the family gardener

this is one of my favorite moments in the jeff tweedy solo tour DVD:

go here if you are curious.

excuses

with all the great albums coming out this year, one is being unjustly overlooked. the big echo by the morning benders is a freakin' great album. it was produced by one of the dudes from grizzly bear. check out the first track and it's overall beach boys tone. promises, the next track on the album, has a video. go here. you will not be let down by checking out this album. add it the list of great albums from 2010.

don't forget the flowers

this is an amaryllis flower. at my last audit, i was standing outside a building taking pictures of this flower to show my wife and the owner of company, who is like 80, i should say owner and founder of the company comes over and starts talking to me about the flower and he tells me to take three! he gives me his pocketknife and says take it and leave it with the secretary when i'm done and take three of them. that was awesome. what is funny is that i actually went to a banquet honoring this man a few months before hand. he is a kind dude.

anyway, enjoy the flower.

remember the alamo

last night i had a dream that for some reason we had to reenact the battle of the alamo. now most reenactments are staged, where no one really gets hurt or killed. this one, however, was going to be a real, brutal reenactment of the battle. i have no clue how i was picked. i just remember preparing the day before the battle was to take place and looking around going, "tomorrow, i'm going to die at the alamo." and everybody seemed to be okay with it. there were just a few of us, obviously, like the real battle. one was andy bernard from the office. he was there.

so the day of the battle, i called my mom and told her goodbye. she was upset about what was going to happen to me, but didn't question why the hell the battle was taking place in the first place. that's what makes me think it had to be done for some serious reason between the u.s. and mexico, like we had to do it again for mexico to feel better about itself or something. i don't know. but she was sad.

so they bused us over there to the alamo. now, mind you, this is modern day san antonio. so there are buildings all around the alamo. big ones. and hotels and shops and all sorts of crap. they bus us right up to the alamo and let us out and start putting us into place. my place was on top of the alamo, the actual cathedral part. i get up there and look out at about 5,000 mexican troops, who i believe were normal people like me. i started chanting U.S.A! U.S.A!, which got the crowd going, but i felt stupid afterward because i should have been chanting something about texas. that made more sense.

now if you have read this far, you will disappointed because i woke up. just like that. no battle. no start to the battle. nothing. i woke up before a single shot was fired. i had already picked out who i was going to shoot first and i woke up. i was so seriously worried about how i was going to die at the alamo that i think my brain let me off the hook and didn't make me worry anymore. it was terrifying.

that was my battle at the alamo.

here is pitchfork's review of the national's new album.

here is the avclub.

counting only blue cars

that's right. that is a dishwalla song reference. so, tell me all your thoughts on God.

dr. dog was a great show. the concert going experience is a strange one. you're surrounded by a large group of people who are their for a common thing: to see the show. they like the band, presumably. but everyone has their own experience. i tend to get wrapped up in my head. i start to associate all songs, lyrics, sounds with my life and it takes on supreme resonance. sometimes the experience is more than i want and i'm affected more than i want. but most of the time, it's the right balance. that and i need to sit down more than the average fan. standing around in a closed group of people, not my thing.

you guys been paying attention to greece? it's still going on.

this is a great post regarding hyperinflation and the causes in post WWI germany and recently zimbabwe and how different those scenarios are from our current status.

here is 10 ways the economy is built on fraud.

the amazing month of may begins with releases of the new pornographers and broken social scene. next week is the national and soon after that is lcd soundsystem.

terrible love

the live version of "terrible love" is outstanding. not sure what happened to the balls of the recorded version.

"it's a terrible love and i'm walking with spiders." i have no idea what the literalness of that statement means, but it resounds quite deep everytime i hear it.

i only wear blue

dr. dog is tonight. boo yes.

i have another exam in four weeks. the madness continues. but without the madness, my life would be a lot less interesting.

i'm so tired

i've studied and studied and studied. i'm ready for this test. don't know if i'll pass, but i've acquired a bit of knowledge that if i don't pass, i'll be ready to take it again soon. i'm taking regulation at the end of may, so that will be three of the four taken, with only financial still hanging out there. i've left the hardest two for the last. don't know how smart that is.

but if i can pass business tomorrow and have two under my belt this early in the game, that would be a major coup for me. i'd have the rest of the year to pass the final two. actually, i'd have until august 2011, when my audit credit expires, but i want to pass them all this year. i feel like 2010 is going to be a good year for me. i've made some major changes this year and it feels like forever since i've been this productive. define productive i suppose. but i'm looking forward to tomorrow. i enjoy the mental rigor of taking these tests. i don't enjoy missing out on beautiful days like today though. i could have ridden my bike all day and picked flowers. seriously. but, i'll do that tomorrow after the test.

