[oh, futurama reruns, how i love you.] [i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage]

I had an epic post about baseball that was eaten when my laptop fried out a memory chip on Sunday night, but the gist was: no matter how far removed we get from that mid-90s version of it, when I think of the Braves' starting rotation, I still think Smoltz Glavine Maddux Millwood; filled out the last page in my scorebook a few weeks ago, am glad for cleanliness and sturdiness of new one, miss the history of seven years' baseball attendance from the old one (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT SHORTSTOPS FROM CLEMSON ARE CAPABLE OF IF I CAN'T SEE THAT THEY WENT 2 FOR 14, REACHED ON TWO ERRORS, AND SCORED ON A BALK AGAINST CAROLINA THIS YEAR >:(); growing fonder by the day of Orioles' first round draft pick (and now Rookie League pitcher) Matt Hobgood (he signed so early because he just wants to play baseball, he didn't care about the extra million! he has braces! he's so young his mama had to co-sign his contract! *heart hands*). Also, loving Brad Bergesen's pitching for the O's these days but not wild about our total inability to hold a lead after a lights-out 8IP performance from a good young starter. My baseball team is bad and I suspect they feel very bad about it. They better. I feel bad about them.
I also now have a job. I will be working in a field office of a much-maligned branch of the federal government starting on Monday, and I'll be there for at least two years (my probation period), and probably longer. After two years of grad school and two years of contract employment and working from home, I am absolutely excited to have a computer and a desk and an 8 to 5 cube. Sure, I'll miss the CSI re-runs, but I've seen most of them by this point. Some stability and normalcy in my life will not go amiss. Also the ability to pay bills and get federal holidays off and have health insurance, awesome. And that is the last time that I will discuss my new job in public. But know that I'm excited about it!
My brain is basically devoted full-time these days to the following: baseball, mostly minor league; live music and our local scene; cooking; reading everything in the known universe; Texts from Last Night; reading blogs about photography and coveting Pentax K1000's and Holgas and the new Olympus EP-1's and the Nikon E-series 100mm/f2.8 lens. If any of you have any of those camera things hanging around your house, and you're not using them (and frankly, if you have gotten your hands on an EP-1 and you're not using it, what the fuck are you, a flaming moron?), please send them to me. I would take very good care of them.
I'm vaguely irritated by the Cobra Starship tour dates, because Charlotte is a Sunday and the closest other date is Richmond on a Tuesday, and as we all know, these days I only drive through Richmond to spit on the place on the way to somewhere more awesome. There are bands I'd go to Richmond for, at the right venue, but Cobra is not one of them. (Said bands: Okkervil River if there wasn't a closer date; the Avett Brothers but only at the National and only if there wasn't a better option here; Mason Jennings headlining the National. That's about it. Maybe the Truckers with a really good supporting line-up and no Triangle dates.) Richmond is bad and should feel bad for always being mean to us. But, you know, I haven't been to a bandom-bands show since Cobra last fall, so it's not like I appear to be invested or anything. I'm excited about the Cobras' new album, though, and I wish they'd just realize that there's more to the NC than Charlotte; there's a day off between Charlotte and Richmond, they could play the fucking Lincoln once in a while. Jeez, Gabe.
Other albums coming out in the second half of the year that I'm excited about: the new Wye Oak; the new Bombadil; the new Megafaun; the new Avett Brothers (holy crap I am excited about that one); the final New West album of the Truckers' contract, the b-sides and outtakes one; the new AA Bondy. I would be excited about the new-new Truckers and the new Josh Ritter but we're not getting those until next year. And there are some local bands who either need to put out their new albums or just fucking give me all the rough cuts of what they've recorded so far to tide me over before I go to their houses and punch them in the kidneys.
I have finally seen enough movies in the theater this year that I contemplated starting a list in my journal, like I've kept other years, but then I remembered that seeing Star Trek three times and Up twice doesn't actually mean I've seen 7 movies in the theater. I've just seen four (those two, plus Watchmen and the Brothers Bloom) ... multiple times. And frankly the rest of the year will probably just be me seeing the Harry Potter movie over and over again, and maybe Star Trek one more time, so a list is still sort of unnecessary. I used to see a lot of movies, and now that money gets spent on concert tickets and PBR.

