For a while, I’ve been thinking about picking out some “catalog” items, so to speak (music, movies, television, and so forth), re-experiencing them or experiencing them for the first time entirely too late in life, and writing about them. Stuff a lot of us, perhaps even I am familiar with, but that I haven’t really devoted time to really enjoying in a while, if ever. I touched on this over on Facebook a week or so ago, in a conversation about favorite baseball players, so they’ll probably be included in this clusterfuck if I start doing it, too.

There’s a lot of stuff out there that people of a certain age love, and just assume others love and understand our love for as well, because at some point, it was a shared cultural experience for a great deal of us. With people coming from so many different directions these days, and the entertainment choices becoming wider by the second, it can’t always be assumed that everyone’s seen “Animal House”, made out in the back of an shitty car in Brooklyn with “Close My Eyes Forever” by Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford playing on the radio, or even that they understand why it’s so disappointing and frustrating that recently-arrested Dwight Gooden ruined his career and his life with so many bad decisions.

Reading this back, it sounds like my generation’s version of baby boomer nostalgia bullshit, and perhaps it is, but I won’t just be touching on things that people my age embraced. They’re just the three that popped into mind when I was typing this. What I will be doing if this project gets off the ground is giving you one mentally unbalanced person’s opinion on things like I mentioned above, and others as well. I may decide to listen to the entire, official Jimi Hendrix catalog one day and write about that. (Actually, it’s likely.) I may decide to write about what I consider to be the ideal selection of condiments on a Five Guys hamburger on another day. I will probably give you, the hairy-palmed reader, some say as to what comes next, too. (See that poll thing in the sidebar of my site? Get ready to use that.) In some ways, what I am looking at doing here is not dissimilar to h2g2, which I wrote an entry about David Lee Roth for a looooooooong time ago that apparently doesn’t exist anymore. I should look at using that site again as well, since it continues to exist, surprisingly.

Anyway, I’m talking about talking about things a bit too much, so I believe I’m going to go to sleep, but this nonsense will probably solidify soon.

Only a partial week, because I did a big chunk of it already.

This Week: Fear 1, Me 0
Current Score: Me 18, Fear 9

As I type this, I’m filled with a higher than usual amount of anxiety, for no good reason. I think I’m going to blame the sugar.

As I said earlier in the week, I have been spending a disproportionate amount of time on regret lately, but I think that’s a different animal than fear.

However, I have been experiencing a bunch of bona fide anxiety related to some social situations I’m in, and some that I’m not. I’m trying to be careful, conscientious, fair and above the board on all fronts, but I kind of feel walls closing in and sand falling through the hourglass (in more ways than one) when I think too much about these situations. It’s kind of icky, and I’d like it to stop. Awkward situations that I don’t want to think of myself last or first in. I’ll let it ride, and hope that things unfold as they should, but for the time being, it’s not a hell of a lot of fun.

Are you guys sick of reading these yet? Well, tough.

Pain-free after my first trip to the gym, good shit.

Again, today, I kinda jerked around and tested equipment.

25 minutes over the course of two stretches on the treadmill, alternating between walking and running. Longest jogging stretch was 3 minutes, but I got a few 2 minute stretches in there too. Tried the Cybex treadmill, not as easy to use as the Life Fitness one, though it does hook up to iPods, which is marginally interesting. Noticed that 4.5 was too slow for me on the treadmill when jogging, so I bumped it up to 5 and that was more comfortable. Felt a really minor tweak in my right shin at the end of my workout and shut it down for the night.

10 minutes doing really easy time (like 6 MPH) on the recumbent bike. This time, the Cybex model was better than the other one, which I think was a Life Fitness, though I could be wrong. Watched most of an old Tyson fight (Jesse Ferguson from ’86, wicked body shot/uppercut combo ended it…) while I was pedalling.

Tried out some crazy ass stepper machine. Didn’t like it much. Didn’t hurt or anything, it just felt goofy.

Also did reps of 20 on 2 different leg weight machines and the overhead press, without a lot of weight on any of it (30-50 lbs., nothing too fancy).

I’ve finally started reading my copy of The Marathon Method, which has a great, more sensible feel than any of the other training books I’ve read thus far, so hopefully over the next few weeks, I’ll start to build up a slightly more regimented training routine.

Onto Monday, unless I get bored and feel up to working out over the weekend.

Worked out on an empty stomach, so I’ll be eating now. BEETS.

