update from rio de janeiro

greetings from Rio. happy early new year!
its been an interesting couple of days.

finally got to see some familiar faces. it is great to have friends in town. we have been out two nights in a row. first night was in ipanema/leblon, and the second night was in leblon/botafogo/lapa. its crowded here. big weekend celebration or something. anyway, some highlights:

• if a place as described as "seedy" then you might want to pass on it.
• do not expect a cab driver to know, or even have heard of, a street. many of them are from the somewhere else and dont know rio at all. this can be frustrating. it helps to write down cross streets, and also bring a map. (the cabbies usually dont have maps, either).
• went to a huge street party in Lapa. very local, very busy. but not as crowded as usual because a lot of people have been staying off the buses. it was very cool. we had a friend of a friend as a guide. though brazilian, his name is doug. and he looks like Fred Couples.
• the speedo or "poser pants'" (as the english call them) are acceptable in almost any situation during the day. jason remarked that you see guys walking around in the speedo several miles from the beach, just because.
• boardshorts are also popular here. theres so many tourists in town for the weekend that theres no way to get a feel for how rio is on a regular day. advantage: we dont stick out as much. disadvantage: you dont get a true feel for the place.
• rio food so far has been okay. its hard to find places to eat since you dont always know what you are ordering. the buffet is my friend.
• at the beach, its cool to put your chair/umbrella adjacent to or on top of someone elses chair/umbrella. we got a picture yesterday of ipanema beach and you couldnt see any sand. just umbrellas. at first it feels awkward, but then you embrace it. the beaches are packed with people. it gets to be a bit much. you cant even play a game of catch, never mind a game of touch rugby.

big night tonight w all the nye blah blah. we'll take some pictures.

next update will be more interesting. and funny.

love you,

-c-

 

update from florianopolis, # n+1

greetings from the southeast of brazil.

after a few crummy days it looks like thigns are looking up.

p(there is a one second lag between wheni hit the keys and when the stuff appears on the screen, so ignore typos. i don~t have time for this shite internet connection - im too good for it).

 

some observations and life lessons courtesy of isla de santa catarinha:

• the hardest of the hard core wear a speedo and a ring of 50 spf suscreen i mean sunscreen around their face, across thier nose and on the cheeks. thats it. its a locals only thing. about half the dudes wear speeds and the other half trunk it. girls wear bikinis only. if you~re a grandmohter of 8 then you can wear a 1 piece. or a bikini. whatever suits you.
• the sun in the sub-tropical summer (near the tropic of capricorn o rcancer, i think) is intense. its like a blowtorch. and we just had the summer solstice, which is the most direct sun day of th eyear. so when the sun is out, it is hot.
• the sun has not been out very much. its rained off and on since i got here. summer in the tropics. it happens.
• i wold pay whatever they asked for a computer that works like it is supposed to.  
• when you get on the bus, have exact change ready. or be prepared to feel like a jackass.
• when you get on the bus, expect it to leave as soon as your back foot hits the first step. door still open? so what! if youre not ready, you might fall into some people and feel like a jackass.
• expect all drivers to be in training to become the next ayrton senna. all drivers. buses, taxis, trucks, cars, motorcycles, and whatever else, they are driving it like they stole it.
• just because its an atm machine in a major metropolitan area does not mean that it is connected to a network that will take your card. so you have to carry around loads of cash in places where every guide, tourist, book, and travel resource tells you not to carry loads of cash. makes sense, no?
• best meal so far: lunch at praia mole, watching the surf, eating a crepe, drinking coconut water fresh out of the coconut. they put them in ice water overnight, then punch a hole in them so you can drink the sweet ambrosia with a straw. finally a deal: cost about 3.50 US. total. and it was just as good as the fish i had for lunch the previouis day at 10x the price.
• i stick out like a sore thumb here. i am embracing it.

 thanks for checking out the igazu falls pix. they took forever to upload. more photos fo follow, pending internet connection and etc.

from here i go to Rio to meet some friends for NYE. bitchin.

love you.

-c-

 

cachaca 1, casey 0

i would write a funny, insightful email about brazilian cane liquor, but i drank too much of it (im on vacation) and i am hung over. blah.

 

i took a lot of pictures, some of them good. i~ll email you when i get them uploaded.

 

okay then.

gave up urban for the sticks - humid times in Foz de Iguacu

writing to you now from a janky internet connection in the city of Foz de Iguacu. it is in brazil.

new place = new faces and new keyboard. we are all portugese all the time now, so maybe i~ll get used to it. the apostrophe key has swapped with the tilde. so that~s sweet.

 

here~s a brief rundown of the last 24 hours.

1. wrap up my last night in BA with my new international friends. we stay out late. i get up early to check out and go to the airport.
2. i go to the wrong airport.
3. i pay for another taxi and go to the right airport.
4. i don~t have a ticket because they canceled my flight.
5. they re-book my ticket. i get on the plane.
6. plane hits weather in planned destination. re-routed to nearby airport. after 2.5 hours in the air, we land, disembark.
7. wait 3 hours in airport so small it feels like we stopped by someone~s house unexepectedly, only to find they have stepped away. but it is an airport.
8. We fly back to Bs. As. why not? no explanation is offered.
9. as soon as we land, they tell us they will fly us back to our orig destination if we wish. i say, yeah, lets do it. get my ticket, splash some water on my face, use the bathroom, and the plane LEAVES WITHOUT ME. on the ticket it said it would leave at 1030, it leaves a HALF AN HOUR EARLY. i had no issues throughout the day, but i got very angry at this point. its now midnight. i~ve been doing airport song and dance for 12 hours, and i~m no closer to my destination than i was at the start. i did get to visit posada international airport. i don~t recommend it.
10. i get a hotel room in BA, but i don~t get there until 1. my wake up call for my early flight is at 5. i get to airport on time, but my morning flight is 2.5 hours late. so i catch some z~s on the bench.
11. board plane, fly, land in FdI. OUTSTANDING! i need a map. i ask the aggressive tour booking guys if they have any maps. just the one on their desk. of course. so i ask the rental car companies if they have any maps. surely avis provides their customers with a map when the rent them a car? how else would they know WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE GOING? sorry, Avis says. no maps. That was good for a laugh, anyway. thanks, avis. way to try harder and lie to my face.  i ask the hertz guy, he apologizes, says he has only a photocopy, will that do? i say fine thanks, i~ll take it. so he gives it to me. then he says, i forgot we had brochures too. here you go. and he gives me 4 brochures with maps in them. for free. literally, un regalo, a gift. restoring my faith in the human race one good deed at a time. it lasts exactly 12 minutes, which is how long it takes for the cab driver to try and give me the shaft.
12. cabbie works overtime trying to sell me on a hostel he gets a kickback from. i say, great. i~m going to the hostel i told you about. you might remember it because ITS IN BRAZIL, and the hostel you are trying to sell me on IS IN ARGENTINA. this goes on for about 12 minutes. i say no thank you. no thank you. etc. so the asshole ignores every word i~ve said and tries to pull into the parking lot of the hostel he is selling me. we had a tense moment in the car when i alerted him to the fact that i did not appreciate his sales strategy. and i finally made it.

more info on rural brazil, waterfalls, and the effect of loss of sleep on one's disposition in tomorrows issue. im off to shower so i don~t hit a new pb on the INOASq.

xo

narrating Bs.As.

Happy Christmas!

Today is my last full day in Bs.As. flying to iguazu falls tomorrow.

here are more life lessons and generalizations from the southern hemisphere.

