Spokane, WA

After spending over 15 hours in the van I was more than ready to get the hell to the show. I pulled the 3:30am- 6:00am shift, and then I was out, but since we’ve got seven people with us I had to sleep on the floor. I sleep really well, but woke up with my hips killing me since there is only some carpet covering the metal flooring of the van. We played this place before a few times, the last time was about two years ago, and the venue changed, I like this building better. We loaded in and waited for project to show up and do their sound check. Nothing too exciting, the venue is next to winery, so it smelled like booze out front, I kept looking around for a homeless guy or some drunk Spokane scene kid, but they didn’t show up until later. Our set went well, no local bands, just the tour tonight, so it came our time to play pretty fast. The kids seemed into the show, but no noise ever came out of them, maybe it was the way the room was, but they were silent after almost every song. I checked with the other bands, they had the same problem, so it wasn’t just that the crowd thought we were crap. Tonight is kind of the first night on the tour for us, no going home now. I’m sitting in the green room right now and there’s all these signatures from bands that I’ve never heard of, and they’re dated from 1995- 1996 era, old school. There are some sweet band names though. I can see ‘Big Dirty’, ‘Fluffy’, ‘Space Spackle’, they were on it back in the day. Today was a slow day, nothing crazy. The only slightly funny thing was some scenester kid was trashed and told us to move out of Spokane as fast as we could, his reason, because he’s been going to shows for over five years and no one recognizes him. Lame. He must really not belong here if no one remembers who he is, it tears him up so much he needs to get shitty to make himself feel better about it all. I mean, what life is worth living if no one at a rock show remembers who you are and won’t let you in for free? Portland tomorrow, I get to sleep in a bed tonight, it’s gonna be great. Later: We are in our hotel room and Jeff, my brother, Brandon & Ryan from Spoken are all playing Halo, they're super stoked right now, I'm not as stoked being that I kind of hate Halo.

Why Is It So Early

Well, we started our tour last night in Roseville, and things couldn't be better. All the bands are great, the two shows we've played so far have been great, people have been crazy at the shows. Since Friday night a lot has been going on, rides on drum cases, people getting hit in the head, police chases, football tossing with Jimmy Eat World, my car breaking down and getting flat tires, circle pits (it's funny to watch), long drives, no sleep, dirty laundry, geek talk about Halo (not me, others). I don't know, so much, so little sleep, it's hard to think. Tonight, or this morning, is my last time in my own bed for nine weeks, I'm excited, but kind of stressed out about all the stuff I have to do before we leave, mainly I need to do laundry and pack my bag, and say goodbye for a while to all my Chico friends. Once I get into tour mode I'll be set and have my thoughts together a little more. Day off tomorrow, drive to Spokane, Tuesday Spokane, Washington. Goodnight.

I thought I saw an Osmond, but it was just a regular Mormon

Well, I spent the last day or so in a van driving to and from Salt Lake City, home to the all mighty Mormon. I actually spent so little time in the town I didn't even see one, I think. We drove the twelve hours there, played our set, hung out for a half hour and drove twelve hours back. But we didn't leave our friendliest eastern state (Nevada) without stopping and living it up a little, and by a little, I mean A LITTLE. The idea was to eat somewhere crappy, so we picked the Peppermill Casino. The one in Reno is great, $5.99 breakfasts after midnight, but not in good ol' Wendover. I thought the $7.95 steak and eggs was going to be great, but it wasn't, I think they finished cooking my food first and put it under the heat lamp because my 8oz. steak seemed to have shrunk down to about 4oz and one of my eggs was very cooked, very hard yolk. It was all worth while, though, when I won a little bit of dough playing the penny slots, I was up thirty cents at one point, but then I blew it all, three times in a row. I felt it was three dollars well spent. Then I drove for a while, thinking I could make it to Reno (about 450 miles) not quite, I was 175 short, I realized when I almost hit that smart ass wolf in the road that I should end my shift, so I got some gas, forgot to put the gas cap back, and went to bed, I woke up just in time to see the southern end of Chico, it was beautiful, but this trip was not really worth the time I spent in the van, I still don't really know why we even went there, no offense to the kids that were there, you all were great. On another note, I love my IPod, it's probably one of the best things I've ever purchased, besides that stock in cardboard I purchased when I was eight.

