raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice

I got the movie Once in the mail today from Netflix and I watched it earlier tonight. I had heard from a few people that it is a really good movie, and I bought the soundtrack after hearing the song "Falling Slowly" on the Oscars this year. I had put the soundtrack on rotation on my iPod, but had never really paid much attention to the other songs except "Falling Slowly." At first, the jumpy camera work bothered me, but as I acclimated myself to it, I found myself completely sucked into the simple story. The original clip I was going to embed here revealed a bit from the end of the movie, and for those of you who read this who have not seen the movie, I don't want to ruin the ending. You must see this movie! I found myself bursting into tears at the end, which I did not expect. I can't wait to discover more of Glen Hansard's songs. I'm also going to watch this a few more times tomorrow. I wonder if I'll be able to listen to this song again without crying. (I'm tearing up now listening to it again!)

you take the good and bad and make the best of it

"Buildings and Mountains" - The Republic Tigers (free song on iTunes this week)

Last year I was out of work for nearly two months (on two separate instances) due to a flare-up of an inflamed disc in my back. I still have issues with my back, but I don't require vicodin to deal with it anymore. Grimacing a lot and moving slower than your average person seem to suit me just fine. There is no "cure" for an inflamed disc. If anything, I mostly need to just lose weight, and that should ease the pressure on my spine. I'm working on it, but it's slow going.

When I was out of work, doped up, I watched a lot of daytime television: The View, Regis and Kelly, Dr. Phil, Oprah...I was quite the daytime TV junkie. Dr. Phil's show, in particular, held a curious fascination for me. It was like Jerry Springer without the audience participation or foul language. I can't blame the drugs since I find myself still drawn to his show on the rare occasion that I am home during the week. Today, I took the day off and, of course, I watched Dr. Phil. He was pimping his new book and talking to these young women who had their parents get a divorce unexpectedly after 20-some odd years of marriage. His whole point (of what I watched) was that sometimes your heart gets broken, and you will be in shock, and you will be frightened by sudden changes in your life, and no matter how much you think your life is perfect, bad things will happen to you. That was his "help" to these women. It was just inane. A random stranger on the street could have told these people this. And there are thousands who will spend good money on a book filled with these "observations." GOD HELP US.

I procrastinated buying my train tickets for Chicago. Unfortunately, all the seats on the trip down there are already sold out. FABULOUS. Luckily, I could get a sleeping car. It's costing me an extra $225, but at least I'll have a "room" all to myself on the way down. This is reminding me of my trip to and from Barcelona when I was in Europe 10 years ago, except in reverse. Cheap seats on the way down, expensive sleeping car on the way back for that trip. I don't dare tell my parents because they will go balistic on me for not booking my tickets 3 weeks ago. I have no idea why I put it off, I just never got around to it. It turns out my friend Kristy can't make it up to Chicago on the weekend, so I'm just going to come home Friday afternoon. I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be great!

A friend of mine wrote a blog on her Myspace page that she was feeling rejected because she realized someone had deleted her from their friends list. After reading that, I logged into my
Facebook account and realized that someone there had deleted me. A girl I went to high school with who I couldn't remember from Adam, but when she saw my name on a mutual classmate's friend list, she decided to friend me. I added her to my list after I asked her who the heck she was (I threw my high school yearbooks away 3 years ago when I moved out of my parent's house). Now she's deleted me. I wonder why. I'm half tempted to delete all the people from high school anyway as I never talk with any of them through facebook anyway. I've sent a few messages and gotten virtually no response. Why the hell even friend me in that case? Social networking sites are so stupid, yet so addictive.

