this was a better world when. . .

i hear that from some oldsters once in a while, the statement is usually accompanied by a pretty high level of crustiness, crochetiness, and generally a pretty significant sense of good-old-days syndrome. people that know me know that i'm a pretty big fan of the crusty old guy, seeing as a large part of the wisdom i've obtained in life has come from the same. however, i have to say that they're wrong about this one.

i grew up in and inhabit a much different world than these guys did in their youth, there isn't any doubt about that, not in the least. today's memorial day and i'm sitting here, at the age of twenty three, without ever having had to consider a stint, of any length, of military service either involuntary or voluntary. i mean there are times i've thought and sometimes still do about getting commissioned and joining some branch, that usually comes and goes in a matter of moments, however. back quite a few years, it was nearly customary for a young man to have spent at least some amount of time in military service, a scant few had the option of sort of flippantly considering it only to decide "meh, that's not really for me". i'm certain that a large part of the reason why that's not the case anymore, that i can ponder such a thing so fleetingly is because people who are significantly older than me couldn't or didn't.

please don't misunderstand me, this isn't about war, being for it or against it, or being a pacifist or not, a dove or a hawk, whatever. what i'm saying is that the freedom we have to thank those who've served for goes beyond eagles and flags and fireworks and BBQs and ultimately silly stuff like that, it even goes beyond all the stuff we associate with freedom; speech, religion, assembly, guns, sex, the fact that we're able to spend so much time arguing about such stupid stuff is a credit to the courage those crusty old guys showed back when. we fancy ourselves as significantly more sophisticated in contemporary times than we imagine that they were decades ago, and almost certainly we equate that with the idea that we, ourselves, are objectively better than they.

this wasn't a better world when, it's a better world now, because of them. we would all do well to find someone responsible and thank him.

feeling: grateful
thinking of: crusty old guys
music: "heroes of our past" dropkick murphys

there was always tuesday to look forward to.

now beyond saying that it's really silly to look forward to a particular day of the week primarly because of a tv show, i won't make a value judgement on doing so, mostly because i'd be incriminating myself in any further pejoritave statement i might make. i won't be too harsh on myself, because i mean it wasn't like i was waiting around for "friends" or "seinfeld" or some other show adored by legions of estrogen-addled nitwits and knuckleheaded simpletons, respectively.

so anyway, i've watched every single episode of 24 since it started three years ago. there was a close call with the finale of the first season, it was before i moved out here, back when i lived in texas, or was spending the summer there anyway; i was actually interviewing for the job that brought me out here on the day that that episode aired, and being at the mercy of others as far as my schedule and activities went, watching it live wasn't really an option. luckily, my dad remembered to tape it for me and saved the day. suffice it to say i'm a huge fan of the show, not so much that i'm a total dork for it like those people who watch star trek or whatever and notice all the lil details that aren't perfect.

what's funny though, is that i wasn't really *really* stoked about the show back when it first started, and had circumstances been a bit different, i'm not certain i would have gotten into the show at all. i remember my roommate back then, wes, was so excited mostly because i think he had a man-crush on kiefer sutherland. whatever you might think of the show, it really has been a great vehicle for sutherland, before it i never really liked him or disliked him, now i think he's a total hardass. at this point, i might have a man-crush of my own on kiefer, i'm almost certain that i have one on jack bauer.

so now season three is over, and like i said i won't have it to look forward to, which is sort of a pity considering tuesday, being sort of a mundane day, was a great day to have something like that to look forward to. now fox will probly put on some insipid reality show with half-naked imbiciles whose lack of clothing is exceeded only by their lack of sense.

the only thing that could possibly make this right is another dose of paris and nicole.

feeling: superficially empty, if that's possible
thinking of: sunglasses
music: "alcohol drip" sorta

i grew up in dallas.

i see myself going back one day, maybe soon, and when i say soon, i mean in a matter of years, not imminently, but that's neither here nor there, at least not right this second it's not. i've noticed that i keep up with local happenings there a way more closely than i do out here in long beach, sometimes i wonder if that's any indication of a slack commitment to my citizenship out here as a californian or whatever, or maybe if it's representative of some sort of a deep and real desire to be there. i dunno because i think it took me at least a couple years before i really took ownership of being in the chicago area, at least to the point where i followed local events with the same vigilance as i did ones in dallas.

so the big deal, what's dominating local dialogue, at least from my detached and limited perspective, is the proposal put forward to move the cowboys back inside the city limits. they left, went to irving, around three decades ago, and kept the name "dallas" cowboys, this despite not having really been in dallas in all that time. their departure was actually a pretty prescient move on their part, the area of town their stadium was in, was seeing some early indicators of a decline that's turned out to be pretty precipitous and nearly total. so, like i said, they high-tailed it to irving, where they had a stadium waiting for them, a stadium which, for its day, was state of the art. in fact, it's the only thing irving is known for, other than the stadium is the fact that you pretty much have to drive through it to get to the airport, if it wasn't for those two things, i'd be pretty sure that it's existence was mere rumor.

