When I first bought the camera phone it hadn’t occured to me that really don’t have anything to photograph.  So I figured that seeing as my commute is 85 miles round trip and often takes well over 2 hours total that I could snap pictures while I drive.

I’m not a car guy by any stretch.  The extent of my knowledge is getting in, driving, and getting out… but even a schmo like me can appreciate one of these.

It’s a lotus, on 128 South Thursday morning.

Now for the most commonly photographed event.  Accidents.  This picture sucks more than most of them do, but you can kinda see the lights on the police car and the tow truck.

Fascinating, eh?

Finally… my wasted weekend that will be.

I’m on call for the weekend.  Starting at 10pm tonight (Friday) and ending at 9am Monday.  I’m still going to the Justin Fund benefit, but only because it’s close enough to home that if something for work comes up I can get to my PC quickly enough to handle it without causing customers any grief.

It’s the down side of my job… at least until I take the compensation time to make up for it.  I might work this weekend, but I know I’ll get at least a few hours off in exchange.  Not bad when you look at the big picture.

“So what should we do with this uppity Jew?”

I woke up half the town by laughing my fat ass off.  You know, the classics just never go out of style.

I’m going to hell for this one, who’s with me?

>insert change of subject here<

Right now the song on my profile is a new demo by Kay Hanley.  I’m pretty schizo with the profile song so it may not be on there for long.  If it’s gone when you get here then I advise you to click on Kay Hanley in my Top 8 and listen to the song titled, “It Hurts Demo” and then you, like me, can sit on your ass waiting impatiently for her next record to come out in July.

Thank you,
Good night.

It wasn’t really a band.  It was Dave and Dan.  Dave sings and Dan plays the guitar.  My job was to play lead guitar.  But alas…

Dan wanted out.  We had a practice on Monday and Dave didn’t show.  Dan took the opportunity to vent.  I felt like a shrink sitting there listening to him get it off his chest.  He just wasn’t happy and didn’t think he could put the effort into the band that it deserves.  In that respect quitting now was definitely the right thing to do.  Most people don’t realize how much time and effort go into a band… even a bad band that’s just for fun is a lot of work.  If you can’t make the effort then it’s best not to mess everyone up pretending to.  Were I in Dan’s shoes I would have done the same thing… in fact, in the past I have done the same thing.

Dave’s pissed off of course.  This was his first gig so he’s never been through this before.  I’ll give his name to the few people I know who might be looking to start a new band.  He’ll get into something new and be okay.  The situation sucks but it’s not worth losing a friend over.  It’s no big thing in the grand scheme.

As for me?

Wanna start a band?

If you live in a place where turning right on red lights is legal there is something you should know.

I went to the Museum of Science in Boston today for a Star Wars exhibit.  I instantly regressed to age 10 again and just walked around looking at all of the actual costumes and props from all six of the films and just felt completely giddy.  I went with my sister Lisa, her boyfriend Ken, and his friend Chris.

We all had a complete blast taking dorkedness to new heights.  Here are some of the things we learned today:

• The Land-Speeder from the original movie was a frame built over the guts of a three wheeled English car called a Bond Bug.  That explains why the steering wheel was on the right.  They used mirrors to block out the wheels when they shot the car in motion.
• The real reason Darth Vader wore a helmet was because an early draft of the original film’s script had Vader board Lea’s ship in the beginning by crossing empty space between his ship and hers.  They drew up storyboards with Vader wearing a space suit.  They liked the way the helmet looked so they made it permanent.
• Speaking of Lea’s ship, the model they used was originally intended to be the Millennium Falcon, but George Lucas thought it looked too much like the ships from the TV show Space 1999.
• Chewbacca is short for a Wookie.
• The Destroyer droids from the prequels don’t really fold into balls that can roll around.  When they folded up the models they didn’t form full circles, so they rolled similar to a flat tire.  Every time they reached the flat portion of the circumference it would make a “thump.”  They fixed it by adding an extra piece onto the models when they were rolled up, and taking it off when they unfolded… the cheaters!
• TIE fighters were originally going to be blue, but they disappeared from the shots when they tried to put them in front of a blue screen (duh).  As the blue screen technology improved they added more and more blue into the color of the models.

My space’s blog editor is pissing me off to no end right now.  I keep trying to insert images.  The images appear correctly in the editor window, then I preview the post and they are gone.  I go back into edit and they are gone there too.

So I made up a quickie geocities page with some of my better pictures from the exhibit and of course as I’m posting this the page is over it’s miniscule transfer limit.

Here’s the address, on the off chance that something I do actually works tonight.  http://www.geocities.com/roberts_pictures

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

The Boston Bruins fired Mike O’Connell today!  There really is some one up there listening to our prayers!  I know this because mine has finally been answered!

Oh what a blissful occurrence.  Finally the Bruins did something right this year.  Of course it doesn’t change the fact that the schmuck traded the only two players we had that were worth watching, but at least we can hang our hats on this.

Now if we can just get rid of the other two front office morons, maybe we can start progressing toward another realistic run at the Stanley Cup.

