Ok everyone!
This has gone on long enough.

Clearly I'm not posting here anymore. So really. No point having it. A loose end to tie up.

If you haven't heard yet, at the end of December, I'm leaving southwest VA to go work for Jimmy John's corporate. I don't know where I'll end up yet, just the plan.

Just for the hell of it, I'll be deleting this journal in a few weeks. Until then, here is information:

INDIE JAKE'S LAST STAND
my final radio show on WUVT is during radiothon.
MONDAY OCTOBER 13th from 9:00am to 2:00pm, Eastern Standard Time.
It would be REALLY FRICKIN' GREAT if all my long-time listeners tuned in, donated, and enjoyed a trip down five years of radio.
>>>>>IF there is anything in particular that feels NECESSARY for this kind of retrospective show, LET ME KNOW!

Kent, I'm looking at you. Gimme a few requirements.
Ben, Alpha, Corrie, anyone, everyone, leave me comments here, or on AIM, or via email. OK!

I WANT THIS SHOW TO BE HUUUUUUGEEEEEEEEE




also I will be keeping this new blog, just for the heck of it:

indiejake.blogspot.com

also, maybe I'll start up this one again too:

audiobiography.blogspot.com

that would be cool.



all you people rock. so much.

Let me tell you about my mom. My mom has access to the wonder of AOL Instant Messenger, and takes advantage of the fact that she can use it. Often, she'll leave me messages while I'm away, and some of them are very funny. In the spirit of Mother's day (coming this sunday!), I thought I'd share a few of them with you.

I go to a cookout one afternoon and come home to this:

12:23 PM iamindiejake (Autoreply): hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon
12:23 PM momoftheboybock: YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMm!


or how about this gem:

10:59:37 PM momoftheboybock: Boston Legal is a kick-ass show
10:59:39 PM iamindiejake (Autoreply): Yes, I went to Las Vegas! Seriously! Did nobody know?
10:59:45 PM momoftheboybock: yes
10:59:46 PM iamindiejake (Autoreply): Yes, I went to Las Vegas! Seriously! Did nobody know?
10:59:54 PM momoftheboybock: i mean ...no i knew

notice the time difference between the two lines:

9:01:10 PM iamindiejake (Autoreply): kevin sterne, certified BAMF
9:01:34 PM momoftheboybock: hmmm... "BAMF".......
9:09:08 PM momoftheboybock: oh never mind never mind nevermind... i know. Dane Cook

often I come home to messages like so:

11:29:59 AM momoftheboybock: Mom here. Just checking in. You da boy as usual.
11:30:32 AM momoftheboybock: Oh. PS. I've changed Pogo's name to Barfo Cat.

or just random messages throughout the day while I'm away:

6:39:02 AM momoftheboybock: ugh.... it's EARLY

she reacts irrationally:

9:16:36 PM iamindiejake (Autoreply): so I guess we're getting snow then
9:16:44 PM momoftheboybock: noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

and gives me lots of names:

9:11:29 PM momoftheboybock: jake oh
9:11:49 PM momoftheboybock: the jake
9:12:58 PM momoftheboybock: the jakester
9:22:39 PM momoftheboybock: jake la rohnee

11:25:38 AM momoftheboybock: J-bo

3:29:12 PM momoftheboybock: YOU DA ZACOB B BOCK

my mom also has absurd requests of me:

12:05:31 AM momoftheboybock: There is a commercial on tv.. has these chords: F Ab C do you know what it is?

she has a short attention span:

11:08:11 PM momoftheboybock: did you get SnOOooooowwww?
11:13:25 PM momoftheboybock: wow! the 6 piece mcnuggets are now on the $1 menu (until Jan 28..)

and has a poor memory:

10:43:28 AM momoftheboybock: woo
10:43:31 AM iamindiejake: Shuo found a copy of that movie The Host
10:43:34 AM iamindiejake: when she was in china!
10:43:38 AM iamindiejake: I'm so excited
10:43:47 AM momoftheboybock: woor!
10:43:57 AM momoftheboybock: errr.. "The Host?"
10:44:04 AM iamindiejake: the one we saw at MIFF
10:44:07 AM momoftheboybock: OH!
10:44:23 AM momoftheboybock: dang... errr which one was that again? The one about the Falcon?...
10:44:26 AM iamindiejake: no
10:44:30 AM iamindiejake: the action comedy

