the person beside me kept smuggling giggles
July 26, 2004 07:33 AM

100 atlanta statistics - 7/12 - 7/15, 7/16 -7/18


It took a lot longer than I wanted to to put this thing together, and I'm still not super happy with it. I don't think it gives as good a sense of my trip as the last one did. But, there was a lot about this trip that didn't quite work out like I'd imagined. However, you can see pics of my new niece online, and she doesn't deserve the bill for a bunch of familial bullshit.


I think I had a lot more fun than I would have with the original plan, but I ruffled some people's feathers in the process. Anyway. On with the gimmick incredibly useful and innovative writing device:

# of loads of white undershirts i laundered before leaving	3
# of people i saw walking dogs within 3 minutes of arriving in atlanta	3
# of those people who comprised a gay couple	2
# of people who, when faced with the last stat, immediately asked "was it a gay dog?"	2
# of people who asked if i got a haircut	0
# of haircuts i had actually had this time	1
# of pepsi vending machines i saw that looked as if they had been props in the second back to the future movie	1
# of times i actually uttered the phrase "the future of vending as we know it" in response to this	2
# of top secret missions i made to a place that is anticlimactically called "buddy's"	1
# of times someone accurately described what was on the arts channel at 2am as "some kind of italian fashion opera"	1
# of towels brought in accordance with hhgtg advice	1
# of altarian dollars spent	0
# of minutes I was delayed from a dinner engagement by my mother's in-depth discussion of her juicer	25
# of hours killed in the surprisingly nice brookwood place shopping center parking lot	4
# of books i had been looking for for 8 or more months in several states that i found in one single borders on peachtree st	2
# of said books that showed as "in stock" in the handy borders computer terminals	0
# of years i had to wait before finally posessing the bound summation of all human knowledge known as "pocket ref "	2.5
# of magazines read in their entirety in borders, including star wars insider	2
# of star wars insider magazines deemed worthy of purchase, even bearing in mind the ethical obligation that comes from having been read it in the store	0
# of unsolicited movie recommendations made by one single non-employee guy at the ponce de leon blockbuster	7
# that were actually accepted	1
# that were quite good	1
# that involved "phyro-giants"	1
# of bottles of cheap fortified wine consumed over the course of the week	3
# of maggie gyllenhaal movies i saw while under the influence of said wine	1
# that contained a scene wherein she wore a saddle and bit down on a carrot as she was spanked	1
# of scenes involving maggie gyllenhaal being spanked as she wore a saddle that i could probably have lived a long, healthy life without having ever seen	1
# of incubus songs i heard that i have the drum beat for in my sample library	1
# of times some guy i barely know walked into the bathroom while i was showering	1
# of network cables I brought in an effort to steal internet access while in atlanta	3
# that functioned	1
# that i needed to actually steal said internet access	2
# of wildly insecure wireless networks that i ended up finding within my range	2
# of guys named doug in the inman park area who really need to lock down their wireless networks	1
# of aim conversations conducted via my machine in athens using the magic of VNC	8
# of people who corrected me on how cool they thought that was in the last stat entry	3
# of 20s diners visited	1
# of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches that i have had in my life that even hold a candle to the memory of the air surrounding the ham and cheese sandwich i had at the 20s diner	0
# of pages of handwritten tab notes i cranked out in said diner	2
# of manly runs i unashamedly made to the grocery store for female-related products	1
# of different kinds of midol i learned exist	4
# of differences I could tell in the active ingredients of "maximum strength 12 hour" and "pre-pms"	0
# of times in my life, to date, I have been dared to take a midol by someone who was just using it to get rid of a headache	3
% of women, in my estimation, who actually use midol during menstruation instead of to get rid of headaches	1.3
% of women, in my estimation, who have attempted to pursuade men to take midol at some point in their lives	80
# of men i know, myself included, who have gone for it	0
# of elbow injuries i thought impossible but somehow sustained	2
# of bookstores visited over the course of the week	3
# of kurt vonnegut jr books i recommended on virtue that also happened to involve the word "monkey" in the title	1
# of times i was hugged for flicking off a shelf of ayn rand books	1
# of books weighing over 7 pounds neal stephenson has written without my knowledge	2
# of bags of catfood acquired by ransacking and hacking open a stock boy pallette	1
# of times i got to flex my culinary muscles during the course of the week	1
# of times i vastly miscalculated the inherent differences that crop up when cooking with the wonders of gas	1
# of giant nieces i gained during the week	1
# of pounds my pregnant sister in law lost in a surprisingly short time	10
# of hours it took after my niece's birth before someone finally got around to telling me, despite my numerous requests to be kept up date enough to be there for it	4.5
# of times i said "screw it" and abandoned plans to try and see my new niece this week	1
# of things that happen in the next year that my niece will remember	0
# of digital pictures taken around atlanta green spaces	87
# of above-25mph donuts done around the carter center flag-a-torium	5
# of perfect arboretum locations found	1
# of pictures taken that were of a steel buffalo sculpture, or maybe some kind of bull thing, hell if i know	2
# of different cats photographed	5
# of days it took from being part of evening plans for laundry to actually get to the laundromat	4
# of minutes remaining before laundromat closed when laundry was retrieved	13
# of infomercial-based clothes-folding products i was convinced were worth purchasing	1
# of times i got my ass whupped at scrabble	1
# of games of scrabble, so far, that i have won on these trips	0
# of "b"s in the homemade scrabble tile set we played with this time	4
# of "b"s in a traditional scrabble tile set	2
# of "b"s that were set aside so as not to be included next time	2
# of hillarious subtle jabs creative loafing made at the president in their crossword (5 LETTERS, A LETTER THAT CAN'T spell WORDS*)	1
# of awful jokes that occured to me that i had to suppress	0
# that are still true from last time	1
# of in-depth discussions had about home video wiring after 2 am	2
# of giant man-eating cakes the city cafe had	0
# of people i almost killed attempting to get to the city cafe	3
# of helpful bums encountered that gave guided graffiti tours, complete with artist biographies	1
# of times i was asked to tell said bum which character in one particular mural was the devil	7
# of times i felt a bit pressured to supply an answer that didn't exist	7
# of characters in said mural wearing 3d glasses	1
# of pounds, by volume, that the weight of my car was increased by solely from bird poop	4
% chance i will be parking in that particular spot again	0
# of bird deposits shaped like someone throwing the goat	1
# that are directly in my field of vision on my windshield	1
# of times, approximately, that i drove by a place called the disco diner	423
% of things that went the way i wanted them to	65
% of plans that involved my family in some capacity	35
# of instant messages sent from my cell phone that no one ever got	6
# of times people who were supposed to call my cell phone did so within 4 hours	0
# of people i gave all the change in my pocket to	2
# of cooperative crosswords done	7
# of nights i slept before 4am	0
# of minutes i saw my dad	0
# of miles clocked in atlanta	132
# of days in total spent in atlanta	5
# of tiny notebooks i brought to keep better track of these statistics	1
# of additional statistics generated from last time	25

* dubya

 

# of days it took to put this entry together: 7.

A bloody week.

[because the numbers tell a story]