celebrities love their publix...

I went home yesterday so I could borrow a couple of video cameras from my parents. Yeah, they have two cameras, I have none. I think that after I got out of school and started making a living with video, they figured, "Well, we raised him and all that so we can probably make some money doing what he's doing." They bought a computer and some cameras hoping to make money doing weddings and junk. I don't know if they have or not, but more power to them. Anyway Im doing a wedding video for a friend and needed the cameras. Other than it taking me almost an hour and a half to get there it was a fun afternoon. Shelby county sucks by the way. (I have to go through there to get to Chilton County where my parents live.)
Anyway on my way home I decided to go ahead and stop and get some groceries. I have $5 off coupons at Publix, so I decided to swing by the one in Vestavia because it was on my way. I have a theory that 99% of the time Im just a single moment either behind or ahead of fate. Example: I walk out of my apartment just in time to see a really attractive neighbor close the door to her car. "Dangit... I had to go back and get that change off my dresser." One split second earlier and I might be married. Stuff like that happens to me EVERY DAY. Im cursed I think. Well not yesterday, thats for sure. I grab my cart and start the time trial. Im a fast Publix shopper. I head straight for the bread and who is standing there getting the same kind of bread that I want? Devon Walsh. That's right Devon Walsh from Fox 6 News.

I knew it was her because I'd actually met her before. Fox 6 used the studio at Ticheli's where I'll work for another week to shoot some Christmas promo junk. Screw you one moment off fate curse, I win this round. I smile and get my bread and go on about my business. But then I make the turn to go get some other necessities, and there she is again. Lucky. It was pretty awesome. I never did talk to her, but that was ok. I figured she didn't want to be pestered anyway. She is taller than I remembered, at least as tall as me, maybe a little taller.
I got a kick out of it. Devon Walsh is the second attractive news lady that I've met. I've also met Kate Mundy (42 and 21 weekends). I met her at a Halloween party, and she is very small... I mean she is a tiny person. Its always neat seeing someone in real life that talks to you from the TV. Each night at 5, 6, 9 or 10 they look right at us and tell us all about the junk that passes for news in our fair city, this time I got to look back and smile and imagine how funny it would be were I to flip out and cause a scene. That would have been something to blog about.

a few disjointed thoughts...

for anyone that I've been to lazy or forgetful to talk to in person recently.

1.) I got a new job. Its the one I talked about a few posts back. I haven't started yet, but should start sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I'm trying to teach myself the programs that I'll be working with. I typically second guess everything I do, to the point of losing sleep most often. But I've slept easy having made this decision.

2.) Speaking of dreams, "The Science of Sleep" (Michel Gondry) looks to be the most amazing movie that I will see this year. It comes out in september so that comment is more of an assumption or a hope than a review. It just looks so beautiful. All the stop motion work, the fact that everything is hand crafted, the aviodance of CGI effects (yes I make a living digitially altering video and to a degree that stuff is cool, but I much prefer hand made stuff) not to mention an interesting story. So September 15th, if it opens in Birmingham, Im there, even if I have to go by myself.







3.) I had an almost two hour long conversation yesterday with a guy I work with as to wether or not an ordinary person could design, build, and own/operate a roller coaster on their own. I say no. He says yes. He obviously cared a lot more about it than me, thus the long talk. I was pretty tired of talking about it, but seeing people who have dreams is always welcome. If anyone is interested I'd like to know what anyone reading thinks. Is is possible to build a real rollercoaster on you own?
There are a few examples, but Im not sure I'd call this an actual roller coaster. Cool definitely but not what I had in mind.






4.) I really love the Andy Griffith Show. I've watched it 2 times a day for more than half of my life I think (allowing for the occasional missed day). I googled it today to see what kindred spirits were lurking the internets. I have to say that I am a casual observer compared to the rest of the TAGS fan club. TAGS is internet speak for The Andy Griffith Show. Did you know there are 250 episodes in all? I didn't, and I am humbled. I feel like I know so much, and yet I've experienced so little.

regular stuff...

