I can't tell you where we're going; I guess there's just no way of knowing.

I was on a mission to do laundry on friday morning. After stopping to get a quick $20 bill at the local gas station (along with a bottle of water and a big jug of wiper fluid), I took off to the laundrymat. I was listening, in the car, to the local random track station, the one with no DJs that basically sounds like somebody's loaded iPod on shuffle. Anyway, I hear this tune. I think to myself, "this is pretty cool." This morphed into, "this is really sweet," into "this is kicking my ass," into "I just had my ass thoroughly wallopped by the power of that sweet riff."

This sometimes happens. I'll be listening to the radio and hear something sweet I've never heard before. But I'll forget about it before the DJ tells me what it was. But this time I was determined. I was going to listen until they told me what it was, at which point I would decided to buy it, or at least steal it. I was thinking maybe Journey. Maybe Yes. Unforunately for me, because this particular radio station has no DJs, they have no one to tell you whether or not any particular song was Journey, or even Yes. I was at a loss.

But my own ingenuity sprung into action. I heard the oft-stated mantra in the back of my head: "the internet will tell us these things..." I thus decided to fix on the most prominent lyric line in the song, and following laundry, to search that sucker on the wild wild web.

Turns out it wasn't Journey.

It wasn't Yes.

It was the one-hit by a one-hit wonder late 70s-early 80s new wave outfit by the name of "Sniff 'n' the Tears."

That's right. Sniff 'n' the Tears.

I looked them up on allmusic. Apparently this particular song was a big smash, but the band suffered from what many bands suffer from, i.e., a lead singer and songwriter who thought he was more powerful than the rest of the band could possibly imagine. This led to several lineup changes, several rapid-fire albums, with little or no commercial success. Formed 1978. Disbanded 1982.

But, as I suggested, that was an ass-kicking riff. Sweet. Even ultra-sweet. I had to hear it again. So I went to iTunes. No dice. Apparently iTunes has never even heard of Sniff 'n' the Tears. I went to Amazon. They had heard of it, but no sound samples. Allmusic let me play about 20 seconds of it. What to do?

I resolved the following. I would go to Tower Records. Apparently the album from which this particular cut was taken was recently reissued. Perhaps there would be a copy there. So off I went. I looked under 'S'. Not only did they not have the record, or anything else by Sniff 'n' the Tears, they also didn't even have the little card with the band name. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

However, Tower does have this little listening station that will let you automatically search the inventory and order a record if it's not in stock. I search. No sound samples. No in-store copies. And, in fact, no ability to order the record. I was screwed.

Of course, I could have just gone to Amazon, but this was one of those momentary things. I needed to pop that tune into my car and rock. Waiting several days at least didn't appeal to me, at which time this impulse might have passed. So I decided to be a little bit more investigative. Perhaps this song had made it on to a soundtrack, or a compilation? So I type in the name of the song. Four results pop up.

Compilations. Two of the particular record label on which the tune was issued, two other "hits of th 70s" comps. Now, I hate buying compilation discs. In the words of Bruce McCollough's Doors fan character, they're for "housewives and little girls." But I said, hey, compilations are usually ridiculously cheap. Five bucks sometimes. Perhaps this one was, too. So I walk over to the "various artists" category. I browse. No dice. Until...I happened upon:

"Hard to Find 45s on CD: Volume 8 - Hits of the 70s"

Sweet success! Now, as I turn the record over to discover its price....

$17.99.

Ugh. Crestfallen. No way was I paying 18 bucks for one track. Ass still intact. Unbruised.

Unkicked.

I'm a'movin' on down - again.

So my new apartment didn't quite work out like I wanted. Frankly, it's a little small. Half of the bathroom is in the bedroom. The kitchen is little more than a hallway. The kitchen cupboards are in the living room.

Then there's the chaos outside. One neighbor, Willy, listens to Fox News on full blast all day long. As far as I can tell, he has no means of employment - with two loud kids. The other two neighbords, whose names I cannot pronounce, something like "Sharita," or something like that, are lound beyond comprehension. Screaming. Lots of the use of the word "fuck". Many different permutations of the word. Also home to kids. Ill-behaved children. On one occasion, one of these children chucked a scoop of ice cream at me.

