have you seen this !?!?!

i don't know if it's at the top of my list of 'coolest pieces of news i've ever heard,' but it's certainly in the team photo, as they say.

let me briefly explain how i've become at least mildly obsessed with the beach boys:

it began in the summer of 1999, when guided by voices (it always goes back to guided by voices) was on the cover of magnet magazine. i bought the magazine at reckless records in evanston, and did much reading.

among the articles was a brian wilson feature, in which they discussed pet sounds and brian brought out the standard 'it was very spiritual. we prayed together before vocal takes' and 'these were our symphonies to god' and all those other lines he mentions in interviews. smile, as it always is, was brushed over.

i bought pet sounds for a friend the following may, 2000. i cracked the copy open before i gave it away, listened to it once, and didn't get it. that summer, 2000, as i was preparing for wnur, i went to the glenview public library in search of a recording of 'rhapsody in blue.' (god bless united airlines.) i was there, i saw the pet sounds box set, and i checked it out.

i was blown away. fascinated. sold.

so i bought pet sounds, and it arrived in evanston place late august.

as rico and gurs can attest, i spent about 2 months waking up to that record. they've never forgiven "wouldn't it be nice?"

that december saw me receive the sunflower/surf's up double disc for christmas, and also saw me purchase the 15 big ones/the beach boys love you double cd. couldn't get enough of any of the 'good' three (big ones is essentially unlistenable), and even placed sunflower atop my beach boys list.

finally, spring 2001, while i was in austin, i made an internet trade for a few smile bootlegs. i never quite know what to think of the two mixes i have...sometimes they're genius...sometimes they're too haphazard...sometimes they're just background music.

needless to say, i'm fascinated and excited by the possibilities of an official reissue. i've always heard 'good vibrations' placed right in the middle...it'll be a trip as a closer, i'd think.

more information on the 'reissue' is located at www.thesmileshop.net.

in other news, i'm heading to evanston for the indiana game tomorrow. perhaps it's obsessive, but i'm really excited to go. i'll be running low on sleep, but hopefully i'll be high on victory on the way home.

who the fuck is joss stone, and how the fuck does she get away with covering the white stripes' "fell in love with a girl" ? this (a leno performance) is the second-worst thing i've ever seen. (the worst is 'any sean paul performance.')

three crucial things:

1) my big fat obnoxious fiance has its finale tomorrow. appointment viewing, and i mean it. riveting.

2) i've got jury duty tomorrow. nemo suggests getting drunk beforehand, but i don't think i'm capable of being drunk by 8 a.m. i served on a trial two summers ago...got 51 dollars for two-and-a-half days and everything...but now i've got real work. hopefully i'll be undesirable enough to get sent away at some point.

3) i played in my second mascot hockey game with the quad city mallards today, once again playing the inimitable rookie the raccoon. today's game was a mediocre one, with my team, led by ima duck, losing to the other team, led by mo mallard.

the highlight was, for the second straight year, the brawl i was involved in. you may recall that, last year, i was attacked by mo (who, incidentally, was my own captain). this year, i instigated, and instigated a good one. i shove. he shoves. he tries to hook my leg. i avoid it. i shove again. we circle. we circle. more shoving. more circling. eventually mo's teammate comes to my aid. mo and i start punching. mo's teammate shoves me down. as i'm going down, my head pops off.

it's only off for a few moments, enough to draw a few laughs, but not enough to get much attention. i get it on quickly, go into some convulsions, jump on mo (who's somehow gone down), and resume the game.

life is good.

donate to wnur phoneathon. i've got a t-shirt and a neko case cd coming.

one downer from a saturday spent at the gurs pad: the planned zaireeka listening party didn't go down. i hope to one day experience that album, only to say i've experienced it.

brief but silly conversation with my fairly conservative, late 30's-looking neighbor today. as we were going to the elevator, i say "how are you?" as he gets on the elevator he says "not so well actually. i haven't been able to shake this head cold for nine days." i say "doesn't sound like something a bottle of jack daniels can't solve."

and then he says "have a nice night."

why the ipod is the greatest invention ever: mine is up to 1676 songs, 119 albums, and its not even a quarter-full. ridiculous.

first extended chicago trip since christmas this weekend, and quite a successful one. after a friday night spent hanging in the 'port with the work crew, co-worker eileen and i head east to catch the cats, celebrate gurs' birthday, bask in the glow of sumo saha, and drink lots of beer.

the cats game was absolutely beautiful, with northwestern turning its 25-23 halftime deficit into a 65-52 win that wasn't even that close. i think there was a 30-2 run somewhere in there, and i know that the boys have put together three straight really, really good efforts. jitim is clearly the hardest-working and largest-hearted player in the history of northwestern athletics. it is time to unleash him, i'd say.

