October 2004

Life has been way busy lately, thus my lack of blogging. The biggest news is that as of Thursday, I am unemployed. I quit my job. Jess is currently working at one company who look to want to get her on permanently, and is supposed to hear back from another job this week. Since things were looking good for her we decided that it was time to quit my soul sucking job which constantly makes me miserable. I will still try for some temp work and keep my eye open for other jobs, as well as trying my hardest to get hired at the video game company here where I have several friends trying to get me in, but I hope to be able to go back to pursuing my musical/acting aspirations as I was doing before the "real" job came along.

The Toreadors CD is coming along finally, and we look to hopefully have it finished by the end of this year, or soon thereafter. It is definitely my best musical work to date. I'm quite excited.

Next weekend, I am best man at Andy and Liz's wedding as well as singing a song in Italian. It's also the closest weekend to Me and Jess's second anniversary, so we're renting a Jacuzzi suite for the weekend since we have to get a room for the wedding stuff ot of town anyway.

We've been so busy that our Netflix and Tivo queues pile up with unwatched movies and shows, our City of Heroes characters have not been seen in Paragon city for quite some time, and we need more sleep. At least after Thursday I can rest for a bit since I won't have to work!

It all started on the way home from a gig with my cover band once day. We got to talking about band names for the project I was working on with Craig Davis (which has since become The Toreadors) and my band mate Donnie, kept coming up with random things, sometimes culled from passing road signs. One random one from his head was "The Skagnastics", which we found amusing, but then he came up with one that for some reason just made us laugh our asses off. Treasure Pie. This amused us way more than it should have.

I relayed this story to Craig and a week later he had written a song called "Treasure Pie". It was a fun, silly little ditty, and my mind immediately had a vision for it. A vision of drunken pirates, a peg-legged tap dancing pirate, tubas, accordions, kazoos, and general insanity.

Last night and today, I took the demo Craig had recorded and added my own insanity into the mix. I was far more pleased than I should be, and find it all terribly amusing and catchy at the same time.

So grab your grog, and experience Treasure Pie.

Yesterday Jess and I went "window shopping" for a Toyota Prius. Afterward, I took her to the home builder place where she worked the afternoon as a "working interview" for the job she's trying for there. We got there early and look ed at the model home they have which is, of course, totally decked out. So by the end of the day I was really feeling kinda bummed about not being rich and famous. I want a big fancy house and a Toyota Prius!

Then something dawned on me. Whenever I get these feelings, or when I feel dissatisfied with my place in life, it's not really a longing feeling, but more of a missing feeling. I feel like a "has been" who once had it all, but now must struggle working for "The Man" to get by. It made me wonder if I had been a highly successful actor or musician in some past life or something (if you believe in that kind of thing).

Either way, it still sucks.

This isn't really news, but it needs to be said. He came to the Alamo Drafthouse tonight to a showing of "Stand By Me". Afterwards he did a Q & A, and signed books (Just A Geek). He was down to earth, charming, and just a cool guy who you want to hang out with. He had tons of great stories about the movie too. Check out his blog.

I took a picture of Jess with him, but sadly it came out completely blurry and unrecognizable. Boo.

More importantly, we have a present for our beloved Annika when we go to L.A. in December.

*EDIT*
The Blockbuster offer doesn't seem to be available any more. Boo. That makes things a bit harder. Maybe it will come back. The Ancestry offer is a free 7 day trial which can be cancelled during the first 7 days, so this is a good candidate too. I have confirmed several people who used this offer and cancelled without problems.
*END EDIT*

As you can see fomr today's haiku, I'm trying to get a free iPod from freeipods.com

I learned about it on my tech shows I watch. At first glance it's bound to sound dodgy, however it has been tested and demonstrated to be legit.

The deal is, you sign up, then sign up for one of their offers (such as a 2 week trial to Blockbuster's new Netflix ripoff where you get movies in the mail, or one of those CD or DVD clubs where you buy X now for $.50 a piece and then agree to buy Y more within the next Z years ), then you refer 5 friends using a special URL which gives you credit for the referral. Once those 5 friends each sign up for one of the offers, you get a free iPod mailed to you.

The CD/DVD clubs, actually interested me since they're pretty good deals, and I like CD's and DVD's, however the choices area bit limited (especially the DVD club). I ended up going with the Blockbuster trial, since you only have to do the 2 week trial and can then cancel if you like. There's also a good offer if you like coffee. Just make sure to read all terms and conditions of any offer you sign up for so you really know any hidden obligations you might be getting into.

So if you feel inclined to sign up and try to con your friends into doing the same, please follow my link above to do so! I will have my free iPod!

If not go get it now! Also if you have a web page and want to promote it, I recommend linking to this url:

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=2782&t=64

There's a site called www.spreadfirefox.com which has a friendly little competition between teams trying to get the most downloads. My Firefox links support one of my favorite tech TV shows, The Screensavers. Join our team and get people to download from that link to put us on top!

They have buttons you can add to your page if you like to (such as I have on my links page). Spread the word, and support the team!