Mitch Hedberg is dead of an overdose at the age of 37.

Damn it.

I've set up a Netflix account in my name. This means twice the DVDs in J208, only this quarter I'll have a class to attend, and hopefully a job. This will be abated in part once Alex gets a DVD burner, but there are busy times ahead.

Watched In The Mood For Love and The Ruling Class. I recommend both films, albeit to different people.

That gum you like is going to come back in style.

There were plans for a big essay thing, a real self-loathing marathon, loaded up with self-awareness about my inevitable future as a music critic. I'm now too exhausted to type it, there was a lot to it.

Instead I'll say that I ended up accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish. Job application handed in, short story submitted (and oh my god that rejection's going to fucking suck, even now as I expect it there's still some hope left but fuck no rejection rejection rejected) and Underworld finished.

Books on my bookshelves that are unread: Mishima, Confessions Of A Mask. Faulkner, As I Lay Dying. Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury. O'Connor, Complete Stories. Nabokov, The Stories Of Vladimir Nabokov. McSweeney's 15.

I am tired.

And shit: That mix I made of the music of 2003 designed to be both autobiographical (it's limited to what I heard within the year) and a best-of left off The Shins' Young Pilgrims, didn't it? Fuck. That's better than most of the songs on there. The issue is that I ripped the song for the express purpose of putting it on there, but in all the hustle I never put it on the playlist. Crap. It's not even like the sequencing on that disc is that good. Oh well.

Here's a quote of someone else paraphrasing something Patton Oswalt said, re: why he's no longer on VH1. "They want you to come in and riff on these talentless celebrities, and they give you these questions to answer... After a while, I just wanted to say, 'Paris Hilton is a cunt and I hope she dies of AIDS.'"

As for the news: I don't care about the girl in the coma so much as I care about the fact that Bush signed a law when he was Governor of Texas that allows for the plug to be pulled on people who can't pay, regardless of the family's wishes. I honestly can't imagine anything more evil-fuckerish, and I want to punch that guy in the scrot. I think he'd appreciate the comedy of me doing so, what with his frat-boy background and all.

Yesterday I got sprayed with a fire extinguisher by some drunk asshole. Fire extinguishers spray this white powder chemical that soaks the air, tastes fucking terrible, and covers everything with an invisible grainy texture.

I've heard the new Beck record, mastered and sequenced, and it's not very good. When did he become a scientologist? Because if it was after Midnite Vultures, then I'm blaming that for his decline.

The Thunderbirds Are Now! album isn't very good, nor is what I've heard of the Bunky record. Many of the reviews make it seem promising, but the songs I've heard from mp3 blogs and the band's website were so shitty I didn't even download the full record.

New Sleater-Kinney's good. The Enon singles comp is considerably better than the Les Savy Fav singles comp from last year. (which I actually bought, like a sucker) Only the first song off the next Broken Social Scene is available so far as I know, but it's a good one. I haven't heard all of the Stephen Malkmus record yet. I imagine it'll be okay but I will never want to listen to it, not unlike Pig Lib. Generally I'm thinking a better year for music than last year.

Oh yeah, so top ten records released last year that didn't make the Pitchfork list at all, in no order.

The Mountain Goats- We Shall All Be Healed
The Hold Steady- Almost Killed Me
Beauty Pill- The Unsustainable Lifestyle
Black Eyes- Cough
Black Dice- Creature Comforts
The Blow- Poor Aim: Love Songs EP
Girl Talk- Unstoppable
Liars- They Were Wrong So We Drowned
!!!- Louden Up Now
Deerhoof- Milk Man

So if I were in Philadelphia right now there'd be a Salvador Dali exhibit I could be seeing. And if I were there in May, I could live Alex's dream, as there's a night where there's a Caribou/Junior Boys show, and then right after that, at the same venue, there's an Autechre show. Two separate shows, but Autechre tickets are cheaper if you see Caribou. In May plans are to drive down the coast and see California, Evie, and The Boredoms. I have no idea how much money this will cost, and I will need to investigate further.

Don DeLillo's Underworld is rather good, only it needs to be read quickly, with all the characters kept straight so it doesn't just come off like a short story collection. I should finish it over the next two days, definitely done before Wednesday.

Also I need to write up a cover letter to print out, staple to this short story, and send off. This needs to be done before break is over. Let's say both these things should be accomplished by Tuesday.

Also to be done tomorrow is hand in a job application to be a custodian of this school's filth.

Hypodermic needles have been found in bathrooms in the library.

I just looked through/reread the short story I wrote for my contract, the long one, that I like more than the others and worked out really well. This is the one I was thinking about making a copy of the version I have printed out now and submitting it places. And then I found typos and grammatical errors and felt my confidence plummet. I'll have to print out the fixed versions for submissions, but just the fact that I found these errors now is disconcerting.

Tomorrow I'll go and hand in all these things, have the meetings with faculty and all that. Perhaps I will take this story with the errors fixed, print it out, and place it into a yellow envelope I bought for just such an occasion, and then perhaps that story will be placed into the mail.

There is almost assuredly rejection in my future but there is rejection in my past as well. I am a fuckup.

