B.O.A. Constrictor

I received this e-mail from one of my slavemasters today.

******

Extend your 6.99% Promotional APR until October 2007*

It's time for a balance transfer.

Dear Z,
RE: Your account number ending in XXXX

Need extra cash this winter? Enjoy the warmth of a balance transfer. With a click, you can transfer balances, and use your promotional 6.99% APR through your statement closing date in April 2007. If a transfer is completed by your statement closing date in April 2007, then the promotional APR will be extended until October 2007. With just one monthly payment it's the perfect opportunity to:

Create extra cash flow when you transfer balances from higher-rate credit cards.
-Arrange for your dream vacation.
-Simplify your life by paying monthly bills with your credit card.
-Handle your finances conveniently on one statement.

Why not? Just click to open up a world of new possibilities for yourself. Go to exoticrapefantasies.com to transfer balances.

******
Here's my reply. (I did send this to customer support.)

******

Dear Bank of America

I really appreciate it when you encourage me to continue my apprenticeship in your indentured servant program, but I feel that I'm really not the person you're looking for. This position you have offered me has kept me in one place for far too long and there are other things I really have to do.

You see, I'm not a consumer anymore. I'm a creator, and a creator doesn't need things like televisions, extravagant dinners, leather sofas, or ipods that cost too much and take far too much of my energy. This energy is better spent creating and I have all the tools I will ever need to create.

So, continue raping the souls of the masses. I see no harm, if fucking people with no Vaseline till they bleed a horrible, soulless death is in fact, the moral thing to do... as long as your vacations are paid for, your ugly, waste-of-space houses stand over your heads, and your pampered children grow up with overpriced gadgets made from petrochemicals paid for in blood. Where's the foul?

Sincerely,

Z


******

I doubt I'll get a response.

(AG, you know what I'm talking about.)

Blah blah blah

I spent the entire day thinking about balloons filled with hydrogen at a birthday party at some elementary school.

Couldn't stop laughing about that. I know, it's sick, but still it's funny.

That got me thinking about consumption. Cycles of consumption. Then I got depressed, until I started thinking about the balloons filled with hydrogen and started laughing again.

Daily make due

Today, like most days, I pondered what I'm doing. And what is it I do? Make love to the machines.

I swear, when the world from the Matrix becomes reality, I'll be the one working for the machines, outside the matrix.

The dead speak... and they say, "I'm not dead yet."

I have been incredibly busy! Sorry to my friends who check in here. Life is demanding all of my attention. I’m lucky if I can find time to respond to the few e-mails I get everyday.

Things will slow down again. I don’t know when but within a months time, hopefully.

Work is merry work, and it’s exploding on all fronts. Too many 8am to 8pm days these last two weeks. Have you seen those Hupy and Abraham commercials? We do work for them. They keep us as busy as Ab-ra-ca-blab-ra.

The band is in full force recording mode, which means I’m in full force recording mode. Twelve songs. Bass and Drum tracks are in the can. Guitar and misc. ambient, etc. tracks are up to bat and I’ve been spending my time rifling through the last years worth of demo recording archives of these songs trying to remember the good layering ideas I came up with.

I’ve also had to do “tone mapping” and I’m not quite done with that. (My deadline is Saturday morning. I use an effects processor live and each song has its own distinct preamp simulator sound that I use. Different gain levels, different delay decay times, choruses and reverbs, compression, vibrato, tremolo… the list goes on. Anyway, for some merry reason, I thought it would be a good idea to use a borrowed amp for a purer tone and now I have to craft the shifting sounds of my guitar through an array of tones in a piece of equipment I am unfamiliar with. (Kinda like puberty, or an internment camp.)

Twelve color-coded spread sheets, with copious notes attached to each, are on my list of things to finish either tonight or Friday, seeing as how Wednesday and Thursday are already planned till the later hours. Beh… I’ll get it done. I always do.

It makes me think with all of this labouring that I could have a better-paying job.

Speaking of jobs!

Joe had a “Reference” phone interview last week. I think the last job I applied for with him as a reference was mid December. A Cheerie two months ago!!! I need to research this. I seem to recall it was a job I was VERY interested in. (Re-apply?)

