All’s well on A Mountain
Well, the A is still safe — and gold.
And now that I've walked home and entered Hour 22 of awakeness the tiredness is starting to set in. (I only dozed off briefly a few times between 2 and 3 a.m. while some freshmen from the marching band were definitely holding down the fort.) But I learned some valuable things overnight:
• They really do work on the Centerpoint condo towers all night long.
• You can miss a lot of rain by getting a good night's sleep.
• I'm still young enough to sleep on the ground.
• Posh Spice is one crazy monster-truck driver.
• Peeing outside is still one of my favorite things.
Yeah. It was a good night. Thanks to everyone who came to visit (Abbie, Craig, Rob and Jenn) and GO DEVILS!
It’s sprinklin again
It's raining for the third time tonight, but luckily that seems to have kept the temperatures up.I’m guarding the A
Haven't met any Wildcats yet, but some hikers have been finding cans of red spray paint around...I see you, baby…
Tonight, it was good to see (almost) everyone at Wesley after having a week away from the usual routine. Also today, I had lunch with AK and bumped into Katy at Wal-Mart. How cool is that?
I hereby decree Nov. 28 National Good-Quote Day
I've been writing down quotes left and right all day long, and since the right sidebar (where the inside jokes live) was already about twice as long as the main column before this post, I'll write them all down here, starting with...
Class quotes
Carly: I fell asleep during that. [By "that," she means Saving Private Ryan.]
Russomanno: The opening?
Carly: Yeah. It was so boring. It was just shooting people.
Russomanno: That's the first time I've ever heard D-Day called boring.
"Act it out." –Ashley's suggestion during a discussion of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction
Russomanno: I'm still all flustered after the offer to act it out.
Ashley: There was no offer.
Russomanno: Oh. That's how I took it.
Overheard on Seventh Street
"Nikki! Nikki!"
"I can't hear you."
"Nikki!"
"I really can't hear you!"
"Nikki! Jack's baby momma! Nikki!"
"What?"
"Nikki! Jack's baby's mom! Jack's baby's momma!"
"Oh, OK."
"Fuck, you're deaf!"
–Chicks on bikes
Wesley quotes
Ross: Maybe you shouldn't be so threatening.
Jenn: Well, I put a smiley face at the end.
Stacey: Tess, how would you feel if we had twin purses?
Tessa: Fine, but I got this like a year and a half ago.
Stacey: Well, how would you feel about giving me your purse?
"I would never light Chris on fire on purpose." –Rob
"I mean, I'm a good girl, but I'm not a good girl." –Erin Lee
"Warren needs to be moved." –Erin Lee
"She probably nagged him into eating the apple." –Warren
"Hey! What's with the chauvinistic high five over there?" –Rob
Warmth impresses me this time of year
Is it just me or was it not cold all day today? I mean, it's plenty cold now, but at lunchtime today, I was feelin' fine-to-almost-warm walking outside in short sleeves.
You know you’re good…
...when you find a way to sing along with a techno song that barely has any words.
My apartment complex turned on the heat!
Good thing too, because I was not looking forward to freezing cold night No. 6.
T-minus one week…
...until literally everything in the world is due. (And I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.)
In the words of the Kenan & Kel theme song, "Awww, here it goes!"
Why do your own homework…
...when you could help grad students with theirs, play The Hat Game, watch Degrassi, and get to throw the football around outside?
Thank U, ‘CLA!
In the words of What's Her Face, "I think I might have a chance with this guy... er, season."I almost forgot…
I found a lizard in my dishawsher tonight... just chillin' in the detergent cuppy part.
Now it's gone, even though (after my second look), I closed and latched the dishawsher.
So that now officially takes the cake as the weirdest thing I've seen this week, but hey, there are still a few more days left for stranger things to happen.
Yay for ‘Black Friday’
Today I gave a whole new meaning to Black Friday since my I slept through all the daylight hours. (My overnight activities wrapped up just before sunrise, and I then slept until just after sunset.)
Days off are beautiful things.
I just slept through all of Friday.
Thanksgiving: Hour 29
That game was ridiculously depressing. More on that later.
But hanging out after the game was good. I mean, come on... We finished off the kugelis leftovers, and kugelis always makes everything all better.
