Saturday, October 11, 2003  

Tech Envy

My wife is out spending Saturday morning like she spends most Saturdays: yard saling. I don't know when it became a hobby, and I really don't know when it became a verb, but she's out bargain shopping and has promised to find me a weight bench and a coffee percolator. That's probably an oblique metaphor for my life these days.

I'm doing some bargain shopping of my own, as I'm in dire straits, technology-wise. My cell phone is a complete hunk of digital shit that reboots itself occasionally and whose display is upside down and backwards most of the time. My PDA has developed a condition where it eats a pair of batteries every eight hours. My desktop machine, which was built for $25 out of scrounged parts, is just about to outgrow its tiny 6GB hard drive. And my "laptop" is so old and heavy that time slows down if you get within 5 feet of it. I'm neck deep in tech culture overdrive...I want to hack the planet...and I don't have and can't afford the hardware to do it. Meanwhile, every dipshit yuppie that needs the manual to run Excel is cruising along with tiny little laptops and sweet flip phones. Thus is the irony of my life.

Wish List:

Alienware Area-51 Extreme
T-Mobile Hiptop Sidekick with digital camera.
Hoojum Cubit p4 running BeOS 5, Mandrake, and Win98 for games.

There Goes My Motivation

Good god. Someone just sent me this link. I shall be useless the rest of the day.

The Bob Haircut Worship Page

Council, The Day After

Great turnout for the show last night at the Comedy Studio. We had a real blast with this Council, despite the fact that it could not have been written closer to the wire and could probably have stood another rewrite. Rob Reuter, Baratunde, and TC Cheever were outstanding guests, and my main men Ross and Benari (fresh home from Gitmo - yes, that Gitmo) were a goddamn panic, if I do say so myself. And extra uber-thanks go out to DJ Hazard for reprising his role as Benari-Hulk.

Question: Would you, my general readership (last count: 3), be interested in seeing the questions and bits posted here after a Council? Drop me a line and let me know.

Standup-wise, everyone did great. I thought Dan Sulman was particularly funny. He's always had a sharp brain, but he's knee-deep into some serious artistic honesty these days, and was a dadgum riot.

News Flash: Rick Jenkins had an idea for Thursdays at the club that didn't make me want to punch him in the throat! In fact, it was pretty good, and hatched only after a minimal amount of Sam Adams. Stay tuned, because I do believe I'm going to take him up on it (how's that for needlessly cryptic?).

Playing Catch Up

The last few days are a complete and total blur. October in Colorado spun me back to an earlier time in my life, when I didn't have many responsibilities, did nothing but comedy, drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney and lived like a by-God beatnik. I didn't get to do any of these things, but it took me there emotionally, dig? Hitting Boston full-force after 8 hours of airports and airplanes was one hell of a shock to my system. I'm only just now starting to settle my head.

Disjointed moments in the last 48 hours:

155 emails waiting for me at my Goddamn Day Job
A Grand High Council tonght that's 100% unwritten as of this moment
A couple of very poor choices in the middle of my stress yesterday
My writing teacher marking up last week's assignment like Douglas MacArthur planning an assault on the Phillipines ("writing is too exuberant" -- hack, slash, slash, hack)
The Red Sox! The Red Sox The Red Sox!
Jude running around in circles in his footie jammies yelling "PENIS!" at the top of his lungs (I should never have taught him to do that)

Perfection

Yesterday's funeral was a lot of things: cold, rainy, simple, and perfect. A few readings of scripture that Gramma Mac particularly loved (all of which focused on love, kindness, patience, and faith), a couple of songs she wanted (The Old Rugged Cross and Amazing Grace) a lot of crying (even the limo driver got swept away by it all) and capped by my father reading her specific request:

"In lieu of flowers, or donations, friends are asked to vote Democrat."