First and foremost, Happy 4th of July to everyone out there in internetland. I hope you all enjoy the day and take the time to revel it up. I'll be heading out to the actors' cave here in a bit to hang with them for the fourth, I'm thinking about bringing Zoey along, but I'm still on the fence about it.

The past year or so, I find that I've been doing all my journal-updating late in the week or on the weekend. I figure I have very little to talk about during the week as I tend to just go to work, come home, and hang out, lather, rinse, repeat. This week's been rather busy though, so I figure I'll talk about it.

I wound up getting not one, but TWO call-back interviews, the first at Georgetown and the second at Foxes. Now I know I said I wasn't interested in the place, but it sure seemed like they were interested in me even after it seemed like the one owner wasn't impressed with me at all.

I wound up having both interviews on Thursday after a half-day at work. The interview at Georgetown went pretty well and I'm pretty sure I impressed the people I needed to make an impression on. I've sent my thank you's and should be hearing from them as soon as Monday or Tuesday. The interview at Foxes went really well and made me more interested in working there. I apparently have a good shot at getting the job there according to the other owner I spoke to. I should also be hearing form them next week, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

4th of July weekend's been fun so far. Saw Public Enemies with Julia yesterday, which was good but disappointing. We went over to my mom's place near immediately and stuffed our faces on BBQ. I should be doing the same a bit later here.

Cheers and happy holiday all!

Another week, another update about the past week/weekend. Been pretty busy all things considered.

I wound up missing out on the clusterfuck of an accident that happened on the red line on my way home from work although I did wind up getting stuck at Fort Totten for a brief period. I felt popular though since I was the only one who knew anything about what was going on thanks to my mom (she does insurance for Metro). Commuting into work was pretty effed as a result, but it could have been a lot worse. I was thankful no one I knew was hurt, although some folks came damn close; one of my friends missed the train that collided with the stationary train at Fort Totten.

Work's gone pretty well so far. I like the folks I work with, the work itself is pretty easy data entry stuff, but I still feel like I'm doing something of some consequence. There are almost 100,000 attorneys who practice law in DC and they all have to work their way past me before they can practice. I also help operate the call center there, which has been more fun than I was expecting. It's nice getting to work with people again after doing strictly office shiz for the past year or so. Still, I know this is temporary and am trying my best not to get complacent. I'm still looking for ideal permanent work and am confident something will come up soon.

Speaking of which, I had an interview over at Foxes Music in Falls Church which turned out to be a big waste of time. It's too damn far away, the place is too damn cramped, they don't pay enough for all the driving I'd be doing, and the owner rubbed me the wrong way. No worries though since I still have lots of irons in the fire. I have a second interview coming up over at Georgetown's Office of Advancement on Thursday and a number of interesting-looking direct-hire jobs from the temp agency I'm currently working for. They apparently have no problem with their temps breaking assignments to get full-time employment which is nice. Not something I would ever expect from Trak, so Contact 1 FTW.

Had a pretty busy/fun weekend involving the pool yesterday, lots of napping and chilling out, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", and the Linganore Wine Festival with Rob & Holly and Julia's parents. Pretty fun times.

Been playing a fair amount of guitar lately, lots of noodley original stuff and resolutions to parts I'd come up with before. Also been listening to lots of Megadeth, new Darkest Hour, and new Killswitch Engage. New KSE's really doing it for me at the moment, very catchy. Not sure if I like it more than their previous releases as it's a little more "accessible", but I find in my old age that I care less and less about that as long as the songs are good.

I think that's all.

So another week goes by without a real entry. This one's important though since I started my first day at a new job today! That's right, I GOT A NEW JOB! It's another temporary gig that I got last week through Contact 1 over at the DC Bar Association. I'm currently working in their Member Services department. My main responsibilities will be processing dues and updating the member database. Everyone at my office seems nice and the atmosphere is generally pretty collegial and laid back. I have no delusions or plans for it to be a permanent thing though as the contract expires on September 1.

Things have picked up on the job front since my last entry. For one, I interviewed for a Records Assistant position at Georgetown's Office of Advancement and will be interviewing at Foxes Music in Falls Church for a Registrar position. I also have a lead from Contact 1 on a Development Associate position at a local DC non-profit. I should be finding out about all these things soon. I'm confident that I'll have something or that something will be in the works for sure by the end of the month.

I apologize to those people on my friends' list who read this thing, but I haven't been up to much lately and when I've been busy I haven't wanted to talk. Truthfully, I've been depressed the past month or so. I've been doing a lot more purpose-searching than job-searching and I haven't felt comfortable sharing the thoughts I've had with other people.

Or maybe I'm just lazy. Your call...

More on other things later.

