Jesus Eff, I haven't written a decent blog post forever. Busy. I have a bunch of half-written blog posts that I'm either going to finish up or just delete right now. So let's spend an evening with me, whatever my name might be.

Let's set the scene. Today was a Thursday, which means I have two classes. I attended a beefy 50% of them. Class time was spent keeping one problem ahead of the class and talking with 4 people on IM. I was home by 2PM which left plenty of time for a quick nap. I may or may not have masturbated. (Ed.*: He did.) I thought about the many things I need to accomplish, and accomplished none of them. This lack of productivity can be attributed to the fact that SpikeTV was NOT showing Star Trek: The Next Generation today, instead, it was an MXC marathon. After several quality hours with Vic Romano, Kenny Blankenship, and Guy LeDouche, I made myself dinner. For the third time in four days it was Mac 'n'cheese.

A note on Mac'n'cheese. Last year I lived with a business student and a history grad student. The history student ate Easy Mac. The law student (me) ate traditional Mac with the uranium-tinged powder. The business student ate the fancy Kraft Mac with the actually gooey cheese. We thought that this was an interesting statement on our respective future earning potentials.

So that's been my night so far, Mac and a Red Bull-- the Red Bull because I've been such a slack ass, and I've been led to believe that Red Bull will allow me to fly, which is always a handy skill when you update your blog.

Now I am sitting here wearing jeans but no shirt (ladies, please. behave yourselves.) because it is like 80 degrees. My room is a sty and I am listening to the Guess Who rocking American Woman, the original MEANINGFUL version condemning American culture because the GUESS WHO WERE CANADIAN. Fuck YOU, Lenny Kravitz, right in your completely un-ironic ass. How can you knock America -- where else in the world is a black guy who shares a name with a bagel going to make the kind of money you've made?

I think as I go, I'll just say what songs are coming up. When I started, it was the Doobie Brothers, but I forget which song. Now we're on Tom Jones with Help Yourself. Awesome.

So here's the first post that I never finished, which concerns my trip to the OBX.

I might as well put this story out there, even though I think it makes me an accessory to a felony or something. We're in the OBX, where it is the off-season, we are drunk, and we are hungry. Bubbles is particularly hungry, he wants something to grill. But because it is the off-season, and we are in a remote location, we are not sure the Food Lion is open. Bubbles calls the Food Lion and obtains the first clue that the Food Lion is in fact closed. I will enumerate these clues as we progress. 1. Nobody answers the phone at Food Lion Additionally, one of the people at the beach house had been there all week, so he was able to provide his opinion as to the hours of business. 2. Guy says they close at 8PM (It is now 9:30) Nevertheless, on the off chance that the store is open, my car is commandeered. Bubbles is too drunk to drive, but he is in, because he's the brains, or at least the stomach, of any food-procurement expedition. A girl, who we'll call M, was the driver, as she was slightly less drunk than me and Bubbles. I was in the car partially to keep an eye on the car, but mostly to keep an eye on Bubbles (a duty which I of course failed in, as we will see). The Food Lion is perhaps 4 minutes away from the house. Pull into the parking lot. 3. No cars in the parking lot. Not like one or two. None 4. No customers visible through the window. 5. No cashiers or other personnel visible through the window. The lights were on though. I tell Bubbles to check to see if they're open. He gets out of the car. I assume he will go to the door, it will not open, and he'll return within 15 seconds. I start chatting with M about frozen pizzas (seriously, I was on about the sausage thing again). Then it occurs to me that like a minute has gone by. I turn my head...where is Bubbles? I also noticed that the sliding doors are stuck, open, about 2 feet apart. I am also sure that that was not the case when we first pulled up. 6. Automatic doors did not open automatically. Later, Bubbles would claim that he merely "touched" the doors and then they opened. 7. Automatic doors do not operate by touch.

And now, the thrilling conclusion of Bubbles' exploits in North Cackalacky.

