Jeff’s Journal

In somewhat chronological order:

* Karaoke with dodgeballers. I sang Meat Loaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” and then Rickrolled the bar on a dare. I surprised them because they don’t know that I sing. Much more fun than anticipated. Liz, I thought of you about a dozen times - you must hate people like me.

* The Andy Warhol: Pop Politics exhibit at the Currier Art Museum. The whole art museum was great (it may have actually been the first time I’ve actually been to an art museum), but the Warhol exhibit was maddeningly wonderful. Ann has a very visceral, negative reaction to Warhol which is interesting and fun at the same time. The rest of the museum was great, too, but the Warhol exhibit was what brought us in. Also, free Saturday mornings at Currier? Awesome.

* Dinner with Jackie and Matthieu, followed by a maddening game called Bananagrams, which is like your own personal Scrabble with a race against other people. Strange, but it worked.

* Fried chicken. I really fried chicken. About that whole losing weight thing…

* Being done with my amoxiciillan. And without hives!

* D&D today. First game with our campaign in close to 6 weeks or so, and it was nice to get back in the swing of things. I don’t like trolls anymore, though. Or my dice. Stupid dice.

* Weeds. We’ve watched 5 or 6 episodes over the last four days - surprisingly fun and addictive show.

* The library. Because no matter how hard I try, I always have roughly 17 books out at once. I brought 8 back and thought “finally, I won’t have a ridiculous stack.” Whoops. As we were checking out, I saw a book I wanted across the room and sent Ann after it. The woman behind the desk gave me a look. I can’t blame her.

* Football. Who cares if I was 0-4 in my NHL predictions? The Colts are out in the first round!

Mixing memes:

What age did you turn this year and how did you spend your birthday?

I turned 27. I think I actually had to work late on my birthday, if I remember correctly.

Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well, I’d say some of it. Got more politically involved to a point, but didn’t get much done with the book as compared to what I wanted.

What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Had surgery, I suppose, even though wisdom tooth extraction is hardly surgery. Played a tabletop RPG, which took way, WAY too long for me to get involved with. Quit a job with no actual fallback in place. Was in a movie that people saw. Ate black olives and liked them.

Did anyone you know give birth? Did anyone you know die?

My grandfather died at age 94. That’s the only real noteworthy death from this year I can remember. Congrats to Andy on his second kid, that’s the only one I’m remembering at the moment.

Tell us about some noteworthy things done by people you know.

Chelsea got her movie in a bunch of festivals. That was probably the most noteworthy thing I can think of.

Do any traveling?

I only went 2 hours from Manchester once. Didn’t leave New England at all.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A less ridiculous work situation, financial stability, a place closer to home.

What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

No clue.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Standing up for myself. As strong a personality I am, I tend to wilt considerably when it comes to defending myself or doing what I think is the right thing. This means both recognizing where I’m correct and admitting where I’m wrong. I’m still not perfect, not even close, but the Jeff of even 2 years ago would have never done what I did concerning the library debacle this year. The Jeff of 2 years ago wouldn’t have apologized for wronging someone so long ago and thus repairing a relationship that had no business being repaired.

What was your biggest disappointment or failure?

The library, the election, the Super Bowl. My relative inaction on the Kroger Babb bio. The American news media.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Wisdom teeth and strep throat.

What was the best thing you bought? Best gift you were given?

Interestingly enough, I didn’t actually buy all that much for myself. I spent a good deal of money on gaming stuff (video and tabletop), but nothing crazy.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My wife’s, without question. She trusts me to do the right thing, stands by me when I need her support, and doesn’t hold back when I’m wrong. The fact that she hasn’t bailed on me for a better model after the activity of the last 3 months is a testament to how lucky I am to have her.

Whose behavior did not?

Library-related entities. The American electorate. Manny Ramirez. Benefit Concepts, Inc.. Pigeon.

Where did most of your money go?

Bills.

What did you get overly excited about?

The amount of reading I accomplished. D&D v4.0. Left 4 Dead.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder. The world was my oyster last year, and this year I have absolutely no clue where I’m going to end up.
ii. thinner or fatter? Same. I’ve been a steady 177-182 for 4 years running no matter what I do.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer, since my new job is essentially a $10k/year pay cut.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Worked harder on the book, was more active physically, socially, and politically.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Moping. Getting too far into my head.

How will you be spending the end of the year?

Ann’s babysitting, so I’ll probably play Left 4 Dead until the clock strikes midnight. I don’t really do much on New Year’s these days, nothing will trump New Year’s 2001/2002 for me. Then again, if something interesting did come up, I might dive at it.

With whom did you spend the most time on the phone with?

I avoid the phone as much as possible.

Did you fall in love in 2008?

Tiffanie’s kitten is quite adorable, yes.

Best TV shows and/or website? (passive entertainment)

The new ones on our plate are Mad Men, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother. I don’t think we watch anything else that’s new new.

Websites? Cracked.com is the ultimate timewaster, as is Shelfari.

Best video game?

I spent the most time with Team Fortress 2, Geometry Wars 2, and Left 4 Dead.

Best book/comic?

Book was Anathem, no contest. Comic? Ultimate Spider-Man or the Buffy/Angelverse.

What song will always remind you of 2008?

Interestingly enough, probably “Sultan” by What Made Milwaukee Famous.”

What was your greatest musical discovery?

For so, so many reasons, the Two Man Gentleman Band.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

How many ways can you match your Chuck Taylors to your button-down shirts?

What political issue stirred you the most?

Other than the election itself? Possibly the Employee Free Choice Act.

Whom did you miss?

Everyone 75 miles south of here.

Who was the best new person you met?

There are a pile of people who fit this here, so I’m just going to say that getting to know Mandy, Bill, Mike, Billy, and Jenny has been a pleasure I’ve not had in quite a long time. Hopefully I don’t irritate them too too much.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Honestly, though, not especially. I don’t *hate* the one person who essentially made my life a living hell as much as feel sorry for them, and as much as I get irritated and upset with people I know and love when it comes to matters of personal beliefs, I don’t ever hate them and never could.

What did you want and get?

I wanted little, and got little.

What did you want and not get?

See above.

A valuable life lesson you learned in 2008?

Be yourself, because your principles matter.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Must not publicly berate people, an Obama loss, and $20k.

Quote to sum up your year.

I’m so bad with quotes, but this one book I read this year, Parenting Without Belief, had a really interesting passage in the introduction that brought a ton home for me in terms of things that went on this year in a lot of areas. It applies to almost everything noteworthy that’s happened with me this year, so yeah:

Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins shares a heartfelt letter to his 10-year-old daughter Juliet about his own intellectual values. …[S]ome others [may] find Dawkins’ approach disrespectful to religious belief. There is a good reason for this: he does not respect religious belief. Not one bit.

This raises an important question…. Is it okay to disrespect someone’s beliefs? Notice that the subject is beliefs, not believers - we can presumably agree that people themselves deserve respect. But can we allow disrespect - not just disagreement, but disrespect - for opinions?

If the word “respect” is to retain any meaning whatsoever, then respect must not be granted to all opinions automatically. I may disagree with an opinion but still respect it, if I feel it was arrived by legitimate means…Though I disagree strongly with my friends, I respect their argument since they back it up with reasoned argument.

I know full well I didn’t achieve this in either direction in many of my doings this year, in more than just discussion on current events but on my life in general. I wish I had seen this in January and not December.

Ah well. 2009 has the potential to be an amazing year, and I’d be smart to embrace that. I’m more comfortable in my own skin now than I believe I’ve ever been before, and that can only translate positively. Let’s hope so, at least.

I say “weekend” as if I’m not just feverishly trying to recap life in general since I’ve had no desire to write much of anything. But that’s slowly going away, I think. But anyway, less Sox talk and more real life…

1) I went to a children’s library conference on Thursday, and I’m amazingly glad I did:

a) It was held in Bethlehem/Littleton, NH, which is about 2 hours north of Manchester, through the White Mountains. I’m not a “ooh, nature” guy, but holy crap was it gorgeous. It was a pretty crappy day, but as I got to the mountains, you could see the clouds and fog rolling off the hills and mountains, and the foliage was pretty, and I could honestly pick up shop and move up that way for good if things were different in my life right now. Just such a perfect, gorgeous, beautiful area.

b) The conference was enlightening, both personally and professionally. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation from other librarians with the authors and events I’ve been able to get, apparently, which was a very surprising and nice thing to hear, but each panel was just as interesting as well - one on autism and dealing with autistic kids in the library was great, but my favorite was the Native American materials presentation, which really spoke to my personal vendetta against bad nonfiction in children’s collections. The whole day was really great in that regard.

The whole thing was a very uplifting experience for me.

2) Dodgeball didn’t go so well in week two, but I did nail someone in the babymaker, so that’s worth something.

3) I took Friday off, and went to meet the wonderful, amazing Jon Scieszka on Saturday:

It’s always wonderful when a guy you’ve admired for 20 years ends up being even more awesome than you could have thought. In the picture is fellow librarian friend Jackie, who joined us on the excursion. We got to talk to Scieszka for a good 5 minutes before he spoke, and he signed a couple things for me and posed for a picture. Wicked down to earth, amazingly funny - he has a Norm MacDonald-style delivery which is just hysterical - and really someone I’m happy is cool, and makes me appreciate his work that much more. Really wonderful stuff.

