Starting the new year off right

New Year's Eve started off rather inauspiciously for me. I awoke at 8 in the morning on the floor of J and Stony's bathroom. I hadn't puked, but sometimes it's good to be reminded why drinking cheap bourbon is a bad idea. Both of the guys were asleep, and I was feeling pretty good, so I let myself out and walked back to my car, which was about a mile away.

On the walk, I was messaging my friend Roxy. Roxy moved out to Tempe in November, but unfortunately had to go back to Austin just before Christmas due to a family emergency. The emergency has been resolved, and she had been bugging me for days with "When are you coming out to Austin?", "My friend Misty says you should come out to Austin", "My cat says you should come out to Austin". So, after I get myself home and get a little bit more sleep, I check the prices for airline tickets. It turns out that the cost to fly on New Year's Eve just isn't that much.

So I tell her to pack her things, meet me at the airport at 8 that evening, and we'll get a rental car to drive back to Tempe on New Year's Day (after a little celebration with her friends in Austin). She thinks I'm kidding. But I'm firmly of the opinion that there's little point of having manic episodes if you don't take the time to enjoy them, so I assure her I'm serious, and I've bought the ticket, I've parked my car and am on the shuttle to the terminal, and finally that I'm on the plane and have to turn off my phone, see you @ 8.

The plane ride was uneventful. It would have been nicer if I was able to get some sleep in. I met Roxy and her friend Misty at the rental car counter. The man behind the counter, who looked to be mid-to-late 50's, managed to upsell me to the luxury model, a Buick Lucerne (Hey, we're going 1000 miles in this, we might as well be comfortable!), and then proceeded to insist that the ladies take me somewhere fun and interesting over the next couple hours, listing off the places that a rocker like me should be on a New Year's Eve in Austin. The three of them eventually decided that I needed to go to 6th Street, which is the equivalent of Tempe's Mill Avenue.

Misty went home to get ready, and Roxy and I caught up over dinner at a place called the Magnolia Cafe. We picked up Misty, had a glass of champagne-style wine, and went off to 6th St. It was a little like Mill Ave, with a lot more bars and a lot less people. Unlike Mill Ave, the only special event going on was every bar charging a $20 cover, so our bar-hopping was pretty limited. Still, we had drinks (I was severely limiting myself, because, of course, I did have a long way to drive), listened to music, talked with random drunk strangers, kept Roxy from starting fights with random drunk strangers, and generally had a good time. Midnight came and went, everyone cheered, toasted, and drank.

After dropping Misty off, we went over to Roxy's friend Fred's place, a single-bedroom apartment a little smaller than my dining room where Roxy had been staying. Roxy, inexplicably, hadn't packed yet. Well, maybe not inexplicably. Maybe the whole experience was a little too incredible and surreal, and she didn't really believe it was going to happen until it did. So she packed, said her final good-byes to Fred, shoved her cat Gigi into the back seat, and we were off.

Of course, by this time, we are both in need of food and caffeine, and at 4 AM on New Year's Day, Denny's is the obvious choice. And that place was packed. When we get there, we're told a 15 minute wait. There's also a group of 7 or so in front of us, dressed up as if they are trying to impress everyone with how rich and important they are. One member of the group, a Mediterranean-looking man in his 20's with greasy, slicked back hair and, as we were soon to find out, a Napoleon complex, was arguing with the hostess and the manager, apparently because he was so rich and important that he shouldn't have to wait at a restaurant that is obviously at capacity. After telling the manager, "Don't forget, you work at a Denny's, and therefore we're better than you", they storm out, freeing up the manager to seat the truly important people (i.e. Roxy and me, plus the people who aren't complete douchebags).

Finally, sometime between 4:30 and 5, we're on the road. The next 16 hours are spent talking, listening to music, watching the scenery, referring to slower drivers who got in our way as "douchebags", wondering about the lives of the people we meet along the way (what kind of daily commute does someone who works at an Exxon station 100 miles from the nearest dwelling have, anyway?), eating flavored, deep-fried sugar and starch, drinking caffeine, playing with the cat, and occasional sleeping (sometimes the passenger, sometimes the driver). Due to time constraints (I had to work Wednesday), we didn't stop much (and no trip along I-10 east of Tucson seems complete without a stop at "The Thing", but alas it was not to be).

Before we knew it, we were back to Tempe, and our trip was over. Certainly not the way I had expected to spend my New Year's, but it was the best I've had in a very long time.

Thanksgiving Reflections

This morning I went out on my Thanksgiving bike ride, to prepare for the events of the rest of the day, and I was reminded of when I got back into biking, another Thanksgiving 2 years ago. I remember that ride well. I started from my house, went through ASU Research Park, and came back. In total, it took around 50 minutes. Today, I started along the same path, and less than 20 minutes later I was at the south end of the park.

