Can't Go Back Now

I've never seen white people drinking beer on the bus before. So I had to take a picture.

Before I decided that it was okay to post that, I made a flowchart of how to determine is a comment like that is racist or not. Is is true? Yes. Then, is it funny? Yes. Then, is it mean-spirited? No. Then, is it outright offensive? No. Then say it.

It is snowing here today, tiny, sparkling snow somewhere between glitter and the tiniest down feathers that escape from my insulated vest. It swirls and shines and falls and disappears.

I sat at Starbucks for several hours earlier today, one up in the Andersonville neighborhood that I chose specifically because it gets several Missed Connections a week on Craigslist. I think that all of the attractive coffee drinkers must have been taking the day off from being attractive coffee drinkers today, though.

Whenever I get a drink at Starbucks or Caribou or wherever, I have to have the opening of the lid positioned directly above the cup's main logo before I take a drink. Then I adjust the sleeve so that it is centered as well.

Also, did you notice that Starbucks is calling its new product Via "ready brew"? It is instant coffee, folks. I hate manipulative marketing word play like that.

Last night I watched No Country for Old Men. It is a jarring movie. Some great, priceless dialogue and populated with wonderful incidental characters, but the violence was too much. I haven't jumped that many times while watching a movie in a long time.

I've been thinking about getting a dog once I make my big move to Savannah later this year. There was a cover story in our commuter newspaper earlier this week on this popular-in-Chicago breed called Vizsla (pronounced veez-shlah). What a beautiful dog! It is an active breed, too, so that would have to motivate me to get outside and exercise a bit. Space is always an issue though in the micro-apartments where I seem to find myself living. Dogs need a yard, too.

Speaking of Savannah, I'm dreading the thought of getting a car and dealing with all those hassels and expenses once again, but it is a foregone conclusion that I'll need one once I leave Chicago. What a difficult modern world we've made for ourselves.

And one final Savannah note, one of my favorite singers, Ryan Adams, just married that interesting former teen pop star Mandy Moore in a wedding ceremony there. I thought that was surprising, but I'm not sure why since I don't really know either of them.

And I was reading in an old issue of Paste the other day that The Weepies and Mandy Moore collaborated on some songwriting for her most recent record. Which leads me to say once again that I simply can't get enough of The Weepies CD Hideaway. What a fantastic group of songs that is.

This is the most interesting thing that I've read about Christianity, religion, or faith in a long time. How different our country will be if even parts of it come true. I'm interested to hear what you think about it, and my dad, too.

Once upon a time, I took a very nice Spring Break trip to the beach, half of which I spent in lovely solitary repose, and half of which I shared with two wonderful friends. You know how the late night conversation tends to stray to the outlyings of ridiculousness when you are with certain people, and eventually there's no accounting for where it goes? Well, one friend asked a legendarily mind-numbing question that went something like this: if you could have sex with someone's voice, with what person's voice would you attempt carnal relations? My answer was Chris Cornell, former lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave, a man who released a solo album this week titled, Scream. From what I can tell, though, that new album is terrible. Some sort of wanna-be techno, hip-hop, new wave synthetic mess. I couldn't even cough up the $2.99 that the Amazon mp3 Store wanted for it this week. Judging by the equal number of 1-star and 5-star user ratings that it has received, I'm glad that I didn't.

I've started planning my annual Memorial Day getaway this week. I think I'm going to strech it into a full week's vacation this year. There is one really exciting option that I have my sights set on at this moment, but I'm not sure of the wisdom of taking such a trip at this juncture when I should be saving pennies for going back to school and the poor student life that lies ahead. But then again, airfares may not be this cheap again any time soon, and it is a place that I've wanted to go for quite a while now. For the time being, I'll probably just keep an eye on it.

Women and Children First is a terrible name for a bookstore or establishment of any kind, other than the possible exception of a lifeboat manufacturing company. Half of your potential customer base is alienated right from the get-go. Boo.

When did Under Armour become the new North Face? Everything that I see is Under Armour.

Currently Listening to:
The Weepies, Hideaway