went on a hike this past sunday and saw this bad ass black-tailed rattlesnake. i’ve never seen a rattlesnake in the wild or that close before. it was a dream come true. i thought catching black widows and scorpions in the backyard of our old house was fun, but this was 100 times better. i noticed the tail sticking out and immediately i stopped. it rattled a little bit but then went into some foliage and just watched me and my hiking partner. then i wanted to catch the rattle sound on audio, so we threw sticks at it to rile it up, and it got pretty pissed. i managed to record some small video clips, but the video sucks because i was concentrating more on the creature in front of me.

then, we waited to see what it would do. it went further into the brush in the opposite direction of us. it gave a couple small rattles, as a sort of “do not follow” warning. we obliged and went on our merry way. it was a delight to see such an amazing creature and i hope to see more. it was the perfect end to a tiring hike and encountering the snake made up for seeing some evil swine children murder a lizard right in front of me.

the above quote is from the description of microsoft’s ie8 before i downloaded it. it’s funny to me, because i’m not at all comfortable using it. i update it so that it’s the latest secure version, but i really don’t use it. and it feels like they are trying to convince themselves of their superiority by making statements like this.

i still prefer firefox, the browser that gives you a reach-around.

last friday, we went to a concert of a guy named mike watt. the show was fun. the people in attendance were frightening. i’m used to the usual 4th avenue riff-raff, but this was beyond that. we’re talking escaped mental patients… with beer. (!) i think the one who garnered the most attention was the cane man. he looked to be about mid-20s with t-shirt, shorts, white socks, earring, and old person cane. he was very into all the bands. so much so that he would wave his cane around and thrust it forward in a punching motion. this kept a nice five foot circle around him so that no one would get caned. when the cane was not in use (and i don’t mean for walking, because it was never used for that purpose), it was tucked neatly down the front or back of the guy’s shirt. that’s right, he had a cane handle sticking out right by his neck (for safe keeping).

even better still was the drunk 40 year-old hipster next to ugly kid. he looked cool and i’m pretty sure he was hitting on ugly kid with his seductive swaying to-and-fro. he may have been hitting on me for that matter.

i know this is probably not the most politically correct thing to say, but i really felt like we were at a concert for the special olympics. good thing i don’t care much for political correctness and good thing no one reads this blog. i might have gotten in trouble like obama when he was on leno. that’ll teach him for going on leno.

so be careful when you go to concerts, because you never know when the cane man or the drunk hipster might show up and tear the roof off the place. you’ve been warned.

if our band could write an album’s worth of music, i would want to have a cd release party. but i wouldn’t want to call it that. instead, i would want to do an mp3 release party. we would sell usb flash drives (memory sticks) with our album on it. i think that would be much more current. i’m looking at concert schedules at a local venue and every couple of days there is a local band having a cd release party. why not an 8-track release party? sure cds are still around, but only because they are so fricking cheap. but it’s even cheaper to manufacture mp3s. you just copy and paste. nothing physical unless you have to move it around somewhere. i like the idea of an mp3 release party. even better is that people could bring their own usb thumb drive or mp3 player and download the songs for less. hell, buy a band t-shirt and get the songs for free. sounds like a good deal. see, if you’re going to sell your art, at least know how to market it in a way that people are interested in and want to buy.

right now, i’m drinking a fresh made margarita and watching the remote digital thermometer tell me that the carne asada is 57 degrees in the center on the grill outside. we need to get to 160 so that we don’t get the e. coli.

today was a roller coaster of amusement and idiocy. in the morning, we finished removing the last post of the fence we tore down in our backyard. then we decided to grab breakfast and do some shopping. the first two places we wanted to go for breakfast turned out to be packed due to the race going on in town today. so we opted for a place called “buck & lil’s bbq,” which offered breakfast. we each ordered and paid for the pancake breakfast and waited. and waited. and watched other people who came in after us get their food. and waited some more. after about 50 minutes, the waitress came out with a receipt and told us that our order had already been cooked. good, except she was stating this as if we already ate it and she was not obligated to bring out the food we were waiting for. so i went and got my money back and we went to quizno’s (since, by that time it was lunch). when we got home, i wrote a terrible review on yelp.com. it was funny.

also, we went to bed, bath, and beyond to pick up a gift for our friends who are getting married this coming saturday. we went up to the customer service desk and asked for the registry list. i had him search under the groom’s name and he couldn’t find it. i had him search under the bride’s name and he found it. then, he was like, “oh yeah, there’s the groom’s name, but he has it spelled wrong. is it ‘gofrey’?” and i was like, “no, his name is geoffrey.” and the guy was like, “well, it’s spelled g-e-o-f-f-r-e-y in here. like ‘gofrey’.” i was like, “that’s strange” and i didn’t mean the part about why the guy is 40 and working at bed, bath, and beyond.