Which Office character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Jim Halpert You're Jim! That's so cool, Jim's awesome. Jim Halpert 60% Jan Levinson 60% Pam Beesly 55% Ryan Howard 55% Angela Martin 55% Michael Scott 50% Dwight Schrute 30%

(okay, so I had to take five different quizzes to get jim. but I didn't take any twice or skew my answers!)

all my usual complaints aside, it's rare that I genuinely find myself In A Crisis. my issues are usually limited to a lifespan of a day or two; they rarely interfere with my ability to function normally and in a cheerful and productive fashion. in psych courses you cover what coping mechanisms people use In A Crisis. dietary habits change, as do sleeping habits and substance use. all that good stuff. but because my setbacks are limited to a single sleep-wake cycle or two, I have from time to time wondered just what my ways of coping are. I'm not saying that I've never felt seriously disturbed, only that most of the major problems are--thankfully--far enough between that I don't give it much thought.

take note: when In A Crisis, jeremy drinks too much, sleeps too little, and eats next to nothing. if I forget, I'll have this entry to refresh my memory.

leading up to the primaries, some candidates are becoming progressively more visible while others are losing ground quickly. want to be able to stick up for the underdog? want to support a front runner with a ringing affirmative? take a fun online quiz.

bet you never knew what the phrase "piping hot" actually means. I didn't.

I think I'd be much happier if I could go around with a dave brubeck song stuck in my head constantly.

jillions of people have seen the film the graduate, but I've never met anyone besides myself who has read the novel by charles webb. that's a shame; webb has a very unique writing style, very heavy on deadpan dialogue. forty years after penning the graduate he has published a sequel entitled home school. it has received favorable reviews and my copy is on the way. I'm excited all out of proportion, as fans of the ben/elaine/mrs. robinson triangle really should be.

I only hope that it's a satisfying read. I hate it when an author publishes a sequel to a novel I love only to have events take a rotten turn. if the book is by a different writer you can say, "oh, well. it really doesn't count." but sometimes the original author whips up a real stinker. anyone read son of rosemary? don't. because guess what? everything that happens in rosemary's baby is a DREAM. yep, the whole novel doesn't happen. sometimes I wonder about ira levin.

edit: have just discovered that he died in november. alas.

oh, today's my birthday. don't get all excited; I'm not. I was already cranky about turning twenty-seven for various reasons. then, in her grand tradition of noticing the most delightfully random aspects of the obvious, ali mentioned that "twenty-seven has the most syllables of any age we've ever been." yikes.

at any rate, I think this clip sums it all up nicely:

romantically involved white male seeks person to provide sense of direction. open to any and all possibilities. applicants must show skill in showing people what the hell they should do with their lives. non smoker a plus.

the other day justin was kicking around the idea of our moving to asheville once he gets his degree. I was iffy, but look at the ellington--a hotel with condos to be constructed this year. some people in asheville are against it as being a bit too hulking for downtown, but how can you not love a building as "ghostbusters" as this? mark my words: in the unlikely event we move, it'll be here.

also: the onion radio news always makes me laugh, but for some reason this most recent clip almost had me on the floor. probably because it sounds so familiar.

fun way to mess with someone: randomly walk up to him/her and say, "you know, it's people like you who make this country great." I tested that one tonight and the results were satisfying.

speaking of patriotism, is it wrong that I think omar osama bin laden is kind of...attractive? don't answer that.

I can't believe we're actually having some winter weather. bring it on.

david cronenberg says a lot of quotable things. I think my favorite is:

"my dentist said to me the other day: I've enough problems in my life, so why should I see your films?"

in closing, here's a picture of a capybara. no particular reason, I just like them.

it's taken me years to break down and watch it, but I finally have to admit: "the office" really is the best show on tv. not since the dearly departed "arrested development" have I been so enamored of a sitcom. however, I discovered something that should be distressing to fellow fans...there is no chili's in scranton.

watching "the office" has also made me come to an upsetting conclusion. its ratings, like those of A.D., have never been that high. so many of the best shows on tv just don't get big audiences, and I think I've ascertained why. no laugh track. it seems most americans need to be told when it's okay to laugh. if they don't hear other people laughing, it must not be funny. I'm glad I finally realized this. it makes me feel more secure in the knowledge that I'm better than everyone else.

most funnest fattening hobby ever: making ice cream. justin got me a machine for Christmas and it's so addictive.

mike huckabee = scary. so let's laugh at him.

that's hot. er, I mean shocking, terribly shocking. despite dr. anderson's assertions to the contrary, though, I can't believe that the exclusive use of cheerleaders as a sample didn't affect the results. I mean, really.

why is it that computer literacy and plain old literacy seem to be at odds? I can barely stand to go on any message boards anymore. I can understand taking shortcuts when you're texting, IMing, and the like. but let's have some periods in our posts, some commas in our comments. and PLEASE work on your basic spelling skills. whenever I'm reading someone's opinion or review, I immediately stop caring when I see that they can't put a sentence together. it makes you seem unintelligent. ergo, you must be wrong. it's not that hard to grasp. I'm terrified that in a few years people won't be able to use syntax or grammar if their lives depend on it. and if I get my hands on some of these nimrods, they will.

I know, it's nothing new. but it still hasn't gotten old.



oh, and happy new year!

well, the yuletide spirit has been purged until next season. low key holiday at home with debbie and her family away in a manger (read: harrisburg), but nice otherwise. I'm taking bets on when the cleanup process will finish. insider tip--we still have to completely straighten up from '06.

my biggest Christmas present was to myself, though: a new computer. it was time. my old machine hated me, that was the only explanation. I did so much for him and he repaid me with heartache. all the new hardware, repeated os reinstalls, to no avail. that's not to say--ahem--that I wouldn't recommend him to a new home, one who might be less demanding. so he's up for sale.

new pc, ergo I finally had to bite the bullet and switch to vista. I have likes and dislikes. even with a fast beast like this one I had to disable most of the flashier features to get full performance. according to my firewall it's MUCH more secure than xp, though, and it hasn't crashed yet...knock all possible wood. and reports of poor backwards compatibility have been, in my experience, exaggerated. I've decided to play dr. nerdenstein and install linux for a dual boot. why? because I can. getting linux up and running, however, is enough to make you want to kiss bill gates' ass. but hey, it's a constructive hobby.

I greet the upcoming new year with some apprehension. but then, shouldn't everyone with any sense do the same? 2008 is a nice, solid number though. I'm a big fan of multiples of 4.

another personal hero.

so dad had knee replacement surgery last monday. it went well; he's been doing some walking and isn't in too much pain. I'm totally getting him an oil can for Christmas.

speaking of Christmas, every year I can usually say definitively that I am or am not ready for the holidays. for 2007 I'm not sure. everything seems very neutral. the weather's been cold but not snowy. I'm staying on track doing my shopping--neither ahead nor behind. my mind accepts that Christmas music and lights are everywhere but isn't annoyed by it. it's all very...complacent. I can deal with that.

three homicides in gso over the weekend. significant for a city our size. word is that at least two were gang related. yet there are still bigwigs in this town who deny that we have a gang problem.

when it comes to entertainment, I'm naïve in a lot of ways. no matter how weak a plot twist is in a film, it'll probably take me by surprise. similarly, I have the tendency to read books solely for entertainment value. oh, I'll usually pick up on metaphors and allegories and whatnot. I just overlook them.

take the chronicles of narnia, for example. the Christian references are impossible to miss even as a kid, but they've never had an impact on my relationship to the series. and the great gatsby. despite analyzing it to death in senior english (particularly that damn green light), I managed to love it just the same. it's not that I'm anti-intellectual or boorish about literature, and I could still turn out a decent AP paper with my cliff's notes tied behind my back. it's just my way of doing things, and it's helped me give some of "the great books" a fair shot when I otherwise might not have done.

I ramble like this because I'm tearing through his dark materials, the philip pullman trilogy of which the recently adapted the golden compass is the first. I dig this stuff, and I'm leery of the fantasy genre as a rule. but before I'd read one page I'd heard loads about how anti-Christian pullman's work is; one reviewer said that he "pisses on religion." that's a little strong, but there's no denying the strong opinions voiced in the novels. and unlike narnia, his dark materials doesn't bother to couch them in metaphor--the author deals with Christianity as we know it. rather than say that his work is flatly against religion--although he's a confirmed atheist--it's easier to agree with the archbishop of canterbury, who sees the series as an attack on religious oppression and dogmatism.

and how much does all this matter to me? well, other than giving me an excuse to spout off paragraphs like the previous one here, not at all. I read to be taken out of myself. I read to fuel my own imagination. for a long time now my own worldview has been set enough (perhaps stodgily so) to prevent me from shifting my philosophy based on a work of fiction. reference my earlier spiel on ayn rand, for example. let other people argue about whether it's better to swim in a lake versus an ocean versus a pool versus a river. I just like to jump in and splash around.

now wasn't all that impressive? for someone who hates deconstructing, that is.

