Andy Warhol was a bit generous

Rain, rain, rain, there you go again, messin’ up my plans
Ruinin’ my day of fun best as you can
I think it’s fair to say that I’m not your biggest fan
But I always make do in these gray hours, best as I can.

ONE of my favorite new rainy-day activities is 12seconds.tv, a new site that we are using. You get 12 seconds, not 15 minutes, of fame. That is, if the community likes what you do. For me, I feel like if I’m going to ask other people to submit videos, I sure as heck had better be submitting videos, too. So submit I do, and I’ve had a modicum of success. It’s good to know what it feels like to submit your work and be part of an active community. Hopefully this experience will help me do better at my job. Also, hey, the site is lots of fun to use and I really enjoy trying to stretch myself and see if I can respond to the silly and thought-provoking challenges. Good times!

Here are some notable pieces I’ve done so far:

• Expressing my love for Australian accents (with a twist ending)
• Submitted for your approval… see if you can guess this show
• The straight dope on cuss words, right from the rabitz hole
• The REAL easter bunny
• New yoga ball after old one burst
• FEATURED: Rubber Babushka | Follow-up | Response

So check it out. Also, Muse rules. Oh how I love your sweet sounds.

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Running commentary

Some commentary on life as of late.

1. Finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was a good read. The ending was satisfying. I just felt the pacing was off (much too slow to start) and the ending could have been better conceived and executed. Still, a pretty darn good read and a decent way to finish. I think adapting this book to film will be a fairly easy process if they cut out all the flotsam for the beginning and maybe play up the ending a little more. I’m really excited to see the 6th and 7th books adapted for the big screen. They’ll make excellent movies. The 6th book, by the way, is awesome. So at this point, I’ve read the 1st, 6th and 7th books and seen all the movies thus far. If I decide to backtrack on the reading, I might just skip (or skim) the second and go straight to the third.
2. This has not been a good weekend for air travel. Check the news.
3. I’m beginning to rethink the romanticism I sometimes feel about the college years. Those were pretty savage times. Did it have to be that way? I don’t think so. Knowing what I know now, there are different approaches I could have taken. But to what end? Maybe those occasionally fruitless or painful experiences were essential. In fact, they are essential. And the funny thing is, the journalism landscape now is totally different than it was when I was just starting out. It’s a lot more me-friendly now. Maybe ridiculously so. ALSO: The West has a different attitude from the South and from the East. The people I went to college with are almost a world away from the people I currently work with. People out here, whether from the area or from somewhere else, are just a lot more chill. Relaxed. No hurry. No rush. No pretense (relatively speaking). Be that good or bad, I’m not sure. But this attitude is less prevalent in Arizona, which picks up on the fast-paced nature of Los Angeles, although to a lesser degree. Image is of greater importance in Arizona. People are more sarcastic. Sometimes bitter, in fact. I don’t know why, but I know I had to tone it down a little when I moved here so that I fit in a little better. Somehow the traditionalism of the South cuts down on a lot of things: women wearing clothing that is too revealing, use of bad words, use of sarcasm, etc. But you know… for the most part, it’s that same sun-belt mentality of sunshine and possibility. That I like.
4. Went out, bought a vacuum and two area rugs, and then took them to Starbucks with me. And then I carried both these items on the train.

Let me make a comment for Chrissakes

I can’t make comments for the current time period. This sucks. It says I’m making them “too quickly.” Hmmm. Well it *is* my blog.

In Iowa news: They’re going to have a Harry Potter carved out of butter at the state fair this year. Unfortunately, I’m planning to be in Arizona rather than illustrious Iowa at that time. Hey, if I were going to Iowa, I could get my dingblasted birth certificate AND stare at fictional characters gloriously represented in butter at the same time. Dang. In Arizona, of course, they do have a cactus carved out of butter most years, so I guess it’s a tradeoff.

The Chinese Takeout Ninja is back again. Yesterday, while in the middle of a really suspenseful Harry Potter passage, as rain beat down pretty hard outside, I heard a sort of faint scratching noise, and then I looked back into the kitchen and was surprised to see one of those folded takeout menus moving in and out of my door crack in a sort of a sawing motion. It was like some wizard (or maybe just a jerk) on the other side was like, “Hahaha, I bet we can really annoy her by doing this!” Finally the person or thing or whatever left it jammed in the door and booked it. I never saw who or what it was. Whoever it is is driving me batty because I can’t use any more of these. I’ve got so many. And it’s not just one restaurant. It’s practically every restaurant on Roswell Road. Sigh.

I had a post office adventure to go pick up that iPod Nano that mom sent me. I like it. I’m using it right now. This is my fourth MP3 player. The ones that came before it died after two months or less due to cheap construction. The iPod Nano feels solid and the click-wheel thing is really nice once you get used to how it works. My only gripe is that Apple has rigged this thing to babysit you to some degree; you can’t just drag and drop music, but you can drag and drop other kinds of files. To gain access to the music, you have to search around the Internet for one of the many workarounds that have been created. For example, I wanted to save the music that was already on it, so used a third-party app to extract it before my first sync. (I’m not stealing music per se; it belongs in the family and we have the original CDs). Otherwise, illustrious iTunes would have wiped the iPod clean before copying a new set of files to the device.

I ate at the World Peace Cafe. I’m not a big vegetarian-vegan type person, but I enjoyed the food. (Unfortunately, I was very tempted to stop at Burger King immediately afterward.) This place rocks. They even have mint juleps. I also went to this noodle place that has great iced tea selections and decent food.

I wanted to shop at Psycho Sisters, but it was closed. This is a consignment store that sells all kinds of retro stuff. It’s cool.

I attended a Harry Potter party thingy at Barnes & Noble. Yeah. Quiet down there in the peanut gallery, please. The one nearest me had costumed people from local radio theater reading parts of the book. At the stroke of midnight, the players received the new book and began reading the first few pages. They did a good job reading the passages in character, given that none of them appeared to have seen this new book before. The guy dressed as Snape was particularly impressive. His cape was long and imposing. People had to step out of his way to avoid tripping him. It was a good look for him.

I have not bought the new book yet. I will do it eventually, but I’m still on the sixth book. I already heard a little bit about how the last book ends and I guess it can wait until I’ve spent the time reading the book before it. The fun isn’t the destination, but the journey.

I think it’s impressive that this book has developed such a following and that people dig it so much. I hope it does a bit of good for our collective psyches. Honestly, watching some parts reminded me of the feeling I got the first time I saw the Star Wars movies. It’s beyond comprehension, really. And for once, it really lives up to the lofty hype.

Gah!

People are coming to my blog with some very INTERESTING KEYWORDS lately, most of them involving Harry and/or Draco.  Ahem. And then some crap about clowns.

I’ve just been … not in the mood to blog as much as I have been. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s good to get away from the computer every now and then. I certainly don’t want to be chained to this thing.

I really feel that things are looking up in Real Life. Granted, I still hate Iowa its their bureaucracy, but I can at least deal with it. 30 days minimum to process my birth certificate request? Were that many people actually born in Iowa that it takes that long? Whatever, I’m in a zen state.
I’m really fascinated with Harry Potter now as an example of a cohesive work of art. I am studying Rowling’s text very carefully because I intend to do some writing someday. Maybe someday soon.

Last night I bit the bullet and saw the fifth movie and I’m now in the process of reading the Half-Blood Prince. My favorite movie is the fourth movie. The fifth is very suspenseful though and I dig the whole deal about the mind stuff and youknowwhatImean.

My latest train story is a few days ago, I sat down and then this ogre-ish guy sat next to me. He was just really icky, like an ogre. Like something out of a storybook. Sorry but it’s true. And then, he spots a mousy mother pushing her cute little blonde daughter in a stroller, and he offers her his seat and just keeps going out of his way to be nice to her. She’s like, yeah, that’s OK, I’m fine, Mr. Ogre. And so she stands in the baggage area. And then the ogre just keeps making cutesy little faces at the little girl, and then he finally walks over toward the mother and tries to make conversation. “What’s her name? XXXX you say? That’s the prettiest name I’ve ever heard!” And he just keeps on talking to them and it’s just really creepy. I dunno. And then he eventually goes back to the seat by me but he continues to make cutesy faces at the little girl, and he takes his shoe off and starts itching his sock foot. And then at some point I got off and breathed a sigh of relief.

Oh, and then there’s the problem of rain/condensation. Today, the train made a sudden stop and water poured out of the air conditioner and onto the floor. Like a ton of it, like someone turned over a bucket. I’ve seen this happen before and unfortunately, if you’re unlucky you might get a surprise bath. Just somethin’ weird.

Thank Godness for the weekend.

Chinese food menus

Who the heck is sticking those Chinese food menus in my door? I can never catch them — this person is amazing. I mean I’ll leave for five minutes to check the mail, and then I come back and there’s a menu in the door. I probably get one every other day during peak times, but it ebbs and flows. And it’s from different companies, and it’s always Chinese food. I just don’t get it, man. This used to happen to me in college, too, but at that time it would always be pizza places. I guess it’s just the curse of a communal living environment.

In other news, I did some social networking investigation and found a site called “ning.com” where you can create a social network of your own. I was thinking it might be funny to actually create a “social network” of my very own, so I did. Of course, now I’m thinking I should have used some other technique. Anyway, it’s called “Dude I totally rock: Survival of the hottest.” I’m curious if anyone’s actually going to join. I’m thinking I might just create some fake profiles of fake people and populate the site that way. I don’t know why I would do this, other than to make people laugh. I mean if you think about it, the premise behind social networking sites is good but also kind of skewed. I personally couldn’t care much less (in the intellectual sense) about having the longest list of “friends” or whatever. I have 90-some-odd people going on over at facebook and then far fewer in some locations, and yet far more activity in these “some locations.” So you know, who cares? The trouble is I can’t help but feel a twinge of shame at my measly friends list or whatever. It’s just bizarre, you know? An emotional thing. It’s just not worth the trouble of worrying about, but the primitive cavewoman in me is bashing a club on the ground and trying to invent fire and just getting really exasperated about the whole deal.

So the point is, visit the site, have a good laugh and whatever you do, DO NOT take yourself too seriously. That is my advice to whatever souls randomly end up here.