Lassi covered hills...

...is a Norwegian's dream.

My back is the most sore. It was two short climbs into it that I suddenly knew that getting the old pair of Fischer's out of the garage was a miscalculated idea. It has been too long since Ive used them proficiently, and the slipping slush of melting ice and snow made a hearty combination for soreness two long hours later. I really need to get in shape. Too much eating over the holidays, too little walking outside.

Everyone is talking about Haiti earthquake, it really makes lugging my fat ass around on two flat sticks seem insignificant. There is a benefit concert at the Nomad that I will definitely try to go to next week.

ouch.

-JKG

The V in V-Day...

..stands for Vitriolic.

So I opened my new facebook with an ad kindly reminding me how close I am to valentine's day and how much I need to rack up the points beforehand with my current gf in order to score on V-Day. Sounds like a plot to me. It's all wrapped around this new pukefest of film that Nicholas Sparks squeezed out one spirited afternoon.

I don't have a girlfriend. I have a woman named Krista that I see often, we have sex occasionally, and then we sit around with the TV on doing our own business. We don't date, we don't mess around with other people. Is that a girlfriend? I don't think so...but in February, like an annual rekindling of vows, the guy is supposed to buy some flowers, a dinner, two tickets, and the cycle continues.

Whoop-Dee-effing-Doo!

Screw it, I'm not even going to do anything. I'll conveniently forget it Sunday night and no one will be the wiser. If she makes a peep about what her friends are doing or how much she loves Cafe Maude I'll give her my piece. She'll cry, we'll fight more, and I'll forget about being laid till her birthday in September....

When does that movie come out again?

One short entry...

...of my A-typical mondays

8:33 AM, I set two alarms last night since my weekly prep went late. They conspired and went off at the wrong times. So much for the morning run. Too cold anyway.

11:57 my IT co-workers are annoying, trying to tell me the best beer recipe to use on a lonely Friday night. I started surfing a website devoted to office supply weapons, one of these days they'll push me too far and it'll be war.

1:00pm heard on the news there was a guy in Ely who's trying to capture a teddy plopping a few new ones in her den. I kept a window open of the webcam and couldn't bring up the guts to take it down. Voyeurism seems to know no bounds.

4:47pm It's 5 already? Damn, this hasn't been the most productive day.

6:89 pm Had to trade in a berry skin at Micro Center. Surprised at the shmexy brunette maning the counter. Why? With all these nerds working and shopping. The tech bazaar is a step up from Best Buy, but I have yet to find a customer or employee with the social grace higher than a humboldt squid.

Poor girl...maybe she's horrible in bed, snores alot, or likes anime.

-JKG

Sunday Morning Dim Sum...

...Saturday Night Noodle Soup

It was a quick jaunt to Dinkytown for the traditional cantonese fare. Chicken feet, squid, shumai, taro root, plenty of jasmine tea and conversation all around. I grew up with dim sum being a staple Sunday morning get-together for family and business friends. I'd crawl under the table, pop-up for roast duck or dumplings, and talk with my full-blooded cousins. My sibs were always the odd ones out. As best I recall we usually went to a place named Pearl River near what is now hwy 394 and 100. Today, there are many choices: My Village on University, Mandarin Kitchen in Bloomington, and Pagoda on the U of M(n) campus.

My companions were old college friends. In the golden gopher days I was their May Term leader to China. It was one of the first times I drank heavily overseas; hitting bars and clubs every night with a few asian brothers, sick and sweating in the morning. For the largely americana section of the group whose stomachs didn't acclimate to the spicy Szechuan, I was a total ass. To them my favorite quote was "don't feed the bears", addressing the many vendors on the Great Wall, while hypocritically taking a noontime piss off the northern face.

Yea, that was fun...

One of my favorite directors: Zhang Yimou, has a trailer up for his newest 2009 film, A Simple Noodle Story. Its a retelling of the Coen brothers 1984 thriller Blood Simple. There's no doubt I'll be watching it in theaters if it comes over.

Watch the trailer here (youtube)

-JKG

Happy Year of New-ish-ness...

...to you.

I'm supposed to apologize right now, usually bloggers and self proclaimed journalists hold to the rule of updating early and updating often. With the temps reaching the negatives and the snow and ice piling up on my dead-end street there seems to be little excuse why my motivation to write has dwindled. Perhaps the mess that was the holidays was a deterrent: dad ended up in ICU, sibs fresh from east coast grad school complained of the cold, mother being mother...

After a short fiasco with the family pre-new years eve, I dragged my girlfriend over to St. Anthony Main's Picosa to see an old friend, Doug Little. In high school he used put together jazz groups together, talked about his travels in Cuba and welcomed in various musical aficionados into his lowly uptown crib. I was extremely jealous.

In true depressing Minnesota fashion, He never showed up...I ended up downing a shot Canadian Club and a Jameson and Coke while listening to a second rate latin combo. I spyed a rugged old soul in the corner with a funky looking fedora and plenty of hand bling. He talked with the band post set, I thought I recognized him.

more, later...

-JKG

I'm not a writer…

...so my parent's dog keeps telling me whenever I sit down and try and concentrate on writing. As a husky, he doesn't really bark. It's more like a howl or whine. He claws my elbows while I'm sitting here in my old room, opening the weathered laptop this wet Christmas evening.

It seems many writers tend to label themselves and misanthropes. Rebels who have a cause (which is to have you read them) but don't want to reveal their pathetic desperation. Perhaps I'll just put it out there: I do need to be around people; and, yes, I do need to have someone read this from time to time. It's not that I'm of the mob, carelessly pricking my finger into the pool of Minnesotan socialites. But I don't think I would be sane keeping to myself at all times, snubbing my nose to the dinkytowners, uptowns, downtowners, and the art district commoners…

The pooch is yelping again, I'll be back.

-JKG