I don't know how many vinyl collecting dorks read this blog...well, that's not true. I'm pretty sure it's one. anyway, if you hanker after the prehistoric platters, I can't recommend musicstack.com highly enough. you don't get the thrill of the hunt, but there seems to be literally nothing that this site can't find for you. besides, bending down to sift through all those orange crates on the floor will kill your knees.

choosing a calendar is a big deal in my house. we have only one; it hangs just above the kitchen phone. it's a decision that must be lived with for a full year. 2008 has yet to be decided. if I was just a LITTLE more distasteful, I think I'd have to push for this one:







yes, it's real. a Mormon missionary beefcake calendar. tres funny.

I spent some time this evening looking between my reflection and old pictures of myself and came to a conclusion. I've suspected it for a while, and it's true.

four years of wearing headphones 7+ hours a day have flattened my ears.

before you scoff, keep in mind that I wear big 70s lookin headphones. no piddling earbuds for this fella. and my ears have always been unusually elastic. in high school, tiffany discovered that tugging upward on one of my ears can lengthen it by almost a full half inch (don't ask why we attempted that experiment; I don't honestly remember).

this is excellent news. my entire adult life I've wanted otoplasty, and since I've been self-supporting I've considered it seriously. I've always hated my jug ears, only now they're not so juggy. I got the benefits of surgery without the pain and expense--in fact, you could say that I got paid to have my ears "done." oh happy day!

now I can focus more on how I loathe everything between my neck and waist.

generally reading any of my old poetry makes me want to barf, but this one's not too bad:

youth wasted on children

I think about standing at washington square
in new york watching a tweed-clad boy
with a super 8 camera film pigeons and
feeling more envious than I ever had

and I wonder if I want a bonfire by the lake
or an old house filled with wood for my
children to slide down banisters and
smear peanut butter on the oriental rugs

and I hope that it’s not always necessary
to leave one life behind for another, and if
I can’t at least put off growing up long enough
to get away with a few more fits of hysteria

and I grow smug looking back on the
teenaged me that had so much fun affecting
adulthood with jim beam and cigarettes
and think man, if you only knew

if you only knew

© 2007 jeremy ball. all rights reserved.

I REALLY wish I had money enough to blow on projects like this.

my nasty cold is almost better, thankfully. I wish that I'd known about this stuff when I was still hacking away, though. I'm gonna try it sometime.

you know what I find offensive? jokes about men being raped by other men. why is it horrific to laugh at a woman being violated yet perfectly okay to snicker about "dropping the soap" and that oh-so-famous scene in deliverance? I guess I'm a little wacky, but I don't find any form of sexual abuse funny. I tried to make this point in college once, in a class about domestic violence. I was more or less pshawed--more evidence that male rape victims are, to many people, a non issue. grr.

earlier tonight I tried to make a list of everything that I'd need to accomplish to get my daily life organized and on track. I ran out of paper. true story.

I enjoyed barack obama's appearance on snl saturday evening. I hope that he gets the democratic nomination, but if hillary comes through I won't cry about it. I mean, if someone offers you a new car, you might keep your fingers crossed for a cadillac but you won't turn up your nose at a buick. especially not when you've been driving an amc gremlin for eight years. that's a rotten analogy, but I ain't no writer. it also doesn't allow for the potential election of a republican president, simply because that's an alternative that I refuse to consider.

can't remember when I've gone so long without posting, but I sho have had my reasons. my computer was stone dead for two weeks. for the first time I ran into a problem that I couldn't work out myself. I'd love to tell the whole sordid story, but I'll be nice and just sum up with some bullet points:

* if you live in the triad, do NOT take your computer to pc plus systems solutions. they seem to have a nasty habit of ignoring the customer's requests, assuming that said customer doesn't know doodley squat about their machine, and not making their self-imposed service deadlines. I paid them $120 for data backup that didn't even have the data I needed.

* if your computer ever highsides it, get recover my files to help pick up the pieces. it's $69.95 but worth five times that if you've got data that's irreplaceable. it's also proof positive that deleting something does NOT make it go away--pretty much the only foolproof way to do that is take a blowtorch to your hard drive, in my experience.

* I'm this close to becoming one of those creepy mac people. my problems stemmed from a windows issue that I tried to fix...using a utility provided by microsoft. I find myself lingering by the new imacs at compusa. well, it's a moot point for a couple of years anyway.

I've got more to say, but I've got sleep to get.

if you claim you never wanted one of these, you're a dirty liar. I sure as heck still do.

does anyone else think it's stupid that a lot of guys wear underwear inside their swim trunks? I could sort of understand if you were wearing old school trunks--clingy issues--but men do this in board shorts.

oh, and speaking of amazon:

[read in singsong voice. suggested tune: "nana-nana boo-boo"]

bought myself a present! bought myself a present!

bout damn time they released a set for north america, too.

huzzah! amazon has finally launched their mp3 store. it's easy to navigate, the tracks are DRM free, and they have damn near everything. I got so excited about this that I actually spent money on digital music. whoda thunk?

understatement: bluefield, west virginia is not the most interesting place in the world to grow up. I've always thought that it would make a fine place to raise kids until they hit about ten years old--that's when they'll start to get bored. but even when I was young I recognized what a fascinating place the 'field must have been in its heyday.

it's hard to explain unless you've been there. all the old downtown department stores are gone but most of the buildings remain. same for the old theatres. the big old victorian houses in north side, gone ghetto but with gingerbread intact. the shell of the matz hotel. what's left of "vito's alley"--once a disreputable strip of ginmills near the railroad tracks. bluefield was THE place to go for a hundred miles around, back when the mines still boomed and no one had conceived of malls or interstates.

I think what's really been lost is that underlying feeling of depravity that must have accompanied the small town charm. in it, stephen king discourses on the lumberman's town of derry, maine. how it was where all the tough guys converged to drink, whore, and gamble. bluefield served the same purpose (although I'm sure the chamber of commerce wouldn't care to hear me say it), only for coal-men rather than woodsmen. I've heard more great stories about floozies hanging out of windows in the drake hotel, the goings-on at the old bus terminal, the badasses at the overlook. I just hate that I missed it all.

I dream about this gothic conception of bluefield, and my dreams always take place in the early half of the previous century. the sidewalks teem with people even after 9 p.m. the high schoolers mob the woolworth's luncheon counter and drugstore soda fountains. in the shadows are still darker shadows that you look away from and hurry past. and over it all looms the big appalachian power clock, visible all over downtown from its perch on the hillside.

I thought of all this after reading a poem by rick mulkey, a bluefield resident and poet. it's called "cain's apology," and this is the verse that grabbed me:

"We were only boys, fifteen and ten.
But I used the man talk. A kid
apprenticed to movie tough guys,
I imitated the slurs of punch-drunk boxers,
spit hanging from my lip,
or the bound-for-hell curses of rednecks
at the Milner Matz lounge,
welts and scars on their cheeks.
I spat bruising words tongued in rail yards
where peroxide whores, numb from Mad Dog,
waited for Norfolk & Western brakemen."

I think that just about sums it up.

just wanted to take a sec and insist that everyone read running with scissors by augusten burroughs (if you haven't already; I'm years behind the curve on this one). I put aside ms. rand on a whim long enough to do so myself, and gee-whiz-wow. if you're the kind of person who gets offended by things like hunchbacks eating dog food, graphic descriptions of gay sex, and using bowel movements to predict the future, by all means read another tome. otherwise I can't recommend it enough. it's the most outlandish, horrifying, funny memoir I can imagine. it would be hard to believe in its veracity except for one thing: no sane person would make up a story like this. if nothing else it will make you thank your lucky stars for having a comparatively normal upbringing...no matter how twisted you think yours has been.

oh, and: I know this is awful, but does anyone else think that marcel marceau's tombstone should be blank? rest in peace.

this rules! raleigh and boone both participated this year; next year I say gso gets involved. who's in?

a bit late, but five thoughts on the emmys:

1) when did all these people get so old?
2) ryan seacrest is straight. here's why: it's so obvious that he ought to be gay that he circles back around to the other side of the spectrum. robbie williams does the same thing.
3) censor, schmensor. sally field should be able to say whatever she pleases on the air.
4) I never even watched "the sopranos," but I'm so glad it's over.
5) I promise, promise, promise to start watching "30 rock." I promise.

after several years of talking about doing it, I recently read ayn rand's the fountainhead. it is an excellent book. it is also a very dangerous book, and I think that objectivism is a dangerous philosophy. I mean that with all due respect. I'm champing at the bit to start atlas shrugged.

sorry so silent so long. busy is an understatement. I don't know what the hell's going on at my office. before long we'll start bringing sleeping bags to just camp out.

labor day weekend was great. it was my granny's 90th birthday party and many friends and relations were in attendance. pics posted.

