then, to top it off, a two inch long spider bungeed down from the ceiling to the toilet tank and totally refused to die the first two times i tried to squash it. blah.
posted at 3:28 AM

something i ate today is not sitting well with me. it's possible i'm being punished for being derisive of herman's claim of lactose intolerance, which we all know is a ploy by the healthcare industry to make more money through expensive tests and medications and of course lactaid. of course, instead of karmic retribution, it could also be that my food consumption for the day was two coneys, one order of fries, one coke, one grilled cheese sandwich and one chocolate milkshake.

dinner with herman that stretched on for hours. in a good way. i really do need to get to la soon for a visit.

kj? not so much. but not all that awful, just mildly awful. and still -- walken, roo. i rest my case.
posted at 12:20 AM

my feet totally need to be pumiced. i'm going to take a shower and then look for tickets to florida, because i should really go see my grandma and i really need a pedicure, and there's no point to wasting a good pedicure on the michigan winter.

five hours until kangaroo jack! christopher walken AND a kangaroo in the very same movie!!! i predict greatness.
posted at 11:32 AM

hum hum. an interesting revelatory night, most of all being that herman actually approaches being half as neurotic and ocd about things as i am. it's kind of comforting to know there's more than just me (and you, dearest darby!) out there holding down the fort for all the happygolucky bastards among us.

maybe i'll go to the gym again tomorrow. yeah, right. but maybe i'll go to lulu's after hellenic with kenny and finally pick up some holsters for the MWBs. i'm sure the lovely ladies there will enjoy my coneybreath.
posted at 2:12 AM

shareef will never be done. i am a failure.

oppsie1: i'll give you $50 to write this story for me
Antimute: you had an article in the Jewish news recently
oppsie1: yes i did
Antimute: I'm not writing your damn stories woman
oppsie1: it was on the cover
oppsie1: cmonnnnn
oppsie1: $50!
Antimute: you know Julie? she offered to bear a child for me if I wrote her paper
Antimute: and I didn't crack
Antimute: you'll have to do better than her obviously
oppsie1: you can partake in childbearing activities but produce no child with me
oppsie1: way less responsibility
oppsie1: julie was going about it all wrong
Antimute: that is true

posted at 8:46 PM

what did i do today? i don't even remember. that'll teach me. sat all day staring at the screen trying to squeeze off a shareef-sized turd of text. don't remember anything else.

i was probably depressed. tragic.
posted at 2:11 PM

signs you really need a new winter jacket: you clean out the pockets and discover such wonders as:

-- a ticket to stomp from december 7, 1996, a day that will live in infamy because of the pack of wild dogs that stormed across the service drive as we tried to get on the freeway on the way home
-- matches from lelli's detroit outpost, which burned down a few years ago
-- a ticket to a mary chapin carpented concert on november 5, 1998
-- a ticket stub from lost highway
-- an appointment reminder from the orthodontist on december 26, 1997, and i haven't worn my retainer since 2000
-- a fall 1999 film/video dept class sked
-- a note about some poor sap named jeff sam who lived in west quad/gomberg and needed computer help
-- michigan voter registration application receipt from registering to vote in 1999
-- a daily crime note from an indeterminate time that reads: "NORTH CAMPUS EXHIBIT STOLEN. A caller reported to DPS that a poster exhibit entitled "Condom Man" had been stolen from Pierpont Commons. The poster, which was on display for AIDS Awareness Week, was stolen early yesterday morning. DPS has no suspects but is currently investigating the incident."
-- a ticket for a train from prague to dresden, or perhaps just the dresden local transit, i can't tell.. "einzelfahrausweis kurzfahrt"
-- an uncashed 1997 birthday check for $20 from aunt and uncle
posted at 4:47 PM

note to self: life would be a lot better if you would stop forgetting to take the tissues out of your pockets before doing laundry.

i called jewel, because it's ridiculous that we haven't seen each other and she sent me a holiday card. there was a moment of weirdness when i left the message, because i felt odd referring to myself as 'erin podolsky' but 'erin' obviously wouldn't cut it, so i went all daily on the mofo and threw down a 'podolsky'. that'll do, pig.

now i have to get some nourishment before working on my room, because the three bites of pecan pie i had just aren't working that great.
posted at 1:03 PM

that totally sucked. i cleaned the kitchen for like three hours, including an hour on a solitary pan. unbelievable. at least i don't need to lift when i'm at the gym today, since i just completely destroyed my arm. then, just as i'm finishing up, the phone rings. it's hawks pr, and they're giving me a ten minute headsup on reef calling. arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. soooooo not enough time to prepare. i mean, thankfully i had some stuff written down already but this caused me to slip into panic mode. i have no idea what to talk to shareef about. he's just not that interesting, even though the story surrounding him is interesting. he had nothing new and exciting to say, and it went shitty. the whole time i was like 'uh.. uh.. [question off the top of my head that SUCKS]' and then of course on a couple of the most important questions his cell fucking dropped out.

and to top it off during my pre-interview panic i opened the back door and set the monster house alarm off.

