Re-engage Transmission 2

Another attempt at a relaunch?  Yep, another attempt at a relaunch.

I'm not entirely sure why this blog more or less withered up and died a few years ago, other than the fact that holy shit did it take itself too seriously.  Not that I wasn't writing reasonably well about topics worth covering, but I slipped a little too much into the common voice of what I was writing about.  There was the POLITICAL COMMENTATOR VOICE, and the SERIOUS REVIEWER VOICE, and the occasionally the ME JUST WRITING ABOUT BULLSHIT VOICE.

Which is, of course, my real voice.

My real voice sounds a little like the way this looks.

And so I'm going to attempt to relaunch this guy by writing about everything I care about, except with my real voice.

We'll see how it goes.

*KSHHHT*--Re-engaging Transmission

Christ, where did all this now come from? One minute I'm writing about exploding rubber chickens and looming Summer and suddenly I'm up to my armpits in Winter, how exactly did this happen?

At any rate, it's time to kick the dust off this thing for some year end activity. I'm working on my best albums of 2009 list, which is horribly self indulgent and ridiculous and perfectly at home at Dogs On Houses.

In the meantime, however, I do have a little something-something for those in the Christmas spirit. Two years ago I assembled 20 track one hour mix CD of "cool" Christmas music that I distributed to friends and family. I wanted something a little off kilter that still stuck close enough to the spirit of the season, a collection appropriate for the whole family that also didn't make you want to die. There's some indie rock bands (Raveonettes, Eels, Bright Eyes) and some classics (Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Junior), but also a few curve balls (Run DMC, etc.) I tied it all together with samples from Gremlins, the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and snippets of 80's holiday commercials.

I've recently made it available for download, albeit as one hour long MP3 to make it, well, less illegal. Tracks are mixed into each other and I can't really imagine it all being of interest to anyone wanting to steal individual songs, but I do want to minimize the chance that this will put me on the wrong side of the powers that be.

Send your e-mail address to stitch@nospamthankspoly-p.com* if you're interested and I'll reply with a download link and an exact tracklisting. I'd post the link here directly but I do want to have some sort of screening process that will keep me clear of any trouble.

A frequent question I get is whether or not a sequel is in the works, and after barely missing the cutoff for this holiday season I believe I can go on record and say that next year it's going to happen. I've got most of the songs collected but I just need a bit more time.

At any rate, enjoy the 2007 mix and I hope you and your family find happiness, health, and no herpes this holiday season.

*minus the "nospamthanks" bit, of course.

The State of Dogs On Houses

I haven't written for this blog lately and the reason I haven't written for this blog lately is because I've been writing something that is not this blog.

Exactly.

Since the New Year I have been obsessively chipping away at the manuscript for a project that's been slow cooking for a couple years now.  This is good, as it means I'm making nightly progress and at the end of every week I can look back and count the amount of new pages that have survived the laborious transition from brain to computer.  Tangible progress is being made, to the extent that the finish line is in sight.  Within a month or two I should have a completed manuscript that can be read from start to finish.

The downside to spending one's time writing, however, is that the only thing I then have to write about is this: writing.  Only other writers would be interested in reading about that, and then only non-writing writers desperate to live vicariously through someone who manages to sit and stare at Microsoft Word for three hours a night while clicking on plastic keys.

Sit poorly, might I add.  I hunch like I'm assembling a puzzle that forms a massage therapist ad.

Also: I guess I am lying when I say that things haven't been happening to me beyond writing.  I wanted to write about my crippling guilt over abandoning my '98 Corolla for a shiny '08 Scion TC.  I wanted to write about the overwhelming joy I felt on January 20th, and the ripples of pride I still feel when I hear the words "President Obama."  I wanted to write about the queasy horror of reading about bush fires sliding all over an area of Australia I visited last October.  I want to write a review of the Lonely Island CD. 

I would write about all these things and more, but here's the catch: I am too busy destroying my back and staring at Microsoft Word for three hours a night while clicking on plastic keys.

You can't have everything.

A brief note from the management

Dogs On Houses isn't even two months old and yet I've written more entries than I managed during the past two years on my LiveJournal. Part of this is due to the allure of a shiny new toy, I'm sure, but I've also got to admit it is nice to have a platform large enough to encompass more than just scatological humor.

On the topic of my now defunct LiveJournal, I'm thinking of sifting through those archives and polishing some of the better stories for inclusion on Dogs On Houses. I'll probably do it once a month or so as a means of giving a permanent home to the entries I deem worthy.

Generally speaking, though, I am more interested in writing new things than trying to patch leaks in old posts, so we'll see if I ever actually get around to doing this.

Something Old, Something New

Six years ago I created a LiveJournal to chronicle all the ways in which I am a moron. It was intended to be a sounding board for the various ridiculous thoughts that filtered through my brain on a daily basis, dressed up and packaged as entertaining reads. This was eventually broadened to encompass anything humorous that transpired in my life that merited retelling.

I documented a weekend's worth of elevator stories. I documented a farting man with a tiny erection at my gym. I documented accidentally brushing my teeth with the cat vomit brush. And, in what some would consider to be that journal's crowning moment, I documented the time I plugged up a date's toilet with no plunger in sight.

Enough.

Stories of the awkward and humiliating moments in my life only take things so far. They still happen and they will continue to be written about but I have other things to say now.

Broadening the scope of my existing LiveJournal to encompass these new topics didn't seem appropriate. It was created by a different version of me in a different place in his life with different goals and interests; suddenly shoving in political essays between the vulgar bathroom stories hardly seemed appropriate. Additionally, I grew tired of the LiveJournal format itself, as I increasingly felt I was trying to shoehorn a would-be humor column into a public diary.

Enough.

It is time to write about everything in a place where people aren't almost exclusively writing about nothing.

This is, of course, pretty self-serious talk from a guy who still can't resist a good dick joke.