The Meaty Efreeti

Friday, January 30, 2004

Okay, I'm off to battle the throngs of people downtown in an attempt to simply get home. I'm sure I'll be Superbowlin' it up for the weekend, but it's possible that I could squeeze in an update somewhere... Erm...I'd go ahead and exhale though. waves j.s.



What an interesting day. We'll start with this: [[Image deleted]] A preserved baby dragon, found in a garage in Oxforshire...they say it's a hoax perpetrated by German scientists in the 1800's to make English scientists look silly. I'm not so sure. =] And then there's this: Cow Poos Diamonds You know, the world really is full of ridiculous possibilities and randomness. Gives one hope. And, it looks like THIS is where I'll be spending the worst holiday ever created. Fritz Lang was a cinematic genius. j.s

Thursday, January 29, 2004

Upcoming Sony films I must go see: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and possibly Hellboy dependent upon how much of a comic book geek I feel like being that day. I know...I'm really not very cool. j.s.



I feel great. The past couple of nights I've gone home relatively early, had a bubble bath, made some dinner, and read/pondered the evening away. I've slept in, and paid much more attention to my body and what it wants/needs. The meager fruit of which is the post to follow... The rise and fall of the cerebral wave of humanity is an interesting thing, when put into the framework of technology. This is a bit of a prosaic thought, but what would people think of today's computers 80 years ago? The idea of it 1924 was so foreign and "impossible" that it was completely unthinkable...and yet, the pieces were there, even then. No one had just put the metal, silica and wires in the right order yet. This lends itself to wonder about what we haven't pieced together just yet... Nanotechnology? Teleportation? Speed of light ? Even time travel? (Er...no...skip that last one. Stephen Hawking put it at its pragmatic best when he said that time travel would never be possible, otherwise we would already have had visits from time travellers.) It also makes one think about how infallable science claims to be...and just how often they turn out to be wrong about things. Break the sound barrier? Impossible. Travel to the moon? No way. Widespread mobile communicators? Only in sci-fi TV shows... So what do we currently think is impossible that will be proven wrong in the future? Communication with single-celled organisms? Cold fusion? Sentient planets? The end of death? Banana deities? And when we do prove or disprove things, how silly do the beliefs of the earlier time seem? People used to think that radios in cars would distract people from the task of driving, and thus cause too many car accidents to possibly be safe. This was less than 80 years ago. The wave surges forward, and quickly these "obvious" human limitations slip backward into patronizing novelty. These are the kinds of things I think about before I go to bed... I lay there, staring at the ceiling, and I try to put new pieces together.... Heh, so far it's been ineffectual. This is because I get distracted by thinking of interesting ways to say things I'm thinking about vs. continuing a thought to it's eventual conclusion...I should try that I guess. (With the exception of my theory on dinosaur fossil records lacking a "tail drag line." I'm still convinced I got that one right...and as a new development that I hadn't thought of before now, it might have an impact on the data denoting the rising obesity rate as well. =]) j.s.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

I'd like to talk for a moment about stylists and aestheticians. I think that having these folk groom and beautify the unkempt masses is one of the most trivial, and simultaneously imperative, activities that modern culture has bestown upon humanity. So much so, that I happen to think there should be some kind of governmental program to provide these services to all, regardless of current funding. Take, for example, oh...let's see....hmmmm.... Me. I currently have approximately $20 to my name. And yet, I need a haircut, brow wax, manicure and massage...and those right now. Yet, I must wade through the syrupy malcontent of unruly sideburns, recalcitrant supraorbital lobe growth, nibbled digit tips, (which is really fun to say) and taut, uncomfortable muscles about my neck. (Which concurrently suffers numerous bite marks that are taking way, way, WAY too long to heal. Even the friggin' Wendy's cashier felt the need to bring them up today before he sold me my damn chicken sandwich...) Now I ask you...is this fair? Is this right? Is this...justice? No, certainly not. Such vapid superficialities are my God given right as The American Me, and they are being impinged upon by the complete lack of any social programs that benefit the terminally vain. Where is my federal funding for flattery? My tax dollars for dazzle? My subsidy for sumptuousness? Sadly lacking in the daily conventions of the conventional it would seem. Fie to the Republicans and Democrats alike for their lack of aesthetic foresight. Pockmarks on both their houses! j.s.



