Today, I filled out the best form in the world - my graduation application for school. After going for my MBA part time for the last three years, I have one semester left. Come Christmas, I will no longer have to juggle my responsibilities between work and school. This makes me very very happy.

I have become such a bad student this year, along with everyone else graduating this year. I used to at least try to read everything that was assigned, now it's gotten to the point where I might glance at it and just wait to hear what I'll be tested on. It's kind of a vicious cycle - the further into your MBA you are, the higher up you become, the more responsibilities you're handed, the more meetings you're running back and forth from, the more difficult it becomes to leave at 5:30 twice a week for class. I missed about 40% of the classes for this summer's second term because I simply couldn't leave.

I'm glad I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I started this whole process, because I probably wouldn't have gone through with it. :)

So January will be a very nice month, not having to run to class, and knowing that every weekend will be homework free. Then it'll be time for another necessary evil - job interviews!

Hmmm, ten songs I'm totally into right now:

- Robert Owens : I'll Be Your Friend (an old house classic, heard it in Miami a couple weeks ago and it sounded so fresh)
- Depeche Mode : Never Let Me Down
- The New Radicals : You Get What You Give
- Kanye West : Gold Digger
- The Game : Dreams
- Gorillaz : Feel Good Inc.
- Joey Beltram : Energy Flash
- Armand Van Helden : Flowerz
- Orbital : Halcyon + On + On
- Chic : Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)

I hereby tag Phyllis Gabor and Loneliness is Pornography

Much is being said about the closing of CBGBs, I think it's time for the place to go. The longer it stays open, the more images of its heydey in the late seventies are tarnished.

Just a few blocks down from CBGBs on the Bowery, though, another NYC establishment is closing its doors too. Satellite Records will soon be no more as well, at least in brick and mortar form.

After I bit the bullet and dropped the cash for my Technics 1200-MK2s, I asked my favorite DJ where he got his shit from, because it certainly wasn't at the stores I was going to. Prophetically and with angels flying around his head, he said "Go to Satellite, ask for so and so, and you'll be on your way."

I spent years digging through the piles and piles of vinyl contained within, searching for the secret weapons I'd heard the Friday before. I quickly learned to branch out from the standard Hard and Tribal House sections, into Tech House, Progressive House, Deep Trance, Minimal Techno, and the billions of other sub-genres, searching for the perfect loop. It was incredibly intimidating at first to stare at the walls and walls of underground stuff from all over the world, but pretty soon I was just grabbing everything and plowing through it on the listening stations, pitching down the hard german techno from 160 to 125 bpms to see how it sounded.

You can't imagine how much horrible horrible dance music I heard, but I also heard plenty of moments of genius as well.

A few years ago, it became apparent that something was very wrong. The moments of genius were becoming more and more thinly spread amongst the rest of the crap, the new stuff listed online wasn't available in the store, and you were no longer fighting for a listening station. Every time that I've been there in the past two years I was generally one of four customers in the entire place, and unless I had specifically ordered something online to be picked up in the store, I probably walked out empty handed, feeling like I had wasted my time.

I suppose that just as with CBGB, it's Satellite's time to go. I kind of knew it was coming, but I'm also kind of sad to see it happen.

International finance just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

Got that new J Lo song stuck in your head? It might not be just because it's catchy, you could be having musical hallucinations!!

Phyllis tagged me, so here we go:

10 Years Ago Today: I was on summer break from college, working at Toys R Us (which is more hellish and stressful than you could possibly imagine). Working out everyday and in the middle of losing 100 lbs. Lollapalooza rocked this year, and Portishead, Bjork, and Sebadoh were in heavy rotation.

Five Years Ago Today: I was plotting my climb up the corporate ladder (it worked, I guess, I've been promoted four times since then). Living in Hoboken with my shmoop-dog, and going out to Vinyl and Roxy just about every weekend.

1 Year Ago Today: I was in Madrid and London!!!! I took the summer off from school and we walked through a huge chunk of Manhattan and Brooklyn on the weekends.

Yesterday: Slightly hungover in the morning and was inexplicably exhausted all day, left work shortly after five, came home, took a nap, went out for dinner, and slept some more.

