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Rob's Head
February 23, 2005 I finally finished Faithful. I almost put it down when I read that Kevin Millar, the Pedro Cerrano of the Red Sox, has trouble hitting fastballs. Other than that, it still sucked. I thought it would be more fun to relive the playoffs and World Series than it turned out to be. I should've just watched my World Series DVD. Last night while I was waiting for the train at Park Street, these two little shits started skateboarding back and forth across the platform, making a general nuisance and spectacle of themselves. Now, I'm definitely praying for one of them to take a header and spill blood and teeth all over the place, but I'm even more pissed at all the people waiting for the train who kept giving them hairy eyeballs. This is exactly what these kids want. They take pride in being little jackasses, and the best thing you can do is ignore them. They end up getting on the same train we do, and they're still being obnoxious, everyone is still staring at them, and I'm still doing my best to ignore them, even though they're both standing right next to me. But my fiancee finally says something to them, and they say something back, which I'm just not going to have. While I have been jumped and stalked by strangers in the past couple of years than I would like, I'm not letting this little fucks get in my fiancee's face. Besides, we were on a crowded train and they were both about 13, so there was definitely nothing at risk here. Me: Shut the fuck up, kid. Little Shit [one of them did all the talking, I guess he was the butch]: Don't tell me what to do. Me: Just watch it. Little Shit: What are you going to do about it? Me: What's the toughest 13 year old in the world going to do about me? Little Shit: Don't be looking at me if you aren't gonna do something about it. Me: Don't worry, kid, once you hit puberty, you'll get your ass kicked plenty. Little Shit: Whatever, keep talking, you just look stupid. Me: Take a fucking poll kid, then tell me who you think looks stupid. Little Shit: Whatever. Me: Country sure has a bright future. Little Shit: Whatever. They didn't say a peep for the rest of the subway ride. This kid was half my size, so I take no pleasure in intimidating him, but it is nice to peel away some of the layers of toughness they have around them and expose them to themselves. It's important to make kids like this understand that they're not cool, they're not important, and whatever image they've attempted to surround themselves with is entirely illusory. I love to break teenager's misplaced senses of self-esteem. It's a big part of the reason I want to be a teacher. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I had a long term affect on him. I'm sure they went home, popped the Kids DVD in, and congratulated themselves on pissing off a trainload of old people. But I'd like to think that just for a little while, he felt pretty bad about himself. February 22, 2005 I blew through "Edith and Woodrow" this weekend. It was unpleasant, but it had to be done. I hate it when a book starts gumming up the works. I never put away a book once I've started reading it, so when I get stuck with a crappy book, it gets in the way of my reading other, more enjoyable books. I'm still in the middle of "Faithful," but that will go a lot faster, especially when I get towards the end of the season and the playoffs. Speaking of my reading, I took the three day weekend off from reading the baseball message boards, and I got way behind on all the bitching on www.nyyfans.com about the Red Sox's shots at A-Rod. You could argue that the Red Sox shouldn't be mouthing off as much, if you really cared, but I still don't think that Matt Mantei's commentary on the Yankees is really worth an eleven-page exigesis. Four years without a World Series win has gotten Yankee fans awfully prickly and sensitive. I'd hate to see what would happen if the Yankees ever missed the playoffs. I saw Constantine this weekend, and it wasn't retarded or really boring. It wasn't spectacular either, but every movie I've seen since The Incredibles has sucked, so I'm a lot easier to please these days. I agree with John's review, despite all the differences from the comics, the got the essence of John Constantine down. The only thing they missed was Constantine's readiness to crack a smile and a joke. The movie Constantine was less a "rake at the gates of Hell" than an angry sourpuss, but whatever, you can't have everything, and it was a halfway decent movie. February 18, 2005 I'm in a bit of a funk with my reading. I'm stuck reading two shitty books. I have this little project where I've been reading biographies of all the presidents of the 20th century. Well, the Wilson bio I'm reading right now is terrible. Figures, the most interesting president for another twenty years, and I get stuck with a boring book. The other book I'm reading sucks even wose. "Faithful," by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan. It's pretty much just their journals of them following the Red Sox last season. Completely worthless. First of all, it's two guys who know less about baseball than me. It's painful reading their retarded analysis. Seriously, I'm a hundred pages into the book and they won't stop talking about Brian Daubach. I imagine by the end, they don't care about him anymore. The other thing is that it pisses me off that they got lucky