The Lord Weird Slough-Feg have come for your children

Every summer I come upon a band that I fall in love with and obsese about them daily. Four summers ago it was Zero 7, three summers was the Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, last summer was Iron Maiden (tad bit too late), and this summer is the Lord Weird Slough-Feg. However, I always either get in the band far past their prime or they are European and come to the states almost never. Not the case with Slough-Feg.

If you see me walking down the street with my ipod you'd probably never guess I'd be first in line for a Slayer or Cattle Decapitation show. To say I dress 'trendy' and 'feminine' would be an understatement. Yet, while I have changed, my love of metal will never falter. However, finding decent metal bands nowadays is very difficult as the market has become saturated with wanna be death metal bands and metal-core bands just making noise. I just want awesome guitar solos and kick ass double bass drum action. Lyrics aren't that important, but still need to be relatively interesting. So when a band combines those two and creates a concept album about space and genetic engineering humans into bipedal dog I'm sold. I love concept albums which explains my love of King Diamond and Iced Earth. And they are playing at the Bug Jar July 14th for 6 bucks. Life cannot be grander. Combine this with a band I feel in love with three summers ago, Pretty Girls Make Graves, is also coming down to Rochester in august. I feel like a school girl and want to scream all giddy.

In other news work is getting interesting. At first I didn't really like the job as it was boring and mindnumbingly stupid. I was just looking at numbers and organizing them and not really using my skills. Yet now I'm doing statistical work, writing progress reports, signing up for conferences, reading past papers on similar subjects, etc. I'm really starting to enjoy it and the more I talk about it, the more in love I am with it. Its going to help me immensely once I start looking for graduate schools, especially if we can get it published before next spring.

Hail to the bus driver, bus driver man

So its official, I'm a bus rider. My life depends on a piece of paper that controls my entire day through the use of bus times. You never know how independent you are until its gone and it takes a hour to make a 10 minute car trip. However, it has forced me to listen to music much more closely again instead of back ground noise or music to travel to and I've been getting some reading done. I remember seeing something a while ago that asked people to use public transportation at least once a month to save on air pollution and the like. So it feels nice that for the next two weeks they'll be one less car on the road.

What's also nice is my car is going to get less use in a month or so when I move down to Park Ave. A friend's uncle bought a house three houses from Park which I'll be there until school starts. However, I need to decide if I want to stay in University Commons where I'll be paying more or less $550 dollars a month whereas the house I will be paying anywhere from $400 to $450 dollars a month. Since I'll be paying my entire way through, this extra hundred dollars in my pocket will definitely be helpful.

What comes up though is a total monetary view of the situation. Living in such a nice are with easy access to bars, restaurants, and shops I will be more prone to spending a higher amount of money on these activities then I do now. My gas fund will also increase as I'll have to drive to campus to get to class. Due it mostly being high-way though, my mileage may improve which may only increase it by a few. I'm leaning towards the house just due to the cheaper rent, amazing house, the experience, and if I end up going to graduate school at U of R, I already have a place lined up. I have a while to decide but going to talk to my parents about it and get my decision in a week.

With that, work at my internship, and the huge summer sale at Banana Republic, I have been quite busy. Have bowling tonight which we better win and same goes for the struggling Mets who have a big series verses the Phillies.

Start of something new

Online journals and myself are like ones first day of school. You get really excited about it and then as time goes on you begin to dread it and just give up enjoying it. While I enjoy school and I enjoy writing, it comes to the point where it just feels like work. That point is where I give up and stop writing. So here we go again, lets see how long this one lasts.

Been a rough month with being sick, no car, money issues, and moving three times. I finally have a bed that isn't a couch and it doesn't feel like I'm in the way. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll get my money problems fixed. Now if I could only figure out the bus schedule, the next two weeks without my car wouldn't be so bad. So while things aren't the best, I cannot complain too much.

What is funny is I look at my problems now and my problems when I was younger. Back then I had serious identity and self-loathing issues that directly shunted any sort of social development for many years. I'm still paying for such mishaps now. Things are getting better and as a good friend commented "I am like a polished stone", which couldn't be further from the truth. I often joke I wish I could travel back in time and jump start the process faster but at times if I didn't go through that I wouldn't be where I am now. Everything happens for a reason. I somehow have developed a decent social life, going out on dates, and not subjecting myself to a constant nagging of discontent.