Goodbye mustache, hello NyQuil

My boss is growing out his beard. I commented on it today and that led to a discussion of the beard I've been trying to grow/been too damn lazy to shave off. Every year on New Year's Day, I shave off my facial hair...I like to start the year with a clean slate. However, I kinda made up my mind not to do it this year.

I was forced to change my mind on my way home from work, when my cigarette lighter got a little over-zealous and singed half my mustache off. Once home, I got out the trimmers and tried to even it up, but was left with just stubble on my upper lip. So I shaved off the mustache leaving the rest of the beard, which made me look like an Amish hipster. A little edging and pruning, I went with the soul patch/sideburn combo. I can now work at any record store or blend in at any frat party in the country.

Today, I used up all of my Christmas gift cards. Overall, I was practical about it. A pair of jeans, day planner, office supplies...about the only entertainment expense was the new Weezer CD, which kicks all sorts of ass. Every song of theirs reminds me of hearing a really great song during the end credits of a movie and makes me want to sit in the theater until it's over. Man, that was a long way to go for that analogy.

My cold is getting better, but I want to back to 100% by New Year's Eve. That's why I picked up some NyQuil, the nighttime-sniffling-sneezing-how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-on-the-kitchen-floor medicine. It makes a great party drug, as long as the party is only gonna last four minutes. I used up the last of my supply last night, and generally I can't take it more than two nights in a row, otherwise I get the opposite effect. I'm up until dawn, hyper as hell and alphabetizing everything: Movies, books, CDs, pets, etc.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment for a cherry/death flavored cold and flu killing trip.

Christmas, home and history

Overall, Christmas was pretty good for Fritschie this year. Having lived the past few years on next-to-bare necessity, my wants are fairly few and far between. About all I really wanted was CSI: Season Five on DVD, and for the first time in years, my mom actually got the exact one I asked for...The past three years she'd gotten me the most recent two-disc Lord of the Rings, even though I told her I wanted the four-disc special edition (because of which she now stresses the importance of gift reciepts). Holy shit, am I really that much of a geek?

There was something screwy with Christmas dinner. Not in the people sitting around the table (I'm used to them) but I was having stomach problems all night. I'm thinking a side dish was to blame, because I felt fine after a leftover sandwich the next day.

I will soon need to have a nice long talk with my sister-in-law. Every time I speak to her, she tells me of someone she knows who is looking for an art director, and every time I have to tell her I'm not interested. It's the same shit my mom had tried to do for years before she accepted that I don't want to move down there. However, now my sister-in-law's got my nieces trying to lay a heavy guilt trip into me for living so far away from my family.

Is my life in Tulsa perfect? No, but it's my home. My parents moved to from my hometown of Fort Smith to Little Rock while I was in college. My brother and sister-in-law moved into the house we grew up in. They kept me a room, but it just wasn't the same. After they had to give up the house, they moved to Little Rock. So, no place really felt like home anymore. So, I had to make my own, and it just happened to be in Tulsa. Sorry, folks, but I have a steady job, lots of friends and lots of people who depend on me. Plus, if I were to even consider moving, it would be back to Northwest Arkansas where I lived last, where I know more than six people, where I can feel a little more at home.

Months ago, at a charity auction, my stepdad won a silent auction on a guided tour of the Clinton Presidential Library. Monday afternoon was the day that all of us were finally able to go. Even Clinton's most hardened critics would stand in awe of how important Clinton was to history. There's even a display covering the impeachment preceedings. It really spoke volumes (no pun intended) about his legacy as president, warts and all.

All throughout the tour, I couldn't help but to imagine what the Dudya library will look like years from now. I have a feeling it won't have the same progressive feel that the Clinton library does. I'm sure it will cover 9/11, the war in Iraq, and all the other problems Bush has faced...howeve it may just gloss over the bad parts, much like the LBJ library has no mention of Vietnam, or the Nixon library talks about Watergate as if was a mere footnote. If they do happen to show the realities of Bush's decisions, I bet you anything they'd have tour guides ready to usher people on to the next exhibit, or at the very least distract the visitors by coughing loudly or faking a seizure.

Dead animals

Yesterday was the easiest day of work I have ever had. All I did was surf the net and backup our file to CD. My boss got us all Rib Crib for lunch. That, combined with dinner at my grandmother's in Fort Smith, meant that I had five different kinds of meat in one day. I've been paying the price for it today, though. Ugh.

After losing ten bucks in poker, I hit the road again to my parent's house in Little Rock. I got there a little after midnight and stayed up until 2:00 just talking with my mom.

Today has been a lazy day. The only thing I really HAD to do was feed my brother's dogs. The rest of the day has been spent hanging out with the folks. Almost every TV in the house is on at the same time, so if I get tired of CNN in one room, I would move to the next room to watch football, or the Hunting Channel, or Fox News...My theory is that my parents lost all the remotes, so they just set each TV to different channels.

The Hunting Channel is kinda freaking my shit out. Not only is it the same scenario over and over again ("It's frolicking, KILL IT!", but they also try to add the element of humor to it with goofy music as the animal is running around after being shot. The scariest thing to me is that this is in HDTV. Apparently, they got enough complaints that it didn't look real enough, so they started filming it with higher clarity and in 5.1 surround sound.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for outdoor activities, and as a carnivore I do enjoy the fruits (ha ha ha) of the hunter's labor. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of these guys keep a list of every animal on the planet as a "to do" list. They're just waitng for the day they can say, "Today, I bagged myself a lemur and a koala bear!"

Too buzzed to think of a proper title

I've been slacking off on the past week or so, by my standards. I started this thing to try and post at least once a day. Given that I haven't posted on my fictional blog in a month and a half, I feel like I need to get back on track...I smell a new year's resolution in the making.

Tonight, I went out with a couple friends for dinner, thne went back to their place to catch the end of CSI. I made it through half of Without a Trace and left for Arnie's. No one I knew showed up, so I sat there alone for a couple hours with a large group of young people at the next table. I had to come to term with my age when I found myself loathing these people simply because not a single one of them could speak a sentence without the words "Oh my God!". I really am getting too cynical for my own age (see last post). I found myself thinking things like "I could get them all to leave right now if I told them there was a sale at American Eagle." or "I bet they're gonna order a round of Car Bombs any second now." When they, in fact, ordered a round of Car Bombs (shot of Bailey's dropped in a pint of Guinness and chugged), I tabbed out and went home.

So now, I'm still fairly buzzed, I still have laundry to do for my trip, and I'm overtired. Good times, noodle salad.

Cynicism: It's what's for dinner

In a true I-wish-I-had-my-camera moment, I just witnessed the most screwed up tactic in military recruitment...ever. It was a recuiting van, with full color graphics from top to bottom of men and women in uniform (nothing out of the ordinary), but with SPINNING RIMS on it! Are new enlistments down that much that they have to impress them with rotating shiny items?!? "Oh, so you don't want to go to Iraq? That's okay...say, did you check out my rims? You like those? Sign on this dotted line, please."

I hear the Catholic church is taking notes, and teaming up with Rockford Fosgate for a "Bass for Jesus" campaign to be launched sometime next year.

I have a client who's driving me nuts. He's in his sixties, he barely has a clue as to what he's doing, and I've seen calculator watches with better memory than he does. Today, he tried to talk me through a stock photo website over the phone. I just about lost it when he asked me, "Do you have to have an account with these people before you can log on to their website?"

Anyway, I'm on my third complete redesign of his project, and I'm anticipating a fourth and a fifth, until I finally tell them that if they come back with another change, I'm gonna kill a kitten. Of course, I'm bluffing. If he happens to call me on it, I'll just threaten to hit him with a fish instead.

I know I'm breaking a cardinal rule of blogging by bitching about my work, but there's little chance of repercussions in this case because this guy not only forgets everything within five minutes, but also has proven to me that he's a real wiz with the internet.

