I had the wonderful pleasure of seeing the Flaming Lips perform live a few Saturday's ago. It was an outdoor show. It was a beautiful day/evening. It was free. Holy cow was that the best five bucks for parking I've ever paid.
But that said. I got the news about Ol' Green. Alternator shot. Drive something something computer fried due to alternator shorting out. Total repair price, too much to justify fixing just to raise the price for sale.
My best option is to ask for enough to get a new set of tires for the new truck (which has yet to be named.)
So after burning out the transmission on the old Hyundai and selling that for $400, I didn't learn my lesson to get rid of the vehicle before it becomes worthless. I think it's going to sink in this time. Had the repairs not cost much, I could have tried to sell Ol' Green for enough to knock a year off my new auto loan. As is stands now, I'm just going to have to be content to continue to be the slave of my unhealty participation in american consumer culture. (Squeeze some more of my soul out while I still got some.)
Bugger.
In other news, the band, or what's left of the band, is still around. Doing stuff. What stuff? I don't know. It's been a busy month and a half. Fuck. It's been a busy as hell year so far. We have to keep postponing tracking the rest of the drums for one reason or another. I'm still waiting to get rough mixes of all the tracks to give a through listen to them and decide which ones need to be done just one more time. It really doesn't matter. At this rate, we'll be retracking these same damn songs again in a few months. Right? If history has anything to say about it. I've already laid down demos of these songs. We recorded them last spring. We're doing it again right now. It never ends. The worst part is that it gets in the way of working on new material. Better material. Songs that will blow your brain out the back of your head. (Subject to personal taste, of course.)
I've had some good ideas lately. Better turns on the same theme. Variations in song construction. Different approaches to this thing called music.
Travis said it best on Sunday when we were talking about the Donald Driver Show* on our way over to Dan and Amanda's to watch the Packer game. "Television is so boring because it's always trying to mimic reality. They can do anything they want, absolutely anything, and yet you end up watching fucking King of Queens or Two and a Half Men. That's five men." (That's not a direct quote but he said something similar to that.)
But he's right. We have these prescribed forumlae sitting within arms reach. The creative stuff, the truly creative stuff is sitting in boxes on shelves. Sure you can get at them, but you'd have to get off your ass to do it. And no one wants to work that hard, right? So I guess I'm going to end up writing some more Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, Verse, Chorus x 2, Outro songs and call it a day.
* the Donald Driver Show is a real show. It's a boring talk show where people sit in some studio and talk with Donald Driver and his guests about the Green Bay Packers, the NFL, and not much else. Last season, Travis and I decided that the Donald Driver Show (which I've never watched, unfortunatly) would be better if it was a sit-com staring Donald Driver. His next door neighbor would be played Brett Farve. They wouldn't be foorball players. The highlight of the show each week would be some spectacular diving catch that Donald Driver makes. The Thanksgiving episode would feature him diving for the turkey as it for some wacky reason gets knocked off the table. There would be one where he catches a baby, an expensive vase, etc. And then there would be the Brett Farve joke where anything he tossed (be it keys, a basketball, a kid) would end up in Minnesota. What we were discussing on Sunday would be the off episode where for some reason Donald Driver would travel through time and end up as a football player (a la Quantum Leap) having to win a game. It's still in the developmental stages. Obviously.
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3 comments:
I saw that episode. Didn't they get some Argentenian guy to play the new place kicker. He had his own catch phrase. "Kick football. Win five hundred dollar!" Sadly the parent company got cocky after selling the years best selling lunch box and over produced too many cartridges of "Donald Driver: The Video Game". I heard they made more carts then there were consoles to play them on. They took a bath on them. Urban legend has it that there's a landfill in the desert outside of Tempe, AZ full of stripped WWII B29 aircraft, lost UFO technology and DD:TVG cartridges.
Bummer about the truck. I'm glad I didn't get too attached to my Big Red Taco. I too barely escaped an embarassing scene at the dealership when my truck made new noises on the last trip down Rt 128. ( 128 south is a miserable stretch of road that I will forever associate with the trip back to grad school knowing it will be 2 weeks before I see my wife again.)
My heart skipped a beat when I made one last check about the truck and found a set of jumper cables like I needed them to keep the truck running.
I do love my new car. Fortunately we had some do rey mi on a down payment and did get more then fair for our trade.
7 year note? Something is F'ed UP when the warrentee runs out before the payments. You deserve better. Not to pry but how long is your gap insurance? I had enough down that I don't have to buy it but if some kid t-bones me I lose my down payment.
What did you buy anyway?
It's a four year note. Nothing too overburdensome but still a pain in my pocketbook.
My "gap" insurance didn't cover me due to some legal issues with my Montana insurance and the roommates household Wisconsin insurance. My agent told me I had two weeks but my new agent (here in Wisconsin) told me that that wasn't the case. In the end, not three hours after I got the plates and the title and my Wisco drivers license (same number as before), and roughly four hours after I handed over the cash, I had full coverage with WI Ins. and it's a whole hell of a lot cheaper than fucking Montana Ins.
My new Ford Ranger is a 2000. I'm paying about half of what I was paying for my 1993 Dodge Dakota in premium. Total bullshit!!! But it's my own damn fault for keeping my Montana tags for as long as I did. I would have probably paid less that I'm paying now.
I think I misunderstood your '7 year upgrade' comment in the post below. I misread it as a 7 year commitment to pay off. Which is sadly not uncommon around these parts.
Damn, you beat me. I have 5 years in which to give 10% of my take home pay to a bank located somewhere in western Mass.
10% is what we're supposed to tithe at church, right? It makes sense as I worship my car.
We could have gone 4 years, the payments would have been $60 more but we were afraid of summertime. I don't get paid and we can't predict when Lisa will sell a house.
Gap insurance is probably a non issue for you. It's really only meant to cover a brand new car for the first two years. Book value as a used car is 20% lower then what I paid less then 7 days ago.
I looked into changing insurance when I went to Penn State. Mass has a bad reputation for expensive insurance but it's mostly from the insurance companies badmouthing the state set rates. In actuality I got cheaper insurance for the coverage I wanted by staying with the Mass registration. Minimum collision was cheaper but comprehensive was outrageous and to get $300,000 P.I. and Property blew it through the roof.
In Mass we start with expensive manditory basic insurance and then it's not that much more to add comprehensive. Some folks think I'm over insured. 300K is 10x the minimum. I know myself pretty well. I haven't totaled a car lately but the last time I did that girl got hurt bad. Not bragging but I was found at fault on a technicality. She was driving on the wrong side of the road speeding. It didn't cost me a dime more then going up 2 steps (steps are like points in other states.)
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