Exactly what I said. You could never ask for more in anyone.

Yeah, well, you're obviously a pussy anyway. just kidding.

I think that's sweat. i wish i could have what you have.

Sweat? No thanks, I'll pass on what you have.

No, somewhere in the back of the guys head... she will be more than a friend someday!harharhar!

I AM BEST FRIENDS WITH MY BOYFRIEND.

yay. you are great. go have a donut.

THe Do-nutz! The Do-nutz! When I hear those funky beats I go Nutz! name that tune.

my *caps* off to you,s.

good, s. go fuck yourself. and your best friend. (hey, i'm catching on, thats how it goes, right?)

and then you eat ass ophelia.

big ass. big slurpee ass rectum suck.

yeah and Nate eat's shitballs for breakfast

FUCK YOOOOOOO

Nyuck Nyuck nyuck OOO!

mmmmmmmmm donuts.

Nyuck Nyuck

teeheehee.

why is it that i meet so many cool women who i could very easily fall in love and spend the rest of my life with? inevitably they are hetero, or mostly hetero, and in a relationship anyway. i don't meet many lesbians, and those i do know well i don't seem to have much in common with. but friendships with most other women come so easy and naturally to me. generally speaking i enjoy their company more than that of men, we typically have more in common, we talk about similar things even if we don't agree, and we relate on more familiar wavelengths. there's an easy synergy. while i've always been generally ambivalent about sex and very rarely motivated by sex, i find women more alluring and attractive. easy to hug and touch. there's a comfort that is irrelevant to sexuality. no man has ever been a best friend to me in the way women have. shouldn't a life partner be a best friend? i don't really care about finding a life partner right now. all i think about these days are doing wildly fun and adventurous things with carefree, independent, competent, and strong-willed girlfriends. yeah, like thelma and louise, without rape or running from the law or driving off the side of the grand canyon.

i can't understand why all women aren't lesbians.

Eri is my best friend.

My mom once commented to me that my dad was her best friend. This made no sense -- she and my dad barely talked, and she had many female friends that she hung out with. It was like she felt she was *supposed* to think of him as her best friend, so she had to say it even if it was untrue. Now they're separated, and my mom wants back in because paying bills on her own is too much for her.

my sister's previous boyfriend was named adrian. when they broke up briefly, one of the reasons he gave for getting back together was that he couldn't pay the bills on his own - he had money, but my sister was the one who took care of the practical end of the finances. they drove down to mexico and, on impulse, he bought a six-foot working fountain which he set up in the back yard. i always thought heterosexuality was wasted on him.

Spunky is my best friend. I also call Sherri my best friend, but she is my best friend who is a girl. The closest person too me besides Spunky. He takes the cake. If all else failed we have a great friendship to fall back on.

--<@

--<-@

Shouldn't it be: <---@ ? I mean it is her birthday and all. Tonight would be a perfect night for your yearly love-making session, no?

Yearly, what is wrong with you guys? Haven't you figured out it is more frequent than that yet? Pay attention!!!!!

please, no more visuals.

No visuals tonight. I sunburned my ass!!!!

twelve a year. on the full moon. i had some comments about the pictures on the hixon site, but i don't think any of them are worth making. not about the kids, mind you. no comments about the kids.

yeah. i loved those kids, too.

Here are some better ones of Eri at least.

this weekend a formal announcment was made to nico and i. were are being asked to be god parents. M is being baptised soon, he's 14 months old. and H, who is four, though his god mother was killed in an accident, were being asked to be his as well. i was blown away. we love these kids dearly, see them weekly, have genuine repoir with them. I couldnt have been more flattered. The other night, we were to come over for dinner and wine, we were running late because i was in the darkroom..H fell asleep waking up every few minutes "did Miko call back yet?" M, the 14 month old, saw my picture in the new mille nico catalog and kissed it. Those of you who don't have children, do you have any youngsters you have this kind of repoir with?

