I'm baaaack!

Oh man, does it feel good to be back or what? Let's jump right in and get caught up...

What the Heck has Mike Been Doing?

Getting Married
I'm sure you've seen the pictures on Facebook (Speaking of, I'm now at www.facebook.com/nagel.mike - the other itinerations of my custom url had been taken by Mike Nagel's with far fewer friends and way more time on their hands. And I'm mad about it.). Please do take the time to soak in the glory that is a tailored tuxedo worn with white Chuck Taylors, while you're at it. We do promise to post pics of our own as soon as we get the digitals back from our photographer.

As I was remarking to a co-worker the other day, the process of getting married is pretty much like having a second, full-time job. One that's a lot of fun, but also takes a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of patience, and you have to pay half the salary of your other job to work there. Oh, and when the job's over, there's no exit interview. There's just half a cake left and a car ride to a court-mandated, two-week vacation where you're left to wonder, "Did that just happen?"

I do want to write more about the wedding in the near future, but for now I feel guilty about mentioning it at all since Sonja and I have yet to post a single thank-you in the seven weeks after the Big Day.

Honeymooning
If you have about six hours to spare (like, you know, when you're at work reading this), you can check out the pictures of our two-week trip to Italy: Rome, Florence, a quick stop in Pisa, a day trip via bike through Tuscany, and Venice. As you'll see, the trip was absolutely amazing... and I'll write all about it coming up. Suffice it to say, we have a whole lot of souvenirs hanging on the walls of our place.

Moving In
Speaking of, did you know when someone moves in with someone else it takes them twice as long to do it as it would if just one of them moved? Yeah, we're still finding places to put all of Sonja's stuff and others places where we can donate mine.

More importantly, when you get married, people give you a lot of stuff. And they give you a lot of money. We're enjoying refurbishing the kitchen and the non-existent linen closet.

Work
Yup, back at it. Moving on!

Reading
Okay, so I'm not reading that much, but I am reading a little. I'll even tell you what I'm reading - Team of Rivals - in the hope that the next time one of you asks what I'm reading I'll have finished and moved on to something else. If not, I'll lie and say I've been buried up to *here* in literary magazines and haven't touched any book-length work in ages, darling.

Music
So, here's what it's my iPod of late that you should totally check out... MuteMath's Spotlight EP - fantastic single from an album that drops on 8/18, Our Lady Peace Burn, Burn if only for nostalgic purposes, The Devil Wears Prada Dear Love: A Beautiful Dischord suggested by a dude from GYG, and Michael Jackson Off the Wall because it's great to remember when the King of Pop was still royalty.

And While I was Writing This Post...
I learned how to pop popcorn on the stove without a JiffyPop exploding foil bag.

A Christmas Reading...

My company held its annual holiday party last night, and the organizers asked me and a co-worker to do a reading at the end of the night. It actually was my first-ever reading and a ton of fun.

Each of wrote the "12 Days of Christmas" from their genders perspective. Here's what I came up with...

Sunday, December 14th – 12 days to go. I don’t have a gift. Probably should get one. But it’s a Sunday. They play football on Sundays. And, on Sundays, I eat pizza, chips and drink beer until I can’t bring another crust to my lips or raise the bottle in my hand. Since it’s a triple-header today, there will be no shopping for me.

Monday, December 15th – I know she wants something. And, if history is any proof, she probably dropped hints. But they’re never good enough! She mentioned something about a sweater and her size, I tried to remember it, but then I started thinking about meatball subs. Mmm… I love meatball subs. This other time, we were driving and I’m pretty sure she gazed longingly at a spa, but I forgot about it because I was trying to figure out my miles per gallon ratio. It’s so much better on the highways—I can do almost 31 versus 27 in the cities. Do you know how much money that saves? Let’s see… carry the four… It’s like 7.3 cents per mile!

Tuesday, December 16th– I’d go shopping, but ESPN’s showing a re-run of the 2008 World Series of Poker. I’m going to watch it because there’s nothing quite so awesome as a bunch of fat guys wearing sunglasses, struggling to breathe while they grunt bets and eat French fries in between hands. Nine shopping days left.

