cool: the blue marble; not cool: getting a ticket for turning right on a red light without stopping

found an interesting website during a period of extended interweb dorkout the other day. The image at left comes from NASA, and besides being an utterly spectacular picture, it's completely free. I just have to say that it came from NASA (it does) and they also ask that you put a link to the origin of the image. done. If you're into that sort of thing, you can find a lot more (free) amazing images like the blue marble shot at left. enjoy.

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less cool than panoramic shots of planet earth is getting a ticket for turning right on a red light without stopping. I'll be doing my part for local government by cutting a them a nice check and also attending traffic school. super pumped about that. special bonus: the officer did tell me that it was "very expensive" ticket. thanks for the heads up. please go bother somebody else.

probably not going to make it to the 20 year reunion...

it's been kind of a slow week in case-land. there was that whole business w/ the IRS (still unresolved, if you must know), plus chores and house and blah. It happens to people. into each life some rain must fall, etc. and so forth.

Then I get an email from a good friend about a guy that flunked out of his fancy-pants high school, only to enroll at my high school. Back in the day Ronnie was well-known around my high school for a) being good at basketball; b) being funny; c) scoring beers at the local quickie mart because he never got carded. Times have changed. You can Google the (in)famous Ronnie Ledesma yourself, but I'll save you the trouble and give you some highlights right here:

• here's a link to the news story about him being arrested w/ a "transient" in manteca, including video from News10 action local connected news, covering Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto. this is by far the best resource for this awesome story. They have an interview and mugshots of the accused. I tried to get captures of the mugshots but action10NEWS was too clever for me.
  
• Here's a link to an article on some sort of online record keeping thing, probably a paper in manteca or maybe modesto, about the same thing.
  

I can't make this stuff up.

More info: Ronnie's dad was a police officer. For real. What's really bugging me is that this happened two months ago and I just heard about it today. Can I set some kind of alert for when Ronnie's rap sheet gets longer?

More superbness: In addition to the several charges pending for the recent arrest, "Ledesma also is being held on three outstanding warrants in Placer County for domestic violence and one for burglary."

He's a long shot to make the 20 year reunion, then.

the IRS says I owe $10,390 in back taxes

I don't know if I ever mentioned that I bought a house. It took about 7 years to save the down payment, and I had to pay off my student loans and car along the way, but whatever. I had some help from my folks (no rent for a while). Some people have it easier, some tougher. That's life. Anyway, that ended up being a spetacularly bad financial decision with no end in sight. But the best part (so far) is how the bad news just keeps on coming. Things in the house break, roommates are douchebags, loan rates go up, property values go down, and you learn what "upside down" means. (It means the same thing as "negative equity", but sounds less snooty.) It's a relatively common thing in cars, not so much real estate. I'm unique!

Anyway, roommate douchebaggery wasn't even the most annoying thing about this week. not even close. the most annoying thing was yesterday when I got a letter from the IRS saying I owe them $10,390 in back taxes/penalties/interest. Payable by 25 April. Gotta love the IRS. I fedex'd the info to my accountant today, and I am sure that the IRS is full of shit.

how is this related to the house? when i was pinching pennies to save for a down payment, my "financial adviser" told me to "put the money to work". so I did and invested in mutual funds. For my down payment, I sold the funds, and used the money. here's a flow chart:

post-tax paycheck money saved > buy mutual funds > sell mutual funds > money returned by UBS

That last part UBS reported to the IRS as income. The IRS is claiming that should be taxed like I got it in a paycheck. After they already taxed it once. So they want to double up, which is retarded. You tax the GAIN on investments, not the total investment. (For the record, after fees and hassle, I lost money on the deal.)

It's like if you buy a car, drive it for a while, and then when you sell the car the IRS gets to tax all the money you make on the sale as income. umm, not so much.

So now I'm being audited. Yeah. is that awesome? because it feels awesome. Thanks, UBS, for f'ing me over. i'm really glad I "put my money to work" with you. It's working out really well. I'm going to invest with you again when I have money. At my current rate, that will happen in my next lifetime.

the icing on the cake: If I don't have $10,390 sitting around, I can get on a payment plan with the IRS, but it costs $152. Fill out form, send in check. yeah. I love the government, too.

what if you live in a world of sh*t?

the reporters on the local tv called it a "sewage tsunami", but I think that's overstating it just a bit. A tsunami is big, and it tends to cause widespread damage, not just slurp around in your little neighborhood. This disaster was so localized that I can't even find the "region" it's in on a map. Nevertheless, when a wave of sewage washes through your village and kills 4 people, and 5k more have to evacuate, and people are floating in a lake of shit, then that's not good. at all.

