Day One at the Office

I had a rough night of sleep last night. I was very anxious about my first day of work. I kept waking up. It just didn't feel real until I got to the office and found my desk. I got there before the office opened, and I had to hitch a ride up with people just coming in from the parking garage.

My new cubicle has 6 foot tall grey fabric walls. It's a very quiet office, but the best part is the back wall of my cube is a window! Granted, it's a view of the parking lot and high tension power lines, but those lines are on a hillside. I think I'm going to start parking the car where I can see it.

This place still has some of the old dotcom boom year remnants. The soda machines are free. (I tracked down the machine with the Fresca.) Free breakfast is provided every morning, and there's the ubiquitous foosball, pool and ping pong tables.

The Oscars

I'm not really gonna blog the Oscars. I just don't care about the nominated movies. Somehow the Academy almost completely ignored Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I guess all I really care about is Chris Rock's opening monologue. What's the over/under of the first f-bomb?

The only nominated film that I saw was Ray. It was ok, but it's like a TV biopic. Ray's life is hard to contain in a two hour movie.

It's nice to see Don Cheadle get some recognition for his work. I love this guy. Of course, I'll root for anyone who was in Boogie Nights.

I just noticed that 4 of the 5 nominees for best actor played real people: Johnny Depp's J.M. Barrie, Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes, Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles, and Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina (I had to look that one up). Of course, Clint Eastwood's just sort of playing himself. That has to be some sort of record, right?

C'mon Rock, give me something to write about. He busted out "asses" in his first full sentence. You gotta love that.

Rock is just bashing everyone. Colin Ferrell, Michael Moore, Tobey Maguire, President Bush, and Jude Law. No singing, no dancing. Just Chris Rock going after the establishment. Will I remember any of these jokes next week? I doubt it. OK, I think I've already forgotten them. OK. I'm done. What's on ESPN?

Radio Nervda #3

If you've never heard Sleater-Kinney, you're missing out on true force of nature. The best way to describe them is if the Gogos had become much more musically agressive and thrown out the bass player and decided to turn up the guitars in the abscence of the bass. "Words and Guitar" is almost a sort of manifesto.

I don't know what to say about Baby Teeth other than these guys are soulful bastards and have hilarious photos on their website. I love the 70's prom tuxedo look. "Here's Celebrity Wedding".

Not only is Billy Bragg a brilliant songwriter, he's the only English singer I can think of who actually sings with English accent. That always cracked me up about the Beatles. They sound American when they sing, then you watched Hard Day's Night and wondered where the hell the subtitles were. This is a live version of "Accident Waiting to Happen"

Do you remember the t-shirt that Kurt Cobain used to wear with a cartoon alien on it that said "Hi, How Are You?" That's a Daniel Johnston shirt. Johnston is an indie legend. He's a very strange guy, I suggest you read his bio on his site. I've seen him twice. I was stunned by his appearance. You don't expect him to be a 300 pound guy with grey hair and a small classical guitar. He looks like a bear playing a ukulele. Ask my friend Will about the time we saw him a SXSW in Austin. It was great. Here's Daniel with a full band, playing "Rock This Town Tonight"

I know I played some American Music Club, but I can't resist giving you another another help of Mark Eitzel. This is one of his finest solo moments. Here's Jen's favorite: "Proclaim Your Joy".

OK, that's it for today. Go outside and enjoy yourself now. Or download these tracks, slap them on your MP3 player, then go outside. It's nice out.

Now at bat...

Baseball is about to make its spring rebirth as it does every year. Each player has his own music when he comes to bat. Here's the reader participation portion of the program. What would your at bat music be? Leave your musical choices in the comments.

As for me, I have to go with "William, It Was Really Nothing" by the Smiths. That would probably the only Smiths song ever played in a baseball stadium.

At left is the 70's Red Sox pitcher Spaceman Bill Lee. Gotta love him. If I ever went to fantasy baseball camp, I'd have wear his jersey. Number 37.

