At this very moment, some higher power is indulging in amusement. Oh I can almost taste the irony of my “Dog-Pee-Rant” from yesterday stewing in bad karma, permeating to form a revenge jubilee.

Zelda is sick. It doesn’t appear to be anything terminal, but over the last 18 hours I have had to deal with the epitome of unpleasant experiences. It appears that I will be extending my stay here in Athens until she is better. I have a split perspective on this ordeal. Part of me feels pretty sorry for her- she just looks sad, she’s hungry, and about the only thing I can do to comfort her is lay in bed with her until she falls asleep. The other part of me (the smaller part) wonder’s how in the freaking hell an organism is capable of creating such persistent and abominable monstrosities.

Time to change the subject.

I was skimming through my overflowing “Fan Mail” folder in Outlook, when a particular letter caught my attention. I take that back, there were two emails that took hold of my focus.

The first one was from Stacy Wantsom, who was kind enough to offer me a few tips on “how to please her for hours.” She even took the time to provide a list of websites who offer low prices (and even free shipping!) on a wide variety of pharmaceutical enhancements. Thanks Stacy! It means a lot when someone goes out of their way just for me.

The second was from Sara in Chicago. Sara has suggested that I do a “of-the-week”-esque publishment to keep me on top of updates and to provide a steady delivery of “cool stuff”. Sara, I tip my hat… I mean, my beanie to you.

So, for the first time in jeffwichman.com history, I give you

“Jeff Wichman’s PICKS.OF.THE.WICH.”
*cue unnecessarily fast-paced special report music*

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… so yeah right now, I’ve just got two categories. Feel free to suggest more genres.

HERO.OF.THE.WICH.
This weeks HERO.OF.THE.WICH. goes out to Brad From This Email Reply Which Quite Possibly Could Have Been Staged. May your reasoning inspire, your ideas flourish, and your attitude encourage.

SONG.OF.THE.WICH.
My selection here is going to limited to my legal privileges, but this weeks SONG.OF.THE.WICH. appears in yesterday’s post and is available to your listening thirst right here. Sister Hazel - Champagne High If I had money (emphasis on if) I would definitely hire this producer for any of my recording aspirations. I may be dead wrong on this interpretation, but what mainly caught my respect for this production (along from it just sounding great) was the way they managed, through the music, to portray the “champagne high” that the lyrics depict- right there at the end in a collage of instrumentals and pieces of lyrics. Drifting thoughts in a painful euphoria of self-actualization. Well done, my friends. Well fucking done.

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Well, it’s about time I take Zelda out for her hourly “Just please don’t crap on my floor” outing.

Until next time,

“There’s beauty in the breakdown.” - Frou Frou

This post is a collection of scribbled-thoughts produced over the last three days, who’s combined powers form one excessively long post.

The apocalypse is near. Zelda woke me up at 6:00am with an exceptional urge to urinate. There is a common ritual with this routine. First, I will be in my REM sleep just dreaming away of something cool, around the said dream’s denouement (usually just moments before) I will be rudely awaken by a very cold nose touching my cheek. Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to experience an attempt at waking me up knows that I am not happy when I wake up. Actually, not happy is a pleasant, non-expletive description. Anyways, immediately following this cold-shock, I push Zelda off of me and mutter some obscenity. In comparison to an alarm clock, this is equivalent to smashing the snooze button, with a faint hope that the alarm won’t scream again. Hope has never served me well. Zelda’s “cold-nose alarm” will get snoozed usually two more times before I sub-consciously pull the covers over my head. Next, she will sit at the end of the bed and whine for a few minutes before pawing at the covers to pull them off of me. By now my brain has been functioning enough to kick in my rationalism. I realize Zelda is just being a good dog and telling me politely “take me the hell outside or I’m going to piss on your floor.” Mind you I’m usually in my boxers, and at this point I’m debating on either throwing some clothes on, or wrapping myself in the blanket. We go through the process getting the leash on, I open the door, and she tears out. I have to keep up with her going down the stairs before the leash runs out of slack, otherwise I’m going to bust my ass. Zelda spends an absolutely unnecessary amount of time finding the right patch of pine straw to pee on. Finally we’re ready to return to bed. Zelda is hungry now that she is awake and I try to explain that I’ll feed her when I wake up (which is basically a number between 3 and 10 hours).