disaster. i hate that shit. even worse, now i have to transcribe everything tomorrow, plus come up with a genius feature pitch for editor anna that she absolutely can't say no to, because i need money like a hooker needs a pap smear.
posted at 12:29 PM

the kitchen is such a disaster of post-bacchanalia that i woke up in a fit of panic at 755a that my dad had come home and come downstairs to kill me. so i'm up. i'm going to clean. i anticipate that taking like an hour and a half. then i'll clean my room until 1p, then i'll go to the gym, then i'll go to bestbuy and get myself the amadeus 2disc dvd set, then i'll go to bn and trade in my book for something i haven't read yet, then i'll go to the supermarket and get stuff for creamcheese dough, then i'll come home and cook.

we'll see how much of this gets done, and when. stons-minnie at 730p, dog.
posted at 8:42 AM

my day was almost excellent, which is pretty unusual. y came over and we got noble (mmm, noble), then watched the truman show and the first act of the verdict and i tried to explain story structure without really remembering it too well myself, and we talked about what we're going to write. thanks to the inspiration of jill, the working title is the boy who cried chomsky. which has nothing to do with anything, but makes me entertained.

went to y's aunt's house for shabbat dinner, which i was skeptical of until i found out that herman would be there. needless to say, he and it were quite fabulous, and i think i've convinced the poor soul to acompany me to kangaroo jack (christopher walken and a kangaroo in the same movie. need i say more?) on monday evening. it really is a goddamn (godmame) shame that we don't live in the same town. oh, what could have been. y's grandmother is also quite hilarious, and at one point started talking about how in all the footage of afghanistan she's seen, the natives all have perfect teeth. i don't know if she was trying to say that everything was a front and they were all in good shape and had dental care, or what. my feeling is, dentures in every mouth in afghanistan, and a chicken in every pot in america. ten-hut!

y's whole family remembered me from meeting them like once a couple of years ago, which amuses me. and they all read the jnews cover, which came out today. twitch.

i regret posting this already. feh.

hawks pr did actually call me back, but i'm extremely doubtful that this will all come off in time. at least i'll get penelope scalabrine in on time/early.
posted at 12:05 AM

done, done and DONE.

now i call hawks pr. sigh.

sigh. christmas is so far away.
posted at 10:54 AM

jeremie sent me some trivia quiz that was in the wall street journal today. i could have done so much better.

5. Hollywood saw an explosion of young, hard-to-tell-apart, blonde starlets. Which of the following blondes starred in the surfer movie "Blue Crush"?
A. Kate Hudson
B. Kate Bosworth
C. Julia Stiles
D. Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje

need i say more?
posted at 10:12 AM

fuck. i left my headphones at the gym. this is even more stupid because i didn't even use them yesterday. they're sitting in my locker, unused, and i need them so i can have music while i write. i'm using my good in-ear headphones instead, but the cord is like three inches long so i have to be nose-up against the screen. the extension cord is at the gym too, of course.

of course.

"this is not a joke so please stop smiling
what was i thinking when i said it didn't hurt?"
posted at 7:15 AM

blargh. making good on resolutions to get up totally sucks.
posted at 6:32 AM

the dog is highly entertaining wrt my bed. she will sit in front of it whining until i say "okay!" and then and only then jump on it. hilarious.

i'm going to bed RIGHT THIS INSTANT because i'm tired and i need to be up early to write. 700 words on pinocchio, 350 on catch me if you can. i don't really feel like writing about either, they left me pretty cold. since the dog gets up at 630a i'll just get up for good then, i guess.

babysat nextdoor tonight. it's even more interesting now, going every few weeks, because each time adam has developed more language skills. i ate a really bad cookie.
posted at 10:54 PM

must. go. to gym. ngah.

i am still not dressed. this is because i must go to the gym today to keep up my new diligence about going to the gym, so there's no point in showering and dressing if i'm just going to do it there. this is also because i had to wait until 230p for brian scalabrine to call for a 12th man q&a. luckily it went pretty well.

georgy porgy called an hour ago to ask where my top ten was. oops, i totally forgot while i was living in scalabrineland. i had to come up with two humorous categories on the end, which didn't end up being very humorous i fear, and when i did the actual list i realized there are like.. five or six movies worthy of list. and that's it. it's annoying that the number must be ten. i'd rather use the other four or five slots to single out more humorous/nonhumorous stuff, like diane lane in unfaithful. npoo was so right about that. fanfuckingtastic.

meanwhile, the hawks fired lon kruger, their coach. this is bad for two reasons: one, now i have to refer to him as "former hawks head coach lon kruger" when i use the good quotes he gave me for the shareef story, and two, now hawks pr will be totally fucking swamped. why must i be punished so?

P J Debruge: Started doing DVD reviews for Premiere.
P J Debruge: That's my big news.
P J Debruge: And I joined a gym, which is an even bigger deal considering how my stingy ass operates.
oppsie1: i was just going to say i'm leaving for the gym.
P J Debruge: Between a gym membership and this http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1379&item=2151327610, I nearly chose the latter.

posted at 4:31 PM

chef josh, amy, juliya and brian vosko came over for dinner last night. as per usual it was fabulous, although josh and amy did pretty much all the work. (i have to do the dishes. ugh.) salad, bluefin chutoro sashimi, skirt steak, lots of wine, lots of chambourd+champagne, chocolate chip cookies, pecan pie, lemon cake, and clueless. lots of my dvds have turned up missing, which i guess is kind of paradoxical since turned up implies they have appeared. so far i can't find out of sight and election. this is a major problem. i cannot find them anywhere, and i am very irate about that.
posted at 2:02 PM

the dog doesn't understand that when it snows and she comes in from being outside with a pound of snow attached to her fur that she is not allowed to jump on my bed.

gotta get showered and dressed and go to.. actually, i don't know what specific burb it is. bingham? telegraph, just south of maple. anyway, must go there to meet with all the other good jew samaritans who are doing stuff today. i got assigned meals on wheels, which is good, because that's what i'd like to do. don't know how long it'll go. hopefully not too long into the afternoon. i'm supposed to go to the movies with my cousins. and then, massive gorging.
posted at 6:49 AM

my holly jolly christmas eve consists of 45 minutes on the elliptical (a new record!) and 15 minutes on weights at the gym, and a superpower post-workout meal of macncheese and grilled potato garlic sausage. gas grills rule. joining the jcc instead of the y rules, too, because they had regular hours today. tomorrow's hours are limited, though it doesn't matter since it's my offday of my back to the grind regimen. i tried out the sauna in the lockerroom tonight. it was hot and dry, and when i poured water over the stones nothing seemed to happen other than they hissed for five seconds and then dried up again. hope i didn't break anything.
posted at 9:54 PM

catch me if you can was good, not great. leo, clean, shaven, much better. tom, fat. what else is there? i think leo's mother was played by somebody closely related to frau farbissina.

had a good evening with ben. i'm still unconvinced that he's that creepy, and found it rather enjoyable. especially since it ended with greene's. outstanding tonight.

then i came home. the dog peed on the rug. i was gone for about five hours.

tomorrow: leave more obnoxious messages for the hawks. mail $5.79 check to debt collectors for some random medical charge. pay off cc. eat sushi. watch mscl. get a book from the library. go to the gym. make a haircut appt. make a massage/mani/pedicure appt.
posted at 11:49 PM

there is no limit to how irritated i am right now with atlanta hawks pr. i've left several messages for them, they haven't returned, i need to get shareef on the phone this week or i'll be late with my story again and I REFUSE TO BE LATE WITH MY STORY AGAIN and now those fuckers are out of the office for the holiday.

so fucking irritated.

i'm going over to moosejaw in a few hours to try on the marmot jacket i'm in pricelust with. if it looks good on me, i will be getting it from their supersecret closeout list for $105. it retails for $300. i rule, as does chef josh.

who else rule? brian vosko. he called the house while i was eating my daily lucky charms looking for shelly, but we ended up talking for like 20 minutes. he is the coolest, and he is in town for the next 10 days or so but most of his family is out of town like mine, and i impulsively invited him for dinner on christmas night, since jews are generally limited that evening to eating chinese or cooking for themselves. and he said he'd come! amazing. he is shelly's cousin and he works for capitol records in la, so it goes without saying that he is totally rad. i'm psyched.

today is do or die week for getting to lulu's lingerie and picking up some new MWB holsters. for serious, the MWBs are out of control. they are like oozing out of my bra, and really screwing up how the tshirt i'm wearing fits. feh. again i ask: why me?
posted at 2:26 PM

ANEURYSM.

drove with chef josh and amy to ann arbor to see la belle et la bete. making good on word rules. the movie was awesome, and the michigan had the organ going before the show and also showed a bugs bunny/elmer fudd cartoon before the big show. we got bubble tea as we drove into town. swoon. bubble tea.

anyway now the internet is aneurysm-inducing slow and it's making me lose shit on ebay and my brain is exploding so i'm going to bed.
posted at 10:51 PM

christ on a stick, i am tired.

watched stons-nets last night with noah, now recuperating from knee surgery #3. terrible, terrible officiating, and that coupled with the facts that it was the second night of a back-to-back and that the game the night before went to overtime (and the team goes right to the airplane after that) and that we creamed the nets at home a week ago was a recipe for disaster. also, wtf with zelly? i noticed he was missing a few minutes before george and lambs did, because i'm that cool. must be something in the water.

mmm. dim sum.
posted at 8:51 AM

the dog slept with me for the first time ever last night. it was okay, but not great, because dog+me+twin bed doesn't leave much room for someone as tossturny (hmm, that sounds kind of like taciturn, also a good word for me) as me. i woke up a lot as usual of late, but it worked out well because she got me up at 630a and i fed and bathroomed her and then we went back to sleep.

saw antwone fisher this morning at the only theatreplex in detroit proper, though it's not downtown. i was like the only white person there, which is fine, but what is not fine is that literally every other person in the theatre was having a dialogue with the screen which consisted of either urging the characters to do or say certain things, or repeating what they just did or said. GAH.

and now i shall read.
posted at 6:31 PM

must. clean. kitchen.

