A few weeks ago, I spotted a shiny gold wrapper by our office door. It remained there all day. No surprise, I mean who wants to pick it up? I thought maybe I was the only one that noticed it, but later that same day my coworker laughingly asked, "Hey, did you see that thing by the door?!" It being exactly what you think it is:
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The HBO John Adams series. 9 pm ET Sunday. It's brilliant. You can now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
No weekend itinerary for this week, other than staying low and under the radar. I have some pictures from my trip to LA thanks to Erin's camera.
Erin picked me up at LAX!
[Insert picture here of Erin's insanely awesome workplace, the private art gallery/office of only one of the biggest players in Hollywood, and then a delicious double-double at In N Out. The burger was good...but tastes really similar to the Burger Joint in the Le Parker Meridien.]
Then she took a nice scene route to the beach (other than work, my only must-do item on the trip itinerary). Ahhh, look at that warm clear blue sky. I hate you, NYC winter. HATE YOU.
Beach! I was amazed at how this kid in the photo kept himself amused with just a stick and a few rocks.
This woman tenaciously kept her kite afloat. I don't care what age you are, kites are mesmerizing to watch. Always. I think every UN session should start off with some kite flying. The end of Mary Poppins had the right idea. Speaking of, I had this conversation recently with a friend. Am I the only one that always thought Mary Poppins was pretty poppin' hot? Anyway, I'll let you come up with all the bad nanny jokes and such. Pervs.
Erin reads her totally pretenious art magazines. Haha. I think it's so freakin' cool that she's had dinner with all these artists in the magazine. Erin, OWN IT! OWN THIS! It's alright to brag! I love that my friends all have such cool jobs!!! News editor at start up! Famous and mega rich hollywood guy's gallery curator! Writer--who incidentally just moved to NYC to work on my favorite stand-up comic's new show! Tech stuff in India! Brain doctor! Well, lots of doctors actually! And lawyers! Lots and lots of lawyers!!!
Mrod contemplating...How to keep self amused...
Got it! First, the wind-up....
And the jump!
Erin decides enough work! Time to regress to a child like state and play with sticks!
This might be one of my all time favorite jumps EVER. It's just so joyful to me. Kite. Jumping. Beach. Blue sky. Sand. Stick. So good, so right.
Then we met up with some of her friends for dinner at this Asian fusion restaurant. I liked how all the menu's had this one item circled and noted as "Best Seller!" with a crayon. Also, I don't know if you can tell in this photo, but the menu had this really interesting old-school font reminiscent of typewriters. I wish I could use that font with everything. Love it.
[Insert picture of housewarming party of a friend from Brown and his new wife. It was such an awesome and relaxing time: an entire night of drinking beer, laughing endlessly, and watching this 3-year-old energetically and so adorably dominate the party.]
Pauline and her boyfriend, both visiting from Portland Oregon, who were following us so they could get back to the place they were staying at in LA. I so predictably played the role of the paparazzi. Pauline, graciously...and actually, very quickly acted the role of diva actress who sought YET shunned the spotlight of fame! While her boyfriend in the car actually is making the SAME face that Matt Damon makes in that music video of him and Sarah Silverman. Uncanny.
"Are you pregnant?!?" some asshole stalkerazzi yelled at her. Note Pauline's strategic binary usage of her hands: BOTH to block her face, yet simultaneously extinguishing rumors of her marriage by revealing clearly the lack of a wedding ring.
The next day, which incidentally was Easter Sunday, we met up with her parents and headed over to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Along the way, we walked through this park that has these tar pits where they found remains of mammoths or something. 10,000 BC what? Anyway, these families were having a cute picnic there while the kids hunted for hidden easter eggs. I spotted two. Eagle eye vision, kids. Can't fuck wit it.
A small, intsy tar pit.
The cool escalators at the LACMA. I've always enjoyed the combination of utility and art. Kind of like Transformers.
Famous art.
Famous art. No photos are allowed, so I had to sneak a hip check snapshot here.
Requisite touristy photo. In the far, far distance you can see the Hollywood sign. Can't see it? It's okay. Me neither.
Wind up...
Jump! Plus heel click. Excellent.
I'm "not sure" in this jump.
Erin is "sure."
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0b1YR5n7hk]
Lame attempt. Lets try again.
Take two. BETTER! MUCH BETTER. God forbid, but if something were to happen to me tomorrow and I move on from this life, I hope this photo is shown at my memorial service. Seriously.
I could tell that while Erin and I were jumping around like buffoons (but hey what else can you do when you're standing in front of dozens and dozens of lamp posts), I could tell that her dad really wanted to get in on this jumping fun. So finally with little pressure, he was game.
And then after some ice cream at Baskin Robbins, they dropped me off at my hotel.
