Halftime of the NCSU/Cincinnati game. We're ahead. Costner is playing well, thank God. Figured I'd kill time by blogging.

Well, I fucking did it... I quit smoking. 5 days in, anyway. I guess I don't really get to say I quit until it's been months or something, but I'm over the 3-day hump, and I'm not really thinking about them that much now. It was SO bad for the first few days, because I seriously craved one about every 3 minutes.

The words of Bill Hicks took on new wisdom this week:
"It is hard to quit smoking. Every one of them looks pretty good to me right now. Every cigarette looks like it was made by God, rolled by Jesus and lightly moistened shut with Claudia Schiffer's pussy lips right now."

Kinda crude, but also true. I actually READ the word "cigarettes" in a book I was reading, and it made me salivate and taste tobacco smoke. I tried not to go out at all, but I had to go up to a Rite-Aid at one point, and I smelled someone's burning cig ... I almost mugged them for it.

See, this is why I don't do coke or anything like that. 'Cause I know what it feels like to be hooked on something. And yo... it sucks.

You never get over an addiction, either. I smoked for a few years, stopped for two, and then earlier this year picked them up again. Not only did my addiction re-activate as soon as I had smoked just one, it was stronger and harder to satisfy than ever before. I had smoked a half a pack a day in those earlier years, this semester I've been smoking a pack a day plus.

"Gee, Heath, why don't you blog some more about your cigarette addiction? We are all fascinated!" Thank you, I will. I did some calculations and realized that at 4.50 a pack, a 30 day month was costing me $135 if I didn't go over a whole pack (as I often did) and fucking 1,642.50 a year. My first thought upon discovering this was: holy shit, I could have had an XBox360, or a girlfriend! OR BOTH! Perish the thought.

I feel like I'm talking about cigarettes way too much, and it's making me salivate a little bit, so I should move on. But I can't really talk about what I really want to talk about. So instead I'll bitch about something else.

It's driving me crazy to be up at my dad's house. I love the guy, a lot, but in some ways we just aren't compatible. I get on his nerves, and he gets on my nerves. There doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground there. There are a few activities we can enjoy together, but not a whole lot. I feel like while I'm up here, I do most of the same shit I do in Raleigh -- sit on the couch, mess around on the Internet, play Wii, procrastinate on my writing, and read. I'd much rather be doing this in Raleigh right now, to be perfectly honest. I guess coming up here helped me quit smoking, but now... I'm like... another week of this? REALLY? Damn.

According to Fox Sports, there's nothing better than free food and candy during Christmas. That reminds me that I've been eating for free up here at my dad's, as well as eating a lot of candy. That's definitely a bonus. BUT DUDES. I have eaten more in the last five days than I probably ate in the two weeks prior. No exaggeration. I always heard you gained weight when you quit smoking, but damn. Something in my body is ballin out of control right now. I've tried to counteract the appetite by doing sets of crunches and pushups every day, which I havent done in like a year. I used to be pretty good about that, but then I just kinda let everything go to shit.

Wow this is a fascinating blog, so much so it would really be a disservice to my readership to end it here. I can picture everyone reading this rapt with attention, just going, "WHAT NEXT??" But I'm afraid I must break all of your hearts and end it here. Sorry.
(Sarcasm, btw.)

Holla.

The best moment in music occurs during the Mono Puff song "Creepy," about two minutes in. After singing "Creepy" over and over, the singer says very earnestly: "This song is called 'Creepy!'"

OK, maybe that's not the best moment in music, but it struck me as really funny this morning. I am easily amused.

I'm seeing Ween again next month. This makes 3 Ween shows in 2 years. I'd say that's a pretty good track record. They were good when we saw them in Raleigh last year, and MIND-BLOWINGLY AWESOME in Asheville earlier this year. From what I understand, the band was going through some tumultuous shit during the time of the Raleigh show... so that probably explains why they were less-than-perfect that time.

