Monday, December 31, 2007

Tangram!

Old Aunt Amy put so much interesting stuff on her new auxiliary blog that I had to link to it. Oblique strategies are awesome. Also, the trailer for the new season of LOST looks pretty damned awesome. But, I must remind myself, trailers were invented to make even bad things look awesome.

Katie the North American Wanderer has been staying at our place for a few days. It's been fun, and I'm glad that my wife gets to hang out with her buddy. This is the first time that I can remember that I've been off work on New Years Eve, and we're all planning on going for a hike at Gunpowder Falls State Park. Then some folks might be coming over tonight and we'll try and think of something fun to do.

Jeannie got me the tangram set that I wanted for Christmas. Tangrams are awesome.

Also, my cousin Mark e-mailed me today and asked if I would listen to some of the songs he's written over the last 20 years and re-record them for him. Sounds like a big job but it should be fun.

This post is choppy but I'm having trouble focusing.

Friday, December 28, 2007

A quick trip and a stupid mistake

Christmas is over.

We had a good, fast, busy trip to St. Louis. Here are the high- and low- lights. In chronological muthafuckin' order.

1. 12/24/07, 5pm-ish. Arrive in St. Louis. Eat Foo's egg rolls, which I have heard about for years, and discover that they are as good as everyone says. They may ruin every egg roll I ever eat in the future.

2. 12/24/07, 11pm-1:30am, Drinks at the Ritz with Elz-ee-poo. I give him his Christmas present, the Black Beret Shower Cap.


3. 12/25/07, Various and sundry Christmas festivities. Then that night got a lovely call from J. Knese and met him and his brother and Casey and the Widitz' and K. Lowery. Ended up back at Jeff and Casey's and ate a burrito from QT called "The Bomb." I regretted it almost immediately, but it did end up making an interesting turd the next day.

4. 12/26/07 The Annual Day After Christmas O'Brien Ice Skating excursion. This year joined by R. Riley. Definitely a major highlight of the trip. Nice to shoot the shit. I should also mention that soon after waking up on the morning of the 26th, Jeannie's brother saw me naked. "I didn't see anything but hair." Fairly accurate.



5. 12/27/07 - Running around, trying to see people. More belated Christmas festivities. Aborted roasted vegetables.

6. 12/28/07 - Up at 6am and off to the airport. Arrive in B-more around 11:30, take the train, then a taxi to our apartment. While hailing the taxi, get a call from Korn, wondering where I am. Turns out I made a mistake and scheduled myself to work today at noon. Oops. So I haul ass and get home and then head out the door to work.
So I was late for work today and Korn had to work harder than she should've had to, for which I apologize.

That's it. Of course, much much more happened, but I think that I've covered all the things that I'd like to look back on and remember fondly.

And I'm tired of work and I haven't even been there for the last 3.5 days.

Friday, December 21, 2007

It's All Worthwhile

Work has been busy as hell. But dammit if it hasn't been kinda fun, too.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Peak

Well, we're in the thick of it at work, and I've been getting sick for the last few days. So it was a good day to not have to go into work in the morning. I went to bed last night around 8pm, and then when I woke up at midnight I took some cold medicine so I could go back down for the rest of the night. Which has helped, but I still feel a bit under the weather. Hopefully work this evening won't be too bad.

Work has been extremely busy but not hellish (yet). This weekend should be a killer.

Went to dinner with the Jeanners at Eric (her old boss) and Lauren's place on Tuesday night. It was a good time. I'm feeling more relaxed there than I used to (as was evidenced by the lack of red wine at Tuesday's dinner) and we had a good time playing the game "Loaded Questions." Then after the dinner I went down to the 8x10 to check out John's band, "The Vespertine Movement." Terrible name. The show was decent. I felt very old. Reminded me a lot of Bernard's Pub. I wore earplugs.

That's about it. Right now I'm just focused on getting through work and getting rid of this cold. I'm currently going to try and kill it with a delicious bacon n' schmeggs breakfast, because I hear that bacon is one of the most deadly substances on Errff.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Memories

The past couple of posts have highlighted some problems that I have with my memory, and they're problems that I've known were there, so I'm not too concerned, but it reminds me of a very specific memory problem that I remember mentioning to E. Elz while he was visiting and we went to DC:

I have a vivid vivid memory of going into a Smithsonian building to use the restrooms, and I am with the Schluetermetz' in this memory. The only problem is that I've never been to DC with the Schluetermetz'. But if I didn't know that I've never been to DC with the Schluetermetz', I would swear that this memory actually occurred. I can remember strange details about the building, I can remember the path we took to the restrooms, and I can remember what the bathrooms were like.

I don't mind forgetting shit, but I don't like making up stuff that never happened.

Another Errata post

The Jeanners read the last post and pointed out the following mistakes:

1. It's December, not November. But today kinda felt like a November day.

2. "The Day of the Mind-Blowing Physical Demonstration of the Bell Curve" took place not at the St. Louis Science Center, but rather the Baltimore Science center. And the Schluetermetz' were not there.

Apologies to all.

DOB: Lover of Anorexics

Today the Jeanners and I spent a good many hours walking to and around Hampden, looking for Christmas presents for various folks, and then walked to the grocery store and then home. Lots of walking, and a very weird weather day. Windy, with big menacing-looking impressive clouds. Birds flying around. It was a November day where all the colors seemed very rich, but the predominant feel is a light gray.

Anyway, now we're sitting at the kitchen table, listening to some Carpenters christmas tunes and eating little pizzas.

Somehow I've managed to schedule myself 3 of the last four days off work. Which is nice now, but it does mean that I'll be working a solid seven days in a row right before Christmas. Which means that I'll be good and ready to get out of town and head home for the holidays.

Here's my Christmas list for 2007:

1. Booze. Beer of any kind, or cheap gin. Cheap red wine is a perennial favorite.

2. "Tao of the Tangram." This is a tangram set that we've been selling at the B&N. My fascination with tangrams stems from a day spent at the St. Louis Science Center with BJ and maybe the Schluetermetz'. I can't really remember. That day lives in my memory as "The Day of the Mind-Blowing Physical Demonstration of the Bell Curve." It was the day when the proverbial Zen Master hit me with the proverbial stick and pushed me in the proverbial mud.

3. That's about it, really.

Yes, PKP, there are a lot of Back to the Future references in my blog, and I won't apologize for it. Back to the Future has some sort of mystical role in my life, it guides my ways, and helps me make sense out of a sometimes senseless world. So does The Karate Kid, and while I don't reference it as much in the blog, I assure you that it's taking up just as much space in my brain. I would estimate that, together, Back to the Future (numbers 1 & 2) and The Karate Kid (again, numbers 1 & 2 ONLY) take up about 35% of my available mental RAM.

Finished 1984 today. What a good good book. I liked it in high school and I liked it even more now.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Great Scott!

Last night in the shower I had a startling realization. See if you can follow me...


So in the movie Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels from 1985 to 1955, a time-distance of 30 years. In just 3 short years, someone could make a movie about someone traveling back to the year 1980, and that would be a 30 year distance, too.

Jeannie agreed that this seemed f@*#'ed up. Does anyone else out there feel like this is f@*#'ed up? Doesn't the span between 1955 and 1985 seem infinitely longer than the span between 1980 and now-ish?

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Above the Weather

Worked on music all day today, with semi-decent results, I think. I also managed to clean up our kitchen this morning. Didn't get to laundry, though. Maybe tomorrow.

Short and Curlies

There's a short, curly dark hair on our kitchen table. Before you get too alarmed, you should know that it looks more like a chest hair than a pube. I find the spell-checker on this blog to be horribly lacking, as even the word "pube" is getting underlined as a mistake. How can one be expected to compose a decent blog post if one can't use the words "titties" and "pube"?

My baby is back home safe from Tennessee, and is currently (hopefully) asleep in the the other room. I didn't really get to see her today, as she was out of the house by 6:00 this morning and then I was at work when she got home tonight. She called me at work when she got home and said she had a splitting headache, so I hope she was able to get to sleep.

I didn't sleep well last night. Was thinking about work stuff and my mouth was too dry (two unrelated problems), so after tossing and turning for an hour or two I went in the living room and slept on the couch. For some reason, a change of scenery usually helps me get to sleep, and also the living room is usually kinda chilly, and I sleep better when it's cold.

I'm very excited that we might get to see Rich R. over our Christmas trip to the Lou, and maybe again if he's on the East Coast for New Years'.

