floorpie

ADG and I saw Garden State the other day; and I, for one, absolutely loved it.

I really wanted to see this movie the moment I heard about it. Perhaps it was because, as a fan of Scrubs, I was stoked to see anything with Zach Braff in it. Perhaps it was because (more likely) anythign written, directed, and starred in by someone my age makes me wistful for my own Renaissance Man dreams. Perhaps (most likely) it was because Natalie Portman is in it. Whatever the case, I highly recommend it.

To me, it had the subtle comedy of Rushmore and Lost in Translation combined with some of the surrealness of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Then again, it is none of those things.
>
Yet more than those things.

Look, it’s just a really excellent movie.

Electrolicious gets electro-married
Britain approves human cloning
Text messages sent to your entire crew simultaneously
San Francisco regretably annuls gay marriage
Washington Post admits to publishing overly conservative Bush rhetoric as opposed to balanced articles. Sites NY Times as well.

Something I found in my sketchbook:

What I want to be when I grow up:
>
In a future with no boundaries, where anything is possible, I would be a spaceman… just like I always dreamed.

I think I would want space to be well-populated, instead of mostly barren as I imagined in my childhood. Back then, I was a space vigilante, destroying the rogue enemies of civilization that flittered around the void. Now, I instead want to experience the future, but with the perspective of the present.

I am such a dork.

Taiwan stages war games when it finds China could destroy them in 6 daysApple unveils graphics software
Why can't the athletes stay off the junk?
Coolest non-necessary presentation device ever.

Sometimes, I don’t know why I even try.

>
President Bush addresses America

It occurs to me that, except for an occassional trip to the gym, I haven’t worn shoes for about 3 or 4 weeks now. Just the sandals. It’s a freeing experience, to say the least, though I’m now a bit apprehensive of how constrained I might feel when I eventually lace up again. This is somewhat reminiscent of my time in college, where during the warmer months I would go days without wearing any kind of shoe (sandals or otherwise). It was that kind of time.

That was boring.

>
Terry Nichols, perhaps the first mass murderer not to be widely known by his first middle and last names, receives 161 consecutive life sentences
Busy work breeds Alzheimer's
Finn sets record of 12 minutes in sauna...at 110 degrees Celsius

I wish mine were game winning

It’s infantile, it’s childish, it’s ridiculous, and it’s probably not even there anymore.

But it still made me laugh.

"President" Bush compared to livestock
Condoms. Is there anything they can't do?
How companies got their names [via kottke]
Judge backs gay marriage
The new batmobile
Something about this headline makes me smile. I always knew it was fixed.

For those of you who don’t know this, Hollywood is the ghetto…. or, if not the ghetto, it can at least be casually described as ghetto. As in, “Yo Jay-Jay, them shoes is so ghetto!”

As such, one of my new favorite pasttimes is to observe the tourists that come here, starry looks in their eyes, to be met not with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt sightings, but with transvestite prostitutes and random screaming people.

Oh, and the Hollywood sign.

Which, by the way, used to actually spell-out Hollywoodland for the Hollywoodland Real Estate Group. But I digress…

I wouldn’t call the part of Hollywood I work in (within literal spitting distance of Hollywood Boulevard) particularly dangerous, but it is still hilarious to me to watch family tourists walking out of the Holliday Inn parking lot in full fanny-packed regalia expecting to be hit in the face with glamour, and instead see a homeless guy peeing on the sidewalk (theoretically, of course, mom and dad). I suppose it’s appropriate for a made-up city based on made-up movies, and built on made-up dreams to have a fairly flimsy fake facade (fairlyflimsyfakefacadefairlyflimsyfakefacadefairlyflimsyfakefacade) only barely covering it up.

Not to say that the Walk of Fame isn’t something to look at… it’s just that posing for the press isn’t the only reason the stars get dropped of directly at the Arclight’s red carpet instead of walking from the parking lot.

Beloved Japanese racehorse, Haruurara, is retiring with a record of 0-113
My earlier post about watching the road is apparently part of an intentional campaign

I am in that after-weekend not quite there yet mode where all fo your typoing is slightly off and my fingers can’t quite fing the right keys, yet. That last sentence was actually the best of tany I’ve written so fat today, which may mean that I’m just more resitiant to wrtiing wotk e-mails than I am blog posts.

Dating goes political with demdates.com
Incredible sculpture by Kapoor in Chicago's Millenium Park

The Times, The are A’Changing

I don’t know how I stumble on these things.

