Entry Twenty-Three.
Sunday 2004.02.08 5:35 PM CST.
It's too cold.  Plus, other stuff.

How's that for a descriptive title?  Actually, it pretty much sums up the way I feel right now.

It's cold!  It's too friggin' cold!
I don't know what the exact temperature is outside; I don't care to check.  It's been colder this year, I know, but this weekend has been colder than most because my heater is out of whack.  It blows out air that is lukewarm at best, so if I'm up close to it, it feels like an air conditioner.  I need to have the complex send someone in to fix it, but I need to clean my place a bit further first so that they don't evict me on sight.  Ha!  Okay, so my apartment might not need cleaning that bad, but I am going to do a bit more "tidying up" tonight and hopefully call them tomorrow about it.  For the time being, with all the lights and the pseudo-heating going on, I'm keeping my place around 60 degrees, which is not very comfortable, but at least I'm not dying.  During times like these, I feel absolutely terrible about the homeless - not that there are any times that I don't feel badly about them to some degree.

Grandpa's funeral was okay.
We buried Grandpa on Monday in Missouri.  Well, "buried" isn't a proper term, since we just had a "graveside ceremony" in a (somewhat) heated tent, then after we left his coffin was put up into the wall a mausoleum.  They had not pre-arranged paul bearers for the event, so I got to help carry the coffin from the hearse to the platform in the tent.  Then, the minister showed up about 5 minutes (or so) late.

Grandpa had a few unusual stipulations for his funeral, which I'd like to share:
1.  No music.
2.  No flowers.  (A couple of bouquets were delivered from people who didn't know this, though.)
3.  Closed casket, but inside he wore jogging pants and a sweatshirt.
4.  The minister greeted Grandma, whom he'd never met, then performed three short prayers - one of which mentioned my Grandpa by name once - then walked off.  No "Goodbye," no "Sayanora," no "Thanks for comin'."  He just stepped away and chatted with a few of the others there while we all presumed (correctly) that the ceremony was over.

The entire ceremony, once the minister arrived, took - I kid you not - five minutes, tops.  I really don't think that Grandpa would have wanted it any other way.

I have got to get off my butt and do more DJing.
I got even more really awesome remixes lately; I've been buying too many of them, yet through many blessings I have managed to almost climb on top of my looming debt monster so that I can ride it properly.  I have really smashing new mix featuring samples from Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" as well as a really twisted new version of (gasp!) Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby."  (Trust me, if you heard the remix, you'd understand what's so cool about it.  And, no, it's not the metal-type/Korn-esque remake that Vanilla Ice himself did a few years back.)

I've been listening to the double-CD limited import edition of Moby's "Everything Is Wrong," which features various remixes of tracks from that album mixed together on two turntables by Moby himself, under the name "Evil Ninja Moby."  About eight years ago, my greatly-missed friend Kevin and I visited the greatly-missed Mohawk Music and Kev purchased the double-CD set for about $25 or so.  Then, for a long time, I couldn't find it.  I recently tracked it down on eBay for about $6 plus shipping (approximately $12 or so, total, from England).  Really amazing, especially if you're a Moby fan.

Anyway, my illustrious day job has a few really appealing niceties to it, and one of those niceties will be occurring this coming Friday:  The profit share paycheck.  Every year (with the exception of years that terrorist actions can give the company an excuse to go back on its word), the company for which I work hands out a percentage of the profits to the workers.  This year, my chunk will not be a fortune, but it will be - hopefully - sizeable enough that I can use it to obtain something really nice.  Of course, I'm going to do "sensible" things with some of this money, like make a larger-than-normal credit card payment and give some of it to my parents, who have helped me out more times than I'd care to admit... but, let's face it, there's a wedge of that money that I'm going to blow on something that I absolutely do not need.

So, I'm juggling this around in my head.  I'm considering an effects processor that would reportedly make my DJ system sound even more incredible than it already does, and that would be sweet, but also very costly.  Or, I'm considering using the dough to do a severe beefing-up of my sample library for future musical productions, i.e. the forthcoming album.  Or, another light effect for the show.  Or, about a truckload more rare remixes.  Or... well, there are a lot of different options.  We'll have to see what happens.

The thing is, I need to DJ more.  Once I get this apartment cleaned up, I'm going to rearrange things so that I can practice mixing a lot more often and easier (basically, set up a mixing station in my apartment).  That will be pretty cool.  I have three major events that I am set to DJ at this year.  One is the June 12th party (sorry, I still can't give more details... yet), one is a potential science-fiction convention (don't let the stereotypes fool you - sci-fi geeks can party with the best of 'em), and one will be the second annual Blue November MicroFilmFest.

Note that I didn't even mention the "15-year anniversary party" there.  To my knowledge, it's still going to happen, but I don't know when.  I hate to keep pushing it back, so I'm not going to offer another "tentative" date at this time.  Okay, maybe October.  Crap, I just did it again, didn't I?

Other trivial tidbits of information for the dedicated Badger fan/stalker...
Say what you will about Britney Spears, like "she's an attention whore," but I have to say that I really dig her new song, "Toxic."  A lot.  I've already ordered the first import CD-single release, with remixes, and that should be in this week.

Do yourself a favour and never, ever order from a place called DeepDiscountDVD.com.

For those of you who watch TV in our area:  Have you seen the new Quizno's Subs advertisements, with the two fuzzy things with the superimposed human eyes and mouths floating around, one screaming almost-unintelligible lyrics ("They have a pepper BAR!!!") while the other plays a guitar (or banjo)?  I love those advertisements.  They are, effectively, some of the most disturbing things I have ever seen presented as a marketing tool.  I don't see how any advertising executive could have said, "THIS is the idea that will give us success," but I'm thrilled that someone went with it.  The little floating guys might annoy some people, and I'm thinking that they will probably scare small children.  They make no sense in a restaurant-type advertisement, and they do nothing whatsoever to make the sandwiches (which, incidentally, are wonderful) appear more palatable.  However, I think the creepy little screaming critters rock.  Thanks to Quizno's for having the guts to use such a weird little ad.  Support Quizno's and go buy one of their cheese melts (or any other sandwich, even if it has - ack - meat on it) today.

Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to have Art Bell back on the air as the weekend host of Coast To Coast AM?  Yeah, yeah, I know he's been back (again) for months upon months, but it's great to hear him on the air again.

I will officially be returning to the Gypsy within the next three weeks.  Not sure if either the Gypsy or I are ready for it yet.

I've gotta get to work on cleaning this place...  Thanks for coming by.

Badger