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I’ve mostly despised New Years. I’ve never been a big fan of the holiday. Despite this, I got an very nice e-mail from my friend Hannah, a wonderful person I worked with in Yonkers the summer I interned at the Greyston Foundation. In this e-mail was the best New Years resolution I’ve found in a while. Not your usual “I’m going to lose weight” or “I should quit smoking” or “I really shouldn’t pick my nose so much.” No, this one meant something to me. I will share it with you. It’s from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and it goes a little something … lika dis:

Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

All I wanted was a Boddington Pub Ale. That’s all. Just one. So tasty. So smooth. So easy going down. I just wanted one. Was that so much to ask for? Apparently so. Boxer’s was closed. It was 10:30 pm and they were closed. wtf?

As if that wasn’t enough to ruin my night, I come home to find out that Bob Saget has weaseled his way back on television via the guest host on the Late Late Show on CBS. For the sake of all that’s holy, why? Why, God, why? Bob Saget represents all that is soulless and wrong.

No Boddington. Bob Saget on TV. I need to go to bed before things get worse.

The 9:30 club has just made my frickin’ holiday so much sweeter.

At the end of January - Bright Eyes on Saturday, the mo’ fo’in Arcade Fire on Sunday. I fell in love with The Arcade Fire ever since the “indie as fuck” owner of City Lights told me I would own the album after he played it for me the first time. He was so right. They’re friggin’ brilliant. BRILLIANT!

If I play my cards right, I might be living in the area at that time anyway and will only be a short metro ride away. Either way, I’m soooooo there.

Great Odin’s raven!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go do the running man until my legs can’t stand it.

This is why I like antique stores.

Today, Marissa and I decided to take a random road trip down 522. I’ve passed through many a small town on my way to DC heading on that route and I’ve always wanted to stop and check them out. Today, we did. We spent some time in McConnellsburg at a couple antique stores. The record player on the left is a 60’s model Motorola suitcase style player that an old guy sold me for $30. His antique store was basically a shed in his backyard that he was chilling in the back of watching TV and waiting for customers. When I’m old and retired, I want to have antique shop in my backyard that I can hang out in and talk to all my old retired buddies that come over to hang out after we have breakfast at the local diner.

The one on the right is a SoundDesign turntable that I bought at an antique shop in Greencastle. The main reason I bought this one is because it’s got 2 cassette decks in it. Now, I’ll be able to digitize the tapes I’ve got laying around. I’m stoked. I just read an article in MacWorld about it and I’m ready to go.

I amused Joel and I after the purchase with my scratching remix of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment with The Boss.

This morning I went to Grubb’s for breakfast and sat at the bar. I felt like an old retired man. It was fun though. All the waitresses are nice. Oh, wait. Grubb’s actually hired a dude … believe it or not. I don’t know if he’s nice. He didn’t talk to me. This is off the subject of my blog, but it’s a funny story about one of the waitresses. Heather, is her name, and she served Joel P., Adam, and I at lunch one day. I got my usual ham ‘n cheese omelette with provolone cheese, hash browns, wheat toast, and a side of bacon. I distinctly remember ordering my side of bacon. I always do. I get the same thing every time I go to Grubb’s and it’s been that way for about 5 years. I swear. Well, Heather insisted I didn’t order my bacon, as did Joel and Adam. Hwhatever. I always order it. Anyway, she finally brought me my bacon. We ate. It was good. After she brought us our check, I jokingly asked her for another side of bacon. She laughed. We all laughed. She replies, “You just wanted to watch me walk away again, didn’t you?” I looked at Joel with the “Did she just say that?” look. It was quite amusing … mostly because this girl is all of about 18 and I’m pretty sure restaurant employees should refrain from making suggestive comments to customers. I should have left her my number, but she might have thought I was serious.

AAAnyway. Grubb’s, this morning, sitting at the bar eating breakfast. Right. So I’m looking around the place and enjoying all the festive Christmas decorations they’ve put up - garland, lights, those annoying staticy icicle things my mom puts on our tree, and various other tacky wall hangings. Much to my amusement, I noticed that they put a Santa hat on the bear head trophy that greets you at the check out counter. It amuses me that the thing is there in the first place, but now it’s got a Santa hat. Much MORE to my amusement, I turn around and notice that the deer head trophy (yes, I think the Grubb family hunts) was decked out to look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - complete with the red nose and some garland hanging from the antlers for kicks. Yes, they have turned a prize buck into Rudolph. I might have seen it all now …

…until I drove out to the Water Street flea market. I was in the market for a record player, but to my dismay, no record player was found. I did find this though. Any die-hard Pirate fan would recognize these players. These players were part of probaly the most recent winning Pirate club - around the early 1990’s. I’m pretty sure I used to have this picture but it got lost amongst years of yard sales. To find it again put a smile on my face. Doug Drabek, John Smiley, Bobby Bonilla, Barry Bonds, Andy van Slyke - these guys were the favorites of kids from my generation of Pirate fans. These are the guys we couldn’t wait to go and see at Three Rivers Stadium (R.I.P.) in the ‘Burgh. Good times. Good memories.

So, as I finished up my flea market adventure, I came across a mass of electronic equipment and asked the woman if she had any record players. Alas, no. She did talk to me for about 20 minutes, though, about where I could find one in the 6 county region closest to Huntingdon. It’s a good thing I’m patient. On my way out, I was rooting through a box of $5 items and found an internal CD-ROM drive that I contemplated buying. She picked it up and said “This is a good find. It’s for your car so you can play CD’s.” If I was an ass, I would have asked her where the IDE cable plugged into my car stero. But, I’m not. I smiled and told her to enjoy the Holiday - like any polite non-ass would do - and went on my way.