After watching the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know last weekend I've found myself turning my attention more to the ordinary, and I've seen some really beautiful things.

While watching the World Cup final between France and Italy in a Peruvian restaurant, I saw several hispanic kids running around. All I could think was, "look at all those new U.S. citizens."

Later that night while at some friends' apartment, sitting alone while one friend cooked some food for the other's boyfriend, I saw on the other side of their courtyard and young man, probably younger than me sitting on his stoop watching his young daughter play in the grass. He looked tired. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out what I thought was a cell phone. Soon enough though I saw that it was no phone he had, but a harmonica with which he put on a beautiful concert for one tiny admirer. I couldn't hear the music because I was on the inside looking out, but judging by the response of his daughter, I think I was in the presence of the greatest harmonica player living today. The concert was short lived, as most truly great things I suppose. He quickly put it away when his wife and their brand-new-not-one-day-old daughter came out of the apartment. (I know the age of the new baby because my friends went out to meet their neighbors. When seeing the little-bitty one they asked, "How old is she?" and the mom responded "not even a day.")

A few days later as I was going to work a car passed me at an intersection; a beige Dodge Intrepid, similar to my Granny's. It had a rather large American flag magnet on the driver-side door positioned just a few inches below the window through which I saw an elderly Hispanic man. He is more patriotic than I've ever been. Usually when I see big flags on cars I get angry, this time I smiled.

Just last night at a local bar / restaurant I saw an elderly couple sitting and eating. I rarely feel cool enough to be at this place, so I wondered if they felt out of place. Maybe they did and were strong enough to get over it. Maybe they didn't because they just don't care anymore. Maybe they never cared. At any rate they were there eating and I thought that was great.

On my walk home I passed the retirement home that is next to my building, and I saw an ambulance and a fire truck. Its not at all uncommon. They never seem to be in a hurry though. All lights and no sirens. Each time I see them I wonder if one of the elderly folks who could have been at Rojo with me is now dead in the back of that ambulance. It's not a great thought, but unfortunately I guess death is ordinary too.

i like movies....

so much that i made a whole new blog devoted soley to me talking about them.
check it out if you'd like. from now on that's where all the movie trailers and stuff will go.

My Movie Review Blog

summer's crept in...

I have a feeling that changes are coming. I've been talking a lot with the guy that offered me the new job this past week. I go back and fourth "knowing" that its the best thing for me. Where I have been has been a great job. The guys there have always given me more respect and responsibilty than I have deserved. Its difficult to walk away from a situation like that. But as I have thought about it and continue to think about it, I think I've lived out my opportunity there. I was emailing a friend in Brasil about a month ago. I was just catching up and found myself telling him, "Im still working the same job that I was at the last time we wrote....actually its been about 2 years now. It's been 2 years and I've barely noticed. Sometimes I think to myself that I must be careful, or that 2 years will become 20 and I won't realize it." That thought terrifies me. A life settled for. It made me think of that Death Cab for Cutie song, the Sound of Settling. "Ba Baaaa....this is the sound of settling. I've got a hunger twisting my stomach into knots." "Ba Baaa," the same as saying, "oh well, this is good enough I guess." It was no more than a week after that email that I was offered the new job. Sometimes I think that the presence of a desire is the assurance of it's fulfillment. I feel that a lot of desires must be God given, and to me it stands to reason that if God gives desires to people, and then also promises to give them the desires of their hearts, as they learn to love Him, then the fact that there are new desires present in people can be taken as the assurance of their eventual fulfillment. I've never seen myself staying where I am for very long. Talking with another friend about the job move, I found myslef talking about running while there was opportunity. Opportunity doesn't often come seeking you, so when it does maybe its best to run toward it.
In talking with the guy at the new place, he kept asking, "where do you want to end up?" Though the people Im working with now have been wonderful to me, I never remember anyone asking me what I wanted to do in this business. I love the thought of that question. I like thinking that I need only to make up my mind and start moving in that direction. There is so much that interests me in the industry, motion design, editing, compositing, 3D animation, color grading... even writing. After hearing that I was interested in all those things the guy at the new place gave me some advise on possible ways to get to one of those ends. He even told me that the director that he works with the most, works closely with a colorist in Atlanta and if Im serious about going that route then he could introduce me to him.
I absolutely love working with the stuff that I get to work with and the thought of continuting to learn new stuff and work with more creative clients really is exciting to me.
I'd written a while back about the seasons. How as seasons change I think God can remind His people to change with them. I don't think that means that four times a year one should change jobs, but every now and again, change is needed.