I have the day off tomorrow, and I'm torn about what I should do. Part of me thinks I should spend the day doing chores -- laundry and cleaning especially, and part of me thinks that the chores can wait and I should play around with recording stuff all day. I will probably end up doing chores. Maybe.

Tonight part of me also felt like using my day off to drive to Atlantic City and do some gambling. Don't know exactly why that came up. It's been a long time since I've done anything like that, which is probably for the best. I think it's fairly safe to say that that's NOT what I will be doing with my day off.

I've been noticing lately that my short term memory is slipping a little bit...too much gin, probably.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Holidays, Skates and Sleighs, It's Christmas Time at O'Briens....

The title of this post is taken from a re-write of the song "Silver Bells," that my family wrote and performed in (I think) 1983 for my extended family Christmas party. All of the families had to take a Christmas song and rewrite the lyrics to fit their family. That's just a little bit about my background....

It's officially holiday time at the B&N, and I have been subsequently busy. Going in on my days off, working longer days, that sort of thing. But so far, nothing absolutely shitty has happened, and no major scheduling snafus, so I'm content. And, I'm looking forward to enjoying a bona fide day off on Thursday, with nothing to do except cook up a big bacon n' eggs breakfast to celebrate.

Last night I went to a Doll's House rehearsal, because I was feeling a little uncertain about the set and about how the set was working with the rehearsals. I'm really glad I went. It turns out that none of us were really on the same page about how the set was really supposed to work, so as a result the set is kind of evolving around what's happening in rehearsals. I like a process where that can happen. I think it serves the production a lot better to have enough time to let things evolve and change based on what the actors are doing. Plus, going to the rehearsal last night gave me a chance to watch Pat and Schlegel do some really nice work. The cast has only had 8 rehearsals, and I think they're already in such a good place that I can't wait to see the finished product.

Jeannie is going to Tennessee tomorrow on a business trip. She's only going for the day, though. Nevertheless, I will kind of miss her.

I finished reading Brave New World. I have no idea why I found that book to be compelling and exhilarating when I first read it. I now found it to be, well, kinda dumb. And I'm wondering if it was actually a different book that I read back then that made me happy. If it was, I can't remember what it was. Anyway, I've moved on to 1984, and that one is living up to my fond memories of first reading it.

Tomorrow: split shift with laundry in the middle. Chinese food?

Friday, December 07, 2007

Damn the Bigwigs

So yesterday and today were supposed to be my days off this week, but because the bigwigs were coming I went in and worked almost an entire shift yesterday, and then went in this morning as well. Needless to say, the bigwigs never showed up. Damn the bigwigs! Plus, I woke up last night at 2am, thinking about work, actually wishing that the store was open so I could go in and straighten things up. What's wrong with me?! I had to go into the shitter and read about Led Zeppelin until I got sleepy again.

I think that the main problem lies in the fact that I rarely, if ever, get any sort of real evaluation at work. So when people are coming who could very well evaluate my work (and not necessarily in a positive way) I freak out a little bit.

So I went in this morning (using the excuse that I needed to do a little Christmas shopping) and was told that there was good intelligence that the bigwigs would not be out visiting stores today. So I did my shopping and came home. I am celebrating my few hours off by cooking a big bacon n' schmeggs breakfast. So the question on the table is: do I want scrambled eggs in a tortilla? Or a bacon. egg, and cheese sandwich? Or just bacon and eggs with toast and juice?

The other night when I went to bed, I felt bad about making a crack about BJ's podcast. The truth is, I always am hungry for new episodes from them, and, (and perhaps more importantly), when I'm done listening to one of their shows I'm always interested in seeing/listening to/reading whatever it was they were talking about (with the exception of the Christian Rock). In fact, while I was at the Noble today I re-bought 1984 and Brave New World (somehow I've lost my copies of those books). I remember when I first read Brave New World,

(HOLY SHIT I JUST DISCOVERED WE'RE OUT OF EGGS)(MUST GO GET SOME...)

when I fist read Brave New World, it was either my senior year of college or the year after college, and I remember finishing the book alone in my apartment, and feeling so exhilarated that I was literally running through the streets to the bars, feeling very excited and full of life. And I went to Woody's (the bar that they built behind the Wooden Nickel)(actual full name Woody's in the Rear) and ended up I think playing some guitar and singing with a Kirksville guy named Buddy. Anyway, I have forgotten exactly what the story in Brave New World is, so I'm hoping that when I finish reading it again I get the same feeling of exhilaration.

Ok, I'm gonna go walk to Eddie's and buy some eggs. I've decided on bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

No Sleep till B'more

Probably because I spent a good portion of the afternoon sleeping, I now find myself wide awake and not ready to hit the hay, although the Jeanners has been in bed for awhile, and since I'm working tomorrow I probably should go to bed. But instead I'm up and enjoying a G&T and some chips and salsa. Which, by the way, if you haven't tried Trader Joe's Double-Roasted Salsa, you should cause it's good. Although it would be better with corn in it. But then again, what wouldn't?

I was listening to The Killers on the way home from work and decided that they are the Styx of our generation. Not bad, but a little overblown and kind of embarrassing. Though they probably sound more like Queen. And I really probably haven't listened to enough Killers or enough Styx to make the comparison, but there it is.

Not too much on the brain this evening. Life just seems to be rolling along. The J-Dog seems to be liking her job a bit more than she was a month or so ago. The weather's getting colder and our heat seems to be working at least some of the time, which is a nice improvement over last year. Although it could just be that we're spending less time in the living room, which has the radiator with the most problems. Yesterday I ran low on laundry and had to wear underwear to work that were way too tiny. I felt very European. J-Dog and I did laundry last night, though, so today I'm feeling much better.

When I was a kid, we had a copy of the Styx album Cornerstone on vinyl. I can still picture the cover: a man's bare feet, standing on some sort of moonlike terrain, shining a flashlight on an album that's kinda been placed in this crater, and on the cover of the album it says "Cornerstone." I think. I could be making that last part up. Let's go find it on the web.


Well, unfortunately that's the largest version of the cover art that I could find, so I guess we'll never know exactly what's on the cover of that album that's in the crater.

Well, I'm starting to get a little sleepy but I've still got quite a bit of G&T left (all this typing is getting in the way of my sipping!), so let's keep going...

I'm looking forward to going to see John K.'s (from work) band, which will be playing at the 8X10 on December 18th. It will be only the 3rd or 4th instance of live music that I will have seen since moving to Baltimore over 5 years ago. I'm not usually a fan of seeing live shows because
A) In the words of Huey Lewis in Back to the Future, they're "just too darn loud."
2) They're generally kind of boring and uninteresting and generic.

I do, however, remember going to Frederick's Music Lounge quite a bit when I used to live in St. Louis. I liked Fred's a lot, mostly because I used to get the feeling that I was in some sort of weird guy's basement when I went there. And while there was some general hipster-ness going on while I was there, it was definitely dominated by a spirit of wild inclusiveness and embarrassing innocence rather than coolness or posturing. I don't know. I'll probably spend the rest of my life looking for another hangout like Fred's. It's too bad that it's gone.

But anyway, in the spirit of trying to be more social, I'm looking forward to seeing John's show. I'm not expecting to like the music much, though. We'll see.

Ooo, also on the way home from work this evening, I think I might have summed up in my head a common thread in most of the art I like: the process is the product. I think that a good percentage of the modern or recent art that I've liked has some inherent reference to it's own creation. Probably more in literature than in other stuff, but still, I think it's definitely there in other stuff, too. It's not any sort of huge revelation, but I think being able to sum up things that I like may be useful in the future...

Ok, the last half of this post is starting to sound way too much like one of BJ's podcasts ("wild inclusiveness", "embarrassing innocence", "inherent reference to it's own creation")(ha ha ha)(and I love you, BJ), so I'd better go to bed now...

p.s. Elizabeth called me at work this evening and said "David Bowie is here," and it took me a few seconds before I realized that she was talking about the David Bowie CD that I had sent her...

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Doing da splitz

Today I worked a weird split shift, so I got to come home at 1pm, but I have to go back in tonight at 8. And at around 10 this morning, it started snowing a most lovely, quiet, soft, wet, snow. Which was fun. And then after work, Brian G. and I headed over to the Rec Room for burgers. Unfortunately not half-priced, but nonetheless good.

