Author: briancollapsing

so this weekend while we were waiting for a movie to start, my girlfriend and i went into the nearby bookstore. i looked on the shelf and was pleasantly surprised to find out that my favorite author just released a new book that i hadn’t even heard about. hooray! i have to get through two books already on my shelf before i can buy more, but still it’s good to know he’s working.

so i read this review/interview article, and i have to say i love this man more every time i hear something he’s said. he’s so witty. some samples:

“I was trying to explain (America) to myself” using myth and fantasy, he said.

He acknowledged that most readers are what he called “mythologically challenged.” But he says they’ll enjoy the novel even if they can’t pinpoint who the disguised god-characters are.

“You don’t have to know anything at all about West African spider gods to know (the character) Mr. Nancy is a funny old man,” Gaiman said. “If you recognize them, it’s brownie points.”

and later

Gaiman sees good things happening in the fantasy genre and is heartened by the legions of children reading the Harry Potter books.

“It’s a place (young readers) can go that is unlike any other place, and it’s welcoming, and it’s a book place,” he said.

“And one day, when they’re old enough, I will take them by the hand and take them to my place.”

not that these are the best examples of how clever he is. but i like the idea of my favorite author (he’s best known for his groundbreaking work on the sandman graphic novel series, a “comic book for intellectuals” which is a sort of fantasy/sci-fi/horror/literary series) leading these little kids who like harry potter into his dark and scary and cool grown-up world of intellectual fantasy. and i wish him luck in tantalizing as many minds as he can lure into his world because i’m already stuck there forever.

yeah, you got it, i’m not working very hard.

i should have written yesterday about the wonderful dinner i went to at a friend’s apartment. it was amazing. she made pasta sauce with meatballs and italian sausages from scratch, huge bowls of excellent salad, and two apple pies, also from scratch. it was an unbelievable meal and she’s probably the nicest person i know; at least in that mom kind of way. you know what i mean? anyway, thanks janelle for a great party.

i wasn’t quite ready to come in to work today, as hard as that is to believe. i must have been really tired still while i was waiting at the bus stop, because i swear the sun had been turned up three notches on the brightness scale — i just couldn’t seem to look up without squinting. maybe i’m going blind from all the…pollutants. (chuckle)

once i came into the office though i found out (gasp!) i get to do more of the not-so-fun work. i think there was some talk of it all being over with soon though, so i can cling to that for hope. so i put in my favorite metal cd to cure me of the squinty tired feeling and fuel my discontent with having to do this mindless stuff for my job today. rock rock rock.

oooh, and yesterday i ordered up some brand new music for quite a bargain price. not too shabby. i look forward to that arriving, and it will quickly too because this place rocks my world.

guess i better get to it.

it still feels like sunday morning to me, even if it is two in the afternoon. after hanging out with the lady for a while this morning, all i wanted was to come home and demolish a nice bagel with cream cheese. mmmm. but one problem i encountered was that hey, there’ s no cream cheese in this crazy place. luckily we live pretty close to a grocery store. yeah, that’s right, i made a trip just for the cream cheese. when your mind is set to something you go out and get it. so i had a delicious bagel and now i’m listening to a rad cd and blogging for a minute. then i’m gonna read me a book.

oh, you’ll be pleased to know that starring in a movie with julia roberts did not pollute the great ability of john cusack in america’s sweethearts. i was afraid it was going to be a stupid/cute julia roberts movie with some john cusack comedy thrown in, but it was more of a john cusack/billy crystal comedy with the cute face of julia roberts thrown in instead. this was the far superior movie decision i feel, and i really laughed a lot at this movie. it also showed me that catherine zeta jones is really funny, not just hot. and furthered my belief that cristopher walken and hank azaria are geniuses, and that stanley tucci and seth green are also capable of a lot of good comedy. a fine seven dollars spent.

want to blog but don’t have much to say

want to eat but can’t sate hunger until my girlfriend comes over for dinner

want to read, but don’t want to get into a new book and have to stop when girlfriend gets here

want to go see a movie but have to have dinner with my girlfriend first

want all these new cds that are coming out soon but i don’t have any money

want new shelves to put all my old cds on but still don’t have any money

so what do i do right now?

this i guess.

last night on the mass pike — actually, in my apartment — i didn’t do any falling in love so much as watching radioland murders and eating pizza hut. and it worked for me. we went to the grocery store, before that, and a little after the movie i went to see my girlfriend. an evening delightful in its simplicity. sure you may think it sounds boring, but maybe i think going out to a bar called miyagi’s (unfortunately not karate-kid related) and doing saki-bombs with a crowd of 30 sounds boring. that’s what she did, and i was invited, and i turned it down. the sushi dinner might have been better than a twisted crust supreme special, but i was content with my evening.

now i’m doing the laundry i was trying to do yesterday, trying to finish a book and planning on seeing john cusack be cuter than julia roberts later today. i bet you five bucks he can do it too.

