watching expired appliances align

bipp bipp

Feeling the blips. As usual I can’t seem to focus on much of anything. I guess I’ll blame the summer heat.

Flak has a good opinion piece today about "Spin" magazine. By the end Casey Logan perfectly sums up the personal relationship I know I’ve had with various magazines.

ooh, my stomach hurts

nothing makes me giggle like a good episode of seventh heaven! how can you beat a tv show that has a sixth grader using the phrase "save face?"

oh, the quest for the turkey

i went bowling saturday night and my wrist is in pain today. this sort of silly, non-significant bowling related injury always appears after i bowl more than one game. actually, it's my forearm that hurts. my wrist is fine. i feel like complaining today. if all goes well, i will think of something more profound by the end of the day.

breakfast

i've always been one to eat cereal without milk. i guess the official term is "dry." i just like it that way. when i was younger i discovered my favorite way to eat cheerios. during breakfast i'd sometimes have bacon on my plate and i'd tear that bacon into little tiny cheerio sized pieces and drop it into the bowl of cereal. talk about a great meal!

of course, this process makes one think of bacos (i don't think they were on the market yet). a few months ago i finally tried baco bits or bacos or whatever they're called. i didn't like them, but maybe that's because i was eating them on a baked potato and not in a bowl of cereal.

dot com update

the early february (or was it late january?) conversation jamie and i had about expanding balgavy.com has finally paid off. he's written his first column and it's a pleasure to read. his first topic? the 2002 siren music festival.

do you know anyone who has actually seen 'crank yankers?'

I was cranky through almost all of Sunday. I woke up cranky. I went to brunch cranky.

I watched "Lovely & Amazing" while cranky – and upon exited the theatre I feel like I spilled too much venom about the movie. I had no idea the movie was going to be as depressing as it is. I thought entering the theatre and seeing something light and comical would change my moodiness. I was hoping to go from cranky to something else. Even a post movie shower didn’t change my mood. I went to the park cranky. I threw Frisbee as if I had a chip on my shoulder. I rode the subway cranky. And then at home I spent hours updating my website. Cranky the whole time! Still cranky today, too.

Honestly, I think my crankiness (I’m so trying to overuse this word, ‘cranky’) was gone by the time I ate crispy M&M’s at the park. Chocolate and crisped rice can cure anything.

grumble, grumble

i don't have any proof for what i'm about to mention. somehow during the past year or two i've started to use email only for communicating about upcoming events. it's not longer a substitute for a long letter written to a friend. those letters seem to have disappeared with adolescence. of the five to ten non-work email messages i compose during the course of a day, 99% of those involve plans for that night, the following night or the upcoming weekend. email for me is like the telephone was ten years ago. i have no desire to "waste my time" with pleasantries. these days i'm in such a rush to dash those communicative thoughts into an email that i barely breathe - even if the email is several sentences long. i think i'm getting old in that mid-to-late twentysomething kind of way. what's next after email? when i'm 70 will i be sitting in my garden thinking about writing a long letter to a friend across the country? will i be sitting in that same garden with some laptop on a table? a brain reading machine strapped to my forehead? i don't know. thinking about the future confuses me.

because it’s never too early to make the announcement

My birthday coincides with the release of the new Vin Diesel film, XXX. This year’s bithday celebration will incorporate this event. Instead of watching an episode of Suvivor or just celebrating at the local bar, I’m inviting all my friends to join me in making the trip to some gigantic mid-town movie theatre to watch the film on Friday night. I can already taste the popcorn. More details in early August.

implant the microchip.

i spent the weekend in front of the computer screen and my eyes aren't sore. this is frightening. and so incredibly wrong. does this mean i'm becoming the future of humanity? a remarkable combination of man and machine?

actually, i did spend a few hours in the park saturday afternoon. those slightly overcast days are so dangerous. flirting with turning my cheeks red from an almost hidden sun is such a fun prospect. instead of working to finish 'fast food nation,' i read an article about human longevity in reason magazine. am i really dancing around the idea of declaring myself a libertarian?

grow back, already!

during my late teens i dreamed of owning a panasonic ag-1960 s-vhs vcr. to me, it seemed like the ultimate status symbol. i looked in vain on the internet for a photo of this item and couldn't find one. i'm older now and only think about this piece of video equipment once every 6 months or so.

by the way, last night's date for drinks actually went fine. conversation flowed and no overly embarassing things were said or done. in another five months i should be ready to give the nerve.com dating scene one more attempt. i'll try for my third meeting in a bar. i've pretty much decided it won't work out. after that, i will force myself to be more creative with these pre-planned activities.

who are all these hipsters on my block?

some notes cribbed from things wriitten while on the subway. written on the back and sides of some issue of the new york press picked up while on houston street. and after i got a few slices of pizza.

fuck those people and the rest of the damn critics. i can't even write. forgetting those damn apostrophes, and commas and damn shitty periods. saying 'fuck all' to the letters when i put pen to paper. who needs the damn spacebar when a piece of pizza crust flung at a paper plate is all i have to show for this night? sitting across from me also smoking camel lights, she and i talked transformers and high school. WHY DID SHE HAVE TWO PACKS? shouldn't the first pack have been disccared, crushed and tossed away with the rubbish? good night kiss? HA! Not going to happen as I'm too drunk to carry on a conversation. A conversation about WHAT? Videogames?