Normally when I get to this point, I tend to head in a south-westerly direction, through Tempe and into Chandler. Today, I decided to head east instead, because I had never done it before. I traveled through neighborhoods that I had never been to before, along roads that I never knew existed, and altogether had a great ride, the disgusting uniformity of red tile roofs and stucco notwithstanding.

One of the things I love about biking is how it gives me an opportunity to let my mind wander, and today my thoughts were on how a ride that once left me tired was now barely a warm-up. Of course, this is true of everything in life; The first time we try anything, we aren't very good at it, but as we do it more often, we get stronger, smarter, and better at whatever we do. But the real trick is getting started in the first place, to be willing to severely suck. And we have to accept that we may never get good.

Moving on from these thoughts, I reflected back on this past year, and came to the unfortunate conclusion that I'm basically the same as I was a year ago, unfortunate because I like to have progress and change in my life, to keep things from getting boring and myself from getting complacent. Well, I did get a pilot's license, lose a family member, met a lot of new friends, lost touch with others, reconnected with a few that I had lost touch with, started playing softball, lost about 10 lbs, traveled to Show Low, Denver, and Seattle, was the best man at a wedding, and had the first year since I started playing out in 2004 that I didn't perform on a stage in front of an audience (yet). But I'm sure that none of these things has had a significant, lasting impression on who I am.

TV at 3AM

At 3AM, there are a lot of infomercials, the music channels may actually play a video or two, the religious channels keep preaching the word, obscure news analysis shows try to help cure the insomnia, and old movies and TV shows, usually fairly odd ones, are there for the watching. By far the most unexpected offering that I came across today is Reading Rainbow on PBS. And there are 4 episodes back-to-back. Honestly, it never occurred to me that late-night television market was under-serving the pre-teen market, but there you go.

The most remarkable thing that I learned from this is that Reading Rainbow was in production until last year, with LeVar Burton the host for the show's entire run. The episode that I started watching was much older, from the days that I was in the target demographic, and it reminded me of how much I disliked being talked down to when I was 10.

An ending, of sorts

On a brighter note, today my company started training on the software system that my team has been developing for the last 20 months. It went off with very few glitches, and no major problems. While there is still work to be done on the system over the next few weeks, including the inevitable bugs that always manage to appear, the important thing is that I finally have something to show for the past two years of my career (not to mention the untold amounts of capital that I've burned through in that time).

So, next time I drink, it will be to celebrate, not to attempt to cope with stress. I wonder if anyone will be able to tell the difference.

Raping my childhood memories

Recently on television (which I generally only watch between 1AM and 3AM) I have seen commercials for a new children's fantasy movie, The Seeker, which is based on a novel called The Dark is Rising. Now, there are a lot of bad fantasy movies out there, but this one looks like it's going to be up there among the worst. The previews have contained terrible dialog, terrible acting, and terrible special effects. The Dark is Rising also happens to be one of my favorite books from adolescence, and seeing it blasphemed in this manner is nearly enough to bring me to tears.

What really gets me is the complete senselessness of the whole thing. I doubt that this movie will bring in more than $10 million over its lifetime, which can't possibly recoup all the money sunk into it. I mean, who's the target audience? Mentally disabled children who read complex morality tales, yet are willing to sit through dialog not quite good enough for a George Lucas flick (one such brilliant line: "I'm supposed to save the world? I don't even know how to talk to a girl!")? I can't imagine anyone else who has read the books and would not feel like emptying their stomachs upon the briefest glimpse on this abomination. Granted, there aren't a lot of kids' movies in the theaters, and there are parents out there who will feel the need to drop off their spawn for some peace, quiet, and illicit activity, but most people I know don't actually hate their children enough to subject them to this.

But, of course, the movie industry is nothing if not filled with talentless, uncreative hacks whose sole purpose in life is to try to emulate the success of others' art without the capacity to understand what made that art great. So with the success of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, the assumption is that "children's books = money", thus we get crap like Eragon and The Seeker. Unfortunately, Eragon actually made money, despite being one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen, but it's a much more recent and popular series than The Dark is Rising. I just really wish that someone had the decency to say "This is a terrible movie, and there's no way that we will cover our costs if we continue. Let's kill this whole thing right now, never speak of it again, and be glad that none of us will be associated with this."

Purely hypothetical, but...

Let's say I wanted to run for public office, and because I presumably want a chance of winning, I decide to run as a member of one of the two major parties, would I be allowed to run as a Republican, or would my heterosexuality get in the way?

As it turns out

I really like to watch people dance badly. My favorites are the ones who couldn't approximate the beat if you were kicking it into their ass. Does this make me a bad person?