Drove To Chicago All Things Know All Things Know

I sense a palpable clamor in the air for an update on all things Luca.

Ok, maybe it's just Stacey. And she's not really clamoring--more like politely inquiring.

Here ya go, Stace:

-The internship at Paste is going well. Actually, it's going great. They're keeping me very busy and I'm learning a lot. I was afraid that I might not be able to do everything that would be asked of me but I've learned that I can handle pretty much anything. The work environment is ideal for my particular sensibilities too. I mean, we spent the last couple of hours of work on Friday drinking beer and playing "cornhole" (a variation on the classic "horseshoe"). And when we manage to actually work at publishing a magazine that a half million people read every month, it hardly feels like work at all, and that, my friends, is the key to finding what you're truly meant to be doing.

-The little lady and I went to see "Superbad" today. It was profanely funny. I don't know what it is about high school comedies, but I usually enjoy them way more than I ever enjoyed my time in actual high school. Whether it's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Can't Hardly Wait", heck, even "Teen Wolf"--I love them all. Meanwhile, I cringe at most of my own high school memories. The naive awkwardness that makes these movies compelling is also what I want to eschew from my own reminiscence. Sick, isn't it?

-Adrienne will be going to Chicago for Labor Day to visit friends and possibly scout the area for future living consideration. A lot of our friends have moved or are moving there in the near future and Adrienne is campaigning for us to follow them next year when she's finished with school. I'm not exactly sold on the idea yet but I'm keeping an open mind. My philosophy has always been to embrace opportunities when they present themselves so I guess we'll see. For now I'm excited to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.

All right, that's enough for now.

Later.

Deuteranopia Is Not My Only Burden

So, yeah. . .

It's been a while since I've posted an update on the going-ons in my life so here we go:


--First and foremost, while running the risk of jinxing myself, I should tell you that I'm anxiously waiting to be interviewed for an internship at Paste Magazine. If you're not familiar with this publication you should check out an issue or their really cool website. I don't even need to stress how cool this would be for me; it would be the first job I've ever had that actually has anything to do with what I studied in college.

The internship would be either in the Marketing/Business or the Editorial department. It would pay close to nothing but the experience and contacts I would make there would be priceless. And how could they not hire me after the internship is over? I'm adorable.

They emailed me today to let me know that I should go in for an interview. I really, really, really hope I get this. You should hope for this as well.



--I've been running a lot lately and lifting weights. I guess it's my last (and perhaps first) attempt at getting fit. I am seeing quite a difference in my body after just a short time so I'm actually sticking to it. I've already lost quite a chunk of the belly fat I've been nursing over the last...oh, I don't know, ten years or so and I'm actually building up muscle. I know, shocking! This shit actually works.

I'm doing it five times a week for about an hour or so, hopefully I won't burn out. I'm setting small goals for myself to keep me motivated and I guess my first is to run a 5k comfortably and at a good pace. I feel like I'm almost there already. I just hope my knees don't give out since I've had problems with them in the past due to old basketball injuries.



--In other bodily news, I'm losing my eyesight. Not like the whole way or anything, I'm not going blind (hopefully, although I'm already colorblind). However my eyesight has gotten exponentially worse in the last few months. I have a hard time focusing on text that is more than three feet away from me and my eyes get fatigued while driving at night. I'm also seeing the words I'm typing right now in a bit of haze and I haven't even been drinking (much)!

This is all a recent development as I've always had reliable eyesight and I must admit I'm very resentful that my eyes have given up on me so early. Yes, I haven't treated them in the best manner with all the tv watching and endless hours staring at computer screens, but I figured they would carry me at least into my thirties.

Now I'm faced with the daunting task of getting my eyes checked and eventually getting glasses. Contacts aren't an option as I would rather carve my name into my thigh with a rusty knife than have to touch my eyeball. That's just not happening. Adrienne told me that I look like a sexy professor with glasses on so I'm not too worried after all. Then again, it is her job as my girlfriend to lie to me to protect my fragile ego, so she can't be trusted.



--At least I can be thankful that I don't have restless leg syndrome because that might lead me to a severe gambling debt. Have you seen this? Adrienne brought it to my attention after she heard it on a tv commercial. And after some research we found out that apparently a side effect of Mirapex, a medication that eases the symptoms of restless leg syndrome (RLS), is a rise in compulsive behavior. However, they take it a step further by singling out compulsive gambling as the main form of adverse behavior.

