| How to meet new people |
[Sep. 26th, 2009|03:30 am] |
Me: What's that on your shirt?
Silence: (Breathes)
Me: My first guess would be that it's a lightsaber. But I don't think lightsabers have actual light bulbs attached to them.
Dan: That's what it is. It's a lightsaber with a light bulb.
Silence: (Deep breath)
Me: Oh! I get it! |
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| Intrigue |
[Sep. 20th, 2009|06:25 pm] |
A few days ago I was called in at the last minute for a catering shift. I had rehearsal, but I ducked out because I'm more confident about the state of my team than I am about my bank account.
We were feeding a fund-raiser for underprivileged Mexican children, and the crowd appeared to be composed of priests at a rate of 1 in 10. Alcohol was not consumed quite as freely as usual, but there came a time when the bartenders ran out of glasses and asked me to wash some.
So I did. I took them into the garage, where there happened to be a sink (gotta love rich folk), and started scrubbing away. I had washed a mere three glasses when my boss came in to tell me to stop, as the window was open and the sound of running water was breaking the former silence surrounding a priest's speech. Deflated, I brought the glasses into the kitchen for the chefs to wash.
Which they did. But the three glasses I had washed were left behind. The bartenders would be fine for another twenty minutes, but I decided to pick up the slack any way I could. I would smuggle the missing vessels to my compatriots, and none would be the wiser.
Clasping the bounty in my arms, I opened the door farthest from the crowd, turning the knob slowly to avoid the slightest noise or a destabilization of my load. I left the portal open ever so slightly, imperceptible to a casual observer, to make my re-entry all the swifter. I crept out into the shroud of darkness, my feet making no sound as they landed gently on the cobbled walkway.
I would be the shadow of a ghost.
I would be the elusive memory of a whisper.
I would be the faceless entity lurking in the dark corners of your mind.
I would be the brightest shade of mortified when I realized the crowd had turned to watch a presentation on the screen right behind me.
I almost panicked in my state of embarrassment, but remembered one of the first rules of improv: a mistake isn't a problem unless you treat it like a problem. Instead, own your failures and embrace them. If you screw up a dance number, it's because you're so fabulous that they gave you alternate choreography.
So I just kept walking the path I had chosen, expediently and confidently reaching the bar and finding a secondary route back into the house. Any bewildered guests quickly forgot me, but I will remember this experience always. I learned a few sobering facts about the art of stealth:
1. Taking unnecessary risks, no matter what the result, does NOT make you a skilled infiltrator.
2. Do not celebrate your accomplishments during a mission. You are not cool until you have reached safety.
But I also learned that making bold gambles during situations where there is little at stake will result in mistakes that can then be avoided when it matters most. Next time, I might be hiding from people with guns. And I'll sure as hell pay better attention to which way they're facing! |
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| A barrier breached |
[Sep. 15th, 2009|10:01 pm] |
Yesterday I breached new territory in the culinary arts. I bought a cookbook, and unlike last time I actually cooked a recipe in the book!
I have never cooked Indian food before, so I started as simply as I could, with a recipe entitled "String beans with potatoes." It was a stir-fry, and I made the executive decision to enjoy it over a steaming pot of rice from my trusty companion, The Magic of Friendship. As I flipped the switch, a comfortable motion performed perhaps a hundred times in the past three years, I got to work pioneering the frontier you all traversed a decade ago.
( The trouble began almost immediately. ) |
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| An ill-fated struggle |
[Sep. 9th, 2009|06:23 pm] |
Sneaking up on people has long ago become too commonplace an endeavor, too easy in most circumstances. To scare an unsuspecting victim is no longer a thrill, as it is too selfish for me to enjoy with any dignity. Sneaking past people is infinitely more satisfying, but often difficult past the point of feasibility.
A few years ago, however, I discovered a fun new ideal in the art of invisibility when I reversed the tried-and-true process. I decided it would be rather appealing to vanish from the perception of someone who already sensed me, a maneuver I dubbed the "Batman."
A Batman is usually a simple affair: merely let the target walk in front of you, then duck around a corner. While a fun parlor trick, good for a laugh at another's expense without the guilt of startling an undeserving bystander, the buzz dissipates when you realize the victim can more often than not take three steps and reacquire your acquaintance. However, once in a great while an opportunity presents itself for a Batman grand enough to honor its namesake.
