the new coma’s here! the new coma’s here! i got my three disc canadian extravaganza in the mail yesterday. the dvd was everything i hoped for and more. all matt good’s videos with commentaries, the newly produced “while we were hunting rabbits” animated video, a making-of feature for the “rooms” portion of this set, some slide shows set to music, and a discography.

i bought a crappy pc mic at circuit shitty yesterday for $10. it was a piece of junk. even with mic volume set to the highest, it didn’t pick up anything. so i jumped in the golden bonner with my coma in hand and went on a 90 minute trek to return the bad mic and find a compusa. i turned my car stereo up to 11 and away i went.

driving west into the setting sun is not something you should do if you want to keep your eyeballs from burning to the core. you could even say that the cores of my eyeballs stopped spinning. even with sunglasses and a car visor, it still is like 100% pure radiation. i breathed a sigh of relief when i finally got to the circuit shitty parking lot.

after the refund business was taken care of, it was time to drive 10.8 miles to the nearest compusa. i went north and then headed west on river road, which is exactly like the name implies. it curves and winds and seems like west is not the only direction you travel. but the views are great, especially when the sun has almost set. that “twilight hour” when the sun is almost gone, but it leaves behind a bunch of spectacular colors. those colors bounce off the clouds and display on the mountains. it was hard to keep my eyes on the road.

i got to compusa, bought my mic, and headed home. i had almost listened to both music discs of “in a coma” in doing so. and it’s just like the song says: big city life is fun.

what does $199.99 - 10% - $150 equal? a super great deal on a tivo. i got this 10% off tivo coupon from circuit shitty and they are running a $150 mail-in rebate on tivos as well. you may know how i feel about mail-in rebates… i frickin’ loathe them. but sometimes you just gotta give in. sometimes you just gotta feed the monkey and hope the monkey doesn’t want to eat you too.

cable is going to be “installed” on saturday. by installed, i mean that some guy is going to come out and connect some wires on the side of the house. and that’s… ok. plus it’s cox, so i can say i’m getting cox installed. their expanded basic is actually better than their digital cable package. who would have thunk it?

now back to our regularly scheduled tivo. first of all, it takes a long time to get the whole system going. the downloads and phone link-ups aren’t so bad. it’s the indexing of the tv guide schedule. i guess it downloads the schedule for two weeks in advance and then it has to index it or something. it took like 5 hours, but i think it only takes that long on the first time. i hope it does. or else it better do its indexing when i’m sleeping in the wee hours of the night.

it’s frickin’ awesome, though. you can pause and rewind live tv. so you can go take a pee and come back to your show. or you can rewind something that you missed because someone in the room was talking too loud. it does it all. you can record an entire series by doing a “season pass,” which records that show whenever it is on.

let me just say this… i’m giddy like a schoolgirl and i only have access to four broadcast channels. just wait till the cable is turned on. this thing is going to fill up its 40 hours in one week. i can’t wait to see what shows it records for me based on my ratings. i wish i didn’t have to work ever again. i want to stay retired and spend the rest of my life with tivo. i do. i take this tivo to be my lawfully wedded life partner.

well, i am not watching satellite dish tv right now, and i am not at all happy. the dudes got here, walked around a bit, and then told us they couldn’t install it because they would have to drill through the wall and they aren’t allowed to do that. it would have been great if they could just say that over the damn phone instead of setting an install date, coming out, and then deciding it couldn’t be done. so that deal fell through.

then i called directv and they said they could just use the existing cable wiring to set it up, which is what i thought dish network would do. but i’m thinking now that it would be better to just get cable tv and stop messing with satellite. i love satellite, and if i ever own my own home, it will be all i ever have. so i’m going to call tomorrow and cancel it. i hate being so indecisive. i love it. no, i hate it.

you want some good news, eh? yeah, eh? kids in the hall always makes me feel a little canadian. anyway, the good news is that i am now a certified arizona citizen. i got my license and all that good stuff. my car passed the emissions test. they didn’t even put the vacuum hose under the hood or anything like i saw in all the pictures. the guy just attached a code reader under the dashboard and turned the car on. it was pretty sweet. i think they did something to my gas cap too, because it was kinda loose when i went to fill up later in the day.

the license part was really cool. they took my picture and in 2.5 minutes i got my card. and it doesn’t expire until 2046! i’ll be an old man by then. geez. i may not even be in this state anymore. a lot can happen in 41 years. i might have a family, a nice car, a modest house in a modest neighborhood, and a satellite dish on the roof of that house. or i might even be dead. that would be cool.

