A Brief Report of the Happenings of The Place

Here is what’s going on at The Place just now. I guess maybe you don’t know what The Place is because of a number of reasons. Essentially, which is to say basically, which is to say literally The Place is where I live. Other people live there too. The main things that go on at The Place is that everyone watches movies and nobody does dishes. I am also pretty ashamed of how we live here – there is not much furniture and I think there are maybe 2 beds out of the 6 bedrooms, which isn’t exactly an impressive fraction by any means, even if you reduce it. That’s not the main important thing right now.

The main important thing right now is that we’re losing a member for the next 5 months. SN is, in less than 15 hours, boarding a Ghana-bound series of aircrafts. This means that a lot [some (two?)] people cried tonight and everyone hugged even though we all smelled terrible because of the weather that I realize I have not told you about. I am sad about it too, I will miss her, but I don’t really do a good job at expressing these things. I will show my dedication by accompanying her to the airport – an act of support universally recognized because airports are universally pains in the asses to get to and awful to be in. Also: I showed up in a recent dream of SN’s wherein she experienced a brutal nosering-related injury and I was reportedly seen with some Trouble from the past. I didn’t know which part of the dream to be more concerned about, though the description of what happened with the nosering was much more troubling, at least on a visceral level. Apparently the dream was hyper-vivid because of drugs taken in order to prevent malaria, which I guess is a problem in Ghana. I hope I never have to worry about malaria or its treatment-related sleep-side-effects.

Another thing is that everyone gives me a hard time because I lock my door. I don’t think that this is strange; I have been in the habit of immediately locking doors behind me for the last 10 years, the only exception being my old house’s front door. I secretly suspect that everyone else secretly suspects that I am doing untoward things behind the locked door of my room, but this is hardly ever the case. The simple truth of the matter is that I desperately need to be able to physically keep people away from me sometimes. The knowledge that one is alone and can reasonably expect to remain as such until one chooses not to be is deeply reassuring. Everyone wants control over his or her surroundings. My surroundings are The Place.

Those are the main things going on at The Place. We have four porches, but we only really use one. Ants come up from the floorboards sometimes.

Finally that Information about the Typewriter(s)

This information is still forthcoming.

Here is a Current List of the Movies I have Watched This Summer

Did you know that I am in a movie-watching contest? Now you do. Who can watch the most movies over the summer, that is the question we are all asking one another and getting ulcers over. Anyway, now I can release this information. Note: Repeat viewings of the same movie count as an additional number on the list. Please enjoy the occasional parenthetical addition.

Begin Date: May 11, 2007

1. 28 Weeks Later
2. Casablanca
3. The host
4. Maximum Overdrive (God Damn it Mr. King what are you doing to Cinema?)
5. The Mangler
6. Shrek 3
7. Monster House
8. Bonnie and Clyde
9. Beat the Devil
10. Night of the Living Dead
11. Waitress
12. Hot Fuzz
13. The Treatment
14. Bug
15. Once
16. Down by Law
17. Pink Flamingos (argh argh fuck fuck shit god damn it ugh)
18. Ghost Dog
19. Paprika
20. Night Watch
21. Bottle Rocket (the fact that I'm trying to do it rarely does it for anyone)
22. Take the Money and Run
23. Wag the Dog
24. Curse of the Golden Flower
25. Old Joy
26. Repo Man (is always intense)
27. Day Watch
28. Severance
29. The Professional (Always like this)
30. My Neighbor Totoro
31. Ocean’s 13
32. Fall Guy
33. Knocked Up
34. Ghost in the Shell
35. The 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada
36. Flags of our Fathers
37. Sherrybaby (Mad Bunnin')
38. The Untouchables
39. Gigantic: A Tale of 2 Johns
40. Eve’s Bayou
41. Mala Noche
42. Scent of a Woman (Hoo-ha!)
43. Habla con Ella
44. Sicko
45. Raising Arizona
46. Eagle vs Shark (more like "This Movie Wasn't That Good")
47. Mystery Train
48. The Elephant Man
49. A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum
50. District B13
51. Lethal Weapon (Danny Glover wants you to know that he's too old for this shit)
52. Twelve Angry Men
53. The Tall Guy
54. Stop Making Sense (Same as it ever was)
55. Taxi Driver (Listen up you fucks...)
56. Three Kings
57. Tootsie
58. Die Hard (Yipee)
59. Die Hard with a Vengeance (Kai Yea)
60. Live Free or Die Hard (Mother Fucker!)
61. Love and Death
62. Ratatouille
63. Dog Day Afternoon
64. Smokey and the Bandit
65. The Conversation (He'd kill us if he had the chance)
66. Rain Man
67. The Namesake
68. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (a.k.a. "Bitch Cassidy and the Sundance Film Festival)
69. The Hustler
70. Roger Dodger
71. Transformers
72. Human Nature
73. Children of Men
74. From Dusk ‘til Dawn (looking at Tarantino is so hard)
75. Broken English
76. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
77. The Squid and the Whale
78. Cool Hand Luke
79. Paprika (again)
80. The King of Comedy
81. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
82. On the Waterfront
83. Hard Eight
84. Kicking and Screaming (not the Will Ferrell soccer movie)
85. Bulworth
86. The Impostors (Stanley Tucci is up for a Best Dude Grammy)
87. Chaplin (So is Robert Downey Jr.)
88. Fido
89. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
90. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
91. A Few Good Men
92. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
93. Meeting People is Easy
94. Jungle Fever
95. All the President’s Men (Typewriters featured heavily in this movie. Soon: that typewriter information I keep promising)
96. Talk To Me
97. Chasing Amy
98. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
99. Funny Games
100. The Fountain
101. Punch Drunk Love
102. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
103. Scoop
104. Blood Simple
105. Wet Hot American Summer
106. Desperado
107. The Fly (Jeff Goldblum!)
108. Paprika (x3)
109. Brotherhood of the Wolf
110. Wordplay
111. The Thing
112. It’s Pat
113. Say Anything
114. Exterminating Angel
115. Sunshine (not. very. plausible.)
116. Rize
117. Videodrome (Oh my god David Cronenberg what are you trying to do to everyone?)
118. Crash
119. Hostage
120. Hombre
121. Harold and Maude
122. Nobody’s Fool (a very bad movie despite the presence of both Bruce Willis and Paul Newman)
123. Mysterious Skin
124. Blazing Saddles
125. 12 Monkeys

