9.30.2006 While searching through my folder of scanned images, I came across the following un-invitation, which I received a little over a year ago. For a sad letter, it's pretty brilliant.
You have to credit their sense of humor about the situation.
5:36 PM
Dear Brendan,
Instead of finishing off your story (800 words and counting!), I'm hanging out with Annie. If I don't post your story tomorrow, I'll give you $100.
Are you mad yet, motherfucker?
BBF? Ben
PS. This is exactly what writing papers in college was like for me. I have a serious problem with deadlines.
5:10 PM
9.29.2006
Dear Brendan,
Good news! I'm 80% done with your multimedia life story!
The bad news, however, is that it won't be done until tomorrow. Are you mad? I'll bet you're mad. And my cell phone battery is dead, so you can't even call me to tell you how mad you are. I know how annoying that must be for you.
Well, if you can go 15 more hours without giving away the punchline of one of the longest blog posts I've ever written, I'd really appreciate it.
9.28.2006
What a terrible way to end a long, stressful day.
1:54 AM
9.26.2006 I listened to this song 36 times today. And since it's four minutes long, that means that of the fifteen hours I've been awake today, two and a half of those hours were spent listening to this song. And not on repeat, mind you--every time I wanted to hear this song again, I manually started the track over. This song is by far the most accurate window into how I felt today.
Things That Do Not Yet Exist On The Internet, But Will In The Future: The song from the Stevie Wonder cameo episode of the Cosby Show.
In that episode, Stevie remixed a bunch of recordings he made of the actors and actresses talking, and made a song out of it. This scene went on for what must have been fifteen minutes, and was unbearably boring. You could tell that Bill had other plans that day, because he was in the episode for about eight seconds. I think he and the writers probably went out drinking. Anyway, I can't find that song anywhere on the internet, however I am fully aware that at some point in the (most likely near) future I will be able to find it with ease.And now, three years and one month later, I present:
9.21.2006
I suffer from a strange furniture addiction that is expressed in the form of a constant, unmistakable desire to acquire new couches.
10:27 PM
9.20.2006
I've come to not only be comfortable going to the movies by myself, but to actually enjoy it.
8:50 PM
1. I have to remember to commit myself fully to the things I'm really passionate about. This point is so important that I feel like I should have it tattooed on the back of my hand. I'll never get that tattoo--primarily because of my fear of needles, but also because I worry that I'd get used to the tattoo and it quickly would lose its meaning. I also question how much good would really come of having a visible tattoo that reads "COMMIT YOURSELF."
2. Speaking of commitments, a month ago I was dating a beautiful girl, but the relationship fell apart, largely because of how busy I've been lately. Several of my previous relationships have suffered the same fate. I've started to wonder if the rest of my life won't spent bent over an open laptop while an increasingly annoyed woman asks me to come to bed.
3. I've been spending a lot of time lately playing my least favorite game, "Find the Mosquito." The game, which usually starts moments after I've fallen into a deep, comfortable sleep, continues until one of the two competitors is dead, making it, really, the ultimate battle. I've had the good fortune of surviving the three previous matches, but who knows how long that lucky streak will last. My strategy, which I've developed over this past week, is to plant myself in the corner of my room, and remain unblinkingly vigilant until my competitor presents himself. The moment I see him, I pounce up, and while holding him in my gaze, bound around the room, clapping my hands together like a moron.
2:52 PM
9.15.2006 Weblog Challenge Participants: I am now collecting money in order to create a grand prize for the end of the contest. If you wish to be eligible for the grand prize (which will be the total sum of all moneys collected, divided by the number of successful contestants), use paypal to send $10 to benpopik@gmail.com. The grand prize will be distributed on January 1st, 2007.
Only contestants who contribute to the grand prize will be eligible to win the grand prize--so send in your $10 today! The deadline for submission is September 25th.
9.14.2006 Here's a video we wrote and filmed yesterday. We're normally a week ahead as far as production goes, but these past two weeks we fell behind.
Nothing like a group of white guys with a $4,000 camera making gentrification jokes in the blackest part of Brooklyn.
10:44 AM
I asked Laurence to design me a shirt, and he told me to come up with a story I wanted illustrated. After some thought, I decided on: mice using robots to terrorize cats.
Click the images above to see all the great, tiny details, my favorite of which are probably: - the mouse-driven tank made out of swiss cheese - the out-of-place rabbit holding the confused cat and mouse hostage, and - the dog sitting indian-style (native american style?) in the middle of the shirt, looking bored.
If you're interested in having your own idea designed (which I highly recommend), contact Laurence, or check out his website (this is another favorite of mine). He's extremely talented and more prolific than any other artist I know.
1:37 PM
We have been experiencing Network Problems Today, these are the same problems that have actually been happening since we first reported problems with our network. Unfortunately these problems have gotten worse today and are causing a majority of the downtime and slowness issues you are reporting today. These problems, and our attempts at fixing them, have been an ongoing effort. Sorry about the downtime, we hope to have this all resolved soon. - Sep. 8, 2006 5:45 p.m.