see, i’m aware of my mortality, but it doesn’t bother me like it does most people. i look at it as the next great adventure. whether i’m burning in eternal damnation or basking in the golden rays of nirvana, i’ll just be happy to try something new. my hope is that i can stick around here long enough to exhaust all the infinite possibilities on this planet.

i’d love to see artificial intelligence take over and show us humans the errors of our ways. and i don’t mean like how movies always do it, with the machines killing everyone or enslaving humanity. i just mean like when machines become self aware and show us all the obvious solutions to our problems. “dude, you guys should just stop fighting.” i hope the machines have keanu reeves’ voice. it makes sense if you think about it.

Papa Vegas will reunite for a show on Saturday, December 10th at Ten Bells in Grand Rapids. The Rockit King will open the show. Ticket details will be announced soon.

fudge.

i want to go to that so bad. deep breaths. it’s not the end of the world. it’s just a concert. tickets are going to sell out in the first minute, so there’s no way i’d be able to go. it’s impossible. yeah. we’ll go with that.

fudge.

am i reading this calendar right? it took four days for my netflix to get back to the return center. that’s some serious lag, my friend. they were delivered to me in only one day. but a four day return trip could really cut into my frantic viewing habits, my friend. you’re my friend, my friend. maybe it was because of the weekend. maybe saturday doesn’t even count, making it only three days instead of four, my friend. i think i have too much time on my hands. i’m watching you, netflix, if that really is your name.

the pilot of commander in chief was pretty spiffy. you can just tell donald sutherland is going to be sabotaging geena davis every chance he gets. i just know it. earth girls are easy. the only thing i didn’t like was the whole “first man-lady” deal. it’s an odd situation, i get that, but does it need to feel like forced comedy? i guess they think they need to lighten the mood or something. i say just keep it fast, keep it heavy. don’t give anyone a chance to breathe. that’s what good television is all about. beautiful asphyxiation. has anyone seen my oxygen tank?

karma police, arrest this man. his name is earl. jason lee is a funny unkempt rascal. he’s got the quirk. he’s got the vibrance. i hope earl makes it through his list before they cancel the show.

and then there’s the americanized office. good ol’ steve-o never disappoints when he’s putting his bike in your trunk. “that’s what she said.” <– one of my favorites. classic.

well, i’m still bloated from some great pizza i had three hours ago. magpie’s gourmet pizza is the name and if they had a deep dish crust, i might seriously have considered making them my favorite pizza of all time. they’re still pretty damn good. when i walked into the place, i had this feeling like i was home… in hell, that is. behind the counter, it looked nearly identical to hell’s pizza. even the beefy out-of-uniform guy working the ovens had a slight resemblance to the former district manager man of hell’s pizza. if you’re reading this, former district manager man (and i know you are), you should be happy knowing that your evil step-twin is alive and well in the dry dry desert. it’s funny… i left the monotony and boredom of hell only to end up in the blistering heat of hell. the irony is rather amusing.

even more amusing was seeing the sign in the window that said “now accepting applications.” at least i can sleep well, knowing that if my first job choices don’t pan out, i could probably be a magpie delivery driver. my career is calling my name. maybe i should just do the world a favor and find some rope and a cactus arm that can support 182 pounds. but then who would blog for me? who would play with words and throw their pants to the wind?

a friend of mine once asked me: how do you keep from going insane without doing any drugs? all i could tell him was that i didn’t know. i just do what i do and the craziness doesn’t grab ahold for some reason. maybe my brain makes it’s own drugs. maybe i’ve found ways to deal with my hopelessness, and it just doesn’t bother me anymore. i told him then, and i would tell him again now, i don’t know. all i know is that i like being drug free. i like keeping poisons out of my body. i tried drinking alcohol again last week and it made my stomach hurt. i put the rest of it back in the fridge. i finished it a couple days later, but i didn’t enjoy it. i’m thinking i should just tell people i’m a recovering alcoholic. it wouldn’t be a lie really. i mean, i could very easily become an alcoholic. i should say i’m a preemptive recovering alcoholic. they only have to be right once, we have to be right all the time. ya know? of course, if i went to great lengths to fabricate knowing every step in the 12 step program and claiming that scott stapp was my sponser, i would then be lying my ass off.