7.29.2007:
5:12 PMObligation is a bitch.
You know going into a situation that it is going to suck... And you know this because the last time you went into the same situation, it sucked... And the time before that, and the time before that, and so on.
And each time, you go ahead and do whatever you're not wanting to do because you steel yourself and fall back on that tried and true reason that has gotten you through the shit each and every time:
"I have to."
We humans are interesting, if stupid, creatures.
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7.27.2007:
FW: Oops
1:26 PM
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(posted via mobile device. Please forgive any errors and/or pointlessness)
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7.26.2007:
11:07 AMI met with my editor...
Wait. Give me just a second.
... Man.
It still blows my mind and short-circuits me every single time I write or say those words. It's crazy that I'm actually having discussions with MY editor at a HUGE publisher. I'm sorry if this is stupid... I'm not trying to be dramatic. It's genuinely amazing to me.
I'm continually astounded that they haven't just said "Wait, we were thinking of some OTHER book - we didn't actually want yours. Here, have it back, and no hard feelings, kthxbye."
But yeah, anyway, I met with him last night. I was nervous, because the editor that actually bought my book has since left the company and moved on to other things, so this was my first time actually sitting and talking with Patrick about the MI book, plans for it, expectations, ideas, etc.
It went really well. I was very happy.
Mostly, I was glad that he didn't get up and take off right in the middle of my espousing another one of my cockamamie "I wrote this one on the bus here - what do you think??" stories. But one thing that did come out of it that gave me great hope is the notion that Penguin / Gotham is genuinely excited to be working with me and they see good things on the horizon.
The great thing is, not once since this whole thing started have they made any mention or moves about how I do what I do or what I write. That's honestly the most important aspect for me.
We ate at this Ukranian place and it was unbelievably good.
Wow. I just managed to tell you what I did last night and how I felt about it, and then I actually went into what food I ate.
I am blogging. This is a blog. I want to shoot myself.
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7.23.2007:
Rainy hotel day
2:30 PM
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(posted via mobile device. Please forgive any errors and/or pointlessness)
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7.21.2007:
7:43 PMBecause I'm here (in New York) for a while, and because I only brought five pairs of pants, and because I have been walking everywhere, today gets to be LAUNDRY DAY!
Now, because I'm slightly lazy, I thought i'd check with the hotel to see if they do laundry. What luck - they DO! However, they charge $7.00 per t-shirt, $14.00 per pair of pants, and a whopping $5.00 per single pair of unmentionables.
So that means today is not only LAUNDRY DAY, it's LAUNDRY DAY AT THE LAUNDROMAT!
Yay.
So, I ask the helper guy at my hotel (at 42nd street and 2nd avenue) where the closest laundromat is. It took him nearly four minutes of discussion with coworkers to determine that he didn't know. However, Carmine the Bellhop might. So I should go ask Carmine.
"Oh, probably 48th and 3rd," Carmine tells me. That's not very far - 6 north blocks (about, oh, 100 - 150 feet per block, depending) and one west block (farther, about 3-4 north-south blocks in distance). Maybe a quarter mile of walking, if that.
I get to the 48th and 3rd place (152 e. 48th, if you want to play along on google maps). It's not a laundromat - it's a "fine garment tailor". And it looked like it too - this guy's thread cost more than the pants and shirt I was wearing.
Clearly, this was not the place to get my unmentionables tidy.
"Hey fellas," I said to the kind looking bellmen of whatever hotel was next to the tailor, "Where is the closest laundromat?"
"Uh..." said one of them.
"Um..." said the other.
I knew this wasn't going to go well for me.
They sent me to 44th and 5th, which is a Best Buy. And while they do sell washers there, none of them were operational. A nice security check guy said that, while he knows there are some around, the only one he knows of for sure was up at 55th and 9th.
That's a bit of a hike if you're not sightseeing and you're carrying around about 20 lbs of laundry.
But not being from here and being desperate for clean pants, I walked it. I contemplated getting a cab, but some retarded pirncipaled thing in me made me hoof it there... Something about figuring things out and not spending money when a walk could do me good anyhow.
I'll spare the narritave - there was no laundromat.
So I said "fuck it" and grabbed a cab back to my hotel. I figured I'd just pony up the dough at the hotel for pants washing and scrub my other clothes in the sink with a little liquid Gain.
I shared my plight with the cabbie, who said "Oh, you lookin for laundry. I take you to."
We ended up at 50th and 1st, at a full- service laundry place. The woman was extremely sweet as she explained how, this being the weekend, it'd be at least Tuesday morning before she could get me some clean drawers.
"Is there a coin laundry somewhere - anywhere - within 20 blocks of here???" I asked.
"Oh, sure," the little chinese woman told me (I'm not speculating on her race or generalising here - she had a picture of Chairman Mao hanging on the wall behind her).
"Uh..." I said after several awkward seconds of waiting for her to volunteer the information. "Where is it?"
"Three block north," she said. "My sister place."
Which is where I am now, typing this out on my phone.
Yay for pointless posts on a Treo.
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7.18.2007:
9:22 PMSo I'm in NY this week.
I had a miserable day today.
I have an ingrown whisker that i wanted to tweeze.
