1-31-01 (22:37)
  • pretty tired.
  • work was 4 hours. 4 more hours tomorrow and at least 3 more the next day - possibly 6.
  • tomorrow will be a new month.


    • 1-31-01 (15:25)

  • saw a counselor today and discovered that i only need to take 12 units next quarter and that i only have one science GE requirement left. i was pretty sure that that was the case, but i wanted to make sure. have to register for classes next week.
  • was looking over the new york tourbook that AAA sent me. there's more shit in there than should be legal. so much good stuff. found out that i can expect the temperatures at night to get down to the low 50s in the summer months. found a bunch of lodging, dining, tourist site type information. the tour book for CA has got to be twice the size of the NY one. it's going to be very tempting to eat out every night.
  • "try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a a man of value" - albert einstein
  • i'd have to say that that's one of my favorite einstein quotes (and he's got a lot of great ones). the only problem would by the word choice, but i think even hardcore feminists would let it pass with einstein.
  • "sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side" - michael w. smith...thought that one would calm those of us who are disturbed by the bush election.
  • "what you do speaks so loud that i cannot hear what you say" - ralph waldo emerson
  • "to know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice" - confucious
  • "integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful" - samuel johnson
  • any time i think of sam johnson i have to recall the quote used by colonel dax from paths of glory: "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" - samuel johnson
  • quotes fill space better than i can.
  • check this out. looks pretty nice...no major/minor accidents, one owner, everything is working...


    • 1-31-01 (02:35)

  • for a while i've thought about how much a mailman can tell about a family's life just by looking at their mail. take my family for example...there once was a lot of mail coming for brad miller, then a major drop off. no mail for a sarah miller and then eventually there came teen magazines and the like. then me - a got a bunch of college crap and then there were the small envelopes from colleges like ucla or ucb and the big envelopes from uc davis or occidental. the letters from the green party or bills from playboy magazine. catalogs of all sort. it would be an interesting little fun weekend project to make a film in the style of "la jetee" where the stills were pictures of only mail. if done right it could be funny or even moving, but would require a lot from the audience. it would be hard, but if someone did it then i'd watch it.
  • i've got a lot to do in the next couple days.
  • i don't think i'm going to get the car window fixed on friday.
  • it seems like i don't have any time these days and i'm not really sure why.
  • i need to set aside some time to read a bunch. i guess work is where most of my reading gets done. sometimes i even get around to reading for school.
  • i'm about half way through the russian revolution right now which has gone by a lot more slowly than WWI, but only because i've worked less. in two weekends i'm sure to get plenty of stuff read. might give the history a break and go on to the philosophy books i picked up.
  • i LOVE the part in "The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie" where the woman is talking about some jean-paul sartre essay she read and she's debating with some other snobbish wannabe intellectual about existentialism. the thing that made it so priceless was the way in which they were debating about it. i think that any time you talk philosophy you should first address the fact that you know nothing and then go from there. at any rate, i wanted to just fart in her general direction and be done with her.
  • i wonder who the greatest mind of the last 5000 years was. i wonder how you would judge such a thing. i wonder if that person is even known to history. i'd tend to think that she didn't even bother with writing, or being discovered for that matter.
  • it's late and i should be off to bed. it's cold in my bed.
  • whenever i ride in jon's audi my ass feels all hot. then i realize that i'm riding in all the comforts a capitalist society can provide and, thus, we have heated seats. it's a very odd feeling for those of you uncivilized who are not yet in the know. an unusually warm ass feels, to me, peculiar.
  • familiar, similar, peculiar. for the life of me i'll never remember which ones end in "lar" and which end in "liar." that kind of stuff just pisses me off. the same goes for repeating letters. commitment, et al...i never remember if it's got two "t"s or two "m"s or both...there are lots of words that just making me fucking insane. actually more than insane. they make me feel like a real idiot. not just ignorant, but actually thick-headed, dull, a nimwit...i can't tell you how many times i've spell checked words like those, how many times i've looked them up and yet i still cannot remember how to spell them. maybe by making a huge deal over it i'll remember. not likely. compliment and complement. though i should be able to remember those, i usually can't. i always had a problem with objective and subjective too. i still have to think about those, but at least i have a mnemonic device for it now. then what trips me out is that i spell "mnemonic" correctly on the first try. my fucking brain has issues. bourgeoisie. i've got that one down now.
  • sleeping is a good idea.
  • dark side of the moon is better than you remember it.
  • melanie is the bomb diggity.


    • 1-30-01 (23:10)

  • updated the movies list. i've been slacking. tonight's movie was very cool.
  • picked up a bunch of work for this week so that'll keep me busy. i'm making a killing on these three day weekends - president's day weekend i work 15 hours. that's more than a week's worth for me (i'm scheduled to work 14 hours a week).
  • downloaded a beastie boys show from 1998 in belgium today.
  • listening to alice in chains for the first time in a long while.
  • get paid tomorrow. i think i already said that today. i have a one track mind...get paid, get cash, goto downtown sac, pick me up some poon-tang. or something.


    • 1-30-01 (13:05)

  • january is almost over.
  • i'm proud of the fact that i almost never worry about what to wear.
  • i'm a lazy bum.
  • it's not raining and that is good.
  • i'm pretty much out of laundry, but i'll have to make do this week and next so i can do some laundry while i'm at home.
  • every day i work out a new budget and plan for the trip. i need to just save and not spend and other than that i can't do much.
  • still need to get the window put back on malcolm. maybe this friday would be good.
  • film quiz tonight.
  • get paid tomorrow.
  • need a haircut.
  • got a fuckload of maps and tour books in the mail today. big time score.


    • 1-29-01 (22:21)

  • the public storage website sucks ass.
  • nothing fucking pisses me off more than when computer shit screws up.
  • this came at the end of an email i got from the green party today: "We offer our personal commitments and our recognition, so absent from modern politics, that social transformation begins with individuals looking inward, and making changes in their own lives.  We dedicate ourselves to a politics of hope, conscience and sacrifice, that we may build a society based on values of sustainability and social justice or record our resistance to one that is not."
  • going in on thursday to see if i can get promoted to the SAIII position at work, that would mean more money, but not yet the title of bourgeoisie i was looking for.
  • this page is over 140K large now, that's gotta be one of the biggest months ever.
  • got a search engine hit for "paxil AND laziness" - that just about sums up my page.
  • got 124 hits from jan 21-27


    • 1-29-01 (17:22)

  • got a letter from ralph nader today asking for my help. naturally it wasn't personalized, but the point is that things at that level are much more organized and dedicated to action and participation than at the level of the democratic or republican parties.
  • today didn't light my fire, but things are good.
  • have a film quiz tomorrow and i should do something towards preparedness. we shall see.
  • i should eat.


    • 1-29-01 (01:35)

  • it's like this...if you eat well and exercise then you are healthy - fuck what the scale says, fuck what your body fat percentage is. you're eating well and you're exercising ergo you are healthy for you. the weight/height chart doesn't tell you what is healthy, it tells you where you fit in relative to everyone else your height. the same logic, i think, applies to intellectual health - if you keep yourself sharp and keep open to learning and seek out learning then you have a healthy intellectual life. fuck what your sat score is. fuck the grades. but in reality those things matter. for kenneth zeigler - high school validictorian and all around real weirdo - his worth derived from it. if not for his success in those areas he'd just be a smart social reject, but because he got a 1560 on the SAT and straight As and 5s on all 8 AP tests then he was kenneth zeigler most successful student in schol and social reject.
  • whatever.
  • i think rapping to dj krush's "dig this vibe" would be cool.


    • 1-28-01 (23:35)

  • feeling stupid sucks because i value intelligence.
  • this struggle is a good thing, right nietzsche? struggle is good, struggle makes me stronger, all this shit has it's function...right? give me something to hold onto. what the fuck did you know - you died an old, single, insane fart.
  • why is it that everytime i sit down to read i think to myself constantly - you are reading this slower than you should. if you were smarter you'd be able to remember this shit, but the fact is that you won't remember most of it. your mind wanders too much, you shouldn't even bother reading.


    • 1-28-01 (21:16)

  • swapped out the sending unit in my car. next time i gas up i'll see if i done did it right.
  • think i'm going to take the bug down for spring break and leave it there.
  • feb. 9th-11th i'm going to LA to do laundry.
  • your boss makes you do his laundry for him? yea. sounds like a shitty job. i was just thinking that myself.
  • great film.
  • not sure what to do now. i've already worked on the car. i glanced over some notes from my film class. i watched tv.
  • lately i've been getting really stressed out about absolutely nothing. i'll be laying in bed and just start getting anxious and my gut starts to churn and my ulcer starts acting up. okay i don't have an ulcer, but at this rate i will.
  • probably going to spend anywhere from 150-200 hours in the car this summer. that means i wouldn't even be able to listen to half of my cds. when i put it in that perspective i realize two things - 200 hours can't be that much and i really do have an insane amount of cds.
  • i haven't purchased a cd with my own money (unless you count BMG - which i've yet to pay for) since december 6th.
  • as happens often, i was wrong - "feeling uninspired, think i'll start a fire" is an STP lyric.
  • lava soap is good.
  • word on the street is that it's not going to rain through thursday.
  • i should spiritualize enmity, i'd be a better person.
  • the live beastie boys site is back up...one show a month for free. great stuff if i got around to listening to them. at least i download them for later use.


    • 1-28-01 (20:06)

  • i like charles manson's song "look at your game girl."
  • i don't like it when people make things so black and white. charles manson is bad. the unabomber is bad. they have nothing useful to contribute, end of story. god is good, jesus was good, my televangelist who i give 15% of my salary to is good. end of story.
  • people are, yet again, retarded.
  • going to watch the simpsons.
  • they played propellerheads at the end of the simpsons tonight, that was pretty cool.


    • 1-28-01 (18:50)

  • super bowl was pretty wack.
  • don't feel very inspired to do much right now.
  • who sings the song wherein he says "feeling uninspired, think i'll start a fire..." i'm pretty sure it's nirvana, but not sure which song. not feeling inspired enough to look it up.
  • played frisbee golf and went par for the course, that ends my streak of horrible play. on the third hole we ran into a group of 5-6 homeless people who frequent the neighborhood park. one of them was laying on the grass next to hole 3. i was lucky to not hit him. happy-go-lucky is how i'd describe them. they offered up more conversation with vern and i than i've had with someone new in a long time.
  • i don't have many friends, but i don't think i'd be able to deal with having many friends anyway. still sucks.
  • talked to jesus (gay-soos) in the library today. he came back from spain this quarter, was in uzbekistan before that. he remains a tool, but, next to phil (rotc phil) and maybe doc, is the most grounded in reality out of all of them. he told me that their house isn't quite the seething orgy of gayness it appears to be. (i mean gayness as happiness in this case). apparently they're pretty segregated at this point - they've all got their separate lives and girlfriends and such. this whole time jon, vern, and i had been predicting massive bible study sessions and circle jerks, guess we were wrong.
  • i'm pretty sick and i don't mean to drag jon and vern down with me. the circle jerks thing was all me, i apologize.
  • i'm going straight to hell, but i already knew that.
  • the box is a good song.
  • got an email from some chick who wrote "I feel that you might have some of the qualifications we are seeking in our Model Scout Position that is open in your local area. For information about this position please visit our website at:" the funny thing is that the link was to an actual reputable modeling agency...kim alexis got her first break through them, apparently. but if they're sending me random emails how reputable can they be? odd.
  • are you watching survivor yet?
  • teens hang out at the mall because they don't really have any other refuge. it's sad that the only refuge teens have is in a hole of consumerism. we wonder what's wrong with our kids. they don't have structure or any sense of worth (coming back to my question - from where does your worth derive) except that which they get from mall culture - consumerism, image, etc. i think that's very sad. at least when child labor was legal kids were seen as equals on one level (although not in many others). the idea of adolescence wasn't even around then. earlier, in the days of the family farm, kids had a role on the farm. they had a purpose and something they could feel good about at the end of the day - they helped put food on the table. kids today, on the other hand, get to hear how they didn't put the roof over their head how they're not the ones out making money to put food on the table...instead they go to class and learn shit. not everyone is going to go college. when we, as a society, realize that college shouldn't be everyone's goal then we'll be better off. if i want to become a construction worker or an auto mechanic or learn a trade then high school doesn't do me much good. i think we need to change that. i'm not meaning to undermine the importance of a basic education - civic duties, history, writing skills, etc., but trades of the manual sort have been pretty neglected for the last x number of years and it's not a good thing.
  • i really have no clue what i'm going to do for the next 6 hours.
  • when i try to check my email and i'm not online it doesn't prompt me to connect anymore, it just says it can't find the server - it thinks it's online or something. strange and not good.
  • i'm surprised by the game. i think most are. i honestly felt that the giants had a good chance and i didn't think either team would win by more than 12 points.
  • i want to listen to music, but i should read. i can't do both at the same time. i honestly can barely even read. my brain fucking sucks and i fucking hate it. it wanders too much and i don't like that.
  • does target know what the devo song "beautiful world" is about? apparently not because they raped it in their commercial.