( Last night was not one such occasion. ) |
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| A tidbit |
[Sep. 3rd, 2009|11:40 pm] |
From an Indian cookbook:
"Pineapple was introduced to Kerala by the Portuguese as early as the end of the fifteenth century. At first Keralites viewed it with suspicion, calling it 'the jackfruit of the donkey.'" |
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| An emotional embrace |
[Aug. 8th, 2009|08:53 pm] |
I believe that every object has a spirit. So when it comes time to get rid of an iconic possession in my life, I like to make my peace with it. Today it was time to do so with the first video camera I ever used. My mother graciously joined in the ceremony.
Me- Thank you for inspiring a passion. You've been a wonderful direct influence on my life, and indirectly on the lives of others as well. Brett, for example, has gone on to pursue a career in film and now makes a living doing so.
Mom- Brett told me recently that he thought of us as second parents. Which was touching, because I had no idea. I knew Josh felt that way, but Brett's the least expressive of your bunch.
Me- Yeah, Brett tends to keep to himself by default; he'll talk if prompted, but doesn't seem to need to talk things out.
Mom- So it was a surprise. My contribution there was just saying "Sure, you can have your friends over." Tori Cooper told me I had been a parental figure to her, a big part of her childhood. I wasn't a parent who disciplined, more a parent who hugged and let her explore. But it's hard to see that you're making a difference, because a three-year-old never tells you that.
Me- Yeah, kids don't really say "You're helping me grow in a wholesome way."
Mom- Right.
Me- Anyway, sorry for getting distracted.
Mom- Oh no, I certainly helped.
Me- Thank you for breaking down when you did. If you hadn't stopped working, we would have never gotten the digital camera. And then our kung fu movie would have suffered significantly. And I don't blame you for it- you're a product of your times- but I think Brett even said back in the day, "We wouldn't still be making this movie if we were still using the old camera."
Mom- Well, we saw you guys were serious about making movies. Most toys you buy for a kid cost a buck or two, with an occasional fifty-dollar video game. But we knew this would be a worthwhile venture.
Me- So what I'm saying is, thank you for sacrificing yourself for the greater good.
Mom- You're very welcome.
Me- I'M TALKING TO THE CAMERA!
*Volley of embarrassed laughter* |
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| High Society |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|04:02 am] |
This is my improv team, Feral Children (gnawing on a bone of meat).
Yes, those clothes are ALL mine. |
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| What's new |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|12:32 am] |
Ah boy, a lot's happened in the past little bit.
I quit Dave & Buster's at the turn of the April, and have been unemployed for the past few months. Restaurant service jobs don't come easily to dudes. There are signs in the window that say "Waitresses wanted," ads on Craig's List that say "Looking for female bartenders," and even a manager who told me "You look like exactly what I need. I just hired a few girls and they look like they're all going to work out, but training is slow because they all have second jobs. I'll give you a call if something comes up." Ah well, if she'd rather inflict a ton of scheduling conflicts on herself than hire someone without a rack, let her complicate her life.
Luckily, I've got enough saved up that this hasn't been a problem. But it puts me in an odd situation where I've [i]got[/i] money, but am still scrimping at every corner because I don't know how long I need to make it last. Friends will occasionally buy me a drink, and I don't know how to respond. Yes, I don't have a job and so I accept their generosity, but I'm continuously reminding them to save it for someone who's actually destitute.
Recently, though, gainful employment has found me. Sort of. I applied to be a tour guide at the Museum of Science and Industry, and somehow ended up getting hired to work the Omnimax theatre for the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Good thing the interview process didn't include a quiz about the Harry Potter universe, because I've never seen any of the movies or read any of the books.
It seems like it'll be a good job- it's easy, I am thus far quite fond of my coworkers, and the only song I have to listen to all day is this badass little ditty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0DqPSF2fyo
Beats the hell out of remixes of Perhaps You Would Like a Piece of Me.
And the management seems to have a genuine respect for what we do. For instance, we rotate jobs every 25 to 45 minutes so that nobody is standing in the same place for too long. While this makes things needlessly complicated as I have a tendency to lose track of time, I'm glad to see the supervisors showing an extra bit of concern for us.