• any time you are in an argentine grocery and you use the words 'tabasco sauce is too expensive' then you need to adjust your priorities. i overheard some american girls say it when i was wandering aimlessly, wondering if i could learn to like dulce de leche as much as I like peanut butter. (i cannot)
• you know that thing where people raise their voice when speaking their native language in the expectation that it helps non-native speakers understand? yeah, it doesnt work. ive been yelled at in restaurants, on the street, at a shopping mall, etc. not in a mean way, but after a while its easier to pretend i dont understand a word of spanish. its good practice for when i get to brazil and dont know 3 words of portuguese.
• if the argentines can cook an entree without 8 sticks of butter in it, then i havent seen it. officially, the travel books recommend you avoid salads and uncooked veggies, but how long can a person go without some greens?
• the xmas decorations around town are holly and tinsel, just like home, with the odd xmas tree (including snow) mixed in. plus lights and stuff. they dont do much in the way of decorating.
• if you like dark haired people, this is the place for you. almost everyone has dark brown to jet black hair. lots of exotic (to me, anyway) skin tones and eye colors. i stick out like a sore thumb since my hair is a) not black, and b) not worn in some kind of shaggy, messy mullet.
• highlight of yesterday was the 5 a side soccer game we played against the hostel staff. it was competitive. i scored a goal. YEAH THATS RIGHT I SCORED A GOAL!!!!!!!! i had to pretend like it happened all the time, been there before, etc. but i was pumped. the shaggy, mulleted argies ended up winning, 4-3. it was fantastic fun.
• supposed to play touch rugby today with some english guys. that should be interesting. i heart adventure.

thats it for now. thanks for reading. i took a couple pictures but they are boring. ill send pix when they add value. if you want to know what Recoleta cemetery looks like, look it up on the interweb. google: headstone.

love you.

my kingdom for some peanut butter

greetings from the southern hemisphere.

i forgot to check if the water swirls in a different direction when you flush the toilet. i{ll get on that immediately.

 

it's alternating between blinding hot and pissing down rain here. nice.

three things i miss the most:

• peanut butter
• the gym
• my guitar

i think i can find a gym here. so that{s good. you would think i could find peanut butter, but no. 23 kinds of dulce de leche, but no peanut butter. bust. and the bread is really good too.

 

so if youve never been here, they have this thing where you don{t flush the toilet paper after you use it. you throw it in a trash can adjacent to the toilet. whether you{re going numero uno or dos, and irrespective of any gastrointestinal distress, that is the procedure. it takes some getting used to.

 

so when i moved into the hostel i was assigned a top bunk. that sucked, so as soon as the guy underneath me vacated the bunk i promoted myself to the lower bunk. they cost the same, so why should i get the crappy elevated position? the next guy they put in the room, he got the top bunk. turns out the move was fortuitous, because when i got back last night the roof was leaking into the bunk above me. taste it, bearded euro packpacker guy. that is bad luck. it happens. maybe they refunded your 6 euros? i{ll never know. he left before i got up today.

 

more later.

-c-

 

day one so far

yeah i'm reprezenting the oc like a mofo. at least people know where the oc is. kind of.

early returns on BA are good. lots of touristy stuff to do.

best part of the day so far: a 30 oz beer costs about $2. including the tip.

starting a new deal called the In Need of A Shower quotient, INOASq for short.

the possible scores are:

 

mild - typical, end of day shower need.

moderate - light workout at the gym need a shower, not really sweaty or smelly.

severe - sweaty and gross. get a shower immediately.

italian subway in the summer - call in the hazmat team. i'm awful.

 

right now i'm on my way to the shower, so i'm going to give myself a 'severe'. yuk. \

 

thanks for reading. \=c=

and I'm off...

Hooray for summer in December.
Blog posts will be infrequent and travel-related for the next couple months. I'm going to spend some time in Argentina and Brasil (I leave on 13 December, get back in February.)
I'll post as often as time and internet availability allow. Once or twice a week, probably.
If you want to do some google mapping on my itinerary, i'm going to the following places:

• Buenos Aires
• Foz de Iguazu
• Florianopolis
• Rio de Janeiro
• Buzios
• Porto Seguro / Arraial d'Ajuda
• Salvador / Morro de Sao Paolo
• Fortaleza
• Jericoacoara
• then back to Fortaleza, on to Rio, and home.

see you when I get back. and, as always, thanks for reading.
love you.

gift cards: when you care enough to say you don't care very much; plus, new idiot HOF entry

I love gift cards, because they say so much. Mostly what they say is, "I couldn't be bothered to get you a real gift; how about I just write you a check?"

it's become increasingly popular to hand out gift cards in lieu of an actual present, esp. at gift exchanges. I know one guy that has an awkward gift exchange with his family every year ($10 max- don't spend it all in one place). A couple years ago every single person brought a gift card, and more than half (of ~9) were from blockbuster. wow. so everyone just kept trading their blockbuster cards back and forth. you kind of had to be there, but I promise it was funny, in an awkward, depressing sort of way.

don't get me wrong, the gift card is an acceptable intermediate solution for someone that lives far away, but it's not a thoughtful gift. if you don't know someone well enough to get them something, why buy them anything at all? instead, get yourself something nice. you'll both be happier in the long run.
--------------------
in other news, Ben Johnson, who freely admits to being on drugs when he was stripped of his gold medal back in '88, says that the drug he tested positive for is not the same as the drugs he was doing. but he says it in a much more believable way. to wit:

Number one, that day the drugs that they find in my system was not the drugs that I was using. Number two, Ben Johnson was sabotaged in Seoul. Somebody set me up.

you said it BJ! You deserve that gold medal, since you didn't test positive for those drugs that you were taking! wait... what?

Breakup Beatdown: Better You Than Me

[no photo - posting remotely]
first things first: You know those stories that people tell about how they have a "friend" w/ some kind of an issue, but it's really the person telling the story that has the issue? It's all just a big fakeout? Well, this is not one of those stories. Let's clear that up right away.

This story is what you get when I scale back my general idiocy and have to resort to describing the eperiences of others. From a certain remove, if you will.

I have a friend (previously famous for his special order at Jack in the Box) that is dating around. Let's call him "John". About 2.5 months ago John met a friend of a friend (we'll call her "moms", b/c she has a child from prev. relationship) and they started seeing each other. Not often, since moms has a job and also a kid. Maybe once a week. They agreed to "take it slow", and "not rush". That suited John, since he wanted to see other people, and it suited moms because she knew John would bail as soon as he started getting some dad practice.

Fast forward to last week: John has given it the college try, but he's not into it. He decides to end things. But how? Does he do the slow fade, whereby the girl gets the hint and can prepare herself? Or does he go the mature route and tell her that he's over it? In the past it's been all fadeout, all the time. But in light of the friend-of-friend clause, plus the shoplifting-the-pooty issue, he decided to be up front.

Bad move.

Instead of being cool about the whole thing, moms has been going through the five stages of grief. I don't mean the Kubler-Ross model , I mean the crazy bitch model: snotting (think crying, but worse), jealous, bitter, furious, and desperate. often all in the same conversation. Taste it.

John acted more maturely than he ever has, and he was rewarded w/ more drama than he ever expected. he said "it feels like we've been going out for 2 years, not two months". setback. That's what you get for being mature. dummy.

make the fish lips; plus, uncivil war?; and: good (free) music; 2 weeks to summer in december

not sure if you caught this story about the king of all prehistoric fishes. [caught. get it? honk!] if you didn't, this thing was the boss. in the evolutionary arms race that was the Devonian period, this thing was the king. or at least, the king we know about. It probably fed on the coelacanth, among other things. synergy: You can feed on a coelacanth too, if you can catch one.

unrelated: there's a fuss about whether or not to describe the war in Iraq as "civl war". maybe "uncivil" is better? i'm going with uncivil war from now on. back to your regularly scheduled programming...

some intrepid soul is posting podcasts of eclectic mixes. check it yourself: www.oddiofile.net. (even the logo is cool) it's mostly mellow, jazzy, downtempo, ambient mixes, but w/ a variety of beats and styles. there's even some hip-hop that doesn't suck. weird. the recording quality is not great (to save on file size/bandwidth costs), but it's worth a listen. If you have itunes you can search for "oddiofile" and set up the podcast. if not, you can download the mixes direct from the oddiofile blog. I recommend it.

lastly: the south american expedition starts exactly two weeks from today.
makes me feel a little queasy just reading that. eesh.

gotta get me one of these

why don't I have one of these on my desk already?
it is so on. prepare yourself.

also, this review of a blender from Scientific American:

If Zeus had a fight with Yahweh, then afterward they went drinking with Shiva and the three of them did something they all ended up regretting, and nine months later the result was a blender, it would be this blender.

Outstanding. Does it have a setting for "margarita"? There's video of this thing going nuts on marbles and other inedibles. mmm... good.

take computing to the outer limits

Sun Microsystems has come up with a novel improvement on the portable PC. Dubbed Project Blackbox, you buy this super-fast, super-expensive pre-built system and you don't have to worry about installing it in your office. Just add water, power, and bandwidth. it's conveniently housed in a standard sized shipping container.

