That band thing

Back in August, my band, VRT, played its last gig. It was a tough decision to make, and I knew I’d miss having band practices on a semi-regular basis. So, Nick (guitar), Mark (drums), and I (vocals and guitar) agreed to start a new band, possibly with Mark’s sister Kim. Meanwhile, Sean (guitar) has started another band, and I don’t know what Alex (bass guitar) has been doing. While Sean’s group seems to be getting off the ground, ours doesn’t. This weekend, hopefully, we’re going to get together to determine what sort of beast will arise from the ashes of VRT. We’ve already picked a name that’s pretty cool, but we’ll probably set that back on the table as well.

Although I’d love to make music with my friends, it doesn’t seem like our new band will be much different from VRT. Specifically, I don’t know how we’ll make it anywhere if we don’t keep duct tape over the distortion buttons on our amps. Though we’d probably play some newer, heavier songs, apparently no one wants to hear a band that specializes in what you might make a stretch to call classic rock and in sleepy, cliché-filled tunes written by the lead singer.

Now’s a perfect time for a segue. Since its inception last month, I’ve been a loyal reader of the Pompano Pulse, my school’s new online equivalent of a school newspaper. This month they’ve been posting some poetry and poetry-related articles in honor of National Poetry Month (which is April, donchaknow). Since Luke and Michelle, who are writers for the Pulse, encouraged me to write an article, I did so a couple weeks ago, and it got published today. It’s called “Songs and Poetry,” and it deals with — you guessed it — the song as a form of poetry. Included are examples of my own poetic/musical output.

Is 55 M.P.H. too slow of a speed limit for a freeway? Some young persons thought so and decided to perform “an extraordinary act of civil obedience” to prove their point. See what they did to highlight the stupidity of such a low speed limit by watching A Meditation on the Speed Limit (Flash video with sound).

I found that this was a good way to spend some time thinking critically and watching my ass get kicked by a computer: it’s flashChess.

In Cameron Diaz’s shoes

A little while ago I was wandering around the house while the TV (which is always on) was turned to some fashion channel. They were playing a commercial for a chick flick with Cameron Diaz, when suddenly a familiar sight caught my eye: the Deerfield Beach train station.

(Note to self: I got this screen capture in HyperSnap-DX 4 by opening the Quicktime movie file in a separate window and doing a multi-region capture.)

I did some IMDb-ing around for the movie, In Her Shoes, and I found that it was indeed filmed in Deerfield, including at the city pier (where, incidentally, President Gerald Ford visited in 1976). I wonder why I didn’t hear about the movie being filmed. After all, our seaside suburb isn’t exactly a hot spot for moviemakers.

The train station is nearby; I used to pass it going to work. There isn’t much there, really. After all, it’s a train station. The national Amtrak and the local Tri-Rail stop there. I was at the station when I took the Tri-Rail when I was younger, and that’s the only time I’ve been there.

Incidentally, Deerfield Beach used to be known as simply Deerfield, so the train station said “Deerfield Florida.” When the city became Deerfeld Beach, the word “Beach” was crammed between Deerfield and Florida, where it remains to this day, as you can see in the above still from the movie trailer.

Yesterday I was supposed to meet with Mandi and Nicole about being in their band. My grandparents took me to the mall where we were supposed to meet at 1:00. I realized that we had stupidly not picked a place to meet. So we circled the mall three times and checked the food court twice, all to no avail. After 45 minutes of searching, we just left.

Try not to get us Floridians mad. Today a state law went into effect making it legal to use deadly force whenever you feel threatened. A series of ads are running in British newspapers warning potential tourists about the dangers of traveling to Florida. The ads are sponsored by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which has a site at shootfirstlaw.org. The campaign is headed by James Brady, who was wounded and disabled in Ronald Reagan’s 1981 assassination attempt. Will this law and the backlash against it have a significant effect on our tourism industry?

Another band?

Okay, so I haven’t posted since Monday. Gee, you must be wondering to yourself, I bet Jordon’s busy. Wrongo. I just haven’t had anything worthwhile to mention. My last two posts were sub-par, in my opinion. They were short because I couldn’t scrounge up a lot to say.

