importance of living quarters > importance of blogging

Hello all. The blog has been sadly neglected these recent weeks, in large part due to the following pieces of excitement in my life:

a) the apartment I was going to move into burned down two days before I got the chance (here's some pictures)
b) had to find a new apartment to live in
c) had to move my belongings into new apartment

But now that I'm simply unpacking, I can re-prioritize my life and resume a pursuit with little point! Posts of greater merit are forthcoming.

Fried-day

It's a dank one out there, and I'm .5/10-15 pages into this paper about how Reagan's economic policies screwed over the majority of Americans. Suffice it to say I'm gonna be bogged down working on this thing for a while. And then I've got three finals in 24 hours...At least I've got some sweet tuneage to help me push through...

Scattered thoughts from recent days:

• Jonathan Van Every does it ALL. His Dave McCarty impression was most admirable. If only I were a lefty, maybe I could also be a 30-year-old career minor league outfielder transformed into major league mop-up man with a 73 mph fastball and a fantastic Mississippi drawl...I don't think that's aiming too high for a dream job...
  
• Given the awful economic situation, I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job this summer. It pays to have a little bit of technical expertise and something vaguely resembling people skills, I guess.
  
• Cutting my own hair was a remarkably rewarding experience. On a par with beardsculpting, if not better. (Thanks for letting me use your buzzer/trimmer/haircuttin' thang Sean!)
  
• That last softball game was awesome. It was the best loss I've ever been a part of. Another example of why you shouldn't give up easily.
  
• The Andrew W.K. show kicked a serious amount of ass. Yes, I got on stage with the band. Yes, I got to touch him. No, I don't have a lock of his hair. Y'all are creepy for even thinking of it.
  
• So far in the medical-afflictions-which-are-a-giant-pain-in-my-ass category, tree pollen > "swine flu". I'm not buying the hype.
  
• How the hell is it May already?
  
• Shooting to scrobble 10,000 songs this summer. As long as neither my iPod nor MacBook die out of warranty, I think it's doable. Also, "doable" is a terrible-looking word whose pronunciation is utterly counter-intuitive. Yeah, I said it. [UPDATE: I ended up easily meeting this goal. Epic win.]
  
• I'm either going to learn how to cook this summer or order an awful lot of pizza. Hoping for the former, but wouldn't be entirely surprised if the latter occurs. I think a happy medium of the two would be optimal for maintaining my sanity. [UPDATE: I ate an awful lot of pizza and various other take-out for the first month or so of the summer, then wised up and started cooking low-maintenance food.]
  
• The whole time I was writing this I could have been working on that monstrosity of a paper. But wait, I'll rationalize this...simply honing my writing skills, gently massaging half my brain by churning out a few hundred words of sludge, warming up for the marathon of paper creation that will shortly ensue...
  Yeah, I feel marginally better now.
  Back to work.
  

Back again.

I have re-surfaced on this ridiculously nice day in the midst of my season of academic discontent for just long enough to make a post on this thing, which is a good a feeling as any. So here's some scattered thoughts, as that's pretty much all I have to offer these days: scattered thoughts broken by marathon paper-writing sessions, another one of which I'll begin all too soon:

• The Sox are going to lose today, but winning the last eight games in a row is now small feat, especially considering their inauspicious start. Last night's comeback was easily the best game I've watched so far this year. UPDATE: Tek just hit a grand slam...hopefully I'll have to eat my words.
  UPDATE: Jacoby Ellsbury of all people just hit a home run. I never said I didn't like this team...
  UPDATE: J-Bay just hit a two-run double. WOW.
  
• Youkilis and Bay continue to produce. Dusty's come around. Ortiz...well, if this keeps up a few more weeks I'll probably be ready to stick a fork in him.
  
• Can't say enough good things about Ramon Ramirez. I know it's a small sample, but a 0.581 WHIP in 10.3 innings is simply disgusting.
  
• Glad that the reason Lowrie was so bad at the start of the season was because he was hurt, but less happy that he was hurt. Hope he heals up OK. (Yes, I found his Twitter. Also found Tito's.)

UPDATE: As much as I hate to admit it, apparently Tito's twitter was a fake. However, I maintain the belief that Jed's is real. Also, Barry Zito's is an interesting read from time to time.

There's more music coming, I swear

I'm presently tied up with end-of-the-semester academic stuff. But in about a week the semester will be over and I'll be posting much more regularly over holiday break, in large part because I will probably not have anything better to do. I'm leaning towards making this more of a straightforward mp3 blog, but we shall see. In the meantime, check out these links:

Kid Omega (blog of my main musical focus)

Funion (Myspace page of my side project)

Because I will do almost anything to avoid attending to my studies...

So it's already been a couple weeks since my last post, which doesn't seem at all possible, and yet it is. This evening it started snowing, which drove home the point for me that before I know it the semester will be over. Being busy does tend to make the weeks pass pretty regularly I guess. A lot of note has happened in the gap between entries, and although perhaps it would be wiser for me to spread the content of this post out over multiple ones for the sake of updating more frequently, the temptation to say everything at once is simply too great. So:

- Kid Omega (my band) played a show at the VFW in Walpole, MA last Friday. There were some pretty awesome people there and it was a fun time for sure to get out of Worcester for a little bit. It was a great experience and hopefully we can get some more shows soon...which leads me to my next entry...

- When attempting to book shows, it is advantageous for one to have several songs put to tape of halfway-decent quality. So, for this and other reasons, this upcoming weekend we intend to do some recording that takes place outside of the confines of our room. You know, with electrically powered instruments and stuff. Pretty exciting, I know. And once we have some new recordings, we can post them on Myspace, last.fm, etc. too for y'all who care to listen. Looking forward to it.

- I can't wait for the election to be over and done with, so long as it turns out the way I'm hoping it to. If not, I'm liable to pack up my things and move to Canada. I hear that Ottawa's the London to Montreal's Paris...

Odds and Ends

I know I've been terrible at updating this blog regularly but I find myself generally busy of late and typically devoid of much inspiration. I just moved into my new accommodations for the year and they are a definite upgrade. At long last my band has found housing under one roof. Let the creative juices flow 24/7! "What band?" you may ask. This band:

Kid Omega: The Myspace
Kid Omega: The Last.fm Page
Kid Omega: The Blog

That was some shameless self promotion, no? Hey, I've got to put something here. Plus, I'm really psyched about this year music-wise. Check out our pages if you want.