Outkast rules. They're new album "Speakerboxxx: The Love Below" is pretty good, from the few songs I've heard. Andre 3000 is crazy talented. Big Boi, too. They did a double album, sort of a split solo album... "Speakerboxxx" is Big Boi's disc, while "The Love Below" is Andre 3000's flava. Dude, I love that song Ghettomusick. You really need speakers that can handle deep bass to fully appreciate that song. I think all the songs Big Boi did used the Roland 808, the machine that all bass songs from a decade or 2 ago used for they're crazy bass lines. Andre 3000's stuff is way crazy, showcasing even more of that funkiness that Outkast is known for.

So I hadn't gotten my haircut for over 2 months... until this past Friday. I had to get it cut, I was starting to sport the Asian mullet in the back. I was on the verge of a Dragonball breakthrough, but it was getting too much to handle. So now my head is 2 lbs lighter. Shouts to my peeps at Anaheim Barbers #2, the ghettoest barbershop ever... let's see, shady curtains of various designs covering all the windows, a 2x10" subwoofer box with Rockford Fosgate subs used as a plant stand, a fine collection of about 5 barber chairs in the same corner, ESPN blaring on the 27" tv in the corner, a waiting room couch that I suspect came from the Salvation Army down the street, a fish tank, an "Anaheim Barbers" sign done up in wildstyle graffiti, and 3 gangsta looking Asians giving the haircuts. Its an awesome place. Only $7 for a cut! How did I find this place? I was just skating around looking for an ATM cuz I had no cash, and remembered that I should probably get a haircut. So, I saw a Filipino grocery store and headed towards it. Around the corner, behind another building next to the grocery store, I saw the Anaheim Barbers sign. Jackpot. It's only about 5-6 blocks away from my house. So that's my story. So anyway, this is just my tribute to my freshly tamed fro... RIP, I miss you, Mr. Fro. I'm such a dork.

     I'm going home for fall break. I can't wait. Less than 3 weeks now... I took that "What kind of animal are you in bad?" quiz in Jacob's profile. According to that, through thorough scientific analysis of my brainwave psychology, it has been determined that I am an owl in bed. Yeah, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. So right now... I've sorta stopped working on my new web page design, mostly due to frustration. Lack of design skills. Lack of creativity. And I've stopped skating for now too. Bad ankles. They suck. Still really really stiff and tender from when I sprained it last weekend. I hope I can at least go mountain biking this week. I might have to use flats... clipless pedals are gonna be rough on the ankle. Bah, I don't really have anything to talk about.

     You know who's a good band? Maroon 5. I don't care what you all say. They rock (and they're from LA too!). I love their kind of broken beat/syncopated funkinness fused with the softness and soul of R&B... yeah, i can't explain their sound very well. The singer's voice sounds kind of like Train's singer... but that's beside the point, cuz Train rocked as well. Listen to "This Love," "Tangled," "Harder to Breath," and "Through with You." And Fountains of Wayne... listen to "Radiation Vibe." It's hot. Oh, local band time... Name Taken and The Silence are hot. Good ol' fashioned hardrockin' punk... with a tinge of emo (more so with Name Taken).... can't ever seem to get away from that... oh well. Name Taken is from Orange, CA, I think that's a little north of where I am. The Silence is a little more of a hardcore band... they're from somewhere in Southern Cali. And they both ROCK. Check them out.

Johnny Cash is dead. Died from complications of diabetes last Thursday. What a man... I never knew he did so much and influenced so many... I was just reading an article on cnn.com... Then I went and listen to a whole bunch of his songs off his last album, "The American IV (The Man Comes Around)." I never really listened a lot of his stuff before he died, but it really is good. You can almost hear the pain in his voice when he recorded those tracks. Yeah, I mean, I've heard his famous famous stuff, "Boy Named Sue," "Ring of Fire," "I Walk the Line"... but I never made the attempt to explore further. My manager back when I worked at Draisen Edwards Music admired him so much (he was so proud to have the same name). I never realized Johnny Cash was such an incredible musician... He's done covers of Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, the Beatles, the Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel... totally crossing genres without hesitation. It's sad it took his death for me to be exposed to all this. I'm almost ashamed. So everyone, put a set of headphones, lay down, close your eyes, and put on Johnny's hauntingly simple acoustic rendition of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Be thankful you're alive.

