The past week has been busy at work. I haven't done much at home as a result, because I'm always tired. The Christmas(tm) rush is similar to the battle of Helm's Deep in the Two Towers, except with most of the orcs replaced with wandering shoppers. It's amazing how people with average body types can obstruct an aisle so I can't get by when I'm trying to help a customer. How many times have I wished I could do the wall run from Jedi Outcast to get past these human drain clogs. They range from staggeringly intelligent to sub-moneran, but as long as they pay with American currency and leave promptly with minimal fuss, I have no quarrel with them.

I finished wrapping my gifts to my nuclear family just now. There are some people who can wrap with the precision of a Swiss watch maker, and I am not one of those people. My wrapping jobs are more of a Matisse style. This is to say that if the paper covers most of the item and any obvious logos and stays taped together even under mild shaking, I count it a success.

To all (three of) my blog readers, I wish you a happy eight consecutive days in December (possibly including the first day of January) that encompass your respective celebration. And a lump of coal for Saddam, since we took all of his oil.

I just got back from the midnight premiere of Return of the King, thus completing the third part of the longest movie ever. I thoroughly enjoyed it, all three and a half hours of it. Tomorrow I'm going to drive all the way to Gambier and back. I think after that I'll do something simple, like fall off a log or eat pie. I hope to get back home early enough to get a decent amount of sleep, as I have to be at work at 7:00 AM the next morning.

I'm quite tired, so this will be a short post. This morning I helped Dawn move from point A to point B by way of point Q to pick up a couch. I didn't actually pick it up, someone else did, but I was there to offer moral support. Then I went to work (blah blah, register, blah blah) and after work I bought "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and terry Pratchett, and a little photo album that I want to fill with little 2"x3" ink drawings. I haven't decided on a theme, but I might make a series of updated versions of sketches I did in high school. I also bought tickets for Return of the King for me and other people from USF I'm meeting at the theater.

It's kind of funny- I was really busy today, but I don't have anything else to write about. I think I'll be happy when my hours are cut back after the holiday business rush ends.

It's been quite awhile since I last updated here. Truth be told, I've been pretty boring. I had a couple days off work that I intended to use productively, but I just slept a whole lot and played video games. Today it was back to being productive at B&N. I got to the mall at 7:00 AM and they already had the Christmas music playing at full blast. There weren't any shoppers due at the mall for at least an hour or more, but the chorus of divine commerce was blasting away regardless. That, and the wind this morning was colder than a well digger's ass in January. Once I got inside, things were better. Around 10:00 my friend in the music department put on a reggae CD that put me in a good mood for the duration, then it was back to the same old crap that I've heard day in and day out for weeks now.

I had planned to just go home and put my feet up after work, but there were coupons for a couple mall merchants in the breakroom. For some reason my good sense left me and I took a coupon to its corresponding merchant: Aeropostale. Ick. I do own a sweatshirt with their name on it, but I bought it in the basement of the OSU student union, miles from the store. And it was on sale. So I decide to venture into Aeropostale because I'm tired and a little curious as to what I could get for %20 off.

I suddenly appreciate the music that Barnes & Noble plays so much more. As much as hearing "oh come all ye faithful" as a wailing power guitar ballad makes my skin crawl, it's still better than hearing the insipid pop holiday tunes that I was subjected to in the five minutes I spent in Aeropostale. Everything in the store is perpetually 16 years old, the employees included, and myself included, hence I hated everything about my surroundings. Everything but a decent looking belt I found. It's just a greenish belt with no logo that looks like it might last a few years, so that was my purchase. I brought the belt to the register to pay and escape into the far preferable bitter cold, and the ageless proto-youth behind the counter tells me that belts, stocking caps, boxers, and socks were all buy one get one half off. If I was a Cobra Tele-Viper, the text across my visor would be a bold WTF? I don't need another identical belt, I look like a tool in a stocking cap, the boxers didn't roxor at all, and the socks were too small and drastically over-priced. Anyway, I declined to purchase more. Then there was a guy working there (an anomaly to be sure) who asked me where I worked. I told him, and he said I looked like a book person. I couldn't really think of anything to say to that. I don't think I'll be going back to that store.

More work tomorrow, and Saturday I'm helping a co-worker move into her new house before more work. Maybe that'll provide some blogfodder.

I learned how to make lots and lots of coffee this morning at work. I think it's a sign that I'm going to be a permanent employee when they decide to train me in this sort of thing. I can now make all sorts of beverages, something like eight or nine variations on coffee. Still no cure for cancer. I got to taste all of my creations, too, so I went from slightly groggy to wired over the course of half an hour. The rest of the day was easy, as I effortlessly floated four inches above the ground because my molecules were vibrating in harmony with the natural energy fields of the earth.

Outside of work, I haven't done too much. I found a correct tab file for Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" and learned to play it fairly well. I got new shoes and gloves for the cold weather. This is the exciting personal journalism that people read blogs for.

One last note, check out the new link in the top right portion of this page. The RIAA radar is where I can check my potential purchases to make sure that none of the money goes to a bunch of soulsucking entertainment lawyers and executives. I'm happy to report that all of my purchases since I began my boycott early last summer have been from independent labels.

I got up so early this morning that it might as well have been last week to go to work for the busiest shopping day of the year. I figured it was a good way to score points with the managers so they'll let me stay on as a permanent employee after the holiday season ends and the mall takes down it's nearly twenty-seven miles of weather-proof garland and lights. I had to park way away from the store because apparently the mall rent-a-cops told all the merchants that nobody can park anywhere near where they work because the parking is needed for shoppers. (I swear, when the Old Navy/ Yankee Candle store Allied People's Labor Front finally builds a barricade and rebels, I'll take up arms with them.) So, after marching back to the store in weather so cold it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey, I clock in and proceed to start shelving books. Of course, nobody told me the proper way to organize the sections until I had messed up, but that's how everybody there learned. Two hours later, the store was ready to open and I was set to run a cash register for the next six hours. It wasn't so bad, though, because I got to work with Dawn the extrovert. That's not her real last name, obviously, because I can't spell her last name. My imagined surname is apt, though. She spent the early morning compensating for my cold dead silence by talking about anything that came to mind, and we built a conversation on this somehow. Business was steady throughout the morning without being nuts like I thought it would be. Even the food court at lunch was pretty calm. I had two giant slices of matza-thin pizza from the pizza place with the cool employees for lunch, and then back to work. By the time I left, my shoe heel pad inserts had slipped down into my arches, giving the sensation that I was walking on jello. I was hungry and tired and tired of being hungry and cold. What's the best remedy for this? Why, Mexican food! One hour and a veggie combo "e" later I was good to go. I ended up going back to Barnes and Noble to buy Thickfreakness by the Black Keys. It's a CD I've wanted for a long time, and since I just got my first paycheck, I bought it. Don't worry, it's published by Epitaph, who is not a member of the riaa.