    • 1-28-01 (15:10)

  • work went quickly.
  • love can be a lot like religion in the hands of some people. what i mean to say is that claiming love as a highest good or panacea is just as dangerous as claiming religion as a cure-all. ike and tina thought they had it all figured out, obviously that wasn't love and they didn't and it hurt because they didn't have their shit together. the crusaders thought they were being good christians by killing millions in the name of christianity, but we all can look at that and say that they were wrong. so even though i've claimed that love can be the greatest thing and would solve a lot of the world's troubles, i should qualify that by saying that it has to be the right kind of love and it has to be real, it can't by the tina and ike kind. it can't be the crusaders' kind of christianity, because then it'll just lead to more retardedness. basically peoples' stupidity is infinite and can ruin the best ideas and best intentions.
  • love remains the shit despite dumb people.
  • speaking of love, i'm going to go watch tv for a few hours. har har.
  • giants 17-13. i make that claim because of their coaching and no other reasons.


    • 1-28-01 (11:37)

  • i'm actually looking forward to watching the game today. it'll give me something to do after work.
  • i work in 20 minutes, that sucks.


    • 1-27-01 (23:50)

  • i suggest everyone check out sonny sharrock's acoustic "blind willie" - it's the shit.
  • updated my wish list for the philanthropist in all of you.
  • computer crashed big time today. one of these days i'm going to have to buy a new one. that day will suck.


    • 1-27-01 (22:03)

  • "everything hurts" - michelangelo antonioni
  • so when the buddhists say that "life is suffering" what does that really mean? i thought that they meant "all life is suffering," but maybe what they really meant was that you are only really living when you are suffering...hence life is suffering and suffering is life, but there are times in between which may be not entail suffering, but those moments aren't what life is about.
  • "he was a wise man who invented god" - plato
  • they say that everything after plato is a footnote, meaning that he's said it all and any attempt at new thought is merely an addition to plato's work.
  • i think that some of the best advice nietzsche has given, if you could call it advice, is to not personalize the world. everyone does it, to a certain extent. so when my car is broken into i think to myself "what did i do wrong? why did god do this to me? what did i do to deserve this?" nietzsche, i think, would say that this is a prime example of someone personalizing their trouble - like i'm not worthy of a peaceful life so i'm going to have my car window smashed or my scooter stolen. the fact of the matter is that there's no justice in the world. i didn't do anything to deserve it (unless we're talking about elementary school...) and i shouldn't personalize the world. that's a basic explanation.
  • dungey used an example from the simpsons - there's an episode when a tornado rips through springfield and takes flanders' house, and only his house. (flanders is the most devout christian of all-time and also the simpsons' neighbor) seeing that only his house has been destroyed and all the other homes left without a scratch he calls to the sky and asks what he has done, or not done, to deserve this.
  • i think that nietzsche just makes the point that doing this is a) silly because it's just not the way life works and b) not at all conducive to living life, it is detrimental and egotistic and all sorts of other bad shit.
  • "get busy living or get busy dying" - that quote is the shit. of course the question of how is another story. a whole nother story. is "nother" a word? i think i already talked about that at some point. that's the only thing i learned in linguistics.
  • when it comes to things happening i can't remember ever in my life being dedicated to making something happen. for most it's making sure they get into yale law school or into med school (sorry doc) or the like. maybe they're dedicated to making sure their trip to europe happens or the like. i've never had that drive. i think the closest i got was making sure that the hitchhiking trip happened. once i got the go ahead from vern i did as much as possible to make sure we didn't back out to make sure that we gave it an honest try. that's why i didn't want to go back home that first night. that's why i give props to vern for making sure we went forth after being on the road for a few hours and we were at the foster's freeze and i was tired and thinking "what the fuck are we doing?" it's one reason i think so highly of mark borchardt - he's going to make his fucking film and the negativity he gets right and left - from his parents, from uncle bill, etc. doesn't get him off track. the bills, his debt, etc. all that doesn't mean shit because he's going to make the movie. the point is, i am actually pretty set on having two things happen - my summer trip and giving an honest try at becoming a teacher, though the latter is far more imposing and frightful than the former. i just need to pull a mark and make sure they happen. if i had uncle bill by my side saying "that'll be the day, that'll be the day," the way he did with mark i don't know if i could do it. those of who have seen "american movie" know what happens with uncle bill and mark in the end and that's why i cry everytime.
  • i remember going to xmas breakfast at my grandmother's and being very impressed with the spoons she had. very sturdy, very nice shape on the scoop. just very functional.
  • speaking of my grandmother - i'm eating some kick ass bread which she has provided me. it rocks.
  • i think honesty and asking for help should always be rewarded.
  • an amazing amount of stuff has happened this (calendar) year.
  • i remember when really stupid shit mattered to me. now only semi-stupid shit matters to me and the non-stupid shit matters more than it used to. making sense, i am.
  • i wish that having resolve to do something would translate into positive results. the truth of the matter is that i may want to become president more than anyone ever has, but if i don't do things correctly (snort some coke and not admit to it, lie, cheat, steal, raise a lot of money [and maybe an illegitimate child]) then i may just be s.o.l.
  • that reminds me...i was at work today and this lady's card had expired so i asked my boss what she might be able to do about that and she said that the patron wasn't going to be able to activate her card unless she paid her dues. since the mrak building(home of the accounting office) was closed the patron couldn't check out the book. so i said to my boss "can she get a temporary card?" she replied "nope" and i came back with "so she's pretty much S.O.L.?" and my boss gave me a strange look and hesitantly said "yea." so i went up to the patron, who had the worn face of a mother, and said "sorry you haven't paid your fees so i can't check the book out to you." to which the patron replied, with a sigh "can i just use the book for a few minutes?" now this is against policy so naturally i said "yea, i don't care, just don't run off with it or i'm going to have to send the dogs after you." so she thanked me and took the book. as she turned i said "oh, and don't tell my boss or else i'll get fired." ... "my lips are sealed" she said.
  • i think that the first time someone in my classroom gives me lip or comes in late or disrupts the class in some way i'm just going to tell the class straight up - "if you don't want to be here that's fine with me, but don't bring your bullshit into the classroom. while you're here we respect each other. if you can't do that then leave, i'm not going to tell on you."
  • that's why i'm looking forward to having my principal chew me out on a regular basis. hopefully i walk the line enough to not get fired, but still remain chris.
  • one thing to remember - you don't have to constantly move forward.


    • 1-27-01 (19:32)

  • bought a grip of water today, along with 50 blank cds, rice, pasta, and a fluorescent light bulb.
  • work was okay.
  • i'm glad i got a lot of stamps for xmas, they help big time.
  • no matter how much of an individual you think you are they still have you in a demographic. you can't become an individual by buying things. it's obvious, but how many people actually get it?


    • 1-27-01 (13:17)

  • i love the last line of "yojimbo." toshiro mifune turns towards the camera and says "luck!" it just rocks so much.
  • vern and i both got telemarketers calling around 1pm today.
  • i've got work from 3-6pm today and 12-3 tomorrow. soon i plan on becoming a full-fledged shift whore.
  • had more echinacea tea last night.
  • going to go eat now.
  • might watch 2001 tonight.


    • 1-27-01 (02:07)

  • listened to my page and plant cd for the first time in a long time; good it is.
  • humanity is pretty much doomed to stupidity forever and that kind of depresses me. despite the polls and studies which try to prove that the voters are very discerning, careful, and difficult to please i just don't buy it. i mean i've seriously read lots of studies which try to pull off some kind of miracle of regression analysis and come to the conclusion that the country isn't in dire straits and the people are actually acutely aware of what matters in politics. some of the arguments go that 60 percent of the country may not know who the second president was (these figures are made up, but you know all the horror stories of political ignorance), but they know what they want. they know the answer to normative questions like "should we allow affirmative action?..." and the like. people are ignorant and retarded when it comes to politics. that's simple. that's the truth. that's the way it has, and will continue to be. what we need is a good leader, sadly. i don't believe in the saying "the leaders will follow when the people take the lead" (or however that idealistic quote goes). it can happen, and it has happened, but i'm talking about the rule, rather than the exception.
  • i hate attaching psychological terms to peoples' behavior e.g., joe is passive aggressive. because even though it may accurately describe their behavior i think that it has a stigma that comes with it. as if psychology is the study of abnormalities and by being described with a psyhcological term you are thus abnormal. that's not what i mean when i use those terms, but it still carries that meaning for me.
  • i've been up for too long.


    • 1-26-01 (22:40)

  • one keyword i seem to get a lot of hits from is "download." download.
  • i've had 425 hits this month. that's just silly. too bad i can't seem to capitalize on all this popularity.


    • 1-26-01 (21:45)

  • when do tax refunds usually come?
  • what's a cheap source of protein? eggs...beans...peanuts...anything beyond that?
  • most "white" inventions ever? lawnmowers, leaf blowers, hair dryers...any others? chainsaws maybe. lipstick - especially considering the way it was once made.
  • still need to get my car window put in. they best not charge me more than 55 for it.
  • led zeppelin own. led zeppelin are so boss.
  • if i put away 16-17 bucks from now until the early july i should have plenty for the trip.
  • if i sold all my cds at 10 bucks a pop i'd have over 5000 bucks. jeez.
  • it's a good thing i don't drink coffee because when i was on the hitchhiking trip i drank what would probably be considered really bad coffee. i couldn't really tell the difference though. ignorance is bliss, i suppose.


    • 1-26-01 (17:45)

  • i guess they don't teach the meaning of the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" at yale because bush sure doesn't get it.
  • might go see "dancer in the dark" tonight. maybe.
  • looks like good metros will certainly go for under 2500 bucks
  • called AAA and got a shitload of maps for free today. that was cool.
  • purchased 3 bucks worth of food today, hopefully that will last me a couple weeks since i have a pretty nice store of food built up.
  • kris, this chick at work, said while looking at a news story about bush today: "he's so cute." i look over at the monitor and see bush's fat retarded mug staring back at me. i nearly puked.
  • here's a news story i just saw...
  • "well as you may have heard there is a football game this weekend (smug grin)....but the tickets are very hard to come by. let's go to joe mama for the story..."
  • "thank you seymore. 172 million americans are going to be watching the game this sunday, but there are only 70 thousand seats in the stadium - you do the math...garth and j.t. are two truck drivers who drove from baltimore to see the game...now you two were able to get tickets, right?"
  • "uh, yessum"
  • "how much are tickets going for?"
  • "i'se got 2 tickets for a thousand a piece and they's way up in the corner"
  • "wow. why are you paying so much to see a game?"
  • "cuz i want to see my team win"
  • i shit you not, that's how the story went. these two truck drivers talking to the reporter about wanting to see their team win. some sad shit. oh, and it was on the national news too - not just that lame local stuff.
  • then, on the local news, there was a story about the weather. they talked about "snow at low elevations" so the anchor asked "how low will it go?"
  • i was asking myself the same question...i envisioned the crew breaking out into a little ditty....'how low will it go? gee martha, i don't know! let's ask rob our meterologist, maybe he'll know....okay here we go...so, how low will the snow go; do we know?'
  • give me a blow.