(a month or two later)

11:32:30 AM iamindiejake: I'm going to see THE HOST tonight
11:32:35 AM iamindiejake: it's playing at the Lyric theatre here
11:32:39 AM momoftheboybock: what's that?
11:32:54 AM iamindiejake: AFHRHGHGHGHG
11:33:03 AM iamindiejake: how many times are you going to forget what THE HOST is
11:33:14 AM momoftheboybock: friggin....multi times....
11:33:29 AM momoftheboybock: what is it?...a movie?...a concert? a play?
11:33:35 AM iamindiejake: remember that MOVIE that was AWESOME that we SAW in AUSTRALIA
11:33:43 AM momoftheboybock: ohhhhhhhhhhh...hehh heh....
11:33:53 AM momoftheboybock: errr..which one was it again?
11:34:38 AM momoftheboybock: the one about ....um....i think there was a bird in it....argh... i don't know why i can't remember movies i've seen....
11:34:58 AM momoftheboybock: oh... I REMEMBER
11:35:08 AM momoftheboybock: the kid gets eaten by a sea monster
11:35:13 AM momoftheboybock: that one?


yes everyone.
my mom is insane.

that's why I love her.

Happy (early) mother's day mom!

Ahhhhh.... uhm.... I forgot to post this last month. And I'm about to do my '06 wrapup. So ah. Here. 'tis.

Shortlist! December! 2006!!

1. +/- - Let's Build a Fire
2. +/- - One Day You'll Be There
3. Anathallo - By Number
4. Aural.laurA - Pied Piper
5. Copeland - Love Affair
6. Damien Rice - Rootless Tree
7. The Decemberists - The Island
8. The Knife - Like a Pen
9. The Knife - Forest Families
10. Margot & etc - Vampires in Blue Dresses
11. Persephone's Bees - Way to Your Heart
12. She Wants Revenge - Red Flags and Long Nights
13. Subtle - The Mercury Craze
14. Subtle - Midas Gutz
15. Tahiti 80 - Big Day
16. Tahiti 80 - Changes
17. The Whitlams - White Horses

Quick and dirty notes of people that are new....

+/- (plus/minus) is freaking awesome, and I wish I'd heard them earlier in the year. Shades of Dismemberment Plan or So Many Dynamos from time to time... weird beats... great programming and production, tight songwriting.

More awesome craziness from The Knife. Fantastic album!!

A She Wants Revenge track I just realized I liked.

Subtle - indie hip-hop from under the Anticon umbrella. Mindblowing delivery and awesome beats. Highly recommended.

Tahiti 80, crazy almost JT pop, or something like that. Except not actually him. And a little smarter sounding. Maybe it's just the voice.

I went to the ATM today to withdraw money, but for some reason my finger accidentally tapped the $200 rather than the $40, so I got flustered and redeposited $160 of it. I bet that's gonna confuse some bank tellers tomorrow.

Before I came to college, I guess about five and a half years ago, my mom took me to Staples to load up on office & school supplies. Those of you that have been in my room(s) have probably seen that I have most everything you'd need (i.e. box of 25000 staples). I found it amusing that today I opened the bag of rubber bands for the first time. I used four.

The last week has been a pretty strange time for me. The Trivettes and I opened the new Christiansburg store and people just started rolling in... it's weird, it doesn't seem like we've only been open a week and a half. My employees are starting to know what to do without having to be told, which is great. David & Stephen are starting to fall to the wayside and let me really run things, and I'm learning to run with it. I made my first schedule the other day, one that'll start in January. I'm learning where to cut costs in labor, and how we don't really need that extra hour out of that person. I'm filling out invoices and ordering thousands of dollars of food, walking and talking on my bluetooth headset (I got a new phone, even). It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that all of the people that we just hired see me as "The Man," when only a few months ago I was looking at people like Matt and Becca like that, and now I'm where they are.

