Category: Life

When I first saw that M&M’s were tied into the latest Star Wars marketing onslaught, I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was a little dumb, actually. Not quite as dumb as Darth Vader hawking Cheez-Its, but still kinda goofy.

Until I tried the dark chocolate M&M’s with peanuts.

Over the last few months I’ve bought many, many bags of them. Now my neighborhood Kroger is out. These are a limited-time deal as far as I know. I was saddened until today when I discovered a cache tucked away at the Kroger in North Little Rock on Pike. I bought eight bags. I sold two to Shane. I am the pusherman. Hopefully the people at M&M’s will make this thing a permanent offering.

New ploggage here. A motley assortment from the last month or two. Mostly Minolta, some Motorola. There are a couple of pictures from last weekend’s trip to scenic Pottsboro, Texas, where we played at the Highport Marina and Resort. It was a long trip, the weather was hot, and setup was exhausting. The show went fairly well, though. Since I had Jeff and soundman Richard in the car, I didn’t have the freedom to stop and take pictures at the peculiar things we drove by (the town of Fink, Texas, for example, or the stretched-limo-style 70’s van in somebody’s yard). I did get some pictures of a freaky bird swarm and a Napoleon Dynamite display at a gas station.

I keep getting emails from plentyoffish.com, a personals/dating website. At first I thought it was just spam, but their regularity of transmission and their format suggested to me that either I had signed up without knowing or someone had signed me up. So I clicked over to it to investigate. My username is kobalt. I see that my matches are all Canadian. Then I realize: someone mistyped their email address. Into mine. I have the luxury of colter at gmail.com, so possibly someone forgot a modifier of some kind, numbers or whatever.

The sad part is, plentyoffish.com doesn’t save names or personal info, so I have no way of contacting the Canadian guy who’s probably sitting around wondering when he’s going to get some messages from the site.

I kept myself busy this weekend cleaning house and car. My car is a 2001, and until last Saturday I had never vacuumed it. The driver’s side mat took 4 minutes of spray-washing. Bleah. I also took Zoe to the vet because she’s constantly scratching, wearing away the fur on her hind quarters and tail. Turns out she has some bacterial infection so we got her some meds and I gave her a bath with some special shampoo and she seems a lot better already.

The door to my bedroom doesn’t fully shut (ah old houses) so these animals that live with me keep sneaking in and sleeping on my bed, depositing massive amounts of fur and dirt thereunto. The other bedroom’s door does fully shut, and now that I have the option, I have switched bedrooms. I moved into the back bedroom and transferred all my music stuff to the front bedroom. I spent most of Sunday hanging posters and I even went to Target to buy some blinds. I couldn’t figure out the instructions, so I just tied them to my curtain rod with several loops of kite string. Bob Vila probably wouldn’t approve, but hey it works. Pictures of my new playground here, here and here.

So I’ve been carrying on this semi-relationship with this girl Jamie since about October. She’s amazingly great and we’ve turned each other on to so much great music (notably, Spiraling). Context here. The only problem is she lives in Indiana, and so I’ve only been able to visit her once. Then about a month or two ago, her computer died so we’ve been communicating a lot less. Then she lost her phone for three weeks and we had no contact because my number was in the phone and her house phone doesn’t have long distance. But last week she came back online, explained everything, and although she’s not online as often as she was, I thought there still might be a chance.

Now I know there’s not.

For those who don’t know, the girl in the picture and the comments is Jamie. She’s got some other boy to play with now. Wisconsin is closer and I’m sure he likes Morrissey more than I do, so he’s probably a better match for her. I’ll assume that he’s what she needs. Really, I’ve been expecting her to tell me something like this for a month or two, but under no circumstances did I want to find this out for myself. Girls, if you’re ever looking to break up with someone, then please get over the fear of the thing and just let your boy off the hook.

Tragic irony of tragic ironies, I’ll going to be hanging out with Natalie tonight, who’s just recently moved back to town from LA. She left last February. She’s probably back because of her successful long-distance relationship with a great guy. If that’s the case, I’m going to try not to be crushed by jealousy.

The weather has just turned dark and stormy as I type this. I’m going to go stand in the rain and do my usual John Cusack in the rain impression (see heartbreak scenes in Say Anything and High Fidelity, what is it with that guy and the rain?). “The rain on my car is a baptism. The new me. Iceman. Power Lloyd. My assault on the world begins now! Believe in myself! Answer to no one!!”

So I’m now covered in tick bites. I haven’t had tick bites since camp. I’m sure I’ll get Lyme Disease now, as I failed to properly remove the seed ticks with tweezers as all the field guides tell you. Sorry but those bastards had to be removed in the car manually. I probably should have tossed my clothes into the wash before I took my shower rather than after…I wonder if I’ll have little ticks running around my house and onto my pets. Maybe I’m just being paranoid but Billie seemed to be scratching herself an awful lot last night. I have about 30-odd bites on me now as punishment for going into the woods unprepared. I guess I’m just glad I don’t have poison ivy. I’m such a dork.

I had heard some months ago that the remains of an abandoned hamlet called Glory Town could be found in the woods on the west side of Lake Maumelle, and yesterday I finally had a free Saturday to go and search for it. I had directions provided for me by a guy who had been there, but after a few sweaty, seed tick-infested hours of exploring, I gave up. I did find the area where a small graveyard was moved, and took some pictures of that (moderately creepy), and I had a nice time sitting alone on some discarded concrete slabs by the lake, but mostly the day was a failure. Driving home I noticed the seed ticks on my arms, so I did my best to pick them off while driving quickly home so I could scrub myself thoroughly and shower. So far I’m not itching, so that’s a good thing. I thought for sure I’d end up with itchy tick bites or poison ivy.

While roaming the woods, I got a call from Elizabeth, who admonished me for going into the woods alone, but I’d hate to have brought someone along on such a dubious adventure (next time I’ll remember to bring Deep Woods Off!®). Plus roaming the forest alone is really quite pleasurable. The path was the old route of Highway 113, so it’s not like I was just lost in the woods with no compass. There are several old highway routes through that area, as Lake Maumelle is a manmade reservoir which required the evacuation of settlements and re-rerouting of roads.

I’ll get some more detailed instructions from my guide and try again soon. If anyone’s interested in coming along this time, let me know.

P.S. Yesterday VH1 Classic played Tears for Fears’ “Closest Thing to Heaven,” from their amazing 2004 reunion album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending which is unbelievablly fantastic and everyone should own this album because it sparkles like the shiniest of gems and sounds like a million quid. I can’t remember the last time I sang along to the TV. It’s an amazing video featuring a curly brunette “long time Tear for Fears fan” Brittany Murphy. Yum.