So, went to work at 7 this morning. Just got home twenty minutes ago. 15 hours. And i think i'm getting a cold. and it was hell. I got stuck at the paint desk for three hours. And i didn't get to scan to bring down stock til 8:50 and just got 3/4 of the department done in a rush. And at one point i said to the manager on "that's it, i'm putting in my notice". and he was like, "yeah, sure, just bring it in writing tomorrow".

And some customer wrote a note on how good i was to customer service. Which appairantly means i win a dinner for two to some restaurant.

Dinner. for. two.
What the fuck am i gonna do with that!!!???

Fuck.

Hmm...it would seem that nothing interesting happens to me when i'm not drunk.
Good thing? Bad thing?
So yeah, two days and counting. Heading down to see the last Slitch show. You should come down too.
And say "hi".

I'll probubly be leaning against a post all sober-like.
The excitement never stops!

The Challange:
Go a month without having a drink of alcohol.

The reward:Twenty dollars worth of any alcohol of my choosing upon completion, paid for by one of my co-workers.

There's already side bets at work as to whether i can pull it off. Hell, i even have my doubts. But we'll see.
And i'm well aware that rewarding alcohol for not drinking alcohol kinda defeats any point.
Oh well.

I'm off to the attic to see Oh God and the Hold.
I know. cheap drink nite.
Feel free to bet amongst yourselves.

And happy birthday to Gerry Hubley.

I'm drunk, and i pretty much figure that i should post something now. first, claudette (sp?) is pretty cool. Second,..there really isn't a second. i'm not "hype" with what the kids are into these days. anyway, if anyone by chance reads this before, say. 7 on the morning, call 429-3678. and wake me up.
i'm so screwed for work tomorrow.
luv ya
alf

The new wilco album is out today.
I'm poor. someone buy it for me.

*bang*bang*bang*
Yes, kids, it's the firmiliar sound of alfred banging his head against his desk again.

So friday, i head to the khyber with beardo for the piggy reunion. old man however-his-name-is-spelled just finished up and ruth is about to take the stage. And, to my surprise, jill is there. We say hi and we both go sit down (beardo myseriously vanishes, thinking "something" was up) and watch the show. And she's cute and all, however for the two and a half hours that we were there i'd say we talked for maybe five minutes. And i'm not nervous, it's just...we had nothing to talk about. at all. So after the show we say bye and me and beardo head to catch the last of slowcoaster.
So i'd say that me and her are both in the friend zone and i'm quite ok with this.

This is not why i'm banging my head.

Saturday and sunday, as i said, were spent at my brother's place. We really don't get to see each other very often, even though we live relatively close to each other and could if we tried easily make time. Right now he's on strike (he works for aliant) and he's starting to feel it money-wise.Maintaining a house and raising a teenage daughter can be pretty costly. But he also knows, and i remind him, how lucky he is to have a house, and a wife and daughter who love him, and all that junk. He always says i'm the lucky one, but i'm pretty sure i could make a good arguement against that.

This is not why i'm banging my head.

Now the reason for the get-together was that my parents came down for the weekend. It was kinda special, 'cause not only was it father's day, but they'll also be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in the 21st.
Yes, that is a long time.
So it's not very often that we can all get together, and it was kinda nice. Albert (my bro) and ma do their usual argueing and i just laugh. Dad tells stories about working on boats. Sometimes i feel guilty living here. My parents call me every week and they always sound sad that we're both down here. Sometimes i think about moving back to CB, but i think we all know that there's really no future for me there. But at least we all were together for a little while.

That is not why i'm banging my head, either.

I'm banging my head very hard against my desk because...
because someone i know is being very fucking stupid.
fuck.I'm gonna go for a walk.

Heading to my brother's place in sackville for some fam-damily type stuff. Which means i won't be in town or going to any shows this weekend.
(Hey! you in the back! At least wait til i'm out of the room before breaking out the champagne and noisemakers.)

