I’ve had my fill of interstate driving, though I’m not through yet.

This past weekend (and the weekend before) I was helping my girlfriend move to her new apartment in Manassas, 50 miles from Fredericksburg (100 miles round trip per car load). Her mom let us use her minivan last weekend to move, and let me drive it this past week so we could use it yesterday and Saturday. So she drove my car back to Williamsburg (~150 miles one way) last Sunday.

So yesterday I got to drive from Manassas to Williamsburg, and then back to Manassas to pick up my car, after dropping her mother’s minivan off. Six wonderful hours of non-stop interstate driving: 3-4 lanes, speeds from 70-85 MPH, weaving lunatics, tail-riding assholes (not to mention those with their hi-beams on), and just overall aggressive driving in the dark.

Then once I got back to Manassas, we had to head back down to get my girlfriend’s car in Fredericksburg. So it was back onto the interstate down (she drove my car, I had enough for one afternoon), then we picked up her car, loaded it up for one final trip, and then she drove her car up, while I followed in mine, back to Manassas. 400 miles in a 8 hour span.

Now this morning, I drove down from Manassas to Lynchburg at 5:30 to be at work by 9:00. And after nearly getting onto I-66 West and being mowed over my a USPS semi, I made it to work (nearly) on time. But today I need to head up to Charlottesville (which I passed through this morning) with the company Blazer to do some work at our site up there, and then meet my boss in Richmond tonight for some classes being held at Corporate in Richmond.

I think I’ve pretty much covered the Virginia Piedmont pretty well in the past 48 hours.  § “”

There have always been qualities of Dubya that struck me as simeon-like—like how he carries himself. Now is seems in The Story of Curious George W. and in this eerie comparison that I’m not the only one.  § “”

So now I need to get acclimated to cat hair clinging to everything I own.

Actually Jareth looks quite a bit like Qumin, except Jareth has a big pooch like he’s pregnant or something…weird. Then there’s bulimic Jake who loves to yak up Meow Mix.

It’s the first time I’ve had solely indoor cats before. The cats I had when I was growing up were all indoor/outdoor cats, so get ready to watch me detail as I dyno up the learning curve.  § “”

The phrase “President-elect” Bush still makes my skin crawl.

“The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.”
—Cassius, Julius Caesar
Act V, Scene I  § “”

As Chris Rock once put it:

Every city has two malls: the white mall, and that mall the white people used to go to.

That mall must be something awful to actually keep white people from going. “It's too black in here.” White people like black people the way they like their seasoning: Just a dash.

I hate the black mall. There is nothing in the black mall but sneakers and baby clothes. I guess that's all they think we're doing: running and fucking. Fifteen sneaker stores: Footlocker, Athlete's Foot, Foot in Your Ass.

Spent Sunday up in Charlottesville looking at apartment neighborhoods. You can only gauge so much on a place on the propaganda they post on the Web. Most of the places seemed fine. One was borderline sketch; another was ghet-to. Needless to say, we didn’t even get out of the car at that place. The search continues….

(This message brought to you by the Chad-Roberts Residential Transition Team.)  § “”

What first caught my eye was that it was written by Steve Earl (who opened for DMB in Philly last month). I had known in doing some research on him before the concert that he was a passionate opponent of the death penalty. Now I know in part why.

The article posted on Utne is Earl’s first-person narrative of Jonathan Nobles’ last 10 days, spent on death row in September 1998. Earl and he had written back and forth for 10 years, finding a common bond in a similar history (prison, drugs, rehab). The humanity and intensity of their friendship really comes through as he and his friend face Nobles’ death. Very well done.  § “”

Now the big question is seating. The way they set it up is $45 general admission, $130 Golden Circle seats (off the floor, next to their heart-shaped catwalk around the arena), and $85 kinda other seats. First of all…damn. Those are some large numbers for tickets. So the big question is do I go for the cheap, up close (in theory) “seats” to the band, and risk being mauled in the process, go for the expensive good seats along the perimeter or risk being up in the rafters like at First Union in December?

Then comes into play getting the tickets. Last time around my girlfriend and I got tickets for Pop in Raleigh, but as luck would have it: cancelled. Leave it to the largest LED display in the world (picture a big ass Lite-Brite) to be touchy in the rain. Propaganda will be providing tickets to members through a more clunky, though admittedly less frequent, system than the DMB Warehouse: the U.S. Postal Service. So do I wait out Prop? Succumb to TicketBastard/SFX? Or whore myself out to both?

Ideas? Suggestions? White or Wheat?  § “”

Sure, I get cravings for its buttery goodness once in a while, but I can’t explain them. I have never had popcorn without several of the kernel husks being thoroughly lodged between my gums and teeth. After too many minutes of dental wrangling I usually finally pull the sonsabitches out of my mouth. Sometimes I won’t notice a tricky one until the next morning. (Stupid popcorn.)

I’m also one of those types who, after the popcorn’s gone, usually start in on the unpopped kernels. They’re kinda fun to eat, but hazardous on the teeth. Maybe it was a dentist somewhere who invented the stuff.

So my message is this: Beware Jiffy Pop and beware the deranged Orville Redenbacher! (I have messages now? Since when do I have messages?)  § “”

While waiting on the 6th load of laundry to finish, I found these. I bet they would be great to watch absolutely wasted.  § “”

Oooh…stickers.  § “”

Here are my favorite 2000 concerts in chronological order:

• 07.19 DMB @ RFK, DC


• 08.31 AGR @ UVa (the first time I'd seen them live since Sept. '95 [pre-J.C. era])


• 09.02 AGR @ Trax, C'ville, VA


• 09.26 David Gray w/Joseph Arthur @ 9:30 Club, DC


• 10.25 Elliott Smith w/Grandaddy @ Trax


• 11.04 Badly Drawn Boy @ 9:30 Club, DC (+ 11.5 Nader Rally @ MCI Center)


• 11.25 AGR @ Corned Beef & Co., Roanoke, VA


• 12.17 DMB @ First Union, Philly, PA

I had intended on hitting the AGR New Year’s Eve bash at Alley Katz in Richmond, but my girlfriend wasn’t too keen on it, so we ended up meeting some college friends up in NoVa, starting with margaritas at lunch. But the cold kept up from venturing up to Baltimore or to Leesburg for outdoor fun, so we stayed in and had a nice intimate New Year’s celebration.  § “”