Today: Went out for brunch at this amazing Cuban place that just opened down the street, went to Lowe's in Red Hook to get a new pot and some potting soil, made it home before a sneak attack thunderstorm (it really came out of nowhere), getting stuff done around the house, waiting for the other half to get off the damn phone so we can figure out what we're doing tonight.

Tomorrow: Going to open houses in the Chelsea/West Village area. Replanting my basil plant, which is thriving!!!!

5 Snacks I enjoy: Tortilla chips with guacamole, tortilla chips with pico de gallo, tortilla chips with hummus, tortilla chips with baba ganouj, tortilla chips.

5 Bands That I Know the Lyrics to Most of Their Songs: Nirvana, Radiohead, the Pixies, A Tribe Called Quest, Massive Attack

5 Things I Would Do with a $100,000,000: Buy a four story town house in the Chelsea/Far West Village area, fix up my Mom's house a bit, invest in an emerging markets hedge fund, spend a year travelling.

5 Locations I Would Like to Run Away to: San Fransisco, South Beach, London, Madrid, Barcelona

5 Bad Habits I Have: Forgetting to call people back, forgetting people's names when I meet them, throwing my clothes on the chair instead of hanging them up when I get home, shaving too fast in the morning, hitting snooze too much in the morning.

5 Things I Like Doing: Hanging out in the citay, going to bars/clubs with friends, dancing, going on vacation, shopping.

5 Things I would Never Wear: Boat shoes, a cowboy hat, leather pants, anything from International Male, a bathing suit.

5 TV Shows I Like: The Simpsons, Barefoot Contessa, Martha Stewart Living, Futurama, The Price is Right

5 Movies I Like: Psycho, Pulp Fiction, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Clueless, Night of the Living Dead

5 Famous People I would Like to Meet: Madonna, Bjork, Henry Rollins, Courtney Love, M.I.A.

5 Biggest Joys at the Moment: My shmoop-dog, my iPod, my cat, my Game Boy, my 30 gigs worth of mp3's.

5 favorite toys: See above.

5 People to Tag: Hmmm... Kreblog, Underground Dragon, Contagious, Life With Basu, and Lnotes (so she'll update her blog!) :)

Wow, it's been a while since I've been wary of taking the subway in the morning. There weren't too many people on the train this morning, so I wonder how many people decided not to chance it and called in sick today. The cops were out in full force, which was a bit reassuring. As much as I love the subway, it was hard to not feel a bit vulnerable walking down those stairs today.

Every day should be the 4th of July. You get to:

-sleep in
-hang out on a roof all day
-eat bbq'd veggie burgers
-meet random people
-play with dogs
-get a killer tan
-drink beer out of a cooler
-watch fireworks go up against the New York skyline and feel like a kid again

The new Batman flick rocks, go see it.

Yesterday, Canada said "we rock" and today, Spain said "yeah, well we rock too, and our country is like, totally fabulous". Thoughts of expatriating dance in my head (do you think we can move all of NYC to Spain?)

New David Sedaris story in the New Yorker. I think my dream job would have to involve reading David Sedaris novels while playing with puppies and kitties.

On Saturday, some guy around the corner from my apartment had a huge used record and CD sale. The sale was to start at 10 am. My train out to Long Island (doing yard work for mom and dad) was at 11:15, so I left the house early enough to allow myself a decent window of time to sort through whatever was there, grab a bagel and coffee, and hightail it over to the LIRR. Since I had planned on getting there at 10 am on the dot, my largest concern was whether the guy would actually be set up yet. I began dreaming of the rare treats that I would find for pennies. Perhaps he would be getting rid of the Adam Beyer remixes to Damon Wild's "Warpath," ending one of my hunts from the past few years.

OK, so it's 10 am, the thing's just started, right? I get to the guy's front stoop and there's like 20 guys there. Every single obsessive compulsive record collector in town was there to get first dibs. Shit was crazy.

Everyone was in this "I'm going to find a bargain" fever. I got shoved about five times within the first minute. I would be flipping through a line of CDs, and someone would come over and start flipping through the same column that I was looking at. I couldn't even make it to the area where the vinyl was, but someone was holding a copy of Nirvana's Incesticide on vinyl that was two bucks.

I was becoming frustrated rather quickly. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet. Then crazy old school Brooklyn lady arrived, and I swear I almost completely lost it.