According to Scientific American, the price is "a zillion dollars." Still in the development stage, then.

a long way from high school...

I caught some of the TV show Friday Night Lights a few weeks ago. It was really good until the ex-girl of the crippled guy started sleeping with his best friend [did you get all that?]. It was predictable and sad; i haven't watched it since.

I remember being slightly disturbed by how ridiculously good-looking the ex-girl was. I went to high school, and there weren't girls like that at my high school. Or any high school I knew of.

Turns out little miss plays-a-cheerleader-on-tv is twenty-six. I'll have to let her know I'm too busy to date right now, let her down easy.

Perry Groves is my new favorite former professional athelete

I have never heard of Perry Groves until today. (That's his picture at left.) He's just a goofy looking guy that played some football overseas, but he's got a good sense of humor. Consider the followng question and answers from an interview:

interviewer: Tell us, why did you decide to write an autobiography?
PG: [Chirpily] It came out of the blue really. I was approached by John Blake Publishing, who specialise in cult autobiographies - that's cult with an 'l', yeah? - because they'd apparently noticed that there's a bit of interest in me out there.

with an L! I laughed. plus...

Interviewer: Scarlett Johansson or Paris Hilton?
PG: Scarlett Johansson. You know Paris Hilton is filthy but Johansson likes to come across as a little more classy so you'd have to work a little harder to get the filth out. That would be fun.

Indeed. also...

Interviewer: What's the weirdest request you ever had from a fan?
PG: Probably to sign a tit. Although ... [blah, a story that was not as funny as his initial reaction]

You're not kidding!
so he's my new favorite. Honesty scores big here at greatjoballweek.blah.whatev.

it's not about the girls you like, it's about the girls that like you

ahh, nothing like delicious pearls of wisdom from the interweb. a ha!

let's not waste each other's time

i wrote a [too] long post about insurance adjusters and getting the shaft and case-onomics and then I noticed that it sucked. so instead you get this. not much better, but different.

the enemy of my enemy is my friend

[no photo, posting remotely]
I'll get back to posting funny anecdotes just as soon as something funny happens to me. and I mean funnier than having issues w/ the waffle machine like I did this morning.

This has been mentioned in the national press before, but it will probably start getting more attention now.

i bring it to you merely as a small point of interest, and because that great example of christian love and compassion James Dobson figures prominently in the article.
who says you can't build a coalition of jews and christians? Granted, you're working together to kill people, but whatever. here's a summary:

[The church leader John Hagee] called the [Isreal / Hezbollah] conflict "a battle between good and evil" and said support for Israel was "God's foreign policy."

got it. evil = okay to kill people. and God is on our side. (as per usual.)

mullet not included

I heart the guardian. I think they covered this on CNN, too, but I'm pretty sure the lead wasn't:

Scientists have cranked it all the way up to 11 thanks to a new hi-tech take on the air guitar.

References to classic Rob Reiner movies never get old. ever. Neither do references to bands like AC/DC, so the inimitable Bobbie Johnson follows with this:

Engineers in Australia - the home of rock legends including AC/DC and INXS - have developed a new T-shirt which enables the wearer to play air guitar and create real noise in the process.

yeah. that is superb.
fyi: i create real noise when I play air guitar. it's the sound of me f*cking ruling. with extreme prejudice. but also love.

(photo is from the UK Air Guitar Championship in London; credit: Lynda Nylind)

people that are good, and people that are less so

I tried a new blog editor over here at great job all week dot blogspot dot com. you're not supposed to notice the difference at all. maybe quality will improve? enh, let's not get our hopes up. then I dinged it because it adds a tagline at the end of my posting. that simply won't do.

read a great story on the interweb today. it's a fairly typical overcome-a-challenge puff piece, but sometimes that's a nice way to start your Friday.

in other news, I got involved in my third (and final) installment of club night in the OC. it was okay. Crystal Method played good records, but the crowd sucked. the highlight was this exchange w/ the Biggest Douchebag I Have Ever Met, Without Exception (henceforth "BDIHEM, WE"):

acquaintance of mine: Hi!! this is my friend [BDIHEM, WE].
me (making small talk): nice to meet you [BDIHEM, WE]. how you doing?
BDIHEM, WE: I'm good. Tired, because I'm really busy at work, you know?
me: uhhh, yeah? what do you do?
BDIHEM, WE: I'm a partner in a big mortgage company. Part owner, actually.
me: oh.

do you like how BDIHEM, WE only needed two sentences to tell me how important he was? that's not a record, but I was impressed. and he worked it into the conversation so casually. It wasn't forced at all. classy. other douchebag elements included bragging about his former job ("major promoter in the area"), knowing the dj's and the club owner, knowing another club owner where he had partied the prev. weekend, and not reciprocating after one of my homies bought him a cocktail. (when it's your turn to buy a round, go buy a round. don't sneak off to the bathroom.)

sadly, I don't think the BDIHEM, WE and I will run into one another again. we don't move in the same social circles. good thing he also mentioned that to me in the 4 minutes we shared.

rock on in the OC!

praying the gay away: does it work?

was there some kind of election yesterday? I don't know. I was busy working. in other news, my new favorite entrant in the Hypocrite Hall of Fame is losing a key member of his counseling team. it turns out that the only person that actually lives in his home town doesn't have time to help him. That's a setback for him, because nobody is better at praying the gay away than James Dobson. that's him in the picture, and if he looks a little bit like Hitler to you, it is purely coincidence. Or providence.

here's an example sentence from a recent posting from my favorite professional christian:

The California Legislature, which is controlled entirely by gay activists and radical liberals, is able to sit in planning meetings and dream up whatever suits their fancy.

no sh*t? damn, I had no idea. And I live in California. plus I thought the Governor was a Republican...?

What's great about Dobson's "subersive gay agenda message" is that they have magazines for Christian public schoolteachers that explain, among other things, how to bring Christ to the classroom without your admin boss finding out. [really, they do.] I'm pretty sure they don't have that kind of information in gay-centered mags. I don't know. we should ask Ted Haggard.

Could be that Dobson quit because he figured out his strategy of introspection, study, prayer, and social pressure wasn't going to work on Sexy Ted. Maybe because if you're already married, with five kids, and the public figurehead for a huge evangelical church and you're SCORING CRYSTAL METH AND HAVING GAY SEX ON THE SIDE then social pressure and prayer will not help. maybe.

do something good

was watching TV. not the kind that makes you more dumb. the other kind. you might have heard of it. it doesn't draw the viewers like the sexual-predator entrapment stories, but it can be enlightening, lively TV.

most recently I was moved to visit a website that gives loans to small businesses in developing countries. the organization is called Kiva, and it's based in san francisco. check it for yourself, and see if you've got twenty-five bucks in your wallet that might help out somebody that's trying to make a better life for themselves. note also that Kiva works to promote local, environmentally conscious, sustainable business programs. and, this is the best part, you will probably get the money back.

if you're even remotely interested in the developing world, or people, or the environment, or anthropology, or epidemics, or politics, I encourage you to review the Frontline programs on AIDS that aired last season (earlier this year). it's probably too long to watch on the computer, and it's heavy, but it's outstanding. if you make it through to the end without crying then you should see a doctor and find out if she can restart your tiny, cold cold heart.

nothing funny about election day

and I mean nothing.
blah.

was going to type a funny anecdote about getting a visa to travel to brasil, but it's not funny. it's taxing. and expensive.

i did learn a lot about why booking w/ a travel agent in the internet age is a waste of time and money. "yeah we can save you money on this fare, except we can't. and that'll cost you $40 on top of your ticket price." great business model. offer me the same service I can get for myself, but make sure you charge a lot of money. that sounds like good case-onomic practices to me. i could have been doing this the whole time:

• use a "travel agent" to book any and all flights, even if you can get lower fares on your own. pay fees whenever possible. dur.
  

i was able to book a flight on an Argentine airline, but you have to call, and then they send you an email, and then you confirm, and then you decide you don't want to go any more because it's taking so damn long. it's slower than evolution. i'm considering just growing wings and flying down like an albatross. probably take about the same amount of time.

you want to book a flight on the largest brazilian airline via the interweb? you must use a credit card issued in brazil. don't have one of those? enh, dial the 800 number. good luck with that.

go duck yourself; plus, 40 days to summer in december

so you know I work at a subsidiary of dunder mifflin paper co, right? maybe you don't know. whatever. anyway, it turns out that at a mid-level staff meeting the other day, somebody comes up with the idea that they should hand out awards to people that don't do their job. [really, this happened]

the official language is that it's for people that "could have handled things a little better" or "could have been a bit more organized". why the duck? well, because if one has their sh*t together, they are said to have their "ducks in a row". and if they don't, then they should get one, right? splendid!

even better: the creators of the award want to give the award as a department, so that the, ahh, honor, as it were, comes from all of us. collectively. splendider!

makes a lot of sense to me; negative reinforcement is a wonderfully effective motivational tool. it will accomplish the following:

1. whomever gets the "duck you" award will hate your guts for years, effectively sabotaging your working relationship, for, umm, ever.
   