Hey Nate, I haven't seen what pics are on the website, so I don't have a clue what you are talking about. Clue me in!

there was this girl on saturday. i went with Ang and Ray down to driftwood to the old settler's music festival. a little bit of a hippie type fest, at least by texas standards. i enjoyed it because by my standards it was a small-town, family type fest. clean, well-organized, not overcrowded or overpatrolled, inexpensive, lots of kids running around. it was held on a small piece of land next to a river that separated it from one of the best barbeque places i've been to ever. god, the weather was perfect. not too hot, not too cold, not too sunny, not too cloudy. there was a light breeze. the music was fun, bluegrass style americana folk rock. great ho-down yeeehaw music. peter rowan, vassar clements, leftover salmon, even bruce hornsby. (though i'm really looking forward to even more small-town, off the docket type music festivals with real, old timey, no percussion bluegrass bands.) i wore the leopard print cowboy hat. up near the front right stage is where the hippie kids danced, barefoot, like i used to do back in the day, and like i still do sometimes, when i'm not obsessed with hula hooping instead behind the soundboard. a woman in a long, loose, exotic dress caught my eye. she had a natural way about her, a not over-the-top raggamuffin neo hippie patchwork homemade smock style which annoys me. she had short, dark hair, dark skin. she was fleshy, voluptuous, soft, definitely not thin or petite, but not fat. she had a full stomach and ass and arms. she seemed confident and carefree, in a completely unselfconscious way. some women dance like they want to be watched. she danced like she just wanted to dance and have fun. but the natural way she moved was entirely sexy, and the fact that she was oblivous to her appeal made me even more drawn to her. i couldn't take my eyes off her. i wanted to be close to her, so i ran up to the front and danced close to her. i didn't have a plan or anything, no goal, i just wanted to feel her energy a little. i didn't watch her, or try to mimic her, i didn't get too close, but i did make eye contact and smile. she smiled back and kept dancing. later, between sets, i learned a few cool hula hoop tricks from three or four 8-10 year old boys, and one little 6 year old.

Fiesta is going on out here. It is like Mardi Gras with a hispanic theme. It will be going on for another week. I haven't made it out there yet (because I didn't want to spend all day in the sun after sunburning my ass). We will be in Austin one weekend in June.

damn, it was just non-stop excitement in texas this weekend. the main street arts fest happened this weekend in fort worth.

sunday was marley fest at auditorium shores. today is earth day. next friday is p-funk, saturday is eyeore's birthday, tuesday is ratdog. i've finally figured out the seasons in texas: Nov-March = Winter April-mid June = Summer mid June-August = Hell September-mid October = Summer Part 2 October 16-31 = Fall

let's get together when you come to austin, eri.

I'll let you know when we will be there. I also have to try to find some old friends while we are there. My first boyfriend, his wife, and another guy in our clique and his wife are in Austin, but I have no clue where. Can't find them in the white pages, either. But we definately need to meet for a drink or something at least. I should find out the weekend we will be there soon. We will be taking Hayley to the airport for her first solo flight. After that I will NEED a drink or two or three.

I went to the Ft Worth arts festival twice. I saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Taj Mahal on Saturday night and Brave Combo on Sunday. Also, there were these freaky dudes in stilts from Sydney, Australia: The Shaker Theater company. Unique performance art, but they couldn't keep their toungues in their mouths...

I hate to admit this, but I'm a godfather to one of my friend's kids, and I really don't like the kid. No really, I'm not being silly here. His older brother and sister are really cute and nice, and I like them a lot, but I'm not their godfather -- I'm only the youngest's godfather. He's like 4 years old, and hyper, and screams all the time, and I really don't like being around him. Hopefully he'll grow out of it and I can begin to like him. Until then, I'll send him savings bonds for his birthday. What's a godfather to do?

Hayden and Miles are absolutely two of the most fantastic kids we've ever met. They are both bright as can be, extremely well behaved (most of the time) and say the most amazing things, Hayden anyway. Miles just makes noise at this point. We couldn't be more honored.

I have a goddaughter out there somewhere - my friend Andy's kid. He got divorced, she got custody, he joined the Army, and that was the end of that. I guess she's about 7 now.

I have a goddaughter in California. Sabrina. She just turned 2 last month. I haven't actually seen her yet. I just hear her on the phone when I call. The distance sucks sometimes, but then again, with her being my goddaughter, I bet I would be nosy and try to tell Denise how to parent her, and the distance makes it easier for me not to be nosey or possesive of her child. My best friend has two beautiful children. Hunter (an 8 year old girl who is a genius and accelling in the gifted program) who is an absolute doll, and Hayden (a 5 year old boy, who is also a genius and a handful, but very well behaved)who has some unfortunate health problems. Moving to Texas we have missed them sooooooo much, cuz they are just wonderful kids. That is the first time I have heard of another little boy named Hayden. That's cool. Kids will challenge your brain and the way you think, but the bring as much as they take. I hope all goes well as a godparent, Patrick.

how is it there's so many damn gifted kids around these days? hey- and what do you make of the new batch of names? how is it that in trying to be original everyone ends up naming their kids the same? where is the seed that starts people using color and state names? are they in soap operas first? no really, i really am wondering. there were five girls named heather in my grade at my middle school- out of maybe 50 kids, that ratio is way too high.