And somehow, 50 billion texted quotes later, we found ourselves awake at 3:30, a mere half hour before Kohl's and JC Penney opened. So we went to Kohl's, didn't buy anything and then went for food at Waffle House.
And now, it is finally time for some long overdue sleep.
Crazy.
I'm doorbusting at Waffle House now!Door busting!
I haven't been to bed yet, so now I'm at Kohl's in Ahwatukee... DOOR BUSTING!!!Happy Thanksgiving!
It's kugelis time! And then it's time for Sun Devil football!
Congregations come together at Thanksgiving service
Tonight I attended Tempe's community interfaith Thanksgiving service for at least the second time since I moved up here to go to school. And let me just tell you what a beautiful picture of the city I live in this service paints each year.
A rabbi sounded the shofar, and there was a reading from the Koran as well as from Deuteronomy and the Psalms.
We sang songs from The United Methodist Hymnal (since the service was hosted at Tempe First this year) and heard a childrens choir sing praise and thanksgiving to Allah, presumably in Arabic. (My ear isn't sophisticated enough to know for sure.)
And clergy and community leaders talked about the real, concrete service that Tempe's communities of faith have banded together to do in the Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging shelter program.
It's nights like these that make me proud to be a Tempean and thankful to be a part of the vibrant and cooperative religious community found in this city. It's also nights like these and that make me wish that there could be even more interfaith gatherings throughout the year.
I did find a bagel, btw
Sorry if the suspense was too much to bear, but this morning, after I got over how frustrated I was that both the MU Einstein's and the Bruegger's on Mill were closed, I walked over to the Einstein's on Rural.
All told, it was a 1.5-mile bagel odyssey, but it had a happy (and toasted) ending.
Too much to ask?
All I want is my Monday morning bagel that I've been missing since the MU fire, but Brueggers is closed 2--
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BCS: Ohio State No. 5, ASU No. 6? Bitch, please!
Give me a break!
The Buckeyes lost at home to an unranked opponent.
We lost to Oregon (with Dixon) in Eugene.
Speaking of Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech…
That was some game, and this sure is one hell of a wacky college-football season!
Only I…
...would use the picture-in-picture function of my TV to watch C-SPAN (Yahoo News' Kevin Sites speaking at USC) and college football (Oklahoma at Texas Tech) at the same time.
I be up in the gym park...
I be up in the gym and lake
I be up in the gym and campus
I be up in the gym and Mill
I be up in the gym and my neighborhood...
just workin' on my fitness
Seeing as how I'm signed up to walk 13.1 miles in the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in less than two months, I decided it'd be a good time to start walking long distances for practice. So this afternoon, I walked 5.818 miles around Tempe.
I also walked over to the apartment complex next to Scales this morning for Sidewalk Sunday School, which was way fun! (I think this is the first time I've ever been... probably since Saturday mornings aren't really my thing. But Sidewalk is worth it.)
In fact, I think I may not use my car or take the bus at all today — unless something cool's going down tonight in a city other than Tempe.
But don't think that I'm doing this because I care about the environment or something. Like Fergie, I just want my body stayin' vicious so I can put them boys on rock, rock. Then they be linin' down the block just to watch what I got. It's fitnesslicious.
So am I the only person on campus
who prefers gold?
‘You knew about Feist, like, months ago!’
Who knew that Anna Quindlen often finds herself ahead of the curve when it comes to her taste in music... or that she hasn't read the Harry Potter books? Well, a contingent of ASU Flinns (plus Dustin from UA) now know these things after the lively and lengthy dinner conversation we had with the Pulitzer-winning reporter, columnist, editor and novelist. Quindlen was on campus this week as the Flinn Foundation Centennial Lecturer.
I also got to sit in on a lunch that Quindlen had with Cronkite School faculty this afternoon, hear her take on journalism and interview her for a short piece in next year's Cronkite Journal.
Add to my two meals with Anna Quindlen the fact that I got a lot of errands and State Press stuff done today and that I capped off the night by hanging out with SP alums at Casey Moore's and it's clear that today was quite a remarkable Friday.
I (still) <3 LA!