2. the awardee's co-workers will hate your guts, effectively sabotaging ... etc. and so forth.
   
3. Your department, as a group, will attract all sorts negative attention, effectively ... hmm... blah ... zzzz ... [what? nodded off there for a second.]
   

Rumor is that not everyone was "on board" with this canny personnel motivator, so "we" probably aren't going to implement it. Probably.
-------------------
in other news, since daylight savings time ended i started counting the days until I leave for summer in december. and january. 40 days a/o today. get excited.

Club night in the OC: not lame!

last night I went to hear Roger Sanchez (the Rog to his friends) mix some fun house records. it was great times, better than carl cox, and I was home by 1. here's list of shout-outs:

• Big ups to Giant for booking two outstanding dj's at a club in a strip mall exactly 8 minutes from my place, on back to back weeks, and putting me on "the list" so it's only $10. i'll even be back next week. weird.
  
• the venue gets an A for sound, lighting, and for hiring Marisa Miller's brunette body double (right down to the freckles) as a go-go dancer. Usually I don't notice the go-go dancers, because they're either rather beat-looking, or they're depressingly uncoordinated. This girl was neither. great work.
  
• speaking of brunettes, props to the girls for showing up. there was way too much dude at the carl cox show last week. thankfully this week was better, and the crowd was pleasantly diverse, w/ some lovely brunettes (mostly persian) to go with the usual OC blondes.
  
• paging cougar, party of 10! paging cougar, party of 10! your VIP table is now ready! it's club night in the oc, but it's still the OC. of 10 women out for girl's night, 6 had some obvious work done. very oc. and, it must be said, they were all attractive.
  
• ahh, speaking of girl's night, I even ran into an ex from several years ago. noteworthy because a) I wanted to marry her then; b) she's married now; and c) she didn't look very good. she's reasonably fit, but her outfit was frumpy. and she desperately needs to update her hairstyle. she wasn't into dj'ing when I dj'd, so it was the last place I expected to see her. on a school night no less.
  

and finally, there's this little gem from the national news. i feel bad for the wife and the 5 kids. the guy is a douchebag, perpetrating his douchebaggery on his family. and his "14,000 member" church. (fourteen thousand! that's like 3 huge churches combined!) sheesh.

in honor of all saints day

not much of interest to discuss this week. the borat movie is coming out friday. I'm pumped about the movie. it reminds me of The Office. not the american version, the UK version. the thing that was great about the UK version of the office was that it was so real that it was uncomfortably funny. you laughed, but it also made you cringe.

today I wanted to make fun of dick vitale (for old times sake) but I don't have the energy.

i did go to a club last night to hear Roger Sanchez mix some records, but I'll do a separate post for that. good times!

big dj, small venue; plus, more case-onomics!

went to see/hear carl cox mix records last night. they booked him at a ridiculously small venue here in the OC. place sold out, but there had to be only 600 or so people there. it was superb. the guy is still killing it, although his set was a bit too trance-y for my current musical taste. it had a lot of good hard techno elements, but too many breakdowns. maybe he was playing cheese for the OC crowd, and LA will get the harder-edged show. maybe.

supposedly Carl Cox is the sixth best DJ in the world, but that (arbitrary and bullshit) list is suspect because although dj's 1-5 are great, they've got ATB coming in at number 8, and Oakenfold at #9. both of those guys are shite, and neither is anything like the draw that the rest of the top 10 are. so there. and Mike Relm, the guy I told you about a couple weeks ago, doesn't even make the top 100. you can search the blog for RELM and find him. i'm too busy to link to my own posts. or lazy. mostly lazy.

-----------------------------
and finally, here's some more case-onomics from my friend Sam.

1. Sell your nice car and buy a cheap, but dependable ride. You'll
have enough cash left over to get out of debt and SAVE!!!! Also, your
new cheap car will get in a wreck after a week of use, costing you
thousands of dollars in repairs, and then just generally suck
compared to your bygone luxury sports sedan. You will have no money
left over and soon be back in debt.

2. Take a trip to Africa to help children in need. It doesn't cost
that much to live there, PLUS, you have all that money left over from
when you sold your nice car. Riiiiiiiight.

3. Work in the music industry straight out of college. You're sure to
make good money. Seriously. Just do it.
------------
thanks for reading.

the economics of stupidity

yeah you probably thought this post had something to do with politics, but it does not. instead, I'm offering you some insight into my own special brand of economics, which I've decided to call "case-onomics", or maybe "e-case-onomics". (i'm on the fence.) these tested techinques are guaranteed to waste your disposable income. trust me.

[unrelated aside: google searches for "money photo" and "money pic" should not, under any cirsumcstances, be confused w/ searches for "money shot". i mean it.]

in the last 18 months i've managed to throw away more money than I'd like to admit. It would have been more fun to blow it in vegas, but instead I've lost it in investments and good decisions. Not one to keep these superb maneuvers to myself, i'm here to share them with you.

Note that I'm leaving out any of the obvious stuff: no tips on running up CC debt and then paying the mininum every month. It's possible to kick your own financial ass without ever having to resort to such obviously bad choices. Here's some of my latest hot tips on wasting disposable income:

1. buy a condo on leased land. at the height of the market boom. make sure you get "creative" financing so that you can "get in the game". Be absolutely certain to get a douchebag of a realtor. - Nothing will nuke your little savings account faster than this combo. i could give you examples of my own losses but let's just say it's in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars. added bonus: you're upside down on your house, but also broke, because the payments are so high! it's a great way to both sabotage your savings and also keep you scouring the couch for loose change.
   
2. get a new cellphone plan, regardless of whether or not you like your old one. also, buy a new cellphone. nothing wrong with your old one? who cares! it's soooo last year. - be on the same network as your friends, just because.
   
3. cancel all magazine subscriptions and buy them at the newsstand - 60% off the cover price? that's for suckers! you can burn a fortune doing this stuff. and it adds up after a while.
   
4. cancel your cheap long-term gym membership and sign up again, but pay a high monthly fee. anything to keep fixed costs as high as possible - that's the secret to case-onomics.
   
5. Cancel your cheap, issue-free car insurance and sign up w/ Mercury insurance because they can "get you a better deal". best to read the fine print, because it's not true. they will f you, bu that's a fundamental of case-onomics: trusting someone else not to f you. (See item 1 re: realtors.) If you're lucky, you can spend an extra $80-100 month on car insurance. Think of it as your idiot tax. You're an idiot, so you pay extra. I know I do!
   

if you can come up with any sweet strategies of your own, please let me know. I think i'm just scratching the surface here. i've only implemented strategies 1 and 5, but I'm working on the rest. I promise. it's only a matter of time.

dirty birds

i know I promised some other funny stuff but when I typed it out it wasn't funny any more. humor is so much about timing and context. tough to find either in a blog. anyway.... this happened.

it's adult (sexual) in nature, but it's all the way from the other side of the world. don't read it if you're offended by strange-but-true stories from Australia. or if you're a girl. you probably won't think it is very funny.
it was sent to me from a friend in Oz.
hence the slang "birds". anyway, here you go.