the only downside to this weekend is that thanks to groceries, rent, and concert ticketsfor next month, i’m riding on a budget of about 17 dollars for the next 10 days. hopefully i have food stored up enough to last until payday on the first. stupid bills. maybe some of the ideas i came up with at work this past week that my boss pitched to a client will get a great response and i’ll get a bonus or something. i have no reason whatsoever to believe that would really happen, mind you. i just think i’m really great and deserve larger paychecks so i can afford my high cost of living and buy more cool stuff. at least blogger is free!

more reading now.

left the office at 1:30 today and just barely caught the bus leaving just as i got to the bus stop, so i didn’t have to wait. outstanding. so i’ve been at home surfing and trying to do laundry all afternoon. only today must be a big laundry day because i’ve gone down the hall three separate times already and every time new loads have been put in all the machines since the last time i checked. oh well i can wait. i’m all about being chill this weekend.

on the less chill side of things though, what do you do in this situation: your girlfriend decides she can’t really be friends with a girl who is now your friend, but whom you met through your girlfriend, and whom you see no reason not to be friends with yourself any longer. i like my girlfriend alright, and i like my friend too. today the friend called me and asked for my girlfriend’s apartment phone number, because all the cell phone messages the friend has left for my girlfriend for two weeks have gone unanswered. whew, awkward. my conclusion i think is that some girls are just crazy. maybe most. but i can’t really say, i don’t know that many girls. i wish i knew more.

happy friday! and that it is.

last night’s free improv (commedus interruptus — usc’ s improv troupe — alumni allstars, or as they call themselves, c-dub allstars…hehe) was pretty good. when we walked in we were the only two (me and dominic) people there in the audience though. and there were 7 performers, so it was awkward. at the last minute the place filled out more and a crowd of maybe two dozen enjoyed some decent laughs. for free. and when i got home i called my friend emily and we had a nice chat. good day.

so even though i’m working today when i wasn’t supposed to have to work, it’s okay. did a little bit of research about video game players (pc gamers have a median age of 29, whereas console gamers have a median age of 17… oooooh, how fascinating!), and getting ready to break for lunch. where’s my philly steak sammich! i’m hungry!

last night my girlfriend asked me on the phone, “you know how some couples, after they’re together for a long time, just start staying together out of habit more than because they really want to be together? do you think we’re like that?” actually, she might have said do you think you’re like that, but i don’t recall. no matter which it was though it’s not a nice question to hear. and even less to have to think about and answer. hmmm.

like i was saying, i’m hungry.

okay, detour. although i’m still willing to call this a good day, and going to have a good night tonight, tomorrow has been slightly cramped in that i’ve been called upon to work a half day. blast.

it’s okay though. i don’t have to go in until 10, i should hopefully not have to stay longer than around two. plus i got to leave half an hour early today after doing almost no work for the majority of the day. so things are alright. just have to put in a little extra face time. and the weekend will still be sweet. it’s okay. keep telling yourself that it doesn’t suck that you don’t get to sleep in until 11 tomorrow. you can do this, just be strong.

when we went to see final fantasy the other night i saw the planet of the apes trailer for the second or third time now, and i keep getting more excited about it every time. i cannot wait to see this movie. it should be the best movie of the summer (unless by some chance this movie plays somewhere in LA and the former members of the state +1 garafalo are in true comedic form). say what you will about marky mark, tim burton is a badass. this film should be like batman times 20. rock.

maybe this weekend i’ll go see this because i’ll have nothing else to do and good romance is hard to find recently. and i just found about another one today i want to go see now, because it looks even cooler (no julia roberts lameness attached, and a healthy scoop of probably my favorite grade A supporting actor). so that’s one to wait for. only about a month to go.

also, i got 15 free dollars from bestbuy.com in my inbox for some reason, and with it ordered best in show for less than 10 dollars. not bad! sometimes the internet commerce world can be quite agreeable.

i’m done, but here’s a magazine factoid i read last night: drink ice water because your body has to heat it up to body temperature to use it, and that burns more calories. i don’t know if that would have ever occurred to me. way to go science.

buy a castor cd as soon as you can, it won’t let go of your head for weeks.

i just can’t stop making link jokes and references today. i’m sorry about that.

good morning! and it really is, because today is going to be a good day. want to know why? of course you do!

for one, i did exercise for the second day in a row, hopefully a new trend. only today i didn’t get nauseous and dizzy afterward. that’s a huge plus to me. now i’m ripped and sexy. who wants a piece of me?

also, today is thursday, which for the four-day-work-weeker like me, means it’s metaphorically friday. i can party heartily tonight and sleep in tomorrow. score. my plan is to read, relax, then go see some amateur improv comedy for free. score more!

plus i saw a guy with baseball-sized plastic ducks on the toe-tops of his shoes on the way to work today. where would you get something like that? why would you need them, or better yet, who thinks you need them and manufactures them to fulfill that need? this is a crazy place, i say. utterly mad. it’s great.

notes: you know, i wouldn’t be that surprised. people drive like lunatics here sometimes. luckily (not really) i don’t have a car, so i’m not included in that stat.

hello! have a good morning. visit that coffeehouse for me.

did you get your tape yet? hope you enjoy it when you do.

i’m out for now. i have some homework to do for mr. bossman. but it’s not due til one and i’m almost done so i’ll for sure be blogging more soon enough. au revoir!