Chico Party (kind of)

So lately there hasn't been a whole hell of a lot going on around town. Lots of down time, no practice until next week, so I'm mainly bound to the house, but I've found some interesting projects to do. I've tackled the weekly lawn mowing, but instead of waiting until the evening I decided to do it early morning, well, not actually early, but early for me. With that out of the way I rearranged the living room, cleaned some floors, changed some light bulbs and fixed holes in my clothes. That's all there was to do around here, so I went out tonight, and I realized for the millionth time in my life that people in Chico pretty much suck. That's not saying everyone is a bunch of idiots, but the vast majority is. Why do people need to get all dressed up to get shitty drunk and look like an ass, you could wear your normal, everyday clothes and get shitty and end up looking the same to some drunk girl/ guy that won't want to remember what went on come the next day? I guess that's what comes with living in Chico, and I figured after 23 years I would realize that. I think I'm just ready to leave for a while, I've been in town all summer and I'm ready to get out and play some shows. This afternoon we were people watching downtown and there was little 10- 12 year old kid playing his violin, he was pretty good, and people kept giving money to him, he must have made at least fifteen bucks in a half hour, we were joking about he did crank, and all of sudden he packed up his money and his violin and took off, probably to get his fix in down by the creek, his parents should keep a closer eye on him.

Oh Canada

So I made it back safely from Canada, but just barely, not really. The trip went over pretty well, besides getting over the border and back again. The drive to SF went smoothly, no problems except that we had to park our van in the international terminal, then walk all our stuff a mile to the other terminal. We flew to Seattle then connected to Edmonton, Alberta on a smaller plane. Our flight crew was pretty nice, except for this larger stewardess, she thought she was hilarious, like Rosie O' Donnell funny, she thought. The rows in the plane were about two feet wide, this woman was about three, so there was a lot of ass touching elbow action going on every time she walked by. Overall, she sucked, I didn't like her, but it was a short flight. Once in Canada we had to go through customs, which was a lot less painful than we had heard. They made us pay taxes on the merch we brought in, not too steep, and the guy let us put our guitars through the x- ray machine so we could see their insides. We got to the hotel, went to sleep and woke up early the next day to go play the show. The amphitheatre the show was at was really nice, except it was outdoors and it was ass- cold out there. We played, kids had fun, we had fun, we ate some food, hung out with geese and seagulls, even got a seagull to pick up a smoking cigarette butt, it just stood there with the thing smoking in it's mouth, I wish I had a picture of it. That night we hung out in the hotel. They had a nice bar in there, so we had a drink. There was a Russian guy in there drinking some interesting drink, we asked what it was, he said it was a Sea Shanty, it was made with Grasshopper beer, Clamato juice, lemon, salt and pepper, probably one of the best things I've ever had. We had most of the next day to hang out, but no transportation, so we spent some time at the stores across the street from us, a super shopping center, a liquor store and a cigarette/ gas station. The liquor store had a lot of nice Canadian beers, the superstore had tons of food, and the cigarette store had lots of Canadian cigarettes. They don't have normal American cigarettes there, no Camels or Marlboros, they have all these other brands that look like boxes of condoms and are all exactly the same, just different brands. They also have a law that a certain percentage of the package has to have warnings on it, so they have nice little warnings (some are pictured above). Around 2pm we left for the airport, sat in there for three hours, went through customs again, they drilled us about what our trip was about (or aboot, as they say), finally they let us pass, we got on the plane, flew home, and our trip to Canada was complete, I'll post more little details soon.

