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.

friday the 13th lived up to its name. I got stuck in stalled construction traffic and was late to work for the first time in perhaps a year. I don't know what the hell they're doing on US 29, but it had better be impressive.

I'm relieved that jean shepherd is dead. it means that I'll never get the opportunity to meet him. I'm glad of that. I'd be so terrified that he wouldn't like me. if shep gave me the brushoff, I'd lose all will to live.

so what happened to lea thompson, anyway? she was everywhere for a few years. I kinda miss her, actually.

have you ever noticed that, in pretty much any film made pre-1960, when a car has three people in it they always sit in the front seat? was it in vogue to cram three people into the front seat of a studebaker? was it gauche to sit in the perfectly good back seat? I'll never understand.

I keep finding out that guys I knew ten years ago have kids now. what disturbs me is that I find this titillating. maybe I'm starting to understand those calendars that have the sexy men posing with the cute babies.

it always amazes me that gay men who hook up with random guys they meet online for sex (as opposed to actual dating, which is, ahem, another kettle of fish) seem to think they're not running any risks. they are. not that anyone deserves to be beaten down--it's the aggressors who are the real scum, of course. but if you're so horny that you resort to slimy behavior, you might pay for it. it's just never been worth the risk for me.

sorry, but I work hard to be an upstanding homosexual citizen. I get rankled when stereotypical gay activities get press, thereby damning us all.

in other news, NEW CAR PURCHASED TODAY! pics to come.

enough of this e. coli crap. it's going to get to the point that the only safe eatin' is human flesh itself. maybe jonathan swift was on to something.

speaking of food, I've gotta do something about my diet, and not just for lardass related reasons this time. I'm tired alllllllll the time lately, although I sleep 8+ hours per night and eat regularly. I guess it may well be the crap I stuff myself with. I pretty much live on hot pockets and barf buckets (by that I mean heat and serve manwich). bad scene.

just when I thought I knew all the best useless trivia:

the name of the shark in jaws is bruce.

I try to refrain from comments as judgemental as this, but sienna miller is a dumb whore. there. I've said it.

I've always been a cologne snob. 4711 has changed that. if it was good enough for george washington it's good enough for me. and I love people telling me that I smell great--I just don't clue them in to the fact that said smell costs a mere six bucks a bottle.

jean shepherd is corrupting my brain. I am still listening to nothing else at work, which amounts to over six hours of shep per day. my conversations are becoming peppered with antiquated slang like "dad" and "bad scene." it's only a matter of time before I start offering people the brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf palm. and it'll make me so sad when they look at me funny. kids today just don't know what's cool.

'rents here today for dad's belated birthday dinner at olive garden, which was great. my present to dad was reminding him that he's now old enough to order from many senior citizens menus. because it really is the thought that counts.

I want to go to frisco and visit tiffany. I also want to go to salem/portland, boston, wisconsin dells (indoor water park capital of the universe), omaha, vancouver, glasgow, dubai, sydney, marrakesh, tokyo, and a few other cities. too bad travel is so time consuming and expensive. if only they'd invent teleportation. of course, then I'd be out of a job.

I'm all in favor of outlawing cell phone usage without headsets while driving. but in return, I think that the cell users of the world deserve better headsets than what are on the market. when I got my razr I got a nifty bluetooth headset. it started gathering dust when I got sick of people being unable to hear more than every third or fourth syllable of my speech. so I got an old school wired earphone. nearly every time I use it, I end up yanking it out and talking on the headset alone so that I can be heard at all. I'm fed up, I tell ya.

speaking of laws: if youtube bites the dust due to all this copyright bullshit, there will be no hope left for me. how can The Powers That Be see a website that only allows 10 minute clips as a threat when full length films are constantly being swapped through torrent usage? some complete movies are on youtube broken up into segments, okay. but if anyone's lame enough to actually download each segment and fuse them together to watch the flick, they will NOT fork out the cash to buy it in the store if they have to.

fun food for thought: you're the hottest new thing in hollywood, and interview magazine wants to run an article on you (in case you don't know--rather than using conventional journalists, interview has celebrities interview OTHER celebrities). who would you want to interview you?

after giving the matter much thought, I'm all about shooting the breeze with julia stiles. we're about the same age, I respect her as an actress, and I think it would be less frustrating to talk with a columbia grad than with some bubbleheaded hollywood poster child.

