Bye Bye, 2005

Welcome to another New Year's Eve: in this case, the rainy, cold, windy ass end of a rather...shall we say, dramatic 2005, and hopefully the start of a far more agreeable 2006.

Granted, a more sedate and calm new year free of financial surprises might portend a less vitriolic and/or miserable blog, I think I'll take that trade, thank you very much.

Aside from yesterday and today's relative business, the last week has been surprisingly calm at work. The day after Christmas turned into our best day-after we've had in the new location, with a sales figure more in line with the run-up to Christmas than the wind-down afterwards. From there, it was almost immediately back to normal business: a rather curious departure from last year's holiday season, where it was the week after Christmas that saved our winter storm-stalled momentum. We also managed to nail that half-million mark for the first time since we left Great Lakes Mall in 1997: a milestone that, if nothing else, tells us that we are doing something right in this Best Buy/Wal-Mart world.

Alright, without further ado, I Am A Bug presents a nice one-stop recap of the highlights and low tides of 2005 ...


January

Our first run-in with the infamous Inspector Scene in November 2004 is finally resolved with some slapdash hammering of wooden slats into the downstairs bathroom wall, immobilizing it and allowing the door to said area to close correctly at last (this repair lasts maybe three months).

Counterbalancing this, our ex-landlord kindly sues us for leaving our previous lease six months before it expired, despite our best efforts to resolve this matter with in advance of the move. Looking back on this from a year later, this kind of started the ball rolling right then and there.


February

January is the month that nothing happens in my business, but February is when all of the big tour/album news starts to fly fast and furious. As a result, there was much news of varying activities from many of my favorite artists this month. U2 announce a Cleveland show waaay early on, but my attendance this time was just not in the cards. The same is true with Nine Inch Nails, who announced a new album and tour as well. Bruce Springsteen came back from Limbo to announce Devils & Dust, which becomes one of my faves of the year. I then just about leap for joy when I read that The Cocteau Twins have reformed to play the Coachella Music Festival. However, a few days later it becomes apparent that no one had asked singer Elizabeth Fraser what she thought of this idea, and the whole thing fell apart before the good news had even started to sink in. Dead Can Dance also reformed for a tour, but there was to be no Cleveland date. Bugger.

On another musical note, I start writing what became a weekly column for 45RPM, a weblog run by my friend and ex-Record Den co-worker Mike Beaumont.


March

Without exaggeration, the snowiest freakin' winter in Northeast Ohio history continues unabated.

Thanks to the kindness of a regular customer at the store, Sarah and I head downtown to see Duran Duran and VHS Or Beta (the only concert we will see this year ... we just didn't know it then).

In an ominous sign of Things To Come, my car develops a rather expensive problem with the cooling system that requires immediate attention.


April

I get pretty damn sick at the beginning of the month: sick like I haven't been in years, really. Hell, I can't even think of the last time I called in sick to work, it was that nasty.

Spring joyously arrives a couple of weeks later and finally ends a terrible, endless winter.

A second car repair job in a month (as well as a couple of rather unpleasantly big heating bills) leaves me temporarily poleaxed financially.


May

I get an unannounced raise at work, which helps a bit to catch up with my car repair woes.

I also get to revisit my childhood one last time as Revenge Of The Sith finally comes out, which at once ends 28 years of being a drooling Star Wars nerd and reveals Darth Vader to be a complete rube with a hardon. Sad.


June

Life is ever-so-briefly Good as the weather is wonderful and I have no worries with money.

I am very pleasantly surprised that not only do I greatly enjoy War Of The Worlds, but that having Tom Cruise (in the midst of his public Cool Meltdown) as the lead character doesn't detract from the experience one iota.

Then, in the shocker of all shockers for the year, Pink Floyd announce that they will re-unite to play the Live 8 concert in London. With Roger Waters. Holyshit.


July

Following nineteen years of very public acrimony, David Gilmour and Roger Waters not only deign to be on the same stage as each other, but they smile and wrap arms around each other's shoulders during the group bow at the end of Pink Floyd's fucking amazing 23-minute reunion set. I am geeked up to an extent unseen since at least the summer of 1995, if not 1994. It's not a pretty sight.

From this high, it's only a few weeks until things head rapidly for rock-bottom. The tailspin that characterizes the second half of 2005 gets going at the end of the month: while trying to get my car to pass an emissions test, it seems like just about everything that can go wrong does goes wrong, and I get a whopping $1400 repair bill accrued in a matter of days, which pretty much atomizes my recently-rebuilt finances and sets me behind on bills and everything else for the next five months. Wheee.


