Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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living in a treehouse or driving a skateboard to work

Hi what goes here?
Oh yeah? What you gonna do about it then? Mess me up huh? I’d like to see that. Step to me fool and let’s see. Don’t make me drop the hammer on your ass, ’cause I’m ready. Step back.

Guys, for real. I’m so excited about my sprinklers almost being done. How gay is that? It’s a huge accomplishment for me though, so I can accept the gayness. Oh, and by the way, I still haven’t stopped using the word “gay” to mean stupid or lame. I think I’m fairly conscious of political correctness, and can operate within its standards most of the time – but I’m just not ready to give up that gradeschool “gay means stupid” thing. So to all you homos, I got mad love for you – but gay means stupid. Sorry. Wait, homos isn’t PC either? Aww man, a brother can’t win.

The other night at Anthony’s, Bronte was playing MASH with some of the ladies. For those who didn’t have a childhood, or whose brains are time-addled and have forgotten – MASH was a kind of “fortune telling” game centered around how your life will turn out. In the 80’s version (which I played), you picked four chicks, for cars, four kid counts, and four locations on earth. Then you draw a spiral and count through all the options to see who you’ll marry, where you’ll live, what kinda car you’ll drive, and how many kids you have. Man, I remember always having my fingers crossed for Alyssa Milano, she was so friggin’ hot on Who’s the Boss. To make it fun you always had to stick one stinker in each category, you know, like, living in a treehouse or driving a skateboard to work. Then there was always that one cootie-ridden girl who’d be the “gross” one in the wife category. For us we had to marry Beth Somethingorother, oh how we hated her. An ugly boy-hating girl with a penchant for nuts-kicking, she was always the “stinker.” She was so butch, I bet she turned out gay (and this time I mean gay-gay, like gay. Y’know?)

Anyway, we were playing MASH and making “cootie catchers” (which are little four-peaked origami fortune tellers), and I was transported back to the 5th grade. All I needed was a swingset, a game of dodgeball, and to be overly proud of some crotchal peachfuzz – and I’d be back in time. I think I ended up marrying Hilary Duff and having “a google” of kids (that sucks), driving a ’63 Stingray and living in a shack underwater. Improbable? Yeah, sure. Horrible? Hard to say. I can kinda see myself transporting our immeasurable offspring across the coral reefs in the Stingray. Yeah, Hilary Duff, what?

Dudes, I can’t tell and didn’t notice at the time… but is that a bare titty in my post’s image from yesterday? I swear I see nip. OK guys (and gals), I’m outta here.

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not going to write today

Lazy
I am not going to write today, even though the entry is written – I reviewed it before posting and have concluded that it sucks. It is my right. Instead, read this and you will laugh.

Also, by 8:20am I had decided I would do no work at work today. Nothing, not a damn thing. Weekend here I come. Dave out.

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there’s aardbarks up in there

Finely tuned scientific equipment.
I dunno if it was just laziness or what, but we were all supposed to go see another show tonight (Pretty Girls Make Graves, right here in Sac) – and I bailed. Mostly because Sharaun had a late meeting at school and wouldn’t be getting home until 8ish – and I knew she’d be tired from her 2hrs sleep last night. I just felt the evening would be better served if we just crashed on the couch and hung out with each other. So, we did. She picked up some Mexican on her way home – and we ate our dinner out of styrofoam boxes while watching the season finale of the OC. Well, I watched it at least – she fell asleep about halfway through. Which is good, because it’d be awful embarrassing if she’d seen me bawling as Marissa hit that bottle of vodka. What have you done Ryan?, what have you done?!

Dan (the same guy who’s insinuated in the comments that the blog has, or is about to, “jump the shark” – punk) has been taking karate lessons for a while. While he was telling me all about what he’s learned, which thus far has been limited to defense moves, I got an idea. See, I’ve always been curious about how effective karate lessons really are. I mean, I’m led to believe that a black belt in karate could kick my butt. But what about the karate noob? How much better are your defense skills for a couple month’s lessons? So, Dan and I devised a plan. I will attack him with all I’ve got – no holds barred street-brawl-ignorant fighting. Just a hail of fists and throwing my weight around. During my furious assault, Dan can only use the defenses and blocks that karate has taught him. This way, we see if karate is real. I know, totally scientific, right? We figured there’d probably need to be some beer involved – just to loosen up the muscles and improve mental focus… and video documentation couldn’t hurt.

In high school, I was messing around with the tape recorder one day and figured out I could wire the microphone input directly into the earpiece of the phone. This inevitably led to the tape recording of prank phone calls. In the beginning, it was simply a few guys sitting around drinking, smoking (cough, cough), and recording prank phone calls. But shortly after our first 90min compilation tape, “Volume One,” made it’s way around school – each “recording session” became a small party. More and more people heard our pranks and wanted to be around when “Joey Cora” and “Pete Metacalf” made the calls. Over the course of a couple years, we made so many prank phone calls we couldn’t count them all. After each “session,” it was my job to edit down the resulting hours of calls into the best and funniest for inclusion in the next “Volume” of calls. We ended up with four 90min cassettes, Volumes One through Four, and one 45min unedited tape dubbed the “sober session.”

