I won't see home till spring Oh, I would kill for the Atlantic But I am paid to make girls panic while I sing... -- Brand New, "I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light" Okay, remember when I said I loved the weather here in Los Angeles? I lied. LT's post about football season and wanting the crisp air of September to come touched off a torrent of emotions that was really unexpected and that I wasn't so prepared for. Because, quite frankly, there's nothing like the seasons in New England. I miss fall. I miss the crispness in the air in the morning. I miss the comforting feeling of coming home to a cozy apartment when the air outside begins to chill. I miss the crackle of the leaves beneath my feet. I miss the annual traditions of county fairs and apple cider and high school football games. I miss the feeling that the world is slowing down to prepare to hibernate. I miss winter. I miss the strange silence and peace that comes with falling snow. I miss the trip to New York to see the storybook Saks Fifth Avenue windows and the tree at Rockefeller Center and the displays in FAO Schwarz and the wonderful smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire on the pushcarts. I miss seeing people's Christmas decorations. I miss hot chocolate on a cold night. I miss the beauty of icicles. I miss spring. I miss the realization that the days are getting longer again. I miss the first day I don't have to wear a jacket. I miss the first day I see a flower blossoming out of the ground. I miss seeing green for the first time of the year as the snow melts to reveal the grass and the trees start to grow leaves again. I miss the feeling of rebirth. As wonderful as it is to have perpetual sunshine and pleasant weather, I feel lost in Los Angeles in some ways. Days blend together, and I can't tell the difference between months except for those when I wear short-sleeves or long-sleeves. I need to know. I need to feel it. I need to be able to slow time down and be able to realize which day is which, not just be able to distinguish weekday and weekend and that's all. Brand New - "I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light" Right-click and save as, please.

Saw this meme and thought I might participate... (blatantly pilfered from Negro, Please) 1. How long have you lived in Los Angeles? 2 1/2 years. Since February 2002. 2. Were you born here? No. And I've found that the transplants tend to find each other -- almost all of my friends are transplants. 3. How long did you plan on staying here originally? I didn't really have a timeframe... I moved out here because I desperately needed a change of scenery. I never really thought that I'd stay here until a certain date. 4. How long do you plan on staying here now? I figure I'll stay here until I'm sick of Los Angeles or until my career forces me to leave. 5. What keeps you here? The life I've made for myself here. My friends. The weather. My job. Being in the pop culture capital of the world gives me the opportunity to see bands and things I wouldn't be able to see elsewhere. 6. What makes you want to leave? Traffic. The plasticity. The smog. Earthquakes. The high cost of living. The incredibly high real estate prices. 7. What is your biggest surprise about living here? For being the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, Los Angeles is really spread out. And the boundaries between each of the areas is not clearly defined like in New York, where you cross from one block to the next and you know you've gone from the Village to Wall Street. L.A. seems... bland, in comparison, I guess. Most of the areas just don't have that much personality. 8. What is your biggest disappointment about living here? See No. 7. I had kind of thought L.A. would be like a more refined version of New York... just more spread out, so I wouldn't feel so cramped and -- for lack of a better word -- accelerated to the point of stress like I feel when I'm in New York. But there are no "neighborhoods" here.

Eve wrote something this morning about how all the Bush-bashing is making her sick to her stomach and how she doesn't understand how people can bash a person while they're in office. Me, I don't understand that point of view. The freedom to express disapproval of someone in office is one of the things that makes America great -- we're allowed to speak our minds without fear of reproach. At least this isn't the height of Communist Russia, where everyone lived in fear of their leaders and if you spoke ill of the government, you disappeared in the middle of the night. Debate is a healthy thing, and if people don't speak up and say what they think is wrong, they may not get a chance to have it fixed either by their leaders or by voting for new ones. I can respect the office itself, but that doesn't mean that every person who fills it is automatically elevated to a level where he's untouchable. There was a line in The American President about how the president works for all of us -- we the people are his boss, and if you had someone working under you who you thought was doing a poor job, wouldn't you speak up about it?