I'm free this weekend, so I plan to go looking to try to figure out what to get people for Christmas, as well as what I might want. I really can't think of anything, though. There's a book I saw at work that looks cool, but that's about it. Ah well, no matter. Any meaning in this season that can't be gleaned from the Peanuts Christmas special isn't worth my time.

Work has been going well. So well, in fact, that I have little else to talk about. I work eight hours a day selling books to an even mix of smart people and people who are doing the right thing by buying a book. Sweet old ladies buy harlequin romance novels with covers that would make a sailor blush and titles made of randomly exciting words. Guys come in and buy four different gun magazines and they're always polite and well groomed, defying my stereotype of the average gun nut. I wander around helping people like Bruce Banner in the old Hulk TV series, except in a bookstore and I don't get big and green. I just get frustrated when I can't find the right place to shelve a book. It's a good thing, though, because I'm saving for grad school. Having a goal and cool co-workers make customer service so much better. So come on down to Barnes and Noble. We'll let you in out of the cold and sell you a book or a CD or a movie and a cup of coffee, and then send you on your way. Remember, you can't spell "Barnes and Noble" without "nesandno", which is probably a word for "good books" in some foreign language. Trust me on that one, I work in a book store.

I worked my first full day today, eight hours. Full tour of the store, hang out in music, work in customer service, cash register, lunch break (at 7:00, lunch time in the middle of the Pacific), customer service, cash register, straighten up and go home. Needless to say, my feet are on strike. The up side is that I'm in a job with people I can talk to and it's even kind of rewarding selling books to people. People are interested in all sorts of things, it turns out. One gentleman ordered a book on the history of the world from 600 BC- 200 AD. I was happy to oblige, of course.

Okay, now this next section may be a little strange, as it deals with signs of the apocalypse, but bear with me. In all of the various editions of the Bible and the movie Ghostbusters are several signs to watch for. The one that isn't mentioned, oddly enough, is the skinny Jewish Santa Claus. That's right, the skinny Jewish Santa Claus. Apparently my good friend Gerry was drafted to play jolly old saint nick in a local commercial. The funny thing is, of course, he's never really bought into the whole commercialised Christian holiday idea for as long as I've known him, and rightly so. But that's not the funny part- the funny part is, he's skinny Jewish Santa Claus! Bwa Ha Ha! This might even trump the historical significance story from 1997. According to his blog (link to the left) the ad will start airing today. I'm elated at this, of course. One of my friends is now quasi-famous until, I don't know, new years maybe. I'm going to ride his coat tails to all kinds of riches and perks, like getting to ride shotgun in his car or getting a choice table at either local Bob Evans. Congratulations, Gerry- you're one baby step closer to your own reality show with Corey Feldman and MC Hammer. Good on you!

I had my first day of work today. Nothing much, just four hours learning and using the register. The people are all cool and things were slow enough that I could learn it all pretty easily. Tomorrow I'll be working at the customer service desk, looking up books and hunting them down for people. It's the sort of work I think I might prefer, so I'll see what it's like. Nothing else to say, really.

I do believe I got the job at Barnes and Noble. I've had two interviews within twenty-four hours and both went well, so w00t. After learning more about the company, my opinion has greatly shifted to positive. The image I had of them only offering best sellers and light material was based on the display tables. Apparently, the store carries quite a bit more tucked away on the shelves. BN is also the only place in town I could find Dee Dee Ramone's book Chelsea Horror Hotel, my next book to read after I finally finish Diary. The first manager I talked to sounded like he wanted me to work in music, which I wouldn't mind at all, but part of me wants to work with the books because I feel I have a broad enough knowledge base to help people in several sections.

I went to an art show last night at a local tatoo and piercing studio. The one unifying theme of all the pieces was skulls. Nearly everything had a skull somewhere in it. It wasn't cliched, though. The really interesting pieces were the ink designs by the tatoo artists. They normally work with ink injected into flesh, so seeing them use ink on paper is really interesting. It's a unique style similar to Japanese ink paintings. Aside from the art, there were other entertaining elements at the show. The small flock of curious high school hipster kids (looking like they stepped out of the liner notes for the latest Strokes album) were kind of funny, looking uneasy but wanting to see an underground art show. There was also a guy in a gorilla suit hanging out in the lobby, and a mime walking around shaking a donation box. I hope the donations were for the show, now that I think about it.

I turned in my application at Barnes and Noble today so that I might become a lanyard clad, book hocking holiday helper monkey. I'll sell you books approved by Oprah, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly. Want a heartwarming collection of poetry about the cute things moon-faced retarded kids say? Come see me. How about the long-winded diatribe of an ex congressman? I have that right here for you. What's the best way to put to rest the rumors of your shameful illiteracy? Why, buy a book! Scientists everywhere agree that books make people look smarter. You like looking smart, right? You're not a dummy, are you? Of course not. But maybe you're worried about looking pretentious? I can see how you might worry about that. Not to worry, though, our books won't make you look pretentious, like that old "Little Professor" store. They carried books about "Europe," and "Asia", and other places Americans don't live. Thank divine providence that they aren't selling those kinds of books in our fair city anymore. Come see me, or any other semi-casually dressed book seller, and we'll get you set up with a good book. You'll be able to feel good about your purchase, even if you never actually finish or even comprehend the content within.

Ok, that's out of my system. I know I have to stay positive, even though I hold a bit of a grudge against them for forcing out smaller privately-owned stores. B&N isn't that bad, really. They have a nice selection of art and design magazines. I might even get a discount on their sparse collection of obscenely marked up cds.

I found a bunch of Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan concerts from as far back as 1992. All kinds of live performances, from various sources of varying quality. It's amazing to think that I missed most of these shows the first time around because I didn't know how much I would enjoy them when I was older. When I was in seventh grade I hadn't the foggiest idea how cool it would've been to see a curly-haired Billy and company performing "I am one" right after it came out. To see them perform '"Starla" for fifteen minutes to a packed audience. It makes me wonder what I'm unaware of right now. These things always take time to filter into the suburbs, even to avant-garde-lite types like myself.

It's a special report tonight, blog readers. So far, all of my posts have been written past-tense, reflecting on things I have done. Tonight will be different. Tonight, I will be blogging as I prepare noodles with oriental peanut sauce. I've never prepared this dish before, so I could be in for an eventful evening. It could be crazy- crazy!

A little background:
I bought a package of organic oriental noodles at the food co-op the other day. In truth, I was only in there to buy a couple packs of instant thai noodles and try to position myself in the checkout lane with the cute redhead, but the sale tag over the noodle bags snared my attention. A buck thirty-nine for noodles is a bit much, but these were no ordinary noodles. These were organic noodles that promised not to kill me upon consumption. For those of you who aren't familiar with organic\vegan food, here's how to tell if it's organic: it looks like dirt and the packaging swears up and down that it contains all kinds of herbs and grain-based materials. No one can confirm exactly what most of these ingredients are, so they must be good for people.

