I was stopped at a stop sign in front of a major one-way street waiting for a clear chance to turn. I spot one of the swanky (and pricey) new Mercedes coupes and admire its attractive shape. Then I notice the driver digging for treasure in his nose. Classy.

after much stalling and slacking, i finally got an rss feed up. ok, it wasn't me, but really rebecca who sent me the initial code and then john who helped me tweak it. in firefox, click on the little orange box at the far right side of the address bar above. voila. rss. in IE, i have no idea what to do. does IE recognize rss? friggin microsuck.

It’s a rarity, but every now and then, we at particleman.org have to bitch and moan about certain things that require bitching and moaning. This is one of those things.

If you’ve ever lived in Austin, you almost automatically groan when SXSW rolls around. The city explodes with people cramming into downtown trying to figure out who the cool new band is going to be, to see the hip new films, and to sit in on panels where people talk about the sociological impact of blogs on our day-to-day interactions. Fascinating stuff.

I’m a little bitter about SXSW. I lived in Austin for four and a half years and had to deal with four SXSWs. SXSW clogs the streets and highways (which are already choked) with lost tourists. You can’t get a seat at restaurants. You can’t get into bars or pubs. You can’t park your car anywhere near downtown, which during SXSW, extends to all of central Austin. You can’t see any shows because everyone knows someone who got them a band, and you can’t afford a band because you’re a broke student and can’t muster the $300+ fee.

If you know where to go, there are lots of anti-sxsw shows outside of downtown. If you know where to go, there are tons of great restaurants and pubs to go to outside of downtown. But meanwhile, all the bands you ever wanted to see are in one place for one week, and you can’t get in…

Granted, I know SXSW is a tradition. It might even be a necessity. And it can be a great way to meet like-minded people. It’s a cultural orgy.

But for people on the outside looking in, SXSW is fucking annoying.

My ADR teacher is an adjunct, meaning the teaching he does at my school is only a part-time gig. This guy happens to be a professor at UT Law, so he comes to Houston once a week to teach us. He told us a story about what happened at a recent dinner party he hosted.

He mentioned at a meeting or class that he had never seen Driving Miss Daisy. Later that week a VHS copy of the film showed up in his inbox at school.

Guests arrived at his house for the dinner party and he popped the tape in for them while he got things ready in the kitchen. Soon after, he heard screams, and then laughter.

Had he really looked at the tape, he would have seen that the complete title of the movie was “Driving Miss Daisy… Crazy.”

I ordered a 20” flatpanel monitor from Dell. Why 20”? The max resolution my laptop can handle is 1600x1200, and that’s what I aimed to meet, and the Dell matches that max resolution for the best price. And it has four USB ports and other useful inputs.

I might as well spill my guts about the next bit of technogeekery on the horizon. This one may take a bit longer to save up for, though. I’ve always longed to invest in some kind of device to record music whether it be a stand-alone system or one that connects to a computer. After doing some research, I settled on something of a cross between both. It’s a standalone digital recorder that can dump the songs to a computer, which then burns to cd. I’ll also need a decent mic to record acoustic guitar. I’ll run the bass in directly to the recorder without an amp because the bass sounds good on its own.

For those that I haven’t lost yet, here’s how I plan to record. I’ll record acoustic guitar in the middle of the mix so that it is balanced between either side. Then, I’ll record a clean bass track 80% in one side and 20% in the other (“pan” it mainly to one side). Then, I’ll record a distorted bass track 80% / 20% in the same way, just flipped, so that the two bass tracks balance each other.* I’ve been curious for a long time as to how such a mix would sound. Since I can’t sing, there will be no vocals. Since I can’t play drums and don’t own any, there will be no drums (unless I find a drummer – not likely).

I have a bunch of musical ideas I’ve been racking up over the years, but nothing too organized. I really have no idea how it’s going to come out, but I’m excited to find out. Whatever comes of this experimentation will surely get posted here so you can all point and laugh at the guy with the recording device who doesn’t know how to write songs.

*anyone who copies this idea totally sucks. that is, unless i have unwittingly copied it from someone else, in which case i apologize and it's not like you can copyright ideas anyway. jeez.

Last night was a doozy. I drank. I laughed. I took my shirt off and wandered around Midtown at midnight.

It all started when a friend, let’s call her L, scored six free passes to the Laff Stop. We arrived at the club after a quick pre-party at her place and proceeded to laugh and drink our hearts away. I drank a couple Crowns – my liquor of choice. The headlining comic was Darren Carter (the party starter), a very confused redheaded Irishman with no accent. “I like my women like I like my socks – in pairs…??? You kinda had to be there.