I can't even write about John McCain and Sarah Palin. I can't believe the numbers of people who think that either one of them would make a good leader. Another thing about having the day off means that I had time to catch up on a lot that I don't have time to read normally. There's just so much out there, every day there's more and more reason to fear another four years of Republicans in the White House, I just can't even put it into words.

flirge

Watching SNL, heard the term "FLIRGE" from Amy Poehler playing Hillary Clinton and I thought it was so funny, I just had to share: First Lady I'd Rather Get Elected. Even though I am a total Obama supporter, and have been from the beginning, I thought the term was pretty cute.

you're here, there's nothing i fear

I stayed up really late last night, watching Craig Ferguson because one of my favorite British comics, Russell Brand, was on his show. The CBS affiliate here repeats Oprah after Craig Ferguson, and I was about to go to bed when I saw/heard HER. She is amazing and made me actually kind of like the song "My Heart Will Go On" again. It's odd because my favorite blog, Jezebel, happened to have a feature on the little girl with amazing voice on Oprah today. I hardly ever watch Oprah, and Jezebel very rarely mentions her, but the fact that they mention her the day after I happen to watch it is kind of neat. Listen to her sing and tell me you don't get chills, even if you can't stand the song!

I'm currently watching hour 500 of the Red Sox/Rays game. It's the fourteenth inning and the Rays just scored 3 runs to break the tie. We still have a chance to win, but it may finally be over in the next 20 minutes, which is a relief. Nearly 5 hours for a baseball game is insanity.

it's not a slow dance, this modern romance

"Into the Dark" - Ben Lee

I have no words to describe my disgust with Sarah Palin as the McCain's choice for VP. I am so disappointed in McCain's complete reversal from the Republican "maverick" that he was eight years ago to the cowed, party-line man he has turned into, all in pursuit of the Presidency. How any human being can condone torture just boggles my mind, but especially someone who endured it for nearly six years, how does he sleep at night?

Last night I broke down and finally shut my windows. It was so nice to not have to run the air conditioner throughout most of August, but last night it just got too cold to even have two windows in my dining room open. I had trouble getting to sleep because I was so cold, I was hunting up extra layers to put on to retain some of my body heat. This morning, I woke up to 40 degree temperatures. I did not want to get out of bed. This weather this year has been insane. A little more than three months ago, on the day after Memorial Day, it was 37 when I woke up. Today it was 40. Where the hell did summer go? On the other hand, this should make my gas and electricity bills a lot more tolerable (at least for a little while). If the temperatures remain above 40, I won't have to turn on the furnace yet. And I am all about saving the money this year.

In anticipation of my trip to Chicago, I listened to Bring it On straight through for the first time in several months on Thursday night. It was kind of weird to listen to. I'm so used to live extended versions of many of those songs that the original album songs seemed almost foreign to me. I was listening to it in the car. I drove my dad downtown Thursday night as he was working at the convention to tear down the stage after McCain's speech. There were so many barriers and blocked off streets, it took me nearly half the album to get out of downtown. Every usual route I use to get out of downtown was blocked. I also saw hundreds of police officers in riot gear walking around the streets. It was surreal. I think the show of force at the convention was way over the top. I find it interesting how willing people are, in the last eight years, to give up so many personal freedoms in the name of "Homeland Security." Just the word "Homeland" irks me. It reminds me of Nazi Germany and the "Fatherland."

On a pleasanter note, I got my ticket in the mail yesterday, now I need to just purchase my train tickets and I'll be set for the Gomez concert!

As an experiment, I watched a little football over the weekend. The guys at work are all huge football fans (in addition to baseball), and I agreed to give it a try (in exchange for one guy listening to some Gomez music). Monday night was the season opener for the Vikings and the Packers (rivals a la the Red Sox and Yankees). After the Red Sox game, I tuned into the football game. It was very tough figuring out what the hell was going on. At least with baseball, I had once (many many moons ago) played the game so I had a general idea of most of the rules. With football, the extent of my knowledge is limited to how many points a touchdown and field goal are worth. You can imagine the confusion watching Monday Night Football was for me, a total newbie. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's something I could see myself getting into (but not nearly like baseball). The advantage that football has over baseball is just that there's fewer games so it takes up less of your time, relatively. I've watched all but about five Red Sox games this year, and while I enjoy them immensely, it does take up a lot of time. Thank god I'm not into more than one team!