Wednesday, December 17th – I went to the mall today on my lunch break. No, really. I walked past stores and everything. It was exhausting and I built up an appetite, so I got lunch at Panda Express. Mmmm… orange chicken. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

Thursday, December 18th – Spent the evening examining the gifts under our tree, hoping that I’d put one underneath and completely forgot about buying it. It’s happened before. Hmm… let’s see… None of the gifts are wrapped in grocery bags and they all have coordinated bows. No way are those aren’t from me. I’m still on the hook. Wait a second—here’s one that looks just like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. My January just got completely booked up.

Friday, December 19th– That package indeed was the new Call of Duty. I opened it, took the disc out, rewrapped it and played the game all night. She’ll never know. Yawn. Now I'm too tired to shop. Six days to go; I’ve got time, right? Right?

Saturday, December 20th – Went to Home Depot to look for gifts. Tried to imagine the look on her face when I show her the sparkling-new snowblower parked in our driveway. Then, I thought better of it. Went to look at the circular saws instead and I found a sweet, red, 7 1/4-inch one that’ll always remind her of Christmas. Bought that instead of the snowblower. I am awesome.

Sunday, December 21st – Returned the saw. Called a work buddy of mine and said he bought the same model last year. She used it to slash his tires before threatening to take his jingle bells, too. Red must be a bad color or something.

Monday, December 22nd – Today’s the first day of Hanukkah. I put the menorah too close to the curtains and set them on fire. As the poly-cotton melted and black smoke filled the air, she berated me, “Eagle Scout, my butt!” I diplomatically reminded her that it was her idea to put the candles in the freaking window. Found myself locked out. Did you know it’s cold in the middle of December? Went back to Home Depot for a new fire extinguisher. Briefly thought about putting a green bow on the red tank and giving it to her, but I didn’t think she’d see the humor. Bought a set of lock picks, too.

Tuesday, December 23rd – Still no gift, but there’s time. I was all set to go shopping, but then I saw that TBS was running A Christmas Story marathon. Haha—he put the leg lamp in the window! Frah-gee-le is a city in Italy! A Red Rider BB-gun! This never gets old, no matter if I’ve seen it a dozen times. That day. In a row.

Wednesday, December 24th – It’s 7:30. The mall closes at 8 and it's an all-male crowd. We’re milling through the halls, like a group of elf-zombies. Winding in circles, looking at carts full of cheese and sausage, furry Crocs, 365-day cartoon calendars and over-sized novelty slippers, I got too close to the Dead Sea Beauty Products and the salesperson attacked me. Now my right-hand has been violently exfoliated and I’ve been talked into buying the bulk gift set—the one with the foot scrubber and some sort of imported mud in a jar. If I’d know I could’ve made my own beauty kit with a wire brush and a jar of dirt, I’d have done it. But it’s too late to get the brush—Home Depot closed at seven. I’m worried that the dirt I bought won’t be good enough, so I keep looking…

That’s Jared!

I go up to the glass counter, whip out a credit card and tell the guy to give me the best he’s got. He tells me the price. I swallow hard, pull out another card… and ask, "What’s on clearance?"

Thursday, December 25th – She’s crying. It’s the good kind, not the “you-got-me-a-crockpot-for-our-anniversary-kind.” Man, I’m good

Merry Christmas!

A Perfect Space for Writing...

I can't write. I don't have a desk. I have a great new place and there's a ton of space in my room, but a big empty spot that should hold a desk. In the hole where the desk should go, there's a laptop stand that's really not cutting it. It has an edge, designed to hold a computer in place, that slices into my wrists were I ever to sit there. So I don't. I need a desk to be a writer.

At this desk I don't have, there needs to be a chair. Oh, I have one now, but I don't like it. It's a "rescued piece." Not "rescued" like this-is-from-an-18th-century-New-England-barn "rescued," but someone-was-going-to-throw-this-in-the-dumpster-and-I-took-it "rescued." It's not particularly comfy and it smells of moth balls, which is probably why someone left it in front of the dumpster in the first place.

