Immuno-(im?)(de?)(sup?)pressed

So, I’ve been making a move towards having a TV-Free house. Mind you I’m not getting rid of the TV concept, I’m just getting rid of the TV’s in my house and equipping all the rooms I watch TV in with computers that are TV ready. I eventually want to get rid of cable/satellite service and strictly watch DVD’s, webcast, and downloaded media only, but I’m not quite prepared to release myself the media leash of network TV broadcast. I know it’s silly, but it’s actually a little scary to think of.

My first step was to get rid of the TV in living room. I had an iMac that’s a few years old, but I figured would work well enough for the purpose intended. All I really want is to connect the video input from satellite receiver so I can watch TV and then just be able to email, tweet, and blog from it. Fairly simple set up, or so you would think. My parents needed a new TV and mine was in pretty good shape. I figured I was all ready to work on phase one of my plan, so I went ahead and gave them my TV. The following is a detailed description of the steps taken thus far to achieve phase 1.

• Set up iMac in front of my couch where I would normally watch TV.
• Discover that I have too old of an operating system for AOL (my email service…don’t hate).
• Discover that I have too old of an operating system for Adobe Air making it impossible for me to use automatic updating twitter clients like Twhirl. (if it’s not any indication of how lazy I am from my need for TV in my house, it shouldn’t be any wonder I’m too lazy to keep hitting the refresh button on twitter.com)
• Decide to skip system upgrade until I find someone that can give it to me for free and decide to suck up the inconveniences of manually updating twitter and accessing my email from a web browser.
• Buy Miglia TVMicro from amazon.com to convert coax video output into USB. I was comfortable it would work with my computer because the system requirements on their website say it works with Mac OSX (and not a specific version of Mac OSX).
• Receive in the mailTVMicro and go to plug in video from satellite received to discover that my receiver doesn’t have any coax outputs (like every other satellite and cable receiver ever made), only RCA outputs.
• Drive to Radioshack to get RCA-Coax adapter.
• Plug in video to new TVMicro via satellite receiver and video adapter. (Is this the first successful step so far? If not it if feels like it.)
• Go to install TVMicro software only to discover that my Mac OSX 10.3.9 is insufficient when I get the error message “Cannot Install Software. Mac OSX 10.4 or later is required.”
• Go to Best Buy to get new Mac OSX 10.5 (which I was trying to avoid in an earlier bullet, but now that I’m financially committed to this endeavor, I am too goddam stupid to back out).
• Come home to install Mac OSX 10.5 only to discover I don’t actually have enough physical RAM to install new OS.
• Go to Fry’s Electronics (an hour away, but conveniently located near band rehearsal) to get new RAM chip.
• Bring new RAM chip home to discover that my desktop computer actually requires notebook style RAM (wtf?).
• Drive back to Fry’s (not nearly as conveniently located an hour away when you need to return something fast) to exchange RAM.
• Bring home new RAM. Install it.
• Go to install new OS (NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE, RIGHT?).
• New Mac OS begins to load, install runs for like an hour, and 75% into it the computer gives me an error message stating “Install Did Not Finish Due To Error Loading, Try Again” (with no explanation of failure).
• I obviously try again…..another hour later, same result with different error message, “Source Media Damaged”. I look an the install DVD and see a smudge on it. I figure I’ll try to clean it and reinstall before returning it.
• I put in the disk to reinstall AGAIN! But now I have to go out to a concert. I let the installer run while I’m gone.
• I come home from the concert all excited to see if my new OS is installed so I can actually watch TV again (this process has lasted over a week). As I’m entering my house, I think how wonderful it will be to watch American Idol. I go to see if it worked and the computer is turned off. “Strange” I think to myself. The computer should not have turned off after the install. I try to turn the computer on with no success. Dead computer, dead screen. What the fuck? I look at the power cable to see if it’s plugged in and discover that my dog chewed through the cable while I was at the concert. Right. Sure. Why not?

That’s it. If this mother fucker doesn’t work after I fix the power cable, I’m going out to buy another TV.

UPDATED TO ADD:  Apparently if you’re mat at your dog for eating your power cable, it’s not a good idea to throw your computer keyboard against the wall.  It may break.

