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Loan Shark

Stephen King wrote a book called The Stand, which was eventually put on film as a TV mini series. Four episodes, each an hour and a half long, faithfully recreating the story. Jack and I watched it on a whim one night, when we couldn’t decide what else to rent and the store was closing. We must have started it after eleven o’clock that night, and didn’t finish until five or six in the morning. It was quite good, and only more epic considering the struggle we went through to watch it all.

He shot me a text the other day saying that it was on TV in its entirety. I didn’t have cable, but it was streaming on Netflix and Nishi was game to watch it. There is a character in The Stand named Larry who is an aspiring pop musician who gets into trouble with loan sharks on the west coast. He borrowed a bunch of money in the anticipation of his record sales, but they didn’t cover what he owed. The thing is, shortly after he defaults on his debt, the plague hits and kills very nearly everyone. Including (I assume) the loan shark. This fantastic luck is never really mentioned in the story, on account of his mother and everyone he knows also dying. But he managed to be perfectly timed to profit on the apocalypse. He took out a big loan, spent it all, and never had to pay it back. This amuses me to no end.

I got to thinking about loan sharks in general, the break-your-legs kind, not the exorbitant rates kind. Wikipedia says they’re mostly gone now, and even when they were around they were just an appendage of the mafia. Despite that, I thought it could make for a good story where a man goes to a loan shark for some large amount of money, which he then uses to hire a hitman to kill that very loan shark. Yeah, I think there’s a fun story there.

Free Stuff

In my quest to clean this house, many things need to be removed from the house. Much of that is paper waste that can be recycled, much of that is garbage that need to head to the dump, but there are lots of things here that are perfectly usable but unwanted. Most of that I’ve been shuttling over to the Goodwill donation site near here, but there are things that they categorically won’t accept, or won’t accept because of condition. I tossed a lot of that on Craigslist’s free section today, and I was amazed by the amount of response. I honestly didn’t know that many people watched the free sections. I’ve gotten many cool things from there before without much competition. I was also amazed at who was getting stuff. The first people to come seemed like they were ready to take anything. This left me feeling kind of off, since I knew they wouldn’t be using everything themselves, but scrapping or reselling some stuff. I guess it’s still helping people out, but not quite in the way I’d intended.

Thoreau

My reading more books plan is off to a poor start. Though I’ve been able to streamline my otherwise time consuming activities, I haven’t yet gotten into the habit of picking up a book when I find downtime. Working on that.

Presently reading Walden…still. It’s a rather short book, but I had several stretches of days (weeks) where I didn’t pick it up, so I’m still working my way through it. One of the most striking things about this book is how much of its sentiments have worked their way into our contemporary culture. I was going to write ‘mainstream culture’ instead of ‘contemporary,’ but that’s probably not correct. I tend to have a poor grasp on what is common knowledge and what isn’t. But its ideas and sentiments are quite familiar to me, which is quite impressive for any work. Thoreau is a very witty writer, and I can see why he is quoted so often. It took me a few sections before I started highlighting passages and lines I found exceptional. At the same time, he can be incredibly pretentious (as he is with books) or dry (as he is with sounds).

What Year Is It?

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In June of 2010 we dressed up like time travelers and invaded the Middletown car show. This venue lent itself to many jokes. I walked up to a man proudly displaying his car, and asked “What year is it?” He replied, “It’s a 1969 Rolling Widget.” “No, no, what year is it now?” and other such jokes (I think Peter came up with that one). I dressed as a inhabitant of a THX1138 type future in all white with a barcode on my neck and wrist, while both Peter and Joe went with Terminator themes. Omar decided to be a time traveler from the past, which seemed to really confuse people more than anything else, but to be fair, he was the only one who was asked to pose for pictures.

Thankful

I had a doctor’s appointment recently. Just a check-up, nothing in particular concerned me. I guess what prompted it was losing my insurance when I graduated from college, and seeing what garbage Nishi had to go through while she wasn’t covered. It had been four years since I’d been to the doctor’s, and I figured I was due. And the results were pretty much as expected – I’m in near perfect health. I could exercise a bit more. Otherwise keep up the good work. It was kind of nice hearing the doctor go through the list of lifestyle questions, then on to asking about any possible symptoms and so on, and just responding, “No, no, nope…” I’m really thankful for my good health. I take it for granted far too often. Apparently I’m not due for another check-up for two years, so I guess I’m doing alright.

Phone

The Atrix is out, and though I was pretty convinced it would be my new phone, I’m reconsidering. Largely because of Motorola’s lockdown on the phone. It’s been rooted, but no custom ROMs yet. I’m not sure if I’d even be interested in it if it was freed up. There was a phone that Nokia was going to release which was tentatively called the N9-00. It would have beaten the hell out of the Atrix, and had a far more robust operating system on it. And most importantly, it had a physical keyboard. I’m still not sold on software keyboards. Moreover, I don’t yet see the need for me to get a new phone. I really want to play around with Android, and I’ve even considered the possibility of developing apps for it, but my current phone really does fulfill all my needs. It’s approaching four years since Nokia released the N95, and there hasn’t been another device since that could stay as relevant for as long as it has. I need to work to keep my gadget lust in check, and stay practical.

Rubberneck

Driving home today, we were on 95 North and traffic started to slow for no apparent reason, and I could see further up the road it was moving fine. As we got closer to the slowdown, I realized that people were slowing to gawk at an accident on the South-bound side of the highway. It wasn’t a bad accident, but it was interesting to look at, like most accidents, and people were getting eyefuls as they drove by. I was about to make a remark to Nishi at how stupid it was, when I see a limousine come screeching behind me in my sideview mirror. It was swerving back and forth trying to slow down, and slammed into the car directly behind me. It didn’t look like anyone was hurt. They both came to a stop, and blocked off North-bound traffic. I hope two accidents at the same point on either side of the highway is such a spectacle that people will just drive past other less interesting accidents in the future.

Jorb’d

I got the job I interviewed for yesterday. I’m not sure I’m going to take it. In fact, I’m becoming increasingly sure I won’t. There are practical reasons not to take it – it’s a commission based job that requires initial investment in the form of time and gas – but I worry there are other reasons at play. My dream job right now is a simple job that makes me happy and doesn’t burden me with much responsibility. This job could be part time, it could be minimum wage. It could be stocking shelves or greeting people at Wal-Mart, as long as it’s a regular source of income. Amazingly, I haven’t been able to get any such job, and I’ve applied to many in the past weeks.

I’m gonna keep looking.

Stairs

I don’t know why this is, but I’ve found that in buildings of a certain size, there are often stairwells that are barely ever used. Either because of their placement in the building, or because of nearby elevators, there is always a stairwell that exists for fire escape purposes, but is rarely used day in and day out. I guess I have a preference for stairs, but I always seem to find these stairwells in buildings. I knew my way all around the buildings of UConn because of this, and would often travel stairwells that I could tell had not been used since my last visit.

I always find these places interesting, for the same reasons I find abandoned buildings interesting. Perhaps even more so, since they’re so close to an actively traveled space. There’s something a little magical about being in a place that took so many resources to put together, and so much collective knowledge, and being the only person getting the use of it. I get a similar feeling by walking down empty streets at night. It’s nice to be able to find these places that aren’t far off the beaten path, and stairwells are the most common I encounter.

Good Enough

Alright, it’s not back at its full strength, but it’s good enough. And I’m growing it in fuller this time, not just the goatee. It’s winter, after all. I don’t think it will be an even beard, or even a good looking beard, but it will be my first, and I’ll be happy to greet it when it arrives.