Microblog (2004-2006)

6-29-06 - No, I'm not Anderson Silva. Sure do seem to be a lot of people coming here looking for the other dude of Brazilian descent lately... Speaking of Brazil, have we won the World Cup yet?   ;)  Well, no. In the meantime, I've added even more music to the iPod...

6-20-06 - And I've finally updated the list of music on my iPod, too. There's still more room available on it, and I still have more CDs to rip... Jim Kukral is running an interesting experiment: set up three computers, one running Windows, one running Linux, and one running OS X, and see which one can hold out the longest against malware and spam. I'll be keeping an eye on DiaryofDestruction.com.

6-18-06 - OK, finally, some new pictures in the Gallery.  ...Hey, what's with all the World Cup draws?

6-13-06 - Oooh, my ears are still ringing... but the Damnwells played... damn well last night. No other way to say it, really. Blondie and the New Cars also rocked on Saturday night. Shake it up!

6-6-06 - Hmmm, I'll have to put on my vinyl copy of Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" this evening after I go vote in the senatorial primary. Yes, vinyl. Well, I had a nice time at Mike's graduation party in Nutley Saturday night; Michael is the younger brother of my old roommate, Kim. The Nutley Pub afterwards was a little disconcerting, though; maybe it was an off night, or maybe I'm just too old for that kind of thing anymore, but there were a lot of scary people there, and not in a good way. Walking into a bar and seeing a priest should be taken as an omen, I guess...

6-2-06 - Boy, it's hot. New Being..., and maybe the last.

5-29-06 - Happy birthday, dad! I'll be heading down to my parents' place in a little while... My friend Dawn and I had a great time Saturday, since the weather proved the prognosticators wrong and it didn't rain. We rollerbladed around Central Park, had lunch at Hallo Berlin (and both got carded when we ordered drinks!), saw the filming of a scene for "Spider-Man 3," visited the new Apple Store on Fifth Avenue (verrry cool) as well as FAO Schwarz next door, and stopped at Ben & Jerry's before heading back to Jersey. Yesterday, Rhonda and I went to Yesika's daughter Kayla's second birthday party, which was nice. Tonight, I'm going to try some of Ben & Jerry's new Vermonty Python ice cream. Seriously.

5-22-06 - I'm still tired. And sore. I saw the Go-Go's Friday night, and in honor of the 25th anniversary of Beauty and the Beat being released, they performed the entire album, pausing long enough for Belinda to comment, "Not bad for a bunch of old broads, huh?" before launching into "Head Over Heels" and a number of their other hits. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Jane, since her big day was Saturday... My Saturday was spent helping Barbara do some planting in the back yard and some painting in the living room, then enjoying some pastitsio and a Mythos at the Greek festival. My left calf has been complaining since Saturday afternoon, and yesterday I didn't do much other than play some games, do some reading, and watch "The Simpsons" (loved Homer's remark on his marriage to Marge, "We've gone through more hardships than the Jews and Charlie Brown put together") and "Family Guy." Ah, well, back to work...

5-18-06 - I think I've finally figured out why those new-fangled monstrosities women are wearing as sunglasses offend me so much; I saw a woman wearing a pair today, and I immediately thought, "It's Dame Edna!" Not that I have anything against Dame Edna, it's just that there shouldn't be a connection in my mind between a young woman and an old man in drag. Oh, and I realize that I should've made that last entry a little clearer; I don't have anything against Creationists, either, I just have a problem with Creationism being taught as science. It's a belief, as valid as any other, but it doesn't belong in a science classroom, but rather a religion classroom.  In other news, Theresa, Microwize Technology's channel manager at Per-Sé Technologies, took us out to Blend in Ridgewood for dinner and drinks tonight, and we had a very pleasant time. She even insisted on buying a copy of my CD, though I tried to just give it to her.

5-15-06 - I hadn't seen "Malcolm in the Middle" in a long time, but last night I caught the season finale, along with the finale of "American Dad" (the "Cheney/Quayle '08" bumper sticker was as scary as it was funny) and new episodes of "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy," both of which took a few fun shots at the Creationists. All four shows were quite funny and entertaining. I wasn't so amused by Jon Lovitz saying, "The blond boy's a loser!" in the Subway commercial...

5-14-06 - Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers I know, but especially my own mom, my sister Grace, and Gina. Maybe I'll play Pink Floyd's "Mother" later as a tribute. Maybe I'll even try to figure out the chords to the Police song "Mother."

5-10-06 - I love it when BBspot uses one of my BBloopers; check the latest one out and see how Dubya is planning on saving money during the next military occupation...  Congratulations to Jon and Karin! My friend 'n former roommate called me last night and told me he'd proposed on Friday.  :)

5-8-06 - OK, OK, there's a new Being... and a new Word of the Month available. I've put a new video clip up on the front page of JoyInTheNew.com, too.

5-5-06 - Happy birthday, Gina, and happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone else. I'm sure I'll be needing some tequila by the end of the day.

4-28-06 - Urgh. My throat's still not doing too well. Is it Friday yet?  ...If you're using Internet Explorer, you'll notice Skinny the Foo above nagging you to switch to Firefox. The good people at Explorer Destroyer have started a campaign to get IE users to switch, and since I'm in whole-hearted agreement with them, I'm joining them. You can still view my site with IE, but Skinny's going to bug ya about it...

4-26-06 - Feeling a bit unwell this morning. Actually, several people at the office seem to be feeling a bit unwell lately. Maybe there's a bout of bird flu going around... I've been enjoying the Paprika Pringles Barbara brought me back from the U.K. Why in the world don't they sell them here?!? They're sooo good.

4-21-06 - My friends Barbara, Yesika, Freddy, and yes, even Steven came to the Dayglow show at Siberia with me last night, and while it was sparsely attended, it was still good to see the band again. Lindsay even introduced me to the other girls. Kinda makes me feel dirty to be so interested in a group of young women in their early 20s... Heh-heh. But, what can I say: I dig their music. On my way home, I helped get a few other young women aboard a PATH train after one of them jammed herself into the doorway so her friends could make it onto the same train. Fun, fun, fun...

4-15-06 - While all the other kids are outside playing, I'm stuck indoors doing work. Stupid data repair... Heh-heh. Well, it shouldn't take me more than another hour or two, and then maybe I can get outdoors myself. I did get to do something Thursday night that I'd not been sure I'd ever do again: enjoy sushi at Daruma across a table from Gina.  :)  We had a nice meal and a nice time.

4-11-06 - I saw Dayglow again last night, at Fat Baby on the Lower East Side, and enjoyed a great show with some new tunes from the girls. I even got to meet and chat with Lindsay briefly on my way out! I took a few pics; they were dark and grainy, but you can check out what I managed to do with them (courtesy of the GIMP) in the Gallery.

4-10-06 - Kinda felt bad when Mayor West killed the Noid during last night's "Family Guy," but I guess the little pest had it comin'. I was a bit put off by the Doctor making Rose choose between adventures with him or tea with her mom, too, on Friday's "Doctor Who." The cold and dampness on Saturday took a toll on my injured knee, and I opted not to go out for Mike's birthday. Seems a bit better today. I put up a new pic of myself playing guitar. Why not?

4-8-06 - Happy birthday, Lindsey! And happy belated birthday, Michael...! Ugh, I can't believe I was basking in 70+ weather last weekend, and now I have to settle for temperatures approaching 60, and rain.

4-4-06 - Been meanin' to play around with iPhoto, as I'm probably going to archive all my pics with it eventually, so I used it to go through my D.C. photos and published them to the Web site with iWeb. Apple is too cool.

4-3-06 - I've been letting quite a bit of time go by between entries here, haven't I? Fortunately, no one seems to have noticed (or cared enough to say anything about it).  :-P  Heh. Got back from a short trip to Washington, D.C. late last night; I had a nice time, but I walked way too much over too short a period and I've injured my left knee, not the one that generally acts up. It's really only bothering me if I'm on a slope. Maybe I should move to the Midwest... I owe ya some pics from the trip, but at this point they're probably going to wait until tomorrow.

3-27-06 - What a crazy couple of days... Work last week was mostly insane, I played a brief game of "empty water bottle tag" on the PATH train with two cute girls, Mark and I spent 10 1/2 hours at a client's office in Manhattan on Friday (we git 'er done), I just barely made the bus to Newark, and just barely made the train to New Brunswick where I engaged in some catsitting at my friend Barbara's house over the weekend. Experienced vertigo while disabling a smoke alarm (I think it had more to do with the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in twelve hours), saw a blue jay and a cardinal about two feet from one another, watched "Signs," came home and saw really good episodes of "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy..." And I found some time to create a Web portal on my Google Page, and to take a pic in my new Dayglow T-shirt.

3-20-06 - Happy spring. Brrr... Saw my family over the weekend, and I've got a new picture of my nephew Shawn with my mom in the Gallery. I watched "Doctor Who" on Sci Fi over the weekend, too, and while Christopher Eccleston has to grow on me still, I did really enjoy the first two episodes of the 2005 season. More stuff added to the iPod...

3-15-06 - Wow, I'd gotten more than three-quarters through the day before I realized it was the Ides of March. Damn, I'd planned on having a Caesar salad... Eh, I'm feelin' kinda blue today anyway, even though I've gotten fortune-cookie fortunes in the past few days that tell me "everyone agrees you are the best" and "you are the crispy noodle in the vegetarian salad of life." I kid you not... Anyway, I've finally gotten around to cleaning up the Links page a bit, and I've added a couple of miscellaneous pics to the Gallery, as well as putting in a few new Other People's Cats.

3-9-06 - Happy birthday, Claudia! In honor of my former co-worker, I've ripped her (and my) beloved Monkees to the iPod. Body Count and Kraftwerk are just for me, though... I've rigged the guestbook to get around the idiot spammer(s) plaguing me lately, so you can post in it now; I have to approve posts before they'll show up. Yes, even you, Benjamin Stove...

3-8-06 - Managed to watch the first six "Animatrix" shorts last evening on my iPod while at the laundromat... good stuff. It was a looong day, and today is likely to be another. I realized last night that "Frendy Tucker" wasn't downloadable, and it turns out to have been my fault. It's fixed now; sorry to the legions who have been trying to download it for weeks...  ;)

3-6-06 - The 69 Eyes show at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philly Saturday night was quite good, though I could've done without the two openers. It was good to hang with Jon and Dave again, been a long time since we've been to a rock show together. The two Guinnesses I had at the Blarney Bar & Grill before the show each had a shamrock carved into the foam, which was pretty cool.

