Here is someone who deserves a medal. He cared enough to not just be a rote employee.

In the history of your life have you ever been interested when you ask someone at work how their vacation was, if you have already been to where they went to? In fact if I really think about there are only maybe 6 places that if someone from work went on vacation I would actually care about hearing about.

1. Antarctica (especially if they have pictures of adorable penguins... speaking of which what do you call a baby penguin.. a Chick? Don't know... hmm and only have one browser open so can't google...)
2. South Africa (because I really really want to go, and think in 10 years South Africa will be the new Australia)
3. Playboy Mansion (Curiosity Kills the Cat)
4. On a Game Show (Obvious)
5. Austin (only because everyone I have met that has been to Austin has a good Austin story, even moreso than New Orleans or Vegas)
6. Outer Space (Not because I would want to know what outer space was like, I have read books about it and besides getting to see the Earth (which is supper freaking cool) it actually sounds pretty boring otherwise.. I would want to find out so I could have ammunition to make fun of the person in a more clever way than the rest of the people whose little sense of humor would immediately go to hacky jokes about Missle Toe or Sex in Zero G's)

How to make a four item list
1. Start with the first item.
2. Move onto the next item
3. Bring in the next item
4. Then have one more item.
5. If you have one more item don't add it.

Three things as I am back in the home office after my one day jaunt to Chicago...

1. Slinger, you may or may not agree with me, but yesterday in that part of the world the weather was borderline perfection. Clear, Crisp skies, nice soft wind, and warm but not oppressive heat.
2. When I studied Finance in college I had this vision of what studying Finance meant. I soon learned that my vision and reality were sharply different. Client dinners and deal making was replaced with reconciling spreadsheets and meetings with no purpose other than to make everyone sound important. Sunday night we get to the hotel and I am with my Boss's boss's boss (which sounds impressive although theoretically as recently as two or three months ago he was my boss, so it only proves that they are layering people on top of me). So we are sitting there in the hotel bar looking over the report we were to present on Monday drinking scotch (which I know make me a poser, but when in Rome or Oak Brook, Illinois as it were). I looked around the rest of the bar and other people doing work and for a second my vision from sophomore year of college and reality were in sync. Then what we we went over included changing the font on the page numbers.
3. How awkward is it when someone you really like writes you an email that you normally would immediately mock and laugh at. For example a girl I once kinda saw in the pre-lake days would send "Happy Wednesday" emails. I am not going to say that was a dealbreaker or showstopper, but it didn't help the cause.

Often the Field and I disagree on what movie to go see. She wants either something in costumes or something where some oppressed person is being saved by someone who is really good. I usually want something either with a lot of Fart jokes, something that will mess with mind, or something where a lot of stuff blows up. Yesterday in a moment of weekness she agreed to go see Hot Fuzz. The new policey movie from the guys that made Shaun of the Dead. Fantastic movie and even better she enjoyed it too.

As a kid I remember loving the Naked Gun, Hot Shots types of movies. The nice development in the world of Parody is that we have been able to move beyong those kind of gag a minute type of things into creating "real-ish" movies that spoof the genre they are playing to while still creating an enjoyable movie. One could argue that Scream did this first, but when you get to stuff like Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz it takes that to the next level and makes it so enjoyable. Plus in the case of Hot Fuzz, the British are just so much funnier than us...

Someone at work said to me this morning that she wished she had known me when I was single... What does that mean?

If you ever wonder why there is an information super-highway look here.

Whenever I meet someone in New York who moved here from California I wonder why, and yet I really don't think I would ever want to live in California... Interesting Paradox.

Today's Poll, and please vote if you agree in the comments section:

When you are walking a public thoroughfare and happen to be walking at such a speed that you find yourself approaching a blind person, do you hesitate for half a second before you make your move to pass them? (And I am not talking about taking the time to make sure logistically you can pass them with no incidents, I am talking about a half second of moral struggle where you wonder if as a sighted person this is ethical to do.)

To me that half second is infinitely more troubling than when I turn down giving homeless people money.

Another one day trip to Chicago next week. Someday it's going to happen with enough time to visit Milleneum Park, Wrigley or at least get some of what they call pizza. (Although even as a New Yorker I can appreciate Chicago style pizza. The analogy, because you know I love them, is that New York Pizza is like Rudie Can't Fail by the Clash, it is a great rock and roll song. Chicago style pizza is like Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac, a great song in and of itself, but not exactly a rock and roll song, even though at times it's played on a rock and roll station.) I think with Analogies like that I should be a food critic. Nothing would be better than writing a thousand words on Zuchinni and cucumbers. (The last sentence being the kind I could never write in 5th grade).

If I had a bunch of free time in the next few weeks I think I would write a movie about the following character. First day of college a guy goes out of his dorm to see that there is a really cool guy, who spent his whole summer learning how to play acoustic guitar. It's 1996. He knows how to play More Than Words, In Your Eyes, Elderly Woman. All these great songs, and he doesn't really play them well, but the women fall all over him. So our observer guy asks his over protective parents for a guitar for Christmas. We cut to Christmas and he gets it. He spends his entire Christmas break trying to learn how to play the guitar. Unfortunately since he is a bit dorky he gets back to college and its the middle of winter and he only knows how to play the Cure, REM, Blind Melon, Savage Garden, and the theme from Macgyver. One shy girl who spent her first semester trying to figure out what it takes to have boys notice her befriends him and they fall in love. Then however in the late Spring he become a hit because he learns how to play the Macerena and the Fugees and is invited to all the "cool" parties. The women want him, and he starts treating his dorkmate rudely. Then however one night as he is at a party he comes to his sense and across campus he runs until he gets to her dorm room guitar and hand and heroically plays her music that wins her back.

