i just got home. from work.

shoot me please.
posted at 11:06 PM

i am done with the shitty mcshitshit malcolm story. i was pretty much done with it yesterday, but it didn't close. all changes are in. it better fucking close early.

i wanna fall in love tonight.
posted at 5:52 PM

i think paul stole my pen. the office supply situation here is getting out of control. the main supply drawer has like two ballpoints and a couple of charcoal pencils and a roll of double-sided tape left. no highlighters (my yellow one is almost dead), no !ballpoints. i have one blue sanford uniball fine (not extra fine at .2mm, but you can't have it all). or i had one. it has disappeared, and while i have two weeks of crap piled up on my desk i went through tit all and it's definitely not here.

paul has a blue sanford uniball fine pen.

i'm certain it's mine.

it's probably not mine, but in my world it definitely is.

this has been a problem for several days, so today i brought in my only blue sanford uniball fine pen from home, and i am keeping it locked in my desk drawer, because i am just that ocd.

things i like: freshly sharpened dixon ticonderoga pencils
things i don't like: forgetting things i should be able to retrieve at any given moment
posted at 4:43 PM

jesus balls, what a terrible episode of buffy. seriously.
posted at 10:29 PM

i rule the web and the seven seas.

thanks, sheri! i am now the proud parent of joey fatone (jr!) and justin bobbleheads. they are rad. they are also scary, since in the bizarre world of bobbleheads, joey fatone is svelter than jbabe. wtf?

drudge has unearthed the best photo of cher ever.

the still sober edwin says, "nice disclaimer before boston public."
heller asks, "what was it?"
the bolt bitch edwin says, "this show the inappropriateness of racial invectives and contains coarse racial slurs. viewer discretion is advised."
the randomly generated edwin says, "wow. they're running the disclaimer after every commercial break."
tiResias [to edwin]: and yet last year they wouldn't show the futurama christmas episode with robotic santa and kwanzabot.

posted at 10:51 AM

so purim with the fam fell through last night, obviously. thanks, josh hartnett's bitchy publicist who should most definitely DIE. purim was reconvened at sheri and jeremie's. we made hamantaschen (okay, sheri made them) and watched vip (as always) and rope, which i stole from work on dvd.

sheri's secret present is now in my hands. i am searching for pictures as we speak, and should i find none, will take some of my own.

yesterday i spent more than two hours trying to grok the nba collective bargaining agreement with all its attendant salary cap hoohah and exceptions. it's very complicated but i think i'm starting to finally understand. i'm sure this understanding and skill will serve me later in life. snort.
posted at 10:14 AM

today sucked. i'm going to connecticut, where it sucks far less.
posted at 7:42 PM

today i'm listening to john vanderslice. he is good, and not just because he has an excellent name. go download stuff from him.

also, read about subversive us-iranian satellite tv.

my banana pants are loose. i suspect this means they've been stretched somehow, and that i need to get new ones, because it's really just not possible for my ass to have decreased in mass and volume, and now they look a little silly and not right. at least to me. others are welcome to weigh in.

i'm wearing them because if i get out of work early enough (har har) i'm going to purim with cousin josh. i am a wh0re for free hamantaschen. because of this, i will probably be stuck at work until 9p with josh "hotnett" hartnett, trying to cease self-flagellation for leaving the soup i defrosted at home in the fridge, forcing me to buy lunch. curry chicken over yellow rice should help.
posted at 10:40 AM

it's just another way to avoid.
posted at 11:21 PM

you know what sucks? when christian and kula are supposed to come over to watch bucks-pistons and then ditch for usa-canada hockey. oh well, it will be done another time. meanwhile, i flip back and forth between basketball and hockey. that's the magic of splitting the cable between tivo and vcr. i am a mad genius of a/v.

marty and elise are in town and went to ellis island this morning and dragged me with them. it was actually pretty fun; it hasn't changed since the last time i went, in 11th grade, and i haven't forgotten anything i saw since then, but it's still good to refresh from time to time. i'd say it's a twice-a-decade trip or so. plus the ferry takes a couple of good passes past the statue of liberty, and the weather is again disgustingly beautiful. it'll probably rain all week long just to screw me.

it occurs to me this is one of the few times i've ever been with marty and elise sans kids. weird.

there are some pluses to living in detroit. i know what some of them are.
posted at 3:06 PM

it should be illegal to be up this early on a sunday after getting home at 2a.
posted at 8:46 AM

down to the wire (have to pay rent next week), but i finally got around to calling citibank for more checks. they should be here next week, perhaps timed to coincide with the red etnies. because i'm still feeling aggravated for not finding the extra checks i'm sure i have, i asked citiguy how many checks they would have given me when i started the account. he told me 50. 50! that's how many checks i used! that means i am not crazy and did not lose the extra checks because they didn't exist in the first place.

vindication.
posted at 8:36 PM

oh bliss, it is gorgeous gorgeous out, blue skies and warm. i went to chinatown and did a cheap food marathon: $1.25 turnip cakes, $1 five panfried dumplings, $3 best taro bubble tea ever, $1 two pieces of sublime kam hing bakery sponge cake. then i walked uptown to the east village in search of the autumn skate shop's east 2nd st location. wasn't sure how far east it was; turns out it's just off avenue a. they were my target because they are listed on the etnies site as a carrier of the brand, and i want those damn red low cut ii's. the place is tiny, barely as big as my living room, and run by husband and wife, and really nice inside with dark wood and boards all up the wall and a small shoe section. no low cut ii's. so i asked if he might be getting them in and he said they were supposed to be in this week but would probably come next week and he'd take my name and number and call me when they arrived and the red etnies WILL be mine.

continued wandering around for another hour or so. saw tompkins square park for the first time. i should get out more.
posted at 4:45 PM

mmm, kleen. late night/early morning showers so good.
posted at 3:49 AM

damn, it's late. jill and xine and i had dinner at a sketchbomb mediocre italian place in the east village. went to a couple of good places. xine is quite the extrovert and engaged these two boys in conversation, which of course only served to remind me how incompetent i am in any sort of strange, loud, alcohol-fueled situation. or non-alcohol-fueled. anyway there was a boy named kevin who i kept referring to as evan because i honestly thought that's what he said, like i actually thought about it and decided it was evan and not kevin, and he is a social worker and works with crackheads and getting them to use their welfare money to pay their bills instead of loan sharks, and he looks just like bud cort circa harold and maude. jill had no idea what i was talking about, but xine did, which earns her plus twenty points for not forcing me to once again drift alone and unloved on a sea of uncaught references and injokes known only to myself. kevinevan's pal was benjamin, who looked like david from rw new orleans but did not sing "come on be my baby tonight, unh" but did tell us he was adopted and his name was originally jermain. i think that is quite perfect, because then he can be called benjermaine and it fits together perfectly. i'm going to name my next dog benjermaine.

then we went to barmacy, which was filled with good vintage music and nerdy white people dancing (we all know that white men, as well as erin, can't dance) and dressed somewhat in the ballpark of me (and we all know that erin can't dress). we took a bunch of photos in a photo booth they have there. i look scary in all of them, and overexposed, which i'm convinced is because i am just that casperlike. and that scary looking. hopefully i will scan them soon.

my alcohol capacity is becoming embarrassing. or capacity for getting drunk. or both.
posted at 3:24 AM

it's kind of a slow day, other than an aggravating research thing that i'm choosing to let go and not discuss because it was easily resolved (thanks, randy farley, ps love your name), so i watched the glutton bowl and watching ellie. the former was both foul and derivative, as it cribbed directly from fear factor in the bull balls eating department. lame. the latter i'm not sure what to think about. watching it is extremely agonizing, for lack of a better word; the comedy - and really it's not traditionally "funny" in the sitcom sense, or even in the malcolm sense, which it's clearly a descendent of right down to ken kwapis's direction - is drawn out with hems and haws and ums and uhs and hops and trips and falls and splashes. but it's still very good, and depending on how the next few episodes are could do very well for nbc except for one thing: they're putting it on tuesday nights. in a dream world, here are all the tuesday night shows i would watch: btvs, undeclared, that 70s show, gilmore girls, 24, nypd, realworld, scrubs, and ellie. and maybe even smallville if it's better than the pilot made it out to be, which i suspect it is. HOW IS THAT HUMANLY POSSIBLE? that's a possible 7.5 hours of tv IN ONE NIGHT. ellie is apparently on opposite undee et al. i wish some of this stuff would move to monday, which is a total wasteland and the night i use to catch up on the rest of the week or watch basketball or laugh for five minutes at how low david e kelley has gone.

