Meow House Theatre

It is snowing here again and I. fucking. hate. it.  I HATE IT.  Snow is the worst thing in the entire world.  It’s ugly, it’s dirty, it’s wet and messy and a big fucking pain in the ass to deal with unless you’re 10 years old and get to stay home from school.  For grown-ups, it’s useless worthless crap.

I have really been thinking of moving somewhere where it never snows.  The next time I move it will definitely be somewhere like that.  Two possible options are Atlanta or LA.  I think the weather in LA is better overall, but the state might fall into the ocean at any moment now.  And it’s so far away.  But it’s not like I have to stay here on the East Coast for anything.

I was talking to my cousin yesterday, who lives in LA, and was given the suggestion of Austin, TX, as a possibility, and I was all “Dude I can’t live in Texas!  Even Austin–as ‘liberal’ as it might be compared to the rest of the state–is still populated by Texans, and most Texans are Republicans, and I can’t live as one tiny little non-Republican in the middle of a whole army of them.”  And I know that I’d last about a week before I was forced to club someone in the head for some absurd right-wing statement.  So Austin is out.  No offense to anyone I know who lives in Texas.  You know who you are.

Atlanta is definitely cheaper than LA but it’s got worse weather, and I am thinking not as good of a music & photography scene.  Could be wrong about that.  LA is probably a lot more shallow than Atlanta. Although there are lovely people there too but given its primary industry, there have to be a lot of people obsessed with their looks.  Everyone’s a little obsessed but there are limits.

Anyway every time it snows some other warm part of the country calls me a little louder.  So if you have a decent non-creepy well-paying job you’d like to offer me, please drop me a note.  Nothing weird.  Nothing too weird.  If you want to buy my house while you’re making job offers, all the better.

God has it really been all the way since December 23 that I wrote in here? That shit about time flying? WELL IT’S TRUE.

Let’s see, I have taken to putting voice notes in my iPhone when I think of things I want to write about. But the success of that whole thing is dependent on listening to the notes later on. I haven’t quite progressed that far yet.

Couple of things I remember being interested in / puzzled about:

1. You know those signs on the back of commercial vehicles that say “How’s My Driving? Call 800-555-1212.”

Well, does anyone ever call? And more importantly, does anyone ever call and say “Hey, you know that van you got, #12054-B? Well I’m calling to report on his driving. It’s great.” No I bet they just get psychos who have some vendetta against random strangers who call to say ol’ Van #12054-B’s driving is SHIT. I have to try calling one day and heaping praise on someone, good driving or not, and see what happens. I bet I’d get hung up on for being a prank caller.

2. I can’t find the story now but CNN had a week or two ago a thing about this couple who failed to report their missing minor child for TEN YEARS. They just “forgot.” They said they “thought he ran away.” He was, I think, 10 at the time. “Oh hey … didn’t we have a kid? I haven’t seen him lately … so what’s for dinner?” What. the. fuck. The police, last I heard, had searched their back yard and “found an answer to a question,” which I think means they found a bag of bones buried somewhere. Will have to read CNN to find out more.

Except I am mad at CNN for broadcasting a disgusting piece on John Travolta and the death of his son. They were “reporting” (N. B. isn’t it sad that CNN has debased itself to “reporting” instead of merely reporting sans quotation marks?) on what happened and were playing a tape of John T. and his wife Kelly Preston, all smiling and happy, saying “hey” to the photographers. I thought, what a weird fucking way to greet reporters at the airport who are asking you about your DEAD CHILD, and why are they dressed in formal wear? And then I realized that CNN did not have footage of the actual John Travolta at the airport, arriving home after cremating his son, so they were playing some awards ceremony red carpet bullshit instead. Filled with John T. and his wife smiling and laughing and looking all happy, while Larry King talked about how tragic it was in the background. And that is when I decided that CNN and Larry King are big fucking sellout assholes, only marginally better than Fox News.

First off, I have really seriously been overtaken by Twitter and this site has suffered the abandonment of me from it. What’s happening is that I keep thinking of all this interesting stuff to write about but then I condense it down to exactly 140 characters (I am SO good at that, I mean EXACTLY 140) and post it on Twitter instead. I have to stop doing that so much. Anyway so this is something I tweeted yesterday but instead of being the below collection of paragraphs, it was one sentence. Hmmm that doesn’t say much for me, does it, that both of them end up saying the exact same thing, only one is so incredibly much shorter. Maybe brevity *is* all it’s cracked up to be.

Anyhoo:

I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and you know what everyone does there, besides telling little fibs to the doctor like “Why no I only have maybe one drink a month” or “Yes of course I make my partners use condoms every time”: they read the trashy magazines that they don’t get at home or are too embarrassed to admit reading and thus won’t even let the checkout girl at the Stop & Shop see them. I don’t mind buying The Economist at the grocery store but that high-school kid with the ring in his nose is never gonna see me buying some of the low-brow stuff I read when nobody is looking. Sometimes it’s nice to just chill and read mindless shit. I can’t be thinking deep thoughts all of the time, you know? Although I sincerely and truly state that I despise “women’s” magazines with a vile passion. I’d rather read Hustler than Cosmo; at least they’re honest about what they are. Cosmo tries to disguise itself as “female empowerment.” Yeah, right.

Anyhoo:

So I was there and I was reading People and it was their “Style” issue (uh-huh) and there was a layout about Heidi Klum and her latest venture, now that she’s probably getting too old to be a model (nothing against her, she’s gorgeous, but she’s also older than 15 and is thus getting “too old” for modeling). She has designed a clothing line it seems, and People quoted her as saying, regarding her line of jeans:

“Good jeans have to hug your curves and fit in all the right places” … “My initials are placed on the butt pockets in the perfect place to flatter your figure!”

Now please, is that not the most narcissistic quote EVER in the history of the world? Her initials are supposed to flatter MY butt? I. don’t. think. so.

I can only hope she was either joking and said that with an enormous twinkle in her eye; or People made it up; or they quoted out of context. I’m leaning toward the first since I’ve read some other stuff she’s said and she seems rather witty sometimes. And not an airhead. And People is not exactly The New York Times when it comes to “journalism.”

I actually didn’t even know who Heidi Klum was until she was in the episode of Sex and the City, the one where Carrie (all 4′10″ of her) is invited to be “a model” for some New York Glitterati fashion show event and she’s all excited and happy and thinking she’s the bee’s knees (but why? she must know she’s a neurotic alcoholic who writes a column for a really bad newspaper) until she sees that the other “Glitterati” who were invited consisted of Fran Leibowitz and Ed Koch. She then realizes in one shattering instant that it was less a case of “New York Glitterati” and more a “Who will say yes to doing free work for us?” event. Then she proceeds to have her hair done in a hideous Barbarella ‘do, put on some spangled underwear, and fall flat on her face while walking down the runway in shoes that really only bring her up to about 5′2″ even though they are essentially stilts with patent leather straps. But in between all that she goes ga-ga over standing next to Heidi Klum, who is one of the actual models invited to disguise the fact that people are going to be forced to look at Fran & Ed parading around in their standard manly suits. Well that’s the first time I ever figured out who Heidi Klum was. I believe I had previously confused her with Gisele Bündchen, who is another one I couldn’t keep straight until she started going out with Leo D. and then her picture was all over the place. I think they’ve broken up now.

I have a good memory for trashy gossip snippets in trashy magazines, obviously. Even though I only read them at the doctor’s office. I SWEAR.

So because all publicity is good publicity, here are the links to some pictures I have taken recently. I know I have another site where I usually put my photography work but what the hell, might as well put something here too.

