Hacking up big balls of blood and snot is not really my ideal way to spend Christmas. But at least I wasn't working.

I've been having dreams of returning to my old job. I'd actually love to do that. Never getting up before 3 p.m., never working more than 30 hours a week, etc. It was lovely. If only they could quadruple the wages I'd be the first in line.

I now have one year of payments left on my car. Can't wait to pay the son of a bitch off. Think of all the cheap hand jobs I can buy with an extra $350 a month.

Check it out - someone tweaked ...And Justice For All to see what it would sound like if Jason's bass had actually been present on the album. You can hear it here.

I'm home sick with the flu. Ugh. May as well update a little early.

I've added a mini-review for Clare Fader and Ren & Stimpy. I may not have made it clear last time, so I'll clarify - I'm still going to do "regular" full-length reviews. The mini-reviews are just another way I'll be making comments on albums. There's a link at the top of the page for each review that will explain this in a little more detail.

I updated the reviews page with new mini-reviews for Jill Tracy and Regina Spektor. I did a little tweaking of the review process, which should allow for more frequent reviews. Some people might say that this change will become a crutch and I'll hardly ever do any full-length reviews anymore. To those people I say: hey look, what's that over there?

I hit the company Christmas party last night. There's a little sing-and-dance portion of the evening if you're unlucky enough to be put in that position. I was kicking myself for not memorizing the full breadth of the epic that is the Lumberjack song from Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have a need for that knowledge after all, but it would've been nice to be prepared. In a pinch, I could've done the lounge version of Baby Got Back.

Speaking of lounge, I'm thinking about ordering the second album from The Necro Tonz. I'm pretty happy with their first one (Are You Dead Yet?). This one requires actually putting a check in an envelope and using one of those stamp things though. That's so archaic! I'd also like to order 11:11 by Regina Spektor but it seems to be out of print and unavailable. SoulSeek and Kazaa are no help. Not even Gemm has a copy of it.

I'm also digging the Clare Fader debut like I knew I would. The brand new album, Seventh And Trade, should be at my doorstep any day now.

Along with Circus Contraption and The Clairvoyants, I've found some stuff I enjoy lately. That's pretty exciting. I haven't got this big a batch of interesting new music in quite a while. The new album from Twelfth Of Never is worth a listen too. Fun all around.

Well, we're more or less at the end of the Busiest Week Of The Year™ at work. It has a habit of stretching to two or three weeks. This year has been really easy compared to the two before it. Doubling the size of your department will help with the workload. Who knew?

Still not too easy of a time though. Two sessions of crying so far that I know of. Haven't had time to do a whole lot outside of working. I almost bought a new Santa Fe this week, but the finance costs were just extreme. I got the dealer down to $3k below invoice and the payments were still more than I pay in rent. No thanks!

My back is killing me. Feel sorry for me. I can only stand up straight under extreme pain. I've lost 14 pounds in the past six weeks but still have a whole lot more to go before I'm "in shape" enough to curb this sort of thing. There is no end to my shame.

I'm back on Hydrocodone for it. I'm really starting to see the benefits of being too drugged up to feel anything. Maybe I'll purchase a ton of Soma online and veg out for a year or two. Why not, everybody else does. The whole world is hopped up on goofballs. Trying to be one of the lucid 1% just hurts.

I rarely ever check my ISP mail because it's usually spam. I checked it yesterday though. Lo and behold, I had a useful email from Comcast - "We've doubled your Internet speed at no extra charge! Just unplug your modem and plug it back up." Sweeeeet! I was connecting at 2.9 megabits this morning.

I had this weird dream last night. Skiddo came to see me at work and I had been so wrapped up in the busy season that I hadn't noticed my hair had grown long again. OK, I can live with that. But I also had developed a really bad receding hairline. Can't win for losing. On the bright side, I got quite friendly with a certain female co-worker who shall remain nameless. Work is never really that fun.

So, yeah. My life is so dull that even my DREAMS revolve around work. Time to strip naked and run through the White House yelling "THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD ONLY HAS ONE ARM!"

I've just learned that some people think A Christmas Story is a depressing movie. Hmmm. I never saw it like that at all. It comes off as being realistic yet optimistic at the same time. It shows that no matter what you do, everything goes wrong. But even though everything goes wrong, you can still have a good time and enjoy life in the end. I haven't found that to be true, but I like the idea...