Seattle Scribe (defunct)

Primus covering Bangkok

2008-08-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

Youtube. Primus was far and away the best band at Outside Lands. Jack Johnson is lame with a capital L. Radiohead and Beck had bad sets. Remember how awesome Pablo Honey and Mellow Gold were? Those days are long gone. I'm only picking on these bands because I don't understand why they're so popular.

It was a good time overall, but about twice as expensive as it should have been. $80 a day is a little steep, considering nobody got to play a full show. I would reformat it so that each band gets about twice as much time as they did. Giving bands like Primus only one hour is criminal.

And whoever picked Radiohead, Tom Petty, and Jack Johnson to anchor the main stage in each successive night was an idiot. I've always liked Tom Petty, and I'm glad he basically played his greatest hits album, but he lacks a certain oomph. Jack Johnson's popularity saddens me for the state of American culture. Radiohead left me wondering wtf? They sucked. The homeless guy plucking a violin at the BART station was better.

The lineup guy might have been an idiot, but he's still a genius compared to the sound people. The sound cut out multiple times for just about every band I saw. And when it wasn't cutting out, it was of poor quality, fading in and out. It sounded like a hoard of untrained monkeys were messing around with the soundboard. We deserve some of our ticket money back, but I doubt the organizers will do the right thing (and I'm too lazy to bitch at them directly).

I had a great weekend in San Francisco seeing old friends. But Outside Lands gets a C-. Subpar all around. That doesn't mean I definitely won't go back next year, but I wouldn't go with the same enthusiasm.

In other news, I've created a new blog. I'll email all 3 readers the link sometime when it's got actual content.

Officials are all pretty much the same

2008-08-17T12:31:00.001-07:00

I'm sure you've heard about the underage Chinese gymnasts by now. There's also something about some fellow named "Felpy", who did something noteworthy that's slipping my mind right now.

Well anyway. I found the Chinese official reaction the most entertaining part of them getting caught:

"We already explained this very clearly. There's no need to discuss this thing again."

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that He and China's other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible.

This reminds me of a status meeting I was in at my old job. Some task was checked off the Excel sheet as being done, but I had recently noticed a bug in it.

When I pointed out that it needed to be factored into the time needed to complete the project, I was told that it was already done. See, look at the spreadsheet. Right here. Checked. Done.

I can show you it's not done right now. Walk 30 feet to my desk and I'll show you how it's not working.

No need for that, silly! We already know it's done because the spreadsheet says so.

And so on.

America

2008-08-16T11:10:00.001-07:00

Go. Just go.

George Orwell's Diaries

2008-08-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

He started his diaries for real in August 1938. His entries are being recreated in blog form 70 years later to the day. Haven't read any of it yet, but it should be interesting.

Lightning in slow motion

2008-08-09T19:50:00.001-07:00

This is really frickin' cool.

Rush on Colbert Report

2008-08-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

link

Nuclear nightmares

2008-07-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

Wanna see something that isn't totally fucked up? Don't go here (WS).

Google Earth is entertaining

2008-07-26T17:25:00.001-07:00

This youtube of random stuff found on Google Earth is pretty cool. I want to know what the hell that thing in Alaska is?? And damn, there is some weird shit in China.

American perceptions

2008-07-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

The US according to West Virginians. I'm still laughing at how accurate this is. I thought the Myrtle Beach reference was particularly hilarious.

Nerdgasm

2008-06-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

StarWars dance off. Best Vader entrance ever. This is either the greatest or dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Political endorsement

2008-03-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is the candidate I'm choo-choo-choosing for 2008. Go Ralph!

Related, this Dick Cheney shirt is awesome. That's just the sort of thing I would wear around out here just for the shock value.

RIP

2008-03-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Somewhat related, atheist sees Big Bang in piece of toast.

We're #2!

2008-03-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

The Big House is losing 1300 seats to make room for handicapped seating. Now we've only got the embarrassingly 7th largest stadium in the world (down from 4th). I would bitch about it, but we're actually falling behind other Big Ten schools in percentage of handicapped seating (and Notre Dame). We're supposed to be the ones outclassing them, so I won't argue with the decision. (ND fans are annoying but at least civil, unlike alot of other fans)

We should regain the title by 2010 when they add skyboxes and some more seats. Skyboxes? Skyboxes. In the Big House. The giant bowl that's banned all advertising. All those rows of crappy metal seats that have been the great equalizer of classes. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but here's a pretty good justification for them. Also... me wanty! So, I guess what's the big deal?

We'll lose the USA title to Penn State, of all places. The only school other than Northwestern to have a lameass lion/wildcat growl everytime they have a good play (so it's been quiet since roughly 1989, when Penn State left the Big East and joined the Big Ten). I will give them credit for calling it Beaver Stadium, however. I guess "Pussy Palace" was taken.

Michigan Stadium is going from 107,501 to 106,201, though the attendance record is 112,118, against Ohio State, natch. There must be lots of fake tickets. And did you know we tack a one on the capacity so that Bo Schembechler always has a seat? In Columbus, one of the most popular bands is called the Dead Schembechlers. They didn't even wait until he was dead to incite Buckeyes into riots. You have to see it to believe it.

[ed: I'm adding this graph in later, as my jaw hit the floor again over the utter disgracefulness of OSU fans] This is the cheerful I Hate Michigan chant from the, no joke, Hate Michigan Rally, held every year before the game. They played it six times. There is no analog to this in Ann Arbor. Anyone doing anything like this would be quickly ostracized.

I'd like to point out for the record that when I was a student at Michigan, a million years ago, the big scandal was that someone climbed a tree on the President's lawn in the 1997 post-national title celebration. In Columbus and East Lansing they burn down their own cities, and in Ann Arbor you get expelled for climbing a tree. That's the difference.

This is why I don't want Terrelle Pryor to go to Michigan. He's the #1 recruit in the country, and is a perfect QB match for RR's run and shoot offense. He's narrowed his choices down to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State (?) and Oregon. He's from PA, so PSU sort of makes sense. Sort of. If Paterno wasn't older than John McCain (Joe is 80, John is 72). But everyone assumes he's going to OSU.

Anyway. I'm sorry, but someone whose not even out of highschool yet and has already been caught taking a free Corvette from a "friend" in Columbus and gets in fights all the time, is not someone who belongs at Michigan. That sort of entitled rules-don't-apply-to-me attitude just isn't Wolverine material. However, It doesn't sound like it's his fault about the fight. If I was a black guy, I would throw fists over the n-word too. But still. He's a lightening rod.

We don't want him. That guy is a ticking time bomb. Remember what happened to our basketball team? Wonder why we still suck? No thanks! I hope Rich Rod understands where he is and that he can't take players like Pacman Jones anymore.

There I go ranting again. Come gameday, I would trade all my precious morality for a better football team, like the SEC does. Play to your strengths, I always say.

Busy, busy

2008-03-04T19:30:00.001-08:00

I know linking videos and/or pics is generally unpopular blogging practice, but I got nuthin' but crap to do, so here goes anyway.

This is an awesome 3D vid of how HIV infects and replicates. It's pretty amazing how complicated life is at the cellular level.

This pic of the Earth and Moon as seen from Mars is really cool. Don't miss the larger version.

This is one of my newer favorite comic finds.

This is one of my older favorite comic finds. Anyone who remembers playing text adventure games will find this particular comic funny. (>> Eat me >> Self cannibalism is not the answer)

And that's all I got. Told ya I was busy. I doubt I'll be posting much for the next week or two, as finals loom. Then I got a week off (the youngsters call it Spring Breaker, or something).

And then I'm off on an adventure for an extended period... I don't want to blog about it here. But I won't be blogging anymore from April on (one person somewhere just went, "Meh.") If I start another one, I'll email it to all 3 readers.

Youtube bonanza

2008-02-27T02:02:00.000-08:00

StarWars according to a 3 year old. Generally I don't go for the cuteness of other peoples' kids. Only my nephews/nieces are cute. But this little girl stole my heart. I supposed it's because she likes StarWars. I thought the bit about talking back to Darth Vader was hilarious. Kids at that age are highly entertaining.

Drunk animals. I can't even begin to describe the awesomeness of this clip. Drunk elephants and monkeys. You must go there, now!

Spy satellite blown up. Nice shot!

Fish slapping dance. This is one of those things that will make me laugh every time I see it, until the day I die.

It's not Youtube, but this collection of sports fans is funny.

Have you thanked the moon lately?

Anybody out there have some good finds?

I am a old

2008-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

Exhibit number 742.

I spent the weekend with undergrads on an island studying marine life. Check out my facebook for the pics. Once again I'm reminded of my age.

I met someone named Adrian. I said, "Yo Adrian!" Crickets. "Um... Rocky? Anyone see Rocky?" I asked. "Is that the movie with the Russian guy?" was the response.

A car was coming. "Car!" I yelled, then "Game on!" Crickets.

They all got a big laugh out of the VHS player in the lounge. "Heh... where's the 8-track player?" I said. A few polite titters. No one knew what I meant. I might as well have referenced a wax cylinder.

The van we loaded our crap into was parked near the water. It's not a river, but still... a "Van! Down by the river!" No one got it. I'm not the only one who remembers Bennett Brower, am I? I might as well have accused someone of engaging in flimflam or tomfoolery.

The good news is I can recycle all my Simpsons quotes, because no one knows them but me. By and by. Sometime soon I'm going to blow their minds with Sailing the Seas of Cheese.

Overall though, it's alot of fun. They're witty funny kids, and it's a pleasure to hang out with them. If I could keep my mouth shut, they wouldn't know how old I am. I can't complain when my main sources of awkwardness are anachronistic jokes and gently letting the lonely 19 year old girl know that I'm ten years her senior.

If it goes anywhere, I'll post about it. I'm letting her digest the information for now. An anonymous blog is priceless.

Spolier

2008-02-24T14:50:00.000-08:00

Say hello to President McCain. Thanks, Ralph!

Instant Noodles

2008-02-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about your member after a few glasses of whisky (har, har).

I'm sitting in a hotel on a Friday night because there's a gaping hole where the ceiling over my bed used to be. I have to be somewhere at 7:30am tomorrow morning, so I have an excuse for blogging on a Friday night (this post was withheld for a couple days, not that anyone notices). Long story short, I'm living in an overpriced semi-dump for the time being, and have little to do.

There's barely a kitchenette in here. There's a fridge and a microwave, which isn't so bad, but is a total rip for the rate. I stole some silverware from the continental breakfast the other morning, and have been subsisting on Lean Cuisines and plums for about a week. I've been keeping mostly to my vegetarian pledge, completely if you don't count fish as meat. For a whole week in a row now!

It was for this reason that I read the ingredients on the Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken flavor noodles (emphasis mine). I thought it was just flavoring. Well.

About halfway down the billboard sized list of ingredients is this gem, "powdered cooked chicken". Um... what? I'm sorry, but just what in the hell is powdered cooked chicken? Besides the obvious...

I'm really curious about this process. They cooked chicken, then reduced it to powder? Why didn't they leave it as, I dunno, chicken? At least it's not powdered raw chicken, but still. I mean, dried chicken chunks or something I could sort of accept. But powdered chicken? How does one achieve that, exactly? What part of the chicken is so readily converted to granulated form?

I wouldn't eat this garbage even if I wasn't trying to go vegetarian. Blech. (by the way, the next ingredient is "chicken fat", no joke).

By contrast, this vanilla flavored soy pudding is sooooo delicious and satisfying...

Meechigan is grate!

2008-02-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

No one wanted to comment on the competitive eating video game? I'm hurt.

Well, this will make up for it. Michigan is the nation's number 1 champion factory:

To identify the top professional athlete-producing schools, Forbes.com's Kelly Nolan examined the current rosters of every team in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer.

...

The biggest champion factory is the University of Michigan, which produced 68 current roster professional athletes. (Michigan's archrival, Ohio State, placed second with 62.)

This is the sort of stuff you have to cling to when you lose the head to head game. Sigh. Next year! Except it's Rich Rod's first, so he can suck and it's not the end of the world! But the season after that, you better look out!

The Wolverines have won more football games than any other program in NCAA history, including the first Rose Bowl game back in 1901.

La, la, la .... what losing record to Ohio State in recent times?

Did I sigh yet?

Why the United States is the greatest country in the whole entire America

2008-02-13T17:49:00.001-08:00

Alternate title: signs heralding the downfall of society.

A competitive eating video game.

Players will have to master "offensive and defensive weapons including burps, belches, and mustard gas." They will also have to control their gag reflex to prevent their on screen counterpart from hurling.

Good god almighty, what a great country.