That's all I got. Time to go to the library and do laundry and enjoy the penultimate day of my unemployment. How are you guys?

July

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Hooray for the job, Mincat!

{arrgh, self, don't hit post before you're finished writing, you fooool.)

I am good. Ogling cameras, melting in my office (the UK does not do..heat well. I am dying and they are doing bad things to the air-conditioning!) and attempting to do some programming but my brain has been replaced with taffy. It is to woe.

Edited Date: 2009-07-02 03:27 pm (UTC)

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YAY JOB. :D

mmmmmmm, cameras. what cameras are you ogling?

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I am ogling the following: this one, this one & this one.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Well, I don't shoot Canon, so, uh, they all seem very nice? :)

I'm not sure where you're getting the Cobra dates; the ones listed on their website and MySpace have Charlotte as the 23rd, a Sunday, and Richmond as the 25th, a Tuesday. I hope those work better for you!

Actually, those are worse, because they're two weeknights, and still in Richmond. So fuck you, Gabe Saporta, what's wrong with the Triangle that you'll never play here?

(I was looking at the wrong month in my calendar, whoops.)

Edited Date: 2009-07-02 03:32 pm (UTC)

I think Gabe's deliberately out to hurt everyone. The two shows I can go to are on weeknights, too, I'm just choosing to make bad decisions.

Oh, I make bad concert decisions all the time, it's just that I don't give enough of a fuck to make them about Gabe, especially not for trips that are more than two hours each way, and I don't understand why, if they have a day off between Charlotte and Richmond, a show in the Triangle, halfway between the two, is so much to expect.

It pisses me off royally when people look at North Carolina and assume that Charlotte is good enough to cover the whole damn state. But maybe I'm just a bitter jerk.

I think the reason I've been going concert-crazy since moving here is that it's such a novelty to NOT have to drive two hours to see *anything*. Oh, Missouri. My bank account misses you a lot.

He probably needs the day off to recover from the afterparty. GABRIEL.

yay job!

what did you think of the brothers bloom? i think i may have totally missed it here, thanks to the festival.

I ... liked it, with caveats. I thought the premise was lovely and the performances were all top-notch, but I ... I didn't have problems with the ending itself, per se, I just felt like it didn't necessarily fit with the rest of the film. And the cinematography and design of it were absolutely lovely.

It's worth seeing, it was just a little odd in ways I wasn't expecting.

Congratulations! Good luck in your new job.

just fucking give me all the rough cuts of what they've recorded so far to tide me over before I go to their houses and punch them in the kidneys.

I know the feeling, though mine aren't local bands. ::glares down Austin-way:: I'm hoping to have more free time soon (read: break up with my hermit boyfriend) and maybe I'll get back out to some shows again.

You should come back out! In fact, you should make plans to see Two Cow Garage with me in August. If you don't already love them, I think you will.

Edited Date: 2009-07-02 03:48 pm (UTC)

Yay for new job, though I'm a trifle curious, because I work with a much-maligned branch of our federal government and I don't think we are in the same field at all. On the other hand, there are several branches that could be considered as maligned.

But yay! for health insurance and a boring desk job with a predictable paycheck.

And Texts from Last night is unexpectedly addictive. so many people being so stupid. I couldn't watch it in person, but in retrospect and made public in short glimpses, I can't look away. It's replaced

fandomsecrets as my own guilty pleasure.

This job isn't really in my field; it's just something that I was also qualified for that I stumbled into. I'd rather not talk about it in public? But if you want to email me, I'll give you the barest details. :)

TFLN is totally my happy place right now. My life might be a mess, but it's not THAT messy! *grin*

Oh no worries, didn't mean to pressure or presume. Funny, isn't it, how our skills lead us into the strangest places. When I quit teaching, I can honestly say I never thought I'd be doing this in twenty years.

