Sunny, Clear Skies ... and 15 Degrees
It's too damn cold to go anywhere. We haven't caught a whiff of anything above freezing in like a week and a half. The same fucking snow that pissed on us last week is still sitting there, plowed to the side of the road, collecting dirt and grime because this city's so fucking dirty and grimy. So no, I didn't do a damn thing this weekend. Probably won't do a damn thing next weekend. But, I gotta talk about something.
They say there's this disease out there that forces people to feel compelled to write every day. I don't know if I've got it, but I could think of worse afflictions.
Here's the thing about Fridays: unless one of my roommates goes out of her way to cook something and specify a portion for me, I'm drinking my dinner. To avoid food-intake, it requires stealth; pretty much I have to not say anything and hope nobody notices until it's too late.
I think I have this quality whereby all of my female friends feel the express need to mother me. Like, if they aren't worrying about my well-being or encouraging me or helping me out with some damn thing or another, then I'll be reduced to an infantile status, unable to tie my shoes, cut my meat, or wipe the drool off my face. I'm not saying I don't appreciate the concern, but sooner or later we're gonna have to cut the cord. I've already GOT a mother and she did a fine job. If I want to, say, drink a couple bottles of wine for dinner, I think I've lived long enough that we can all agree, "Either he's had a good run, or I guess he knows what he's doing."
Well, I'll tell ya, Friday was all right. I had a long conversation with my friend from Pullman, watched a little O.C. (one more episode to go ... I told myself I wasn't gonna cry!), and yes, I even threw down a bagel to try and soak up my liquid innards.
And I'll tell ya something else, waking up Saturday morning, I was STILL flirting with the idea of getting right back on the horse for a full day of drinking. But, then I decided to watch "Four Rooms", buy some Chinese food from next door, and take an extended nap with my headphones on. I did finally start drinking again, but it wasn't until later, when I was taking myself through an online HTML & CSS tutorial. I know as much HTML as I need to to build a website, but I figured that the tutorial wouldn't hurt; plus I actually learned a few things that might come in handy. The CSS tutorial will eventually make running this website easier on me, stylistically. Plus, I'm thinking I'll be able to mess around with color schemes and all that, which should be fun.
After finishing the Beginner sessions, I decided to stop, because if I would've continued, I would've started forgetting shit, what with the wine starting to take hold in the trenches. So, it was movie time. I watched "Punch Drunk Love" and "The Game" (all of these movies being on discs and watched on my computer). Punch Drunk Love I enjoy quite a lot, and I've already gone into it before - Adam Sandler's last decent movie, and funnier than all of these so-called comedies he's come out with since (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Click). But, The Game, honestly, I don't know why I continue to watch this movie. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it's not really one of those movies you can really watch repeatedly because it's got one of those tricky Sixth Sense type endings. It's one of those movies where, once you know how it ends, all the shock value is stripped away. The difference between The Game and The Sixth Sense, though, is that I CAN watch The Game repeatedly. I've seen The Sixth Sense maybe two or three times tops, and that was mostly because I wanted to watch it and catch all the allusions to Bruce Willis's being dead.
There really isn't much of a story to The Sixth Sense. It's just one gimicky scene after another until the big payoff at the end. The only thing that really happens is the kid gets picked on, he sees more ghosts, and he helps Marissa Cooper's sister from being poisoned to death by their fucked up mom. It's slow, plodding, boring. But, with The Game, sure there's the twist at the end, but leading up you've got this non-stop action as Michael Douglas runs around trying to figure out just what in the hell is going on. Plus, and let's be honest here, Michael Douglas and Sean Penn are leaps and bounds better actors than Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis; and I'm a Bruce Willis fan!
Speaking of which, who else is fired up for Die Hard 4? It's coming; don't say I didn't warn you.
Sunday, I managed to stay sober. Doesn't mean I didn't abuse my body just the same. After showering away the wine sweats and brushing away the wine breath, I threw on a bunch of layers and walked down to my local White Castle. I think this is the fifth weekend in a row where I've engorged myself in more White Castle hamburgers than I can count on one hand. I've decided that eight is a good number to fill myself to brimming while still allowing me enough of a window to walk home before exploding. On the downside, White Castle shits are NO fun, and I farted another layer of smog into the atmosphere all last night. Still, like with Taco Del Mar, I'm a masochist when it comes to bowel-shredding fast food I get a hankering for.
