Miranda July is amazing.
So is zefrank, but in a totally different way.
I also added a couple projects to my cafepress page (link in navbar) and even ordered a couple of them. Hmmm.
Oh, shoot! Happy Birthday, Ruthie! I really probably should have planned something for my niece’s fifth birthday but I’m too darn wrapped up in myself to plan ahead. Also, she’s 2,724 miles away at the moment. Crap.
I’m a dork. I save plastic grocery bags because there’s no reason to get a new one every time I go to the store—it’s wasteful. However, every time I go to the store, I forget to grab one from my drawer of many bags. When I come home, I add the new bag or three to the already full drawer. How can I stop this repetitive pattern of destructive behavior?
The solution is simple. I designed a visually stark but effective [and clever] sign to tape to the back of my door. Now, when I leave for the store, I’ll be reminded not only that I need to go back and get a plastic bag, but also that I’m a dork.
You, too, can share this experience [except without the mild sense of accomplishment of having come up with the idea yourself]. Simply download the PDF version of the plastic grocery bag sign or the larger low-tech GIF version of the “got bag?” sign.
A series of 3 vignettes
Life in the Bay Area, Part I
Thursday, I showed up to work on time.
Scout‘s post and Bob Harris‘ post on This Modern World follow my last one nicely. (And frighteningly.)
Opus returns. Excellent.
Also, did you know that Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives? Weird shit.
Do you ever export Word files into HTML? Tired of all the proprietary Microsoft crap that junks up your code? Use the Textism Word HTML Cleaner. It seems to work quite nicely. (Kudos to Dean of Textism.)
Finally: Jason’s first earthquake. I was at work when it happened—I definitely felt it and was pretty disoriented for a few seconds. Afterwards, the adrenaline kicked in. Pretty exciting stuff, I guess. No need to worry, people back home. Tornadoes and winter are at least as hazardous to one’s health as earthquakes.
I’m doing well, thanks.
I’m getting over a cold, actually, but after the slight downturn in April I’m feeling well otherwise.
In fact, right now my life is abundant with opportunities to have fun—more so than on average throughout my life so far. I have very little to complain about. Recently I have played baseball, and gone to a baseball game, and played some fantasy baseball (okay, perhaps I’m a bit baseball obsessed right now); I have also done my fair share of consuming food and libations while socializing, which is definitely enjoyable. Time management is something I may start focusing on fairly soon, with more demands on my time certain to arise. It’s been easier to establish a social life here than it ever was in Minneapolis; I have some theories as to why, but I’m not entirely sure.
Let me just interrupt this monologue to say that these crudely produced Peanuts parodies are quite exquisite.
I’m getting more and more work at CLCV. This development is good. This means more pay, which means a more sustainable lifestyle. I am seriously, seriously considering selling my car (I know, I haven’t followed through on this threat yet, despite it being a constant refrain for the last 2 years or so), which would stretch out my ability to live without a permanent full-time job quite considerably. If (or when?) necessity becomes a factor, that car is as good as gone. Even now, the expense of insurance is almost entirely unnecessary, being that I use my car about once a week (if that).
It is ridiculously easy to get along without a car in the Bay Area, since the weather is amazing and public transportation is practically omnipresent. Not to mention that my roommate Nick owns two cars and likes to drive them.
I have basically stopped applying for outside jobs at this point, what with the supply of workers with my qualifications in my field far outpacing demand. It seems pointless to expend a lot of time sending out resumes that result in emails saying, “Thanks for being one of 400 highly qualified applicants for this position two months ago; it has been filled.”
I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet.
My absolute favorite show on the radio is This American Life, hosted and produced by Ira Glass since 1995. It is what it says it is—people talking about life in this country—and defies further description, as their website acknowledges:
One of the problems with our show from the start has been that whenever we try to describe it in a sentence or two, it sounds awful. It’s a bunch of stories—some are documentaries, some are fiction, some are something else. Each week we choose a theme and invite different writers and performers to contribute items on the theme. This doesn’t sound like something we’d want to listen to on the radio—and it’s our show. . . . It’s a weekly show. It’s an hour. Its mission is to document everyday life in this country. We sometimes think of it as a documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries.
Anyway, it’s really good—in my opinion, the most enjoyable hour of radio produced anywhere today. I thought to mention it tonight because I was looking for this past weekend’s show online (it’s not there yet, but each show is archived in streaming RealAudio. Give it a listen).
Incredibly, I found out in my search for archived installments that Ira Glass is going to be here in Minneapolis, two weeks from tonight. Not only that, but he will be having a conversation with Chris Ware of Acme Novelty Library fame (also brilliant) about alternative forms of media! So if you’re anywhere near Minneapolis on February 18, 2002, at 7:30 pm, don’t miss this. It’s sure to be extremely entertaining and edifying.
Unfortunately, not having done any writing of note in the last week-plus, I now have two weekends to summarize instead of one.
As promised, Cops and Breeders: On January 26th I went home to Hartford to hang out with my mom and see the new addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. On the way out of town Saturday morning I realized, “Hmm, it might be a good idea to get tickets to the Breeders concert at the 400 Bar on February 20th that Amber and I plan to go to (the first really good 21+ concert after her 21st birthday), since I noticed they weren’t on sale online anymore.” Though I haven’t checked with the 400 Bar box office, I may have gotten the last two tickets available to that show. How do I figure that? Well, the Electric Fetus (record shop) was sold out. Ticketweb was sold out. Global Village, a store next door to the club, was my second-to-last hope. The woman at the counter, after I asked about the show, checked the outside of the ticket envelope to no avail. “We must not have gotten them in yet,” she speculated, not seeing the name of the concert written on the envelope. My heart sank, assuming that since Electric Fetus had gotten them and sold out of them, Global Village had as well. Then she searched through the envelope. “Wait,” she said, as she pulled out exactly two tickets to the Breeders show, with a rubberband doubled around them. She remarked that it was strange that the name of the show wasn’t on the envelope. My first thought was that someone who worked at the store was saving the last two for themselves, but I kept quiet about that. After I ran to my car to get my checkbook, the tickets were mine.
With that triumph, I left town on Interstate 94, heading east. Much like many other drivers on that route, I tend to drive at a high rate of speed. Some, such as those who nobly assume the awesome responsibility of enforcing the laws of the land, might consider that rate of speed excessive. However, I’ve been extremely lucky that, most times that I drive in excess of the posted limit, I don’t get caught.
A little over a third of the way through my trip, about a half-mile from a rest stop, I was preceded and followed by drivers of similar hasty inclination. I noticed, as I often do, a police cruiser on the side of the road after pulling over some unlucky offender. Seconds later, I saw another one. After that, I saw a third cop. This was all within a quarter of a mile. I decided to stop at the rest stop. I hung out for about 10 minutes or so, doing the usual rest stop things. When I left, after I pulled back onto the freeway, I saw another cop with another (probable) speeder. Unbelievable! Four speeders caught by four different cops within a half-mile, and I was none of them. I lead a charmed life.
Anyway, the museum was great, and I had a good time hanging out with my mom and stepdad, as I always do.
This past weekend, February 1-3, I went to Madison to spend time with some friends from college (Pete, Todd, Gief, and Jess). We went to see Lord of the Rings (me for the 3rd time, Pete for the 6th!), had reasonably good Chinese food, and played lots of Simpsons Road Rage (almost reason enough to buy a Playstation 2. It was for Pete, anyway). Also saw the incredible new office that HBG moved into after I left and played a little Quake (a very infrequent indulgence, which explains why I sucked so much). Good times.
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