Showered with... Pastries?

Today marks the end of an era for me. It was my last day of employment at Golden Cage Music. My employment there has been interesting. It's been... well... quite a ride. Working there can be quite stressful at times and the rewards are not always tangible (or even recognizable, at the time). I fully expected to walk out of there cheering and jumping for joy, like I'd just won some weird one-and-a-half year long marathon.

But instead, there was a strange sense of calm... It first hit me earlier this week, when I realized this was my last week at work. That was significant not necessarily because it signaled the end of my employment there, but the beginning of the next two years of my life.

My day began like most others: I got up, showered, ate, and drove to work. Within the first half hour, I was given a blueberry coffee cake, 4 of my favorite muffins from the local coffee shop (cinnamon apple spice.. yum) and a decaf coffee (by my request). I was showered with pastries. It was great.

Tonight, my Boston friends and I will gather to eat barbeque and then go out to karaoke. A fitting end to what has been a pretty great day so far, I'd say.

-e

Almost there...

So many interesting things will be happening in the next few months... My last day at work is in a week. Then I'll be moving from Boston back home... from where I will be traveling to Arizona for a week, New Orleans for 4 days, and then Europe for a whole month! Then it's back home to relax and write/record some music... Then in September, I'll be moving to NYC to start grad school at NYU's music business masters program.

The anticipation is killing me!

-e

Better Late Than...?

"The first lady raises a valid point. Since it would take years for stem cell research to find a cure for Alzheimer's, why start? It makes no sense. If you can only save people eventually, you're really doing a disservice."

--Jon Stewart, on Laura Bush's claim that embryonic stem cell research is too preliminary and gives people false hope

R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg...

I just found out that one of my all-time favorite comedians was found dead yesterday. Mitch Hedberg was a comic genius, and his passing is truly a loss to the world of entertainment and comedy.

To be honest, I feel a little weird writing such mushy stuff about the passing of a stand-up comedian. But I thought about it for a while .... and realized that he's really the first celebrity or well-known person whose death actually makes me sad. His comedy has made me laugh 'til my sides hurt more times than I can remember... his jokes cheered me up on numerous occassions... His humor influenced almost every one of my close friends and shaped the way we think of jokes and comedy. My singing group in college even named our album after one of his jokes ("Dry Clean Only").

An excerpt from the MTV news link above states:

Much like Steven Wright, Hedberg was a master of the sharp-as-glass-shards one-liner ("Rice is great when you're hungry and want 2,000 of something"; "I would imagine if you understood Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy"; "When someone hands you a flier, it's like they're saying, 'Here, you throw this away.' ") His comical, almost-too-obvious observations about life's subtle peculiarities inspired Time magazine to declare the stand-up comic "the next Seinfeld" in 2000.

R.I.P., Mitch.

-e

Happy Valentine's Day!

These are entries to a Washington Post competition asking for a rhyme with the most romantic first line... but the least romantic second line:

Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss
But I only slept with you, because I was pissed.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty
and so is your head.

Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not

I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don't take that paper bag off of your face

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes -
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life

I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming

My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way

My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe "go to hell"

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime

Excuse me, waiter...

...There's a bug in my kung-pao chicken!!

A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I went to Chinatown Seafood in Coolidge Corner (Brookline, MA) to get some dinner. It was the night of the blizzard, so the place was nearly empty.

We ordered some soup, a seafood medley, and a plate of kung-pao chicken. After about 45 minutes, everything had come out except the chicken. Shortly thereafter, the waitress came over and annouces, "Here is your kung-pow beef!"

"Um," my girlfriend said, "I ordered kung-pao chicken, not beef." The waitress looked surprised, then slightly offended, as if to say "Of course you ordered the f--ing beef, you idiot." She took the plate back without so much as a sorry and stalked off back to the kitchen. We were pretty sure that we got the order right, since my girlfriend doesn't eat red meat. Anyhow, another 15 minutes expired, along with most of the seafood dish, until finally the waitress came back with the correct dish.

We dug into the steaming plate of chicken, vegetables and peanuts. I was muching happily on the mixture, taking small sips of my Tsing-Tao beer every now and then, when all of a sudden, I hear my girlfriend say in a low, but distressed tone, "EW... Oh ... My... God..."

Now, knowing my girlfriend can be picky about the meat she eats, I expected to look up and see her holding a questionable piece of chicken in her chopsticks. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, I looked up to find her poking at a DEAD BUG that had been mixed in with the rest of the chicken.

I've worked in restaurants before. I know that, sometimes, restaurant kitchens aren't quite as clean as you'd expect them to be. But I've never actually seen this sort of thing happen.

We signaled the waitress again. She came over and almost whisked away the plates without a second glance. We stopped her and pointed out the little creature in our food. Once again, she didn't show the slightest bit of regard for the mistake and said "Oh okay, we'll bring out another one."

When we asked about getting a discount on the check, she said "We don't normally do that. But I'll ask my manager." Right.

In the end, they offered us a 15% discount. Too tired and too nauseous to argue, we just left it at that.

Ugh. Consider yourself warned. Don't ever go over to that awful place. You might eat more than you bargained for.

-e

Bizzaro Me

So during my freshman year, me and my friends started noticing we all had doppelgangers around campus. Except we called them "bizzaro's" (anyone catch the reference? Think Superman...) Anyhow, almost all of my friends had bizzaro's... Some of the resemblances were astoundingly uncanny.

One day, one of my friends told me that he said hi to some guy who looked exactly like me. He had found my bizzaro. I kept hearing about this look-alike, but never saw him myself. Some of this guy's friends mistook me for him... One went so far as to whack me in the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper and shout "hey, what's up man??" When I just stared at him in shock (and awe) he then commented "whoa, when did you get braces?" (I had braces back then... Yes, yes, laugh it up). It took him a good 45 seconds of me staring at him before he realized that he had made a mistake.

This sort of thing went on for another year... I saw him from time to time... He had the same long-hair, part-down-the-middle hair-cut... Wore the same glasses... Was about the same height and body-type, etc... Finally, during my sophomore year, we passed each other in the hallway. After we passed each other, his friend who was with him at the time went, "dun dun DUN!" (like the scary, dramatic music cue).

Later that year, I was sitting at lunch with my buddy Anup and some other folks, when we saw my bizzaro across the dining hall. One of my friends made some comment about him.. Anup turns around and sees him and says "Oh him? Roland? I know him, he's cool!" After my friends made a few more "bizzaro" references, Anup goes "dammit, I'm going to put an end to this..." And gets up, walks over to Roland, drags him over to our table, introduces us, and says, "THERE! IT'S DONE! IT'S OVER!"

From that day forth, the awkwardness was over. He lives in Boston, actually. Strangely enough, his hair is now short... Kind of like mine....

...Dun dun DUN!!!

-e

Donuts & Solitaire?

I know it's been a stupid long time since I posted... and I don't have time to write something substantial just yet, but I had to share this story:

So y'know how police cars have those little laptops in them now? These things must be good for catching bad guys, or something, right? Well, I'm driving down the street the other day, and I stop at a stop light next to a cop car... I look over and what do you suppose I see the cop doing on his computer?

...That's right. He's playing solitaire.

Our tax money hard at work, people.

-e

Election Humor

A bit of humor...

While this election has made a lot of people depressed, it's somewhat reassuring that some of us can still have a bit of humor about the situation. The best comment I've heard so far regarding the outcome of the election is from my co-worker:

"It's like getting a dead puppy for Christmas."

Awesome.

-e

IT'S OVERRR!

Well, it's done, people. The election is over. At 1pm this afternoon, John Kerry will be giving his consession speech, and Bush will be declared the victor.

Y'know, I am not a huge political person. I was never really driven to vote for or argue or even care very much about politics... Until this year, that is. Now, I'm not about to rant and rave at Bush and his campaign... To be honest, I am speechless. My brain is having too much trouble trying to understand what more than half of the country thinks a leader is. I just don't get it. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say: I just can't believe it. This whole election has me feeling a great loss of faith in the intelligence and enlightenment of "we, the people". Or at least half of them. Ach... I can't even think straight.

But, before I sign off, allow me to quote the West Wing:

"A funny thing happened when the office [of the president] was demystified. It left the American people with the impression that anyone could do it."

Hope and pray, people.

-e

To Kill a Mocking Chicken

C'mon, folks... This story is definitely for the birds. Or at least for the flightless fowls.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday. It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

....... riiight.

"I confused it with the chicken's neck," Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. "I cut it ... and the dog rushed and ate it."

I don't know what to say. I guess maybe "Count your chicken necks before you go and chop off your genitalia"?

-e

Popping My White Castle Cherry

Ah, my poor, neglected journal.

This weekend, I had the ultimate pleasure of going to White Castle for the first time. Forget the fact that I had just stuffed myself with Korean food an hour prior to our excursion... This was White Castle, for pete's sake! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to lost my White Castle virginity.

All in all, I must say they were everything I could've hoped for in a 2.5-inch x 2.5 inch square of fast food goodness. My favorite conversation during the meal was Francis trying to convince Becky to try a cheeseburger:

Francis: Becky you have to try a cheeseburger.
Becky: Naw, I'm kinda full actually.
Francis: I will give you 59 cents if you go eat a cheeseburger!

(...sometime later...)

Francis: Becky, are you sure you don't want a cheeseburger? They're so great!
Becky: I don't really like cheese anyway--
Francis: This is NOT cheese!!

Between White Castle and the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ joint we hit up on Friday night, this weekend was truly a culinary horn-o-plenty. mmm MM!

-e

Question of the Day

If you're bad during your life as mail, do you get reincarnated as spam?

-e

Who wins?

"Have I told you about the tension of opposites?" he says.

The tension of opposites?

"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle."

Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.

"A wrestling match." He laughs. "Yes, you could describe life that way."

So which side wins, I ask?

"Which side wins?"

He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. "Love wins. Love always wins."

- quote from Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom