WHAT DOES ANYTHING MEAN? Basically

I bought a deluxe (2CD) edition of an obscure yet beloved-by-those-in-the-know band from the 80's on Saturday (?or was it Sunday?) for $1.00 + $2.98 S&H.  I figured that was an error - the CD usually goes for at least 10x that $ amount.  Seller cancelled the order today.  I wouldn't have been able to buy it in the first place if my Mom hadn't loaned me the $3.98 needed 4 it.  IF - a big if - the seller had shipped it, and I had opened it and used it, I could still get 115% or more of what I paid for it back at me.  If I had decided NOT to open it and use it I could have almost certainly get at least 135% back.

But probably is now a certainty.  Seller cancelled.

Now I have $3.98 to spend on whatever.  There's a 2 disc edition of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, probably a Canadian release, idk, being sold for $5.25 apprx w/ S&H - BRAND NEW(!!!) on the Amazon Marketplace.  I think that movie is awesome like no other movie.  As to weather or not I would pay $10++ for that movie, it would depend on what I felt like doing at the time in which I were able to afford it, because I don't really forsee myself watching it again anytime soon.  I've seen that movie like 10 times at least since I first saw it as a teenager, 16 or 17, can't remember for sure.  I'm 28 now.  I might see it again in like 2 or 3 years, but $10 is a big chunk of $ out of my sub$100 disposable income for something that could most certainly wait 'til at least January.  I'll probably start buying Christmas presents in November after all anyway.

No, But Seriously...It's gonna be bigger than a microchip...

I bought SERIOUS HITS...LIVE! by Phil Collins (it's called that b/c the album is taken from a concert performed during the ...BUT SERIOUSLY tour)about a month ago...give or take a week...idk...I've been listening to it ever so willfully whenever my computer is off for the last few days; a lot of music I put on and don't really "feel" it, it's just there for noise, perhaps providing a very mild stimulation.  And this was one of those CDs.  But I'm glad I have it at the moment...then I'll forget how sweet it was to own this and sell it...baewhg!
I kinda feel dumb having bought FACE VALUE

earlier this week, with my B&N gift card (reward from MyPoints).  I have $3.26 left on the card, once I get a stamp I will mail it to a gift card exchange service known as ABC gift cards, for $2.50 cash.  I have owed my bank $3.09 for the last few days, b/c I bought some diet A&W root beer at a convenience store for probably $1.50 more than it would have cost to get it from a grocery store not too terribly farther away...I don't like to go to the grocery store in question, Schnucks, by foot b/c there's a busy street in between it and the shopping center where Hastings is located.  Plus I would have had to carry the soda on that street, and on the rest of the way home.  It was 12pk of cans, BTW, they stay fresher longer and taste better, IMO.
  But anyway - yep.  I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to repay my bank.  I walked to Hastings this evening; finally have all that is needed to repay my bank, buy a stamp AND repay The Book Rack for the $0.4someodd tax I didn't pay for a book I bought with store credit.  Except...buying a stamp is not necessary, just would like to do that since I honestly cannot think of any good way to spend money at BN.com or their brick & mortar stores.  BN.com has numerous reports of ghastly customer dissatisfaction on sites like Reseller Ratings, although they seem to respond appropriately to complaints submitted through the Better Business Bureau, which is more than can be said for some sites, such as the exclusive distributors of the Genesis "Encore Series"-- TheMusic.com (TheMusic.com has a grade of "F" [the lowest] for 2 complaints that went completely ignored by TheMusic).
Speaking of which, I'm dealing with the BBB trying to get a payment refunded for something that was inappropriately solicited to me.  Saveology.com - who is BBB accredited, which gives me some hope - offered me a Papa John's Pizza gift card at 50% off, which I had to call to redeem, so it could be mailed to me, and during the phone call, without any prompting, the person on the phone asked me if I would like to receive a $100 reward card for $4.95.  She did not explain the nature of this reward card, so I just thought it was like a prepaid Visa card given as a reward for signing up for Magazine subscriptions, which I was told about after I asked her what the catch was, which I did when I was in the midst of walking toward my wallet to whip out my debit card.  When I tried to get my money back, the person (a different one, i think) tried and tried and tried to make me want to pay for magazines that I didn't ever want, and didn't seem to get that I wanted my freakin' $4.95 back until after she got the hint that I didn't want to pay ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR THE FREAKIN' PAPA JOHNS GIFT CARD THAT I WAS OFFERED VIA EMAIL, WITHOUT ANY WARNING OF THERE BEING ANY STRINGS ATTACHED!  Of course, it was my choice to pay the freakin' $4.95, and I probably should have known better, but what world would we have if everyone assumed the worst?
 
