well, still..
pretty good year.

i am out of work, all reports done, all that remains is to wait, and i am out of things to think about, almost, and i’m getting to the point where everything slows down, isn’t coming at me as fast, i’ve got time.

i’ve got time, and so i really try to write more journal entries. this more than anything.

i want to write things that are exciting or thoughtful or anything but boring. i guess i’ve trailed off in quality, the last little while. it would be embarrassing to admit how many livejournal friends have dropped me from their livejournal friends lists within the past month or so. i keep my friendsof list hidden because i’m afraid of people finding out, people like god or george w bush, who would begin to question my value to the society i only seem to take and take from, and would then consider banishing me, from either the universe or america.

dear society, i am dedicated to keeping you interested in me. i will try hard to be refreshing. i will try harder. it’s hard and difficult. my dramas are all but spent, and so my days are quiet. that said, i promise to try, because i am dedicated. it’s even difficult to interweave symbolism and crypticism, it’s hard to be vague and ominous and sweeping and original, all at the same time.

it’s hard to write neat things. i bet it has a lot to do with the chemicals. my chemicals don’t surge, much. i don’t mind it’s nice for a change.

i’ll cut me some slack though. i mean, i’m an engineer for christssake. or at least that’s what my tag says.

haha, dear journal, i just thought of one: i don’t need an army i just need a few good friends. that’s sort of sweet.

bye,

dear journal,

boy, i sure could use a nap. we got back really late from the lord of the rings movie. i didn’t get much sleep.

hey, i’m glad this movie (these movies) waited until now to become available. geez, journal, if you were trying to walk down the fantasy aisle of some book store anywhere, in 1991 or something, i’d've been sitting on the floor blocking your progress and i’d be putting so much thought into what tolkien-related reference book i should spend my birthday twenty-dollar-bill on. journal, if you would’ve told me then that a movie was in the works, a full live-action epic movie, one that we’d be this proud of, journal, i’m ashamed to say it but i would have ejaculated in my pants there and then. journal, unfortunately i’m not exaggerating too much. i was a geek, thoroughly obsessed, and i’m sorry. i guess it’s better and more approachable now that i am old and gray.

dear journal nora went with me to the movie. i think she fell asleep. she is always yawning and falling asleep when i’m around. this is a constant reminder that i am very boring, journal. very, very boring.

i could use a nap, myself, journal. i could turn on my new ceramic heater and get under the blankets and just snooze, except that i have things to do, journal.

did you know i finished up most of the rest of my christmas shopping on amazon? no you didn’t, stupid liar journal. i just told you. but i did. i got a bunch of chicago discs (the early stuff, none of that pete cetera shit) for dad, along with a cordless 12-volt drill that i had bought on my last job with the company money, and mom wants a scanner, so i got her a scanner, and i got a martha stewart book full of wedding reception ideas for rebecca, and i got kris a book on national parks and season #2 of the simpsons on dvd, and i’ll get jeff and marcy a safe, because they want a big metal safe, but i’ll just buy that when i get back to new york, because big metal safes aren’t available to buy on amazon or insound, and those are the only two places i know of for shopping on the internet, and big metal safes don’t fit into baggage very well, so i’ll just get that later, and then for gramma i got a gift certificate, but it’s just not any kind of gift certificate, journal, it’s a gift certificate for shea’s performing arts theatre in buffalo, and maybe she can get her musical on, again, like she used to like to do.

they’re playing momma-mia, journal. do you think gramma likes abba songs if they were done showtune-style?

yeah, i think so too.

also, i want to make a mix cd. i haven’t made a mix cd in months and months, journal. i didn’t like the way my last several mix cd’s turned out, journal. it’s an art form, you know.

i realized that my mix cd’s needed more purpose in their existence. they needed to perform a function, evoke a feeling, something. you lose sight of obvious conclusions like thiswhen you make a lot of mix cds, journal. you really do. and i decided that this new tobedetermined mix cd will be geared towards my brothers, because me and my brothers all grew up listening to the same stuff and we all enjoyed it, but since we all left the house, they both like a lot of crap and only i have impeccable music tastes. it’s not sad, but it should be curbed, journal. i am going to knock their socks off with some standards in my canons.

i hope it’s not too late, journal. it may be too late, for them.

copyright infringement i knew i should have given you a choice !

maybe you have a goatee and say “swweeeeet!” a lot, you might be a little late but i don’t hold it against you because i’m fair!

i was wearing my old watch instead of the one they’d bought me as a gift that’s why they kept staring at my wrists!

i used to be good enough to not break the plain facial expression i’d have and when someone would ask me the time i’d raise my wrist and look at it and i hadn’t put a watch on that day and i’d say “it’s ten to four” or something ! (i wasn’t going to write that one but all the talk about watches and wrists made me think of it, sweet!)

the metamorphosis of narcissus is boring and i’m not as wannabe-pretentious as i used to be! how about just a photo of a goddamn tree that’d be great thanks!

i wrote five reports in a day just the other day and i plopped the big stack on the project manager’s desk and he said “thanks when are you gonna get a fuckin’ haircut?” !

i told him that until i find a nice-looking and fairly inexpensive tooth (maybe on e-bay or wherever, i’ve got time to look) i’m not as concerned about looking so sexy all the damn time!

we were all exclaiming, for no particular good reasons, but plenty of bad ones!

warm and heart felt gift certificates all ’round this year hell yeah!