..tomorrow.
posted at 12:02 AM

got up at 9a to write adaptation. turned out kind of sucky. sigh.

the fam is off on a cruise for a week, leaving me and the dog to guard the house. i'm looking forward to this solitude, even if it just means watching a bunch of dvds and sleeping a lot. i need a vacay after the jnews cover hell.

we had a bunch of raw ground chicken in the fridge which needed to be used today or tossed, so i made chicken croquettes. this is a mom specialty, but i myself have never tried to make them. mushroom sauce too. they turned out pretty tasty but not perfect -- way too loose. i think there's too much lemon juice and that's giving them a very citric taste and making them not stay together, because there's too much liquid. the lemon i got was really large, and i squeezed every last drop out of it. stupid me. lesson for next time. i thought chef josh and amy were going to come over and eat but they totally stood me up. as in didn't even call. i'm kind of annoyed by that, especially since i said i was making dinner. as in, they didn't have to. grr. i actually only ate like one croquette, because by the time i was done cooking it was late and i had eaten like half a huge baguette and half a huge slab of brie. this was probably a bad idea since the scale at the gym this afternoon seemed to think i've put on two lbs. so not cool. i hereby resolve to do 50 crunches every morning before my shower.

pistons-cavs: yeah! also, greg kelser threw down an 'onus' with 1:10 to go in the fourth quarter. i can't wait for him to come out sometimes with "the onus is really on chucky to get off the schneid tonight."
posted at 9:51 PM

the first deed is done. banged out 315 words on two weeks notice, after georgy porgy called earlier today and insisted that i adhere to my 300 wordcount. usually the number is 350, which i usually exceed by at least 50, because i have diarrhea of the fingers. eh, whatever. the movie is really similar in a lot of ways to his girl friday, i think, which pains me to say when speaking of sandy bullock, but props must be given where props are due.

very worried about what i'm going to write about adaptation, although i like it more and more as i get away from it, and want to see it again, and find it strangely touching. i keep thinking about charlie and donald hiding behind the log, and their discussion, and how genius gets in the way. i mean, not in that instance. just sometimes. i'd go back and look at my old bjm review, but i have the feeling it probably sux0rs.

still thinkin' bout that sickass ben block. hells yeah. and i tracked down a picture of ron artest that approaches hair justice. it's like this weird crackmama-who-wasn't-able-to-get-a-weave do with a part cut in the middle. i can't even figure out if the part is there on purpose, or what. maybe he lost a bet to reggie miller, who is still single-handedly trying to bring back the shaven hairpart. long live 1989!

earlier tonight sarah and i slipped out to get john feinstein/the punch at barnes and noble, and have hot fudge creampuff at national with her friend molly. molly is supercool, and i want to be just like her when i go back in time to do hs over again. i believe i have not related this particular story yet, so i will now. a week or two ago i come home from my morning movie to find sarah and two senior boys in the basement watching tv. after i get past the blinding rage i'm feeling because the moron driver of the moron car parked all the way across the driveway so that i couldn't pull up the drive, let alone into the garage, i realize that it's not lunch time by the bhs schedule. what are they doing at the house? why is sarah hanging out with seniors? i am troubled. they are skipping seminar, which is study hall, which i could give two shits about, but sarah then proceeds to spend the next 30 minutes begging and whining and wheedling for me to call school and excuse her for the afternoon so she doesn't have to go back for ceramics. again, i could give two shits if she goes to ceramics, but i'm not about to be a party to it and call her in. she laid down a 'gabe would call me in!' which is hilarious because he so wouldn't. the whole act was pretty entertaining, the boys were rolling their eyes the entire time. i don't think they even wanted to skip. sarah started offering bribes (or i encouraged to, i forget which came first) for me to do the dirty. i kept coming up with more and more stuff she'd have to do/get for me, and still saying no. finally i told herthat if i called in, she'd have to pay me off by getting me the punch, which i'd really been wanting. moron senior driver immediately says that would be no problem, they'll just SHOPLIFT it. nice crowd, sweetheart. i said i wanted a receipt.

finally she decided that i was not going to call her in, and had the nondriving senior, who she is dating or something, call her in. brilliant. why? because immediately after he hung up i informed her that she still had to get me the book if she wanted me not to tell her mom. mwahahaha. i am so not above extortion.

now i sleep.

"it's intoxicating to be around someone so alive."
posted at 1:35 AM

jamesons in my glass. nsync in my ears. let the writing begin.
posted at 12:01 AM

the brother came home, hurrah hurrah. we had delicious noble for dinner and then watch the stons put the screws to the cavs. big ben is actually the leading vote-getter in the center category in the eastern conference, which is both cool and scary. i mean, the options totally suck. second leading center: deke, who is injured. third leading center: zydrunas ilgauskas. fourth leading center: antonio davis. can you say boring? i know i'm biased, ben being a piston and all, but even with his negligible offense he's still the most exciting, explosive player on the list (the other centers i didn't name are even more snorey). i mean, that block he threw down on ilgauskas's attempt to slam last night? 6'8" in his stocking feet ben putting up the no fly zone on 7'3" z? SICK. that was the very definition of sick.

