spank

Get ready for an authentically epic rawdog spank brainfartshit thread, because I really need to write this shit down before I go nuts. Shit, I swear I thought I was going nucking futs last night. But I am fucking nuts anyway (as you'll be able to see) so who gives a shit.

TL;DR booze, weed and dark clubs with unnecessarily loud shitty music, filled with eminently unfriendly people who speak a different language don't mix. Also, in hindsight I feel like a doormat who likes to make a fool out of himself and who doesn't take advantage of opportunity. Fuck weed and unwelcoming environments. Yesterday I wasn't just paranoid, I became fucking delusional.

So I'm currently living in Madrid. Got here on Nov 20th and I'll be staying here until March for a consulting project my company assigned me to.

I've been doing my work, been busy looking for an apartment to stay in (rather than the hotel room I'm writing this from) and seeing as I'm in Madrid -- I've never lived out of country or in such a big city -- I've been going out when possible (which hasn't been often tbh), seeing places, meeting new people, drinking, smoking weed, whatever I can do. I've been pretty much doing it alone because my teammates aren't keen on partying at all.

The other day I met this singer chick who lives here. American. She's friends with a dude who works here that I got to know in Portugal a week before coming here. She was giving a concert the next day, and I told the dude I was going during the week, after we talked about plans for the weekend.

I went to the concert, had a nice chat with her for a while, and was kind of flirty with her (I could tell you why but you're bored enough as it is). Probably too awkward, but nothing special I hoped. Anyway turned out she was with some guy, so I laid off. I added her on Facebook, figuring we got along well enough for that. We kept in touch, because I asked her if she could sell me her band's record, and we arranged for a meeting this thursday. We met on schedule, she came alone. I got her band's record from her, then I asked if she was free and wanted to join me for a bite at this Portuguese joint I was meaning to try. Had dinner, nice conversation, got joined by friends of hers, then went for a drink. Discussed plans for going out in the weekend with them. I wonder if I have been investing too much in this relationship with a person I barely know, because I'm doing too much to spend time with her, but she seems like a genuinely interesting person, and even if I don't get it on with her (I'd date her in a blink of an eye) I don't care, I just want to make good friends here in Madrid.

So yesterday I met her and some other friends of hers at night, including two that were with us the other night. As I was going there, I saw the guy she was with the other night -- who, it had turned out from her FB profile, is her husband -- walking in the opposite direction. She told I'd just missed him, he wasn't feeling well, she said. We walked around, shared a nice joint, beer, and went to this other club after a change of plans. I was pretty OK by this time, the other guys were also interesting people and I was enjoying talking with them. After getting our drinks we go to the dancefloor and stayed there a while. I was pretty stoned so I found ways to enjoy and dance to the music.

Then this guy started hitting on the American friend, like going up to her and telling her stuff. He did this twice, then she went to a different place, looking annoyed. At some moment she tells me: "I don't want this guy to be near me". Eventually the dude goes up to her again, and I tap him on the shoulder: "look man, I know you're trying to have your fun, but my friend isn't feeling like getting hit on. Please cut it off." He had a pretty WTF look on his face. I keep on going: "no one's got any problem with you, I'm just asking you to leave her alone." I could swear he retorted something like: "I feel sorry for you." But then again the music was fucking loud so I don't know. I answered "listen, I've been in Madrid for a short time, I'm having fun and I wouldn't like anything to happen that would spoil that." The American friend was kind of pulling me away from the conversation I think. A local (haawwt) chick came to us (the dude and I) and asked if everything was OK, and I chatted her up as well: "everything's OK, I was just trying to get to know this person! What's your name, where are you from?" Handshake. Trying to be as smooth and charming as possible with everyone. She seems to enjoy the approach. Everyone goes on with their lives and I return to the group as well.

At this moment I was kind of wondering what the hell I had just done, because maybe the reasonable approach should have been telling her "if he's pissing you off we should go stand somewhere else", not try to be some hero, because I let her use me as a bodyguard, and I have nothing to prove to anyone. Fucking nice guy's what I am. Still it felt nice to tell someone to stick it somehow, because I'd never done that, I think. Local girl appears again, flirting, I get actually hit on by her (bumping on her ass, nice, Spanish chicks are de la ostia), but the situation on the whole was distracting me. And with all the dancing with eyes closed I lost contact with the group. Dude I told to fuck off was there, made conversation with him, was a Finnish lawyer who gave me his business card. Seemed very warm to me. I go check my jacket which was on this pillar where all the jackets were and a group who had been there and had talked to the American friend became seemingly hostile towards me, when I tell them "excuse me" for me to reach the item.

