Back, but for how long?
Friday, December 09, 2005
Do I even remember enough HTML at this point to post? We shall see. Right now, it's not of much consequence, since I'm writing this as an email and will just copy and paste the text later, if I get that far.
One thing that's really annoying... my trusty 5 year-old Powerbook is starting to show its age, and the left-handed shift key is getting a little balky. This often results in me failing, at least initially, to capitalize the pronoun "I." This sucks, because if I let one slip by, it looks like I've joined the ever-growing segment of the society that now eschews that capitalization on purpose, for reasons I've never really understood. Are you trying to seem even more passive and pathetic? The whole not-capitalizing-"I" thing makes me even more worried about how childish everyone seems to want to become these days. Hey, I don't capitalize the pronoun referring to me! And I think Harry Potter is the best stuff written in the last 10 years! Take me back, womb! AHHHHH!!!!
Anyway, I'm holding out on a new Powerbook until the whole Intel processor thing is well established. That, and when I have money.
A lot has happened since I last posted in this blog, not the least of which was me renewing my longshotfilms.com domain name, without which this wouldn't have been possible. But here's a quick rundown:
Since April, I've...
- Moved into a new apartment. This happened in June. I now live, still with roommate Megan but now also with old friend Kramer, in a fantastic brownstone in Park Slope. This is exactly what I wanted, and is pretty sweet.
- Maintained my employment at Animation Collective. Yup. Can't complain. I still like it, even though everyone still says i work too much. I will now plug our main show... Kappa Mikey. Click the link if you want to know more. Also, you can go to a "fan" site for me and Lauren's red-headed stepchild of a show here.
- Played a whole lot of baseball in Prospect Park
- Joined zipcar and driven a MINI convertible aimlessly around Brooklyn for no reason.
- Performed a wedding ceremony! You can see the impetus for this back in the archives here. The other impending wedding mentioned in that post? Kaput.
- Seen Springsteen twice.
- Been joined on the East Coast by Portland buddies Dane and Rian. Rian is now a fellow AC employee as well. And Dane (of Phoenix lore) is kicking ass at Audi in Greenwhich, CT. Flat rate, apparently, sucks.
- Reaffirmed my belief that sharks are just the WORST.
- Gotten really drunk at least twice, hit on girls in the obviously-I'm-not-serious, mostly-obnoxious-but-somewhat-charming, wholly ineffective way I have of hitting on girls when I'm drunk. Hey, it's the only time I do it. Cut me some slack.
- Been totally OK with the way the Red Sox season ended, but sad for the departing of old friends (Goodluck and goodbye to you, Billy Mueller. You were the best. I will never forget that walkoff in the Varitek / ARod brawl game. It was on a Saturday and I'd been watching the score on my cell phone for hours at my shit job in Phoenix. It was rain delayed, so it seemed to go on forever. I remember I'd figured it was a lost cause, but as I was walking in the blazing heat after work to my car, I checked the score and it was suddenly close. Then I got home and it was still going. I frantically pulled up the radio feed on my computer and caught the last half inning. Nomar led it off with a double, I remember that. And Trot's fly out sounded like it almost cleared the wall, based on the crack of the bat and the way Jerry and Joe reacted. But when you hit yours, from the moment the crack came through my computer's tiny speakers, I knew it was gone. I'll never forget jumping up and down on my air mattress, high-fiving Sean, and screaming, "That was it! That's what they've been needing!" Later I sold my Lincoln remotely and sheepishly asked the guy who bought it not to remove my Red Sox sticker on the dashboard, just in case).
- Inexplicably remained single. Actually, it's pretty explicable.
Anyhow, that's about it. If I actually get this on the web, I'm sure maybe one or two other people will read it. I don't know if I'll start posting again, but the fact that this is what I'm doing with my Friday night is a pretty good indication that I might.
Sympathy for No. 5
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Oh, man, poor Nomar. You deserved a whole lot better, fiver.
In a related story, I once pulled the fuck out of my groin in a much more creative way, falling off the family minivan as I attempted to lash a Christmas tree to its roof. I instinctively planted my right foot against the car next to us, while the rest of my body continued its fall towards earth. Ouch. Which begs the question: What's so great about instincts, anyway?
I should probably post more often
Sunday, April 3, 2005
OK, so it's been a while. Sorry. I've just been too tired, busy, or uninspired to drag myself onto the internet and write anything for the past couple of weeks. But that's not to say that cool shit hasn't happened. And since today is opening day, and I can't let that go by without a word or two, I figured I'd take this opportunity to go back and recap some of the stuff I've missed.
The St. Patrick's Day party
I'm pretty sure this was awesome. Unfortunately, I can't remember much of it. I'm reasonably certain that I had more to drink than ever before in my life, which is evidenced by the fact that, as mentioned above, I can't remember large chunks of the night. That's never happened to me before, but I think as far as drinking too much and not remembering goes, this was pretty minor. I may have been a little obnoxious, but other than that kept it in reasonable control. There are some funny pictures of this. I have no idea who took them, or when, but the next morning they were on my camera. Incidentally, I felt absolutely great when I woke up in the morning, with no trace of a hangover. I talked to a couple friends later that day, and they were all wrecked. I don't know how I got away with it. But possibly my favorite moment of the party came that next morning, when Sergei, who had crashed on the couch, wandered into my room at 9:30 in the morning, woke me up, and high-fived me and said (read with sweet-ass Russian accent), "Dude - great party, man. I'm outta here!"
Another party
Matt and I went to Julia's party in Park Slope exactly a week after mine. We made a pact before hand to not drink so much that we would repeat our unsavory performances from the previous week; i.e, Matt telling everyone long, rambling stories, and me hitting on every girl in sight. This actually worked out pretty well. Later that night, after the party, I got a text message from Matt that read: "Nice low-key party. Your hair smelled great. Keep up the good work." There's an explanation for this coming up...
My hair smells great
On the following Sunday, I finally decided to clean up my act and get a haircut. This was Easter, so the gigantic and affordable Astor Place hair salon was closed, and I ended up going to a little place right next to Grassroots on St. Mark's. I should have known that it would be awesome based only on its proximity to the Greatest Bar in the World (Grassroots), but I was unprepared for a) the best haircut I've ever had, and b) the guy using an actual straight razor to shave the back of my neck. Sweet! They had the hot shaving cream, and the towel around your neck that they used to wipe off the razor... it was like going back in time. I'll definitely be going back there. Next time I need a haircut, I mean. Anyway, I started using some of Megan's "paste" in my hair, which is what makes it smell great, so that I can not have a frizzy poof of brown and grey on top of my head whenever I'm not wearing a hat or getting rained on. I'm a little creeped out by myself here, as I haven't put jack shit in my hair since high school, but whatever. Only in New York!
So just to completely change my appearance to the point where no one at work would recognize me, I then went home and shaved off my goatee. I'd had the goat' for over a year at this point, which had served the dual purpose of hiding my giant (and newly acquired circa summer '03) chin scar, and making me look like more of a bad-ass in Phoenix. After shaving, it was nice to see that the scar has sort of settled down a bit and doesn't look so much like a giant blister on my chin. Also good to know that I'll now be getting carded everywhere again. But I took pictures during the shaving process of several different iterations of facial hair... enjoy.
I still have a job and all
Work has been OK... to our credit, Lauren and I have been able to handle the ridiculous workload with greater ease than I thought possible. We're still facing a summer of working on a crappy, seemingly impossible project, but I have renewed hope that it might not be quite as bad as I thought it was going to be.
To that point, Lauren hit her first AC home run on Friday, a towering shot into the left-field stands that cemented a personal victory over a certain asshole pitcher. Actually, I don't really like that analogy... I have too much respect and admiration for pitchers in general, even those in pinstripes, to compare any of them to this motherfucking, worthless, on-the-punch-list, Bush-voting son of a bitch. Seriously, what a dickwad. Anyway, I digress. What could have been a shitty day was resoundingly turned around by Lauren's first cut of the first of her episodes of the aforementioned show, and it went spectacularly well. Like I said, renewed hope.
Oh yeah, cars are kinda cool too. Some of them, anyway
Yesterday Kramer, Jake and I went to the New York auto show. I think we all three had waaaayyy more fun than we expected to. It was a really good time. So much crap, but also some great shit. BMW had an old 320i race car on display... Sean owns a 320 right now, which is one of my old cars, and we've had a bunch of them in the family over the years... they're great. Here're some crappy pictures:
Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. Tonight, of course, is opening day, which is even more exciting than usual as the Sox are playing the Yanks. We're all going over to Mark's to watch... poor Mark. Almost all of his friends are Red Sox fans, so he's going to be outnumbered in his own apartment. Just goes to show what a great guy he is. Anyway, it should be a lot of fun... it's hard not to think about the last time the Sox were in Yankee stadium. It's still hard to believe. So. Awesome.
Oh yeah, and congratulations to my friend Nova, who got engaged on St. Patrick's day to her longtime boyfriend Peat. Is everyone getting married? Christ! But seriously, great news for them. Congratulations again.
Double oh yeah... Jules and I got hassled by cops on Friday night in Prospect Park when we were walking his dog. They were like, "What are you guys doing in the park so late?" And Jules was all, "Walking my dog," and they were all, "Yeah, right!" And Jules and I were like, "Dude! There's a dog RIGHT HERE!"
Yaaaaaaa!!!!!
Mothafucka
What's a pederast, Walter?