Any band that formed during middle school writing songs like "I Got a Weasel" and "You Fucked Up" that is still recording like 20 years later and is better than ever gets mad respect from me. Unfortunately, the only band that has cleared that particular bar is Ween. The new album is awesome, I'm looking forward to hearing how all that material sounds live. And my tickets are in the "loge," which is in the balcony section (lame) but at least it's at the front of the balcony (holla.) In Asheville earlier this year we were like 5 feet from the stage, and got caught up in some crazy crowd shenanigans. I'll never forget the sight of 100 hippie chicks climbing up on stage to shake it to "LMLYP," to the point that you couldn't even see the band playing behind them, the one dude that tried to stage dive that nobody caught, or the guy that was obviously tripping who got up on stage and did some weird chicken dance only to be thrown into the crowd by a 60-year-old security guard.

So, I'm done with my finals and stuff. I didn't really have many. I don't think I'll get a semester this easy in graduate school again, but I'm cool wit'it. Still don't know what my grades were, but two of my three classes were pass/fail, and I'm sure I passed those two. I'll get in an A in Shakespeare if my final paper was okay, but I have some questions about that. I was kind of super-distracted while writing that, but it's my own fault. It seems like distractions magically come up when final papers are due.

Next semester: Kafka & Mann (awesome), D.H. Lawrence (holla), and Advanced Technical Writing (fuuuuck.) It should be cool anyway. Halpern teaching D.H. Lawrence should be a serious trip. I'm also signed up for Victorian Novel, but planning on dropping that one like it's hot.

Thanks to the dude that commented on the below post. My first comment! I'm hitting the big time now. Look out, world!

I'm quitting smoking in just a few days. It is scaring the shit out of me. I'm starting to wonder if being at my dad's house is the best place to do that. But it's better than being here and being a dick to my friends.

Life is weird. I don't have much more to say about this topic beyond that. It's weird.

This is the most disjointed blog post ever, but I guess that fits with my steeeez. I can't believe I just said steez. I'm such a gangsta. After all, I'm the one that wrote the famed British bounty hunter verses on the single "Chardasaurus Rex," which is SO hot in the streets right now. I heard it on a DJ Clue mixtape the other day, boomin out some dude's jeep.

I will end this post with a brief anecdote. I was driving my 82-year-old godfather to Cup a Joe yesterday in his minivan, which I do not have good control over. He wanted me to park on the street right by the place so he wouldn't have to walk far -- dude is pretty feeble these days. I guess I cut it a little too close to the curb, because he shouted, "Shit, man, you almost hit that muthafuckin' pole!!"
I love that guy.

It Makes You Feel Human Again

I said in an earlier post that I really don't get advertising. Now I'm starting to suspect ad companies are just trying to fuck with us.

Richard and I were watching TV tonight, chillin, eating some cashews, saying word. We had just been laughing about this commercial where bedsprings seem to be stalking a mattress salesman. And then we apparently entered some alternate dimension.

The commercial immediately following that one started out normally enough. It was about one of those automated Shiatsu massage thingies that you try out for free in Sharper Image stores but never actually purchase. The ad went through the various benefits of buying one, noting that they work on the neck, back AND shoulders!! It was looking pretty good and the commercial was going smoothly.

BUT THEN THIS GUY. This dude sitting in the chair getting a massage from this robotic creation is finally massaged to his satisfaction and stands up and says.... "It makes you feel HUMAN again!" Commercial over.

...Just let that soak in for a second. It. Makes. You. Feel. Human. Again.

This raises several problematic questions.
1. Did this advertising company realize that there is a cyborg demographic, or a Pinnochio demographic, that they really need to reach?
2. Are they trying to communicate to broken people who have to stand up twelve hours a day at work and come home sore and tired and have no one to massage their neck, back and shoulders? People who are so worn down by life that they no longer feel a part of humanity?
3. The most pressing question, and one Richard and I speculated on for minutes after seeing this: IS THIS THE ADVERTISING SLOGAN FOR THIS COMPANY??

I think the only logical answer is that advertising companies are run by robots. Robots... selling robots... to robots. Now THAT'S a good slogan.

Basically posting this because I just discovered I can. Pics from my West Coast trip this summer with dad.

Wonder blog powers...... ACTIVATE!

Well, I didn't do shit this week. I was supposed to be working on all sorts of papers, projects, presentations, some other p-word would fit nicely here but I can't think of any. But instead I played Super Mario Galaxy, worked on my MLB Power Pros season, played some internet poker, worked on the novel a bit, watched NCSU's basketball team lose badly to Michigan State (ok Gavin, we've already got 2 of our 4 projected losses, no pressure), found out I got a 98 on my Shakespeare paper/presentation, read Lee's screenplay, saw No Country for Old Men again, and last night watched Taxi Driver for the first time in a couple of years with Anne and Brian and Erik.

