"If I Wanted Yesterday's News, I'd Look in My Brain."

Yep, Beck greeted me thusly this morning after I told her that Charlton Heston had died and that Beyonce and Jay-Z had gotten married. Don't blame me, blame a non-refreshed Yahoo-headlines page on her laptop. That said... I give you Yesterday's News! And the day before that, and the day before that.

First, though, a bullet list of miscellaneous thoughts that crossed my mind in the past few. Several are music related. A couple are not.

1. During the opening day Cubs game, Brewers outfielder Corey Hart (wearing his UV-filtering contact lenses during the day so he can so he can see the ball before his eyes) made a nice play down the line in right. The camera lingered on him a bit after the play, and he did something I've never seen on a baseball field before - reached into his back pocket and pulled out a laminated, color-coded sheet. Clearly some kind of scouting report info on the Cubs batters. Why haven't I seen this before? Why don't pitchers carry palm pilots out on the mound and look up the batter's tendencies online? The future is now.
2. I walked into Fry's the other morning very early to get some milk, expecting to hear the usual pop-morass on the overhead speakers. And lo, I was elated: "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by TMBG! In a friggin' grocery store! Awesome. I danced like no one was watching, because no one was; there were approximately 3 people in the grocery store: a cashier, an old lady buying four weeks-worth of groceries, and a Nyet. Sweet! Of course, this was followed up by the sad-sap R&B stylings of a synth-infused no one, so the trend stopped quickly. I then spent 15 minutes waiting for said old lady to finish her checkout, all the while exposed to the more normal top 200 stuff. Sigh.
3. I had GPGDS's Slow Down in the CD player as I left ASU campus on Friday. "Seasons Change," specifically. And there was something very nice about a little indie reggae providing the cruising soundtrack as I rolled through campus. I had a pretty good mood going anyways (see below), but I especially enjoyed the serious happy-times triumphant life-score provided by "Seasons Change" in a place where they rather blatantly don't (unless nice -> hot constitute seasons). So, further props to Jamie et al for providing a solid life soundtrack.
4. While that was great, I did have a better music as soundtrack experience yesterday while walking to work. I was attempting to motivate myself for a full day of tutoring - "here we go, seven hours of SAT, YES!" - when on the iPod comes that familiar Survivor beat. No, not Destiny's Child; rather, the early '80s version that invokes boxing and general riff-driven ass-kicking, aka "Eye of the Tiger." Only something sounds a little funny about the guitar, and it's not until I'm fist pumping and shadow-boxing and the first verse is about to kick in that I realize that this is not Survivor, this is Werid Al, and this is not EoTT, this is "Theme Song to Rocky XIV." Fat and weak, what a disgrace, etc. So I had a good laugh about that one. But again, I was on the Pima path, nary a soul around, so hell yeah I belted out those lyrics. Somebody got a 9:40 AM free show. All praise Weird Al.
5. On a separate trip to the grocery store last week, I saw an older lady drop her bag of groceries. And she exclaimed pissed-offedly, "God F... Bless America." I think, but am not sure, that is the first time I've seen blasphemy and treason committed in the same breath. Props to Scottsdale.

Alright, there were other things, but I'm sure I'll think of them later. Friday, as mentioned, I had an appointment with Drs. Robert (crushingly, I just learned that this is pronounced "Reaux-bear," which makes a lot of sense given his Canadian origin. So alas, a lifetime of Beatles jokes just died right there) and Maienschein down at ASU. And we had a fantastic meeting, setting up courses to look at for this fall and people to talk to re: research projects. Just awesome to be speaking with people and not have the conversation revolve around what "unique" means or why 4 divided by 2 is not, actually, negative two (and yes, those are two real conversations I had this week at work. God F... Bless the future of America). Seriously, though, talked about a seemingly infinite gamut of topics and projects and potential directions. Great stuff - it sounds like it will be very easy to mix and match coursework in everything from neurosciences to media studies to journalism to philosophy to etc. - YAH! I get that deep-welled since of "SWEET, FINALLY!" just thinking about it. Great feelings, life-direction-wise, after quite a while of wheel spinning. And after feelings of pressure crept up, I reminded myself: I smoked my med school courses, and that was with a fair degree of anti-motivation. I am, in a true sense and not the usual "good things to say in interviews" fodder sense, looking forward to seeing what I can do when properly motivated. We shall see.

So that's more than enough self-indulgent yeah-Nyet talk for today. But suffice it: am pumped. Might even start working on some projects this summer. Here's to real life, started at age 30.5. Of course, contingent upon whatever I mean by "real."

So the rest of Friday was spent serenading the neighbors with electric guitar and rolling into work for a a few hours of tutelage. And then I drafted yet another fantasy baseball team for a somewhat ridiculous league in which the only stats that matter are HRs and Ws. No, I will not post my team; instead I will laugh at buddy Neil for auto-drafting and grabbing Ichiro and a slew of closers. Good luck with that, homes. (Neil, incidentally, is kicking in Japan these days. Use that info as you will). Beck and I made an evening of margaritas and Risk (in which she kicked my ass soundly - the the atrocities committed by the pink armies storming Western Africa will be forgotten in the annals of history as there were NO SURVIVORS for my side. Yikes. I smell a revisionist history as written by the Iron Fist in the near future). Beck deserves special congratulations - and not just for the Risk-smacking - essentially for the first time since she started working, she was thrown to the veterinary wolves, left in the clinic by herself without other doctors in a coincidentally extraordinary busy time. And she performed swimmingly and made mad cash. Diagnosed kitties and pups and saved many lives. Great work, Dr. Fe-Fist. :)

Sometime Saturday I was strangely inspired by the nice weather and texted Dan - we arranged some HOME RUN DERBY for the afternoon at the gargantuan ballpark near our house, known in these parts as the "Little Miss Scottsdale Softball Park for Grades K-9."So after work, Dan came over and we displayed our prowess, launching many balls well past the 140 foot foul poles. As you can guess, HELLA fun but made us feel manly in exactly no way. Beck hit, too, and in her first set of swings crushed the ball. We won't mention the second set here.

Dan had dinner plans with Wren & Tim, so we stayed local and headed to a film. On Tufts-bud Andy's rec, we went to see "The Bank Job," which was quite good - nice, tense action/heisty film which struck a nice balance of humor and complex crime plot. Not going to win an Oscar or anything, but definitely in the 70-75 range for very good film - I recommend it, too. The Beck and I followed up our movie with a nice quick dinner at Oregano's (featuring an Award-Winning Weirdest Waitress Rocking a Pseudo-Britney Look) (who failed the "Bring Beer Within 20 minutes" test) and came back to watch a better-than terrible SNL hosted by Christopher Walken. So I'll hold off the Sunday news and just let you feast on the late night skit of "Googley Eyes Gardener" which just seems like some sort of "let's see if Walken can pull this off" type bet. And he did: