Belated Friday five.

Five things I WILL NOT miss about marathon training, in no particular order:

• 7am Sunday runs
• Gatorade, Clif bars, Clif shots, Gu, etc.
  
• no wine on Saturday nights
• aches, pains, blisters, ice baths, sunburns
  
• the first three miles of each long run
  

Five things I WILL miss about marathon training, in no particular order:

• burning 2000 (+/-) calories a week without trying too hard
  
• drinking lots more water out of sheer need
• having the metabolism of a 14-year old boy
• having a milestone to work toward
• ... OK I can only think of 4 things I will miss

I hate the TV.

Tonight, I'm not really in the mood for the movies Netflix has sent me. So my choices for TV viewing are between four stupid reality shows on network TV, four stupid reality shows on cable, and fifteen reruns of Law & Order on various cable stations.

Seriously.

OK, I might exaggerate a bit on the Law & Order reruns. Some of them are actually CSI reruns...

The best thing about working when you are supposed to be on PTO.

The best thing about working when you are supposed to be on PTO is that you can constantly say out loud, to no one in particular, "I'm not even supposed to BE HERE today!!"

Yeah, I will see the sequel. I fear it will be a lot of jokes I just don't understand because I'm not quite there yet, and I will wish it had never been made, and I will go home and watch the original just to reaffirm that there was a time when Kevin Smith was in the same mental space as me.

But yeah, I will see the sequel. And tomorrow, I am ON PTO. DAMMIT.

There comes a time...

... when this is no longer news.

"This is a world getting progressively worse. Can we not agree on that?"

I need to read the book. But I hear this was pretty close. And apparently a fairly timeless story, sad as that sounds.

And now, your moment of Zen.

Belated Friday five.

Five movies the latest, slowest, longest movie I have ever sat through blatantly stole from, in no particular order:

• The Princess Bride
• that Indiana Jones movie where he runs away from the ginormous boulder rolling down the hill at him
  
• Jaws
• Apocolypse Now
• um... Creature From The Black Lagoon
  

I dunno. I was bored. I was terribly, terribly bored. So this is how I entertained myself for 2.5 hours. There may have been some of Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil as well... that had cajun voodoo types, right?

I also found it hard to believe that Orly said this trilogy was his most physically trying role yet. After all that running and jumping and acrobatics with the hobbits! Seriously?!

... Of course, I'll be seeing the third. After all, it's just time.

Urban livin'.

Today on the bus coming home from the BART coming home from the airport (spare the air!), I was sitting near a mom and her very cute smallish child (no older than 3). They were quietly playing "guess that sound" and one of the sounds she made was a "weeeeeawweeeeeawweeeeeaw" sound, which to the untrained ear sounded mostly like an ambulance or possibly a police siren.

When she asked him what made that sound, he promptly replied, "car alarm!"

I wasn't suprised when they got off the bus near my old neighborhood...

Yunno...

I try not to buy into celebrity fuss unless it's confirmed and/or remotely interesting... But I find the whole concept of baby Suri being a farce ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

"'Cause they don't make no songs like these - PERIOD."

Nice little ditty about a girl and her brother. I can relate.

With my brother, it was allllll about the music. Kiss, or Run-DMC, or Led Zeppelin. I was forced to memorize many a song by all of these bands. Fortunately I have blacked out most of the Kiss songs. But I still love Zeppelin. And I have a very fond memory of being about ten years old, playing H-O-R-S-E in the backyard, and alternating the lyrics to King of Rock over, and over, and over, and over again. (He was Run, I was DMC.) To this day I still remember most of the words. Once in a while I find myself singing this song in my head during boring meetings. It's quite empowering - "You can't touch me with a ten foot pole and I even made the devil sell me his soul!" Try it sometime.

My brother is the reason why - to this day - I firmly believe that Kashmir is the greatest song ever written, why I listen to Black Sabbath now and then, why I own any concert t-shirts (my birthday or Christmas gifts from shows he went to and I didn't - bastard), why I went all old-school and saw Pearl Jam last Saturday (and it. fucking. ROCKED).

He's also the reason I can spell "beginning," why I have a fondness for Baby Ruth candy bars, and why seeing a pile of stuffed animals makes me want to hurl them across the room. But those are stories for another day.

Bloody hell, indeed.

Her Majesty spent most of today (when she wasn't whining for food) stretched out on the tile whining about the heat. WTFE, man. I'm off to miserably hot, humid L.A. for five days. Woo-hoo.

Kidding, it will be fun. There will be lots of painting and decorating and furniture-arranging and artwork-hanging and a trip to the San Diego Zoo. And of course lots of eating and consumption of good beer. And most importantly, catching up with an old friend.

In miserably hot, humid housing that probably does not have air conditioning.

Yarg.

Now accepting ideas.