Anyway, I want to make something interesting that I've never had before. I just have to find something without meat and made from things I have on hand. Kind of like Macguyver (peace be upon him).

I found a recipe using google here. The Columbus Dispatch in Columbus Ohio, a city I love, has provided me with an oriental peanut sauce. The peanut comes from peanut butter, which was developed by someone in America, or so I'm told every black history month. I'm including this link so you can open a new tab and follow along at home. If your browser doesn't support tabs, you're probably using ms internet explorer. My condolences.

Through the wonders of modern technology and Best Buy I'll be narrating the preparation via a laptop from the kitchen.

Preparation:
Okay, I'm in the kitchen to confirm that I have the proper sauce ingredients. We have a surprising amount of staple items for cooking various dishes. The hot pepper sauce I'm using is questionable because it's hot sauce for tacos, but I'm kind of making this up as I go along with the recipe, so we'll see what happens. Everything looks to be in order, so I'll get started.

Execution:
Okay, start with the peanut butter. Three tablespoons. It's kind of thick, and not the most workable medium in the world, but I managed. Now I need to mix in two tablespoons of boiling water. At first glance, this seems like some kind of joke for newbie chefs, to make them try to burn themselves measuring a tiny amount of boiling water. The trick is that the water boils away too fast for them to get an accurate amount, especially one tablespoon at a time. To compensate for this, I'm boiling more than two tablespoons of water. Liberal arts strikes again!

Well I'll be darned, it worked. The peanut butter thinned out nicely. It's the consistency of some kind of sauce, so I'm on the right track. Add soy sauce, done. Seems like a bit much, but whatever. Add vinegar, done. More stirring, everything mixes well in my little white dish. It's actually pretty tasty right now, but I choose to add a bit of hot sauce. Three little drops in my mix. Stir, taste, nada. Add a bit more. Not bad! Just a hint of pepper.

Okay, now the noodles. This ought to be easy, I've been cooking noodles for years. A watched pot never boils, so I'm typing to kill time. The recipe says I need four ounces of noodles. Fortunately, I have a postal scale handy to determine the weight of my noodles. After a little trial and error, I have four ounces of noodles. It was kind of like that part in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy has to balance the bag of sand with the idol, except I'm using noodles and I'm not in a room designed to kill me. Hey, there goes the water. Add noodles, stir, wait patiently. The organic noodles look like long thin wood chips and they float, so I have to keep stirring them. Noodles done, strained, and in the bowl. Pour on sauce and clean up a bit.

The verdict:
It's pretty good, actually. I'm pleased. It's a heaping bowl, so I'm glad I like it. Even a few bites later, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. It's better than I expected, much better than peanut butter and vinegar and soy sauce on noodles initially sounds.

It was filling and satisfying without upsetting my digestive system, which is always a plus. If I had an image server I would have included pictures of my progress, but that would have taken even longer to complete. My total prep time was about an hour with all the typing and reading the directions, so I'm sure I could get it down to about fifteen minutes once I'm good at making it. I never thought I'd be mixing peanut butter to put on noodles. It never occurred to me.

This concludes my first sweeps month blogging stunt. Remember- watch this space for the superblog team-up of Gerry and Loyal, which will answer the question; "what if Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee collaborated on a comic about two skinny guys trying to survive in a world of lumbering fatasses clamoring around the mantra of atkins?" Stay tuned.

It's been a good couple of days. I went to see Stomp last night and then the Matrix: Revolutions today so I'm in a pretty good mood.

Gerry says that we need to hype our joint blog, which is funny because we each represent half of the other's audience. Here's how the preview would look if this was a movie:

20th century fox fanfare circa 1977, then the Warner Brothers title screen, fade to black.

fade in music: "the Guns of Love Disastrous" by the Smashing Pumpkins (instrumental variation of the Batman and Robin movie songs)

Transition up from black to the two fools, Loyal and Gerry standing facing each other by a cool looking grey metal wall. Loyal is wearing one of his several short sleeve black "artist" shirts. Gerry is wearing a red shirt with a blue shirt over it, looking sophisticatedly geeky.

Gerry: "It's time, fool."

Loyal: "Aye."

Fast paced montage of both characters doing all kinds of exciting things, like driving speed boats and jumping across rooftops a la Spike Jonze's Sabotage video. Intercut shots of mundane things too, like driving and sitting in the basement watching TV.

text: Coming 2003

text: Eep

fin

That's how it would go, I suppose. Geeked out and overhyped. The only good thing about it would be that we aren't moving our story to Miami and picking a fight with Vinnie Barbarino. Who would do that? That would be worse than devoting half of Godfather III to Michael Corleone's daughter and Greedo shooting first combined.

Ground Control to Major Tom

I've been informed that I need to update this blog. I hadn't realized that it had been full week since my last update. I am also reminded that it has been a full week without anything major happening. I hung out with Todd and James a few times and that was cool, but I'm not sure how blog-worthy it was. My definition of blog-worthy is getting a little stringent, though.

I got a rejection letter for the computer help desk job, which pissed me off royally. I need money in a big way if I'm ever going to move away from here, and I need a job to get money. What does it take? I'm starting to think that I might not be smarter than all the mouth breathers I like to feel superior to. Ah well, at least I get mail. Applying for a job is kind of like using active sonar pinging to reaffirm that I'm alive. I send out a resume, portfolio, and demo reel, and I get a polite letter back informing me that I'm not needed. Maybe it's like the boomerang in the Legend of Zelda games- I throw it out and get a steaming lump of rejection when it returns. Thus far, my accuracy is %100.

I found myself musing about domestic things again tonight. I was in Meijer waiting for a prescription to be filled, so I wandered through the hardware department to look at the tools and I ended up in the aisle with the lights and other little home-y touches. I was actually looking at this stuff and thinking about how I'd paint it or alter it to suit my tastes when furnishing an apartment. It's odd that it feels kind of natural. I'd like to furnish my own place some day, but that would mean moving to a different city, away from all my friends. I guess it's a trade off. I would like to live in Chicago, or some cool city. I'd also like a nice varied music scene I could get into. Oh hell, I'd be happy with a job anywhere.

Watch this space later this week for a joint blog post with the esteemed Gerry Appel. I promise it'll be a better team-up than Batman and Spawn.

Oy vey, what a weekend. If this post makes any sense it'll be nothing short of a miracle. I haven't felt this wiped out since the climactic final episode of Life In the Halls, in which I played the recurring character Loyal, the old friend from high school who used to show up in the dramatic slump between sweeps months. (Spin-off show character pending network negotiations and a better job market.)