-------------------------------------
check this out man. classic.

its sunday night. i go for a run. come home. get horny. text my friend helen

hey helen. can I have anabel's number. do you think she would be down for a one night stand

helen: her number is (whatever her number is), she thinks you are hot and she is a fiend.

helens response didnt get to me till the next morning, after I had
sent an 'ignore me I was drunk' disclaimer/emergency escape. so i was
all like, sweet, maybee I can towel this bird up at lunch time.

text to anabel: hey, are there broom closets at your work.

anabel: yeah, why

me: no reason. is there room to stand in them

at this point my battery is running low, and I have a 2 hour break from lectures so I cut to the chase

me: look, my battery is running low, I was thinking I could come around and we could have a quick lunchtime shag.

anabel: would love to, but I have to go to work

me: okay, what are you doing tonight

anabel: I finnish work late, start early

me: okay, heres the deal. we meet in kings park at 10.30pm. no one
says a word. sex. home. what do you think?

anabel: absolute silence

me: absolute

anabel: I feel so naughty

me; wear your uniform (she is a nurse)

anabel: okay

so that was arranged. she is a scrubber man, totally. not a very smart
or hot bird, but it was monday afternoon, soon to be monday eveneing.
thing is, evening hits and I dont want to shag her. thought about it
too much. but cant leave a girl all horny and shit at night in a park.
anything could happen.

so I go to the park.

oh, nearly forgot. I didnt have any cash or rubbers, so I asked her to
go past a chemist and pick up some condoms. she did. what a trooper

I see her in the park, she comes up to me and drops to her knees,
starts going for gold on the uneven bar. really energetic, me
standing, her on knees, public place at night. sweet. and sour.

was really getting into the headjob, more or less fucking her mouth.
then she put the jimmy on me and bent over. I have never gone so soft
so fast. that was the grossest thing ever. poor girl. nothing you can
do when you go soft, she was sort of desperate looking, having spent
the last 10 minutes very enthusiastically entertaining me.

so, sticking with the no words rule, I shrugged and gave her a "what
can you do" kind of look, and we both went home. totally weird.totally
gross. totally piss funny.

she sent me a pretty bad text afterward, implying that there will be a
next time.

so there you go. read that and either rejoice in the fine booty you
reeled in last night, or rejoice that you didnt end up with anabel, in
a park, at night.
---------------------
i can't make this stuff up.

pop quiz

[no photo - i'm posting remotely; imagine a picture of a seedy-looking hotel]
out of town this week, staying at the silicon valley Ramada Inn. Or, as I've taken to calling it, the Ramad-awful, or the Ramiserable. it offers a free breakfast buffet, which is nice. there isn't much else in the way of amenities. if you don't mind holes in the sheets, cigarette burns in the carpet, and a heater that smells like a toaster on fire, then book a room next time you're in the area.

it's a franchise of the Ramada chain, independently owned and operated. that means you can find at least one of the following in the lobby on any given night:

a) a guy taking piano lessons

b) a very fat cat sleeping on a chair

c) a guy w/ no teef and long, greasy hair "working" at the front desk, and by "working" i mean "sleeping"

any guesses?
take your time.
i'll shrink it down to prevent cheating.

trick question! the answer is all of the above! there are no wrong answers! everybody wins!
i hit the trifecta when I checked in on tuesday. super!

thanks for reading.
stay tuned to the blog because I've got some good ideas for entries later this week. one about funny things my friends have said to me in the past couple weeks (e.g. when a girl asked my buddy when she could make him dinner he said, "never") and another entry about that other thing. good times!

to fully convey its majesty

we tried to get bigger hats, but we already looked like weeble-wobbles

what is the deal w/ the People's Democratic Republic of Korea? (or is it "democratic people's republic of korea"? I can never remember. maybe it's "heavily armed but starving dictatorship of korea".) anyway, every day is a special treat because instead of being concerned about invading (do they have oil fields there?) i get to laugh at their sweet-guy hats and sweet-guy jackets. apparently there are no tailors in the people's dictatorship of ill-fitting suits. they look like weeble-wobbles. the fearless leader (not pictured) looks like a bobblehead doll come to life.

in this photo, that guy in the front is a south korean soldier. He's got an earpiece, a helmet (w/ stickers, showing some individuality), sunglasses, and a wicked look. the only reason those clowns in the background are still weebling at attention is because he approves. that's the guy you send to the hostile border.
okay then.

why not use an alias? chest rockwell?

i have only one story but it's short. and it happened.
my friend got a call the other night from her cousin. cousin says, I googled my dad (the uncle) and all I got was some weird legal jargon. what does it mean? (friend is a lawyer.) friend says, I don't know. it looks like a copyright agreement. Did you check the other links?

cousin: yes, but they all went to a porn site.

together, they investigate further. they find video of the uncle and stepmom selling graphic, homemade porn videos on the internet. in the sample footage, it shows uncle & stepmom having sexual intercourse in their living room, on a beach towel.

the daughter's only comment, "that's my towel."

I found the cure for the plauge of the twentieth century but now I've losht it!; and, have nuke, but short and funny-looking

did you find the cure for the plague of the twentieth century and then realize it was "losht"? if not, put Medicine Man on your list of netflix movies, because you're missing out.

none of this has anything to do with anything except I was reading about the rain forest in Brazil yesterday and it was depressing.

is it just me or does the newest member of Team Atomic Bomb not cut a very imposing figure? I'm not saying you have to look scary to be scary, but it helps. at least it doesn't hurt. instead I get a short, pinheaded fat guy with sansabelt pants and sunglasses he stole from the props closet when he was doing standin work on Boogie Nights.

WTF? Who put this guy in charge? Couldn't one of the goofballs behind him have usurped the throne? just asking.

love you.

writing about music is like dancing about architecture - iggy pop [i think]

not a big iggy pop fan. but I am a fan of Mike Relm. hmm, maybe he kicks puppies in his spare time, and I've never met the guy, so more accurate to say that I'm a fan of his music. he's a dj, and he's got some skillz. he's also got an excellent musical sensibility, so his quick-cut mixes take you all over the place, but you never lose the vibe. you can go to his website to hear what i'm talking about.

he's part of a growing movement of "dj eclectica", which is really just the old becoming new again. the 'eclectic' style is a fancy way of saying "play whatever rocks the party, and don't punk yourself on the mix". it's hard to do, mixing all kinds of records, but this guy has the chops. it's old-becoming-new because this is how original dj's would sample records: they would cut and play the hooks (aka "breaks") from the record. Mike Relm expands on the style.

i was introduced by a friend, who heard about it from a friend who saw him at a show. i searched for the guy on amazon, and you can't buy his cd there. which is a shame, because it's very good.

quit reading about music and go listen. and get dancing.
love you.

call your minions, i'm fixin' to fix some shit

maybe you had some important thing to do today. maybe you don't know what it's like to have to solve hard problems at the office. the kind that make you want to hit your computer with a hammer. (note esp. that as a computer geek i mean the actual computer, not the monitor; when you have a tech issue make sure you take out your aggression on the source of the problem).
I don't know. all I know is that the feeding frenzy currently surrounding that dbag Foley just keeps getting more and more weird. i hate to get all political, but this guy was definitely hitting on teenage boys at work. I'm pretty sure that's not okay. Pretty sure.

i know if there were a 21 year old receptionist and I was a geezer perv it would be weird if I offered her a shot of tequila at work. every day. who would do that? never mind sending her suggestive emails. this is the same sort of thing, only worse. gay, straight, or otherwise. it's not okay.

so what i would definitely do, if I were caught doing such a thing, is get my lawyer minion out there to talk to the press for me. because I'd be in rehab for my addiction. or taking naps. either way, really.

----------------------------------
and finally, i heart home improvement. got a lot done this past weekend, plan to have the house on the market at the end of the month. good times.
we'll be back to our regularly scheduled entries about my drunken escapades in a day or two.
short version: don't drink 8 double vodka-sodas and expect to be 100% the next day. or even the day after that. okay then.

wearing someone else's clothes; paying a tidy sum for dinner; my three items

i heard a story from one of the peeps last night.
his girlfriend is from small-town Wisconcin (is there any other kind?), and not high-maintenance. she's doing her PhD residency somewhere in chicago, and it's her first time in the big city for an extended period. she has a wedding to go to, so she wants to go somewhere upscale and get her hair did. she decides to step it up a notch. i doubt she went to toni&guy, but i'm sure it was a salon of similar chic-ness.

brief digression #1: i used to get my hair done @ t&g, before I came to my senses and realized i liked it better short and I didn't have to pay $60 for somebody to do that. hot staff, though. and lots of upscale-salon-extras.

so the girl (we'll call her J) goes to the hair salon. they do a "consult" [accent on first syllable, CON-sult] and then she goes in the back for the wash. on the way, they ask her if she wants to change her top. she's confused. they say, put on a smock while we do your hair. girl says, uhhhh, yeah, okay.

into the changing room she goes. moment of confusion arrives: what does one wear under the smock? surely not just her bra [J is modest, and the smock has a moderately-low neckline]. she sees a generic black top, puts it on under the smock, and heads back out for the rest of the process.

