Tag Archives: The Winter Olympics

Break Up to Make Up

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And here we are on a Thursday. Beats being in Bala Cynwyd I suppose. It certainly hasn’t been too busy a day. Rather low key. Found myself watching some of the Olympics.

I know I know. Me? Watching a sporting event? Wasn’t Scrubs on? Gilmore Girls? Lawn Hors d’œuvre? Apparently not. It was women’s hockey. Who knew women played hockey? Not me, that’s for sure.

I watched The Rocker, starring Rainn Wilson as a former drummer for a hair band called Vesuvius, given the sack like Pete Best. Funnily enough, there is a Pete Best cameo. He’s at the bus stop reading Rolling Stone magazine.

Rainn Wilson’s nephew has a band and needs a drummer and so Rainn Wilson’s character steps in. Of course there are a few twists and story lines, but overall it was a funny movie with some famous comedy names involved.

I also watched Terry Jones of Monty Python. He has a 2 disc DVD of The Barbarians, a fun and fascinating documentary about who the barbarians actually were. Remember, history is written by the victors and usually written in a light to make the victors look like the good guys. Rome basically wasn’t all that.

Not so noble after all, and when the coffers were near depletion, they didn’t think twice about invading a land who they had been trading with, and killing as many inhabitants with an eye on their gold. So far he’s gone over the Celts and the Goths.

Both given a bad rap throughout history, since history is written by the victors. And Terry Jones, being such a personable chap is an entertaining teacher.

I wish I had teachers like Terry Jones. Chances are I would have gone further into education instead of bailing out when I had the first real opportunity.

Bill and I had a short online chat today. He’s infatuated by the BBC and told me of a report that he heard from them, that Gordon Lightfoot died. I almost immediately sent the word to Harpy as that is what we do, when a boldface name passes away.

It’s our way of keeping in touch you see.

A search on Google News came up with a link to the Vancouver Sun, but the link went nowhere. I figured I would wait until more news sources came in, expecting a major tribute at the Olympics since Gordon Lightfoot is Canadian and that’s where the Winter Olympics are underway.

But as things turned out, Gordon Lightfoot is still vertical and singing somewhere. If you could read his mind, he’d probably be both pissed off and relieved, eh?

Also watched Lost the other night, which was all about Locke, or rather Fake Locke. Alternate planes of existence seem to be occurring. One Locke is in a wheelchair, came back from Australia and lives with his fiancee. Fake Locke (F.Locke) is the smoke monster and trying to get Sawyer on his side for some nefarious end.

It was actually a very good episode. Much better than the previous week.

No comedy on TV tonight, at least not the Thursday night lineup that I’ve taken to watching. Could be worse I guess.

JOT 1985

JOT 1985 2

I could be in Bala Cynwyd.

11:11

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Well yesterday was a day of despair. Didn’t want to write about it lest some people get overly alarmed. So I wisely skirted the issue. Nothing bad happened just an overall bottoming out and spending too much time in my head, in my apartment, in Hoboken.

I knew I could get through it and that today would be a different day. All I had to do was to get to it. And I did. Last night was no great shakes. After watching Olbermann, I watched Arrested Development but even that didn’t help.

Bill came home in time to watch a really funny show following Arrested Development on IFC, the Jon Dore Show. He’s a funny Canadian guy and we stumbled on his show a few weeks ago. Bill offered to listen to me about whatever it was that was bothering me, but by then it was too late.

I had gone through the worst of it and did not want to revisit. All I needed was to make it to today. He was tired and went to bed around 10:30. I stayed up watching a show from BBC Manchester called Ideal which was OK, but the Mancunian accents were a bit too thick even for my ear.

Stayed up for the Simpsons and then some of Craig Ferguson who is really funny and worth catching if you’re up at 12:35AM. I went to sleep after that. Not a deep sleep. Felt like I was sleeping on the installment plan.

I have been getting about 8 hours of sleep each night so that meant I woke up around 10:00. I know, some of you are up at 6:00 or even earlier and it sounds like laziness on my part. But it isn’t. Just can’t find a reason to get up earlier and in any event, I don’t want to get up earlier.

I discovered that my computer updated itself last night and since I had a few USB cables hooked up, it didn’t restart. So I had to restart it after disconnecting those cables and hopped in the shower.

Wednesday is the day I usually get my unemployment benefit and since today was Veterans Day, a Federal holiday, my direct deposit didn’t go through even though it was set up on Monday. That was upsetting somewhat.

Apparently robots and automated services had the day off as well. There was nothing I could do about it. I did check the New York State Department of Labor’s website and logged in the ‘Looking for a Job’ section. I expected it to be bottom feeders but it wasn’t that bad.

Almost immediately I got an email from an agency inquiring about my inquiry. I tool the bait, made a phone call and set up an interview for tomorrow at 2:00PM. Posted that on Facebook and a nice group of people wished me well and good luck.

Once again the routine is to go to the agency and have them check me out before they send me anywhere. The position they want to see me for is for a midtown position. I set about getting a suit and shirt and tie all together.

I haven’t had a hair cut since July so my hair is a bit unkempt. That was another factor yesterday. A bad hair day. This morning before I knew anything, I decided to gel the hair again like I used to when I was employed and it’s manageable but still I will need to see my barber Tony on Saturday.

He’s been forlorn as he sees me walking by all shaggy. So as I thought, today would be a better day than yesterday and so far it has been.

It’s off to Wall Street tomorrow afternoon and I’m looking forward to getting dressed up again with fingers crossed, which can make for difficult buttoning but I don’t care.

Over and out.