(ps for josh — their drummer pat has left the band! maybe he was kicked out i don’t know. probably because he wouldn’t ever give you a drumstick. but more importantly, although they have someone to fill in for them for the rest of this year touring, they’re gonna need a new drummer! i hear opportunity knocking josh… so get your ass back from down under so you can rock the world over!)
alright, now that i’m fed and watered (thanks again subway) i can explain murray’s law to you, and record it for myself so i don’t forget it.
my excellent friend dominic and i saw a commercial for osmosis jones, the mostly-cartoon movie coming out soon with bill murray, and were talking about how much we both love bill murray. he’s great and he can turn a scene right around. but we also both projected that there was no way that osmosis jones could be a good movie, despite bill murray’s inclusion. so i proposed that every seasoned actor, no matter how incredibly good they are, or how much you like them, only stars or is featured in good movies. it just can’t happen. so murray’s law is that not every movie starring really great actors is going to be really great. and it’s named after bill murray and also murphy’s law, which on dictionary.com says The correct, *original* Murphy’s Law reads: “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.”, which seems somewhat related. when confronted with the choice to do a movie or not do it, eventually an actor will make the wrong choice, resulting in catastrophe.
the only time i think this law might break down is close to zero, i.e. when an actor has only been in a very small number of movies, in which case it might be likely that they are all good movies. if anyone can point out any actor that has only ever made excellent movie choices, please please email me so i can add this exception to my new theory.
in other news, if you haven’t already, or hadn’t even thought to, you should really, really visit the impossibles dot net and download the song they have posted. it’s the impossibles (one of my most favorite bands…coming soon to southern california and performing at chain reaction in anaheim (rock!) AND AGAIN here at my school! double rock!) covering “star slight” by at the drive in (another very excellent band). and the song is pure rock fury. don’t miss it. and since it’s only a minute and twenty seconds, you’d better listen to it a few times to make sure you got it.
i have to go now.
hey, it’s wednesday!
and i’m finishing that goddamn book today if i have to kill a man to do it. but not without some other activities, i’m hoping. my suggestion to the fellas was that we go see ghost world tonight, which looks excellent. i look forward to seeing it. even if not tonight, soon. you know, hopefully tonight though.
things are good right now. listening to sarah on the net playing good tunes, glad the week’s getting closer to over, and working hard. promise.
last night i had a great conversation with my dear friend emily which made me feel good, and glad i have such good friends to make me smile. and i got another email from lynn today which made me smile yet again. it’s a strong indication i think when it seems like every other thing a person says or writes to you makes you grin really big, even if it’s not a joke or funny at all — but because you just love that person and who they are and think they’re incredible and are glad to be hearing them say anything at all in their own special way. i’m a sappy guy sometimes but good friends just make my life worthwhile and i have to make that known.
what was i gonna say? oh, this is me reminding myself to write down something about murray’s law later today (i’ve got things to do now which prevent me from going into it), before i forget. this needs to be recorded. so come back later and you’ll be in the know.
oh my god, this is hilarious. and it’s hard for things that i’m reading to make me laugh out loud too, but this definitely did it. nice.
i just can’t make this book i’m reading get finished! every day i say i’m going to finish it today. but i don’t. i know i won’t tonight. but tomorrow, tomorrow is my day…
don’t oreos and milk sound good to you right now? well you probably wish you were me then because i’m going to get some from my kitchen for mass consumption right now. then i have to keep reading.
hey, tomorrow’s wednesday!
oh, weak. i’ve been supplanted by several places and am at number 52 now. where did i go wrong? it must have been in looking to this list for a measure of worth.
from now on i’ll have to rely on myself or the hostess for validation.
now this is one meaty webpage. it might take me a while to sift through much of this weblog, so i had better place a link to it in the sidebar for easy access.
i wish my sandwich would get here. that’s something meaty i can’t just jump to any time i want. i have to wait for the subway guy to come and drop it off for me.
an uneventful evening last night — i stayed home and read and watched state and main while my roommates went out with dustin’s friend scott from colorado — and un uneventful morning — i got to work 15 minutes early and still haven’t done anything substantial — both mean that i haven’t much to say.
i did hear back from my friend lynn though, who lives in new york and who is a splendid person. and after hearing nothing for two months, that’s quite a big deal to me. so that makes me happy in a way that looking up information regarding the passing on of african american heritage for my boss never could, even if it’s the latter that needs attending in the employment-related capacity. why can’t i just be in my living room finishing my book right now?
because, brian, you have to earn it.
okay maybe you don’t care about this but i thought it was very funny. and it’s about blogging too. so here’s an excerpt from neil gaiman’s page (see sidebar for link) which is reprinted without permission but if someone objects they’re welcome to notify me.
Saturday, August 04, 2001
So I’m reading Entertainment Weekly this morning, after breakfast, in a lazy sort of way, trying to decide whether I’m going to spend my Saturday writing the first notes on a strange sort of collaborative tale I’ll be doing with Gene Wolfe, to be published at World Horror Con next year, or whether I’m going to read The Black House, the new King/Straub collaboration (as opposed to The Talisman, the old King/Straub collaboration), and I’m turning the pages the way one does at the back of EW, especially when one hits the music section (their tastes and mine usually failing to intersect) and I turn a page and notice a photo of Andy Dick and look up to the top left of the page and see a photo of Snoop Dogg, and stop to read the article, which is, it turns out, about blogging: keeping journals like this one.
And I’m in there, and they say some very nice things about this one (if you’re coming in late, we’re really at the tip of the tail here. Read the archives…). And finally, after reading the whole article, I notice there’s also a photo on the page, immediately under the picture of Andy Dick, that I had singularly and utterly failed to notice the first time, and it’s a photo of me.
Which left me really puzzled. I mean, I thought I’d be — at least to me, if not to the rest of the world — more recognisable than Andy Dick. Apparently not.
How odd.
what a fun guy. i wish i could hang out with him. i think that would be the best thing i’d ever done. and we could even go check out books at the LA library if he wanted, because now i have that awesome power.
in case you were worried, upon returning to the library after lunch, i was finally able to check out books with my shiny new LA public library card. to obtain said card, mr. wizard at the office here had to print me up a business card with this address on it so i had proof that the address on my card application was a valid one. so now i have a total of two business cards that say i am brian longtin, marketing assistant, at this company at this address. how exciting. for some reason my job seems more important today now that i have a card that says i’m a marketing assistant. it doesn’t even say intern. sadly though, i can’t “give you my card”, because i only have two and maybe i should send one of them to my parents to put up on the refrigerator with a magnet from pizza hut or something. since i’m moving up in the world and all.
i had to go to the library just now to get some books for my boss. i really don’t like libraries. it’s kind of strange, because i love books, but it’s true. it’s just the atmosphere of being at the library. it seems so unfriendly and cold. maybe it’s just me, but i just don’t like going to libraries at all. i do love bookstores though. barnes and noble is, despite its yuppie aura, a really great place to go i think. all that wood panelling and the little cafe… that’s what books should feel like. nice and warm and welcoming.
but anyway, i had never been to the LA library before. and even if i don’t like libraries in general, this one was really cool despite my disposition. it’s enormous and the layout is pretty neat, and it’s very beautiful. my favorite part though for sure, is the elevators. now that we’ve passed the age of card catalogs and everything’s in databases, there are all those cards that have gone to waste. only this library did something very cool with them, which is tile the walls of the elevators entirely with the old card, behind glass. it’s a really cool effect. and not only that, but on one side of the elevator there’s a window about a foot or two wide that shows through to the inside of the elevator shaft, which is also (at least around that side) completely covered with the old cards. what a great idea that was. it must have cost a lot of money to do, but i approve highly. truly neat. i wonder if any other libraries have done cool stuff like that with their cards.
oh, and after the trip, i couldn’t even check out any books. i only have my old illinois driver’s license so i had nothing with my current address on it. that means no library card, which of course means no books. so i have nothing to show for the trip besides being very very hungry. (growl). that’s my stomach.
oooh, goody, scott updated finally. i like his stuff, you should check him out.