happy halloween

i don't like being one of those bloggers who doesn't post very often. i figure if i can't do every other day, why am i even in this business (besides the women and the adulation of my peers, i mean)? anyway, it turns out i can't. not now anyway. with midterms over, and nanowrimo starting tomorrow (and tons of other shit that's even less interesting), i'm pretty sure this space is going to be seriously on the back burner for a while. i guess i'll see if i can keep up with it, but i'm not making any promises.

maybe check back once a week, ok? i'll try my best to make it worth your while (with funny pictures, maybe). word, have an awesome holiday (i'm wearing a sexy dress), wish me luck with the book, and i'll see y'all on the other side (december? after finals? when i finally have something interesting to say? who knows?)!

nanowrimo, take five-ish

it's that magical time of year again, when my eyes are too big for my...talent, i guess. november equals national novel writing month, which for me usually equals grandiose ambitions followed by very little in the way of follow-through. the idea is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

i've been trying since my junior year of college, and the best i ever did was 10,000 (actually 9,874--huzzah for rounding!) and that was two years ago. last year, being back in school, i was quickly distracted by things like papers and other unimportant things (thanksgiving? whatever). but not this time! no sir, i have a secret weapon this year, and it's called: cheating.

that's right. this summer, i started writing a story and got about half of a notebook into it before school started again and robbed me of my mojo/free time/will to live. so, since i still have all that other junk to do this november (trip to see cecilia, turkeyday, homework, real work, trivia night, etc.), i've decided that it's not really unethical to use a story i've already started. since i have to type it anyway, it's practically like writing it (take that, ethics!). anyway, shut up, it's my story and my month!

p.s. write your own novel! go to the website and check it out. the more the merrier!

sweet jesus in a smoking birchbark canoe!

this is just reprehensible.

i personally think celebrities getting mixed up with politics is all kinds of messed up. voters in this country are easily confused as it is, they don't need goddamn sean penn fighting crocodiles in the flooded streets of new orleans to distract them from the fact that their senator is a raving dingbat.

but michael j. fox isn't tying himself to a bridge to legalize pot, he's fighting for his life (or at least his mobility) against a terrible disease and if rush doesn't like it maybe he should cure fucking parkinson's. if he's not too busy popping viagra and dragging down the collective iq of the entire country, i mean.

man, i hope mccaskill wins and legalizes stem cell research and they cure parkinson's but the cure actually gives michael j. fox superpowers and he has to stop the evil rushzilla (he was mutated into a slobbering lizard-man by a heretofore undiscovered combination of cialis and johnnie walker green) by throwing him into the sun. twice. fucking lizards hate the sun.

so much for that whole 'indie god' thing

heard regina spektor on vmars tonight. found the song ("fidelity" i would link it, but there are laws. also, buy it, cheap-o!) on los internets. it is awesome, she is awesome (also, she's apparently some sort of twee pixie/wet dream on a piano), and while i am still pretty ok in most people's view, i've turned in my street cred and cursed the name of time warner-aol for a second time. all of the cool kids knew about her ages ago, and i am appropriately humbled. thank you veronica mars, for opening up my eyes (ears)!

master of mixology

no, not booze for once (though i'm pretty unstoppable with that too; see: green crush). music actually. to me, crafting mixtapes (or ipod playlists, if you're into that whole thing) is like the fine art of collage. or scrapbooking. or fanfiction. it's all about rearranging other people's hard work into kick-ass arrangements that say something about you, not those sell-outs who actually produced the stuff.

i like to make mixes that fit my attitude towards my own life. one of the downsides of this approach is that they don't always stay relevant since, well, things change. still, if the mix really works, it should come together to form a solid, delicious whole that is more than the sum of its parts (not unlike jell-o), and the timeliness issue shouldn't be a problem. that being said, some songs really (really) don't age well, and it can be hard to figure out if "jenny was a friend of mine" is still going to be rock-tacular when i'm an adult (p.s. i'm not yet).

so, if you're like me (you're probably not) and you love a good cliche (you probably don't), then you think making a mix cd/playlist/tape for your significant whatever is good old fashioned fun (and you probably already left my blog). for reals though: it's mostly personal, it takes a not-insignificant amount of time, and it can--if done properly--give her important relationship information. what info you provide, however, depends on the mix. you can tell her about yourself, your influences and tastes, what you're listening to at the moment, or what songs you want to have sex to the next time she's in town. on the other hand, you can show her that you've been paying attention every time she says she loves a song (to really step it up, find other songs by the same band, or similar bands. but oh man, stay away from covers), or that you remember what songs she played during sex the last time. or you can do themes. they're kind of cheesy, but as in most things, the line between romance and cheese is a very fine one. and it takes practice to stay on the right side of it.

