So, I think everyone who has a blog goes through a little time period where a lot of stuff happens to them, but most of that stuff is stuff that prevents them from updating their little slice of self-indulgent web publishing. Then they want to catch up with people, but because there's just so much stuff, it's intimidating to update. Hence, here is a bullet-point list of important stuff that happened.
- My dog Hunter had a serious infection and went to the emergency room for an operation. After being zonked out for a few days post-op, he is fine again, except for a few patches of shaved fur. - My great uncle died on Christmas Eve morning, just as my brother and I arrived at his house to deliver Christmas gifts and food for him and my great aunt. Time was spent at the emergency room again. - Barring that, Christmas was great. The rest of my family was in great spirits, with plenty of alcohol and morbid jokes. I rode an ATV at my cousin's house and got a great X-mas haul, including a digital camera, a huge Ensor print and companion book, and swank-ass silk pyjamas. - Went into NYC for an amazing They Might Be Giants concert with some of the old and current Slowkids. Stayed overnight at Hemlock's apartment outside the city, and had a great time. Had to cut short time to return for wake and funeral. - Spent day moving giant HDTV and assembling new surround sound and DVD systems for my Dad's gift. - Bought my first ever New Balance sneakers. They are like walking on little rubber clouds. - Had lunch at the Griswold Inn at Essex, built in 1776. Got my eat on. Also got my history on. - Having fun with the fam, but looking forward to getting back to California. My allergies are making life miserable.
posted at 9:36 PM
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Good News, Bad News
Good news: I got a flight from Hartford on Jan. 3rd for $200 less than what Continental was going to charge me to change my ticket. Mom and dad said they would pay for $250 of it.
Bad news: My dog Hunter just went to the doggie emergency room (as he does every year when holiday tensions are at their highest), so I'm going to pay for the ticket myself since money's probably gonna be tight. I also got two phone calls from my student loan people today. More polite than I thought they'd be, but man, those calls are freakin' annoying.
Merry Christmas, all.
Additional, Unrelated Good News: My aunt in northern California just had another baby, Jayden Skye Ritchie, a boy to love and annoy my Goddaughter Maia as any good brother should. Hopefully, I'll have enough money and time to make the trek up the coast soon. Until then, welcome!
posted at 7:04 PM
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Obligitory "I'm Not Dead" Post
So there's been a lot of stuff going on recently. Most of it involves me and my brother drinking beer I can't get in California. Because that's the way I am when I'm out here and there's nothing else to do. Alcoholic. Seriously, I saw a bottle of Sam Adams TRIPLE bock and my face literally light up with excitement.
The rest of the time has mainly been spent playing video games and seeing relatives in the area at various family functions. "Schreiner Christmas" was Saturday at my Aunt's house, and, as to be expected by a house full of Schreiners, fun was had by all.
Last week, Sara, Chris and I went to New York City for a last-minute taping of "The Daily Show" with Julia Stiles as the guest, and because we had an extra ticket, partner in web-crime Joey crossed the island to join us. Despite the usual trappings of TV tapings (long lines and wait times, hearing someone say "it looks so small in real life!" every two minutes {I'm guilty of it, too}), the show was really fun, and Jon Stewart came off as a very normal, very funny guy.
After the show, we took a cab to the Lower East Side (or LES, as cool kids call it) for vegetarian eats at Kate's, which were amazing. If not for my demonspawn sinus infection, I'd have easily eaten one of everything in the restaurant. What I did manage to stuff in my craw was great, though, and on the subway back to Grand Central, we even got to have a little experience with a crazy homeless guy. Oh, New York!
Weird to say it, but driving around New York actually gave me just the slightest bit of longing for Los Angeles. Wide streets, visible geography, and warm, dry weather. We'll see how long that lasts when I get back to California.
Oh, and Mario Kart Double Dash!! rocks. It rocks even harder on a giant television.
posted at 7:52 PM
Ultimate TMBG Mix CD for Someone Who Has "Flood" and "No!"
