Category: Uncategorized

my day so far:

7:15a: wake up, get ready, go to school.

8:00a-1:50p: school. pretty boring. although my second class is usually pretty fun because the professor is both smart and amusing, and i sit in the back with a friend of mine who cracks me up sometimes (today being one of those times). our professor said something in jest about throwing a pen at a student, and perfectly synchronized, she and i both ducked our heads as if avoiding a thrown pen. it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny if we didn’t both wait approximately the time it would take a pen to fly across the room and then duck our heads at exactly the same time. pretty amusing.

2:00p: skate into driveway at home after class.

2:10p: pull out of driveway.

2:35p: pull into best buy, go in, look on shelf. no copies of vice city. fuck. turn around to store employee at info desk and see that he is standing next to a plastic crate up to his knee full of copies of the game i was looking for, selling them one by one to a line of four or so guys who came in before me. at this point i think to myself, “i’m glad they knew we were coming.” we being the line of nerdy guys who rush to buy certain highly anticipated video games on the tuesday they are released.

2:40p: pay 43.29 for hours of carnage to come. go sale prices. leave very happy. several people show up in line right behind me for the same game. i start wishing i owned stock in rockstar games.

3:00p: pull into driveway, grab root beer, unwrap and play game. kill people with chainsaw, bludgeon people with 5-iron, flip golf cart, crash motorcycles, listen to killer 80’s music while speeding through virtual streets…smile a lot.

5:15p: break for 20 minutes to walk to gas station and eat a few corn dogs. return to game. smile more.

6:05p: remember i wanted to watch simpsons while i check email and brag on blog about how great this game is even if doing so makes me sound like some sort of “gamer” tool. umm, watch me try to care….wait, i just can’t.

6:45p: get tired of typing. decide it’s time to grab a heineken and head back to vice city. outstanding.

(this part is merely a prediction at this point):

6:45-11:00p play video games until the daily show comes on, interrupted by a few short pauses where i think i should do homework but decide that it can wait until later. or tomorrow. or thursday…

11:30p finish watching tv and decide to read or something before i fall asleep having thoroughly tired out my eyes by staring at a screen all night. go to bed well aware that this will probably be the best day i’ve had out of the last 10. feel perfectly okay with that and sleep well.

[now hearing this: umm, more spoon. i can’t seem to remove this disc from my player. of course i don’t think i’ve tried yet.]

after waiting a week for someone to finally find time to go with me to see bowling for columbine, i made it out to my favorite little theatre tonight and caught the film i’ve been dying to see. now that i have, i couldn’t allow myself to go to sleep until i got on here to spread the word as quickly as possible. you really have to see this movie. it’s not just hilarious, but it’s so full. there’s enough in this film to think about for weeks afterward. yes, weeks. and it’s presented so cleverly. and michael moore, even if i may not agree with him at every turn (being a separte mind and all; there’s no one you can agree with every time), is a really incredible person and filmmaker. you should definitely support him and treat yourself to some savory food for thought. don’t miss it if you have the means. if not, you’re invited to my place for the dvd release party.

[now hearing this: a damn fly buzzing around my room. i hate seeing an insect right before i go to bed. it just makes me think about what might be crawling on me all night while i’m not conscious enough to swat it (or them) away…yech.]

i know it must be hard to imagine, but it has occurred to me that drinking and going to parties every friday and saturday night for the past month really hasn’t made me any happier or brought me any closer to finding someone special. it’s not impossible, in fact, that they’ve made me less happy on several occasions and have only accented the fact that it’s really really hard for me to meet people; and when i do they’re usually nothing to be excited about. that’s not me being arrogant and saying i’m so much better than everyone else. it’s me being frustrated because people matching my taste in potential dates seem to be painfully hard to come by.

people always say that you can’t make it happen and that you always find love when you’re not expecting or looking for it. how much more awful could that be? sure, it’s a nice blissful surprise when it happens. but sitting here racking up the months since a girl has wanted to kiss me . . . i’m not really seeing the benefit of serendipity.

of course certain songs seem to make you feel both better and worse at the same time when you’re in this kind of mood; bringing back memories of the lost ones and rubbing in the lack of present hope. i think we torture ourselves with stuff like this because on some level we like it. maybe it’s a form of self-motivation. i do know that this song from the about a boy soundtrack found its way on a mix i made for my car, and now whenever i’m driving and i hear it i almost want to cry. it’s so simple and beautiful that at least you know some good things come of heartbroken evenings.

so the song of the week is called a minor incident and it’s dedicated to someone.

