coffee grinder

i’m no coffee connoisseur, but i recently bought some whole beans and a grinder. i’ll tell you what… freshly ground coffee tastes good! however, i am having a difficult time finding the equilibrium between not grinding the beans enough and grinding them too much.

that’s what i’ve got for this maiden blogage.

oh, and the new jams are bad! watchout!

We got flies coming for us

I wish I’d seen this sooner.

I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.

Must take tambourine out of house when recording vocals. Who turned up the sensitivity on this thing? I swear it makes a noise just from looking at it funny.

Also, our site hosting sucks, sorry for any inconvenience.

Also, its still winter, right? We hit 90 degrees today in Austin.

Kleenex

How was Heath Ledger’s family able to accept the Academy Award on his behalf without completely falling apart? I had tears in my eyes just from their walk up to the stage.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was probably crying way before I was though. Did anyone else hear Alan Arkin call him Seymour Phillip Hoffman?

Gonna Drink Whiskey With the Mountain

Last night at about 2:30am I sat down at my piano and, under the dim light of a lamp, began working on a new song idea. I played around with it for a little while and let my mind wander. When I was comfortable that I would not forget it while I slept, I scribbled some words down and went to bed.

I woke up at about 11 and went straight to work. Figured out a version that I wanted to record. Fired up the gear, mic-ed the piano, and got the music down. I spent the next few hours adding vocals and various other sounds and, in the end, a nice little demo was produced.

I’m pretty happy about the result and I can’t wait to work on it some more and show you guys.

Stimulus

I opened my mailbox today to find a check from the United States Treasury in the staggering sum of $11.72. On first thought, I assumed it was my own personal piece of the $800 billion bailout package. Closer inspection revealed the true source.

In 2001 I purchased a Mac on eBay for $2,300 from a woman named Teresa Smith. The same computer from Apple and other Apple dealers was retailing for around $3,000. I should have been more skeptical, but she had positive feedback from other eBayers who had purchased similar items at similar prices, and who had received their merchandise.

Mine never came, and the same story repeated itself over 300 times, allowing Ms. Smith to scam around $800,000 by the time she was arrested. There was a lawsuit, a trial, a prison sentence and a promise of restitution.

I guess my restitution begun today, with the delivery of .005% of my original loss. One hundred and ninety five checks from now and my recovery will be complete. I’m assuming Teresa is out of prison, and is having her wages garnished. If every defendant is receiving checks of $11.72, there will be over 68,000 disbursements before all debt is repaid. That’s a big checkbook.

I am not expecting my other 195 checks anytime soon.

Don’t everybody like the smell of gasoline?

Mine and Nick’s gas got turned off this morning. Its not so much an economic sign of the times as it is the result of poor bill-paying and mail-opening skills. We both swore one of us paid last month, but when Nick called the gas company, the woman on the phone told him the last payment they received was in July. Whoops! One of us* paid them and service will be restored tomorrow, but I must have a beast of a water heater, because I just took a hot shower 12 hours after the whole ordeal.

I was at Rooster Teeth Productions today working on some videos featuring the Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard more than a one or two Barenaked Ladies songs, but the dude is genuinely very cool and funny. And possibly 100% shameless. Keep an eye on the Rooster Teeth site for more info.

We’ve been working on a song called ‘Tick Tick’, loosely based on a friends’ dog. It got me thinking about other songs about pets, and the first two that came to mind were The Beatles’ ‘Martha My Dear’ and Nilsson’s ‘Me and my Arrow’. I’m not sure if anyone is reading this, but what are some of your favorite songs about animals?

*not me