This, this, this, and this are mirrors I can’t stand to look into. I wanted to write about my similar thoughts and experiences, but I’m unable to talk about myself in this manner without getting severely depressed. This post requires no comments. I’m not looking for sympathy. Just merely expressing my thoughts for today. I am so greatly impressed that people can write so eloquently about and in spite of feelings so similar to mine while those same feelings keep me from managing to force a smile in public even when I’m happy.

Don’t know how to change it.

Doubt this will help.

I spent the night at House O’ Jester and UMB Saturday night because we had to some recording in afternoon and I had rehearsal up that way on Sunday. I didn’t want to make the drive twice in one weekend because, in case you hadn’t notice, gas is starting to get expensive.

The Jester family keeps strange hours, so waking up in the Jesterhouse anytime before 1pm usually means alone time. Well, that is except for the animals…of which there are many. Birds, dogs, cats (notice all the pluralities), a snake… who knows what else lurks. With me bringing my two dogs it’s quite the zoo. Rather than passing out feed pellets like you do at most petting zoos, I opted for spending my quiet morning sitting on the couch to play Breakout on my Blackberry, to follow the post-Tequilacon tweets, and to follow baseball scores on the computer as they updated.

It was relaxing and peaceful….well…except for Ndugu, Jester’s African Grey. Ndugu spent the morning chastising the dogs for their bad behavior. When the dogs barked or scratched at the door, Ndugu would say “Stop it!” or “No Echo (Echo is a Jesterhouse dog)”. I could not help but feel that sometimes he was telling me to stop it, but I wasn’t doing anything, so I just kept not doing whatever it was. Also, Ndugu has nasty cough, which he apparently learned from Jester during is incredibly long sickness. Ndugu’s phlegm filled mimic is a good reminder why you should take your Vitamin C and see a doctor regularly.

The afternoon was spent at rehearsal and then we went to dinner where we all realized some strange occurrences from the past few days and had a dining out experience that can only be described as a complete breakdown of the kitchen-to-table food delivery sequence. I am going to share these things separately because when told in one story it gets a little too tangential.

Firstly, the strange realizations:

• Jester, Umb, and Celeste went out Friday night to a Mexican restaurant. The place that night reminded them of a similar restaurant back home in Missouruh called Margaritas. Also, they had recently been spending time watching TV shows about and generally discussing tornadoes. Upon Celeste’s arrival at our Sunday night dinner, she announced that she had just found out Margaritas had very recently been destroyed by a tornado. Weird, no? Wait…
• Saturday night Jester, Umb, and I (without Celeste) went to Denny’s and as part of my breakfast-for-midnight-snack I ordered with my meal an English muffin. The English muffin at one point became a focus of the conversation and English muffins in general were discussed at length. Jester explained that he loved English muffins when he was younger, but hadn’t eaten them in years as a result of getting sick of them working at a McDonald’s and partaking in a few too many McMuffins. Sunday morning as I was listening to Ndugu and trying not to catch his cold, Celeste came back from the grocery store with some bacon (go bacon!) and, clear out of the blue, a great big huge-ass package of English muffins (she wasn’t there for our discussion). Weird, no? Wait…
• At dinner Sunday night, we spend a decent amount of time discussing the untimely and mysterious death of a recent twitter friend @rbta. None of us knew her well, but we had met her when she had showed up to see our band play, so we have this small connection to her. Jester had received an email that morning with some details form the Coroner report which, with the estimated time of her death, the currents of San Francisco Bay, and where her body had been found floating, indicated that she had most likely jumped or fell from the Golden Gate Bridge. The silence at the end of our discussion allowed us to hear the song playing on the restaurant’s sound system. It was Ode To Billie Joe (in which Billie Joe McCallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge). This time I don’t even need your confirmation…it was weird.