[now hearing this: spoon – kill the moonlight, which i picked up at their excellent show and which i can’t put away. thought about making “paper tiger” the song of the week, but you all should have this cd already anyway.]

so. it’s friday afternoon and i’m at work. that’s fine. we got free lunch today, which is a big plus. this was the best though:

after a whole soda at lunch, it was time to let those fluids rejoin the water cycle via the mens’ room. it’s a big enough company where we have a public bathroom, not just one like at home. that means, lucky us, urinals! so i’m at urinal #2 (the lower one — injustice!), and some dude with a goatee is at #1 next to me on the other side of the divider. i much prefer mens’s rooms with dividers, by the way.

so apparently goatee dude’s cell phone goes off (must have been on vibrate), because he ANSWERS HIS PHONE WHILE AT THE URINAL. yeah, that’s right.that means he has his drain pipe in one hand, and is talking to someone on his mobile phone with the other. so he’s talking to this person — and this is definitely the best part — and he says, “no, hold on, i don’t have a pen handy…” oh my god i almost laughed right at him. i was washing my hands at this point, trying to stifle my disgust and laughter, and thinking to myself, “maybe he didn’t have a pen handy, but he did have a pen-15 handy…heh heh.” if you know what i mean.

but this is a warning to everyone in the world who i might ever call on the phone. if i telephone you and you’re in the middle of an excretory act, DO NOT ANSWER THE PHONE. i can wait. i can call back. you can call me back later. honestly, nothing is that important. even if i’m dying, i’ll be alright for another 30 seconds. yes, i’m serious. and if perchance you do answer my call while relieving yourself, you should have the heart to tell me what it is you’re doing, so that i can never call you again. ever.

woooo, friday.

[now hearing this: office chatter!]

i keep meaning to post and putting it off. it’s not like i’m busy or anything, what’s the deal?

alright i guess that’s not entirely true. i spent the afternoon writing ads for my class, which it turned out were pretty good based on class reaction to my presentation (laughter, which was the intent), teacher compliments (which are always good), and some personal remarks afterward. maybe i actually found a talent here. maybe everyone else is just really bad and it’s not hard to excel. time will tell.

did i forget to mention we saw spoon last (wednesday) night? well did we ever. i didn’t even own a spoon cd prior to that night, and i’d only heard a smattering of their songs. but they’re good. they’re very good. the show was just right on. i don’t know how else to say it. it was right there. right where it needed to be. kudos to those guys, and i picked up kill the moonlight and i’m enjoying it repeatedly. as an added bonus, standing in the crowd we found ourselves suddenly surrounded by the members of piebald, which was a surprise because they’re from boston so we didn’t know why they would be in LA, but a pleasant one because we love them. being torn between being friendly fans and lame guys that bother them when they’re trying to watch a show, we of course didn’t say anything to them (in hindsight, we should have i think), but maybe it was almost cooler just to be standing next to them thinking, “yeah, those are the guys from one of my favorite bands. pretty cool.”

i mean, my sister likes teen pop stuff. she’ll never get to stand next to one of her favorite singers. and look at me, mingling with rock stars. god, i’m so hot.

[now hearing this: silence. it’s time to get some sleep. but maybe i’ll put that spoon cd on one more time while i brush my teeth…]

i think it’s time for a society-corrupting video game update. i spent some time this morning planning out my attack routes for next tuesday and how exactly i will go about grabbing a copy of vice city as soon as possible. pre-order online? mad dash to retailers after i get out of class? i’m thinking the second one is the better bet. shipping can only delay the process. i’m worried about potential selling out though. this has to be the most anticipated game of the year (yes i know that’s what it says on magazine covers and all that but it’s probably also true besides all that).

i’m aware what a nerd i must sound like and you know what? there’re some nice music and movie-related posts on this page right now too that you can scroll to if you just can’t handle me geeking out. (oh and on that topic, punch-drunk love was pretty odd and not necessarily that great. i classify it in the “movies i’m glad i saw because it was sort of interesting but wouldn’t really feel the need to ever see again because i didn’t exactly enjoy it so very much” category. sorry PTA fans — which, by the way, is a weird thing to be referred to as. if anyone ever called me BML i think i’d walk away and scoff at that person over my shoulder as i left.)

back to nerdy video game stuff though. have you heard about this at all?

maybe if you don’t keep current on upcoming video games or don’t work a job that requires you to (i do both), you might not have heard of this game, bmx xxx. the premise is much like the tony hawk games, only on a bike. you do little missions like collecting stuff and whatnot and pulling tricks. only in this game, you do missions for the characters in the world which include raunchy hot dog vendors, raunchy pimps, raunchy hobos…and so on. oh, and you are rewarded with money which you then use to go to a strip club in the game (featuring real video footage of strippers from the famous strip club ‘scores’ in new york). sound immature and stupid and low brow? what about hilarious and fun? that’s what i thought anyway. apparently certain people disagree, because several major retailers like toys r us and kb toys have decided they’re not going to carry it, and apparently it’s been banned in australia. i didn’t even know they could do that.

so if you’re wondering what i’m going to be doing in late november…well, you can watch a game trailer to find out. i love their tag line at the end.

and did i mention you can customize your bike rider character to be a topless girl? and yes, they bounce. sounds like a reprehensible good time to me.