Last day of no responsibilities

Today is my last workday without having to go to work. It's been a harrowing process at times. I've never had the kind of pressure to find a job like this. It's a totally different story when you're married and have a baby on the way. Somehow, it all worked out perfectly. My health care coverage from the last job ends on February 28th. The new coverage starts on that same date. No need for gap coverage. I missed one pay period, but made up for it with nearly two weeks of vacation pay.

I have no idea how it all worked out for the better, but it has. Jen and I must have good karma built up over the years.

For the first time ever, I will actually be paying attention during the benefits section of the new employee orientation. I hope they don't start talking about the TPS cover sheets right away.

Looks like a snow day here already. I'll probably spend the day digging out the car and just goofing off. Oh, how I'll miss that.

Magic toothpaste

On occasion, I come up with these wacky ideas for inventions. There was the bathroom desk I came up with during college. You'd place it in front of the toilet. This prompted the question, "Pants? Or no pants?" The answer is a Constanza-esque "No pants, baby!"

Another one of these wacky ideas was the toothpaste that didn't make orange juice or milk taste terrible for a half hour after brushing your teeth. Incredibly, Jen and I stumbled upon this product in the real world last week: Tom's of Maine's Natural Homeopathic-Style Toothpaste. I don't know why it's "homeopathic style" Is it not homeopathic at all? Damn you Tom! For beating me to market and for confusing me with your marketing. Anyhow, I strong recommend the apricot flavor. It tastes great and you can now safely brush BEFORE breakfast.

Radio Nervda #2

Back again, is the incredible, blog animal. More music from the interweb for you fine people.

Have you ever heard Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay"? Ever wonder why he doesn't sound like the nasally incomprehensible Bob that you know and I love? For the making of the album Nashville Skyline, he moved to Nashville and hung out with Johnny Cash and quit smoking and really tried to sing. Here's their duet on Johnny's song "Big River". Until I heard this song, I had no idea that Davenport, Iowa was on the Mississippi. Thanks to Johnny for teaching me some geography.

I am a big fan of weird collaborations, like Johnny and Bob or Sonic Youth and Chuck D on Kool Thing, but the advent of the mashup makes for even weirder combos. Jay-Z is the king of mashup source material as far as I'm concerned. I've heard tons of versions of the Black Album, but I've not actually heard the original mixes. Here's Jay-Z and Radiohead with "99 Anthems".

I love uncomplicated indie rock/jangle pop like this track by the Invisible Cities called "Bumper Cars" I feel about 16 but then my creaky knees remind me that I'm twice that age.

This sounds like a karaoke party at my mom's house if they had to sing over an absurdly fuzzed out guitar/party jam by Beck. This is Ronnie Ong's "Buttons and Bows" I'm absolutely floored by this song and the fact that it was recorded in the 60's.

One last track before I go. This is Amy Miles and she's got a secret that you'd "Kill to Know."

Thanks again for stopping by. Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keeping reaching for the stars. (And gimme all your money, Kasey.)

We have an asset now

We ventured out into the suburbs again today to look at more used cars. We drove an old Jetta, and after a few miles, we started to smell burning oil. Immediately, Jen's internal radar went off, saying something like "Baby. In. Danger. Get. Out. Of. Car." So for a reliabilty and safety standpoint, we decided to buy a new car instead. We bought the craziest looking, most affordable and likely reliable thing out there: the Scion xB.

Ours is camoflauge green and was under $15K. We'll spend more money on rent this year than on the price of this car. It drives exactly like my old Corolla did, but it's 3 feet shorter. That'll make for good parallel parking here in the city, and since it's a Toyota, it'll just last forever. The plan is to sell some stock after the Chickpea arrives and pay this one off and get another car in the same price range.

It will be interesting to see what the other people at my new job drive. It's a pretty good indication of the vibe at the place. My last job, people drove VW's and Dodges. Pretty blue collarish. At AOL, it was insane during the stock option days. Lots of Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.

