For the last two weeks I've gotten server errors every time I tried to post something. So I eventually complain to Dad, who logs into my blogger account, and it started working perfectly again. So I'm back! last weekend I went to the McSweeney's vs. TMBG show down at the Athenaeum, which was awesome. The show was split into three parts: The first part was the opening band, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, who are amazing, being a family of three: the father plays keyboard and sings, the mother runs the slide projector, and the eight-year-old daughter plays drums and sings. They are incedentally on Conan O'Brian next tuesday night, if any of you stay up that late. The second part of the show comprised readings by such esteemed literary, graphic, and radio personalities as Dave Eggers, Keith Knight, and Ira Glass. And the third section was the set. they may only have had fifteen minutes for their set, but gosh darn it, they wanted to make it one of the best fifteen-minute sets ever. And they did. With classics such as "Why Does The Sun Shine?", oddities like the 18-songs-in-3-minutes set "Fingertips", and newer songs ("Robot Parade", "Au Contraire"), it was truly a night to remember.

On a side note, I recently received a Handspring Visor from my mother, and I just ordered my iPod, so I feel the vestiges of geek euphoria coming on.

Tunes: "Bill's Rap", the Cardboards; "Follow You, Follow Me", Genesis

I had a choir rehearsal tonight for those choir memberswho volunteered to perform the Fauré Requiem for the All Souls service, and I'm still basking in the aftermath of such glorious music. I haven't had that good a musical experience since the ATBs of the men and boy's choir performed Biebl's Ave Maria last Christmas. In the way of more random thoughts, I'm excited about the upcoming They Might Be Giants concert that I'm going to this weekend, and Tim and I are close enough to finished with our script that we're thinking about agents and such. Maybe Halley can give me a tip or two...

Tunes: "Requiem", Fauré; "Ave Maria", Biebl

Blogger has been REALLY ticking me off lately. Server errors have made me unable to broadcast my (mostly nonsensical and unimportant) writing. But anyway... The last two nights I have trekked into downtown Chicago with my church choir to eat a fast-food dinner and spend three hours a night being filmed for BBC's "Songs of Praise". While the show is most unavailable to those of us in the USA, there's a decent chance our overseas friends might see me, assuming they watch tv on Sunday mornings. On top of that, I've started a goemetry course with a lot of other homeschoolers.While I have taken geometry before, this one is being taught in a very different way that involves lots of paper plates, bobby pins, and being at class for three hours on Wednesday mornings before I normally wake up. My strategy for next time is to bring coffee. Lots of coffee.

I just today watched Moonlight Mile with some very close friends. This is one of the best movies i have seen in quite a while. And coming from me, that's saying something. It is funny and sad at the same time, the story is well written, the plot is unpredictable, and the actors are phenomenal. Especially Susan Sarandon. Moonlight Mile is also the sort of movie that sucks you into it, leaving you only dimly aware of the world outside the movie. The story is about a young man whose fiance has just been killed, and he decides to stay on with his would-be in-laws. The way grief is mixed with humor is wonderful and artfully done and is very realistic. The main downer of he film is the ending, which is a bit overdone and drags on longer than necessary. But all in all it is a movie well worth seeing.

Tunes: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", Marvin Gaye; "Unwanted", Kill Hannah

I feel kinda out of the loop with Dad and everyone at the DIDW conference, but I did heartily enjoy Gary and Steve's accounts of Volvo guy. Still, things have been really life as usual here. It's like when you go early to a fireworks display to get good seats... And then you're stuck waiting there for an hour or two until the show actually starts. For me, fireworks include activities from sleeping over at friend's houses to a They Might Be Giants concert and a requiem service. So to fill the time, I goof off, I write movies, I write songs, and I look ahead and start examining colleges, the current highlight being Wheaton college in Massachusetts. After asking a high school friend of Dad's who lives nearby there his opinion, he gave me words of encouragement: "Bon Chance! (That means 'Take a chance with this bon bon' in French)"

Tunes: "Big Balls", AC/DC; "Things I'll Never Say", Avril Lavigne

My Life: the Movie is probably a really boring concept, and it won't work anyway, but for quite a while now I've fantasized about writing the quintessential teen movie. And when I say teen movie, I'm talking more John Hughes than sex jokes, but still I haven't seen a "teen movie" that really captures the essence of teenagerdom. John Hughes does well, but Happily Ever Afters just don't happen, and while dirty jokes are common, life is not all drugs, beer busts and sex. What is needed is to find the balance between the parties and good times and the gritty real life and downers. And since I seriously doubt anyone in Hollywood is going to come to the same conclusion (or at least won't expect it to sell), the burden falls to me. So I give you a piece of the beginning of a draft of the Quintessential Teen Movie.