     Guess what? I'm actually doing a new design for my webpage! I spent a good part of last night doing it. It's not what I want it to be, cuz my imagination is too crazy and my skills aren't no where near good enough to even attempt it. So I went way minimalistic. I actually wanted to finish last night, but I was being stupid and nitpicky. So here's a barebones version... click. I still have yet to design a title logo thingy and the layout of the content. Yeah, lots to do...

Ok, this is like a couple hours later... I was messing with tables and forgot to upload. So now I have a preliminary logo thing designed. Meaning I'll probably completely change it, but whatever. I know the colors aren't so good, but I was just experimenting. So anyway, have a gander.

Oh yeah, I don't know what the fuck is going on, but those ads all over my page are annoying as hell. Stupid free webspace providers. I'm gonna find another one with no or less advertising, this is just ridiculous... popups on top of banner ads on the top AND bottom of my page? Riiiiiidiculous.

     I got the new Yellowcard and the new Postal Service albums. They're hot, yo. Yellowcard's album is harder than previous ones. It's a goooood rockin album. Postal Service... one of my friends introduced them to me when I was in France this summer. They actually had a concert in Paris when I was there... didn't go to it though. The album is nice and chill. One of the members is in Deathcab for Cutie... just thought I'd let you know. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I have another bike accident story... so some guy from work who happens to be a hardcore mountain biker asked if I wanted to ride last Tuesday, so of course I was like, "hell yeah." We rode the Fullerton Loop, a 12 mile trail with some singletrack, some downhills, and some climbs. Mostly sand... I've never rode in sand before so I kept falling cause I had no traction cause my tires are totally not made for anything but hardpack. So anyway, on the very last downhill, there was this jump in the middle... so me being awesomely retarded, decided to take this jump without being able to see the otherside. So I took it, landed it in the middle of thick ass sand, slid out, flipped over cuz my bike tires dug into the sand, landed on my shoulder, and slid down on my shoulder and back over dirt and gravel. So now I have no skin on my right shoulder, bruises on my shoulder and arm, and many many scratches on my right arm and all up and down my back. The coolest part... I didn't even know my shoulder was missing skin until my riding buddy pointed it out at the end. Yeah, not as cool as my last accident, but worth mentioning nonetheless. I can't really wear shirts cuz I still have no skin on my shoulder. And I'm out of those big bandaids now. So I'm sad. Maybe not totally cuz of that, but whatever. My bike though... definitely more damaged than last time. I bent the derailleur hanger to the point where it was shifting 3 gears above where it should've been. And I managed to bend my middle chain ring, like the hardest one to get to... since the hanger was bent, the derailleur was pulling the chain at a crazy angle off the chain rings... I was riding pretty hard so it bent it more and more until it eventually siezed cuz the chain got stuck between the the largest and middle chain rings. But I bent them all back... I hope they don't break on me now.

So today I just noticed something weird... the streets here have no drainage system! They have random water channels crossing the middle of roads, but that only diverts water to the sides. There are no drains to the sewer system. And houses have no gutters... crazy. I guess it really never does rain here... how depressing. Peace.

     Is "jour" feminine or masculine? I can't remember... cuz I suck at French. Dangit. So anyway... my first day seemed almost like I never stopped working... It was just like Washington, only at a different place with different people and a different office. Ok, so it's totally unlike Washington. But I was totally comfortable getting back into the swing of things. Kind of scary, I think. I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. However, it seems more and more likely that I'll be stuck in the paper business for awhile... I know way more about paper processing and packaging than anyone would ever want to know about anything else. So today, I started with a bunch of orientation things like safety, uniform, security stuff... the usual. Then my mentor went over a few projects he had in store for me, since he didn't quite know my skill level yet... you know my mad skillz and how I could outdo half the engineers there... hehe, just playin'. So anyway, none of the projects seem to challenging. Most involve upgrading programs and PLCs. Nothing as challenging as My time in Seattle, where an entire time- and cost-critical project was ever so gently throw into my face. Good times, good times. Here, I get zero overtime. Sucks a shit ton. Stupid cutbacks. So my first real work of the day: I got to make graphics. Yay.

