7.30.04/09:15  keep risin' to the top                  

Through some fluke in my sleep schedule that had something to do with sleeping for 18 of the last 24 hours, it's 9am and I'm awake.  My first day in like a week where I might actually get to see the sun.  Yeah, I'm excited.  I'm thinking about maybe going for a bike ride today.  That would be pretty fun and maybe I will get some exercise.

I was at Sheetz yesterday, and I swear they base their outside canopy design on these platforms from Super Mario 1.  Which of course made me want to come home and play it.  When I beat a level and there were the fireworks at the castle, I thought, 'That's what I want to be like in the bedroom.'  Castle.  Fireworks.  Too bad our princess is in another castle.

7.28.04/08:40  dumber than a sack of hammers           

There's nothing quite like being woken up at 8:00 in the morning by someone hammering and hacking away at the siding on your house.  You wonder why there's a stack of panels and all kinds of goofy material in your yard, and you assume that Grandma's let that annoying neighbor across the street keep it there for some house project.

Only he's not.

So as soon as I hear that first hammer hit the panel I have to go upstairs in my bathrobe with my sword to investigate.  My first response in any situation is to assume we're under attack.  Hopefully this will all be fixed and straightened out before I wake up.  I don't want to have to dig any more holes in the backyard.

The roses are starting to die.

On a more positive note, I'm up to 78 pages in my book.  I still have a shot at finishing the rough draft before I leave.  It's getting harder and harder to write, even though I only have three whole chapters and two half-chapters left.  But if I don't finish it, Dr. John will be disappointed in me, and I can't live with that kind of guilt.

7.26.04/09:23  [atama ga kita!] tte itta               

Yeah, Annie hates me now.  And Megan's pissed at me.  And Amber's still not talking to me.  It's not been a very good week for me and that opposite sex.  Probably because I'm a jerk.  At least that's what they keep telling me.  Oh well, shikata ga nai.

And I've decided to extend the Dirty Haiku Contest until Monday, August 1st.  This is because people are still sending good stuff, and also because I'm not going to have the energy to judge them for a while.

Nate's Haiku:

shogun warrior fun

old action figure with gun

the damn arm fell off

So these pictures.  The one with all the seals and weird designs is my student visa.  It's just a sticker on a page of my passport.  The thing with that terrible picture of me is my international driver's permit.  Not terribly useful since I won't have any insurance, but fun to have nonetheless.

This last thing is a picture of some alien eggs Grandma is keeping on our kitchen counter.  Very mysterious things, these alien eggs.  I'm not sure what we're going to do with them.  Let me know if you've got any suggestions.  Maybe I can auction them.

7.22.04/21:34  still fighting the good fight           

I got rid of another 3 malicious programs today.  Still can't use Internet Explorer, still can't download Netscape, still can't do Windows Update.  I'm thinking of going to the Software Lab and just kicking my computer up to 2000 before I go, but we shall see how that goes.  I am, after all, pretty lazy about technology.

But there IS good news.  I got these awesome boots, the idea being that I can slip them on and off whenever I enter a room instead of having to tie them.  Tottemo benri da nee. 

This is Adrian.  I met her on one of my trips to Columbiana.  She wanted to be included in the fun of peachycomics.com, and I'm happy to oblige.  Also she has a g-mail account and I am very jealous of that.

I wish I could say I've been busy writing stories and music and that there will be something new posted relatively soon, but that's just not the case.  I have to work for a straight week and a half starting tomorrow.  It's going to be a ridiculous amount of time in that place, but the upside is that I will hopefully get some pages written.

And my mom gave me some books to read, so maybe it won't be so bad.  I didn't think she had very good taste in books until she read my rough draft and said she likes it.  Now I think she has excellent taste.

Yesterday I went to some kind of Japanese Fish-Cooking party with Cica San and Yangu San.  There were cute Japanese girls and the food was really good and the campus (Chatham, maybe? I don't remember...) has trees and a Carriage House and some little 12-year old girl who came up to us and said we were all cute.  Now my life is complete.

7.19.04/04:27  if you give a mouse a cookie            

Then of course, she'll want some milk.  These last two days have been quite an adventure.  I crossed off one of the last items from my 'Things I've Always Wanted to Do at Work' list, and it was kind of fun.  Thanks to Yangu-San for contributing to the delinquency. 

And Nash stopped by to visit on his way to see our friend Nikki.  We took a trip to Pittsburgh and played some DDR.  Good times.  As I type this I notice this post is sounding very bloggish.  Let's get down to some relevant site details.

