Christmas, thats a wrap!

Twas a tough Christmas season for our store this year. Things were looking good until the Thursday before, when it started to rain. The rain led to a sort of rural Midwestern paranoia regarding "black ice" which left the store empty. Friday the rain turned to snow, and although the final accumulation was less than 1", again the store lay dormant. I was hoping Saturday would make up for the bad weather, but it never really materialized. We did not "make it work."

After closing on my new home on the 15th, I drove back to Iowa (sick) for the family Christmas. In my family, my fellow siblings and I exchange gifts in a kind of white elephant ritual. The game allows us to maintain the illusion of thoughtfulness, while saving everyone a little dough and the hassle of having to actually think about what to buy for each person.

No doubt you have participated in a similar gift exchange, although more likely at work or with buddies than with your kin. Everyone brings one gift (or set of gifts), which are placed in the center of the room. We then draw numbers out of a hat. Family member #1 then picks a gift and opens it. #2 has the option of opening an unopened gift, or stealing the gift from #1. Etc, etc Once all the gifts are open, each person gets another shot at getting the gift they really wanted.

This year, I brought the first season of Monk. My sister-in-law first opened my gift. It was then passed, unwillingly to my brother-in-law. He proceeded to trade it back to me for the Presto pizza cooker I had opened. So I went home with my own present.

For Christmas day, my parents drove to Wisconsin. They brought a couple of gifts for me to open, one of which happened to be the exact pizza maker that had been taken from me at our gathering the weekend before. My mother thought I looked disappointed when it was taken from me. She's very perceptive but slightly off base. The look on my face was one of disappointment, but not at having lost the pizza maker. Instead, I was thinking about how lame it was for me to return home with the very gift I had brought.

Upon reflection, this is perfectly acceptable. I'm probably the only person in my family who would enjoy Monk, and I don't like it enough to buy it for myself. So in a way everything worked out.

And then I found $5.

Also, thanks to my dad, I have a working washer and dryer right here in my basement. Its amazing.

Free at Last

It's my last night in the hotel. By 10:00 tomorrow morning I'll officially be one of those "homeowners" you've often heard about but never really met. Well, I'm here to tell you, dreams really do come true. You can afford a cheap-ass condo in the middle of nowhere. Look. If I can do it...

I've just finished Partly Cloudy Patriot. I like Sarah Vowell, even though I get the impression from reading her books that she's basically an average person who just happened to luck into a pretty rad life. One thing I respect about her, though, is that much of her intellect is obtained directly from primary sources. She doesn't read the cliff notes - even if she has to learn Latin. I've always fancied myself as a sort of jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of guy. I'm the guy who reads encyclopedia articles for depth, perspective, and scope on any given issue. I've often wondered how differently my opinions would have formed had I more often read source material rather than relying on someone else's processed interpretation of the matter at hand. Maybe its something I should revisit.

Who am I kidding. By tomorrow morning, all I'll be able to think about is whether or not that apricot paint really matches the sage window treatments I picked out. Of wondering if my basement is big enough for a pool table. Or attempting to make my furniture seem adequate for filling the extra space.

The Surreal Life

I had to open by myself this morning. The first time at the new store. I managed to successfully shut off the alarm without the cops showing up, but i did forget to disarm the cash room vault before I opened it. Well, at least now I know that the alarm sounds like.

Tonight I went to see For Your Consideration at the London Road 6 cinema. One of the neat things about living in a small town is that its possible to go to a movie and be the only person in the theatre. This was the case tonight. Its hard to tell just how funny this movie is, but I can tell you that it had me laughing out loud - and remember, I was the only human in the entire theatre.

After the movie I headed to one of the OC's many many many gay bars. Just because it was not even 11, and i don't work until 2 tomorrow afternoon. One of the sales associates from my store was at the bar. Now, I have a hard enough time going to bars with the supervisors who work for me, so you can imagine how awkward I felt hanging out with one of the rank and file. On his turf no less. This is one of the drawbacks of small-town living: everyone knows your business.

I kept thinking about how inappropriate it would be for me to be drinking with this guy if I were still in the cities. But here, with so few of "the gays" around, it feels as if I have no choice but to disregard some of the typical rules regarding employee/boss interactions, and just try to have a good time. A cause at which I failed miserably, as its now only 1 and I'm home in bed for the evening.

I'm thinking of having a party at the new pad once I'm settled. You should come, and bring lots 'o friends. I like people with friends.

Baby its Cold Outside!

Icy cold early December day here. I've just looked and the current temperature in hong kong is a perfect 72 F.

The closing date for the new home looms on the horizon, and as of today I'm still working out the logistics for what is going to be one very busy weekend. Since i get so few weekends off this time of year, I have to squeeze closing on the home, moving my stuff here, driving to Iowa for the family Christmas, and driving back to settle in to the new place all into a small 4-day window. So far the plan is to close and move on Friday. Then drive to Iowa Saturday afternoon, and finally make a quick trip back Sunday evening to unpack and settle in on Monday. Tuesday it's back to work.

In one sense it's amazing that I've managed to score four days off in a row at this time of year. On the other hand, this seems like an unreasonable time frame in which to complete the above tasks.

Now, this El Perro del Mar video can take your mind off my troubles:

Yes Virginia

There is an Indian restaurant in the OC.

I went there for dinner just now in honour of Ben and the Rocks trip. (I figure they're somewhere over Hawaii about now)

My little piece of the far East is called Flavor of India, and it is attached to the Days Inn. Really its more of a conference room than a restaurant, and it took me the better part of two days of Internet research to verify its existence. Even then I had to drive by, and then finally ask the receptionist at the hotel if there was in fact still an Indian restaurant in the building before I got around to enjoying my meal.

All things considered it was pretty tasty - which is important when you have but one option. A little on the salty side, perhaps. Speaking of salty, you should have heard the woman sitting at the only occupied table besides my own. She was sitting with two cardiologists from UWEC, and she herself was presumably an English professor. The kind you would expect to find teaching literature in a town this size.

This woman was ridiculous in her naivety. At one point, she got stuck on something she'd allegedly heard on the radio about how Indian widows are required to give all their inheritance to the children, and then have to "beg on the streets." She was so convinced she was correct about this factoid that, in her ignorant bliss, she actually asked the waiter if this was true. And she kept repeating "begging on the streets" over and over, as if to reinforce just how superior she believed American society to be. He handled her surprisingly well, especially as I couldn't help but laugh at just how inconsiderate this woman was being.

I won't even go in to her comments on the 2006 Indian Telly Awards that was playing on the TV. Let's just say its a good thing Rajasree wasn't around to hear.

You talk funny

I've had my first run-in with a native outside of "the office." I went to a coffee shop downtown last night, just to get out of my suffocatingly small hotel room for an hour or two. Plus, I hadn't eaten dinner at the time, and I had read online that this place does a mean sandwich - although I'm not really sure how you could mess that sort of thing up. Then again, I don't cook, so how would I know? But I digress.

I'm sitting at a table by the window, overlooking the beautiful-if-somewhat-sparse city centre, when a man come us to me. He says hello, and introduces himself as a student at the local university who is completing research for an essay about vocal inflection and intonation, and how it changes/effects an individual's mood. He asks me if it would be alright for him to record my answers to a few questions. What the heck, I'll do it.

