6 minute blog

I have 6 minutes before I go to lunch and I'm hovering on that edge of boredom. That far edge of boredom that is one step away from wanting to be unconscious just to relieve it.

So, I'm go to type 6 minutes worth of pointless blog, just to kill the time.

"Kill the time?" What a weird phrase. You're not "passing the time", you're killing it. Seems like a rather violent way to do anything to time. Either way, you're finding a way to waste it, spend it, make use of it. But really, what has time ever done to me that I feel so violent towards it? Nothing, really, except make me older.

Which, I guess is bad enough. Aside from hitting legal drinking age is there really any age landmarks that are so impotrant that you can't wait to get to them? The ability to rent a car at a reduced rate at 25 is nice, but I wouldn't say I looked forward to it. Retirement? Sure, that'll be great, but then I'll be old.

It's like when people ask if you had the chance to go back and do it all over, would you? I give an unequivocal "Yes!" reply to that question. No matter the stipulations. Knowing what I know now. If I couldn't change a thing. Either way, definitely yes. Hell the problems of 21 aren't much different than the problems of 31. Both seem huge at the time, and relatively miniscule in the rear view mirror. The only difference is that at 21 I didn't feel as old as 31. And that counts for a lot.

Time's up. Lunch!

The special hell

On average I've heard the song Voices Carrry by Til Tuesday about once every two days for the past week and a half or so. Not that I'm complaining, because it's a good song with an odd meter to the verse which I've just now noticed. But it makes for a good lead in (if you bear with me.)

I went and saw Silent Hill yesterday. The film itself was hit and miss. It's a little short of plot and I wonder how much sense it will make to someone who hasn't played the game. But visually and sonically it was very interesting and creepy. And I guess as far as horror movies go I'd rather see something that sacrifices story for vibe. If I can't have both, that is. The great thing about the visuals is that they're pulled largely right from the game. And Silent Hill as a game is one of the scariest experiences you can have. There was a very cartoonish, unreal vibe to what you saw, very dreamlike. The great thing about the sound/music is that it was created by the guy who wrote the music for the games. There were a couple of times during the film that I just wanted the "music" to stop because it was making me uncomfortable. It sounded like something you'd hear in a nightmare. And that's good. The problem with the plot is that it was TOO true to the game. Which may sound weird, but video game logic is good for video games, not so much for a feature film.

The one thing I really don't udnerstand, however, is people that pay $7 for a movie and then talk throughout the whole thing. The good thing about talking to my friends is I can do it for free. And when these inconsiderate bitches (forgive me as I'm going to get increasingly crude here) sit right behind me, well it somewhat dampens my moviegoing experience. Alas they were too busy chatting and saying, "What was that?" to the movie screen to catch my withering glances. It made me want to pull an Aimee Mann from the Voices Carry video and jsut stand up and start yelling, "I said shut up! shut up! voices carryyyyyyy!" Or even better, pull out my cell phone and pretend to call someone just to say, "Yeah! Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to be talking on my phone in the movie theater. but I just had to tell you about the two rude cunts behind me! They just won't shut the fuck up! OK, call you later. Don't forget to pick up some milk."

These two have reserved seats on the bus to the special hell.
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But enough of that, and on to something more serious.

There's a very consistent and recognizable rhythm, or let's say pattern, that runs through my life. It's consists of a period of (relative) contentment, or maybe it's apathy (I'm cynical enough to think it could be), followed by a period of discontent at my life. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's simple, but unerring. Currently, I'm in the latter phase. And that's always the phase when I question why I don't do something differnt with my life. Originally I wrote "something more", but the connotation of that is that I'd be doing the same things I currently do, but more of it. Which means the good of writing more music, but the bad of drinking more beer and playing more video games or watching more TV. So, instead I mean, and want to mean, "something different."

And by that, I always come up with the same few possibilities. I should move somewhere new. (If you know me, you've heard me talk about this.) Or I should try living abroad for a while (a relatively new thought, likely inspired by one Eric Olson). Or I should go back to school for something. Something, anything, for a change.

