Pumpkin Seeds: Gone Fishin' Edition

1. The good thing about a five-day weekend is it gives you a chance to slow things down a little bit and get a better sense of where you are. The bad thing about it is it might confirm your discontent with where you are.

2. My volunteer stint at the UnConvention was a pleasant experience as I ended up doing the box office for two shifts and got a newfound appreciation for what a little bit louder was able to accomplish over its five year run. Theater's a tough business, political theater even more so, and the gutcheck it must have taken for the actors in one of the shows to go on despite only three people in the audience, myself included, was impressive.

3. Got to see two of the plays and was particularly blown away by Entrenched in the Oath. Think the best parts of Fahrenheit 9/11 crossed with The Exonerated. Powerful, heart-wrenching stuff; manipulation not required. Go see it before it's done.

4. While the exact numbers are always debatable, there's no question that Bush got a nice bounce in the polls coming out of the Republican convention. The same polls that barely registered any change for Kerry after the Democratic convention. In a masterful sequence of events, they managed to keep Kerry on the defensive, position Cheney as an asset, and completely nullify Edwards by simply ignoring him. They are the friggin' Yankees of politics! Circa mid-1990s, not current day. The Democrats, of course, are the Mets. Pick any year, it really doesn't matter.

5. Bill Clinton's heart scare has Salomé all antsy now and it looks like we'll be eating healthy for a while. Relatively speaking, at least. Good time for me to get back to the gym!

6. In related news, loudpoet press has determined its most likely launch publication. Don't want to jinx things so I'll leave it at that for now.

7. ESPN NFL 2K5's Franchise Mode is my new addiction. With all the bells and whistles, it takes approx. 1.5 hours to play each game (6 min quarters). Over the past week, I've played four pre-season games (3-1), 16 regular season games (15-0-1), and two playoff games (2-0), with only the Super Bowl remaining to complete the season. (Ironically, against the Eagles!) Do the math...

8. On the last week of the regular season, my fantasy baseball team, the Six Six Sixers, finally overtook Mike Henry's Earnest Borg Nine for first place! While that's been the kiss of death the past few years as no first-place team has ever won the Championship, I'm hopeful that we peaked at the right time.

9. Speaking of fantasy, I'd like a Laptop of Creative Writing +3. And a Non-profit Job with Corporate Salary +2 would be really nice.

10. The summer is officially over and the real world is threatening to overwhelm me, so I'll be taking a break from almost everything not directly related to my job and home life, including this journal, for the next few weeks. Need some time to reasess, reprioritize and recuperate. Among other things, this should mean answering long overdue emails. Really!

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes