Yeah. That.

Don’t Listen Here

You can spend $45 to go see Nickelback this week.

Or you could buy 45 hammers from the dollar store, hang them from the ceiling at eye level and spend an evening banging the demons out of your dome.

That $45 would also buy you a lot of pickles, which have more fans on Facebook than the band. It would also buy you an introduction to rock guitar video course that would allow you to surpass the band’s skill level in five hours or less.

$45 is also enough to see Men in Black III five times, buy a dozen Big Macs, do 10 loads of laundry or so many other experiences as banal and meaningless as seeing Nickelback but that come without having to actually hear Nickelback.

But if you must, the band is playing the Idaho Center on Wednesday, June 13, at 6 p.m. Tickets start at $45.

Did I mention that I really fucking hate Nickelback and can find no evolutionary explanation to justify their continued existence?

A dad I never met

In addition to recognizing how great my own dad is this year on Father’s Day, I’m feeling kind of inspired to recognize how very important someone else’s father came to be in my life.

Back in 2003, one of my oldest and closest friends lost his father to an illness that I assumed was either caused or exacerbated by smoking. I’d never met this man. Wouldn’t have known him from Adam if I’d seen him walking down the street. But the day he died, I decided that I would be one less person that my friend would lose to smoking. And I decided that very day that I was going to quit after almost twenty-five years as an addict. I set the date for about a week later and on 3 November 2003, I had my last cigarette. I never once looked back after that day and haven’t touched one of those disgusting things since.

So in a certain way, this dad that I’d never met saved my life–or at least significantly enhanced and lengthened it. I don’t think I’ve ever told his son this story and I probably should have before now, because the son obviously played a pretty big role in my decision too.

Father’s Day just seemed like a good time to mention it. So thanks to father and son…

On second thought

I still think I’m a relatively good son, friend, and boss, even if not a perfect one.

Saturday night

I’m managing to feel kind of guilty and rotten on three or four different fronts right now even though I probably don’t really deserve to–or at least maybe just on one or two of them.

I fear I’d make a good Catholic.

Would this be a good idea?

I don’t generally ask for content opinions since I’ve always stressed that I am the primary audience for this website.

But…

I’m thinking of celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the famed Planet SOMA US Tour of 1997 by posting the actual video footage from that trip. Is there any interest? You’d see a much younger me carrying Mark’s Powerbook around the country, visiting random strangers, touring Route 66, and generally having fun with what was really one of the very early online road trips back in the semi-virginal days of the internet (when this site, strangely enough, actually had a much bigger audience).

I ask for this opinion because this really would be an audience-driven thing. I can watch this shit whenever I want to. I don’t particularly want to go to all the effort if no one else cares.

Opinions are solicited.