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wrapping up in LA before tomorrow, and our flight into chicago and on to the folks’ house for christmas. done with work. done with the shopping (extra early this year). just doing some quick laundry and kicking back before i get to packing and a full day of travel in the morning.

had our last bit of weekend fun with an excellent showing at trivia night on saturday. i bested three other teams in a rock paper scissors tournament without losing a single throw in any of my best-of-three matches. it was like i got into some state of ro-sham-bo zen and i didn’t even have to think, i just knew what the right hand would be. i played the last round staring straight into my competitor’s eyes, and i think i might have scared her a little bit, but it was worth it for a free round of fat tires for our team, and gave us the morale boost we needed going into the final rounds.

ooo, also, since i haven’t changed songs in a while, there’s this. the decemberists announced the tracklist to their next album recently, which is only mildly exciting because i don’t know any of those songs yet. it’s also mildly troubling though because on his last solo tour, their lead singer sang some new songs, my favorite being one i, and other internet fans, presumed to be called ‘come hell’. that track unfortunately does not appear on said list. so either we’re not getting it, it’s a b-side to a single, or it’s changed to a more mysterious name. i did, however, finally track down a live version of ‘come hell’, so i thought i should share it in case anyone else loved that song as much as i did.

probably out until the weekend unless i get to craving some internet while i’m at home, so merry christmas everyone!

another quick anecdote from friday’s karaoke that bears recording, before i forget.

totally independently, and yet within two or three songs in the queue of one another, jessica and i both randomly chose the song ‘flagpole sitta’ by harvey danger. on my part at least it wasn’t even an intentional choice. i just opened to a random page and picked a song i knew i could sing.

there are times where we are an extra-cute, totally meant-for-each-other kind of couple, and those moments always make me smile. but even i have to admit that this instance borders on creepy and/or haunted. i hope it’s not because we were twins in a past life or something. that would be a little gross.

we did, however, rock that shit, so in this life we still rule.

it’s wednesday and i’m still occasionally finding myself getting songs in my head from dan’s karaoke birthday celebration last friday. that’s a problem, especially when one of those songs is right said fred’s ‘i’m too sexy’. worth it though, as that was a hell of a fun night. i must say my performance on ‘summer of ’69’ was a personal highlight even if i may have freaked out my partner neil with my level of enthusiasm.

saturday night’s 6th annual (damn, we’re old) wine & cheese holiday party at amanda’s was fun as always has been. i told her it’s probably one of the best parties of the year, and i think that’s because it’s so nice and low key. just drink and eat and chat. loved that. even if it made us groggy and lazy pretty much all day sunday, but hey, that’s why TNT has all-day movie marathons.

now the counting down to the holiday break has begun. christmas at home is always a nice relaxing time, everyone will be there, it’ll be cold but we’ll eat a lot of cookies. it’s been rainy and cold all week in LA as if to prepare us for the much harsher illinois weather, and i’m practicing stuffing my hands in my pockets and walking quickly indoors from my car. everyone at work is starting to show their desire to be done with it all for a week or two, and i’m feeling it too. but soon: PRESENTS!

we also got the hook up through gino to see an early screening of the wrestler, which i would say is a very good movie but not mind-blowing as some may be expecting. it’s very indie, they (being the director and producer) described it in the Q&A afterwards almost as if they filmed a documentary about this character that just happened to be played by mickey rourke. he’s certainly convincing, but we wondered how much of the performance was just him already. i liked it though. it wasn’t just rocky with wrestling. it didn’t show a pure comeback story. it showed both sides of having a career that exploits your body, both the glory of being in the moment and the pain of making a life outside the ring (or off the stage, for marisa tomei’s stripper character). it left you to weigh both instead of painting him as a pure hero or a pure failure. i may not always love those aronofsky movies but they do leave you with something to talk about on the drive home, and that’s a good thing.

now, back to writing our big year-end round up over at under culture. it’s going to be epic and full of fun stuff, so be ready to be told about a lot of cool shit in the very near future.

i stayed up a little too late last night because i got sucked into independent lens: chicago 10, a documentary i tivo’d ages ago and for some reason decided to start watching at like 12:30 last night. it’s about the riots at the ’68 democratic convention in chicago, and it’s a mix of archival film footage and an animated dramatization of the court case of some of the perpetrators. those sections are done in the waking life style, which i find really cool. overall, worth tracking down if you can, even if you end up sleepy the next day.

so of course, i was a bit tired today, but i made myself hop on the treadmill, which started making awful, dangerous-sounding noises right when i hit the stride halfway through, forcing me to hop off and start cramping up almost instantly. damn poorly-serviced free apartment complex gym equipment, i curse thee.

