I’m actually having a good productive day at work today. I credit the crazy delicious chocolate chip cookies that one chick brought in for her birthday for some of my good efforts. They were extra super chocolate chippy. I don’t know how the cookie was able to contain the sheer quantity of chips it had. One chip did manage to break free and leap on to my desk.

mmmMMMmmm…. chocolate chips.

Where was I? Oh yes, I was being productive. No really, I am. But I am not a machine and I needed a few moments break from thinking of SELECT site_names FROM locations statements. I hopped on the tubes and ended up reading one of John Mayer’s Esquire magazine columns from February. Entitled “Music Lessons with John Mayer”, it is about B.B. King on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The end of the short column reads thusly:

But legends are legends for damn good reason, even if they eventually help sell soda and lottery tickets. Ray Charles was taken for granted much the way B. B. King is now. But if Ray were to have one more night on this earth to play a two-hour set, we would all pay big money to pack the largest stadium and stand rapt with attention for the entire evening.

Ray’s gone, but B. B. King’s still here. He’s playing your town any day now. Go see him.

I know Jerry & Sara got to see Ray Charles somewhere in Iowa a year or two before he died and I’ve always regretted not seeing him when I had the chance. I then remembered that recently Hancher had announced some late additions to their 2007-2008 season and upon checking the website I saw that B.B. King was one those additions. So I listened to John and bought a ticket for the show in February.

Now I must get back to being productive, bolstered by the happiness of the prospect of live music, no matter how far off it is.

I hope everyone was able to enjoy as much of a relaxing, yet productive weekend as I was.

Right after work on Friday, I went to see The Simpsons Movie. The theater was pretty full and the crowd was entertaining. Though one of the biggest laughs for me came before the movie even started. Sitting behind me was a group of seemingly college-type guys who were trying to be amusing to each other. One of the trailers before the movie was for Bee Movie, the Jerry Seinfeld animated movie. At the end of the trailer, the voice over announces that the female lead voice in the movie is done by Renée Zellweger, who is known to have certain amount of squintyness or sourpuss about her face in real life, but the character doesn’t resemble her. One of the guys then says,

Thank god we won’t have to look at her.

For some reason that struck both me and the woman sitting to my right as absolutely hysterical and we both just busted out laughing and couldn’t stop for awhile. Between my guffaws I heard the guy say kind of embarrassed, “oh I didn’t think I said it that loud.” As for the movie, I thought it delivered for all the Simpsons fans. It was an actual movie and not just four episodes smashed together that stayed true to the show and the characters. I thought the opening was really clever and enjoyed the ‘to be continued’ part. SPOILER: Is Dr. Nick really dead forever now? There were so many good lines, but having 90 minutes to keep trying to remember something that was funny while hearing dozens of other funny lines made it so hard for me to come out with lines to quote. I did find this one on the IMDB that I loved, though a lot of the funny was in the delivery: “You ever try going mad without power? No one listens to you.”

After I got home from the early movie (thank you 4:40pm matinée), I went nuts cleaning my apartment. I did three loads of laundry, dusted, vacuumed, cleaned my bathroom, scrubbed the kitchen, and I even scrubbed my kitchen floors. I also finished watching season one of Entourage on DVD, which is a fun guilty pleasure. TracyA described it to me as ‘Sex and the City for guys’ and she was right. Instead of four girlfriends in NYC, its four buddies in LA and I think the way its all shot on location in LA really makes it interesting. After all the cleaning and all the watching, it was nearly 2am and I was still wide awake. Since I knew I didn’t have anything in particular to get up for on Saturday, I took an Ambien and finally knocked out around 2:30am.

Saturday I rolled out of bed around 10am, it was lovely. I went out and ran a few errands, including recycling, which I love to do. I decided since this was the big moving weekend in town, one that I wouldn’t have to particpate in until next year, it was time I finished moving into my place by hanging the rest of my posters. I started hanging a few posters in my office and then I got distracted and decided to watch a movie, so I tossed in the Infamous DVD that I had gotten from the library. It was yet another film based on Truman Capote and his writing of In Cold Blood. I thought it was a good character study with many great actors and actresses in supporting roles. Special bonus points because Daniel Craig played the murderer Perry Smith. He even went brunette for the role, which I’m glad he didn’t do for Bond because his natural blond suits him much better.

