I'd rather go bland than taste them...

The following things I loathe to eat:
1) Plain tuna, with nothing on it except for the tuna ooze that oozes from it. I think they call it "brine with ingredients."
2) Most people, the exception being myself.
3) Anything off another person's plate. Yuck.

I'd rather go deaf than hear them...

Now, I like all sorts of music. But I decided the following:

-My Chemical Romance is the worst band ever.
-"Thrash Unreal" by Against Me! is the worst song ever made.

I can't stand that band and that song, and it's gotten to the point that within the first second of hearing anything by MCR or that song by Against Me!, I scream "Horrible song!" and I shut off the radio.

Did Anyone See This Movie?

Being a movie enthusiast (at best) and a Beatles fan since childhood, I was extremely "enthused" to see this movie when it came out:



But as usual, too busy to get out to see it in theatres. Now, its DVD release date is coming up in the first week of February and I was wondering if any of you have seen it. It looks beautiful to me. My parents saw it and said they loved it as well, so I have that.

Resolutions that weren't even made...

I'm already focused on my No. 1 resolution (to write more fiction), but as for resolutions I didn't clearly make - I'm getting more disciplined about reading again. Read "No Country for Old Men," almost done with "Into the Wild." Of course, seeing the movies was a driving force. I'm still chipping away at "Gravity's Rainbow." And I've been adding to my exercise routine - it's not just push-ups anymore. I can't wait for spring to get here. I'm ready to run again.

In really disturbing news, my news group is laying people off like crazy. Under normal circumstances, someone in my position would be the last on my desk to lose his job, but some of my co-workers know that I intend to have other plans come next year, which could fuck things up. Please, pray for me.

And yes, I've been posting a lot, but that's because I've been checking often. I hope it's not too annoying...

To amend that...

OK, I was just being flippant. I appreciate those of you who have purchased and read my books up to this point. I hope you do so with the new one. As for those of you waiting to buy the new one at my upcoming book release party, I'll keep you updated. And, finally, those of you who seriously don't give a shit about my writing, then I'm guessing you wouldn't have read this anyway, so I needn't dignify you in my commentary by mentioning you. (Wait, does that make sense?) Um, let's play hallball.

If I get reincarnated...

...I want to come back as someone who reads my books. Seriously. At least then I'd have someone buying my books on LuLu... *hint hint*

Hmmm.

Well, I opened up my e-mail this morning to see an explosion of activity on this site- assuming someone had died given how much there was, I logged in only to be greatly disappointed with you all driveling on about your lives.

Kidding! I luvs it.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to say. I'm still working...finally getting out of the hole on the nutso hours I've been pulling lately because I got to hire some help. Which is good. Except now I have to manage them, and half the time I feel like they look at me like "what the hell are you doing?" We moved into our new office finally as well, which is exciting because we were supposed to do that in August. We've been there for a week now and things are looking up.

In other news, I've been meeting with some guys pretty regularly about a new business concept I came up with, and we're all pretty sold. Most of my weekends have been going to being as lazy as possible or alternating with working on that. We're hoping to be able to quit our "real" jobs in 6 months, but who knows?!

Anyway. Werk werk werk. I truly understand the meaning of rat race.

The life of a music critic

In case you didn't know, one of the new things I'm doing at my job is writing music reviews. Through doing this, I realized the No. 1 equation regarding being a music critic: research = listening to music. It's pretty sweet. Of course, reading lyrics, biographies, and artist interviews are all important, but listening to the music is the most important part. And that's all kinds of awesome.

I am for real sticking to this plan.

Every time I check this, I will post. Seriously. I won't even cheat, not even once. How 'bout that, Waple? Too bad there's no way to prove it...

So, I'm flipping back and forth between the New Hampshire primaries and the Bulls game. The Bulls are barely beating the Knicks, and Clinton is barely beating Obama. My analysis: The Bulls need Deng to be healthy. As for the primaries, if you're going to vote blue, it's safe to already start thinking about voting for the Democrat who will appeal to the most people in this country - no matter the political party, the race, the gender, etc. Why? Because no matter how much you love one candidate, there's the slight possibility that another candidate stands a better chance (and it just so happens that the candidates are strong this year). As for voting red, I always liked McCain, at least until he became Bush's lapdog.

That's it for now.