Anyway, on Wednesday I got invited to be in a band. My friend Mandi and her friend Nicole are starting it, apparently, and they want me to be a guitarist and lyricist. I thought it would be cool if I could provide some songs that I’ve written — I’ve written songs for a long time and I’ve always been itching to have them played by more than just me.

Mandi would be the lead singer, and Nicole would play the bass. They were trying to get Mark (from VRT, the band I’m already in) on drums and my old friend Jeff on the saxophone for a touch of ska, but those positions weren’t confirmed.

Besides ska, they named Taking Back Sunday as one of their influences. I had heard of them, but I had never heard them (of course), so I listened to some samples at Amazon. They don’t sound that bad. (My friends who don’t like them can shoot me or something.)

I think I would be the only guitarist, so the whole thing should just be a matter of playing power chords, unless they want me to play a solo. (The only problem is that I can’t play that fast without getting tired.) They also hinted that they would want me to sing occasionally, and in that case, Mandi could play the violin.

Considering that VRT is no longer playing live (but still is going to get together), I should have more time to focus my energy on this new band — if everything works out, that is. I’m going to meet Mandi and Nicole today so that we can “do lunch” and talk about how things would work.

Here’s a song (Flash, sound) created entirely out of sounds from Windows 95/98 (although I’m pretty sure at least one of them is from AOL).

If you have AOL Instant Messenger, plug your screen name and a friend’s into AIM Fight to see which of you has a larger network of friends.

Nothing but bad news

Well, I’ve got nothing but bad things to talk about today. But they’re of no significance to you unless you’re concerned about these topics:

First, since I did the first four chapters for European History class over the summer, I haven’t had a lot of homework. Now this sounds like a good thing, and it is, but next week I’m going to have to start doing the work again, and that should cut 60 to 90 minutes from my free time every day until May… well, that’s if I budget my time well. And hopefully I will. I know I’m treating this lightly, but when the big wave of work hits, I’m going to be physically and mentally exhausted. On a related note, we took our first big test in the class today, and I’m not sure how well I did.

Second, the other day my friend Alex called me. Again, this doesn’t sound bad, but you might not know him. When he calls he either

1. is asking for homework help,
2. wants to know when the next band practice will be, or
3. just wants me to hear how good he’s gotten at the bass.

This was a type C call, and I didn’t think much of it though I was glad to talk to him. Later he called and it was the same thing, except he was playing the guitar. Alex is infamous in my circle of friends for being a bad bassist and an absolutely terrible guitarist. In fact, I’ve only seen his guitar once — it was about four years ago — because he usually plays the bass.

So anyway, he asks me to request a song for him to play. He played the celebrated intro to that rock and roll standard, “Johnny B. Goode,” note perfect, with all the appreciation and application of techniques, etc. I couldn’t speak. Alex was now a better guitarist than me! I made sure he wasn’t playing a recording — he always used to pull my leg like that — by telling him to play it from the middle, telling him to play some stuff he used to play, and stuff like that. But it was true. He could do more than me.

Of course, I knew what I had to do. I had to match his abilities, at least for this song of his that impressed me so. So I pledged that the next time I see him, I’ll be able to play it just as well as he can. I guess it’s a good thing, in a way — the only reason I’m not as good as he is is that I have no motivation. Now, with some friendly rivalry as motivation, maybe I’ll be less lazy and practice a little more. And by doing so, I’ll be able to actually talk with other guitarists instead of shy away from them.

But still… Alex, better than me! The mind boggles at the very thought.

Third, and most devastating to me, was that some more events have occurred surrounding Nacole, the girl I was trying to go out with. Last time I said that she was in love with someone else, and that’s pretty bad (for me). Well, according to her LiveJournal, he asked her out and she said yes. That killed me.

Think of this, girls: some guy asks you out, and you kind of postpone the date until the guy you like asks you out. That’s what she did to me. Sure, you’d probably do the same thing, but we’re kind of friends, so it’s not like I was just some total stranger. When you think about it just a little, it’s pretty mean. Even though I realize we’re not perfect for each other, that’s not nice. It’s something you shouldn’t do. (Cue one of you readers saying “who says love has to be nice.”)

