hollywood sits on a throne of lies

i haven't seen the movie "Rent", but i have seen a trailer for it, and the people sing "525,600 minutes..." something something something. the problem with this song is that they calculated the number of minutes in a year wrong. Observe:

365 days X 24 hours X 60 minutes = 525,600 minutes per year

but they left out the .25 day that adds up for leap year each 4 years. so really:

365.25 days X 24 hours X 60 minutes = 525,960 minutes per year

now you may be thinking, "tom, c'mon, does it really matter? let them sing their song." well, i guess it's fine, but that's six hours that they're deleting from my year, and i could do a lot with that...including driving to charleston this summer. maybe it's just a better way to make the song flow lyrically, but i'm not gonna give up a trip to charleston over some hollywood musical. it's just like hollywood to overlook the little people.

speaking of time, there's only about nine hours left in the year 2005. it's gone so fast, we always say. but not any faster than any other year of our lives. why does time seem to pass faster as you grow older? what about being a child makes a day seem like a week, or a year seem like forever? perhaps we've learned the rhythym of a year. like standing in the ocean with your back to the waves...you kinda learn when to expect the next one. i think i'm just rambling because it's saturday and i'm bored.

i like good music

and i like people who like good music. i might even go so far as to say that i like people who like people who like good music. that's not the tricky thing. the tricky thing is...what is good music? how can you know for sure that the music of jonny lang, gabe dixon, martin sexton and matt nathanson is good, and that the music of green day, mariah carey, nickelback, and three doors down is bad?

well, it's science. if you analyze the average modulation of the...

no, it's not science. all you have to do is listen. maybe the reason that people like green day and mariah carey keep getting played (and over-played) on the radio is that no one is listening to the radio. i, on the other hand, have no choice. since my 1993 chevy lumina (endearingly referred to as the 'luminazine') now has over 262,000 miles on it, i'm lucky that my radio still works at all. not that miles have anything to do with the radio working, really, but if you think about it, it just might. so i am forced to scan the stations on my way about the city for some station that will stop playing commercials, talk programs, and below par music. it's so hard in america, really. i'm thinking of writing a petition to the city called "The People's Petition for Good Music/the Ability to Wear Headphones While Driving".

well, i've been up since 6, and after working till 1 i went for a run at the lake. i really have to stop this drop-of-the-hat running....my knees don't agree with it. i also need to start eating breakfast before 5pm....my stomach doesn't agree with that.

i want to see how creative you are, Reader. post a comment of the most random sentence that you can think of....

2005

well, there are only nine or so days left in the year 2005. i'm looking forward to a new year, although i'll be turning 24 next year and that's not really cool. i guess it could be worse though. actually it couldn't, because i can't turn anything other than 24 next year, but you know what i mean.

a funny thing happened at work tonight, and also a not funny thing happened. i guess that bad news first...i had to stay an extra two and a half hours, and we had people in the store 30 minutes after we were supposed to close. this was because a girl who was supposed to work couldn't come in. apparently, she got a flat tire, but failed to realize that that was the horrible noise that her car was making as she drove. go figure. so even though this caused the bad thing tonight, it also leads into the funny thing. when she called in to say that she couldn't make it, she told us that she had called A.A.R.P. to come help her with her car and would be able to come in tomorrow.

ok, for those of you who don't understand what just happened, a.a.r.p. stands for something like american association for retired people. now, either she meant AAA, or a.a.r.p. does a lot more that i thought. either way, people make me laugh.

i wonder what 2006 will be like. i hope it's a lot different than this year.

some resolutions (to break?):
1. record a cd
2. play some shows
3. be really cool
4. stop writing poetry about girls
5. quit being single
6. learn to dance
7. dance
8. coffee addiction rehab
9. buy a car
10. watch the godfather trilogy
11. make karaoke a regular part of my life
12. finally go to charleston in the summer
13. graduate
14. learn to play the blues
15. fly somewhere

well, that should keep me busy through the first week or two of january.

engagement

well, my dear reader, i have some wonderful news for you. my younger brother, chris, who's birthday we celebrated just two days ago, is now engaged to ms. emily hayworth. i can hardly believe it. we're all growing up. well, at least one of us. in all honesty, i'm very proud of chris. i know he wants to glorify God in all he does, and he has a maturity beyond his years. i wish him all the best in his engagement, marriage, and life :)


perhaps the pattern of holy matrimony will be youngest boy to oldest boy, in which case i will be next, in which case i need to find a girl who will marry me, in which case i need to find a girl who will at least hang out with me, in which case i need a miracle. so i guess for all of those whattomsays secret admirers...in the words of jason mraz: "just, you know, do like a special blink or something like that."

and a list of "i am currently's"...
i am currently:
...unwinding from a hilarious night at work, where one of the funniest things that was said was "are you serious?! there is a physical orange in this refrigerator. my lungs will physically collapse and i will physically die!"
...listening to dave barnes' "until you", but thinking about how martin sexton sings "blue christmas"
...planning on recording some of my new songs soon
...debating whether or not to renew my cell phone plan when it runs out in january
...eating a christmas-tree-shaped chocolate-covered pretzel
...wanting to play a grand piano
...using about 5 blankets on my bed at night because i'm stinkin cold natured
...single bells, single bells, single all the way
...nearing the end of my journal
...reflecting on the absolutely absurd dreams i've had the last couple nights
...glad that i have such a great family
...staying up too late
...going to bed

young masterminds

i'd like to start this post by...woops, i already started it. let me try again.

happy 22nd b-day to my brother Chris (dec 15th). Chris is a senior at UNCC and will probably graduate before i do. way to go chris :). i'd also like to say happy 28th anniversary (dec 16th) to my parents. way to go parents, too.

next, i would like to tell a funny story from my childhood that involves chris, my parents anniversary, and a babysitter. at times my parents would celebrate their anniversary by hiring a babysitter to watch us 5 kids and going out for the evening. well, this one time, for whatever reason, we came up with an ingenious plan to trick our babysitter. it's not really that we didn't like her, but that we probably thought that's what you're supposed to do to babysitters. the house that we lived in had a basement, and a door to said basement in the kitchen. it's also important to this story for you, the reader, to know that chris was quite an actor. so we had chris go to the bottom of the basement stairs and act like he had fallen down them and was hurt. then we told the babysitter that chris had fallen down the basement stairs.

looking back, i now realize how serious this was, and how funny it was not.

so she goes running down the stairs to help chris, who gets up and runs upstairs into the kitchen to help our trick. you see, he wasn't really hurt. he didn't even fall down the stairs. wasn't that so clever of us? oh, and we locked the above mentioned basement door for a little while, as a bonus.

i don't seem to remember a whole lot from my childhood, but i'm pretty sure we all got in a lot of trouble for that one, and now i understand why. i don't think that babysitter ever came back.

well, i'm going to high point now, but i thought i'd give you all a funny story to laugh at for a day or so while i'm gone.

side-hugs and hershey kisses,
tom

A real junk email i got:

Hi Sir/Madam,

Have a nice day with you.

I'm so sorry for the interuption of your attention
but I have acquired your email address as a person
who is actively involved or is looking for an on*line
busine*ss opportu*nity.

In this connection, May I ask your permission if it is
okay for you to send detail*s of the busine*ss that I am
currently involved in at the moment.

If my permission is granted, please send me an email to
achilles_angel@cashette.com with MORE_INFO in the
subject line and your NAME in the body of the letter so
that I can send you follow up detail*s of the busine*ss.

So why not give it a try?

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

God Bless you and your Family,

Respectfully yours,

Achilles Angel

(...yeah, i'll be sure to get right back to you...just as soon as....oh, woops....deleted.)

friends, countrymen, i implore you...

"All the king's HORSES and all the king's men? Are you kidding me? No wonder they couldn't put Humpty together again. Just what did those idiots expect the horses to do, anyway?" - Jerry Seinfeld

well, i've returned to the blogging circle, because my life was feeling so empty without a blog to not update. i must say people...i look around me (not literally) and i see blogs that haven't been updated in nearly two months, or more, and i wonder: what is the point of that? but i return because i have a lot of free time, and perhaps i can entertain even the most inconsistant blogger. i have also created another blog strictly for my poetic expression, so as to not fill this space with unending scroll-down space that nobody wants to read.

i'm returning to school in the january, taking pre-history anthropology, history of the english language, an independent study, human nutrition, and principles of sociology. perhaps i'll graduate yet. these past couple of months at starbucks have taught me at least one thing: you can't live on 7.25/hour, even if you get tips. i suppose i'll try to get into that language arts interdisciplinary degree in the spring...that's about my only chance of graduating now.

oh, and one other thing i've learned is that girls will make you depressed. stay away from them. or in the words of a regular customer at my starbucks: "let me save you the suspense...biggest letdown ever." he is quite a character, and is trying to convince me that i am an existential nihilist in denial. we have fun talking about it, anyways, and i think i've gotten a few good poems out of it. maybe there's nothing like working at starbucks (seeing people return every day, maybe several times a day, to get their legal addictive stimulants) to get you feeling a little existential. in that sense, perhaps i am existential, but i can't really say that i know what that means. as for the nihilism, i would have to disagree with the view that there's no point to anything. i know there's a point to my life, it's just hiding from me right now. well, i'm not gonna go into any more of this unless i get some comments.

in other news, i've haven't been able to sleep during normal hours lately. that is, according to our time zone. maybe if i lived in alaska or someplace west of here i'd be fine. but 11pm, midnight, 1am, 2am, even 3 or 4am roll around and i can't sleep. i really can't wait till school starts and i can get on a regular schedule again. i think it's that 'i've accomplished something today' feeling that i've been missing. the only thing i really have to do is work these days, and that's not even every day.

so how's that for a reappearance?