3-3-06 - Happy birthday, Miranda! Several of my co-workers and I went with her to Tommy Fox's last night and had a nice time, though I definitely shouldn't have had four Guinnesses. Whoa.

3-2-06 - Andersen Silva the iconoclast, meet Andersen Silva the icon. I commissioned Paul Sahner to iconize me, and so he did. I like the way it turned out... New Being... is up, and I've updated the iPod page for those who absolutely must know what I'm listening to these days...

2-26-06 - Bleh. Woke up with the same headache I went to bed with last night, and I'm feeling generally lousy, though it's nothing you could put your finger on; maybe I'm coming down with H5N1. I did have some chicken soup last night... Well, back to my bacon, hash browns, 'n eggs, and a big mug of Ginger Twist tea, and ripping Blondie tunes for use on my iPod.

2-24-06 - Happy birthday, Kelly! Miranda and Mark, two of my co-workers, joined me for a night of Steve Hofstetter's comedy at Standup NY, and we had a really good time. I could tell Miranda was getting a little drunk when she slipped me a note that said, "I'm drunk." Heh. I also won a dollar from her after the show when I bet that, if she went up to Steve and claimed she'd met him earlier, he'd claim to remember. He did.

2-22-06 - :::yawn:::  I was up way too late last night, cleaning up the OS X installation on my PowerBook, installing and configuring OS X and Ubuntu Linux on the iBook, and struggling with issues on the main Windows 2000 Server partition on the Dell. Y'know, if it weren't for work, I wouldn't bother with Windows at all; I'd be much happier making the Dell a dual-boot with Solaris 10 and BeOS.

2-21-06 - Watching "The Day After Tomorrow" the other night made the Jersey climate seem that much nicer... I always poke around my Web statistics to see where people are coming from 'n stuff; I got a kick this morning when I noticed that someone visited the site yesterday after doing a search for the term "angry toys r us employees." Who, me? Naaah... I've been loading more music onto the iPod lately. Might as well utilize that 30 gigabytes of space, right?

2-16-06 - Dayglow rocked again last night; the music was great, the venue (the Continental) has been blessed by many punk legends, and I was particularly tickled that the bouncer carded me at 35 years old.

2-14-06 - I've seen fire and I've seen rain... and I've seen a lot of snow. Not enough to get me an extra day off from work, though. I had a great time at the Aimee Mann concert last Thursday night, and I finally heard from my no-show companion today. I might go see Dayglow again tomorrow night, at the Continental... Happy birthday, Dave, and happy Valentine's to the rest of ya. I was going to have Cupid take a shot at'cha, but here's a little vole song for you instead. That's right, I've recorded "Frendy Tucker."  :-D  As for me, I intend to spend this evening making (and eating) pão de queijo and polishing off that bottle of tequila in the freezer, and maybe having a Newcastle Brown Ale or two. And working on a data repair. Not nearly as nice as last year, but...

2-9-16 - It seems that I'm being stood up. I'm on my way to midtown Manhattan for the Aimee Mann concert tonight, alone instead of with accompaniment. Ah, well. Found out today that one of my favorite lunch places, Juice Zone in Hackensack, is out of business.  :::sigh:::  No more smoothies, no more wheatgrass shots... Aimee, take me away! Guess she'll be my early Valentine this year.

2-5-06 - Super what? Oh, yeah, that. Whatever. I'm going to watch "Alexander" myself in a little bit; it's three hours long, and I've been waiting for a night when I had some time and there was nothing worth watching on TV... I've put up a wee little tidbit of video on the entrance page to JoyInTheNew.com, but I didn't have the cash to get that 30-second spot to air during halftime.

2-4-06 - Holy crap. Lyndhurst's Staples store, built from the wreckage of Frank's Nursery, had a grand opening today, and I decided to head over and maybe pick up some ultra-cheap blank DVDs 'n stuff. I probably should have queued up an hour or two before opening, though, because when I got there, about an hour after opening, there were possibly more people in the store than reside in the township of Lyndhurst. It took me at least three or four minutes to maneuver my way back out after deciding that nothing there was worth standing on a line for half an hour or more.

2-1-06 - Probably shouldn't have had that third Guinness last night, but... oh, well. It was truly a pleasure to see Marty Rivas last night and chat with him between sets. I've posted the lyrics to a new song, "Frendy Tucker," which should get recorded shortly. In the spirit of my old Nomad page, there's also an iPod page now, where you can peruse the contents of my portable digital music/video machine. And of course there's a new Being... up, this being the start of a new month 'n all... Whoa. A Catholic schoolgirl almost flew into me on the bus this morning.

1-25-06 - Wow, it was so nice to go see a band play and not have to inhale any smoke at all. Dayglow was awesome last night; I love seeing live rock music, and when it's performed by attractive young women, so much the better.  ;)  I especially like "Congratulations" and "Pale Roses," and they did a rockin' cover of "Eleanor Rigby..." Thanks, Stephanie, for getting my hands on a CD! I've put the seven tracks on my iPod already... Pianos is a small venue on the Lower East Side, and any place that has Guinness on tap is all right by me.

1-24-06 - I've got another Amiga 3000, and this one actually works. Took a picture last night for proof... Now, to get it on the Internet... I'm heading to Pianos this evening to see Dayglow, a band I came across on MySpace. Haven't been to a show in quite a while, so it should be fun.

1-23-06 - I had a nice weekend, visiting my parents with my friend Barbara on Saturday for my mom's birthday, and spending some time with Dawn and Dave yesterday. I got to meet the Greens' new Samoyed, Claire, a sweet dog who can't understand that their cat, Emma, doesn't want to play with her. Heh...

1-15-06 - My attorneys have advised me to state for the record that, unlike James Frey's stories in his "A Million Little Pieces," the Anecdotes on this Web site are all true.  :-D  I have to be really, really tired to fall asleep on the bus or train. So, apparently, I was; I dozed off on the train to New Brunswick Friday night, sleeping right through the Rahway stop even though I had the Offspring blaring in my ears. I couldn't have slept more than a few minutes, however... and I didn't sleep at all on the way home this evening after being deposited at the station by James Springer, a new convert to the music of Andersen Silva. Heh-heh... Wow, that was a great "Battlestar Galactica" this weekend!

1-13-06 - Happy Friday the 13th! I'm beat, having gone to Friday's with Michael and the new guys in support, Nick and Freddy, after three hours of evening training. Going back there tonight with some former co-workers from AA World Class, before heading to New Brunswick to catsit for the weekend. I've been feeling nostalgic lately (maybe getting E-mails from two old friends had something to do with it), and so I've added some stories to the Anecdotes page; I've also made it possible for those of you with discerning ears to hear the differences among my guitars. If you're into music in general, take a look at MusicFreedom.com, a good place to check out independent artists of every genre.

1-8-06 - Yes, Bart Simpson, you are smarter than the President... and who doesn't love a nicely shaven leg?  OK, "Souls Broken" is finished and posted. In the process of creating its 'cover art,' I updated my hacker cred (and no, it's not spelled with numbers, except by kiddies) by changing GarageBand's program and document icons and some of the guitar picture labels using my own guitars; I also changed the wood panels so that they're more of an ash color. Maybe not a major overhaul, but certainly an improvement.

1-5-06 - Hmmm. Should I be concerned that T-Mobile sent out a mailing proudly proclaiming that "we're committed to growing our network in 2005?" Wait, maybe they're trying to tell us that their technology is so advanced, they can travel back in time to seamlessly expand coverage now. Yeah, that's it. Well, I've almost finished the music to "Souls Broken," but I've got to write the lyrics, otherwise recording the vocals will be tedious. Hopefully, it'll all be done this weekend.

1-1-06 - My New Year's Eve consisted of straightening up and cleaning around the apartment while listening to '80s new wave and pop, watching the snow fall through the windows, working on a new song to be called "Souls Broken," and watching "Evil Dead 2." Instead of champagne or other alcoholic beverages, I rang in the New Year with a raspberry parfait hot cocoa (the kind you find in a second-hand store). I did manage to have a Samichlaus over my parents' house this afternoon, however. Yum...

12-28-05 - Maybe it's just the new microwave oven and the popcorn my parents gave me along with it, but I felt obliged to watch a few movies over the past few days, including "Exorcist: The Beginning" on Christmas night (what?) and "Hearts in Atlantis" and "Evil Dead" Monday. Definitely helped me relax... And then I discovered last night that the South Bergenite has in fact published Michael Lamendola's article on me, sooner than I'd expected. Pretty frakkin' cool, huh?

12-23-05 - Decompressing slowly; I really need some R 'n R this weekend. Some time with my new 'video' iPod might help. Yeah, I got one from the boss, suckas...  If someone took Toga the penguin, and he's still alive, I really hope that that someone has enough of a soul to bring him back before it's too late.

12-21-05 - 'Twas a very productive day. I got up early and finished setting up the studio, wrote up and mailed out the last third of my Christmas cards, went to the post office to send out a package... and then started my work day. Afterwards, I spent an hour and a half subjecting Michael to my music and my life; let's see if the South Bergenite dares to publish any of it. I followed that with a quick visit to lower Manhattan for a little Christmas shopping. The transit strike had no impact on me whatsoever. Now, off to bed.

12-19-05 - Friday night may well have been the last time Jon and I did a White Castle run before playing a few hours of Soul Calibur 3; Saturday and yesterday, I helped him move his (and Karin's) stuff out of the apartment, when I wasn't finishing up my Christmas shopping or doing my laundry. Anyone else see Homer's version of the Christmas story on "The Simpsons" last night? Heh-heh...

12-15-05 - Wow, another couple of days like yesterday and I'll be spending Christmas in solitary. I really need a vacation, I need to get away from technical support and even from computers for at least three days straight, but I don't know when that's going to happen. In better news, I'm supposed to meet with Mike from the South Bergenite next week; I'd sent a CD copy of "Christmas Lonely" to the paper, not realizing that Kelly (who'd written the article on me last year) no longer worked there, but apparently Mike wants to do a follow-up piece. "I'll be damned if I'm settling for fifteen minutes!"

Wow, there's a shocker. Well, the roads weren't really that bad on my way in to work this morning. Caught a snowflake on my tongue and thought of Gina...

12-8-05 - It's been twenty-five years since John Lennon was gunned down only ten miles or so from where I live now. Wish I could tell ya "war is over," John, but...

12-2-05 - Ugh. Going to bed with another headache, and it's snowing out there... Well, I got to get out of the office yesterday, twice; I had Miranda, the 'new girl' (in sales, though, not tech support), chauffeur me to Fair Lawn and then to Secaucus. We did shots of wheatgrass in between. Tequila would've been better, or even cachaça.

12-1-05 - It's that time of the month again... No, not that time; it's time for a new Being... column.

11-28-05 - Want to see four operating systems running at the same time? Well, OK, Commodore 64 BASIC isn't quite an OS... Hey, BBspot finally used one of my suggestedBBloopers; go check it out. I took a new picture of my 12-string 'n me just before I started recording "Christmas Lonely," the newest song on JoyInTheNew.com, my other Web site. If you like the song, spread the word.  :)  There's no substitute for word of mouth...

11-27-05 - Is Black Friday over yet? Good. Got some new pics up, go take a look. By this time tomorrow, I should have a new song and some new lyrics available, too.

11-21-05 - Happy birthday, Hannah. I miss you...  Went to my nephew Shawn's christening yesterday, which was nice. Now for a short work week...

11-18--05 - Well, the moon hit my eye like a big pizza pie early this morning... but it wasn't amoré. Sigh... I realized as I stood out there in the cold that I've barely done any Christmas shopping; I really need to get working on that, I suppose.

11-13-05 - I started putting together lyrics and music for a new song, "Christmas Lonely," yesterday. In the process, I took a picture of myself playing the 12-string. Turns out that BestBuy.com has teamed up with CD Baby, so you can now buy the CD from BestBuy.com, too.

11-11-05 - A Tibetan religious leader spoke out about how strange it is that the world's oldest democracy doesn't allow residents of its capital a representative in its Senate, and only a hobbled representative in its House. A U.S. religious leader foolishly chastised a town for intelligently redesigning its school board and maintaining the separation between church and state. Which one do you think is more in tune with the ideals of democracy?

11-8-05 - OK, I just got back from voting (and not for either Corzine or Forrester), and now I'm going to work up some blisters playing my brand-new Ovation 12-string. Actually, I played it for a bit during lunch today, since it was delivered to the office around 2:30 PM, and it is sweet.

11-6-05 - Got to relax yesterday afternoon and evening, after having gotten up early to work on some data for a client; I watched two episodes of "The Muppet Show" (thanks for the DVD set, Barbara) and "Heathers," the best 'teen' movie of the '80s. Speaking of the '80s, my skinny white tie, a relic of said decade, went over well today at Rosmary and Dan's brunch engagement party. They were refilling drinks faster than we could consume them, so I made a point of finishing my mimosa and Sylvana's champagne before anyone had a chance to pour any more in. The few pics that I took are up, and finally, yes finally, all of the Arizona pictures are posted, too.

11-3-05 - It's too much hassle to upload some of the pictures now, and some later... so you'll get them all later tonight. Hmmm, this Web site had visitors from both UPS and DHL yesterday. And there's still a surprising number of you downloading my "hongry remix" of NIN's "The Hand That Feeds" on a daily basis...

11-2-05 - Check back tomorrow for a new Being... and the rest of the AZ pics.

10-29-05 - Some days are better than others. Yesterday sucked. I didn't sleep well the night before, I had major issues with a job that should have been a piece of cake, I had to bring several things home to work on over the weekend, the heat in the apartment doesn't seem to be working, I was reminded by a friend that my cat Ozzy was put to sleep two years ago, and of course I was thinking of a certain someone all day...   My friend Barbara was planning on purchasing a new Mac today, which I was going to help her set up, but the Apple Store was out of the one she wanted, so she's going to have to wait. Secaucus Junction must use Windows for their systems, because every single display in the place this morning was blank, not an electronic schedule to be seen...

10-24-05 - Even though the sun came out yesterday, my weekend remained moody grey. I really miss Gina...   No, I didn't get the pics on the site yet; there's a lot of 'em to be gone through. Maybe tonight... but there are two new ones up.

10-20-05 - I'm back. Not in the New York groove, though. What's with the chilly morning? I miss Arizona already... I'll be putting pictures, lots and lots of pictures, up on the site over the weekend; Now, however, it's back to work.

10-15-05 - Stuck inside of Cincinnati with the Lyndhurst blues again... It's Sweetest Day, but my sweetness has reaffirmed her reluctance to be in a relationship.  :/  :::sigh:::  Well, I had a good time watching the Wallace and Gromit movie last night with Jon, and slammin' down some White Castles afterwards. Meanwhile, back at the airport...

10-8-05 - My poor honey has strep throat again...  :/  Ugh, what's with these people trying to push 'The Watchtower' on me in Hackensack? Luckily, I'm in the Jehovah's Witness Protection Program. Well, I'm off to see Dawn and Dave on this rainy Saturday... Happy birthday, Barbara!

10-3-05 - Some new pics for ya to check out... yes, I know, finally. The new Being... is up, too.

9-30-05 - Thank you for all the cards, phone calls, E-mailed greetings, handshakes, and other expressions of birthday well-wishing. My day at work was not so hot, but Gina and I got to unwind over some of our favorite sushi from Daruma last night, and the little chocolate cake she picked up from Mazur's was just incredible! Thank you, honey... Saw Mars in the sky as I walked home, too, which was cool...  After several frantic E-mails to several music stores, I've concluded that I'm not going to be able to get the Tanglewood 12-string that I'd wanted after all, which is annoying; looks like the only way I could get one is to have someone in the UK buy it for me, and then ship it here (or else fly out there myself). I've come across a similar model from Ovation, however, and I placed a deposit yesterday on one that's being built as we speak. I should have it in six weeks or so. Happy birthday to me...

9-29-05 - Well, so far 35 doesn't feel too much different from 34. Of course, according to my birth certificate, I won't officially be 35 until 8:15 PM. I always knew and touted the fact that I share a birthday with the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis, but I'd forgotten or been unaware that we're also splitting the cake (and the candles!) with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (who also died on September 29th), Horatio Nelson (who was also a lefty), Cervantes, Gene Autry, Madeline Kahn, Lech Walesa, and Les Claypool. Pretty cool company to be in... I'll be in the coolest company of all tonight, however, when I see my much-missed Gina.  :)

9-26-05 - Would you believe that Don Adams faked his own death? No? OK, would you believe he's spending a year dead for tax purposes? Wow. I used to love "Get Smart," and I'm sorry that Agent 86 has finally been 86ed. I'm rather more pleased with the demise of Darth Vader and his band of unmerry men; I finally scored a decisive victory yesterday after learning several difficult lessons playing SW:GB. I also gave Gina a little bit of a metric system lesson last night.

9-25-05 - My uncle's wedding yesterday was a pleasant affair, though I didn't know anyone other than the bride and groom, and the bride's son and sister. I didn't feel as awkward and out of place as I'd expected, and the Branch Brook Manor was rather a nice place for a reception. Hearing that I look more like 24 was pretty cool to hear, considering I'll be 35 in less than a week...  I see that some Treo 600 and 650 owners are suing Palm. I don't know what they're complaining about. I've been very happy with my 600, and I'd have to say that I've experienced less technical difficulties with it than most people do with the average PC running the less-than-average Microsoft Windows. Of course, I have a relatively early model Treo 600, so maybe Handspring managed to keep Palm from messing it up. Heh-heh. What's really scary, though, is the news that Palm is working with Microsoft (boo, hiss) on the Treo 700. Oh, well. Time for "The Simpsons."

9-20-05 - Sounds like my pink-and-green-eyed lady is doing better, though she's still not getting as much rest as she needs. I've been sacrificing some rest for a surprising new obsession: Star Wars:Galactic Battlegrounds. I've had the game for well over a year, but I haven't been playing any games on the Mac for a few months; Saturday, though, I decided to pop in SW:GB, and suddenly I was hooked. May not get a chance to play tonight, though, I'm going to a Yankees game. Yes, I said a Yankees game.

9-16-05 - Oh, no, my pretty baby and Hannah both have conjunctivitis! Get well soon, lovely ladies... Mom's in Brazil, my aunt is recuperating from a stroke... and apparently I'm an uncle? Hmmm.

9-11-05 - Maybe it was the blow to my head, but I could've sworn that tonight's "Simpsons" premiere ended with Mr. Burns and Smithers rehydrating a manatee with sponges and a hose... That's right, I managed to smack the back of my skull on a tennis court this afternoon; it's still a bit tender, but I got right up and played anyway, eventually taking part in my first serious doubles match in over sixteen years. Jeremy and I ended up losing to Mahj and Fred, 5-3, but we put up a good fight, and I scored an ace or three. Don't know how I'm going to feel in the morning, though...

9-8-05 - It's back-to-school day for Gina and Hannah...! As has been usual lately, it's just back-to-hell day for me. At least my exertion hasn't gone unrecognized; I made August's employee of the month.

9-4-05 - Woke up this morning, got myself a- no, wait, that's another Jersey guy. What I did do was go for a nice long stroll around Lyndhurst, dipping very briefly into Nutley before re-crossing the bridge and getting myself a bagel for breakfast. This being the official close of beach season, I also spent some time at Tar Beach, then pored through some E-mail archives. Getting ready to watch "Rome" now, Killian's in hand... Gina should return tomorrow.  :)

9-1-05 - I hope that anything stolen in New Orleans brings nothing but grief to the base, sub-human thief who took it...  The new Being... will be up tonight; in the meanwhile, why not order some Joy in the New stamps, or a Skinny the Foo/Extreme Close-Up mousepad, from the Shop?

8-28-05 - An excellent "Battlestar Galactica" on Friday night... Barbara and I went to the Renaissance Faire yesterday and had a nice time, as usual. I even picked up a little something for the little princess in my life... Wow. The young librarian in town and I usually exchange greetings when I return books and pick up new ones, but she made a point of telling me that Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher," which I'm reading now, was really good. No argument here. There are things I'd planned on doing today, but I keep getting drawn back to this book... Looks like the Big Easy's going to get hit hard. Hold on, New Orleans...!

8-25-05 - Whoa, dude. Most of the old Shop-Rite is gone already. I found out today that we're getting a Mandee in addition to the T.J. Maxx. Gina should be excited... Heh-heh. Speaking of my honey, I was speaking with my honey yesterday when she reminded me that it's just over a month 'til that big 3-5 birthday o' mine. Jon and I are both probably going to have sore thumbs tomorrow after 90 minutes of Soul Calibur II action... Hey, with Google Talk's IM tied in to Gmail, I can send messages as rockstarandy now. Cool. Well, feel free to add me, if you're using it.