Our next stop was a pub to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday. Let’s call him M (or MostStupidHaterAlive, his sometimes online persona). Before the birthday stop we had to stop at L’s place to pick up my car so I could drive myself home at a respectable hour and get some sleep before my 8:40 class. Upon pulling out onto Montrose I spotted something rectangular and hard-looking in the middle of the road and tried to avoid it. I didn’t. It caught both of my left side wheels. It didn’t sound good.

I had a sinking feeling that I flatted both of the tires, and when we got to the pub, I confirmed that my left rear tire was indeed toast. This is when the shirt came off. If I’m gonna change a tire, I sure as hell aint gonna ruin a nice shirt (don’t freak, I was wearing an undershirt). L, the sweetheart she is, volunteered to call AAA to get them to change the tire. Alas, I was a stubborn male. I’d rather get it over with and change it myself.

But wait – why is my spare tire flat? A flat spare is no spare at all. This is not good.

L asked AAA to also bring an air pump. Problem solved.

But wait – where is my jack? I can’t get this car off the ground without a jack. Shit.

Enter another friend, B, who extricated himself from the birthday festivities to borrow the jack of another friend, S. S’s jack worked like a charm. After some more digging, B found my jack in a side-compartment of the trunk. Oh well. I am an imbecile.

We then try to borrow S’s spare tire because she also drives a Honda, albeit a Civic. The spare is too small. No dice. We return the spare to its rightful home.

The plan then hatched by myself and B was to mount the spare, slowly drive to a gas station, and fill it with air. Then get back to partying with M, the birthday boy. In the process of changing the tires we were approached by a strange guy - let’s call him Crackhead #1 – who insisted he help us even though he didn’t want any money.

After hanging around a few minutes, trying to change my tire for me, and dispensing lots of advice, Crackhead #1 asked for a dollar to buy a 40. At least he was honest.

We drive to the gas station. The spare will not take any air for some reason. Enter Crackhead #2. He removes his full-ear headphones and says he can solve our tire problem. He then reaches for his belt and starts to remove it. Before I see any more, I recoil in shock and look away, focusing on getting air into my tire. B, standing behind the crackhead, suspects we’re about to get carjacked and prepares to throw down. Crackhead #2 then asks for my belt because he says the tire isn’t seated on the rim, and if we use the two belts to squeeze the tire more tightly around the rim, it will fill with air.

I concede – almost at my wits end by this point – and hand over the belt. He ties the belts around the wheel and… nothing. My belt breaks. The tire takes no air. We leave Crackhead #2 with his headphones and his belt and slowly roll off in my semi-driveable vehicle.

Enter another friend, J, who has bailed me out in the past. J lives two blocks from the gas station in question. He also drives a Honda Accord, though newer than mine. I call J and ask if I can borrow his spare. He’s naturally confused as to why someone would want to borrow a spare, so I explain about the flat and the crackheads and the belt. He obliges. We meet in his parking garage to pick up the spare and I notice his Honda wheels are five-bolt. Mine are four-bolt. Can you say worst luck ever?

J has to reach through the rolling gates of his parking garage and wave his magnetic card in front of the card-reading doohickey to let us out. The gate begins to roll - taking Js arm with it – as it heads for a concrete pillar. J deftly removes his arm from the gates of pain just before the concrete pillar causes any damage.

By this time, B and I are fed up with the whole situation and he wisely suggests I leave the car parked on the street and return the following morning with my roommate to take care of the flat, and he points out that there is an NTB down the street. I note the NTB and agree with his idea. We head back to the pub.

After another hour or so of retelling our story to everyone I call a cab and head home. I have no cash, so I plan on telling the cabbie to stop at a nearby drive-through bank so I can pulse some cash to pay the fare. We stop at one bank. The ATM says “THANK YOU” but does absolutely nothing for me. Bastard. We go to a gas station but the guy inside won’t open the doors – it’s passed midnight. Then I ask the cabbie, “You don’t take credit cards, do you?”

“Yeah.”

Internal dialogue: “Well thanks for fucking telling me that before we drove around looking for a fucking ATM, fucker. Since when do cabbies take credit cards?”

I get home at 1:30, leave a note for my roommate telling him the story and how I need a ride at 6:30 am before he goes to work. And then I crash.

And all that on a Wednesday night.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to L, B, S, J, and roommate for everything. I owe you all a drink. Or two. Lesson learned? Make sure your spare has air. And avoid crackheads at all costs.

n.b.: turns out Crackhead #2 was right. the tire filled with air once the guy at NTB seated it properly.

…because I know someone at this internet company, and you know her vicariously though me.

This person is ASHLEY and she landed a sweet job as a USER INTERFACE DESIGNER at GOOGLE in SAN FRANFUCKINGCISCO!

More of these !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s a dream come true. Please help me congratulate Ashley. She rocks.

they wrapped up 3.3 gigs of music into two bit torrent files. 3.3 gigs. that's over 900 mp3s. my trusty 80 GB external hard drive swallowed it whole. a lot of the music is not to my liking, but there are some gems in there.

if the term "bit torrent" means nothing to you, all hope is not lost.

