I just learned from CNN that Peter Boyle passed away due to heart problems last night at the age of 71. Most people will remember him from Everybody Loves Raymond, but my fondest memory of him will always be his role in Young Frankenstein. May he always be remembered for making us laugh for more than thirty years.
Courtesy of Wil Wheaton, whose link has been woefully absent from my sidebar until today, we have an update on the peace sign wreath situation.
Long story short, reason prevailed. The resident will be allowed to keep the wreath and all fines have been reversed. This goes to show that civilization gradually progresses toward truth, though it can be a painfully slow and bumpy process.
Speaking of Wil, I need to start reading his blog more often. He is a very intelligent individual with great tastes in the finer things in life, such as Heroes on NBC. Also, his role as Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG jump-started my puberty.
Oh, Doogie! Tonight the prayers of millions of 30-something gay men have been answered in the form of Neil Patrick Harris coming out! (Though, Michael has long insisted on this fact, so it's hardly a People exclusive.)
Seriously, though, not that it should really matter to anyone (except Neil and whomever he sleeps with) whether he smokes the pickle. Our culture tends to objectify celebrities, particularly entertainers, in such a way that we almost feel like we own them. Nobody owns Neil Patrick Harris and he owes the public nothing. We don't need to know anything about his personal life.
I salute Mr. Harris for having the integrity to not live a lie to satisfy the public's urge to own him. This can be a scary decision for a high-profile entertainer (and the low-profile ones, too). Especially for the star of a highly-rated sitcom, whose career in network television could be derailed as a result. Even if that does happen, Broadway and independent film will always love you, Neil.
This morning, I started getting the sniffles at work. This turned into a full-on sinus attack in no time at all. I purchased some Day-Quil at the MU but now that you can't get anything with pseudophedrine without a passport and a note from mum, all I could get was the new, "improved" formula. A full dose of phenylephrine seems to work for about half an hour, so it hardly seems worth the effort of swallowing. I had to leave early because I just couldn't take it anymore.
After downloading an obscene amount of music from Emusic (using ludicrously cheap booster packs) I fell asleep watching an episode of Nova about supermassive black holes. I was awakened by my roommate ringing the doorbell at almost 10 - he had forgotten his keys when he left this morning.
I am now listening to Miho Hatori's new album, Ecdysis. The decongestant is wearing off. I was going to stay up and watch Futurama on Adult Swim, but it comes on an hour later because I live in the one state that doesn't observe daylight savings time. Maybe I should just go to bed.
Whether I go to work tomorrow is still up in the air. If I call in, I can listen to music in bed all day. Good music is good for the immune system, I think. Maybe lots of rest, vitamin C and Frida Hyvönen are what I need. I'll play it by ear though.
Footballers' Wives has risen to near to top of my list of guilty pleasures recently, right between sudoku and Texas Hold 'Em poker. This is bizarre because what everything I love about the show is everything I hated about Melrose Place. Except the gratuitous shots of bare tattooed male ass throughout - this was a quality in which Melrose Place was sorely lacking.
I tend to get sick of most TV shows pretty quickly, usually because the characters invent so much drama for themselves that I stop being sympathetic to them. This is the same reason, incidentally, that most people I meet rarely become more to me than casual acquaintances and that most twenty-something gay men don't even get that far. But this is actually part of the appeal for me when it comes to British drama. What gives?
Maybe it's because Footballers' Wives has a few characters that rise above the schemers. Hazel is a no-nonsense acerbic dyke (which is how she would describe herself) you don't want to mess with. She'll tell you exactly what's on your mind before you know yourself. And if you try to put anything past her, make sure you're wearing an athletic cup. And then there's Harley - at his core a sincere, decent bloke who just married too young. He still does everything he can to save his marriage to Shannon until he realizes that she is too shallow to ever truly love him or even herself. Characters like these foil the designs of dastardly plotters just often enough to keep me guessing. And watching.
No Direction Home, Martin Scorcese's two-hour documentary about Bob Dylan, will be broadcast on PBS Wednesday night. If you live in the Phoenix area, that's 10PM on channel 8. If you are outside of Phoenix, check your local listings.
Friday morning a co-worker called in sick, confirming what we all had suspected - pinkeye. I briefly considered making an appointment with Dr. Hottie for that afternoon just in case. I decided to file it under "Wait and See" and enjoy the day. We were having a party for a student worker who was leaving us forever for a great new job. No time for fretting about viral conjunctivitis - this food wasn't going to eat itself.