FF 30 minutes. woman (in smock) and staff are raising a ruckus about a missing black top. big ruckus. strong words are used. a frenzied search is underway. it appears that J has appropriated someone's shirt. it was smock-only, after all. uh oh.

this could get awkward. J didn't know she was taking a bus to moral-dilemmaville. she just thought she was getting a haircut.

so, what to do?
a) announce your mistake to entire salon, return the top mid-haircut, and look like a complete and utter jackass? or ...

b) shrink down in chair, pull smock up a little higher, and hope no one sees you in the top that you borrowed from somebody else?

our girl J went for option b, and stealthily changed back into her orig. shirt when she re-entered the changing room, post haircut. she snuck the "borrowed" shirt between some of the smocks, paid for her new 'do, and fled the salon, never to return.
so that happened.
------------------------------
speaking of upscale, I spent $160 on a dinner date last night. it wasn't even a special occasion. just a regular let's-get-dinner. are you kidding me? who does that? i guess I do. i can't blame the girl. I picked the place. and i'm not complaining about the food, the company, or any of that. all of it was great. but $160? for two people? in orange county? next time I'll just go to nobu.

-------------
and finally, have you seen my three items? i mean it. i want my three items.
i'm not asking for much. just my three items.

can I get fries with that?

sometimes a friend shares something with you and you laugh. and you want to tell others. but after they share it, they take away that opportunity to share it with others. they say, that's your eyes only. and you tell them you ok.

but then you realize that it is posted on youtube, so any person can search and find it on their own. it's available to the public. no reason not to get the word out.
after all, people already know. i'm just commenting on something that exists already. posted by somebody else.

briefly, this is a 10 second video clip taken at 3 in the morning as some friends roll through the drive-thru at jack in the box. note how the guy w/ long hair is virtually passed out, but when they ask for his order, he livens right up, and makes a specific request. you might have to watch it a couple times to see the whole thing unfold.
he ended up going home alone, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

i had so many superb headlines for this post. here are a few:

• they always f you at the drive-thru
• have it your way
• want cheese on that?
• what about the special sauce?
  
• hot or mild?
  

you get the idea.
thanks for reading.

measuring your milestones: factors of 5 and 10; plus, DAY DRINKING IS GOOD FOR YOU (but not your liver)

busy weekend. heck, busy week. this is the 150th-ish post on blogger for GJAW (not to be confused w/ moosejaw). i think measuring milestones is arbitrary; we have 10 fingers and toes and we seem to think that 10 year anniversaries are somehow more noteworthy than 9 or 11. if we lived in the simpson world w/ 3 fingers and a thumb, we would have big parties for the 4th anniversary of something, the 8th, the 16th, etc. get it? I don't mean to get all existential on you.

DAY DRINKING and sunday funday: speaking of appreciating what you have, I was out of town for a couple weeks. I came home and decided to celebrate the OC in all it's shallow glory by going to Kantina for beers and lunch. The kantina is what makes the oc lame and awesome at the same time: ridiculously hot waitstaff, cheesy plastic people, and pretensiousness in abundance. (it reminds me a little bit of south beach, without all the hot latin girls.) sometimes you just have to bathe in it. then we went to mutts to drink schooners. good times. and a great way to spend an afternoon. big ups to my peeps for keeping me company.
thanks for reading.

sensitive sounds for sensitive ears - music reviews that you can use!

[no photo again - i'm out of town] sometimes you go places and see things that really don't turn out as advertised. whatever. you can always go back and give it another chance. unless you can't. but I digress...

when you get back, if you're tired of being bumped into by greasy yippies and people that are "still bummed, like totally," that Phish broke up, you can get yourself some good old-fashioned pop music, and it'll settle you right down. me, I opted for a superb piece of cheese from Rise Against (angst and upset hasn't sounded this good since The Offspring broke out on Epitaph 12 years ago), and a cd of classics from the Pogues.

you can't go wrong with either one. and it's nice to know that no matter how hard the guys from Rise Against try, they'll never blow themselves up like the oral hygiene advert "before treatment" poster boy Shane McGowan. [jay-sus, son, get those teeth looked at by a professional, enh?]

happy listening.

magnum kizzee, you had me at hello

[no picture - accessing blogger via email portal] who doesn't get spammed like crazy at their various email addresses?
I have 3 gmail accounts and 2 yahoo accounts, all in an effort to reduce the junkmail that hits my inbox every day. unfortunately I threw my main gmail under the bus when I used it as a contact for my south american travel arrangements. as a result, i'm now impotent, overweight, and (how to put this delicately?) under-endowed in english, spanish, and portugese. all at the same time. who knew? [rhetorical device there; please do not answer.]

so when an invitation to INTENSIFY MENTAL ALERTNESS AND CONCENTRATION!!!!! came in with the name "magnum kizzee", i was intrigued. who was this magnum, this kizzee? could they really INTENSIFY MENTAL ALERTNESS?!!?!? they sent me a website and everything. magnum kizzee, sweet sweetness, could you be the one?

it turns out he/she is just whoring human growth hormone. and they don't exist after all. but they did close the spam w/ a nice zen koan / semi-haiku, which I reproduce here:
to witness it.
he said. That none of us are.
as disturbed their busy

indeed, magnum kizzee. indeed.

austin city whatever

[no photo - blogger is letting me down] hard to know how to describe my experience in Austin, TX. hard to know because i didn't really experience much of a real austin.
note to self: if you're going to check out a town, don't go on a weekend when it fills up with yahoos from somewhere else. all the locals hid at home or fled the city, so it was either stay at the festival all day or walk around an empty town.

the festival was not really my thing. some of the bands/musicians i saw were good (Tristan Prettyman and Nickel Creek) and others were not (The Shins). i couldn't make it to see gnarls barkley. it was too hectic over there. in general, the crowd sucked. O.A.R. (aka DMB for anyone that graduated high school after 2000) didn't play the festival, but their fans were well represented. sweet, bro.

another drawback to going on ACL weekend: places that were normally beautiful space were full of yahoo hippies. the parks and rivers in the town are very nice, but they were overrun.

the final straw: it took 12 hours to get home. the highlight was a 6 hour runway chill sesh in Austin, waiting to take off. we were stuck on the plane the whole time. it was a testament to my buddy Dave's travel companionship that we didn't get arrested.

overall, it was not a good weekend. very disappointing to go all that way (and spend all that money) and not see the town everyone I know raves about.

busy, just imagine I wrote a whole post about some bands at ACL

i'm way past posting an entire entry on the austin city limits festival.

my favorite band of the moment is not going to be there, but i figure i'll be able to find something else I like in the 130 bands that are performing. and heck, if austin is cool, i might move there.

good times.
love you, and thanks for reading.

ps. I think gnarls barkley is played out, but the fact that they only appear in costume, and that they are constantly changing the costume, is moderately clever. i'm a big fan of the fear and loathing costume set, as well as the costumes from the Big Lebowski. that's good work.

they are playing the festival, so I think i'm gonna try and check it out if it's not too crowded. they do go on famously late, so i won't be on time.

hip hop for AM radio?

ahh, so much going on right now. getting ready to put the house on the market. that has hassle written all over it. plus i got some great blog-worthy topics from the peeps (Zach- aka doosh, and also Brian) a couple weeks ago but never got around to addressing them. one was an article about the guy that created that sweet sculpture of britney spears giving birth on a bearskin rug. I already spent some time discussing that little gem. turns out the guy created a nude bust of Hilary Rodham Clinton. yeah. the guy creating them has his own wikipedia page. eesh. anyway, it's been so long since this eejit did the clinton work that he's now started on his new project: a life size sculpture of an angelina jolie / brad pitt / jennifer aniston threesome. look it up if you don't believe me. (i can't google "threesome" w/o setting off some red flags on the company search engine.)

for the record, it looks like he's giving Hilary a lot of credit, if you know what I mean. and I think you do.

unrelated: that gay fop elton john is serious about recording a hip hop album. what the hell that guy is thinking I don't know. last I checked there weren't any white, british, 59 year old rap artists. maybe it's a niche that just hasn't been filled yet. maybe elton john is a dumbass. smart money is on the latter.

and finally, today's semi-funny item of disinterest: when I mention it's too expensive, I can't afford the OC, I am selling my house and moving somewhere else, people say, "do you have any friends there? are you sure you want to move?"

after i get asked that question 10 or 12 times it is hard not to shout DID YOU NOT HEAR ME JUST SAY IT'S TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE IN ORANGE COUNTY!?!? Because I have a lot of friends in the oc, and that isn't making it more affordable.

okay then. thanks for reading.
next post will be an ACL preview. get excited.

a stingray? are you kidding?

I lost $50 in a bet this weekend. I heard the croc hunter was dead and I said it was an internet hoax. then I put $50 on it (I had had a few drinks). no way that guy was dead. turns out I was a wee bit wrong.

i wrote a whole post about the croc hunter and how he died and that sucked and blah blah. then i realized it was redundant and all I really add to the whole deal is:

bummer.

which is pretty much the only thing I had to add to my college ex-gf's story about getting divorced and starting over.

addendum to divorce post down below:
wanted to make it clear the girl was not interested in any sort of romantic thing w/ me. nothing like that. it was an attempt to re-connect emotionally w/ something that she remembered in a positive way. except it was FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. and we're not talking about boring years where nothing much happens. we're talking, late adolescence to adulthood (read: later adolescence). damn.
okay then.

dispatch from the north: reunion?

greetings from NorCal. (hence no picture.)
hope you had a good labor day weekend.

mine was good. I had a very interesting reunion with the first girl I ever loved. you know the crazy, head-over-heels-love from when you were still an impressionable youth? i dunno, maybe it still happens to you. anyway, I hadn't seen, or heard from her, in many years, but she called and said she was passing through the OC, and did I have time for coffee? i'm not a coffee drinker, but as it happened I was very not busy. so I said sure, I'll meet you when you get here and we can catch up. last I heard she was married to some guy from school, happy as clams. umm, yeah... now for some backstory

our relationship ended badly because she cheated on me, left me for another guy. it was a bad deal. took me a while to recover. I was 18. these things happen.

so we meet for coffee. turns out she eventually married the guy from school. it's not working out. she's going through a divorce, has two kids, hasn't worked for 6 years. so now she has to find a job, a place to live, deal w/ joint custody, go through divorce proceedings w/ a bitter ex-husband, and she loses most (if not all) of the people in her social sphere. and she's single for the first time in 10 years. talk about a setback. she tells me all this and all I can say is, ummmm, i was dating a girl and now i'm not.

I really wanted to know why it didn't work out. depends who you ask, I guess. she says he changed. he probably says she didn't change. but all of a sudden your life turns upside down, and then what do you do? I guess you start over, call the last guy you remember that really loved you.
ouch.

thanks for reading.

red flags redux: addendum

this one was brought to my attention by a friend yesterday, re: the red flags post.
so here you are:

• if you're on myspace, and she's on myspace, and you're dating, and you never get around to "friending" each other - it's prolly not going to work out. prolly.
  

just something to be aware of, my cyberspace peeps.

in response to requests for specific examples of myspace awfulness, I don't feel comfortable doing that. sometimes, people make it into the blog and they take it the wrong way. I don't want to name any names, but you get the idea.

love you.

dating red flags - updated

since dick vitale is too inane for ridicule, i thought I'd share more dating insight.

what does Pete Schweaty and his holiday treats have to do with any of this? nothing. i saw it a couple of years ago and it's still the funniest thing I've seen on television since Kramer hit a golf ball into a whale's blowhole.

re: Dating Red Flags - I share these so that you can have the same sterling success that I've had over the years. so take it for what it's worth.

• Girl is on more than two types of medication - that includes self-medication, like booze, caffeine, and nicotine. For example, if a girl drinks and takes paxil, that's okay. If a girl drinks, takes paxil, and also smokes, that's a red flag.
  
• an inability to compromise - there's a joke here about dating miss right vs. dating miss always right, but its been done.
  
• spending too much time on your myspace page - this might be very similar to "spending too much time on a blog", but I don't think so. if your myspace page has a sweet custom layout and lots of scrolling pictures and you update it every other day and post bulletins for all your friends to read then you should get out more. You're probably a really cool person (look how cool your myspace page is!).
  

this, combined with the earlier list, should be enough to get you whatever you're looking for in a prospective partner. or not.
not's good.

and now for something completely different...

yeah. pop music. not just any pop music. gooooooood pop music. I suggest to you The Format. If you don't like it your girl might. or maybe you both will. or not.

it's got a nice beat and it's easy to dance to.
plus I needed to say something positive after my last post.

image copyright the format, etc, etc. please don't sue me. I mean it.

bad weather and bad news

i don't know how much money the feds have spent in Iraq. i did see that Rumsfeld gave a speech about how some people lack the courage for the war on terror. i am not so sure about that. I think it's got more to do with fighting a war that has achievable objectives. it's tough to go to war on an idea. the best part about Rummy's complaints is that he is asserting that the war in Iraq is the same as the war on terror. in point of fact, there is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with terrorists. (this reminds me of the "debate" over intelligent design - as in, there is no debate; pretty sure i've talked about this already) that's a clever piece of unsubstantiated correlative reasoning, Mr. Rumsfeld. and by "clever" I mean "bullsh*t".

not sure it is fair to compare the war effort in Iraq to the effort to clean up New Orleans, but i'm going to do it anyway. we've spent an average of a billion dollars a week in Iraq (I made up that number, but you can make up your own if you want to. half a billion? fine.) the war is 5 years old this month, so that makes, umm, carry the one, divide by suicide bombers, add broken levees, subtract no-bid contracts... ahhh, $200 billion we've spent so far? whatever. this is just a theoretical exercise.

so how much safer would we be if we spent some of that money on rebuilding new orleans? even at a high level, if we just rebuilt infrastructure, provided security to run down neighborhoods, and helped people get their lives put back together. the sort of thing we are doing so ineffectively in Iraq. we'll never know. i do know that the most beat down neighborhoods are predominantly black. and, more importantly, oil-free.

let me ask the question this way: if the citizens of new orleans had started blowing shit up when the hurricane hit, would we send in the army? the answer: yes, but much too late. i think it's weird that the US of A will invade a sovereign nation to remove a dictator that has no known terrorism link, but we can't invade a city overrun by disaster that is inside our own borders.
maybe weird isn't the right word. maybe the right word is "asinine".

didn't mean to get all political on you. it's just that the war is a joke and NO is a mess and the federal government is still doing its fear-mongering best to hide their inadequacy, from the top on down. it is depressing.

tried to post, but blogger sucks on monday. come back tomorrow.

best show (not) on television

Deadwood was consigned to history last night. no longer the best show on tv, it's now just a contender for one of the best shows of all time. it has the advantage of not overstaying its welcome, which can be a big help because it prevents your show from running out of steam.

deadwood was gritty, violent, complex television. it wasn't for everyone, but I loved it. They canceled it because it was too expensive, and HBO didn't want to fund an entire season. they offered the creator (David Milch) a half season, and he said no. and that was that.

they are filming a new surf show tentatively titled "johnny from chicago" w/ the money they're saving. (the creator of that show? David Milch.)

a show about a transplant from chicago that takes up surfing? that sounds sweet, bro. if tv show is anything like my roommate that moved out here from St. Louis, johnny f. chicago will want to stay in shape, so he will buy all the stuff to surf (wetsuit, board, etc), and then he'll get fat. coincidentally, that's the same thing all my surfer roommates did. I guess you actually have to get in the water more than once a week for it to be effective exercise.
who knew?

i'm selling my turntables (for real this time)

the time has come.
it is hard to let go, but i don't mix records any more, I don't buy records any more, and I don't make time to mix records any more. they should belong to someone that will actually use them.

