Author: briancollapsing

something else i should mention/endorse: i just finished barrel fever by david sedaris, and it was a lot of fun. if nothing else, borrow a copy from your friend, or just go to the bookstore and sit down and read the last story in this book, “santaland diaries”. it’s completely hysterical. the book as a whole is very good and i respect david sedaris a lot, so you should really buy the whole thing, but that one particularly cracked me up. it’s about his stint working as an elf around christmastime helping the santa at macy’s in new york. some really funny stuff.

now i’ve picked up a “best of” collection from the sex/advice column savage love, which is pretty entertaining even if it’s not necessarily literature. the guy is good at being abrasive and clever while still giving pretty appropriate advice though. and there are some pretty weird things that he gets asked questions about . . . i’ll let you find out for yourself. if you want a sample of the column, it also runs in its normal weekly form on the onion (in the “av club” section) among other places.

oh, heavens. we just got back from the most adorable movie of the year. it’s a french film called amelie, which was a huge success in france and released just this weekend here in the united states. totally blew that silly old serendipity (which i liked also) out of the water as far as fateful quirky romance goes. i saw the trailer a while ago and couldn’t wait to see it; and i wasn’t disappointed. it was so magical and sweet and just made me happy. plus, i fell in love with the title character from the very first shot of her. they couldn’t have cast her more perfectly, because the shots of her expressive and darling face were probably more endearing than any of the dialogue. she was unbearably and painfully cute and pretty.

the movie made me all warm inside, and was very romantic and touching, so if this is what you like in a film, don’t mind reading subtitles, and happen to be somewhere that’s showing it, i would say don’t miss it.

the rest of my saturday wouldn’t make a good story though so i’ll leave it at that and maybe have more to tell tomorrow.

it’s nice to rearrange things every now and then to keep from getting tired of how things look. don’t be scared. i just wanted all the other grand weblog friends of mine to get better, higher-on-the-page type visibility. my reasons are also selfish; these links aren’t just for show. i use them all frequently and don’t want to scroll down so far to get to them. being the efficiency expert i am, i made it so there are more links closer to the top. i’m brilliant, i know.

and the biggest nerd you’ll ever see, too. i’m sorry.

this morning i stepped out onto my balcony for a few minutes, as is my custom, to have a glass of water and get a feel for the day, watching a few people here and there walk off to class.

parked (where it shouldn’t be) in the driveway leading into the parking garage beneath our building, almost directly below me, is a blue car that’s been there since last night. however, since last night, somehow two presumably raw hot dogs (sans bun) have shown up on the roof of this car. so there it sits, a blue car with two randomly tossed hot dogs on top, and there i stand, imagining how such a thing would come to be.

what a world of wonders we live in, no?

two quotes of the day (from thursday night):

shannon (talking about a doofus guy that might be interested in her): “he’s like play doh. but not even hot pink play doh which is fun and exciting. he’s like the white play doh. no one wants to play with the white play doh.”

and . . .

dustin (walks in wearing the tiara he won from this weekend’s costume contest, which he’s been doing occasionally all week)

brian (laughing): i’m sorry dustin, but i’ll never be used to you wearing that tiara.

dustin WELL YOU’D BETTER!

i realize the second one isn’t quite as funny if you weren’t there, but use your imagination.

i feel like there are a bunch of things i wanted to talk about from the past couple days that i just didn’t get around to, but i can’t recall any of them, or at least what i wanted to say about them in detail, so i’ll just list a few fun things worth noting.

you know how it rained here finally the other day? my mom told me in a short email note a tidbit she must have read or heard somewhere: it hadn’t rained in downtown los angeles for 198 straight days before that. see? i’m not crazy, it really is a miracle to have precipitation in this city.

yesterday as i was sitting outside on some steps before going into a class, a guy snuck up on me and started talking to me about religion after he invited me to a meeting. having nothing to do, i figured i’d discuss with him for a few minutes just in case he had anything profound to say, or just in case i could make him doubt himself. you know, for kicks. neither of us really gained anything though, because his argument ended up being “there are no contradictions in the bible, so you have to believe the part about how there’s a heaven to go to after you die, because the other stuff in there is true too”. i didn’t even know where to begin trying to argue against his ludicrous point, although i would have tried had i not had to go into my class.