No, I wasn't recovering all day today. I actually was busy. Unlike some other people who apparently woke up this morning still drunk or extremely hung over, He Who Ran Up An $80 Bar Bill had rehearsal for my singing group this afternoon, then we all went over one of the other members' place for Poker Night. But that doesn't mean that I was too busy to post the photos of last night's debauchery. However, I did stay true to my promise to Eve that I wouldn't attack her with the camera. The table. I liked the lighting and colors of this shot. Mikey in all his glory. Becky and Fran. Apparently, the little critters were getting naughty... Me and Joelle. Wendy, me and Julie. The little critters got a little naughty with Wendy! Joelle had to get in on the cleavage action. And what fabulous cleavage it is! So, of course, Fran and I had to contribute as well. Me and Becky. Oh my God, the cleavage grabbing! Look at what we sparked... The dancing machines. Fran got in touch with his feminine side and even put on lipstick. Apparently, Julie found that to be delicious.

Okay, some minor notes on the night: 1. When I stop dicking around and really become Evil Overlord and take over the world, I'm throwing half of Southern California back into driving school to learn how to really drive, because, quite frankly, they're all wankers out here who have no clue what to do once they get behind the wheel. 2. When I walked out of Napoleon Dynamite this afternoon, my friend who I saw it with turned to me and said, "That's the kind of film you and I would write if we were drunk." 3. You do not talk about Meatspace. There are some who would believe that only applies to Fight Club, but they would be wrong. Pictures, however, will show what happened at Meatspace. Some will be coming shortly, though, but I'm a little too tired and drunk to post pics right now. 4. Apparently, I can bake just as well while I'm drunk as I can when I'm sober. Yay for drunken baking!

A quick five things about me -- just for the hell of it on a random Friday night when it appears the person I was supposed to go out with tonight is ditching me... 1. When the first war with Iraq broke out, I was actually pissed about the timing because my favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was on and the Fox affiliate interrupted it for news. 2. I have twin scars on the backs of my hands from when I had skin lesions removed when I was a kid. My dad did it himself, but I never really heal very well. I also have scars on my left-hand knuckles and left arm from when I broke into my own apartment two years ago. 3. I've had more than one one-night-stand. 4. I have absolutely no artistic ability when it comes to drawing or painting. My "artistic" expertise comes in music, acting and writing, which I really don't consider art, but other people tell me it's art, just in a different form. As a result, I've never really enjoyed going to museums at all. But my parents used to drag me into New York to go to museums countless times when I was growing up. My dad still tells the story about how when I was 10 years old, I stood in front of a Jackson Pollack painting hanging in the Museum of Modern Art worth $4 million and ranted about how stupid it was and how a 4-year-old could've done the painting... and how the other museum patrons who overheard me told my dad how smart I was. 5. I have a strange fascination with post-apocalyptic stories and movies. One of my favorite books is Armageddons, a collection of short stories of different ways the world could end.

So for those of you living vicariously through me, I went to a Maxim party tonight. Some very gorgeous women were there. Among the celebrities spotted were David Spade (who is actually way short, which I didn't realize at all until I saw him tonight), Kelly Osbourne (my 2nd time seeing her, and I still felt the urge to go over and punch her in the face) and Michael Rapaport, who I honestly believe is following me around Los Angeles because I've seen him like 5 times already -- definitely more than any other celebrity I've ever seen.

