Journal | Archives

of course

Yes, there are some technical difficulties.

No, I'm not fond of eggplant.

Here Come the Dragons!

Song of the day: “Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Due to our ever-increasing boredom, as well as the excitement brewing the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament, today Lance and I decided to buy an Xbox. $440 later, we are the proud owners of ESPN College Hoops 2k4 and Halo, which is yet to be played. In the meantime, Lance and I have created our own college teams. The Robbins State Aces and The Poop University (aka, POOU) Dragons. In case you were wondering, the Aces managed to thwart a second-half rally by the Dragons in the opening rounds of the preseason Kush tournament, but since these two arch rivals are in the same conference, it remains to be seen who will have the last laugh in this bitter feud.

In other news, remember the “Dorky Guy” at work from a few posts back? Well, I forgot to mention that he fell asleep in our training class on Monday. It was the classic, college lecture hall maneuver, where the tired student tries in vain to stay awake, but his weary head keeps drooping forward over and over. Well, Mr. Dorky was totally busted by our trainer, and consequently, when Friday rolled around, he was nowhere to be found. When I asked some of my co-workers what happened to him, it turns out he was fired. That’s right, fired. For falling asleep. That’s so cool.

Also, I just finished the novel American Skin by Don De Grazia. It was recommended to me by Steve, and I must say I enjoyed reading it. If you’re looking for something interesting to read, check it out. Or read my website. Or maybe read some comic books like Neil Patel.

And now, back to Xbox…

stupid weather

March 1st: 64° high.
Currently: 26°.

star and crescent

The old wristband had to go. Here is version 2.0.

blah


Now it's time to do something of substance. Writing of partial substance will soon follow.

‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels’

!!!

wrist band

Here we go:

YES. I'M HIP


In other news, there's a shooting at White Oaks Mall that's causing chaos. My mom is stranded at Sears for the time being. She will be ok.

Pomona is a piece of shit

Song of the day: “Just Another Day” by Oingo Boingo

I am officially now a purchaser for one of the nation’s largest mortgage banking companies. For security reasons, I’ve decided not to disclose the actual name of the institution, but if you really want to know get in touch with me. As you might expect, it’s somewhat of a conservative establishment, and I don’t want to put their name on the same webpage as the words “goat midget sex”. Or: “pedophilia”. Or: “sodomy”. Really, the list goes on and on.

Also, by not disclosing their name, I can bitch about how shitty it is there. But actually, it doesn’t seem 100% shitty, because on Friday, I found out great news! It turns out that we can wear headphones and listen to music as we slave away at our keyboards. That means 8 hours of iPod action, folks! The iPod is one investment that I will never regret, and in fact, with time I seem to become only more enamored with it. I love you, iPod. Er…

Speaking of iPods, I guess the new mini-iPods are selling out in record numbers all across America. Personally, I’m not sure I understand this. Yes, they are very small, (about the size of a business card, with the thickness of approximately half of a deck of playing cards). [Side note: just so you know, I actually spent the last 2 minutes comparing the sizes of things around the computer to my iPod. The iPod is slimmer than: a full deck of cards, and my wallet (I’m rich, be-yotch!), but not a pad of post-it notes.]

Back to the mini-iPod. They cost $250, and hold a significantly less amount of songs, but for $300 you could just get a 15 GB iPod, and let’s face it, the regular iPod isn’t exactly very big either. “But the new mini’s are soooo cute.” Whatever, idiots.

Getting to the reason for the title of this post. Friday night, Lance and I ventured an hour outside of Los Angeles to a city called Pomona to see Hey Mercedes play. Well, it should have taken an hour to get there, but traffic was horrible. And there was no reason for it!!! Driving in LA, you get used to the idea of bad traffic, and you come to understand the causes for traffic jams. Generally, morning rush hour is going to be very bad, and of course it will be bad when everyone gets off work. Also, traffic tends to become clogged at merger points, of which there are many. Finally, traffic also slows down significantly for accidents. Last night, there were none of these factors at play. There was really no reason for that traffic, and I’m still kind of bothered by it.