sometimes i really hate being so beholden to television. i've said it before, and i'll say it again: its grip on me is far more irreversible and insidious than oxy, smack and crack all put together.
posted at 4:38 PM

dammit. i got a haircut on 12/16. that sucks, i had hoped it was three months ago, but it's barely more than two. i wish my hair would grow slower and stop looking like shit all the time.

i like the new amsterdams.
posted at 11:00 AM

there 's a circular bank of payphones anchoring the hallway from the subway to the basement entrance to my office building, sitting in the middle of the floor like some sort of ma bell volcano. once i saw police swarming around it, dusting for prints. sometimes i see it being cleaned and disinfected. every once in a while there's a person actually using the phone. today there was a girl looking forlornly at one of the phones, and she saw me coming and said "excuse me!" to get my attention and she seemed normal so i went over. "do you know where you put the money in?" she was clutching a quarter. i pointed at the coin slot. she tried putting it in there but it didn't seem to want to go; she poked at the coin release knob/lever and asked if that was somehow involved, what was it for? i told her it was to get your money back. "oh." i suggested she try the next phone to her right. she did, and it accepted her money and she heard a dialtone, i guess, because her face lit up and she thanked me. she had a trace of an english accent. i think she was indian. i wondered if her folks own a beautiful laundrette.

i smiled at her and walked past the wendy's signs adverising bacon cheeseburgers and frostys and rode the elevator to my cube, which lacks payphones and anything at all approaching interesting.
posted at 10:32 AM

i realized tonight that i'm not getting surround sound out of my tivo. wtf with that? easily solved, though, because i rule: i broke out my spare yellow-red-white cable cluster and dumped the coax connection from the cable box to the tivo, replacing with component digital sound. digital cable>* surround sound cable>*. i watched a bit of charlie's angels on hbo. it sounds awesome now. i'm tres jacked.

also jacked: marty and elise are in town this weekend. w00t.

also jacked: deadline trades! the dallas/denver trade is totally stupid imho, as it doesn't really help either team other than providing cuban with some nice tradebait for the summer in van exel. it's nice that little nicky wanted to be on a contender, but did he really want to do it at the expense of pt? newsflash, nve: the mavs already have a point guard, so unless you stop shaving the noggin and break out some serious scalp fuzz sculpture, you're going to be learning real quick how to properly cheer from the bench even when your elbows are free of "floating bodies". on the plus side (maybe), i'm pretty sure that dallas now has the most white meat in the nba: 6'11" lafrentz+7' nowitzki+7'6" bradley==21'4" of pure pork honky. dayum, castro.

the minnesota/golden state deal, on the other hand, is seriously hilarious. the warriors wanted to dump ms jackson so bad that they allowed themselves to be anally raped by the biggest guy in the prison yard, sending him to the twolves for.. dean garrett. yes, DEAN GARRETT. who? exactly. and a second round pick in 2007. jaysus h. to add some icing to the fuckyou, i hope marc gets a ton of playing time and plays really well and just drives the point home that the warriors organization is the pits.

female figure skating fun, y'all. the right girl won. maybe now she can get a stylist and remove the otter carcass that appears to have taken up residence on her head.
posted at 12:31 AM

oh look, i get to go home.

bah, work.
posted at 8:50 PM

signs you are a nerd: you are reading espn's discussion of candidates for first team all-american, see that they have mentioned a player named brandin knight, and immediately wonder if he is related to brevin. brevin is not mentioned in brandin's bio. brandin is not mentioned in brevin's bio. but they have the same parents, and are from the same town, and you are a nerd.
posted at 3:01 PM

big ben hit six straight free throws. unbelievable. eight games over .500? i think so, uh huh-uh<fabolous>.

this bucket of pad thai is bottomless. it's also flavorless, but has an uncharacteristically large amount of chicken. i'm stuffed and haven't even made a dent.

the trade deadline is at 6p today. this is depressing, because after that the league is going to be totally boring until summertime when teams can trade again. oh well. at least there king charles and tnt to ease my pain every halftime show.

starting five, fo fugly: scottie pippen, tyrone nesby, popeye jones, kerry kittles, baron davis (not actually that ugly, but his son of cecil fielder rear end does him in). truly the only reason why the bullets aren't completely painful to watch due to their extreme hideousness of visage is the adonis otherwise known as mj. i could have gone all the way with a wiz-only list of hid.
posted at 11:46 AM

the wednesday hits just keep on coming. now i'm stuck here because of the table of contents, and i ordered dinner, aka lunch tomorrow. however, i'm doubtful the food will be good; we ordered from a place called "chef ho's". sketch city, chech.
posted at 6:25 PM

i have to say, crossroads is serious entertainment for serious times. the movie itself sucks, but the experience is beyond compare: 10p show, me, jill and jill's super friend christine, heckling, singalongs. shit yeah.

but i still hate wednesdays.

although nsync&nelly/girlfriend on endless repeat is certainly a good way to take the edge off. as i told jill last night, if the price of bearing nelly's children would be to put pinky-size bandaids on the infants' cheeks, that is not a problem for me.

sheri got me a present for her birthday. when i have it in hand, i will post pictures.

"what's wrong, ma? your man ain't bringing you joy?
don't trip, flip your script to a country boy"
posted at 5:50 PM

[simmons] today i am inaugurating a new feature, in which the best portion of bill simmons's the sports guy column (although it's often so impossible to choose) is reprinted here. if you don't find it funny, you need to watch sportscenter. today's selection is in regards to fantasy nba trades as the thursday trade deadline approaches.

8c. Clippers get John Stockton
($8m/2003); Utah gets Jeff McInnis
($0.6m/2002) and Quentin Richardson
($1.1m/2004).

Yeah, I know, I know ... Utah probably isn't trading John Stockton. But I can dream about him playing for the Clips, if only because it would be the strangest thing that ever happened. Wouldn't you love to be in the locker room when he's introduced to his new teammates Darius Miles and Lamar Odom, or when they give him some demeaning nickname like "Gramps," or when they try to get him to wear a red headband during games, or when they coerce him into playing in their weekly "NBA Live 2002" tournament? As if ESPN's new "Sidelines" documentary about the Clips isn't already absorbing enough (Sundays, 10 p.m., just trust me).

back at the ranch, this is the happiest day of my life. at least until the next one comes around.

Twingo16: have you heard the news?
oppsie1: no
oppsie1: is the world ending?
Twingo16: it's like a salve for america's broken heart
Twingo16: EARLY NICK CARTER TRACKS UNEARTHED

BACKSTREET BOY NICK CARTER's earliest recordings will be released as "Before the Boys: 1989-1993" on March 26th. The fourteen-track album features tracks cut by Carter between the ages of nine and thirteen, including takes on "Uptown Girl," "Jailhouse Rock," "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" and "The Star Spangled Banner." Carter's earliest work was recorded in the Orlando, Florida, studio of producer MARK DYE.
oppsie1: oh sweet jesus there IS a god!
Twingo16: hidden nirvana bootlegs have NOTHING on this!
oppsie1: you scared me for a minute. i thought maybe justin had larynx polyps or somebody assassinated bill clinton.
oppsie1: i feel this could for sure outsell jacko/thriller
Twingo16: oh JESUS!
Twingo16: nothing like larynx polyps
oppsie1: in fact nick should do a thriller-style longform video
Twingo16: that would truly be akin the apocalypse
oppsie1: and mcg can direct it
Twingo16: it's times like these i wish i wrote for the daily show
oppsie1: ps how completely and totally vomitous does he look here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020215/168/140by.html
oppsie1: if i had to choose between making out with nick and making out with janet reno, i would choose janet reno

posted at 12:25 PM

one red bull down, zero to go. i'm wearing my new jeans today. they would be much improved if they were cascading over a pair of red etnies. blah.

words that should be stricken from the earth: "rockin'"

trying not to panic. bunch more work that all must be closed tomorrow. trying not to panic.

had a bunch of really weird dreams that included flour-like snow that covered a world high above the regular one where my dreambrothers and dreamsisters and i would run away to and watch the action below, as well as having to pee in a cup to determine my cholesterol.

the blazers-clips game last night had a great finish, except that the clips lost. i'm glad i stayed up to watch. then i stayed up to watch sportscenter so i could see pistons highlights since i forgot to record the game because i'm a dumbass. i am a nutcase. the pistons, however, are now tied for first place in the central division.

that's right.

