Thursday, February 24, 2005

I wonder if Hell is hiring?

Turns out my job, while fun and exciting most of the time, can sometimes be downright excrutiating. Not that I'm any different from the majority of the working public. Hell, even pro basketball players bitch. And they're paid millions of dollars for playing a game and occasionally inciting beer-soaked brawls. Ah, the good life.

What I'm getting at, is that I've been working insane hours working on new business proposals and beer billboards, and haven't had too much time to update my blog. Let alone read anyone else's. I mean, I haven't even checked in with Collin or Derek in almost a week. Seriously...you can even check my history in my browser.

But seeing as how no one is making a special trip out to Portland to hack my beloved (and increasingly over-stuffed) iBook, you're just going to have to take my word for it.

Now on to other stuff. Namely, The Amazing Race. Or, as it is bound to be christened, "The Amazingly Redundant Race." I know most everyone knows that I hate reality TV, and that's fine. But that isn't going to stop me from bitching about the saturation of it. Seriously. Is the network (and more increasingly, cable) world so deplete of new ideas that they are forced to throw their hands up in the air in frustration while they exclaim, "Fuck it. Let's just do it again in two weeks. Now where did my private jet go?"

I touched on this a few times before, but seriously, the last Amazing Race was concluded barely three weeks ago, and now it's slated to start again next friggin' Tuesday! At what point is the same idea, with (essentially) the same people, and the same conclusion (someone gets kicked off) run its course? I'll admit it. I didn't think reality TV could go on this long - I figured it would have to start declining by now.

Anyhow, enough with the reality TV stuff. It's there, it'll be there for a lot longer than I care to think about, and I'm sick of it. On to other stuff.

Christiane, who shares the same affection for Gin (always capitalized - it's that important) as I do, does this little blog thing called "Three Things" (yes, capitalized, very important) that I am going to blatantly rip off. So here goes:

3 places I would move to:

1. Miami, Florida. This has a major, critical caveat, though. I would need to be gainfully employed as a copywriter at Crispin, Porter, and Bogusky. Otherwise, I dispise, with all my being, soul, and desire to live, the city of Miami. It makes Los Angeles look like a timid little kid who's surrounded by gigantic aunts trying to kiss him and continue to pester him about what he wants to be when he grows up. (Sorry, flashback.)

2. Vancouver, B.C. I'm not kidding. This town kicks ass. It's beautiful, the people are awesome, and it has an amazing vibe. Plus, it's astoundingly clean. Seriously, this city should be in the Book of Records for urban cleanliness. Sure, it has its share of homeless people, but even they are nicer than what we have here in Portland. Plus, the exchange rate is still working in our favor there, so a quarter here is like fifty cents there.

3. San Francisco, CA. I've only visited it once, but it was during Thanksgiving weekend and, like the song goes, I left my heart there. It's just one of those places where there's something for everybody, even if you have no idea what you're looking for. And the Museum of Modern Art there is breathtaking. Plus, there's quite a few kickass ad agencies there, as well.

3 things I've done that not many people know about:
1. When my mom went to Italy for a month, I took her car (I was 15 - not legal to drive alone) and went joy riding.

2. My friend and I once sold a bag of parsley to this kid and convinced him it was weed. And then were forced to suffer through two bowls and one joint, because we couldn't come up with an excuse quick enough to get out of there. We did make 40 bucks, though.

3. In 6th grade, I was late to a class and, as I was sprinting up the stairs, I felt the pencil in my hand connect with something soft. I turned around and to my horror, saw a kid clutching his left eye. Blood was seeping through his fingers and we just stared at each other - he horrifed, myself conflicted because I wanted to help the guy, but at the same time, this was the last time I could be late for class before getting detention. And as he stumbled down the stairs, I knew I what I had to do: I bolted for class. I still have a guilt complex about this.

3 things I could eat/drink for a 10-year period
1. Pizza. Specifically a local joint called Flying Pie. It's my crux. My cocaine. My addiction. I love the stuff, even though I inevitably eat way too much of it. But my god, New York-style thin crust is enough for me to take down a third world government.

2. Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream. I don't know if this is an Oregon-only thing, but this place is my Mecca. The ice cream is scooped with gigantic paddles. 'Nuff said.


3. Tie: Gin (usually Sapphire, but most recently Hendrick's) and Widmer Hefeweizen. Both are incredibly refreshing and, even better, I can drink it all night.

