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1.30.2003


I wonder how much our President's speechwriters watch The West Wing. Is it just me or did this State of the Union seem more TV-ified than usual? There was the money for AIDS in Africa, which is straight from The West Wing, and the part about developing hydrogen cars was "We almost cured cancer," but put through the "Hey, instead of saving lives, let's save Detroit" filter.

This is why people tell me to go play a game and have some ice cream while the grownups talk about politics, dear.
..:.:2:30 PM:.:..


1.28.2003


The phrase "jump the shark" has now been totally played.
..:.:1:41 PM:.:..

1.24.2003


I woke up today and found* that I'd written a joke about Mormons on the pad I keep by my bed. I'm not going to tell the joke -- it's not a good joke and I'm pretty offended that I wrote it. I could blame the NyQuil or the fact that my bedroom is currently 8 Kelvin (you don't want to know how many "absolute zero in the bedroom" jokes I considered using), but really who am I kidding? At 5 AM, I think Mormons are funny.

Have you noticed that I've been talking a lot about what I think when I'm asleep? There are lots of reasons for this, inluding blah blah blah blah blah I'm really boring.

*I'm totally going to have that Joni Mitchell song, "Urge for Going," in my head all day now. Unnnnnngh.
..:.:11:55 AM:.:..


1.21.2003


I drove to New York and back this past weekend. The drive from Boston to New York is pretty boring. It's four hours of interstate, mostly in Connecticut. Connecticut's state motto is Qui Transtulit Sustinet, which you tend to see translated incorrectly as "He who transplanted still sustains." It really means, "Proud to diminish the inherent humor of New Jersey."

About two hours into the drive, I start to get pretty bored. That's about the most alone time I can spend with my brain before starting to freak out. (My friends agree on this, by the way -- "Sure, Mark, I'd love to get a drink with you tonight. What time are you planning to go to sleep? Midnight? *long pause in which I can hear the sound of a pencil scratching out some math* OK, yeah, let's meet at 10.")

So after two hours, I get fidgety and sick of the CDs I've brought and turn to quality Connecticut radio for my entertainment. Because I can't keep awful things to myself, here's what I got out of 15 minutes with CT Clear Channel:

  • I bought a new car last month with a needlessly complicated car stereo. It has a button called "AS", which resisted doing anything when I hammered away at it. I had a friend in the car this weekend, so I got her to pull out the manual and explain it to me. It turns out it works like this -- you hit the AM or FM button until it gets to the AS setting, then press the AS button and it will program the six numbered buttons to the stations with the strongest signal at that moment. I tried this when I was bored. I'm now going to call it the "5 Country and 1 Oldies Station Button."

    Corollary: No person should ever be as excited as I was to finally (FINALLY!) find a station playing a Phil Collins song. I've been waiting for this moment all my life, indeed.

  • If I'm ever a movie director or producer working on a Warren Beatty film, I'm going to demand that there be a scene where Beatty's driving a car with the radio on and when some random song comes on, Private Dancer or Billie Jean, for example, Beatty will turn to his passenger and say, "Hey, this song is about me, you know."

  • Did you ever wonder what happened to Jamiroquai? It turns out he lives in Connecticut and spends all his time calling up local stations to request they play his songs. Then, when they put him on the air so that he can tell them what his favorite radio station is, he interrupts the DJ, saying, "Um, Moby, can I please have my career back?" Then he starts crying.

  • YOU BAD CONNECTICUT STATIONS ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO BREAK IN BETWEEN SONGS AND SAY "YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A TEN IN A ROW MUSIC BLOCK"! THIS IS AS BAD AS A COMMERCIAL AND DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT FCC REQUIREMENTS, YOU LIARS!
..:.:12:19 PM:.:..

1.15.2003


So, you know how you'll occasionally do that thing where you spend a long time looking for your keys and you'll turn the apartment upside down and then stop and sit on the couch and think to yourself, "When was the last time I used the keys?" and then you'll think, "When you unlocked the door to your apartment, you moron," and then you'll get back up and continue looking around until you notice the jangling noise coming from your front pocket every time you take a step? Or you'll decide to watch TV and you've just been reading, so you look everywhere for your glasses and then discover that you're wearing them and that's why you weren't having any trouble seeing when you were looking for them, and also why you have a headache from reading?

I just did that with my cell phone. It was in my hand.
..:.:12:51 PM:.:..


