Nealmeister

The 072409 Set List

I totally can't focus on the bar exam right now. I keep on telling myself that I can focus; that I should focus; that I need to focus on carrying on through and pushing forward. And I think I'll bring it on Tuesday, right when I need to, to take my crack at the Illinois bar exam. Right now, I just need to push through this with some music, even if it's at the risk of being completely emo.  That's just the way I roll.

Of course, as Hillary would say, "where there is Neal, so too are The Cranberries and Bic Runga". Here we go:

The 072409 List
1. Everything's Not Lost (Coldplay)
2. This is Your Life (The Killers)
3. The Great Escape (Patrick Watson)
4. Dream (Priscilla Ahn)
5. Sky Blue Sky (Wilco)
6. Lover Lay Down (Dave Matthews Band)
7. Linger (The Cranberries)
8. Chicago [Acoustic] (Mat Kearney)
9. The Heart of Life (John Mayer)
10. Do What You Have to Do (Sarah McLachlan)
11. Honest Goodbyes (Bic Runga)
12. Ungodly Hour (The Fray)
13. I'll Be There (Mariah Carey)
14. Both Sides of Now (Joni Mitchell)
15. One Red Thread (Blind Pilot)
16. Little Brother (Grizzly Bear)
17. Time to Pretend (MGMT)
18. She Left on a Monday (Bic Runga)
19. Winthrop (Indigo Girls)
20. Nicole's Song (Virginia Coalition)

 

Canobie Lake Park!

So, there's Six Flags New England.  And then there's Canobie Lake Park.  I definitely think that Boston-area folks under-utilize the place.  Granted, it doesn't have Superman the Rollercoaster.  But it does have the good, old wooden Yankee Cannonball.  Where else can you get pictures on a clickity, canking, coaster like this...?

Random Procrastination: Shipping Labels

Information that you could use...

Vinyl from CottonCandy Hammer
Vintage Luggage Labels from CottonCandy Hammer
Fantastic 19th Century Shipping Posters
19th. Century Shipping Posters. Clipper ship trade cards are cards that were issued by dispatch lines to advertise specific voyages of clipper ships from one port (usually New York or Boston) to another (usually San Francisco). They were distributed primarily during the late 1850s and early 1860s.

 

me wantee: mt dew vintage shirt

I just thought that I'd announce that I want/need a new one of these for the Summer 2007 season.  I think that it would be a mighty fine add to my collection of 72 t-shirts that I already own... remember size small, or a medium with capability to shrink as it tumbles in the dryer. (That, of course, is for Hillary and Crystal!)

This ain't a scene (a-la-my Corolla)

...  Once I got to the Super Stop and Shop in Medford, that Fall Out Boy song came on Kiss 108, blaring through the radio, pumping from the Kiss 108 tower right in my line of sight.  I decided on three things then and there. 

First, I really love my Corolla.  It's the perfect mix of sporty and practical; it's the perfect size for me; and heck, I find it kind of cool when I shuffle out of my corolla, and I notice the woman in the next car over kind of give me a half-smirk when she notices the car seat in the back of my car.  I think it's sexy.

Second, I really like that Fall Out Boy song, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arm's Race."  In a typical Neal-fashion, I make up my own words to the song as appropriate with my mood.  I like singing along to the "doot doot doot doot-do-oot" when the lead singer sings:

I'm the leading man
And the lies I weave are oh so intricate, oh so intricate
I'm the leading man
And the lies I weave are oh so intricate, oh so intricate

The beat's good, and the times are good in the corolla, and the air, not too dry yet not too damp, streetlights glowing high pressure sodium vapors upon the parking lot in medford.  I'm doot doot doot-ing along.  And of course, I think something else is being sung.

Third, I realized that I'm just happy.  No real reason.  Don't even know why.  Just happy.  Happy pushing a shopping cart through Stop and Shop, finding spreadable Wisconsin Pride port wine cheese, walking around with my reindeer hat and my black ems jacket.  You had to be there, I guess. 

It was just one of those nights....