I went into the Blacksburg store tonight, mainly because there's nothing else to do in town and nobody else I have to hang out with. It was strange being back, with the low ceilings and crappy bread pans and registers just slightly different than the ones I know. There was a package in the back for Stephen Trivette, but I took the chance and opened it, having a good (and correct) hunch as what it could be - my certification manual and plaque from the JJ's corporate training. I'm going to hang it up in my store tomorrow. It still feels weird to say my store, as if I'm laying claim to something that really isn't... but... then, isn't it? I introduce myself as the manager or even on occasion the GM. But to find myself here in less than a year, when I wasn't even running my own shifts until six months ago... but then, six months is a pretty long time.

This year has been a pretty long time.

I'm finding myself thinking back to where I was, exactly one year ago.
I had just graduated from college. I had a new job at a new store. I had just got out of a relationship that never really was. I was facing a void, a vague definition of "where to go". I didn't have any particular attachments, or any reason to think I'd be in the town longer than my apartment lease.

And where am I now? A year later?
I have a new job (GM) at a new store. I just got out of a relationship that threw me for quite a loop. I have a vague idea of what I'm doing, moreso that I'm in this thing for the long haul now. I have a store, and an idea of where to go with it, but no real plan of how to get there. I'm wondering where I'm going to live when my apartment lease runs out again.

So I'm guessing all-in-all this was a good year. It's easy to take things that happened late in the year (the breakup) and focus on them as the defining moment of 2006, but really, it wasn't... as much as the hopeless romantic in me wants to say. Does it hurt, every day? Fuck yeah it does. I get furious from time to time thinking about it. But when I'm busy, I'm just thinking about that. I'm thinking about getting this done and how spending sixty hours a week working at this store is justified when at the end of it, hey, I've done something here. It makes me think that maybe all the reasons she gave me weren't actually for her... maybe they were for me. I'm certainly getting my shit done. Even if I'm beat and exhausted at the end of the day, and know I have to do it again in seven hours, it feels... satisfying is the wrong word. Do you know what I'm trying to say?

I miss having someone to tell all these things to at the end of the night, so I guess I finally just decide to spill them all here.

Another strange thing happened to me last night. I was sitting on the couch when Jeff Flora called and told me he was about 10 minutes out of Blacksburg and stopping for coffee, did I want to join him? And I did, and we ended up sitting at Bollo's, sipping our coffee and talking about all the crazy shit we're doing. When did we become twentysomethings? I remember (as I'm sure you all do) driving by coffee shops and wondering how these young people had so much free time on their hands to relax in comfortable chairs in the evening. Didn't they have homework, or some adult version thereof? I guess now I'm finding that this is the homework... having that little bit of life outside of your work time. It was nice to be able to do that, instead of "I have to work on this" or some other equal excuse.

But on a night like tonight, when there's literally three people in town that I know, I'm finding it hard to keep myself from going stir-crazy. A city like this is death in the winter, when everyone's back home visiting family and loved ones... and I'm here for all but Christmas day and the tuesday after. Wednesday is going to be the worst - with nobody at all around as most everyone stays away until New Year's Day.

So it's hard for me not to feel lonely, especially in this season. When I know that the person I thought I'd be cheering with... well. This is no place to go into such things. I'll just leave it as blindsided. But I'm looking for someone to spend my time with, as the numbers of people I know outside of work is quickly dwindling. I can't date people from work, that leaves me with very few options. How do the twentysomethings do it?

I wonder what the sum total of 2007 will be.

Sooo..... you might have noticed I didn't do something last month. Well... things were kinda busy at the time, being up in Illinois and all. But never fear! You still get the same amount of music on the shortlist.... just doubled.... for two months.... so sit down this one's gonna be a bit.

shortlist october/november 2006.

1. The Album Leaf - The Light
2. Aural.laurA - Icarus
3. Beck - Cellphone's Dead
4. Beck - The Information
5. Celldweller - Own Little World (Remorse Code Remix)
6. Copeland - I'm a Sucker for a Kind Word
7. Copeland - When You Thought You'd Never Stand Out
8. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
9. Damien Rice - Elephant
10. Eastern Conference Champions - Nice Clean Shirt
11. Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton - Crowd Surf off a Cliff
12. Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton - Detective Daughter
13. Freezepop - Less Talk More Rokk
14. Hammock - Losing You to You
15. Jeff Miller - Scars
16. Jeremy Enigk - River to Sea
17. Jeremy Enigk - Damien Dreams
18. Jet - Stand Up
19. John Legend - Show Me
20. Kasabian - By My Side
21. The Knife - We Share Our Mothers' Health
22. The Knife - One Hit
23. Louis XIV - Finding Out True Love is Blind
24. Lovedrug - American Swimming Lesson
25. Lovedrug - The Praxter
26. Mute Math - Plan B
27. My Chemical Romance - Dead!
28. Persephone's Bees - Walk to the Moon
29. Persephone's Bees - Home
30. Raine Maida - Sex Love and Honey
31. Raine Maida - Careful What You Wish For
32. The Whitlams - Year of the Rat
33. The Whitlams - 12 Hours

