timberwolves vs trailblazers
to the two young boys seated in 226 S 9 and 10 tonight: i understand that you were caught up in the spirit of the game (though, to be fair to everyone else, it fully appears that you are always like this). i understand that you are big blazers fans. i understand that you are just boys, and therefore immature and male. you should understand, younger boy, that when i lost control in the middle of the third quarter, and in response to one of the few charging calls that went in minnesota’s favor i screamed so loudly directly behind your ear that it scared you badly enough that you lost your balance and fell backwards into your seat, that i was just venting some of the steam that you had been building up.
to the two adults seated in 226 S 7 and 8 tonight: i understand that you lead busy lives. i understand that you hate disciplining your kids, since you probably already inflict your long hours and emotional unavailability on them. i understand, male in seat 8, that you told the kids to “shut the f*** up,” but that they’re probably your girlfriend’s kids and you don’t have much sway over them. you should understand, though, whomever the kids belong to, that i sincerely hope they cause you as much pervasive stress as you have allowed them to cause on the world around them (i.e., us).
to my father and brothers: you should understand that, despite this screed, i had a good time, and do want to go again. besides, it was really funny when i scared that kid, even if it makes me somewhat of a child / bad person.
unforgiven
i hadn’t seen this movie since the early nineties, probably early after it came out on video, so i didn’t remember much of it at all, and wanted to watch it again.
sexy beast
an amazing performance by ben kingsley, who personifies a smoldering powder keg of anger and hate. a very interesting heist movie, in that the heist is so far from the center of attention, that you almost forget that it’s there.
the tain
the decemberists
one would think that colin meloy would be content to continue writing sea shanties. instead, he has written a five act, 18 minute song loosely based on an eigth century celtic epic, the tain bo cuailnge (here’s a somewhat shorter summary). i love it. from the zeppelinesque riffs that kick it off to the redemptive closing strains, it’s just fun to listen to. head over to hush records and get a copy, and perhaps take a look at the lyrics, or the pitchfork review that alerted me to the existence of this venture.
on a related note, the decemberists cover of bjork’s human behavior is good listening as well (thanks, drew). i have noticed that while i don’t really ever listen to bjork any more, i do generally like covers of her songs, e.g. a love-cars cover of hyperballad i heard at a show last spring, and death cab’s rendition of all is full of love.
entrepreneurs
watching television, a commercial caught my eye - gw bush’s commercial, “lead”. the reason that this commercial caught my eye is the fact that gw uses his favorite word, “entrepreneur.” the first thing that sprung to my mind was that incident regarding french etymology. apparently, that story wasn’t true, but it certainly continues to rumble around in the american psyche. the second thing that popped to mind was a henry rollins bit from his most recent spoken word tour, inspired by gw’s moon speech. here’s an excerpt:
I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous spacial entrepreneurs who set such a wonderful example for the young of our country.
gw is a visionary: none of the rest of us have heard of “spacial entrepreneurs,” but that’s ok, because gw is there to lead us onward. never mind the fact that the fourth sentence of his speech was “i welcome those who are listening by video.” i guess this is just one more for the long line of word stunts (clip).
i have realized that probably at least half of the television i watch falls in to the “i am watching this because these people are so amazingly stupid” category. perhaps well over half. perhaps i would do better to watch more law and order and less prime time programming. elimidate, though, can stay. people slow down to gawk at cars in the ditch; i occasionally take time out to revel in the campy anti-culture presented by dating shows.
seth: 0, the combined forces that would drive him mad: 5
act i: watching the evening news, i am confronted with a story about the national guard, which ends like this:
A quarter of all the Army Guard is now on active duty, which is not what most signed up for. Most expected to serve at home for disasters and homeland security, training on Saturdays and Sundays and a few weeks in summer, not in an overseas war with no end.
now, don’t get me wrong: i sure as hell don’t want to be serving overseas, and i appreciate that it’s a shitty job, but it seems to me that it might just be the case that this is part of the contract they signed. so, actually, it is what they signed up for. actually, on second thought, bring them all home. and then, since i never get in car accidents or have to go to the hospital, give me back all the money i’ve paid on insurance.
act ii: for some reason, i was foolish enough to continue watching tv, and on came fear factor siblings, a.k.a “we need an excuse to show identical twinbos” (twinbos = twin bimbos; i know, it doesn’t work). the only thing more obnoxious than having the first stunt get interrupted by commercial break a second time is realizing that you’re still watching.