So I went swimming in the pool in the backyard today. For some reason, every time I went all out full sprint freestyle, I'd run into the wall... the right freakin' wall. I have no idea how I did it! EVERY TIME. I'd even start on the far left side of the pool and still manage to run into the right wall, in the exact same freakin spot. I tried to figure it out by swimming a little slower, but when I did that, I'd actually go straight. Totally baffling. I have scratches all over my arm from hitting the edge of the lip of the pool with it. Grr...

     Uh oh, yet another time zone change... yeah, so I'm in LA now. Got in last night at 10:16 PM. So... I got to see Abi for like 6 hours before I left. Dude, like a half hour before I got on the plane, she got me a ride from the airport to my new place with her best friend who lives in Cerritos. Craaaaazy. And I was just planning on catching a taxi. So first thing my new host did was sit me down for a talk... I was kind of scared... he was like, we need to go over some rules of the house. But they ended up being standard rules, like keep stuff neat and whatnot. No curfew, that's always good. Oh yeah, I'm staying with a family... the father works at KC, so that's where I got the hookup. Hell yes. I'm in the middle of a Latino neighborhood... but it's cool. It strangely feels like my first work term in Owensboro... especially since I'm really close to a major highway again, like 2-3 blocks away. My room rocks. I get a TV, a VCR, a DVD player, a desk, a full sized bed... I like it. Oh, there's a swimming pool... that's where I think I'm gonna spend a lot of my time. And dude, the son has an X-Box. He better have Halo... Man, I miss ATL though... I wasn't back long enough to feel like I was home... Those 3 weeks there went by way too fast. And when I get back, so many people I know will have graduated. Ok, at least 5 right off the top of my head. I still have like 2 years left... sucks. Anyway, I'm gonna go gleefully put my bike together and explore this fine Anaheim neighborhood. (Dude... I'm 5 miles from Disneyland!)

     I've decided power outages are gay as fuck. Since the entire northeast had a flashback to the middle ages for a night, all flights out of New York are canceled for today, meaning Abi's stuck there until at least tomorrow, maybe even the entire weekend. Lame. I leave for LA tomorrow... the lameness of this situation is astounding. But on the bright side... oh wait, there is no bright side, cuz this is ridiculously gay. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

     Dashboard Confessional's new album "A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar" comes out today, Tuesday. I haven't heard anything about it, since I've been in the middle of nowhere in Europe, so I really had no idea there was a new album... I wonder what it's gonna sound like, since they're all corporate music now. Hehe, just playing. I've been to 2 of his concerts. Both times, the crowd screamed every single word of every single song at the top of their lungs. Craziness. Oh, September 9th and 10th, Pennywise is having a CD release party in Anaheim. Dude, that's where I'm gonna be living!!! I hope House of Blues is kinda close by... I can only bike so far. I hope it hasn't sold out yet... I still don't know if I can go, since it's in the middle of the week. We'll see.

Ahh... four more days... I can't wait... but then I have to take off for LA the next day... argh. Oh well, I'll only be there for 4 months.

     Yesterday was incredible... my sister and I randomly decided we'd do a movie marathon at the movie theater. First it was "let's rent a video." Then, "nah, let's see a movie." Then, "ok, what movie?" "Oh, I know, let's just watch them all." So, first movie, 2:10 pm. Last movie, 9:45 pm. We started with American Wedding, proceeded to Bad Boys II, half of Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, Pirates of the Caribbean, and finally S.W.A.T. It was crazy. All the movies were good, too. American Wedding was freakin hilarious. I love the proposal. I hope that doesn't happen to me... well, at least part of it... hehehe. Bad Boys II... dude, they basically destroyed an entire town with a yellow Hummer. That was awesome. A purely action-driven movie, but whatever, it rocked. Tomb Raider... yes... Angelina Jolie was hooooooot. Too bad I only watched like a half hour of it... Pirates of the Caribbean overlapped its time, and I wanted to see that more since everyone's hyped it up so much. And it did not disappoint. I liked it a lot. Especially Kiera Knightly... although I think she looked hotter with shorter hair in Bend It Like Beckham... but in Pirates, she did have the whole corset/cleavage thing going on. Johnny Depp? Where the hell did he come from? I thought he died or something. And he has some other movie coming out soon, too... The last movie I remember him being in was Edward Scissorhands... But I'm sure he was in other movies after that... S.W.A.T. makes me want to kick some ass as a policeman. I wanna be a S.W.A.T. member. Dude... I seriously was considering dropping out of school to go to the police academy for a little while during the movie. Ahh... inspiration... inspired by Hollywood. Good action movie. With plot. Sort of.