"fight test" by the flaming lips makes me get all teary. not because it's a sad song--it certainly isn't that--but because it reminds me that college did, in fact, happen. those four years were magic. they really were. I'm happier now, sure. I wouldn't trade my life for anything; I'm so damned lucky! but I miss feeling...that life was finally beginning. I think that captures it pretty well. it was like I spent that time with all five senses maxed out, drinking up the world. there was all this potential, all this electricity.

since I'm not in an overly sentimental mood, time to change the subject. can you believe that there is now a dustin diamond sex tape in public hands? crazy. I have to see it, of course, although it may blind me. I just feel that it's my duty.

I never should have posted about my new car. it's just made me more anxious to get the damn thing. I'll shed tears over ophelia, to be sure. but it's like the week before Christmas when you're a kid, seeing all the gifts under the tree. they mock you, drive you insane with anticipation. there was one holiday season when I was 9 or 10 when, little by little, I picked all the corners off the wrapping paper trying to see what all the boxes were. I thought no one would notice. mm hmm.

by the way, I got a pair of radio controlled race cars that year. they were from the jcpenney catalog. totally sweet.

through some idiocy of mine, I completely vaporized firefox on my computer to the extent that not even a system restore would fix things. all my saved passwords, pfft. all my themes and extensions, pow. and the biggie? about a hundred bookmarks collected over a period of several years, adios. all I can think about are things that I would rather have happened than this. some examples are having all my tires slashed, all my CDs stolen, gaining twenty pounds, and/or the complete destruction of a major household appliance. well. so it goes.

I'm so addicted to old jean shepherd radio shows (shep is best known as the author of and the narrator in A Christmas Story). I don't know if I'm ever going to need audio books again. he's not for everyone. but if you like the idea of listening to a guy ramble aimlessly, yell, and play the kazoo for an hour or so, you'll dig him. best of all, TONS of mp3s of his stuff are available here completely free of charge. the best way to sift through it all is to do a "Search By Artist Name" and type in a random year from the 50s or 60s. my gigabeat runneth over.

it amazes me that, in this day and age, many straight men remain completely ignorant of the whereabouts of the female g-spot. I wonder how many of these guys would also deny the existence of the male g-spot on their own person. I'll bet there's a strong correlation.

speaking of men, here's "a guy thing" that womenfolk should be let in on. don't ever believe a guy when he says, "it's not heavy, it's just awkward" when he lifts something. it's heavy. he just won't admit it.

so I was going to try and keep this under wraps until I had the object in my possession, but I've just gotta say it: I'm getting that new car! I put down a deposit on a black honda fit sport that should presently be en route from japan. it may be a couple of weeks yet, and the anticipation is murder. of course flow honda will have to give me a fair deal on 'phelia or I'll take my money back and tell them to shove it.

I am so stressed I could scream. I'd love to scream, in fact, but since I already have a headache that would make it worse, thereby stressing me out more. I can't win.

not gonna worry about anything all weekend. I shall eat, drink, and be merry. come monday, I will face the coming week with new resolve and a one-two punch.

I hope.

in other news, marie antoinette is the best movie ever. no, I haven't seen it yet--seeing as how it hasn't been released that would be difficult. but the teaser alone is all I need to see (to say nothing of the spectacular full length trailer).

here's a new topic for ya: financial advice. if you're interested in socking away a few dollars, follow in my footsteps and open an account at ing direct. the idea of an internet-only bank is sketchy, sure. but they've got a proven record, they're FDIC insured, and their savings account interest rates are waaaaaaaaaaaay higher than any bank you can walk into off the street.

justin's enjoying his job lately. I'm not enjoying mine. when did we slip into bizarro world? I trust that the situation will be rectified soon. mine, anyway--last week I was overwhelmed with a lot of unfamiliar work, but I'm expecting this week to take a turn for the better. let's hope his career outlook stays screwed up.

I can understand why some bipolar/dysthymic folks love their manic episodes so much that they won't take meds. I miss laughing uncontrollably for no apparent reason. thankfully, as long as family guy stays on the air, I'll at least be able to laugh uncontrollably on sunday nights.