Question, does this mean the terrorists won or lost?

Politics 9 months out

2008-02-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

I am now a registered Republican. It actually hurts to say that, but I had to pick a party to vote in the primary.

I was going to go Democratic, so I could vote for Obama. Then I saw that the blacks were voting for Obama, the white women were voting for Hillary, the Mormons were voting for Romney, and the Evangelicals were voting for Huckabee.

If everyone else is going to be racist and sexist and otherwise tribalist in their choices, then I can vote for the kooky libertarian racist. You disappoint me, America.

UPDATE: It turns out that the Democratic primary in Washington state is meaningless. Only the caucus matters as far as the delegate count goes. The Republicans use a mix of caucus and, ya know, voting. So assuming I wasn't going to caucus anyway, voting Republican was the only way my vote was going to make a difference.

And of course, as we all know, Ron Paul won by one vote. I made a difference!

Mars stuff

2008-02-04T23:35:00.000-08:00

Maybe this makes up for the crassness of the last post.

Here's a neat panoramic pic from Mars. Here's Google Mars. And, finally irrefutable proof of the face on Mars!

Insulting Indian videos

2008-02-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to make any Indian friends by posting these, but I just found these hilarious "translations" of Hindi music videos. They've been around for awhile, so you may have seen them.

Benny Lava seems to be the classic, with Nipple Song coming next. Mustard my Hole (I like that title better than the one they use) gets points for sheer offensiveness, but falls a little short of the other two.

The dancing is actually really good, better than you see here, and the music is pretty good too. Indians, they take their music and dancing very seriously. And in case it isn't obvious, these are probably NSFW, though I doubt anyone will "hear" the bad words unless they read along with the subtitles.

You may or not find these as funny as I did. I almost pissed myself at Benny Lava. There are so many gems in that one. I suppose half the reason I find this so funny is that I've spent alot of time with Indians, and I can readily imagine the women acting all offended and the guys snickering into their hands, then acting all offended for the women.

Indians are all show about the conservative thing, and then are crazy sex starved bitches behind closed doors. I mean, that's what I heard.

And what's with all the Indian women being super hot and the guys all looking like total douchebags? I guess you get that in every culture.

And if by chance someone actually reads this crap and is offended by these, I ask that you look at how Americans depict Americans in our own mainstream media.

Modern Anthropology

2008-02-02T13:04:00.000-08:00

I seem to link this article every year, and it still cracks me up. It's the requisite Super Bowl description from the BBC, written in the voice of a scientific study of natives in a jungle somewhere. The NPR coverage isn't much different.

And don't forget the Puppy Bowl! With the magic of Tivo, I'll get to watch both. AND I can skip all the boring pre-game/post-game bullshit. I actually want to see halftime this year because Tom Petty is playing, or I would skip that too.

Happy Super Bowl, everyone!

Why guys are cooler than chicks

2008-02-01T13:12:00.001-08:00

A woman would never make something like this. This almost brings a tear to my eye, it's so awesome.

Long live the phallocracy!

(more on the genius of men)

The latest addition to my Enemies List

2008-01-27T21:10:00.000-08:00

The clomp-clomp girl.

In other words, the oh my god, can you believe how many guys are looking at me? It's sooooo annoying when all these guys are turning their heads to look at me! And it's not because of my obscenely loud shoes!

What recessive genetic abnormality do you have that makes you think you're so goddamn important that you can disrupt an entire library full of people who are doing actual work? Fuck you and fuck your ugly-ass noise makers. I'm glad you're so grown up now that you can shop at high end places like Old Navy, but give it a rest, eh Naomi?

(I would say those jeans make your ass look fat, but it's your huge fat ass that does that)

If I ever meet you, I'll control-alt-delete you

2008-01-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

I've listened to Eat It 3 times in a row now, and I'm laughing harder each time.

Is it intrinsically funny or am I just a dumbass? Don't answer that.

I also can't get over the Pentiums. I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "money" for short...

Yeah, well you're reading this. Bubble gum bonus track.

Jilted lover

2008-01-19T20:11:00.001-08:00

West Virginia, get over Rich Rod already. Seriously.

I have a unique perspective, being a native West Virginian who went to Michigan. I know how important the Mounties are to the state. Imagine a place jealous of Pennsylvania, and you'll get an idea for how desperate West Virginia is for things to be proud of. I say this with all due love for my home state.

I get it. WVians are entitled to a high level of disgust at RR and Michigan. I would hate Rich Rod too, if he wasn't the best hope for my beloved Wolverines to return to glory. But threatening his relatives, one of them a 12 year old girl who needed an escort at school? Are you effin serious?

Grow up West Virginia. If you were a person, you would have a restraining order against you. You're acting out like an especially ticked off woman scorned. I do my best to talk you up out here on the west coast, but you're making yourselves look pretty bad with this tantrum you're throwing.

And to the non-WVians, this must seem quite bizarre. Let me try to explain how it works in West by God. Rich Rod was a native son, and as such, had one key extra expectation of him, that being loyalty. Everyone and their brother leaves WV for greener pastures, so those who stay behind have an intense bond of loyalty. Rich Rod was supposed to be a "true" WVian.

They may be blue collar, cheap beer swillin', satellite tv watchin', "redneck", eaters of roadkill. But if you lead them to victory, WVians will love you with an intensity that no one else will. Think Scottish highlands ala Braveheart. They'll throw fists (or frozen oranges) to defend your honor, and stick up for you against all opposition, all with a delightful hick accent.

The flipside is that they expect loyalty. Afterall, they stayed in WV, why shouldn't you? Violate the loyalty, and the claws come out. As venomous as the hatred for RR is, this is how strongly they loved him. All that bile was reserved for WV's opponents, and will be again soon. He brought glory to an otherwise depressing state (again, WV, I love you babe; but you know it's true). RR's fatal mistake was to be successful, then leave.

Also, you have to understand that WVU is an extra level of crazy. They'll try to tip over the ambulance with an injured player from the opposing team. They'll throw trashcans and whiskey bottles at the other team's coaches. They'll break into the empty stadium after beating Miami away, tear down the goalpost, and carry it to the main drag and leave it there. I forget his name, but one of the commentators on ESPN has told a story about showing up for a game as an Orangeman, and being hit in the face with a frozen orange coming off the bus. It used to be common for the refs to penalize the fans. Morgantown has taken couch fires to an art form.

So imagine this atmosphere, and just when WV finally has what they want, a Mountaineer team that's a regular national title contender, and Rich Rod ups and leaves for .... Michigan? Who they hell are they to take our coach? Bastards! It doesn't help that he flirted with the Alabama job last year, and then promised to stay at WVU "for a long time" (or something to that effect).

I sympathize with West Virginia very much on this one. I always go for the Mounties. But this vandalizing and harassing RR's family has got to stop. Show a little class.

I'd like to end with this amusing local commercial from WV. Believe it or not, the quality of local commercials has gone up considerably since I lived there (the Dime Bank, anyone?). My only question is: which state did they find the attractive woman from?

Haha! I keed, I keed...

Related: I will not be ignored, Rich!

Classiest post ever

2008-01-18T15:24:00.000-08:00

The two funniest terms from biology so far: gamete and homolog.

No, you can't have your two seconds back.

Modern day torture

2008-01-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

That's what going to the dentist is like. Sure, it's been a couple years, but damn. I did not expect that from the skinny little woman who ushered me to the chair (shut up). I swear she used it to get leverage. I'm surprised she didn't put her foot up on it.

And do I really need the flossing lecture again? No one in the tristate area is surprised that my gums are bleeding. Let me jab you in the gums with a needle and see what happens.

You know, it's not the pain, which is easily tolerated by someone whose had his head bashed in more times than count he can (though hitting the tooth nerve doesn't tickle). It's the sound.

God, that sound was ear splitting. She was using the super plaque scraper machine thing -- you know, the really high pitched sounding one. When she did the back molars, it resonated with my skull (seriously) and the sound was freakishly loud in that ear.

The only remaining question is: should I throw the free floss out now, or use it religiously a couple weeks first?

Tom Cruise scientology video

2008-01-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen it, brace yourself. Absolutely batshit insane.

The scientologists, and their army of lawyers, have managed to get it off every site but two (the other one).

I thought he was forgivingly nutty for jumping on Oprah's couch, what with this world full of Britney wannabes and all. But this is something else entirely. Wow. You have to see it to believe it.

I used to feel bad for Tom that he had to deny on TV that he and Katie ate the placenta of their baby. Not anymore.

Time waster

2008-01-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

If you want to get anything done, don't go here and play this game all day.

Sorry I was a little overly dramatic with my last post. I just get mad when the media assumes things like I only care about dead people when they're blonde women. I also get annoyed when they assume they can choose the President.

I thought it was hilarious that most of the polls were wrong about the primaries. They basically elected Obama, who I like for the Dems anyway, and then had to cover their asses when Hillary won NH. It's good to see them be proven wrong so clearly. Heh!

I wonder how much garbage they get away with making up? My guess is: way more than you'd be comfortable with.

Anyway. Blowing stuff up is fun. Krakow, krakow! Two direct hits!

Be thin hot white blonde or die

2008-01-12T08:50:00.001-08:00

The latest example.

I'm very sorry this girl died, and my thoughts are with her family. But why does she matter over all the non-blonde women who tragically died this week? And for that matter, the men?

I will always object when news coverage is this way. We, as American white people (which we all are... right? right?), think we're not racist. But we let this sort of coverage go unquestioned.

Well I'm questioning it. This is wrong. Equal coverage for abducted persons or none.

Politics, 10 months out

2008-01-06T17:38:00.000-08:00

This will be my brief, off the cuff summation of current US politics.

Ron Paul is the only Republican who even comes close, and he's got no chance at all. I read the greatest quote about Paul I've seen so far here:

It's ultimately kind of sad that the controversial person in the race is Ron Paul rather than Huckabee.

- Jonah Goldberg

Amen to that. Huckabee scares me. There's just something unsettling about putting a person who thinks fossils are clever lies in the highest office in the land. Museum of Natural History? More like The Smithsonian House of Lies!

On top of that, he's of the newer breed of big spending Republicans. Fiscal responsibility was the most positive thing about Republicans, and now they've abandoned that too. Sheesh.

On the Democratic side, Obama. All the way baby. Hillary has too much baggage. It's mostly Bill, but she also carries alot of other junk with her. Voting for Hillary feels like voting against the Vietnam War, whereas voting for Obama is a fresh start.

Also, I think it would do wonders for our world image if the guy running the war was a minority middle-named Hussein who attended a Muslim school in Indonesia. [insert Republican candidate here] is too hatable, being a coddled rich white boy with connections. But Obama? Now there's a person who can repair our world image.

Overall I would prefer a Democrat wins the race. That would divide the government (Republicans actually block expensive programs when they're proposed by Democrats) and it would force the Democrats to take the war seriously.

That's all on politics for awhile. We have a looong way to go yet.

UPDATE: I've been hearing more about Ron Paul's racist past. If it turns out to be true, I'll throw my Republican support to McCain. Paul's rebuttal is that those newsletters were ghost written and he ended it as soon as he found out what was being said in his name.

Heavy things

2008-01-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

I just "broke up" with one of my best friends. Long story. Suffice it to say, I don't feel very good right now.

Then I saw the saddest thing on the whole entire internets (this link doesn't work anymore, nevermind -- it was a dog curling up to his dead master's side).

Thank goodness I ran into one of my old favorites, Flyguy (sound), so it's not all bad. I love Flyguy.

My Dad made one of his trademark turnarounds. Thanks for the well wishes. It's not fun to get jerked around like that. You think your Dad is on the way out, and then he bounces back. Over and over this happens. We really thought this was it this time. I'm afraid that I won't take one of his downturns seriously, and then he'll be gone and I never got to say goodbye. Gah!

School starts tomorrow and I haven't even picked out classes or looked at the schedule yet. Prolly otter get on that. It's hard to get jazzed up about school right now.

I got a Tivo for Christmas. After selling a kidney, I finally got it set up. What a pain. I set up my Mom's and it took about 20 minutes. Mine took hours, mostly because I didn't know I had to update the firmware in the router. Here's to randomly updating stuff and things magically working.

I haven't accumulated any shows yet because I've been watching the games live. But once we get into the week and it starts picking up all the shows I like at odd hours, it will come in very handy. Or so all the Tivo people tell me. For $725 it better effin wash my car.

Right now 2008 isn't going so well, but I'm confident that it will pick up soon.

Christmas is ...