No desk, no chair, I cannot write. I need a muse--and to be unencumbered from wires. You see, I need music to provide background noise when I write. But in order to have music, I have to have my external hard drive plugged into my laptop, and that just causes wires to go in all directions. I have a cable coming in one side of the computer from the hard drive and another on the other side, which runs through the power pack to the wall. Two cords are far too many. I only have a 12-inch laptop. That cords-to-inches ratio is far too high. I cannot write in these conditions.

And as far as that muse goes, I feel it's departed. I've left traveling behind (for the time being), so I can't entertain you about eating in strange places and pooping in stranger. Nope. I eat in a kitchen now. It's sterile, with just enough small bits of rust and minuscule food stains that it's not worth writing about the sterility and it's definitely not dirty enough to note.

But perhaps my muse is exhausted--I do have two Twitter accounts, after all, and that's a whole lot of brilliance shoveled out there on a daily basis. I now think in 140-character spans. That definitely doesn't lend to full paragraphs. Or sentences, for that matter.

There are many things I have to do, in writing's stead. The weekends, for example, are full of adult-type chores. I needed to frame artwork, clean the bathroom, work out, organize my recycling, clean the dust off of my television cables, change the batteries in the remote, wash a dish, ponder buying a beta fish, watch the Florida A&M football game while simultaneously watching a MadTV re-run, change socks, remove lint from my toenails, kill a spider, stare a hole into the wall, charge my laptop since I plugged it in to write and then didn't touch it and its battery died while I was staring (unsuccessful) holes into the wall. I'm a busy man.

You see? It's impossible to be a writer. People say that all you have to do is write. Well, they're wrong. You need a desk. You need a chair. You need the perfect amount of noise and the perfect lack of wires. You need a muse, but you don't need social media. And you definitely, definitely can't be cleaning the lint out of your toes.

How do those people who write for three hours a day do it?

They must have linty feet.

Hey Mike - where have you been?

I've been AWOL for the last few weeks, so I thought I'd give you a little update and catch you up onto my life's developments over the past weeks. It'll probably be boring, but it's better than logging into your 401k to see how much money you're losing or listening to talking heads discuss bailout plans that no one understands, right?

-The Big News: I'm employed.-

Yup, that's right. I have a job (started on Monday). And I'm officially a salaried, professional writer. A cool, second-year startup hired me to be an "online producer," which means I'm ghostwriting blogs, generating site content and trying to appear as artsy as possible at all times around the office. I've only been there three days, but it's already a blast. It's nice to be able to put my degree to more use than as a decorated placemat (which is hasn't been performing well... kind of thin and it allowed spaghetti sauce to leak through).

I haven't been posting here because I spent most of my days scouring Monster, CareerBuilder and Craigslist to find jobs to apply for that I didn't even want and logging in to my bank accounts in the hope that I'd gotten a Monopoly "Bank Error in Your Favor" card dropped into my checking. That never happened.

-I've been giving wedding toasts-

Longtime buddy/partner in crime, Rob, got married to a lovely girl who's way out of his league down in Newport, RI last weekend. Sonja and I went down there for three days and it was a lot of fun. Rob's family generously invited us to stay at their rented beach house and, although it rained most of the time, we really enjoyed ourselves. If anyone's looking to do a long weekend getaway somewhere on the East Coast, you could do a lot worse than staying in the historic town of Newport. There are beaches, a cool cliff walk through mansion-ridden neighborhoods, a fun downtown area with bars and shops and loads of restaurants. Being there made me want to buy plaid pants, cardigans and boat shoes, but I settled on a t-shirt instead.

-Discovering old youth pastors that have gone on to become professional gamblers.-

Brian, my brother, called me the other night and told me to switch over to ESPN. I did and there, sitting atop the chip leader board after day 3 of the World Series of Poker, was none other than Jeremiah Smith. Since I last saw him, Miah has left being a pastor, moved to Vegas and now works for Full Tilt poker and plays professionally. Rock on. He wound up finishing 45th in this year's WSOP.



I still remember the time he called me a "little turd." He's always been inspirational that way.

