BrockLi Soup

This year has been a disappointment, and I’m not the first to say so publicly. It was going to be good, but I suppose that 2005 was a tough act to follow. I had planned to do a monthly review of the past year (just like everyone else), but ya know what, I really don’t feel like it anymore. Here’s a quick and dirty, in no particular order:

Visited Rochester a couple times. Visited Buffalo a couple times. Visited Pennsylvania a couple times. Visited Chapel Hill not too long ago. BP visited us a bunch of times. Family visited, and we touristed. A bunch of other people came to visit. Moved in with Fotios and Jym, then Matt moved in. Got rid of the car, then it got hit by a deer. Grew a long goatee. Drove to Nashville and back (with a week in between) for work. Started smoking again, then quit again last month. Read a bunch of books, watched a bunch of movies. Saw Flogging Molly a couple of times and Against Me once. Got a root canal. Decided to write more, then didn’t. Decided to win the lottery, then didn’t. Decided to go to the gym on a regular basis, then did, for a little bit. Went to Flugtag.

That pretty much sums it up. There were quite a few really good weekends in there, but overall, it wasn’t that great.

Of course, making next year better hinges on identifying the things that can be improved. I think that changing things up more often and rejuvenating my social life will help things considerably. This is the first full year I’ve been out of school and I sort of fell into the “go to work, make dinner, watch a movie, sleep, repeat” routine. While I was at RIT, everything changed every three months - different classes, which meant seeing different people every day, and a different schedule for class and work. Additionally, there were always a ton of people around. I worked, studied, and partied with my peers, and I loved it. I met new people almost daily. I always had some project that needed to be done, to keep me occupied, and at the end of each quarter, I had something to show for the past three months.

I know people are tired of me whining about how much I miss college, but tough shit - it worked for me, better than anything else I’ve known before or since. I’ve been entertaining the idea of grad school; now would be the best time to do it, but I’ve got enough student loans to deal with as it is. That might be something to look into more next year, though.

Anyway, the burden to make next year better is on me, and to that end, I’ve come up with a bunch of resolutions that should help:

1. Go to the gym at least twice a week, preferably more.
2. Spend less time just hanging out in the apartment.
3. Get a handle on my finances.
4. Be more positive about life in general.
5. Try brewing beer.
6. Do more personal projects.

There were others on the first draft of the list that I’ve since decided to put off. For example, I added “Move into DC” last month when I decided I wanted to live in Dupont, but have since determined that it would be in my best interest to stay here in Arlington for another year. I also wanted to build or buy a kegerator, so we can have good beer on tap all the time, but that needs to wait until I can afford it and have somewhere to put it.

Actually writing all of this has been more therapeutic than I expected. I’m trying not to make it sound like the past year was awful, because really, it wasn’t. However, this is the first time in a long time (maybe ever) that I can really say I haven’t been happy with the previous year. Maybe 2007 will be great, maybe I’m just overthinking things. Maybe the start of the new year will be just as anticlimatic as it always is: no different from the day before. At least this time around, I’ll have a reason to make it more than that.

For those of you unhappy with my opinion of Circus Boy, rest assured: I tried Widmer’s Hefeweizen last night.

And I was underwhelmed.

It was bland. Not TOO bland; I mean, I’d drink it again for sure, but it definitely didn’t have as much flavor as Circus Boy. Like Tom said, that may be because I don’t know what a hefeweizen is “supposed” to taste like, but all the same, I think it’s delicious.

Fonny used to drink Magic Hat No. 9 back when I lived with him at RIT. I tried it a couple times while I was still there, but didn’t really appreciate it until a few months ago: our pub has it on tap. I picked up a six pack of their Circus Boy (a Hefeweizen) a couple weeks ago and it was like liquid joy. I’ve since picked up a couple sixers of Circus Boy and some more No. 9, and now I’m working my way through a Feast of Fools mix pack, and I’ve spent most of the past week singing their praises and musing at the fact that I didn’t appreciate the Rochester brewery until long after I’d moved away.

Thing is, they’re in Vermont, not Rochester.

