Monday, March 28, 2005

seasons of change

We fear change.

Not only am I moving out of Evanston this week but many icons of my youth are falling. I confirmed over the weekend that the Evanston Barnes and Noble is moving across the street. This is a terrible, terrible thing, because the Evanston Barnes and Noble has essentially been my fortress since 1992. It's much smaller than the average Barnes and Noble and unlike the standard corporate bookstore, the place has soul. This is something that can't be replicated. It's a symbol of everything that's been happening to this glorious town in the last couple of years. CONDO CONDO CONDO BUILD BUILD BUILD MALL MALL MALL EAT EAT EAT. SLUUUUUUUUURRRRRPPPP!

But Evanston abides, I have faith.

DC Comics in its lustful pursuit of grimness and grit, has decided to kill Blue Beetle, the star of the Keith Giffen/JM De Matteis Justice League series of the late 80's/early 90's, (the greatest superhero comics *ever*) just as that series was having a limited run revival. From what I understand it has prompted the great Keith Giffen to tell DC to fuck off and will never work with them again, which I hope is true. Death in comic books is almost always temporary, but it's a grim reminder that I must step up my timetable for conquering the media universe and acquiring possession of DC Comics (possibly the rest of AOL/Time Warner too) to straighten things out.

On the subject of geekdom, my new favorite blog is maintained by geek screenwriter John Rogers.

It's really good and funny, and Mr. Rogers is right about many things, such as that Wesley Clark should run for president again. He was involved with the Catwoman movie but he has a lot of funny reasons why that's not his fault.

I may have cried in the shower last night, reflecting that it was one of my last showers in my apartment. I say I may have cried because how can you really tell in the shower? It's all water.

But I'm looking forward to knew things as 2005: The Year My Enemies Fall Before Me continues into its fourth month. Such as my total emasculation at the hands of my about to be roommate Reina who has recently declared that I am now her "defacto best girlfriend forever". My emasculation has been a long time coming and I will accept it without resistance.

Posted by Rory @ 03:01 PM CST [Link]

Thursday, March 24, 2005

query

What do you all think is the coolest part of the Bible? I think it's the part where there's a herd of pigs possesed by the Devil and Jesus fights them.

Posted by Rory @ 02:16 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Speaking of the Onion

A couple of weeks ago, when it was just a Big Story and not The Story (which not even a good old fashioned high school massacre can dislodge), the Onion summed up the moral and philosophical complexities of the Terri Schiavo case with this perfect quote:

"I've set up a living will so that, in the event I fall into a persistent vegetative state, I should be blown to death."

So say we all.

Posted by Rory @ 02:17 PM CST [Link]

juxtapose me

I guess there was a big school shooting yesterday. *So* late 90's. I bet the guy was wearing a Spice Girls shirt while he did it. The killer was apparently a Native American with Nazi sympathies, which reminds me of the classic Onion headline on the Axis: "Japan teams up with white supremacists in well thought out scheme".

My other favorite headline of late was "Bush invites Sharon to ranch" because of the wonderful images it evokes such as Ariel Sharon in a cowboy hat.

My high school and college mate, Marc has been working at my office for nearly two months now. This has been fun but what's really absurd is that as of this week, he now sits in the cubicle directly behind my own. This really doesn't seem like the best route to improving our efficiency as employees, but then efficiency as an employee has never been one of my stronger ambitions.

Posted by Rory @ 09:27 AM CST [Link]

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

shameful

To my great discredit, I think this journal is terribly edited. I write very quickly while I'm at work, and a result don't often look over what I'm typing before I post it. Take this sentence for example:

I asked him a question about whether he would ever write a full length musical (which he had done for Buffy) he said it was he did.

Not even I know what I was trying to say there. I want to take this opportunity to finally apologize to you, the blog reading public, for inflicting such lapses of logic and language upon you. I really do hold a degree in English from an accredited university, or am about to.

On the subject of moving, my rental agency sent me a letter with instructions about what I'm supposed to do to close out my current apartment, where I'm to return the keys etc. The letter said lots of nice things about how much they will all miss me, which would have been much more effective if it had not been addressed to "Mike Leahy".

Evanston itself will miss me, I think, but it will probably barely notice I'm gone since I'll be back so often.

