snow days

snow days used to mean alot in my world. now, aside from asthetic value, they mean next to nothing . even at work, they offered the promise of at least a late start--that can throw off your entire day, in a good way. 

now, snow days really do mean nothing. i get up, make some coffee. look at the dog--should i walk her? no. sit at the desk. "oh look, it's snowing. that's pretty."

unless the snow turned into freezing rain that anchored itself to the power or internet lines and the extra weight pushed them to braking point...nothing.

look at it, even the fake google weather picture looks more appealing.

mlk: day of service

in spite of news' hype about barrack obama getting out and painting some schools today, this "day of service" thing is really great. i'm sure my more partisan friends will inform me that's its just a liberal tool (after all, acorn and the dnc are involved)--but whatever. i just wish i'd paid attention to all of this sooner (or wasn't working on mlk day). but it looks like people are scheduling events well into the future. i hope it goes well. 

things that make me laugh, part iv

franny, discovering herself. 

she just heard the birds on planet earth. naturally, she tried to find them behind the tv. 

it's colder than it looks

current temperature: 3.

high today: 9.

whaaaaaat. did i move to st. petersburg? russia, not florida. it doesn't look that bad, but it is...

there's not much else to post. mainly me complaining. yes, i grew up in the south. yes, single digits frighten me. this is called "_____ cold" (fill in your expletive). that is all.

how to waste $50

i got back in town last night to discover that the show i've been obsessing over the past month (to be my first proper concert since i got here) was about to begin in an hour and was sold out. i didn't think girl talk was playing until next thursday. fool that i am didn't think it necessary to buy tickets beforehand or double-check his dates.

as soon as i got off the train, megan met me to try and scalp tickets. we spent an hour in the cold, haggling with scalpers and generally being angry at every 16 year old boy dressed like a woman and every girl dressed like a 12 yr. old. finally we were able to get two tickets, one from a nice and intoxicated kid going to school at loyola in chicago (sorry, em, he doesn't know your brother). the other came from a guy who's other ticket for his wife was a phony (foreshadowing). for the both of them we paid about $50, which was only $20 more than face value.

when we went through the line to get in, it turned out that my ticket (from the intoxicated loyolan) had already been scanned. the kid went through, then came back out and sold us his ticket. i don't know if it was out of malevolence or drunkenness, but anger and frustration are not adequate words.

we sat in the lobby for about 15 minutes just stalling, hoping the ticket checker would have a heart and let us in. there was nothing he could do. either megan went to the show by herself (not an appealing proposition, espeically in light of one of the better conversation we'd had outside the venue earlier with a particularly wise 19 yr. old: "i had sex with a girl at the last show! the enitre crowd saw my ass." amazing. i'm sure that's how she would describe it as well), or neither of us went. we gave up and went home.

i guess the most disappointing thing about the whole evening was that by the time we got home, i wasn't that depressed. maybe i'm trying to be coyly jaded or just getting older, but sitting outside the theater last night seeing those kids didn't make me want to experience that crazy concert at all. i should've known before going to a concert like girl talk, but i guess i just ignored that quiet, prideful and judgmental voice in the back of my head until last night.

i still love going to shows. and i even truly appreciate the semi-counter culture that the indie music scene can be. i've just gotten very choosy about live music and what was once unique is now mainstream. there are still plenty of original artists (girl talk is one of them) and there are plenty of listeners who will enjoy them as art and not as consumption (maybe girl talk is intended to be more of the latter?). but i guess all things change, including my love for live music and what used to be considered independent. this sounds pretty trite and stuffy, i know, but there it is. in spite of everything, here's to hope for art...

08's been good to me

unfortunately, i find it difficult to remember my life further back than one month ago. it's a curse, but whenever i try to think about the "year that was," i can't get out of the current context. small stature, small brain, i guess.

in spite of this natural barrier, for the sake of you, dear reader, i will try to bend my mind to the past. and by past, i mean beyond december, because you can read my complaints about that

 month in my last post. 

if you didn't know it, '08 was the year of change.

yep, let that soak in. 

do you hate it when people try to sum up 365 days with one word or phrase? it 

drives me crazy. i can barely classify one day of my life, much less a year. why should this particular time period from january to december have any particular thematic significance over the previous one? why is january the magic dividing line?

rant over. back to year of change. 

i moved to STL. that's a big change. 

new dog. change. 

overplayed carols destroyed my christmas. no change.

convinced a few people in STL to be my friends. change.

hastily demeaned, disrespected, and stonewalled new friends. no change.

started working at home. change.

traveled to asia, twice. change.

helped a friend build his house. change.

finally ended over a decade of living in the same city as cullin. change.

piled into the car with my entire family and drove over 14 hours to san antonio for christmas. no change.