another one...

I've recently joined Netflix and subsequently have been watching a lot of movies...hence the barrage of movie reviews. Well here's another one.

Kiss Kiss Ban Bang, is probably the funniest movie I've seen since Napoleon Dynamite. It's completely different obviously but laugh for laugh, to me, this one gave Napoleon a run for his sweet moolah. It's a dark comedy with lots of cussin', adult themes, some nudity, and a bunch of killing. About par for the course as far as black comedies go I suppose, but it's just so quick-witted that I fell in love with it from the first few scenes. If you're not easily offended, you'll love this one. I'd probably compare it to a more polished, less violent, more playful than spiritual natured Boondock Saints. And if you haven't seen the Boondock Saints, shame on you all.

the outback...

In the past week Ive seen two films set in the same time period, similar in theme, yet distinctly different in perspective. Both are set in the 1880s - 90's Australian Outback, when it was still being colonized by the British. Due to the American Revolution in the late 1700's Britian, who before this time as an alternative to hanging some of British socities worst, offered to transport the guilty to Maryland, now had to seek other locations to transport its criminals. Eventually they began using Australia for this purpose. After originally using Autralia, home of thousands of Aboriginal people, as a criminal dumping site, the Europeans decided to continue to grace, New South Whales, with the presence of more refined British citizens. This continued occupation of course led to all kinds of problems both with the tons of convicts and the Aboriginal people who's land and way of life were being taken away from them.
The first film I saw "The Rabbit Proof Fence" was a story of three girls who were "half-caste" meaning that their mothers were Aboriginal and their fathers were European. The government haveing already established that the whites of Australia were civilized and indeed human and that the Aboriginies were clearly sub-human, did not know what to do with this new half breed. Rather than rethink their dichotomous worldview, they decide to capture all the half-caste children and civilize them, meaning teach them english and how to do household chores and farm. The line of thinking was that if they could keep them from reproducing among themselves or force reproducing with whites that in three generations there would be no more black in the blood line.
In the film the three half-caste girls are taken to a training school 1500 miles away from their home, but decide to run away and try to make it back to their family.
There was a hopeful thread throughout, a sense that there was some greater power than the Europeans that would lead the girls back to their families. The people under such persicution were the people with the most determined faith.

The second film is called "The Proposition." The story again of family. This time a family of convicts sent from Ireland, left to rot in the outback. The men continue to commit crime in Australia leading to the arrest of two of the three brothers by the captian of the state police. The police makes a deal with the middle brother, that he will not hang the youngest if the middle will murder the eldest.


Throughout this movie you see the mindset of the Europeans, "I will civilize this land." Referring to the criminals as well as the Aboriginies. There were a few interesting things to me about this film. One was how the refined Europeans in many ways were the most barbarrac. They were the ones with the worldview that said, "blacks are sub-human, of a different origin than us." While the more you see the criminal brothers interact, they are the ones that have a deep love and concern for eachother, though it plays out rather oddly. They all are well read and quote poetry, one even has a small library of his own. Also the most barbarrac of the brothers lives with an Aboriginal man, and considers him equal. The second thing that struck me about this film is the one thing that stands the most in contrast to the other film, the overarching godless worldview held by each character. A bounty hunter captures the sentiment in a breif conversation with the middle brother. The middle brother asks something to the effect of, "Are you a believing man?" The bounty hunter responds, "I once was, before I came to this God-forsaken land. Now all the God in me just seems to have evaporated."

