Category: reminisce

Thoughts about the good old days… memories.

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pickin’ and grinnin’

Arms on fire, firearms, get it?
Not a particularly exciting day in Florida, but a good evening spent with friends. Used this day to play “catch up” on all the lost sleep. Rolled out of bed around 10:30am and got ready for the day by having a healthy slice of angel food cake and a diet coke. Dang, no wonder I’m fat.

The main order of the day involved heading over to the local mall to pick up some stuff to wear at this week’s wedding. I needed a white shirt, Sharaun needed some thing she kept calling a “top,” which I think means “shirt” in dude-speak. I was kind of excited about going to the mall (probably for the first time since 7th grade), because for me it’s like going back to my old place of employment. Two years service as a retail salesman at the local mom ‘n’ pop music store in the mall, the last year or so spent with the pretty meaningless title of “assistant manager.” I gotta admit though, I loved that job. Loved helping people find good music, loved getting to show off my knowledge of music, and loved selling music. Unfortunately, that mom ‘n’ pop store was forced out when the mall went “big,” letting it’s space to only the largest chain stores in efforts to homogenize the retail landscape and increase business. Now it’s a “Scrapbook City” or some such nonsense, with reams of colored paper and rolls of cute stickers. The carpet and walls are still the same though, so it’s fun to go in and walk around and remember.

I remember I used to collect music on a “family tree” kind of plan. I’d hunt down albums because I liked a track, then find out who played on those albums. Then I’d hunt down albums those players made, and so on down the line. The method worked pretty well, but also could get a little obsessive. I’d get to where I wanted to get every piece of recorded tape that an artist or group ever made. Problem is, just because most or some of someone’s work is good, doesn’t mean it all is; in fact, there’s very few acts/people who’s entire canon is good – so that method of obsessive collecting produced its fair share of stinkers. Anyway, I don’t know why I wanted to write about that – or, I guess I kinda do. We were sitting over at Bob’s place tonight, and he was plucking some great tunes on the guitar while we sat and talked. It got me thinking, it’s not so much about the “album” or “bloodline” or whatever, it’s about the song and if it’s good. Screw collecting an artist’s catalog, I just want to hear the good stuff. Man, I’m sorry, I know this relates to nothing and is not interesting.

Been listening to the new M83 each night in the earbuds when I go to bed, excellent album. Moody and at times “lost” or “homesick” sounding. Now, I guess that could be due to the fact that I’m listening to it away from home, so some of that is my own ideas and not something the music is telling me. This and the Earlimart album are great picks for the week, and I’m glad I was able to steal them both and burn them to CD before the trip. Nice and slow and quiet and hushed and feely. Go get both, as both will surely soon turn up as theme music to some Fox or WB teen drama in the near future.

Hung out tonight, as I mentioned, with Bob and his wife. Went out for a nice Italian dinner, eating shrimp and drinking red wine all refined-adult-like. Then retired back to their place for some general chit-chat and the usual stuff. Looked at some beautiful vintage firearms, busted out the guitar, etc.. I know, I’m supposed to be a “liberal,” and thereby be sworn against the evil thundersticks and the death and crime they enable… but I have an inborn attraction to guns – I think it has something to do with the engineering or design… or the fact that they can shoot bullets at things and rip shit up, not sure which. I think it actually has to do with the fact that my grandfather was a great admirer of firearms, and bought my brother and I each .22 rifles at the youngest age our parents would consent to it: 10. I still have that rifle, you think they’ll revoke my Democratic party affiliation? Anyway, the guns came out, the swords came out, and the guitar came out. A’fore too long, I found myself singing along to the chorus of meticulously-played versions of “Ripple,” “Illegal Smile,” “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die-Rag,” and others. Good time, free meal, good company.

I guess that’s all I have to write. I really like the way the pictures from today’s (yesterday’s, when you’re reading this) turned out – I think they convey “vacation” really well. I’m gonna try and post some more pictures this week, after I manage to get some snapshots of a few more interesting things. Look for it.

Dave out.