I know it’s fashionable this week to “live a life without regret”, and to focus instead on being grateful for how fortunate you’ve been throughout your life, but what do you do when you’re simply unable to shake the things you regret, especially if there are a lot of them?

I don’t have the answer on this one. Just figured I’d ask, since it comes up kind of often.

Didn’t keep super-accurate track, because I was testing my new toy (the gym), but here’s what I do remember:

13 minutes on the treadmill, alternating between 3 MPH (a comfortable walking speed for me), 4.5 MPH (about my usual jogging speed) and 6 MPH (what I’ll need to do in order to have a quasi-respectable finishing time in the marathon). Really just getting used to how the machine worked.

1 mile on a recumbent bike: about 7 minutes. Was just getting comfortable with the thing; speaking of which, when my left knee is on the upstroke of cycling, it pops…pretty cool, eh?

1 minute walking/1 minute jogging (3/4.5 MPH) x 10

A few other odds and ends, leg presses, 15 lb. dumbbells, a chest press, usually in reps of 10, just to get a feel for a few machines.

Total time: about an hour

This was kinda fun. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow from all that I did (I think I overdid it a little, considering that I really haven’t gotten proper exercise in a month or so, but I’ll live), but this was a good start.

Tell you, though, even in a building that’s less than a year old, beautiful, brand new facility…mens’ locker rooms STINK.

Onward to Thursday. I’ll give this a spin twice this week and if all goes well, start 3 workouts a week on Monday.

Not to worry, I haven’t forgotten about this. Just had kind of a busy week-into-weekend.

This Week (and change): Fear 2, Me 1
Current Score: Me 18, Fear 8

I’m taking on the weekend of Week 12, because it took me a while to get this, and also because some of what I became aware of during Week 11, I didn’t really process until just now.

First up, I’ve become more conscious of the fact that it takes effort for me to leave my room sometimes when I’m home, out of a fear of dealing with people. As some of you may know, I live with family, and while I have no gripes with them, sometimes when they’re home, the idea of being around them, explaining things, possibly disturbing them, you know the drill (it’s why people who can leave home usually do)…well, it’s not really a comfortable idea for me. Again, totally not an issue with anyone in my house. This one’s all me. At some point, once the Scott Crawford Government Bailout Plan takes full effect and maybe a little before then, I think I’m going to have to start working out the financial particulars of living on my own, seeing if it’s something I could do. I don’t know that living with roommates would really solve this one. But, in the meantime, I need to spend a little time visualizing what the worst-case scenario is in my head for simply living in the entirety of my house rather than a room of it, and possibly have a talk.

Second, I went to Saturday Nightmares over the weekend. Great event, looking forward to seeing what they do next, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. During the course of the event, I had opportunities to meet all the guests, and shyed away from doing so in most cases, either because I didn’t want to be another one of those guys who was hanging out at their table with no money, or because I just didn’t know what to say to them. I’m not one of those people in horror/film fandom who can tell you every movie that a “Dawn Of The Dead” cast member was ever in, though I do love the film, so with a lot of people there, it was like “Hey, it’s that guy!” and having been “that guy”, I appreciate people who don’t just point out that I’m “that guy” for the sake of it. However, there were two people there who were standouts for me: George Romero and Adrienne Barbeau. George pretty much invented the modern zombie movie and has made several of the best films ever, and Adrienne’s been in a pretty good handful of movies I love. (I actually own 4 of her movies on DVD, and there’s at least two that she was in that I should own.) I went one for two here, as for some reason, I managed to force myself to say “thank you” to George, but froze up when it came to Adrienne. I don’t know if it was a gender thing, the fact that, even in her 60′s, she was a good deal prettier than George is, the fact that I didn’t want to be one of those people who quoted her movies back at her, or what, but I couldn’t even manage the same “thank you” that George got for her. I didn’t approach her and stand there like a schmuck, speechless, so it wasn’t really bad or anything, but I still should’ve stopped by and said “thank you”. So, Adrienne Barbeau, thank you, wherever you are! (I think she lives somewhat local to me, actually, as she’s done other area signings for the books she writes these days and is married to a fella whose brother is a pretty well-established part of the fabric of New Jersey, so hopefully I’ll catch up with her another time…)

So, yeah, went 1 for 2 there, not bad, but could use some improvement. Being shy really sucks sometimes, especially when it’s not always-on or always-off. It’s like this unpredictable, intermittent shyness. Sometimes, I totally go in guns blazing (sometimes a little too blazing), and other times, I stand at a distance and stare until I’m that weird guy…well, I’m always that weird guy…but that weird guy who’s staring, for the purpose of this discussion. I guess we do what we can do, and try to improve on things the next time we’re in one of those situations.

