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January 21, 2006A love-letter to SBC DSL...
My Dearest SBC DSL,
Just because I have to keep calling your customer service line doesn't mean I should be getting different answers to my same questions every single time.
Love,
Patrick
Posted by patrick at 10:59 AM | Comments (3)
January 16, 2006
Patrick casserole...
I spent some time in the Starbucks down the street from my new apartment today, and everybody had a laptop with them. And I mean everybody, right down to the homeless guy who was mumbling arcane things to himself. He's probably a screenwriter. This is L.A., after all.
I don't know how long it's supposed to last, but I am enjoying this weather--cold, windy, and sunny. I didn't realize how much I've missed hearing the wind blow through the trees until it happened this afternoon as I sat in my new place. There weren't any trees through which the wind could blow at my old place--although the wind could make a pretty loud buzz if I took the Sweet-N-Low packets out of the crack between the windowpane and the metal frame.
I've tore through the first two books in the "Harry Potter" series since the beginning of the month, and I'm actually enjoying them. After all the curmudgeonly bitching I've done about them over the years--about how you'd think J.K. Rowling invented the written word to hear people go on about them--I figured it was only fair that I give them a shot. So far, so good. Besides, from a karmic standpoint, I'm a total sucker for the "struggling single mom writes book and becomes the richest woman in the universe" angle. In any event, I've plenty of reading ahead of me before I get to territory I've not already explored with the films.
And thanks to an evil, evil man by the name of Mike Bento, I had a huge spoiler already dropped on me with regards to book number six. Thanks, Lunchbox. You're fired.
While at Starbucks, I decided to start revamping the German language with terms of my own devising, such as:
Der Krappenburgerhaus - a fast food establishment
Die Kitzersexin - Spring Break
Der Disengraff - a tabletop roleplaying game
Der Glutenschtaff - a breadstick
Der Axisallekartonwearer - a cosplayer
Liestenkashperdai - minimum wage
More to come...or perhaps not.
Posted by patrick at 02:05 AM | Comments (3)
January 12, 2006
The cake says it all...
Posted by patrick at 08:24 PM | Comments (3)
January 03, 2006
2005 Book List
Here's what I read in 2005:
The Intelligent Businessman’s Guide to Japan, by Jon P. Alston
Imaginary Homelands, by Salman Rushdie
When the Sleeper Wakes, by H.G. Wells *
Japanese Short Stories, by Ryunoskue Akutagawa
The Armada, by Garrett Mattingly
The Image and other stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Izu Dancer and Other Stories, by Yasunari Kawabata & Yasushi Inoue
The Nonexistent Knight & The Cloven Viscount, by Italo Calvino
Why Call Them Back From Heaven?, by Clifford D. Simak
A Dry White Season, by André Brink
Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki *
Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku *
Vita Sexualis, by Mori Ogai *
Rashomon and other stories, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa *
Naomi, by Junichiro Tanizaki *
Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima *
The Waiting Years, by Fumiko Enchi *
Temple of the Golden Pavilion, by Yukio Mishima
Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov
The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Open Marriage, by O’Neill
The Floating Opera, by John Barth
The End of the Road, by John Barth
The Choirboys, by Joseph Wambaugh
Dictionary of the Khazars (female), by Milorad Pavic
Japan: An Interpretation, by Lafacadio Hearn
Too Late the Phalarope, by Alan Paton
Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto
No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier, by Diana & William Preston
The Kite Runner, by Kaled Hosseini
Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde
The Box Man, by Kobo Abe
Myths to Live By, by Joseph Campbell
Anything with an asterisk after it was something I had to read for class. Looking back, I didn't read quite as much as I would have liked. I'll chalk it up partially to juggling work and school for the first half of the year. Let's see if I can't do better in 2006...
Posted by patrick at 02:13 AM | Comments (1)
January 01, 2006
New Year's Resolutions...
My resolutions for 2006, in no particular order:
Get my feature script out the door by my birthday.
Write a new one.
Keep working out / losing weight / gaining muscle.
Get back into my singing lessons.
Make time to start up Taiko and fencing lessons.
Hang out with and/or call my friends and family more.
Get enough sleep.
Do more pleasure reading.
Do a stage play.
Innumerable others to come, I'm sure...
Posted by patrick at 10:40 AM | Comments (1)