Personal Archive

Super Mario Galaxy 2 debuted last month and E3 is this week, yet our front page material has been rather light over the past few weeks. What gives? Well, I can’t speak for the rest of my Packmates, but since moving into my new apartment at the beginning of the month, I’ve been mostly stripped of my Internet access. (Big thanks to my ladyfriend for providing a place to record.) For whatever reason, Time Warner has decided to conduct some cruel experiment on my roomies and I, which means no online gaming and sporadic editorial content. Unfortunately, I can’t even tell you when this situation is going to fix itself.

We’re not entirely sure why that is the case, as we’ve received numerous, conflicting reports. The problem may be traced to the previous tenants, who accrued a four-figure debt before fleeing for Paris, leaving us to clean up the mess. However, rather than hounding us for money, the cable company seemingly decided to delete all past and somehow-future knowledge of our apartment, as nobody seems able to find our address in the system or willing to add it in. Last week, we had a representative in our apartment, asking my roommates if we were sure we lived on the third floor instead of the first, a question that has been asked more frequently in the past two weeks than I’d care to count. Wrong addresses, broken appointments, misleading emails – trust me, we’ve seen it all. I can only conclude that Time Warner representatives are watching my outrage through a hidden camera and laughing at the absurdity of it all.

My apologies for the venting, but we’ll get some cool stuff up here for you shortly.

When it comes to Halloween, I’m a bit of a curmudgeon. I’ve always associated the “holiday” with constantly ringing doorbells, resulting barks from confused bulldogs and last minute study sessions for big exams the next morning, instead of the candy and campus parties that folks love so much. But in the back of my mind, I knew that when the time came to finally don a costume, I had the perfect idea. The ultimate combination of nerdisms, nostalgia and heroics, all rolled into a sleek red-and-blue package. The result…

Wouldn’t hold my breath for this crossover…

Artie, the strongest man…in the world! I’m not sure that the red masking tape did him justice, and I’m short one action land canoe, but I’m so glad I didn’t go with spandex pants. Nobody wanted to see that. Oh, and next to me in the above photo is special ladyfriend Caitlin, dressed up as Joan from Mad Men, a show that you should all be watching!

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I may be penniless and slightly hungry (as always), but you can’t say that I’m not keeping busy. Between an internship at The Book Report Network and a canvassing job for the guy above, I’m suddenly feeling productive again. No longer the lump on the bed scouring Media Bistro for work, I’m actually heading into Manhattan in the morning and patrolling the streets of Park Slope at night.

That’s right, I’m a canvasser. And I’m promising right now that I’ll never slam a door or dismiss a pamphleteer ever again. (Unless I have little-to-no interest in what they’re hawking.) But then again, even though reception can be discouraging, the job has provided many opportunities to get to know my new borough and the local political scene better.

Socially, the past 2.5 months in New York – specifically BedStuy right now – have been quite splendid. I’ve done so much more in this time than I ever did back in Urbana. Some of the highlights include:

• Seeing dozens of movies that would have never come to our Monroe theater. If you’re also outside of the NYC/L.A. markets, I suggest you add A Serious Man, In the Loop and Big Fan to your Netflix queue.
• Eating chicken and waffles. You wouldn’t think gravy and syrup go together, but somehow it works. The food variety in this city still blows my mind. I’m from a town where all we have is pizza shops, so I’m still not used to having so many different types of cuisine nearby. Now if only I could figure how to cook any of it.
• Visiting the trendiest bowling alley ever.
• Listening to a 200-electric-guitar symphony. It doesn’t matter that it was a cacophonous mess.
• Attending Eugene Mirman’s comedy festival. Unfortunately, comedian H. Jon Benjamin (Coach McGuirk!) bombed. And heckled audience members with accents.
• Walking along the High Line, a former above-ground Subway line turned park. This one is ripe for encroaching businesses in the future, but it’s pretty peaceful at the moment.
• Participating in weekly trivia nights every Tuesday at Gael Pub. If you’re in the area, we could always use more team members.

And without delving too deeply into my personal life, I must admit that all of these adventures wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable without a certain special ladyfriend. The hunt for a full-time job continues, but until then, I’m definitely having a good time.