Woke up late and freezing as the temperature had dropped from a a gentle 70 degrees yesterday to about 35 overnight, and I still had my air conditioner turned on. Hit a horrid traffic jam on the way to work that was caused by a cop and an ambulance parked in the left two lanes of the I-10/610 exchange for reasons unclear. But that was in actuality not so bad as it gave me time to listen to The Writers Almanac on NPR, which I absolutely love. (You can listen to it here if you'd like...I want Garrison Keillor to read me bedtime stories.) So today is Lewis Carroll's birthday....which reminds me of an amazing fashion shoot by Annie Liebowitz that was in Vogue a month or two ago that had fashion designers posing as characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Tom Ford as the White Rabbit, Jean Paul Gaultier as the Cheshire Cat...brilliant. I wish I could find a link to it somewhere... j.s.

Monday, January 26, 2004

So I head downstairs to get a drink from the office deli thingy and put it on my tab. I ask the Korean deli lady how much I owe...she shows my tab to me, says something I don't understand, and then points at something written in Korean at the top of the page. I stare back quizzically. "That mean you handsome boy." Think I'll try and work the free croissant angle tomorrow...=] j.s.



Good morning. That was a bizarre ride of a weekend...and I'm not entirely sure how to relate it to all of you...given that I don't typically talk about such things here. Regardless, here goes. Friday Russell and I went to my place and watched Wonder Boys, which I love so much that I've watched it 4 times since I bought it on Thursday, and then we went to one of his friend's house for a small gathering. Generally good people there, and it's odd that I say that since many of them were of the mega-Texan variety...complete with drawl, racism and NASCAR fascination. A young lady there (who will remain nameless) was quite forward with yours truly. At one point, as I was walking out the front door to use my phone, she blocked me from going outside, shut the door, pushed me down onto the couch and placed her foot on me... "And where are you going?" she asked coquettishly, hand on her hip. (In just writing that now it sounds much sexier than it seemed when it happened. And though honestly it wasn't a bad thing, it was really more confusing than lascivious. This could be because I was rapidly approaching drunken status at the time, or perhaps I've been off my game for quite awhile. Probably the latter.) I did eventually get up however, and went to Mama's for a late grilled cheese sandwich with Luis and K. at around 11 or so. I had planned on simply having some coffee and preparing for the long journey back to sobriety so I could go home at around 2 or 3. My plans did not involve the aformentioned girl arriving at Mama's and ushering me back to the party... But arrive she did, and somehow I ended up riding back to the party with her. Which is when things got...interesting. I will not go into the details of the rest of the evening as I'd like to think I'm a bit more gentlemanly than the average bear, and my own personal decorum prohibits such. I can say however that I made an "appointment" at 3 a.m. to kiss her at 3:30, and that is where I'll leave you. The rest, I'm afraid, is between her and I. So Saturday I crashed out until about 12:30. An hour late for my standing breakfast appointment at Fountain View. So I showered quickly and headed over, hoping to still catch Luis and K. there. They had waited for me, which was awesome of them since I'm guessing they ended up being there for over 3 hours, all told. I poked and prodded at my breakfast, unable to really eat much of it, and we chatted. I remember very little of this part of breakfast as I was still a bit tipsy. But that's neither here nor there. The important chapter of my breakfast was the part where I fell in love. She sat by herself. Dark red and brown hair, brown eyes, small, fair, vintage red button-up with white patterns, oil-washed jeans, mary jane style shoes without the patent finish and with much clunkier heels, 555 cigarette fitted delicately between two slender fingers, a pen in her other hand, and she studied a book of crossword puzzles intently. She was, without doubt, one of the cutest girls I have ever seen. All I wanted to do was walk over, sit down, find out her name, and listen to how interesting and awesome a person she is...and I yet knew that I wouldn't. Heartbreaking. This brings up an interesting point, and I'll leave it up to you folk whom I concede to be wiser in the ways of hetero-gender social interaction than I. Just how does one introduce one's self to someone at a restaurant? Especially over brunch... Especially when one is as hungover as I was, Doubly so when one has...er...indicia on his neck from a prior night's indiscretions. You don't. Or at least I didn't. And I've been kicking myself for the past 48 hours for it. My only hope of redemption is if she too is a regular there at Ft. View, and will be there next Saturday afternoon... And that alone my friends, is enough to get me to bring a book next time, and loiter about there for an extra hour or two...working myself up into a whirlwind of verbal cleverness and smiling aplomb, in case she comes 'round again. Sigh. So after breakfast, we all went our separate ways, Luis and K. to go shopping, and I home, where I would lay on my couch and read, and nap, and dream of crossword puzzles. I was awoken at around 7-ish to Russell calling my cell, explaining that the clutch had gone out in his car and he was stranded at Babin's out in Katy, and could I come lend a brother a hand? "Sure." So I head out to go pick him up, placing the gentlemanly, follow-up call to the aggressive young girl I'd met Friday night along the way. (I really do try to be a good person...) And she turned out to be much more interesting and clever and lucid than I'd thought her to be on Friday...which was a very good thing. Must've been the wine that made me think otherwise. So I get to Katy, and pick Russell up, and we head back to his place, play XBox, and do the "stay-at-home-recovery-time" thing. Luis calls, and is out downtown at St. Pete's Dancing Marlin and is wondering when I'm going to arrive. I do really want to go, but fear of a perforated liver causes me to respectfully decline. I vaguely remember him calling later asking if I was at home because he needed a place to crash, and I think that I explained I was sleeping on Russell's floor, and not currently in residence at my apartment for the evening. It probably came out as "Blargedy finkle mop, nurrfil comp gabble widd...g'night." Speaking of which, I haven't heard from him yet...hope he made it home okay... Sunday was again, low-key. Rode out to Katy so Russell could get his car situation straightened out a bit, then headed to Star Pizza to meet Melissa for early dinner, then to Wings-n-More to meet Mom for a late dinner, and then back to my place where we subsequently crashed. It's Monday now...and I'm completely out of it for some reason. I'll discuss that more later I'm sure...once I figure out why. Take care, j.s.

