i think when we get older, our priorities change. we no longer have all the time and all the money in the world. we have bills, families, jobs, and our hobbies change. (it’s wild how unimportant professional sports were to me and my friends, when i was growing up, and now it’s like you’re not cool unless you follow that stuff. i’m not knocking it! i’m just sayin. haha.)

so, yeah. once upon a time, you could have heard a song on the radio, and it was so angsty and energetic that it moved you to leave your suburban house, go to a mall, walk into hot topic and buy the cd. then, when that band rolled into town, you bought pre-sale tickets on ticketmaster and didn’t bat an eye at the “convenience fees”. then, you got to the venue 5 hours before doors, so that you could get right up to the barricade and sing along that night.

how many grown adults do you see doing that? not many.

on the one hand, i think back to those days and feel embarassed about what was going on with music (ska!). on the other hand, music has always been about the kids! they are the ones with the money and the energy and the stars in their eyes.

young kids from the suburbs form bands that sound like pop/polished versions of last generation’s indie rock. those kids grow up and move to the city and form indie rock bands which end up influencing the next generation of suburban warped tour bands. and the cycle continues.

so, what’s the point?

i’m not quite sure. i love indie rock, truly. but, the happiest times in my life were when i was listening to, playing, and living the pop-punk/warped/suburban/alternative press scene. and i don’t know if that has to do with age or changing taste or my job or whatever other circumstances.

music is weird. i’m old.

anyway, here’s a picture of an adorable puppy, which more closely matches my mood, right now:

cute puppy

it took many hours and some hardcore hacking, but i’m proud to say i did this all by myself, with the help of google, xda/cyanogen/droid forums, and big ups to this guy for the sweet gimp python script (animated gif to individual png frames!).

here’s a link to the bootanimation.zip, if you want to try it on your phone.

my phone (your mileage may vary):
htc g1
cm recovery
cm 5.0.7-ds-test3 w/ hotfix

at any rate, here is your chance to witness this spectacle:

now, i realize this might be an eye-opening and thought-provoking experience for some. but, i think most of my friends that are reading this will enjoy it purely for yuks. specifically, the insane clown possee’s inability to understand very basic concepts of the physical world.

here, then, is a breakdown of almost every line in the song, along with their perfectly non-miraculously explanations:

if magic is all we’ve ever known, then it’s easy to miss what really goes on

for ages, all we knew was magic. that’s very true. fortunately, the renaissance happened, and we learned about a little thing called the scientific method, which explained many things. among them: that the world is not supported by a giant turtle. the earth is, in fact, spherical. which leads me to:

oceans spanning beyond my sight

given the shape of the earth, the oceans only appear infinite. what you’re actually seeing is just the horizon.

a million stars way above em at night, we don’t have to be high to look in the sky and know that’s a miracle opened wide

we don’t have to be under the influence to look at the sky and see stars. however, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the sky being littered with blinking lights. stars are just suns (like ours) that are shining from trillions of miles away. if you could view our sun from a star, it would also be lost in a sea of astronomical objects. it’s all about perspective, violent j.

look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas

mountains are formed by the movement of earth’s crust over millions of years. trees evolved from plants and the seven seas are such because of the formation and breaking up of supercontinents.

and everything chilling underwater, please

including the species that are unknown, until they’re discovered?

hot lava, snow, rain and fog

lava is molten rock. snow, rain and fog are different forms of precipitation that reach the surface of the earth.

long neck giraffes

while there is some debate about the actual advantage of a giraffe having a long neck, there is no question that they got them through the same process of evolution that gave ducks webbed feet and zebras their stripes.

and pet cats and dogs

both of which were wild animals, domesticated by humans.

pure magic is the birth of my kids

that “magic trick” of reproducing has only been one of the basic functions of every living creature since the beginning of life. had they been born in full clown makeup, then you might have a leg to stand on.

the milky way and fucking shooting stars

a shooting star is a meteoroid that enters earth’s atmosphere.

UFOs

what?!

plant a little seed and nature grows

that process is called germination.

the pyramids

the pyramids, like the washington monument and the taj mahal, are just man-made buildings. rad, but not supernatural.

fucking rainbows after it rains

rainbows are the result of light being refracted by water. it’s like the cover of that pink floyd album!

i fed a fish to a pelican at frisco bay. it tried to eat my cell phone. he ran away.

what?!

fucking magnets: how do they work?

magnetism is one part of electromagnetism, which is one of the four forces of the physical world. to the layperson, forces are a hard concept to grasp in theory, because they happen at the particle level, but fairly easy to understand in practice. for example, we all know that when you throw a ball in the air, gravity pulls it down. gravity happens to be one of the aformentioned four forces. so, in the same way that the force of gravity pulls a ball down, the force of electromagnetism makes magnetic materials pull metals and other materials towards it.

and i don’t wanna talk to a scientist. y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed

science has given us everything that we know about the physical world. the word derives from the latin word for “knowledge“. it is inherently necessary to understanding the things we don’t know. it is also non-partial and unbiased. whereas someone could lie about their work experience to get a higher-paying job, scientists gain nothing from lying about their findings. the pursuit of knowledge is purely for the betterment of everyone. there’s no reason to be pissed!

solar eclipse

a solar eclipse looks rad, but it’s no more magical or miraculous than a fat guy standing over you, blocking the sun from your eyes.

i seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly

that process is called metamorphosis and it also makes a tadpole turn into a frog, but that’s not as symbolic or poetic or magical or whatever.

