Instant Gratification

I'll admit it, I'm all about instant gratification. I want things now, if not sooner. So when I ordered my new laptop from Dell last Wednesday, and knew I'd have to wait for it to show up, well that was hard. Especially considering how much cash I dropped on it. One of the laws of instant gratification reads: The level of desire is directly proportional to the amount of money spent. By that reasoning, I wanted this 10 times more quickly than 14 Montreal lapdances. And considering how fast those materialze when you shell out the money, well that gives you an idea how quickly I wanted this computer.

Upon ordering, I was given a shipping date of March 2nd. That's the date the expect to get the computer built and in the mail to you. I must, however, give Dell all my love for never adhering to that date, (at least not on the two computers I've gotten from them.) Both times they've been early. My computer shipped last Saturday.

Another tool of instant gratification, also graciously provided by Dell, is the tracking number. With that you can pull up your order on UPS.com once or twice or many times a day and see where it is. Oh, it's in Tennessee. Good, it arrived in Somerville. Estimated delivery date: 2/28/05.

Which is, of course, today.

So I'm sitting at work, checking and rechecking my tracking number, like my computer will get any more "here" throughout the day. When not tracking my package, I'm worrying that they'll drop it off on my fron porch and some kids walking by will see a nice big box that says: "Dell" and come to refer to the porch of 28 Princeton Street in Medford as "Free Computer Land!"

However, when I finally get home, driving a little faster than usual, there is no computer, but a message from UPS that they tried to deliver but needed a signature. Thankfully, I have the option of picking it up, which I schedule for between 7 and 7:30PM. I head off to the gym, wondering if the UPS warehouse guys are playing soccer in the back room with my Dell box, and on my way home head over to the UPS center, promptly getting lost a few times. Have you ever noticed how UPS centers are 1)Not easy to find? and 2)Always in neighborhoods you wouldn't even take your gun out for a walk in? I don't mean a UPS store, but an actual warehouse. They seem to like to set these places up in the neighborhoods that inspired Judgement Night.

So I get there and hop in the Customer Pickup line. Everyone involved with this process just reeks of misery. The customers waiting to pick up their packages, the employees assisting them, everyone. Imagine the combined mental state of everyone waiting in jury duty hoping not to get picked, sitting in a dentist's waiting room, collecting unemployment (provided they actually want to work), and visiting an STD clinic, and you'll get the idea of what it felt like waiiting in this line for the 20 or so minutes I was there. I was feeling pretty good when I walked in, and pretty crappy when I walked out, which was odd since I was finally being gratified with my laptop.

Anyway, I have it now, and I'm typing this from the comfort of my bed, which is much more pleasant on the ass than my computer chair. I've spent the evening installing stuff I needed, removing stuff I didn't, and wirelessly surfing the net just because I could.

It's all good. Fo shizzle.

Mmm, pain.

So I have a sore throat, I've had it since Friday. Here I am sitting at my desk at work, armed with a bag of Halls cough drops (cherry flavor), a mostly empty bottle of Advil, and some tea with lemon, dreading each painful swallow.

Out of any of the recurring, minor illnesses that one might get from year to year: cold, fever, cough, malaria, etc., a sore throat is by far my least favorite. I tend to get one maybe two times a year. I expect it. But never enjoy it, of course. Reason being is that with anything else, yeah you feel crappy, but you can always decide to just go to sleep and be oblivious to it for a while. (And with fevers, I usually get awesomely weird fever dreams.) But with a sore throat, although you can do the same, you do it with the knowledge that you're going to wake up feeling worse than when you went to bed. Because your throat dries out while you sleep and the pain when you wake up is magnified by a factor of infinty + 1.

Someone get me some local anathesia, stat!
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So, I saw some movies over the weekend.

Munich - That now makes 4 of the 5 Oscar nominees for Best Film. This one also shouldn't win. Although it was good, it was a bit....clunky. For the most part, I didn't get any real sense of the characters, even Eric Bana's main character, at least not until the end. You'd think that 5 people sent out to assassinate 11 people that planned the Black September massacre at the 1972 Olympic games would have some pretty strong feelings about their mission and how it made them feel. But you really couldn't tell from the film. Only towards the end of the film, when Eric Bana's Avner started getting paranoid, did we really start to see how all this was affecting him. Otherwise it was a pretty good film.

Spielberg has a reputation for working very quickly and efficiently. Hell, in the past year, he's had three movies out: Munich, War of the Worlds, and The Terminal. That's pretty much unheard of for a director, especially one working in the big-budget Hollywood system. However, I don't think such a quick schedule benefitted Munich very much.

Nightwatch - Nightwatch is a Russian film I first heard about from my sister's column here. I'm not going to go into a full explanation, because that would be pretty long, as the film is pretty unique. Sufficed to say it's sort of a vampire movie, but not really. In fact, I'd put it more in the category of a faerie story. There are a group of Others, not quite human, that have special powers. They are separated into two groups: Light Others and Dark Others. Obviously they're not quite friends. They've been known to battle in the past. However, since they were so evenly matched and any true war between them would result in the obliteration of both sides, a truce was signed. Now they basically just police each other. That is until an Other of such power is born that his choice of which side he chooses, Light or Dark, will shift the balance of power. Of course this movie deals with that Other. Sort of. It also deals with a cursed woman and a big vortex. It's hard to explain, but enjoyable to watch. Very unique looking film. I'm intruiged to see more, so it's lucky for me that this film is apparently first in a trilogy. This was the best film I saw this weekend.

One oddity, however. Althought the film is in Russian with subtitles for English, there's some expository monologues at the beginning and end in English? I wonder if that was just thrown in for the American release.

Final Destination 3 - What can I say about this one? You know how it goes in horror franchises, rarely do they get better as they go along. However, knowing that going in, FD3 was at least fun. And that's really all one can ask for in this type of situation. In this franchise we're not dealing with a recognizable "face" for the bad guy. No Freddy or Jason or Michael Myers. Nope, just good old death, but death as a force with a will. And as we've seen from the previous film's, not a will easily thwarted. The centerpiece to this film is a rollercoaster ride gone lethally bad. Per usual, one teen has a premonition, and a handful of people get off the ride before everything goes bad. Death, of course, gets pissed and starts hunting them down and killing them in inventive, and suprisingly gruesome, ways. We're not talking Shakespeare here. But like I said, it was at least fun. You go to a FD movie largely to see some inventive dying, and FD3 delivered.

In retrospect...

"Longview" from Green Day came on the radio today while on my way to work. I hated, hated, HATED this song, and Green Day when they first came out. Nowadays, I kind of like it. I look back and think to myself: "Green Day was actually pretty good." (It doesn't hurt that their new album, while predictably overplayed, is pretty awesome.)

But it illuminates something I think about sometimes. Bands that I didn't much care for 10 years (or so) when they first emerged, but do now, is it because my tastes have expanded to include them? Or is it because, in retrospect, they're much better than what's being offered now? Like, in 10 years, will I be saying: "That Franz Ferdinand is really actually pretty good"?

OK, I really doubt that one.

I prefer to think it's the first option. But that's mainly because I don't want to turn into one of those guys that starts all their sentences with: "Back in my day, music was..." But who knows, maybe it's not stagnating curmudgeonny appearing as I grow older. Maybe rock music is actually getting worse. (I say rock music, because I think pop music of the past few years has actually been pretty good.)

One thing's for sure, it's always changing. Faster now than ever. And there will always be something new out there I'll think is good. It's just a matter of finding it.
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Speaking of music, I've heard "Burning for You" by the Blue Oyster Cult a couple of times recently on the radio. What a good tune. Never thought I'd be driving along and have that come on the radio and think to myself: "I didn't know it, but this is EXACTLY what I wanted to hear right now."
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Yesterday, I dropped $1,400 on a new laptop. It's a Dell, so I don't even have the instant gratification of taking it home right away. Basically, I spent all that money on the idea of a new laptop, the reality of which will arrive in about a week and a half or so.

Spending that kind of money all at once is always tough, even in a case like this where I have the money earmarked for just this purpose. (I don't actually HAVE all the money yet, some of it's tied up in tax returns I'm still waiting one and Ebay sales of old comic books, and the impending Craigslist sale of a TV. But the money to pay for it will all be coming in within a month or so. I was going to wait until I actually had all the cash in hand, but I bought yesterday merely because Dell was having some good deals.)

But the point is, there's always that sharp and instantaneous, if short-lived, buyer's remorse after I spend that kind of cash on something. I configured my system on Dell's website, added it to my "Shopping Cart", put in my payment information....looked at the submit button for about two minutes....finally pressed it. And then 30 seconds later, after I got my confirmation, thought: "Oh, God! What did I just do?!?!"

This seems to happen to me with all my big purchases. Not that I didn't want to do it, but the idea of spending all that money at once always kind of weirds me out briefly.

But the computer....yeah this thing is decked out. Got it set up primarily for recording. I've been meaning to build up my computer recording rig, and this was step one, largely because I needed a computer with at least one Firewire port for the I/O I want to eventually buy. And also, because I wanted something portable. Now (technically: soon), I can record on the road. Not that I necessarily will a lot, that would be dependent on having the chance to, but I can. Also, this laptop has an internal wireless internet connection which rocks a lot because now I can do things like:

- Stat track my fantasy football teams while watching the games in my living room. No more running back and forth to my room during commercials.
- Surf for porn on the internet while watching porn on TV.
- Feel at home in coffee shops.

