Just some downtime

Ok seriously. The theory of relativity is proven day in and day out here at my bank. When there is nothing to do, time stands still. It is getting so bad that my coworkers will ask me to write something on here just so they can read it to pass the time.

Do you remember that opening sequence in The Matrix, when to capture the speed of Trinity’s motion, they freeze-frame her jump kick, and then spin around to give you a panoramic view? That is the time sequence I live in at work. To make another reference, it's like when Will Ferrell shot himself in the neck with a tranquilizer dart in Old School and was reeling around with the slow motion voice of Stiffler in his head.

To counteract this time/space bending enigma that is our bank, I use medicinal doses of coffee. The caffeine, while making me a bit klutzy, really helps kick the clock back into a normal cadence. So while I may not count your bills correctly, at least I am not speaking like James Earl Jones on an ether and opium bender.

Here is a little exercise for everyone out there. Sit in a silent motionless place, maybe the computer you are at right now. Now don't move. Don't worry you finished all of your daily work two hours ago. Need to go to the bathroom? Already did it. Twice. Just keep staring at that blank spot on the wall. You can yawn now. YAAWWWNNN. I bet I made you yawn. I can't stop yawning right now as I am writing this. Continue for seven hours. Fight urge to put head in drive-up drawer and test how strong the motor is. Haha, just kidding! Ha. ha....heh.

If you aren't already asleep, it's time to fill that coffee back up again and stare out the window like Randall Patrick McMurphy after his final trip to the 'correctional' ward. If you don't, you'll find yourself stumbling into the customers saying "you're crazy man. I like you, but, but your crazy."

Gathering

Each person out there, no matter how normal they might appear, has deeply repressed embarrasing secrets. Dark, hidden turmoil and odd quirks that they cover up on a daily basis to conform to the oh-so-normal world. I can't back that claim up with any actual evidence, but the thought makes me feel better about myself.


Just yesterday, I was whiplashed back towards earth when something bubbled up from the forgotten muck in a conversation at work. It was something that I used to do a long time ago, and something I have tried to hide as well as I can... but as I started talking about it, I got more and more excited, and then... realized I am a complete nerd.


I don't mean a nerd who got all A's in science class (I didn't), I mean a nerd that, well here goes, played Magic: The Gathering. That's right, the same fantasy card game that consumed the weekly allowances, and thusforth the virginity, of the Board And Games club back in high school. The same game you would see a hunched over group of soon-to-be larpers playing at the school cafeteria, shouting out things like 'mana', 'first-strike', and 'sorcery'.

I may have been too embarassed to 'gather' in those public events, but I am not longer going to pretend that I have never let out my inner pointdexter, and tapped to destroy target tapped creature. While not an exercise in social acceptance, the game is fantasic when it comes to learning strategy, vocabulary, and dodging projectile food products from the jock table.

If only those skills proved at least somwhat useful in the real world. One can only keep buying booster packs and hoping. You know you played as well, and if you didn't you wish you did. And if you didn't wish you did, then fine. Go be cool with your cool friends, Cooly McCoolerson. I'm going to dust of my decks and sift through the blissfully isolated world of Magic: The Gathering.

Two Headed Fur Ball Of Happy Laziness

I like dogs. I like dogs because they are stupid, simple, and always in a good mood. Sure they smell bad, and they need to be taken outside to go to the bathroom, but I've never seen a dog hide in dark corners of the house, just to wait for you to walk by, and pounce on your leg so that you drop your bowl of cereal and scream. Because that's what my cat does.


Technically Darcy isn't my cat, it's my roommates, and technically Darcy is a female name even though the feline is a male, and maybe, deep down, that could be the reason for all 'his' antagonism. Darcy and myself have, more or less, in an unspoken way, agreed to disagree. On numerous occasions I have tried to make amends with this furry little cretin, by means of petting and belly rubs, only to get clawed and bit. Fine. If that's how you want to play, I can hold a grudge too.

