So Scott and I went to see A Prairie Home Companion today, and while it wasn’t exactly a summer blockbuster it was, like the long-running radio variety show on which it’s based, it was very entertaining.
If you don’t know anything about Prairie, it’s a show broadcast on Saturday nights from Minneapolis, hosted by master storyteller Garrison Keillor (who wrote the screenplay for the movie and appeared in it, with some biographical tweaking, it would seem, as himself), and it features music, skits, stories, and, well, a variety of entertainment.
The central plot point of the movie – which was largely incidental, as this movie was about the characters and the actors portraying them – was that a new corporation had purchased the radio station that broadcasts the show and had decided to pull the plug on it. The story took place on the night that was to be the show’s last broadcast.
Add in a mysterious Angel of Death, played by Virginia Madsen, wandering around throughout the theater from which the show was broadcast, musical performances featuring the real and fictional cast of the show, Keillor’s fictional “hard boiled” detective character Guy Noir (played to clueless perfection by Kevin Kline) who served as the narrator, and an exploration of the backstage goings-on, stir, and just as easily as whipping up some Powdermilk Biscuits (one of the show’s fictional sponsors) you have yourself a movie version of A Prairie Home Companion.
If I had one complaint about the movie it was that it didn’t feature a “News from Lake Woebegone” segment, which was always, for me, as I’m not exactly a fan of the style of music featured on the show, the primary reason to listen to the show, as the stories about his fictitious hometown showcased Keillor’s humor and his talent for spinning a yarn.
I’m not a big devotee of Robert Altman and his work, but the pacing of the story and the narrative style, which consisted mostly of intertwining and interconnected vignettes, seemed representative to me (based on what I’ve seen of his work) of his directorial style, which worked very well here, especially given that the movie, as most Altman movies do, had a strong ensemble cast.
Lindsey Lohan was fairly entertaining as a suicide-obsessed angst-filled teen, though I think that the evidence of the age of the writer and director was showing in how, physically, she was portrayed, which is to say not nearly goth or emo enough. She just seemed very much like the vision of a “rebellious teen” that men of Keillor and Altman’s ages would have. She just sort of seemed like an out of touch, “what’s with these kids today with their dungarees and the MTV” kind of presentation of a modern teen. There was a disconnect between the way she looked and the kind of internal life she was leading, and it just stood out for me. I doubt that Keillor or Altman would have any idea of what you were talking about if you said “goth” or “emo” to them, and that was made very clear by the sort of “not quite a good girl by older standards, but not quite a bad girl by contemporary standards” look she sported.
Still, it’s an extremely minor and nitpicky complaint, as it was a good role, particularly in terms of how others reacted to her dark sensibilities. It could have been a conscious decision, I suppose, to make her outwardly appear less angst-filled and depressed than she actually was inwardly. So maybe my complaint is without merit. Oh well.
Anyway, overall it was a good way to spend a little over an hour and a half (which is less time than the actual radio show takes up)
Hell, I could even stand Meryl Streep in this – she and Lily Tomlin played off each other very well – and I can’t ever stand Meryl Streep.
So that’s saying something.
Of course, the trip to the theater wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the movie.
On my way to 28 from 7, I became convinced that there was no possible way that the method in which other drivers were messing with me could be anything other than deliberate.
Whether they were in touch with each other via radio, God was personally directing them, or they were in telepathic communication, it had to have been done on purpose.
I can’t even begin to list the million little ways in which they screwed me over, all of the complex driving maneuvers they executed that ultimately left me stuck behind the four dump trucks that I had done everything in my (extremely limited) power to get around, the intricate series of braking and accelerating that led me to drive along screaming FUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!! at the top of my lungs for miles and miles.
The state of mind that this experience put me in probably goes a long way towards explaining how it is that I drove along 28, once I finally got to it and managed to get around the dump trucks, and totally missed the exit to 50 that I wanted to take.
I had gone pretty far past it before the thought occurred to me that I should have hit the exit to 50 by now. Once I got past the exit for 66, I became certain that I’d missed it.
Honestly, though, I still don’t see how. I mean, nowhere along the line did I notice the multiple signs informing me that I was coming up on 50. I’m beginning to suspect that they were taken down, because I should have seen one of them.
Still, I got to the theater well in advance of the movie, which was actually my plan, as I’d intended to have lunch at the Potbelly’s near the theater before meeting up with Scott.
That plan went out the window once I stepped inside, though, as the line for ordering was the longest line I’ve seen since I stood in line to get my books signed by Neil Gaiman.
I’m talking 4th of July in DC line for the porta-pottty long.
So, since there was no line at Ben & Jerry’s, I decided that an ice cream cone would make a suitable lunch.
After the movie Scott met up with Stacy and the girls, who had hung around while we were at the movie, so that they could all go to see Cars.
Stacy invited me to join them, but I didn’t feel up to sitting through two movies in a row.
My drive home was considerably less irritating than the drive there, though given that I took the Greenway home and paid $3.20 to do so it pretty much had to be.
Great Moments In Television Department:
On last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen interviewed U.S. Representative Lynn S. Westmoreland of Georgia’s 8th District for the show’s “Better Know A District” segment.
Stephen pointed out that Westmoreland has never introduced a bill to the House, but that he co-sponsored one requiring that The Ten Commandments be displayed in the House and the Senate.
Stephen, in character, agreed that this was a good idea, saying that he couldn’t think of a better place to display them than a public building, and asked, “Can you? Can you think of a better place to display them?”
Westmoreland said that he could not think of a more appropriate building in which to display The Ten Commandments.
However, while that was entertaining and incisively satirical, that was not the best part.
The best part was when Stephen asked the Congressman, who had just finished talking about how everyone should be mindful of the Ten Commandments at all times, to list them.
All ten of them.
The look of sheer panic on the Congressman’s face at that moment is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen on television.
(He couldn’t list them. He said, “Don’t murder. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Umm…I can’t name them all.”)
That this followed on the heels of a Daily Show that featured footage of President Bush making fun of a reporter for wearing sunglasses on a sunless day, when said reporter suffers from a degenerative eye condition that makes him extremely sensitive to light, helped to push this moment over the top.
Admittedly the President had no way of knowing this, and he has since called the reporter to apologize to him personally, but even so, it serves as a faux pas funnier even than Scott telling a guy to get his autistic son to shut the hell up (I can't link directly to his MySpace Blog, so go to his page and check the blog out) on his flight home last week.
The area around the theater that I went to today is this sort of gentrified “plaza” with all kinds of little shops and restaurants, a water fountain, and some upscale residences.