First of all, I'm not yet convinced that restless leg syndrome is an actual medical condition, even though Adrienne swears her mother has it. And then you throw in compulsive gambling as a side effect and I'm left to assume that restless leg syndrome is the body's own deferral system against OCD and by taking Mirapex you're merely transferring the fixating anxiety from your legs to your head. Is this a good trade off? I think not. You may lose some sleep with RLS but at least you'll still have a roof over your head at the end of the day.

If you have RLS please don't take Mirapex. Just calm the fuck down. Or just smoke some weed before bed; it's less expensive and far safer.



All right, good night my sweet babies. Sleep the shit out of tonight for tomorrow is another day.

Of All The People...

So I took MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority --the f'ing train, alright?!) to work for the first time on Friday. I've been driving to and fro all week and it's been kind of a pain because traffic is really bad around that area, especially when I get out at around 5 or 6pm (it took me half an hour to go one mile on Monday, utterly frustrating). Plus, the quickest route is by taking the toll road which costs 50 cents each way and I don't know about you, but I am NOT accustomed to paying directly for my roads, that's what taxes and vehicle registrations and speeding tickets are for, right? So as a little experiment I decided to borrow Adrienne's student MARTA pass since she doesn't have class on Friday and ride the rails to work.

I must say that it was quick (12 minutes each way), convenient (the station is a block from my apartment and drops me off across the street from my work) and virtually painless (clean, air conditioned cars, no crazy homeless people on board). The only drawback is not having my car to transport me to any place of my choosing for lunch and I've also developed a habit of listening to The Big Show with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann¹ on ESPN Radio while eating lunch within the safety and comfort of my vessel. But, oh well.

Today there was none of that.

I instead decided to take the short walk over to the Perimeter Mall which is directly across the street from my work and have lunch at the food court. The mall is quite busy at lunch time as there are many office buildings in the area surrounding it and the food court is especially teeming with activity. All the tables fill up quickly and you'll find yourself sharing a table with some other stranger eating lunch by him or herself because of the lack of room. Plus, there was extra traffic today as the crowds anxiously lined up outside the Apple store to await the release of the iPhone at 6pm. There must've been 50 people in line. Crazy bastards.

As I was standing in my own long line for Chick Fil-A, a somewhat eerily familiar face caught my eye. I turned my head to follow this person back into my peripheral vision as he stopped a few feet to my left. The man in question was relatively short, rail thin, a slight curvature to his upper back (kinda like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons), and he was accompanied by a somewhat heavyset woman dressed in overalls. His face was so familiar to me, I knew it had been catalogued in my mind at some point but I just couldn't put my finger on who he was exactly.

And then it came to me.

I immediately reached for my phone to confirm my suspicions. Adrienne didn't answer. Dammit.
I kept staring at this man as he slowly walked away from me and toward the pizza place. "It's gotta be him", I kept thinking. "Definitely. But what's the deal with the woman with him? How could anyone want his company? Doesn't she know? And what the hell is he doing at the mall?"

I got my food and ate it quickly, all the time trying to remember some details from the case. It happened a long time ago, even though the press never let it die, and I never really paid much attention to it but you couldn't really escape it for a while; it was all they talked about. "Did it happen in Atlanta? No, it was in Colorado, I think. Was he from Atlanta?"

I walked around the mall for a while to kill the rest of my lunch break and ended up in the FYE store looking at (of course) cds. Finally, my phone rang and it was Adrienne calling me back. I immediately jumped to it.

"Remember the little girl that got killed, like, ten years ago. The beauty pageant girl. What was her name, JonBenet Ramsey?", I said.

"Yeah", she said.

"OK. Remember the creepy guy who confessed to her murder or to being at her murder or something like that last year but was later released because there was no evidence tying him to it?"

"Yeah. John Mark Karr."

"Was he from here in Atlanta?"

"Yeah, I think so. Why?", she asked.

"I just totally saw him in the food court at the fucking mall!", I exulted.

That creepy fucking look that you see in the picture above is exactly how he looked. Those dead, cold eyes and the child molester vibe were totally chilling. I have now stared evil in the eye and it was not good. That dude should be in jail for something, I don't care for what, he should not be allowed to walk among us. It's just a matter of time before he does something. And there he was, within reach. I could have done something, but I didn't.