Now for the dinner and everything that went wrong…

• Jester & Umb ordered plain iced tea. Both received raspberry iced tea.
• I ordered a side order cup of soup and a small Taco Salad (a la carte), but I was asked what side I wanted. You know…mashed potatoes? Cole slaw? Baked beans? WITH MY SALAD? It confused me.
• As my side I originally ordered onion rings and after everyone else ordered I decided I wanted to switch cottage cheese. When my order showed up it was with a plate of onion rings and no cottage cheese.
• After the waiter took our order to the kitchen, he returned to ask me what kind of dressing I wanted on my taco salad. Again I was confused, I always figured it would be a house dressing made specifically for the taco salad. You know? That orange, spicy, creamy dressing that comes with every single taco salad I’ve ever had? I never even consider other options. French? No. Italian Vinaigrette? No. Blue Cheese? Hell no! What the hell goes on taco salad? I settled on bacon ranch, but I was still confused.
• Jester and Umb ordered salads and did not receive any before the entree showed up. The waitresses half-ass solution was to give them salads they could take home with them after the meal. Puzzled by the solution, Jester answered “I guess?”. She said that we were to let her know when we were ready to leave and confirmed that both salads were to have Blue Cheese dressing.
• Also when the entrees showed up, my small taco salad was equal to the combined mass of three human heads. And not small ones. The salad was anything but small. I, again confused, asked if this was really a small. Mind you I wasn’t complaining about the overage, I just didn’t want to pay for a large if they made that size by mistake. She assured me it was a small taco salad.
• During our meal, it became apparent that not all of the salmon that Umb ordered was indeed salmon. One piece was halibut or some other NOT orange fish. But…they had all obviously been cooked together in the same pan. We were baffled how the cook could mistake whatever white fish ended up on the plate with salmon. How…even if you don’t know what salmon is…end up with two different kinds of fish which are OBVIOUSLY not the same color…even more so before they were cooked than after. Michael chose not to openly complain about it.
• When the check showed up. I was charged for a LARGE taco salad even though I ordered and confirm after receipt a small taco salad. But since I wasn’t charged for my soup, received two sides (onion rings and cottage cheese) which I did not deserve one of those (the onion rings) being one I didn’t even officially order, I decided not to bitch about being charged a dollar extra for the salad. At this point it was just funny to all of us, we were all sort of lightly giggling over the whole thing WHEN…
• The waitress came by to explain that they ran out of blue cheese for the to go salads (which weren’t even really meant to be “to go”.

At this point I broke out in a mad fit of laughter right in front of the waitress. She was obviously embarrassed, but I couldn’t contain myself as every single part of the dinner had failed from drink deliver to billing.

Have a great week!

This weekend was pretty wacky. As a self-acknowledged loner/loser, it was way busier than I’m used to. It was in no small part to and with no shortage of company by Jester. I had only really planned on a having an early evening gig on Saturday with Retro Rocket in Lodi (yay!) and other than that I thought it would be a relatively uneventful weekend. It was decidedly not uneventful.

Friday at work was pretty slow and I was hoping to leave early, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. I had baseball tickets for the SF Giants game, but I really wanted to sell them. I posted them on Craigslist, but by 3pm they still hadn’t sold. Something in my mind put Chinese food in my head and I had recently watched a local SF PBS TV show called Check Please, Bay Area which reviews local restaurants which featured a Northern Chinese restaurant in Berkeley called Da Lian. It was given great reviews and was a place I wanted to try. Jester had band practice with another band in Berkeley that night and when I finally sold my baseball tickets at about 3:30pm, I asked him if he had time for dinner at Da Lian before his rehearsal. He agreed but said he would need to eat by 5pm, giving me only about an hour and a half to get to Berkeley. I had to take the dogs home after work, drive through the city, and cross the bay bridge which would no doubt be silly with traffic on Friday afternoon. An hour an a half was really cutting it close. Jester suggested I take BART (SF Bay Area’s version of a subway) which actually made good sense. I hustled the mutts home and hopped on BART, but I missed the train that would get me there by 5:12pm and I wouldn’t get there until 5:24pm. Jester wasn’t really phased by the set back in time so I wasn’t too worried.

I had dinner with Jester and another mutual friend. We had Tea Smoked Duck, House Special Spicy Fried Calamari, and Mongolian Beef. I wasn’t really wowed by any of it. I was let down by the great reviews. I have had better Chinese food and was surprised by the praises sung on the TV show. (WARNING: JOKE STEREOTYPE AHEAD) The truth is in San Francisco you are run off the road by an Asian driver at least once a week and when that happens your car has a 75% chance of crashing into a good Chinese restaurant. That’s how plentiful good Chinese restaurants are here. After dinner I went to watch Jester’s band rehearse and then took the train home.

