Two weeks later, you informed me that I had overpaid by some $84 dollars and the check would soon be delivered, akin to offering a band-aid to a man who survived a 400-foot fall down a cliff made of salt and broken glass.

Now, only 344 days later, I received said check.

You’re a special type of person, St. Vincents.

/grief

I’m talking about that guy up there. Forrest. My friend, your friend, all-around nice guy. Or so I thought.

As you probably didn’t read in my earlier post, I don’t dig the soccer thing, the World Cup thing and most definitely don’t dig the vulvazella thing. Well, this weekend Forrest came down to hang out with Diana and I. Beer flowed and good food fell from heaven. And along the way, Forrest got me to watch the America/Ghana soccer game. Since I’ve always considered myself the best thing that’s ever happened to Forrest (with the notable exception of Liz), I decided to give it a go; really get into a soccer game.

I asked questions, learned player names and actually felt happy when some guy, Donovan or something, scored on a penalty kick. After about 110 minutes of soccer action, I’ll admit to being hooked like a meth head after his first hit on the communal pipe.

Then we lost. And I blame Forrest, I think that’s fair.

This year, the 48 hour film festival was different. Different in a number of ways, mostly good, and in one way very bad. Let’s start with the good ways.

The Times-Union team featured an all TU staff this year, no professional script writers, actors or trophy-chasing producers. We were a bunch of hearty, motivated, sleep-depraved souls with more talent in a twist of our pubic hair than in the entire self-aggrandizing bodies of years past. That is to say, we rocked.

Upon learning our genre (sci-fi) at 6:30 p.m. Friday, we immediately began brain storming the story line. Short story shorter, we went with Luis’ idea: A woman **plot removed until the screening, you nosy bastards** description. The four script writers, Luis, Timothy, Topher and myself were locked in room dripping with caffeine and inspiration and by 11 a.m. we had the storyboard complete and began on the actual script writing. Lots of deep-dicking jokes later, it was 5 a.m. and by God, we had a script. A script! Normally I’d try to explain the significance of this in a few sentences, but unless you’ve chased after the greased up pig that is the 48 hour film festival, it won’t matter.

Oh, I should mention – this is where the movie began to go awry. We had two main objectives this year: Be an all-TU team and include as many of those people on screen as possible. The lede actress was an obvious choice; the talented and tow-headed Julie. While reviewing our actor list, Luis Tim, Topher and I realized that we had little choice but to cast one person in the lede actor role – your sweet Nuinca. Since I’ve used every stupid literary trick in this blog post except for analogies, let’s us this one. Casting me as the leading man was like having the Joker let you decide which family member of yours should die first – your wife or your son. No good choices and our situation was worse because it’ll never follow with an awesome sequel featured the Penguin (please, Chris Nolan, if you’re reading this.)

Anyway, the scripters and I broke up around 5, ran home to get our costumes and met back at the paper around 6:30 a.m. I can only speak for Luis and I, but at this point we had both been up right at 24 hours. The movie hadn’t started shooting yet.

While I, the lead and least talented actor, was memorizing my lines that morning, shooting began around 8:30. By 9 I was in my suit and pacing in the paper warehouse that was my character’s office. Due to a potent combination of nerves and heat stroke, I can’t guarantee what happened between then and 2 p.m. Saturday morning, but I’m sure other people would be willing to fill you in. I remember sweat, bottles of sticky wine and talking about my borrowed Megatron cufflinks.

After a short break we were back in action, filming the majority of the scenes. I had thankfully found an easy way to escape to air-conditioning between takes. No heat stroke FTW!

This is an open letter to the million, billions or trillions of World Cup fans out there:

Please leave me alone. If I was in Germany, Spain, or God forbid, France, I would be willing to pretend to give a shit. But I’m not. I’m in America, land of the free and home of the rotund. I shouldn’t be bombarded with people’s faux enthusiasm, overpriced Real Madrid jerseys and CONSTANT vevuzela references.

I don’t care about your single-score games, boring dive tackles or the “did you know the average soccer player runs 12 miles per game?!” facts. If soccer players were bigger they would play rugby or football. If there were faster they would be track athletes. If they had better coordination they would be baseball players. If they were any smarter they would have graduated elementary school.

There. That made me feel better.

Go USA!

#1) When I have an expresso anything, my pee smells like tuna for the rest of the day.

#2) I have only friended 3 people on Facebook, one for each city in which I’ve had a permanent address. The rest is pure organic growth, baby.

#3) I have sworn off the booze this week. So I have lots of free, relatively clear-headed nights ahead of me.

#4) While we’re on the topic, I like the idea of Bold City Brewery much more than I like the beer itself. Also, RIP, Duke

How about you? What should I know?

That, my friends, is a highly ’shopped photo from Antigua, Guatemala. I’ve been home for a couple of days now, but between getting in ass late Sunday/Monday morning and Diana’s birthday today, I just got the chance to continue the Guatemala stories.

For those who can appreciate the comparison, Antigua is like Savannah or St. Augustine without all the stupid shit. A colonial city with the colonial, a city without the pretense. There’s no doubt about it – Antigua was easily the most tourist friendly spot of my visit, but I got the distinct feeling that if all the gringos went away, the city wouldn’t miss a beat.

Gringo count in that photo: 0

I think Antigua is how the rest of Guatemala would like to consider itself. Ancient, important and unforgettable.  Luis and I wandered the streets both early morning and late night and never felt unsafe, except for one brief “Hey doods, joo guys want buy some weed?” That in stark contrast to our hotel in the middle of Guatemala City – an area in which we were instructed not to leave  hotel grounds.

I’ll never forget the passive-aggressive voices used by the market vendors, voices unwilling to bark recommendations and yet equally unwilling to let an easy mark pass by. Ask Luis to do an impression for you – he’s spot on.

Another memory – the two old beggar women perched along the closed government building at 6:45 Saturday morning. Luis and I passed without answering their pleas and they called us either “que malos” or “quama los” – look both up in Google translator.

Today we saw Lake Atitlan. I know nothing about Lake Atitlan, so read everything in this post with caution. Lago Atitlan is 5,000 meters above sea level, making it the highest lake in the universe. Lago Atitlan, at it’s deepest point in the middle of it’s azure waves, is 5,000 meters deep, which puts the floor at sea level, but don’t bother telling the fish that – they don’t care.

Also, Lago Atitlan is ringed by three volcanoes – Vulca Luis, Vulca Zoni and Vulca Joaquin. All three of which are very active and dashing volcanoes, none of which can be seen in their entirety due to their tops always in the clouds.

With the boring encyclopedic facts out of the way, here’s what happened. We drove to Atitlan today, a 2. 5 hour journey through the roughest, saddest and most amazing country I’ve ever seen. Guatemala is a desperate and pulsing country with a life entirely it’s own. Once we got to Atitlan, we walked around for a couple hours admiring the trinkets and me occasionally nodding at another pale wanderer.

Let’s finish this quickly since I’m about to fall asleep in my Michelada. After an unforgettable afternoon we climbed back into our Kia and did our best to race ahead of the late afternoon fog. Once back in the city, we had a helluva dinner with Luis’ sister and her three children.

And that, my friends, is a day in Guatemala