i am so good at poker when i try to be. too bad i didn’t on friday night. i ended up doing my usual routine of having too many beers before the cards start coming out and then playing sloppy early on, getting into a hole i can’t get out of. there goes another five bucks.

at least i had a new beat ’em up game to play on xbox with gino and whoever else got out after i was eliminated. sword fights are way cooler than poker anyway, right? i’d forgotten the simple pleasure of repeatedly beating on each other. a few more nights of that and my investment in soul calibur iv this week will have been worthwhile.

making some nice progress on RV renting for the september trip to austin city limits too. we actually walked inside some on saturday, got a quote — did you know that in september you can get half price miles once all the wholesome families have had their summer vacation trips and demand goes way down? it’s like the planets are aligning for our party bus to texas. i just hope once we get in it someone doesn’t drive it into the grand canyon on the way; none of us are super experienced at driving massive residential trucks.

i also finally finished the book i was reading (rollover for review below-right). thank god, too. that was some too-long, unfulfilling stuff right there. very excited to be moving on to some nice tightly-written short stories from harlan ellison, and if i remember to go pick it up, our new book club selection. let’s see if i’m the only one who actually starts reading it this month.

the other night i went over to gino’s place to hang around and play video games with him and spencer and josh z. but when i say ‘play video games’, that really means 3 hours of taking turns on their favorite game of all time, power stone for the dreamcast.

it’s a game they’ve been playing since college where you beat each other up, and i’m terrible at it. or at least, when compared to legacy players like these guys, who aren’t super into games, but for some reason latched onto this one thing and got really good over the course of many years. it’s so interesting to me that, for some reason, these three college roommates never collectively moved on to any other new thing. they just kept on with the same game.

so i lost, a lot, and cursed, a lot, while they played masterfully and held conversations at the same time. the game was just something to do while we chatted, really. spencer said he was surprised i didn’t give up, because i’m the kind of person who wants to be decent at something in order to enjoy it — which at first i took as meaning i was a quitter, but decided later that he was right, sort of. i think i see quickly when something requires skill or practice to fully enjoy and so i’d rather do something else that i can enjoy until then. but i think a lot of people are like that with semi-competitive things; there are people who hate playing taboo or pictionary because they just don’t ever succeed at it. but then, like i did, there are times where they cave because friends are around and at least it’s something to do.

that’s actually the whole premise the game ‘cranium’ was built on, actually. i saw the guy who runs that company speak at a conference for work, and his philosophy was to ‘give everyone their moment to shine,’ hence a board game that combines a bunch of different skills to give more people a chance. but then, that’s sort of why i hate cranium. i want to be the one who shines, dammit.

i didn’t splatter, and neither did jessica, so we have come out the other side with pictures to share. can’t wait to get the videos in the mail this week, those should be even more fun. but for now…

this is us on the ground, with our uncomfortable harnesses, waiting for our instructors to take us up. i say ‘instructors’ loosely; basically all they taught us beforehand was ‘crouch at the edge, when they say go, arch your back on the way out, and follow their lead once you’re out there’. very instructional.

probably the most awkward part was once we were up in the tiny plane and had to get secured to them; i got to sit on this nice guy’s lap for a solid couple minutes while we waited for the other people closer to the door to jump before us. but when i say jump, i really mean just kind of roll out of the plane and instantly disappear from sight. there’s not a lot of ‘jumping’ involved.

nice view of the ground i was rushing toward; although from that height (about 2 miles to start), the ground’s so far away the idea of hitting it didn’t really even enter my mind, and it feels more like floating than falling. if my physics memory serves me, that’s probably because you’re not really accelerating that much, and your body feels changes in velocity, not actual speed. who cares if you’re falling about a mile a minute.

i definitely was not aware that my face could do this… but despite my strange g-forced grimace, i assure you i was having an awesome time at this moment.

so was jessica, who jumped just a minute after i did, and whose smile the air pressure was much kinder to.

the camera guys that jumped with us were great at flying right up to us and making us wave, give thumbs up, etc, which almost kept you from thinking about the fact that you were falling from 12,500 feet above the ground.

