It's funny when you sift your way through your iPod library while you're at the gym, and you think about the disparate places where you acquired both the music on it, and the initial interest in that music.

I feel like a patchwork of so many lives right now. I feel like Hedwig singing his lament, softly describing the pieces of himherself.

This day, on the whole, has been colored differently than those of the rest of this week were. Restless...

I want new music, so I am trying new things. Fleet Foxes? Pleasant, but too background-y. TV On The Radio? The critics love them, and I can hear why they're good, but it's not the sort of music I'm destined to love (I didn't fall in love with their previous album, Return To Cookie Mountain, either). Same goes for MGMT, though they are groovy.

Did some rehearsal with Jenn of my first confirmed duet for Friday's birthday show at Brainwash. Again, if you'd like to sing a song with me, speaketh now! Maybe something from Once or The Crane Wife, perchance?

I've been wearing a preppy yellow H&M shirt for most of the day, a shirt that didn't fit me when I originally bought it around 18 months ago, but that I now look stylin' in. Between my H&M clothes and my American Apparel clothes that never fit right before but do now (medium shirts, for instance), I feel like I'm really close to where I want to be. I feel like I can get a full Holidailies post talking about my whole weight-loss thing, so I'll save further discussion of it for that.

For now? Cleaning late at night! And I get to watch the 49er game as it happens for the first time in forever, as they're playing on the east coast (Miami) at 10am my time. (I work at 3)

Hello, Holidailies. Nice lil' Friday I had.

Spent a portion the late-morning, early-afternoon beginning work on a project I hope to complete by the end of Saturday, involving my music, and the publicizing thereof (there will be YouTube-ing of said project soon). Got a nice 50 minutes of cardio in at the SM Gold's after that, followed by an amusing dinner with secretnthewings at Fresh Choice. I'm always amused by that place. First of all, while a great many establishments have come and gone in that Camino & 20th mini-mall, FC keeps going strong (can't say the same for Shoe Pavilion, The Wherehouse, New York Fabrics, Coffee Club Too and whatever the pet supply store there was called).

What's their secret? It's gotta be that you pay 9.99 for what probably is, on average, around 4-5 bucks worth of food; you have to essentially gorge yourself to get "your" (their) money's worth. And inevitably, you end up having a baked potato and a pizza in the same meal, and somehow this doesn't lead to any sort of cognitive dissonance on the part of the customer.

Talk of both the past and the near future ensued, with detours of laughter.

Later on? No White Christmas in SF for me this year. This season, for my hyper-saccharine holiday entertainment, I turned to NDNU's production of A Christmas Carol, along with a whole host of people. I did not come without the necessary preparations (I, um, "pre-partied", and I wasn't alone), and enjoyed the brisk, energetic performance by the cast from a comfy, midway-back seat in the university's theater, in which I hadn't set foot in over a decade, when I saw my sister in Nueva's production of Romeo & Juliet, a mere month before 90% of the middle school faculty got their asses fired for systematic psychological abuse of the students. Awesome!

The evening transpired without incident -- unless you count that time during intermission in the men's room when a 4 or 5-year-old child cut in front of me in line and proceeded to drop his drawers in full view of the entire room. Someone was enthusiastic about their training. Little Anakin Floorpisser. Incontinence leads to the Dark Side!

Hey, I've almost reached the "fun" part of December. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

*looks at my dry-erase wall calendar*

Welllll, not yet. But soon!

Saturday: more work on that project I mentioned, and maybe a movie or something.

The three-pronged attack of decorating the tree, watching a PBS special on John Denver (huh?) and drinking lots of eggnog has finally given me the holiday cheer I've been searching for!

But this is not a simple tree...

...it is...

THE KITSCH-MAS TREE!!!



A lovely artificial tree, covered with the best alternative, unusual and hilarious ornaments one could hope to find!

Such as...

A Tivo ornament...



A toaster, a champagne bottle and a pan with sausage & eggs in it...



A flip-flop...



A Craftsman grass-blower...



A fire hydrant...



And my personal favorite, a Star Trek TOS transporter room...



(this ornament was actually too good for the tree, so I put it on the mantel)

For the rest of the pictures, here's the gallery. I'm officially in the Xmas spirit now. The eggnog helped too. Goodnight!

On the plus side, I got up at a reasonable hour today!

I have a work schedule that is very afternoon-evening oriented on most days, so I have the much-appreciated luxury of sleeping in a lot, though lately it's been ridiculous. (My sleeping hours the last few nights have been from around 5 to around noon)

On the minus side, there really hasn't been that much to write about today. Let's see... I took a nice long walk around Golden Gate Park. (the weather's great today here) I came home and filled myself with an unusual quantity of college football (Cal's walloping of Washington, and now the Florida-Alabama SEC Championship). I'll be gymming and maybe movie-ing later this evening. Not that exciting, but at least that's stuff.

***

This December is going to be an action-packed month for me, I've already decided. It's just that said action won't really start in earnest for another week or so. That's why I found myself sitting and staring at my computer for nearly an hour before I said screw it, and started writing vaguely about not having anything to write about.

Does it feel like Christmas season yet? For me, no. Maybe it's because I haven't wandered around Westfield Shopping Center, or because there aren't any decorations up at my place yet. Or perhaps because I haven't turned on The O'Reilly Factor and listened to the Falafel-man get all gung-ho about defending "real" Americans against The War On Christmas^TM. But I do want to get into the spirit of things, so with that in mind, I'll put up a YouTube video for one of my favorite Xmas songs, Wham's "Last Christmas".

Even though today's xkcd kinda put me in a shy mood, I'm going to buck up and say Hello from San Francisco, Holidailies! This is my first time doing this officially (at least in a register-for-something capacity), so I'll spend my first post introducing myself. Hi, I'm Brendan.

( who are i? who who, who who )