Today my nosy friend Yamilee asked how things were going, and I told her everything, and she did the whole pity thing. She also asked if I had any other prospects or something bizarre like that. I don’t, and I don’t foresee meeting any new people soon. So that’s the last I’m ever going to say about Nacole.

Fourth, I have a semi-amusing — but still unfortunate — anecdote from today. The lunch special in the school cafeteria was something they’ve never had before: pasta and chicken in a creamy sauce, with the usual sides of cornbread and broccoli. I decided to go for that; it looked really good. It’s like what I’d eat at home! (Well, minus the broccoli, but I still eat the stuff.) I grabbed some low-fat milk (health-conscious me), paid, and was on my way out quickly. As I came to sit at a table outside, I ranted and raved about how good the food looked. Finally I tasted it. I had never eaten such a delicious school lunch! I opened the milk carton and took a drink. The milk was spoiled.

Okay, this post isn’t all doom and gloom (or is it gloom and doom?). I’ve got a cool link: Beautycheck, a bilingual (English and German) site detailing the results of a study about beauty and what sorts of male and female faces are considered beautiful. There are some interesting images and findings.

I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition

Today my band, VRT, played probably our last gig. As described before, the band has too many problems to continue to play live. It’s a tough situation, and it just doesn’t work. I’ve already gone into detail with that.

Of course, all five of us were supposed to be there. Alex, the bassist, said that he would try to get time off work to go. Sean had said that if Alex wouldn’t play, then he wouldn’t play either, because we would sound too bad. (Though I can’t imagine how playing without him would make us sound any better.) This morning, Sean called me to ask what time we were going to play, and we discussed microphones and microphone stands, which he had said he would bring. Then Alex dropped the bad news on Sean and then me.

The odds were good, then, that Sean wouldn’t show up at all, even though he could. And he didn’t. Someone who I explained the situation to said that he probably wagered his unwillingness to play live on Alex’s unreliability. I think Sean doesn’t like to play live because he doesn’t like the songs we play. He invariably describes our songs as old people music and stuff. I saw a lot of people our age or younger watching today, though.

On one hand, I can understand Sean’s frustration — we’re extremely slow to learn new songs — because he has a certain image of what the band should be, and I do agree that we should play newer music. On the other hand, I don’t think that refusing to play was a good solution, and we suffered because of it.

As for the gig itself, it was pretty good considering the circumstances. Our original set was to be:

But seeing as neither I nor Nick, the other guitarist, could play the lead part in “Birthday,” we decided to drop that song. I think it was Mark, our drummer, who suggested “Secret Agent Man,” which is a favorite at our practices. (“Dizzy Miss Lizzy” was also a favorite at our practices before we dropped it into our set at the last minute before a gig.) With that change and some shuffling, the actual set was:

“Secret Agent Man” was pretty good considering we hadn’t really practiced it much. “Seven Nation Army” could have been better, but it was still good. I finally got the words right (more or less). “A Place Called Heaven” is a song I wrote (one thing I’ve never told you is that I write songs). I’ve always tried to get the band to play it, but they’re never interested. So I played it myself. In “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” I had to take Sean’s place playing the neverending lead guitar riff. I did pretty bad with that, and Nick didn’t have the chords down too much. We decided to end with “Yellow Submarine” because that was the first song we ever played and the one we’re best known for.

I’ve often recorded parts of band practices on tape, but this was the first live performance I’d ever attempted to record. (I didn’t think it would be possible because the microphone wires are very short.) Even though the mikes I had to use are sometimes faulty, on this occasion they were just fine, although the recording levels were a little too high, leading to some distortion and clipping. But still, I was impressed. My dad helped with the placement of the mikes. I don’t think he could have gotten them better.

Funny… Paul McCartney also recorded the Beatles’ final concert on a portable tape recorder for posterity.

Well, as I’ve said, we’re not breaking up now, but this is the end of a chapter in our longish history as a band. So I guess another chapter is only beginning…

What am I doing here?

