Found one!

It's the calm before the storm; This weekend's going to be a whirlwind. Massive wedding at Bolton, party all night tonight, Closing on our apartment hopefully (Yes, we found one!) but more on that in a minute. Then a drive to New York State to meet my potential Bernese Mountain Dog in laws. Lots to do still before the wedding and at the moment I'm just enjoying some quiet time with JC Penny's who, seems to be feeling my stress lately and won't stop following me around resting by my feet / mrowling inquisitively at me. I think she senses my nervousness... that or she wants me to switch her back to "Mariner's Catch" and lay of the "Mixed Grill"... but i say cmon' it's grilling season, live a little.

We found an apartment, i still can't fucking believe it. When we set out i was skeptical, by the 2nd week, i was flat out disgusted. This town, with all it's beautiful Victorians and townhouses seemed so out of reach. Mostly because I want a dog... But we had other lofty apartment goals we wanted to see met, and we were willing to give it a shot:

1. eat in kitchen; large enough for two people to cook together and eat in.
2. Open floor plan: No claustrophobic hallways and tiny rooms. We need space if we're going to live together happily. that leads to #3
3. 2 Bedrooms - we can't sleep in the same bed together... we're not married. (Ha!) we want an office, or a place where when we want our personal time, we can have it.
4. Yard?
5. Washer/dryer/dishwasher?
6. Classic style, wood trim, etc - There are too many beautiful old homes in this town to live in a box, i want to see weird angles, rounded corners, lattice work and ornate wood staircases...
7. A landlord that's not insane!
8. Animal friendly.
9. Affordable.

IMPOSSIBLE i said. I thought at least, outwardly i was stoic. But the impossible happened, after viewing a lovely place and the end of S Union that we felt was a little to far away from our works, we were asked if we wanted to look at a unit right downtown, but that wouldn't be ready till august (perfect) as it was being completely renovated into a 2 bedroom. We thought, what the heck couldn't hurt. The spot was on Orchard Terrace, only a block from both our respective current apartments, and a block from work and play... what we saw was a dream; everything on that list was there, in spades... albeit, gutted, covered in dust, busted up sheet rock, nails and random splitters and exposed wiring.
Thankfully we have active imaginations. It's going to be beautiful mark my words, JC is going to love all the south facing windows in the kitchen and the dogs going to love the backyard. Jenny and I are going to love having all of you over as soon as everything calms down in the Autumn and life gets a little more relaxed.

Right now, i have to go buy some converse all-stars to go with my brown suit.

Christ it's hard to find a dog friendly apartment in this town. Sorry i haven't been posting much more than these totally awesome pictures, but I've been distracted lately. Summer makes my brain feel like it's thinking through warm brie. Jenny and I are trying to find a place that'll let us have a dog and it hasn't been easy. We almost had a match, a perfect 2 bedroom with 2 porches one downstairs and one upstairs overlooking the lake, hardwood yada yada, dogs allowed even... but what? oh, it's a puppy? No puppies. No puppies? ...so they need to be magically growed up? Another lady after my inquiry into her listing that made no mention of pets either way, scolded me at the mention of a dog, fucking scolded me like i was asking her if i could setup a methlab. Scolded me like i was gonna start a fucking... a fucking, Orchid East 2 dormitory out of the basement. Bitch.
Two more apartments tonight - cross your fingers, pray to nazi hunting jebus up there. Then afterwards? I'm going fucking swimming. I'm gonna drown my sorrows in my grandmother's sweet sweet in ground pool. Fuck this dog friendly apartment deficit.

You're in good company.

Summer time is here

Summer time is here. This statement can have a variety of connotation, all depending on who you ask. I would imagine the general take on it is one of excitement, sun, fun all that jazz. But i know enough misanthropes to know that summer ain't all that to everyone. Personally it's not my favorite, though for a little while, I welcome it, the rest of the time, i try really hard to remember that winter in Vermont pushes me to the edge of those impossibly high cliffs of madness, or at least makes me awfully grumpy.

I thought I would make list of the things i hate about summer, and then one for the things i love, but then i'd have to about installing one of those Digg icons, and deal with the massive internet fame that comes from the inevitable dumbshit web-list where the last entry is always some asinine self-reference.

So for the sake of this blog's dedicated fanbase and retaining my web-obscurity this post will remain just that, a post, albeit a meandering gurgling stream of a post, a veritable Gary Snyder haiku of a post - as i still have an hour and half left at work, and I've exhausted the entire internet's Bernese Mountain Dog resources, i'm confident that I'll be the greatest Berner daddy in the world. I've already promised to give over half my posts to high-res pictures of little "Orrey Mane Swayze" doing things like, licking his own eye, biting his foot, or filing my state taxes; "look he's filing for Renter's rebate! hooza good Orrey Mane Swayze!"

So instead of going through the arduous task of actually writing something interesting i figured i'd just ask; what does summer mean to you?

Suddenly fatherhood sounds like fun...

This one goes out to Undead Molly and a Mr. C Miller,
good luck in Middlebury Chris.

A day in the Life

no. i mean douchebags.

At least once a week i get to spent my entire day scrolling through endless pages of toothy handshaking suits, trying desperately to find that perfect combination of elements that says "Yes, we'll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams sure... you can trust us, and at least 20% of our workforce is asian and/or of african american decent. Hispanics? nah."

Yeah... the company i work for consists of 95% white males. We have two women that work here, one is a secretary, the other is an accountant. So i put on headphones, blast "Silent Shout" and try to enjoy the irony of it all.