"how is it there's so many damn gifted kids around these days?" Steroids in the beef.

"Steroids in the beef." This must expalin it, because I was a vegetarian until I became pregnant with Hayley.

I'm a godmother, too. My goddaughter is 20. She's not that cute, but what can you do?

tyour parents obviously got the "heather memo" in the 70s. Ever hear of that? Actually heather, re: gifted kids? I've noticed this too, so hopefully your weren't being insincere. I think its what they are eating. Miles (named after Miles Davis) was born premature, he got deathly ill at birth. Future uncertain. Now he's a super baby. Taking tests at the pre-mature center he has to go back to, he's excelled rapidly mentally and physically, way beyond his years. Hayden is the same way, despite being underweight, according to the doc, for a 4 year old. He's amazingly bright and i think that has to do with the fact that he has so many around him, talking to him like an adult. He picks up fast. i think humans are evolving. We are becoming bigger, stronger and brighter as we learn more about who we are and what we need. The formulas kids are eating today are like super food.

I have also noticed that most premature babies I have met have ended up being gifted. The best way I can explain it is that there are certain things a baby normally learns at certain ages and preemies have to learn that and make up for the time and development done in the womb at the same time, so as an infant they have to learn faster than most. This doesn't stop once they are caught up. They keep learning at an acellerated rate in just about all forms of development. Mikayla has the vocabulary of a 4 year old and the speech abilities (pronunciation) of a 4-5 year old and she is only 2. Her cognitive skills are over a year advanced. Her gross motor and fine motor skills are age appropriate to 6 months advanced. Her behavior patterns run 2 to 6 months ahead also. She is a handfull to keep up with. She is self sufficient in ways that her sister wasn't until 3 and 4 years old. She had a lot of catching up to do at birth, but once she got started she never slowed down.

i also think its the environment, any child is in, premie or not. My sister was nearly 3 months premature and she's not 'gifted' per se her environment thought, like mine, wasn't always challenging.

cleo is also very gifted. among other things, she can: play nintendo without a controller. count the number of bubbles in a handful of suds -- by smell. hover hold her pee in all day long make me smile count backwards starting from infinity

i think the reason that there are more "gifted" kids in the world now is that more people are using the word "gifted". which, in my opinion, is a hunk of shit. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that any of the aforementioned kids aren't smart, i just think that it's dangerous to go around using words like "gifted". i feel the same way about the blatant overdiagnosis of "attention deficit disorder" these days. expressions like these make things too clean cut and conveniently labelled for my comfort level. then again, everybody that knows me knows how i feel about labels in general.

i especially hate it when parents call their kids gifted right in front of them. there's a sure fire way to fuck a kid up with unrealistic expectations.

on another note, i found a dog wandering in the road near my house, and brought her home today. her name is sweetie. i found her house, but the fence was broken and nobody was home, so i left a note. she's nice, but a little stinky.

Hayden and I play Twisted Metal. I just don't tell him controller #2 isnt plugged in. He seems to prefer it that way. I understand what you're saying agatha, regarding the term "gifted". But it is, after all, just a term. Seeing as how time is speeding up, technology moving forward faster and faster, can you, agatha, notice a difference in todays children, than say of 10 years ago, or when you were a child? it seems like they are evolving faster and faster. I'm unsure if thats nurture or nature or a little of both. Thats what I was talking about.

i think accelerated is more accurate than gifted. i don't think the average i.q. is going up.

so we all reach the same plateau, some of us are just getting there faster? that would imply some sort of limit to a human's intelligence capacity.

I was labelled as gifted at age 6 and spent 1st-8th grades in a part-time gifted program. That was pretty cool. Once a week, I got to do all sorts of things that I couldn't do in ordinary school -- make animated films, learn about juvenile law, etc. I'm grateful to my school district for offering such a program...too bad regular school wasn't like that. I didn't feel pressure until I got to high school, and that's only because my parents had given up on my brother and were focusing all their attention on me. That has more to do with their poor parenting decision than on my IQ or any label I had been given.