Posted by Rory @ 02:29 PM CST [Link]

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

transitions

I have to move in a couple of weeks. I’ve been in deep denial about this. I don’t like packing and such things. I’m looking forward to the new apartment and the new neighborhood but I’m dreading the actual moving. I’m just not good at picking stuff up and putting it in boxes. It’s among the many things I’m not good at. Or perhaps it’s one of those things I would have the same skill most able bodied people have in the area but for some reason a strange sense of fear prevents me from actually doing it, puzzling the will and losing the name of action.

One thing that will help is not having to drag around my old desktop anymore. I’ve been working with a laptop for two years now, but the desktop, known as “Ole Bess” (the second incarnation of Ole Bess actually) contained years worth of my word processed ramblings. The time had come to say farewell and I had been fretting about how to transfer all the old files to the laptop for some time, difficulties with the compatibility of disk drives and things like this. After calling for assistance from my friends Marc and Rob, who understand computers and things, they hooked up wires between my desktop and laptop while making sly comments with numbers in them to each other. At that point my entire desktop hard drive was on my laptop! Miraculous! Years and years of things I’ve written that I had previously only seen on a broken down desktop were now on my new machine without the aid of disks or Internet transfers or anything. Just port connections. And it took like two minutes. It’s all the equivalent of serving microwave oven prepared mastodon to a caveman. I then bought them some mastodon free Italian food. At any rate, some time in the next two weeks I have to give Ole Bess a proper burial at sea.

In an odd parallel, everyone at my job has to move too, to the other side of the office, which isn’t as bad really, but it means I have a lot of things in my desk to throw away, like some leftover cookies a co-worker got me for Christmas. I probably shouldn’t eat them.

Posted by Rory @ 11:04 AM CST [Link]

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Poking head out

I’m very busy at my job, which is deciding who lives and who dies. Well, really, it’s more like deciding who does or do not qualify for a tuition assistance grant, but the people I talk to frequently make it out to be life and death. As I’ve said before this leaves very little time for the old blogging. And there’s not much to tell really. But the fact that such luminaries as Reina Hardy and Rik Reppe are commenting compels me to produce some material.

Macbeth has started rehearsals so there goes most of my weeknights. (Why do I do this “acting” thing again? Oh yeah…because I like it.) But it’s cool ‘cause the rehearsals are in Evanston, a few blocks from my apartment…which I’m moving out of at the end of March. But hey, it will be a reason to come back to Evanston a lot. Not like I need one. And when the show is actually performed it will be at the Breadline theatre, not too far from the new apartment. So that’s good. Nearly everyone I talk to feels I was shafted by Macbeth’s director, whom I’ve known almost two years, when he switched my part a week after casting me, and I’m fairly bitter about it, but bitterness fuels the artistry. I’m willing to stick with the show as long as I mentally revise history so that it never happened and I was cast as Lennox from day one. And I get to badmouth Richard. Who’s a lovely guy, really. I’m no good at badmouthing. Well I am, but not badmouthing lovely guys. Except he told me I have to grow my fucking beard again, which I had for Hamlet and just shaved off. The “Clean shaven Rory” model isn’t as popular as I feel it should be but I’m sticking to my guns and am going to keep shaving until the night before opening, which is usually all it takes.

The play I’m writing, Activision, is almost finished. Another two weeks maybe and I’ll have…well I’ll have useless crap. The play doesn’t really work right now, so I’ll have to do a top to bottom second draft. This is irritating as I want to be finished. Still, it’s always a delirious, maniacal moment of joy to get to write “The end” to something even if you’re not really done.

In the arena of incisive political commentary: Apparently the media is now crediting every faint shadow of a good thing in the Middle East to the invasion of Iraq. I find this baffling, my understanding of this whole Syria/Lebanon thing is that it has to do with the Lebanese being pissed at the Syrians because the Syrians whacked one of their popular politicians, it would appear to have fuck all to do with the Iraqi election. But these are the same people who tell us that Ronald Reagan singlehandedly won the Cold War by…um…being morally clear. And spending a lot of money. I’m morally clear and I spend a lot of money, maybe I can bring peace to the Congo. I don’t see why not.

Posted by Rory @ 02:36 PM CST [Link]