I'd call that a good week. Next week, though, is going to suck.

If you haven't seen Taxi Driver, you should see it. It's another one of those pretty-difficult-to-watch-but-has-important-themes movies. I really like those. I think something is wrong with me because of this, but I really prefer fucked-up movies that make me think to happy movies where everything works out.

I hate to admit this because of what a fucked up movie it is, but I went through a phase where I watched that movie like once a week. Don't worry, I wasn't identifying with the psycho stalker main character. But I guess I wanted to understand him. I mean... more than anything, that movie is about loneliness and isolation and alienation (just like basically all the good films of the 1970s are.) As an only child of a single parent and a card carrying member of the I-Got-Beaten-Up-In-Middle-School club, I spent a lot of my life lonely and alienated. So I guess I do identify with that part of it, but whatever. I guess it gives me a little bit of perspective on what it's like to be on that side, but thankfully I never lost my sanity. That's not true of everyone, though. What fascinates me about that movie is how tenuous the balance is for some people. And it's really about what's in your mind. If you believe you're doing the right thing, or that you're justified in doing something horrible, you can do it. I don't think many people say, "Hey, I feel like doing something really horrible today. Let's do this!" Even the worst serial killers had some deep-seeded wound combined with a chemical imbalance that made them feel entitled, or forced, to do awful things to other people.

I guess the thing that really gets me about it is how easily someone could be Travis Bickle without anyone else realizing it. I'm not paranoid and I don't suspect everyone I see of being psychotic, but I do know that there's a basic facade we all carry around during our daily lives, and if you don't look closely you could believe that's exactly how a person is. And again, how we interpret these fronts is all based on what's in our own heads. It's like when Travis basically tries to confess to Peter Boyle's character that he's about to kill someone, without coming out and saying it ("I got a lot of bad ideas", etc) and Boyle just sees it through his own prism and relates it to his own problems. Gives some silly anecdote about being a cabbie and tries to make the point that you are what you do. Kind of like a Hallmark card. And then he just goes, "Get drunk, get laid, do something." But if he'd taken the time to listen a little bit more closely, he could have discovered what was really going on, and prevented a psycho rampage.

When I said what got me about it was how tenuous the balance is, I guess I mean this: there are plenty of lonely, alienated people with "lots of bad ideas." They want someone, anyone, to notice them. When that doesn't happen, they start seeing society as a whole as an opponent. They lump everyone together because they're angry about seeing themselves as alone. They become opposed to everything and everyone. And then they feel completely justified in attacking innocent people, because they're part of that society the crazy person feels wronged by. We see this manifest in school shootings, oppressive/genocidal dictatorships, random serial murders or rapes.

So do your part to stop a genocidal dictatorship before it starts. Talk to people that seem weird. Let them know you're listening to them. It sounds silly as hell, but I really believe a single person can make a difference to another person. What if someone had sat down with Travis Bickle and let him rant about what he went through in Vietnam and the things he hated about New York City and his problems with women and just repeated back everything he said in different words. He'd be like, "well, maybe everyone's not a dick." And then he probably would have reservations about killing people he didn't know. I'm not saying society is to blame for producing this kind of criminal, but I *am* saying we as a society could do a lot more to prevent them. And not by adding even more cops. Sorry, Rudy Giuliani.

I didn't mean to write all of this about Taxi Driver. I guess this makes me seem kind of crazy myself. But it's one of those amazingly-shot and -acted films that stays with me for a while and spurs all kinds of thoughts. And if I can't put those on my own blog, where can I put them?

I'm about to go meet up with my godfather. One of my favorite times of the week. Tonight I am going to destroy all comers in Risk. Hopefully my Diplomacy skills will transfer. Just don't tell any of my Diplomacy buddies I've been playing Risk. ("Dice? HAH!" they will scoff.)

And then I guess I better start working on, y'know, my final papers. I keep hoping they will magically write themselves. I think I'll give them a couple more days to see if that happens.