Had a busy week, hence the late entry. Job searching is finally starting to yield some results as I might have a gig through Contact 1 as a Research Assistant for a non-profit org and I got an e-mail yesterday from the Director of Constituent Records at Georgetown asking me to interview for the Records Assistant job there. Either ones would be pretty cool.

Had an impromptu party shindig last night with not very many people coming, but good times still being had by all. Beer, pizza, gaming, conversation, and finally Quarry House made for fun times with good people.

I'm fixing to go to the twins' house today to jam and re-break in my Marshall that's FINALLY repaired. I can't effing wait, yo!

Wow. So I went two weeks without updating only to leave a short little thing saying that a real update would be pending. I then proceeded to let it sit there for 5 days. Oops. :P

I have been very busy all things considered though. While I haven't been working, I have been job-hunting and more importantly, purpose-hunting. Most of my time has been spent frittering time away trying to determine what I really want to do with myself and what I need to do in order to accomplish this. Thankfully, I have some leads and a better idea of what I wanted than I had a few weeks ago. In order to accomplish these things, however, I still need to be able to work somewhere to at least make rent and contribute in some fashion. Even if I can't find something though, I have at least three different temp agencies helping me out, so the possibility of at least temporary employment is there. In addition, Julia just got her dream job and will soon be working there, making more money, and getting benefits, so we're not in any danger of being thrown out on the street anytime soon.

I've been making strides to finally getting my podcast up and running. My mom offered to pay for the licensing which was super-nice of her and really awesome since that was the only real hurdle I encountered aside from mastering Audacity. I have my first episode mostly complete and am looking to update it via MySpace and itunes initially before getting my own web space. I'm hoping that doing that for a consistent length of time and getting some listeners will eventually result in an awesome job doing New Media things down the road, but I'm having fun in the meantime.

Been to a lot of shows these past few weeks. Here's a brief list of the bands in order of the shows I saw them on and what I thought of their performances for anyone who may be interested:
5/8 - Protest The Hero = B-
Misery Signals = B
5/11 - Lamb Of God = A
As I Lay Dying = A-
God Forbid = A-
5/12 - Mastodon = A-
Kylesa = B
Intronaut = B
5/26 - Testament = A
Unearth = B
Lazarus AD = B

Other than that, not too much has been going on. I've been super-thrifty lately, which is good, but still have been having fun. I keep wrestling with being stressed out about the job situation. The hardest part is really not having a purpose or being able to truly commit myself to any one job that I've had so far. I don't have anything that I really want to do above all others and nothing I feel truly passionate about as far as work goes, so getting a job has been rather tough. Whatevs though, I'll figure it out.

Wow, so it's been two weeks since I last updated. I haven't disappeared folks, I've just been rather busy.

I'll provide a proper update here soon. Bye for now!

Sometimes I wonder why I still use this thing. Truthfully, I don't know, but it's awfully amusing to see what people write on occasion.

Speaking of amusing, this is some funny shit if you haven't seen it yet:
You're Going to Need a Dick Army

Not too much going on to report. Still no word from the ABC, but I'm planning to give them a call a bit later to see what the deal is. I also heard back from History Associates yesterday and it seems they're looking over my resume for a possible Research Historian gig. Could be awesome or it could be nothing, but I'm going to work my ass off on the remaining materials I need for the place until I get in.

My days at WilmerHale are officially numbered and my last day is May 4th. Honestly, I couldn't be happier. This job sucks. I'd rather be at home, looking up jobs and living off my savings for a while than doing this work.

I'm trying to think of ways to be naughty for my last few days here. I've thought about clipping my toenails on the job, gutting a fish at my desk a la Office Space, and bringing a guitar in to work. Any suggestions?

So it's been a week since I last updated, but it hasn't been wasted. I've had a busy week.

Expect a more thorough update later.

Got the weekend off to a good start with catching Watchmen at the Uptown after work. On the whole, it was okay but not great or awesome. Here's what I thought...

( Here be spoilers )

Despite my gripes with it, I still enjoyed the movie. It was visually gorgeous and kept my attention for all 2 hours and 40 minutes. I also felt that the end resolution was a nice touch that made enough sense considering the what limits they were working under. Still, for a movie this highly anticipated and a story that good, I was hoping for more.

Not that anyone would care that much, but here's my list of my favorite albums from 2008. All in all it was a great year for metal, but not so much for anything else. These are based more on how much I enjoyed the albums in question versus artistry or supposed quality. The way I see it, it's already quality if I listen to it, so why not just post a list of my favorites?

