Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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it’s not good, but there’s new pictures


Tuesday night, fresh from a post-work trip to the bar for some beer-fueled conversation. It’s essential, you know, to “hang out” with your workplace compatriots… I’m convinced that it’s one of the single most effective things you can do to increase your stock at the old sawmill. A beer and candid conversation go miles and miles when it comes to relationship-building – the Japanese have it down.

Well, changed the blog’s layout – reduced the page area to 900px wide. I know this matters not to most folks, but, to me, it means some folks with more wimpy screen resolutions might be able to see some more green framing the center white text area – which was my intent when choosing this new layout. So, hopefully your user experience is a little greener now – just as it should be. In other blog news, I’ve been sporadically working on my upcoming half-2007 “best of” list, as has become tradition here at sounds familiar. I know you’re simply wet with anticipation, but it’s not right to publish it before sometime around mid-June… so sit tight.

Found out today that I missed out on tickets for the Smashing Pumpkins’ reunion run at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I wasn’t paying attention, honestly, and wasn’t really sure I wanted to go. Having heard the new song, however, as well as watched the internet buzz build (even PF is saying the new single is “not that bad”) – I’m now kicking myself. What’s worse, they sold out and eleven night run (well, not really a run, but close), and the Fillmore shows are on of only two “engagements” (one on the west coast, one on the east) they’re doing. That’s eleven times over the Fillmore’s capacity – and we missed out. For me, it would’ve been a pretty important concert – marking the tenth time I’d have seen the Pumpkins live (if you count the various band configs). Ten times is a lot for one band. I’m still cautiously optimistic about the album, and I don’t like that new song all that much – but it is fun to listen to. I think this comment on stereogum pretty much sums it up for me:

I must admit, the chubby, depressed high schooler still somewhere in my subconscious is pretty stoked from reading that setlist. And I really don’t hate that first single like…even a little bit. It’s not spectacular, but it’s certainly not terrible either. Maybe this comeback could actually be more than Billy Corgan in need of some fast cash and an ego stroke?

Yeah… dang… guess I’ll have to put Sharaun on Craigslist watch for tickets.

Been getting a lot of requests for new Keaton pictures lately, soooo… I uploaded some tonight. Hope you enjoy them!

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homecoming


Friday at last. Still some formatting issues I need to clear up with the blog’s new look, but haven’t had time. Mostly I want to change the recent comments styles, and some other sidebar issues in general. But, as I said, I’m happy enough to roll with it for now. Sharaun flexed her hospitality tonight and served a nice outdoor for friends. It was nice, and I really enjoyed it. In fact…

I’ve noticed something wonderful happening to me lately. Every day, as I get in my car to head home from the old sawmill, my attitude begins to turn. I mean, despite my day – its busyness, its stress and its tension, its race-the-clock mind-tangling multitasking – the thought of being imminently home turns my head right around.

Today, for instance, was mind-numbingly busy, and the work wasn’t easy… it required a lot of thinking, and by 5pm my brain was stretched and weary. I was frustrated, I was tired, and I was a little zombified. But, as I got into the car and thought about tossing Keaton around on the couch watching her smile and hearing her squeal… my cares started to fade. Who cares about work? Who cares about schedules and to-dos and responsibilities? You can take all that and poop it right out of your butthole, that’s what you can do.

My mind is almost always wandering. For me, my devoted attention is a rare thing. Usually, I only give this when I’m 1) in love with you (overtly or covertly), 2) drunk enough to be carefree, or 3) genuinely and intently interested in you and your story. I know this is a dickish trait, but it’s me. So, I’m almost always daydreaming, thinking, meandering, making up little imaginary scenarios, etc. So, sometimes, when I’m sitting there talking to you, I’ll hang my left arm over the side of the couch, or the back of the chair, or whatever. I’ll hang it just so, so that the bloodflow is cutoff high up near my armpit. I’ll watch my hand mottle and feel my fingers tingle as my circulation slows. I’ll look for the color to change under my fingernails, and my hand to feel thick and dumb. Then, I’ll imagine my left arm is numb because I’m having a heart attack. I’ll pretend to watch my life flash by my eyes, pretend to wonder why I didn’t go for more jogs, take more long walks, get a gym membership.

Man, you realize I linked to my 98th blog in this entry? This is my 1,310th. Don’t be so impressed, it’s not entirely sequential, and there are less posts (788, to be precise). Still, that was over 900 entries ago… and I like that.

Goodnight.

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perfectly pastoral


Tonight, I took Keaton to the suburbs.

No, seriously, it was awesome. Around 7pm, I decided we were going to go for a walk. I got together all my baby-walking gear (bottle of water, sippy of juice, long pants for Keaton in case it cools off before we get home, and the iPod for dad), and we struck out. I decided we’d walk over to see Pat & Cynthia, friends of ours who live nearby. It was a great walk, we passed people waving from trucks, fatsos jogging off college and Big Macs, skinnies jogging because they “enjoy it,” and were even serenaded by a highschool girl practicing her flute on the porch. It was perfectly pastoral: manicured lawns and American flags in the sun, music wafting from open garages where men tweaked their “project” cars, wanna-be longhairs skateboarding around in the cul-de-sac – like walking through some sort of modern-day Mayberry.

On the way back, after some make-nice at our destination, we retraced our steps, now in the shade of the trees and houses as the sun slipped away towards eight o’clock. About two-thirds home, I saw a man hugging a woman on the curb. She craned and kissed his cheek, he said something I was too far away to overhear, and she walked off across the street to her car, fumbling for her keys in her purse while the man just stood and looked on. As I neared, I greeted him, “How ya doin’?” He looked at Keaton, smiled, and replied, pointing across the road towards the girl, “I can remember when she was like that.” I laughed and bent close to Keaton to jokingly say, “Don’t you ever grow up like that, OK?” “Bye-bye,” she replied (as she often does). The man and I shared a laugh, and we walked on. Yeah, then the “Beatles'” remake of Lennon’s “Real Love” demo came on, y’know, the one from the Anthology series… I totally almost cried.

Today, I took I “longish” lunch (again, I have this sense of entitlement about deserving a little “break” from work these days) and went to a local steel place with Anthony. We were pricing out the metal we’d need to build me a “Santa Maria style” pit barbecue. I’ve written about my fascination with these types of “old school” grills before, and had been planning to buy one in preparation for the Summer this year. Lately though, I began thinking about just how simplistic the things are in construction. I floated the idea to Anthony the other day that we could likely make one ourselves on the cheap.

See, Anthony not only has the tools, a plasma cutter and welder and various others, but he’s mechanical. So, in essence, I asked if I could help while Anthony makes the thing – knowing full-well that he’s always looking for excuses to use his gear. Plus, I want to take the chance to learn how to do some simple welding and cutting and metalwork. So, we drew up some plans, mostly based on this BBQ, and calculated what we’d need. About $150 later, we’d picked out all our material and were paid up. We’ll go back and pick up the goods on Wednesday, after it’s all cut from stock and set aside for us. Then, we’ll go to work. With luck, the thing could be done in a weekend or two. Now to get some high-temp paint, find a source of aged oak, and I’m good to go.

Well folks, that’s about it for tonight. I have dishes to do and I’m right up against my 9pm blog-stop deadline. Have a good one, goodnight.

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on the eve of travel


Sunday night and I’m supposed to be headed downtown to see a sweet concert we’d all been looking forward too. But, alas, the sweet concert got canceled. Needless to say, we were all (those of us who’d scored tickets to the sold out show) quite bummed. However, I can’t help but think this is an example of divine intervention. See, I leave for Germany on Tuesday. Flying out for a breakneck four-day trip where two of the days will be spent traveling. Back into the heart of Bavaria for handcrafted beers and wonderful sausages.

But, as fun as it sounds – I am going for a reason: work. And, this time, that means I’ll need to give a presentation to a customer while there. Being that I’m presenting a world away in just a few days, you’d think I’d have some content written, reviewed, and practiced. Truth is, I haven’t done slide-one. I knew this coming off Friday, and kept telling myself I’d have to knuckle-down and do some work over the weekend, but I very knowingly ate up all my weekend time doing all things not-work instead. So, when the show was canceled, it was like God giving me my work time. Now, I can solve my problem of having to have 90% material sent out before my 7am PST meeting tomorrow. Thanks Lord, now I can work ’til midnight.

It’s OK though, because I’ve already decided that work owes me tomorrow. Not just me, but my family too. Yep, work owes me some time with them, since work’s taking it away with travel quite a bit lately. So, I’m calling in my debt, and work’s gonna make good. More specifically, I’m taking the day “off” tomorrow. Sure, I don’t really mean taking a vacation day – but I do mean a nice “phoning it in” day spent working from the couch with a bluetooth headset. It’ll be good for me before I go, spend a day with Sharaun and Keaton – even though I’ll likely be distracted – should be worth it.