Looking forward, March is almost over, and it’s kind of a shame, because March has been perhaps the most peaceful month I’ve had in years. I needed this one. This weekend, it seems that things start picking up again. We’ll see how that goes.

This Week: Me 1, Fear 1
Current Score: Me 17, Fear 6

I decided to look at a college’s web site again, to see what steps I could be taking toward actually going to it, and I got pretty overwhelmed in a hurry, mostly because, despite all the wonders of the Internet, they still insist on using telephones even to schedule in-person visits. I don’t like telephones very much. It’s also a little tough to deal with things like this because my brain has a tendency to try to do everything at once, rather than breaking things down into small, easily digestable chunks.

On the other hand, on the suggestion of a relative who told me that another relative of mine could use some cheering up, I dug out my telephone and called her. This wasn’t entirely easy and was a little more awkward than most phone calls because 1. I’d never called or talked to this relative on the phone in my entire life and 2. it was going to be pretty obvious that someone put me up to the call. Regardless, it was a really good phone call (and for me, those are rare), and if all goes well, I’ll probably be grabbing lunch with the relative in question in the immediate future.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet in these parts lately, which I consider to be a blessing of sorts. I don’t know that I’d want things to be so still forever, but after what feels like ages of turmoil of some sort or another, to have even a few weeks where my feet aren’t being held to the fire is really great.

I’m very late to the party on this one, and apparently the only person I know who bought it for Playstation 3 instead of XBox Tree Sissy, but I’ve quasi-finished the game (still missing a small handful of trophies, all related to downloadable content and the stupid PS 3 webcam), and here’s what I thought.

1. The game, on the whole, is fucking awesome and maybe the best driving/racing game of all time. OF ALL TIME!

2. That being said, the menus need a bunch of work. Hopefully Criterion are making them a little more intuitive on the next Burnout game.

3. The bikes have an awesome feel to them, and for a free download and a last-minute addition, they’re great. Hopefully in the next game, you’ll be able to do more with them (Road Rash-esque punching, Stunt Runs, bikes on the same playing field as cars, and so forth).

4. The downloadable content deal Criterion has going until March 31st ($20 for all the add-ons or $30 for the game and all the add-ons) is well worth it. I don’t work for Criterion, but if they want to cut me a check for saying this, I won’t complain.

5. On the whole, online gamers have gotten a little more conscientious since the last time I played anything extensively, but the ones that suck, well, they REALLY suck. I did get a lot of great help from a bunch of people along the way to finishing the important parts of the game, though, and thanks go out to the following individuals (names shortened a bit so you’re less likely to annoy them online): dave, GAS, michael, cr9ck, Icky, Saleen, gary, Monte, BAUSS, Fluff, Noia, Varp, Rabbid, Ice, heather, Hell, mdom, Dan, CNB, kopp, jolly, WOODY, ash, hana, KingG, and anyone else I may have forgotten.

6. There were a few usernames that I have to share with you, though: “mrvargas”, “UN_Jefferson” and “meatnormous_1″ were all pretty classy. I also saw all manner of “yourmom” usernames, a lot of “420″s, some creative end-runs around the block on the word “fuck”, and so forth. Oh, and the whole NUTKRACKER crew (who use the PS 3 voice changer to sound like they’ve inhaled helium) are a hoot, too.

7. To that end, parents, if you’re reading this, you should probably keep at least somewhat of an eye around your kids if they’ve got their Playstation 3 Internet-enabled. Don’t be an asshole and forbid them from using the Internet, leaving them totally unprepared for modern life, but keep an eye on stuff and talk to them about what they run into. There was a really bittersweet moment on Saturday morning when a kid we’ll refer to as “lil(nameredacted)” showed up on one of my games. Immediately, a hush fell over the game, which had previously been full of people talking (well, mostly cursing) on microphones. He sounded about 8, if that. I told him that I was probably going to have to have him leave, because “we use a lot of words here that your parents use when they drop things on their feet”, and he enthusiastically responded, “Oh, I KNOW THOSE WORDS! FUCKIN’ SHIT-” at which point, I regrettably had to kick what was probably a parallel universe version of my younger self. I still feel guilty. And no, it’s not really my responsibility to babysit or parent anyone, but if you do actually have children, as I’ve said in the disclaimer for my web site, “Get involved, and be a parent. If you don’t, then people who are far worse than the people responsible for “My Big, Black Cock” will.” It’s highly unlikely that anyone playing a racing game on the Playstation is going to steal your kid and make them do it with old men before throwing them in a wood chipper and bathing in their entrails, but they’re probably going to teach “lil(nameredacted)” how to use “THOSE WORDS” a little more quickly and creatively than perhaps you’d care for.