When we finally get to the show, we discover that Hey Mercedes is actually opening for another band called The Early November. The crowd was all high school kids. We should’ve known it would be bad when there was a curfew notice posted on the door. [Side note: the fun in Pomona stops at 11:30 pm, kiddies. Actually, fuck that. It never starts to begin with.]

The Glass House, (the name of the venue), was just stupid. The sound was bad. The microphone kept shocking the lead singer of Hey Mercedes, ala Almost Famous. Also, since the crowd is all kids, they don’t sell alcohol. But you can buy some Dr. Pepper and candy. Hey Mercedes were good, but they only played for about 40 min, and didn’t play a few of the songs I really wanted to hear. Oh, and then there was the inexplicable mosh pit. All I’ll say about that is punching a dumb ass, high school kid in the back of the head felt very good.

Much later that night Lance puked in our downstairs bathroom and made the toilet overflow. Thanks again, alcohol!

a note to self

Dear me,

Think more. Be less stupid.

Sincerely,
me

truth or fiction?

I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

this is new

I'm writing pseudocode and planning with pen & ink. The monitor has been burning me out as of late (maybe it's just being indoors), and traditional materials are the only things I can work with away from the desktop, especially since financing for the laptop didn't go through.

I guess it's not bad. More freedom, in a way. Last night I doodled on my planning paper: vertical and horizontal.

Planning details in general, let alone on paper, is not my style.

This morning, while chewing on Apple Danish bread (bought from Sam's and very tasty), I remembered that there was anticipation among some people – myself included – on Wodie.com regarding the release of The Hit List. The singles ‘Smart Bomb’, ‘Crawl Before You Ball’, and ‘The Hit List’ were put out, but the album was delayed.

I waited and waited. More than a year later – I actually think it's closer to two years – Saafir finally released The Hit List in October of 1999. And it was somewhat of a disappointment, lyrically. It isn't bad by most standards, but it wasn't the same Saafir from albums' past. He'd changed his tone to be more mainstream. And I had a brief one-message exchange on Friendster with this guy who told me Saafir tried doing a song with Maya and was in fact trying to appeal to a broader audience.

Which isn't bad, I guess. But it took away one of the few truly unique & good styles I've heard in the past 15 years.

And why is it so hard for The Golden State Project to put out an album already? It's five years overdue. It's not like Saafir and Ras Kass are famous and touring. Xzibit is the only one with any real recognition. Shock G told me in person that Saafir was recording with them and they were working on the album. This was three years ago.

I sent Saafir an e-mail once, but he pointed me to J Groove. I had a somewhat regular correspondence for a few months with J Groove after ordering some Hobo Junction albums. He said he'd get me an autographed album from the entire crew. Never happened. And all those e-mails are lost after an accident a couple of years ago.

‘Low fat’ is the stupidest label, unless you're concerned about your heart and not weight.

Anyway.

Give me a topic and style in which to write, dammit. I dunno what the deal is.

I'm parallel to none except the sun.

my mom says I’m inside too much

It's true. But I have no where to go in the long run of the day.

Taking a cue. Leave me a topic to write about. Something that doesn't involve porn [I can hear gasps from four of you]. One step further: prose or poem. Topic and (prose or poem). Ikimasho.

Snapshots of Corporate America: My Life as a Keyboard Monkey

Song of the day: “Yeah Yeah Yeah� by Razorlight

Well well,
Yeah Yeah.

Well well,
Yeah Yeah Yeah.

Those are basically the lyrics to the entire Song of the day. Yet, it’s still a great song that I can’t get out of my head.

