Witz Pickz: Monumental Days!

Like the girl you didn’t “officially” start dating because things were complicated at the time, today is the KINDA 100th POST on Witz Pickz! You see, I don’t think I can count my “Mission Statement” post, and my sister posted once as Switz about photography, which makes this, the 102nd post on the blog, the SORTA 100th post on the blog! HAPPY 100th (*102nd) POST E’ERBODY! Completely unintentionally, it also happens to fall on another celebrated numerical figure—my birthday. And trust me, this was not on purpose. Several months back when I saw 100 approaching, I did some quick math and figured that I would hit 100 just around July 20th. And look, ONLY A MONTH LATE! The fact that it’s my birthday is both fortuitous and unfortunate. You see, it gives me a very clear idea of how many posts I’ve written since my last birthday.

There have been about 75 posts since last August 20th—which doesn’t seem that long ago. Remember “Office Blackmail”??? I’m still emotionally recovering from that encounter. Anyway, as far as I’ve been told (I’ve never counted and I don’t believe any of you have either), there are 365 days in a year. I wrote 75 days out of the 365, which doesn’t seem so good. SO, here is a better comparison: It took the people in Around the World in 80 Days EIGHTY DAYS to fly around the world in a balloon. I posted approximately one post per day of their flight AROUND THE WORLD. Now, by taking the transitive property and twisting it slightly, just enough to make it incorrect, but not too much, so it’s still believable—that means that I potentially flew around the world in one year! AND for every one day of their flight around the world, I wrote 25% of a post. Since each post contains approximately 3 references or “Pickz”, I’ve pretty much flown around the world at the same rate as the fictional characters in that book/movie…is all I’m saying…gimme a break, this is the 100th POST!

So thank you all for being here during the 100, and keep on comin’ back for more. Here is my Pick for the Day:

Neurotic Library Strategy: When you’re in the library, as I am sometimes, and acquire books, movies, music, etc., I find myself constantly worrying about what the librarian will say (either someone is going to be checking out my materials…so to speak…or they have to remove the little yellow Lock thingies on the movies) when they see what I’m getting. SO, I constantly find myself picking up books I know I’m never going to read to accommodate the books/movies that I know I will read/watch. I’ve checked out one or more David Foster Wallace books numerous times to counter balance my acquisition of McCauley Culkin’s book, or a Orson Scott Card novel (although all of the Ender series is amazing). I’ve had to rent Schindler’s List like six times because I also wanted to watch Season Two of Lost or Season One of Invasion. Since being in California with some time on my hands, I’ve had to use these learned skills to balance out one of the tougher pickups—Grey’s Anatomy (Pick Pending). To counteract getting Grey’s Anatomy, when it is in the HOLDS section of the library, one must also rent the following, “49 Up,” any Jim Jarmusch film, and, if possible, “400 Blows,” or another French new wave director. And yet, nothing prepared me for what I somehow did the other day. I picked up some movies that just looked dumb, but free. Maybe I wanted to watch em, but at least I wasn’t paying for them. Then I got some CD’s, and finally The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon which I’m very excited about. Only, I misjudged my complete collection when I got to the checkout lady and I knew I was screwed as the names of the movies came out: Accepted (the movie with the Mac kid about making up a new fake college—I liked Camp Nowhere when I was younger, so gimme a break), Gridiron Gang (fooball in jail movie starring The Rock), Beer League (softball movie, which speaks for itself, but was talked about a lot while playing softball), and finally, Bill and Ted’s Non-Bogus Disc (all the special features and documentary from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which is a fantastically written movie). I tried to point out that it was “Not-Bogus” but the woman didn’t care. I saw her flick her eyes up at me and there was no more respect in them. It also didn’t help when the next CD that came up was “The Average White Band’s Greatest Hits.” Crap. When she got to the book, I knew I had one last chance to act:

Me: Did you read that yet? (Subtext: See, I read!)
Her: My husband did. (Subtext: He’s unemployed like you must be—only in his case, it’s retirement)
Me: I really love Michael Chabon, but I feel like this one could go either way (See, I read a lot and can speak on the subject!)
Her: I’m sure it’ll be fine (I’m sure you have all the time in the world to read it because you’re unemployed and even if you read at the snail’s pace that your movie selection would suggest, it’s not really that big a concern, now is it?)
Me: Yeah, thanks. (Whatever lady, you work at a library— also, you’re mostly right)

So now I have to run up some fines on Infinite Jest in the hopes of having her see my extensive “Checked Out” list which includes all kinds of legitimate novels and films that aren’t horribly embarrassing (a lot of those Pickz coming soon, too).

So that’s how it goes, library strategies are extremely important and it only takes one mistake to ruin a good library relationship.

Thanks again for the last 100, and looking forward to the next,
Witz
PS. I failed to mention in yesterday's post that Bruce Campbell is in Burn Notice. The reason I forgot to mention it is because he plays the least Bruce Campbell type character ever, and they don't take advantage of any of his Bruce Campbell-ness. It's a shame, but the man really hasn't done much work and can probably use the money.