Some information about the No Good Idiot Bullshit Machine

I invented the No Good Idiot Bullshit Machine about twenty-three hours ago while I was brushing my teeth. The NGIBSM (pronounced “n-gibsom,” if you like) is less an apparatus that modifies energy to perform a task (a “machine”) and more a state of mental unwellness that tends to manifest itself sometime around 3 in the morning, usually while brushing one’s teeth. What the NGIBSM does is take any thought you have and convert it into something that makes you unhappy. Here, I have made an illustration:



Eventually I will get that stuff about the typewriter up, I promise.

Here is the First in a (Probably) Series of Lists of Apologies

I am sorry for a number of things. In order to assuage the fairly remarkable amount of guilt I’ve accumulated over the years I will post public apologies for a lot of things, in no particular order and with no guarantee of sincerity.

• I’m sorry about being mean to the weird kid in third grade (I think his name was Jason? He would usually pretend that he was a velociraptor, which mostly resulted in him appearing to have very serious carpal tunnel syndrome and bad posture). I should have behaved better and not given into peer pressure
• I feel bad that I download a lot of music and also the New Harry Potter Book and usually do not give anybody money for these things
• I feel bad about hitting a childhood friend of mine in the eye with the antenna of a remote controlled car. He was making fun of my brother, and I had to put him in his place – he had no right because he had buckteeth and his mom picked out all of his clothes until he was like 12
• If I have made anybody cry who did not deserve it I would be sorry about that
• I am sorry about the time I listened to an Eminem song and found myself enjoying it. I hope you can forgive me
• I’m sorry that I locked the keys in a rental car when I was 6 and caused a hassle for my parents
• I am Very Sorry about That Thing I Used To Do a Few Years Ago That Nobody Knows About. That was terrible, I am very ashamed of that.
  
• I’m sorry about that car I may have scratched that one night at that one Chinese restaurant – I should have done a better job of parking.
• Sorry I said a sentence that made someone so unhappy that they had to drive their car around for awhile just because of it
• Most recently I am sorry that I let a nonprofit worker think that I actually cared to give her dumb cause money when in fact I simply did not have the heart to immediately say “I’m not interested thank you” because I felt bad about the fact that she had a pretty noticeable scar through her right eyebrow
  

Soon: That information about that typewriter!

Let Me Tell You One of Today's Frustrations

Why is it that I’m unable to find a damn place to buy the simple liquid known as cherry limeade? Everybody knows that this is the most delicious thing to drink, but inexplicably nobody will give me a large cup with ice, a straw, limejuice, water, sugar, and cherry syrup in solution form. I can’t walk two feet without passing some sprout-slinging, vegan-friendly "add wheat germ to your smoothie for only three dollars more" coffeeshop café/bookstore/solarium/pet salon, yet I can’t find fucking limeade with fucking cherry in it? The Northeast talks shit on the Midwest left and right but it is still somehow unable to provide me with a very basic staple. What The Hell Is This? Why can’t I just find a Regular Place* that Doesn’t Want to Fuck With Me and Make Me Miserable?