caveat mixtor: you can very easily ruin a song you love by putting in a mix for a girl who dumps your cheesy ass. especially if you really dug her. shit, music is wicked evocative, that's the whole point of it, and when you go and associate it with some painful happenings, kiss it goodbye. for a while anyway. what's the getting-over-a-breakup rule? half the length of the relationship? yeah, that sounds good. don't listen to tainted music until half the length of the relationship has passed since the breakup. got it?

p.s. mixes are fun for other things too, like working out ("rump shaker," etc.) and parties ("rump shaker," etc.) and getting blazed ("the ocean," etc.)! haha, yeah right, loser. they're also awesome for a night alone with a bottle of makers' mark and singing along/dancing on the bed. not that i would know. my only playlists are titled "kicking ass" and "making it with chicks".

finally, some fucking validation

"Too cool for school: You are a certifiable indie god. You know which bands are breaking up before the rest of us simpletons have to read about it in Filter or on Pitchfork."

this just in, cnn says i kick total ass, which i guess means that my indie cred has already been sacrificed to the gaping maw of time warner-aol. nuts. maybe they'll pay me if i use my indie superpowers (goofy hair! cool t-shirts! pointless knowledge!) for the benefit of mankind. sadly, when the troglodytes at cnn are telling you you're cool, it's time to burn your closet and donate your ipod to charity (doctors without borders, not tunes!). seriously, it's worse than when your mom says it. fucking miles o'brien.

why.i.hate.we

so, six weeks ago, i started a new job, full of hope and promise and unbridled enthusiasm (as i am most every day, natch) and an eagerness to explore new aspects of retail merchandising and customer service!

so much for that. they gave us the standard retail pep talk: "a different kind of retail," "people first," "blah blah blah, i'm a giant tool." it went over about as well as you would expect. every morning there was a call and response "good morning, giant tool!" that was supposed to get us ready to sell our guts out to the obnoxious morons who came into the store. this is the kind of utter nonsense that made me nostalgic for starbucks. at least there, we all knew that the higher-ups didn't give a shit about us, but we could be sure that our manager (who was often a friend on top of being a boss) cared at least a little. not so at we. i'm not going to talk shit about him (because i don't know him that well, and trash talk is reserved for close friends), but basically he's a fantastic salesman and a piss-poor manager.

i've never made claims to being good at much (just writing, loving, and kung fu), but i don't think there's any doubt that i'd be a better manager than the douche i've been dealing with (ignore that parenthetical in the last paragraph, please). he seems to have the hiring part down pretty well--almost everybody i met there was both cool and good at their jobs. but he has no idea how to manage an effective team. there are two sides to managing: the people side and the business side, and to be a good manager you have to do both. that's not a hard concept to grasp, but time after time, i run into managers who can push profits to the limits but can't run their staffs to save their stupid miserable lives.

i know what you're thinking "dan, you're probably just a huge pain in the ass and managers don't want to deal with your bullshit!" and i'd be lying if i said i didn't think so too. but it can't be that simple, because other people say the same things about the same people (just with less profanity).

anyway, i'm quitting and going back to the bucks. at least i can afford to buy the things i sell there.

slight site changes, insights to excite!

blogger's new layout gizmo is giving me issues, so i'm calling it a night. no more 'what hits' bar, as i got the feeling it only mattered to me and was a pain in the ass to update (there was typing involved, gah). trying to give you guys a new picture to swoon over (it shows off my eyes!) and a new blogroll. the labels are awesome, and i'm having a blast with 'em. in case you couldn't tell.

by the by, did anybody hear about that nutbar down in georgia? yeah, she wants to ban harry potter books because they're too witchy! i know! the nerve of some people. not only are witches smoking hot (sabrina, samantha, tara, willow, blair witch, hermione), but they teach kids to read before they eat them. sometimes. also a few of those witches i mentioned saved the world! what have you done lately, nutbar?