Because school is out, the place was lousy with teenagers.
While I’m certain that I’ve never heard more gratuitous use of the word “like” in my life, it wasn’t their grammar, but rather their posture that seemed most salient.
As I watched them slouching and leaning, I couldn’t help but think that given that the only thing teenagers are good for is standing around doing nothing, it seems like they should be better at it.
I mean, when all you do is stand around, the least you could do is stand up straight.
Just a thought.
In fairness to teenagers everywhere, I’m sure they’ll all grow up to be useful, contributing members of society someday, but for the next few months I’d mostly like them to contribute by staying the hell out of my way…
Oh, and for those of you wondering how/why I ever listened to A Prairie Home Companion, the reason is that my dad listened to it. I never actively sought it out, but I never minded on those occasions (in the car, or at home, as I usually was, on a Saturday night, etc.) on which I was exposed to it. My dad still listens to the show, which makes it sort of surprising that he as no interest in seeing the movie, though he pretty much just doesn’t like going to the movies, period. It’s irrelevant anyway, as it’s not showing at any theaters back home.
I also had a teacher, in my formative years, who was a big fan of the show, and so his endorsement of it (I looked up to him a great deal) made me that much more inclined to give it a chance.
In any case, that will do it for this entry. I hope you all have exciting and interesting weekends while I’m sitting at work struggling to stay awake.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
All Your Sidekick Are Belong To Us
Years ago, back when I was still drinking, there came a night in which I was hanging out, as I pretty much as on most nights, at my preferred bar, in which I had a short but significant exchange with a friend.
The bar, which was a "lounge," was set up like this:
A bar against the wall, some tables behind that, some booths behind that against another wall, and a larger dining arrea with booths and tables on the other side of the wall.
(There was also another smaller bar with a seating area and pool tables downstairs, but that was primarily used for private parties. )
In any case, whenever the place had live entertainment it was in the dining room on the other side of the wall, an area that I seldom went into, as I spent most of my time at or near the actual bar itself.
On the aforementioned night, a night on which there was live entertainment, I was sitting at the bar with a beer in front of me when a friend came in and asked, "Are there are a lot of people on the other side for the band?"
I said that I didn't know, as I hadn't taken the trouble to look. She asked me why not, and I indicated the beer in front of me, to which she responded, "Oh, right. I forgot how narrow your focus is."
While I can no longer be found sitting at bars giving all of my attention to a beer as if contemplating my navel, my focus remains fairly narrow, which is why I so frequently miss the boat on major Web trends and phenomena until after they've passed out of the popular consciousness.
The most famous example being the whole "All your base are belong to us" thing from several years back. That totally escaped my notice until well after it was over (not that I would have been likely to care that much anyway).
Not so, thanks to Neil Gaiman, with the "Stolen Sidekick" saga, which, while it started last week, still seems to be going strong.
If you haven't encountered it, check it out here. This is much more entertaining than most viral phenomena, as it serves as an example of the kind of "instant karma" we so seldom see outsidse of, as Zalfiro would point out, episodes of Tales from the Crypt.
And if I was the only one who had not been previously aware of this, don't be surprised.
Just remember how narrow my focus is...
The bar, which was a "lounge," was set up like this:
A bar against the wall, some tables behind that, some booths behind that against another wall, and a larger dining arrea with booths and tables on the other side of the wall.
(There was also another smaller bar with a seating area and pool tables downstairs, but that was primarily used for private parties. )
In any case, whenever the place had live entertainment it was in the dining room on the other side of the wall, an area that I seldom went into, as I spent most of my time at or near the actual bar itself.
On the aforementioned night, a night on which there was live entertainment, I was sitting at the bar with a beer in front of me when a friend came in and asked, "Are there are a lot of people on the other side for the band?"
I said that I didn't know, as I hadn't taken the trouble to look. She asked me why not, and I indicated the beer in front of me, to which she responded, "Oh, right. I forgot how narrow your focus is."
While I can no longer be found sitting at bars giving all of my attention to a beer as if contemplating my navel, my focus remains fairly narrow, which is why I so frequently miss the boat on major Web trends and phenomena until after they've passed out of the popular consciousness.
The most famous example being the whole "All your base are belong to us" thing from several years back. That totally escaped my notice until well after it was over (not that I would have been likely to care that much anyway).
Not so, thanks to Neil Gaiman, with the "Stolen Sidekick" saga, which, while it started last week, still seems to be going strong.
If you haven't encountered it, check it out here. This is much more entertaining than most viral phenomena, as it serves as an example of the kind of "instant karma" we so seldom see outsidse of, as Zalfiro would point out, episodes of Tales from the Crypt.
And if I was the only one who had not been previously aware of this, don't be surprised.
Just remember how narrow my focus is...
Random Treasures Mined From The Past
I was reading an old issue of Superman Family the other day (#202, August, 1980, for those of you who felt the need to know), when I stumbled across the following:
This is an ad for "dingo" brand boots, featuring "The Juice" himself, OJ Simpson.
I guess Bruno Magli didn't advertise in comics.
Still, when you're looking for a killer boot, nothing can beat dingo. They're comfortable whether you're amushing your ex-wife outside her home or "tracking down the real murderer," and always super-stylish!
A few pages in, in that same issue, I found another ad featuring "The Juice," this time for "Spot-bilt" shoes:
"When you're on the run, and don't have AC and his Bronco, nothing gets you out of a low-speed chase like Spot-bilt!"
If only they had been ads for knives and gloves...
This is an ad for "dingo" brand boots, featuring "The Juice" himself, OJ Simpson.
I guess Bruno Magli didn't advertise in comics.
Still, when you're looking for a killer boot, nothing can beat dingo. They're comfortable whether you're amushing your ex-wife outside her home or "tracking down the real murderer," and always super-stylish!
A few pages in, in that same issue, I found another ad featuring "The Juice," this time for "Spot-bilt" shoes:
"When you're on the run, and don't have AC and his Bronco, nothing gets you out of a low-speed chase like Spot-bilt!"
If only they had been ads for knives and gloves...
One Other Thing...
This morning I found that, once again, Bloglet was having trouble communicating with Blogger. Hopefully the issue will resolve itself quickly, but my legions (all 7 of you) of loyal subscribers shouldn't be surprised if they aren't finding Threshold updates in their inboxes.
Two Mild And Not-So Crazy Guys
It was rather gloomy and overcast when I woke up this morning, and there was a much cooler breeze than yesterday’s blowing in through the open window, so I considered simply staying where I was, but ultimately I decided to get up.
After sitting around doing my usual not much of anything, I IMed Kathleen to see if she wanted to meet for lunch, as I was thinking about heading to Ashburn to gas up the car and over to the Wal-Mart in Sterling.
She was too busy to manage it, so I considered not going and just holding off until tomorrow, but finally decided that I might as well get it over with.
Now that school is out, Wal-Mart was even more filled to overflowing than usual, making me especially eager to get what I needed and get the hell out.
Every line was inordinately long, but by sheer chance I spotted a self-checkout register that had only one person at it.
Further, said person was buying one item.
So I thought, foolishly, that this was my lucky day.
The person ahead of me was an older, bald, grandfatherly type, buying some sort of ointment, who probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave the home unattended, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a piece of technology developed after 1960.
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that it took him ten minutes to pay for the one item that he’d bought. Thank god I’d gotten there after he’d managed to scan it (which I’m sure involved blind, random chance).
It took him quite some time to read the screen and figure out how he was going to pay for his purchase, ultimately deciding to go with cash.
He took several bills out of his wallet, put one in, looked at the screen, fumbled around in his pocket and dug out a bunch of change, and then began feeding coins to it like some blue-haired retiree playing the nickel slots.
After finishing that, he put in another bill, paused, read the screen, put another bill in, looked at me as if to say, “Screw you, you impatient young whippersnapper,” read the screen, put another bill in, put the remaining bills in his hand back into his wallet, put his wallet in his pocket, scratched himself thoughtfully, and then, and this is the part that baffled me, collected all of the coins he’d received in change. WTF? What was the point of loading the thing up with coins if you weren’t giving it exact change and were going to just get a bunch of change back?
Though I had seven times as much stuff and paid with a credit card, I was done in under a minute once I finally got my turn.
After finishing up at Wal-Mart, I considered my next move. It seemed like lunch was a decent idea, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, and I wasn’t especially hungry just yet.
Unless it’s something I really want to see, I don’t often go to movies by myself, but as I was sitting in my car thinking about what to do next, I thought about how I’d kind of like to see that Prairie Home Companion movie (I know; I’m a nerd) and thought, “What the hell; I’ll go see a movie.”
After all, it seemed like a waste to go out into the world just to get gas, stop at Wal-Mart, and get lunch. Why not do something outside of my routine?
Besides, one advantage to seeing a movie was that I could get myself a snack to tide me over while I watched the movie and decided what I wanted to do for lunch afterwards.
Of course, I hadn’t checked to see showtimes before heading out – the dangers of doing things spontaneously – and I didn’t have my cell phone with me to use for that purpose, as during the night the battery had died, so it was sitting at home on my counter charging.
Still, I figured that there was likely to be a showing soon enough, and if nothing else, I decided, maybe I’d check out The Da Vinci Code.
I got to the theater and found that not only was there not going to be showing of Prairie Home Companion anytime soon, it wasn’t playing at the theater at all.
I didn’t really feel up for The Da Vinci Code, and realized that I’d rather wait until after I finally manage to force myself to finish reading the book before I watch it (If I ever decide to watch it at all).
So, deciding that there’s a reason that I don’t engage in acts of spontaneity that are outside of my routine, I opted to simply head home and see what I could scrounge up for lunch.
Along the way I decided to give spontaneity another shot and turned off toward the Dulles Town Center to get lunch from the food court, but as I neared it I realized that the food court of a mall, in the summer, at noon, is the last place I would ever want to be, and so drove past, deciding, ultimately, to stop at the Uno’s located on the perimeter of the Town Center.
Though there were several cute young waitresses working there, as is invariably the case I ended up being waited on by the one male employee working the floor.
Every time that happens, which is pretty much every time I go somewhere to eat, I’m reminded of my pre-Smart Tag days when I would stop at the toll booth to pay the toll (which at that time was $.35), and if I had just one penny amid a dozen dimes in my pocket, I would grab the penny every single time.
I’m convinced that I could go into a Hooters and still manage to somehow not be waited on by a cute waitress.
Not that it really matters, given that at Uno’s the waitresses were undoubtedly teenagers, and even if they weren’t it’s not like I would suddenly turn into some smooth operator or something.
Still, it would be nice to be able to interact with a pretty girl every so often.
After eating I headed home, though I needed to pick up some milk, so I stopped at the Giant that’s along the way.
Once I got inside I was annoyed because someone decided that it was a good idea to have the layout of this Giant be the exact opposite of every other Giant I’ve ever been in.
While I was there I decided to pick up a bag of apples as well.
Getting what I needed, I headed to a self-checkout that wasn’t in use.
I didn’t feel like digging out my card, so I keyed in my phone number, to which the register responded, “Bonus Card accepted.”
After multiple attempts, which were beginning to annoy me, the apples scanned, the registered said, “$2.99. Scan next item or press Finish and Pay,” and I put the apples on the belt and turned for the milk. At that point the register said, “Please remove item from belt and try again. Credit $2.99,” and voided out the apples.
Annoyed and dismayed, I tried scanning the apples again, with no luck, so I decided to key in the UPC. I did so, set the apples back on the belt, and the register said, “Bonus Card not accepted.”
I sighed, left the apples where they were and decided that I would scan the milk and the bottle of Sprite I’d grabbed, then get back to the apples.
However, because I hadn’t taken the apples off the belt, the lady overseeing the self-checkout decided that I must be planning to steal the apples and came rushing over yelling, “Hey, wait a minute!”
I said, “I was going to get to the apples in a minute. I just decided I’d scan the other stuff first.”
She grabbed the apples and started trying to scan them, blocking me from trying to scan the milk.
“I don’t know what the hell the problem is,” I said – she objected to my use of the “H” word – adding, “It scanned them once, then voided them. Then it wouldn’t accept the UPC.”
She said, rather snarkily, “Well, just wait a minute, we’ll see,” at which point she keyed the UPC in, exactly as I had, and this time it worked, which caused her to look at me with a smug smirk of satisfaction, which made me want to say, “Ah yes. You’re the smart one, which is why you’re in your fifties and working in a grocery store,” but I understand how important it is to feel superior to the people you deal with when you work in a shitty customer-service job, so I simply scanned the milk and Sprite, paid for them, and walked out resolving never to shop at that store again, suddenly feeling a little bit less irritated at the old guy at Wal-Mart.
But then I remembered that his problem had been actual retardation and not some weird issues with the register, and went back to believing him to be an idiot.