Until we meet again, whoever's reading this...

hi

I guess I'll update just 'cause everyone else is... I really don't have anything new and exciting to report though. I spent winter break knitting some green and blue leg warmers, baked a TON of xmas cookies, watched the movie hairspray many many times (I have most of the choreography memorized), and built an army of adorable tiny snowmen, although they have sadly melted away at this point. Next week I return to school for my last semester of grad school. I graduate in may and therefore need to start job hunting like now, but I'm hardcore procrastinating. I too am looking forward to the dells trip with thom waple and mike, too bad everyone else can't come as well. I'm sure we'll have lots of pics to post afterwards, so until then, peace out.

So this is the new year...

I spent my New Year's Eve at a rock club in downtown Chicago, watching a reggae band perform, alone, by myself. I had such grand plans that night, but none of them worked out. As I stood there, I realized I had become that awkward 25-year-old seemingly past his prime without any real reason to be at the show anymore. At least I was dressed more for a business conference than a concert, which made it such that I appeared successful. Usually those creepy old dudes at shows who don't belong there anymore wear some hideous tight shirts they found in the Dumpster behind the thrift store, making them appear to be at least one of the following: 1) An alcoholic 2) Unemployed 3) A sex offender wanted in at least three states. At least my formal attire and bling-bling IUB ring discounted any accusations of such.

Other than that, I'm OK.

... 2008!

Please accept my warmest and frothiest New Year's toast from a juggled snifter of V.S.P. Cognac given a good to-and-fro, dancing with a tall glass of bubbley pronounced like Christopher Walken's "champagnye."

I seem to have a recollection that my parents were visiting me over here in this god-forsaken country, but they flew back sometime today.

So that's good that they came over, right? But you know it sort of makes me feel guilty, like i should have just come back to visit them instead, but whatever, you know, parents, right? uff.

Etc.

So I think I can echo what Brad said about grad school: i won't know until another 3 months at least, until then I feel like these professors are just shredding up my applications and smoking them like cheap, homemade cigars and getting kicks with my fate in these wooden conference rooms with wooden faces. Cheers to that.

And so forth.

Oh i forget about the port
where is the port?

-Ben

The Good Old Days

So, it looks like the rule around here is that if you mistakenly check this blog, or some jerk sets it as your homepage and you simply open your browser, you have to post something.

Something.











Just kidding.

I haven't seen most you in years (literally!) and I'm still holding it down here in Bloomington. I work in the School of Fine Arts, and have since June '06, but I'm applying to grad schools right now with the crazy idea that someone would accept me into their MFA program. Applications are due in the next two to three weeks and most schools will make me stand in the corner and wait for a good three months before they even bother to tell me anything. I'll keep you all posted (literally, again) with my news.

As it was usually my thing to tell you all what music I'm digging, here is what made me hot in 2007 (in no particular order):

-Radiohead In Rainbows
-The Tough Alliance New Chance
-Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
-Jens Lekman Night Falls on Kortedala
-The Field From Here We Go Sublime
-Battles Mirrored
-The Besnard Lakes ...Are the Dark Horse
-Feist The Reminder
-Animal Collective Strawberry Jam
-Panda Bear Person Pitch

Honorable Mentions:
-Kanye West Graduation
-M.I.A. Kala
-Pantha du Prince This Bliss
-Low Drums and Guns

If you want the hook-up for any of these albums, I'd be glad to share. Just like the good old days.

Peace and Happy New Year,

Brad

and again

This is what I get for checking the blog. No one writing. But because I made an "agreement" with Thom to keep posting every time I check (and I haven't even been doing that) I felt the need to continue. Since it's boring to tell everyone what I GOT for Christmas, I'll tell you what I didn't get.
I didn't get:
a bazillion dollars
a Brasilian model
a pyramid
a bronze statue of myself that rotates to always face the sun (like in Turkmenistan)
four DeLoreans
a date with Lance Bass (thank god)
religion (and still don't)
herpes (yay)

This leaves an infinite number of things that I could have gotten. Such as:
a new face
FIVE DeLoreans
lost graded Kobe Bryant rookie card
Turkmenistan itself
Hitler's fashion sense
a wheel
seven brides for seven brothers
a lock of rob's pubes
a basket full of other, smaller baskets
nine lives
a cold

But I assure you that none of those items were acquired either. What an uneventful Christmas. What did you NOT get?

I promised to write

Thom and I got together recently to try to plan out some of the details for our trip to the Dells and hammered out a basic outline. We also both mentioned how we rarely post anything on this blog but check it somewhat frequently. The end result was that we promised to post every time we checked. This has made me check less often because it means I'll have to post, but perhaps as the posts increase from others then so will my hesitancy.

I'm on break from teaching (thank the gods) for two weeks until 1/7. I needed it badly. Yesterday I kept thinking to myself that if I had to report to school today I would just leave my books at home and bring a gun. I didn't want to be there for so many reasons:
I am tired of working and coming up with plans
I don't want to see the coworker that broke up with me last week
I want to have some free time
Next semester is going to be busy.