I have to go into work tomorrow on my damned day off because there's going to be some bigwigs there. Bah.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Pickle and the Indians

Crapola. I have a bit of a splitting headache. Busy day at work yesterday, and busy today. The two days have seemed like one long, busy day.

Bewley was in town last night and called me at work. We met when I got off and had some Guinness. 'Twas good to see her.

It's nice to be home. A few minutes ago I took off my shoes and sock and snuggled my feet under the blankets on our bed. It felt good.

I'm having a hard time coming up with things that I want for Christmas.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Not Too Much

Not too much going on. I was off work yesterday, and I got a little bored. Made some cookies. Talked to my folks.

Jeannie and I have been having fun. Went for a nice walk last night to the grocery store. It was getting cold but we had long underwear on (underneath our clothes) so we weren't uncomfortable.

I went to the gym the other day and overdid it a little bit and my titties have been hurting.

Hey, the spell-checker on this blog doesn't recognize "titties" as a real word. Stupid spell-checker.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Emergency Plan

Well, I have given Korn a one-time exemption from the "no using food poisoning as an excuse" rule, because she came back to work and told me a funny story about 2 people sharing an apartment with one bathroom and getting food poisoning at the same time. I should point out that Korn did not think the story was funny. It's a situation that I have often thought about (because Jeannie and I share an apartment with one bathroom and both have active defecatory lives) but have never really come up with an emergency plan for. It's a plan that would probably involve (unfortunately) the kitchen sink or the roof outside our kitchen window. But anyway, enough of this pleasant dinner conversation...

It seems that my days in high school have come back to visit me in full effect. It started when I began listening to Too Much Joy again, then last night I got a message on Facebook from T. Benitez (who I haven't seen or heard from in about 11 or 12 years), and then today at the gym my MP3 player "randomly" played about 4 They Might Be Giants songs. I blame J. Knese. For the TMBG, anyway.

T. Benitez, by the way, is a girl who I met in high school, who I think it's safe to say would classify herself as a fellow "weirdo." We hit it off pretty instantly. She was one of the folks that The Jeanners and I used to run around with and used to have good clean fun with.

Thanksgiving this year was good. It looked like this:



Katie came over to our place, and we spent a good part of the day cooking (or rather, Jeannie and Katie spent a good part of the day cooking while I peeled apples and potatoes) and then went over to Katie's in the evening to eat it all up. A few people that we didn't know came over to Katie's, too, and Angel came over, and we ended up playing some Apples to Apples. And some people (I won't name any names but it wasn't me) got a little tipsy and giggly. It was a fun time. Oh, and Katie (who has left town to embark on her Great North American Travel and Train Adventure), has left her cello with me for safe keeping until her triumphant return. So yesterday when I got home from work (but before Jeannie got home) I played a little cello. It sounds pretty awful. But maybe I can do some interesting things with it or actually maybe learn to play it. Although I don't really feel like learning how to play it right. Laziness and apathy strike again.

Today is my day off and I have spent it by:
1. fixing our stove.
2. sending messages and pictures to T. Benitez. Who seems to be home during the day. Or at least in a position to send messages via Facebook during the day.
3. Going to the gym, to the B&N to see how much money we made yesterday (less than I had hoped, but still more than last year), and to Trader Joe's to pick up some olive oil for the J-Dog.
4. Laundry, laundry, laundry. After putting our laundry in the washer, I stopped in at the chinese restaurant next door (as has become my laundry day ritual), and on the TV there I saw an American Express commercial that was using a Spinal Tap song ("Gimme Some Money") without any irony or tongue-in-cheekness. I find this...not really sad or unsettling, but just weird.

Tonight, J-Dog and I have plans to hit the city library!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving

Oh, how I wish I was in O-hio...

But we ain't, so we shall make the best of this Thanksgiving 2007 here in cloudy-but-bright Baltimore.

I didn't sleep well last night. I had had some caffeine last night at work with my dinner, so maybe that was keeping me up. I was also thinking about work stuff, which is strange and wrong because today is one of two days out of the year when I absolutely don't have to think about the B&N.

Anyway, yesterday was a long, busy day at work, which is good because we made some good money, but it was long. (Confidential to anyone who works with me in the Music Department: don't use food poisoning as an excuse when calling out sick. Even if you are puking and shitting right in front of me, my brain still won't let me believe it...)

Sitting here at the kitchen table in me undies, listening to some old Strokes CD's. Ever since Eric was visiting, and they were playing a Strokes album at the Golden West Cafe when we went there for dinner, I've been jonesing for the Strokes. They've got a nice, early 80's post-punk sound, I think. The Jeanners is getting some stuff ready for our Thanksgiving dinner, putting the bird in the oven, mixing stuff together, making something called brine. I'm not exactly sure what brine is, but I asked Jeannie if I could stick my dong in it and she said "no", so I guess it's something we eat or drink.

THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR IN 2007:
1. The Jeanners, and all the fun we have together.
2. The safe and healthy births of Jack Steinmetz, Henry Bosco, Adam Grass, and Elizabeth O'Brien. And the host of other babies that were born to people we know. Seriously, people, stop pressuring us by having all these goddamn adorable little shits.
3. A good, fun crew at work. (Wish E-beth was still around, though.)
4. That my parents were able to come out for a visit.

And then all the usual stuff; good health, family, friends, blah blah blah, peace on earth and good will towards man, blah blah blah. God bless us, everyone.

I stink. I'm gonna put away our silverware and then take a damn shower.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Tomorrow, the bullshit begins.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Post Punk

I've been reading a big U2 coffee table book that was cheap at the B&N, and been reading a bunch about them getting started back in '80 and '81, and it has put me in an early 80's mindset. I'm always inspired whenever I read stuff about U2, it always makes me want to do some recording, probably because I pretty much learned how to play guitar by watching any footage I could find of The Edge. So basically, right now I feel like quitting my job, spending all of our savings on a big mixing board and some good equipment, and renting someplace where I could set up a drumset and record my early 80's post-punk masterpiece. What all of this dreaming has actually boiled down to, however, is that I've been wearing my combat boots more. That's about it. I have done a bit of recording over the last few days, but mostly it's just been farting around. Been playing around with some interesting keyboard-drum stuff, though.

Jeannie and I had a good day yesterday of just lounging around. We used to do that all the time, when we were in college and she would come for a visit, we would spend days where we never left the dorms, not even to get food. For some reason we both felt uncomfortable eating with each other, so we would just spend days in the dorm room, getting more and more hungry. So we kinda did that yesterday, except that we ate.

We've been missing the Scluetermetz' bunches. Probably because of the time of year. We're probably gonna hang out with Katie and some other folks for Thanksgiving, which should be cool. But probably not as cool as heading to Ohio.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

btw

The title of that last post refers to the blog itself, not the production of Macbeth. Except for Pat, who is truly an idiot.

Friday, November 16, 2007

A Tale Told by an Idiot

The Jeanners and I went to see Macbeth tonight. There was good mixed with not so good. Luckily, Scott and Lesley were both strong (it's always good to have a strong Macbeth and Lady Macbeth), but damn, some of the smaller parts were comically bad, and the lighting seriously bugged me. Although it is a tough space to light. So yeah, Macbeth. But I am looking forward to working on Doll's House. I think the set will be totally different than anything we've done before, and I think that the play will have a feel that's totally different than anything we've done, and I'm very excited by that.

Also made tentative plans to hang out with Pat and Teresa next week, which is a good thing. We've been wanting to hang out for awhile, so I'm glad that we've got an idea of when it can happen.

Hmmm, what else? Son of Sam I Am still hasn't arrived and I'm starting to get miffed.

Not too much else going on. I spent my day off yesterday doing laundry and dishes and then went in to help rehang and focus some lighting instruments for the show. And I've been enjoying looking at all the pretty fall colors on my way to and from work. I think we're just about at the tail end of the season, and I'll be sad when all the leaves are down, but I like winter, too.

Alright, I've got to work tomorrow morning, so I'd better finish this beer and get to bed.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

"After all, I've tried for 3 years; feels like 90..."

Yesterday was me and the J-Dog's 3 year schmanniversary. We're pretty low-key anniversary-celebrators (last year the big thing we did was go to a Greek Restaurant, whoa!) but this year The Jeanners was nice enough to use a gift certificate for a massage that I had given her a long time ago, and she set up appointments for us both to get a massage. She shared her massage with me. So we went and got all oily and rubbed down. And went to Golden West for dinner, where my dinner seemed smaller than it did when we went there last and I ordered the same thing...