Friday, January 23, 2004

You must all go to this link-- LINK. You'll find a familiar voice there discussing online slang. So, if one of my favorite authors is willing to post my drivel on his site, I can't be THAT bad a writer hmm? Just scroll down past the Fred the Cat stuff until you hit the "Allow me to be your online youth culture Babelfish" section...yay! I'm all a twitter...as you can see...=] Bye! j.s.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

I may go to hell forever for suggesting this...but I've been completely addicted to this stupid game for days now and I'm going to spread it to all of you so I at least feel a little bit better... Zuma! May God have mercy on us all... j.s.



I've also messed about with the template for this thing...changing colors, moving tables and whatnot. None of which had the kind of Piet Mondrian simplicity that the current layout enjoys... Sigh. Just isn't that kind of day I guess. j.s.



Sans Smokies~~Day Four I looked up a few short story contests online, and thought about entering a few of them and seeing if my stuff is worth a couple bucks on the open market. Then I went back and re-read the stories that I've finished...and I absolutely hate each and every one of them...which could be caused by many different things, but I think I've narrowed it down to two possible reasons. The first possibility is that I wrote, and read, and edited repeatedly, these stories myself...and so any possible surprise or twist or particularly beautiful passage simply rings hollow for me since I know it wasn't exactly what I wanted to say... The second is, perhaps they really are just complete and utter crap. And I've let them wallow in their own revolting mire for long enough to detach myself from them, and see them for the banal and vile conglomerations of words that they are. I'd like to think it's the first...though I must admit the second is creeping around my writer's bravado like a boogeyman, leaping out of shadows I didn't know were there, laughing his ass off behind the thinner plot lines, and generally giving me much pause before sending any of my writing in. And what I thought was going to help shut him up...that is, writing in here about him...has instead now made me feel even more insecure, as now I've consciously come up with interesting and cruel ways to denigrate what I've worked on for quite a while...and what I feel is one of my stronger points as a person. Sigh... I think I may just need to work a bit harder at finishing up NEW stories, instead of trying to update and clean the dirt off my old ones... I do have one about a small grandfather clock that's been ticking around my head lately, trying to get out...maybe I'll work on that... j.s.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Sans Smokies~~Day 3 Take Two. I'm trying to befuddle my own head...and it's working. Follow along... So since I haven't had much in the way of coffee in the past 6 weeks or so, I decided I'd start drinking it again so my body would be preoccupied with the Return of the Caffeine and hence not focus on the Lack of the Nicotine. It's sorta working I guess...but I'm super-grouchy. The bad kind of grouchy. The kind where you're not even aware of the fact that you are grouchy, so you're not sure why everyone around you is screwing up your day...they must just hate you. So not very much is going on really. I've been perusing some other blogs on the 'Net and most of them, not all of course, but a good majority of them are really, really...just....awful . Misspellings and general grammatical errors in every sentence, tons of "HAHAHA!"S and "LOL!"s which are made worse when discussing things that simply aren't funny, there's the requisite abysmal goth-teen poetry, and perhaps worst of all, none of them are posted upon with any regularity. I might be a BlogSnob, which is fun to say, but I think you should have to have at least 2 weeks of postings before you're allowed to take your blog public and clog up the arteries of the Information Superhighway with such verbal roadkill. (Did I mention I'm grouchy?) Anyway, Luis has been by the past couple of nights to watch Neverwhere...which gets worse, and subsequently funnier, every time I watch it. The Great Beast [read as: cow with a black weave] of London... shudder red shift in topic I'm still studying for the GRE. Decrypting stem pair analogies, defining antonyms, completing sentences with obscure vocabulary, and fumbling my way through trigonometric formulae. And I honestly haven't even given consideration to where I'd go to grad school...UC Denver came to mind obviously...as did Univ. of Utah...and University of Texas... (Wow, look at all you Aggies cringe... Honestly people, could you see me as a College Station resident? Right.) Rice has even made the list, but I'm holding off on that one until after I've taken the GRE. If I do as well as I've done on my prior standardized testing then I'll send in a app. We'll see. So undoubtedly the next question would be, "So what are you going to study?" I'm feeling some sort of English/Writing degree...along with a teaching certification. So I can be Kooky Professor Shaw, the english teacher with squeaky toys and fashion magazines on his desk. Hard to say whether I'd be Champagne-esque or Petras-esque...though I must admit to kinda enjoying the idea of making a bunch of pubescent kids memorize the Gettysburg Address. Vindication at last. Also it would give me summers off to work seriously on my writing. Ok, I'm taking off...doing dinner with Mom tonight. More random existential waffling to come no doubt... (How many new and genius plans does this make in one year? There's gotta be a limit to that kinda thing...) j.s.