TIED FOR FIRST PLACE IN THE CENTRAL DIVISION.

what is the world coming to?
posted at 11:11 AM

so tired. i finally got around to buying a screen for my window at bedbath, where i accompanied jill to purchase picture frames. (i am a poor person to take along on endeavors such as this if you are looking for assistance in choosing. fair warning.) i just stuck it in, so now the roaches on the outside can't get in and the roaches on the inside can't get out. perfect, no?

also, new jeans. i do so love and appreciate that i can purchase jeans for $20.

seth left.
posted at 12:26 AM

short ribs are THE DEVIL.
posted at 2:40 PM

the sunday problem just increases exponentially in power and intensity because every sunday terry has his column in the freep and it's another day he doesn't respond to my email and acknowledge, for better or for worse, that i exist. it literally makes me feel sick to my stomach and destroys my nerves. there is now a bowling ball-sized boulder pushing down on my digestive organs.

maybe this is punishment for producing jackshit. or not even jackshit. just nothing.

hmm.

i could use a good motivating factor or fifty.
posted at 1:05 AM

sunday night seriously does make you want to kill yourself, they are so goddamn right. why do i always get so goddamn deathly depressed on sunday evenings? it's not even like it's a bad tv night. there's lots good on. jesus, this is part of the problem. television is like fucking heroin. if all my shows got cancelled or somebody blew up all the networks, maybe i'd be forced into action instead of sitting there watching the action and knowing i can't be a part of the action. gah.

i don't do anything because i feel like i can't do anything so i don't do anything.

gah gah gah.

my life is surreal.

i go to nba lockerrooms.

i end up in apartments where lester bangs probably passed out at least once with a bottle of tussin in one hand and an ex-mouthful of vomit in the other.

i work at a magazines (sort of) and interact with the people who write them and sometimes i'm that people.

i incoherently speak to the people who makes the things that make me, but speak to them all the same.

i have no excuse to complain.

so why do i feel like shit?
posted at 12:29 AM

wow, sucks to be lamar odom.
posted at 10:56 PM

ps tonight's simpsons is GENIUS^2. i am very considerately recording it for slimy seth.

"canada? why should we leave america to visit america jr?"
posted at 8:28 PM

what the fuck was that? this woman named hannah just called me up and says her aunt gloria got my number from my stepmom's mother and passed it along because we're both "writers". i hate talking to people on the phone, but i did the wehavenocareer bullshit thing with her as she tells me she's from queens and is a teacher and has been a writers group for six years and has done some reporting but her passion is fiction and we have a bond as writers and blah blah BLAH. i wonder if she was looking for contacts or something, which is a joke since i have none. or commiseration, which i guess is okay but i don't really see any point in, which is why i usually don't call people whose numbers my relatives give me because what's the use. anyway i hope she doesn't google this, she seemed very nice but the whole thing was totally ridiculous.

at least there's new stuff on fox. (i first typed 'fuck' instead of 'fox'. freud.)

"your dad's mcbain?!"
posted at 8:06 PM

took a shower. i feel much cleaner. i can't stand going to bed smelling like smoke. now if my clothes would just stop reeking.

cali does have one thing on every other place on earth: no smoking bars.
posted at 12:55 AM

seth is here. blah. we walked all over the city today because it's gorgeous out and walked all over the guggenheim, which i'd never been to, and now i'm exhausted. we saw lots of norman rockwell paintings. and a bunch of brazilian statues of the immaculate conception. the one i really liked was this painting of the one village among the many that was spared from the plague. there's a landscape of one village on top of another and another, and one somewhere in the middle is the saved one. all the cities are beset by little skeletons wielding scythes to kill everyone, but in the saved city these priests travel around in a cloud of jesus power and turn the scythe skeletons away from the town.

so i got this email from xian asking if i want to go get a drink tonight and then go over to bob's apartment. as in, robert. as in, christgau. as in BOB CHRISTGAU. i spend the entire day shitting my pants, trying to figure out what i could possibly have to say to him, and what the fuck i'm going to do in a situation with xian and possibly kula and fucking xgau, and that i have to drag seth along with me and how big is his apartment anyway oh it must be fairly big he's been living here for years and years and his rent is probably nil and jesus balls what am i going to say to him i will sit there like a simpering, gibbering idiot.

xian called and said we'd go get drinks after and i should just come over to xgau's apartment. seth and i get on the train. i try to explain who xgau is and seth of course has no idea what i'm talking about because he exists on a different plane that involves law school and politics and bad dance moves. we arrive at the apartment, i buzz up, we walk three flights, we enter, and there's xian with a beer in hand and he looks like he's actually eating every once in a while or at least getting his beer calories and everything's jolly and we're reunited and we walk in and i'm like where's bob, is he in the other room? by this time i'm suspecting there was a miscommunication of massive proportions and a crucial piece of information was left out and when xian starts guffawing i know my suspicion is correct and it turns out he totally neglected to put in his email that

he

was

housesitting.

either way it was good to see him and we chilled in casa christgau for a while and kula showed up and we went to a bar on avenue a and i realized it was the first time i'd gone that far east because i'm a loser but not because i'm afraid (except for being afraid of being a loser) and it was fun. it was fun. i need to hang out with them more instead of hanging out with my television and my pathetic pinings.

and! kula and xian are pistons fans! and! kula follows ball on espn.com! and! and! hopefully they will come over to watch a game sometime.

things i like: the way picasso draws hands. christian and kula. and christian.

things i don't like: the sound of rats rustling around plastic bags of garbage as i walk down the street. and smelling like smoke.
posted at 12:28 AM

uNF pistons win win win.

keef speaks!
posted at 1:23 AM

training day was fucking awesome. top ten for sure. boy, did they mismarket it. the trailer gave me absolutely zero desire to see it in the theatre, so i didn't. we got a screener at work.

awesome. the screenplay is incredibly tight, every beat exactly where it needs to be to make it all work. nothing hammerheaded, just enough dollops of character development to get by. and snoop! and dre! and macy! and a bunch of eses! and i do so heart denzel. it's good to see him playing a son, son. he's usually such an uppity bastard.

god, it was tight.

keef has a radio show, and they finally have an online stream. or, i didn't know they had one before, but i think it's new. you should listen. i am, as a soundtrack for the pistons-knicks game that i recorded from earlier tonight, and i expect it to be a victorious soundtrack as the pistons should crush the knicks like so many lovelorn teenaged hearts.

still waiting to hear keef's voice, though. right now there's a genius spiderman record on. i so love radio. one of these days i'll figure out ytwt and make it all justifiable.

"the name is jonah jameson, my friend. j jonah jameson!"
posted at 12:05 AM

bill simmons is my hero today, because he has been on a roll all week. today he uses two of my favorite words, reprehensible and gymkata. and his rundown of all-star saturday says everything i was thinking as i sat and watched the ludicrosity, for lack of a better non-word, unfold. (last night's halftime report on tnt during the kings-wiz game was priceless - they did a valentines day special where they continued making fun of kenny thomas for getting beat by justin, which included superimposing a heart-surrounded justin right next to kenny's head and constantly playing 'bye bye bye'. sheer genius. i wish there was another person in the world that appreciated this kind of ongoing joke as much as i do. other than ernie, kenny and charles, i mean.)

the lump in my throat is still present. it's really getting old.

xian emailed back. paranoia dissipating.
posted at 10:40 AM

from the dept of huh?:

Charlotte led 32-28 after the first quarter, most remembered for a technical foul on the Bulls for having six players on the floor. Artest appeared to be unsure if he was supposed to be in the game or not, then tried to casually walk off the court as Hornets' players screamed at the officials. Nailon hit the technical free throw.

"That was a horrible game," Artest said. "I wanted to take the game over, because no one on the floor could stop me. That's why I was so frustrated out there."

BOX SCORE
PLAYER FGM-A FTM-A PTS
ARTEST 4-12 0-2 10

that's right, the unstoppable ron artest shot 33% from the field in that game, and 0% from the foul line. the bulls are truly an enigma.

meanwhile, the regis story is done. the editor in charge was the good md, who is good and kind and nice and really likes me. so much so that he just called me in to go talk to my boss and i thought there was a problem but really he just wanted to tell her what a great job i did. huh. also he told me about a sportswriter opening at the milwaukee journal sentinel and asked if i was interested. he's tight with the sports editor there.

hum.

there is no way i could pull that off, yet it would almost be comically fun to try.

sometimes it's really difficult to cultivate an aura of misanthropy and lonerism when people seem to actually like me. no wonder i'm so confused and fickle and aimless.
posted at 4:10 PM

it's really a shame i didn't mention this earlier, because i thought i did and then looked back and see that i didn't. basically: skip gosford park, leave robert altman to his expatriation or repatriation or patronization or whatever the fuck his flavor is this week, and rent rules of the game instead. i know the homage/cribbing/ripoff/update/whatever was overt and not actually meant to dupe anybody since it's one of the best and fairly well-known movies, like, ever, but still. i mean, still.

really.

i got a recording of dashcon's concert at house of blues in la. i'm happy to report that my suspicion that 'shirts and gloves' is about dawson's creek is dead on, per carraba banter.

i'm not happy to report that last night's episode was truly the rock bottom, like diving to the bottom of a water-filled quarry rock bottom. it's just not possible for it to get any worse, unless they all sat around naked, eating fried chicken from a kfc bucket, for 48 minutes. and even that would have been better, since that means josh jackson would also be sans clothing.