There is only a matter of time before 90's nostalgia comes back and I want to be there ready.

RANDY MOSS!!!! I think no matter what its a good thing. Simmons Take here.

I consider myself pretty knowledgable about a few things, one of which is music. This article almost blew my mind. Some great music trivia there...

3 thoughts from the weekend.

1. Saturday around noon I am sitting at a Subway sandwich shop. I was enjoying a 6 inch turkey with extra veggies. (This may be overstating it, because how much can you really enjoy Subway. Subway provides perfect consistency and mediocrity, but best of all in Manhattan they are relatively cheap and more importantly clean.) So I am sitting eating. Let me also elabortate that I am in a Patriots T-shirt and camoflague shorts. I am as I often am on Saturday afternoon at my dorkiness, which is saying something. So along come these two Irish guys who ask me the following question, "Do you know where we can score some coke?". Now I have never done coke, but if I were to and if I was going to try and find it, if I saw a goofy guy eating a turkey sandwich at noon, that wouldn't be the guy I would ask...
2. I think I have come up with a million dollar idea. Yesterday I was watching the Yankees play the Red Sox. What if I could market to Spaulding or Wilson or whatever sporting goods manufacturer makes batting gloves, batting gloves that stay tight for more than one pitch. After every pitch the batter steps out of the box and retightens his gloves. I could guess that for some this is superstition, but they all do it. Imagine the first time Derek Jeter tried them on "What are these voodoo gloves you guys are giving me, they stay tight for more than eight seconds?"
3. There was a scene in the Sopranos last night that was horrifying.

My 5 all time favorite Game Shows

1. Card Sharks - I remember from childhood the Jim Perry version. I actually found on ebay a few years ago Perry's biography about his is spiritual awakening, which in a word was weird. He however was the consumate hope and it combined with the perfect game. A little bit of gambling and perfection.

2. Jeopardy! - There is nothing more gratifying than the feeling of being good at Jeopardy.

3. Family Feud. - I love watching the reruns on GSN, because you have to put your mindframe in that of 1979 when you are asked to Name a Sexy Female Actor

4. The Pyramid- When Dick Clark would come over after this person came so close to winning $100,000 and offer up his perfect clues, you just wanted to deck him. Plus in a weird way as a child and even to some extent now I found Adrian Barbeau attractive.

5. Three's A Crowd. This is a 70's game show where a husband, wife and his secretary go on to see who knows him best. It was fantastic. In all ways.

Things that you and I will never have to think about*

1. That the net was set up by three drunk hillbillies who get paid 4 bucks an hour but then get docked 18 dollars a day for food.
2. That you can't get life insurance for your wife and newborn because your career is too risky
3. That your work shoes make you look like a sissy
4. That all you do is walk in a straight line with a pole in your hand, you don't even jump or tame a beast from exotic lands
5. That your father was right you should have been a football referee
6. That your bed for the next two nights is in a train car with Bozo the snorer
7. That you stepped in Elephant poop this morning
8. That the bearded woman is actually a man
9. That the person outside selling T-shirts is making only 45 dollars less a week than you
10. That they probably aren't going to bring back Circus of the Stars, giving you at least some national media exposure.

* Unless we were a tightrope walker

I was tempted not to post this since it gives away my real name and I prefer to be known solely as the Lake, but a list has been published on McSweeney's here.

3 Unnumbered and Unrelated thoughts

Sunday afternoon the Field and I saw Fracture. Interesting movie. The best part about it though, was that it takes place in Los Angeles and they filmed LA as a City. Too many movies that take place in LA seem like they could be in any suburb.

Who are more creepy... people really into Disney memorabilia or people who tell you about their fiber regimen.

Tangerine by Led Zeppelin is a really good song.

Today's Music Trivia that maybe only interests me. The woman who gave the drugs that killed John Belushi dated Gordon Lightfoot years before.

I hate routines. If someone wanted to torture me they would give me a job where every day I did the same thing at the same time. From time to time my life seems to get into routines and I usually do something DRASTIC or drastic to try and bust out of the rut. Saturday morning at 5:30 I got up and did something "drastic". I then left my apartment and walked north until I got to the George Wasthington Bridge, which I crossed and then I went down Broadway through Harlem, the Upper West Side, Midtown, Union Square, NYU, Soho, Tribeca until I finally got down to the Path station back to Hoboken. All told according to Google it was about 21 miles. During this time I put away my I-pod and as I preposteriously and prentensiously told my friend #13, "I listened to the sounds of the world". The weather was beautiful and by eliminating outside influences I really got to enjoy and see a lot of New York that I either see whizzing by in a cab or never see because I am in a subway. Either way my calves and feet were a little sore, but I came home Saturday afternoon in much less of a rut than I had been on Friday afternoon. And as hopelessly 14 year old girl writing in her journal this sounds, spring is about rebirth and renewal. That being said, the field thinks I am a nut. Not sure how the pictures are going to look, since I took them with my camera phone. The one is sunrise with Manhattan in the background as I was leaving Hoboken. The second is looking down at Manhattan from the GWB. And this link will show my route.

Anyway here is to a week of no routines.