It'll be fun to drive this thing to work every day. I need to hook up the iPod to the stereo. If we'd gotten the white, it would have seemed a fitting twin. Of course, my iPod is in a safety cone orange silicone case, so it wouldn't be the same anyhow.

The Car Buying Food Chain

We're in the market for a car, as I'll need one to commute to work on a daily basis. There's a very well defined food chain. At the top is the new car dealer. These guys take some trade-ins as part of their daily business. Anything that they can sell for 10000 or more, they'll keep on their lot and sell. Anything else, they'll sell to a used car dealer.

The used car guys tend to specialize in certain cars. We went out to the sticks to see a 97 Passat today, but it was bought out from under us. Anyhow, Richie the car dealer explained to us that he specializes in Caddies and Lincolns. He buys from a couple of new car dealers, three or four cars at time. At times, he has to take some other cars to buy the Caddies that he wants. That's how he ends up with the occasional Passat or Saturn that he got from Joe Smith Cadillac/Saturn/Volkswagen.

Now if Richie can't sell the Passat or Golf or whatever non-Caddy, he takes it to the auto auction where someone who specializes in VWs might buy that car for resale to the consumer.

Lots of middlemen between the car and you the consumer. We're looking at some Jettas tomorrow. We shall see how it works out.

Chickpea's Gender

Wanna know the gender of our little Chickpea? Go here and find out.

Budgetary Freeze Lifted!

I received a job offer on Friday. There's one other place that I've interviewed several times with. I've asked them to make an offer or I'll move on to the other job. So, by midweek, I will have a job.

I'm very relieved that the Chickpea will not be born into poverty. Massachusetts birth certificates have a spot for "Father's Occupation". I'm pleased to have something to put down there.

It looks like we'll have to have two cars to pull this off. Jen will likely get a new car, and I will get a cheap new car or well loved used car. With the job starting at the end of the month, we'll have to buy a car this week or next.

We've been trying to be very frugal lately, with the economical uncertainty of late. But now the gloves are off. We bought Jen a new pair of Pumas for the spring. The Puma store was packed, but there was no line at Neiman Marcus (Needless Markups), and the price was the same. The weird thing there is that they don't accept Visa or MasterCard. Only American Express, or cash. Or maybe kruggerands or gold ingots or something.

die Strandjungen

Nobody will give me airtime on a radio station to have my own show, I'm gonna do it on this blog instead. So welcome to the first episode of my untitled internet radio show.

I'm still out in the sticks dog sitting with Jen and we've got no TV and we're in an unfamiliar house. Thank God for our laptops and my cousin's wifi connection.

Is there much surfing in Germany? This is from the archive at WFMU. This one's for you, Kacia. It's the Beach Boys, singing in German. This kinda makes me want to see a clip of Beach Blanket Bingo dubbed in to German.

It's good to know that there are still bands influenced by the Smiths out there. It's even better to know that they're called Math and Physics Club. There's a math AND PHYSICS club? Why was I not alerted? Anyhow, here's song of theirs called "Graduation Day"


American Music Club was one of the great unknown bands of the late 80's early 90's that never really made it. Maybe it's because they sounded like an outfit that would let you buy 11 of their cassettes for a penny, but then send you a new tape every month in perpetuity and charge you 17.97 a month. Anyhow, after 10 years in the wilderness, they're back with a new album. This track is called "Another Morning"

This is my favorite mash up of the moment. It's Christina Aguilera (in the pre-Dirrrrty era) over a Velvet Underground track, with a little bit of a Communards track over the fade out. When Jen and I were in Houston visiting Will, we couldn't stop saying, "I couldn't get Christina to wear no panties, so I spray painted her po-po red." (Long story, really.) This is a well made mix by Go Home Productions in England. Here's the supremely awkwardly titled "Girl Wants (To Say Goodbye To) Rock and Roll"

I'll bet that Andrew Vincent of Andrew Vincent and the Pirates, was in the math and physics club in high school too. Here's the very Postal Service-ish cover of the Beasties' "Paul Revere"

OK, that's the show for today. I'll be back at some other irregularly scheduled time with more music for you. This is Radio Nervda. Thank you, good night.

