rew | ff

Come on Derek...

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Come on Derek Lowe stay calm throw that sinker game 5 '03 ALDS motherfucker!!!

Come on Schilling...

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Schilling Come on Curt Schilling big fella you're a horse!!!

Come on Pedro...

Monday, October 18, 2004

Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro Come on Pedro

I have returned with much new information

Saturday, October 16, 2004

OK, it's around 11am on Saturday and I'm back at the amazing free internet cafe. I just found out that the guy who's running the counter went to UMass and graduated the same year I did (2000). Hampshire, where I went, is in the same town as UMass (Amherst), As well as Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Amherst College -- they're all in cahoots. Anyway, this guy played in a band with some guys who played in a band with an old friend of mine named Sam at Hampshire. Small world. Oh, and the waitress here is insanely cute.

As far as the lack of postings lately, here's the problem: while my computer at work is easily the most powerful machine I've ever had the privilege to screw up, it is a Mac, and while I adore Macs, they for whatever reason won't let you FTP into your website through your browser, be it IE or Safari. I can get into my site through either, and can pull files off, but I can't add new ones. So I'm kind of powerless to update the site at work, and as I'm still homeless and without internet access outside of this amazing cafe, I can only write entries and save them for later. Until I add Fetch (a Mac FTP program) to my G5 at work. Which I may do on Monday.

Anyway, I've been here a week now and a lot has happened, not the least of which has been the digging of a terribly deep hole by the Red Sox, which they now reside in. I'm not giving up - last night's rainout can only work in their favor - but it's amazing how fast they went from being the heavy favorites to being almost totally written off. But that's baseball. I still love them, no matter what.

New York, so far, is awesome. As someone who talked no end of shit about the city when I lived here last, I know that eventually it may start to bug me again, but right now it's still totally in the honeymoon phase (similar to the way I currently feel about cold temperatures). I feel like one of the good things about Phoenix was that I now have a tangible worst-case scenario to compare everything else with and make any situation seem better. If I only had a place of my own... I hate putting my friends out by begging to stay on their couches.

On that note, I should get going, because I have a couple apartments to see today. One's in Kensington and one's in Prospect Heights, two neighborhoods in Brooklyn near Park Slope, which is where I'd ideally like to live. We'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon, and I'll put up the post I wrote a couple days ago but couldn't add to the server. I also plan to transcribe Sean and I's text messages from the first two games of the Sox / Yanks series... he was in class the whole time, so I had to give him the play-by-play.

Free internet

Monday, October 11, 2004

Right now I'm sitting in an BYOM (bring your own Macintosh) internet cafe / video rental store in Brooklyn, looking for apartments on Craigslist. And it's free.

I don't have much time to write, as I really need to come up with some options as far as apartments go, but so far it's been really nice being back. I start work tomorrow. I had today off, as did a lot of people, so my high school friend and ex-roommate Jake and I drove up about 30 miles north of the city to a frisbee golf course and played all afternoon. I can't believe the weather here. It's amazing.

Interesting historical fact: It was exactly three years ago today that I pulled out of NYC en route to Portland in my 1961 Lincoln Continental. Weird.

And tomorrow baseball insanity begins. I don't know what else to say about that.

Chess and Phoenix do not mix

Friday, October 8, 2004

I'm scrambling to get everything ready, as I leave late tonight, but I thought I'd put up a quick post anyway. I've been meaning to take a picture of this place for a while. It's right around the corner from our apartment, and across the street from the embattled Albertsons. It's one of those check cashing places, and it's called "Checkmate." This has always killed me. I understand what they're going for... "check" and "mate," but had they really never heard the entire word "checkmate" used in context before? And is no one else in Phoenix picking up on this? Desperate for money? Checkmate! Game's over, you lose.

Here's my to-do list for this morning:

- pack up papers and books in a box

- clean up trunk of car

- put spare parts, tranny and rear shelf thing in car

- make wiring diagrams, photos and parts list for Daryl

- do laundry

- mail Scott's cd/speeding ticket

- cancel car insurance

- pay off balance at blockbuster

- write emails and blog

The laundry's in progress, I'm about halfway done with the photos and wiring diagrams for Daryl (the guy who's buying my car)... my car's such a freak that the only way anyone will have any prayer of working on it successfully will be with major documentation. I've got Scott's stuff in an envelope ready to go (he got a photo-cop ticket up in Portland and it got mailed to me by mistake), and I'll hit blockbuster on the way to pick Sean up at work. And I'm writing the blog right now, so I'm actually doing all right.