There are some downsides, of course. The pay is only 8.50 an hour, nowhere near enough to support me (so I must continue my self-deprivation of restaurants, store-bought liquor and fancy cheeses). The commute is an hour each way, and that's not considering my safety (the fastest route home involves waiting for a train in a place I would NEVER traverse at night). And it's a temporary position, ending in September (around the time the prime hiring season for servers will end). But the museum's a big place with a lot of jobs going around, so I'm sticking to this for now and hoping that after the movie closes I'll be able to get the job I actually applied to do.
Meanwhile, my roommates have suddenly become surprisingly hostile to me. I'll never divulge details in a public medium, but I will implicate what I believe is the source of the scuffle. You see, a lot of the complaints they've made about me in the past are completely legitimate concerns. But they tend to let things boil until they snap. Trouble is, they're all things I could have (and would have) stopped doing in a second if I'd known that I was bothering them. My advice to those of you looking to preserve your roommate relations: if you're ever mad about something, just speak up! You're not being "nice" by not raising a fuss, you're just letting people unwittingly trample all over you for no good reason. And if you're worried about looking like a nitpicker for bringing up insignificant stuff, meet with your roommates once a month to air whatever little grievances pop up, so that you won't find yourself shouting at somebody over a towel.
In any case, things seem to have cooled down a little bit here. It looks like one of them has moved on. But I wouldn't be surprised if the other one never speaks to me again. And they're moving out in August, so I'm hoping I don't get one last fuck-you at the end of the month.
Ah well, I'm glad I've still got a lady who makes sense to me. She is still a highly positive bit of glory.
So is my team. We're just out doing improv for the fun of it all, which makes for the best shows despite our individual disagreements on the finer points of improvisational theatre. We had a pretty good one about a week ago. It's up on Facebook...
http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1169161625010#/video/video.php?v=927185485759&ref=mf
...but I wouldn't expect any of y'all to actually sit through it, as it was taken from the back row and you have a better view of the backs of peoples' heads than you do of us. Oh, and the ending is cut off. So yeah, I'll hold no judgment against anyone who wants to wait for a better video before they check out what I've been up to. I know time is a precious commodity. And with my Improv Olympic student graduation shows coming up in seven weeks, there ought to be a better videographic opportunity in the near future.
Take fabulous care. |
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| A game |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|10:30 pm] |
Let me tell you about a wonderful way to spice up your everyday journeys.
One day, as I was driving around Cincinnati, it occurred to me that when stopped at a red light, in a lane reserved strictly for turning left, few bother to employ their signal. However, if I took this prudence, those behind me would most often follow suit. These experiments with herd mentality gave birth to a standardized term:
Sheep- v.- to cause another person to do something for no discernible reason other than having witnessed you do the same.
Nowadays, my sheeping most often happens at crosswalks. The most basic sheepery is to disobey unnecessary "Don't Walk" signs and hope that others will follow. If you catch somebody trying to sheep you like this, you can counter it by looking both ways and deciding of your own volition that crossing is a good idea; even if seeing that person cross was what inspired you, it only counts as being sheeped if you follow blindly.
My greatest sheep to date occurred as I was exiting a bus. I saw that the walk light was blinking to warn me of an unfavorable change. I undoubtedly could have safely crossed at my normal speed, but I cut a mad dash for the fun of it. This sprint took me past a calmer pedestrian, who, upon seeing my haste, rapidly quickened his pace despite being mere feet from the safety of the next sidewalk.
Have you ever sheeped anyone? Or been sheeped? |
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| A lasting impression |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|09:34 pm] |
Brett Payton, one of the five people I stayed in touch with after high school, spent a year of his college education in Japan. He returned bearing gifts; among them, a bag of dry seasoning to sprinkle over rice. There was no English on the package other than the word "shiso," but he claimed I would be able to find it in Asian grocery stores. Nonetheless, I used it sparingly, fearing I would never see another package of it.
