Author: gala5931

Everything is funnier with seventies-style music.

There’s a single synapse in my head which insists there’s some pac-man glitch that allows for the kind of switcheroo the protagonist in this video pulls in the alley. That synapse, I fear, is wrong.

“So, what was your day at work like, Alex?”

I’ll tell you. It was a lot like Andy Kaufman singing the Mighty Mouse theme.

Man attacked on Bidwell Parkway

Apparently 7:40 PM on a Sunday is no time to be walking through one of Buffalo’s best-lit, most well-appointed and most frequently traveled areas. Good to know.

So, Greg gets robbed. Jess sees skeevy dude of the day. There’s some hoodie-sweatshirted sexual offender running around Chapin. My brother gets robbed. Greg finds one of his windows has been tampered with. Dave gets robbed.

I’ve been banging the “live in the city, it’s awesome” drum for a long time. Now my neighborhood has apparently become a hot-bed of violent crime and burglary. I must confess to feeling more than a little frustrated. Much of the reason I have spent so much of my life behind a desk is to be able to afford a place in a safe neighborhood. This time seems to have been wasted.

New Radiohead album. inrainbows.com. Pay whatever you want and download. Sounds like Yo La Tengo. Also sounds like awesome.

On my travels, I acquired a new watch. My grandmother gave it to me. It was my grandfather’s watch.

I know this seems like the sort of thing that should tug at a young man’s heartstrings, but it really wasn’t any big deal. Me: “Hey, this watch still works”. Grandma: “You want it?”. No symbolic passing-down gestures, no wistful tales of how he wore that watch through the Korean War and countless several-alarm fires in the hamlets surrounding Burlington. None of that.

My co-workers notice the smallest changes in my wardrobe (a statement of A- how desperate these kind souls are to find something to talk with me about and B- how rarely I shop for clothes), and I am concerned someone will notice the watch. “It was my grandfather’s” is sure to give the impression that I have ponderous and beautiful feelings regarding this watch, and when it turns out I don’t have them, the legend of my jerkitude will simply expand to include this new anecdote.

Yet, every time I wind it and hear its ticking, I think about my grandfather listening to the exact same thing.

Quick note: for those of you interested in cranking out a 50,000 word bit of prose in a single month, Nanowrimo sign-ups have begun.

Yes, I know that the following statement further confirms me as a weirdo.

One of the bonuses of having internet access while on vacation is the ability to update your Librarything account with your latest purchases.

It’s true, though. It’s like a travel diary. “Ah, yes. Durham, North Carolina. I bought that Verne collection there.”

Speaking of travelogues, Penguin’s Great Journeys series caught my eye, but mainly because the covers are cool.

This game has multiple endings.  In order to get the blessed ending, be sure to make the following choices:

• Accept the offer, and learn from them. “I am honored to join you.”
•  Keep at it. This mission must be completed.

The idiosyncrasies have started to take over.

I’ve become something of an oddball at work. An insistence on aligning my pens with each other. An incapacity to endure a buzzing sound. Pulling up socks in the middle of conversations.

These sorts of things combined with my insistent reserve make for an eccentric fellow about whom no one knows anything. The quirks replace character and personality, indeed become them in the eyes of many.

I have to confess, it’s kinda fun.

As the autumnal breezes blow, my mind has turned near fully to the open seas. I have nearly reached the final page of Master and Commander, despite being utterly lost in the jargon much of the time. Been playing Puzzle Pirates, of all things — but only because I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of Sid Meier’s Pirates Exclamation Point. (I must confess, though, it is fun.)

Just got back from New Orleans, and while there found myself growing awfully naval. On a self-made bookstore tour of the French Quarter, I picked up the dramatically-named and hideously-covered Men, Ships, and the Sea for some steamjournally research. Also bought a few old prints of (what else?) Boston Harbor circa 1800.

After a few days I even began to look like a seaman. My skin burned, my stubble grew. I wore my shirt far more open than is my normal Northeastern habit, and pale drawstring shorts which may just as well have been made of sailcloth. I even went barefoot at times, heels scraping on the sun-bleached deck.

This is all well and good, as International Talk Like a Pirate Day grows large on the horizon, large as a great Spanish brigantine heavy with booty and ripe for the takin’, me hearties.