January 14th, 2003. Tuesday
On Friday, I spent the majority of my time at work removing hyphens from hundreds of pages of documents. The text was pasted from a three-column PDF file, and since we don't have the full version of Adobe Acrobat, the hyphens couldn't be taken out automatically. So that was my job. I was here for nine hours. Taking out hyphens. I'm going to start using all my vacation days soon, because there's no way I'm going to need them at the end of the year. There's no way I can stay here that long.I barely left the house on weekend, and it was grand. On Saturday, I watched many hours of football. Jen, Jed, and Dylan came over for the games. Chips were eaten, beers were had, tacos were made. Mmmmm...tacos. Dylans girlfriend came over in time for the start of the Eagles/Falcons game. There are several commercials running during NFL programming right now that are conversation worthy. The most terrible of these is the current ad campaign for a new beer, Michelob Ultra. It's a low-calorie beer that for some reason is being marketed as a sports drink or something. It says something like "Lose the carbs, not the taste." Fine. A lite beer. But then it has people mountain biking, kayaking, diving, and all sorts of other sports, extreme or otherwise, in black and whit action shots, then cuts to icing, color images of the beer bottle. Dylan's reaction was "This is actually insulting!" I also find it absolutely befuddling. I assume that they're trying to show that, if you like beer, but you also enjoy excercise and the outdoors, then this beer is clearly for you. It has very few carbs, so you won't feel the same effects later on that other beers might give you. Fine. But I think to ask the average viewer to make that association while watching the constant beer/extreme sports overlaps is a bit of wishful thinking. Or just stupidity.
Anyway, I managed to injure myself and fuck up my apt. at the same time this weekend. Friday night, as I was getting into bed, I decided to be super-suave and flung my shirt over my head when I took it off. Just a plain, white, light t-shirt. So the thing flies toward the ceiling, and the glass dome over the light bulb comes crashing down, hitting me in the ankle before shattering into a million pieces on the floor. So there's glass on the floor, glass on the bed, and glass in my foot. I thought about just going to bed and dealing with it later, but I was sure I'd forget and step right into it in the morning. That is, if I could sleep with the shards of glass in the bed anyway. So there I was, in my underpants and my black leather shoes, on the floor with a paper bag and my Dirt Devil Scorpion, cleaning up the broken glass. And the ankle is still sore. And I didn't do a really thorough job, so I keep stepping on the glass dust. So just as the swelling of my skull, from the New Year's injury, has subsided, i've got a nagging ankel injury. Swell.
Met up with my former neighbor Rachel for dinner yesterday. Didn't mean on having dinner, but ended up at this Italian restuarant on Carmine st. Not a bad place. Decent salad, glass of wine, etc. Some foreign waiter, a nice and pleasant fellow, was telling us on our way out about the live music they have during the week, which was mostly jazz, blues, and "green-grass." That was kind of amusing. Anyway, I'm really glad I never ended up in Rachel's band, because I almost surely would have been kicked out by now, or maybe even quit on my own. One of the band people wants to hire a new singer or new musicians to play for them, which is totally ludicrous. The whole point to having a band is to sing and play instruments. And she keeps giving Rachel copies of Billboard, so they can study current musical trends. Which is a total crock of shit. I don't know why they're even in the same band. It sounds like she just wants to be a famous, successful rock star. And it sounds a lot like the band is a lot more work than fun. Or no fun at all. I like Rachel's songs a lot, and her singing, and it's a shame that it's all bogged down in this nonsense. That said, I'm hoping to get our little side project going a bit. Ms. Charming Melodee and I played guitar together for the first time last weekend as well. It's odd that we hadn't really played together before then, since we spend so much time together. I was kind of glad that we hadn't though. It was something to look forward to. I often forget that she plays the guitar, or that she paints and draws. I like her plenty already, and everything else is just a bonus at this point. Anyway, the guitar playing meshed pretty well, and a little recording was done. Nothing spectacular, but fun, and maybe even a bit promising.
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