I traded cedric the nissan maxima for eartha the cadillac seville two weeks ago. it was a good financial move; the maxima had held its value so well that the new payment is actually a lot lower. the seville is also three years newer and has less than half as many miles on the clock. twenty-six year old white guys driving cadillacs get the funniest looks. I love it. she's black and beautiful; I'll have to take some snaps.

would it be a bad idea to capture as many skunks as possible, de-scent them, and release them back into the wild? I'm all for it.

does anyone know what could cause windows XP to randomly start refusing to go on stand by? it's got a rogue agenda. I've posted on several tech forums to no avail. if you tell me to install linux I'll kick you in the nuts.

this may be the weirdest thing I've ever read.

the new imperial teen album is...well, I'm at a loss. I've always liked them, but this record catapults them into my personal stratosphere. insanely catchy, lyrically solid, and so tongue-in-cheek that it runs the risk of being taken seriously. it makes me want to grab people on the street and yell "buy the hair, the tv, the baby and the band right now, dammit!" surely they'd know what I meant.

the new rilo kiley album...jury's still out. need to give it a few more listens.

you know what I hate? when you go to sleep either mad or depressed, then you wake up and for a few seconds you think, "my! what a glorious day!" then you remember that you're supposed to be mad/depressed and it's like, "well, shit." hasn't happened recently, thankfully, but it does bite.

I don't want to hear about zac efron anymore. I just don't. I'm actually less sick of hearing about paris hilton.

so I love my honda and all, but I'm getting absurdly excited about the upcoming debut of the smart in america.


$15k fully loaded, 40+ mpg, and as safe as anything on the road. it'll be a few years before I trade cars I'm sure, but I may have my next one all picked out. you can bet I'll be at the "street smart" road show when they hit gso next month for a test drive.

pet peeve: being behind middle aged ladies at starbucks, walgreens, etc. who take EVERYTHING out of their voluminous purses to get to their money/cards, pay, and hold up the line while they stand there putting everything back in. it's even worse when the gals are over seventy...they usually pay with checks.

related note of etiquette: when making a deposit at a drive thru atm, pull over to the side if you have to endorse your checks, fill out the envelope, or what have you. once you have your shit together get back in the queue. that way people can conduct their business unimpeded in the meantime. I do it, but I'm nicer than most people.

I think that john d. macdonald is to contemporary fiction what carole king is to contemporary music. they've influenced everyone, they get lots of respect from other practitioners of the craft, and there's a 90% chance that whomever you ask on the street hasn't heard of them. I'm about to finish my first macdonald novel and am very favorably impressed.

I love adrienne barbeau and nicholas brendon. unfortunately I did not love unholy, which I recently got a chance to see. it tries so hard to make sense and just never does. it's like someone fed the script into a shredder, pulled half of it out of the bin, and taped it back together--wrong. the resulting hodgepodge was used to make the film. sadly I think that if it did make sense, it might have actually been worse.

people of the world: please don't say filthy-dirty. pick one or the other.

two things I can't understand paying for: cardboard boxes and clothes hangers. either can be readily obtained gratis with a minimum of effort.

here's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. if you could be in just the right place under just the right circumstances, somewhere in the world there's a rich person that you could walk up to and say, "I'd like a million dollars, please." and they'd give it to you. maybe they're nuts, maybe they're impressed by your audacity. maybe they're walking along thinking, "I hate money. if someone asked me for a million dollars they could just have it." and if you came along presently, there you go. I honestly believe this.

speaking of crack brained ideas, here's my best one of late--a sort of time capsule. I'm going to get a year's subscription to mad magazine. when I get each issue I'm sealing it in a manila envelope, writing the date on it, and packing it away. in ten years I open them. seriously, old copies of mad are the best when it comes to encapsulating american pop culture.

take note, stephen king fans. forget bangor; greensboro is derry. I'm convinced, anyway.

two quick notes, both having to do with pictures:

several people asked me to let them know how the Great Hair Coloring of Ought-Seven turned out. I look like this now.



no, I'm not actually wearing it this spiky--it just looked good for the pic. and yes, I know it doesn't look natural. with these eyebrows, nothing but black would.



second note. for several weeks justin has been telling me about this unbelievable house he found after making a wrong turn, and today we went to see it. look at these and tell me it isn't...awe inspiring. I'm just glad that someone's taking the trouble to renovate it so painstakingly. if you know ANYTHING about this domicile, clue me in.

so yet another soldier has been discharged from fort bragg after appearing in a gay porn vid. this news prompted me to read the text of the u.s. policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces. under the code, granted, the military has the right to discharge these guys. but I noticed an interesting thing: exceptions can be made if the man/woman can demonstrate that "such conduct is a departure from the member’s usual and customary behavior."

how does one do that, exactly?

"sarge, as you can see from my daily planner, I had sex with ladies one hundred and sixty-three times last calendar year, while I only boned a guy twice. each of my sexual partners has signed a notarized statement concerning the accuracy of these numbers. furthermore, my shrink will testify that, when it comes to guys, I only do it for the money."

just wondering. also, I haven't read any accounts of exactly what these discharged fellas were DOING on video. I am no fool--I've forgotten more skin flicks than most people will ever see, believe me. and in a lot of military themed amateur clips there is exactly one guy in front of the camera, all by his lonesome. ergo, no homosexual contact. therefore, while he may be knowingly titillating the minds of gay men, he is doing nothing to warrant a discharge under the law. I'll just believe that these former military men were doing work of the more...intense variety. thinking that they got canned for doing solo work would finally drive me over the border and into canada.

and on a slight tangent, is it fair to equate "homosexuality" with "homosexual acts?" on the one hand it's a no brainer. on the other, well. I still maintain that there's no such thing as clear cut sexual orientation. whatever the conscious mind tries to kid itself into thinking, it's all one shade of gray or another. that's not to say that one's orientation can be changed or controlled, far from it. I think that we just need to say that human beings like sex and leave it at that. just sex in general. it can be about love, it can be about one another's naughty bits, or it can just be about friction.

[author's note: these news stories rarely mention the name of the site causing all the flap, but most of us know which it is. and I'll tell you something. the site's webmaster still has soldiers lining up around the block to go on film. fuck you, uncle sam. oh, wait. that's against code.]

I ramble too much. so today I'm letting steven wright do it for me.

some of my favorite steven wright quotes:

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun. She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."

I installed a skylight in my apartment. The people who live above me are furious.

One time the power went out in my house and I had to use the flash on my camera to see my way around. I made a sandwich and took fifty pictures of my face. The neighbors thought there was lightning in my house.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child...eventually.

The sign said "eight items or less." So I changed my name to Les.

When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.

I hereby decree that "mony, mony" be regarded as the greatest song ever. don't argue with me. I only recently discovered that it was inspired not by a girl but by the sign on the Mutual Of New York building (which I can't find a good picture of, dammit--see midnight cowboy for a good view of it as it looked in 1968 when the song was released; in fast, see midnight cowboy anyway). that cemented its status for me.

incidentally, when I was a kid I thought that "mony" was a play on "mona," as in mona from "who's the boss." it made sense to me, since mona was all sexy and things.

wake it, shake it, mona mona.

[postscript: I see that in january of 2006 I stated that "harper valley p.t.a." was the greatest song ever. forget I said that.]

I'm glad that it takes children a few years to develop a real sense of irony. otherwise kids would be more vicious than dorothy parker ever was.

I love living in a world where I can download audio files of john cage's "4'33" for my listening pleasure. go ahead. download and listen.

is anyone else rankled by how many recent low brow comedy films use LPs--that's "little people" here, not long play records--for comic devices? am I the only person who thinks it's demeaning to LPs in general? I'm not one of those people who takes political correctness to extremes, but it seems wrong to me. besides, what's the big attraction? okay. they're smaller than the majority of the population. and?

yes, I got deathly hallows yesterday. no, I haven't finished it, nor have I started. I also picked up the audiobook, so I'm going to read it at work where I can more easily justify spending six hours plus per day on it. justin bought it at midnight, went home, and read constantly until last night when he finished, stopping only to eat and take a short nap. crazy fuck.

have you seen barefoot in the park? well, sometimes I'm so much like corie bratter that I can hardly stand myself. probably no one else can, either.

chocolate covered dried cherries are so superior to cherry cordials.

a rarely considered cardinal truth of life: horny men should not have access to credit cards.

