Did I Mention I Hate Being Sick?

Random notes today.

I watched "Hollywood Homicide" for the umpteenth time tonight while I was doing more laundry. I think I must be the only person on the face of the Earth who actually liked this movie, and I mean, I LOVE it. I can watch it over and over, and it cracks me up every time.

Erica, who I mentioned in the post the other day, got a job!

So I was getting some stuff out of the basement yesterday, and I found a stack of CDs in a box that I thought I had to have sold or given away or lost. How bizarro is that?

Which is a line from another movie I love that I don't think anybody else likes, "Miss Congeniality."

I'm still sick. If anything, I feel worse. I think everything's breaking up, so I'm coughing like mad, and that hurts like hell.

I'm depressed the movie shoot is over, but I can't wait until the DVD!

And the nice thing is, I have my life back, at least on weekends. I can relax, and I can get things done. It's funny, one of the other guys said the same thing - it's bittersweet. Both a sorrow and a relief.

I'm a connosseur of chicken wings, and some of the best I've ever had are the Tyson version that's sold as a type of store brand at my local Stop & Shop. They're just the right kind of spicy. Usually I prefer the breaded wings, but these have a thick coating of sauce that has some serious pepper.

Speaking of pepper, the Blimpie on my way to work has the hot red peppers that really put a kick in a sub. They're the highlight of the best sub I've ever had, the regular at Berrigan's, back home in Bloomsburg. That's a real treat, and I always get one when I'm home visiting the 'rents. Well, actually, usually they get it, but I get to eat it. Two things I miss about Northeast PA, food-wise, are the Berrigan's subs and Middleswarth BBQ potato chips, the best potato chips in the world.

Can you tell I just got done eating?

Bloomsburg, by the way, has a stunning amount of really good restaurants for a small town, led by Russell's, which I'd put up against most anyplace I've ever eaten. And I've been to more than 10 countries around the world.

I'm so far behind on a bunch of things, like my freelancing and my Strat-O-Matic hockey leagues, but being sick is just slowing me down. Just when the movie got done and I finally have the time to commit, I can barely work up the energy. First, I was on some pills that were just knocking me out, and now that it's over with, I've got this freakin' cold.

I'm thinking of collecting wrestling figures again. I really feel like I need more toys in my life. I bought a train set, and that's really cool, but I'm thinking about sinking some more money into Jakks WWE guys, which I used to collect. I had one of every character ever made, but when they changed figure styles, I didn't really like the new ones at first, so I stopped collecting them. But lately, I've been getting back in the mood. I've never been very good at collecting stuff - I'm sort of obsessive/compulsive about it, but I've just never found anything I could really keep up with. I tried baseball cards, stamps and other stuff. But I'm torn between just buying stuff that interests me whenever I can (like sports media guides) and trying to really build a collection of something. It's like my instincts for fun and instincts as a completist just can't reconcile.

If you're wondering, I don't keep toys in the package. Toys are meant to be played with. I like buying them in the package, but partly because I enjoy tearing the package open. Sometimes at shows, when people are selling those "mint on card" "Star Wars" figures for a small fortune, I think about all the "Star Wars" toys I had as a kid and what they'd be worth if only I'd just left them in the box. But the thing is, if I could describe to you the amount of fun I had with those toys, even as I bashed 'em to hell (ruining the value thoroughly, I'm sure), if I could explain to you how they helped me become the man I am today, as the boy I was reached for the stars and dreamed and let his imagination soar... What's that worth? That's priceless, as they say in the commercials. Hours upon hours of fun and innocence and joy, feelings I've spent my whole adult life trying to replicate. Who cares what my "Star Wars" guys and GI Joes might have been worth if I'd never opened them? They're not worth enough to pay for my soul, my heart, the very fabric of who I am.

So when I make little dioramas out of my wrestling figures because it makes me smile, and makes me laugh, and brings back just a touch of that feeling of limitless imagination, you'll know why. And maybe you won't think I'm so crazy after all.

My friend Sari's birthday was today (Tuesday). I named one of the characters in the movie after her because she's got an awesome name and I'm dreadful at character names. (Remember Ann Marie Barbour, from the earlier post? She played Sari.)

Just 11 days to the NFL Draft, one of my favorite weekends of the year. I went last year and it was awesome. I figured it for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I'm hoping to go back this year, at least for the second day, which is less crowded and less crazy. I can't pull all-nighters (like last year) quite as often, or as well - or recover from them as quickly - as I did in college.

I know what you're thinking, I write most of these posts at like 2 or 3 in the morning, but I sleep until 10 or 11. It's not like I don't get my 8 hours when I can. And after months of crazy sleeping patterns on weekends, I'm all out of whack anyway.

Because the last place you want to fall asleep is behind the wheel. You doze off at work, or in class, or at lunch, it's embarrassing, maybe even humiliating. But you doze off driving, it's usually fatal.

Well, I suppose dozing off at lunch could be fatal if you land face-down in your food.

(wait for it...)

Nope. Still sick. Damn it.

Links:
"Hollywood Homicide," on the IMDB
"Miss Congeniality," also on the IMDB
Tyson Foods
Stop & Shop
Blimpie
Bloomsburg restaurants
Middleswarth BBQ chips' "Weekender" bag
Jakks Pacific's WWE figure line
A nice page with "Star Wars" figure photos
A nice page with GI Joe figure photos
The 2005 NFL Draft

I'm thinking of changing format and going back through and linking within the text of posts, rather than just listing a bunch of links at the end. It seems like it would ruin the stream-of-consciousness to try to put them in while I write, but I think going back after would be OK, since that's what I do anyway, with the list.

Your thoughts? Post a comment if you've got an opinion.

(One last random aside: I've noticed from clever examination of the time stamp on Blogger that these posts take me about an hour to write, including looking up links. So remember that on the days you don't get a post because I'm tired or sick or lazy or away. These things require effort! I hope it's worth it for both of us.)