Hey everybody. I hope your having a great summer. As of right now and up to this point it hasn't been super fantastically great formyself, but mediocre to the least, cementing a certain level of mental fullfillment that gets me through the days of heat, cherry harvesting, and fucking fudgies rubbernecking all over the road, not paying attention to the road, but rather shit off to the side of the road. These people suck. They need to go fuck themselves and drive into the deep end of the bay and die a slow death in the bottom of the west arm of grand traverse bay. Now I need to say bay 4 more times just to get it out of my system. Bay, bay, bay, and bay. Good. So I recently got XM satelite radio and wow, I'm never going back to FM. And I have two main reasons; One, there are no commercials on XM, and Two, Opie and Anthony play 24/7. Commercial radio can go fuck itself. Now I know what most of you are thinking in your ponderous minds and that is... "well you have to pay for satelite radio!?" True, I do. I pay $12.95 a month, and I also had to purchase the receiver for my car, which cost me about $270 after installation, which I might add was a great idea. If I went and installed the receiver myself in my car, it would of looked like a crack head just pooped on the dash and left strange wires dangling from the steering column. I don't need that shit. But at anyrate, XM satelite radio is worth the $12.95 a month. I get 150 commercial free channels, (which of course is way to much and is overkill if you ask me but what the fuck, I'll take 'em) and I don't get those fucking annoying DJ's constantly talking over the music and cutting into the songs early just so they can plug in another fucking commercial about buying a new car, or finding that right proctologist in your neighborhood. These DJ's are pretentious fuck faces and deserve colon cancer of the worst degree. But you really can't blame em', I mean thats what they are paid to do. They are paid to be lame and annoying. Like I need a fucking weather update every 3 fucking minutes... "EXTREME DIGITAL DUAL-DOPPLER FORCAST FOR THE TRI-COUNTY AREA, WE GONNA SEE SOME CLOUDS TONIGH WITH A LOW AROUND 50 AND TOMORROW INCREASING CLOUDS WITH A POSSIBLE THUNDERSTORM FOR THE AFTERNOON. TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE THE SAME SHIT AND YOU'LL GET TO HEAR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN BEFORE YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT ON THE DASH IN YOUR NISSAN WHILE YOUR STUCK IN TRAFFIC DEALING WITH A BAD RASH THAT YOU GOT FROM SOME BITCH AT THE BAR LAST WEEK. KEEP IT LOCKED HERE ON LAME ASS FM WHERE WE NEVER PLAY THE HITS AND CORPORATE ASSHOLES DECIDE WHAT YOU LISTEN TO!!!!" Fuck 'em. I don't need that shit. With XM, if I want to know what the weather is, I can go to anyone of the 18 channels designated for regional weather in the United States, or I can LOOK OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW IN MY CAR!

Today at work, I was in the cab tractor and it has a Pioneer CD/Radio receiver in it, with Rockford Fosgate speakers, overkill for a tractor, but cool as shit. Well, I forgot that the tractor does not have XM in it. I was forced to listen to conventional radio, which I havn't done since I've gotten XM, which was about two weeks ago from today. So I'm flipping through the preset stations (which I have 7 of them, one modern rock, one classic rock, one a combination of modern rock and classice rock, two country stations, one pop/top 40 station and NPR, which stands for National Public Radio if you did not know (not only do I like to entertain you with my blog, but I also like to inform.)) and not one of them was playing music! They were all in commercials, even the fucking public radio station was in a commercial, and thats a little fucking ironic. A public radio station playing commercials. Its not even ironic, its just fucking miserable. All of the stations were in the midst of some stupid plug. At one point I find myself yelling and screaming "WHAT THE FUCK AM I LISTENING TO, PLAY SOME FUCKING MUSIC FOR CHRIST-SAKE! It was like death to my ears hearing all of the over-modulated, bass-emphasized 30-second spots that touted ramdom wares and services. New car this and deuching your horse that and Midol for cramps and bloating and Nabisco crackers taste 30 percent more like shit now retarted ramblings with no end in sight!! When they say "WILL GET RIGHT BACK TO THE MUSIC AFTER THIS!" they should really be saying. "GO SUCK A FUCKING COCK WHILE WE MAKE YOU LISTEN TO THESE SUB-STANDARD PRODUCED AD'S THAT SOUND LIKE THEY WERE MADE IN A FUCKING WELDING SHOP!"