Both of these films, I thought, were fantastic, though quite different. Seeing two films about this particular time period in the same week has sparked a lot of thought in me about a group of people believing that their way of thinking is correct and then living accordingly, at the expense of others. The Europeans thought that the Aboriginies needed to be civilized or killed, so they captured them, forced their way of life on them or killed them.

I guess for me the question continues to be how do I live in light of a worldview that says there is one correct belief system by which to live?

dang...

I've heard a lot about this documentary on Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart: the high cost of low prices) and I finally watched it last night. Holy crap. I haven't been so angry in quite some time.
Of course I know that editors and directors can selectively use material to "prove" their points, but there is simply too much within this film for me to believe that in reality everything in Wal-World is hunky-dorry and the director has just found a few people and only taken the bad things they say and made a movie from it. The section where they interview Chinese workers and they tell the film makers about how "rent" for the factory dormitory is automatically cut out of thier pay, regaurdless if they choose to live there or not, all the while working 12 hour days for less that $3 per day. It honestly made me sick to my stomach. Gosh, there is so much in there that made me mad. I also wonder how many other business (Lowe's, HomeDepot, Target, Starbucks) are conducting similar business practices. I do know that at Starbucks workers can at least get some kind of health care insurance, and it seems to be affordable to the workers. Anyway, not to push opinions or "propaganda" on anyone but people should check out the movie. It at very least is good fuel for thought / conversation.


Here's a clip of the director on CNN.

this round's on me...

i haven't been drinking for very long, alchohol that is, but recently i've noticed a certain culture that comes with the territory and its different than what old pastors, televangelists, and grandparents warned me of. i was always told that drinking led to all sorts of debauchery (anyone reading this can use their imagination here). i was led to believe that nothing good came from drinking, just addictions and heart ache. true, that can come but it doesn't always and that is not the side that i've experienced at all. a few weeks ago, after the funeral of a great friend of mine, some other friends and I decided to pass some stories of our friend that we are left to miss over a few pictures of beer at our local neighborhood "On Tap" sports bar. Well after a few pitchers, several stories, and many laughs the bill came. We all reached for our wallets and began to ask our overworked waitress if she could split it. but we were all stopped. stephen, the one guy at the table that wasn't a believer, said "hey guys i got it." i was kinda taken back. that was more than 20 bucks worth of beer. i wouldn't have paid for all of it. but he did and his only response was, "guys, is a few beers. seriously." then i began noticing this type of drinking congeniality / generosity in more places. at community group jimmy would bring 12 packs and share them with me, never asking me to chip in. again at stephen's wedding shower, the invitations clearly stated BYOB. i didn't but when i got there, i think every single person there offered freely of the beer they'd brought. again at community group we ate out and jon becker after already ordering one glass before gene and i got there, sees me sit down without a beer and asks, "hey you guys want a pitcher, i'll grab one," not waiting for my answer. time and again i see a spirit of generosity, welcome, and community surrounding beer. who knew? i see it in believers and non-believers alike....beer kindness tends not to be categorized like that. its pretty fantastic i think. but still everytime someone orders a pitcher, i think to myself, "better him than me." and the more that i saw that attitude in myself the more i realize that im just a selfish jerk.
well last night david called me and asked if i wanted to go to rojo. my mission was clear. i was to join the ranks of the beer buying brotherhood....even if it wasn't happy hour anymore. we got there and i called jimmy, who lives on top of rojo and didn't care to eat but i knew he'd drink some if it was there waiting for him. david and i ordered, i made sure to go first and ordered a pitcher of stella, which i was told they were out of, so then i resorted to hoegartën. we sat down poured our beers and began to talk. wonderful conversations happen over beer, this is another fact that i'm becoming convinced of. then jimmy came. "saddle up partner" (ala jim carrey....dumb and dumber) i said as i poured jimmy a glass. good times were had by all.
i liken the whole experience to the story of smurfette. see smurfette was originally designed by gargamel, the evil sorcerer, to infiltrate the smurf colony and bring it down. but eventually the overwhelming goodness of the smurf way of life changed her, and she decided to live there and be smurffy with all the others. in a lot of ways i was brought up to believe that drinking was flat wrong, but it was good to hang out with drinkers, so that they could see the error of their ways in my righteous living, and be changed. that's not why i began hanging out with drinkers, honestly most of the people i drink with have a far better understanding of how to live rightly than i do, but at any rate it's i who am being changed by the groups of people that i've been hanging out with and i think thats just smurffy.