tiResias says, "such a great movie"
darky [to tiResias]: what movie?
tiResias [to darky]: the crow
darky [to tiResias]: ah.
tiResias [to darky]: i'm sure the fact that brandon lee died making it adds to that
Andy says, "If only Elijah Wood had died."

posted at 9:09 PM

jesus. did i really write balls to the walls? what the jiminy is wrong with me?
posted at 10:10 PM

transcribed, resubmitted. blaaaaaaargh.

stons vs cavs>most. ben's block on ilgauskas>***************.

rockets vs pacers on espn. i am very, very frightened by ron artest's hair. i will try to find a picture soon that does it justice, but that might be difficult given its extremely odd properties and gravitational pull. and what the fuck are the rockets going to do with james posey? i am totally confused by this trade. if there was ever any doubt before about denver tanking for lebron, there isn't any longer. i guess they were really scared about being on pace to win 20 games this season, which is just way too many. that's more than the cavs, and almost as many as the grizz. danger! watch y'self!

yao ming is so fantastic. i'm glad that missy elliott and 50 cent wrote a song about him.

"chink! chink! jackpot, i think i'm love!"
posted at 9:54 PM

the dog is slinking around like she pissed or shat in the house, but i can find no evidence. this worries me.
posted at 3:14 PM

that sucks. i had to come home to do a phoner for jnews (what else is new?) and by the time i finished lotr midnight show was sold out. so now josh and amy get to see it without me. i'm really bummed. i really wanted to see it again. partly because as usual i have no confidence or faith in myself and it's like what if i was wrong? what if it's not as good as i wrote it was? i get so tired of me sometimes.

adaptation was good, but it didn't grab me quite as tight as i wanted it to. 4, 4.5. we'll see. between this and the hours, though, it's really nice to see meryl streep back. she's just stunning, and she hasn't really made a movie since music of the heart, which sucked. what's up with that?

bought the flaming lips album. have yet to listen. we shall see.

"it was about disappointment."
posted at 11:57 PM

wow. just married is truly a piece of horseshit. you know a movie is horrendous when the fart jokes don't make me laugh. it is pretty much a given that i will laugh at anything resembling bathroom humor, and i just sat there stonefaced through the whole thing. why, brittany murphy, why? also, i am sending ashton kutcher a memo to never appear in public/on screen with chest hair again. it is totally inappropriate, and it's not like he can't afford to get waxed. terry kept commenting on the fact that kutcher was wearing lipstick and eyeliner throughout the whole movie, and then remarked that "he must be part-woman," which just made me pee my pants.

terry gave me a cool leather pistons gym bag, and academy screener dvds for igby goes down, unfaithful and minority report. the cool thing is that i get to keep them forever ever, forever ever. and the fox ones are done in dd5.1. sadly, igd, which is an mgm movie, is merely dd2.0. lame!

terry is not lame. but we all knew that. i think i'm going over to his house on new years day to watch bowl games, mscl, eat and hook up his cable modem/wireless network. unfortunately he is stuck in screenplay reading hell for the next week or so and after that will be engaged in christmas-like activities, so i probably won't see him until then. depressing thought, fo sheezy.

my stepsister is dating a cute hs senior. she's a freshman. i'm depressed.

man, i need the latest flaming lips album. i also need a boyfriend. now taking applications for either.
posted at 6:32 PM

georgy porgy just assigned me 700 words on adaptation. can you say suh-weet?

finally got everything done. i am so exhausted. i haven't worked this hard, this nonstop, for ages. probably since school. and i still don't feel good about what i turned in. i wish i knew how to profile.

i woke up once an hour since going to sleep last night at 11p. and by going to sleep, i mean passing out. there's a really annoying, patterned creaking happening in my ceiling, so i need to put my fan on to drown it out. for some reason the 'hold' function on my fan dial doesn't work so the fan shuts off after an hour, and i wake up. it sucks. i slept until around 10a, which was nice, but not nice enough because of all the waking. and i had weird dreams that i don't remember.

i just made a kickass mix cd that is half bright eyes xmas album, and half eminem/jay-z/matthew good/ted leo/pedro the lion/psb/nsync/nelly. it rox0rs. it will eventually pass to t-dog. joy joy.

----------text pasted by guttercumguzzlingcockslut DrDaByGoD to Emrys' Tavern---------
To All

Whoever has food or any other items in the refrigerator please check it. There is a fowl odor coming from the freezer and refrigerator. Please come and check

Thank You
---------end of text pasted by guttercumguzzlingcockslut DrDaByGoD to Emrys' Tavern-
draco says, "a fowl odor. someone left some chicken in there."
when DrDaByGoD says, "OH WAIT THAT'S THE LAST SHREDS OF MY HUMANITY I THOUGHT THE FRIDGE WOULD KEEP THEM FRESH NO DICE"
-----------------text pasted by not DrDaByGoD to Emrys' Tavern-----------------
Office Haiku #2

Office-wide e-mail:
Please note: There's a fowl odor
Coming from the fridge
--------end of text pasted by guttercumguzzlingcockslut DrDaByGoD to Emrys' Tavern---

posted at 12:43 PM

ngah ngah.

