Ruby in Motion

Just when you thought things couldn't get any cuter over here, we raised the stakes. Here's Miss Ruby showing off her water-chasing skillz.

Pups is sooooooo cuuuuuuuuuute. 

Fruity

Figs are Yummy

I live in kind of a dumpy apartment complex. The inside of my apartment is okay but the surrounding neighborhood is mildly sketchy. Fine for me but if I were married or had kids I would not live here.

The adjacent property is home to a straight up mini-slum of rental units in terrible shape. It's a dump. But they do have a fig tree, which I pillage at every opportunity. I try and do it on the sly because I don't want to share them with any other neighbors but for the most part I don't think anyone notices besides the June bugs and birds.

Anyway, that's the tree in the adjacent yard / junk disposal area. Imagine you're standing in an alley / driveway / parking lot and there in the yard of the dump next door is this fig tree with all these delicious ripe figs. It's... kind of awesome. Urban foraging FTW.

It's Dark and I'm Trying to Read

If I had kids and I was teaching them to read I would probably not start with this. I would be sorely tempted, but I would not. Probably. 

(Blog title for today is an allusion to one of my all time favorite album titles: It's Dark and Hell is Hot)

Once Upon a Time

You had me at mermaids and tattoos.

Go here for the full story and enjoy.

Big News In Small Things: Mini-Newbs

BABYTIME

Continuing with recent themes: friend of the blog Ze Newbs welcomed his baby boy into the world on Sunday, 27 July. Mom and baby are doing very well. Welcome Mini-Newbs!

I like to buy themed onesies for the kids. Last one I bought was a spacesuit onesie for Baby Samantha at the 'Murrican Museum of Natural History. It was awesome. I wanted one for me. If those things came in adult sizes we could have been matchies.

Not sure what I'm going to get Mini-Newbs yet. Probably a Giants onesie, preferably in the pattern and colors of the Giants home unis. (Best uniforms in Major League Baseball.) Possibly a 49er onesie. Those things are the cutest. Possibly both. Onesies are my favorite.

Big congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Ze Newbs.

Hellz Yeah

If this movie delivers on the promise of the trailer then I will be super pumped to the Max. (HONK!)

Couldn't help it. Loved the original Mad Max when I was a kid and I think Tom Hardy is mostly great (aside from Bane - that kind of sucked, but not his fault).

I've Been There

Every Club, Ever

When divergent branches on the great evolutionary tree evolve similar behaviors it is called 'convergent evolution'. You're welcome.

(Hat tip to Ruby's Dad.)

Hug it Out

Spent some Quality Time with my four-legged friends Roxy (pictured) and Brutus yesterday at Ryan's house. It's cool that Ryan answers the phone and lets me in to play with the dogs. I guess I also hang out with Ryan but, uhh, it's not as important as the dogs.

There's always a lot of man talk (girls, guns, motorcycles). I brought a suitcase of PBR, if that's any guide. But in between man talk I catch up with the pups. It gets no better. We didn't finish the projects we were working on so he said I could come back next week. Exactly as planned....

Dad Jokes are Good for You

I'm fond of Dad Jokes. I've taken to calling any corny joke a Dad Joke, so maybe I just love corny jokes. Who cares?

Want some pointers? 

Not Mine

Happy Baby is Happy

Told you it was all puppies and babies, babies and puppies. This is Samantha. She got a lot more interesting in the past couple weeks because she can look around and smile now. Interactive baby. Also she's learning new things, like she 'found her feet'. Apparently babies do that. One day, no idea where they are, next day they're in your mouth because hey, why not? She was practicing her rollovers (another thing babies learn) and I got this action shot. You're welcome.

Read It

The New Yorker is putting up a paywall. Smart business, I guess. Slate has a list of what you should read before you have to get out your wallet. Because I'm a boring pretentious dick avid reader I have already read most of them. Here are my favorites, as copied from the Slate article:

“Getting Bin Laden,” Aug. 8, 2011. This moment-by-moment account of the mission to get Osama Bin Laden, written by Nicholas Schmidle, is every bit as thrilling as Zero Dark Thirty, and much more rigorously fact-checked.

“Taken,” Aug. 12, 2013. Sarah Stillman’s reporting illuminates an appalling, pervasive practice that you won’t believe actually exists. // I think I wrote a blog post about this one already but I'm too lazy to look it up. This article is by turns shocking, depressing, and terrifying. Small town, small time 'Murrica at its worst.

