It’s 10 till 11:00PM, March 30th… my parents have just walked out the front door in hopes of finding our pet dog (of 11 years), Ivan, before the house breaks for bed.

The day, as one could imagine… has been incredibly stressful, for me and especially my parents. While away in Detroit (the past 10 years), Ivan became a very important part of my immediate family. My parents spent many an afternoon, speaking with the dog when they weren’t able to spend time with me because of the distance…

When I got word this morning that the dog was missing from the back yard, I assumed that he had run down the block in search of local dog in season.

Morning turned to lunch… lunch time into afternoon… afternoon until now. An hour or so before midnight.

We’ve done all the imaginable things we could do… contact local dog pound and humane societies in hopes of hearing of his capture. We’ve spoke to a number of neighbors in hopes of clues to his whereabouts.

My father spoke to a neighbor (several houses down) about her dog (a female, Husky like Ivan) that too is missing…

At the moment, I hope that he’ll return by morning.
He’s never been away this long…

My only wish is that he’s safe where ever he may be.

Have to quickly plug a guilty pleasure of mine this afternoon… while looking for some information on the soon to be released Pearl Jam album (self-titled Pearl Jam),…I noticed a forum area on the Sky I Scrape website called “Red Mosquito”.

For anyone who hasn’t bothered with picking up a Pearl Jam album since Vitalogy (the cd that’s likely sticking out of your music collection like a sore thumb), “Red Mosquito” is the name of a strange track on my favorite Pearl Jam album, No Code.

The forum (message board) isn’t all that different from a number of other boards I frequent… It’s however become one of my hourly *must-visit* web staples in the past 72 hours. I guess I’m still a pretty hardcore Pearl Jam fan deep down inside.

Had a funny picture of myself surface at the office today… a few weeks ago, a photographer at the paper was tying to work on a remote-flash-device before he covered a local sporting event. I was asked to stand in a dimly lit news with a remote flash in a empty lunch box.

Here’s me in all my evilness.

Want to send birthday wishes to the love of my life, Katheryn in San Antonio this morning… I’m currently 4 hours south from her at work, but I’ll be up there in 2 days to spoil her with gifts & kindness for being the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

A year ago, Kathie and I were worlds apart, with me still in Detroit… I don’t know how we managed to get through the distance then. I can assure you that it was her love and paitence to tolerate the circumstances.

This one is for you my love. I hope you know how much I cherish you. I’ll see you in 2 days.

Love,
Rollie

While securing several cd’s in anticipation of Katheryn’s birthday (March 29th), I splurged a bit on me’self and ordered an import copy of Art Brut’shype-heavy, debut effort “Bang Bang Rock & Roll”…

As luck would have it, 2 days after receiving the album in the mail, Pitchforkmedia has announced that they’ve agreed to have their album released stateside and those interested can wait a month or so and not vest 20+ dollars on said album.

With that suggestion out of the way… The Art Brut album is an interesting spin… I’ve avoided a lot of the reviews for the album, fearing that it would shape a sound in my head before my initial listen. The album reminds me a bit of Wire, the Stranglers, the Libertines and nuck-nuck delivery of Weezer. While that’s great company to be in… I’m not sure where the album sits with me. There’s moments on it that I know are really admirable…. It’s a punk record that delivers on the promise of the first cut of the album… “we’ve formed a band”, a quirky song about the band, deciding to form-a-band.

There’s a great lyric in the first song that reads something to the effect of..

“we’re gonna be the band
that writes the song
that makes Israel and
Palestine get along…”

My recommendation to anyone reading this entry, is to wait for the album to drop stateside…. a must-pick-up if you can score a copy for under 10 bucks. Keep in mind, I’m having a bit of a hard time these days trying to get used to music in my new environment.

In Detroit, I spent the Winters and early spring listening to specific genre’s of music that felt a lot like the weather outside. The weather in South Texas has tipped into the 90′s a few times this (i hesitate to say the word) Spring, and I don’t know if I’m ready for up-beat-music just yet…

I have a strange feeling tho’ that this record will get played quite a bit over the Summer tho’.

.RollieinSouthTexas.

Tony’s officially out of his coma… a welcomed relief after the strange story arch that began in last week (episode 67)… While out, Silvio had a brief moment as acting-skipper… he completely freaked under the circumstances and had to also check into a hospital. For a very brief moment, the family began to wonder what would happen if Tony and Silvio were both to expire… Vito (whom I have getting clipped in 3 episodes or less) makes another strange plea on camera to try and get support to move up the ranks to Boss. Like anyone else wouldn’t shoot Vito for a nickel.