And that was my exciting day, filled to the brim with half-assed attempts at spontaneity which the Universe still managed to slap me down for even though they were incredibly lame instances of being spontaneous.
After I got home I decided to look up where Prairie actually is playing and decided that I still want to see it, after finding some theaters showing it, and gave Scott a call to see if he wants to catch a showing tomorrow.
We don’t have definite plans yet, as he has to talk to Stacy, who decided to come home as originally scheduled rather than staying in Utah a while longer.
Which brings me to a point I’ve been meaning to bring up.
Last week, when Scott told me that Stacy and the girls were staying in Utah a while longer, I asked him what he was going to do with the time to himself. He talked about finishing up some projects around the house, to which I responded, “Wow, bachelorhood is even more wasted on you than it is on me.”
Toward the end of doing more with my bachelorhood, I had tried making some bacheloresque plans for this week.
One day shortly after moving here I found myself looking through the Leesburg version of the freebie “newspaper” that got crammed into my mailbox every week in Ashburn, and amid the pages filled with ad after ad for real estate agencies, I spotted an ad for a strip club.
What was significant about it was that it boasted daytime hours of operation during the week with dancers.
Now, back in Tucson I learned, to my surprise and sorrow, that going to a place full of naked women actually isn’t as much fun when you’re sober (I’d hoped that it would be, though I suspected the truth all along), but even so, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.
It’s more of a curiosity thing than anything else; I just can’t help but wonder what daytime strippers, particularly daytime strippers in West Virginia, are like, so I suggested to Brian that some weekday we should head out to see if the daytime strippers are anything like the “daytime hooker” on My Name is Earl.
Last week I decided this would be the week that we would finally get around to going, but Brian had some prior commitment that prevented him from going.
So instead of going to a strip club I’ve decided to take in a movie about a radio show.
I suppose I could just go to the strip club by myself, but who wants to go to a strip club alone?
Okay, granted, I used to go to the strip club alone all the time when I lived in Minnesota, but that was a very different Jon, one who was not quite so accustomed to sitting at home alone doing nothing, and the strip club there was a lot closer to where I lived.
(Just so it’s clear, even if Stacy weren’t returning this week, asking Scott to go to the strip club wouldn’t have been an option, and I don’t want people to think that it’s a matter of preferring to spend time with Brian. Scott just plain can’t go to a strip club. Sure, Brian is also married, but I don’t think Kathleen would care, and it’s not Scott’s marital status that prevents him from going, it’s his religion.)
Scott just got the go-ahead, so I guess we’ll be off to the Prairie tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll slip a single to the usher just to liven things up…
After sitting around doing my usual not much of anything, I IMed Kathleen to see if she wanted to meet for lunch, as I was thinking about heading to Ashburn to gas up the car and over to the Wal-Mart in Sterling.
She was too busy to manage it, so I considered not going and just holding off until tomorrow, but finally decided that I might as well get it over with.
Now that school is out, Wal-Mart was even more filled to overflowing than usual, making me especially eager to get what I needed and get the hell out.
Every line was inordinately long, but by sheer chance I spotted a self-checkout register that had only one person at it.
Further, said person was buying one item.
So I thought, foolishly, that this was my lucky day.
The person ahead of me was an older, bald, grandfatherly type, buying some sort of ointment, who probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave the home unattended, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a piece of technology developed after 1960.
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that it took him ten minutes to pay for the one item that he’d bought. Thank god I’d gotten there after he’d managed to scan it (which I’m sure involved blind, random chance).
It took him quite some time to read the screen and figure out how he was going to pay for his purchase, ultimately deciding to go with cash.
He took several bills out of his wallet, put one in, looked at the screen, fumbled around in his pocket and dug out a bunch of change, and then began feeding coins to it like some blue-haired retiree playing the nickel slots.
After finishing that, he put in another bill, paused, read the screen, put another bill in, looked at me as if to say, “Screw you, you impatient young whippersnapper,” read the screen, put another bill in, put the remaining bills in his hand back into his wallet, put his wallet in his pocket, scratched himself thoughtfully, and then, and this is the part that baffled me, collected all of the coins he’d received in change. WTF? What was the point of loading the thing up with coins if you weren’t giving it exact change and were going to just get a bunch of change back?
Though I had seven times as much stuff and paid with a credit card, I was done in under a minute once I finally got my turn.
After finishing up at Wal-Mart, I considered my next move. It seemed like lunch was a decent idea, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, and I wasn’t especially hungry just yet.
Unless it’s something I really want to see, I don’t often go to movies by myself, but as I was sitting in my car thinking about what to do next, I thought about how I’d kind of like to see that Prairie Home Companion movie (I know; I’m a nerd) and thought, “What the hell; I’ll go see a movie.”
After all, it seemed like a waste to go out into the world just to get gas, stop at Wal-Mart, and get lunch. Why not do something outside of my routine?
Besides, one advantage to seeing a movie was that I could get myself a snack to tide me over while I watched the movie and decided what I wanted to do for lunch afterwards.
Of course, I hadn’t checked to see showtimes before heading out – the dangers of doing things spontaneously – and I didn’t have my cell phone with me to use for that purpose, as during the night the battery had died, so it was sitting at home on my counter charging.
Still, I figured that there was likely to be a showing soon enough, and if nothing else, I decided, maybe I’d check out The Da Vinci Code.
I got to the theater and found that not only was there not going to be showing of Prairie Home Companion anytime soon, it wasn’t playing at the theater at all.
I didn’t really feel up for The Da Vinci Code, and realized that I’d rather wait until after I finally manage to force myself to finish reading the book before I watch it (If I ever decide to watch it at all).
So, deciding that there’s a reason that I don’t engage in acts of spontaneity that are outside of my routine, I opted to simply head home and see what I could scrounge up for lunch.
Along the way I decided to give spontaneity another shot and turned off toward the Dulles Town Center to get lunch from the food court, but as I neared it I realized that the food court of a mall, in the summer, at noon, is the last place I would ever want to be, and so drove past, deciding, ultimately, to stop at the Uno’s located on the perimeter of the Town Center.
Though there were several cute young waitresses working there, as is invariably the case I ended up being waited on by the one male employee working the floor.
Every time that happens, which is pretty much every time I go somewhere to eat, I’m reminded of my pre-Smart Tag days when I would stop at the toll booth to pay the toll (which at that time was $.35), and if I had just one penny amid a dozen dimes in my pocket, I would grab the penny every single time.
I’m convinced that I could go into a Hooters and still manage to somehow not be waited on by a cute waitress.