So I just closed the deal for a new apartment beginning March 1st. It's a nice little place. No garbage disposal; you have to take the trash out yourself; no parking; but other than that, it's nice. Bigger. No children. Bay windows. People are mostly quiet. It's also even further South than I am now. It's in a neighborhood that actually has "South" as part of its designator. Although it's only about a ten minute walk from an "independent and foreign DVD rental" establishment, and a place that makes homemade scones. Here's a satellite image. It's supposed to be a "trendy" area. I'm cool with that. It's also three blocks from a frisbee golf course.

So line up now. Sometime in the week before March 1, I'm going to be moving in. Anyone helping is entitled to free Hodad's.

It's got Paul Anka's guarantee.

While driving up to Redlands, California to visit my dad over the weekend, I hit something of a traffic jam at the 15-215-Temecula Wineries bottleneck. That's when I saw, partially covered by a perma-trailer, on the back of an old beat-up pickup truck, a faded, though definitely legible bumpersticker: "Shit Happens."

This sentiment has always been slightly confusing to me. I mean, there are so many senses in which it could be taken. First, it could be a sort of powerful statement of stoic self-confidence, a "Keep on Truckin'" for the high-flying world of the 80s. Like, "Damn, my dog just got runover by a drunken trucker, the same guy that made off with my old lady! Shit happens." Second, it could be something like a dire, slightly moralized warning. "Hey man, shit happens." This, I take it, is the sense of "shit happens" used in the ever-popular conglomerate, "Shit happens when you party naked." It could also be a somewhat trivial declaration of fact, i.e., that events take place. "Shit happens." But that would be the least interesting use of the phrase, by my lights.

So I make it up to Redlands, and before I can say "shit happens," my dad's new wife is shoving a glass of wine in my hand. After a few minutes of conversation (during which my dad told me that he missed having lunch with George Foreman by only two hours), we take off to a rather expensive restaurant in town - which was quite good, I have to say, but I also got the sense that people who go there are showing off a little. My dad reminded me of the story of some guy he knew growing up in South Dakota who, during a particularly extravagant night of drinking, drove his friend's new car onto a train, which then ended up somewhere in the badlands of North Dakota the following day. Pretty sweet wheeze, if you ask me.

I checked my email that night to find a paper by You-Know-Who on the latest iteration of neuroethics. This one is actually quite a bit better than other ones, but only insofar as it much more clearly details the absurdity of the project, and how, if taken seriously, it would cheapen morality beyond recognition. Maybe I'll make a detailed post on that one of these days, but now's not the time. The next day I had a great time playing with my dad's new XM satellite radio while we made a white-knuckle drive up a mountain to Lake Arrowhead. Turns out that's a ton of fun; there are about 100 individual music channels, many of which are really interesting. There's one "Jamband/Prog Rock" station, although it was about 98% Prog. Tons of Rush and early Genesis. The classic rock station also had a bunch of stuff you don't normally hear. They played this one track by Ted Nugent that, notwithstanding your personal feelings toward the Motor City Madman, had a brutal guitar riff. They also played "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by the Amboy Dukes, which I think was a little beyond me.

At home, before I could say "party naked", my dad shoved about 35 pounds of oranges from his tree in his backyard on me. Ripe as all getout. My apartment smells like a citrus grove now.

Tired of makin' out on the telephone.

With a new bed comes a new bedtime ritual, and I'm starting to like it quite a bit. Bedtime rituals are, for me, the sort of thing that is best kept short. I'd much rather simply be able to fall into bed and wake up in the morning none the wiser. Nevertheless, two separate medical conditions prevent me from doing this, as well as general hygeine. But I've gotten used to it. In fact, I've purposefully extended my bedtime ritual in recent days, to good results. Rather than just going to sleep, I've been reading the newest Harry Potter book after the assorted pokes and prods. And, given that I'm still in that "new bed" phase where every night seems like I'm on vacation, I don't dread laying awake in bed staring at the ceiling for hours at a time any more. I mean, it's not the greatest thing, but t'aint the worst neither.

Don't really have a whole lot to say tonight. I was going to try again at my extended post on Depeche Mode's "Songs of Faith and Devotion," but I'm once again going to put that on hold. Mostly I was just going to do another long rumination on getting older while everyone else seems to be getting younger, but that's for another day. Right now I'm just going to dig the new comforter.

Here's a nifty pointer, though. It's not all it cracks itself up to be, but there are at least two things I decided to learn more about after having it on for an hour or so. Which is pretty good for these kinds of services, given my diverse tastes.

End transmission.

It seems she ran aground.

