11-15-06
Dear Blog,
Been a while since I got to this one. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were pretty brutal on my constitution, man. I got no sleep at all on the ride to the airport or on the plane. I did manage to catch an hour's sleep at the reception of the first wedding (ceremony began: 11:00 AM) before I had to leave for the second one (ceremony began 2:00 PM). By the time that ceremony began, I had gone the last 25 hours with one hour's sleep. By the time the recpetion ended, that was up to 32 hours. By the time I left the afterparty, it was 34 hours since I had woken up on Friday afternoon, with a 1-hour nap being all the sleep I got in between. Then I got home and just slept like shit. I don't know if the bed was too small or what, but I got shit for sleep the rest of the weekend, and that was FOLLOWING the marathon session I pulled on Friday/Saturday. And on Monday night, I had to work. I got some really bad sleep in the van ride coming up, and a decent nap Monday evening, but I was still plenty tired. So, you can see why I wasn't up for a blog entry yesterday. I didn't even get up until 3 PM.
So, in that way, today was much better than yesterday. I am now properly rested for the first time in 96 hours, so I've recovered from my ordeal. But, in some ways tonight was worse. There was a high-stress moment in the beginning of work, when I kept getting these groceries people bought off of QVC, frozen in dry ice, sealed in slippery plastic, so the goddam things won't go up the shitty belt, so all the ones that go to the top shelves come back and hit you in the head if you don't stand them on end. Which is fine, but standing them on end takes time, and while you're doing that, the boxes are pouring in along with internals (Door 11 - or 12 if no one is in 11, are the worst fucking doors on sort aisle because those get all the internals - the packages which were missorted and must now be resorted, which is a double-dogg portion of pain-in-the-ass, because these are the ones which are hard to read - that is why they were missorted to begin with), and not only are the frozen foods coming down the belts, but about half the packages I send up there are also coming back, because the obnoxious top belts are so shitty they can't hold anything. So, ya, that was a rough time.
But like all rough times at that place, it was temporary and soon enough I did indeed find myself out of it. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful, although for some reason the place seemed to virtually shut down entirely early - about 2:45, but we stuck around doing clean-up stuff for like half-an-hour, before another truck arrived. By the time I clocked out, there were only 3 of us on sort aisel and I had worked almost 5 hours. But the last hour was really easy, so I'm glad that'll be on my check...I'd work 8 more hours like that if they'd asked me too.
So, I find myself here, now, writing in my blog. And I want to defend my favorite band, the one that I have liked since I was a kid.
Most anyone who would read this would know how big of a fan of theirs I've been and for how long. Those who know my e-mail address probably also know that the "gday" part of it does not indicate that I am Australian, or a particular fan of Paul Hogan (although I WAS a particular fan of the Crocodile Hunter - I always got a kick out of that guy. I even saw his movie - but that was because I worked in a theater at the time and movies were free. The movie is straight camp, of course, but it does have one of my favorite lines in movie history. I'm not going to tell you the line, because it is a waste of a good line, since it won't read nearly as funny as it was in context. See the movie - you can probably buy it in WalMart in the bargain bins for like $2.00. But the Crocodile Hunter came well after I made up my e-mail address, which has gone unchanged for years), but rather is a testament to my level of fandom for the band at that time. Which was high, but come on, I was in prime fanboy years.
Anyway, Green Day have made me proud to have been on board with them as I've watched them grow up as a band. I don't have to endure questions like "remember what it was like when you were all into that whoosit band who had that one song but then fell off the face of the Earth?" Because I still AM a fan; I'm not as "into them", maybe, but that doesn't mean I like them any less. They are the once-or-twice in a generation bands that manage to stick around for over a decade (it has been 12 years since Green Day burst onto the scene in 1994 with Dookie, and 15 since they put out their first LP, 1991's 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours) by growing as a band an constantly evolving and reinventing yourself.
And it's true that when the band first came out they were a bunch of Berkley kids who were singing 3 minute songs about masturbation or smoking weed (the band's name is, in itself, a drug reference - I'm sorry for going all John Madden on you, but I have no idea who might be reading this thing) and apathy, but it's not fair to pin a band down to how they might have been at another time, if, in the interval, they have grown up a lot. I mean, can you imagine someone coming out and saying the Beatles were overrated, and his evidence is the song "Love, Love, Me Do"?
It's when the popular bands grow up that they are allowed to have any influence. Just like the Beatles would never have gotten the creative leeway from their record labels if they hadn't first established themselves as megastars with songs like "Love Me Do" and "She Loves You", Green Day would have had a hell of a hard time getting a label with the kind of distribution power of Reprise's to publish a concept album basically attacking the President of the United States without first releasing the requisite Dookies and Insomniacs - although even by Insomniac you started to see the first signs of maturing. And now that they have that power, they are using it, and they are using it for our side. So please, don't jusge Green Day by the band they have been. Ignore their past, and just listen to the album, and ask yourself, is this really good? Because, I might not have their poster on my wall, but I do think this is there greatest album, and by a good bit. Just as I thought that each of their albums was better than the one before it.
College Primer on the Sports Blog. I'm sure something will catch my eye to blog about on the Political blog - in fact, I have a good idea what that might be.
