I got this email from my great uncle. Now you know why I like graveyard slapstick so much.
"With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The hokey Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 93.
The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in... and then the trouble started."
posted at 9:29 PM
Sunday, April 25, 2004
A Shout Out
First and foremost, I have to give the maddest props I can possibly give to the Slow Children At Play, who broke yet another attendance record on Friday and nearly sold out Jacob Sleeper Auditorium at Boston University. It's fantastic news for everyone, and all my heartiest congratulations go out to the graduating class. My first show with SlowKids had about 75 people in the audience. My last show was within reach of 400. Now they're close to 600. Kick fucking ass, guys. Next step is to take down the Dear Abbeys as the most popular group on campus. 10th Anniversary show, anyone?
And that's enough B.U. stuff. It's very weird to think I've almost been graduated for a year, now. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I only really got a full-time job four months ago. Yeah, that's probably it.
I've got a pretty strong itchin' to do something creative right now. I hope I can wrangle that into some actual creative output, which might be a little tough with a shoot this week and the E3 workathon coming up two weeks after that. But if I haven't done anything by June, somebody needs to come out here and slap me. You should also probably take my Civilization 3 CD ROM away from me.
I have a feeling I had something else to say, but right now I'm going outside to read, 'cause it's fucking beautiful outside.
posted at 12:44 PM
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
WebMD Will Kill You
Maybe it's just part of my New England DIY ethos, or an attempt to beat the doctor at his own game. More likely, it has to do with the fact that even thinking about calling a doctor costs you $2500. Yeah, that's probably it. Whatever the root cause, the resulting action always leads to problems.
You know the drill. You have a stomache-ache for a few days that just won't go away. You've tried all the traditional remedies, and nothing seems to work. You sit down in front of your computer, possibly with a cup of herbal tea, just to check your email. Then you think to yourself, "Hey, I'm going to try to find out if I have an illness. That way, I can find out how to treat it."
This is your first mistake. Your second mistake, which usually comes very soon after your first, is to log on to WebMD.com, haven and home of hypochondriacs and worriers around the world.
No matter what your symptoms are, after a few minutes on WebMD, you'll convince yourself you have some rare, incurable disease, despite skimming over something that says these sort of things can only really be detected with medical tests.
This is what I went through for about a week, even though I knew damn well what would happen as soon as I logged onto WebMD. After a time spent dealing with psychosomatic pains, I'm deciding to say "fuck it," until my medical benefits kick in in a few more weeks. Until then, it's herbal teas for me.
---
In other news, my cell phone died on Sunday. Previously, when I tried to upgrade my phone, T-Mobile offered me a shitty $20 credit. When I threatened to switch to a new carrier, though, they decided they could part with a much nicer model. Damn straight, they could. Now I got a snazzy new color phone, complete with a hipster-approved Kinks ringtone.
And despite all the doom and gloom of recent updates, I am still managing to have a little bit of fun around here. Laurel was kind enough to drag me out of the apartment for a They Might Be Giants / Corn Mo show in Anaheim as an early birthday present.
Seeing They Might Be Giants in concert always makes me look back and re-appreciate their work. Also, it's always amazing to see that they're still doing what they love, still putting on incredibily entertaining live shows, and still writing unbelievably catchy tunes after 20-odd years. That is a band that is damn good at what they do.
Going to the concert also had another effect -- it made me remember how much I love going to concerts. Add to that a recent conversation with Aimee about how I'm ALWAYS going to have student loans to pay, so I might as well have fun with my leftover money instead of putting it toward loans. Add to THAT a slew of new CDs and concerts I'd like to throw some money at, and you know what I'm going to be doing for the next month.
When I'm not working my ass off for E3, that is. But that's a post for later.
posted at 5:41 PM
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Lost Again
Fun was had last night, but I'll have to write about it later, because my head is a little clouded right now. In the grand scheme of perpetually depressing news lately, another item has joined the fray.
A few weeks ago, my parents sent me some of the boxes I packed before I left for L.A. One of the boxes got here very quickly. The other one did not. My parents both confirmed they mailed the packages on the same day, but I just kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And since nobody bothered to get delivery confirmation on the package (like I asked), I don't know if it got shipped somewhere wrong or was stolen.
As I'm anal retentive, I made sure to make a partial list of the contents of the boxes after I packed them, so I would know which ones should be sent out immediately and which ones could wait until I got settled in a little more. The first item on the list of this missing box was "lots of books." That, in and of itself, is awful. There was probably several hundred dollars of books in there that I'll never see again. And I won't even know what books are missing until I get everything else out here and try to wrack my brain to remember what I don't have anymore. Which doesn't matter, because I'm way too poor to replace any of them, anyway.
Just as I was starting to resign myself to that fact, I panicked. What about my leftover VHS casettes -- most importantly, my irreplaceable SlowKids tapes? Sure enough, further on that list, "All your VHS tapes." And there it went -- my proudest achivements from college, 100% erased from existence.
Anyone out there who has any copies of SlowKids tapes from any show 1999-2003, please please please get in touch with me as soon as you can.
posted at 9:35 PM
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Lost
Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence.
Today, I lost one of my most treasured friends; someone who had been in almost constant contact with me for the past three years; someone who had been with me through thick and thin, and some of the best times of my life.
Today, my saved game file for Super Smash Brothers Melee was corrupted ... well, maybe I should have said "thing." Sorry for misleading.
In all seriousness, I was a little upset about this, and not just because I had everything in the game unlocked and all the secrets completed. I bought the game in late 2001 and have had an unbelievable amount of memories with it. When I was looking to buy it and the GameCube in Boston (back when all the systems were impossible to find), my amazing roommates Hemlock and The Captain, along with Wolf, scoured the cold streets of Boston. We found the game (last copy in the store), but no Cube. We did create the long-running Scrimshander in-joke, though.
I got the Cube for Christmas that year, and immediately started working on it with my brother and friends from home. When I got back to college after break, that game was played nonstop. I'm pretty sure that every single important person in my life played that game, had a player profile for the game, helped unlock something in the game, or at the very least saw me playing it. That little saved game file was an encapsulation of my life. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but it's true. Now it's gone forever.
Of course, it doesn't help that I've been thinking about all my far-flung friends and family lately. I will always remember the sense of accomplishment when Scott beat the 100-man-melee challenge, joking about the Captain's high percentage of self-destructs and my 2+ days of total playing time, Wolf and my epic Capt. Falcon vs. Ness battles or the same with my brother and Young Link, the screaming and cussing that would accompany the game at SlowKids parties, and the unbelievably short amount of time it took us all to stop whatever we were doing as soon as we heard the opening theme music. Even Oz logged a healthy play-time during his last visit, and is the person I hold wholly responsible for introducing me to the N64 version (aside: When you gonna update, dude?)
To me, this little file is like a sane person's treasured memento. I'm trying to go through the game again to unlock everything, but it's going to be tough.
I got my California driver's license in the mail today, also. Here is a graphic side-by-side comparison of the picture on the new version and the picture from my old, much maligned cracked Connecticut license.
I'm sure there's some sort of larger thread about transitions and growth going on in the subtext here, but as for now, I can take comfort in two things: 1. California doesn't use a searchlight as a flash when they take your picture, so I don't look like a china doll anymore. 2. I don't have to use a passport to buy alcohol anymore ... which is good, because I'm gonna need to drown my sorrows.
posted at 9:13 PM