I just finished The Odyssey. Yes, I am referring to Homer’s Odyssey. The one most people read in high school (or were supposed to read). Well, my high school never told me to read it. After rummaging through a stack of books I pilfered from my older sister, I found this book and decided I had to read it. In the back cover were the doodles of a 15-year old girl madly in love with some boy with the first initial of G. My sister, daydreaming in freshman English. She’s now a lawyer. Go figure.

The books was pretty damn good. It’s got something for everyone. Fantasy, romance, psychology, adventure, battles, heroism. The writing is straightforward and descriptive. No flowery language – just the right words in the right places.

If you’re looking for an entertaining and quick read, try this one out. They give it to high school students for a reason. You could analyze the bejesus out of it but it’s not so complex that you need extreme patience to get through it. I thought there was some gratuitous mythological backstory, though, so I did some skimming here and there.

I figure you may be wondering about the wave of bike posts the past few weeks. During my first year of law school, I maybe rode my bike a grand total of two times. Things got a little better the following summer. Things returned to their status quo of non-riding in my third semester. So what’s the deal with this semester? Well, first of all, I’m taking two less hours than I usually do and the classes aren’t quite as intensive. Call it a much needed “break” from law school, though I’m somehow still in school…

There is another reason, though. I was going to wait till the very last minute to spill the beans, but what the hell, I have zero willpower.

I’m going to visit my friend (posts here as ‘carrico’) and his wife in Denver in two weeks. I’ve known this joker known as Carrico since I was a college freshman. He rides mountain bikes and all sorts of other wheeled things – and he is much better at it than I am. He taught me a thing or two about how to not crash and burn on mountain bike trails.

Denver is basically located in the stratosphere compared to Houston, so there will be less air for me to breathe, and since I’ve been a slacker for almost two years, I need to get my ass into shape. Thus, the recent spate of mountain bike rides and cycling-related posts.

I’m flying up on a Friday and coming back on Tuesday. While I’m there, I’ll stop by and harass Heatherfeather. How could I come to Denver and not raise hell with Heather? Carrico, Mrs. Carrico, Heatherfeather, and the rest of Denver are totally unprepared for what is about to hit them in two weeks. The last time I visited a blogger I had never met in person it resulted in copious beer-consumption, wild music fests, late nights in strange places, barefoot kickball with punk-rock people with various piercings and colorful tattoos, sushi happy hours complete with funny hats, and an orange mustang convertible, among other things.

Letterman last night was a great double header, and not even because of the Jew factor (though that was a strange coincidence). First, Dave hosted Natalie Portman, who happens to be the future Mrs. Particleman, or Mrs. Particlewoman if she prefers (Salma and KT and Charlize may not like that, though). David asked Natalie about her recent travels, to which she responded that she spent six months in Israel last year. And she’s also fluent in Hebrew – not surprising considering she was born in Jerusalem. Then she turned over to Paul – also Jewish – and asked if he spoke Hebrew: “No.” Bummer. Maybe Natalie can give you lessons! Maybe she can give me lessons.

After that, as if two talented Jews weren’t enough, Al Franken, one of my favorite funny-men, talked with Dave. Actually, as is often the case with them Jewish folk, Al did most of the talking, and pretty much all of it was funny. That guy cracks me up. He’s apparently going to run for Senator of Minnesota. Do it, dude. Or as Ben Stiller would say: Do it, Do it.

and i quote:

"Until we understand quantum gravity, we're not going to be running Linux on a black hole."

happy weekend.

The tours just keep on coming. Last night was We Are Scientists supported by a slew of poor to mediocre indie rock bands who need to learn how to sing and stop saying hi to their parents.

We Are Scientists were pretty good – kind of an indie-punk-dance-pop sound. The bass player was definitely the star of the show. Witty inter-song comments, nerdy Kareem Abdul-Jabbar glasses, and porn-stache. And he really did play that bass with scientific precision.

Musically, the sound can be described as: guitar, heavily doused with reverb and medium distortion, noodles high up on the fretboard creating a spacey background; bass with kind of a hollow sound plays jittery dance-pop beats (think futuristic My Sharona bass line); and drums thwacking everything in sight propelling the whole mess forward. Not all songs were like this, of course, but that sums up the basics of what to expect. The singer is definitely trying to showcase two distinct voices – an emo croon and a more angry yell. Remember how Billy Corgan could swap between a serenade and a nasal screech? That’s where I’m going with this.

1. the calendar is broken. don't bother using it.
2. i can't find my ipod. this sucks.

The number of bikes in the house recently climbed to five. It climbed one more this weekend. Roommate finally caved in and bought a mountain bike. It’s starting to look like a bike shop in here. As you can see, we’re big fans of self-propelled transportation.