But the problem is, and I'm well aware and will freely admit, is that I'm too caught up in life. A condition that happens to a lot of people. I'm too concerned with how I'm going to make a car payment, or my HD TV, or roaming the internet, or having another beer with the same friends weekend after weekend, or what will happen this week on 24. Not that these are bad things, they're just things. And not even things with bad connotations in my head. I enjoy them. Well, except for the car payments part. But I like 24. I like the internet. I like beers with friends (probably too much since I stayed out a little later than I planned last night doing just that and laughing at stupid things like the phrase "I couldn't be more thrilled.")

But my point is this, it's a pretty well known fact that a serious life change typically gets harder to do the older you get. Because you accumulate more of a stake in the life you do have. It becomes harder to give up. But therein lies the problem, the catch-22. Deep down I feel I can't do these things because I'm too comfortable in the things I have now. "Maybe someday," I tell myself. But at the same time, I realize the nature of the beast and know that "someday" I'll be older and even more comfortable with whatever it is I have then.

The question that I need to ask myself is how important this is to me? The obvious answer would be "very", since I've already mentioned that this is a phase I go through consistently. But important enough that I can finally strap on a set and do something about it? I've never had much in the way of courage along those lines. Courage to face the unknown of having to maybe find a new job. Wondering where/how I'd live? Or how to deal with taking on more debt if I were to go back to school? What would I do with all my stuff? What would I do without my friends?

In a way it's sad to be weighted down with these kinds of questions, but that's me. For better or worse I'm too concerned with the answers to these kinds of things. But maybe the realization I should have is that the answers aren't important. Asking isn't as important as doing.

Unfortunately all this blogging means little, however. This is not an epiphany I'm writing down here. These are longstanding thoughts and concerns that I just so happened to be thinking about in time for my morning blog. So they're getting mentioned, long-windedly I might add. But who knows, maybe this time I might decide to actually do something about it. Or maybe I'll just ride it out back into one of my apathetic phases and my main concern will be to finish the next level of Splinter Cell.

How's that for a downer ending?

"You're all set."

Those are really the three best words a bartender could ever say to you. Unless it's a she and she's really hot. In which case the three best words would be: "Take me home."

But, in lieu of that, free drinks will always suffice.

I was at the Middle East tonight to see Buckcherry. It was a little disappointing. Their sound wasn't that great, and neither was their set list. Hell, they're probably still playing as I type. I left early because of the aforementioned sucky setlist, as well as a slight asthma flare-up (which I could have ignored had the set list been better.)

But the bartender tonight was one Pete Stone, who is an acquaintance of mine, and apparently one in the mood to give me free Bass ales. So, hooray!

Actually the only reason I really know him is because he was having sex with a friend of mine when she was between boyfriends. But far be it for me to turn down some free drinks because of that little bit of biblical immorality.

Of course, I never want to abuse that privilege. So I did split my beer buying between his bar and the other. Well, not entirely out of the selfless desire not to abuse an acquaitence's generosity, but also because the bartender at the other bar looked like Charlize Theron.

There are always reasons.

Monday morning metal

It's Monday morning, and I'm at work. Not such a strange occurence but for it's a holiday. Also, the fact that I'm working on a holiday is not so strange as the 'B is staffed every day but Christmas. The only thing that stinks about it (aside from the need to be here at all), is that I've worked every holiday already this year.

Blech!

One of the girls in the office sent out an email a week or so back, asking if anyone wanted to take her Memorial Day shift. I thought about it briefly, as the money would always be cool. And that's when I realized that I've already worked the first three holidays of the year, and that you know, it'd be nice to have some time off. I actually should have had President's Day off, but due to the fact that one of the people who was supposed to be working was in the hospital, I had to fill in.

But let me reiterate, if you didn't already know, a holiday shift isn't all that bad. Once I get past the desire to crawl back into bed, that is. I'm getting paid double time just to answer the phone if it rings. Right now I'm listening to some Black Sabbath, and typing this blog. For later I've got my book to read (The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov), some comic books (Excalibur), some other albums to listen to. Some DVDs to watch (A Tale of Two Sisters and The Devil's Backbone). I'll keep busy. Essentially, I'm being paid to do everything I'd probably be doing today anyway, except sleep late.
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To those of us with no immediate family in the area Easter Sunday is merely Sunday. I did celebrate however by having a nice Easter Sunday brunch with Laura, Rob, Sara, and Josh. A Mexican Easter Sunday brunch, no less, over at El Guapo. An EXCELLENT Mexican Easter Sunday brunch, may I just say. That set the perfect vibe for the rest of my day of Sunday laziness. I did some reading, went to Home Dept (the only store apparently open on Easter Sunday) to research some grills, watched Saved! (which was awesome), had some subpar pizza, and snoozed on and off. Good times.

