I had one of my worst nights in years at the bowling alley tonight. Over 5 games I averaged a just over 123 (nearly 40 pins below what I was averaging just a year ago), bowling games of 115, 104, 141, 105, and 151 - not one of them was a winner. Actually, it's hard for me to discount the entire night... especially since in the process of bowling those 5 games I did bowl a turkey twice - in two different games - and the final game was the closest I came to winning one, as Jonathan beat me by only 2 pins (153 to 151). Molly took the first three games while Jonathan had the final two. Molly had a much better night than I did. In fact, she bowled a personal best 180 in the third game. She even had a chance for a 200, but choked in the last few frames. Heh - I know how that goes. But alas, I can't complain too much. After all, it was free.

This may sound crazy, but I wish I were working right now. This isn't even about the money, it's about having something to do. I want to be able to spend my day doing something productive rather than sitting around doing nothing. This desire is increased by the fact that everyone else is at work, so it's not like I can just call up someone and go hang out. Man, like I even thought I'd actually want to be working!

I haven't heard back anything on the three jobs I applied for last week, but I don't exactly have a good feeling about one of them: I saw it re-posted on the job center website. I haven't heard back anything by Wednesday, Thursday I go to a temp agency.

So anyway, it's been a few days since I've posted. Not that much has gone on, but enough has. Friday night I was invited over to Molly's. Her sister and her sister's boyfriend were in town for a few days. Also in attendance were Morgan and Arthur. We ended up playing Trivial Pursuit, and the dynamic duo of Arthur and I pulled out a win over Megan-boyfriend and Molly-Justin (Morgan mostly sat aside and made wisecracks). Saturday Morgan and I were just two of the 40, 306 people in attendance at the Twins game. We got to hear "Oh Canada" before the game and saw the Twins pull out a dramatic victory in the bottom of the 10th. Sunday morning I went to Blackey's Bakery in Nordeast for the first time and got some tasty, sweet pastries. Yum. That's most everything that has occured over the weekend.

I'm not sure I can name all the contributing factors, but I have as of late become re-obsessed with The Sims. I bought the game some time ago right after if first came out. I loaded it on my computer and tried to get into it once or twice, but it never fully captured my interest. I think then maybe it was when I went home earlier this month that rekindled my interest. My brother had his new computer set up in his bedroom with the game loaded on it and he sat there for hours on end playing the game. I just kind of thought about it for a while, and then once I got back here and had nothing to do all day long, I got inspired to dig out the game and play again. Now I've spent the better part of the last 5 days playing and I usually only turn it off when I find myself falling out of my computer chair from exhaustion. I'm sure it's a passing phase, but it's an addicting one at the moment.

How could Dubya be so popular in all these "random" polls? Are there really that many people out there who are that ignorant? Every time I try to give Americans a little credit, they always spit it right back in my face. Why? Why?

Okay, so any of you who know me or have been avid readers of mine for any amount of time know that this opinion is nothing new, which must have you asking, "Yeah, so what's new?" Well, I just got annoyed by yet another article on Bush. This one is taken from The New York Times (although I'm sure it'll pop up everywhere) and concerns Bush's stance that there should be a cap on medical liability for doctors.

Rather than fighting for the "rights" of big insurance companies - even if they do fill his coffers with valuable campaign contributions - Bush should be out fighting for the little guy. The doctors and insurance companies have enough money. If anything, caps should be placed on how much poorer Americans should have to pay for health care. How many Americans fail to have important procedures done because they just can't afford it? How many senior citizens fail to get prescriptions filled because they can't afford the medications? Why should doctors and insurance companies be shielded from expensive lawsuits if they royally fuck up and someone dies or is seriously wounded as a result?

Dubya is allowed to take any stance he wants, and I really wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that it seems so many people think he's the cat's meow. Because the guy goes to church he's obviously right? Because he's anti-abortion he should always be trusted? Because he thinks a missile defense system would stop terrorism we should kiss his ass? Because he's pro-capital punishment we should....

I hate people. People are stupid.

So I'm sure by now most everyone has heard about this jackass from New York who is suing McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and KFC because he claims they made him fat without his knowledge. Pfft. The worst part is that he'll probably win too, just like the guy who sued the tobacco companies because he supposedly didn't know smoking is bad for you. Okay, nobody may have been coming out and saying 40-50 years ago that smoking is bad for you, but it's been well publicized for the last 25 years. That's actually something that really pisses me off. I hate it when I'm out smoking and some non-smoking moron walks up to me and says, "You know, smoking is bad for you." Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Every smoker is well aware that smoking is bad for them; you don't need to inform me once again. It's the same thing with fast food. We all know fast food is bad for us, yet some stupid vegan always has to be there to mention it again.

