Let's compare your male device and my I am sure that my is bigger

This is gonna be a three part blog.

Part I: The title is yet another spam e-mail that I received today. My spams have begun to taunt me.


Part II: Today is the Jeanners' birthday. Happy birthday Jeanners! We both worked out our schedules to be off work (mostly), so after I worked this morning until 9am, we put on our long underwear and walked downtown . It was fun because it was cold and it started to snow while we were walking and it felt good to be off work together on a weekday and walking through the city. It took us about an hour to get downtown and we headed to the Federal Hill neighborhood to get some lunch, where we had some kick-ass pad thai (Jeannie = tofu, me = shrimp) at Thai Arroy. After lunch, we headed to the science center, because for her special day, Jeannie wanted to see the Body Worlds 2 exhibit, which if you don't know, consists of dead bodies that have been 'plastinated', which means that through some super-secret German process, the tissue is basically turned into a type of plastic and prevented from decaying. Then the bodies are kinda dissected and put into weird positions, and we get to look at them. I think that Jeannie and I were both kinda underwhelmed, because in the end everything looked pretty plastic-y, maybe only a step above one of those plastic torsos that you might use in a high school anatomy class. But, if you ever want to see some penises, you might want to consider seeing the Body Worlds 2 exhibit. (Because it has penises in it.)

Then, since we were at the science center already, we went and saw U2 in 3D at the Imax theater. I would like to point out that I did not force Jeannie to go see this on her birthday. In fact, I told her that I would go by myself some other time and she didn't have to go at all. But she wanted to. I was pretty disappointed with the whole thing. The 3D was pretty cool, but the show itself basically had all the bad parts of U2 (pretension, ego, preaching, etc.) without being very interesting musically or artistically or anything. The coolest part, I thought, was seeing the drum kit in 3D. And that's kinda sad, because I think the movie was shooting a lot higher than that.

So then the Jeanners and I walked home, and since we've been home we've been making an apple pie.


Part III: a few minutes ago, the J-Dog and I were talking, and I said that I thought having a time machine would be just about the coolest thing ever, and Jeannie said that she disagrees, that she would rather be able to fly. Which I think is total bullshit crap. I think it would be cool to fly, but it would probably get old after maybe an hour and a half or so. But with time travel, you have a lot more options. If you get tired of hanging out in dinosaur times, then you could go to the Wild West. Or you could visit past events in your life. The options are pretty much endless.

Poo time.

Puzzler

Delta

I found this. I remember it from the late 90's. We used to listen to it at Truman. Pat and I were talking about it the other night when J-Dog and I had dinner with him and T-Bone. You probably don't want to play it at work...

Ice Cream Social

Well, dammit, it's been a good weekend already and it's only half over...

In the past few days, the J-Dog and I have gotten to go see DOLL'S HOUSE, hang out with folks after the show, hang out with the A-Train, see MAW for a brief but nonetheless satisfying visit, start a puzzle (Thanks, Korn!), lounge around, and clean our apartment. Oh, and I bought ice cream the other day.

So the show was good, and we enjoyed hanging out with people after the show (in an effort to fulfill our new years' resolution to BE MORE SOCIAL), and then Jeannie and I went in tonight after the show to strike the set for the week. And we ended up going out again with some people. Which was fun. We're becoming quite the social butterflies, I suppose. Staying up till after 1am for two nights in a row!

Went out to dinner tonight with Aimee, which was good, as we haven't hung out for awhile. It seems that we're all in the same boat in that we don't know what to do with our lives. Does that ever go away? Although, really, I can't complain too much, because I don't really care what I do with my life, so the question only rarely rears it's head and bugs me. I wonder why I've never felt too pressured to actually do anything with my life? I'm relatively content to sit and stare and watch it go by, and I don't feel too much guilt about that. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Eh, who gives a shit, really. Life is about sitting at tables and talking to people over beers, anyway. Enjoying each other. Don't think about it too much.

Well, my ladyfriend is waiting for me in the boudoir (for sleepy time), but I still have to go poo poo before I make the sleepy, so I really should leave now.

Confidential to Aimee:

Outsized boner for you and your gf!

Yet another fun spam message...

The Finish Line

Well, I'm not really at the finish line yet, but I am enjoying my first day off work where I haven't had to go work on the set in a long time. The show opens tomorrow night, and while most of my work is done, I'll still have to go in every Friday to remount the set and then take it down again at the end of every weekend. Here's how the set is looking:





How shall I spend my day? I had planned on a big celebratory bacon n' schmeggs breakfast, but I just started frying up the bacon (which is very old, because I haven't had many opportunities for big bacon n' schmegg breakfasts lately) and it smells really funky. So I have aborted the celebratory breakfast idea. Perhaps I'll have a celebratory Chinese lunch instead. I also need to pay our utilities bill. And I might do some shopping.

The ol' ear is still ringing. It seems like it might be a little better today than it was yesterday.

Also, I found out today that local NPR personality (and frequent B&N customer) Marc Steiner has been fired from our local NPR station. Sucky. He's a real nice guy, and has been a pretty important local media figure here for a long time. Anyway, if you're at all interested in Marc Steiner, read all about the hullaballoo here.

And you can tell I've been busy because, Jesus Christ, the new season of LOST started last week and I haven't even had time to write about it! My thoughts:
a) my god, it seems like the writing has gotten worse. The dialogue sucks.
b) the story is still good, and it's what keeps me tuning in (or illegally downloading).

c)
This guy is on LOST now (at least, he was in the season premiere.) You might recognize him from THE WIRE, but I recognize him from the B&N, where he has purchased stuff from time to time. So now I know one of the LOST cast members, which makes me both cool and lame.


Also, I've been listening to an album called The Animal Years, by Josh Ritter, which was recommended to me by Teresa and burned for me by Patrick. It's a damn good, straightforward, singer-songwriter type CD. Some sample lyrics that stood out when I first listened:
"The lake was a diamond in the valley's hand," and "The keys to the kingdom are locked inside the kingdom." Good stuff.

Come again?

It's nice to know that I can always count on Knese's Emergency Pudding for an afternoon chuckle...

On Saturday I was working on the set and doing some manly hammering. (Mental Note: Manly Hammering would be a good band name.) Unfortunately, the manly hammering has left me with some hearing loss, as ever since Saturday I have only heard ringing in my right ear. So hopefully the ringing will go away because right now it's kinda giving me a headache, plus I can't really hear. One time when the J-Dog and I went to see The Twilight Singers at Fletcher's, my ears rang for about a week after the show, so I'm gonna wait a few days to see if it goes away before I go to see a doctor.

The set is looking ok. It's pretty close to how I pictured it in my head when the whole process started, except that the color that I painted the doors looks kinda dumb, and the doors are not as sturdy as I would've hoped. But I think it's still pretty good.

Get Down With the Jeannie

Today, while listening to my MP3 player on random, I heard for the first time a song by Kool and the Gang from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack called "Open Sesame." After hearing this song, I have decided that Jeannie and I have to travel back in time and get married again so that this song can be our first dance at our wedding. It is truly a great song. How could I have overlooked it when I was looking for potential first dance songs? The chorus is "Get down with the genie." It's basically a song about a genie who does magical things, and every now and again the genie will shout out things like "Shazam!" or "Ala Kazaam!", and at one point in the song the genie declares, "I am the genie of sound!"

I will have to one day post this song so you can hear it cause it's really good.

"Don't be shame by reason of of your jang length" (sic)

I love the subject lines of the spams I get. That one was from Dr. Alberto Gilmore.

Is it better to give than to receive?

The receiving manager job at the B&N is going to be opening up again. I'm considering applying for it, just to shake things up a little bit. Plus, then I could hire back BJ when he moves back to Baltimore...