World Cup Qualifiers

OK, so maybe Nervda is still a sports blog today. I happened to get home in time to turn on the North/Central America World Cup Soccer qualifying match between the US and Trinidad and Tobago. I never understood why they'd play such an important match at 2PM on a Wednesday afternoon. Apparently, quite a few people in Trinidad got the day off from work to go to the game. It's ninety degrees out there, but the Americans look ready. I turned on the channel just in time to see Kasey Keller make a great save on a breakaway, and almost immediately, Eddie Lewis scored on a long shot from outside the 18 yd box to make it 2-0.

Queen's Park in Port of Spain, Trinidad is a beautiful stadium. There's a huge oak tree next to the covered grandstand. It's not antiseptic, like the stadiums here. You can see nature in the park. The only comparision in the U.S. is the old Orange Bowl in Miami, with it's majestic palm trees.

I never understood why soccer isn't bigger in this country, especially after the success of the women's team and the men's team's performance in the 2002 cup. Is it that the average Joe isn't fit enough to relate? After all, tons of couch potatoes love NASCAR because they have a driver's license, fat guys think they could be offensive linemen if they bulked up. I have no idea.

Out of town

Once and a while, this blog turns into a sports blog for a series of posts, and I apologize for that. So we're back to normal programming now...

Jen and I are down in the suburbs near Providence, dog sitting for my cousin Mike and his wife. He's going down to Miami Beach for a few days for a business conference. Damn him and his travelling into warm weather!

The dogs are lovely and taking a nap right now. I'll post pictures of the ladies later on.

I'll be back in the city tonight for kung fu training and to spend some quality time with our cat, Roxy. He's going to turn 20 next month. We're thinking about throwing him a party. We just think it'd be funny to make him wear a hat. And twenty years of being a cat is something to celebrate, don't you think?

Title number 3

46 seconds ieft from the 4.

Gain of one on a pass. no timeouts. 17 seconds left. 3rd and 9. Bad clock management by the Eagles.

Pick by Harrison! Game over. Hugs all around on the Patriot sideline.

Who's the MVP? Branch? After hearing the stats, maybe it's Harrison.

Man that was an OOOOOGLY game. But as usual, the Patriots win the ugly ones.

Kill the clock. Win the game. Maybe?

Onside kick ahead. At least I think so. Let's see.

Fauria recovers the onside kick.

1:47 left. NE comes out running. Dillon picks up 2 and gets the Eagles to burn their second timeout.

Third and five on the Eagles 35. Faulk is stopped for no gain. They bring their punter. And then call timeout.

The Pats down it on the 4 yd line. It's time for the backyard drive.

It's a game!

Pats go three and out after the interception and the Eagles get the ball back at their own 20 yd line. 5:40 left.

Terrell Owens makes an amazing catch on an out to keep the drive alive. There's 3:28 left in the game now. The ball is on their own 45.

The Eagles are strangely taking their time running plays. The clock's down to 2:15. I'm no football genius, but shouldn't they be running no huddle?

Two minute warning. More ads!

How is Sahara not a Bruckheimer movie?

Thirty yard touchdown down the middle to Lewis! Beats the safety with a double move. It's 24-21.

Bruschi Interception

TO busts a long play down the left side against single coverage. Tedy makes the big pick killing the drive. Can the Pats put it away now?

Mr. Dillon to you

After an insane catch from Deion Branch, who snatched the ball away from the DB, Dillion plows it up field.

Monkey ad! Ass kissing and flying bananas.

Back to game action. Brady sees blitz at the five, but throws an incompletion. Dillon gets stuffed on third down.

Viniteri drills a 22 yd FG. It's 24-14 with 8:40 left in the game.