I make mention of this last point especially in light of Rib Fest. Apparently some tree-hugging vegan is complaining because a truck was blocking her table set-up at Rib Fest. You know, I'm all in favor of this lady wanting to tell people that eating animals is bad and the animals are treated cruelly, and blah blah blah, but it needs to be in the right place. You see woman, anyone who would show up at a multi-day festival called "Rib Fest" surely doesn't give a damn about how the animals were slaughtered, just as long as they were slaughtered.

I hate people. They're so stupid.

While playing my guitar earlier today, I was reminded of something Tony told me earlier this month while I was in Nebraska, but I had completely forgotten about up until now: The last ever Asphyxiation recordings are gone.

The last recordings were mostly made in the summer of 1998 (shortly after the release of our last album) and then during break periods of our freshman year in college. They included various untitled and unfinished tracks, but were quite entertaining. We had recorded a song in tribute to Turd, a song about underwear, a song using a keyboard and Zartan samples, a new (scripted!) rap song, and newer versions of songs like "I'll Kick Your Ass with My Steel-Toed Boots," "You Can Call Us Asphyxiation," and "Rock 'n' Roll Dreams."

Apparently these tapes were all lost when Dana College threw out Tony's leftover belongings because he didn't vacate the dorms quick enough. I don't know the status of the songs we recorded more recently on the karaoke machine about pussy, but I have a feeling those are gone also. There was a lot of great stuff, so it's really too bad that it all appears to be lost forever.

Also lost are the master tapes for the earlier Asphyxiation and Groutboy recordings and several never-released tracks by Doofus. Oh, that damn Dana College!

My ongoing search for a job and living quarters is starting to remind me perhaps a bit too much of Love and Other Catastrophes. It's also getting me in the mood to watch the movie again.

No, I haven't made any more progress today. I've basically decided that I'm not going to do any more active searching until I've secured steady employment (i.e. non-slave work). I've tried to keep offline as much as possible today in the hopes that the phone will ring and on the other end will be a potential employer interested in setting up an interview. Oh please, oh please, oh please.

I just don't feel like dealing with this any more today. I spent all afternoon checking out the websites of local employment agencies, but they didn't exactly point me in any positive direction. I also read through all the classified listings in the StarTribune. As I said earlier, I don't know if I can realistically move forward with an apartment search until I have a job lined up, as it'll be difficult to pull out of a lease agreement if I am unable to shore up a job in time. Blah blah blah.

Sorry as I pause a moment to giggle... okay, better. So anyway, it would seem that a strip club down in Nicollet, Minnesota has decided to clothe its dancers and admit minors. Wow, why didn't we have such a thing when I was in high school?

Perhaps my favorite part of the article was a quote from one Karen Hays, "Nobody has the right to come into a predominantly Christian town and push their ideals on other people." Oh, those funny, lovable, hypocritical Christians. You just have to love 'em....

I'm feeling quite tired today, which keeps me from having a whole lot of ambition to do much. Most of the blame for this I place upon my strange sleep pattern last night. I woke up several times last night, including one final point where I was awake for over 2 hours and couldn't fall back asleep. I ended up watching tv then until I finally dozed off. I then slept until 10:30, but it just wasn't enough - I'm pooped.

I also wrote my mom an email last night updating her on my current situation. If worse comes to worse, she did offer to let me move back home to save on rent and things for a year (at which time I'm hoping to leave for school again). I really would prefer to stay here in the Twin Cities, but I must admit that I find her offer rather enticing. After all, it would lower my monthly expenses down to just my $200 per month car payments. Of course, moving back home doesn't guarantee a job either. Also, it's rather likely that any job I might find there would pay much less than anything I might find here. At any rate, it's definitely something to consider should I not find a job here by the end of this month. Although it's only 1 week from today, perhaps August 1 should be established as my fail-safe point. This sucks.

One thing that hadn't occured to me until now: I need a job. Of course, I already knew that, but what hadn't actually crossed my mind is that with currently holding down a job, it's going to be difficult to convince these people should I find a place that I am worth renting to. These people want someone who can afford to pay rent, not some bum like me. This could really be a problem. Fuck.

Thankfully the day wasn't a complete waste. Since there was a break of a several hours between the showers that passed through earlier today and the showers which are moving into the area right now, I took advantage of the time to walk around in search of apartments. I brought my camera with me and snapped photos of every decent looking building with a vacant one-bedroom apartment and the sign with the phone number. None of them had prices, so I haven't a clue what any of them are going to run for, but at least I have the phone numbers of at least 5-7 decent apartment buildings to call and check out later this week.