but now, texas stadium, state of the art thirty years ago, is antiquated and in disrepair, at least that's the party line from the team, which basically means that instead of making totally obscene amounts of money, they're only making ridiculously obscene amounts of money. that being the case, they're scouting locations for a brand new stadium that could net them the aforementioned totally obscene amounts of money, with the focus being on fair park, the very same area they left back in the seventies, in particular. right now, the big point of contention, like it always is whenever a sports franchise wants a stadium, is how much they want to be subsidized by local governments. at this point, the cowboys want $425 million of a $650 million tab from dallas county taxpayers.

this is the part where i tell you that according to forbes magazine, the cowboys made a profit of nearly sixty million dollars just last year and that their owner jerry jones' net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and let you draw your own conclusions.

if that wasn't enough this is where i tell you that they want all that money and all the subsidiary rights to any and all intellectual property, marketing and economic benefits from all the revenue streams.

the ones generated by the taxpayers' $425 million.

feeling: apathetic
thinking of: all the drives back and forth on airport freeway
music: "i wanna race bigfoot trucks" mojo nixon

second of two

this was a better world when structure was structure and not express men.

i needed jeans, the "nice" ones i got are showing early signs of wear, and i figured i'd rather wear them a bit less frequently and have them in good shape for a while longer than keep wear them out quicker than i feel like i need to. anyway, i head to los cerritos center, mostly because they have a structure. . .er an express men (expressmen?), which is where i get my jeans. that place had always done right by me, i'd been getting my jeans there since high school, some of which i still wear. they had good jeans, comfortable ones and they were cheap, which is to say inexpensive. i could usually get a pair that would last a while from there for around thirty bucks.

so i get to structure and start looking at jeans, and i was tempted to go outside and look at the sign to make sure i was in the right place, this despite the fact that i was well aware of the fact that the sign would say "express men" and not "structure," so i dunno where that thought came from. wait, yes i do, the jeans there sucked, i'm not sure they could have sucked any more if they had actually grown lips for the purpose. they were awful, they didn't look anything like the one's i'd gotten from there in the past, and on top of that there wasn't a pair cheaper than fifty bucks.

i needed a moment, or a few, i mean i was pretty disgusted by the whole "expressmen" imbroglio, and there was also the business of getting a new blazer, sportcoat, whatever, so i went to robinsons-may, where, evidently, extravaganza season was ongoing, because everything was marked down like 40%. now, i'm a 44S, as far as jackets go, which isn't always the easiest to find and i wasn't really finding anything all that impressive, at least not as far as coats went. what i did find was they had calvin klein suit separates in my size. you know how it is, it's more money than you planned spending or even than you want to spend, but in the back of your mind, you also know that you're not gonna find a deal like that for a while to come, so if there's a time to take advantage, it's right then, so i ended up getting a suit, the nearly three hundred bucks was most definitely more than i'd planned on spending that day, but considering the thing'd been marked down from over $450, i didn't feel too too bad.

anyways, for jeans, i'm down with anchor blue, for now

feeling: addicted
thinking of: dunno, nothing good probly
music: "i walk the line" johnny cash

first of two

i've been a fiend here lately.

that's as far as shopping goes. i'm definitely not one who could be defined as a fashion-hound, if that's even a term in anyone's vernacular. so anyways, i don't go shopping that often, at least not for myself, usually whenever i make it to the mall, it's to get stuff for other people like whenever i put together that package for laura on her birthday, or when i do go for myself, i'm usually looking for something like a book or a cd or maybe like the bag i got a couple months ago.

it's not like i'm clueless though, i do have an idea about how to shop, enough of one to where i don't look like a total fool. i guess i owe that to a certain ex-girlfriend whose favorite pastime was going to the mall, i guess when they're in high school tho, that's pretty much true of nearly any individual with two x chromosomes. one day i'll tell the other story that centers around that particular ex-girlfriend, it's really juicy.

anyways, lately i've found myself with a compulsion to go shopping, it started off pretty innocently, the day before easter, i just wanted to get a new shirt and maybe a tie, you know easter and whatnot, so i headed off to robinsons-may to take care of that, but i stumble into the middle of some sort of reduced price extravaganza, otherwise known as a sale, where i find dockers (and i sorely needed slacks) at half price, so i got three pair, i get a couple shirts, but not dress shirts, which along with the tie, i'd completely forgotten about. so i go back later to get that stuff. all told, i'd come home with three pair of dockers, four shirts, and a tie for slightly over $200. i felt like a crook.

that wasn't even the end of it though.

feeling: somehow cosmopolitan, and as such odd
thinking of: shoes
music: "the lament of desmond r.g. underwood IV" steve taylor

i have parents.