I actually have some bad news to report... suddenly it looks like Dane's going to have some problems getting into BMW. I am, as predicted the other day, shocked by this. Apparently they don't think he has enough work experience, and were turned off by the fact that he worked for 3 years in a completely different industry. This is similar to the static I've gotten for having worked and gone to school in film and video. It seems that you must have clearly shown a lifelong determination to do nothing but work on cars, everything else be damned, for them to have enough confidence that you won't just bail out on them after your training. It's discouraging. Dane can still make it work by doing what Sean did and getting a dealership to sponsor him, but it definitely sucks that it's not going to be the smooth progression that it seemed it was on course for.

On a happier note, I'm sure some of you watched the Sox game the other night... pretty cool, huh? Pedro had that look on his face in the 7th inning that I love. "I'm fucking Pedro Martinez. You like that pitch? Here's another one. Oh, too much? How about another one? Yeah." I haven't seen him look like that for a while. That 7th inning was the most encouraging thing I've seen so far this postseason (admittedly, only 2 games old so far). If that's the Pedro who's going to show up, I feel pretty good about the team right now. Hopefully they can keep it going tonight against the Angels, close the series out in 3 games and have plenty of time to set up the rotation for the Yankees or Twins. Or should I say, the Yankees.

To all my friends in New York... I'll see you guys tomorrow!

Update: Holy shit... when it rains it pours. Dane's motorcycle got stolen. Fucking Phoenix.

Beware the roach coach

Wednesday, October 6, 2004

I'm completely useless this morning, thanks to a stupid, stupid decision yesterday afternoon to buy and eat a $1 rice bowl from one of the roach coaches at school. The whole reason I make food every night is to allow us to avoid them, but I was hungry, it was only a dollar, and hey, how bad can you fuck up rice with a little bit of chicken on it, right? Apparently, pretty bad. I do NOT feel well. Luckily, my 14-year non-barfing streak is still intact at this hour. Jerry Seinfeld would be proud.

The really big news for us, however, is that Dane cleared his final hurdle as far as getting into BMW goes yesterday when he passed the BMW test by the skin of his teeth. He still won't know for sure for a couple of weeks, but he's now satisfied all the requirements and I would be shocked (shocked!) if he doesn't get in. Anyway, apparently it was a really hard test, which is an extreme rarity for this school, so props to Dane for reaching back for something more when he needed it. Also, assuming he does get in, apparently his two choices for location are going to be Florida or New Jersey. I'm pushing for Jersey, because not only will he be close by for the occasional jaunt to New York (I don't know why, but I have a hunch that Dane + New York City = nonstop entertainment), but because fuck yeah, New Jersey! I always felt like it got a bad rap.

And the Sox kicked ass in game 1 (thank you, Curt Schilling)... come on, Pedro! I just got back from the store where I was buying some beer and frozen pizza for tonight, since we'll actually be able to watch part of game 2 (7:09pm PDT) after we get home from school. Hopefully the general rule that when I watch the Sox lose will not be in effect.

Go Sox!

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

So it turns out that none of the Phoenix radio stations are carrying the Red Sox game (1pm pacific time), which kills my plan for sneaking a small transistor radio into school like it's the 60's or something. My GSM cellphone will work for checking the score (probably), but it's not really the same. It's weird that it's not on the radio. I mean, there are only 3 games today, and this town has its own major league team, so you'd think one of the AM sports stations would bump their wacky afternoon DJ or conservative talk show host for the local fans. Once again, Phoenix disappoints. No big surprise there.

I have an eye exam in about an hour. In a rare instance of foresight I bought the 3-year free exam package last year, as there's now some law that you have to get a new eye exam once a year before they'll sell you contacts. The last time I bought lenses, back in June (I routinely stretch the two-week lenses to more like two months), they told me they couldn't sell me any because it had been over a year since my last eye exam. I asked them when I'd had that exam, because it didn't seem like it'd been a year already. They said last July. After a moment of confusion I gently pointed out that it was June, and therefore less than a year had passed since last July. The woman I was talking to rolled her eyes and sighed as if I were trying to slip through some kind of loophole and said, "OK, I'll sell you one box." I felt like I was buying drugs or something and my dealer didn't trust me to come up with all of the money. Anyway, now it really has been over a year, so I have to get another exam, which is luckily free. Even if my prescription hasn't changed since high school.