    • 1-26-01 (16:40)

  • if it needs to be pitched it's not worth the trouble.
  • ketchup is a vegetable, am i wrong? no chris, just republican.
  • it's very cold outside.
  • had soup last night for the first time in many years. i don't think i've ever had campbell's soup. not to my knowledge anyway.
  • today is shaping up to be a bore.
  • i'm in a situation right now where i have to do a lot of waiting in a lot of different ways. it kind of sucks, but will hopefully pan out in the end.
  • in the end. "i'm going to get you in the end." - beatles
  • led zeppelin is a better name for a band than the beatles.


    • 1-26-01 (09:33)

  • it's cold and i don't want to be awake.


    • 1-25-01 (23:08)

  • i love the higher state of consciousness i reach when pain overrides my body - this is why i take razor blades to my chest and spray aerosol down my throat. i'm only hurting myself so why should you care?
  • been thinking a lot about my trip lately. on the one hand it's getting me all psyched up and making me more aware of what i'm going to have to do to make it happen. on the other hand it's making me super anxious and it's pretty far away from happening so that's no good. i think i'll be able to pay off my bill to yolo county (for that old ticket) with my next paycheck. that's pretty sweet.
  • Mo Wax is a good label and that's coming from someone who doesn't give two shits about labels. come to think of it i don't even give one shit about labels. mo wax remains good though.
  • there's a national park pass i can buy for $50 which allows free passage to all the national parks. pretty sweet considering most of the parks cost about $10 to get into.
  • if i were a republican i would be appalled at the horrible job my representatives have done at ensuring open land be reserved for business and industry - not parks....yellowstone - 2,219,791 acres, everglades - Area: 1,506,499 acres, yosemite - 761,170 acres, glacier - 1,056,000 acres, grand canyon - 1,218,376 acres, etc. that's not to mention the scores of other national parks and the ones in alaska which are generally far bigger. damn democrats. all that land should be used for raising cattle and building nuclear power plants and mining for gold or oil or such. jeesh.
  • the world is just chock full of retards.
  • sudafed is working like a charm.
  • so how many albums does pearl jam have now? like 100 or so? that's just crazy. not sure why i thought of that. if the beastie boys ever did that i'd get a credit card and become an official retard.


    • 1-25-01 (16:36)

  • we are a very pleasure-centric society. in fact humanity is very pleasure-centric, it just so happens that america has got it down better than most.
  • on the crisis tip - why aren't all tuesdays "meatless tuesdays?" (i forget if during WWII it was tuesday or another day of the week, but you get the point). it's more healthy, it conserves resources (because the meat industry is extremely wasteful), and it's just a good idea. why do we need a war to justify this practice? inane.
  • almost biffed it big time on the rain soaked streets today. was zooming through traffic and i was threading this needle between two people going in opposite directions (i was coming from the side). i sped up to get past the first, but had to brake in order to allow the second to get through a bottleneck...it's all hard to describe, but the gist is that i hydroplaned past the first and recovered in time to allow the second to pass then i continued pedaling.
  • so nietzsche is all wet over the greeks so he uses this metaphor for the two aspects of life - dionysian and apollonian. dionysian is basically the chaos and forces of nature in the world. the apollonian is the form and structure, the beauty and visual art. so he says that we try really hard to become the apollonian and forget the chaos in the world (this becomes his major indictment of plato et al - they try too hard to make life a science and thereby discard the chaos of the world). background aside....he says that even in our attempts to make order and sense of the world (through science, religion, etc.) we still desire the dionysian side. he says that this is why we get drunk and the like - despite all our desire for control we still have some desire to lose our inhibitions...the inhibitions of form and culture (especially culture). to me, those inhibitions could be anything that culture imposes upon us - embarrassment, the ability to speak our mind, etc. the whole psychology behind that desire really interests me. jared diamond talks about it as a desire to present ourselves as stronger beings. nietzsche presents it as a desire to have chaos in our lives and have that feeling of "oneness with nature." i think that for some it's an escape from chaos.
  • it's all interesting stuff to think about and i think it just varies per person.
  • then in sociology class we were talking about different cultures and their views on sex. obviously there are plenty of other cultures which are far more open with sex (both in terms of frequency and age) than america is - naturally, it goes the other way as well. the teacher said that in america we avoid talking about how good sex feels because we don't want kids to do it. that seemed to imply to me that because sex feels good people should do it. maybe that's a leap, but even if it is i still think that this mentality exists - if something feels good then it's okay. if i ever have kids i'm going to make sure to tell them how great drugs feel and how great sex feels and how great it felt when i slashed my teacher's tires and how great it feels when i zoom through traffic on my bike. the problem with that is that kids usually lack the ability to decide whether something feeling good is good to do. there are plenty of things which feel good to do which aren't good. whether that be eating a gallon of ice cream everyday or jerking off in the public bathroom or doing drugs or having sex before you're mentally and emotionally equipped...so the trick is to somehow impart to the kid that thinking and critical decision making are of extreme importance. how is another question. i don't know how my parents did it for me, but they did so i guess i'm lucky. i know i'm lucky.
  • raining like a biatch today.
  • woke up to some mother fucker pounding on the window frame across the way. very annoying shit.
  • i can say this in all seriousness and with sincerity - i know that i know very little. i know that i make mistakes. i've been wrong before.
  • in the past 20 years approximately 1 million species have disappeared from the world's tropical forests.
  • from 1960-1985 over 40% of the central american rainforests were destroyed to create grazing land for cattle.
  • the united states imports over 100,000 tons of beef from central america each year.
  • it takes 23 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes.
  • it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.
  • one acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes.
  • one acre of land can produce 165 pounds of beef.
  • the u.s. cattle industry produces 158 million tons of waste per year.
  • livestock production is the #1 cause of water pollution in the u.s.


    • 1-25-01 (04:08)

  • just about done. i want to sleep for 12 hours. that's not going to happen.
  • i wish melanie was here.


    • 1-25-01 (02:42)

  • really i should be asleep by now. in fact i haven't even finished the shorter of the two essays i have to do.
  • i'm sick and tired - literally.
  • i shall be sleeping soon enough. listening to the doors' eponymous album.


    • 1-25-01 (00:38)

  • it's funny how you think about blue rock and people usually don't mention bands like savoy brown, ten years after, or moby grape. such is life. savoy brown and ten years after (especially) are underrated.
  • read over some old updates of mine - from october 2k. that was a pivotal month.
  • i didn't love easy rider. there were times when i didn't like the movie much, if at all. there were boring points. there were points where i just didn't think too highly of the characters. but then there was the ending. jeez. there are movies like that, where the end just make the movie. i think the ending is the only reason that full metal jacket is still my favorite kubrick film. speaking of endings - paths of glory and the killing have got to be two of the all-time greatest endings. just wow.
  • so let's face it - people need crisis in order to change or appreciate the world. sad but true. there are entire theories which claim that democracy needs war or other crises to thrive. i think that this logic can be extended to humanity. we need a power crisis to remind us that turning off lights when we leave the room is a good idea. we need a drought to make us turn off the water when we're washing dishes. it's just sad to me. i think one thing that my mom certainly did a good job of was making me understand the importance of thinking about what i'm doing. i return things to where i found them, i turn off lights, etc. it just makes sense.
  • the real point is - that we need crisis to get anything done. i wish that wasn't the case. "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" really means "only fix it if it's broken." at what point does it become obvious that our educational system is broken? or, better yet, our electoral system? the answer is - naturally - once there is a crisis. it took a crisis in our last election for us to realize that our system is flawed. some people knew this already, most didn't, and almost no one cared to do anything about it. until there was the great crisis which tore our nation and caused all sorts of retards to sell their stock...it goes on. our youth are getting out of control only when two kids go on a murdering spree in colorado...it goes on.
  • it's really inspiring to see mark borchardt getting his life together and feeling inspired by life again. seems like he was going through a down period earlier.
  • i should get started on this project of mine. i really don't want to do it.
  • i'm not sure how johnny et al talked me into being a goalie freshman year. i seriously didn't have any real padding. well i did, but it covered my chest, my head and my lower legs. so that left my upper thigh up to my bellybutton unprotected. as well as my neck area. so there was plenty of my body which was exposed to the wrath of pucks. i sucked at first, too.
  • one of these days i'll buy a "talking heads" album.
  • i was thinking about doing a stream of consciousness, but then i realized that it wouldn't be very exciting.
  • melanie. melanie. melanie.
  • need to work.
  • beastie boys.
  • altoids are very strong, but do the job.
  • melanie. melanie. melanie.
  • being sick sucks.
  • melanie.
  • tired.
  • need to work.
  • melanie.
  • see what i mean?


    • 1-24-01 (22:29)

  • gotta get started on this project thing.
  • updated the movies list.
  • i really like war movies and here are some of the reasons i came up with: 1) they make me realize the things in life that really should matter. what will do this better than an extreme display of everything that is bad and horrible in the world and with humanity? not much, and war is exactly this display. 2) on a related note - war films are the quickest reality check i am aware of. they bring to light exactly what humans are capable of, whether this be vast destruction or human sacrifice and love. 3) it seems that humanity needs a reminder every generation or so as to the reasons we shouldn't go to war...for me watching a war film is enough. if only our leaders were to watch a really good war film once in a while - as a reminder - the world could be a better place.


    • 1-24-01 (13:26)

  • not quite sure why i'm sick. it's not like i'm malnourished, if anything i've been eating more and better lately. i just don't understand it.
  • today looks really nice, too bad i won't go outside until it's dark.
  • been listening to a lot of money mark lately. he's good.
  • spring quarter will be good. i will sell myself to old ladies every weekend and pull their weeds and get bank. that sounds pretty bad if read as a prevert might. dr. strangelove is great.
  • thinking about watching saving private ryan.
  • my room is pretty messy, but i don't have room for all the new books and such.
  • have yet to drop off phil's xmas present.
  • no clue what i'm going to do with malcolm. want to keep him, but i want him to work. want to sink a shitload of money into him so he looks good, and more importantly, runs well. of course money will forever be a problem.
  • coming to grips with the facts of life is something that is harder than it should be. life isn't fair, they tell you when you're 5 years old - even younger. yet it still bothers me to no end. there's no justice in the world, despite what you may believe about karma or the like, in this life there isn't real justice. we create a criminal justice system to make us feel like the world is more just, but it really isn't. machiavelli, hobbes, and locke were all right about the brutality of the world. there's no panacea for selfishness in the world. guess the best that i can hope to do is make the immediate world around me a better place.
  • i'm going to eat now.


    • 1-23-01 (19:54)

  • i'm officially sick.
  • it rained today.
  • today was the first day out of the last 7 that i haven't had melanie around.
  • being sick sucks ass.
  • humanity is just plain retarded. i was watching seinfeld (the maestro show - a classic) and an advertisement came on for temptation island. i think you can infer the rest.
  • i think MLK had it right. be existential, but with empathy and concern for others. to think that the only reason one is alive is to find their self seems a bit lame.
  • can't wait to have a regular salary and be a teacher. if i can get my shit together and put myself in a position to actually become a teacher i think i'll have a good time. i'm not one for trying though, so getting to that point will probably be more laborious than it should.
  • i'm going to sleep early tonight.
  • i want to get through school, go on a kick ass trip, and become a teacher (or the like).
  • i was thinking today that learning more is really an attractive idea...so i was thinking about graduate school type stuff.
  • mark really hit on something - that we shouldn't take things for granted. nietzsche is such a depressing mutha because he doesn't seem to talk about the good things in life. that's a shame. appreciating what we have is key.
  • i need to be more pro-active.
  • george w. bush makes me depressed.