Tom Waits is Awesome.

Listening to an interview with Tom Waits on NPR. He's pretty awesome.

Jeannie was slicing a jalapeno pepper and then got some of the oil in her eye. She was jumping around and whining like a little baby and then ended up pouring milk in her eye. That seemed to help.

I've been a total flake lately. I need to get my shit together.

I'm kicking the caffeine habit this weekend, as I seem to do about once a year. Caffeine is evil, I think. It turns me into a little bitch.

Tomorrow, rehearsal at HCCA. This week's gonna be a busy week, training some folks at work and then jetting to HCCA to finish up the set.

In my mind, me and the J-Dog are disappearing, running off to a deserted island. Waling on a lonely dark road into the woods. Getting on a plane and stepping off somewhere in the desert. Swimming in a lake somewhere where it's cold.

The Water and the Mud, oh, The Water and the Mud.

Just got home from a meeting at Ian's place regarding the theatre company and our relatively immediate - slash - long term space needs. It was a good potluck dinner meeting, and while not a whole lot of really useful stuff came out of it, I think it at least got the ball rolling and planted some seeds in our heads.

Saturday night the J-Dog and I headed down to Pat and Teresa's cute new house outside of DC, and Pat's brother (Jake) and Jake's very pregnant wife (Carol) were there, and we had a tasty dinner of spaghetti and what I would say were Teresa's best meatballs ever. [actually, Teresa said they were her best, and while I agree that they were tasty meatballs, I've never had any of her other meatballs, and therefore can't really make the comparison. But I'll take her word for it and just say that they were her best meatballs ever] Then, after dinner we had what turned out to be quite a heated game of Phase 10, in which bad language was thrown around and I threatened to both divorce Jeannie and stick my thumb up Pat's butt. I am glad to report, though, that no threats (or curses) were made about Jake and Carol's unborn child (unlike some card games that I've heard about in the past). Anyway, the whole evening was just a damn good time, and it was nice to have a fun night playing cards and shooting the shit with a group of good folks.

My five days off work is over, and while I'm sad that it's over I have to say that I really enjoyed it. As previously reported, I've been feeling shitty and depressed lately, and after about day 3 of being away from work I started feeling more like myself again. So that is a good thing. I can now focus on getting the set for the show finished up, and not taking work too seriously, and life should be good in tha hood.

After reading about the poisonous chemicals (allegedly) leached by Nalgene bottles, Jeannie and I are pretty convinced that our future potential offspring will be blessed with a cornucopia of deformity and handicapped-ness.

Rumors in the air of a possible BJ visit in the foreseeable future...

So Much To Say

So much has been going on since I last wrote...where to begin?

First of all, I'm on day 2 of a nice long 5 day stretch of days off. It all happened by accident, when somebody at the Noble wanted to pick up hours and I decided to give them some of my shifts and use personal time. So anyway, long story short, I've got all weekend off. Unfortunately, the J-Dog has to work on Saturday, elsewise we would get our asses on the highway and jet off to Ohio for a quick one.

So I spent all day yesterday working on the set for DOLL'S HOUSE out at HCCA. Unfortunately, there's no place indoors where we're currently allowed to do any building, so I ended up having to work outside on the parking lot. And doubly unfortunately, both of our jigsaws broke, and I forgot to bring our circular saw, so I ended up having to make all my cuts with a shitty hand saw. So the work was slow, and I got less done that I probably could have had all gone smoothly, but I got enough done to feel satisfied. Then I hung around rehearsal a little bit, and got to talk to Pat, which I enjoyed and which I have not had nearly enough of lately.

Other interesting news: my cousin Mark sent me a bunch of his songs. Most of them are just him and an acoustic guitar, sung into a tape recorder (or maybe a 4-track). I haven't listened to them all yet, but I did get a chance to play around with one of the songs this morning, and have posted the results. I think it turned out ok.

