Ugh, I've been horribly belated with posting on the blog lately. Maybe it's because of the absolute inundation of pop culture in my life recently (VMAs, Emmys, ANTM, Top Chef, Project Runway AND How i met your mother), but I can't seem to focus long enough to choose anything in particular to write about. Additionally, I have been packing, trying to find jobs, and generally stressin' about the Big Move to Chicago, so I've had less focus about the blog on the whole.
I want to point you all in the direction of the Rich Juzwiak's blog fourfour.typepad.com (also in my links list on the right) if you are interested in America's Next Top Model recaps. He's really a pop culture genius when it comes down to it, and the insights he has to relate about a show that sometimes makes me feel like I'm losing brain cells allows me to feel smug, and overall makes me enjoy my reality television watching experience THAT.MUCH.MORE. So, if you need an example of his awesomeness, I've done a little "reblog" as they say of his post about the first episode of this season, in which the contestants were given makeovers (although Tyra dubbed them "Tyovers").
From Four Four:
Oh, but they weren't makeovers, they were "Tyovers," since if there's one thing this show doesn't have enough of, it's Tyra's ego. I am not surprised that she found a way to make other people's changing appearance about her -- the only thing I'm surprised about is that it took her this long to think of what to call it. I wonder if she was inspired by the name change in the same way she was when the name of this show just came to her as she looked out of her window that gentle New York morning so many years ago. I wonder what else that window holds? America's Next Top Tyra? America's Tyra Top Tyra? America's Tyra Tyra Tyra? The possibilities are endless, but more importantly, the possibilities are Tyra.
I hope this tidbit is enough to hold you over for the next week or so. I will try to post again before the big move, but right now my brain is mainly consumed with worrying about the fact that I have too much crap to move it.
Oh, and also: my picks for the reality shows I'm watching--
America's Next Top Model:
Nicole (aka Bloody Eyeball)
Laura (Kentucky light of my life)
Top Chef:
I couldn't really give a fuck, I just hope Ashley the Oberlin Lesbian doesn't get cut too soon.
Project Runway:
Ra'mon (who just got cut) so now, Chris and Epperson.
Models of the Runway:
That irish model, Koji (sp?)
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
robot chicken
I was watching Robot Chicken the other night (oh to return to my adolescent Adult Swim Youth of like...two seconds ago)! Regardless, while I was watching the show I was amazed again at how much I like it--and how little people seem to talk about it. Of course, what is there to say, really? It's an ADD 11 minute show chock full of claymation and pop culture references. The people who make the show clearly are just having fun and producing it as quickly as possible. But what I really think makes the show noteworthy is that it basically is the collective junk pile of nostalgia for our generation. Do you remember transformers? Do you want to see them again in a redone version where they're actually homosexual? Do you like star wars jokes? Have you ever watched nickelodeon? Then Robot Chicken has the satire for you!!
I realize that posting about Robot Chicken is not time sensitive or even particularly relevant. But I believe it is worth taking a moment to think about--if only for the Operatic version of the Star Trek Wrath of Kahn.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
wise decisions and colorful apartments
I don't want to catch any flak for not exactly updating everybody on the whole Move To Chicago portion of S&K so I'm here!
So I drove about 1500 miles total over the last week and a half (10 days to be exact). It was a huge step for me as an American human being. I spent a lot of time thinking Deep Thoughts but also thinking about furniture, so I think it all balanced out to neutral on the Shallow-Not Shallow spectrum.
I don't know if any of you have ever driven a far distance to try to find an apartment in a city you only know moderately well, but it is a bit difficult. I found that the overwhelming number of ads on craigslist that I had to digest was the hardest part; it's like, you have a few criteria, you weed out things based on your maximum rent, and then you find yourself viewing an apartment in real life that is being rehabbed by a shirtless man who is insisting that you call the owner because the realtor you've been dealing with hasn't shown up yet.
So I saw 6 apartments total in the course of 3 days and 3 of them were absolute crap. So I guess I'll just give the run down of the apartment hunting process:
Apartment 1)
In a high-rise building that was nice enough, with the man who lived on site and did all of the management work. He showed me an 1100/month apartment that he had knocked down from 1300/month, and it was the kind of apartment that would have cost about 5000/month in New York. So the apartments in the building were nice but the building itself was essentially a hotel and filled with Loyola students. I picked up some applications but the bottom line, however, is that you really can't go for the first apartment you see...especially when it's more than you were really hoping to pay.
