March 9, 2006

Last night and stuff

We saw Death Cab for Cutie last night at the Melkweg. As I said before, it was the show I was least looking forward to of all the shows we're seeing in these few months, mostly because I'm not that into the band. And it was ok, but I wasn't that into it. It was interesting to see the drop in average age at the Death Cab show compared to just about any of the shows we've been to this year. I felt old this time, instead of at the young end. And all the young kids in their hipsterdom, with the emo haircuts and ironic t-shirts. I looked down at one point and noticed that everyone in front of me all had on the same studded belt. Gah. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, Mr. Arnold Brawny (the look-alike of a certain actor from a show that takes place in Southern California) was not to be seen, though it was very crowded by the time we got there, so maybe we just missed seeing him. There was no Janeane Garofalo either, but there was a photographer guy right behind me who was in front of us at the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show. Both times he's had on a Melkweg wristband, so he must be a house photographer or something.

After the show I offered to get our coats, since O put them in, and I think that's the last time I do that, heh. I was having claustrophobic feelings creeping up. Note to people getting coats: unless you're with a group of like 10 people and will have a mountain of coats to drag out, you don't all need to go into the scrum and add to the amount of people already there. A couple was in front of me and I was thinking "Why are you both here? One of you could have stood at the back and saved some space." So I gave them a few extra shoves when they moved past after getting their two little coats.

To continue the rant vibe, Lost once again does not have a new episode this week, continuing the once-every-two-weeks pattern they've had going on for a few weeks now, not to mention the larger breaks they've taken this season, once for about 3 weeks, and another for 6. At this rate, this one season will last til the end of the year. I think ABC are just getting cocky with the popularity of the show, especially since, last week excepted, most of the recent episodes have been crap. They're taking those of us reeled in by the show last year and just stringing us along and we're allowing it so easily. At least I've been quite enjoying this season's 24, which, though it didn't start until January, has probably aired more of its season than Lost. This week they aired two back-to-back episodes that ended at a very intriguing point, much more intriguing than the end of any bloody Lost episode has been in ages.

I know writing a blog means that what I write is out there for anyone to find, and for this reason I don't write about certain things, namely people I work with, or more namely a specific person I work with who I dislike very much. Once, quite awhile ago, I vaguely mentioned this person, only saying I was happy he was going to be on holiday for a month, and then at work I thought I was being snubbed by a couple of people he is friends with and I knew they had found and read my blog and I felt horrible and promised to never write about people at work ever again. At least not in a negative way. In the end, I was just being paranoid, but the thing is is that the internet can be a small world sometimes and what I write here could be found by a colleague, regardless of my masking or avoiding names. The reason I bring this up is because a colleague (fortunately someone I quite like (and I'm not just saying that in the off-chance she ever reads this)) came to me one day and asked "Do you happen to have a blog?" Uh-oh. She had found out about it in a really roundabout way. Over a year ago, I had written about running into this colleague on the way to a Thanksgiving potluck dinner at the American Book Center and O and I ended up joining her and her friends for the dinner and we had a great time. I happened to mention in my post the name of one of her friends who we met, and he has a unique name, so it does stick out. Then someone, who is friends with this guy with the unique name (I don't really want to type it again), happened to find my blog post and figured out that I was indeed writing about her friend. Word got back to my colleague, as well as the guy I had written about, and thus my colleague asked about it. Eek. Later she told me she hadn't read anything from my site other than the post about the Thanksgiving dinner, and she didn't even know the actual address for my blog (I'm not sure how that is, perhaps the post was copy and pasted into an email?), and she wouldn't go reading it because I seemed uncomfortable about the idea, and she certainly wouldn't send anything around to other people in our company. Which is good, I'm relieved, but really, it is out in public and people can find it. But if there's anyone I don't want reading my blog, it's 99% of my co-workers. And my parents. So I will refrain from writing about the people I work with, even if I am tempted every day to rant about this person I cannot stand. Oh, how I want to rant. eeeeeee...

One last thing, I found this wonderful and random web comic called Wondermark. The strips are all self-contained, so no need to go back through the archives to figure out storylines or who the characters are or anything. They are drawn (I assume drawn, though perhaps they are images gathered from somewhere?) in an old-fashioned, 1800's style, and then just very silly, usually anachronistic, things happen. I found the comic when this strip was posted to the Decemberists' forum (and I think the comic is quite Decemberists-like, using old-fashioned words and such, though the Decemberists, to me, seem to evoke a slightly later era /end poncy-bastard-ness) and I thought it was fucking brillant. I haven't had time to dig into the archives much, but I will.