Beantown Bound

- Man, today is a weird day. Currently, my desk here at work is basically empty, all my work stuff packed up into boxes and my computer and phone sporting shiny labels. Our floor in the Pinnacle building here in Burbank is getting an extreme makeover, as we are basically maxed out in terms of available space, even as our department continues to grow and expand. To that end, we're remodeling the kitchen, copyroom, lobby, and floor space to create new offices, cubes, etc. As you may recall, once upon a time I was situated in a swanky office all my own. Then, as we hired more people, I got moved out into a cubicle, specially built to accomodate me. This wasn't too bad - although it was at first pretty jarring to go from the confines of an office into the great wide open, my current digs are spacious, have plenty of storage space, and conveniently positioned me in the center of our department's activity. I'm not exactly sure where my new permanent work space will be, but unfortunately, I do know where my temporary location is: the copy room. Yes, when I get back to work next week, I'll be situated amidst reams of boxed-up paper, monolithic copy machines, and garish flourescent lighting. Hopefully, my time in this strange new world will be shortl-lived, but it's not exactly a move I'll be anticipating. I guess it puts my initial frustration over moving from an office into a cubicle into perspective. If anything, this latest wrinkle is testament to the old adage: it can always be worse. But don't worry, I don't plan on going all Office Space and being confined to the metaphorical basement with no stapler and no cake, so to speak. If I have anything to say about it, for the next few weeks, copy room is the new black, because it'll be a daily xerox party with an extra "x" thrown in for good measure. No, I have no idea what I just said, but it sounded cool at the time.

Anyways ...

... the reason I'm packing things up here at work a bit early in anticipation of next week's intra-office move, is that tomorrow morning I'm boarding a plane for Beantown, baby. Okay, not quite, but I had to humor my love for alliteration. Seriously, tomorrow I board a plane bound for Connecticut. The next morning, the fam and I drive to Boston for pre-graduation festivities with my brother Matt, in preparation for the big day on Sunday - Matt's graduation from Boston University. Yikes! Matt is already a college graduate? When and how did that happen? In any case, I'm sure it will be a better ceremony than mine, four years ago from the same fine institution of higher learning. As any BU '04 grads will surely recall, our graduation day was marked by torrential rain that made us all very wet, slightly miserable, and decidely unphotogenic. Hopefully, this one will be a bit better.

It will be nice to finally spend a few days in Beantown though. Hope to hit up some of the classic BU haunts, maybe see an old friend or two to boot. So for the curious, I'll be on the east coast until next Wednesday, flying back that day and arriving back in Burbank late Wed. night. As is tradition though, expect at least a blog or two written from the east side.

What else?

- Celtics tonight - this is the big one. See my last blog for some analysis of the Boston-Cleveland series. All I'll say for now is: go Celtics!

- Some quality music I've been listening to lately:

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS: Gotta love the first real album from the New Zealand comedy duo following the sucess of their HBO series. As regular readers know, I'm a huge fan of the Conchords, and their album doesn't disappoint. It's basically just a compilation of the songs from the show, but that's fine as almost all of the tunes are subtely hilarious, in addition to being pretty clever parodies of various musical genres. I wish "If You're Into It" was included (it's inexplicably missing), but overall this is a must-own for those who want to be able to enjoy the humor of the Conchords on those long car trips.

THE ROLLING STONES "Shine a Light" Soundtrack: I really enjoyed the movie Shine a Light, and the soundtrack was therefore a great pickup for someone like me who is only a casual Stones fan, but got hooked on some of the movie's lesser-known songs. For me, it's great to have a mix of classic hits like Jumpin' Jack Flash and Sympathy for the Devil alongside some songs I wasn't previously familiar with. Thanks to the movie and album, I'm now a big fan of "She Was Hot," "Some Girls," and "Champaigne and Reefer" (featuring a killer duet with Buddy Guy), among others. Seeing the film and then listening to the soundtrack makes for a great one-two combo. It's fun to relive the film, keeping in mind how crazy it is that the live performances on the album are so energetic and heartfelt despite the Stone's status as elder statesmen of rock. Suffice it to say, I'm now a bigger fan of The Stones than ever before thanks to Shine a Light.

- Curious about NARNIA this weekend and how it will fare at the box office. After being way off in my prediction for Speed Racer, I'll sit this one out and just see what happens. Personally, I was a fan of the first film. While it wasn't spectacular, it could have been a lot worse, and served as a good introduction to the series. Prince Caspian, however, is a big question mark. The plot is obvously very far removed from the first chapter, with few returning characters. Tilda Swindon was such a standout in the original film - it will be interesting if any of the new characters steps in to fill her shoes as a memorable hero or villain.

- Anyways, I've got to jet so, until next time. See you at B-U.