On my way home on the bus, my right eye started stinging intermittently. Oh crap, I thought. I called Dr. Hottie's office on my cell. They could see me if I could get there before three. I was relieved. Even if I had pinkeye, I thought that I could start the antibiotic drops that afternoon and no longer be contageous by the next evening. I was not going to miss Cirque du Soleil for anything.
I stood on the scale, turning my head away. I didn't want to know how much weight I had gained.
"216," the nurse said. Apparently I had neglected to inform her of my plan - weight loss through denial.
I was half-asleep on the table when Dr. Hottie came in. He examined my eyes. No pinkeye. My irritation was due to allergies. Relief.
We discussed the side effects of my anxiety meds. I told him that sometimes it felt like there wasn't enough gravity. He switched me to Lexapro. He gave me months worth of samples. I was grateful to not have to pay for any prescriptions, as I am pretty much broke until graduation.
Later that evening, I hastily recorded the interstitial bits for my podcast. I set up my iPod to play the tracks and interstitials in the right order and began recording it with Polderbits. I laid down on the couch to watch the first few episodes of The Simpons, season seven, with commentary.
I woke up at about 2:30 with Sideshow Mel staring me in the face. I knew that my podcast was done recording, but editing would wait. I dragged myself into bed and went back to sleep.
In the morning, I edited the podcast and posted it to the web. I played WoW for an hour. I threw on some shorts and a t-shirt, wet down my Flock-of-Seagulls hair, hopped on my bicycle, and rode to Sonic for some lunch. Listened to the podcast on the way. The sun and breeze felt good on my legs. Came back, took Missy to the park. I steered clear of the couple with their four children. Missy loves getting attention from strangers and I didn't want to be there all day.
While I was getting ready to jump in the shower, Michael texts me. "What r u wearing?"
"Right now or at cirque?"
"At cirque, silly!"
"Nothing but a jockstrap!" I reply cheekily.
On the way to Cirque du Soleil, I decided to have a little April-Fool's fun with Michael. I managed to convince him that Jenny and I had gotten married five years ago so she could get on my medical insurance and that I hadn't told him until now because I didn't know whether he'd still want to be with me knowing I was married. He bought it completely. I couldn't keep up the charade for too long; it was getting harder to add outlandish details without laughing.
I called Jenny and left a message detailing my prank on her voice mail. She called back moments later to congratulate me.
"Tom Waits is coming next month!" she said.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" I replied. "When?! Where?! How much?!"
"April Fool's!"
I guess I had it coming.
Cirque was fabulous in so many ways. Michael and I talked about it for the entire trip back to his place. While he packed his overnight bag, we discussed our plans for the evening. We were both craving nachos, so we settled on Hamburger Mary's.
When we arrived, we were horrified to find that it wasn't Hamburger Mary's anymore. "What the fuck is Burger Betty's?!" I exclaimed. It was packed. Tim was sitting at a table by the door, collecting the cover charge. I improvised. "How about Pookie's?"
Michael had never been. It was just down the street. We arrived, surprised that even Pookie's had changed its name - to Miggie B's. Oh well. We were starving. Our host informed us that a former waiter just bought the place, hence the name change. Same menu, same people - just a new look and a new name.
We scarfed down the nachos so quickly that we weren't hungry anymore by the time the burgers arrived. We asked our waiter to box them up, I paid and left a handsome tip, and we left.
We rented Crash. Not the Cronenberg film. The new one - the one that beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture. Pretty good movie. Better than I was expecting. I still preferred Brokeback Mountain. We stayed up for a while watching TV with John.
This morning Michael went and got us coffee while I was still in bed. He left fairly early because he has a lot of crap to get done. Now I am blogging and procrastinating about getting on my bike.
Now that I am done mucking about in Teotihuacan and Wadi al Wasse, I can relax and get back to what really matters: World of Warcraft, CSI, and porn.
I have just added new links to several organizations whose work I admire greatly. Doctors Without Borders and War Child International help provide services to those affected by war, famine, and disease. The latter sells great music downloads found nowhere else to raise money to help children in war-torn regions. The Union for Reform Judaism and the Interfaith Alliance counter religious extremism with religious tolerance. And finally, HALO is an organization that is very close to my heart. I talk about them a lot, but it's necessary. Too many relatively healthy animals are euthanized in the valley before they have a chance to be found by a loving family. Give money, give time, adopt an animal - please do anything you can to help, even just a little.
