Geekent went to the Neil Gaiman signing at Chapters yesterday. While Gaiman was and is one of my favorite authors, I would not have had the patience necessary to have met the man. Read about Graig’s experience at the signing.

One nice thing about moving? You find stuff. Case in point – my guitar slide, which I lost… god – three, four months ago? And I was just about to go buy a new one. That alone makes this whole exercise worthwhile.

Thanks to the help of Will and his minivan, I was able to get the bulk of my crap moved to the new place this afternoon in under two hours. Fantastic. I brought a largish piece of carpet for the living room which had been sitting in the storage locker for about five years, and has about that much dust caked into it. My allergies are having conniptions. I am going to have to vacuum that mofo like a… mofo. What’s left on the moving itinerary? Tomorrow I head back home to grab my microwave and kitchen supplies and probably bring that and clothes to the new pad, probably the computer and remaining guitar shit. Tuesday morning my dad will show up bright and early with the van to move furniture since I have to be there between 11 and 2 or some such nonsense to wait for Mr Cable Guy. Dragging this whole experience over four days may take longer, but I think it’s greatly reduced the amount of stress involved.

np – Steve Earle / Train A Comin’

I have the keys.

I went by my new place this morning to pick them up and take a look around, and the cleaners were still there. Good thing too – the place was in a sorry state. I dropped off a couple boxes and told myself it’d look better after it was cleaned up. Went back this afternoon and I was right – the cleaners did a bang-up job and the place looks pretty sharp. I took a few more measurements now that the previous tenant’s stuff is all gone. The absence of many right angles in the living room may make things tricky, but I’ll figure something out. It’s so hard to gauge things before you actually get your junk in there.

But there you go – I am now the tenant. Wow. I will take some pictures when I go back. Not being able to get my furniture moved till Tuesday is turning out to be a real pain – I can get all my other belongings over there tomorrow, but have nowhere to unpack to. That’s a problem.

Also this afternoon I went and played Scrabble with some folks who actually know how to play. It’s certainly a different game when you play by the rules.

Wilco’s set this Sunday night (August 31) opening for REM in Missoula, MO will be webcast starting at 8:30 CST (9:30 EST). The Quicktime player needed to hear it will be available on the Wilco website later this weekend. They will be heading back into the studio after a pair of hometown shows in Chicago after September 18 and 19 to work on the new record… which pretty much means that the faint hope that Decibels Per Minute – or whatever the new disc would be called – would be released in 2003 are pretty much nil.

More acquisitions – the new Sloan disc and the final Posies album, Success. Pop pop pop. And comics: on the intense recommendation from Vic, I got Johnny The Homicidal Maniac : Director’s Cut and the Vertigo trade paperback, Fables : Legends In Exile. Fables was okay, a lot straighter and less elliptical than I’d expected.

Goddamn packing is alot of work. I have much crap. Much much much crap. I think some extra-strong Glad bags are in order.

np – Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham / Sonic Souveniers

The Star has an article on Neil Gaiman in advance of his signing at Chapters Paramount tomorrow afternoon. I find it ironic that the story is entitled “Author stays out of the box” since if I don’t get to go see him tomorrow, it’s because I will be putting things into boxes…

I mean packing. I will be packing.

EMI Canada has set up a Fountains Of Wayne minisite at www.whoisstacysmom.com. There’s not much of note except an opportunity to enter a contest and to watch the video for “Stacy’s Mom”, which I still think is as creepy as it is funny, but unintentionally so.

The Anti-Blog Blogger is calling it quits after just a week. Poor guy never even got out of New York. Alas.

In half an hour I am on holidays, which will be spent moving and waiting around for various service repairmen to come by and give me the basic necessities of life. What fun.

np – The Tyde / Twice

A productive (and expensive) after-work yesterday. Got tickets for Calexico, My Morning Jacket, Fountains Of Wayne and Beulah. Found used copies of Neil Young’s On The Beach and the not-officially-released-till-October Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham EP of remixes by Sonic Boom, Sonic Souveniers. And to top it all off, my copy of Steve Earle’s Train A Comin’, courtesy of eBay, was waiting for me when I got home. Nice.

According to the Barsuk website, Death Cab’s Transatlanticism will be available “in standard cd format as well as the new ‘Super Audio’ hybrid cd format”. I only have a regular old CD player. I can’t help but feel a little inadequate. Oh yeah, tickets for the Oct 16 show are $15 at all the usual outlets.

np – Danny Michel / Tales From The Invisible Man