Monday, January 19, 2004

I have the Wonka Everlasting Hangover I think... I've felt hungover since Friday...which is entirely unfair since I only drank on Saturday night. This means one of two things... Either the chronological structure of the universe has folded into non-linear rimples...in true Madeline L'Engle fashion...and the subsequent temporal aberration feels like a walrus eating a snare drum inside my head... or I have a minor cold. It's probably the latter, but just in case you all should keep an eye on time. Let me know if it tries anything funny. Friday I went to La Madeline and did some studying for the GRE. Yes, I get out and start working for a living for a few months, then desperately start scrambling to leap back over the academic wall to the safety of collegiate matriculation. Then again, stability was never my strong suit. So Saturday I did my breakfast thing with Luis, then went to Sam's Boat with J.T. in the early afternoon and had several beerth...and before we knew it, darkness fell and Kristin finished her class and came out to meet us. More beer. Horrible band starts to warm up. We leave and meet some of their friends at Benji's over in Rice Village, which is a very cool place, though kinda small. I once again fall prey a cute shot girl and am fed a new drink by the makers of Jack Daniels and Tuaca called "Amarula." Apparently, Amaraula is made from the fruit of the Marula tree, indigenous to South Africa, and tastes not entirely unlike lukewarm, foamy, strawberry milk. I thought it absolutely disgusting, but some folks with us liked it. Not much happened that night really...just hung out a bit. Was supposed to go to Red Door and instead got lost along the way. (I'm of the opinion that there should be a law prohibiting the number of gray BMW's on the freeway at any given time...especially when one has imbibed alcoholic Quik and is attempting to follow only one of them.) Gave up. Went home and played some Knights of the Old Republic and went to bed. Sunday I made the exodus to Katy and hung out with Dad for the playoff games. Was good, and very low-key...which is exactly what I needed considering my aformentioned phrenological state. And today marks Day One ~ Sans Smokies. Slightly jittery, very nauseous, and repeatedly massaging, (or as I like to call it, "juicing") the patch on my shoulder for everything it's worth. Not doing too badly yet...but it's only been 4 1/2 hours since I woke up. The glazed, addlepated torpor hasn't settled in just yet...but it's in the mail for sure. I'll keep you posted... j.s.

