long time no see...

"long time no see", i said that to a blind guy once.  

as soon as it passed my lips, i realized what i'd said...

yes i am an idiot.

but anyway...

last post: January 26, 2008.

ha.  oops.  

yeah, apparently i'm not doing so hot at maintaining and nurturing this crap blog.  

much and yet not much has happened since january.  i'm not about to go into it all at the moment,
i really can't be bothered.  
i've got Buffy The Vampire Slayer (season 2) from Netflix, to watch.  

yeah, Buffy. 

really.  

recommended by just about every damn person i know. 

it's ok.  

entertaining but definitely nowhere near as awesome as Skins, the crazy British teen dramady.  now that's entertainment! i'm a bit sad that i finished watching seasons 1 & 2 of this over-the-top show because apparently season 3 is nowhere near completion.  bummer.

so there, i've mannaged somehow to update the blog while successfully  skirting the issue of anything real that may or may not be happening in my life
(file under: Things I Learned From Sarah Palin).  
yay for me. now go listen to this:

there's a thousand things i want to say to you

it's been a while. so i shall attempt to update as well as my small brain will allow me to remember the events of the past couple months. the ladies joined us out here for the holidays which was really nice. we got to put the house together a bit, it's an ongoing process but it's getting there. it was nice to explore the city a bit more in depth with the ladies (and much easier to do with an automobile). i'm glad we got to spend christmas with them, since it's the first christmas i haven't spent with my parents. we had a nice thing happen on christmas day: we saw some people hanging out in front of the house looking at it from all possible angles, we went outside and wished them a merry christmas, well it turns out that one of them, the eldest in the group, was one of the original owners of the house. she told us how she had gotten married on the front steps of the house in 1947. we invited them in to look around, they found their names that are written in the cement of the back porch and shared stories of the house and their family, they kept saying, "there's a lot of love in this house". they thanked us and left and left us with a warm feeling inside. it really made us want to keep the old house and continue the tradition of a warm, loving home in their honor.
eventually the time came to say goodbye to the ladies again. this was really hard. maybe even harder than when we originally left. we were just starting to get comfortable. it was really sad. many tears were shed.
now it's the boys on their own again. broke and trying to find a fast forward button to make the month of june come faster. the ladies will be back in march for a short time. right in the middle of sxsw, which will probably be a pretty lively time around the house. looks like we'll be hosting some out of town visitors, and there's a possibility we set up a backyard show. that should be fun.
it's been pissing rain and cold cold cold. we've been trapped inside the past week or so. luckily our friend Dennis let us borrow some Loony Tunes dvd box sets so we've been watching those. and i've been working on learning my new camera, a Nikon D40. it's slow going but fun to work on. the sun is finally out today which meant we could finally get to the grocery store to get some food! it's always sort of a clusterfuck walking to the HEB (local Texas chain grocery store, equivalent to a Vons or similar supermarkets. except for the fact that they have these awesome, fresh-made tortillas...mmm) with the stroller and trying to buy stuff we'll be able to walk back with. one cool thing about today's trip to HEB was hearing The Jam's In The City being played whilst we shopped. that was awesome. undoubtedly made more awesome due to the fact that the valium was kicking in by then.
now i've got a very small chunk o' cash in my wallet, i think i'm gonna surprise the boy with a trip to Home Slice Pizza when he wakes up from his nap.
and once again, we're all caught up. phew.

so much for updates eh?
ah well. so we've had an interesting last couple weeks here including run-ins with pop art and poultry (not at the same time mind you), we are becoming pretty familiar with the 'dillo (apparently it doesn't run on the weekends, which sucks a fair amount of ass) and generally trying not to kill each other.
we became members at the Austin Children's Museum, which is pretty cool, which will be good on days when it's too rainy to go to Stacy Park, one of Otis' favorite places to go. and speaking of rain, the weather is hard to figure out here. one day it'll be clear as can be and 40 degrees the next day may be raining and 85. i'm sure the summer will be consistently brutal.

last week (or was it the week before?) we visited the downtown Austin Museum of Art to check out the Lichtenstein exhibit. it was cool but the museum is much smaller than it looks. maybe there is more at their other location. Otis enjoyed the kids room where you can put little colored dot stickers all over the room.