I stop in the Duane Reade at 42nd and Lexington, a few blocks from my hotel.
I can't find the tweezers.
I go to the front to ask someone if they have any, and we hear a loud rumbling.
I walk outside.
The manhole on Lex right in front of my face literally flies up and hits the building on the right (south?) of the street. Steam and water and smoke and rocks are flying EVERYWHERE.
I'm STILL shaking.
I got video and crap, sent it to Drew and Mike at Fark.com (since Fark reports things like this). Fark was literally the first place with video of the event.
Links:
http://av.fark.com/media/0a.3g2
http://av.fark.com/media/0b.3g2
http://av.fark.com/media/0c.3g2
http://av.fark.com/media/0d.3g2
http://av.fark.com/media/0e.3g2
I think B is first chronologically, then e, then it's a crapshoot which comes after which. I just whipped out my laptop and cellular modem and started uploading as fast as I could. On one of them, you can hear me talking about things, but for the most part, I tried to just get video and keep quiet so you can hear the insane noise going on everywhere.
The thread: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2941659
(I'm PattonX on fark, btw)
Um... I dunno what else to say.
I'll write a story about it I guess, but I'm not sure I can add anything more than what I've got in this post and the videos.
*******
Update (11:38 PM):
I uploaded the videos to YouTube, and actually put them in a sort of chronological order:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
The fifth one had some sort of error. It's ok, it was boring.
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7.17.2007:
7:32 AMI always do this to myself when I'm flying out somewhere. I sit and watch the planes land and take off, and my eye is naturally drawn along the seamlines of the fuselage and wings toward any and all nicks, dents, scrapes, missing bolts, defects, flakes in paint, etcetera.
I can't help but to begin thinking right then about all those stories you hear as a kid and young adult about people who get bad feelings before they board a plane and, at the last moment, decide to catch a later flight -- only to have that exact plane crash or explode or leak a nasty smell in flight.
I hate those thoughts, because then I start thinking "what if this is MY premonition? What if I'm having that eerie foreshadowing right this very moment? Should I turn around and take a later flight, only to have my original flight experience some sort of mishap? Will I get to go on Jenny Jones afterward and tell my story?"
Yeah. Anyway, that's what I'm doing right now -- staring out the window at airplanes and wondering just what, if anything, is going to fall off the sucker in mid-flight. And if I should pass on my flight because of these silly thoughts.
Oh, that and I'm drinking some of the best coffee I've had in a while.
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7.15.2007:
9:23 PMOkay, I will say this once and once only:
Do NOT come to me with anything that sounds even remotely like an argument similar to "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was better than Snatch."
If you do that, you run the risk of getting a three-stick wad of chewed bubble gum spit right into your face. I know Lock Stock was first. That's no secret - it was first.
Snatch was better. Period.
It was better written. Better acted. Better shot. Better directed. Better edited.
Better.
So knock it off. I don't care what fucking film school your daddy sent you to or how much he paid to do it - you're wrong. And you know you're wrong. And you know why? Because I just wrote this on the INTERNET. And everything on the internet is true.
Oh, and as an aside, if you went to film school, I pretty much hate you. There are a few exceptions, but by and large... Yeah. Hate.
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7.14.2007:
12:44 AMWoo, new story on Mentally Incontinent!
Total Prosers (Part 3)
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7.11.2007:
1:34 PMA good friend of mine sent me this today:
(His original flickr album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19769561@N00/sets/72157600762573601/)
Apparently, this is an internal marketing campaign at a fairly large web-based software company the he worked for. And what could possibly so imperative to the future of the company that they would want to invoke images of one of the bloodiest battles of all time?
A new release of their software.
I can just imagine how they came up with this one.
Jim in Operations:
"Hey, Bob... I have an idea. There's a war giong on right now, right? People are getting shot, being blown up, all of that... It's on all the news networks. So let's use the innate sense of patriotism and respect for veterans in our employees to rally them into being more productive on our latest software release!"
Bob the CEO:
"Good call, Jim! Have a poster made up, pronto."
Pretty sick, really.
I mean, if it were a game based on WWII, or a movie or some sort of story built around the imagery, maybe... but a stupid iterative release of software?
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7.10.2007:
3:30 PMThe new Smashing Pumpkins album is... Unremarkable.
And that's the only remark I have about it.
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7.09.2007:
8:35 AMA bit of surreal spam:
| You have recieved A Hallmark E-Card. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
I've received AN eBay!
I've wanted an eBay for so damn long... And finally, I've got one!
What really cracks me up about this one is a) the concept of someone getting "an" eBay, and b) the fact that, aside from how utterly wrong the entire context of the offer truly is, they still paid enough attention to make sure to use "an" instead of "a." I suppose being grammatically correct is a higher priority to spammers than actually, like, researching whatever it is you're pretending to be.
A Hallmark eBay. Novel. And they even have a Store Locator. That is just plain rad.
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7.01.2007:
1:22 PMI think anyone who actually goes out of their way to use the phrase "heaven forfend" instead of "heaven forbid" in casual conversation is a fucking asshole.
This is also true with extraneously sprinkling in "utilize" instead of simply saying "use."
If you do either of these two things, you're an asshole. There are no exceptions.
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