Compelling anti-war video

By jeremy | 9 May, 2008 - 9:56 pm | current events, internets, media, uncategorized

Comments Off

Former U.S. soldier droppin’ some Truth about this bullshit war in Iraq. Do your self and your conscience and your country and your fellow human beings a favor by watching this and then doing something about it.

link roundup

By jeremy | 11 July, 2007 - 8:00 am | internets, uncategorized

2 Comments

Best of Craigslist: “From an Angry Soldier” – a must-read.

Songbird, a “a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up” – have not tried it yet, looks promising!

Awesome contraption a la Rube Goldberg!

Some Dayton, OH YouTube-ness. (Bonus: look for some great Brainiac live footage!)

Some things never change: what my mom’s been up to lately. (This last apparently involving something along the lines of stealing cable.) (Also i found some interesting busts from the early 90s here, including petty theft, unlawful use of property, and drug abuse.)

Information relating to the indictment (for involuntary manslaughter) of my good friend Derek Bayes, a kind and gentle fellow musician, who, according to anecdotal personal testimony, was defending himself against his girlfriend’s enraged, blind, shotgun-wielding estranged husband (or something very similar), when he accidentally choked the guy to death. According to some mutual friends, when the ambulance and police came, he was still on top of the guy and was crying when they took him away. A trumped up case, especially after the local media got ahold of it and spun it the wrong way round like the bloodthirsty vampires they are. I know Derek, and he is a harmless and sweet man with a good heart. And he’s still sitting in prison, with a couple years left on his nine-year sentence. (Don’t let his mug shot fool you, he was obviously having a very, very bad day.)

Another good friend of mine: Dee, who shares my birthday and who is yet another extraordinary kind human being who was caught up in some bad circumstances. Thankfully, Dee’s free again.

Historic South Park District in Dayton, OH (where we now live).

We’re thinking about buying the house we’re in, and this information has been pretty helpful thus far. Also, knowing more about bad mold can’t hurt!

moving soon

By jeremy | 30 May, 2007 - 5:28 pm | life, local, uncategorized

Comments Off

We’ve rented a new place! It’s a gigantic house, with two floors plus a basement. Nine foot ceilings! It’s in pretty ratty shape, but it’s over 130 years old, so there ya go.

Of course, being a very old house means that there are probably no more than ten power outlets in the entire place. We’ll just have to stock up on power strips and try not to overdo any one outlet.

And the landlord is sooooo friendly. I certainly don’t expect anything extra from him just because we get along… it’s just so nice to actually have an interesting and friendly person as your landlord. I once worked a corporate job where the ironic in-house motto was “easy to do business with,” and this nice man seems to embody just that. And his wife is an artist! She works with oils, and does Manet Impressionism!

So, if anyone wants to help us fix the place up and move, let me know. I can’t promise reasonable reciprocation, but if you like beers or i can do anything for you, we’ll work something out.

It’s huge. I cannot state this enough. Gargantuan. Nice area, too.

And pets? Way, way allowed. Very cool.

Unfortunately, we are stuck paying rent where we’re at until mid-July. Oh well. It’ll be a little tougher for the few couple of months, but we’ll be okay. I plan on starting moving over to the new place as soon as possible, though.

I can’t wait to start recording regularly and working on guitars. I plan on eventually making it a sort of hobby business. Eventually, i want to start turning out my own custom guitars.

Also, i did get my PC back from the shop… but it still has restart/power-down issues. I can live with it. At least i can work on it without it going all wonky in the middle of anything at any time.

And… the 1-month mensiversary of my grandfather’s exit was yesterday. Foul, foul day it was. I am still heartbroken, natch.

black hole

By jeremy | 2 May, 2007 - 10:06 am | family, life, uncategorized

Comments Off

it’s starting to really hit me. the initial shock and numbness is done with. today is somehow different. it was already really bad for me (it’s been a deepening pit of hell for 2 1/2 years now, with the absolute worst part of it starting just two weeks ago). but now it seems even harsher somehow. i feel like i’m trying desperately to escape the immense gravity of a black hole.

it’s sinking in.

hell, i’m sinking in.

someone i knew and loved, lived with and shared experiences and conversations with for years and years… dead. gone. forever.

no more talking. no more sharing. no more gestures or hugs or ironic smiles. ever.

i should point out that, as a devout agnostic who leans rather heavily towards atheism, i do not believe in an afterdeath of any kind. extraordinary claims, after all, require extraordinary evidence. so this is… difficult. to say the least.

life. gone. over. finished. done. kaput. a fire is snuffed forever.

this may be even worse than when my poor sweet grandmother died in 2001, if only because now, the other shoe has finally dropped. it’s like the floor itself has been pulled out from under me, and all that exists is empty space underneath for me to fall through. the bottom, as it were, has dropped out!

i am starting to freak out

terrible happiness

By jeremy | 27 April, 2007 - 2:13 am | family, life, uncategorized

Comments Off

My grandfather’s back home now. We’re all, basically, on Death Watch. He’s home; home to die. I hope he knows he’s home, anyway.

He is now beyond being able to communicate. I remember this part all too well from when my dear sweet Grandma was at death’s door. It’s the most frustrating thing. You sense that they want something but have no way to determine what and give it to them.

Not only that, but it seems like my grandfather is thinking on an infant level. Maybe not; in a way, though, that would be preferable. I hate the thought of him knowing full well the extent of the damage to his verbal and motor skills. But the oxygen deprivation from last Thursday’s terrible ordeal virtually guarantees that he’s brain damaged.

It’s horrifying, and heart-shattering, and there’s not a god damned thing that anybody can do.

The poor guy has been through so much. To think that he’s laying there with his ribs all broken, just fading out, piece by piece… I’m completely heartbroken.

Sometimes, when he’s awake, he’ll just stare and stare at you. No words. No words. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if he knows who I am. My bud, my lifelong best friend, my teacher and mentor… is he in there somewhere?

So I’m trying to get on FMLA so I don’t lose my job. After giving them 50 hours of every week of my time, I have earned a whopping $0.30 raise, which I do need, since Dayton-area employers seem to think it’s completely fair to pay a person with over 10 years of call center experience $9 an hour. Unfortunately, I have to prove that he was my legal guardian.

Much easier said than done.

So I’ve been digging through countless drawers and boxes of memories. Ever have a moment of terrible happiness? That’s seeing a picture of my grandparents, young and sweet and smiling, knowing that one is gone forever, and the other is leaving soon.

My grandparents raised me, so this has been exactly like losing parents to me.

But I cannot prove it.

I think that I am going to lose my job very soon.

What could be worse than that?

I know that I am going to lose my grandpa very soon.