Saturday morning began with my dad crashing through my bedroom door and giving me a wake-up call a la the Chicago police on Fred Hampton. Normally, I'm left to my own alternate sleep schedule, but it was the day of marching band state finals. I've been out of high school for a good long time, but I still like to support the band, as I credit it with much of my success after high school. That, and it would be my first time cheering for the band alongside my brother, now an alum. I won't give a complete recap of the day, as I'd like to sleep soon, but here are my personal highlights.

I ate lunch at the cheesecake factory, an establishment that offers food and titular deserts as rich as it's intended customer base. I've eaten there once or twice before, and every time I chuckle that even the men's room has Romanesque arches and dynamic room lighting. It's one luxurious loo. This time, however, I was struck by the odd mural on one wall. It was a sort of deco-ish painting resembling some kind of garden of eden scene. There was a woman with an apple, a tree with a snake, and other little symbols floating around. The odd thing is that the symbols are from five major religions. They're springing from the tree, even though some of them don't have a garden of eden type story. The mural is painted almost whimsically, but the content is confused and muddy. I don't know who painted it, but I know a few people who would be glad to do a better job.

Upon arrival downtown, I decided to kill time before finals at the city mall and the surrounding downtown area. I love walking through cities, surrounded by moving people and huge buildings. I like the anonymity of it, like an ant farm. It was chilly and rainy, though, so wandering outdoors was out of the question. A crazy homeless guy asked me if I had concert tickets, though I was unaware of a concert that night.

The mall was packed to the rafters with band students and parents from all over the state, in addition to the normal weekend crowd of yuppie kids spending their parent's money and mingling with the common folk. For some of them, shopping at the gap is considered slumming. Faced with three and a half hours of time to kill until the band performed, I had to swallow my selectively anti-establishment pride and venture into stores I normally wouldn't look twice at. This meant going beyond my usual regimen of book stores and music stores to explore clothing stores. Most stores yielded nothing but expensive clothing modeled after thrift store clothing, similar to the fashion mistakes of ten years ago. Two stores surprised me, though. One men's clothing store had $80 jeans for $20, and even in my size. As I was trying them on in the dressing room, I overheard a guy telling his boyfriend that Target has some nice clothes sometimes. He was serious, and if Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has taught me anything it's to trust a gay guy with fashion matters I know little of, so maybe I'll check out Target sometime. The second store was Banana Republic. I didn't buy anything, but I was impressed that the employees were friendly even after a full day of refolding shirts left askew by each herd of mouth breathing tourists. The young woman folding sweaters in the aft of the store even smiled genuinely when I asked if there was anything on sale. I don't know how they do it. I'd go nuts and start fires.

The band was excellent. They took second place and the crowd went crazy. I was standing next to my brother in the stands by the field exit when the band exited, screaming and cheering with all the other alumni who traditionally congregate there during state. It's such a great feeling to see the kids so happy, though I only sort of know a few of them. I probably would've dropped out of high school if it weren't for marching band my freshman year. I think that's true of a lot of kids in the band. One of the greatest functions of music programs like this is that it serves to catch the kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks in a school with close to two thousand students.

I got to drive home, as I usually do, but this time it really sucked because I didn't have any music to listen to. Two hours in a car with two sleeping people and one bored backseat driver is almost as boring as an art history class.

Today I woke up with my two dogs playing Dance Dance Revolution on my stomach. They're lucky I think they can do no wrong when I look at them, because I think I had just cause to toss them out the window.

I drove my brother back to college, a three hour trek across mostly flat land with a few hills towards the end. The fall leaves made for nice scenery, though.

edit- this is where my train of thought ran out and I went to bed.

My very own Jack Chick comic.

The following is probably a true story, but I really don't remember.

Setting: the wooded path behind the local elementary school.

Enter Loyal, aprox. 8 years old on his way home from school.

Loyal: whistling the theme to Super Mario Brothers

Enter the Devil

Loyal: What the heck?

Devil: Correct! You are a bright boy.

Loyal: Hey, are you the devil?

Devil: No, no, that name is terrible for PR. But, it is a recognizable household name, so you may use it if you wish.

Loyal: But you're the universal root of all that is evil and wrong!

Devil: Hey, do you like the bands Motley Crue and Skid Row?

Loyal: Uh, yeah.

Devil: You're welcome.

Loyal: (pause) Oh.

Devil: Yes. Anyway, I'm currently trying to reach the new youth market. It's a new individualized service package, much more personal and client oriented. Are you interested?

Loyal: What? No!

Devil: Splendid! First, I have to ask a few questions. Have you read "the Devil and Daniel Webster?"

Loyal: No.

Devil: Are you at all familiar with the movie "the Seventh Seal" by Ingmar Bergman?

Loyal: Who?

Devil: Do you ever listen to AM radio?

Loyal: No.

Devil: Hmm... Ok, now to get down to business. What do you see yourself doing when you're, say, twenty-four years old.

Loyal: Twenty-four? Wow, that's really old.

Devil: Well, what do you want to do when you grow up?

Loyal: I want to draw, maybe a cartoonist?

Devil: That means going to art school, you know. Is that okay?

Loyal: Yeah, I like art.

Devil: Good, good. What else do you like to do?

Loyal: I like to play video games and watch TV.

Devil: Ahh, a gamer. How would you like to play video games and watch TV all day and all night when you grow up?

Loyal: Wow, all night?

Devil: You could eat nothing but macaroni and cheese and frozen pizza and drink root beer whenever you like.

Loyal: Wow! That'd be rad! But don't I have to get a job when I grow up?

Devil: How would you like to play an electric guitar?

Loyal: Awesome!

Devil: Then it's settled! When you're twenty-four you'll have everything you ever wanted when you were eight!

Loyal: Really?

Devil: Yes!

Loyal: Wow!

Devil: HA HA HA!!! (disappears in a puff of smoke)

Loyal: Wow, it's a good thing I'm eight years old and unfamiliar with the concept of far reaching consequences based on my actions. I'd better get home- those Nintendo games aren't going to play themselves.

scene

Some Enchanted Evening (other than this one)

Tonight I was just going to hang out with Gerry and watch a movie but for some reason neither of us wanted to just sit around on a Saturday night. For some reason tonight was like the first chapters of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road when Dean Moriarty shows up and wants to go out, so they do. (If I'm the only one who gets that, it's still worth it.)

So Gerry and I decide to go to the mall with a half an hour until close to seek out this girl he met recently. It was funny- he knew that she worked at a kiosk near the Gap but didn't know where that was, and I knew where the Gap is (only because it's between Suncoast and EB Games) but not who we were looking for. She sells lotion, and obviously she had to stay there, so Gerry is talking to her and I'm standing in the mall next to a stand full of dubiously French lotion. It was odd, but probably better than another night of replaying the last level of Halo. We ended up wandering around the mall after closing time looking for an exit that wasn't locked, which had an oddly claustrophobic feeling to it. I always take it for granted that when I go to the mall I'll be able to escape when I'm ready. We finally ended up following some people out an employee exit.