As you may have figured out, this weekend I got to go see ASU beat UCLA at the Rose Bowl with Chris, Luke and Barnaby. And we also did some driving around LA, hitting about half of my favorite places in the process, like...
• the stretch of the 110 with the crazy 5-mph exits
• Hollywood Boulevard
• the IHOP on La Cienega and Santa Monica (highly recommended by WeHo cops)
• the site of my parallel parking story a bit farther down Santa Monica Boulevard
• Beverly Hills
• the Mormon temple (which, some Flinns might recall, is not UCLA)
• the intersection of Arizona and Ocean
• and the beach/pier in Santa Monica.
All that was missing was a stop by Diddy Riese (Hey, in my defense, it was crazy cold at night... which makes ice cream a harder sell.) and seeing the sights of South LA.
Anyway, this was quite the weekend because it really reminded me of just how much I love LA... and how much I missed it. Plus, we got to go to a game at the Rose Bowl, and who could forget that Patriot High football game?
But, as usual, most of the things that will be recorded in the annals of time / Brian.Indrelunas.com about this weekend, need little or no context:
The silent look the Jack in the Box lady gave Barnaby to let him know his food was ready and also to avoid trying to say his name
"I suck at sucking." –me
Luke's reaction when Barnaby asked if he had the tickets
the preteen stampede in Blythe
"My brother's the band director." –how Barnaby could get anything he wanted
Chris' fascination with the drum line
my superb choice of a parking spot at the high school
my superb backing-up-and-almost-hitting-a-Jeep skills
Barnaby, when asked by a high school girl what his name was: I'm just gonna make up a name... Barnaby.
high school girl: If that's your real name, then that's really sad.
"One time, Jeremy— I mean, Mr. Fletcher..." –Barnaby
Applebee's 0, Denny's 50
the Italian "restaurant" with blaring music, bouncers and a cover charge
the Mediterranean "restaurant" that was really just a hookah bar
"Bill, cum to my office on Monday..." –"John"
*67 at its finest
Jeremy's breakfast... and Chris counting every bite
"MacGyver's Women"
UCLA fans' odd fascination with counting:
1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... U... C... L... A...
1... 2... 3... movthchns!
"Do you wanna play some basketball?" –Chris' new friend
parking on the golf course
"Welcome to LA." –Barnaby's and/or my response every time we got onto a new freeway and Chris was surprised to find that traffic was at a standstill there too
flip a bitch
"Oh fuck!" (translation: "Chris, the exit for the 110 is right there, and you need to veer off to the right like five yards ago, but maybe you can still make it.") –me
making good use of the oh-shit handles
"That's what she said."
guy on the pier: My name Kevin, and this my amazing balancing show. If you see my show, donation one dollar, OK?
Chris: Someone should just take the bucket: "This is my amazing running show."
the Japanese Beatle
my new life goal / career plan: to be the next Japanese Beatle
Yum Yum Donuts
"Let's count the Denny's." –Luke
"Brian, did you know you have to wake up in ___ hours?" –Barnaby
Chris: You could sleep facing the other way on the couch.
Luke: I shouldn't have to do that; this is America.
24-20 ASU
Yeeeah ASU!btw, I can't wait to see what goes down with the BCS rankings tomorrow...
OSU lost?! Whoa…
And they lost to Illinois?! What a season this has been...Game time!
Go Devils!LA, here I come!
I'm heading out for the game this weekend and might be making an encore appearance later as well...And I’m spent.
After more than 18 hours on the road reporting from San Luis, Sonora, today, I am so tired. But happy. It was a very good trip.
I changed my mind…
I love Mexico now. Today's reporting trip was really productive, really good and really fun.2 nights in a row: in bed before 2
I'm going to bed now. Yes, now... 11:30 on a Saturday night, thanks in part to the Sun Devils' day game and also to the fact that I'm taking off for Mexico at about 6:30 tomorrow morning.
And get this: Last night I was in bed by about 12:30 a.m.
I could get used to this going-to-bed-at-a-decent-hour thing. (No offense, Chris!)
Attention national audience on ESPN:We’re a better team than that… usually.
I really don't know who put up a more disappointing performance tonight: Rudy Carpenter or the team at FSN.