1.14.2003


This is pretty amusing, I think. This very page got linked from a high schooler's weblog with this comment:
The all-time shittiest look ever, without the use of animated gifs and neon colors.
I thought this was really funny, because if there's one thing that I care not at all about, it's design. This page has no design. So I shared this comment with some people and my friend Nick said,
I really wonder why that guy took issue with your design. Your page has no design elements whatsoever. It's almost like calling a piece of paper shitty design. It must have been something you said.
I'm really unhappy about this.
..:.:11:01 AM:.:..

1.13.2003


Yes, the success of last month's DIY hair trimming is what led to this morning's DIY haircut. Yes, I remember how I made fun of my friend freshman year in high school when he tried to cut his own hair and it turned out badly. Yes, I said, "Off the ears, governor?" out loud to myself in an English accent while I was giving myself this haircut. Yes, that was moments before I drew blood. Yes, my hair does not look good now. Yes, I know I haven't even seen the back yet. NO, IT'S NOT A MULLET, IT'S JUST A BAD HAIRCUT, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP. Yes, it is warm in here with this hat on. Yes, the barber shop is closed today.
..:.:11:14 AM:.:..

1.10.2003


"Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times. They're all talking about NARC, starring Jason Patric and Ray Liotta."

OF COURSE THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT A MOVIE. THEY FUCKING PUBLISH MOVIE REVIEWS!

The Yellow Pages, telemarketers, his mother. They're all talking about Mark Anderson.
..:.:7:00 PM:.:..


1.8.2003


I love waking up and finding I've written something down in the middle of the night. It's so mysterious. Last night, I kept waking up from these anxiety dreams, and at 4:15 I wrote this down (I remember this):
Why won't my mind leave me alone?
Then I went back to sleep. At some point after that, I woke up and wrote (and I have absolutely no recollection of this):
I hear you, notional 4:15 self
I've been told I talk to myself when I sleep, but this is, I think, the first time I've ever written to myself.
..:.:11:42 AM:.:..

1.7.2003


Repeat after me: Forty hours of Wilco bootlegs is enough. I don't have a problem. OK, I HAVE A PROBLEM. Happy?
..:.:6:19 PM:.:..

1.6.2003


I spent a while tonight with a friend, a college housemate, sitting on my living room floor in front of my stereo picking out CDs and playing a song or two from them. We each picked out a bunch of things we liked or had been wanting to hear. I even got to unload a couple of CDs on him which I'd been trying to get rid of for a while (notably, 2 Don McLean CDs I've almost thrown out a couple of times).

We lived together for what was easily the worst year of my life. I look back on that time and I'm not proud of anything I did. It was a depressed, depressing period. On the car ride to drop him off, we talked some about our recollections from them. It brought back for me how I'd felt then, helpless, scared and sort of mean.

After I got back to my apartment, I sat back down in front of the CD player and tried to pick tracks for a mix tape I've been trying to make forever. It's for someone I met just as I was finally coming out of that terrible eighteen months. It's someone whom I never, ever see, but is easily the most important person in my life, even all these years later. I've been gagging on the subtext of each track, that is, "Can I put this song on here? If I do, what will it mean?" It's undoable, this tape, even though I know I'm unlikely to ever send it.

When I was saying goodbye to her (against my will, I guess), I spent all night before she left making a tape. That tape was an unintentionally sad affair, filled with all the songs I'd been listening to in the days after we met. It's cliché, I know, to talk about how evocative music is, but if I remade that tape now and listened to it, my universe would implode from ennui.

I read somewhere a while ago that Cameron Crowe makes a mix tape every week of the stuff he's listening to so that he can go back and have a record of what that week sounded like. I like this idea even if I don't listen to nearly enough new stuff to make it an every week affair. So instead of making this impossible mix tape filled with meaningful songs, I thought I'd just make a tape of all the songs I'd liked in the last couple of months, all the songs I'd woken up humming. Maybe it would be accidentally meaningful like that tape I made all those years ago (a tape on which I included, with a straight face and clear conscience, both "I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You" and "Love's a Word I Never Throw Around").

I started making this tape and got a good ways through it when I just had to stop. 2002 was a bad year, but it's over now which is the glory of the word "New". I'm going to take heart in the fact that I seemed more capable of dealing with my own messes in 2002 than I was in 1995, and that any year which begins with a drunken singing of "The Ice of Boston" has got to be good. (Also, I'm fine, Mom, how's Washington?)
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mark@markand.com
aim: mdanderson45