Anyway, seriously, I think that this marriage probably only has about 6 good months left.

I have been totally geeking out listening to Too Much Joy. I ordered 2 more cheap TMJ cd's off Amazon. One arrived yesterday, so I can now begin rocking out to the Cereal Killers album as well as Mutiny. Hopefully, Son of Sam I Am will be arriving today.

Not too much else going on. Work is starting to get a wee smidgen busier, but not really. Yet.

Also, I have agreed to stop downloading things that are not legal to download. As long as my wife doesn't get annoyed when I buy lots of Too Much Joy cd's.

Also, I just finished reading "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe," and yes, it did make me feel a bit womanly while reading it, but it was a good story, goddammit.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

A Month in Pictures

In honor of me getting a roll of film developed, here's some pictures from the last month:



Jeannie and her brother, Big Jake. The man knows how to fill out a wifebeater, no?



The Beej and The Destiny, all lovey-dovey.



Pat and the Beej, enjoying their final few minutes as single gay men.



Pat and Teresa, laughing at what I can only assume are the wacky antics of BJ and MAW.



Jeannie and MAW express their love.



Jeannie sure can handle the hose!



Eric and the imfamous Large Camera.



This is the kind of scene that happens in our kitchen all the time. I'm just not exactly sure what it is...



Jeannie and the Future North-American Wanderer, Katie, who will be leaving Baltimore in a few weeks, and sorely missed.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Spiff Chambers Show

Are you like me? When you heard about Seanyboy opening up for Colin Hay did you wish you could see it? Well now you can!

J U S T
C L I C K
H E R E !


It seems that they filmed his part of the show for a local cable network in Girdwood, Alaska. He sent me the link for it today, and I thought it was pretty cool. And not just because he plays some songs I worked on. One note: I do not really identify myself as a "Christian," (as Sean says in the video), but I hereby give Sean poetic license to introduce the song however the fuck he wants. Anyway, some great finger pickin' in there.

I would also like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Korn for getting mad at her yesterday at work. It was stupid and I apologize. I hope you (Korn) will forgive me and that we can continue to be friends.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Bad Liver.

My day at work kinda gave me a headache. But then I got home and my Too Much Joy album had arrived, and made everything ok again.

Oh, and I found out that Jack was born on November 5th, not the 6th, so his birthday will be even easier for me to remember. The day Marty McFly went back in time. And Spiff's birthday.

Ok, I've been waiting all day to write about this dream I had last night: I dreamed I was at the doctor's office, and I had been given a physical, although the type of office I was in was more like an eye doctor's office. It was dim and I was sitting in a special eye-doctor-type chair, and I was naked. My pants and underwear were in kind of a ball at my feet, kinda like I had just stepped out of them. There were also two kids from grade school leaning in at the doorway, but they weren't really doing anything and don't figure into the dream at all. So anyway, the doctor tells me that there's too much fat in my poop, and that means that my liver isn't working properly. And it turns out that he discovered that there's too much fat in my poop not by analyzing my poop, but by analyzing the skid marks in my underwear. Talk about embarrassing! Not only is my poop too fatty, but my underwear was filthy to boot! I was glad to wake up from that one...

I hope my liver's ok.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Jump They Say

This morning I eat the bacon and the eggs in honor of young Jack, who is enjoying his first day on this dirty, dirty planet. I look forward to the day when he and his brother and his parents and Uncle Rich and me and the J-Dog (and really, anybody else who wants to show up) sit down to a big table of bacon n'schmeggs and english muffins and juice and fruit and biscuits and fried potatoes and have what we like to call the Down Home Country Breakfast.

Last night I acquired in a less than legal fashion (it's out of print, how else am I supposed to get it?) (ok, it's actually available as a deluxe, double album edition, but I'm not paying $30 for this album) the album Black Tie, White Noise, by David Bowie. This is the album where I was first introduced to D.B., back in the early 90's, and at the time I remember thinking it was very strange but I was also drawn to it. I still feel the same way. It sounds pretty dated, but it's just a very strange mixture of a David Bowie record and, say, a Michael Jackson record. With a touch of C+C Music Factory thrown in. And I think he duets with Al B. Sure (!!) at one point. But I like it.

Also on the 'albums that time forgot' subject, I was looking online the other night to see if I could illegally acquire the album Mutiny, by Too Much Joy. Too Much Joy is a band from the 90's that most people haven't heard of, but there is not very much music that takes me back to high school as easily. They're a dorky rock band that's really damn catchy. So anyway, I was trying find this album to download, when I came across many copies being sold on Amazon.com for $1. Plus shipping. I felt a moment of shame when I realized that I was scouring the web to illegally download an album for free when I could, just as easily, legally acquire the same album for 100 pennies. Plus shipping. So I ended up paying the dollar (plus shipping) and the damn thing should be here in a day or two. My moment of shame has passed, though.

By the way, the irony/hypocrisy of my hatred of CD/DVD shoplifters living side by side with my penchant for less-than-legal downloading is not lost on me.

'Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)'

I love that quote! It totally relieves me of having to be consistent and/or having character! It's so POMO!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Jack Attack

A big hearty welcome to the Schluetermetz' new little boy, Jack. I will always be able to remember his birthday (if his birthday was, indeed, today. I didn't get all the particulars from Brad) because it's the day after Marty McFly went back in time. It's also the day after Seanyboy Spiff's birthday. So I should be able to remember it. Anyway, I'm just glad that the little dude can stop kicking his mom now and that everybody is doing well.

Not too much else going on. This week at work has felt a little slow compared to last week, which is nice. Getting caught up, getting things in order for the holidays, etc.

Went to HCCA on Saturday and measured the theatre. Tomorrow (my day off), I'm gonna go through the script and try to make a few drawings.

Oh boy, there are some stirrings down in my belly. I had a little bit of moldy fake-sour-cream stuff for dinner, so I'd better sign off.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Don't you have homes?!

This morning I watched a bit of Caddyshack before work. Gawd-DAMN I love that movie. Two thoughts that came into my head: 1) If I was a professional movie actor I would act like Ted Knight in Caddyshack in every film I was in. And 2) J. Knese reminds me of Spaulding.

Driving home from work tonight I realized that Wednesday (yesterday) was my 5 year anniversary at the Noble and I totally forgot. Five (5) muthaf**kin' years. Sheesh.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I could drink a case of you/Heineken

Ah, shit. Work has kept me busy as hell this week. Been getting ready for the official start of the holiday season (holiday changeover on Friday), as well as training a dude who's going to be the music manager out in Pikesville. So I've been coming home and pretty much just been looking for mindless activity, which for the past couple of days has meant noodling around on some music. Now I remember what the ol' TV is for...

The rest of Eric's visit was fun. We ended up hitting NYC in a whirlwind (4.5 hour drive up, walk around a bunch, 4.5 hour drive back), and then he jetted out on Monday morning while the J-Dog and I were at our respective works. Eric is a one of a kind hombre, and it was good to see him.

Today a customer (Mr. Kim) who likes me very much gave me a case of Heineken. Wouldn't life be better if every customer that came into the store gave us beer?

Friday, October 26, 2007

Who'll Stop the Rain?

The Elz is in town. Arrived yesterday, and we had a relatively uneventful day. Went to Fell's Point and had pizza in a strange Brazillian pizza place, then came home, hung out with the Jeanners when she got home from work, then went to a Mexican place that I've been wanting to try, El Patron. It kinda sucked. We were the only people in the place, and Eric ordered a vegetarian burrito that arrived filled with chicken. Then we came home and sat at the kitchen table and drank beers and chatted until we all hit the hay at around 10:30.

Eric was catching up on sleep and didn't wake up until noon this morning, then he and I headed down to DC for the day. I forgot to mention that it was rainy all day yesterday, and it was raining today, too. All day. It sucked. First, we got caught in traffic on our way out of Baltimore, so we sat downtown for about an hour, then when we finally got down to DC, it was ab-so-lute-ly fucking raining and nasty. So we walked around the mall in the rain for several hours. We went into the National Gallery of Art (and Farts) and saw all the modern art (and modern farts), and walked around in the rain. Then we took the subway to Chinatown and had a passable chinese dinner at a place that seemed to have 200 employees milling around, and as soon as you took a drink of water they would rush over and refill your glass.

Anyway, we made it home (still raining) and got some ice cream, and now here were are again sitting at the kitchen table with beer, except now we're listening to some tunes. Flaming Lips right now. Here's some pictures from our rainy Washington DC adventures.