Not that it really matters, given that at Uno’s the waitresses were undoubtedly teenagers, and even if they weren’t it’s not like I would suddenly turn into some smooth operator or something.
Still, it would be nice to be able to interact with a pretty girl every so often.
After eating I headed home, though I needed to pick up some milk, so I stopped at the Giant that’s along the way.
Once I got inside I was annoyed because someone decided that it was a good idea to have the layout of this Giant be the exact opposite of every other Giant I’ve ever been in.
While I was there I decided to pick up a bag of apples as well.
Getting what I needed, I headed to a self-checkout that wasn’t in use.
I didn’t feel like digging out my card, so I keyed in my phone number, to which the register responded, “Bonus Card accepted.”
After multiple attempts, which were beginning to annoy me, the apples scanned, the registered said, “$2.99. Scan next item or press Finish and Pay,” and I put the apples on the belt and turned for the milk. At that point the register said, “Please remove item from belt and try again. Credit $2.99,” and voided out the apples.
Annoyed and dismayed, I tried scanning the apples again, with no luck, so I decided to key in the UPC. I did so, set the apples back on the belt, and the register said, “Bonus Card not accepted.”
I sighed, left the apples where they were and decided that I would scan the milk and the bottle of Sprite I’d grabbed, then get back to the apples.
However, because I hadn’t taken the apples off the belt, the lady overseeing the self-checkout decided that I must be planning to steal the apples and came rushing over yelling, “Hey, wait a minute!”
I said, “I was going to get to the apples in a minute. I just decided I’d scan the other stuff first.”
She grabbed the apples and started trying to scan them, blocking me from trying to scan the milk.
“I don’t know what the hell the problem is,” I said – she objected to my use of the “H” word – adding, “It scanned them once, then voided them. Then it wouldn’t accept the UPC.”
She said, rather snarkily, “Well, just wait a minute, we’ll see,” at which point she keyed the UPC in, exactly as I had, and this time it worked, which caused her to look at me with a smug smirk of satisfaction, which made me want to say, “Ah yes. You’re the smart one, which is why you’re in your fifties and working in a grocery store,” but I understand how important it is to feel superior to the people you deal with when you work in a shitty customer-service job, so I simply scanned the milk and Sprite, paid for them, and walked out resolving never to shop at that store again, suddenly feeling a little bit less irritated at the old guy at Wal-Mart.
But then I remembered that his problem had been actual retardation and not some weird issues with the register, and went back to believing him to be an idiot.
And that was my exciting day, filled to the brim with half-assed attempts at spontaneity which the Universe still managed to slap me down for even though they were incredibly lame instances of being spontaneous.
After I got home I decided to look up where Prairie actually is playing and decided that I still want to see it, after finding some theaters showing it, and gave Scott a call to see if he wants to catch a showing tomorrow.
We don’t have definite plans yet, as he has to talk to Stacy, who decided to come home as originally scheduled rather than staying in Utah a while longer.
Which brings me to a point I’ve been meaning to bring up.
Last week, when Scott told me that Stacy and the girls were staying in Utah a while longer, I asked him what he was going to do with the time to himself. He talked about finishing up some projects around the house, to which I responded, “Wow, bachelorhood is even more wasted on you than it is on me.”
Toward the end of doing more with my bachelorhood, I had tried making some bacheloresque plans for this week.
One day shortly after moving here I found myself looking through the Leesburg version of the freebie “newspaper” that got crammed into my mailbox every week in Ashburn, and amid the pages filled with ad after ad for real estate agencies, I spotted an ad for a strip club.
What was significant about it was that it boasted daytime hours of operation during the week with dancers.
Now, back in Tucson I learned, to my surprise and sorrow, that going to a place full of naked women actually isn’t as much fun when you’re sober (I’d hoped that it would be, though I suspected the truth all along), but even so, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.
It’s more of a curiosity thing than anything else; I just can’t help but wonder what daytime strippers, particularly daytime strippers in West Virginia, are like, so I suggested to Brian that some weekday we should head out to see if the daytime strippers are anything like the “daytime hooker” on My Name is Earl.
Last week I decided this would be the week that we would finally get around to going, but Brian had some prior commitment that prevented him from going.
So instead of going to a strip club I’ve decided to take in a movie about a radio show.
I suppose I could just go to the strip club by myself, but who wants to go to a strip club alone?
Okay, granted, I used to go to the strip club alone all the time when I lived in Minnesota, but that was a very different Jon, one who was not quite so accustomed to sitting at home alone doing nothing, and the strip club there was a lot closer to where I lived.
(Just so it’s clear, even if Stacy weren’t returning this week, asking Scott to go to the strip club wouldn’t have been an option, and I don’t want people to think that it’s a matter of preferring to spend time with Brian. Scott just plain can’t go to a strip club. Sure, Brian is also married, but I don’t think Kathleen would care, and it’s not Scott’s marital status that prevents him from going, it’s his religion.)
Scott just got the go-ahead, so I guess we’ll be off to the Prairie tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll slip a single to the usher just to liven things up…
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Some Additional Closure
It occurred to me that in my previous post I made reference to Media Center seemingly screwing up when recording The Closer last night, but I never went on to explain (as I'd intended to) why it messed up.
After airing The Closer at 9, TNT premiered another new series called Saved at 10.
As they often do when premiering new shows, TNT aired Saved without commercial interruptions.
That meant that it ended well before 11, so when they rebroadcast The Closer, it started sometime well before my computer began recording at 10:58, and this is something that would not have been taken into consideration by the channel guide that Media Center uses.
So that explains that mystery.
On a related note, I'm guessing, based on the fact that the copy of The Closer I downloaded had no commercials and showed no signs of having been edited to remove commercials, that it was also aired without commercial interruption.
Anyway, just wanted to make sure I filled you in on what happened.
I'm sure you'll all sleep better knowing.
After airing The Closer at 9, TNT premiered another new series called Saved at 10.
As they often do when premiering new shows, TNT aired Saved without commercial interruptions.
That meant that it ended well before 11, so when they rebroadcast The Closer, it started sometime well before my computer began recording at 10:58, and this is something that would not have been taken into consideration by the channel guide that Media Center uses.
So that explains that mystery.
On a related note, I'm guessing, based on the fact that the copy of The Closer I downloaded had no commercials and showed no signs of having been edited to remove commercials, that it was also aired without commercial interruption.
Anyway, just wanted to make sure I filled you in on what happened.
I'm sure you'll all sleep better knowing.