As I was reading the latest school yearbook I noticed how many various clubs and sports there are. Endless after-school activities, and some people are in more than one. They range from tiny groups like International Affairs (4 members) to Drama Club (so many people that the names of the members aren’t listed). And don’t forget the various sports: football (varsity and junior varsity), volleyball (varsity and junior varsity), cross country (boys and girls), swimming (boys and girls), golf (boys and girls), basketball (varsity and junior varsity boys and girls), soccer (boys and girls), tennis (boys and girls), cheerleading, baseball (varsity and junior varsity), softball (varsity and junior varsity), track (boys and girls), and flag football. Well, that was last year. They might add one or two.

But me… am I in any clubs? No. Sports? No. National Honor Society? No. Marching band? No. Do I drive? No. Do I date? No. I don’t really have anything like that at all. So how is it that I always feel so busy?

(Rimshot goes here. The following is intended as a separate item, the former a thought in itself.)

Well, I do have one thing that sort of counts as an extracurricular activity: my band. Yes, believe it or not, we’re still around. We started the band (which has a name, but since no one ever likes any name we choose, we usually just call ourselves “the band”) back in 2001 and played our first gig in January 2002. Just for posterity, here’s the complete (?) list of our gigs (dates marked with an asterisk are guesses by me):

January 31, 2002: St. Elizabeth of Hungary school talent show (3 performances)
March 9-10, 2002*: St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spring Festival (2 performances)
May 11, 2002*: St. Malachy fair
November 17, 2002: St. Elizabeth of Hungary parish picnic
January 30, 2003: St. Elizabeth of Hungary school talent show (3 performances)
March 1-2, 2003: St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spring Festival (2 performances)
February 7, 2004: St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spring Festival
August 29, 2004: St. Elizabeth of Hungary Youth Group kick-off barbecue
August 14, 2005: St. Elizabeth of Hungary Youth Group kick-off barbecue

But things have changed between us. When we started the band, we all liked the same music. But now we realize that it’s time to play music that people will actually like. The problem is that it’s hard for everyone to get together (the five of us have only met twice, as far as I can recall), and therefore it’s hard for us to pick up new songs, especially ones that everyone will want to play. When some of us do play together, I feel that the magic isn’t there anymore. Maybe it’s just that we’re not as young and crazy. I’d rather listen to tapes we recorded three or four years ago than what we recorded last Sunday. There’s more energy and vitality in those old tapes.

When the members of a band rarely all get together, there are bound to be misunderstandings. I’m not sure, but maybe the others resent my de facto leadership of the band — after all, I’m the one who calls the practices, so if there aren’t any practices, it’s due to my own forgetting. But I applaud Sean for keeping my head from getting too big; he works to keep my “leadership” in check, and we’re all the better for it. But I also think Alex resents Mark, who almost replaced him without his knowledge. If Alex leaves the band (by force or otherwise), Sean will go too. This isn’t really relevant to what I’m saying.

Whenever we do play, we play old people music. Sean always expresses his dissatisfaction concerning this. He thinks that, owing to the fact that we’re all so different, we’ll never turn ourselves around and play real music. I’ve tried to be more optimistic, but he’s right. It’s too difficult. After four years, we can only play about four songs.

So anyway, I think we’ve mutually agreed that it’s time to put the band to rest, at least as a group that performs live. Although it pains me to see us go, I know we’ll still be friends, and it would be more painful to anguish over our state of affairs as a band headed nowhere. We’re not much more than a bunch of friends who get together to jam, so that we should remain. There’s no reason, after all, that we should cease playing together entirely, especially because we are friends.

So I think our next gig (which is Sunday if you didn’t read the list) will be our last. But to use my heroes, the Beatles, as an analogy (and that’s why my music and I are stuck in the past), they produced their finest works (including Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album, and Abbey Road) after they quit playing live. Of course, they’re not us, and so we probably cannot be compared. But that’s what I happen to think of.

But even after quitting touring, they did make another impromptu performance (on a London rooftop) before breaking up. So you never know about the future. In short, this is not the end of the band as we know it. We will certainly keep getting together (although without the goal of learning a song by a certain date). And who knows? We may come out of semi-retirement to dazzle… someone… once more. We’ll have to see.

