A revelation:

Sometimes I make hot chocolate just so I have a reasonable place to put my cinnamon schnapps.

I think I need a new job

I like my job. Really, I do.

However, I also like making more than $60 a week.

Even with some really generous estimating, I'm making something along the lines of $5000 a year. Really generous, mind you.

It's borderline infuriating. I absolutely love what I'm doing, but it's tough to find anything resembling satisfaction in a 5 hour work week.

I mean, I have essentially no expenses. I don't pay rent, I don't pay for food, none of it. And still, I can say pretty confidently that I'm not gaining any money. Just the costs of day-to-day living are pretty much balancing out anything I'm making.

Lately I've been talking to my parents about insurance. The best plan I've found so far costs about $120 a month for me. That's something like a third of my income.

I was hoping that, if nothing else, I could just kinda coast on this until June. I figured maybe I'd make a little money and ultimately be in a situation where I might be able to afford moving out by then. As it turns out, it's looking more and more like I might be lucky to break even at this rate.

I can't help but feel like I need something more than this.

And yet, I feel like it's bound to be tough looking for a part time job. It's bound to be tough looking for something I can work until 2:00 at the latest. Having one job does a lot to complicate finding another job.

I can think of very few things that make me uncomfortable

I tried watching Michelle Bachmann on Hardball. Her "Anti-American" ramblings and such.

And in all honesty, what I came to realize as I tried to watch it was that I could not listen to what she was saying without getting angry to a point that I'm just flat out not comfortable with. It's so far beyond legitimacy that it's just absolutely unreasonable. I do not like being this angry. It's beyond anything I even know how to deal with.

Like, on the one hand, it's almost laughably absurd. On the other hand, it's honestly fucking happening. And just trying to wrap my head around the fact that not only do people like her exist, but they exist in positions where they've been legitimized by the public is beyond what I can bring myself to comprehend.

It hurts me to know that this bullshit is part of the public discourse. Honestly. It borders on being something that I just can't handle at all.

There was dignity in plastic seats that day

I've been waffling on whether or not to write this post pretty much all day, at least. On the one hand, it's the only thing I've really cared to write about in...well...a while. On the other hand, I wasn't really convinced that anyone would actually care.

But anyway, it's kind of a big deal to me, and if that's not the point of blogging, I don't know what is.

Dillinger Four are releasing their first album in 6 years next week. And I could not possibly be more excited. I saw them at the 7th Street Entry a couple weeks ago and it was pretty much the first time I had heard any sort of concrete info about the album. And I was thrilled.

I realize that they're not really the kind of thing most of you who read this regularly are into. I imagine most of you know them better for their bartending or their venue ownership abilities. And that's fair. I can attest to the fact that they seem to do both of those things quite well.

That said, these guys are as close to Twin Cities music legends as we seem to have these days. I mean, Prince still exists, Soul Asylum and the Replacements are only one member down apiece (no disrespect to Bob Stinson or Karl Mueller intended), but in terms of bands that are still active in the music scene, both in terms of making and advocating music, these guys are about as good as it gets.

But even if I were to disregard where they're from, I'd still have to appreciate what they do. As I've said before (I think), I appreciate anger, especially when it's well-aimed. Above all else, that's what they still have in abundance, more than a lot of other bands around them. I can't help but appreciate a band that has the decency to express their anger at their circumstances (which, in many ways, are my circumstances). And with these ideas that they've been stewing over for 6 years, they seem to have really found what they mean to say.

To call them a political band seems simultaneously fair and wholly unreasonable. They are political, but only as a matter of circumstance. It's not so much "This guy will save us" as it is "How the fuck did things get so bad?" And really, that seems to be the more reasonable concern. Not that they'd disagree with my (our?) politics. It's more that, at least musically, they seem to understand that to be validated, they need to go above and beyond the simplicity of personal politics.

It's weird. I've been a fan of them almost since the first time I heard them, which was back in high school. Their first album has always been my favorite for an abundance of reasons. My affinity for their albums has always seemed to be proportional to how long ago they were released (i.e. their latest album was always my least favorite). But in the last week or so, I've listened to the most recent album far more than I ever had before. And it's really good, for what that's worth.

But the bigger point, I suppose, is that the new album seems to be really good. It's streaming here. I've listened maybe twice. It comes out Tuesday, and I'm waiting for that before I really get into it.

Thematically, it doesn't seem particularly different from anything else they've done. It does, however, seem significantly poppier in sound. To the point that they've even been accused of using auto-tune on the vocals. A claim that they've (drunkenly) shot down, and then (even more drunkenly) worked to propagate.

There have been a lot of albums this year that really excited me (Hand over what? Hand Over Fist). I find it hard to claim that this one is my most anticipated of the year. That hardly seems fair. But at the same time, I don't think I can help but say that this is my most unexpectedly anticipated.

If you've bothered reading this far, I hope you at least had the urge to try listening. I don't expect everyone to like them, I just hope everyone gives them a chance.

And as a P.S., for the astute readers among you, I hope at least some of you took the time to appreciate the fact that Billy (Triple Rock bartender extraordinaire) is a former cellist. I was pleasantly surprised by that. Imagine the conversations that could start. Especially for the cellists and/or friends of cellists among us...

I could name at least half a dozen off hand...

And I'm not even running for VP...

Jesus fucking christ, how hard is it to name a magazine or newspaper?

Every time I see her talk, I just get angrier. And the most frustrating part is that the anger seems to always be completely justified. Not that this issue, in and of itself, is really indicative of anything. But at this point, none of this is really "in and of itself". There's just this bizarre pattern of evasiveness and incompetence when it comes to answering even the most basic of questions.

And that's not even my biggest issue. I mean, if she wants to be an idiot, so be it. She's been put in a position where she's way over her head, and a lot of that blame doesn't fall on her. I mean, if I was that oblivious to the rest of the world and someone asked me to be their VP candidate, I don't think I would say no. I can accept that part of it. But there are far bigger things to worry about here. Mainly that at some point the McCain campaign got it into their heads that she could be a competent VP candidate. That absolute lack of judgment is what worries me most about it.

I was just thinking about it today, and it struck me that at some point someone must've sat down and had some sort of conversation with her about something substantive before they offered her the position (I mean, they must've, right?). I was talking to someone and they made a joke about how maybe they just gave her a two minute phone interview. And while it was obviously a joke, I was struck by the fact that in all the interviews I've seen, she's never even made it two minutes without looking ridiculous. I can't imagine she's suddenly become more incompetent than she was when she was being considered, so the only conclusion that's left is that they either didn't take time enough to ask her anything substantive, or they were just so excited to find a woman that they didn't worry at all about her competence. Either way, it's beyond insulting.

The '04 campaign frustrated me pretty regularly with how petty the discourse often became and how often people got away with saying things that were blatantly misleading. But that doesn't even begin to compare to how angry this has made me lately. Honestly, it almost seems like they're just fucking with us to see how much we'll let them get away with. Honestly, I've gotten to the point where that would be kinda comforting. I mean, if they're gonna make a mockery of political discourse, it'd be nice if they were at least in on the joke.

It's gotten to the point where I honestly feel bad for Tim Pawlenty. You just have to imagine he's sitting there, watching these interviews and just going "Really, guys? This is what you turned me down for?"