WHOCARESWGD

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Looks like my Abbey Road, aka ABR Studios, aka Justyn's mom's sewing room, is back in service!

Seriously though, I'm stoked. It's been way too long since I've worked on anything so I'm gonna have to start stirring the pot again. I have a long backlog of stuff to finish, plus some new stuff to experiment with.

While we typically keep my stuff under the radar until a certain point, with the help of Google+ I'll probably make it more public and get some opinions. From the little bits that we've shown close friends and whatnot, we've gotten some praise. Not bad. I'm stoked to hear what you think.

It seems I've been using a large percentage of recent posts to complain about my neighbors, but it just keeps coming up and I have to vent somewhere.

It's only been about a month or so since I've had many neighbors in the building, but I've noticed that whoever lives above me makes a TON of noise. Not with loud music or movies or anything, but just normal movement. It's like I'm living under a fucking gorilla cage. Either that or Donkey Kong is ground-pounding bananas out of the floor above me. Realistically, I figured this guy is some huge behemoth who can't really help it so I ignored it pretty easily.

Then, he started having little get-togethers, usually on Sunday nights around midnight. Until that point, the only thing I knew of this guy was the sound of his footsteps. Now, I could hear his voice because he would yell at random girls getting off the trolley to see if they wanted to come up and party. And I knew this was definitely my guy because he would tell them to take the elevator to apartment 658, and mine is 558. Confirmed, directly above me. Sure it's obnoxious, but I've had my share of loud parties in my place too, so I just let this one go as well.

After all this, while playing guitar one night like I normally do, I get a knock on my door. I look through the peep hole, and sure enough, it's the guy from above me. It has to be. He's pretty big and gumpy, and I'm immediately able to match his voice to his meathead build. He tells me he can hear the vibrations from the guitar, so I tell him I'll turn it down for him. True, it was a little late to be playing guitar even at a low volume. But after all the noise I tolerated without saying a word, it was pretty irritating to have this guy come knock on my door at midnight and bitch about something that probably wasn't all that loud.

So last night, after a long weekend, I crawl into bed and put on some music like I've been doing for the last year and a half. Nothing loud, just something to fall asleep to. I'm right about to doze off when I hear my doorbell ring. Seriously? I didn't even get out of bed to see who it was. I know it's him again, here to complain about yet another noise. Honestly, this guy can go fuck himself. He rang a couple more times and then gave up. Hopefully he gives up for good.

My iPod has been dead since Memorial Day. The battery won't hold a charge and the click wheel and center button do not respond. I loved that thing like a six-year-old brother. But since that weekend in early June, it's just been sitting on its dock in my room like a tombstone marking what once was...

In the pitch dark of last night, I for some reason opened my eyes and the iPod suddenly came on. From my bed, not fully awake and dazed from sleep, I just stared at the black screen with the white apple logo in the center. Very curious.

Then I saw it go to the language selection screen, which it does right after a hard reset, the last thing I did before trying to fix it. Still tired, I thought to myself "Cool, it's working again! Hopefully the buttons are too, I'll play with it in the morning."

After turning over to go back to sleep, about two minutes later, I heard clicks. The sound the iPod makes when you scroll with the wheel. I looked at it again and it was cycling through menu options on its own, back and forth. Ugh, now I'm creeped out a little...

I finally decided to get up and investigate. While still on its dock, the buttons seemed to be working and I could scroll through the menus again. I pulled it off and it instantly shut down. Damn, the battery still wasn't holding a charge. Back on the dock it went.

After the night passed, I tried again in the morning. Wouldn't boot, wouldn't respond, wouldn't hold a charge. Totally dead again. Obviously there are logical explanations for what happened, but I like to believe otherwise...

I am now on:

Google+ - Nathan Kowalski (nathan.kowalski@gmail.com)
Foursquare (ugh) - Nathan K. (nknumber4@hotmail.com)

Still on:

Twitter - whocareswgd
AIM - whocareswgd
The planet - Earth (873 Fletcher Pkwy. Apt. 558, "The Ma*NK*ave")

So is Darick's, which is way better. Supposedly.

http://deekaymusic.blogspot.com/

Winter Albums:

Sainthood - Tegan and Sara
Contra - Vampire Weekend
Embryonic - The Flaming Lips

Spring Albums:

Plastic Beach - Gorillaz
One Life Stand - Hot Chip
Baby 81 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Congratulations - MGMT
Manners - Passion Pit