I did some things today, so it was OK. First, I shaved off my beard. Completely shaved off my beard, gone. I saw two people who I’d just seen the other day (when I was still bearded), and they didn’t even notice. Not that I did it (or didn’t do it) to get a reaction, just that it obviously meant more to me than it did anyone else. When it was gone, I actually regretted it – my face looked young and fat and the faux-chinline the hair give me was gone. Now though, I’m already used to it. So much for my fantasy of having a bushy beard at the Arcade Fire show (which, come to think of it, was a pretty odd fantasy). Also today, I planted some fruit trees. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, and I ended up putting in a plum, apricot, and orange. With the dirt like it is here, just digging the holes to plant trees is a workout – pummeling rocks with the breaker-bar and whatnot. I also watered the garden, which is doing quite well. Here, some pictures:

Before I go, I’ll drop a link to Keaton’s gallery, which I’ve updated for the first time in a while Enjoy some new images here.

Goodnight.

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i crush your heart


Hey, long-dark-hair girl, I know you were here. I found some of you on my carpet today, while I was down there playing with my daughter. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, leaving pieces of you around like that. Maybe you think you can tempt me away from my idyllic family-man lifestyle, perhaps into some fiery tryst with you. You may have visions of my face, framed in your lilting dark tresses, lips locked to yours. Yes, long-dark-hair girl, you may think that your devious body-part scavenger hunt has tantalized me, aroused my curiosity. But, I’m sorry to say, I’m pretty firmly rooted here where I am. I already have a girl, she has blonde hair (at least, to the eyes). So, let me be clear when I say: Your siren song may lead weaker men to dash themselves against your supple shoals, but not I. While I must admit, the brute in me wondered of you – what used to be hooked to the end of your hair: the shape of it, the feel, the smell. A well-placed gambit, I’ll allow, but I’m immovable. I crush your heart. Live with it.

Hey peoples, it’s the blog intro, one paragraph into the blog (because I can do that). It’s Thursday night, coming up on a Friday that happened faaast. The week, feeling somewhat abbreviated by the trip to Oregon, seems to be ending so soon. Today was warm, and I swear I’m not kidding when I say that all those piping hot gamma rays and that UV whatsitcalled made my fledgling garden double in size. Every night when I get home from work I go out there, Keaton on my shoulders, to inspect the day’s progress. I slowly show her each plant, naming it and pointing to it, then tell her what food we’ll eventually get from it. “This is a tomato plant,” I say, “it gives us ketchup and spaghetti sauce.” Sometimes we touch the tomato leaves and smell our fingers, the pungent smell seems to interest her.

Yeah, Keaton and I, we love that garden. It’s too bad though, that so do the ants. That’s right, I knew when I cleared the space for my planter that I had hit “ant city.” I didn’t really think much of it at the time, although it was easily the biggest congregation of the critters I’ve seen since moving out of fireant-infested Florida. I did my best to wash them away as I was installing the box, but it seems they’ve rebuilt and are now located somewhere in the depths of the earth directly below my garden. This is bad, for numerous reasons. Number one, they are already damaging plants. They’ve chewed up the fresh bean leaves. Number two, the internet says the tunnels and catacombs that are the ants’ houses below my plants can damage roots and whatnot. I gotta kill some ants, y’all! The internet says some pure clove oil mixed into a sprayer will get ’em for good without having to resort to harsh pesticides. So, to the local apothecary I’ll go. These ants must not jeopardize our harvest!

For about two days now, I’ve been listening to nothing but Yes’s Close to the Edge. An album which, until two weeks ago, I’d never heard in my life. I love it when I find albums like this; those which escaped my original rampage of discovery back in the day. Sometimes I get a little shocked, actually. How could such an incredibly radical album have flown under my radar for so long? I mean, I didn’t even really know the story of the album’s role as the cornerstone of the prog-rock movement – I was completely in the dark. It hurts a music snob’s pride, you know, to come upon albums like this. But, it also makes me glad to have found it. I tell you what, this album is amazing… even if you’re no fan of “prog,” you gotta give it up.

Anybody listening?

Goodnight.

