Sunday, March 31, 2002
happy easter, and all. even if you're not into web-comics, the spiders is worth checking out. it's a (highly idealized, in my opinion) view of what the war in afghanistan might have been like if al gore were commander-in-chief. but very cool. and well drawn, too. (link via tevis) Saturday, March 30, 2002
blah. i'm sick. here's my friday five. blah. 1. if you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose? dinner? don't even say that word. i've got a 24 hour bug and i've been sick to my stomach all day and the very idea of dinner makes me nautious. queasy. i've always hated the word "queasy." 2. has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? who was it and how did you feel? hmmm. "not particularly." was my original answer, but i'm going to revise that because princess di died the night before i started law school in 1997. at first this had no real effect on me, but i decided i'd get on irc to see what the buzz was like that night - i had never really used irc before, and was using the stupid cartoon chat thing that came with windows95 - anyway, i chatted with several brits, aussies and canadians who were very genuinely upset, and read some really touching tributes - and i think that was the first time i ever realized the power of the internet as a medium for real, emotional, warm-fuzzy personal expression and the first time i really felt part of the global online community. 3. if you could be a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose? i don't know. might be fun to be john cleese. 4. do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who? nope. 5. have you ever met anyone famous? depends on what your idea of famous is. i've gotten cds signed by well known (and not so well known) recording artists - suzanne vega, matthew sweet, neko case, edith frost, kelly hogan. i've shaken hands with ralph nader and took a picture of my father shaking hands with george w... as far as more local celebrities, i met judge john minor wisdom and blaine kern, "mr. mardi gras" - who makes all the mardi gras floats, is a family friend. and when i was 22 i sold fred leblanc, the lead singer of cowboy mouth, a car insurance policy. that's about it. Wednesday, March 27, 2002
happy birthday, unapologetic! you're one year old! Friday, March 22, 2002
that's strange. usually friday fives end with ? #5 being, "what are your plans for this weekend?". but not today, apparently. consequently i wasn't able to answer that tomorrow evening, i'm going to indian rocks beach, florida, to meet amy's parents. amy is very excited by this. i'm kind of a little bit apprehensive. i can tell this by the fact that despite the fact that we're leaving in about twelve hours, i've yet to even consider packing - extreme procrastination being a tell-tale sign of underlying fear. i'm sure it's just a case of the anticipation is worse than the reality - historically, i tend to go over pretty well with girlfriend's parents, and i see no reason why things should be different this time around. except that damn pesky "so why exactly don't you want to practice law?" question, which has the not so veiled subtext of "why in the hell would you give up a potentially lucrative legal career to be a but anyway, assuming all goes well on that front, it should be a relaxing, pleasant few days. let's hope so, i know i can use - if not afford - a few day's rest. i'm hoping to be able to blog occasionally from there, but i'm not too sure how that'll work out. if not, i'll be back wednesday, which is an important day for unapologetic. anyway... oh, and one other thing. the oscars are taking over the media these days - tv, print, radio, the web - but i really couldn't care less. i haven't seen enough of the movies this year to even have much of an opinion. the only movie related question that i'm interested in is: when is amelie going to be released on dvd? update: i did a little research on amazon.com and found out that it comes out on july 16th - the day after my birthday.
nice day for a friday five... 1. what is your favorite time of year? the holidays - halloween through mardi gras. 2. what is it about your favorite season that, well, makes it your favorite season? king cake, crawfish, cool, not muggy air. 3. what is your least favorite time of year? why? summer. why? have you ever been in new orleans during the summer? imagine being smothered in a hot, wet blanket made of mosquitoes. it ain't no fun. 4. do you do anything to celebrate or recognize the changing of seasons? not really. 5. what's your favorite thing to do outside? take pictures. run. swim. oh, and not many things make me happier than laying in the grass, with the sun shining warm and a nice breeze, reading a good book. Wednesday, March 20, 2002
what a great idea - a blogger cd swap! you sign up, make your own summer-themed mix cd, burn five copies of it and send them along to five other bloggers, and then you get five cds from other bloggers in return. sounds better than columbia house. i'm in, are you? there's a week left to sign up... (link via l.y.d. ) Monday, March 18, 2002
look! it's a friday five on monday! (and on a related note, heather, who invented the friday five, has started what may be the best blog directory out there. so sign up if you haven't already. it's called the 'globe of blogs'.) 1. what's your favorite animal? i've always liked dolphins. 2. what pets have you had in your lifetime? dogs, a parakeet, and a rat. the parakeet died in 1996 and is still in my parents' freezer. long story. 3. is there any specific pet that you've wanted but never had? not really. 4. are you allergic to any animals? prolonged exposure to my parents norfolk terriers makes me itch. 5. do you have any 'pet' pet peeves (your pets or others')? cattitude. what good is a snobby pet? aren't they supposed to be "companion animals"?