I love a straight guy who's open minded enough to realize that sexual orientation doesn't define who someone is. I also love straight guys who aren't afraid to be physically affectionate--bear hugs, shoulder rubs, that kinda thing--and ones who don't freak out when their gay friends discuss their attraction to particular members of the same sex. but I'll tell you what I don't like: incredibly attractive guys who identify as straight while openly flirting with gay men, all the while having no intention of following up on their overtures.

if anyone reading this has a friend who has a friend who has a friend who knows julian mcmahon, please get him to read this post. yeah, I read your article in the advocate, buddy. fuckin cocktease.

in light of the upcoming holidays, I've begun revising my amazon.com wish list. and YES, all my info is correct this time--anything bought for me will be delivered to the right place. supposing anyone loves me enough to buy me stuff...because really, isn't that what the holiday season is all about?

funny but true: some years ago, one of the Christmas presents that I asked my parents for was a copy of the movie hairspray . my mum got a little confused when she went shopping.

she bought me shampoo.

possibly the best mistake she ever made, though. I'd never seen it before, but have come to regard shampoo as one of the all time great films. far too many people in this day and age haven't seen it, and shame on all of you. go rent and/or buy it right this second.

in other cinematic news, my newest obsession is mamie van doren. why? for a good example, looka here. sorry to offend any marilyn monroe fans, but to me the choice is clear. mamie is THE sex goddess of her time. period. and her time period.

still more cinematic news: all y'all were right about little miss sunshine. hot damn, what a flick! and all y'all critics were right about the covenant. hot damn, what a rotten flick!

I may be pretentious, but I would NEVER use the word "zeitgeist" in polite conversation. people who do should be silenced permanently. it reminds me of something that kurt vonnegut says in a man without a country. I don't remember the exact quote, but he commands the reader never to use semicolons in writing. he says they only prove you've been to college. so I'm trying to cut back.

as usual I'm about five years behind, but I'm pretty sure that sam-e is a miracle drug. now that I've started taking it I'm about as willing to miss one as a hooker is to forget a birth control pill. I'm such a pharmie. is that a word? it is now. it sounds nicer than pill popper. well, at least I can claim a) that I have all the necessary prescriptions and b) that I've never sold any of my drugs. giving them away as party favors doesn't count.

newly discovered wonder of my personal world: cherry kijafa, a syrupy sweet danish wine that's much more potent than most whites or reds. teeter has it here, and I imagine that most wine stores do. try this: put some ice cubes into a tall glass and fill it 2/3 full of kijafa. fill the rest with sprite...and squirt in a good bit of hershey's syrup and stir. seriously. if you like the taste of cherry cordials you'll love it. if not, leave the syrup out. either way, it's a yummy, strong beverage that doesn't even taste much like alcohol. mmm.

maybe I should get some sleep before I start getting ideas about robbing both liquor stores and pharmacies, huh?

brad pitt has never impressed me much.

he does now.

as much as I love self checkout lanes, it's a shame that there's no cashier on hand to comment on my purchases. which is why I've started talking to myself while scanning my items. for example, upon swiping a bag of great value fruit smiles across the scanner at wal-mart, I took a minute to say, "are these any good?" before bagging them. that's what cashiers always want to know about your food items: "are these any good?" because people regularly buy groceries that they hate.

speaking of consumerism, is anyone else amused by the number of new cleaning products that advertise themselves as having "THE POWER OF OXYGEN!"? I'm so glad that we discovered that...what's it called again? oxygen? seems like it really makes life easier and stuff. all those years that we lived in ignorance of THE POWER OF OXYGEN. the human race has come so far thanks to science and technology.

fellow mst3k fans: I've known about the greatest site ever for a while, but never commented on it here. I've just ordered my second batch of ten discs. I need to watch more joel episodes, I know, but part of me is just crazy in love with mike. another dilf for the list.

I'm going to learn to ski this winter. I grew up about 30 minutes from some decent ski country--several kids at my high school did ski patrol for wintertime spending money--and I think it's time. I'm not all that interested in skiing, honestly. it's just that I stumbled across some pictures of whistler, british columbia and I think it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen. one day I must go, and to enjoy it fully I feel that I must ski. and I love winter so much. I'd love to see at least a little snow this year.

nick lachey needs to stop looking so damn tortured all the time. quite frankly, he just doesn't seem intelligent enough to ruminate. give him a copy of the bell jar and some black nail polish and he could be any gothic/melodramatic high school girl in america. with better abs.

are the postal service ever going to release a second album? for fuck's sake.