Honesty is all that I'm looking for in commercial radio. If the people controlling commercial radio could just be honest for one second with themselves and their listeners, then maybe, maybe I will listen up and tune in every once and a while, just to hear what they are playing. But untill then, I will stick with XM and for the people who can't afford XM, I do feel your pain. Even though you really don't know what you are missing. Let me just say this, ignorance is bliss. I was blissful and content once with commercial radio, now I'm just annoyed and bothered by how shitty it really is. Thank god for CD's iPod's eh!?

-Your friend, Travis L. Priest.

Hey Xanga ol' buddy, its been awhile, how have you been? Thats good, I'm great/ losing my mind.

It seems under my anti-social working conditions i.e. no contact with another human being for 5 hours on end, I have cracked under the huge underlying pressures to give into Apple and their demands for social cohesion by purchasing an ipod to ease my drowsy and confused mind. As a lot of people know, I work on a cherry farm and I work by myself enduring 10-14 hour shifts. This social withdrawal can make the strongest man weak and bring him to tears and pant wetting. I have not reached those beleaguered stages of social depravation yet, but fear I soon will if I do not do something in the near future to streamline my thoughts and mental processions during my workday. For a second I would like to take you on a magical voyage known as my routine at work... I Arrive to work at about 6:55am every morning. I fortunately have the audible comforts of the Bob and Tom Show brought to me via the magical box know as the modern digital FM radio on 98.1 The Bear. I will sit in my car and listen to their show until the 7:00 o’clock air break that they take at the top of the hour. Once out of my automobile, I straggle to the pole building to open the main doors on the glorious structure that houses my beautiful children (Case/ David Brown tractors. The little one is named 885, the middle two, well I call them the 990 and 995. Don’t tell 995 this but I like 990 better. Then there is a pair of twins. They are the 1210's and make up the bigger brothers that look after 990 and 995. And finally, the oldest of the family is 1494. He likes to bitch a lot but is a good worker) So depending what's on tap for the day, I will climb onto one of these leaky bastards and spend the better part of the day beating the shit out of them. They like that. Most recently, I have been working up a couple sections of land, no more than 25 acres I gather from my observations, and I have been discing, pulling roots, picking up rocks, and leveling the land with a steady and calming nerve that makes even the strongest of lumberjacks poop their pants. Thats my day, depending on how long I take lunch, I will typically work till 6 or 7 in the pm and throughout the course of that day, maybe come into contact with two people total. Now you might be asking yourself, where is my boss during the course of my workday. Good question. Steve usually is at his other job where he performs his elected duties as Drain Commissioner of Leelanau County. He typically calls me throughout the day to make sure I haven’t run over myself with a tractor or cut my hear off with the Stihl chainsaw. He gives me orders to do a job, and I complete them without his direct supervision. It’s a good system built on loyalty and trust, a two way street that I vigorously comply too on a consistent basis. Wow am I full of pompous shit. But seriously, thats how it goes down at Suttons Pointe Farms. We the most honest motherfuckers we know this side of Grand Traverse Bay. (Thats the west-SIDE) Anyways. It seems that all of this one man work has lead me to make the decision to purchase an ipod. I caved people, I caved. You now understand and comprehend the working conditions I am under (which are fairly relaxed and unstressed but filled with too much excess time to think about other things that are occurring in my life.) Here is where the ipod comes in. It seems that music is a brilliant distractor and makes time fly by like no other. For certain it will motivate me to put more energy into my work. I can say this, While I was picking up rocks today, I was listening to Kayne West and other various contemporary pop artists with my fantastic fucking piece of shit Panasonic CD player which sucks my sandbar and nuts. I feel the soothing beats and lyrics of the music makes me dance and sing like a institutionalized patient at Crest Wood mental institution in Grand Rapids Michigan. Or imagine me drunk and dancing to country music at a party. Its more like that. Well in short, the music does wonders to soothe my schizophrenic mind and I feel that the ADD is not as bad as it was without the music. The ipod will host all of my tunes, a musical library that will for once have a home on one single portable device. First and foremost, I want to apologize to James Shepard. We pledged to our dying day that we would not purchase Apple products, or to an immediate extent, ipods. I have broken this sacred verbal contract and for that, I have put his and my name to shame. Secondly, I need to apologize to Ian Olmsted. I have harassed this young lad from the get go and his "Faggoty-ass" ipod. I have badgered him enough and his lovely 20 gig white encased laptop hard-drive. Thirdly, but not lastly, Megan McPhee and her Mustang/MSU green mini-ipod have received a great deal of shit from my mouth. Consequently, I apologize to her also. Sorry Meg. Its not her fault totally anyways, she got if for her birthday but she asked for it before hand so maybe it is her fault. At any rate, I have joined the ranks of these fine people and have discarded my firm and well established belief that Steve Jobs and Apple are the anti-Christ and have embraced their products like a small child being embraced into the loving arms of a super-sized theme park character like Donald Duck, who is unfortunatly drenched with the bodily fluids and excrement of over-privileged, over pampered children who wouldn’t know what a hard-days work was and never will cause their father owns a car dealership and their just going to inherit the business so their life is set bastard offspring. I remember being a small child and going to theme parks and running away from these giant-sized jackasses as my mother would scream at me "What’s wrong with you, don’t you want to hug Winnie the Pooh?" So this purchase brings me one step closer to a conformist like-state, kind of like communism. Never thought anyone would connect ipods to communism, did you? Neither did I, neither did I.

