Author: Dave

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just how i like it


Sunday night and, after a weekend spent cooking over a Coleman stove and warming frozen fingers in front of a campfire, I’m not at all looking forward to waking up and going to work. It was a good weekend though: eating the campground delicacies afforded by car-camping, walking with Keaton on the beach, and our little family huddling close in the tent to make the cold night a little more comfortable. Compared to stuff like that, work pales.

Now, since it’s Monday, you know I’ve got a new batch of photos uploaded to Keaton’s gallery. Including candids from camping, bathing, and and college football Saturdays. But, I’ve also got a new little tidbit of Keaton-news. Try and contain your excitement, but she’s finally cut her first tooth. It’s barely through, but it’s there. We tried tonight to take a picture tonight, but getting her to hold her mouth open isn’t an easy task. Anyway, it’s crazy how quickly she’s growing… and I just know she’ll be crawling around any day now. It’s too fast, really, it’s going waay to fast. Without going back and looking through photos from a month ago, it’s hard to even remember how different she was.

I know, Lonelygirl15 is over. I mean, she was interviewed on CNN, she made an appearance on the Tonight Show, she’s was on TRL for pete’s sake. But guys… and I know I swore never to write about this again… but guys… this cassieiswatching alternate reality game spinoff is really heating up. After watching the latest Cassie video, a freakish inverted creepshow featuring overt references to the murderous cult of Charles Manson, and which was also shot at the exact same locale as the last LG15 vlog.

The ARG professionals over at unfiction have arleady solved the first an second cassieiswatching videos (after they recovered items left at the same locations of LG15’s videos). The latest clue revealed a phone number and a cryptic voicemail, and I won’t bother documenting it further than there. So far, the “official” LG15 creators are denying that the cassieiswatching ARG (if that’s what it is) is part of what they’re calling the “Breeniverse,” but to me – it would be a spectacular plot device to start the LG15 videos, stage a fake “outing” of the cast, but have it all be part of the grander screenplay. An intricate ARG, of which the whole “LG15 is fake” thing was just an act.

In the “kinda freaky” department, they are building a Tolkien-inspired community near Bend, Oregon called the Shire. I wonder who will live there? Seriously, check out the video… incredible.

Goodnight folks, I love ya.

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neanderthal-moot


Thursday night. The ladies, including Sharaun, went out to have some drinks and talk about shoes and calories and Suri Cruise and shit like that. Meanwhile, back at the Bat Cave, the women suggested the abandoned men come together and have a night of bonding they could call their own. Man bonding, however, doesn’t really involve talking. Just TV watching, a case of Budweiser Select, and a 40-pack of Pizza Rolls. That, and, dad was left to get Keaton down – so I’d wager the women were able to cut loose a little more than our neanderthal-moot. But, let’s get serious y’all, how fun can cutting loose be when it’s comprised of Appletinis and gang-gossiping?

Is it me, or is Halloween now much more merchandised than I remember it being as a kid? I’ve been obsessed with Halloween since I was a kid, but I don’t remember it being anywhere near as commercialized as I see it today. Nowadays, come September, Halloween mega-stores pop up all over the place. They’re full of high-dollar assembly-line form-pressed scare-wares, fake blood and costumes galore. We had nothing like this when I was a kid. We went to Kmart and walked down the one costume aisle; the same aisle where, if you were lucky, there’d be a squeeze tube of fake blood left, and maybe a spraycan of hair color. Don’t get me wrong, I love the new Halloween, love the “made in China” 500% markup props strewn about suburban lawns.

Heck, I remember my brother and I stuffing a pair of dad’s old pants and a long-sleeved shirt with newspaper and old towels. We’d cinch a masked basketball to the stuffed torso, smear the whole thing with fake blood, and hang the whole thing from the basketball hoop. It looked great, right down to the tied-on shoes pretending to house feet. We’d stuff another dummy all broke-bodied into a plastic trashcan, not have light on either when the big night of trick-or-treating came around, and be absolutely giddy about the whole thing. I still like that “pioneer” style Halloween moxie, still like trying to create my own tombstones rather than buying the bulk ones from Target. To end this mess: I’m just glad Halloween is gettin’ the respect it’s so rightly owed.