The goal was always to be as stupid as possible, to see how much people would put up with. There was always an unwritten rule that you should try to cram in as much foul language as possible – because everyone knows cussing is comedy gold. Often the calls were so thick with our stupid sense of humor and drunken notions of jokes that they were only side-splittingly funny to us, but listening back on some of them I still get a laugh. The dumber the response from the people on the other line, the bigger the kick we got out of it. The angrier and uglier you could be right off the bat, the better. It’s amazing what people are willing to put up with, especially when you can clearly hear several kids just cracking up in the background.

Although I’ve never fully converted the Volumes to CD, a few years ago I began a project to digitize them all and give copies to the prank crew for Christmas. I never got finished, mainly because we don’t own a cassette deck – but I did get the whole of Volume One ripped to CD. While working on the GDM project last night I happened upon the raw CD rips. So, I decided to clean up a couple calls an turn them into MP3s. So, here – for the first time on the ‘net – some samples of our first prank calls. I estimate that Volume One was made sometime in 1992, and you can tell we were just warming up. Some of the stuff on Volume Four puts this stuff to shame. Anyway, for your listening pleasure:

[audio:SCUBA_tanks.mp3]
SCUBA Tanks

[audio:Fireplace.mp3]
Didn’t Catch on Fire Like a Fireplace

[audio:Gold.mp3]
I Have an Allergic Reaction to Gold?!

[audio:Aardbarks.mp3]
There’s Aardbarks Up In There

That’s if for today folks, I’m outta here. Enjoy.

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not everyone can smell sneezes?

As bad as farts, I swear.
Sick day yesterday. Stayed home to recuperate. Partially from this bug that I’ve got, partially because I foolishly stayed up through 2am the night before. Anyway, the combo of both was too much to bear, so I shot out a “I’m sick” mail and did my work/meetings from home.. bare-chested with the windows open and Andy Griffith on the TiVo. And, if you promise not to tell my boss – I even managed to triumph over my illness and sneak a quick lawn-mowing in between meetings. Forever the rebel.

Last night was another late night, after DCfC and Ben Kweller at the Fillmore, don’t think my head hit the pillow until 2am. Bummer, because it made the 6:45am alarm sound even more taunting than usual. But, I made it.. and am now happily giving another day to the man. It was a good show though, and we once again demonstrated excellent timing – showing up just in time to see the mediocre opening act (The Thermals) exit and Ben Kweller take the stage. We were delayed a bit because Anthony drove, and crashed into a tow-truck on the highway. We had to exit, at which point we were surrounded by four tow-trucks, boxing us in from every side as if they had deemed us “high risk for flight” or something. The tow-truck driver made a big stink about filing a report so we had to wait for the CHP to come and whatnot. Stupid. Neither vehicle was damaged, the guy was just a jerk.

So, apparently not everyone can smell sneezes? When did this happen? Ben and I happened to be talking the other day about how much sneezes stink – only to receive blank stares from the other people in the room. They actually thought we were daft for suggesting that sneezes have a smell. Well, let me tell you – they do, and it’s nasty. You guys really can’t smell them? Must be nice, because they are nauseating. I’m not talking about your own sneezes, but the sneezes of others. I guess I have been blessed with this superpower.

I got nothing, I’m outta here. I’ll write a proper entry for tomorrow later tonight.

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the familiar halfhearted midnight trip

Tim Leary says I should drop out.
I’m totally gonna build a “dream machine.” It’s this thing that this dude from the 50’s invented which supposedly can be used to induce hallucinations (read: epileptic seizures). Basically, it’s just a rotating cardboard tube with a lightbulb inside that makes the light pulse at the same rate as your brain’s alpha-waves? which apparently makes you trip balls. Sounds about as awesome as bananadine.

We got this funny note on our doorstep the other day, and thought I’d share it because it really made me laugh. It’s typed up and printed on a multicolored inkjet printer all professional-like. See, this lady, Inna, wants to be our housekeeper? and she’s distributing these fliers to let us know she wants our business. “ARE YOU SEEKING RESPONCIBLE ,ORGANISED HOUSE CLEANER? YOU GOT IT!” Shouts the bold red text on the top of the page. “INNA IS ENERGETIC HOUSEKEEPER WITH LARGE JANITORIAL EXPERIENCE.” Really?! Tell me more! “INNA IS GOOD ON HER HANDS.” Wha? “INNA WILL BE RESPONCIBLE FOR GENERAL LABOR DUTIES TO KEEP YOUR HOUSE CLEAN.” Sweet! “SHE WILL SWEEPING, SCRUBBING, MOPPING, REMOUVING REFUSE, CLEANING LAVATORIES, SHOWERS OR RESTROOMS.” She will?! Oh boy! “INNA WILL KEEP YOUR HOUSE. IF INTERESTED PLEAS CALL.” Inna will keep my house? Umm.. no thanks Inna. Inna need spellcheck, bad. Sorry Inna.