-Reliving the College Years-

WICB, my alma mater's main radio station, is up for a mtvU Woodie Award as the nation's top radio station. For anyone that's a former Bomber or just likes great music, you can go vote for them. Competition is going to be tough, as they're up against Emerson's WERS, which is also an awesome station with a much larger listener base. Check out either site for some great music while you're at work - they both stream worldwide.

That's all that's up with me. What's up with you?

Seeing your name in print...

Does it count if you see your name published but it's on the web? I dunno. But with the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games looming (t-minus 5 hours to the Opening Ceremony tonight and some footie matches already kicked off yesterday), STAtravlers.com has started promoting my blogs and video/photo galleries on their homepage. If you're REALLY bored, feel free to check it out. And no making fun of the horrible shot of me that they picked for the web banner, okay?

Housekeeping...

Just a couple notes...

For all my Facebook compadres: I'm having a tough time getting on to respond to comments and emails. Sorry, but the Great Cyber Wall of China isn't helping me enjoy my Facebook addiction and I haven't been able to post any pictures. Sad day.... so don't feel offended if I don't respond to you right away (or quickly) (or at all). It's not personal, I'm just blocked for some reason.

For people checking out my Flickr site, the best way to view shots is to view my collections. I've organized everything (or am in the process of arranging, anyway) into Japan and China collections with sub-sets in each of those. Fun, fun, fun...

That's all, folks. Now, back to the fun and your regularly scheduled programming...

Happy Birthday, dear blog, Happy Birthday to you!

So, in all of the travel-related excitement, I missed the one-year anniversary of my blog. At some point last week, "Great Story. Compelling and Rich" - the Mike Nagel saga - reached its first annum.

Let me just say that it's been a fun-filled, exciting year in the blogosphere of all things Mike. I've been learning along the way on how to do these things, how to keep you entertained and how to be a "blogger." It's been a riot all 365 days (and 100+ posts).

The best thing, though, has been the feedback I've gotten from you, my readers. Your comments don't go ignored - whether left here, emailed to me, posted on Facebook or fabricated entirely in my imagination - and I appreciate your willingness to keep reading while I stumble around figuring out what works best and strike a balance between what makes me happy as a writer and y'all enjoying yourself as readers.

So, rather than singing Happy Birthday to a website, I'd like you just to take a second, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself on a successful Year One. I couldn't do it without you and I hope you'll stay tuned for more fun in the year to come...

Thank you.

Photos are up...

So I'm doing really well in Beijing. After a bit of culture shock, I feel like I'm fitting in nicely. BOCOG (the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) has done nothing but make all of us volunteers feel welcomed.

I've been AWOL because there hasn't been much down time with the tourist schedule they set up for us... for three days, they sent us around to: a waste treatment plant, a "future of China" type planned village, the Great Wall (at Badaling), the Ming Tombs, a crafts center, Peking Opera, Peking Duck, the "new" Summer Palace and the "old" Summer palace as well as spread after spread of delicious food. I swear, I will gain 40 pounds by the time I come home.

I've been trying to digest everything I've taken in (both literally and in the tourist sense), but I don't feel like I'm quite ready to break down everything for you. It's all a little new and overwhelming... and I don't want to trivialize anything by a little premature posting. So, I'm going to hold back for now, but I will tell you that I FINALLY have Japan photos posted.

They're here on my Flickr site. I really wanted to get them onto Facebook, but I believe the Great Firewall is preventing me from accessing it. Either that or the application I use has a glitch (also a possibility). Anyways, if I figure out a way, I'll get them there, but for now they're on Flickr.

I will have more blogs - whether writing, videos or pictures - for you tomorrow, I promise.

In the meantime, here's that link again.

Enjoy, friends!

Ceremonial, pre-temple cleansing


Downtown Peeps


Owabi on the grill

My virgin effort...

The audio and editing suck, but it was my first try with the Flip and iMovie. At least it's somewhat coherent... and hopefully I'll figure out how to get a thumbnail image in there, too.

It's a start... enjoy!

Also, here's the link to my YouTube account.

Subsription options (because you love me)...

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This way, instead of frantically refreshing your Google Reader waiting for the next installment of Nagel, you can go back to watching NSFW videos, surfing eBay or *gasp* even do some actual work.