All because Adrienne didn't answer her phone. Lives could have been saved.

Be frightened, very frightened. Evil walks among us. . . at the food court.


¹the only sport commentators who are journalists, make valid points, and most importantly, are not blathering conservative racist idiots like 95% of sport radio DJ-types. How did this become the archetype of radio DJs in general? Where did we go wrong that radio stations believe that only racist, narrow-minded, republican white males listen to commercial talk radio? I might have to explore this topic in another blog. . .

Pay Attention, This Might Be Important.

"Halloween: H20" has been on television every night for the last year or so --maybe even longer. I've only been paying attention to this phenomenon for that time span, ever since I noticed that it was on the premium channels on digital cable for what seemed like every night. And it HAS BEEN ON EVERY SINGLE NIGHT SINCE! I'm not sure what this means but it might be important, so please take note.

It's mostly on Showtime or Cinemax between 11pm and 3am but it also comes on Starz and Encore quite often. Why is this movie being shown so much? That's all I want to know. I mean, it's not very good. It wasn't a hit at the box office. It's the sixth sequel in a series that only produced one movie worth seeing (although the remake of the first one, written and directed by Rob Zombie that's coming out in August looks pretty good).

If you have any insight on this particular issue, please enlighten me.


In other news, some people have asked me what I thought of "The Sopranos" finale, so this is as good a forum as there is:

Quite frankly, as I have previously stated, I had no expectations going into it so I really feel that it was an appropriate ending. A lot of people were disappointed by the open-endedness of the finale and have gone so far as to call the move gutless by writer/creator David Chase. I disagree. I think that if you look at the entire series for what it was, it couldn't have ended any other way.

The series was never about taking the viewers by the hand and walking them down a clear path where the characters' motivations and the events befalling them were neatly layed out. And that's what made it great, it never pandered to the audience but it always kept them guessing. The show stayed true to itself and that's all that I can ever ask for from any art form.

And for the people that tuned in just at the end to catch some bloodshed, you should have been watching all along --way more people were killed throughout the span of the show than in the whole history of the New Jersey mob...

Annotations

A couple of things:

-"The Sopranos" ends Sunday night, as you might have heard. In fact, every media outlet has been speculating all week on how the series will conclude its run. Personally, I haven't really given it much thought. I've come to terms with the fact that David Chase, the series creator, has always done things his way, often with no consideration to the fans' expectations. I'll abide to the creator's vision and accept any ending that transpires. The dude must abide, afterall.

-Chad Johnson, the very amusing Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver, raced against a horse for charity on Saturday --and won. It wasn't an even, head to head race, the horse had to run twice the distance Chad ran (100 meters); but still, it's very impressive. People had tried it before and it wasn't even close. Chad, of course, talked trash afterwards. I'm not sure what this means in terms of human-horse relations, but I'm curious to find out. Stay tuned.

We Know A Place Where No Planes Go

So, the Arcade Fire did not disappoint tonight. All ten members were full of energy and quite entertaining to watch. This was my first time seeing them live so I was surprised to see how much instrumental musical chairs they play; with the exception of the sassy (Adrienne used this word, I would never) violin player who stuck by her fiddle all night, everyone else traded instruments after every song. And they had all sorts of cool instruments too: toy piano, french horn, mandolin, glockenspiel and hurdy gurdy. I love the hurdy gurdy. Love it. I want one so bad.

For those of you who have never seen a hurdy gurdy this is what it looks like:

It sounds like a mix between a violin and a bagpipe and it's played by turning a crank. Super cool. If you have the new Decemberists album, The Crane Wife you can hear the hurdy gurdy in action throughout the song "Sons & Daughters".

ANYWAY. . .

The Civic Center was a pretty cool venue. It's a 4,600 seat theater very much like TPAC in Nashville. The sound was great. And with the exception of some drunk fat girl constantly screaming about her titties in the row behind us (she was singing about them and threatened to pull them out; in fear of being blinded, I did not look), we had a good time.

So, if Arcade Fire happens to pass through your town, you should definitely check them out.

Cheers.

Banale Minutia

I'm incredibly bored right now. Adrienne went to bed at 9:30 tonight because she had been up and working since 6:30 this morning. The NBA Playoff game between the Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz fails to entertain me. There's nothing on the DVR that I haven't yet watched. The Netflix dvds are currently en route. And in addition, the internet is no longer amusing.