I'm a big hypocrite. I always talk trash about the reality TV craze, and I went and got myself hooked on "the next food network star." seriously. I mean, it has the performance aspect of "american idol," the team building of "survivor," and the close quarters of "the real world." and the cast members are actually working constructively to better their lives, not just hog the series' spotlight. can't wait until sunday when they announce the winner!

speaking of TV, I knew when I saw the preview for "pushing daisies" that it HAD to be from the writers/creators of "wonderfalls." I was right. that bodes well.

happy belated fourth, all. ah, independence day! a time when, as Americans, our minds turn to the question of the ages: given the choice, would you rather have the body you've got or the body of your dreams--only your dream body would be covered with numerous moles? it's a tough one. maybe because I'm lucky enough to have very few moles, or maybe because I'm averse to moles in general.

edit to above: confused independence day with useless introspection week. my bad.

when people discuss stereotypically gay music, you can usually predict names that will come up. judy garland, madonna, billie holiday, bette midler. you hardly ever hear the carpenters or tori amos mentioned, and I've known more gay men into them than any of the usual suspects. could be a generational thing?

speaking of celebrity recipients of mass gay adoration, rose mcgowan rocks my world. yep.

my gigabeat is failing. battery time dropped from eight hours to five. am going to try and replace the battery myself. if I don't succeed, there goes my bankbook for a new device. seriously, I waste money on a lotta stuff, but a functional MP3 player is essential for my sanity. I still stand by the gigabeat as the ultimate, though. I've used mine an average of six hours a day, five days a week, for a year-ish. I doubt any of its competitors could have withstood any more. these friggin electronics companies make $300 pieces of equipment to be disposable, which really gets me steamed.

been hanging out with carra more lately. that's a very good thing.

I feel like I'm squandering my summer. I need to take advantage of more summer...well, stuff. the beach. wet n' wild. drooling over half naked joggers, all that sort of thing. of course all that would require waking up earlier. ugh. mebbe not.

have returned from the rock. lovely time, but too freakin hot even there. chetola was full, so we stayed at crestwood. even better. not so much a hotel as a country club with fifteen guest rooms. also reminiscent of kellerman's in dirty dancing. took a few pics with my amazing new canon sd1000. they are here-uh.

big endorsement here: if you're ever in the high country yourself, go to stonewall's in banner elk for a new york strip. best I've ever had. tell them I sent you. they'll look at you funny, I'll bet.

somehow I still haven't succeeded in killing the salvias.

saw 1408 tonight. not bad--say a 7 out of 10. didn't freak me out the way the story did, but the best stephen king adaptation in a while.

I don't know why I read trashy celeb gossip message boards. they never fail to piss me off. especially when folks start coming down on this male celeb or that, saying things like "he needs to work out" or "he's gotten really fat." nine times out of ten said famous guy has a body that I'd kill for. have any of these critics ever REALLY seen a fat person? evidently not.

if you have five minutes and thirty-four seconds to spare and haven't seen the film happiness, you should really watch this. I think it's my favorite opening scene from any movie ever. warning: contains oogy language and jon lovitz.

have lost ten pounds and counting. hope it's the elliptical and not the gypsy curse.

I promise to only say this once until fall: too damn hot here.

last week, bush said this of his upcoming Papal tete-a-tete:

"sometimes I'm not poetic enough to describe what it's like to be in the presence of the Holy Father. it is a moving experience."

um, georgie? you hadn't met this Pope yet. were you implying that if you've met one Holy See you've met em all? I can't be the only person who finds that quote odd. maybe it wouldn't seem so off kilter coming from a Catholic. or if I was Catholic myself. hmm.

if you don't ever use your computer to watch video (dvds, tv, etc) stop reading here. you'll get bored.


...okay, since you do, you should get this cute little piece of freeware called power click. download the files and put em wherever. open the program and go to "options." check "disable windows idle timer." right click on the red icon in your system tray and exit. put a shortcut to power click on your desktop, and there you go. whenever you click the shortcut your screensaver and power settings will be disabled until you exit power click. no more moving your mouse around to keep the video goin. this is a lifesaver to me, so I wanted to share.

shit. geico really does save people money on car insurance. I switched from allstate and am saving over $200 every six months...and my new policy cuts my deductibles in half, so I'll only be 50% as financially screwed if I wreck. for the first time I don't feel like my car insurance is a ripoff. I won't soon forget the bad old days--in the wake of my unfortunate accident--of paying through the nose for the privilege of driving the miata.

people saying "shut up" to express astonishment. I don't like it. "no way" was good enough for my generation, and I'm sticking to it.

why the hell haven't more people read cold comfort farm? it's that rare treasure: a quick, hilarious read that also has legitimate literary cred and historical value.

justin got his new job! yes, I know I haven't mentioned that he was in the market for one. you know how I am about jinxing things. choral director at graham high (not the one I attended, naturally). farther drive but better kids and a really strong program. the situation at eghs had become...strained. long story short, he made a good decision in leaving.

we're headed back to blowing rock in a couple of weeks. in light of economic issues--not the least of which is gas prices--we've scaled our vacation back from a two hour flight to a six hour drive to a three hour drive. I'm out of the office for a whole damn week, that's the important thing.

instant viewing on netflix rules. does blockbuster total access offer such a boon? no, they do not.

latest endorsement: neilmed sinus rinse. washing out your sinuses isn't the most pleasant thing to do, but it's great at getting rid of those pesky sinus headaches. and when you breathe it actually feels like more air's getting into your lungs. probably it is.

you know "the ghostbusters symbol?"


yeah, that's it. I can't believe that this oh-so-useful insignia is graced only with the official name "the no symbol." that's just not right. so join up with me in calling it the "negatrix." that's neh-gay-triks. I think it's much more appropriate and easier to throw out in conversation.

charo's real name is María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza de Rasten. yeah, I'd shorten it too.

I'm glad josh introduced me to extremely rare tuna steaks.

george washington had a dog named sweet lips. even then, could no one see how wrong that was?

my sinuses have gone on strike. I go around feeling like my aching head's attached to a string and floating about three feet above my neck.

it seems that, no matter how high gas prices go, many people are too stubborn to change their guzzling ways. it seems that desperate measures are needed, so I guess I'll start slashing the tires of SUVs . nah, that's not fair. first I'll find the owner and ask, "do you really need an SUV?" if I don't get a convincing argument, then I'll gut the goodyears. and leave a note explaining why. that seems just. I'll also include exoticars--ferraris, lotuses, and the like--just to be inclusive.

seriously, what gets me here in the south are the number of two wheel drive SUVs. I mean, just what the hell is the point? minivans were good enough for that set in the eighties; what happened?

and speaking of conservation, be proud: I've cut out my pre-work starbucks run. not so much about the money, though. I just discovered that my beverage of choice contains 330 calories and 13 grams of fat. by contrast, the pseudo-lattes I at make home to put in my travel mug run about 180 and 4. every little bit helps, I suppose.

I have a new hobby that I'm incredibly excited about. I've started collecting antique postcards with pictures of insane asylums on them. you'd be surprised what a popular postcard subject mental hospitals used to be. I've got the first two in my album and have two more on the way. when I get a few more I'll scan pics of them into my online gallery.

I'm in the process of upgrading this blog to take advantage of all the "new" blogger stuff that I'm behind on. don't worry if you hate the way it looks now--I'm not too fond of it, myself. it's a work in progress.

I'd been considering creating a separate blog with a more specific purpose than this one. I gave up the idea when I found this site that does pretty much exactly what I'd intended. shoulda known someone would beat me to it.

you know those little quik-brite lights they advertise on tv? well, they really are that great. my car finally has illumination in the glovebox.

if you're reading this and haven't seen it--as I'd say most people haven't--rent the movie black cadillac and tell me if it sucks you in the way it did me. maybe because it watches like a film version of a christopher pike book.

speaking of books and guys named christopher, I've become a disciple of christopher moore. I've read bloodsucking fiends and you suck and found them both excellent. don't go into one of his books expecting some highbrow modern miracle of literature. go in expecting to have a helluva good time. clever, quick, and most of all funny. you may laugh until you pee. you've been warned.

