cloverfield and fruit.

i saw cloverfield on friday. there was a monster, and shit exploded. i was entertained. the awful narrator finally died near the end. i was more entertained.

next week: rambo.

in honor of john rambo, the shirtless man in this picture is only going to wear a bandanna and some camo shorts to the movie. this time i won't censor his nipples either.

any movie trailer which involves the ripping out of another man's esophagus is going to persuade me to spend 8 bucks (still wielding the student id), and i can only hope to see multiple exploding heads.

i really only want to watch kill em and blow em up movies anymore. pure entertainment value.

while i'm sitting here writing this post, i'm being distracted by this delicious banana i'm eating and have already been completely sidetracked.

so i pose the question: what's the perfect fruit?

bananas - convenient and easy to deal with. i eat them constantly, and the potassium prevents cramps. roger federer (he plays tennis) was practically inhaling them during his 4 hour match at the australian open. and i even love banana flavoring. i'll snatch up the banana runts and banana laffy taffy like its no one's business. bananas do spoil way too quickly though, and i don't like refrigerating them. i buy six and only have the window of time to eat like four.

apples - good but not great. another convenient fruit that is easy to carry around. the apple is that tag-along but dependable friend that you're not always siked to hang out with but still know that you'll have a decent enough evening with. plus they keep for a while in the fridge. fuji apples currently reign supreme.

oranges - a lot of work, but a decent payoff. you kind of need to sit down and dedicate your time to this one though. i'm rarely like "man, i really want to eat an orange!" i drank so much orange juice when i was a kid that i practically drowned myself in it, which hasn't helped me maintain a strong affinity for oranges in general. plus, your fingers get all sticky and you're picking out orange peel fragments from your fingernails the rest of the day. eh.

strawberries - i love strawberries, but i can only find them in something like five pound crates. i'm exaggerating a little, but is it too much to ask to package them in smaller quantities? there's simply no way i can eat all of them in time before they spoil. i did however get a magic bullet for christmas and plan on making several strawberry banana smoothies. so, i guess it won't be that bad to buy them in bulk. but still...

kiwis - i've only just begun buying these but they're delicious. they look more alive than any other fruit because of the fur. the first time i split one open i expected something to fly out of it or for it to begin spilling blood, which is kinda gross. once i got past that though, i realized how great they were. just enough tang to them to make for an interesting taste. plus, i like the color, which definitely counts for something.

pears, watermelon, peaches and other bland fruits - you're too bland. shape up.

tomatoes - i mean, i'll eat them, but they kind of suck. plus they have this androgynous quality to them in which people want to call them vegetables but they're really fruits. i'm really just not going to be into eating something that is having identity problems. get it together. stick to ketchup.

i know there's more to list, but the aforementioned fruits primarily represent the makeup of my fruit diet.

any thoughts or suggestions?

a barrage of resumes.

they're being sent anywhere and everywhere. if you have any leads or know of any home for one of my resumes, then please let me know. publishing, journalism, or writing. i swear that there's a difference.

i have experience and a master's degree. if that matters.

i'll move. really, i will.

and then i'll miss cincinnati.

ladies and gentlemen...

it has finally happened. after two years of tortuous academic struggle, i've finished graduate school. during the run, i probably fell victim to a half dozen stress-induced anxiety attacks. shit's hard. undergrad is a cakewalk. even when i finished my classes, i had to take a five question, six-hour long comprehensive English exit exam. ridiculous. then i had to take a language competency exam in german, which i hadn't studied for something like four years. christ on a crutch. it seemed never-ending.

actually, i almost feel like i'm jinxing it because i have nothing tangible yet. i have to patiently wait for the piece of paper to arrive in the mail so that i can say, "see, i really did get my master's. this is a diploma."

oh, and please stop asking me if i'm going to teach. not happening.

either way, i'm not going to make any more money.

brute sport.

as another year winds to an end, my first inclination is to reminisce about all of the great sporting feats that have occurred this year. I'm currently watching the final bengals game, and the fact that i'm writing this as the game is going on should tell you how disappointing the season has been. you've got one more year marvin. one more year. show me that defensive mastermind side of your psyche because i've been waiting five years for it to be unleashed.

anyway, i've realized over the past couple of years how much more i appreciate the intricacies and soap opera-like identity of sports. i used to live and die with my local teams. my sunday would be ruined, or severely injured, if the bengals lost. i was too dependent on my teams. last night, however, i was able to witness history, and i was all for it. as the patriots were putting a stamp on an unprecedented 16-0 season, i found myself rooting for them to make history because i wanted to see it. most people i know, minus a select one or two (justin), didn't want to see the patriots finish the perfect season. why not? does anyone else not think that it's amazing that you just got to watch a football season in which a team went undefeated. i don't know about you, but i wasn't alive in 72 to see the dolphins go 14-0, which by the way is not 16-0, so fuck em anyway.

i wanted to see barry bonds break the home run record. when he did it, i was literally upset i didn't get to see it happen live (damn west coast start times). it's like the climax to a long, intricate novel. i don't often read a 500 page novel so i can toss it aside with 50 pages left and say "fuck this." see it through to the end. if you enjoyed it enough to make it that far, you may as well finish it up. regardless of the ethics of the bonds situation, i was still able to witness history. i know this all sounds overblown and ridiculous, but i'm passionate about this shit, and therefore want to partake in the historical moments of the substance i spend so much of my brainpower concentrating on.