Apartment 2)
Oh god...it was horrible...the kind of thing that would give me nightmares. Its one redeeming quality was that it was on Clark Street in Andersonville, which is a nice street to live on with lots of stuff, including this great bar called the Hopleaf that has tons of fancy pants beers. However, the carpets were blue and horrible (any of you who are reading this from Oberlin, they were exactly like the apartments in East dorm), some aspects of the apartment were being rehabbed, there was little natural light and no windows that looked out on Clark Street. No.
Apartment 3)
This apartment I never went inside. In fact, I never even looked at the right building. I hate to admit this, but I actually had the wrong address. The thing was, when I made the phone call, the woman would not speak clearly to save her life. Part of it was that she had an accent, but for real, I can understand accents--it was just that when I asked her to repeat things she never slowed down the way she was talking, so I ended up writing down the wrong address. Regardless, once I got to the general area in which the apartment building was located, I knew it wasn't right. It was just too far away and everything looked a bit too grim. So, no.
Apartment 4)
Ended up being the first apartment I looked at by myself. The landlord was funny, odd, but nice. Once again I had written down the wrong address (how does that happen so frequently?) so I took the train one stop down and then ended up having to walk to the entire distance back when I realized where the apartment was supposed to be. When I showed up, sweaty and stressed out and severely regretting wearing skinny jeans, the man was like "omg you should have told me I would have picked you up in my car!!" The building had an indoor bike rack and a typical Chicago back courtyard with lots of wooden staircases. Chicago is the city of wood, brick, ivy, and revolving doors, IMO. The apartment itself was wonderful and the right amount of strange: blue, green, and purplish grey walls with the best bathroom I saw in any place. I was sort of in love instantly but only filled out an application and paid for the credit check and agreed to come back the next day.
Apartment 5)
Was across the street from the apartment I had just seen and the entire experience was a debacle. I was dealing with a realtor named Jack who had even called to confirm the time for the viewing an hour beforehand; when I got to the apartment, he was nowhere to be seen and his phone was off (always a bad sign). There was a shirtless man inside the apartment painting the walls and generally looking sweaty. My brother and I debated just leaving; the apartment was on the first floor and had some very robbable windows--besides the fact that the entire place looked like crap because it was being rehabbed. However, when we were in the middle of the decision, the shirtless man came out INSISTING that we call the owners of the building. So, I called them, and the woman who answered was just as confused as I was. She kept insisting her husband, Tony, was supposed to show us the place and that he thought the appointment was tomorrow (NO I'M DEALING WITH A MAN NAMED JACK, i told her over and over) and then proceeded to describe the entire apartment to me in excruciating detail even though I was standing on the front porch and looking at it. Finally, out of the blue, Jack shows up while I'm still on the floor with this woman and I can barely get her off the phone. We look around the place and I find myself saying bull shit things like "wow these are nice windows" because I am painfully aware you couldn't pay me to live in that particular place. What is it about the apartment hunting experience that always reduces me to paying obvious compliments to the owner about the apartment? Like, heaven forbid I don't agree that the windows are nice.
Apartment 6)
The last apartment I was supposed to see was in the morning before returning to the colorful apartment I really liked. Apartment 6 was in Lakeview, a neighborhood that, on the whole, has a bit more going on then Edgewater in terms of the proximity of residences to shops, but the apartment was on the ground floor and yet again I was faced with rob-able windows (robbable? robb-able? likely to be robbed?), so though some tortured decision making in the course of an hour, I went with my gut and got the colorful apartment.
So now it's final--I'm moving to Chicago at the end of the month (leaving NC on the 29/30 most likely) and then my roommate will be coming along in another week. And then the job hunt begins, as does getting to know Chicago as a city-entity.
To top all of this off, I dyed my hair back to my original color (or tried to anyway). It's now brown (was blonde before). For those of you who know me, it is a shocker.