“The Apostate,” Feb. 14, 2011. Lawrence Wright’s heavily vetted and fact-checked reporting on the Church of Scientology, which later evolved into the book Going Clear, offers a rare look into the notoriously secretive organization.

“Trial By Fire,” Sept. 7, 2009. David Grann’s gripping story demonstrated that by executing Cameron Todd Willingham for the murder of his family, the state of Texas may very well have killed an innocent man. // David Grann, along with William Langewiesche, is one of the best long-form reporters in the world. His reporting on Cameron Todd Willingham is one of the reasons why.

While we're on the subject of William Langewiesche, read this if you haven't already: The World in Its Extreme. And if you feel like reading a gripping account of a horrible tragedy that will almost certainly give you nightmares, try A Sea Story.

“A Loaded Gun,” Feb. 11, 2013. In this thorough and troubling crime story, Patrick Radden Keefe examines the life of Amy Bishop, who killed six of her colleagues in a mass shooting, and 25 years ago, may have killed her brother, too.// May have? That's being generous. 

What I haven't read but plan to read next:
"God Knows Where I Am,” May 30, 2011. Rachel Aviv’s look at mental health patients who reject their psychiatric diagnoses is smart and heartbreaking in equal measures.

That should keep you briefly entertained. Notably absent from the slate list: anything from Malcolm Gladwell.

Okay then. 

Don't Fight It

Dat Nose Tho!

OH HEYYYYYYYY

Lately the blog is puppies and babies, babies and puppies. I don't know how we got here, because I have neither one of those things. It's not that I don't love puppies (so much) and babies (enh, not as much as puppies, but they're growing on me) - it's just that I'm more of a guns and motorcycles type of guy. Yeah we're shopping motorcycles again. It's a Thing. There's only so long you can go without owning a bike. I experience maturity differently than most people, and by 'differently' I mean 'infrequently, for short durations'.

Anyway, this is Ruby again, showing off her cuteness for the camera. Don't even try and deny how cute she is. Everyone needs more of this in their life. I'm scheduled to spend some time with Brutus tomorrow and I hope that guy is looking forward to some hugs. SO MANY HUGZ. I've been looking forward to it all week. Roxy gets a little jealous but there are plenty of hugz to go around. So yeah, we love the pups in this space.

Ruby is turning out to be quite the high achiever. So far she's doing very well with her training and is a quick learner. She's not into her hell-raising adolescence yet but those days are coming. She's going to chew all the chewables. Can't wait.

Sorry Bro

I don't play NBA2K but I have a pretty good idea what the Sprite Cam is, and this made me laugh.

When my friend Jimmy used to come over to play Madden the rule was that anyone who didn't skip the replay on a big play was a dick and would probably get yelled at. Harsh words were exchanged. It's fine that you scored on a long touchdown to Calvin Johnson (again), but I don't want to see it two times in a row.

Efficiency

Image Courtesy FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (all rights reserved)

Great article on fivethirtyeight.com about Messi and his work rate during the World Cup.

tl;dr: -  He wasn't tired; he ran the least compared to all other outfield players (!!) but his production was still excellent. The data supports it, but anecdotally all you need to know is Argentina scored 8 goals in total, and Messi scored four and assisted on two more. Without him they don't even make it past the round of 16, and maybe not even out of their group.

No Pressure

This from Big Cheese, who is a nurse and married to a doctor. That's Baby Lucy in a dr's outfit. It's good to set expectations early.

For All That It Meant and All That It Didn't Mean

The great Brian Philips writes about the World Cup. Looking at old pictures of my friends I feel the same way. He says:

Something I’ve noticed since I entered my mid-thirties is that no one ever looks the right age anymore. When I see friends I’ve known for years, they’re always a little older than I expect, a little different from the images I’m carrying around in my head. But when I see old pictures of them, pictures from the time when those mental images ought to originate, they look astoundingly, impossibly young. No one was ever as young as they look. They look like elves with goofy hair. So what am I picturing when I think of them? Something that never really existed, probably. Something both finished and unfinished, a story I’ve told myself. We tell ourselves stories to make time bearable. But the World Cup is over now, for all that it meant and all that it didn’t mean.

----------------
Great end to a great tournament. See you you in 2018. 

MOAR PUPPY

Besos con Las Guitarras

Friend of the blog Slobscot sent me another photo of the sweet princess Ruby Q. (For real that is her name.) Since Ruby is definitely the cutest dog that anyone sends me pictures of I am posting it. Because this little beast will warm your heart.