Second semester won't be nearly as bad as first, but some of the bad news I got this week was that one guy who teaches the same class as me won't be teaching it next semester. Result? They are shoving his kids into my classes. Fuck. But I plan on staying no later than 5 on any given day unless I'm there working out, which I intend to do at least 3 days a week. I have lost 10 pounds so far this year and have not exercised with any frequency for a little more than a year now. It'll be nice to have confidence in my appearance again.

Finally, this trip to the Dells should be a lot of fun. Mike is taking off work. Sara doesn't have to work. And I've just got a final to give that will last until 9am. We'll leave around 11 or so that Friday in January and just have a good ole time up north. I'm really hoping to make a trip to Miami over spring break, so if anyone wants to join me, let me know. The more, the merrier. And here's a pic of Rob and me from the Bears/Lions game we went to on Halloween weekend. I was a Mexican and he was Hulk Hogan, and then there's an uumpa lumpa. In case anyone told Rob he had to put a shirt on, he had one stuffed down his spandex. Charming.

Now...

Look here. Let's celebrate my birthday. That's all I demand. And that's all I demand. And a cake. That has chocolate. And has icing on it made into the following shapes:
Boobs
Chocolate
Videogames
Laughter

Thank you.

sara's annual update

howdy all, aka the 4 people who still read this...
Nothing totally new or exciting to report, I'm just super pumped to start my last year of grad school! This year my internship is in an alternative high school for kids with behavior or emotional problems who couldn't handle the mainstream high school. So I'll actually be doing one-on-one therapy with my own clients and leading group therapy every week, I'm so excited! I just hope I don't screw up their lives too much. So that's what I'll be doing monday wednesday friday, and then tuesday thursday I have class. I'm also still working at the Warming House Youth Center one or two nights a week (a drop-in center for teenagers to hang out or talk confidentially about stuff). So like waple, I'm on the verge of becoming pretty busy, although less busy than I was last year 'cause I'm not a graduate assistant at school anymore. I'm definitely looking forward to graduating in may so I can finally move out of my parents' house!
This summer's been super fun, I was taking two summer school classes and working like 15 hours a week, and just chilling the rest of the time. Lollapalooza was definitely a highlight, DaftPunk rocked my socks. I also started taking dance classes again after a 2 year hiatus, which has done wonders for my self esteem and confidence, it's nice to have a hobby again and feel like I have a life and talents outside of school and social work. I've been doing ballet, hiphop, pole dancing, and I'm about to start belly dancing. I finally got a new phone yesterday so I can make and receive phone calls again! (the old one was dropping calls every 2 minutes). Ummm I can't think of anything else exciting right now. I look forward to seeing everyone sometime in the future!

teaching and friends

So I'm gonna begin my professional career in about three weeks, so if no one hears from me, it'll be because teaching will be eating up my life. I'm enjoying the last couple weeks of my summer in a tempered fashion, since weekends don't really belong to anything but worry anymore. It's basically going to be a coordinated car crash, and I'm like the new stunt driver on the block. First, I'm coaching soccer and I haven't even played for9 years, at which point I was only good enough for the freshman B team. NOTE: I'm coaching the freshman B team.
Second, I'm teaching two classes I've never taught before: Psychology and Chicago History. They'll both be interesting and they have their upsides, but I'm just going to be happy in a year when I move out and don't have to worry about going back to a catholic school for another year. I'm just ready to retire, I think. All this thinking about work has really exhausted me. I've even done some prep work and I haven't even gotten paid for it! Ahhh I'm a teacher. What did I sign up for? So if I don't talk to you all much in the next year, that's why. I really want to, but God kinda will own my soul. For once.
I'm tired, so I'm heading to bed. I hope everyone's doing well, especially you, Ben, since I hear from you least often.

Love,
Andrew

hmmm...

Ahoy.
Hmm... so i have a year before grad school and what should i do with myself or whatever?
I think I am still in Cairo right now, and i think my funding runs out soon, and then i will probably subsist on coffee and pastrami for a few months, then maybe start eating myself... yumm... androphogeablicious.
So what is everyone doing to survive in post-college? What would you recommend? More coffee? Less coffee? Roast beef instead of pastrami? Cat food? (mmm...)

I'm so tired of looking at that picture. I had to post SOMETHING. So as a general note, I'm going to be in Bloomington on the weekends of April 14th, and 28th. They'll be really quick trips though. Like, 36 hours or something. Should be fun.