[Insert pictures of me hanging out with Jesse as we sit outside a cafe, then drinking beer on his apartment building's rooftop, then playing Wii where he whupped me in tennis, bowling, and boxing, and then a sushi dinner.]
The view from my hotel balcony. Across the street, the building with the square hole in the middle is the CAA headquarter. And then in one of those windows in the two tall buildings in the background sits the West Coast division of Chopstix Inc.
[Insert photos of meeting, after meeting, after meeting. Then lunch at Newsroom across from the Ivy, where some D lister stood outside getting photographed by the paparazzi while holding up one of the celebrity gossip magazines.]
Thanks again to Erin for letting me hijack her camera and her hospitality.
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’
- Nietzsche
B: I think I'm going to that bar with the mechanical bull... Me: Are you going to get on it?
B: NO!
Me: What if I paid you?
B: NO! ...Also, no guy should be good at riding a mechanical bull.
It finally stopped raining after two days of ceaseless downpour. The perpetual overcast and darkness of the past two days is clearing and more and more patches of blue appear in the sky. I'm lying here in my bed looking out the window and I see the setting sun--sun at last!--shining through the scattering clouds. As the storm departs, this sight is really beautiful and peaceful to me. I feel a sense of tranquility watching the low floating clouds swiftly race across the sky as the sun casts a bright frame around their ephemeral bodies. If I climb to my building's rooftop and stood on the tips of my toes, I think maybe, just maybe, I could reach up and touch them as they glide by. Of course, because this is New York City after all, half of this view from my window is blocked by a tall condo being built next block over. Goodbye rainstorm. We hardly knew ye. Thanks for waking me up this morning with the loud crack and boom of thunder.
Update: Apparently the calm was just a temporary reprieve.
It is currently raining and windy like a $%*&.
Call me Mrod. An extremely rare white killer whale was spotted and photographed in Alaska. Boats stayed back after it told them, "Back up sucka. You remember what I did to that Ishmael cat. I messed him up real good."
"I had heard about this whale but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."
The whale had been spotted once years ago in the Aleutians but had eluded researchers since, even though they had seen many of the more classic black and white whales over the years.
[Thanks Clay]
Times Square armed forces recruiting office gets hit with an explosive. Mrod's thoughts to come.
this website. What say you?
My friend Brian sent me this on behalf of one of his friends:
Know a John Smith? Yes. We're serious.For the final episode of This American Life's second season on Showtime, we have been searching out all the John Smiths we can find. We've talking to John Smiths from all over the country and from all different walks of life. While we've talked a lot of John Smiths, but we need a few more to complete our story:
1. A John Smith in high school or a teacher in high school that have a John Smith in their class
2. Any John Smiths in their late-20s or early-30s that are going through a major life change--moving in with a significant other? career change? getting engaged? married? divorced? buying a house? that sort of thing.
Know someone that fits the description? Contact TAL via email bruce@thislife.org or call TAL's official John Smith hotline at 1-800-463-4505 and leave us a message and mention this email. Please forward this note on to others who might fit the description and want to be featured in the season finale of This American Life.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEB50IfgkA4] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1asiTbXwcc]
Bottles at Hiro or Delancey or Smithsonian Magazine and the Economist?
L: I saw the German last night. Mrod: Did he deutsch you?
Mrod: Damn, nasty.
L: LOLOL.
Sunday
"Picnic at local park. Children welcome. Subway 6 footers will be available. Please bring any other food and drinks you would like. 12pm."
How can I resist the Subway? Better buy my plane ticket, put in for my vacation time, and book the hotel room!
Ever since I donated a little bit of money to my presidential candidate of choice I've found myself on nearly every mailing list from A to Z. To entice donations a lot of them will have a free "gift" of stickers and other bric-a-brac. I usually just ignore and throw them out put them in the recycling bin.
However I made the mistake tonight of opening one of them. It was like the mother lode of free gifts.
Inside I found the usual "fancy" mailing labels imprinted with my mailing address framed in faux gold, as well as stickers ("Take time to dream"). Nothing too out of the ordinary and about on par for these things. Then I found a note pad (hmmm, kind of useful), a couple bookmarks (I am in the middle of a new Kundera book...), and a small wall calendar (Kind of perfect for my cubicle at work).
Then the kicker: a freakin dope dream catcher. I'm always such a sucker for dream catchers. I like the folk myth behind them and I just think they look dope. Then to REALLY tug on my heart strings...which are always ultimately tied to my wallet, I found a Certificate of Appreciation presented to ME (and my name was spelled correctly!) that (kinda presumptuous of them actually...) said "in recognition of your generous gift to St. Joseph's Indian School and the Lakota children whose lives will be happier and futures will be brighter." UGH. Now I REALLY have to actually send them some money. That is some brilliant marketing.
I want to say former but the more I look at it I think the latter. What say you?
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