Ok. Take a breath and relax before you delve into ( the notes )

Interviewing people is such a trip.

I remember this time last year, I was concerned about graduation, and getting some job to tide me over in the few months while I decided what to do with my life. Believe it or not, this saturday I will have worked at Jimmy John's for one whole year (check the link if you don't believe me). I didn't know if the JJ's thing would just be a short-time thing, something to pay a bill or two, then I'd move out of town in July and never look back. But things happened, I stuck around, and almost a year to the day I'll be in charge of our new Christiansburg store (target date of opening now Tuesday Dec. 12th). And I actually spent a few hours today interviewing new people, and even hiring them. Having the power to be able to say "alright, you're in" rather than "I'll let my manager know" is an interesting distinction. No more "fill out an app and come back for an interview." I'm making that decision. And thankfully, I've been meeting some really good people that sound interested in the whole deal.

Is it weird to become in charge of something so quickly? Sure, it's a much different kind of work than what most of my friends went into, but I just can't imagine what it must be like to still be the low guy on the pole. I've been hearing similar things from other people that graduated around the same time I did - I remember that Jeremy was saying that he was showing someone new around his office once, and it caught him off guard.

It's just interesting to see the list of "people to report to" getting shorter and "people that report to me" getting longer so quickly.

Also one year ago, last december, I released my first solo album Time & Distance. Sure, it didn't fly off the shelves like hotcakes (and I still have a shitload of them if you want one... eight bucks... professionally made... looks awesome.... eh? eh???) but it gave me a very contented feeling to have it done. And I'm starting to ramp up to that again. It's going to be harder to do this second album, what with the level of involvement that work takes (I've had to step away from writing this twice now to take callbacks from new hires).

But in 2007... you can expect a new album from me. It's called Last Night in Town and it's about halfway written. If you're interested to see a few pictures, click this word: wishes. There will be an EP released sometime before the end of winter (hopefully) much like I did before T&D with The Day I Awoke followed by the full album a few months afterwards.

I'm also working on getting a new band together and I'm looking for people in the area who play instruments. I need a drummer, guitarists, bassist, and hopefully keyboards (and maybe a violin?).

So that's what's going on with me.

day thirteen: #12, the beach club.

It's always been one of our most popular, but something I had never really had any interest in trying. Turkey, cheese, avocado... I guess it was just that I had made so many (a somewhat irritating sandwich to make with all the cheese and avo) for so little thanks (a certain kind of irritating, ungrateful person seems to order this sandwich). But I mean, that's the deal I made with myself at the beginning of this. And I'm learning up here how important to keep the deals, even if it's something as minute and cheesy (pun intended) as this goal I've set for myself.

I ended up not eating it for lunch, as I had enough time between work and class to get something hot (which sadly just turned out to be chicken nuggets). But after class, I was tired of sitting in my hotel room, so I decided to wander up and down Green Street (which is the main college drag in town). I went to the downtown campus Jimmy John's, which was really really nice - bigger than ours in Blacksburg, but it didn't do delivery (there's another one six or so blocks away that does delivery). Champaign-Urbana, however, is a really awesome city - though it's probably more my lack of experience in actual cities speaking. Undoubtedly bigger cities are more exciting, but for me, this was a good step.

There was also a Coldstone, so that was delicious.

Otherwise, an uneventful day.

Day 14: #13, Gourmet Veggie Club

I guess if there was ever a day to test my resolve to the Sandwich Gauntlet (as it's become called), it would be this one. I mean really, who wants to eat that much cheese? It really seems unnecessary. I already ate the standard vegetarian, and I didn't want to put it on wheat bread (that would really just be insane).