8-21-05 - All right, I'm going to pop in "The Matrix Revolutions" and watch it with a Killian's Red and some pretzels. There's some ice cream for later, too. Oh, I intend to gift myself with a Tanglewood guitar come birthday-time. Yes, it's a lefty, just like me.

8-20-05 - The demolition of the old Shop-Rite building in Lyndhurst has begun. There's not going to be any housing built on that lot after all, but we are going to get some more shopping; at the moment, only a T.J. Maxx is confirmed. Exciting, isn't it?

8-17-05 - :::yawn:::  Still tired, though not as much as I was on Sunday and Monday. Happy birthday, Dawn! Even though some of the text on the Web site reminds me of Engrish, I'm happy to report that Joy in the New tracks are now available for purchase on MusicTorch.com in addition to the other sites already carrying them.

8-16-05 - Some balloon pics are up, I'll get to the rest of 'em tonight, probably.

8-14-05 - :::yawn:::  I was awoken from a brief nap by a powerful and long-delayed thunderstorm this evening, which is still raging; hopefully, it will cool things down a bit! A handful of my co-workers and I went on an early-morning balloon ride in Middletown, NY, and then Robert and I went to a client's office in Elizabeth for a job which ran a few hours longer than we'd expected. So I'm still exhausted. Not much point in trying to nap some more now, though, so I'll stay up a bit, talk to my honey later tonight, and then hit the hay a little early. I'll try to post the ballooning pics tomorrow.

8-13-05 - Wow, is it hot and humid and extremely uncomfortable out there. I did my laundry and some grocery shopping this morning, mailed out a CD to yet another digital distribution Web site, and attempted to return my library books and grab some new ones, only to realize that the library's new summer hours don't include Saturdays. D'oh. And all this before noon. I figured it'd only be that much more brutal outside later on. Think I'll spend the rest of the day in my air-conditioned room... I've found myself with a lot of 'friends' on MySpace suddenly, though I don't think many of them have actually bothered to check out my music. Sadly, there are a lot of young, illiterate teens on MySpace, and a lot of twenty- and thirty-somethings who act like teenagers and are just as illiterate. Sigh...

8-10-05 - The new buttons are done... woo-hoo! A co-worker told me they look better than either of the older ones; then she told me that the picture doesn't look like me. Wait a minute...

8-7-05 - Spent some time straightening up and rummaging through paperwork, forcing myself to throw away even more stuff that somehow survived the move to Lyndhurst. I also designed new stickers, buttons, and pens, doing all the work in the open source GIMP and Inkscape. They might not quite have all the features and capabilities of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (or CorelDRAW), but they're more than sufficient to help me promote my CD and my Web sites. Think I'm going to watch "The Matrix Reloaded" once I'm done with dinner.

8-5-05 - Perhaps I'll end up regretting it, but I decided the other night to sign up for a MySpace account, as a means of maybe generating some more hits to and interest in my music site. Go on and add me if you've got an account, too...

8-1-05 - Ah, it's nice to have an air conditioner. Being... will get updated tonight, but JoyInTheNew.com, my music Web site, got updated over the weekend. From now on, everything related to my music, including the new mp3 for "Heavywait," will be posted there only.

7-29-05 - I'm enjoying a rare day off. Finishing up recording and mixing "Heavywait," and I just took a break to call the office back. It figures that they couldn't get by without having to ask me at least one question...

7-23-05 - Guess we won't be needing those dilithium crystals anymore... Hey, anyone know who won the Stupidity Awards this year? It wasn't me... Got some more work done on "Heavywait" today, which felt good. I should put the finishing touches on it next week.

7-17-05 - I was listening to "Down the Shore" today, as well as working on "Heavywait," and I couldn't help but chuckle at the thought that I used to laugh at Paul Simon for squeezing too many syllables into some of his song lyrics. Now I do the same thing. I finished neither "Heavywait" nor the "Hate Theme" today, but out of the blue, I put together a moody, jazzy instrumental that fits a title I came up with a few years back, "Too Loud to Be Eaten with the Naked Eye." Cool. OK, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but while looking over my site stats from yesterday, I noticed that someone had read the old Vitriol column that mentioned the Rock Bottom Remainders concert I attended with Barbara and Dawn back in 2002. The Remainders are a band of writers, Stephen King, Dave Barry, and Mitch Albom among them. The visitor also listened to the three samples I'd included from the concert. Not so unusual, of course, but what caught my eye was that the visitor was from Maine. D'ya think... nah, couldn't have been. But still, how cool would it be if Stephen King himself checked out my Web site, huh?

7-16-05 - Ugh. I'd planned on working on some music today, but it was too frakkin' hot and humid, and I couldn't get motivated. Where is this rain they keep predicting?!? Well, speaking of 'frak,' last night's season premiere of "Battlestar Galactica" rocked. I also completed the "Dark Tower" series last night. Hile, gunslinger, and well met! Now that would make an awesome miniseries or movie series... but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that someone's already talking to Stephen King about it. Anyway, speaking of movies, I think I'm going to watch a bad vampire flick on Sci Fi, after I down a few hot dogs smeared with this raspberry honey-mustard that Gina brought me from Vermont last week. I know, I know, but it's really good! Gotta have some sherbet later, too...

7-14-05 - I got some more work done on the "Hate Theme from 'Waiting for X'" last night, aided and abetted by some vintage synths in AMG's SynthPack for GarageBand, and even started working out the music to "Heavywait," the lyrics to which I wrote over a year ago. Maybe the second album, if there is a second album, won't take five years to complete. Heh-heh. I also discovered last night that my music is available on a few more sites than I knew about, including Napster, Bitmunk, Turbo-Music, which is European, and MSN Music (yes, the dreaded Microsoft). Not bad, eh?

7-9-05 - For better or for worse, my contribution to surf music, "Down the Shore," is finished! Started recording it on the Fourth, wrote lyrics and finished the session today (while wearing my own Surf City T-shirt), and it was all recorded using GarageBand and the Ozonic. I'm likin' my new setup. Oh, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, 'down the shore' is how we Jerseyans (or Jerseyites, if you prefer) say that we're heading to the beach. The lyrics are Jersey-centric... Well, I'm going 'down the shore' with my parents tomorrow, so for the rest of the night I think I'm going to watch "The Matrix" and polish off the rest of that Breyers ice cream.

7-7-05 - Just got in from visiting my pretty baby...  :)  I brought over some sushi from Daruma, and a bottle of The Little Penguin merlot, not to mention some Karamel Sutra, and we watched a bit of "Will and Grace" (mainly because there was nothing else on worth watching), and the terrible news about the London bombings, before Gina dozed off during "Seinfeld." I woke her with a kiss, and I gave her the Narnia book and her Surf City T-shirt, too!

7-6-05 - I just started reading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," one of the Narnia Chronicles, and the opening sentence struck me as one of the funniest I've seen, worthy of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

7-4-05 - Happy Fourth of July, ever'body... New Being... or ya.  :D

6-27-05 - Cooool... I requested "Not An Exit" on 90.3 FM, the Core almost an hour ago (yes, it's my own song; you weren't going to request it, so I did), and Rebecca dug out Joy in the New and played it. It's gratifying to hear your music on the same show as songs by Bruce Springsteen, the Ataris, Coldplay, and personal faves Sleater-Kinney; Barbara tells me that one of my songs was on last Wednesday during Mark's show, too, though I missed it because I was watching "Batman Begins" at the time (very good movie, by the way). The promo that played right after "NAE" was even by Janeane Garofalo!  ...Gina's not feeling well again, though, and sounded totally exhausted on the phone tonight. Get some sleep, honey...

6-25-05 - Lazin' at Surf City, and soaking up some rays for Gina at her request... Ah, I missed the beach.

6-24-05 - Sent my honey some flowers yesterday, just 'cos, and we exchanged a few text messages this morning while I was in the middle of a particularly frazzling data repair. That definitely helped to cool my brain while it warmed my heart... I plan on warming the rest of my body at the Jersey shore tomorrow; it's high time I hit the beach. OK, I've got to settle down those White Castles (yes, Jon and I quenched the Crave this evening) with some orange sherbet.

6-21-05 - Happy first day of summer, all. I'm still not quite sure what this will mean for me in the long run, but one of my friend Barbara's co-workers and friends, Mark, is also a DJ for 90.3 FM, the Core, a joint project between Rutgers University's Livingston campus and Piscataway High School, both here in New Jersey. Barbara has given Mark a copy of Joy in the New, and in addition to making a Lou Reed reference (the second so far), he's apparently going to get my music played on the station! His own show is on Wednesday nights, 8 - 10 PM Eastern time, but I think there's a chance of making other shows on the station, too. Anyway, take a look at the site, listen to streaming broadcasts, and request my music! Heh-heh...

6-19-05 - We got our thunderstorm, if only briefly, and things have finally cooled off. Yesika and I saw "Revenge of the Sith" Friday evening, and I enjoyed it at least as much the second time around; I still want to take Gina, though, while it's still in theaters. I'd been flirting with the idea of taking the train down to Point Pleasant yesterday morning (might've met up with Jon and Karin at some point if I had), but I'm glad I decided against it. While yesterday was certainly comfortably warm for walking to Shop-Rite, it was mostly cloudy and breezy, and I don't think it would have made for a good beach day at all. Perhaps I can visit Tar Beach later, if the sun makes more than a token appearance today. Anyway, I've got plenty to do indoors, including some OS and software updates, E-mail cleanup, and reading of news and "A Tale of Two Cities." Why has the U.S. media spent more words on Michael Jackson than on the Downing Street memo this month?   ...While the voting isn't quite over yet, my hongry remix of NIN's "The Hand That Feeds" didn't make the top 40 in the unofficial contest. Oh, well; I hadn't really expected it to. Anyway, it was fun to be able to mix a Nails tune, and I think it sounds good.

6-13-05 - Frak, it's hot. I don't know how accurate it is, but the electronic thermometer on my window fan told me that my bedroom was at 97 degrees Fahrenheit while I was on the phone with my honey this evening. Where are these thunderstorms they keep telling us are on the way?!?