Girls rule. I like girls. A lot. ;) I miss someone...

     Yay, back on eastern standard time. I got back a week ago... So I'm back, from outer space, you just walked in to find me here with that sad look upon my face. You should've changed that stupid lock, you should've made me leave my keys... So yeah, I'm bored. For the first time in a long long time, I'm actually so fucking bored I can't even sleep. Grr... So it's time for lists. Oh wait, I have to explain the pic first... that's me and Woodstock, Pete's doggy. He rocks. We're just conversatin' right there... I swear I'm not trying to eat him... On to the lists, then.

Things I missed in Europe:

1. air conditioning
2. ice
3. free refills
4. my atl friends who were stuck here
5. my electric guitar and amp
6. my bike
7. V8 Splash
8. driving
9. space
10. not having to watch where i step... i swear, dog shit everywhere
11. english advertisements
12. communication
13. english in general 14. places that open 24-7
15. places that open on sunday
16. my mp3s
17. free public bathrooms
18. free tap water in restaurants
19. cheap food
20. my skates
21. power tools
22. friendly service people
23. bathtubs
24. the first floor is actually the first floor
25. people who wear deodorant
26. concerts

Things I miss about Europe:

1. oasis!!!!!! greatest drink ever...
2. kebabs
3. hot european women (rome and prague... i'm gonna cry now)
4. steinhoff's
5. germany's efficiency and cleanliness
6. extensive train system
7. crazy taxi drivers
8. culture
9. architecture
10. no extra tax... listed price is price you pay...
11. tipping not expected, usually
12. cheap alcohol... 5 euro bailey's equivalent... just as good too. (wait, this should be the number 1 thing i miss about europe...)
13. aloes dormitory... kinda cheesy, but i miss living there and chillin' with all those GTL kids
14. cora... that place had everything
15. gelatos
16. swiss tap water
17. low low humidity

Yeah, all in all... best summer ever. I had a total blast. The entire time was pure unadulterated fun. Well, except for the last week when all my procrastination caught up to me as I realized I actually had classes. But that week turned out to be one of the best this summer... For your viewing pleasure, all the pics I have from the summer are up at www.1-moment.net/gallery/AustinEuro2003.

Ok, my goal this coming fall semester is to redesign my website, finally. I know Let's see, this design has been up since January 16, 2000. Three and a half years. Damn. Ok, My deadline is January 16, 2004, four years on the dot. I know I've been talking about this for like the past 2 years, so we'll see how this works out...

     I'm done. Once again. One more semester over with. Ok, how ridiculous is this... so I had a mid-B going into my random signals final. I had the final this morning... I was really confident coming out of it, cuz I knew how to do everything. So my professor likes to grade things really fast... our final was done at 10:30, he said he'd have our final grade in the class calculated by noon. Yeah, so I go see him at like 11:15 and I say "so... how'd I do." His reply: "Ooh... not so good... Your final grade is a B+." What? I didn't do so hot on my test and raised my grade? Next question, "What did I get on the final?" Response, "18/40." What the fuck? I raised my grade with a 45%? I don't understand... so checked out the final and he gave me absolutely NO credit for one of the questions I actually knew how to do completely and spent most of my time on. There were just big lines all across the page. Zero points on a ten point problem. I miscalculated my very first answer which threw off the entire rest of the problem. I tried to argue it up, but he wouldn't have any of it. So I was like "Ok, I'm happy with a B, then." He corrects me, "B plus." He did that a few times in our conversation, as if to rub it in my face that I didn't get an A. Fuck. Oh well, at least I think I have at least a 3.0 this semester. I hope.