My adventures in corporate America have begun. On my first day at work, I returned from break to find another new trainee sitting on the floor playing a Gameboy SP. My internal reaction was equal parts amusement, pity and jealousy. Shortly thereafter, another co-worker returns from break. Perhaps spurred on by the sight of another 20-something playing Gameboy in public, he strikes up the following conversation with the girl sitting next to him:


Dorky Guy: “Do you ever play video games?�Girl (slightly confused): “Uh…when I was younger.�

Dorky Guy (paying no attention to her answer): “There’s this really cool new James Bond Game that I want to get.�

Girl (Completely uninterested): “Oh…�

Dorky Guy: “It has multiplayer and stuff…�

Girl: “Um…I don’t really like video games. There’s too many buttons now.�

There is an awkward pause, and then the Dorky Guy goes back to his seat across the room. [Side note: I am not the Dorky Guy].I felt kind of bad for the guy…but it was so pathetic that it was funny. Also, today I saw him leave work in a brand new BMW. That dorky bastard!

Here are a few other bits of conversation I’ve overheard in the last two days at my job:

Woman in her mid-30’s: “…well, I have to pick up Christopher from soccer practice after work…�

Guy in his mid-30’s: “…so we started pricing Volvo’s this weekend…�

I had a flash-forward to me 10 years from now, and I had to go cry in a bathroom stall.

blah… but they look cute

ripped from the scene
– pounded in it seems –
on a portable plane
with a frame of white;

faces delicately touched
simply, like the bodies cut
– bleeding pink and green –
and sitting as a pair
with simply dotted stares,
a touch off the center where
other eyes are sure to fall;

ripped from the scene,
these inanimate things
now look so alive.

A day in the life of Kaiser Shahid

One. The letter I received from Illinois Power stating that my check from February 12 was returned to them baffled me at first, as I had more than enough money in my account to back it.

Upon further inspection of my checkbooks today, I realized that I was writing checks from the wrong account (wrong being the account with like $5). Which means four other bad checks are out there. Which means a possible penalty of $20–$25 per check in the worst case. Which is a hassle I went through last year, but in a different context (electronic withdrawal means automated deduction of money that the bank cannot stop, leading to negative account balance; the bank really frowns upon that). I should be safe as long as SBC or Illinois-American Water doesn't penalize for bounced checks.

Two. I've developed this habit of going outside once every two days. I'm gunning for once a day now. And by the way, today was gorgeous (sunny, windy, in the 60s). I walked to Rentertainment, among other places, and rented three movies: Ghost World, 12 Monkeys, and Big Trouble in Little China.

Three. Bought some sweaters from Goodwill to unravel. I don't know what I'll make from them. There was an indie kid in front of me at the register, and the cashier looked at the shirt he was buying and asked, ‘Is this from the children's section?’ Haha. Stupid subculture.

Four. Does it make sense for some shady-looking car dealership to advertise that they can file your tax return?

Five. I bought a Nokia data cable again from Cingular. (I returned it the first time because I found a site online that sold it for half the price. I ordered. They never shipped it. Message memory was getting full again. Will return again within the week. Go figure.)

Six. Sam's did not have my photos developed yet. Sad.

Seven. I bought groceries. I will finish my one gallon of [Oberweiss] milk before it expires, for once.

Eight. I ran into Carly and Melissa on my walk back from the FAR parking lot. It was a bit of a surprise, especially since I didn't recognize them until Carly started running towards me to give me a hug. Aw.

Nine. The envelope icon on my cellphone blinks when there isn't enough room to store the message on the phone. Cute.

Ten. I saw a bunch of Allen kids playing hackey sack. The last time I played that was when I was a freshman in high school. Nine years ago. That makes me feel old. I also got into Bone Thugs-N-Harmony a little before then (a little before being eighth grade, when I also got into Outkast. Two groups that started off awesome. Only one prevailed in the end.)

Eleven. Apparently, the voice recorder on my cellphone allows me to add titles to each recording, and – here's the best part – the recordings are downloaded when I backup the phone data to the computer. Mona and Mohammed (Asma's sister and brother, respectively) left me some recorded messages. Mona did an impression of Asma. I laughed.

I never would've known that the voice recorder could do those things. Good thing they messed around with my phone.

End. Spring is coming, and I have not a pretty girl to take walks with. El sigh.

And some scent on the walk back reminded me of Bangladesh. Made me miss it. But why?

good, good, good

Showers after two days. Recharged.