If You Take Off With My Truck, I Will Unleash a Horde of Goats!

Hey, everyone! I gotta tell you, straight off the bat, that my braces are off! Whoo!!! Super duper! You have no idea how elated I am to have scrap metal parts no longer glued to my pearly whites (though I do have pink plastic parts now ensconced within my jaw, but still, every little is a gain, even though I sound like an idiot when I talk right now). Now I just have to not lose my retainers 6 times, or even once, I suppose...
Allow me to digress and express how much I love the movie 24 Hour Party People, the story of the rise and fall of Factory Records and its creator, Tony Wilson. Then again, he admits during the film that his own story isn't about him, it's about the music, and consequently, it's really about the advent of British punk, Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, as well as the birth of rave culture, all of which you can thank Manchester for. It's so good that God even has a cameo at the very end. Its presentation is somewhat similar to High Fidelity (in that Tony Wilson constantly is breaking the Fourth Wall, except that this movie has him seeminly prophecying the future, in the sense that he is involved in the film in a temporally linear fashion, but can look ahead to events in the future because it's written in hindsight), but there's no rain or John Cusack in sight, which is excusable, because the movie rules so hard.
Friday night was spent sleepless, due to the fact that I saw The Grudge with Kristin and Melissa. Before you scoff, know that I scoffed as well; I figured:

1. It's a Wes Craven looking movie
2. It has Sarah Michelle Gellar
3. Melissa found it frightening

What other conclusion could I reach but that it was sophomoric garbage that would do well in theaters because of star power and not because of scares? So, I agreed to watch it, and almost immediately regretted that decision, because it scared the friggin' bejeezus out of me, and it's been difficult getting to sleep since then. Thanks, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Saturday found me in Madison at the Lost and Found seeing Nate and Zach's band Baby, Get Your Gun, about 3 mediocre to terrible bands in-between, and finally, Fallen Sparrows (with Zach triumphantly on bass) who killed. Baby, Get Your Gun did a cover of a Norma Jean song which featured Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou on guest vocals, so Jon- er, Juarez filled in Aaron's shoes for their rendition of it. You see, onstage Weiss typically wears a scarf, several winter coats, a sweater and a bandanna, and has really scruffy hair (facial and otherwise), so Jon was going to Weiss it up for the performance. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the proper wig, so he had to settle for Zach's intense "I'm a Judas Priest British Steel-era fan outside a 7-11 with the stereo blaring" mullet wig, which just made him look like a haggard Mexican, so he drew on a thin moustache and rocked the winter coat and scard anyway, threw on some haggard Granny sunglasses, and voila! Juarez was born, and he stayed in character for the ride there until his performance of the Norma song. After that he was freakin' hot and reverted back to Jon, but who knows? This may not be the last of Juarez...

Yesterday found my brother, the Shaw, Jon and Zach and I pelting Shaw's and Zach's trucks with snowballs outside of Jon's house and having a blast. This crappy, rusted Honda Civic without windows attempted a snowball drive-by in the midst of this, but their was poor and they took off to who knows where with their busted ride. Eventually, Jon's neighbor came outside with two of his d.b. buddies and wanted to rumble, but nothing much came of that, because no one was really in range.

After that, we had Walken practice, and we did a rendition of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, but on the way there- oh Lord- I drove with the Shaw, and Jon was with Zach, and there was still TONS of snow on Shaw's truck, so I grabbed a handful and packed it up, and told him to come up alongside Zach, and I launched it inside his window, and thus, the Snowball Road Warrior Escapade began, all the way from Sentry to the Salvation Army, just relentlessly blasting one another with snow. At the 5 Points, Jon even jumped out of the truck at a red light to get another snowball and whomp me and the Shaw (thankfully, I rolled the window up in time, or I would've been a goner). I paid him back later at my house where I smoked him in the face, but that was an accident. I'm still really sorry, Jon.

Eventually, we had Cell Fun Night last night at DJ's apartment and played Balderdash and whatnot, and Tim kept thinking of the most hilarious definitions ever. Zach also had a splendid synopsis for the film The Big Operator: Friends star David Schwimmer and song and dance legend Liza Minelli's marriage is tested when Schwimmer contracts botulism and requires immediate surgery, but falls in love with his nurse, played by legend Quincy Jones. Zach, you'll have to fill in the blanks here, Gorp.

Oh, and my brother got a 4 month old puppy named Sam; she's a tiny lil' basset hound, and she is potentially the coolest dog EVER. She has the cooelst bark, and she scares the daylights out of Chandler, though admittedly, that doesn't take much. You'll have to see her, your heart will melt.

Well, I finally start school tomorrow at 8 in the morning, and I'm about to order all my books, so I'll catch all of you later.

Love, Ian