I could, you know, just eat some other sandwich that's mainly cheese.

Anyway, we opened well today, and got everything done on time, so we got some quick breakfast at Arby's (tasty breakfast sandwiches). Around 10am, our training manager got a call from the central office saying we needed to come back an hour or two earlier, before class. Not just us, specifically, all the training classes were to head to the corporate office -

We were going to meet Jimmy John Liataud.




(to be continued, seriously, I am so tired right now)

Hey, wtf, why hasn't anyone told me about The Knife? Why is today the first time I'm hearing about them? Wow. Mucho digg.

Day 12: #11 Country Club

Today I sliced... really that was it. Ok not all it. It was a gameday for U-Illinois, so we prepped up high and I basically spent the entire day slicing. My output: 5 logs of cheese, 3 hunks of beef, and 3... hams. I don't know what hams are measured in. 3 of them. All done by around 2pm, too, which is pretty good if I say so myself. It honestly wasn't as busy as I'd expect, but then maybe it's because that store has such a high volume of delivery, while ours is much more in-shop.

I had the country club with bacon on it, as close to a real club sandwich as I could get. Or at least as I wanted to get. It was delicious, though, the bacon was spot-on today.

There was a rumor that Jimmy was going to stop by at some point during the day, but I guess that didn't pan out for him. I really want to meet this guy before I leave, but with only one week left it's seeming less likely. Who knows.

Tonight I cooked some steaks on my tiny two-burner stove, and drank a bottle of Penfold's Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet... I'm finding that I really like anything associated with Shiraz. Go wine.

Tomorrow: day off! Gotta find a record store and pick up some The Knife albums.

day nine; #8 billy club

I've always preached the no. 8 on wheat as "the best sandwich here" or "my favorite thing", but honestly I have to say that's not true. It's really good, yeah, but it is pretty heavy and filling to eat (the beef makes sure of that). I got it on french bread this time, and it was darn good. It was also the last day of closes during training, but nothing really exciting happened. I had to go almost right to sleep when I got home, since there was an open the next day... now how's that for being clubbed.

day ten: #9 italian night club

By far the most popular thing on the menu, and after a painfully long open at Green St. no. 1 (which does about as much business as my home store on a good day) I was really craving this sandwich. It's definitely one of my favorites too, and makes me wish there were more things with the vito meat on our menu. It also seemed to be a day that everyone in the world wanted a #9, or maybe it was just that I was paying more attention to it... either way, good stuff right there.

Today I sliced beef, and clocked in at about a pound a minute. That's not bad, not bad at all.... the average beef is about 12 pounds or so.

day eleven: #10 hunter's club

This one is a pretty common sandwich, but I've found if you have it without lettuce it tastes a lot better. Something about the beef by itself, maybe with some onions, and sauce or dijon. Great stuff, and a good hearty flavor.

Today was a lot of standing and my feet are really hurting. Something about this store is just hurting my feet and knees a lot more than Charleston or Kirby, I dunno what it is. It's a lot smaller than either of the other stores.

I sliced hams today, and did a 12.5 lb. ham in just a little over eight minutes. My times are getting better and better...

Anyway, one more open and then my tiny sunday-off-weekend. Sweeeeeet. I'm gonna go to sleep at like 7 tomorrow night, I can feel it. Actually that's a lie... I'll probably be up until 1am as usual anyway.

I gotta say, I never really understood the need for the Gourmet Smoked Ham Club.

I mean really, the only difference is that it has twice as much ham, and if you get it on french bread, it's not gutted. The only real reason I can think of for that (and to a lesser extent the Hunter's Club... which I'll talk about on friday) is that you can get it on wheat bread for free. So I guess the #7 is kinda like a gateway club... for people that think they can't eat a club, but they get the #7 and realize "oh, hey, I can do this" then they start hitting the harder stuff, like the Billy or Italian Night clubs. Then eventually someone hands you a gargantuan and it's all over.

Tonight was inventory, which was much simpler than I had been led to believe. Really... you just count things. Simple. Sure the units are different from object to object, but really, not complicated.

They have an iced tea machine here. That would definitely do a lot of business down in the south if it were sweet tea (hint, hint).

