i'm terrible at this. but really this time, i'm trying to write more -- hopefully it'll make it easier to keep everyone up to date on my adventures in eastern europe.

i'm starting to feel the creep of sadness about leaving -- most days it still seems too far away to be real, but things are starting to happen to bring it into focus. plane tickets, payments. passport in the mail. it's not so much that i'm afraid to go, it's more that i'm afraid of what i'm leaving. either they'll be too much to come back to or nothing. both options are equally terrifying.

sometimes i think i'm attempting to run away from my problems... or to avoid having to do some work to achieve something in my life. i should have taken this year to write, but i didn't. my fear of failing paralyzed that muscle. i'm still not who i want to be -- just when i think i'm making progress, I meet a random middle-aged Canadian gentleman at the airport bar who tells me he can see straight through what I thought was a confident exterior. apparently you drink a few glasses of jack and you're suddenly dr. phil. i feel like i've done so much, and i don't know what else to do. there is nothing else i can do. maybe i'm looking for a clean slate but i know that's not what i'll be getting.

someone said to me a few months ago "are you just doing this so you can have something to say you're doing next?" i don't think that's true. i want to live abroad and i want this experience, i want to learn another language and become better at English and meet someone who has no clue who the Steelers are and walk on stones in the street that older than everything manmade in this country.

but am i done with this city? i remember things that seem like they're from another lifetime. there's no connectivity, no common thread lacing together the parts of my life. i look back on things and the memories seem like things that happened to someone else. different lives entirely. the stupidest things will trigger it -- the other day i lost myself staring at a flourescent heineken sign at the bar. i watched the inclines move up and down for ten minutes, thinking... how can i leave this. am i really done with this life.

i suppose it's not worth wasting time with what-ifs, but i can't help but think that if my dad were still alive, i wouldn't even be doing this. almost certainly not. it makes me hate myself. this whole life i've been living since December 2003 seems like a trade off. i want him to see this person i've become, that i'm still becoming, but if he could see it then i wouldn't be this person. imagine that.

how i learned to love the draft (from jockmockery.com)

Up until today, myself and the NFL Draft were mortal enemies. I was tired of reading about it and hearing people talk about it; tired of mock drafts and especially tired of hearing "Sorry, I can't hang out this weekend. The Draft is on."

You're WATCHING the Draft? In the hierarchy of television boredom, I put that right up there before the Antiques Road Show and after watching re-runs of Hawaii 5-0 with my mom.

What's there to watch about it? I mean, there was an America's Next Top Model marathon on. For my money it doesn't get any better than watching Tyra Banks chew out some skinny bitches who "just don't have the passion for modeling" that she does. And Cassie is bulimic? Reality TV gold.

The thing is, I was SO WRONG.
This thing was brimming with drama and intensity.

First of all, I think the whole Brady Quinn thing was grossly mishandled. You could see the discomfort building up. Not drafted in the top 3? Okay, still calm, not time to panic. Jobbed by Miami? Your poker face is starting to betray you, Brayden.

Why wasn't someone milking that for all it was worth?

Whoever left Suzy Kolber in charge of asking the tough questions must have been on drugs. She was creaming her pants just knowing she got to sit as near to Quinn as she did. As the picks got higher and higher, she inched closer and closer.

"Aw, honey, it's okay... how about you ditch your slampiece Lindy and get with a real woman?"

ANYWAY, all she did was ask him how he felt about not yet being drafted, and when he replied with the athlete stock answer of not really saying anything with as many words as possible, she let him get away with it. You know even though he pretended not to be super pissed, he was. Who wouldn't be?

Character was a huge theme this year. Why not say "So, you're getting passed up by a lot of teams here. What do you think is wrong with you?" Better yet, ask JaMarcus Russell why HE thinks no one's drafting Quinn. Or, ask his girlfriend if she's going to leave him now that he's not a top ten pick.

This problem would have been solved if they'd had Steve Young doing the interviews. He's not afraid to piss someone off. He was about to drop kick the commentator who looked like Matthew Perry after he called him out on that "You don't want to have to be the next Dan Marino..." argument.

