Hipster is the new Yuppie

From the [awesome 1998] movie Last Days of Disco:

Des McGrath: Do yuppies even exist? No one says, "I am a yuppie," it's always the other guy who's a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it. Dan Powers: Of course yuppies exist. Most people would say you two are prime specimens.

This weekend I went to this place that was so full of hipsters, it was all I could do not to openly gawk... and Des' above quote came to mind. I mean, would any of them admit to being a hipster? Doubtful. But when witnessed in such a herd, it was impossible to deny their existence. Also impossible to not be a little creeped out.

Will the apartment please stop swaying? I'd like to get off

So let's file this under "things they never tell you BEFORE you do something". I returned Saturday from a 7 day cruise to the Bahamas with Steve, which was delightful and relaxing and all kinds of nice.

I did my fair share of time being seasick while I was on the ship (on my worst day, I believe the phrase "F*#k the F@~king ocean" escaped my lips), but Dramamine and slowly getting my sea legs made it go away relatively well.

However, despite being back that I'm back on dry land, my sea sickness is showing no signs of stopping nor adhering the laws of physics and decency. I just googled this phenomenon, and apparently it is pretty common. Ugh! This is not what I signed up for.

Strangely enough, Steve wasn't sick at all on the boat, but he too is experiencing it now that we're back. Apparently we have confused our inner ears and will be paying the consequences for another week. I don't know if that all you can eat buffet was worth it. Make it stop.

National Treasure – Day of Reckoning

Sure, sometimes I like to make snap judgments. One example is when I first watched the preview for the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I didn’t see the first installment of this movie franchise, but as soon as I saw the preview for the sequel, I renamed it “National Treasure – Day of Reckoning” and would say in one breath whenever I saw a tv commercial or billboard for it “OhGodThereItIsNationalTreasureDayOfReckoningTheWorstMovieofAllTime!!!” If you’d "like to confirm this, just ask Steve or Ang, who had to put up with me saying this all the time.

Looking back, it was a little unfair. Fun, but unfair probably.

Anyway, today I’m stuck on an airplane, and guess what I’m stuck with watching? Yep. I could have just not watched I guess, but after about 15 minutes, curiosity of the badness got the best of me.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“The president’s secret book… for presidents, by presidents and for presidents’ eyes only.”

"Of course somebody else is after the treasure. It’s the axiom of treasure hunting."

“Okay..it’s tee time chaps.”

“This is an extinct, exceedingly rare language.” (which one is it?)

“Your great great grandfather killed President Lincoln1” – spoken by a random 6 year old

“Last time I checked, we pretty much make our living off crazy.”

aaaaaaaaaaaaand my favorite:

“He carved Mount Rushmore in order to erase the map’s landmarks that would lead to the City of Gold.”

So is it the worst movie of all time? You tell me.

p.s. Helen Mirren plays Nick Cage's mom in this. what??

p.p.s. I suspect that the people sitting on either side of me must be really wondering what the hell I'm doing typing down quotes from this trainwreck of a movie. It's a risk I have to take though.

Easy source of blog content

You know, I'm always thinking that I have nothing to write about on my blog, and there are many gems of IM conversations that are completely forgotten overlooked, never to be seen again.

Well no more! I plan to post some of the more entertaining IM conversations. Like this one I had today with Ang about the this McCain supporters video.

angelaiscaustic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaP9eiWuX3s
WTF?!?!?!
me: these ladies are HORRIBLE singers
angelaiscaustic: its like im watching it
but my brain is rejecting it
me: hahaha
my ears are bleeding. thanks.
Sent at 1:57 PM on Wednesday
angelaiscaustic: ha sorry
the old lady is terrifying
me: GET OUT OF MY HEAD
angelaiscaustic: hahahahhaha
me: i was just going to say, waht the fuck is up with the old lady
i mean, really?
Sent at 1:59 PM on Wednesday
angelaiscaustic: with the weird eyebrow come hither thing towards the end?
Sent at 2:00 PM on Wednesday
me: i didn't watch that part
and hells if i'm watching it again
angelaiscaustic: its at like 2:08
hahhahaha

Happy Easter - A Photo Essay

OOh! A peep with my latte...

Wait a minute, I hate peeps...

You know, it's not half bad....

A watery end.

StoryCorp

So, I've been looking the past few months for some kind of volunteer opportunity. I figure, I'm not in school anymore, and I have some free time, but I want to find something that I find truly interesting and worthwhile. Well, I think I've narrowed it down to StoryCorp.

In a nutshell, StoryCorp is a nonprofit project that allows everyday people to record stories from their lives through being interviewed by someone in their lives. They have these interview booths set up all over the country, and then they edit them and make them available on the web and the radio.

Many of these stories are truly fascinating. They can be heartbreaking, hilarious, thoughtful... What is most interesting is that they are real. This is the kind of history that inspires me, and I think too often falls through the cracks, lost forever.

