Moving this party somewhere else. Later, Blogger.

AP: put this in your blog instead

For the past 3 months, I have been dealing with something privately. It's nothing serious, but it is affecting my life in ways I never thought it would.

To Add or Not to Add

Three months ago, I logged into Facebook and saw that I had a new friend request. Excited, I clicked to see who it was and discovered it was a girl I had sort of known back in high school (Note: I went to a Catholic High School in Queens, NY). I remember this girl distinctly; junior year was the year we had to take the American History Regents exam and one of the Long-Essays asked us to write about an event that tested America's resolve. She wrote about the War on AIDS. Needless to say, she had to take the Regents again in August.
She was the stereotypical guidette from Queens with crunchy hair who smoked light cigarettes when she was 16 and drank Coors Light after prom.


This is a person I don't really want to get to know any more than I already do, so I denied her Facebook friend request. I usually live by the rule "If I know you in real life, I know you on Facebook," but this was pushing it a little--we never really spoke in high school unless it was when she wanted to cheat off of me in Chemistry and I doubt we would engage in any deep conversations now that we we're digital friends.

Two weeks later I got another friend request. From the same girl. Undeterred, I ignored it again.

One month ago, she adds me again. Third time's the charm? Ignored.
The next day, added again. Her request has been sitting, untouched, in my Facebook Request pages.

"What's the next move?" I ask myself. I figure I'll send her a little message asking, "Why do you want to be my friend so bad?" That sentence has now plagued my psyche. What kind of answer would say to me, "Hey, I should really add this person."? Why would anyone want to be friends with me?

"Oh, I know we didn't know each other in high school but I always wanted to get to know you better, so I figured this was a start." Then I decided to look at her other Facebook friends. She has about 300 and all of them, I kid you not, are kids from my high school class. Not a single other friend outside of that circle. So either she's nostalgic or a completest. While understandable, this will not do.

So, she will wait in Facebook Pergatory, also known as "Awaiting friend confirmation."

June, 2009.

What a month you turned out to be. As the midway point in an already turbulent year, you did not disappoint.

Let's run down some high (and low) lights of this month, shall we?

Your opening salvo was the disappearance of Air France 447, easily one of the most bizarre plane crashes in history. Not only did the plane literally vanish from the radar, many experts suggest that 447 was was one of the only commercial jets to break apart in mid-air due to lightning and turbulence. Only now are they starting to recover bodies and debris from off the coast of Brazil.

Also on June 1st, Conan O'Brien became the fifth host of the Tonight Show, officially making his transition from New York City to Los Angeles.

ALSO on June 1st, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At one point in the 1970s, GM was the largest employer in America. Today, Wal-Mart holds that title.

On June 3rd you delivered easily THE STRANGEST celebrity death that I've ever heard of. There are numerous conflicting reports, but it pretty much stands that David Carradine was found in the closet of his hotel room in Bangkok, naked (but possibly wearing lingerie) with a shoelace tied around his neck (and possibly his penis) and his hands bound behind his back (or maybe not). Some medics suggested accidental suicide from autoerotic asphyxiation, some suggest a deliberate suicide, while others suggest that he was tracked down by a secret sect of ninjas and murdered. I am not kidding. Two of his wives have come out saying that he was into some very kinky business, so him dying of autoerotic asphyxiation isn't very surprising to them. My favorite article about this story came from the New York Post where they had interviewed the owner of a sex shop that Carradine frequented. She said that he had quite a few items on back order and that she was upset that he'd never get to enjoy them.

This one is particularly embarrassing for New Yorkers, but on June 8th, two Democratic state senators switched sides in order to remove the Senate Majority Leader, Malcom Smith. Essentially what happened was that the vote was counted but not officially recognized before a Senator called for adjournment, which was granted. For anyone who knows Robert's Rules (I am looking at your, Russ Zambito), you would know that this move is highly illegal because a) a motion was still on the table and b)the adjournment wasn't voted upon. This put the whole senate into a tizzy which eventually resulted in a deadlock of 31 senators on each side and neither side agreeing to meet in Senate. Meanwhile, this is the time of year when very important bills are supposed to be passed before summer recess, so Governor Patterson urged the Senate to reconvene. They did, except the held separate sessions in the same room. This is still going on.