If only it were this simple.

Don't you want something genetically engineered to love?

I grew up with dogs, and a few cats too - I'm an animal lover, i believe whole heartedly that the relationship between a fella and his dog is about as close to perfect as any relationship can come, sorry JC - your still my main squeeze, even when you do throw up on my quilt. Jenny, your cool too. ;D

Lately, for whatever reason, I've been experiencing a sensation i can only explain as my Caninilogical clock. [cue my cousin vinny clip.] And it's Ticking Like This! I've been a number of years without one, Though my childhood dog, a beagle named Bean (After Francis Bean Cobain. Sweet.)is still kicking, she's more my dad's dog now and sadly i think on her way off this mortal plain - it's nearing time that i start looking again.

On that same (JRR)tolkien, i want to be sure i find a place that will be comfortable for a dog, and a dog that's comfortable with city living. It's easier said than done.
Now whenever i walk down the street and see some cute owner/dog combo i get secretly jealous and want to stop them a ask them all sorts of questions, where they found their place, what was the deposit, did you raise it from a puppy? How do you find the time? Do you take it everywhere you go? Do most shops let you in? etc etc...

After spending so much time looking through rental ads i'm getting more and more worried i'm not going to find a spot that A) allows dogs, B) is close to downtown C) Affordable, and D) practically perfect in everyway. So if someone has any hot leads for the end of the summer, let me know. I'll make it worth your while. (I'm not talkin bout sexin' - trust me, that's not worth your while.)

Anyway - while walking around town this past weekend looking at various locations and thinking hard about my situation, and the possibly deep psychological reasons for needing a canine companion so badly i turned down a street in the North end i seemed never to have been down, nor ever heard of; the name of it slips my mind now; but about halfway down, i came across a surprisingly modern store front. The name across the top glowed in super modern font and read "GenPets".

I found this curious and walked in - the store owner greeted me with a handshake and asked me if i'd ever heard of genpets - i hadn't i just happened by. He smiled fully, handed me a brochure with one hand and put his arm around my shoulder with the other, "Let me tell you about Genpets..."

Over the next 30 minutes or so the smiling man in the expensive suit told me about all the wonderful things that genetic engineering has brought the world, from disease resistant corn, to earses on mouses - modern genetic research has even made it possible to pick your child's gender, it's eye color too! I was skeptical though, that's all fine and good i told the man, but sir until you can give my baby boy 7 fingers on each hand i'm not interested. (I predict a future controlled entirely by apple hotkeys.) I paused, unless you could genetically engineer me a companion, a new friend - a pet even...

His grin widened, his eyes sparkled. Oh i think i have just the thing...


It's one week later now and i've never felt so close to another living creature, my genpet, lovingly named Gertrude "genpet" Stein has filled the gap in my soul left by the absence of god - we play together, do crafts together, even bath together - and little Gerty loves me unconditionally, and though it often cries for no reason, i can easily make it happy again with a simple injection. A better companion i couldn't imagine, and in a year, after this one wears down, a new model will be shipped to me free of cost, just package ol' Gerty up in the postage paid box, and pop it in the mail, your replacement will arrive in 5-7 business days - i think next time i'm going to get the red one.

Learn more about GenPets!

Golden Nuggets

Who loved Arrested Development? Freaks and Geeks? Undeclared? How bout' 40 year-old virgin, or Knocked up? Fans of David O Russell's temper tantrums or feeling uncomfortable for people?

The New Face of Pure Pop

Thought i'd take a moment to tease you all with a project i've been working on for a little while now. Purepoponline.com - once a clunky auto-generated site, now a friendly, interactive and informative portal. From Purepoponline you'll be able to check out the Pure Pop top 10, read music news, Make special orders, see staff picks and find links to various music related websites like highergroundmusic.com, midheaven, and (shudder) pitchfork.

Then there are the Pure Pop Forums, where your invited to get in on the discussion of various topics, (who'd win in a fight: Johnny Sparkle or Jason Cooley?) write show reviews and make announcements. There's also a rideboard so you'll never have an excuse to miss Animal Collective in Montreal.

Finally, the Pure Pop Blogs - read the rants and raves of your favorite (or most despised) pure pop employee.

I've had alot of fun developing PPO, it's been great to having something creative to work on after spending all day developing salt-dry corporate shite. My hopes are that people in burlington, friends of Pure Pop and the Burlington music scene, and music fans in general find this site to be a place they can go and make contacts (piss people off.), give their opinions (talk mad shit) and be entertained and informed (flame on...)

I hope to have the site ready for everyone, with help of Mr. Luke Awtry, as soon as next week. Stay tuned!

Happy Fridays

This vid does it for me; could be cute girl - could be sweet diggs, i guess it's just nice to know that somewhere, kids my age are working and creating in a place that lets you have fun and play ping pong. On the upside, the new plasma screen TVs are in at my office, and on monday i'm bringing my second dreamcast in so we can rock some serious Jet Grind Radio, and Tennis 2k2. I'm way better at fake tennis, than i am at real ping pong, i'm also way better at fake inline street gang graffiti tag warfare than i am at real life walking on my own two feet. Awesome.

Jenny got me a t-shirt from the possibilities shop today that says "aged to perfection" and shows off my sweet new belly in all it's ragged rounded glory later this day i discovered the taste sensation that is Diet coke w/ Lime. Also, awesome.

BtB, Vimeo, is a great service... i recommend it to all you vloggers out there.