My favorite quote from the Times article was from the man on the scene "Women and children were screaming at the top of their lungs for help." I'm sure the men didn't do any screaming at all. No doubt waves of poo are routine in their experience.

joined a book club, but i'm not sure if I'll go

i joined a book club on meetup.com. I like to read, and presumably it would be interesting to meet other people with a similar interest. Or something. So I joined a book club. When you join, you can see other members of the club, learn more about them and the group, etc. An example description of one of the guys on the list of "new members":

"Am very good at Ms. Pac Man, know the difference between Monet and Manet, do yoga, enjoy social-poli-econ discussions, love adventure travel, like live stage, was caught reading a book in a cafe, eat healthy, love to do things, pass GO! Collect $200."

awesome. looking forward to meeting you. Because I like to go to the gym a lot, practice guitar, play video games, and read books. so we kind of have a lot in common. maybe you can do a dramatic reading of your poetry for me. with some interpretive dance.

next book club meeting is in April. RSVP now.

bracket of superb-ellence

it took a couple games, but I got out of the cellar with my NCAA bracket. don't let the ranking fool you, though. I'm stuck in the middle ground with nowhere to go but down, since both my finals teams are done dishes. I guess that's why they call it gambling.

I had a funny story but then I lost it. more later.

how's that bracket coming along?

Your NCAA tournament bracket is only slightly more interesting to me than your Fantasy Football league, and generally on par with that "crazy" dream you last night. That is to say, not interesting to me at all. But I thought you would like a little insight into how my tournament is going so far. You might have to click the img to get full value. Go on and do it. That's a screen capture of my ranking at the far right.

TAKE THAT, EXPERTS!

Harder than college: beating Alien Hominid with just one life

not sure if you're into video games. if you're not, you're probably into cute drawings. either way, the Behemoth software company has got something for you.

AH is a super hard, brilliantly drawn video game. I recommend it. I wanted to know more about the company when i saw the logo, a grossly overweight chicken. weird, but superb. The game is funny but it's so damn hard that you can't even appreciate how good all the art and animations are. full credit to The Behemoth for the graphic. I tried to buy a logo t-shirt but they didn't have any. They did have skate decks, which was cool, but I'm old and if I fell down I would hurt myself (again).

daylight savings time started. sweet.

rock and roll takes it on the chin

[Open Letter to Rolling Stone Magazine]

Dear Rolling Stone,
Please stop putting wannabe tough-guy douchebags on the cover of your magazine. I am begging you.

Your long decline into irrelevance hit a new low with the shameless, pointless, and irredeemably stupid "I'm from Rolling Stone" synergy suck-fest currently polluting your pages, your website, and the airwaves. But that doesn't mean that you have to demean the magazine even further by putting pussies on your cover every other g-damn week. First it was sucknuts at the cabaret, you gave it a bit of a break w/ some new "guitar gods" (bee-tee-doubleyou, that issue was crap but J. Frusciante rules), and now it's more boys that look like girls? I know you want to sell issues, but all you're selling with this crap is that you like pictures of guys that couldn't beat up their sister. Maybe that's why they all met in the first place: their own sisters kept kicking the shit out of them and it made them emotional.

This is what happens when you get a copy of a copy of a copy. Each successive iteration loses something in the duplication. So the Replacements and the Ramones inspires Green Day inspires Fall Out Boy. See how that works? Rather, doesn't work? Green Day's strong catalog highlights how far your sissy cover boys have yet to go. And they will still be poofters.

best regards,
a subscriber

when is a uniform not a uniform?

I caught a recent "news" item on si.com today. Nike Basketball is showcasing it's new uniforms for four major programs this weekend. I'm sorry, it's not a uniform. It's actually a "system of dress", and it looks a lot like some guy in an under armour top with matching culottes. awesome. but not.

I don't mind the longer shorts, although these are a bit much. I think you can strike a nice balance between the John Stockton butt-huggers of yore and the skirts the kids are wearing these days. Nike disagreed; they made skirts. Actually, not to put too fine a point on it, they made culottes.