PS. The program in grade school was called "the gifted program," so I heard that label applied to me from the beginning. It was hip, among the kids, to belong to the program. One day a week, you caught a bus to another building with the other "gifted" kids from the other schools in the school district, and you'd return at the end of the day to your normal schools. If I had stayed in public school for high school, I would have had similar opportunities. Instead, I went to a Catholic school that tried to make you feel like a mutant if you were, like, you know, smart and shit. (Not the teachers, but the students and the administration.)

It may be a combination of nurture vs. nature. I have noticed that Hayley is physically maturing much faster than I did. I have a 7 year old cousin who is already wearing a bra (out of necessity and not style). I don't think of the term of gifted as a way to set higher expectations on my children. My only expectations are that they try to learn and ask for help when they need it. I don't expect Hayley to make A's. I don't expect anything from her that I wouldn't expect out of any other child. You try your hardest and do your best. That is different for every child, genius or not. I was in the gifted programs as a child and my parents put strict rules on my grades. They set higher expectations and had me doing things I had no desire to do. I wouldn't do that to Hayley. I don't set expectations for her. I don't make her do things she doesn't have the desire to do (other than academic schoolwork). I don't pressure her to make high grades. As long as she is working hard and learning, then we're happy. Yes, we do play educational games with her, but she enjoys them for the games that they are. We do the same with Mikayla and would do the same with any other child. There aren't any demands or expectations that are unreasonable. Every child has their own individual potential to live up to, just as every other person does. The best you can do is help them be the best they can be and do the best they can do. Even a genius or a gifted child, he/she is not perfect and is still a child and needs a childhood as well as support in their little adventures in life. All children need to learn how to think for themselves, to be successful adults and if you can accomplish that as a parent or friend or relative, then you have done something right. Setting such high expectations is the wrong thing to do for any child, not just one that is gifted.

cleo can also inspire her daddy, which makes her a miracle worker...

considering we have a lot more people graduating high school without the ability to read, i would say the bar has been lowered as opposed to any evolution of the human species. like kelsey said. it's and overloaded term. gifted now means average. like in lake woebegon, where all the kids are above average. i was in a gifted program called SOI. i don't know what it stands for. i remember we all prefered 'society of idiots' to the real name, though. because i was labeled gifted, i could do a lot less work and still get good grades. i distinctly remember yelling at my fifth grade teacher because she was trying to get me to do something i didn't want to do. math or something. i remember she gave up.

eri, you're misunderstanding me. i'm not attacking you or the way you raise your child at all. i was worried that you were going to think that. it's the use of the word that i take issue with, and the way that it divides people into categories. i was in the "advanced" programs from third grade on for languages, art, and english. i definitely felt a lot of pressure to succeed from my parents, and from my school. at the age of eighteen, i crashed and burned from the pressure and ended up failing out of college. this is not to say that it's the fault of my parents or anyone else, but i definitely felt pressure and have never fully come out of that mindset. i procrastinate all the time, because i don't want to start something and fuck it up. i'm rarely if ever satisfied with the artwork i produce. you get the picture.

we're failing our kids.

You mean, by being too vague?

eh? nate didn't you say you were hoping to go into teaching?

he already has. we are all students of nate.

yea, someday i'll be in a classroom. when they all have air conditioning, maybe.

it's weird, spider, my mom took me out of private school in 8th grade because of these programs [they put me there in second grade because i came home swearing in first grade] we thought it was cool mostly because of all the time we had to fuck around waiting for the other kids to get to our school later they got us a psychiatrist to make sure we were all doing ok as 'different' kids. we thought that was pretty hilarious and totally screwed with all the tests and games he tried to do with us

no wonder i feel like a retard. I've been hanging around a bunch of MENSA geeks all these years here.