He proceeds to ask me some very formal sounding questions about my thanksgiving weekend. I'm hoping for his sake that the content of my answers is not important, because I sounded about as stupid as I might have sounded if I were in the middle of a final interview with a Target District manager. An interview for which I was not whole-heartily prepared. I believe I even had to stop mid-sentence once, pretend I hadn't just said that sentence and start answering his question again.

In my defense, he asked questions about the holiday and family tension. But you see, I did not spend the holiday with family, instead I spent it with friends in the cities. The most tense moment of the whole day was deciding who should reprimand the dog for eating the turkey we had left out. He asked what my favorite part of the day was. My response was "the meal." Two words.

I must have been the worst test subject imaginable. Yet still, I'm intrigued by his research, and want to know just what was his interpretation of my voice, and how I reacted to his questioning. But just as with the number of licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop, the world may never know.

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

You get the idea

A classic

To fill the content void.



I really thought moving out here would significantly increase my posts, but it turns out I'm still real boring. So this will have to do.

Turkey?

A photo essay on Thanksgiving dinner:

The Bird

The Beans

The Mash

The Stuffing

The Bones


The End

Potporri

I have found a place to live! It's a condo. Email me for details. Yes, this is a shameless ploy to garner more email -- you realise that my nightly activities consist of checking my email to see who has sent me a message (no one), watching a few episodes of Law and Order, and falling asleep at 8:30 with the TV still on. And somehow I'm still tired when the alarm goes off at 6. Funny, that.

I close on the 15th of December, so its another full month of hotel living for me before my precious, precious belongings make the trip to join me here. The new place has way too many rooms for my current furniture allocation, so I will need to buy lots of neato stuff to fill it up. I am accepting donations. Also, as anyone bought me Six Feet Under on DVD yet? No.

I went for a couple drinks with two of the supervisors from my store tonight. They took me to a "lounge" attached to a motel. We were the only people in the bar. They pretty much spent the night gossiping about people who either work for us, or used to work for us. I recognized about three names out of the roughly 100 they tossed out.

Going out with co-workers is a new experience for me. Especially when the ones I'm drinking with report directly to me. I still cringe a little bit when one of them introduces me as her boss. I don't think of myself as a boss in any sense of the word, although in the traditional sense I suppose they are correct. I tell them what to do . Of course, its completely up to them whether they do what I ask or not. Most of the time they just do what they want, and figure I won't object. Most of the time they are correct. Because I don't know any better.

Supermodel

Perhaps it is true that nothing shown on television during the past two weeks has escaped my attention. I've watched Law and Order marathons until they start repeating the episodes. Tonight though, I saw something different. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, so I'll just explain it.

I suppose it's best described as a contest of sorts. Contestants are asked to strike a pose. Then, as they are posing, another person shoots the contestant with a paintball gun at close range. The object of the game is to maintain your original pose more consistently than your opponent. You get three poses - the winner being determined by a celebrity judge. So what was I watching? The Man show? Or some new malicious VH1 program?

Nope, it was on ESPN 2.

I mean seriously guys, I was cool with the trick shot pool, the professional bowling, and the constant poker tournaments. Heck, even the paintball tournaments are at least somewhat defensible. But don't you think you've taken the definition of extreme sports just a bit over the line here? It's extreme, no doubt, I'll give you that.

Closing In

Another day of house hunting, and finally we have a candidate. I'm putting an offer in on a condo tomorrow, so I may have a permanent address in the near future. The place I like has 3 levels. There's two bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. The main floor has a living area, dining room, and kitchen, plus a half bath. Then downstairs there's a finished room and a laundry/storage area.

The downside is that it needs to be entirely repainted. The walls have a little orange peel texture to them, and the last time someone painted they filled in nail holes with compound. Unfortunately, they used too much compound, so there are patches on the wall all over the place. I'm having an estimate done for getting it professionally repainted, but if that ends up costing too much you can expect to be invited to a rather large-scale painting party in the next month or two. Yes, wine and cheeses will be provided. Of course, this is all contingent upon agreeing to terms, inspection, etc, etc. But it's progress.

Television is my Friend

Bravo is showing one of my favorite episodes of Six Feet Under tonight. It's the episode in which Nate accidentally takes Ecstasy. The stray pill that David had hurriedly hidden in the family aspirin bottle during a previous episode. David has recently come out to his mother, and she arranges a family dinner. Nate takes the pill for his headache before the meal, and ends up high at the dinner table. This episode is one of the early defining moments for the show. A lot of the plot lines start to take root, and begin to develop more seriously. Also its damn funny.

I miss this show -- especially the first three seasons. Its just so good. Someone buy it for me so I don't have to watch the edited-for-television version.

Also, the Sorkin movie American President was on tonight. I haven't seen the movie since before the West Wing started, and I forgot just how many people form that movie are in the television series. Not to mention the number of West-wingers who found their way onto Studio 60. Well okay, just Bradley Whitford.

I Like to Watch Cute Football Players Play Football

And score ridiculous goals.

STARBUSTS

Living in Wisconsin is already entertaining. Today one of the supervisors was running to get coffee, so I asked her to get me some. "I'll take the lightest roast they've got," I said. So off she goes to get me a cup of java. She returns just a few moments later and explains, "They only had one roast, so they added some hot water for you."

Yes, I asked for a light roast and I received a watered-down-something-or-rather roast. I'm not prima facie anti-Starbucks or anything, but this is bizarre behavior. I hope it was her first night on the job.



Also

Yesterday: Sunny and nearly 70
Today: 7" of snow by noon and cold cold cold.

The Trifecta

A week or two before I found out I was moving to Wisconsin, my friend Lexi was in the cities paying a visit. She's been working for an online baby magazine in New York for the past few years. During her visit, she received a call from another magazine offering her a job. The catch was she'd have to move out of NYC, and into a much smaller community in Massachusetts. Of course, she accepted the offer, and is now finding herself in a similar position.

Then, maybe one week after I found out about my move, Cupcake gets an offer from a competing firm in NY. And she's in transition now as well. Although admittedly not leaving Brooklyn anytime soon. The downside for Cups is that she has to train in her replacement.

So there you have it. A collective "movin' on up" for all three of us. I've heard before that bad things always happen in threes. Maybe the same anecdotal law applies here as well. Way to go chicks! Now you can afford to come visit me.

It only takes 5 minutes

of watching The Truth about Cats & Dogs to be reminded of what a genius that Janeane Garofalo is. Too bad about Air America.

Went to see the motion picture version of Running with Scissors today. Gotta say this is one occasion where I may have enjoyed the film more than the book upon which it was based. Burroughs writing in Scissors always seemed exaggerated and just a little too over the top to be true. The movie does a good job of making the situation feel uncomfortable, bizarre, and slightly dangerous, but I never got the feeling that it couldn't really happen to someone the way I felt when reading the book.

Sure, they leave out most of the graphic sex descriptions, but that's why you've got that imagination of ours. You can fill in the details.

Buy this House!

I looked at more than 20 houses yesterday. Of the places I saw, there is one (1) I liked enough to consider making an offer.

For anyone who maybe didn't know this already, buying a home is a pain in the ass. There's a whole different language spoken in the real estate world. Not to mention a slew of important considerations that were of little to no concern when looking for apartments. I've been apartment hunting enough times to be able to tell a good layout form a bad one, but when it come to some of the more subtle nuances one should look for when buying I have a lot to learn.

How old is that furnace? These windows look like they need to be replaced. What is the condition of the roof? How much are the taxes? It looks like there's some water damage in the basement. What's that, the siding is giving way on the corner of the house?

