rew | ff

Friday, April 30, 2004

I've been thinking about this, and I can't decide if our lives right now are more analogous to A) being in the minor leagues of baseball, or B) being in prison. On the one hand, we are all sort of competing to be the best of the group in order to move on to the next highest level, but on the other hand we all wear blue uniforms and start a lot of sentences with: "Man, when I get out of here..." Some days I feel like Kevin Youklis, some days I feel like a petty thief doing a stretch for a B & E. I always thought it would be pretty cool to be a minor league baseball player, but I've never really had any aspirations towards prison, even as cool as it seemed in "The Great Escape" and "The Shawshank Redemption." Man, when I get out of here, I'm going to start working on my knuckleball.

At work today I got into a goofy argument with my tweaker boss (who will henceforth be referred to as "Freakshow") about whether or not a bar that Sean and Dane used to go to a lot is a "fag bar." I had trouble arguing my side without mentioning that I've been inside real gay bars, and they usualy aren't showing "Sportscenter," as the bar in question always is. I thought that the fact that the bar has a giant sign on it that says "Ladies Nite Wednesdays" was good enough to prove my point, but Freakshow says that the "ladies" they're referring to must be lesbians. I'm pretty sure he now thinks I'm gay.

After school we all went to Tempe to the Four Peaks, even though we knew it'd have to be a short night because Dane and I had to work early in the morning. It was fun, but it was probably kind of a waste to go there on a Friday night. We didn't even play darts.

Thursday, April 29, 2004

I got to live the dream a little bit this morning... while I was outside at work sweeping up some sand and other crap that gets blown around in the desert, a white Cadillac pulled up. The driver called out to me, and I realized that she was an extremely cute girl about my age. She asked me if I could fix her car really quick, because the emergency brake was stuck on and she needed to get to work. I was the only one of the employees out in front, and no one wanted to interfere, probably assuming that I'd need to get someone's help, thus giving them an excuse to come on out and talk to her. Luckily for me, the problem was exactly what I first guessed it would be, and I was able to fix it in less than a minute. She was grateful and hopefully at least a little impressed. Then she was gone, into the wind, in her white Cadillac. For the rest of the day I was made fun of for not getting her phone number. I've failed in this area before... one time very cute and friendly girl came to our door at our rental house in Portland needing a jump start. In an amazing display of ineptitude, not one of the 4 or 5 guys in the house had jumper cables in their cars that night (and I had two cars at the time).

A quick baseball note: Brian Daubach is back in the bigs, and let's hope he gets to stick around for a while. He doubled and scored in the first game of the Red Sox doubleheader today. This was important enough that Neil immediately called me on my cell phone... still more evidence that I am a freak.

At school today someone in Sean's class insisted that the freezing temperature of water is 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess the way this came up is that someone asked the teacher if he could turn down the air conditioning because it was too cold. The teacher went over to the thermostat and said, "Whoa, no wonder it's cold, it's set at 55!" There was a pause, and then this kid says, "Oh, man, it's freezing! I mean, it's really freezing in here!" Apparently there was some conversation to confirm that he really meant he thought it was literally below freezing in the room (i.e., water becomes ice), and he insisted that 55 was below freezing. MIT this ain't.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

It's too late to write much, because we tried to go to Bobby McGee's to see what it's like on a weeknight (read: to see if the waitresses we have crushes on are working), but it turned out Wednesday is Ladies Nite and there's a $7 cover for those who are not ladies. There's also some bizarre rule that you can't wear jerseys due to some kind of dress code (Dane was wearing a Sammy Sosa jersey), but white t-shirts are OK. Confronted with these stipulations, we decided to leave, and we all went to this other place down near Sean's work and had a couple of beers. We talked about crazy dogs for a while (something Sean and I know all about), and then we packed it in. It's about midnight, which is pretty late for an old guy like me, so I've gotta get going.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

I thought I was sick last night, but I think I was just really tired. I went to bed really early and skipped the 'ol blog, only to dream about a weird Mardi Gras type thing on Hawthorne in Portland, where I watched an Elliot Smith impersonator (?) and gave cookie dough to a girl who was so thrilled she kissed me. Weird.

That brings up an interesting question - could my spate of recent health problems (ankle injury excepted) be related to my new habit of eating uncooked cookie dough as a snack? You know, the Nestlie kind you buy in the square packs or the tubes? Probably ought to switch back to the baby carrots.

A short and serious note: if you're in the market for a car, try to get something at least somewhat substantial. I've seen too many wrecks down here, and the SUV always wins. I'm not saying get an SUV yourself, but if you drive an '88 Honda Civic hatchback, you might want to consider trading it in on an ultra-reliable, tank-like Volvo 2-series. Is this hypocritical coming from a guy who drives a BMW 2002? Absolutely. And, on this car-advice note, if you are a friend of mine you already know my opinions on American cars made after 1969. These have only been reinforced by my time at the shop (some cars you may not be aware are now made by American companies are Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda, and Saab). If you're not in love with the Europeans like I am, get a Toyota. A big one.

