I'm out of debt. Oh, okay, I've got a Visa card, but I've gotten it to a manageable state, and all my other loans are paid off... and I'm in the process of buying a house that closes this Friday. But, I consider myself out of debt. I'm at least seriously better off financially than probably 80% of the people out there.

I'm not ill. Well, I'm sick, but I'm not ill. I've only got one malady and Aleve usually kills off my migraines.

1969 Chevrolet Impalas are gas-guzzlers. If I was seriously concerned with my gas mileage, do you really think I would be driving a pImpala? Okay, a "classic" pImpala. There? Is that better? Yes, I know that the newer Impalas get pretty decent mileage. They just can't hold all the hardware for a band, and the band too.

There's tons of free pr0n online. I could list examples, but my hosting agreement frowns upon it.

I don't have an eBay account. Nor do I really need one. My crap is mine. I'm sure Hyz has a different opinion on that matter, but I'm still pretty sure it doesn't involve me needing an eBay account.

I couldn't have asked for a finer audience. I have a small group of loyal (and I use the term loosely) readers, and am perfectly fine with that. I'm not out to make money on the web because... well, that's what I do for a living. I'd kinda like to separate my personal and professional lives somewhat.

I'm not interested in geopolitical current events. I have nearly limitless resources of information available at my fingertips, but I'm more interested in checking out Pokemon information or idling on StarMUD. Who cares how financially fucked the leader of some country I've never heard of (and I've heard of all of them, circa 1994, thanks to Yakko Warner).

My cock is perfect, just the way it is. I think I've said enough.

I assume by now that everyone knows that these are all the spam messages I receive. I like deleting and/or opting out (unsubscribing - to something you never subscribed for) each of them. I'll never use any sort of Spamblocking software - I get a kind of gratification for doing it. I realize that sometimes you're not being removed from their list at all, or even added to other lists as a verified email address & someone who will act upon bulk consumer email. So, since I can't sit down with these people and tell them why their promotions simply aren't interesting to me... I thought I'd post it.

Additionally, the company I work for features anti-virus and security software, so I'm not interested in paying for something I can get for free.

The whole hidden, su6st:tuted, or <!-- commented out --> characters thing is really silly. It just looks seriously unprofessional. I realize you're trying really really hard to get around regexes that are searching for "Viagra" or "remove"... Creative, yes, I'll give you that.

To the absolute idiots who don't include a link to the product at all, I send a hearty laugh on the behalf of anyone with two brain cells to rub together. We may never know who you are, but you've made an ass of yourself bigger than Dan Quayle.

And finally, I send an appology out to all those people using AOL who happened to get an email apparently originating from verdigris.net. The domain was spoofed, as are, I'm sure, 99% of all spam headers anyway. You may be upset, but not nearly as much as I was dealing with at least 100 bounce messages from AOL's mailserver. So, here's a big FUCK YOU to the prick (individual or agency) who decided to use my band's website's domain as the "From:" source of your shit... and you didn't even include a link to your site. Idiots...

So, that was my lengthy rant on "Spam" and I hope you enjoyed it.

Is it getting Nippy in here...?

In my previous entry, I mentioned the Battle of the Bands at the Ballard Firehouse. What I neglected to mention was that Al & I approached Nippy to join Verdigris as our new drummer. He accepted.

We got together yesterday evening for our regularly scheduled practice time. There was some discrepancy with <Pure, as they apparently needed to practice there that evening as well for much-needed work before a Saturday gig at Studio7. Once we got everything sorted out, we had our practice, adjourning an hour earlier than normal (so our 2.5h practice was 1.5h).

We basically just played thru a few songs and had Nippy keep up. It was a little akward... leading a drummer. Usually, the drummer is the driving force - the timekeeper - for the band, but in the few songs we played, we were almost dragging him along. I must admit, I felt a little sorry for him, but he seemed to be doing pretty well.

In addition to dragging him thru some of our songs, we also busted out a jam, and played Little Wing... for a lot longer than any arrangement we'd ever played before. The jam & cover were a lot more conducive for practicing than our songs, which may indicate that we set aside our prior library, at least for now...