Tomorrow if Friday, God-blessed Friday. I’m leaving early too, to head out to the coast for a weekend of camping. Since it’s family-style car camping, the normal rules of “primitive” camping are thrown out the window – and we’re free to haul in the big tent, air mattress, and coolers full of beer. Not only that, I can bring the iPod and portable speakers, and Erik’s bringing a small black and white TV so we won’t be college football deprived. I’m looking forward to huddling around a daytime fire to cut the chill, perpetually sipping a beer, and squinting to watch the action on the pitch. Good times.

‘Night.

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it and the was


Wednesday night, and the sparse entries continue as work has been somewhat of a wringer lately. Less time to capture random thoughts into the cellphone as that night’s blog ideas, or something. Or less desire to sit here writing them. Something like that. Going camping this weekend over by the sea, that’s called “coastal,” y’all (not “coastal” like the Florida slang-for-cocaine “coastal,” but real-life on-the-coast coastal). Supposed to be pretty chilly and windy, somewhere in the 40s. Guess we’ll have to huddle-up in the tent at nights. I’m looking forward to it as a slight getaway, and hoping it gives me that release. Moving on…

Sharaun and I have decided to pull out all the stops for our first Keaton-havin’ Halloween party. Not really for the party, but for us… as we’re planning to fly my folks in as babysitters. I just didn’t feel comfortable pressing forward with the planning while the question of who’d be watching Keaton lingered. Knowing my folks’ll be here and with her that night makes me feel much better about planning my yearly apex of personal debauchery. Although the party is actually pretty mild as parties go, I feel better with Keaton in good hands. Plus, my folks are planning to stay a couple extra days to hang out – and I’m glad they’ll get this “tweener” time (between regularly scheduled holiday visits) with Keaton. She’s changing so much, I know if I only got to see her every few months it’d be a different little person each time. For that reason, I wish we were closer to our parents. That, and we wouldn’t have to buy plane tickets to get grandparent-babysitters for our Halloween bash. Nah, I’m just effin’ with ya… it’s really the sentimental one.

I’m so excited for Fall and Winter to officially be here, for all these, and more I likely couldn’t think of, reasons:

  • Seeing Keaton in thick, snuggly, long-sleeved shirts and warm comfortable pants for the first time ever
  • Turning on our fake gas-powered fireplace
  • Grey rainy days spent inside wearing sweatpants
  • Halloween (Keaton’s first, by the way)
  • The smell of the air on a cold, dew-damp morning
  • Taking Keaton’s first pictures in a pumpkin patch
  • Not having to mow the lawn for months at a time
  • New albums getting “stuck” as wintertime albums in my head
  • Keaton’s first Christmas

Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome.

I was thinking the other night about how it’s sometimes hard to find certain bands on filesharing networks/sites. I’m talking about bands with very short, non-standard, or ridiculously common elements to their names. Most search engines have trouble with strings like “and” or “it” or roman numerals and symbols. I think it’d be funny to see and up and coming band “obscure” their work from easy filesharing-fishing by naming themselves “It and The Was,” their album as “I Be,” and simply naming their tracks as incremental roman numerals, I, II, III, IV, etc. Try weeding out the results for something as search-string un-friendly as that.

Goodnight folks, I love ya.

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entirely devoid of rhythm


‘Nother long day at work, this time starting at 7am for a meeting with those cagey Europeans and home at 6pm after closeted think-tank style meetings most of the day. I actually welcomed the brainstorming though, it’s fun to think occasionally. Sharaun is forcing me to watch some new dance-competition show. These infernal dance shows… am I the only person who just doesn’t get dancing? I mean, I see two people up there… bouncing around smiling… but I just can’t get an idea of “skill.” To me, it’s almost like that disease where people can’t discern one face from another. To me, it’s all walking around and spinning – I just can’t differentiate it. Sharaun claims this is because I am entirely devoid of rhythm… and I’m inclined to believe her. I just can’t see dancing. I figure that’s OK though, because it sucks. Oh, and I’m putting off getting up and doing the dishes… pretty standard stuff.