A lot of you know that I have been to several Nine Inch Nails concerts in the past couple of months and I was able to get a photo pass for two of those. The first show I shot was in Worcester, MA, on 9 November, and that was supposed to be it. (For passes, I mean, not for concerts.) I had gotten that pass the regular way, by putting a request into Trent’s PR firm. However, while I was out in South Dakota for another show on 28 November I serendipitously met someone who knew my previous work and got me another pass directly, without having to go through the PR people, for the show they were playing the next day. This was pretty unusual, because most people are lucky to get ONE pass for NIN. That was definitely a happy day. Right place at the right time.

Anyhoo the pictures I shot on the passes turned out really well, plus the pictures I took just using my point-and-shoot cameras for the other shows I attended. I’ve put them all up so far on Flickr and they’ve been feeding through to the nin.com image galleries, and I have some of them linked over on my other site and once I finish writing up my story about the Las Vegas show I’ll have something there too specifically on that.

So if you are totally bored one day feel free to go visit.

meowhousemedia.com

NIN Flickr set

My gallery page on nin.com

If you have a Flickr account, it is probably best to click on the picture and choose to view “All Sizes” so you can see the original upload. Otherwise you only get the smaller picture that Flickr puts on the main page of the account.

And now a series of random thoughts that would make good Twitter posts except they’re about three times too long, if not more.

I saw this woman today in the caf, who works for one of our other companies in the building, and she said, “Hey have you lost some weight?” Why yes I have! I am not sure what’s going on and it could be that I have a dread disease but in any case I’ve had to buy three new sets of clothes in the past few months because they keep falling off me. But I don’t feel sick so I’ll just stick with it until something seems wrong. Oh stop worrying, nothing is wrong, I just changed my eating habits.

Also, a couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend who is moving overseas and the first thing she said was “What have you done to yourself?! You look fantastic!” I don’t know what I had done but it was nice to hear. Although I guess I must have looked like shit in the past. Hmmm.

^^^now don’t think I’m all vain and shit, even though I am. It’s nice to be told one looks nice. I also enjoy hearing “Wow you are smartest wittiest most interesting most intriguing and definitely the most incredibly talented person at X *and* Y *and* Z that I have ever met in my entire life!!!!!! It’s amazing! And my life is changed since we met!!!! ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” But usually people just stop with “Wow you look nice.”

A photographer contact sent me a message asking if I could give him the name of the PR firm that handles a very big band I am shooting soon, because he couldn’t find their contact info online anywhere; and I had to reply by telling him that I didn’t know the PR rep, that someone in the band had set it up for me directly without having to go through the PR or management, which is how the usual process goes. That was a sweet moment and the second time it has happened recently. If only it were always as easy as those two were.

Speaking of photographs: I got an email asking if some online magazine thing could use some of my Nine Inch Nails photographs in an article about “Trent’s retirement from music.” One, he’s not retiring, he’s just not doing some huge enormous tour next year on the same scale as this one that is just ending. (Or so he says. He says after every tour that he’s never touring again and yet he always tours again.) And two, they picked out two curiously bad pictures. I mean of all the Trent Reznor photographs I have done, and there are some GOOD ones, they picked out two that were not that great. I declined their “offer” (they weren’t paying either, and it’s a commercial site, so um NO), for one reason that I wouldn’t have wanted them to use those particular pictures when I shot others that were so much better; and also I’d have to get NIN’s authorization and permission to assign syndication rights and I just didn’t feel like it for this particular magazine. But still, they sent me an offer. Which kind of made me happy until I found out they have sent “an offer” to probably every single person on Flickr with a Trent Reznor photograph, including some TERRIBLE shots taken by crazy people. So my 5 minutes of pride thinking I was all special went away, fast.

Heard recently via Twitter from Demonbaby: if you have an iPhone you know that it has an annoying way of “correcting” your swear words for you in text messages. A helpful little gesture Apple has put in there, NOT. So if you type “fucking” all the time, like I do, the dictionary changes it to “ducking” and if you want to make it “fucking” you have to backspace the whole thing and retype, usually three times, before it accepts that you really, REALLY mean to say “fucking” and not “ducking.” Well, it turns out if you make an entry in your Contacts called “fucking fucking” then in the future when you type “fucking” it stays as “fucking.” This will save me long minutes of retyping, because I type “fucking” a fucking awful lot. I also need to do it for “shit” because the iPhone thinks I really mean “shot.” Apparently the iPhone is meant for the G-rated crowd.

