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November 12, 2004

Arbitrary and Ambiguous

After my comments on the bleak weather yesterday, I went home and started a fire. My firewood is kicking ayss (pronounced ace) if I don't say so myself, which I usually do. It burns like a redhead at the beeatch. It's dry and clean and did I mention it burns like sandpaper on a slip 'n slide? Following a lovely dinner in front of the fireplace with the Geester the plan for the evening was to meet Pat for a beer before he had to go to work, and then head to The Earl to see The Problem of Happiness. Now, if the temperature hovers in the 40s all day, and then the sun goes down, what does conventional wisdom say will happen to the temperature? Rather than answer my own rhetorical question, I'll just tell you that when I left at 8:20pm to meet Pat, it was probably 15 degrees warmer than it had been all day. Nice work, Georgia. The state motto should be Georgia: Where the weather is just as arbitrary and ambiguous as the sports fans.

I hooked up with Pat at The Local and we quaffed a couple pints. He's cooking up a scheme that might involve a one-day trip to Pennsylvania and back just to watch a football game. In my staunch protest of such an obnoxious and irrational idea I said, "Sweet. Count me in." At 10, Pat headed to his job of giving people the Pat Treatment and I headed to The Earl to watch a movie.

I am torn over The Earl. It's a great place to see small, intimate rock shows (or movies in this case), their food is pretty darn good for a rock club, and they've got a couple micros on tap. I saw the Rent Boys there in '99 and it was one of the best local band shows I think I've ever seen in Atlanta. By the end of the show, long into the Misfits covers, you couldn't tell who was part of the band and who was part of the crowd. I also saw the mighty Frank Jordan there a couple months ago. I don't think I need to recap the awesomeness of Frank Jordan.

All that said, I fucking hate The Earl. I'm by no means an authority on the subject, but in my estimation, it is Atlanta's epitome of pretentious, rock-hipster, douche-baggery. Actually, on some nights, The Local can be guilty of the aforementioned offenses as well. These are the places where you hear people say, "Yeah ... I was into toilet paper before it got all huge," and, "I drink PBR because it tastes good." I'm not saying people can't think that PBR tastes good. Just not the people who wear black-rimmed glasses, drive late-model Jettas, and own a Mac. Admit it, fuck those people.

My social hangups aside. Garrett's movie was incredibly cool, and not just because I'm in it for a few seconds here and there. This is a guy who I saw furnish his bedroom with furniture he made out of garbage that he stole, and here he has created an hour-long movie that plays on three screens (meaning he edited together three hour-long movies) and is screened with a live band providing the original score. Truly a monumental undertaking. I was quite proud of myself for talking to Gar's girlfriend, who attended the University of Florida, for several minutes without bringing up the Gators' loss to the Bulldogs. I am a true gentleman. A renaissance man if you will.

Gar's email announcement of the screening said "10:00pm," so naturally the movie got rolling at about 12:20am. Whatever. I don't go out very much and it was nice to have a couple beers and whoop it up on a school night. Since my head didn't finally hit the pillow until about 2:30am, the alarm clock was not its usual chorus of angels when it started squawking at ass-thirty a.m., I actually gave it the finger to try to shut it off. Eventually I managed to make the horrible, horrible noise cease and proceeded to immediately sleep until 8:30. It was scandalously luxurious.

A little house-keeping tidbit: I'm going to be more vigilant with the Frequent and Not Frequent designations on the links list. You people who only update your websites once a week need to tighten up. The entire internet is passing you by. I'm not paying you to sit around NOT updating your websites!! Get to work! If anyone knows of a MovableType plug-in that will automatically rank my link in order of update frequency, I'd love to know about it. I guess I could go find it on my own, but that would defeat the purpose of you finding it and giving it to me. Gimme.

If someone doesn't take the fat jesus off the table, I'm going to lose my composure.

Posted by tony at November 12, 2004 09:11 AM