Anyway...sigh...seems like there might have been something else to write about...I'm sick and tired, mostly tired...I might go to bed....bzzzzzz...shouldn't be so tired at 9pm.  Fudd...

Curled Up Deep Down In A Hole

Do you love yourself?  If not, you can't love another.
I do not love myself.
I do not know what love is.
How did I get so heartless?
No.
I have heart
It's just not standing up straight
It's curled up like a baby
The thought of unwinding it sickens me
It scares me

The sky is hovering above me, it goes unnoticed 99.9% of the time
There's a voice in it though, I hear it in me
It keeps waiting for the rain in my head to let up
It keeps wishing I were someone else
Someone less sick
Or is that just my own mind working against me?

food vs. music

FOOD
Pros:
It makes your brain able to appreciate music
It makes your heart function better
It makes you better able to appreciate God
Cons:
Too much can make you fat, f*** your brain and heart up, and in turn do the same to the rest of you and eventually kill you, or make you wish you were dead

MUSIC
Pros:
It makes one (such as me) feel more aware of their emotions/mental state
Cons:
Too much can make you think too much of mankind, and get you wrapped up in your own mind.

SUMMARY
I'm crazy, so it makes sense that I would not follow through with the logical conclusion (??)

Damn.

almost not noteworthy things that happened this past Friday

I took a dump FOUR times from 12PM-12AM.
I went to bed at 1:45am
I had the most awesome time listening to SLEEPLESS NIGHTS by Rediscover.
I had the most gawdawful time trying to install AVG AntiVirus Free 2013, and never did get it going...
I felt a strong yearning for a decked out Christmas house, with candles, sweaters, and hot chocolate that doesn't come in a plain Hershey's baking cocoa container.

Today I hope to listen to SLEEPLESS NIGHTS again, and yearn some more for a decked out Xmas house.

~JWC

Yeah...that'd be much too vulgar display of power...

My computer has been giving me a mountainous hard-time.  I've spent the last 2-3 hours trying to listen to U218 Singles by U2 on MySpace.  Actually, the last 40 minutes I've been feeding the cats, eating dinner and chit-chatting with my mother.  Meanwhile my MalWare scanner turned up nothing.  Grrg.

gaining on it...um....

The belt stabbing-accessory (whatever it's actually called) won't go through all the holes in my belt - unless I've lost weight since yesterday.  I haven't tested it today.  I had 2 1/3 servings of Oreo cookies PLUS a serving of pancake mix and my usual helping of sandwiches...total fat gram intake was probably about 30.  Carbs?  Probably about 200...maybe closer to 150...I walked to the library, took apprx 20 minutes...

I blew off brushing my teeth yesterday.  I did brush the day before yesterday.  The day before that I didn't.  The day before that I brushed twice...ughmm...

On the plus side I washed clothes yesterday.  I didn't finish my whites.  I had to start the washing machine on them twice, b/c I think I forgot to put soap/bleach in that load the first time around.  I started it again this morning a couple hours ago, should be done by now, I'll have to put them in the dryer whenever the heck I get around to it...although my Gramma should be coming over to clean the upstairs living space for my mom, since I'm good for nothing...