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!

I watched a movie this morning that I had taped yesterday on Showtime. It's called "Copying Beethoven" and stars Ed Harris as Beethoven and Diane Kruger as his copyist Anna Holtz. The scene I embedded above is part of the performance of the 9th symphony and it was one of the most moving scenes on film I have seen in awhile. I got CHILLS watching this. To explain the scene a bit: Anna is in the orchestra conducting for Beethoven because he cannot hear. It is amazing, the entire scene, and I highly recommend you see the whole movie, if given a chance. Ed Harris is electrifying as Beethoven.

Where the chorus comes in and sings the "Ode to Joy" part of the symphony reminded me of how thrilling it was to be part of a choir. When I was in high school, I sang in choir (soprano) and I remember that feeling when voices come together singing some multi-part harmony. There are no words to describe that joy you get being part of a large group singing a song together, the chills that go up your spine as the voices crescendo together. I miss that feeling.

The original plan this week was that I would watch the dogs for two days and I would have the rest of the week to myself. It didn't work that way. I ended up having the dogs every day this week except today. This means that I didn't get a damn thing done. The dogs aren't often at my house, so every time I turned around, they were marking their territory all over my house. This is annoying and smelly. It also means my closets remain unorganized. Maybe I'll get this done during time off I'm taking around Christmas.

Tomorrow is my birthday, I'm turning 31. I'm not doing anything special. Just going to work, coming home, watching the Red Sox game. If I'm lucky, I'll have a good day at work: nice customers who just want to pay their bills and get off the phone. Not much more I can ask for, I guess. I didn't have much of a "birthday party" with my family. Only saw my parents. My older brother spent the day with his family, my younger brother didn't even come upstairs while I was over at my parent's house tonight. My mom made an apple pie. I'm not one for huge celebrations, but it would have been nice to have a small get-together with my immediate family. Oh well. Story of my life, I guess.

I'm watching the show True Blood which premiered on HBO tonight. The southern accents are complete crap, but the show looks kind of interesting.

live from beautiful downtown st. paul

ok, not really, I've been home for a while now....

Today was like a dream day - utterly bizarre and surreal. My alarm went off at 6 am. I was having a really odd dream when it went off and I dreamt the numbers were a strange Japanese symbol instead of the normal numerals. Instead of just hitting snooze, I turned off my alarm.

An hour later, my phone rang. It was my mom calling to tell me she was on her way over to pick me up to take me downtown. So I basically ran around like a chicken with my head cut off to get ready for work. I had intended to watch some of the news this morning before going to work. I didn't watch any of the RNC Monday night and I had no idea even what had happened locally in regards to the convention.

I ended up downtown around 7:25. I wasn't scheduled to start until 8:30. There were lots of my fellow employees downtown, but not a protester or Republican in sight. It seemed like a normal Tuesday except for the streets around the building I work in being closed off, the fencing along all of the streets and the cops on ever corner. I read the newspaper while I waited to start work. It's amazing to me that the protests are happening here. It just doesn't seem like the sort of thing that Minnesotans would do. I don't like hearing about people taunting and attacking police officers, breaking windows and slashing car tires. I just can't imagine how people can justify ruining other people's property. I mean, I am very much anti-war and want the troops to come home, I just don't think breaking a department store's window or throwing a urine bomb at a cop is the best solution to this problem.

Work was alternately insanely busy or terribly slow. I had mandatory overtime so I was stuck at work until 7. But fortunately, the traffic problems were pretty much non-existent so I was home by 7:40, even after being picked up at 7:20, which was nice. The evening's massive riot happened starting at 6 pm and was completely cleared up by the time I got off work.

A friend of mine called and said she had seen on the news where they had pepper sprayed some people who were just walking down the street, and a few journalists covering the protests have been arrested as well. I suppose it wouldn't be an RNC without some illegal arrests.