So I drove about 1500 miles total over the last week and a half (10 days to be exact). It was a huge step for me as an American human being. I spent a lot of time thinking Deep Thoughts but also thinking about furniture, so I think it all balanced out to neutral on the Shallow-Not Shallow spectrum.
I don't know if any of you have ever driven a far distance to try to find an apartment in a city you only know moderately well, but it is a bit difficult. I found that the overwhelming number of ads on craigslist that I had to digest was the hardest part; it's like, you have a few criteria, you weed out things based on your maximum rent, and then you find yourself viewing an apartment in real life that is being rehabbed by a shirtless man who is insisting that you call the owner because the realtor you've been dealing with hasn't shown up yet.
So I saw 6 apartments total in the course of 3 days and 3 of them were absolute crap. So I guess I'll just give the run down of the apartment hunting process:
Apartment 1)
In a high-rise building that was nice enough, with the man who lived on site and did all of the management work. He showed me an 1100/month apartment that he had knocked down from 1300/month, and it was the kind of apartment that would have cost about 5000/month in New York. So the apartments in the building were nice but the building itself was essentially a hotel and filled with Loyola students. I picked up some applications but the bottom line, however, is that you really can't go for the first apartment you see...especially when it's more than you were really hoping to pay.
Apartment 2)
Oh god...it was horrible...the kind of thing that would give me nightmares. Its one redeeming quality was that it was on Clark Street in Andersonville, which is a nice street to live on with lots of stuff, including this great bar called the Hopleaf that has tons of fancy pants beers. However, the carpets were blue and horrible (any of you who are reading this from Oberlin, they were exactly like the apartments in East dorm), some aspects of the apartment were being rehabbed, there was little natural light and no windows that looked out on Clark Street. No.
Apartment 3)
This apartment I never went inside. In fact, I never even looked at the right building. I hate to admit this, but I actually had the wrong address. The thing was, when I made the phone call, the woman would not speak clearly to save her life. Part of it was that she had an accent, but for real, I can understand accents--it was just that when I asked her to repeat things she never slowed down the way she was talking, so I ended up writing down the wrong address. Regardless, once I got to the general area in which the apartment building was located, I knew it wasn't right. It was just too far away and everything looked a bit too grim. So, no.
Apartment 4)
Ended up being the first apartment I looked at by myself. The landlord was funny, odd, but nice. Once again I had written down the wrong address (how does that happen so frequently?) so I took the train one stop down and then ended up having to walk to the entire distance back when I realized where the apartment was supposed to be. When I showed up, sweaty and stressed out and severely regretting wearing skinny jeans, the man was like "omg you should have told me I would have picked you up in my car!!" The building had an indoor bike rack and a typical Chicago back courtyard with lots of wooden staircases. Chicago is the city of wood, brick, ivy, and revolving doors, IMO. The apartment itself was wonderful and the right amount of strange: blue, green, and purplish grey walls with the best bathroom I saw in any place. I was sort of in love instantly but only filled out an application and paid for the credit check and agreed to come back the next day.
Apartment 5)
Was across the street from the apartment I had just seen and the entire experience was a debacle. I was dealing with a realtor named Jack who had even called to confirm the time for the viewing an hour beforehand; when I got to the apartment, he was nowhere to be seen and his phone was off (always a bad sign). There was a shirtless man inside the apartment painting the walls and generally looking sweaty. My brother and I debated just leaving; the apartment was on the first floor and had some very robbable windows--besides the fact that the entire place looked like crap because it was being rehabbed. However, when we were in the middle of the decision, the shirtless man came out INSISTING that we call the owners of the building. So, I called them, and the woman who answered was just as confused as I was. She kept insisting her husband, Tony, was supposed to show us the place and that he thought the appointment was tomorrow (NO I'M DEALING WITH A MAN NAMED JACK, i told her over and over) and then proceeded to describe the entire apartment to me in excruciating detail even though I was standing on the front porch and looking at it. Finally, out of the blue, Jack shows up while I'm still on the floor with this woman and I can barely get her off the phone. We look around the place and I find myself saying bull shit things like "wow these are nice windows" because I am painfully aware you couldn't pay me to live in that particular place. What is it about the apartment hunting experience that always reduces me to paying obvious compliments to the owner about the apartment? Like, heaven forbid I don't agree that the windows are nice.