On a warm September day, I stuffed the preserved empty bag into my pocket to show to potentially confused shopkeepers, and Lisa and I boarded the El-train toward Chinatown. We sat on the sideways row of seats- the one place on a Chicago train where there are seats that face each other- and I met eyes with a young man sporting a messenger bag and a hipstery hat that evoked memories of Fidel Castro, though he was clean shaven except for a pair of wicked sideburns.
I thought he was trying to get my attention, and shot him an inquisitive glance. He responded deferentially, and I dropped pursuit. But suddenly I was seized with a bizarre inspiration and continued this cycle three or four times, making a wordless game out of an endless loop. Having a little too much fun, I escalated things too quickly and bellowed a "WHAT?" A fearful look filled his face, and he stammered "Nothing."
From that point on, we avoided eye contact. However, as there was nothing else happening, there was no alternative place to look, no event to distract us from what had just occurred. Our focus would inevitably turn back to one another, and then we would realize we had been caught looking at the other guy and sheepishly turn away.
I turned to Lisa and began to give a play-by-play analysis of the aforementioned events, ending with "That was funny at first, but then when I raised my voice I became That Guy." But I wasn't really talking to Lisa, or at least not for her sake; I was whispering at a volume loud enough for the startled stranger to hear, so that he would know that I felt as awkward about the situation as he did. This was the only way I could communicate with him, since I could not even look him in the eye with any degree of confidence.
Suddenly, the tension was cut. A woman walked between us, lost her balance as the train jolted, and fell forward. When she landed six feet away, her belongins scattered everywhere. As the surrounding passengers helped her up, she loudly exclaimed, "I tripped! Oh my god, I can't believe I tripped!" He and I smiled at each other, sharing the moment we had just seen. I wasn't That Guy anymore.
But she didn't have the crown for very long either. At the next stop, three ten-ish-year-old boys entered the train. They each produced sets of drumsticks, which they used to strike empty seats as well as the poles that people would be using for support were the train more crowded. One of them started yelling something unintelligble; I suppose it could have been some sort of African language, but I'm pretty sure it was gibberish. As the train slowed, they approached passengers with a flier which they briefly held in front of our faces before snatching back, presumably because they only had one copy. Then they exited at the next stop and skipped away, hollering and producing their rhythms on an unfortunate railing.
At this point the stranger looked at me and said, "Now I kind of want to follow you guys around, just to see if this kind of thing always happens wherever you go." It turned out he too was headed for Chinatown, and like us he was searching for something of tenuous detail- an unnamed restaurant at a nonexistent intersection- so we travelled together briefly before parting ways.
I didn't find any shiso that day. Brett lives in Philadelphia, where the Chinatown has a presence of other Asian influences. Chicago's Chinatown, on the other hand, is far more strictly Chinese, so I received a great deal of confused and slightly offended looks when I asked shopkeepers about an herb with a Japanese name that they had never heard of. However, a few days later Lisa found shiso at a Japanese market two blocks from my apartment, which I had never entered because I thought it was a clothing and art shop.
A few weeks later, I received a call from an unknown number. It turned out Lisa had given him my number, though she had neglected to ask for his. We caught an improv show together, and as we were socializing afterwards, I caught him trying to get away with increasingly nerdier references.
Finally having somebody to argue with about whether or not Halo redefined video games and hum Super Nintendo songs together, Swan and I have been hanging out ever since. You could chalk it up to chemistry, but I think we both just wanted to say we're hanging out with a guy we met on an El-Train to Chinatown. |
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| The Champeenship! |
[Apr. 6th, 2009|02:17 am] |
On Monday, I went to bed at 4.
On Tuesday, I went to bed at 2.
On Wednesday, I went to bed at 1.
On Thursday, I made and refrigerated a batch of steel-cut oatmeal and tempeh. I have never been enthusiastic about tempeh, but I was led to believe it is packed with B vitamins, which I'm further told are a way to boost one's energy. I also burned a CD to wake up to, so that I wouldn't ignore my current rising theme, of which I am well past bored. I located a bottle of my emergency medicine; my heart's been tachycardia-free since February 2008, but if it tried anything funny I would be ready for it. Then I cleaned my work shoes for the first time in 1.5 years, and went to bed at midnight.