Enjoy!

Pardon me while I toot my own horn...

Okay, so apologies for bragging, but it's nice to get validation from time to time. Plus, I can share this news with you as an excuse to have you read something that I actually got paid for, as opposed to reading my ramblings that have made me zero bucks over the past year.

Good Catch Publishing, one of my freelance employers, selected a piece I wrote for them as their "Catch of the Month" for June, which means they picked me as the author of their favorite article for that 30-day span. Pretty cool, huh? The piece is a chapter of a book and details the true story of an Oregon man and his struggle to overcome an addiction to pornography. You can read "I Can't Do This Alone" by following the link.

It is a long one, so apologies. But I hope you like it!

Googlegängers (your umlauted word of the day)

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this article in last Thursday's Times spurred me to do it.

We've all Google-stalked someone. Don't deny it. You've plugged the name of a friend (or enemy) into a search engine, hit enter and clicked through the first few pages of search returns. It's kind of fun, kind of creepy and a common occurrence in today's wired world.

Have you ever plugged your own name in to see what turns up? If so, you've undoubtedly stumbled upon one or more of your Googlegängers - people with the same name that pop up in a search engine query.

The Times article was about the psychological reasons behind why we feel drawn to folks of our same name. There are Facebook groups out there for people with like names and more than one author has written a book or article about setting out to find others with identical monikers. It's more than a passing fascination with some.

For me, however, it provides more annoyance than camaraderie. Why? Because of my massive ego, of course.

Ha, no I'm kidding. Well sort of... Let's talk about my Googlegängers.

I am proud to at least be featured twice on the front page of Google when you search for "Mike Nagel." One is for my Facebook page and the other is for this blog, which is exciting, since I've only been running this page for nine months or so. I don't think it's too bad, overall: I'm at positions 7 and 8, respectively.

Here's the thing... it doesn't really seem like anyone relevant is above me. The top overall hit is a press release announcing Michael P. Nagel as VP of Sales and Marketing for some company called Incisive Surgery, Inc. Then, in 2nd place, there's another presser for a different Mike Nagel.

Finally, on the third hit, we get a Mike Nagel of some importance. Here's his Flickr site. He's a amateur photographer from Munich, Germany and seems like a nice guy. His shots are pretty cool, too. I guess I'm not too upset about falling behind him. Especially since he's had his page up since '05.

The other miscellaneous entries are for some randoms with ZoomInfo and LinkedIn entries that aren't updated. Bollocks! I should be further up, Google!

I know the main way to increase your Google page rank is to be linked to from a bunch of other sites, so thanks to everyone who's linking to me, I appreciate it. Eventually, I'll be the world's greatest Mike Nagel, at least in the eyes of the almighty Google.

However, here's the most annoying thing about having Googlegängers - registering domain names. I'm looking to start my own website, either tying this blog to it or just setting it up as a professional-looking site that I can use to help further my career. However, both mikenagel.com and michaelnagel.com are taken.

mikenagel.com is occupied by someone who bought the domain name, linked it to a blog and then just left it. How obnoxious! I'd actually use it... If you read this, other Mike Nagel, I want that site.

michaelnagel.com is just disturbing. It's the homepage for a German actor who looks like he's trying to break into Hollywood. Judging by his physique and D-list level of international appearances, he appears destined to occupy a recurring role on a low-level network soap, at best. If that's my alternate online personality, I'm a little frightened.

Oh well, guess I'll have to either change my name or think up a more creative domain name once I start setting up my site. Any suggestions?

How about you guys? Anything fun come up when you google yourself?

Mike is like a steak...

...in that, he's well done.

That's right. I just turned in my thesis yesterday. 122 pages of earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting, bowel-quaking brilliance. And, once I reformat it to meet the department's requirements, my brilliance will probably stretch to 140 pages or so (Yes, it's spread thin).

WHEW.

Talk about a sigh of relief. I feel like I'm tasting freedom. I feel liberated. I feel like the world is my oyster, if only I would reach out and shuck it-shuck it long and shuck it hard. So, what am I doing in my first thesis-free day in four months?