right now, i am listening to spencer’s awesome re-produced, re-edited 7-minute version of chinese democracy. he sort of did it as a joke to go with his album review, but as i told him today, i don’t think anyone can be mad at us for posting this. not because it’s fair use or whatever, but because listening to this strange mashup version would lead you to believe the actual album is made up of a lot of really cool shit. it’s basically a really good musical equivalent of a movie trailer for a movie (or album, in this case), which is a bunch of good ideas gone terribly wrong. the trailer’s better than the real thing. you should go check it out, it’s probably the best thing we’ve had on the site so far.

a frenzy of activity. it’s good though. i think my mind works better in general when i am stimulated, even slightly overstimulated. gets things firing.

spencer started us up an under culture facebook group, which is going to be convenient but is also suitably nerdy. finally, another way to measure my digital worth! i suggest joining, so you don’t miss out on our esoteric reviews of arcane cultural artifacts.

the not-smoking project is going okay, so far. not-smoking at home on weeknights hasn’t been much of a problem, maybe a twinge after dinner or after i finish something like a movie or a long stretch of reading or writing (what is it about finishing things that triggers a smoking urge?). the real challenge will be not taking breaks at work and the next trip to a bar or party.

well, big company christmas party this saturday, and, what’s that, we’re headed to a bar right now for thursday night drinks (of which $1 from each beer goes to legal fees against prop 8)? damn. will power, let’s do this.

busy night last night, went from working late straight to grocery shopping to dinner.

two things though: watching some clips from the bush interview with charlie gibson, he uttered this bit of jaw-dropping nonsense:

You know, I’m the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President.”

just re-read the last two clauses of that statement. he doesn’t even TRY to use real english any more! this is our freaking president and he said, on tv, the phrase, ‘during i arrived in president.’ it’s even worse watching on tv, because it would have been one thing if he misspoke and tried to correct himself, but he is so smug about it he just sits there, totally fine with his own butchering of basic grammar. holy geez can january not come soon enough (also, inauguration day is on a tuesday, my birthday is that saturday! i see a yes-we-can-get-wasted-themed party in the works…)

the other thing was, this fun little music game called auditorium snuck up and stole about an hour of my time last night. it’s really neat, simple, even non-game players should give it a try. i might donate and suggest they make it an iphone game, it’d be a great way to chill out while waiting for an airplane or bus or sandwich.

oh man, did i enjoy me a five-day thanksgiving break. it seemed my whole team at work was out last wednesday, so i just checked email a few times from home and got my holiday started early. let me tell you, i did very, very little for five whole days and it was pretty much glorious.

thanksgiving with jessica’s family was nice and delicious — ham AND chicken, but no turkey? less traditional, but i will not argue with having two meats in a single meal. i still don’t speak spanish so there were less jokes on my part, but they are very nice to me and we got to just relax and have a mom-cooked meal. i approve. jess also made some great pumpkin muffins i could have eaten about a dozen more of.

the rest of the weekend was spent almost entirely on or around the couch in our apartment. i played a lot of mirror’s edge, which i really liked. we watched a lot of movies we’ve seen before on cable. some people came over friday night to play an MXC drinking game (highly recommended) and rock band, some of the same people came over saturday to grill burgers, watch the USC game and go to little bar for trivia. we won’t talk about what place we came in, let’s just say we were not in top form due to what seemed like a single missed slot every round.

the only other thing i technically did today, as in the aforementioned sunday midnight don hertzfeldt show. he played all the greats and concluded with the new one, i am so proud of you, which is equally as good as the last one. i would have probably rather gone to the 7 or 9:30 show, and been able to convince someone to come with me than go alone to the midnight show, but i still say it was worth it. he was even generous enough to stay for a full q&a afterwards even though it was after 1am.

i didn’t blog because it was an almost purely veg-out in front of the tv weekend (if five days can even still qualify as a weekend), which was exactly what i wanted. the time i did spend at the computer i spent writing a review of penny arcade adventures episode two, if you happen to be interested in such things. and i’m backed up about three article ideas so please do keep checking back there if you’re at all enjoying my in-depth nerdery.

i think yesterday i was busying doing work almost every minute of the day. there was also some fancy cooking at home (the mushroom tart turned out lovely thanks, though i am always interested in there being more goat cheese if possible). all in all, a full tuesday, if not very storied.

but monday night there was a decemberists show, which i liked. i think jessica and i agreed it was not their best, perhaps due to energy levels, or song selection — though they did play ‘on the bus mall’ AND ‘engine driver’, two of my faves — or because it was a weeknight and i am getting too old to be super into something on a monday at 10pm.