Stepping into the year 2000.

After my near death experience with the meat bee I realized I needed to live my life to it's fullest, so I bought an IPod. This is like a dream come true for me, I've asked for an IPod as my Christmas and birthday presents for the past two years, but never received one, and for some reason I kept putting off buying one myself, that is until yesterday. I found a good deal from apple.com so I went for it. I realized that carrying around a giant book of cds isn't cool and it's a huge pain in the ass. In anticipation of getting the IPod I have been loading all my cds onto my computer, and it's taking forever, I started last night and I am now almost on the Ds in my cd collection. Fifty cds down, 600 more to go, I've got my weekend planned, sit, watch some movies and put cds into my computer, I hope the IPod shows up tomorrow because I'm running out of room on my hard drive. I'll post pictures of me and my new best friend as soon as it gets here, I can't wait.

Don't Fuck with Meat Bees

meat_bees_fish
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

Just a quick note, don't fuck with meat bees unless you're totally covered up. I thought I could dig up their nest in my bushes and be totally fine, but I didn't count on the one bee waiting behind me to scare the shit out of me. While the other bees were busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on the hero of the bunch decided to get caught in my hair and bite my head, just once, but while I was running to the front yard it chased me, I'm pretty sure I lost it, but I keep feeling little things that I think is the bee. I'm jumpy as hell now and my head hurts a little, I don't think it got a good bite on me. So either hire a professional or be willing to burn down some bushes to kill the things.

Flying to New Mexico

teatime 1
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

This past weekend, hours after my people watching experience, I was flew out to Albuquerque, NM. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:45am, so figure it out what time we had to leave to be in Sacramento on time. The first half was easy enough, just went to Las Vegas for a nice tow hour layover. I was running on zero sleep, and when that happens I am Mr. Dick. I wouldn't lay off of people, I noticed everyone's bad features and was extremely verbal about them, but everyone around me got a good laugh at the other people's expense. Flight leaves, we go to NM, we play a show, go to the hotel, sleep, wake up at 6:15 to leave for the airport for an 8:45am flight. We're waiting to check in and I can't find my wallet, I notice my pocket has ripped all the way across, leaving a nice hole for my wallet to fall out of. We call our shuttle van, no wallet, they call the hotel, no wallet anywhere, I even had to tell them to check the women's bathroom due to me being impatient and using that because the men's was occupied. But no wallet. Our driver went to check the hotel herself, walks into my room and it's right there on the floor, in plain view she said. I was happy to get my wallet and not miss my flight, but I was little ticked at the hotel people, did they even look? They didn;t give a shit, I could have been stuck there for another day because of their laziness. But, I made it home, no other big problems, just the fear I will lose something important up in Canada this next weekend, I could be stuck in the hell of the north, but I won't think about that.

On another note, high school kids look damn young, like they're 12. It scared me, they shouldn't be able to leave campus for open lunch if they look like they help using the bathroom. Just my two cents.

People Watch

ErnstDrunk
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

I spent my last Saturday night watching people from a corner bench in downtown Chico, and as weird and mildly creepy as that sounds, it was one of the best things I've ever done in my life, maybe. I'll give a rundown of the night's events.

Happenings

1. The first five minutes I was at my bench I saw a guy nearly get hit by a car. Now normally this would be something I would feel was well deserved by the almost crippled, but in this case it was the driver that should have been badly injured. The guy was walking through the cross walk, a woman pulled around the corner, not looking, and almost hit, his shoe fell off in front of her car, and when he bent down to pick it up she started to go again, dumb ass lady. This made me feel really bad for the guy, worse than I've felt about anything for a long time, I don't know why.

2. Some lame ass Chico, hippy types get pulled over right in front of me, I mean I was four feet away, so I got to see and hear everything that was going on. The cop said they were speeding and had expired tags, the driver tried to explain why his tags were expired, something about the moon not being in line with stars and so his tags wouldn't stick to the license plate. The two guys in the car were obviously stoned, the cop didn't seem to notice, the passenger also had to me on crank, he couldn't stop moving around. After ten minutes of the guy asking why he needed to sign his ticket, they were off.

