this is only a ceremonial title

a couple of weeks ago i failed to note the 12 year anniversary of failure.net. yea, failure.
here’s the rest of the stuff i mentioned last time that i ordered from amazon and ebay:

• the knife – silent shout 2-lp vinyl (rabid / brille / mute)
• madness – one step beyond… (salvo / union square)
• madness – absolutely (salvo / union square)
• madness – 7 (salvo / union square)
• miss kittin – batbox (nobody’s bizzness)
• trentemoller – the last resort (high note / poker flat)
• various – the box collection no. 1 (international deejay gigolos)

the knife album is a still-sealed 2-lp vinyl version. the 3 madness cds are 2-cd re-releases. they have remastered versions of the original albums, plus some videos, plus b-sides and live recordings and such. these are their first three albums. (evidently they are going to do this will all 7 of their old albums.) and for the record, somehow i never knew (or i forgot) the self-titled madness album i played and loved all those many years was actually a compilation album. even though i had a cassette copy of one step beyond…. the miss kittin album is a fairly recent release of hers. the trentemoller cd is an asian version which has an extra bonus cd of remixes. it’s an interesting jewel case design too…i’m not sure if it’s common in other countries or it’s just uncommon in general. and finally is the gigolos box, which includes the first four dj gigolos compilations (plus a bonus disc, unless comp 4 was always 2 cds…they pitch it as a bonus disc).
last friday night (21st) i got off work and though “man, i feel like going out and doing something.” unfortunately, i have no single friends that i hang out and do stuff with, so i had no one to call or meet up with somewhere — so i just drove around awhile, then came home and watched a movie by myself. i ended up watching machine girl (2008), which is one of those hyper-violent / extreme asian films. in other words, tons of gratuitous and completely over-the-top blood and gore and such. it was kind of stupid.
saturday (22nd) i went and watched the film exit through the gift shop at river oaks. it’s a documentary (of sorts) about the street art scene. it’s supposedly done by banksy, although his identity is sort of secret. the story is that this french guy obsessively films everything and lucks into hanging out with and filming all of these street art guys, then says he’s making a documentary, then befriends banksy. he has tons of film but no skills with editing, so banksy says he’ll take over and tells the guy to go do street art. he does and becomes mr. brainwash. the movie never really lets you know what’s real and what’s not, but it’s obviously edited to poke fun at art culture. my personal opinion is that the entire movie is pretty much an elaborate setup, and mr. brainwash (who in real life had a giant opening in l.a., sells art, does interviews, etc.) is a giant joke on the “elite” art community. the movie doesn’t state that bluntly, and no one has admitted the joke, but come on…”mr. brainwash”? and his techniques are basically ripoffs of other street artists? and in the film some of his comments about himself once he becomes “mbw” seem to totally come off as belittling what he does (without his realizing what he is implying about himself)? the movie starts off believably, but once you get to the part where banksy takes over it gets somewhat asinine. i have a hard time believing banksy isn’t “taking the piss.” however, it’s still cool to see all of the footage of these famous street artists at work, getting arrested, etc. which is what i think the actual point of the film was. i’m betting banksy, sort of like andy kaufman, is in it for the personal lulz and doesn’t care if almost no one else is let in on it. but then i really liked kaufman’s mindset.
sunday morning (23rd) i got up early. even earlier than i do for work. why? because myself and a couple of co-workers had made plans to go down to galveston for the day. first we went on an airboat tour of part of the bay. the water was murky and i didn’t see much of anything in the water at all (i finally saw one small stingray, murkily, for a couple of seconds), but now no one can say i’ve never been on an airboat. from there we headed over to the strand and walked away for awhile, eventually eating at fisherman’s wharf. i don’t like seafood so i had the burger. it wasn’t that good. then we walked on the strand some more, ending up at a “bar”. it was like a biker bar, sort of, but i don’t think they have a liquor license because all i saw for sell was beer and machine-mixed mixed drinks. so they are probably wine-based. we were there for a bit, then we headed back to houston. it doesn’t sound too exciting i suppose, but it was nice to hang out with the guys outside of work and do something different.
man, i’m about tired of things. i ordered several books on russian from amazon, which arrived recently. i’ll list them later. i’m not sure why i want to try and learn one of the more difficult languages to learn, since i’ve never learned any others and have no reason to believe i can do it.
the last few days i’ve been trying to play with my korg electribe sampler, seeing if i can manage to do something besides come up with cool 1-bar or 4-bar loops. (which i’ve done.) i’ve never really tried to write out a full song before.
i finished paying off the “one year no interest loan” (credit card with 0% interest for a year) i used to help get the engine put in my bel air. i still owe myself a bit for the trip to taiwan, but i should have that paid off within the month. then i can start saving some money to do some more work to the bel air.
i’m still sticking to my “no tea, coffee, or soda” and “no fries or chips” stance. i don’t really know that it’s doing much of anything, but i’d assume it’s got to be cutting 200 to 700 calories a day from my normal eating patterns. but if i want to see results of any value, i’m sure i need to exercise too. i hate exercising. i hate it with a passion. end results do not motivate me to do it. nothing motivates me to do it. it may be a contributing factor to my life sucking, but at least i’m not having to exercise. 😉
i’ll catch up things from the last few days in another post. i want to go ahead and put this one out instead of sitting on it even longer. (i originally wrote it about a week ago.)