it's done

i'm sitting here in the dark in our new apartment in brooklyn, drinking a beer that promises a higher than usual percentage of alcohol and delivers duly on said promise. i'm waiting for sean to get home from work and then he'll grab one too and we'll sit on the balcony and watch the subway go by.

i don't live in queens anymore. at all. i live in brooklyn now. there are boxes everywhere.

i just realized i left something in the fridge in the old place.

i left a lot of things in the garbage. a lot of things i'll live without just fine.

it's amazing how much shit i accumulated at that place. i never really thought i was a pack rat. well, maybe i always knew i was. but i've never been so squarely faced with the fact. the place in queens was the first place i stayed in for more than a year since i moved out of my parents house.

i feel like there should be something more to say. but all i can think of is some pseudo-psych about new beginnings and starting over and boy oh boy is that a steaming pile.

closets

moving sucks. for months i promised myself that when the time came, i would hire movers. it had been too torturous the last time. i had learned my lesson. so why lord, why oh why, do i find myself packing up my car every single day with whatever i can cram into it and moving by myself? machismo? stinginess? idiocy? yes. and yes and yes.

today i pulled down some shoeboxes from the very top of my closet. the kind of things you keep for years and never open. but i was so tired of lifting things and traipsing up and down the stairs that i opened one up.

cards. hallmarks, shoebox greetings (get it!?). reaching as far back as college graduation. one from the girl i was dating then. haven't spoken to her since we broke up on the phone. i was the bad guy that time around. sorta. it's a long story and i've tried to write about it before on here and given up so maybe you'll never know and i rather doubt you'd be interested anyway. i guess i don't lose much sleep over it anymore. too many other things to toss and turn about.

old birthday cards, old letters. some i remember, some i've forgotten. some pretty emotional shit. god, i don't even talk to a lot of these people anymore. i wonder what they're all up to. it's funny the way i let people come and go and hardly ever hold on tight. i am bad at keeping in touch. notoriously. i hope nobody takes it too personally.

this is going nowhere, clearly. i'm borderline delirious from lugging all my worldly posessions from queens to brooklyn and i've got plenty more to go. you'll have to excuse me. moving sucks.

i found ten dollars that someone gave me for my birthday 3 years ago. so that was nice.

another mirror

this'll be it for a while.  you can now also get the album here.  i know these download sites are a pain in the rear but they're free for me, which is how i can make the music free for you.  you just have to use your spidey sense and not click on all the ads. 

have a good weekend.  i'll do the same.

some words

• why do rooftops and balconies feel so much more outside than just being outside at street level?
• i've started really working on the songs that've been patiently waiting in my head for me to finish the last batch. well, that's a lie. i've started really considering starting working.
• thanks.
• now playing: r.e.m. - country feedback.
• over and over and over and over.
• do this, get that.
  
• you pretty much can't count on me for anything.
  
• i hope i never write a song with a parenthetical title after the real title.
• i'm happy these days. whether or not i should be.
• i understand things now that i didn't before.
• i'm not being vague. i'm being artistic. ok i'm just being vague.
• listen to the record.
  
• i have a bunch of bruises and i only know where about half of them came from.
• bullet points are for lazy people.

the internet is a pain.

i'm feeling pretty under the weather today. which is a drag because the weather is absolutely lovely. i set up another mirror for the album at yousendit. you can download the record here. it's nice because it's way easier and you don't have to wait like with the other one, but it's a pain because it expires after 7 days. and if you think i'm re-uploading this thing every week, you've probably never met me. so hurry hurry if you want to get the record off yousendit.

of course all the download options are still available on the music page.

ps: did you notice all those neat little icons i added in the sidebar? if i spent all the time i spend doing idiot things like that to this website in a constructive way like reading physics textbooks, i'd probably already have that time machine.

(this is mikey from the future. now you do have the time machine. it was worth the wait.)

i have many talents

one time in college i was watching late night television and saw this guy drink some milk and then squirt it out of his fucking eyes.  and i figured i could do it too, so i opened my eyes really wide and i held my nose shut with my fingers and i blew really hard and lo and behold a little bit of air actually did come out of the corner of my right eye.  but then i got a headache and didn't so much like the idea of trying it with milk so that was the end of that.  but that's a true story.  scout's honor.

also, the record is done and you can download it here (.zip file*).  i'll get it all up on the music page sometime sunday, probably.  and i'll sort out some more mirrors for faster downloads, too. 

i really hope you like it.