"so i'll call your cellular phone
to tell you tv night was lonely without you"
posted at 2:53 PM

while this r. kelly thing wasn't unexpected at all (hello, aaliyah), it nonetheless amuses me that on his new album with jay-z, there's a track called 'pussy' that contains such gems as: "i ain't no rapper but ima sing my shit / when it comes down to that motherfucking click-click-click / niggas are sick sick sick, turn on you quick quick quick / and that's why i be giving mommy much dick dick dick". it's actually quite a shame that the track is, imho, a bit too bawdy (r. kelly moaning "niggas will do anything for some pu-u-ssy" is brilliant) even for today's mtv, even with some bleep-bleeps, because it's actually really fucking good.

so far today i've had to call abc and ask if they use alligator or crocodiles to scare people on the chair, and watch two episodes (is that what they are?) of live with regis and kelly. this is the first time i've ever seen the show. jaysus, i can't believe people watch this stuff.

here's the email of the day:

From: articles@drkoop.com
Subject: drkoop.com Article
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 09:43:47 -0500

Dear erin,

an anonymous friend believes you would be interested in the following article http://www.drkoop.com/dyncon/article.asp?at=N&id=13472.

an anonymous friend's personal message to you: I saw a picture of you opening your mail and I think you should have a doctor check you out just in case.

PS: Happy Valentine's Day!

Sincerely,
drkoop.com

"the power of the p-u-s-s-y
that's why every motherfucka in the world dress fly"
posted at 1:53 PM

sylvia fuentes, i don't know who you are, but it is totally not cool for you to call my cell phone at six in the morning.

my throat hurts. not a scratchy hurt. more a sore hurt, like i've been throwing up for five hours. (i haven't been.) and i've been having difficulty swallowing for three days. no runny nose/post-nasal drip, though, and i haven't taken cold meds in 48 hours. this is a very strange cold.
posted at 8:51 AM

ppss for a few seconds, inside i'm smiling. here's to you, sipowicz, a toast of soda and soda.
posted at 1:41 AM

pps and i emailed terry on feb 1 and he still hasn't replied, and it is making me really quite upset.
posted at 12:41 AM

ps i am now totally fucking depressed about what a loser i am, as i sit here doing NOTHING WITH MY LIFE watching GODDAMN BASKETBALL because instead of producing SOMETHING OF WORTH in college and properly vaulting to the real world i SAT IN A GODDAMN MOVIE THEATRE and somehow managed to LEAVE MY BRAIN IN THERE.
posted at 12:34 AM

pazz & jop! pazz & jop! pazz & jop! (to the stamp-stamp-clap tune beat of 'we will rock you'.)

whyyyyyyy is jay-z/the blueprint in the top ten? it was weak, except for the sweet, sweet eminem duet, 'renegade', which i listen to every day at work. i am just full to bursting with love for eminem right now. anyway, maybe i should give it another listen. especially since xian spooged buckets and buckets of joy juice for it [scroll to the bottom]. i emailed him. we need to go out. i need to see if he's still ano and agora. cmon and deny it, kid.

craig seymour, who i know, and everyone else on the list who i don't, i salute you for having the balls to stand up for the genius that is nsync/celebrity.

and for all of you that just said no to cannox/the cold vein: fuck off and tell me i'm wrong one more time.
posted at 11:54 PM

my toes are itchy twitchy.

i dreamed i was on some sort of short bus or van, and in the back we were performing impromptu surgeries without anesthetic. i think we operated on my dad. whoever it was, i think there was more than one person operated upon, we went into their stomach and took out most of their intestines. the rubbery snap when i cut the intestine stretched taut was very satisfying. but it wasn't enough, and we had to open up his chest. or it might have been my chest, now i'm not sure. plunged hands in and pulled chest apart and reached in for the heart. there was blood, and cracking bone. i was amazed by how many layers there were. before this i was looking at a house that was for sale. it looked very old birmingham-esque, was three stories tall and skinny and tudor and only had a one car garage. lots of flagstone. inside it was bilevel, the living room sunken, and the place was full of people for the open house, but totally devoid of furniture except a few random chairs. tan carpet upstairs. more flagstone inside. i wandered down to the basement. it was finished with blue shag carpet, and there was only natural light that filtered down gray from windows at the ceiling level/outside ground level. for some reason all the kids bedrooms seemed to be there in the basement, two different rooms duplicated on each side of the long, sprawling basement to make a total of four. one room on each side had two lofted beds high up in the air, just sort of suspended there with no visible support, but no bunks below. the rooms were still full of stuffed animals and toys and trophies and school papers and ribbons, like the people who lived there left with great haste. there were mountains of stuffed toys. mountains. out in the main room there were two bathrooms, but they were just the fixtures set against a wall, not actual separate rooms. it felt sad. i left and went back to the bus, and the surgeries, and then the bus was moving and the blood was gone and i sat at the front and draped my hand over the seatback while somebody else drove and justin timberlake was in the back of the bus and while we were driving somewhere far away he snuck up front to the row behind me and slid in undetected and grabbed my hand and held it. it was unexpected.

it was really nice.

now taking applications for a surrogate justin.

Twingo16: (i have a mouse)
oppsie1: (my toe is pink)
Twingo16: i am serious about the mouse
oppsie1: oh, really?
Twingo16: i have not actually seen said mouse
Twingo16: but i have seen it's. ... remnants
Twingo16: i did a yahoo search for "what do mouse droppings look like?"
oppsie1: so what came up? porno pages?
oppsie1: rodentaphilia?
Twingo16: no, a picture of mouse turds. duh.
Twingo16: i was able to correctly identify the "crumbs" on the counter
Twingo16: don't you want to come over for dinner!!?
oppsie1: are we having crumbs for dinner?
oppsie1: it scares me that you needed the internet to tell you you had mice
Twingo16: i am sorry i'm not familiar with turds
Twingo16: maybe you are
Twingo16: since you are a big fat one

posted at 3:53 PM

just found a tape of xf from early november, 1997. xf5x03: redux ii. the 100th episode of xf. again: where does the time go? i swear it was yesterday. meanwhile, do i tape over it, or save it? decisions, decisions.

"what happened to her?"
"she's dying."
posted at 8:13 PM

leave it to me to make the one day of the 365+ i've lived in this building that i brush my jacket against the wall the very same day that landlord steve has his goons paint the hallways. there's white paint all over my left sleeve, which is the part of the jacket that's black, and i think the paint is oil-based paint which means i have to get some goo gone or something if i want it clean. on the plus side, it's my ski jacket and not my good jacket. on the plus plus side, when i told my dad about the magnitude of the stain and that the jacket is now a good six years old, he instructed me to just go buy a new jacket.

new jackets feel good. new jackets feel special. way better than new clothes, because with new clothes you're still never sure if they look any good. and even better, if possible, than new shoes (not to mention the invigorating search to find the perfect jacket/pair of shoes). because new jackets are fashionably infallible. they look good. they look perfect. they make you want to back that thang up.

don't know why. they just do.

on the minus side, because the paint is white and it's not a continues stripe but sort of a brushy splatter, it now looks like an ostrich took a giant crap on my sleeve.
posted at 7:38 PM

this entry is brought to you by andy, who requested a more visible presence. this was composed by the author on december 13, 1994. (the author being andy. not me.)

My balls, by Andrew Wendt
In memory of Barry Kort

Andy's balls are fun
He has two of them, not one
His balls are big and hairy
Some people think they're scary

Andy's balls are neat
Playing with them is a treat
Oh how I love Andy's balls
They are the greatest of them alls

posted at 5:27 PM

you know what sucks? when you go all the way to chinatown for lunch because the only thing you want in the world to eat is bbq pork bun and spongecake, so you go, and when you arrive EVERYTHING IS GODDAMNED CLOSED BECAUSE OF CHINESE NEW YEAR. arg.

i got a couple of cannolis. it's not the same.

this is really foul.
posted at 3:17 PM

i can't decide if this is really funny or just really sad. although ranting about sarah jessica on the cover of vogue is pretty rich.

but not as rich as this excerpt from elizabeth kolbert's 9/25/2000 profile of regis philbin in the new yorker, in which she is attending some farewell concert reege and kathie lee put on as part of the perky one's endless swan song:

My seat for the concert was in the front row and, as it happened, next to several members of Gifford's entourage. At one point, when she was working the aisles, vamping for a man who told her he had been married forty-eight years, Gifford noticed me taking notes. She asked what I was doing, and when I told her I was a reporter she snatched up my notebook and started reading aloud from it to the crowd. Just moments earlier, I had scribbled that her dress made her look like Bamm Bamm, but all she could discern from my handwriting was a transcription of her own words: "Let the next bimbo who works with him do that!" My presence became a running joke of her routine, and several times she turned to me, following one of her remarks, to shriek, "Write that down! That's funny!"

man alive, i wish i could come up with shit like that instead of having to rely on reality.
posted at 12:06 PM

oscar noms! here i was, up early and ready to go early, and i totally forgot. i sat on the couch and set tivo to record the daily show rerun. oops. anyway. it saddens me to think that from now on, we will have to hear "novelist and academy award nominee ETHAN HAWKE!" wherever mr thurman goes.