6-12-05 - Ohhh, I'm really missin' my Gina. We've got to get together soon... Yesika and I were thinking about going to see "Revenge of the Sith" Friday evening, but as I had issues to contend with for two Microwize clients, I ended up staying at the office a bit late, and we couldn't pull it off. Perhaps next weekend... I assisted Barbara in emptying out her garage yesterday, getting a very slight sunburn in the process. When I called Gina from the dump, she teasingly said that, had she known I'd be going there, she'd have given me some items to get rid of, too. Yeah, that'd have been a fun train ride... Heh-heh! I've finally gotten around to adding a few Anecdotes to the site, as well as updating the 21st Century Schizoid Man page. Speaking of my computers, I'm overdue for a backup of this PowerBook. Gotta do that tonight...

6-6-05 - It's still too early to say what the long-term effects of Apple's decision to put Intel Inside will be, but I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea. How the software developers will react to the idea of having to rewrite their code also remains to be seen. Steve, I hope you know what you're doing.

6-5-05 - I was really hoping to get together with Gina and Hannah this afternoon and buy them ice cream, but alas, 'twas not to be.  :::sigh:::  Well, we'll do it sometime soon. It was a really hot day! I'm glad I got my window fan in last night while talking with my baby on the phone... Spent some more time at Tar Beach today... and right now I'm making a cup of green tea while watching "The Family Guy." Fun on a Sunday night...

5-30-05 - Spent a little time at Tar Beach this morning; well, all right, there wasn't really a whole lot of tar... Gina and I both got a bit more sun than we'd bargained for. D'oh!

5-29-05 - Happy birthday, dad! My father seemed very pleased with the two volumes of the Scott catalog I got him for his birthday; he's got a serious stamp collection, and he can better value it and future acquisitions with the latest catalog.

5-22-05 - Dawn and I had a great time in the City yesterday; we rollerbladed through Central Park, had a late lunch at Pizzeria Uno (OK, not very New York, I know), and even stopped for Ben & Jerry's on the way back. And while I'd publicly stated that I wasn't going to see "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" on its opening weekend because of the crowds, I changed my mind and saw it this morning, in an occupied but hardly packed theater. I then followed it with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Four hours of science fiction movies in one day...! Who knew that the Sith lord Darth Sidious was really none other than... Jar Jar Binks? And to think that Jedi Master Mace Windu impregnated Padmé Amidala. "Sith" was incredibly gripping; in fact, though I knew most of what was going to happen in both films, I enjoyed them both immensely. I'm sure I'll be seeing "Sith" again in the near future... At the moment, though, I'm going back to Stephen King's "Desperation," soon to be a movie itself.

5-21-05 - I decided to give Café Akasya a try this morning, having noticed the breakfast special sign in the window for the past week or so, and while they were a bit slow in getting it ready, it was quite a nice breakfast, and at an incredible price. Now I'm getting ready to head into the City with my good friend Dawn!

5-18-05 - Just got back from having lunch with my honey...  :)  She was able to get away for a bit, so we had some healthy wraps and smoothies. Nothin's better for my system than spending time with Gina, though. Now, we still have to get together for sushi...

5-16-05 - Wow. I put Tiger in yesterday, and today the update to 10.4.1 came out. Ah, technology... Tonight's "Everybody Loves Raymond" finale was great, but man, am I going to miss that show.

5-15-05 - Greetings from Tiger...! I finished the upgrade about twenty minutes ago; I still need to make sure my everyday software is still playing nice with the OS, but so far everything looks good, and I've got to say that Dashboard really rocks...  Barbara and I got to see the Dalí exhibit yesterday in Philly. Awesome! I'm glad I got the opportunity to see so many of his works in one place... OK, time for the "Simpsons" season finale!

5-13-05 - Happy Friday the 13th, everyone. Saw the results yesterday; we threw da bum out (well, actually, I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other for Mayor Guida), but one of his team members did make the cut. I received my copy of Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) yesterday, and I may do the upgrade this weekend, if I can find the time.

5-12-05 - Bleh. Stayed home from work yesterday, with a pounding headache, a sore and scratchy throat, and a congested nose and chest. A combination of rest and Robitussin seems to have knocked most of it out, thankfully. My honey wasn't feeling well, either, suffering from a migraine... I still don't know who won Lyndhurst's municipal election on Tuesday, but I do know that I mixed and matched, voting for commissioners from Mayor Guida's team, his bitter rivals the Lyndhurst First team, and the Independent Team as well.

5-7-05 - Well, Gina and I aren't going to manage to get together for sushi this weekend after all (maybe tomorrow night, but probably not), but I did get to take her out for a late breakfast at IHOP this morning, which was almost as good. She was pleased as punch with her birthday and Mother's Day gifts, including the Gentou penguin pin/pendant and the cake that Robert hurriedly sent Fred out for on Thursday afternoon, thinking it was my birthday. Never mind the fact that he's known me for twelve years, and has access to my HR records... Heh-heh! Anyway, we're hoping to do sushi sometime in the next few days...  The remix contest is apparently on hold at the moment. I'm not expecting to rank in it anyway, but I entered it on the 4th just for the heck of it. Hey, y'never know...

05-05-05 - Happy, happy birthday, baby! And happy Cinco de Mayo to the rest of you!

5-4-05 - Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was crazy enough to post a GarageBand file allowing Mac-owning fans to remix the single "The Hand That Feeds," and I was crazy enough to take him up on it. Not that I think my "hongry mix" is smokin' or anything, but... give it a listen, if you'd like (it's a large file, but hey, it's a high-quality mp3, and you can download it for free), and tell me what you think.

5-2-05 - It was very cool to catch two new "Simpsons" episodes and a new "Family Guy" last night. And it's nice that Fox has enough of a sense of humor that they'll allow things like Ray Romano's shameless plugs at the end of that first "Simpsons." Heh-heh... Gotta catch that new "Raymond" tonight! Assuming I finish up here in Manhattan in time... But it looks like this job shouldn't prove to be too difficult. "He said..."

4-29-05 - I've been looking at medical billing data for far too many hours. Right now, I'm doing so in Elizabeth, just a few blocks from Kean University, where my sweetness just left class. We were hoping to get together for lunch, but my appointment is running longer than expected. :::sigh:::

4-27-05 - Had some more ice cream with Gina, my honey, tonight. I helped her out with some astronomy homework, and she lent me some eyedrops and advised me sternly to put a warm chamomile tea bag on my right eye; it had been bothering me mightily on Monday, and not so much tonight, and I'd rather forgotten about it, but she noticed it right away. Guess it's my turn to be suffering from something, if only mildly... Anyway, under my love's orders, I'm heading for bed now.

4-22-05 - Happy Earth Day!  ...I'd kinda planned on doing some recording on my day off yesterday, but I decided to get familiar with Audacity, Deck, Peak, and Apple's GarageBand instead. 98% of the recording I've done so far has been with Sound Sculptor II, an incredible shareware program that unfortunately has not been, and will not be, made available for OS X; while I've still got four Macs running OS 9 that could easily run SS, it's about time my recording practices caught up with my operating system (I haven't installed Classic on the PowerBook, and don't intend to if I can help it), and so I figured I should learn how to use these packages, all of which are going to come in handy. I also penned the lyrics to a song or three, which will get posted over the weekend. Speaking of posting, I finally got around to putting up a pic of Trinity the PowerBook, side by side with Dana the iBook for a size comparison.

4-21-05 - My ailing pretty baby just left after a short visit; we did get to enjoy some Karamel Sutra for the first time in several months, even if it was past the hour for ice cream. Mmm, Ben & Jerry's... Gina had to pop her Cold-Eeze back in her mouth after it, though. Well, I'll risk catching her cooties for some time together.   :)  'Course, it'd be ironic if I spent my day off later today feeling unwell myself.

4-19-05 - Jon picked up "Sledge Hammer!" on DVD tonight, and he and I have been watching quite a bit of it. Ah, but that brings back memories... 'Twas a wacky show, and a lot of fun. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed watching him park his wreck of a car!

4-17-05 - Doin' laundry at the moment; it's heartwarming to see how many people leave their wireless networks unsecured, giving people like me free access to the Internet from so many locations... I've spent way too much time looking at computers this weekend, really, including five for our biggest client during their Medisoft upgrade. It's already gorgeous out this morning, and is only going to get better, so I'm definitely taking a walk later on, even though I did get around to installing Tomb Raider Chronicles, The Sims, and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds on this PowerBook last night.

4-14-05 - OK, the iBook seems to be content to run as a dual-boot Linux/Mac OS 9 machine. I was surfin' the Web using the GNOME browser Epiphany while playing "Discs of Tron" on the PowerBook. Heh-heh.

4-13-05 - The headache that rear-ended me yesterday made a brief return today, but I think it's finally gone. The roses I ordered early this morning for Gina, to be delivered next Monday (no special occasion, just because), ended up getting delivered today instead. Oh, well. She was just as pleased and surprised today as she would have been on Monday. Love ya, honey!  ...I've got OS 9 running on the iBook, though I've run into a snag with one of the Linux CDs and will have to make a new one. By this time tomorrow night, Dana will hopefully be operational again, though without a trace of OS X. By choice. Hmmm, soon enough, I'll be trading in the Panther currently purring on this PowerBook for a Tiger.

4-12-05 - I could really get used to this nice weather. I really could. Well, I think I've finally got all the software I want loaded onto the PowerBook. Seeing a commercial the other night for the upcoming (and long-awaited) "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie made me think about the old Infocom game, which I have along with an old Commodore 128, but I found a Commodore 64 emulator and added that to the pile o' programs on Trinity, so now I can play the game on the laptop. "Leather Goddesses of Phobos," too. Woo-hoo! My own goddess is getting the sniffles again... And the iBook is getting wiped. I'm planning on making Dana a dual-boot machine, with Linux and Mac OS 9, assuming she cooperates. Della, the Windows 2000 server, got upgraded to 512MB of RAM last night, more than sufficient for my needs. Hmmm, I need to boot Be and see how it responds to the additional memory...

4-9-05 - Is it Fri- oh, wait. Well, I spent over a day with no cable Internet access at home, which rather sucked... but I did manage to install a lot more software on the PowerBook, including plenty of open-source stuff like jEdit, the GIMP, and Inkscape. Got the tickets yesterday for the Dalí exhibit; yes, Barbara and I are going back next month, and this time we're going to see his work. Gina's not much of a surrealism fan, so she's not going to join us, but she and Hannie and I will have to make another trip to Philly this summer. Speaking of summer, my parents insist on barbecuing today; I'm visiting them and spending the night, then getting a ride home with my uncle in the morning. The day is almost as beautiful as my honey, as I told her this morning.  :D  Not as warm as she is, though.