I don't know what I was thinking; I heard the weather forecasts and I knew it was supposed to rain today. For some reason I ignored it and thought I could go out walking around looking for apartments today. Okay, it was stupid. I'm still hoping to go out later, but for now it's all put on hold until the rain passes.

As for the promising apartment I mentioned last night, well, let's just say the description made it sound a lot better than it really was. I had almost forgotten that I had to work last night, but I ended up making it in time. Afterward I drove around to find that building. Yeah, well, the description conveniently forgot to mention that the apartment overlooks 94 right at the 35W interchange. Just what I want - traffic passing by all day and night. There were plenty of other problems with it, but I don't feel like getting into it right now.

Anyway, I have nothing as of this point. I'm not too worried... something will pop up... I hope.

Okay, so admittedly I was rather lazy today about searching for an apartment. On such a nice day I should have been out hitting the streets on the prowl for the right pad at the right price, but I didn't. Instead I spent all day inside. Online. Doing nothing.

Okay, that's not totally true. I decided to begin my search for a new apartment by checking out the resources the internet has to offer. There are inherently too many problems to list with this approach, but the number 1 reason this is not the correct approach for someone in my situation is that only landlords with righteous moolah can afford to advertise in the papers or online. This means that only owners of building with expensive apartments or run-down dumps post listings. The real deals are to be found by walking through a potential neighborhood and writing down phone numbers to be called later (as I completely abhor cell phones and refuse to acquire one). Evenso, I went about searching online anyway, but predictably found nothing in all the standard places. The one exception? The U's Off-Campus Housing Listing Service.

While the majority of the listings of any reasonable price required the renter to share a bathroom and/or kitchen facilities with other renters, there was one particular listing which caught my eye. While I haven't called yet, I intend to go investigate the building personally either later tonight (post-rush hour) or tomorrow. It might be crap or it might be okay - I'll just have to find out.

So that's as far as I got today. I basically accomplished nothing. Hopefully tomorrow I can drag myself away from my apartment long enough to do a little searching in the streets.

As I rarely check the Groutflow Records email anymore (which would make sense, seeing as Groutflow Records is now more-or-less defunct), I hadn't read a certain bit of news until today. It turns out that to help defray the costs of paying royalties, Live365.com is going to start charging broadcasters a $5 monthly fee. While I believe this fee is perfectly reasonable for any (semi-) serious broadcaster, I do not feel that it is worthwhile for Radio Free Groutflow to continue broadcasting for any amount of money.

For anyone who hasn't visited the Radio Free Groutflow website, I should point out to you that the content of the broadcast hasn't changed in over 2 years. The same crappy mp3's that I uploaded back then are still playing in shuffled rotation now. Obviously, especially since there are never any listeners anyway, this is hardly worth saving.

So, for any of you looking for a bit of nostalgia, this is your last chance. According to the email I received, they are supposed to begin charging the fee as of August 1, but they are giving broadcasters a 30-day grace period to decide whether or not they want to pay the fee. I'm not certain if that means the broadcast will be killed on August 1 or August 31, but nevertheless, the death of Radio Free Groutflow has come - and not a single person will give a damn.

Dear Members of the United States Congress,

I am a twenty-two-year-old American male from the Midwest, and I would like to request federal funds for my personal anti-terrorism initiatives. Before you instantly decide to deny my request, please hear out my case.

Although I shall wish to fight terrorism through out the hallowed halls of my apartment 24-hours-a-day, I will gladly do so on a salaried basis rather than hourly. What I will need will amount to approximately a $100 per diem (tax-free, of course) to continue on infinitum (or at least until we win this war against terrorism and we can quit holding all those prisoners in Cuba without trial or legal representation). This will only amount to $36,500 annually ($36,600 in leap years), which is easily the cheapest anti-terrorism initiative you have been presented with yet. In return for your investment, I shall perform the following tasks:

1) I shall keep my apartment free of terrorists. No terrorists will live in my apartment, eat my food, or borrow my clothes. I make no promises though about keeping my furniture free of dust bunnies.

2) I shall not acquire outside employment, as it would detract from important time better spent fighting terrorists from the comfort of my own apartment. Of course, thanks to the economic downturn I could not find a job if I wanted to, but that fact is not germane to my anti-terrorism efforts.

3) I shall subscribe to cable tv so I can watch all the important updates on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Network, and the other 24-hour cable news channels about our war on terrorism. I'll even go so far as to pretend that Bill O'Reilly isn't putting a spin on stories in his "No-Spin Zone." And to really prove my patriotism, I'll even watch reruns of "Love American Style."