The schedule really is brutal
Badassssssssss
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Happy St. Patrick's day, everyone. I'm having a party on Saturday... if somehow you're in New York and hadn't heard about this, get in touch. You should come.
Haven't written in a while... over the weekend, I stayed at my friend and co-worker Julien's place and took care of his dog while he and his girlfriend were out of town. Their dog is great, but it underscored the fact that I am in no way ready for NYC dog ownership. It was exhausting. But I do love dogs. Especially herding dogs. They're the best. But anyway, taking care of Jules' dog also meant that I got a little taste of living in Park Slope, which hopefully will become a full-time reality in June. Much more my speed than the sometimes sketchy, always boring neighborhood in which I live now.
Work has swung back in the direction of crazy busy. There's just too much to do. I'm sure one way or another it'll all get done, but right now it's kind of a disaster. I feel like things are dangerously close to spinning wildly out of control, at least for my part of it all... hopefully time will help stabilize it all. At some point I'm sure to be exposed as the fraud I am, but hopefully I can feign talent and ability long enough that things will be in good shape for Lauren to take over after my inevitable fall from grace.
Random weirdness -- apparently I can read Latin. This is, to say the least, odd. But there are these ads up in the subway right now that are just the words "Omnium Finis Imminet" over a scary-looking background. They were driving Mark crazy, because he couldn't remember the words well enough to look them up once he got to work. He called me and told me about it, and when I saw the ad on the subway that night, I just read it as "the end is near." I camera-phoned the ad, emailed it to Mark, and he looked it up. I was right. Weird, and more than a little creepy.
Other than all this, not much has been going on. I've been listening to a lot of spring training games. And there's the party this weekend, hopefully a return to St. Patrick's day glory. To see what I did last year, click here. The year before that, I can't remember. 2002 we had a big party in Portland, and 2001 I was actually in Ireland. Hopefully this year will be more 01-02 and less 03-04.
Copy this blog!
Monday, March 7, 2005
OK, I'm gonna try one of these things of my own. Pretty simple; some would probably say boring, but whatever. If you have a blog, post the last 10 books you've read. If you don't have a blog but want to participate anyway, post a comment on mine. I realize in this day and age many people would probably have to do quite a bit of thinking and reelin' in the years to come up with 10 books, but I'd like to think my readers are of a more refined stock. Also, since it's been exactly one year now since I started this blog, I figured it might be fun to do something that is the complete opposite of Phoenix in every way.
Anyway, here's my list:
Current: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov. This is what happens when you borrow books from your theatre graduate school student roommate. Do I know who Sebastian Knight was? No. Do I even know if he was a real person? No. But I do like the idea of reading a book by a guy named Vladimir.
The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. This is a great little book. It's written mostly as a collection of letters, telegrams, and newspaper clippings passed between a kid in Brooklyn in the early 40's and the fictional 3B of the NY Giants. I really liked it.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy collection by Douglas Adams. This was all of them up through So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish. Somehow I'd managed to never read these books before. And just in time for the movie.
Metzger's Dog by Thomas Perry. A good little comedic detective novel. Metzger is a cat who is constantly referred to as "Dr. Henry Metzeger" throughout the book. And he has a dog.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. Me: Hey, Kramer, you ever read anything by this guy? He's really good. Kramer: Uh, yeah. Unbearable Lightness? Hello?
Don't Mean Nothing by Susan O'Neill. I have an autographed copy! The graphic descriptions of gory Vietnam field hospital happenings in Kramer's mom's first book made me put this one away on the subway a couple of times in order to avoid motion sickness.
Faithful by Stephen King and Stuart O'Nan. Go Sox!
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. No book since Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has taken me this long to read, though in this case it was due purely to the size of the book and the resultant difficulty reading it on the subway.
City of Glass by Paul Auster. I want to read more stuff by this guy.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I'd never heard of Murakami before I read this, and now I notice him everywhere. Cool book, even if it did make me feel like I had a fever much of the time.
It's entirely possible that I'm forgetting something here, as it seems like ten books shouldn't reach all the way back to October for me, but maybe I'm not quite the speedreader I fancy myself. I also left things like Sony DVW A500 instruction manual and The Internet off the list.
One year bloggin'
Sunday, March 6, 2004
March 6th, 2004 -- I move to Phoenix, AZ.
March 6th, 2005 -- I sing a loud, drunken duet of Thunder Road with Keely in a bar in the East Village at 2 o'clock in the morning.
What a difference a year makes, huh?
This was a fun weekend. On Saturday morning I ended up heading over to Williamsburg to have brunch with Josh, Kramer and Neil. "Boy Brunch," as someone referred to it, has the potential to become a regular thing. We had a super cute waitress (it's about time!) and the food was good. Finally, something worthwhile about Williamsburg.