2007-12-25T00:13:00.000-08:00

Christmas is carrying your Dad to his walker behind the door so he can make his own way out to the tree as though nothing is (completely) wrong.

Do the vest buttons line up? Yep. Santa hat? Yes. Bolo? Check. Like the bolo, by the way. Nice half shaving job, old man, shit. Whatever. Ok, roll old man, roll!

Be thankful for what you have people. Be thankful. It doesn't last forever.

What is Christmas for you?

Sorry to be a downer! It's all good. I'm hanging with the best family a person could hope for (meaning dysfunctional as all hell), and in the jacuzzi at that.

The roiling water assuages and the wine abides. Things could be worse. Things could also be better, but then, couldn't they always be? No complaints, no complaints. But I'll be sad if I want to. Paradise death is just as permanent.

The only clear bit of wisdom I've gleaned from this experience is: all the money in the world means jack fucking squat. You wanna know the key to life?

The key to life is people. Surround yourself with good people, and you will live (and die) well. People. Friends and family. That's it. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? It is.

Well Merry effin Christmas, right? I may be the only cynic-optimist, wherein I'm convinced the world will get better, but for the wrong reasons.

I wish the best for you all! This is my own effed up way of sending you love, so enjoy it, dipshits.

AVPR

2007-12-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Why didn't anyone tell me there was a new Alien vs. Predator movie? (warning, noisy promotional website) trailer

Christmas Day just got that much better! And I'm pleased to see it's R. The first AVP suffered from its PG-13 rating (but was still, obviously, one of the greatest movies ever made). The actual greatest movie ever made is, without question, the original Predator. I wonder what will ensue in the little Colorado town this chapter takes place in? One can only hope it's shenanigans!

I'm probably the only one who liked AVP. That's ok. I'm used to liking movies no one else does. I also thought The Hulk, and The Postman were good flicks. Yeah, yeah, Costner's a douche, but it has Tom Petty in it, and once you realize it's all about misplaced devotion, it gets alot better. I actually didn't like it that much... I just didn't think it sucked like everyone else did, so I bring it up.

The Hulk was awesome in a subtle way. I think everyone expected a straightforward action flick, and were perplexed when Ang Lee made it into some weird art film. But it was a weird art film with a giant green monster smashing everything in sight! I considered it a respite. And it's not like there isn't plenty of action. Watch the scene where he's fighting the helicopters, and he bites the warhead off a missile, and spits it back at them, and not smile. I dare you.

Snakes on a Plane was good in a silly, up too late kind of way. The scene where the guy puts the snake in the microwave to kill it might be the finest cinematic moment in all of history.

I never "got" The Godfather or The Wizard of Oz. I have tried and failed to watch both movies on several occasions. (obligatory link of Peter describing why he doesn't like The Godfather)

I have made it all the way through The Wiz, but only because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

And this is what I do instead of studying for finals.

Blah

2007-12-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

So football season is over. I'm going to have to change my homepage to something other than the college football scores. Sure there's the pros, the methadone to my NCAA smack, but it's just not the same.

Michigan ended up in The Capital One Bowl, against Florida (at least the game is on New Years Day). Ohio State got miracled into the championship game against a similarly fortuitous LSU, whose coach we didn't end up stealing. They're both deserving teams, but so are about 6 others. Don't hold your breath for a blatantly appropriate (and profit destroying) playoff system to ensue anytime soon.

Illinois is representing the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl. Illinois? Well, they did hand Ohio State its only loss, but still. Michigan is supposed to be in the Rose Bowl and everyone knows it (we have the same conference record and we did beat them at home, afterall). Just make me proud Illinois, make me proud. USC is a tough team, but also ripe for the take down by an upstart (see Stanford). Pasadena might as well be a home game for the Trojans, but Illinois beat the Buckeyes at home.

Aside from football, I've been studying chemistry. It's pretty fun. Being back on campus I mean, though I do find the chemistry fun in my own dorky way. I've been reading books about quantum mechanics for entertainment since I was 14, so alot of this is old hat (ladies, he's also a Rush fan!).

You know what else is fun? Not working. Oh yeah, that still feels good. I recently talked an engineer working for a defense contractor into quitting his job. Haha! Take that, suckers!

I splurged on the latest Simpsons game, PS2 version (did I mention that I'm still not working?). For the fan, this is seriously funny shit. One of the levels is called The Super Happy Fun Fun Game, and you ally with Mr. Sparkle to fight dirt, all the while running around as an anime Homer, eating sushi and fighting sumo wrestlers. You don't want to know about the French level, where your goal is to collect all the white flags. It's not all cultural though. Most of it is a parody of games in general (e.g. -- you collect "clichés" from the comic book guy, such as "Exploding barrels, oh real original", etc). Even though the gameplay is subpar, I highly recommend it to any Simpsons fan, if for nothing else than the original content.

I know I've been neglecting things around here, and I'll keep doing that as finals are approaching. I just wanted to stop by and say hello to the few who routinely stop by anyway (thanks). I'll come back to kill this blog off and start another, at least.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and I wish you the best for Xmas and New Years! (except for you, stinky. you know who you are)

Is it Christmas yet?

2007-11-25T18:25:00.001-08:00

Find out here.

Oh I'm sorry, this is abuse

2007-11-15T17:31:00.001-08:00

150 of the best Monty Python sketches. You're welcome.

Loosening a wheel nut with a gun can be dangerous

2007-11-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

This just in.

A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff's deputies said.

Sweet Jesus almighty.

"He's bound and determined to get that lug nut off,"

Hey dipshit, try some WD-40 and a longer wrench next time.

1977 Penny's catalogue

2007-11-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

While these scans are absolutely hysterical in their own right, what I found particularly funny was the beer casket chairs/tableset from JB's basement. Alas, they've gone to the great redneck's trailer in the sky. But the memories remain. Oh... the underaged drunken memories...

Bacon salt

2007-11-05T21:34:00.001-08:00

Kosher/vegetarian bacon flavored salt (one flavor is even vegan). Genius. Sheer genius. (article) (site)

"It should be the new salt. It is the new salt. Everything should taste like bacon."

Amen, brother. Amen.

Zombies!

2007-10-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

In honor of Halloween, and since the abandoned buildings weren't quiiite creepy enough, here are 5 scientific ways to create a zombie horde. I'm not too sure how dangerous any of these actually are, but I was particularly interested in the second one.

Apparently voodoo priests in Haiti have some chemical solution they feed people that makes them work the fields in a highly suggestive state (read, no complaining). "Zombie" is a Haitian word and refers to these people (according to the article). Weird.

The brain parasites are pretty scary too. Not to mention the fact that labs are working on "re-animating" dead brain tissue. Really? Wow.

It's on Cracked, so there are f-bombs galore, but no naughty pics. The ending is priceless. Boo!

Scales

2007-10-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

This site that lets you play with measurement scales is a billion times cooler than this description makes it sound (haha, get it?). The sound is kind of annoying, and so is the intro text, but just start clicking around to get to the good stuff. You can click on the little images to learn about the objects.

Urban exploration

2007-10-28T20:45:00.001-07:00

This collection of several abandoned buildings is pretty cool. It reminds me of HL2 (if you don't know, it doesn't matter).

Snakes on a Plane

2007-10-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

If you don't know the awesomeness that is this movie, I pity you. The microwave scene put it over the top. It was a thing of beauty.

It's about snakes on a muthafuckin' plane!

Wingdome review

2007-10-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

They've got a good thing going, but it falls short of perfection. So does everything else, but they made a couple of easy to correct slip ups.

First off, I don't care about atmosphere, service or beer specials. I mean, I do of course, but that's not what I'm reviewing. Just the wings. For the record, all of those seemed just fine for a small wing hut sports bar, though I got mine take out.

I only have one major thing to complain about, so I'll get it out of the way first. The most obvious forehead smacker is there's no buffalo style on the menu, an unforgivable oversight. This goes right up there with no cajun style at Joe's Crabshack. File this one under "what were they thinking?"

The only other complaint is they skimped on the blue cheese. I'm sure there's a muckity muck somewhere saying, "Our sauces are so good, you don't need to dip the wings" or "If they notice the dips, we have bigger problems".

Well I dipped. And I noticed. The wings should be so hot you need a bit of cooling dip... and when you go for that dip, it shouldn't be starchy runny slop. I've seen burst pustules with more appetizing ooze. You can get large jugs of quality blue cheese from Costco, a few miles from the Greenwood location. Look into it.

So, how were the wings?

They have 8 grades of spicy, from naked to 7 alarm, plus assorted "garbage" flavors. I'm sure they're fine, great in fact. But there's no way I'm ordering BBQ or whatever at a wing place. I'm there for wings.

WINGS, dammit! I understand they need to appeal to whatever poor sucker is there with me, so they need a broad menu. Nevertheless, I consider flavors off the standard hot scale like fruity beer ... it's there to shut your girlfriend up while you get to what you came there for.

I tried 3, 4, and 5 alarm. 6 seemed to be the real hottest level, which is usually suicidal, and 7 was tacked on for the amusement of others. You can only buy level 7 by the wing, and you get your name on the wall if you eat the whole thing. Nuh uh. Not falling for that one again.

5 alarm is where the real hotness starts, though 4 is pretty tasty. The chicken is good quality, and it's fried just right. The sauce isn't overly goopy or runny. The hotness and consistency are good.

But the flavor is off. This is where subjective taste comes in. They're perfectly fine wings, but they aren't buffalo style. 90% of people would be perfectly happy with them, but my endless pursuit of wing perfection leaves me slightly unsatisfied.

In a test, I also got some "naked" and spun them in The Greatest Wing Sauce of All Time (Wingtime). They were a little messy, but otherwise perfect. That says all it needs to about my expectations.

I give Wingdome a B. Counting down from A, they lost one notch for cutting corners on the blue cheese, and 2 for not having buffalo style. An A+ would have to exceed expectations. That said, I'll definitely be back. 6 alarm has my name all over it! Dare I go for 7? That depends on how much beer you buy me.

The most important subject of our time

2007-10-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

You all know how seriously I take buffalo wings. I'm the sort of person who will feel personally insulted when wings are done poorly, as though it was done deliberately just to piss me off (I'm looking at you, Wendy's buffalo chicken sandwich).

So I don't say this lightly:

I found the greatest wing sauce of all time.

I imagine we all have nuanced ideas of what buffalo wings are supposed to taste like. Well this one is mine (the "hot" variety). This is great news because until now, the best wings I could find (reliably) were at Hooters. Yeah. You can understand my quandary.

It's called Wing Time. It does everything right. The right consistency (it sticks to the wings, unlike Franks), the right level of hotness, and most importantly, the right flavor. The only problem is the small bottle.

You can find it in most grocery stores in the PNW, such as QFC. You can see a list of retailers on their site. Or.... you can buy it by the case directly from them. Oh yeah, you know what I did!

For the record, there are much much MUCH better wings than Hooters in smaller chains and single restaurants. I only mention them as a sort of standard because they were legitimately out there as the first successful big chain to base their food on buffalo wings (granted, that's not the only draw).

I can eat Hooters and be happy with it, but I could nitpick the sauce. I always get TMI, and while the level of hotness is perfect, the sauce itself is too vinegary and runny (same problem with Franks). But that's not to say I don't enjoy the food and the uh... atmosphere.

There's an excellent place for wings in Portland called Fire On the Mountain. There's a place in Seattle called Wingdome that was recommended to me by the lady at FOtM that I have yet to try out. I recently noticed they have a restaurant pretty close by, so I'll make sure to stop in one of these days.

Heck, even the wings from Dominos in Chicago weren't bad, once you resauced them and baked them a bit. They're significantly better than the wings from Dominos in Seattle (hispanics kick up the spice noticeably -- at least that's my theory). Don't even get me started on the Queen Anne Dominos.

I wish I'd found this sauce earlier on in football season.

Wingsuit

2007-10-14T00:56:00.000-07:00

You could surely come up with one or two really crazy friends. No way are any of them even close to as crazy as these guys (vid, minor cursing).

Is it wrong that I kept hoping one of them would hit?

Things I wish I'd known when I was younger

2007-10-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

link

Pretty good stuff. I'm not feeling original, so this is all you get.

Funny stuff

2007-09-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

A gay love ballad to Ahmadinejad (vid), and a mashup of PostSecret and LOLcatz called lolsecretz.

Thank god for other people with way too much time on their hands.

Discoveries

2007-09-29T15:51:00.001-07:00

I was going to title this "New Discoveries", but aren't all discoveries new? (tell that to the native americans)

Anyway. Recently I've discovered a few things I thought I'd share with you.