    • 1-23-01 (01:43)

  • i like talking to people who have interesting or fun things to say. one-dimensional people bore me. there are too many people like that.
  • i like the picture on johnny's site, the george bush one. seems an interesting juxtaposition...the bush poster next to all the other crap.
  • i feel tired, but i got enough sleep last night and haven't been awake that long.
  • i should start every sentence with "i." after all, i am the most important thing on this webpage.
  • forecast calls for rain on wednesday and friday.
  • hoping that working on the car will happen on saturday.
  • oh yea, i have a pretty sizable project due on thursday. i'm fucked.
  • "Life is short and precious and it just can't be pissed away." - Mark Borchardt
  • "I'm most excited by the prospect of controlling my own life. That's what it's all about. If you work in a factory and come home and work on the Great American Novel then you have won. It's what you do with the time alloted to you and your commitment to do what makes you the most happiest in life. I'm writing this because I'm concerned about it and motivated by it. Every day of my life is valuable as with anyone else's. I'm lucky to have my health and youth and will not piss it away." - Mark Borchardt
  • i hope the point isn't lost in the grammatical errors. you'd be a fool to lose the point because of errors in grammar. i guess if you read my webpage you're not too concerned about that though.
  • much props to mike schank for being sober for four plus years.
  • listened to a money mark cd today. been a while since i did that. it's good to remember his greatness.
  • am i coming down with a cold, or is it just an allergic reaction to melanie's departure?
  • when trying to download entire live shows it is best to have ethernet or the like. darn.
  • did a lot in the last 6 days. can't recap it all, can't remember it all. ate some good turkey. went to HDOS in sacramento. made some good apple pie and had some very good bread. aside from eating i watched plenty of movies. malcolm performed fairly well, but is certainly in need of something, probably everything.
  • i wonder what kind of financing i would be able to get for a car.
  • i'm going to sleep.


    • 1-22-01 (22:52)

  • melanie's visit was the shit, but it is no longer.
  • i learned a new word today - "atom bomb." empire of the sun joke, ha ha ha.
  • the guess who are better than i remembered. check out "heartbroken bopper." just wow.
  • updated the movies list. watched lots of movies thanks to melanie. see...i told you she was good for me.
  • need to compel my dad to send me some movies because that would help.
  • looks like johnny moved back home, that's news to me.


    • 1-16-01 (22:22)

  • not much happened today. class, work, class, rest. tomorrow is a different story.
  • saw a large part of this japanese film in class today, it reminded me of thin red line a lot, not just because it was about the same thing, but the pacing seemed the same. only the japanese film was a lot less boring. i hated thin red line.
  • thinking about lubing my bike up tonight. it'll help pass the time and it needs to be done.
  • film teacher didn't think much of "traffic" - that was kind of a disappointment. i thought it was a very good film.
  • "we'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when....." vera lynn
  • "does anybody remember vera lynn?" -roger waters (pink floyd)
  • bought some books today!


    • 1-15-01 (21:28)

  • updated the movies list.
  • fresh out of tortillas. probably need to get some tomatoes as well.
  • may as well open up for suggestions now regarding my trip around the nation. email me if you have any ideas - from must see cities, sites, national parks to ways to save money or things to avoid, etc.
  • my dad once asked me why post world war I germany didn't resort to communism or socialism as a panacea for their plight. after reading about the world war i think one reason that palmer may have alluded to is the fact that it was the progressives and the social democrats who ended up signing the treaty of versailles and thus alienating the german citizenry. surely after signing such a unwelcome treaty their ideas wouldn't have been well received by the polity. i don't know, yet, about what was happening in russia at the time, but perhaps experiments over there in socialist regimes hadn't been going too well and thus didn't exactly encourage emulating the same ideals. all that stuff is really interesting. as is lenin. learning about that coot right now.
  • my sister is a better person than most.
  • i'm mildly looking forward to wednesday morning. just a bit.
  • johnny talked about room layouts so i'll do the same. i'm pretty down with the layout of my room. all the furniture is touching, like a chain, as johnny puts it. then i have a nice sized open space in the middle (assuming my room is clean). marina, upstairs, has the same room as me, but it looks a lot smaller because she chose a wack ass configuration - namely her bed is protruding into the middle of the room. it makes the room into two secions, which can be nice, but the room isn't wide enough to accommodate that look. i had to look accoommodate up. at any rate, i'm down with my room layout, i think i have done well with space saving furniture as well. building a cd case and a bookcase specifically for the amount of room i will probably have for the next few years will undoubtedly come in handy. you have to think vertically when you're in college. of course when it comes to saving space johnny is far superior to me. i'd have to say that vern is very good at making his room look small and cluttered. and phil just has an amazing amount of large crap that it shocks me that he is able to fit everything in his room. jon is the same way, but his room is even bigger. that's all the room analysis for today.
  • as for another johnny topic - football. it's very true that football is a lot like society. the offensive line is the most important part of a football team. they are also the least recognized, although lately it seems they are beginning to get their due - especially from guys like john madden. a good offense is the best defense. the 49ers knew this. they'd have 10 minutes left in a game and be down by 6. they'd take 9:30 to drive down the field and score a TD. they really knew how to manage the clock back then. of course they had a good offensive line, but they also had the west coast offense. things are different now though. enough about all that, it could get lengthy.
  • r.e.m. also has a song called star 69.
  • i wish some songs just kept going on and on and on. "you're lost little girl" would be one of those songs. the doors made some really longs songs, but "you're lost little girl" is one of the shortest songs they ever made. too bad.


    • 1-15-01 (18:37)

  • i honestly can't help but laugh everytime i see george w. bush trying to give a speech on anything. saw him talking about inequality in america and MLK and the like...i just started laughing, uncontrollably.
  • read a lot today. finished up on WWI, started on the russian revolution. also read some of 'guns, germs and steel' and 'the unbound prometheus.' 6 hours of work never went by so quickly.
  • davis water sucks.


    • 1-15-01 (01:41)

  • i think i'm going to do some massive shifting in my cd collection in the coming weeks. a band like stp, though great, shouldn't be as high as they are. the problem is i don't have the balls to move the collection around a lot. if i were to get 5 key cds then a lot of shifting could be justified, but as it is it's hard to justify so much movement. i also need to listen to a lot more of my middle cds and then make a decision. no one cares.
  • i need to sleep soon.
  • i sure do write a lot these days. compare my updates from this january or december to the years previous.
  • 'the who sell out' is a good album which grabbed me right away, but hasn't built much since the first listening. dark side of the moon grabbed me right away and then as i listened to it more and more i got more and more into it. that's not happening with 'the who sell out'
  • i still think that 'the wall' is my favorite pink floyd album, though dark side is always a close second. i think ummagumma beats out wish you were here, but not by much. pink floyd do avant-garde well enough for me to like it. ummagumma is a good example of this.
  • i wish metallica weren't so good and so influential, especially early in their career. i'd like to knock them down a notch. i have all the doors albums so they won't be moving ahead anytime soon. surely pink floyd and jimi hendrix will move ahead once i round out those collections. and even though vh1 named ac/dc the 4th best hard rock band ever (behind led zeppelin, black sabbath and jimi hendrix) i don't foresee them moving ahead of their current spot. once again no one cares.
  • i think the greatest part of the wizard of oz/dark side of the moon synch project was when "money" started up and dorthy was just leaving her house, which at this point had just landed on the wicked witch. it's all colorful outside and money is playing and it just seemed to fit really well, the pacing of the music and the camera movement and the imagery, all worked very well.
  • the other great part would probably have been the tornado scene and it being synchronized with the woman's wail. worked pretty well.
  • i remember the first time i really listened to "the wall" and roger waters says "oooooh i need a dirty woman. oooooh, i need a dirty gal." i was like "where the fuck did that come from?" at the same time it was pretty cool to hear.
  • i need to watch "the wall" some time soon. now that i have it on dvd i suppose i can do that whenever i like.
  • hate to sound old-fashioned or elitist, but - they sure don't make albums the way they used to. honestly. led zeppelin II, III, IV, houses of the holy. pink floyd - dark side of the moon, the wall, ummagumma. beatles - abbey road, sergeant pepper's..., white album. beach boys - pet sounds. the who - the who sell out. "paul's boutique" is pretty fucking great in much of the same way those were. "ok computer" would be too. so would "in utero" (though "nevermind" is better)
    • MLK - greatest human of the last hundred years -
    killed by the FBI because he opposed the war in vietnam.
    1-14-01 (23:28)
  • watched 'wizard of oz' to pink floyd's 'dark side of the moon' synched up pretty derned well. the major changes in the film were met by similar cahnges in the music. overall it was pretty neat and convincing enough to me.
  • ate two meals today and two glasses of ice cream.
  • washed and waxed the car today. made sure not to get water in the car. also finally put the weather stripping in the door jambs. looking forward to getting a window some time. luckily the car is covered so the rain isn't a factor.
  • actually looking forward to the reading part of work tomorrow. that is, i can't wait to finish reading about the aftermath of WWI and then going on to the russian revolution, which is the next chapter in the book. the worst thing about this is knowing that i wouldn't have read all this if it was assigned reading. i guess i'm an exception, though - assigning this reading, i think, is still a good idea.
  • the low for the next 5 days is under 32 degrees. ouch. no rain in the forecast.
  • downloaded all the free ratm songs off their site the other day, haven't listened to em yet though.
  • duty calls.


    • 1-14-01 (18:19)

  • "crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good" - led zeppelin
  • the song remains the same, for the raiders that is. "self-destruction abounds in late round playoff loss" should be the headline in all the local papers tomorrow. they had their chances, but they didn't take advantage of them. they also didn't have napolean kaufman so that was a big hole in their offense, if you ask this fan.
  • worked from 3-6 today, vern hooked up the 12-3 shift for me so i could see what turned out to be the one play that the ravens needed to win. a 96 yard pass to sharpe which could have been stopped my my grandmother.
  • read some more out of the r.r. palmer book. why no one introduced me to this book a long time ago i'm not sure. i know i'm already planing on using it when i become a teacher. how i'm going to justify teaching history in a government class i'm not sure, but it'll happen. extra credit i suppose. there is some history i will need to teach as a u.s. gov't teacher, but i'd like to fit in more...stuff that people should be learning, but undoubtedly will not have learned. i didn't know much about WWI until reading this book. i learned more from movies like paths of glory than i had learned in any history courses. that's some sad shit. i know i'm not the only one.
  • i like gray davis's plan to extend the school year.
  • last time i was at work i got around to reading some excerpts from the gandhi reader. if only i read this much for class. my grades might be good and stuff. having the books would help i suppose.
  • as soon as i get the chance i'm going to get the most recent edition of that palmer book.
  • not sure what the rest of the day holds for me. maybe some work on the car.
  • i need to start saving up for the trip, in a big way. once the weather clears up i'll go back to old lady smith's house and do some weed pulling. actually i lost her number a long time ago and her name wasn't smith, but i'll likely do a search for much of the same work. it'll no doubt yield easy to get, hard to do, temporary work which will likely help in my goal.
  • it's funny how people try to avoid the fleeting nature of life. things in life are temporary. nothing is permanent. we all know this, yet we try to attach permanence to most everything good in our lives. perfectly understandable, except when we start talking about cloning and looking like elizabeth taylor and living on past glories. they say nothing is more pathetic than an aging rock star. i think that's because most aging rock stars try to hold onto the past rather than making a future. the rolling stones, david bowie, and some others are good examples of rock stars who didn't fool themselves into thinking that the past will remain the present. i guess some would call it selling out, but that's another bag of rice.
  • speaking of rice, i hope he comes back a forty-niner.
  • tomorrow i gotsta work 12-6pm. long shifts suck at the library.


    • 1-13-01 (23:04)

  • watched a bunch of boogie nights deleted scenes and director commentary type stuff. pretty good shit.
  • if i read every time that i work then i'll become a much more knowledgeable individual and thus a better person. after all, knowledge is power. we all know that knowledge will free humans from suffering. that science and technology and mastering nature is going to mean utopia.
  • cleaned the house a good bit, only took about 10 minutes which makes me wonder why our house is always dirty. it's so easy to clean the place, why is this the first time anyone has really done it? we're lazy asses i suppose.
  • gotta do my laundry now.
  • took the bug out for a spin tonight. takes a while to warm up and will die on occasion. adjusted the idle screw on the carb a bit, maybe that'll help in the meantime.


