4 1/2 weeks, 31 days. A time period that I never thought I would be measuring with the thought and intensity that the last month has brought. There have been discussions, rationalizations, maturations, expressions, hopes, pangs and most recently silence. A quiet in my life that I have not known for six years. An unsettling quiet filled with uncertainty. That quiet where you can feel the conversations and emotions hanging in the air but they cannot be materialized, cannot be grasped and brought to realization. Not just yet.

Before I begin with the rant, the Stars won the game 2-1 in a well-played if not really too exciting game against Atlanta. Now, as I said in my previous post, this was my first experience at the AA Center in Dallas. A nicely designed building, almost still smelling new, it rises from the ground directly off of the freeway, where there has been an empty lot for as long as I can remember. And what, pray tell, have they decided is the purpose of this building? Basketball and hockey games? No…

Advertising. Pure and simple marketing aimed at the individuals already dedicated enought to slap down forty dollars per person to watch roughly 2 hours of professional sports. I cannot even begin to tell you how many branding attempts were made towards me over the course of the evening. Obviously, it’s the American Airlines Center. There are billboards outside of the building. Snack bars with name brand sodas and beer. But these are things that you will find around most major sport complexes (maybe even large high schools).

Where the youth of the arena made it’s capacity to deliver marketing messages clear, was when you stepped into the main room and were inundated by the large video displays (eight monitors in fact) hanging over the ice and the l.e.d. screens above and below each video monitor and the wraparound l.e.d. display that goes around the entire perimeter of the arena. This display, with or without the house lights dimmed, showered colored messages on the fans. “Make some noise.” “Goal.” “Go buy our stuff!!!”

Granted, if I were in the leadership position of any major sports team, I would want to make sure that technology was being used in the best way possible. And to that extent, they seem to have made some very good choices. I even appreciated the close relationship of American Airlines, the Dallas Morning News, and WFAA-TV when our local weatherman appeared to give everyone at the game a exclusive Stars weather report. It was probably recorded within the last 30 minutes and then rebroadcast at the arena so we would know exactly what that crazy Texas weather was going to be like come 10 o’clock.

Yet, as soon as that interlude was over, it was back to advertisements for sandwich companies, cell phone companies, media companies, electric companies (not Sesame Street though), etc. Everyone watched the game, as the advertisers were watching us watching their ads. Did everyone win? Yes, except for the Thrashers. I just hope that all participating tonight realized their exposure to all of these ideas and can separate a rational decision from brainwashing…I mean, uh,….motivated marketing.

I’m off to eat a Subway sandwich and use my AT&T cell phone while watching WFAA and using my TXU power.

Short postscript: the AA Center can seat more than 17,000 people and amazingly enough, we end up only five rows above good family friends Bert and Peggy Williams. Hope they enjoyed the game as well!

Resolutions are coming shortly, L.A. is calling, friends have been supportive, creativity is aching to be stretched. In short, life is in transition. I spent the last couple of days in Austin and San Marcos, where I caught a great show from a great band, Turbodwarf…local music and good friends. Caught the tail end of my mom’s birthday festivities and will be atttending the Dallas Stars game tonight at the new American Airlines Center (at least new to me, living in the bay area left little chance for watching silly Texans flail around on ice).

Here’s to exploring the world and myself in this New Year.

I guess today or tomorrow will be considered the practical date for Mandy and I breaking up. Officially, last Saturday was when we made the decision, but being in San Francisco without anywhere else to go and things to be wrapped up, today is the last day of our current dating reality. We finally both communicated to each other where our emotions have been for the last six months, and that clarity will make this transition a little easier. I am loading up my car and emptying as much from my storage unit as possible and leaving for Texas in the morning. I’m not quite sure where we will go from here, but at least we have made a solid decision and can move forward from this day on.

…can’t be wrong. There are an awful lot of love songs out there whose lyrics truly don’t take your heart and mind for a trip until the situation fits the mold of the songwriter’s empathy. I guess I should say un-love songs, those heartbreak and tearstain melodies that explain the situation that you are in perfectly, and of course have explained that same situation that perfectly for thousands upon thousands of other listeners over the songs’ existence. Whether it has been Wilco’s “A.M.” (which I had listened to many times before now without the emotional connection) or Led Zeppelin or whatever tune the radio serves up, there just seems to be an inordinate amount of coverage of downhill rolling, lost belonging. Or maybe I am just listening to what I want to hear.

Must stop eating fast food. The first year in California, when I actually lived in San Francisco proper, those quick and greasy meals were few and far between. Few in number per capita, fast food restaraunts were easy to avoid and small, locally owned eateries were abundant. After moving to Alameda I began to slip. A little KFC here, a little MickeyD’s there. Now that I have spent a couple of months in Texas, I am participating fully in the fast food culture that I enjoyed abstaining from only a few short years ago. It’s the convenience, the ease, the price (dollar menus rule!) that seem to make this habitual. Time to convince myself that I don’t have to have it my way and that america’s drive-in will survive without my patronage.

After several months of indeterminate employment and residence, at least my weblog is back up and running.

My favorite headline from the coverage of the East Coast Blackouts has to be from CNN.com, “Outage fails to generate crime spree.” Fails? Our wonderful outlook on human nature leaves us surprised and feeling unsucessful when millions of people actually do the responsible thing and not loot or pillage. So much so that the headline was not “NYC citizens behave properly” or “Police bored with polite New Yorkers.”

I try not to watch a lot of television, especially in the summer. I don’t always suceed, but more often than not I would have watch longer if I allowed myself to. Alas, the Bravo channel is luring me in.

Perhaps one of the best written and produced shows of the last 4 years, is The West Wing. My Wednesdays, during the fall and spring, are reserved for watching that block of programming. I religiously tune in. Okay, maybe I missed an episode last season, but out of 23-24 shows, that’s not bad. Now Bravo has announced the West Wing Weekend which includes the first five episodes of the show as well as an impressive roster of other shows and movies presidential. As if that were not enough, they will then proceed to syndicate The West Wing every Monday-Thursday at 11pm. I am usually reading or wathcing The Daily Show, but I am afraid my schedule is about to change.

Hopefully I won’t get hopelessly addicted, but I finally get the chance to really watch the reruns and enjoy the show from the beginning.

Just to remind us of today’s importance.