Props! Vol. 1

"Props!" is a new feature on this site that will basically consist of a short list of things that are cool, things that are awesome, things that are recommended, and things that rule. I, therefore, will be giving mad "props" to everything on the list. Perhaps there is a better title, even though I intend this one to be goofy, but I really can't think of anything. The true purpose of this and, if any, future posts is to generate some sort of discussion, because God knows writing out all my most intimate, personal thoughts sure as fuck isn't working, you heartless motherfucking bastards. Anyway, please enjoy.

1. Having your apartment windows open. Spring is the best season, and it officially starts when you open all of the windows in your apartment (if you have an actually house then our petty 'seasons' don't actually apply to you, lord fancypants) and feel the sweet 50 degree breeze coming in. Bonus points for keeping the windows open even as the temperature drops and you know it's far to cold but you can't bear to shut the windows because it's spring! Spring, finally, about time, it's already the end of March, what took so long?

2. David Gordon Green. Unlike the recent wave of wunderkind film directors (Jonze, Russell, Payne, W. and P.T. Anderson, who I all love), DGG isn't willing to give an inch to anyone, and isn't afraid to throw the script out the window. That explains why you maybe haven't heard of him, but it also explains why he's making the most unclassifiable and exciting movies of the current decade. Reading an interview of his, or, better yet, listening to his director commentaries makes me remember how amazing film can be.

3. Spoon's "A Series of Sneaks", 1998. I'm still not fully sure about the upcoming Spoon album, scheduled for May release, but this is one I keep coming back to time and time again. Songs are short and sweet and spare, little Revolver-esque bursts of guitar and verses that go: "M-M-My, M-M-My, M-M-My-M-Ma " and still sound like the most fantastic things you've ever heard. "30 Gallon Tank" singlehandedly made me appreciate the value of a good drummer, and the two major-label dissing bonus tracks are like icing on the cake. I have 800 songs on my iPod, and I've listened to this album at least once a week (for the past two years).

4. Hooded Sweatshirts. Or, 'hoodies,' if you will. Whether if it's a brisk spring day, or at a summer bonfire, or if you're kissing your eighth grade girlfriend for the first time, you can't go wrong with a hooded sweatshirt. Practical, comfortable, what more do you need?

5. 57th Street Books, Chicago. I know most of my international fanbase might be a bit offended by me recommending a bookstore in my own neighborhood, and for that I'm sorry. But this place is awesome. You walk in and think, "this looks interesting, it's small and quaint, and has a lot of rad books," but then you see a door towards the back. You walk through it and are in another room, with more awesome books. Repeat the process 5 times and you have a bookstore which is like a borders with only the best parts, plus parts too cool for a borders.

6. Enchiladas. They are surprisingly easy to make, and are delicious as well. Best served with a couple margaritas on the rocks.

7. Girls who dress hot when at the office. I'm not sure if this is a recent trend or what, but it sure makes the walk between the train and the office some of the best eight minutes of my day. Keep it up, ladeeez.

8. Drinking like a man. When I was 19, I'd drink: Malibu Rum, Peach Schnapps, Vodka, Orange Juice, Cranberry Juice, and a dash of grenadine all mixed together. Now: two fingers of bourbon, straight up. Remember, kids, Neat is Cool when it comes to booze.

9. Mr. Goodbar. As the black sheep of the Hershey's family, Mr. G often gets a bad rap. But it's just like a Hershey bar, except with peanuts. What's wrong with that? Just because it doesn't have the name recognition doesn't mean you have to complain when you get it in your halloween bag.