Been a while since I got to this one. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were pretty brutal on my constitution, man. I got no sleep at all on the ride to the airport or on the plane. I did manage to catch an hour's sleep at the reception of the first wedding (ceremony began: 11:00 AM) before I had to leave for the second one (ceremony began 2:00 PM). By the time that ceremony began, I had gone the last 25 hours with one hour's sleep. By the time the recpetion ended, that was up to 32 hours. By the time I left the afterparty, it was 34 hours since I had woken up on Friday afternoon, with a 1-hour nap being all the sleep I got in between. Then I got home and just slept like shit. I don't know if the bed was too small or what, but I got shit for sleep the rest of the weekend, and that was FOLLOWING the marathon session I pulled on Friday/Saturday. And on Monday night, I had to work. I got some really bad sleep in the van ride coming up, and a decent nap Monday evening, but I was still plenty tired. So, you can see why I wasn't up for a blog entry yesterday. I didn't even get up until 3 PM.
So, in that way, today was much better than yesterday. I am now properly rested for the first time in 96 hours, so I've recovered from my ordeal. But, in some ways tonight was worse. There was a high-stress moment in the beginning of work, when I kept getting these groceries people bought off of QVC, frozen in dry ice, sealed in slippery plastic, so the goddam things won't go up the shitty belt, so all the ones that go to the top shelves come back and hit you in the head if you don't stand them on end. Which is fine, but standing them on end takes time, and while you're doing that, the boxes are pouring in along with internals (Door 11 - or 12 if no one is in 11, are the worst fucking doors on sort aisle because those get all the internals - the packages which were missorted and must now be resorted, which is a double-dogg portion of pain-in-the-ass, because these are the ones which are hard to read - that is why they were missorted to begin with), and not only are the frozen foods coming down the belts, but about half the packages I send up there are also coming back, because the obnoxious top belts are so shitty they can't hold anything. So, ya, that was a rough time.
But like all rough times at that place, it was temporary and soon enough I did indeed find myself out of it. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful, although for some reason the place seemed to virtually shut down entirely early - about 2:45, but we stuck around doing clean-up stuff for like half-an-hour, before another truck arrived. By the time I clocked out, there were only 3 of us on sort aisel and I had worked almost 5 hours. But the last hour was really easy, so I'm glad that'll be on my check...I'd work 8 more hours like that if they'd asked me too.
So, I find myself here, now, writing in my blog. And I want to defend my favorite band, the one that I have liked since I was a kid.
Most anyone who would read this would know how big of a fan of theirs I've been and for how long. Those who know my e-mail address probably also know that the "gday" part of it does not indicate that I am Australian, or a particular fan of Paul Hogan (although I WAS a particular fan of the Crocodile Hunter - I always got a kick out of that guy. I even saw his movie - but that was because I worked in a theater at the time and movies were free. The movie is straight camp, of course, but it does have one of my favorite lines in movie history. I'm not going to tell you the line, because it is a waste of a good line, since it won't read nearly as funny as it was in context. See the movie - you can probably buy it in WalMart in the bargain bins for like $2.00. But the Crocodile Hunter came well after I made up my e-mail address, which has gone unchanged for years), but rather is a testament to my level of fandom for the band at that time. Which was high, but come on, I was in prime fanboy years.
Anyway, Green Day have made me proud to have been on board with them as I've watched them grow up as a band. I don't have to endure questions like "remember what it was like when you were all into that whoosit band who had that one song but then fell off the face of the Earth?" Because I still AM a fan; I'm not as "into them", maybe, but that doesn't mean I like them any less. They are the once-or-twice in a generation bands that manage to stick around for over a decade (it has been 12 years since Green Day burst onto the scene in 1994 with Dookie, and 15 since they put out their first LP, 1991's 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours) by growing as a band an constantly evolving and reinventing yourself.
And it's true that when the band first came out they were a bunch of Berkley kids who were singing 3 minute songs about masturbation or smoking weed (the band's name is, in itself, a drug reference - I'm sorry for going all John Madden on you, but I have no idea who might be reading this thing) and apathy, but it's not fair to pin a band down to how they might have been at another time, if, in the interval, they have grown up a lot. I mean, can you imagine someone coming out and saying the Beatles were overrated, and his evidence is the song "Love, Love, Me Do"?
It's when the popular bands grow up that they are allowed to have any influence. Just like the Beatles would never have gotten the creative leeway from their record labels if they hadn't first established themselves as megastars with songs like "Love Me Do" and "She Loves You", Green Day would have had a hell of a hard time getting a label with the kind of distribution power of Reprise's to publish a concept album basically attacking the President of the United States without first releasing the requisite Dookies and Insomniacs - although even by Insomniac you started to see the first signs of maturing. And now that they have that power, they are using it, and they are using it for our side. So please, don't jusge Green Day by the band they have been. Ignore their past, and just listen to the album, and ask yourself, is this really good? Because, I might not have their poster on my wall, but I do think this is there greatest album, and by a good bit. Just as I thought that each of their albums was better than the one before it.
College Primer on the Sports Blog. I'm sure something will catch my eye to blog about on the Political blog - in fact, I have a good idea what that might be.
posted by k - L - g | 4:35 AM
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