Apparently the "form-fitting" jerseys can be "customized" by wearing compression shirts underneath. You can wear something long sleeved, short sleeved, or sleeveless. My issue with this is that IT'S A UNIFORM. The purpose of a uniform is for everyone to BE UNIFORM, which is why you're all wearing the same thing. You don't customize a uniform, because then it is no longer uniform. I understand some guys already wear compression shirts underneath their jerseys. I'm fine with that, because it's at the coaches' discretion. This institutionalized mix-and-match makes me want to puke. If you want to be an individual you should have taken up tennis.

The U. of Florida look incorporates an alligator scale pattern? It sounds lame but actually might look kind of cool. And the Syracuse unis are a good color, too. It's the customization part that's killing me. And the culottes.

Finally, the jerseys incorporate some history, with old logos and "names of hall of famers". Or, in the case of Ohio State, the logo of Lebron James. That makes a lot of sense, because LeBron was awesome when he was at Ohio State. Except he wasn't. He went to the NBA straight from high school. He WOULD have gone to Ohio State for at least a year. If he went to college. Which he didn't. So Ohio State is pumped because they get to wear the logo of a current NBA player that is, uhh, from Ohio.

Fitted jerseys are $75, shorts are $60. See you on the court.

how to throw a party in three easy steps!

had a good time out w/ one of my peeps on Friday night. as in, so bad it was good. here is how it went down, in a bulleted list.

• we drove to west hollywood, which is not exactly around the corner from Chez Butterball (my crib in Costa Mesa).
  
• we brought booze, because showing up empty handed is not cool. not that team weakness grasped that concept. (more on TW in a minute)
  
• when we got west hollywod, we went to some girl's condo and we hung out until Team Weakness showed up. they didn't add anything to the conversation or the wet bar. not even a mixer.
  
• after 40 seconds of banality from TW I lost interest and asked the hostess if she could put some music on. thought she might have something since she WORKS IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS AND LIVES WITH TWO GIRLS IN A BAND. she ignored me. we spent the entire time at her place in stuttering, reticent conversation. music would have helped. a lot.
  
• Team Powerhouse showed up about half an hour after TW. thank goodness for TP. they brought some good vibes. all was not yet lost. They were invited by us, though. the girl having the little get together failed to provide booze, music, or company. She did have the good sense to invite people that knew cool people. so that's something.
  
• did i mention no music? a stereo was in evidence. as were guitars and related accessories.
  
• We try to figure out what to do. Hostess claimed to have this sorted earlier in the day. but when the rubber hits the road, she's not sure. after much confusion, they work it out. and we go to an 80's dance party, with snacks. turns out it's not fun after all (who saw that coming?), so plan B is go to a pub on sunset blvd. at 1 AM. i call it quits here; we hit my limit of lame and I threw in the towel.
  

[editorial aside: not sure if you have ever been to sunset blvd in LA at 1 AM on a friday night. it's a mess of street traffic, pretentiousness, pedestrians, cops, and drunk people. pretty much the last place in LA county i would go to get a beer. end of aside]

on the way home my buddy describes how easy it is to throw good party, since we were both disappointed at how inadequate the night had turned out to be. here you go:

1. fill the ipod.
2. fill the fridge.
3. invite cool people.
   

thanks for reading.

i meant to do this on my vacation but didn't get around to it.

when i made a short trip to England and France a couple years ago I tried to convince my traveling buddy that we should annex Lichtentstein. I thouht we could do it in a long weekend. That's a picture of the country (really, the whole country) in the photo. It's tough to find countries worth annexing these days. Either they're too big and won't fit in one long-focal, wide-angle shot, or they probably aren't worth the effort. But Lictenstein has a lot to offer. Apparently the famously neutral swiss agreed, because when some soldiers were out on manoevres they accidentally invaded Lichtenstein. Don't these guys have the swiss army knife with the compass in it?

[Brief editorial aside: went to find a link to a knife w/ a compass but I got lost on the victorinox swiss army knife page. I clicked "Cutlery" but that took me to kitchen knives. At a loss, I clicked "multi-tools" and there was a page full of the knives that made them famous. So it's not a knife any more. It's a multi-tool. Because when I see a knife, I automatically think "multi-tool". This was so lame I remembered that it's not victorinox that equips the swiss army with their knives. It is wenger. You can look it up. Thankfully Wenger has their knives listed under knives. End of aside.]

Thanks for reading.

nascar in fontucky

if you want a photo, scroll down and check out that b&w shot of Junior Johnson.
went to the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing event today. It was in Fontana, aka Fontucky, aka not anywhere you would stop unless you wanted to visit the race track out there. It was a good event, although some cars were having engine problems because CA mandated unleaded gas for the cars (they usually run on leaded gasoline). more observations and thoughts on today's racing deal:

• I got to watch the race from one of the luxury suites, directly above the pits. best seats in the house for sure. plus we parked in the infield. no peon parking for us, thanks very much.
  