the game last night was hardcore fooking oosome. terrible officiating, pistons down big at the end of the first, clawed back into it at halftime, fourth quarter put on the rockets and put in the screws. brilliant. but not as brilliant as the genius hecklers seated behind press row. my favorites:

-- during starter introductions the pistons announcer, who for some reason has trouble with lots of names (isn't that like a total job no-no?), announces kenyon martin (who in this objective writer's opinion is bar none the hottest man in the nba) as "keon martin". the guys behind immediately start screaming "KEON CLARK" at kenyon, and move on to "hey, is your name kenyon clark? aren't you keon martin? we don't know your name here!" and since it's kind of quiet because it's right before the game starts, kenyon is at the scorers table powdering his hands and the guys are screaming at him and he just looks at them with this I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY HANDS stare and puts his finger to his lip. shh.

-- the guys focus most of their attention on byron scott, since he spends most of his time coaching right in front of their line of sight. so this involves much heckling of the 'we paid for our seats' variety, and they keep ramping and ramping up on this until finally one of them throws down "hey byron, cut your hair IT'S OUT OF CONTROL!" note: byron scott has no hair. i also particularly enjoyed when they started yelling at him about the bad boys sweeping showtime. (props to scott for saying - repeatedly -
in the post game interview that the stons "beat the crap" out of his team.)

-- the sparkling diamond of the evening, however, is when brian scalabrine (rhymes with scallopini! who is actually the reason i was at the game, i'm supposed to interview him for my monthly q&a with a benchwarmer) gets in for the last minute of the game. scalabrine is a dumpy white boy with red hair who looks suspiciously like michael rapaport. as he's throwing off his warmup and subbing in, one of them shouts "penelope scalabrine! way to bring the red hair!" i have no idea why this was funny, but it was. in fact, it was hilarious.

hoofed it home, did a phone with jb's writing partner, finished drumline, almost finished the cover, napped for five hours, got up, wrote lotrttt. it took a while to get rolling but thanks to the power of nsync and the automatonic-like activity of my brain-finger pathways, it finally rolled.

aight, more transcribing, more writing, mo money, mo problems.

yeah, it's my theme song.

"sometimes i just feel like
quittin', i still might
why do i put up this fight?
why do i still write?
sometimes it's hard enough just dealing with real life
sometimes i wanna jump on stage and just kill mics
and show these people what my level of skill's like
but i'm still white
sometimes i just hate life
somethin' ain't right
hit the brakelights
case of the stage fright
drawing a blank like"
posted at 12:28 PM

schneidwatch2k: 4:09 3rd quarter, greg kelser suggests that the pistons need to go inside to "get off the offensive schneid". yowza.

man, what an awesome, awesome game. i wish i had less work and that i'd known the nets were already in town, i would have set something up with brian scalabrine. veeeeeeal. veeeeeeeeal.

got a little under 5 hours of sleep. at least dad had the courtesy not to wake me.
posted at 10:48 AM

jesus. i just finished the jb interview. left to do: benedek, herman, shere. i'm going to sleep and i'll try to get up at 9a.. i also still need to watch the pistons game and all this other shit that i'm not going to think about right now or i'll be up all night panicking. i can't believe how long this takes.
posted at 3:25 AM

making decent progress. jill called in the middle and interrupt and herman im'd in the middle and interrupted, but making decent progress. i'm 4400 words/7 pages into the jimbo interview.

and it's killing me.

to hear him talk about all the opportunities and resources at umich, stuff that i did take advantage of but there's even more now.. it makes me hate me for not writing. i should be writing. and i know i can go back to it, and write something, my brain is churning all the time like the chocolate waterfall in willy wonka trying to hit upon something that will work. it's just that i haven't come up with anything, and i get scared that i never will. i'm not a real writer. a creative writer.

and i pass it all off on not having time, not having time, not making time, because i'm doing this other thing that i love so much, but i want to succeed in this other thing. i really do. i want to make terry and jim proud of me, and i want to not feel like a can'twrite moron all the time. and i also feel like i'm so far away from how to rewrite, like i don't know how.. i don't know. maybe my prize for finishing all this work in the next 24 hours will be to put stuff aside for a few days and seriously think about something original. and just hope i don't come up empty.

which i probably will.

okay, back to work.
posted at 1:50 AM

redbull is way less pleasant when it has gone flat, yet not entirely unpleasant. i'm drinking thursday's leftovers (basically a whole can, but it was open).

accomplishments so far today: got up, saw 1030a showing of drumline, had lunch at hellenic, had upset stomach again (perhaps i should take the hint and go on a mild intestinal diet for a while -- mmm, this redbull is tasty!), tried to get motivated to transcribe but my head was totally spaced out again, got into bed and fell asleep for a couple of hours and had a really weird dream that involved charlie kaufman and a little boy and a leo's coney island franchise inside the gas station at lincoln/woodward and new york city being drowned under water, just watching the water line creep up up up toward the spires of skyscrapers as i stood on a giant hill in the middle of central park, thinking about how the world was changing right before my eyes. dad made dinner (spicy shrimp, string beans, rice) that was good but made my stomach unhappy again (mmm, this redbull is grand!), then i came downstairs and did a phoner with joshypoo herman but had to cut it short so i could make two weeks notice. happily, beautybeast is playing at the michigan next week, so that's one less thing i have to (hahaha, have to) do this weekend. i like talking to herman and often wonder about what's going on in his life. i'm glad we're hooking up when he comes home for vacation.