Summer Albums:

Blue Sky Noise - Circa Survive
OMNI - Minus The Bear
Mind Chaos - Hockey
The Suburbs - The Arcade Fire
Brothers - The Black Keys

Fall Albums:

Man On The Moon, Vol. 2: The Legend Of Mr. Rager - Kid Cudi
Easy Wonderful - Guster
Album Of The Year - Black Milk
Hurley - Weezer
Interpol - Interpol

Winter Albums (Reprise):

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
Culdesac - Childish Gambino
Songs For Singles - Torche

The blogs have been weak this year, there's no getting around it. But then again there hasn't been very much to write about since it's been a fairly uneventful year for me so far. Not this last week however. Finally. Please excuse the fact that I'm super rusty also.

First Nate AND Martin were back in town, the former for a day and the latter permanently. Although Nate was only able to hang out for one night, we watched the Chargers get big win number one against Denver at Hooley's and caught up on the life of a seaman. That was also when talk of going to a game in December started, so look out for that. Then, word got out that Martin was back permanently so I figured I'd probably see him later in the week and maybe live a little of the good days again. But first Thanksgiving...

I was originally excited to spend a long relaxing weekend hanging out at my aunt and uncle's new place, playing DS and swimming and stuff. So Wednesday night I drove up with Yimmit and my brothers for what was supposed to be a huge Thanksgiving bash. Which it was, but cut short and not as fun as we had hoped. Since nearly the entire family was staying at the house, all 11 cousins were sleeping on the floor of the movie theater. It was actually a cool set-up, but we got blamed for breaking the projector somehow, so everything we did was supervised with caution the rest of the time. In the midst of this giant mansion, with no internet or cell service, we could only talk about getting the hell out of there. Eventually, we had no choice anyway. We were going to stay until Sunday, but my Grandma became pretty sick post-surgery and everyone had to emergency-boogie back to Tucson, including my mom. The vibe there It was a pretty emotional, hectic mess but we decided to just get out of their hair and take care of ourselves back in San Diego, so we left Friday night. Black Friday.

I had contemplated having a party since I knew my family would be out of town, but I didn't really want to miss Thanksgiving or trash the house I don't live in anymore. But after the first couple days of vacation, I needed some redemption. I woke up Saturday morning and realized I really wanted to do it. For old time's sake. Step one, call up Martin. Immediately, I felt like everything was back to normal. Especially when I kicked his ass at beer pong. Tiffany coming unexpectedly, yes! And thanks to Pops for providing rain coverage. It wasn't a true Black Friday party, for those who were expecting it, but it was pretty good for a last minute put-together. 2011 will out-do everything, promised.

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I'm picking Texas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and New York.

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What's wrong with the weather in San Diego this year? We came home after a dejecting Sunday welcomed by rain and grey skies. It's almost exactly like the day the Chargers lost to the Jets last year in the first game of the playoffs, as if the city knows and is crying over the loss. Sucky.

However bad Sunday's finale was, it was a great weekend none the less. A weekend of ups and downs to be more accurate, but they were some damn good ups.

We listened to Friday's game on the radio as we drove up after work with hopes that Saturday's game would have some meaning. One loss that night and the rest of our weekend would be a bust. But sure enough, the Padres from 3 months ago were back and hungry again as they got to Cain early in the game. It really set the tone for the remaining drive and into Saturday morning. We all had this feeling like something big could possibly happen, something we would be a part of.

We finally hit South San Francisco around 2:30 AM. Even though we were excited and anxious for the game, a good night's sleep was going to be nice. Too bad the hotel would not let us check in to our room early, so instead we slept in the car and/or the lobby chairs. Not the most comfortable night I've spent. After about 7 hours, we finally got a smoking room around 8:30 AM. No time now to get real rest since we wanted an early start. So we showered, got our Padres gear on and taxied to ATT Park on essentially zero sleep. No one was tired though, this game was too important and too much fun.

We found a nice Irish pub right outside the stadium with food and beers, which we tried to get our fill of before breaking the bank on ballpark concessions. After building a decent buzz, we went in for some BP and pictures before game time. Ruben even got a ball (more on that later).

The weather at the stadium was sunny but cool and we found out that the standing room seats in right field are where the party is at. We were completely surrounded by Giants fans, mostly young and drunk, who turned out to be disappointed fans as the Zito gave up early runs on multiple walks. We were soaking it up, and a few people didn't take it too well. But for the most part, it was good clean baseball rivalry. The rest of the afternoon and night was complimented by the excitement of another win.

