BrockLi Soup

It occurred to me, as I Frogger-ed my way through families at the Metro, that most schools probably finished up this past week and I’ll be elbow-deep in tourists until Labor Day.

Allow me to shill for a moment, won’t you please?

When I moved into my new place a few weeks ago, I spent about a week looking all over for those plastic 3M hooks with the adhesive strips that come off cleanly. At my old place, I had three or four of them on the sides of my desk for keys, my headphones, that kind of stuff, and since I got rid of the desk, I wanted to put a couple inside my bedroom door for the same kind of stuff. For whatever reason, I couldn’t find them anywhere I looked.

I had literally spent a week looking for them when I was in Linens ‘n Things to get that basic apartment stuff that I don’t bother moving (bathroom trashcan, toothbrush cup, etc - all in manly colors) when I came across these Hercules Hooks (WARNING: loud video auto-plays). I had seen the obnoxious commercials before, as I’m sure many of you have, and I thought it was a load of crap. But, I hadn’t found my 3M hooks anywhere, and a few more days of willy-nilly key-tossing would probably mean lost keys, so I paid $15 for a 20-pack with a cheap laser level.

Best $15 I’ve ever spent for home improvement, hands down. These things really ARE as easy as that guy makes them look! I used them to hang up a whiteboard, some framed pictures, keys, my sunglasses, and put four more above the table I use for my laptop to keep my power and USB cables and iPod headphones handy. My only complaint is that hole definitely isn’t “pin-sized”, but no bigger than the whole from a nail you’d use to hang photos.

I don’t have a good reason for posting this. I figure, we’re always willing to complain when we buy crappy products, so I’ll send a little karma and recommend something that worked out better than I expected. They’re definitely worth the money, AND I can pull them out to re-use them when I move. It’s those little things that bring joy to my day.

In (reverse?) chronological order of viewing, for the past month or so.

John Waters: This Filthy World - A I’ve only seen Desperate Living and A Dirty Shame, so I’m not a Waters purist, but I couldn’t believe how entertaining he was in an hour and a half of monologue.

Once - B Equally touching and entertaining, and I loved the music. Still don’t know how I feel about the ending, but I liked it. Might be showing at a local Landmark or other indie theater.

Hang ‘Em High - D Georgetown Film Festival is hosting a series of Clint Eastwood films in a couple parks nearby. Schmitty and I went to see it, and the best part was the entirely random scaffold-dancing before hand - the movie was slow, and it seems I’m not an Eastwood fan.

Diggers - B Less chick-flicky than I expected, and actually pretty entertaining. I might have a little man-crush on Paul Rudd.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest - C Everyone says it just sets up for the third one and re-uses jokes from the first, and they’re right. Kind of funny, though.

Night Watch - D Didn’t like the end, but I’ve never seen subtitles that were well-done in themselves. That may have been the best part, but the middle bit was OK.

Waking Ned Devine - C I really didn’t like this as much as I’d hoped I would - seems like it’s a modern classic - but it WAS entertaining.

School for Scoundrels - C Slightly entertaining, mostly bad.

The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning - D The first Dukes movie was a poor representative of the series, and this movie was an abomination of that. It was a little bit entertaining - a LITTLE bit - but had no bearing whatsoever on the original series.

Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale - B Goddamn that guy is hilarious. I’ve listened to the album like three times through, and there were some extra bits in the DVD.

I can’t believe Daniel Tosh re-used so many jokes from his Comedy Central Presents show in his Completely Serious show. Doesn’t make him any less hilarious, though.

I’m 23 and my hair is thinning, significantly. I am equal parts depressed and intrigued. Depressed because I’m only 23, but intrigued because I think I might look good with a shaved head.

I sure to enjoy beer. Also, rum.

I’ve been living in the city for three weeks now. I really like it so far, mostly because I can walk to a lot of stuff. I’m sort of in between everything: Metro Center (is that considered downtown?), Chinatown, Dupont Circle, U Street - it’s all within ten or twelve blocks. I’m hoping to get a bike before too long, to save some walkin’ time. Paying to Metro to work kinda sucks, but it’s not bad. And, my place is quite a bit smaller, so I was forced to get rid of a bunch of crap I didn’t need. A win on all fronts, really.