Anyways, this morning, we go through the routine, except there are new external variables. We get outside to find the whole freaking town is covered in ice. One of my neighbors was leaving for a class (I have determined he is insane for having a 7:15 class) and couldn’t scrape the ice off of his windshield. Me being the nice guy I am decided to go in and find a scraping-device. My utensil of choice was a metal-grill-spatula-thing. Scraping ice is not easy, nor fun, nor any other adjective that portrays a state of well-being. Now I’m wide awake. I have a new perspective on dammit.

What the hell is going on with the weather? I live in Georgia. As in, that state in the U.S. south. Make fun of us cause we talk funny and say yall. Mock our fictitious lack of modern-lifestyles, call us rednecks, point out the over-abundance of pick-up trucks, but dammit let us keep our short pansy winter and I’ll welcome your notation that “I don’t know what cold is.” Walking on ice is an evolutionary-bi product I do not possess. Watching me try and walk on something covered in ice could very easily be mistaken to watching a young colt try and use their legs for the first time immediately after birth- except the newborn horse would show me up, rub it in my face, and go grab his buddies to come watch my feeble attempt at not falling.

Finals are finished, the semester- history! Am I seriously supposed to do more of these “semester” things? I’m going to Savannah tomorrow (if the weather permits). Time to pull from the cobwebs and dust off my sandals, shorts, and other apparel you won’t find in the holy-shit-it’s-cold section.

More random things I feel like saying…

Get the Garden State soundtrack. If I could purchase stock in Zach Braff’s talent, I’d be set for life. Not only did the guy write, direct, and star (with an outstanding performance) in the most-excellent film Garden State, the kid has a fantastic taste in music. I can’t accurately describe the sound to you… maybe because it takes hold of your inner-thoughts and takes them for a walk in the park on a beautiful day… thus immobilizing my ability to describe. Wait, didn’t I just.. ? next..

As the end of the year approaches, I look back and realize that 2005 will get my nomination for “Most Elaborate, Erratic, Painful, Wonderful, Change-Invoking Year.” That is, of course, in my life thus far. Re-capping these still-occuring changes is something I’m simply incapable of doing. Bits as pieces will arise in later posts I’m sure. To answer your first two suspicions: -no, I’m not gay, and -no, noone died. I will say I have experienced change on so many levels, at such magnitude, at such a fast pace- that I can feel comfortable using the cliche’ that I don’t know who I am. But that’s not a bad thing… it’s more like a brilliant discovery, awaiting investigation and research, analysis and explanations- and one fine day, be put to significant and wonderful use. Can you see why I opted not to attempt a summary?

Alas, Oh yeah, here’s a song I recorded a long time ago that I never got around to polishing. You see, my voice went through a drastic (not yet sure if it’s for better or worse) change after I had those bastard tonsils (may they burn in tonsil-hell) sliced off of my throat. I intended to go back and re-record vocals because I think these sound like utter crap. Anyways, I figured since I’m on a roll here with updating and whatnot, I’d give you some music. It’s one of the first songs where I actually use electric guitar and make a feeble attempt at a solo. “After Three” was written about Alison, my pathetic but consistent feelings for her, and our adventures in between adolescence and maturity… the adolurity stage of our lives, per se’

Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade are running their annual Child’s Play charity. Fixate that guilty conscious and go send a toy to brighten a child’s life.

Our Lady Peace @ The Tabernacle (12-5) was pretty cool. However, largely due to the fact that it was a 99X radio festival, it didn’t hold a candle to my experience at The Roxy. (10-13) I’ve posted pictures and video clips below. I’ll try and dive deeper into that concert experience in the near-future. Their new album Healthy in Paranoid Times is pristine, and I highly recommend its purchase.

Check out the quote at the bottom of this entry. Right on, Siter Hazel.

Don’t be afraid to leave comments. Comments for a male interdork like myself, are like suprise flowers for the average female.

Video
Potato Girl
Innocent
Clumsy
Superman’s Dead

Pictures

Until next time,

“Where will I be when I stop wondering why?” - Sister Hazel