inspiration

I received today a very inspiring email. “I really miss your blog,” it said, and that was it. I thought about hitting reply and saying, “Me too,” but thought instead that I would just bite the bullet and write something (very) slightly more substantial, and post it — wait for it — to my blog.

So here it is.

I used to spend hours surfing the web and reading news stories looking for things to blog. Now I stumble upon something cool, or hear an interesting story on NPR, and think, “I should blog that.” Of course, I never do.

I used to think this blog was mostly an exercise in narcissism, but I think one of the biggest differences between my life in the blogging-days and my life in these non-blogging-days is to do with the extent to which my attention is focused inward, rather than outward. Those days, I had very little in my own life that was fulfilling or interesting to me, and I was passionate about widening my view, about seeing and understanding (or trying, at least) the things that mattered in the larger world. These days, I have a pretty full home and work life, scads of entertainment options (more on this later), and I have this sense that it’s time to work on understanding what happens next for me. Also, I have more disposable income, so surfing Amazon.com is now less frustrating than surfing NYTimes.com, which is largely just depressing.

The past few weeks, my Amazon time has dwindled as my Monster and Craigslist time has grown. Yes, I’m on the prowl for a job. I’m hoping for something with a title like “Business Analyst,” but I’ve sent resumes off for some totally unrelated things, too. I want something that stretches my brain, requires creative problem-solving, and has room for growth. Know of anything?

Entertainment. In the past few months I’ve acquired a Wii, an Amazon Kindle, and now a Wii Fit. I’ve got fun stuff to do out the wazoo. Next month, I get a new house, in midtown Harrisburg, in which to put it all. (We’re just renting, so I don’t really get the house, just use of its walls for a year.) Today I got an entertainment hybrid, in the form of the first round of the summer’s CSA share. Maybe doesn’t sound like entertainment to you, but I had a blast this evening looking up recipes containing mesclun mix, radishes, spring onions, and more. I was going to include a link, but apparently WordPress is broken, and when I link to things, it doesn’t display anything I’ve written after the tag. Anyway, making food utilizes those creative problem-solving skills, and they’re quite yummy.

Food and video games aside, I’m really enjoying the Kindle. It’s exactly what it’s intended to be, and it’s enhancing my experience of the world. I’m reading way more since I got it, because I never have to decide which book to take with me, and I have Newsweek wirelessly delivered every week, so I’m getting print news in a way I haven’t done in years. If I could blog from it (I suppose I could, just not easily), maybe you’d be reading more updates.

The Wii Fit is fun, too, in very different but still wholesome kind of way. Today’s only day two with it, so who knows if it’ll last, but I’ve never enjoyed fake hoola-hooping in my living room so much. The gluteus maximus is a little sore, though.

This is probably a very different sort of blog entry than the kind today’s emailer was envisioning that he missed. Maybe there’ll be something more relevant to other people’s lives later. Maybe not.

my so-called life

Were you a My So-Called Life fan?

I wasn’t a fan, I thought I was Angela Chase. I spent two years trying to dye my hair that exact shade of red. I was pretty sure I had a Rayanne, and a Brian, and a Sharon. Red Land didn’t offer much room for Rickys (Rickies?). In retrospect, of course, I see that my Rayanne was another middle-class child, and her mother was always home. I had many Jordan Catalanos, but none of them were ever, you know, mine.

Perhaps my Jordan Catalano came later, after the show had been cancelled, and I no longer sought MSCL analogues in every corner of my own so-called life. I wonder now why I didn’t view the cancellation as some great cosmic statement, some justification of my angst, that I really was so alienated from the world that it would see fit to cancel the one show that accurately portrayed what I at least imagined my interior life was like. Instead of thinking about that, I downloaded every picture of Claire Danes I could find on the then-fledgling internet, and papered the window in my bedroom with her face. Well, her and Adam Duritz.

ABC has finally released My So-Called Life on DVD. In perhaps the most brilliant marketing move ever, they also made the pilot available on their website.

Studies must show that we who lived through our teenage angst in the mid-nineties now have some sort of significant buying power, because the Counting Crows have also re-released August and Everything After. But that one didn’t make my Christmas list. I’ve been listening to it all along.

ho wah holiday

Last night my best friend and I found ourselves sans our respective significant others. Though Tammy and I became friends in high school while we were both perpetually single, since then we’ve never been single at the same time, and as a result it’s been more difficult to find time for just the two of us. She got married this past fall to a guy named Neal who, among other things, brews his own beer. More importantly, Neal’s the kind of guy every girl hopes her best friend will marry. So it’s okay that when I see Tammy it’s usually in conjunction with Neal — but it was still great to get a chance to have a girls’ night out.

