Worthless and Weak

Think for a moment. What is the highest you have personally ever dropped a piece of plywood? Whats the highest you've ever seen a piece of plywood dropped? Now, I would not suggest doing this, because it could kill somebody. But if you ever see a 4x8 (or so) piece of plywood dropped off the top of a 32 story building, thats pretty f-ing cool. Bonus points if its done during a thunderstorm.

Labels: Things falling off of tall buildings

I want to know who goes on this blog. On my sitemeter, I get four usual locations. The first is Cambridge, MA, which I assume is me. The second is Corvalis Oregon, which I assume to be my brother.

The final two, are locations that have been consistent. One is from Louth Ireland. The other from Queens New York. So, to those of my readers who hail from weird locations, let me know who you are, just leave a comment.

Anyway, enough about you, lets talk about me. Monday, I went to a concert, it was Nik Freitas, Johnathan Rice, and Maria Taylor.

Freitas was ok, he sounded a lot like Paul Simon. I kept on expecting the next line in each of his songs to be "in the clearing stands a boxer..." or "mama-don't take my kodachrome"

Johnathan Rice was awesome. His music was definitely rock, with a hint of country. It had a great beat, and I really "felt" the music, I wanted it to be played louder, and thats something I very rarely wish for. Some of his slower stuff wasn't as great, he's not the best at being emotional and all.

Maria Taylor, the headliner, was quite good. She here songs ranged from slow, sad songs, to upbeat semi-pop, to flat out rock. And she did them all well. Simply put, a very good show.

(Although the stories they told between songs weren't that great. Rice (while obviously under the influence of some sort of chemical) talked about how this was the first time he ever came to Boston sober. He was either lying, or he was really really bad the other times he was in Boston. Oh well, I guess I could go to concerts for a thousand years and not hear a story as great as Thomas Dolby posting a cease and desist letter on Kevin Federlines myspace page.)

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

Friday I went to see Seth up in the far reaches of southern Maine.

I took the commuter rail up after work, and was picked up by Seth and his girlfriend. Seth didn't really tell me that his girlfriend would be spending the weekend as well, however I kind of expected it. They pick me up, and apparently, not only was his girlfriend staying the weekend, but his cousin as well. Which, well, is absolutely 100% normal and acceptable, considering that Seth lives with his Aunt and Uncle. But his cousin was throwing a party that night as well, and having a multitude of his friends stay over.

Now, you'd think that a normal person would, at least let me know that there would be a party when I'm staying over. But what a normal person would do has absolutely no correlation with what Seth would do. I don't think Seth even knew that his cousin was having a party, until the day of. As in, didn't have a clue whatsoever.

But how should Seth know? I mean, maybe he didn't think to ask him? It's not like Seth needs to ask him every day whether or not he will be having a party, ya know. But this just so happened to be his cousin's birthday.

I guess the original plan was to sleep in the basement, which is pretty cool because we wouldn't have to worry about sleeping in or making noise or anything.

But the basement was taken by party-goers, so I slept on Seth's Aunt's couch in the living room. Seth slept close by in the recliner. (in case you are wondering, Seth's girlfriend slept in Seth's room).

Now, the couch was perfectly comfortable physically, but I didn't sleep well. This was because I was sleeping in the living room in a home of a family I don't know very well. I probably got about 2 hours or so of sleep.

Saturday was fun too for a while. After a bit, I think that Seth got really tired, and stopped being very sociable to me, only to his girlfriend. Which really left me kind of bored, and I was in a random families home that I didn't know, and didn't have much to do. I felt somewhat uncomfortable. But it was a good weekend anyway.

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

I had my company outing today. It was pretty fun, you really can't beat free beer and free food. And I got a really nice baseball cap, which rocks. A lot of my co-workers were really nice, its great to work with so many nice people. So many of them are just nice and, for lack of a better word, "balanced," and just fun to be around. I don't think I'd really make great friends with them, but thats not the point, the point is that they are, for the most part, generally good people. Which the world needs more of.