1. Protest The Hero - Fortresss
2. Testament - The Formation Of Damnation
3. Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1
4. Opeth - Watershed
5. Enslaved - Vertebrae
6. Cynic - Traced In Air
7. Ihsahn - AngL
8. Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God
9. Burst - Lazarus Bird
10. Arsis - We Are The Nightmare
11. Meshuggah - obZen
12. Intronaut - Preshistoricisms
13. Scar Symmetry - Holographic Universe
14. Textures - Silhouettes
15. Darkane - Demonic Art
16. Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure
17. To-Mera - Delusions
18. Keep Of Kalessin - Kolossus
19. Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh
20. The Rotted - Get Dead Or Die Trying
21. Death Angel - Killing Season
22. Sevendust - Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow
23. Misery Index - Traitors
24. Mirrorthrone - Gangrene
25. Metallica - Death Magnetic
26. Daylight Dies - Lost To The Living
27. Boris - Smile
28. Mercenary - Architect Of Lies
29. Hollenthon - Opus Magnum
30. The Sword - Gods Of The Earth
31. Withered - Folie Circulaire
32. Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery
33. The Haunted - Versus
34. Lair Of The Minotaur - War Metal Battle Master
35. Sahg - II
36. Soilwork - Sworn To A Great Divide
37. Austrian Death Machine - Total Brutal
38. Abigail Williams - In The Shadow Of A Thousand Suns
39. Bleeding Through - Declaration
40. Torche - Meanderthal

Of course I listened to more than this list all year, but most of them aren't really worth mentioning that much about.

So in keeping with the recent trend of updating after concerts or after visits with Julia, I'm updating between the two!

Just got back from seeing Sevendust up in Baltimore with sisterblister84 which was pretty sweet. The opening band was awful, direct support Nonpoint were alright despite not playing most of my favorite songs of theirs, and Sevendust were awesome. It was really cool seeing them after being a fan of theirs for so long. I distinctly remember being 13 and listening to their Home CD on repeat for hours, so I had a lot of fun taking the show in. Spent most of it in the crowd with humanity, did some crowd-surfing and moshing, and almost lost my phone had it not been for the kindly security guy who snagged me out of the crowd and snagged my phone when it fell out of my pocket. Good times were had, merry was made, a pick was snagged, and I'm tired and sore and probably not going to work tomorrow.

Next show on the epic concert list is Intronaut, Behold...The Arctopus, and Mouth Of The Architect at DC9 on the 11th. I know I've asked before, but is anyone interested in going? I plan on being there either way, but if a lack of familiarity with the bands is the problem, I can help with that if you let me know.

On a non-concert-related note, my new computer came in yesterday! I spent the better part of last night setting it up, stripping it of the extraneous stuff that Windows packs Vista with, replacing it with the tried and true stuff I use, and generally making it awesome. So far, I love it! It's much faster and quieter than the laptop and has all the space I need to make it do whatever I want.

Regarding the show tonight, it was probably the first strictly nu-metal show I've been to in several years. Watching the crowd dynamic and response to the style of music the bands were playing was pretty interesting. The musicians gave it their all and were certainly feeling it, but I couldn't see myself getting into some of the music from the earlier bands as much as some of the other concertgoers. Lots of people were having a great time thrashing around and going nuts just like I'm used to seeing at shows for heavier bands. It reminded me of myself not so long ago as I'm sure I used to go nuts for some pretty mediocre bands back in my day. Thinking like that made me feel old, but then made me realize that it wasn't that long ago so I don't feel as old. I feel like I got a neat sense of myself in watching how these strangers acted.

The whole experience reminded me of my first club show. I remember how excited I was to see those bands play and how much the music moved me. I remember paying $13 to meet one of the bands after the show and how excited I was to shake hands with a group of people who are ostensibly nobodies with a video I saw once on MTV at three in the morning. Still, it was cool. It was making a personal connection with the music that I couldn't have made if I hadn't taken the chance and gone that night. It also allowed me to connect with a large group of people who felt the same way about the music that I did. I felt like I was a part of something bigger and yet more personal than I had ever felt at a larger concert. These people weren't playing to and meeting thousands of anonymous, faceless people, but were seemingly playing just for me and these people. It was the first time I ever felt comraderie with people at a concert. It started me on my addiction to music and live music in particular and has been something I haven't been able to shake since.

I remember seeing a lot of young kids at this show interspersed with all the twenty and thirty-somethings I was expecting and I remember seeing how excited they looked. Maybe this was their first concert experience and maybe they were feeling the same sort of excitement and happiness I felt not so long ago. Thinking about the show that way now makes me feel better about seeing lots of people thrashing around to pretty menial opening bands. In the end, seeing a band live isn't about qualifying the music or the tastes of others, but rather taking in something that means a lot to you with strangers who probably feel the same way. And that goes for any age, any genre, any time, anywhere. Everyone knows what's going on and everyone is on the same track. Honestly, where else can you put your arm around a stranger and give him a high five without worrying about where he's been or where he plans on hitting you after you get your arm off of him.