"I am... the ENEMY!" -- Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous I had another first tonight, where I actually realized the perceived power that my position generates within the music industry. As a journalist for one of the industry's most respected and well-known publications, my opinion suddenly counts for something, and I have to realize that what I'm saying can be taken as my paper's stance on something -- not my own. I was at an event tonight discussing a product with someone who works for the company who makes the product, and their PR guy actually shushed her when she started to badmouth her product in front of me. You don't say those sorts of things to the enemy! Having been on the PR side of the fence, I can understand why he did it, but quite frankly, I'd like to think people would trust I'd have more discretion than just to print this kind of stuff verbatim. I had a tarot card reading done tonight -- I was allowed two questions, and of course, I asked about the two things weighing most on my mind: love and work. Apparently, I need to let go of the burden of trying to find love and throw myself into the things that I love, because that will generate the kind of energy that will allow me to find love in another person. And as far as work goes, well, that's tied into love. I've had some spectacular failures in my past that have scarred me -- both in work and love (which is true) -- but success is definitely in the cards for my future, apparently, even if where it comes from will be unexpected. I came to the realization that I have been an enemy lately -- most of all to myself. I've been antisocial with a black cloud following me around whenever I've gone out... and trying to cover it up, but apparently failing to do so to those who know me well. And, as I wrote on Joelle's blog tonight, I'm completely burned out in my efforts to take care of myself physically. I got so sick of salad, so tired of working out, so bummed about denying myself everything that I lost it last week -- I had cake and ice cream and drank tons of beer... and the one thing I ended up not losing was weight. After getting down to the lowest weight I'd been in over a year, I gained back 2 pounds and almost a full percentage of body fat last week. So how did I feel then? Not so great. I'm still kind of sick & tired of it all... but I still have 20 more pounds to go, and they will be the 20 hardest pounds of them all. And quite frankly, my friends who think I'm being self-deprecating in a funny kind of way when I say that women won't go for me because I'm not the hottest guy in the room... if they only knew the truth, that I'm not kidding because my weight does get in the way of my confidence and that I've had it drilled into my head for 27 years that women don't go for fat guys. I may not be huge, but I've definitely got tubbyness to lose, and it's killing my self-esteem -- so, of course, I comfort myself with the food that causes the problems in the first place. I guess I just need to press on through. The light will come. Tomorrow's another day. Now I just need to convince myself of that.

Attention, people of Earth: FLUSH WHEN YOU'RE DONE. Thank you. You may now resume your normal programming.

Cingular Wireless came out with these new features (I'm not a Cingular customer, I just read about them), one of which is "Escape-a-Date," where if you're going on a blind date, you can prearrange to have a machine call you at a certain time and play back a recording of an excuse you can use to get out of your date. This fabulous feature? Only $4.95 a month! So, since I'm a pragmatic businessman, I'm offering a competing service: Keith's Escape-o-Date. Just call me before you leave and tell me when you want me to call you back, I'll call you back with an excuse to get out of your date, then we can go have a beer and hang out for a while so the night won't be a total wash. Doesn't that sound much more enjoyable and cheaper?

I knew it was only a matter of time until something like this happened: Drug Sniffer Dog Dies of Overdose. I'm surprised they don't already have a rehab center for the drug-sniffing dogs. I asked a co-worker to give me an example of a stereotype about a particular group of people today, and she didn't quite understand why. I was making a joke about someone for a column I was writing, and I wanted to play into his nationality/ethnicity -- not in a particularly mean way or anything. But my co-worker couldn't understand why I would stoop to stereotypes, and quite frankly -- like it or not, stereotypes exist because, on some level, they're true. They wouldn't have been formed in the first place if there weren't some people of that particular group who embodied those characteristics. Like it or not -- and believe me, there are stereotypes that could be said about me that I may not like or a group of people I could be associated with, but I have to admit that some of them would probably apply to other people in that group. And yeah, sometimes they're funny.

It's been a little quiet around here, and I had some really strange dreams last night that I'm still trying to process, so in lieu of actual original material, here's a couple of tunes to blast from your cubicles this morning. As always, don't be a bastard -- right-click and save as. Dishwalla - "Counting Blue Cars" DJ Mei-Lwun - "Vivrant Jack & Diane" (Q-Tip vs John Cougar)