Also: my aunt called this evening to tell me that she and my uncle and another aunt and uncle are going to be in the DC area next week, so on Thursday I'm gonna try and head down there to spend the day with them. Should be a decent time.

I've been very happy with the CD's I've gotten lately. Here's a roundup:

1. Brian Eno, Before and After Science. A very classic "Eno" album, half composed of goofy, super catchy glam pop songs and half slow, dreamy synth songs. I only skip one song on the album, and it's a very short song. My favorite lyrics are from the song "Backwater":

But If You Study the Logistics
And Heuristics of the Mystics
You Will Find That Their Minds Rarely Move in a Line
So It's Much More Realistic
To Abandon Such Ballistics
And Resign to Be Trapped On a Leaf in a Vine.

2. White Williams, Smoke. Sounds like someone playing melted David Bowie records. There are a few songs that I skip on the CD, but overall, still pleased with the purchase.

3. Death Cab For Cutie, Transatlanticism. This album is a few years old, and I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do, but there are a lot of really good songs on this album. Tracks 3 through 5 is my favorite three-song stretch that I've heard since the first three songs on the The Joshua Tree.

4. Radiohead, In Rainbows. I have mixed feelings towards Radiohead. Usually I end up skipping half the songs on their albums and absolutely adoring the other half. With this record, I only end up skipping about 30%, and the other 70% is really solid. On about every third Radiohead album, they end up writing the perfect song, and on this one I think they nail it with "All I Need".



Tonight Jeannie cough-puked tea on the couch and floor. It really wasn't a puke, it was a cough, but it looked like a puke.

It snowed today! After working on music this morning, I drove up to Towson to go to a going-away party for Marlene (who is one of the good managers at the B&N and who is leaving to go to the Bel Air store. Bel Air, Maryland. Not Bel Air, Will Smith.), and when I got to Towson (normally a 20 minute trip that took me an hour today in the snow) I found out that they had canceled the party. So I drove back home, and it took me another hour to get home. People in Baltimore just don't know how to drive in the snow (or rain). But it was pretty. I was on North Charles up near Towson, where it's kinda woodsy, and all the trees were white with snow, and it was pretty perfect. Plus, I got an extra long time to listen to Brian Eno in the car, which isn't a bad thing.


Tomorrow: more work on the set. I gotta find or build a bookshelf and then start working on the window unit. Maybe a trip to Baltimore Stage Lighting, too.

Dick Dick Dick Dock

Dick Dick Dick Dock is the new band name that I came up with last night for maybe one day when I have a band. I think I will start storing band names on this here blog. Past band names include Paco and the Shitballs, and Jesus and the Rhythm Methodists. I have since found out, however, that the Rhythm Methodists is a fairly common band name. My Rhythm Methodists, though, was gonna be a big soul band with horns and shit.

Last night Jeannie and I went to the library downtown but it was closed. So then we went to Fells Point, where I bought 2 cd's from The Sound Garden. We then went to the Duclaw (which is now smoke free! And although I am a huge fan of smoking and I luv it, luv it, luv it, and although I think a smoking ban is totally bullshit and a violation of my [and most especially bar-owners'] muthaf@#$kin' rights, I have to say it was pretty awesome going to a bar and coming home smelling not like shit. Or at least no more like shit than I normally smell.), and had beers. Which was fun. The 2 CD's I bought were Before and After Science, by Brian Eno, and Smoke by White Williams. I listened to both CD's a bunch today and am enjoying them both very much. They go together very well. Smoke sounds kind of like an album that Brian Eno might make if he were just starting out today, I think. Although that's not really an original thought, because I read it in a review and that's what made me get the album in the first place.

I still seem to be existing in a cloud of self-pity. "I'm tired of my job...", "I don't have any friends...", blah blah blah. It's boring to write about and I'm sure it's boring to read about and it's boring to listen to. But nonetheless, it is what I'm thinking and feeling. Although over the last couple of days my active hatred of the job has settled into more of a deadening boredom. Which I think I can deal with. I'm usually pretty good at handling boredom.

