well, just one thing actually.

For as long as I’ve been serious listening to music, I’ve been a pretty obsessive nine inch nails fan. I think my life’s temperments have matched up nicely with the sequence of his albums, or rather how I ended up acquiring them. Additional my tastes in music have evolved along at the same speeds. I still flip on some of the early halos for a listen (I think it is pretty badass that each release is numbered), helps calm the nerves

And, not surprising, a lot of the music I listen to now was through a series of connections to nin. Aphex Twin, for example, had two pieces on “further down the spiral”, that’s the only time another artist has had a completely orignal work on a nin cd so that got me into buying “Richard D. James” & the rest of the Aphex Twin albums I could find (and before I saw nin in Cleveland, they played SAW II, I almost craped my pants)

Well, I don’t think you are supposed to ever directly reference things in quotations, I guess that’s the whole point, well, anyway, I almost crapped my pants again today when I checked out nin.com and saw a lil’ teaser from 2.12.05 for the new nin cd due out in May.

I’m giddy!

I have been instructed at work to document some of the various and arcane routinue tasks I do on the computer. When I first started documenting things I did I made some really shitty guides.

I remember making a guide for this program we use at the office called EasyMail. Now, the name is a little misleading for this program can be really complicated for novice users. It’s a badass program for what it does, but it’s about a 20 step process to get actual get any email to come out of it. So, it being famously obtuse and me being the only one who knows how to work it right, my task was to document the interworkings of the program in an easy to understand format.

I sat with someone as they tried to setup the program using my little “5 Steps to EasyMail” guide. It was pretty humbling to see how poor my instructions were, the poor person was stumbing around like a crazy person trying to export the list of names from our db and then import it into easymail and then write the message (well, I write them in Dreamweaver) and then send it, my instructions sucked. So I went back and rewrote them with a little more direction. The end result on that one was a pretty sweet EasyMail guide. I mean, I kinda gave up on explaining all the parts, but what I covered was pretty damn good. Lot’s of “action” photos and clip are to spice up the page. It ends up being really fun, that’s what I’m saying, thinking in that way, how would I teach someone this in the easist fashion possible

And, you know I actually really like those little animals that you can have as helpers in Microsoft Office. Like a little loyal doggie or kitty that sits on your desk and watches you type, I kinda dig that idea. I am forever bemused by those with a cruel dislike for Clippy, perhaps the most peaceful and benign animated form to grace the CRT.

This weekend there was a need for volunteers to work a table at some event to benefit my org. Sometimes I feel like I become jaded about the kindness of others, processing a $5 check is exactly the same as $50,000 one, and my interaction with our donors is usually prefunctary and fleeting.

So I decided, after consulting the web page of the event host, that I would spend my Sat working the table as it were at the New England Belt Sander Racing Association National Championships. The name of the event itself should cue you into the fact that this event was no church organized spaghetti dinner for charity or neighborhood bake sale. No, this was honest to god belt sander racing. The NESBRA web site is pretty descriptive & I am sure there are better resources to communicate the logistics of belt sander racing. Essentially, a hand held power sander that drives a belt of sand paper used to sand big projects is slightly (or majorly) modified to run down a track versus another similarly modified creation. The layout was perfect: a bell is rung, the lights flash from green down to red and then a simple button press and the sanders are whipping down the track. These suckers fly, freed of excess weight and commitment – with only one goal: be really fucking fast.

There are two different divisions, stock and modified. Stock is a sander that can be tricked out in anyway except the engine must not be altered. There were some very amusing creatures entered. Perhaps the most amusing stock racer I saw was the Deer Slayer Barbie – a normal looking sander with a long sloping purple front on which stands a tiny model deer. Riding in a throne toward the middle of the sander is a fully functioning Barbie with a custom-made lasso along side some terrible disembodied barbie head/giant hand apparation. Needless to say Deer Slayer Barbie took 1st in the stock category, but there were other fantatic creations.

The modifed racers were a more visceral thrill. I saw most of these races (I volunteered for 3 hours and spent another 4 watching the races, stock goes first) and they were very intense. These racers were hybrid ultrasanders, taken apart and reconstructed into super-charged sanders of immense power. These races took place on the 75ft track (the stock had a 50ft track) and these beauts were finishing in 2.6 seconds, pretty phenomenal to watch! One beauty was a completely hand built self contained sander (no handle on top, the cord comes out the side) that looked badass but suffered some technical difficulties.

The winner of the modifed category also had the best name, Morning Wood, haha. It was a modified DeWalt, the innards apparentlly had been refashioned with a different gearing system to give it absurd speed which also requires an absurd knowledge of the interworking of the common belt sander.

Something about the whole event warmed my heart (well the free Sam Adams didn’t hurt either). It’s pretty inspiring to see an event run for 20(!) years by the same group of friends that ends up being this giant free party for everyone with even a passing connection, no exclusiveness it was a great scene, basically everyone and their kids. And to add to this all, they decided to take up a collection for charity, raising over $2000.

Things like that really renew my faith in the human race. I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera though, some amazing stuff. Highly reccomended

One of my greatest heros died abruptly yesterday at 13.

Orca, the beloved cat of my youth got hit by a car.

It’s almost funny to realize how much a little friend can mean to you, how deeply it hurts.

sucks