So, take a listen. Subscribe to the free podcast if you like what you hear. Or even better, record your own story with someone you love/admire and want to know more about.

As far as how I will be assisting StoryCorp in a volunteer capacity - I'm not sure. They are headquarted in the Brooklyn though, so I'll keep you posted.

DRUMS!

When I read the premise of this video, I thought it was kind of lame. But watching it made me really happy for some reason. Enjoy:

Oh, and I haven't written much lately because I've been really sick (well maybe that's not why I haven't blogged much, since I rarely blog even when I'm well, but I have def been sick for almost 3 weeks). I am so effing over this.

Hello Homeland!

Just got in to San Diego yesterday. A couple of things that I really miss about being here:

1. Unabashedly talking on my cell phone while driving. This is illegal in New York, and oh so frustrating. I felt like calling everyone I knew, just because I could. (note: I do not recommend driving while talking on the phone whilst reading a newpaper, as depicted to the left. I have merely included it for dramatic effect.)
2. Turning right on red lights. This is also illegal in New York City. Also oh so frustrating.
3. Burritos. Obviously.

I finally finished my xmas shopping today. Phew! (except you Casey, you get yours when you stop hanging out in India. I mean working. I mean, come home!) Now I'm making some CDs. Did you know that you can copy songs that are in your ipod to your laptop without buying software?? Not that I did this. Just sayin. Very handy to know.

"My Only Friend is Guitar Hero"

I was at a concert last night where you could text messages and they would appear on the big screens onstage. (Yay technology!) Anyway, that was probably my favorite text of the night. At first, I thought it was kind of sad. And then I thought, dammit, why haven't I played that game yet?!! I can't help but thinking there's a growing list of things I plan to do, and I keep forgetting all about them. Like I'm gonna wake up one day when I'm 80, and think, "Did I forget to take my pills today?" and then all of sudden realize, no, that's not it -- I forgot to play Guitar Hero!! Blasted.

In Defense of Parking Ticket Offenders Everywhere

How come on cop shows (I've been watching a lot of Dexter lately), whenever they have some suspect, and they are looking up that person's record, they say stuff like, "Nope, this guy has lived here 15 years and never had so much as a parking ticket". It's generally said in a way as to imply that s/he is less likely to be the murderer/thief/bad guy because of this.

Are parking tickets somehow the gateway to larger crimes? If so, I could be in some serious trouble.

Newest obsessions

Ok, this will be a short blog cuz i don't have much time, but I wanted to point out a few things.

1) I will be sending twitter updates to my blog which show up in the right hand column. You can also check www.twitter.com/jorli

2) I am in love with my new iGoogle pages, especially the Frogger game. If you haven't customized your own page yet, well get on it....it's effin awesome. Here's a screen shot of mine.

The Plane

(Note: This entry is transcribed from my messy hand-written notes. Also, it is now Sat and these are my notes from Tues. I'm a little behind, but oh well, more to come!)

- Arrive the airport (JFK). I figure I can just pick up a voltage adapter at the airport so that I don’t fry my laptop when I try to plug it in in Paris. Turns out this is not so easy. They only sell voltage converters, which allows you to plug in your cord, but doesn’t change the voltage and hence, just does a better job of blowing your appliance up. This confuses me to no end. I buy one anyway, making a mental note not to use it.

- On the runway, where we wait for over 2 hours to take off. Can’t help but feel it is a BIG mistake that I only bought one magazine (Allure). Keep accidentally flipping to the article on feet, which grosses me out every time.

- Finally take off and dinner is served shortly after. I’m having beef and mashed potatoes. Am I the only one that loves airplane food? Or is it that I’m really hungry? We may never know.

- Sleep for many hours. It’s alllll good because the seats next to me are empty and I get to sprawl across all three.

- I wake up to see that Andy Rooney is on the screen ranting about something or other. I’m surprised (and relieved?) to see that he is still alive. Cheers is on next. Man, that was a good show.

- They serve breakfast. It’s a “croissant” and OJ. I put croissant in quotes because it is really really crappy and can hardly be called one. Even I won’t eat it. (Scratch what I said earlier about plane food.) I’m a little embarrassed for our country that we are serving the French people on the plane this sorry excuse of a pastry.

- Land. Get in a car that takes me to the hotel. I am DETERMINED not to nap because it will make my jet lag worse. If only I can hold on till my meeting in a few hours.

- After about an hour, I take nap. Fuck jet lag. Luckily I set the alarm on my phone. I’m good like that.

Creative Wasteland

I have not written anything in forever. I'm attributing this to complete lack of creativity and laziness. but here I go again.

I'm going to Paris tomorrow for a last minute work trip. Here's to finding something interesting there!

Eddie Izzard alert!!! ATHF too!

I was once asked (on a Bschool admissions essay), if I could have dinner with any person, living or dead, who would I pick. Well, I picked Eddie Izzard. (I didn't get into this school, btw. It would have been better if I picked Jesus or Warren Buffet or something. Oops. Hindsight = 20/20)

My point is - he's a genius. Absolute comic/historical genius. If you've never seen any of his stand up, please rent or download some asap. It will enrich your life.

