did you know Orson Welles made a movie about me?

new favorite youtube video

I wish I could be really good at cool stuff without putting in the necessary work and practice that would make me good at those things.

I mean I guess you find things you have a knack for and continue to do them, but even the things I am best at I tend to wish I could do better.

Part of that is outside influence and being compared with others. I am perfectly satisfied to pick up/ sit down with an instrument and just play and play and play for the physical satisfaction of doing it even though I can't imagine learning and remembering how to correctly play a song.
I've played the bass guitar for 20 years and I can play a couple of little parts of songs but I don't think I could play a whole song by any other band or musician from beginning to end.

(click the picture to see full size)
I did the painted part and Mike from Earthless did the sun and the text.
I'm really proud of it!!

Are you ever driving to work and suddenly go, oh my god it's October?
I mean, it's already almost no longer October!
This year has gone much faster than any of my previous 33.
(In February I will be THIRTY FIVE? What the shit?)
There's been so many ups and downs this year.
I almost want to say more ups but there's been some deep, deep, downs.
Far and away the worst thing that happened this year was losing Walter.
He was seriously my best friend and the best cat ever.
I loved him so much and I totally miss him.
Having mold in our house and having to move out of that place was both a curse and a blessing.
That place was fantastic but I don't miss paying that much for rent or never being able to have it clean.

Sure, I got transferred at work and I loved my old job, but luckily I still see my old co-workers pretty much every day, and now I have even LESS responsibility than I had at that job.

Me being TUMOR FREE! I kicked that tumor's ass. Well, my neurosurgeon did but you know, if you have a bully, you get a bodyguard.

More recently, my very dear friend Lynne got herself a new pair of lungs!

Musically this year has been phenomenal. Seriously. Mastodon's "Crack the Skye" and Superchunk's "Leaves in The Gutter" are holding onto the lead for best new release this year, but come on, there's also Fever Sleeves' "Soft Pipes, Play On", Astra's "The Weirding", The Mumlers' "Don't Throw Me Away", Dirty Projectors' "Bitte Orca" (Which I'll admit took me a couple months to come around on), The Beatles Re-Issues.... I know I'm supposed to say Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavillion", which was good, but "Strawberry Jam" was sooooo much better, "God is Good" by Om, Isis's "Wavering Radiant". Hotel St. George's "City Boy Lemon." The 7 inch by The Soft Pack. The 7 inch by Drug Wars. The 7 inch by Beaters.
Crocodiles' "Summer of Hate" wasn't the Plot, but I still love those dudes and think they did a great job.
There were more but you get it.

I made a pretty decent video for Fever Sleeves.
I'm working on another one for them, and a few more for a few more bands but they are very laborious and it's hard for me to just crank those things out.

I *DID* do my first album cover to come out on a VINYL record!! Hotel St. George's "City Boy Lemon." The thing about this band, if you listen to them, at first you'll think they're terrible. But you find yourself compelled to listen to them again. By the third listen you're like, oh my god, this is brilliant. They have all these hooks and weirdnesses. It's good stuff.

That Beatles Rock Band game is amazing... if you can find someone willing to play it with you ( I can not.)

Plus, this was TOTALLY the year of band reunions-- No Knife, in January, played the best of their three California shows. There's some embarrassing footage of me at those shows-- but fuck it I was having a great time. Olivelawn! Three Mile Pilot. Creedle (who have had a few reunions in the last few years). The Get Up Kids. Sunny Day Real Estate. The Jealous Sound. The Jesus Lizard!!!

The episode of Yo Gabba Gabba with Reeve Oliver finally aired, and they did a close up of O's bass and the LIONEL THE TIGER sticker on it!!!

Scott got traded from the Rays to the Angels. I still haven't seen that guy play in person but that's okay...at least he's in Southern California now.

The Where the Wild Things Are movie came out. Finally. I have mixed opinions about it-- I think that Spike Jonze and the Henson Creature shop both outdid themselves on it but Dave Eggers could have and should have done so much more.

The Hangover was probably the best movie of the year for me. I know that people either loved it or hated it and I certainly was in the loved it category. I liked Star Trek a whole lot, too; and of course Up and Coraline were both phenomenal.

Seeing Friday the 13th in the theater with my homey for life Brian was one of the best experiences I had all year. Terrible, terrible movie, but so infinitely watchable. So many great ...well not great quotes.

Anyway so I got to work today and was listening to Superchunk and looked down and saw my Hangover ticket stub and thought, 2009, you've been pretty good about entertaining me.

Moving sucks, right, for everybody? What if you and your wife are just short of hoarders and you move out of a three bedroom + garage place with two weeks notice?
\\\\and you move into a bedroom and two storage spaces?
THAT'S WORSE//// To be precise it was basically 18 of the worst days of my life.
But it's over. We gave away SO much. SOOOOO much. Still have tons of shit but I really am liberated with the getting rid of stuff, and I think, to a lesser extent, Kristin is also.
The problem is that so much of the stuff we have, really isn't just garbage, maybe it doesn't sell on ebay, but people are interested in it.
I gave one of our friends, Ryan, that helped out, a whooole lot of stuff. I'm gonna guess he now has a bigger comic book collection than most people he knows.

So we're in a room at Kristin's parents' house now, and I hope to keep it nice for as long as we can reign it in, maybe Kristin will like it that way, and by the time we move somewhere new she'll feel better about having less stuff. It's not minimal, but it's a looooooot closer to it than we're used to.
So we'll see how it goes.
I'm sick of having a huge, out of control place!


I'm excited to live here. Their house is awesome and we get along great.

• http://katsopolis.ytmnd.com/
  
  
  
• Have you checked out the Doug Benson "I love Movies" podcast?
  Because oh my god. Doug Benson plus Patton Oswalt and Adam Carolla. It takes a while to REALLY get going but jesus. Patton talks about his experience working with Wesley Snipes on Blade 3. HAHAH holy shit. I would buy a DVD of that movie just for the commentary if he did it. The four or so minutes they spend talking about that movie made me laugh more than almost anything else has in a year.
  http://blip.tv/file/2456108
  
  
• http://www.cartoonbrew.com/site-news/cartoon-brew-tv-singles-by-rebecca-sugar.html
  
  
• I thought I had more but... I guess not.
  

well don't miss any of those.

With those I just reached 400 pieces on my photobucket for my art.
Check it out if you're interested.

my best friend's band is playing a show of Stooges covers with THE GUITARIST OF THE STOOGES SITTING IN WITH THEM

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/around-town/events/Stooges_Guitarist_to_Play_San_Jose_Show-52392317.html

I almost can't believe it but there's Eric standing right next to him