-Travis L. Priest.

So who is ready to leap forward!!!!!! I know I am, but being the supreme nerd of useless data and observation, that comes as no surprise to those who know me and my incessant nit-picking at finding the most obscure shit about everything and anything. But anyways, I have been observing that the sun has been rising in our super-duper part of the world (located 43.59N -84.8W at an elevation of 758 ft above mean sea level) at about roughly 6:45, and that time is getting earlier and earlier everyday. By the time we switch to standard daylight saving time, the sun will be rising at about 6:30, but then it will switch to 7:30 am due to the gain in extra light given to the night. The process however continues all the way up to about June 19-24^th were there will be about a week were time will seem to stand still as the sun reaches it pinnacle in the northern hemisphere during our summer solstice.

O.K. who really gives a fuck about that? I guess I do. But now I wanna change gears for a second… Today, while I was walking to art class, like I do every Monday and Wednesday afternoons, I made the abrupt observation that Walt-Disney world was recruiting, right here at good old CMU!! Well spank my ass and call me Donald-Fucking Duck! (Donald Fucking-Duck was the original name given to the quak-tas-tic white feathered character, but was latter changed when Mr. Walt Disney decided that he shouldn’t name the characters of his animations while drinking tequila at his house parties) Back to the Disney recruiting shit… How many people buy into this crap? I hear the same thing over and over again from various and curious thinkers and goat-mongers who actually believe in this internship program… “Well, ya know, if you intern at Disney for a semester, it looks really good on your resume, and you will have this connection and you can do this and that and be here and there and blah blah blah!” Interning at Disney means only one thing to anyone. You’re getting the NAME, Disney! And what employer gives two shits that you earned 9 credit hours wearing a Goofy costume around magic kingdom while little kids kick you in the shins and pee on your feet! If I were an employer, (which I probably never will be, and for good reason) and a prospective employee was telling me about their past experiences and jobs, I would not want to hear anything about Disney World or anything related to that in any way, shape or form… “Well I graduated from MSU with a degree in Communications and I minored in journalism, oh yea, and I also interned at Walt-Disney World for a Semester!”  “You don’t say. Well how ‘bout you blow me while I shit on your resume you overachieving dung eater! I worked at Denny’s for 11 years, and am I supposed to get a standing ovation for that? No, I didn’t think so. How about you go back out to the waiting room with all of the other pretentious pompous pricks who sucked Mickey’s dick for fun in Florida!”