Read about the J-Walk Blog Link Experiment. It should be a good experiment and a cheap method of cross-promotion. And it should be the second time I’ve been linked to by J-Walk.

Logan Whitehurst tells us How to Be Cool… just in case you ever wondered. It’s worth a read.

Get me a ginger ale

Today is the last day of summer vacation. Tomorrow is another first day of school at Pompano High. I should be cool with it by now, shouldn’t I? After all, it will be my third year. (Yeah, they grow up so fast.) Apparently some people aren’t as nervous as I am. But come on, it’s the first day of school!

You find out what teachers you have — they can’t be evil, you know — they tell you what to expect of the class, remind you of the rules, which seem no longer to be in force by November, and tell you what supplies you need, so you know exactly what size binder to buy that evening at Office Depot and how many dividers should be in it.

Maybe I’m just chronically nervous. Maybe I just worry too much. I feel uneasy, like I did for weeks at the beginning of the last semester. That was because of my World History class; eventually I only felt sick during that class and before.

Now I have the same teacher for European History, and it’s two semesters of fun. Let’s see here: 110 minutes a day x 4 days a week x 18 weeks per semester x 2 semesters equals 15,840 minutes, or 264 hours, or exactly 11 days. Maybe I could just take a long vacation and prop my eyes open for 11 days while I listen to her lecturing. She sometimes has funny lectures.

I’m nervous for another reason also. Over summer vacation you quickly forget how to be a student. But when you come back, it quickly returns as well. And then you do homework. And, depending on your classes, you do lots more homework. And it’s sickening, really.

It’s also depressing having to go to bed and wake up early. Sometimes during the school year I don’t have much free time by the time I get tired. Then when I wake up, it’s way too early. I guess it’s good that we have Fridays off, though. But still.

So what should you, as a reader of this blog, expect? I advise you to expect nothing, so that you’ll never be disappointed. Well, I’ll probably be posting far less often than I’ve been doing during the summer or even during the last school year. But I won’t let this school thing get to me. I’ll try, anyway.

Anyway, I had a band practice today — we have a gig next week — and everybody was supposed to come. But not everybody did. Still, we should end up being okay if we run through everything before the show. And if everybody shows up.

When in doubt, Ask Jordon!

Daniel: Where do you keep all the slogans that randomly appear at the top of your site? I would like to look at a list of them.

Sorry, I’d rather keep you guessing about how many there are. (Actually, one of the slogans tells you the answer.) Besides, I don’t have a really handy or organized list.

Todd: I have a 1994 twenty dollar bill with part of the front of the bill printed on the back…is this worth anything beyond 20 dollars?

If you have a reversed “ghost image” of the front side showing through the back, that is called an offset or wet ink transfer error. If the front of the bill was printed while the back was partially folded over it, that is called something else. Both have value to collectors. By the way, check Series year on the bill again; none are dated 1994 (unless you’re talking about Canadian money, which I know nothing about. No matter what country your bill is from, it will carry a premium, especially if it’s in good shape).

And now, a trio of Google-related links:

The purpose of Google Will Eat Itself is to buy Google using its own money. The site hosts Google AdSense ads, and when GWEI gets a check from Google, they automatically buy shares of the company. Sounds like a fun idea, but I doubt AdSense will ever earn them that much money.

How to get a good PageRank. Seems pretty tough.

Can’t find something on Google? Post it to Can’t Find on Google. Or maybe you can help people with things they can’t find.

More ‘cords

Some more records I bought a few days ago arrived in the mail today. If the store were better I’d tell you the name of it, but for now it’s Name Withheld Records, Anytown, USA. One of these things is not like the others:

• The Animals – “House of the Rising Sun” b/w “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (gray vinyl)
• The Chiffons – “One Fine Day” b/w “Sweet Talkin’ Guy”
• The Gin Blossoms – “Follow You Down” (Edit) b/w “Till I Hear It from You” (LP Version)
• The McCoys – “Hang on Sloopy” b/w “Fever”
• The Righteous Brothers – “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” b/w “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration”
• The Righteous Brothers – “Unchained Melody” b/w “You’re My Soul and Inspiration”
• The Weavers – “Goodnight Irene” b/w “On Top of Old Smoky”

(I had ordered several more, but it turns out they were not in stock, so all the ones I got were by groups with names starting with “the.”)