Sometimes I daydream about other pets that I could have, pets that do not make me feel like a shifty-eyed schizophrenic when I walk through my house at night. I fantasize about iguanas, sloths, and other slow moving non-predatorial animals, companions that live and let live, not live and haunt the shit out of somebody's legs under the table while they are trying to eat breakfast.

On a side note... is it not AMAZING to anyone else that the species of sloth has survived thus far? It doesn't really move, it just hangs from a tree, and when it does try to walk on the ground it usually gets eaten by a jaguar or something. I mean, the animal does absolutely nothing with any urgency. I think a dog with a sloth hanging on it would be the sweetest pet. The two temperaments would kind of cancel each other out to create a two headed fur ball of happy laziness.

Ski Post

I exhausted my creative energy yesterday working on this.

Fight For That Inch

The Creative Process

When the ski season came to a close, I eagerly awaited great stretches of time after work to do such things as sit at my desk and stare at the wall. To justify a sense of activity, I listened to music while I did this. Sometimes I napped too.

But after a week of recuperating from a somewhat long ski season, I think it's about time to get writing again. So last night I put on a hoodie, my well worn cap, took my green satchel, and scooted down to the local coffee shop in my little Civic. I hoped my bohemian disguise would suffice, and the local green party voters would accept me as one of their own.

Goodbye Blue Monday is the name of the briocherie on Division Street that I decided on. It's nestled, as they say, between a hot dog shop and vacant unit, purportedly planned to be another pizza shop (that'll make 6 in out small college town). The walls are pin-up boards for local art and funky designs, and the furniture is comfortable and relaxed. There were several Carleton College hippies littering the path to the couch I wanted, and I hoped I didn't pass through their fragrant haze of not-showering. Soap just fuels the machine, man!

I managed to avoid the eau d'naturale and sank down into a couch section, taking out my papers and notepad. Ok, now it's time to get some solid work done on the plotline. Here's how my mind works when I try to concentrate.

Ok, so plotline, think...why would they need to keep the prisoner alive? Damn, this is a comfy couch. Why wouldn't they just kill him? What's their motivation? Look at those two in the corner, acting all cuddly. Gross. Oh man, I wonder if my cell phone bill went through this month? I should check that. What's that smell? Is that hazelnut? Uh oh, I just farted. I hope it just sinks into the couch. That girl next to me will smell it for sure. She won't say anything though, she'll just keep on working, but I know, I know she'll smell. Judging, wondering why boys are so gross. Ok, so if I sit perfectly still, maybe it won't disturb the cushions, and the smell won't leave! Haha, the perfect plan.

Here's where I realize that in my state of mental hibernation, I have been blankly fixated on a random girl across the room, who now is looking at me like I have committed a sexual crime. I don't worry about it too much though, because either she just got back from soiree on Mt. Kilimanjaro, or the combination of hiking boots, long dress, and a Sherpa backpack mean she swings more towards Eve than Adam. I just hope that she isn't militant, or I might get those size nine Merrells between my legs. I better get back to writing.

No Movie For Stupid Men

When I get sick, like I am now, that usually means it's time to crack out the 'ol DVDs. And nothing beats the cold like snuggling up on a couch and watching dudes get their brains air-hammered out by a gentleman with a Dutch-boy haircut.

(potential spoilers)
Despite the gratuitious violence in No Country, that I am alarmingly numb to, the movie is actually one of the most cerebral films I have seen recently. Actually, I haven't felt like more of a dumb-ass since watching The Sixth Sense, when I left the theatre still wondering why he had blood on his shirt at the end. That's right, I didn't get it, laugh it up.

But in No Country, I had that same blank stare on my face when the screen cut to black and the credits started rolling. Did I miss something? It was at this point where I nodded in approval, covering up my utter confusion, and casually glanced around to see if anyone else in a stupefied state. Yess! There was a guy in the row in front of me, straw absently still touching his mouth from the last sip he took, staring dumfoundedly ahead. He looked over at his wife, but she just shrugged at him and grabbed her jacket. Ok, so I'm not the only one.

