Mayor Weirdo?

Monday night, after turning in the 25th chapter in the Furry book, I decided to sit down and watch some tv (something I don't do very often anymore). Baltimore has its mayoral elections coming up (on September 11th, I believe), and Monday night MPT happened to be airing the Democratic Debate (I don't even know if there is a Republican running...I don't get it). The debate seemed more like a Saturday Night Live sketch rather than a political event.
I think there were about 7 or 8 candidates. Right off the bat, one of them decides to withdraw his bid for mayor to "throw all of his support and resources" into another candidate. The moderate then asks him to leave, but the man protested...he couldn't understand why...so, the moderate explained to him that being he had just withdrawn from the race, he was no longer important to the debate.
All but 2 of the mayoral hopefuls totally sucked; the other 2 just kinda sucked. One of the guys, standing in the last position stage left, kept garnering my attention; not because of his convincing extemporaneous musings, but because of his sheer strangeness.
He looked awkward; the bottom half of his jaw looked like the Good Lord had forgotten to include some clay when He was sculpting his face. He had unnatural looking, dyed brownish-black hair and a really bad comb-over.
He said the strangest things...he talked about having been a businessman in Mt. Vernon for many years, and something about having the "white vote." What does that even mean? Even if he did, only like 20% of Baltimore is white anyway...
Then it dawned on me: he was that guy who showed us the lame, rundown, busted up apartment in Mt. Vernon! That placed sucked! I couldn't believe that that guy was running for mayor! Who does he think he is, a movie star or an ex-wrestler?
The best part of the debate was at the end when each candidate had an opportunity to say some closing words. Michael, the weirdo, closed the event. He mumbled something incoherently strange and then held up a sign that had a link to his website (ala Wayne's World)...one problem: he didn't hold the sign high enough! The credits displaying his name covered the piece of paper!

-N

My book report

My first few chapters as an audio book editor have proved to be very entertaining indeed...

I finished editing 3 chapters of a 26 chapter book yesterday (a total of about 75 minutes). I also got to see some of the mixing/mastering process, which I'm currently NOT doing, and is much more interesting.

"How was the book?" you might ask...I might respond: "Terrible! But very amusing." I don't think I should mention the title of the book (because I would not want to jeopardize any future business) but I will let you know the plot: The heroine of our story is a young, single, ultra-liberal woman trying to solve the murder of her friend. Not too out-of-the-ordinary, huh? Oh wait....
The guy who supposedly committed the murder is an ultra-conservative, married, middle-aged Republican congressional hopeful who just so happens to be a....duh duh duh...FURRY. Yes folks, a furry. He likes to dress up like a pink bear and, uh...we'll say, get freaky with other Care Bears-esque characters (CARE BEARS, STARE! or whatever they said). Oh, and he doesn't turn out to be the main villain.
Perhaps the most ludicrously hilarious part of the book is when the heroine, confronted by a gun-wielding furry in what I could only assume was a knock-off Snoopy costume, convinces her assailant to remove his mask and spill his guts about his plan. She is able to subdue her opponent, but only after some quick thinking: she tosses her cat at him, which lands on the furry's head, clawing at his face. He drops the gun, she retrieves it after an intense 2-sentence long struggle, and blows his head off.

I can't wait to hear more!

-N

Something I've been thinking about

Don't all of you fellow "artsy" people out there think, like myself, that universal health care would be good for "us"? (Granted, health care, in some form, for everyone would be a good thing) Now I don't want to get into nationalized/socialized health care vs. privatized, market driven health care plans...that's a much, much longer and more difficult situation to address-I'm just taking a naive approach to this issue.
But think about this (fellow photographers, dancers, musicians, painters, etc.): why do you work at your current job? Do you really LOVE it (don't get me wrong, I LIKE my job, but I don't love it)? You may LOVE your's...and if you do, good for you. For most of us, it's just our day job-we then moonlight after hours as our true crime-fighting selves.
Many of us work our day jobs because we are provided benefits; without open enrollment, we (myself and Kristin included-as we found out the hard way last year) would not be eligible for health insurance. And, if we were, we'd have exclusions or, at the very least, need to pay through the nose for coverage. I think many of us would rather be snapping pictures, creating sculpture, making and writing music...
Just think: no more day jobs! Yeah, yeah, I may not be able to feed my future children, but hey, we all would be having a great time!

I'm getting addicted

At first, I thought Facebook would be really lame...kinda a teenage fad thing. As it turns out, it's pretty cool. I was going to write more about it, but if you're interested, check it. out

Nick INC?...ESQ?

Why, oh why, have I been so tired the last few days? Well, I haven't written in awhile, not for lack of things to write about...more for reasons of laziness.

So, I have had a "career crisis" lately; it's not that I am unhappy with where I work, I think it's more that I have FINALLY figured out what I need from a job to be happy: creative input/freedom, meaningful content (and it doesn't have to be 100% Mother Teresa kind of work, either) and, perhaps most importantly, this. One thing I've been seriously considering is law school. I've learned recently that, as a lawyer, you can find work at just about any business as well as law firms. I've even heard from several people that someone with a J.D. will be hired over someone with a M.B.A. Of course, I don't know how true this actually is, but I do know the president of my company is a lawyer, and, I think, has no background in broadcasting. I've got a lot of research to do, but I think I would want to practice Intellectual Property Law, specifically, law that pertains to musicians and artists. We'll see...I'll have a lot more to write about this as I learn more.
All that being said, I would still prefer to NOT go on to more schooling unless I absolutely need to. Enter co-worker, Chris. Last week, I was expressing my desire to "get more" out of my job, and my job to "get more" out of me. Chris, like most of my fellow (read:five) co-workers, does other work on the side. He, much like myself, comes from a recording background. In his spare time, he records, edits and masters audio books. He used to work for one of the biggest media companies out there (here's a clue: Ber_______n) and now, as big studios have been abandoned for smaller, individually based outfits, he works out of his home, occassionally "train-setting" to NYC. Fortunately for me, he thinks I'm good and what I do, and he has WAY more work than he can handle alone, so he's asked me to help out. We have lofty ambitions, but I also realize that this may totally tank. However, right now I have ZERO to lose. I'll be making extra money, getting new equipment, learning new skills and making connections...even tax benefits. I hope that this works out...The only down side is that I will be working at least an extra 20 hours per week, but I figure at least 10 of that can be done on the train! (which I'm ride daily anyway).

Nick INC? Yes, for now...Nick Esq? Perhaps...

-N

Tractor Parade

Now, mind you, I'm still in Baltimore, but Kristin is visiting her family in Watertown. This is a picture of what was impeding their route this morning; she sent it tom me via her cellphone. Wow, we really do come from Hicksville!

-N