*if you can't work with a .zip file, or can't figure out rapidshare.de, all the songs are available for individual download on the music page.

if you want something done right find someone who knows what they're doing

it came to my attention this evening that downloads for two (2) of the songs on the music page were malfunctioning.  fear not, all ye faithful, it has been fixed and the responsible parties have been disciplined accordingly.  as the post below suggests, the record is done.  pending me burning a final version tomorrow and converting all the .wav's to high quality .mp3's, of course.  i aim to remain true to my earlier promise to have it all up for download by friday evening.

in other news, i had a beer with davis and cody from endless mike and the beagle club tonight at the beer garden in astoria.  they're well.  and we can expect their record soon, which is good news for anyone who likes joy and happiness and maybe marshmallow peeps (in moderation).  it will be so much better than mine (and every other record you'll hear this year) that you will cry.  tears of awe.

30:36

thirty minutes and thirty-six seconds.

one reason i won't miss this old apartment

no sir i won't be missing this fella or any of his brethren one bit. i took my eye off him for a second to put my camera down and he was gone, too. god damn.

in other, slightly less disgusting news, i've decided to go with a new mailing list provider (read: actual mailing list provider) going forward with this site. so long, yahoo group. i'll miss ye.

i'm really shitty at using the mailing list anyway, so if you sign up you might not get anything for months, but i'd appreciate (especially if you signed up with the old one) it if you'd put your email here:

is this thing on?

i'm testing out some new blogging software. wysiwyg-type shit. know what that means? congratulations, you're at least as dorky as me.

it may or may not be cooler than just using the blogger interface. basically from what i can tell it downloads the stylesheet from your site, so you can see what your shit will look like before you post it. ideally, you should know anyway, but as anyone who reads this site with internet explorer can attest, i'm often vanquishing that sweet menu there on the right to the very bottom of the page by posting pictures that are slightly too big. firefox is better and smarter and doesn't have that problem. but i'm not here to judge you.

this program does some kinda neat stuff with pictures, too. so if it turns out i like this, you might start to see a whole bunch more pictures. i took this one today.

so much for that.

there is not a single new idea left in the world. every time i come up with something i think i could make a million dollars with, somebody smarter has already done it. today me and james came up with a fucking sweet idea, but clearly we've been beaten to the punch.


ah well. back to the drawing board.

brooklyn bound

so we found a place. it's got a washer and dryer. and a balcony. and a huge kitchen with a ton of cabinets that we will never be able to fill with actual foodstuffs. we'll be signing the lease tomorrow morning, and moving in the first wave of what will be many many waves of carloads of our shit.

i haven't been myself lately being so worried about not finding a place. now that we've found one and locked it down, i'm hoping i'll snap back to normal. i just took a nap on friday afternoon, and i'm sitting here writing in my boxer shorts before i get dressed to go drink beer in the east village, so i guess i'm off to a good start.

it's been about a year since i cut my hair.

i am amazed aviator shades ever went out of style. i want mine permanently attached to my face with surgery.

james, who played bass and electric guitar on the recording of "i spin forever," is coming to new york tomorrow night. which is a big deal since he lives in switzerland. we're going to see the format. i'm tittering.

by this time next week you'll have "they're more afraid of you than you are of them" in high quality mp3 on your hard drive and perhaps your ipod or competing portable media device. maybe if you can ever pry yourself away from the new hellogoodbye record (i never thought i could love something that reminded me of cher so much, god damn) you can listen to it once in a while.

prototypical potty guy -or- why i mostly avoid ebay.com -or- this guy really sucks

in which this blog becomes my cathartic punching pillow:

i've been stewing over this for a few days now. i had a really shitty exchange with a guy i sold some tickets to on ebay. and it kept me angry for days. so i figured i'd just spew it all up here.

some background: a while back i bought some tickets to see brand new play in hartford because i was so beside myself that their new york show had sold out in minutes and i hadn't gotten tickets. it was on a weeknight but the plan had been that i was going to skip work that day and drive up. then a second nyc show was announced and i was able to get tickets. and then my brother (who was going to come to hartford with me) started a job and wouldn't have been able to come.

so, wanting to recoup my money and not wanting tickets to see one of the greatest bands in the history of the world go to waste. i put them up for face value (about $40) with the option to buy immediately for $70. the show was only 2 days after, so i was going to have to fedex overnight the tickets upon payment ($18.50, roughly). all of this was fully disclosed, obviously.

what follows is the series of emails i traded with the guy who buy-it-now'd me for $88.50. it's all over and done with now and i finally got my money, but seriously. what a butthead. i am so incensed that i'm even one-time-only allowing capital letters on here.

warning: this might be totally boring for you. and it gets a little colorful and controversial at the end.

included is all pertinent correspondence (except for personal info).

i'll be blue. he can be brown. like doodoo.

first, i sent the paypal invoice:

PAYPAL ONLY. I'll ship the tickets out to you FedEx overnight, with signature confirmation. They should arrive sometime Tuesday, please make sure your shipping address is correct and someone will be there to recieve the package, or that you will be able to retrieve it from your FedEx location prior to the event.