Posted on

slumpin’

You choose the color of Jesus.
I feel like I’ve been in a pretty bad writing funk lately. Looking back, this is the last entry I can remember being proud of when I hit the “publish” button. It’s OK though, things get like this sometimes. I lose motivation. Not just for writing, but for all manner of things. I lose motivation to get work done around the house, lose motivation at work where I should be doing real work, just lose motivation in general. It’s cool though, the slumps tend to be short-lived, and then I’m back in action. Sometimes I need a vacation to “recharge,” and next week’s trip to Florida should be just the thing. Going back to the place I, for some reason, still call “home” always gives me plenty of material to write about. I’m really looking forward to it, Turkey and ham and family and mashed potatoes. Put me on a plane, I’m there.

Got a phone call from an old, old friend the other day. Surprised me to hear from him, although we do occasionally get together for a beer or two when we both happen to be home visiting family in Florida. I’m really bad at “staying in touch,” I don’t call old friends, don’t write, don’t do much at all to “KIT,” as we used to write in yearbooks. So I was surprised to hear from this guy, whom I would call equally as bad at keeping in touch. In high school we were good friends. He was the son of a preacher and I was a bad-kid, it was like an after-school-special. When I found God in my senior year, we at least had something to talk about. Now, it seems we’ve both “lost our faith” to some extent, and surprisingly we agree on most everything. Maybe our common trials put us in a common resultant position or something. Anyway, we chatted about our shaky faith in higher power, in government, and in general. It was a good discussion. He mentioned he’s looking to get out of his current state, being a red one, and move into a blue one like mine. Ahh.. the bennies of living in a rabidly liberal state.

Tonight’s (today’s, whatever) entry needs to be done early, because we’re going to the Blonde Redhead show downtown tonight. My goal is to bring the camera and take some pictures, then post them here on this blog-thing. So I’m ready to go, sitting here in my chinos (what are chinos? I’m calling khaki pants “chinos,” is that right?) and fashionable long-sleeved button-up/down shirt. I look appropriately indie for the evening, I believe. We’ll be dining first at some kinda brewpub with food, y’know the ever-so-popular mix of sit-down restaurant and microbrewery type-thing. We’ll linger sufficiently long at said brewpub, in hopes of missing in entirety the set of an utterly horrible opening act called the Liars. Man, they suck so hard.

Well guess what, turns out I got the opening band wrong, and we missed half a set from an awesome live band Ben and I have seen before – the Helio Sequence. The show was a little underwhelming to me, not that Blonde Redhead didn’t sound good, they just didn’t excite me live. Owell, I did accomplish one thing… which was to take pictures of the evening as my first effort in a “week in pictures” thing I thought of. I’ll take a few snapshots of each evening this week and post them the day after. Most likely won’t be anything exciting, but at least it gives me something to post about. So then, here’s the thumbs from last night’s concert outing.




There ya go then. More to come, even if it’s just snapshots of me sitting on the couch or doing dishes. What a grand experiment. Man, I should go into business. Next they’ll tell me it also functions as a cutting-edge indie music jukebox… and I’ll have been squarely billhooked off my high horse.

Dave is out.

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what that man said

I don't know what... my obsession is.
Left work early today for a 3:30 appointment. Yeah, an appointment with a lawn mower and my front yard. Since ol’ Ben Franklin took away my after-work daylight, I’ve got to be creative with when I get non-weekend yardwork done. Hey, saw this the day before the election. Seems to say that the real interpretation of Bin Laden’s words on his pre-election tape is actually a threat to individual US states choosing to side with Bush. Dunno how much truth there is to it, but I found it interesting. The website seems credible, and releasing a pre-election video which is directly trying to influence the election makes sense to me. Owell, intro paragraph over.

As often as I’ve complained about my sedentary, cubicle-based, job and my desire for something with a little more “movement,” there is one good thing about it – I get to listen to music all day long. I’ve been lucky, having had a series of jobs where I can indulge in tunes: working in a music store, and desk jobs where I can throw on the headphones and hang out in my own little world. It gives me a great opportunity to hear new tunes. Most of the time, I’m not listening-listening, it’s more like background music – but I do pick up the “feel” of the album that way, which puts me in a better position to appreciate it more if it turns out to be good. Anyway, I have no idea what I’m saying – I just wanted to talk about how I’m happy I have a job where I can listen to tunes all day. There, was that so hard?