4-6-05 - Greetings from Trinity, my new 1.6GHz Apple PowerBook G4.  :)  I'm still adding and configuring software, but I'm already very happy with the computer. Dana the iBook seems nervous...  My friend Babs and I had a not very satisfying Chinese dinner in Lyndhurst last night. Ah, well...

4-4-05 - Didn't sleep well. I don't know if it was anticipation over the PowerBook that should arrive today or what, but I'm bleary this morning. Maybe the leftover Indian food I'll be having for lunch will help wake me up; I tried some of the frozen stuff that Shop-Rite sells on Saturday night, and I was quite pleased with the results.

4-2-05 - Rainy out, but right now I'll take that over snow without hesitation. I'm still doing some updating to the site(s); the 'blog is now on AndersenSilva.com's home page (duh), and the CD info has been moved to JoyInTheNew.com. Still have a lot of work ahead of me, but it's starting to come together.

4-1-05 - Awww, man... Frank Perdue is dead.

3-31-05 - Is it Friday yet? Is it?

3-27-05 - Happy Easter, everyone. Ah, it was nice to relax to "Army of Darkness" last night. "Ice Age" was pretty cool, too. Get it? "Ice Age?" Cool?

3-23-05 - OK, it's almost Easter, almost the end of March, and it's frakking SNOWING again. What is this?!? ...After reading a report on how viruses and trojans targeting Mac OS X are on the rise, I found one on the iBook this morning. Of course, it turned out to be for Windows...

3-22-05 - Uff da. I've got a raging headache, which only chuckled dryly at the four ibuprofen tablets I hurled at it. Gina's not feeling well, either; sounds like she's got an ear infection. I think we're both calling it an early night. "It's an early night!"

3-21-05 - Barbara and I made it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Saturday morning, but we learned to our surprise that the Dalí exhibit was already sold out for the day! D'oh... We'll have to go back, but in the meantime, we did manage to do the rest of the museum, which was quite impressive.

3-19-05 - I'm exhausted. I went to bed last night without even watching "Battlestar Galactica," that's how tired I've been; I did of course TiVo it, though. In a few minutes I'll be heading to New Brunswick, and from there to Philadelphia with Barbara. We're going to see the Dalí exhibit, which should be a good way to get Advantage databases and data corruption out of my head. Ah, Gina's PowerPoint presentation went over swimmingly yesterday!

3-17-05 - My pretty baby's not feeling well again... She napped in my bed for a while last night as I spruced up her PowerPoint presentation for school. Actually, she dozed off before I could even give her her green tea. But it was much more fun to work on the computer for her than it was to spend the following two hours on Microwize client issues... Happy St. Patrick's!

3-15-05 - Hail, Caesar, full of grace... Is that a dagger which I see before thee? Beware the Ides of March!  ...We had a very nice dinner with Rhonda, Yesika, and baby Kayla last evening. The cheesecake was, of course, awesome, and the food was quite scrumptious as well. I think the best part was when Hannah told me she missed me before I'd even gotten out of the car at the end of the night, though.  :D

3-14-05 - OK, I think the White Castles I went out for with Jon Friday night have finally settled down in my belly. Heh-heh... I'm still experiencing problems with the iBook's hard drive, and I may have to boot from the FireWire drive until I get a new system, but I really don't want to buy another Mac until a G5 PowerBook hits the market...  Gina, Hannah, and I are meeting Yesika and Rhonda at the Cheesecake Factory this evening; yum!

3-11-05 - It's snowing again. This is really starting to get annoying. Well, on the plus side, Della is now a triple-boot server, with a Windows installation for everyday use, a second one to use to back that partition up, and a purring Be installation just because I could. Now to pack the Windows side with software... It's already my print server, and I'm going to re-establish an FTP server; I can play my music on my TiVo and TV set via a wireless connection to the Dell, too. I'm going to have to run some diagnostics on the iBook, though; Apple, when will you release a G5 PowerBook?!? I'm ready for it!

3-10-05 - OK, I've got Windows and BeOS installed on the Dell, although the second Windows installation is giving me a problem; I think I may need to use a different boot manager. Adding a 3Com network card and an S3 video card made Be as happy as can be; I didn't have to configure a thing. Now, of course, the iBook is starting to act up...

3-9-05 - I finally got my frakkin' server from Michael Sunday night, and now I'm working on setting it up just right. In my case, 'just right' means partitioning the hard drive for two Windows installations (one for running and restoring backups), a BeOS installation (yeah, I test-drove Be on a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, and it was sweet), and two backup partitions. Fun, fun, fun...

3-6-05 - Gina and Hannah and I visited the Children's Museum of Manhattan yesterday, and all three of us had a blast! Hannah didn't have sushi at Sushi Hana, but my honey and I did, and we all partook of some dessert at Edgar's Cafe afterwards. See the pictures in the Gallery...; I've also put up more pics from Jon's birthday extravaganza. Thanks, Joe, for getting me those photos...!

3-2-05 - Gina and I managed a pretty spontaneous jaunt to our favorite sushi restaurant tonight. Have I mentioned that I love her? Right now, I'm eating some mini chocolate chip cookies baked by her and Hannie. Yum...

3-1-05 - Again with the snow...! I don't find this stuff amusing anymore. Well, it's a new month, and so there's a new Being... (I almost wrote Vitriol... for some reason) and a new Word of the Month. I've also got a few pics up from Jon's birthday bash, and hopefully Joe will get me a few more. Last but not least, there's a new Web site: JoyInTheNew.com! OK, I don't actually have any content up there yet, but give me time... Heh-heh. OK, off to work!

2-28-05 - Karin, Jon's girlfriend, pulled off a brilliant birthday bash for the big boy on Saturday night, and Gina, Hannah, and I were in attendance at Casey O'Toole's; in fact, Hannah may have stolen some of Jon's spotlight. Heh-heh... A fun time was had by all...  Less fun is the snow we're apparently getting in just a few hours. What a winter this is turning out to be...

2-23-05 - OK, I don't know how long I'm going to keep it up, but I've started an Astronomy Tip of the Day on the home page. I gave Gina both remote computer assistance (thanks to the VNC I installed on her Dell a few months back) and some astronomy help for school today, and since she asked...  ;-D

2-21-05 - Well, I finally got to try out the earmuffs my honey got me a few weeks back. Mmm, toasty warm ears... NetBSD is booting up, all right, but I've got some work ahead of me getting X and networking and everything else configured and working. Don't think I'm going to start on that tonight...

2-20-05 - Got my hair cut at Astor again yesterday, and I spent some time at Barnes & Noble while I was in the City... Tonight, as the snow began thickly to fall, I finally managed to clear up the issues I was having with my FireWire drive. Whew! Considering it's where I store my music files and my iBook backup, I've been a bit nervous about it this past week. Now maybe I can get back to the Quadra; it looks like I may have NetBSD running normally on it, but I've got to do some testing and configuration.

2-17-05 - "Spamalot" was loads of fun Monday night, though I've not been able to catch up on sleep since Sunday. Oh, well...  Gina told me last night that 3-year old Hannah is the only one in her class (in which she's the youngest) who can spell her own name! I think "Hannah's Song" and I can take some credit for that...  :)))

2-14-05 - Coupla busy days lately... I got together with my friends Dawn and Dave Saturday, for the first time in many months; the three of us saw "Hitch" together, which turned out to be quite a good movie. Saw my parents Sunday, and met their degus. Yes, I said degus. Don't know what a degu is? Take a look in the Gallery. Gina and I left Daruma 'bout an hour ago, after having a wonderful lunch of sushi and champagne (Moët & Chandon's Nectar Impérial is less dry than the Extra Dry, which is inexplicably less dry than the Brut). Thank you so much to Rutherford Florist (and especially Chris, for dealing with my order and its changes), who delivered a dozen roses (six red, six purplish) to my baby just ten minutes or so after we arrived at the restaurant! And thankyouthankyouthankyou, honey, for the home-made Valentine and the "Ultimate Matrix Collection." Yeah, I'm a geek, but I guess she's all right with it.  ;)  In an hour and a half, I'm heading to the City to meet Barbara and Stephanie, and after we eat (though I'm still full of sushi), the three of us are going to see "Spamalot" on Broadway. What? I said I was a geek...

2-11-05 - Grrr... I'm still experiencing technical difficulties getting OpenBSD running on the Quadra. It's fully installed, or so it says, and it starts to boot, but then it hangs. I got some suggestions from the mac68k mailing list, but I'm still stuck. Maybe I'll give NetBSD a shot instead...  This morning just might be cold enough for me to try out those earmuffs!

2-7-05 - Because of that annoying little game Sunday night (Eagles, Patriots... whatever), I couldn't get a cab to the train station in time to make the train I'd planned on. Six different taxi companies told me they had no cars available around 5 PM. Grrr... Well, I'm back home, even if it's a bit later than I'd wanted.

2-5-05 - I'm just takin' it easy today. Thursday was a looong day; I had two appointments in White Plains, New York, both of which ran longer than expected, so I didn't get home 'til 8:30. Missed out on lunch, too, which meant I was HUNGRY when I got home! At the moment, I'm cat-sitting for my friend Barbara, who is spending a few days in Puerto Rico.  ...Check out the Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics of All Time, assuming you're at least 18; some foul language there. The pictures are silly, though!

2-2-05 - In over eleven years of dealing with Macintoshes (seven of my own, and several more belonging to others), I have never seen the infamous Sad Mac... until last night. Looks like I've still got some work to do before I can get BSD running on this ancient Quadra... Awww, my pretty baby stopped by tonight, and she got me a pair of earmuffs. I love that lady!

1-28-05 - Thanks to Gina's suggestion, I can't seem to resist 'shooting' my clothes into the LaundraPak hanging over my closet door.  :)  ...It is cold out there!

1-23-05 - The snow stopped this morning, and we got plenty of it! The wind is still pretty powerful out there... I went for a short walk in the afternoon, and took two pictures of the park near me. Apparently, there was a game or two on today, but I watched three Stephen King films instead: "The Dark Half," "Storm of the Century" (ironic, isn't it?) and the all-new "Riding the Bullet." Kinda cool to be able to pause the TV to talk to one's baby...