Saturday’s plans changed drastically at the very end of the week. At the last minute Jester booked our other band, Total Eclipse, another gig on Saturday in SF after our gig in Lodi (1:30 min drive). Saturday was a whirlwind of driving and playing music. For those of you unfamiliar with Lodi, CA…well…let’s just say…you probably want it to stay that way. It’s a one of the larger shithole towns in California’s Central Valley between Sacramento and LA. To sum up the Central Valley….The Napa Valley is to grapes and wine what the Central Valley is to cows and meth. Lodi is only famous for being the subject of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song…..Stuck In Lodi Again…aptly named.

I left the house about 11:30am to drop the dogs off at Jester’s so they could have the company of his dogs while we were gigging and to convoy with Jester to the Lodi gig. By the time we go there I was obviously unhappy to be in Lodi, because…well, its Lodi, but I was also stressed about the day’s schedule. This gig in Lodi was to end at 8pm and we had to start playing in SF at 10pm at the Grant & Green Bar in North Beach. With break down time in Lodi, the hell that is parking in North Beach, and set up time at the bar, we were in severe danger of not pulling this nightmare schedule off cleanly. To top it off, the wedding in Lodi was a freebee for a friend of the band and not getting paid is an amazing way to make you unmotivated to play gigs. The start of this day was not fun.

At the wedding there were tons of people missing teeth, lots of guys who would rather do anything but dance, and lots of women that looked like they could and would kick our asses at any moment. We only played a few songs and felt mostly unneeded for the event. They probably would have had more fun if they got a DJ rather than have our band play songs they didn’t really care to dance too… because A) We don’t play rap, B) we don’t play disco, and C) we don’t play the Chicken Dance. The first good thing of the day happened when we were able to get out of there by the time we were hoping, though we were still unsure what we were going to have to face in the way of traffic and city parking.

When we got to the city, everything fell together surprisingly well. We both had good parking karma and were able to get set up with no problems to start playing the bar gig right on time. The day finally got good. The crowd at the bar was fantastic. They danced and cheered for every song. It’s really fun for us when everyone is enjoying it. We sounded great and had no major flubs. During Don’t Stop Believing, Jester was able to coax the entire crowd into lighting up all their cell phones and waving them at us. It was awesome. It felt like we were playing to a huge stadium. I think I actually channeled Jonathan Cain (even though he’s not dead) through my keyboard during that song. People came up and told us how great we were and we did pretty well in tips. It was a great way to end up what started out as a very Lodi day.

Sunday I woke up and had to clean for my open house, then I headed back up to Jester’s (three days in a row, oof) to get my dogs which spent the night at his place. When I got there, it was almost time for Jester’s appearance on Hilly’s Blog Talk Radio show. Now for those of you who are reading blogs and haven’t yet discovered Blog Talk Radio….dude…catch up with the rest of us. It’s a blast. Bloggers host their own talk shows on BTR and during the on air chat there is usually a lively online chat room running at the same time. Jester hosts his own show on Wednesday nights, but Sunday is a big day for BTR. Among some of the bloggers I know (some well, some not as well) there is a string of shows that happens on Sunday afternoon/evenings. Karl, Hilly, Mr. Fab, Turnbaby have consecutive shows on Sunday and all of them are great hosts and have really fun shows.

I listened on UMB’s computer in one room of Jester’s house while he was on another computer in different room calling into Hilly’s show as a special guest. Unfortunately we missed Karl’s show, but I hope to catch it in the future. Hilly’s was a great show…. after that many of Hilly’s listeners including Jester and I moved on to Mr. Fab’s show. Jester took it upon himself to appear on air for as many BTR shows as possible that day. During his appearance on Mr. Fab’s show, Jester pranked Irrelephant’s show live while still on air with Fab. From Fab’s show we all moved onto Turnbaby’s show. At the end of her show, Jester decided we were all having so much fun that we should pick a random BTR show where the host would have no idea who we were and perform what I coined as and what will be forever known as the “Jester Roll”. He gave us all a link to the Supersize show and we followed him. He called in and worked the host while the rest of us bombarded his chat room with discussions of boobs and bacon. The host took it very well and had fun with the Jester Roll as it was happening to him, despite some unfriendly listeners in the chat room. After that it was dinner at Applebee’s and home to end the weekend.

I don’t know if if officially makes me a blogging geek that I had a blast spending a whole day listening to BTR, but whatever. I guess now I’m a self-acknowledged loser/loner/geek.