Crazy-ass weekend. It all started earlier this week when I recieved my semi-usual Ikea VIP list email reminding me that the 50% sale and no-tax weekend were fast approaching. It's tough to turn town an excuse to go to Ikea to spend a few hours looking at cheap furniture. So I decided, helped by the offer of ultra-cheap breakfast at the upstairs cafe, to hit the sale on Saturday to see if I could pick up a few cheap dishes, or a set of pos and pans to make up for the horribly blackened set I currently have (blame my tendency to overcook popcorn). Anyway, because breakfast is served early, I show up around 9:30am, and already there's a line out the door. This is remarkable because, first, only the restaurant is open that early. Second, there's a goodly amount of real estate you have to traverse before you get to the restaurant from the front door, meaning that the line was incredibly long. I suppose the Ikea VIP list is not as VI as I thought it was. Anyway, after waiting in line for, like, a half-hour, I finally get my eggs, bacon, pancakes, and Swedish coffee. I sit by a window to observe the ant-farm parking lot below me rapidly fill with insane shoppers coming for the same reason I was. Whew, I thought to meself, glad I got here before everybody and Elton John decided to show up.

It was at that moment that I realized I had forgotten insulin at home, after having eaten a gigantic breakfast.

What to do? I could go home, take a shot, come back. But then I'd have to deal with the insanity in the parking lot. I could go home, take a shot, not come back. Which means no pots and pans for me. I could stay, not take a shot. Which means a very uncomfortable feeling and twenty trips to the bathroom. And no lunch at the Ikea cafe. I went for option A. Drove home, took shot, came back, only to find myself in the middle of a traffic nightmare Lex Luthor couldn't have dreamed up in his wildest and most diabolical moment. After, oh, fifteen minutes spent trying to find a parking spot in what must have been a 2000+ space lot, I finally get back to Ikea to do a little shopping.

This is a bit of a weakness I have. It happens all the time. I see a grand purchase I could make. You know, a computer or something. I fret about it. I say, "do I really need this?" "Can I really afford this?" I do this for a few days and then finally end up spending the money, usually some ungodly amount I can't afford. See my February archives for my fretting over computers. Anyway, I was walking through the showroom and there it was. A bed. A pretty nice bed. A bed for only $139. A bed that would nicely replace my current 15-year-old futon. Then I realize, of course, I'd have to buy a mattress. Mattresses ran, oh, $199. So the grand illusion would come to something like $338, without tax if I bought it this weekend.

This realization threw me into angst. "Do I really need a new bed?" "Can I really afford a new bed?" These things were running around in my head as I meandered, dazed, through the rest of the store. (Which, by the way, is relatively pleasant, given that Ikea has a pretty good soundtrack, including "One of Our Submarines" by Thomas Dolby and some classic Pat Benetar.)

I went home that night with a metal frame too small for the picture I wanted to hang and ten AA batteries for $1.99. I flipped on the TV to have some background noise while I thought about the possibility of a new bed. The Lawrence Welk show came on PBS, which I watched, slightly aghast, for about 15 minutes. I had never seen anyone attempt to make the accordion look sexy before, but I swear to you, during the solo, this accordion dude winked into the audience. After that came some sort of skit about an Italian grocery store owner attempting to marry off his daughter. His failure to this point was accounted for by the high cost of weddings ("but a man-a cannot afford-a to-a have a wedding-a, 's too 'spensive-a!"). His solution was to cut his grocery costs in half for eligable bachelors, enabling them to marry his daughter in financial security. A song followed. I don't know if the plan was successful, but it was looking good: the initially skeptical bachelor was singing and dancing by the time I turned off the TV.

To buy a bed meant returning to Ikea the following day to take advantage of the no-tax. I didn't want to get there super early, so I showed up around 3-ish. But this was a mistake. I thought the traffic was bad the day before. Oh no. We're talking a Lex Luthor meets Darth Vader meets The Joker meets Professor Moriarty frightmare. It took me a half-hour to move 1/8th of a mile into the parking lot. Took me as long to find a parking spot once I was in. It was crazy. Anyway, figuring that I couldn't brave this hell for nothing, I applied for an Ikea credit card and bought a dang bed, mattress, pillows, pillowcases, and a comforter. Tied the dang things to my car and drove home in time to put it together (during which I lost my rag nearly eight times) and watch the West Wing. To be quite honest, the whole thing turned out to be a fantastic deal, even without the no-tax thing, meaning I think I did the right thing overall.

Which raises the question: how many Ikea managers were able to marry off their daughters this weekend?

Hmm.

