dog on the sidewalk, i saw...

curerently listening to deerhoof's "bibidi babidi boo," which is a first for me. it has a different version of "dog on the sidewalk" then the version you will hear on "milk man," and i believe for good reason. this album so far is similar in style to "reveille" and "milk man," only some of them are live and some sound a bit different from the tracks on the albums. these songs were on the album, but they are different versions...and at times it is even more spastic and less disorted. i almost would say that the version of "milking" in this album is even better then what was released on "milk man." everyone in this is talented as hell. you can hear the guitar licks dripping from the speakers, and the drummer is going fast enough that it puts a hummingbird to shame. satomi's vocals are easier to hear on this album. you can get a feel for what her voice really sounds like and what the words are. can i also mention it is live? i usually cannot stand live versions of anything, but i have heard two live tracks recently that blew me away. this version of "milking" on "bibidi babidi boo" and the version of "bad sees" from beat happening's self titled album. i should also note that i twitted about listening to deerhoof and my good friend dan in england wrote back with delight. i'm glad to hear that deerhoof are rocking the UK just as hard as they rock the US. may i also just add that perhaps my all time favourite song from deerhoof ("giga dance") is really freaking amazing on this disc?

off topic. completely off topic. today was really confusing in general. there is a huge system that i deal with regularly that transfers a large amount of data that is essential to the company that i work for. they have been switching databases so that in the future, you will be able to check in depth on the properties within that particular file. this means that not only am i a drafter, but i am also a database operator in a way. i am constantly having to transport and maintain more data than i thought could be even imaginable as a child. i mean, think up to probably a terabyte by now. i'm not even kidding. for one, part of my job is to draw points from one substation to another. these are essential points that run underneath a distribution line. for example, things such as fences, buildings of any kind, street signs, street signals, billboards, distribution poles, roads, trails, rivers, streams, lakes, cell towers and the like all have points that have to be located. these are huge files that i have to move about regularly, as well as these other files all based in microstation or microsoft products, which are also huge. today the shit hit the fan, as some would phrase it. recently they had an emergency with the changing of the databases and made an alert that anyone with particular projects had to turn in all the drawings for those projects immediately for the transfer. this meant that i had to check in something like 145 drawings within a half hour off the fly. well, i was able to do it by some sort of skill based on drinking massive amounts of caffeine and focusing all my anti-depressant medication on being totally and completely focused. since this was awhile back, i had forgot that i saved all of the drawings in a folder on my harddrive for just in case before transferring them over. i sent an email to the head honcho over there so that he would know that i needed back these drawings immediately as soon as he was done with the transfer. well, i didn't end up getting them back immediately, simply because of lack of time. i got back from vacation totally ill and had went from one huge project to another relatively busy project that required my full attention. i did not have time to be a database lady at all during that span of time. so yesterday i was asked to check back in the drawings from the system and i went through and checked them all back in. today i found out that tons of them were coming up as the drawings before the last issuance, meaning that all of our work was totally lost. so then i was asked about whether i had saved it on a work file, and i said no since we had not issued them and i have only been saving after issuance. i had totally forgotten about having all these files on my computer. we were all getting really bummed about the whole thing, since this meant that the higher ups had accidently not done a step that has to be done to update the drawings to the most current ones. while trying to show my co-worker a folder where i might have a few saved, i glanced over a folder with the project name on it. i opened it up and it all totally came back to me. i jumped up and said, "this is all the files! we are okay! i completely forgot!!" well, this still didn't solve the problem. there are still drawings coming back with issues despite it all, but that one is beyond me. i am 100% certain that the drawings i sent out are in this folder, since i remember doing it now. i did it because i know myself well enough to know that things like this could happen, and because this particular project has been sort of confusing at times. i guess the whole point of this is that everything has ended in a pretty good way from what i can tell. i was able to quickly solve at least a couple of the things that were found right off the bat. i asked the leader of the project if the files i had saved seemed correct, and he said they all were, but that there were just a few weird little quirks that were not totally figured out. i guess i'm just bummed about having to write to the big guys that run the system and telling them that they are going to have to delete out some drawings. they will want an explanation i am sure, and this is going to lead to a weird "well, you sort of didn't do this one thing and so it didn't transfer all the correct data over to the new database." sigh. i'll do fine at it. i just hate the idea that since i have taken this role that it seems at times like i'm not the best at it. i try really hard to do my best at it and i am constantly going by checklists for it. i think the problem is trying to balance out about 60 hours of work into 40 hours. at least i know that i am fast. i'm pretty efficient, but i know i could improve. i think that process will come to me once i have down a perfect method for figuring out how to balance all of the different tasks that i have to do in one day. the thing that makes it difficult is the off the fly stuff. most of my work today was work that came by me that was immediate. the moment today that was pretty nuts was writing an email listing off all the drawings that had to be released (roughly 150+ drawings), plotting two 55 page sets of a project for an engineer that wanted it that minute totally off the fly, and then trying to figure out the issue with the database malfunction. the fantastic thing is that the problem i've been having for two days now has pretty much been solved by this dude out in hailey. he's a super nice and funny guy. he had the same problem today and started messing around with the database and figured out the trick to getting the drawings checked in. he called me up and chatted about the whole thing and i gave him the scoop on some things that i have been noticing with the system this week that seemed concerning. it wouldn't let me check in for awhile one day. then when i could finally access it, i could not access any project files at all. it was absolutely perplexing.

now after that insanely long rant, back on to topic.

i also have checked out the newest release from dungen called "4." i highly recommend this album! dungen is one of those bands that i think are great in a number of ways. i know that a lot of people think they sound like the beatles, but is that necessarily a bad thing? isn't it damned impossible to not sound like the beatles in one aspect or another? i mean, i've even listened to electronic stuff that sounded like the beatles. country?: oh yeah. i've heard some beatles sounding country, motherfucker. dungen is downright sultry and smooth at times. it is the type of music you could be listening to at a hip club with a fancy woman that has betty davis eyes. it is las vegas swank, all covered in the gloss and sheen of bands like love and at times on "tio bitar" i almost felt a bit of black sabbath in it. it often reminds me of the zombies (which is great for me, since i adore the zombies). i should also add that if anyone uses a flute, i am usually quite pleased. flute is one of my all time favourite instruments. i've been planning on getting flute lessons eventually in my lifetime and might eventually try to get myself into an orchestra later in life. i've always loved the idea of joining a really great orchestra, like martin denny's style of thing. i would get to play these quick little jazzy tunes on the flute real fast, and i would add a slight bit of reverb or distortion to it at times. i would get the opportunity to make 50's style dresses and glam it up for performances. wouldn't that just be delightful? god. i'd have to have a martini glass next to me the entire time just to give it that extra bit of swank. i'd almost be tempted to leave a lipstick mark on the trombone player's collar just to add to that sort of hilarious 50's style marty gold kind of music. could you imagine the audience's reaction to that? they'd be really digging the music, but be completely focused on the lipstick on the collar (because chances are at least 75% of the audience will be blazing drunk or sloppy high). anyways....

i am going to depart now to consume some food like substances. have a wonderful evening.