5/18/04 6:32 AM: So I've been up for some time fighting a download.

Never you mind what I'm downloading, it's insanely important to me and very hard to find. So I'm in Limewire (new 4.0 release on Monday, mmm, lickable) fighting hosts who barely bother to let their sockets stay open and downloading.

In the mean time to avoid watched-kettle syndrome, I've poked around. I got my column done late, which was a good thing since it has a nice late news bit from Kevin Smith in it. I cracked open this DJing software Dekstasy, but I think I'm too sleepy to understand how it works. I downloaded the manual and will fiddle with it soon. I cleaned up my desktop on my computer.

I felt like I should have been a lot more depressed on Monday, but I just wasn't. My ex-wife emailed me about some "next set of papers" (where I figured I was done ... mmm, better make sure I'm not getting bushwhacked by my indifference to paperwork) and wants to meet me Wednesday. I likewise heard back from my lawyer at last, who basically said I'll end up in small claims court with the guy who hit me. Seems like there's no chance of recovering enough money to make it worth the lawyer's time anymore, despite them still doing "due diligence" in follow ups, at their own leisurely pace. That's not good.

But I was happy anyway. I handled some karaoke business, which was groovy. Got a bunch of new disks, and organized my collection. Ate. Watched another hilarious episode of Two and a Half Men (before this show, I never recognized the comic genius of Charlie Sheen being himself). Checked on my neighbor, who crazily mixed ammonia and ... something else (can't remember), which made her already belabored breathing more of a challenge. Did some singing (getting really good at "Wherever You Will Go" and "The Scientist"). Even managed to make sure all the uploads are done from my new songs (more on that in a sec), while downloading updates for my favorite piece of software right now, GarageBand.

Likewise, over the weekend I went to the wedding of my old editor Meredith. He called me out of the blue (somehow catching me at home) and said, "your address changed?" He hadn't heard -- last time he saw me was with my ex-wife, some two years ago, during a cross country road trip. Anyway, so I went and it was cool (I ate a ton of salmon, served champagne and smiled at people I didn't know). Of course the electric slide broke out at the reception -- despite the fact the bride was (apparently) Asian, it ain't a Black wedding reception until somebody's doing the electric slide. I also didn't know Meredith was a Buddhist with SGI, which reminded me of an ex named Roslyn who went very Glenn Close on me. That provided me some inappropriate laughter during the day.

I won't even tell you about the nightmare gig I had Saturday night, karaoke hosting another wedding reception at midnight. Urf.

Still, I am pretty chipper. I have made some hard decisions -- time to cut back spending drastically, so I can save up and change cars. My beloved Monte Carlo is not coming back from the brink. I can't make $6,300 in repairs on it by myself, and kind of wouldn't want to. So I'm gonna basically stop "extracurricular activities" (i.e. it doesn't matter how cute some new moron is, I'm not talking to her, so no more occasional dates), gonna cut back how much singing I do a week (which is always a "spending" trip), gonna cut back on how much I eat out (which means either a lot more frozen fried chicken or I better start getting used to doing dishes) and generally become more of a homebody. I wanna save up a few grand, trade the hulk of my beloved Big Six (that's the name of the car, which almost nobody knows) and just bite the freakin' bullet and get something new (to me, as a real new car means a bigger or lengthier note than I wanna float).

My car was really my only asset of value, and without it I'm worth less than ten grand. That somehow bothers me, especially given ... not gonna dwell on the money I don't have anymore. Moving on.

Yeah, so my mood is surprisingly chipper. I did (purposely) forget to visit a place called The Living Room, where a waitress from Roscoe's named Mama was having a birthday party, but it came down to making somebody else happy or making me happy.

Guess who'll come out on top in that competition, every time.

Stupid download is stuck again. Dammit.

Anyhoo, I figure my newfound domestic focus will give me time to get more songs done, to get more fiction done, to maybe even get back to some poetry. Create. I like going out a lot, but I like creating too, and this may help me balance them out. Heck, I may even have time to finish Grand Theft Auto: Vice City one of these days.

Mmm, Strange side note. There's a piece of software called the Apple Loops Software Development Kit. It likewise has refused to let me download it for more than a week. I need it to get audio samples into GarageBand. Yet the download never comes. That irks me a little.

Ninety two percent on the mystery download, and stopped again. A lotta trouble for four megs of data ...

Also a digression: isn't Condi Rice the happiest person in the world, now that Donny Rumsfield is in the hot seat? You know they were setting her up to take a fall, when Rummy's lunacy went public. That reminds me of something goofy I saw on Friday. A guy called Dr. G climbed a telephone pole, probably 20 feet in the air. From this insane perch, he leaps across to an electrical pole five feet away. This, again, is twenty feet in the air. He shimmy's down the pole to the cheers of his drunken friends. I turn to my pal Jon (the Black karaoke cowboy I discussed earlier) and say, "Evolution at work." He says to me, "them white folks is crazy!" When I see Rummy on TV backpedaling and trying to maintain his grasp on his evil power, that goes through my mind. Disturbing, but mostly just funny.

Anyhoo, I'm super excited about my new song "Every Wish." After hearing "My Kingdom Come" and the starting phases of "Criminal Thunder," some people (admittedly, mostly females) alleged that all my songs were dark and unhappy. To prove them wrong, I set about writing a tender, heartfelt, emotional love song. About a woman, even. It became a fascinating creative experiment, which caused me to call on lots of disparate experiences througout my so-called life. It also let me use five loops from GarageBand, only ending up playing the bass line myself. I think it came out pretty well, and best of all I proved people wrong, which is always a bonus.

Heck, forgot to upload the second draft ... here it goes ... good.

My reviews didn't go up last week at UGO. Dangit! What's that all about?

So my fanaticism about fantasy basketball knows no ends, and I signed up for this beat Bill Walton Virtual General Manager contest on ESPN's site. I joined a public league and proceeded to stomp the hell out of most of 'em. I actually am doing pretty good against Walton himself, but I didn't learn of the game until the second week of the playoffs, so he has a thousand point lead that's very challenging. Still, on most days, I kick his ass pretty hard in points. But when he beats me, he beats me big. Dammit. Still, fun, and I'm 2nd place in the public league I chose.

What else? Left a voice mail for my little brother on Saturday, he turned 14. Have three shows to do this week, two in Playa and one in Hollywood. I'm getting behind on laundry again, and both my home and car are in relative shambles. But to quote Nore, "remember that I don't care."

Almost forgot -- finally heard this song called "I Already Know" by an artist named Noelle. It's basically an answer song to Mario Winan's hit "I Don't Wanna Know." I think it's considerably superior, musically and lyric wise, to the original. I have an ill remix which puts both songs together (adding some other great samples) that I'm playing almost as much as I'm playing "Shut Up" by Black Eyed Peas (which sums up every bad stages of virtually every romantic relationship I've ever had, in addition to being one of the best composed songs I've heard in quite some time). People don't do "response songs" as much any more (I know 213 took over Monica's "So Gone," but that and this are aberrations, as almost nobody knows this one). I think they should -- it's always great fun, makes for great mixes in clubs or on radio. Maybe I'll have to get some instrumentals and take some songs to task, heh.

Oh, and yes, that animated gif is pornographic. I saw it on a message board and laughed so hard I had to upload it. Mesmerizing, isn't it? You'd have done the same, if you were me (and, of course, endlessly evil). It's okay, I won't tell anybody it arouses you.

Ninety four percent. Ah hell. I'm gonna be so screwed at class tonight ...