1-22-05 - I'm on Route 9 in central Jersey, heading home with my uncle from my parents' house, and it's BAD out here. The governor (well, acting governor) has declared a state of emergency to take effect in about two hours. Too much snow...!

1-20-05 - I'm riding the Newark Subway at the moment, for the first time in my life. Not bad... Happy birthday, mom!

1-17-05 - Well, it's MLK Day, and I'm home from work, but not because Microwize Technology chooses to honor Dr. King. No, my stomach's been bothering me on and off since Saturday afternoon, and I decided this morning that I'd be better off with one more day of rest. I just spoke with Gina (who called me twice deliberately, and once more by accident! Heh), and I'm listening to U2's "Pride (in the Name of Love)," and then I'm going to watch the six hours of "Battlestar Galactica" that my TiVo recorded for me yesterday. Of course, after I fast-forward through the commercials, it'll probably be 4 1/2 hours...

1-13-05 - Ahhh, my honey 'n I did sushi for the first time in a long while tonight, having our favorite rolls at our favorite sushi restaurant.

1-1-05 - Spent New Year's Eve with Stephen King, Rod Serling, and Regis Philbin. Scary, huh? Well, while Gina wasn't able to ring in the New Year with me, she was the first to wish me a Happy New Year this morning. Welcome to 2005...

12-27-04 - Well, I wasn't really expecting to see as much snow on the ground this morning as I did... Gina and Hannah came over last night; I made a quick spaghetti and meatball dinner for us (Gina tried my Samichlaus beer, too), and then we exchanged gifts while snatching glances at Hannah's new Disney DVD on my new TV/DVD player. We even managed to get in a game or two of Hi Ho! Cherry-O.  :D  Ah, well, off to work...

12-25-04 - Merry Christmas, everyone. I had a nice holiday over my parents', and traded E-mails and voice mails with Gina. I'd recorded the tracks to my own cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" in the three days leading up to Christmas Eve; before I'd even gotten to the final mixing, my baby did come home, sorta. Heh-heh... The song is a gift to her, and maybe you'll like it, too.

12-24-04 - My pretty baby just left, having come over after having a minor procedure performed on her lovely green eyes... She wanted to rest them a bit before going home, so we got in some nap time together.  :)

12-20-04 - It is COLD out there! Had our first dusting of snow last night, just in time for the Microwize holiday party. Gina couldn't accompany me, as she had to study for this morning's history exam, but I had a glass of sangria for her (well, one of red, and one of white), and a few for myself, too.

12-1-04 - Ahhh, I finally got to see my baby and her baby last night; at three years old, Hannah was quite happy to still be getting presents a week after her birthday. For my part, I was happy just to spend time with the two of them...

11-21-04 - Happy birthday, Hannie...! I wrote and recorded "Hannah's Song" this summer, after Gina kiddingly suggested I come up with a song to help her daughter learn to spell her name. I'll never be Raffi (and I'm relieved), but Gina and I think it turned out well... and, more importantly, Hannah loves it.

11-19-04 - Wow! I don't generally endorse products on the pages of this Web site (created and hosted on Apple Macintosh computers), but I've got to say that I love my new LaundraPak, a large backpack that brings the best features of a laundry bag and a laundry basket together in a comfortable-to-carry form. I received mine yesterday and put it to the test last night, and it was so much easier to get to and from the laundromat with it. It's got plenty of room and can even be hung over a door at home to store your dirty laundry in directly. Kudos to Jeremy Kestler, fellow Jerseyan!

11-11-04 - OK, finally, the pictures from my short trip to Boston are posted...  Get Firefox, the Web browser. No, really. Even if you're already using Mozilla, and especially if you're using Internet Explorer.  ..."Bag of Bones" is possibly the saddest story I've ever read; I think it may also replace "The Stand" as my favorite Stephen King novel, though it brought me near tears a time or three...

11-9-04 - Gettin' there... Halloween pics are up, as are a few more miscellaneous shots and even a picture of two other people's cats. It's taking me a while to go through all of the Boston photos, though, so hopefully I'll have those up tonight.

11-8-04 - Yes, yes, I know, I owe you people pictures from Halloween and from my trip to Massachusetts. I'll try to get them posted tonight. Ugh, I'd so much rather be riding the T than a New Jersey Transit bus.

11-7-04 - I had a wonderful Greek dinner last night at Desfina; mmm, dolmades... In three consecutive days, I spent time in Boston Common, Salem Common, and Cambridge Common. Let's hear a little fanfare for the common man. Of course, the day I'm leaving is the day with the best weather, but I still managed to get a few hours outdoors. Time to check out of the hotel now.

11-6-04 - It's noon, and I'm sitting under a tree in Salem Common. A tad brisk, but it's less windy than yesterday was. Time to meditate...

11-5-04 - Ugh. Flight 866 left Newark over an hour late, and then was put in a holding pattern because Logan was backed up. As a result, I didn't check in to the hotel until after midnight. I'm beat.

11-4-04 - I'm picking over the remains of a Chicken McNugget meal at Newark Int'l Airport, 45 minutes after getting off the phone with Gina; it's nice to have someone to say "I love you" to before flying, even if things between us are different now. Now, let's see when my flight is actually going to depart...

11-3-04 - Remember when we'd know by the end of Election Day who won the freakin' election? Just like in 2000, even the winner can't claim to have captured the hearts and minds of the people, because neither candidate has a comfortable majority... Here's an article on the U.S. situation that explains it better than CNN, Fox, or any other news or 'news' organization could.

11-2-04 - Vote or die! I was up all night, struggling with the decision, but in the end I voted, at 6:30 AM.

10-16-04 - 'Twas a busy Saturday; I grabbed some breakfast (and coffee!) at Dunkin' Donuts, got some laundry done, went to the post office, finally checked out our local library and took out some books, found Joey Ramone's grave, did some grocery shopping and some cleaning around the apartment, played Grand Theft Auto III, read some more of "The Collected What If?," and saw Gina, my sweetest, for a bit, and talked to her on the phone, too. Now I'm goin' to bed.

10-5-04 - Baby, it's COLD outside...!

10-4-04 - Oof. I spent an hour and a half standing on the bus back from my parents' last night. Fun, fun, fun... This Mac addict has successfully set up a Windows 2000 Server at home, functioning as both a print server and an FTP server. Hmmm, maybe I'll put up a small Web site, too.

9-29-04 - Yes, today is my 34th birthday. No, I don't feel any different or older, but I did have to deal with over two hours of traffic on the way to work this morning, due to flooding from yesterday's rain. My honey made me a chicken parmigiana dinner tonight, with an apple pie for dessert. Me happy.  :)

9-26-04 - In backtracking a visitor's path to my Web site the other day, I learned something I should've learned a while back; Joey Ramone is buried right here in Lyndhurst! So today I went out looking for his grave... I didn't find it, but I did find another celebrity, one with ties to my hometown, Paterson. William Carlos Williams, the poet, is also buried in Hillside Cemetery.

9-21-04 - Kweevak.com has a review of the album up. Cool, huh?

9-12-04 - Took my Sushi Girl out for dinner last night; we almost went for Chinese... but in the end, Daruma won out again. We did manage to sample some of their chicken teriyaki this time, in addition to the inevitable sushi (not that anyone's complaining!). Ah, I'm glad I decided to keep that mistletoe up!

9-11-04 - On this third anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on the U.S., please read the Vitriol column I wrote a few days after they had occurred.

9-8-04 - We're ascribing to coincidence the fact that I seem to've gotten a bit sick just two days after picnicking with my sick baby. Heh... Well, there are worse ways to get germs...  ;D

9-6-04 - Ah, it's nice not to be laboring on Labor Day. Gina, Hannah, and I went on a little picnic yesterday afternoon, though we cut it short because my honey isn't feeling well. It was nice to have a bit of sushi outdoors... Barbara, Stephanie, and I trekked up to the Renaissance Faire today and had a good time, even bumping into my buddy Dave. Some pics from yesterday and today are in the Gallery...

8-31-04 - OK, for those of you who, despite common sense, continue to use Internet Explorer as your Web browser, you should now be able to click on the link to read the South Bergenite article. Those of us using better browsers haven't had a problem... My CD is now available from CD Baby, Tower Records, and MusicFist.com; buy it from one of them if you don't want to buy it from me.  ;)

8-30-04 - The Republican love-fest starts today. As I approached New York last night on a bus coming back from my parents', I heard Pink Floyd's "The Dogs of War" in my head: "Dogs of war, and men of hate / With no cause, we don't discriminate..." Not that all Republicans fit that description... but the ones currently leading this country do.

8-27-04 - Ahhh, sushi... Yep, we had more of the stuff last night.

8-25-04 - The South Bergenite has printed the article about my CD this week; woo-hoo! So, I "equally resemble a fifties rock hero and a computer geek," huh? Heh-heh-heh.

8-23-04 - Happy anniversary, Gina! We celebrated one year together today, with breakfast in (I made us raspberry pancakes; anyone can have blueberry pancakes...), some cuddle time, rollerblading holding hands in Nutley, and a late Thai lunch in Bloomfield. I think the best part for both of us was not being rushed, not having a set-in-stone schedule. 'Twas a beautiful day all around... I love that woman.  :)  ...So, the CD is finally listed on CDBaby.com...

8-18-04 - Got my hair cut at Astor Place last night, always an experience... I ran into three Brazilians there, too. Hey, are you going to buy my CD, or what?

8-11-04 - I was interviewed and photographed for the South Bergenite yesterday; the article should run in two weeks.  :)  Saw my honey again tonight, and she wiped out my workday's stress, no mean feat.

8-7-04 - Well, we had Italian, not sushi, last night for a change...   lol  And we wiped out a bottle of bubbly in celebration of "Joy in the New" finally being released. I've got an ad in the upcoming issue of the Aquarian Weekly, and it looks like our local weekly newspaper, the South Bergenite, is going to feature an article about me. Slowly, the publicity builds... Heh.

8-3-04 - Today is the official release date of "Joy in the New." You can read the press release online, if you'd like.

8-2-04 - Should I be worried that someone at the Department of Homeland Security visited my Web site while searching for music? Nahhh...

8-1-04 - Joy in the New has finally arrived! Yep, Gina got her copy, the first, tonight, and I'm mailing out the pre-orders tomorrow. I just wish she were in better shape; she seems to have sprained her ankle, and it's really causing her a lot of pain...