In fact that sounds like much of my weekend. I didn't do much on Saturday either. It was a really nice day, so I did go for a walk to Harvard Square and back to pick up the new Buckcherry album. That's a round trip of about 6 miles I think, so it was some good exercise. I celebrated my healthiness by going to the Mystic later and seeing Rockstar and drinking beer. And talking to a cute girl. After which I had this conversation with Kevin:

Kevin: "My number is..."
Me: "I'm flattered, Kevin, but you're not my type."
Kevin: "No, that's what you say to her."
Me: "Oh. Yeah, I think she's into Matt."

(And I did/do. She was actually someone we'd met at Mark Johnson's birthday party a couple of weeks ago and Matt seemed to hit it off better with her than I did.)

Last night, hanging out with Matt and Brian, I had this (somewhat less eloquent) conversation with Brian:

Brian: "Did you plow that girl?"
Me: "No."
Brian: "Oh, it seemed like you were talking to her a lot."
Me: "Yeah, but I think she's into Matt."

Question being considered, since it came up twice, did I misread the situation? I don't think I did, but external appearances appeared different to others. Not that it really matters. As long as I have any thoughts that she's into a friend of mine or if I think a friend might be interested (which you never can really tell with Matt), then she's officially off the radar as far as I'm concerned.
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Anyway, the new Buckcherry album? It's OK, nothing great. It's consistent in it's mediocrity. But I wanted to check it out since I'll be seeing them tomorrow night.

However, the new Pink album? Kicks much ass! If you like the most recent Kelly Clarkson album (like I do), you'd love this. It's stylistically similar, but much better.

Anyway, that's my weekend in a nutshell.

Running is hard

Every year it seems like I try to do some running. Every year after a couple of tries I get shin splints, which is just a disgusting sounding term that invokes images (at least for me) of slivers of shin bone breaking off and sticking through my skin for some reason. But this year I tried a different tack. I went an got some advice on good running form from people that actively run a lot. Because I want to run, actually. I think it'd be a good exercise for those days that I want to exercise but don't feel like sitting in my car for 10-20 minutes getting to the gym.

So, Wednesday was just one of those days, and it happened to be fairly nice out.

Now, speaking of the gym, I've been going a bit more consistently recently. (Up until this week, oddly enough, where I've just been busy a lot after work.) And every day when I go I do a half hour on the bike. I've gotten to the point where it's not grueling anymore.

So, I lace up the sneakers and I figure I should be able to get in a few minutes of running, followed by a few minutes of walking, and repeat for a half hour or so with no problem.

I ran for maybe 90 seconds and it felt like someone had drop kicked me in the lungs. With cleats. I realize it's a different exercise than biking, but damn! Seriosuly, I barely made it to the end of my street. Anyway, I continued on. Running, walking, running, w a l k i n g, running, w...a...l...k...i...n...g... Obviously much shorter increments of running than I was expecting.

I realize that this will get better when (and if) I continue to do it more, but that first day hurt.

And the day after (yesterday) and today...also hurt. Because running is an impact exercise. You use muscles that you don't when biking. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling like the same cleated feet that had drop kicked my lungs had jumped up and down on my quads while I slept.

I just used the word "quads" in all seriousness. How weird is that?
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You know what I hate? Skipping a day of showering.

It doesn't happen often, but occassionally it occurs. Like yesterday. Right after work I went down to my uncle's house to take some pictures of a keyboard and a sliding glass door he wants me to try and sell for him on Craigslist. And then from there I went to Brian's house to give him some recording software and some instructions on how to use that software. And then right from there I went to Matt's house to rehearse. And right from there to the Mystic to see Fil play. And right from there home and to bed, since it was about 1am at this point. No time for showering.

I'm a night showering person, not a morning showering person. There's no way I'm getting up earlier than I have to to take shower in the morning because that would entail me getting up earlier than I have to. I tried it for a while, figuring maybe it would help me wake up, but that doesn't happen, so I opted for the more sleep option.

So anyway, I feel grungy today. Usually I can't wait to get home from work for any number of reasons, today it is to shower.