Sweet Puppy with sweet guitars in the background is tough to beat. This photo has everything!

Big Room Trance Classics: Rank 1 - Airwave

Dash Berlin just posted a short but sweet set of old-school trance classics, some of which have been updated, some of which are original. I loved it. The full mix is embedded above, but if you want to skip right to one of my all-time favorite epic trance anthems then just listen to the youtube below. Rank1 - Airwave. That's the jam right there. If you don't love it you need to do some drugs* turn it up.

I may have already posted this jam once before but I'm too pumped to bother looking. 

Kind of a slow starter so skip the first two minutes if you must.




*Just a joke, people.

Important Decision - Complete

Update:
The votes are in!
I used the one where I wasn't smiling.
I will make cookies in the next couple weeks and mail them to the winner of the drawing. Haven't done the drawing yet but I'll notify you if you win. :)


-----------------

Had to take a professional photo for the job at Megacorp, Inc. Sitting for photos is not my favorite but it could be worse. Because: employment. Narrowed it down to two. Which pic should I use?

Email or txt me.

Forgot to mention: I will send one person that gets back to me a care package of chocolate chip cookies. Winner chosen at random, entries due by Monday, 14 July. 

Bummer, with Bonus Puppy Pics

STOP IT! YOU'RE MELTING MY COLD, DEAD HEART

I WANT TO GIVE YOU ALL THE KISSES

Big news of the week, aside from working a lot and Brazil getting eviscerated by Ze Germans, is that I'm no longer dating the girl I was dating. I liked her. It didn't work out. She was funny and gorgeous and fun to be around and I really liked spending time with her. So that's a Disappointment.

Yeah there are worse things and yeah, there are other girls out there but still: sucks.

In order to make this post less of a downer I added pictures of my friends new puppy. Her name is Ruby, which is super cute. He bought a mixed purebred designer dog, which we tend to frown on around here (GET A RESCUE FROM THE POUND), but I cannot deny the cuteness of this little beast. Looks like a sweetheart to me.

Kermit the Frog

Jim Henson was a genius.

Drone + Fireworks = Win

Did you ever want to be inside one of those big fireworks but were kind of concerned about little things like personal safety? Well, look no further.

SCIENCE

Neil deGrasse Tyson is rad.

More Howard

Thanks, Internet.

Tim Howard is the Truth

The US is out of the World Cup. They're out in part because they have only one world-class player, which is not ideal when you're playing against the rest of the world. The only reason they didn't get embarrassed on the international stage is that the one player they had that is capable of delivering an all-world performance is the goalie: he was huge, and he was awesome, and he was everywhere.

How much everywhere? He had more saves than anyone has ever had in a single game since they started keeping track of these things in 1966. As I pointed out to Big Cheese, the game has changed a little since those days. He got inside the heads of the Belgian players; they knew it would take a perfect shot to beat him. The tweet from the Belgian captain Vincent Kompany (who IS world class) after the game said, "Two Words: TIM HOWARD".

A lot of the talk about how Landycakes was left off the World Cup squad* included statements like "best player in US history". This is annoying, because while Donovan is the best outfield player in US history the best player in US history is Timmy Fucking Howard. There is no player on the US team now or ever that could have turned in a performance like the one he delivered yesterday. They just aren't good enough. I'm not the only one that thinks so. (Link is to Klinnsman quote: “We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet,” Klinsmann told the New York Times. "For us, we have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament. Realistically, it is not possible.”)

On a personal level, I wept tears of joy when Landycakes kicked us into the knockout stages back in 2010, and yesterday my heart broke more than a little bit when Chris Wondolowski shanked a ball from six yards out that would likely have been the winning goal in the 88th minute against Belgium. Football giveth, football taketh away.

I don't know if it was Howard's last game as an American in the World Cup. He is 35 now but goalies can play into their 40s, so even if he isn't the starter he should get a ticket in 2018 and 2022, because when you cover yourself in glory like he did yesterday then you deserve to be in the conversation for as long as you can stand on two legs and hold your arms over your head. You have to take three keepers anyway, so fuck it: take Tim Howard. He's the best ever to pull on a USA jersey, and if you don't love that then you don't love America.


* Landon should have been on the team. Wondolowski isn't good enough, no matter how hard he tries. And that was before he shit himself on international television late in the Belgium game.