My brother is getting married.  Three months from today.  I’m the best man.  I’ve been a best man twice before and I am a firm believer that when planning the bachelor party surprises are not good.  This is my kid brother’s day.  He should be surrounded by his best and favorite friends and we should do something that he’ll truely enjoy and will remember for the rest of his natural life.

Seems fair, right?

My brother did a lot of work helping me set up the two previous bachelor parties I was responsible for.  For Larry’s party it was a bus ride to a strip joint in Providence, RI.  A fantastic time was had by all.  For Mike’s party it was a van ride to the same strip joint in Providence and again a fantastic time was had by all.

So now my brother, the guy who helped me set the other two parties up.  What does he want to do?  One would assume a trip to a certain dive in RI would be in order, right?

Nope.

John wants to go skeet shooting.

That’s right, a day full of blasting away with shot guns trying to vaporize little round chunks of clay.  Then an evening at Foxwoods or Mohegan gambling our life savings away.

It’s going to be like playing “Duck Hunt” on the old Nintendo, only for real… except that the ducks will still be fake.  So I guess it won’t be quite the same after all.

It won’t be my first time shooting a gun, but it will be my first time as an adult.  When I was a kid I did a little target shooting with a .22 caliber rifle.  Nothing big.  I only did it a few times but I was a decent shot.  I actually prefered archery.  Even at the wise old age of 12 I could sense that there was something more satisfying about firing a projectile with my hands as opposed to a gun where the gun itself does most of the work.

I never have nor never will own a gun, and I never have nor never will shoot anything living.  I’m all for sports, and I’m all for survival too, but if you’re shooting something that’s alive just for the fun of it you’re not in it for survival, ya know?

Anyway, enough moralizing.  The point is, what my little brother wants, my little brother gets.  I’m going to be a shotgun toting lunatic for one day and if it makes him happy then it’s time that could not be better spent.

Okay, so maybe this post is more of the usual blathering drivel, but it’s where my head is at today.

And in closing, the Lowell Lock Monsters beat the Providence Bruins tonight in a shoot out… and all was right with the world.

That didn’t stop me from blowing shit loads of money on stuff I don’t need this week.

I bought a pickup for my acoustic guitar.  The guitar is a cheap little Yamaha piece of crap, but now it has a pickup.

I bought a 250 gig network drive to add to my home network.  It sucks.  I try to move 800-900 meg folders to it and it craps out half way though, every single time.  I hate it, it’s crap.  But will I bring it back?  Nope.

I bought a bunch of CDs that I’ll just rip mp3s out of and stick on my iPod and then never play the disc again.  Why then did I not just buy the music through iTunes and save money?  No clue.

I bought season 7 of South Park on DVD… okay, that’s a must have item that I will laugh my fat ass off with for years to come.  Hell, it’s got the Mormon episode.

I also spent a lot of money on tickets to Justin’s benefit on April 1st, but that’s also money well spent.  How can you knock spending money on an attempt at a miracle.  You can’t.  Speaking of Justin’s benefit.  The Lowell Lock Monsters agreed to donate some tickets today.  Thanks to the Monsters.

Speaking of the Lowell Lock Monsters, the team was finally sold today.  To the New Jersey Devils.  They need to sell about 1,500 season tickets to guarantee that Jersey won’t move the team out of town.  If you’re a hockey fan that is a big fat freakin’ hint.

Okay, off to watch some South Park

Have you visited The Justin Fund website?  I’ve been trying to sell tickets for the April 1st fund raiser.  Justin’s grandmother dropped off 10 tickets on Sunday and before I knew it my father had sold them all.  Justin’s grandmother dropped off 10 more on Monday and I had already taken orders for them all and I was still coming up short.  So, last night I drove up to the great, dark, wilderness that it Litchfield, NH and paid the family a visit.

Fortunately for me Justin was asleep when I got there.  I don’t know how I would have handled it if he hadn’t been.  I really don’t know him at all.  I think the extent of my interacting with him was a couple of , hi-how-are-yous.  I tend to be a little uncomfortable around kids, but not any more or less than the average adult who doesn’t have kids.  The problem is usually the other way around… kids look at me and they see this gigantic sasquatch looking freak of a man and they run and hide.  Actually, it’s the same reaction most women have, but women are usually more subtle about running away.

Anyway, go to the website.  Check out the fundraisers.  There’s a new one posted for April 9th.  It’s a concert put on by the folks at lowellrocks.com.

Change of subject:

I’m going to make an ass of myself on Saturday.  I’m sitting in with a new band and I’m ridiculously rusty.  I’ve been playing a bit over the last two weeks or so, nothing constructive just noodling and playing scales, trying to build up some calluses on my finger tips… no dice.  I’m going to show up Saturday barely knowing any of their songs, play for 10 minutes and then develop blisters so big you could land helicopters on them.  I haven’t even plugged in my amp since October.  My fingers are burning and my playing is terrible… ah the hell with it.  Who cares.  It’s not like I’m trying out to be Jeff Beck’s replacement in the Jeff Beck Group or anything.  It’s just a couple of guys trying to start a band.  I’ve got nothing to lose.

What, me worry?