In re: Charlie Brown

I guess there's been a lot of Charlie Brown references on my blog.  I owe it to the fact that I've always seemed to identify with the lovable loser because, well, I am kind of loserish myself but hopefully lovable.  The other reason, though, is because I can't think of many people who don't find some sort of comfort in "our" blockhead friend. 

I guess it is time for me to bust out the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack.  Only 14 days or so... wow...

Oh, home!

Cape Cod & The Islands from Space

This is a photograph with an aerial view of Cape Cod and "the Islands" from 220 miles above the earth. Visible are the entirety of "the Cape" and the islands of Martha's Vineyard (left) and Nantucket (right), as well as well north of and including Boston, and to the south, part of Long island up to Montauk at its tip. The hook-shaped peninsula of Cape Cod, dotted with over 360 fresh-water ponds, extends about 40 miles into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern part of Massachusetts, with a north-bearing 25 mile long extremity ending at Provincetown.

The photograph was taken from a window of the Space Shuttle Atlantis by Dan Burbank, a coast guard captain and mission specialist with NASA, on STS mission 115 to the International Space Station in September, 2006.

Photos of the STS mission 115 may be found on NASA's website.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

So the guys in the Bankruptcy corner dubbed me "Mr. Rogers" today.  I did laugh pretty hard, but then I was like "oh shit, Nealski, you've made FUN of people who look Mr. Rogers.  I mean, couldn't I look like,... I don't know, one of the humans on Sesame Street?

See you a similarity?

Mr. Rogers

Neal

In re: Brown Sugar

Well, looks like we were really working hard during PMBR, with 61 days left to the Massachusetts Bar Exam (or at least the Multi-state portion).  I guess this is what Bar Review has really come to: eating at Brown Sugar on Commonwealth Avenue (which, for all of you non-Bostonians, is a wicked awesome Thai Restaurant in Boston... there's one near Fenway, but the BU one is better) followed by a pillaging of the City Sports sidewalk sale.  What a diversion back to the Green Line.  Damn, Boston University campus really tainted us Suffolk kids!  I can't imagine what kind of distraction summer weather's going to have on all this bar studying....

At Brown Sugar: Jess, Maise, X-tine, Gaye, Alex, Me, Greg, Jen & Long

Someone's made a good buy!

Driving Around

There's nothing better than driving around in an SUV, with a couple of CDs in the CD Player,  especially in the middle of the night.  No pressure to really speed.  No pressure to go anywhere, especially when the destination is just where you feel like going.  So tonight, I just decided to go.  Me and the Ford Escape.  It's like peace, quiet, and tranquility.  That kind of stuff has become ever scarce lately.  I've been so into multi-tasking that I seemed to have forgotten the importance of finding peace of mind.

Anyway, I thought I was going to school right after the Young Adult Mass.  Once I got to Suffolk, though, I turned around and drove north on I-93.  Not a cloud in the sky... and I figured I would visit some family that I hadn't seen in a while.  Stayed 4 hours longer that I should have, but it was well worth it.  I somehow managed to get "indentured servant" into so many different conversations, it was almost like playing " 'tis."  I even connected indentured servants to Pringles--the ones that have the random facts printed on them!

The good drive happened on the departure.  1:30AM.  No one's really on the road.  Not a reason to speed; just take it easy and relax.  Find that perfect balance between day-dreaming and music-listening and thinking about wander-lusting.  I drove through cornfields and soybean fields; through forest that has spring growth a blossoming; down Beacon Street into Kenmore Square; up over Bunker Hill.  Just nice.  Like I said, peace, tranquility, peace of mind.  When there's no reason to speed, there's no speed to reason with.  Glowing acorn lights seem to make sense, and you notice the timing of green lights as you move away from Beacon Hill and toward Audubon Circle.  You take note that Memorial Drive East is easier to navigate when it's just you, the road, and the vehicle going 40 MPH.  Note the speed.  There's a reason why the speed limit isn't 65 there.  How else do you watch Boston skyline glow across the Charles.

You can't when you're speeding.