    • 1-13-01 (18:53)

  • balanced my checkbook the other day.
  • read about wwi in palmer's modern history book. damn that shit is so comprehensive, and yet concise.
  • if you go to www.ratm.com you can see the liner notes for the newest ratm album in a shockwave media show format. pretty neat.
  • looks as though they're coming out with their dvd too. good stuff. more ways to spend my money. thankfully, i was looking for more of those.
  • i feel kinda guilty for liking safeway more than the state harvest market. safeway's workers went on strike, i've heard no such turmoil within the state harvest market's labor group. state harvest doesn't sell hard liquor which i guess i should support. the thing is that safeway is so much cheaper and has a better variety. i'm such a consumer whore. yes you are.


    • 1-13-01 (01:31)

  • updated the movies list.


    • 01-12-01 (21:27)

  • spent a lot of time working on the car. had to go out and get a socket wrench which fit the nut on the steering wheel column. after i bought that i biked back home (thankfully it's been nice out today). tried getting the nut off, but to no avail. had to ask vern to hold the steering wheel for me. so i took the car out of gear and tried backing it up a bit so that the wall wasn't in his way. couldn't move the car more than a few inches. made sure the e brake was off. it felt a lot like the car was in gear, but it definitely wasn't. then i pushed in the clutch it would move. this surely can't be a good sign. the shifter is in neutral so it should roll freely, but it only rocks a bit rather than rolling. at this point i'm really wondering what the problem could be. i leave that for another time since we've moved the car enough to give vern some room. he holds the wheel and i put all my weight into the wrench and it finally loosens the nut. get the nut off. then i need to take the adapter off so i can put the new one on. it appears to be threaded as well so without a vise grip to hold the steering column i don't know what to do to get the adapter off. end up fidgeting with it enough and it comes off - turns out it's not threaded, it just takes some elbow grease and a good yank.
  • put the new adapter on. put the steering wheel on. all is good. now to see if that odd problem which prevented me from moving the car earlier is going to affect the running of the car. after some work i get the car started (it hasn't been started for about a month so this is normal). warm it up for a minute and then just take off choosing to warm it up under a light load rather than at a fast idle. it dies at the light, but i find a perfect stretch of road and it warms up nicely. take it on the highway and all is good except for bad traffic and even worse drivers. i take the "high road" (aka the shoulder) for a bit and zip past all the traffic and catch my exit. take malcolm to safeway. haven't been to safeway in a long time so i kinda go overboard with their great deals on food of all sorts (mostly junk). spend too much money. take the cart to the car and realize the first advantage of not having the rear quarter window - easy grocery loading. shove all the groceries through the window and i'm loaded in record time. gas him up. take him home. everything, except for the chilly draft, goes well.
  • so i'm pretty happy that i finally got malcolm back on the road and i finally got most of the glass off the back seat and floor. happy that he runs fairly well (though a valve adjustment would probably do some good - saturday maybe?).
  • had my early class today. fridays and early classes don't mix. today it wasn't that bad though because the sun was out so it didn't feel as early as it really was. i'm tired though.
  • watching "almost famous" tonight at 11pm. should be good.
  • tomorrow i have work from 3-6. same for sunday. monday i work from 12-6. should pay for my groceries.
  • bought 24 bucks worth of tools today, had to make sure that i got the right size socket for the steering wheel. also needed to get 1/2" drive 5" extension. i'll return it all tomorrow and get my money back. i'm so amoral.
  • i don't do much surfing of the internet. i don't keep up with current events.
  • i hope shaq and kobe get into a fist fight and show the world how great they are.
  • i hope that baseball manages to stay together for three more years. mark mcguire hits 200 more home runs, retires, and baseball ends for two years while the players mull over how retarded they are.
  • i'm not going to be able to watch the end of the oakland game on sunday because i have work, that's one i'd like to see.
  • melanie comes in about 108 hours. roughly. 13 hours will be spent working. 6 hours in class. 2 hours watching sports. 2 hours working on the car. 45+ hours sleeping.
  • very happy that i got half the car situation worked out. the wheel isn't on perfectly straight, but i don't really care. the alignment is off (pulls right) anyway so it actually kind of evens things out.
  • ah yes, balance.
  • if there's one thing i like nietzsche for it's his view that each person must create their own self. followers, whether they be christians or marilyn manson wannabes, should learn to think for themselves.
  • more independent thinkers is a good thing, for the most part. i agree with MLK in that i believe there shouldn't be such a separation between the public and private spheres. obviously people should have privacy and family, but i think that we've become too separated as a society. we don't have to have a homogeniety of ideology, but we should have a common respect for each other, a common care, even. community is good. be radically individual, but not at the cost of the whole. nothing gets me more than when someone values their freedoms so highly over another's rights. many seem to have the "that's their problem" attitude. not sure that made much sense.
  • my film teacher was on pbs today talking about restoring old films. pretty nifty.
  • i thought i had something else to say. something about the answer to life. something that would have solved all your problems. darn, slipped my mind.
  • looked online for some geo metros today. could get a really decent one for 2500. if my credit was really great then i could probably buy one for that.
  • no joke here, when the metros first came out i thought to myself "i want one of those." i thought this for purely economical reasons. how cool is it to get 40+ mpg on a four stroke engine? then i could get a green party sticker and have it emblazoned with pride on my bumper. naturally i'd get a manual.
  • still don't know where my other duplicate cd case is. that sucks booty.
  • that reminds me of a tribe called quest song which asks 'what does everybody have which pirates want to steal?' ... 'da booty!'
  • before that song came the beastie boys question 'professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?' ... 'i think it's booty, booty, booty - that's what it is!'
  • okay, now i gotta listen to Check Your Head.
  • from what i've noticed just by observation it seems that recent cars seem to have drum brakes in the back and disc brakes in the front. i wonder why. obviously most cars are front wheel drive too. wonder if that's why.


    • 01-11-01 (23:39)

  • today wasn't anything special.
  • dungey's mom was in class today, that was pretty cool. i wonder what she thinks of his in class antics. i need to talk with that guy sometime. i'm robbing myself of the greatest opportunity in college so far. why must i rob myself of opportunity?
  • my mind tries really hard to make my life uneventful, unfun, dull, boring, strenuous, and painful. it seriously sucks like that. lobotomy time? seriously though, it makes me feel guilty (and i'm not exagerating) for leaving the hot water on for even a second when i'm washing the dishes. i'll be washing a knife and not be using the water at that moment and i'll feel bad. this happened just yesterday. i tried really hard to not turn the water off, i knew that a few seconds wouldn't matter, but then i start thinking about how it's using energy to heat the water, and even though i don't pay for the hot water i should care because we're in an energy crisis and because i should conserve for the environment and the like. you can imagine all the guilt i feel doing other things. it's not just guilt, it pervades all aspects of my life. my bastard-self (as freud would call it) makes me feel bad for not being in a good mood sometimes when i serve patrons at the library. it's like i'm catholic or something. no wonder "i hate myself and want to die."
  • actually i don't, but i just had to use a nirvana song title once in this update.
  • tomorrow i have a class early in the morn. the word on the street is that it's not going to rain tomorrow. swwet! can't really trust yahoo weather though.
  • my middle finger has this cut on the tip and it sucks ass. note to self: don't punch out broken car window glass with fist in fit of rage.
  • autechre is pretty great. i want the album that i gave to jon. it's got doctrine and basscadet et al on it.
  • this hasn't happened lately, but it bugs me when people misuse i.e. and e.g. it probably shouldn't bug me and it only should bug me enough to point out the error to them in a kind manner. i.e. - id est, means 'that is.' used primarily to rephrase what was just said, i.e. it's used to say things in a (usually) more simple or understandable way. e.g - exempli gratis (sp?), means 'for example.' there are lots of things in this world which are long and hard, e.g. life, my dick, baseball bats...
  • learning is good.


    • 01-11-01 (17:11)

  • wasn't there once a law which regulated the maximum size of beating sticks used by husbands on wives? nevermind...i just remembered. damn my memory is the shit. it was the rule of thumb. it limited the diameter of the stick. if the stick was thicker than the husband's thumb then he couldn't use it to beat his wife. i would have gotten that question wrong had it been on a quiz show, yet i knew the answer. i'm just slow.
  • we watched part of pleasantville in sociology of the family class today. a better movie than i remembered.
  • Kai Lennox, the high school/college kid in boogie nights (the one in the limo) was also in pleasantville. he had a much smaller role, but it was cool to seem him, if even for 3 seconds. he had one line - "hey."
  • went shopping, ouch.
  • suffering is more ubiquitous than happiness. is suffering the only truth in life? is suffering the only thing which is constant in life? i don't think so, but i think nietzsche might. i also think that nietzsche would think jesus lived as close to the perfect life as possible.
  • i love it when dungey says stuff like jesus was a poor man's plato or christianity was platoism for poor stupid people.
  • dungey makes me hard, despite the unabrow.
  • got rid of a bunch of crap on my wish list. won't have to worry about that for another 5 months or so.
  • been wondering for a while now how i can say that really know what i think i know. now i know, at least, that the study of such is called epistemology. i guess i should have looked that word up a long time ago, but i never bothered.
  • it's funny because a lot of the time when i read things i look at the long words and don't even sound them out, the same goes for names. so i may well know the word, but i'll never even bother sounding it out in my head. imagine my surprise when i had read about euthanasia, but never had talked about it. then when i finally did, somewhere down the line, it was a revelation. it sounds retarded, but my mind would always look at the word, know what it meant, and then just go onto the next word. it didn't register until later. i still do that today, except it's usually with names rather than words.
  • would it be vain to say that my mind works in mysterious ways?
  • u2.
  • glen e. friedman did a bunch of photography for the beastie boys, including the cover of CYH. i like the shopping cart picture.


    • 01-11-01 (01:29)