So this lady comes from down the street, sees everyone going buck wild, and realizes she's missing out on the chance of a lifetime. She grabs the first pile of CDs she sees (from the electronica section I might add, I might also add that this lady is 55 years old) and yells "Can ya hold these aside fuh me?!?" Keep in mind she's not asking anyone in particular this question, as she doesn't see any difference between the crowd of people looking through the inventory for items to purchase and the person sitting by the curb counting his money. Certainly we all would have a hard time identifying the best person to ask questions regarding the record sale in this situation.

She then sees that one of the CDs she's holding has a rather racy cover and decides to tell me "Oh, I won't be buying that one." Then, another question popped in her head that needed immediate attention but was directed at noone in particular - "How much ya got all these tapes fuh!?!?" An important side note here - there were no tapes at this sale, only CDs and vinyl, and all prices were clearly marked with a yellow sticker on each item.

After realizing that she didn't know any of the artists in the pile of CDs she was holding, it was time for the next question. "Ya got any oldies?!?!?" No one answered so she asked this like five times, getting louder each time. I ran over to pay for my item and got the fuck out of there.

I got the Beth Gibbons solo CD that came out a few years ago, but I never picked up for some reason, for three bucks. Word!

There comes a time in every aging record buyer's life when one must ask oneself a truly serious question - do I buy a record I own already re-released with marginal value added content? Sometimes it's really easy to cave in to temptation, especially when it's the best album ever.

Kim's Underground, the headquarters for the wonderfully obscure, got raided. They're certainly an odd target for a crack down on hip-hop mix tapes, being that the store is basically an indie music and film mecca. Why didn't they hit Beat Street in Brooklyn?

The other odd thing is that they're cracking down on mix tapes. These things aren't simple DJ mixes, these things feature tracks that will never be officially released by the artist's label. If the major labels are upset about missing out on this piece of the pie, perhaps its time, once again, for them to reconsider their business models.

Jack FM just played Quarterflash!

So, we just got one of those Jack FM stations that kind of mimic an iPod on shuffle. Pretty eclectic mix so far this morning - EMF, Def Leppard, the Cars, Staind, and Sinead O'Connor within half an hour. So far it seems to be a little too heavy on the 80's rock stuff for my tastes, but at least it's not the same five songs every hour.

Unfortunately, the addition of a new radio station means the loss of an old one, and CBS 101, the oldies station that's been around like, forever, took the hit for Jack FM. I loved cooking to the oldies, I'll have to find a new station for that now.

They're playing Mr. Roboto now. I think it might be the most bizarre song ever.

OK, I've got to hand it to Pitchfork, this is the best album review ever.

I'm sure I must have linked to stuff from this site before, but nonetheless, I have rediscovered Retro Junk and hereby deem it the best website in the world.

They've got tons of old commercials that you can stream, and watching them after not seeing them in years has made me realize something - your life before reaching eleven years of age must be the most confusing time in the world, because I barely remember any of these commercials that aired before I reached 6th grade. This is strange considering I watched TV nonstop.

Other important lessons:
-There was a Go-Bot named Baron Von Joy! He was a friendly robot sports car!
-Any hope of me developing into normal heterosexual adulthood flew (fabulously) out the window as soon as I saw the opening sequence to She-Ra. Woah. Just... woah. It even sounds like Giorgio Moroder wrote the theme song.
-You can have your stupid Mac G5. The Commodore Vic 20 is the wonder computer of the '80s.

These images of the Pope's dead body everywhere really give me the creeps.

I'm really not a fan of funerals where the cadaver is on display. I suppose it provides a certain closure to those mourning, but I really would rather not be laid out at my funeral. It's a terrible last image to have of someone.

So, instead, let's remember the Pope for who he was - the best breakdancing judge ever!

So, the frozen food aisle fascinates me. Being a vegetarian/food snob/relatively health conscious person, the majority of the items offerred are strictly taboo, and with the exception of Morningstar Farms' chick patties (yummericious!) and frozen peas, the only thing in my freezer is ice.

What fascinates me even more is that people eat this stuff, lots of it. Some people seem to live solely off of this stuff.

So, without further ado, I present the web page that captivated me while I ate my lunch today.

Question of the Day: Would the whole nu-metal thing have worked out better if, instead of Korn, the Deftones were the big break-out band? And if the Deftones had gotten really big, would they have begun to suck as much as Korn does?