Then I made dinner. This was probably the best pasta dish I've ever made; I've started writing down all these recipes of things I've made from scratch - it's like four pasta dishes and chili. Anyway, this was another Ziti meal. What you want to do - while the pasta's boiling - is finely dice up two or three cloves of garlic and heat that in olive oil for a minute until brown. Take a big-ass bell pepper and finely dice that up into little squares; take a half of an onion and just chop that up regular; take a half a can of olives and chop them into ragged bits; once the oil and garlic is ready, throw in the rest of the vegetables. Now, buy a 29oz can of crushed tomatoes (preferably a can that's already seasoned with garlic and basil and the like) and dump it in with the veggies. Stir in some cayenne, black, and crushed red pepper, and some salt. Simmer until the noodles are ready (ten minutes or so) and dump the noodles into the sauce. Now, take an 8oz block of mozzarella cheese, cut it in half, and shred half the block. Mix it in with the noodles and sauce and you're golden. It made a sexy explosion in my mouth and I'm sure it will for you too.
God, you know why yesterday was cool though? First of all, I rented a DVD called "The Comedians of Comedy". This was great, these are some stand-up comics you REALLY need to see. First, there's Patton Oswalt (he plays Spence on The King of Queens) - he's nothing like his King of Queens character, just hilariously inappropriate. Then, there's Brian Posehn (he plays Kevin on Just Shoot Me; the big scary dude with glasses who talks funny) - he's just grotesque, but seems like a cool guy to be friends with even though he's probably the biggest nerd there ever was. Then, you've got Maria Bamford, who I'll admit is the kind of comedian who's not exactly "Funny" in the conventional sense, but I've had a huge crush on her for years, so I let it slide. Finally, you've got Zach Galifianakis, who has probably the greatest comedy mind I've ever seen, though he's repeatedly failed in the conventional world of television and movies. Anyway, this DVD is a documentary that intersperses stand-up parts with all the behind-the-scenes goings on with the tour they were on. It's especially cool because the first half hour or so is set in Seattle; they even hung out at Easy Street Records, which I lived about two blocks away from in West Seattle.
But, that wasn't REALLY the coolest part of yesterday. The coolest part was, with Emily in Rhode Island and Jenny and Liz off in the city seeing a movie together, I had the apartment all to myself. I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you're dealing with a group of four intense homebodies, this is quite the happening. Normally, if I'm LUCKY, I'll be the first one to get home from work and I'll be alone there for about five minutes. Yesterday, I had the whole fucking afternoon! Glorious. Simply glorious.
They say there's this disease out there that forces people to feel compelled to write every day. I don't know if I've got it, but I could think of worse afflictions.
Here's the thing about Fridays: unless one of my roommates goes out of her way to cook something and specify a portion for me, I'm drinking my dinner. To avoid food-intake, it requires stealth; pretty much I have to not say anything and hope nobody notices until it's too late.
I think I have this quality whereby all of my female friends feel the express need to mother me. Like, if they aren't worrying about my well-being or encouraging me or helping me out with some damn thing or another, then I'll be reduced to an infantile status, unable to tie my shoes, cut my meat, or wipe the drool off my face. I'm not saying I don't appreciate the concern, but sooner or later we're gonna have to cut the cord. I've already GOT a mother and she did a fine job. If I want to, say, drink a couple bottles of wine for dinner, I think I've lived long enough that we can all agree, "Either he's had a good run, or I guess he knows what he's doing."
Well, I'll tell ya, Friday was all right. I had a long conversation with my friend from Pullman, watched a little O.C. (one more episode to go ... I told myself I wasn't gonna cry!), and yes, I even threw down a bagel to try and soak up my liquid innards.
And I'll tell ya something else, waking up Saturday morning, I was STILL flirting with the idea of getting right back on the horse for a full day of drinking. But, then I decided to watch "Four Rooms", buy some Chinese food from next door, and take an extended nap with my headphones on. I did finally start drinking again, but it wasn't until later, when I was taking myself through an online HTML & CSS tutorial. I know as much HTML as I need to to build a website, but I figured that the tutorial wouldn't hurt; plus I actually learned a few things that might come in handy. The CSS tutorial will eventually make running this website easier on me, stylistically. Plus, I'm thinking I'll be able to mess around with color schemes and all that, which should be fun.