oh, right, you made sure your library didn't have any spanish-language fiction so the immigrants wouldn't come in there and make it smelly and mexican. fantastic job. really, way to fucking go. i almost wish witches were real so they could eat your children and keep them from spreading your lunacy to more innocent people!

first of all, many immigrants (legal or not) are not spanish speakers at all. they're from other parts of the world that probably scare nutbar just as badly. secondly, a fair amount of illegal immigrants (the scarier kind) are fucking illiterate! and i bet they're still smarter than you! sweet fucking christ, lady. i can't decide whether to tear my hair out or curl up in a ball and weep.

p.s. the harry potter series are the most banned books of all time. as banned books week was last week, we can safely assume that nutbar is ignorant about pretty much everything yet was blessed with a deliciously ironic sense of timing.

bad blogger! do more blogging!

as someone once said: "not blogging is the new blogging." unfortunately, they said it in a blog, thus condemning the comment to a terrifying vortex of irony and cynicism that can only end in the utter destruction of the interwebs. it was nice knowing...well, joe, i guess, since i'm pretty sure nobody else reads this thing.

and if they did, my deafening silence probably dissuaded them in no time flat. in the interests of proving to...well, joe, i guess, that his time here is well spent, here are some links.

why i'm terrified
why i'm depressed (because it will probably work)
why i'm ecstatic
why i'm laughing
why i'm saving my money

there, now go do something productive.

finally

some good news about the space elevator!

dogs think i'm awesome

i was riding home after work. it was a beautiful evening in boston, cool and windy; the whole city smelled like the ocean. i like riding at night, as long as i have my lights on so i don't have to fear for my life around the worst drivers in america. on a night like tonight, i just feel bad for the poor suckers in their cars. with good music on the 'pod and the wind in my face, it's the only way to get around.

anyway, i was about halfway over the charles, with all of cambridge spread about in front of me, and a car pulls up alongside me. we're going exactly the same speed, and i find myself face to face with a big brown dog who has his head stuck out the window about 2 feet away. he's got a big dog grin on his big dog face and he looks at me and i look at him. yeah, i think we shared a moment, i'm not ashamed to admit it. he knew what was up.

last weekend, completely randomly, we ended up in the nyc dog fair in madison sq. park. they had a booth for just about every breed and there were maybe 200 people and 400 dogs of all sizes roaming around the park. it was pretty damn awesome. i'm not sure what brought on this whole pet love-in, maybe the long distance relationship thing is making me lonely, but someday pretty soon (when i sell my first novel, duh) i'm gonna get a dog. i grew up with cats, and my sister has cats, and my roommate has cats, but good goddamn, am i ever sick of cats. can you picture what a cat fair would be like? crazy people and snobby cats looking at each other across the park. plus hairballs everywhere. fucking cats.

my semi-annual* report on election results

yes, the nights are getting cooler and the leaves are starting to change colors. pumpkins and squash are everywhere you look. as of today, it's officially my favorite season! and politicians across this great nation are amping up the rhetoric, making outlandish claims of competence and professionalism, and calling each other dirty words (hack! ideologue! liberal!) in an effort to transform themselves into the lesser of two/three/six evils.

sadly, even i get a little cynical about elections these days. especially primaries. i tried to vote on tuesday, to make sure my boy deval got the nomination for governor. the emphasis there was on tried, by the way. i went back to my old address in somerville to vote--technically illegal, as i'm a resident of cambridge now, but whatever--only to find out that the somerville elections people had me listed as an inactive voter at my prior address (which was also in somerville, but in another ward). so i asked the nice staff lady if i could just go over there and vote. she said that because i was inactive, in order to vote, i had to sign an affadavit saying that i was who i said i was and that i lived where they said i lived. wouldn't that be (even more) illegal (than what i'm doing now)? i asked. yes, she answered, way more fucking illegal. and the penalty for perjuring myself in such a way is like jail time and possible sexual trespassing. now, i'm pretty sure i can take fisty mcrapesalot in a fight, as i routinely kick the crap out of shaolin monks possessed by demons with my kung fu on the way to work. nevertheless, i didn't want to bike across town because i had homework to do and i wanted a muffin pretty badly. i'll just make sure to reregister for the general, i told her with a steely glint in my eye. i think she got the message.

anyway, voting is harder than it should be. and that's not even counting having to fight my way through the horde of republicans keeping good democrats like me away from the polls. if i didn't have the ninja skills to blend into the shadows they might have stopped me with their burning effigies and 'liberalism killed jesus' signs.

