Techno Robot Pudding

So I’m waiting to see when my router decided to spazz out again. About 40 minutes ago it decided that it was going to stop working. Why not just cut out the Internet connection? Well, why not indeed. Because there it went, poof. What a nice surprise. Nice like waking up to a steaming pile of shit being lathered onto your face.

So of course I want to kick the fucking thing into the wall after lighting it on fire, but that might void the warranty. Some warranty. Instead I put it through a few power cycles. Well, the wireless decides it doesn’t want to work. Oh, no Internet on a regular hard-wired Ethernet connection either. Hm. And what’s this? I have to re-activate my DSL! Oh! Because I didn’t already do it. I just happened to hook everything up and it magically worked with no problems. Let’s take a trip in the Ol’ Pissed Off Wayback Machine. *doot doot doot*

I order DSL and local phone service as part of a special “package” from Verizon. I get a confirmation email for the bundle and the phone service, with the promise of a DSL confirmation very shortly. After two days, it never comes. I, of course, call Verizon tech support. After navigating through about a hundred stupid robot voice prompts, I am redirected to the heavily outsourced gentleman who tells me apparently my order for DSL was never placed! Hm, I thought when you ordered a bundle, they gave you the bundle. Maybe I’m just an idiot. So I get “redirected” to sales, who never answers. Turns out they’re closed.

The next day I find the number for a local sales office. The woman I talk to is very pleasant, not outsourced, and quick to help. She promptly places my order, and makes the proper adjustments so I might obtain the benefits of the bundle pricing. I am then given a service ready date of December 11. I play the waiting game. On December 8, I try to use my phone, but notice it’s dead. After dealing with robot service asshole again and determining that this is indeed their problem, I am outsourced again to a gentleman who speaks with no expression or empathy for my plight. I try to explain that someone was working on a neighbor’s line, perhaps they accidentally screwed up my line. He’s not listening. Instead, he schedules a tech to visit, something I could’ve done with the damn robot. I also inquire about my DSL. He states that it says the service was ready on the 7th. Well, why wasn’t I sent a notification like they said they would? I tell him I was given the 11th as the date. He rudely tells me I’m wrong and it’s the 7th. I hang up on the asshole.

So I wait until Monday the 10th. I’m at work and the tech calls my cell phone, telling me that something was indeed hooked up wrong. I had no idea, because it’s not like that’s what I was telling the idiot on the phone several days ago. But this guy is local, and very nice. He apologizes profusely, and I feel bad because he’s working for idiots. Once again the local person does good. So I get home and hook everything up. The “setup” software runs on my Mac, to a point. It decides to repeatedly freeze and crash no matter what I do. Great product. So I run it on my PC, and everything goes through, but what should’ve taken 15 minutes took five times as long. Service is steady, and wonderfully fast. I was impressed.

The next day (see: the 11th, when I was told my service would be ready) I get an email telling me my service is ready. No shit. Then, two days after, I get a phone call from Verizon telling me my service is ready. Once again, I had NO IDEA… Geez. So now we end up at the present. Wireless resets, I have to re-activate, and I’m led to wonder if I have to do this again. Or how often.

But in other news, I’ve taken a small interest in Shiny Toy Guns. The song “Don’t Cry Out” is just fantastic. I’m going to get the album and see what else they may have to offer, aside from that overplayed TV ad song “Le Disko.”

File this one under consumer reports, basically.

so it’s finally news. the release date of matthew good’s new record. well hell, i’ll let him tell you. and i won’t give a direct link. you’ll find it on his site. you should be checking it out anyways. what i will give a direct link to, however, is his biography page which explains some of the process behind Hospital Music. while i cannot say that my life has been as turbulent as matthew’s this past year, i can say that it has been filled with ups and downs. from the few tracks i’ve heard from the album, it seems as though some of the feelings brought through will be shared.

and just when you thought that you were down for the count, things pick up again. and they get all crammed together. dammit. but it’s a good dammit, dammit.

continuing the mac attack, and things are still so very good. rock n roll.