Is Condoleezza not running for president like everyone thought she would? I’m OK with that. And isn’t Cheney due for another heart attack by now?

A while back, there was a study that more Americans were willing to elect a president who was Mormon, homosexual, Muslim, black, or female than atheist. I am equal parts elated and depressed. Elated because a lot of people are willing to vote for minorities, but depressed because people are still so ignorant to believe that atheists are somehow bad.

Against Me, Gogol Bordello, and Smashing Pumpkins are all releasing albums on July 10. It’s almost good enough to take a vacation day for.

I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday.

I really can’t remember the last weekend I had to myself to enjoy. Last weekend, I drove up to Buffalo for a wedding. The weekend before that, I was moving. The two weekends before that were spent working in my SF hotel room.

Yesterday, I got up around 11, met the guy who (finally) took away the monitor I had been trying to get rid of, spent a few hours at work, finished a book, and fell asleep. A pretty full day, you might say, until I tell you that I fell asleep at 8:30, leaving less than 10 hours that I was actually up and doing anything. Today, I woke up pretty early, dropped off stuff at Goodwill, and I’ve spent most of the day working again. Right now, I’m taking a break to clear my head, because I’m still not done with everything that needs to be finished tomorrow morning. If I had my way, I’d probably just go to bed now, because even after sleeping about 12 hours last night, I’m still exhausted.

I guess it wasn’t a total waste of a weekend. I did get rid of some stuff that was cluttering the place up, and I did catch up on some sleep that I sorely needed, but I still just want a weekend with no obligations. This Friday afternoon “we need this Monday morning” shit needs to go.

(PS: When I titled this Another Wasted Weekend, I don’t mean to imply that going home for Bill’s wedding last weekend was a waste, because it wasn’t, and I had a lovely time.)

I need to make more time for books. So far in 2007, I’ve only finished seven books, and one of them (the hilarious The Pirates! In An Adventure With The Communists) only took an afternoon. I’ve got two more in the works now, but a quick glance over my book list for the past year and a half shows that my time for reading lately has been woefully inadequate. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was splayed out on the couch with Everything Is Illuminated or any one of David Sedaris’ books, but I read those in my old-old apartment - the one I moved out of last May. I’ve read so little since then that they’re still relatively fresh in my mind.

I keep hoping that things will calm down soon and I’ll have more free time. I’m back from two weeks in SF, moved into a new apartment, spent this weekend in Buffalo for my buddy Bill’s wedding, and I’ve already spent 35 hours in the office this week. I’ve barely touched my news reader since I left for SF almost a month ago, so I’ve got thousands of blog posts and news items waiting for my attention. There are still a few boxes I haven’t unpacked because I need to get rid of other stuff to make room for them. I got a USB hard drive to store all my crap, but I haven’t even plugged it in yet because there’s a monitor (which also needs to go) on the table I’m going to use for my computer, and I haven’t had any time to fiddle with it yet anyway. The MacBook I got last week (which I LOVE, incidentally) has some 80 GB of crap from my old laptop and desktop sitting in the Documents directory, waiting to be sorted and backed up as necessary. I still haven’t really grocery-shopped since I moved over a week ago, except for a quick trip to grab milk, eggs, apples, and some frozen dinners. I haven’t had time for SNFC - the local chapter I so wanted to start - in a full month, and probably won’t this week either.

And, of course, there’s about 20 books on my book shelf that were purchased in more leisurely times, when their chances of being read were as high as 1 in 6. This one especially bugs me because of the money I’ve invested in my collection and the effort that’s gone into moving all of them from apartment to apartment. That shit’s heavy, yo.

My bowling ball/baby/shark situation has surpassed, “Just get through this quarter,” and I’m not really sure what comes after that. Semi-year? Either way, I just keep chugging along, and hope the train stops before the wheels come off.