Tomorrow morning I'm gonna make me some bacon n' schmeggs, and read some Great Expectations, and then go to work.

I-Haul

This morning I drove out to Ellicott City to rent a truck so I could pick up the doors and windows and lumber for the DOLL'S HOUSE. For some reason, as I drove out through Ellicott City, I found myself missing Pat and BJ a lot. It's kinda put me in a bit of a funk. I miss my friends and I feel like Baltimore just feels kinda empty. So...I got some good stuff done today (and it was a beautiful day, perfect for driving around with a window down) but I feel kinda crappy nonetheless.

I was contemplating calling out sick tomorrow, but I don't think I'm going to.

My new recording equipment arrived, and I think that the new preamp will be nice, but I'm not sure how much I'll use the new mic. Nonetheless, probably everybody should have a Shure SM58 in their bag of shit.

Hmmm. Just haven't felt like writing much lately.

MuthaFuckabee

I would like to take this opportunity to voice my support for Mike Huckabee, who totally kicked ass in last night's Iowa caucus. The Iowa caucus is, by the way, my favorite caucus. With the exception, of course, of the Black caucus. The Black caucus is definitely my favorite caucus. But the Iowa caucus is a pretty good caucus, too, as far as caucuses go.

When the future movie is made of president Huckabee's life, I hope he is played by



two time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey.


This is why Mike Huckabee gets my vote and my lifelong allegiance:




But enough about Mike Huckabee, my choice for future President of the United States of America. The real issue at hand is that my wife is sick. She has a cold and she hasn't slept for four (4) nights. I love my wife and I want her to get better. Pray for her, Mike Huckabee!

Sorry. Don't know why Huckabee is on the brain tonight. I just think that pretty much everything about him is funny.

Seriously, though, the J-Dog is illin'.

This is not my beautiful wife

I have been feeling a bit out of it lately, been feeling not like myself. I think this is a by-product of Christmas. I seem to recall feeling similar last year. Basically, things get all crazy for awhile and I get used to being in a totally work-oriented mode and I kinda get a little adrenaline rush and then we rush out of town and then rush back and I work a bunch to get things back to normal at work and then once everything gets kinda settled I'm just not really sure what's going on. So that's where I am now. But here's a few things that I'm sure of:

1. I'm excited by the idea of working on my cousin Mark's songs. I have always longed for someone who would write all the material and then I just get to play and record it. I think that that's pretty much exactly what this project will be like. I remember hearing a couple of his songs back when I was around 12 years old and I liked them then, so hopefully I'll still like them.

2. I enjoyed the hike the other day with Katie and me wife. And I enjoyed New Years Eve.

3. I like the way my new T-Shirt that says "Oh, by the way...I'M AWESOME" (that I got as a secret Santa gift) looks underneath my blue plaid lumberjack shirt. It's very hipster.

4. I need to spend like, a month alone with the Jeanners. Traveling. I feel like we haven't gotten to have any fun adventures in awhile.

5. I bought a new microphone and new preamp today. The microphone is just a good ol' Shure SM58, which I'm kinda excited about because I remember vocals being much easier to record before I had a fancy microphone. So hopefully if the new equipment makes recording vocals a lot easier, I'll record a lot more songs with vocals again.

6. I must get in touch with Sean about the planned trip to Alaska. I have been looking for good deals on flights, and the price has gone down slightly over the last month, but I must find out if there are any new developments on his end.

7. I need to actually go to the Loading Dock and look for some good doors and door frames for the set for DOLLS HOUSE. If I go there and they don't have doors and door frames, then I'm kinda screwed. Or at least I'll have more work to do than I originally planned. And, once I get the doors in hand, I can stop thinking/worrying about them.

8. It's bedtime. I gotsta get up at 5:45 tomorrow morning.

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.

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.

It's All Worthwhile

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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...