Caoine

Really Pretty Unpleasant

Chris and I both ended up sick today after some suspect chicken last night. This is the second time I've had something horrible and stomach-related this year, whereas I think before that I'd gone something like three years without throwing up. I do hope 2005 doesn't turn into Year of Puking.

I worked from home today but had to bail on my plans for tonight, which sucks. Instead I sat around in my pajamas and speculated with Chris on the lyrics to various angry German industrial songs that we both like. A possible fragment from a Das Ich song: "We like the fluffy bunnies, we like to pet them good."

As it turns out, it actually has something to do with grace bread for eternity. I like fluffy bunnies better.

More Music Stuff

I installed the Audioscrobbler plugin for iTunes a couple days ago. It's pretty interesting to see what I really listen to. The data's not terribly meaningful now, as there's only a few hours of stuff there, but I can tell that a few months or a year from now it will be a really valuable thing to have.

What I'm especially interested in is the recommendations feature. Right now, my recommendations list is made up almost entirely of artists I already like - I just haven't listened to them since I installed the plugin. But once the site's got a decent sample of what I already have, I'm looking forward to actually discovering new music that I will enjoy. What a concept!

A Crisis

I always have a hard time deciding when to give up on a train. This morning, for example, the F train I was on stopped in the Lexington Avenue station (which used to be the stop I got off at for work a few years ago, as it happens) for about fifteen minutes. The doors were open, and eventually people started leaving the train, presumably to catch cabs or to walk down to 59th and get another line.

I am invariably wracked with indecision in cases like this. Do I abandon the train, knowing that I will end up late because I have to find a cab or switch to a different line (and then wait for another train, and then walk the longer distance to my building), or do I stay on the train, knowing that I may sit there for half an hour only to have them take it out of service? We've covered my mild obsessive compulsive tendencies before, and also my very strong aversion to being late, so maybe you can understand that this kind of thing really bothers me.

This time, I chose to stay on the train, and they eventually shut the doors and everything else went smoothly. I still arrived at work at about ten to nine, but it's a measure of how crazy I really am that I was pissed off about it - usually I'm there by 8:40.

Listening

I've been messing around with my smart playlists a lot lately - setting everything up so that there is always something to listen to that I'm in the mood to listen to and that I haven't heard in a while. Carrying 40 gigs of music around is great, but not if I end up listening to the same handful of albums all the time.

Luring Disco Dollies

The weather was perfect today - high of 56, breezy and not too sunny. It felt like October, even. It seems like it's staying pleasantly cool later than usual this year - knock on wood. It would be awfully nice to have a less-hellish summer, but I don't want to tempt fate. I'm sure the heat and humidity are ready to hit us any day now.

In other news, I'm listening to Soft Cell.

Craptacular

I had a really hard time getting up this morning. I kept hitting the snooze button, and then when I finally turned off the alarm, I couldn't make myself get out of bed at first, and had to sit there blinking for a good five minutes. I'm still feeling really sleepy (at 1:16pm). Sleep would be ideal, but coffee will have to do, at least until I get home.

I'm still a bit sore and achey today as well, as I slipped in the shower on Wednesday night and banged myself up a bit. I have a nice lump on the back of my head from where it smacked into the tile, and pretty spectacular bruises on my arm, shoulder, and leg. I look sort of like Chris has been beating me or something. I best get back in the kitchen and make him some pie, I suppose.

It's been one of those weeks. The weather's gorgeous (today and yesterday, not earlier when it was hot), but I'm not even really enjoying it. I just want to be home, sleeping.

I Can't Help The Way I Feel

For some reason about half a dozen of my friends have started new characters in Warcraft this week - either because they just bought the game or because they wanted to try new race/class/profession/ruleset combinations. So tonight I finally caved and started a druid alt - I wonder if I'll actually have time to level her up. I doubt it, but it was fun doing the low-level quests again.

The weather was perfect today. Chilly but not rainy with just the right amount of wind. I could almost pretend that it was fall and not the end of spring except for all the people who insisted on wearing flip flops because it was 86° yesterday.

You Must Suffer and Cry For Slightly Longer

I don't know whether I'm listening to the Smiths becuase I'm in a melancholy mood, or whether I'm in a melancholy mood because I'm listening to the Smiths. Either way, really. I suspect that the weather has something to do with it - it's supposed to be 85° tomorrow, so I might as well just jump off the Queensboro Bridge right now. The thought of suffering through another New York summer is making me more than a little crazy.

Peter Murphy's playing the same night as the second Nine Inch Nails show (Monday, 16 May). If I don't end up seeing NIN, I think I'll have to catch that. The show I went to at Irving Plaza a couple years ago was definitely worth seeing.

I'm pretty much tired of looking at the new design I've been working on for the past month or so - that probably means that one of these weekends I'll get around to putting it up, so that I can be even more tired of looking at it.

Yeah yeah

Ah, spring: when everyone in Manhattan decides to stop using deodorant and start wearing really unfortunate skimpy clothing in pink and lime green. What the fuck is wrong with you people? Wake me in October.

Withah Teethah

So, yeah, the new album leaked yesterday morning, and the quality was much higher than the crappy version that was available before, so I downloaded it. I feel zero guilt about this, as I've already shelled out fifteen bucks for the regular CD (preordered at the listening party so I could get my limited edition 7") and plenty more bucks for the dualdisc/10"/tshirt preorder bundle at nin.com. Let's not even talk about what I'll be spending to get both versions of the single. Essentially, Interscope is still getting piles of my cash, and I am getting to hear the new album right now. Everyone wins.

As for the album itself, I've listened to it twice so far and I stand by my first impression from the listening party. It's good. Parts of it are excellent, but none of it is bad.