Funny...

because aside from praying for other people,
i'm usually doing this too
# postsecret

In re: Green Stuff

For some reason (I don't know why), conversation about "my guns" and the "spinach" that I eat came up at after-Mass Coffee.  Why, I ask to myself?  And is it that noticeable that I'm working out again.  I wasn't even wearing a t-shirt that I had to shrink in a dorm dryer machine for five hours to get it to fit the right way.  So what do I say?  Yeah--I eat spinach like it's my job.

Laughs abound.

The sad part: it's so true.  Spinach in my salads; spinach instead of lettuce on sandwiches; spinach as part of the DeBeers project; spinach, like the oatmeal, just about everywhere.  Spinach is oh-so-good.  And to think--I used to HATE that stuff. Once upon a time, I couldn't pay me to eat spinach. So I would hide it.  I would throw it away.  Once, at dinner at the Papparazi, I ate it totally against my will, but only with more butter than a batch of toll house cookies would take.

But now, I'm a big fan of that nice, leafy, green tastiness. And so I chuckle to myself (I've been doing that a lot lately.)  "They" were all right, 10 to 20 years ago: "you don't know what you're missing.  You'll regret it later..."

 

And the guns?  Well, the popeye jokes abound.  "Neal, your arms are like popeye.  Where's your spinach now?"  Or "Neal, show me where the beach is!"  Ha Ha Ha.  Some speculate that I only work out on my biceps and chest.  Honestly, though, I don't.  Just ask the people at Boston Sports Clubs.  But back to the guns--I think it's all the deadlifts, wood choppers, and the hanging from the pull up bar type-exercises.  All secondarily rely on the biceps. 

Perhaps I should take this up with a personal trainer?  But how do I take it the problem up with him/her? "Yo-I've been eating a lot of spinach and I think my biceps and chest are huge. Can you help me?"  I'm sure the people who ONLY work out on beach muscles would reply "that's a problem?"  Eh, kind of apparently... when you're five-foot-nothing, a hundred and something (as opposed to nothing--I'm not Rudy!).

By the way, the beach is that way...

but is it the beach you want to head off to?

scandalous.  meet me there.

Damn, how direct

I love Postsecret.  I tend to get a kick out of the secrets and such, even though a lot of them are really dark.  This one, though, just really ices the cake... with Christmas cards, nonetheless.  I really hope the person who sent the card finds out that their "friend" thinks about him or her in this way... and finds out over Postsecret.  I don't promote hate, it's just funny seeing it all come down this way. 

Yet another reason to not send out Christmas cards.

A bit of trivia

Not easily google-able, has anyone an idea of what this equation is supposed to represent?

/^([A-PR-UWYZ]\d\d? \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ][A-HK-Y]\d\d? \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ]\d[A-HJKSTUW] \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ][A-HK-Y]\d[A-HJKRSTUW] \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|GIR 0AA)$/

If you want to give up and cheat, you can find your answer here or a clue here or there.

Looking for a Christmas Present

I'm in Real Estate Conveyances, Mortgages, and Financing with Judge Nolan, blogging of course.  But Christmas is coming, and presents I think are floating in people's minds.  I can't afford too much, but you all should consider giving love-ed ones a Green Monster Yankee candle, helping the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund.

Jack-o-Lantern

So, there's a song from my Boston Public Schools kindergarden education that always resonates in my mind this time of year,  the Jack-o-Lantern song... goes something like Jack-o-lantern / Jack-o-lantern / you are such a lovely sight / sitting there in the window looking out at the night / you were once a lovely pumpkin / sitting on a sturdy vine / now you are a JACK-O-LANTERN / see your candlelight shines.

So over the years, we kind of changed the lyrics, all of us from Ms. Kissling's class, to fit the circumstances of the time... like... some rendition of the jack-o-lantern getting egged or bashed; jack-o-lantern bootay calls; evil trick-or-treaters.  The list goes on.

So now you can carve a jack-o-lantern!!!!

http://www.toilette-humor.com/flash/carve_pumpkin.swf

related links:

• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! 
• IMDB site 
• Get it on amazon

Post Secrets

   

   

Perhaps the reason why I've really gotten into PostSecrets is because I can totally relate with about half of them and then empathize with about all of them... the only downshot is that most of them of are really depressing.  But watch out; I might send one in... it will be deep and funny at the same time.