Rudy was obviously not hearing my coaching and quarterbacking tips, even though I could've sworn that I was yelling loud enough to be heard in Eugene. But aside from the part of the blame that I shoulder for not yelling louder, our QB made some really questionable moves tonight. What's more, the whole team played a really sluggish second half, with the exception of the nice 40-something-second scoring drive in the fourth.
But I think that at some points during the game, I was angrier at the crew at FSN for putting on such a crappy telecast. Why, you ask? Well, let's see...
In the first quarter, after Oregon's TD and ASU's subsequent field goal, the score on screen was an overly optimistic 7-7 for a good three to five minutes. And about that time is when the graphics people just gave up on having a game clock on the screen, so for most of the first quarter all we knew was that it was the first quarter. No indication of how much of the first was left... because that's just a vitally important part of football.
Then there was the fact that the close-up shots were hardly ever in focus (which you could really tell if you were watching the game at Sam's house in HD) and the camera operators often didn't even have a play in frame until it was over. And that's not to mention some of the dumb VO commentary.
Making it all worse, of course, was knowing that ESPN was probably doing a bang-up job on the game but blocked from broadcasting it in areas out West where FSN had already planned to air the game.
Anyway, it's a disappointing night for Sun Devil fans, but hey, all is not lost. And as I just pointed out to a certain Sooners fan who felt the need to gloat, at least we lost to a top-ranked team that could go on to the national championship bowl game... and not good ol' unranked CU.
No. 4 vs. No. 5…
OK, Chandler lost 46-0 this weekend, so let's hope my other team can do a hell of a lot better. Go Devils!
What a blast from the… ¡pasado!
Just now, I was flipping through the like 20 channels I get, and I saw Bill Nye the Science Guy... dubbed in Spanish... on Univision!
Unfortunately, all I caught was the end credits, but I also saw a commercial for Univision's Saturday-morning block that not only includes Bill el Científico but also Carmen Sandiego!
Well, I've certainly got a reason to wake up before 10 on Saturdays now, gracias a Canal 33.
Perhaps the ‘Spice World’ screenwriters were psychic…
Let's think for a moment of how much of the fictional plot of Spice World has actually come true, according to bulletins posted to thespicegirls.com:
 | The 'What if we all had kids?' flash-forward sequencePosh and Becks have three boys, of course. Ginger has a daughter, and Scary has two. (Remember the Eddie Murphy baby daddy rumors?) And Baby Spice had a baby of her own this summer... a boy. |
 | Random documentary dudesA film crew is following the girls as they get ready for their live gig at Albert Hall... no, wait, I mean, their reunion tour. Spice Girls: Giving You Everything is slated to air on the BBC. No word yet on whether director Bob Smeaton plans to "break through the showbiz façade... to crash right through it — and reveal the truth." |
 | All the references to the 'breakup of the Spice Girls'Duh. |
 | The bomb on the busWell, let's hope this one doesn't fit the pattern. |
Go Wolves!
I was on campus too late this evening to be able to get down to Chandler for the game, but the Chandler Wolves are taking on the Hamilton Huskies tonight at Hamilton. Go Chandler!
No, seriously…
It's been a little more than an hour and a half since a fire broke out in the Memorial Union, and I still can't focus enough to get any work done.
I just keep thinking about how I wish I worked for still worked for the daily so that I could cover stuff like this or tell reporters in my charge to cover stuff like this.
Spot news is what keeps the blood running through my veins.
I'm beginning to get the sense that special sections, magazine stories and in-depth features are really just things that only tide me over until the next big story breaks. Sadly, though, this semester those things are all I've got, and when spot news happens, all I can do is stay out of the way.
I miss covering spot news.
a late night, but a sweet major one
Tonight was so major. My wife took a break from rehearsals to come into town and join me at a party that I went to after Wesley's Happy Halloween, and we just had a good ol' Beckham time tonight.
There were some tense moments when an American hilbilly (who did, however, have a major mullet, if I do say so myself) got in Victoria's grill and pushed her down at one point. But other than that, Posh and I just spent the night being beautiful and sporty and posing for photos. I've been told many of those will end up on facebook before stats tomorrow, whatever that means. Crazy Americans.
Anyway, it's off to bed now so I don't wake the kids.
xoxo,
Becks