agatha, I didn't think you were talking about me. I didn't take offense to anything. I was just using my situation as an example. I never thought it was anything personal. I don't think that gifted means average anymore. I have seen the testing that they put these kids through and they have to be extremely close to the genius level if not a genius on their IQ or IQ like tests. If your tests show you doing work in the 99th percentile of the national average and your IQ score is 20 points below genius, you don't get into the gifted program. It isn't easy or thrown around as much now as it was when I was a kid. With the three schools I have seen the ratio of students in the program is about the same to maybe a little less. I was in the GATE program (gifted and talented education). That is what they have here in Texas. I loved it. It didn't help my nerd image any, but I really got to explore learning things I wanted to learn, vs. what my parents wanted me to learn. (I studied animals, habitats, geology, things like that when my parents had me studying the violin which I hated). I also was put in the gifted section in Catholic school, but that was just the way they separated the classes. Those performing above grade level were one class and those at grade level or behind grade level were in the other class. At that point in my life so much was going on at home that I didn't care about school at all. My life revolved around surviving the rest of the day. My Dad was travelling all of the time then, and I had all of the responsibilities of the house as well as taking care of my out of control sister. I hated life then. I didn't have time to study or make friends or anything like that, so I was pretty much a loner, with the exeption of a couple of my cousins friends who kept me somewhat in their group. I let those two years just pass me by and didn't care one bit.

"i especially hate it when parents call their kids gifted right in front of them. there's a sure fire way to fuck a kid up with unrealistic expectations." I agree. "considering we have a lot more people graduating high school without the ability to read, i would say the bar has been lowered as opposed to any evolution of the human species. " Nate, you have no idea how right you are (well, actually I am sure you are possitive you are right). We found out that the method Hayley's old school was using to teach the entire second grade addition and subtraction was touch points. According to the schools here in Texas, that is something they reserve for the...mentally challenged students. Makes sense North Kansas City School District is using those types of methods, Kansas City School Disctricts lost their accredition last year and have yet to regain them. Todays teachers are afraid of hurting a child's feelings by telling them that they got the answer wrong. I also beleive they are trying to do away with "F" or failed, because of the negative conatations of it.... So, what, is your boss going to say "It's ok that you got the monthly revenue report wrong, as long as you did your personal best (another phrase that is getting run into the dirt), we can try better next time" or "What a spectacular effort you put into that marketing presentation. If you had just spelled the clients name correctly, I am sure we would have gotten the account. We will just work a little harder next time"..... Uh Huh

I was in the CAT program in 4th grade -- Cross Age Teaching, gifted 4th & 5th graders in one class -- the 5th graders being the mentors. My 5th grade mentor was reading Don Quixote at the time (she must've been WAY gifted) and was trying to get me to read it. I was still trying to figure out why it wasn't spelled "Donkey Hotie" and how somebody could write such a long book at that point. It was BS, and was subsequently disbanded after 1 year of trial, so I didn't get to mentor any kids on the fine art of reading Mad magazine.

it must have been crap cause my mom said i was in something like that in first grade- half the kids in the class were in second grade. they must have been the ones teaching me to swear. i was sure i was really stupid until fourth grade. i don't know what happened in fourth grade to change that, but my teacher made me cry a lot.

My second grade teacher called me "dumb as the day is long" and you know, that's all I remember about second grade.

I always knew I was smart. Well, I didn't always know, but people always told me that. Teachers always said that I had a whole hell of a lot of potential. I was in the "Gifted Students" program in elementary school. I was in the accellerated math class in 7th grade. Then I missed the testing day to see if I was worthy enough to be in the 8th grade equivalent. They never told me so I never got in that class. I was stuck in the normal class. Somewhere between there and my junior year in HS, I got too cocky or something and quit trying. Now I'm stuck in this rut... 8 years later, of not trying hard, just doing whatever I need to pull of a C in my classes. It something like that. Maybe I forgot a few points. maybe not. thank boognish I am graduating next semester. LS

the first half of my education they told me i wasn't "living up to my potential." by the time i was in high school, they had decided i had no potential and pretty much left me alone.

After my dad started travelling and I was just with my mom, all I heard was how I fucked up. How horrible and melodramatic I am. I got one good report card between then and my senior year of high school. After hearing about what a fuck up I am and not thinking I had any good points, I quit trying. Then one day out of the blue I had one teacher single me out for some stupid responsibility, but I was so shocked he put this amount of faith in me, and used my actions as an example for the student body (who was in that class). I could never understand why he picked me above them. With that I started trying again, and have never had lower than a 3.8 GPA. I got faith in myself back.

hearing people talk about all the special classes they were in is just as suspect as hearing people talk about how much sex they get, to me anyway. But what the hey, i'll play along. I wasnt in any special classes, except penmenship workshops to try and correct my horrible handwriting. They eventually gave up on me....no...wait, i went to middle school. Like droop i heard "you're arent living up to your potential" more times than I care to remember. He's right, eventually they don't care that you are a fine B & C student. doesn't "boognish" belong to swine?