1) Grilled cheese sandwiches -- While technically not new, I have a newfound love for them. I got lazy and made one in the leftover grease from a previous meal. The bread all crusty and the cheese all melty... dipped in your favorite sauce (or tomato soup)... I don't think I'm too far out by describing it as sex in your mouth. And I mean the good nasty kind of sex, where you're not sure if it's legal in this state or not. (yes, I know I just left this open wider than a San Diego to sex jokes)

2) Belgian beer -- This isn't really new either, but I find myself frequenting my favorite beer store an awful lot. Once you get used to European sized pints (~25 ounces), and the 9% alcohol content, it's hard to go back to the high life. Also, it's fun to pop open a beer like a champagne bottle. It's the real champagne of beers.

3) Facebook -- My uh... the girl, that one girl, she kept making fun of me for not having a Facebook. "What happened to Myspace?" I asked. "That's soooo 2003," she said. "I have a Friendster," I said, desperately hoping for some hep points. Instead I broke even with her blank stare, which is worse than losing points, because she didn't know what Friendster was. It's before her time. God I'm old.

On the subject of feeling old, my biology professor alluded to the movie City Slickers and asked if anyone had seen it. No one raised their hands (I don't participate in class). He said, it's ok, you all were in kindergarten in 1994. And I'm like... uh... does Sophomore in highschool count?

4) Blackjack -- I developed a liking to blackjack back in Chicago, but I rediscovered it in Vegas. I don't play the normal way, standing on 13 and higher. That pleased the other guys at the table because I kept busting the dealer (and then everyone wins). Yeah it's not advisable to hit up to 15, but I was the one who walked away with $75 and they lost all their chips.

I'm going to retire this blog as soon as I think up a new name. Change is good for the soul. Also, you can find my Facebook if you want, but there are things I won't talk about there that I would on a quasi-anonymous blog.

1996 Jon Stewart on Iraq

2007-09-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Bonus Canada jokes included (sound).

Vegas was awesome. It's simultaneously the greatest and most evil place in the world. I'll post about it soon.

Unrelated, here are 66 Simpsons movie references next to the movie stills they came from.

On a serious note, Ahmadinejad got his ass handed to him by Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University. This caught my eye because Mr. Bollinger was the President at Michigan while I was there. I'd like to see some apologies from the mostly righters who lambasted Columbia for hosting Ahmadinejad.

“Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for"

"Frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will have meaning for us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mind-set that characterizes what you say and do."

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

“To those who believe that this event should never have happened, that it is inappropriate for the university to conduct such an event, I want to say that I understand your perspective and respect it as reasonable.” He said, “It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.” He added, “This is the right thing to do and indeed, it is required by the existing norms of free speech, of Columbia University” and of academic institutions.

Here's one who apologized anyway.

Vegas

2007-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Everyone who backed out on my multiple entreaties for a Vegas trip can suck it (wait... did I mention that?).

See you suckers Monday.

Arrrrr!

2007-09-18T17:58:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow (Sept. 19th) is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Celebrate accordingly.

Important Moon Update! Also, sports

2007-09-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you who like to keep up on moons of Saturn and theories of why they look like the Death Star, this one's for you. Iapetus (wiki) is actually one of my pet subjects, so I love this stuff (indulgence alert, sorry if I told this one already).

In the book 2001, the monolith was found in the exact center of Iapetus's white half, not orbiting Jupiter. The location was changed for the movie because Voyager had recently flown by and taken breathtaking pictures that were appropriately used as a spectacular backdrop by Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest directors of all time. He was unsatisfied with the computer generated images of Saturn and its rings produced at the time (1968).

The article claims to have the explanation for one of Iapetus' odd qualities: the "impossibly" high equatorial ridge (I quote it because even though our current understanding of geology says a moon that massive would have flattened the ridge, it persists -- therefore it's not "impossible", we just can't explain it).

I notice that it doesn't address the other oddball qualities of Iapetus, such as the half white/half black color scheme, and the bizarre orbit. In the 17th century, Cassini wondered why he could see it sometimes and not other times. He theorized that it was half white, half black. His theory was proved true, hundreds of years later, by the Voyager probe.

While that's a mystery in its own right, I find the weird orbit most interesting. Most moons/planets orbit in the same plane. This follows from accretion theory. Big swirls of dust and whatnot eventually formed into planets/moons.

All the other moons of Saturn lie in the same plane as the rings. Iapetus is much further out and orbits 45 degrees (or so) off. Weird. Add to that the Death Star "trench" and "gun", and the half white/half black paint job, and you've got yourself an enigma.

No wonder Aurthur C. Clarke located his alien siren call there. People will debate the origins of Iapetus for a long time. It's too bad nothing was really resolved by the article. I'm sure the conspiracies and speculation will continue unabated.

One final tidbit about my favorite moon (if you read this far, it's your own fault): Carl Sagan saw some of the first pictures of Iapetus coming back from Voyager, and he noticed one with a black splotch in the center of the white part. Ooh! Spooky! He sent a copy to Arthur C. Clarke with the inscription "Thinking of you...".

Neat, huh? What, dorky you say? You just wish you knew as much about moons and science fiction to impress the ladies as I do.

I don't suppose I'll ever mention Carl Sagan without linking this vid. Good stuff.

In other randomness, here's a shot of Paris Hilton screwing by the pool.

And in some light-hearted reading, here's an article about the doomsday weapon the Soviet Union actually built (like the one depicted in Dr. Strangelove). Get me started on Kubrick, and this is what happens.

In sports, Michigan may be having a shitty season, but nevertheless, this highlight reel from the Michigan/Notre Dame game warms the cockles of my azure heart.

38-0, tied for worst loss in Notre Dame history. The other loss? Also dealt by mah boys in blue, in 2003.

Yes, it's sad when your season is reduced to humiliating other unranked rivalries, but such is life. It's best to just move on.

This guy defends the Patriots by saying basically, "everyone else does it". I dunno, but either way it's hard to not see their Super Bowl as tainted. He does make a good point though, that not many teams are making a fuss about it (only those that hold grudges or have a vested interest in seeing the Super Bowl go to the other team). I'm not up on the NFL, so I leave it to the gods to decide this one.

Either way, Brady to Moss is nearly unstoppable. My favorite QB paired up with my favorite receiver. I'm gonna love it anyway, scandal or no.

Ohio State was in town to play Udub this weekend. They won, no surprise there. Also not surprising was that the fans left another town with a poor showing. I heard from multiple sources how rude and belligerent they were, and these are the bartenders, not the Udub fans. Being a Wolverine I'm naturally biased, but this is the same story everywhere they go. Michigan fans have a rep for being cocky, but from what I hear from disinterested third parties, OSU fans are that much worse.

Ultra cute

2007-09-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

I see your cheezy cats and raise you one baby monkey hugging a dove. Snap!

UPDATE: Random short StarWars video parody added for no reason (language).

Let's just be friends

2007-09-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's the worst thing you can hear from someone you like more than friends. But it's good to have a clear picture of what it really means.

This works across both genders, but you do tend to see more pathetic male hangers on than female. It maybe takes a bit of wisdom (or a scarred heart) to see this situation for what it is, and extirpate yourself as soon as possible. And if your buddy can't see it, it's your duty as a friend to open his eyes.

I recall going through a break up the same time as a good friend in college. Whenever one of us caught the other staring off into space, we had a standing agreement to slap the shit out of the other. We both got in a few good shots before we stopped thinking about it, at least in social settings. Crude, but effective.

I guess guys just have a harder time breaking up (aka: giving up the ass). I could speculate about why this is so (no, it's not just the ass), but that would probably devolve into a sexist rant. Well... what are we waiting for?

... Eh, I don't have it in me. I don't really believe the sexist argument anyway. People are just people (be careful who you trust, but you'll never have a trusting relationship unless you take risks -- blah, blah, blah...). But I will impart a bit of a story told to me by a girl I know.

She was going out with some hot guy for obvious reasons, but it took about 30 seconds for her to realize he's a dumbass. She didn't want him to know she was dropping him just for being stupid and having no future, so she waited for him to do one little thing wrong so she could blow up on him and storm out. This took two more dates.

If she were keeping him around to screw, I would understand (it doesn't matter if she did or not, she still was waiting for something, anything, to blow up about). The question is: how is this better than just calling it off? How does going out with someone you can't stand two more times, then blowing up and causing a scene over something you admittedly don't really care about, appear to be the path of least resistance?

Only a woman thinks that way (I'm using "woman" loosely, to include effeminate men and exclude masculine females). If that makes me sexist, so be it. No guy I know would do that.

I wish I had a personal parallel to this subject, but things are actually going well for me. A woman I understood one scintilla would be nice, but you can't have everything.

6 years

2007-09-11T20:23:00.001-07:00

9/11.

The date nearly passed me by. While I agree that we should never forget, am I the only one who's had it with the wallowing? I mean, I'm as fuck-the-terrorists-straight-in-the-ass as you can get, but is stuff like this really necessary? (warning: don't watch the vid -- no really)

I guess it is for some people. Personally, I'm perfectly capable of holding onto my quiet rage without visual reminders, thankyouverymuch. Never forget sure, but don't feel sorry for yourself either.

Bumber - liver pain

2007-09-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

JB and I went to Bumbershoot number 37. It was cool, in the overpriced, overcrowded sense. Overall, it was cool just to hang with JB. I saw my cousin's comedy show, which is always hysterical. We took off from that to catch the final song from The Gourds, the (in?)famous cover of Gin and Juice (NSFW).

I wish I could send you there without giving away the song, but alas, the title is right there. Those lyrics are always hilarious. They never get old. Maybe I should study up some ebonics and listen to more rap songs (or more likely, I'll just keep being a dorky white dude).

During the end of song jam, they tossed in a few runs of the chorus from Cheap Trick's Surrender. I was in heaven, despite the lack of a Debbie Gibson cover (hey, you get ferried around by your plastic fantastic older sister for years and not have her music rub off on you).

I'm off to Milwaukee/Chicago tomorrow. I've got another two concerts to go to, and some friends to see. There's the female friend who came out here for the concert, my old roommate, and Garlic (a former co-worker). The concert(s) will be a blast! I can't wait.

I don't know why I felt the need to clarify who Garlic is, considering he's a full quarter of my readership (and he doesn't even go by "garlic" anymore).

And it should be ... interesting ... to hang out with a former interest and her live in bf (not to mention stay there for a couple days). She's adamant that it won't be weird. I actually agree with her, because I can honestly say that I'm not interested in her anymore. Interest!

I have girls out here anyway (you may go ahead and call me TSS, Master Pimp). Well, one who likes me anyway. Ok, one who calls and comes over with little warning, demands sex, and then ignores me for weeks on end. But still! Deep down I know she really loves me.

Haha. But she did call me today. It's always amusing dealing with a teenage girl. You have to keep a positive attitude ... er ... look passed her bullshit. What a trip.

She thinks she's so sly. Like I'm stupid enough to fall for her little gambits. I let her superficially win because I don't really care who "wins" these non-arguments, but I tell her in ways she might not understand yet that I see right through her. Who knows if it makes any difference.

The easiest way to get along with someone is to give them what they want/expect. A teenager wants drama. Not my cup of tea at all, but I have to admit, it's kind of fun. Let's just say, any girl who thinks me calling her a "cunt" is the height of comedy, is a girl I want to hang out with. In a bizarre unhealthy way, we sort of get along, though I'd much rather fritter away my hours with a girl I could play Waste to and mean it (bonus longish Simpsons clip involving Phish).

The sad thing is that I like her anyway. I'm sick. Or maybe just horny. Either way, this is going to end badly. Can you say crash and burn?

So yeah, Michigan lost at home to Appalachian State, a division two team. That's the equivalent of a junior high beating the local highschool team. While I'm sure App. St. was underrated, Michigan was clearly overrated, as usual (formerly ranked #5).

As horrifying as this is, it's kind of liberating having your season in the tank one game in. Now all we have to do is beat Ohio State to have a successful season. It's like we're one of the other Big Ten teams in a normal season.

I can't help but be proud of my West Virginian brethren (UPDATE: They're actually from North Carolina, but hill trash is still hill trash). It sucks that my boys lost to them, but if we're gonna lose to a lower tier team, I'd rather it be them. Better hill trash than anyone from Ohio, at least. This usually hardcore Michigan blog sums up my feelings pretty well, though I hope I feel better about it soon (music starts at first link).

Look at the kittie! The blog was all pink for a few days after the game.

Boobs (not even remotely safe for work).

It's time!

2007-08-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

Football finally starts tonight! Or this afternoon, for us west coasters (I love the timing of live TV out here).