All in all, now that my buyer's remorse has gone away, not a bad purchase. Now if it would just get here.

And the Oscar goes to....

I've now seen 3 of the 5 films nominated for Best Picture for 2005. Brokeback Mountain is reviewed elsewhere in this blog.

I saw Crash on Saturday, and what I learned from that film is this: Racism is heavy handed. Really it's a shame that a relatively well directed film, with some good performances, had to sink under the ham fistedness of it's message. Apparently everyone of every race is racist towards everyone else of different races. That's what I took away from it.

I saw Capote yesterday. It was about a four year period in Truman Capote's life where he's researching and writing his book In Cold Blood, about the murder of a family of four in Kansas. It was good, but upon initial viewing appeared overly ambiguous. It took some thinking about (and admittedly some reading of others' reviews) to get a better understanding of the film. In essence, it's a polar opposite of Crash. Where Crash was blatant to a fault, Capote is subtle, almost to a fault as well. Especially in his relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers of the Clutter family. I know pretty much nothing about the real life Truman Capote, but Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers and excellent performance, which is not surprising. That appears to be the norm for him. And of course, now I ahve a new book to add to my list of things to read, and I think when I eventually get to read In Cold Blood, my appreciation of the film may deepen as well.

So, that's 3 out of the 5. Good Night, And Good Luck and Munich remain. Unless it comes to the Somerville theater, I may be out of luck with Good Night, And Good Luck. I don't think it'll be out on DVD before the Oscars in a few weeks. Munich, however is still playing, so maybe I can get to see it sometime this week.

But, out of the three I've seen so far, I'm still tossing my vote in with the gay cowboys of Brokeback Mountain.

Weird weekend.

Last Thursday I wake up at the ungodly hour of 5am, do morning things, grab my suitcase and catch a cab to Logan for a 7am flight to Austin, TX. The couple of times that I've taken a cab to the airport at ungodly early hours, it seems I get the chatty guys. Every other time I've taken a cab, I get the more laconic type. Is it really too much to ask for a reversal of that kind of fortune. Small talk's not much on my mind when I'm using most of my energy just to stay awake.

So, this Austin trip has been on the radar for a while. Even though I only set it up a couple of months ago, I knew it would be happening soon for a while before that. Recently, going through one of my usual phases of, "This winter thing sucks...what am I doing here?...I should move someplace warm." I made a mental list of places I would consider moving, if I ever did decide to. It was a short list. I wanted to still be in a decent sized city. Some place with a good music scene. Maybe someplace a little eccentric. It was a short list. Los Angeles, of course. Atlanta. And Austin.

L.A. I'd already been to a few times. I didn't have to go back to know I'd seriously consider it. Atlanta, I checked out briefly about a year and a half ago. And now I've knocked Austin off the list.

So, how was it?

A bit underwheleming, I'm afraid to say. Although there are conditions on that.

First, when I go to a new city, some place I haven't been before, I try to set my self up in an area where I think there'll be a lot going on. So, typically, that would mean "downtown," unless I already know otherwise. For instance, I know downtown L.A. was not really the area I wanted to be in when I went there. Hollywood was more the scene I was interested in. So, for Austin, not hearing otherwise, I chose downtown as the place to stay. I wasn't renting a car, so I wanted to be within walking distance of stuff, or on/near public transportation.

Now, the problem I found with downtown Austin (or what I saw of it), is that it's a largely a "business" downtown, which is to say a lot of companies. Also, being the capital of TX, there's a lot of government there as well. Basically, not places you're going to hang out. It sleemed like a very slow area, even on the weekend. No funky little shops. You even had to walk a few blocks before hitting your first restaraunt.

The one exception to this was of course 6th street, which would be like the Austin equivalent of the French Quarter. But even that didn't really get busy until night time. At which point the roughly 100 dozen bars attracted thousands of people. They close off certain blocks of the street to traffic, and the city's party-going population walk (and eventually stagger) from bar to bar. There's no cover anywhere (at least that I went to) on the street, and drinking in Austin is not expensive. There's a pretty decent mix of live music venues, DJ venues, and dance venues. We saw a bit of all of them. And while it was an enjoyable enough for the weekend, it seemed like the type of scene that would get old quickly. It felt a bit too contrived (although that type of scene anywhere probably is to some degree or another.) But it felt worse here, mostly because for a few weeks before I went, all I heard about was "Oh yeah, 6th street. Gotta go to 6th street. 6th street is the place to be." Anywhere I did research on what to do. Hell, even a guy who called into the Help Desk from TX, when making small talk, mentioned it.