ESPN is my news network. i'm almost 27 and really have no interest in watching CNN or the nightly news. don't get me wrong, i stay informed, but i'd be lying if i didn't say that i'd probably rather watch a division II college basketball quarterfinal than an update on which way the contingency of voters is leaning in the state of iowa concerning the democratic nomination. barf. i mean come on, just look at everything that has happened this year aside from the aforementioned spectacles: michael vick and his dogs, the nba reffing scandal, brett favre, tom brady, and randy moss breaking records, the colorado rockies!, the red sox winning another!? championship, the mitchell report, peyton manning getting his superbowl, roger clemens' "alleged" doping (which i've been calling for years by the way), the debacle that has been the college football season (fuck the BCS), and dozens more. constant adrenaline. if i could sit at a round table for 10 hour days, watching and talking about sports, i'd be happy. i wouldn't even mind that extra two hours of work. wouldn't bother me a bit. you don't even have to give me a lunch break. no problem.

the football seasons are wrapping up, college and nba basketball are in full swing, and the ultimate soap opera that is the baseball season is lurking in the shadows. fucking beautiful.

top ten of 2007.

albums.

1. les savy fav - let's stay friends
2. pissed jeans - hope for men
3. the black lips - good bad not evil
4. battles - mirrored
5. blitzen trapper - wild mountain nation
6. band of horses - cease to begin
7. dillinger escape plan - ire works
8. justice - cross
9. the national - boxer
10. maserati -inventions for the new season

that's my list. it's pretty much exactly right.

five reasons.

why it's difficult to wake up in the morning.

1. having to make breakfast. i'm not much of a bowl of cereal person. i want deliciousness that has been cooked. i always wake up hungry as hell in the morning, and it's always a struggle to fight that hunger down long enough to make some eggs and hashbrowns. sound lazy? well, at least i make my breakfast. do you? i hope to one day have some sort of indentured servant from a neglected european country flipping pancakes for me when i wake up. i'll walk out of my room, sit down, turn on ESPN, and immediately be served some elaborate croissant accompanied by other various breakfast treats. god yes.

2. convincing myself to exercise. again, another motivation problem. i have plenty of motivation to get shit done, but there's always that second or two in which you're like "i really don't feel putting five layers of shirts and sweatshirts on to go running in 25 degree weather." fuck you people with good metabolism. i shit on you. i want to eat a deep fried cream puff stuffed with ding dong's and oatmeal cream pies and not feel like utter shit afterwards. but i gots them fat genes running through my family's blood. huge bummer right?

3. going to work and selling colors. duh.

4. depriving myself of the fantasticosity (i made that word up) that is smoking. let me preface this by saying that i live with one of the most accomplished smokers i have ever met. he puts a lot of work into perfecting his craft and goddamn if he isn't well on his way to stardom. i painstakingly aspire to be like him and with each cigarette i refuse, i disappoint him just a little more. it's tough man. anyway, i barely smoke at all anymore. i will admit that if i have a few adult beverages in me, things change, and the sweet, golden elixir that is nicotine often finds its way into my voraciously coursing blood stream. you'll have that though. it's better than getting utterly shithoused and going home with the hobo that lives in the alleyway behind the bar. right? but yeah, the myths are all true pertaining to quitting/cutting back. you feel better in the morning, are able to breathe easier, and maybe even retain some sense of taste. neat.

5. having to watch 5,000 frank tv commercials. and here's another preface. when james cameron's "epic masterpiece" know as titanic came out, i vowed never to watch it for as long as i lived. it gets pretty exhausting being bombarded from every angle by a dynamic array of hype and reviews which diligently work to crown a melodramatic love story with a ship sinking in the background as being one of cinema's truly great romances. you couldn't escape the bullshit that this movie spewed forth, and people were creaming their pants over it. made me sick then and i still refuse to see it. i rule. now enter frank tv. during the baseball playoffs (october) on tbs, the network decided to fucking flood, and later drown, the senses of the devoted sports fan with a disgusting onslaught of frank tv promotion which wasn't scheduled to premiere for a month (late november). a fucking month. well, the piece of shit has premiered and guess what? they're still putting that impersonating shithead in every commercial break. i absolutely refuse to watch five seconds of that show. i usually even turn over when the commercial comes on. let's get it together tbs. do you need me to come work there and show you how to promote a show? actually, can i just severely injure frank caliwhateverthefuckhislastnameis and put the american public out of its collective misery?

fired up.

next installment - five reasons why i love waking up in the morning.

the white cold.

it's now december, and it's frigid.

stay tuned.