01.29.07
Posted in Life at 12:40 pm by Rob Schultz
(looks like I forgot to hit ‘publish’ yesterday)
Yesterday I woke as LA friends were just getting in from their evenings out – still living Eastern was to my advantage in hitting the road.
Through much of AZ, I was able to travel anywhere from 85-120MPH depending on whether I had a travel buddy nearby. It’s fun to start to ‘know’ the other drivers on the road. I never saw a single speed trap or cop laying in wait to catch us vile lawbreakers, but I did see a black pickup pulled to the side of the road with a cop car just behind it. Twice. Poor bastard.
Gas throughout the nation is down to about $1.87, I guess. Except just inside the CA border, where it’s $3.30, and there are no more gas stations or rest stops for around a hundred miles. About 60 miles out, I hit an amazing slowdown. At first, I thought I was near the destination because traffic was so bad, but apparently, it’s just bad there for no reason.
I arrived in LA and it turns out there’s a Russell there, who lives on a giant rock. We spoke of the Z-Rob times in our lives, and tried to play some timing-dependent video games that appear to be on a 1/10th second delay.
Right on time for the past few days, I awoke at 7am. Eastern. Back to sleep to try and get the hang of this part of the world.
Along the trip, I was touring fast food that doesn’t exist in my previous world. First was White Castle, which is technically in and around Ohio, but I hadn’t gone since I was six or seven. Gooey, full of onion, thoroughly unpleasant food. Day 2 started right with breakfast from a Sonic. The toast sandwich was very good, but the potato things that came along for the ride were not good at all. A lunch was had at Carl’s Jr. and The State fans know I should have had a chicken sandwich, but I got a burger instead. It was good, but every bite somehow filled me with the impression that I should not continue. Good fries though, like the kind BK had back when they were publicizing the millions of dollars spent on a new recipe. And a very good minty shake. Yesterday was a stop to Jack-in-the-Box, which I only know from its famous poisoning of customers years ago. Decent chicken sandwich, lousy fries, very entertaining apparently elderly hispanic couple that spoke with elderly jewish accents and behavior. Didn’t hit In-and-Out, but I was told separately this morning of how I ought to, and I just might.
Still no picture postings here. I’m going to go exploring instead.
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Posted in Life at 11:42 am by Rob Schultz
Today I got the memory card reader and camera battery charger up here, but I’m still not going to post any shots today.
Left the holiday inn express before the sun touched that land, and after it left, went to another holiday inn express. Neither has lived up to the excellence (re: delicious free cookies) I’ve come to expect from the chain.
Today featured Fresh Air, Dr. Science, a live TMBG show, more ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue,’ some mc chris, and gary gulman.
I’m two time zones over now, and the speed limits go up in each state. I’m sure these are somehow related. By now, I’ve napped and it’s time to hit the road again. Someday I’ll figure out where the timezone offset thing is in wordpress here.
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01.26.07
Posted in Life at 9:13 pm by Rob Schultz
Cuba, MO.
I did alright today. I wanted 1/3, and I got more of 1/4, but tomorrow I won’t spend so much of my initial waking hours packing, cleaning, saying my goodbyes to Carol, the desk clerk of the hotel, etc.
The roads were oddly empty, and everything did flatten out considerably once I passed Columbus. Refuelling took place in Indiana and Missouri. I got some pictures which might have been good, but neglected to bring the camera USB cable up to the hotel room, so they will have to wait. Listening included TMBG Podcast 21, Slate Explainer and Creative Screenwriting podcasts, ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue,” Ben Stein, Blue Man Group, and some bizarre radio stunt victim.
Also, my LA housing situation may have fallen apart. Maybe I could get a job with [as] to make up for it?
It is apparently an enormous hassle to embed some google maps into a post, so I just took a screenshot of today’s route.
And here’s what’s Left.
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Posted in Life at 3:47 am by Rob Schultz
Woosh!
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01.25.07
Posted in Life at 9:54 pm by Rob Schultz
…Ready to go.
I’ve got a couple of boxes sitting in the room here waiting to get loaded into the car (which, it turns out, has a finite volume…), and a bit of debris to pick up – really, there’s a detailed list of 30 or 40 actions to take before I drive away.
My long-anticipated free stay at ye Ulmstead has been nixed. Apparently they’ven’t water anymore. I won’t get to meet the cow, but it will shave an hour or two off the total journey, I guess. So much for being cheap friendly.
And it looks like there’s a new edition of WordPress, just days after I installed this one.
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01.24.07
Posted in Movies at 7:10 pm by Rob Schultz
Today was a more aggressive day of packing, cleaning, etc. The standard for vetting old junk around here has changed since I won’t be here with it, and lots of stuff is going out. I’ve just about got most of my stuff that’s staying boxed away or shelved, so I’m going to load up the car and then broom away what’s left in here.
