Jacob was the bass player that filled in for my old band (was Electric Doormat, now Mercury Tree) while James was away for awhile. Such a sweet person, and only 17.

Click on the flyer for details.

I would really like to go to this, so if anyone in my neighborhood is interested, I can pay for your tickets, should you provide me with a ride.

Much love,

Me.

What you lacked for in technique, you made up for in performance.

A fabulous, amazing, strong woman on my friends list... I don't even know how to 'splain it (it's past my bedtime! My brain is all "der".), so I'll let Erin speak for me:

Hi, my name is Erin and I'm a 29 year old single female living in the United States of America.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for downloading this document. I'm trying to get enough downloads to qualify for a monetary payout of MegaUploads Rewards program. Let me explain why.

I suffer from two neurological disorders (Chiari malformation and cranial lesions)that will require a combined total of 2-4 brain surgeries. I'm unemployed and uninsured and the state I live in is so broke, they have strictly limited who qualifies for Medicaid. Because I have no children and am not pregnant, I don't qualify.

I have been working with several hospitals and organizations in my area to get the care and treatment that I need, but have only made so much progress. Bottom line: In the USA, if you don't have insurance, the healthcare system doesn't exist for you. I have had a surgical consultation and it has been recommended I have the first brain surgery as soon as I possibly can. The only catch is that there will be a deposit required ranging anywhere from $1500-$5000 dollars. I have not worked for almost a year and therefore do not have this kind of money.

Living with a Chiari malformation is painful and exhausting. Living with cranial lesions in addition to the Chiari? Is beyond any kind of description.

I've thought about the different ways I can try to raise this money. I don't like asking for hand outs or charity of any kind, so I have hesitated in giving my PayPal information as a solicitation for donations.

Then,I came across the MegaUpload reward program and used part of what little money I do have to set up a paid account for two months for $11.99. This program states if I get 5 million downloads, they will pay me $10,000. There a few stipulations: only one download per IP address per day, only downloads made from qualifying countries, no attempted manipulation or fraud to earn more points.

I don't know if this is too good to be true, but I figure it's worth a shot. If I can somehow reach enough people who would be willing to take time out of their day, hopefully more than just one day, to download this virus free text document, I may be able to get the surgery I need to continue living.

Again, I thank you for downloading this file and if you choose to do so, for sending the link to people you know asking them to download.

Here is a list of qualifying countries:
American Samoa, Andorra, Anguilla, Antarctica, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Polynesia, French Southern Territories, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Panama, Pitcairn, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Reunion, Saint Kitts And Nevis, Saint Lucia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, St Pierre and Miquelon, Sweden, Switzerland, Tonga, Tuvalu, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, United Arab Emirates United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu Vatican City State, Virgin Islands (British), and Virgin Islands (U.S.)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5QBOA940

Someone in InsaneJournal gave me a letter S for the following meme:

Comment and I'll give you a letter. In your journal, list 10 of your favourite songs that begin with that letter.

1. Nickel Creek - Sabra Girl Such a simple, yet complex song, the harmonies and the intricate twinings of the guitar and mandolin? Sigh.

2. Lisa Loeb - Sandalwood One of my favoritest love songs evur.

3. Jellyfish - Sabrina, Paste, and Plato One of my all time favorite bands that I can go on about for ages. VERY poppy, and I love that they can pull it off live.

4. The Excentrics - Seen No Sun This album was in my cd player a lot back in '95 when I lived in Northern Virginia. They're now known as Getaway Car, I believe.

5. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band I tried to put things on here that most of you have probably never heard, but decided to add this one BECAUSE.

6. Marcy Playground - The Shadow of Seattle This cd will always remind me of driving around Tempe, Arizona, singing loudly along with my friend Peyton. I miss Peyton.

7. Sloan - She Says What She Means A play list by me wouldn't be a playlist by me without some Sloan.

8. Better Than Ezra - Sincerely, Me Again, wouldn't be a list by me if it didn't contain some Ezra, yo.

9. Electric Doormat - Skeleton in Silhouette My old band! Now known as The Mercury Tree, of course. You can even hear me singing "skeleton" repeatedly in the background :D I love to point out to people that 95% of this album was recorded by Lead Singer Ben all by his lonesome - all the songwriting, all the instruments, harmonies, arrangements - all in his bedroom.

10. Flickerstick - Smile A friend (Nicole!) slipped me their demo ages ago, and alas, it was stolen when my Jeep was broken into. Quite a bit later, I caught them on the Vh1 show "Bands on the Run" or something like that. I became emotionally vested, they ended up winning, and I bought their real album after that.

Honorable mention, just because the song always makes me smile:

Today was my four year anniversary with OfficeMax yay!

Or something.

Worked on less than five hours sleep from midnight to almost 9 am. Poor Yancey had less than two hours and then will be going home to a newborn, coming back on Sunday (oh, tomorrow!) to close, forever to be closing from then on. Tedders gets back soon, so he and I will be overnighting it until further notice. I shall greatly miss working with Yancey, as I realized today that he's my gossip partner. We only gossip to each other, you see. I was also greatly enjoying having a coworker to swap random Zim quotes with. I DID learn LOTS of juicy tidbits today, though.

Yancey: Four years ago, could you ever have envisioned that you would be doing this right now, right here?
Me: Cutting a box of lint rollers on aisle ten at two in the morning? No.

I only got this job as a temporary, you see, until I found a "real job". Funny that I ended up happier here than I have been at any other job.