I bought flowers to brighten up the front porch. help me hope that they live. I have a black thumb rather than a green one. I bought salvias because I read somewhere that impatiens were tacky. I don't remember where or if the source was trusted, but I'm very suggestible like that. I once changed my facial cleanser because I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who said that it dried out her skin.

dammit, why can't the u.s. have a channel like this? canada is so cool.

a lot of convenience stores don't carry eye drops. this is odd to me.

in case it was keeping you up nights worrying, the new coffee table is up in here. southpark's new crate and barrel is the bomb.

I'm still the last of the red hot bloggers. I've just been workin hard and stayin tired.

I'm proud to say that this organization is n.c. based. check em out.

went to the d.c. area recently and had a swank time. I hung out in arlington, falls church, and bethesda. never once did I set foot above ground in the district itself. bizarre.

I can't believe how I'm obsessing over choosing a new coffee table for the living room. it makes me feel materialistic and un-Quaker. starving children in indiana and I'm moaning about how that particular oval cocktail table comes in mahogany but not espresso. I think I just need psychological reassurance that my life is stable enough that I can obsess about a coffee table. well, it's cheaper than therapy.

speaking of coffee, know what I miss most about college? if I got bored and wanted to go out for coffee, I could find someone to tag along. didn't matter when, one friend or another would be free. I didn't have to call around and make plans a week ahead, and no big production was made out of it. we just went. you know?

also on coffee and other food type things, I need to rant. if you're going to order from a drive-thru window, you should not have questions. take starbucks, for example. if you need to know what the difference is between a latte and a cappuccino, what kind of "kids' drinks" they have, how many shots go into a venti, ANYTHING--go inside. when you pull up to the speaker and open your mouth, what needs to come out is your order. if you feel the need to say anything else, inside. if you need to take a minute to decide on what you want, okay. by all means. but if you're gonna strike up a dialogue, inside. the drive-thru is for people in a hurry. by making your time there inordinately long you are defeating the purpose. you're holding up other customers. being a bad person, in other words. does asking questions at the drive-thru mean that you're more likely to go to Hell in the afterlife? it wouldn't surprise me. would hitler have had questions at the drive-thru? probably. do you really want to go to Hell? do you want to be the next hitler? I didn't think so. hurry = drive-thru. questions = inside. there, I'm done.

wha? wha...ha ha! ha ha ha ha ha! hhhheeeehaaaaahaaaaahoooowhooooohaaaa! and dare I say, rotf (lmao).

according to scott stapp's lawsuit against world wide red light district, the released footage of his 1999 sex tape caused him to suffer "loss of reputation."

that is the funniest thing I've ever heard.

want to be a member of a really exclusive club? netflix/otherwise rent wonderfalls on dvd. it's the most original tv series I know of, which is probably why only four episodes ever aired (the dvds contain the entire, mostly unaired first season--13 episodes). or, if you live in my neck of the woods, I'm all about weekend wonderfalls watching parties at my place.

why don't wal-mart employees understand that restocking the shelves does NOT have to involve blocking the entire aisle?

this is the greatest idea I've heard about in a while.

I've never thought of myself as a type A personality. I'm starting to wonder.

I've never thought of myself as being very much like my dad. wondering about that, too.

ben and jerry's cinnamon rolls ice cream is the best thing I've ever tasted. seriously.

been reading more dean koontz. more hondas, more interior design. I'm going to go through his novels, compile data on those topics, and arrange it into a spreadsheet.

about a year ago I speculated that I was in the throes of a quarter life crisis. I did so in a somewhat smirking fashion, however, as is my way when I'm not quite serious. see this? this is me now, NOT smirking. does this mean I have to run away and join the peace corps?

I never would have guessed watching "the mary tyler moore show" that ed asner was a left wing activist.

talk about something being funny because it's true.

I've recently discovered the wonder that is annie ross. well, I already knew her as mrs. hazeltine from throw momma from the train ("dive! dive! yelled the captain through the thing). and as tess trainer from short cuts, where I got a sampling of her vocal talent. but this babe's career as a jazz vocalist began in the fifties--the EARLY fifties. and she's still got it. in fact, she performs at the metropolitan room in nyc every tuesday night. I'm so tempted to fly up just for that reason.

whenever anyone mentions norman mailer I get really irritated. I've never read him; I just do.

I was all set to haul ass for savannah this year when I found out that st. patty's day was on saturday. then I find out they scheduled the stinkin parade for yesterday maybe next year I'll just take a few days off.

warmer weather should be here to stay soon. here's a shocker: this year I'm going to put out flowers. I give them two weeks. I have a black thumb.

the neon bible is an excellent book. I wish I could have written like that at sixteen. or that I could now.

in bedknobs and broomsticks, emelius browne lives in a posh london mansion that he doesn't own. the manse's rightful owners have fled--along with the rest of the neighborhood--due to a massive unexploded bomb in the street directly in front of it. browne loves the bomb because it enables him "to live like a king;" he stays put despite its constant threat.

I wish that I didn't see his situation as such a perfect metaphor for my life.

more introspection: is it possible to feel ashamed of an action without regretting it? the more I think of it, the more I think it is.

digging daylight savings time. it's lovely to see the slant of the setting sun paint the top eighth of my cubicle walls orange.

the boone/blowing rock trip was a smashing success. I had no idea how picturesque the area is; it reminds me of pictures I've seen of aspen. the mountains are just a bit less pointy. turns out there actually are ski slopes in nc, too--wasn't sure I believed it. lots of cute shops and cafes. best of all, we woke up to actual SNOW on sunday morning. a few pics are here.

okay, folks. toshiba is doing a crap marketing job, so I guess it's up to me. now hear this: at amazon.com, the toshiba gigabeat MES60VK is now $229.99. that's a 60 GB media player. for less than a 30 GB ipod. not to mention that it's the superior device anyway. why the hell isn't toshiba plugging these babies?! I mean, I know that they were busy developing the zune...which is more expensive and the size of a small suitcase in comparison. trust me, people. if you're in the market, get a gigabeat.

dean koontz is an excellent novelist, but he writes entirely too much about furniture. I'm all about character development, but I just don't need to know how many coats of lacquer were hand applied to the protagonist's cherry wood armoire by capuchin monks ten thousand years ago. the man should have been an interior designer. and what's up with the hondas? can I read one dean koontz book where someone doesn't drive a honda?

I can't figure out why my car smells like a mixture of sulfur and b.o. I'm not in the habit of not showering and then repeatedly striking matches in it. and no, I haven't used valet parking in quite some time.

finally saw notes on a scandal. it was just as good as I'd been told. finally saw infamous. it wasn't. to each his own. I mean, it was okay, but...maybe if I hadn't seen capote first.

yonder lies the trip to blowing rock. hopefully it won't rain; it's been bad for that lately. I didn't authorize it, either. someone didn't fill out the proper forms.

is it weird that one of my life's ambitions is to move to pittsburgh? seriously, in my opinion pittsburgh's pretty freakin sweet. great indie scene (both music and film), nice museums, actual winter weather, and a truly awesome landscape--mount washington overlooking the three rivers and downtown. not to mention cheap as hell to live there, provided you can find gainful employment. I haven't been for a visit in almost four years, which is four years too long. one day. just you wait.

I hate living in a world where some dumb broad shaves her head and it makes headlines. but I guess once you start taking the hair off of certain areas of your body it could get addictive and spread to others. kinda like tattoos.

remember the video game burger time? that shit was hard.

I'm so sick of time warner jacking up cable prices that I'm thinking about switching to satellite, directv probably. thoughts?

I love that daylight savings time is starting earlier. what I won't love is resetting all the electronics in the house that ordinarily set themselves and will later become confused and require further resetting.

it's generally known that I loathe and fear robots. that said, will someone please buy me one of these? $24,500 seems quite reasonable.

I hope that everyone had a pleasant v-day, whether or not you viewed it as a holiday. justin and I exchanged goodies. as my big contribution, I reserved us a lakeview crown suite at the ultra swank chetola lodge in blowing rock for a few weekends from now. except for trips to asheville, I haven't been to the n.c. mountains for many years and am looking forward to it.

a note to my creditors: if you don't enable me to pay your bills online, you're just asking for them to be paid late. just thought you deserved a warning.

attention all hot tea drinkers! you should buy an ingenuitea; they're great. my only regret is that I paid $24 (including shipping) to order mine and then found them at teeter for $14. still, it's well worth it. of course, if your idea of a cuppa involves the use of teabags then it doesn't really apply. I'm only speaking to serious hot tea drinkers here.

today's pet peeve: captions on photos that identify the people in them WITHOUT doing so from left to right. it's just common sense.

