watching expired appliances align

i do love the real world, though

i'm not really the 'reality tv' fan i once was. 'survivor' and 'big brother' are no longer on the list of television shows i watch. i missed that pbs show about people pretending it was the 1880s and roughing it in america's midwest. i don't care one lick about popstars and like minded shows or their british & australian equivalents. yet, somehow, i can't escape my enjoyment of reality blurred. it really is the finest collection of all things related to reality television.

brief thoughts on advice columnists

Whew. Cary Tennis of Salon.com sure is testy today. And I like that about him. Sometime during the past six months, I shifted favorite* advice columnists. I was (and still am) oddly fascinated by Carolyn Hax, but she's become a bit dull for my tastes. Cary Tennis has done a great job filling the job of weekly advice columnist. His advice seems generally on target and real. And he manages to be funny.

*not counting Dan Savage

this is not about my exfoliating facial scrub

It's about my astringent. Since entering my teenage years, I've used one product for cleaning my face. That product now comes in a friendly, inviting, rounded modern looking bottle. I don't think Sea Breeze Original Astringent has ever failed me. And "the tingling sensation tells you it is deep cleaning and leaves the skin feeling cool and refreshed." After a long day in the sun followed by a too crowded subway ride, I look forward to that tingling sensation.

When I started using Sea Breeze astringent it came packaged in a very boxy looking bottle. It's got that faint yellow tint and has always had an image of a blue sailboat printed on the label. But the curve in that packaging I first became familiar with was a concave curve along the front and back. The packaging definitely had a very indsutrial look. That look has changed over the years (and the product now sells as just a bottle). I remember it used to be packaged as a bottle covered by a box. A lot of products seem to have smartly shed that outside box.

I've never used any other facial cleaner. No oxyTEN. No PhisoDerm. No Noxema. I don't have any idea what those products are like.

Of course, there is a downside to using my trusty Sea Breeze astringent. I can go for a week or two without using it when I run out of facial tissues. Unable to just splash a bit on my face, I feel compelled to fold a tissue into a little square and dab the open bottle onto it. I then use one or two of these tissues to clean my face. I'm not sure if there's a better tingling sensation in the world!

world cup fever

this morning i finally watched a little world cup action as the u.s. team took on germany. i didn't turn on the tv until 35 minutes into the game, but i had a great time watching the soccer action i saw. why haven't i been getting up early and staying up late like everyone else?

i was nervous it wouldn't be much fun because of the nature of the sport - i just don't like watching sporting events when all the action takes place in front of one primary camera. i need close-ups. i want to see the sweat and determination on players' faces. watching a bunch of guys dressed in blue kicking a ball around sounded kind of dull to me. but after 59 minutes of excitement, i have changed my tune. i'm officially hooked!

step on up, slugger

last night was spent at shea stadium where i watched the mets take on the twins. the mets won in a game that lasted less than three hours. i finally got to enjoy more than a few handfuls of stadium popcorn (which i've been admiring and thinking about all season). and i enjoyed making fun of the teenagers sitting next to us.

i'd mention that i'm going to a minor league game this sunday, but i'm not going to turn this blog into a low rent version of the amazing baseball diaries.

the streets of baltimore

i'm hooked on hbo's 'the wire.' i didn't start watching it until last night. my roommate and i taped the first two episodes and finally got around to viewing the first one last night. i'm moments from watching the second episode and i can barely contain myself (i hear the second episode is better than the first - which didn't grab me until 35 minutes in).

the show is compelling and reminds me so much of 'homicide.' revisiting david simon's baltimore feels like returning to 1999 (or was it 2000?) when CourtTV started running all the 'homicide' episodes in order.

my favorite aspect of the show? listening to the background phones ring in the police station.

my expanding frustration with the pittsburgh cab situation

i'm currently working on a letter to the mayor of pittsburgh about the terrible time my friends and i had getting a cab two saturdays ago. i'm planning on sending a copy to the yellow cab company (which is more or less a monopoly in the town), the pennsylvania public utility commission (they regulate the cabs) and probably the allegheny institute for public policy. that organization published a report entitled "An Analysis for the Demand of Taxicabs in the Pittsburgh Area" in March of 2001. to read the report, click here and scroll down to report 01-01.

t.w.p.

i just spent the majority of my thursday evening watching "the wedding planner." i enjoyed it as much as i thought i would. this is one of those movies i'd always hoped to catch on a bus or on a plane. it's friendly and huggable in that "i'm not going to get too close kind of way."