I failed to mention that I also got a lot of sex in my CAT program. The teacher, Miss Lydiak; little Linda Lou; Jenny, the 5th grade hall monitor girl who actually had breasts; and Rita Mae -- she did everybody. It was a very forward-thinking program.

Hey, I was in a special class in the 4th grade. PSA (Personal And Social Adjustment). That, I beleive is the reason I am the way I am today. BLAME THEM, NOT ME!!!!

I was put in the slow group, so I stopped going to school. It doesn't seem to have negatively affected me all that much. I think all those placement tests are a load of bunkum.

boognish belongs to no man.

I was put in accelerated maths when i was about 8, they took me out again cause i hated it. i was one of those annoying people who got okay grades without trying, so I didn't try. I also had a really relaxed attitude towards school, if I didnt want to go, mum would say okay and write me a note.

we only had half day kindergarten, but i hated school so much that i would think about throwing up until i did so i could go home and patrick i totally agree, it's also like talking about your famous, successful or otherwise interesting friends we should all get back to the issue of global warming

Texas is really strict on missing school. If the kids miss 10 days or more in a semester, the parents get prosecuted for their truancy. It sux. Also, the kids aren't allowed to miss more than one day of summer school (if they are going because they need to catch up to be in the next grade) or the kid will flunk. We had to cancel Hayley's trip to Missouri this summer because she would miss two days of school and after fighting with the school, they said they would make her repeat the second grade. It sux. I never had one of the mom's who would take out out of school to go shopping or something like that. I think she didn't want me around. The only time I got to miss school was when I had PMS bad. Which was every month.

i rarely went to school but when i did, i was always in all the advanced placement classes and i got kicked out of national honor society. i have sex five times a day and Courtney Love is my close personal friend. i am the godmother of her and Kurt's kid.

the truth is, i always got almost all As in school and rarely had to study or even try that hard, from montessori all the way through college. i was in advanced placement math and english. don't get me wrong, i realize i'm no margret, but i performed much better than average and attended decent schools, except the one year i lived in allen park and the one year i lived in the D. in grad school however i worked really hard, but learned very little, except that master degrees are about the degree and not the learning. my mom used to let me write my own notes whenever i wanted to miss school. when i was little i got to have a St. Smithim's Day once or twice a year. St. Smithim's day was when i didn't have to go to school and my grandmother and i would go shopping and out to lunch and then to a movie, or something like that. i nearly didn't graduate from high school because i skipped first period 3-5 days a week on average my final semester. it was a class called Comparitive Theology. it wasn't that i didn't like the class, it was just that i had trouble getting it up that early in the morning. we were required to pass all the religion classes in order to graduate. i still have nightmares about having to go back to high school to take that class. also, i don't know Courtney Love at all, but i did see her while she was in town for SxSW. and currently i could care less about having sex.

heh. i wrote "getting it up" instead of "getting up". how troubling.

I barely graduated myself, but that was because I never dressed for P.E. and was going to flunk that class and not have enough credits. As it turned out I got an A on both of my finals (advanced aerobic choreography and the muscles of the body involving the proper way to stretch each one). Those made it so that I got a C and passed. After a while, school got boring, I didn't bother and didn't care. Why bother when you can make As without trying? I didn't bother until my senior year.

In English, History, Religion, Italian, Geometry, and Prob/Stat, I got As without trying. In Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy, Algebra, Algebra II/Trig, PreCalculus, and AP Chemistry, I got Ds without trying. So I tried, and got Cs. And that was good enough for me. I got straight As only once in my entire academic career -- 2nd semester of my Junior year in college. I was expecting to fail one of those classes, too. I started a thread around here about my paper of Doom for that class, and you can dig it up if you're so inclined (I think it's under "what have you failed to do?). It was a big stress in my life at that time, and I still wince when I think about it.

i used to think being smart would be cool. now i can see it's pretty miserable. unless you're dougie. we're going to let him hang out with all the remedial sorabjites.

but but but heather, my famous and otherwise interesting friends give substance to my otherwise dull, lame ass life. like last night. though im hungover, i feel great about myself today!!!! i saw my friend's band Autolux who are on the verge of being blown up rockstars. Though he's not my friend, I saw Vincent Gallow and wanted to punch him for no good reason. (much like courtney love) seriously, Dave, have you heard Autolux? how about Pleasure Forever? I saw these two groups last night and they totally rocked my cock off. I thought you might like them, but then again maybe not.

