miseryXchord ♫

I'm told that this time next week, I'll have a computer again.

(I let this hang in a moment of silence and awe)

This will be the first time since last December that I won't have to deal with a broken mouse with a shorted out cord (3 total), a keyboard with broken keys and a shorted out cord (2 total), a faulty USB port that randomly crashes the computer and destroys its internal harddrive and all xxdata contained on it (due to having one of the aforementioned shorted out peripherals plugged into it when it died) (2 total), current system software that can run a current web browser with the xxjavascript and flash players that appear to be required on EVERY website currently being coded (including this one. Seriously, find me ANY website that doesn't crash a six year old copy of Firefox running on a six year old Mac OS the first time it tries to load a .js extension.... or any website with a sign in section, forms, radio buttons or banner ads that does NOT use xxjavascript. You'll be hard pressed), that I won't have to walk a mile to use a broken down PC on a timer that's blocked half the sites I need to get to (including this one), or sneak a few minutes computer access on someone else's machine when they're not looking.

From December to March, I had to hold the mouse upsidedown, wrapped in a (white or other light colored) sheet, and shake it for ten minutes between each click. One mouse lasted 2 weeks before it ceased functioning normally, then shorted out my keyboard (dropping the keyboard and breaking off the "A" and "S" and "shift" keys didn't help... nor did suddenly losing the ability to type lowercase "n")

In April, the usb errors caused by faulty input devices caused enough node errors that my internal harddrive became autistic and refused to respond to the chaotic information being flung at it from the outside world (and my computer, being a bad parent, refused to acknowledge it even had an internal hard drive)

Sidenote: Most of the hardware casualties coincidentally seemed to occur when, or within a very short period after, trying to electronically contact particular person(s). Hmm.

In May and June, I had to steal time on my kids computer, while they worked full time completing a grueling (thanks to a sociopathic "Educational Facilitator" at their charter school who decided the best way to inspire them to achieve would be to give them "F"'s when they turned in 100% correct homework and constantly threaten to throw them out of their school) Sophmore year of High School and worked on their own artistic projects.

In June, finally school was over for the year, the kids went off to a sleepover at their friend's house, and I spent 4 days without sleep editing photos to upload to the image agency I'd been offered a contract with (4 hours before my own computer died. Hmm). I started the upload of Swingin' Utters photos I'd just shot, breathed a sigh of relief, and watched as my dsl line was deactivated mid upload.

SIdenote: What company in their right mind shuts off someone's dsl account at 6am?!?

June and July were spent hiking back and forth to the public library during a heatwave rocketing temperatures up to 125 F (in the shade) and 140 F (to the touch on pavement)... editing photos and burning them to cdr, then laboriously uploading the hi-res images to the agency on the library's internet connection (shared with 40-some other users), using my kids library cards to extend the one hour per day per card holder access (and thankfully never being caught, although I saw a lot of pother people who were)

Sidenote: What kind of nutjob brings porn cds to watch at a public library?!? (I kept finding them left in the cd trays when I went to load photos :P)

June, the next horrible happened... I went to the library and managed to get my dsl line scheduled for reconnection, walked home, and my kids computer was acting odd so they went to restart it, and it wouldn't. The cord on their graphic tablet had shorted out (actually, it had broken completely through), destroying their system software and internal hard drive (shades of my eMac).

No computer. No dsl. No art. No photo editing (can't even download the images from the memory cards from my camera). No new videos. No emailing. No dropping notes to my friends. No long, overly introspective blogs laden with half-assed sarcastic remarks. AND I CAN'T LISTEN TO MY MUSIC COLLECTION BECAUSE 90% IS ON MY HARD DRIVE.

When I get access to my mp3's, it's going to be Muse, Muse, MUSE for about 36 hours, on repeat. Forget my neighbors, it's time for them to expand their musical horizons (and if I have to listen to their yipping pack of chihuahuas at all hours, they can listen to Matt Bellamey's insane guitar/vocal crescendos)

Sidehote: MWAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHahahhahahahaha!!!!!!