On Friday, I talked Dave & Buster's into letting me out of the party at 10:00. When I arrived at 7:00, it turned out they had goofed and the party did not start until 9:30. They sent me home, after buying me a disappointing meal. I took this as a sign that I was on the right path. I declined several social invitations, then went to bed at 10:30. At 11:00, my roommate began to watch a movie outside my bedroom, and I braved the awkwardness of being that guy who asks everybody to keep it down at 11:00 on a Friday night. Nothing would come between me and my eight hours.
On Saturday, my alarm sounded at 7 AM. I hit the ground stretching, and was fully awake by the end of the song. I shaved, showered, ate my pre-made breakfast, opened and de-pinned a brand new white button-down shirt, donned my nicest jeans and a pair of shoes now free of hamburger taint, and marched out the door.
When I saw that the Clark Street bus was not coming, I trekked southward to where Broadway Street sheds its independence and merges with Clark for a few miles. Along the way, my eyes were opened to the fact that I was awake at 7 in the morning, and for once I didn't hate the world because of it. I marvelled at the gorgeous sunny day, as I watched trucks unload their cargo and newspapers filling their dispensers. Life was beginning, and I was a part of it.
At last, I arrived at my strategic bus stop. Now I was putting my faith not in one bus, but two. And sure enough, the Broadway bus came and filled the shoes that the Clark bus had left empty. And that, friends, is how I made it to The Perennial fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
Finding the door locked, I wandered around the side of the building and strolled into an unmarked door to find myself in the kitchen. I stated my business, was greeted by a manager, and introduced to a server who would take responsibility for my growth. I hung my jacket in the locker room, and was handed a stack of soft fabric napkins to carry upstairs and begin rolling into neatly-bundled silverware sets.
...at which point the manager took me aside and told me the position had already been filled.
I left without a word. They'll never know how hard I trained for this. The only memory they have of my passing is seven silverware rolls of questionable craftsmanship. |
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| A quandary |
[Mar. 31st, 2009|04:08 pm] |
Yesterday I went in for an interview at The Perennial, a fancy restaurant in Lincoln Park.
I had been there before for an open call, and hadn't heard back. The manager immediately recognized me, and it was the shortest interview ever.
"Oh, I remember you. Still trying to escape Dave & Buster's?"
"Yeah."
"Anything else new?"
"Not really."
He told me I had been ruled out last time because I was deemed too inexperienced for a fine dining environment. But he said with patio season about to start there would be some more shifts to go around. He said I could come in Saturday and follow along for a brunch shift, starting at 9 AM.
Great, right? You'd think so. Except that on my way out of my last day at Dave & Buster's, I backpedaled a little and offered to stick around Fridays and Saturdays. And I volunteered to work a party on Friday night. I don't know the details, but it starts at 8 PM and it's for 400 people. Could last awhile.
The general consensus is that The Perennial is giving me a shot largely because of my persistence, so if I cancel for Saturday then I probably won't get another chance. And it's going to be difficult to get the party covered- I've got plenty of allies at Dave & Buster's who would volunteer, but pretty much everyone is going to be scheduled already. I could tell Dave & Buster's I can't do the party, but I want to keep my doors open there too. Just in case.
I've worked early shifts on little or no sleep before. I can easily phone it in. But Saturday will be a day to impress, so I'm going to need to be as alert and aware as possible, and bags under my eyes will be a turnoff.
So, anyone got any sleep advice? I'm making a concerted effort to go to bed earlier this week, so that by the time Saturday comes, getting up at 7 won't be much of a stretch. Or should I just sleep until 5 PM on Friday, so that I will have only been awake 16 hours when the brunch shift comes?
Keep in mind caffeine is not an option here; as far as I know I've been heart-condition-free for over a year now, but since it did come back after the first surgery it's best not to push my luck. |
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| Where I am |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|05:23 pm] |
Good day, folks! In light of my lack of recent bloggeries, I felt it sporting to drop a few humdrum details of my recent livings.
Improvisational pursuits are pushing along nicely. I'm currently in level 4B at Improv Olympic, meaning I have about five months left in their program. Meanwhile, I'm finally starting to gain some comradery with my classmates outside of faces I see for three hours a week. A few of us broke off and started our own team. We don't have any shows yet, but for the moment we're rehearsing once a week and at the very least keeping our brains fresh between classes. I'm also about to start writing classes at The Annoyance.
