Obey Your Inner Douche

Tanya and I went to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit at the ICA last night, because Thursdays are free there, and because now when someone asks me if I’ve been to the exhibit, which happens every time I wear Obey clothing, I can say, “yes.” We didn’t stay long. It was filled with hipsters, as expected, and filled with people who love to hear themselves expound on art, like all art exhibits. Plus, Tanya was tired. I kind of want to go back before it’s over August 16th, and kind of don’t maybe ever want to go back there ever again.

In stark opposition to seeing art, we started off the evening by going to the Atlantic Beer Garden. We’re sorry. We didn’t know what we were doing, and it’s close to the ICA. It’s the worst place I’ve been to in Boston in a long time. It’s worse than the awful new House of Blues and it’s worse than going to Tavern in the Square when it’s full of assholes, which is often.

The non-descript shithole looks like almost any boring franchise restaurant would look like if you stripped it of whatever gimmick they used to cover the walls and put up boring Boston sports pictures instead. The place is covered in flat screen TVs, which was a nice diversion to draw the eye away from the teeming hordes of post-work douchey blue shirts and their female cohorts. Luckily, there is a deck out on the watah and a roof deck, too (wicked awesome), so most people flock there. Those who weren’t coming from nearby work were of the typical trashy South Boston stripe, something one can never totally scour away from any part of South Boston, even a part that is newer and mostly businesses and diversions.

We sat at a table away from the crowd, but a depressing cluster of women sat at the table next to us, the kind of women who seem to take style tips from Chelsea Clinton and who are far less attractive, the type of women you hope will always be alone, but you know that won’t be the case, because there are equally awful and boring men out there.

The menu is underwhelming, as is the beer selection, which is kind of odd for a place that calls itself a beer garden. The whole place is about as interesting as its name. I mean, it’s out on the Atlantic, they sell beer, and, well there’s no garden, but two out of three ain’t bad, although everything about the experience was.

Chez Nous

So, Skaht and I finally found a new apartment. I estimate that we probably saw at least 20 places before we settled on this one. It feels good to know that we don’t have to search anymore.

Apartment hunting was a soul-sucking and angst-ridden activity that left me with an even worse distaste for real estate brokers (I already damned them all to Hell the last time I had to move.) Skaht and I agree that you have to be a complete asshole to want to be one of these people. A slimy, sleazy piece of crap.

Oh yeah, and most landlords suck too.

Searching for an apartment right now is difficult. Rents have gone up and apartment quality has gone way, way down. We’re talking major fire-trap, hasn’t been maintained in about 25 years bad. And the owners of those shit holes wanted way more than we pay for an ill maintained 1 bedroom right now.

Besides the inflated rents and shitty apartments, we were inconvenienced by the larger number of renters out there who were also looking. Since mortgages are more difficult to attain lately, a lot of people who would buy are renting instead. So we had to deal with the fact that if we found a place, we would have to make a quick decision about whether we should take it. On more than a few occasions, apartments that we were inquiring about were snatched up during the day before we could even leave work to view them.

I felt like I was going to crack after a while. One thing I learned from this process is that I need to learn more about patience from Skaht, because he kept us both sane during our search. He also stopped me from making a big mistake on a one bedroom in Davis Square that would have cost us the dreaded “Finder’s Fee” (even though I “found” the place on Craigslist…but, whatever.)

Anyway, this new place is a two bedroom, so it has a lot of space. The kitchen is all renovated with stainless steel and granite countertops. The bathroom was recently remodeled as well. The owner will accept Monkey, so at least we don’t have to put him in the dumpster on moving day (although we always could change our minds.)

I’m looking forward to living in a place that is somewhat new and nice. Hopefully we can get movers who will move us this weekend. Yay.

FYBB

What’s up dudes and dudettes? One day I’m going to get back on this blog furreal.

So, Tanya and I got engaged (marriage slated for 5/02/2010), we’re being forced to move into a new apartment, blah blah blah, we’re old and skipped two shows for which we’d already purchased tickets, etc.

But, really, all I wanted to say was that I’ve been checking a lot of old hip hop and also my white suburb-raised mind has been thinking about the shit I used to watch on TV, so the confluence means just about every day I have Fresh Young Balki B pop up in my mind at least once and through the magic of YouTube and poor-quality video, you can suffer with me.

Still alive. Really!