After we ate, for some reason Kramer, Josh and I decided to walk to Park Slope. This, for those who don't live in Brooklyn, is a pretty long walk. Using the sun as our guide, we headed southwest without any real plan or knowledge of what streets would take us where we wanted to go. The only thing we really did know was that we would have to pass through Bedford Stuyvesant (you're fucking kidding me... I spelled "Stuyvesant" right on the first try? That's unbelievable), which is not the best of neighborhoods. I kept getting that Billy Joel song stuck in my head -- "I was stranded in the combat zone / I walked through Bedford Stuyvesant / even rode my motorcycle in the rain." In fact, at some point Josh and I started singing that out loud. By then we were safely in Park Slope, however. It took a couple hours and we saw a kid getting beat up, but all in all, a pretty good time.
We ended up at Kramer's sister Kym's place (which is really close to mine), where we hung out with her and Reid and Grey, their incredibly even-tempered baby. We then dropped by my place so that Josh and Kramer could finally see it (I rarely have friends over here), and then they were off back to Williamsburg for the night. I was just getting started, though. I headed into Manhattan to meet Vicky and some other friends and, most remarkably, Keely, who was in town for the weekend, at a bar in the East Village.
This turned out to be a really great time. It was lovely to see Keely again, and the fact that she apparently knows all the words to Thunder Road only made it better. We were all out pretty late, and I didn't get in until about 5 this morning, but it was well worth it.
More or less as a result, today I did jack shit until around 5pm, when I went over to Mark's for our fantasy baseball league draft. I've never done fantasy sports before, but am giving it a try this year. Here's the team I've assembled:
SP - Curt Schilling
C - Jason Varitek
1B - Richie Sexson
2B - Jeff Kent
3B - Melvin Mora
SS - Nomar Garciaparra
LF - Magglio Ordonez
CF - Brian Giles
RF - Vlad Gurrero
Bullpen: Jake Peavy, Bronson Arroyo, Derek Lowe, Eric Gagne, Trevor Hoffman, Keith Foulke, Freddy Garcia
Bench: Juan Pierre, Bill Mueller, Johnny Estrada, Shawn Green, Angel Berroa
It's all about Bronson Arroyo, mark my words.
Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey
Monday, February 28, 2005
So I had a hard-drivin' kind of weekend. Rented a Hyundai Sonata in order for Neil and I to drive down to D.C. for Nate's play on Sunday. When I got the car it had about 30 miles on the odometer -- brand new, the only way to drive a Hyundai. This thing actually had a shiftable automatic transmission, which is pretty much the height of ridiculousness in such a car, but whatever. I had a car!
We ended up deciding to make the whole DC trip restricted to Sunday, ensuring a crappy day of driving but keeping things simpler in general. This being the case, I had a free car on Saturday, so I decided to do something involving driving (thank you, Budget, for your foolish policy of unlimited mileage). So, I drove to Asbury Park, NJ, in search of the Boss. Determining that the entire post-production department at the AC could benefit from such a trip, I picked up Lauren in Queens and we headed on over. As if by some supernatural guiding force, I drove directly to the Stone Pony without having any idea where it was. We parked the car and went in for a look.
This is where the story gets a little less cool. No sooner did I realize that I'd just driven to the Stone Pony IN A HYUNDAI, I further realized that I was inside the Stone Pony ordering coffee. Which, unsurprisingly, they did not have. Thankfully, Bruce was nowhere to be seen to witness my pathetic entrance. I got a quick glance around, saw the stage, realized they were closed and didn't want us in, and left. That was it. But dude. The Stone Pony. Sweet.
That middle finger is directed at the building behind me, not you, dear viewer
And yeah, Asbury Park is kind of crazy. Mostly it seems pretty normal, but when you get near the boardwalk it's incredibly run-down and kind of otherworldly. There was some kind of huge neo-punk concert going on near the Pony at a monstrous old convention hall or something, with lines of kids dressed in black stretched all around it. It was a sight to see.
Anyway, after a ridiculously convoluted trip back to NYC (my driving skills have seriously deteriorated), I had put a good couple hundred miles on the Sonata and stayed up way too late talking to roommate Megan. A scant few hours later, I was back in the car, picking up Neil, and burning up the road to D.C. We parked the car with 20 minutes to spare, wolfed down sandwiches at the worst Subway ever, got confused about the exact location of the theatre (on Pennsylvania Ave, no less), found it in the nick of time, and literally were sitting down in our seats as the lights dimmed. The play was good, though you could tell they're all kind of tired of it at this point, and then Neil and I met up with Nate and did the only logical thing -- we went to the Holocaust Museum. Which pretty much speaks for itself.
We made it back to the theatre just in time for Nate's call for the evening show, and Neil and I were back on the road. I made it home right around midnight, deciding to drop the car off in the morning. Overall, a good trip. When I returned the car this morning, it had just under 800 miles on it. Not bad. Not bad at all.