After finishing the Beginner sessions, I decided to stop, because if I would've continued, I would've started forgetting shit, what with the wine starting to take hold in the trenches. So, it was movie time. I watched "Punch Drunk Love" and "The Game" (all of these movies being on discs and watched on my computer). Punch Drunk Love I enjoy quite a lot, and I've already gone into it before - Adam Sandler's last decent movie, and funnier than all of these so-called comedies he's come out with since (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Click). But, The Game, honestly, I don't know why I continue to watch this movie. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it's not really one of those movies you can really watch repeatedly because it's got one of those tricky Sixth Sense type endings. It's one of those movies where, once you know how it ends, all the shock value is stripped away. The difference between The Game and The Sixth Sense, though, is that I CAN watch The Game repeatedly. I've seen The Sixth Sense maybe two or three times tops, and that was mostly because I wanted to watch it and catch all the allusions to Bruce Willis's being dead.
There really isn't much of a story to The Sixth Sense. It's just one gimicky scene after another until the big payoff at the end. The only thing that really happens is the kid gets picked on, he sees more ghosts, and he helps Marissa Cooper's sister from being poisoned to death by their fucked up mom. It's slow, plodding, boring. But, with The Game, sure there's the twist at the end, but leading up you've got this non-stop action as Michael Douglas runs around trying to figure out just what in the hell is going on. Plus, and let's be honest here, Michael Douglas and Sean Penn are leaps and bounds better actors than Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis; and I'm a Bruce Willis fan!
Speaking of which, who else is fired up for Die Hard 4? It's coming; don't say I didn't warn you.
Sunday, I managed to stay sober. Doesn't mean I didn't abuse my body just the same. After showering away the wine sweats and brushing away the wine breath, I threw on a bunch of layers and walked down to my local White Castle. I think this is the fifth weekend in a row where I've engorged myself in more White Castle hamburgers than I can count on one hand. I've decided that eight is a good number to fill myself to brimming while still allowing me enough of a window to walk home before exploding. On the downside, White Castle shits are NO fun, and I farted another layer of smog into the atmosphere all last night. Still, like with Taco Del Mar, I'm a masochist when it comes to bowel-shredding fast food I get a hankering for.
Then I made dinner. This was probably the best pasta dish I've ever made; I've started writing down all these recipes of things I've made from scratch - it's like four pasta dishes and chili. Anyway, this was another Ziti meal. What you want to do - while the pasta's boiling - is finely dice up two or three cloves of garlic and heat that in olive oil for a minute until brown. Take a big-ass bell pepper and finely dice that up into little squares; take a half of an onion and just chop that up regular; take a half a can of olives and chop them into ragged bits; once the oil and garlic is ready, throw in the rest of the vegetables. Now, buy a 29oz can of crushed tomatoes (preferably a can that's already seasoned with garlic and basil and the like) and dump it in with the veggies. Stir in some cayenne, black, and crushed red pepper, and some salt. Simmer until the noodles are ready (ten minutes or so) and dump the noodles into the sauce. Now, take an 8oz block of mozzarella cheese, cut it in half, and shred half the block. Mix it in with the noodles and sauce and you're golden. It made a sexy explosion in my mouth and I'm sure it will for you too.
God, you know why yesterday was cool though? First of all, I rented a DVD called "The Comedians of Comedy". This was great, these are some stand-up comics you REALLY need to see. First, there's Patton Oswalt (he plays Spence on The King of Queens) - he's nothing like his King of Queens character, just hilariously inappropriate. Then, there's Brian Posehn (he plays Kevin on Just Shoot Me; the big scary dude with glasses who talks funny) - he's just grotesque, but seems like a cool guy to be friends with even though he's probably the biggest nerd there ever was. Then, you've got Maria Bamford, who I'll admit is the kind of comedian who's not exactly "Funny" in the conventional sense, but I've had a huge crush on her for years, so I let it slide. Finally, you've got Zach Galifianakis, who has probably the greatest comedy mind I've ever seen, though he's repeatedly failed in the conventional world of television and movies. Anyway, this DVD is a documentary that intersperses stand-up parts with all the behind-the-scenes goings on with the tour they were on. It's especially cool because the first half hour or so is set in Seattle; they even hung out at Easy Street Records, which I lived about two blocks away from in West Seattle.
But, that wasn't REALLY the coolest part of yesterday. The coolest part was, with Emily in Rhode Island and Jenny and Liz off in the city seeing a movie together, I had the apartment all to myself. I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you're dealing with a group of four intense homebodies, this is quite the happening. Normally, if I'm LUCKY, I'll be the first one to get home from work and I'll be alone there for about five minutes. Yesterday, I had the whole fucking afternoon! Glorious. Simply glorious.