It was fun, but after three nights in a row, I realized it's wouldn't be the type of place I'd ben spending entire weekends.

Now, there's a caveat to these downsides. I mentioned before that when I go to a new city, unless I already know otherwise, I usually chose a downtown location to base out of. Works great for a Montreal, or for a New York. But to liken it to a city in which I'm intimately familiar, it would be like staying at a hotel in downtown Boston and not straying far from that area. I don't particularly hang out much in that area, and I'd miss out on places I do hang out, which would be more Cambridge, Somerville, Allston. I'm sure Austin has these equivalents, but not knowing anyone there, and not knowing a public transportation system well enough to get to said areas (if we knew where they were) made it hard to really branch out.

Also, there was the fact that according to local weather forecasts, it was the coldest weekend Austin had experienced in a while. The first day we were there was pretty nice. The second was rainy and cold, and the third windy and cold. I wasn't packed for that. I thought I was getting away from cold.

The biggest thing however, was actually from back the Boston way. We (me and Matt) found out Thursday night that my aunt Shirley was in the hospital and not doing very well. The connection is obvious for me; and Matt grew up around the corner from their family and was good friends with her son (which is how I met him, incidentally). So when we found out Saturday that she had passed away, it seemed to cast a bit of a pall over rest of the trip. It was shocking mostly because it was so quick. She was admitted Wednesday night and passed away on Friday. It was kidney or liver failure, from what I heard. I'm a bit unclear on the details because I got them piecemeal over the weekend.

And a blizzard. The biggest storm of the 2005-06 winter hit Boston on Sunday morning/afternoon. The very day we were supposed to fly back. So after spending many minutes on hold with Jet Blue, once on Saturday night, and again on Sunday, we find out that our flight is stills cheduled to go, albeit with about an hour delay. Although we hear that Logan airport is either closed or or 90% closed (depending on the report). Apparently, however, our flight was one of the 10% that felt that flying into a blizzard with high wind gusts (more the problem, in my estimation) was a fine idea. So we only got back an hour or so later than originally planned. Of course, landing at Logan was the concern on everyone's mind, but all things considered, although tense at the time, it was very smooth. I've experienced worse landings in much better weather.

All things considered, coming home to cold, shoveling, and a funeral, however, I might not have minded as much a canceled flight. It was an interesting weekend, should be an interesting week. More in the Chinese curse sense of the word.

Music

"I like everything except country."

You all know this statement. In fact, some of you have probably even said it before. I know I have. Back in my younger days. Except mine, originally, was: "I like everything except rap and country." (Note: Run DMC notwithstanding. Since they played with Aerosmith on the first thing I ever heard from them, they never seemed like rap to me, not at the time.) Then the early 90's hit and there was some rap going on that I liked. So, I officially liked everything except country.

Which was a foolish thing to say, because it would have meant that I liked Baroque era chamber music and polka and Balinese Gamelan music, all of which is untrue. Especially considering that, much like that Hoobastank song "The Reason", I can't imagine anyone truly likes Balinese Gamelan music; they've only tricked themselves into thinking they do.

But even today, I still see people say that. (Usually when I'm shopping for girls on Myspace.) But I can no longer make that claim. When I was on my little southern road trip back at the end of the summer of 2004 I had ample opportunity to hear lots of country music. And it wasn't so bad. Now, not to worry, I've no plans to run out and grab some new boots and 10-gallon hat anytime soon, (although some of the belt buckles are pretty awesome).

It's cool amongst some of the "hipper" crowds to like some country. Johnny Cash, of course. Hank Williams. Old school stuff. No one who cares what people think of their CD collection to have albums by these artists in their CD collections. (Of course these are also the people that tend to think that PBR is the pinnacle of beer.) But the newer pop country stuff has merit too, and I'll tell you why. Of the stuff I've heard, it is almost always very earnest and very sincere. When someone (I don't know the artist) sings "I put the bottle to my head and pulled the trigger," despite the obvious humor of this image, they really mean it. (Also, depsite the hilarity of this chorus, the song is actually pretty sad.) It could be cheesy, hokey, silly, pollyanna-ish, but you know what, I believe them more than I believe whatever girl problems Coheed and Cambria are singing about or whatever the latest angst the Killers are feeling.

What I've found is this: Popular country music to me is the equivalent of pop music. It's usually catchy, usually simple, and easy to listen to. Flipping through the radio stations I'd probably be more likely nowadays to stop at some country tune (not that we get a lot of that here in Boston) than whatever the next cool thing WFNX is preaching. I'm probably just getting old, losing touch with "those crazy kids."