So imagine my delight when I heard the other day that he is going to be in a new TV series on FX, starting on Monday. It's called the Riches. I'm setting my TiVo now. The only downside is that he'll be playing an American, so he will be without his delightful British accent. Ah, well.

Oh! And if that's not enough exitement, I just heard that there's going to be an Aqua Teen Hunger Force MOVIE coming out in April!! (Thanks Steve.) I am beside myself.

One thing I do not recommend....

...is playing volleyball after you've been drinking. I really had no choice though, as there was a work happy hour last night in the city (which are only once a month and I've missed the last 4 or so) and my volleyball team only plays every Thursday.

I thought I had a good plan though. I showed up at the happy hour early and I wasn't playing for a few hours. It was a bad call to start with red wine, as it was putting me to sleep and probably making my teeth red. So, my second drink I switched to a vodka tonic, which just seemed like a more althletic alcoholic beverage (if there is a such a thing).

Normally, 2 drinks wouldn't make a big difference, but I hadn't eaten much all day and I was still feeling a little buzzed when I arrived at the gym at 9 o'clock to play. I bought a purple vitamin water at a deli on the way, which probably saved me. I ended up playing fine, but it took every ounce of concentration I had to do so. I already feel really nervous playing on this team because the people are good playwers and take it very seriously. Luckily, we won all three games we played.

Alls well that ends well, but no more happy hours and volleyball. Unless I'm in a Coors light commercial or something - which is not likely.

Gotta love Astoria

I'm trying to keep up with my goal of posting more to this blog, so it's just gonna haveta be that I'm gonna end up posting stuff that may be at times sub-par. Just a warning in general, not about this posting.
So, I'm still trying to work on meeting people in my 'hood. Don't get me wrong, I love going to Manhattan and all, but it would be nice to meet some people here in Astoria. Strategy #1 to extend my network here was joining the Astoria myspace group. The group is awesome. They crack me up.

So it turns out there's this online tv show called "We Need Girlfriends", which is all filmed in Astoria. I can't say that I'm 100% in love with the program (and perhaps I'm not the target age group), but it's sorta cute and I'm happy to see all the local shots. You can check it out here: http://weneedgirlfriends.tv/

Oh, and if I had to pick, I'd be on Team Tom.

one zero zero!

I just realized (because Blogger keeps track of these things) that is my 100^th blog posting. Holy crap. I would have guessed the number was closer to 30 or something. You wouldn’t know it by how infrequently I post.

I’m on a plane right now headed to Raleigh, so I guess I’ll be posting this from my hotel room later. This is one of those tiny little planes, which I hear bother some people, but I like ‘em because it means we all get off really quickly once we land. I was this close to missing my flight (probably close to the 100^th time that’s happened). I wonder when I’ll actually miss one. It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Incidentally, they charge for pillows and blankets now (at least on American). For some reason this makes me much angrier than charging for food.

I just finished reading the latest Chuck Klosterman book, and I have two things to say about him: a) I can’t help but think he’s a genius and b) this bothers me, because he’s keenly aware of this fact and is arrogant about it (as far as I can tell at least from reading all of his books). It’s like meeting a really cute guy who knows just how cute he is. That just ruins it for me. It’s fine for a hot guy to suspect how hot he is, but if he knows it…I don’t even want to be bothered, and he somehow becomes less cute. Have a little humility. Self-deprecation is much more attractive. Thankfully, Chuck Klosterman is (self-admittedly) a little funny looking, or there’d be a real problem. The last thing I need is to ever run into a really hot genius – my head would explode.

Happy Happy Birthday Casey and Hillary!

What better way to celebrate the birthdays of my Casey and Hillary than to post celebratory pictures of Hillary's dog Duke in some of his favorite costumes?

Well, I couldn't think of any. So there you are.

I miss you guys. San Francisco and Seattle are way too far away.

It's also Benjamin Franklin's birthday.

Procrastination kills

Well, it doesn't really. But it certainly kills time. Or sucks it away. The more I have to get done, the more I feel the need to check reddit. One word of advice....try not to procrastinate when you are supposed to appear in traffic court. I had a bit of a nasty run-in today.

Which reminds me. Most of my friends know me as someone that hates to break rules. This is still true (although since I've moved to nyc I've gotten over my fear of crossing the street on a red hand when there are no cars in sight). But there are some rules, that I flagrantly disobey. Somestimes really big rules. I have no explanation for this.

Do you know what's worse than writer's block?

...Power Point chart creating block. I'm begining to fear that my life has been reduced to drawing carefully crafted rectanges with rounded edges and trying to decide on which font color and size I should use. The humanity!

If it wasn't for football playoffs this weekend (Go Chargers! Go Colts! But Chargers more), I might be in complete depair. That and the new Apple iphone. I'm starting to save my pennies now.