Last night I got a random email to my dormant personals profile (the same one that prompted an awkward solicitation from a 39 year-old gay man last month) from some French girl asking me to contact her immediately. It's obviously some kind of scam, but I wrote back anyway, ("So you're French... what do you want with a guy in Phoenix?") just to see what would happen. Here's the reply I received this morning:

Dear Dave,

Thanks for your mail.

My brother, kevin and I, joy need your assistance in this present situation we find ourselves, that is the reason we saw it necessary to contact you for your assistance.

We are from a french speaking country in Africa, Cote d'ivoire. I came across your profile from personals site and decided to contact you.

Please if you are willing to assist us do write back.

joy and kevin

So are they French or African? The email address they're using has a .fr suffix, so it seems like that's France. I don't think internet suffixes are based on the language spoken in the area in question. All that's missing is capital letters. I'd kind of like to reply again and string this out for a while just to see where it goes, but it's not really worth the time. Also, I suppose there's an off chance that they are real people in a bad situation, and don't need to be screwed with by an anonymous American. I highly doubt it, however. Apparently that personals profile screams, "I can be talked into anything."

Last call

Monday, October 4, 2004

There were a bunch of "lasts" for me this weekend. Last day at work, last time at the Four Peaks, last Sunday sitting around doing nothing. Not that any of these are that profound. The upshot being that next week at this time I'll be across the country. I've got a lot of shit I've gotta get done in the morning this week, which makes it even stupider that I forgot my wallet this morning on the way to drop Sean off at work and therefore wasn't able to get a cup of coffee on the way home, resulting in an extended nap on the couch. Tomorrow I've got to go get an eye exam so they'll sell me new contacts, and I've got to pack, of course. Not that I'm taking much with me.

On Saturday I finished out my time at the shop with a pretty easy day. Just by chance I worked on a bunch of Mitsubishis, which was kind of random and made me feel like I worked at a Mitsubishi dealership. I took some time to fix my own car's horn, only to discover after work that it went off every time I turned the wheel, so I had to disable it again. I also got tipped $20 for patching a tire just as we were closing, which was a nice way to go out. Freakshow, who has been a lot easier to deal with when working only one day a week, mentioned that we'll probably never see each other again, which was very nice to hear. Bizzaro Dave (my replacement, who looks disturbingly similar to me and drives a BMW, and is bizarre.) and I closed up the shop and I headed home. Sean and Dane and I went to the Four Peaks and sang along to Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" and Van Morrison's "Moondance" at the top of our lungs all the way home. Oh yeah, on the way out the door to head to the brewery we ran into the extremely hot girl who lives in Sean and Dane's old apartment, whom none of us had ever talked to before. We ended up chatting with her for a half hour or so, and she turned out to be really cool. More evidence that if any of us ever actually talked to girls, we might have a lot more luck finding girlfriends.

On Sunday I showed my car to the guy who's interested in it , and he agreed to buy it for $1500, which was what I was hoping to get. He was actually happy with my John Kerry sticker, saying he hates Bush, and offering to show me the debate, which he had on tape. I'll just try to forget that $1500 is exactly what I paid for the car in the first place, before building an entirely new engine, gutting and re-doing the interior, and wiring up a custom fuel injection system that works far better than I ever expected. Oh well. One thing I've learned is that you always, always lose money on cars. Which makes the car-less period of my life I'm likely entering all the more appealing.

And, of course, Sunday was the last day of baseball's regular season. Luckily for me, the Red Sox will be continuing on into the postseason, playing the Angels starting tomorrow night. I'm going to miss most of the games because of school, but hopefully they'll pull it out. I'll be surreptitiously checking in on my cell phone every 30 seconds or so. If they can beat Anaheim, they could end up playing the Yanks again in the ALCS. By that time I'd be in New York. That would be... fun.

© Long Shot Films 2004