Speaking of text messages, I have a new fondness and respect for them. I had a 200 messages per month plan originally and used that up in about a week, so I had to change to the 1,500 per month. So far that seems sufficient although I’ve used about 200 just since 12/1. I never used to like texting but it’s SO EASY with the iPhone that I am running through them all the time. Plus I have friends who don’t have Internet access at work and so texting is the only way to exchange our extremely important information about what clothes to buy and where is the best place to have an enormous poster printed. Very important stuff.

Am leaving for Las Vegas tonight. Suite at Planet Hollywood, presale GA tickets to what is probably the smallest concert pit in the country–fifty or a hundred people, I’ve heard–and a host of glorious things to do and people to see while there. I got my cameras ready, my new business cards that came out quite well (gotprint.com, check them out), and my secret Operation Huge Red Underpants in full swing (no they are not *mine*! Do you think I’d tell the entire world that I wear huge underwear? Let’s call them part of an art installation to be revealed at a more appropriate time.) Meeting up with my two friends sometime tomorrow night and then let the festivities begin.  It’s Vegas, baby!

I went to Trader Joe’s a couple of days ago.  It was a wholly unsatisfying experience.  They have a real quality-control problem.  Some days everything they have for sale is really good and some days you just get shit. I don’t mean the fresh stuff, I’m talking the frozen or pre-made foods.  Some are good and some are not worthy of being fed to dogs as their last meal before getting that final IV in the back of the city pound.

I bought the following:

1.  Vegetable shu mai.  Terrible.  Rubbery, looked raw even though it was cooked, unappetizing all around.  The picture on the box was great, but THEY LIE.  Grade:  D-

2.  Hummus.  It’s okay but I’ve had better.  Grade:  C

3.  Gingerbread cookies covered with chocolate.  Sounds like they’d be REALLY good but these have a layer of what I assume is technically marzipan but which in reality looks and tastes like cardboard.  That thin white cardboard that comes in a package of stockings.  I hate marzipan anyway but when it cannot be immediately identified as “not cardboard,” then you know there’s a real problem with it.  Grade:  D-

4.  Sushi.  I never should have gotten this.  We have a lot of good sushi places here in Boston and I don’t know what possessed me to buy pre-made sushi from a grocery store.  I thought, how bad could it be?  WELL IT COULD BE WORSE THAN YOU MIGHT EVER THINK.  It’s not that it was rotten, but sushi is not meant to be bought and made and put in a plastic box for later.  You’re supposed to watch the guy cut it, roll it, chop it, arrange it prettily on your plate, and then you eat it.  Immediately.  No saving for later.  Grade:  A Big Fat Fucking Capital F.

Actually I wrote the above about 3 hours ago and the thought of that terrible sushi I had made me want good sushi so I went to an actual Japanese restaurant for lunch and had some and it was magnificent.  So the painful memory of Trader Joe’s substandard product has somewhat been eradicated.

Also, everyone in South Dakota drives like a 90-year-old man. I have never passed so many people on the right in my entire life.

So I’m here in this kind of shitty hotel down in the lobby so they can clean my room. Normally I wouldn’t really care if they cleaned my room but the rest of the hotel is so kind of C+ that I want my damn room cleaned. Unfortunately they have nothing to eat here except junk and the coffee isn’t too great either. And the only place to sit that has tables is outside the smoking room. I guess it’s too cold outside to just send everyone out there so there’s an entire room devoted to …smoking. Well okay then. Actually they call it the “casino” but who are they kidding. Nobody’s going in there to gamble.

When I first checked in, I walked into the room and there were no sheets or blankets on the beds. I mean, none. I thought maybe this was the latest thing in hotel technology for a second but then decided that someone fucked up. So I called downstairs and said, “There are no sheets or blankets on the beds.”