In high school, Tammy and I frequented the now-defunct Mandarin Restaurant on the Carlisle Pike. It was in the boat-shaped building that now houses a mediocre Mexican restaurant. This and Taco Bell were probably our favorite spots. Anyway, I guess we’ve left behind the days when Taco Bell constituted a nice dinner, because last night we tried a Chinese place neither of us had been, Ho Wah in Lemoyne. Those of you who’ve been there probably know that Ho Wah doesn’t really constitute a “nice dinner” either, but, as I gather everyone else in the area knows already, the food was very good. I’m not sure how it differs from other Chinese food, but I do know it was better. Or at least that I enjoyed it more. (As a side note, I should mention that most West Coasters don’t like East Coast Chinese food, claiming it to be inauthentic. It might be, but I prefer it to the supposedly authentic West Coast Chinese.) It would, however, probably be better for take-out than for dine-in, as the service was pretty poor: I never got my soup, the entrees took waaaay too long to come out, and we had to make eye contact with the server several times before she gave us an opportunity to ask for boxes.

Ultimately, though, we did make it out of there with our leftovers and headed down to New Cumberland to the West Shore Theatre to see The Holiday. Before you say, “You saw what?” let me remind you that this was a girls’ night out. It was the perfect girls’ night out movie — predictable and sweet. And co-starring Jude Law. That’s important.

But more interesting to me than Jude Law was the overtly self-referential nature of the movie. Part of the movie is set in LA, and one of the main characters produces movie trailers. So right off the bat you’ve got elements of a movie about movies. Not that unusual. But there was also a character, a retired screenwriter, who named elements of the movie — in movie-speak — as they were happening. And there was the scene where the movie — which, at least at the West Shore Theatre, began without previews — interrupted itself with the green screen that alerts the audience a preview is about to be shown. What I’m saying is that this movie, in most ways just a typical romantic comedy, made a point to frequently remind the audience that this was a movie. Add to this the basic premise that by watching enough movies and living someone else’s life for two weeks you can change your own life — well, I think this may have been the first mainstream overtly postmodern romantic comedy I’ve seen.

This is not to say that it was, in any way, an intellectual or even thought-provoking film. But it did have Jude Law. What else do you need?

now you see me

So… CNN has a headline that says, “Scientists may be able to make magic like Harry Potter“.

The idea is “to steer light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation around an object, rendering it as invisible as something tucked into a hole in space.”

At the end of the article, John Pendry is quoted as saying, “To be realistic, it’s going to be fairly thick. Cloak is a misnomer. ‘Shield’ might be more appropriate.”

I don’t mean to reveal myself as a massive geek or anything (I’m sure you’d be shocked), but why is Harry Potter getting credit for this? Star Trek anyone?

oba oba harrisburg

Johanna was in town this weekend, so we made plans to check out Brasilian Jazz band Oba Oba Brasil at Jackie Blue. First, though, we headed to Moe’s Southwest Grill at the “Shoppes at Susquehanna” (the new shopping center near Cracker Barrel — and the old EarthLink building — off Progress Avenue). I was craving Mexican food, and knew that sating such a craving would be nearly impossible in Harrisburg, but since I’d never been to Moe’s, I was hopeful.

Moe’s is a narrow storefront, in the Quizno’s or even Subway tradition. That is, the customer spends a while trying to figure out the menu — in this case further complicated by the bizarre names given to each item — then orders it from the person on the other side of the counter. Regardless of what the customer has ordered, though, the employee will walk the customer through the preparation of their order piece by piece. I, for example, ordered an “Other Lewinsky”, a taco which differs from “The Full Monty” in that it comes with guacamole and sour cream. When, however, we reached that point on the assembly line, the preparer asked if I would like guacamole and sour cream. While I appreciate the greater customization available with this system, I would have preferred not to have to figure out the menu if I was going to have to make every decision again a minute later anyway. A much simpler system would be to list the main categories — burrito, taco, quesadilla, and fajita — and gather information on an as-needed basis. It occurs to me that this is how Chipotle does it. It’s a better system.

The Moe’s system, though, did result in me getting what I wanted, and that’s all that really counts. Almost. My taco was good. It was better than anything I’ve ever had at El Rodeo, and probably even better than what I’ve had at Herbie’s. I haven’t had enough Herbie’s experience to have the disdain for them that I do for El Rodeo, though. Anyway, my taco was good. Except that the meat and beans were really salty. Oddly salty. Johanna pointed out that, even more oddly, the guacamole was too salty. This undermined the freshness that is vital to this kind of cuisine, and made a significant difference for me. Don’t get me wrong — I’ll probably go back — and Moe’s is now the best option for grabbing a little-closer-to-authentic taco in Harrisburg. It’s even better than Taco Bell.

After the salty meat, Johanna and I headed into the city to the aforementioned Jackie Blue to see the aforementioned Oba Oba Brasil, which has no web presence of its own, but is closely related (in terms of band members, not so much style) to Chester Attic. Oba Oba Brasil features Frederico on percussion, and also includes Monica Carr, Brent Shallcross, Dan Stief, and, of course, Erik and Fred Otteson. This was the group’s second performance together, although Dan, Erik, and Fred are also 3/4ths of Chester Attic.