i didn’t do anything fun halloween night. i had my fill last saturday, i guess. i just read about the signifier and signified. it’s a real page turner, that elements of semiology, i tell ya. at least i knew enough to look smart in class today though.

the shiner cd is still kicking my ass.

i just got back from an hour of raquetball and i need a shower.

i’m so glad it’s thursday.

so halloween’s over. it’s november now. how do you feel about that?

it’s also time for a new song of the week. right in the middle of the week is a good time for this sort of thing — right when you need a little jolt to get through a couple more days.

i have to say, i’ve been listening to the new shiner cd a lot this week. and every time i pop it in, i just get all tingly. it’s that good to me. i can’t quite put my finger on why just listening to this one cd makes me so excited about music, but it does. maybe it’s the intricate, heavy beauty of their songs, maybe it’s a little bit because they remind me of my favorite and sadly extinct band, hum, in some ways. i do know that the egg is in the running for best cd i’ve picked up this year though. i just love this band. so since i can’t stop listening to them, i’ll force some of their music on you. this song is called the truth about cows, and it’s the first track off the cd. i picked this one because two of the other great tracks, “play dead” and “the egg”, are available from their website for you to download already, which i suggest you do too. buy the cd while you’re at it. it’s really fantastic, and even has cool cover art.

enough flattery. i think i should really be getting to sleep now.

the timing couldn’t have been more perfect (just got these tonight) . . .

so there i am, on the left, in my outstanding costume (if you don’t recognize that i’m the joker, then i’m sorry but we can’t be best friends any more. it’s just the way it has to be). please focus on the costume itself, not the dopey look on my face that results from my constant bad luck of getting photographed between smile and non-smile, never fully one or the other. on the right would be the second best costume besides me, my pal shannon as the always sexy tinkerbell, pulled off very nicely with cute dress, wings, and hair.

so you can get an even better look, here’s another picture:

so there they are, just in time for the unholy holiday. i know they’re not the best quality photos, but you get the idea. and come on, tell me that just going as the joker in the first place isn’t a damn cool idea.

happy halloween everyone.

don’t mistake my exclamation for any serious religious belief (i don’t subscribe), but holy god almighty, it finally fucking rained in los angeles today!

excuse the language as well, but wow, i swear it’s probably been over 8 months since i’ve had a single drop fall on my head. it just never rains around here, but today as i came out of my southern california classroom building i walked into a light and wonderful drizzle that — unlike traditional equations of rain with sadness — completely made my afternoon. it started really really lightly, at what could only be called a slight drip-dropping, and already a girl walking ahead of me could be overheard pleading into her cell phone, “it’s raining like crazy and i forgot to bring an umbrella!”

to my pleasure, it got more steady and never so heavy as to actually soak me, so i just walked to my next class enjoying every brief second of it. now, i’m sure those of you in places that actually have weather are saying, “what the hell, it’s just rain” or something, but honestly you don’t miss it until you’ve been without it for ages. so it quenched a thirst i’d been having, you might say.

an hour later during a short class break my business-school friend spencer and i went outside for a minute (the rain had already stopped), and i remarked that the school finally looked like i felt — all dark and dreary and dank and grey. he agreed wholeheartedly, because really, that’s what business school will do to you sometimes.

now it probably won’t rain again until february so i’m gonna listen to the new dismemberment plan cd and hold on to those few minutes of precious variety.

none of you won the wonderful prize on my radio show last night because none of you called in. shame on you.

grey days like today make it hard to get up early to go file microfiche in a basement library for three hours. honestly. how much greater would it be to sleep until 11? yeah, exactly.

sorry, but i’m to weary-eyed to manufacture any of yesterday’s events into entertaining vignettes. you’ll have to just imagine your own wild adventures of brian this morning.