I’m going to go against my better judgment and write a paragraph inspired by a TV show… and not any TV show, the new 91210 – the OC. I know, I know… where are my scruples, right? But I’m gonna break it down for y’all, I love that show. I don’t even care, call it a guilty pleasure or something. Anyway, I’m not going to write about the show – I’m going to write about something the show made me think of.

Back in high school, I think our senior year, a friend of mine “ran away” from home. Not in the side-of-a-milk-carton thing, when you’re 18 it’s pretty much your choice to make. He had some problems with his dad, and decided he’d had enough. He moved in with another friend of ours, and stayed in a guest room there. Come graduation, I had grown a lot closer to Jeremy. We were both sticking around the hometown for the next two years, choosing cheaper and easier community college over a four-year school. Our mutual friend, the one he was living with, however, had chosen to move away. This left Jeremy without a place to stay.

On a whim, I suggested he come live with me, at my parents’ house. Out of that casual suggestion, a living arrangement was born. A living arrangement that was awesome. We were best friends, brothers even. Never have I been closer to someone, or enjoyed someone’s company that much. For two years Jeremy lived in our converted garage, just like Ryan on the OC. (I told you it was coming back, didn’t I). Anyway, when I watch that show – I think of those years when Jeremy lived with us, and it just makes me feel good. Every once in a while, I start thinking that the days I’m living in are surely the best days of my life. I’ve thought that a lot, probably every year.

I think that’s the way it should be… every year is the best year. Even when you look back on them, they are still the best years. Today: the best year; last year: the best year. I’ve been extremely fortunate, I try to remember that. I do.

Next week, I already have a couple entries planned. I’m going to write about my New Orleans drug experience, and about getting robbed on the empty streets of Nassau. Holy crap I love this site, reminds me of Dr. Bronner’s soap. The term “bastardy queer” is priceless. Dave out.

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the groovy barn

Indeed he was, my friend.
So, despite some minor hiccups, everything seems to have come over fine. Migrating from a Windows machine to a Linux machine can have its little quirks, like the fact that Linux is case-sensitive and any instances where you’ve ignored file case on your Windows-site code are now broken links on a Linux host. But, with the help of some automated link-checking and human spot-checking, I think I’ve got most things right. Not that you care, but, look, I nearly made a paragraph talking about it. That’s wordcount baby, and wordcount means quality. Right?

A buddy of mine is in Taiwan right now, staying at the “company approved” hotel where my Taiwan girlfriend works as a bartender, so I told him he should pay her a visit and tell her “Dave says hi.” Apparently he did, and she gave him some free fries for “being my friend.” So, if my sheer awesomeness wasn’t enough incentive for you to become my friend – I now come with free french fries. I’m headed back in early December, and I can almost taste the bloody marys and cigars. Oh, and the fish eyes… can’t forget the fish eyes.

I remembered another story I wanted to write down, so here I go. We’re in 8th grade, and one of our passions is just “walking around” town. We’d walk everywhere, loitering first here, then there. One of our old town’s most stickout features was a big tall cement plant that sat along the railroad tracks just off the highway. It had several cool buildings, and a lot of neat-looking machinery and hardware. There were huge conveyer belts running from the ground to towers in the sky, big warehouses, and one really tall “silo” looking thing. Now, I don’t know much about cement or mining or whatever, but pretty much every “materials” plant I’ve seen looked pretty similar. The railroad tracks ran right through the place, presumably for easy loading. Anyway, we were always intrigued by the silo in the distance – and one day decided to walk to it.

When we got there, we ducked under a gate and headed onto the grounds. It was a weekend, so the place was dead. We’d soon find out, however, that it being dead had nothing to do with it being the weekend. We walked to what was the main building, and found some huge roll-up loading doors wide open. Letting ourselves in, we found the place to be completely abandoned. Freshly abandoned though, it would seem, hastily or without care, it seemed, too. Desks still had pens and paper on them, there were calendars on the wall with semi-recent (within a month) dates from the past marked on them, and although there were light-bulbs in the sockets, there was no power. This was no cubicle-farm, it was a huge empty warehouse with a couple “offices” tucked in the back. We explored the warehouse, then set off to explore the remainder of the place.

