How about a lovely serenity watch? It has butterflies on it to symbolize freedom!
My, that watch is garish. You'd be better off just carrying a hunk of amethyst in your pocket.
But then people wouldn't compliment you on your pretty watch!
a hunk of amethyst in your pocket
Nah, I'm just happy to see you.
4: Recovering alcoholics with shitty taste, apparently.
4: Only people without cellphones.
I liked the Simpsons episode where Flanders went to the town where they make the little Precious Moments figurines. ('You're on Thin Ice!')
Watches are the only men's jewelery acceptable in conservative to moderate dress.
4: Only people without cellphones.
I have a cellphone and I wear a watch.
10 - But you have a pocketwatch, right? Not a wristwatch.
Because I hate myself for having a cellphone, and I like my watches.
13:
I have one pocketwatch that I wear, one pocketwatch that I don't, and one wristwatch that I don't.
I don't have a cell phone or a watch.
I no longer full-on hate having a cell phone, but otherwise very much agree.
I hate having a cellphone but love having the Internet in my pocket. Since the cellphone is part of my Internet-in-my-pocket device, I now tolerate having a cellphone.
Watches are the only men's jewelery acceptable in conservative to moderate dress.
Cufflinks? Tie tacks and bars? (First google hit for "tie tacks", sans quotation marks, is on "snootyjewelry.com".)
I resisted getting a cell phone for a long time, but it really does make things so much easier.
19: I'm holding out for the chip in the neck.
(OT - Ben, love the new "you're probably screwed" HTTP 403 message.)
Like Apo, I have neither cell phone nor watch. But I like cell phones. Except for that whole brain cancer thing. Oh, and the "it costs how much?" thing.
I acknowledge my error. It's the only jewelry in my aesthetic, and the most common men's jewelry in the U.S., I assert. I also almost misspelled jewelry in a completely different way in this comment.
Cufflinks are very cool but, for most men, they would require the purchase of new shirts to go with them so they couldn't be easily added to their wardrobe. I'm not a big brand snob but I did once date a guy who got his dress shirts at Thomas Pink and those things were the most amazingly soft shirts ever. I used to always steal them and wear them around the apartment.
I get my dress shirts at JCPenney. They're not very soft.
So are Sobriety Stones passed from the liver? Just askin'.
4: Only people without cellphones.
Or people with cellphones who go to places that don't have cell service. (Shockingly, such places do in fact exist.)
re:4 and 8
I've not worn a watch for a while but decided I needed one recently. Shopping for watches is fun. As WD says in 8, they are socially-acceptable jewelry for men.
I ended up with two 'vintage' Soviet watches - one 45 years old and one 30 years old - both of which are beautiful, and, it turns out, extremely accurate. Total cost: less than a bog-standard Timex quartz thingie. Old-school Soviet precision manufacturing is great.
1. I love wristwatches. Pocketwatches are gauche. I do have my grandfather's old pocketwatch, which sits nicely on a bookshelf.
2. I don't get hating of mobile fans. I always thought it was a fad that would die out. It has long since passed the time where I could call it a "fad", yet the hate seems to mysteriously remain.
3. Random: Opinions of this band? I'm biased so I can't judge: http://www.myspace.com/earlymorningbourbongirls
4. Mobile phones. Why do people hate those?
I bet if your grandfather were alive, you'd keep him on a shelf, for all your respect for anything that's not new and shiny!
pfff. He should be so lucky to be out of the basement, where I have him shoveling coal into he furnace.
4: Only people without cellphones.
Cellphones aren't real outdoor friendly. Ass deep in a river fly fishing is a bad place to take a cellphone. Watches can be water resistant. Cellphones? Not so much.
I'm beginning to wonder if Ben is the kind of guy to smoke a pipe. Maybe he smokes it on his bicycle. His bicycle with a the (leather) Brooks B.17 saddle. And leather handlebar tape. And fenders. He probably is wearing a tweed suit. And has his wristwatch on a gold chain. Why, Ben, why?
fcuk. Pocket watch.
I might as well mentioin that Ben probably frowns darkly, out from under his tweed cap, at all the undergrads chatting away on their phones, in public.
Mobile phones are handy things. I rarely leave home without mine. People's *behaviour* with them can be bloody irritating, though -- high-volume personal conversations or business-wankery shared with, say, all of the inhabitants of a quiet coffee place, or a bus, for example. Or - shudder - in libraries.
They, mobile phones, are such a social irritant that some of the train companies here have introduced 'quiet' carriages in which the use of mobile phones (or music players at a volume audible to others) are forbidden.
MC Hawking & A Brief History of Rhyme
good luck with the butterflies and the AA people alameida. though naked putti baby angels with fat bottoms might be more exciting in the aa protestant context... or those winged bodyless baby-heads that the virgin mary is always standing on like stepping stones after her Ascension...
i am very unhappily about to go get vaccinated for typhoid and yellow fever and suchlike crap, and at least now that i read your post about aura i am hoping that if they DO insist on giving me the anti-malarial medecine that can cause psychotic side-effects, it will be more interesting than i was expecting... though, on second thought, no i will stay away from that.
medical establishment ickity-ick....
I have both a watch and a cellphone because usually my phone is somewhere inaccessible, like in my purse or my backpack, as I don't much use it (much to the chagrin of my friends, who have only recently resigned themselves to the fact that I hardly ever pick up).
And cufflinks are teh hott. There's this guy at my firm (who has the whole Taylor Hicks young-guy-with-gray-hair thing going on, but like 10x hotter) who wears cufflinks every day and it makes me drool a little bit. Alas, probably gay. No less than four separate varieties of hand lotion within a foot of the computer--gay or not gay? (Not that it really matters for my purposes, as even if he were straight, he'd be 3x out of my league anyway).
anti-malarial medecine that can cause psychotic side-effects
That would be mefloquine, or larium. I took it a couple years ago. As I recall I vomited a lot and had very unpleasant nightmares. Highly recommended.
43: I'd have to meet him, but IME straight male lawyers are not unlikely to exhibit the sort of grooming behavior that would tend to make one wonder about their sexuality. I wouldn't assume he's gay. Say something inappropriate to him at a summer associate event and see how he reacts.
four separate varieties of hand lotion within a foot of the computer
Umm, was his office door locked a lot?
yeah, larium, woog. the more weeks you take it the worse each dose gets. mostly it's the nightmares. I mean, I consider myself a connoisseur of nightmares and that shit was just unbelieveable. at a certain point I stopped taking it, started slathering on deet and saying, fuck it, I'll risk malaria. but I am a dumbass so don't listen to me. especially not if you're going to Nias island or Namibia or something. also I have friends who've had malaria and it really sucks a lot worse than malaria medicine, so you prolly better just suck it up. I tried to post earlier that I can't wear watches and used to have a cool batz maru ring watch from japan, with a tiny metal stretchy band like a 70's men's watch, but it broke, and now I have a cellphone. I'm having some french-cuffed shirts made for husband x, though, so he can use those cool cufflinks I've given him, belonging to my great granfather. round gold ones with a checkerboard design of alternating brushed and smooth squares. also I am feeling upset and listening to sad bob dylan songs. it's a good thing I don't have any cat power on this hard drive or I'd be on suicide watch.
OT, as if that will make any difference on this thread.
Anyone here know anything about Bradford "collectible" plates? What about Theodore Haviland china?
I've been roped into helping settle my late Mom's estate. The Bradford plates look more and more like a complete scam.
Collectibles and antiques are not one of my interests.
I'd look for comparable items on ebay, and see what they're going for. It won't tell you everything, but it should give you a ballpark.
also I am feeling upset and listening to sad bob dylan songs. it's a good thing I don't have any cat power on this hard drive or I'd be on suicide watch.
Mmmm. Maybe moving on to the more cheerful Bob Dylan songs? Or trying to sing along with real attention to the proper nasality of the whine? That always entertains me, at least.
Like Apo, I have neither cell phone nor watch. But I like cell phones.
But B, wow can you teach without knowing the time? Don't tell me your classrooms actually have clocks and they tell the time? I can't remember the last school I saw where that was true. I'd be hopeless without a watch, and I don't like setting a phone up during a class or presentation, like I might suddenly get a call that's more important than whatever we're talking about now.
I don't think mobile phones are a fad, but I think dropping a watch in favor of a phone is gonna fizzle. Though I gotta admit I take it off whenever I type.
I take it off whenever I type.
Like right now? Hott!!!
hey, all I'm wearing is panties and that hospital bracelet with the bar code on it that's impossible to take off! I decided to listen to Turbonegro insted and am feeling cheered.