it's been so long I had to fire up the decks last night to make sure everything still worked (it does). in the process I got all emotional and and melancholy. it was weird. i'm not really into stuff if I don't use it; I tend to give it away, or throw it away. but selling the tables is really hard. music is like that. and buying vinyl is an addiction. it is very hard to let go.

if I didn't have another musical outlet, I don't think I could do it. but i'd rather have an electric guitar, because I know i'll play it. and I know I'll never sell it, because I don't want to do this again.

if you're interested, the deal is 2 technics SL-1200 M3D tables in like-new condition (includes original slipmats, dust covers, headshells, and counterweights), plus 2 Concorde DJ headshells w/ 2 extra stylii per headshell. a lot of people sell their tables, but a lot of people don't keep their gear as nice as I do. i'm talking spotless.
all that for $850.

poll results are in: polls are bullsh*t

can you feel the synergy? the kind that happens when you make up a news article and then act like it's revelatory? [had a picture of a famous terrorist but the sight of him disgusts me, so I deleted it]

i'm all for reporting on important issues and etc, but on a slow news day, is it okay to make up your own news?

the headline news on cnn.com was about a poll they gave 1100 or so people. what the hell is that? since when is the man on the street a reliable source for anything? you can't get directions to the grocery from somebody, but now they're a terrorism expert?

you could have taken a poll in the south 40 years ago about giving black people the right to vote and the results would have been simultaneously disgusting and disenfranchising. let's not get carried away with this polling nonsense.

but wait there's more! not only is this not-news breathlessly reported in the headlines, but they included an advert for tonight's program. to wit...

best part about the article on cnn is this paragraph here. (third paragraph in a 20+ paragraph article):

CNN will broadcast the documentary "In the Footsteps of bin Laden" at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

what a funny coincidence that is. pretty sure it's not news, though. any more than what's on National Geographic or TLC. or discovery. or the History Channel.

this is how a real man decorates

if I didn't just spend $1300 getting my car fixed, I know what I would have done with the money. well, probably I would have spent a lot of it on stuff for my trip, but I also would have picked up one of these. for sure.

the large sized longhorn skull ("b" quality) is a steal at $225. the biggest bummer about it is that I don't have one already. I have a fireplace to put it over and everything.

as any of my ex-gf's will surely tell you, i'm not much for decorating. if it's not a book or an expensive audio/video component, i don't really know where it should go. but this thing really speaks to me. mostly because it's effing awesome.

also awesome is the saltwater crocodile skull and related reptilia. not in my px range, though. the skull is a replica, which is nice.

in other news, kevin federline is a poseur douchebag. you heard it here first. he wouldn't be so reviled if he weren't such a cheesedick. does he have any street cred? does he think he's a hard case? i'll never know, but he might have more success if he lightens up a little bit. he's so earnest and serious. his wife made a fortune selling pop cheese (and herself). he could try and do the same. I recommend a duet w/ Nick Lachey. hotness!

dispatch from the north: get an intern to read that, pronto

the following is a copy of the front page of cnn.com. from the top story. just underneath that creepy picture of the pencil-necked child molester (about which more in a moment):

It's worse than a "he-said-she-said," because only one party is talking. John Karr, the man held in connection with the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, has been saying quiet a lot. But while his words are heavy on the drama, they're slight on the specifics. And the people in the know about DNA and his holiday whereabouts are keeping quiet.

did you notice anything odd about that first "quiet"?  oops. it's stuff like that makes me feel better about the work I do. at least, not so bad if I make a mistake. I don't mean a mistake in this caca. I mean a typo in something I publish at work. that's why they pay me the big bucks, after all.

re: creepy perv child molesters, this Karr guy is straight from central casting. he looks like he could star in his own TV movie. and the whole sordid Ramsey case is just sad. at least, it starts out sad, then it gets disturbing, esp. when you see the beauty pageant videos and the little girl is all tarted up. what was mom thinking? how can this be anyone's idea of a healthy good time? it just gets worse from there.

I think this Karr guy and the president of Iran should have a no-holds-barred battle-royale fight to the death. they're both minute. and incalculably disturbed. the winner can be proud of the fact that he rid the world of a despicable creature. in celebration, he gets to eat a hand grenade.

not much in the way of links again today. i got sh*t to do.
love you. I mean it.

curtailing those "Adult Desires": dispatch from the North

i'm out of town this week, so no fun(ny) picture.
i checked into my hotel as per usual after an uneventful flight. i like to maybe get a movie as a reward for making the trip. if they have anything even remotely worth watching. so after I checked in and got settled, I flipped on the TV and browsed some titles. there wasn't anything worthy of $12, but I did notice that the adult titles had been removed. not blocked, which would display the titles ("Buxom Babes!"), but removed entirely. what the heck?

full disclosure: i wasn't even remotely interested in watching some porn. in point of fact, i've never ordered a porno in a hotel room. but the porn was conspicuous in its absence.
where did it go? did they know from my prev. visits that I had no interest in it? what does that say about me? did they look at me and just *know* i wanted no part of it? what to do? do I call the front desk and ask where the porn went? umm, that's a little more awkward than the regular notice that MOVIE TITLES WILL NOT APPEAR ON HOTEL BILL.

I ignored it.

last night after dinner I flipped on the TV again, just to check if they maybe added a watchable movie. no chance of that, but Adult Desires had been re-added to my library. niiiiiiice. i felt better.

ps. I was going to put in links to some of this stuff, like Adult Desires and the titles and even actresses, but in order to do that I'd have to search the web for adult content at work. that's a red flag to the IT dept, so you'll have to do it on your own. if you're into that.

i don't feel like writing, read this instead.

whatever. it happens to people. so instead I give you this:
a man custom built for writing the essay and/or short novel has published another book. well, HE didn't publish it, per se, but you get the idea. i encourage you to check it out. it is erudite, funny, and occasionally pretentious. good reading.

also, if you're into traveling, there's a sense of the world. it's good, too.

the photo at left is from 2004, when D. F. Wallace appeared at UCLA, at an event hosted by Jonathan Safran Foer, and attended by Michael Chabon, Suzan-Lori Parks, Anne Lamott, Alice Sebold and Dave Eggers.

J.S. Foer is an acquired taste, but I enjoy his books. Chabon is one of the great living american writers (believe it), and Eggers is famous for writing about himself and making a shitload of money. with which he started a publishing house and charity. I can't really handle Eggers first book because the voice of the novel reminds me too much of me. Ye Shall Know Our Velocity is good, though, and it's a travel book, too.

19 years on, still awesome ("unemployed, in GREENLAND!?!?")

(photo copyright twentieth century fox - I hope they don't get me in trouble with the law)
there is a movie theater that shows old movies around the way from my house. every wednesday night at 9, you can see pulp fiction, top gun karate kid, goonies, or some other modern classic (office space) on the big screen. this past wednesday was The Princess Bride, which came out in 1987 and which I have seen several times, but never in theaters. Until now. it was effing great.

first off, a guy comes down to warm up the crowd and give away some free stuff by asking trivia questions about the movie. wait, that's not the first thing. the first thing is that the theater is packed. literally. it nearly sold out. at $6 it was a hot ticket. so as people are getting seated, a guy comes down and does the quick trivia. the crowd is, umm, eclectic (definitely could have played some Magic, the Gathering if knew how), but they know their prin. bride trivia. good times.

after that's done, the movie starts and even though everyone knows what's coming, it's still hilarious. you just can't help it. people were cheering, people were booing the bad guy (do you know the first name of count Rugan?), and hissing at the prince. best movie experience i've had in a while, esp after some heartless duds (superman, miami vice, i'm talking to you).
review this list of quotes for some classics.

next week? Shaun of the Dead. it's nearly as funny as Princess Bride, and also a love story, in its own way. and you can't beat it for only $6.

comment is free

you can make up your own mind about the war in Lebanon and Syria's involvement and Hizbollah and their patterns, but this is true: the off the Hizzeee for shizzee kidnapped Israeli soldiers (in Israel, mind you), to free this man. that was their primary aim / objective / goal.

the larger issues of the state in palestine, Lebanon's inability to govern the southern half of the country, and the influence of Syria and Iran in the vacuum of Lebanese gov't. is beyond the purview of this (or any) post.
love you.