I don’t know how (or when) the demise of Vito will come… but I think he’s going to get outed by Medow’s boyfriend for his homosuspicious ways.

Best part of Sunday’s episode was the Slasher/Godfather movie pitch, where the assembled family members waxed on nuances of “horror”.

Classic.

.rCr.

While cleaning up my desktop at home today, ran across a photo that I meant to blog about a few weeks ago… Had to use a pencil at work the other day. Went back to the Office supply closet and check out what I scored.

This is a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil.

You’re probably saying to yourself. Big fucking whoop. Check out the font used for “BLACK”

Is that totally the same font used in…

Or pretty damn close?

I think so.

.damaged.

Father, Sister and I assembled early this morning to celebrate my Mother’s 46th birthday… Made it a point to procure a funny birthday card and a fist full of my mothers favorite *scratch-lotto-tickets* to tear into over breakfast. Of the 5 tickets I purchased her this morning, she made out with a $104.00 in winnings. While the gesture sounds a tad tasteless, my mother gets an energetic thrill when scratching up tickets. Of the $104, she withdrew $102 of back in cash and requested another scratch ticket before we broke for an early brunch. While at the pub, the extra ticket drew in an extra $9 dollars. Lady luck appears to be on her side today…

My sister made quite splash this morning with her “flower cake” bouquet. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before… Called Kathie minutes after I saw it, but she gave me the impression that the idea was anything but new.

Mother was anything but amused.

If all goes well, the 4 of us will head down to Brownsville for dinner and drinks this evening.

.rCr.

If all goes well, Kathie and I will get a chance to check out my latest band crushes…
At the Sanctuary, in San Antonio Texas on March 31st. There’s a couple of loose ends that both Kathie and I will have to tie down before we assure our attendence, but I feel fairly certain that we’ll make it up to the show.

I don’t know how long it’s been since Kathie’s had a chanec to catch a live act, but it feels like EONS since I’ve had a chance to catch a band the size of Voxtrot live… Don’t know very much about the Venue, nor do I know very much about the sceenster sceen in S.A., but I’ll have a full report on the evening and pics up no later than the 1st of April.

werd,
.rCr.
“is this the start of something really beautiful?” – Voxtrot

When I was about 8 years of age, I had a friend who lived 4 houses down my street give me a Blue and White miniature Duke Blue Devil basketball.  I didn’t really care for basketball at the time…. My father had seemed to have a rooting interest for Georgetown back then, but I think that had more to do for his support for John Thompson Jr. and his style of basketball. My rooting interest in Duke then had more to do with them having a “Blue Devil” for a mascot and their use of Blue, my favorite color.

It didn’t take very long for my favorite team to reach the Final Four… they lost the title game to Louisville in 1986… only to get back to the Four in 88, 89 and again the title game in 1990, but loosing yet again, but to another team, UNLV.

Things changed however in 1991… Duke went back to the Final Four – Defeated the then Undefeated UNLV (defending champs and undefeated in that semi-final), in route to defeat Kansas for their first NCAA championship. A second banner followed the following year… when they took down the fab 5 from Michigan…   They continued to have success in the 90′s and got a 3rd championship in 2002.

Duke has been compared to “the Yankees” in basketball… a claim that I don’t particularly agree with… Both UConn and North Carolina have had comparable success since 2001, but if there’s one team to hate in College Basketball, it’s Duke.

For the most part… the shit doesn’t bother me. I’m not a bandwagon fan. I followed the team foolishly when they couldn’t get over the hump in the 1980′s and I’ve supported them without fail for 20 years.

My love for them is so blind that I foolishly choose them to go all the way when brackets come out every March, but that’s because I truly believe that they could get the job done. This year wasn’t any different and I really felt good about their chances to get to the title game in Indianapolis.
Unfortunately for me, Duke and J.J. Reddick….  LSU had different plans and eliminated my Duke Blue Devils from the 2006 NCAA Tourney.

Unprovoked mind you. Sure… I mentioned to several people around the news desk thatIf that wasn’t rough enough… Your’s truly got to come to work and have his desk decorated with AP photo’s of the Duke team in tears and LSU garb on my terminal. All of this is I was a unapologetic Duke fan and that I thought they could go all the way… but if my Blue Devils beat the Longhorns on the way to the Final Four, would I have decorated everyone desk with pictures of Duke clipping down the nets in Atlanta?

Unlikely.

Anyhoo… I had Duke, UCLA, UConn and Boston College in the Final Four this year with Duke beating UCon in the Final.

I’ll be cheering on George Mason or the lowest seed in the tourney from here on out.

LSU sucks,
RollieinSouthTejas