*slightly tanked and/or not tanked (?), whatever that means* the time has come for the second semi-to-multiply-annual tradition called “pick the cover song jonathan may or may not play at his next show”! here’s how it works: first, you know that i have a show coming up. i don’t know exactly when, but sometime in february. second, i give you a list of cover songs that i might play. generally, i start a show off with a cover to get in the groove and get people paying attention. then, you leave a comment with whichever song you think should win out. finally, i calculate which song received a majority of votes, and decide whether or not to play that song. if history is any guide, i’ll probably play something not on the list. ...

this year, i had a team. this year, they won. in fact, they utterly disannihilated their opponents (disannihilated is a word i just made up, which, contrary to what it may seem, means “really and completely annihilated”). this year, the almost-naked woman became the icon of america, or so the commercials would suggest to a visitor from another planet. in fact, amongst the numerous boob shots and ass close-ups, such a visitor would be hard pressed to tell the difference between national television and softcore porn. maybe that’s just the idea…the real question is this: when we hit rock-bottom (in the next decade, i’d guess), do we (1) bounce back up, (2) lay there bleeding on the concrete, or (3) pick up shovels and dig till consumed by the fires of a Dantean inferno? ...

thesis: nothing is so frequently struck down as hope antithesis: nothing is so unflinchingly, dogmatically rebellious and stubborn as hope

i went snowboarding last weekend. i freaking rocked that mess. tonight is a juliana theory concert at stanford. i probably wouldn’t pay money to see them otherwise [addendum: actually, i probably would], but the fact that a semi-not-mainstream act is playing here is so mindblowing i had to go, if only to see who else on campus is really indie underneath it all. i’m pretty much not into writing about anything right now. although i’ve noticed a strange trend in my eating habits…i’ve been craving those little snack packets of cookies or ritz s’mores or nutter butters. i have no idea why, i never used to like them before. what’s next, tomatoes? never!! ...

coming back from a break, from rest and relaxation, into that mode wherein i am either extremely busy or completely zoned out and staring at the computer screen doing nothing, sucks. let’s forget all the fancy crap and go right into the news: i’m a TA this quarter for phil 78, medical ethics. wahoo. i lead two 1-hour sections a week and whatever else….i guess it will be fun and challenging! we’ve been working frantically on the CD. we have a band name now (yet to be released, of course), and are working on an album title. the CD is mastered, and we’re just waiting on the album art before we send it off for production. i’m probably going to the UK sometime this quarter if i can swing it with classes, for fun and adventure new web design projects are taking up a lot of my time ...

days 7-? well, new year’s came and went in my blog without much in the way of commendation. much in the way of anything, really. the last few days have seen a flurry of activity with the soon-to-be-released CD. we recorded i don’t know how many songs, spending roughly 8 hours a day on it. when you factor in the reality of my situation at home, namely that i’ve been sleeping on average 11-12 hours a day, you realize how little else i have been doing. ...

day 6: 12.29.2002 today was a day of revision. revision is something i hate. i never revise papers. occasionally i’ll revise a blog entry if what is up pisses me off enough to change it. but yeah, back to papers for a moment - on all the papers i wrote this last quarter (4 to be exact), the process was this: (1) briefly outline [note: the outline for each paper was the same. it consisted of I. introduction II. arguments and II. conclusion]. (2) write the paper straight through, stopping only for snacks or to crack my nose (an odd-sounding bad habit which i’ve acquired mostly from writing papers). and that’s it. no going back, no changing anything. ...

days 4 and 5: thurs and fri in the last two days, we’ve been recording quite a bit, and have completed (or so we think), 4 songs: ’escapism is fantasy’, ‘small are the words’, ‘regarding present fears’ (formerly called ‘hope’), and ‘rainfall’. these have not been easy, but i think they’ve turned out very well. anyway, that brings the total up to 7 songs done, leaving 6 to be completed (or, 7, if we record a secret track of some kind). ...

i transport myself two millenia back in time and thousands of miles in an arbitrary space direction. i enter a dwelling of sorts, and it blurs between wood and stone, thatched and open-air. the scene flickers like three-dimensional images on glass, and sometimes the dwelling is in the middle of a smallish town, sometimes it feels more on the outskirts. like continually-molded gel humanoid figures gather at the edge of my vision. i say the edge, because only one thing occupies my attention. like a flattened vortex seen head-on my sight is focused inexorably on something that stands out from the rest in virtue of being real. more real, even, than my thoughts as i look–they, too, are only shifting flits of particles in comparison. ...

day 3: monday 12.23.2002 dave and i woke up around noon today and got to practicing and recording a few hours later. today we attempted a song many of you probably know, ‘a pixelated life’. i’ve had an old recording of that up on the internet for about a year now, but i wanted it on the new CD so we had to re-record it for quality’s sake. we spent about an hour or two practicing the song, and then got to recording. i laid down the guitar track in two takes, so we switched the mics to vocals, and i was able to get a good take on the second try for that as well. ...