Fortunately, price cures everything. Unfortunately, price cures everything.

Milking cows & making babies.

My first two days in six words or less. (Yeah, I can still listen to 'As it Happens' in Wisconsin)

Day 1: "Oh my god, I'm totally screwed."

Day 2: "Hey, maybe this isn't so bad."

I'm doing a marathon house-hunting day tomorrow. I'll be looking for a new place to call home from 8am until 5pm. I haven't made it outside of my hotel room except to go to work or get fast food. I have two televisions in a suite that is no more than 500 square feet. King size bed, love seat, microwave, mini-fridge, and coffee pot. This is my life for the next 30 days. Thankfully, the hotel gets BRAVO.

My store is full of women. Some of whom I understand find me on the attractive side. No one even suspects that I might not be interested. This is superb. Can't wait to come out. Maybe I'll bring in a cake.

When the Patriots go Marching in

Well it's officially official. The original Patriot of Europe is moving to an undisclosed location in Wisconsin to extend my dream-fulfilling career as a sales manager for America's Gift Headquarters!

INCONCEIVABLE!

Don't worry though, I'll still be able to post poorly thought out, poorly written, and poorly edited blog entries from my new home. In fact, there's a chance I'll be so bored the postings will increase. And if we're all lucky, they might even improve a bit. But probably not.

In the short-term don't expect to see much on this site though. I report to my new assignment on Oct. 30. Then I've got a month or two to hastily search for a home. Me thinks I'll be buying a place, so if you jet-setters ever have a layover in my fair city (you won't), you can stay at my Lilly pad.

Viva Gay Wisconsin! This is gonna be one heck of an experiment.

The cats are dead?

Read it while I'm slaving over hot dish.

Also, cats in sinks from UK Tom., who also brings us this disturbing image.

What's wrong with him?

Sesame Smoke

There is a certain smoking lounge, in a certain mall, in a certain city, with a mural of Sesame Street characters on the wall. Elmo's on the bar stool in the corner. Grover is roller-skating along the sidewalk. Big Bird stands next to the stairs to his apartment. Oscar ad his trash can are on the opposite side of the steps. A bird is perched on the lightpost bearing said street's name. Ernie sits on the steps, and Burt is trying to avoid being hit by the roller-skating Grover.

All have a friendly smile. All wave happily at the mural's observer.

Let's not even talk about how remarkable it is for this mall to still have a smoking lounge in a city where carrying a pack of cigarettes in to a public building is a felony. Once-upon-a-time, this smoking lounge was a children's salon. The barber's chair and all the children are long gone, but the mural remains.

I've always wanted to put a cigarette into the waving hand of each sesame street character, and take a picture. It really would be a profound statement. And also, it would be funny. To me.

Did I already write a post about this? I can't remember.

Mission Accomplised

Here's the last photos ever to be taken by my point-and-shoot. These pics survived, but the camera did not. It's ok Andy -- I won't not be your friend anymore.

Flash Slideshow

Found it!

At the risk of seeming overly dependent on YouTube for content, I present the much-talked-about, never-before-seen* Outback Steakhouse commercial featuring that nifty Of Montreal song...well, lets call it variations on a theme.




*on this blog

Ah, F%ck it!

YouTube: A blogger with nothing to say's best friend. Come to think of it, when do I ever have much of anything to say? Why exactly do you keep coming back to this PoS web site?

Things that make you go Boom

Savoy salvo

Aaron Sorkin must be a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan.

There's and episode of The West Wing featuring the song "For he is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore. Guest star John Larroquette, playing White House counsel Lionel Tribby, argues with Toby about which musical the song is from - The Pirates of Penzance or H.M.S. Pinafore. The episode culminates in half the cast singing "Englishman" to the new republican legal aide.

Now, in just the second episode of his new show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Sorkin gives us more G & S with a parody of "I am the very model of a modern major general." Studio 60 is itself a parody of SNL. The protagonists of the new series, Bradley Whitford and Mathew Perry, are the recently rehired producers of the program. They are brought back to save the show's image after an embarrassing rant during the monologue of a previous telecast of Studio 60.

Perry's character comes up with a spoof of "Major General" that makes fun of the show and it's improper image. They even include a jab about Whitford's character and his alleged cocaine problem - which is itself a self-deprecating joke, as Sorkin allegedly has/had a drug problem.

I hope he uses a song from Ruddigore in his next series.

White Dwarfs

Move over Burt Reynolds, you've got company on Celebrity Jeopardy! Personally, I'm pulling for Doug Savant.

"I'm not a gay Doctor, but I play one on TV."

We just blue ourselves

"BOB LOBLAW LOBS LAW BOMB!"

We have all collectively made a terrible mistake.

We all knew Arrested Development was going to be cancelled at some point during the 3rd season. And as such, we adopted a "wait 'till DVD" mentality regarding the show. Figuring "sure, we like it, but we alone cannot save it from certain doom." FOX called our bluff and cancelled the show months ago. But it's only just now, mid-way though watching the final episodes of the "best show on TV you've never seen," that we realize we should have heeded those warnings from FOX a year ago, and at least turned on out television sets during AD's time slot. Because we've all gone and ruined the best show ever by waiting to see the DVD.

Man, are we stupid or what?

OPERATION: HOT MOTHER

Top of the Mornin' to Ya, little boy!

Would you like a bowl of Lucky Charms? Or would you rather see the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow? Let's go here next summer.

Gremlins

My toilet keeps running until I lift the back to see what's the matter, at which point it stops.

This is happening with every flush. And no matter when I go to check for a problem, be it 2 minutes or 2 hours.

I think the chain must be getting caught.

Slanginess

Drew and I work for the same company - I got him his start. But now he's graduated from the management training program, and we're essentially on equal footing. This means its time for a friendly wager. We decided on a race to see who could climb the retail version of the corporate ladder most quickly.

The details are still a little sketchy. That is, I'm not sure what Drew will have to buy/give me when I win yet. I imagine we'll work that out when he comes to visit in early October. There should be no shock to learn that my plan is to eat ass and suck dick all the way to the top, and then wipe the shit and cum off my face with $1,000,000 bills. So Drew, you'll have to come up with a different plan.

Wow, that sentence was sure fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading it. Is it too vulgar? Or just too honest? Remember what it was like to be young and idealistic and feel like you had the whole world in the palm of your hand? Neither do I.

Anyway enough rambling, and on to the point: Our jobs have gone through an equally slow and yet painfully sudden change. Where sales managers were once were empowered to make important decisions about the growth of their business, we now have pom poms, leggings and short, short skirts.

We're executioners dressed up as cheerleaders; all the while screaming "Isn't our company great!?!"

I love it.

Seriously it is a lot of fun.

But sometimes it's hard to find new ways to motivate your team to do the exact same tasks they've been doing for weeks-if-not-months. That's really where the fun comes in, and Drew and I seem to use at least one similar tactic:

INCORPORATE POP-CULTURE REFERENCES

Drew spent weeks telling people "It sizes and colorizes, or else it gets the hose again!" I'm pretty sure no one ever got it, but they we're sufficiently creeped out to speedily run away and find a project.

I started my pop culture reference with "Make it Work." Apparently no one on my team is a big Project Runway fan. So I've switched it up a bit, and gone with a commercial. So now when someone looks as though he's up to no good: "You agitatin' my dots!?!" I say, and laughs ensue.