and then safely back on the ground. i got a little carried away with the metal signs throughout the whole experience, but i guess these things happen when you’re so fucking hardcore. i kinda wish i got a mountain dew chugging photo to go with this.

all in all, great fun. if you haven’t, you should try it, and i may just go back to go with you.

you might think i haven’t been up to much because i haven’t been blogging as much. not true! i’ve been up to so much, i have neglected my little hamlet here. you can generally keep tabs on the minutia via the new twitter feed to the right, but in broad strokes:

my weekend was packed with summer fun. pool party plus drinking games saturday. brunch and a hollywood bowl show sunday.

while i’m not ‘crazy’ about gnarls barkley generally, all my doubts were ‘gone daddy gone’ once they started playing their live show. their albums don’t make me wanna ‘run’ to the record store, but their list of hit singles make for a great live show that gave us all some serious ‘smiley faces’.

okay that was awful.

otherwise, work is picking up which is making me feel more useful and generally productive during the daytimes. i like feeling like i’m really contributing something with my brain instead of just letting it idle.

speaking of which, i also a put up a new call of duty 4 review that i stayed up too late last night finishing.

it’s interesting, i’m pretty sure that having this new creative project has really got my juices flowing lately. but i’ve also been having a harder time switching off at night and getting to sleep. i’ve gone from a comfortable 12-12:30 sleep time to a steady 1-1:30, and even then tossing and turning a lot because i’m just too awake and my brain’s still cranking. i’m not sure which i prefer.

tonight: dark knight in IMAX, but with seats dangerously close to the screen because the rest were already sold out through the weekend. if my eyeballs don’t melt, i’ll let you know if the differences are noticable.

and coming up this weekend: the celebration of my 3 year anniversary with jessica, which actually passed last weekend. THREE YEARS. it seems impossible it could be that long when i think about how googly-eyed we still are sometimes.

to mark the occasion and hope for continued good fortunes, we have nice dinner reservations in the evening, and in the afternoon, we’re going skydiving, naturally. nothing like intentionally plunging to our deaths from an airplane, then laughing in the face of mortality by saving them 20 seconds later through the deployment of a large bag attached to some ropes.

if i don’t post again by sunday, you can safely assume i either splattered on the beautiful lawn of skydive elsinore, or that it was so awesome i’ve given up my life of responsibility to be MORE EXXXTREME!!!!

so yes. i got to see a BATMAN movie last week! pre-show my excitement for the thursday midnight debut was a bit off the charts. it would have been tough to meet or surpass what i was expecting. and it started off great (the opening sequence was especially fantastic), and just as it was getting into full swing… a fire alarm went off.

i’m not kidding. as i turned and said to spencer as we were waiting to see what would happen: this had never happened to me before in an entire lifetime of going to see movies, and it had to happen in the movie i’d basically been waiting my whole life to see? (okay maybe that’s not entirely true; that was probably the first new star wars movie, and that went okay. but this is a close second).

so we waited a few minutes to see if someone would come tell us everything was okay. no one did. we resigned ourselves to exiting the theatre, then as people started filing out, they told us to go back, it was a false alarm, movie should be back on in five minutes. then they came back five minutes later and said ‘there was only a little bit of smoke, five more minutes,’ which really freaked out alex. but i stated plainly that as long as there weren’t open flames in the theatre i was sitting in, they better put fucking batman back on. i could see the emergency exit from my seat; i can handle myself.

it also occurred to me how amazing it would have been if it were all an elaborate setup for midnight moviegoers, in which a costumed joker came in and pulled a fake stickup in the middle of the movie, but alas, it was probably just incompetent use of the popcorn popper.

anyhow, if you care to see it, my extended dark knight review is up at under culture, featuring a nice counterpoint article from spencer. taken together i think you get a pretty well-rounded take on the movie, and no, there are no outright spoilers, if you’re worried.

also, last week i’d posted an article on john darnielle’s 33 1/3 book, his potential as a writer, and how that’s not something all musicians are capable of, in case you missed that and are interested.

