Who did, in fact, let the dogs out?

I wrote this late at night, in response to a myspace comment. Maybe you'll enjoy it? It was fun, and yes, I realize that I abandoned most grammar and writing rules.

To say that the dogs were let out by one man would not only be a great overstatement, but also an outright lie. However, it is an entertaining lie, and isn't that what really matters? The answer, is no.

Anyway, once there was this man named Jonas. Perhaps you've heard of him, Weezer wrote a song about him a while back, and he also was in this book. The Giver, I believe it was called. He also invented penicillin or something totally awesome like that. Anyway, one time, Jonas was walking along this path...you know one of those paths in the forest that's sort of clear, but sometimes you're just like "Is this a path?" or "Where does this go" or "There sure are a lot of tree roots for this to be a path" or even "OMG ITS A BEAR GET TO THE TRUCK." So Jonas was walking along this path, and he met a man along the way. This man was fairly tall, not so much that you would say, "wow, look at that guy, he's really tall" But he was probably around 6'3'' and bold or charismatic people would tend to ask him if he played basketball. Well, the answer was no, he did not play basketball. It was due to the fact that he had seven toes on one foot and 3 on the other. When he told people this, many times they would ask "Why can't you just move the 2 extra toes to the foot that's missing 2 toes" and Jonas would reply sternly "You just can't, OK?!? Man, stay out of my life" And then there'd be a fairly awkward silence until someone excused themselves to go to the bathroom, and the other members of the conversations tried to keep it afloat by talking about how clean the bathroom was. Reportedly, the soap smelled pretty good too. It was like that foam stuff that probably doesn't clean your hands very well, but it feels cool, so you're generally quite happy with it. As were the members of this conversation.

Luckily, Jonas was not the type of person to ask strangers questions like "Do you play basketball?" So this considerable awkwardness was avoided, which is good because there weren't any bathrooms around, this being a path in the woods.

Unfortunately, Jonas was a strange man, so rather than greeting him with a typical "hello", he asked him how many toes he had per foot. Luckily, he averaged 5 toes per foot despite the strange placement, so the awkward conversation was again avoided. Jonas thanked the man and went on his way.

After about a minute and a half or so...I mean you can never tell around that period of time, unless you are wearing a watch, and you chose to look at it both times. Jonas did in fact have a watch, but he left it at home, and he was pretty upset about it. Because, you see, he was wearing different clothes than usual, because he was hiking. And he had said to himself "I've gotta remember to pack my watch with my hiking gear" but then he procrastinated like most other human beings would and he did, in fact, forget his watch. "It's probably even sitting on the counter" lamented Jonas to no one in particular, "although maybe I put it in my knapsack." Jonas, unfortunately, did not have a knapsack, which he had left at home, also presumably on the counter. "Darnit" Jonas thought.

As Jonas mulled his carelessness in packing over, he stopped paying attention to where he was going, and bumped right into a gorgeous woman, who also happened to be hiking this small trail.

"I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed sexily. "There's got to be sooooome way I could make up for this" she hinted.

Jonas like this idea so he said "Okay!" So excitably that he kind of sounded like a little kid.

So the lady said "let me slip into something more...comfortable" as Jonas's eyebrows raised, but then furrowed.

"What on earth is she going to change into in the middle of this forest?" He thought to himself disappointedly.

When he was done thinking, he looked up and she was wearing a business suit. She handed him a sandwich, and said "Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart!" Jonas didn't really know what to make of this, so he decided to press on and graciously decline the sandwich.
Mainly to be polite, and also because it was a tuna sandwich. He didn't really like tuna...I mean he would eat it if he was starving or something, but he was no more than a little bit hungry, and don't fish contain high levels of mercury anyway?

Jonas figured he was equally screwed either way because of his heavy diet of lobster. He realized he had packed some lobster in his knapsack, so he reached in and grabbed a lobster sandwich...? As soon as he grabbed the sandwich, he realized "hey, I thought I had left the knapsack at home...that means my watch must be...!" He glanced at his wrist excitably and in mid-sentence, but in fact, his watch was still missing. "Darnit" thought Jonas.

Jonas marched on, happily munching his lobster sandwich and humming the tune from that AT&T commercial. "All around the world...gotta something soooomething. Tell them what you heard...we're gonna make the bed today" Jonas mumbled harmoniously through the partially-digested crustacean currently at rest upon his tongue.

When he got to about the 5th cycle of singing these lines of this song, to the point where he was making up dirty lyrics to it and giggling to himself like a little schoolgirl, a strange desire to go hang gliding popped into his head.

"Maybe if I went hang gliding, I'd meet more women!" Jonas thought, although quickly realized that the only women he'd be able to talk to while hang gliding would be other hang gliding women. And if he met one through hang gliding and they bonded through hang gliding he'd have to propose to her whilst hang gliding, and what if he dropped the ring? Not to mention that they'd probably get married while hang gliding, by a hang gliding minister, and with a hang gliding wedding party, and they'd go hang gliding on their honeymoon and they'd have hang gliding children and it would just be too much for him.

Jonas was to the last bite of his sandwich, and he was really looking forward to it, because he had gotten all the crust and outer parts out of the way, to save the best for last. So as he was swarming into this bite, he realized that it was not good lobster meat, but it was a claw. "I hate when that happens!" Jonas yelled unabashedly, and in a fit of rage, threw the remainder of the sandwich a good twenty yards or so...or maybe it was twenty meters? How much is a meter anyway? It's pretty close to a yard I guess. On those metersticks they have in classrooms, there's a yard measured on the back, and it always ends up being a little bit shorter than the meter, and while it might not seem like much, I'm sure it would add up once you got that many yards. Or meters.

This stray piece of sandwich also flew directly into the nest of an unsuspecting owl, which, unfortunately, held the last 10 potential owls of this species. The nest teetered a bit, and Jonas ran to try to catch the eggs. 9 of them fell, but there was one left. Jonas yelled "Noooooooooooo!" and by chance, almost as if this story was written late at night and highly unrealistic, the egg landed squarely in Jonas's mouth, and hatched that instant. Jonas had a decision to make in his head, but he was still pretty hungry, and the remainder of his sandwich did not live up to its billing. Also, he had never eaten an endangered baby owl before, although he had eaten a full grown one. He figured, what the heck, it's probably moderately tasty. Perhaps on par with popcorn. Jonas was about to eat it, when he thought "Did I let the dogs out? I sure hope not"

Then it hit him like a ton of bricks...or even just one brick. Because that would hurt too. "I must have let the dogs out! Because I forgot my watch! Darnit!"

And that...that is the story of who let the dogs out.

Post-hardcore, or a harcore post?

We played our debut show yesterday. I think it went pretty well, but it was only a 5 song set and it was pretty short. There were a few hitches, but for a first show it was great, and we got a pretty big crowd reaction on Seattle, which was cool. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of people showed...at least I definitely thought there would be more. In fact, about half the people that told me they would go for sure inexplicably missed the show. Kind of a shame, but thanks to everyone that did come, and for all the donations. That part was pretty cool, we raised about $1000 I believe.

And thanks to Dan and Becca for making the trip.

There's a chance we'll be opening for I voted for Kodos on May 20th in Oconomowoc, but it's not for sure yet. I'll announce it here if we get the OK on that.

And if not that, we might play the Jefferson County Fair Battle of the Bands, so that'd also be pretty neat. Once again, I can't be sure.

and that's about it.