A Do-Nothing Morning, Finally Getting some "Closure," Unhappy Trails, And My Brain Is Broken
For no apparent reason I was up until about 3 am last night, so this morning when 9 am rolled around and I found myself waking up I said, “Thank you, no,” and went back to sleep for another 40 minutes or so.
I would have stayed in bed even longer – it was quite pleasant with the cool breeze blowing in through the window – but I decided that I should get up and do something.
The belief that I should do something didn’t survive long after I’d gotten up, and it wasn’t until after 1 that I finally got off my ass and went for a walk.
I had recorded season premiere of The Closer when it was rebroadcast last night, as I was watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report at that time, and didn’t get around to watching the recording, even though, as mentioned, I was up late enough to have done so.
When I started to watch it today, though, I discovered that something was amiss.
Even though Media Center had, as it’s set to do, begun recording two minutes before the show was actually set to start, the show was already well underway.
Somehow I had missed the beginning.
I took a shot to see if anyone had posted it to a newsgroup and found that someone had, so I set it to download while I was walking.
The walk itself was uneventful. The system of trails – at least here in Leesburg – actually consists of two trails running parallel to each other in most places. One trail is paved while the other is not.
I’ve come to realize that the people who ride bikes believe that the paved trail is strictly for their use and that weirdoes who walk should be relegated to walking on the gravel trails that tend to be set further into the woods and as a result tend to be inhabited by a lot more insects.
Though it irks me to do so, I’ve taken to walking on the unpaved trails simply because I’m tired of having bicyclists stare at me as though I’m sort of freak as they whiz past.
Okay, so maybe I am a freak, but they don’t know that, and shouldn’t assume that I am just because I’m walking instead of riding a bike.
But whatever. Though the uneven trail is harder on my feet it’s worth it to be able to not have to deal with the bicyclists except on those sections where the paths converge and only the paved trail exists.
Once I got home from my 4+ mile walk I sat down and watched The Closer and enjoyed it a great deal. If you’ve never watched it, I’d advise checking it out (Mondays at 9 on TNT).
After that it was finishing up watching The Venture Bros. DVDs, and now here I am, writing this.
In yesterday’s entry I had started to write about an odd dream I’d had shortly before waking up, but decided not to include it as the entry was already long and the dream itself just serves as an addition to the mountain of evidence that suggests that there is something seriously wrong with my brain.
However, regular readers of Threshold already know that there’s something wrong with my brain, and new visitors tend to not come back anyway, so I figure I might as well just go ahead and share my dream with you now.
In the dream I had moved back to Michigan and accepted a new cushy job at the college I used to work at (and got fired from). Among the perks of the job was a big office, an office that, apparently, I was also going to be living in.
A couple of women I've never seen in my waking life, but who were, in the dream, old friends – they seemed to be composites of real people that I've known over the years – stopped by to visit and congratulate me on my new job…and to warn me about the rabid, disease-ridden monkey on the loose in the building.
They also made reference to the elderly couple living in the building who were some sort of religious nuts, and then went on to tell me about how they were going to go to some bar and have fun and how it was too bad that I couldn't join them because it was really going to be a blast, and that basically it must suck to be me and have to be sober all of the time and never have fun.
I thanked them for their concern with as much venomous sarcasm as I could muster and set to work on arranging my office/home.
Somewhere along the line I got bitten by the aforementioned monkey, and, dizzy from whatever monkey-borne pathogens were coursing through my system, went off in search of someone to take me to the hospital.
Naturally the only option available to me was the elderly religious nuts, who only agreed to help me – “Christian charity” not being a big motivator for them, apparently – after considerable debate.
Eventually they loaded me up into the backseat of their big boat of a car (some kind of 1970s Oldsmobile or Buick), and we were on our way.
At some point it became clear that they weren't taking me to the hospital. We drove past the bar where my friends were standing in line to get in and I yelled to them to come and help me, but they just waved and said they didn't want to lose their place in line.
Eventually we reached our destination, which was some kind of tent revival where they'd taken me to be cured by a faith healer.
From the backseat of the car I could see the bodies of the people the "healer" had been unable to save being hauled out one after the other from the tent and loaded onto the back of a truck. There were several other trucks that were already filled to overflowing with bodies.
When I made reference to this, the elderly couple simply shrugged and said that it was “God’s will.”
Though I was weak and groggy as they pulled me out of the car I managed to make a break for it before they hauled me into the tent. As I ran I could hear them screaming about how only Jesus could save me, but as they said this all I could think about was how Jesus couldn't even save Himself.
Somewhere along the line I stumbled, fell, and began hallucinating (which is no mean feat inside of a dream), imagining myself running along some kind of cartoon arrows that were part of a Subway commercial.
When the commercial was over, I was watching a movie starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd.
The movie appeared to be a “pseudo-sequel” to Spies Like Us, something similar to what they did with that movie Fierce Creatures, which was wholly unrelated to A Fish Called Wanda, but featured the exact same cast.
I didn’t catch too much of the plot before waking up.
As I said, it’s another piece of evidence for the “Jon’s Brain is Broken” file.
I would have stayed in bed even longer – it was quite pleasant with the cool breeze blowing in through the window – but I decided that I should get up and do something.
The belief that I should do something didn’t survive long after I’d gotten up, and it wasn’t until after 1 that I finally got off my ass and went for a walk.
I had recorded season premiere of The Closer when it was rebroadcast last night, as I was watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report at that time, and didn’t get around to watching the recording, even though, as mentioned, I was up late enough to have done so.
When I started to watch it today, though, I discovered that something was amiss.
Even though Media Center had, as it’s set to do, begun recording two minutes before the show was actually set to start, the show was already well underway.
Somehow I had missed the beginning.
I took a shot to see if anyone had posted it to a newsgroup and found that someone had, so I set it to download while I was walking.
The walk itself was uneventful. The system of trails – at least here in Leesburg – actually consists of two trails running parallel to each other in most places. One trail is paved while the other is not.
I’ve come to realize that the people who ride bikes believe that the paved trail is strictly for their use and that weirdoes who walk should be relegated to walking on the gravel trails that tend to be set further into the woods and as a result tend to be inhabited by a lot more insects.
Though it irks me to do so, I’ve taken to walking on the unpaved trails simply because I’m tired of having bicyclists stare at me as though I’m sort of freak as they whiz past.
Okay, so maybe I am a freak, but they don’t know that, and shouldn’t assume that I am just because I’m walking instead of riding a bike.
