I had the same problem on my Xanga site. There’s a great deal of pressure on that “first” article. (Apparently those first few articles don’t count. As well they shouldn’t. What’s more boring than a website about a computer nerd’s writing? A website about a computer nerd’s writing about his website)

So there were many, many failed articles I wrote to lead things off on a strong note. And just like my Xanga, I’m giving up and writing a craptastic first entry. Please accept my apologies if you are still reading.

It occured to me that I’ve never really wrote about my thoughts on relocating to Chicago. So let me jot down a few things that have run through my head since arriving here almost two months ago:

• I miss the color green. I miss urban sprawl. Chicago is a dense concrete jungle that looks as if it would collapse and fall into Lake Michigan if a strong wind blew through.
• Chicago has made me unapologetically pro-Walmart. Between the local grocery store and Home Depot, I get by alright. But goodness, I miss that place dearly.
• There are a great many interesting things to do. I have less free time than I did when I was in Columbia, MO or West Lafayette, IN, but I find myself much, much busier than ever.
• Speaking of those fine locales, I still keep in touch with about 2-3 people that I met from 5 years of college in Columbia, MO (I’m not counting the fairly significant number of people I met after graduation there). I keep in regular contact with almost a dozen that I met from 4 months of college at Purdue. I don’t quite know what this means

Okay, so I’m not doing so well at really articulating my thoughts on relocation. Luckily, someone out there is though. Ron “Aalgar” Watt writes Infinite Midlife Crisis, a blog about his recent relocation from Maryland to Seattle. He can tell you the details in a better and more entertaining fashion than can I; let me just say I found the blog via one of his many eBay auctions wherein he was selling nearly everything he had of value to fund this project.

To quote the most amazing and lovely person I know, I’ll steal from my own closing words on my first Xanga entry:

Okay, sooooooo, first entry, not all that interesting. Oh well, too bad. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, I’ll someday edit this entry, take out all the words, and add new interesting ones instead.

Hi there, Scott from 2018 writing here. This is from my old Xanga account. I mostly post these because it makes me laugh at myself. I have no idea why you’d be reading this, but enjoy yourself. -SP

Every morning, my commute to work ends with a jaunt from my train stop straight to the office. Other than an unusually high spa to non-spa ratio along the street, it’s not particularly remarkable compared to any other Lincoln Park avenue. Occasionally I’ll see some headline in a newsstand that causes me to pause for a few moments or worse, do the double-take and suddenly com back to it. One example of this was last week, when the Sun-Times ran the front page headline “FAKE TRAIN COPS TAKE PASSENGER FOR A RIDE.” I saw this and stuck it in the “To Think About Later” portion of my brain, when I realized that I ride the train! Incidentally, it’s a good thing my daily commute takes just a little while as my brain isn’t necessarily sharp first thing in the morning. Realizing the potential danger I could be in, I turned around amidst other pedestrians to read more of that headline.

My head was filled with images of fake transit police absconding with me, forcing me to be an unwilling participant in an all-night frenzy of murder and debauchery. It didn’t occur to me that I’ve never even seen a transit cop on the train before, and so if I did see either the real thing or merely a fake, I’d probably flee the scene in alarm regardless. The story was far more tame than the headline suggested though, relating to merely some major, but entirely financial, fraud rather than a Judgment Night-esque tale of horror. Deviations such as these are usually about as varied as my trip gets.

As I lost myself in thought dreaming of fake cops though, I ended up passing quite a few shops I don’t normally see. There was the cafe with funky color scheme and kitchen the size of a smallish closet. There was the western wear store, which informed me that in the Old West, people wore denim almost to the exclusion of all other materials. Polyester and other fabrics must have been invented in the East I guess, since it looked like life was a veritable denimcopia west of the Mississippi. There was also the mattress store with many sofas, a small cat sleeping on one of them, and a few cardboard displays. I was looking at antiques as I passed by a window two stores down when I thought “Was that a cat I just saw?” So for the second time in as many weeks, I backtracked to the location to investigate.

Sure enough, there was what appeared to be a cat sleeping upon one of the front display mattresses. I watched it for a few moments, seeing it was breathing and thus a real cat rather than some kind of fake for advertising purposes. Apparently my still-sleepy brain thought it plausible that someone would get a very realistic, but fake, cat to place upon their display units. Passing wives would stop their husbands, saying “Wow, look how great that cat is sleeping! We need one of those!” However, if sane people actually thought things like this, then Serta would also manufacture human-sized cardboard boxes, computer monitors, and just the backs of sofas. As I watched, the sleeping cat took a breath, much to my astonishment that these sofa retailers got the real thing for their store.

