insomnia + laziness = 3 seasons of Mad Men watched

been nine days since my last one of these.  ten depending on how technical you are and what your rounding system is.  i'm not exactly a pro at this blogging business yet.

let's see...

last wednesday.  i saw Avi Buffalo at Schubas, on the guest list courtesy of JMA.  (i plan on capitalizing for emphasis, excitement, and eccentricity [i had two "e" words, thought i'd add a third for the alliteration], and with no particular grammatical rules in mind in case you were wondering)  anyway.  Avi Buffalo, capitalized because it's a band name and i've arbitrarily decided that band names should be capitalized from now on, put on a pretty solid show.  it was in the vein of the surf-psych hipster stuff that's coming out of the west, but more accessible, more genuine.  if their singer got better, they might have a shot at really going somewhere.  they had the best girl drummer i've seen in a while.

last thursday.  don't remember.  probably did something.

friday.  started Mad Men, and the downfall of my activity outside of work.  i tend to go on tv binges when i watch it.  i don't own a tv, so don't really watch tv casually.  i watch tv with purpose.  i sit down, and watch one show for six or seven hours straight at a time.  which is how i've gotten through three seasons of Mad Men in less than a week.  it is also highly detrimental to my social, mental, and physical status, making me a pasty neurotic hermit that survives on frozen pizza and that burrito place down the street.  La Amistad.  they deserve capitalization.  you know the place.

saturday, watched more Mad Men, wrote riffs for two songs, messed with my tube screamer/ds-1/amp tone for a couple of hours.  did absolutely none of the research i had promised myself and others that i would do.  went to see Daniel Martin Moore at Schubas.  i was his driver to and from the Iron & Wine show at OSU a week prior, and we had hit it off enough for him to put me on his guest list for the show. i got there just as he was starting (thanks, Mad Men, you're ruining my life now).  it was a nice, mellow show, traditional-style folk that added a virtuosic guitar player who knew not to shred.  ended with a devastatingly slick loop that Ric Hordinski (the guitarist) played, with three intertwining fingerpicking parts so perfectly timed that they just let the loop go for a few minutes.  at one time, both artists were off the stage, listening.  then DMM came up and faded out the amp volume, ending the show.  i got chicago pasta and pizza afterwards, just the pasta though.  it was good.

sunday, watched Mad Men.  started to feel ridiculous about myself.

monday.  jeff's back from new york, we had a fair amount of work at JMA.

tuesday.  all interns on deck, typical tuesday.  made veggie chorizo burritos at about 10:30, because chicago is dark all the time and it's seriously screwing with my internal clock.  i may have reverted back to a 25 hour day.  studies indicate that without day and night cues, humans' internal clocks will change to 25 hour cycles instead of the 24 hour cycles we normally run on.  see, now aren't you glad you read this blog?  if you actually read something that was entertaining, you would've never heard that useless tidbit.

this thing is a wall of text.  here's something to break up the monotony.  it's a damn fine commercial:



wednesday.  perfect storm to make me late for work.  slept through my alarm, first.  then, the water was shut off in my apartment because i woke up so late and they're replacing pipes in my apt building.  so i took a boy scout shower with the water from my coffee maker, brushed my teeth, and was on my way.  but the bus didn't come for twenty minutes.  i go to my car so i can drive to work.  my car is on a one-way street, and there is a massive piece of construction equipment blocking the intersection i would need to go through to drive my car anywhere.  so i wait another 15 minutes for the bus.  end up at work an hour late.  it's ok.  i had leftover veggie chorizo burritos.

thursday.  finished my Eventric teaser video for the third time.  this time it's good, though, the bosses approve.  i get to start splicing together videos tomorrow for a trade show that's coming up.  wrote the music to lyrics i had had already.  it's got a ska vibe to it, but it's too straight of a rhythm for ska.  i'm hoping to get some weird syncopated percussion and bass to go along with the guitar part i wrote.

friday.  i'm not sleeping well.  still watching Mad Men.  i'm on season 4, episode 3, i believe.  this time last week, i had still not watched a single episode of the series.  that means i watched about 40 episodes in a week.  awful.  just listened to Beethoven's 5th arranged as salsa music on NPR.  it was ok.  not really a big fan.