I enjoy the new apples in stereo album. it's kitschy without being nauseatingly cute--a line that they haven't always drawn well.

why I almost pissed myself with joy tonight: this and this. have I pre-ordered both? you bet. do you care? probably not. I'm a big nerd, after all.

everyone who's anyone has heard of equus by now. well, any and all harry potter fans, anyway. I'm not saying daniel radcliffe is the hottest thing goin. from a legal standpoint, I shouldn't even say that a 17 year old is the most lukewarm thing goin. but there really is something undeniably...am I allowed to say tepid?...about the promo pics. they're easy to find--just google "daniel radcliffe equus." don't expect to find any nudes, though. not yet anyway.

one of my biggest recent pet peeves: people who think that ethanol is the solution to america's oil dependency. am I the only person who researches things before I start flapping my jaw about them? I'm all for alternative fuels, but I won't even get into all the reasons why increased ethanol usage could do as much harm as good, both economically and ecologically. do what I did: read. it's not hard; been doing it since I was three.

while I'm still up on my soaring steed, I guess I gotta comment on the situation at the old alma mater (link to most recent story, if you're shrugging at this). it goes without saying that I'm saddened and disappointed by both the incident itself and the manner in which it was handled. I think that it has brought to light issues that have plagued guilford since well before my time there, notably the lack of synthesis between athletes and the rest of the student body. not that a hate crime is representative of an athlete's mindset...but it can reflect the mind of a jock. there is a difference.

however, I don't believe that said student body is painting an accurate picture of guilford for the press, not unless it's changed considerably in the not quite four years (!!!) since I graduated. Quaker values are very much a part of the college as a whole, yes. they are taken to heart by many of the faculty and students, including yours truly. but at no point--as far as I know--has guilford been a paradise. no one has the right to expect that of it.

more importantly, though, it's much farther from being the demilitarized zone that some folks are talking about. I read students' reports of "rampant racism and bigotry" on campus. I was a pretty socially active guy there, and at no time would I have dreamed of making such a statement. you got sweethearts and assholes, just like any other campus on earth. in the grand scheme of things, guilford is--and, I hope, always will be--more open minded and accepting of differences than most colleges, particularly small ones. it's just that a few scratches on a new rolls-royce are more obvious and inflammatory than a couple dents in an '86 escort. and shouldn't I be seen as an informed source? about the colleges, not the cars.

I ask myself if I'd recommend guilford to my own son/daughter if they were getting ready to fill out their applications today. well, the school's been through a lot of changes, good and bad. but the answer is still yes. my time there was the formative experience of my adult life, something that I'll always treasure. I only wish that everyone could have such a joyous four years at guilford.

and that other people would let them.

fantastic birthday this year! dinner with justin, josh, parents, nadine, and half of carra (she only had time to drop by for bread and beverages) at the melting pot. got the present I asked for: a new kitchen faucet. nothing wrong with the old one, but this one arcs up higher over the sink for ease of use. so many people called/myspaced/texted me with well wishes, people I hadn't heard from in years. thanks!

if you missed this year's twenty-sixth birthday celebration, you can catch the encore in 2008. I'm finished for a while. not gonna turn 27, sorry. my age is frozen until I'm at least 38, hopefully.

random gift from dad: one touch can opener. usually the junk you see advertised on tv is just that, junk. but those things really are nifty.

tax return done. having a mortgage sure does help, oh yeah. my refund is obscene. next year it's justin's turn to claim the interest and property tax, though, so I'm not getting used to it. to celebrate I treated myself to a gig of RAM to punch up the computer a little in case I want to take the windows vista plunge at some point. once I get the money, however, the bulk of it is going into savings to help me bounce back from my post holiday brokedom.

hooray for tax time! at least I hope it turns out to be a hooray. hopefully the interest paid on the house will help.

what the tax preparation companies don't want you to know: if you made less than $52k last year you can e-file your federal return for free. this will be the second time I've done so with h and r block. you'll notice, however, that nowhere on block's website do they have a link to free filing--you gotta sneak in the back door. for a complete list of said back doors, looka here.

phrase I hate: "jimmy hat." please don't say it around me. ever.

can't believe we actually had a little snow last week. for a few shining hours I thought we might actually have a shot at a real winter.

as some of you may know, my birthday is a week from monday. I know it's gauche to ask for presents, but if you consider me a friend there's something you could do for me. if you haven't already, see the film happenstance (the one made in 2000). I netflixed it, but I'm sure that some video stores are cool enough to stock it. check foreign. yeah, it's in french, deal with it. seriously, though. it's been a really, really long time since a movie has left me speechless. just see it. I don't think you'll regret it.

by the way, that picture of audrey tautou in pigtails on the cover is actually from a totally different movie. bizarre.

hollywood filmmakers have completely run out of material. I've suspected this for a while. now I know. halloween is being remade. not another sequel, not even a prequel, but a straight up remake. shooting starts on my birthday, in fact. and I don't care if rob zombie is directing and dee wallace-stone does have a role. this is a bad idea.

it's finally starting to feel like winter. they're even calling for precip tomorrow. being dumb awful nc weather, though, it's "sleet and freezing rain." whatever happened to snow? it just ain't right.

too much negativity. time for a little scott caan to lighten the mood!




ah! I know I feel better. well, a little foolish. "little scott caan" is redundant, after all.

could someone please explain to me how a single person can make nearly $50k per year and have a for-fucks-sake overdrawn checking account? that's not a rhetorical question. I really can't figure it out. except for having a car payment--a pretty low one--my expenses really aren't that different from when I was making ten bucks an hour. I look over my bank statement and the majority of my money is spent on groceries. not really a trimmable expense. and I can't even remember the last time I bought lox.

rumor has it: ikea coming to charlotte. no longer is a trip to d.c. or atlanta necessary to replace a broken plate or glass.

tax time is coming up. please, IRS, let this year's pound of flesh and blood be a few ounces smaller. of course the house can be claimed this year. how it can be claimed I'm not sure, given the joint title and mortgage. I think I'll just break down and let h&r block handle it this year.

ah! she wised up after all!

my new year's wasn't what I planned. I don't want to go into it here--some dirty laundry should be very selectively aired--but the first few days of 2007 were very difficult for me. several very special people helped me through them. you know who you are. God bless and thank you.

I hate dubbed movies. not because I'm a film snob, but because it drives me nuts to see mouths and words not in sync. I'd much rather read subtitles than deal with that.

would someone with more technical knowledge than mine please author a blogger.com toolbar for firefox? it would make me happy. I'll buy you something nice.

I hope that the past few days have treated all well. Christmas eve with my family was wonderful as always, although it was a shame that my sister and her lot stayed in pennsylvania this year. got a new george foreman grill from the 'rents (the fancy kind with the thermostat) and a beautiful crosley stereo from justin--the retro kind with the turntable, and this one even has a cd changer! I took the occasion to buy fleetwood mac's "tusk" on vinyl.

speaking of which, I'm not one of those people who thinks stevie nicks is a witch, but I'm concerned that she may have sold her soul to the devil. I mean, have you seen her? the woman is fifty-eight years old and looks forty tops. and I'm not seeing signs of much work being done. I've gotten pretty good at spotting surgeons' touch ups. of course sometimes it's easier than others, especially with botox. hello, kathy griffin! it's not natural to look surprised ALL THE TIME!

so it's time to begin another year. I reviewed my resolutions from this one. I can't state that I have completely fulfilled any of them save one. I haven't seen hitch yet! eat that, will smith. I'm proud of myself.