changes...?

well i was offered a new job today. not sure that i'll take it. it's nice to be wanted though. i've said for a few years now that the guy that's running this place is probaby the best editor in town. or at least i respect his work the most anyway. he's getting a lot more business and just has to have another guy. he needs someone with a strong design sense, experience / interest in working with 3D / charachter animation, and will be able to edit on final cut and also smoke and flame. thats a tall order in any market, much less birmingham. i'm actually pretty flattered that i'm the guy he thought of when considering those needs. i don't think i fit those needs perfectly, but i think i could.
the new job offers a lot of excitement, learning new things, and playing with more powerful toys. i'd still be doing crappy car stuff most of the time, but i'd also be doing other higher profile stuff some time too. i'm not sure i'd have the comfort i have where i am now. i have great insurance, a 401(k), i walk to work, and i'm beginning to love the people here. but at the same time this gig is kind of a dead end. we're never going to have clients that want good products, they just want it fast and cheap.
i feel connected to this place. they've given me more chances to learn and prove myself than i'd ever imagined that i could have in a first job. they also gave me a $6000 a year raise last year. granted i'll probably never have one of those again, but it makes me feel very appreciated, and i'm not sure i'd feel right about walking away from this.
but i've always said that birmingham is not where i want to live and die. and i hope to work in a bigger market and work with better clients. this could be a step in the right direction. i'm just not sure. i'm supposed to get together a reel of some of what i consider my better work and give that to the guy. he's going to get some of his better work together and send that my way. then we'll meet up again and talk more nuts and bolts. i'll keep the internets up to date on the situation as well.
as always....any opinions are welcome....unless you are my current boss posing as someone else.

just some thoughts...

Recently through different circumstances and series of events I've become increasingly intrigued by words. Intrigued by the skill in which some friends and heroes are able to craft their words in such a way as to evoke an emotional response from me. It works on all levels. I'm challenged, hurt, inspired, and disenchanted by words flowing from the people around me.

"Are there black children there? I don't want my kids exposed to drugs you know."
--a coworker.

"Am I a Christian? Are you a Jew? Did you kill my Lord? Must I forgive you?
I know its hard to be original. In fact, nothing scares me more. Because Jesus only lets me do what has been done before."
--David Bazan from "Selling Advertising"

Also I've been thinking about the value of one's life story against the next guys. I read a book, "Raising Fences," an autobiographical account of a guy that grew up in the LA projects and made it out and graduated from UCLA grad school and is now a writer. I found myself comparing my life to his. How interesting his seems; how dull mine seems. The more I read though, I started to think, "if this guy lived around here, we'd probably be hanging out this weekend." I wonder if what separates a seemingly interesting life from a seemingly dull one is simply the skill with which the story is recounted.

Finally Im a little disheartened and confused now. I have a desire for diversity amongst my friends, in the relationships that I have. I love my fiends and wouldn't trade them for anything. However Im noticing that my circles of friends are quite concentric and monochromatic. It seems to be a hard ring to break out of. I don't think its going to happen by default either. I think it will take a lot of intentionality on my part to meet people that are different than I am, which isn't so bad, just difficult to start.