The Daily Show is broadcasting from St. Paul, which is awesome. It's the best part of the convention being here, imho. I wish I could have gotten tickets. I wonder if they know that the building across the street from where they're broadcasting from is now owned by the Church of Scientology.

i should at least TRY to go to bed early, but i never do

It's been a few days since I've posted, but I haven't had much to say. I've been a bit self-occupied of late. That and vegetating in front of the TV have been my past times this entire weekend. Thankfully, I have tomorrow off so maybe I'll get something done.

My older brother took a job working as an usher at the Republican Convention and according to him and my sister-in-law traffic downtown is already just horrendous to deal with, and the convention doesn't officially start until tomorrow. Great. I only have to work one day next week (Tuesday) but I am not looking forward to that. Because it is a day after a holiday, we have overtime scheduled but due to the traffic issues, I will be leaving my home about an hour ahead of when I normally would be. I have a feeling that the Republicans will be still hungover and so traffic will not be an issue whatsoever in the morning. This will mean that I will be at work probably more than an hour ahead of time - probably 7:30 or earlier and I don't have to start until 8:30. Leaving work, however, will probably be a completely different situation. I work until 7, but I doubt I'll be out of downtown until 7:30 or 8 at the earliest. So, this means that I will be away from home a minimum of 13 hours on Tuesday. CHRIST.

Why the hell couldn't they have held the convention in Minneapolis? Or why couldn't my company have just shut down for the week? This is ridiculous.

Thankfully, Bush and Cheney won't be in town at all. It's bad enough to be surrounded by Republicans, I don't really feel like knowing evil incarnate is staying at the hotel right next to my workplace. Makes me wish I had some Obama gear to wear. On the other hand, I don't know how understanding work would be if I got arrested on my way into work. I might just get arrested anyway, no matter what I'm wearing. You know, for breathing or something. They've already raided meeting places for several groups who have made plans to protest the convention.

I just finished the third of four books in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. No, they're not great literature, but they are pretty good pop fiction. Once I really get into one of the books, it's hard to put down. I'm borrowing the books from a girl I work with, but I'm going to have to wait a bit for the fourth book as she's promised them to a few people before me first. An interesting bit of trivia: the author specifically thanks Gomez for their music at the end of the third book for helping to inspire her writing.

The next book on my list of books to tackle is Vanity Fair. I've seen the movie with Reece Witherspoon, so I faintly remember what happens in the story. Of course, the 700+ page book is going to go into more detail than the 2 1/2-hour movie. I almost always prefer the book to the movie, I've just always been that way.

My mom has the entire week off of work and she is planning to paint her living and dining room. This is good news for me because she's so occupied with her stuff that I'm being left alone. The downside to this is that I'm less motivated to do ANYTHING. My grand plan for this week (after Tuesday) is that I'm going to clean out all of my closets and get rid of 75% of the crap I've been holding onto for no good reason.

Wish me luck. :)

timeline - a myspace survey

15 years ago today: August 28, 1993

1) How old were you? 15

2) Where did you go to school? Harrison County High School

3) Where did you work? didn't yet

4) Where did you live? Cynthiana, Kentucky

5) Where did you hang out? home, school, wal-mart, the movie theater

6) Did you wear contacts? no

7) Who was your best friend(s)? kristy and krystal

8) How many tattoos did you have? none

9) How many piercings did you have? none

10) Did you drive a car? no

11) Had you been to a real party? if a real party is one with alcohol, then no

12) Had you had your heart broken? no

13) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorce? single

14) Any Kids? no

***10 years ago today: Aug 28, 1998

1) How old were you? 20

2) Where did you go to school? Centre College

3) Where did you work? Harrison Memorial Hospital

4) Where did you live? same house as when I was 15

5) Did you wear glasses? yes

6) Where did you hang out? during school year on campus, wal-mart, over summer just worked and slept