I look at a dawning year differently than I used to. it's different when you live in the "real world." when you're a kid you feel secure that life won't change much. even in college there was more of a sense of stability. you would study, party, hang with your friends and your folks, just like the year before. sure, you could flunk out or lose someone you loved. but it didn't feel like you could. then you graduate. you get a career, a relationship, a home. your close friends aren't as close as they used to be. suddenly you realize that your entire world revolves around two or three crucial elements that could change at any time. your day to day existence could fall on its ass at the drop of a hat. a new year can mean a fresh start, a means to a better life. but the fact is, it's the future. and anything can happen. the worst of it is, I'm not writing this snookered. I'm not even in an especially bad mood. it's just the way I see it.

shit, what a grouch. it's a shame I quit smoking. embittered commentary is so much more effective with a cig and a grimace. I know it's important to remember how lucky we are to have the lives we lead. I'm luckier than most. so here's hoping for the best year yet!

if I had to name a worst personal year, it would have to be 2001. chronologically, here's how it went: dropped out of school, was diagnosed with ADD and depression, broke up with fiance, got job that I hated and walked out on, got much too serious with a mentally deranged guy who walked out on me. then, just when school starts back and everything looks hunky dory, 9/11. yeah, it more or less sucked. more, in fact.

so everyone kiss at midnight, eat greens and black eyed peas, and hope that a dark haired man visits. all that good stuff. just think of it as doing your part to prevent further terrorist actions.

so I'm totally supposed to be in wv right now. I couldn't get all my shit together this afternoon, though, and am leaving in a little bit. so I should get there around dawn, just in time for bed.

speaking of the holidays, one of these is tempting, though I don't celebrate it myself.

so bono's being knighted. am I the only one who is surprised that he hasn't been already? I'm not cuckoo for bono or anything, but considering some of the others who've received the honor, well...

are there certain cities that, although you know they're sizable, it's very surprising to learn that individual people actually live in them? little rock is one of those for me. so's saint louis. fort wayne. until recently, harrisburg.

when naming a child, I think that parents should take into account that certain names help predestine attractiveness as an adult. no guarantees, but some names just imply sex. luke and hannah are two good ones, in my opinion.

whomever did the makeup on scrooged gave bill murray too much eyeliner.

it took the recent snl sketches to convince me, but nancy grace really is awful. not ann coulter awful, but possibly bill o'reilly awful.

I hate to do another post that could come across as pro-microsoft, but since I own a toshiba gigabeat I've been following the intro of the zune with interest (since the gigabeat is basically its predecessor). it's absurd that microsoft would introduce zune and immediately admit that it needs improvement--scratch that, they admitted it before introduction. I believe that the zune will be the player to have. just not yet. even if I was in the market for a new device now, I wouldn't buy until at least spring. I'm thinkin that the first redesign will come through by then.

the next post will likely be post-festivities. have good ones!

I think that if anyone in our society can be said to have a superpower, it's justin timberlake. granted he isn't faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound (that we know of). but no matter what he says, does, sings, or wears, he's able to effortlessly convince the public at large that that's the right thing--the fashionable thing--to do. he could bring victorian lace collars back into vogue easily. he could recite dadaist sound poetry and end up in the top 40. he could gain 100 pounds and people the world over would start scarfing twinkies to catch up.

I'm not putting it down. I'm part of the public at large, too.

the information in this post is over two years old, but as it has only now come to my attention it may be new to you as well. sit up and pay attention, class, as this is marginally more interesting than my usual drivel:

I'm a pc user. I am neither proud of that fact nor ashamed of it. I know many mac users. that's their scene, that's okay. I don't want any of them to get offended by what I have to say, because I'm only targeting a small percentage of mac users here. small, but just annoying enough to warrant this little rant.

I'm speaking of the "mac cultists." you know the type. their wee white earbuds are always in, their clothes and hair tend to be fashionably rumpled, and they plaster white apple stickers on most of their personal belongings--particularly the back windows of their vw jettas. it's not just consumer electronics, it permeates their very being. these folks like to crow about mac superiority, bill gates being the devil, and so on and so forth. taking every opportunity to give their poor slob friends o/s envy. for this crowd, the macintosh apple seems to have become the new generation's version of the peace sign: a symbol of individuality, intelligence, and an implied suggestion of screwing the system and loving it.

first off, do you remember this commercial?

I know I do; I remember it well. like many people, I was afraid that it signified the death knell of file sharing. the golden age of free napster was kaput, the feds were cracking down, and we had all better mind our ps and qs.

and only now have I learned that, although the threats weren't empty, we were all getting royally mind fucked.

now watch this and, if you will, read the brief comments that follow the video on the same page (yes, the whole shebang is hosted by mac itself, which makes the whole sitch even more bizarre).

all this may not resonate with you very much. it really hits home with me, though, since I not only remember the tv spot well but was also affected by it in the exact way that pepsi, mac, and the riaa intended. I watch the second clip and think of all those irritating recent mac commercials. you know, the ones with the young hipster verbally squaring off against the stuffy guy in the suit?

wake up, mac nuts. you may consider yourselves party to the lesser of two evils where microsoft is concerned, and maybe you're right. but the apple ain't ambrosia, steve jobs ain't the messiah, and you're not half as rebellious as you'd like to believe.

I'm a fence rider on a lot of issues, I admit. capital punishment is not one of them. here's one of the many reasons why. think that's bad? some of the botched electrocution cases I've studied are much, much worse.

sometimes I wish that, just once, I could give someone 100% and get the same in return. is that selfish?

speaking of percentages, I've realized that I have a set amount of mental energy specifically devoted to worrying. barring catastrophies, I generally worry at the same level all the time. sometimes it's just more equally distributed--several things versus one or two biggies, it can go either way. think pie charts.

I heard a radio commercial refer to the "charlotte-greensboro area."

what?

dirty santa tonight at work. scored a big sampler of tea. heather is now the proud owner of the cordless screwdriver that was my contribution.

another good film seen: sisters, with margot kidder. it's a total hitchcock ripoff, but in a good way. and it takes place on staten island of all locales. I don't think I've seen any other flicks that can claim that. certain scenes, yes, but not entire movies.

adrienne barbeau AND nicholas brendon?!? who wouldn't be looking forward to this movie! and I'm sure you'll agree if you've seen her do it--there is nothing sexier than adrienne holding a gun. nothing.

"jeremy is a big homo" alert: I've discovered the glory that is dita von teese. how does marilyn manson do it? first rose mcgowan, now this lovely lady. I'm missing something.

attention all greensbohemians: eat at backstreets, the new restaurant on battleground. it's good. swank but reasonable. I can't recommend the au gratin potatoes. but order anything else.

where the hell do filmmakers get off listing "special guest stars" in the credits of feature length movies? in my opinion, only tv shows can legitimately list guest stars.

I must not go to perez hilton's website anymore. it's corroding my brain. but, like the proverbial train wreck...

more echos of suburbia: I did a substantial portion of my Christmas shopping at sears.

I think daniel handler might be insane. I think I may be in love with him. too bad he's married. too bad I kindasortamaybeonedayalmostifimlucky am.

the chronicles of narnia. the harry potter series. it was only a matter of time.

lemony snicket.

for an adult, I make a great eight year old.

I usually don't go this long without posting, but I just haven't had the mental energy. I barely have the physical energy to do my daily stuff. I wonder if I should see the doctor. I rely so much on my adderall to give me a kick start and I sleep 12-14 hours on nights that I can get away with it. my diet sucks and I don't exercise for crap, though, and I'm sure those are the primary changes the doc would suggest.

however, I am right on top of Christmas this year. most of my gifts are purchased. and get this: the tree is up. and decorated. it may never happen again.

wanna read the most annoying article ever? I advise against it, but here it is. as a guy I feel obligated to say: "um, no." I've come to the conclusion that there are certain men who can't force themselves to commit to a single partner, but they aren't representational. those guys just shouldn't involve themselves in would-be monogamous relationships; they don't deserve them anyway. if you and your significant other have an "understanding" that you're both fine with, that's cool. but pretending to be committed to one individual when you're playing around is deceitful, cruel, and among the greatest harm you can do to another human being short of killing them outright.

steps off soapbox.

the new centre city park is open downtown. gorgeous fountain--it can even be programmed to do neat tricks like the one at the bellagio. even as a taxpayer, I wholeheartedly approve.

oh, and for your consideration was well worth the wait. go. see. enjoy.

hope everyone ate lots of turkey. or tofurky, if that's your scene. you know, of course, that that whole tryptophan business is essentially a myth. so if dinner made you sleepy, it was probably just your aunt tillie's conversation. that or just massive amounts of food that would make you sleepy regardless of what it was.

think myspace is addictive? pshaw. have some fun with yahoo answers. it's such an easy way of making a difference in the world (and, for students, getting free help with homework). I myself convinced a total stranger to buy a volvo instead of a saab. sorry, saab. and the point accumulation is so addictive. dammit, I WILL get to level two if it kills me!

robert altman has passed away. his death is a great loss for cinema. I don't know that there will ever be another like him.

updated my e-mail link at the top and linked to my myspace profile. I know I should shut petrified fountain down for good, but maybe one fine day I'll actually get motivated.

willow doesn't watch much tv with me. tonight, however, she was completely enthralled with fritz the cat. sat and stared for about an hour. I find this both amusing and disturbing...sort of like the movie itself.

speaking of movies, I'm about to piss myself with excitement over for your consideration next weekend. if your're lucky enough to live where it's playing and have seen it do NOT tell me. I want to watch it with a totally clean slate, without even reading reviews.

many "today's special" clips are on youtube. it's wonderful, and a good remedy for the mean reds. watching segments like this one makes me realize just how gay jeff really was. the things you don't notice as a child!

justin's birthday dinner is at buca di beppo this weekend. I'd better not eat between now and then. I probably won't eat for several weeks following, either.

oh, and the insomnia problem is solved. it had been years since I'd tried melatonin, so I gave it another go. I don't remember that stuff packing so much of a punch. talk about sleeping like the dead.

the new version of blogger is nice.