[jameswatch2k]: landlord steve just confirmed that shithead is GONE. GONE GONE GONE. i pray this will be the last installment of everybody's favorite blog feature. cheerio.

landlord steve actually thought i was calling about the hot water being off, and apparently the heat, too - explains why i was so cold when normally the heating pipes provide enough warmth. i actually wasn't, although i was going to ask as long as i had him on the horn; i figure it'll be back on by the end of the day, and i can't really do much about it, so who cares. he said it's back on already. now if only the renovation shithead painters would clean all the dust off my door.

oppsie1: it would be amusing if kmart made a bunch of ghetto ads with mary j and jayz and stuff.
npoo: haha
npoo: and martha
oppsie1: perhaps that's their road to salvation.
oppsie1: yes.
oppsie1: martha and jayz could do decollage or whatever it's called
npoo: decoupage?
oppsie1: yes
oppsie1: i supposed decollage would be dismantling a scrapbook.
npoo: my boyfriend is obsessed with decoupage.
npoo: we made a table full of goldie hawn pictures using decoupage.

posted at 10:37 AM

grr. no hot water. grr. no shower. grr. at least i slept for an hour and a half. grr.
posted at 9:09 AM

well this sucks. i've been up since 4a, unable to fall back asleep. my apartment is freezing. do i need to have landlord steve put the radiator back? that would suck. sigh. i got in bed at 9p and didn't pass out until 1a. blah. blaaaaaaaah.

and i don't even feel that sick. except that my head seem to be caught in a vise, and for some reason i feel like clenching my teeth. maybe my head is actually caught between my teeth, which would explain both issues.
posted at 6:02 AM

fuck. i just looked more carefully at the carton and the yogurt contains aspartame. barf. too bad i already ate it all.

also, yogurt+orange juice==bad idea.

is special unit 2 any relation to law and order: special victims unit? or maybe the life and times of john c. holmes?

there is little in this world more amusing than neil tennant singing what appears to be some sort of paean to eminem. even though he's singing it as some sort of schoolboy character, and even more so since it's called 'the night i fell in love'.

also i saw the 8 mile trailer over the weekend and it looks so fucking sweet.

i can feel my headache from yesterday lurking under my forehead, waiting to pounce. sigh.

"i didn't ask why
though he seemed like such a regular guy
he said we could be secret lovers
just him and me
then he joked, 'hey man, your name isn't stan, is it?
we should be together'
and he was passionate
i guess i would rate him a nine out of ten
by then i'd fallen in love"
posted at 12:32 PM

i got dannon "creme caramel" light'n' fit yogurt for lunch. it claims that it has seven vitamins and minerals, but i'm a bit dubious. i wanted the granola kind but they didn't have it at the drugstore, where i purchased magic cold meds that i'm sure will not work as well as my stroke-inducing ones.

so the weekend was good. now i have some regis thing to check that doesn't look too horrible. (famous last words.) now ima gobble some cold meds and just chill, y0.
posted at 12:21 PM

blah, sick. this cold has been gestating now for four days. it's still not bad, but i fear tomorrow.
posted at 8:40 AM

uh, is bob costas wearing a plaid jacket?
posted at 9:51 PM

http://www.anotheruniverse.com/mscldvd
http://www.anotheruniverse.com/mscldvd
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http://www.anotheruniverse.com/mscldvd
http://www.anotheruniverse.com/mscldvd
http://www.anotheruniverse.com/mscldvd

posted at 5:34 PM

every single annoying person in this office is now congregated on the other side of my cube discussing the oscars with great solemnity and authority. me? i'm wishing i had blowdarts tipped with poison oak. i'm fantasizing about serving them all an extralarge helping of SHUT THE FUCK UP.

i miss seeing a movie every day. i watch more tv now, which takes up the time, which is probably not wise, but there's nothing like sitting in a theatre. i keep making excuses, like paying $10 for a movie is an expensive habit to maintain, and that i get out of work late and don't like having to go home later in the dark than i have to, that i'll go more often once basketball season is over because i have to get my money's worth out of league pass. and these are all true and valid. i could devote my weekend days to film, and sometimes i do. but not enough. i don't like some of the ways in which my life has changed. or, s/some/"a lot".

the current life is, as ever, strange. i just went over to christies, which is a block away, to give aaron a tape of vernon, florida that i dubbed for him. you stand inside a place like that and you wonder where you went wrong. and how much different a place like that really is from the otb. (answer: possibly not much, beyond dress code.)

on my way out of the building to walk over, a guy from ew was in the lobby. i gave him a vague "i know you" smile, one of those half-grins of hope, and got zero back. at least i didn't say anything dangerous aloud, like "hi," thus leaving my dignity intact.

(to be fair, said guy is like 6'6", which means that i come up to his hip. so it's possible he didn't see me because i exist on a different physical plane. either way, i'm not losing sleep over it, because the people that count say hi. like noah.)

BRAIN STOP BEING BORING. must snap out of this.
posted at 3:55 PM

alright, so the new psb is pretty good. it's not brilliant (maybe after a few more spins), but it's pretty good. 'the samurai in autumn' sounds suspiciously like 'miserablism'. or it sounds like another psb song/b-side off alternative that i'm confusing with 'miserablism.' either way, it's a carbon copy, updated to the year 2002 instead of the campy von campensteinity of 'miserablism'. that's a bummer, since its ancestor is a better song. however, 'home and dry', the leadoff track and leadoff single, is fabulous, and not just because it features chris lowe buried deep in the background uttering "we're going home" and i love when chris gets to speak. i think maybe because it's got an optimistic feel to it, like there are possibilities, like things could happen, like all is not yet lost.

i love the pet shop boys. love love love. in a past life i was a drag queen. (if any of you five faithful want tracks, email. psb above all else must be shared among the faithful.)

did psb/alternative really come out in 1995? was 1995 really seven years ago? where did my life go?

i feel a slight nasal drip. i am going to shit my pants and then fling beshitted pants at the wall in anguish if i am getting any kind of sick because then i will be all kinds of angry. i'm not sure why i used kind/kinds, somebody please mail me strunk&white.

madonna is recording a song for the next bond movie. it might even be the title song. if she just used 'beautiful stranger', would anyone notice?
posted at 2:35 PM

gabe arrived last night. gabe brought new pet shop boys!! gabe can stay.

new psb==bliss.

new psb==lowkey.

new psb!=uptempo.

new psb==bliss.

(i cannot believe i didn't even know new psb was in the offing. it got released on the scene like three weeks ago, i don't know how i missed it. next thing you know, elliott smith and conor oberst will have new albums that i don't find out about until six months later. sigh.)

this day cannot possibly be bad. new psb. JEWEL BAKO. brother.
posted at 10:18 AM

it's easier to rely on other people than it is to rely on yourself. it's safer. it's beyond your control. because when you fail you, it's your own fault. and then what's left?

blame is an evil tool.
posted at 4:01 PM

one of my most troubling problems has been named by the shrink and i: BLANK BRAIN SYNDROME. actually, i named it, and she abbreviated it to bbs, which just had not occurred to me. so my brain jumped to BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM and then LAKE SUPERIOR SHRUNKEN DICK SYNDROME, but i did not mention either of them aloud. it happens to me all the time, such as whenever i go to the shrink. it's like all thoughts run away, out my ears and down my body to the ground where they become part of the ecosystem and not a part of me, and my mind feels like this freshly zamboni'd ice rink, all glassy and smooth and frosted white and empty. this occurs in most one-on-one situations i find myself in, with the exception of the friends i hang out with and have known the longest. and maybe it's normal, but it's like i feel this great pressure bearing down on me that reminds me of the neverending story nothing, vacuuming up everything in its path and leaving nothing but empty.

i'm also feeling very emotionally corrupt of late. like there's nothing going on. like i should have something better to say, instead of this. like there's no explanation or subtext. actually, this is not really an also. this is as above.

i should be saying this different. i should know how.

i need to know how.

there's one piece of kugel left. i'm going to eat it, even though i'm not hungry.
posted at 3:26 PM

all stalker-murderers, please feel free to dispose of me on february 28, and not before. just confirmed: nsync and nelly sharing the very same stage singing the very same song on february 27 at the grammys, thus constructing the musical apex of my entire life. the only way to improve upon this would be if slash were to enlist as lead guitar.