“Oh … do you want some?”

NO I want to experience what it’s like in a Chinese prison for only $85/night. Sure, I’d love to have no sheets. Take the beds away too and give me some maggot-infested food while we’re getting down and real with it.

So instead of dressing the bed, they moved me to a different room. In which the lights didn’t work at the entry. I had to go back down to the lobby anyway so told the desk and they sent up the maintenance guy who then told me the cover was off the light too. He had to go find one.

And the shower doesn’t drain very well and the water is soft and it’s given me a bad hair day. That is all I need today of all days, bad fucking hair. I shouldn’t have washed it. I can go days without and it doesn’t get gross. Too late now.

Yes I *do* take showers, I just don’t wash my hair. I know that’s what you were thinking. Don’t deny it.

That’s all I got for now. Have to find a store of some kind where they’re not all crazy over idiotic Black Friday sales. I forgot stuff that I need and I’m starving.

I gave out a bunch of cards tonight but they have this URL rather than the relevant one. So if you’re looking for the photography site, it’s at:

http://www.meowhousemedia.com

This has been a public service announcement. Thanks so much. Okay bye.

Well I’m a-gonna be a total lazepot today and instead of writing something new, I will just copy/paste a bunch of my recent twitters. Yeah I’m all about the twitter these days.

There is a 140-character limit on tweets, so that’s why these are all short. But when you add them all up they make for a fascinating sociological study of just how much information you can disseminate in about 20 seconds of effort. They start from today and work backwards. I’ve removed the ones that people won’t understand without knowing the context that I don’t have time to explain here. Call this a “best of” tweet list.

That’s kind of sad actually. I am down to writing “best of” lists of forgettable 140-character posts on topics that no one cares about.

———————————————————–

Saw a pic this wkend of some girl I graduated HS with. Didn’t recognize her. She looked 55 at least. Thank you SPF15 and non-smoking.

I’d pay a quarter more for crappy takeout lunch for a decent knife & a fork that isn’t a flimsy piece of shit that breaks off into my food.

Who looks at past boyfriends/girlfriends and wonders WHAT THE BLAZIN’ FUCK WAS I THINKING?? Old BF’s latest nutty blog entry=crazytown.

[In response to a tweet about being added by random people]: I get those too-not sure how they’re finding me excpt I post my twitter all over the place-or, I am just way popular/witty XD

[In response to the previous “test” tweet] Fuck that didn’t work.

Test, want to make sure nobody else can see these

My UPS guy is a smokin’-hot baby-brother twin of Denzel Washington, AND he just brought me my new lens. Two happinesses in the same day! 12:58 PM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

Au Bon Pain: the fakest fucking “French” cafè on the entire planet. Chocolate croissant MY ASS. It’s cardboard with filling. 9:52 AM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

Model Karolina Kurkova has no belly buton-I’m more wondering about that thing she’s wearing-is it a horse saddle? http://tinyurl.com/6zq85c 8:08 PM Nov 20th from TweetDeck

nvm [I found it]. In other news, I just bought tickets to every Pogues show on the East Coast in March ‘09. Take THAT, nine inch nails! 3:52 PM Nov 20th from TweetDeck

What happened to my tweet? 3:51 PM Nov 20th from TweetDeck

Boston Craigslist: artist looking for men to drink copious amounts of water and then pee, while lying on ground. Water down, water up. 3:49 PM Nov 20th from TweetDeck

In line for lunch, someone reeks of cigarette smoke. it’s disgusting. I recommend an ammonia bath, that would be a preferable scent 12:59 PM Nov 20th from twitterrific

Just read blog of some nutter-claims to get 2nd-hand drunk–if she’s not drinking but is around people who are, she “gets drunk.” PSYCHO. 10:59 AM Nov 20th from TweetDeck