There haven't been any posts since Thursday because I've been fighting this virus on my computer since then.  A real pain in the ass kind of a virus that's mostly gone, but there still needs to be a little more immunizing and whatnot.  Stupid internet.

I'm going to take my favorite five or six short stories and rewrite them and call the resulting collection Trepanation.  If you don't know the meaning of that word, look it up.  It's pretty poignant I think, but I could be wrong.  

Thanks for the pictures.  Let me know when you want to pose for me.

7.14.04/01:24  never trust a skinny cook               

I feel a bit like a prophet.  In this thing that I'm writing, there was this chapter where this weird thing happened, and I almost didn't want to use it because it didn't seem believable to me.  But then, in real life, it did happen.  Now I feel strange.  Like a prophet. 

But enough about that.  Let's focus on reality for a bit.  Del, my best friend since I was 12, is still in the ghetto of LA peddling religion to the mexicans and gangsters.  He says nobody messes with him because of who he represents.  And he sent me this sweet-ass cap that he bought while he's in Compton.  Rock.

And I did a terrible thing today to someone.  I wonder if she will forgive me?  Probably she will.  It's infinitesimally less terrible than all the evil things she's done to me.  Probably. 

Also, I finished the invitations today for my going-away party.  If you'd like to be invited, you should tell me via e-mail or IM me about it.  Some of you I can't invite, not because I don't like you, but to prevent conflicts and violence among my guests.  So it goes.  Don't take it as an insult.

When I was doing research on Louis Sachar, I was excited to see that he mentioned one of my favorite books (Hocus Pocus) as part of his inspiration when he was writing Holes.  In the picture I saw of Louis, he looked far different than I had imagined that he would.

Now I must set about the task of getting all my scores and songs back in DDR.  I found out the lightning knocked out my memory card.  But only my DDR records.  Bastards.  Stupid lightning. 

At work the other day I found out about the strangest book I've ever seen.  It's a Japanese book called the "Kanzen Jisatsu Manuraru" (The Complete Book of Suicide).  It lists ten of the most popular methods and rates them on pain, difficulty, and success rate.  Amazing.  I read that the authorities wanted to ban it, or at least make it unavailable to people under 18.  When pressed about this, the author was outraged and said, "Those are precisely the people who need it the most."

7.9.04/01:48  until i met you                          

there once wasn't anything
i couldn't do
not nothing, not one thing,
not seven, not two
i'd say it again,
but it wouldn't ring true
'cause i was so happy
until i met you

i'd once leap a mountain,
and fly over trees
i'd run like a cheetah and
skip on the breeze
there weren't any walls that i
couldn't smash through
'cause i was so happy
until i met you

i'd one time win all the games
checkers and chess
i'd snap off brassieres
(with my TEETH, nonetheless)
but weeds have sprung up
where the flowers once grew
'cause i was so happy
until i met you

there's naught left to say
left to think, left to do
the dust on me piles
the louses accrue
my flowery verses, now curses
(a slew)
i was sofa king happy
until i met you

7.8.04/01:21  women are spheres, reason is a cube.     

That's the summary of a quote from Hagakure, basically it means that reason is like a cube because it is immovable no matter which direction you try and push it from.  Women are like spheres because they will go anywhere they can.  It made more sense when I read it.  Oh well.

And I have three haikus here, the ones that I like the best so far out of the submissions.  Though it's not specified in the contest rules, a haiku's first line should be a description of time.  That's what Cica-San says, and he took Intro to Japanese Literature, so I believe it. 

Sarah:

i awoke to find
you in me.  you felt weird but
i liked it a lot.

John:

this bright full moon night
our lovemaking cast in
riotious shadow play

Jess:

Well this isn’t coy.
I’m naked on the table.
Signal-y enough?

Wow.  And that last one even had punctuation.  Kinky.  If you want your e-mail address linked to your haiku, let me know and it can be arranged.  And please, no more haikus involving sex with dead babies.  Unless they're really good.

7.2.04/02:32  this could be your lucky day...in hell   

That's a song by the Eels.  You should check it out sometime.  They're pretty freaking sweet, just like CAKE, who is playing at the Regatta tomorrow.  Thanks for telling me about that, Amber.  I'm so happy I get to rot behind a desk while everyone gets to see my favorite band.

But I'm not bitter.  Not at all.  I'm a little confused about this girl.  I said she was dramatic, and she countered that by saying she was never going to talk to me again.  Jesus.  If I called you dramatic, would you take it as the supreme insult?  Because that's not how I meant it.  Oh well.