and happened to pick the season the Red Sox won the World Series. This book is shitty, and it doesn't deserve the sales lift it probably got from the fact that the Red Sox won it all this year. Here's one of the dumbest pet peeves you'll ever here. The number of slices of bread in a typical loaf pisses me off. There aren't enough slices to make two people a sandwich a day for five days. Which means I either have to go to the store Thursday night and get more, which means I'll run out again on Wednesday and totally fuck up my weekly shopping cycle, or just buy lunch on Friday. Why is life so hard? February 16, 2005 I'm wearing a new pair of Dockers this morning. By the way, if you had told me ten years ago that I'd have the world's largest fucking collection of tan khakis at the age of 28, I would've killed myself. Anyway, they have what's called an Individual Fit Waistband. They call it "A Revolution in Fit and Comfort; A Normal Looking Waistband that Expands an Extra Inch." Right. I thought that was called an elastic waistband. I feel like I'm wearing a pair of sweatpants. This is a bad move. We've made too many concessions to fat people in this country as it is. Half of the reason I exercise every night and occasionally forego dessert is that I know I can't afford to replace all my 34x34 pants with 36x34. If people are going to go up a pants size, at least make it cost them. February 15, 2005 For whatever reason, my fiancee and I always have really bad Valentine's Days. Two years ago we went up to my uncle's cabin in New Hampshire for what was supposed to be a romantic weekend. Turns out the heat wasn't working, so we had to turn around and come home the same night we got there. Last year we went to this Italian restaraunt where we were completely out of place. We were surrounded by about fifty old ladies, and they had a lounge singer who kept on bothering us. We were going to try to avoid any mishaps yesterday by just not doing anything. We stayed in and made a steak dinner. It was the worst steak we'd ever eaten. I guess whatever can go wrong will go wrong. We just have to minimize our risks. Next year, macaroni and cheese in a padded cell. We didn't get each other much for Valentine's Day. There are plenty of other things we need to be spending money on right now. But she did get me a giant Hershey Kiss. I assuemd it would be hollow. Nope, solid chocolate. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to eat this thing. You can't really get your mouth around it, and one you bite off the top, there aren't any protruding parts you can just chomp off. The best you can do is gnaw at it like a fucking rat. It's weird, I don't understand why anyone would make such a thing. Or why I would eat half of it in one sitting February 11, 2005 I hate going out for drinks after work with people. First of all, it's almost always on Friday, and it seems like I'm always stuck going to a relatively nice place, so I can't wear jeans. Not that I'm really restricted to only wearing jeans on Friday at work, but it's a habit I've picked up from previous workplaces. I don't know why I keep to it, I guess I'm afraid I'd descend into savagery if I didn't. More importantly, what I really hate about drinks after work is that I always get so hungry. I like to eat early, usually as soon as I get home from work. But when we go out, we never get to eat until so much later. Everyone gets to the bar and orders a drink. Some people finish earlier than others, so they order another drink. Then the slow people finish their drinks, and order another. Now we start talking about going somewhere to get dinner, but everyone wants to finish their drinks first. And everyone's out of synch, so while people are waiting for people to finish drinks, they end up ordering more drinks. Then everyone starts getting buzzed and full, while I'm sitting around sober and full of nothing but water, starving, and bored because the place we're at is too loud to hear anyone. It's even worse in the winter time when I don't have a ballgame on the bar TV at seven to look forward to. February 10, 2005 I finally beat KOTOR II last night. The ending sucked ass. The ending for the first game was pretty bad, but this one was even worse. When you invest 45 hours into a game, you want a little more for a reward than the credits. Especially since I've already watched hours and hours of in game movies already. Would it have been that hard to make five more minutes? It's lazy and stupid and inexcusable and I'm so going to be pissed when I play the next one. My all time favorite video game ending was for Final Fantasy III. The real Final Fantasy III, not whatever they called Final Fantasy III in Japan. Yes, I know it came out in Japan first, but it was called Final Fantasy III in America, which means for all the world is concerned, what I'm talking about is Final Fantasy III. Anyway, that ending kicked ass. First of all, it was 21 minutes and 21 seconds long. How do I know that? Because I have the music on my computer, of course. It's right here if you want it. Go nuts. The coolest thing about the ending was that every character had a little vignette, set to their own music and introduced by their little logo. Edgar and Sabin had the coin they used to decide who would rule their father's kingdom, Locke and Celes had the flowers he gave her when she had to perform at the opera, etc. My favorite was Setzer's rotating cards. He was a minor