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April 27, 2005
H2G2 Lives Up to the Hype!!!
I was in line round 5:30 last night. I was the third person in line for the 8pm screening of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," sponsored by XRT, a local radio station. Mi chavo, the gem that he is, won tickets for the screening soley based on my desire to see it. (He's never read the books and considers himself "above" the dorkiness of the crowd. But I know he spent five hours in line for Episode One tix of Star Wars.)
Right, so I was concerned about the people who knew someone and got to sit down in the theatre before we were let in. But, as mi chavo pointed out, I rushed ahead of the people in front of us (they were walking too slowly to the actual theater) and snagged the best seats in the house - middle of the middle. Unfortunately, the super dorks behind us snagged the seats right in front of us, giving us a vision of what life could be like in fifteen years (inching towards forty with the highlight of your life being an early copy of the official DVD of Sahara). Right.
Anyway, I don't want to give too much away. Don't forget your towel (I saw two lads in bathrobes and towels) and Don't Panic. After all, we're only the third smartest species on the planet.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Posted by cj at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
Random Notes
I spent the weekend in Los Angeles. From Friday afternoon through Monday morning, mi chavo and I hung out with my fam and celebrated Passover seders. It was quite an intense experience. I feel like we've made it past a significant milestone in our eight month (and six days) relationship. Plus, the weather was ab fab, we both bought some great shoes, and my mom's cooking is always amazing.
I'll post more soon. Apologies for my poor upkeep of my online persona - work has been extremely busy lately.
Posted by cj at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Atlantic Monthly moving from Boston to DC
Katharine Seelye and David Carr report in today's NYT that publisher David Bradley is going back on his original promise to keep the Atlantic Monthly in Boston and is moving it to his publishing headquarters in DC. As previously announced, the magazine is also discontinuing their monthly fiction pieces to make more room for longer articles, particularly focusing on the government.
In an amazing bit of largesse, all of the Boston employees are being offered jobs in DC. If they choose not to move, they'll receive a full year's pay and benefits. Also, the book has been bleeding money - between $4 million and $8 million annually...I wish I had pockets as big as David Bradley.
Posted by cj at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
There is Shit in the Meat
The above sentence kept me up at night and stopped me from reading Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. It appears on page 197, in chapter 9, which is titled "what's in the meat." Since then, mi chavo started reading the book and because of my competitive nature (I like to learn from books myself instead of learning from someone who has already taken the time to read books), I started reading it again today. I realize now that since I do the majority of my book reading during my hour lunch break, this book is not exactly the best one to be reading. It was amusing when I took the book to McDonald's, where I ate breakfast while learning about the history of fast food companies. Now that I'm actually reading about rendering and feed lots and E. Coli, its not exactly the most pleasant book to have around during mastication.
Its an amazing book. The cover tells me that over one million copies have been sold. I'm sure they have - I've seen the book everywhere. Let's say half the people who buy the book actually read it. (Hey, we all know people buy a ton more books than they read. Just look at my collection for proof.) If half a million people have read this book, where's the outrage? Where's the change in the meat processing industry? I'm relatively sure half a million people didn't have to read The Jungle before Upton Sinclair's expose caused President Theodore Roosevelt to create new standards for meat packing back in the early 1900s. Where or where is our presidential leadership on this subject?
How I forget. Shrub's a good ol' boy with a farm. And good ol' boys think it is okay to feed feces, dead pigs, dead poultry and dead horses to cows. Cows - those animals with four stomachs to process grass, who would never choose to eat dead animals - are eating dead pigs, poultry, horses, and their shit. Oh, and poultry are being fed dead cows.
Another delightful tidbit: according to Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, "You'd be better off eating a carrot stick that fell into your toilet than one that fell in your sink." (page 221) That's because of the large amount of shit in ground beef.
Talk about powerful writing. This stuff is definitely having a more significant impact on me than a thriller by Dan Brown...
Posted by cj at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
Ugh....I'm Sick
Apparently, this particular sickness has been festering for weeks. I personally became aware of it on Sunday. Except I'm a little annoyed because I mentioned one of the symptoms to my doctor weeks ago and he never looked into it. When I showed up this morning, he thought I was being a hypochondriac since I've seen him so much this year. When he realized I have a fever, he started treating the visit with a little respect.
Which is fine. I guess. Except that he said he'd call me with lab results, and he never did. Oh well. I suppose he's just been really busy since I saw him this morning. Ironically, my mom is home sick today with the same illness.
Posted by cj at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)