I revised what was five pages of a screenplay I've been working on sporadically for over a decade.  It's now four pages.  I need to add 86 more pages.  If I don't, submitting it to an agent would be almost pointless, and submitting to Richard Walter, a prestigious screenwriting professor at UCLA, which would be much easier, since I already have a vague idea of how to get in contact with him, would be even more pointless.  If I go the agent route, I'll have to figure out which agent to submit the screenplay to, and if I did that, it's possible they may read it regardless of length, and if it's not good enough, someone else can maybe flesh it out more.  But I'm not even sure that's possible.  This isn't a story based screenplay, it's more like a collection of dreams.  If it had a worthwhile story, I could write it as a book and at least get something done with it, since a book would make it easier to write.  A screenplay HAS to be clear, with minimal to no typos, and what I say has to be concise and clear in order for someone to take what's on the page and put it on film.  A book doesn't even have to have logical sentences.  You can take what may or may not be a coherent/logical sentence and stretch it out to three pages if it's good enough, like poetry or something.  You can go off on theological tangents that have nothing to do with "the plot" and yet it still ties in with it and so what if nobody cares?  It's a book, so it's a lot less expensive than a movie along these lines would be, and the market for that kind of stuff is big enough for the publisher and myself to make at least a bit of pocket change.  But I'm so ill-versed on books, I may very well be ripping off NAKED LUNCH and not even know it.  I've read like almost 30 pages of J.G. Ballard's CONCRETE ISLAND, not sure if I'll finish it, and I've been immensely enjoying the time I've spent with Elliot Perlman's SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY, but it's taking me half an eternity to finish it.  I might be done with it when I'm like 32 (I'm sorta-almost 29 as I write this).  I've been reading it for...a year?  At least...

I should quit going on about all this and write some more of it.  It's been awhile since I posted anything here though and this is a blog, not a quarterly magazine, so anything that goes on in my daily life should be posted here.  I always wonder with these quarterly magazines, such as the now-defunct and short lived WICKED - what are they doing???  You know why I never knew what they were doing that was taking so much time?  Because I didn't read their blog!!!

So here's my half-arred attempt to catch you all up to speed.  Not that anyone's reading this...or...?  Idk...every month I get almost 100 views, don't know if those are accidents or what...

hole in head disease

She wrote my soul on her lips
Adapted from the words of someone else
I tried to resist the temptation, to stab those words, to bludgeon them to sleep
I demanded pardon for the slander
She tied my hands to my back
And walked away, safe in her freedom
To twist the truth, and put her trust in lies
And rub them in my face

Maybe there's a hole in her head
That makes the light pour
Straight down into darkness
I guess it makes sense
What would a cat scan show
if they examined her head?
Where it will land
Nobody knows

ooooh noo

The image here is of the front cover; the back cover, for those who are 3rd generation Aerosmith lovers or who don't know jack about hard rock, prominently features a couple of sumo wrestlers getting ready to fight.  The sad thing is I just now figured out why that image was chosen.

