that was last night. my intention never is and never was to get falling down drunk. but that is just what i did. walking my bike home (i'm assuming i was too drunk to ride it), i was stumbling, literally falling down just a block from my house. i found it quite entertaining and was laughing my ass off when i heard an, "are you o.k.?" looking up i found my estranged neighbor dude with some other dude. the next thing i know, we're at my house drinking wine (a fine barbera d'alba-- i know i shouldn't drink good wine when i'm already wasted, but it was either that, whiskey or vinegar). there is something about my language skills that when i get drunk i prefer to speak in spanish. not that my spanish is good or anything, it just seems more wield-ly than my english. it's a good thing my neighbors friend is from mexico, he could understand me. i was really trying to figure out why i was feeling so uncomfortable when it hit me. my neighbor and his dashing mexican friend were feeling me out (figuratively) to see if i wanted to engage in a threesome with them. the epiphany i had was the on the order of magnitude of a james joyce story. i thought my neighbor was a little strange because he was a physicist. now it all comes together (again, figuratively). after blaming the decline of philosophy on nick bostrom and his shitty editors, i threw a book across the room resulting in almost everything in my house to come falling down (myself inculded). i think they realized i had a few screws loose and was most likely dripping with STDs. they left. all i know is i'm really glad i didn't wake up with two dudes in my bed. i don't know if i could handle that kind of confusion with the massive hangover i'm nursing.

ucsc student gets stuck in tree. smokes weed. runs out of snickers bars. story at 11.

so it seems the time of year has come for the protesters to come out of hiding and scurry up into the trees. typically, i'm all for dissent, however, this year the target of protest happens to be 30 feet from my lab, and i'm forced to intervene. it's not that they are wrong. nor that they are uninformed. the protesters are both. according to one of the spokespeople for the tree-sit-in the rally is supposed to inform the students about the "corporatization (no, it's not a word and, yes, i can't spell)" of the university. something about research for money and all the patents the scientists are taking out and not letting publicly researched information out into the mainstream. also, it's about the Long Range Development Plan and the bio-medical building slated for where the trees are now. i hate to tell them this, but i haven't been able to get a hold of our patent attorney for about three years now. either he's rotting in his office, or we don't have one. either way, i'm missing out (and so is the university that gets greater than 60% of the royalties) on some patents and some cash. lastly, the bio-medical building has been postponed indefinitely due to a poorly drafted EPA EIR. i don't think we'll even be seeing them think about breaking ground for another five years. to quote my friend, "it's six p.m. and students are still dipshits." well, anyway, at least they're trying. here is some local media with pics if you want to see some students in trees or getting pepper-sprayed.

struggle on science hill - scim

arrests and photos - scim

USD v. CAN

no, it's not a lightening bolt. it's the value of the US dollar vs. canadian currency from June 2004 to current. the first point on the graph is $1.45 USD to CAN. the last point on the graph is $0.92 USD to CAN. my point is we're fucked.