Eric's Music Review

I actually wore a tie to work today, for the first time in months. You may not quite grasp the significance of this. My wearing a tie means that, for the first time in almost 10 weeks, I am completely confident in the fact that I will not have to go outside to inspect a bridge today. It's a great feeling. I feel white collar again. Finally I can go back looking down on those less fortunate than myself. It's fantastic. Thank you tie, you're so gloriously restricting and yet uplifting at the same time.

I know what you're thinking, Eric, you're uncharacteristically upbeat about this. I don't recognize your blog without all the complaining. Well I saved a complaint just for you, the weather the last few days has been magnificent. I might even go as far as to say it's splendorous. That's right, splendorous. So I had the pleasure of spending the last bitter, frigid months of winter outside and as soon as the weather turns I'm back at my desk. I hate my life sometimes.

Speaking things that make me hate life, I was listening to Yahoo! radio this morning when I heard a song from Scarlett Johansson's as yet unreleased new album. Why do actors and other "celebrities" feel the need to make albums? Is it boredom? Is the club scene not doing an adequite job of filling her time between shitty Woody Allen movies? I feel like the best case scenario is that you thoroughly embarass yourself but at least you get publicity out of the whole mess (I'm looking in your direction Hiedi)? Also her album just seems lazy, it's like 10 Tom Waites covers. I don't particularly care for Tom Waites, but would even a Tom Waites fan want to hear Scarlett attempts at his music? Who's the fan base for this album? I will give her some credit though, at least had the good sense to just copy someone who critics already like instead of going the Lohan, Duff, Hilton route of putting out a bunch of awful pop songs. It's already working, New York Magazine called it the "best-ever album by an actor" and described her voice as "Nico, if Nico weren't a Germanic death angel but the remaining American actress of her age who has not openly displayed her vagina." I have absolutely no idea what that means but I guess that's why I'm not a pretentious rock critic for New York Magazine (they would never wear ties to work). I do agree though that not showing your vagina to the papparazzi gives you more street cred on the rock scene. Or is it the opposite? Anyway, to me her voice sounded like Annie Lennox getting punched in the balls*.




*Fact: Annie Lennox has balls.

Oh....Hey

I've been hearing a few grumblings lately about my lack of blogging. People are voicing their displeasure. I can explain. Bridge inspections are sucking the life out of me. Lets break down the numbers shall we. There are 168 hours in a week. A conservative estimate says I'm work around 60 hours a week. Admittedly not a super human effort but it can be a bit draining when you're freezing everyday and there is a never ending mist clinging to you everywhere you go. Incidentally, has anyone seen the sun lately, I miss it. I know it was nice on Saturday but I spent the majority of that day inside of a 4' tall box girder hunching over trying to avoiding stepping on dead birds. Anyway, back to the numbers. So lets say I sleep 49 hours a week (probably an overestimation but whatever.) So between work and sleep I'm down to 59 hours in a week. It takes me 20 minutes to get to and from work everyday, that's 2 hours. 5 or so hours a week spent getting ready for work (showering, dressing, making lunch, blah, blah, blah.) I try to spend at least 5 hours a week at the gym. About 7 hours a week are spent preparing and eating meals. Between various other commitments and miscellaneous bs I'd say I have about 2 hours a day where I'm free to do whatever I want. What I more often than not don't want to do with that time is blog. I like to just kind of zone out and think about how my life sucks and summon the will to not jump off of a bridge the next day. It's a theraputic time. On top of that my laptop crapped out a few days ago so I don't even have a computer at home to blog with (when it rains it pours...on my head while I'm outside looking at bridges). The unfortunate part is my funniest posts are when I'm bitching about things not going my way. The last 6 or 7 are right in my wheelhouse and I can't even use the material. Well it's all over in another month or so and then I'll be back to blogging, bear with me. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) my posts will be lame since I'll be in a good mood, between not having to work outside and spending the hundreds of hours of overtime pay I'm currently earning I'll be positively giddy, which is boring for this blog. You poor readers just can't win.