last night jef and i rocked the house on our music project. we got two new acoustic-guitar-based songs well underway, and got some significant work done on two of the three that have already been in the works. the way we collaborate is interesting, freely switching between instruments (the computer counts as an instrument), following ideas wherever they go. at one point i was noodling in the recording software for 30 minutes, trying to "fix" this bass line that i'd written for one of the tunes. i tried dozens of settings, some of which were raising the melody by about two octaves, but nothing worked. finally, jef said that the accidental higher versions of the line actually fit the song better than when the part was a bass line. at first i thought, "no! that's not my vision." but then i gave it an open-minded listen and realized he was totally correct—now that tune's one step closer to complete.

yesterday i discovered a job listing on craigslist for a "jr. information architect," which probably couldn't be a more perfect for what i'm looking for at this point. the company is an interactive agency called akqa and the samples on their site are pretty impressive—very clean and simple. i just finished sending off my resume and i'm feeling optimistic that this could be the solution to the career quest.

the sims grad program is also still a lingering possibility, with a little more likelihood this week. the admissions director responded to my note outlining how interested i am in the program with what seemed like a sincere thanks, and a mention that he'd add it to my file for the admissions committee to consider. then my friend jen, who's a student in the program, wrote him with a personal recommendation. he added it to my file too. if file size counts for anything then i'm sure to be admitted.

i'm fascinated by this guy tony pierce's busblog, and i'm usually not that interested in blogs.

today i'm attempting new and more extroverted methods (if it's possible to count emailing someone as extroverted) to get my work situation in order. first, i emailed the admissions director at berkeley's school of information management & systems to make sure he knows that i couldn't be more serious about wanting to be a part of the program. it felt good to speak my mind clearly, and hopefully it will give me at least a 2 percent better chance of being admitted.

then i started making a list and emailing anybody i could think of that might have advice about what my next steps should be, especially in the case that the berkeley endeavor fails. there's still some more emailing to do tomorrow, but i'm hoping some of today's queries will be productive.

on the introverted front, my web-nerd project for the day was adding the ability to search the site. try it. go ahead and search for the words "go ahead and search for the words." i'm surprised at how quickly i can pull things like this off now that i've been coding for a while.

on a different note, last night we saw the decemberists at bimbo's and it was excellent. colin meloy is a remarkable songwriter with an effortless stage presence and quick wit. they had petra haden on violin and backup vocals, which added significantly to the sound. mostly, i feel inspired by meloy's lyrics and storytelling ability, especially the way he starts songs with one very specific image and then expands out: "This is the story of your red right ankle." Who's ankle? How did it get to be red?

it's been a tough one. i received notice today that the results of my application for grad school might very well be a thumbs down. berkeley's sims program has waitlisted me, leaving open the possibility that i'll be accepted over the course of the next month if other applicants choose not to attend. very frustrating. does the fact that i secretly believe i will wind up being admitted mean that i'm unwilling to face reality or that i'm a commendable optimist?

i can't understand why sims wouldn't want a guy who spent the last three hours of free time coding a content management tool for his frivolous website. at least i have the content management tool to cheer me up. i'm testing it as we speak.

the other exciting thing that happened today is that i struck gold on selling my old books on amazon.com. yesterday morning i awoke at the absurd hour of 8 a.m. (absurd for a post-party sunday at least), and frittered away the morning wandering on amazon. i posted eight books for sale and have already sold three, though i did have to walk to the post office in the rain to mail them. for some reason i'm really motivated by the idea that my customers will give me a good rating and i'll get five stars next to my seller name.

back in '99 i started a two-semester sequence of courses on jazz theory and arrangement. i was definitely not the best musician in the class (by far), but remarkably, i was nearly the best at theory. this tipped me off that maybe i should be doing something more analytical like databases or programming, rather than struggling to play my dorian scales around the circle of fifths. the culmination of the series of two classes, and really the reason i took it in the first place, was arranging a tune for a whole band. everyone else picked jazz standards, but i convinced the teacher to let me do an original. on the final day of class he assembled a band of some of the better music students and they sightread everyone's arrangements. i've just posted the recording of my song, "bodies in emotion."

since san francisco's noisepop music festival has just finished up for 2005, i thought it would be a good time to get around to posting the interview i did with david bazan of pedro the lion for last year's noisepop program.

add this to the list of impractical art projects i'll never get around to making: two oversized video screens are placed facing each other about 20 feet apart in a vast open area at night. each screen plays a different video consisting of a close shot of a person in an empty room. sometimes the person is having a conversation, but you won't hear who the person is talking to. sometimes the person is staring at the camera as if watching television. the stars of the two screens vary. sometimes it's the same person on both screens, but from video shot at different times. sometimes it's different people, occasionally forming juxtapositions of race or gender (though that could get annoyingly topical in its symbolism.) actually maybe the two videos should be aligned by some random method so it's never the same twice.