I’m tired of having to wait a few days for the latest leaked album, but am torn about begging invites to the biggest “zero-day” leak tracker sites… as I have visions of server raids netting memberlists and IPs and even share ratios. So, I’ve decided that the prestige of being 1st to the party just isn’t worth the time in jail – and I’ll wait until the stuff trickles down to the mid-level feeders like me. But dang, sometimes when I want to hear something… I want to hear something!

So, in what I hope is the last time I write about this, here are the two best wrapups of the whole LonelyGirl15 debacle. Enjoy.

Goodnight.

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a windows-open weekend


Sunday night went long at a social event, so I didn’t get time to do my normal writing nor my normal posting of pictures. This didn’t bother me. In fact, as the clock approached midnight and we were just settling down to a dessert of apple pie and ice cream, the realization hit me: “I’m not writing tonight.” Usually, if I’m out somewhere and know I haven’t written, I’ll get preoccupied thinking about having enough time to get something posted after getting home. Letting it go, so to speak, is nice. As soon as I square my OCD-self with going outside of routine, I get all rebel-proud and cool-calm. Yeah, so, being that I didn’t post Monday I suppose I can do the in-brief weekend roundup right here and right now:

It was an “open windows” kinda weekend, with the weather pleasantly warm and sunny. (This was a stray sentence, but I like it so it made the cut.)

There’s no more sleeping in at my house. When Keaton gets up, the family gets up. This new trend often finds me up and about before 7am on weekends, something that, until now, was rather foreign to me. In fact, I’m writing this paragraph right now early one Saturday morning. Sharaun left for Wal Mart at 8am, as by that time we had both been up and ready for some time. Strange, you know, how things work like that.

Changed the brakes on the Ford this weekend, and flew completely solo for the first time ever. I know, changing the brakes is literally six screws and a jack – but I was extremely proud of myself nonetheless. Being incredibly not mechanically inclined, any successfully mechanical task is belt-notch worthy for me. In fact, my success in this simple task has ignited a small fire of desire within me to get to know my vehicle more intimately. Indeed, I find myself pursuing the Chilton’s manual and trying to “learn,” soak up some information. I go back to the long exhaust manifold job that’s been in “I gotta get that done” phase limbo for a couple years now, I catch myself checking local Pick-n-Pull hours of operation and thinking about scavenging a new bucket seat or center console lid or passenger-side mirror. Some day I’d like to know what a differential does, or how to realign a transaxle (I have no idea if you can “realign” a transaxle… it just sounded all “gear”). Hell, I even added a TiVo season pass for Two Guy Garage I was so passionate about the grease under my nails and finally getting to use that economy-sized jug of Fast Orange I bought years ago.

Switching gears to Keaton, she had her six-months checkup at the baby-doctor last week. And, in case you were thinking of picking her in the fantasy baby draft, here are her latest stats: weight: 25th-50th percentile; height: 50th-75th percentile; head: 90th percentile. So, if she can manage not to pull her neck holding up that massive melon of hers, I think she’s got the makings of a strong season ahead of her. She’s definitely got the head-size advantage over most of the field… although she could stand to put one some pounds.

I also got her gallery updated, albeit a day late. Unfortunately, I moved to allowing only registered users to comment until I can create a better spam filter, so you’ll have to register (one-time only) should you desire to comment. You can check out the new pictures right here.

Today the iPod did some bizarre “random” shuffling. Back-to-back I heard Donovan’s “Lalena” and Deep Purple’s cover of the same song. And, as if to mock the rand() function even further, later in the shuffle set I heard Al Kooper’s “Season of the Witch” followed (no joke!) by Donovan’s original version. Insane.

In closing, did you know that, per capita, if America’s national debt were spread across the population, each person would carry a balance of -$2778.07 (balance/per capita and balance/GDP data). Ouch. The logic of us being dead-last on the “balance sheet” of all the countries in the world confuses me. Someone care to explain?

Oh, and this just in, LG15 is busted. A 19 year-old New Zealand born actress who recently moved to LA to jumpstart a career. Looks like it worked.

Goodnight.

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full of stuff today


Thursday, my head hurts. There’s some big fire somewhere out there in the part of the world within wind-reach of me, and it’s blanketed the lands as far as I can see with smoke. The smoke bothers me, even though I was only out in it briefly as I shuffled to work, lunch, and the like. Full of stuff today, and it’s a Friday so I’m super happy for the weekend. Let’s do this.