Friday, January 16, 2004

Okay, this has been ricocheting around in me for nearly 10 years...so I'm going to put it out to the world and if, by some random chance, someday she comes across it, hopefully it will explain things a bit and make her feel better about the whole ordeal. For the rest of you, I guess it's just story time. I apologize if the things I say hurt some of you who don't know the story, or who know a little of it but never knew some of the details I'm going into now. If you'd rather not know more about me, then don't read it I guess... Okay? So once upon a time, there was a young man who went to high school in West Houston. We'll call him Jeremiah. When Jeremiah was in his senior year of high school, he met a girl. A kind, brilliant, heartbreakingly beautiful girl, with long dark hair, comfortable brown eyes, and a small, yet utterly feminine shape. We'll leave her name out of this for now...she knows who she is. Jeremiah was quite smitten with this girl after meeting her for the first time. It might not have been the cliched "love at first sight," but it was as close as reality allows. But she had a serious boyfriend at the time, which was okay really since Jeremiah had a girlfriend as well. So they were simply acquaintances, seeing one another at Fitzgerald's and the like when their mutual friends' band played there. Moving along, they graduated, and headed out into the world. leap ahead one year Jeremiah returns to Houston after sailing rather large boats along the East Coast for a year. Used to a sailor's life, he quickly became acclimatized to the local bars and clubs around Houston...and he set about the fun task of tracking down his old friends from high school and seeing what they were up to. Most were still living the same party lifestyle we lived in high school, a few were going to college, and even fewer had gone out and gotten jobs. He finds most of them that are still hanging about... And he also finds the girl... At Numbers of all places. So they talk, about how they've both recently broken up with their respective others. About how hard it is to find a job. About maybe going to college. About shoes, and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. The word gets around that night, through the short grapevine of friends that were present, that this girl is starting to like Jeremiah... And Jeremiah already knew he liked the girl. So they dance. And they dance well...for the rest of the night. He kisses her goodnight, and goes home. Things progress throughout the weeks, as they tend to do. And things become more serious between Jeremiah and this girl. Despite slight bumps regarding wayward women chasing Jeremiah from his misadventures as a sailor. (About which the girl was very kind, and showed remarkable amounts of understanding...and of course, she threatened them in an slightly possessive and hopelessly endearing fashion.) After the holidays, the girl starts school, and her campus is right down the road from where Jeremiah has gotten an apartment. She comes by in between classes to curl up and nap with her sleeping, and oft hungover, boyfriend. Jeremiah begins to love her. So he makes the decision to slough off his lazy, slacker mentality and go out to find a job...so as to be able to take the girl out, and afford the things that boyfriends must do. He goes to Olive Garden. And he uses his relative good looks to sway a waitress there to give him a job. We'll call her...Sarah. Sarah gets him a job there, and publicly makes it known that she's quite into Jeremiah. Jeremiah is flattered, but has no real interest in Sarah, or her 3 roommates (all of whom work at the Olive Garden), since he's already with a girl that he likes very much. But he does think Sarah and her roommates are fun, and they make great friends, so he hangs out with them at their apartment sometimes. On one such occasion, he goes over there and decides to take a half of a pill that he shouldn't. We'll call the pill...U4EA. (90210 people are getting this I know.) And suddenly...he likes Sarah and her roommates much more than he did an hour ago. And things progress, like they really, really shouldn't. Jeremiah realizes what has happened, and, being a complete emotional wimp at the time, can't face up to his girlfriend. So he hides instead. He doesn't return her calls. He says he'll meet her somewhere and then never shows up...etc. etc. And all the while, he is miserable, knowing he's ruined something that he had just begun to believe was important in his life. January becomes February. The girl is gone, hurt so badly by Jeremiah's snubs and avoidances that she leaves him, and as Jeremiah later heard, was very hurt over the whole ordeal. Meanwhile, Jeremiah has immersed himself in a lifestyle that was killing him...drugs, drinking, clubs, stealing, dealing and lying, among some of the highlights... And perhaps most pathetic, he is completely clueless as to what has happened to the girl, or what was happening to him for that matter. All that mattered, was enough money for pills on the right nights of the week... He began to lose jobs...one after another...and settled on making fake ID's. Things were not good for Jeremiah. And then, after sniffing a line of powder off of a framed picture of his family...Jeremiah has his Moment of Clarity. He calls the only person who is still willing to help him at this point...his mother. He asks for help...and to be sent back to the boats on the East Coast...he's asking for her to save his life. She does. He breaks a lease, and leaves. He cleans himself up. Later he goes to college...and later still he moves back to Houston. And eventually becomes the quirky, good-natured and slightly vain guy typing this story right now. There were times after that when I saw her, but she was with someone and still harbored a grudge for the way I'd treated her. Can't blame her really. Then, just before the year 2000, after about 3 years of not seeing her, I found her email address...at the University of Texas. And she had just graduated with a degree in Apparel Merchandising... So I sent her an email. And she's happy to hear from me. And she's happy I'm doing well... She's also doing well. And is moving out of Texas with a guy she's quite in love with. And that, is the last time I've spoken to her, and I'm still crestfallen, if you can't tell. In all this time...I've never forgotten about her. To this day, I'm convinced she was the one. And, with a little chemical assistance, I simply fucked it up. So wherever you are Karina Whitacre, I was wrong, and I'm very, very, sorry. It may not matter to you anymore, and in fact I hope it doesn't, but for what it's worth, I know I got the short end of the deal in the end, because I lost you. j.s. **And to those of you reading this that are thinking, "What the hell? This happened 10 years ago man...what's your problem?" I say, You're right. It happened 10 years ago. And I've still been carrying it around with me. Thanks for your concern. j.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

So...Friday and Saturday the 23rd and 24th, the Museum of Fine Arts is showing the collected short films of Richard Massingham, called "How to Be Eccentric." Should be good, wonder if I can dupe someone into going with me... j.s.