It must be just me, but I tell ya, some people look at this Disney thing like it’s the key to there future, like all of a sudden, spending 60 grand on college wasn’t enough. They needed to prove to the world that Disney gave them the edge. “I tell ya what Jerry, if it wasn’t for Disney, I would have never have gotten my job at one of the nations largest manufacturers of cheese graters. God bless the good folks down there in Orlando!” What the fuck dot Com!? If walking around all day in the Florida sun picking up trash with a little white scooper and broom wasn’t enough to make a person not do the Disney thing, I don’t what is. I know one thing, if I wore one of those dorky-ass costumes that those poor sob’s have to wear, I would have to kick my own ass, then piss on myself to cool off the from the major ass kicking that I just handed myself. Sad circumstances here people. We live in a service oriented society, and that means when getting ahead, some of us choose to take the road less-traveled, being a bitch for Disney. Now at least, if you were to be a bitch for Cedar Point, you would have some good rides to go on every now and then…

-Travis “I love you all” Priest

Hey, how about a new entry…

So I’ve been listening to a lot of country music thanks to my roommates and their broadened musical tastes. I’m not too sure as to what has become of me. I’ve lost touch with my apparent connection with my deeply embedded modern/alternative/grunge lineage so kindly given to me by my generation-x brothers (they are 32 and 29 respectively, so their influence musically is that of an older nature and I really do find solace in the primitive listening of their cohorts musical tastes and influences) I however have drifted from those roots and have found my self in a contemporary cross-roads of hip-hop, country, and popular music. All of these genres have broken down my once firmly constructed belief and never-ending love in the soothing harden tones of bands like STP, Alice in Chains, and Metallica, and have gave way to the light-hearted ness of artists such as John Michael Montgomery, Toby Keith, and Diamond Rio… WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO ME!!! I find that this musical alternation is due to my environment that the good people at Residence Life have placed me in. Now don’t get me wrong, I really get along great with my roommates and I hope they feel the same about myself and getting along with me and what not, but I never thought in a million years that someone else’s musical preferences would influence my own. (Now isn’t that quite the hard-headed comment to make about myself) But I guess you have no other option but to simply join, if ya can’t beat ‘em, right? Apparently, that’s what I did. And besides, you can only listen to “Friends in low places” only so many times before you come to the conclusion that the song is actually kind of good, and one hell of a tune to get drunk to.

And another thing, I haven’t totally lost touch with my past musical guiding lights. They are still there on my hard drive and I have no intentions of deleting them any time soon. It just seems at the moment that I have expanded my listening horizons to include proclaimed anthems of red-necks and drunken wife-beaters in my humble listening library. (Just kidding, country music isn’t the only type of music that domestic violence goes well with, you can beat your kids and wife to any music, like jazz or U2 or Sting or Steely Dan. Even opera or New Kids on the Block can play the role of a good soundtrack to defecating on your neighbor’s lawn or kicking his dog senselessly until it ruptures its spleen.)

I guess college has been the catalyst to ignite further musical exploration on my behalf, and I do not regret it. What I do regret is memorizing the lyrics to “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and signing it to myself out loud as I stock endless boxes of pre-processed chicken fritters in the meat freezer at Woldt Dinning Commons. I’ve got nothing against chicken fritters, (in fact, they are actually quite tasty, and go well with ranch dressing) but how many people do you see line dancing in a storage freezer? Luckily, no one has caught me… yet.

-Travis L. Priest