i just turned on the tv

and i saw this thing on the jesus channel...

it's things like this that give me my faith in humanity. 

Androidified

I think I'm going to make all of my contact photos into androids.

tentative reading list for the coming months

along with writing semi-often, trying to be actively frugal when i can and (finally) quitting smoking, another thing i'm going to be doing more of this year is reading.

so, here are some books i plan on getting through over the next few months (starting last month).

(infinite jest took me a little while and i started it at the end of 2010, but i'm counting it as the first book i finished this year. i'm also reading other random stuff just to give my brain a break [e.g. kitchen confidential, imbibe, etc.] so i won't be listing anything that isn't goal-oriented).

infinite jest - david foster wallace

on elegance while sleeping - viscount lascano tegui

to the lighthouse - virginia woolf 

the blind assassin - margaret atwood 

blood meridian - cormac mccarthy

the dark tower: the gunslinger - steven king 

nineteen eighty-four - george orwell (no, i haven't ever read this. yes, i am ashamed)

herzog - saul bellow

the pale king - david foster wallace (due out in april. posthumously published, unfinished novel)

in a perfect world, i will finish up through herzog by the time the pale king is released on april 15th.

it's gonna be like ~1700 pages in ~67 days, which is only like ~25 pages per day, which might as well be nothing (the old lady reads like three books a day. but she's in graduate school and doing things that matter, so i really can't compare myself to her).

i'm not trying to make a list for the whole year. these books will get me up near the summer months, at which point i'll make another list to try and finish before the fall. 

i like this plan. 

here's some stuff

my friend jake sent me this picture and i love everything about it

i don't know the source, sorry.

i really wish five/seven/five would receive like, a consistent flow of submissions. not many things are worse than a blog that is never updated. i get really excited when an email arrives with a submission. i'd be even more excited if i could wake up expecting several emails on the daily.

i'm obsessed with james blake right now. this is his latest album (due out sometime next week).

and old professor-turned-friend just crafted me a chullo and i'm really excited to receive it.

i've written a couple of things in the past week. i write late at night before i go to bed and then i don't reread any of it, so i can't really say if it's good or not. 

i hate making goals, but i'm trying to write one thing (anything--poem, thoughts, prose, whatever) per week this year and i guess i'll share my favorite thing from the past month at the beginning of the next month. i don't have anything for january because this is a new goal, so i'll share my favorite at the beginning of march. 

i started a new map on minecraft and it's way cooler than my first map. 

here is what i began working on the other night

lots of cool mountains and caverns in this map

oh and last night we watched the parking lot movie and i definitely recommend it to anyone who has worked in the service sector.

that's all for now. adieu.

One year and lots of liquids later.

Maybe one post per year is going to be my new modus operandi.

No, but seriously, check this out.

Ten things since this time last year:

1. I'm still living in Houston (and actually loving it, although Austin is hopefully our next move).
2. I read some new books and I'm almost finished with Infinite Jest, which will be one more slash on the old life goal chart. Amongst other things, 2011 is going to be the year that I read the most books in.
3. We have two cats and they are awesome and I'm a cat person now.
4. I've ridden my bike probably 95% of the days in the past year, (not including when we went back to Ohio for the holidays).
5. Speaking of Ohio, it sucks and I don't have any desire to go back.
6. I've acquired all of the gear necessary for camping; yet, haven't gone camping yet.
7. My old lady is almost done with graduate school, and she's really good at it and it makes me feel good.
8. I've become fairly knowledgeable about coffee and beer. I want to learn more about wine and cheese, but they are difficult.
9. I still work for WFM and moved departments and I enjoy going to work now. It's not a job that impresses people, but I'm happy and it pays the bills and lets us buy nice liquor to keep in the apartment.
10. When I flew to Ohio I gave up my seat for a $400 Delta voucher and we're tentatively going to go somewhere (*cough* Colombia) this summer when the gf is done with her thesis.

There's probably more stuff that happened, but whatever. I had a couple of poems published on New Wave Vomit . They aren't great or anything, but for not writing for however many years it's cool someone still enjoys things I write sometimes. The more I read the more I think about writing and I think I'm gonna try and get published again this year. That'll make it once a year for three years consecutively, which, for not being a consistent writer, isn't terrible. There is a plethora of online journals, so hopefully I'll be able to crank out some new stuff (and maybe even some old stuff) and send it off into the nether.

Oh, speaking of nether, I've been playing a lo of Minecraft lately and you should too because it's way too much fun.

Oh, and I stopped smoking for good and it's exciting.

Don't be afraid of checking back here periodically this year.