"it's a midwest thang, y'all"
posted at 12:42 PM

there's some sort of photo shoot going on in an apartment across the street and to the right. their blinds are open. the camera flash is bright and reaches into my apartment like some sort of molasses-slow strobe. the shoot might be pr0n! but i think they're wearing a little clothing. earlier they were eating cake or something and then they disappeared for about 15 minutes, so maybe there was some fluffing. out in the street some woman is having a screaming fight with an unidentified second party, since he/she doesn't seem to be shouting back. she keeps repeating: I ASKED YOU NICELY TO STAY OUT THE BUILDING NOW STAY OUT THE MOTHERFUCKING BUILDING. i'm waiting for shots but there haven't been any yet.

lakers-bulls game so crazy! bulls swept the season series. that is fucked up. also, dawsons is pure pain. the preview for next week's episode left me speechless and i'm still writhing in agony just thinking about it. Very Special Episode==scary. axl rose is 40 today==scary.
posted at 1:03 AM

more ball: i find the marc jackson/golden state saga all at once sad, amusing, and awe-inspiring. as in, i cannot believe this shit is happening. it's too surreal for words. (the backstory here is that he was a second round pick out of temple, went to turkey for three seasons because he could make twice as much money, came back and suited up for the warriors and was thisclose to being rookie of the year when he went down with a strained groin (or somebody went down on him..). david aldridge does a nice recap, and not just because of a tip o' the new era cap to janet j.

Marc Jackson if You're Nasty, a colorful tale in which free agent Jackson wants to leave Golden State for greener pastures. Actually, any color pastures will do. He signs a $24-million offer sheet with Houston in the summer, but the Warriors wait until the 14th and last day before matching it. Angered, Jackson comes to camp out of shape and the Warriors make no attempts to move him. Incensed, he plays less and less for Dave Cowens ("he's been fine," Cowens insists, though no one believes him), and after Cowens is fired, even less for Brian Winters, and his teammates stop communicating with him at all -- on orders from management, it is disclosed. Apoplectic, he calls the Warriors "a bull---- organization and GM Garry St. Jean a "bleeping bleep," and is suspended for two games, but isn't allowed to go home to Philly for four days because he has to attend a 15-minute team meeting midweek. Meanwhile, the Players' Association files a grievance with the grievance arbitrator, to be heard next week, in which it will argue that Jackson shouldn't be docked two games' pay because he was telling the truth about the Warriors and St. Jean. In other words, the union is going to try and prove that St. Jean is a bleeping bleep. I wish I was making this up.

me too, henry (coming mother). but not completely, because then i'd have less to be amused about. i can't help but wonder if there's some other reason he didn't get a good deal over the summer, if he's a total cocksucker or wife-beater or what. or maybe he's GAY. the lack of out team sports figures is truly stunning. it's all very on the dl. soap opera, fo shizzle.

mikey mike schank, shit yeah. (peter saw him play in austin at the filmfest and said it was pretty excrutiating.)
posted at 4:28 PM

the shrink was okay today. i almost told her about all the awful nicknames people used to have for me that still keep me up at night, but then i didn't. instead we talked about jason williams' inability to properly groom himself.

i've had zero work. no emails, no calls, no papers on my chair, nothing. i do have, however, a monster headache on the right side of my head. usually i get them on the left, but i can feel this every time i inhale and even when i done, a bright band of pain that when i close my eyes is colored blue-green. it's behind my jaw and under my brow and i feel the way i imagine spike felt last night when buffy kicked the shit out of him and relocated his eye further down his cheek. i feel like i should be sourcing my vision at my right cheekbone instead of my right eyesocket. i got this last night and took 600mg ibu, it seemed to be mostly gone when i went to bed, but now it's back with a vengeance and my eyes don't want to stay open. i just ate another 600mg. we'll see if that works. i want to go to sleep.

i wonder if this has anything to do that all i ate yesterday was starch and sugar, culminating in eating a quarter of a loaf of chocolate chip cake while i watched nypd blue. like, not cutting pieces, but sitting with the loaf taking big bites.

please kill me.

(should i not be listening to music? is this contributing to the problem? it's all low key/acoustic. well, except for the nsync.)

fact of the day: bo derek's book (is she on the right or the left?) is called riding lessons: everything that matters i learned from horses. i wonder if that includes how to deepthroat.
posted at 3:11 PM

in my dream i went to a britney concert with the whole family, but it was in like a park on the side of the road with picnic tables and stuff. there was a roadside stand made of logs covered in cheap red-brown paint and bees called the dust'n'spin. britney seemed so sad. somebody told me her mom died over the weekend but i thought it was just a rumor and didn't believe them. during the concert we had dinner, and i had a big bowl of ramen with sashimi. my dad said to me, "doesn't gabe look like he's 25?" and i was like "i guess." after the concert it began to rain and there was mass confusion and a post office/library/municipal building kind of thing, white and shiny and new, and we ran into tom green who was telling us how to get out. so i left and went and waited with the masses in the building lobby, but my dad was trapped in the basement. tom had told him he'd come back for him later with matthew lillard, who was actually this girl at tvg who looks just like matthew lillard - i was arguing with somebody about whether lillard was in some movie or not and they were insisting that he was and i said no but then when we looked it up he was in it, he just looked very different - and he and tom were going to get a map to escape. later my dad called me on my cell phone and told me that he was "locked in" and he sounded deathly sad and he didn't say it but i knew he wouldn't be able to get out and was going to drown and that he knew it too.
posted at 8:52 AM

i get uncomfortable and creeped out now watching people crumbling on screen. not a little chin tremble or whatever, but the whole nine gallons. i think it's a byproduct of last spring. i just can't bring myself to look, to be in the moment, to engage that emotion. not because i'm afraid that i'll lose it too.

but because i know that i won't.
posted at 8:59 PM

it frightens me that alf is back on television. in commercials. for 10-10-220.

buffy and spike have a truly appalling amount of sex. or maybe it's just that upn shows them having a truly appalling amount of sex.
posted at 8:48 PM

that didn't take long. walking out of work, through the lobby, i caught a streak of red pantsuit out of my eye and looked to the left and who was standing there laughing it up with a couple of suits and hangers-on but miss eyelids herself, greta van susteren! needless to say i took a good, long look, then circled around outside and stared through the plate glass windows. two things: one, she now looks about 15, and two, there's no way she just had her eyes done. there were some other things nipped and tucked as well, believe you me.

i'm watching this animated movie, alakazam the great, nee saiyu-ki. it's 1960 japanamation with an english soundtrack led by the late, great frankie avalon - before he rose to, ahem, prominence in beach party et al - and narrated by the later, greater sterling holloway (actually, that's a big lie, as frankie is not dead). alakazam is an excitable little monkey who looks a bit like a monchichi and needs to "learn the stupidity of conceit and selfishness" as well as "humility, mercy and wisdom". he's a whiner. he's being taught a lesson by a buddha-looking fellow who giveth powers and taketh away. it's all very buddha buddha philosophy, although there's a king and queen involved, and alakazam has to go on a journey with the prince, who looks suspiciously like yul brynner. and there's a pig voiced by jonathan winters who is marrying a pork-hating girl. there's a lot of weirdness. and some the sword in the stone shapeshifting (or is it the other way around?).

sam arkoff produced. hilarious.

"stop! i am hercules!"
"i'll call you jerkules!"
posted at 7:26 PM

it is so worth it to hemorrhage all my money eating at JEWEL BAKO. i just called for a friday night res (me, gabe, jill) and they remembered me. like, over the phone. all i have was my first name. is my voice really that memorable/awful? i don't know. anyway, it's a good thing i found that magic money envelope over the weekend.

i have done practically zero at work today, other than subtly chairdance with like a millimeter of movement thanks to my killer emo/nsync playlist. headphones drown out all the icky. and i just hallucinated a roach crawling on my desk. i really thought i had confined these visions to my apartment, but i guess not.

my promise ring tshirt showed up. it's a hanes 14-16. it's really long. i think i'm going to send it back and get a medium, or a nothing. i need to see what my other youth large shirts are, brandwise. variation sucks. everything should be standard.

speaking of the magic money, i dreamed that i loaned it all to alexia and told her about how wonderful and non-scary hang gliding is even though i'm so afraid of flying.

need to come up with some shrink topics, other than the weekend freakend. hmm.

