Friday, January 28, 2005

So sue me

Yes, I've been pretty neglectful of the blog lately. There just hasn't been much going on that most of you don't already know about, and I hate repeating myself. (And I'm not going for the obvious joke and saying "I hate repeating myself" again, so you can just hold onto that "hack blogger" remark for later; I'm sure it'll come in handy.)

The play is coming along pretty well and some version of my script should be done by the end of the weekend. Hopefully it'll be a good version, but I never make promises like that. When there are any solid updates on the production, I'll put them up on the Alastra & Sons blog.

If you want to see what it's like in Boston right now, go over here. And if it scares you, guess what, you're a wuss. I look at it and think: "SNOW DAY!", just about the best two words imaginable when I was between the ages of 6 and 17.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Idiot of the day

Apparently, Richard Hatch failed to report the $1 million he won on the first season of Survivor to the IRS. Even though 51 million people watched him win it. This is almost better than those stories you hear about thieves robbing a bank and then trying to open an account there the next day, because at least those guys don't go on TV and walk around naked talking about how brilliant they are.

That's Pimptastic N. Glide to you

http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp

Monday, January 17, 2005

More like Morbid.com

Last weekend, while talking on the phone with my college friend Dustin, I entered into sort of the dating equivalent of a suicide pact with him, whereby each of us has to have a date within a month or we owe the other person a ski trip. We assumed at the time that this arrangement would result in both of us registering on Match.com or the equivalent -- and I, in typical adherence to the oath of procrastination I took many years ago, waited until tonight. So now I'm looking at it, about to punch in my credit card number, when I see in big bold text:
In the event that you die before the end of your subscription period, your estate shall be entitled to a refund of that portion of any payment you had made for your subscription which is allocable to the period after your death.
I'm really not making that up. They actually feel that this is an important point to clarify. I think it's fair to say that if you die and your heirs are busy figuring out what happens to the unused portion of your Match.com registration fee, then it's probably a good thing you shuffled off this mortal coil when you did.

Friday, January 14, 2005

More from McSweeney's

E-mail Shorthand that Civil War Soldiers Would Likely Have Used in Letters Home had the Technology Been Available to Them

Rockin' It, Frat-Party Style! A Short Story Geared to College Students, Written by a Thirty-something Author

Rejection Letters from Xavier's School for Exceptional Youth

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Found Dialogue #2

Once again, from Baja Fresh. The art of sentence noncompletion.

Girl: "So you were pretty sure he was...."
Guy: "Oh, yeah, my radar's like...."
Girl: "So he was..."
Guy: "Yeah, a queen."

Implicit Association Test

Give it a shot. But you don't have to tell anyone what it says about you.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Civic fricking duty

JURY SUMMONS
Servicio Como Jurado

You are hereby summoned by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County for service as a trial juror at:

Stanley Mosk Courthouse
111 N. Hill Street Room 253
Los Angeles, CA 90012

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO REGISTER WITHIN 5 DAYS.

You will be "on call" and you must be available to start Jury Duty any day during the week of:

02-14-2005
-----------------------------

Wow. I was so bloody excited that I did the following things:

1. Called up Reena to pick her law-school educated, bar-passing brain. She provided some tips for avoiding being impaneled but confirmed my suspicions that it's basically impossible to get out of going in the first place.

2. Performed Google search for "getting out of jury duty." I came up with one pretty boring site, one fairly informative one, and a pretty damn hilarious one.

3. Started actually reading the form. Died a little inside. Imagined a three-week case involving, like, textile fraud or something.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Found Dialogue

I'm going to start this as a regular feature on the blog. Maybe not daily, but hopefully at least frequently. Found dialogue is just what it sounds like -- stuff I overhear that I think is worth repeating. Here's today's entry, overheard in Baja Fresh:

"...because I'm a really good reader. I don't practice or anything, but I do it really well."

A bed made of soup!

These are making me laugh so hard I can't freaking breathe.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Unscripted

It's actually a pretty good show, I think. Yes, it's another "look at what actors go through" show. But it's honest, it doesn't shy away from making fun of the actors (all of whom are real, even if they're kind of fictionalizing their plight), and it's enough to keep me watching for 30 minutes at a time. Which is more than I could say for K Street, even though that had James Carville.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

New Year's Resolutions

  1. I resolve to use the following words more often:
    1. mollycoddle
    2. equanimity
    3. prestidigitation
    4. unctuous
    5. sycophantic
  2. ...and the following words less often:
    1. schadenfreude
    2. inasmuch
    3. metrosexual
    4. parlay
    5. sticktoitiveness
  3. No, I can't think of a time when I've actually used "sticktoitiveness" in a sentence. Nonetheless, it's best to be on the safe side. You never know when some sycophantic mollycoddle is going to bust out an unctuous feat of prestidigitation and threaten your equanimity.
  4. I resolve to treat my savings account like a high-maintenance girlfriend who pouts when you don't pay the extra $5 for valet at the Grove, and my checking account like a scary piece of moldy food that you could get gangrene just from touching.
  5. I resolve that 24 is still pretty much the best show ever. I mean, c'mon. In the first hour, they derailed a train and blew up a limo with a fucking rocket launcher. By the end of the season, Fox just might come close to fully atoning for The Swan.
  6. I resolve to keep going until I have 10 things on this list.
  7. Even if that means that most of them will be meaningless filler.
  8. I resolve to think of this "major storm event" as what it would be in Boston: a pretty average week in mid-April.
  9. I resolve to avoid saying "Really?" in response to statements I have no legitimate reason to question (i.e., "There was a huge line at Starbucks this morning.")
  10. I resolve to sleep more, because sleeping means consuming less oxygen, and that's good for the environment, and apparently chicks dig the environment. Or at least they did in 1991.
Happy belated new year, all. May you have the sticktoitiveness to keep all your resolutions.