This has been my project recently. It is 99% finished, and I think it rocks hard. If anyone has any suggestions, please tell me know, 'cause it's going in the mail soon.
1. Ana Ng 2. Sleeping In The Flowers 3. See The Constellation 4. Critic Intro 5. The Famous Polka 6. Don't Let's Start 7. Till My Head Falls Off 8. Man, It's So Loud In Here 9. Spider 10. The Guitar 11. Absolutely Bill's Mood 12. Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head 13. They'll Need A Crane 14. Shoehorn With Teeth 15. Older 16. She's Actual Size (live) 17. Yeh Yeh 18. No One Knows My Plan 19. It's Not My Birthday 20. She's An Angel 21. For Science 22. Out of Jail 23. Why Does The Sun Shine? (live) 24. Mrs. Train 25. Dinner Bell 26. New York City 27. Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal 28. We've Got A World That Swings 29. Kiss Me, Son Of God 30. "... I took off the intellectuals and put on They May Be Giants..."
Off running errands with the Brother and the Cousin today. More substantial updates soon, I promise.
posted at 9:34 AM
Monday, December 15, 2003
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Liquor Store...
... But I'll tell you about it later. There's a few pictures to go along with the story, but my brother's digital camera is currently with him at school, so it'll be a few days.
Over the past few days, I have been nearly incapacitated by allergy attacks and the subsequent bombardment of my body with antihistamines and decongestants. Turns out that those life-long allergies I had growing up in CT weren't only from dust and pollen, but were also from the dogs my family always had. While I wouldn't have traded those dogs for anything, it sure would be nice to be able to be home for more than a week without getting a sore throat and feeling like a brick is lodged behind my eyes.
Also, all plans of me traveling to meet up with people have been called into question. Last night, I called Continental Airlines to try to switch my flight back to L.A. two days earlier, assuming it would cost $200, maybe $300 tops. Turns out, it's going to be $500. Five. Hundred. Dollars.
There was a "South Park" I saw a while ago where Mr. Garrison invented a machine that let you travel anywhere in the world without airplanes, but to use it, you had to sit on a dildo while holding on to two others and ramming one down your throat. The joke, of course, was that everyone hated using them, but said, "Well, it sure beats going to the airport." I used to think that episode was funny ... now I think it's sad and funny.
Five hundred dollars.
posted at 10:29 AM
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Quiz!
More to come later. But I just found this and knew that 96% of my friends would get a kick out of it.
You're an Indie Pop Kid. You like songs about relationships and the prettiness of nature. You're sentimental, but not certainly not emo. Oh, and if you aren't an English Major, you should be.
Now that I know I have a job when I go back to L.A. in January, it will take all of the willpower I can muster to not spend the paltry amount I have saved up while I'm wasting time in Connecticut. This is going to be difficult.
Usually when I was bored here, I'd spend time online researching an item, then convincing myself I needed to purchase that item before finally, indeed, purchasing that item. To prevent this from happening this December, I had already planned on using my leftover Blockbuster gift cards to catch up on some of the new releases for Gamecube -- Prince of Persia, iNinja, Mario Kart Double Dash!!; some N64 games I missed out on like Paper Mario and Conker's Bad Fur Day; and if I could get my hands on my brother's PS2 for a bit, Disgaea, based on the ringing endorsement of fellow "game enthusiast" Jordan.
But I did not count on Blockbuster sucking ass. Not only does the Blockbuster in Berlin not have any of the modern games, but it has totally removed all N64 games from the store. What the fuck, B-Buster? And it's not just another case of anti-Nintendo bias, because their selection of PS2 games sucks ass, too. Come to think of it, I had the same problem at Blockbusters in L.A. and Boston, too. Even popular Gamecube games that have been out for a while were nowhere to be found on the shelves. Can anyone tell me if there's some secret policy I don't know about? Seriously, I got a ton of free rental cards last year, and I can never use them because they never have anything I want. If you're in my area and want some free rentals before the end of the year, let me know.