So what was this movie about? Was it about an insane man who is deep down a man of principle and intelligence, but only in his own f-ed up way? Was it about a sheriff struggling with the reality of violence in his old age? Was it about how he could not find God? Was it about the unstoppable power of evil and insanity? All of them? I don't know!

So I sit here, mulling it over, trying to find unifying themes and plotlines, like I used to do in high school English, waiting for it to hit me. Maybe I've just been hit too many times across the face by the Farreley Brothers movies.

Down, Up, Left, Right, A, Right, Down

I realize that far too often, these blogs seem to be rants. It's almost as if these are some therapeudic excretions; purges from my troubled and under stimulated psyche. So what? What are you judging me? Go screw yourself, what are you perfect?!!

Haha, serenity now, wuusaa, keep it together*, BUT ANYWAY! I thought I would rant once again about my favorite thing in the world to suck at: fantasy sports.

They are fantasy in the respect that you are not actually a coach, the athletes do not belong to you, and there is no real glory in winning computer games. They are sports in the respect that you can lose, and even if you win, you are still a loser because you spent FAR too much time and energy on something that is meaningless in every sense of the word.

I will posit that there is very little strategy in drafting and maintaining a fantasy sports team, and that sheer luck and dimwitted 'gut feelings' dominate the winners circle. I think this because I always lose. Always. It doesn't matter what sport, or who I draft, I always find a way to loose in the end. Example: I went 9-0 in football last year, only to lose the rest of the games, and then lose the first playoff game to end up in 7th. Another example: I decided to actually employ strategy in baseball last season, and shuffled my roster around mathematically, blah, blah, long story short I came in 8th. The only conclusion I can make, without admitting any flaws in myself, is that everybody cheats somehow and I don't. That's the only thing that can explain it!

So please, if you do in fact subject yourself to fantasy sports on a regular basis, would you tell me how it works? Is there a Game Genie or something? Is there a code like in Mortal Kombat that unlocks different stats? I mean common, it's got to be something... right?

*bonus points for the first person who can name all three references there as a comment

Los Diablos, part II

The clock is ticking... only a few short weeks remain before I embark westward like so many other Americans before me; Lewis and Clark, the Donner Party, and of course, Fievel Mouskawitx (not originally American, but anointed cizizenship later on).

Ahhh, the American dream, the great expansion, manifest destiny, so on and so forth. The stuff dreams are made of. Like Lewis and Clark, the great explorers, I will travel in the general 'westerly' direction. Like the Donner Party, I will not be packing any food with me. And just like our little mouse Fievel, I don't like cats.

The itinerary of events for such a trip can easily be cluttered by the myriad of opportunities. In such an epic departure I can only follow Gandalf's advice and 'do what I can with the time that has been given to me'. Only my time has allowed a four day trip to California, and Frodo got stuck with the task of burdening the evil soul of an eternal tyrant, being forced to trudge to his death amidst a battle of good vs. evil. At least he wasn't forced with the logistical nightmare of getting to the MLPS airport at 5:30AM on a Wednesday morning. I mean long-term parking rates are egregious and public transportation that early in morning is non-existent. Sheeesh.

To start off, there are a few things that I need to purchase being someone from Minnesota traveling to the sunny southwest.

1) Sunblock with SPF 150. This will prevent my seasonally agoraphobic epidermis from peeling like bacon.

2) Dual air-filter gas mask. I have heard that the smog can be so heavy in the city of angels that clouds can randomly reclassify as a solid and come crashing down with a swift 'plop' of carbon monoxide. If I dress correctly, I should look like this when I arrive.

3) A map of where the stars live. Because OMG, I can't believe that Matthew Mcconaughey is dating that blah, blah, garble, gargle, gag, (shotgun to the head). Sorry, but I can't even joke about being excited about that. Unless Scarlett Johansson is on there, cause she hasn't answered any of my letters, emails, or myspace instant messages, and I would like to really try to clarify our relationship, and where it is going.

Gone this week in Sugarloaf, ME. for Nationals

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