I don't think I like this much. One question, I suppose, is whether there will be a reasonable demarcation between type 1 diabetics (insulin dependent, juvenile onset, unrelated to obesity, etc.) and type 2 diabetics, which can develop as a result of obesity or poor exercise habits. I don't think there's a sinly type 1 diabetic that doesn't take it seriously, given that, well, if you don't you'll die. It seems to me that this policy is incredibly patronizing, but there is something to be said for improving overall health. But one wonders. Will this really improve health? I suppose the reason for doing this with communicable diseases is that it prevents others from getting sick. But this is not going to prevent anyone from becoming diabetic. I suppose I'd be for a massive government program that sought to stop people from getting diabetes, but it seems to me that this program is not likely to bring major benefits, and is likely to disadvantage members of the population, especially type 1 diabetics, that are already disadvantaged given their disease, by bringing them under further government watch, and potentially opening them up for problems in getting health insurance and jobs.

Don't you point that raygun at me.

Sorry for the long absence. I was in the midst of my pre-quarter hibernation. It was only a literal hibernation in the metaphorical sense. I did a lot of sleeping, but it was mostly spent simply avoiding everything possible that had anything at all to do with school. I holed up in my apartment. Played a lot of some stupid game. Read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in, like, three days. Which is pretty amazing, considering it's an 800-some page book. (A small digression into Harry Potter. I feel like the comparisons to great children's literature of old are somewhat hasty. I mean, it's a remarkable achievement, no doubt, but I don't think it rises to anything like the level of Lewis Carroll or C. S. Lewis. For one thing, besides the foreboding darkness, it's mostly a sort of action/mystery. Which is not to say that it's bad, it's just lacking in a lot of the ideas of, say, Carroll or Lewis. In addition, Rowling is at an advantage in creating her universe: she makes ready use of any and all available mythical creatures, but creatures that are already in the popular imagination - werewolves, vampires, wands, giants, ghosts, snakes, dwarves, centaurs, etc. (well, there are a few originals, like the thestrals, for example) - but for someone like Tolkein, who described the universe in an almost completely original way, I think the achievement is somewhat greater. Not that I'm saying I didn't dig Harry Potter, or anything. It's great. But I feel like people are jumping the gun a little in the overly favorable comparisons to other great children's works.)

I have a few observations from my hibernatory period.

1. Clothes are ugly.

Some very ugly. Some achieve a degree of ugliness that could only be the result of special effort. (Appy polly lodges, Douglas.) Not clothes in general, which are, of course, fully necessary and can be very attractive. I mean clothes that you might go, say, looking to buy in any number of the various clothes shoppes or haberdashers in your local outlet centre. Went shopping last weekend, and I would say the aesthetic percentages broke down like this:

50% - very ugly.
30% - ugly; unwearable.
10% - wearable; unattractive.
4% - wearable, attractive, unavailable sizes.
5% - wearable, attractive, too expensive.
1% - wearable, attractive, cheap.

That's 90% of men's clothes (I didn't much look at the women's, though I'd be surprised if it were much different) that were downright ugly. I mean, what are these people thinking! Is it the case that people buy these clothes? If so, who? And why have they not been shamed? In a clearance rack at Calvin Klein, I saw one, only one (meaning others were bought, pair of brown tartan wool pants. I mean, what?!?!? Who would wear such a thing? I mean, besides someone trying to go for ironic effects, but the entire men's clothing industry can't be built around people who want to get a cheap laugh. Ugly shirts. Ugly pants. Ugly ties. Ugly suits. Ugly shoes.

One of the problems might be that I've been described by more than one salesperson, and more than one acquaintance, as a "conservative dresser." Perhaps. But dang, if going unconservative means going ugly, which it obviously seems to, you can count me out, baby. (And, frankly, I don't think I'm a conservative dresser. I like certain color ranges because I'm colorblind, and I like to have things that mix and match well. So screw you, salesjerk!)

Anyway, all I could find was one moderately unhiddeous pair of pants. And a couple of pairs of boxer shorts on sale at the Gap for $1.99! WOOHOO!!