I gotta get some sleep. Affidavits do draft in the morning. They’re piling up on me faster than I can say, “What the Gas?”

I’ll do my best to stay up on things here, but no promises. Maybe even some more pictures!!! I got software to move pictures off my olde tyme digital camera but haven't had the time to set it up. Pooh!

Cloud Cultist Reporting

I got my copy of Cloud Cult's new album. Amazing piece of work it is, indeed.

Listen to Take Your Medicine on their site. You have to click on the listen to song link. I'm not going to upload my copy. You should just buy the damn thing if you like what you hear.

The song Your 8th Birthday is beautiful. I can't explain it but if you know the story of the songwriter, it'll move you.

Beantown?

I was at the gym tonight and I saw Keith Olbermann talking about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force that the kids seem to be into these days.

It's sad that we live in a day and age where marketing agencies are co-opting DIY tactics. It seems to me that it was a terrorist ploy, but since there was no "real" threat to anyone, no one cares.

Let 'em take your dreams, ideas, your creativity, and stuff it into their conduits. Go listen to your Cleanchannel Censorship. Watch your filtered cable.

May as well... the underground died with... nevermind.

Down and out.

I've been swamped with work. A 'ghost' from the past is pleasantly haunting the windows. "The funds" situation is keeping me blue. New line of work seems to be the only answer. I've been saying that since July. Talked to a person about a part-time job lead at a law firm. I doubt I'll hear back about that. Had a job offer at a fucking call center. Hell no! I don't talk on the phone for eight hours a day. I also learned that Boyne Resorts apparently bought all of the chain lodgings in Big Sky and turned them into satellite places to hole up more guests. No more, "Comfort Inn at Big Sky, this is Zach."

I did finally pick up Fullmetal Alchemist volume 9 this weekend. I have 1 - 8 and I received 10 and 11 for that holiday where you get gifts and it isn't even your birthday. I almost want to say that Fullmetal is getting to the point that all manga get to after the initial story takes off. Soap Opera City. It's a nice town to visit but around volume 17, I know I'm going to get bored. Same thing happened in Boys Over Flowers. Don't get me wrong, I love reading Boys Over Flowers, but I've fallen off on that whole story. Not enough time and not enough interest. (that and reading about Tsukushi and Tsukasa was like Jim and Pam on the office, american version, but with all out fighting.)

Okay? I'm not... for now.

Instead of posting more of nothing, I'll just put my reply to adorable girlfriend's comment on the last post (the one about my tattoo pictures) here to fill up space.

Well then, your expectations, AG, are far higher than I could ever aspire to reach.

These symbols are not for the "alterna-freak"-1995-fetish-fest I attend every third saturday down at the swap meet behind the Holiday Inn next to the Circle K.

The calves are a personal map. Much like the twin phoenix on my arms are reminders, the bars on my neck are a definition, and the Circle on my back is me.

Tattoos are not pictures in magazines in my world. To stroll into a shop and get something off of a flash sheet, "just because," is not in my vocabulary. Neither is quasi-nasi-neo-plasm.

And if you wanted to discuss this blogs new look, you didn't really specify the new look. The only thing that's changed is the bio pic. Did you want to discuss that? Does the fact that you can see the whites of my eyes disturb you? I know it kinda disturbs me.

And I think Dean should encourage me not only to waste time in my class... that I teach... at the rec center... with the raccoons... and the cheese curds, but also make more suggestions like the one about "squirrel fishing."

6 months later...

Okay, here's the pictures of the new tattoos. One of 'em needs to be fixed. The other is waiting on some color work once I have some money to waste. Kid Rock and the fourth of July.

Good times...

Grilled By the Sun

Paid my taxes last night. The beauty of the situation is this. I decided that I would put a new transfer case in my truck, again, in November, because the one that they put in for me in Mitchell, SD wasn't as good as they wanted me to believe. It was a tough decision to not sell it and sink more money into it but DAMN do I love that truck.