Crap. Time for a blog.

I spent the day cleaning the apartment and doing laundry with occasional peeks at the NFL draft on television¹. I spent nearly five hours cleaning my 1,150sq ft hovel. Once I get going on the cleaning, I like to be thorough. I swept, vacuumed, washed, brushed, shined, dusted, scoured and scrubbed. I even pumiced. . . and I hardly ever pumice.

I can thank my mother for the innate sense of cleanliness I've inherited (although I also blame her for the domineering anal retentiveness, thanks mom!); it's served me well. I've kept every place I've lived in progressively and exponentially cleaner. Consequently, I have to imagine that the last few decades of my life will be spent in an aseptic, sterile environment, relegated from the outside world with crazed, delusional thoughts offering the only company and reassurance. But that's at least another five years or so away, so let's not worry about that just yet.

I do often wonder if I am slightly obsessive compulsive or if I'm just a dude who likes to keep things neat. I mean, I don't completely lose my shit if things are placed in the wrong place or anything, it just kind of bothers me to know that they should be placed somewhere else. I justify this behavior with my affinity for not losing things and always knowing where something is; in other words, I just really want to be on top of my shit, 24-7. Is such organizational excellence so out of the ordinary that it needs to be ridiculed and labeled as abnormal? It certainly shouldn't be.

Let's put it this way, if I ever need a 3/8" hexagonal screwdriver I can have it in my hot little hand in six seconds flat because I know exactly where it is and where it should be. Is this a deplorable trait?

Fuck no.

I don't know who was the first doctor to diagnose someone as having obsessive compulsive behavior but I bet you he was a messy son of a bitch who just couldn't understand devotion to precision. Pity.

All right, I guess I'm off to bed. Brunch at Canoe tomorrow. Yum.

¹The coverage of the draft has gotten monumentally overblown. It's the only thing that has been discussed on any sports media outlet for the last month and a half even though only a small portion of the players drafted will make an immediate impact in the season that is still four months away. Jeez, there's other sports which are actually being played right now, is this kind of coverage really warranted?

The draft was on for twelve straight hours on ESPN today and it will be on again tomorrow morning for the same amount of time. They had a team of at least a dozen analysts there for the duration of the event, as if such massive dissection was really needed.

Who gives a fuck about Brady Quinn's feelings about sliding down to the 22nd pick?! Should you and I really care that this prick will not make as much money as some misguided people thought he should have? Hell no. This douche will still be a millionaire by next week even though he's never taken a snap at the professional level (or won an important game in college, for that matter). Why is he getting so much coverage?!

I blame it on the rise of fantasy football leagues which lately have become the biggest exercise in organized gambling in this country. Any idiot that's part of a league now wants to have a leg up on the competition so we all have to suffer through months and months of speculation and superfluous analysis which is passed off as inside information. Just like in every sport, gambling determines design.

Don't get me wrong, I love the NFL and I've played fantasy football for a few years (never for money), but this is why other sports aren't given a chance to be popular anymore or are disappearing completely (hockey, anyone?). As a fan of most sports, I think this kind of coverage is displacing other worthy pastimes. I enjoy football, but I don't need it covered twelve months out of the year.

Good lord, this was a long footnote.

Everyone's Waiting

I just watched the series finale of Six Feet Under on Bravo. It was sad, emotionally draining and overall, totally satisfying. It's a fine line to tread, the finale that ties up all loose ends; for the most part it never works. But for this show it couldn't have ended any other way. If you've seen it, I'm sure you probably feel the same way.

I never watched Six Feet when it first ran on HBO, but everybody who did would always tell me that it was my kind of show. Now that I've seen it, I'm not really sure what these people saw that would make them say that to me; I don't see why ANYONE wouldn't like this show. . . it's a good show. I'm glad I had a chance to finally see it.

I suspect that the upcoming series finale of The Sopranos will not be quite as conclusive. Something tells me that I'll probably be disappointed with the way it ends. But then again, I may just be fooling myself into thinking this so that any sort of closure will seem satisfying. I'm a tricky bastard like that, I can convince myself of anything. I just have a feeling that the show's creator, David Chase, is a big fan of not pandering to the expectations of the audience and that makes it really unpredictable. And I guess that's part of why I like the show and have stuck with it through its ups and downs. It's easily the best show I've seen on television (besides Mama's Family, of course).