Sitting in my chair, drinking a beer, watching TV out of the corner of my eye and writing to you guys. Yes, I know how to live life to the fullest. Rock 'n roll, bay-bee!

It's all good. Truth be told, I once again missed writing here, especially since my page views and comments are up (Thank you, friends, family and Internet stalkers). My new discover, courtship and long-term commitment to Twitter hasn't dissuaded me from posting posts of 140+ characters. However, when you're swilling coffee, banging at a keyboard until your fingertips bleed and questioning everything you've done for the past three years, you don't have much time for weblogging, you know?

But I'm back and it's for good. Or for now, at least.

There's a lot going on in my life right now and, of course, I feel like I need to share it online, so I'll get back to doing that. Upcoming posts can/may/will be on the following topics:

- a book deal
- new music for me to illegally share
- Banana slings
- Beijing, baby
- Mike's next blossoming career as a viral video star
- faking death to avoid school loan payments
- the Red Sox
- the worrisome feeling that I may be allergic to my apartment. Or my body hair.
- softball season starting up
- flip-flops
- Brazilian waxes

Who's excited? I'm excited. How 'bout yourself?

In the words of the immortal Jay-Z:
"When I come back like Jordan / wearing the four-five / It's not to play games with you / It's to aim at you"

Take this and shovel it...

Punny, very punny, Mike.

Now that Old Man Winter has settled in, by which I mean he's like some stranger who bursts through the door of your apartment, takes off his pants, microwaves a burrito, takes over your couch and ottoman and immediately starts watching E! at full volume - obnoxious, uninvited and a little scary - I thought I'd share some observations I've come up with about snow shoveling.

I've been shoveling for years, ever since I could walk, actually. My parents, all in the name of "building character," sent me out there, bright orange snow shovel in hand and frozen snot running out my nose every time we got more than an inch of powder. In college, I was the only one who owned a snow shovel in our entire apartment complex, which meant that I was A) occasionally popular and B) constantly ridiculed. But, I was also C) the only one who could make a pizza run during a snowstorm. Now, I keep a shovel in my car and also make sure my adorable 78-year-old landlady's porch is cleared off. Here's what I've learned...


Shoveling is Fun

Kind of. At first.

There's something to be said for the simple joys of manual labor and working up a sweat in a brisk, winter breeze with the flakes falling all around you. It's a great workout and gives attention to muscle groups that you hardly ever use. While the "Shovel Workouts IV" video has been shelved for lack of sales, I still don't mind getting out there.

BUT that only applies to November, December and parts of January. Ask me if shoveling is fun when I'm doing it in April and I may just smack you upside the head with my ergonomically designed Backsaver shovel.


Cityfolk Know Nothing

Seriously, people, how hard is it to dig out your car?

It takes maybe all of ten minutes to pile all the snow within 2 feet of your fenders on the sidewalk, leaving a nice, clean parking space for the next person to come looking for one. But the result is that I am not woken up at 6 a.m. by some idiot spinning their tires for ten minutes trying to get out of their un-shoveled space. And then, when and if they finally do get out, they drive away, leaving iced over ruts and a foot of snow for some poor sap to try to park in. The next parker will then repeat the same process, further complicating everything for everyone.

Also, by not shoveling out parking spaces, city dwellers leave piles of snow lining the streets. Meaning that if you drive a mid-size car (like mine) , it's impossible to fit into a spot of someone who drives an economy car and didn't shovel away the piles. This leads to almost endless circling of city blocks, trying to find two piles of ice that you can fit between.


Staind sucks

Okay, so this has nothing to do with snow, but remember Staind's first hit, "Mudshovel?" Yeah. I heard that the other day and praised the Lord that I no longer listen to terrible, sludgy cock rock.


Shovel (eating with)

Is it just me or is eating with chopsticks so much more fun than eating with Western European utensils? Instead of using a fork or spoon to just shovel food down your gob, you get to daintily pick them up and place bite-sized portions into your mouth.

Chopsticks are like extensions of the finger... they're so much more fluid to use than the mechanical metal utensils. I just really enjoy them.