accompishments that must be accomplished the rest of the night: TRANSCRIBE. TRANSCRIBE. TRANSCRIBE. hence the flat redbull. luckily i am taping the stons-sonics game overnight, so i can't look at espn.com until i watch it, which is one less distraction while i TRANSCRIBE. TRANSCRIBE. TRANSCRIBE. i think the most annoying thing about having to transcribe is that i'd rather be listening to music, because that what seems natural and normal when i'm sitting at a computer, writing. blargh.

the movie started 45 minutes late because of some stupid problem in the projection room. they paid us off with slips for a free small coke. gee, just what i always wanted. but.. two weeks notice was actually good. i also liked drumline. i am scaring me, like, a lot.

"harvard doesn't give a degree in yenta."
posted at 10:20 PM

i didn't pass out til like after 5a, and at that i only dozed about ten minutes out of every hour. i never learn my lesson with this two redbull thing. but i also had a great chat with jon d, so that was good. caffeine/sugar buzzing by yourself is just not that fun.

crawled out of bed around 1030a, concocted an email for bob shaye, sent it. had lunch at noble, came back and did a phone with benedek. it went well but i somehow managed to miss my chance to drop that i'd won a hopwood. grr. hopefully he'll remember me someday, vaguely, when i cross his path again on my way to becoming a FILTHY RICH screenwriter. pulled more clips the rest of the afternoon, xeroxed at dad's office, had dinner with him at beirut palace, then babysat next door. the kids were good tonight. adam has started to develop some language, which is interesting to say the least.

and now i am home. wolfed down ice cream/sanders, and now i should really try to go to sleep. the rest of the weekend i somehow need to do the following: get a couple more interviews for the jnews cover, transcribe hours and hours of interviews, write the damn thing, see drumline, write drumline and lotr:ttt, see la belle et la bete at the dft, see heavenly creatures at madstone, watch the pistons-sonics game tomorrow night, sunday brunch at grandma's, attend pistons-nets game sunday night. i have absolutely no fucking clue how i can do all this in the next 48 hours. it really seems impossible, even after i accept that there's no way in hell i'm getting to madstone. things would be much simpler if i didn't have to see drumline. but i do. i need to find the earliest possible screening tomorrow, or one early sunday afternoon. gah.

hmm. star sfld has drumline at 1030a tomorrow. i haven't been there in months since i'm a total palladium snob now, but that's the earliest time available. i think i have to do it. but jesus, the damn thing is 118 minutes. wtf. and i have to get up early.. gah. of course, i can grab lunch after at hellenic, so that's a bonus. yeah. i better get up at 9a. and i better go to bed.
posted at 11:56 PM

this whole day has been one long thing that makes no sense. i have a lot more to say than this and a lot to catch up on.. placeholders galore below this post. but i figure you all miss me, all three of you.

here's a rundown:

get up at 830a, discover i have come down with what i've decided is my version of a migraine, that i get every few weeks to a month -- killer headache that is not stabbing but more like a giant rubber ball pulsating in the upper left quadrant of my head, making me feel really spaced out, dizzy and nauseous, like i'm walking through water. ibu does nothing for this particular brand of headache. (on the plus side, my headache count has dropped a lot since i started on some regular meds that we shall not name but are also responsible for the MWBs.) i take three doses of ibu, spread out over the proper time, none of which even touch it. by 5p i'm feeling like death because i have to drive downtown and be out of the house and functional, so i take two aleve and a mug of raspberry tea that shelly thinks might help. the headache finally disappears and is replaced soon after by a revolution in my intestines, which is either a result of all the analgesics i've ingested or all the bad cafeteria food i've ingested (nebulous meatloaf and corn at the pistons game last night, nebulous crawdad etouffee and tiramisu at the metrotimes party tonight) or the two redbulls i slammed at the mt party. when i got home from taking noah to tutoring i couldn't get out of the bathroom for half an hour. suffice it to say i'm now really dehydrated.

back to the day. discover the cable is still out from last night, dialup to check email, take a quick shower and head out to see the hours, which rocked, and not just because claire is in it. came home, cable was back on. interviewed dan shere for the jnews cover, got word from bob shaye's office that he'll answer questions via email, and peter benedek called a couple hours after i emailed my interview req to his assistant and we're talking tomorrow. i thought it was pretty cool that he called back so quick. i know how psychotic it is to get a call returned in hollywood. and talking to my darling josh herman tomorrow as well.