Hiya. Not much to report really. I finished outlining another story Tuesday night called "What You Own," and I'm in the process of fleshing it out and writing it for real. That and I'm going through the contests section of Writer's Market looking for suitable submission places to send my "Song to the Siren" short story. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. I'm always so tentative about releasing things I've written to public consumption...which is kind of silly given that everything I've ever submitted in contests has won. (A poem I wrote back in the "Public News" days of local Houston newsweeklies, which was published in said periodical; and a children's story I wrote for the Utah Statesman, which won me $35 worth of University bookstore gift certificates.) This is made even more ridiculous by the fact that I write nearly, almost, daily on a public weblog visited over 600 times last month. (By the way, who the hell are all of you people?) blue shift in topic K, so I hung out over at J.T. and Kristin's for awhile last night. Watched the first reality television I'd seen since the first "Joe Millionaire" show back when I was living in Salt Lake...which is almost a year ago for those of you keeping score at home. It was as awful as I'd remembered...Bachelorette II: Return of the Dumped and Celebrity Mole: Yucatan. (Sadly I'm not making this up...these are the shows that actually raster scan across our television screens nightly in America. Abe Froman, I weep for the future. If it weren't for the NFL and HBO, I don't think I'd even entertain (PARONOMASIA!) the idea of paying for cable. (Note: I still don't have cable, nor do I have a single channel of this supposed "normal" television broadcasting.) Although, I must admit that having Roger Clemens pitching for the Astros now has my interest a bit piqued...and might just push me over the edge into the land of television watchers again. Er...then again...I can just open my window and hear the game live since the stadium is right next door...so nevermind. Despite my avarice toward the little black box, I do really want that projector television from Mitsubishi... Hey! It's a dream I've had since I was a little kid to play video games on a movie screen...and at 200 inches across I'm thinking that's close enough if it's in my own house. And I'd get to watch great movies like Moby Dick, Casablanca, Roman Holiday and Heathers like I'm in a theater... AND There won't be an unsightly polyhedral monstrosity sitting along my wall like there is in nearly every household in America. I just like not having a television in a room...it's somehow soothing. red shift in topic Oh! And I'm planning a trip to Atlanta in the very near future to hang out with my Uncle and see Katie, and old friend from college. (Rrowwl, rrowwl.) I'll keep you posted on that as well. Okay, I've meandered about enough now...I'm going to take off...I'm heading to Barnes & Noble. I've been trying to pick up Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold, The Eternal Golden Braid by Godel, Escher and Bach and/or One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. I've been lax in this endeavor since I've been over $100.00 in the red in my bank account until today... j.s.

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Hi again. Today is my first day back in the office as I took last Friday off and was rather ill yesterday. Wednesday at Luis' place was good...few drinks, some Soul Calibur II, and Cranium, which I've never played before but was kinda fun. May have to go pick it up on the off chance that I'll have enough people around someday to play it. Thursday I went to Sam's for Kristin's birthday. (The familial Kristin, not the Italy "Kristen" or the Luis' "K.") Good time. Decent people. I've been getting a few compliments lately on how "interesting" a person I am... It's always a minor shock when I meet new people and they become enthralled by listening to the same old stories that most of you have heard endless times. I guess I just assumed that everyone had already heard my stories. =] And on a similar note, I was referred to as "friendly" and "down-to-earth" in the same night by two different people. That's right. Book your skiing trip to Hell now. No, really. After going out on Thursday and being informed that some people who have recently met me think that I am "awesome," and "really interesting," and "the most down-to-earth person I've met since I've been in Houston," I was feeling rather up about people and their obvious sagacity. So when I got home, there were 5 or 6 peeps sitting outside smoking on the little stairway area outside my buildings' door. Rather than the Scrooge-esque muttering and shoving that would normally occur during such an encounter, I instead made an attempt to be nice and said something along the lines of "Hey! How ya doin'?" To which they replied, "Great! How're you?" "I'm excellent...g'night!" And, as I'm on my way in, one of the girls outside said, "Wow...that guy was really friendly." That's right people...the milk of human kindness...I just pour a lil' of myself on my Fruity Pebbles in the mornin'. Er...ick. Nevermind. So Friday I was supposed to go to Mike West at Fitzgerald's, but couldn't find anyone to go with me, so D. and Russell came over to my place, hung out and played Amped for a while, then went to see "Big Fish" which I sorta liked. I really loved the message of the film. Which should be obvious to anyone who goes to see the movie...however I was only middling impressed with the actual stories involved and with Ewan McGregor's performance. Neverless, I'd say it's worth seeing...moreso for those who have led a...different...life to date and have more than their share of interesting stories. I can only hope that someday people are amazed by the things I've seen and done and regale their friends and children and grandchildren with stories about the ridiculousness and sheer random that was my life. Saturday I did the breakfast thing, this time with Jake, then met J.T. and Luis over at my place for some wine and to watch "An Evening With Kevin Smith." We headed over to Katz's at around 6 or so, when I suddenly started feeling a little queasy. You know, when the world tilts a bit everytime you turn your head, your cheeks feel like they're a size too big, and the thermostat in your aqueous humor has been turned up to "Boil?" That kind of queasy. So I eat half a grilled cheese, and head home...where I stayed safely ensconced until this morning, when I came to work. Nothin' but me, an XBox, a lot of Fluffernutters, and Martinelli's apple juice...fighting off the flu. Which seems to have worked, since I'm feeling quite a bit better today. Not going to push it though...stickin' with the comfort foods for the rest of the week. Which means Brother's Pizza tonight. =] Which is where I'm headed now actually...talk to you guys later. j.s. who is friendly.