Goddamn but I've skirted saying McSweeney's because it feels like some kind of actual-life equivalent of a nerd asking out a cheerleader. But I mean: yes.

The story has its moments. That's true for all that I've written for the independent contract. Everything has its moments, nothing's consistent. This is just the piece where the overall collection of moments is at its most impressive.

I feel sick.

There's a lot of music coming out in the future that I would probably buy were it not for this cable internet connection and Olympia music stores sucking. I'm considering going down to Portland to pick up the new Mountain Goats record, The Sunset Tree, once it's released. I'm also excited about the next Silver Jews thing, and there's a new Broken Social Scene record starting to leak that's the kind of thing I'd buy. It's all very tricky, what with having no money and living in Olympia. Owning records is just great for listening to the whole thing from end to end over and over again, which is really the best way to get into an album.

My plan was to review everything in my 2005 playlist for stuff that's coming out or has already come out this year, but that'd be largely unfair given my listening practices. Suffice it to say that the Out Hud and Trail Of Dead records are not the kinds of record that should be bought. Most other things would give me enjoyment if I bought them and listened to them over and over again.

After seeing Bad Education, I'm even more confident that Talk To Her is Almodovar's masterpiece, at least in terms of how it works out his pet themes that I find interesting. The only thing that lingers is that the version I saw of Bad Education might've been some R-rated cut, and that there might be more footage missing than just cock shots, of which there were none, which was what was supposed to make it an NC-17 film. The characters in Bad Education aren't nearly as sympathetic as those in Talk To Her, which is what helped me love that film so much. There is a really great opening credits sequence and a few great shots. Alex thinks Bad Education is the better film, but he is alone so far as I know.

I just finished watching Kieslowski's Blue. It's a great film, one I don't quite get, as it's obviously loaded up with symbolism, and done with a great deal of deliberateness. As I was watching I found myself distracted by my thoughts. Class registration for Spring quarter is coming up in less than nine hours and my initial enthusiasm for some of the classes being offered has given way now to boredom and a feeling of spinning my wheels. Nothing I've written down to sign up for will teach me anything solid, there are no workable skills to be found. I want to make films next year, there's a program called Mediaworks which will hopefully allow me to do just that.

I was talking a few nights ago to someone about the difficulty of living up to one's potential, because there's just so much potential in a person and a limited amount of youth to expend it. The only way to live up to one's potential is to put oneself in positions one wouldn't normally find themselves in. I could build a blimp in a backyard over the course of a year. I could make films. There's also the possibility I could do shit like become a surgeon or learn the ins and outs of the law.

But it's been a year and a half of pursuing writing. I'm done with doing that for school, paying to learn about it. Fuck it. Fuck it in its ass. I might end up taking Faulkner and Friends tomorrow. The reason that's tempting is because I own three of the books on the syllabus, and I'll read them eventually. And at this exact moment in time, that's what makes me not want to take the class.

I'm now leaning towards Framing Film, but I want to tear through the catalog now and find something that will teach me something I don't already know. There's a class about sailing, which, as I thought about it watching Kieslowski's Blue, seemed really tempting.

Goddamn.

These job applications want personal references and damn it all to hell.

These job applications want personal references and damn it all to hell.

The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday is a rather good record, bar band with brilliant lyrics stuff like the first, but I'm listening to it from beginning to end, before I go to sleep, as that's when the urge strikes and I can invest some attention into it. I listen to Beauty Pill's Unsustainable Lifestryle from beginning to end as well. Lyrics records.

Tomorrow I am going to fill out these job applications and read these books, sitting to my left. Maybe there will also be some writing. Monday I had in the job applications and will have to wake up early to do so. Then more writing and reading.

One of the book's sititng to my left is Don Delillo's Underworld, which is one that should really be taking up the whole of my attention. Without all my attention, it is only half-understood. What's bizarre is that it's a book about the latter half of the American twentieth century, and the image on the front cover is that of the World Trade Center. Could a better image be chosen to represent that period of time now? This was accident and happenstance, book design in 1998. It's a decent book, as well.

Yeah, I really need a job. I owe the college over a thousand dollars just for Winter Quarter, and if that's not paid, (by my parents) I won't be able to register for classes in Spring. I'm thinking if I could get a job, I could also get an apartment, and stop going to school for a while... Spring and Summer quarter, just a leave of absence. I'd still owe the college money for this quarter, though, in addition to the student loans bit which I might end up being forced to pay back.

I need a job, plain and simple. I need the money, and I need to move off campus.

I'm also thinking about taking Mediaworks next year. I still love writing, but I'm over doing it for school. And, while I'm thinking about it, I really need to make some copies, copyright these things, submit them. I submitted my story Drawing In Frosting to Barrelhouse. I wouldn't get paid if it got published. Woo.

12:48 AM and depression is settling in for the night.

Tomorrow I will get things done for sure. I'll reward myself with tacos for dinner, and I'll read books on the bus and go to a show and after that's done I'll talk to people.

Got this thing on my computer I need to write more of. And my plan to get things done tomorrow forgot about my paper on James Joyce's The Dead. I'll reread that now.