gurs, sumo and gurs-roommate dave were, as expected, tremendous game-watching company...i'd say we breathed some young alumni life into the rafters of welsh-ryan arena. but what was more impressive was when the 12-year-old kid next to us, upon hearing us insult jan jagla as looking like dirk nowitski for the entirety of the second half, shouted "go back to dallas" as the game wound down.

after a brief campus tour (i'm awful), we returned to wrigleyville to revel. along with immeasurably great former cats neil and alan, all the crucial med school-ies were there, including tex and both wysock's, and rock and roll music was played. the night's events included domino's pizza, the slam dunk contest, and trips to delilah's, the tiny, and tai's. shots were consumed, martinis were spilled (if you didn't want it spilled on you, you shouldn't have been at the table, and you shouldn't have taken my olives...duh), and, to sum up, a good time was had by all.

today, a bit lower key. bagels for 'breakfast' at about 1230, a return trip to glenview to pick up my laundry (mom's absolutely the greatest), and a car stocked with unnecessary free food from mom and dad for the ride home. they even dropped in some soup and brie for eileen.

home tonight by 9, off the phone with weissman by 25 minutes ago.

my friend mike wrote great review of the tiny, located at metromix.com, if you're interested. it goes like this:
September 21, 2002
Em Dub
Chicago , IL
"Beauty is the first thing that comes to mind after swallowing a cool sip of a tiny margarita at the Tiny Lounge. The lights, woodwork, music, and pleasant faces all say it, "Beauty." This could possibly be Chicago's finest drinking establishment, nestled so sweetly beneath the el. Anyone turned off by its size is missing the picture; less is more and there is to be found a great beauty in simplicity. Hats off to the Tiny."

one note about the ipod as music jukebox party experience: in theory, it's great to take the entire pod, all 1400 songs of it, and put it on extreme random. in practice, you wind up with centro-matic (slow and somber and certainly not party-y) or marvin gaye ('save the BAbies') and two wilco songs (always a good thing) within the first 25 minutes, quickly leading to a change in music source. while i don't think a playlist is necessary (although i've got a pretty good 3.5-hour one), i think you're best to select some party albums from a list, place 'em in the 'on the go' list, and put the 'on the go' list on random.

get those booties moving, is all.

so, shit still hasn't gone down.

perhaps tomorrow.

huge win for the cats...40-39 isn't always pretty, but the win's the thing baby. i wonder if it's the first time a team's ever won a big ten game while going 0-for-6 from the foul line.

i've got a feeling they're going for their first three-game conference streak since my freshman year; i.e. 1999. wow.

and i'll be there. woof.

my sort-of well-documented struggles with the iPod have resulted in me 'giving up.' that is, rather than continuing to fiddle with this damn firewire card or spending time on the phone with helpless customer support or dropping the 30 bucks to see if some local computer company can fix it, i've headed into work to play with the damn thing.

so i've installed itunes on one of my coworker's computers (he's got the proper port), and i've spent a few hours over the past few days loading on some of that there music. (after working hours, no less. pathetic.)

so i've gone from, i believe, 23 cds on the 'pod to a total of, according to my count, 60. this includes 27 of the top 50 that i compiled about a year ago. the two highest-ranking records i'm missing are the strokes' is this it? (#7 - stolen) and neutral milk hotel's on avery island (#8 - i don't listen to it often, but it sure is great when i do).

other than that, nothing going on right now, i guess. things regarding personal future will get a lot clearer come mid-afternoon tomorrow, i hope. and either way, the cats have a big game with the mighty boilers tomorrow.

and there exists a good chance i'll see the cats live on saturday.

so, last night's planned date with the tv did not materialize, as a group of four co-workers, on co-worker's fiance, and myself wound up bowling. we saw no skinheads.

last time i was bowling (it was also the time i karaoke'ed 'wouldn't it be nice?') i discovered that whole 'aim for the arrows' technique, and this time i discovered that i actually get better as i get drunker. huh? well, i went 115-128-147 (and the 147 should have been better, as my fourth frame was turned into 2/gutter by scoring malfunctions), while drinking and yelling the majority of the time.