Once again, I would like to preach the awesomeness of a JJ's drive thru... huge sales boost right there.

I have homework again tonight. So I'll probably work on that in the morning.

Ugh... close into an open... rough. Could be rougher though.

day six: vegetarians.

Ironically, the sandwich of the day was the no. 4 with no sprouts, as they were probably 20% of our sandwiches for the day. Maybe not true. But it felt that way. Also got more experience with the drive-thru system, which was freaking amazing and a huge boost to sales. I can't hope enough that we get one of these at one of our stores back home sometime... it would be awesome.

I also found that I liked the vegetarian sandwich a lot more than I expected. Sure, there wasn't any meat, but the flavor of the avocado and cheese was really good. So I might actually get that in the future, of my own accord.

day seven: b.l.t.

I had the BLT for lunch today (no mayo of course) and I honestly didn't enjoy it too much. Jimmy doesn't like it with cheese, but I found myself wishing for something... more. I dunno. BLT fans, what do you think?

Tonight was also the first day of three days closing the Kirby store. And as for closing a store at 10pm - wow! Definitely took me back to the days of summer when we were closing at midnight... we probably could have gotten away with closing at 10 back then, those five extra customers just didn't seem to justify the two extra hours. Oh well, something to think about. But if I do end up working at the Christiansburg store, now I know somewhat what it'll be like. (of course the fact that we're next to Coldstone might keep our sales busier through the evening).

Also learned about inventory systems today... finally. Pretty easy stuff, I just needed to look at the sheets and I'm getting to know it pretty well.

Tomorrow and the rest of the week.... into the giant club sandwiches I go.

(this week will have the best food... nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11... delicious)

Today was pretty straightforward. We had a weird order of 100 slims, but they weren't going to be eaten until tomorrow... some weird high school thing where they leave at 5am or so and have to take them with... in a cooler... or something.

We almost ran out of bread, came close, but didn't.

So your vito-related fact for the day... the sauce recipe is changing in a few weeks when all the stores get the new red wine vinegar.

I'm getting to sleep earlier than I ever did back in Blacksburg... it's weird. Going to sleep at 9pm. (10pm some days.)

That's all I got for ya. Tomorrow: vegetarians.

Today was just another day in jimmy land USA... we got to go in the old store, and let me tell you, it's freaking tiny. I don't know how a store that small could have continued to do the sales volume that it did, logistically... there was just no storage and nowhere to keep all the stuff that you'd need to do those kind of sales.

One of the other trainee managers told me today that she had a turkey call and would bring it in to work some days, and make turkey noises whenever anyone ordered a #4. It's weird how stories keep coming up each day that have something to do with where I am on my sandwich marathon. I guess that means a lot of italians will come into the store tomorrow?

Anyway, I guess I'm almost at the end of week one. Time is flying by (as it has a tendency to do when one is busy).

I was at the Target store today, and I couldn't help but notice that there are Nintendo Wii accessories for sale already... controller gloves, organizers, and carry cases (the Nintendo-licensed ones, of course). I guess I'll have to pick up some of that too once the I pick mine up.

Everyone make sure to listen to WUVT tomorrow, noon to two (EST) to catch the FridayIndieFresh RADIOTHON special... Danielle is doing it while I'm gone, and that means it'll still be good! Tune in. www.WUVT.vt.edu/listen.html online.

So anyway, a few of you probably already know this but I'm in Champaign, IL for three weeks for Jimmy John's corporate training. Awesomely enough, I'm actually training at the original Jimmy John's location in Charleston, IL (about 40 minutes south)... they just started doing that a few months ago because they ran out of space in all the Champaign stores.

So while I'm here I have 18 days of training. Coincidentally JJ's has 18 sandwiches. So today, day three, I had a #3 Sorry Charlie (more on that later). And yea, I'm going to eat all the sandwiches in order. I get a Gargantuan on my test day.

Some random facts I learned (strangely I learned random tuna things today).

The record for pressing tuna by hand is 1 pound 10 ounces; Jimmy John's requires it to be no more than two and a quarter pounds.

I learned new ways to slice my tuna veggies.

The name of the #3 is about to change due to trademark issues... we changed our tuna brand and the "charlie" was a trademark. So look for that down the road in a few months





Tomorrow...... #4 turkey tom.







and that's that

Well I haven't blogged in a while. So here's some news.