"You had to follow Joe Montana."

"Oh, did I, Chandler?" Bitchslap.

You could cut the tension surrounding that desk with a knife. You talk badass ex-quarterbacks, you talk Steve Young.

The closest they got to hard-hitting journalism was asking him if he was going to stay even though he was getting passed. What was he going to do, walk out of the Draft? You don't do that. He was staying, even if he had to stay until Sunday. Eleven-thirty tomorrow evening, he's passed out on the couch, shirt all untucked and rocking day-old-shave stubble, hair greasier than it was today (IF POSSIBLE), half-eaten KFC family bucket on his lap when he hears his name.

"Now, with the 297th pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, the recently-annexed Pittsburgh Passion select quarterback Brady Quinn from Notre Dame."

Justice.

The best part is he kept saying "There's nothing I can do. It's not my pick."

Yeah, because you're not Eli Manning.

And how about the Jets snaking Darelle Revis from us with 6 minutes left on the clock? I guess people saw that one coming, but I didn't. That was the exact moment I fell in love with the Draft.

Also, if the fans of the team that just drafted you boo when the pick is announced, you're in for a long haul. I can't remember who it was but I want to say it was Green Bay. Have a fun career, buddy.

Case in point, I take back all the whining I did about Draft weekend. Today was amazing, only to be topped by the fact that when I got home, I found out that the old Lothrop What What episodes are now on YouTube. Life is sweet.

"the tomster, the tommarinooooo. you are the friend i never Met! FABULOUS"

there are two bohemeths of the online social networking world, and they are myspace's tom and facebook's mark zuckerberg. alicia and i were going to present this as one of our point: counterpoints, but her myspace account is malfunctioning like a toaster in a bathtub. seems as though tom is already one in the hole. ANYWAY, the question: who would win in a fight? myspace tom or facebook mark zuckerberg?

this subject has been tackled before, in an inchoate discussion thread in the facebook group "all hail mark zuckerberg" and more prominently in the group " if 43902948.3 people join this group Mark Zuckerberg might fight Tom," but the majority of this group also belongs to the group "1,000,000,000 Browns Fans," so their ability to discuss the subject intelligently is immediately called into question.

as far as site success is concerned, myspace has more users, estimated at around 140 million. the facebook was created as a vehicle strictly for college student networking, not open to all, and was only recently expanded to workplace and regional networks, so it has less and is only the 7th busiest site on the internet. the most prominent feature of myspace is the blog, which facebook countered with the "notes" feature that i really think hasn't caught the wind like they wanted it to. facebook, however, trumps myspace in ease of use, site quality and security. myspace riddles computers with viruses, causes profiles to self-destruct, and routinely presents inexplicable error messages. it's allowance of non-uniform page layouts, music, photos on the comment wall, etc, makes it ugly and cluttered.

has anything about myspace changed since you joined? i can't even remember the original facebook because the current version is so different. facebook may have a team of five goons in an office in palo alto, california, but those kids are constantly working: they probably surf the facebook all day looking for things to improve. if you ever thought "boy, i wish facebook did this..." usually a few weeks later, it does.

last year, yahoo offered zuckerberg a cool billion to buy the company, but zukerberg declined, which leads me to my next point: zuckerberg is a badass. he comes into work in adidas sandals and turned down an 8am conference call because he said he'd still be in bed at that hour. he once had business cards that read "i'm ceo....bitch." do you want to mess with him? i thought so. tom is a more affable character: he extends friendship to every member and leaves his profile open for all to view. i immediately was able to learn that he loves battle-themed movies and his eclectic music taste ranges from guns n roses to the cardigans. he also declares himself "President of Myspace" which is kind of like saying you're the Mayor of America. zuckerberg, on the other hand, is cocooned by his site's own restrictions: i cannot view his profile because i'm not in the harvard or facebook networks. i suppose i could friend him, but would he accept? i can only learn about him by gleaning facts from articles written by outside sources.