I'm supposed to be at dragon*con right now. I'm not. long story. made short, I felt like death warmed over on saturday morning and the idea of staying up to drive six hours made me want to drink drano.

tomorrow marks two years with justin. hopefully at least 90 more to go.

lmn has been crankin out the fabulous early 90s tv movies this weekend. between them and tcm, who needs pay channels? my hard drive is full of b-movie goodness--time to break out that spindle of taiyo yuden dvds.

thanks to my pal at bhendrix.com for introducing me to the stumbleupon plugin. and thanks to stumbleupon for showing me the greatest internet timewaster I've seen in...maybe ever. I offer no explanation, just instructions: click and drag stuff.

I'm not as far left politically as a lot of people, but I'm cheering with the liberals at the news of plan b being made available over the counter. of course, that's not so much a political issue as common sense, in my opinion. which means that I'm probably more left leaning than I think.

I have to stop trying to make my life more interesting by buying things. it only works for about twenty-four hours per purchase. also, I'm running out of cool stuff that I want to buy. although I am squirreling away money for a new set of wheels. I adore 'phelia, but at close to 100k miles I worry that she's getting a little tired. I want a honda fit, but they're so in demand that if I can get a hold of one I'll probably be offered a lousy deal on my trade in. well, it's a moot point until at least october. and I'll probably chicken out--I love my miata too much.

I admire this year's primetime emmys for keeping the program on schedule, but shit! they had the winners on a freakin conveyor belt! I'm surprised they didn't just chuck the awards into the audience. entertaining, though, even if a certain ex of mine swaggered away with best supporting actor in a comedy. well, his acceptance speech was short and finished quickly, which I've come to expect from him. I'd threaten to jam that statuette where the sun don't shine, but any day now I'm sure I'll get a drunken phone call begging me to do just that--in a scenario probably also involving candle wax and duct tape. sigh...maybe I do still care about him.

[legal disclaimer: I don't know jeremy piven. to the best of my knowledge, he isn't any guy's ex or current boyfriend. my referring to him as such is a running inside joke stemming from my long-term love-hate relationship with his celebrity persona, which has been chronicled in previous posts. so there.]

catching them on a rerun of "pee wee's playhouse" reminded me just how fabulous the del rubio triplets are. I speak of both their legs and their music. their sole in-print cd (an anthology, thankfully) is on its way to me from amazon. that way I can stop continuously streaming "walk like an egyptian" from their myspace.

I've also rekindled my love for robert altman. short cuts is absolutely one of the most brilliant films ever, and a wedding may just be my new (old) favorite comedy.

I make no secret of my love for all things narnia. but having read the chronicles approximately fifty times each (maybe thirty for the last battle; I just don't care for it much), I've realized that there's one thing that c.s. lewis's editor should not have stood for. it is made very clear that talking beasts and people are on the same plain of respectability. so the author should NOT have alternated pronouns between "he/she" and "it" when referring to them. it seems completely random.

I hate not getting home from work until morning radio shows are on the air. besides meaning that it's been a friggin long night, I hate any and all morning radio shows. who the hell wants to wake up to a bunch of idiots sniggering at their own dumb jokes and dumber sound bytes, anyway?

so my parents gave me the old phone from my bedroom at home to use in our study. although not a dial phone, it's fashioned to look like one and sure as hell sounds like one. makes me jump three feet when it rings. the reason I find it so funny is that it sounds uncannily like the phone that the martians investigate in the old "sesame street" episode. to bring back memories, click here. to see the hilarious "drawn together" send-up of it, click here as well. thank heavens for youtube.

a new baby! nadine has assumed custody of ye olde ipod mini and I'm now the proud owner of a toshiba gigabeat. he's so cool. now I can be even dorkier than before, using my pc to record "the closer" AND taking the episodes wherever I go.

speaking of pc, if all the muscles in my body were as developed as my pc muscles, I'd look like arnold schwarzenegger in conan the barbarian.

if you don't already know, don't look up "pc muscles" unless you really don't mind knowing an awful lot about me.

I've had an enjoyable random few days off from work. odfl doesn't let us carry vacation days over, and I only have until september 29th (the anniversary of my hire date) to use this year's up. so I took justin and went to visit my folks. they're talking more seriously about selling both their houses and moving down here. it would be sad, sure--I mean, I lived in one house for eighteen years and some change--but I place a higher priority on having them live closer to me.

new wal-mart opened today! that's more exciting than it sounds, since it means that we will only be driving five minutes to shop there instead of 20-30. I know vol-de-mart is the devil's playground and all, but dammit! the devil sells cheap stuff!

gotta rest up so I can be fresh for getting back to the grind tomorrow. for a whole two straight days, anyway.