- I had an epic post about baseball that was eaten when my laptop fried out a memory chip on Sunday night, but the gist was: no matter how far removed we get from that mid-90s version of it, when I think of the Braves' starting rotation, I still think Smoltz Glavine Maddux Millwood; filled out the last page in my scorebook a few weeks ago, am glad for cleanliness and sturdiness of new one, miss the history of seven years' baseball attendance from the old one (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT SHORTSTOPS FROM CLEMSON ARE CAPABLE OF IF I CAN'T SEE THAT THEY WENT 2 FOR 14, REACHED ON TWO ERRORS, AND SCORED ON A BALK AGAINST CAROLINA THIS YEAR >:(); growing fonder by the day of Orioles' first round draft pick (and now Rookie League pitcher) Matt Hobgood (he signed so early because he just wants to play baseball, he didn't care about the extra million! he has braces! he's so young his mama had to co-sign his contract! *heart hands*). Also, loving Brad Bergesen's pitching for the O's these days but not wild about our total inability to hold a lead after a lights-out 8IP performance from a good young starter. My baseball team is bad and I suspect they feel very bad about it. They better. I feel bad about them.
- I also now have a job. I will be working in a field office of a much-maligned branch of the federal government starting on Monday, and I'll be there for at least two years (my probation period), and probably longer. After two years of grad school and two years of contract employment and working from home, I am absolutely excited to have a computer and a desk and an 8 to 5 cube. Sure, I'll miss the CSI re-runs, but I've seen most of them by this point. Some stability and normalcy in my life will not go amiss. Also the ability to pay bills and get federal holidays off and have health insurance, awesome. And that is the last time that I will discuss my new job in public. But know that I'm excited about it!
- My brain is basically devoted full-time these days to the following: baseball, mostly minor league; live music and our local scene; cooking; reading everything in the known universe; Texts from Last Night; reading blogs about photography and coveting Pentax K1000's and Holgas and the new Olympus EP-1's and the Nikon E-series 100mm/f2.8 lens. If any of you have any of those camera things hanging around your house, and you're not using them (and frankly, if you have gotten your hands on an EP-1 and you're not using it, what the fuck are you, a flaming moron?), please send them to me. I would take very good care of them.
- I'm vaguely irritated by the Cobra Starship tour dates, because Charlotte is a Sunday and the closest other date is Richmond on a Tuesday, and as we all know, these days I only drive through Richmond to spit on the place on the way to somewhere more awesome. There are bands I'd go to Richmond for, at the right venue, but Cobra is not one of them. (Said bands: Okkervil River if there wasn't a closer date; the Avett Brothers but only at the National and only if there wasn't a better option here; Mason Jennings headlining the National. That's about it. Maybe the Truckers with a really good supporting line-up and no Triangle dates.) Richmond is bad and should feel bad for always being mean to us. But, you know, I haven't been to a bandom-bands show since Cobra last fall, so it's not like I appear to be invested or anything. I'm excited about the Cobras' new album, though, and I wish they'd just realize that there's more to the NC than Charlotte; there's a day off between Charlotte and Richmond, they could play the fucking Lincoln once in a while. Jeez, Gabe.
- Other albums coming out in the second half of the year that I'm excited about: the new Wye Oak; the new Bombadil; the new Megafaun; the new Avett Brothers (holy crap I am excited about that one); the final New West album of the Truckers' contract, the b-sides and outtakes one; the new AA Bondy. I would be excited about the new-new Truckers and the new Josh Ritter but we're not getting those until next year. And there are some local bands who either need to put out their new albums or just fucking give me all the rough cuts of what they've recorded so far to tide me over before I go to their houses and punch them in the kidneys.
- I have finally seen enough movies in the theater this year that I contemplated starting a list in my journal, like I've kept other years, but then I remembered that seeing Star Trek three times and Up twice doesn't actually mean I've seen 7 movies in the theater. I've just seen four (those two, plus Watchmen and the Brothers Bloom) ... multiple times. And frankly the rest of the year will probably just be me seeing the Harry Potter movie over and over again, and maybe Star Trek one more time, so a list is still sort of unnecessary. I used to see a lot of movies, and now that money gets spent on concert tickets and PBR.
That's all I got. Time to go to the library and do laundry and enjoy the penultimate day of my unemployment. How are you guys?