7-27-04 - Saw my love again last night, caught another "Honeymooners" episode while eating some more of that deelicious ice cream... Thanks for the Monkees boxed set, honey! OK, my own CD will finally be in my hands at the end of the week, so those of you who've pre-ordered will get yours sometime next week. Check out the board for the upcoming novel "Amethyst Secrets" by Peter Quinones, a contributor to my long-dead 'zine the Extreme and obviously a Steely Dan fan.  ;)

7-26-04 - Gina, Hannah, and I had a nice time in Philadelphia on Friday; there are a few pics up. Friday night, my honey 'n I had sushi and watched "Love Actually." Saturday night, we had sushi and watched "Spider-Man 2." Both movies were very good, and so were both meals.  :D

7-19-04 - Ahhh, my honey's home... Gina attended Saturday night's CD release party at the apartment, which was a nice time, all the more so because of Drink 2 and the chocolate cake from Mazur's. Thanks to everyone who came...  :)  And Gina and I stayed in last night and watched some "Honeymooners" episodes while dining on party leftovers.

7-11-04 - Jon and I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" last night; yes, it was decidedly slanted, but that doesn't change the fact that much of it was spot-on accurate. We continued the fun with some Mario Bros. on Nintendo, which is always better with a few beers. Heh-heh...

7-6-04 - Mmm, Gina and I had dinner together Monday night and tonight, a wonderful surprise indeed. Sushi at Daruma was delicious, as usual, and Foschini's makes a great brick-oven pizza!

7-4-04 - "Heyyy, baby, it's the Fourth of July..." Had a nice view of three towns' fireworks tonight, from the comfort of the living room; the only way it could've been better is if Gina had been here to watch with me. I should be seeing her tomorrow or Tuesday, though...

7-3-04 - I'm 'down the shore' (as we in north Jersey say) at Point Pleasant, sand between my toes and sun beating down on my shoulders. Wish my honey were here, too... The CD is under production (after a glitch or two), and Not An Exit is even preparing to start recording again, so things are good, and I decided to treat myself to a day at the beach.

6-27-04 - A week ago right now, I was kissing Gina underneath the mistletoe above my door as she was getting ready to head home. Yes, I still have mistletoe up. Not that we really need an excuse to kiss, but it's always nice to have one anyway.  ;)  She's in Florida now, though, and I'm missin' her. Went to the park early this afternoon and played guitar in the sunshine for quite a while... TOO long, apparently, because my limbs and my face are pinker than they should be. D'oh! Well, it's good to know that I can still play after a hiatus of several weeks.

6-21-04 - Got to see my honey last night; we'd originally planned to go out for sushi tonight, but her plans changed... so we had a few rolls at home instead. Mmm, Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra, too...!

6-19-04 - Yum... Just had a scrumptious cheesesteak in Philly. Funny, there seem to be "Joy in the New" stickers all around town now.  ...Well, I just spoke with my baby on the phone, and now I'm settling in for a quiet night of Grand Theft Auto III and Woodchuck Cider...

6-14-04 - Joy in the new, indeed; Gina and I saw each other tonight and agreed that we were both happier with each other than without. So we made up and kissed.  :)

6-11-04 - The cicadas have invaded Baltimore. The Inner Harbor was much more pleasant in warm daylight than it had been in cool darkness last time around, and it was soothing to sit beside the harbor at night... but not even the crabcakes could take my mind off of...   Well, I'm back home now.

6-7-04 - Well, I'm feeling a little better these days, though I'm still missin' her... I watched "Run, Lola, Run" with Jon and Karin Friday night, and saw my good friends Dawn and Dave over the weekend; we watched "Gothika" Saturday night and went to the Museum of Natural History on Sunday. Got to keep my mind, at least, occupied. Going back to Baltimore tomorrow night might help a bit.

6-2-04 - The black cloud descends upon me again... Gina, the love of my life, has broken off our relationship.  :(  What hurts the most is that I know she loves me and she thinks she's doing the best thing for both of us. I can't sleep, can't eat, it's tearing me apart. My future has just shattered...

5-28-04 - Congratulations to my friends Yesika and Luigui and their new baby girl, Kayla!  ...Can't wait to see Gina this weekend. Hopefully, I'll also start (and maybe even finish) mixing the album tracks this weekend. Today, we've got a barbecue in the parking lot at lunchtime.  :)

5-25-04 - I'm now operating at approximately 98% peak efficiency (though my honey has been feeling unwell these past several days). The album artwork is done; now I have to start mixing, and I think Joy in the New will be pressed and ready to ship by mid-July. There are some T-shirts and things in the Shop already, and more merch will be added soon...!

5-21-04 - Ohhh, it's been a long week. I'm still not feeling well, though I'm doing better than I was on Sunday. I've still not felt up to working on mixing the music, but I have received Jon's artwork for the album, and I've started putting together the insert and back cover art files, so this project is picking up steam, even if I'm not.

5-16-04 - I'd planned on working on mixing the album today; instead, I've spent most of the day in bed, delirious and sore. I think I've got some kind of flu...

5-12-04 - Made my first meatloaf last night, and Gina and I were both more than satisfied with the results. Yum... It was definitely a good night for chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, too, so we had some of that for dessert.

5-9-04 - Happy Mother's Day to all you mothas out there... Gina, Hannah, and I attended a Silva-Arlotta brunch this afternoon, which was nice.

5-6-04 - Tonight I gave Gina a home-cooked chicken parmigiana dinner, a fruit-topped cheesecake, a song, an emerald ring, and a few other gifts for her birthday. Now that my honey has heard it, the rest of you can take a listen to "Today," too.

5-5-04 - Happy, happy birthday, baby...! It's Gina's big day today, and I'm dedicating "Today," the last song I just recorded for the album, to her.  :)

5-2-04 - Yesterday was May Day; appropriately, I was working, though it was freelance and for myself. I finished up the recording for Joy in the New this morning.   :::pat-on-the-back:::  Now to get Jon to finish up the rest of the artwork...! Anyone out there want to help promote the album? E-mail me at promo @ andersensilva.com.

4-28-04 - Cooked up a simple dinner of beef, rice 'n beans, salad, and flatbread for my honey and me tonight. We followed it up with some Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Mmm, Ben & Jerry's... I received Steve's Photoshop files via snail-mail today, so I can actually start putting some of the CD's insert together now. Thanks, Steve!

4-24-04 - Gina and I had sushi in last night while watching "Tomb Raider." It was so nice to see her again...  :)  And then we bumped into each other this afternoon, as I was going for a walk and she was heading to the store, so we just went to the store together. I did a little upgrading to the Quadra 605 this evening; now all I need is some RAM for it, and I think I may set it up with BSD rather than Mac OS 8. We'll see how it goes... Steve has given me two pieces that I really like; looks like this album project is comin' along!

4-22-04 - Finally, my honey is back home in New Jersey! Ahhh, can't wait to see her this weekend; it's been too long!

4-20-04 - Wow, there are still a lot of people visiting my site by clicking on a link on Steve Augulis' goolis-art.com. 'Course, they're still not signing the guestbook... Heh-heh. It'll be interesting to see what he and Jon cook up in the way of artwork for Joy in the New...

4-19-04 - :::sigh::: Well, my honey's not back home yet after all. Flying standby isn't always the best choice... Guess the caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol are going to have to see me through another day or two 'til Gina's in Lyndhurst again.  ...Barbara and I saw "Fortinbras," a sequel of sorts to Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Saturday night. It was quite entertaining!

4-17-04 - I'm in the Secaucus Transfer station right now, my first time trying it out. Seems like a good idea, well-executed...

4-17-04 - Finally, I've heard from Gina!  :)  My honey'll be back in Jersey tomorrow...  My artist friends Jon and Steve have both agreed to create artwork for Joy in the New, and I'm pleased.

4-15-04 - Tax Day! I hope you got yours taken care of by now... Still missin' my honey pretty badly; coffee and chocolate chip cookies and Easter candy (plus the big Hershey's Kiss she gave me back at Christmastime) have been helping me cope. Well, she'll be back home this weekend...

4-12-04 - I upgraded the iBook's RAM last night to 576 MB, and I can really notice a difference in some applications. I also started playing around with the Quadra I acquired back in December, giving it a 4 GB hard drive; I can't upgrade the OS to System 8.1 until I increase its memory from 8 MB. Yes, I said 8 MB.

4-10-04 - Well, Gina's away, and I felt compelled to show my grief in the old-fashioned way, by pulling my hair out. Or getting it cut, anyway. I went back to Astor Place in the East Village last night, then headed a bit further downtown to the Pioneer to drown my sorrows in a few Guinnesses over some fish and chips. OK, it's not that bad, but I'm going to have trouble getting used to not hearing from her at all 'til she returns...

4-8-04 - My baby's leaving this morning for her cruise, leaving me all on my oddy knocky. I made us a yummy chicken cordon bleu for dinner, and we had a nice nochy together. Now to count the days 'til she comes back... This entry was posted from my Treo 600! That's right, I've rigged things so that I can post from the road.  :)

4-6-04 - "Joey Ramone's Dead" is finally recorded, too, and I sat down last night and planned out the track listing for the album I've almost finished, to be titled Joy in the New.

4-1-04 - Yep, it's April Fool's Day. What a shame it only comes once a year... The new (and last) Vitriol is up; you can either thank Steve or blame him for that. Heh-heh... Its replacement, the kinder, gentler Being..., is also here, and there's a new Word, some new links to click on, and the song "Not An Exit" (my own version, though, not Not An Exit's) is finally finished and ready for listenin', as well as my other songs, of course. I've been listening to it myself on the Treo 600!

3-31-04 - Yes, the monthly updates are a-comin'... Hang on, sloopy! Check back tomorrow, and all your dreams will be fulfilled. Or something.

3-25-04 - Yum, the kitchen still smells like the wonderful chicken franchese (or française) I made last night for Gina 'n me...  Found out yesterday that I'll be going back to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in two months; why couldn't they be in Boston?!? Oh, well. I've just added "Dances on Clouds" to the heap of low-res mp3s you can download, and "Not An Exit" will probably be up over the weekend.

3-23-04 - Well, the song "Not An Exit" (my own recording of it, anyway) is finally almost complete. Just have some editing and mixing to do, and then I'll add it to the playlist on my Treo 600. It's pretty cool to have your mp3 player, phone, PDA, and low-res camera all in one device.  :)