Dance Party #1

Intro: I need to take a break from writing critically about music because I'm burnt out. Plus I'm afraid I will get locked into this internet persona of being some kind of rap music dork. I mean, I guess I AM a rap music dork, but there's other things I'm dorky about, so it's unfair that you only get to see that side of me.
I used to be dorky about 'zines. If you don't know what a 'zine is, well I'm sick of explaining it. I'm sure you can find an informative entry about them on Wikipedia. If 'zines weren't completely impractical at this point in time, I'd probably put this blog on hold for a while and go back to doing those. Blogs and websites are fun and all, and you definitely have the potential to reach more people than most 'zines do, but there's something a lot more fulfilling about producing a physical copy of something and being able to hold it in your hands. I refuse to continue waxing poetic about 'zines because almost every poetic waxing of 'zines contains the "being able to hold it in your hands" statement and I don't want to become predictable and redundant.
At the end of my 'zine run, I kind of settled into doing 'zines that featured a lot of short slice of life type pieces where I'm very judgmental for the sake of comedy, and most people I know in real life would agree that's what I'm best at. Well that, and scathing, intentionally mean music reviews, but I'm putting those on hold.
So I figured I'd go back to doing shit like that to re-ignite my Writing Spirit. these Dance Party posts will be like a little mini-zine, except they won't be badly photocopied and you can't read them on the toilet. So they are really nothing at all like a 'zine, and more like your average blog post, except I feel I have a more interesting take on things than most other people (Most people who make blogs feel this way though.). I don't know how many "issues" of "Dance Party" I'll reach, but my average 'zine lasted until issue 4, so I'd say at least 4.


My new neighbor looks like a real creep.

Most Apartment buildings in Albany are real weird because they were built in the 1800's by Dutch people. From my understanding, the Dutch were a very small breed of people. Because of that, it's pretty common to get an apartment in Albany with a large wide open living room and high ceilings. If you're lucky, you'll even get one of the apartments with the sweet arched doorways. The problem is, since the Dutch were so tiny, and by my calculations they must have been the size of midgets, that most bedrooms are really small and make no sense at all if you're over 5' 3".
Besides that, it seems most of these apartments were even bigger at some point in time. So big, that a lot of future owners decided to split one gigantic apartment into two smaller apartments, all with tiny bedrooms. Right now, I live in a three bedroom apartment that's a fairly good size despite only having one decent sized bedroom. Right next door to my apartment is a very small apartment that at one point used to be a part of the current apartment I'm living in. If you go into my living room, it's rather obvious where they put up the wall to make one apartment with a very large living room into two apartments because they did such a shitty job of covering up the fact.
Usually when this is done, there's some consideration for space and the apartments are at least close to being equal in size. In this case, whoever did it was just like "Fuck it!" and made a normal sized apartment (mine), and then a tiny apartment for someone used to living in a prison cell.
I found this out because my former neighbor invited me over a few times to smoke weed. She was possibly the dumbest and most spaced out girl I've ever talked to. She didn't mind the size of the place because she lived in another dimension anyway. The "living room" to the apartment was about the size of a decent apartment bedroom, and the "bedroom" was the size of my walk-in closet. The kitchen and bathroom were converted from closets, no shit. Her refrigerator was a standard dorm room fridge, and the bathroom was narrow to the point that if you were over 200 pounds, you'd probably have a hard time dumpin inside of it.
She moved out or got evicted a month or so ago. That wasn't a big loss or anything, but I trusted my landlord enough not to let a serious creep move inside there. I mean, not many people are going to jump at the chance to pay $600+ a month for something smaller than a studio apartment in Albany New York, which has more than a plethora of cheap apartments to live in.
I haven't met this dude formally or anything, but I saw him yesterday chilling on our stoop in a wifebeater and smoking USA Golds. He was bald and looked like he's been through some shit. Now I have to make sure my door is locked at all times, which is a bitch to do, since Space Cadet Girl's ex boyfriend kicked in our door one night out of anger for some reason. So my landlord, instead of fixing that shit up proper, just kind of haphazardly nailed some new wood into the problem areas and now the door is a regular bitch to open and close. Now I have to worry about some jerkoff holed up in a 10'X10' apartment breaking in looking for shit to pawn for meth money in between his marathon sessions of pasting up model's pictures he ripped out of Women's magazines to his wall so he can later X out their faces with a pocket knife and masturbate to them.
Lucky for me, I am moving out of Albany in a couple months because I need an escape from reality for a little while, but until then, I have to live in fear.


Actually, my downstairs neighbor is a creep too.

He's a different kind of creep though. He's old and harmless, and possibly mentally retarded. You can smell the stench of cigarettes through his door, and he leaves AM radio on 24 hours a day. He also has the habit of leaving his door wide open for no apparent reason. This is how we found out he leaves his Christmas tree up year 'round.
One time, me and my roommate were walking down the stairs and he had his door open as usual. We looked inside, and he had a big piece of cardboard propped up in front of his Christmas Tree. He had written ATM on it in black magic marker and had a five dollar bill taped to it.
Also, a few months ago, we walked outside of our apartment and saw he hung one of those inflatable Spider Man toys you get from parades outside of his window with a sign attached to it that said "HELP ME!". We really should have gotten photographic evidence of this, but by the time we though of doing so, it was already gone.
I always see him at the corner store at any given time. From 7am to 11pm, dude is always there buying scratch offs. I know he can't have a job, and I don't think my landlord takes Section 8, so I don't know what he does. I don't know if there's some kind of Mental Retard program that gives you money and lets you live in an apartment and spend all your money on cigarettes and scratch offs, but if there really is, I may have to hit myself in the head with a frying pan a few times to see if I can collect. I'm sick of working for the money I use to buy cigarettes and scratch offs. (Just kidding. I don't buy scratch offs. I haven't given up on life just yet.)


Diet Soda is killing me.

In a feeble attempt to lose weight, I've switched over from normal soda to Diet soda. I should say, in a feeble attempt to not gain anymore weight, since I know you can't just lose weight by drinking Diet Soda. Only true fat people think that way.
I would bet 80% of my caloric intake is soda, which is why I switched over to diet. It's not that I constantly over eat (I do on weekends though, because it's fun), I just have a problem with never wanting to move a muscle and drinking too much sugary fluids. I figured if I drink chemically altered liquid that tastes like sugary fluids, I am at least cutting out 1000 calories a day from my daily lazy man diet.
I am not even that fat. I mean, I'm fucking fat, but I'm not fat to the point where grade schoolers would point and laugh at me. No one is thinking they could trap me in a giant box if they baited it with Big Macs or anything. I don't walk with penguin feet because my thighs rub together and I can see my dick when I piss. On a personal level, I'm teetering on the brink of fatness where I can't deal with myself though. So I know a change needs to be made. I'm starting off small with the switch to diet soda, so fuck you, leave me alone. I'd also like to let you know my main motivation to lose weight is so I can make fun of actual fat people with a cleaner conscious. There is nothing I love more than making fun of fat people.
Back to this diet soda thing: Diet soda sucks when you first start drinking when you're a lifetime normal soda drinker, but after a week you just get used to it, so I don't mind it so much. The problem I'm having is that my girlfriend keeps telling me how horrible diet soda is for your body because of all the mysterious chemicals they use to make it. I don't fact check shit, so I have no option but to believe her, and now any time my body aches or my stomach feels weird, I automatically assume it's the diet cola chemicals eating away at my insides. I am in constant fear that I will be the first person to die from diet soda now, and I can't just quit soda cold turkey. That's like telling Aquaman he can't swim anymore or taking gold away from The Leprechaun. I can quit smoking easier.
Deep down, I know diet soda isn't killing me, but I'm not so sure about it melting away my insides. I know they used to do tests to scare children in school out of drinking coke by melting batteries and shit with it, so I'm sure since diet soda is made with even more chemicals it has super battery melting powers. I now go to sleep having these nightmares that my insides look like melting wax and the diet chemicals have made my heart abnormally large and at any minute it will burst out of my chest cavity soaked and fermented in diet Pepsi.


The Last Five Records I Listened To According to iTunes Shoddy 'Recently Played' list:

1. Dizzee Rascal - Maths & English: Still holding up as my album of the year.
2. M.I.A. - Kala: Still holding up as my 2nd place album of the year, though interest is waning
3. Percee P - Perserverance: Doesn't suck as much as I thought it would, but it's only at "pretty decent" status right now.
4. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass: This entire album is growing on me.
5. DJ Muggs Vs. SIck Jacken - The Legend of the Mask & The Assassin: Like Raven said, this shit is Sick Wacken.


Outro: Thanks for reading. I'd write more, but it's past my bedtime. -- Mike Dikk