Which doesn’t seem as important as it did when I started this post. The important thing is that you get a sixer of Circus Boy. Liquid joy, seriously.

So there I was. My brother and I went out tonight to meet a couple of our buddies (and our buddy’s cousin, and a friend of his) at a bar about 20 minutes from my parents’ place. On the way home, the clutch in my brother’s truck hit the floor as we rounded a turn.

Thankfully, my parents are very understanding and we were only a couple miles from home, so my dad came and picked us up. My brother is none too happy, of course; far as we can tell, he blew a clutch cable, and none of us knows what that’s going to cost to replace. Further thankfully, it happened right next to the town library, so we pushed it into the lot, where it should be fine until at least Tuesday.

I hope your Christmas Eve is going well. Ours could be better, but at least we’re all OK.

I just found out that there’s a Starbucks right out behind my apartment.

On Wednesday, I got a ZipCar so I could pick up some things at Target. I had to pull a U-y (youee?) to get where I was going, and pulled through a U-shaped parking lot at this office building across the street. Lo and behold, there was a Quizno’s in the bottom of the building.

Yesterday, everyone in the office went to Ted’s for lunch right across the street from this newly discovered Quizno’s. From the vantage point of their waiting area, I spotted the Starbuck’s that’s right on the other corner of the same building. This is all about a half block south of the back entrance of my building - I go north to get to work, so I’ve only walked down that part of the road a couple times, and somehow missed both of these little treasures every time. I can’t help but wonder what else may be back there.

And before anyone gets on my case for Starbucks, let me say that there aren’t any indie coffee shops nearby, or I’d certainly be going there. I DO have to pass the Caribou to get there (it’s near Olsson’s), and while I like their socially responsible practices and the baristas, their coffee kind of sucks. So, newly discovered Starbucks for the win!

In other news, I’m flying home to Buffalo tonight, and returning Tuesday evening. Have a Happy Festivus and all that other shit.

Gogol Bordello is headlining a sold-out show tonight at 9:30, and I don’t have tickets. I SHOULD have tickets, because I knew about this months ago, but I kept putting it off.

No matter; my point here is that they sold out a headlining show at a pretty big venue, which is a big step from the first time I saw them, opening for Flogging Molly in a small venue in Binghamton (still a pretty good gig, but they’re definitely moving up in the world). I do feel a little of the requisite “I loved them back before anyone knew them and now they’re popular and I think they suck,” but I’m happy that they’re doing well. I’ll catch them next time.

Today marks the second installment of a series I like to call Strangers Without Candy, But Plenty of Nonsensical Advice (Vol. 1).

Just after leaving my building this morning, a nice looking guy in a suit and trench coat was walking toward me, pulling a big black suitcase behind him. When he was about 15 feet in front of me, just before I passed under a raised walkway, he turned left and cut in front of me. I don’t know why I looked up at him, but he was looking me right in the eyes and said: “Turn right message.” Then he disappeared behind the support column for the walkway above.

And I thought, “Turn right message indeed, friend. Turn right message indeed.”

Interested parties may remember my post about copying LiveJournal comments from a syndicated account to a Movable Type blog. Wes and Bob (I think?) recommended some LJ developer pages, but the closest I could get was retrieving comments from an LJ account for which I’m logged in. Since I was looking to get comments from a syndicated account, there is (as far as I know) no way to do that.

So I spent a few hours this weekend hacking together this monstrosity of PHP to scrape the LJ pages and insert comments into the MT database. You can get the code on the project page. It’s not that good and I wouldn’t even really recommend using it, but you’re welcome to it. If you have any problems, bug fixes, or ideas, shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment here.

At JR’s suggestion, I’ve started adding notes to my road trip map with cities and people to visit. I KNOW I’ve forgotten people, so comment here, there, or on LJ if you notice omissions.

Obviously, East Coast Bike Tour 2006 isn’t going to happen in the next two weeks. But! I can plan for the coming year, can’t I? As such, I’ve made bigger and better and more awesome plans for next year’s road trip. This means, of course, that I need to find me a bike with saddle bags sometime in the next eight months or so, except I don’t have any money.

Donations always accepted, of course.