All's well on the lady front. I don't understand why people break up with their significant others and then say "Well, at least I'm free now." I've never felt more imprisoned than the time between breaking up with Heather and hooking up with Lisa. Every time I went out, I always had to look my best, out of fear that I would meet the love of my life and she wouldn't take me seriously because I had a neckbeard and a gaping hole in my jeans, or write me off as gay because I was dressed like a watermelon. But as it stands now, I enjoy a great deal more liberty. If the only clean clothes I have are unflattering, fine. If my bedroom is in a sorry shape that would scare off an unexpected lady visitor, the danger is moot. I'm a lot better at keeping a woman than I am at getting one, so I'm in my element now. Of course I still try to maintain my appearance, and still try to pass myself off as an appealing specimen, but there's a lot more room to do what I please.
Chicago and I are getting along, now that I've survived the murderous winter. I love chasing down buses, and being able to walk most anywhere I want to go, even though all my driving soundtracks are collecting dust. I suppose I'll have to bust out the iPod at some point.
My living situation is still working out. Sharing a three-bedroom apartment is a lot different from sharing a dorm room; Zachary and I survived for three and a half years with a co-existence largely powered by the strength of our friendship, but now I'm living with people who have opposite schedules and personalities. They're at work when I wake up, and asleep when I come home. For the most part, all they know about me is the messes I leave behind. So I've had to man up and do my best to keep the disarray largely confined to my bedroom. Everything else- most notably, spending my leisure hours without waking them up- is second nature to an amateur ninja. At this rate, I plan to stay here for a good while.
The one thorn in my side continues to be my job. Yesterday we had a meeting announcing the implementation of General Service Staff. As it stands, I am a dining room server; I work only in an area where people are sitting down to enjoy their meal. Elsewhere in the building, cocktail servers wait on people playing billiards or shuffleboard, or maintain booths in the arcade area. But these designations have been eliminated, and soon the two staffs will become interchangeable.
I have no interest in the idea of my charms being viewed as a distraction from video games. It appears it may be time for me to become a full-time job hunter. I don't want to abandon my employment without finding a suitable replacement, especially in an economy like this. But the sad truth is that I may never find another job without first feeling the urgency of unemployment. I have enough savings to survive several incomeless months, a girlfriend who hails from an impoverished background and knows how to make a dollar last, a simple mind that can be amused cheaply, and intel that suggests that this is the prime time to find another serving job. I can only hope my motivation will strengthen in this time of need. |
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| Conflict Resolution |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|01:03 am] |
For my birthday, Lisa purchased me these guys.
Meet the MacGregor twins (Zeebs on the left hand, Murray on the right). In addition to being generally awesome, they have the added bonus of making me look like less of a criminal as I walk down the street in a ski mask.
Lisa also happens to own these guys:
Meet the Muttons. And while you're at it, meet some kind of fucking bunny pig hat. I guess she knows what she likes.
One night we found ourselves in an argument on the subway. As it intensified, we agreed to lighten the mood by letting the MacGregors and the Muttons argue on our behalf. Which was a well-conceived plan, because it's difficult to be mad when you look down and see this:
To paint a clearer picture, I should elaborate on the argument. Lisa had promised to make me "seitan with potatoes and curry." But when she delivered, I was surprised to find that she was simply referring to curry powder. I contended that the dish, though delicious, could not be called "curry" because of a single ingredient. We've never actually resolved the debate, despite coming to terms with each other's positions.
We can, however, agree on one thing: on that train we were "that guy" together. As Lisa fondly recalls: "Every guy on that train was looking at us like he wanted to strangle us. And there were no women around." |
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| Symbolic Journey |
[Jan. 2nd, 2009|10:44 pm] |
A few days ago, Lisa introduced me to the belief that whatever you're doing on the first day of the year is what you'll be doing for the rest of the year. So we decided to start things off right. Hopefully, the following events will characterize 2009 for me:
-Cooking a glorious meal for good company.
-Climbing a wall.
-Using video games as a tool to bring people together.
-Being called a ninja by a stranger in the street.
-Meeting a bizarre but harmless person on public transportation.
-Seeing justice delivered to my least favorite, hopefully ex-coworker.
