It's Tricky.

Things I Miss About the Nineties: Daria.

I was cool before my time.

Anyway, not much happening in the hometown these days. Dead as ever, but with heavy traffic. That only makes sense if you're used to hearing Lil' Wayne blasted every second of the day, everywhere you go. Though I did hear a soccer mom listening to some R&B station really loud the other day, and it made me laugh.

Been watching a lot of Party Down lately. How much? All eight episodes. God bless my parents having digital cable. Anyway, I might have been the only person who found this exchange funny, but...

Girl: So you're an actor?
Guy: How did you know?
Girl: Well I heard from [whoever]...and you're smoking Parliaments.

Hahahaha. God, I'm bad with character names. Eight episodes and I still can't remember.

Also in the spirit of the nineties, I'm trying to recall all the music I listened to so I can re-locate it to my hard drive and understand how my current tastes were formed. Movies are easy because, plainly speaking, I've seen them all, so that area was sculpted by basically everything. Music is interesting though. So I'm currently listening to Canadian punk rock band Prozzak's "Strange Disease" and thinking back to what I imagine as the year 1997, but don't know for sure. Christ, I liked this? Chumbawumba I understand. Sugar Ray, Smashmouth, the Space Jam soundtrack...I understand why I owned all those things. They were fairly standard issue. But Prozzak? Weird.

Oh, yeah, and I started a new blogging venture (surprise) with my...best friend? I guess. I don't know if that's a mutually-recognized term, so I'm hesitant to use it. But he's like my brother. And I'm pretty sure if we really tried, we could take over the world. Or at least the Eastern Seaboard. So I'll be posting that link up sometime soon for those interested, as soon as I get a few posts in to call my own. I like that his highest day's view total (it's his blog) was upwards of 1,000...the best I've had was like 200. I think that describes us well though. Just imagine a more awesome version of me that's better in ever conceivable way, and it's 200 to 1,000. Anyway, not really sure what the subject matter of the blog is. Primarily music and pop culture. Some Maxim pics. Good stuff. I'll keep you all up.

LOL Run DMC - "It's Tricky." I think that was cool a little before I was up on hip-hop though. I didn't start in until the Bad Boy/No Limit scene with guys like Puffy and Silkk the Shocker. Still remember when Biggie died. Po' out a liquor. I'd say I used to bump Naughty By Nature as well...but I kinda still do.

sandwich

I just made myself an incredible fucking sandwich. Two large pieces of Pepperidge Farm wheat bread, turkey, swiss cheese, ham, lettuce, onion and mayo. I may die as a result of eating it, and I realize my digestion has no consequence to anyone outside of myself.

But the sandwich I just made? Fucking incredible.

I think I'm going to write Chapter 32 now.

News From the End of It All

I didn't delete everything. I just moved it to a private journal.

And by journal, I mean diary.

I'm so 1994.

(Don't) Throw Your Hood Up.

You might have seen in an earlier post that I really don't enjoy driving, except on the rare occasion where I just need to go somewhere so bad that I have to take the car out for an hour or so. Usually I'm content where I am.

Anyway, I drove a couple hours south of Indy yesterday to catch graduations and see some friends. Woke up early today so I could pack some more of my stuff and drive a couple hours back north to be with my family for Mother's Day. I think about how much my dad traveled with his old job on a daily basis and...jeez, how did he do it?

There are few things worse than a long, lonely car ride. Even with music.

The whole time I was driving down, I was just...so...bored. Which sucks during interstate travel because it's not like you can just zone out or whatever (in fact, that's probably a bad strategy on any sort of paved surface, but let's face it, you zone out a lot when just driving around your hometown.) Especially when there's a lot of traffic, like there was yesterday, as graduation was going on.

But it's like, damn, commute...be more enthusiastic! It was just hot. And I'm too cheap to use my A/C unless I really need to. Also not a fan of rolling down windows because (A) it drowns out the music when you're doing 65 and (B) I'm always convinced that, somehow, no matter how small I make the window crack, my hat is going to blow off my head and out of the window. I know, I know...don't wear hats, right? But I'm a hat guy. Sue me. Not really, though, because I'm poor.

Oh yeah, I guess all this leads into another story of how I almost died, and was yet again spared by forces unknown (or God...I don't know.)

So "my" car isn't really my car. I'm in the process of purchasing a new (used) car. For the past few years I've only had the privilege of driving "my" car when in the hometown, which lasts for all of four months of the year. But when I'm back I can use it. It's a pretty decent car, actually. Four-door sedan, handles well in the elements, only about 50k miles (for the cars I drive, that is a very low number.) I feel pretty comfortable driving it.

However since it had sat in the garage for so long before I got it out...and there's a story there, revolving around my mom having her own little manual two-door zipper of a car but being so afraid that it's going to give any day now that she wants a car on deck just in case...my dad decided to check the car's fluids before I left that morning. I guess I was aware that he was doing this, but I didn't stop to think much about it. I just packed my stuff, said goodbye, got in the car, took it to the gas station and filled up and then scooted over toward the interstate.

Okay, so I get on the interstate and begin the process of merging on. This is when I notice my hood bouncing, as if it's going to just give into physics any moment and fly up, completely obstructing my view. On the interstate. Doing 65. Awesome. So I kind of straddle the far right and emergency lanes and just pray my way to the next exit, where I pull off and into a Taco Bell to inspect the hood. Turns out my dad didn't really close it all the way, just the first latch. It's an easy fix, but if that last latch had given...I mean, hoods only fly up in the movies, right? That just doesn't happen. Yet it almost did.

Anyway, yeah, that's my story for that day. It's somewhat funny in retrospect that, with the hood fluttering as it was, I actually felt some lift in the car - it was a very windy day - and it almost felt like the car itself was going to fly off and go Mary Poppins (or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Does that car fly?) on me. Which would have been cool, except for the lack of landing gear and all.