4) Yesterday was D&D, first time in a month. Wow, did I miss it - a really crazy battle with some undead dragon newborns, some crazy challenges, and the afternoon really flew by. Every session becomes more and more fascinating, which is great. Two more weeks? Really?

5) Currently obsessed with the following:

a) 30 Rock. We’re all caught up, finally. Talk about a wickedly funny show. Anything that can make Al Gore fun is fine by me.

b) Anathem by Neal Stephenson. A less talented author wouldn’t be able to make me care about monks who study math and philosophy, but there you have it. Rick has been trying to get me to read Snow Crash essentially since the day I met him, and I may have to bump that up considerably.

c) Mega Man 9. No video game hates you quite the way MM9 does. Yet I can’t stop torturing myself.

d) Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis. The CD isn’t anything special, except that every song feels as if it’s better than the song before it, and you’re disappointed when it’s over. That means something, right?

e) E. L. Fudge cookies. The double stuff variety. Yeah. Cookies shaped like elves are my anti-drug.

This weekend, too my knowledge, we have nothing planned. I’m looking forward to a late-night High School Musical 3 and a lot of sleeping.

1) SARAH PALIN OMG.

2) Tonight we had Red Sox tickets. Earlier this week, Matsuzaka was the starter to be ready for. Then, two days ago, it was David Pauley, he of the 10.XX ERA. Today? Michael Bowden, pitching prospect, making his major league debut. Awesome - awesome game, awesome experience, and $6 parking.

3) Tomorrow, we’re surprising my Uncle Jeff, who I haven’t seen in about 5 years. He’s one of those close family friends who you end up calling uncle even though they’re not actually related, and we’ve swung in and out of contact with him over the years, and it turns out he’s staying about an hour away and my parents are visiting him right now and invited us up tomorrow. So that’ll be awesome. Very awesome.

Talk about a sea change in attitude.

1) So my grandfather’s wake/funeral went by fairly easily. Again - still uncomfortable with the entire idea. Still thinking a lot of is superfluous, still a little angry about how the Catholic funeral mass seems to not really be about the deceased at all. There was the requisite family drama to go along with anything else (short answer: my grandfather was apparently quite the pimp), but we spent late Thursday night with my cousins and aunts, just hanging around and catching up. Really good quality time. My cousin wrote a song for the burial which was actually fairly perfect, and that was that.

I won’t go into my rant about funerals and death and the complete insanity that seems to go along with it right now. Ann & I essentially made a pact to not be like that when we eventually have to bury each other. But yikes.

2) Saturday night was a lot more fun than I anticipated. We met up with Liz for her thirtieth birthday in Boston at one of the weirder restaurants in town, Eastern Standard, with a menu full of raw foods and livestock brains. Very weird. Along for the ride was Sarah, a pleasant surprise, and a number of Liz’s friends including Deb and a Beth who’s LJ I don’t know and Courtney. The place was quite nice, the conversation great, and we probably would have stayed longer if we could have. I didn’t even gag when I saw the brains! I win!

3) Sunday, my father came up for a father’s day/birthday thing - we got great seats for the Sea Dogs/Fisher Cats game. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and it ended up being rained out. We went out for barbecue at a local place afterwards, my father napped on the couch for an hour, and then went home. It was a good afternoon, all things considered.

4) Ann was also able to get Red Sox tickets for last night. Needless to say, I was getting tired from the weekend already, and with summer reading kicking off this week, I told her to bring her friend Christina. So they went, had a good time, I caught up on stuff here. Not a bad night, actually, although I did stay up waaaaaay too late.

5) This weekend is a blast from my past - we’re having a big ol’ get together with the old friends I fell out of touch with from high school. All my fault, and we’re having a mini-reunion of sorts. I’m ridiculously excited about the whole thing. A long time coming.

6) Barring any natural disasters, we start the major D&D campaign this weekend. I’m actually ridiculously excited about this, too - I’ve been spending a pretty sad amount of time poring over the Player’s Handbook and seeing what works, tweaking my character, etc. Since (I think) everyone in the campaign reads this in some form, I’m not sure how much is reasonable to divulge, but I think my character is going to be pretty fun. I bought a big bag of dice and everything!

Okay. That’s it for now.

1) If I was one to do those “Do 101 things in 1001 days” lists like everyone else I know, I would have crossed one thing off my list today: The Baconator.