Thanks droop. I'm feeling pretty remedial at this point.

This might scare you all,I tested higher tnan my teachers in junior high,I was the shit,and then there was high school.

nope. i haven't heard them. were you able to re-attach your cock? speaking of dick, can anyone tell me how andrew wk became famous? is this a big joke? So let's get a party going (let's get a party going) Now it's time to party and we'll party hard (party hard) Let's get a party going (let's get a party going) When it's time to party we will always party hard Party hard (party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard...) All right You, You break the thing And when you play you feel all right But we, We can't stop feeling all right (all right) And everything is all right 'Cos we will never listen to your rules (no) We will never do what others do (no) Know what we want and we get it from you We do what we like and we like what we do So let's get a party going (let's get a party going) Now it's time to party and we'll party hard (party hard) Let's get a party going (let's get a party going) When it's time to party we will always party hard Party hard (party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard party hard, party hard, party hard...) duhhh. . .

I saw him on SNL a couple of weeks ago. Man that guy can shake his hair.

Cripes, dave., you were maybe expecting him to be Fugazi? I like how ridiculous he is. The music is ok, it's got way better hooks than most other modern rock songs in that genre. Hell, that song has more hooks than a lot of albums that are popular. That being said, it 's not like he's going to be more than a one-hit wonder.

my cock is reattached, thank you for your concern. im learning about autolux. hoping to get them into the studio for some portraits. im learning that the guitarist plays in a band called Failure. Know them? Tour with Tool apparently. I was telling nico, im excited by this as new music is few and far between for me. they have the kind of sound, that tells you they rehearse 25 hours a day. eugene has mentioned this once before, that they rehearse like mad. it pays. i have to admit that i have a striking curiosity about this no doubt song being played lately. I don't know the title. The lyrics are entirely retarded, but i like hearing that fuzzy heavy guitar/bass. this song that you speak of dave, was made to be sold to sporting events. i went to a hockey game not to long ago, they played it. Im going to a playoff LA King game this weekend, they will probably play it (as well as that dopey No Doubt song i secretly sorta like). Im convinced songs like that (Who Let the Dogs Out) are made with one thing on mind. Stadium/arena license sales.

Which No Doubt song are you thinking of? As I read your post all that pops into my head is "Hey baby hey baby hey" but then again I haven't been keeping up with the music for the past few months. They could have something newer out (and probably do).

well, as i said, i don't know the title. the ding dong rambles on about "...keep on dancing...." its about as mundane as the song dave pointed out.

yeah, and beer. it's already on miller commercials. gotta admit, i'm envious. wish i had a marketable gimmick. that no doubt song reminds me of that inxs song. it's the guitar riff.

Failure are really good. I have their Fantastic Planet album. They sound sort of like a mellow Thought Industry, or a heavy Rush - I think.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3815/infograph_3815.html

the "jack rebels. . ." entry cracks me up.

that last one about jack is my favorite. i saw that punkass the other night at the benefit i went to.

Failure broke up years ago. Or, at least the singer (who is cute, btw), formed his own band, called On. I love Fantastic Planet. Every song on there is great. "Another Space Song" is something I can put on repeat and listen to for hours and never get sick of it.

i dunno. don'tknow much about them. other than perhaps the band became a self-fulfilling prophecy .

Ah I know the No Doubt song you mean, and it sticks in my head. Andrew WK was here for a concert, they interviewed him on Space, where he hid under a table and acted like a dog. It was very wierd. Last night they interviewed the Melvins who were here touring with Tool, because Tool won't give interviews to youth tv. They played blackjack and golf. They had the guys from puppetry of the penis on too, but wouldn't show the cameras what they were doing, and when they come to Christchurch, I'll be on a boat. dammit. nah, I'd rather be on a boat then watching grown men make shapes out of the peni'.

coincidentally i saw the Melvins 2 years ago at a benefit for the same radio station, whose benefit i attended the other night. another 'rock-your-cock-off' show.