8. Somehow, during the course of one of the online events I played, “goat” became a verb. “Oh, he goated me.”

9. The Diamond P12, which is the “Holy shit, I have to finish *everything* in the game” car, is REALLY ugly, but it handles nice and purdy. I think it was Shirley Manson who once said “Ugly girls make the best shags” or something to that effect. Plus, it’s fun to annoy both people who have no idea how you got the goddamn car (150 hours of my life that I’ll never get back, folks) and the people who have played WAY more than you have, who see driving the Diamond P12 as the highest form of wankery possible in the game.

10. If Criterion ever release another game where you can’t turn off the Guns N’ Roses song they use as the intro/menu music, an angry mob will show up at their doors armed with clubs, torches, boiling oil and probably that wood chipper I mentioned in item number 7.

I could probably write more, and maybe I will at some point, but I wanted to get the nuts and bolts out there before it faded.

This Week: Me 2, Fear 0
Current Score: Me 16, Fear 5

2 pretty good ones this week.

First, the bank had my account royally fucked up for about 24 hours, in a way that, had it not been corrected, would have been crippling. When I saw this, it was about 5 AM (the worst time in the world to check a bank balance), so I momentarily flipped my shit, but then I dialed it back down, got myself to make peace with 1. the fact that there was nothing that could be done about it at 5 AM, nor did there need to be and 2. I had enough of a paper trail to correct it once I did get there. I still want the little shit teller that waited on me publicly flogged for being disrespectful and paying absolutely no attention to his job, but I managed to get myself to sleep despite a pretty huge anxiety-causing event, and when I woke up, the transit department of the bank had corrected their error.

Second, I took a baby step toward working on my recent and not-so-recent fear of getting involved with people. I’m not getting any more specific than that. Public and private speculation is probably a bad idea, and will probably be wrong anyway. If anyone who I’d actually tell stuff to when I’m not writing for my site wants to know, they’re more than welcome to ask about it, but for the rest of you, the Great Firewall Of My Personal Life endures on this one. I think I’m being candid enough in this series of articles.

Looking forward to Week 10, not a hell of a lot is going on. It’s quiet right now, and I’d kinda like it to stay that way, but eventually, it won’t be, and I’ll deal when the time comes.

We’ve got a clean month ahead (February started out with some Baidu traffic), so I’ll start posting them again now that I’ve got a slightly more accurate picture of what’s doing. Amazingly, contrary to reports I’ve heard previous to this, excluding Baidu on robots.txt actually worked, or is at least working at the moment.

Also: “Obsolete” is going to be posted very soon, I swear.

In case you guys missed it, the greatest manager in Chicago White Sox history finally brought some class to teh Twitters. Feel free to add him, though I’m not sure if he’s adding people back yet. Still a lot of fun to have him on there, though. Maybe I can get him to respond to my letters from so long ago.

Sorry for the delay on this one. Stuff.

This week: Fear 1, Me 1
Current Score: Me 14, Fear 5

I was supposed to go into New York twice this week, and I made it in once That was its usual struggle to get me out of the house, even to do something fun. Well worth it, though, as, after 2 years of being open, I finally saw Andrew’s club, and it’s a great place, one I’d visit for the hell of it, which is rare these days for New York and I. However, I was also supposed to go see Ulrich Schnauss on Thursday, and that didn’t happen for a variety of reasons, some practical (It ended up snowing a little bit, didn’t it?), some a little selfish (There was a mixup over whether Kirsty Hawkshaw was originally supposed to be there or not between Kirsty and I, and without her there, I was less inclined to schlep to Brooklyn even if it meant wasting an 18 dollar ticket and missing a guy whose music I do dig, but am not obsessed with just yet) and some of it was just me being a worrywart about money. I should probably go easier on myself about the whole thing, but I’m trying to hold myself to the same standards week in, week out.

Other than that, it was a pretty quiet week. I’ve got some stuff coming up for Week 9, though. Stay tuned.