Thursday, January 08, 2004

It's POEMGATE!!! Smells like a presidential cover-up to me... "Aww durn Loora...whuddya go 'n tehl 'em all fur 'bout mah powum? The boys on the hill 'r awl callin' me LawnFellah and Bobbi Joe Frost and the like! Some rascal ev'n sayed tha dubbya in mah name stands for 'Wit'man' r' some'nlikedat." "Tarnashun woman!" j.s.

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

I have a pretty crazed rest of the week...so forgive me if I'm slow on the updates. Tonight I have Luis' condo warming party in Clear Lake, tomorrow is Kristin's b-day happy hour at Sam's, Friday is Mike West at Fitz, and Saturday...well Saturday is actually pretty open...with the exception of the requisite Ft. View Cafe breakfast. I'm sure there will be sizeable rantings about all 3 of the above nights sometime... j.s.

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

It's been absolute computer bedlam today...I just finish with the end o' month kooky dancin', and the firewall decides that it has grown tired of life as lowly office hardware, and instead wants to become a dancer in Vegas or something. (Don't laugh...we had a printer that renamed itself "APOLLO APOLLO" and wanted to go to the moon.) Anyway, it took a bit of finagling, but he's back on track now. Lessee...oh! Mike West is going to be at Fitzgerald's this Friday, so a bit of the banjo playin' is in my not too distant future it would seem. (He's the guy Jenny and I saw in New Orleans at d.b.a.) I think Russell, Jake and Valerie are coming along with me too...should be good. Beer drinking and banjos... Come to think of it, that really doesn't sound like me does it? I guess even the digerati fashionistas need to get in touch with their Texan roots every now and again...and how better to do so than with a good old fashioned barley-pop ho-down. Speaking of Jake, he got me a X-mas present today. A pack of 99 cent pens and a 99 cent notebook. I'd mentioned to him that I was slightly afraid of writing utter crap in my spiffy Moleskine notebook with my Lamy pen...would be an awful waste of such beautiful writing accoutrements. That was his answer. Thanks Jake. I get the idea. Just write... Also I'd like to apologize if we shadows have offended during the course of that last post, but it'd been brewing in me for a week or so and it finally gurgled and retched it's way to the surface. I highly doubt that those to whom I'm referring to will read it, but it's there regardless and now I feel a little better. Looks like I'm making plans...hang on. Ah, the possibility exists of my going over to Russell's this evening for XBoxin' and such. We'll see. So I finished watching the Neverwhere BBC series and had mixed feelings about it. It was interesting to see how someone else's vision of that book played out in reality, though I had I expected it to be a bit darker and much less colorful. The Marquis DeCarabas was very, very good... He pulled it off quite well I think, and that's a difficult character to get right. And Dave McKean did the opening credits, which were absolutely awesome. As Neil put it, "They look just like Dave's artwork, but they move..." I am a huge fan of Dave's work, so admittedly I could be biased in that regard. On the "not so great" front, the actors that played Croup and Vandemar were abysmal, had no comedic timing, and were not at all how I pictured them. Their only redeeming scene was when Vandemar was playing golf with big sewer toads. That at least elicited a giggle. Door didn't look as much like "Delirium" as I'd expected, and the little "intros" to each episode had some bizarre freeze-frame issues that seemed to cry "we're trying to be artistic but our equipment is sucky!" desperately. Oh...and the "Beast of London" montages were okay the first couple of times...but as we hit the 6th one I'd grown so tired of them I fast-forwarded the DVD. (That's 4 check marks by your name Mr. Humphreys...go see Mr. Alexander and think about what you've done.) All in all, it really wasn't bad I suppose...I do think you'd have to be a fan in order to enjoy it though. I've also cancelled my Everquest account. I'm done with that game. The pull of World of Warcraft is just too great and I'd rather save the $$$ for that. It's been a long time, (5 years) but the desire to play has finally gone. Kinda sad really. I finally put up all of my X-mas artwork, and my stained glass sculpture from Baltimore, so the loft is looking pseudo-homey now, and is almost ready for visitation. (Hint, hint Dallas peeps...) I even bought a bottle of chardonnay and the stuff to make tabouli last night...which is where I think I'm going right now. Take care all, j.s. n.s. It would also appear that not everyone named "Buffy" is someone to be avoided. I happened to meet one who was quite nice, funny and generally enjoyable to be around the other night...and will probably hang out with her and her husband this Thursday for Kristin's birthday at Sam's. (the "n.s." stands for non sequitur, dontchaknow.)