one thing we do know about mark? despite his badass nature, he can admit when he's wrong. i submit to you the newsfeed riots of 2006. when millions of lameass facebook users flipped out because zuckerberg made stalking easier for them, he apologized. he stood by his improvements, but gave users the opt-out privacy controls. a badass who can admit when he's wrong? i can't even think of a pop culture icon to compare him to. zuckerberg is blazing his own trails.

but despite tom's openness, how well does he really know his 157271163 friends? has he read each of the 54769 comments? amy addiction says "tom, i love you lots" and someone with an indiscernable handle claims her husband is jealous of tom because she spends more time on myspace than she does with him. but is he really jealous of tom or of her keyboard? i point you to the introductory quote: he is the friend we don't know. mark doesn't extend faux friendship, you have to earn it. tom spreads himself too thin. he wants everyone to like him, and those people never get into fights, let alone win them. winner? mark zuckerberg, on site quality, sheer net worth and badassery.

here's the thing: i don't care if you are a huge football fan or not, no one really cares about the superbowl unless their team is playing in it. i can't even remember who won the last handful of superbowls, other than last year's. no one in pittsburgh is going to be rioting in the streets tonight either way -- in fact, tomorrow, we'll all probably be thinking about when baseball season starts. which is funny: probably the single biggest sporting event in the given calendar year, and yet, as soon as it's over it's more or less meaningless. i don't remember who even played in that superbowl where janet jackson's nipple was exposed, but i do remember justin timberlake saying it was an "accident." guaranteed, no one cares that the Steelers won last year, except people in Pittsburgh, who will care forever.

that being said, it seems like a hell of a lot of people who have no allegiances to the Colts or the Bears seem to want the Colts to lose. i can think of a lot of teams I wouldn't want to win the Superbowl -- the Ravens, the Browns, the Eagles, the Patriots, the Bengals -- but the Colts aren't even an afterthought. even though this Superbowl is a pretty excellent matchup, all anyone can talk about is how much they want peyton manning to never, ever win a superbowl.

this actually doesn't make any sense. peyton is by far the best quarterback playing the game right now (i guess you could make an argument for brett favre, but he's obviously no longer at his peak), maybe the best since he's been in the league, on a short list for the past decade or two. however, everyone wants peyton to go down in the dan marino flames of great quarterbacks who never got a ring. peyton's definitely way better than tom brady, and that goon has won three already by the grace of adam vinateri's toe.

no one likes peyton manning, and i have no idea why. he (along with favre) is probably one of the best-marketed players in the NFL. brett favre has a lot more fans because everyone, whether they like it or not, knows every detail of his life story -- the struggle with painkiller addiction, his wife's illness, his dad's death, the loss of his home in Mississippi to katrina. its really hard not to want that guy to win. if i could be that guy's friend, i probably would. likewise, i can't think of a player that has been given more personality nationally than peyton manning. he makes carson palmer look like a whiny douchebag and tom brady look like a pretty boy who dates supermodels. petyon comes off way better even in comparison to eli, who is only really known for wanting to be drafted first at any cost, but not wanting to play for the chargers. peyton is the funny guy, the guy who roots for people in office jobs, the down-to-earth guy who realizes that football is just a game that he's lucky to be really fucking good at.

i don't know why everyone chooses to root against peyton when they have no reason at all to dislike him or the colts. despite the fact that the "never won a superbowl" argument is, in my opinion, a stupid one, the fact of the matter is, it will always be the asterisk next to his name, just like it is for jim kelly and dan marino. something in me really wants peyton, the susan lucci of the NFL, to slap everyone in the face this year.

there was an article in friday's ny times listing this year's grammy nominees, and the love of my life, mr. john mayer, received five, including album of the year for "continuum." i have no beef with this, it was a fantastic album, but it was SAD. what happened to you, john mayer?