a few days ago i woke up, went to put on some coffee, opened up the back door and there was a family of chickens scratchin' around in the back yard. which i found a bit odd. we're not exactly living the rural life here. there was (what i'm assuming was) a mama chicken and about six or seven youngish chickens. what the hell am is supposed to do with a family of chickens? i shoo'd them off and got back to making breakfast. later on when we went out back to play, there they were again. so we hung out with the creatures and ended up becoming quite fond our newfound fowl friends. Otis named the mama Bob. next morning they were gone and haven't returned since. oh well.

last thursday was first thursday celebration in our neighborhood so we went to check out the festivities. it was far better than i thought it was gonna be. South Congress was filled with art, music and people selling their wares, it was pretty impressive. a pick up truck with Santa and a bunch of drunk looking elves drove up and down the street slurring indecipherable holiday greetings and lobbing candy at kids. Otis and i stopped at Hey Cupcake! our neighborhood cupcake stand which is an Airstream trailer with a giant cupcake on the roof, we got a couple cupcakes and watched all the action, there was a dj there playing some good tunes. we walked around for a bit and checked out some of the other bands playing on the street, one of which was a group of older school teacher looking folks doing a version of The Sex Pistols' Submission. interesting. after that we checked out a small photo exhibit opening at End Of An Ear our local record shop and then headed home. good times.

saturday night it was back to End Of An Ear for a listening party for an album called Twilight And Ghost Stories by Chris Schlarb who i'd never heard of before, the album sounded great, very interesting stuff, lots going on in it. probably amazing on headphones. a local act called The Weird Weeds , who apparently play on some of Twilight And Ghost Stories, performed as well, we only heard about half a song (which seemed pretty good, sorta ambient, vaguely droney...) before Otis started to get tired and we had to go home.
now we are just super excited about the upcoming arrival of the ladies. yahoo!
so that's a little update on what we've been up to. here's the soundtrack of the last couple weeks:

queso transfusion

ah the rain stopped raining. finally. it was only two days but it felt like a decade. good thing we crossed portland off the potential places to live list. the little man and i took the 'dillo (a free shuttle that runs all over the city) downtown to explore a bit. we stopped and picked up some postcards, checked out a tattoo parlor then had to stop for some lunch. i've been trying to save money, since it isn't very plentiful at the moment, but the lure of lunch was too strong. we ate at some place that looked like it might get a bit douchey around happy hour. anyhow, apparently this place has a rooftop patio and we got to sit out there and enjoy the sun. now the thing about austin, and i don't know if all of texas has this, but just about everywhere you go you can get chips and queso as an appetizer. a hot bowl of melted cheese often spiked with salsa and/or avocado. now i love me some cheese, so the temptation of queso was much stronger than my willpower on this particular day.
another thing that is near and dear to my heart is beer, and when i checked my cell phone, oh look! it's past noon, i can have a beer if i want...
queso and beer. on an outdoor rooftop patio. on a glorious, cool, sunny austin day in november.
all is well in spite of dwindling funds and ballooning weight.

how did i get here?

lately, from the moment i wake up until the moment my restless mind lets me get to sleep, the only person i talk to is a three year old.
there is the two or three phone calls from the wife each day, but that's just about it.
occasionally we go to a store or restaurant and i find myself particularly chatty with the clerk or whoever is serving us. they must think i am crazy. they might be onto something.
don't get me wrong, i love the little feller...it's just...well if you've ever had a conversation with a three year old, you know how ridiculous and surreal their little chats can get. now imagine having those conversations all day with no regular adult conversations to balance it out.
that is my life right now.
strange where life takes us.

this sums it up quite nicely...

brrr.

47 degrees.
feels like 43.
that's what it says at weather dot com.
and i believe it.

apparently it's supposed to piss down all weekend.

finally got the netflix re-routed to austin. watched this the other night:

which i've been looking for ever since i got the Miles Davis soundtrack for it, which is very, very good. the movie was great, looked fantastic, great lookin' black & white and the story was fun.

looking forward to sinking my teeth into this, tonight maybe:

and maybe get to that Miami Vice season 1...

Currently listening : The Notorious Byrd Brothers By The Byrds

killing me

damn. this is just slaying me today. i spent the morning trying to downsize the box situation in my new place. when Mr. O went down for his nap, i grabbed some coffee, threw on some vinyl, this happened to be my second selection, after Billy Strange Plays The Hits Of '65 or something like that anyway. so now i've flipped this record over about 4 times now. i have a feeling it will be flipped some more. big weepy strings and a sad, sad trumpet. fucking beautiful. even the happy songs sound sad on this. perfect for this cool, soon-to-be-stormy Austin afternoon. so good. along with Sam Cooke and Home Slice Pizza this is totally ruling my life right now.