I’ve bought a new lens: Tokina 11-16mm ultra-wide-angle. Been on waiting list for months. Who needs money when you have Amex? 12:21 PM Nov 19th from TweetDeck

Recent nightmare: got guestlist for a band-forgot and so bought unneeded ticket-arrived late and everyone was gone. It was horrible. 11:37 AM Nov 19th from TweetDeck

Today is the kind of day when if I were the thieving kind I’d clean out my boss’s bank accounts and move to Fiji. But I’m afraid of jail. 11:00 AM Nov 19th from TweetDeck

@gina0star Helium is a gateway drug!!! Back away from the whipits or your life will be RUINED!!!!!!!! XD 4:13 PM Nov 18th from TweetDeck in reply to gina0star

@azulaco in other breaking news, god is dead, the sky is blue, and that purple teletubbie is the really super-gay one. lolz 2:18 PM Nov 17th from twitterrific in reply to azulaco

Pea coats are the sexiest thing going. black or navy. PSA pretty much only Jules from Pulp Fiction can carry off the leather pea coat. 2:15 PM Nov 17th from twitterrific

Bush will be out of the WH in 63 days 23 hours 10 minutes 39 seconds. 38, 37, 36, etc. 12:49 PM Nov 17th from TweetDeck

My belly button is kinda bloody. don’t know why, isn’t pierced. I recall no BB incidents today. is this serious? sorry for the gross TMI 12:21 AM Nov 17th from twitterrific

@sdmart the Argentina version has that typo. not worth anything b/c they’re all like that. tell me UPC and catalog # , will see if valuable 12:17 AM Nov 17th from twitterrific in reply to sdmart

Am at yet another dunkin donuts off the highway, hoping no one breaks into my car while I’m inside. 6:07 PM Nov 16th from twitterrific

If I see one more of those dental floss things-those white hook-like things with the floss on them-on the STREET, used, I’m gonna puke. 4:15 PM Nov 14th from TweetDeck

That’s my new favorite text-only smiley.

o_O

It’s supposed to be someone tilting their head and squinting or raising an eyebrow. A way to express “what the fuck???” or, I suppose, “um what???” for those who don’t swear. I love it.

I have an inordinate fondness also for:

, , and .

I think o_O is sort of equivalent to but since it’s not always possible to use the html I’d need for , the o_O is a good substitute. And it’s so cute anyway.

In other news I am still deathly ill and yet here I am spreading my germs at work. Well truthfully I’m probably not contagious anymore but I’d still rather be home in bed.

That reminds me, I really want to buy whatever kind of beds the Hilton Garden Inn in Worcester, MA, puts in its rooms so if you know please let me know. You may be wondering why I just don’t ask the Hilton Garden Inn. Seems like that would be the easiest way to find out, right? Well I tried that and they were not very helpful. I was ready to plunk down my credit card for an entire bed after ONE NIGHT of sleeping in one and they were all “Um … maybe it’s a Sealy? It has a dial on the side? I think it’s a Sealy, yeah … ??” Maybe they thought I was some kind of bed weirdo considering I had to call them at 2:00 AM to come and fix the heat and bring me another blanket instead of just suffering until the morning, and were afraid that if they told me what kind of bed it really was I’d never leave the hotel.

o_O   o_O   o_O 

Well since my last post I have figured out how Twitter works and not only am I using it, I am twittering all day long.  Well you know, I work too.  It comes and goes, the times for twittering, I mean.  It’s good clean fun for short-attention-span people.

What was I saying?

Oh right, Twitter.  If you want to add me, feel free!  I’ll add you back unless you’re a weirdo or creepy, in which case I won’t.  Be prepared for random thoughts throughout the day, plus pictures of things that make me go HUH???

My twitter name is meowhouse–www.twitter.com/meowhouse.  I’ll be changing my default pic from the o_O sooner or later.  Those colors in that icon are a little too much reminding me of Martha Stewart.