I stood in line to pre-order a Nintendo Wii today.... and a good thing I got there an hour early. I'm number 9 on their list of 12. Only 12 preorders! Unbelievable. But at least I'm one of them, so barring a massive lack of systems being produced (not something I'm worried about with the Wii) I should be enjoying that the day of its release.

I also picked up a copy of The End, the final Lemony Snicket novel. So hopefully I'll read that soon.

I work a lot of hours at Jimmy John's, since I'm a manager. Yeah.

Oh, going to see Mute Math next friday night (10/20) at Starr Hill in Charlottesville. It's gonna effin rule.

It's that time once again. And this one.... begins and ends with Aussie bands. Intriguing.

shortlist / september / 2006

1. Augie March - Just Passing Through
2. Beck - Elevator Music
3. Chris Thile - Watch 'at Breakdown
4. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
5. The Decemberists - When the War Came
6. Emily Haines - Doctor Blind
7. Evermore - Running
8. The Gothic Archies - Scream & Run Away
9. Johnny Cash - Help Me
10. Margot & the Nuclear So & So's - Dress Me Like a Clown
11. Mew - White Lips Kissed
12. Mute Math - Control
13. Persephone's Bees - Nice Day
14. The Polyphonic Spree - Sonic Bloom
15. The Rebel Yell - Multimedia
16. So Many Dynamos - In Every Direction
17. TV on the Radio - Hours
18. The Whitlams - Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent

( notes )

Moral of the story: LISTEN TO MORE OF THE WHITLAMS. NOWWWWW.

I think going to Australia really affected the way I look at alcohol. Not only do I have the wine thing going now, but it's expanded to beer.... I just came back from Vintage Cellar with 19 bottles of things you probably haven't heard of. I was lucky enough to wander in there on new beer truck shipment day or whatever you want to call it, so I had no problem picking up two six-packs of Cooper's (Sparkling Ale and Pale Ale)... it's apparently hard to get your hands on in Blacksburg, as it's a well known Australian beer and there's some professors and students here from there that want a taste of home. I tried yet again to find some Hoegaarden White Ale, but they told me that the distributor has been out of that for a few months. However, after a bit of chat with the store keeper, I found out that they carried two other brews that the same guy made... this guy, Pierre Celis is somewhat of a legend these days I guess. He brought back the whole Belgian-wheat-brew-ale or whatever or did something to revise it. Anyway. He started brewing in Texas, this brand called Celis (not too original I know) that had three or four different kinds... then it got shut down or something, and it's finally in production again. But the big find for me was his third brew... Grotten Brown ale... this stuff is pretty new as far as I can tell. The bottle (which is corked, even) tells me to age it for a while and serve it cool, not cold. I'm excited.

shortlist, august, 2006

1. Augie March - One Crowded Hour
2. Belle & Sebastian - Funny Little Frog
3. The Damnwells - Golden Days
4. The Decemberists - The Perfect Crime #2
5. Gomez - How We Operate
6. Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down
7. Keane - Atlantic
8. Majestic 12 - Welcome to the City
9. Margot & the Nuclear So & Sos - On A Freezing Chicago Street
10. Mew - Special
11. Muse - Knights of Cydonia
12. The Never - Antarctica
13. The Raconteurs - Together
14. The Silent Years - Sharks
15. Some By Sea - This Song is Not About You, So Don't Ask
16. Thom Yorke - Cymbal Rush
17. Tom Petty - Square One
18. The Whitlams - I Was Alive
19. The Working Title - Glorious

no notes right now, don't have time. you can just assume that all of these songs pwn you and should be listened to. :-) Maybe I'll do notes later.

Ok new Decemberists track is cool.
And uhmmm..... everyone should download ALL OF THE WHITLAMS EVAR

it's about six am. and I just got home from work after two particularly intense closing shifts... we did about $4600 in sales tonight, which compared to the "expected" $3000.... fucking insane.

I'm so tired right now, staying up this late, and sleeping not enough each day really kills after a while.

I'm seriously working on my Australia tour diary & photo gallery, there's just so very much in it that it's taking a loooooong time to get together.

I'm going to try to sleep for a while, let's hope it works