act iii: disgusted, i actually managed to turn off the television, climb into my car, and travel out to target to purchase some laundry detergent and plant fertilizer. i was slightly dismayed to notice a faint dusting of snow on the roof of my car, because even small amounts of precipitation seem to strongly perturb madison drivers. fortunately, there was not yet enough to greatly disturb the flow of traffic. target was uneventful, right up to the always fateful moment: choosing the right line for check out. i had three lanes to choose from, none of which had any people waiting in them, though all had someone currently somewhere in the process of making a purchase. here is where i made my critical error: instead of picking a line based on the people in it, as i should have done, i picked the line which appeared to be furthest along in the process. i then entered a fearsome cross of two henry rollins bits: not only was i stuck in a rite-aid-esque non-moving line, i was behind one of his famed troglodytes. the short, rotund woman was having difficulty writing out the check for her purchase, which totaled, by the way, $11.34. the primary obstacle to her check-writing was, of course, her young hellion, who was trying to leap out of the shopping cart, presumably in search of more motor oil. with one arm devoted to restraining her spawn, she had only one free arm to write out the particularly tricky, $11.34 check (i know it was $11.34, having had plenty of time to stare dully at the digital readout). because i was afraid to venture too close, i couldn’t really see what was holding up the check writing process, but i assume the check was sliding around on the counter, lacking a hand to hold it in place. eventually, the woman managed to cross all the t’s on the check, and cleared the area. total time i spent in line (keep in mind that she was undoubtedly in the line for several minutes before i even showed up): somewhere between two and three minutes. total time from when the cashier touched my first items and when i walked away: twenty seconds. and that includes me paying with and signing for a credit card. make that three henry rollins bits.
act iv: leaving the store, i found that the snow had picked up. it was now snowing lightly. granted, the amount of snow was far from enough to make the roads slippery, or even particularly wet, but that didn’t stop the idiots in front of me from driving at about 15 miles and hour and twiddling their thumbs at the yield-on-green left turns. i would have passed them, if they didn’t feel like driving abreast. it’s like the real world equivalent of high school hand holding: not in public, people.
act v: next stop, menards. my prior attempt to duplicate keys had ended in misery, leaving me with $1.78 worth of useless keys (that’s two). since i don’t particularly need spare keys (they’re just a colossally good idea), i didn’t care enough to go back and complain about the fact that the so-called duplicates were merely worthless chunks of metal. so, all i needed was two keys, but there were two people seemingly driven to keep them from me. the first, Man in Fake Leather Jacket with Fake Leather Shoes, was also getting keys made. i amused myself looking at the carbide tipped router tip sets while waiting for his piles of keys to be duplicated. immediately after finishing Fake Leather Man’s keys, the menards employee brushed past me to help the other impediment, Man Who Was Most Probably a Heavy High School Pot Smoker but is Now Just a Burnout, who had been blabbering about padlocks to no one in particular while i was waiting for Fake Leather’s keys. apparently, the menards employee’s response of “the padlocks are three rows down on that side of the aisle” was not clear enough for Just a Burnout, or the low-slung tattered baseball cap was obscuring his vision and constricting the flow of thoughts around his brain, because the menards employee left with Burnout in tow, to show him where the padlocks were. as he passed me, the employee suggested that “he’d be right back.” i stood, and waited. i studied some springlock bolts. i waited some more. i waited some more. eventually, a different employee walked by, and made the two keys for me. i wandered over to the cash registers, and waiting behind a couple that looked like they were late for an appearance on america’s most wanted. upon reaching the cash register, with my fresh-cut keys in hand, i realized i had no cash, and had to pay the $1.78 for the keys with a credit card. classy. i drove home, as quickly as i could in the madison slurry-traffic, only to find that one of the keys i had cut did not work. i was now 1-for-4 on copied keys. foolishly, i decided to head back out to menards, and get a second spare. foolishly, i decided to go to the customer service desk to get a refund for the defective key. with my $0.89 jumbo-sized fake-check store credit voucher in hand, i headed off the to key duplicator machine to get another key made. while waiting for a requested employee to show up and man the highly automated key duplicator, which i could easily operate at this point, i meandered around the nearby area, marvelling at the palettes full of bolts and drill presses sitting in the middle of the aisles and sharply dressed business men who apparently stop by menards on the way home to purchase a caulk gun, but no caulk. eventually, an employee showed up and cut the replacement key for me. hell, i thought, while the key was being made, why not make two. that way, maybe at least one of them will work. a little scuffling to the register, another $0.89 out of pocket, and i was back on the road, and back at home, only to find that neither of the latter two keys worked. this puts me at 1-for-6 on duplicates from menards.
epilogue: i did not go back out to menards. the thought of two or three or more useless keys, another visit to the customer service desk (though, this time for $1.78), more interaction with madison drivers, or much of anything, really, was enough to keep me indoors. is anyone surprised?