On an odd note, my hair always seems to know when it's not going to get cleaned that day. Because I get to about 5pm or so and all of a sudden it starts feeling greasy. On a normal day, if it's 5pm....6pm....10pm....whatever and I still fully intend to shower this doesn't happen. Only on days when I know I'm not. Weird.

Anyway, so today? Grungy and leg pain. That's me.

Monday morning stuff

Well, as a resolution to the grill situation, my landlord said I could have one, but it has to be charcoal. She's nervous about having propane around. I guess I can deal with that. I've never done charcoal grilling before, so I guess it's time to learn. Supposedly it's more flavorful, so that's pretty good. The summer of grilling is soon to return.
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Saw V For Vendetta finally on Saturday. I was never a big fan of the book. I thought it was good, but a bit dense (as is all of Moore's stuff that I've read) and a bit meandering. Moore is one of those critically acclaimed comics guys who I do enjoy to some extent but seems just past that line of being a little too smart for me to read comfortably.

Anyway, the movie was pretty great. Very much a film of ideas. Moreso than you'd expect than from seeing the trailers, which bill it more as an action film. Dumbed down a bit for Hollywood (and for Chris) it took a very smart book and turned into a smart movie. And much like how seeing Fight Club helped me decipher how to read a Chuck Palahniuk book, I'm wondering if seeing this will help me appreciate the comic more. I'll have to give it another run through.
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The godfather strikes again. My cousin Melissa asked me to be the godfather for her son Aiden. The christening is May 18th. So there's a tiny little problem. From May 10th-16th I'm going to be in New Mexico and Arizona with my folks. I fly home on the 16th, and have to get right back on another plane on the 17th and fly down south. Oof!

I just have to figure out how to work this now. The rest of my week is pretty much shot as far as work is concerned. Since the christening is on Thursday morning, I'm not going to fly home Thursday night just to go to work on Friday and save myself the vacation day. So I might as well stay down south until Sunday. But where and how are the questions.

My two choices are to stay at my folk's place in South Carolina. It's in the middle of the sticks but only about a 40 minute drive to Savannah, which as proven one night last summer, is a fun place to hang. Or I could stay with my sister up at her place in North Carolina, as she is the godmother and driving down for this. There doesn't seem like much to do around Cary where she lives, but I honestly haven't seen that much of it. And I could hang with my nephews.

All things being equal, I think I'd probably rather stay in SC, but it's a good deal more expensive to fly in and out of Savannah than it is Raleigh-Durham. Also, since I'm using up a good amount of my vacation time this early in the year, I was thinking of inviting some people down to the folk's house to hang for a few days, so I can at least do a little vacationing with my peeps, much like myself, Matt, and Brian did last year. Unfortunately it's not particularly convenient to get to, but I think I'll at least offer around because last year was fun.

Anyway, I guess that means I should start researching some flights and such to see if it could financially happen.

Later, y'all.

Refreshing!

Cold showers rule!

Well, not really, but when you have no heat they're all you have. And then you do the cold shower dance. Darting body parts in and out of the spray like an epilieptic having a grand mal seizure. Telling yourself to "Deal with it," and "Be a man!" Only you can't really be a man during a cold shower, can you? That's sort of the result of a cold shower, even an involuntary one.

Luckily heat was restored later that night, but it didn't help during those torturous few minutes.
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I was watching the new live Black Crowes DVD last night. And aside from marc Ford being an awesome guitar player with a styling 70's moustache, that guy pretty much has the exact guitar collection that I want. Les Paul, SG, Les Paul double cut (with the faded cherry finish), Strat, Tele. Bastard! Watching this DVD did not at all help my desire to buy new guitars, which I really cannot afford right now.

Here's my quandry. There is the exact Les Paul double cut I want on Ebay right now. The auction ends tomorrow, and currently the high bid is temptingly low. Low enough that I'm "watching" the auction. But to afford it, I'd realistically need to sell one of my other guitars.

Now, I have been considering selling my Epiphone semi hollow, because there are some sound qualities to it that I'm not really digging. Things that I'm not sure would be fixed by new pickups. However, during that same Black Crowes DVD, I saw Rich Robinson playing the Gibson verion of my Epiphone and noticed that while his guitar had some of the same qualities, it sounded better. Not much, but enough that I started thinking there was maybe some things I could do. And let's face it, the Epi looks cool.

