tremble - dollar days

This weekend my life was filled with many gifts, all of a material nature. I have been consuming a lot and wonder if this is a madness of mine because I do find that I am at my least inspired when I find myself rabidly consuming goods and services, but I usually consume goods and services because I feel incredibly uninspired. One hand dirties the other, I suppose.

In an effort to increase personal insights on tremble by at least 20% for 4Q 1999 (and because I am totally shocked by and ashamed of my recent spending habits....oh, and because I need to type right now but have nothing particularly compelling to say right now, and anything potentially interesting I might have to say right now has been lost in a pool of bottom-shelf tequila and white sugar saliva), here is a list of what I purchased this weekend:

(There were so many purchases that I've broken them down into categories for convenience):

Music*:
East River Pipe - The Gasoline Age

Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs (all 3 volumes)

Quannum Project - Spectrum

Mouse on Mars - Niun Nugging
Bomb Records V/A - Revenge of the B-Boy

Folk Implosion - One Part Lullaby

DJ Signify - self-titled (this was a foolish purchase, incidentally)

*I actually intended to purchase the Magnetic Fields box set and nothing more but discovered two things as I entered the record store: 1) I have been buying too much music online and I'm missing the big picture that you get when you enter a music-snob record store, and 2) It's back-to-school season which is one of the great periods of swell for new releases, especially on independent labels and such.

Toys:
Dreamcast Console

Assorted Self-Loathing-Generating games - to be played on aforementioned Dreamcast

Additional Special Gamepad - to convince myself that I am not alone in my love for this particular toy and friends will surely be over to play with me. (note: Additional Special Gamepad has received almost no play since its deboxing)

Black Cat firecrackers - gift!

Texas Bottle Rockets - gift!

M-80's - gift! Well, trojan horse, really. Turns out they're "M-80 Brand" firecrackers and really no more potent than garden variety firecrackers, but with double the cachet.

The American Eagle - gift! Words cannot properly describe the detailed beauty of this Big Rig-shaped arsenal of explosives, but here is the cryptic description printed on the back of the truck:

Clothing and Accessories
T-shirt from Banana Republic (I was freezing at work one day and figured this would take care of it. My impatience for stores like Banana Republic [ where sales associates constantly beg to help you, even though the inventory and location of inventory for Banana Republic is about as familiar to any consumer as the menu at McDonald's] caused me to accidentally grab some kind of t-shirt that's incredibly stretchy, clearly designed for someone with significantly more muscle-mass or significantly larger breasts. I look a bit like a baseball bat with tape grip when I wear this shirt)

Sweater from Banana Republic - I only purchased this because I couldn't tell how cold I really was and didn't know if a t-shirt would cut it. Also, I didn't want to look like a guy who was just buying a t-shirt, as if that's such a terrible thing. I am a bit ridiculous this way. I often feel as though I "owe" the retailer something for coming into their store. I would feel silly if I just purchased the new Banana Republic Compact Disc -- I would feel obligated to augment that purchase with the Banana Republic Tetracycline capsules or something. I am sure I will never wear this sweater, and I will try my best to return it before my 30 days are up. If I miss that deadline and get stuck with this sweater as a badge of my own indolence, it will certainly not be the first time.

Services
4 Taxis, shuttling me between Brooklyn and Manhattan. At least 2 of these taxi rides could have been avoided.

Slice of Pizza - eaten in motion. The only proper way to eat a solitary slice of pizza, in this young man's opinion.

Delicious Iced Cappuccino - there is a small Italian coffee shop in Brooklyn that excels at the Iced Cappuccino. They freeze the espresso into a slush and simply pour milk and sweets over it. I have never seen it done like this before and if anyone else knows a place in Manhattan that uses this perfect technique, don't hold out on me.This Iced Cappuccino is good it kicks the granita to the curb.

Kielbasa - at a polish diner, confused by enormous menu, I ordered this for lunch yesterday. Please forgive me, for it was sort of delicious.

Sundry wines, liquors and spirits - all purchased with the express purpose of narcoticizing myself into less aggressive spending habits. Didn't work.

Misc.
Wine - a housewarming gift, so not completely self-centered. A small scratch in an otherwise flawlessly selfish weekend.

Tonight I have an apartment piled high with shiny, plastic consumables. This place is getting crowded and this place is getting lonely. I think I'll go cry myself a river in a bowl of butter pecan ice cream (made fresh in my new fission-powered ice cream maker!!)