Sharaun always makes fun of me because when I’m around people with foreign accents, I tend to subconsciously appropriate their accents in my own speech. I always feel somewhat disgusted when she calls me out on it, since it seems to me to be some sort of “pandering.” In reality, I think I may have developed this ridiculous tactic as a part of my larger “making people comfortable” approach to gaining confidence. I’ve long been able to observe and simulate or respond to body language in order to give someone an unspoken message that we’re on the same page. I also consider myself pretty good at pegging a person’s personality and likes/dislikes quickly enough upon initial meeting so I can be sure to subtlety work within the confines of their comfort. I’ve never been a used car salesman, but I bet if I went on a reality TV show where it was my task to study under the tutelage of one of the best some of the first lessons he’d teach would involve honing techniques much like the ones I’ve already described. Small, seemingly insignificant verbal and non-verbal actions which serve to make a person comfortable, to ease their natural defenses and give them the impression that you’re a good guy – all based on reflecting little bits of themselves back to them. Because, after all, who’s everyones most trusted person? Themselves of course. The more you’re like someone, the more they relate to you.

So, now that I’ve admitted I use manipulative techniques to win friends and influence people, let’s get back to the point of this paragraph: my fake accents. I don’t know why I do it, and I usually don’t even realize when I’m doing it. It can range from a subtle Latino-tinge to full-on broken English approximations of my good buddies from Taiwan. So, if you ever hear me do this – call me out. Help me break this embarrassing habit. Thanks.

Even though I sit at a computer and type most of the day for a living, I still come home and type some more for pleasure. Usually though, I don’t like sitting at “the” computer, you know – the one in the back room with a big ol’ desk and CRT monitor and comfy office-type chair. No, no, that’s too much like my work environment. Kicking it with a laptop on the couch though, for some reason that’s different. Dunno why, but it is.

Went through the mail tonight, pretty much a bi-weekly (if that’s the incorrect term for “once every two weeks,” I’m sorry, I have a hard time deciding if it means that or twice per week) thing now. The “snail mail” is of almost zero value to me these days, it’s 90% advertisements and wasted paper and the actual “need” for it has been almost entirely eclipsed by e-mail and the internet. Who the heck needs paper these days anyway, I tell all my bills that will allow it to “stop sending paper statements” and go all-online. I don’t keep a check register, just check in online every few days to make sure things look right. It’s the new generation folks, better hip up.

Well, looks like the lid is juuust about blown off the whole Lonelygirl15 thing, all signs are currently pointing to it being a new form of Blair Witch derivative viral marketing – with most lines of thinking pointing to it being an advert for a Halloween-timed horror movie (perhaps even a mockumentary). With the whole registered trademark and cyber-sluething IPs to Beverly Hills talent agencies (not to mention a potential admission from “the creators”), it seems inevitable we’ll get the entire story here soon. Hey, it was fun while it lasted, and almost carried me through to the new season of Lost where I can once again assume my role as armchair detective. At least now I’ll quite writing about it, and spare you that small thing. (And damn, BoingBoing scooped me and once again made it look like I wrote this in response… I gotta start considering real-time posting if I wanna be hot on the shit.)

On the politics tip, I had a hearty guffaw reading this story over at the America Weakly website. America Weakly is a “satirical newspaper designed to give voters a glimpse into the future if Democrats take control of Congress this fall. Set in September of 2007, the newspaper reflects the condition of the America one year after a Democrat takeover of Congress.” In the story titled partly “Dems Celebrate End of Bush Security Measures,” the GOP Onion wannabe invents a hilarious fictitious statement from a House Democratic leader about the current administration’s NSA “wiretapping” goings-on:

“This program was a clear violation of due process,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said. “I don’t care how many attacks it might have stopped. Even if there really are sleeper cells in this country, we have a careful and deliberate process to stop them. Yes, it might take a bit longer, and we might not get every single bit of information, but that’s a small price to pay.”

Get more funny-’cause-it’s-freaky-not-because-it’s-funny Democratic-House endtimes GOP paranoia over at America Weakly. And, for some we-swear-it’s-not-pandering donkey goodness, head over to FaithfulDemocrats.com and count yourself shocked to see that it’s (purportedly) possible to hate guns and still love Jesus.