Start of the 4th

New England is driving down the field. They're running on them pretty well. Down at the Eagles 16. Faulk takes the screen to the two. And Dillon punches it in from there. 21-14 Pats.

C'mon. Gimme a monkey office ad....

Nope, it's running without moving. What the heck are they selling? The Prius.

Eagles driving

Philly's starting the move the ball well underneath. The Pats secondary is giving them lot of room underneath. TO is playing really well considering his condition. He's got 6 catches. They're at the Pats' 21.

Underneath to Lewis at the 14. They get the first with Westbrook underneath.

Touchdown pass to Westbrook. Maybe the Greek is right. It's 14-14 now.

Opening the third

The Pats are starting to drive and click. They're picking up the blitzes and finding open guys.

Deion Branch is picking apart the zone. Dillon can't get the run game going right now.

Branch gets the ball down to the 2. Vrabel gets another touchdown. It's the same play that he always scores on. You'd think people would figure out to cover that play. Mike does that Eagle touchdown dance.

14-7 Pats.

Halftime

McCartney dusts off the oldies. "Drive My Car"?

Do any of the kids in the crowd know who Paul McCartney is?

Hey, they left the "California grass" reference in "Get Back" Good work, Paulie!

I KNEW IT! "Live and Let Die" It's very pyrotechnically suited. I just know that some of those kids are thinking "Hey, he's covering that Guns N Roses song. I wonder if he covers 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' too?"

What a great throwback. A time when McCartney was great and James Bond movies were good. Ah, those were the days.

"Hey Jude" with glowsticks. I hope those kids know the "Na, na, na, na nanannah!" part.

Paul looks great. Too bad we can't say the same about John and George, isn't it.

The signs spell out "Na na nanana nah" in the crowd, in case you don't know the words. What's with the random Statue of Liberty imagery?

Excellent work, Paulie. I'm proud of you.

Shot from the booth

They're showing a shot of the announcers standing up in the booth. I wonder if they do this just to assure us that they're actually wearing pants. Eeeeeww. I just made myself think about a pantless Joe Buck. And now, I've shared that with you.

7-7

Brady drives the team down the field and finishes it off with an easy touchdown pass to Givens in the right corner.

Givens does his best T.O. touchdown celebration impression. I wonder how he feels about that. Maybe he'll crush Givens with his abs.

An Office Monkey

I think I just saw a monkey xeroxing his ass. That's quality.

The Corey Dillon Show

Two straight screen passes for 10 a piece to Corey Dillon. The Fox crew is already saying that it's been a domination by the Eagles. How quickly will they change their tune? It's 7-0, not 21-0.

Fumble by Daniel Graham? It'll called that way, but here comes the challenge flag.

No fumble.

More Corey Dillon. He rumbles for 25 yards on great cutback run and drags a defender for 5 yards.

Brady fumbles it away at the 5.

A score?

The Eagles are mounting a good drive here. McNabb does a Houdini act in the pocket and chucks it downfield to Pinkston.

McNabb finds LJ Smith in the end zone for a 7 yard score. The first option was Terrell Owens, but he was jammed at the line. Smith did a great job fighting his way through the linebackers. Great play by the TE.

Can New England respond?

Turnover

Rodney Harrison stops the reciever short of the first down and holds him up for his mates in the secondary to come and strip the ball away for a turnover. Randall Gay knocks it loose and the Pats get the ball on their own 30 with under a minute left in the first.

Of course, this leads to yet another punt. Punt, punt, punt, punt.

Paul is dead

What the heck song is Paul going to sing at halftime? Will he do a Beatles song? My guess is "Live and Let Die" or "The Girl is Mine" with Michael Jackson via satelite. Scratch that Michael thing. The only Jackson we'll see on Fox is Randy.

A pick. No penalty.

It looks like Harrison got hurt making this play. He picked off McNabb at the three.

Smote?

OK, the next play is a loss of sixteen on a sack.

And then there's a pick by the Patriots, but it's nullified by an illegal contact penalty. I've never seen so many penalties against the Pats. Will this cost them?