I don’t generally eat fast food. It’s one of those things that used to appeal to me, but just doesn’t anymore - I go to a Burger King or McDonald’s or something maybe twice in a given year, and usually out of convenience rather than desire. With that said, around 12:30 today, the craving for two huge burger patties with six strips of bacon overwhelmed me, and since Ann is out for the day and there’s a Wendy’s less than a mile down the road, well…

The verdict? Good, but not amazing. With that much bacon, it should be amazing, but alas, it was only good. What it definitely was was amazingly greasy, though - I’ve washed my hands twice since lunch and I still feel gooey.

2) I’m overdue regarding music and stuff, but I’m so addicted to Kathleen Edwards’s new album it’s not even funny. It’s quite good, and Ann feels threatened by her, so it’s win-win.

3) Any technologically savvy people want to help me figure out why embedded flash videos (YouTube et al) just freeze without sound after about 2 seconds? I can’t figure out if it was an update, or clashing programs, or something else, but it’s completely weird. Never had this problem before, and I never realized how much I actually use YouTube until recently.

4) Speaking of YouTube, if every Celtics game was as exciting as this moment, I’d probably be on the bandwagon:

More later, I suppose.

1) I love tax season, really.

Usually, I’ll do my taxes online. Takes 30 minutes, just a lot of number plugging and not getting distracted. Of course, when you a) get married, and b) move to a new state because of c) a new job that d) doesn’t deduct state taxes for the arbitrary amount of time your primary residence is in your old state, it’s almost worth saving the hassle and paying other people to do it.

The key word of this exchange is “hassle.” As in, I don’t want one.

You’ll recall my noting that I scheduled our taxes to be done by H & R Block this year, since they’re 3 minutes away from the condo and they’re H & R Block. What you won’t recall is my own distaste with the whole affair to begin with. I like being self-sufficient in these areas, and something didn’t sit well with me, but I was able to brush it aside as a residual from my whole issue with paying people $100 to do something I can do myself. Frankly, I should have listened to myself.

The first strike was late Friday night. Late being around 6:45ish - I get a call from the H & R Block people saying that the person I scheduled with doesn’t work Sundays even though the website form claimed she did and allowed me to set an appointment. Now, I didn’t care that much - the differences between the folks on the website that were listed (we’ll get to that) were minimal for me, I just wanted to get my taxes done. But anyway, the person I’m scheduled with doesn’t exist on Sundays, so do I want to switch to a day she’ll be there or what? Well, I tell them I want the Sunday for a reason (the reason being that Ann goes away this coming weekend, she goes in for surgery next weekend, and then it’s February vacation), and to just swap me to someone who’s there. Okay then.

So we fast-forward to today, we head there a little early to a near-empty office. Two “tax professionals” in cubes with their clients finishing up, and that’s it. So we take a seat in front of reception and wait. One of the people there poke their head out and see us with a semi-bewildered look on her face, and we tell her we have an appointment scheduled. She seems unaware. Great.

Our preparing protagonist takes another 10 or 15 minutes, finishes up with the young couple she had, and talks to us. We tell her the situation (new marriage, new state, no withholding at the new job for me, odd investment income, etc), and, well…she pawns us off on the other woman working. Since, you know, she doesn’t have that much experience with that many complex schedules and doesn’t want to screw it up. On one hand, I can accept that - if you’re not 100%, hand it off to someone who knows. On the other hand, you work at H & R Block. This isn’t “I don’t know what the best book for your 60 year old grandmother is, let me ask the other clerk,” this is “You are a paid tax professional who doesn’t know how to deal with a new marriage in a state where people move from Massachusetts all the time.” So now I’m angry, but hey, I really want to get this out of the way. So we sit back down and wait for the other woman.

Another 5 or 10 minutes pass by, and nothing’s finishing up yet, but our new woman comes out of her cubicle looking at us funny. Tells us (paraphrased) “so this is going a while, and I don’t want to hold you guys for lunch or anything, so we’ll hold your spot for you until you get back.” I tell her that we had an appointment for 1:00pm, and her response is that she can’t get to us for “at least another half hour or so.” Strike three. I tell her to cancel the appointment, and I tell Ann that we’re leaving. She gave me an extremely odd look as if it was absurd of me to not want to be held up further because her co-worker doesn’t know how to do what they’re paying her for, and that was that.

A little overboard? Perhaps. But as I expect even a basic level of competence, the fact that I walked into a business who’s entire existence is to deal with tax returns and I a) couldn’t find more than two people on a weekend during tax season, and b) of those two people, half of them didn’t know how to deal with my “complex” return, enough is enough. Was I going to wait 30 more minutes to find out that this person couldn’t do our return properly and have wasted an entire afternoon in the process? And, hello, H & R Block? YOU DO TAXES. THAT IS YOUR VALUE TO SOCIETY. That’s the part that irritated me the most.