While I walked on a few moments later, I spent the rest of my morning thinking about that cat. “What a lifestyle that cat must enjoy. Getting to live life amongst a variety of ever-changing and very comfortable places to sleep. That, in addition to Fancy Feast© of course, must be the equivalent of the good life for cats.” More so than dogs or other creatures, cats are pretty serious about their sleeping, and so I can’t imagine a better place to practice’s one’s passion. Of course, knowing cats, they are just as likely to spend 15 minutes kneading an open book just to fall right over onto the crease and into a deep sleep as they are to actually go to a mattress or anything. Still though, I can’t think of anything better if I were a cat. In fact, I can’t think of much better than that being a human either.

Some people say that pets don’t go to Heaven, despite the what popular culture may have to say about that. For every Fahrenheit 9/11 that comes out, someone seems to counter with a Michael Moore Hates America and vice versa from right to left. But Americans all seem to agree that All Dogs Go to Heaven, since there hasn’t been any countering film called God Hates Dogs or something to argue the other side. Regardless, if cats don’t get to enter their own pearly gates, perhaps the really, really good cats get to spend some time in a mattress store.

In the past 24 hours, I have:

• accepted a full-time job with Sonoma Partners
• purchased the new season of 24 (complete with clip-on watch!)
• worked on my Compilers project only to have a bizarre Deus Ex Machina save everyone involved, much like in crappy thriller movies where a minor character from the first Act returns in Act III to save the protagonist
• turned down an admin position on the website NationStates
• easily had my best night of improv ever.

Oh yeah, and this: I took my final presentation for my graphics class less than seriously

Hi there, Scott from 2018 writing here. This is from my old Xanga account. I mostly post these because it makes me laugh at myself. I have no idea why you’d be reading this, but enjoy yourself. -SP

Since I don’t really have the time to write entries for the foreseeable future, I’ll write a few little bits about my life as of late.

• I didn’t get the job in St. Louis. I interviewed on Monday for a job in Chicago. Should hear back about that one soon.
• Allison recently signed me up for complimentary issues of magazines “they’re sure to enjoy” as the offer described it. As such, I’ve had the delight of getting free issues of the magazines *hild, 2 back-to-back issues of Golf Digest, ESPN: The Magazine, and the star of the collection, ELLEgirl. After giving the last zine a bad rap, where I may have called for the assassination of a 15-year-old actress for appearing on the cover, I’ve turned over a new leaf and have given the magazine a delightful second chance. While it lacks a proper teenie “Is he crushin’ on you? 15 questions to find out!” quiz, it still gets high marks for a variety of funny moments. A 13 year old girl writes: (note this is not edited or abridged in any way)

Thank you for “Wood You Rather?” I’ve liked Elijah Wood since the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out. He’s such a hot, awesome, and talented actor! I can’t wait for his new movie! I didn’t know he had 3,000 CDs… whoa, that’s a lot.

Somehow, the editors of the magazine failed to comment on this controversial viewpoint. My favorite though is when a 19 year old (And who over the age of 14 reads ELLEgirl? WHO?!) writes to ask a celebrity: “Do you watch The OC?” That’s it. A letter and months of waiting to get the answer to that. Anyhoo, it’s fun times.

• On a mildly serious note, if I hear any more phrases like “You don’t understand this? It’s straightforward,” “… always the model of the ideal grad student, you are,” or “You seem like a better fit for the business world,” , I think I’m going to start biting off heads. So be warned if you see me get out a file and start sharpening my teeth. Head-biting will be eminent.
• On a whim, I applied with these people for a job teaching English as a Second Language in South Korea for a year, while I was applying for a rash of interesting jobs. Well, I heard back from them today, and they’re wanting an interview. Very interesting.
• Finally, I can’t stop watching World Championship Sexy (low quality, but what can you do?). It reminds me of good ol’ Sprockets in its zaniness. I keep saying “Okay chubbies, your time is now,” and imagining John Leguizamo’s clown from Spawn saying “Sexual.”Also worth checking out is one of their older film school presentations that make me realize I wasted my previous time as an undergrad. Incidentally, the people behind this are also, along with my hero Bob Odenkirk, the people behind the new Adult Swim show Tom Goes to the Mayor, as well as my favorite all-digital phone service.

First off, to live up to promises, the interview was so-so. I’ll find out next week whether I get the offer. That out of the way, T-Rex has some interesting haikus as away messages, and a recent event causes me to create my own.

The always-silent
office phone bleats. Fear. Panic.
Who has this number?!