Not what I ordered

Today I stopped by McDonald's for lunch. I was five miles away before I realized that they got my order wrong. The first clue? Going for a drink of Dr. Pepper and getting a swig of vanilla milkshake. Instead of my McChicken sandwich, I got a Double Quarter (Royale) with cheese and an extra cheeseburger. Oh, well...It was an upgrade, so I ate it.

I generally don't try to return drive-thru fast food. Not because I'm prone to settling for whatever crap life deals to me, but because I'm always miles away before I realize I'm screwed. Was a crappy McChicken sandwich really with the gas money to go back and get the order right. Besides, I like to think about the guy that mistakenly got my food. Maybe he drove back and complained about his wrong order. Then the McDonald's employees are left with the burning question: "What the hell happened to his food? No one brought it back...could it still around here somewhere?"

I love this big-ass monkey

Today, I saw King Kong. Holy shit. If I had to sum up that movie in two words, that would be it: Holy shit.

I could see Peter Jackson following the same path as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, in that he'll keep making these completely amazing movies one right after the other until he reaches the point that hardcore movie geeks will scrutinize his every move. Jackson's past four films have been events more than they've been mere movies. He has succeeded where no one has before: He has made millions of people not only sit through a trilogy of three-hour-plus films, but made us anticipate the four-hour director's cuts a year later. After Lord of the Rings, he could've adapted Webster's Dictionary for the big screen and still made me want to pre-order tickets for the midnight first screening.

Now, he has brought us a three-hour remake of King Kong (the original clocked in at around 90 minutes). In this huge package, Jackson has managed to take action, drama, comedy, horror and fantasy, throw it in a blender and hit 'frappe'. And, much like with Lord of the Rings, he's taken his actors in directions I never thought they'd be capable of. When the first Rings flick came out, I would watch Sam and Frodo and say to myself, "Rudy? And the kid from Flipper?". Now, of course, I watch films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Sin City and think "NO, FRODO, NO!!!" This time around there's Jack Black...JACK BLACK?!? One of my favorite dramatic performances of the year is coming from Shallow Hal?!?

But one thing that Jackson, I feel, does so much better than every other director out there is character development. There was no way he could have done this in less than three hours. He made a 25-foot gorilla a very complex character. He's a mindless beast, he's a misunderstood soul, he's a protector, he's the golden goose, he's a menacing terror, he's a tragic hero. Where the hell was this kind of storytelling when Godzilla was remade years ago?

A lot of reviews of this flick say that it raises the bar for filmmaking, and while I agree with that, I hope and pray that it is respected as such. But nowadays, so many writers and driectors see that the bar has been raised, and they're perfectly content with playing limbo (cough, cough, Michael Bay, cough). Not to say that I want every movie to come out to have wall-to-wall special effects and a $200 million budget, but for crying out loud, try doing a few extra drafts on the script, will you? With the state of mainstream cinema today, I know that's asking a lot.

In the end, King Kong-in my opinion-can only expose every other movie for what they are: Two hours of mindless distraction with as much depth as a kiddie pool, performed by actors with as much range as a Daisy air rifle.

Can my dark side come out and play?

The other day, I remembered a long conversation I had with some friends back in college. I cannot, for the life of me, recall what brought the subject up, nor do I know what made me think of it now, but the subject was the most painful cause of death. We had to set some ground rules, though. The method of death had to something that was fairly commonplace. This rule had to be set because it just got way too creepy with the things some people were throwing out there (stabbed in the eye while submersed in a vat of ammonia, sandblasted with rock salt, etc.). While it was fun trying to poke holes in people's logic, it was quite possibly the darkest and most psychotic conversation of my life.

One person brought up burning to death, but that was shot down due to the fact that any pain receptors would burn away fairly quickly and it wouldn't hurt anymore. Strangling, suffocation and choking was over way too quick to count as painful, even though the panic of drowning, added the element of painful filling of the lungs with fluid. In the end, we all agreed that massive internal bleeding combined with septsis (sic) of the blood was the most painful method of death. Perhaps a gun shot wound to the gut with the bullet cracking a rib or two on the way in.

Needless to say, I didn't hang out with those people too much after that night. They all took way too much enjoyment out of that conversation.