Please email me at [xxx] if you have any questions.

Thank you again for your purchase.

---

Hey,

I am going to pay tomorrow but around 5 pm in the afternoon. I know thats late, but can you still overnight it?

Let me know

[name and address]

Take it easy...

Bx

---

It's all set to go and I'll drop it in the fedex box at work as soon as I see notification of payment. Even if that means they don't pick it up until Tuesday morning, you'll get it before the show Wednesday.

Do you want me to make it so that someone needs to sign for it, or is it ok for fedex to just leave it on your door?

---

They can leave it at the door, that's fine.

The payment might be sent around 3 or 4 pm so lookout for it.

Many thanks!

-TB

---

ok so then 5pm came and went and i still didn't have any money. but i dropped the tickets in the fedex box anyway because if i didn't, he would never get them in the time for the show. and i said:

Still haven't recieved payment...

---

Hey bud,

Is tomorrow morning too late or do you need it asap? I could send you $75 (my paypal is messed up) right now and the rest tomorrow morning.....sorry bout that let me know ASAP.

---

75 now and the rest tomorrow is better than none now… I’d like the money asap.
thanks

then he sends me $70, not $75. i was starting to get annoyed. and i tracked the package through fedex and saw that it arrived. so:

You now have your tickets, which I sent in good faith. Please send the remaining money you owe me by the end of tonight. You still owe me $18.50.

---

Yeah thanks so much...just got home and received them. Listen, my Paypal is still messed up.....if you can wait one more day that would be great. If not I can send you a M.O. through the mail. Sorry for the inconvenience....

S72

---

What is wrong with your paypal account?

---

They closed my another one and refuse to let me do any transactions, I had almost 2,000 in it. I'm using a back up.

Listen, I'm not going to scam you just because you sent the tix. I owe you the shipping and I will either send CASH, a MO or wait a little for Paypal. Don't think your not going to get your money...

Thanks,

S72

---

Ok then…MO for $18.50 would be best then.
Send it to me at my work address:

[my work address]

Enjoy the show tomorrow night…

and then i never heard back. that was on a tuesday. when i had still not seen a money order or even an email reply by the following tuesday, i sent this:

I'm disappointed that I still have not received the rest of the money you owe me for the Brand New tickets. I had thought you were sending a Money Order.

I'm giving you until the end of tomorrow for the $18.50 you owe me to arrive, one way or the other.

admittedly, that came off harsher than i meant. i guess i was thinking i was going to leave him negative feedback. but here's where the shit hit the fan:

Are you threatening me? Jesus christ. I've been away in Washington, DC with no internet access. I was just thinking about that recently.

Anyways I'll Paypal you tonight, its fixed. For now, chill out bud. Life's short.

fght of yr dmons

S72

and then another night went by and he still didn't pay.

It wasn't a threat. I just want my money. Which, by the way, you AGAIN failed to send when you said you would. I'm just really tired of having to hound you for $18.50. It's just the principle of the thing. We're not talking used cars here. We're talking concert tickets. We didn't set up an installment plan in advance. So please paypal me the money you owe me. Like now, Scoob.

---

Hey man..I'm paying you tomorrow. But I would love to punch you in the mouth till you fucking bled like the fucker you are...

:),

Bexxxxx

---

Payment Details
Amount:		$18.51 USD
Transaction ID:		[xxx]
Subject:		Hey
Note:		Are you a jew? Fuck em'.

and then in case i missed his lovenote in the paypal email, he cracked this last one off as well.

Are you jewish? Fuck em'. Enjoy the extra cent... YAHWEH!

my (admittedly lame) final retort was:

ZOMG TAHNKS!!! A+++++!!!

and that's basically where it ends. it's been a few days now with no further volleys.

done but not finished

well, i did it. the kazoo thing. it came out okay. you'll have the "final" version of "a viking's funeral" in a week or two, once i've played it back to myself about 1000 times.

i feel like i'm admitting defeat on this one, though. when i wrote it, with this collection of songs in mind, it was going to be my favorite out of all of them. and now, well, it's on there.

i don't mean to undersell it. for all i know it still might be your favorite. it's certainly the biggest and loudest. and i'm quite partial to certian sections of it. but you never heard the way it sounded in my head. fucking symphonic. and now, now there's a kazoo part.

i'd be lying though if i said i wasn't excited to be finally putting it to rest. bigger and better things and all that. i might even have written a new song today. it's been too long since that's happened.