3. Some creepy couple came and joined me. The guy was around 30, the woman, around 50+ and homeless looking, but they were ion the mood for love that night, so they took off after a short time to go find a nice bush or pile of dirt to do their thing in.

4. The line for the bar across the street was immense, I mean it wrapped around the block, which is a little longer than normal. All the kids that came up to my corner and saw the line were baffled as to why there was such a long line for a bar on a Saturday night during Labor Day weekend in Chico, idiots.

5. A little strange guy came up, I remembered him from elementary school, he used to be deaf, no hearing aids anymore, so I thought he would still be friendly. He asked me if I needed a job or some extra money, "No" I said, he kept asking, so I thought he was trying to get at something, you know, "You need a 'job' or something for some extra money?" Finally he tells me I could earn two hundred dollars if I wanted to kill somebody for him, he made it sound so simple, just kill a guy for me that was being a jerk and I'll give you two hundred bucks, my bank's right here. I told him to go away from me, he offered again and I suggested he should go stand way over by the stop light, away from me. He asked a few more people the same thing and finally left. No reports of any murders yet.

6. A second couple joined me and the bench. They were nice enough, came from the bay area to visit some friends who happened to ditch them to go to a crowded bar. They were trying to get a cab home, but not actually trying. When the taxi would get close the guy would kind of flap his wrist around, looking really fruity in the process. Finally, after 30 minutes of this I got up and hailed a taxi for them so they would leave, his girlfriend was super bitchy and she needed to go somewhere else, far, far away from me.

7. Two more girls joined me, they said they ususally sit on the same bench Saturday nights and watch people, it was nice to have someone to verbalize my thoughts to. But when you have two nice, young girls sitting next to you, dudes will look for any excuse to try and impress them, so me, being the only other guy around, was the butt of these brouham's jokes. On two different occasions dudes asked me if I was a little bit gay, not gay, but just a little bit. They were so sure of themselves, too. They'd be like, "Dude, are you sure, not even a little bit?" What the hell, do I look a little gay? Maybe they were attracted to me and my Lyle Lovitt haircut and that made them feel super uncomfortable?

8. Two a.m. rolls around, the bars close and the streets are filled with tons of assholes trying to find the girl they're going to take home with them, most of them ended up leaving on pedi-cabs with their guy friends, anly to go back to their homes and make homoerotic jokes towards one another.

I walked home and thought about how interesting it was to watch the Chico in their natural habitat. Very, very interesting stuff, my only complaint is I wish I would have brought a notebook to write stuff down in, because I know I forgot a ton of things.

They feel like string beans.

I was never a big believer in karma, until Monday night. A mere three hours after posting a blog that made fun of some sorry sap kid, I started to feel kind of crappy. Not the kind of crappy you feel when you make fun of someone, I rarely feel that, but the kind of crappy you feel when your body shuts down. It started with a minor sore throat, then my back and legs started to ache real bad and I was feeling a little warm, so I headed home. My symptoms worsened throughout the night, my throat swelled up nice and big, my body hurt like I fell off a roof, and all the damn sweat, it wouldn't stop. So I stayed in bed all day Tuesday, shivering and sweating at the same time, not able to swallow, no appetite whatsoever. Wednesday comes around, after one of the longest nights of my life, and I visit the doctor. Now with a name like Immediate Care, I would have expected a little more immediacy when dealing with the patients, but no. The nurse kept looking at my chart, then putting it back and sitting down, but I was finally seen, and my doctor was very nice, she informed me I have tonsillitis and not strept throat, good news, and to save me money, she gave me medication samples instead of making me pay for a prescription. Last night wasn't as bad as the previous, but I was still pretty unsuccessful in getting a whole lot of sleep. I think the worst part is I can't swallow very well at all, so when I fall asleep I drool like crazy and wake up with crap everywhere, I can't wait to wash my sheets, I feel disgusting. My tonsils feel like some sort of tiny vegetable in the back of my throat, it kind of grosses me out. Took some Advil to help with the pain of eating, I'm just waiting for it kick in so I can eat, it's been a few days since I had a meal, saltines and yogurt have been holding me over for the time being, but I'm ready to move on to tougher things, like chicken soup. One last thing, court shows are some of the best stuff on t.v. if you don't have cable, and I think I'm starting to really think this.

