perpetual memory loss

It has been almost 7 years since I’ve been in California and boy does it feel nice to be back. The weather is beautiful and compared with DC there is no humidity.

My day went pretty much as expected–both good and bad. Woke up balls ass early, crammed myself onto a flying sardine tin with a bunch of other assholes, and stood in lots of long lines throughout this epically long day. For the most part things went smoothly but of course there were some balls that were dropped–not by me of course–but I’ll let it slide today. Tomorrow is crunch time and hopefully everyone is on their A game because I’m looking for a day full of no drama.

Got to visit the Nixon Library today which was pretty cool. It was bigger and nicer than I imagined. While walking around I stumbled into the new exhibit that has Futurama storyboards and animations cells from episodes that feature Nixon’s head. So that was a bonus. Lastly, I got to meet some old school Nixonians and they pretty much talked shit to me from the get go (although they tried to be subtle about it). They didn’t wait to find out who I was or anything about me. I’m a gov worker so I’m shit and the enemy.

So now that my day is winding down I’m feeling nostalgic so I went and bought myself some 40′s. When I was a young pup I used to partake of the Old E or Mickey’s but now that I’m older and wiser I prefer the ol’ Colorado Kool-Aid. To finish this day off all I need is some tacos or In ‘N’ Out Burgers oooorrrrr both.

It’s hard to believe that 8 years ago today I was chilling in Baghdad watching a bunch of Iraqis looting and setting shit on fire. Seriously, time flies and days like today make me feel really old. Good thing I got my boy Jim Beam to keep me company.

As an aside, wars suck. Now that I’ve seen one I’m not in a hurry to see another or to send others to fight in stupid meaningless wars. If only more of our politicians felt the same way.

Season tickets are arriving Thursday night. There will be drunken celebration.

Around about a year ago, I was getting ready to go to my company’s holiday party.  I was assured that there would be a plethora of booze there and I was not disappointed.  As is my usual standard operating procedure I started to drink–a lot.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that later that night I was going to be seduced by a younger woman.

However, life is full of surprises and I was surprised when a young, Irish lass escorted  me back to my house to engage in bit of race defilement.  It all started because we were liquored up and she is an eternal optimist who is ready for any sexy situation (wink, wink).  Anyways here we are a year later, but more importantly a good year later (except for your profligate use of utensils, glasses, paper towels, and your refusal to refill the Brita after filling one of your many cups of water).  So this video best encapsulates the beginnings of our relationship.  Here’s to yet another year of me robbing the cradle.

For years I have been the recipient of cruel, cruel jokes about the state of my liver.  This is, of course, because of my proclivity to drink mass quantities of alcohol and my reluctance to visit a doctor to hear the dire news.  Recently, I was arm-twisted into going to a doctor and getting a full check-up.  After waiting a week for the results I am happy to report that my liver regenerates like Wolverine.  11 years of boozing and it’s still going strong.  I look forward to many more nights of drinking, so someone buy me a beer and a shot of Jameson.

Here I am living in Washington DC.  If you asked me 6 months ago what my life would be like I would have told you that I would still be living in NY working some crummy job to make ends meet.  However things didn’t work out that way and instead of working a crummy job to support myself in NY I now live in crummy DC (it’s not really that crummy) and have a good job (albeit I don’t work enough).   So what have I learned this past month, well quite a few things actually.

1. DC has the worst subway system ever (well maybe not the worst but it still kind of blows).  I think it was designed by a bunch of people who had no idea how to design a subway, and didn’t believe in the need to design with an eye towards future needs (more on this later though in an upcoming pet peeves post).

2. Holy shit it’s humid as fuck here and this is a mild (MILD they said hah!) summer.

3.  The transition from student to working stiff has been painless and (gasp!) I actually like my job and look forward to going to work (double gasp!).  For the last four plus years I have done nothing but go to school, drink, do homework, drink, and at times sleep.  It’s was rough but work (or the real world as some people call it) is so much easier.  I work my shift then I’m off to do whatever I want (drink) without worrying about some paper I have to write.  It’s fantastic.  For the first time in years my free time is actually my free time.

4.  The Natinals stink.

5. My new neighborhood (Capitol Hill) is one of the coolest neighborhoods I have ever lived in.  There are a shit ton of bars, restaurants, and I’m close to everything.  There’s 4 parks nearby and the neighborhoods are gorgeous and everything is within walking distance.  The only thing that could make this neighborhood better is if it was in NY or Mr. Burns built his little sun blocking thing-a-majig here–because it’s hot as fuck here.

