Ten Things I Want To Do Before I Die

(Not in Any Order)

10. See Ireland and Japan.
9. Write and record at least 100 songs.
8. Earn a ph.d in anything (but preferably in English or Marketing). If time permits, earn a second ph.d.
7. See a Beatle perform. (preferably Paul)
6. See a World Cup match.
5. Meet one of my grandchildren.
4. Finish writing a book. (it doesn't matter if its ever published or not)
3. Take my wife on a honeymoon. (it still hasn't happened yet)
2. Work in either the music or video game industries. (preferably video games-there's not a bright future for the music industry)
1. Live to see the Cowboys win another Super Bowl. (next season?)

10 Things I Thought To Myself While I Was Really Sick In Bed

10. I have to pee...or poop...oh well...I'll just go to the toilet and see what happens.
9. I'm dying...I'm really dying...this is the end....My wife will be a widow at 25...I wonder who will go to my funeral...I wonder what food will be at my funeral...I'm hungry...
8. I'm gonna puke...I don't think I can make it to the trash can quick enough...maybe if I don't move, nothing will happen...maybe if I don't think, nothing will happen...don't think...don't think...I'm still thinking...I'm thinking about not thinking...
7. Are you kidding me? It has to have been at least 20 minutes since I last looked at the clock...
6. I wonder if I'm gonna get bedsores...I saw someone get bedsores in a movie once...that was gross...
5. You would think people would make ceilings more interesting to look at...I wonder if you could mount a TV on that?
4. Locke really can't be dead...I mean, come on!
3. I better not still be sick when the new Batman comes out...if I still am, maybe I could just get out of bed and paint my face white and say I'm the Joker...
2. Man, I keep getting these hot flashes...can men even get that? I thought that was a woman thing...
1. I think I single-handedly keep Kleenex in business...

Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell

There is a song that lately, for reasons I don't quite understand, I haven't been able to stop listening to. It's a song called "Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell" and it's by the Flaming Lips, from their album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The album is one of my all-time favorites. It starts off as a concept album, about a girl named Yoshimi who must fight giant pink robots to save humanity but then, halfway through, it turns into an album about the bittersweet truths in life. The song (don't be daunted by the name-I really don't see any relevance it has to the song) "Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell" has these lyrics that I can't get out of my head: "I was waiting on a moment/ But the moment never came/All the billion other moments/ Were just slipping all away". The lyrics sing about loss but the music is quite upbeat and happy (which being a musician myself, I can tell you that that was a conscious decision). This dichotomy of loss over a happy backbeat of acoustic guitars, violins and keyboards is (I think) the main reason I can't get it out of my head. If the singer is sad, why is the rest of the song happy? Is it because the band feels that when one loses something, they also gain something else as well? Or is it that they wanted to convey that a person can be sad while everything else around them is going well? And its led me to think a lot about other things as well. Am I just waiting on a moment that will never come? And if I am, what other moments am I missing? Sometimes, I believe we get too caught up in waiting for how things are going to be in the future that we let other opportunities slip by us because we are set on staying on our linear path to the future or whatever thing it is that we really want (I know, I know, I'm swimming in a sea of cliche right now). But sometimes I really think God tries to send us messages subtely (sp?) and he tells us in things we know, like how this has been one of my favorite songs (to me favorite songs is a big category-I probably have over 200 favorite songs) for years but only now am I really starting to contemplate its message both to what the band meant it to say to the rest of the world, and what it means to me. Hopefully I figure out what God is trying to tell me before more moments slip away.
(Below I have posted a video with the song on it...the video is apparently from the movie "Metropolis" but it has no relation to the song and the only reason I posted it was so you could hear the song-but the video is pretty cool too though)