What to do, what to do.

Much of my decision may rest upon what the bids are like closer to the auction closing time.

Or maybe I should just take another cold shower. That curbs urges, right?

By the way...

Even though it's my job, I'm sick of helping people. I've had to resist the urge to just hang up on callers today.

It's just one of those days.

One of those days where I feel like doing something drastic. Like quitting my job and immediately leaving town. Or drop-kicking the next person that annoys me. Of course I don't have the money to immediately go anywhere, and I also don't have the money for bail if I drop-kick someone, despite the hilarity value in that act. And what money I do have would obviously disappear if I quit my job.

Life really seems to tangle you up as you get further into it.

Here's the laundry list of work related discontent. It's time for a bitch session.

It's just been one of those days.

1) I've "recently" suggested two projects to my supervisor. I use the word
"recently" very loosely as we're talking about sometime last year, closer to the summer, in fact. One was for some training to help us get better in solving problems for a specific software. I went ahead and asked the guy in the building who could teach us this stuff and he said he'd be fine with a little sit down Q & A. I wrote up a list of topics/questions. This is something that will help us do our job better, and costs the company nothing, and while the interest there from my supervisor and manager, it still hasn't happened. Months later, it still hasn't happened.

The second project is more personal, and admittedly a bit more selfish. That is trying to get our pay grade raised here at the Help Desk, because I think we're underpaid as a group. My supervisor agrees. We created a team to re-write our job description to be more accurate. We started this maybe at the end of the summer? We finished the description by the end of the year. And guess what. Nothing has happenned there either.

2)(I'll keep this one in lay man's terms.) Our new flagship product has a very bad history of breaking. This is the future of the compnay. Get all our memebers onto this new system. In fact it's a corporate goal, as we're discontinuing support for our old system at the end of the year. The new system tends to break a lot. Although this is excessive even for us, it has gone down 5 times since Friday. Each time it goes down, we get a lot of calls and emails. And this is the product that we're supposed to be proactively calling companies to push them on to?

3) There was an understanding when I moved into this position about 5 years ago that there would be opportunities for learning and advancement. Career pathing, so I'm not answering phones and troubleshooting customers when I'm 50. That really hasn't materialized.

5) I pretty actively dislike two of the people I work with. Seems like a small number, but when there's only five employees in the room, we're talking about 40% of the staff. They seem to do things on their own, with no concern for the rest of the room. And it doesn't help that they also seem to get preferential treatment (in my opnion.)

All this stuff may be small individually but it adds up heavily when put together.

Ahh, bitching. Actually, I'm also using this as a way to put together my thoughts on the matter, because I might have to have a sit down with my supervisor, before this eats me up anymore. I used to be good about being able to just show up, do stuff for 8 hours, and then go home and let it slide right off my back. But it seems that's getting harder and harder.

What I'm going to miss this summer.

I like my apartment. I dig that it's weirdly shaped. I like that it's (mostly) clean and nice. It's affordable and near stuff. The windows are old and rattle loudly when it's windy, but since I can sleep through it, it doesn't really bother me. I think it adds character.

The only thing that I think could be better is if the porch was open, and not three season. Beacuse I can't put a grill on a three season porch.

That's what I'm going to miss this summer. The availabilty of having grilled food whenever I want it, (which, if you know me, you know is pretty damn often.) I'm already trying to formulate some plan to try to make this happen some other way. I'm considering asking my landlord if I could keep a grill in her garage maybe, and wheel it out whenever I want to cook something.

Really this is all Krista's fault that I'm think about this. Apparently, most Sundays are food days at her and Joe's apartment. I got the invite yesterday. Originally the menu was lobster. However the past few days have been really nice out. (It's actually spring-like.) So they decided to forego lobster with some grilling on their back (non three season) porch. They got a red snapper roughly the size of a small child and just threw it on there. I contributed some turf to go along with the surf in the form of a couple of steaks and my first attempt of homemade marinade (red wine, olive oil, ground pepper, red pepper, rosemary, garlic, and onion). It turned out quite well if I do say so myself. Throw in some bean salad and aspargus, as well as a few beers, and ate pretty damn well last night.

But now I want to grill. Like an alcoholic can fall right off the wagon with one sip, the season's first go at grilled food and I'm ready to start throwing everything over an open flame.

Oddly enough this blog makes me hungry.