But whatever. Though the uneven trail is harder on my feet it’s worth it to be able to not have to deal with the bicyclists except on those sections where the paths converge and only the paved trail exists.
Once I got home from my 4+ mile walk I sat down and watched The Closer and enjoyed it a great deal. If you’ve never watched it, I’d advise checking it out (Mondays at 9 on TNT).
After that it was finishing up watching The Venture Bros. DVDs, and now here I am, writing this.
In yesterday’s entry I had started to write about an odd dream I’d had shortly before waking up, but decided not to include it as the entry was already long and the dream itself just serves as an addition to the mountain of evidence that suggests that there is something seriously wrong with my brain.
However, regular readers of Threshold already know that there’s something wrong with my brain, and new visitors tend to not come back anyway, so I figure I might as well just go ahead and share my dream with you now.
In the dream I had moved back to Michigan and accepted a new cushy job at the college I used to work at (and got fired from). Among the perks of the job was a big office, an office that, apparently, I was also going to be living in.
A couple of women I've never seen in my waking life, but who were, in the dream, old friends – they seemed to be composites of real people that I've known over the years – stopped by to visit and congratulate me on my new job…and to warn me about the rabid, disease-ridden monkey on the loose in the building.
They also made reference to the elderly couple living in the building who were some sort of religious nuts, and then went on to tell me about how they were going to go to some bar and have fun and how it was too bad that I couldn't join them because it was really going to be a blast, and that basically it must suck to be me and have to be sober all of the time and never have fun.
I thanked them for their concern with as much venomous sarcasm as I could muster and set to work on arranging my office/home.
Somewhere along the line I got bitten by the aforementioned monkey, and, dizzy from whatever monkey-borne pathogens were coursing through my system, went off in search of someone to take me to the hospital.
Naturally the only option available to me was the elderly religious nuts, who only agreed to help me – “Christian charity” not being a big motivator for them, apparently – after considerable debate.
Eventually they loaded me up into the backseat of their big boat of a car (some kind of 1970s Oldsmobile or Buick), and we were on our way.
At some point it became clear that they weren't taking me to the hospital. We drove past the bar where my friends were standing in line to get in and I yelled to them to come and help me, but they just waved and said they didn't want to lose their place in line.
Eventually we reached our destination, which was some kind of tent revival where they'd taken me to be cured by a faith healer.
From the backseat of the car I could see the bodies of the people the "healer" had been unable to save being hauled out one after the other from the tent and loaded onto the back of a truck. There were several other trucks that were already filled to overflowing with bodies.
When I made reference to this, the elderly couple simply shrugged and said that it was “God’s will.”
Though I was weak and groggy as they pulled me out of the car I managed to make a break for it before they hauled me into the tent. As I ran I could hear them screaming about how only Jesus could save me, but as they said this all I could think about was how Jesus couldn't even save Himself.
Somewhere along the line I stumbled, fell, and began hallucinating (which is no mean feat inside of a dream), imagining myself running along some kind of cartoon arrows that were part of a Subway commercial.
When the commercial was over, I was watching a movie starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd.
The movie appeared to be a “pseudo-sequel” to Spies Like Us, something similar to what they did with that movie Fierce Creatures, which was wholly unrelated to A Fish Called Wanda, but featured the exact same cast.
I didn’t catch too much of the plot before waking up.
As I said, it’s another piece of evidence for the “Jon’s Brain is Broken” file.
Monday, June 12, 2006
I Just LOVE It...
...when I find out at 9:45 that the show that I thought started at 10 actually started at 9.
*Sigh*
Oh well, at least TNT never airs an episode of one of its series just once a night, so I can still catch the season premiere of The Closer at 11...
*Sigh*
Oh well, at least TNT never airs an episode of one of its series just once a night, so I can still catch the season premiere of The Closer at 11...
Add This To The List
Here's something else that doesn't suck (in fact it's actually very, very cool).
This is also pretty entertaining, as it shows that the judicious application of swear words can actually help you get things done.
This is also pretty entertaining, as it shows that the judicious application of swear words can actually help you get things done.
At Odds With Everything
Sometime Thursday morning I got a call from Scott asking if I could pick him up from the airport.
Naturally I agreed that I would, though I was a little babbled about the fact that I would be just picking him up, but it turns out that Stacy and the girls were staying in Utah a while longer and flying back later.
When he called he’d mentioned that there is now a “cell phone waiting area” at Dulles so I wouldn’t have to just drive around and around waiting for him.
I hadn’t known there was such a thing until he told me, so naturally I had no idea where it was, and when I got to the airport and tried following the signs that led to the cell phone waiting area, the light drizzle naturally took that opportunity to become a torrential downpour, severely limiting visibility.
Still, despite my inability to see where I was going, the frightened/aggressive driving of the other people fumbling blindly/stupidly through the rain, and the fact that every lane I drove in kept changing into turning lanes or simply ending with little or no warning, I managed to make my way there.
That was followed by some confusion as to which level Scott was on (“You drove right past me!”), but ultimately I managed to pick him up and bring him home, though apparently rush hour traffic begins at 3:00 out here, as the drive to Manassas was much more of a crawl than it ought to have been.
Prior to heading out to pick Scott up I’d managed to finish that picture of Jessica Simpson that was, apparently, both disturbing and unrecognizable. As mentioned before, Blogger issues prevented me from posting it that day, though I guess it might have been just as well if I’d never posted it all…
The weekend itself was largely uneventful, though having Scott back did make it go somewhat faster than the last weekend had.
I had resolved to make it the first weekend since “easing back into” working out in which I would go in to work out all three days, as I’ve been failing to rouse myself on Sunday mornings to make the third time the charm.
While I failed in this resolution in that I only went in on two mornings, it was Saturday on which I failed to get myself to go in, so that’s…well, I guess that’s not anything, really, but still, it seems like a kind of progress, especially given that Saturday’s workout – doing about a mile and a half on the treadmill – is less intense than Friday and Sunday’s.
But whatever.
Saturday night when I was driving home I found myself behind an SUV with a broken taillight, and for reasons that I could never articulate (there are times when I don’t understand my own motivations), I found that being behind this particular SUV pissed me off to no end.
As I said, I couldn’t tell you why it pissed me off – it wasn’t especially slow-moving and didn’t have an annoying vanity plate or anything – but it did, and when I got off of 28 and onto 7 I was relieved to have gotten out from behind it.
Except that I hadn’t. Traffic shifted shortly after I merged onto 7 and there it was, broken taillight and all, directly in front of me.