Another great technique:

EMPOWERING YOUR TEAM

In attempting to delegate without having to give step-by-step instructions, Drew and I have developed remarkably similar phrases.

His: "Make it look like it was done on purpose."

Mine: "Make it look like you meant to do that."

So basically its a dead heat. Check back in 10 years or so, and we'll see who's really the top in this relationship.


*Apologies to Drew for having ripped off his TM catch-phrases, for accusing him of being a shit eating yuppie, and for implying consensual sex might someday occur between the two of us.

Just off the Wire

Europe tries out life as a RED state for a while.

Well, not really. Maybe red as in upstate New York. But certainly not red as in Arkansas. Its worth noting that voters in Sweden went for the moderate party in recent elections.

And surprise, surprise. The ultra-right is back in Germany. That's right, Neo-Nazis now have 7 seats in various German 'state' parliaments. Sure Cupcake, Germans can be cute when you're dealing with just one or two, but put a bunch of them together and you've got a real mess on your hands.

Like taking a bunch of New York City drag queens and dropping them in the middle of no-name Texas.

Crap on a Crap Cracker

The bad guys won today.

Iowa sucks.

[sad emoticon]

End of post.

Via Five-oclock-bot: Someone call John Stossel

Let's pretend we're eating steak

You probably already know this, but I'm just getting around to writing about it so bear with me. Apparently there is a new(radio?) commercial for Outback Steakhouse that features the Of Montreal song "Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and other games)". Only the song has been transformed into a jingle.

I've looked up and down the World Wide Web, and cannot find any video or audio evidence to back this up. But I know it's true because I read it on Pitckfork. I really want to hear it because I cannot imagine how this song could be effectively used to advertise a steakhouse. So if anyone happens to know where I can catch a listen, please let me know in the comments.

In absence of the actual commercial, I give you my best guess:

Lets pretend we're eating steak.
Lets pretend we're at Outback Steakhouse
Lets all eat a bloomin' onion
Lets pretend we're at Outback Steakhou-auh-auhse.

Gubenuj spelled backwards is

I know I'm late to the party here, but I just recently saw Junebug, and it was f-ing amazing. If I were into hyperbole, I would say its "one of the best movies of all time." But I'm not going to say that, even though I may have if you'd asked me 5 minutes after I first experienced it.

No doubt there is something in this film for everybody, but I think it especially fun to watch for anyone who grew up in a small town/rural environment, and later moved to the big city. It gets so many of those complicated emotions right, and it does so in a manner that feels effortless.

I love movies that don't feel the need to wrap up all the loose ends --to make you feel like a whole life experience fits neatly into an hour and a half. The fact that Junebug avoids this pitfall elevates the whole experience for me. I kept waiting to be disappointed by 'quick fix' resolutions that did not do the characters justice, but they never came.

How did I not see this one sooner?

On the Road

Another road trip to Ames/Des Moines is in the books. And yet another nail-biting win by the Cyclones. Its a shame we can't put these mediocre teams away before the last play of the game. But maybe we're just as mediocre as them. Only time will tell.

[Insert your own sports cliche here]

Ben, Rick, and I tried to pull off some real tailgating for this go 'round with somewhat limited success. We bought one of those 'one-time-use' grills from the grocery. It worked, sorta. If you call waiting 2 hours to cook 4 burgers working. Next time I vote we go through the drive-up window at Burger King.

This will be my last trip to Des Moines for a few weeks. I have to work the weekend of the next home game. Plus, driving back and forth is starting to put a strain on my already limited budget. Damn me and my expensive habits.

Pre-emptive Dumping

This post is in no way related to the end of The Daily Dump, a great blog which for some reason never made it onto my daily "must read" list.

This post is about getting "dumped" after just one date. The hang up? I smoke, he doesn't. Read between the lines: "man, i really don't want to date anyone right now, how can i get out of this one?" Yet, we still have plans to go on a not-date later this evening. It's up in the air now, whether he'll follow through.

I think this is really funny. Most people I've told also laugh, then apologize for laughing. No need for apologies. But really, after one date?

I realize that smoking carries a significant stigma for a number of people. Maybe this is only because I am a smoker, but to me this sort of hang up seems like something a person could live with at least during the "get to know you" phase. If we hit it off but the smoking is an issue, then maybe it would be okay to talk about it and the impact on the developing relationship. Maybe my love-brain is moving slower than his - I dunno. Maybe he has us moving in together in a week or two, and so now seemed the appropriate time.

Maybe this is a Karma thing for my break-up with a former boy because of his vote for Bush in the Presidential election.

PoE Voila!

Love it or hate it. The Patriots of Europe have a new page design thanks to blogger in beta.

I'm not really sure I needed to make the switch, as I had figured out how to code in HTML and CSS just enough to get blogger to do what I wanted it to do. Now I don't have to think at all -- I just point & click and copy & paste.

I am a HUGE fan of the new spellchecker though. It totally rocks my world.

Hmpfh

What a long three days.

It's not often a person can legitimately complain about working only 3 days in a row, but man were we busy this weekend. Plus i worked a full 33 hours in those 3 days. So that's something, right?

A combination of rain on Saturday and Sunday, plus a touch of "Oh shit, the kids have to go back to school tomorrow and we haven't bought them anything and -- oh my god look at your pants! They're at your shins. And those shoes! Jesus Christ, we better go shopping. But its already past 5 PM. What's that? JC Penney is open until 10? Kids, get in car, now!" on Monday kept me running all weekend.

But now i have two days off, and work only 2 of the next 6 days.

PlayStation baseball here I come.

Speechless

Wow.

Steve Irwin, the Crocidile hunter, is dead.

Aparently he got stung directly in the heart by a sting ray while diving.

This is just aweful.

Party like its Nineteen Ninety Something

Team huddle: Bowling party

I hung out with my sales team tonight at Southtown lanes. The worst bowling alley in the metro. The lanes are basically sawdust. Also, at first, only two people form my team showed up. But eventually we had a pretty decent crowd. I played a couple of games with 'em, and then left them to get wasted without their boss.

Rick had just returned from a long weekend in Iowa, and we had made plans to go out for a drink or two after my bowling obligation. Little did i know that he and his buddies would end up at the Gay 90's.

The name of this club really makes very little sense. It's not much of a gay club, really. So the first part is out. And te 90's? Well, the 1890s were pretty gay I guess. Needless to say, the club was packed to the rafters. Its the place to be on the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend aparently. Withing 30 seconds of walking in the door I had run across no less than 5 different people I would never expect to see at the 90's. Co-workers, ex boyfriends, high school classmates, you name it. I saw someone to fit the description.

I found Rick in the Retro bar, along with 1000 other 'homos.' One nice thing about the 90's is that they mix one hell of a strong drink (as you can no doubt tell by reading this post). I basically got half a bottle of wiskey in every 7&7 I oredered. Rad.

Aside:
Rajasree does not believe that the sign for the Gay 90's in meant to respresent a penis penetrating a butthole. I wish I had a picture of the sign at night, because it is so obvious -- its not even funny.

Go you Cyclones!

For all the ISU alumnus reading this post:

Don't know the words...
Don't know the words...
Don't know the words to this stupid fucking song!

State: 45
Toledo: 43

Snakes on a Building

Ben and I were standing in front of my building having a smoke the other day, when a guy who went to our high school walked up the steps and into my building. Neither of us were sure initially if it was him, so we didn't say anything. Then, as he was walking into my building, he looked back at us and caught a whiff of familiarity. He wasn't sure, so he checked us out one last time as he got into the elevator. It was us, he was him.