So cross your fingers for me, that some software glitch doesn't warp me back to a Matrix without computer access; that a giant comet doesn't crash into my house the minute the package arrives; that for once, everything works out...

Who all's going to Comic Con this year?

 

Me and the 'Entourage of Awesome' will be there over the weekend.... I'm not setting up at a table or booth this year (I might do a painting for the benefit auction, though... it's been awhile)

Seriously.

If you read my pre-concert blog a couple weeks ago where I talked about how I got in to shoot Time Again/Youth Brigade/The Casualties at the last minute, only to find that the girls computer died as soon as I had dsl reconnected, and then I discovered my CVC port had decided the break through my skin and was sticking out of my ribcage.... well, they FINALLY scheduled my surgery to have the port replaced for this Friday.

 

They were somewhat dismayed to hear that I was going to have to Greyhound down and probably sleep in the bus station... but what else? That's what happens when your surgeon os about 100 miles away.

 

At least I'm not sick like I was last Summer/Fall when the previous port "blew up" (the port is placed in a pocket between layers of skin and a line runs up my side, to my throat, and into a major vein, then directly into my heart... on the last one, the line blogged up, blew a gasket somewhere, and started leaking caustic medications into the space around the port and the line.) I spent over two months pretty much in bed curled up in a little ball with ice packs on my side before I could get a ride down there to have surgery, and it was so bad they had to move the spot they put the port in a couple of inches (into a less desirable spot) and it took a couple more months for the damage to heal up (and I have a gnarly scar. Although I must point out that I still shot Blaqk Audio 4 days later. With a ton of painkillers =P)... so while this will probably leave a few more scars (I mean, I've had a piece of metal sticking out of my chest in multiple places for two weeks. C'mon)... at least it isn't infected and/or eating a hole in my side.

 

I think, on the whole, that while this port worked great, that they really needed to put something lower profile in me (this one is shaped a lot like a flattened volcano and sticks out a LOT more than the nice flat ones I had for 3+ years before it). I was constantly bumping it and it HURT the entire time I've had it in. Not really pleasant, although it's never pleasent, at least I could forget I had the other one in and you couldn't really see it through the skin other than the scar next to it.

 

Hopefully the next one will be better.

Tiger Army and Social Distortion's Mike Ness will co-headline Hootenanny 2008 on Saturday July 5, 2008 @ Oak Canyon Ranch in Orange County California. The festival includes three music stages, vendors and a display of classic cars.

 

The event is All Ages (Kids 5 and under free admission). Tickets are still available from ticketmaster.com (VIP tickets include a backstage pass)... see the official event site for more details.

 

Also scheduled to appear are Glen Glenn , BR549's Chuck Mead, Royal Crown Revue, Cadillac Tramps, Grant Lee Phillips, Big Sandy, James Intveld, Guana Batz, Throw Rag, Blood on the Saddle, Roger Allen Wade, Russel Scott, Powerflex 5, Chris Schiflet, Dusty Rhodes, Rickey Warwick, Sh*tkickers, Hellbound Hayride, Wil Ridge

Seriously, I'm still getting email notifications that people on MySpace are sending me messages there, even after my Buzznet friends were nice and dropped people notes telling them I can't sign onto MySpace because my DSL is down and the library blocks that site (and now the computer at home has blown it's power supply so I got dsl back up but have no computer to access it :P) but that they can contact me here or by email.

If someone would be nice enough to drop a couple more notes for me, I'd be very grateful. Knowing I have several weeks of messages sitting there, can't see 'em, but no one will contact me off MySpace to tell me what they messaged me about is quite maddening!

 

EDIT: AHHHHGGGH! Got ~another~ message! Someone tell http://www.myspace.com/dirtyfilthymugs they can contact me at http://miseryslifeofdoom.buzznet.com , and sending me messages I can't read is just cruel!

 

(and then add them, because they're an awesome drunken street punk band :) ... or better yet, tell them to join Buzznet, too ;)