fractured reality

Can I just say that I am completely in love with the fact that A. ramidus shows that chimps are further evolved than H. sapiens?

Because I am.

Oh yeah, and have a good New Year’s Eve, all!

++E

Last night Pierre seemed to have a rough time judging the ice. A few of his shots were jsut not on target and others he called curled more than he thought they would. It didn’t help that I was constantly throwing narrow (which is admittedly better than throwing wide, but yeah). Pierre did have one truly incredible double takeout, which pretty much made the night.

At any rate, after squandering our early lead, we were at a two point deficit in the seventh end, and the opposing skip played a super defensive game with stones on three corners (keeping us to one). This means we were down one point in the last end, without the hammer (ugh). The guy plays pretty defensively and after our last stone we are sitting shot without much guard. They simply need to draw to the button to win by two.

And the skip puts it right on target. Except he calls off his sweepers too soon and the stone freezes about 2 inches short of shot, leaving us one point for a draw. It’s a game of high spirits and really keen sportsmanship, but one could see the disappointment on the sweepers’ faces when they realized they had (through no real fault of their own, they had been called off) thrown the game away.

So this morning it was wet snow, all around. On the ride in, something caused a malfunction at the train signal near the ACME, and people refused to believe that there wasn’t a train coming. Seriously, people, open your window, turn off your shitty radio station for a moment and listen. Do you hear anything at all other than idling cars? In the end, I pulled around something like six cars and crossed, and everyone else started crossing as well.

Some of them might still be sitting there now, wondering when the signal will turn off.

Tonight! New Year’s Eve and we are having our typical low-key wheelings and dealings, with champagne, etc. And then it will be 2010. How crazy.

Once again: where is my hover car?

++E

That said, I don’t intend to “save up” crap just so I have something to talk about come the New Year.

Two Suns – Bat For Lashes – Meh, this album sorta just washes over me and although it is contains hints of Tori and PJ Harvey (no doubt that is just my experience of it, colored by my own experiences), this album largely left me unaffected. Not unpleasant background music for sure, but nothing in there really grabbed me and said, “Listen to me again.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Phoenix – “Lisztomania” has been getting a lot of air on local stations, and I did not know that this was Phoenix until just now when I listened to the album. Man does this singer sound like the guy from Of Montreal (Kevin Barnes). But it appears that his name (Thomas Mars) is spelled and pronounced entirely differently, so probably they aren’t the same guy.

Crack the Skye – Mastodon – Mostly this just made me want to listen to “Colony of Birchmen” again, so I did.

Bitte Orca – Dirty Projectors – I gave this album two tries in very different moods and couldn’t get to a place where I enjoyed it. The one song that even slightly interested me seemed like a Nico knockoff (although this may be because of the guitar part, along with the lyric lift of “Don’t confront me with my failures”… it’s either stolen or tribute).

(at this point, as I work through “Best Of” lists, I have noticed the glaring omission of 11:11 by Rodrigo y Gabriela.)

More later,
+E

Last year this time, I decided to undertake a New Year’s project which essentially was that I would collect every single receipt I personally received for goods, services, etc. For a year. I have been as faithful to this as I possibly could, and barring disaster (one receipt in particular got mostly destroyed by coffee leakage), I have been successful. I will be thankful not to be holding onto any new pieces come January 1. I haven’t entered all the data into my spreadsheet yet, but here are my findings so far:

I get a STUPID amount of receipts in the course of my daily routine. And the amount of times I used a receipt to contest a purchase or make a return this year?

One. Uno. Seulement un. And that was when I mistakenly purchased the same season of ER twice. And then they didn’t even want the receipt, I just showed it to the cashier.

Additionally, since I do not carry a watch, I would occasionally use the timestamp on a receipt to make estimates of the current time.

Do I want to do away with receipts? Meh. I like paper-trails, historically. I just don’t know that I need a receipt every time that I buy a croissant and coffee at Panera.

My favorite places asked if I wanted my receipt (Chipotle and petrol stations leap first to mind). For purposes of this project, if I had the choice, I would refuse a receipt, just to cut down on the sheer quantity. BUt now I kinda wish I’d had the receipts so I could (theoretically) provide a solid number for Total Chipotle Visits for 2009.

Anyhow! As much as I will enjoy not having to retain future receipts, I am also signing myself up for another daily project for 2010, namely, I intend to touch this journal of mine at least once a day. I imagine that largely, this will lead to a LOT of pointless, completely banal and quotidian entries. But! I have long been a supporter of the idea that any creative (literally creating anything) outlet can be improved upon by repetition just as much as plateau-leaping breakthroughs in ability.

So yeah, just a warning to expect a LOT of crap, if you’re reading this already. A heads-up, if you will.

Onward!
+E

Short term: This weekend was good, even considering short-term exposure to family members’ repugnant proclivity for Glenn Beck (which shouldn’t be Too surprising, given Dad’s previous leaning toward listening to Limbaugh). Games were played, food prepared and eaten, laughs shared. The rest of the weekend was restful and good, with many slayings of zombies, dragons, and gangsters.

Long term: I am just now listening to the most recent Bob Mould album, and while there are highlights that harken back to Workbook and his 1996 release, when City Lights played in my ears and I recognized the use of borderline kanye/cher-style auto-tune, I died a little inside.

And now, back to work!

+E