DRAGONFORCE

indefinite break...

Well going along the same lines as my last blog, Im kinda down on all this junk now. I picked a good time to be down on it I guess. More of my friends than ever are blogging now, figures I'd want to stop when everyone else is starting. Also I feel that now more so than ever I have stuff that I feel I should write. To that end Im writing at home with a pen and if anyone cares to know about it call me or come visit....don't text message me on my phone though, I hate that crap.
I do think that periodically I'll still put up cool stuff that I find online, or photos or video work that Im proud of or that I think is too cool not to have on a blog.

To that end, here's a photo of a painting a friend of mine did. I want to buy it actually. It rules. So does a lot of his other stuff, including his new cd, TYRONE.



Click DUSTIN for more of his stuff.
Oh yeah, this is called, "How Come Jermaine Got Two Popcicles?"

blogs are weird...

Been thinking about just what one of these things are lately. they are pretty interesting to me. I like mine, it helps me think through experiences and lets the few people that know its here take a look and see what Ive deemed noteworthy enough in my life to write a post about, but the blog world is pretty screwed up.
We get on these things and write out the drab details of our emotional struggles in parables of sorts so as to inform / confuse the people that we think will read these things. I think blogs make people think that they are deeper than they really are. I do sometimes. I find myself thinking, "Wow, that was a profound thought, I'll blog about that." Thats kind of a bunch of bull crap though. "Self improvement is masturbation." That's what Tyler Durden says at one point in Fight Club (honestly the most thought provoking movie Ive re-watched in a long long time) and I wonder if blogs aren't the same thing. I wonder if thats why I do it, just to make myself feel better about not having many actual relationships with real people. Its an interesting idea at least. One to blog on...aren't I so deep and smart and cool because I thought of it?

a few random thoughts...

1. I don't think I'll be a home-owner this year, and Im ok with that. But I think I will live alone next year.

2. One of my best friends is sick and I hate it and it sucks.

3. Its holy week and I barely care, and I don't like that.

4. I will soon own Tetris for the NES, I paid less than $6 for it.

5. I miss this place a lot of the time, but not really.



6. Probably the best sentence I've heard in quite sometime..."Sometimes I had to use a pencil to get the poop out of the teeth." (Sentence taken from Bonnie's account of the joys of electric cat litter boxes.)

7. Ive made about a hundred Cadillac commercials in the past two days.

8. Soon enough Lightning Bolts will be up on this blog, and it will be the single coolest thing that I have ever done, or will be likely to do.

9. All the places in Birmingham that are cool and cheap to live are being sold and developed into high end lofts or condos. This bothers me. What makes Birmingham cool is the fact that its cheap enough for all kinds of different people to live. If all the cheap places are converted for rich ass hole people, the people that make Birmingham worth living in won't be able to live here. Again this is starting to bother me.

I learned a new blog trick today

This is what I do when Im bored at work...jack movies from the internets, then add stupid stuff to them. Hope you enjoy it.

How do you get an elephant in a SafeWay bag??

...just take the f out of way and put him in the middle. Wait...there's no f in way!!
Yep that's what I said, "NO F'N WAY!!" But I said it slightly under my breath as my heart headed toward my feet....and I didn't abbrieviate anything.
I had this uneasy feeling all yesterday afternoon. Its strange. I mean it happens enough I suppose, as much as anyone else as far as I can tell, but yesterday I was especially uneasy. I didn't have much to do at work so I just looked at houses online. (I'm thinking of trying to buy a house.) I found one that interested me over in Avondale. Its probably less than a mile from work. So after I got off of work going over there was all I could think about. I tried to occupy myself by thawing some chicken for dinner and playing guitar and dragging my feet around the apartment, but it didn't work. At 5:24 I was waiting at the redlight at university and 29th. I went, found the place, got out and looked at it; smaller than I imagined, but actually kinda cool. Well I was already out of the apartment, the hard part was past, so I figured I'd just drive around over in that area to see if I could find anything else for sale. I drove around few block area once and ended up agian at the house I saw online. So I drove again trying to take a different turn. I did. As I drove up 6th Ave. I saw a huge house with a for sale by owner sign on it. I turned quickly so I could swing around and take another look. I pulled up to the stop sign, the house now on my left. And across 6th standing on the corner with a dog in her arms stood Micah Martin, not only noticing me also, but waving for me to come over and talk to her.