and speaking of republicans being batshit crazy...

the reactionary, torture-loving house passed a new--and wicked unconstitutional--law saying that people will need to present valid photo ids in order to vote in 08. this is to cut down on voter fraud, so that people can't claim to be other people when they vote. this is a stupid law because nobody even does that shit, and if they did, simply having to show id probably wouldn't stop them, just like it hasn't stopped billions of college kids from buying beer despite being 18. also, it's to stop illegal aliens from enacting their master plan of voting in politicians who will approve their communist amnesty idea and make them legal. this is also stupid, as most illegal aliens are goddamned terrified of being found out and that plan i just made up might as well have been drafted by pixies riding on a unicorn. it's pure fantasy, baby.

no, what this stupid law is all about is making sure that the poor and elderly--who are less likely to own cars and thus driver's licenses, and are mostly democratic voters, coincidentally--have a harder time voting. by the way, it's also unconstitutional. and stupid.


* whenever i the hell feel like it

a long-ass time

it's good to be back, albeit temporarily. the local cable internets monopoly has me by the short and curlies and i'll be sans connecion until next monday. well, free internet is what i'm paying school for, i suppose. that, and the privilege of getting gouged for textbooks. what a racket.

today is september 11, which means two things to me. first, happy 30th anniversary mom and dad! second, it's been five years since that day, and i'm sure everybody in america is dreading the onslaught of evocation that anniversaries ending in '5' seem to bring about. what's so damn special about half a decade? are thoughts of the world trade center and the pentagon more poignant in 2006 than they were in 2005? highly dubious. no, the cynic in me says that five years is just long enough to pretend we won't reduce the earth-shattering events of that day to petty attempts at making money. sorry united 93, world trade center, and the flight that fought back, you guys almost made it. instead you could only wait four and a half years. that's just crass.

over the summer, i took a tour of the pentagon and the highlight, by far--not counting the ground zero hot dog stand*--was their memorial for 9/11. built into the section that was actually hit by flight 77, it houses a memorial with inscriptions of the names of everybody killed in the impact, including the names of the terrorists. that fact jarred me when i first heard it, and not only because it seemed out of character for a bush-led administration. it jarred me because i found humanization when i expected villification. i say this not as an excuse for the actions of the terrorists, but as a reminder of the fact that they are human and shouldn't be demonized. it's too easy to say they're just fucking evil and leave it at that. and while i find jihadic eradication of the west to be goddamned terrifying, i think that righteous eradication of the east is just as hideously stupid of an idea.

i went back and read the blog entry i wrote for september 13th, 2001. (i had a blog back then, and it was just as much of a self-indulgent screed as this one is. some things never change) besides the obnoxious $.25 vocab words--"zeitgeist"!--and tragicomic poetry--"gaping whole"--i think i made a good point about community. i've never really felt like a part of community simply because of where i live, and i think that's a distinctly american feeling. instead, the times i've felt most like a member of a community is when i'm with my friends--a community i helped to bring together and in which i play an important part. i don't know if that kind of feeling is possible in wider american society. the ability to cross social barriers like class, race, and ideology--which should have been stronger after 9/11!--seems to have left us completely. on the other hand, maybe i just isolate myself with semi-rich white urbanites possessed of an ironical worldview because i'm a big sissy mary on the inside. in any case, here's my old post, if you're interested.

i'll talk about school, west elm, moving, the wedding, and maybe football, politics, and how much i hate marmaduke in a little bit.

please stand by

temporary hiatus due to lots of things. will resume after labor day-ish. ta-ta for now.

heading for the hills

off to the lake house (somebody else's of course, i don't even have a non-lake house) for saturday to do some navel-gazing/writing/drinking and watch mike compete at something or other. for whatever reason, the stress of earlier in the week has faded with my head cold, and even though i still have nowhere to live and a relatively meager job, i'm in high spirits.

and it's about goddamn time, too. i hate being stressed and i deal with it pretty badly. i get really pissed off at nothing and easily frustrated and bored. it's awful and all it really takes to snap me out of it is nice weather, a little mental distance, and maybe a drink or two. the trouble is that i sometimes have difficulties recognizing when the stress is getting to me. luckily, i have a pretty good monitoring system in the form of cecilia. she's perfected the ability of telling me to grow up and get over myself.