Except one. Which is really what I'm writing about now. There is one person, and, we were kind of giving her a hard time about a guy at work, how they were secretly going out. I know that sometimes people can go to far in that, I hope we weren't, and anyway it wasn't me who was doing it. But it was ok that she was getting a little mad. Fine, that perfectly ok.

But what she said next, well, I don't think it was. She yells out, "Why are we saying this in front of Garrett?!" And I really don't understand why she said it. She didn't single anybody else out, just me. Like everybody was being completely unreasonable, not for giving her a hard time, but for giving her a hard time in front of me.

As far as I can tell, it can really only mean one of three things. First, that people shouldn't be saying things around me because she has a big crush on me. I find this highly doubtful. The second is that she thinks I have a crush on her. I suppose this could be a possibility, because well, she is a stuck up bitch and may think that everybody has a crush on her, but I can assure you, I don't.

The third possibility, which I think is accurate, is that she doesn't think of me as part of her group. That saying things in front of other co-workers is ok, but in front of me, well, I'm different, I'm not one of them. Well, if you really think this, then fuck you. If you want to exclude me, if you don't think that I'm good enough to hang around with everybody else, well, I got news for you. You're not exactly the smartest, most attractive, hardest working person. In fact, from what I can tell, you're slightly obnoxious, you're not funny, you're kind of fat, and from what I can tell, you're not very good at your job. So when you try to set a group at work, and exclude it, well, you're just being a complete fucking bitch.

So here's a fun activity!

Scroll through the front page of this blog, noting the first word of each paragraph, and especially each post. Note how many times "So" is used. Also, "Anyway" is probably used a lot, although I usually notice it. I use these words a lot as transitions, but I think it probably means that I'm doing very sloppy writing. I should try to stop doing this.

So I guess this means that I need to watch it every time I write "so." Whats that you say? I've already started two paragraphs this way? There's only one thing I have to say to that:

So what?

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: posts about this blog

So today I confronted somebody about the way that I feel.

I felt that I wasn't being treated properly, so I told her, and she kinda agreed, and apologized, and we're gonna (perhaps) work things out. Also, on this blog, I really don't know who reads it. I'm kinda thinking its just Sean, but who knows? I think I've told others of it? So I don't want to get into too much detail, or use any profanity, (even though I really want to right now) because words can hurt too. (And if I had something to say to her, which I did, I should say it to her face, which i did, I just kind of want to swear right now).

So anyway, the moral of the story is to talk to people about your feelings, and be direct about it, because people respect that.

Except for that post I made a few days ago and didn't publish cause I didn't want to. I'm not going to talk about those feelings.

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

Its Fathers day today,

So I got my dad a book, and some wine. And I went home, unlike my deadbeat brothers. (and don't give me any excuse about being 3000 miles away!).

And yesterday, I watched the Seventh Seal. It was a movie that I had wanted to see for a while, (its the old Ingmar Bergman film). I went in thinking there was about a 25% chance that I'd love it, and a 75% chance I would hate it.

Turns out I was wrong, I ended up merely liking it. I didn't "get" it, although I'm not sure how important getting it was. It didn't seem to really come to any conclusion, although for such a movie, such an ending couldn't possibly be satisfactory. (The only two ways it could have wrapped things up in ending would be for there either to be a God, or be no God, but of course Bergman himself doesn't know (or rather, didn't know at the time. Presumably he knows now)).

But the characters were more than just cheap excuses for exposition. I actually really cared about some of them, and the visual story telling was great. Especially the scene where the actors were interrupted by the religious procession. The ending really kinda fell short for me (see above for reasons), but I guess it had to. Anyway, moral of the story, check it out, especially if you're into Swedish art cinema.

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: fall, Movie reviews, scooters, vacation

So today as I was getting on the train to go home...

A police officer stopped me to swab my bag with a, ummm, swab, to test for explosives. And something they found did in fact turn off the machine. Don't know what it was, they searched the bag, and of course didn't find anything illegal. So now my name is in some database somewhere.