“Frodo destroyed my ring!”

i wanted to, so i started writing up shorts for my favorite records of this year (2002). maybe i will share them.

yes, i will share some. here are the ones i’ve done so far.

Interpol
Turn On the Bright Lights
They sort of do sound like Joy Division, I guess. It seems nervous and jittery, from riffs through lyrics, all chopped bursts of energy. The songs are addictive. The vocals are your favorite poetry even if they’re unintelligible. You listen to this all the time. This is the best record of this year, and’s better than anything recent you can think of, too.

Sigur Ros
()
Dream-slow songs. They all seem to mourn something. It’s all very sad and beautiful, not from this world. Don’t expect anything like Agaetis umm… the first one you got. I don’t think they have the same vibe, at all. But I like this one even better. For trancing and introspection. Recommend that the severely depressed should probably stay away from it until later. A very powerful and moving body of work, with the last song ending the seamed progression of movements, by building tension beyond your capabilities to deal with it, then flattens you and is gone and you’re gasping for breath, you child of an unfathomable God, you.

The Velvet Teen
Out of the Fierce Parade
Indyrock with super melodies. And a songbird voice at the helm. Think Jeff Buckley. Not like Jeff Buckley, but songbirdish in that way, perhaps. And these songs are all phenomenal, every one. I saw them live at the 929. That’s how I discovered them, and they struck me. The bass player is Chris Squire esque, because the bass guitar is sharp and driving and dynamic in a lot of the songs. The harmonizing between the three members is also divine. Maybe if the 1969 incarnation of Yes were a 2002 indyrock band, instead of a slightly r&b tinged group of englishmen about to go prog. Maybe you should think of Death Cab for Cutie except take Gibbard out of the equation and put in early-Yes vocalization capabilities, full with the harmonies and everything. Yes! Or no. Anyway, if you love your tender sweet and edgy melodic lo-fi rock, you’ll have to get this, dumbass.

The Walkmen
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone
Like if the 1982 U2 had had no sleep for days, were delirious, hallucinating, playing their jangly instruments and seeing ghosts at the same time, or yeah, the piano is actually being played by a ghost. Everything here seems held together by threads. It’s original, hard to describe, definitely great rock music.

okay thanks bye,
-tim.

trains are a lovely way to travel, even if they’re running late, because at least i don’t have to drive anymore i don’t want to drive anymore ever.

the train took me to philadelphia. the purpose of the trip was to eat a cheesesteak at tonelli’s, and also to go to this big radio station sponsored concert that had a lot of shit on the bill, but then they had queens of the stone age and zwan and coldplay.

zwan is billy corgan’s new band. i don’t think they’re all that and bags of chips, yet, but maybe someday. anyway, me and billy go way back. and years and years ago, when i was a noticeable fixture among smashing pumpkins online communities and things maybe, and i was the one who arranged the very first smashing pumpkins tribute record, which was on cassette, and it looked great but didn’t have much talent, and i even sang rhinoceros on it, and i’m so ashamed, and i can sing better than that these days, i promise, and anyway everybody loved me because i was the brains behind the operation, for really, and i can’t remember how but i got billy corgan’s home address at the time and since i was so creepy and obsessive and fanatical at the time i figured that i may’s well send him a copy but i bet he just chunked it, bald pompous ass, but

it was great to hear that voice again from not so far away, kind of rejuvenating somehow, i think i built a lot of me out of some of that voice, and somebody yelled “MAYONAISE!” so i one-upped them and yelled “PURR SNICKETY!!” but they only played zwan songs, anyway, but

who were really great, great great, was coldplay, and man,

were they ever great, they really were.

maybe i should write detailed, descriptive music reviews, because it’s obvious i’m all aces at it.

all apologies to those bands who are called “new found glory” and “good charlotte”, but we stayed out in the hallway and drank while you poured out yr souls and stuff, or whatever you do so well according to DJs called “E-Man” or whatever DJs call themselves these days, just before they say “duuude!” again.

i only feel dizzy and sick when i drink too much, so for coldplay i was hanging on but it felt best that way, somehow, when they sing “tell me youre a politik and open up yr eyes” and the lights spin and my headsspun, all these girls have their bellies showing and they have nice bellies but oops they’re fourteen if they’re lucky and there’s their dads, right beside them, chaperoning, making sure about something, i dunno.

and then we left and i was out like a light in the guest bed with the cat called “kitty” nestled in there somewhere and still so tired when the alarm crashed into my ears and got on the train the other way and just sat and listened and wrote and thought about things i should do like when i’m home in new york next week, hope for snow and go to that spot again, dead quiet and all the orange streetlights in the distance, where i was indian style and trying to bring it all to a point, anyway just go there and take pictures, maybe remember better, someday, and,

and so i did not die of a broken heart.

(tim sliced his internet pie)

ohwoahoh bill fucking pullman you gotta KNOW i’m the virginian.