So that's it. Sorry for the lack of posts - I'll try better next time.

Have a great Friday!


Tuesday, February 15, 2005

The Star Wars Kid just got some competition

Don't know if you've seen this yet, but I think it's pretty hillarious. But that's just me.

That's it for today (probably).

Although I think it's pretty funny.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Slow growth forest. Or shrubbery.

I have the absolute worst goatee in the world. It’s true. I don’t even know why I attempt it. But every year, for some reason, I insist on it. First off, the stupid top part (I suppose that would be the mustache area) and the bottom, chin part (I guess that would be the “goatee” part) don’t connect—they are mutually exclusive of one another. Like oil and water. Or me and doing the laundry.

Anyhow, this is that time of the year. I’ve been “growing” it for a little over a week now. In actuality, it’s the third time I’ve attempted this feat, and at the onset, I actually had a moment of hope that things would work out – the hairs seemed to be growing more quickly than previously experience, so I was thinking that I was well on my way to an manly looking batch of facial hair.

Not so.

See, my facial hair simply doesn’t grow. It’s like it smoked too many cigarettes or injected crystal meth during its early stages of living on my face, and its growth was horribly stunted. It’s weird. Seriously. I shave every two days. And if I miss it, all is not lost, because the growth is so barely noticeable that anyone even comments on it. Seriously. There are women in Greece who grow facial hair quicker than I do.

Aside from the slow rate of growth, my face fur seems to have an issue with the whole coverage thing. Apparently, the hair on my face mimics the attitude my family takes on to one another: stay as far away from each other as possible, but close enough to maintain what appears to be a family “bond.”

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Ballpoint Brilliance

No...not this blog. I am referring to this. It's all ball point, all sketch book, all pretty much everything I am incapable of doing.

By the way, it's in French, but there's no stinky cheese in sight, so I was okay with it. So, if you can speak (or at least read) French, I am curious about the text that's in it. (But not so much that I am motivated to actually go out and learn the language. Just curious.)

Anyhow, work has been slammed - too many meetings, too little time, and too little blogging...I haven't even been able to catch up on my favorite blogs. Christiane, Collin, Derek...I miss you. *sniff

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Now listen here, pilgrim...

This morning, as we were passing a snooty organic grocery store, SockMama and I were conversing about our recent purchase of a (gigantic) bean bag chair. Before I go on, let me just say that this chair is a God send to anyone who has ever enjoyed the pixelated goodness that is video games, but were forced to do so on a hard floor (carpeted or otherwise). Anyhow, SockMama had actually purchased the chair as a Christmas present and, because of the new transmission currently residing in our Taurus, forgot about it. (Such is the life of high rollers such as ourselves; you should see as at restaurants - we order Diet Cokes even if refills aren't explicitly stated in the menu as free.)

Anyhow, for some reason, we were talking about how the chair is now the "poplular" seat in the house: I love it, SockMama likes it, and the animals adore it. We were discussing how cute the cats looked as they snuggled together on the chair. But the SockMama breaks out this gem: "I bet Scout (our beagle) and Dolby (our mentally challenged mutt cat) would sleep on it, but if Kitty (our insane, overly verbose orange menace cat) were on it and Scout came around, she'd be like, 'Get your varmint fur away from me.'"

Seriously. "Varmint." I promptly made fun of her and giggled on the inside. (Actually, I still am. Hence this blog entry.)

I don't recall her ever using the word and, honestly, I can't recall if I've ever said it before. It's one of those words that John Wayne uttered time and time agian in his Westerns, but it just can't cross into the casual vernacular; it's just too Western movie sounding.

For the hell of it, I looked it up:

"var·mint ( P ) n. Informal. One that is considered undesirable, obnoxious, or troublesome."
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

I was kind of hoping for a small prairie-dwelling rat or locust or something. But it turns out that "varmint" really is no different than your're everyday "jerk" or "asshole."

It's still funny, though.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Welcome to Hell

No, I'm not going to mention Blockbuster, if that's what you're inferring from the title. Although you'd be close.

No, Hell is just a simple reference to my work days of late - I have been doing way too much stuff with way too little guidance from our *dedicated* account teams, and continually have to restart crap that should have been taken care of in the first place.

I digress.

I can't stay for long, but here's something interesting. Incredibly twisted and evil and fucked up, too.

In other words, I love it.

What's your take?