Okay, observations on shovels done... wow. I think I'm boring myself...

Addendum...

In case anyone's reading this and wondering how the follow-up to this post (where I talked about trying to find a hat) went, I was successful.

Last week, I went to Urban Outfitters and tried on hats for half an hour before settling on the one pictured (left). As you can see, I've gotten much more ruggedly handsome and am even capable of growing stubble.

(Seriously, though, same hat, although mine's navy blue).

I had some reservations about going for the beanie-with-a-brim, because they generally look really stupid on me. I have an odd-shaped head, I guess. It's fairly wide, but it isn't too tall. So hats will either cover my eyes or poke up on the top of my head. I hate both and, either way, it looks ridiculous.

But this hat fits pretty well (probably because it's closer to children's size, than regular) and matches up with either a casual jacket or my dressier wool coat. It also covers my ears all the way, too, which is nice since my other hat doesn't and they tend to freeze solid during my 1-mile morning walk from my apartment to the T.

So, that's the updated. Hat bought, crisis averted. And all it cost me was a month of trying things on and $9.99.

Hooray!

All aboard the panda express...

I've hesitated to talk about this, in case I would jinx anything or would be accused of counting my chickens before they hatched (I'd much rather be considered a "counter of cells before they've split"), but it looks like thing are in place to take your favorite blog to Beijing.

Yes, I am slated to go to the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, China as part of the Olympic News Service. All together now...

"Bahm dahm da-dum dum dum dum.
Bum ba-da dum ba-da dum da-dum dum dum dummmm"

If you don't think I wasted 10 minutes making sure I had the right number of "dums" in that , then you don't know Mike.

It took a while for all this to come together, for a number of reasons that I won't bore you with here. In the end, though, my college was one of five schools selected to send grad students/upperclassmen to the Olympics to help with the news coverage. And that's the extent of what I know about the program. Everything else has been given to us in the vaguest of terms, because, basically, the ONS has never done this before. So, here's what I know...

- I'll be in China
- probably for two months
- they think I have a place to stay (at the Communications University of China) and maybe someone will even feed me
- we'll be covering the Games, but there is no information on what venues/sports or even in what capacity we'll be working in

And that's about it. But, screw it, who cares? My next travel adventure has begun and I'm pretty pumped about it.

I know next to nothing about China. For example, if you had asked me yesterday which city housed Tiananmen Square, I couldn't have told you. The only words I know in Mandarin are "been-fau-tong," which means "marshmallow" and "meso-hoh-nee," which directly translated is "I have sex you long time for money." So, yeah, that's wicked helpful. The only info I have on China in my apartment is my bread machine and coffee maker (both have "Made in.." status). Discounting my weekly visit to my main guilty pleasure, Panda Express, I have almost no interaction with anything China-related. Oh, except for those wonderfully vague fortune cookies I always add "in bed" to (since I'm still mentally in junior high).

Turns out, I'm your typical, politically incorrect, American traveler after all.

I'm going into this thing completely blind. BUT I think this does provide a great blogging opportunity... when I learn something, I'll share it with you. So, as I learn Mandarin, you'll learn Mandarin. As I find out the rules of ping-pong, you'll find out the rules of ping-pong. And, if I find out they do have Panda Express in China, I'll post a picture of me eating some of that delectable orange chicken.

Yum, yum.


------
HOLY CRAP

After I wrote this, I looked up the nutrition information for the Panda. Orange chicken has 500 calories and 27 whopping grams of fat per serving. Both are 200% more than the next-worst menu item (discounting the pork dishes, which are so disgusting that even the homeless turn them down).

No wonder that stuff tastes so good. Just call me Mikey McFatFat.

What is Mike up to these days?

As you can tell, I am one classy dude. I don't know what gives it away more: the plastic cup of booze, the stolen scarf that doesn't match the jacket or the plastic beads that I had to drop trou for...

But, from time to time, I plan to let you guys know what I'm in to lately, what life choices I have ahead of me. This way, you will be able to correspondingly rearrange your cultural, fashion and social lives to better mirror the example I have set.