6. Just like people in NY, people in DC liberally sprinkle the word “literally” throughout their conversations constantly even though it’s not needed.  Example: “I went to the grocery store and there were literally dozens of different kinds of cereal on the shelves.”  Because if you just told me there were dozens of different kinds of cereal at the grocery store I totally wouldn’t believe you unless you added in literally.

7. People are very courteous here.  The first time I rode the subway I was flabbergasted that people actually waited for other people to exit the subway cars before they entered. WTF I am so not used to that.  I am used to fighting my way onto a train whilst others are fighting their way off, and then being punked by a spunky latin mom and her stroller.  Now whilst the courtesy thing looks orderly and seems nice I don’t think it is more effective than everyone just scrambling in and out like roaches when the lights come on.

8. Living a mile away from the Capitol and two miles from the White House is not as cool as it sounds.

9. I have a lot of work ahead of me.  So far I have noticed that there are not a whole lot of Coors Light drinkers here in DC.  That means it time for me to get my hands dirty preaching the good work and converting all these lost sheep roaming the hills of the Capitol.  I’ve done it before and as Pete Coors is my witness I will do it again.

10. This city is growing on me like a fungus.  I am really starting to like it here, but I still miss NY.  And I think I always will because it was the only place I have ever lived that I didn’t want to leave and, since I was a little chitlin living at home, it was the only place that has felt like home to me in a long, long time.

So that’s just a quick summary of a few things that I have learned (or in the case of the Natinals has been brutally reinforced) since I have moved to DC.  New posts should be coming along fairly regularly now since I have started settling and the worst part of moving is now over.  Look forward to random posts, nerdy posts, and drunken posts in the not too distant future.

I woke up this morning seriously pissed off.  I didn’t really know why, but I figured after a nice cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal I would be good.  Unfortunately, I was out of milk so no cereal, and I drank way too much coffee on an empty stomach so I was feeling queasy by the time I got to school for work.  Things spiraled down from there as I had a new project waiting for me at work which pisses me off because I seem to be the only research assistant that actually does research.  The rest just sit around doing their homework.  So I stayed grumpy and became even more irritable as the day wore on.

Ugly Baby Exhibit A

By the time I got home around 5pm I was bristling with anger, and I told neverbesocial that if there was a baby in front of me I would punch it in the throat.  (I have to clarify that statement, however, as most babies would probably melt my heart–like the sap I am–but I would have seriously thought about punching an ugly baby in the throat.)  Be that as it may I kept getting more angry because I couldn’t figure out why I was so angry all day long.  Then I took a look at my calendar and saw what day it was.  Today is March 19th and it is–along with the 20th–the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  I quickly realized that that was why I was pissed all day, even though I didn’t realize the significance of the day until after about 9 hours of being a real grinch.  I guess my body is just on its own program.

Like I said everything started to make sense after that, but I ended up getting more pissed off because I was thinking about how I hate these wars and how I can’t wait for them to be over and for the troops to come home.  I also was pissed at myself for being such a whiny complaining bitch because someone had the audacity to ask me to do my job, whilst there are other people over in Iraq and Afghanistan separated from their families performing a thankless arduous job.  I decided that it was time to hit the gym and go for a run to burn off all of my anger.  I went to the gym and really killed myself.  Running whilst angry is great; anger is one of the best motivators out there.  After a good two hours at the gym I was feeling really good and as I was walking home and just as I was getting ready to cross the street I noticed that there was like 3 cars at each stop sign waiting for me.  I figured I’d be a nice guy and jog across the street so that these people could get on their way quicker.  Bad idea.  This is the first time something like this has ever happened to me.  I took two steps and both legs cramped up and locked themselves in a bent position.  I came crashing down in the middle of the street in absolute anguish.  I managed to get up and hop to the sidewalk where I laid on the ground writhing for the next 5 minutes as cars drove by staring at me like I was a circus freak.  To make matters worse some people on the other side of the street were walking by and had seen the whole thing and were laughing their asses off.  Salt in the wound.

Continue reading

Last night I finally got to see Jimmy Eat World live in concert.  After all these years of being a fan of them, and constantly missing out on their shows, I finally made one.  First off I will always be grateful to neverbesocial for introducing me to Jimmy Eat World back in those halcyon Phoenix days.  (Actually I have to thank him for introducing me to quite a few of my favorite bands.  He has been a sort of musical Gandalf guiding me through the perilous path of new music.  Although I still can’t stand Mates of State or Portugal the Man, but hey whatever I can’t be expected to like everything he does.)  Anyways I got to the show earlier than I did for The Black Keys a few weeks ago, but despite that, there was still a huge line–over a block long–by the time I got there.  The people at Terminal 5, however, kept the line moving quickly and I was able to get inside before I froze completely to death.