character, but it still looked cool. Shit, now I want to download an emulator and play Final Fantasy III. Instead I have to go home and choose between my X-Box or my Game Cube. That sucks. February 9, 2005 More snow on the way. Awesome. Where the hell did this storm come from? I thought we were supposed to be in the 40's and 50's straight through the weekend. Now I'm hearing we're going to have another 12 inches on the ground by Friday. So much for busting out the roller blades Saturday. If I didn't hate hurricaines, mudslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, and forest fires more than I hate snow, I'd move somewhere south. February 8, 2005 Geez, I thought I was close to beating KOTOR II after my marathon late-night session Sunday. I played another three hours last night and I'm just starting to clear out the Sith Academy on Malachor. I want to finish the game up soon though, so I can watch the Battlestar Galacticas John's going to tape for me off the Sci-Fi Channel tonight. How is it possible I ever get laid? Amazing. I saw all the teenage girls rocking out their Tom Brady jerseys on the T this morning. It's kind of funny that all these kids are going out to the parade, while I, a man who's probably missed no more than a game a year for the past 19 years (since Super Bowl XX), couldn't give a crap about it. What do they know anyway? They probably don't even know that NFL games are blacked out on local TV when the home team sells out. I remember having to listen to the games on the radio with my father during the Dick McPherson years. And I'm only 28. My father remembers shitty teams way further back than I do. Still, I have to think that following the Patriots through Victor Kiam, Scott Sission, Hugh Millen, and Lisa Olson gives me as much cred as anyone. It's not the teenagers' fault they were born into an era of Patriots dominance (though it is their fault they wear their hats tilted sideways, the little shits), but I don't think they can hope to appreciate this as much as people who are even just a decade older. That's what was cool about the 2003 ALCS. It wasn't cool at the time, but what it did was give everyone, no matter how old they are, a right to say they've suffered through some traditional Red Sox heartbreak before they won it all. Sure, there are degrees, but at least everyone got a taste, and all of them got to enjoy the 2004 World Series that much more. February 7, 2005 I consider myself fairly immature, but last night was ridiculous by any standard. I stayed up until 3:00 in the morning, 3 fucking AM, playing Knights of the Old Republic II. What the hell was I thinking? I have to go to work today. Also, I'm 28 years old, I can't be staying up all night playing a stupid video game. It's just that they kept on sucking me in. I'm near the end, and the story is advancing rapidly, so I just want to know what's next. It would be one thing if I was just navigating a maze and fighting enemies. I'd be able to put that down easily. But I'm a sucker for a story. Speaking of dazzling immaturity, like a lot of New England on the day after the Super Bowl, I'm feeling sick and run down today. Is it because I was drinking too much last night? Heavens no, that wouldn't be a Rob thing to do. What would be a Rob thing to do would be to eat too much pizza, cookies, and candy. What the hell's wrong with me? Seriously, it's astonishing I manage to hold down a job, pay rent, feed and clothe myself, and in most other respects live an adult life. February 4, 2005 I'm not a big fan of George W. Bush or Mitt Romney, but when I'm doing my taxes, the greedy, selfish little me inside sure is glad that someone else voted for these guys even if I didn't. But here's something I don't get: I know you get screwed on your taxes for being married, but the rules for the Massachusetts rental deduction is really boggling. This year, I can deduct $3,000 of the money I spent on rent. But next year, when I'll have a ring on my finger, I can only deduct $1,500. Why exactly is that? Are they going to cut our rent in half after we get married? You want to talk about Defense of Marriage, how about getting rid of that rule? February 3, 2005 If I was in charge of the Internet, I'd impose a $1,000 fine on all emails that don't include capitalization or punctuation. English is a perfectly good language, I don't understand why people don't use it more often. I'd also impose fines on misuses of the word "ironic," and using clunky, stupid words when there are much nicer forms that would serve your purpose just as well. For instance, saying ferociousness or humbleness instead of ferocity or humility. I'd clean up during football season. February 2, 2005 I moved this entry to the Entertainment page. You can find it here. February 1, 2005 The elliptical saga is close to reaching a satisfactory conclusion. The I called again when they opened, and I was informed that they do all their callbacks in the evening, contrary to what my voicemail says. The operator, the only person there I can reach, pretended to make a note next to my name to call me in the evening. I doubt I'll ever hear from these people. So I did what I should've done in the first place and just called Sears. I didn't realize how good they were with stuff like this. They told me to just come in and they'd rip open another box and take out the right part. That simple. I love Sears.
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