Just got back from a vacation in Nova Scotia. Man, I really needed that. What a beautiful province, I ate so much chowder and so many mussels and looked at so much ocean. I also was really surprised at how much I loved the Alexander Graham Bell museum. Turns out I knew almost zero about him, what a rad dude with a rad wife.

I'm really excited about music and recording again. I wasn't sure that'd ever happen. I’m going to start recording drums for new songs in the next few weeks -- it’ll be my first shot at using a live kit and human drummer for Brad Sucks songs so I’m curious/nervous to see how it’ll go.

I’m heading back to XOXO in Portland in September this year. If you’re in town, let’s grab a drink. XOXO was really inspiring last year, it really nailed home for me that my independent Internet creator angst is not in any way special or unique to me.

I've been loving the latest Queens of the Stone Age record the new Freeman record (by Aaron Freeman from Ween.) What have you guys been listening to?

PS: Current plan is to update here more regularly. But I also post stupid stuff on Twitter and Facebook.

I turned 35 yesterday. Luckily I had a flu also so it's all uphill from here. I've decided to get my mid-life crisis over with before 40, so I'm off the antidepressants, in two types of therapy and I hired a personal trainer. While it wasn't a disaster, I'm not interested in doing the next 35 the same way I did the first. So I'm trying to put some work in on that.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, I really appreciate it.

Hey guess who's back, it's totally me. Since I last wrote I switched my brain drugs to Cymbalta. It was a rough transition and it's expensive, but everything's going pretty nice upstairs now. A good decision overall, I wish I had switched a while ago. Also I've been busy working on some non-music things re: paying the bills, putting food on the table, bringing home the bacon, etc. What else happened? I can't remember. Let's look through my phone's photos:

Oh right, we made some acoustic panels for Justin the drummer's practice room. We have not practiced since. I wonder if they worked.

James Brummel painted portraits of Ottawa musicians onto drum heads for a gallery showing and compilation. I was one of them.

I haven't seen the finished one yet. The left side of my face came out a little fat I think.

This is a Bhut jolokia pepper. A chef friend tried it but I did not have the mouth-balls. He said he expected worse so we think we got a dud. He definitely did better than this guy.

My dad didn't want to store this heavy-ass arcade cabinet anymore since I have no time to work on it and he proposed we burn it on Canadian Thanksgiving. Which we did:

Kiiind of a waste but it was also awesome, so maybe it evens out?

This is my favorite new wine. They no longer sell it here so I'm favorite-wine-starved. :(

My lady's practicing doing Halloween make-up so I am a cut and bruise canvas.

Next up: maybe a Fallout: New Vegas gamecation followed by getting back to working on the record. Yes!

I've been tagged twice now in this Seven Things meme, first by Rob Campbell and second by Dan James. I resist this stuff because I'm boring but I've found reading other people's lists fascinating, so here we go:

The rules:

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. (see below)
• Let them know they've been tagged. (you'll just have to trust me)

My seven things:

• Jobs I have wanted in chronological order: Dickie Dee man, baseball player, Sierra On-Line adventure game designer, computer programmer, writer and musician.
• People I have written fan mail to: Mr. T and Michael Jackson. Neither replied. In my letter to Michael I lied and told him I lost my copy of Thriller and could he send me another one (signed please).
• When I was 17 and a desperate aspiring writer, I emailed Terry Pratchett to see if he'd answer my questions about writing. He graciously said "Sure, as long as they're not too dopey". I then asked him what he kept his margins set at in his word processing program. I still regularly think about how stupid that question was.
• The first concert I went to was Corey Hart (opened by Katrina and the Waves) during his Boy in the Box tour. I had backstage passes but Corey had already left when we tried to go up. (I lied and told all my friends I met him anyway.)
• A few years ago I was diagnosed with vitiligo, which is the disease that allegedly turned Michael Jackson white. I'm a pale guy so other than it turning a lot of my hair white it's not very visible unless I tan.
• When I was four or five I had a habit of peeing on my neighbor's steps. I can still remember my dad hosing them off.
• Me: “I need a seventh fact about me.”
  Her: "Why don't you say that you try to get angry at animals when they run out in front of the car so that you don't feel as bad if you kill them?"
  Me: ”Did I say that?”
  Her: ”That's what you told me to do.”

I am tagging Aaron Walker, Courtney Summers, Jesse Dangerously, David Weinberger, William Gibson, Hannah Aviva and Justin Dykhouse.