Once inside I went back up to my spot on the third floor railing, grabbed an empanada, a couple beers, and got ready for the show.  I can’t tell you how excited I was for this show.  I have been looking forward to seeing JEW for a long time now and the fact that my first concert was going to be the Clarity tour only added to my exhilaration–as Clarity is one of my all-time favorite albums.  So I suffered through the opening act–they actually were not that bad, but I just didn’t feel like waiting any longer to see JEW.  A little bit after 9:00 JEW came out to the rousing cheers of the crowd and commenced to playing Clarity in it’s entirety–including Goodbye Sky Harbor.  It was a fantastic show and they sounded great, and considering this was their first show on the tour, I expect that as the tour rolls on they will tighten up their sound even more.  After they finished playing Clarity they left so they could take part in the obligatory encore–bands really need to stop doing that as it’s pretty contrived–and then they came back out and played some of their b-sides and then finished off the show with Work, Pain, The Middle, and Sweetness.  The crowd went absolutely ape-shit for Sweetness and it really is the best song to finish the show to as everyone left completely pumped after that song.  Well there is not really much more for me to say that the pics and videos can’t say on their own.  So enjoy the pics and videos.  (By the way Jimmy Eat World if you all are upset about me posting these pics and videos online just twitter me to take it down.  No need to release the hounds.)

Continue reading

Yesterday turned out to be quite the adventure.  It was supposed to be just an easy night out on the town watching The Black Keys.  I left my apartment and after a long train ride and a long walk I made it to Terminal 5 at about 7:30.  As I stood in line waiting to get frisked I pulled out all the crap in my pockets so the process would go quicker.  Of course I get frisked by a beast of a women (how come it’s socially ok for a female to frisk a male but not vice-versa?) who decided to take some liberties with her frisking by grabbing my ass a few times. Wtf is up with shit like this happening to me (if you are new refer to this post here)?

Immediately after that weirdness I went to the bar and started crushing beers like my life depended on it.  I milled around for a bit and then decided that since I had my camera on me I would stake out a good spot upstairs to watch the show.  I ended up on the third floor railing with a good view of the stage, and bonus I was spitting distance from the bar.  My plan was to get nice and loaded during the opening bands and then to slow down or quit drinking once the Keys came on stage.  As usually plans went awry and I kept pounding all night long.  (I really think it was the last four Sierra Nevadas that did me in.)  This was the third time I have seen them live and as always the show was epic.  (No show will ever be as good as the first time I saw them in Cali at Brick by Brick just because of the extraordinary lengths I went through to go to that show, and because of the amount of laws–military and civilian–that I broke just by going to it.)  Since I took a bunch of pictures and videos of the show I will let them speak for the epicness of the show instead of babbling on and on.

After the show I hooked myself up with a new t-shirt and I got it for $10 instead of the usual $20.  I think that was because I was incredibly drunk and the dude who was running the counter just wanted to get rid of me.  Once I left Terminal 5 it took me forever to get home as I was chatting on the phone and ended up walking a few miles past my subway stop, then I fell asleep on the E-train (again), and it wasn’t until after 4 that I ended up stumbling home.  All in all it was a good night with all the mandatory ingredients for a good night: live music, beer, stumbling around NYC, and falling asleep on the train.  Anytime that happens it is definitely good night.  Pictures and videos (sorry they are a bit wobbly, I blame the beer) after the fold, enjoy.

Continue reading

My bags are packed and I am ready to go.  Tomorrow I will board one of those crazy Chinese buses and begin my last free weekend off before school starts.  I’m off to Washington D.C. to hang out with an ol’ friend who just happens to have a head the size of Mr. Met.  Don’t know how he walks without toppling over.  Anyways on the agenda for the weekend is hitting up the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and to get seriously fucked up.  Hopefully I will have some crazy story to relate back to you all on my return.  If not I will be taking my handy-dandy notebook camera with me so regardless I should have some pics to post.  But for now with my bags packs and a big tall glass of Beam & Coke down the gullet I am ready to get to sleep.  I will be basically off the grid all weekend but I should be updating randomly on twitter so if you aren’t already following me now is the time.  C-ya all on the flip side.