Or, more than likely, you'll just ignore me and my ranting. Which is perfectly acceptable and probably better for your overall health and state of mind.

---What Mike is Listening to---
My boy, Maynard James Keenan (the voice of both Tool and A Perfect Circle) has yet another musical project of mayhem that he's unleashed on the world. Puscifer is a step in a completely new direction for Maynard. While APC can sometimes be called - I mean this with no disrespect - Tool-lite, Puscifer is an entirely different type of project all together.

The musical inspiration draws heavily from Western African drum beats and, oddly enough, Moby's softer side. But only if Moby decided to start worshiping Satan, dropping acid and manipulating his mixer with his tongue. Gone are the bellowing, in-your-face vocals with detailed, cryptic interpretation. Instead, they're replaced with layered, spoken-word tracks that talk about sex, booties, genitalia, drugs, sexual slang and ol' fashioned gettin' it on. It's a weird mix, but then, MJK never was the kind of guy you'd want to bring home to your mom. Assuming you wanted to bring a 5-1/2 foot bald guy home for the the holidays.

Even weirder? It works... while Tool fans won't have to spend hours on message boards deciphering song meanings (hint: Maynard likes sex. With women. A LOT.), there are some pretty catchy hooks going on. I'm not expecting a tour or huge album sales - frankly, I could do without either - but this is a cool, niche record to own.

---What Mike is Thinking---
MySpace vs. Facebook - the final showdown.

Okay, so there won't be any showdown. But for those of y'all on MySpace, you'll have noticed that I don't visit the site any more and haven't updated my profile in months. Part of that has to do with the fact that my employer has chosen to block MySpace, so I can't log-on when I'm at work and I have very little desire to do so when I'm not working. Incidentally, porn sites are not blocked...

I probably should just delete my MySpace profile, now that I've become a more regular Facebook user (the latter is not blocked at work, easier to use and about 200x's more spam-free). But I haven't been able to bring myself to do so. In my head, I equate this to killing a friend. Or a mild acquaintance. Or someone I made out with once and then forgot their name.

There was a time, when I was new to web 2.0 in a band, and the social networking world was my oyster to shuck. And I shucked it good... I got lots and lots of friends, many of whom were also in self-recorded bands or sold jeans and penile enhancers; reconnected with peoples whose names and faces I barely recognized; solidified my emotional well-being by being in many, many top-8 when top-8's meant something; I commented; I learned html; I rocked MySpace's world.

But now, MySpace has lost my interest. It was a fad. I've moved on to this blog here and Facebook. They fulfill my social needs (Yes, editing my "status" via my iPhone and writing a public diary fulfill all the cultural interaction desires that 40,000 years of civilization built up). MySpace is excess. It's fat and it needs trimming.

I just haven't gotten around to it. Yet...

The guillotine has been raised. We're all just waiting for the blade to drop.

---What Mike is Wearing---

Well, I'm not wearing one yet. But I am debating about buying a hat. I have a mostly-shaved head right now. And it's starting to get cold here in Boston.

I've realized that having 1/8 of an inch of hair is much different than having 1-1/2 inches. In that, it's really freakin' colder on the old pate these days. A hat would be nice to keep my noggin warm.

But I haven't decided yet if they're too nerdy. I don't mind nerdy, but I do mind too-nerdy when it comes to fashion. Nerdy can be chic, too-nerdy means you're a loser. Mike is a winner. Or he thinks he is. So, if you have any hat suggestions, please let him know.

---What Mike's Plans Are---
Correspondingly, I'm thinking about a new coif to go with the (soon to come) new year. Sonja, my wonderful girlfriend, really likes my hair now. I believe the words she's used to describe it are: "sexy," "handsome" and "rowr."

Whereas, for a previous, more emo haircut with bangs and spikes, the description went something like this: "You're going to cut that, right?"

Anyways, I want to try something new, but because I start to look like a giant puffball when I grow out my hair, I want to wait to have a purpose before I do so.

Hence, I'm taking suggestions - should I go with a professional-looking, business man cut with a part? Should I spike it, as I have in the past? Should I keep it the same? Should I do the Slater gerrie-curl perm? I'm open to suggestions...