  • all these weird dates are created because it's the first month of 2001. so you get 01-01-01 or 01-10-01 or 01-11-01. feels like i'm writing digital code or something. once february comes around it'll be better.
  • i haven't had a poll in a long time, so i used the default poll. cop out? yes indeed.
  • need to get a new florescent light rod for my light above my computer.
  • i was talking to someone over the break about another someone and the problems that person has. it's funny how people can diagnose problems so easily from a distance, yet diagnosing one's one problems is always more difficult. the forest from the trees deal, i suppose. i wonder what people say about me when they talk about my problems. i guess the same goes for the positive things. it's hard sometimes for me to see what is good about me and yet it will be apparent to others that my cock is my obvious strong point. maybe i'm wrong, maybe most people see pretty easily what their strong and weak points are. i certainly have done plenty of thinking about my weak points so i think i've got them pretty well covered.
  • i wonder if the government has taken a group of people and isolated them somewhere to create their own society, all as a sociological, political, psychological study. though i think it would be wrong to do, it would be cool. obviously the participants wouldn't be willing subjects because that would throw off the results. it'd have to be a random sample of people who were unwilling and therefore forced to live somewhere and create a new society.
  • it is said that you cannot make anyone feel a certain way; you can only bring out feelings they have of their self. for this reason change must first occur from within. of course people on the outside may provide encouragement or positive reinforcement to this end, but joe blow can't make me feel good about myself unless the feelings are there. i wonder at what point the feelings which are there become static, if ever. that is, is there ever a point at which an individual's view of their self is so fixed as to be impossible to change? i don't think there is. all this talk seems to imply that a reassuring childhood is extremely important. duh.
  • i have to start taking notes on how to be a good parent. i've taken mental notes up to this point, but i haven't gotten into the habit of writing them down. i'll have to get into that habit.
  • got a hit from finland today. who in finland wants to read this drivel? got one from UCI, too. i don't know anyone from UCI. someone was referred to me by google.com again. this time the search was "spooks things seen mp3 free download" interesting.
  • here's a list of the last ten search engine hits i've gotten (for some reason there is a character limit so some of the searches are cut off):
  • spooks things seen mp3 fr
  • "beastie boys" "a genius
  • chris miller's journal
  • malcolm disabled stevie
  • movies christians shouldn
  • hedonism vacation picture
  • santa cruz hoes
  • "Chris miller" drums
  • chris miller
  • chris miller
  • google.com is the shit. i've been getting lots of hits from them lately. not sure why. in 4 out of the last 5 days i've gotten 20 plus hits. i hadn't gotten that many in a day since before december. maybe 48 hours or 20/20 has finally caught onto my genius. maybe i have really bored friends who read my website 9 times a day. who knows. you know what they say "it's not a pattern until it happens for 11 days."
  • they don't really say that, i just made it up...or as hans gruber (alan rickman) would say "i read it in time magazine."
  • die hard is a great movie.
  • seriously though, those hits are just amazing. i couldn't make that shit up if i tried. "movies christians shouldn't see" har har har. "santa cruz hoes" okay, so i could have made that up, but am i really that bored? "malcolm disabled stevie" i wonder if there is more to that search, even if there isn't it's pretty intriguing.
  • 17 hits from the netherlands, that leads all other countries. in second is australia with 14. ethiopia and canada are tied with 11. i probably have monique to thank for those ethiopia hits.
  • i spent way too much space talking about hits i get on my webpage.
  • it being 2:10 in the am i think i should sleep.
  • listening to medeski martin and wood.
  • just realized that i didn't have dinner today. i hear that einstein would get so wrapped up in thought sometimes, that he would pee himself. he would just lose consciousness of bodily function. i wish i was that thoughtful.
  • "that which 'goes without saying' is frequently that which must be said the most often." - chris miller
  • thus i will say something which goes without saying - einstein was a very smart mutha.
  • it's odd to think about it, but it's true - the things which we consider a given are often times things which bear repeating. you come up with the examples because i'm too tired.
  • there was an ad i saw in the paper it read "need some privacy? large bed. $10/hr. no questions asked! call 752-0000 justin." i thought it was a great revenue idea. i mean there are lots of people who want to have a nap between classes and just can't find privacy on benches or in the library. such a great idea. [naive chris exits] holy shit, what a great idea - offer the freshman a place to bunk up with their high school sweethearts without all the roommate hassle. i wonder if justin cleans the sheets after every customer. capitalism is just great.
  • i'm going to do a stream of consciousness sometime soon. it's fun stuff.


    • 01-10-01 (22:38)

  • "i became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good." -MLK
  • i'm thinking more and more that i should have taken some philosophy courses while i was in school. i think i'll have room for one next quarter. i'm going to be coming to school a lot next year to just hang out and learn; at least that's the plan.
  • "Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the same for everyone; insofar as one approaches moral perfection, one resembles other morally perfect individuals. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted against this tradition by insisting that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation."
  • "a terror from the left can only be broken by a stronger terror from the right" -Hitler. maybe exchange "terror" with "force" and i'd buy that.
  • "Terror is not broken by the mind, but by terror." -Hitler (one fucked up individual)
  • "hitlerism ill never be defeated by counter-hitlerism. i can only breed superior hitlerism raised to the nth degree. what is going on before our eyes is a demonstration of the futility of violence as also of hitlerism." -gandhi
  • Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, try the following expedient: Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless man you have ever seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore to him control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to self-rule (Gram Swaraj) for the angry and spritually starved millions of our countrymen? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away."-gandhi
  • everything about helping others is good.
  • machiavelli wasn't very helpful.


    • 01-10-01 (17:10)

  • one of the best purchases in my life has been my speakers. nothing drowns out worries and amplifies sorrow, happiness, excitement, and the like more than a 15" woofer in a dual ported enclosure.
  • i've forgotten most of what happened in "cat's cradle" but i remember it being the most entertaining book i've ever read. surely something like invisible man is better written and more profound, but "cat's cradle" is more entertaining.
  • "traffic" made me interested enough to look this and this up about nafta and drug smuggling. remember it all because i will surely forget and will need you to remember for me sometime in the future.
  • you know what sucks is when you impart some useful bit of advice onto someone and then they get that same advice elsewhere and then come to you with that wonderful bit of advice which so and so just gave them. all the while you're left thinking to yourself "did this person listen to me at all when i was saying that exact thing?"
  • not sure what made me think of that. actually, i'm not sure what made me think of anything i've said in this update.
  • it's fairly hard to search for songs by the band "the the." unless of course you know what you're looking for. they took anti-piracy to another level with their band name. they should have had their songs be just numbers. oooh, tricky.
  • chris, you're such a silly fellow.
  • i hate jon for getting me hooked on "the box" again. been listening to the 28 minute version pretty much all day.


    • 01-10-01 (15:26)

  • discovered not so long ago that herbie hancock worked on 'groove is in the heart' with dee-lite. pretty cool.
  • raining pretty heavily today, the wind is no bonus either.
  • in terms of sheer volume, i think i've talked about as much as the average 15 year old. what i mean to say is that i'm not a very talkative person, not sociable at all. as a result i'm fairly ineloquent. sometimes i'll replay conversations in my head and realize how much bumbling i do. it's kind of embarrassing.
  • i have more nightmares than i do dreams. i'm not talking about when i sleep, as much as i am talking about just in life. i've got all sorts of doomsday possibilities running on in my head and not enough of the good stuff to subdue them. i worry a lot, but then i've been right a few too many times about the disastrous things that could happen. with the mormon i even underestimated the level at which things would go wrong. i should remain positive.
  • been obsessed with ice cream lately.
  • i should start playing the lottery more often.
  • i view most things avant-garde in the same way most view concept cars. concept cars are over stylized and exaggerated in order to call attention to certain things or to expand upon that which is usually seen as possible, but not as serious cars for marketing or use. outside of free jazz i don't really like many things which fall under avant-garde, but i recognize their purpose. of course once avant-garde begins to breed elitism i have the overwhelming urge to vomit. now that i think about it, maybe i should to just that, only on a 24x36 piece of canvas and call it "experimentation in regurgitation"


    • 01-10-01 (01:08)

  • film professor said that "o brother, where art thou?" was the best film of the holiday season. rock on.
  • revised some pages which i may link later if i care to.


    • 01-09-01 (22:45)

  • my car gets more frustrating every day. soon it'll be fixed though. found i can get the window for around 50 after really expensive shipping and can get it installed for around the same. i'm not in the mood to hunt for old glass in the junkyard or install my first window anytime soon so i'll just bite the monetary bullet.
  • dungey must have read my webpage early this morning because we talked about almost exactly the same stuff as was in the last update, only it was just about grades (which was my focus). very good class, though depressing (as advertised the first day).
  • film class was good, saw a really neat bunuel film. he's the guy who did that avant garde film with salvador dali.
  • melanie remains the shit.
  • updated the movies list.


    • 01-09-01 (01:41)

  • made a discovery today about john paul jones (the bassist for led zeppelin) got me pretty psyched.
  • led zeppelin is so much better than the beatles. i'm on the verge of tears just thinking about their greatness. i shit you not.
  • saw gio on campus today. what fun that was catching up. sounds like she might graduate this year.
  • 03:23
  • i need to learn the meaning of fully checking oneself.
  • i used to think that getting down on myself was really cool, then i realized that going down on myself is cool, getting down on myself isn't. so being hard on myself is bad, but being hard isn't. a fine distinction in both instances, but a key one. now i know so all is good.
  • i'm up a lot later than i should be.
  • led zeppelin is still great.
  • this year i pledge to do some of those things on the "before i die" page.
  • as i age and get wiser i realize more and more how arbitrary tangible measurements of success are, yet they become even more important. surely, sat scores and gpas were important a few years ago, but now tangible measurements of success are even more key to success and becoming what it is i want to become. however, this is not the only reason that they have mattered to me more lately. though i'm not sure what the other reason is, there is one. i know that my grades aren't entirely indicative of what i know, or for that matter, my worth as a person. yet, grades and whether i'm able to answer questions on "who wants to be a media whore" have been weighing on me more now than ever. i know that there is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. i know that not knowing that michael collins was the fourth name on the plaque left on the moon in 1969 is a matter of ignorance and i should feel bad for not knowing it. i didn't feel stupid because no one else on jeopardy knew who the hell michael collins was. in fact i knew that the other guy was richard nixon, along with buz aldrin and neil armstrong, so i felt justified in my ignorance. but here's the kicker...if i had known the answer then i would have felt superior. what i'm saying is that it's a two way street. if i'm going to shun the arbitrary measurements and the (what i deem as) bs yardsticks we use to gauge our intelligence, then i can't rejoice when i succeed in them. so maybe the first step is not feeling good when i get a 1500 on a mock SAT. the second will be not feeling bad when i end up getting a 900.
  • the problem with all that is that it entails throwing out everything that i've learned in the past 20 years or so - people with high test scores are smart and successful. that's the rule. people who know the answers on "who wants to be a media whore" get paid the big bucks. the nice guys get recognition in feel good movies and on the back page of the metro section. those people should be rewarded the most and i know this, yet it's so hard to apply that rule to life when most of the other arbirary measurements are so pervasive and overwhelming.
  • in this sense i think i can understand the same struggle that many people who are deemed "radical individualists" might have faced. guys like thoreau or nietzsche. they meant it in a different way, perhaps, but they, too, struggled to separate themselves from the constructed norms of society and become whom they felt they wanted to become. obviously i'm not comparing myself to either of these guys, i think far too lowly of myself to do that, but i understand the struggle.
  • so either i can accept that there are these measurements of success which i don't buy into and then just discard or i can buy into them and try to succeed within them. since i don't buy into them and since i'm not much of a success by their standards then i'll choose the former. i doubt i'd make the same decision if i was a success by those standards. in a way it is a blessing to have sat scores on the relative low side, for i am then able to take the high ground.
  • in all actuality i'll wake up and forget all this and still get down when watch jeopardy and see how smart i'd like to be, and am not.
  • seriously though, it all comes back to my original answer to life - answering the question 'from where does my worth derive.' when i answer that then things will be a lot better. at least then i'll know what i'm shooting for and what matters.
  • i really should start taking more comfort in the fact that i'm mostly a good human being (as long as you know me more than a little and less than a whole lot) and that i don't mean ill for anyone (except maybe that bastard who smashed my car window and stole my innocence).
  • then i always begin to question human nature. maybe it's human nature to never be content with oneself, in a bizarre darwinian attempt to constantly evolve. or maybe just because. it's all really interesting to think about, but it's also 4am and though i feel like some of this may be making sense and i'm not quite the bumbling pile of ineloquence that i usually am, i should still get some rest because i've got to get ready to not have sex tomorrow.