Hara ga tatte, syoo ga nai.  Sono zyosei wa, tottemo kyooki da to omou n da yo.  Mada suki da kedo, shikata ga nai.  Anii-chan ga nihongo ga dekinai kara, kore o nihongo de kaita hoo ga ii da yo.

And I made that classic error of announcing a dirty haiku contest without posting the e-mail to send them to: jbaugher@peachycomics.com.  How could I be so foolish?  Don't answer that.

And if you don't feel depressed enough just yet, here's a poem I wrote like a month ago.  Of course it's all about you.  Someday I'll write happier songs poems and stuff, and then everything will be just frigging jackson.

But not just yet.

7.2.04/02:44  deprived                                 

despised,
the thought of leaving you
of loving from afar
but even sitting next to you
i'm never where you are
if i could get inside of you
i'd still be worlds away
i'll always be deprived of you
and that's why i can't stay

bereft,
no touch of fingertips
that glide across my skin
they're callused, you can't feel the thrill
you're stirring deep within
if i could get enough of you
i'd never be without
i'd give up food, and water, too
a happy sort of drought

depraved,
the thoughts that stew in me
i slowly slip inside
i said that i could let you go
i said that, but i lied
if i could have a trace of you
i'd save it in a jar
and place it so the light shines through
my ever-burning star

7.1.04/00:28  ours are called shenanigans              

In case you were wondering, shoplifting isn't something I find attractive in women.  But that's cool, I'll still love you anyway.  In other news, there is another dirty haiku contest.  Starting right now.  It ends July 26th.  The rules are simple:  5, 7, and 5 syllables, no dropping the F-bomb (my grandma reads this site) and it has to be dirty.

I still owe Sarah her shirt, so the prize is going to be a little different this time.  Something cheap for me to give away, but unique.  The prize is going to be your very own peachycomics.com e-mail address.  It can be whatever name you want, and you can either check it on my server or have it forwarded to an e-mail address of your choice.  It's all up to you. We're all about choices here.

And these past few days have been something of a blur.  There was non-frisbee with Jean that involved dubious activities, DDR, sushi, blueberry picking, driving to the covered bridge, and a Spiderman premiere with John.  Fun times.  For now, that's all I got.  Tomorrow you get a new poem that's 10x better and 10x sadder than the one below this.  And in case you forgot, it's rabbit rabbit day.  You should celebrate duly and thank me for your good luck.

6.30.04/04:08  some call it love                       

some call it love
when the clothes that you wear
are all broken and tattered and torn
some call it love
when the children you bear
are left shattered and bruised and unborn

some call it hate
when you bind them to chairs
and pour kerosene onto their clothes
some call it hate
when you rip out their hair
and the blood trickles down from their nose

some call it shame
when you put them in planes
bound for distant lands, foreign, unknown
some call it shame
when they're showered in flames
and their ashes are scattered on stones

some call it love
when you torture them so
when you prod them and poke them and bite
some call it pain
when you won't tell them no
but still leave them to cold, frozen nights

6.28 & 6.29.04  peachycomics.com 1-year anniversary!! 

Greetings, I know it's been a long time since I've done that thing where I update the site and I apologize.  My house got struck by lightning two weeks ago, destroying, among other things, my beautiful modem.  Other notable victims were our brand new upstairs TV and my computer speakers.  So it goes.

In an effort to keep up with my obligation to the dozen or so loyal fans this site has, I've decided to move all the files to my laptop.  The good thing about doing this is that I can update from Japan when I get there.  If ever such a thing happens again where you don't get an update, check the forum to see if my technology is broken, since I can post there from anywhere.

It's been a busy two weeks, what with the trip to Shelbyville and Jason stopping out to visit for a few days.  One of the projects we're working on is to put up a three-minute movie of him playing amazing classical guitar.  I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Exactly one year ago, I began an ambitious endeavor to make a website, a place to post all my rants and short stories and songs and poems.  It's been many things to me, sometimes a pain in the ass, sometimes a great release, but always fun.  Thanks for your support.  It's viewers like you that keep our station running.

Or it would be if this site had sponsors.  There's an idea.  Money.

Still, it's nice to have an audience.  I'm not sure what kind of exciting things I'll be doing for the next year, probably just posting lots of pictures of Japanese temples and Asian people.  Hopefully you're into that kind of thing, because there's going to be a lot of it.  Consider yourself warned.