The good old days

When I was barely 21 I saw the movie High Fidelity starring John Cusack, which prompted me to immediately go out and buy the novel of the same name, written by Mr. Nick Hornby of England, and was pretty much like the movie except with some additional material and a change of setting from Chicago to London. I bought the book at Borders in Madison, WI, in the week after Memorial day, year 2000, while I was staying at my Aunt's house about a half hour outside of town. I was there because I spent most of the week in one of the Madison libraries, trying to turn an Incomplete in Comm Arts 250 into an A/B. So I would wake up and take a shower and eat breakfast (My Aunt always had the best bread, which of course made the best toast!) and drive the Buick owned by my parents into town, and go to the well-lit library and surf the web for 8 hours. I was also on crutches at the time. It was pretty uneventful, except for one day after 'working on my paper' that I met a female acquaintance for dinner, for which I wore cologne and gave her a mix tape (!) and earlier had toyed with the idea that I would sleep with her if I had the chance, but of course I didn't, but that's not the point. So then I went home to my parents' house for the rest of the summer, and didn't have a job, and went to knee rehab three days a week, and drank too much and then drove occasionally home from my friends' houses or certain bars, and was present at several bonfires, and swam on hot days in swimming pools, and heard "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem about 2394872 times, and tried pot and got arrested for it in the same night, and grew my hair the longest its ever been, and basically spent the entire summer getting into the passenger seats of friends' cars filled with complete excitement and hope, and my heart was like a hummingbird after a double expresso. Now, I know this is all nostalgia, and probably the first time that I ever have been so, but it just occurred to me what a great summer that was. I've had long periods of unemployment since, but never during the summer, and never with so many friends around to hang with, and never with such a sense of 'this is where it all happens' as then. Granted, it could have been better, I could've not gotten arrested or have actually come into physical contact with a girl who wasn't giving me a shot of alcohol, but it was the last summer that actually felt like 'summer,' as in summer-vacation, instead of 'when it's hot outside.'

So, this all began by writing about Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, which is a fantastic book that I read about 9 times, and seemed even better the last time I read it, when I was finally in a long-term relationship. Nick Hornby has also written a book called Songbook, published by the folks at McSweeney's, which is basically like the liner notes to a mixtape. I never read the book, but I think initial pressings came with a CD, and then you could listen to the songs and read an essay written about it. I think Badly Drawn Boy and The Replacements were on there, but I could be wrong about the latter. Anyway, the reason I was thinking of that is that just now I was sitting at my laptop and listening to my stupid yahoo radio station for the first time in a month and "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground came on, and while that song has really nothing to do with any of the events listened above (I had that record as a college freshman) I hadn't heard it in at least a few months, and when I heard those first few guitar notes I immediately was filled with such a sense of 'Oh this song is great, it feels like a warm blanket,' that I started thinking about the effect songs can have on people, and somehow that translated into all of the nonsense written above. You should know that while I was writing this, I also heard Pavement's "Unfair," the Pixies "Gigantic," "Fluke" by Mates of State, and "People" by the Silver Jews, whose 1998 album American Water was the best released in that particular year.

Live Look-In

Last weekend, thursday through sunday, was the greatest sports weekend of the entire year. I heart March Madness, and, despite ruining chance at winning any office pools (damn you wake and oklahoma!), watching college basketball was the highlight of my week. Work on Thursday and Friday afternoons was badly handicapped by me checking the realtime scores and stats on the web. (Also, Friday afternoon was made more non-productive by the all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet I went to for lunch. Note to everyone: All you can eat Indian food is not simply a meal, it is an excuse for doing nothing for the next 12 hours.) However, despite all the sqeaky sneaker bliss in the air, where did I find myself on Saturday afternoon?

At IKEA, of course. Sure, UW-Milwaukee was becoming the darlings of the media, with their second upset in as many games, but I didn't get to see it, because I was helping decide if we should get a new duvet cover (we did). What? Utah beat Oklahoma? Well, I missed that, I was busy fighting stand-still traffic to the far far far suburbs and then getting lost and then walking in a circle around a swedish furniture store for hours. Sure, I missed out on a solid 5 hours of the best basketball in a year, but I ended up with six new white wine glasses, two beer glasses (one of which I immediately tried out upon getting home), an on-the-stove expresso maker, and the aforementioned duvet cover, which at least is a manly forest green color. The rest of the weekend was a blur of basketball, snacks, beer, guests from Madison, Thai food, laundry, Morrocan beef stew, Arrested Development (the best show on TV), weekly chat with parents, and then going to bed and not sleeping the entire night. Maybe it was the dread of coming to work today, or maybe the fear of a day without basketball, or maybe the lingering effects of the double expresso consumed before noon. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the new duvet cover, which will forever serve as a plush reminder of how I've become a massive tool.