Apartment 6)
The last apartment I was supposed to see was in the morning before returning to the colorful apartment I really liked. Apartment 6 was in Lakeview, a neighborhood that, on the whole, has a bit more going on then Edgewater in terms of the proximity of residences to shops, but the apartment was on the ground floor and yet again I was faced with rob-able windows (robbable? robb-able? likely to be robbed?), so though some tortured decision making in the course of an hour, I went with my gut and got the colorful apartment.
So now it's final--I'm moving to Chicago at the end of the month (leaving NC on the 29/30 most likely) and then my roommate will be coming along in another week. And then the job hunt begins, as does getting to know Chicago as a city-entity.
To top all of this off, I dyed my hair back to my original color (or tried to anyway). It's now brown (was blonde before). For those of you who know me, it is a shocker.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Moving on and Moving Out: The Musical Tribute
What is a road trip without its signifier playlist? I got the idea for this list the other night when I was listening to my New Order compilation...the second song came on (at the time I had no idea what it was called) and I found myself so enraptured that I knew I wanted to make a playlist to go with it. I call this grouping of songs The Reawakening.
It's Over Roy Orbison
Long Forgotten Fairy Tale Magnetic Fields
Feel the Love Cut Copy
Deadbeat Summer Neon Indian
French Navy Camera Obscura
Skinny Love Bon Iver
Evaporar Little Joy
*for the song below, I couldn't find a video of Luna the band actually playing, so instead I found a weird shortened version with Dean Wareham...It's better than nothing I suppose (see the absent Replacements video below for a fully formed sense of disappointment).
Moon Palace Luna
On Call Kings of Leon
*For the life of me I couldn't find this song on youtube--I guess the Replacements were too early for this youtube crap. Either way, I did find a Hole cover. So if you're interested in hearing Courtney Love sing a Replacements song...well, I didn't deign to include it. But now you know the key words for a youtube search.
Unsatisfied The Replacements
Skeletons Yeah Yeah Yeahs
...and the coup de grace....
Dreams Never End New Order
and something else to think about: today I was driving to meet a friend and I was on a very popular street that has lots of crosswalks that aren't at actual intersections. One of the cardinal rules of driving, I have found, is to be decisive--because indecisiveness is often what causes accidents. So if you're going to stop, stop. If you're going to drive, drive. Never decide to stop for a yellow light in the middle of an intersection or momentarily hesitate in taking a left turn that could potentially cut someone off.
Okay, now that I've rationalized my driving philosophy, I can relate the rest of this episode guilt free. Basically, on this pedestrian-heavy street, there are signs at the non-intersection cross walks that say "Yield to Pedestrians--it's state law." So I was driving along, a couple of minutes late, and saw that a girl was beginning to cross the street, but she bailed out. Right before I was at the intersection I realized some other guy I hadn't seen before was beginning to cross the street but I was committed to driving through and I knew I wouldn't hit him so I kept going. He stopped in the middle of the intersection when he realized I wasn't slowing down and yelled out "Hey look at the sign" in a very angry voice. And, forgetting my windows were open and that I was only going about 20 mph, I retaliated with "yeah yeah yeah fuck you." Oh, you think that you're living in the kind and gracious South, but ya ain't.
It's Over Roy Orbison
Long Forgotten Fairy Tale Magnetic Fields
Feel the Love Cut Copy
Deadbeat Summer Neon Indian
French Navy Camera Obscura
Skinny Love Bon Iver
Evaporar Little Joy
*for the song below, I couldn't find a video of Luna the band actually playing, so instead I found a weird shortened version with Dean Wareham...It's better than nothing I suppose (see the absent Replacements video below for a fully formed sense of disappointment).
Moon Palace Luna
On Call Kings of Leon
*For the life of me I couldn't find this song on youtube--I guess the Replacements were too early for this youtube crap. Either way, I did find a Hole cover. So if you're interested in hearing Courtney Love sing a Replacements song...well, I didn't deign to include it. But now you know the key words for a youtube search.
Unsatisfied The Replacements
Skeletons Yeah Yeah Yeahs
...and the coup de grace....