4) I shall seek to procure my own "Ayatollah Assahola" t-shirt.

5) I shall eat only good, Americanized food like hamburgers, hot dogs, and apple pie. I might even commence refering to sauerkraut as Liberty Cabbage.

6) In the spirit of promise #5, I shall start refering to algebra (the only Arabic word adopted into normal English-language usage) as Liberty Math.

If you should feel that my request is reasonable and patriotic, I will gladly follow through on my end of the bargain. Of course, I could use the money soon, as rent is due on the first.

Thank you very much,

Kristopher Koroch
Unemployed American Citizen

Haha! I knew it would happen! Schell Brewing in New Ulm has won the rights to brew Grain Belt!!! This is not only good news, it's great news - especially since Schell was bidding against those moronic St. Paul jackasses Summit, who were going to change the recipe if they had won. Schell, on the other hand, has vowed (or so it is rumored) to maintain the same old recipe we all have to come to love from Grain Belt. Long live Grain Belt!

Most of the time I'm rather neutral about these things - as I am right now - but there's a certain aspect of Israel's attack on the leader of Hamas that doesn't sit right with me... and it has nothing to do with the Israelis at all.

Time after time the Palestinians commit suicide bombing after suicide bombing and so much of the world sits back not caring or secretly supporting the Palestinian cause anyway. Then, when the Israelis finally fight back, the whole world wants to leap to their feet in condemnation.

Let me tell you something people: Either they need to defend themselves, or you, the hypocritical observers from afar, need to get off your sorry asses and do something to help. To Kofi Annan and the rest of you dumb bastards: You need to either shit or get off the pot. You can't sit back doing nothing when one side attacks, but then step forward and condemn when the other side retaliates. It doesn't work that way; it can't work that way.

You see, for all I care, the Jews and Arabs can bomb each other into oblivion - doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me. What bothers me is when those who should be impartial start taking sides unfairly. What next, will Switzerland be condemning Israel also?

When are the studios going to pull their heads out of their asses and release classics like Brain Donors and Scavenger Hunt on DVD instead of crap like Crossroads and A Beautiful Mind? Grumble grumble....

Why the hell did MTV move the VMA's up to August 29th this year? I really don't care that much, as MTV doesn't show videos anymore anyway, but it's a nostalgia thing - the VMA's were always (or at least as long as I've been watching) held the first Thursday in September. While I would be more understanding if this were to coincide with a certain other date in September, let me just point out that it's impossible for the first Thursday to occur on the 11th. So anyway, does anybody else think "The Osbournes" is the worst television fad of the year...?

I'm starting to realize that I think I made a major mistake in choosing a university: I forgot to seek out a school with an annual drinking festival.

Of course, the schools that sponsor these yearly drinkathons never advertise them as such. Some call them "arts fest" or "music fest," while others disguise them as something else along those lines. Back home, Lawrence University has Celebration!. In Wonder Boys they had Word Fest. Here at the University of Minnesota they do have celebrations which come close to these festivals, but they operate under no such artistic pretenses. I mean, we have Homecoming, Winterfest, and Spring Jam, but as everyone knows, these are quite obviously only excuses for the U to officially condone drinking by the Greeks and Greek-wannabes for an entire week.

I think what I'm saying is that I need to help the University establish an academicly-inspired 3-day festival. Preferably this little shindig would take place in early to mid summer, although I could live with something in spring. Being in Minnesota, winter is right out, while fall already has too many things going on to deserve my little festival. Theoretically we could get visiting professors to present papers, but that would be little but a sideshow to the real attraction of the weekend: the drinking.

Anybody else interested in this undertaking? Anybody else want to help me help the U establish an annual weekend of drinking and debauchery? I think I could go for a beer right now.

After months and months of waiting, TheSpark.com has finally offered up something new: The Are You Dateable? Quiz. According to the test, I am only 50% dateable and 95% of the people who have taken the test before me are more dateable. Hmmm... I really am quite lame.

...something tells me this is a bad idea. Go figure.

We all knew he couldn't be in a slump all season long, but who knew he'd hit a hot streak like this? I'm talking, of course, about David Ortiz, who Sunday against the Tigers hit his 6th home run since the All-Star break. Goddamn. About the only guy on the team left not to have a hot streak this season now is Mientkiewicz, who makes up for it nonetheless by being the best defensive first baseman in baseball right now. Yeah yeah... I don't want to hear about John Olerud. Johnny's got the bat, but Doug's got the glove. The difference is, when it comes to batting, players have hot streaks and players have slumps, but when it comes to fielding, either you have it or you don't. Players don't have streaks defensively. The Twins have to feel pretty good having swept back-to-back series against Cleveland and Detroit and now traveling to play the badly slumping ChiSox. What's the magic number at now?