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green pushes through

Learning.
Tuesday night and I had Keaton again – Sharaun’s volleyball game. Although it may sounds like Sharaun is a deadbeat mom (you know, for how often I’m left alone to tend to Keaton and all), I rather like our alone-time. We play trivia games while we listen to music (I quiz her on bassists and drummers and rock ‘n’ roll genealogy), we wrestle, we read books – we do all sorts of stuff. Besides, before Sharaun left, she cooked us a fine meal and fed Keaton – I can’t ask for much more than that. Oh, and while she was cooking, I headed out to do my 2nd daily check of my garden (I go out once in the morning, and once at night) and I was pleased to find that 90% of the corn seeds I planted have sprouted, as well as the okra. I’m happy to see the green push through, as it looks like the whole thing won’t be a miserable failure after all.

All this talk of the “violent” writings of the Virginia Tech shooter in the news lately brought back some memories for me. Back in middle school, I was pretty into the macabre, y’know, horror movies and Stephen King novels and specifically – into gore. Now, I have never been, and still am not, much for real-life blood – I’m pretty wimpy when it come to that – but I had then, and still have now, a penchant for writing. And, back then, I used to write all kinds of things. For a while there, and this is where this paragraph starts to close in on its topic-sentence, I swear, I started writing little ultra-violent “serials” that I would give to my buddy Joey every day. I would use typing class to do this, as we often had periods of just “free typing,” where you could do whatever you wanted as long as your hands banged the keys for forty minutes. So, I’d type all sorts of things: funny stories, song lyrics and poems I’d pass off as my own work, solid pages of random words for the patterns and shapes it generated, and, for a while, gore. It was that gore that got me thinking, as the news chatters on about the “disturbing” nature of Mr. Shooter’s writing. Well, for what it’s worth, what I’ve read seems rather tame compared to the twisted crap my 7th grade brain turned out:

After I had stabbed him about seven or eight times he stumbled off into the darkness, wandering, hoping a car might come down the road and save him. Blood was gushing out between his fingers and his eyes were turning pink. He begged me, “Please, no more, I’ll give you anything! Just don’t kill me please, leave me alone!” So I picked up my knife and proceeded to cut open his chest with the precision of a master surgeon. I couldn’t see anything but blood, all over my hands and drenching my body, dripping from my hair, and running down my legs.

After I had made a pretty big incision, he started to sit on the ground and twitch while sort of gurgling a little. I then felt the urge to plunge my hands into his open wound and pull out his pulsating heart. When I did this I found that is was not easy to discern if you are holding a man’s heart in your hand or just grasping at loose organs that were floating around inside. So I just grabbed the biggest handful of slop I could grab with my own two hands. I pulled it out and looked at it: some parts looked looked like little strands of spaghetti, but others looked like what you would see if you put a tomato in the blender and watched it whirl.

I brought the steaming pile of organs to my lips and pressed them against my face, the warm flow of blood trickling down my arms onto my chest, and the soft gurgling coming from this man I has just destroyed. All in all, I felt like it was a good kill, but I needed more to satisfy my sudden urge to watch death.

So I pulled a child about three or four years old off the street after school and into my car. He was asking me what I was going to do with him. I inconspicuously pushed the radio on, but also turned on the cigar lighter with it. In about ten minutes I pulled over to the side of the road and told the boy to take off his shirt. He wouldn’t do it though, so I hit him first and told hi I would kill him if he didn’t do what I wanted him to do. So he complied with my demands and removed his shirt. I pulled out the read-hot lighter and pressed it firmly against his soft back. His cries and screams of agony only fueled me to do even more gruesome feats to him.

After about three minutes with a cigar lighter pushed into his back the boy began to get tired of crying, so I took it off to reveal the scar that he would have to remember me by for years never to come. The boy then started to plead with me, but I would not break. I think picked up a huge rock off the ground and proceeded to hit him over the head with it until his face was covered with blood. Then I positioned him behind the rear left wheel of my car and got in the driver’s seat. I slowly backed up listening to every bone in his head pop and snap. I felt great. I stepped out of the car and looked at the damage I had done: the boy lay lifeless, his head splattered all over the ground and pieces of brain on my car wheel. I then cut his body up into nine small pieces and buried them in various places around me.

I drove home, went into the garage, got out my shotgun, put its loaded barrel between my lips and pulled the trigger. I felt a tingling sensation and that was it. I was dead.

Ouch. Several times while transcribing that, I hesitated. It’s worse than even I remember it being. But yeah, I saved the stuff, just like nearly every scrap of “writing” I’ve ever done (and I have no OCR-scanner here, I typed it all in by hand, old-school style). There’s more of it, but it’s all as bad as that and this is pretty much representative enough to give you the idea.