Eric contemplates my modern farts.



Eric gets hungry near our National Phallus.



What life would be like if we all lived underground, on the moon.


The music has switched. It's Radiohead now. We were planning on going to New York tomorrow, but the forecast is calling for rain, and the idea of spending another day walking in the rain isn't sounding too great. So maybe we'll go see Darjeeling Limited tomorrow and think about heading to NYC on Sunday.

Whenever I get together with Eric, he takes lots of pictures with his large camera where I end up looking like a rockstar. So I'm going to take this opportunity to post a few pictures of me looking like a rockstar that I didn't have to take myself.




Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Jim Henson, my ass.



Customer: "Excuse me, sir?"

Dan: "Yes?"

Customer: "You look like Jim Henson."

Dan: "Thank you."


That's the conversation (in it's entirety) that occurred five minutes before I left work today. I don't really think I look like Jim Henson, though, and in his defense, the customer was semi-mentally-challenged. But it was an interesting cap on a long day.

Right now I'm cookin' myself some fat hamburgers cause I'm feeling the need to get my red meat on. I've got the next 4 days off, and E. Elz is due to arrive tomorrow, and as Eddie Murphy says, Eric just wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time.

Had a good meeting with Kevin the other night about the DOLLS HOUSE set. I think he and I are pretty much on the same page, and I think we could do some interesting stuff. He's got a good cast and a good costumer, so it could be a quite a good play.

Hmmm, what else? This city is a horrible place to drive in the rain. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I cussed out many people on the way to work and the way home from work. Can't we all just drive like adults?

Monday, October 22, 2007

"Sushi Man Busy Man, All the Time."

I feel kinda like I'm on a little bit of speed right now. But only because I've had a lotta things on my list to get done (mostly at work) and I've been getting them all done today. And tonight I meet with K. Costa to discuss the set for DOLLS HOUSE so I can stop procrastinating on that and get started with an actual "design." And I've got a load of laundry in down at the laundromat.

A funny story. The other night Jeannie and I had just gotten into bed and we were talking about something, and then there was about a 10 second pause, and then she said, "What's with the brown bear?" and then she started giggling. And I said, "What brown bear?" (because there was no brown bear in our bedroom, that I could see.) And then she giggled again, and said, "I must've been dreaming a little bit." It was pretty funny. Probably one of those 'you had to be there' situations, but I'm sure you can imagine yourself in a situation where someone who you're kind of in the middle of a conversation with falls asleep a little bit and starts talking about brown bears, and you can see that that situation might be humorous.

Confidential to the Beej:
This morning at 6:30am I sat in the parking lot of the B&N and listened to the hidden track on the Springsteen disc and cried a little bit. I, too, am a bit of a weeper. But in more of a stoic, native-american-shedding-a-lone-tear-about-forest-fires-and-litter kinda way.

Not confidential to the Beej:
Off to switch the laundry!

Friday, October 19, 2007

They Broke the Mold

The Jeanners and I just got back from seeing "Into the Wild," the movie about the kid who bummed around for awhile and then went to Alaska and starved to death. It's a good movie. About 3/4 of the way through the film, I was thinking, "this movie is too long and it's missing the fucking point," but then it kinda redeemed itself in the end. J-Dog and I had both read the book recently, and we were both interested in seeing the movie, because it's a pretty damned compelling story. I don't usually get too worked up about such things, but I'm kinda torn about the way I feel about this kid. He seemed to have everything worked out so right and so completely wrong at the same time. And I've been pretty fascinated with the whole "get rid of everything and just walk around" for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid my favorite daydeam was, "What would I do if my parents and family disappeared and I had to fend for myself? What would I take with me? Where would I go?" And there's still a bit of that left in me, although at the moment it's buried under some other shit -- some important shit and some unimportant shit. I wonder if it will come out later or if it will go away? I guess either option is ok...

So the two thoughts in my head about Chris McCandless are: "You're an idiot for not listening to people and thinking you could do what others could not." and "I really admire what you did and why you did it and the way in which you went about it." And my guess is that those are the two thoughts that go through everybody's mind who reads the book or sees the movie. Too much damned Eddie Vedder music in the movie, though.

Also: the hidden track on the the Springsteen album is pretty damned good. "When they built you, brother, they broke the mold."

Also: When we got home from the movie, I took a pretty huge shit. The bathroom is pretty rank. Jeannie's in there now brushing her teeth and I'm a little surprised she's not puking from the smell. Perhaps she's built up an immunity?

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Magically Delicious

I bought the new Bruce Springsteen album today, Magic. I'm a bit underwhelmed. I have to admit, I'm a bit down on the Boss lately. Devils and Dust was just OK, The Seeger Sessions was just OK, and now this album is just OK. Three luke warm albums in a row. Here's a fun game you can play at home: when you hear the song "Radio Nowhere" (the first single) sing the words to "867-5309 (Jenny)." Sad when big Bruce is ripping off Tommy Tutone.

I've been depressed lately. Was in a funk all day. Then came home and went on a date with my girlie to go eat Thai food and that helped a bit. I need to get off my ass and get my shit done!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Round-Up

Thanks to everyone who voted in last post's poll. The correct answer will be revealed at some point in the future.

Well, a lot has happened in the last few days. Let's start at the present and work our way back...

I just got home from an inventory at work. My first inventory (I think) that I didn't work with Bewley. Luckily I was working with cool kids Korn and Brian G. so it made my first Bewley-less inventory not so bad. So I'm blogging and enjoying a cheeserito (just cheese) and a G&T to wind down a little bit before bed.

Sunday was Pat and Teresa's wedding, which was, well, a hoot. We had a good time. Although getting to hang out with BJ and MAW for only a day is really just a tease, and not nearly a long enough amount of time. We did, however, get to meet Destiny, who is funny and sweet and seems (to me) understated, in a good way. I approve. The Jeanners (who is also understated, I would say) approves. I'm not even sure if I should be describing people using the word understated, but it's late and that's the word I want to use and I'm going to do it, dammit.

Anyway, Pat's wedding was fun. Good music (a nice mixture of motown and disco, with some Prince thrown in, too) and dancing, and although the reception was in a pretty fancy country club, it did not seem hoity-toity, which was nice. And we met some interesting people who I enjoyed talking to, even though I pretty much loath having to talk to anyone who I don't know and have recently (in the past couple of years) become fairly anti-social. So that was nice. A good day that made me tired the next day and hungover-feeling even though I didn't really drink except wine with dinner. I think I was just really tired.

And on Saturday night when I was at work, I had these 2 guys come in, and they looked like military guys who were on leave (we get quite a few of those in the store), and one of the guys sounded like he was straight off the West Virginia farm (he used the phrase "I reckon," genuinely), and asked me if we had any, and I'm quoting here, "titty-nipple movies." I told him that no, we didn't have any "titty-nipple" movies. We had movies with both "titties" and "nipples" in them, but nothing that would, in my opinion, qualify as a "titty-nipple" movie. He asked if there was anyplace nearby where he could find some, and I couldn't really think of anyplace, but I forgot there's a sex shop right down the street from the store. They probably weren't open though because it was after 10pm. Anyway, that was funny and it made for a funny story to tell The Jeanners when I got home.

Oh, and the correct answer is:



BJ.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Toast

Yesterday I was thinking that when I toast my toast, maybe I've been toasting my toast for too long. So this morning, I'm toasting my toast for not quite so long. I just want softer toast, that's all.

Jeannie's brother (Jake) and his wife (Missy) were in town last night, stopping in on their quick tour of some of the Mid-Atlantic region. They are on their way up to NYC this morning, though I was still asleep when they left. Big D had a few beers last night, and slept soundly. It was good to see Jake and Missy, and I hope they enjoyed their brief stay.

I had a dream last night that I was at a CSC party and got super drunk did lots of things that I didn't remember later, such as shaving off my beard. I was glad when I woke up this morning with my nasty, scraggly beard still intact.

Work this evening, which I'm not really looking forward to (but it should be relatively painless to get through), and then off to Philly tomorrow for Pat's wedding. I bought a couple of rolls of black and white film for our non-digital old-school camera, so maybe I'll get some fun photos of folks while we're there. 'Twill be good to see the Beej and MAW, as well as discuss some CSC stuff with CSC peeps. And maybe do some dancin' with my girlfriend. And, of course, to witness 2 fleshes becoming one flesh.

Hmmm. I believe that's all to report. Got Alaska on my brain...

