Bachelor Week in Review

Those of you filling out your Bachelor Week Bingo cards can go ahead and mark off the squares for "fell asleep watching Porky's II," "ate cereal straight out of box while not wearing a shirt," and "drank a beer in the bathroom." Classy times here at Bachelor HQ.

I Will, However, Adopt The Practice of Addressing to All Women as "Sweetheart"

Few things turn me off more than ubiquitousness or bandwagoneering. And with seemingly everyone spurting blog-love for AMC's Mad Men, I planned to avoid a show I figured was basically just Gossip Girls for the mutual fund set. However, bored with Simpsons reruns and DVR'd episodes of The Sopranos and drawn by the fact that the show was set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s—long before viral marketing and social networking and that stupid fucking Burger King king—I decided to give Mad Men a shot.

Two episodes of the new season in and I can't say the show is as great as has been reported, but I'm enjoying it well enough. There's something uniquely satisfying about men with square jaws and precise hair standing around talking mechanicals and art departments, tumblers of scotch and lit Chesterfields in hand. Beyond that, however, there's not much else going on. The mad men wear wool suits and eat red meat for lunch and drive their American cars out of the city at five o'clock to their homemaker wives. The mostly one-dimensional secondary characters—the Jews, broads, blacks, and homos—seemingly exist only for the proselytising of the writers. This is how it was in 1962, man!

Meh, I'll keep watching for now, either until the storylines spiral into overwrought love triangles, outlandish murder cover-ups, and long-lost twin brothers, or when football season starts, whichever comes first.

I've Said Stardream Quartz So Much The Words Have Lost All Meaning

Behold, my first—and last—attempt at wedding invitation design and construction. Special thanks to Paper Source for the stock; ModLux for use of their paper cutter; and Sweetpea, whose yes kickstarted the whole project.

Plus, It's More Commute-Appropriate Than, Say, Juggs

I renewed my GQ subscription today. Just mailed the check, as a matter of fact. A check that killed me to write.

See, last week I found out my health insurance premiums are going up (again). And last month my office learned Clark Griswold-style that there would be no raises this year. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, groceries are more expensive now than at any point since I started buying my own Lucky Charms—store brand, of course; they're 40¢ cheaper. Generally speaking, the dollar is in the toilet and I don't have enough of them (dollars, not toilets) to feel any kind of relaxed.

So, all that said, why spend $17.83 on a subscription to GQ? It's not for the $600 wingtip buying guides. Or the editorial features and pictorials of half-naked actresses I've never heard of. (Esquire does those better.) Nor is it even the layout of design of the magazine. (Again, Esquire.)

What convinced to to re-up GQ was Joel Lovell's "Men and Money" column. It's great. The last two columns of his I read—renting vs. owning your house and being 30 with no retirement fund or investment plan beyond your savings account to speak of—especially. Dude might as well be writing my financial life. And while he offers a few simple, doable plans of action to begin managing one's money like a big boy, I'm more buoyed by the fact that there are financially fucked brothers-in-arms out there, guys my age and professional standing who are just as confused and scared shitless by the fact that no matter how hard they work and deny themselves consumer pleasures in order to squirrel away a little money, there never seems to be enough of it on their monthly statement to feel like they can take even a weekend vacation or order the $32 bottle of wine just this once because the economy could go fuck-all (moreso) any moment. Lovell's "Men and Money" is not bulletproof financial security, but it makes me feel a little better about my money strategy. And that's worth $17 in my book.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Fasciination

Wow, how cuddly (read: disinterested, lethargic, neutered) is the new Faint sound? Way, that's how. My old friend Dead Alison would be spinning in her grave if she heard what has become of her second-favorite Omaha export.

The Faint: Fasciination (pw: nodata.tv)

Bachelor Week, Day 1

Let's all wish Sweetpea safe travels during her ScavenTour road trip, okay. And while you're at it, send some of those guardian angel vibes toward me and Chairman Meow left at home, because if anything happens to to that cat while Sweetpea's away, this blog will get updated even less frequently than it is now.

... because I'll be dead.

... and they don't have WiFi in whatever torturous hell it is Sweetpea would send me if she comes home to a house one kitten lighter.

Jealous?

Lemme paint a picture for you: It's mid-July in Chicago and it's hot, real hot, maybe 91 or 92 and humid as fuck. The house is sweltering. But here in this room, the window is letting in a little breeze and you have a big, icy glass of lemonade sweating on the table in front of you. She's at her desk across the room writing a new story and playing DJ. She likes the Air France EP and your Smiths library and between songs you joke and snark and talk nostalgia in that easy manner afforded to best friends sharing cold drinks on summer nights. The sketches and scribbles that will eventually become the poster for the 2008 (downtown) omaha lit fest are spread out in front of you, gathering momentum in your mind, but, for now, sit mostly untouched. It seems such a shame to spoil this moment with work. Work can wait. It's time for lemonade and "Suedehead" and Sweetpea.