"room for squares" was youthful, optimistic and full of happy love songs. even in "love song for no one," lyrics about lacking love are placed against such happy music that it could be used as an intro for a family-oriented 80s sitcom. despite the upbeat electric guitar used on "heavier things," some of the songs started to get more introspective and sad. new deep? come back to bed? split screen sadness? dude, all you did was break up with jennifer love hewitt. worse things have happened, chill out. and daughters? thanks for the PSA, john. all of this turned out to be a downhill slide into complete depression. continuum is the saddest fucking album ever. i'll be lying in bed and alicia will turn on "slow dancing in a burning room," and immediately i feel like i want to slit my wrists. holy crap. john, are you okay? do we need to have an intervention? before this, i thought the saddest music that could come out of alicia's room was joni mitchell. now, she's a sap. somehow john mayer has topped her.

maybe whatever caused this depression is also what caused him to think it was a good idea to date jessica simpson. yikes!

i don't contend to have much sports knowledge. i mean, i can get through a conversation all right, but when it comes down to it i know just as many things as i overhear in conversations at the bar or read in the sports section of the post-gazette at work. however, i still like to weigh in and blindly pick all my hometown teams to win their respective championships.

my family does a grab bag for christmas. at thanksgiving, everyone writes down a list of things they desire to receive, and then the lists are mixed all up in a hat and whomever you choose you are required to spend $50 on. everyone's lists are always forced, so you end up with 2 sets of red fiestaware or some plaid victoria's secret pajamas you didn't really want. as far as purchasing goes, you could get someone easy, which might merely require a trip to bath and body works for some smelly stuff, or you might get uncle doug, in which case you will most likely end up at advance auto parts buying obscure car care products. ANYWAY, after only three years of participating, last year i started writing down things that couldn't be purchased, just to be an asshole. i was bored. i asked for world peace, eternal youth, etc. my last request was a steelers super bowl victory. at this time last year they were barely squeaking into the playoffs -- actually, at this point, they might have been "out of it." but, not only did aunt kathy pull through on two sets of sweet crimson fiestaware, she also managed to get the steelers one for the thumb (probably found it on sale at kaufmann's before it turned into macy's). i didn't even realize i asked for and got this wonderful gift until a week or so before this thanksgiving when i was creating my 2006 grab bag list. believing i now have some uncanny ability to get my teams national championships via this list, on this year's i put down "pitt men's basketball national championship." i think this will work.

the thing is, they actually have a pretty sweet shot at doing this. obviously i am going to believe they will get there, whether or not they are actually that good. i have put some thought in it, and here are some pitt v ...other teams that i would like to see to maximize entertainment value of the tournament:

1. pitt v. ucla -- dixon v. howland. student v. master. the master teaches the student everything he knows, then the student beats the master at his own game. isn't this the plot of the karate kid?
2. pitt v. unc -- i think unc is constantly overrated. they will probably lose five or six games and somehow by the grace of god still end up with a one seed. i sorta hate them. however, if pitt played unc, jim and i would probably not talk for a week or two. he loves them. i will hope for any match up that leads to a high probability that jim and i will end up in a fistfight.
3. pitt v. lsu -- i still love big baby glen davis. i love his yellow feather boa, his victory dances, his resemblance to shaq. i don't think the world has seen enough of this goon.


i'm just saying, you WANT pitt to be in the national championship game, if not only for the reason that maybe the pictures laura wagner put on the facebook of levon kendall singing karaoke at garage door saloon might make it onto sportscenter.
whoever said facebook is bad was so, so wrong.

today, i have plans to do the following: on my lunch break, purchase the new dave eggers book. it got four stars in some publication, however, it may have been the pittsburgh tribune-review, so i suppose i have to take that with a grain of salt. also, tonight i will be stuffing my middle ear with hydrogen peroxide-soaked cotton balls. after some mysterious event on sunday, i can barely hear anything. the world sounds as if i am underwater. its one of those ailments that isn't any kind of emergency, but is just excruciatingly annoying. all day i am missing conversations, accidently ignoring people, and tonight i will not be able to sing karaoke b/c i am having a hard time hearing myself talk. other people are annoyed by hearing me respond "what?" 750 times a day.