i don't know if i know anyone who listens to as much music as me in a week.  in the past week, i have listened to:

on vinyl
This Is Reggae compilation from the 70s
Leave Home by The Ramones
Harvest by Neil Young
Sam by The Sidekicks

on ipod
Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens (still don't know what all the fuss is about)
Fuckin A and The Body The Blood The Machine by The Thermals
Arkansas? by Arkansas?
a bunch of Alien Orders stuff on repeat
Andy Cook Split and Rhetoric by American War
Hospitals by Off With Their Heads
... And Out Come The Wolves by Rancid
Odelay and Midnite Vultures by Beck
i'm missing some, too.

at work, music constantly on
WXRT at JMA
office radio station at Eventric (including Charlie Mingus, The Buzzcocks, Miles Davis, Neil Young, The White Stripes, Elvis Costello, and Dave Brubeck, to name a few)

i probably am exposed to 50 hours of music a week at a minimum.  i've listened to music more than i've slept this week, by a long shot.  and if we toss in playing music, then i'm up to about 60 hours a week of music.  glad i can work at places where i listen to music for 35-40 hours a week.

finally feeling tired.  gonna put away the remains of the chorizo burritos (that one tube of fake chorizo made a ton of food.  definitely not complaining, though, i highly recommend it.  i got mine from Trader Joe's), then go to sleep.

i'm not planning on doing anything for halloween.  this'll be the first time i haven't dressed up since i got to college.  i think i'm ok with it.  i think the fact that i can't wear a dinosaur costume this time is making things easier on me.

quick rundown of the past fortnight

i said i was going to be better about this.  methodically writing my thoughts on each day as it happened.  this has proven to be a gross misstatement on my part.  i have not written one of these for two weeks.  so with my trusty calendar in hand, it's time to catch up.  mind you, you may not find this very interesting, but since when did anyone write a blog for anyone else's benefit?

wed, oct 6
not much happened

thu, oct 7
not much happened

fri, oct 8
finished the first draft of a new promotional teaser for eventric.  drove to columbus, listening to the replacements (albums:  let it be [my personal favorite of theirs {although tim would probably be my favorite if it was produced better}] and tim) and the twin tones, as well as daydream nation by sonic youth and probably some neil young too.  i tried to make it to ex-bassist danny's birthday party, but he failed to stay awake past 1 am.  also, i made a mental note to make use of the chain rule in sentence form.  (check)

sat, oct 9
watched the game with pops.  we then went out to the garage to drill holes in my tube screamer enclosure, as my welder friend stephen's "car broke down" and he "couldn't drive without his engine melting" and somehow thought this was a "reasonable excuse for not driving back to columbus".  wuss.  anyway, there was some excitement with drilling the enclosure, culminating with the enclosure spinning out of my dad's hand, hitting his arm, flying off the drill bit, striking some old paint cans, and coming to rest in a fishing net beneath an earth-tone painting from circa 1974.  on the plus side, i got my tube screamer completely put together, selecting this image to put on the pedal instead of painting it:

for those of you who have not read several scores of star wars books, this is the DL44, han solo's blaster.  note that the scope that has been mounted off-center on the gun, allowing for a quicker draw.  some books say that he cut off this scope altogether in order to have as fast a draw as possible.  anyway,  i thought it was appropriate for an overdrive pedal.  then joey and i went to news of your departure's cd release, which featured several more hecklers than i was expecting.

sun, oct 10

full band alien orders practice.  got through several more songs, it's sounding promising.  then i drove back to chicago.

mon, oct 11

belle and sebastian!  now, to put this in context, i have been listening to this band since i was in junior high.  which means, i have been bopping along in rapture of this wonderful group for nearly a decade.  needless to say, i was excited to see them.  but i'll say it anyway.  i was excited to see them.  concerts pal linnea came up from columbus since it was b&s's only midwest tour date, and we watched as they breezed through a set including i'm a cuckoo, step into my office baby, and a stupefyingly good version of me and the major.  here's the full setlist:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/belle-and-sebastian/2010/chicago-theatre-chicago-il-bd51d6e.html

beautiful concert.  i left wanting to lock myself in my room with a sparkling clean guitar tone so i could try to write like stuart murdoch.  ALSO.  stuart murdoch is possibly the most charming frontman you'll ever encounter, bouncing around the stage and making disarmingly witty banter between songs.  there were some fans who were idiots, but the unpleasantness caused by this was counteracted by stuart doing things like throwing nerf footballs to all the children he could see in the audience.  it was great.  also, linnea and i ate burritos at la amistad on the way over.  my second time there, and definitely not my last.  it's not exactly picante (my old burrito haunt in ukrainian village), but it's close enough to make me hopeful about other items on the menu.