So there you have it. Some dude I went to high school with just moved into my building. Or perhaps he's been here longer than me.

Its f-ing snakes on a f-ing building!

Rumours on the Internets

I'm tired of surfing the web. At least I'm tired of my usual websites. A typical day in the life of Dave goes something like this: come home from work, check email to see who may have posted a comment on my bog (usually no one), check blogs of friends and acquaintences for updates, check to see who looked at my friendster profile today (usually no one), check to see who left me a message on gay.com (usually no one). Then I play online Jepopary until I get a category I've already seen -- which typically happens about the second game. Then I answer as if I'd never seen the exact same questions, check to see if anyone interesting is on IM or MSN (usually no one), and then its time for playstation baseball.

I've played well more than 120 games of playstation baseball in the past three months, and I'm sickj to death of it. But by gosh, I'm going to win that World Series if it takes my last breath.

Also, I saw the birth of a baby calf at the Minnesota State Fair this evening. It nearly brought me to tears until I realized just how lame that would make me. Nothing like seeing the hooofs(holves?) of a baby calf sticking out of mommy's vag for 20 minutes. It really makes a person want to poop.

This is Jeopardy!

One of the first things I ever became addicted to in the new age of the internets was online Jeopardy. I used to play when it was part of sony's game website- now defunct. But you can still play an online version of the game here.

I Just Got Mugged

For a cigarette butt.

Picture it. Minneapolis, 2006:

I'm walking down the street after a few drinks with friends. On the way home, I have to pass the local gas station which is a hot spot for local street trash. Usually they are harmless and kinda funny. For instance, the first guy I walked by asked me for money so he could buy a hot dog. When I told him I had no cash (the truth, I never have any cash), he asked me if I would go into the gas station and charge it. Then he smiled at me and looked for the next sucker.

The next guy wanted a drag off my lit cigarette. I'm ok with some community smoking, but not with just any dude hanging out on a street corner. So I politely declined his request. He started walking down the block with me. We walk for half a block with him repeatedly asking "Man, can I get a hit off that?." Finally, he stepped in front on me as if to say "Don't fuck with me or I'll cut you." But in the process of stepping in front of me, he bumped my hand holding the cigarette, and sent the cherry flying down onto his shirt. I'd already smoked nearly the whole thing, so when the cherry fell off I gave him what remained -- the butt with maybe half a drag of legitimate tobacco left to smoke.

He was either embarrassed about spreading burning ash all over himself, or satisfied with his conquest. He turned and walked back to his friends.

And I walked home without incident.

Deep in the Heart of Minnesota

The lights on the Target building are back to red tonight. For the past few weeks, they've been using a new earthy palette of browns, blues, and greens. It was very pretty. Tonight it's just solid red. No movement.

The Wedding Banquet

Last night was Assistant Store Manager Sarah's wedding reception. I was one of a handful of co-workers who attended; with Amy, Bossman Mike, and two general office workers rounding out the Southdale contingent. The highlight of the reception was most certainly the dinner --a ten course meal. Each course of which could well have been a full meal in and of itself. Soup, appetizers, stuffed crab claws, lobster, fried rice with shrimp & sausage, sesame chicken, deep fried walleye, beef with broccoli, fruit, and cake.

The downside of the evening was sitting with the whitest of whities at a predominantly Vietnamese gathering. Also, MB spilled a nearly full bottle of beer on me, even though I had warned her several times that she would do just that. I even moved the bottle no less than three times before I accidentally let my guard down and got drenched.

But good times.

Rick was along as well. He helped MB decorate the hall the day before, and was rewarded with a nice meal and an open bar. Which he fully utilized.

I was driving, after all.

We left the reception around 10:30 to head to the Saloon to meet one of Rick's friends who was celebrating his 29th birthday. Not much of interest happened, except for Rick continuing to drink. And drink... and drink some more. I was two drunk to drive him home by 2, so onto the couch he fell. At least temporarily. He ended up on the floor next to the couch sometime after I had gone to bed.

Having to work today, I woke up this morning with enough time to drop Rick off at home before driving to work myself. My usual morning routine doesn't involve the living room as such, so I decided to let Rick sleep until I was about ready to leave.

The first thing I noticed when finally walking into the living room was the smell. Then I saw the giant red spot on the carpet. How I do love sick. I'll spare you the details, but it's now been nearly 24 hours since to 'accident' and my apartment still smells of a nauseous mix of vomit and resolve carpet cleaner.

Who wants poppycock?

I apologize for the following inappropriate, poorly timed observation.

Putting photos of babies in your online personal profile is downright misleading.

Une vieille chanson, mais une bonne chanson

My international readers have complained about the recent Americanization of this here blog, so I now attempt to appease the homeland with this reworking of a popular folk song:

Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques
Dons ton cul, Dons ton cul
Il n'est pas un giraffe
Il n'est pas un giraffe
Elle est morte
Elle est morte

Also, I used to have a crush on my Lebanese born French instructor from university, Jean Pierre. He was so dreamy - I think I want to have his baby!

What ever happened to Class?

You know whom I miss? I miss Ira Flatow. For those readers who are not NPR junkies, Ira is the host of Talk of the Nation's 'popular' Science Friday. Every Friday afternoon from 1 until 3 Central Ira discusses the latest in science news from around the world.

Ira is especially frustrating for board operators across the public radio system because he never pauses at the appropriate cutaway times. Three of four times during the show Ira is supposed to say something like "Your listening to Science Friday on NPR." This is a station opt-out which means your local station can break away from the program to bring you news updates, another program, or the ever popular fun-drive.

Ira's constant sluring of words makes it difficult to get a clean break form the show. It sounds like "Your listening to Science Friday on NPRrrrrrrrrrrrbut Mr Blestinick, please tell me about hot dog clon-Support for Science Friday on WOLD is provided by Jim's tree repair."

Also the show is the best thing that ever happened to poor old ToTN. They talk about the neatest stuff you've ever heard. But we in Minnesota only get the first hour of SciFri these days, and I am almost always working at 1PM.

Damn.

Living in Iowa

A Photo Tribute:






Babies Nathan & Nicolette with their older sister, Abby, and Uncle Dave.













My other Niece, Lauren, looking happy if not somewhat mischevious.












Anne at the Iowa State Fair. Slightly intoxicated?














My parent's embarassing, grub-infested, front lawn.













Lauren, Mommy, and Uncle Dave.

Days of Thunder

Out with the old



And in with the new



My Iowa hometown, Newton, is hoping this raceway will keep away desperate times after Maytag Corporation, the town's largest employer, was purchased by Whirpool. The new owners have announced plans to close the factory in Newton, as well as the old corporate headquaters.

So now its a racing town. I was visiting my parents this weekend, and my mother took me out to the construction site for the new track. In a weird way it was kind of impressive. I mean, I don't give two hoots about racing, but the track itself is actually kinda pretty to see. Also, if you're into this kinda thing, Lynard Skinnard is doing a rock and roll show at the new "speedway" in October. With 38 Special and the Charlie Daniel's Band. Rock out with your cock out dude.

Here's the tracks webcam if you are bored.

