I'm 26 now.

Monday was my 26th birthday. I can't really remember if I complained about feeling old last year when I turned 25, but it's definitely a feeling that's caught me off guard a few times over the last week or so.

I had a pretty great night on the big day, though. Got into a Jaymay show I didn't think I'd get into in Williamsburg. Really cool place. More on that here. Wandered into a bar called Duff's about a block away to try to kill some time before the show, and was greeted by Sabbath pounding out of the stereo and superduperhardcore porn on the tv behind the bar. PBR's were only $1 though, so I haven't ruled out going back someday. Here's a picture I found on Duff's MySpace page of Elijah Wood with a bartender there. Because why not.

Here's a list of some things I'd like to accomplish by this time next year:

• Tell someone very clearly and sincerely to "piss up a rope." This is not the first time I've made this resolution, but as yet I've always been a few beats too late and I really don't want to waste it. This will be a resounding victory over my hapless foe and everyone who witnesses it will think about how awesome it was later.
• Score a 2400 on the SAT. Yes, really. It's part of the new job.
• Become good (like...total domination good) at some shooter video game. I think my best chance is going to be Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow. I am already getting my ass kicked up, down, left, and right in Halo 3.
• Become a vegetarian 3-4 days a week.
• Go to the dentist for crissakes.
• Start playing guitar again.

.flac

Over the past few days I've endeavored to make available to you a .flac version of They're More Afraid of You Than You Are of Them. I've only been partially successful, which I have come to accept as my lot in life. The impasse occurs precisely here: ".flac" is, in the luddite eyes of GoDaddy's server's IIS, an unrecognized filetype. So although the file sits happily on the server and is accessible by ftp, attempts to access it via http are summarily rejected. I've contacted customer service regarding this issue and was told rather matter-of-factly that there were no plans to add .flac to IIS anytime soon. In other words, I might as well go scratch.

IIS does indeed recognize .zip files, though. So if .flac is your favorite sauce and you'd like to see how you like it on TMAoYTYAoT, please be my guest. But you're going to have to download it all at once in a gigantic .zip file. At this point if you have any complaints I'll kindly remind you that the shit is free.

Why bother with all this so long after originally making it available in .mp3? I was going through the master recordings (done at my old office after hours, if you'll recall, so I needed to clear them out before I left the office for good) and I started to be bothered by how much worse the .mp3's sounded to me than the original uncompressed .wav's. So I figured better late than never.

Other things I've had on my mind lately:

• I'm really pumped for the new Springsteen.


• I also think the new Counting Crows song "Cowboys" is really good. It reminds me of the heights they reached whilst recovering satellites, which was their high water mark (imho).


• The day I get my hands on batteries I can power with pee is going to be a triumphant day indeed.

Okay, cool. That is all. Carry on.

every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Well, I haven't finished BioShock. In fact, it's probably going to take me forever to finish it. I've been busy.

This Monday I gave my 2 weeks notice at my current job (where I've been for 3 years) to take another job in a completely different field.

I'm going to try teaching. Sort of. I'll be working for a small SAT prep company, teaching kids how to totally pwn the test ("pwn" is not an SAT word).

I probably haven't mentioned it on these pages before, but I've always really liked standardized tests. I'm good at them. I've also for years kicked around the idea of teaching, but have never been able to pull the trigger because...I'm a wimp. Or, I was a wimp.

Today for breakfast, I had victory.