If dale's around and i'm back over here by the afternoon, maybe we can get a spincycle jam in?
Just a thought.

so, i'm gonna do some laundry. And clean up my place.
Then...umm..ahh...
Ok, there's gotta be something going on of interest tonite.
Suggestions?

Called in sick. Don't even care.
And now i ramble:About halfway through our set i just got pissed off at the world. No reason, really. Sure, i would have liked to have seen more people there (i guess that guestlist wasn't really needed after all). And we were bit sloppy but we're always sloppy and people i didn't know came up to me afterwards and said we were good. maybe i wasn't drunk enough by then. Maybe i've been drinking too much. Maybe it's because i'm up for a promotion at work that i don't really want because i figure that it means that it will be it.i'll just be mr. canadian tire hardware "supervisor". Am i wrong for being slightly, i don't know, concerned about that? And i don't even want to look at my bank account because then i'd know the insane amount of money i blew.Maybe i should, i donno, buy groceries or something.

But jon played a great set, and i played drums while sean played guitar which was so much fun. And the downstairs brutilization was right on! not to mention the traditional spincycle tiquila shots. So, all and all, a good time was had. And christian and melissa: thanks for coming to see us.

i just got stuff on my mind, that's all.
(like why the heck did dale pour beer on my crouch??)

So yeah, us and jon epworth tonite at the attic.
Bring four or five bucks to get in, but if we know you, chances are you're on the guestlist.
And there'll be cheap booze.

i really hope we don't play to noone.

I hate it when a song that's writing itself in my head keeps me up all night. Half the reason i get plastered is so i just pass out when i get home and not have my brain keep me up thinking about stuff that's useless to think about. But tonite i think i managed to drink myself sober. And if i don't get any sleep i'll be useless at the show tomorrow.
And have a good flight back to atlanta, bryce.
And happy birthday Siobhan (the look on her face...priceless!)

Ok, so dale and i will be playing some stuff on CKDU radio(97.5fm or ckdu.ca on the webcast) between 4 and 5pm on friday. Also, we're gonna be playing a "show" at the attic on sunday With the Jon Epworth band. That's right, sunday. Appairantly there will actually be a cover of around four or five bucks. Drinks are supposed to be cheap,but still. So to offset this, me and jon are thinking HUGE guestlist. So if yo feel you're guestlist worthy and are afraid we might forget ya, plop your guestlist request in that there comments thing below.

So yes, saturday continued.

So after us epworth, the special noise, and the hold played. Great sets by each, but that's to be expected anyway. Great bands play great sets.

ICE CREAM!!!!!!

After that, i make my way home to grab a shower. Then head back just in time for TMWSD. I've only seen them a couple of times, but they're always high energy and always fun. They should definitely play more. Then the burdocks. First show back from tour. I love them. Then fathom came on and the crust punks went nuts! Dale, amanda, matt and i make our way to kim's place, with ckdu jessica joining us for the walk. Lots of metal singing, lots of dress wearing, a little exploring, lots of sillyness. And kim's place is amazing!!!! It's the one on fenwick with the huge picture window. Kim's rommates spend a great deal of time complaining about men. My two cents: men are stupid.
It's true. We are.

Amanda takes a nap and dale goes with the roommates to procure beer. Beardo walks by, does a double take when he looks in the window,and joins us. And stephen shows up with filafel and it's the best EVER! But i get paranoid about missing bands and so me and beardo head to the show.

Hmm...why haven't they started yet?

The whole scheduale was pushed back and sets cut short. Cityfield were kinda cool. Folky-country-rock-kinda-stuff. Fallen Year weren't quite my thing...they just sounded like, well, alot of other bands. Yellow jacket Avenger were great, like always. And the Peter Parkers...they were just fucking beautiful.

So the burdocks are setting up to play, and one of the guys from a band called mardeen approaches me. Says that we were really good and would like to play with us sometime. It's always nice to hear that people like our stuff and we're always up for playing shows. But as the burdocks start their set, he's still there. And he's saying the same thing over,and over, and over again to me.

Him:This is really great!
Me:yeah...
him:You guys are really great too.
me:uhh, thanks.
Him:we should really do a show sometime!
me:ummm,sure.