*Don’t worry, I’m not a fan of these personal update blog posts either. I’ll keep it about the games in the future.

I actually have been blogging – just not here. I’ll try to post my rumble musings more frequently, but you can also find me on my mandatory, forced-at-gunpoint editing blog.

Looming deadlines, exhaustive reading assignments, and late night study sessions – it’s all rushing back to me now. Though I’m completely overwhelmed by the size of the Champaign Urbana campus and back to square one on the social front, it feels good to be a student again. I’m sure this sentiment will change in a few short weeks when I’m downing (heavily caffeinated) Dews and stalling out on my lead paragraphs, but right now the “professional journalist” title seems within my grasp. I’m just one “intensive” year away.

The bad news is that this fast track comes at a price. If I learned one thing from last week’s orientation, it’s that I’m going to have very little time for recreation. Couple that with the discovery that my dormitory internet connection is tenuous at best (though this probably will change as the semester progresses), and it should come as little surprise that I will need to drastically decrease my involvement in The Rumble Pack Podcast. Believe me, this is a hard sacrifice to make, but my perpetual loafing had to come to an end at some point. That doesn’t mean I’ll be leaving the show completely. Right now, we’re considering pre-recorded addresses or rants to tag to the end of our shows (think Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes,” except maybe even more crotchety), and you can check back here for weekly blog posts every Monday and reviews every Tuesday Saturday.

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Wow, a couple months back and not a single blog entry. Pretty shameful, I know.

Word on the street is that since my return to America, most of my old haunts in China have been demolished in preparation for the Beijing Olympics. The old noodle shop, the local hospital, even my urine-soaked place of employment have all been torn down to somehow encourage “tourism.” Shijiazhuang, who are you trying to fool? If you’ve kept up with my blog, you’ll remember that there’s not much to see here besides a couple mountains and the occasional rock market. However, though I cannot say that I was attached to the city, it does make me sad that when I return someday to visit my Chinese friends, most of the familiar sights will be gone. When I got on the train bound for Xi’an, it was like leaving a poorly-constructed, cockroach-infested sandcastle by the shore overnight (yeah, not so hot on the analogies). No doubt that bigger apartment buildings and shopping parks will spring up (literally) overnight, but I’ll no longer have any personal attachment to China’s 7th most polluted city.

I may have some more musings related to last year’s adventure in the coming days, especially with the Olympics coming up (Preview: I’m excited for the Chinese citizens but I believe giving the Olympics to the country was a political move and does not hold true to the supposed “spirit” of the games). For now, I’ll leave you with a few final photos of my brief stay in Xi’an. Sorry to be a bore…this is more for posterity’s sake.

Everyone should know the guys behind me. Say hello to the Terracotta Warriors, built in honor of the first emperor of China. I’ve seen this hall in dozens of text books but mere photos cannot really do them justice.

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Starting on Sunday, I will be concluding my China experience with trips to Xian and Shanghai before flying back to the States at the end of next week. Since I’ll be going dark for the next week or so, I thought I’d post some pictures from a recent trip to Shijiazhuang’s Hanging Temple and a subsequent farewell dinner at the restaurant across the street from my apartment.

Fans of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon may be familiar with this temple…

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*Major “The Wire” spoilers towards the very end of this post…

Wow, what the hell happened? I had intended to follow up those stupid potion photos with something substantial shortly after, but somehow time just slipped through my fingers. I’m not saying that I don’t have a few valid excuses, but I do feel bad for letting so many days pass by.

Tokyo: I have never appreciated clean air so much. After spending half a year under the smoggy blanket of Shijiazhuang, it was so refreshing to be able to see the sky again. My lungs almost had trouble adjusting to Tokyo’s comparably pristine air. On the ground, things were just as immaculate. Though I had trouble finding trashcans anywhere besides convenient marts, there was hardly any trash in the streets. The recycling program is also far beyond what I had encountered before – even in fast food restaurants, patrons have to separate their plastic straws and lids from the rest of their garbage. Of course, the Japanese use tons of packing material in lieu of mass quantities of preservatives, so I would imagine there are trade offs.

Stuffed poop inside a U.F.O. crane game – almost worth the 100 yen admission…

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