     Snowboarding rocks. Until you fall and shatter your kidneys, or something like that. So we went to Zermatt, a tiny ski town in southern Switzerland where everyone either skis/snowboards or bikes. No cars are allowed. Well, except tiny electric mini-pickup things and a super-giant diesel garbage truck that takes up like 120% of the width of the streets. But let's start at the beginning... mmm... 4 days of snowboarding fun...

We left on Thursday, mid-afternoon. Caught a series of trains to Brig, Switzerland where we had about a 7-hour layover. So, with nothing else to do and the time being already after 10 PM, we decided to crash in the train station so we'd be fresh for the next day's adventure on the Alps. So we filled a locker with all our stuff so it wouldn't be stolen. Then, I found us a nice cozy rubber-matted floor up a flight of stairs in front of some travel agency, and we pass out like homeless kids. 4:30 AM rolls around, and this freakin loud machine starts running scaring the shit out of us. Joel decides he can't take it anymore, and goes for a walk outside. Zach, Ashley, and I tough it out... only to be awakened about 10 minutes later by 2 cops asking for our passports. Zach whips out his as me and Ashley realize that our passports are in the locker. So we were like "our passports, they're in the locker over there..." So we walk down towards the locker as it slowly dawns on us that Joel has the key. So we stop, try to explain the situation, the cops get impatient... one of them barks sternly "ok, follow me." They take us into this room upstairs, lock the door behind us and say "Show me your passport, or you go to prison." Mmm hmm, fuck. We explain that our friend wandering around outside has the key to the locker that has our passports and try to let them let us out to find Joel. So we convinced them to let Zach out. A few minutes later, Joel and Zach show up with our stuff, we give them our passports, and they check on the validity of them. Interesting start to the weekend... after all this, we still managed to make our 5:10 AM train.

Snowboarding, day 1. The first slope turns out to be almost ideal to learn on, so Zach and I spent the entire day there as he taught me the basics. Unfortunately, the ski lift turned out to be a crotch lift... ok, a tow rope, but for snowboarders, it's essentially a crotch lift. So that meant I actually needed some skill to be lifted up the mountain. I fell on my first few times... but each time I progressed further and further. Minimal damage was done that day, I only had a bruised left ass cheek and whiplash.

Second day, I decided to go on to the other part of the mountain. Terrible terrible idea. We got to the slope as early as possible, 7AM, to maximize our time, since the skilifts close at 1:30. But of course, that early in the morning during the summer, everything is ice. So I was feeling kind of confident after the first day, gained a little speed down the hill, turning left, turning right, catching an edge and fully shoulder-checked the ice. Yeah, ego-buster right there. So I slid/fell the rest of the way down to the main slope, where all the hardcore skiers were. Yep, the Swiss ski team was there practicing. And the slopes had anywhere from a 30 - 75 degree incline. I decided I would die if I boarded down that, so stupid me, I did it anyway. Bam, caught another edge and compressed my torso and probably popped my liver. My ribs and stomach and kidneys still hurt from that. At that point, I wanted to go back the the slope I was on the day before. It took me 4 tries to get up the slope with the crotch lift cuz I kept falling off. So frustrating.

Day 3, everyone else went onto the Gravity Park, where there were jumps and tables and rails and a halfpipe. I stuck it out on the main hill, still working up my speed and turning skills. By the end of the day, I was going fairly fast to the point where if I caught an edge, I wouldn't just hit the ground and stop, I'd roll and flip a few times... those falls actually hurt less. But once, I shoulder-checked the ground again... hurt so much. It's like I dislocated my collarbone or something... cuz when I rotate my arm, something pops in and out... anyway, I think it was a very similar injury to the time I shoulder-checked that tree on my bike. Only this time, it was not quite as bad. Cuz I can move. But that same joint separation I had at the top of my shoulder seems to have occurred... my bone sticks out, and it's the same dull pain.