So I have an open balance that I still owe on it because it cost quite a bit of scratch. I've been dumping 400 quarters every so often on it and it's been slowly dimishing but I was counting on taking my "Sizeable" tax return and getting rid of the extra debt cloud hanging over me. Ha, HA! (emphasis on the second "ha")

Gets tricky here. Working two part-time jobs affords its benefits in many ways. I have flexible scheduling. I have time during the day to go and sit at a coffee shop in the middle of the day if I feel like working is for suckers and I want to read a book on Canadian westward expansion or the philosphical problems of Time and Space. (Which doesn't include my lunch break, also whenever I want it to be.) I also have next to no real responsibilty which means my pay isn't as much as it could, or should, be.

One thing that is a problem is knowing how much $$$ to withhold to get a good return, which this year I learned is about $40.00 a month more than I had anticipated. Needless to say, (is needless to say,) because I work less and make less at one job, per pay period, my employer keeps less of my money from me because it looks like I'm not going to break a certain tax bracket. Fortunately, the other job pays enough to bump me into the bracket I'm really in and each paycheck withholds more.

So I was expecting roughly a cool grand or so and ended up paying $18.00. Not bad, but I didn't want to spend the next few months re-paying off my truck. And!!! the truck is at the shop again getting E-brake cables replaced, oil change, tire rotation, and a new seal on the transfer case that these guys put in in November. (They're putting the new seal in no charge.) They're not bad guys and the family has been taking the cars to this same place for over 20 years now.

All in all, the bill went up, not down. I walked from downtown to Monona and stopped at the thrift store on the way. I bought two classy dress shirts and a nice pair of slacks that worked well with the shirts. I also scheduled my meeting/interview with the temp agency today. Time to grow up, again. But this time, I think I'm more than ready. I've tailored my lifestyle and routine to fit into the mold. I drink on Friday or Saturday. I don't stay up till three a.m. writing new material or recording second and third guitar tracks in search of the right part for that passage of the song. I go to the gym, I go to bed. I get up and do it all over again. Wishing for the day that I won't feel like I'm going to puke on the drive in.

Magic.

Puncuation question

Is the puncuation in this next sentence correct?

Are you saying, "Hell no! Tokyo here we come,"?

Or, is this correct?

Are you saying, "Hell no! Tokyo here we come?"

It seems cold outside today

Walking to work this morning (for the five minutes I was outside) was a challenge. I was carrying my cup o' coffee and a cigarette with no gloves on. I don't wear gloves, for the most part, due to the fact that I'm usually not outside for any extended period of time. It also interferes with my ability to smoke on my walk. (I have oversized gloves used for snowboarding.)

In short, I had a difficult time using my hands for the first twenty minutes I was at work.

But... the point of the post is this.

Greenland is melting!

I'm not happy to read this. 10K of ice seems like a lot to me. I will admit that I don't know how much is "a lot", but this is alarming.

And the 17% of US citizens that support the war want to be able to get their fossil fuels for cheap, guaranteed. Things have changed since the election last November. We'll see if things continue to change in the coming months. Maybe get warmer too. (We--Meaning the people who dislike winter, cold, and snow (myself not included)--can only hope.)

MLK

It would be a perfect day to be listening to "The Unforgettable Fire" but instead I'm jamming on Michelle Shocked's "Dub Natural."

I sat through the President's interview on 60 Minutes last night and found myself asking questions to the television and T-Rex (since he was there.) I don't understand how our Executive branch administration defines success in Iraq. I really don't get what he was saying. He kept being asked about his decision to send more troops and why and all he could say was that he wanted success. He didn't define success. He didn't explain why more troops would take us closer to "success."

I feel like he's either not a very good businessman or a very good businessman. Businessmen don't give up their secrets. Businessmen also know what their plan of action is. They don't show up to work and say, "What the hell am I going to do today?" They have plans laid out for their goals of where they want to be in the future. They're more likely to say, "What needs to get done so that our six month goal is met?"

Is he unable to tell the citizens of this country what his goals are? Does he have a plan for his "Success?" Or are we just doing this by the seat of our pants?

do nothing and remain

You would think with all the free time I've had today I would have something good to post about. Nope. Nothing.

Not going to play a drinking game with the state of the union going on tonight. Probably not going to watch it. (What kind of citizen am I? I just get tired of buzz-speak. Tired of people blowing like the wind cross the empty mind.)

I did read this today. Kinda made me laugh, on the inside. There's a line that compares salaries of Teachers to Janitors. So wonderfully amazing and true is our appreciation of both professions. The real reason why I can't afford a house has less to do with anything on that list. But at least I'm just one of the herd. I also overheard a conversation on a radio program yesterday with a comment about when Henry Ford raised the wages for his workers. His critics said that he was crazy to pay them more but he countered with the reply, "How can they buy my cars if they don't have any money?" This was from a phone interview. Here's essentially the topic that was discussed.

This just makes me sad.

"In other words, my conservative friends understand that mistreating your workers and ignoring the environment give you a competitive advantage. They just don't want us to do anything about it."

I keep feeling like I'm a stupid version of the guy that Russell Crowe played in A Beautiful Mind. I keep seeing things working in a big web of interconnected demise. Much like a worldview of perpetual decline.

"And it is true that the increase in inequality recently has not been somebody's conscious decision to do it. It's been a result of natural forces, including globalization, information technology. "

"-- people say to me, "Well, look -- look at what Wal-Mart does. I mean, look what it does for the consumer.
Well, if you can't afford health care for your kid, a cheap T- shirt is not much of a consolation. "

That takes the cake. And eats it too. That cheap T-shirt, Mr. Frank, could at some point be used as a tourniquet. (I saw these guys once in '97. Man that was a funny show.)

This is not a guitar.

I am at home today. Didn't have time to post at work. I did have time to catch up on RodAnon and then I got distracted by the Greek Mythology link he had. I couldn't figure the explanation of where the second divinity came from and what happened to the first or what have you... i.e. Kromdor 2 was worshiped by children in order to win the favor of the candycane hole fairies.

What?

So I'm pretty much just pulling this one out of thin air with Antiques Roadshow boring me to death. Mmmm... Maker's Mark... Oh wait, not the fine malt beverage to be enjoyed but an actual mark of a maker put on an object that could be cashed in.

I think I should expand on the last post, point 1. I went to a fund raiser on Saturday night for a guy I went to high school with. He has bone marrow cancer and he is going to have a hell of a time scraping together funds to pay for the operations. Some of the people who showed up were people from high school who I didn't have much to do with during our time together in forced institutional learning facility bondage but I have this ideal in my head that just because we didn't have much to do with each other then, maybe we might share something now. I'm open to what life has to offer. That said, I later found out that they were only there because several of them had donated items to be auctioned off and it was more about promoting their respective businesses over and above their concern for raising money for the man the event was for. That made me kinda mad.

I also talked to some people about Andy, my friend who passed away last year. He was good friends with the guy who has cancer. I was expecting more of Andy's (my) friends to show up but they didn't. I guess they had better things to do.

3. I don't really remember what that was about. I kinda just went off. I did have some fun learning what Krumpin' is. And then proceeding to "Krump" my two friends, Charity, and Alison who couldn't Krump me back. Sure I looked like a freak, but when do I not.

I also learned this great story to drop on people who don't know me or haven't seen me for a few weeks. It goes a little like this,

Me: Man, I've been so tired and sick these last few weeks.
Person I'm Telling the Story To: Oh really, what's wrong?
Me: I was feeling awful a few weeks ago, not eating and what I could eat was shooting right through me.
Person I'm Telling the Story To: That's disgusting.
Me: Yeah but then I ended up in the hospital because I was starting to get dehydrated and it turned out that I had an Inflamed Colon.
Person I'm Telling the Story To: Should you be drinking with that?
Me: My doctor says I shouldn't, but I do anyway.

Um. You Suck!

Alright. Now that I've tackled the problem of putting a title on this post, I'll proceed to the topics that have been bouncing around in my head for the last thirty minutes.

1. Life is about awareness. If you don't know this, you need to learn it. Once you learn it, you'll understand what I say when I mean, "Life is for living."

2. I apologize to the daily reads (DASC, AG, DB (your package has been mailed)), I've been busy with things, i.e. life, and I'll get to it when I get to it.

3. The Band has a manager. Do we need one, you ask? Sure as shit we need one (who wants to work with us as a partner rather than someone who wants us to pay her lots of money.) I don't have the fucking time to do all of that shit. I don't have the time to work on new material right now. 2007 is the year. I've got a life to live. And Fuck You for watching me dance my ass off tonight and thinking in your small, pathetic, afraid of a spiritual experience affiliated with music and movement mind that I'm the one who's crazy, weird, bizzare, something you'll never want to be. (This is aimed at people who don't read this blog (most likely) because I'm sure that most of my casual readers were at Barnes & Noble tonight and the HARDCORE readers were all watching B Movies with either Martha Quinn or Nic Harcourt depending on which side of the nation you live on (Flyover states excluded. If you live there, you were at the local Y and/or BPOE playing bingo and winning because those damn seniors are too slow.)

Tangent over!

Life is for living. (or sleeping it off)

There seems to be a flow in the atmosphere that's making me a bit angry.

I've been noticing things like the fact that the lakes in Madison have yet to freeze over.

I've been noticing that there's no snow.

I've been noticing that plants that should be brown and dormant are not.

I've been noticing that the rust spots on my truck aren't getting exponentially bigger this "winter" due to the lack of salt all over the roads.

I saw some kite surfers out yesterday. They were getting ready to climb into lake Monona. It was 47 F out. They had wetsuits.

Last year Kites On Ice was canceled due to funding, I think it might have been brought back by people who just decided to do it without all the money, but this year, if it's even planned, it'll be kites on water, with people in fucking pontoon boats.

“We created Polar Jam as a replacement for Kites on Ice,” says Keith Peterson, Madison Festival’s event manager. “Kites was a very popular event, but in recent years the weather situation in Wisconsin became too iffy. It was anybody’s guess whether or not there was even going to be any ice for the kiters to fly on.”

There's a big X-country ski race that's going to happen in the next few weeks on the capitol square. Last year, they had to truck in an ungodly amount of artifical snow. This year, it'll be the same story. Thank god the trucks they are using to haul all of that fake snow run on eco-friendly fuels like hydrogen or water.

Fuck Global Climate Change!

Nay, End of the year, Naught

This is it.

I had a post that I was going to work on before the end of the year and I've got a draft saved but it'll have to wait till the weekend, next weekend.

Till then, get drunk and vomit and forget the fact that you're only celebrating an arbitrary mile-stone. I'll be rocking out on stage. Clearing the room with my feedback and noise!

Back at work... yech.

So I have to work today. First day of the raise. Not a bad raise either... it's aparent that the other job would give me a raise if there wasn't as many employees working there. Since I'm toeing the line at both jobs and not taking time off, we're understaffed there and they don't have their usual cronies to do all of the work. Inevitably, the work falls onto my shoulders. (Not just the heavy lifting but also the bulk of the copying, CD/DVD reproduction, and the usual office janitor crap I do as well. I can do pretty much everything at that job but I don't have to nor do they want me to.) It's just a bad situation. They would appreciate me more if I had more responsibility given to me, and I can only steal so much from the other employees before it would turn into a cat fight. (I work with catty people at that job.)

It's just more encouragement for me to keep my nose in the want ads. I'm not desperate for a new job, but I'm not happy with the lack of opportunity in my current roles.

I also stumbled onto this today in my online readings. Funny, I always thought the point of the game Monopoly was to drive everyone else into bankruptcy.

Just one more thing to make me angry. Intellectual property is an absolute HS scheme. It's a scheme that's in desperate need of change, "updation" (update-tion), & improvement. I get how a person, an individual, can own the rights or patent for an idea they came up with but I don't understand how a corporation can own a patent. Most copyrights last for a certain time period after the death of the owner to protect the estate, but I don't know when a corporation dies? Dissolution? I can't get a solid answer out of my boss but I haven't pressed him in a while. Maybe I'll do that again, soon.

Peace on earth. War in the heavens. Isn't it Boxing Day?

Petty upselling.

I told AG she should read my myspace blog for some kicks.
I also posted a poem there last night/this morning. (Don't you just love poems posted on blogs Dean?)

It's been a banner week for online activity for me. I think I'll take some time tonight to think it over.

Going to go watch the Gusto tonight with some friends. If you like punk rock, you might like them. I'm not a big punk rock fan myself but I think Pat is a stellar guitar player.

(check it, they have a show TBA on their site in Boston on Jan. 10th.)