Hmmm...Purple

You Should Live in a Purple State

Your preferences are 50% Blue, 50% Red You may not be a swing voter, but you feel comfortable around moderate people. You tend to do best in states with a red and blue mix - like Nevada and North Carolina. You are adaptable. You can converse with a church crowd as easily as with grad students.

LINK

The Three Wise Men

As I watched three men playing their respective instruments, I was immediately stricken with the looks of abject pleasure on their faces. The guitarist smiled joyfully as he effortlessly switched styles and strumming patterns; the upright bass-player furrowed his brow as he sung along to keep pace with his walking basslines; and the accordian player assumed the air of a mad genius as he alternately intently focused on the manuscript paper and closed his eyes, caught up in, as the poet has said, the closest thing we mortals can come to heaven while on earth.

I remembered the feeling of playing bass while a friend jammed on guitar some time after midnight one morning twelve years ago, the frets and chord progressions having started to make intuitive rather than analytical sense, the practice time coming to fruition, the joy of being capable in a world that I had lacked capacity in previously. I too closed my eyes and smiled as I saw Saint Peter in this place where I'd never grow old.

I saw these three wise men, each with his gift more precious than gold, frankincense, or myrrh and I told myself that I yearned for an outlet currently, but what I really wished for was a chance to go back and re-live that mild, ineffable winter's night of years ago.

As another poet has said, I guess this is growing up.

Grand Theft Auto 4

I heard on the radio that the latest title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise (GTA IV) was expected to sell 9 million copies. At $60 a pop, that's a gross profit of $540 million bucks.

Apparently I went to college for the wrong things. Who could have predicted the value of majoring in stealing cars and assaulting prostitutes?

Prank

"What's funnier than a gorilla chasing bananas through a school? Nothing," said Andrew Leinonen, the prank's mastermind and the student who dressed as a gorilla. "It was a harmless prank."

Why American Idol Makes Me Want to Punch Myself

I'll admit it. I made the mistake of watching American Idol last night. What does everybody want? They said they were going to have Andrew Lloyd Webber on there; do I not enjoy musical theatre? Do I not bleed red?

The basic premise of last night's show was that each performer had to choose a song by Lord Andrew, and they had to sing it for the American Idolites

Come close, children, and I will tell you what I saw.

Fistly, I saw a young woman forget her words. As a performer myself, I can tell you that that is among the worst places to be as a singer, with the only worser places being tied in a burlap sack and tossed into a river or Texas.

That's right: I just messed with Texas.

But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about today. I wanted to talk with you about the two young men who opted to sing songs written explicitly for women. I gotta tell you , it takes brass tacks to go to arguably the most important living composer in musical theatre (the folks that would argue would be Sondheim followers), and basically tell him, "You know what, I know that you're a smart guy and all, but I thought that, though you intended this song for an old woman, I'm 18 and a boy and I'm going to sing it with success."

In fact, it's more than brass tacks that that would take. That would take cajones the size of a parking garage. That would take gumption akin to agreeing to having one arm tied to a railroad track in the face of an oncoming train, and also having to fight off two bears, a lion, a great white shark, and a particularly irritable lemur.

But fine. Say you think you've found the greatest song, and it'll get everyone in America to vote for you. Then even grumpulous me would have to agree that it was a good idea to choose that song. I agree that they chose good overall songs.

HOWEVER, these morons didn't even choose the best sections of the songs! Both of the guys have little pop-tenor voices, and they opted for portions of song that were down in the basement vocally. In short, they had "A" songs, but they opted for the "B" sections. Why would you do that? Do you not like the idea of winning the competition? Did you wake up on the stupid side of the bed that morning?

Also, memo to the arm swaying audience: you make me sad to be alive.

Nevertheless, whatshername from San Diego was pretty good, if you like things that are mediocre. With that being said, it's off to punch myself.

Re: Lady in Ford Focus

Dear Lady,

1) If you drive a purple Ford Focus, you are suspect in my mind.
2) If you had a single dream catcher hanging from your rear-view mirror, you would be even more suspect.
3) The fact that you had multiple dream catchers hanging from your rear-view mirror made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Kindly knock it off.

Love,
AC

Shining

Highlight of my Day:

Finding a presumably intellectual show on television called "Absolute Brilliance."

Anti-Highlight of my Day:

Finding out the show is just an advertisement for cubic zirconia.