I think I started gaining weight about eleven months ago...around the time I discovered avocados.
3:33 AM
9.08.2006 I'm work for the production company that's filming the upcoming 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero, and my job over the past few days (and nights) has been to collect and tediously organize the 400+ pages of paperwork required for the show. What a miserable task. It kinda makes me wish that 9/11 had never even happened.
7:04 PM
Will you do me a favor and you set up a PayPal account so we can collect everyone's money? I'd do it myself, but I'm really, really busy right now, and I know from your various phone messages that you have nothing to do.
9.03.2006 The surface of my eyeball itches. I don't know what to do about it.
In other news, the 2nd Triennial Yo La Tengo Late-Summer Weblog Challenge has been going on for two weeks now, and already a number of contestants have fallen (and by "fallen," I mean, "had better things to do with their lives than write on the internet every day").
At the time this post was written, of the 42 original contestants, 6 have failed to post once (which is permitted), and another 6 have failed to post two or more times--meaning they're no longer eligible to receive the enormous, expensive grand prize (that this contest desperately needs but doesn't have).
You know what we should've done? Had an entry fee. THAT would have made things interesting. We could have charged $10 per entry, and then the successful contestants at the end of the challenge get to divide up the total. Fuck. Well, we'll do that next time. (If I should die in the next three years, remember my life by carrying on with this tedious, pointless, daily contest.
9:20 PM
9.02.2006 Do you know this girl? No? Neither do we. Yet her picture is artfully framed and prominently positioned on a table in our dining room. Her frozen likeness--along with a couch, a giant window fan, and the entire contents of a refrigerator--was among the many items left behind by the previous occupants of our apartment, who were presumably very quick and inefficient packers.
If, on the off chance, you do recognize her, please, by all means, let us know who she is and what kind of beer she's drinking. We have a lot of guesses, but no real answers.
9.01.2006 Across the street, there's a car with an alarm that goes off all night, every night. It goes off any time a truck passes, and trucks pass ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It woke me up literally fifteen times last night--and this isn't the first night this has happened. (If you're ever in our apartment and you're in need of an easy topic of discussion, we all plenty to say about what we'd like to do to the owner of that fucking car).
So this morning, when the car alarm woke me up for good (two hours before my own alarm would have), I decided to begin the process of physically harming the owner of the car. And while I'd love to skip immediately to that step--the satisfying violence--there are definitely, for the sake of propriety, more subtle steps that must come first.
The steps are:
1. The polite note. After all, the owner probably lives in one of the two buildings that sandwich my own--and if their bedroom faces the back, they may not even know about the problem. There's no sense punishing someone for something they're not even aware of. And besides, they're our neighbors! 2. The threatening note. This note, which must be short and to the point, typically threatens physical violence to the vehicle. Windows are an obvious target. I also think it's important to use a bold, perhaps slightly uneven handwriting, which implies, "I'm tired, I'm angry, who knows what I might do?" Also, when writing this note, it's preferable not to get your fingerprints all over it. 3. Hurting the vehicle. At this point, it's probably safe to assume that the owner doesn't live within earshot, which will make smashing their windows much easier. The silliest part of the ordeal, to me, is that when you're done you have to run away to someplace safe--but that safe place can't be home, because you live at the crime scene (which you then necessarily have to return to). 4. Hurting the owner. While I'm sure this step sounds rash, considering we're just talking about a loud car alarm, consider how many warnings they've ignored at this point. You written them two notes and broken all of their windows--it seems like they want you to hurt them! Though, I'm not quite sure how you should going about hurting them, given that you still want to remain unidentifiable, and they are your next-door neighbor. Also, I have no experience hurting people.
When I sat down to write the note this morning, I considered skipping step one and moving immediatly to step two. I wrote a note that read, "If your car alarm wakes me up again, I'll break your fucking windows." I read it over to myself a few times, smiling at the thought of the owner reading it. But while the handwriting looked perfectly uneven, and reading the note even gave me chills, it seemed like a little much. After all, I again reasoned, the owner may not even know about the alarm.
So I tore up the first note, and wrote a second, more polite note, which read "Your car alarm goes off all night, every night. Please move your car," and I signed it, "Your tired and angry neighbor." I was pretty disappointed with the second note, to be honest. It was weak, it wasn't threatening--it didn't even imply the potential for violence--I mean, fuck, it even said "please." But threats are what the second step is for, I thought, and salivated for a moment over what terrifying things I'd be able to write tomorrow morning.
I folded the note in half and dressed myself. As I pulled on my pants, a truck went by and the alarm went off again. By the time I had descended the stairs of our building, the alarm had stopped and the vehicle lay quiet before me. I walked up to the car until I was close enough to touch it, and thought about that bonus level in the Street Fighter arcade game where you smash up a car with your bare fists.
I approached the windshield, note in hand, only to find that another note had already been left under the windshield wipers. Opening the note, excited to hear my other neighbors' opinion on the matter, I read it over to myself before breaking into a fit of laughter. The note read:
"The next time your car alarm wakes me up, I will break your fucking windows."
9:58 AM
