Don't GoOK

I went to the OK City Hornets/Houston Rockets game on Sunday in Oklahoma City. This was the furthest west I have ever driven on I-44. I thnk it will be a long time before I ever go back again. Don't get me wrong. From what I saw of downtown Oklahoma City I liked. It was very clean for a major city. However, the drive is a bear. Not one but two tolls for the right to drive on a turnpike that hasn't seen a road repair crew since the late 80s. The outlying towns along the interstate are not that inviting. I am very glad the car didn't breakdown. Nevertheless, I went to the game and now I can add it to the list of major professional sports that I have attended.

Mark March 24, 2007 on your calendar. I finally changed the last clock in the apartment one hour ahead.

...and so it goes.

I recently purchase Jawbreaker's "24 Hour Revenge Therapy." At the point of purchase, I thought it was a bit overpriced. However, it had a couple tracks that I knew I already liked so I went ahead and bought it. I am very glad that I did.

The music on this album is very relaxing to me. It's comfortable. It isn't fast and loud to get my spirits up and it isn't slow to put me to sleep. It is just very familiar, comforting music. One treat that I found was that on the track "Condition Oakland" they have audio of Jack Kerouac reading something (perhaps On the Road). That reading just adds to the comfort. It is distinctly Kerouac, referencing Lowell, his hometown, and speaking in that odd New England/French accent. Needless to say, I recommend this album.

Hockey ends soon.

Baseball begins.

Huzzah!

Damn Good 24 Hours

Despite feeling noticable better about my sinus troubles, and possibly needing only one more night of meticulous medicating, I drove to Columbia for the Against Me! show. As expected, the lack of medicating and sufficient sleep set me back in health recovery. But it was worth it.

First, let me say The Blue Note is a fun venue. It's huge and has a balcony and gilded archways. Fake Problems opened. They were pretty good, especially for an opening act. Riverboat Gamblers next. They had a lot of energy but slowed down a little toward the end of their set because (they claimed) they were all sick. Then Against Me! I sat through the first two bands, but when they opened with A Brief Yet Triumphant Intermission, I had to rise. It was one of the best shows I have seen in a long time.

Today, when I got home from work, I had a letter in the mail from Interstate Bakeries. It contained a hard copy of the email I received AND two certificates for any Interstate Bakeries product (e.g. Hostess, Wonder Bread, etc.) It reminded me of my grandmother who wrote letters to companies when their products failed in some way. Once, she wrote a company about a defective alarm clock. They sent her a written apology and a new clock in the mail. Due to a clerical error, the next month she received the same letter and another clock. She ended up getting three or four alarm clocks.

The Elusive and Endangered Chocodile

When I was around 12 or 13, my grandmother used to give me Hostess Chocodiles as an afternoon snack. Admittedly, these were unusual treats. I had never seen them in stores. But nevertheless, she had them. What is a chocodile? It is essentially a chocolate covered Twinkee. But for some reason, the combination of the two was greater than the sum of its parts. So about a week ago I was feeling particularly nostalgic so I contacted the Interstate Bakeries company about the whereabouts of the Chocodile.

According to their email response, Chocodiles are now only produced on the west coast. They did direct me to sites that offer quick and efficient delivery of the confection. But why does there need to be a middle man? There is a Hostess factory in KC. When I get to the left coast someday, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for this guy.

Don't hold your breath...

As has been reported by most papers that subscribe to the AP (read: every lazy paper in America), Springfield is in a sort of competition...by default (the two greatest word in the English language). I think the only resemblance that SpringMo has to the "real" Springfield is the abundance of Reverend Lovejoys and Flanderseses.

I was talking to a women at a bar this weekend from upstate New York. She seemed genuinely surprised at the large number of smokers. I know Missouri uses a lot of tobacco (Number 3...oh yeah...we're after you Kentucky and North Carolina), but is it that much more than the rest of the nation? In reading Hangsaman, like most Jackson, smoking is about as common than blinking. The 17 year old protagonist recalls her parents encouraging her and instructing her how to smoke, I suppose, to be more social or ladylike. Keep in mind this is the 1950s. Is there something like that today? Something that parents encourage their kids to do to be more social at events like cocktail parties? What happened to cocktail parties? Am I still too young for witty banter and conversation? I think not.