Thursday, October 11, 2007

What global warming, indeed.

Well, here I am, spouting off like an alarmist liberal about global warming and 90 degree days in October and blah, blah, blah, and then it goes and turns all autumnal on my ass overnight.

Shit. I just dripped some salsa on my nice clean white undershirt. Actually, I've been wearing it all day so it's probably not technically "clean."

Anyway, it rained a bunch yesterday, and as a result the weather has turned a bit nippy. Thank god. Now I can wear my suit to Pat's wedding on Sunday and not be a sweaty bastard. Or at least be less of a sweaty bastard.

This chilly weather makes me want to go put on my new lumberjack shirt and stand outside, smoke a cigarette and drink red wine out of the bottle. In fact, I think those 3 things are exactly what my life is missing right now.

Jeannie's brother and his wife arrive tomorrow night. Through a last minute rearrangement of schedules at work, I now have tomorrow off, so I think I'll be spending it doing laundry and cleaning in preparation for their visit.

And now, a shout out to Jeff K., who has started up his own blog. I was unsure if he would want a public mention of his writings, but I figured that I heard about it via a MySpace bulletin, which makes me think that it's public already. So here it is:

http://emergencypudding.blogspot.com/

Jeff is the bass player for the Quintessential Pine Tree Brothers, a handsome dude, and a helluva nice guy. Show him some respect.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

What global warming?

When I came home from work yesterday, I realized that it was hot outside, and I decided right then and there that I was gonna drive to the beach today (my day off). If we're gonna have global warming that gives us 90 degree days in October, I'm gonna enjoy it, dammit.

So I got up this morning at around 6 and got on the road, and was down at the bay bridge at around sunrise,

and got down to the beach at around 9. Unfortunately, the beach was L-A-M-E. There were absolutely no waves and I didn't have my grilfriend there with me to have fun with. So I swam around for a little while,

slept for a little while, and then got pretty bored. Then I got to thinking, and I remembered crossing a few rivers and streams on my way down to the beach, and I realized that I had a couple of fishing rods in the trunk of my car, so I decided to drive back and explore some of the rivers on my way home. I'd much rather stand in a river and fish in the shade than hang out on a lonely beach with no waves.

So on my way back I checked out Martinak State Park (which seemed to be all about a lake and campgrounds) and continued on through some small towns looking for good access to the Choptank River. After driving down back roads and gravel roads and little Missouri-looking towns, I eventually found a public access spot in a little town called Goldsboro. Unfortunately, just as I was arriving, a nice little storm whipped up, and I got a little soaked while taking this picture of the Choptank:

I drove around the town a little bit (I only saw one actual person in this town, and I saw her in two different spots: once waiting to pick up her kid from the school bus and once at the recycling containers near the boat-ramp; a fairly large woman in a bright yellow shirt) until the rain stopped, found a different public-access boat ramp, and wanted to attempt some fishing but there were 2 trucks parked there from the Department of Natural Resources, and since I don't have a fishing license (I'm not even sure what the rules are in Maryland, do I need a fishing license?) I figured I'd better not chance it. I did take a leak, though.

So I left Goldsboro and continued on, until I crossed the Tuckahoe River, which looked promising. So I drove around a few roads looking for an access spot, and eventually found the Tuckahoe State Park, where after a little looking around I found a nice, narrow spot that looked like it might be decent for some fly fishing.

So I walked back to the car to get my fly rod, only to discover that my tackle box is not in my trunk. So not only did I not get to fish, but now I need to figure out where the hell my tackle box is. Hopefully in the trunk of the other car.

So anyway, I don't think I made any more stops after Tuckahoe, and drove the rest of the way home, where I arrived at around 3:30. So it was a lot of driving for only about an hour and a half at the beach. I did do some decent exploring, though, and it was a nice day for a drive; singing, whistling, and meowing along to good, loud tunes.

Adventures are more fun with the J-Dog, though. Seriously.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Remarkably easy Sunday at work today. One of those days where the shit seems to sell itself...

Anyway, I meant yesterday to post this picture (that we got from my parents) of me and my baby frolicking in the ocean:




It's almost bedtime. Me and J-Dog are in the kitchen. She's making something complicated and vegetarian for her lunch tomorrow, something involving bulghur, which, as far as I know, is eaten mainly by horses. I'm enjoying a G&T and listening to J.J. Cale, who I've never really listened to but am enjoying.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

"Why'd you choke out there, Baumer?"

It's been a relatively low-key couple of days. I started giving people their yearly reviews at work, which has been fine. It's always nice to get a raise, right? I wish I got my raise at this time of year, but I have to wait another six months...

Thursday night we went to Jeannie's former boss' house for dinner, which was fun and kind of interesting. We've been meaning to have dinner there for awhile, but we figured that it would probably be better to hang out in a social way if we waited until Jeannie was no longer working there. So we went and took a few bottles of wine and had an egg and potato souffl'e that was pretty tasty. And some of us got a little tipsy and then we all played "The Worst Case Scenario" board game (which J-Dog and I had played before, and kinda suck at. We usually immediately decide against the right answer). But anyway, it was a decently good time. I'm glad we brought the wine...

Then last night the Jeanners and I re-watched The Royal Tenenbaums and went to bed early.

Today has been pretty laid back, too. We both got up early this morning and went to work; I just had to give Shawn her review, and then got to come home. Jeanners worked for a little while and then went to yoga and came home. We ran some errands, I listened to Experts and Intermediates while Jeannie read on the couch, I uploaded the fruits of last weeks recording (still not too happy with it, but what the hell) and here we are. Who knows what we'll do tonight. Maybe walk? Maybe watch The Third Man? Maybe both?

I'm getting excited about the wedding next weekend and all of our visitors coming this month...

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

All My Lies Are Always Wishes...

I was prepared this morning to write that I like Wilco's A.M. better than Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (a claim that would surely lose me points with the hipster community at large) but I have spent the morning dancing around the kitchen in my underwear while making my bacon and eggs and listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Damn, they're both such good albums. How many bands do you know of that have 2 full albums that, between the two, have only one song that gets skipped, and that song gets skipped only because it was written and sung by the bass player (a bad idea in general, for all you young bands out there...)? Unfortunately, this kind of only serves to hilight the fact that Wilco's most recent two albums (A Ghost is Born and Sky Blue Sky) are mild disappointments (but still pretty damn good).

So anyway, all this thinking about Wilco has got me thinking about ALBUMS. About how a good ALBUM is a really rare thing. You know, most CD's that you buy, you're happy to get 6 or 7 good songs, but what about those wonderful albums where you get 10 or 11 good songs, nary a clunker among the bunch? And now I'm going to go through my Itunes library and pick out some good ALBUMS, in no particular order:

*Wilco, A.M.
*Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
*Afghan Whigs, 1965
*Counting Crows, August and Everything After
*Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
*Mike Doughty, Haughty Melodic (although I have to skip "Busting Up a Starbucks," perhaps the most annoying song ever)
*David Bowie, Low (actually, some of the songs aren't that great, but the whole of the ALBUM is definitely more than the sum of its parts.)
*Nick Drake, Pink Moon
*Emmylou Harris, Red Dirt Girl
*Sonny Rollins, Sonny Rollins, Volume 2
*U2, The Joshua Tree
*Greg Brown, The Live One (actually, I usually skip "Moondance." I fucking hate that song.)
*Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther
*Bruce Springsteen, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle
*Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots


So there you have it. Out of 609 albums I have found 15 that I would consider "Great Albums." And Wilco had 2 of them. Way to go, Wilco! With honorable mention going to:

*Michael Jackson, Thriller
*David Gray, White Ladder
*Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner
*Beck, Sea Change
*U2, The Unforgettable Fire and Achtung Baby
*Bruce Spingsteen, The Rising


At work today I HAVE to start giving people their reviews, which I hate. Here's my idea of what giving someone a review should be like:

"You're doing a good job, keep up the good work. Here's your raise."

or

"You really screwed the pooch this year, but I'm sure you'll do better next year, Here's your raise."

or

"Go away."

But unfortunately, I have to write up these reviews that are in Company-speak and then take time and go over the reviews with the employees and then have them sign it and lots of other B-crap. Oh well. I guess that's why it's called "Going to Work," and not, "Going to Fun."

Well, I've wasted to much time going through my Itunes library and now it's time to get ready for work. Shout out to A. Akester, from back in the college days!


Oh, and one more thought about albums: double-albums are pretty much universally a bad idea.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Holy Frijoles

Went to a semi-impromptu dinner last night with Elizabeth (who is in town from Chicago), Brian G, FCW and Sarah, and the Jeanners. It was a good time. Sad to hear that FCW is already bored by his relatively new job.

Let's see, what else? Yet another new group of shoplifters came by the B&N last night. Are there any actual, bona-fide customers who are willing to pay actual, bona fide money for expensive CD's and DVD's left? I am tempted to put up a sign that says SHOPLIFTERS, YOU HAVE WON. TAKE WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. BLOW ME.

I worked a little bit on some music on Thursday (maybe?) morning, with mixed results. Have been doing a little bit of mixing here and there. Maybe I'll post some results when I've decided if I like them or not.

The Jeanners just walked in the door, home from work. I have eaten for dinner tonight: vegetable spuke ("rice with vegetables 'spuked' in it") and two chicken pot pies. I still feel hungry. A bit like a bottomless pit this evening.

Well, not much of interest going on, I guess. Looking forward to my day off on Thursday.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Should've Been in Love....

Yesterday I re-bought the Wilco album A.M.. It's one that I used to own but I gave it to Sean after all his CD's got stolen out of his truck. I have missed it, and it's really nice to revisit all of these songs. Takes me back to a very specific time.

I've been reading through old e-mails lately, from around 1999 and 2000. Makes me miss all of my friends who have spead out everywhere. But we were spread out back then, too, so I guess not too much has changed. Some of us just don't see each other as often as we used to, but eventually we all end up getting together somewhere and somehow.


Went to work this morning (which was pleasantly boring) and then to Korrine and Kelly's house warming party, which was a good time. I enjoyed watching Korrine and Kelly's respective parents, who were all funny. And good food and nice folks and several heated games of Catch Phrase. What could be wrong with that?


More work tomorrow. Not looking forward to it. Sean wrote me yesterday and inquired if I would be up for an Alaska trip in the not-so-distant future to do some recording. Hell yes! It's all a matter of timing. I really wouldn't be available until February, and I hope that's not too long for him to wait to get his recording done...

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Errata.

I'm not even sure what "errata" even means. And I'm too lazy to go look it up. Today I'm using it to mean "random things."

There's a new gang of thieves that have been hitting the B&N. A different guy every day, but all stealing in the same way (handing DVD sets over the wall by the escalator). So every day when I go in I wonder, "What got stolen yesterday?" I have been using the video to figure out who they are and how they're doing it, and I actually have caught two of the guys and kicked them out, but I still worry that they're going to keep coming back. So today's my day off but I'm worrying about work, and I'll probably stop by the B&N when I go to the gym, just to go through the video to see if anything got stolen last night. Sigh.

Other than that, not much going on. Jeannie started her new job on Tuesday, and seems to be having somewhat mixed feelings. She likes the people that she's met, but she seems to not like the design or building materials for the houses that they're actually building. But maybe, in the course of her job, she can work to make the design and materials better, yes? I think she's going to end up really loving this job, once she feels comfortable enough to dig into the deep stuff. But, she has only worked there 2 days, so at this point she's just learning names and figuring out where to eat lunch and shit like that. She said she's feeling a bit underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time.

And now for the "errata":

I don't know if you hop over to Old Aunt Amy's blog regularly, but if you don't you should go look at this picture. It makes me happy every time I see it.

A few weeks ago, Jeannie and I were looking up menus online for restaurants close to our house. We came across this wedsite for the Paper Moon Diner, which we both found pretty hypnotic. I love its simplicity.


****EDIT****

Ok, because I'm a sucker for grammar and usage I went and looked up errata and it turns out I'm a dummy and I'm using it totally wrong. But you know what? I'm gonna leave it so that in a few years when I'm really smart I can look back and have a big laugh at what a moron I was.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

4 Days With Bill & Sue

Well, my parents have come and gone, and it was a good visit. Here's the quick breakdown:

Thursday: I spent the morning cleaning and then took a nap until my parents arrived. They were later than they thought they'd be because they got a bad flat tire on the way here (outside of Cumberland) and had to get their car towed to get 2 new tires. When they got into town, I went to pick them up at their hotel and then the four of us headed to Tamber's for dinner.



Friday: We headed down to Chincoteague Island, which is on the Atlantic Ocean about three and a half hours away. Cute little old seaside town. We drove around a little bit, checked into our hotel (which was beautiful) and then headed to the Assateague National Seashore to hang out on the beach. That night after dinner, the Jeanners and I hit the hot tub room in the hotel, which was pretty nice, and had a relaxing soak.



Saturday: Headed back to the beach, drove around a different part of the island, and then headed back for Baltimore. My parents went back to their hotel to relax a bit, and the Jeanners and I started watching the first episode of The Wire.



Sunday: This morning we took my parents to church and then walked around the farmers' market downtown for a bit. Then had breakfast at Burke's, and my parents headed towards home.

It was a good time. I'm sure not gonna want to go to work tomorrow. The Jeanners starts her new job tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. Anyway, I feel like I just wrote a lot of "we did this, then we did this" type bullshit, so now I want to write a little bit of description: right now Jeannie is putting away some of the stuff she had out to make her dinner--peppers, cilantro, lettuce. We've got a mix of Greg Brown stuff playing ("Who Woulda Thunk It?") and there's still a bit of sunshine coming in through the kitchen window. Our kitchen is starting to look a little bit lived in again after being very clean and bare for my parents visit. Jeannie's barefoot, wearing a denim skirt and a white tank top. She looks good. I've got on a white undershirt (surprise, surprise) and some khaki cargo shorts that I've been wearing for quite a few days. I just drank a big glass of orange juice to try and get rid of my cold, and I had two turkey sandwiches on toast for dinner. I've talked myself out of a milkshake because I'm getting too fat. I bought a new red and black lumberjack shirt today at our local secondhand shop. I have a hard time passing up lumberjack shirts. Jeannie and I are both pretty tired, and we'll probably watch another episode of The Wire tonight before we go to bed.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Catch That Beet, Crazy Motherf*$#er!

Well, I finished my 7 day work stretch, and I'm looking at 4 sweet days off, spent frolicking in the (hopefully) sun and spending some quality time with my folks and with the J-Dog. My parents should be arriving tomorrow afternoon, so I'm spending tonight doing some straightening and cleaning. Well, actually, right now I'm eating a turkey sandwich and drinking a beer, but later on I'm gonna do some cleaning and straightening. Tomorrow morning: laundry and deep-clean of the bathroom.

Haven't been doing a whole lot lately. Working a bunch, and going through old pictures and videos to see if there's anything fun to put up on the ol' facebook site. Found some old videos of the Beej from one night back at the house on 37th Street when he and Aimee and I were sitting around playing with the video camera. He make-ah dah funny faces.

Had a dream last night that I got shot by a shoplifter. He shot me four times in my booby.

That's about it. I was feeling kinda sicky today at work, but I think mostly I just need a good night's rest and a morning when I can sleep in as late as I want. Tomorrow!

Saturday, September 15, 2007

BREAKING NEWS!

E. Elz is coming to Baltimore. Lock up your daughters, sons, and gaudy fake gold jewelry.

End of October.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Conserving my Energy

In order to build up some days off for when my folks come visit, I'm working a long stretch at work this week. And, so I don't get absolutely sick of it, I've been conserving my energy, which means that when I go to work I try not to do much of anything. I succeeded very well last night, we'll see if I can keep it up tonight.

Not too much else has been going on. It's strangely hot in the apartment today and I'm sweating, even though it's not that hot outside. I've got a couple loads of laundry in down at the laundromat, and I'm trying to decide what to eat. Leaning towards hotdogs, but it seems like it might be too early in the day.

That's about it, really.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Law and Order of the 90's....the 1890's!

Well, it has now been about a month and a half since our TV broke, and Jeannie and I have found a few different ways of entertaining ourselves in the laughless void we call our lives. First of all, we've been watching ROME via Netflix. Great show. But we've finished that. We have lately discovered, though, that you can watch streaming television shows on Netflix now, which is kind of interesting.

But the main new way that I've been entertaining myself sans TV is by this strange new thing called reading. I had heard people talk of this reading at the store where I work, but it always sounded so boring, and the people who were talking about it were so annoying that for the past few years, I have generally abstained.