i’ve been lucky that in the first month of writing i’ve had so many wonderful things come out recently to write about… it’s a lot easier when you’re so passionate about something going in. i think i have to buckle down and find some topics now that aren’t as obviously matched to my taste to practice coming at something from a non-glowing angle.

no, i’m not dead. that’s got to be the natural reaction to me not posting right away about batman, and naturally so.

there’s a good excuse: i had an extremely lazy weekend during which i mostly played video games. and i wanted to write something substantial for under culture, which is just about ready, and which i will link to here soon.

the good news is jessica is back from another trip, and that makes me a lot happier. it also makes me less lazy about three quarters of the time, because there is a person around to keep me from lapsing into a couch coma. of course, the other quarter, we happily veg out together, and that’s not so bad either.

if it weren’t for her, i might not even realize that project runway had started back up again and that i absolutely hate one of its contestants already. what the fuck is ‘girlicious’ supposed to mean, you stupid douchebag? if that little weiner from last season started a trend where everyone thinks if they have a catchphrase, they will win, i am going to stop watching now.

Least appealing spa day ever.

oh and i almost forgot to mention, there’s a lengthy review of the new girl talk album up over at the new under culture digs that i spent a lot of time on. i’d be curious to hear reactions or have people call bullshit on me if you’ve been digging the album as much as i have.

oh man, did i forget to tell you about our awesome july 4th/jessica’s birthday weekend? it was nonstop coolness. friday we hung at sarah’s folks’ place in the pool, did some barbequeing and beer pong (thanks to my portable table, natch) and even flip cup. then after it all we went and saw wall-e, which was wonderful. best pixar to date. that’s right, i said it (BITE me, toy story!).

saturday was the party for jessica at which we sang karaoke for almost four hours. not jessica and i, that would be exhausting. there were probably 15 or so people, and it was good times even if none of the pictures ever turn out when you’re trying to capture the passion with which your friends valiantly attempt to recreate the 80’s. we had some fantaaaaastic cupcakes from crumbs (the caramel apple one was ‘holy shit’ good), lots of tall bottles of hite, and she loved her gifts ($200 burke williams spa certificate from the gang, AND some nice new diamond earrings from yours truly. god, i’m a good boyfriend).

then we capped it off with a sunday trip out to mei long village for some heavenly dumplings and other chinese deliciousness. i’m not sure if they quite topped the ones we had in new york like jessica claimed they might, but i’ve never met a dumpling i didn’t like, and these were certainly way up there.

this week, just nerdin’ out. she’s off for a work trip (again, sigh), so i went over to spencer’s last night to watch the gotham knight batman anime dvd thing, which had its ups and downs. i think i might head out solo tonight to a reading at book soup with my favorite song-and-now-book writer, mr john ‘mountain goats’ darnielle. there are rumblings that on top of his 33 1/3 book on master of reality, he might be working on an actual novel now… fanboy jitters! if anyone else wants to come along tonight, it’s not too late…

the reason i’ve been slow at posting here lately is because i’ve been working on something new.

i’ve been wanting for a while to try my hand at writing some more feature-length, article-type things, but didn’t think this was really the place. if i start filling this page up with multi-page pieces on video games or movies, i might bore the crap out of half of the friends and family that read this. and also if i started doing that, and getting some sort of audience for those things, they might be annoyed when i went back to posting about a fun party i went to or what i ate over my vacation.

so, i built a separate site which i’m going to start filling up as much as i can with honest writing attempts, and keep this one more for diary style thoughts. after several weeks of monkeying with domain names, wordpress, learning some php and css tricks, figuring out layouts and logo styles and all that, i’m finally about ready to let people see it, so here it is if you want the sneak peak:

under culture

obviously there isn’t too much there yet because i was spending all my time building it, not writing articles, but that will change soon. also, the clever and talented spencer has already contributed an article, which is hilarious and smart. he will be back with more soon i hope. if you like the idea, please get in touch, because i would love love love if more of my clever friends signed on to make this a seriously high-quality project.

anyway, thanks for being patient, hope to see all you friends this weekend at pool parties, karaoke birthdays, or what have you.