2. A couple of my favorite bits from the Kids in the Hall:

Buddy Cole: What are the odds? I can't believe it. Here I am, stranded on a desert island. And my only supplies are my favorite book - "All About Rhoda" by Peggy Hertz from Scholastic Press. And my favorite album - Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams: "That's What Friends Are For." I always like to have an ex-lover's music around; Denise is good, too. And, for companionship, the one and only Oscar Wilde. Oscar, say something funny.
Oscar Wilde: Shall I?
Buddy Cole: Yes, do your stuff. Do the "Wilde" thing.
Oscar Wilde: Well, Buddy, I recall as I laid dying in my death bed, I came out of my stupor momentarily and declared with perfect aplomb, "Either that wallpaper goes or I do!"
[laughs]
Buddy Cole: Oh, that was rich, Oscar! Oh, jeez, let me catch my breath for a second. Oh, oh, I am so glad that I brought you and not someone common.
Oscar Wilde: Message received, Buddy. You know, Buddy, the trouble with the common man...
Buddy Cole: Yes?
Oscar Wilde: ...is that he is so unbearably common!
[laughs]
Buddy Cole: Oh Oscar, funny, but you're such a snob.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, that's my charm.
Buddy Cole: Oh, oh, it's really too bad that you're dead.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, I know.
Buddy Cole: Does it bother you?
Oscar Wilde: Well, you know Buddy, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.
[laughs]
Oscar Wilde: What? Philadelphia!
Buddy Cole: That's funny, but W.C. Fields said it.
Oscar Wilde: Well, yes, if you had been listening to me correctly, Buddy, what you would have heard me say was, "I may have been born yesterday but I still went shopping."
Buddy Cole: That was me.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, yes, yes.
[Coughs]
Oscar Wilde: Well, I seem to be getting a bit of laryngitis, Buddy. I'm afraid there'll be no more quipping today.
Buddy Cole: Oscar, please, stop with the laryngitis nonsense. You're pathetic. You would have never lasted on television. I'll bet what you really said on your death bed was something more like, "Shit!"

___

Sir Simon Milligan: Let me guess, this is... Jed?
Hecubus: No. No. This is Julio. AAAI-YI-YI-YIIIIIII.
Sir Simon Milligan: Now we're cooking with EVIL gas. Now Julio, how long have you been in the brain, may I ask?
Hecubus: I have... okay I can't take it - it's still Fred. I got you. I got you good. Hahaha.
Sir Simon Milligan: ...eeevil.

That's why, for me, the earth is flat.

So, apparently, this little thingy of mine has a wider readership than I had originally anticipated, because when I showed up at the dude's apartment, Meister Brau in hand, everybody was, like, way better-dressed than me. Why do you people take me so seriously?! Anyway, I had a tie on, blazer and jeans, but everybody else had the whole "prom night" thing going on, so I looked like I was the only one not taking my advice. Oh, sweet obscurity...where didst thou go?

Anyway, I stayed waaaaay too late because I felt drunk, but couldn't understand why because I had eaten all sorts of food and, realistically, didn't drink that much. Turns out it wasn't booze at all, but sugar; I was in the dangerously high range when I got home. Man. Whaddya gonna do? Anyway, I took some drugs and sacked out, only to get up the next morning and pig out again at the Hash House. Oh, sweet moderation...where didst thou go?

Later that day I finished the novel I had been reading, which was extremely worthwhile, but it wasn't the barnburner of an ending all the reviewers had promised. Frankly, I was a little underwhelmed. It all hinges on this one guy doing something that you would never expect because it's so heinous - but I guess as a film noir devotee and moral philosopher, it's tough to come up with some sort of horrendous action that shocks me into believing no one could actually do it. Maybe for those people who aren't coming up with: "OK-the-terrorists-are-going-to-blow-up-New-York-if-you-don't-kill-your-mom-what-do-you-do"-type examples every single day the book would be a lot more shocking than I found it.

Today I woke up early, got dressed and made my way to campus, only to realize that because New Year's Day was on a Sunday, the world is still shut down until tomorrow. No mail, no school, no nothing. Went all the way there to go to the pharmacy, and the dang thing was closed. People need to quit lollygagging around and get to dang work, for a change. Enough of these makeup holidays! Well, I guess I don't really think that. Or do I? I guess as an academic, all of these holiday-type things, especially the ones over summer and winter break are decidedly irrelevant. It's like the world keeps going for me except I can't mail a package or get a cashier's check. Not that I'm getting all sorts of cashier's checks, or anything, but you know. It's the principle of the thing.

But the thing that sums up my last few days best is boredom. Even the Kids in the Hall haven't really been getting me excited about anything. Bored bored bored. Bored beyond belief. Well, maybe not beyond belief, but you know, beyond the general level of boredom I experience on most days. Even "Jeopardy" doesn't sound all that amusing. And that's saying something.