my biggest gripe though is with the wiltern, which is a really nice place laid out terribly for standing room, general admission live music. any other place, everyone is on the same level, and the stage is raised above that to give everyone at least the chance of seeing over the crowd. or at the very least between the heads of the people in front of you. this trip, we were not there early enough to get nearer the front of any of the different tiers of space, and so we were standing almost level with the stage, and far away, and it made for difficult viewing. i normally don’t have a problem, being of average height, but this time even i was obstructed a lot of the time. to say nothing of jessica, who has a hard time at some normal shows, but at this one was almost entirely screwed. i’ve illustrated how dumb this setup is with this handy wiltern seating chart for tall and short people.

whose idea was this? it probably works great if you’re sitting in chairs, but what percentage of concerts that they put on have seats? are the wiltern architects all 6’2″? anyway, it was frustrating.

less so is the good news that the don hertzfeldt screening this weekend, which i tried to buy tickets to six weeks ago before they were on sale, then three weeks ago when they had gone on sale and sold out, has added a third show at midnight to which i quickly scooped up two tickets. now i just have to talk someone into going to a midnight movie with me on a sunday night.

also, i didn’t go to work today because no one else was, so i stayed home to sleep, launder, buy a pumpkin pie and play mirror’s edge. so far, mission accomplished.

as is custom every few months, i’m having a bit of guilt about not writing more, and so begins another spot of trying to write every day (or at least every weekday, when i’m sure to spend a certain amount of time in front of a computer. it’s an exercise in balancing the desire to have a fairly complete ongoing record of my days with not listing off boring minutia of no value. i’m fairly sure my life isn’t as mundane as it would appear by the fact that i go ten or more days without writing, just that i often don’t take the time to reflect on what really happened or went through my mind each day.

a couple things for today. one, we played poker saturday night, and it felt less boisterous than usual. fewer players, as our poker crew is starting to dwindle as people move away, and less drinking, as several of my friends have entered into a weight loss bet running through til january and every calorie counts. can’t be mad about either, but something’s missing. the real problem is trying to fill out the table, as i’m not making many new friends these days, and as it turns out a lot of people aren’t very into poker. especially women. i’d never really thought of it as a particularly manly game (when playing for a five dollar buy-in, anyway), but several attempts to involve more girls have fallen pretty flat. maybe the answer is to combine it with some other activity like a pot luck or wine tasting, and sneak a little poker workshop in to build their fundamentals and confidence when it comes to gambling?

the other is, i’m two weeks into a very remedial effort to stop smoking by the end of the year. near the beginning of the month, with eight weeks left in the year, i decided to start at 8 a day and cut one out every week until the end, with the goal of zero a day starting in january. so far it’s easy mostly but sometimes very difficult, ie when i’m bored and/or drinking. i think i’m addicted more to the break and excuse to go outside than i am to the smoke, but that could be the nicotine playing tricks on me. someone made a joke saturday about how repulsive smoking is, and i wonder if it really is completely disgusting and everyone has just been overly polite for the past few years. i also wonder if my current method is only going to make things worse as i look more and more forward to each of the decreasing smoke breaks per day, and then finally taking away that last precious one that’s been built up will be that much harder. i guess we’ll see as the days go by; though i cheated saturday by borrowing a couple from sunday, and ended up basically fine when i ran out early last night. the biggest problem is availability; like a candy dish, as long as it’s around you constantly indulge, but take it away and you don’t suffer terribly for want of candy.

this week?

my life slowed down enough to finally crank out an overdue election post at under culture. i did read an inhuman amount of news, but politics is not my job so i focused more on the pop culture side of the race, and i think i did a good job pulling in a bunch of interesting tidbits into one possibly decent essay. feel free to comment stating opinions to the contrary.

also, my mom requested holiday wish lists from all of us kids (which seems slightly strange to say at this age, as does using the word ‘kids’ when we’ve all graduated, entered the work force, and live all over the country), so we obliged. now jessica and i are fully converted to gift shopping mode even though it still rubs me the wrong way to see all the premature christmas ads on tv this early. if nothing else, we can spread the expenses over more weeks, and start a small pile of boxes in a corner to build anticipation for the trip.

between the two of us, we’ve opted to spend less on gifts and treat ourselves to a night of taste experiments at moto while we’re in chicago, which i’m really looking forward to. science plus food equals fun.

aaaaaand there’s not much else to report unless you’re curious about my hours spent playing fallout 3 or watching death note, which have occupied most of my spare time lately. the decemberists are playing a show on monday, so i have that to look forward to, and otherwise the coming weekend is wide open, so i am open to suggestions for good times.