(an aside that might explain this: in eighth grade, a class trip took us to florda, and among the highlights was a day of space camp-type activities. they did some sort of experiment involving reaction times, and it turned out that one's reaction time was greatly improved as that person got dizzier. the reason? when dizziness reigns, you concentrate on concentrating more. your focus is better. must be the same after seven beers.)

so the night was a good one, and co-worker andy also bought me a bag of funyuns on the way home.

in other news, i'm offended that coldplay just beat out outkast for record of the year. and that chris martin of coldplay is stumping for john kerry. and i think it's ridiculous that the neptunes didn't get to walk onstage to accept their producer of the year award because, quite honestly, they've been the biggest force in popular music over the last two years. and i'm offended that mary j. blige said 'way to go pharrell,' but didn't even mention chad 'the crazy asian' hugo. i liked the white stripes' performance, although i wish they had fit either 'i just don't know what to do with myself' or 'there's no home for your here' somewhere into one of those damn ridiculous medley things. prince was superb, but i don't like beyonce as much as nearly every other person in the world.

is it bad that i just wish steven tyler would die already?

pure and utter domination on the part of the wildcats this afternoon, as northwestern blows out wisconsin. the number 11 team in the nation goes down in evanston, and all is well in the world.

in other news, i've been in this awful holding pattern for the past 60 hours. i had thought that i'd learn all i wanted to know about my future on thursday, and then i thought it would be friday, and now i'm stuck dealing with an ulcer all weekend long. calls will be made on monday, be they made by me or by them. cryptic, eh?

last night took me to the haus, in search of good times and free drinks. i only accomplished the former.

[aside: about 12:30 last night, some visibly drunk man joined co-workers and i at our table. i introduced myself, he said 'i'm derek.' i said 'like derek and the dominoes?' he said yes. as we spoke more, it turns out that he was the son of hippie parents who were also gigantic clapton fans. it turns out that 'derek' was actually named 'deric,' and was named after both versions of the clapton name. wild.]

tonight perhaps involves watching the irish hopefully not getting spanked by the panthers, followed by saturday night live, featuring somebody i've not heard of and musical guest clay aiken. sleep is good.

i sure enjoyed that super bowl, except for the incredibly (pretty) boring first quarter and the incredibly (really) boring third quarter. but that fourth quarter sure was neat, and it sure was cool how "midwest" (michigan state, notre dame, ohio state, *louisville, *houston, not ucla, where's proehl from?) all those touchdowns were and it sure was cool how "south dakota" that game-winning field goal was.

i watched with a group of seven (i think) co-workers, one of whom who was a pats fan and six of whom didn't really care but sort of kind of wanted carolina to win. a strange labor to watch a super bowl with co-workers, even if you generally like them.

but this super bowl experience certainly was better than the last time the patriots were in the super bowl, when i watched with seven women. i like women and all, but that was strange.

made the drive from the 'port to glenview tonight, in the largest snowstorm we've had in the 'port this winter. we're talking "there's a semi on its side in the ditch and i can't see any lines on the road" snowstorm, but ben gibbard and ted leo and fran healy all were great company, as was didi for a time.

i've always hated i-88, which charges 0.95 tolls despite the fact that nobody drives it. but the positive effect of this unnecessarily large toll is that they work hard to keep the roads clean, and i was able to manage a solid 60-65 mph clip for the entire tollway portion of the trip.

had to lame out on gurs tonight, which'll happen when snow gets in the way. miss the j-dub/m-dub experience, but we'll plan to have that experience - plus sumo - two weeks from now.

i've prided myself on giving pretty good gifts, but i think that i pretty much struck out this year. gurs' never arrived apparently, i gave sumo a damn book, and, no matter how michigan nemo is, i don't think he enjoys the messed-up crap he received. my siblings were, of couse, full-fledged busts. i've got work to do next year.

is there any more depressing thing to say to somebody than "as long as you do your best, we're proud of you" ? i mean, the implication there is that the person is about to fail, which is not the proper message.

my mom gave me the "as long as you do your best" speech about 20 minutes ago. i answered by telling her that i was going to "show those frickin' bastards who's boss," or something to that effect.

i'm in glenview, i'm taking tuesday off work, and i've got nothing to do until late afternoon. i uninstalled all the itunes software from this here laptop and i didn't bring the adaptor anyway (still working to get that firewire port working on the home pc), so i can't follow through on my plans to add to the ipod.

i guess i'll read a bit of the tribune tomorrow, and i'm thinking of making a trip to my local borders. two records that i (and nobody else) am anticipating - the mountain goats' we all shall be healed and the walkmen's bows and arrows are there in nine hours.

woof.
yeah, people walking. yeah, hijinks. yeah, john fox is a dumbass.

update, 1:15 p.m.: well, the local chain behemoth record store did not have in stock the new walkmen record, but i was able to purchase the mountain goats' album as well as elbow's cast of thousands. despite having an absolutely awful band name, the reviews for each of elbow's first two albums have always fascinated me. i'm almost through the record, and it's not really doing it for me. but you've got to respect a band who features the lyrics "we believe in love so fuck you." expecially when its a cast of thousands - literally - that's providing the backing vocals. (the vocals were recorded by the crowd at elbow's glastonbury show in 2002. each fan is thanked by name in the liner notes, which is just a cheap ploy to get each of those fans to buy the record. pretty cool, though.)