7) Who was your best friend(s)? kristy

8) How many tattoos did you have? zero

9) How many piercings? none

10) What car did you drive? a dodge dynasty

11) Had your heart broken? yes, twice

12) Were you Single/Taken? single

13) Any Kids? no

*****5 Years Ago: Aug 28, 2003

1) How old were you? 25

2) What did you do? worked at the phone company

3) Where did you live? Maplewood, MN with my parents

4) Did you wear glasses? yes

5) Who were your closest friends? kristy, Terena, Janie

6) Did you talk to your old friends? not as much as I should have

7) How many piercings did you have? none

8) How many tattoos? none

9) What kind of car did you have? pontiac bonneville (parent's car)

10) Had your heart broken? nothing since the first two mentioned above

11) Single/taken/married/divorced? single

12) Any Children? no

*****Today: Aug 28, 2008

1) How old are you? 30

2) What do you do? work at the phone company

3) Where do you live? my own house in St. Paul

4) Do you wear glasses? yes

5) Who are your closest friends? Kristy, Terena, Amber, Lisa, Ryn, Lizzie, Janie

6) Do you talk to your old friends? more than I have in the past

7) How many piercings do you have? none

8) How many tattoos? none

9) What kind of car do you have? same as before

10) Has your heart been broken? not recently

11) Single/taken/married/divorced? single

12) Any Children? no

get miles away

It's official. I am going to Chicago to see Gomez play October 2. I have purchased my ticket through Ticketmaster and publicly acknowledged my intention to go so unless I am dead or severely maimed in the next 30 odd days, I will be in the audience at the Vic Theater to see the most amazing band EVER play their first album in its entirety. There's quite a number of people from the Gomez forum who are all going to be there, and there's still a month before the show. I hope others will decide to come as well. I'm looking forward to meeting many of these people with whom I have spent countless hours over the past year.

Tonight I just realized that this likely means Gomez will open the show with the song "Get Miles" (the first track off of the album "Bring It On") which will be AMAZING. I know I will completely lose my shit when that song starts.

I'm feeling pretty excited about it, especially since I might meet up in Chicago with my best friend Kristy on Friday, the day after the show. We're going to talk details this weekend and it will be so nice to see her. We haven't seen each other in over three years. If she can't come, then maybe some friends from Centre will be convinced to come instead. If neither scenario works out, I'll probably come home Friday afternoon. If someone comes to meet me in Chicago, then I'll come home Saturday and have Sunday to recover. I have no idea how I will be able to get through the week leading up to the concert. I will be so freaked out the sooner the date of the trip comes! But in a good way.

I have to comment on the past two Red Sox games....they have been playing the Yankees and there's one more game to the series. The games have been very exciting, with some amazing plays from both teams. I think the umpires behind home plate have been a bit off on some of their calls (which show up on the replays they show on tv). I don't know if this is necessarily a bias, but the calls have mostly been off in favor of Boston. Despite being a die-hard Boston fan, I don't want my team to win on a technicality. I prefer the wins (and losses) to be fair and square.

I'm looking forward to the use of instant replay starting tomorrow. I wonder how it will change baseball. Tomorrow's game is a day game, which annoys me because I have to work. If I'm lucky and it's slow at work, I can probably follow the game online, much to the chagrin of the guys at work. I wish, for their sake, that I could get as excited about the Twins, but it's just NOT the same for me. I don't dislike the Twins, I don't want them to lose or anything. I just have no real desire to learn the names, study the stats, etc of the Twins players like I do the Red Sox players. Maybe as I immerse myself more into professional baseball (I've even watched SportsCenter last week once!), I'll get to know the other teams and their players more. Maybe I'll even watch two other teams play a game.

You never know, it could happen.

There's an amazing rain storm coming through the Twin Cities right now. Thunder and lightening crashing all around, rain pouring down. Perfect weather to stay in bed. I should probably get there now, seeing as how I don't get to stay in bed tomorrow morning.

I can't believe I'm going to be in the same ROOM (albeit a very large room) as Gomez in a little over a month!!!!!!!!