Dylan? Turbonegro??
Huh. I thought you were only allowed to listen to Minor Threat in rehab. Shows what I know.
Since that's not the case, here are some other bands you might be interested in your present circumstances:
46: Questions addressed to people with exclamation points in their name look really emphatic, huh?
47: If you hadn't made that joke, I would have.
I got a cell phone for the first time in my life 15 months ago when I was living in Cairo -- and that was because I could not call cell phones from my land line, and everyone else has cell phones.
The problem with getting a cell phone was that people could then leave messages for me, and I'd be expected to get back to them.
Now that I have one I find other people's behavior with them less irritating, though I still hate the "I'll be home in five minutes" conversations.
Y'all can do what I do, which is own a cell phone but not charge it and leave it in the bottom of your bag for days, despite the fact that you don't have a land line, either.
I have been resolutely anti-cell phone, never wanted one, always avoided getting one, v. much mind the loud rude people talking on them in coffee places, &c. And then last week I had one foisted upon me by my boss. So he can call me on weekends, for work emergencies. Lovely.
Dude! da, you were living in Cairo? Rad. Just wanted to send a shoutout, as I lived there for, um, 18 years. Where were you living, what were you doing (if you don't mind my asking).
(and word on the not being able to call cell phones from land lines; what a pain in the ass).
re: 59
I had to get one -- my sister was having a baby and my flaky flat-mate at the time kept getting our phone cut off by running up 600 quid phone-bills and then 'forgetting' to pay them.
A mobile was the only thing for it. It's very easy to get used to having one though.
A friend of mine goes into spontaneous rants about people's inability to make proper plans anymore and I'm sure I've heard comedians make a similar point. You turn up at some venue or other to meet friends and they've moved elsewhere -- but left a message on your phone, or txt'd you or whatever.
When I joined the cell phone carriers, I resigned myself to their use. I am now cell-phone only. I don't carry on long conversations in public, and I never talk on the phone when I'm checking out of a store--which is just incredibly rude.
I no longer hate on teh cell/mobile phones, but I do hate on the hands-free headsets. It means that people feel that they can walk everywhere and never have to get off the phone. It's worse than the people whose ipod buds have morephed into an extension of their ears. I've seen people in the supermakret who don't even bother to take their ipod ear buds out when they're paying. They just sort of grunt as they swipe their card. Amzingly rude. Most of the time though, the ipodders are not as bad as the hands-free phone users; because they aren't subjecting you to their noise (I've heard lots of cell phone conversations but little in the way of blaring music), and the ipodders aren't projecting an image of themselves as SO IMPORTANT that they can not possibly stop conducting business for even one minute.
i heart batz maru.
maybe you can start listening to japanese rock groups? pizzicato five??
am going to zambia, to visit a friend who grew up there and is part bemba. i have never been that far south before, only living in equatorial african countries with my family as a little kid, so it will be interesting.
i already got the tropical "repulsif extrême" repellent stuff (it works AND smells nice, like a decent perfume - i do like the french. i also like that it's not weird to go to subsaharan africa from paris, lots of flights and places to get vaccinated). unfortunately i am sweet-blooded or whatever so will definitely get found by the mozzies. but it will be winter. apparently there is an alternative to mefloquine now - chloroquine. cross your fingers.
hopefully all my health-safety impulses from being a kid will come back. it's a drag to only eat cooked, boiled, or peel-able food items. even worse to be that fussy foreigner who picks ice cubes out of their glass and only drinks bottled liquids of brands they recognize and won't eat dairy products. but hey, the cholera has been breaking out in zambia this year.
besides who cares...i'll lose weight and get sick as usual, but it will be beautiful to be there. zambezi. great victoria falls.
On the subject of travel, anyone here been to Bulgaria?
I am trying to decide where to go for a week in August, and as my first solo trip I am blissfully unencumbered by the desires of others, but this means there are a zillion places I want to go. Having a hard time deciding (also thinking about Berlin).
I've been to Bulgaria! For about three weeks. Loved it.
It's a great, great country. And it's really nice and small, so you can visit a lot of different places and not lose whole days to travel.