I three the sandbox

My mother belongs to a teaching organization called PEO. At least she used to. As a child, I would regularly be upset to tantrums because PEO is one of those kind of clubs where you aren't allowed to tell anyone what "PEO" acronymizes. I used to go into terrible rages when my mother, my own kin, would not divulge this secret. I'm pretty sure I damaged a lot of furniture. If only she had told me. Think of the money my parents would have saved. Plus my therapist says this conflict is a source of some seriously deep issues.*

To this day I'm not entirely sure what PEO actually means, although I can venture to guess it's something like "Promoting Educational Opportunities."

Speaking of childhood tantrums, I hated going to church on Sundays. I specifically remember one Sunday I was feeling a little extra devious, so I hid from my parents in my closet (I know) for what felt like several hours. Of course, that was several hours of child hiding. So it was probably about 5 minutes. But I still got in a lot of trouble. And yes, I had to go to church that day as well.

Thankfully, sometime in late elementary my parents gave up on attending church regularly. Don't worry though, I found Jesus by myself in High School. Although I became quite the little hate-monger, I still avoided actual church services as often as possible. I just couldn't be asked. God and I were tight anyways -- he said it was ok.

*This is a lie

PR3 Update

The third season of Bravo's smash hit, Project Runway, is in full swing. Here's my completely valid, worthwhile opinion of how the show is going so far.

I'm thrilled to report that the production team listened to viewer complaints, and the amount of over-dubing has been dramatically reduced. Or at least there is added attention to making the dubbing more seamless. Get it? Seamless?

This year's cast is by far the most competitive yet. Aside from the chick who was auf'd on the first episode, there are no clear weak links. Sure, some people may not like a particular designer's style, but in terms of ability and creativity I think there's a lot of parity this go around. Also, the characters seem more genuinely interesting as individuals that PR2. These people are interesting without gimmicks from the producers. Which leads me to my next observation...

There are way too many gimmicks from the producers this year. Most notably, the contestants used materials from their apartments for the first challenge. When they returned home from the workroom expecting to find newly furnished apartments, they were surprised to learn the rooms had not been remade.

I love Tim Gunn as much as the next openly gay American, but I have to say it feels as if he's getting paid for every utterance of his trademark "Make it work" and "Carry On" catch phrases. Obviously he's used these phrases liberally throughout the first two seasons, but they always felt like a natural part of the conversation. Now it often feels awkward and unnatural when he says it. Maybe he's just become ultra conscious of the phrases, and now feels uncomfortable saying them without first giving a little wink to the camera.

So who's my early pick for the winner? Its so early in the season that the show has only had time to concentrate on a few of the contestants. But from what I've seen so far, I like Bradley as a possible sleeper candidate for the win. I'd guess he'll be joined in the final three by Jeffrey and Uli.

Watch what happens!

Wanker

We should really have more television like this in the US. I wonder if there we be an online version. Janet Jackson, you are off the hook.

(SP?)

Funny Blogger Spell-checker can't recognize these words:

Blog

Weblog

Blogger

Wal-Mart

Supercalafragalistic

The Central Front of the War on Terror

It's not Iraq people, it's Wal-Mart.

The rEPuBlicaN strategist on ATC this evening said she hopes people think about National Security when choosing the elephant or the donkey at the polls in November. She also continuously repeated the phrases "Central Front of the War on Terror(TM)" and "cut and run" in regards to Iraq. Next thing we'll be hearing about what a "flip-floper" John Kerry is.

Oh wait a second, that was the last election. I guess things are going just peachy enough for the rEPuBlicaNs that they decided not to change any of their catch phrases this go 'round. Seriously though, I realize the Dems don't exactly have a coherent, alternative strategy for dealing with Iraq but if I were a Republican I wouldn't be hanging my hat on National Security keeping the good old boys in office.

The best thing Democratic candidates can do is keep their mouths shut and let the elephants bury themselves with sound bites that have the public thoroughly annoyed.

And then they can have a go at running the country into more and more desperate times.

But God still hates Fags, at least the rEPuBlicaNs still have him(or her?) on their side.

Toys for Tots

I have a new toy. It's no expensive electronic drum set, but its still a new toy.


Voila!

My new digital audio recorder. This will be great for recording all those field reports I file with NPR; in addition to supporting my new podcast, The Potatoes of Edelbaum. You can just search for PoE on your favorite podcast-getter.*

No, I am going to use this thingy for something -- I'm just not exactly sure what at this time. Maybe I'll use it to record chapters of public domain books for the elderly. Maybe I'll start taking dictation at work. Maybe I'll use it to smuggle narcotics from Japan. Or maybe, just maybe I'll use it to collect dust on my coffee table.

Any way you put it, I'm excited about the possibilities.


*(I don't file stories for NPR, and I do not have a podcast)

Y-O-U-N-K-E-R-S

The name of a department store chain in Iowa. At the age of 12 I believed the recently released play Lost in Yonkers was probably about a kid who was separated from his parents while shopping at the store. In my head, the kid lived in the store and learned to take care of himself. Hiding from the staff during the day, and talking to mannequins at night. The whole thing was very Today's Special.

I found out in High School that Yonkers was a neighborhood in New York, so that sorta crushed my original theory.

Back in those naive days, Younkers was nothing more than a small, independent, privately traded company. Now, as is the case with all regional department stores, it is part of a much bigger chain of stores that have been mish mashed together by industry consolidation. Younkers however, is not part of the Federated/May mega-chain. So it will not become a Macy's anytime in the near future. As of March of this year, Younkers is owned by Bon-Ton stores. They also own the Carson Piere Scott and Herberger's names as well. The company says it plans to leave the old nameplates in tact.

At least for a few more years.

Would you be interested in taking a brief survey?

I've been meaning to post about this for some time now. There is a market research company at Southdale that does customer surveys for various consumer products. Most of the time the clients are the usual, mundane type You know; contact lens solutions, soaps, new energy bars and the like. I know too much about this business because the manager employs ALL of the Southdale mall rats. And they all hang out in the smoking lounge, which I visit approximately once every 10 minutes during my work day.

Yesterday, said mall rats were discussing a new survey. The Product? One battery powered, vibrating cock ring. Yes that's right. Unsuspecting window shoppers at Southdale mall are being asked to take home a cock ring, try it out with a consenting partner, and then return to the mall to answer a detailed questionnaire about the product. So if you are looking for a free cock ring, head to Southdale. Naturally, we just need you to sign here, here, here...here, here... here, here, here, and here before we can allow you to take part in the survey.

Way!

People around the world are shrugging their shoulders in apathy upon hearing the news that former 'N SYNC star Lance Bass is gay. Bass, the former bass singer for the American pop music band 'N SYNC, told the shocking truth to a handful of uninterested reporters eating breakfast at Dennys in Palo Alto, CA. One reporter on the scene was quoted "That's great kiddo, I'll have the Grand Slam; Eggs over easy, wheat toast,and bacon. Oh, and a glass of orange juice." Bass's employment could not be verified at the time this story went to print.

For more on this story, we turn to PoE Special correspondent, Odessa Goodwyn.

Odessa?...

Let's Get Physical

We're preparing for yet another walkthrough at the JC this week. This time, its the DM visit which was pre-empted for our corporate big dogs two weeks ago. I've been on vacation since the last store tour, so I've been feeling behind all week. My portion of the visit was intended for tomorrow. Luckily, our DM ambiguously hurt his back yesterday, and as such the tour has been post-poned by one day. So now I've got an extra day to prepare. This is about the best possible scenario for me personally, as I need the extra time to make everything just right. Or rather, to make everything barely passable.