We climbed to the top of the conveyer belt towers, explored some deep “tunnels” that went underground (with mine-shaft-looking handcart tracks running down them), and just generally poked around the whole place. Finally, satisfied it was truly abandoned, and with a few hours of uninterrupted trespassing bolstering our confidence – we did what any good teenage boys would do: we trashed the place. I remember throwing bricks through windows, tossing rocks at fluorescent lights, and even going to all the trouble to uproot a whole toilet from the men’s room, then sharing the task of precariously hauling the heavy thing up with us as we climbed the thin ladder to the top of the conveyer tower – all so we could toss it from the top and watch it explode in a hail of porcelain ten stories below us. It was awesome. Eventually, we got bored breaking things and decided to explore the silo.

The silo was much taller than the conveyer, at least twice as tall and maybe half that again. As we walked over to it (it was on the other side of the tracks), we noticed that there was a whole other building hiding behind it. Before we hit the silo, we decided to explore our new find. The small building was just an empty warehouse, with a truck-ramp on one side for loading or something. It was a strange split-level thing, one quarter of the floor being about seven feet taller than the remaining three-quarters, and there was a small ladder leading up/down between these levels. What was even better – we were obviously not the first to have discovered the place. The walls were covered with paint, sprayed on, brushed on, all graffiti. This was a party place, this was a hangout. I remember seeing “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding” crudely emblazoned across one will, as well as the requisite Kilroys, peace-signs, and expletives. One wall was a mural of sorts, with the words “groovy barn” in the center. So that’s what we called it: the groovy barn.

There was a pile of charred wood and ashes in a blackened corner of the building, and beer cans/bottles littered the floor – we instantly loved the place. At the base of the mural wall were several cans of paint, they called to us like sirens. Before we knew it we were using our hands to add our own decorations to the walls and floors. We smeared lines from Doors songs, traced our outlines in a human mandala one the floor, with the words “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together” written in a circle around us. Then we finished up the cans by throwing paint all over the place. We had a blast, but it was clearly time for the final frontier – the silo.

The silo part of the silo was jutting out of a smaller building below. We entered the smaller building and poked around a bit, finding some more graffiti sacks upon sacks of sand or something. The place didn’t look like it had been in a state of disuse for too long. Finally, we found what we were looking for. Still inside, we climbed a small ladder up to a kind of “hayloft” place. The hayloft had a door to the outside, which let you onto a small platform on the outer base of the silo; a tiny, rickety-looking ladder stretched up the side of the silo to the sky. We were scared, but we decided to do it.

I remember being scared out of my mind. There was nothing to hold onto but the ladder, nothing to break your fall if you slipped, and it was high. The rungs weren’t very wide, and the welds to the silo were rusty-looking. Being scared made it even more fun, and after a couple starts, retreats, and some group chest-pounding, we made the final push to the top. At the top, it was awesome. The view was incredible, and you had a feeling of conquest, over fear, over the silo, over anyone who’d be too afraid to do the same – it was the things teenage boys dream of (well, the non-sex things, at least). We did all the “look how high I am!” things you normally do, spit, peed, threw rocks, etc. Finally, we got scared down when a man in a truck pulled up, even though he didn’t spot us we decided it was time to split.

We went back to Rinker (yeah, that’s what the place was called) quite a few times, although mainly just to climb the silo again with new people. I remember one time even taking “the girls” (Kyle and I had significant others at the time) and coaxing them to the top. Eventually, when just the guys and I were visiting, a police cruiser rolled up on us and gave us the standard bit about trespassing and whatnot. After the police thing, we didn’t go back much. I think the last time I went, it was with the same crew I’d first been with – we made one last climb to the top and, in an act of retribution, left my by-then ex-girlfriends name and number with the standard “for a good time call” message in thick permanent marker. While up there, we discovered that were weren’t alone: a huge nest of bees had made their home in the eaves of the silo. Freaked, and having accomplished the slander we set out to do, we headed down and never returned.

I accept your challenge.

I’ve often wondered if our painted messages still exist in the groovy barn, or if Robin’s name and number still make promises of a “good time” atop the silo. Last Christmas I forced Sharaun to take a drive out there and snap some pictures of the place – but I was too chicken to squeeze through the gates and check. Maybe this year… owell. Oh, and this story reminded me of the crane story – I’ll try and get that one out too.

