Just chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' or coolin'

It's been a pretty long weekend, probably because I didn't do a damned thing. I spent two days sitting on my bed, flipping through the channels looking for something to watch on TV (except for the two hours Tuesday night I spent watching QE, of course).

I also finished The Devil in the White City, finally, so I can now say that I read one good book this summer. Can't believe it took me like three months to read it. I'm a fast reader, too... I just haven't had the time or motivation to read much.

I heard that the paper looked like crap today. My mom was trying to describe it to me, telling me how someone she knows said she was gonna cancel the paper 'cause today's edition looked so bad and they'd better not all look like that, or something sorta off-the-handle like that. From what I could glean from my mom's half-attentive description, I'm thinking they had huge press problems or something... some of the stuff she described there's no way they'd do unless they somehow had to. Not to mention that if they were making major design changes, I would know about it -- that's not the kind of thing you do on a whim. In any case, I'm glad none of it was on my watch. I didn't work yesterday; I had nothing to do with today's paper.

Bleh, work tomorrow. Same shit, different week. No, scratch that -- Saturday is Sept. 11. I'm assuming I'll have all sorts of special 9/11 stuff to put together Friday, maybe tomorrow, too. At least that'll break up the week. Special packages make the time go faster, not to mention that they give me something interesting to do.

Watched the new Surreal Life today. I've gotta make a point of watching that -- it's really good. I mean, c'mon, Jordan Knight's on it, that's enough to make me watch all by itself. And then there's Dave Coulier (the guy from that old Nickelodeon show I watched when I was little, not to mention Full House), Flavor Flav and Charo ("coochie coochie!"). There's two other chicks, too, but I don't really know who the hell they are; the one chick is young and sorta whiney and the other chick is hella tall and likes to walk around naked and be bitchy.

I need to catch the NKOTB episode of Bands Reunited. I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of them, either, 'cause it's a fairly good show even though I don't usually know the bands they're about. And I know how the NKOTB one turns out, but I still want to see it anyway, just to see if all five talk on camera, what they look like now and what they're up to (well, what Danny's up to, I suppose -- the rest are still around or we've at least heard what they're doing.)

Keen ears

Ever notice how you'll be watching a show on TV, and you'll suddenly recognize a snippet of background music? It might only be on for a few seconds, but it'll catch your ear. And the more music you listen to, the more you'll be able to catch. The most interesting part, though, is when you hear something you don't think everybody's listening too. I mean, it's pretty easy to catch, say, Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice," and it's a familiar enough song where you can imagine that anyone picking out background music for a TV show might have it pop into their head. But when you hear a more obscure song, it's like, "hey, whoever picked out the music for this show knows that song, too!" For instance, I have VH1 on behind me, and I just heard a few seconds of "Can't Stop The Beat" by Junior Senior. Apparently, whoever picked the music for this show has listened to the Queer Eye soundtrack, or else they have even more out-there taste in music to have heard it somewhere else.