Also, Joe Lew and Angie leave for the left coast Wednesday. Tonight is a celebratory bowling send off at Park Tavern. (Good riddance) This on the heels of what was supposed to be the big last hurrah Saturday night. It was a gay old time, there's no denying it. But we left wanting more of our two favorite people about to leave the Twin Cities. So bowling it is!

In other news, I recently discovered that Grand Junction, Colorado has an honest to G-d airport. One with real jet planes and everything. This is exciting news, as it increases the odds of me visiting Drew by 100%.

A Haiku for You

Yeasty fish fingers
Covered in fresh beer batter
Who wants to try one?

**please feel free to leave your own Haiku comment**

Do the Right Thing

Cupcake, Rick, and I had a conversation over dinner last weekend about first dates. Specifically, what we talk about when first meeting a new person. Because I am shallow, I decided long ago that what really counts in assessing a potential mate is what he likes, not to be confused with what he is like. That is to say my questions generally revolve around possible interests: books, music, films, television shows, politics, etc. If I deem the candidate's taste worthy, then he's in. If he's into Keney Chesney and loves watching reruns of The Nanny, then he's out.

Cupcake is somewhat less shallow than me, and as such talks about subjects that might learn you something about a person. She likes to ask about family: brothers, sisters, parents, godparents. For Cupcake, this strategy seems to pay off, but it does have some pitfalls. There is a finite amount of family information a person is comfortable divulging on a first date, and one must be rather careful to avoid crossing into a vein of conversation that runs dangerously close to this tolerance level. Go too far, and you've ended the date -immediately. Also, that person will forever recall you as "just creepy."

Here's a tested example of a question not to ask on a first date: "So, which of your parents do you want to die first?" The answer was definitive, but not in the intended way. In defense, the question is taken slightly out of context, but it's better if I don't go explaining it away.

Everything is Green

The Essex Green is a f-ing great band. I highly recommend the newest album "Cannibal Sea." Or any of the previous albums for that matter. I always thought of them as more of a side project, but as is sometimes the case, the side project has become more popular and successful than the primary enterprise.




For those of you who aren't familiar, The Essex Green are a kind of country/rock fusion band. They are a remnant from the old Elephant 6 record label that was producing some great artists in the mid to late 1990's. I know this may sound aweful to some readers, but really its amazing. Think Calexico only without the obnoxious antics of Conor Oberst. And The Essex Green are better. Trust me.

Or as Alka Seltzer says "Try it, You'll Like It!"

The Slack: Pickin' it Up

You may or may not already know that Cupcake is taking a hiatus from blogging. While I realize my site is not first on the list of great blogs to read until ToCM returns, I'll nevertheless try to do my part in keeping you entertained by posting on a more frequnt basis. About what exactly, I'm not sure. But tune it becuase I'm certain it will be amazing. Truely.

And in case I fail to live up to my end of the bargain, you can always read about life on the farm.

What had happened was (blank), and that's what had happened!

Riding Subways for a hobby is sad.


But also makes for some great stories.


Ever seen a gang of queer thugs? I have. They were on the train with us Friday night on the way back to our hotel from Brooklyn. Of course, they weren't real thugs, just drunk homos who liked to dance and freestyle. Remember that Julia Stiles movie? Very similar.

People, why on earth are you riding the train with your newborn/infant/toddler at 2 AM?

Empty subway cars on otherwise packed trains = bad news. Death, defecation, wild animals, or worse - a broken air conditioner.

Family vacationers are easy targets. Especially when wearing "Freedom isn't Free" shirts with huge Bald Eagles or American Flags screen printed on the front.

18 minutes is a long time to wait for your Metrocard to work again.

Mind the gap people, mind the gap.

Ladies and Gentlemen, will you please take your seats...

Our flight home from JFK was scheduled to leave New York at 7 PM. That's about the time we first got on the plane. Then we sat. And waited. And waited some more. 5 hours, a billion runway changes, and one thunderstorm later; we finally took off for Minneapolis. What was supposed to be a 3 hour tour, turned into an 8 hour confinement with exhaust-filled air and no possibility of sneaking away for a cigarette. Ugh.

But hey, we made it back. No pictures or anything this time, because I took not a one. But I did have a great time. Thanks to Cupcake and Lexi for entertaining us.

Make it Work!

Its baaaack!



Season 3 of Project Runway kicked off last night on Bravo. The show has aparently been doing so well, Bravo has decided to air two seasons a year. Hence the new summer season. 15 designers this time around, although its down to 14 after last night of course. I won't tell you who was Auf'd last night in case you didn't see it.

I was most excited becasue I got to use a great Project Runway story during my corporate visit yesterday. I had two goals for the walkthough: 1) Make sure our corporate visitors left knowing our business is alive and well, and 2) Talk about Project Runway.

Mission Accomplished.

WTF?

Something has happened to my blog. I dunno what is up. I suspect that the template I was using is either no longer being serviced, or is undergoing some dramatic changes. Until I figure out what is up, you'll just have to get used to the (ahem) new format.

By the way, that walkthrough today? Oh yeah, I totally nailed it. Party on Dave

Red Alert

Our store was supposed to have our once-a-year official walkthrough with the district manager on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Its silly in a way, as the DM is based out of our store. So he walks through everyday and sees just about everything we do wrong. But this is an official visit, and we get a score for it, so its kind of a big deal. I say the district walkthrough was supposed to be this week because it is no long er this week. It has been pre-empted by a Corporate walkthrough on Wednesday.

The regional manager, Janice,(Midwest, that's Texas to Minnesota for those coastal or international readers) will be touring instead. And she's bringing along a special guest: the Executive Vice President and Director of Stores for the entire company, Mike. Or rather, he is visiting and bringing Janice as his guest. Whichever way you spin it, the stress level went up about 1 million notches.

This will not be as bad as the time the CEO visited the store up in Maple Grove just after we first opened. Nevertheless, if you were planning on seeing or hearing form me between tonight and Wednesday at five you can just about forget it. I'll be working 9am to 9 pm at least on Monday and Tuesday.

But hey, I'm going to New York to visit Cupcake and other friends on Friday. So its not all bad news right?

People in my Neighborhood

because apparently writing an original post every day is just too much for me, I treat you to some home-made photos:

Writing fiction is HARD

I've been trying to work out a short story that I might eventually be able to make into a very, very small movie. But it's been no less than ten years since I've tried to write something that wasn't at least partially based on real life events. I suppose its not that writing ficticious material is all that challenging - I can come up with all sorts of ideas. The problem is getting them down on paper without the sentences looking as if a 5-year-old were responsible.

I now understand why Kaavya Viswanathan used someone else's material so egregiously. It just looks, feels, and sounds better when someone else writes it. I am also highly critical of other people's writing when it comes off as trite, or just simply too direct. I feel like the sentence "Judy was sad." is too easy. I want the passage to make me feel Judy's sadness without ever using the word 'sad', or even better if you can make me feel Judy is sad without even mentioning Judy.

My writing therefore, could use more sentences like "Judy was sad." But like most people with my particular type of crisis of confidence, I must create enigma where none exists or needs to exist. After all, when the depth is false, its all just shallow thoughts posing as something more interesting. Yet what to do when the shallow thoughts are all you've got?

It's What's for Dinner

My economics 101 professor from university conducted a study of the old beef council commercials, and discovered that they actually made people less likely to buy beef. The logic was something like "The customers would go to the store with their meat choice awareness increased, possibly even intending to buy beef, but would opt for a perceptionally healthier choice like chicken or pork."