I think I timed out my evening to finish everything necessary to being ready to travel…in tomorrow’s scheduled blizzard. Aside from that, maybe more for my dad, maybe so I can have some time to prepare some less important things, I’m arbitrarily putting this off one last time. I guess this kind of slacking is what comes with not being expected anywhere by anyone at a specific time or day. If anything, it might wear on the patience of my prospective Kansanian hosts that I keep saying ‘no, tomorrow’ to, but hopefully not even that.
All the HCM DVDs are burned and traded away so they can be pushed on an unsuspecting public. While finishing those up and labeling them, I finally watched Kelly’s Heroes, which helped break a numeric goal I had set for myself before leaving. It’s kind of silly, kind of low key, and kind of immoral, but I guess it’s a fun adventure of the 60s imposed on the 40s. The mismatched dialogue isn’t as distracting as the mismatched hair.
I’ve learned, from movies and especially videogames, that it’s always okay to kill a nazi, but I really got the impression of our Heroes here to be a bunch of murderering bastards, because even though they’re only killing nazis by the barrel, it’s actually totally unprovoked. These soldiers are just bank robbers, wandering from town to town blasting all the Jerries they see along the way. Have you ever seen more innocent nazis?
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Posted in Movies at 6:57 pm by Rob Schultz
Spent the day going through belongings, trashing some stuff, preparing other stuff to be archived here in Ohio for the time being (all the QU stuff, get in that box over there! Empty CD cases report to this box here on the left!), and trying to get the rest in some sort of shape to travel.
I managed to take my desk apart. That’ll be a savings, since it’s a good desk for computery work. I’ve got my checklist here which isn’t truly all that useful, and I’m burning away, making copies of the Horror Convention Massacre on behalf of Old School Sinema. Also today, I catalogued most of the stuff in my room by scanning UPCs via webcam into Delicious Library. That program seems to do it’s job just fine, except for its inexplicable hatred of Terry Pratchett.
Ended the day with Throw Momma From the Train, which I’d picked up on VHS for a buck a few months ago and not gotten to yet. I don’t think I’m taking my VHS deck along. And it’s lucky that I didn’t take it along just for this thing. It’s just this side of awful. Billy Crystal stars as Billy Crystal, and Anne Ramsey reprises her role as Mama Fratelli. She’s pretty good, but the rest was really a lot of tripe with just the barest hint of hitch – next time, I’ll just go enjoy Strangers on a Train one more time. A generous two stars here.
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01.22.07
Posted in Movies at 6:27 pm by Rob Schultz
Okay, eBay auctions are ending, I’m clearing out more and more stuff that I’m neither taking nor particularly need. Got some banking done just as I realised there would be more to do soon and that I should have waited.
Got my car inspected for the travels ahead. Oil change, tire rotation (free, on account of a semi-fictional coupon I discussed with the clerk), and some air filters and ducts replaced and cleaned.
Monday night television is back now, so I went in the afternoon to the last Monday Movie (that’s a seat and popcorn for $5) I’ll enjoy for some time. Showed up by chance just in time for Children of Men, which wasn’t much like Y the Last Man at all.
I’ve heard there was some digital fakery, but they did some neat stuff with really long takes when the action picked up, trying for that run and gun documentary shooting feel. Also really cool were the flashbang effect of explosions on the soundtrack and the fact that it had something of a trick trailer. The pacing felt pretty good, and there were a variety of nice touches, but (not to spoil, I guess) there were setups that didn’t pay off later on. I wonder if the book would explain those away. Four stars, let’s say.
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01.21.07
Posted in Life at 2:09 pm by Rob Schultz
Hi there, hello & welcome.
It’s the notArt (b)log mark IV? V? Mark something.
I’ve heard from enough folks discussing my impending cross country adventure that I ought to write about it so they can all keep anonymous tabs on me, so here I am with a fresh wordpress install. I’m probably not going to bother dredging up the old posts from previous editions, even though the database is probably intact somewhere. It was mostly posts for school assignments that required posting, or short reviews on recently consumed media.
I still like the idea of a log of media both consumed and produced, but maybe this time we’ll be going with the full-out journally thing. Has that actually dwindled in popularity, or is that exclusive to people I know, who by now have gotten all this out of their system and gone on to more worthwhile pursuits? I hope it’s the former, even though I certainly did enjoy the power livejournal, blogger, xanga, and their ilk provided to remotely spy on the lives of people I knew in high school. (To a point, that is. Reading through too much of almost anyone’s later lives made me wish I’d left them as a fond memory undashed by reality and perspective – like the Tigersharks.)
Also, I figured I’d get this thing installed and running before I actually have time to style the page. Probably, I’ll get rid of the default layouts sooner than later, but if I waited until I had time for some CSS-hackery, we’d never get started.
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