Catching up

it's been nearly a month since i've written. i haven't been incapacitated. and it's not that i haven't had anything to write about. it's simply that i just didn't want to. my 3 week mini vacation away from RAOG has proven to be ample time to provide substantial content in all aspects of life. here is the good, the bad and the ugly, broken out newspaper style:

arts and entertainment

summer concert season has descended upon denver. i got my hands on two tickets to see STP at red rocks in july. yeah, that STP at that red rocks. how bad ass is that? i'm hoping that it's made up for my inability to get tickets to see eddie izzard when he comes to town. something tells me i'm gonna end up paying an arm and a leg to see the crazy executive transvestite. my boy bill is coming too, but i think i'll pass on tix, since the last time i saw him live, i recited most of his show for him. ya know, 'cause it's exactly the same materials from the show. robert bradley is coming next month, and i'll be in attendance at some stupid venue in a god-damned suburban mall. the show will hopefully be good enough to counteract the NOFX show i was dragged to a few weeks back. that show would have been pretty entertaining, until i remembered that i hate punk rock and the punk followers. a trip to lollapallooza is potentially in order as well.

american idol is garbage. so is survivor. how these shows are STILL on is beyond me. actually, i get it. ratings keep them on the air. so, let me rephrase: how people are still dumb enough to watch such trash is completely beyond me. what percentage of AI viewers do you suppose happened to watch the john adams miniseries? 10%? 2? .1? sure, it's entertainment (but it's not tv, it's hbo!), but it was very educational, even for a history fan like me. more people need to watch higher quality programming. then advertisers will push producers to come up with higher quality programs, and we'll have a complete paradigm shift back to the way things used to be before paradise hotel and FLAVA FLAV!

weather

summer appears to have awoken from its slumber and has made a not-so-impressive appearance. for the 4 days we've had in the 80s (and 1 that touched 90), they've each been met with an equal or higher number of days in the 60s. last year we had a week of spring. this year we'll be lucky to get 2 months of summer. el nino and global warming should have a cage match to the death, since they're the 2 biggest culprits assailing our weather norms. looking ahead over the next few weeks, i think we'll get into the full swing of the summer season, which means i just have to wait for the white shit to melt off of the big hills before i can get my hiking and biking in at high altitude. hurry the hell up!

lifestyle

i hate old people. it used to be that i hated kids, but i've recently determined that kids are far more tolerable than the rickety, decrepit elderly jerk offs running around. obviously, i'm destined to be one of them when i grow older, given my bitter overtones at my current age. but i see this as a sign from above that maybe i shouldn't live to see that age. the world will be better off anyway.

by the way, in case i've never mentioned it, i'm back to the single life. have been for a couple of months now. and i think i don't like it again. is it really possible to become so bored so quickly of your dating status? christ, when i am dating someone, i long to be single again. and after 2-3 months of being single, i yearn to be taken once more. what the fuck?

i'm reinforcing my ambivalence toward name brand clothing. i need new clothes pretty badly. but i'll be damned if you see me shelling out $50 for a pair of shorts and an equal amount on shirt. i see so many people at work running around in their $100 threads. well, i've reverted back to the anti-boutique shopping mentality. know where i get good deals? kohl's. yes, kohl's, the red-headed step child to jc penny's and nordstrom. know why? a) cuz i don't give a shit what the tag says on the inside, so long as it looks good on me on the outside and fits well and b) because kohl's seems to always have a sale where they're basically giving stuff away. i love it and i'm a better person for embracing it.

business and finance

i got promoted about a month ago, but my raise doesn't kick in till this next paycheck. weak, i know. weaker, still, is that my raise was about 15k less than anticipated/deserved. seriously, i've had half a mind to try and negotiate, but given the current business environment we're in, i don't have a leg to stand on...yet. nevertheless, my new comp. package includes a decent commission/bonus structure for any new business that i manage to bring in. i guess potential is as powerful as actually earning. or maybe not. but i do have the potential for six figures this year. then again, most everyone can say that.

civil law is ludicrous and unfair. i've been embroiled in a lease legal wrangling from 3 years ago, and somehow i've been singled out as the sole soul responsible for bearing the burden. yep, i'm being held legally responsible for someone else's mistakes, and there's not a god damn thing i can do about it...except let them go into my bank account, withdraw everything in there, leaving me with a negative balance and requiring me to change banks on the fly to avoid a possible repeat next week. that couldn't happen, right? except that it did. last week. and i'm pissed.

gas is $4 a gallon in denver now. our coastal friends (and those in chicago) have been feeling this pinch for a while and, well, it sucks. all you ever hear is how "america is the best country on earth." why, then, can a country like brazil, which evidently is not the #1 country on earth, be completely energy independent and we can't be? the technology is there, the NEED is there and everyone wants it. oh, that's right, because the exxon's and conoco's of the world just raked in $12 billion....last QUARTER. why fix it if it ain't broke?

when i get my financial shit squared away and begin hammering away at the nearly impossible task of restoring my credit to it's former glory, i'm gonna buy a house. not a condo, a house. and why not? everyone and his brother is in foreclosure on his home. surely i can swing a decent deal within a year, no?

sports

baseball is nearing mid-season form. there have been surprises--like the tampa bay rays being decent, the shit louis cardinals hanging on for dear life, and the tigers of detroit absolutely sucking balls--but luckily, my cubs have been good enough to keep things entertaining for me as the season drags into the dog day doldrums. and good thing, too, 'cause the rest of the sports world hasn't given me anything to pay attention to. has anyone noticed that the NBA has quickly become one of the most boring, emotionless and worthless athletic ventures in the history of man? normally i'll at least watch some of the playoffs. but this year, i can't even muster the strength to watch a single game; game 7 or otherwise. you know it's a sad state of affairs when you prefer the following to a televised NBA game: food network, travel channel, history channel, C-span, lifetime, we, nickelodeon or hgtv.

the tour de france is coming up in about a month and a half. and for the first time in over 10 years, i couldn't possibly care less. at least in the past there have been some interesting plot lines--outside of lance, even. but this year, after cycling was devastated by yet more doping scandals, i've lost all interest.

thankfully, the countdown to college football is underway. t-minus 3 months.......

opinion

my opinion is that we need to hurry up and end the dem race for the nomination and hurry up with our general election. as great as it'll be to get the monkey in chief out of office, i dread having to sit through 6 more months of slanderous mud slinging political ads. of course, if there were a god, we'd have a 3rd party candidate running to. maybe we should create something called the party of common sense. our platform will be to only make legislation that makes sense. novel idea, i know. i think i'll be the party chairman.

my opinion is that more people need to blog. there's just not enough good stuff to read lately, save the old standbys (thanks for entertaining me, gpg). i'm as guilty as the next guy (looking at you jet blach), but then again, i'm not really that entertaining to begin with.

i'll have more opinions as i begin to care more about writing again. though, i must admit, i kinda like this 1-month-off-then-write-something schedule. maybe i've missed my calling in life.