I ended up pulling a Hemlock (exhanging promotional copies of video games for store credit to buy video games you want instead) and netted Double Dash!! (excellent), but my search for Paper Mario has turned up dry. I searched all the used video game stores in central Connecticut today to no avail.
... Man, I wrote a lot about video games. Better get used to it.
In other news, Scott and I braved the blizzard and drove to Boston on Sunday night for the Slowkids show, which was very funny. It was weird watching the group from the audience, and I was thinking of jokes to add to some of the sketches, but I managed to keep my meddling instinct under control. It's very rewarding to see that the group I put so much into when I was there is not only still doing a great job, but is using ideas I introduced (segues! beautiful segues!), trying out new things, and making them all look good. You done made me proud, kids.
As an aside, I know there's been some slight backlash against Tale of Two Cities recently. Seriously, I mean it, tell me what you don't like about it or if you have any suggestions.
And as another aside, sorry Rachel. I saw "The Last Samurai," and I really liked it. If you dig the Meiji period of Japanese history and kick ass fight scenes with samurais and ninjas as much as I do, you won't be disappointed.
posted at 10:14 PM
You're Damn Straight, Job Market
So, the big news of the hour ... potentially the year ... is that I finally got a full time entertainment job with benefits. It took 6 months to do, but I am now the P.A. for the show "Arena" on the G4 network, beginning January 5th. It's G4's biggest-budget show, and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of work, but the main jobs are organizing schedules, networking computers, and video games. It's gonna be sweet.
I am, of course, still waiting to hear back from the George Lopez show, and if an opportunity to jump to a bigger network comes, I'm going to take it, but for now, a job is better than no job, and any job is better than that job I had at Dr. Phil. At least I won't have to worry about making rent anymore.
posted at 8:31 AM
Friday, December 05, 2003
You're Damn Straight, Tripod
Well, knock on wood, it appears that my site is back up and running.
Through no fault of my own, my site has been mysteriously eating and regurgitating my blog entries over the past few weeks. The weirdest thing of all was that if I went to my Tripod file manager and looked at the open.htm file, it was updated. But if I opened up Mozilla (which, if you still haven't gotten, what the hell are you waiting for?) and went to the site, it was an old copy. When I emailed Tripod about it, they tried to blame it on my ISP, but I called bullshit on them by saying I'd flown across the country and was still having the same problem. Miraculously, that seems to have fixed it.
So yes, right now I'm back in Connecticut. Figuring no one was going to hire anyone so close to their end-of-December hiatuses, I decided in early November to come back home for a few weeks, veg out, read, write, and play video games. Basically what I was doing in L.A., but now I don't have to pay for food. Of course, as soon as I made the flight reservation, I started getting interviews again.
I'm still trying to navigate my way through bullshit Hollywood bait-and-never-contact-you-again tactics for one job, which originally said they would know the day before Thanksgiving. When I didn't hear from them, I called on Friday. They were gone. I called Monday, they said they would know by Wednesday -- the day of my flight. Thursday came around, still no word, so I called and left a message. This is the type of bullshit I've had to put up with for the past six months.
And of course, as soon as I got off the plane, I got a voicemail from another show at G4, saying they really wanted me to come in for an interview the next morning. I explained the difficulties of me doing that to them and basically hinted that I would fly back for a job, but not for an interview, offering instead to do a telephone interview. They agreed, and I should find out about it sometime next week.
Until then, I'm planning on kicking back and not worrying about jobs. I'm here with my family, my Gamecube, Dunkin' Donuts, Magic Hats and Winter Warmers. Sunday is the SlowKids show, and Saturday is scheduled to bring 10 inches of snow.
Awww yeah.
... until I have to shovel. Then, "Ohhh no."
posted at 7:41 AM