Exactly! I mean, I've had some good nights and bad night, but some of those texts pretty much make me appreciate my realtively boring, safe, staid, existance. I was the person people called for bail money, not the one needing it, you know?

Congratulations on employment! That's fantastic!

thanks!

GIMME THE GODDAMN PATTERSON HOOD ALBUM.

*cough*

I mean, hey babe. ilu?

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, i haven't forgotten, i'm just fucking lazy. :P

BABE. ILU.

Congratulations on the cube! Very happy for you.

thanks! :)

YAY FOR JOB!

Hey, Min, I've been meaning to ask you for recs for books about baseball.

Anything rated four or five stars here (http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/189840?shelf=designedtobreakyourheart) is probably a good place to start. It's a mix of fiction and non-fiction, depending on what you want. Or if you are interested in particular aspects or subjects, I could recommend a few titles out of those to start with?

What's funny is that I was actually just looking at your goodreads and I didn't realize that was what your tags meant! Oh me.

Also I am not sure exactly what I want to read, but that gives me a lot of stuff to look through. Thank you very much!

ahahahahaahaha whoops, sorry. Sometimes my shelves are incomprehensible to anyone but me, but my baseball shelf is a reference to a quote from an old commissioner of baseball:

"It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." -- A. Bartlett Giamatti

It's my favorite line ever written about baseball.

If you have any questions about any of them that my reviews (or, uh, lack thereof) don't answer, holler at me.

MIN. HI. RANDOM LIZARD IS RANDOM:

I officially signed on for another year at this position, and now I'm terrified that I'm going to crash and burn in a spectacular display of FAIL! Elove and I went to Old Navy yesterday and I spent too much money, but am now rocking this (http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=46067&vid=1&pid=653976&scid=653976072) and it makes me happy. I might be a little bit in love with Old Navy at this point in time. Jeffrey Dean continues to be smokin' hot, and I continue to have inappropriate thoughts about him while at work.

Also, ILU and am SO HAPPY ABOUT YR JOB!

♥

Dude, if your new job is with FEMA, I'm gonna be really, really jealous.

Also, ditto on the Avetts new album!

i am NOT working for FEMA, i will say that much. i have no desire and no qualifications to work for FEMA. :)

Fair enough! Figured it was a long shot.

Congrats on the job hope it goes well. I am well and wishing i had a permenatant job

thanks! i'll send some of my leftover good job vibes your way. :)

From the lurker section of the stands, congratulations on the job! :) There is absolutely nothing wrong with a little stability and predictability.

(And considering the unemployment rate in our lovely state, I am flat out fucking impressed at how fast you found new employment. Dang.)

i, ah, i had a little help with this job. not the getting it, mind you -- that was all me. but the initial getting the resume in the right place, well, i have family members who have worked for this particular institution for 30+ years. so. *sheepish*

Don't be sheepish. If you got it, use it. :) (And if you have a spare chicken I could sacrifice in the direction of the state budget gods, I'd be much obliged.)

YAY CUBE JOB OMG!

Also, "he's so young his mama had to co-sign his contract!" is the best thing I've seen online today! :)

xoxo

Edited Date: 2009-07-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

HE HAS BRACES, STEPH, OMG. he is SO ADORABLE. i was all grumpy when they drafted him because i don't believe in drafting high school pitchers, but i am growing fonder of him by the day. <3333

Wait a minute, there's a branch of the federal government that isn't maligned? Eh, us maligned ones have all the fun anyway!

Congrats on the job!

probably somewhere there's a tiny one that no one knows about to malign, right? :)

Min, I think your feelings and my feelings about the new Avett Bros are pretty much the same, i.e. gimme this album right now. I'm supposed to have a Josh Ritter experience soon that would make you so very jealous. Maybe someday I'll get around to posting about it.

that money gets spent on concert tickets and PBR. That's the way God intended it.

GIVE ME THAT ALBUM NOW, SCOTT AND SETH, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. the stuff i've heard from it so far is amazing, and i do not want to wait until september. DO NOT WANT, PINNFACE. >:(

concert tickets and PBR should be god-given rights, i feel.

Job news: quite lovely. Congrats on getting that settled.