Again, I don't know why I thought of that. I don't even know why I thought I'd share that. I guess that one less memory I have to worry about repressing.

Clusterfuck

We're right in the middle of printing these catalogs at work. Over two weeks ago, we sent the files to the output bureau. Two days after that, there was a change to the photo on the back cover. I made the change and sent the file to the output bureau and asked them to replace it.

We got the test proof and it looked great. I proceeded in setting up and proofing the other 28 separate covers with the client (in addition to my normal day-to-day workload), safe with the knowledge that everything was gonna be running smoothly with the printing.

Today, my boss asked me to follow him out into the press room to take a look at something. All of the catalogs printed so far had the original photo, not the corrected one I had asked the output bureau to replace it with. Let the panic attack begin.

I was asked to check the plates for the next round of printing. We print in 4 ink colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), and each of the different covers requires a change on the black plate only. The black plate had the old image on it, while the other three had the new image. I immediately drove to the output bureau to clear this up.

At moments like this, blame is pointless. All you can do is handle damage control. My boss surpassed pissed and bounced right into eerily calm and in control. Ordinarily, I'd be bleeding from the anus over something like this, but he was taking care of everything. The catalogs that are already printed were accepted by the client at a discount, so no re-printing is required. I had to make sure that the outbut bureau had completely deleted the bad image and only used the good one from now on.

On the other hand, once this job is all done, THEN blame will be assessed. In this case, it's everyone's fault. The output bureau should've deleted the bad image. I should've taken more time to double-check the plates as they came in. The pressmen should've actually paid attention to what they were printing (i.e. compare the color proof to what was coming out of the press) sometime BEFORE they made 15,000 impressions.

So, I'm kinda on thin ice here. My yearly begging for a raise is gonna fall on deaf ears. I'd swear, if this wasn't my only real marketable job skill, I'd be out of this career so fast it's not even funny.

Of course, I'll think differently about this tomorrow.

Nightmares, toenails and dumb dumb people

I know this is gross and all, but last night as I was going to bed, I stubbed my toe on my desk chair. I flicked the light on to see how bad the damage was...lo and behold, it had torn my toenail out completely. It surely looks worse than it feels. In fact, it doesn't hurt at all. Of course, if you had a choice of which part of your body to suddenly lose, this would be the one.

I had a really screwed-up dream last night. Nothing was happeing in the dream, it was just me in my house doing absolutely nothing. However, I had this intense feeling of dread. That was the dream: Just me hanging around the house scared shitless over absolutely nothing. I even woke up in a cold sweat.

Work today was hectic, but productive. I actually heard my boss scream at another employee. I'm used to him being angry, but this was more explosive rage than his usual shit-fit anger. All I could do was close the door to my office, hope I wasn't next on his list, and pray to God he didn't get that concealed weapon permit he was talking about a couple months ago. [please file this paragraph under the "Nightmares" part of the headline, rather than the "dumb dumb people" section.]

Having very little money in the bank, I opted to hit the Chinese buffet for lunch. All you can eat for six bucks? The joke's on them! While I was scarfing down my sesame chicken, I started listening in on the conversation these two guys were having in the next booth. Everything they talked about was current events, but I had the feeling they both just read the headlines and not the actual articles that followed them. If it weren't for the southern drawls and the lo mein, I'd swear I was watching Fox News.

One thing that caught my attention was their debate over a new ski resort that opened in the Middle East (which is true). I kept hearing things like "How do you have snow in the desert?" and "How're they gonna make any money off of that?" and "Them people worry me." After about five minutes of listening to this drivel, I asked for my check in lieu of turning around and explaining to these hicks, "It's indoors, you morons. They build a ski park indoors. They make their own snow. Did you ever stop to think that they'd figure this stuff out before they try to open up a ski resort in the middle of the fucking desert?!? Did you honestly think that wouldn't be a crucial part of their proposal for a business loan?!? Now, eat your egg rolls and shut the hell up, would you please?"