eat

i'm sick, my tonsils are swollen, I can't swallow very well, so eating is hard to do. More on all this later.

This is sad.

So I found this on purevolume.com and I feel that it should be taken in by everyone. For those of you that don't find anything funny about this, there is something wrong with you. Note: pay attention lines such as; "you are inside of me", "I loa,la,la,la,la, love you" and the best is at the end, so you've got to listen all the way through to get the full enjoyment of this recording.
FUNNY AS HELL, CLICK HERE

The Celery Stalks At Midnight

Another post from me, the biggest slacker when it comes to new posts. Anyway, my whole week was spent on the west coast as part of a nice little tour with some bands that, at first I was not too fond of, but grew to like, mostly as people. The week started off in beautiful San Diego, Ca. We show up and the line is crazy, around the building, people all over, then we start to notice the large amount of Asian kids. This was Saturday, we played on the tour until Wednesday. By Sunday night our joke about how the shows would be attended by only Asian kids became reality. Now, don't get me wrong, a person into your band is a great thing, it's just weird when there is an entire community all about you. To make this rant short, we gained a lot of Asian fans, and that means we sold a lot of crap, those kids love to buy things. The only not so well attended show was in Eugene, OR, home of too many hippies, and apparently not so many Asians. In the coming weeks I will be going to Canada for the first time in my life, I'm excited and a little scared, what if they think I'm trying to smuggle pot out of their country, I don't want to get detained in Canada for something I would never do, but that would also be a great story. This is the most boring shit ever written, I need to come up with more witty, clever things, it will come to me. One last thing, someone slept in my bed while I was gone, I don't like that, but they left a copy of the Big Lebowski in my DVD player, so that makes it a little bit better.

My Hero of the Week

Mr. Gabriel Derose is one the nicest, but craziest guys ever, and he is the hero of the week. A little back story on Gabe. He is the merch guy extrodinaire, he does merch for a band called Mourning September, but when asked to work for the Eagles he couldn't pass up the chance. So he packed his bags and flew out to Tahoe to start on the Eagles' California tour. After a few days of greuling work he realized that the long hours and little pay was not worth it, so he up and left, leaving a note saying something along the lines of "I'm quitting, keep it real." He then had nowhere to go, so he decided to walk to Chico, after hours and hours (he was in Angel Camp at the time) he arrived here later that evening, he got a few rides. I was surprised as hell to see the guy come walking down my street pulling his suitcase behind him. I made some steaks, he took a shower and we hung out. With no way home Gabe was here in town for at least a few days, so we took him to the mall where there a fashion show going on. This wasn't a huge show or anything, but these models thought they were badass. Gabe decided to get in line with the models and when he was up, he grabbed a helium filled balloon, sucked it down and proceeded to do a little dance on the stage, walked off and came to sit back down. I haven't laughed that hard in my life, he was so nonchalant about the whole thing too. And to top it off, he goes to the DJ who is spinning records for the show, asks to check out his rig, and then starts to scratch the record that is the background music for the fashion show, the DJ was pretty pissed, but Gabe casually walks away and acts like nothing happened. Later that night he casually walks into Duffy's after blowing off the doorguy, Gabe is only twenty. After being found among the masses he tells the bouncer you only need to be twenty to drink in Oklahoma, but he gets kicked out anyway, left to fend for himself in downtown Chico. He left yesterday after getting a cheap plane ticket, but he is always welcome here at my house. So if you ever run into Gabe, talk to him, he's a one of a kind guy.

In other news, a local writer decided to make an example of my band and our fashion choices. Now I'm totally open to any criticism about how I dress and how I look, but this guy is an ass hat, so it kind of pisses me off. If you're in Chico, pick up this week's Synthesis and look at page 9, read the story, see what you think, I feel it is kind of unnecessary to put the comments he did, but what is even more unnecessary is his column. Just my opinion. It's hard to say what makes me so angry about this. His facts are truthful, I wear women's pants, I like them, they're comfortable, someone else in my band wears a camouflage hat, it looks good, so what's the issue? I think if kids get too large of an ego when they are 17, their heads might not make it through their early twenties, I would be careful, you could burst a blood cell in the old noggin' there, so be cautious about how badass you think you are. Enough of that, I'll get over it this afternoon.

Best Day Ever

After many a day being super angry and frustrated at the system, postal systm that is, my legal ID fianlly showed up. Some more things happend with the whole situation that I will not go into because there is no reason, the only thing that matters is it's here. With all this talk about waiting for my ID it seems that's all that I do, but that's not the case. I do other things, like yesterday I drove up to Redding with the Cabrini Green crew to watch their show and sell some shirts for them, only to arrive in Redding and find out that the show was cancelled due to a fire next door to the venue, what are the chances. I was super excited to hear the first song they're playing right now, it's excellent, you should hear it. So we went over to the Round Table Pizza and got some ber and pizza. The highlight of this trip was when asked for our IDs to get beer glasses James (who is not 21) noticed the lady didn't really look at ours, she just held them and gave them back. So James had the idea to try and get a glass as well, so he gives the woman his liscence, she looks at it for a minute, trying to do the math in her head, and failing miserably, she gives it back to him and goes to get his glass. She was slightly flustered, probably because she can't do simple math, but then you don't need those skills to sweep and drop off plates. So I look in the back and she's consulting three other employees about the issue, it takes the four of them a total of five minutes to figure out that he was a month short of being 21, genius- ass people. We then made the hour and a half drive back home and spent a nice night hanging out at home, where everyone showed up except for a Dr. Prado, he was missed, as was Josh Kerney, but he's a legit excuse. If you read this today, come to LaSalle's tonight and get real close to the front of the stage so Mikee can hit you with his bass.

Patience.

Pointless Fact of the Day:
Tomatoes are seedless strawberries.


A few weeks ago, in an effort to look cool and waste my money, I decided to get my right arm tattooed. So I go to one of the shops in town I trust, expecting the artist I want to be there to plan out the tattoo. He was gone on vacation until the next week, so, being as impatient as I am, I went to another shop. I talked with the owner and the artist that would be doing the tattoo. They were very friendly people and I felt comfortable with the situation, so I made an appointment. I go in and get the outline of the thing done, I'm happy with it, it looks really good and I'm thoroughly excited about how the finished product will look. Fast forward two and half weeks to today. I go in to make another appointment for some fill in work, and I'm informed that the artist no longer works there, and the woman thinks he has moved out of town. What kind of shit luck is that? So I am a little miffed at the news and now I am stuck with the outline of what was going to be an entire sleeve of a tattoo. Now I have to suck it up and go to the original shop and tell the guy what happened and hope he can pick up on the idea of the tattoo based on what is there right now. I have faith that the guy will be able to do an excellent job, it's just getting over my pride and admitting that I'm an idiot that will be the troublesome part. Moral of the story; patience is a great thing to have, don't be an ass and get something right then and there, just wait a few days, it's well worth it. Also, don't go to Gearhead Tattoo and Barbershop, I should have known not to when I thought the name was stupid. This is an excellent learning lesson.