Final day... First thing I did when we got to the main slope was go full out down the icy slope. Next thing I did was catch and edge and land straight on my head. The whole rest of the day, my head was throbbing. I joined everyone else on their runs through the Gravity Park over some jumps. Jumps are easier than transitioning turns, cuz all you have to do is go straight and land. But I'd freak out after hitting the first jump and landing cuz I'd have so much speed before going into the next jump, that I'd just fall over. Oh well. It was fun. We had to leave early that day to catch our train back home. Good thing, cuz my ass couldn't take anymore bruising. It was already at the point where my bruises were getting bruised.

Final injury count: scraped up right forearm, bruised coccyx, severly bruised left ass cheek (still can't sit on it), bruised rib, bruised stomach, bruised knees, bruised shoulder, separated joint(?), and I'm sure I have a few ruptured internal organs. Not as bad as I thought it'd be. Good enough for my first time ever.

CD of the moment: Soundgarden - "Superunknown."

     I blew my random signals test last week. It sucked.

But this weekend I'm going snowboarding in the Swiss Alps on the Klein Matterhorn in Zermatt. I'm about to bust my bladder in my pants. Can't wait. I can't believe I only have 18 days left here. It's gone by so freakin' fast. Yet, I still feel like I've been away from all my friends back home for far too long. It's weird like that. I called my company last night to confirm my start date for my fall coop term. Monday, August 18th. So bad, I'm gonna be alone again, making new friends again, losing touch with old friends again... same shitty old routine. Whatever. "Mamma mia, here I go again..."

     It hurts so bad. I don't even want to talk about it. I'm fragile on the inside...

     Altavista.com's Babelfish translator is awesome... I put this in to translate from German to English:

99 Kriegsminister
Streichholz und Benzinkanister
Hielten sich fuer schlaue Leute
Witterten schon fette Beute
Riefen: Krieg und wollten Macht
Mann, wer haette das gedacht
Dass es einmal soweit kommt
Wegen 99 Luftballons

And ones of the lines became "99 War Minister Match and gasoline cans regarded themselves as smart people." Those lines are from Goldfinger's cover of "99 Red Balloons." I know you've heard it. Everyone's heard it. I've had the song stuck in my head for like 2 weeks now. And I didn't even know more than 2 lines until yesterday when I looked them up. So for 2 weeks, I was singing the same lines over and over. I got pretty annoying to myself. The lines I know: "You and I in a little toy store/buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got..."

So Munich was a blast. Started of the weekend well by getting drunk on the train ride there. When we got there, we checked into our hotel, then headed straight for the Hofbrauhaus beer hall. And guess who I freakin' saw there? Ashley, Robert's girlfriend. Crazy shit. The walk back from the Hofbrauhaus was awesome... TJ couldn't walk straight at all. Might've had something to do with the 4 liters he freakin' chugged playing drinking games. He dropped his pants a couple times just for the hell of it. Then he pissed in a flowerpot in the middle of the main street. Good times.

The next afternoon, we went to the English Gardens to hit up the Chinese beergarden. We swiped a few of the liter beer mugs. By a few, I mean 20. That night, the infamous Beer Crawl. Yes, I did it again. We got a discount cuz it was our second time... Goal #1: finish off the entire cooler of free beer before we even got to the first place. Easily done. Double-fisted that shit. One liter down... I was already buzzing before we even got there. Probably cuz I didn't have a real dinner. Got a liter of the world's best German beer, Augustiner. Pounded that, too, and finished off some other people's beers, I think. Feeling good... everything from this point on starts becomes a slight blur. More free beer fuels my drunkeness. Maybe another half-liter or 2. I start getting CRAZY hyper, running around and shit. I don't remember what I drank at the next place, Lowenbrau. My memory begins to fail here... So we went to 4 places. I remember 3. It goes like this: we leave Lowenbrau, and suddenly, I'm doing rockstar kicks in front of a live band in an Irish pub. What the hell. I completely don't remember the 3rd place. I was coherent enough there to take mad pictures and carry on conversation... like half the pictures we all have were taken there. And... yeah, just look at the week 7 pictures when I put them up. Oh my goodness, it was so fun. Even though most of what I remember is me trying to be lightning, running around everywhere. Oh yeah, I was carrying Jason's bag, and somehow during the course of the night, people managed to fit 8 beer mugs into and attached to the bag. And of course, I would still run around, I could've cared less that night. I ended up cracking 3 of them... my bad. Man, I'm a drunk. So we left the Irish pub somehow, and during the walk home, my memory starts improving... but whatever, nothing worth noting happened. We just made it back and passed out.