Oh, the other day, I was at my desk and Yancey comes back with a piece of cardboard.

Yancey: Aubrey, I have something for you!

It was a piece that he had sliced from a generic box that said "W.I.P. Work in Progress". I cheesily told him I would cherish it forever, as he put it on top of my monitor. I told him he had to autograph it, though, so he wrote "To: Aub, From Yan" Five minutes later, he comes trotting back.

"Aubrey, Aubrey! You need to sign one for me, too!" So I wrote something super nurdy like "Keep rockin! To Yans from Aubs" He immediately "laminated" it by covering it with box tape to keep it safe from possible liquids.

I'm not making a whole lotta sense atm, so methinks I shall finally go to bed.

I also have fantastic news to spew about my old band - I am quite proud of them, you see. I will go into further details later, but for now, Clicky, please.

AND CHECK OUT THEIR MYSPACE, DAGNABBIT!!

Send me a song(s), will ya? Go to yousendit.com, or any of those other places, and gimmay.

If'n you've heard me talk about certain bands and want to check out some of their music, let me know, unkay?

OOOH, and for the email address if you want to send the music that way:

aubrey.mcsaurus at gmail.com, or even just at aubkabob at livejournal.com. Both will end in the same place.

I... really don't have a title for this.

It's nice to come home sometimes and have Bacci make sweet sweet love to my hands. Not like.... ew, love, but as in "OMG, YOU'RE HOME THANK GAWD, PET ME LIKE THE WHORE YOU ARE!!!" love.

Sweat has finally stopped dripping down me from my walk home.

Went to Target to buy delicious foods to suppliment my dinners at work, bought Method's fantastic earth-loving refill for hand soap - 12 ounces for $2.99 in a dispensor, flavor of your choice, or 34 ounces for $3.99, either green tea or sweet water flavors.

Since I have been trying to be better for the environment and to not buy things tested on animals... things I have bought my whole life come into question. Like, for example, I realize that just not purchasing stuff tested on animals isn't good, that one should not buy any products from said companies. I was an Oil of Olay hog, for one example. Another random example is buying toothpaste from, say, Tom of Maine's, but then buying a toothbrush made by Crest.

And now everyone is thinking that I'm a tree-hugging hippy. It's been... awhile since I hugged a tree, and I will never try to force my beliefs on others - I'm just changing the way that I personally do things.

Call it my Greenpeacy Stage in life.

Worked my hiney off at work, setting planograms for paper. I'm stiff and feeling old, looking forward to bed, bath, and... beyond, not necessarily in that order.

Yancey and I decided to coin the phrase "brown collaring" - when someone is brown-nosing so much, you don't know where the brown-nosee lets off and the brown-noser begins. Head so far up their ass blowing smoke, that even their collars are brown.

Stranded in the wrong time...

So I hear today that Newport Bay AND the movie theater will also be moving out of my work's plaza.

Oy.

That makes a total of... them, Bed Bath & Beyond, WinCo, and... possibly Barnes & Noble to move from our plaza, within the next year and a half. Combine this with the loss of Michael's a year ago (which so hurt our sales) and (to a lesser extent) JoAnne's... That leaves us pretty much with Target and Hollywood Video. Ooh, and a dollar store. Combine all of THAT with the fact that I peeked at our recent sales and we're only making about half of what all the other stores in the district are (awful, as we're the largest!!), the fact that we're having a major visit at the end of the month for an "evaluation" that has the store manager fuhREAKING out, and the fact that instead of having a concrete date for our remodel (September 28), they said "uh... sometime in the future... or something."... doesn't look promising for OfficeMax Store 0255.

Or my job.

Granted, it would take at least a year (hope) for all of this to happen, which hopefully means job security until then. But I would not only then have to find another job, but I would no longer work with the people I do now. This makes me sad.

I still don't know what I want to do with my life.

In other news, excited to get to see Ben and Larrissa for a bit in a few hours, though it will probably be only a teensy bit. I miss them, I do.

It's almost as if working overnights is some sort of a... lab experiment, to see how human beings will react. Thank DOODNESS I get along well with Ted - I can't imagine how I would cope if I was stuck only ever seeing someone I loathed. Ted for eight or so hours a day, sometimes Yancey for four, morning crew for ten minutes, roommates for maybe ten minutes a day...

I generally can't make noise on my "days" off, as any noise I makes carries into the bedroom of my sleeping roommates. While Jess can sleep through a dancing bull on the bed, Daniel is a light sleeper. Sigh. This keeps me from accomplishing much on my days off, other than WoW or FFXII or movies and knitting. (You would think I would have my purse done by now, but noooOOOOoo, I'm still only about sixteen or so rows into it.) That also takes out playing my guitar, though I realized that if I get Murray (my electric) out of it's bag, I can play that with no amp and make no noise, wee!

I have slept totally horribly for the last two days, due to the heat and other things. (We do not have air conditioning, and all I own is a 8" clip on fan next to my bed, which resides in a second story bedroom. I'm thankful that there's a tree outside giving me shade, but STILL. Even sleeping nude doesn't help. Bleh. I'm going to try melatonin (not melanoma) today and see if that helps.

Anyone have any suggestions for some easy, fantastic vegetarian dishes?

Bad dreams last night, where my ex band was breaking up, and many of my most precious, delicate belongings ended up thrown in the pool, along with the drummer's kit. I remember screaming in frustration at Mike, to not give up, that this will soon pass.

Not sleeping well has hindered my ability to stay on topic, you see.