sweet discovery. it is the tonic that keeps my brain refreshed in these trying times. i’ve discovered some old Jimmy Eat World material, quite good. i’ve discovered a few old Radiohead b-sides that i’ve had for a little while but never got around to listening to. i’ve also discovered a nice little deal on a cheap hard drive to stash my collections of music and projects on. the sooner it arrives, the better.

speaking of arrivals, the new VNV Nation album has arrived at my home, UPS tells me. can’t wait to go give that a listen.

and Matthew Good has graciously decided to stream a track from his upcoming release Hospital Music on his site. it is called “A Single Explosion” and has been dwelling in my head for something like the last 15 hours. not that it’s a bad thing.

tonight is the end of something i started over a year and a half ago. i will miss it, but such is the way time progresses. hopefully i will have a good night behind the lens and end things the way they started- with a bang.

i’m sitting here in an atrium staring at the arched ceiling above my head. i never really noticed how deep the damn thing was. it’s so vast. despite the stains and tinting brought on by years of wear, it’s also somewhat beautiful. this is one of the few buildings around here that i don’t mind. it’s a great congregation area, though sometimes the other people that hang out here can be quite the obnoxious bunch.

there’s a tour group walking through. the guide is, as usual, quite boring. you can tell from the looks on the faces of the “toured” that they are half-awake and half-listening. i remember going on that tour. what a fucking waste. one thing i’ve been regretting for a while: not jumping into one of those groups and doing something rudely disruptive. there’s still time, i suppose.

i suppose i could be reading or studying or whatever the shit. it’s just not happening. as has been the case lately, my mind is somewhere else entirely. i’m looking out at that fake lake and wishing i was on a boat in the middle of it, fishing or something. the current is pretty damn strong right now, but i figure you just gotta toss an anchor down. heck, it’ll probably hit this treasure chest full of magic doubloons or shit. then a pirate ghost would come out and kill everyone. sounds fun.

i’m hungry. tony robbins hungry! to hell with him, his giant teeth, and his mutant deep voice. and his piles of money. bah. time for business.

Roberto Luongo fucking owns your soul.

A Manifesto.

We are united in the common belief that shitty music needs to stop existing. The people that make shitty music must be reprimanded.

We need to gather them all together into one big clump. Perhaps they should all be put in a giant plane destined for the side of a mountain. Perhaps they should be sold into servitude to some third-world despot and forced to make bird houses or something. Perhaps they should get the suckiness simply beat out of them with the broken-off rear bumper of a 1986 Chevy Nova.

Regardless, there are “musicians” that need to stop thinking they are musicians. There are people who need to know they’re listening to garbage instead of the awesomeness the rest of us listen to. Let us inform them.

There are also capable musicians who have been swayed to the Dark Side of cookie-cutter production, spewing forth efforts of mediocrity. They need to get back on the Right Path or face the fate of the doomed mentioned above. And if they don’t know how to make a good album, they can always call one of us up and ask. I’d be happy to tell them.

it’s been a long and hard road of doing next to nothing, but i’m finally finished with the semester. yipee, hooray, woohoo. now i can be even more reckless and silly, since a weight hath been lifted from my shoulders. for now.

have you ever listened to a song and had it remind you specifically of a person? have you ever just had them pop into your head when you hear something? what about vice versa? you know, you think about someone and somehow the tangent involves that song? almost like theme music. well, there it is. maybe i listen to too much music.

speaking of which, i’ve purchased a great little CD. it’s Tokyo Police Club’s A Lesson In Crime. it is fantastic and i highly recommend it. i’ve already listened to the whole thing about three times through. well, it’s only a 16-minute-long EP, but it’s a damn good 16 minutes. here’s a list of the albums that have blown me away over the past four or so months:
Tokyo Police Club – A Lesson in Crime
BT – This Binary Universe
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
David Bowie – “Heroes”
K-OS – Atlantis
Mobile – Tomorrow Starts Today

soon: christmas shopping. fun. watch the police reports.