And it went downhill from here. I started going like "what the hell do you want from me", "do you have a fucking problem with me?" At this moment everything was conspiring against me. Especially because for some reason it looked so odd. The change of plans. That that other group had also talked to her. That the lawyer gave me a business card and told me to call him if I had any trouble. Suddenly these people I'd just met seemed to be ganging up on me. All of this felt like an international conspiracy to drag me to that place and try to humiliate me or something. "Fuck off" I said, and I grabbed the jacket and left the place feeling like I'd been a crime victim. Then the last odd thing happened. I went to the bouncer, told him what I thought was happening, he seemed relatively untouched by the story and I turned to the first guy in the line. He seemed awfully eager to hear what happened. I asked him what his name was. He didn't want to tell me. I say I'll only tell the story if I had his name. Still wouldn't say. "Oh right... so have you heard about a girl called [American girl]", he seemed to hesitate and replied "no." "You see what I mean?" And I leave, confused as fuck.

I go to walk around alone trying to find someone who seemed reasonable enough for me to tell the story. I managed to get this Spanish girl to listen to me, only to end up hearing something to the effect of "do you happen to suffer from any personality disorder or delusion that you're not aware of?" (awfully pertinent question!) Fuck this. Cool down. Walked around. Found this other American kid who was at the club before, he was friendly and curious to hear what just happened. I guess that after like 30 minutes of explaining the situation, his insight -- that weed makes that stuff like that happen, that he wished he was lucky enough to have any with him, that I should chill -- saved my mind. I had no idea what the fuck I'd just done. We exchange contacts (I told him: "hey, give me your email, maybe some day we can reminisce this moment or something"), he goes home, and I go on a stroll around the Calle Montera, dodging sluts, appreciating the environment and trying to call the American girl to ask her if everything was OK, until the metro opened.

Got to the hotel at 7am. Woke up at 9am.

Girl sends me message on Facebook minutes ago asking if I was OK and telling she hoped I had fun.

Madrid is a hell of a city.

... who live in Providence, RI. Still unsure when that's going to happen, but I'm looking forward to booking as many vacation days as possible to give me time to get to know a couple of spots across the pond.

After Providence, I should pay a visit to NYC and Minneapolis (a friend of mine is going to a winter school there).

When time comes, anyone around those places up for a meet? :)

A Roland MKS-50, which is the rackmount version of the Alpha Juno 1/2. This is an analog synthesizer from 1986:

After ten years of waiting for him (roughly since this post, or when Lüt told me Static-X were a lousy SYL ripoff) to come to Portugal, a couple of months ago it was announced that the DTP was replacing Nevermore at the Vagos Open Air festival - this Saturday. Venue's 10 km from my mom's, no less.

Hope to bring back photos!

... on a lil' track I've been making :)

SoundCloud

Sometimes they come too late.

Just watched the first two seasons of it on DVD. The first one was surprisingly good but it just goes into overdrive in the even better second season. Although it's not as thematically/subtextually rich as The Sopranos (THE artistic benchmark for all TV series IMHO) it's definitely got some of the best writing I've seen on a TV show, namely with regards to character development.

I really am.

... and bought a PS3. In fact I'm writing this on it.

I've taken my first steps with GT5P and GTA4, but what really impressed me was the built-in software, and how much you can do with it.

Just finished watching the first eight episodes of the fourth season. This has become one of my favorite TV series ever, despite some of its idiosyncrasies.

What do you think about it?

Anything Else

The bitch is pissing me off.

d00d sayz:

i like the song, but i dont like the fact that they are makin fun of bush...whay??? i dunno...

My reply:

It's probably for the same reason why you spell "why" with an "a".

He retorts:

yea sure the reason i dont like them makin fun is cuz i make type-os. arent u late for an aa meeting go crawl in a ditch



This was too easy.

- My MacBook Pro has a new bottom case. A month and a while ago I had a minor accident riding a bike with the laptop in the backpack, and the fall roughed it up a bit. Thankfully enough, though, the corner that hit the floor wasn't on the monitor (it would've cracked it) nor on the optical drive slit (rendering it unusable,) but on the one next to the HDD. However the whole underside of the computer was bent upwards on the left side, causing the monitor to not close properly.

I ordered a new part immediately and it's OK now, but getting it fixed cost me 250€ ($340.)

- I just came back from Lisbon after going there yesterday to see Bloc Party (which I have already seen once, last year) and Arcade Fire. The former were great, they put on a great, energetic show and are awesome with their instruments. Didn't disappoint at all.

But Arcade Fire, which are somewhat new in my listening habits, were absolutely mesmerizing. We were fairly near the stage so we could hear the band members that didn't have mics singing along. Their songs, played live, are exactly as awesome as I had imagined them while listening to the albums, and capture even more emotion because the group look like they're having the time of their lives doing it, and they were also quite nice to the crowd. It was a quite intimate concert. They also pulled some nice tricks I had no idea they did, like swapping instruments, which for some reason I find awesome to watch. (BTW, Bloc Party had a nice touch of this as well, having played one of the songs of the new album with two drumsets.)

Speaking of the crowd, the place was totally full and it was a bit claustrophobic to look behind and to see nothing but heads. Nevertheless, everyone was having a really great time as well, singing and clapping along to all the songs... if they didn't feel like singing, the audience could have filled the role perfectly. The song lineup was almost perfect. All in all, this concert was a very touching moment, which I'll remember fondly.