tue, oct 12

fm supreme cd release party.  fm supreme is one of our new artist development projects at jma, and she dropped an ep on tuesday.  it was a cool show, several outstanding acts.  supreme herself really might have a future in hip hop, if she keeps working at it.

wed, oct 13

not much happened, then i left for columbus.  listened to the velvet underground and nico, the clash (s/t), and london calling.  tried to memorize every word on london calling.  i'm getting there, slowly but surely...

thu, oct 14

iron and wine.  helped out from noon to 12:30am.  drove daniel martin moore to and from his hotel, shook hands and chatted with sam beam a couple of times, worked with backline, merch, hospitality, security, and others.  actually didn't eat this entire time, which i didn't notice until about the time iron and wine took the stage, when my stomach seemed to attack my other vital organs in an attempt to find food, roaring with bloodlust for a legion of falafel sandwiches.  this attack proved futile for my stomach, and it was not satiated until several hours later.  however, i thoroughly enjoyed both daniel martin moore and iron and wine, sitting on the ballroom floor with 2000 of my closest friends during a fair amount of the iron and wine set.

fri, oct 15

mco showcase.  i started the day with what has become a near-daily call to guitar center.  "we still have not repaired your cabinet, sir, and we're sorry that we're about as quick and helpful as rust, or some other slow corrosive process."  at least they finally offered me equipment to loan.  i now have a 2x12 marshall speaker cabinet to go with my music man amp.  i got a haircut before i picked it up.  a bald lady cut my hair.  we talked about small towns.  then off to band practice, where the three piece version of alien orders played our set through once so we could remember all our songs before our show friday night.  then the musician's collective showcase started.  a few solo acts played, then we played.  we were much louder than everyone else, and joey and i had to back off so zack's drumming could be heard.  i used my tube screamer for the first time, and we played our set with no setlist, and with as few breaks as possible. our set went something like this:

city life                     (joey guitar, pat guitar, zack drums)

smitten in space

day terrors

american girl

orange crush

x ray glare                (joey guitar, pat bass, zack drums)

south/north

garden salsa sunchips

i will dare

cliffs notes

then joey and i booked it so we could see the misfits at alrosa villa (famous for being the deathplace of dimebag darrell).  which was the best decision we could have made that night.  a ska band, a street punk band, then the misfits played.  a curtain dropped to reveal two five foot tall skulls with light-up eyes, a drumset with misfits skulls on the two bass drums, a skeleton arm mic stand, and a skull mic stand.  jerry only, dez cadena, and robo took the stage, and played through a really fun set that included teenagers from mars, we are 138, attitude, six pack (a black flag song [!]), and rise above (another black flag song [!]).  so entertaining.

sat, oct 16

i started off the day by misreading an email from bassist zack, then picking up ex-bassist danny on the way to being almost late to a youth songwriting workshop.  under the guidance of music loves ohio, we helped about 20 underserved youth write and perform their own songs, in just the span of an afternoon.  it was a great time, i highly recommend it.  afterwards, zack and i went to see matt groening at mershon auditorium, which turned out to be a fairly enlightening lecture.  several stories about conan o'brien licking various objects in the simpsons' office for money were told.  then faiella and i went over to ouab friend mindy's house for a beer and some terminator 2.

sun, oct 17

obama.  had lunch with the parents at cheesecake factory in easton, then showed joey all the fun tricks my new tube screamer can do, then went with joey to see obama.  we ran into danny and others there, and waited about an hour in an extraordinarily long line to get in.  the line stretched from the oval down the long walk, by the rpac, around ohio stadium, back to the other side of the rpac.  about 35000 people were estimated to have attended, and we saw obama after about 2 1/2 hours of other democrats.  he is a powerful speaker, but he is also a politician.  and i cannot listen to a politician without becoming incensed at something he/she has said.  the parts that got me most riled up were him telling us america had to be first in everything (why does there have to be a contest between nations as to which is the most successful?  from pee wee sports on, we teach our kids that it's not about winning, it's about the love of the game, but when it comes to our nation we can't settle for second?) and his references to republican fear-mongering (which i believe is true), quickly followed by his claims that democrats do no such thing ("but if you vote for republicans, we'll go back to the way things are and slump into a depression!  be afraid!"[p.s. this is not an actual quote, but is the general gist of what he said]).  that said, he is a powerful speaker, and one who knows how to pull an audience into his palm.  afterwards, joey and i got chinese takeout at joy's village, and ate it at his apartment while watching a rush documentary.  i started driving back to chicago at 10:10pm est.  bad decision, but i stuck by it, driving through the night while listening to london calling and a mix cd or two.

