Show and Tell: What's Justin Working On?

Lots of freelance, including posters and putting the finishing touches on the redesigned website for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Check back as the festival nears for updated lists of panelists and events. After two years away, I'll be attending this the fourth installation of Timothy Schaffert's lit weekend. Should be interesting to see what he's done with the old gal in my absence.

The Endorsement: August 13, 2008

Move over, my wedding day; today is officially the greatest day in the history of the universe: Madden 09 is on shelves, Sweetpea is on her way home, and I found a penny on the sidewalk this morning. If the microwave in the breakroom shorts out and the fire department sends us all home early, I'm buying a fucking lotto ticket.

Bachelor Week in Review

Those of you filling out your Bachelor Week Bingo cards can go ahead and mark off the squares for "fell asleep watching Porky's II," "ate cereal straight out of box while not wearing a shirt," and "drank a beer in the bathroom." Classy times here at Bachelor HQ.

I Will, However, Adopt The Practice of Addressing to All Women as "Sweetheart"

Few things turn me off more than ubiquitousness or bandwagoneering. And with seemingly everyone spurting blog-love for AMC's Mad Men, I planned to avoid a show I figured was basically just Gossip Girls for the mutual fund set. However, bored with Simpsons reruns and DVR'd episodes of The Sopranos and drawn by the fact that the show was set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s—long before viral marketing and social networking and that stupid fucking Burger King king—I decided to give Mad Men a shot.

Two episodes of the new season in and I can't say the show is as great as has been reported, but I'm enjoying it well enough. There's something uniquely satisfying about men with square jaws and precise hair standing around talking mechanicals and art departments, tumblers of scotch and lit Chesterfields in hand. Beyond that, however, there's not much else going on. The mad men wear wool suits and eat red meat for lunch and drive their American cars out of the city at five o'clock to their homemaker wives. The mostly one-dimensional secondary characters—the Jews, broads, blacks, and homos—seemingly exist only for the proselytising of the writers. This is how it was in 1962, man!

Meh, I'll keep watching for now, either until the storylines spiral into overwrought love triangles, outlandish murder cover-ups, and long-lost twin brothers, or when football season starts, whichever comes first.

I've Said Stardream Quartz So Much The Words Have Lost All Meaning

Behold, my first—and last—attempt at wedding invitation design and construction. Special thanks to Paper Source for the stock; ModLux for use of their paper cutter; and Sweetpea, whose yes kickstarted the whole project.

Plus, It's More Commute-Appropriate Than, Say, Juggs

I renewed my GQ subscription today. Just mailed the check, as a matter of fact. A check that killed me to write.

See, last week I found out my health insurance premiums are going up (again). And last month my office learned Clark Griswold-style that there would be no raises this year. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, groceries are more expensive now than at any point since I started buying my own Lucky Charms—store brand, of course; they're 40¢ cheaper. Generally speaking, the dollar is in the toilet and I don't have enough of them (dollars, not toilets) to feel any kind of relaxed.

So, all that said, why spend $17.83 on a subscription to GQ? It's not for the $600 wingtip buying guides. Or the editorial features and pictorials of half-naked actresses I've never heard of. (Esquire does those better.) Nor is it even the layout of design of the magazine. (Again, Esquire.)

What convinced to to re-up GQ was Joel Lovell's "Men and Money" column. It's great. The last two columns of his I read—renting vs. owning your house and being 30 with no retirement fund or investment plan beyond your savings account to speak of—especially. Dude might as well be writing my financial life. And while he offers a few simple, doable plans of action to begin managing one's money like a big boy, I'm more buoyed by the fact that there are financially fucked brothers-in-arms out there, guys my age and professional standing who are just as confused and scared shitless by the fact that no matter how hard they work and deny themselves consumer pleasures in order to squirrel away a little money, there never seems to be enough of it on their monthly statement to feel like they can take even a weekend vacation or order the $32 bottle of wine just this once because the economy could go fuck-all (moreso) any moment. Lovell's "Men and Money" is not bulletproof financial security, but it makes me feel a little better about my money strategy. And that's worth $17 in my book.