i'm a photoshop junkie. i've been one since i first sat down in front of a power mac with version 3.0 on it, sometime in early 1994. that one piece of software has changed my life - it's what got me interested in web design, in graphic design in general. over the past few months, i've found a couple of ways to feed my photoshop habit: surreal collaborative art at www.anexquisitecorpse.net and daily image editing contests at www.worth1000.com. it's taken a while, but i finally have something to show for it all: an "exquisite corpse" i worked on is finally on display, (and two more to follow soon). i made the third section of that one. and these are the images i've entered over at worth1000 - i've done pretty well in several contests, though inside jokes and politics have kept me out of first place thus far. not for long, though. oh, and my other side project has been doing much better than expected! nolablogs.com now has 26 new orleans blogs listed, and new ones coming in every day. i knew they must be out there, and now there's a comprehensive resource. now we just have to work on getting everyone together for drinks... Wednesday, March 13, 2002
oh my. this is a trip. and i thought hollywood big names were above cheesy tv ads. well, apparently not in japan.
it's strange, how in the midst of strugglesome* times, when you should by all rights be stressed and panic-ridden, you're able to transcend all that and be, momentarily, at least, very, very happy. i don't mean just alright, dealing with it and coping and able to go about your day, or even pretty generally content and copacetic. i mean truly, blissfully happy. i had two of those moments today. the first was this evening: at the family law office, working, and the particular pleading i was drafting had become unusually tedious, so i took a break to fold a particularly spiffy paper airplane. i finished it and walked out onto the sixth floor balcony/fire escape, and tossed her toward the setting sun. white paper plane against the glowing orange and purpling blue of the sky. she caught an updraft, circled, looped upside down, circled, looped again, caught another updraft, and hovered there for several seconds before banking gracefully and disappearing around the side of the building. the whole time the plane was aloft, i was just filled with a childlike, stomach-fluttering, giddy glee, amazed and awestruck at the beauty of the scene... such a simple pleasure... the second was just a couple of hours ago, at el matador, watching kelly hogan sing "papa was a rodeo" by the magnetic fields. it was shiveringly beautiful. Tuesday, March 12, 2002
the onion is always funny. their satirical portrayals of people are often spot on - as in, "hey, i know someone just like that!" today, though, it was me that i recognized.... "found-object hobbyist"? guilty as charged. oh, and i can't believe it - the chevy camaro is about to be discontinued. gone the way of the dodo. *sniffle* my first car was a camaro. a red, 1989 chevrolet camaro. it was used when i got it - totalled by a flood, actually, and re-wired, though it never quite got over the electrical problems... most of my friends today can't even picture me in a cheezy red sportscar (if a camaro rs could even be called a sports car, with its measly 4 cylinder engine) - but it happened. it had about six inches of ground clearance, if that - and it would fishtail at the slightest provocation, what with all the weight in that long hood and hardly a backend at all. but it was still a camaro, and at age 16, i thought it was the most beautiful thing on wheels. ah, well. times change, right? still, my sentimental inner-adolescent is still impressed by muscle cars, and sad to see the camaro go - even if the newer (post 1994) models were completely lacking with whatever pleasing aesthetic existed in the previous models, and the value of the older models these days has degenerated mostly to kitsch... Monday, March 11, 2002
so i didn't make it to austin. as it turned out, that was a good thing, because rod showed up unexpectedly in new orleans on friday night, which turned an otherwise typical evening dinner at juan's flying burrito into one of those strange all-night adventures that you'd never expect - the ones that are rarer and rarer the further you get from undergrad. the stream of consciousness version goes like this: st. joe's bar, beer, dos jefes cigar bar, beer, cigars, bourbon, pool, 5am? sunrise! walk. audubon park. rope swing. walk. mississippi river. cold. rod jumps in. wet. hungry. food? walk? pickup truck. strangers. talk. hitchhike. truckbed. springsteen. camillia grill. not open yet. shell station, more beer, levee, woods, river, freight train passing, rod jumps on. rod jumps off. beer. camillia grill. breakfast. pecan waffle. streetcar. walk. pj's coffee. home. 10am. whew. Friday, March 08, 2002
before now, i'd never had a credit card. i never wanted one - they scare the hell out of me. i know i'm not a numbers person, not a money person - things get forgotten, put off, windfalls squandered. i never trusted myself with other people's money - for most of my adult life, it's been deposit the check and put the cash in the bank, and use the atm/check card when you need to. well, as of this month, things have changed, and i've discovered the world of credit. it's keeping me above water for now; the hope is that it'll carry me, interest-free for six months, into the land of the solvent. so far it's been a lifesaver - fixed my car and paid for some groceries, and as far as the responsibility part, i think i'm going to be able to handle it. and i'm earning some money at the law job, so all the vectors aren't negative... it's still scary, though. and speaking of hanging precariously by a thread, there's a dreadlocked window washer squeegeeing the outside of the sixth-floor window behind me as i write this. i can see him clearly in the reflection on my monitor. he's not even on one of those winched platforms that you can stand on - it's just a seat and a rope - this guy's basically rappelling down the building with a squeegee and a bucket. not a job i'd want - it gives me the creeps just to look down a long flight of stairs, much less doing all the trapeze-in-the-wind swinging action this guy is doing. crazy. on that note, it's looking like driving to sxsw wouldn't be my wisest option. sixteen hours of driving, probably $100 in gas, more in hotel costs - and all for a game of kickball on no sleep? hmmm. still thinking about it...