mon, oct 18

called in sick to work, for good reason.  absolutely exhausted, downright evil sinus headache, possibility of much worse illness if i did anything but sleep.  so i slept a ton.  watched some simpsons, and american history x.  that is a great film, i highly recommend it.  i also took a bath, my first bath in probably several months.  i always take showers, because they're quicker, but the bath did me good.

tue, oct 19

my boss's mother died today.  90 years old, from what i hear.  hope he's ok.  

i also scheduled for my penultimate quarter of classes.  scary.  here's what i'm taking, for those of you at osu... (who am i kidding? no one reads this blog)

marketing 755:  promotional strategy

food science 201:  the science of food

music 250:  music cultures of the world

music 677:  multimedia for musicians

marketing 783h:  honors independent research

turn signals and seething, burning rage

turn signals.  they're simple devices.  a simple switch to close the circuit between battery and blinking light. a person has but to flick their wrist to activate a signal for their movement left or right.

BUT SOME PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE TROUBLE RECOGNIZING THIS.

if you don't enjoy rants about human decency, or the lack thereof, you may want to stop reading this post.  now.

i have run into an excessive amount of people who seem to have no knowledge whatsoever of that thing sticking out of their steering consoles that clicks whenever they bump it (i know, some people have the fancy ones that they can just click with their thumbs on the front of the steering wheel:  which makes their non-use of turn signals even less excusable).  this sort of ignorance bothers me.

it's not that i have any particular love for flashing lights, or plastic sticks that can make clicking noises, but that i am a fan of smooth traffic patterns.  for instance, i love a four way stop where everyone knows how to drive.

figure 1.1
                 |              |
                 |              |
-----------------|              |--------------
                   car    ^    stopped car
- - - - - - - - -    |      |   - - - - - - - -
stopped car   V   car
-----------------|              |--------------
                 |              |
                 |              |

the two cars opposite of each other move at the same time, while the other two remain stopped.  it's an elegant ballet, complicated only slightly by left turns.

however, this breaks down when people don't use turn signals.  everything breaks down.  because driving is a very visual activity, and if other people on the road can't see what you're doing, you get t-boned.  which isn't a problem for you, you asshole, you simply toss it off to your insurance company to pay for your bmw's repair bill while my insurance goes through the roof and i have to start biking 20 miles to work until you turn right without signaling and total my bike too.  jerk.

this exact scenario hasn't happened to me personally, by the way.  but i see it happening to me every time some drain on society cuts in front of me without giving me any more notice than general sherman gave georgia.

figure 1.2

as you can see, the damage inflicted from not using turn

signals can be immense

in much shorter, simpler words that you can understand, jackass in the bmw...

use your turn signal or i will hunt you down and hurt you badly enough that you won't have to worry about driving anymore.

i also ate chipotle today.

p.s.  it took me like 5 tries to get that four way stop diagram to line up right.  you're welcome.

third nye blind

i spent five hours working on mostly one project today.  probably shouldn't have taken me so long, but i wanted to make it easy on me for future weeks.  now it should take me an hour or two each week to update everything on this ongoing showlist of chicago shows.  i was pretty proud of it until i realized how utterly insignificant it is in the grand scheme of things, and what i could have been doing in those five hours. 0.00259% of my life so far, down the drain, assuming my math is right.  probably a little bit less, i just rounded to 22 years... but that's irrelevant.  what is relevant is that a skilled surgeon can do a heart transplant in 6 hours, i could fly to new york from chicago in two and a quarter hours, and the gettysburg address was given in a little over two minutes.  lots could happen in five hours.

i wrote lyrics to a song today.  we'll see how that goes.  a little girl on the bus kept on giving me strange looks while i was writing it, and i felt like the woman next to me was reading over my shoulder.  who knows what they really thought.

i also got rained on today.  i was the only one at milwaukee/north/damen that didn't go for shelter.  it was a pretty odd feeling, but the rain stopped soon.  a guy smiled at me like i knew something he didn't when the rain stopped.  he had torn jeans and an umbrella.

had piece pizza for lunch and a veggie burger, chips and salsa for dinner, complemented by goose island beer and some fudge that grandma bradney had sent.

listened to part of neil young's new album today.  the other intern begged me to stop.  said it was horrible.  frankly, it's not his best album by any means, but it isn't horrible either.  it's just a guy with his guitar, and i guess that's why i like it so much.  granted, it's a guy with his guitar in a very nice studio with a bunch of very nice gadgets to make it sound pretty, but it's still neil young playing his guitar and singing.  he's probably spent decades doing that.  serious musicians spend a lot more time playing than bystanders think.  hendrix used to take speed so he could stay up and play guitar more.  clapton learned how to play all the records in his house.  that doesn't come overnight.  it's a pretty deeply personal thing, and that's how le noise comes off to me.  it may not find its way into my regularly listened records, but it has its place in my music library.

i also listened to the beatles today, first time in 7 or 8 months, likely.  rubber soul.  it and help! are probably the two albums that i have listened to the most in my life, besides so far so good by bryan adams (it was the only cassette i owned for about three years).  i need to go through and listen to all of the beatles' discography.  it's been a really long time since i've listened to revolver or the white album all the way through.

oh yeah, the title.  mike and i looked up bill nye parody songs today.  this was one of the parody bands' names.

lazy or busy

i could make excuses all day for not writing on this blog.  here are a few of my favorites:

• it's mold awareness month.  i was being aware of mold.
• i was cast in a b-movie zombie flick.  zombies don't use the internet.
• the coriolis effect

the truth of it is, i mostly forgot.  lots of interesting events occurred.  big bro got hitched, i got a second internship with eventric, i mixed a song that alien orders had recorded in practice, i finished In Cold Blood, and the cashier at the local jewel-osco shorted me five stickers for my free cookware scorecard.  hussy.

i'm going to try to be better about it, honest.

saw a fellow jma intern's band at schuba's tonight.  they were called carbon tigers, and were a very technically proficient band, which made me all the more proud to be an un-technically proficient musician. i'm not saying that what they did was bad by any means (it really wasn't bad.  they had very skillful compositions), i'm just glad that my bands have always been on the "pure energy" side of the music spectrum and not on the "intricate detail" side.  i get to jump around and yell more that way.

jeff and jill and i had dinner.  i had a vegan burrito.  jeff, if you read this, thanks again.

i'm starting two projects tonight.  first, i'm mixing a second song from the alien orders practice.  this one is called "day terrors", and is shaping up to probably be one of two songs that we play under 120 bpm (for non-concert band nerds, that's about the tempo of "getting better" by the beatles).  i'm also starting a biography of winston churchill called Churchill: A Life (creative title, right?) by martin gilbert.  apparently this 1000+ page book was expanded upon later in gilbert's career, with him advertising 14 books on Winston Churchill, ranging from 967 to 2165 pages long.  this guy has a serious hard-on for churchill.  i can't wait to read the book.

that's about it for now.  joey and i did a bit of work on some alien orders songs, rearranging them for two guitars + bass instead of one guitar + bass.  weezer on friday, alien orders practice on saturday and sunday.

oh, i also went on a serious neil young kick this weekend, as well as an iggy pop video kick.  can't beat iggy for his live show, and i probably listened to the live rust versions of "hey hey my my" and "my my hey hey" a dozen times each.  new thermals album is growing on me, but i doubt i'll end up liking it as much as their last three.

jazz fest

i went to the chicago jazz festival today.  only really saw two acts, but saw two incredibly fluid guitarists.  first was ted sirota's rebel souls.  they played a reggae- and world-infused style of jazz that i thoroughly enjoyed.  drummer played a little too showy for my taste, but the guitarist was simply amazing.  he kept going from dazzling quick solos into strange diminished and augmented chords, making me think he would just start comping for the rest of the band.  instead, he would go into a run of eighth note chordal changes to continue his solo.  not easy chord changes, either.  i honestly didn't think some of his chord progressions were even possible on guitar.  completely blew me away.  he was playing what looked to be an es-335 clone and a 2x10 music man combo, which made me really happy and sad at the same time.  i can't express how much i want to play my music man amp/cab right now... but it does have the distinction of "the loudest clean amp ever made," and i am living in a low-noise environment.  also, +1 for the band playing a charlie mingus tune.