[now hearing this: the deftones wafting in from across the hall. i bet you didn’t think the deftones could waft, but they can. they sure can.]

i fell short of my weekend duty of switching the song of the week, so i’m gonna get right on that. see, there was this band hum that i love more than anything, which isn’t together anymore. i hate when that happens. a lot of my favorite cds are by bands that are deceased. no more tours, no more new music. sorry kids, that’s that.

luckily, a lot of those people go on to form new bands that, although they can’t and shouldn’t ever be just more of the old band, are still really talented people making music i really like. see also hey mercedes (ex-braid), slow reader (ex-impossibles), the stereo (ex-animal chin), the lawrence arms (ex-slapstick) and i’m sure more if i sat and flipped through my cds. the whole punk/indie crossbreeding is probably traced at length somewhere that i could track down if i had the time and ambition.

this month i was pleased to hear that a cd i’ve been waiting for since its original alleged release date — way back in june — has finally become officially available through parasol. now i can finally get my hands on a cd by matt talbot’s new band centaur. their first release so far, called in streams, and i love it almost as much. not quite. it’s much softer and simpler, but he’s still writing great songs and music and i still the way his voice floats across the songs he plays. i’d recommend the cd and give a try to life begins if i were you.

[now hearing this: faraquet – the view from this tower.]

DO NOT SEE THE TRANSPORTER. i have to try to warn as many people as possible, as early on as i can. i realize this service would have been better used last weekend when it opened, but to anyone who hasn’t caught it yet and was thinking about it, i suggest seeing one of the several other excellent options available to you (rules of attraction), or just running in the opposite direction of the theatre. it’s the only sensible option.

seriously, DO NOT SEE THE TRANSPORTER, ever. don’t do it. the few scenes of okay but still ridiculous action do not come close to making up for the ridiculous and unbearable excuse for a storyline. the characters appear, make no sense, deliver awful lines, and get in fights that don’t reach much of a climax at any point along the way. nothing is ever explained in the weird plot they devised as an excuse to make an otherwise cool actor get in a bunch of silly fights and cheat death repeatedly, and by the end you’re more confused and stupefied by their brash omission of key explanatory facts to the story that you’ll only leave angry and upset, even if you might be laughing at the nonsense you just witnessed.

i can’t believe they fooled me into seeing that. at least it started off well. but still, DO NOT EVER, EVER SEE THE TRANSPORTER.

[now hearing this: cursive mp3’s, until i buy get out to pick up the cd.]

dammit just barely missed a thursday post. i don’t like having multi-day holes in the record.

if you’re any kind of fan of dj music/turntablism/scratching, or whatever you call it, i recommend the movie scratch. it’s not just educational in the history of the style of music, but there are also a lot of damn fine live segments on there. really a ton of fun to watch if you’re impressed by guys who can do this, and i definitely am (see last october’s trip to see dj qbert live…[nostalgic sigh]). i really liked cut chemist’s interviews too — he’s completely spaced out and hilarious.

i’m starting to think, as i prepare to go to bed, that having waffles with ice cream and chocolate syrup on them for dinner was not the wisest decision i’ve ever made concerning my stomach. i mean, i tried everything to make it feel better too — eating a fun-size milky way bar, sitting here doing nothing — i’m fresh out of ideas.

i will settle for lying still and face down on my pillow i think then. nighty night.

[now hearing this: air – moon safari.]

my midterms are so easy its embarrassing. i think my engineer roommates probably laugh at me behind my back.

“but i try to read lots of books in the time i don’t have to devote to doing work for classes, so i’m still a nerd like you guys, i swear! i’m just a book nerd instead of a math nerd!…guys?….”

i have to see a counselor soon to make sure i’m fulfilling all my obligations for next semester so i can graduate with all the honors and certificates and whatever else i believe i am entitled to (i should get one for whatever you would call the opposite of the “biggest tool in the business school” award. littlest tool? least tool-like? i don’t know what it’s called but i damn well deserve it. at least tied with some other people i know that also don’t suck).

jesus jaywalker, i’m about to sign up for my last semester of classes possibly EVER. probably not, really — but still scary though. but really i’m not scared, i’m excited. being at a university is too easy. you just student-loan your troubles away, or have your parents back you up. i’m really looking forward to standing on my own two feet for once. i think i’ll finally feel like i’ve accomplished something.

not that i haven’t so far. i mean, i got a car and stuff. and i made this killer fiesta dip. i know you just pour powder into a tub of sour cream, but it sure does taste good.

[now hearing this: empire state games mp3’s, a.k.a the one cd that i will probably never, ever be able to find a physical copy of that i sure wish i had and would buy for triple its original price if i ever tracked one down.]