• bonus#2: watching the race from the suite provided an excellent view of both pit row and gave me a place to retreat when it got too damn cold on the viewing terrace up above. also the tv coverage of the race is good, so you can watch replays on it there. grandstand viewing was a tough go. the weather sucked.
  
• bad weather kept the pit lizards way down this year. they were still present, but in reduced numbers.
  
• my favorite driver used to be jeff gordon. I don't know why so many fans hate his guts. well, partly I do. he changed manufacturers early in his career from Ford to Chevy. That's a no-no. then he won a lot of races. and he doesn't have an accent (he grew up in indiana). he's a hit with crossover sponsors, because he's handsome in a teenage boy sort of way. but i can see that mostly they hate him now because he's a jackass. to wit: we watched the drivers make their way out of the infield, onto the track. they walked past singly or with teammates, keeping a low profile. almost all wear a hat, glasses, or both. except for Prince Gordon. he walked through the tunnel with hair flowing, holding his pregnant wife's hand, cameras capturing every moment. it was a carefully orchestrated bit of douchebaggery. later, the crowd booed him soundly. ouch.
  
• question from my friend: What's going on with #8?
  senior executive: he's leaking something from the rear end.
  friend: you mean the car or the driver?
  senior exec: [hard look]
  friend: [expressionless] what?
  
• the prerace jet flyby never gets old.
  
• i find the muffled sound of race cars very soothing. i nodded off for a few minutes in the suite. limited sleep the previous several nights may have been a contributing factor.
  

that about covers it. took me 8 hours to do the whole thing. I forget who won the race. there were 120k other people there. ask them. Prince Gordon came in second.
Thanks for reading.

vegas and nascar (but not at the same time)

unusual Sunday night post. I'm feeling guilty about not going to church this weekend. And it was ash wednesday this week and everything. I am observing lent, though. so that's something.
busy weekend; vegas on friday, recovery saturday, nascar race in Fontucky on Sunday.

took me a few minutes to find a picture of my all time favorite nascar driver. Probably not anyone you've heard of, but Junior Johnson is the real deal. Says one website: A raid on the Johnson family house back in '48 resulted in the largest inland seizure of illegal whiskey in US history. Respect.

NASCAR was born out of that whiskey running, car-racing culture. It's come a long way, not all for the better.
observations from the events of the weekend, in rough chronological order.

• I can get everything i want to get done in vegas in 24 hours. more than that is too much. I want to come home after one day.
  
• gambling losses for my trip: $20
• club expenses for one night: 12x gambling losses (yikes!)
• Pure (nightclub in caesar's) is overrated. From the lines outside you would think they were handing out $100 bills in there. I got inside and it was like Goat Hill Tavern but with a dress code. If it's super exclusive, why is the dance floor full of ugly people? i understand you have to let us guys in, since we're spending the money. but the girls? If I'm paying a fortune for a bottle, then the bouncer should be selective about who he lets in. I am glad I went once, but I won't do it again.
  
• The pussycat dolls have parlayed some ass and good production into a specially branded casino and merchandise at caesar's, along with their own little revue at Pure. I thought it was odd, but it looked like a hit with the plebes.
  
• I tipped the bathroom attendant $5 and told him i was bringing back prom, circa 1992, do you have any eternity? so he sprayed me down. he got a bit carried away, but it was hilarious when i talked to people.
  
• a girl asked me if I would be her prom date. sure no problem. But when she tried to kiss me I said "there will be no frenching!" and poured myself another vodka/soda. frenching.
  
• some guy had one of the bowling lane suites at the hard rock. as in, there was a full size bowling alley lane in the room. it was definitely nicer than my room at the rio. a lot nicer. it came with a full bar and bartender, which i thought was a bit much. i think he was there to make sure you didn't shaq the bowling stuff.
  
• 14 vodka sodas + 1 water = 2 day hangover. taste it.
  

more later.

i ain't goin to get drunk, but I'm a get real buzzzzed

great postfight interview with Quinton Jackson, another MMA fighter.
Breaking meathead stereotypes one joke at a time.
stick with it to the end. it's worth it.

According to his wikipedia page, he lives just around the way. who knew?

what kind of moron watches ultimate fighting? This kind!

superb recent article on slate.com about UFC programming. here's an excerpt:

And now, an Ortiz-Shamrock matchup! Stoking the fury of aficionados and piquing the curiosity of novices, the announcers began to wind up the hype: "There is dislike. There is distrust. There is simply hatred." In a clip, Shamrock, a veteran known as "the most dangerous man in the world," expressed his belief that Ortiz is a punk. Meanwhile, Ortiz, a punk, forwarded the notion that Shamrock is over the hill. Cut back to Shamrock: "Tito Ortiz is going to find out who Ken Shamrock is, was, and is now." The "is now" in that sentence wasn't really a redundancy. Shamrock was employing a new tense—the ultimate tense—to describe how he was about to be bringing it, how it was about to have been brung.

I might not have anything funny to share, but at least I know where to find some funny. I don't entirely agree with the article; I am a fan of full-contact MMA fights and fight disciplines.

As for the photo, that's Tito Ortiz (about whom it was memorably said over on wwtdd.com "he could beat up godzilla") getting the crap beat out of him by Chuck Liddell. I tend to follow the career of Ortiz because, for a time, we trained at the same gym and shared a boxing coach. Two first-hand observations about Tito Ortiz:

a) He is huge. I can't believe anyone would fight him. He's like a walking eclipse: he's so big he blocks out the sun.
b) I can't believe he ever loses a fight. The fact that Liddell beat him soundly is both amazing and scary.

Boxing is lame and disorganized and corrupt. At least with the UFC and Pride Fighting you know you're going to get a legit fight. It might be brutal, but that is its appeal: it's the rawest sport there is.

today is my special day

Yeah today is my special day. It's all about me over here. I'll have something funny to share soon. I remember myself being a lot more funny. I'll work on that.

Photo is from Iguazu Falls, taken from the Argentina side of the river, looking at (part of) the Argentine falls, from a boat. Was going to post another picture of me but this was better. You probably already know what I look like, anyway.

Valentine's Day is magic

(no photo - posting remotely // imagine something w/ hearts, but sexy)
happy manufactured holiday! Back in grade school I remember it as one of the most awkward days of the year. Shy kids like myself were better off handing out the same card to everybody. It was not a good idea to do something special for a particular person, as I learned to my cost. ahh, youth.

I think it's lame to spend time on somebody because of a particular day. If you don't care enough to devote some time and attention the other 364 days of the year, then you really don't care very much. Maybe you should get them a gift card?
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In other news, perhaps as a special treat for all those lonely guys out there, the SI Swimsuit Issue came out today. It's okay, if you're into showstoppingly beautiful women with hardly any clothes on. I'm conflicted, because I like pretty girls as much as (probably more than) the next guy, but it's easy to confuse the fantasy of the magazine photos with real life ( i.e. girls don't look like that in real life. And I live in the OC, which has more stunning girls than most places.)

My old roommate liked to use it as motivation; he would pick out a girl in the magazine before he went out, and he'd say to himself, "that girl is out there, right now, looking for a boyfriend. Let's do this!" Inevitably, he'd make out with some thick girl from around the way, but he was always motivated. Ahhh, youth.

love you. especially today.

Mercy to the beast is blessed in the eyes of the lord

Premeditated Inadequacy: I wrote a whole long post about how I was miserable over a girl back in the day. It was supposed to be funny but it wasn't funny at all. Flowers? Letters? POETRY??!??!? yikes!
It more disappointing than funny. And it was more sad than disappointing. i had to pull the plug on it.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming very soon. Late feb = lots of Dick Vitale. Plus my birthday is coming up. super!

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Tell the ladies: Just because I have a dent in the side of my car doesn't mean I don't make a lot of money.

you have three kids!

had to kick einstein and oppenheimer off the top of the page and get back to what we do best here at GJAW: pander to the lowest common denominator.

In case you weren't paying attention, it was a crazy busy week over there at NASA. Bizarre love triangles, attempted kidnappings, pepper spray, and diapers all figured in one of those truth-is-stranger-than-whatever-crazy-shit-i-could-invent stories from CNN. and msnbc. and all the other news outlets.

The delusional woman in the photo has three kids and is married. but she got a little carried away in an affair and lost the plot. So she went on a revenge mission. She drove 800 miles from Texas to Florida, but she wore diapers so she wouldn't have to stop along the way for anything but gas. And crazy pills.

This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
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speaking of sad, i go back to work tomorrow. I've been off for two months. At least it's a short week.