August

Following a run of freakishly bad luck, running around, and very nearly losing my cool with people at all stops along the route, my car passes emissions and is back in my possession ... but oh, the cost ...

My friend Dave Lynch came to town for a Sunday and we headed down to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, watched the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and he spent the night on our new hide-a-bed with Moe as a new best pal and bedmate.

Sarah also switched jobs at Case: in effect, going from working with people to hanging out and playing matchmaker with a gazillion immune-compromised mice. After eighteen years of dealing with other people on my job, I can't say I blame her.


September

I watch, appalled, as the United States Government goes to Hell in a handbasket in front of the whole world following the near-loss of New Orleans and a wide swath of southern Mississippi following the arrival of Hurricane Katrina (one of, like, five or so to hit the U.S. mainland this year). This is quite possibly the most embarrassing and infuriating moment in a very embarrassing and infuriating last five years. The prospect of three more years left to go under with these jokers in office just fills the heart with dread, doesn't it?

While all that is going on, my lower-left wisdom tooth (the last of these still in my head) begins to ache on a regular basis. Marvy.


October

Fall shows up and promptly screws up all the wonderful weather we've been having since the end of May, but also brings along the drama and edge-of-your-seat action of the League Championship Series followed by another anticlimactic World Series. While the Cleveland Indians went to hell at exactly the wrong time of the season, at least the Everfucking New York Yankees didn't win the title. In fact, they didn't make it past the second round. Bwaahaha.

Just after mid-month, 45RPM (or, to be more direct, Mike's ISP) gets threatened by the RIAA over the posting of a Strokes track and we pull the plug for the time being.

I also develop a nastier seasonal bout of what feels like bronchitis than I've ever had before, and it turns out later to be a mild form of asthma triggered by allergens (i.e., two cats) and crappy weather. Laid low by this attack, I make a partially successful attempt to quit smoking that lasts a whole month and change. Wheee.

Lastly, our Halloween is spiced up considerably by news of Sarah's bank account/debit card being hacked into and overdrawn by nearly $2000. That's a hell of a lot of online poker. Grrrr.


November

Winter arrives very early this year, as snow is on the ground a week before Thanksgiving for crissakes. Oh noooo.

I attend a funeral for my friend (and ex-Record Den co-worker) Jim's mother at midmonth.

My toothache recurs in a big way around the same time, and a big day-long spat of cleaning reactivates my asthmatic tendencies in a big way. Fed up with the wheeze and cough that this entails, I make arrangements to visit a doctor at the Lake County Free Clinic and get some free Albuterol for my troubles. I also set up an appointment with my dentist to have my wisdom tooth repaired, and to my surprise, I am directed to an oral surgeon for the procedure instead.

At the end of the month, said tooth was removed at a cost far greater than I'd expected to spend at the dentists' office. Life (or at least the holiday season) looks rather bleak at this point in time.

In a nice break from the unremitting gloom, Inspector Scene does his thing and finds absolutely nothing at all to bitch about for this year. Wooo!


December

I spend the first week of the month in misery from my tooth removal, which had far more lasting effects of discomfort than any I'd had done previously.

By the time all is finally copacetic once again, I have lapsed back into smoking, largely as a result of additional stress from another unplanned car repair. Luckily, this one goes far more smoothly than the rest, and at considerably less cost, but I am edgy as hell, regardless.

By midmonth, however, following months of worrying, my being able to participate in Christmas finally becomes a reality. Ho ho ho.

Incidentally, you gotta love Northeast Ohio weather sometimes: it snows like a son of a bitch for the entire first half of this month, and then the latter two weeks are full of the kind of weather that wouldn't seem out of place in, oh, April ...


Alright, back to a relaxing evening hanging out with the kitties and possibly tuning into America's Rockin' Eve (or whatever they call it these days) in morbid curiosity later on this evening. In case you haven't heard, they are planning on wheeling out dear old Dick Clark at some point during tonight's festivities. My money is on Dick's return to the public eye being previously-taped in case he should ask Ryan Seacrest for a handful of tapioca pudding and a blankee. At best, it'll be nice to see Clark still up and about again, if usurped as MC by Seacrest, the ultimate gigglemuppet. At worst, this could be one of those all-time cool bits of trainwreck T.V. that happen only once every few years.

Happy new year to all!


NP Eurythmics Ultimate Collection