Recent attempts to remind Her Majesty that she's already eaten her dinner even though - YES! I am in the kitchen again! and YES! chances are likely that I will be in the kitchen AGAIN in the near future! oh, what a crazy world this is, that it doesn't revolve around YOU! - include:

• placing the "stop global whining" refrigerator magnet at her eye level
• berating her for whining for her food at 1:30pm... "this is what happens when you want to eat 5 hours early... didn't I warn you? didn't I?! now go eat your crunchy food"
• leaving her empty food plate and occasionally plopping her down in front of it while saying "see?? SEE???"
  
• offering her sour cream and cranberry juice to prove that I am not getting her more food

Yeah, none of that worked. How do you keep your pets out from under your feet in the kitchen?

Again, I'm hearing the Bridgekeeper's voice.

OK Connie, I'll bite. Subject to change with my mood of course. (For the record, I have never found James Lipton pretentious - he seems to always laugh - at himself, or with others - how can that be pretentious? Annoyingly organized and thorough, perhaps. But not pretentious.)

What is your favorite word?
"freedom"

What is your least favorite word?
"nu-cu-lar"

What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?
anything that lets me dive in and lose myself in it, anything that makes me forget that the world around me exists

What turns you off?
people with no concern for anyone and/or the world around them

What is your favorite curse word?
fuck

What sound or noise do you love?
whole-hearted bone-shaking laughter, the kind that brings tears to your eyes and causes snorting and gasping for breath (particularly when it comes from someone under 5 years old)

What sound or noise do you hate?
dentist's drill

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
carpenter

What profession would you not like to do?
VP of anything

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
"so you took the blue pill, eh?"

Friday five.

Five things you should be ashamed that you don't know, if you make it onto my new obsession (A.K.A. how to make all these years of couching pay off), in no particular order:

1. the name of the Simpsons' dog
2. the name of the oldest Cosby kid
3. the source of the quote "So it's sorta social... dimented and sad, but social, right?"*
   
4. whether Tupac ever won a Grammy
5. the TV show whose theme song begins, "what ever happened to predictibility? the milkman, the paperboy, evening TV?"
   

Seriously. Shame on you people. SHAME!!

________________
* I can forgive the other four. But a 20-something fresh-out-of-college boy didn't get this one. WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING OUR CHILDREN THESE DAYS?

Low-priority defect in today's plan.

A wise man once said, "sometimes, you just gotta say fuck it." Myself, I say that all the time. (Does that make me wise too?!)

Today for example, I was going to:

• stay late and wrap up something so it would definitely be done before my vacation
• go to the gym for weights
• walk to the grocery store for dinner supplies

Today, I ended up:

• leaving at 5pm with the thing unfinished
  
• skipping the gym (and exercise altogether)
  
• driving to the grocery store

And now here I sit, with a glass of wine, getting ready to make homemade pizza and learn just why Jesus is magic!, and I realize that the trial marathon last weekend is finally catching up to me. As the week has progressed I have grown more and more tired throughout the day, and yesterday and today I literally ate a meal or snack every hour on the hour.

I'm banking on the final step in today's expected plan (food, wine, and aforementioned movie plus starting in on season two of Dead Like Me) being thwarted by the actual event of me eating pizza, having two more sips of wine, falling asleep on the couch in about an hour and waking up around 11am tomorrow.

I'm okay with that.

"So, why do you create such powerful female characters?"

Brilliant answer here.

Recently viewed.

Everything Is Illuminated ... another book in the long list of books that never should've been made into a movie. Brilliant acting, but the story was completely butchered in translation. (Do yourself a favor, read the book.)

The Outsiders re-release w/new score and commentary by some of the actors ... hear Rob Lowe whine about every single scene where he was supposed to have more lines! Hear everyone rag on what a competitive showoff asshole Tom Cruise was! (Unlike the aforementioned - what a great adaptation of book to movie. Timeless.)

The Dying Gaul ... it had me until about halfway through. Should've been left as a play.

I'm sorry, but...

... I just don't think I could date a guy named "Fred." No offense to anyone named Fred, of course. I feel the same way about the name "Boris."

I heart Topher Grace.

The plot was stupid, on the surface. But it starred Laura Linney, Topher Grace, Gabriel Byrne and Marcia Gay Harden... so I had to check it out.

Have I mentioned that I heart Topher Grace? I mean, I loved him on That 70's Show - hell, I loved them all. Well, except for Wilmer. But while the other goofballs have chosen similarly goofball film characters, he hasn't. (Yeah, okay, he's only been in a few films. And yeah, the rest of the cast hasn't really broken out in the film arena. And yeah, okay, there was The Butterfly Effect - an attempt at seriousness, I suppose.)

But it's pretty obvious, as the E! documentary about the sitcom stated, that while others were honing their partying skills, he went home and... oh I dunno, looked for good roles. (Yeah, okay, so I didn't watch the whole documentary.)

