Relax (Take it Easy)

Everyone is concerned about appearances. Especially me.

Today, while I was walking through the crummiest area of downtown CSprings, noticing that I was about to pass dangerously close to a tough and hip looking guy with sweet tattoos (and probably one of those hats where you don't ever curve the bill or even pull it down securely on your head) I ever so subtly, with a flick of my thumb, reduced the volume of my ipod (previously blasting Hanson's "Mmbop" loud enough to get me kicked out of a library despite the limitations of the factory-issue earbuds) just enough to keep his judging ears away from my TRL-fueled jam session: a small gesture to save face with a total stranger. I did this, I realized later, despite the fact that I was walking home from my job as dishwasher, trash-handler and deep-fryer extraordinaire, in 92 degree heat which supplied no breeze to justify my kerchief-matted hair (looking very Leonidas-esque in combination with my beard), and despite being clad in a long sleeve button up shirt that I bought at for $7.50 at Wal-Mart literally five years ago, jeans that haven't been washed in probably at least twenty wears (held up by an official Boy Scouts of America belt), and Vans shoes (at least four years old) that have no idea what they're doing being worn with brown socks. Add to this the fact that I was probably still lip-syncing even as I did it.

Why?

Everyone has insecurities and we each deal with them with varying degrees of maturity. It's just funny (especially when you finally think you're pretty comfortable in your disintegrating, eternally double-knotted, never meant to be treated like slip-on loafers, middle-school appropriate shoes) where and how you draw your lines.

Also, to add to your already vivid images of my wardrobe, Brad and I spent a large part of today in a couple Salvation Army stores.

Brad's and his loot:
That's like twenty shirts.










My much less impressive haul:

Yup, that's one zip-up hoody, a collection of William Faulkner stories and a book of Aristotle. $7.00 all told.





Some investigative reporting tomorrow, I swear. I've got all my ducks in a row, I just need to upload them. You really need USB 2.0 to upload live animals.

Old Brown Shoe

This isn't the greatest post in the world, this is just a tribute.









Yesterday Leroy, Brad and I went for a ride with no particular destination and ended up at the Garden of the Gods. While we were there we were scrambling about on some rocks and we had a casualty.

Purchased in the spring of 2006 for a cool $8.50 at Wal-Mart, these sandals were originally commissioned for a Wilderness Pilgrimage trip: 30 miles a day of canoeing and portaging in the wilderness of Algonquin Park, Ontario. Since then they have: walked countless miles around Hillsdale, carried me through Young Life Wilderness Camp, hiked Mt. Evans and Pike's Peak.















As we drove home we stopped by Wal-Mart where I saw the same exact sandals still available, but with a Colorado and year 2008 appropriate price.

While I'm sure I could put another 1084 miles on that brand of sandal, I settled for the $4.87, less... styrofoamy flip-flops that Capitalist-Mart had on sale.

A moment of silence for the dear departed.

Tomorrow (or Wednesday): Some investigative reporting.

Split Screen Sadness

I've never seen a Rocky movie. I've never seen Castaway, or The Terminal, The Aviator, a Batman movie without Christian Bale in it, and I've never seen a James Bond movie. I am in no way, shape or form a "movie guy." But, since most of my friend are, I've been asking around and trying to decide on what constitutes "the essentials of cinema" so that, having conquered this list, I can at least consider myself reasonably cultured. The following is a short review (hopefully the first of many) of one such recommended flick:

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM - BoyScout's pick

Like any dealer, pimp or low-life Requiem for a Dream lured me in with false promises. "Drugs are cool," it said. People who do drugs make out with Jennifer Connelly and have funny and hip friends like Marlon Wayans. So, like any impressionable youth looking to make a little extra cash while building my streetcred, I decided to supress any aversion I had to the disturbing old woman that seemed to take up way too much of Jennifer Connelly's screen time, and ignore the awkward angles and unbearably low-lighting that dominated the first 45 minutes of the movie, and do what the cool kids were all doing - or so BoyScout said.

In the end Requiem for a Dream was one sweet song (that, until Wikipeida corrected me, I was pretty sure Mozart wrote), and one hour of Jennifer Connelly doing things that earned this movie its R-rating away from being a compulsory movie watched in 10th grade Health where everything that possibly can go wrong when you do drugs/have sex/don't stretch before working out does. Seriously, I already knew drugs were bad. Why did I need to watch several actors destroy their scripted lives over it?

Overall I give Requiem for a Dream a C+. Just like that time The Exorcist pointed out to me (with superb acting and directing, mind you) that Satan was scary, I absolutely did not need Requiem to show me in graphic detail how cocaine would destroy everything I loved.

On a lighter note.

Or, if your taste in music is slightly better.

Yes, those are the real artists performing those songs and no, it is not gibberish. It's simlish. The language invented for The Sims line of video games (from the people who brought you SimCity: that game you felt compelled to play in 4th grade because it was slightly better than Oregon Trail, but never really understood).

At the Zoo

Last weekend, along with seeing The Dark Knight and climbing Pike's Peak, Brad, Leroy, Jose (a friend of Brad's) and I went to the zoo.

A compilation of short videos from our time with the giraffes:



Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was perhaps more mountain than zoo, but at least the African animals were enjoying the scorching heat and total absence of moisture. We didn't last too long there, but it was well worth the trip.

After the giraffes and budgies (yes, that just means parakeet), the closest we got to an animal was this deer:


The funny part was he wasn't even part of the zoo, he was just mooching their fine sprinkler-nourished grass.