I didn't have much to say to her about New York except to rattle off some fairs in the state. Everything is relative to fairs now. "San Antonio, eh? Your Livestock Exposition had record attendance this year. Good for you."

Hangsaman

I was discussing pre-torn jeans with my friend Marcus last night. They of course are ridiculous. You get a lesser product, both in quantity and quality. Also, they don't really make much sense. Who over the age of 10 makes holes in the knees of their pants. Real jeans tears are unfashionable. I wore a hole at the corner of the seat pocket of one of my jeans. I can't walk around like that and claim "Hey, it's the fashion."

I will be attending the Against Me! concert this week. However, I have not completely decided if I am going to Columbia or St. Louis. I didn't realize it takes just about as long to get to Columbia as St. Louis. I'm still leaning toward Columbia. If anyone has suggestions, I'll gladly take them .

I'm reading Hangsaman right now. (Don't let that awful cover fool you.) It's about a schitzo soon-to-be college student. I think it is written pre-Bell Jar. (After quick and possibly inaccurate research, it was)

Feel better overall today but sound worse.

Turkey in the Rain

I don't remember what show it was (maybe West Wing or ER) but a wise character was teaching a naive some valuable life lesson with an allegory. It was something along the lines of turkeys will keep drinking falling rain until they drown themselves. Then touching music followed while Mr. Naive stared at Mr. Wise who was walking away.

I just thought of that because it feels like I am drowning in post nasal drip. I've woken in the middle of the night because my wind pipe was so clogged. It's more annoying than dangerous. I woke up two hours earlier than I normally do last night and had to take some Alka-Seltzer (or Elixir of the Gods). At this point, I may just get some whiskey to clean to clear things up. I'm no doctor, but that seems like a reasonable treatment.

I'm watching the Blues game. I am so gratefu for the FSN network. Otherwise, I would be dependent on one game a week on NBC between two teams that they think we will want to watch (just because I live in the midwest doesn't mean I want to watch Chicago). Even then it is hit or miss. One week, the Blues were playing on NBC. I was excited. They were still in the playoff hunt. I shit you not, the game was pre-empted after the first period for a MSU Bears basketball game. Not just any game: the game was also being broadcast on another channel. Turns out the Blues game went into overtime and MSU got blown out. But who pre-empts a game after only one period. Give me all the game or none. Don't tease me. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, hooray for FSN.

I bought another pair of faux-chucks from No Sweat. While chucks should have some amount of wear on them, my right shoe lost the paneling on the outside during the Flogging Molly show. If I had the piece I would rubber cement it, but it is lost in Pop's lore now.

Kumquats or Raisinets

I have been leaking mucous for the past couple of days. I am not sure if it is a cold or allergies or a little of both. But whatever the cause, it is quite annoying. I wake up with a sore throat and sick to my stomach which is full of post nasal drip snot. Good image, I know.

When at the gracery store today, I was waiting in line for the self check out. The two guys in front of me were self-checking produce. I was worried they wouldn't make it because there was no barcode. They made it. Then, when it was my turn, I raced the lady next to me. She had a head start and fewer things. I lost...but barely.

I am kind of getting into the general flow of work. It can get busy when an issue needs to go to print, but it slows down significantly in between it going to press and it coming back from press.

I found out that my GA poetry teacher won third place in a poetry contest last year. There is hope for us all, I swear.

21 Century Orphans

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted here. It just simply fell to the wayside. There was nothing to keep me reminded about it. And when I did remember it, I didn't really care. But recently I have been interested in the "new Web 2.0" whatever that means. Apparently there are cool things I can do with all this new technology in exchange for a chipping away at personal privacy. But hey, at least I can link to monkeys doing it. (I am not searching for it so I am not really going to post a link, you sick people).

Since I last posted, I have graduated and found a new job. I got to write "writer" on my tax return this year. How satisfying that is!

Now that I have a 9 to 5, I should, in theory, have more consistent free time. I want to write more in that free time. But pure laziness is keeping me from doing that. (Let's call a spade a spade here.) So I will try to write in this blog much more often, try to network in the old blogosphere, and get more involved in this whole thing. I just need to write more, in general. no matter what it's about.

I will be back later to keep the promise.