such cute little safety scissors

i think i'm only shaving once a week now. i have no idea how i let this habit become so infrequent. last night i finally put blade to cheek and cleared the stubble from my skin. i was in such a non-shaving mood that i didn't exfoliate first. i didn't use shaving lotion. i barely even let the water get hot. with the razor i didn't vary from my current sideburns / goatee (van dyke?) pattern. stubble was allowed to remain below the corners of my mouth and next to my 'soul patch' area. i've decided to try for a more complete look when it comes to my chin feathers. of course, after shaving i pulled the scissors from my dresser drawer and trimmed the hairs on my moustache and chin. they're now short and just four days past some sort of miami vice length stubble. growing and shaving a beard is always such a fascinating work in progress.

in another note - today's washington post had a great article about bourbon. i'm sure the pictures in the print edition made it even better.

paperclips: always useful

yesterday was just a mild case of paranoia. my eye is less red today. i'm going to believe the explanation that all my coughing damaged a blood vessel. or maybe it was some sort of steep drop at kennywood. either way, i'm comfortable with 1/2 of one eye being red (but less red today).

and for those keeping track at home, thoughts of moving to louisville are disappearing...pittsburgh may be my new dream city.

at least i didn't slam my finger in the minivan door

i'm just plain exhausted. somehow, the weekend trip to pittsburgh took a lot out of me. i shouldn't have had so many french fries (@ wendy's / @ kennywood / @ pnc park / and again @ wendy's)! i didn't have fries at kennywood's potato patch, but (according to friends) they don't live up to their reputation.

is it bad that riding roller coasters, eating, hanging out with friends and watching baseball tires me out so? granted, the 16 hours spent in the car (well, maybe it was 15 hours) was of no help.

and now i'm convinced i've got some sort of communicable eye disease. my left eye is bloodshot. i've had a cold all week and this morning i woke up with gunk all over both my eyes. my assumption was that the gunk was related to my cold, but now i'm fearing i'm close to death (i dreamed about being in the middle of some war like scenario the other night - a first for me). originally, i figured the bloodshot eye (which i think appeared saturday) was from the driving. i've been wearing a somewhat old pair of glasses and i think the eye strain at 2am on the pennsylvania turnpike was too much for me. but maybe i've done more than pull some sort of eye muscle?

i will explore this situation and i'm reasonably worried about my health. this is no time to shrug things off.

what am i talking about when i say "this is not time to..."? how ominous of me. i really meant nothing by that. there are no great orchestrated events going on in my life at the moment. except that i wish i could take a vacation in a giant air conditioned building. i've spent the past three weekends in the sun. it's time to take things indoors. or at least to switch my outdoor activities to nighttime ones that involve comfortable breezes.

drooling over rcdb.com

i'm headed to pittsburgh this weekend. that means going to a pirates game and (new for this year!) a visit to kennywood.

i'm looking forward to my return of my roller coaster fever!

the plan for kennywood is to take my cheap digital camera. using a disposable camera during last year's trip to six flags just wasn't effective. i'm too old to have the patience for all the necessary scanning of prints.

i can only repeat my dreams

i've got some sort of sinus cold today. it's acting on that part of my brain that controls my dreams. i was having a lot of strange dreams this morning.

i was wearing the t-shirt i've got on right now - an old college t-shirt with lots of holes in it - especially in the collar. but i was wearing this shirt backwards and i kept adjusting it. i wore it with a zip up fleece so that no one would notice the holes.

i was walking around my old college but it wasn't my college at all (and no, the fry bar didn't play into this dream). i was with a friend from high school who also went to my college. and we were with her friends, visiting our old dorms and such. but then i didn't want to go into one of them, and stumbled off to the corner of the yard where i saw a green garden hose and a giant area for sliding (a la the famous slip'n'slide).

after that i wandered over to another table where a bunch of friends from high school who didn't go to my college were hanging out. they all had haircuts. all of them. one of them (who had gone off to medical school) was going to be enrolling for a semester. i told her we should hang out (as i was now going to this school in my dream). she thought i told her we should freak out and that made her a bit nervous. then i walked back toward my house, not wanting to bother them anymore. i passed by the campus center and started getting chills and filling with anxious thoughts because now that i'd re-enrolled in my college, on campus mailboxes weren't guaranteed for all four years. that meant i'd have to get my mail at my house. and if you lived where i lived during college that meant you'd be getting mail there for at least the next ten years.