    • 01-09-01 (00:01)

  • i don't like god because he's not good enough for me.
  • that's pretty much the essence of chris. i don't think i'll ever be completely satisfied in life. i should get used to that thought. i guess that's not a very good thought to have though.
  • i have to agree with johnny about january being one of the lamest months there is. last year january was wack too. i'd say this january has been better, but januarys are still lame.
  • for the most part, once i start thinking about it, i'm not sure why anyone has anything to do with me. even monique said she wouldn't want to live with me. i must be a pretty big bastard.
  • there's only one cure for feeling down, listening to "in utero" by nirvana. all the teenage angst one can buy and from the person who did it best.
  • i remembered my SAT score today and felt very subpar, it was a highlight in my day.
  • "i tried hard to have a father, but instead i had a dad" - kurt cobain
  • the more i think about it the more i want to sell the bug.
  • there aren't many things in life which are constant. it seems that most of the things which are constant are things which hold us back, either literally (gravity, laws, norms, etc.) or more abstractly (our thoughts, our past, etc.).
  • "i miss the comfort in being sad" - kurt cobain
  • man, he's shooting pearls i tell ya, pearls.
  • speaking of cobain...he certainly turned over in his grave...courtney love dated fred durst for a spell, not sure how long, but jeesh.
  • fred durst is about as scumy as they get, if you were to ask me. although i think i remember some playboy model saying he was a great guy, so who knows.
  • i think this webpage is a glutton for punishment. it sucks up so much of my negativity, and i love him for it.
  • webpage, thank you for being my whipping boy (although not in the classical definition of the term).
  • today was a rainy day and a monday, if i were a Carpenter then i'd be depressed for just those reasons.
  • i don't capitalize words very often, but this time i felt it was necessary as to not lose all of my audience.
  • speaking of which. i got 29 hits yesterday and 26 (27?) the day before. pretty crazy.
  • one of these days i'll have a big following and everyone will want to know what's going on in chris' life. i'll be featured on 20/20 or 48hrs. or the like and i'll be a big hit. i'll have mad hot chicks knocking on my door. i'll drop out of school and start living the crazy life. i'll buy a geo metro just to take it out into the desert and trash it. i'll go on my page pubilicly to denounce living a pious lifestyle and claim that hedonism is the only way to true happiness and that it is the job of all humans to constantly seek happiness. then i'll realize the err of my ways, become a born again christian and die an old lonely wrinkled rich man.
  • now that i have my life mapped out i shall retire.
  • 00:30
  • "I'm not like them / But I can pretend / The sun is gone /But I have a light / The day is done / But I'm having fun / I think I'm dumb / Or maybe just happy
  • My heart is broke / But I have some glue / help me inhale / And mend it with you / We'll float around / And hang out on clouds / Then we'll come down / And I have a hangover
  • Skin the sun / Fall asleep / Wish away / The soul is cheap / Lesson learned / Wish me luck / Soothe the burn / Wake me up" - Dumb - kurt cobain
  • at the end of that song he repeats "i think i'm dumb" 12 times. by the end of the song, and by the end of the album really, i usually am left repeating those words because they really stick out. there's another time when he repeats "What is wrong with me" a shitload of times. by the end of the album i usually have one of those phrases stuck in my head. i wonder if this album has done damage to my psyche. oh yea, how could i forget...he also says "Look on the bright side is suicide"
  • kurt, man, you've got issues.
  • well you had issues.


    • 01-08-01 (22:26)

  • just had film class, no big surprises there.
  • had two cloves of garlic in my chicken burritos today, wow.
  • updated the movies list.
  • not much to say.
  • it rained today, but not too much once i was awake.
  • need to get some things done within the next week. especially on the bug.
  • in theory if i were to repeat my life with the same knowledge that i have now then i could make things better for myself, but maybe that's not the point. i'm fairly happy with where i am and part of that is because i've suffered and screwed up a bit along the way. so even though it might be appealing to have the chance to repeat your life with your current knowledge, i don't think it always is. who's to say that you can't start your life anew tomorrow? ah yes, society, the old ball and chain, commitments, material goods, rules, etc. i commend those who have really started their life over and walked away from those things and more.
  • i need to read my MLK book before classes start getting into swing.
  • i need to shave and go shopping so that i can shave and eat and clean.
  • watched some of the simpsons tonight. i couldn't tell you which one though. my memory is the greatest!
  • rejoice! i just remembered. it was the episode when homer thinks bart is gay and so he takes him hunting to become a man. i like the part when homer says to bart 'we're going to turn you into a man' and bart replies 'you're going to let me drive?!' and homer comes back 'no son, you're only 10 - you can't drive. we're going to let you hunt some deer'...that wasn't verbatim, but you get the point.


    • 01-08-01 (17:37)

  • i give gray davis major props for doing something as unpopular, different and necessary as he is proposing. i'm talking about increasing the school year period by 30 days, of course.
  • http://my.ca.gov - we're getting with the times, pretty neat.


    • 01-08-01 (01:35)

  • more class and work tomorrow than i care to think about.
  • today wasn't horrible. got some things done. kinda cleaned my room. looked at a couple books for a total of 5 minutes, but it was a good 5 minutes. discovered that my atlas of world history is by r.r. palmer, same guy who did a book on the history of the modern world. pretty sweet. i shall look that over i more depth sometime. i really should set aside a whole day to look at my books in my bookshelf. i don't have that many, but they're all so informational. i think that my proportion of non-fiction to fiction books is higher than most. i could make some loftly claim about that being really cool, special, and intellectual, but the fact of the matter is that i just like non-fiction stuff more than fiction and most people have lots of fiction and only a couple non-fiction books.
  • it seems ridiculous to have prodigy so cemented in the number one slot. i never really thought about it until now, but i hereby move orbital into the number one slot in the electronica genre.
  • that was just groundbreaking shit. wow.
  • i blow myself away sometimes.
  • as soon as i get another pink floyd album (preferably "meddle") they'll move ahead of the doors. i wish that nirvana and the doors had been around longer. damn lead singers' short lives.
  • i flossed today.
  • maybe i should fill space with useless crap. there are people out there right now who are writing in their journals about interesting, useful, meaningful stuff and i'm talking about flossing and the positions of bands on my cd hierarchy. sad.
  • pretty happy that i spelled hierarchy right on the first try.
  • i need to give myself more props because...well, because.
  • i really should become a self-centered person, it would be more beneficial to my existence and success in society.
  • thought about taking money outta the bank and watching a movie, but i realized that taking money out of the bank probably isn't a good thing.
  • i should call bugformance tomorrow and see how much the vandals have set me back. cars are expensive. i wonder how much i could get for the bug. if i could buy a good geo metro with the money then i'd be awfully tempted.
  • maybe i should worry about getting my steering wheel on first, then take it from there. who knew changing a steering wheel would be so difficult.
  • i hope melanie gets into uc davis, we shall see in march i suppose.
  • sleep is good. sleeping with someone is better.


    • 01-07-01 (22:50)

  • it be raining, but i'm not going to count it as a rainy day since it's not affecting me. after all if it doesn't affect me then it doesn't matter. ha.
  • "the intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything." - goethe


    • 01-07-01 (18:50)

  • found a really good sonny sharrock track today, one that i've been seeking out for a while.
  • "the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits" - Unknown
  • anonymous and unknown are two of my favorite poets.
  • the last time i listened to the radio on a regular basis was in the summer of 1997. that was an odd time in my life for several reasons, a transitional point i'd say. at the time they were still playing a lot of sublime's 'santeria' on the radio and after just listening to it for the first time in at least two years it brought back all sorts of memories. jeesh.
  • i wish that when a band has a bad message that their music sucked, it'd be all that much easier to hate them. limp bizkit is easy to hate because they're uninventive and misogynists. it's also too bad that bands seem to be at their peak when they're young, of course at this point most of them haven't realized how retarded some of their views are. such a travesty. on occasion one finds bands like aerosmith which are great when they're doing drugs and then stick around long enough to say "hey we fucked up, don't follow our lead." the beastie boys are another example of this.
  • "network tv is not dead."
  • how many tv shows change their opening sequence every week? only one to my knowledge. how many tv shows make you laugh before the show has even started? not many.


    • 01-07-01 (16:50)

  • it's kinda funny how most of the time i just hope that the next day will be a good day, as opposed to taking steps towards it being just that. some days when i elect to wake up early and get a lot done are in the spirit of making the day productive, but usually i'll wake up later than i had wanted or the things i try to get done don't get done because there are snags here and there. i think that it's more about having a state of mind that tomorrow will be good more than anything else. certainly, hoping it will be a good day isn't enough. planning on getting a lot done only works if i get it all done; if i don't then it's more of a let down than anything else.
  • o brother, where art thou isn't playing in davis. that's surprising.
  • vern's going to cut my hair tonight.
  • watched plenty of football today, almost a whole game. first time in a while.
  • played frisbee golf and sucked for the first three holes, but rebounded a bit later. still ended up losing, again.
  • i'm always glad to find more things i'm not good at. it must be the disc i have. if i had a second disc then i'd be a better player, or something.
  • the second most important thing in life is being good at frisbee golf. i'm not sure what the first most important thing is.
  • i'm going to watch the simpsons tonight. that's the first time in a while that i've made plans to watch tv.
  • listened to 5 minutes worth of the radio last night, that was also a first in a long time.
  • i've got lots of candles these days.
  • it's amazing how bored i am these days. i think i've been spoiled by the exciting vacation lifestyle in la. even though i spent a lot of time hanging around and watching movies there was always something that was going to happen in the next day or two. that's not really the case in davis. tomorrow i have class - whoop whoop. in ten days melanie comes, but that's in ten days.
  • tomorrow is going to be a long day.
  • should have asked for some water balloons for xmas. my launcher has been neglected lately.
  • thinking about doing the blockbuster DVD deal. 30 dvds in 30 days for 20 bucks. the only problem is you can only get one dvd a day, so if you miss one day then you've missed you're chance to get all 30 dvds.
  • i think the raiders have gotten very lucky this year in the playoffs. they could have had to face the colts instead of the dolphins, which most would agree would have been much tougher. they also could have had to face the broncos, which would have been disastrous considering the fact that they lost to denver twice this year. and they could have been playing the titans next week, which in my opinion would have been a tougher team than the ravens. this is not to say that the ravens are going to be easy, they won't, but i still think that the raiders have a better chance beating them than the broncos or the titans.
  • i think that the raiders are a really well coached team, more so than even the giants - which from what i saw seemed really well coached. the vikings are good and so is their coaching, but i think their talent take them farther than their coaching, so i think they'll beat the giants. i haven't seen the ravens play at all this year so next week should be fun. here i go planning to watch tv again.
  • listening to a lot of mp3s lately.
  • if you find a sermon style version of "let my people go" then hook it up. the best version i've found so far is by louis armstrong and his voice isn't as bass as i'd like. i want something like the reverend from sullivan's travels when he sang it.


    • 01-06-01 (22:32)

  • updated the movies list.
  • work was boring, but that means laid back and generally not a pain in the ass.
  • i look forward to the summer more and more every day.
  • plotted out much of the quarter while at work today, that i suppose was productive. i plan on using my baltic linen planner more this year than last.
  • maybe i'll wake up before noon tomorrow and get some stuff done, that would be wise.
  • i should probably get around to calling the police and doing the little report dealy. more of a pain in the ass than anything else.
  • mag lights are very good.
  • i shouldn't let other people get me down, especially when i know that i haven't done anything wrong. i guess that's more a universal rule than a personal one.
  • sounds like johnny's situation isn't improving.
  • needless to say i'm not pouring out liquor for any of my fallen homies, that fell by the wayside. i need to come up with something that's less supportive of a retarded industry. if you have any ideas i welcome them.
  • it'll rain tomorrow. i'll be inside.
  • thought about washing the car, but then i came to my senses. can't wash a car when one window isn't there.
  • i like geo metros despite everyone else thinking they are retarded. i don't understand what people have against them.
  • there are plenty of times when i feel like a retard. i don't like those times and don't know what to do about them.


    • 01-06-01 (13:21)

  • today sucks.