Whoa, you know what’s weird? Inna might have spellcheck, because when I just ran it – it didn’t flag any of the misspelled words I transcribed from Inna’s note in the above paragraph. Strange.

Anyway, the weekend was good. I’ve been feeling rather ill lately, so I didn’t do any taxing work in the backyard this weekend – which means the sprinkler-awaiting trenches currently crisscrossing our backyard are still pining for PVC. Owell, one weekend lost, what’s the damage really? Saturday I decided to do absolutely nothing during the day. And, I mean nothing. I sat in front of this computer for most of the day – after doing about of “house cleaning” on the TiVo. Catching up on some Andy Griffith, Simpsons, and Scrubs. Then I just sat here and ripped CDs? all day. Got over 40 done by the time evening rolled around and it was time to celebrate Melissa’s birthday. By celebrate I mostly mean a drunken dinner party at our house, capped off by the familiar halfhearted midnight trip to the local pub for one last beer in some attempt to say we really “went out.”

Sunday I was feeling pretty bad, but decided to make a go at it by heading to the river with the crew. I didn’t go in the water, due to my sickness, but I did have a great time lounging in the sun and watching people wakeboard. If there’s one thing I did learn this weekend, it’s that beer doesn’t cure a cold – not that I didn’t try, but it just doesn’t work.

At one point on the boat Sunday I invented a new sitting position. I sat backwards on the back seat, with my back propped against the engine thing? so I was looking directly out the back of the boat, my feet dangling over the ski platform. If I laid my head back I could look up at the passing sky and riversides, and just see the two other backseat passengers out of the corners of my vision. I sat like that for an hour or so while we tugged people around and made our way downriver. Just sat there staring up at the sky listening to music, bouncing my feet and signing along loudly. Maybe it was the beer, but it was awesome. It’s just so “nothing’s going on” that I love it. I’m pretty sure people were laughing at me, but hey, that’s always the goal right?

Nothing more. Dave out.

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freeze-camping

It's a GIS for "writer's block."
I guess I just haven’t had much time to write, and there’s been so much going on in my head. I keep thinking of fun things to write about, but keep running out of time to write them down. Hopefully now I’ll have a little more time to keep up with things, it was just an insane weekend… really.

So yeah. A long, and well received, weekend. Paintball on Friday, freeze-camping and hiking in the snow in Yosemite on Saturday and Sunday, and a Sacramento-to-Oakland yacht trip on Monday. I learned I like bloody marys, Sharaun and I took shelter from the snow under a rock, I found out I’m either OK at, or got lucky at, paintball, and I’ve still got it. Indeed, it was a fine weekend. Being so busy, the blog suffered some. I don’t really mind though, as it was nice to have an extended break from writing – gives me a chance to build up something to actually write about.

You know how some people change the letters on the back of their pickup trucks to say things like “toy” or “yo” instead of Toyota? Well the other day I pulled up to a Ford F150 Lariat Edition at a stoplight. I was thinking, if you took off the ‘T’ and completed the bottom round of the capital ‘R,’ you could make it the F150 “LABIA” edition. That cracked me up for a good minute or so.

More better to come this week, I promise. Dave out.

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guitars and falsetto voices

Throw 'em up! Throw 'em up ya'll! What what. When I say ho you say ho... ugh...
Gonna be a short one, no time to write last night so I’m cobbling something together now. Things are at ludicrous speed in preparation for my Taiwan trip next week, I’ve got to generate a lot of material for the trip, and it ain’t gonna happen unless I keep a pretty tight schedule.

In the throes of our refi, dealing with appraisers and brokers and whatnot. Conversing with neighbors about the seemingly too-good-to-be-true appreciation rates, it’s all so grown-up. Mowing lawns and planting trees and cleaning, I’ve become suburban Joe America. If I end up cooking burgers on the grill in the backyard while the kids and dog play in the sprinklers, my conversion to a 50’s sitcom stereotype will finally be complete.

Man was I wrong about the show last night. For some reason, I thought we were going to see N.E.R.D open for the Roots. Turns out the Roots weren’t even playing – I still have no idea where I got that from. Not only that, N.E.R.D. was the headliner, and the Black Eyed Peas opened for them. My first rap concert. Clipse opened the entire show, playing some of the radio staple “drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, spend and make lots of money, and be sure to have lots of sex all the time” tunes I expect from rap. But the BEP and N.E.R.D. were different, each with a real backing band and the stage presence so sorely absent from the Clipse entourage. The tone of the show changed from “look at me rap I’m so rich and I just had sex with your girlfriend,” to “we’re here to entertain you and have a good time.” Anyway, above all – it was still a rap show, and I am still not that big a fan of rap. N.E.R.D. is more rock than anything, and both they and the BEP were entertaining enough. But for some reason I just can get into them like I can a bunch of nerdy dudes with guitars and falsetto voices. Go figure.

We didn’t end up getting home until around 2:30am, which means Sharaun got only 2hrs sleep before waking up for work. I wonder if we consciously hold our pee while we sleep? Dave out.