Even though our lack of blog writing might lead one to believe that we are either dead or missing, fear not! Skaht and I are still here and doing well.

Monkey is doing well too, especially in the growing cat department. Only thing is, he’s already an adult so he’s not growing up any longer – just growing out, if you know what I mean (fatass.) Looks like we’ll have to reduce his food intake again which sucks because he will freak out and then I’ll feel like a horrible mommy. Oh well, it’s better to have a healthy cat making me feel guilty rather than a fat cat who will devastate me when his life is cut short by diabetes.

Let’s see, what have we been doing? We went to Florida and I got to meet Skaht’s parents and grandma. That was fun. We celebrated Surprise Day on February 10 (I’ll post Surprise Day gift photos soon) and Valentine’s Day. We did a lot of eating and hating on things, so that’s always fun too. We also came up with some new screenplay ideas involving Monkey which we still need to post one of these days. You’ll like those.

Our birthdays are coming up in March, so that should be interesting. We’ve got tickets to see The National and Morrissey and we are getting tickets for Mogwai/Twilight Sad in May and Depeche Mode in July. Besides that, there’s a slight possibility of a trip to Iceland, provided that we get our passports updated and that I still have a job in a few months (you never know.)

Sorry that this status report post is so damn boring. It’s like something I’d write for a manager. Sooner or later, one of us will return to this blog and write a post that is actually worth reading…if anyone reads this anymore. You do, right?

Here We Go!

You probably know some people who feel compelled to chime in about everything. Those people suck. They suck! It’s going on right now. Someone with no love for sports, and no place in her heart for the beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, is talking about her plans for the Super Bowl, a game in which she has no interest. She’s interested in watching the commercials. Super Bowl commercials are a scam. They cost a shitload of money and corporations have built an audience of retards who actually get interested in them. Do you know why they suck? Because they’re commercials. If you like commercials, you probably suck, too.

So, anyway, the Steelers are going to slam the Cardinals. I’m not superstitious, so I have no qualms about making that call right now.

I should have gone to the Burgh, but my schedule didn’t really permit it. Tanya and I are off to Florida at the tail end of next week to go see my parents for a minute.

Go Steelers!

My inbox has been flooded with all things Steelers all week, and I don’t feel like picking and choosing from all of it, so instead I’ll leave you with this reminder that sometimes a sore loser can also be a fat and pathetic one. Props to New York women who seem to have the strength to deal with giant babies like this and tell them what time it is. I know this video has been everywhere.



Okay, not all commercials suck.

“You’re going to love my nuts.”

Life Right Now

I am officially sick of winter and I have a cold. It’s one of those “gotcha!” colds. A “gotcha!” cold is a cold that seems to completely go away after you’ve had it for a couple of days – only to come back with a vengeance when you least expect it to. I started feeling the symptoms of the cold back on Sunday, but on Tuesday it was pretty much gone and I was happy while I danced around Skaht, praising the curative effects of maximum doses of vitamin C. Then, all of a sudden, Wednesday morning rolls around and I woke up feeling like Monkey had run a cat-sized truck back and forth over my face as I slept. Last night was worse and I ended up not getting any sleep due to multiple coughing fits. Thankfully, Skaht slept okay through all of that fun.

Our dance class was cancelled last night since the weather was so bad (rain/snow storm.) In a way, I was good with that since I felt like crap. I’m excited to get back to class next week though because we will be learning the Waltz. We just wrapped up the Foxtrot and Skaht and I have been practicing here and there, so we are improving. After next week’s class, we’re off to Tampa where I’ll get to meet Mr.and Mrs. Sand and be happy that we are somewhere where it’s not 20 degrees out.

Oh, my inner dork has resurfaced and I decided to download a free 10 day trial of the latest Warcraft expansion called “Wrath of the Lich King.” It’s actually pretty awesome because there is a whole new class to play with called the Death Knights. You start off as a level 55 character and you get to chill with the Lich King who gives you some pretty bad-ass quests. The game play experience is really dark and you get to raid a village and kill people while they plead for their lives (that's actually a little difficult psychologically at times.) After you get to around level 58, the special Lich King sequence ends and you go back to the original Warcraft game in Ogrimmar. I’m at that point now and I’m starting to get bored, since I’ve already completed all of those quests with my old character. However, I might keep up with it because my Death Knight is totally pimped out and she can make corpses explode.

Um.