I sincerely wish that I would stick to, say, one genre of music. You have no idea how humiliating it is to buy these stupid songs on this stupid format. These are, for the most part, old people songs. “Goodnight Irene” originally came out on 78. Three and a half cool points to any other teenager who can identify what that is (was). I can’t listen to this garbage. I’m supposed to fit into a mold. There are plenty available: one for each sub-sub-subgenre of rock music.

The other day I heard a song on the radio. The DJ said it was by Stone Temple Pilots, “who put the guitar rock back into ’90s post-grunge.” Whaa? It confuses me so. I was once asked about my opinion on punk rock. “It’s dead, and besides, only the British could do it, right?” I was asked. Ummm, sure? What do I know? I was living a lie with that person; or, rather, he perceived me wrongly. As a guitarist and a fan(atic) of the Beatles, he assumed me to appreciate Beatles-and-after, whereas I actually live in Beatles-and-before, which is not how real guitarists come.

I’ve tried listening to some stuff, but nothing really moves me. Ska (the new kind) doesn’t exactly do it for me. Heavy metal, soft metal, light metal, rusty metal — no. I don’t even know what other styles there are. Emo — well, indie is the new emo, I’ve been told. Indie is weiRd with a capital R. Some of that stuff (Postal Service, etc.) is not music so much as sound. You’ve got your whiny white guys, non-(musically)-talented white girls, and black people — no offense, but I have no idea what they’re saying. I’m white, so I naturally can’t understand that sort of thing unless I was raised in the hood.

I guess I’d call myself a music lover without a face. I wouldn’t really feel comfortable listening to any satellite radio station. I can’t be pigeonholed into the genres of today. When people talk music to me, all I can do is say “Yep… mmm-hmmm… me too.” I can’t call myself a true musician for that reason. It also leads me to think about my band.

For years I had this dream that my band — my friends and I — would somehow hit it big, going around playing the music we loved, cutting CDs and junk like that. Only recently I dismissed the fantasy as impossible. It’s impossible to get together a band whose five members go to three different schools and like profoundly different musical styles. It just can’t be done. They can be friends, sure. But when one of their asses (mine) is too lazy to call four people and pray that they’ll all be able to come over on a given day (which has happened a number of times I can count on one hand), nothing happens. To add insult to injury, they can’t even keep a name for a year (did I mention that the other members want to change the name again? After the nine-month band name fiasco that ended last July, I want nothing to do with it. They can choose whatever name they want.)

Having a real band won’t happen. Not when we all want to graduate. My friend is taking an Advanced Placement (AP) class this year. I don’t know how he lives. I have a class that’s about as hard as one, and the bearing on my mind and the sheer amount of work has basically ruined my life. I’ll have to be in at least one AP class next year, and those classes are quite life-ruining as well (my present teachers have authority over which classes I get into next year, so they’ll all make me take AP classes), so there’s no chance of doing anything on the weekends — even if everyone could get together. (I thought school didn’t ruin your life till college.)

Musically, we’re different as night and day. And even though I’d like to write some songs, I really have no one to collaborate with. The songs I have written I’ll never be able to play — not when I’m with this band, anyhow. When I play the one song that I want them to learn, some of them just don’t listen at all and interrupt me as if I’m not playing. No, we won’t be able to play at the local haunts where all the cool people go to hear the cool bands play. You have to have a repertoire in order to do that. (In fact, we came up with this system where we do a song that each person wants to play, and thus learn five songs at a time. After, say, three years, we’re still coming up with songs for the first round. Not that there’s a shortage of ideas, but we never get anything done at practices.)

Of course, I place a lot of the blame on myself. I really wanted to be in a real band, but eventually that feeling has just gone away. I play my guitars, but in spite of everyone’s pushing, I don’t want to take lessons. That’s because I just don’t want to get better at the guitar. For the music I like, I’m good. The music I like has simple (or no) guitar solos, and never more than, say, six to eight major or minor chords. I can’t play lead guitar. I can’t play licks or riffs. I never could; that’s why I play rhythm in the band. But I can’t even play “real” rhythm, like ultra-super-fast power chords which I’m supposed to. So it all boils down to the music I like — that’s one of the main sources of the whole problem.