On a lighter note, I went to a softball game today, and I realized something, softball/ baseball players say some of the dumbest shit trying to hype each other up. At the game I heard things like; "Let's make this another 9 pitch up to bat" and "Line drive hitter, yeah?" Exactly, I didn't know what the hell he meant by this, and I don't think he knew either. I think I'm going to start playing softball and saying things like "Yoke that bat around and wind it up over there" or "Face the car around backside flip- flops." I don't know, they'll probably love my team spirit, I could probably get an award for having such a positive impact on the team.

USPS should get mad cow

Pointless Fact of the Day:
Rain comes from trees.

I am thoroughly pissed off at some of the biggest companies in the US, and I can't do anything about it. What, you may ask, am I so pissed about? I'll tell you. Back in November of 2004, my driver's license expired. I neglected to do anything about it until a month and a half ago. I figured, I'm twenty three, just because my ID is expired doesn't change that, which worked for a few months, but now I have same privileges as a high school kid, I haven't been to bar in six months, I have to have my friends buy me beer. So anyways, I get up real early and go the DMV, the wait is very short and I renew my card, easy as hell, I should have done it sooner. I leave for tour and come back, no ID, okay, it will be here after the next one, I tell myself. Get back from tour number two, no ID. Okay, I'll be patient and wait a few more weeks, leave, come back a third time, still nothing, so I call. This little man answers, I can't understand him very well, he's got a weird accent, borderline gibberish is what he's speaking, but I manage to understand that my card was sent out over a month ago and I should have it. I tell him I don't, he says sorry, I have to come back in and do it all over again, I ask if I have to pay again, and this is where I got really mad, not because he said I did, but because I couldn't understand a damn thing he said. He could have been telling me to fuck off and I wouldn't have understood him, I kept asking, "Do I need to pay again?" and something sounding like a man talking underwater with a mouthful of food came back over the phone making noises, so I hung up. I called back, worked my way through all the menus and that bullshit, this time get a nice woman, she tells me I don't have to repay, but I have to come back in, take another picture and sign some legal documents stating I didn't receive it, okay, easy enough. I ask her, "Can I make an appointment with you"? "No, you need to do that through the automated system which will then switch you over to a real person." Fuck that. This was the most infuriating thing I had experienced since the day before. So I try to call the post office, who is even more difficult to handle because they don't give a shit, you need these people. They say all my mail has been delivered as it should and I should contact the sender. I was so angry at this time I didn't know what to do, so mowed the lawn and I pushed to the back of my mind. Until last Friday. I talked to brother, who lives in Davis and I ask him if he's gotten any of my mail, he just got back from Japan so he hasn't looked through it. He calls me the next day and tells me it's there, in Davis. Now, I get his mail still sent to my house, and he gets a lot my mail, so why in the fucking hell can the post office not look at the damn change of address form he filled out, with his name on it and send the right mail to the right house? Who the fuck knows? I think I should be allowed to trip my mail man or something like that for being borderline retarded, I mean, they get paid enough, so why not do a thorough job? If they had some sort of competition I would probably go with them because I'm tired of the mail people doing a shitty job. So to sum it up, the DMV and USPS, the two biggest companies in the US that you cannot do without, are the shittiest things ever, but there's nothing you can do about it.

Home sweet home

Pointless Fact of the Day:
If you wear socks to bed, your feet shrink.

After spending the better part of three days driving in a van, I'm more than happy to be at home. Don't get me wrong, touring is the best thing in the world, but there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed all day long, and as of today, using the internet in your own house. That's right, my roommates and I have stepped into the present and purchased high speed internet, we're still working out some bugs, but I don't have to drive to my parents house for anything now.
So this last Thursday I played at a festival in Washington called the Creation Festival. It was a big gooshy christian music festival, but they pay well, the kids that watch are into the music and, the best part, it was at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington. So we leave the night before around 7pm, which outs us at the festival around noonish on Thursday. Myself and my bandmate, Jeff, decide to get dropped off in Seattle so we can hang out with some friends for the afternoon, and just kind of sit back and relax and not have to be in the sun at the festival all day. We're having a good time, we go to Tooth and Nail for a few hours, we hit up the studio to say hi to Mr. Sprinkle and hear some awesome Demon Hunter solos, they're amazing, then we hit the road. So we're about 45 minutes into our two hour drive when there is just massive amounts of traffic, they say delays up to two hours, and we have to play in three hours, with over an hour left of driving to do after the traffic jam. So we wait and wait and get through the jam, haul to the festival, it luckily was running twenty minutes late, which we later found out meant we had twenty minutes less to play. We setup and are all ready, but the sound guy was just sitting there with a thumb up his ass not doing anything. I told him to start checking things, he yelled at me, a lot, but we got stuff where we could deal with it, then we played. This was the worst show ever, or so it felt like it at the time, everyone said the sound was terrible, probably due to me pissing off the sound guy, but screw him. So we're done and it's time to eat and hang out. For food they gave us this fake money to buy food with, and you got real cash back for your change, and here's the best part, they also sold cigarettes there. To make this story good I have to back track a little. Earlier I found an example sheet with all the backstage passes on it, they use them for the security guards, well I cut out the all access pass, went and ate for free behind the main stage and spent my fake money cigarettes, and to top it off, I got cash back. Not super exciting now that I think about it, but at the time I thought I was damn genius.

Long Beach, CA

Due to popular demand, and me trying not be lazy, I've decided to update my blog. I'm surprised and flattered that people check this to see if it's been updated. A lot has happened since I last updated, I got to go home for a while. My activities while there included band practice and things of that sort, hosing off my porch in the sunny afternoon, cleaning my house and a whole lot of sitting around doing nothing except sweating. Fast forward to today. We had the day off in sunny ol' southern California, so we decided to go to Raging Waters, one of the sweetest water parks around, where they like to say "Have a raging time". Stupid. But it was a lot of fun. I was very reluctant at first due to my dislike of sunburns, but I came around and had a great time. The water was chlorinated, the lines were long, but the rides were fast and wet, so it made up for the waits. There's a strong smelling pineapple in front of me right now, it's nice. I'm worn out and ready for bed. One more thing, I don't want to be cheesy, but this I'm going to be, please go buy our new cd, it would be great if you did. Thanks.

Mt. Vernon, IL

I've spent the last three days in Nashville doing a lot of things, especially schmoozing, but it was fun. We were trying to get our songs in movies and tv shows and things like that, and I think went pretty well, we'll see though. Last night I went out on the town with some friends and Nashville bros are the worse kind. They all wear polo shirts, mostly pink or black with white stripes, and backwards baseball caps. We sat in the bar and played the name game (where you yell a random name trying to get someone with that name). Dudes were not into it at all. Our friend Ryan went up to some random group and started bro-ing down like he knew them and they were into it for about two minutes, until they saw the rest of us laughing in the corner. Later on some dudes wanted to pick a fight with us, supposedly because we were "faggots". Whatever. The night didn't end until about 6:15 am, I got a few hours of sleep and now we are at our next destination. Tonight we had a nice little surprise when we got here. We were told that John Davis, former Superdrag singer, will be opening for us. I'm excited as hell, and then I start thinking, this guy was in Superdrag, I used to love them, and growing up seeing them on MTV, weird. Then I met him and he is one of the nicest people on the earth. I can't wait to see him play. Also, the A/C is broken in the venue so it's about 105 in here right now, heat makes shows more fun. That's all for now, go buy John Davis' record, it's amazing. Oh yeah, I got the coolest picture frame in the entire world, it's got grim reapers on the sides, but the best part is the picture it came with, it's a dragon with skulls around it and then a weird faint creature from the black lagoon face about the dragon, just come to my house when I get home and stare at this wonderful thing for a while, I'll have it open to the public on weekdays.