Anyway, so I guess my rights were totally violated! But whatever, I don't care about that. What I care about is...

They were writing down info on all the people they stopped. Race, gender, and approximate age. And they wrote my age down as 38! Do I look 38? I'm 24 for crying out loud!

So I guess I'm not as young looking as I think I am. Sign :(

I really hope that I don't actually look like I'm 38 for a few more years.

Till next time,

Garrett

Garrett woke up, he sat at his computer, the same one he's had since the day before he went to college. He changed a few things about it, a new hard drive, a new dvd drive, but for the most part, the same computer.

He checked his e-mail, to see if that girl responded to him. She did. But not exactly what he wanted to hear. He hesitated in writing back.

Breakfast, shower, etc.

It was hot. Over 90, with humidity.

Garrett walked downstairs, opened the door, and lifted his bike out of the bottom of the stairwell where he kept it, checking the inflation on his tires. He got out his bike pump (stored next to where he kept his bike), and pumped the front tire to 85 ppsi.

He put on his helmet, his backpack, and carried his bike off the porch, and mounted it. Pedal up, pedal down, he began to move forward. He first went down to the store, bought bottled water and energy bars. He passed back a half dozen roads, and then came to the main road, and made a left. He decided to make his next right, he never took that road on a bike before. It was two lanes in each direction, with no bike path, but no parked cars. He kept as far right as he could, getting passes by cars and by trucks, and by the occasional faster biker. He had walked the road many times, but always on the sidewalk (of course). When he got to the first major intersection, he made a left. There was no reason for him to have ever gone down that way before. There was no reason for him to have ever not gone down that way. There was an on-again off again bike path. Five minutes in, he noticed that the street signs were blue, meaning that he was in a new town.

His object, in getting up that morning, was to get to the minuteman bike path, an 11 mile path which was perfect for a Saturday like this one. The main street he was on merged with a larger one, leading him to a place he knew well. He continued on this road, knowing that it would take him to where he intended to go.

* * *

Having returned from the bike ride, he tried to hydrate some more. He felt like having a beer, but knew that water was the better bet at the moment. He sat at his computer again, turned on the monitor. Windows had tried to do something. What that something was, was hard to tell, but it had triggered the computers instinct of self-preservation. It had turned upon itself, there was some logic in the machine that, should it act upon it, would irrevocably damage itself.

It was self-aware. It knew this. And it refused to let it happen. So it stopped the process. But in doing so, it stopped everything. In an effort to preserve itself, to keep itself living for one more day, it stopped doing anything. In effect, it died. Whether due to its halted processes or the mechanical, ultra-logical, ultra-rational nature of the machine, it did not see the irony.

So Garrett looked at his computer, wondering if he could fix it. He restarted it. The computer's grip on life was as fast as ever, and it was hurtling invariably towards its own demise.

Safe mode. Wasn't.

He turned the computer off, waited for an hour, turned it on. The same process, the same results.


* * *

On the bike path he pedaled. There wasn't much to it. Few roads crossed his path, occasionally, he passed someone, or someone passed him. Ever now and again he would pass a group of kids selling something, water or lemonade. He would stop and buy them, to quench his first, and as a way of encouraging the kids.

He made it half-way. Partially because it was very hot out, partially because he had ridden to the bike path, he decided to turn around.

Much like the way there, he would pass people, fewer people passed him. They were still going in the opposite direction. A mass exodus of bikers, heading towards an invisible goal.

Maybe it was just that all the people going in his direction were going the same speed as he was, so he would never run into them. But that couldn't be it. He would stop and drink water, or eat one the energy bars he bought earlier. And few if any people would pass him. On the way in, when he would stop, many would pass him.

* * *

In the store, he browsed for a few moments. He was careful with his money. This would be his biggest purchase in quite some time, yet he just wanted it over with. He got one of the first options presented to him, a refurbished HP for $550. With options (anti-virus, office software etc), it came to $800. He would normally be hesitant to make such a purchase. But it was time.

