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Friday, January 20, 2006
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IhatethemIhatethemIhatethemIhatethemIhatethemIhatethem... j.s. |
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
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Those of you who remember the old text-based adventure games (like ZORK), will love THIS. And those who don't will probably shake your heads wondering what the hell it's all about. Trust me. It's funny. And, watching this trailer was hard. I'll be missing a mate on opening night. j.s. |
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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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Hi. You know, I had such high hopes for the show "Love Monkey." Single guy. Relationship problems. Really digs music. Throw in a little creative/clever dialogue and a few obscure references to little-known music and I'm guaranteed to dig it, right? And perhaps most importantly, I'll finally understand how people become fans of those "regular television shows." (Things that aren't Red Sox games, the NFL, and Adult Swim.) Yeah, not so much. Luis and I were bored out of our minds watching this hour-long trainwreck last night. Just awful. Like the lead character's conference room filibustering about how artist representatives and labels should be "in it for the music," and "so what about chart-topping hits?" Yawn. He's fired of course, which creates competition for a record deal with a "brilliant" young songwriter in town from the midwest. (One who's sadly more John Mayer than Conor Oberst.) It's "Jerry Maguire" meets "High Fidelity," in an convenient hour-long wrapper: boasting all the suck of the former, and none of the humor and fun references of the latter. It is -in short- not worth your time. Perhaps more modern musical references would've helped. Because, aside from an Interpol poster conveniently positioned between two characters at the end of the show, there was very little in the way of modern Audio IQ. Instead we got scenes at an empty CBGB, Sid Vicious's real name (a labored reference at best), Chelsea Hotel, the St. Mark's Place buildings (the cover for Zepplin's Physical Graffiti), and several references to "The Complete Bob Dylan." Most of which are cursory references for the dilettante, rather than true pedantic gems from writers flexing their musical knowledge. The only one worth watching was Judy Greer's character. And then only because she reminds me of a very close friend of mine who plays the same dynamic in my life as Greer does to the lead in Love Monkey. (And they happen to look eerily similar.) Your mileage may vary however. Anyway, generally horrible television. Tune in next Tuesday at 9 CST if you're interested in their white-hot guest star du jour...LeeAnn Rimes. /boggle j.s. |
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Monday, January 16, 2006
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Hi there. Apologies about the long absence. My deadline was last week and I've found that afterward I require a certain amount of distance from writing anything for a few days. I actually have one more article to finish up for Feb, but it's just a few questions for a local designer which should be easy enough to wrap up later this afternoon. Weekend Recap Time! Friday night was the magazine party at Light, and was, hands down, the best one yet. Many drinks, many friends, the occasional twinge of drama here and there (easily sidestepped when you're dancing around a room like I was), and we wrapped the whole thing up at around 3 with the manager of Light giving me my credit card back and saying my drinks were on him. The perfect closure to a day where I paid for absolutely nothing. A free coffee in the morning at O.C, the gift of a full tank of gas in the afternoon, a waived lunch bill due to a absence of mashed potatoes... Behold the karmic dub. I was nauseated most of Saturday morning/afternoon, so I just laid on the couch and watched movies until around 6, when I had a party I'd promised to attend out in Katy. Unfortunately, my hangover hadn't quite subsided by then, and I was a bit of a non-entity at the gathering, sitting quietly in a chair and watching the Patriots game. (My head just wasn't working properly, and I thought it better to sit in the corner and be thought a fool, than to open my mouth and confirm the fact.) Left there and headed over to Rezki & Kara's place for a couple beers, then, after repeated attempts at other venues, decided on Slick Willie's for the evening. Which was about as bizarre as a pool hall could possibly be. More gastric fluids had been liberated in their bathrooms than in any bar I've ever been in. And I've been in quite a few. (Kara reported repeated instances of regurgitation in the ladies' room, and this was verfied by several trips therein by a strange, hairy man with a mop.) As it turned out, the pukemopper knew Rezki from high school and we ended up chatting with him at some considerable length. Which was when we decided that he was actually a living specimen of the Nariokotome Boy (see: early homo erectus) and we amused ourselves by referring to him as "Encino Man" for most of the evening, and occasionally asking him for "roast duck with the mango salsa." [[In retrospect, I feel kinda bad about that, as he did get us a couple free shots later.]] Also, there was the most ridiculous-looking little boy there that I've seen since 1991. He wore an enormous red Astros cap turned 45 degrees to the side (with one of those ridiculous skull cap/do rag/black pantyhose things underneath), MC Hammer glasses with 100% genuine Cubic Zirconias at the temples, a couple teeth covered in silver (apparently he was working up to the gold bling), and was swaddled in a t-shirt, jacket and jeans that Divine would've returned for a smaller size. He spent half of the evening looking into the mirrors next to the vomitoriu-, I mean, restrooms, and the other half having his sexual advances spurned by the girl he'd arrived with. And perhaps the strangest moment? As we're leaving, and I'm trying to close my tab, he's sitting at the bar next to me. "So where ya'll been kickin' shit fo' tha evenin?" "Uh...what?" He repeats himself. I stare blankly back, as we've been sitting at the table right across from him for most of the night. Thankfully, Rezki acts as my Ebonics Babelfish and answers him for me. "We gon' bounce to IHOP yo." "IHOP. Hells yeah." The Littlest Thug responds, "Hey ya'll got any females in yo' crew? 