    • 01-06-01 (01:59)

  • was looking over my cd collection today and realized that i don't have many melancholy albums. i have some albums which are sad to me for whatever reason, but aren't really melancholy. i even have a couple melancholy albums, but not nearly as many as i would have thought. if you look at the movies i own it's the exact opposite - about a third of my movies are melancholy; this pales to the less than 1 percent of my music which is melancholy. odd. interesting.
  • the good thing about literature in comparison to film is that everything on the page is intended. if the writer is great they choose every word very precisely. no matter how good the director is there are going to be things on the screen which might not be significant or which are out of his control. maybe the producers or writers or the studio are/is leaning on him to do things this way or that. the actors have their own interpretations. in this sense i think that film is far more difficult. at the same time film has the benefit of sight and sound. nevertheless, literature has the advantage of being completely discriminatory regarding what is (not) on the page. if the author mentions the pen on the table then it's there for a reason (assuming we're talking about a good author).
  • rediscovered today people are retarded, there is no hope for humanity, and that we (despite all our outward appearances) are as primordial and base as the apes in 2001.
  • got to watch both seinfeld and the simpsons today. got channel 58 to work pretty well. life is good again.
  • we can only hope to make life good on the micro level. unless of course we are the dalai lama or MLK.
  • fuck this shit, i'm not gonna work on maggie's farm no more.
  • something occurred to me the other day while watching tv...saw the backstreet boys in a third world nation in their bus and saw the crowd outside rioting trying to get closer to the bus. i think that the backstreet boys have honestly caused more riots than rage against the machine. what's even more sad is that they've probably ruined more lives and haven't caused people to think nearly as much, and about as important issues, as rage against the machine. "isn't it ironic, dontcha think?...a little too ironic."
  • got a hit from someone who did a search on google...their search was "movies christians shouldn't watch"...i shit you not. go ahead and do the search yourself. i'm on the second page of hits. some crazy shit i tell you.
  • i hope marc borchardt is doing well. thought about uncle bill today.
  • there isn't any justice in the world, but everybody has told me that since i was 2 - "life's not fair..."
  • i could make tomorrow productive or i could just sleep and waste it away. probably will end up being somewhere in between.
  • rolling stone 100 top pop songs is a joke, but we all knew that. it's impossible to do, we know that as well; they just happened to do a particularly bad job.
  • starting sunday it'll rain until wednesday, at least.
  • updated the movies list.
  • traffic was a very good film, i recommend it. made me think a lot about drugs and the world sucking in general.
  • speaking of which, i just realized that people may have taken my earlier statement regarding my parents the wrong way. what i meant to say is that in living life we all glean certain lessons from our experiences. when someone has a lot of experience in one aspect of life, whether that be drugs or living in poverty or whatever, they are much more able to pass that experience and knowledge onto those who are close to them. SO, since i'm predisposed to being a depressed psychotic self destroying loser it helps to have two people very close to me who tried dealing with the same problems with drugs, and found them to be unhelpful. if i had the same biology that i have and was raised without first hand knowledge of why drugs are lame and a temporary solution to a deeper problem then i am very sure that i would have resorted to drugs a long time ago and thoroughly screwed my life to hell. i think i would have be a great junkie and i'm glad that because my parents had their own run-ins along those lines that i have been able to avoid that route.
  • drugs and alcohol, because i know what they do, have never been a real option for me. i honestly thank my parents for that. i'm not being facetious, or sarcastic, or anything like that - i'm being deadly and sincerely honest. it's like when your parents kill themselves in the mines and fields working 14 hour days so that you won't have to break your back when you grow up. they put in their time so i wouldn't have to. i only hope that i can pass that same thing on to my kids. sadly, though, that experience isn't as easily transferable as the family fortune.
  • glad that i watched a theater movie today, that garners 2pts.
  • worked out a little something something with my dad so that he'll send me 7 movies a month which all have some relation to each other which he thinks i should see. should get him off my back in regards to the inevitable situation that arises when i discuss film with him: 'dad i just saw invisible man the other day.' - 'oh yea?' - 'yea, i thought it was pretty decent' - 'ah yes, james whale. of course you've seen frankenstein, 1931, right?' - (thinking i've finally gotten him beat) 'yea, actually i have' - 'oh then you must have seen the 1935 follow up bride of frankenstein as well...' - 'uh actually no, i haven't' - 'are you kidding?!' - 'dad, fuck off'
  • of course i make the ending of that conversation sound worse than it actually is, but you get the point. i could have researched james whale to death, finding out that he was one of the two big directors of the time who was gay. i could have seen all his films and known every nuance thereof and my dad would still come up with something that i missed. surely this is all in the spirit of passing on his knowledge and making me more knowledgeable in the process.
  • i think i should just shut up about my parents. after all this webpage is supposed to be about me and we all know that parents have no influence on their kids. or maybe i should just be more positive when it comes to talking about my parents rather than talking about how i'm not good enough for my dad. he's really smart and has a lot of potential. if i listened to him more then i'd probably be smarter and wiser. my mom cares more about me than anyone ever has and she's worked harder than anyone i know. they're both about as good as parents come these days.
  • now that the record is set straight i will feel free to tell stories about my dad at the jack daniels factory without getting emails and comments deploring the brad miller bashing that evidently goes on here.
  • that being said i want to fucking sleep. please direct all criticisms to my agent.


    • 01-05-01 (15:19)

  • i love rediscovering albums. it happens a lot since i've got so many cds it's really hard to listen to them evenly. as a result some will get neglected for a while and then one day i'll pop it in and rediscover its greatness.
  • i think i'm going to try to get rid of a few of my cds, the ones i haven't listened to in a long time, ones i may as well just sell.
  • i didn't think about this until just now, but with all the mix tapes and cds that i've made for myself and others i've never gotten one from anyone else. never until this xmas, that is.
  • went to the bank and deposited my paychecks, more than i expected. so of course i went to tower records and picked out a couple cds, only this time i didn't end up buying them. it's a good thing too because when i got home i saw my overdue phone bill, they're gonna shut me down if i don't pay em soon.
  • used one of my screwdrivers, from the set i got for xmas, yesterday.
  • glad i got some shoes, too, because i don't want to have to worry about buying new shoes anytime soon.
  • got a bunch of stamps as well, that'll help. i got a lot of useful things for xmas. should have asked for razors and shaving cream.
  • used my quotations book yesterday as well.
  • can't wait for the new orbital album.
  • "can't wait" isn't a very good expression, yet i use it fairly often.
  • there's going to be a history of jazz series on pbs starting the 8th (i think), should be pretty sweet. wish our reception didn't suck. wish we could get channel 58 so i could watch the simpsons.
  • looks like i have the rest of the day off.
  • i'm not sure what i did in my spare time last quarter. i'm bored and i've only been off work for an hour or so.
  • that candle i made kinda sucks nutsac. the wick isn't in the middle, not anywhere near the middle actually. i should probably beat myself up about it for a few hours. depression kills time pretty well.
  • working on my car has become a chore for me. especially with the recent event. if i sold it i could probably get a mid-90s geo metro and that would be a perfect car for my trip, so long as i slept in my tent instead of inside the car.
  • not sure where my other cd case is, it's got over 200 cds in it so i'd like to reclaim it. hopefully it's at melanie's house or possibly my dad's apartment. i'm going to hold off on making more copies until i know where it is. i'm certain that you care about this.
  • i'm going to finally download the long version of "the box." 28 minutes long. hell yea.
  • i'm going to go out on a limb and say that "o brother, where art thou" is the coen brothers' best film, but fargo is still my favorite. just like hitchcock - vertigo may be his best, and it obviously is, but strangers on a train is my favorite. i think that with o brother everything seemed to come together. the soundtrack is very fitting, the look of the picture is really good (although fargo's cinematography may have been slightly better - this is saying a lot), the acting was very good, and the writing was right up there with fargo. naturally i'd have to see it a few more times to say this conclusively. oh, and i still need to see barton fink again because i've only seen it once and it's certainly one of their better films.
  • wyclef is more inventive, musically, than eminem, but eminem is still up there.
  • it's nice out today.
  • finally got around to making a list of movies i own. i figure that one day i'll own upwards of 550 movies like my dad and i'll be happy that i started the list when i only had 30 something.
  • why the fuck is vern sleeping when i want to play frisbee golf? damn.
  • i'd kinda like to be good at something.


    • 01-04-01 (23:11)

  • i think one of the best things that happened to me in my life was being born to two people who destroyed their lives with drugs.
  • the real answer to life comes from answering this question: from where does my worth derive?
  • truly answering that is a lot harder than one might think at first. when you were 8 it came from having more toys than little joey. when you were 16 it came from being a better basketball player than joey and having a hotter girlfriend. when you were 21 it came from seeming like you had your shit together and being able to drink more than joey while maintaining self-control (yea right). when you were 30 and had worked your way up as a business consultant it came from donating a hundred bucks a year to a charity to feel good about yourself, rooting for the winning football team, being good at golf, and having a nice backyard and a hot wife who would go down on you once in a while. so maybe the orgin of one's worth is constantly changing. maybe few of us really find what it really is. maybe most of the really happy people are able to convince themselves that they've found their source of worth. if you ask jorgay he'll tell you that following god's word will make your life worth living. i don't think there is one right answer. i don't know the answer.
  • the truth is that a lot of people have trouble coming up with reasons their life is worth living...finding out where your worth comes from seems, to me, a huge step in discovering the "answer to life."
  • malcolm x is only as much of a demagogue as jesus was.
  • the negative of a person doesn't erase the positive, it just makes it harder to see. malcolm x's views on women shouldn't erase the good he did for his race. hitler's actions towards jews and non-whites shouldn't erase his backing the idea behind the volkswagon beetle. the same applies to eminem or the unabomber or even you and me.
  • "automatic for the people" is growing on me.
  • i like being able to update my page on my old computer again.
  • taking things for granted sucks and causes a lot of heartache and bad shit. i shall try to keep this in mind.
  • one thing i've learned is that learning a lesson sometimes requires fucking up in the same, or similar, way(s) a few times. sometimes it takes a bit to fully realize the lesson. i'm not actually thinking of one thing in particular, but it seems to be the truth. i guess it's hard to remember and keep in mind everything that you are supposed to have learned while trying to live. like trying to keep things in perspective and thinking about the things that really matter and all the other life lessons in between. i guess this is why thinking is so invaluable. because even if you don't remember everything right away, eventually, after enough thought, you can remember what you've learned and even learn things that you haven't necessarily learned through experience yet. that's always a nice feeling - when you learn a lesson without having to make the mistake yourself. sometimes it comes from seeing others make the mistake, whether that be in person, in a book, a movie, or what not.
  • if there's one thing i've learned in life it's that i should get rest and eat plenty. i'll rest now and eat later.
  • melanie is the shit.


    • 01-04-01 (16:48)

  • i'll have to get used to typing in "01" instead of "00" for the year.
  • this year is going to be good.
  • had the best lemonade of my life the other day. melanie makes lemonade like none other.
  • that reminds me of  "lemon song" by led zeppelin, but that's not actually what i was referring to.
  • classes went well. dungey was up to his old tricks. my other class seems okay, but jenna, from work, is in it so that could get annoying fast.
  • i should go shopping and watch a movie today. don't have the money or energy for either.
  • need to buy some books too.


    • 01-04-01 (10:53)

  • more or less just got home.
  • no work today, i just discovered.
  • bought planes, trains, and automobiles while i was in LA, a good purchase.
  • best xmas present i got was probably the picture of my great grandmother and MLK, but that's pretty hard to beat.
  • it was 35 degrees in sacramento when i got to the airport. it's sunny and nice outside though.
  • i finalized my movie goal details...that'll be summarized on the recent movies page whenever i get the chance.
  • updated the movies list.
  • with the new year and all i'm sure there will be plenty of missing links, tell me about them and i'll be a happy man.
  • i should get to unpacking.
  • updated archives.
  • it's amazing how many bills i've gotten in the past 3 weeks.
  • things to do: take watch in for new battery/band, take film in to be developed, add cds to cd list...
  • updated schedule.
  • ended up adding 6 movies to my "to see list" and seeing 7 so that's good news. if i were to have added all the movies that my dad suggested, though, i'd have 160 movies on the list instead of 100. true story.
  • updated cdlist.


    • 01-01-01 (21:07)

  • i now know the truth. jehovah is the one true god and real paradise awaits me if i join the jehovah's witnesses. thank you lady at the laundromat for enlightening me.
  • done did a lot of driving today.
  • barstow is the biggest hole i have ever seen and if i had my druthers it would be erased from the face of this planet.
  • got really drunk last night. spent the whole morning puking my guts out. happy new year.
  • if you can guess which parts of this update i wrote, and which ones melanie contributed, you get a prize.
  • completed the 300 movie goal, started with pulp fiction, ended with planes, trains, and automobiles. i'd say the year was a success, if not for only that reason.
  • highlights for the year: hitchhiking trip. painting for the summer. meeting melanie. becoming the perfect person, finally. what next?
  • everyone else realizes how perfect i am, and i get elected god.
  • life isn't a democracy.
  • found a quote by winston churchill: "the arabs are a backward people who eat nothing but camel dung." thought of that because i mentioned democracy. i once thought that churchill was a halfway decent fellow.

    • in case i didn't mention it before, melanie is perfect for me.