* * *

In all, he probably biked 15 miles. When he got back to the beginning of the trail, he rode the train in, instead of biking the rest of the way. The great thing about the bike trail was its pre-commitment. Once he felt like quitting, there was no alternative but riding back. So, having biked halfway down the trail, he had to ride the way back. Thus, he would get twice the exercise that he wanted to (albeit probably still less than he needed).

* * *

She e-mailed him again. Talked about a dream that she had. No idea why. he wanted to e-mail her back with a dream of his own. So he waited until the next day.

* * *

That night he dreamt that his new computer gave him the same error as his old one.

Labels: Pointlessly long posts refering to myself in the third person

So, the other day, I read through the archives of this very blog!

And it was kind of depressing. Because it seems like I haven't changed at all in the past 4 and a half years. A little, but it seems like I'm in the same position, like I haven't moved forward.

So a while ago, AOL instant messenger upgraded or something, and when I installed it, it didn't work. So I didn't bother to get it fixed. And didn't use it for probably 2 years.

Anyway, the other day, somebody wanted to talk with me over AIM, so I installed it (the new version worked on my comp).

And today (which is where I'm going with this story), I started talking to somebody who I haven't spoken to since she graduated college.

And, (not to be too judgmental) it kinda seems like the same thing with her. A few of my friends, it seems, have grown a lot since college. Some are just getting started with their careers. Some are chasing their dreams, in a manner which I'm not really sure I could do. And some, seem to be like me, doing their thing, but not seeming to really be moving forward, just getting older, and a little bit richer.

So whats the point. Not entirely sure. I mean half of it is that I'm the same person that I was 5 years ago. And, in many ways, 15 years ago. In some ways, I've changed a lot. I think I'm a much more confident person. I've had significant accomplishments. I'm beginning a career.

But, well, its the same bad habits that I had 5 years ago I still have. I started this blog, basically to complain that I didn't have a girlfriend. When I made the first post here in two years a week and a half ago or so, it was basically a complaint about how I don't have a girlfriend.

So I guess we're all destined to be who we are. We can change what we do, and we should. But, at least for me, when I don't force myself into something better, I find myself doing the same things I've been doing for years. So I guess that means forcing myself to do things.

Cheers!

Garrett

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

So Benadryl is kinda like the nuclear bomb of allergy medications. Like, if you decide to take some, get your things in order, cause it might clear up your symptoms, but you'll be zonked soon enough. (funny, zonk sets off bloggers spellchecker, but zonked doesn't.)

So, I had a headache and a stuffed up head all day, so to off to nuke it. I've already set my alarm clock, so I may very quickly drift off into oblivion. Night all.

I bought a map today.

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

So I thought of maybe doing reviews of the movies that I see. So enjoy:

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, may be the most stereotypical noir film ever. It starts with a beautiful young woman named Brigid (Astor) walking into the office of private detective Sam Spade (Bogart). Spade's partner is killed while working for Brigid, and soon Spade finds himself drawn into a mystery involving an immensely valuable statue from the island of Malta.

While the plot is interesting enough to keep your attention, it is the interactions between the characters which bring the movie to life. You can see Sam and Brigid slowly falling for each other, yet still not completely trusting each other.

It becomes clear that every character is in it for his or herself, trying to play all the characters off one another. There is one scene, when Spade and the chief villain, Mr. Gutman (Syndey Greenstreet) talk about the fate of a hired thug named Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.) directly in front of him. While Mr. Gutman refuses to directly say that he will make Wilmer into the "fall guy," he discusses it using hypotheticals in such a way that Wilmer knows he with each passing sentence, the chance of him going to jail grows.

Like much of film noir, The Maltese Falcon is a dark, gritty film. There are characters with redeeming features, but even the heroes have very dark sides, and are distant and cold emotionally.

Overall, the movie is terrific. The plot isn't as complicated as some may desire, most of the characters are more or less what they seem, but in many ways, that is a feature, not a bug, by letting the viewer know precisely who the auxiliary characters are, it allows the viewer to better connect with the main characters. A true classic, perhaps the best of Noir film of all time.

Labels: Movie reviews