Just a drinker with a keyboard. Let's see what happens.

But America doesn't look a day over 193.

Well, it is officially fourth of July weekend for me! Time to go home, put on “Living In America” by James Brown, and smoke a cigar. Not sure what I’m doing after that.
The other waterfront park in Williamsburg, and it’s ranger-free. Shoulda drank here yesterday.
The other waterfront park in Williamsburg, and it’s ranger-free. Shoulda drank here yesterday.

They probably already covered this on 'The Office".

What’s the deal with this A4 paper they use in Europe? Why’s it gotta be different? It’s taller and slightly narrower than standard letter-sized American paper, but it’s not legal size paper. Why is this? What’s the purpose? What are the origins? Do they laugh at American letter-size paper, deeming A4 superior? Hell, even the name “A4” sounds pretentious and snooty. I don’t know what the deal is, but it’s a pain in the ass. As is everything else associated with this particular project.
I know I can’t possibly be the first to point this out, but…even if you think Michael Jackson was a kid-touching weirdo, you still need to thank him…think about it, since he died, you haven’t heard “Poker Face”, have you?
While my Adobe Acrobat acts wonky, let me take a minute to say the following: It will be a small miracle if I wake up before, say, 5 p.m. tomorrow. .

Where's the fire? Or swine flu?

My officemate and my supervisor both took off early today without saying anything. What the hell is up with that? These two are always going on about calling in if I’m running late, and I’m all like, “You can’t call in from a slow-moving underground G train.” Now they both disappear, at different points of the day? Weird.

Well, at least I’m guaranteed to leave on time.

People can barely find 10 movies to watch all year...

I don’t know why this move by the Academy to go to 10 Best Picture nominees agitates me, but it just does.

Clearly an attempt to “cast a wider net” and drive up ratings, it’s a response to the fact that “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E” were considered by many to have been robbed of a Best Picture nomination. Well, this sounds like a classic case of hard cases making bad law.

I think this not that I think Oscars are a be-all and end-all of cinematic excellence, but rather, as a solution to a problem, it’s just dumb. If they had come up with a system where there was a minimum of five nominees and a maximum of ten, I think that would have made more sense. As a fan of comedy, I would have backed doing it the way the Golden Globes does it where drama and comedies/musicals compete seperately (since we know comedies are generally not allowed to win Oscars—unless of course, your zany fiilm includes the Holocaust or a disability) to see comedic moviemaking be recognized.

But this solution just means twice as many “prestige movies” will be out there pimping themselves for two months for the big prize. Great. If you’re in the Oscar bait business, rejoice. However, I would think the Oscar nomination might be devalued now and your art-house psychological drama may not get the bump it once did from being bestowed with a nomination. And it was noted that maybe two movies got shafted last year. Great, so what do you fill the other three slots with? And then the movie that finishes 11th will still have people bitching on its behalf.

Plus, isn’t the show long enough? Now I have to sit through ten Oscar clips so I can get through my pool? Forget that, I don’t care how dazzlingly entertaining and surprising it is to see Wolverine singing and dancing across the stage telling jokes. 

This made no sense. A system to expand the number of nominees in years where there were more than five worthy candidates backed by members would have accomplished this just fine. I think their accounting firm can do the math. Trust me, there’s no need to have ten nominees every year. Instead, now they just made it twice as easy to get a nomination that is worth about half as much. Stupid.

Helping people one beer at a time.

So I loked at my twitter and saw that I had posted something about “the doctor is in”, and then I remembered why. I had done some of my not-so-famous amateur psychology with a stranger I met at a local watering hole, Iggy’s.

Somehow we started talking ( I think I just asked if the seat in front of me was open), and the guy had a Muslim name, as do I. After a brief debate about how far off the reservation you are once you start drinking and eating pork (he still conisders himself a Muslim) he got into his love life.

He was in an arranged marriage at 20. Many years later, it didn’t work out, and now he’s divorced. A typical story. Now that he’s back in the wild, so to speak, he told me he’s been going wild, hooking up left and right, getting blasted, aand having a fun time. But he told me he was feeling a little guilty about it.

I asked him why, and he wasn’t sure. I told him there seemed to be nothing to be guilty about, you just came out of a very serious relationship. You just want to relax and have some fun. Maybe make up for a lost time in your life and just not have things be so damned serious. He agreed, but he couldn’t shake the feelings of guilt. I pressed him as to why, he seemed like he was being honest, wasn’t hurting anyone, and he was meeting his obligations.

Finally, the breakthrough came when he said, “But this isn’t me. It’s not who I am. I want to be in a real relationship.”

I went, “Of course you do. And you’ll do that when you’re ready. You’re just not ready yet. You don’t sound like you’re where you need to be yet. Don’t feel bad about that, growth and healing takes time, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’ll get there, man. In the mean time, go ahead and drink up.”

“Wow,” he replied, “You’re right!” He looked like he had been relieved of a burden. “He said, man, you’re better than the therapist I’m paying! I do feel better!”

“I took a couple of psych classes in my day. But keep going to that therapist. At worst, you’ll get all the craziest feelings you have off your chest. The answers he gives you almost don’t matter.”

He thanked me and went about hitting on some girl further down the bar. He had an extra bounce in his step, a lightness of being. He struck out and moved on to another bar, but so what? He wasn’t feeling guilty about any of it. Good for him.

I went back to my beer, another case solved.

Well, that escalated.

For the second night in a row, I didn’t exactly get a good night’s sleep. Tuesday night was the first mosquito of the summer’s fault, last night was mostly my inability to quit while I was ahead (sample dialogue: “Man, even after that shot, I still feel sober”). Luckily, there’s just enough excitement around here to sustain me. And by excitement, of course, I mean, “unbelievable work-related nuisances”.

On today's episode of "Did That Make Me Look Like an Asshole?"

On the R train home, a street performer who played with a mandolin and a pan flute began performing in front of me. We were looking right at each other as he began to perform. He had gone on for about thirty seconds when I reached into my pocket and turned up the volume so I could hear “Steppin to the AM” by 3rd Bass a little better. While I was still looking directly at him.