I want to keep the band going, though — I guess only to see my friends that I otherwise wouldn’t see. And to play the four songs that we’ve learned over the past four years. Even though just thinking about the band makes me depressed about all that we can’t do, at least I get to talk to my friends.

And now a relative slew of Ask Jordons, all of which rolled in today.

Tom: Black liquorice: disgusting, tolerable or delicious?

Either disgusting or just tolerable. I can’t remember the last time I had it.

kevin: you should make TWOS in Spanish, for the 417 millions speakers worldwide and the 30 million speakers here in the USA. that was random.

Right now it’s in English for the 350 million speakers worldwide and the… well, like, all of the people here in the USA. I have an extremely long way to go if I want to be fluent in Spanish. If you could translate everything for me, that would be great.

lollie: i have fallen out with friend and she wot make up with me what should i do?

I frequently get Ask Jordons from my friend Sean, who disguises his identity rather thinly. I don’t answer some of them because I know it’s just him by his characteristic all-lowercase typing, typical topics, and explicable aliases. Even though you, Lollie (if that really is you), have typed in all-lowercase, I don’t think you’re Sean because you made a typo. So here’s my answer.

Well, I’m answering this as a true guy, so pardon the lack of sensitivity. But if I were you (which obviously I’m not), I’d just tell her to forget about the whole thing because it was probably nothing to begin with. See where you went wrong. If she’s your friend, she’ll want to be your friend again too.

This sort of thing happens all too much with my sister. I don’t know what it is about girls that gives them makes them prone to so much drama. It ruins them. And while we guys coolly relax with our friends, they’re the ones who think we’re dumb.

DigiBless! It’s holy water for your files! Maybe my site would get more hits if I sent it through their sacred servers. No further comment.

Does this mean it’s spring?

Today I’m going to my old school’s Spring Festival (a carnival or fair of sorts). This will be a first among Spring Festivals for one main reason: it’s the first one that my band is not playing at since we really got off the ground. We played there in 2002, 2003 (pictured), and 2004. I already miss doing it. It was a really spectacular thing, being up on that trailer-turned-stage, even though there were also “real” bands there to show us up.

At first (in 2002) we were invited to play there as a selected act from the school talent show, which we pwned that year and the next. But sometimes we weren’t specifically invited and we had to ask to be squeezed in. But no matter. We weren’t really ready to play this year; we hadn’t practiced much in the months leading up to this weekend. On top of that, not everybody wanted to do it. Maybe if we got paid for our gigs, the motivation would be there and we would learn more songs. But we can’t really get paid until we’re good and can play a lot of stuf. It’s a vicious cycle, a catch-22, that must be broken. Please consider booking us for your next event.

Anyway, my friends and I are going to the Festival today for my friend Mark’s birthday (which was actually last month). It’s a surprise, so don’t tell anyone. (And I’m sure he won’t be reading this before he finds out because there’s some sort of diversion to get him out of the house, and I don’t even think he goes here anyway.) It should be a lot of fun.

And yes, I went to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood on Thursday night. What a show! It was basically like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, except the games were longer and there was more audience involvement. A game they used to play on the show was the Alphabet Game (or something like that), in which there’s a particular scenario and when the performers take turns speaking, each person’s line has to start with the next letter of the alphabet. Colin and Brad played this game for their finale… while walking and crawling on 100 mousetraps blindfolded and barefoot. You’d never see that on the show, that’s for sure.

Ask Jordon…

Tommy: What is your opinion about the Canadians?

I think, on the whole, they’re fine people. I can’t really understand why other Americans think they’re so weird, besides that they kind of are. I think they just come across that way because they’re almost exactly like Americans but not quite. But some Canadians have used this to their advanatge, viz. Colin Mochrie.

Ever heard of people getting fired for blogging? Unfortunately, it has happened. Check out The Bloggers’ Rights Blog to see what some bloggers (including the wrongfully fired) are doing about it.