Monday, January 05, 2004

Hi there. I've met some very interesting people these past few days...simply from hanging out with J.T. and Kristin. And I want nothing more than to pick apart some of their more interesting traits and peccadillos to the amusement and giggles of all... However I've become a bit more reserved where that's concerned...so I'll be cautious about discussing them here. It seems to come back around somehow... Yes, I've been burned on that a couple of times lately. And opportunisitic shots have been taken at people close to me as a result of things I've said here. And it is to those people that I say...fuck you. If you have a problem with what I say, then come talk directly to me and we'll solve it...one way or another. Don't go after easier or more convenient targets simply, because you're a coward and the idea of confronting me makes you piss down your leg in terror. And of course, if you had just refrained from sucking, you'd have avoided being digitally eviscerated. We savvy? j.s.

Sunday, January 04, 2004

Unggh...it's over...thank God. Okay...I'll see what I can remember, which won't be easy considering I'm extremely hungover at the moment...but we'll try. Christmas. Good sauce. Got a couple Sid Dickens Memory Blocks from Derek to start off my collection. A Scorpio Rising poster that I had framed and is in my bathroom. A deck of Best Buy gift cards which I traded in for an XBox. Ghettopoly, which is as tasteless as rumors would indicate, Quake III, and other sundries from my Dad and Cary. And Mom gave me cash, which I spent on home accoutrements. I'm not going to go into all the others...suffice to say it was a good Xmas. After which, I had to go back to work and grind out another end of month kooky dance...until New Year's. New Year's. Caught up with J.T. and Kristin at Birra Poretti's on West Gray for dinner. Met Sara and Tracy, Kristin's friends, who are both decent people it would seem. I was supposed to head downtown for the laser show and fireworks and boozin' after dinner...but somehow I ended up going to another bar with them and just hanging out there at a "private party." (In quotes because there was no bouncer to keep the "public" from entering.) It was still fun though...despite the yuppie scum oozing everywhere. Blech. Got a New Year's kiss too, which is an all-important start to any good year...and this one has been so thus far. Ended up driving Tracy home to her house at about 2 a.m., hung out for a bit and chatted over a couple glasses of wine, then I headed home around 3:30. The following morning I had to get up around 10 and help Russell move from Katy down I-10 to Wilcrest...which was very, very, difficult...as you might imagine. Took most of the day. (I also moved my new couch and love seat into my apartment while we had use of a truck...yay!) Friday was pretty low-key. Russell and I just hung out at my place and played Madden until around 2:30 in the morning. Crashed shortly afterward. And yesterday I went for my weekly Saturday breakfast at FountainView Cafe...Mom, J.T. and Kristin came with me since it was J.T.'s birthday. Good time, and made plans to kick it that night out at Belvedere Lounge at 610 and Post Oak. Very cool place. Sorta Red Maple-y, but more 'spensive. Oh..and they had video cameras everywhere, which played on monitors behind the bar. So from our couch I could see the line to get in outside, the line to the bathroom, who was outside on the patio, and who was up front at the bar. Neat. Anyway, caught up with Sara again there, and another very cool girl named Buffy. cringe And not only was she cool, she was also a very good sport about my being a snide, smart-ass to her all night. (It was just that kinda night for me.) Anyway, she was a good one. I'd dig hanging out with her and her husband again... I did end up having too many Red Bull and Smirnoffs...which brings me handily to my present state of vegetation. I wanted nothing more than to sit at home and watch Neverwhere on DVD all day...but instead had to come into the office and finish up the mound of work on my desk... Which is now done. Which means I'm going home...after a stop by the grocery store for Nicoderm patches. Yes...we're trying it again. My lungs have hurt really badly lately... Okay, I'm gone then. Take care...and here's to hoping that I'll be a bit more cognizant tomorrow. Bye. j.s.

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