*Feel free to substitute any other relevant noun in this sentence in order to reveal more sentiments I have.

What Is The Weather Doing Right Now #3

I don't know, Right Now I am inside, and have been for the past 6 hours. I suppose I could find a window, but this hasn't happened. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Good Smells Yesterday

I smelled a ton of good smells yesterday - some were food, some were non food, one was I think perfume. Also the air from my window just now is remarkable, I can't even explain about it.

Soon: some information about a typewriter!

Here is Why I am Glad that Pigeon was Ground into Paste

For awhile now a couple of pigeons have been calling the upstairs front porch and its nearby roof-areas home. At no time have I been okay with this. The pigeons make noise constantly, especially in the morning when the sun is up and I am supposed to be asleep. There is a constant cooing murmur, along with scuffling noises that come from an inexplicable desire the birds have to root around and mess with what may or may not be a hole in the Place’s roof. I hate these birds. Others seem to have opinions much closer to 'neutral' on the matter of these birds. That is not what is important right now. What is important is that a smashed pigeon appeared on the road this morning, the corpse so fresh that it sent up feathers every time a car drove by or over it. I am certain that this is one of the two problematic birds I have been loathing for the past month. I am glad it is not alive anymore. I imagine the surviving bird will have to move somewhere else in order to escape whatever grief for which its minute and primitive brain has the capacity. Good. Quiet

Here Is that Picture of Ironically Placed Subway Ads You Requested

Here is that Picture of a Beetle You Asked For

What Is the Weather Doing Right Now #2

It's very humid, almost to the point of being light rain. It's 74 degrees Fahrenheit with winds from the West at a pleasant 8mph. It feels much warmer inside, but that is not the weather's business.

So that is what the weather is up to right now.

What Did I Think of the New Harry Potter Movie?

It was just okay. It was the first Harry Potter movie I have been to since Chamber of Secrets that wasn't questionably a date. That's weird, right? I'm pretty sure that's weird.

Go see it, I guess?

Unreasonable Demands

Look, here is what I want right now:

Wait. I'll get to that in a second. Let me let you know some things first, unimportant things. Right now it is gross just to be me, moreso than usual even - it is very humid in the room I am in, and the room I am in has the misfortune of containing a pretty bad-smelling incarnation of myself. That's too bad, and it's an influence on what I want right now. Another influence is the dream I woke up from this (yesterday) morning (afternoon) which was pretty mundane save for the fact that it was set in the past though I retained my knowledge of the future. Usually this would be an incredible power, but I found myself unable to actually take said knowledge into account when making decisions. The net result of all this was that I wound up being pretty bummed out in the dream, a sensation that carried over into wakefulness. So, Here is what I want right now:

1. To be in the car I used to have (the car does not have a name, if you were curious)
   
2. To be driving that car across a standard issue straight and deserted country road
3. To be singing along to music that is coming from the car's stereo
4. Someone else is in the car
   
5. There are fireworks in the trunk of the car
6. Pretty soon it will get dark
7. Not long after the fireworks will go sailing into the air
8. It is three years ago

To be fair I got pretty close to completing this list. Anyway.

Figured it out

I need to get an antique typewriter, you know, for my room. This will work. It should be a good brand too, like Royal. This will cost more than fifty dollars to make a reality. God damn it. Godammit! What am I going to do about not having a typewriter? I think it is the main thing missing from my life aside from all the other more important things. I guess I will have to work on this?

I am Afraid of Getting Yelled At

And that's the actual truth. It hasn't happened in some time though, so that means it will probably happen sooner rather than later.

A Short List of Things I Have in Common with Michael Emerson

We were both born in Iowa (neighboring towns, even)
We are both about 5'8''
Michael Emerson did freelance illustration for publications including The Boston Globe. I took a class on Adobe Illustrator in Boston.
Has appeared on both "The Practice" and "Lost." I have appeared in front of a TV while both of these shows were playing.

Michael Emerson has already won an Emmy, but I am going to go ahead and nominate him for a Best Dude Grammy. Congratulations, Mr. Emerson.

Here is that information about Michael Emerson you requested.

What is the Weather Doing Right Now #1

Begin Transmission:

National Weather Service Zone - MAZ014

National Weather Service County - MAC017

WNSWOU1
WOUS64 KWNS 092303
WOU1

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE FOR WS 501
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
703 PM EDT MON JUL 09 2007

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH 501 REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1100 PM EDT
FOR THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS

MAC009-011-013-015-017-021-025-027-100300-
/O.CON.KWNS.SV.A.0501.000000T0000Z-070710T0300Z/

MA
. MASSACHUSETTS COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE


ESSEX FRANKLIN HAMPDEN
HAMPSHIRE MIDDLESEX NORFOLK
SUFFOLK WORCESTER
--
So that is what the weather is up to right now.