altogether too soon, it's a new friday five: 1. what makes you homesick? um... not being home for a long time? 2. where is "home" for you? Is it where you are living now, or somewhere else (ie: mom & dad's house, particular state/city)? it's my condo. 3. what makes it home for you? people? things? it's my space. my decor. my furniture. my leaky fridge. my closets full of junk. it's the one place in the world where i feel safe, comfortable and completely me. 4. where is the furthest you've been from home, miles-wise? jeez. vienna, austria, i think - that was in '95, while i was studying in europe. or hawaii once, when i was about 6. not sure which is further. 5. what are your plans for this weekend? see the post below - maybe i'm going to sxsw. maybe not. if not, there's plenty of good fun to be had in nola this weekend. should be enjoyable either way. Thursday, March 07, 2002
despite the fact that i know it's crazy, i'm actually thinking of getting in the car and driving to austin tomorrow. if i can work out the details - someone to drive with, money, getting the car in roadtrip condition, etc - i may just do it, just to say i went to sxsw. if i can't, i can't, and that'll be alright too. but think i've gotta try it. Wednesday, March 06, 2002
played poker till dawn last friday night, nickel ante as always. for some reason, be it the company or the concoctions - poker games always seem to result in inspired one-liners. or at least they seem inspired at the time. "as Sartre once said, give me a drink, i'm dying over here," and "i'd bet a dollar if the cards were good," and ... by the next morning, the rest had faded from all of our memories like so many dreams. there's talk of tape recording the next game to save them for posterity and to deter any of us from thoughts of running for public office in the future. a nothing-less-than-savory breakfast the next morning was hastened by the rude 9:30am debut of a jackhammer symphony in the courtyard below my apartment; 9:30 on a saturday morning in new orleans being the roughly analagous to 4:18am anywhere else in terms of waking souls per capita. on a whimsical suggestion, six zoomed south of town into swampland and spent an afternoon boardwalking through cypress trees and knees and certainly within striking range of the several alligators and water mocassins we encountered along the way. some tried fly-casting, though the national park service might have frowned, had it known; i had camera fun under the premise of 'take only photos and leave only footprints' and have some spectacular treefroggery to show for it - which will be forthcoming when i get to it. nightfall brought a crawfish boil in the backyard and much guinness when the plans fell through. sunday was easier and productive around the house, after the weekend's guests were on their way, and for a somber close to a pleasant weekend a war movie on a cold night. still on the prowl for a permanent position, but temporarily rolling stones uphill at the family lawfirm again, so as not absolutely to hemmorage cashflow and credit ratings. must. not. get. sucked. back. in. whew. so that's what's been up with me. Friday, March 01, 2002
time for my weekly journey to the friday five...
1. what's your favorite vacation spot? my parents have a condo on the beach in destin, florida, which i love. it's close (5 hours) and quiet and beautiful and clean. ahhhhhh... 2. where do you consider to be the biggest hell-hole on earth? hmmm. shreveport, louisiana is certainly a uniquely boring town, where one of my best friends is cursed to be currently living, so i hear lots of bad stories about there. i personally have tended to like most places i've been and lived. loved memphis (after a while) and i love new orleans (after a fashion.) 3. what would be your dream vacation? more than anything, i've wanted to go to bogota, colombia, to visit and meet all my cousins and relatives i've never met; it's supposed to be beautiful and cool and exotic and unfortunately it's not a safe place for americans to travel, if they don't feel like being taken hostage and held for ransom. 4. if you could go on a road-trip with anyone, who would it be and why: any of my close friends, working under the principal that they've got proven track records of putting up with me, and i with them, so we'd probably be ok, even for long periods of time in confined spaces. i've done a good bit of traveling (understatement) with rod, and some with charles but i'd like to do more, as he's so damn worldly. and of course, i'd love to roadtrip with amy, i think we'd do fine and have a lot of fun. 5. what are your plans for this weekend? keep trying to get a job. rod - the aforementioned friend and shreveport-resident - is coming in town, and we've a goal to properly celebrate charles' birthday, which was the 28th. happy birthday, charles! amy's studying all weekend for tests this next week, but hopefully we'll get to hang out a bit at least, too. |