i think the era of me wearing combat boots exclusively is over, or at least on hiatus. it's too hot out for heavy boots anyway; maybe i'll feel differently come autumn.

the zippers on my boots have been giving me static for awhile: one would stop working, then i would get it sorta-working again, then another zipper would break. or the pulltabs would come off completely. so i stopped wearing them a month or two ago. i've been wearing my old semi-worn chuck taylors from back in day (i've probably had them since high school, not that i wore them often in the past ten years [until recently]).

because today is my last day in town before going to san francisco for vacation, & my niece & her friend go home next week, the whole family went out for chinese buffet lunch one more time. we were there so early that no food was out yet when we arrived. but it was good, & the food came out promptly. afterward, "grampa" (my father; it's still weird referring to my own parents as grampa & grandma, though i guess those are their roles now) had plans to take the girls to shoe carnival. i'd been considering buying some new chucks anyway, so i tagged along. (i'm not exactly happy that nike is now the company making chuck taylors, but then again i have no clue who made any of my boots, or under what working conditions, so i can't complain too much.)

nike seems to be pushing the "flame" style of chucks pretty hard; i can't hang with that, sorry. like buying jncos, i have to be selective of what i will buy because some of the chuck designs are just too loud or gaudy for me. back in the day, by far the coolest chuck design was the "black mono", featuring black canvas as well as black rubber; if i'd seen those i would've snapped them up in an instant. shoe carnival had a "black mono flame", but that simply wasn't good enough.

shoe carnival had a "buy one get one-half sale", so i snagged two pairs: "gry/car/wht" and "navy/red/gold". grampa paid for one, as a birthday present. i also got a $3 discount coupon for being the first customer to touch my nose with my tongue, but i forgot to actually use it when at the register (true story). other than a pair or two of dress shoes that i never worn, this was the first time i'd bought new shoes in 8-10 years. so that's fun.

anyway, i have a couple errands to run, and i need to pack for my bay area vacation. i will have internet access there, but i don't know how often i'll get around to blogging. i'll be too busy hanging out with my lovely girlfriend, seeing the sights, going to shows, and so on.

after i return is the mms show. see awia news for more info about that show, as well as how to buy discounted badges for the whole conference.  ¶ 3:13 PM

there was a bit of a delay, but the new mp3ep from animals within animals, get me some press or kill these people, is now available for free download!

more info on awia news. check it out.  ¶ 9:35 AM

just returned from dnb night... it was a special event, a record release party for jahba & sumone (the two regular djs of the night). special guests for the night were enduser and soundmurderer.

we showed up maybe 10:45 or so. quahogs and crew were there, so we hung out with them & talked for awhile. that was fun. quahogs & scottfro were both wearing the "recycle your record collection" t-shirt (interesting because neither of them live in-state), but unfortunately i didn't get a chance to talk to scottfro, so he remains one of my few customers who i've never been in contact with other than to sell them something...

enduser started not long after we arrived. sounded like he played a bunch of new material (or at least there was a lot i didn't recognize; it couldn't have all come from records i don't have, because i have a decent percentage of his catalog). the crowd was pretty packed (much moreso than last week) & they were all over enduser. both drbmd & dj coppertop commented how it was almost shocking to see a crowd in indy get so into something so hard. when he played one of his "better known" tracks (i think it was "wreckin' shit"? i need to double-check), several in the crowd "sang along" to the sample "she asked me to give her 9 inches and make it hurt so i fucked her three times and punched her in the mouth"... i sure don't remember that happening when he played the same track when i saw him in march... though we also heard someone spin that track last week, so maybe it gets played a lot at dnb night.

after enduser came soundmurderer. he was playing from a laptop, but i guess it was a dj set (at least to some extent) because he straight up played "bucephalus bouncing ball" by aphex twin & i think i also recognized a mu-ziq track in there somewhere... the crowd was into that too, but they also started to thin out by this point. good set, anyway, from a pretty big name dnb dj.

we didn't stick around too much after soundmurderer; we did hear the first jahba track from the record whose release party it was. it was good, but what most stuck me about it was that it seemed familiar... it was built around a ragga that i've definitely already heard sampled in ragga jungle ("murder dem"). it did sound good though. anyway, the record isn't even quite out; they were just playing the test pressing. i thought the point of a record release party is that you have copies of the record available?

this was also streamed over the internet at drumandbasstv.com. according to the marketing, it was the "first ever live tv webcast of an american jungle event". i didn't see the camera (though i did see the webcast stuff; maybe the camera was there), so for all i know people on the internet could see us sitting there at the table not talking to anyone.

okay, way past my bedtime... i'm off to brush my teeth. big ups to the cincinnati crew, including enduser, quahogs, grant, q's brother, etc.  ¶ 1:32 AM

this game is a variant of "six degrees of kevin bacon", except the goal is to connect a given artist to the legendary industrial band skinny puppy. i don't remember the exact details of its origin (perhaps in the old radio freedom chat room?), but i do know that quahogs and i inspired tfy to post about it way back in april 2002.

anyway, i've been doing research for something i'm writing (more on this in a couple weeks when it comes out), & i suddenly remembered this game... it wouldn't really work for this thing i'm writing, but it occurred to me that now that otto von schirach has done some work on the latest skinny puppy record (and opened for them during part of their recent tour), it is extremely easy to connect just about anyone from the bad taste crew to skinny puppy in at most 3 degrees. which means that anyone who has a legitimate connection to me is at most 4 degrees from skinny puppy. allow me to demonstrate using tfy (as a treat because i know he used to play).

1. the former yugoslavia has a track on the free speech for sale compilation; also on that compilation is a track by animals within animals.
2. one of the collaborators on the animals within animals 2cd mono a mono was stunt rock.
3. stunt rock had a track on the Ye Olde Barn Compilation cd & record; otto von schirach also appeared on that release.
4. otto von schirach collaborated with skinny puppy on their cd "The Greater Wrong of the Right" and opened for them on several dates of that tour.

i chose to do this using only music releases. i could just as easily do it using live performance lineups. i don't necessarily have to go through stunt rock either; i picked him because the connection between us is strongest. for example:

1. the former yugoslavia performed live at recycled rainbow 5 (?); also performing that night was stAllio! (with animals within animals).
2. stAllio! had a track on the "Way to Go Dumb Ass" comp, along with doormouse, stunt rock, and loaf pincher (a side project of venetian snares and fanny).
3. doormouse, stunt rock, venetian snares, and fanny all appear on "Ye Olde Barn Compilation" alongside otto von schirach.
4. Q.E.D.

if you know anything about "Ye Olde Barn", you know it's dedicated to the wisconsin late "barn parties" thrown by the addict crew back in the day, & all the artists on it played at least one of those parties... otto played one or two, but i don't remember the specific lineup of the one he played, so i won't use it... i'm sure doormouse was on that bill, but not much else. and i did technically play a show on the same bill as doormouse in belvidere illinois in early may 2002, so you could use live shows exclusively if you wanted. i'm not vainly showing off, really. i'm just giving pointers for the skinny puppy game. it only feels like i'm showing off.  ¶ 7:29 PM

because i feel obligated to cross-post important awia news items here to my blog (i imagine some visitors might regularly check one but not the other):

praxis now has my true data 12" in stock. i've had a couple europeans inquire about buying the record and i told them all that praxis would have some in stock eventually, and now they do, so go get you some.  ¶ 7:22 PM