I’d been hungry for something to snack on, so I made a batch of puppy chow/muddy buddies for snacking. I’m still working on my goal of reading 50 books this year and on Saturday I finished reading #32 The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. It was good and creepy, but not too much for my tastes. I did a little more cleaning and then I watched an episode of MST3K which was a really funny one that I hadn’t seen before.

Mac woke me up a bit earlier than I wanted to rise this morning, so I begrudingly got up and fed her and myself, then laid on the couch and watched the new FX show ‘Damages’ with Glenn Close. Its very ‘Alias meets John Grisham’ and I’m interested enough to watch a few more episodes and see where it goes. This morning was Antalya’s dedication at Jerry & Sara’s church. Here are a few photos:

After church and a tasty lunch at the church, I ran into Walgreens to buy some conditioner. I ran into my mom’s old boss who is now a pastor in Iowa City and bought my conditioner. I paid cash, which I rarely do, and on the way out, I threw away my receipt at the garbage can outside the store. I then got in my car and went to Office Depot and bought some magnets. Riveting stuff. I get back to my apartment and go to get out of my car and I cannot find my conditioner. I tear the basically clean cart apart thinking I’ve lost my mind. This was a big bottle of conditioner (it was on sale), where could it be? Then I thought, “someone stole my conditioner when I was in Office Depot!” But that made no sense to me since why would they only take the conditioner? Then I thought back to when I left Walgreens and thought maybe I had actually left it on the garbage can outside the store. But would it still be there? I headed back and it wasn’t outside. I went in and, of course, the girl who had checked me out wasn’t working the registers anymore. There were two guys working now. I went to the one who was the assistant manager and started with “I was here just a bit ago and has anyone brought in a bottle of conditioner that might have been left outside?” This guy is looking at me like I’m nuts. But then, from the other register, that guy says, “is this what you’re looking for?” and hands me my bag and my conditioner! Woo! Conditioner is very important to my life.

The rest of today I spent hanging posters, they’re pretty much all up now. Though I always have things that need to be framed and matted. I hadn’t done any matting in awhile, but I did this this afternoon:

[What? You didn't think I could go an entire post and not mention Bonerama in some way, did you?]

After all the hanging, I watched 3 Days of the Condor with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. It was decent, but spies have come a long way in the last 32 years. I think I could’ve taken him out three or four times along the way.

Now I’m watching tonight’s episode of ‘The 4400‘ and then I’m heading to bed having enjoyed a good weekend. I have a lot to do at work tomorrow, but I’m glad I didn’t go in this weekend. I needed some non-work time. Have a good week!

As I sit at my desk and wait to hear back from someone about something kinda sorta important, I’ve managed to talk myself out of driving to Michigan tomorrow. Bonerama is playing in western Michigan tomorrow night and its only a five hour drive. But there is that stupid Eastern timezone thing to deal with, so I couldn’t just leave right after work and make it in time. Unless they started like New Orleans-late, but since the venue says it closes at midnight, I figure they’ll probably go on before 11:30pm. Just a hunch.

But its killing me to miss them. Its been killing me that I missed any of the Midwest shows they’ve been playing these past two weeks. I only went to four shows. I feel so unsupportive. Ok, not really. But you know me, concerts are an addiction and to know a fix is just a few states over makes me twitchy.

I’m consoling myself by thinking that after I get the crazy crap I have to do at work done in the next month or two and that by the time they come back my way, I’ll be able to ditch out of work for a week at a time to hit the road and be a proper friend of the band.

Work is work. I’m actually doing cool new stuff and its not a pain to come in or even stay late most days. We’ll see how I feel about it in another three months or so.

I guess this post doesn’t have much of a point other than me convincing myself I’ve seen my boys enough for these past two weeks. Though I’m really just lying to myself because I can never see them enough. I’m coming down off a lot of pop-culture too. Finishing reading all seven Harry Potter books in the last three months and watching all five Harry Potter movies in less than three days. I’ve also consumed the first two seasons of House on dvd in the past couple of weeks and now I have to wait until mid-August for the third season to be available. I need my House fix! I’m out of sorts… but then again, I could go see The Simpsons Movie at midnight…

Ok, the phone call I’m waiting for isn’t going to happen tonight.

Me and my random ramblings are out.