Oh Cowboy, where art thou? (part deux)

You may have noticed a serious drop in the frequency of posts on the goodness we refer to as Another Idiot with a Blog. There’s a reason for that. I’m sure it’s a good one. I’ll let you know when I think of it.

The truth is about every couple of years I seem to re-invent myself. It’s not intentional, it just happens. Usually after a breakdown of some kind.

I’m going to be focusing on something else for a while. Don’t worry, loyal legions of Cowboy-ites, the Cowboy is not gone. The wisdom you need is still contained within the posts of this blog and will not go away (again), and I’ll still be back from time to time to impart more wisdom your way. You’ll be angry at first, you might even turn away from your faith, but you cannot resist the Cowboy. He’s not just a man, he’s a freakin’ force of nature, baby! You’ll be back.

I’m working on another blog at the moment. The reason is I’d like to be taken seriously for once, and let’s be honest, that ain’t happenin’ here. For those who care, post a message or send me an e-mail. If I like you and want you to know where it is, I’ll tell you. If not, I’ll fart in your general direction, you silly English kanigot. (If you don’t get the quote, I can’t help you).

I’m also spending a lot of time with my new Zune. If I had only known how easy it makes it to follow podcasts, I would have gotten one years ago. And it probably would have been an iPod. Then I would have gotten angry at just how shittily Apple software runs on a PC, and chucked it against the wall. Then I would have taken the shattered remains back to the Apple store demanding a refund. There would have been an awful row after the resident Apple “genius” calmly explained to me that you can’t return a smashed iPod, as the smashing of said iPod voids the warranty of said iPod. It’s right there under paragraph 411 subsection 831 part b, where it states that willful destruction of the iPod is cause for termination of the warranty. Yelling loudly that the crappy iTunes software brought my poor PC to it’s four year old knees and eventually caused it to blue-screen itself in despair and that they should give restitution for the pain and suffering I’ve endured as a result probably wouldn’t help. *sigh* That’s Apple for you.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been quite interested in XNA, despite my complete inability to produce a working game. It turns out that if you subscribe to the Channel 9 podcasts tagged XNA, most of them were done by Mr. Rory Blyth (so far, anyway). Who knew? That guy’s everywhere. I wonder how I could get him to move to the Midwest and come to work where I work? I’d move to Portland, but the whole moving thing didn’t work so well last time. We’re not talking about that anymore.

So, farewell for now, my lovely fans. I love you all too! Don’t despair! Go forth and live eventful lives, and always say: WWCD?

Returning the posts

It won’t be perfect, but I decided to return my posts to the blog. I’ve gotten about midway through last October so far. I’ll return comments as well, because that’s always the best part of a post, but again, they won’t be perfect.

Links are bound to be broken. Categories are missing. There will be tears.

“Why, O Cowboy?” you ask.

“Because.” I reply. “Sometimes, even the Cowboy does things in haste when in a bad mood, but withholding the wisdom that is The Cowboy from my faithful followers must surely be a sin.”

Again, I’m a musician, and we’re flaky. I can’t promise I won’t break down again someday and do the same boneheaded thing again, but at least next time I’ll remember what a pain in the ass this was to undo, and maybe think twice before hitting the delete button.

Update: The posts are back. There’s some weirdness between posts from last year and windows live writer. I couldn’t restore them, but I could recreate them. Comments have been added to the bottom. Henry Rollins for President was by far the most popular last year. Gives me hope [sniff].

There were two from this year that I couldn’t restore. C’est la vie. Comments are at the bottom there too. Back to trying to make this place interesting….

Fast is good, Loud is good, Fast and Loud is better

News you might actually want to know! I’ve decided I have to get an XM satellite receiver for my car. The rental car I’m driving has XM installed (obviously in an attempt to entice customers like me into buying their own.. good job guys) and as I’m surfing through a few hundred channels of crap (oddly like cable TV) I stumbled across a gem.

Are you ready?

No, you’re not. Take a deep breath and prepare yourself. I’ll wait.

…

Now? ok… let me know.

…

Ok? good. Here it is.

XM Radio has an all day 24 hour AC/DC station!

Uh huh… oh yeah… uh uh… oh yeah…

I’ve heard that it takes an outsider to truly appreciate the beauty of a location, and given that I can’t find much to say for Kansas, I think that might be true. Rhode Island, for all it’s itty bitty size, is beautiful country.

But you haven’t lived until you’ve driven a little tiny compact car down a New England highway at 80mph weaving in and out of traffic playing AC/DC’s “Big Balls” as loud as those tiny little speakers can go. Those poor Rhode Island drivers were probably thinking “That bunghole drives like those morons in Kansas! What the hell is he thinking?” Maybe I should have gotten the insurance after all…

Oh, I can’t wait to get the ‘Stang back and put an XM receiver in it. Good Times!

Dude, where’s my blog?

Sometimes you have a day when everything just seems to suck.

Then sometimes you have a day when everything really does suck.

Then sometimes you have a day when, try as you might, you can find no redeeming qualities for said day that justify the fact that you dragged your lazy ass out of bed that morning.

Then, every once in a while, you have a day where everything just seems so phenomenally abysmal that you just want to say “fuck it all” and you go and delete your blog. You almost immediately regret something like that, but it’s too late to take it back. Many things in life are like that.

Technically, I could put all the posts back, and I even could restore all of the comments. That would be a lot of work, but I could do it. Then another thought occurs to me: I’ve done this before. This particular incarnation of my blog has been by far the most successful, and actually led to some relationships I value (not that kind, dumbass). But every once in a while, it’s nice to start over. That’s the opportunity I’ve given myself in a self-indulgent moment of anger.

I won’t be returning the deleted posts here, but I won’t be closing up shop just yet. The Adventures of the Cowboy aren’t over yet, in fact something tells me that everything that’s happened up to now is just the prologue.

I apologize to everybody who actually took time to comment here, just to have some dumbass delete it. As much as I want to I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again, but I can tell you it doesn’t happen often. I am a musician and we’re an overly emotional bunch prone to bouts of depression. But if you stick around, maybe things will get interesting again. Please don’t be afraid to comment in the future. Try to remember that the Internet is a fluid thing, and nothing here is really all that permanent anyway.

It should also be noted that unlike the current leader of the free world, I can admit when I was wrong. There. I said it. Take that, right wing politicians!

Special thanks to my friends (Internet and otherwise, that line is becoming a little blurred) who aren’t afraid to call me out on shit. I get it, even if sometimes it seems like I don’t.