Happy Thanksgiving! I've decided that I should keep my signature updated with each holiday/event/whatever. There's plenty of room for the text and I like changing up the colors every once in a while anyway.

No more bummin' around jobless. Got hired by Gamestop for seasonal employment. What's cool though, is they'll soon be opening a new store closer to home that I'll probably be able to work full-time at, etc. once I've proven that I'm a badass awesome reliable associate.

Even though nobody cares: I'll be recording myself playing some more music soon. The only reason I haven't is because I broke my D string two days after that last recording and have yet to replace it. Tried doing 'Doesn't Remind Me' by Audioslave the other day, but got frustrated after the third attempt 'cause I keep forgetting the words and/or mess up going from the bridge to the chorus and back to the verse again. But, I've re-acclimated to the squier's thin neck again, so I'll probably record that and toss it up in this newspost somewhat soon.

I've made a lot of progress since I started playing in August last year, considering I couldn't even finger an open A back then.

Anyway, one of the things that I really need to work on is repertoire. It's one thing to know scales and chords and licks and all sorts of shit, but if you don't have a practical use you can't make progress.

So... I've been learning 'Rosealia' by Better than Ezra and saw fit to record it. I'll probably be butchering some more songs in the near future, so stay tuned.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_
query=autotune+the+news&search_type=&a q=f

My personal favorite:

My friend showed these to me. It's this project this band is undertaking where they've basically taken a week or so's news footage and applied the T-Pain autotune shit to it to make music out of it. It's actually pretty good, I recommend at least 4 and onward. They definitely get better as the project has worn on.

This`place?

Beats the hell out of my old first gen iPhone. Even during the course of typing out this message two different and improved features have been revealed to me.

Sadly, I don't own this one.

...that when the insects mark your presence naught
and are inclined to scale your flesh,

...that the soft hissing of the wind caught
no more than your clothing and hair,

...that a rafter doesn't feel they ought
run, nor fight, nor intimidate, nor fear,

...that these moments, are and unfought--
stolen by life, environment, and intention,

...that all possessions frivolity bought
become as unimportant as any detail,

...that any anecdote a moral sought
couldn't cheapen the experience,

for flesh, hair, fear, intention, detail, or experience
sought, unfought, caught, bought, naught, or ought

simply are, then were, then aren't?

So I'm driving down the highway and I notice this old hearse get on off an on-ramp. I get up closer before he hits highway speeds and see this rather large bumper sticker in the back window: "Got Bodies?" Closer still, and I can read the license plate. It's an antique plate with green lettering, saying "LSTRYD."

Unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture and apparently nobody else on the google has thought to take a picture either (indexable by the search engine, anyway). But, I admit it got me to smile wryly and shake my head. Who the fuck buys an antique hearse and takes such pride in having a cadaver-mobile?

These faggots had access to every piece of sensitive financial information I've ever had over the 6 most important years of my life and they don't touch any of it.

Nope, not one piece of sensitive information. All that they cared about was that they gain access to my online identity on this site in order to give the administrators and my fellow moderators somewhat of a headache. So, I don't know what kind of point they're trying to make with their efforts to 'bring NG to its knees' or whatever the fuck, but the reflection on them is blinding.

So, to bring whoever checks this page up to speed:
- My password was not easily guessed, it was a strong password containing alphanumerics including capital letters and not based on a common phrase.
- The cretins got my secondary email address (which also happens to be my MSN) because I've posted it here before.
---> The address had my private email as its secondary account
---> They correctly guessed the ancient security question attached
---> They correctly figured that the primary/secondary relationship was vice-versa for my private gmail account
---> Password recovery gets them access to my gmail
---> Password recovery gets them access to my NG account
---> "Havoc" wreaked.

Anyway, I'd like to apologize to all involved in the headache caused. Sure, it's not my fault, but I do bear the responsibility for my account's actions, regardless of circumstance. Sorry.

Lesson to learn here: don't gloss over the important of removing your ancient secondary email from your primary account when updating your online security.

BBL.

Alright: this terse entry is uncharacteristic of me. So I'll talk a little more life update jazz. Regarding 10k: I'll get there when I feel like it.

Anyway, I'm running a painting business through Collegiate Entrepreneurs (www.cepaint.com) as a "branch manager" in the company. That means that I'm responsible for marketing to source work, sourcing and hiring a crew of painters, maintaining a crew kit with all the painting essentials (three ladders (12', 24', 32'), several brushes, buncha rags, lotsa dropclothes, etc.), and produce the work this summer. I just reached and surpassed 20 thousand dollars in sales this past week, which means I became eligible and was promoted to "profit manager".

Essentially, I don't have to paint (though I can pay myself 15 dollars an hour when I do, and save myself money over paying my painters to do the work in addition to the profit I'll collect). I just work hard at selling more work and keeping my guys employed full-time. My friend who did this last year (and is now my boss this year) made 13 thousand dollars (fully tax free) last year. I'm looking to do a larger branch than the one he ran, so I'm hoping to make out with at the very least a similar amount of money. To give you an idea: I have 23,000 sold so far. If I produce all that at average profit (20%), I'll make roughly $4,600 this summer. Only JUST beats working a regular wage job for three months (I have to pay back 1k for the crew kit as well... so it's really 3.6k)

So needless to say, I'm really busy and I work pretty hard. I have to get up early in the morning to go buy all the necessary supplies for a job from the Sherwin Williams store 20 minutes away (they open at 7AM), then I've got to get everything to the job site by 8AM so I can have my crew being working. We'll typically do a 10 hour day, during which I usually have an estimate or two scheduled. If I were more organized and better at delegating tasks, I could easily make all my money this summer without physically performing a single task, save estimates on more potential jobs.

I'm kind of proud of my efforts here. I've been up and running now for just under two weeks (one payroll), and I expect that my first paycheck will be something like 300 bucks despite not working quite as much as I should have been.

My friend would say that last year he was practically hemorrhaging money all summer long. I'm starting to know the feeling and let me tell you: this fun-size version of the corporate world is quite delicious.