I bought comics at Borders and then we went to Munchie for food and the last inning of the world series game. The employees were cool as usual, stopping to chat about baseball and the availability of cherry coke a the cigarette store across the street according to the lady who sometimes works there.

I've been thinking about eventually moving to a better city. I figure the economy is about due to bounce back in a concrete way, as opposed to because some talking head on the news says it is. When it does, the job market might follow, and any job that hasn't been exported to India or China will have openings. The odd thing is that my biggest reason to move is that I want to furnish an apartment. I really want to deck a place out with all kinds of cool stuff and inexpensive art on the walls. In the meantime, I hope I get the computer lab job. That would rule.

First of all, congratulations to Conan O'brien and his lovely wife for the birth of their daughter earlier today. I know Conan reads this blog on a daily basis, after all.

I haven't been updating for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is the game Halo for PC, developed by the good folks at Bungie and shamed by the most dishonorable microsoft. Another reason for no recent updates is last night I thought I was coming down with a cold, so I loaded up on vitamin c and this apparently did enough to ward off the malady.

Monday I went to the YMCA and tried the weight machines. In a way, I am reminded of the defeat of the native Americans at the hands of the Europeans with their superior technology. The machines kicked my arse and left me pretty stiff in the arms and shoulders. Whitey has received his comeuppance yet again, but not as bad as that time at the Indian casino.

I saw Kill Bill today and absolutely loved it. Like any good revenge movie (the Crow) the violence was completely over the top. The body count may well be over a hundred. It's not all about violence, though. There are some really cool thematic elements in the movie that elevate it above most hollywood action movies. In my opinion, the action was better than the Matrix: Reloaded by leaps and bounds. The music is great too. Quentin Tarentino is a genius with music, mixing oldies with modern day Japanese rock to make the movie that much more unique. I want to see this one again soon, as I'm sure I missed some things.

I feel like the song by the Pixies lately- Where is my mind?

I meant to give a nice self indulgent post on my birthday the other day, but instead I got sidetracked by my new copy of Jedi Academy. I'm only human. This post will be a little scattered and rambling- think Andy Rooney after driving across Ohio in a car with no radio.

My birthday was rather pleasant. I woke up and checked the computer to find a windows text document up with a happy birthday message from mom. Hallmark ain't got nothing on the elegant simplicity of a 22 pt courier font birthday greeting, that's for sure. I spent an enjoyable afternoon with Gerry as we frequented a few of the geekier merchants on the southwest side. My brother came home from college a foot taller and speaking partial Russian. I love that college. The Cubs beat the Marlins something like 800 to 3 in game two, adding to my good mood. Right on.

I'm applying for a position at the campus computing help desk at my alma matter. I think the official title is "help desk level one," so I think that means I'll be doing mostly simple windows troubleshooting and stocking the copy machine with paper and toner. I think I'm still fairly well connected at the school even though I never go back to visit anyone, so hopefully I can get the job based on name dropping, which I did plenty of in my cover letter. Maybe I'll get a couple of workstudy peons that I can mold into henchmen a la the old Adam West Batman series.

My latest pursuit du jour is working out at the local YMCA. I haven't technically worked out, but I have taken a couple laps around the indoor walking track. Sure, there's a perfectly nice park outside the Y that people could walk around as God and nature intended, but this is indoors. Staying indoors is how I've managed to avoid skin cancer and sports related injuries, so I'm on a real hot streak there. The indoor walking track is usually populated by old people with short legs, so it's like mall walking but without all the Gap signs. Old people are pretty easy to overtake on the track too, so there's a nice exaggerated sense of speed to keep me motivated. The funny thing about the track is that the corners are slightly banked, Nascar style, just in case some Y patrons can't handle 90 degree angles at normal walking speed without skidding into the wall.

I went to the library to find a book about weight training in an effort to avoid injuring myself the first time I use the machines. Who designs these books? Each one is the same awful neon color scheme with the same scantily clad body builder on the cover, flexing and smiling because he knows I'm trying to avoid looking at his spandex shorts. They all say "Weight Training for Beginners" in large neon letters designed to further emasculate me as I struggle to contain my armload of thick art books, comics, and guitar books. I left without a weight training book out of the sheer fear of embarrassment from carrying a book with the aforementioned oiled strong man on the cover. The embarrassment factor for that is equal to checking out gynecology medical journals or any of the "Left Behind" series.

I think I'll try this health and fitness thing for awhile. I have to figure out a good time to go the Y when it isn't full of people to get in my way or see me struggle with minimal amounts of weight. Heck, I just need to figure out how to use the equipment. I can make KDE Linux run emulated in windows xp, I can smooth the curves in Maya to make an animated character speak naturally, and I can digitally repair and nearly restore a century old portrait of one of the last American horse mounted cavalry units. But can I work a machine that instructs me to "try and move this- it's heavy"? That's the real trick.

I've been preoccupied with the new scanner since this past weekend, so the blog has been put on the back burner. I really don't have that much to say. My birthday is Wednesday, and it ought to be a good day. I'm going to the comic book store with Gerry, my brother is coming home after a month away, and there are new episodes of Smallville, Angel, and West Wing. What more could I want? Really, aside from a job in a major city and a cool brick walled apartment with a dog and a hip young geeky bass player girlfriend and a mid-eighties Volvo? I mean, really, what?

Cubs win? Oh, woah- Cubs WIN! I'm not even a baseball fan and I'm pretty happy. I'm also pretty tired, so no entry tonight.

Yeah, I went to the new YMCA today to see about getting a membership. There isn't anything amazingly exciting about this, but it should prove to be a wealth of future posts full of snarky comments and cheap shots at the more zealous health nuts. Future topics might include the indoor rock wall that I'll never climb, the pool that I'll probably never go in, and the weight room that will put me in the hospital. This is shaping up to be middle school gym class without the Col. Kurtz/Klink figure of a gym teacher. Actually, the funny thing is I can see my middle school from the windows on one side, so my old gym teacher might be in the Y locker room waiting to make sure I shower properly. He was a tool.

The Cubs get another go at Atlanta tomorrow night at Wrigley Field. The way I figure, they won one out of two in Atlanta, so things are looking good for them to win the next (I assume) two games at home. The Cubs fan crowd is going to be insane. Shoutout to Tom, who lives near Wrigley Field. I'll be scanning the TV crowd in the street outside the stadium for his blonde head caught up in the tumult.

What a day so far. Oy vey. I (was) volunteered to my help Mom in her classroom as they made edible state maps out of graham crackers and candy. I learned two things. One, confectioners items aren't meant for cartography. Seriously, some of these kids don't know where major bodies of water are located. Bodies of water that are visible from space! No wonder kids are always getting lost in the woods- most of them can't find their arses with both hands. Two, kids really do say the darndest things. And they say them all at once, all together, as loud as possible. The sound in that classroom makes a System of a Down concert sound like Barry Manilow live in a coma ward. They're like cicadas with miniature clothes on. If I ever have kids (through a state clerical error) I'm painting a big sign above their cribs before they can even read: "Don't be a jackass." They'll figure it out. I'll say things like "have a nice day at school, don't be a jackass" and "I love your drawing of that ninja killing all those record executives. Thank you for not being a jackass today." Okay, it might not be that bad, but I'll be wary- that's for sure.

I also found this amusing from fark: Mountain Dew Death Calculator

Not much in the way of blog worthy news today, but here's a link to something that made me laugh.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/halloweencountdown/2003/september29/

I had a really cool dream last night, a blog-worthy dream.

For some reason, I was in an old European city walking around with a group of vaguely familiar people. Maybe it was Rome, or Venice. It was gray and mostly make of old stone. I was walking past an old wall outside on a narrow street and suddenly parts of the wall opened up and it was an old mausoleum. The whole wall was full of dead old ladies. They all looked the same, yellow decaying faces with large noses, and their bodies tightly wrapped in black shrouds. Everybody I was walking with didn't seem to notice the corpses laying in the recesses in the wall. We all turned at an opening in the wall and walked down a set of stairs to a dimly lit room full of strangers. It was cool and dry and had stone walls, ceiling, and floor, like a basement. There were people dressed up for a social gathering milling around quietly, talking to each other in hushed voices as they would in a cathedral. There were several rooms like this, all full of quiet people. Then, from the shadows and corners of the rooms, the dead old women from the wall outside started standing up and walking around slowly. Dozens of eyeless old crones with yellowed, sallow faces and frail bodies wrapped in black were all slowly ambling around with the other people. Each one was only about five feet tall, slightly hunched over. I was uncomfortable, so I avoided them as best I could. I kept walking down small flights of stairs and through more and more rooms of old dead ladies. I got freaked out and started panicking when I realized that I was surrounded by zombies, and I tried to get out, but there were too many of them in my way, so I started punching them. For some reason I can never move fast or hit very hard when I dream, but I was able to beat the crap out of these frail old dead ladies pretty easily. I think it's because they were all atrophied and because they didn't have any water in their systems, so their muscles were useless and they were really light weight. I would punch them and they would fall over. I was really enjoying myself, actually. I managed to escape out a back entrance and for some reason I exited out of a screen porch in the American suburbs where a large white passenger van was waiting for me with all the people I was with in the beginning. They were waving to me to get in when two other people, a man and a woman from inside came running up to me and started yelling at me. Apparently, the old zombie hags were their old dead relatives and they were raised from the dead once a year for a traditional family function. None of them meant me any harm after all, but I wasn't convinced. Then the two people stated to turn yellow and sickly like the zombies, so I punched them both and jumped in the van where everybody congratulated me and we drove away. I woke up and I was pretty happy that I got to punch out a bunch of zombies.

The cool thing about when I dream is that not only do I see color, but I see dramatic lighting and shadows as well. My dreams are often very cinematic, but this was the first time I battled harmless geriatric European zombies.

I just finished watching what might be the next big thing on the internet, a fan film called The Fanimatrix: Run Program. Fan films have been around for years, and most of them fall into two separate categories, humorous and serious. The humorous ones are often riffs on traditional media, usually sci-fi. My personal favorites are Red vs Blue and Star Wars Janitor. Typically, these are the better movies on the internet. Serious fan films seem to be much harder to make. Most of the Star Wars themed movies I've seen fall into this category and feature amateur thespians trying their hardest to be serious and solemn Jedi, and often come across as rigid and boring, not to mention goofy. Often the scripts are void of any real plot or characterization and all lead to the same kung-fu charged lightsaber duel at the end, and the viewer is left with little more than a special effects exercise.

With the bar set so low for serious amateur films on the internet, it's nice to see someone come along and make something like Fanimatrix. It's not perfect, but considering that the cast and crew were volunteers and the total production cost was about 1000 New Zealand dollars, the resulting movie is phenomenal. $1000 wouldn't get anything done in Hollywood, not even a sixteen minute movie such as this one. With that thought in mind Fanimatrix is enjoyable in the same way as Sam Raimi's Within the Woods, the low budget precursor to Evil Dead.

The plot centers on two characters, Dante and Medusa, as they enter in to the matrix and the operator who oversees their mission. I'm not sure what the mission is, but it's established that wherever they have to go is packed to the rafters with security and unpleasant people in general. Dante's mission is to start a bar fight in the goth bar below the office that medusa is breaking into, probably as some kind of diversion. Soon enough Dante is confronted by bar patrons dressed as Nine Inch Nails roadies. Now, obviously, there will be some trouble here. There isn't any doubt that these mimes from hell will get their asses handed to them, and this is where the movie actually picks up quite a bit.

The action and fight sequences are all top notch. Not just compared to other amateur fare on the internet, either. Every move is carefully planned and filmed in a way that elevates this movie above the backyard wrestling quality of other fan films.

It would have been nice to have some more exposition in the beginning of the film, even just a voiceover. Also, some of the editing could have been tighter, especially in the opening sequence. Two more nights of editing and the movie could've looked smoother in some parts. This is a pithy complaint, though, because they managed to get the movie done by the promised release date of September 28. Usually, a project this size would never make it's release date, so serious congratulations are in order to the cast and crew of Fanimatrix.

Yet again, I didn't do anything today. I plan to work on the guitar picture later, though. I messed up drawing the frets, though, a tedious process of almost but not quite right angles. The website has hit a snag because I need more images before I can continue.

Now that I think about it, I did a little more than nothing. I watched Westway to the World, a great documentary about the Clash. It's a great movie for music lovers in general because the interviews with the band members show their passion for music in general. They loved everything they came in contact with, from the Rolling Stones to the reggae in the Jamaican area of London, to the early rappers in the streets of New York City. They explain many of their songs and the stories behind them. The movie should be required viewing for all of the dumbass kids who like to think they're punk. The Clash used to dress in clothes that they had painted themselves with automotive spraypaint and metal stencils. At one point in the interview Joe Strummer laughs and comments how crazy they looked. The point is that nobody was doing anything like that anywhere else. Now, people can buy "punk" clothing off the rack at the mall. I've even seen a shirt with safety pins included at an upscale department store. It's disgusting, really. Granted, I was a toddler when punk was at it's height, so I'm not really an authority.

