And we raged...

Our youth filled with such angst and discord, our present filled with calm and reconciliation, now we are the machine and it suits us.

Tonight we laughed about the old days. About all the stories that shape us as beings, make us individuals. Over pizza and beer we laughed at our past. All the roads that brought us to where we stand. Names and faces emerged from the fog of our memories. Times, places, events. Things that we thought were gone, only to come rushing back in an instant.

Standing in an empty kitchen, we laughed for hours. Surrounded by boxes and the shell of what used to be a home, I laughed till I cried. Joe, Brian, Chris, Tammy and I recited stories of the old days. Stories that I'm sure we'll be telling forever.

Tonight I said goodbye to the closest person I've ever had to a brother. A guy who I've known since the 8th grade. He's leaving for North Carolina never to return. This will mark the first time since our tour as friends that he wont be at arms lenght. The first time he wont be there to back me up in a fight or make me laugh after a wrenching breakup. This is the first time he will truly be gone.

Sure, we've had our outs. There was a time in my life after highschool that he wanted to continue being a kid and I wanted to start growing up. We went our seperate ways for two years and when we finally met back up it was like no time had passed. I know the next time I see him it will be no different.

After our goodbyes, after I shook his hand and hugged him, his wife and his son, I drove home. On the dark road that connects his house to mine I suddenly came to that on the radio was Rage Against the Machine. This isn't unusual for the station I was on but tonight it had more meaning. This was our soundtrack, the background music of all those stories we lived tonight. Behind that, behind all of that, there we were, raging against the machine. This is us, this is all of us.

And then I felt it, the pain you get in the back of your throat just before the tears roll down your face. And right there, in my car, on that darkened road, I cranked up the volume as loud as it would go and for the two minutes I had to drive home I belted out the soundtrack of our youth.

I knew it by heart.

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just shy of a month

It's been a while since I've graced the internets with mine divine presence, well not the internets, just these internets.

So yeah, I've been... not here. I have to update the photobin as I’ve been out and about taking pictures. Plus I really should pay more attention to this place. Believe it or not there are people who read this thing who might think the worst if I just disappeared. Vanished from the ezone with nary the faintest pixel flicker.

Moving on.

Life has been good to me lately. For good deeds at work and as an extra kickback I was given not one but two, one hundred-dollar gift cards to Bestbuy. A nice little surprise pat on the back. Reward for sticking around, I guess.

They were spent before they got a chance to call my wallet a home. Evicted. Sent packing in order to make room for the new permanent tenant. The PSP.

That’s right, my videogame addiction can now follow me wherever I go. So can episodes of Aquateen, Robot Chicken and eventually Samurai Champloo and FLCL.

In my defense let me just say that I had never intended on purchasing such a product. Sure there was the initial ‘WOW’ when I first heard about it’s great power. And yeah, when I first heard about it I wanted it more than any one person can want any precious object. That want was promptly rent from stern to stem when I found out the price point for the US model was significantly higher than the Japanese release by a good seventy dollars. So yeah, there I was, crushed. I could not justify the need for a two hundred and fifty dollar “toy.”

But life has a way of working itself out.

Let me say this about the PSP and I will move on. Looking at it, playing it – this is the future. Right here, this is where it starts. This isn’t some crappy, tide me over till I get home to my Xbox handheld, this is a full on console in the palm of your hand. I’ve been playing it for about 8 days now and the excitement I have for this thing has not subsided. My roommate, after seeing mine, ran out two days later and picked one up.

Finances be damned. The PSP is the kind of device you imagined as a child, something to play in your flying car, for those long vacations to the moon. This is the springboard.

Other things.

Family Guy is back on Fox with new episodes. Figures it would take something like this to get me to start watching network TV again. I had all but given up hope. And if you don’t think TV is systematically killing your brain cells just tune into American Idol or my favorite, Blind Justice. The latter being about a blind police officer… The title gives you all the information you need but just for good measure let me bless you with a little taste of the delight one can glean from every single episode.

“From Steven Bochco Productions comes an innovative take on the modern police drama. The lead character, New York Detective Jim Dunbar, was blinded in a shootout when his partner failed to cover him. He could have retired with a full pension after his injury, but instead fought to remain on the job, determined to prove he still has what it takes and be an asset. Now, following his reinstatement, he is assigned to a new precinct where he intends to take on cases with the help of his guide dog, Hank.”

Ah, primetime. Again, moving forward.

Dennis acquired, *cough*bittorrent*cough*, all episodes of The State, a sketch comedy show that ran a long, long time ago on MTV. Actually, just to tell you how long ago, this is when the M stood for Music, not Merchandise.

The video and audio quality of the recordings is one notch just above dog shit. To call it a bad copy would be doing bad copies everywhere a disservice. Regardless of the eye trauma one must endure to look upon it we both agreed that had this show come on now, on say, comedy central, people would herald it as the second coming. Ahead of it’s time for sure. Simply put, it was genius and even I underappreciated it when it was on the teletube.

There is more but I’ll save it for another time.

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