I bet – in today’s paranoid school environment – it’d be enough to get a kid kicked out of school for good, or arrested, or placed in counseling. I wonder what might have happened back then had we been caught passing these things around, because we surely did. I mean, even re-reading it now, I know I was going for shock value – but putting myself in the shoes of a modern day shcoolteacher or administrator, it’d sure sound the warning sirens loud and clear.

(I showed Sharaun this entry, to see what she thought, saying to her, “I wanted to show some of the stuff I wrote when I was kid, but it’s freaking me out even a bit. But, I never killed anyone, so I guess I turned out OK.” She replied, “You haven’t killed anyone yet, but you will eventually – and then they’ll go back and read that stuff and be like, ‘Well, duh.'” Thanks babe.)

I wrote a while back about how the newish Zodiac killer movie had unearthed some newfound “clues” which were causing quite the amateur-sleuth stir over at zodiackiller.com. Apparently, all this Encyclopedia Brown blodhounding has led the little online community, and the site’s owner and moderator, to identify a new “suspect.” They’ve apparently got this guy’s name and complete bio/profile. To be honest, I haven’t been following closely enough to know what connected the dots from the new evidence to this new POI, but I of course have ultimate faith the infallible collaborative force of the internet.

Goodnight.

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the cost of her butt

Sweaty but comfy.
It’s too bad sweatpants have such a bad reputation, because those suckers are about as comfortable as it gets. I know, I spent the first half of this past Saturday lounging around in a pair. Yup, brown sweats and a too-big t-shirt, both of which have seen better days (which makes them even better, in this man’s mind). Seems like most men would agree that sweatpants are #1 for comfort, and most women would agree that they are objects of derision. Either way, I’m down with ’em. Let’s get back to the single-father thing.

Rewinding to the evening before my sweatpant-rocking, Friday – Sharaun left me alone with Keaton to go play with some friends. She wasn’t in the best of moods, a little snotty and fussy – I think she’s cutting some more teeth (about time). But, we had a good time. I put her on my shoulders and we danced around the living room to the iPod like we were trying out for the ubiquitous chick-flick dance-around-the-kitchen-and-sing-into-wooden-spoons scene. Man, I hate that scene… what about that scene appeals so much to the ladies? You hate sweatpants and love that? The only movie I’ll permit it in is Mermaids, and that’s only because I love Winona. Anyway, I put her down around 7:30pm and proceeded to kick around the house until around midnight. Then, because she’s been overflowing her diapers nearly every night for the past week, I decided I’d change her before I retired. Turns out, after getting her in my arms, I just couldn’t bear to put her down again. I took her to bed with me and she slept on my chest for about an hour until Sharaun came home and woke us both up.

I’ve come to realize I care for my yard a lot more in my head than I do with my back and hands. In other words, I could stand to spend a lot more time weeding and pruning and keeping up with things – and I don’t. When I take a look around the neighborhood, I’d have to say I have one of the least “looker” yards of the bunch. I’ve still got a vast unplanted pile of mulch off to the left of my house, the walkway up to our front door is flanked by wisps of tall weedgrass, and what plants I do have seem dull and placed oddly. Even my backyard, which I toiled so long and hard to complete, leaves a lot to be desired: the plants I chose to plant on the slope of my retaining wall are stupid and ugly, and the brown mulch that once looked so good now looks like a pile of gray ashes. Sharaun hates the mulch because it’s so dead-looking, and I have to agree. If rubber mulch wasn’t so expensive and I could feel better about spreading ground up tires over the planet – I’d jump on it. I think it’d be awesome to just give a high-dollar landscaper a blank check and have ’em do a number on our “grounds.” But in the grand scheme of things, my weeds take a back-seat to things like world hunger, so why worry?

Poor Keaton has had a pretty bad diaper rash the past few days. Though it’s on the mend now, it was probably the worst she’s had yet. It’s an end result of a domino-like progression of baby-ills though, all starting with teething. Teething, in addition to rashes on the face, a runny nose, low grade fevers, and irritability, can cause diarrhea. Friday, she had ten diarrhea-diapers in one day. Even though Sharaun and I didn’t let her sit in them long, wet poo can wreak havoc on a little baby’s fair booty-skin. So, Keaton’s erupting teeth gave her a diaper rash – a cascade of baby dramas. On the plus side, I think she may finally be getting some friends for her lonely pair of teeth… too bad it’s at the cost of her butt.

Goodnight.