More of the same thing from yesterday. Web site, drawing, Cubs win, yay. But I have something I'd like to offer to the general populace, or at least the quark-sized percentage of people that will read this. Next time you need to imply that someone has below average intelligence, say that they're from a Nielsen family. If you don't know what this means, a Nielsen family is a household with a meter that lets them rate TV shows for a "random" sampling of the TV viewing population's opinions. This amounts to an anonymous mob of morons who are contractually obligated to watch a certain amount of television every week. It's because of these people that America gets nothing but "reality" shows and carbon-copy legal dramas. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong people, but I mostly hear people talk about The Simpsons. So use the phrase if you like it. I think it's apt.

I'm making more progress on the website. The rudimentary java programming is a little over my head, but I want the rollover images to work. I'm all about the eye candy. That meant that I had to make a trip to the main branch library to find books about HTML, Java, and web design. It's surprising how many worthless web design books are in print. There are so many books that are full color illustrated and reference the latest software, but say absolutely nothing about making an effective site or the technical details for such a task.

In other news that has little to do with me but will have Gerry leaping over tall buildings in his Superman boxers, the Chicago Cubs beat the holy hell out of Cincinnati. 6-0. That's not even close. Even the Libertarian party would say "damn, you lost by a lot."

West Wing premieres tomorrow night. I'm all hyped about democracy for that. It ought to be an interesting season, too. Multiple Emmy wins and a new head writer hopefully mean that the show will have new issues to explore. After 4 years, where do they go? I have high hopes.

Enough blogging, back to the web page. I need to get this thing done.

It's been a productive day. It's been an Oi day, that's for sure. I listened to lots of loud punk music and worked on my guitar drawing and had a productive afternoon. So far, so good. I've been in need of calipers for a few of the details, though, so tonight I decided to venture out into the darkest corners of the city's craft and hobby stores. The first six places I tried turned up nada, and all the employees I asked told me to try stores I had already tried. I eventually ended up at the Sears hardware department and the helpful salesman had just what I needed. I'm now the proud owner of an odd looking ruler that slides and measures things. It kind of looks like a wrench. That wasn't the only cool thing at Sears, though. The girl at the register in the hardware department was cute, too. Throw in a HDTV set playing non-stop episodes of the Simpsons, M*A*S*H, and Buffy/Angel and I'm in Valhalla.

Then I went and bought coffee and doughnuts, making for a very nice evening indeed. I think there was a Beavis and Butthead episode where they have a great day and get free nachos and free money, and that was pretty much my day. Wahoo, you know? Now I'm going to work on a website. I'll post a link when it's up. I'll post a link for the what, two people who read this? Yeah.

I woke up tired today, which is always a disconcerting feeling. It's been a Tom Waits day, even though it was sunny. Actually, the weather is cooling down enough that I can wear long sleeves again, which is always a relief. Most of my favorite shirts and sweaters were purchased when I was still financially viable, and I prefer them over most of my t-shirts.

I went to see I Capture the Castle tonight. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, and now I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the cinematography is great. The set dressing is all vintage 1930's British avant garde, the type of thing that I love. The lighting was consistently well done, in some cases upstaging the script and the performers. And the movie features Marc Blucas, recognizable from his stint as Riley on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was nice to see him in a different role. The rest of the movie is a "coming of age" story of the young heroine, which is even less exciting than it sounds. It avoids most of the cliches that plague similar movies, but it remains staunchly unhappy despite the fact that the young woman lives with a family of geniuses in an idyllic castle in rural England before Germany had the chance to bomb the hell out of the country. It was a mostly enjoyable movie, but I probably wouldn't see it again.

I didn't make an entry yesterday because almost nothing happened yesterday. I drove Dad's new Volvo and started the new Palahniuk book Diary, but that was about it.

Tonight I hung out with my three room mates from college. I didn't realize how much I miss those guys and how great it was to see them. We played video games, watched GI Joe cartoons, and ate soft batch cookies. The cookies are significant from college- we always had a bag somewhere in the dorm room.

Not much else tonight. The claritin knockoff I took is making me more tired than usual. It is talk like a pirate day, though, so arrr. Or as I might say to Gerry, "Arrr, ya cheap fuckers!" Guess you had to be there for that one. It's not that great a story, but at the time it was hysterical.

Today was a good day. I hung out with Gerry and we geeked out watching Smallville and a bunch of cartoons. We even caught West Wing amidst all of that, making for a well rounded evening. I also made more progress on my guitar drawing, so hopefully it'll be done in time for the alumni show. I have yet to start with the ink, though. I'm kind of nervous about that because I'm not happy with the shade I mixed for the wood color on the neck. None of it is an exact science, though. I never learned how to do this sort of thing, it just sort of interests me.

Web logs were originally meant to be semi-personal autobiographical diaries about the people who write them, presumably so that other people they know could stay current with the writer's life events. This is what I intended mine to be, originally. I had all kinds of lofty ideas about using this fine and free service as a project until I find meaningful employment, now that the economy and job market are ostensibly on the mend. My blog was, and still is, meant to document the things that I do every day. However, that doesn't amount to much. I could report my feelings about the demo for the new Jedi Knight game I just tried, or I could relay my secrets for cooking macaroni and cheese in a clean and efficient manner that I have developed in my hiatus from usefulness. No, none of this, not yet anyway.

Actually, I did do something today. I listened to the new Rancid album. This one will be worth buying after the boycott, I think. It's kind of a departure from their earlier albums, but it still has their reggae and punk roots.

It's been another antisocial day. I meant to go to the lighting studio on campus to shoot photos of my electric guitar for a project I'm working on, but that would mean potentially seeing people I might not want to see. It's been odd since I graduated. I haven't wanted to go see anybody at the school because I don't have anything to say when they ask me what I've been up to. Of course, there is the handful of people who I do enjoy talking to whom I sorely miss and seldom see. It's kind of a kick in the balls because I sometimes feel that I've disappointed a great group of people who expected me to achieve great things. But I always suspected that there were some people who fully expected me to fail outright. These were the people who rubbed me the wrong way early on, so I resisted anything they had to say. These were teachers mostly, but teachers in title only. My feeling hasn't changed since I was in their classroom- screw 'em.

In other less self-absorbed and angsty news, I'm almost ready to apply to Google. It's been hard to write a cover letter to them because I don't know what they are looking for. I think I'll just try to sound as qualified and competent as possible. Failing that, maybe I'll just start taking companies to court to try to make the state force them to hire me.

There are several important issues to be considered in the open forum of the internet. A quick glance at the CNN website reveals a human interest quagmire:

Hurricane Isabel, a storm the size of Texas, is about to hit the east coast. Expect to see Disneyworld merchandise raining over Chicago next week.