If you go, go to Siroka Luka (in the south). It's off the beaten track and totally lovely.
bulgaria is cool. go to plovdiv.
i would avoid most italian, french, mediterannean destinations in august. but slavic places are nice. you could goto dalmatia (croatia) too, or the baltic, where i have never been but which is beautiful and full of russian movie stars apparently and was well-liked by nabokov and also relatively cheap.
The world would be a better place if cell phones were set to vibrate-only by default. An even better place, if women's clothing tended to have pockets; or—barring pockets, and the concomitant ponies flying out of my butt—if phones could tell their in/out disposition with respect to purses and adjust their volume accordingly.
yeah! bulgaria also has astounding fruits and fuit juices and sheep's cheeses and yogurt...
it also has red sparkling wine (i used to say red champagne but french people always correct me on that)...but that is probably less recommendable for actually drinking rather than marvelling and laughing at.
Huh. I think I just figured out how to read a text message my sister sent me on Friday when I was trying to figure out how to get to her workplace. I didn't even know I had text messaging abilities.
Yeah, maybe I could hit up 3 cities in a week. My travel problem is that I'm lazy and I like to take things slow (and see everything), so I prefer staying in one place for a trip as short as a week, but Bulgaria might be small enough as to make it non-pain-in-the-ass.
60: Hey, fellow Cairene-dude!
I lived in Cairo off and on for about three years since 1996, teaching English then studying Arabic. First I lived in Abbasiyya (believe it or not), then in Heliopolis, then on a houseboat near Kit Kat square, then last time I was there (2004-2005) I lived in Zamalek. Where did you live?
The good thing about cell phones in Egypt is that you don't have to buy into a stupid expensive contract, you just buy cards as needed.
Like mmf! said, Croatia is also really nice (I've got family there and have been a few times) but the problem is that the coast in the summer gets swamped with European tourists and all the waterfront/beachside cafes, restaurants, etc. blare bad Eurotrashy dance music into the wee hours. And it's not nearly as cheap as Bulgaria.
Whoa! Abbasiyya? Hardcore. I lived in Ma'adi my whole life, which I kind of resent, as it's one of the more uninteresting (though beautiful and tree-lined, except for in New Ma'adi, which is unbelievably ugly) areas.
Speaking of boats, I was just yesterday regaling my friends with tales of various felucca hijinks during my teenage years. I remember one time me and my dad and uncles and some cousins stayed up all night on New Year's Eve and hired a boat on the nile at 6 am to watch the sunrise and all proceeded to fall asleep.
For a nomad, I sometimes feel incredibly homesick.
52: Believe it or not, I've just got a good feel for about how long a 50 or 80 minute class lasts. And I also just ask the students: "we've got about what, 20 minutes left?" If I'm giving an exam or something, though, I do bring along a little travel alarm clock, just to be sure.
61: I'm kind of a fan of the cell phone for making loose plans thing, myself.
72: I feel homesick for Cairo all the time, even though it can be such a difficult place to live.
Yeah, Maadi doesn't seem too interesting. That's how I feel about Zamalek -- I kind of regret living there last time around. Though I do love Maison Thomas pizza.
Not to be nosey, but were you in Cairo because your parents worked there?
people having arguments about whether or not you should have a mobile phone? Why did nobody tell me it was going to be "pretend it's 1994 week".
Oh I forgot, in the US mobile phone industry, every week is "pretend it's 1994 week".
74: Nosey is fine. I was in Cairo because I'm half Egyptian. My parents settled in Maadi soon after I was born (they lived in Shobra before that, which is where my dad grew up) because my mother was teaching at the American School there and my siblings and I were attending. All three of my siblings and I left after graduating high school, but my dad still lives there and I have a ton of other relatives in the area (mostly in Shobra).
Incidentally, speaking of Shobra, I found when reading, I think, a New Yorker article a few years ago that Mohamed Atta grew up only a couple blocks from my dad's childhood home (where my uncle now lives).
I just wish someone would come up with a way to have cell phones play songs when they ring instead of that chirping/buzzing type noise.
You don't understand. I have been resisting strenuously since 1994, and was forced to give in, against my will. I was the last samurai, my man. The very last.
Bulgaria. Got stripsearched there once. Good times.
Hey, you people are going through the social debates Oz went through 5 years ago re mobile phones. Until we all just bit the bullet and now we all have one. A great big one, which we all share.
