Martinesque

I just caught this link via Laughingsquid.com: a day dedicated to being someone from another time. This is even cooler than Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I think my favorite is the Dystopian Future option:

This one offers a little more flexibility. It can be any kind of future from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing to remember is dress like a crazy person with armor. Black spray painted football pads, high tech visors, torn up trenchcoats and maybe even some dirt here or there. Remember, dystopian future travelers are very startled that they've gone back in time. Some starters:

If you go the "prisoner who's escaped the future" try shaving your head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger around and stare at the sky, as if you've never seen it before.

Walk up to random people and say "WHAT YEAR IS THIS?" and when they tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run off.

Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell "NOOOOOOOOO"

Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.

Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say "In thirty years dial this number. You'll know what to do after that." Then slip away.

Hilarious.

I keep telling myself to compose a decent blog entry and post it, but that still has to wait. I moved into my new apartment on Saturday, did shopping on Sunday, nursed a strained lower back all yesterday and today. Needless to say, I haven't had the time or patience to write. But it's a nice place with good management service and nice amenities. More later.

The courtesy patrol officer in my complex just strolled by, remarking, "Nice spot to just chill, right?", to which I replied, "Yeah, I'm likin' it." That's the tone, all right.

Anyway, more later.

Just to confirm and leave less doubt and surprise, I am moving back to the San Fran Bay Area for work and greener pastures. I head out next Monday and I'm currently scrambling to make sure everything I want to take will fit in the car. Then there's the library of media to catalog and mark for shipping later. I have to get a haircut, and take the car in for service before I put another 2900 miles on it.

My schedule is pretty much booked at this point. I'll be at the Indians game Friday night (a first in a long while for me) if you want to meet there somehow. I'm sorry if I missed you by now. I don't know if I'll have e-mail access in the next few weeks, but my phone number isn't changing, and text messages are always acceptable.

Cheers,
Martin

P.S. I may try to blog from the road, but no promises...

Things have been pretty low-key and unexciting as of late. Last week, my dad was in town from and I got to catch up with him a bit. We were supposed to help my aunt and uncle pack up their furniture and things to move into a new place, but my aunt suffered a mini stroke and had to be hospitalized. She’s recovering nicely, but she now has to live in an assisted living facility because she also suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. My uncle needs a wheelchair to get around, and needs a caretaker for himself as well, so this has caused a few arguments over money and who is going to live where. It seems they’ve squared things away for the time being.

I’m still unemployed and working on the job search, and as was the case with every other time I’ve looked for work in , the process is incredibly slow. Between posting my resume online, applying for jobs online, and going on interviews with employment agencies, so far no offers have come up. I did manage to pick up a freelance proofreading job for a publishing company, and I hope to have a few more soon, but it’s not likely to be a steady gig. At least it felt good to be nitpicking someone’s spelling and punctuation again. I think finding 180 errors in a manuscript that had already gone through a proofing run is pretty impressive, don’t you?

But on a positive note, I do have two promising interviews next week for full-time permanent editorial positions. One began with a nine-minute phone interview that has now developed into a team interview on Tuesday, and the other involves a standard application process and some proofreader tests on Thursday. I have a feeling that, with the latter company, even if I don’t get the permanent position, a freelance position might be available, which could work out as well, depending on the frequency of the work. Anyway, wish me luck, please.

So Dell’s on their way over to the house to replace my motherboard and DVD drive, so I can play CDs on my laptop without static crackling throughout. Time to sign off. Peace out.

You might be surprised to learn that I sing in my sleep. It doesn't happen often, and I don't think anyone's ever heard me do it, but at least once I'm pretty sure I woke myself up doing it while singing "Mack the Knife."

So, case in point: this morning my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. as it always does, and I turned it off and directly fell back to sleep, as I usually do. Then I promptly fell into the dream state where things happen that are usually strange enough to creep me out and make me wake up. This morning, I dreamt I was attending the wedding of a friend that I may or may not have had a falling out with (in the dream). We must have been close at some point, because a lot of people there seemed to know me. Anyway, the wedding was running into some problems getting underway, and I think it was raining as well. At some point, I began singing "$1000 Wedding" by Gram Parsons, which is not the most uplifting song to be singing on a wedding day, but was apparently the only thing I could think of singing. (I was singing this to myself to pass the time, by the way, not at the reception or anything.)

The details are pretty fuzzy, but I remember having to walk a few blocks back to the church, dodging traffic in some small town square along the way. When I got back, I ran into an old friend I knew from 20 years back, someone I haven't seen since high school, and he was there with his father, who looked rather old and frail. My friend L. was visibly upset about something, and I could tell even as I asked him how things were going that things were not going well. I was there with another recent friend of mine, and as I started to introduce the two to each other, another friend of mine walked up, and suddenly I was confused as to who was who. When I introduced my one friend as "Chris," the other friend said that he was Chris, which made we wonder what my other friend's name was instead of "Chris."

Anyway, I never found out what was bothering L., as that was when I woke up. For the record, having "$1000 Wedding" stuck in your head first thing in the morning doesn't really get you motivated for the day.

If you want to have your mind sufficiently blown, I suggest watching both The Illusionist and The Prestige in the same night, in that order. Since I'm probably the last person to have seen them by now, I don't have to explain that they're two completely different movies as far as style and plot. However, I will say I think it's an outright crime that The Prestige wasn't nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. It's just a brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Well, that was the most entertaining plot twist I've seen all season. Somebody needs a shave. I thought it was Mel Gibson for a second.