JASON KIDD, New Jersey Nets guard, on the Continental Airlines Arena fans chanting "MVP" as Kidd recorded his second consecutive triple-double (31 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists) in a 98-91 triumph over Toronto on Saturday:

"I was laughing this time. Donny Marshall told me coming out of a timeout that they were chanting MP3."

"i think i miss you most on wednesdays
and saturdays
it seems our day keeps falling on a leap year"
posted at 3:58 PM

the new subway trains have pre-recorded stop announcements. i've never heard this one, though, until tonight: "ladies and gentlemen, thank you for riding with mta new york city transit!" the recording man was disturbingly excited, like his next job on the track was to ooze "it's saturday night live!". very strange.

a girl in the subway was wearing a beige winter hat that had a little tuft of darkish fur on the front, where the hat turns up and you have the little hat ring. she was in a hurry. she had a big bag.

for a second, i thought it was a mouse carcass pinned to the fabric.
posted at 12:08 AM

as if checking a story on her wasn't bad enough, every single thing on this page is truly, truly vomitous. however, i give india.arie adolescent battle scar props.

note to self: don't buy ramen. buy yogurt instead.

if i were maya angelou, this is not the image i would want on the front of my website if i wanted to drive traffic to the site and not away.

my eyes keep looking vaguely pink/red/rimmed. i wonder if everyone here thinks i'm a pothead or something. i have no idea why they're like that, unless it's a function of lack of sleep (possible). my contacts aren't really bothering me. hope i don't have to pee in a cup.

oppsie1: YA GOTTA CREATE TO RELATE
KeefKeefKeefKeef: Word.
KeefKeefKeefKeef: Or I could pester you to create.
KeefKeefKeefKeef: SEND A HAIKU POSTCARD
oppsie1: well, shit.
oppsie1: i'm just waiting for inspiration to come, baby.
oppsie1: maybe nelly and india will inspire me.
oppsie1: I'M LIKE A BIRD SUCKS / I'D PREFER A ROOT CANAL / OR JUST PLAIN OLD DEATH

posted at 4:37 PM

this must be a new record. it's past 1230p and i'm not the least bit hungry. might be because my stomach was on and off fucked up over the weekend. or maybe my appetite has just left me completely. even thinking about consuming food is turning my stomach. weird.

i emailed adminassist at onmag saying bitch gimme my money. she's probably long gone. i'm not sure what the next step is, but i do have my timesheet carbons.

it is so goddamn freezing in this office. i don't even think it's air blowing directly on me, it's just a general icky cold. i'm wearing my scarf. it's helping, but my hands are ice. it's going to be bad when i have to wear a tshirt later in the week.

jeremie0 : sigh. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/nyregion/03FREE.html
oppsie1: yeah, sigh.
oppsie1: i wonder if i should send that to my dad.
oppsie1: or if that would backfire.
jeremie0 : well depends on what you want him to make you do
oppsie1: shut up

posted at 12:37 PM

i dreamed about a boy named sam. he shot baskets. he made 1316 of 2568 shots. he was like mike. or maybe he was mike for a minute, bald head shiny with sweat. he could launch from anywhere. one handed. no see um. backwards. just stroking it in, shot after shot after shot.

he was invincible. he picked up an aluminum baseball bat and went to try out for the team. two boys, kevin and adam, superjocks, ran the pitching machine. he hit everything. they told him thanks but no thanks. he wanted to kill them. he wanted to gut them like fish. he went home instead.

i didn't fall asleep until 4a. shithead george had some guy on talking about giza. what happened to ian punnett? i'll have to investigate.

greta honey, this don't change the fact that you sound like holly hunter, only stupid.
posted at 8:53 AM

i had to get out of bed to share this: i'm trying to go to sleep, my mind is racing over the insanity of moving home, and my second least-favorite host george noory is anchoring coast to coast. this woman calls up from somewhere that i forget, maybe arizona, and says she needs to know the name and number of an organization to contact about..

SKUNK APES.

skunk apes are "huge" and "smell horrible" and "kill animals". she is the only one who has seen them and she wants them to be "studied" by somebody. but she's afraid to go capture one on her own, so she wants to call in some sort of authority on SKUNK APES. are they like bigfoot? apparently not, because she has been to west virginia and actually SEEN bigfoot, and bigfoot is bigger and less smelly.

SKUNK APES.

the fact that people like this exist is one of the things that keeps me up at night.

(george directed her to google for 'cryptozoologist'. results of a google for 'SKUNK APES' reveal that they are a cousin of bigfoot and are funny-looking. there is really nothing else to say here other then WHAT THE FUCK SKUNK APES.)
posted at 2:02 AM

sometimes people smoke cigarettes on the subway platform. come to think of it, i don't know why it doesn't happen more often - it seems like a no-brainer that if you're a smoker, and you're waiting for the train, you might as well light up, because nothing is really going to happen to you if you do it. i've never even seen any signage forbidding it, although there's probably some 'pursuant to' city code about it, like the blanket no-smoking requirement of nyc restaurants. it sucks when people do it, but usually there's enough air movement to negate any long-lasting effects. they flick their butts onto the tracks or the platform.

tonight i didn't see anybody smoking. i saw an mta worker lugging a trash can, as if she had been emptying the standing cans along the platform, walk by. then i smelled smoke coming from behind me, towards the middle of the length of the platform. it was coming from a trash bin two cans away; the air was full of floating, ashen debris, and the space directly above waffled like heat coming off asphalt in july. i saw a faint light in the middle of the can - subway cans are these four foot high, very solid, round, black paint-covered metal affairs - that looked like somebody was repeatedly flicking a lighter a few feet in front of it, the spark reflecting off paint. then more smoke began pouring out, and the air grew acrid, and the platform started to buzz as more people noticed what was going on. a man called 911 from the payphone. a woman stood watching, clucking her tongue, and said she'd told the man in the booth upstairs. we must have watched it burn for five minutes. by the time the train came, flames were shooting up a good foot above the top of the can. the paint bubbled and cracked and burst and lent its reek to the air. and still no one came with an extinguisher or a hose.

my guess is that because it was contained in the garbage can, they weren't too concerned. it's metal, so where could the fire go? but i could see the flames through a long crack running up the side of the can, as if the fire knew its only hope for survival was to wiggle its way out of its container. if it made it, it'd be met with cold cement and squashed bits of chewing gum. and crazy christian bearded homeless men exalting the lord our savior jesus christ.

or maybe it's still burning.

some superbowl observations:

- mary j blige seriously looks like she's sixty years old. i had no idea that was her until the announcer said it at the end. she needs to lay off the coke
- britney is perfect in every way
- no dotcom commercials==weak commercials
- chipitos taste just like tostitos, so i'm a bit confused as to why they have different names
- noodle kugel is good
- why do i have a random patch of eczema on my neck?
- pat summerall's hands are scary
- john madden's eyebrows are scary
- did kurt warner's goat go gray during the game? wouldn't surprise me
- havlicek stole the ball! havlicek stole the ball! havlicek stole the ball!

from the britney snl files, re the bad hair formerly known as jimmy fallon.

Twingo16: OH MY GOD he is HIDEOUS
oppsie1: i'm sorry jill, but there is ZERO attractive about that man
Twingo16: i am going to send him a mix tape with the pavement song "cut your hair" taped 23 times
oppsie1: except that he should cut it, not not cut it
Twingo16: no, allison was watching the old britney snl today and jimmy looked SOOOOOO hot
oppsie1: that hair is just deflating all the funny
Twingo16: it is. it really makes him less funny
oppsie1: it's also revealing his male pattern baldness
oppsie1: if he dyed it black he'd look like a really dorky azn
Twingo16: okay i'm literally cupping my hands around his face so i don't have to look at his hair
oppsie1: like, who told him it looked good?
oppsie1: i mean, if he's going for ironic hair, he'd be much better off with a mullet.
Twingo16: these impressions are pretty good
Twingo16: too bad the hair ruins EVERYTHING
Twingo16: he looks like a ten year old boy
Twingo16: he looks like chris kattan in a wig
oppsie1: YES that's exactly it
oppsie1: chris kattan in a wig
oppsie1: actually he looks like a ten year old girl whose mother chopped off her hair and lied and said it looked good
Twingo16: yes
Twingo16: chris kattan makes me pee
oppsie1: not that i'm bitter

hmm. my eyes want to be closed now. i think i'll treat them right.