Everyone else is doing it...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hey kids! It's been a couple days, but I'm alive and well. Been enjoying myself before the time to get serious starts. Things, however, are going quite quite well. I'll update a little more and give slightly more thorough information soon, but first here's a quote from Jeff Foxworthy...

"Yes ma'am...you are welcome!"

Your Ice Cream Personality:

You like to think of yourself as a fairly modest person. And it's true that you don't talk yourself up... but you're also pretty happy with who you are. You are incredibly cautious. You rather miss out on something than make a mistake. No one would ever call you wild... but they would call you responsible. You are a fairly open minded person with a wide range of tastes. You are quite accepting of unusual ideas and people. You tend to have a one track mind. You prefer not to multitask. You can be a big dramatic and over the top sometimes. You are bold in every way

The Ice Cream Personality Test

I got tagged twice, but decided I should address this to the one who tagged me first.

( Silly little meme )

It's been an eventful couple of days since I last updated. I've been a blur of near-constant activity since Thursday which makes me feel pretty good about how the spring/summer has started.

Hung out with Julia for the better part of Wednesday and Thursday, starting with lunch at home. We then proceeded into downtown Silver Spring where we enjoyed some ice cream, traipsed around the city a bit, and caught Iron Man at the Majestic. The movie was so good! Robert Downey, Jr. makes an awesome Tony Stark and the movie as a whole was very well done. Julia and I agreed, however, that our favorite parts of the movie involved the awkward relationship between Tony Stark and his assistant Pepper, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Everything was very odd and strained between the two and it didn't fall into action movie cliche territory with the big pay-off kiss at the end or anything. While the movie had plenty of explosions and stuff, it was the little things that did it.

Thursday proved to also be pretty damn busy thanks to a Torche and The Sword show at the Rock & Roll Hotel with Molly and the twins. The three bands that played were all pretty awesome with the final two tearing it up completely. Both Torche and The Sword were loud as fuck with amps ablaze and eardrums a-bleeding. Still had a good time though. I was really impressed by how tight The Sword were. The riffs were churned out with machine-like precision that I wasn't expecting from a band like them. We got fantastic positioning for the final two bands as well, getting places right up front. If you want a more thorough look into the show, check this shit out. Read the fans' answers to the question of the night at the bottom too for shits and giggles. :)

Though Julia went home on Thursday, I went up to stay at her place on Friday. Good times were had by all as I got to know her family. They live in this awesome little house in Hagerstown full of the kids' art and little things here and there. Her folks and siblings are really nice and her pets took to me almost immediately. We spent the weekend hanging out with her folks, walking her dogs, watching the world on her roof, eating at Cracker Barrel, and chilling at a really cool hookah bar in downtown Hagerstown.

I came back home yesterday afternoon in time to join my parents for Indian food. Not long after returning and vegging out, Julia came by and we went back on into downtown Silver Spring again to meet her aunt and uncle for dinner at an Ethiopian place. I haven't been there in a long time and the food was as weirdly awesome as I remember it being. You don't use utensils there and everything is served on a giant piece of spongy bread. The palette is generally spicy, but sooooooo tasty.

Julia and I killed time downtown for a few hours until the rest of our St. Mary's contingent (Tony, Rachel, Josh, Mary, Molly, and Lauren) arrived for Goth Night at the Piratz Tavern. The awesome was multiplied by meeting Miriam and Paul L. there by surprise. The night was more chill than I was expecting with lots of drinking and ridiculous gothy music and such. This was probably the first goth-related thing that I've been to in years that I didn't get so into. I'd like to think that I'm on a semi-permanent vacation from anything so overblown. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all. After splitting up with the rest of the crew, Julia and I retired to my house.

Today's been a gorgeous day and I'd like to maybe go out and enjoy it some either in an outdoors-y capacity or just driving around, but I have some things to take care of around here. I may have an in at the Library of Congress through one of my mom's friends, so the most pertinent thing for me to do is to e-mail this guy and see what he can offer me. It's not a job per se, but it's a contact and a possible reference I can list. Julia and I promised each other that we'd help one another on the job hunt through sheer motivation. We worked our asses off in college, so the potential is there to be really lazy. All things considered though, I think we'll be okay.

This week may be full with some hanging out. Got in contact with Stevie T. and Jesus, so I'll have to give those kids a call and see what we can do as far as chilling is concerned. Other than that, I'm expecting lots of sleeping, reading, blogging, downloading, and guitar playing.