Nonetheless, I still maintain my stance that the front & back cover-art, AND the graphics on the disc, are very in tune with the mid 90s.  I don't know if it's b/c they're ingrained in my mind from having listened to this CD quite heavily during 1996-1999 or if there's some link that I'm not sure how to explain...the back cover I always thought represented the wackiness of the 90's, which is evident without knowing anything about fashion or contemporary lingo/slang, or prevalent thoughts of the time.  All one needs to do is look at the music charts.  What other time could a serious song like "Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies become a pop song on the basis of the singer's unusually deep baritone?  It's almost like CTD became household names as a comedy act - people turn on the radio and they be like "what the...?" but they keep listening...with a mix of "I know what you mean dude" and "Is it weird to feel weird listening to this song"/"No, man.  It's like Father Time is singing us a song"/"Yeah, that's what I thought.  I can kinda dig the lyrics though.  Is that weird?"/"Uh...did you get teased a lot in high school or something?"/Uh, no man...I just...uh...nevermind"
  I get a kick out of reading reviews for CDs on Amazon, by bands like Chumbawamba ("Tubthumping"), OMC ("How Bizarre"), Natalie Imbruglia ("Torn") and Joan Osborne ("One Of Us"), and seeing how they don't get the artists'/bands' one hit wonder status.  People are always like "this artist is much more than just one song" and I'm always like "Get a clue: nobody cares".  Someone was defending Sarah McLachlan's follow up to the mega-hit album SURFACING, titled AFTERGLOW, saying that people are unjustly raising their expectations through the roof and that she's only human.  My eyes rolled back soooo far.  People have every right to expect a follow up album to be an improvement over the current/previous one.  For better or worse, it's a dog-eat-dog world.  If you don't have something people want, you're a useless shell waiting to die.  Sarah McLachlan's music seems to have an addictive quality to it though, thankfully for her.  I personally don't like the electronic approach she took with LAWS OF ILLUSION and I found the song structures to be a little too weak as well.  AFTERGLOW seemed like a half-baked attempt to cash in on the success of SURFACING, which is odd considering it took 7 years to get released...The Fray will probably have the same thing going for them.  HOW TO SAVE A LIFE was a masterpiece and even though they seem unwilling or unable to replicate that album's awesomeness, people will continue buying their music.
  Anyway; I was talking about the 90's....yeah, I don't know what I was thinking in regards to WHY the back cover-art for BIG ONES was chosen.  I mean, it's not like Aerosmith or anyone working with Aerosmith would have any reason to take a come-back era recap and make it look like Aerosmith was/is the definition of the 90's.  I mean, I guess as far as bands who were doing hits CDs in 1994 and around there, Aerosmith was probably the closest thing to the definition of the 90's.  The forefathers of the grunge movement that almost eclipsed the possibility of Aerosmith's GET A GRIP's success were too new to the music biz to have enough hits to make a hits CD with, and most of the other bands who were popular at that time were short-lived or one hit wonders.  In 1997, Gin Blossoms' record company, for some reason that I don't quite get, decided to make a compilation of their music when they only had two CDs and a song from EMPIRE RECORDS to their credit (that last one of which wasn't even written by them).  Some bands, by the '96/'97 time frame probably COULD have had enough songs to build a hits collection with if they hadn't taken 2-4 year breaks between records.  The Goo Goo Dolls released A BOY NAMED GOO in '95 and followed that up in '98.  Counting Crows took just as long to follow up their debut.  So did Tori Amos.  Bjork actually did pretty well in terms of a steady output.  But she didn't put a hits CD out until 2001 or somewhere around there, probably b/c 99% of her music was too out there for most people to find on the radio or MTV even.  Oh, and Alanis Morrissette took 3 years to follow up JAGGED LITTLE PILL.  If these artists had done one album every year like Aerosmith and every other rock band from the '60's and 70's did when they first got into the business, and had 2 or 3 songs average on each record that people at least heard once or twice on the radio (even if the songs weren't bonafide Top 40 HITS, they could still appear on a hits CD), then every one of those bands could have had a hits CD no later than 1999.  In the case of Tori Amos and Counting Crows, I'd say more like 1995 for Tori Amos and 1997 for Counting Crows AT MOST.  Aerosmith really didn't have that many hits in the '70's, although they did have a huge number of "fan favorites" - probably 95% of their output from 1974-1976 was/is well regarded by people who bought GET YOUR WINGS, TOYS IN THE ATTIC and ROCKS.  It took 7 years for Aerosmith to get a hits CD out, there was only 10 songs on it and two of those songs weren't really "hits".  Well, idk - maybe "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" did get a fair share of airplay back in its time, I don't think I've EVER heard it on the radio...and they also did not write that song, nor did they write "Come Together", which was part of a soundtrack for a movie that had something to do with The Beatles, I think...

But anyway..........I guess if nothing else, the cover-art for BIG ONES reminds me of how crazy a time it was for ME - I was in a group home, trying to sort out anger issues that I had, and when I came out of the group home, I was living with my mom's boyfriend and his 16 year old daughter who was the most obnoxious and trendy punk you're likely to meet.  If the 90's were to be defined by her, it'd probably be a rollercoaster kaleidoscope of sex and drugs to a soundtrack of Guns N' Roses & Nirvana, with soundbites from Beavis & Butthead thrown in.  And I kind of got the feeling she wasn't alone when I was watching MTV YEAR IN ROCK 1994.  And I can remember my face must have looked like this more times than I care to remember during those days

I have a dream

It's just...too...hard...to reach...Uhg!  But seriously, I never realized Sony TVs - Sony BRAVIA TVs no less - were so low priced these days.  Granted, this is an LCD, not the better quality LED, but supposedly Sony knows their stuff when it comes to making TVs - and they should, since they also make movies (viewed on a TV more often than not).