as you can see, the change clearly outweighs the no change. also, there's that whole first african american elected president thing. i guess that puts the stranglehold on it. year of change!

lame blogging aside, it has been a good year. getting to see my family over the holiday reminded me that i'm blessed by them, in spite of our collective weirdness. one thing that has been amazing about getting older for me is that i feel like my parents have become my friends. not completely, of course, but it's refreshing to be adults together. 

also, i'm including some christmas-related pictures below. the one triumph i did have this year was a couple strands of classic ceramic christmas lights. i've been fighting my wife for them since last year. sometimes you get help from unexpected places, in this case, my mother-in-law. shocking.

here's my lame stan's favorite picture that he took this year. it's a picture in a picture. get it?

this christmas, we joined the  rest of 21st century middle class america and purchased a "flat panel tv (don't call it a flatscreen)."

in other '08 trivia, a good friend started a music blog. thom's lazy eye. if you're into bad critiques and self-referential humor, its pretty awesome. i rated my best albums of '08 here. 

end stream of consciousness year in review.

goodbye 2008. 

i was gone, now i'm back

attempting to get back into blogging over the most destructive and choatic holiday season may not be my best idea. but my mind is made up. plus, the only people i'll let down are two or three bored dudes who would be watching battlestar galactica or playing "gears of war" (not that i know what that is).

so, what to make the first post back about...my life sounds good. before thanksgiving i started working on a new program for work. it required me to travel to four different locations around the country, staying at each for about three or four days. do the math on that one and ... yep, that's about a month of traveling. not exactly the best recipe for a great december.

then, there is the truly sad news that my wife's uncle was killed in a car accident over thanksgiving weekend. we have been between the two poles of tennessee since to be with her family. it has been a sad but also strangely redemptive time.

so, with that large dose of reality, maybe i should get back to blogging. or if that was it, back to distraction. i was under the impression the internet had no other purpose than diversion. but then a friend linked (the same one who is plugged into gears of war as you read this) me to peer preassure is forever. the blog belongs to my former english teacher and his wife. i will say nothing more. so, i guess it's not back to distraction. but maybe back to blogging for me.

lame

someone left this lame note on my car the other day. i guess i was parked a little close to the white line (the sidekick next me was over it, so i don't feel bad at all). besdides noting that they probably bought a ream of these "parking violation" notices from skymall or another equally worthless institution, i'd like to make a few notes about the ticket itself.

"Bull Headed, Inconsiderate, and feeble..." wait, which is it? i can see bull-headed and iconsiderate going together, but then feeble as well? did i feebly attempt to park? then i probably wasn't bull-headed but just plain bad at turning the wheel. which is it? i'd like to know.

"a safari of pygmies from the African interior." really? you just referenced pygmies, among goats, mules and elephants. i know gross exaggeration is sometimes funny. but not when it's on the windshield of my car.

"Besides I don't like demineering, egotsitical or simpleminded drivers..." i'm nearly positive leaving this note qualifies you for all three.

"I sign off..." is this a radio broadcast? i thought i was getting a parking ticket?

"wishing you an early transmission failure (on the expressway at about 4:30 pm)." if i get a transmission failure on the "expressway" at 4:30, you will most likely be stuck in traffic behind me. those kinds of thing tend to have a wider effect.

"May the Fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits." medieval arab humor. excellent. it makes perfect sense when you examine the quote in context. we went from a team of mules circa to 1800 to a pygmy safari to syria around the time sal ad-din. this guys knows how to throw in the historical clues!

this was actually really fun. the next time your paging through skymall or cheapworthlessshit.com, make sure you pick up a stack of these "parking tickets" and leave them on random cars.

remember, remember...

anarchists around the world are counting on you. light some fireworks tonight in memory of their hero.

no electioneering...yet

i played my part today and voted. i put in a good hour in the line beforehand. but from what i hear, that's not too bad on election day. aside from the nice woman next to me who insisted on repeatedly letting me how she was voting, everything went smoothly.

the real question now is, "will this, finally, be the end [of the election]?...no, really, will it?" i don't even want to watch the results come in. i have this recurring fear that i'll wake up tomorrow morning and we'll still be staring at the same screen with the same poll numbers and the same newscasters will be telling us something about a recount. like groundhog day but unfunny.

let's hope that's not the case. all this election nonsense has really cut into my extra-curricular actives. do you know that i haven't seen an episode of battlestar galactica for six months? no joke. there was a time when i couldn't phrase a sentence without wondering if i could reasonably insert the word "cylon." now, my head's cluttered with "failed economic policies" or "maverick" or, even worse "joe the plumber." what can you do with that garbage?

sadly, i found out about nader's election day press conference too late. seeing him conduct a press conference with one-word responses would be a nice way to end all of this.