'Round 18?" Now every dendrite in my head is crackling with the words "do I look like the kind of guy who'd keep a selection of 18-year-old girls at his disposal you sad little siphonic waste of otherwise perfectly viable oxygen?" Alas, I think better of voicing such things as this is definitely the sort of kid who'd have something to prove when "disrespected," and I don't feel much like ending the evening in the ER with a gunshot wound. So instead I stare incredulously at Rezki and Kara for a moment, then laugh and respond, "No mate. No I'm sure I do not know any 18-year-olds." "I'm 18 yo, but they coo' here so's all good." "Uh. Okay." "Check it. YO MAN! Gimme a drink! And you needs to give me somethin' good cuz you been sellin' me Kool-Aid all night." Again I look over at Rez and Kara and shake my head. They shrug. Encino Man, who's so wasted at this point that he can't hit a shotglass with the bottle pourer, comes over and, without a word, begins to flex his muscles and exhale loudly through his mouth at The Littlest Thug. Our guess was either some kind of male bonding/fertility ritual, or a primitive form of communication. We'll probably never know. It was really fucking strange however. Unfazed by his grunts and postures, The Littlest Thug asks for a shot, and reminds him again that he really doesn't want Kool-Aid. So Encino Man starts to pour two shots of Rumpleminze, which would truly never be mistaken for Kool-Aid, and soaks the bar mat with the horrible minty liquid in the process. While the pouring is going on, Thugito leans over to me and asks, "You want somethin' man? I got tha wee', the crone, the XO, the Indo..." Again, my mouth slacks, as I've no idea what it is he's saying. My first thought is that it has something to do with micturating on an old woman while playing tic-tac-toe with an Indonesian. However logic eventually reigns and dictates that he was simply offering me something he was in possession of. And if he had it, I certainly had no interest in it. It might be catching. I'm about to answer him in the negative when he says, "Long as you ain't undercover. You undercover?" "No I'm not undercover. And no, I don't want anything." "A'ight." At this point I'm frantically waving my arms around and begging for my tab from any bartender that walks by. One finally scampers off to close me out, and we leave the twisted world that is the Katy Slick Willie's...n'er to return. When we arrive at R & K's place, there are a couple constable cars parked in front of the neighbor's house, and we notice a couple of eggshells, with accompanying contents, splattered on the driveway behind my Jeep. Turns out some kids had been driving around the neighborhood performing drive-by eggings of parked cars. And the top was off the Jeep. Reluctantly, I walk over and peer inside... Nothing. So we wait for the Cons to leave, and I head home and to bed. Sunday was as relaxed as I needed it to be, and I spent most of the day over at my Mom's place catching up with her, as she had just gotten back in town for a couple days. Headed home around 9ish, finished the book I'd been reading, and then went to bed early. And today = work, and I've really got to get back to it. But in very quick randomness, I'm attempting to grow a beard. Yes, really. I've actually never tried to grow one before and I figured I'd see what it would look like. I'm hearing that most people dig it...at least that's what they're saying in my presence anyway. (After they stop making George Michael references.) Here, I'll take a quick picture and upload it to Flickr so those who aren't likely to see me anytime soon can share in the hilarity that is a furry-faced me. There you go. Okay, talk to you later. j.s. |
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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The Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia! "You can call us Aaron Burr, from the way we're droppin' Hamiltons..." And a real Hyperdrive that drops a "spacecraft" briefly into another dimension where the speed of light is faster than this one? Mmhmm... j.s. [[Via Blogdex]] |
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Monday, January 09, 2006
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Hey! My old boat's website got a facelift. Doesn't look bad either. Clipper City That video cracked me up though. "And in your mind's eye, she can be bound for the West Indies..." Sure. As long as your "mind's eye" understands that, in reality, we're only taking you out to Ft. McHenry and maybe around the Key Bridge, depending on the wind and how long you've chartered us. Then we're heading right back to the Inner Harbor and you need to get the hell off our boat. That and they have two deckhands raising the staysail. *growls* Why, in my day it was one person's job to raise the stay. And if you did require help? Well then you were obviously some kind of nancyboy and shouldn't be on the damn boat anyway. Hmmph. Granted, the boat is a very different place now than how it used to be. We nearly drove the poor owners out of business. When I started working there it was customary for the crew to receive free booze after we were done working for the day. They changed this when they kept running out of Absolut, and installed a lock on the bar. So we broke in. Often. Then there were the dinghy runs to Fell's Point, getting utterly sauced, and later tormenting the poor nurses aboard the Comfort (a naval nurse ship that was docked nearby), by banging on their steel hull with ball peen hammers at 3 in the morning and screaming "HELLO NURSE?!? HELLO NURSE!!!" And that's when we didn't lose the dinghy completely. (That was a particularly rough morning. They were none too happy with us.) Sex on green buoy #5. (Sex just about everywhere come to think of it...) Our first mate being electrocuted and falling 50 ft. onto the top of a moving Amtrak train...and surviving. (Long story, if by some chance you haven't heard me tell it already.) Using the "splatline" to swing onto the dock and catch lines to secure the boat. The "Caps Coliseum." Sitting at the very top of the foremast during the schooner race parade. Sigh. It is nice to know that, even now, if my life were to turn on a dime and I had to figure out somewhere to go and earn a living, I have her to fall back on. And if not on the Clipper, then aboard any number of other boats. (The "Schooner Bum" world is a very small, and incestuous, circle.) In fact, I keep an ASTA Directory on my bookshelf for just such an eventuality. And, just between you and me? I'm not so sure if I'd be all that unhappy if that proverbial dime were to drop... j.s. |
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So apparently this was a ruse, and it's some guy that calls into the station that simply sounds like Mack Brown, and is not, in fact, the coach of the Longhorns. Mea culpa. Sorry about that. j.s. |
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