It was a blast. Jackie Blue was packed — although not uncomfortably so — and Fred mentions in today’s entry that it was “the biggest revenue night the restaurant / bar had ever had.” I imagine that’s a record that won’t stand for long, as Jackie Blue is a great place. It’s a great combination of classy, fun, and laid back, and is completely unrecognizable from its previous incarnation as Double Jack’s. I haven’t eaten there, but I’ve heard only good things about the food. The mojitos were good.

The music was good, too. Very good. Johanna and I danced, although not nearly as well as the Brasilians — and even some non-Brasilians — also present and dancing. I think I say this every time I try to write about anything musical, but — I’m not musical, and so I can’t give a critical analysis of the evening, but I *can* say that it was a good time and definitely worth repeating. The group is playing at Suba, the tapas bar at Mangia Qui, this coming Saturday. I highly recommend checking it out.

footnotes for cliffs notes

I am, at least theoretically, writing a paper about language usage in The Daily Show and NBC’s Nightly News. To begin, I typed up transcripts of the respective episodes aired on Thursday, April 27th. I was hoping that the differences in language would jump out at me once I’d completed that tedious task and the 8-10 page paper would write itself from there. Instead of language differences, though, what I noticed most was a content difference. The Daily Show covered a lot more news.

Brian Williams was reporting from New Orleans. Most of the stories centered on New Orleans — mostly, will the levees be ready for the coming hurricane season, and should FEMA be dismantled. The other two big stories were about gas prices and the Sago mine survivor.

The Daily Show mentioned Rove’s court appearance, Rumsfeld & Rice’s visit to Iraq, the president’s approval ratings, the Ken Lay trial, the New Orleans mayoral race, new tapes from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden, Zacarias Moussaoui’s sentencing, and the appointment of FOX News commentator Tony Snow to White House Press Secretary. Granted, it didn’t cover any of these topics in any depth, but it was a much better overview of what’s going on in the world than was offered by the Nightly News.

According to FootnoteTV, “A 2004 study found that 21 percent of young people regularly were getting their campaign news from comedy shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live.” No wonder, if shows like these are the only places where actual news gets any air time.

FootnoteTV’s solution? Provide footnotes for shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and even West Wing, among others.

Watch funny news, read bite-sized footnotes on FootnoteTV.com, and be better informed than those watching the “real” news. Ah, the 21st century.

Wildwood Writers’ Festival, 2006

This week is HACC’s Wildwood Writers’ Festival. They do not have stellar public relations skills. But! On your behalf I have contact Dr. Geri Gutwein and begged from her a schedule for the event. It follows:

Thursday, March 30th
9:30 Opening Remarks, Geri Gutwein
9:45-10:45 Shouhua Qi, fiction
11:00-12:00 Vivian Shipley, poetry
12:30-1:45 A presentation of Black Boy
2:00-3:00 Open Reading

Friday, March 31
8:45 Opening Remarks
9:00 Terry Wallace, poetry
10:00 Bev Eddy, biography
Julie Moffit, The Art of Lyric Writing
(concurrent session)
11:00 Geri Gutwein, poetry
12:00 Vivian Shipley, poetry
1:00 Panel discussion on journalism
2:00 Adrienne Su, poetry
3:00 Marty Esworthy, poetry

Everything’s free, open to the public, etc., and does not require any kind of registration. It all takes place in the C. Ted Lick Wildwood Conference Center.

Be there or be square.

shout out

Yesterday I enjoyed the Super Bowl at a party hosted by my dear friend Tammy and her fiance, Neal. They have a lovely new home which they’ve been in for about a month. It’s beautiful and they’ve done a great job furnishing and decorating (if I bought a house it’d be years before I finished unpacking), but I have to say I’m not sure anyone I went to high school with is old enough to buy a house. But Neal made some awesome wings, the game turned out as 52% of me hoped it would, and I had a great time. I also did a carbomb for the first time, but that’s not really all that relevant.

As far as the Super Bowl itself…I walked in just barely caring about the game. Almost everyone I know was rooting for the Seahawks, but I had no real attachment to either team. But since there are people I love who really do care about the Steelers, and they are, after all, from Pennsylvania, I figured I should root for them. When I got to Tam’s house, it turned out that her sister was the only person there who wanted the Steelers to win, so I also figured she could use some moral support. I probably wasn’t into enough to offer much of that, but I did get more into it as the game continued. I don’t love football, but I like it, and although a largely anti-climactic game, there were a couple of nice plays.

Speaking of nice plays, I’m currently posting from the computer lab of the library here at McDaniel, and it’s time to venture down into the stacks to get a copy of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Woohoo.

The main purpose here was to say hi to Tammy and Neal. Hi Tammy and Neal.

born to rule?

Quoting a line from Bruce Springsteen, a rock singer admired by Alito, [Senator Durbin] said, “The ‘crushing hand of fate’ here seems to always come down against the workers and the consumers and in favor of these established institutions and corporations.” (The Washington Post)

There’s something weird about entering an era in which Supreme Court Justices listen to rock music.