And since I'm on the subject of clinching a championship early, how about Michael Schumacher clinching his fifth Formula One world championship already after winning the French Grand Prix? Love him or hate him you have to admit one thing: the bastard can drive a car. Fast. Damn.

Huh - I don't remember hearing the rain outside, but then I flipped past the Weather Channel again and their radar showed the rain having passed over us. I don't know; whatever.

On a completely different subject, tomorrow (or rather today I guess) I have to finally go apply for those jobs I had put off. It just occured to me that I have bills to pay soon, so money unfortunately is an object.

I was kind of disappointed at work today. Our current film is this Jewish comedy from Israel, and I was hoping for a bunch old Jews with their Yiddish accents. Instead I got a bunch of Christians. I mean, that's not a bad thing, it's just not what I was hoping for. There were also a lot of foreigners. Yeah, those damn foreigners. From places like Holland and France.

This talk about foreigners has me thinking - is being Canadian a fulltime job? I mean, could I get someone to pay me money to be a Canadian? I know employers are forced into all of this "equal opportunity" stuff which sometimes forces them to hire someone less qualified for a job just because their not the norm... well, are Canadians considered a minority? If I move up to Canada, live there for a few years, become a citizen, get a Canadian passport, and then move back down to the States, could I get multinational corporations to hire me for useless figurehead positions as the token (or tokin'... yeah...) Canadian guy? I'm even willing to drink Labatt's, watch curling, and say "Eh!" a lot.

Maybe I don't even have to move to Canada. If I move to a place like New York or California, would they hire me as the token Wisconsinite? It seems every sit-com has to have a character from Wisconsin or with Wisconsin ties. Well, I could be some office's real Wisconsin guy - the butt of all the office jokes. Everyone could crack jokes about the cow I supposedly left behind to move to the big city or the awards I must have won taking part in 4-H. Of course, I grew up in a city, but that wouldn't matter to them. Hmm... sounds like a good plan....

I have to leave for work within about the next half hour, which normally I wouldn't mind. The problem lies in the fact that it's about to storm. Not just storm, but storm. I thought something was amiss when I checked my mail at about 4 o'clock this morning, and leaving my apartment for the first time in about 24 hours, I was quite surprised to feel how humid it had become again. Now that the winds are kicking up, it's only a matter of time before the storms roll in. It doesn't look nice out there and the Weather Channel doesn't make me feel any better.

Now don't get me wrong - I kind of like storms. I just prefer when I can enjoy them from the comfort of my apartment instead of having to go out and drive/walk around in them. Storms don't exactly increase the crowds at the films either. I guess I'll be fine if I just bring a book with me.

It's fixed. I've fixed the mess. I deleted all of the fucked-up attempted archive conversions and changed the template and republished all the old Blogger entries. At this point, everything that I've converted should work. I'll bet that the "Crazy" blog probably doesn't work right, as I haven't converted it over yet, and I know there's nothing listed in the "Projects" yet because I haven't gotten around to adding anything. Otherwise, it should all hopefully be working now. I also still need to customize the new archive and comment templates, but I'll leave that until after I've gotten some sleep.

Something that I should be sure to point out to all everyone out there is that this is quite possibly my first layout which is viewable in Netscape! Yeah, I think Netscape sucks ass too, but at least for those who actually want to use it, you can read my website now (as if you really wanted to in the first place). I'm still having trouble with Opera, but since about 1% of you out there use Opera, you're not important enough for me to give a fuck about you.

Okay, I think I'm going to go to bed now. It's just sad when I'm up long enough that "The Root of All Evil" is over before I've gone to bed.

If you're reading this, it means you're looking at the new layout. It also means you're looking at the mess I created. I tried converting my old archives over to Movable Type from Blogger also, but it just fucked them up, so I had to convert them back. As a result, there will be a dichotomy in my posts - there will be the Blogger posts and the Movable Type posts. Right now the MT ones are fucked up, but the old Blogger ones are readable. All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of this page and check out the archives. At the present time they send you back to the old layout, but fear not, for they work nonetheless. Eventually I'll get around to changing the template and converting them to this layout, but for now I'm too busy cleaning up the mess left behind by this original attempted conversion. Some of the other sections of the website aren't done just yet either, but I'll get around to them when I get a chance also. As for now, I'm getting a little tired, so I don't know how much longer I can sit up trying to fix all of this. Woah boy.