Being drunk, the girl and I decide that the store must, against all odds be open, so we get out of the car. Before we enter the store, however, we notice a largish sign that, well, what are we on, number 8?
8. Large sign clearly states the Food Lion CLOSES AT EIGHT P.M.
Through the boozy haze, our brains now understand that Bubbles is inside a closed private establishment. But there's still one thing that doesn't make sense.
"Why is it," I ask the girl, "that they don't have any alarms or anything?"
The girl had about three seconds to contemplate this before an obscenely loud siren went off. Here, to the best of my memory, is what it said. Let's make this number 9, shall we.
9. "whooooOOOOOOOOOP! whooooOOOOOOP! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! whooooooOOOOOP! SECURITY BREACH! INTRUDER ON THE PREMISES! whoooooOOOOOOP!"
The girl and I RUN back to the car, expecting Bubbles to come booking out of the store. Thirty seconds go by, one minute, two minutes. We are about to take off because the cops are certainly not occupied by any other matters during the off-season. Finally after two and a half minutes we see Bubs calmly strutting to the front of the store. Although we're frantically waving at him he just walks to the car. He didn't even get to close his door before the girl peeled the fuck out of the parking lot. She was a good wheelman. Wheelwoman.

For a while, Bubs maintained that he didn't know the store was closed. Later he admitted he knew it was closed but was looking for a manager or something to see if he could strike an under-the-table deal for some ground beef.
The whole situation would be more surprising if it wasn't for the following anecdote from several years ago. This happened on a fraternity retreat to Wisconsin, and I reproduce it in exactly the form I wrote it up for the fraternity newsletter six years ago, in an article entitled "Over the Hills and Far Away**":

Let’s go all the way back to the retreat and wrap up some of those stories first. It was a great day at the racetrack, with a win for Team B thanks to their unsung heroes, e.g. Matthew Donnelly, who at 8 P.M. declared “I’ve never drunk this much beer in my life.” Later on that night, Donnelly was in boot mode, thanks to the deposit Bubbles left in the kitchen sink. “I guess I should chew my food more,” reflected Bubs. Since you could see undigested pieces of hot dog the size of a thumb in his vomit, I’m forced to agree. Bubbles was, surprise surprise, involved in the Tool of the Retreat event, with a supporting role put in by the Moose. This dynamic duo set out early Friday evening in search of the local watering hole, and the Wisconsin Tavern League sign on a nearby building seemed to indicate the place. The building they walked into was not so much a bar, though, as a private residence. I think the rest of the story is best related as Bubbles told it the next day: Bubs: So we walk in, and the place is really nice. Then this guy’s like can I help you? And we said, yeah, is this the bar? He says no, it used to be a long time ago. So we left. Mills: I can’t believe you did that. Bubs: I was kind of upset. I thought that at least he would offer us a beer. Mills: You’re lucky you didn’t get shot. Bubs: Once I realized it wasn’t a bar, I figured it was one or the other. Let’s not forget those many minor Tool incidents for which we are so famous. Joe pissing in his bed, and myself for trying in vain to cruise for hot Wisconsin chicks.

OK, so there's the first post of the evening. How are we holding up? I'm listening to a live version of Badlands with the Boss. The combination of Bruce Springsteen and a mention of the light-drinking Donnelly in the above story remind me that he recently got engaged. Thank god. I was a month away from having no pending weddings.

Now I'm listening to the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem, which will segue nicely into the next unfinished post, part of which I stole from Beau.

I've been trying to download some electronic music and it's a pain in the ass. I know the artist and I know the song title but damned if I know which mix, remix, edit, or cut I want. Timo Maas? Tiesto? BUTTRICH? I feel like I'm at a Scandinavian car dealership. Interestingly enough, I run into similar problems when I try to filch*** classical music off Limewire...actually, classical music can be worse. Sure I know the artist, but the title might be in English, or it might be in whatever damn language it was written in. Sure I can figure out that "Il barbiere di Siviligia" is "The Barber of Seville" but how am I supposed to know that "La gazza ladra" is "The Thieving Magpie?" And then I need to know who's recording I want? Bubbles will say Simon Rattle, won't he. Is the Bulgarian Philharmonic good? Or are they a sham orchestra, a sort of musical Washington Generals to the Boston Pops' Harlem Globetrotters? At any rate, let's examine my iTunes top 25, as Beau has, with the reminder that partially played songs are not counted. I think we all expect classic rock to figure heavily in this mix, but we may be surprised.

1. Requiem - Dies Irae - Verdi Not Mozart's. Verdi's is far more dramatic I think.
   
2. Cock Mobster - MC Paul Barman. Didn't take long for the list to go lowbrow. My favorite line: "I'm sticking taxing long things in Maxine Hong Kingston which brings in Amy Tan, she said 'lay me mon.'" Second place: "Sigourney Weaver has a thrashing horny beaver."
   
3. Sound and Vision - David Bowie The best track off Low but wouldn't be this high if I hadn't been banging a big Bowie fan for a few weeks last fall.
   
4. Estranged - Guns' N' Roses Fuck yeah.
   
5. Fire and Rain - James Taylor Not sure why this is so high. I think this song is just OK.
   
6. Bron-Yr-Aur - Led Zeppelin This is an instrumental off Physical Graffiti, not to be confused with Bron-Y-Aur Stomp off Zep III. The high rank of this song can be attributed to it's placement on several playlists I use when I study. (It's on both the acoustic guitar list and the instrumentals list)
   
7. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) - Nancy Sinatra Kill Bill soundtrack, of course.
   
8. Belleville Rendezvous - Triplets of Belleville sdtrk. I can't believe I allowed the only French song on my playlist to get this high.
   
9. Crossroads - Bone Thugs'n'Harmony Another surprise. You'd think I'd have Crossroads by CREAM in my top 25, not Bone Thugs. Shows what you know though. FUCK tha police, fuck tha PO-lice, fuck 'em.
   
10. Fight Song - Chicago Bears No need to explain.
    
11. Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground Hello high school!
    
12. You've Lost that Loving Feeling - Righteous Brothers This would be number one if iTunes counted songs I sang in the shower.
    
13. Sabotage - Beastie Boys At some point in my life I hope to use, in context, the phrase "Ima set it straight, this Watergate."
    
14. Beethovania - Clockwork Orange sdtrk. This is basically a synthesizer version of the second movement of "The glorious Ninth, by Loodwig Van."
    
15. Midnight Confessions - Grassroots I can't recall hearing this song ONCE in the last year, let alone an alleged NINE times. I have no idea.
    
16. Float On - Modest Mouse Another song that I think is just OK.
    
17. Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
    
18. Requiem - Dies Irae - Mozart Classical is overrepresented because again, I listen to it while I'm studying. It doesn't DOMINATE, because I don't study much. Note that both requiem excerpts on this list are the Dies Irae. This means day of wrath. For me, this is pretty much any day in which I have contact with the general public.
    
19. Pigs on the Wing (Part One) - Pink Floyd Short song off Animals, overrepresented by dint of the acoustic guitar playlist.
    
20. Go All The Way - Raspberries This song would be top 5 if I wasn't so embarrassed about liking it.
    
21. William Tell Overture - Rossini This, along with The Thieving Magpie and The Barber of Seville, make Rossini one of my more favoriter composers
    
22. The Rebel Fleet - Empire Strikes Back sdtrk. Right before the end credits of ESB, you see Luke on the medical barge and the camera is pulling back playing the sad music, and then suddenly it wipes to the credits and the music goes BA-bump BA-bump BA-bump and launches into the main theme. This is that track.
    
23. Blue Danube Waltz - Johann Strauss Jr. Again, STUDYING.
    
24. No Rain - Blind Melon High school again. I never liked this song much because of that fucking bee video. And yet here it is on the list.
    
25. Green Onion - Booker T & The M.G.s Nice little instrumental.
    

I think that's enough for now. I'm currently listening to Elderly Woman behind a Counter In A Small Town by Pearl Jam, or wtf the song is called. Adios for now.

*myself in the third person.
** this was a high point of my reign as Zeta: the completely Zeppelin-themed issue of the house newsletter. The story about formal was "Dancing Days," "Communication Breakdown" recounted quotes from chapter, and Cory's trip to a gay club, where he forget whether he liked guys or girls, is entitled "In Through The Out Door." I am obviously still proud of myself for this.
***Filch means to steal. Felch refers to, and I will quote UrbanDictionary on this, "[t]he act of sucking or licking ejaculate (or other substances mixed with ejaculate) out of the orifice in which they were deposited."

I include this footnote because it's my belief that more of my readers will be familiar with the latter word than the former.