“Chad” has scanned and posted all of the pictures from his 1965 El Segundo High School Senior Yearbook. It is, in a word, completely friggin’ brilliant.
>
It took me a moment to realize, but all of the men are wearing a suit and tie, and all of the women are wearing the same dark top with either pearls or a pendant necklace. The Stepford Wives similarity did not go unnoticed. Speaking of not unnoticed, be sure to check out Mr. Mecello and Ms. Hopper. The first is incredibly… plasticine, and the second looks very much like she ended up as she was described.

I’m sure that in another 25 years or so, people will look back on my yearbooks with same stifled laughter and derisive comments, but they will unfortunately be denied the pleasure of reading little abstracts about each of the students (my school being too large to allow everyone to have such reading pleasure as Rodger Hamrick does with his:

A student at El Segundo High School for four years, Rodger has played in both the band and orchestra.

That’s the kiss of death, by the way… the “A student at El Segundo High School for four years…” part. I’ve noticed that all of the uninteresting or barely involved students have snippets beginning with that phrase, whereas the cool kids like Don Appleby say things like:

“Santa” has been a valuable member of the football and baseball teams throughout high school. He claims eating is his favorite pastime.

>Oh, and one more thing: no Asians, no African-Americans, no one of Hispanic descent. Freaky.

I have been addicted to the High Fidelity soundtrack for well over a year now, and can't stop listening to "Cold Blooded Old Times" by Smog on my iPod. And now you know.

I have this thing about bathrooms in that I seem to make a lot of social observations in them, and then make judgements on the behaviours of my fellow males. For instance, I’ve compiled an entire mental list of things that shouldn’t happen in a public bathroom but do. For instance:

.: guys spitting into the urinal before they do their business
.: in cases of three urinals, picking the middle one (thereby forcing the next guy to stand next to you). An alternate is if the person before you has chosen an edge urinal and you pick the middle one.
.: in case of more than three urinals with only one taken, choosing to stand next to someone
.: while at the urinals, striking up a conversation with anyone

And don’t even get me started on the stall transgressions.
>
Today while I was in the stall, working on the great american novel, someone from the building came in to use the urinal (not from my office, thankfully, which I know because he went back downstairs after finishing up). I’m already on guard when I’m in the stall and soemone else is at the urinal. I assume I’m afriad of them opening the door; but, as I would find that hilarious, I’m probably more fearful of them doing what this guy did.

>So it’s silent (mostly). I’ve stopped my furious writing and thoughtful ponderings. He goes up to the urinal (based on watching his feet) and says out loud “So why’d you hang up on me Jim?”

Panic. Fear. Whithering nausea. Obviously, this guy saw my feet, made an incorrect assumption, and is now going to try to talk to me for the next few minutes. I may have to respond! I may have to respond!

Urinal Guy laughs derisively, obviously amused that I won’t answer him and says “Okaaay. Where were you last night?”

Please kill me

“Oh, I thought you were in a club or something, it sounded really loud”

Wait, what? And then I hear the tiny mumbled reply of someone on the phone. He’s talking on the phone while pissing and outgassing. I am simultaneously relieved that he’s not talking to me (or presumably even knows I’m there), and disgusted that he’s talking on the phone. And, continuing his conversation, he leaves the bathroom after not washing his hands. shudder

Retro phones from the future: the pokia
Saddam's justice: a prostate infection
"Life is about, not where you start, but where you're going. That's family values!" - Reverend Al Sharpton

ADG and I went to our second sauna wedding of the summer this weekend. Note to self, should I ever get married, don’t do it in July. Having said that, it was a beautiful ceremony, wonderful event, and gloriously sweaty I mean sweet. *ba-dum-dum-CHING*

I did the slideshow at said wedding, which elicited a lot of laughs, a few “ahh’s”, and possibly some tears. Personally, I was just nervous my hardcore porno screensaver was going to pop up at an inopportune time. Luckily though, it went incident free.

It’s cool seeing pictures from the way back. The bad hair, the bad clothes, the weird photo-tint that you just don’t get anymore on your Kodak paper. The thing is, back then, it wasn’t bad hair, and you were the height of style which, basically, means that maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life, you will be laughed at.

Not since the joining of peanut butter and jelly has there been such an auspicious pairing. I give you mp3's and jackets
I would have posted this picture, but I didn't want to look at it all week.
"We live in an inter-dependent world in which we cannot possilby kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries... Strength and Wisdom are not oppossing values, they go hand in hand."
Even more geeky-chic: mp3 sunglasses