But I recently dug out an old book of mine that has all the original Sherlock Holmes stories as they appeared in the Strand magazine in 1891-1905. I have come to the conclusion that reading Sherlock Holmes was the late-nineteenth century equivalent of watching Law and Order, and here's why:

1. The stories are short and, for the most part, self contained. Each story is about 5-10 pages long and there's no real story arc for the series. You could pick any story at random and be able to follow along.

2. Each individual story is not all that good, yet you feel strangely compelled to keep reading more stories.

3. Each story pretty much has the same structure. I swear to god, every time Holmes and Watson get in a cab to go somewhere other than Baker Street, in my head I hear this sound.

So anyway, Sherlock Holmes. Not the greatest literature in the world, but kind of addictive.

On the whole, I've enjoyed not having a TV. The Jeanners and I still watch some stuff via Netflix on the computer, but it cuts out all the "crap watching," like Friends reruns at dinnertime or Judge Judy at 3 in the afternoon when you're off work. Now we just watch shows we really want to watch and only when there's not really anything else to do.

Not too much else going on. Hotel plans and whatnot have been finalized for my parents' visit next week. We're heading down to Chincoteague Island for a night and staying here. I'm pretty excited.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

The Skinny

Here's what's been going on, in descending order of importance:

1. My ladyfriend, Jeannie, has been offered and accepted a new job with H. for Humanity. She's been wanting to change jobs for awhile and has done a lot of work looking and searching, and mulling over what the right job would be, and so I'm really happy and proud that she got it. What this means: it means that we'll probably be in Baltimore for another 2 years, that we might be able to save a little bit more money, and that we might be in a better position to move (and for Jeannie to go back to school) at the end of the 2 years. Right now 2 more years seems like a long time to stay at the B&N (probably because The Jeanners and I had been talking about moving a bit sooner than that) but I suppose if it gets too boring I shall have to just find another job.

2. The other day I yanked a long crinkly hair out of my beard that was a little too pube-like for my liking. It grossed me out, but I checked and the rest of my beard hairs are all nice and straight.

3. We have worked out some of the details of my parents' visit. It looks like they'll be coming out on the weekend of September 20-23 and we're going to head down to Chincoteague Island, VA for some beaching and exploring.

4. I've been enjoying Facebook a little too much. I just like the way their photo applications work. I like looking at everybody's pictures and tagging people and stuff. Anyway, I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a few days and then I will stop being such a dork.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Assbook

Well, I have bitten the proverbial bullet and gotten myself a facebook account. I have done so for several reasons:

A) Schlueter has a Facebook account and I do not like to lag behind Schlueter technologically, socially, or in any other way.

2) One of my favorite activities (and I'm sure if you're reading this blog it's probably one of yours, too) is "checking my shit." When I wake up or when I get home from work, I enjoy the ritual of going through my bookmarks, checking up on people's blogs, seeing if anyone has magically deposited money in my bank account, reading updates about what Bono's been up to, looking at spam messages on my MySpace page, and now, poking people via Facebook. In my opinion, any chance to stretch out the time I spend "checking my shit" is a chance to decrease the time I spend doing dishes or idly sweating.

C) Elz-ee-poo recommended it to me.

Speaking of which, I spoke to Mr. Elz on the phone the other night, and despite what you might have inferred from his lack of blog-posting, he is not dead. He has been working a lot (as usual) but at a new job, and we currently negotiating dates for The Great E. Elz Visit To Baltimore of '07.

Hmm, what else? I had two days off in a row, and as a result was kinda scared to go back to work yesterday, but to my delight found that Korn had maintained complete control over the department in my absence and the place was just great.

So, I have spent this morning uploading a buttload of pictures to my new Facebook account, sitting in my undies, and sweating.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Addendum

I realized this evening that I can't really remember whether I actually met Nikolai Volkoff or whether my boss just told me that he was in the store. I have a vague memory of ringing him up at the cash register, but sometimes my mind just makes memories up.

Also, I'm convinced that in the Robert Urich photo, he was holding that pen in such a way as to show off how massive his manly hands really are/were. Whenever I see that picture, I am reminded exactly what my place in the world is. And what it is not.


The Jeanners and I had another pretty perfect day today. Her boss is out of town, so
she had the day off, and I had the day off, so we drove down to DC and walked along a trail in Rock Creek Park, which ended at the National Zoo, so we walked around the zoo a little bit and looked at the snakes and gorillas.

The Hamill Camel

Yesterday at the store I met a 1976 Olympic Gold Medalist figure skater. She was buying a bunch of classical music (and also asked where the Barry Manilow stuff was, although she didn't buy any). So, I will add her to the list of celebrities I have seen in real life, which I will now rank by famousness:

1. Bono and The Edge (they could be listening to my CD RIGHT NOW!)
2. Dave Chappelle
3. Dorothy Hamill
4. The late great Robert Urich (note how tan and manly he is/was and how white and smarmy I am...) [note the size of his damned hands!]
5. Nikolai Volkoff
6. The new lead singer of INXS
7. Flippy the Magnificent
8. Joel Higgins (met in a very stinky bathroom of the Muny Opera in St. Louis, where he was putting in his contact lenses and claimed that he did not make the stink.)


On Saturday, Jeannie and I had a pretty perfect day: did some dishes, went to a state park and walked around, came home and had a picnic on the roof, headed down to Fells Point for drinks with Bewley, and topped it off with a good episode of Rome. If you can think of a better way to spend a day I'd love to hear it...



There a new live Greg Brown CD out today, called Yellow Dog. For all the Midwestern homies in tha house.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

RVG

For the Past few months, I have been cultivating an addiction, and I might now be powerless to stop myself from buying CD's in the Rudy Van Gelder Remasters series. It all started (strangely enough) one year ago today when I purchased Coleman Hawkins' The Hawk Relaxes. Ever since, I've kinda become obsessed with getting CD's in this series. Rudy Van Gelder is a producer/recording engineer who has recorded a lot of undeniably great jazz players over the last 5 decades, and while the merits of his production have been debated online and such, I'm a big fan of his stuff. So far, I've been focusing on tenor sax quartets and quintets recorded between 1957 and 1962. I especially love quintets that have a tenor sax and a trombone. I will now, for no particular reason, list my Favorite Tenor Sax players:

1. Coleman Hawkins
2. Hank Mobley
3. Sonny Rollins
4. John Coltrane

Not a big fan of the alto sax, but I do like Paul Desmond.

I got into jazz by listening to Miles Davis, but now I generally hate the way a trumpet sounds.

Anyway, there are apparently like 170 CD's in the series, of which I own maybe 12-15. So my knowledge is pretty tiny at this point. But I've been buying a CD every couple of weeks, so maybe by 2010 I'll have the whole series. Christmas, anyone?

Next purchase on the list: JJ Johnson, The Eminent, Vol. 2

Friday, August 31, 2007

Days Go By

Can't believe it's almost been a week since I last wrote. Work has been dominating my time and thoughts, mostly because I was training some manager folk for a few days this week. Training people sucks because you have to put aside all the work that you should be doing in order to take the time to train them, and then as you're training them you're pointing out all the areas in which you aren't doing things the correct way. So when I finished training them on Wednesday I felt terribly behind and like I do nothing right.

Luckily, I was able to get a lot done yesterday and get caught up and stopped caring about whether I'm doing things right. So today I'm feeling back-to-normal.

Also from work, a few updates about Sportcoat Guy. Tom (the guy who's in charge of Loss Prevention for our district) has, by working with the state police, been able to find out Sportcoat Guy's name and address. and apparently Sportcoat Guy's last name is....wait for it....COAT. Or maybe it's Coate. Or Cote. Anyway, I think it's funny that Sportcoat Guy's real last name is Coat. Also, he was in the store the other day, but just walked in and saw me and then turned around and left.

What else? Jeannie is, at this very moment, at a job interview for Hab. for Human. This time, though, it would be a real paying gig rather than the volunteer job that she had a few years ago. So I'm excited to hear how that goes. I think she would be really good for the job, because it's a combination of being on the construction sites and also being in charge of the AmeriCorp volunteers and doing some office stuff. I think she'd enjoy it.

Also been talking with my parents about the possibility of them coming out for a visit in September. It's been awhile since they've been out, and they've never seen our current place, so I think it would be nice if they could come. We're going to try and sort out some of the logistics as soon as we find out if Jeannie's gonna have a new job or not.

Looking forward to being off work tomorrow. Get to play with my ladyfriend during the day and then it's off to drink with Bewley! (who is in town on her first visit back since moving to Chicago...)