The first round or two of games are kind of a joke, but so what? I finally have an excuse to get up on a Saturday and wash pizza and wings down with beer at 9am (that live timing can bite you in the ass sometimes).

Usually I wait until at least 9:30-10. But not in football season! Nuh uh.

I could bitch about how the Michigan game is only on Big Ten TV (the conference's new Direct TV accessible only channel), but who really wants to watch us beat the snot out of Appalachian State? I would laugh, sure, but really, who cares? Schedule up next time boys, and maybe you won't get stuck on a channel no one's watching, playing a division 2 team. Surely there's at least one crap MAC team who would play us?

On the plus side for App. St., this game will probably make their entire yearly budget.

Bumbershoot is this weekend. JB and I are going Saturday. If anything cool happens, I'll post it here. My cousin's comedy show is performing there. They're doing really well, just ending their North American tour, back where they started. Obviously I'm seeing that. There's a Belgian bar in Fremont I want to take him to too. I haven't been there yet, but it looks good.

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!

Warning: Middle Eastern looking guys ride the ferry too

2007-08-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's possibly irresponsible that this has gone national, but I'm sympathetic to the ferry worker who snapped these pics. If they say these guys were scoping the ferry for vulnerabilities, possibly the very same one I and my family ride all the time, I'll take their word for it.

(Yeah, so I'm prejudiced. So are you. My -- and your -- life is more important than those guys' feelings. I would feel differently if this caused a wave of crimes against Muslims, but it isn't)

I just wonder what this is going to accomplish. Hey everyone, those guys on the ferry look like Arabs! Do we all feel better now?

So far no one has identified them, and predictably it's a bit of a scandal. Some papers refuse to run the pics. Eh. If the FBI is that worried about it, I'll take notice, but just a little.

Of course, all this is really going to do is mean the next attack will probably come from a white convert who passes for Joe Blow American.

Dispelling stereotypes left and right

2007-08-27T11:23:00.001-07:00

If you're feeling bad about yourself, just be glad you're not Miss Teen South Carolina (ws vid). It's actually painful to watch.

I know someone who's angling for trophy wife!

And since I'm in the mood for cruelty, this might be the funniest OINY yet. I shouldn't laugh, but I am.

Don't forget the lunar eclipse tonight.

About the girl: she blew me off as soon as she got what she wanted. I can handle that, but it makes me wonder why she insisted that it was "something" and went on and on about how no guy respects her. Well, you did basically rape me...

So she's a horny girl who needed a fix. I was 19 once; no complaints about that. Since she's so worried about me not respecting her, it must mean something, I stupidly thought (put some ultra poon in front of us guys and we're liable to believe any damn fool thing).

The morning after, she was distant. I'm not clueless when it comes to reading women (or people in general, for that matter). I made eggs and we ate them. This is over, I assumed. But then she said the greatest thing a guy who's not sure about a girl can ever hear, "We're fuckbuddies". Woo hoo!

But she demanded that I call her, when I said, I'll text you or something (the eloquence alone seduces most women (not really)). Mixed messages, but whatever. She's cool and we'd always had fun just talking before... so I called her. But she didn't answer. She hasn't responded to the other call or a couple texts since.

Okaaaaaay..... I should have expected as much out of such a youngster, but I can't help wondering wtf? What was the point of the game? It's not like I would reject no strings attached sex from a 19 year old. Christ, do I look like I have morals?

Oh well. So I got used by a teenage girl. On the plus side, I got used by a teenage girl! U-S A! U-S-A!

For the benefit of my (one) foreign reader, invoking the USA chant is ironic. It alludes to the kneejerk reaction of a simple minded person, which is how I am characterizing myself. It's self deprecating. In other words, I'm a big huge horn-dog who got what he deserved. Sorry if that's pedantic.

UPDATE: This is too good to pass up. In the comments, JB has transcribed Miss Teen South Carolina's response. I'll let the quotation tell the story:

Q. Recent polls have shown 1/5 of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?

A. I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, The Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh er, should help South Africa, and should help The Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.

Thanks JB! I feel dumberer already.

I finally saw a hooker on Aurora

2007-08-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

It's about fucking time (haha). It's good to see the street live up to its reputation.

Bonus teenage girl dating tip: "You have a memory like an elephant" translates into "your ass is fat".

By the way, worth it. Totally worth it.

Heaven

2007-08-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

My favorite drummer of all time rides with the author of the inspiration to my favorite song* of all time through West Virginia back roads. For a huge Rush dork like me, you don't get any better than this.

*That goddamned alloy air car, always fucking shit up**.

**nevermind

UPDATE: Link to youtube of the song added. To be honest, I can't really pick a favorite song, but this is the one I've played the most. As is the matter of course for Rush, you have to read the lyrics to fully appreciate it (in context, since no one but me read Neil's inspiration article, some of the people who drive the doublewide air cars hunt the normal cars for sport -- link, pdf).

God, that video is so dated. Heh!

I'm not alleviating my huge dork status by admitting this, but if I had to pick the single greatest gift I've ever received, it was when my brother gave me Chronicles for my 13th birthday. Nothing has been so life changing and positive, not staying up late watching hockey with my Dad or camping with old friends, though those are close (sorry JB). I'll be a diehard fan 'til the day I fucking die.

Cheney understood Iraq

2007-08-12T11:52:00.001-07:00

Watch this video of Dick Cheney explaining exactly why invading Iraq is (was) a bad idea... in 1994. He correctly predicts the current situation. What happened in the meantime? So they knew and did it anyway? WTF?

Drunk Monkeys

2007-08-09T19:59:00.001-07:00

This video about the drinking habits of monkeys is pretty interesting. They have the same rates of teetotalers, moderate drinkers, and heavy drinkers as humans.

I hate commercials

2007-08-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

But I love this one. It has a catchy little ditty, but that's not the reason I like it. It was first put out sometime around Labor Day last year. That's when I went to my ten year highschool reunion back in West by god.

Alot happened that weekend. Most of it was psychological. I went into that weekend kind of down about my life. I was directionless, my rudder askew. I knew I didn't want to be an engineer, but not much more than that.

I came away from it changed. I was emboldened, with a new confidence and sense of urgency (nothing like going to Appalachia to infuse oneself with confidence, I highly recommend it).

I don't credit the commercial with anything other than being around when I had some sort of epiphany. I credit my good friends, and casual friends, who all made that weekend so much fun.

Nothing fancy, just kickin' back at JB's pool, smokin' and drinkin' for a few days. Me and RCR getting the cops called to the swankiest hotel in town is a classic. One night we hit up the Japanese place and went to the other bar. God, what a crappy town, but it was so much fun.

Anyway, that commercial is back in rotation and it made me think of a year ago. If I knew then that by now I'd be back in school and seriously considering going to med school, I'd never believe it. The good news is I haven't lost whatever that feeling was.

I'd also never believe how many nice available smart women there are in college. They outnumber the men, and there aren't very many "men" there anyway, if you know what I mean. This was by far the best thing to ever happen to me.

Well, that and plastic liquor bottles.

Correction

2007-08-07T17:22:00.001-07:00

I thought I knew surreal until I saw Donald Duck as a nazi (ws vid). Holy crap!

"The End" was the weirdest part.

UPDATE: After Walt Disney's sympathy for Nazis was mentioned in the comments, I went looking for evidence. The Straight Dope says, yeah, he had some sympathies, but was mainly obsessed with whatever would further his movie studio.

Want more? That cartoon won an Oscar for best short cartoon (1943). Wow.

Since we're on the subject, I might as well mention Warner Brothers' racism.

Surreal

2007-08-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

You know what's surreal? The mind of a 19 year old, that's what. I can't believe I'm talking to this girl.

For the record, she calls me, and she asked me out. We haven't gone out yet. We've studied together and had dinner, that's it. I'm afraid what really going out would be like. If it's anything like our phone conversations, it'll go a little like this:

Her: My favorite show of all time is The X Files.

Me: [stunned silence]

Her: If I ever see anyone fucking an animal, I'll kill them right then and there.

Me: Um, yeah... ok (I'm sympathetic, but stunned silence, basically).

Her: The curtains are creepy. I'm so creeped out right now.

Me: Boo!

Her: Stop that! Stop it, you're scaring me! (turns on lights)

Me: [oh you've got to be kidding]

Her: I have sociopathic tendencies. I imagine killing people and how to get away with it.

Me: [stunned silence]

Her: My ex-bf sometimes stands on my porch looking at me through the window while I sleep.

Me: Maybe you should get a gun. No, wait!...

Her: Say "Fuck you, bitch!"

Little girl being babysat over cell: Fug you, bish!

Me: Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! (I'm never going to not laugh at that)

Her: Don't ever bring me flowers or chocolates. Bud Lite tall boys*.

Me: All righty then! (I knew she had a soft side)

Why am I talking to this girl again? Oh right, she's 19 and wants to screw me. Eh... the price we pay for the ultra poon. It can't be worth it.

Or can it??

A question for the ages.

* I'm smarter than to buy alcohol for an underage girl, but she can think that I will all she wants

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

2007-08-03T18:25:00.001-07:00

Here are a few random observations/numbers for your edification.

The bridge in Minneapolis was rated as deficient in 1990. That sounds terribly negligent until you read that there are 70,000+ more just like it in the US. Either the standards are too high, or the entire county's infrastructure is badly in need of repair. Regardless, Minneapolis is not an aberration (the Alaskan Way viaduct comes to mind).

Construction on the new Minnesota Twins ballpark has been halted. Two thirds of the cost was publicly funded. I guess they didn't have anything better to spend taxpayer dollars on. Can you say "damning"?

To replace/repair all of those 70,000+ bridges would cost $188 billion. At the time of this posting, the cost of the Iraq war was $450 billion, 4 and a half years in. [sigh]

The other day I watched a crow eat a plastic bag. He just... ate it. Pulled it apart piece by piece and ate every last scrap. Sure, it had some tantalizing artificial nacho cheese product on it, but still. Put that shit on a bigmac or somethin' at least. Gross.

Emigration to Canada has hit an all time high of 10,942 in 2006. Like box office records that get broken every year, a raw number isn't as meaningful as a number adjusted for percentage of population (or for inflation, in the movie analogy). The population increases every year, so naturally the raw number will increase, all other factors remaining roughly equal. How does that compare to the population overall?

With an estimated population of 301,139,947, that means 0.0036% of our population left in 2006 to Canada. In 2005 that same number is 0.0033%. I don't find an increase of 0.0003% (about 900 people) to be particularly significant, which is the central thrust of the article (that this is some huge increase).

In contrast, Canadian immigration to the US in 2006 was 23,913, down from 29,930 in 2005. That corresponds to 0.0725% of our friendly northern beer swillers moving here for 2006, and 0.0917% for 2005 (please bring a hockey team to Seattle while you're at it, ok buddies?). That's a decrease of 0.0192%. While I recognize the upswing in American emigration and downswing in Canadian immigration, a more relevant point is being ignored.

Go read the first article, this one, and tell me if "The United States is more than 20 times more popular with Canadians than Canada is with Americans" is the gist you get ([.0725/.0036], which is the more generous set of data, the number is 28 for the 2005 set). Take from that what you will.

Oh yeah, and Canada is like, lame and stuff. Just so that clever joke is out of the way.

I have a new favorite place. This store. It's full of snooty European beer. Most of it's Belgian, which averages around 7-10% alcohol. I just pick random stuff. So far I haven't been disappointed. I asked the guy working there if I could bring my sleeping bag and sleep in the back room. It's a damn good thing that place is on the way home, and next to Taco Time to boot! It's good to branch out and learn your city.

I was on the bus the other day. It was full enough that people were standing. I got the last seat next to some retarded guy in a wheel chair. He was nice, but I couldn't understand a thing he was saying. Some lady got on and stood right there in front of me. Every time the bus accelerated at all, a curve, a stop, a start, she fell over and grasped dramatically at one rail or another.

I've seen this behavior before. This is the passive aggressive "gimmie a seat, you brute" game. I thought it was funny. I wanted to see if she would do the stumble dance all the way across town or finally give up and like, ya know, hold the stupid rail that was right in front of her. But wheel chair guy told me to give up my seat loud enough for everyone to hear (oh, now he says something intelligible). [sigh]

I love it when women understand men. Warms me heart, it does. Gives me hope that I'll find a normal woman someday.

What a man wants

2007-08-01T14:27:00.001-07:00

Garbage like this is why women should never take advice on men from other women. Is this why they act so stupid all the time, because they listen to tripe like this?

The best way to seduce a man the first time is to let him know you're interested -- but not easy -- with the word maybe.