So now our taxes will have to wait until March. That’s annoying, but that’s life. Granted, we won’t be going to H & R Block for it, but yeah. At least I know I won’t be blowing my money on something I’m uncomfortable with who can’t even do my return because it’s apparently too hard.

2) Enough bad stuff, here’s some questions for people:

a) I’m still plugging away at the book (I’m hoping to take a HUGE step this weekend if I can make it work out), but part of my goal in terms of getting a Real Life Publisher is proving that I can write and actually having some sort of consistent writing schedule to show for it. Sure, blogging’s a very informal medium by nature, but since I’m not a journalist and more of an enthusiast, it’s a bit of an uphill climb. Essentially, I want to run a film blog of sorts for really bad movies like the kind Kroger made his millions on. Anyone have an idea as to what a good name for it would be? Anything I come up with sounds lame.

b) Related to a, anyone want to help contribute on it? Flesh things out a bit? Chelsea, Mike, Stacey, I’m looking in your general directions, I wouldn’t be looking for more than a post a week or something. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll give you more information vision-wise.

3) Dustin Pedroia cracks me up. I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a baseball season in 4 years.

And another week begins…

Well, that sucked.

Ann: “Fuck you very muchfor getting me into sports, Jeff.”

…of the non-political kind.

1) It’s hard for me not to get excited over things like this, for obvious reasons. Of course, the media isn’t always rock-solid on reporting science issues reasonably, and any wide-scale rollout of this would be too late, but still.

2) Not to say I haven’t been excited about Super Smash Bros. Brawl up to this point, but this reveal about classic demos really gets me excited. Why? I couldn’t tell you, honestly, but I like the concept and it’ll likely get me spending money on the Virtual Console.

3) I don’t hate the Giants (ETA from the comments: Hitler HATES the Giants), and I look forward to a good Super Bowl if the final game of the season was any indication, but does this come across as dickish to anyone else?:

Everyone else on the Giants sideline ignored him, even the team managers, who had been keeping players warm all game. They didn’t bother to drape a jacket over Tynes’ shoulders as he stood alone near midfield, listening to the crowd cheer for his miss and watching the Packers win the coin flip to get the ball first — and perhaps exclusively, had Brett Favre not thrown that interception — in overtime.

Tynes would say later that the lack of communication from his teammates was “no big deal. … I don’t talk to anyone during games anyway.” He would also explain away his decision not to celebrate his winning kick on the field with his teammates. As the ball was tumbling through the uprights, silencing the Lambeau Field crowd and sending his teammates onto the field in a frenzy, Tynes turned and ran 75 yards through the opposite end zone, through the tunnel and into the locker room. He ran alone.

“I was cold,” he said. “I wanted to get inside.”

Maybe it’s just that simple — his teammates were celebrating a trip to the Super Bowl, but he was cold. He’d meet them inside. Who knows? But I will say this: I shadowed Tynes for most of an hour inside the Giants locker room, and Feagles was again the only teammate who said a word to him. Yes, there was a 10-minute period immediately after the game when the media was not allowed inside the locker room, and perhaps the entire organization used that time to kiss Tynes’ feet — but for the next hour, not a single teammate said a word to the guy who kicked the game-winning field goal in the NFC title game. That seems strange.

I don’t feel as if we’d see that on the Pats if it were Gostkowski. Maybe I’m wrong.

4) Speaking of football, one of the Patriot wide recievers, Dante Stallworth, believes he has a Martian alter-ego. But it’s okay - he only comes out during games. And people thought the Red Sox “idiot” culture was weird…

5) I don’t watch these often enough to stay caught up, but Michael Cera fans should enjoy Clark and Michael, a web-video thing. Also, Cera plays a role in the first installment of “Drunk History, which tells the story of the Hamilton/Burr duel through beer goggles. Thanks to Liz for this one, I got a kick out of it.

6) This is fun: Background Music for Your Movies. If I ever get around to making silly short films, I’m liberally using these.

7) Also from WFMU, Adlai Stevenson election spots. A really neat piece of American political history that gets so easily forgotten. It’s incredible the amount of stuff like this that probably exists in people’s attics and basements that may never get to see the light of day.

8) A pimp out for Fantasy Book Critic and Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, two book blogs that have become instant favorites as well as extended my already-too-long-list of books to read beyond anything manageable.

9) I was hoping that the buzz on Rambo would be similar to Rocky Balboa, but it doesn’t appear to be the case. I’m hoping to catch There Will Be Blood this weekend, though.

Tis all for now.