All throughout May and June, the world kept an eye on the H1N1 virus outbreak, which began in Mexico and made its way to the US and abroad. On June 11th, the World Health Organization officially categorized it as a world pandemic.

June 12th marked an especially important, and perhaps world-changing, event. Iran's presidential elections took place in a sea of optimism that current president and general nut job, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be ousted and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi would be elected. The West looked on in anticipation as the results came in because there was much riding on this election. Even though the President isn't the top dog in terms of power, many felt that his election would help ease relations between Iran and the rest of the world. However, it turned out that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide that few expected. Immediately, opponents called voter fraud and took to the streets. What resulted was one of the most notable series of protests in history. Islamic Clerics and the Ayatollah, the real leaders of the Iranian theocracy, condemned the hundreds of thousands of protesters saying that if things progressed as they were, bloodshed would be inevitable. The protests eventually became less about the election and more about the general stranglehold that Iran's Islamic regime held on it's citizens, 70% of whom are under the age of 30. What made this whole story even more fascinating was that mainstream media couldn't cover it--Iran had placed so many restrictions on Western media outlets that major networks didn't cover the story because they couldn't. So, young Iranians used the greatest technology our generation has seen, the internet, to get their message out. From 140-character updates via Twitter to ten minute long videos uploaded to YouTube, Iranians reported on themselves and put mainstream media to shame.

Also on June 12th, America shut off all analog television signals in favor of high-powered all-digital signals. The old signals will be used for a number of things including emergency transmissions and possibly nation-wide wi-fi.

The week of June 22nd was a rough week to be a celebrity. On June 23rd, Ed McMahon of Tonight Show Fame died at age 86. On the morning of June 25th, Farrah Fawcet died at age 62, but her passing was overshadowed that afternoon when the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died at age 50. Regardless of his weird personal life, he was one of the most important people in contemporary music. I believe it is safe to say that we will never see another pop star like Michael Jackson again. Even now, it's hard to imagine 100 million people even downloading an album for free, let alone buy a physical copy of it, at full price, from a store. Although music videos had essentially existed from the earliest days of rock and roll, Jackson teamed up with some of the best people in their varied professions and produced some of the most memorable music videos ever. These videos changed the way we consumed music; try listening to Thriller without envisioning the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Another King died as well--Billy Mays, the bearded-larger-than-life Infomerical King, died in his sleep on June 28th at age 50.

One of the last little bits that has been thrown at us this month was the over-throwing of the President of Honduras. It's the first of it's kind in years in Latin America; basically, President Zelaya tried passing this new referendum which the Supreme Court, Congress and every other political body in Honduras decided was completely illegal. The referendum looked to change, among other things, the presidential re-election process. Currently, only one term can be serve. Zelaya has the lowest approval ratings amongst any Latin American president. Zelaya is described as being a center-left Liberal who has the poor and the working class on his side. This makes him an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a known opponent of the West and Capitalism. At the behest of the middle and upper classes, the army overtook the president's office and removed him. While many viewed this as a military coup, Hondurans look at this as completely legitimate as they do not have an impeachment process written into their constitution.

And then today, another plane crashed in the Indian Ocean. And US troops began their massive pullout of Iraq.

In my life, I started working full time, earning a salary and paying bills. Soon, I will have a car, insurance and rent to pay.

I am job.

This week I started my first official post-college-real-life-job. It essentially brings together two things I've wanted to do for years: work in a high school/higher ed environment and work with film/tv/video stuff. The job pays well and I have pretty decent benefits (I think?) but, as with most things, nothing is perfect.

The school district is pretty well-off but, the high school, especially, isn't that great. The school is located in the middle of the woods between two golf courses (Purchase, anyone?) but most of the kids tend to act like they're from the inner city, apparently. There's little to no discipline, or so I'm told, so the kids don't give a shit and that translates throughout the school. There are six schools ranging from K-12; the lower schools are really good, from what I understand, but it kind of falls apart by middle school (7th grade).