Maybe you should get together, maybe you'll have a drink with him, maybe you'd like to see his place. There's enough yes in maybe to keep a man from feeling rejected and enough no to keep him challenged.

Any worthwhile man saw straight through what you think is a clever little game and moved onto someone normal. What horrible advice. Ladies, when it comes to men, think simple. S-I-M-P-L-E. We lead simple lives and appreciate a simple straightforward exchange. If you like us, great. If not, fine, go away.

We're not as easily fooled as you think we are. We see your games for what they are and start avoiding you as soon as we detect one (unless you're hot, then roughly 75% of us will ignore the games and go for you anyway, 99% if there's alcohol involved).

Look, take Dave Chappelle's advice on men (nsfw). He'll tell ya straight up how it works.

(on closer inspection, that column was written by a man, but he did a piss poor job of representing us -- just spitting female misconceptions back to them isn't helping anyone)

It rains alot

2007-07-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

And the traffic is bad.

Hot ice

2007-07-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

This is for all (none) of you whose mother has always wanted you to find a nice Jewish girl.

They sure didn't look like that at Michigan. It makes you wonder how anyone thinks they're going to defeat a culture like that.

Notice the middle one is locked and loaded.

Xix

2007-07-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine is coming out for a concert. She gets here Thursday around noon, after working a 12 hour shift that ends at 7am. Then she turns right around and goes home Saturday afternoon to get to work by 7pm.

Now that is a dedicated fan, my friends. I don't know exactly what we'll do Thursday, but I'm sure it will involve dinner somewhere nice, and of course no trip to Seattle is complete without a visit to my favorite den of ill repute.

Friday is the Seattle show. We're both big huge dorky fans of this band from forever ago, so she's the perfect person to go see them with. I'm going to the Portland show with JB, who has graciously agreed to forgo a wedding. That will be alot of fun, as it seems he's forgiven me for playing them so much in highschool.

(I'm leaving the name of the band out intentionally -- I'm paranoid about the "wrong" people finding this blog -- yeah, that's lame, but as soon as the wrong people read it, I'd have to delete it and start over -- you probably don't care, but I do).

That reminds me, I'm having a female house guest. I better rename the porn folder in my bookmarks to something other than "porn". Women seem to have a hard time understanding the need for porn, so it's best to just avoid the subject. What gives ladies? All we want to do is look at women hotter than you, do things we've always wanted you to do. I don't see the problem.

Inadvertently keeping to a policy of going out with women not even close to my own age, I spent a few hours with the chem-girl today. I'm not going to say how old she is, but I will say that she reads at a sophomore level.

This girl has bad news written all over her. She has a police record, an eating disorder, and a bitchy streak a mile wide. And that's just what I found out in the first day. I know what you're thinking, and don't worry, I'm thinking the exact same thing.

Occasionally, the tumblers of this universal cosmic machinery align themselves seemingly for a singular, higher purpose. And that purpose is to grant you a miracle. Yes! If ever you feel that you're alone in this world and no one cares, think of this, and know that good things can happen to you too.

A few more of these godsends, and I'll start going to church (actually, I'd still rather not). The best part is, there's no downside. If it crashes and burns, at least I'll know that we had the best chance of it working out.

I'd introduce her to my female friend who's coming out, just to see what she thinks. But I know she'd hate her, so it doesn't really matter. You may wonder why I would go for a precocious criminal, but not the girl my age who shares my interests. Let's just say I tried. Enough of that whole "love" thing. Bring on the barely legal poon!

So yeah, going back to college basically couldn't be going any better.

Hedonism!

2007-07-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

As I think you all know by now, I've been taking classes at one of the local universities here in Seattle. One of my classes is basically an accelerated highschool AP inorganic chemistry class (read: easy) and the other is organic chemistry. Organic is a real bitch, but at least it's interesting.

The best part about inorganic, aside from all the 19 year old girls wearing little clothing, is my lab partner, who is a sweet innocent sheltered 21 year old girl. She actually stuck up for her boyfriend, saying he doesn't masturbate but his friends do ("like... THREE times a day!" she said in horror -- I whacked off twice this morning, I was thinking to myself).

Hopelessly naïve. But cute, very cute. And I'm very protective of her. We get lunch everyday somewhere new and people probably think we're a couple, given how we act. I'll admit it crossed my mind to corrupt her, but I'd never be able to look myself in the mirror if I did. She accidentally got two tampons out of the machine and put in an extra quarter because she couldn't put the one back in.

See what I mean? I didn't think there were people like her left in the world. I can't corrupt someone that sweet and innocent. I told her she had two brothers now, because she's an awesome chick who just needs a little exposure to how things really are to be ready to take on the world. I'll do my best to steer her right.

Organic is alot more challenging and interesting. I'm actually worried about my grade in this class, though somehow I became the goto guy among the few people I know. They think I'm something akin to the resident expert, which is effin ridiculous because I don't have a goddamn clue what the hell is going on. At least not any more than anyone else.

I suppose it's because by being older and having real world experience, I know I can do this subject if I just read. Most of being an engineer is noticing trends and figuring stuff out on the fly, and half the point of engineering school is to teach you how to teach yourself a complex subject. I think they can sense that I'm not worried about learning orgo, which makes it seem like I should know the answers (I don't).

So in a sense, I sort of alpha maled out everyone else, which is totally effin ridiculous to all those who know me personally. I can be described in alot of ways, but "alpha male" is definitely not one of them. I'm the same guy who let 2 bit punks put the fear of god into me as a kid. I quit football because it hurt too much (and I wanted to smoke more pot). (and drink) I am not your run of the mill leader.

Wolf among sheep. That's what going back to college is like. They're lucky I'm (mostly) benevolent. The guys are panty waists and the girls are sincere. It's an odd place to be, but the idealism is very refreshing.

There's a big sign that says NO WAR in one of the windows. I want to hang a sign across the way that says "We accept your surrender".

I was talking to the prof before class one day with a couple girls and I got a huge whiff of BO. Oh no, I thought, I just took a shower too. Once safely away I did the "stick your finger in your pit then smell it" test and I came up clean. WTF? Then I remembered one of the girls is European (she has the sexiest accent you've ever heard). She's still hot but damn girl, take a bath already.

And no, of course I wouldn't let that stop me. A smelly hot girl would be a vast improvement over my standard fare. Her being too young is what would stop me. And not to get into it, but I don't really dig the foreign girl thing. Been there, done that. And once you get over the exotic sex, it's just a chick you don't have much in common with whose parents hate you.

I walked into the orgo lecture hall early one day because I might as well read the chapter there. There were two girls sitting up high and to the side. They were there early like me, but they chose to sit up in the back. My kinda people!

We got to talking, and within 3 minutes one of the girls offered to cheat for me and ran down to give me her email. I told her I didn't need her old labs, but she insisted on giving me her contact info. It took me a minute to realize what was happening.

Somehow she knew I was pre-med and I assume that's what drew her interest initially. I mentally made a fist and pulled it down cha-ching style. YES! WHORES!!! It took a long time, but my life may finally be complete. Hey, if she can gold dig, I can hijack the ultra young poon, right?

I wasn't intending to hit on her or anything. She's roughly ten years my younger. I may be a dirty bastard, but I'm not THAT dirty of a bastard. You can looky but you no touchy, dig? But she came over to me. I'm not made of steel people. Some girls don't need corrupting. Hot young girls pursuing me will find they meet with great success.

So the next lecture came around and I wasn't sure what to do with this girl, or if I was even reading the signals correctly. I decided to just pretend nothing happened, but sit away from her so as not to send any signals of my own. I figured it was just a fluke and her ignoring me would be my proof. I walked down the aisle and didn't see her anywhere, so I just grabbed a seat up near the front where I always sit.

"Hey there!" I hear, and look over to see her sitting in my locale, far away from her usual spot. I was shocked, not just at being startled, but at the audacity. Does she not think I'll see right through this? Was that the point? Either way, I was golden.

Until I froze up and took undue interest in my notes from the last lecture until class started (not exactly alpha male behavior). It took time to process the information.

Well hot damn, she really is after me. Between scribbling notes about free radicals, I swallowed my butterflies and decided to ask her out. You only get served up opportunities like this on occasion, so you better take them. When else am I going to get a guilt free shot at barely legal poon?

After class I apologized to her for not talking before class and told her to email me so we could study (if you don't recall, this is how you ask people out in college -- so easy). She said "okey dokey" (not really). I bolted because I had a lab to get to, which I probably should have told her. Then she actually emailed me! And in only a few hours too. I figured I'd just made an ass out of myself for the umpteenth time, but no.

Let's recap that for just a sec. I ignored her before class even though she moved herself and her friend to my part of the lecture hall. That's pretty rude. Then I told her to email me and walked off without lingering to chat, not offering an explanation. By all estimations I should have lost the encounter.

Is this more alpha male status? If so, I should have been doing this shit a long time ago. It baffles the mind that people defer to me (and if true, it saddens me for the state of manhood in our society). You too can be an alpha if you like. All you have to do is not give a shit. There, you're done.

Friday I had class until late and eventually got home and made a margarita. After this week it was time to drink some effin' tequila. After a couple, I headed over to the bar because I had nothing else to do.

I ran into alot of people, but there was one in particular. She's a little on the older side, but that's refreshing after all those naïve college girls. We've um, had history. We wrote a few more chapters, yadda yadda. You get the idea. I talked her into sex the first time with the following sweet talk:

I think about it when I wake up. I think about it when I go to bed. I think about it in the middle of the day. And in between thinking about it, I think about it some more.

She's lucky I'm a smooth talker who knows so much about the male sex drive. It's not fair really. It's like I'm a hypnotist or something. Or maybe it has something to do with her being a big huge lush and me having a bunch of booze. Either way, all my tequila's gone and there's a smile pasted on my face.

All in all it's been a bully week for The Seattle Scribe. I have brotherly love for my wide eyed adorable lab partner, I stand a decent chance at scoring some ultra young poon, and I spent all day Saturday drinking with and banging a woman who would be my gf if she were a decade younger. Not to mention the weather has been absolutely fantastic for over a month (75-85 and no clouds or humidity). Life has been worse. The Seattle Scribe likey.

So I guess this whole thing is a really long roundabout way to say that I didn't get any work done this weekend because I spent it all drinking and screwing. Woohoo! Take that, responsibilities! In your face! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Something 'bout the wrinkle in your forehead
tells me there’s a fit 'bout to get thrown
If we get the van out of the ditch before morning
ain’t nobody got to know 'bout what I done
And I never hear a single word you say
when you tell me not to have my fun

It’s the same old shit that I ain’t gonna take off anyone
And I don’t need to be forgiven
by them people in the neighborhood
When we first hooked up, you looked me in the eye
and you said “Pa, we just ain’t no good”

We were Heathens in their eyes at the time, I guess I am just a Heathen still
and I never have repented for the wrongs that they say I have done
I done what I feel

-Heathens, The Drive by Truckers

"Thank god for truckers and bikers"

2007-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hallelujah!

Seriously, I'm surprised Christians are taught it's ok to rip off waitresses. Do they really do that? Christians are usually if anything overly nice and generous. Anyone want to chime in?

UPDATE: Whoops, didn't realize that was a joke. I guess the joke's on me.

Optimus Prime loves you

2007-07-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the Transformers movie. Can I just say fucking awesome? Granted it's for 12 year old boys, but still. I went in expecting it to be a bunch of robots smashing stuff and fighting each other, and I wasn't disappointed. There's not much of a plot or character development, but it's still awesome. Definitely one to see in the theater.

Oh, the title comes from a friend's campaign slogan when he was running for class president. He put up signs in the highschool with that on it, with a drawing of Optimus Prime. He had purple hair and can play every Metallica song by heart, guitar or bass. Of course I'm still friends with such a bizarre person.

I'll write more about my actual life soon. Happy 7/7/07!

Passive Aggressive

2007-07-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

This site full of passive aggressive notes is pretty amusing. It makes me grateful for all my semi-normal roommates and working environments. I think I would actually kill someone if they stole my lunch everyday.

Happy 4th, bitches

2007-07-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Last year I celebrated America by eating sushi and cooking shrimp on the barbie. This year I'm sipping high end French champagne and grilling lamb chops rolled in homemade tandoori sauce. Go America!

You don't have to live here or have a green card to be an American. Being American is an idea, not a legal status.

So get out there and do your own dumbass thing, Americans! It's what the founding fathers would have wanted.

