Back Home For the Holidays

I've found out that another year in Los Angeles has made me weak. Buffalo is colder than I remember. But some quick notes on the return trip:

1) I woke up as the plane was descending into Buffalo. I looked out the window and it was pure white. Like a piece of paper put over the window. Literally could see nothing. Just like I remember the winter.

2) Starter jackets are still really popular here.

3) Buffalo wings. Hell yeah.

4) Seriously? Starter jackets?

5) I visited two relatives in nursing homes today, and it made me think: Buffalo is like an old woman stuck in a nursing home. The brick buildings and architecture, the lake, Sheas, Delaware Park, the museums... at one point she was beautiful and it's incredibly sad to see her this way. She'll never be young again. That and she years a Bills Starter jacket.

God Only Knows

That song makes me weep it's so perfect. It even withstood a direct assault by the Beatles in "Here, There, and Everywhere."

And then "911 is a Joke" comes on and I'm smiling and rapping along like I don't care cuz I stay paid anyway.

This BMG thing is working out pretty well for me.

A New Job!!!

As in, I have one! No more fetching coffee, scrambling to find 3-hole punched salmon-colored paper, hurrying to pick something up for someone fast-fast-fast hurry now FAST only to come back to the office and find they've left for the day. No more horrible production assistant tasks.

I AM A PRODUCER'S ASSISTANT!

What? No, see it ends in "-er" now, not "-tion." Huh?.... no, there's a world of difference.

Which.... well yeah sure okay, it means that I still probably have to do some of those PA-type things, but there's actual responsibility and a sense of self-worth and my boss is very good about helping his assistants advance. So let's ignore that there is a lot of shit that goes into being an assistant in Hollywood. The point is I have a great boss (no Kevin Spacey Swimming With Sharks stuff), and all the shit I have to deal with is new shit.

You know what they say, the shit is always browner the next stall over, and I'm on my way to a new stall, my friends.

One with air freshener. Maybe even potpurri-smelling.

LIBERTÉ!!!

Why, oh why, did I join BMG?

Because...

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds
Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Dr. Dre The Chronic
Sonic Youth Daydream Nation
The Police Regatta de Blanc
Uncle Tupelo Still Feel Gone
Public Enemy Fear of a Black Planet

...is why.

More L.A. Driving

Ok. If you don't live in Los Angeles, you won't care. But if you do, please back me up on this one.

They've been doing some work on the 101 freeway -- specifically, it seems, the on/off ramps. They wait until night to do the work -- very thoughtful. But they're working on like three (3!) ramps in a row, on the same direction of the freeway.

So instead of working on the Laurel Canyon ramps, so people heading West (or North -- this is another complaint. At a point the 101 entrances literally alternate between calling it West or North, and then East or South. Asinine) -- anyways, people heading West (a.k.a. North) would be like, "oh, Laurel Canyon is closed, I guess we'll get off at Coldwater; then people heading East (a.k.a. South.... sigh) would be like, "oh, I guess we'll exit at Vineland."

That's just barely inconvenient. But do they do that? No. Why? Because it's not inconvenient enough. What do they do? Like I said, 3 exits in a row on the same side. So instead, you're heading East (again: South) and you're like, "oh, Van Nuys is closed, we'll get off at Woodman.... no, wait, so is Woodman. I have to get off at Coldwater?!?! OH MY GOD, COLDWATER IS CLOSED TOO!!! So now you're exiting the 101 at Laurel Canyon, 5 miles from where you want to be.

And do they warn you about this? Hahahaha, of course not, you silly bastard. Bend over and grab your ankles, because those multi-million dollar signs they put up to warn drivers of stuff? It's blank. No warning that you may want to get off as soon as possible because the next open exit is in Fresno. Those signs are only on when some guy wants to take his little daughter to Disney World and doesn't tell Mom, then we're looking for a 1991 Chevrolet Astro van with some rust and no plates, because no one in this town has plates on their cars.

Side note: try and guess where I was driving last night. Use context clues in this post, use complete sentences, and show your work.

Baseball Off-Season

Sweet! The Mets got Pedro Martinez. They overspent and I doubt he'll last all 4 years, but I think it's a good move with the way the rest of the rotation is set up. Now we have Glavine as a #2, then Kris Benson (and his smokin' wife) at 3. Not too bad a rotation... huh? What's that? The Braves just traded for who?!

Oh crap.

I Saw The Coolest Thing

I was driving on Sunset Terrace -- a street in LA that runs above the Sunset Strip -- and this one house had its garage door open. And in this garage was a car. But not just any car. It was the Batmobile. Like, the original TV series Batmobile. It looked like the real deal.

Actually, it looked like this.

And hanging on the wall behind the Batmobile was a huge Batman symbol. It was awesome, and I'm not even into Batman. Judging by the house that this garage was attached to that this Batmobile was in, I think it may have been the real deal.

In fact, I think it may actually have been Bruce Wayne's house.

By the way...

Here come the Bills!!!

I'm not a huge football fan, but with my athletes of choice not showing up for work this season I've been forced to pay closer attention to the NFL. Especially since the Orangemen (oh, I'm sorry, the Orange) don't play anyone except a few CYO teams for awhile (the Hak-and-Mac Attack looks pretty potent this season) .

I'd also like to point out for the record that, from the very beginning, I was a huge fan of the Willis McGahee draft. Lee Evans is making everyone forget about Peerless Price, and Drew looks better. And now they have a return game! They've never had one of those before.

This is gonna be awesome when they still miss the playoffs and a bunch of 7-9 asshats from the NFC end up as a wild card.

Polarized Television Viewing

Recently, I was flipping back and forth between the ESPN original movie 3 about Dale Earnhardt and HBO's Angels in America. It was like a fictional (and entertaining) version of Crossfire.

The Paul Maguire Sunday Night Football Drinking Game

My roommate and I have noticed a few trends in the broadcast of ESPN's Sunday Night Football. Specifically, trends that have to do with Paul Maguire's commenting on the game. We've developed a drinking game that goes along with watching the game. Here are the rules:

1) Every time Paul Maguire says "I'll tell you," "I'll tell you what," or "let me tell you" -- drink. This in and of itself would constitute a drinking game, as during the Eagles-Redskins game he said one of the aforementioned phrases 22 times.

2) If you predict an upcoming Paul Maguire "I'll tell you" -esque comment, everyone else drinks. If you wrongly predict it, you must drink twice. (The comment must come within Paul Maguire's next "blurb" of sentences. If he speaks, someone else speaks, and then Paul says the comment, this doesn't count as correct soothsaying.)

3) Paul Maguire loves predicting close first down calls. Also, when he makes these predictions, he says them with such conviction and confidence you blindly believe him. Whenever he tries to do this, drink. If he's wrong, drink twice.

4) Paul Maguire loves getting angry at players when they make foolish penalties. Whenever Paul Maguire gets angry at a player for making a foolish penalty, drink.

My roommate and I had two Japanese visitors recently, and they gave us some saki and saki cups as a thank-you for showing them around LA. For the inaugural Paul Maguire Sunday Night Football Drinking Game, we drank saki. It is highly recommended to not use saki as the drink of choice when you play the Paul Maguire Sunday Night Football Drinking Game.

I'm Back

Though I never went anywhere.