Twingo16: why does dan ackroyd think he's still a part of the cast?
Twingo16: he's literally on every week
Twingo16: and he's gotten really fat
Twingo16: he makes horatio sanz look ano

"tell me to talk to the hand again and i'll read your palm
i'm smellin' your shit now, don't know how to call
all i wanted was grounds for understanding
i ain't greedy, but to hold your heart i gotta put my hand in"
posted at 11:42 PM

more panic. this time i couldn't find my last mscl tape, wiht 18 and 19 on it. i checked every tape. every tape. every tape. when you can't find something in your own small space, even though you know it could not have left, you start thinking of ways that it could. that you took it to somebody's house and forgot and left it there. that CHICKENFRIED stole it, or taped over it. that you taped over it. i kept closing my eyes and seeing the ripped bit of postit i had stuck to the case. then i found the case, which instead contained a copy of last year's oscars. more panic.

it was in my nintendo bin, under my tv cart. covered in an inch of dust. containing 50000 inches of happy.
posted at 1:43 PM

[jameswatch2k]: took 45 minutes, but i finally got the nerve up to go down. he is just beyond all comprehension. it transpired as follows:

*ring doorbell two times, can't even hear it above the racket*
*he opens the door, sees me and is like doubled over in laughter; he is jolly and excited throughout the entire exchange*
me: hi james.
him: heeeeyyyyyyyy.
me: could you please turn it down?
him: you're gon' be rid of me in a week! a week!!
me: c'mon, you've had it on all day.
him: oh i have not.
me: okay, on and off all day. admit it.
*he looks at his watch as if this will help him and he's grinning and then he GIVES ME A HUG*
him: okay, yeah, yeah. i'm just testin' out my new speakers!
*literally every time i go down there he has "new" speakers*
me: you got new speakers AGAIN???
him: yeah!
me: where are the old ones?
*points to set on the floor*
him: they right there!
me: you're really moving in a week?
him: yeah! i'm goin' to those tall towers down there *points thataway*
me: that's great, are you excited? is it bigger?
him: yeah, much bigger! i need more room, this place is too small for these. *points to speakers* i'll turn it down.
me: okay, thanks. see you later.

now my shirt smells foul. it smells like stale smoke, and stupidity.

he must be a speaker fence or something. that would explain many things, such as why he's always home listening to music, and why he has the money to buy them in the first place.

i've eaten 1000mg of ibu and none of it has helped. and the music is still on. lower, but still on.

(xanax?)

(no.)
posted at 9:58 PM

[jameswatch2k]: i am so tired, he has literally had the music on for at least five hours today, on and off, and i CAN'T FUCKING TAKE THIS.

this is worse than losing my screwdriver. i'm going to throw up.
posted at 9:07 PM

my extra checks for my bank account are also missing, but given that they did not turn up in the course of my screwdriver search, they must be either hidden really well or altogether nonexistent. might as well order more. sigh.
posted at 5:34 PM

i freaked out.

i could not find my screwdriver. it is one of my prize possessions. and i could not find it.

thanks to the motivation provided by craig armstrong and amy ruth's, i decided it was time to get my desktop up and running. easier said than done: CHICKENFRIED uncabled everything, so i had to redo that. then the primary drive wouldn't spin. it just makes this sad little "pow" noise, like when you're shooting at things in zaxxon and the volume is low. or maybe when you're small and you hit a brick in super mario but can't break it. i opened the case up and poked around, swapped some power cables, swapped some other cables, swapped with swapped things to create a third swap, and determined that there is something not quite right. so i grabbed my screwdriver to remove the hd from the case, which was fine except for the fact that my screwdriver was missing.

and i freaked out.

i love that screwdriver more than life itself.

the search commenced. i discovered a great many forgotten items, such as envelope with $1000 in it from the 9/11 madness, the dongle for my analog microrecorder, and three boxes of macaroni and cheese. but no screwdriver. the screwdriver was not in my box of nh detritus, although my flashlight and pliers were. the screwdriver was not in my usps crate. the screwdriver was not on my bookshelf, or behind my couch, or under my bed, or on my shelving unit, or on my tv cart, or on my bar. the screwdriver was not in my dresser drawers, or in my pillowcases, or in my medicine cabinet. the screwdriver was not on top of the cable box, or next to the tivo, or under the computer monitor, or near my lamp.

the screwdriver was gone. i was now down one computer and one screwdriver. i moved the cushions around on my couch so one doesn't get more dented than the other (the screwdriver was not under the couch cushions, either). i went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

bono was singing one line. i looked to my left. my screwdriver was sitting behind my answering machine. it was all intact. it was found.

bono sang his second line.

i'm making a donation to the united nations as soon as my heart stops beating out of my chest.

(ps josh herman, i loooooooove you.)

Wee056: That's not true...I remember reading your online journal two years ago at it was quite interesting.
oppsie1: oh lordy lordy
oppsie1: as my friend mystikal says, "DANGE-UH!"
Wee056: well, it was. I was contemplating adapting your life behind your back for a time.
oppsie1: good thing i have a lawyer.
Wee056: Understood. Don't worry, I remember very little of it (sans the Mr. Wonderful stuff).
oppsie1: please. mr fabulous.
oppsie1: who manages to email me far more often than a certain you.
oppsie1: get your act together.
Wee056: maybe if you worshipped me like you did him (I use the past tense) I would. But I read what you thought about me...(am I building drama?)
oppsie1: i love you!
oppsie1: you are my favorite person in the world!
Wee056: Save it for the journal, honey. Can you put it in an entry about me about this? Call me something nice and you'll get an e-mail. I actually found it doing a (pompous) search of my own name on google.
oppsie1: there needs to be term for that.
oppsie1: like masturgoogling or something.
oppsie1: i'm going to make it my business to coin one.
Wee056: WELL! I truly have to leave now...masturgoogling...that's fucking brilliant! I mean it! I'd say put it in, but it'll get stolen. Talk to you later!
oppsie1: anyway whatever i said, i didn't mean it. take me out to dinner next time we're in the same area code.
oppsie1: oh you're such a cunt.
oppsie1: perhaps "googling the dolphin"

"you say when he hits you, you don't mind
because when he hurts you, you feel alive"
posted at 4:46 PM

also this craig armstrong album is SO SO SO SO GOOD. it is making me cry.

something might be possible.
posted at 1:46 PM

there's scraping noises coming from above. they're moving furniture up there, or dragging blade-covered bodies across the floor. maybe they're moving out. maybe they'll take somebody's stereo with them.

maybe not.

on the west wing, josh lyman is wearing a burberry scarf. that makes my skin crawl. i wish burberry would go out of business. i bet it's trendy now to purchase burberry baby pajamas for baby showers. i bet up in the hood the thugs are wearing burberry bandannas.

i need to go to the drugstore, and get something cheap to eat. and watch a lot of tv.
posted at 12:21 PM

[jameswatch2k]: i love getting up at 930a on the weekend!

not.

HATE.
posted at 9:43 AM

craig armstrong+evan dando==bliss.

i think this just about says it all.

oppsie1: oh my god nicholas
npoo: yes?
oppsie1: pta and crapple BROKE UP??
npoo: come again?
oppsie1: my friend is telling me that paul thomas anderson and fiona apple are no more.
npoo: oh girl, that's old news...but can he confirm it?
npoo: we had to put a 'reportedly' in when we wrote it two wks ago
oppsie1: WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED??
npoo: LOl
oppsie1: i am literally having fourteen heart attacks right now
npoo: do you hate her
oppsie1: there is no limit to how much i hate her
oppsie1: although now i hate her less
oppsie1: since at least 34% of the hate was based on the fact that she stole my husband.
npoo: i just cackled and clapped my hands loudly. i think my inner jackee is coming out.

"wake up in new york
put a comb through your hair
don't you ever want to lie down
when there's no one else around
i want to say this to you
i know i hurt you
you know you hurt me too
don't you ever want to lie down
close your eyes and leave the ground
i want to get hold of you
i'll meet you in new york
by the drugstore on first avenue
and then we will lie down
with the buildings all around
i want to say this to you
i want to say this to you"
posted at 5:25 PM

i had a lot of dreams, but the worst one was that somehow a golf ball had been driven into my dad's thigh instead of bouncing off, and i had to help him get it out. we went to the garage. he picked up a chainsaw. i asked if he was really going to use that, and he said yes. he powered it up and sawed at his own leg. chunks of flesh flew everywhere. my job was to hold the skin of his thigh taut, and then once the hole had been chewed by the saw - for some reason the saw, although he wasn't using the end of it but the long blade, had no problem making a hole only five inches in diameter - to plunge my hand in and find the ball and pull it out. it was slippery. the ball was untouched by blood, remaining white and pockmark patterned. the chainsaw was incredibly loud.

my head hurts. one of the times i woke up, the clock said 333a.
posted at 8:46 AM