Moral:

Don't look for highlights. Or, at the very least, don't trust television show titles.

Weather

Frequently, at my job, I am around people that I have met but don't really know. When I am in a situation where I am with them for any more than a second, one or the other of us feels the need to say something, the unspoken idea being that it is polite to acknowledge the other person's existence. More often than not, the topic of conversation will be the weather.

However, I can't help feeling like a cliche when I or the other person does this. Is there is absolutely no other topic that I or this person can think of to bridge the troubled waters of a few moments of silence? While it is absolutely the definition of polite conversation (has anyone ever said to you, "I am offended that you think it's sunny outside"?), it seems to me that the initiator is doing nothing more than speaking what is plainly and painfully obvious, something that is, therefore, unnecessary to discuss. The person saying it may as well be pointing out some other obvious aspect of the immediate surroundings, like this:

(Setting: Five seconds of awkward silence in a company's lunch room, until-)
Person 1: This is a table!
Person 2: It certainly is a table!
Person 1: It wasn't like this in here last week, what with the table and all.
Person 2: I wonder if this table is ever going to change?
Person 1: Well, you know how it is living in San Diego!
Person 1 and Person 2: (Laugh awkwardly, until-)
(Curtain.)

It is at these times, that I, while engaged by another human being in conversation, feel the most alone. I would almost rather the person exclaim "I see you and I am privy to the fact that you are indeed a different person, unique and separate from myself!" before hurriedly rushing out of the room. At least then my life would be more like a post-modern play, and who doesn't want that?

Therefore, I will make it a point to engage in conversation first, with simple pleasantries like "Good morning!", "Good afternoon!", or "So's your old man!" in the hopes of avoiding things that are too obvious to speak about. For a longer term goal, I will make it a point to figure out at minimum what department everyone's in so that I can ask them how things are in that department. This will, I hope, convey the fact that I know who they are and what they do, and, while being at the barest of bones level, this will also let them know that somebody knows something about them.

And, at least I won't be talking about the weather.

Paradox

How to create a paradox:

Step 1: Purchase a junkyard dog.
Step 2: Name said junkyard dog Bad Bad Leroy Brown.
Step 3: Contemplate how Bad Bad Leroy Brown can be meaner than a junkyard dog when he is a junkyard dog.

Joy

Happiness is getting into your car at 8:45 on a Sunday morning, turning it on, and the radio playing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

It almost makes up for having to miss the Chargers' playoff game due to rehearsal. Almost. Yeah, it doesn't really make up for it at all, but at this point, I'm looking for little blessings.

An Open Letter to Jeep

Dear Jeep,

I understand that in today's bustling economy, the more you can get your product out there, the more likely you will be successful in selling your product. However, your commercial for your Jeep Liberty (the one with the singing animals) is played out. My roommate and I counted the other day, and we saw that commercial 14 times over the course of one football game.

This does not make me want to purchase your product. This is overexposure. In addition, every subsequent time that I see that commercial reminds me how much I hate it, and it reminds me to stay away from Jeep.

Bloody well knock it off.

With love,
AC

Car

There is a late 80's/early 90's Honda Civic in the parking lot of my complex. It is metallic blue. It is a small car. And I hate it.

You see, for the better part of the last three months, this vehicle has been parked across the line of one of the already small spots in the lot.

So, every night when I get home late, and it looks like there is a spot, but then there isn't because Mr. Civic is parked over the line, I get a little unhappy. Unhappy to the point that I sit in my seriously considering ramming the car with my own, until I realize that that would harm my car. Then I consider taking a chisel and dismantling the car little by little, so that eventually there would be no car left, and with any luck, the owner wouldn't realize that there was anything wrong until it was much too late. Then there would be two free spots, and two is better than one.

Then, I realize that it's now 12:02 am, and I've been sitting fantasizing about Civic destruction for the better part of ten minutes, and I give up and go find a place to park that is further away, resolving to myself to buy a chisel for the next day.

But I never do. I never do.

Chargers

Anybody remember when LT could run more than two or three yards at a time? Or when he was a better back than LenDale White? Anybody?

EDIT: San Diego has a pretty good football team when they decide to show up. Let's go Chargers!

Keira

The thing about Keira Knightley is that she is pretty, but she also kind of looks like she has some extra bones in her face. Lots of extra bones. That's the thing to remember.