if you aren't enjoying seeing goldman sachs suffer, than you probably don't really understand the situation. so i'll boil it down for everyone: let's say i sold you a car. i knew the car was a piece of shit. but i didn't tell you. i told you it was in great shape. so after you bought it, i made a huge side bet that the car was going to break down. and it did. you suffered. i made out huge. that's what goldman sachs did. read the emails. they knew exactly what they were doing. how the public hasn't torn down this company only shows that we either don't understand or don't care. and neither one is acceptable.

this isn't the first time that the government has had to battle a large financial institution. andrew jackson took on the 2nd bank of the united states and won. here's that story.

being there by wilco is year by year becoming my favorite album of all time.

high violet

for those you the national enthusiasts, please refer to the NYT website by april 27th to stream the new album.

you're welcome.

in other news, hot dogs still taste like wasted ass.

more than words

today is my two wedding anniversary. we went to san antonio this past weekend and celebrated. we went to the alamo and the riverwalk.

but the most awesome thing was the botanical gardens in san antonio. it was freakin' amazing. i could have spent all day there. easily.

anyway, that's two years in the books. she is now my longest relationship ever, surpassing my high school girlfriend who was in first place. not anymore. move over.

here's to two more. and two more. and two more. and two more. than three. than two more.

sec sues goldman sachs!!!

ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!

taxman

the taxman has cometh and the taxman has goneth. my days of working 10 hour days and saturdays are over. that's right baby. over. my life is back.

the astros won today by the way. they started 0-8. that's amazing. it's going to be a long summer.

i saw the white rabbits this week. they were orgasmic. that's actually a bit extreme, but they were really, really good. those guys are going to be huge. and they seemed so young. that's strange at concerts. to listen and really get into some band that's younger than you.

listening to the new MGMT right now. not bad.

wet cement

two things:


saw "the reader" on friday. awesome, awesome film. highly recommend it.


saw a band called the sideshow tramps. sounds like they'd be totally lame, but this band was fun and totally wacky in their presentation. and this was at a crawfish festival. i don't eat crawfish so i had a corndog. it's been ages since i've had a corndog. it was perfection.


other than that, studying a lot.


oh last night, i almost turned into a phil collins robot at HEB. what is a phil collins robot? it's a robot that goes around singing phil collins in a robotic monotone voice obviously. this happened in the frozen foods area by the milk. i began singing and the danger was mounting, but it turned out okay. i turned back into myself.

i learned the hard way

if any of you chaps is having a shindig and wants to throw down some soul crunching soul moving music, check out sharon jones and the dap kings. love their style man.

astros lose the opener. somehow, i knew.

i wonder how long i could get by on four hours sleep. probably two/three days. then i would collapse. it's something i would like to try at some point. i bet i could get a lot done.

the last days of disco

it's good friday. last day of eating fish on friday. i'm sure i'll eat fish again on fridays, but with a side of chicken and beef for dessert.

there's a top fed official who wants to break up the banks. this guy is something. i totally dig his style. he's the lone voice of reason amongst the federal reserve officials.

here's his story.

paul krugman disagrees.

here is the history of the toothbrush and toothpaste. of course it was the chinese who invented it. love those chinese.

i passed the audit section of the cpa exam. this weekend i'll be studying endlessly for the business section, which i take at the end of april. i really hope i pass that one too. to have 50% of the test done, with still basically 14 months to accomplish the other two section is a big deal. that would put me in a really good spot. but either way, i feel really good about passing. it gives me a lot of confidence and i'm going to need it because each section gets harder and harder. i wish i could pass each one the first time. man, that would be great.

"but here i go again, wishin' never solved a problem. if you wanna get it big time, you better get it, get it big time."

not a great quote, but i really dig the song by yeasayer.

i'll come running

i went running yesterday and my entire body feels like goo. gelatinalized goo.

i got my business cds in the mail. time to hang up the tunes and hang down(?) the monotanized female business voice that feeds me endless amounts of information. yes!

actually this weekend i have a ton of studying to do. i think i'll do it. and i think i'll eat some eggs too.

another day

"it's just another day."

paul said it best. it's just another day. another day.

i passed the audit section of the cpa exam.

white rabbits and dr. dog coming to houston in april. am i excited? yes. am i going? yes. will i continue to ask and answer questions from myself? probably. no, definitely.

hey joe

well said mr. vice president. well said.

on down the line

health care has passed people. let us rejoice. now let's get out of iraq, get out of afghanistan, close down wall street and give us all candy.

alex chilton. the dude invented power pop. if power pop sounds lame, that's because no one does it like alex chilton. he took rock and added life and soul to it and with chris bell made it beautiful and touch and shady. he deserves a place on the rock history mount rockmore with bob dylan, john lennon and mickey dolenz. i love mickey dolenz.

uh-oh, love comes to town

"if you were really smart, you'd know what to do."

it's about to come a gully-washer here in houston.

i ate two chicken biscuits for breakfast and lunch. brunch. lunkfest. either one is a wonderful new word. born of laziness.

this weekend has its promises.