That subway car that carries all the trash is right in front of me.

I just want to get home. Yet I'm longing to look at her flowing red locks but to do so...she pulled them into a tight bun by the end of the night. things were going well until i went for that last drink. the music from the bar had gotten too loud. i made some silly 'move.' no longer sitting across from her. In order to hear her better, i swear! more than longing to touch her thighs. DATE OVER.

Why, oh why, did I mention the half beard? thoughts of throwing contacts into trash, ridding my eys of this embarassing niht and my hideous night. i just want one more amazing kis. that's all. too much to ask?

i talked too much. [deleted] so into the moment. less than drunk. more than high. fuck. it is the local traing.

no one here says "doors closing" like they do in d.c.

i can't keep my pants up. and i mean that in a the way that i can't keep them from falling lower than my waist.

nerve.com. fuck.

enjoying the summer

the summer is a great time of year. while i didn't accomplish much during the long fourth of july weekend, i did manage to rent a video game or two from my local video store. and last night that video game (with the late fee increasing by each non-returned day) got some serious use. summer monday nights work perfectly for hanging out with friends, playing video games, and talking about the brilliance of the fla-vor-ice.

a not so subtle list

The list of movies I want to see during the rest of the summer is taking shape. I'm curious about Christina Ricci in PUMPKIN. I'm definitely seeing ME WITHOUT YOU. And then for my birthday, the big movie to see is XXX. I do enjoy mixing art with action.

my eyebrows are NOT next

so it happened yesterday. sometime after dinner and before hanging out at the bar, i lost control. unable to cope with my inability to 'get tricky' in SSX TRICKY and frustrated by my slow running computer, i resorted to the only thing i know: shaving.

and i did some serious shaving. the only aspect of my facial hair that remains is my 'soul patch.' it's angled downward, in the shape of a triangle, but i think it's a little uneven (but that can be corrected when i brush the hair over with my fingers).

my sideburns are gone. and at the moment i don't totally miss them. sure, there's a noticeable tan line running down the sides of my face, but i can live with that. my goatee is on the list of facial hair parts i regret shaving. but i just wasn't comfortable having a goatee without a moustache...the moustache was the first thing i removed. the goatee then had to go. or is it a van dyke? i'm always losing that bet.

and then it was time for the sideburns. they were trimmed much more quickly and efficiently than i expected. ear length didn't satisfy me. they just weren't long enough, or something. the proportions with the rest of my head felt off. way off. so i got rid of them entirely.

i cleaned up the shaving with an additional shave this evening. but i'm letting the goatee return. i feel 14 without it.

typing like a madman

the bar is good. very good. started out slow. picked up. didn't matter. people. quick walk home, brisk even. i like being able to type fast. i'm so happy i took a typing class in high school. i imagine i'd be able to type fast if i hadn't but i never would have had the experience of making pictures with typed symbols. geez, holidays.

99 degrees?

i'm blaming the heat for anything i've done, said or written in the past 48 hours.

mix or mixed?

call me insane, but i didn't mind the heat this morning. yeah, yeah, i know it will get hotter by 2pm but for right now* i'm comfortable. i'm enjoying the feel of the sweat forming on my brow. for some unknown reason i walked briskly this morning. and this is not the kind of weather that suggests brisk walking. i think this morning energy is just a carry-over from last night in which i managed to accomplish a few major tasks i'd been putting off; not only did i wash dishes and shave, i filled my laundry bag for hauling to the laundry mat. it was hauled there this morning.

oh, i just wish i had something interesting to say about tape dispensers.

*fyi, i'm inside an air-conditioned office building right now

54

in general, food preparation is not my thing. i don't get too excited about it and i don't think about it too frequently.

sometime between yesterday's sunday afternoon nap and the brisk walk to prospect park, the subject of broiling vs. grilling came up. none of us knew the difference, and assumed it was the same thing. i vowed to look into the subject further and have found an answer. basically, broiling involves heating from the top and grilling involves heating from the bottom. all those who already knew this, please stop laughing at me.