Corey sent me online to search for info about a hip-hop show he thought he had heard about going on tonight somewhere in the area. While I haven't found anything remotely close to resembling a hip-hop show, I did find some interesting stuff on Pollstar. It appears that Tegan and Sara are opening for Ben Folds in the show at Lawrence on April 8. Also according to Pollstar, The Toasters are playing Skappleton on May 17th & 18th. And everybody's favorite Twin Cities standard G.B. Leighton is playing at Mill Creek Blues September 20. I'm sure nobody can wait for that one.

I hate having to do this, but I guess I need to apologize for the huge lack of posts in recent weeks. I guess it seems like I'm not posting when in comparison with the preceding several months, but now that I have a job of some sort, I just don't find the same amount of time to go online and write.

Tonight at work, Team RamRod beat the shit out of The Rainbo's [sic]. We had to attend some stupid meeting/training session tonight. Only four people showed up for tonight's session (there's a second one in the morning for those who didn't come tonight), and two of us (Jen and I) were already there working. The other two (Corey and Amy) came just for the meeting. We were divided into two teams (Corey and I versus Jen and Amy) for some sort of icebreaking competitions. Corey and I were Team RamRod (we decided to spell it as one word, but with two capital r's), and we kicked some serious ass. Mostly because I don't know how to shut up. That was pretty much the excitement of the day.

Matt and Carrie left this morning for San Francisco and won't be back until Monday night, so I guess they won't be around to hang out and party this weekend. Eh, I'm low on cash again anyway. Can't wait to get paid on Tuesday again.

Remind me to blow up my website. This layout is so-so, but overall it simultaneously sucks and blows.

P.S. My liver is getting lazy.

Why do bars have to close at 2:30? I sure as hell aren't done drinking. Hell, I have a whisky and Coke sitting next to me right now. I could go for another beer (or ten). I like drinking. It's expensive, but fun. And relaxing. It's who I am. Shit, I'm not going to lie - I like to drink. Give me a fucking beer man, I'm not going to kill anyone. Yeah.

Sorry everyone - it seems lately I've been spending too much time drinking and not enough time writing. At least you know where my priorities are. After having worked this shitty job for a month (but at least I now have a job) I've quickly realized that my life is going nowhere fast at the moment. A beer or six is helping me cope with the situation. It's an unhealthy and expensive solution to my problems, but at least I quit smoking, right? Fucking a', I could go for a beer right now.

I've been so caught up in work and everything else that I completely forgot that Oscar nominations came out today! How could I have forgotten that?!

So what do I think? Truthfully, I don't think there are that many surprises. I've only seen two of the Best Picture noms so far because neither The Hours nor The Pianist has opened here yet, despite the fact that Hollywood has been showing the trailers for them, and I could care less about TLOTR:TTT.

Oops... I hadn't looked too closely. I see now that Richard Gere wasn't nominated for Chicago. I've never liked Richard Gere before, but I thought that, despite the beauty of the two leading women, he was about the only reason the movie was worth seeing. I see Reilly, Zellweger, Latifah, and Zeta-Jones were all nominated, but the only one who really made the movie missed out. Of course, he did have stiff competition. Cage, Day-Lewis, and Nicholson were all great also. Once again, I haven't been able to see The Pianist or The Quiet American yet, but I will.

I see also that Meryl Streep was nominated for Adaptation, but not for The Hours. On the other hand, Julianne Moore (who is lovely and a great actress, but always plays characters I can't fucking stand) is nominated for both Far from Heaven (which also hasn't played here yet, damn it!) and The Hours. Should I be surprised that Adaptation got as many acting nominations total as The Hours?

And how about Best Director? I bet most people thought Peter Jackson was a lock for a nomination, but instead he loses out to Almodovar (who, I don't care what people say, I can't fucking stand him or his stupid movies) and Polanski. Don't get me wrong, I like Polanski, but I'm surprised voters went for him over Jackson.

I'm sort of disappointed that Catch Me If You Can received only two nominations (Christopher Walken for Best Supporting Actor and John Williams for Best Original Score), because I still insist that's the best movie that came out last year (that I've seen).

Wow, Frida picked up a lot of nominations. Didn't get to see that one either. I don't remember whether it played here or not. If it did, it was for about a week and then it disappeared. This town sucks.

Trashing Almodovar again, why did Talk to Her get more noms than Y Tu Mama Tambien?

About Schmidt wins Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes but can't even get nominated for an Oscar?

The Man without a Past is stuck hoping for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, yet Talk to Her gets a couple other noms? Man, I hate Almodovar.

I thought the cinematography in Chicago was horrendous. How the hell did it get a nomination? Ah, Conrad Hall will probably win in some sort of posthumous tribute anyway.

What d'ya know? Five period pieces hog the nominations for Best Costume Design.

As per usual, a couple really shitty films get to vie for the chance to slap "Academy Award Winner" stickers on their boxes. This year The Time Machine is nominated for Achievement in Makeup, while Episode II is up for Visual Effects.

I guess they'll take any nominations they can get, but I don't remember sound being the high point for Road to Perdition.

Now that I think about it, how does TLOTR:TTT get nominated for Best Picture on the power of 5 other nominations all basically in technical categories? Shouldn't that spot have maybe gone to Far from Heaven or About Schmidt or Adaptation or even better yet, Catch Me if You Can?

Well, I've said more than enough on this subject.

Hello everyone. I see the days are passing quickly since my last entry. 2 weeks. Must be some sort of personal record. It's not that I'm bored with this or anything, but rather that I've just been busy. Yeah, me, busy. Today and tomorrow are my days off from work so I can actually do something. Of the three weeks I've worked for Northwest, I've gotten overtime for two of them. This week was helped by the 20+ hour day I put in last Sunday. Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining about the hours. In fact, I need to take advantage while I can. At the moment they're still short-handed, so I can work these sorts of hours. Once they get all the new people started, I'll be limited to only about 20 hours a week, because that's all they'll give part-timers. I wanted (and still want) to be full time, but I have to wait for an opening, which means either the company has to decide to take on yet another full-timer or one of the current ones has to quit. I don't know how this one lady who hasn't even started yet got hired for full time over me, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Okay, so away from work now. I have two days to think about something else. Well, sort of - I have to be to work at 5:30 Sunday morning again. I don't mind working on a Sunday, but this 5:30 in the morning shit is really chapping my hide. I don't really have a Saturday night then, because I have to get up so early Sunday morning. I'd rather work Saturday night and have Sunday off or work Sunday night, but noooooo, that's not how Harry schedules me. In fact, he scheduled Max (the only other new guy to have started so far) and I to open on Sunday. Just the two of us. That's a problem. You see, neither of us is trained yet on counter. Sure, we can go put potable water in the plane and hook the gpu to get it all nice and toasty inside, but neither one of us can check people in to get on the planes. At least it's only for a half hour. Even so, people are usually there waiting already on a Sunday morning when we show up at 5:30, so we'll see.

Wait! I was going to quit talking about work. Okay, so Chicago finally opens today locally, so I'm going to go see that this afternoon. 25th Hour also finally opens today locally. I don't know if I'll go see that today or if I'll wait until early next week.