i might have mentioned that before, in fact, i'm fairly certain that i have. in fact, i think that mention came on my mom's birthday back in march, that i'm making mention of it again makes sense, mostly because today is my dad's birthday. he was born on this day in 1960, which would make him 44 today, which in turn makes him really young to have a kid that's around my age. that didn't necessarily work to my advantage when i was but a tyke, as i recall him being quite a conservative individual, the list of tv shows i wasn't allowed to watch and movies i wasn't allowed to see was pretty lengthy. that's not to say that he actively deprived me of any good thing, though it took me a while to realize that, but ain't that always the case.

we've always gotten along pretty well, i mean when i was in middle and high school there were hiccups, a handful of times we'd find ourselves at loggerheads, but those were fairly few and far between, which i s'pose is a credit to both of us. so anyways, whenever me and him were in the same state, we'd get to soccer games, watch boxing, get tacos, stuff like that, stuff that was always fun. now when i want a torta or something like that or to watch a soccer game, more often than not i gotta do it on my own. he did get to come out here last year around thanksgiving and i saw him a lil over a month after that when i went home for christmas.

happy birthday dad, you're a cool guy.

feeling: alright
thinking of: dad
music: "seein my father in me" paul overstreet

it doesn't stop, it just doesn't stop.

feeling: surrounded by dipheads, or worse
thinking of: what's next
music: "the downfall of western civilization" MxPx

hoy me reclamaron por venir a ver te
no quieren que vuelve por aqui jamas
dicen que si vuelvo encontrare la muerte
que porti la vida me van a quitar.

piensen asustarme para que te deje
pero nunca nadie lo podra lograr
mientras tu me quieras yo estare presente
cerca de tu casa para placticar

a mi no me asustan tipos "lenguaslarga"
que solo presumen para pantallar
yo soy de los hombres que no temen nada
y aunque este perdido, no me se rajar

si tus pretiendientes quieren que me muera
yo te lo aseguro que los burlare
yo sere tu dueno aunque no lo quieran
y al que atraviese te lo quitare

manana sin falta aqui estare presente
ya sabes la hora no me quedes mal
de lo que te dije no tengas pendiente
solo Dios la vida me puede quitar

a mi no me asustan tipos "lenguaslarga"
que solo presumen para pantallar
yo soy de los hombres que no temen nada
y aunque este perdido, no me se rajar

--"no me se rajar" vicente fernandez

happy cinco de mayo.

that's today. cinco de mayo. there are a couple of misconceptions about cinco de mayo, at least with regard to what exactly it is. first, it's not simply the day the bars decided to make corona longnecks a nickel all day, although that makes it a better day than it would be otherwise. it's also not mexican independence day. that particular day is september 16, 1810.

cinco de mayo commemorates an event a little over fifty years later. what had happened was mexico had gotten itself into dutch, not with the dutch, but with the english, the spanish and the french. so those three nations decided to send armies to mexico, ostensibly as a sort of collection agency for the money they were owed by mexico. benito juarez, mexico's president, quickly made an agreement with the governments of england and spain. france's leader, napoleon, however, had designs on mexico and wasn't as easily convinced to bring his army back home, so he sent 6,500 troops who were met by a smaller, less well-equipped mexican force at puebla led by general ignacio zaragoza and aided by among other things, hostile terrain, a cattle stampede started by the citizens of puebla, and just some good old mexican stubbornness, who routed them. that happened on may 5, 1862.

and that's how the mexican st. patrick's day came to be.

feeling: like i want a corona and some doritos
thinking of: the beach
music: "loco gringos like a party" reverend horton heat

donuts are good.

they taste good, unfortunately, they're up there with peanut butter and maybe lard as ounce for ounce one of the worst things you can put in your body. i guess sprinkling some blow on some gorditas like that one time javi did it would be worse, but that's neither here nor there i don't guess.

no doubt you've heard of krispy kreme donuts, good donuts to be sure, but where they excel is on amazing PR, most of the mom and pop donut shops that the korean families owned and operated in oak cliff have way better donuts. so about a week and a half ago i saw this article in both the fort worth and dallas papers about how the local krispy kremes were doing away with their policy of giving away a free sample to pretty much everybody who darkened the doors of the place.

so you know how people are, take away their free stuff and they get pissed, nevermind the fact that they weren't losing anything. the lady in the star-telegram article was quoted as saying that the change in policy had made her mad. now apart from the truth expressed in the first sentence of this paragraph, that sort of reaction makes somewhere between zero and little sense to me. i mean they're krispy kreme's donuts and what they choose to do with them is entirely up to them. on top of that, if you're going to krispy kreme, odds are you're leaving with donuts whether they give you a free one or not. so you don't get a free one, maybe that's the kind of thing that warrants an "aw, nuts" and maybe a very slight wave of temporary disappointment, but not for this lady i don't guess, she was mad.

unfortunately for her, they also showed a picture of her in the article.

feeling: patient
thinking of: what to wear
music: "no me se rajar" vicente fernandez