We went for a ride at the Ant Hills. He came back with a small case of poison ivy and I was lucky enough to escape with only a scraped arm. The coolest part was the throng of 12-year-olds jumping ramps towards the back of the park. These kids are fearless. They plummet down steep natural ramps and fly off man-made jumps. Some of the jumps are ‘doubles’ - two jumps placed closely together with a gap in between so that you jump off the first and land down the second. Some of the ramps are twice the height of these kids. They might catch 10 feet of air. And they do it over and over again. I certainly don’t have the cajones to do that.

you know that riddle about "thinking outside the box?" (even typing it makes me cringe). draw three rows of three equally-spaced dots so that you end up with a square. without lifting your pencil off of the paper, connect every dot using only four lines.

when i first heard this riddle in college, i couldn't figure it out. it was posed to my friend in an interview with Shell or Microsoft or another some such conglomeration.

so when i got to Mediation class last week and saw the trademark nine dots on the board, i knew what we were in for. when he finally got to the dots and explained the riddle to us, everyone went to work. heads bent, pencils gripped, fingertips white. i sat there and stared at the desk, the wall, the dots on the board.

after five minutes, the teacher called time and looked right at me and said, "sir, can you solve it?"

nod.
"come up and show us."

i hate having to do this kind of stuff. i begrudgingly got out of my chair and waltzed over to the board. i quickly scribbled the lines on the board and i heard a collective "ohhhh" from the class.

no, people, i'm not that talented. i didn't figure it out either. i practically live in the box.

as i walked to my chair i had to smile to myself because of the class' reaction. if they only knew... now they do! at least some of them do.

also, thanks to john, the calendar works again. muchas garcias. in the process of fixing the calendar i also had to force myself to fix other things that have been broken for a long time, so it was all good.

Whatwith all the kiddies blogging every minute of SXSW as it happens, one guy is Liveblogging not being at SXSW. First entry:

"8:30 am: Woke up, made coffee and a birdfeeder."

I’ve seen a lot of things on mountain bike trails. Cows. Chickens. Donkeys. Health-nut jogger-people. Today I got to add something to that list: middle-aged couple dressed in business attire making out. I was JRA (just riding along) minding my own business, and I run into these two going at it. Something tells me it wasn’t exactly a date, or a married couple. I mean, what couple (married or dating) walk around a muggy bike trail on a drizzly Thursday morning? And in business attire, no less? Something aint right.

go here. listen to the first song, "she hates love songs." note the panning of the guitars, and the keyboard in the middle. good stuff. she also happens to have a great voice.

brought to you by heatherf.

addendum: for those of you currently stuck in an office environment resembling the novel 1984, you can also find the songs on her website.

I took the roommate mountain biking yesterday at Memorial Park. I think he’s hooked. He already bought a new set of tires, a sweet jersey, and a pair of baggy bike shorts (basically, standard lycra bike shorts housed in a baggy exterior).

The funny thing is that this same thing happens every now and then. It happened to me when I was a high school senior. My friend took me mountain biking at the same trails and I went out and bought all kinds of bike stuff to fuel my new hobby. When I was a college freshman in Austin, I took an old friend mountain biking and he went and dropped a grand on a new bike and accessories. He then proceeded to become a better rider than I ever was or will ever be, though his bikes are now excellent dust-collectors.

So you see, this is a repetitive process. It just so happens the roomie was in need of a hobby - tech-geek only does so much - and this one happened to be an outdoors hobby, so I think it was a winner. It also helps that female cyclists are in great shape and, uh, wear the standard lycra bike shorts.

Living a 10-minute walk from Rice Village has its perks. John and I walked to Hungry’s, ate dinner, had two Guinnesses, walk to Kelvin Arms where I switched to Stella and John stuck with Guinness, walked to Gingerman where we met up with Heather and had more beer, walked to Two Rows where we recovered from the beer with water and appetizers, walked back to Kelvin Arms to get scared away by the insane crowd, and walked home. There was no driving involved, and even better, no parking. The Village was a zoo. There was no where to park.

Grand totals for the night:
John: 10 Guinnesses (he started at 2 pm).
Particleman: 2 Guinesses and 4 Stellas.
Cameras brought with: 1.
Pictures taken: 0.
Vomits: 2.5.
Waitresses shamelessly and perhaps drunkenly hit-on: 1.
You can guess who was responsible for that.

going to see the Dropkick Murphys tonight with John. i'm bringing earplugs this time because i like what little hearing i have left. next week is KT Tunstall at Fitz.* i'm hoping i can get her number. total hottie. Salma might not like that though.

in other music news, i rediscovered my old B-52's cd. Rock Lobster is pure genius.

* turns out KT dissed Houston for SXSW in Austin. her loss.