Ben and Jen have supposedly parted ways now after calling off their original wedding plan. Meanwhile the sun still rose on time this morning, baffling pundits who predicted the opposite.

Israel has publicly stated they are considering killing Arafat because of his ties to terrorism. Does the Jerusalem mass transit department get any say in this?

Weighty issues indeed. The internet, specifically the blogging portion of it, is the perfect place to ponder these issues and offer insights that the mainstream media would normally overlook. It's a wonderful social responsibility to be able to offer input on world events. But like Homer Simpson said to Steve Martin, "Can't someone else do it?"

Today I'd rather give my input on an issue that I've been closely following: the casting of Christian Bale in the next Batman movie. Among the choices offered by the current crop of 28-35 year old actors he seems to be the best suited to play the part. Now pray for him.

The character Batman has been very carefully and masterfully refined since the revival of the character in Frank Miller's Year One and Tim Burton's two films. Paul Dini and co. then took the character and made him noirish and dark again, but still fun with the animated series.

Fans of the character expect quite a bit from a Batman movie now. Warner Brothers would probably have a safer bet by casting Ashton Kutcher as Batman, merchandising the hell out of it on a scale that far surpasses the last two Batman movies, and selling the movie primarily to their favorite market of gullible teenagers. Only by consciously making every wrong choice possible could Warner Brothers secure any sort of certainty on this project. Despite this, somebody deep within the company believes that this can be a great movie. This confidence is probably bolstered by the success of their faithful adaptations of the Harry Potter books. The correct conclusion would be this: take the time and spend the money to make the movie right and you'll reap large rewards.

But what is the "right" way to do a Batman movie? The fan expectations for the character are unreal. Batman is expected to talk like Greg Rucka and Frank Miller, sound like Kevin Conroy, move with the smooth dynamic flair of a comic book page, and punch like the old style cinema detectives that Bob Kane based him on. The standard keeps on growing, too. Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee have created a masterful Batman tale in their ten issue run "Hush." Even Kevin Smith got to take a turn with the character during his run on Green Arrow, "Quiver." Smith states in the introduction that he wanted to write Batman in somehow and make him the badass that the fans expect.

If all of these factors are carefully considered and painstakingly implemented, this Batman movie will end up being the most disjointed, schizophrenic, and patronizing movie imaginable. It can't possibly be all things to all people.

The way to go with a modern Batman movie is to bear in mind that Batman is a Hemingway hero. It's not the cape and cowl that make the hero, but the mind underneath. The spoken dialogue in a Batman comic book always takes second place to the character's inner monologue. He's introverted almost to a fault, and the main driving force from page to page is contained in the narration boxes that accompany his actions. Translating this to film would be almost impossible for most directors, but not for Christopher Nolan.

I have full confidence in Christopher Nolan. If you've seen Memento, then you know how well he can do with a character driven detective story. It'll be a cool movie, and a welcome remedy for what is shaping up to be a questionable Punisher movie. But that's a post for another time.

Oy vey, what a morning. My plans for this weekend began thusly: "meet in front of the liquor store at ten in the morning." You know you're a midwesterner when you hear that in normal conversation. Actually, the liquor store was only a convenient landmark because it was across from the "go-stuff-yourself" self-storage place. The objective was to clean out one of the plywood lined storage sections rented by some friends of the family. Out of the shed and into a large truck with the help of a half-dozen-odd people. It was all organized kind of like one of those flash mobs that are popular in larger, cooler cities. We gathered, we lugged boxes, we departed. I think that some of the guys were workers at the local General Motors plant, hence the efficiency.

Moving the stuff into the new house was equally easy. The couple whose stuff we were porting had a preternatural sense of where each box should go. The same anonymous cardboard boxes that everybody moves with, with loosely scrawled black felt tip marker directions to rooms that possibly didn't exist when they were christened "storage" or "ornaments." These people knew from memory where everything went. Just like Thom Yorke said, "everything in it's right place."

This lead to the post-move sit down, a custom which leads back to the nomadic tribes of the North American plains. After you move, you sit and eat and talk. Just me and six other carbon copies of Joe Sixpack American watching Purdue and Wake Forrest. I have no particular allegiance to either team, but the alpha-male of the house is a Purdue grad, so that became my adopt-a-team today. Whatever. They all sat around with their light beer, athletic team shirts and $150 Nike running shoes and beer bellies to "shoot the shit" as it were. It's the kind of thing that I feel obligated to sit in on every once in awhile in order to keep my Midwestern heritage. It's one of the last vestiges of tribal culture in our society, similar in this way to wedding presents and church potlucks.

These sort of gatherings are great social equalizers. If you'll carry boxes, you're welcome. It doesn't matter if you're the archetype of the American blue collar working man who always becomes so important in major election years, or the largely marginalized unemployed artist type with more computer smarts than labor-intensive work ethic. It doesn't matter. Anyone can sit and talk about trivialities like sports and movies as if they held real importance. You can wear $95 deck shoes from Saks or $2.50 flip-flops from Walmart. You sit, talk, and absently stare at the brand new wooden deck and ponder what color wood stain would match the house, furniture, and gas grille. Yup, good times.

Perhaps this could be the answer to peace in the middle east. Seriously. Every time Al-Jazeera spins the latest video from bin-Laden we see the crotchety old bastard sitting on a pile of sharp rocks. Of course they're mad at us, they're mad at everybody. They don't have a place to just sit at the end of the day and kibitz (okay, maybe not a Yiddish term for them). They all have guns, but they don't seem to have a hunting lodge to convene at after a long day of flipping off the CIA satellites and dodging missiles. What they need are carpenters to build them manly things like decks and lodges so that they can gather to shoot the shit, not shoot the shit out of each other. The last time a carpenter was a major social force in that general area, we got Christianity. Just don't mention that to the guy at the Ace bin-Hardware in Kabul.

I'd like to start this blog with some grand epiphany that I recently came to that struck me as worthy to post on the internet, but I've got nothing. This is more of a whim, really. The reason I've started this is that I hope it might make me focus a little harder on finding a real job. I've got a little web design gig right now that isn't bad, but it won't last. My goal right now is to get hired by google. They've got a sweet position as an "Associate Product Manager" that I'd like to fill. How cool would that be? It's hard to stay optimistic sometimes, even though I'm a white male living in the middle class suburbs with broadband internet, a guitar, and full use of my arms and legs. All things considered, I guess I'm okay.

Well, maybe. I think I might be a felon. My library card is maxed out right now, so I owe a lot of money to a federal organization. Failure to pay means I can't get books anymore. If I never pay, is that a federal crime? Of course, I'll pay. The AV section has the best assortment of cool foreign films in town and it's free aside from the fines. Some of the more mainstream movies are scratched up from all the white trash who rent them and use them to buff their trucks, but most of the cooler movies are pretty clean.