Fade in to sneakers plodding down a sidewalk. The sunlight splays across the pavement in mellow tones of yellow and orange. Circle around the feet a couple of times, then slowly look up along and past the worn jeans, up to the heavy backpack and t-shirt, and up into the face of a teenage boy. He has shaggy brown hair, small glasses, and a few pimples. He looks tired and slightly discouraged, his head drooping slightly. We watch him enter a duplex on a beautiful street. Inside, the house is badly in need of cleaning up. Things are strewn all over. He dumps his backpack on the floor.

Boy (loudly)
Hello!

A muffled voice comes from upstairs.

Voice (O.S.)
Hey, honey!

The boy pulls open a door and goes downstairs to the basement, which, while messy, is somewhat more organized: a pile of tapes surround the TV, a table is piled high with Legos, and one table in the corner has a computer with two prominent speakers, a printer, and other peripherals scattered around it. He sits down in front of the computer and , clicking, starts blaring loud music. He then leans back, closes his eyes, and breathes deeply. Suddenly he snaps up and begins typing rapidly.

Lately I've been listening to a favorite song of mine, "Crawling in the Dark", by Hoobastank. The lyrics really get to me, the second verse most of all, especially when I'm feeling down and confused.

"Help me carry on Assure me it's ok to use my heart and not my eyes to navigate the darkness Will the ending ever be coming sudenly? Will I ever get to see the ending to my story? Show me what it's for make me understand it I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answers Is there something more than what I've been handed I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answers"

And I at least am crawling in the darkness, fumbling my way through this twisted obstacle course called Life. So far I've been lucky enough to find friends, other explorers groping their way also, but now we have each other to cling to and reassure ourselves and each other that we are not alone and not to be afraid of what is to come. Some may lose their hold and lose their way, but there are always willing hands waiting for them if they find their way back.

Tunes "Crawling in the Dark", Hoobastank; "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana.

Yesterday was really kinda boring, so I opted for the activity that holds the all-time record on time-wasting for me: The Sims. The Sims, for those of you outside the gaming loop, is a game where you create a person or persons and pretty much run their lives for them. Right now I'm working on two seperate projects: creating the perfect sim by means of exploiting loopholes in the program, and managing a house full of sims based on me and my homeschooling friends. The second one has proved quite annoying, as we've had more than our fair share of fires, burglaries, cockroach infestations, and other such accidents. Now, any rational person would take these experiences to the conclusion that if its frustrating and eventually pointless, then one should stop. And that tought did come to me, and I resolved to quit- until my sim got a promotion at work.

Tunes: "Clint Eastwood", Gorillaz; "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta", Geto Boys; "It's Going Down", X-Ecutioners.

OK, this blogger connection problem is starting to peeve me greatly. But I won't start ranting about that because it's pointless to moan about things you can't help. The major event of the last few days was: I learned football. I am sure some of you reading this will be shocked that a young hardy american boy knew virtually nothing of this national pastime, but I was raised into baseball and basketball and the One True Sport: Ultimate Frisbee. However, havig recently been askeed to referee the Seabury games, I found myself in a student's apartment last night, watching the Broncos/Ravens game with root beer in hand. Which, as games went, was a relative slaughter, but it served my purposes admirably, because the Broncos, who did not seem exactly on top of things, provided ample oppurtunity for me to learn foul types and signals. And to whoever the Bronco's QB was that night: even I knew that chest-slamming a ref is a really really stupid move.

Tunes: "Across The Night", Silverchair; "I Love LA", Randy Newman.