Dreams Never End New Order
and something else to think about: today I was driving to meet a friend and I was on a very popular street that has lots of crosswalks that aren't at actual intersections. One of the cardinal rules of driving, I have found, is to be decisive--because indecisiveness is often what causes accidents. So if you're going to stop, stop. If you're going to drive, drive. Never decide to stop for a yellow light in the middle of an intersection or momentarily hesitate in taking a left turn that could potentially cut someone off.
Okay, now that I've rationalized my driving philosophy, I can relate the rest of this episode guilt free. Basically, on this pedestrian-heavy street, there are signs at the non-intersection cross walks that say "Yield to Pedestrians--it's state law." So I was driving along, a couple of minutes late, and saw that a girl was beginning to cross the street, but she bailed out. Right before I was at the intersection I realized some other guy I hadn't seen before was beginning to cross the street but I was committed to driving through and I knew I wouldn't hit him so I kept going. He stopped in the middle of the intersection when he realized I wasn't slowing down and yelled out "Hey look at the sign" in a very angry voice. And, forgetting my windows were open and that I was only going about 20 mph, I retaliated with "yeah yeah yeah fuck you." Oh, you think that you're living in the kind and gracious South, but ya ain't.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Moving on and moving out
When I started this blog I was imagining something that wasn't explicitly personal. It was definitely not a vision of "Are you there blog? It's me, margaret," but I did think that perhaps from time to time I would have to mention details of my life, if only because one person can only post on a blog so much if life isn't allowed to get in the way.
I'm sticking to my guns in that I'm not going to mention names or put in photographs of myself, but I've decided to start a new segment. As you can read in my blog description, I'm an unemployed college student who isn't satisfied. However, living your life in a constant state of dissatisfaction with EVERYTHING simply isn't sustainable. Sure, I'll never be totally satisfied (which is why you, blog, will always exist), but I still have to takes steps to make sure that I can move forward.
The next step is the Big Move from North Carolina to Chicago with my BFFer from college. I'm driving up north this Thursday to check out apartments and sign leases and do other such "School of Real Life" type things; however, I got to thinking today that maybe I shouldn't leave this out of the blog. Everybody I know from school is adjusting to life after college; why shouldn't my exploits in trying to become a real adult stay hidden away in the non-media-blog portion of my life? The new segment for the blog, therefore, is Moving on and Moving out--anything with this tag will be about trying to make a new life after college.
So I'm starting with a road trip to Oberlin and then to Chicago this Thursday. To give you a visual, I will be driving this map route:
(I also like the fact that this particular map of the United States makes it look like pre-Revolutionary war America)
And looking at craiglist entries along these lines.
(Although with more pictures and more detail than that particular entry. Sorry! I don't want any of you bitches stealing my future home).
Change is in the air...appropos to the 70 degree weather in NC today.
On and Out.
I'm sticking to my guns in that I'm not going to mention names or put in photographs of myself, but I've decided to start a new segment. As you can read in my blog description, I'm an unemployed college student who isn't satisfied. However, living your life in a constant state of dissatisfaction with EVERYTHING simply isn't sustainable. Sure, I'll never be totally satisfied (which is why you, blog, will always exist), but I still have to takes steps to make sure that I can move forward.
The next step is the Big Move from North Carolina to Chicago with my BFFer from college. I'm driving up north this Thursday to check out apartments and sign leases and do other such "School of Real Life" type things; however, I got to thinking today that maybe I shouldn't leave this out of the blog. Everybody I know from school is adjusting to life after college; why shouldn't my exploits in trying to become a real adult stay hidden away in the non-media-blog portion of my life? The new segment for the blog, therefore, is Moving on and Moving out--anything with this tag will be about trying to make a new life after college.
So I'm starting with a road trip to Oberlin and then to Chicago this Thursday. To give you a visual, I will be driving this map route:
(I also like the fact that this particular map of the United States makes it look like pre-Revolutionary war America)
And looking at craiglist entries along these lines.
(Although with more pictures and more detail than that particular entry. Sorry! I don't want any of you bitches stealing my future home).
Change is in the air...appropos to the 70 degree weather in NC today.
On and Out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
