So they did away with the Awesome Blossom at Chili's, the no-doubt highlight of any trip to the place, and replaced it with stringy "shoelace-style" batter-fried onions. They use the same batter and sauce, but... I don't know. I just can't bring myself to quite accept it yet.

Well, my roommate Amos leaves for basic training today at 6PM. He'll be gone for at least 6 months for regular schooling (basic + psy-ops school + jump school), and then probably longer for Rangers training if he can make it. After that, he'll probably get shipped over to Iraq to serve, which is really what he's aiming for in the long run, but that's not for certain. As an active reservist, he's pretty much guaranteed to see some action considering the standing full-time army essentially includes the reserves at this point. The past year was really neat, though. We lost touch after high school after being incredibly close friends during those years... and then didn't lose a step and became roommates. No actual conflicts really came out of the whole time, either - we had lean times, fat times, and good times... and never got into anything more rough than who had to take out the trash. It felt like an adult rebirth of high school/middle school days, and it was a hell of a good time. So now there's a transition... my new-ish roommate is someone I've known for a long while and who I'm great friends with as well, so it'll be a good time, too. But there was something unique and fun about the high school renaissance that went on over the past year. We had discussions about investments, retirement, taxes, women, etc... alongside our old talk of videogames, D&D, sci-fi, and stuff like that. It was weird, something I'd not experienced in a long while, especially after not seeing someone for 3 years. Ah well. He'll do well to defend the country and kick ass. He'll make a hell of a lot more money than I am being a private mercenary or intelligence operative, anyway. The end of a unique time is nigh, I guess. I'm cool with it. Just wistful for a minute. ;)

Someone deleted the story. :|

Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller are all dead now. That is sad. Just wanted to touch on that thought for a moment. But what's really been bothering me lately is that we haven't had a truly great lyricist in music since Bob Dylan. Sure, we've had some great guys to come down the pipes and write music that really speaks to people on a personal level, on the level of social commentary, etc, etc. But what other musician can be said as speaking to the art world on the same level as the poets of the time, being personal and yet touching on greater cultural awareness? Dylan was friendly with Beats - Ginsberg especially took a hell of a liking to him - and understood the vision of poetry as expressions of what is seen in the halls and fields of the American landscape. Woody Guthrie wandered and sang about what he saw... and Dylan did the same on the level of the best poets of the era. So why haven't we seen the same in recent years from anyone? Is the free-wandering spirit of American art and culture truly dead after the hippies managed to kill it in the late 60s? Did Hunter S. Thompson's "high water mark" of The Movement truly mean the drying of American culture? Sure, there are poets these days, and they're as pretentious as Dylan was in his day. But the truth is that they're more along the lines of whiny trust-fund "blue collar communists" than anyone who would actually care about someone's plight. When I listen to Oxford Town, I hear someone speaking about a situation that actually concerns him. When I listen to American Idiot, I hear a whiny idiot that's more concerned with hooks than anything. Are there no more wandering, actually-witnessing Americana poets? Most of the post-Beat poetry is so mired in a neo-Thackerian want to speak to something higher while still making the attempt to be about as real as Ted Kennedy. Can't people speak about human issues rather than lame political tidbitting? Are we really as bored as Nirvana and Pavement would have us believe? Has suburbia really swallowed the soul of this nation? If there's no more soul to sing from, maybe there can never be a new Dylan.

Well, it could have been better, I suppose, but it was still a lot of fun. Jen came over and cooked me dinner on Friday night. Entirely of her own accord - it was her idea, and I offered to help, but she was just... right on. We had veal parmigiana, and it was delicious... this girl can cook. Damn it if I don't have people asking me when I'm going to get married these days. I haven't even lived with her yet - and that, for me, would be the #1 test, and that isn't happening until she's out of college. I love her to death, but we're both still young. Boyfriend/girlfriend situations are easier to handle than married situations, I think. Saturday... well, it was kind of a bust. I was supposed to have a party at my place, but Derek and the rest of the Pitt folks got all wrapped up in work and being too burned out from partying the night before to wander out. So what did I do? Something I rarely do anymore - wasted an entire day playing videogames. I now have Champions of Norrath beat on every difficulty level with my kickass ranger. It's a great game... and I love those hack/slash RPGs. I hope the too-much-work-to-party thing doesn't become a habit. I love partying with those guys. Sunday, didn't do too much for the early afternoon, but I went out with Jen, Derek, Dina, and Josh and caught Napoleon Dynamite. Pretty obvious Wes Anderson ripoff, but it was funny. Some good, memorable lines out of that one. Hung out at D's place for a while afterwards and got WAY off track on the way back from Jen's place, ended up in the middle of some industrial park at like 1AM. Damn Shadyside. Monday... best day of the whole weekend. Got up early and went and visited my grandmother for a while. It was her birthday on Saturday, and I didn't get to talk to her then, but I love hanging out with her. I don't know how long she is for the world, and I've regretted not being able to properly say goodbye to my grandpap when he died... I don't want that to happen again. Went canoeing with my dad and Josh and Kat afterwards, and the river was beautiful. It rose about 4 inches the night before - they must have let out the dam - so the lack of rain during the week didn't make the trip mostly hiking on the rocks. Got two bass, and they're going to be my dinner tomorrow night. There's something intensely satisfying about eating fresh game. I need to get back to hunting. Maybe this fall I could go bow. Time will tell.

Looks nifty, I reckon. This might be a good place to store old threads to save them from purging.