TO

Owens makes an nice catch and run. Then he does a little celebration. The football gods may smite him for that.

Punt festival

Punt. Punt. Punt. Punt.

But at least we had a commerical with Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the jimmy by a dancing/talking bear. That groin kick was just for you, Will.

Fumble

14:08 left in the first quarter and the blitz causes a fumble. McNabb avoids the first hit, but not the second. Bruschi forces a fumble. It looks like Vrabel recovers.

Eagles challenge. They'll win it, but we won't find out until after the commericial break.

Yup. They win the challenge. They'll punt.

The Anthem

Please don't let Michael Douglas sing the anthem. Oh, he's just giving a long winded intro for the WWII vets.

Clinton and Bush have matching suits. Weird. And Michael Douglas has his suit misbuttoned. Top button only on a two button suit, Michael. Not the bottom one, dude. Even I know that.

The service academy choirs are singing the anthem. No showbiz crap. Good work again. Watch them ruin it with fireworks during the song or something...

Somehow they resisted. Wow.

Andy Reid

Jen says that Andy Reid looks like Chris Farley pretending to be Ditka.

The Pats come out to an intro from Michael Chiklis. What? Conan O'Brien's not available? Philly has Will Smith do the honors. the Pats come out to "Crazy Train", the Eagles have AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" They win with the celeb. It's a draw on the tunes.

I can't believe I'm analyzing that.

Prediction

The Greek says that Viniteri is going to win the game with a 47 yarder at the end. This is his claim ticket. I'm not saying anything.

Ray Charles at the Super Bowl?

I've always said that only Ray Charles should be allowed to open an event with America the Beautiful. I joked that they should have resurrected him and had him sing. Well, the folks at Alcor couldn't pull it off in time, so we've got Alicia Keys and the choir from Ray's alma mater instead. Good work, NFL. More classy moves? Where am I? We miss you, Ray.

Whoa, Ray on the video screen! Nice twist.

OK, the kids look like Blockbuster managers in their blue oxford shirts and khakis.

Are they plugging Ray's albums? That was crass. The yin/yang balance is returning....

Super Bowl Pregame

I'm watching the Super Bowl at John and Jen's house. I hadn't intended on blogging this, but The Greek gets what the Greek wants.

They just did a full recitation of the Declaration of Independence on the pregame show. That's the first time that I've ever heard the entire thing on TV. It was actually quite classy. This thing's on Fox? Weird.

Clinton and Bush Sr. should have their own sitcom. Bush is tired of Clinton bringing around the babes and having parties with Ted Kennedy.

Charlie Daniels is alive and he's not going to have a wardrobe malfunction. That giant belt buckle will make sure of that. Either that or he's the new WWE Smackdown champion.

Earth Wind and Fire are here. I wonder if Earthwind Moreland's mom is going nuts.

Eugene Levy! Physics! Football! It's like some sort of beautiful dream. OK, the funniest thing in the skit so far are Eugene Levy's eyebrows.

Mono no more

Mono no more, originally uploaded by nervda.

Jen and I were out running some errands today, when we stopped in at the hair salon to set up an appointment for our friend Y. Jen's trying to get him to get a more stylish haircut, and he's the type who's never paid more than 10 dollars for a haircut.

Anyhow, Jen's stylist was originally my stylist, but I don't see her anymore, as I cut my hair myself these days. But it was nice to chat for a bit. All of a sudden, Jen mentions that it might be nice if I got my eyebrow waxed. The stylists jumped on this and gently persuaded me to separate the longtime Siamese twins that are my eyebrows.

After a bit of wax and plucking, I've got two eyebrows for the first time in memory. The waxing didn't hurt as much as they make it seem in the movies. But then again, I run marathons and do kung fu. What's half a second of pain compared to a four hour run?

I'm still getting used to the new look. Now there are two caterpillars, as a opposed to one. And the lesson to be learned here is that Jen loves the male makeover. Consider yourself warned.