Even More Reasons Why I Hate My Job

About a month ago, some serious stuff went down at my work. To those who do not remember, I work for Matheson Flight Extenders which is a company that is sub-contracted by FedEx to help sort mail. My company handles 40% of all the mail in Albuquerque. Since there's about a half a million people in Albuquerque, thats a lot of mail. Well, what happened was two guys who work the night shift (12am-4am-not the shift I work) got caught stealing mail. Apparently, the Feds had been watching them since last October because they knew someone was stealing but they didn't know who it was. Obviously, they were arrested (and fired, seeing that they're gonna do jail time) and it threw the corporate people into an uproar. Two weeks ago, one of the corporate people came to talk to us and told us that they had considered firing everyone just to make sure that they had gotten rid of all the thieves. Naturally, this made me very angry and they should consider themselves lucky they did not fire me and everyone else because I would have raised some serious hell if they had. I was so angry because I've worked at this job for over a year and half and I don't steal, I'm one of the hardest workers, and I've only called in 4 times the whole time I've been employed by them. I'm also the only one in our area that has a college degree. Apparently, all of those qualities don't mean crap to them. We've also been losing people left and right. In the past month and a half, 3 people have quit and 3 people have been fired (including the 2 that were caught stealing). This has left us extremely short-handed, requiring a few of us to do the work of many, all while being outside in 90 degree heat. It's ridiculous. I'm sorry to complain but I just had to vent about it.

The Death of Bullet for Babs

My band "Bullet for Babs" is done. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. We only wrote 10 songs and I only liked about 6 of them. Everyone is still friends with each other, its just that our schedules are too different to get together to jam. "Shambala" my other band is still on hiatus. I don't expect it to be out of hiatus anytime soon either. I think I'll always be in "Shambala" but we will only jam every now and then and I'm fine with that. So, my drummer and I have started to work on some music of our own and its going well so far. We have four songs written and I think we're going to write 8 more. I also have some songs that I'm doing on my own so I'm keeping busy with my music still. Well, thats all I really got to say.

A Hatred of Dentists (Real Original, Huh?)

I have a dentist appointment today. I'm pretty worried about it. I'm always worried about it before I go. Its a pretty painful experience for me. There are a few reasons for this. I have a really small mouth (thanks to my mother). The hygenist is constantly having to ask me to open my mouth wider to which I reply, "Its open as wide as it goes. If I open any wider, I'm going to dislocate my jaw. And because I'm not a snake, it hurts me to do that." The other reason is that I have terrible gums. Yes, I admit I could floss more and maybe it would help (although I did floss once everyday for 3 weeks in a row and they were still bleeding like crazy) but the real problem is that I am a mouth breather. I breathe mostly through my mouth when I sleep. This means that my mouth gets really dry and becomes sore. I can remember one time a few weeks ago when I woke up, and my mouth was completely dry and when I licked my gums it really started to burn. The only good thing is that I usually always have perfect teeth. So, thats one thing I never have to worry about. But until I can get the rest of my mouth the way my teeth are, I'm just going to have to suck it up and endure the pain.

On the Hunt for a Great Sci-Fi Adventure

I am on a quest. The quest is to find great sci-fi movies that I haven't seen before. I don't know how it all started. I think I've always felt that sci-fi was a genre that has a lot of potential if it is done right. Here is a list of the big sci-fi movies I've already seen. If you have any that aren't on the list, recommend it to me and I'll greatly appreciate it (especially since my xbox broke so I can't play video games, and my wife is out of town, so renting movies is almost all I have to do to entertain myself). And my biggest chink in my list is that I've never seen Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind all the way through. But do you know any others? Here is the list of the movies I HAVE seen:

1. Star Wars (all 6)
2. The Matrix (all 3)
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still
4. Forbidden Planet
5. Flash Gordon
6. Dark City
7. Solaris
8. Stalker
9. Pitch Black and the Chronicles of Riddick
10. Serenity
11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
12. 2001: A Space Odyssey
13. E.T.
14. Minority Report
15. War of the Worlds
16. A Clockwork Orange
17. Alien (first 2)
18. Metropolis
19. Blade Runner
20. Back to the future (all 3)
21. Donnie Darko
22. Children of Men
23. V for Vendetta
24. The Terminator (all 3)
25. Twelve Monkeys
26. The Truman Show
27. Gattaca
28. Virtually any movie involving a Superhero
29. Mad Max (first 2)
30. I Robot
31. The Fifth Element
32. Equilibrium
33. THX 1138
34. City of Lost Children
35. Brazil
36. The Cell
37. Cube
38. Contact

And thats all I can think of at the moment...Thanks for your help...