-Inventing a groundbreaking new cocktail.
-Infiltrating a party held by the greatest improvisers in Chicago.
-Declining to eat a three-hour-old cheesesteak.
-Finishing a movie, and uploading it on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaSLeeTE5YA
Nothing special, and apparently nothing comprehensible either (according to the one person who's seen it). But I'm glad to be producing any new material at all, and for the record this is based on a true story.
Have a splendid year. |
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| A tangled web |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|04:38 pm] |
A lot of video games changed hands in the Rinsky household in the last month. Let me pitch you the whole soap opera- you don't need to know anything about video games to follow this (I drop names for reference only):
When I came home for Thanksgiving, my brother Isaac splurged and bought me a shiny new Xbox 360 from Microcenter. Included were two games: Fallout 3 (from my cousins), and Fable 2 (from my parents).
But I didn't want Fable 2, so I went with my father to exchange it for Left 4 Dead. But Microcenter didn't have any copies, and they would only give us store credit. We talked them into refunding the price of game on Isaac's credit card, then we went to Best Buy and my dad bought me Left 4 Dead. But Isaac was no longer in town at that point, so at press time he still owes them a reimbursement.
Isaac also told me he has a copy of Fallout 3 that he's not using anymore, so if I left mine in the package I could have his and then exchange it. I stared at it on my mantle for all of last month, and then sure enough, he gave me his this past weekend. But he left his receipt in Columbus, and I left my shrinkwrapped copy in Chicago. So when he comes up to visit in February, we will take the game and the receipt to Microcenter Chicago and put an end to this business once and for all.
Oh, and Isaac didn't make a gift list for the Rinsky Family Non-Denominational Holiday Funtime Fiesta. So I gave him a little coin purse stuffed with $64.04 (the price of an Xbox 360 game after Franklin County sales tax). He used it to buy Fable 2.
But all the complication was worth it when I popped in Fallout 3 last night, and the character creation screen informed me that I could give my protagonist a "muttonstache." |
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| Damn |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|05:22 pm] |
I had the most precious dream last night.
My father gave me a list of the eight kinds of women I needed to avoid. It was arranged like a spreadsheet, and he told me to fill it with lists of women I knew who fit under each label. Kind of like a post-eductional homework assignment.
The first three categories were "Stragglers," "Hagglers," and "Sexy Tail-Waggers."
I'm kind of pissed that I can't remember the others. |
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| More Relationship Wisdom |
[Dec. 5th, 2008|05:19 am] |
Never eat a slice of turkey, yell "Thanksgiving makeouts!" and then forcefully romanticize someone who's a much stricter vegetarian than you are.
And the sad thing is, she's still luckier than my last girlfriend. |
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[Nov. 28th, 2008|12:12 am] |
Let me tell you about this here lady of mine.
Meet Lisa:
-She is a fellow improviser. She's a year ahead of me on the path I travel toward comedic fulfillment, so she has been a wonderful resource for my inquiries on how the improv world actually works.
-She is dedicated to her craft. She'll go outside during the roughest of Chicago weather to make a movie, even while she's on her period.
-She is a teriffic listener. If I am ever interrupted by something, she will always come back and ask me what I was about to say, even if it takes five minutes to get back to it. This also means she will catch and ridicule me if I so much as mangle a single consonant, but like a good improviser she treats every mistake like a gift. This results in an environment where everything I do is the right choice, and it is quite comfortable.
-She is an unapologetic dork. Though our interests diverge (she leans more toward Star Wars, while I align myself with video games), I am tremendously thankful to have found someone who can appreciate the appeal of all forms of nerdic arts.
-She grants me the right to catch myself digging a conversational hole, say "The Right Answer," and then change the subject with no further question.
-She pays for her half of dinner.
-She is comfortable with me hanging out with other girls.
-She enjoys my company enough that she has no qualms about hanging out with me while I clean my room or do laundry (I try my best not to abuse this).
-She is committed to the prevention of overexposure, and raises no complaints when I want a night off from her.
-She loves a good adventure. She'll make a mad dash with me to catch a bus, stop to decipher graffiti we find, and cheer me on while I try to climb stuff.
So yeah, life is good up here. |
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actionjack's journal
Fuckin' proud