I'm don't want to go to your Party because your Party is Lame

Since my entire known blog readership visited last weekend, I won't go into details, but I will say that I had a great time. It's kind of sad that the best weekend I've had since I've moved to Chicago is when friends from out of town come to visit, but that's how it goes. Highlights included pizza, bartending TV-Nazis, an Ecto-Cooler river, racing for Guiness before noon, two badger basketball wins, so-bad-it's-good karaoke, seeing a drummerless Saturday Looks Good to Me and not being disappointed, and, of course, Chicken Apple Sausage.

This week seems fully scheduled already: full of college basketball, a possible long-overdue haircut, corned beef, and a trip to Ikea. I have an idea that in order to fit more into my day (like exercising, blogging daily, reading more books, and possibly becoming a Bhuddist) I should sleep less. I don't know how that's gonna fly; I've been meaning to start this weeks ago. Mornings are full of fits and starts, I can trim lots of time there by not using the snooze button (and, especially, telling M to do the same..... and since the alarm's on my side I'm the one who has to hit it 5 times, then fall back asleep for 40 minutes and then do the same for myself when I'm supposed to get up).

Coming Soon..... "Props!" (tentative title)

Party like it's 1999 (again)

Today is a Thursday that feels like a Friday, which makes sense, because this past Tuesday also felt like a Friday, which means that tomorrow (Friday) will probably feel like a Saturday, and I'll be wondering why I'm at work. Rarely has a weekend held so much potential as this upcoming one does, due to the fact that everyone I've ever known has decided to come to the city for the weekend, including M/Andy and possibly, probably, just maybe my rival blogger and former sidekick NRohan, whose possible stay at my apartment prompted the following discussion last night:

M (my girlfriend): Tomorrow night you can clean the bathroom and vacuum the carpets.
N (me): Wha? It's just Nate. If anything we should pile up some empty pizza boxes to make him feel at home.
M: Oh, man, and he's going to be dirtying up my new furniture?
N: Ha, ha, IN YOUR FACE!!!!!

Well, I'm just paraphrasing. Aside from my ol' Cville homies visiting, there isn't much of a plan for the weekend, but I'm guessing at least 5 of the following 7 things will occur:

1. Nate will have a crazy story about how the relatively straight-forward (3.5 hours according to MapQuest) trip turned into an epic Lord of the Flies-style life-threatening showdown between man and beast and/or machine, and will delay his arrival until sunday noon-ish.
2. Alcohol will be consumed.
3. My street cred amoung friends will be badly damaged when they see the girly decorations in my apartment.
4. The phrase "I dunno, what do you guys feel like doing" will be uttered more than once.
5. Buildings over three stories tall and 8.75% sales tax will shock and awe.
6. In the company of old friends, I will revert back to age 20, which will prompt M to break up with me immediately.
7. Everyone will have an awful time, which we'll all blame on the weather, but secretly know deep in our hearts that we hate each other, and will never speak again.

And thirty-nine other ways to make the Baby Jesus cry.

Today I googled myself. I don't want to get into the 'why' or go into the obvious jokes and Freudian implications such an act might present, I was just bored. And, to my horror, the number one result was this webpage you are reading right this second. My name does not appear anywhere on this page, and that is my intention. But there are links to this page on at least two other people's pages that do contain my name; click on his name: there's his page. If i was hiring someone for a job, I know I'd google them first; maybe older people wouldn't think of it, but I know I would. Pre-interview. Post-Resume. Type in that name, and... "What have we here? He's lazy! He wants to be on VH1, not work here for the rest of his life! He possibly has a substance abuse problem! He's not a self-starter! He hates capitalism!" Well, actually, I would definately call them in for an interview after that, but then religiously check back to see what they wrote about it. I wonder if my supervisor is doing that.. right... now. Oh, even better would be if you were dating someone and found their blog. Someone's going to make a horrible movie about that someday. But I've googled people that I had crushes on, and I know of others who've done the same thing. So now apparently my life is almost literally an open book, for anyone who cares. Luckily for me, I'm pretty sure that no one does.