More Crackpot Theories

2007-07-02T21:57:00.001-07:00

I can't resist blogging about my favorite pet subject, especially when it keeps coming up in the news. It's fascinating on several levels, not least of which is the psychological aspect of it all. Who believes and why? ... that kinda stuff. Also who doesn't believe and why is just as interesting. Anyway, here's the stuff that no one but me finds remotely convincing.

Another UFO story from another dubious source. Seriously, if there really were UFOs, how come only airline pilots and ex-military people talk about them?

Feh, like anyone trusts footage from NASA.

Decorated Vietnam vets? Liars, the whole lot of em!

Like this group of air traffic controllers, commercial pilots, Harvard grads, and top secret clearance holding defense specialists have any credibility. How dumb do they think we are plus there rednecks.

Kidding aside, that last one is a very long, very stuffy, and very interesting disclosure of our supposed evidence of UFOs (of course they don't actually show us any of it). This is the sort of symposium that would take place if 9/11 were a conspiracy. I'm not saying they're right, but I am asking why would this specific group of people make it all up? They clearly believe in UFOs, and they claim to have seen the evidence. That matters when enough credible people say it.

Have you ever met a military pilot? They're not exactly prone to making stuff up, and they certainly wouldn't publicly promise to testify under oath before Congress about events their superiors want to keep quiet. Unless they knew it was true and thought we needed to know, that is.

Why would all of these people name names and describe specific events if it were all a huge conspiracy? I suppose it's possible, but I find it unlikely. What would the point be? These are people who would lose their medical or law licenses if they were caught perpetrating a hoax. I can understand overlooking Uncle Jeb's explanation for how the van got in the ditch, but not the Canadian Defense Minister (yes Canada is lame, how very clever).

I ridiculed UFO believers for a long time. I've always had a "put a body on the table" attitude towards fanciful alien tales. But I'm beginning to change my tune. I don't 100% believe in alien contact (I'll have to see it first hand for that), but I am leaning dangerously close to more than 50% that way.

I don't mean that there's simply life somewhere else in the vast universe, which just about everyone agrees with. I mean that we've been and are being visited by someone. There's no proof, other than credible people telling us that it's true, which is why I can't betray my skeptical mind and go all in. It took a lot for me to get this far (actual serious consideration).

It's hard for me to admit this because I know how ridiculous it sounds. But when you hear enough stories from enough people, it adds up.

How about this from the former public relations officer at Roswell? He signed an affidavit to be opened only after his death (which recently happened). That link lead me to this:

But last week [ed: the week before July 1st, 2007] came an astonishing new twist to the Roswell mystery.

Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the base in 1947 and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard.

Haut died last year but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death.

Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon claim was a cover story and that the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar.

He described seeing not just the craft, but alien bodies.

Just more loony tales from the "I want to believe" crowd? Why go through all the trouble to sign an affidavit to be opened after your death? Lt. Haut just wanted to play a funny joke on us?

This seems to confirm what a former US Air Force pilot I knew said about it. He said the classic Roswell UFO crash story was true, though his sources were secondhand. Apparently the scuttlebutt around the Air Force back in the day was they had aliens speaking english walking around bases in Nevada. He said he saw lots of unexplainable stuff, but never saw any aliens walking around. Still, he also believes, one of the most rational and responsible men I've ever met.

My brother saw something flying over our house in West Virginia that he described as a silver cigar that hung there for a bit, then just disappeared (I note that we lived close to a WV National Guard base). He scared the bejeezus out of my sister when he told her aliens were landing in the woods behind our house (good times).

I always chalked these stories up to highly advanced military aircraft, but I've finally lost my last sense. I mean, read this quote from John Glen, and tell me it doesn't at least make you wonder:

"Back in those glory days, I was very uncomfortable when they asked us to say things we didn't want to say and deny other things. Some people asked, you know, were you alone out there? We never gave the real answer, and yet we see things out there, strange things, but we know what we saw out there. And we couldn't really say anything. The bosses were really afraid of this, they were afraid of the War of the Worlds type stuff, and about panic in the streets. So we had to keep quiet. And now we only see these things in our nightmares or maybe in the movies, and some of them are pretty close to being the truth."

I read that and am forced to consider the possibility. To be fair, he said this in the context of a cameo on Frasier, so it's more than likely a joke. Or maybe he's trying to tell us something under perfect cover.

John Glen would have some clout involving the script, so I find it hard to believe he was handed this and just said ok, I'll call myself and NASA a bunch of liars. Haha? I dunno, maybe. But Glen is on record discussing "fireflies", the little things flying around in low earth orbit he saw every dawn up there. Not exactly first contact, but it's still something not officially acknowledged.

I've been reading this book off and on, The Day After Roswell, by Col. Philip Corso. It confirms the Roswell story, and details all the technological advances we supposedly gained from the craft. Among those are integrated circuits, fiber optics, night vision, kevlar, anti-gravity drive, and particle beam weapons, just to name a few.

I don't know how much stock to put into it, but I have to think the former Chief of the Foreign Technology desk in Army R&D at the Pentagon has some credibility. This is the same guy who ran occupied Rome at age 25. Again, why would someone like that make it up? He claims the true purpose of the SDI (aka StarWars) was to defend Earth from aliens, with the dual purpose of shooting down incoming ICBMs.

I would be remiss at this point to not link the famous snippet of Reagan's speech before the UN where he alludes to an alien threat among us (the true believers love this one). And since I'm on a roll, how about this quote from Gen. Douglas MacArthur:

"...the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets. The politics of the future will be cosmic, or interplanetary"

Have you ever wondered why the President doesn't have authority to enter super top secret sites, such as the infamous Area 51? ("super top secret" is a real term) According to the speaker in the fourth link from the top, the CIA knows of the black reverse engineering of alien technology, but has no access to it. Col. Corso confirms this as he says part of his job was to keep everything from the CIA, which is/was considered completely untrustworthy by the military.

There's authority above the executive branch and the CIA. Does that not suggest that the government as we know it is not really the one in charge? Who is then?

Well, since I've lost all credibility anyway, here's fake Japanese footage of a UFO at the WTC attack. Neat, but it shows how easy it is to fake video evidence of a sighting.

I assume you're skeptical, and rightfully so. I sure as hell am. I just hope that collectively, we're not irrational. In case you need any more ammunition, I'm mostly convinced that there's a base on the darkside of the Moon.

Commence the ridicule.

I am the Law!

2007-06-27T05:22:00.001-07:00

Another Will Ferrel short with a little girl giving him a hard time. This time she's a police interrogator.

What better way to watch the sunrise?

72 Virgins

2007-06-24T20:47:00.001-07:00

The comments under this trailer are almost better than the trailer itself. The best bits are the cursive greek and "you're the bomb". It won't make any money, but I hope they make it. Muslims need to get over themselves anyway.

UPDATE: If you enjoy reading about this stuff, this is an excellent short piece on the now infamous "rage boy".

Conan the Librarian

2007-06-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

link

Stuff

2007-06-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

Because I'm tired of looking at Sopranos posts too.

A Udub scientist is trying to send information backwards in time. The kicker? It's all privately funded.

And here's a neato atlas to the universe. It's a good way to get a grasp on how insignificant we are. I would expound from that stepping off point, but I have class in the morning.

To meet my misogyny quota, here's an apt sexist joke for ya.

Oh yeah, happy solstice! The sun set around 10 tonight and the temperature's peaked between 60-75 for a month or so. Not a cloud. Seattle in the summer is a little secret we like to keep. I can safely impart that knowledge since only 4 people read this crappy blog.

Actually the last Sopranos post

2007-06-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't break my swear if this wasn't the end all be all of Sopranos posts. This guy got it. Tony got whacked and there's copious amounts of evidence, most of which I missed because I've never seen The Godfather and I don't know a damn thing about Catholic mass (pun intended).

I am no longer upset about the ending, mostly because it should be obvious to everyone what happened.

The final Sopranos post, I swear

2007-06-20T02:39:00.000-07:00

Two really good recaps of the season and final episode.

Note that it's on Salon, which has a draconian cookie policy. I disallow cookies, but greenlight sites I trust. That doesn't work on Salon. You have to leave cookies fully enabled to navigate their site. Hotmail is the same way.

It's really annoying to have to go into the settings and allow cookies, click the link to the next page(s) of the article, then go back into the settings and turn cookies off again and clear them out... then do it all again the next time you come by to read something... which is why I don't go to those sites unless it's something really really important like Heather Havrilesky writing about the The Sopranos (she's also the author of a mostly defunct advice blog that's really good).

I don't understand why Salon is invested in me allowing cookies permanently. If I'm willing to allow the domain salon.com to set cookies on my computer, that should satisfy them. But that's ok, there are lots of other sites out there to read. I don't need to patronize a site written by dicks.

I'll just say as my parting comment(s) on the lame ending, the only reason I care so much is because the series was so good. If I didn't expect more out of a show that has always exceeded my expectations, I wouldn't care about the ending. David Chase picked a hell of a time to go all artsy fartsy is all I'm sayin'. We've been given spectacular shows for 6 seasons, and then this. Only one person I know likes it.

Supposedly the actor who plays the federal agent said that the original ending had the guy at the bar approach Tony at the table before cutting to black. So Tony dies, as I suspected all along (and was my fill in the blank for the non-ending). I think he clearly died as it ended anyway, what with his and Bobby's conversation on the lake, which was flashed back to in the second to last episode (where Bobby said death would be an immediate cut to black).

I wouldn't be upset if that was consensus, but it's not. Everyone has their own idea of what happened. Why leave it ambiguous? And why build up all that tension in the last scene to then have absolutely nothing happen? We were deliberately fucked with and that's just not The Sopranos.

Pass the onion rings? That's what we get for being loyal fans for 8 years? Eff that. Either Chase was lazy, doesn't care about his fans, or is setting up the movie. I think he was lazy, but who knows.

Despite my disappointment at the major let down of an ending, the show is a big net positive. I still love the show and would recommend it to anyone. Start from the beginning and go all the way through. It's too bad you know the ending now, but just keep in mind that the point of a journey is not to arrive.

Spatula City

2007-06-20T02:36:00.000-07:00

A classic from one of my favorite movies of all time, UHF.

Fun with referrals

2007-06-17T04:26:00.001-07:00

(I wrote this last Sunday, but delayed publishing it until this Sunday because I recently put up a longish post and I know all 3 of you people only read this from work -- don't lie to me, I see the referral logs)

Long the respite of lazy bloggers the world over, I flipped through my referral logs to see what bizarre searches brought people here. I think I may have the best two referrals of all time.

This British guy seems to be having trouble with a collection agency. I love the all caps. Nice touch.

This guy from Turkey wants to find an LSD dealer in Seattle. I find no ends to the hilarity of this one. Oh sure, drug dealers have websites where you can just look them up and get illegal narcotics.

And I found this excellent photo blog, which apparently put me on the sidebar. In bloggy reciprocity, she's now on my sidebar too. Washingtonians, unite!

It baffles me how people find me (maybe they were looking for the Bathroom Habits Survey, which is by far the most popular post I have ever created -- it's responsible for fully a quarter off all my admittedly meager traffic).

I can't imagine strangers find this even remotely amusing. I don't write to gain an audience. I've even asked to be de-linked when I was getting too much traffic from a blog. I write for my own enjoyment, and for my close circle of friends who come by. But if you really want to read this crap, I'm happy to have you along.

I've had Yak Pack over there for awhile. I noticed him the same way I found Sequim, in the referrals. He got added to no fanfare, so here's the fanfare. Trumpets! I really wonder how he came across this blog all the way from Malaysia, which interestingly has a flag that looks alot like ours. His sidebar is a small eclectic mix and I am curious to know how I got on his short list. He doesn't post much, but it's honest and an interesting slice of life from the other side of the world. Big shocker, it's alot like life here.

I'm glad to have him as a reader even though we never communicate. I've always felt very comfortable hanging with Asians and Indians here in America and I like to think that extends across the oceans.

In a rare admission, I really appreciate Asian traditional family values and their work ethic, and I like to have that exposure as it helps temper my exploits somewhat (it doesn't work, but I like the reminder anyway). Not to over generalize, but Asians are always going back to school or getting promoted or sacrificing for their families in a way I really admire but don't emulate often enough.

Yes I'm generalizing by race and yes it's prejudiced. But it's not racist if it's positive, right? Maybe. I'm just calling it like I see it. My ex-gf, who is Indian, used to say that I was Asian. She called me an "egg", white on the outside, yellow on the inside (I preferred the term "broken toilet", but there you are). She was from Singapore, so even though I've never been there, Malaysia was demystified for me through her stories about how beautiful and moderate it is.