After visiting China Town for some Sam Wo, we walked all around town, often running into other Padres fans and cheering or other Giants fans and getting yelled at. We even ran into a group of cops in Little Italy and talked about baseball in San Diego vs. San Francisco. They were surprised that whenever they visited Petco the stadium was always half empty. At ATT it's a struggle to walk through the mobs of people. Too true.

We still had the rest of the night to enjoy in the city. And there are so many options! Movie at the Metreon? Sports bar downtown? Bar in the Mission? Nope. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, Chris and Ruben ended up dragging me to a strip club near North Beach. I was surprised how small it was, and it wasn't too dirty like the ones in the Tenderloin which was a plus. I guess it was cool for my first time and everything, but I had never planned on going to one before and I probably won't go again. We all agreed it was a bad (and expensive) idea which in the end cost us the series. I know it. As we were walking back to the BART, we ran into a few more Padres fans, one of which was mentally handicapped and in a wheel chair. Ruben gave him the foul ball he had gotten that day, which helped atone for some of our sins but not completely. At least we had a decent night's sleep to look forward to.

The next day, I could just tell there was a different feeling in the air. Our Padres attire was marred with stripper juices, rendering them unwearable (except Ruben who didn't care). It didn't feel like we had the same spirit as the rest of the weekend, and it didn't feel to good to spend $100 on scalped tickets just to get in the stadium. After the Giants scored two early, I knew it was over. The Padres were back to playing the way they had in September: just enough pitching, spotty defense, leaving runners on base but really no bats at all. The three game series ended up being a mini version of 2010. It was the only game all year I left early for. None of us wanted to be there for that celebration and probably get heckled out of the stadium.

It was a long, lonely drive out of San Francisco. We stopped by Darick's in Santa Cruz and had some dinner before hitting the road. Too bad Chris didn't know it was still too early to speed on the 101 and got pulled over. Add another $300 or so to the bill. We made it home around 4:00 AM and could tell that it was going to be an ugly day on Monday.

It's hard to say whether it was a great season or not. I love the playoffs and will surely watch them, but I had my heart set on the Padres being a part of it. More than anything though, I had gotten into a good routine of watching them win almost every night after work. At some point this summer it was really the only good thing I had going. I can't wait to see what this team looks like next year. I'll be counting down the days.

Well, it all comes down to toady. One more loss and the Padres are done in this division for the year, which as a whole was a good one but will a disappointing end to say the least.

If they can pull a win off tonight, we'll at least have the opportunity to be at the game tomorrow with some small amount of hope to cheer for. Otherwise, by the time we enter Burlingame exhausted from the drive, we'll have to turn on Sports Center and realize that Saturday's game will be nothing but an exhibition.

Of course, there may still be hope that the Phillies can beat Atlanta twice, or maybe even sweep them. At this point, the Wild Card seems more realistic, but in a way it's not because you're depending on another team to lose. I'd rather have control solely in our hands. And that means winning three games against the Giants in San Francisco, plus a one game playoff.

Crazier things have happened (a la 2004 Red Sox). And the Padres are able to beat the Giants if both the pitching is good (which it has been) and they hit (which they haven't). It's a lot to hope for, but it'll be a story to tell.

At the very worst, it's the first trip to San Francisco in a long time. We'll see what happens. Either way I'm ready for October baseball.

What a great morning it's been. Hell, what a great week.

I accidentally threw away my registration renewal from the DMV, which had the PIN code, or RIN as they call it, to pay online. Without that, I would have to go into the DMV and pay in person. What a pain, and I can't believe that RIN is even necessary when they have so many other unique identifiers available: social, VIN, license plate number, drivers license number, etc. Anyway, of course I put this off and racked up $60 in late fees. After waiting two hours and reading an entire issue of WIRED, I told them that they had never sent me the form with the RIN and they waived my fees. Cha-ching.

THEN, when I got back to work my new Zune HD was sitting on my desk. So were the books I ordered from Amazon. They weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow at the earliest! I got the Zune because my good old iPod II is totally full now and I want something solely for new music. Also the video is gorgeous.

So tonight I'm going to load it up, give it a listen and read about HTML 5 and Java Script.

This is what happens when you try to remote control the computer you're already on:



Cool!