i saw part of zooid, but decided that i would rather listen to jazz that was more palatable than artsy and complex.  so i went to the complete other end of the spectrum:  nick colionne.  pretty smooth jazz, really not my stuff with the exception of his guitar playing.  actually, i probably would've left his set after the first song if it weren't for his guitar.  he wasn't really playing all that interesting of stuff in terms of progressions, but he was doing it with such flair and such ease that i had to watch.  he was quite the showman.  +1 for the ridiculous keyboardist, -1 for doing a really sarcastic and terrible purple rain cover.

on my way back, i walked past a choir.  just as i passed, they sang this song:



one of my absolute favorites from going to church growing up.  i may need to listen to more hymns in the near future, i forgot how much i enjoy them.  there's just an infectious feel about them, right down in the depths of the music itself.  even the lyrics are creative and well-done (like most hymns, it does seem to get a little lazy on the third verse), not terribly preachy but still getting the message across loud and clear.  i think a lot can be gained from secular songwriting with hymn style in mind.  i mean, ray charles made an entire career from doing that.

eating leftover burritos tonight.  the "medium" salsa is more of an authentic salsa, "hot" to a gringo's tongue.  i definitely was not expecting this, and drank a lot of water with my first burrito last night.  two glasses worth at least.  also watched up in the air today.  *sort of spoiler alert*  it was a very good film, but i cannot express how much i wanted it to resolve in the end.  so many loose ends, so many questions... however, it has kept me thinking about the film all day, so i suppose it ended in a successful way.

tomorrow's labor day.  i have the day off.  might go to a neighborhood festival sort of thing.  we'll see.  i also may actually finish the Alien Orders in The Shed mix, which i've been threatening to do for about three weeks running now.

listening to simon and garfunkel's bookends on the turntable.

two for the price of one!

i didn't blog yesterday.  i'm sure my already innumerable legions of faithful readers were devastated.  in order to make up for this disappointment, i plan to recount two days in this one post.

forgot to wear my retainer again two nights ago.  yes, i still wear my retainer on occasion.  i am sort of obsessed with dental health when you get down to it.  used to brush my teeth as many as 7 times in a day.  i've backed off a little since then because it's likely that the excessive brushing did me more harm than good.  anyway, i could tell my teeth were a little out of alignment.  obviously a terrible start to a day.

the rest of the day was fairly mediocre.  met a second intern, mike, and jeff's wife jill.  i was still a little cobwebby at that point in the morning, due to my apparent inability to buy coffee filters, and made a fairly terrible stuttering first impression on both of them.  i plan on winning them over slowly but surely, culminating in a dramatic scene at the senior prom.  or maybe that's a john hughes movie.

came back to the apartment, came in through the back door, somewhat startled sarah's boyfriend.  he was waiting for her.  nice guy.  tall.  i offered him spaghetti.  he politely declined.

i played guitar and quietly sang for a while.  it was not pleasant.  i do not sing well at low volumes.  i eventually gave up on this and gave into sleep.

i wore my retainer that night, though.  it was a good decision.

been reading In Cold Blood.  it's a great book so far, i'm about a third of the way through.  i need to mix the Alien Orders live recordings so everyone can listen and learn.  not necessarily learn how awesome we are, more so that members of our band can learn the songs and learn what was done right and wrong in the songs.

i've been eating baby carrots and peanut butter fudge at night.  two nights in a row now.  the fudge is good in small quantities, the carrots are good in large quantities.  i should probably invest in some ranch dressing for the carrots.  but for now, these are no a la carte carrots.

anyway, i've been doing stuff at my internship.  i'm applying for Pitchfork either tonight or tomorrow.  it would be nice to have a change of pace in terms of internships.  right now i spend a lot of time catching up on music news and compiling lengthy artist reports for jma reps to read over before they meet to discuss promotion plans.  i'm learning quite a bit though.

SHIT.  i almost forgot!  you need to listen to this.  it's a JAM.