You see, some days I look back on moments like that and say I took the high road, kept my mouth shut and simply left with my dignity intact. However, in this case, I consider that more of a chickenshit move. I like to consider myself a pretty open-minded guy, but this had nothing to do with their opinions. Some people truly just don't know what the hell they're talking about, and damn if that doesn't stop them from talking anyway.

Getting my shit together

My room is, generally speaking, always a pig sty. This weekend, I was fed up with it. So, I set about sorting it all out, and the only way I could ensure that it would get done right was to rearrange the furniture as well. The only problem when I got everything in its place, there was a void. I had left a three foot space along the wall, and I didn't have anything to go there.

The situation presented itself when I went down to Arnie's Saturday night. They were having a drawing for a portable bar...basically a long, narrow folding table with a shelf for alcohol When I showed up, only fifteen people were there, by the time the name was drawn, there were about fifty. The odds were in my favor.

Sure enough, they went to announce the winner: "The winner is Dan....Fffffrrrriiii..." Three or four people, myself included, corrected the guy, "FRITSCHIE!"

The bar fit perfectly in the space I had left in my room. By the time I had everything sorted out on Sunday afternoon, I had a big white trash bag full of junk and another full of old clothes that either don't fit me anymore or are far out of fashion even for me.

I also managed to get caught up on my DVD watching while I was cleaning up. If you have some spring cleaning, I highly reccommend having The Aviator on in the background. If you feel like you're going a little overboard about being a neat-freak, it helps to watch DiCaprio go totally apeshit with OCD. You may be a pack-rat, but at least you're not saving your piss in milk jugs.

Fritschie, the mentor

Not to completely invalidate my last post, but after I last posted, I went out for a drive. I went down to Borders for a coffee and a comedy CD (Mitch Hedberg). While I was in the neighborhood, I cruised over to Colleen and Britt's house and wound up watching Eurotrip with them.

The past couple days at work have been more of the same. Is it sad that now my only real solace is the thought that one day, in a future life, my boss will be just like me working for a guy just like him.

I braved the icy conditions Thursday night and went down to Arnie's. I was one of five people there, and there was this one guy there who I wound up talking to for an hour. He's going to my old alma mater-and by that I mena trade school-and he's going for the same degree I got. This guy was full of the frustration and idealism I had when I went there. He kept complaining about how tough the instructors were towards him...like a BOSS is gonna be any different when he gets out.

It felt good to be in the role of de facto advisor, at least for one night. This guy kept going on and on about how he was unsure if this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. I told him that 90% of people in graphic design won't be working in that field ten years down the road. He said he wanted to work in film production. I told him to get the degree, get a decent job and teach himself how to run Maya and Final Cut Pro in his spare time. After a couple years, the degree is just a wall hanging, and what'll get you anywhere is your skills.

Perfect example of what I'm talking about: My buddy Doug got a job once simply because the job objective on his resume was "to use my design skills for good and not evil."

My final advice to this guy went as follows.

1) Inerviewing in Tulsa can be tough; wear a cup.

2) The ability to wear jeans to work, a decent insurance package, the freedom to smart off to your boss and flex time are all worth their weight in gold.

3) Always show the client at least three ideas: one just as they describe how they want it, one that is similar, but actually looks good, and one that is a complete about-face from the previous two.

4) You're never truly burned out until you find yourself screaming at your computer "NO! NEVER AGAIN!". It is advisable to keep yourself away from sledgehammers, axes and other implements of destruction at times like this.

In closing this post, I wish good luck and God speed to my friend Stephen, aka Digital Rebel Without a Cause in his latest deadline fiasco. Hey, man, I'm only a phone call away if you get in a pinch...weekdays after five and weekends.

Too frickin' cold to do anything

The snow started late this afternoon. By the time I was leaving work It was nothing but a fine powder. The cars driving on the road were kicking up the snow and it looked like the northern lights was following everyone whereever they went.

I was supposed to meet some friends for sushi tonight. On my way home I called to check to see if it was still on. They cancelled on me. I got a phone call several minutes later saying it was back on. Before I was gonna get ready to go, they called me back yet again. They took a look outside and said, "Hell,no!"