So in summary, my recollection goes like this: train station, walking, 1st beer garden (Augustiner), running, 2nd beergarden (Lowenbrau), hot girls, running?, randomly in Irish pub, walking home.

Oh, dude, the beer crawl website has our pics up. Check it out. Just click on news, scroll to the bottom, click on either one of the pictures and there'll be a popup. Click on "28-06-2003" and enjoy.

     Dude... Me First and the Gimme Gimmes has a new album dropping July 1st. Listen to their cover of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road". It's tight, kiddies.

Munich this weekend. Again. More pub crawl fun. And Birkenstocks. Yay. Uh oh, time to upload pictures. Hopefully.

     Dude, what happened with the music world in the US?? Who the hell is Trapt? Apparently they're popular... #1 single on Billboard's modern rock chart. Jane's Addiction has a new album out? Radiohead's new album debuted at #3? Dropkick Murphys actually have an album that debuted in the top 100? Alkaline Trio had the #1 independent album some time ago? Guns 'N Roses has evolved into Velvet Revolver, fronted by SCOTT WEILAND?! And they already have a different song on 2 movie soundtracks? When the hell did all this happen? Who the hell is Clay Aiken, with the #1 pop single? I haven't heard of half the songs on that chart. Dang. So out of touch with music... man, 99X even did an interview with Alkaline Trio. AFI's album Sing the Sorrow actually was the 5th best selling album at one point. My only question is why the hell haven't I seen anything about Shotgun Morning? So what have I been listening to lately? Some old stuff. My cd collection is getting old. Send me more music! CD's are ass-expensive here.

Currently rockin: Led Zeppelin's "Early Days," Alkaline Trio's self-titled, Eric Clapton's "Unplugged."

     How was my weekend in Italy? Tight. Except for the chafing that went on on my neck, arms, and places I needn't mention. It was soooo hot in Rome. Easily hit over 90F. Craaazy. The moment we stepped outside, We were drenched in sweat. But aside from that discomfort, everything was cool. The first day, we saw the Colliseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, Circus Maximus, Temple of the Virgins, Victor Emmanuel II Monument, another famous fountain, and random excavation sites. Probably a few other ones I can't recall right now... Rome has way too much history. The Colliseum seems a lot smaller in person... Next day, we hit up the Vatican City. The Sistine Chapel was disappointing. Too many people crammed into the room, annoying employees threatening to kick us out if we took pictures, and it was a lot smaller that I thought it'd be... shitty experience. And it took us like an hour to get there cuz we had to go through the entire Vatican Museum just to see it. So all this build up for nothing. Tres anti-climatique. Oh, then we went to Piazza di Spagna, where beauty abounds. Seriously, that morning riding the metro, all the hot girls on train got off at that stop. So we made a mental note to visit the Piazza di Spagna before the day ended... so when we went there, Harvey had no idea what we were doing, he assumed we were doing more sightseeing (yes, but not the tradional way) and was like "you guys are going to the Mausoleum, right?" Hilarity ensued. It was just a coincidence that that metro stop was the same one for the Mausoleum. Anyway, the Piazza di Spagna did not disappoint. Red clothes = hot. The day after, we headed to Florence. Lots of tourist sites were there, too. I saw like 3-4 buildings that were in my history book. Very surprising. I actually knew stuff about what I was seeing, so it was like exciting, almost.

But the greatest fun was had when the sun set. We went to the Campo di Fiori, cuz we were told the nightlife there was hot. And yes it was. We got these discount cards for drinks... if we filled out both sides with the drinks listed, we'd get a free shirt. We finished half of the card that night. Oh... wet t-shirt contest?! So much fun. We were all trashed. On the way home, Harvey was kicking and punching trees and climbing fences. The next night we finished the card and got our shirts! Well worth it.

Pictures will be up maybe this week. I ran out of memory. It sucked. Umm... lunch time.

Oh yeah! I should've been in Prague... some people got to meet KRISTEN KREUK!!!!

News Archive (05/06/03-06/18/03)...    

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