anyway, this little working vacation of mine will be over soon enough. i've been staying away from newspapers, political blogs, and pretty much anything newsworthy (not counting the colbert report, of course) all week and it feels just fine. when school starts, i'm sure i'll be ranting and raving like old times, but in the meanwhile it's a more contemplative dan, a mellow dan. fuck, i wish i had some drugs.

hi-ho, hi-ho

yesterday, i earned money for the first time since mid-may. i went to a new hire orientation for a certain fancy furniture concern that will soon open its doors in boston. i was conflicted about this job before i said yes. on the one hand, i'm not sure i want to work in retail anymore, the pay is less than slinging latte, and it's a much longer commute. but on the other hand, i won't stink of old milk, it's a new environment with new people, there's the possibility of making commissions, and a whopping discount on pretentious urban furniture. like most jobs, it's a mixed bag.

retail continues to hold sway over my life, but i'm just grateful it's not foodservice (sorry, dad). i like the idea of walking 5 miles during a shift instead of sitting at a desk and seeing how long it takes for my ass to assume the shape of my chair. i like meeting people (some of the time) and being able to talk to them--it's like acting class all over again. it's not fulfilling work, but i don't need it to be. i fulfill myself in my spare time by writing. i just want a way to pay the bills that won't fill me with black despair (or leave me reeking of dairy). and retail fits the bill. if only it fucking paid more, i'd be the happiest boy in town.



p.s. i rode on a scooter for the first time and it was awesome. the only other time i've gone that fast without a seatbelt is on a ski slope. and that time i got a concussion. scooters are sweet.

homecoming, indeed

i'm back in boston for 24 hours and i'm already sick. also, i have no job and nowhere to live as of september first. this sucks.

snootchie-bootchies

once in a great while--not nearly as often as i'd like--i just want to get blazed out of my mind. i haven't smoked weed in a while now, but i've been watching weeds on dvd for about 3 hours now, and i think it's actually killing me. the jonesing, that is. the show is fucking great. season 2 starts on monday, but i'll be sadly out of premium television range at that point (and possibly out on the street--welfare state, my ass, massachusetts). i don't have a dealer anyway, so even if i had cash, all i could do is stare at it and pray for a miracle. good thing chris died for my sins.

a blogger is joe

check him out, ya'll. except for the festering conservatism and an exceptional talent for bloviating, he's a stand-up kind of guy and i wish him the best. and if you don't agree with him, tell him so, he loves a good debate. just don't take it personally when he impugns your ancestors and starts hurling ritual quebecois hexes at you.

when the planets align

thoughts on social networking

i guess i'm part of the facebook generation, as these things are understood. i'm probably on the cusp of being too old for it actually, and if not for a youthful girlfriend, i likely wouldn't have bothered. that being said, i'm kind of a sucker for this stuff. if i was anywhere close to single, i could have a lot of fun with match.com and its loneliness-defeating ilk. as it stands, i guess i'm more of a voyeur(/exhibitionist?), using various networks (i'm on friendster and myspace too, i'm pretty sure) to check in on far-away friends and find out what those losers from high school are up to.

i'm not one of those addicts you hear about who posts new pictures every day or exhaustively comments on everybody's walls. for seriously, who has the time? i'm getting pretty tired just writing this shit. and i have better things to do, like finding a home and a paycheck.

oh yeah, and myspace, for christ's sake get over yourself. as much as i (may or may not) like you, i probably don't want to hear your band unless somebody i trust can vouch for it. my listening time is too damn valuable to me (i use it to listen to stuff i already like, ok? sue me, i'm human). myspace band pages are like blogs. if i read one i like, and they recommend somebody else's, i'll check it out and decide for myself. but if you just start asking me to be your friend and check out your "awesome band" i'm probably going to report you by saying you solicited me for underage sex. yes, it's vindictive, but at least you'll get to be on dateline! think of the exposure!

rupert murdoch probably doesn't like you anyway.

the great thing about these social networks is that they're not really social at all. i can completely ignore virtually every one of my "friends" if i want to. if i did it in real life, then i would be forced to drink alone (more than i already do) but in the vast uncharted internets, i can pretend to be too busy with meetings and power lunches to care about what your summer plans are, weird girl who i met sophomore year! i just wish there was some way to combine all three of my profiles into one place so i wouldn't have to check multiple sites just to cyberstalk people. what a hassle!