The gist being, most people don't choose dinner. It just sort of happens. So the commercials heightened the customers awareness of choice in meals, and beef almost always lost out. Sorry beef producer friends, but the good news is that the beef council stopped using the commercials after the study was released.

Gimmie a Break

Break me off a piece of that.

If I were an established writer, like J.K. Rowling, I might be tempted to use the state of my apartment as some sort of metaphor for my life in general. The once-used glasses stacked in the sink, waiting for me to put them in the dishwasher for a bath. The coverless duvet strewn across the bed. The pile of smoky clothes from Memorial Day weekend still waiting to be put into the laundry basket. The utilitarian furniture. The lack of basic necessities like food and chairs for the dining table. The shower with the lone dark footprint, foreshadowing am unapetizing future. Etc.

But I am not an established writer, so I will let you make your own assumptions.

I get to watch TV all day at work tomorrow. It was supposed to be my day off, but we have the Back-to-School(BTS) set broadcast. So now I have Wednesday off instead.

I need a vacation.

But the District Manager conducts his official visit in two weeks, so that's out of the question for a while. Also, I would like to travel- visit friends and such, but I'm tight on money. NYC would be fun, but Cupcake is heading to Germany. Denver? It'd be more fun if Drew visited Mpls. Chicago is out, and I hear the farm in Ohio is on the busy side these days.

On Hold

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(Background Music)

Oh What a Night

My boiling pot of water was interrupted by the 4th fire alarm in 3 weeks at our building. I took it as divine intervention - knowing that the dirty pot would sit in the sink for who knows how long, I turned the stove off and proceeded down the 20 flights of stairs. When the alarm in our building goes off, the elevators automatically return to the bottom floor and don't move. I'm just nerdy enough to actually leave my apartment because I know my luck, and the first time I decide to stay I'll get trapped in a real blazer and end up being "that guy" hanging out the 18th floor window screaming for help.

It had been raining, no pouring, with marble sized hail about an hour earlier, but when I walked outside there was a break in the rain. I didn't feel like standing in front of the building waiting for the barrage of fire trucks to arrive, and I was hungry and needed to kill a little time so I decided to walk down the street to my local Indian restaurant for dinner. They were pretty busy with it being Friday night, and I had to sit at a table in the middle of the room. At least my server gave me a seat with a view out the window onto the street. Sitting in the restaurant, I saw a bicyclist almost get hit by a car.

The car had pulled into a driveway to turn around, started backing up and initially didn't see the dude on the bike. He stopped in time, and it was a good thing too, as the momentum from the collision likely would have propelled the bicyclist right under the wheels of a bus heading in the opposite direction of the street. You know you've been watching too much Law and Order when you immediately start playing out a scenario in your mind where the biker gets killed by the oncoming bus, and the driver who hit him speeds off. Of course, we'd learn later in the episode, that this 'accident' was no accident at all, but rather a paid hit on the biker - a man who worked as a delivery boy and always rode his bike home down the same street on his way home form work. Turns out, his loving wife had taken out a $3 Million life insurance policy in his name just 2 weeks earlier, and the guy driving the car? A catholic priest, who cracks under interrogation and admits he took the bribe money to help his parish pay for the treatment of a diabetic child.

Mid-way though my chicken korma and naan, the rains begin again. The sky looked threatening during my walk to the joint, but it looked like I'd have plenty of time to eat and walk home before it started to rain again. I was wrong. At first it was a mere sprinkle, then as I was sipping the last gulp of diet coke and signing the bill it began to pour again. I sat at the table for a bit, hoping the rain would die down, but it was no use. I;d already paid the bill and was expected to be on my way. I couldn't stay seated at the table any longer without imposing, and so decided to suck it up and get wet. And did I get wet. I crossed no less than 4 impromptu rivers that had sprung up at hillsides, driveways, intersections and the like.

When I got home (no flames at least), I had to towel off and completely change clothes. Its been a few hours now, and I;m sufficiently dry. Now I think I'll watch The Squid and the Whale. It takes place in Brooklyn (Park Slope to be exact) don't cha know.

Must be a full moon

Strange day at the JC today. I had a particularly crazy woman who bought some shoes from us, then lost them while still shopping in our store (?), and then wanted us to give her two more pair for free because she lost them. When I told her that wasn't possible she raised her voice and the expletives began. Because she mentioned having already talked to the store manager, I decided this woman was officially his problem, so I called him to come bat clean up. He, in turn, delegated this woman to our 5' 0" assistant store manager, Sarah.

The ASM came down to talk with the customer, and so I returned to the stockroom to finish marking some shoes for the clearance rack. While I'm in the stockroom, a commotion breaks out on the sales floor. There's a lot of screaming and yelling and then a loud crash-thud. Immediately after the commotion, I think I hear someone say "Get her down!, Get her Down!"

The first thought that goes through my head is that the crazy lady has attacked little Sarah and is holding her down trying to strangle her or some sort of disaster. Well, I come rushing out of the stockroom - and thankfully Sarah is not being assaulted by the crazy lady. What had happened was, out LP officer was tracking a shoplifter who got spooked and decided to make a run for it. On the way past the shoe department, the fleeing shoplifter knocked over a table and then ran into another customer, knocking her to the floor. And that's what had happened.

Luckily the lady who got run into seemed to be okay. When I first went to see her I was sure she would be bleeding because she was older and obviously got hit without being prepared. No bleeding, just a little confused and embarrassed. Understandable.

Also, store manager Mike took us all out to lunch today -- verifying that today must be some kind of special full moon. A blue moon perhaps? Lets get the Discovery channel to do a documentary to find out.

He should have done better with that effort

If working at the American office of a German investment bank is reason enough to post about the World Cup, then I suppose a blog entitled The Patriots of Europe is almost compelled to write about it. So here it is, my official World Cup '06 posting:




Did you see the horrendous performance by the US team in their first game? I didn't either, but I read about it, and then watched part of the second half replayed on ESPN Classic after work. I'm not a soccer (football, whatever) expert, but I do know enough to know the names of many of the star players from Europe. And I know the rules of the game without the "Soccer: What the F*$k" article that likely ran in your local paper last Friday.

The analysis from the pundits is spot on in my opinion. The team lacked creativity, energy, and just looked tired and outmatched. But really, do we need to kick everyone's ass at soccer now too? What's next anyway, are we going to get wrapped into 6 Nations rugby or the Cricket World Cup? Wait, is the US still eligible for the Commonwealth games???

Soccer (football) is for the rest of the world to enjoy, let's let them have this one. If you are a fan of the game who happens to live in the US, I wouldn't argue if you told me rooting against the American team would be the right thing to do. Why get everyone excited about MLS when the level of competition is so much higher in the English Primereship, Spanish La Liga, and Italian Seria A (current scandal notwithstanding), etc. It would be like tuning in to see the score of the basketball game between Leceister City and Leeds instead of watching the Mavs beat the Heat in the NBA. Novel, but not worth most people's time.

Another note: American play-by-play announcing just doesn't mesh well with soccer. It's too formal for a game with so much riding on the anticipation of scoring, rather than the actual payoff. The best announcers are casual and conversational. It's more suited to the kind of broadcaster associated with color commentary in most US sports. ISU fans think Eric Heft only with a think accent, preferably Irish or Scottish.