yesterday, i got to leave work early to drive one of our attorneys up to montefiore hospital. at first i didn't want to do this, because the lady is the most untalkative person ever. i've worked here two months. she just learned my name yesterday. with this hearing affliction, the last thing i wanted to do was make awkward conversation with someone i just met. however, leaving work at three with the only responsibilty of babysitting someone's car while reading chuck klosterman and avoiding a busride home is worth the sacrifice. ironically, she is also the most softspoken person in this firm. of all the things she said, i maybe caught one or two sentences. (also, i hope thats real irony, not alanis-morrisette irony, because if it isn't i don't think i know what the definition of irony is.)

sitting in the car, i realized two things. if someone says what they are doing WON'T take an hour, it almost always takes that much time or longer. if they say it will take an hour, it will take five minutes. also, if you stay with the car, you can park wherever the hell you want. my sole purpose for accompanying this lawyer was to park her car and then return it to her after her meeting, so she could avoid paying for parking/the hassle of parking an oakland sidestreet. fine. after i dropped her off, i noticed several cars parked alongside the driveway curb. i pulled up behind one of them, planning to stay until i looked to suspicious. no one bothered me. no one within a hundred yard radius even resembled a parking official. i was sitting five feet from one of those no parking signs. however, if i had left, i almost certainly would have been ticketed/towed within ten minutes. somehow, the driver's presence in the car makes it entirely acceptable to park that car illegaly. had i left this car at a parking meter outside eat n park with fifteen-minutes too few, i would have immediately got a ticket. somehow, i can park MORE illegally and as long as i hang out, i'm cool. it boggles my mind.

some thoughts on my music collection.

when traveling on foot, i enjoy listening to tunes on my ipod. yesterday i was attempting to avoid listening to sad songs because i wanted to be in a good mood (FYI: listening to coldplay magnifies any sadness you have by 1000). so, utilizing the shuffle feature as i typically do, i skipped all songs that were slow or otherwise depressing. this is what i found:
a. the majority of my music collection is old sad bastard music.
b. the remainder consists of mostly late 90s popular rap.

i listened to some big pimpin, a little deja vu -- uptown baby (i actually LOVE this song, i contest that as a popular rap outfit, lord tariq and peter gunz are vastly underrated), a little of that big pun song about not being a player (oh, its called STILL NOT A PLAYER. i seriously couldn't think of it).

i don't even feel that bad about this. my ride home yesterday was quite enjoyable.

some thoughts on nickelback

I hate nickelback. they are terrible. once i told some kid at gds to play nickelback on the jukebox, and i don't think he realized i was joking. i was. however, the funny thing is, even though i hate them and their songs are not by definition original, interesting or even slightly good, i find myself intrigued. if one comes on the radio, i'm not switching the channel. i figured out why: nickelback songs make you nostalgic for things that never happened to you. everytime i hear "far away," i become reminiscent of an ex-lover i've betrayed but wish i could win back. this person does not exist. "photograph" makes me miss the good old times back in my hometown with my tight-knit group of friends who used to hang out in the woods and drink, smoke and generally rebel-rouse to a harmless degree. this never happened either! i was a loser in highschool. my 4 friends and i went to eat n park on saturday nights. we didn't drink. yet, these songs come on the radio and i wish i could pick up the phone to chat about old times. this, i deduced, is the only reason anyone likes nickelback. they are making millions of dollars selling you fake memories.

fucking canadians.

also, chad kroeger is the ugliest man ever.

some thoughts on 316 s bouquet

sometimes you'll be lying in bed and a calm will creep over the apartment, i'd imagine much like it would feel if you lived in a shanty house on chickenlegs near a beach while there is a tsunami looming offshore, not close enough to see yet but there nonetheless.
then, slicing the calm will be the dulcet tones of darryl hall as "rich girl" tears into the air at maximum decibel levels. the last time it happened i literally jumped.

needless to say, we have a good time.