shaggy’s little boys look just like shaggy and my little boy looks just like daddy

genetics (while being a field of study that looks to explain the physical process of gene inheritence) is something that most humans understand, with no explanation necessary. we look like our parents, and our kids will look like us.

the dark carnival is your invitation to witness that without explanation

i would love it if the dark carnival could explain truly unexplainable things, instead of elementary physics.

take a look at this fine creation

do i really need to go there? ugh.

crows, ghosts, the midnight coast

wait. you’re putting crows in the same boat as supernatural apperitions? that’s like saying you believe in santa claus and fedex, and can’t understand how either can deliver packages so efficiently. hint: one doesn’t exist, and the other has perfectly reasonable logistics.

just open your mind, and it ain’t no way to ignore the miracles of every day

yes, open your mind to the “miracles” of science, observation, and rationale.

wink wink, nudge nudge

anyway, the show was amazing. the sound was incredible, the lights were great. it was the first time in a long time that i’ve watched a show as a fan. usually, i spend most of the time checking out the rigging, thinking about how early the crew must’ve loaded in, and things of that nature. for weezer, though, i was just singing along, at the top of my lungs.

the following morning, we had a day off. and, hearing the news about rivers, had a show cancel. another day off. and the tour cancelled. more days off. it was by far the most days off in a row i’ve ever had. i guess i can’t complain, right? heh.

so, just three shows with weezer, and that was that. fortunately for motion city, they have more shows with them, in january. but, for me, that’s it.

i’m hoping that things with jimmy robbins pick up, because if there’s no work for me there, there’s pretty much no work for me anywhere. well, none that i’d like to do, anyway. there’s plenty of cover bands and hobby bands, but i feel like i can’t waste my time with that, while my window of opportunity for doing rock bands is still open. heh.

orphans are fun!

i finally saw the movie “annie”. it was really good! and it taught a valuable life lesson: money buys happiness… because money buys orphans.

this modern world

health care is a very important issue that affects us all. and health care reform is something that will benefit us all. so, it’s sad when an issue like this gets fringe groups to come out and give the illusion that there’s even a debate.

this is just like tax cuts for the rich. amazingly, fox news and the republicans know how to motivate their party, and it ends up being that the people who benefit the least from tax cuts end up doing all the foot work for the ones that benefit the most (the rich).

in the health care debate, it’s the same story. lower and middle class folk are out there, spewing crazy talk, in order to protect a system that only benefits the insurance company ceos. i know, in my heart of hearts, that most of the people in those rallies would greatly benefit from free health care.

imagine being able to go to any clinic/hospital/doctor that you choose, getting the care that you need, and not having to pay a cent. it works in many countries. i know people who have gotten free care in the uk and in japan. universal healthcare is real and it works in a lot of countries. i wish we had it here in the us.

hedwig and the angry inch

primal fear

falling down

standard operating procedure

overnight

aside from “falling down” (which was cheesy) and “standard operating procedure” (which was, sadly, nothing new to me), i was pretty happy with my choices. i was especially stoked about hedwig. i thought the story was great, the music was rad (performed by eli and girls against boys), and the lead actor was amazing. i’m bummed that i missed the boat on that movie, cause apparently, it was released in 2001? heh.

anyway, tomorrow, we have a quick jimmy-less rehearsal, before we meet back up with him in los angeles on saturday. i’m pretty excited about this next leg of tour, as it will be in a 15 passenger van. it’s always nicer to have a place to call home, even if it’s a home on wheels. the flying and renting minivan deal was getting a little rough, and it never felt like we were a band on tour. so, it’ll be nice to be doing it legit. now, we just need our full backline and that will make for a very happy me. hehe.

what else is new? i rooted and installed cyanogenmod on my g1. very happy about it. i bought a class 6 microsd card and partitioned it with a fat32 media storage partition, an ext4 app storage partition, and a swap partition. the combination of the swap and the custom mod have definitely given me a performance boost. and i don’t have to worry about running out of space again! now, if only phone makers would stop seeing android as a low-cost alternative and actually start putting it on decent hardware, we wouldn’t need to do so much hacking! haha.

first of all, i have a full on sore throat and stuffy nose. like, some kind of cold. really, immune system? this is gonna happen in the middle of the summer? booo. i think it has to do with the fact that since getting home, i’ve been using my home toothbrush and not my tour one. and i think my home one might have had creepy crawlies left on it, from the last time i was sick. so, lesson of the day: ABBNT… always be buying new toothbrushes!

then, i get a phone call from alamo/national car rental. when we returned our mini-van at o’hare, last week, we left our tomtom gps guy in it. d’oh! anyway, this lady called the next day and asked if i left something in the car. we were thrilled! i told her that we left our tomtom in the glove box. she asked if she could mail it to me at my address on file, and i was thrilled, especially since she said she wouldn’t charge me.

well, fast forward to today, where i woke up to a missed call from a number i didn’t recognize. so, i called and it rang a bunch. i was almost gonna hang up. finally, a lady answers “thanks for calling alamo rent-a-car”. for some reason (probably cause i had just woken up), i said “oh, wrong number”. but, then she asks “did you leave something in your car?” hmm.

we then proceeded to have the exact same conversation that we had last week. wtf?

so confused right now. haha.

the thing about the creatures is that they were killing dogs. i’m not sure why. i think in the video game, they were the good guys and the dogs are like mutants. it was some kind of crazy role reversal intra-dimensional shit.

at any rate, it was scary and i hope some giant werewolf creature with guns doesn’t ever shoot my dog. (i don’t even have a dog).