Goodnight.

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fun to do


Wednesday night, got here blessedly fast thanks to the long weekend. Spent most of the evening helping Pat try to install a new water heater (flashbacks to the beginnings of sounds familiar). We got it installed, but didn’t leave much time for writing. But, after I sat down, things worked out and I got all the crap below. Let’s get to that crap now, huh? Good.

Some (more than) one-liners:

Sometimes, in the morning on the way to work, I turn the music up so loud it hurts my ears. This morning, I had the iPod on shuffle and “The Good Life” from Weezer’s Pinkerton came on. That album ties to a lot of great memories for me, so I turned the knob to at least eleven and ground my teeth in defiance as my ears protested the deafening sharp tinny cymbal. I know this is a dumb thing to do, but I enjoy it.

I have a deck of cards I keep at my desk at work, I am constantly shuffling them around in my hand as the time passes. I’m not sure why, but I like having something to manipulate while I think or work. I use them so much that I’ve had to retire two previous decks, and am thinking it’s about time to ditch my current. I went from a generic-backed deck to a Hawaiian hulagirl deck, to my current Harley Davidson deck. The edges get saturated with oils from my hands, and the cardstock begins to swell and flare. There’s a faint yellow outline creeping inward from the edges towards the center of each card, that oil beginning to take over. Sometimes cards stick together as their raised edges hitch on each other. I like the way the well-handled cards smell, I know this is odd. Time for a new deck, I think I’ll open the Beatles one.

I’ve always been a fan of thinking-puzzles of all kinds. From watching HBO’s BrainGames as a kid to solving weekly “lateral thinking” puzzles in my “gifted class.” I absolutely hated those ones where six people had two traits each and you had to fill out some huge cross-referenced matrix using the process of elimination to decide who had red hair and a puppy; what’s the fun if you can just stumble on the answer visually? I think that’s part of the reason I get so intrigued by these online “alternate reality games” like the Lost Experience and, now, LonelyGirl15 (if that’s indeed what this is). I can remember when I bought the game Myst for my old Packard Bell. I sat for hours playing that game, eating up the logic puzzles and secret passages. I can recall sitting at my PC late one night, navigating first-person style through a series of mine shafts. I had realized that, at each multi-tunnel junction, the game would make a different sound. I started associating the sounds with directions, north, south, etc. Turns out this was the right approach. So there I am, sitting at my desk listening intently to discern a “dink” from a “donk” from a “poing,” when I’m nearly scared out of my skin by someone knocking on my bedroom window. Turns out it was a girl, come for a late-night encounter. Myst was awesome, but I had priorities…

Every time we go camping up in the hills I notice the sign posted at the campground that reads something like “14 day maximum stay.” It always makes me think about camping on a longer-term basis than the typical city-folk weekender trip, perhaps even taking up a nomadic style of life bouncing from one max campground stay to the next. It’ well known that I have an obsession with “lean” living like this, although I’m not the most exemplary of the lifestyle – it’s nonetheless attractive to me. I remember when a buddy of mine bought a house from a workplace acquaintance, the now displaced fellow moved into a tent at a local public campground. He was still getting up in the morning and going to work, still doing the daily grind, but at night he’d head home to a tent. Something about that was very woodsman-romantic and Thoreau-ish to me, and I always thought it would be fun to do.

I’ve long realized that I outfit myself with a regularly recurring set of clothing. Each week, my limited array of ensembles repeats itself in some way. I don’t even wait two weeks. Oh, sure sometimes I “mix it up” and wear the green shirt I wore last week with jeans with khakis instead, but the variation doesn’t get much more varied than that. I don’t mind this, actually… it doesn’t bother me. I have probably six pairs of shorts which I wear, three pairs of jeans, two khaki longpants, and maybe fifteen to twenty shirts. That’s it. Nothing more. So, I recycle. I mate that grey company polo with the jean shorts and the khaki cargos, sometimes I’ll tuck in that avocado-colored one, sometimes not – all depends on what kind of fashion statement I feel like making.

Goodnight friends and lover(s). Marinate on that parenthetical ‘S’ for a while.