If you have an iPhone, you can put Twinkle on it (tweets to/from people within your defined mileage range as determined by the phone’s GPS, available through the iPhone Apps store for free) or Twitterific (also free from the Apps Store), which is just the regular Twitter app.  You can also put TweetDeck on your computer, which is an Adobe Air application that breaks Twitter info down into smaller pieces.  Very helpful if you follow a lot of feeds.  I just added it today and it seems to have many interesting features, not all of which I’ve even looked at yet and it’s a bit easier to use than the regular twitter.com interface.

I can see you on my Web stats and was all what the hell, does everyone love my posts so much all of a sudden?  I mean more than usual because I am VERY popular.  Lulz.

But no it’s due to twitter-adding:

They all you people who are clicking through from Twitter because you’re all “who the hell is this person who just started following me??”  Sorry ’bout that, I somehow made Twitter go through my address book so everyone I’ve ever emailed for whatever got added.  Très embarrassing.  I then removed most of you but the deed was done.  Not that I possibly don’t love you but exchanging email doesn’t really make us know well each other enough for me to “follow” you.

Also I can’t figure out how Twitter actually works so if you know, please tell.  I must be doing something wrong because I don’t get anything anywhere.  **iz confuzed**

I went to a party this past Saturday at the home of the person I’m driving to Atlantic City with (more on that below) and ran into a whole bunch of people who I didn’t know but whom I had met before at some other random party, OR who I recognized from their icon on various Web sites.  While this particular community/group/neighborhood is particularly incestuous that way, it just shows once again you cannot hide on the Internet despite what people think.  They are wrong, so very wrong.

Interestingly, this relates to the person whose house this was at, who I’m driving to AC with.  A few months ago I saw a post on Livejournal about someone giving away free tickets to see Sheryl Crow as long as the person he gave them to made a charitable donation, on the honor system, of at least $25.  He wasn’t going to check, he just asked that people do it.  He had gotten the tickets through a charity thing and so wanted to pay it along.  I saw the post, thought that was a great idea, donated, got the ticket, and went to the concert.  This guy was there with this other girl and through conversation we discovered our mutual love of Nine Inch Nails.  Talked about them for a while, talked about Sheryl Crow, talked about a few other things, end of concert, nice to meet you bye have a nice life.

Fast-forward 2 months.  I’m online on the NIN Web site and I read a post.  Person doesn’t use her name, doesn’t use her own picture as an avatar, doesn’t mention Sheryl Crow or concerts or charities or Livejournal or almost anything else we discussed but she said two words (one of which was “Boston”) which made me immediately *know* it was that girl I had met at the concert.  So I PM’d her and said “Um you ARE that chick I met, right?”  And yes it was and so anyway we got to emailing and discovered we’re going to the same set of concerts and after I posted that I was wondering how people were getting to AC from Boston, she offered me a ride and invited me to this party last week where I saw all these other people who I know somehow from some random way that they never thought would have any relevance to anything.

Point is, you can NOT hide on the Internet.  Well I mean you can–I’ve done it–but you have to be really careful.  And very, very anonymous.  It’s incredibly easy to track anyone down or be recognized.

Which brings me to my next topic.  At this party, I was introduced to a guy who had a somewhat unusual first name and after talking for a minute, said “Oh, your name is _____?  Do you know [old boyfriend’s name] and didn’t you used to have a piano or cello or something you were trying to get rid of?”  And he did; I had met this guy at [old boyfriend’s] house about 4 or 5 years ago for about 10 minutes and remembered this conversation.   Funny but hella awkward; I haven’t seen or heard from [old boyfriend] in 4 years and have no desire to.  He’s one of those “Oh god what the HELL was I thinking???” experiences.  And once we break up, they’re dead to me.  I don’t want to be “friends.”  It’s over, here’s the shit you left at my house, goodbye, don’t call me.  So I had to say “Oh well say hi to X” to be polite but really I’m hoping this other guy developed Party Amnesia and doesn’t recall a thing about the entire night.

Anyhoo, don’t use your real name EVER and don’t say ANYTHING about ANYTHING if you don’t want people to remember you!