Mobiles - known as 'handphones' or HP in Indonesia (in English despite AFAIK there not being any English speaking country that calls them that) - have really made things much easier for the researcher here. Without wanting to be culturally insensitive, let's just say people have more flexible ideas about reliability and punctuality then in some other more uptight countries. And good on 'em.
But this used to mean I would spend days trying to get hold of someone. ('Didn't feel like going to office that day.' 'Raining too hard couldn't go anywhere.' 'Went to some all-week funeral in Batutumonga Bawa.') Now it's just 'where are you now?' a few times and bam! almost instant meeting.
OTOH I get a lot of calls from a lot of some-guy-who-got-my-number.
There are as many samurai as technologies to resist. I refuse to get a new phone that has a camera baked in, which in practice means I refuse to get a new phone.
I am monochrome, hear me chirp.
re: 64
Prague is also cool -- good architecture, decent bars, reasonably priced beer. It won't be as cheap as Bulgaria though, I imagine. It's still cheaper than most of Western Europe but prices are catching up. There will be a fair number of US college students floating about the city in August, though, which may be a good thing or a bad thing from your perspective.
77: Yeah, and I wish they weren't so huge.
76: That's really cool. I always thought it would be cool to live in Shobra. My dentist was in Shobra. (As for Abbasiyya, the top two pics on my blog's sidebar were taken from my balcony in Abbasiyya.)
Mohamed Atta grew up only a couple blocks from my dad's childhood home
It's a geographically small, extremely dense city, after all. But I thought Atta grew up in Giza? Or is that where his father lives now?
81: Thanks for the Prague advice. It is indeed awesome. That's totally where I would be going if I hadn't just visited there in March of 2005.
I was the last samurai, my man. The very last.
I'm still holding out, yo. My wife tried to get me one when she was pregnant and I still refused. I didn't have one for the first kid and it never posed a problem. And whaddayaknow, it turned out not to be a problem with this one either.
I kind of want a phone with a camera, even though I know that I'd use the camera maybe twice until the novelty wore off. Luckily my innate practicality prevents me from spending money on every shiny new thing that makes me go "ooh, neat!"
I'm pretty convinced that cell phones are the way that the bodysnatcher pod people will take over.
We're definitely all getting cancer of the brane.
I love Prague, the city of beer and trams heaving people out the window. The architecture when it varies is quite nice, but can run to the monotonously baroque. And there's something bittersweet about the old town, the way it survives mostly as a diorama of itself. Those are my Prague thoughts, which I see on preview are unnecessary.
POTRAVINY NON-STOP!
even though I know that I'd use the camera maybe twice until the novelty wore off
The usage pattern is in general that on taking ownership of the phone you use it about twice, mainly in order to send pictures of your genitalia to your partner. Then you think "god how childish and cliched" and forget about the feature for about six months. Then you send a holiday snap or something to your mum and decide that the picture messaging costs aren't really that expensive and after that you end up using it all the time.
I don't even use text messaging, partly b/c I can't be asked to learn how, and partly b/c I refuse to pay extra for phone crap.
Texting is one of the most perfect communications media, I've decided.
diorama of itself
SB, that's fucking spot-on. It doesn't even look real. The tourists can get a bit overwhelming, even in March. On our first day there, we got up to go see the Charles Bridge at 6 am to avoid the tourists; it was truly breathtaking, with them, not so much.
91: Except for the part about needing a cell phone to do it.
Texting is one of the most perfect communications media, I've decided.
But it doesn't scale—there's just one of him, and so many of us.
B: by 'can't be asked' do you mean 'can't be arsed'?
Texting is very handy. I haven't gone so far as to learn textspeak though. Cos I'm too old.
Plenty to go around, from what I've heard.
I don't like Prague for that reason. And when I was there I always felt like the next part in the fairy tale was the one where the Morlock or Orc or something came to whisk me away.
I refuse to get a new phone that has a camera baked in, which in practice means I refuse to get a new phone.
Not so. Some smart phones (e.g. Blackberry, Treo, Sidekick) serve the camera on the side. Many can be had cheaply online. Though, the size of such phones is probably unpardonable if one has no use for the internet, email, or task manager applications.
Okay, is there anyone here who hasn't been to Prague?
B: by 'can't be asked' do you mean 'can't be arsed'?
Yes.
And Prague is lovely, and I went there before it became tourist central, so nyah.