Make no mistake, I am full blooded American and western in every sense of the word. But half the point of being an American is shopping around all the millions of sub cultures we have here and taking the good aspects out of whichever one you like.

Take India for example. I'll take the food and the art and the family values, but you can keep your stupid caste system and rampant sexism. Burning women alive on her husband's funeral pyre because her existence is meaningless without him? Go fuck yourself. (that doesn't really happen much anymore ever since the British outlawed it long ago -- sometimes good things come from colonization, small though they may be -- but the rigid gender roles persist)

I'm painting with a broad brush obviously, and that means what I'm saying isn't entirely accurate, but I tend to lump all of south east Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and China/Korea/Japan into one big cultural category. All the Asian readers just threw up a little in their mouths. I'm sorry. But it's no different than other cultures lumping Europe, North America, and Oceania into one group. Generalizing helps us understand and make sense of the world. You just have to be cognizant of the fact that it's an approximation and there are always exceptions.

I now have the overwhelming urge to ride a motorcycle across Asia.

This whole thing reminds me of one of my main pet peeves, when people say technology and the internet divides and isolates us. I couldn't possibly disagree more. It's because we've industrialized agriculture that we're not spending every day tilling a field.

Tribal societies often were/are centered around the procurement of water. The women in Darfur leave the camps to walk miles one way just to get water for the family, and expose themselves to the Janjaweed rape gangs in the process. The thought of going any farther than the faucet for water is inconceivable to us.

It's because factories in Indonesia crank out so many clothes at such a cheap price that the job of the tailor outside of high end shops is all but defunct. That may distress a trained tailor, but this is clearly a net positive for the rest of us. When your shirt has a hole in it, you go buy another one because it not worth the time and expense to repair it. The availability of cheap goods frees us up to concentrate on other things, like curbing global warming or inventing microprocessors or sending robotic missions to Mars. Those advances in turn increase the pace of future discoveries. Technology and industrialization, along with capitalism, has been the best thing to happen to the human race.

I recently heard an interview on NPR with the creator of The Lonely Planet travel guide books. He was plugging his new book and I found the part about North Korea most fascinating. I've read travel logs from peoples' trips there before, so I wasn't surprised to hear that he was escorted everywhere by a minder and not allowed to walk away from the group and interact with the locals. Except he did anyway. He walked far from his hotel and came upon a hospital. In the garden there were nurses and doctors minding a fruit and vegetable garden. Think about that. Doctors, subsistence farming, in the capital city. That's what life is like without the benefits of technology, such as easy travel and global markets.

Without the ease of global communication and transportation we wouldn't know much about anything outside of a hundred mile radius. But today I can fritter away my hours waiting for The Sopranos final episode to come on, writing this silly blog that a guy in Malaysia is going to read. And after all the bullshit, we'll see that we're not all that different. And the next time someone tries to demonize America or Muslim countries, we'll both know better. The internet brings people together; it doesn't drive them apart.

Some say all the technology allows us to concentrate on warfare too much. There may be a point there, Iraq being the obvious example, though pre-industrial societies were hardly peaceful. War is a regrettable aspect of the human condition, but at least we have the luxury of expending huge sums on smart bombs that help minimize innocent deaths.

One of our most effective weapons is a cement block in the shape of a bomb. Broadly, it's called a kinetic weapon. It has no explosives, just momentum. It's guided in just like a normal smart bomb, by a guy pointing a laser at the badguy, with all kinds of wireless communication and processors crunching on algorithms that puts the bomb from a plane flying at super sonic speeds, tens of thousands of feet in the air, to within feet of its target. We wouldn't be able to develop such a system if we were concentrating on raising grain. We would fight wars the Russian way; that is, completely level the city, then send wave after wave of men.

Of course, all that said, technology is only as good as the people using it. As Americans, this is particularly apt to our ethical standing in the world, a battle of ideas we sadly seem to be losing.

A gun, genetic engineering, even a spoon, can be used for good or evil. You can refine uranium to provide power to your people, or you can use it to incinerate that pesky little upstart country that wounds your pride so much. We can develop the strongest, most humane military on the planet, but if the wrong guy is in charge, it can get used improperly. That's a consequence of poor leadership though, and not an indictment of industrialization/technology/capitalism which has unquestionably been the greatest thing to ever happen to us, despite its failings.

If we're ever going to get off (vid) this planet and thusly save the human race from extinction, we're going to need those factories in Vietnam to make our shoes for us so we can spend our time and profits building spacecraft. Private companies are building spaceships! That ought to give you chills.

There may be hope for us yet, if we keep cooperating. We can make it, but there are no guarantees. This vid affects me more than it should (Carl Sagan might be the greatest pothead to ever live, here's another good one). I won't be satisfied until we have an Enterprise.

All that because some guy in Turkey wants a drug hookup in Seattle. I love the internet.

Ladies' man

2007-06-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

I recently came up with the most romantic thing you could possibly do for a woman.

Get your special lady a box of high end chocolates for Valentine's Day. It's empty except for a nice red envelope with her name on it and maybe some hearts around it or something. Inside the envelope is a coupon to a plastic surgeon and a note that says, "Because you're too fat".

There are several things wrong with this, but the main one is that I have to actively censor myself from doing such things. It's cruel yes, but hilariously so. Perhaps this has something to do with why I'm blogging on a Friday night.

I actually stay in on weekends deliberately, so this isn't a sign of my unpopularity (my lack of a girlfriend is the sign for that). I stay in on weekends and go out on weekdays. The way I see it, I have a 5 day weekend and no job. Woohoo!

School starts Monday morning bright and early though. The party is basically over.

Sopranos counterpoint

2007-06-13T17:24:00.001-07:00

This look at how it could have ended makes the real ending not quite as stupid and disappointing as it was.

I'm not as mad as I was about the non-ending, though I still think it's lazy rather than clever. I just realized he was setting up the movie. And once I got over my indignance over that, all I could think was, Oh boy, more Sopranos!

So it's not so bad after all. Of course, now I can't get Journey out of my head.

Is indignance a word?

Bizarre

2007-06-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is simply the most bizarre website I have ever seen. It's worksafe, just... odd. Very odd. I don't want to give anything away. Just go and look, then read my comment.

Not pretty wicked

2007-06-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Mr. Wizard is dead.

Sopranos finale

2007-06-10T19:04:00.001-07:00

I had a comment here that I'm taking out because even though it was vague, I don't want to spoil the final show in any way. I watched it clean and if you're going to watch it, so should you.

Originally David Chase wanted the opening sequence to be to The Beatles' Why Don't We Do it in the Road, but they wouldn't agree to let him use it. Here's a mashup showing how it would have gone.

There's probably spoilers in the comments there or something, so don't go complaining to me if you read something you didn't want to.

I put my comments on the final episode in the comments, but this article sums up my feelings, though I wouldn't go as far as the author (spoilers galore).

Just because, here's a pic of the llama in front of the llama that almost trampled me on my trip to Hells Canyon. Did I mention I almost got trampled by a llama?

Water

2007-06-10T12:39:00.001-07:00

Ponds of water have been found on Mars (unconfirmed). I wonder if they'll find the trees Arthur C. Clarke thought he saw there?

UPDATE: The claim has been retracted.

Spring Cleaning

2007-06-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

I've been giving my apartment the ultra clean. Not only am I moving all the furniture and going over every square inch of the floor with a carpet shampooer, I'm also going through every drawer and tossing half my shit. You know, the kind of thing you intend to do when you move but never actually accomplish? Well I'm doing it. Going through everything.

It's interesting what you decide to keep. My Color Day t-shirt from 1996? Hell yes! How else am I going to remember riding around with RCR and the Swedish exchange student in my Jeep, launching eggs at other cars from the giant slingshot we had rigged up across the rollcage? (Color Day was our senior day in highschool) I vaguely recall waking up that morning to JB and some others shooting me in the face with squirt guns.

We had running water balloon battles out the top of convertibles all day. If we hadn't drank so much the night before, we might have made it to the parade in time. But we snuck in the lineup anyway, unfortunately in front of a carload of people armed with supersoakers who drenched us the whole way.

There are a bunch of other ones I kept too, purely for symbolic reasons. They're so old I probably won't use them even to work out. I just want the memories only something tactile can bring you, and t-shirts are easy to keep. I also have two drawers full of my old highschool journals and a few bags of notes I'm afraid to read.

I haven't made it to the closet yet, but I wear the same damn seven shirts every week, so it should be a Salvation Army bonanza. I'm looking forward to unearthing the Starwars Transformers I hid in there a quarter or three ago. I justified the purchase by saying I'd give them to my nephews, but it turns out they don't know or care about Starwars or Transformers. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Not that you need reminding, since I'm so sure you all care as much as I do, but don't forget about the Transformers movie coming out on the 4th of July.

I'm getting rid of almost all of my musical equipment. This is kind of sad, but not really. It's sadder looking at a high end guitar I never learned how to play (an absolutely gorgeous Epiphone acoustic/electric that looks alot like this). It belongs out there in the world bringing joy to someone rather than sitting in a corner collecting dust. I have a backup standard acoustic (Fender Redondo) which is a fitting learner guitar anyway.

I was a little emotional when I handed my original bass over to some nerdy balding guy who didn't know what the fuck he was doing with it. I flashed back to learning the bassline for Blister in the Sun in the hallway 10 minutes before tryouts for my junior high talent show.

Some girl (LS) kept bugging me to teach her how to play something and I kept trying to get her to leave me alone because I was about to perform in front of the judges and the only other song I knew was a simplified Smoke on the Water (wrap your mind around that one). This was my first taste of the mysterious magnetic attraction between musical instruments and females. I would later use this for my nefarious purposes (that means nookie), but at the moment I just wanted to learn the new song, dammit!

Balding nerdy guy snapped me back to reality as he immediately detuned my sweet old bass way way too low and attempted to slap. I cringed. Oh well. You can't blame a beginner. And a hundred bucks for a bashed up bass I got over a decade ago, used, in a ripped up cardboard case ain't bad. I still have my 5 string that almost all of my time was spent on anyway.

By the way, back to 13 land, we made it into the talent show and that was my rock band debut. We sucked, but no one knew any better at that age. I gave bunny ears to LS in a prom picture which she probably still hasn't forgiven me for. I was also the MC for the talent show and I really liked that job because you could stand behind the backdrop and look up the cheerleaders' skirts while they performed (no, we never grow up).

Years later I smoked up with the lead singer's Mom who was also my calculus teacher (while I was currently her highschool student). A good friend (TG) woke up on the floor behind her couch to the sounds of her explaining to her husband that it's ok, these are her calculus students. Good times. These are the sorts of heart warming memories you lose when you get rid of the material object, which is why I kept those ratty old t-shirts that some future lady in my life will toss out without a thought.

I'm giving my drums to my nephews. All I have is a crappy set of bongos and a nice set of congas. I love the congas, but space is at a premium and I rarely play them. I've always really wanted a djembe anyway. I love this because it's always been a joke with me and my siblings, that I would give drums to their kids. I've used it as a bargaining chip, blackmailing them to do something or I'm giving their kids a drumset. It's not as much fun as teaching them to curse or dispensing firearms, but it will do. I still plan on getting an electronic drumkit, but not until I move into a bigger place.

Which brings me to the point of the big clean, other than the general nastiness this place was accumulating. I need a functioning home office and a study area (other than the tv tray in front of the recliner that I have been using) because I'm going back to school. Since I'm moving everything around anyway, I might as well clean and sort through it all. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to study yet, though I have a pretty good idea. I'm not going to talk about it here though. Not until I'm sure.

The "office", if you can call it that (it's really just a nook), will be as wireless as possible. I got a used Brother laser printer that will actually work with my Mac, unlike my now useless Lexmark. I'm contemplating my first legacy phoneline in 5 years due to my constant need to fax stuff. A wireless router is on the way from Amazon. I even got a dry erase board and a filing cabinet.

No, I have no idea what bipolar means, why do you ask? What exactly do you mean by "manic phase"? Ahh!

The luckiest calf in history

2007-06-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

link (youtube)

My feelings on Paris Hilton exactly

2007-06-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

link

UPDATE: I have to admit, Paris crying for her Mom and saying "it's not right" was kind of hilarious. But in a perverse way I sympathize with her. This is probably the first time in her life anything she did had any consequences.

Time waster extraordinaire

2007-06-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

I give you Desktop Tower Defense. This is all part of my secret plot to get ahead by lowering everyone else's productivity. The game got alot more fun when I figured out you could upgrade the towers.

UPDATE: I can get them all but the last flying bosses. My record was almost 6000 something. Anyone else partake?