somewhere in the middle i called the freep. i'm starting to get a little antsy about writing about this here on the miniscule offchance that georgy porgy happens by the blog and discover that i'm trojan horsing him. (note to georgy porgy: i'm not trojan horsing you! i'm just trying to further my future. it's nothing personal. please don't hate me or fire me.) they want me to send them a bunch of clips that demonstrate my wide range of topic-covering abilities since giving me movie work will be tough at first until i get a certain someone not named terry shitcanned by virtue of my verbal superiority. and they're taking me to a meet'n'greet'n'interview lunch after the new year. but basically it sounds to me like it's mine to lose, especially when terry tells me practically every time i see him now that they loved my latest mt review. (this happened again today, which totally disturbs me because i really thought the tully review was so-so at best. like i was about to tell terry not to read it because i thought it sucked when he said both he and they thought it was great. i had no idea what to write, probably because i saw it on video and not on screen, and that always skews me and makes me hate stuff even more. it really brings out the mediocre in movies that you might not otherwise catch while viewing in the theatre.)

speaking of superiority, i am raging pissed that somewhere along the way in the editing process, the genius word 'devirginator' (oed first usage: me, 2002) got changed to 'deflowerer' in my tully review. at the mt party, which was held at the shelter which is really rad since i go see shows there all the time, i totally accosted georgy porgy to express my displeasure. he immediately passed the buck to the copy editor, who refused to talk about his reasoning with me, saying that it was a holiday party and thus not to be discussed. georgy porgy was really incensed on my behalf, which cracks me up because i just felt kind of petty complaining about it, but i think he was also a wee bit drunk. open bar at the party! sadly, it went to waste because i had noah with me as my guest/bodyguard/date since i had to drive him to sat tutoring tonight, and therefore could not partake in the alcoholic beverages. instead i had two redbulls and was going to slam a third when my stomach started acting up.

the party was really fun even though we didn't stay long, and it was cool to have noah with me, because he is just cool in general. he's having knee surgery AGAIN (seriously, it's like the fifth or sixth time) in a week so we're going to watch a bunch of basketball games over his xmas break. while he was getting tutored i wrote some nba trivia questions for the next round due in like a month. got home, visited the bathroom, had a crying jag watching the pistons game after encounter with dad, finished the game which had a nice finish although the third/fourth quarter sloppiness was unnecessarily ugly. and now here i am, all caffeineted and ready to rock.

talking with the glorious jon d right now about an article he's writing for his school paper i realized what my next good samaritan effort should be: making the berkley high newspaper better than it is. i read the latest issue courtesy of noah and it was a giant hunk of excrement. i mean, the editor in chief had a (very boring) column on the front page with glaring spelling and grammar errors in the first graf. what the fuck? they have a month to put the paper together. a MONTH. no excuse. i'm a terrible reporter and wouldn't be much good at teaching how to be a, you know, journalist, since i still don't feel like i am one, legit, but at least on the editing tip i think i have a lot to offer. i'm all excited just thinking about all the good i could do, although that's probably the redbull talking.

also i'm pulling clips for the freep and i just have to say.. my old ew shatner piece is exquisitely funny. and it takes a lot for me to say that.

Wainstead | Moby Assaulted Outside Boston Club
the magical tag [to Wainstead]: eminem in boston tonight?

posted at 12:16 AM

past 24 hours have been quite a trip.

i must have this dan issel game. i MUST.
posted at 1:49 PM

okay, i finished.
posted at 1:48 AM

one of the most exquisite joys of winter is standing in the kitchen as the sun goes down, blue-gray cloud-filtered light creeping in through the windows and bathing everything in a union civil war sheen, peeling a clementine with your fingernails into the sink, and eating the fruit that remains. i could do this all day, but there's a 30 minute window around 445p that makes it perfect.

this feeling lasted for about five minutes before all the rest of the shit i have to do in the next few days came crashing down on my head. fucking fuck.
posted at 5:49 PM

sfchad didn't call me back this morning like i had expected (atlanta hawks pr did, though, and i sent another interview request to another guy regarding shareef), but he ended up at one of my two screenings today so we hashed it out. he had no idea about the cd not having the right stuff on it, and allegedly the proper interviews will be fedexed to me for tomorrow morning. so my tomorrow is: get up, verify fedex delivery, vroom to palladium for chicago and star trek: nemesis, come up with shareef questions, send/phone in a bunch of jnews cover story interview requests because i was totally unable to get my shit together today to do that. i think it's because i went off my meds on friday, although it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy in that i chose not to do it because i went off my meds and knew that would be an excuse. i'll go back on in a few days. sometimes i do this just to see if i can, usually when i am in the hell cycle of forgetting to call the shrink during business hours, which is where i'm at right now.

given that the whole evening i've felt like just fucking bawling, i think it's time to dip into my EMERGENCY DRUG STASH. everybody needs one. who knows if it's withdrawal or just the lack of drug in bloodstream. probably both. i just wish i felt something more positive when i was on them, instead of !thewayifeelnow.

blah. this is stupid. this is a stupid game to play with myself, and i'm going to bed.
posted at 11:12 PM

holy fucking jeez.
posted at 10:25 PM

awesome.
posted at 12:12 AM

just put my bowling ball and bowling shoes in the bowling bag gabe got me last year for the first time. they fit like heaven. this is sooooooo rad.
posted at 6:33 PM

meldman, gittleman
posted at 12:11 AM