Sleepy California.

I've been listening to Her Space Holiday all day today. It is remarkably sad music. I'm not sure if it affects anyone else this way or if it's just me. I've been interspersing with the newest Asobi Seksu album and the EP by The Little Ones, both of which I am a bit late to acquire and both of which I like. But in the end I keep coming back to Her Space Holiday. I guess it's just that kind of day.

***

This past weekend was Hood to Coast, which was the opposite of sad! This was a very different experience from last time in a number of respects. For one thing, last time the only person I knew was Ben. This time I knew very many of the people on our team (and a few people on some other teams) ahead of time. This is mainly just a function of Ben having been our organizer this time around (and what an excellent job he did), but it started me thinking how long I've been in Seattle and just how many people I've come to know during that time. Even if one of our teammates was Erin, who traveled from Boston to run.

One thing that was not different from last time was my leg assignment, only this time my recovery time is way faster and my times were faster as well. It turns out I did my first 5.6 mile leg at a 7:23 pace. For me, that's flying. (Yeah, yeah, so I was coming down off Mount Hood. What of it?) My quads are just finally working out the lactic acid today, after a couple of light runs in the last two days. This race has convinced me that a sub-22 5k is within my grasp though, so I am now determined to accomplish that. Even if it means biting the bullet and doing speedwork and getting over my guilt at slowing people down so that I can run with people who are faster than I am. The one guy in our van who I did not know before the race -- Sean, who works with Chris -- does not yet know it, but I am going to take him up on his offer of occasional trail runs with me. I'm pretty sure it will kick my butt, but in a good way.

If you want to see some pictures of the race, Yaniv has some up on his site here: Hood To Coast.
If you want to read about the race, you can do so here: http://www.hoodtocoast.com

A long way down.

Last night Chris and I went to our first discussion meeting for the book group we recently joined. The book was A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby. Every time I read one of his novels I am left pretty ambivalent. I'm not a fan of the self-consciously stylized pop culture references, the ones that say "I'm smarter than you" even though the references themselves aren't that smart. I'm really not a fan of the flat character perspective, which issue was all the more prevalent in this book because the story is told not just from one flat character's perspective but from four. Someone last night described this book as the reality show of books. I hadn't thought of it in those terms but I think that description is pretty apt. Maybe that's why I've read most of his stuff even though I don't think it's particularly good.

Ari Gold, superagent.

I guess since I've created a work blog I've been posting here less. Even though tons of things have been going on, I haven't felt inspired. But last night I decided that I needed to write about Entourage, and that just isn't going to work on the work blog.

The first season of this show left me kind of lukewarm, interested enough to keep watching, but not interested enough to really care when the season ended. The show has been improving bit by bit ever since until at last it's developed into something really good. There are a few indicators I can point to, including the de-caricaturization of the main characters and the move away from unmitigated misogyny to, well, sort of mitigated misogyny. But it's occurred to me over the last few episodes that what has really happened is something much more transparent and easier to identify. What has happened is that Jeremy Piven has taken over the show.

He started off in a supporting role, giving background to the hot-guy Adrian-Grenier-and-his-cronies Cinderella story. But as the show has progressed, the really interesting storylines are all Ari Gold's. He's the only one of whom you can really say that if you removed him the show couldn't go on in the same form. Jeremy Piven has gone from supporting actor to the show's central, driving force.

Now I want to watch some of the old episodes to see exactly when that happened.