So, I was left to fend for myself, which meant soup, TV and internet. By the time I went outside fo a smoke, there was an inch of snow on the ground.

I've been flipping back and forth between Daredevil, poker and Food Network. Some nights, it's all about Ben Affleck in red tights, scummy middle-aged guys playing cards, and hot female chefs dipping things in chocolate.

Gags

My friend Aliceson cracks me up. Last week she sent me an email asking for my address, and I gave her this long drawn-out name. True to her nature, I got a Christmas card from her addressed to Daniel Joseph Fritschie-Kennedy-Onassis-Hatfield McCoy III, Esq. I sense a running gag in the making here.

Speaking of gags, tonight I discovered the most bizarre DVD special feature known to mankind. The movie is Taking Lives. I pretty good flick, a tense little twisted piece of mind-fuck. Being a taught little serial-killer thriller, someone please tell me why there is a GAG REEL on the DVD?!? If you happen to catch the DVD, please watch the movie first. Something about first watching the actors flub their lines kinda ruins the film's credibility.

Another kind of gag, this one of the sickly kind...I seriously regret buying the value-sized box of Steak-Ums. I've been running low on food in the cupboard, and this is the only thing left, so I've been burning my way-or should I say lightly grilling my way-through all of the thinly sliced beef steak. When I'm through with this box, so help me, I'll be avoiding Philly cheese steak for at least a year. Ugh.

Good Night and Good Luck

I finally checked out Good Night and Good Luck tonight. For someone like myself who leans to the left politically, this movie was awesome.

If there's any justice in the world, David Strathairn as Edward R. Morrow should win every best actor award known to man. Equal kudos to the rest of the cast, including Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, who I hope will be up for best supporting actor.

Almost every article written about this movie is all about how it is a driect commentary on the current political climate, so I won't bore you with the liberal ranting. Speaking as a person leaning to the left politically, I won't deny this at all. In fact, upon leaving the theater I wanted to immediately burn down Fox News HQ.

The message I took from this movie was that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The big switcheroo between then and now is that the people who are spreading the fear and paranoia aren't just the people in charge, it's also the people paid to talk about it on TV.

The only complaint is that the movie credited Morrow too much in the downfall of Joseph McCarthy, when it was only a small part of it. McCarthy really brought it all upon himself...as I hope and pray will happen to people like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and all of these self-RIGHTeous pricks who think they're made of teflon.

Sick as a dog

Today was super slow, which was perfect given the fact that my head cold was full-blown as of the moment I got out of bed this morning. My boss was even sicker than I was, and that didn't work well for his temper. In an attempt to sway his mood back from the dark side, I offered to grab him some lunch, and it went a little something like this.

Me: "Hey, boss, you have any plans for lunch?"

Boss: "I think I'll puke, then put a bullet in my head."

Me: "Oh, well, at least your afternoon is looking clear."

I got us both some French onion soup from Panera and that seemed to loosen the thorn from the lion's paw. One of our presses broke down late this morning, so the boss was busy putting out that fire to worry about getting job tickets to the art department. No biggie for me, I spent the afternoon cleaning the office and shooting emails back and forth over MySpace (he he he).

My friend Mary called me and told me that she was gonna check about getting me into the Loretta Lynn show for free. She later called me back and told me she couldn't get me on the list. Oh, well, I needed to go home and get some rest.

I took off a half-hour early again today to go home and sleep, but right before I was gonna take a nap, Mary called me again and asked me to come down to the Cain's and record their set using my MP3 recorder. I show up, get the recorder all hooked up and wait for them to start the show. They put on a great show, and sad to say, I only got about half of it recorded because the recorder locked up five times. I think I got three, maybe four songs. I'll have to download the files to the laptop to find out.

I didn't stay for the rest of the show because I promised my friend George I'd come to her birthday party at Hideaway Pizza. By that point I felt like hammered dog shit. Turns out it was mostly low blood sugar because I felt a lot better after downing a heroic dose of lasagna.

And now I'm home and waiting for the NyQuil to kick in. Good night.