Anyway. The plot was as stupid as it might sound. But the performances were fairly moving, especially the scenes between Linney and Grace. I can't honestly say that I don't recommend the film.

Have I mentioned that I heart Topher Grace?

I really need a hobby.

For the OCD, or the overly-bored.

Damn you, Connie! Now you've got me doing it. It's like an addiction I can't shake, and I don't even know what the purpose is. As is true for most things in the World Wide Web.

Pathetic attempt at artsy photo, take #1.

We're not gonna pay...

I'm probably not winning points with Hot Building Manager by making him call me to remind me to pay my rent this month. "Um, yeah hi, my bathtub is still leaking and did you know the dryer is broken oh and also I'm a flake!"

Niiiiice.

GAARRRRRR!!! And not in the good pirate way.

Note to readers: do not sign up to take over something of mine if you don't have the time, energy, or wherewithall to take it on with any amount of significance that will take the burden off me. Because it will only serve to PISS ME OFF.

Fuck this online dating crap.

This was actually a question on the profile thingie. "Other than your parents, who has been the most influential person in your life?" Is it bad that the only person I could honestly name was Michael Stipe?

So I'm reading through my initial profile matches and the first one I read is that of a guy I met through Match.com last year and didn't really hit it off with. BAH.

So then I go on to complete more about me... And under the "Can't Stand"s:

• one is labeled "LAZY : I can't stand someone who likes to spend excessive time sleeping, resting or being a couch potato." I RESENT THAT!!! I am NOT lazy!! I just enjoy a fine balance of exercise and loafing!!!
• "I can't stand someone who swears or uses inappropriate language or humor." WTFE.
• "I can't stand someone who loves to talk about other people." Does Dishing count?

This would be an interesting experiment, if it wasn't so freaking expensive to join. I wonder if "you get what you pay for" comes in here. Match.com is much cheaper... and it shows.

Questions of the day.

Do people who use eHarmony listen to Live 105? Like Fight Club? Drink beer? Ride motorcycles? Mosh?

The commercials imply not.

I guess I'll find out soon enough.

The semi-annual "I don't want to grow up" post.

A combination of recent events, namely TV-watching events, specifically The Constant Gardener and Pearl Jam on VH1 Storytellers, have gotten me to thinking again. Never a good sign.

I think part of the reason I'm so reluctant to join the adult world is that I don't want to lose my cynicism. My drive toward the greater good. My spare time to make a contribution to something worthwhile. So many of my friends who have houses and/or kids only have time for their houses and/or kids. Both are, of course, worthwhile endeavors, don't get me wrong. Time-consuming worthwhile endeavors.

I have a recurring conversation with a friend at work about how he wishes he had more time and energy for social activism, but after a full work day, house chores on the weekends and constantly keeping up with the kid, it's just not there. So I try to stay socially active because I know he cannot.

What does this have to do with The Constant Gardener or Pearl Jam? The former, I'm not entirely sure. I don't need a cause I would die for. I just need to care about something(s) worldly, care enough to consistently dedicate time and energy toward it. Maybe Al Gore needs help organizing his global warming conferences. I can make pretty powerpoint graphs as good as the rest of them.

The latter... [If you don't know of, or care about, the grunge phenomenon you can stop reading now.] I can't talk enough (no matter how hard I try! and no matter how much people ignore me!) about how music is such a part of my life, and this particular era had a HUGE influence on me. Suddenly people cared in their angsty ways of caring, they were pissed off - and at the time, just coming out of my whitebred suburban shell and seeing some of the injustices in the world, I could relate. And then a few years later, many of those same people (those who weren't in rehab, anyway) went off, got married and had kids, and suddenly all was right with their world. (See: Ed Kowalczyk/"Heaven." BAH.)

The guys in Pearl Jam, wives and/or kids in tow, are clearly still pissed off. And I like that.

No, you REALLY shouldn't have.

My neighbor and I have a catsitting deal which has worked out very nicely. Her furry friends are sweet and cuddly and she seems to adore Her Majesty. There's only one problem with this deal. Whenever she gets back from a trip, she brings me a thank-you gift... which of course is unnecessary in the first place. But it's becoming more and more unnecessary with time.

This most recent trip of hers won me something straight out of Country Living. (Nothing against that style - it's just not mine.) Now, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, because it's so nice that she even thinks to bring me anything. And I usually try to bring her something she might like when I go away on trips. It's just that it's hard to hide a "not-your-style" gift away in a closet when you know the person will be in your living room in three weeks to catsit. I've tried the old "you're so thoughtful to always get me something but really, it's not necessary" line before each trip... to no avail. The strangest part is that she has generally good taste, and she's seen my decorating style many, many times.

So I hereby give you all permission: If I give you something that makes you later scrunch your nose and wonder why the hell I thought you might like it, please feel free to hide it, give it away, whatever. I won't be offended. Promise.