However, strangely enough (it would seem, after what I just said) I’ve recently started using my real name and actual picture for certain forums because it keeps me from saying anything I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying to someone’s grandma’s blue-haired bridge club.  There’s an anonymity in screen names and impersonal pictures.  Using my real name keeps me from doing anything embarrassing.  I delete a LOT of posts before actually posting them, once I think about how I have no idea who might see this and I probably shouldn’t say [whatever], now that I really think about it.  Using my real name keeps me much more professional in the places where it might count.

I keep my wild-abandon posts anonymous.  And believe me, since I know how easy it is to find someone, I am an expert on hiding myself.  Heh heh.

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Re Atlantic City:  I’m going to three NIN concerts this week.  Yep three.  I have years of catch-up to do.  AC on Thursday, then Manchester on Saturday and Worcester on Sunday.  Hope my ears survive.  Driving down with that friend from the Sheryl Crow concert and then I met some other people online who are giving me a ride back to Boston on Friday.  Should be photographing NIN on Sunday if all goes well.  I mean with a pass; I’ll be photographing for all three but only with my big camera on Sunday.  I plan to upload pics during the concert itself to Flickr and hopefully to an as-it-happens-updating slideshow via embedded Kyte Producer on meowhousemedia.com, using my incredibly gorgeous hot sexy new iPhone that I am going to marry if it should ever become legal.  That thing is better than 99% of the men I’ve ever met.  That’s probably a sad commentary on my social life.

Anyway, keep an eye out for pictures on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.  iPhone pics uploaded on site from the venue, plus P&S shots from during the show uploaded later.  Then the good “real” set from my Nikon will be up asap after Sunday.  Unless my pass is denied or they’re all pulled as they were for one show.  Hey Trent please don’t do that, unless you want to make it up by giving me one for Las Vegas.  All Access preferred, kthxbai.

I don’t know why I’m worrying about this but with my luck Something Awful Will Happen.

is my iPhone.  I might be in mad passionate love with an inanimate object.

I used to have a Mac, a computer I mean, and I don’t recall it being this much fun.

It’s nothing new that I *LOVE* small electronic devices.  I have all manner of computers, laptops, tablet PCs, phones, iPods, iTouch, graphics tablets, CD players, external drives, four small digital cameras (let alone my two DSLRs and ten, I think, lenses), and just about everything else you could think of that you can hold in your hand and play around with or connect to the Internet or take pictures or make art with.

But I might love this one best of all.  And it’s only been about 3 hours that I’ve had it.

I read this book a while back, The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor.  It’s got several intertwined stories about the residents of a low-end housing project or neighborhood in some unnamed American city.  I think it might be Baltimore, or possibly Chicago, or maybe Gary, Indiana.  Someplace big and ugly and dirty and poor, at least in the part the characters live in.  Anyway there’s one story about this woman who has about 10 children, because every time she has a baby and it gets to be about 3 years old, it changes in her mind and becomes uncute.  Oh she still loves them all (although she is exasperated at the time the older ones take away from her being able to spend more hours with the newest baby) but at some certain point, every child she has no longer has this mysterious undefinable allure that she has this inexplicable attraction to.  It’s explained, sort of, that she is drawn to the smell and feel and appearance of a sweet cute round little baby, with its big eyes and innocent smile and soft skin and total devotion to her, and even though she loves her older children more or less, nothing can compare to the joy and wonder she feels when she has an infant to kiss and cuddle and take care of.  I could never understand how this–loving one over the other–could be.

Until now.

Because this thing is freakin’ awesome.   And my formerly beloved BlackBerry is just a gangly clunky-appearanced child who used to be adorably cute and is now rather sad and pathetic since the baby came along.  Poor pre-adolescent BlackBerry, his mommy doesn’t love him anymore.

Oh god keep me away from that incredibly gorgeous Mac Book Pro I was gawking over at the store or I might do something terrible to my Windows computers.