I want to apologize to anyone associated with me for being off kilter for the past week or so. I've just had a lot on my mind. it's complicated. you know, it's terrible to be depressed and not know why. but I think it can be worse to know why you're depressed and not be able to do anything about it.

a lot of it has to do with how little I see justin these days. he's working a crazy schedule (due to the restructuring of eghs's student body after the fire) that means we don't really see each other during the week. he also has a lot of conferencing and whatnot going on. he can't help it, and he's been more than understanding about my weird hours over the years. it's still tough. if I don't start getting out more I could easily go five days a week without talking with anyone face to face.

speaking of socializing, I was psyched to see the prestige with carra today but I had to stay in bed with a nasty stomachache. yecch. there went my sunday.

I'm so over frosted mini wheats. malt-o-meal blueberry muffin tops cereal blows my mind. I'm going straight into rehab over this stuff.

something else I'm excited about: Christmas. this year I'm truly pumped. I've already started shopping and planning the decor. gives me something to look forward to.

hopefully tonight I can overcome the insomnia that has plagued me lately. it's not good to be going to sleep hours after most of this time zone is awake.

do you ever get the feeling that your life is going, slowly but surely, down the tubes? and it gets to the point where you start having to wonder just where the tubes go? [note: have just learned where the tubes go. makes sense.]

just learned: if your microwave has a turntable, always put your food slightly off center. otherwise the turntable does you no good. can't believe I've gone all these years not knowing that.

after a lifetime of hearing about taxi driver I finally saw it. okay, I don't claim--as some film buffs do--that it's the best thing ever. but I understand WHY people think so, and I enjoyed it immensely. and if you've ever heard me describe "gothfield," it illustrates gothfield more than I thought any film could. but we'll save gothfield for next semester.

I was lame enough to record the war at home sunday just because seth macfarlane guest starred. what a crap show. his voice is beyond orgasmic, although I'm not sure he wasn't fudging it a little for the role (if you're a family guy fan, he was using the "brian" voice). if he ever spoke to me in person in those dulcet tones it would be all over. I don't know what "it" is, but it would be over.

am VERY pleased about the election results on the national front. on the local am somewhat disappointed. I'm unsure just how much the fire station bond was needed, yet it passed (eghs fire a factor?). I know how much the auditorium bond IS needed, yet it didn't. but I have no right to complain, having sat this election out. had I known that I could change my registration info at the polling place I would have done my part, but I truly didn't. well, all stats will be up to date by the next go round, and how.

well, justin's school burned down today. fine kettle of fish. the powers that be have until monday to decide just where everyone is going to go until it's rebuilt...whenever that happens. oh, he'll have a job. it's just a matter of where. still.

hope everyone had a good halloween. nadine threw a smashing early all hallow's eve party last saturday night. I'll get pictures up by the weekend. and no, I haven't forgotten about the car pics. just gotta take some. he/she's still wonderful, by the way. initially he was a boy named xander, but that doesn't feel right. I've yet to be truly inspired. maybe some of y'all can give me some ideas.

I think I can add good ginger beer to my list of culinary weaknesses. it's up there near skippy reduced fat smooth peanut butter, slightly above linguini with red clam sauce. I doubt anything will ever surpass scottish smoked salmon, though. it's my kryptonite. one whiff and my knees buckle. I have actually been known to collapse from the sheer joy of bagels and lox.

we seem to have gone from having unseasonably cold weather to the other extreme. it sure doesn't feel like november. if it doesn't cool off, my annual repeated references to a particular guns n' roses song will be completely irrelevant.

some talented and enterprising film maker HAS to make a pic about this guy. I haven't been able to dig up much info about him--as he would have wanted, I'm sure--but what I have found is fascinating. read this, for example. for some reason I'm picturing him played by david boreanaz, I dunno why.

do you ever get the feeling that all your acquaintances--bosses, co-workers, coffee shop employees, etcetera--secretly dislike you? maybe you detect a note of exasperation in their friendly banter or sense eyes rolling behind your back? I hate being paranoid. guess it's just part of my genetic makeup.

a phrase I hate: "titty bar." tit, titty, and titties in any other context don't bug me. it's only been used in my presence a few times, but I've cringed. probably because the people who've used it are generally not vulgar.

the reason that t---- bars come to mind is because I've heard so many radio commercials for them lately (although they're demurely referred to as "cabarets" or "gentleman's clubs"). and every commercial encourages couples to attend. hmm. I don't know how the majority of straight women feel about attending strip clubs with their mates, so I asked myself, "would I want to go to a male strip club with justin?" the answer: yes. but not for titillation purposes. I'd just want to keep an eye on him. I wonder how many women who go with their men to strip clubs secretly go for that reason.

speaking of nudity, I wonder if animals ask themselves why people bother wearing clothes?

is it possible to become addicted to frosted mini wheats? well, I guess I could have worse habits. I've started keeping a box in my desk at work and periodically munching the little nuggets from about 10 pm until I get off work around 3:30. better that than tater chips.

in the great gatsby, nick mentions his belief that every man suspects himself of having one of the "cardinal virtues." his own, he says, is true honestly. I've asked myself what my own greatest virtue is from time to time. my usual conclusion is humility. I've achieved some fairly impressive things, but I was raised never to crow about them. generally, only when someone else mentions some accolade that has come my way will I discuss it, and then I try to stay as factual as possible.

of course, having written this, can I still claim to be humble?

on a related note, there are few actions that I despise more than hurting other people to achieve personal gain. I'm not sure I've ever done that. I'd make the worst reporter that the enquirer has ever seen.

sorry, watching l.a. confidential has raised some moral issues. fancy cinema making someone think! although I sometimes wish I had less to think about lately. I'm not the most savvy person when it comes to current events, but I try to stay abreast of major stories. and let me tell you, reading the news gets more difficult every day. so many horrible things are happening over which I have no control. in today's society, there is no reason why mankind shouldn't be more intelligent than ever before. so why does it seem that we're backsliding?

I wonder if ostriches have the right idea.

back in the day I made a post about how some people just aren't sexy, and strongly implied that I was one of them. lately I've started thinking again about how true that is. it's not just that I don't meet society's accepted attractiveness criteria, although that's part of it. I just don't feel that anything I could do would make me feel attractive enough. okay, looks aren't everything. but they're something.

so fuck it. I'm not going to try anymore. trying doesn't make a difference.

a thousand thank yous to the mysterious ms. hopper who posted the road construction link. I've been looking for a website like that, since ncdot's main site offers precious little info.

in ireland, stores charge a tax equal to $0.15 on each plastic bag given to you. so if you buy five bags worth of groceries, $0.75 is added onto your total bill. bring your own bags and pay nothing.

that is such a good idea. when will america get with the program? I never put my stuff in a bag if I can carry it otherwise. what I don't understand is why I get treated like a criminal for doing it. take harris teeter, for example. I go though the self checkout, skip the bagging, and take my stuff. I've gotten everything from weird looks to yelling cashiers for doing this, and ALWAYS get my receipt checked. if I was stealing something, wouldn't I put it in a harris teeter bag to make it look less suspect? the logic seems completely wrong to me.

went in the browsery bookshop for the first time in years yesterday and bought a couple of books that I'd been wanting for ages. I love edward mckay's, but so many greensbohemians seem to think it's the only used bookstore in town. not so.

I adore the new wheels, but my finances are in the worst shape they've been in for a while. no more major purchases for me until I get back on my feet. so much for the villa in the bordeaux region that I've been scoping out.

people seem to be into halloween a lot more this year. more elaborate haunted houses, bigger pumpkin patches, more crowds than ever at party city. but that could be my impression because there are few people more halloween crazed than justin. any day I expect to come home and find the entire house covered in synthetic spider webs. it's adorable.

I wish that I'd liked halloween more as a kid, but it's just a testament to my laziness that I didn't. I mean, why dress up and walk around the neighborhood to get candy when my parents could just buy it for me? of course, I was also cripplingly shy. I guess I could always make up for lost time. my last attempt at a costume, though, was "disheveled man." thankfully only justin, nadine, and several thousand strangers in chapel hill witnessed that caper...although the legend lives on.