So I eased my car through the intersection, looking neither to my right or to my left, only straight ahead, and then an 18 wheeler smashed the side of my car and my face slid across the pavement, leaving a trail of blood and intestines in front of the house that was so cool....nope, thats kinda what it felt like at first though. I did start to ease through with out looking, but then the rules that all good motorist follow came rushing back to me and I stopped before pulling out infront of some old lady. Once both lanes were clear I reluctantly proceeded across the road to see how all this was going to turn out.

Well Im not good at long stories being told in short form, and most people who will read this may not know the history between Micah and myself, but to sum it up....we talked. We talked for an hour or so I suppose, maybe two. I could tell she was pretty thrown off by the whole thing, she was real talkitive...thats how she gets when she's nervous / uneasy. I wasn't. I was pretty quiet, withdrawn, and found myself searching for stuff to say that would make me not look stupid, thats what I do when I'm nervous / uneasy. Even taking into account the complete and total weirdness of the situation, it was pretty normal. She wanted to know about all the people she'd made friends with that after we stopped seeing eachother (or whatever we called it) she hadn't gotten to see anymore. I didn't have too many questions for her though. More stuff that I'd like to say, an apology mostly. Anyway, she asked me to call her. I know I will. When you stop seeing someone people always say, "I'd still like to be friends." Its common break up courtsey. But now, almost 4 years later, I think I actually mean it. I was absolutely freaked out when I saw her and walked though the house that she and 3 girls are renting, and sat on the couch and played with the dog with her. But Im glad I could, more than glad, thankful. Its not often that people get the chance to put the past behind them, forgive each other, and be friends. I think we can do that.

live where i live....or in the vacinity

Here are some links for all my apartment shopping friends that happen to be bored enough to read my blog.

Southside apartments....this site is very helpful lotsa cool places that aren't on other sites.

AL.com...not a ground breaking resource, but has lots of listings and they're easy to browse through.

Well I thought I had more than two sites, but thats all I got. Everything else I remember looking at were generic sites that can find you an apartment anywhere in the country like in one of those megaplexes out 280 or something like that.

my job rules.

About a month ago I guess, I got some business cards. They're pretty cool, they have my name, and title (editor/compositor) and email and whatnot on them. I give them to my friends to let them know that Im important. Other than that I just keep a few in my wallet to drop in fish bowls that offer hopes of free lunch. Well today my ship has come in. I've never won anything my whole life...that I can remember, until today. I got the call and was told that I have an all expenses paid trip to Los Amigos Mexican Restraunt for me and 9 or 10 of my friends. I can taste the melted cheese and red burrito sauce even now. I don't know if I should invite co-workers or friends. Im not sure that my co-workers would care to eat free cheap mexican with me. Im pretty sure my friends would. We'll see.

Also my shower at home has been clogged for a while, and hopefully right now my land lord has a long metal thingiee stuffed down some pipes pulling the grossness out of the water's way so I can shower at home soon. But last night I took a shower here at work. It was kinda like in the movie Elf when the cute girl is in the shower and Will Ferrel discovers her and sings along. I was that cute girl, except I wasn't singing, no Will Ferrel, it was night and not morning, and the shower here is much smaller than the one in the movie. But nonetheless I took a shower where I work, which is the place that I also get paid to deficate, and check my email, and blog about it all, and am provided with business cards so that I can get free mexican lunches for myslef and 9 friends, and start the cycle of gettin' paid for all of the above all over again. I have the best job in the world.