Tuesday, June 22, 2004

THAT'S THE LAST TIME I WATCH SALEM'S LOT WHILE EATING A TUNA FISH SANDWICH

Bizarre dream # 4,292: The end of the world is coming, and everyone is in a panic. I'm huddled with friends in some building somewhere (I don't think it's my hometown because it's a skyscraper, though it could be), waiting for major Day After Tomorrow-ish catastrophes like earthquakes, storms, and fire that will signal the end of the world...and then I turn around and everyone in the room has turned into vampires. WTF?!

So I let my friends bite me so I can join them. Then I woke up.

I'll let you know if I have a sequel dream tonight.

Monday, June 14, 2004

BIRTHDAY 39: A RECAP

It just so happens that turning 39 is the same as turning 23 or 28 or 34: no big deal. Except for one important thing: turning 39 means that you are now less than a year from turning 40. That's something.

Some highlights:

Number of movies watched: 1 (The Italian Job, which was much better than I thought it would be).
Number of CDs listened to: 3 (Tommy Keene's Based On Happy Times, Everything But The Girl's Amplified Heart, Marshall Crenshaw's greatest hits package This Is Easy).
Number of books read: 2 (finished Steve Almond's Candyfreak and started David Sedaris' Dress Your Family In Courderoy And Denim).
Birthday dinner: Chinese food and chocolate chip cookies
Number of alcoholic drinks consumed: 7. Six beers (Red Hook Blonde) and one gin and tonic.
Number of cigars smoked: 1 (Macanudo)
Number of funeral processions for ex-presidents watched: 1 (Reagan)
Number of old girlfriends thought about: 2

posted @ 3:03 pm

Wednesday, June 9, 1965

THEY SAY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY

I was going to say that there wouldn't be an update today, that I'm taking the day off, but if I told you that then that could be considered an update. So, here's an update.

Today's my birthday. 39 years old. Wow. One year before I hit the magical 4-0 and everything starts to go downhill. Oh, I'm kidding. (Right?)

FYI, some other birthdays today: Michael J. Fox (43), Natalie Portman (23), Johnny Depp (41), Aaron Sorkin (43), Gloria Reuben (40), Robert McNamara (88), and Patricia Cornwell (48). It makes me smile that I'm younger than six of these people, but it saddens me that I'm probably too old to date Natalie Portman.

If you need me today, I'll be relaxing in front of the TV. Maybe a nice dinner, some reading. Oh, and I'm sure they'll be some alcohol and a cigar involved at some point.

posted @ 7:46 am

Monday, June 7, 2004

STUPID WRITER TRICKS

I almost didn't link to this, because the writer is so clueless and wrongheaded, but it's good for a laugh.

One wonders three things: 1.) has this guy actually watched Letterman on a regular basis in the past few years? 2.) is he actually saying that it's a negative that Letterman seems to be nicer since leaving NBC (personally, I always thought he seemed that way), and that it's a negative that he's not as edgy and ironic as he was in the 80s (which I don't even agree with in the first place), and that it's a negative that he was serious and sad after 9/11 and after the death of Warren Zevon and Tony Randall and euologized them on the show without wink-wink irony? And this means he's copying Leno? Jeez, grow up. 3.) if you're the associate editor of a publication, you can run almost anything.

I just re-read it. It's not only unbelievably stupid, it's actually offensive.

posted @ 4:16 pm

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

TODAY'S HAPPY, FUN POST: I HATE SUMMER!

Ah, Memorial Day. The traditional start of the summer season was two days ago, and already I'm depressed. I hate summer. I hate, hate summer with the heat of a thousand suns. Which is usually what summer feels like to me.

I don't get people who say summer is their favorite season. Now, students are exempt, since I get the whole "school's out, for summer!" thing, and I also don't direct it towards people who simply hate snowstorms and biting cold temps. I understand that too.

I'm talking to the people who actually like the weather that accompanies July and August. Yeah, it's a real treat. I don't know what I like best: humidity so bad you stew in your own bodily juices and can't move, or maybe those West Nile Virus-carrying mosquitoes. Or how about the traffic from people fighting to get to the beach (that's a whole different rant), and let's not forget about how lazy everyone becomes during the summer. And the tourists. And that fact that clothing options are limited. I mean, in the fall and winter you can keep piling on the layers of clothing and maybe a blanket. You can only get so far smack dab in the middle of the humid summer before people start calling the cops because there's a naked guy next door.

Yes, I hate summer. I often wish that I could be frozen the day before Memorial Day and then thawed out on Labor Day. But I would miss the only two things that I actually like about June, July and August, tennis and baseball. Oh, and my birthday. Still, give me the fall, when I can go back to wearing jeans again. When I can wear a jacket and sweaters and a long sleeve shirt. Those cool, crisp, invigorating days of October and November when things are comfortable and you're not sweating in all those crevices and nooks and crannies on your body.

It's one of the reasons I couldn't live in L.A.* or Hawaii. Sure, it's "nice" weather, but I would get sick of it very quickly. I need the four seasons, and more specifically, I need the emotional and creative changes that happen when there's a cold rain all day, or when it snows overnight and you wake up to 8 inches on the ground or the temperatures fall to the 30s. How the hell do people in Southern Cal celebrate Christmas? Putting styrofoam all around their lawn?

Oh, there is one more thing about summer that I like: that moment in late Sept, when the crushing weight of the humidity goes away and the feel of the days changes dramatically. Yeah, that's what I like about summer: the moment it ends. But I guess that if I didn't have summer, then I wouldn't know how great fall and winter are. So, thank you summer.

Now go away as soon as possible.

*Of course, this could change if I get a chance to write for The Simpsons or someone buys my screenplay.

posted @ 3:29 pm