How have I stimulated my temporal lobes today?
The next two days are going to be very busy. I have an exam in Prehispanic Civ of Mesoamerica and a paper due in Human Impacts on Ancient Environments on Wednesday. I haven't started writing or reading. I guess there won't be any TV or World of Warcraft for me for a couple days. Ugh.
Here is what I have heard so far today:
The Caretaker has made two more albums available online - free! The first is A Stairway to the Stars, their sophmore full-length, and Additional Amnesiac Memories, the addendum to their recent 72-track epic Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia (also a free download, which I blogged about previously).
This past weekend was refreshingly uneventful due to the start of spring break. Friday afternoon I found a Borders gift card lying on in the street near my house. I immediately wanted to find out how much it was worth and spend it, but I have this irritating goodie-two-shoes quality that required me to try to find its rightful owner. I didn't find it in a location that led me to believe it belonged to a neighbor, so I called Borders. Their customer service rep said that there was no way to return it to the purchaser because it was not registered to anyone. She also told me that it had $30 on it. So all I could do was spend it and try to live with myself. Luckily I have enlisted the counsel of Prince, who is currently advising me to party like it's 1999. It's the most sensible advice I've heard all day.
I quite enjoyed the rain on Saturday. Though all the joints in my right leg were sore, I had a pleasant time wrapped in a blanket on the couch, listening to the rain and watching the Discovery Channel. My roommate, John, suggested that my joints were sore because of the weather. I am way too young for that, so I disemboweled him and made a macramé potted plant holder out of his small intestine. Just kidding - it was a toaster cozy.
Tonight I will watch a documentary about comets on the History Channel and play World of Warcraft. Yes, I know I'm a nerd - no need to post it in the comments.
My listening today:
Well, it was close enough to a full moon last night that it might explain the day I had yesterday. First, I overslept and missed my bus. I arrived at work 45 minutes late. Upon arriving, I had difficulty getting anything accomplished because the software we rely upon most heavily worked only sporadically. Going home, my one of my routes was running 35 minutes behind schedule. I improvised and took a different route, which was infested with rowdy teenagers. After getting home, I didn't accomplish anything. Then I was about to post when Blogger went down for several hours.
On a more positive note, I saw another episode of Animal Rescue Heroes Phoenix last night. They showed a scenario remarkably similar to my own, just a lot more dramatic. The EAMTs on last night's episode rescued five kittens from an attic and from the brick wall beneath. The EAMTs that visited my house (the same EAMTs from the aforementioned kitten rescue) only rescued one kitten and only broke through drywall to get to it. Admittedly, it's pretty mundane compared to the rescues they have been showing. I now doubt that it will ever be shown. However, I'm hooked on the show now and I will keep watching.
Today's listening has so far been scant:
Tonight was the premiere episode of Animal Planet Heroes Phoenix. Some of you may recall that an animal rescue crew cut a hole in the wall where I live to rescue a newborn kitten that had apparently fallen down by the water main from the attic. An Animal Planet crew was there filming the rescue also. I was told that the segment may or may not be included in one of the episodes, so I'll update this post if and when it shows.
After seeing the overzealous promotion that Oxygen has done for their first original series, Campus Ladies, I felt that the show could go either way: original and absurdly funny, or dreadfully boring. Having seen the hour-long premiere, my feelings haven't changed.
These first two episodes were a mixed bag. Unfortunately, most of the parts that would have been funny had already been shown ad nauseum in the promos. There were some surprising highlights, however. Abdul (Amir Talai) showed signs that he may develop beyond a tired, dimensionless stereotype and become the most interesting character. Barri (Christen Sussin) has a comic delivery that could really bring out the potential of a good script (which is forthcoming, I hope).
The remaining characters, through no fault of their own, were as dynamic as week-old corpses. The odor, however, came not from the characters, but from the writing. The script seemed at odds with itself. The premise of the show really begs for raunchiness, but it seems the writers hesitated when they should have gone for the gusto. And why is it that, in a show about not fitting in, these two middle-aged and out-of-touch women manage to fit in so quickly? This undermines the vulnerability and awkwardness that supposedly makes them likeable.
Despite its faults, I think I'll watch a couple more episodes to see how it develops. With better writing and character development, this show could become a winner after all. It won't be easy, but I always like to root for the underdog.