I was pretty well penned-in, so I couldn’t easily get out from behind it, which was making me even angrier, until finally traffic in the right lane started moving faster, so I switched lanes…only to find that, as was to be expected, traffic in that lane immediately slowed down, and to my left I saw the SUV go past with its turn signal indicating that it was coming into my lane just ahead of the car in front of me.
Said car took the next exit, and for the rest of my drive to Leesburg I was stuck behind that damned SUV.
WTF was up with that? Hello, Universe, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, or whoever is running the show, I’d really like to know what the hell you were getting at with all of that (and why being behind that particular SUV pissed me off so much in the first place).
*Sigh*
Of course, I suppose it’s not too surprising that something so random would piss me off, given that at the best of times I’m on edge and most anything can piss me off.
Even doormats, as I discovered a few weeks ago while cutting through the breezeways of other buildings on my way out to the sidewalk when going for a walk.
It went something like this:
Cutesy little doormat: Wipe Your Paws!
Me: Kiss My Ass
It’s moments like that in which I find myself asking, “Why am I so angry all of the time?”
But then I realize, “Oh yeah; everything sucks.”
Okay, that’s an unfair and inaccurate generalization, as clearly not everything sucks.
The world does, after all, have many wonderful things to offer: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Sarah McLachlan, much of Adult Swim’s programming (minus Tom Goes To the Mayor and all of the anime crap), Rachael Leigh Cook, Michelle Collins, and far too many people, things, and creative works to mention, but you get the idea.
Though sometimes it can be nearly impossible to see it through all of the suckiness, there is much about this life and this world that doesn’t suck.
The real problem is the simple fact that I seem to have been designed solely for the purpose of being at odds with most everything and everyone around me.
Well, that and the fact that I need to get laid so desperately that at this point it goes wah beyond being either funny or sad or even completely and utterly pathetic and pitiful.
*Sigh*
On a happier front, my sister and her family are spending the week at Disney World and by all accounts (“all accounts” consisting of my mother) are having a blast.
Hopefully none of their fun will be impacted by the tropical storm.
In any case, that’s enough randomness for one entry, I think.
Naturally I agreed that I would, though I was a little babbled about the fact that I would be just picking him up, but it turns out that Stacy and the girls were staying in Utah a while longer and flying back later.
When he called he’d mentioned that there is now a “cell phone waiting area” at Dulles so I wouldn’t have to just drive around and around waiting for him.
I hadn’t known there was such a thing until he told me, so naturally I had no idea where it was, and when I got to the airport and tried following the signs that led to the cell phone waiting area, the light drizzle naturally took that opportunity to become a torrential downpour, severely limiting visibility.
Still, despite my inability to see where I was going, the frightened/aggressive driving of the other people fumbling blindly/stupidly through the rain, and the fact that every lane I drove in kept changing into turning lanes or simply ending with little or no warning, I managed to make my way there.
That was followed by some confusion as to which level Scott was on (“You drove right past me!”), but ultimately I managed to pick him up and bring him home, though apparently rush hour traffic begins at 3:00 out here, as the drive to Manassas was much more of a crawl than it ought to have been.
Prior to heading out to pick Scott up I’d managed to finish that picture of Jessica Simpson that was, apparently, both disturbing and unrecognizable. As mentioned before, Blogger issues prevented me from posting it that day, though I guess it might have been just as well if I’d never posted it all…
The weekend itself was largely uneventful, though having Scott back did make it go somewhat faster than the last weekend had.
I had resolved to make it the first weekend since “easing back into” working out in which I would go in to work out all three days, as I’ve been failing to rouse myself on Sunday mornings to make the third time the charm.
While I failed in this resolution in that I only went in on two mornings, it was Saturday on which I failed to get myself to go in, so that’s…well, I guess that’s not anything, really, but still, it seems like a kind of progress, especially given that Saturday’s workout – doing about a mile and a half on the treadmill – is less intense than Friday and Sunday’s.
But whatever.
Saturday night when I was driving home I found myself behind an SUV with a broken taillight, and for reasons that I could never articulate (there are times when I don’t understand my own motivations), I found that being behind this particular SUV pissed me off to no end.
As I said, I couldn’t tell you why it pissed me off – it wasn’t especially slow-moving and didn’t have an annoying vanity plate or anything – but it did, and when I got off of 28 and onto 7 I was relieved to have gotten out from behind it.
Except that I hadn’t. Traffic shifted shortly after I merged onto 7 and there it was, broken taillight and all, directly in front of me.
I was pretty well penned-in, so I couldn’t easily get out from behind it, which was making me even angrier, until finally traffic in the right lane started moving faster, so I switched lanes…only to find that, as was to be expected, traffic in that lane immediately slowed down, and to my left I saw the SUV go past with its turn signal indicating that it was coming into my lane just ahead of the car in front of me.
Said car took the next exit, and for the rest of my drive to Leesburg I was stuck behind that damned SUV.
WTF was up with that? Hello, Universe, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, or whoever is running the show, I’d really like to know what the hell you were getting at with all of that (and why being behind that particular SUV pissed me off so much in the first place).
*Sigh*
Of course, I suppose it’s not too surprising that something so random would piss me off, given that at the best of times I’m on edge and most anything can piss me off.
Even doormats, as I discovered a few weeks ago while cutting through the breezeways of other buildings on my way out to the sidewalk when going for a walk.
It went something like this:
Cutesy little doormat: Wipe Your Paws!
Me: Kiss My Ass
It’s moments like that in which I find myself asking, “Why am I so angry all of the time?”
But then I realize, “Oh yeah; everything sucks.”
Okay, that’s an unfair and inaccurate generalization, as clearly not everything sucks.
The world does, after all, have many wonderful things to offer: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Sarah McLachlan, much of Adult Swim’s programming (minus Tom Goes To the Mayor and all of the anime crap), Rachael Leigh Cook, Michelle Collins, and far too many people, things, and creative works to mention, but you get the idea.
Though sometimes it can be nearly impossible to see it through all of the suckiness, there is much about this life and this world that doesn’t suck.
The real problem is the simple fact that I seem to have been designed solely for the purpose of being at odds with most everything and everyone around me.
Well, that and the fact that I need to get laid so desperately that at this point it goes wah beyond being either funny or sad or even completely and utterly pathetic and pitiful.
*Sigh*
On a happier front, my sister and her family are spending the week at Disney World and by all accounts (“all accounts” consisting of my mother) are having a blast.
Hopefully none of their fun will be impacted by the tropical storm.
In any case, that’s enough randomness for one entry, I think.
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