My job, specifically, is the Television Assistant. I have a direct boss who has been doing the whole thing by herself for five years now. By "the whole thing" I mean shooting district-wide events, editing them, compressing them for TV, compressing them for the web, creating DVDs, distributing DVDs and heading an after-school program for middle school students two days a week. The things we're shooting are school board meetings, school concerts, graduations, and other special events. My boss has been inundated with footage recently so we're already backlogged and will be even moreso come two weeks from now when we have 5 graduations to shoot.

Right now the editing is fairly straightforward and I'm adjusting to shooting two and half hour long concerts of kids who only sing half the words to any given song they're performing and play more sour notes than true. I guess Purchase spoiled me in terms of decent performaces as it's what I've come to expect, but then I have to stop and remember that some of these kids are in middle school. Both my boss and I are adjusting to each other, as would be expected--I hope it contiunes to go smoothly.

I'd really like to get some things off the ground once the new TV station is built in the high school but I already get the sense that there's a lot of red tape and not a lot of student interest in the whole setup. Hopefully I can help change that, if even just slightly.

an open letter to the G train.

Dear G Train,

I know, I've been seeing your friends F and E on a more regular basis, and it's not that they're better than you, but they have what I need. They go out to the city with me and don't care what time I come home. But you, you were my old standby. That's what makes this so hard.

We go back a long way, you and I. Remember when I was twelve and we went to the mall for the first time? That was great, wasn't it? Or that time I got stranded in Brooklyn when I was sixteen and my only beacon of hope was your illuminated green logo? It was magical.

But things changed when you moved out of Forest Hills.

You got too hip for your old digs and started catering exclusively to those Brooklynites. Sure, they're your bread and butter, but Queens was your heart and soul, baby. Every hipster from Greenpoint to Park Slope would rag on you, but I stood by you, G train--they didn't know you like I did, or so I thought.

The past day was the last straw, sweetheart. I thought we could pick things up where they left off, but you dropped the ball big time. All I needed was a few hours of your time to get me through Brooklyn and all you did was laugh at me. Fifteen minute wait at Court Square. Twenty minute wait at Smith/9th. And then, like a slap in the face, a thirty five minute wait at Nassau this morning. And then, to top it off, you have E clean up your mess and go local from Roosevelt to Forest Hills--that's just icy.

I don't know what to do with you. You're my link to second favorite borough but you just make it so hard to love you. You're dirty, you smell funny, you're continuously late and, frankly, you move like molasses, but I miss you.

Please, lets not fight anymore. I know you're never coming back to Queens, but...I still want to see you. Just don't make me regret it.


With much love and sorrow,

Al Rossin.

"Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to hell."

There is no real way for me to describe how wonderful "Drag Me to Hell" was. I know that the ads make it look like a typical horror movie, but you have to take my word for it--this is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long, long time. And not funny because it was awful, but funny because Sam Raimi is clearly having fun making movies again. Really great tongue-in-cheek humor (Justin Long is continuously surrounded by Mac products...) and some really laugh-out-loud gross-out scenes. My only wish was that Bruce Campbell would've made a cameo, but not all wishes are meant to be granted.


___________

In real life, I just got myself a job that pays a nice salary, gives me health benefits, sick days and vacation days. And no, I'm not on drugs or dreaming. More details when I get them.

BBQ Weekend 2009

Today kicked off this year's BBQ weekend at my house. At least one weekend a summer, my dad and I put aside time to totally bro out and grill/smoke lots of meat, play cards and drink beer.

On the menu for today:
-Ribs
-Potato salad
-Baked beans
-Sausage (grilled or smoked)

On tap:
-Sam Adams Blackberry Witbeir

Today's grade:
B+ (For some reason the ribs were saltier than I had expected or preferred. The beans and the potato salad were on point and the grilled sausage was far superior to their smoked brethren. The weather was really fantastic but not hot enough to really enjoy the Witbeir. Regardless, it was a successful day.