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