Texting is great for very short messages. For anything else, pick up the phone. To demonstrate:
A: Come over for the Entourage premier?
B: Can't, have to pack.
A: Wait, when are you leaving?
B: [Some date like three weeks from the time of conversation].
At this point, either A ends the conversation or, if A wants to understand what's going on, has to call. In which case A should have called at the start. Similar things happen all the time.
'Arsed' to 'asked' is a new one for me, and I like it. It puts a new perspective on some of the first Google hits, like this one "Turkey can't be asked to control the thousands of illegal migrants passing through its territory heading for Europe."
Prague is great in midwinter.
It's bloody freezing, and it's half-empty compared to the summer and everything looks great covered in snow. Plus it's all Christmasy and there are those big tanks of kapr (carp) on the street and all the mulled wine with the rotgut rum in it being sold on the streets. The kids are waiting for their presents from jezicek and all that stodgy food suddenly makes sense now it's freezing.
Also, it *really* makes a difference to be hanging with Czechs when you are there -- there's a whole range of bars and clubs some excellent, some a bit shit, that aren't really frequented much by tourists.
And has his wristwatch on a gold chain. Why, Ben, why?
The pocketwatch I wear is on a stainless chain. The pocketwatch I don't wear I don't wear partly because I don't have a gold chain to match the watch.
104: Yeah, the last night I was there I met up with a friend-of-a-friend and his Czech wife, and they took us to a place serving unpasteurized Budvar and excellent food and there were no tourists there and it was awesome. Should have met up with them at the beginning.
103: I'm American. "Arse" isn't a word in American.
Which reminds me that PK had a meltdown this morning that "zed" for "zee" was JUST WRONG, and our explanation that no, it's just different, and different countries call the same letter different things just was unacceptable to him. Sigh.
The pocketwatch I wear is on a stainless chain.
"Carry" is the proper verb when referring to pocket watches. "Wear" is for poseurs.
In case is wasn't obvious, 108 was said lovingly.
107: That was roughly my reaction to first learning about "zed." I think I was in my teens though.
107: My boyfriend has said that as a child, he sang the ABC song ending with 'zee', because of Sesame Street, but that he knew the letter was 'zed.'
107 That's why it's interesting. The phrase arrived in the US, without the word.
You know, in strict muslim countries, women aren't allowed cell phones. And you Americans frivorously throw your right away!
I think the song is the main reason I was so upset. It doesn't rhyme with "zed"!
God. 107 reminds me of being made an object lesson by my sister.
My sister: "See, Auntie Jackmormon writes her numbers funny and wrong, nephew X!"
Nephew X: "Ha, Ha!"
Me: "No, I just got back from teaching in...[sputter, sputter] No, it's just different, not wrong. It's right to some people."
Nephew X: "Ha, Ha! No, it's funny and wrong."
I was so pissed.
100 -- Me neither. All the European places I have been, I would recommend going to; so I am not a good person to ask -- my palate is insufficiently refined. My parents are right now on their first-ever trip to Western Europe (Mom has been to Russia a good long while back), I believe they are touring Teh Hague now.
114 You get used to it not rhyming. There's a different version which tries to rhyme zed with n, but it's a bit wishy-washy.
Queue are ess, tee you ved?
114: It does if you just sing, "next time you can soak your head."
tee you ved?
Hardly at all these days, since the accident. Thanks for bringing that up, SB.
107, 111: exactly my experience. A kind of dissonance. I can remember a cartoon, Big George, with him asleep on the couch, surrounded by Zs in different sizes. I can remember imagining a kind of shuddering, dentilated snoring: Zd Zd Zd ...
Incidentally, silvana (re: travel), if you do it in August, the Edinburgh Festival is on.
It's not exotic continental Europe, but there'll be a *lot* of things to see and do, and the chance to travel further north or further west into Scotland.
However, if you end up in Edinburgh without reservations somewhere during the Festival, you're pretty much fucked.
Unless you go to Mamma's Pizza up in old town, and there's a really cute, very tall waiter there who takes pity on you and invites you to stay with him and his . . . . litter of kittens!!! Then it'll be one of your favorite travel memories.
And one of his favorite work memories.
125 -- I think not -- I was talking to him just the other day in the Bowery hotel where he flops when he has the money nowadays, and he identified that weekend as the beginning of his long downward spiral.