Now i realize that he was pretty drunk, But after the 10th or 11th time i was ready to hit him in the face with my beer bottle. You just don't do this when i'm watching one of my favorite bands play. But after a...while he finally leaves and amanda takes his place.
God bless you amanda! God bless you!!!!

After that, much rocking out is done! The burdocks play a great set, complete with encore, and everything's great!Talk with seth for a bit, wander around, see if there's anything going on 'cause i don't feel like heading home just yet. But upstairs is just waaaay to crowded. On the way out some girl, with two jock guys in tow, starts talking to me about how great her boobs are. looking at the guys, i decide i better measure my words.

her: My boobs are awesome!
me:uhh...sure.
her:don't you think so?
me:umm...yes. yes i do.
Her:i took a picture of them and they're great!
me:sounds like fun!
her:yep. you're cool, i like you.
Me:that's great. you kids have a good nite.

And with that, singing songs as i make my way through the commons, i made my way home.
The end.

Jamming on friday was great! I was finally able to bring "death in the city" in, and it came off just amazing. It's one of the new songs i wrote months before the current state of creative suckatude i find myself in. Can't wait to play it live.

Oh, before jamming i was at hunter st. waiting for Dale to make his appearance. It is here that ainsley introduced me to "passions". If i had cable, i'd be watching this all the time. Whiches and ghosts and pirates...it's like a b-movie. It's brillant! But you want to hear about the chipped tooth, so i move on.

Ok, so i'm at the john st. party. And somehow someone started this "game" called chesties. Basically, you have one person on either side of the room/hallway. They run at each other at full speed and bang their chests together.
Yes, i was very drunk.

So i'm walking to the living room and get caught up in this. And i'm not entirely sure who suggested we take our shirts off, but me and dale complied. Now for something like this one person's head tilts one way and the other tilts the opposite. Well, there was some miscommunication and "klunk". My tooth and nose meets dale's rock hard chin. Now at this point my nose is bleeding. But me bleeding at parties has become such a regular occurance that i wipe the blood away and we actually continue for a while. It's afterwards when i survey the damage that i notice the crack in my front tooth. And then the chip fell out.

Bleeding nose? Check!
Chipped tooth? Check!
Alfred making a specticle of himself? Check!
time to head home.
-----------------------
Saturday i got off work at noon. Sean and I head to propeller. By quarter after one we start drinking. And what better drinking music than the burdocks. Watching them jam was fun and nancy's still one of the best guitarists in the city.

By the way, did you know that noone in spincycle or the 'docks actually wears a watch?

So we get a cab from Sean's place and to our good fortune we get a van. But the cabbie's like "i'm charging you extra 'cause you'd never get all this in a regular cab" and we're like "we do this all the time. fuck off". We then proceed to use as many curse words in our conversation in the cab as possible.

So we have a bit of a buzz on when we play. And i'd dare say it was our best sounding set in a while. I could hear my vocals so i stayed relatively on key. And it was a beautiful day and i was in such a good mood that i just had to charge into marty at the end of our set. And then i felt a sean jump on top of me. And then i grabbed dale and pulled him into the melee. And it was perfect. Thanks to the tumbleweed organizers for asking us to play.

This is getting long and i feel like renting "back to the Future" so i'll finish this up tomorrow.
To be continued...

Just making breakfast right now. I told my D&D (dungeons and dragons, remember, i'm a geek) game people that i was hung over. I'm not, although by all rights i should be. I just don't feel like being inside on such a beautiful day. So i'll probubly go st sTrange Adventures, check out some magazines and do some reading in the commons. Collect my thoughts on the weekend.

Don't worry, i'll be making a longer post later on today. Subjects will include: the virtues of drinking at 1 in the afternoon, rockin' out outdoors during said afternoon, chipped teeth, annoying drunks, and my complete and total inability to understand women.
Stay tuned!

I'm a fucking mess.

So see that post down there?
That was the 100th post!
Gonna go to a party and celebrate!