Anyway, we are all three in the early stages of this phase, and as of yet there's nothing really to report. It sounds like Sean's teacher is a real dipshit (he thinks Spanish and "Mexican" are two different languages). Mine seems OK, but I predict he'll be my least favorite so far. The new transmission for my car, which I got for $40 (!) arrived in the mail today. I will hopefully be able to put it in soon, if I can avoid the crazy old bastards who are on a crusade against auto repair in the parking lot (they're taking pictures of anyone who has their car's hood up at this point). The irony is that with my car the way it is, it leaks gear oil all over the asphalt every day. Replacing the tranny would not add to that puddle, and would prevent it from growing larger, but because of the rule I must leave my leaky tranny in there to further poison the parking lot. It's like raiiiiiiiiiiin / on your weeedddinnng day / it's the good adviiiiiiice / that ya just didn't take! (Note: I was going to link the preceeding sentence to Alanis Morissette's site, but it's way too obnoxious. I spare you)

Lastly, my friend Mark's new show on Comedy Central starts tomorrow; watch it, even though he's a Yankee fan. It's called Shorties Watchin' Shorties.

Monday, April 26, 2004

I didn't write on Monday because I felt like absolute crap and went straight to bed. Nothing happened anyway, other than me having some very grave doubts as to my immune system's commitement to Sparkle Motion.

Sunday, April 25, 2004

It would be nice to use all of my only day off productively, but it's tough to not take the opportunity to sleep in. I woke up at around noon, and was greeted via my cell phone with the news that the Sox were beating the Yanks 2-0 with Pedro on the hill throwing a gem (I take back my questioning of Mr. Martinez several weeks ago in this space). We all lounged around until the Sox had secured their victory (a series sweep of the hated Yanks, no less), then went folfing. That was fun, although I feel kind of guilty about taking a chunk out of a cactus with a pitched rock.

We had a lot of errands to run, and Bobby was over so we got to ride around in a relatively normal car all day (a Nissan Sentra). Sean's car is making some weird noises from the left front wheel, and until we check out the wheel bearings I'm hoping he can avoid driving it (don't want the wheel to come off on the Phoenix freeways). We played basketball and there were a bunch of guys over there, enough that we had to rotate teams. My ankle still hurts quite a bit whenever we play, but hopefully it's getting better.

I just got word from Scott that our baseball team up in Portland (the Green Sox) got murdered in their opening doubleheader... 10-0 in the first game, in which they got no-hit, and 10-4 in the second game. Ouch.

Anyway, Sundays are usually all about boring stuff like laundry and food shopping, and this one's no different. I've got a couple more things to do and then I've got to get to sleep... we've got a new phase starting tomorrow. Sean's got Brakes, I'm in "Advanced" Electronics, and Dane's got Bolt-on Performance. Bring it on, bitch.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

As is typical on Saturday, I had to work (as did Dane). This would normally be pretty routine, if not for my experience in the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru on the way there. I was feeling pretty good as my sickness, which is still hanging around nominally, seems on its way out. One of the ladies who works there saw me pulling in and hollered out my regular order (medium coffee with cream, no sugar). Side note: I think it's hilarious that the Dunkin' Donuts staff always recognizes Sean and I by our car(s), but they seem to be unable to distinguish between which car we're in (I'm pretty sure they think we only have one car). Tommy John and Frankenberry both are sort of light tan colors, and they are back-to-back designs in BMW's history, but they're fairly different cars. I suppose all old bimmers kind of look the same to regular people, as crazy as that might sound.

Anyway, while I was sitting there in line behind a Ford Explorer, I was suddenly overpowered by the smell of gasoline. After a brief and ill-advised attempt to convince myself that it must be one of the other cars in line (unlikely, as they were all less than 3 years old), I couldn't deny that my '69 junkyard mishmash BMW with a homemade fuel injection system was the most likely culprit. Not having yet gotten my coffee, I waited until I'd driven out back onto the road to start worrying about it. I came up with a couple ideas of where the leak might be and probably didn't worry nearly as much as I should have until I arrived at work, opened the hood and realized I was dumping gas directly onto the exhaust manifold out of the fuel return line. For the uninitiated, the exhaust manifold is easily the hottest part of the car at any given time. Had I driven much longer and gotten it much hotter, I would have certainly had a major engine fire on my hands. I would have been able to get out of the car all right, but burning up my only mode of transportation in the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru is something I'd like to avoid for the time being. Luckily, I work at a repair shop, and my boss, who I admit I've talked a lot of shit about, let me spend a little time fixing the car with some new fuel line, and I don't think I'll have that problem again.

Once I got home from work (where I spent most of the day watching the Red Sox beat the Yanks on my cell phone), Sean and I watched what must be one of the worst movies I've ever seen on cable. I don't know what it was, but it had Marky Mark in it and had something to do with a kidnapping and a hit man. It was truly awful. Then we went and played basketball.

After that, we set of for Tempe to complete my mission of finding a cool bar where all the cool ASU students hang out (I am convinced that a certain, however small, percentage of ASU students must be people we'd like and therefore hang out in places other than all the meat markets on the main drag). I'd heard of a place called the 4 Peaks Brew Pub that was supposed to fit that bill, and that's where we went. It was great, and I'm really glad to have found it, because we really needed a place like that that we actually like to go to. It's a little far away, but hopefully will become a Saturday night regular. Not to mention that I BEAT SEAN AT DARTS AGAIN. Time to buy a lottery ticket.

© Long Shot Films 2004