Dave out.

Posted on

poop

Homonym?
Looks like I’ll be headed back to Taipei in December, the more I go, the more I enjoy going. Now, I don’t want to move there or anything… but I do find myself feeling more and more comfortable each time I go. It has nothing to do with Taiwan, actually, it has more to do with building relationships with the customers and workers over there. It’s “networking,” and the value I see in that, which makes me want to go back and show my face again. Just something I see as increasing my stock, so to speak. How disgusting is it that I use phrases like “increasing my stock,” and talk about “networking,” have I bought into this religion of business-politics that much? Apathy, please save me… I care way to much about stupid stuff. Owell, I think I’m pretty well grounded – despite my yuppy-ish urge to succeed.

I remembered a funny story the other day, thought I’d write it down. Back in college, I shared an apartment with a buddy of mine. Sharaun and I were dating, and she had come over to pick me up to go somewhere – I remember that we were already running late, so we were in a rush to get going. As we were walking out the door to the car, some kid ran up, in a bathing suit and dripping wet from the pool which was close to our place, walking kinda funny and said, “Mister, can I use your bathroom?” “There’s a bathroom right around the corner in the laundry room,” I replied, knowing we had to get outta there. “Someone is in that one!” he said, a pained look on his face. I looked at Sharaun, and she shrugged. I looked back at the kid, “Please,” he said, “I only gotta go number two.” “OK,” I said as I let him in, “it’s the first door on the right.” He ran past me into the apartment and slammed the door behind him.

Sharaun and I went back inside the house and waited in the living room. A couple minutes passed, and we started getting annoyed. Five minutes passed and we were both wondering if we should check on the kid. Ten minutes, and I had had enough. I walked back and asked, through the door, “Are you OK in there?” “I’m almost done,” came the reply. Fine. I went back into the living room to sit down. Another five minutes goes by, Sharaun and I are fairly furious at this point, having lost all hopes of getting wherever we were supposed to be in time. Then, in a flash, the bathroom door flew open and the kid bolted past us and out the front door without saying a word. Caught by surprise, I looked at Sharaun – and we both knew right then and there that something wasn’t right. I rolled my eyes and headed down the hall.

I got to the bathroom before Sharaun. Before she could even reach the door and see what I had seen, I turned on my heel and sprinted to the front door. I burst through and looked frantically left and right, then took off full-steam towards the pool. The kids around the pool turned and looked as I slammed on the breaks at the gate and asked, “Were you guys playing with a kid out here, he was about…,” and proceeded to describe the kid to them. No one owned up to knowing the kid, although they must have been there with him. Frustrated, I did a quick circuit of our building, to no avail. The kid had disappeared. But, you might ask, “Why Dave? Why did you chase that poor kid? What did you see in that bathroom?” Rewind to me walking down the hall and opening that door, already scared of whatever it was that sent this kid running from my place.

The first thing I remember is a sense of utter disbelief, quickly followed by rage. The scene before me was incredible: there was poop. There was poop everywhere. Poop on the floor, poop on the wall, poop on the ceiling. There was poop in the sink, poop all over the toilet, poop on the shower curtain. The places with poop far outnumbered the places without poop. And this no regular poop, this was extra special viscous poop. It looked like someone filled several water balloons full of liquid-poop, piled them on the floor, and lit a firecracker underneath them. There was so much poop, I had to call in CSI to analyze the poop-splatter and confirm a single-butthole theory. OK, so I made up that last part – but there was seriously a stupefying amount of fecal explosion for a little kid who couldn’t have weighed more than 75lbs.

The most painful part of my discovery came as I swept my eyes across the poop-coated room and slowly realized that I would have to clean this up. It was at that moment, not even one second after first discovering the crime scene, that I took off running. Mind singularly focused on tackling that damn kid at full-sprint, dragging his nasty ass back to the apartment, and physically rubbing his nose in the disgusting mess he left like a misbehaving mutt. When I came back empty handed, Sharaun was still standing at the bathroom door in shock and disbelief. There was nothing more I could do, I got out the cleaning supplies and my rubber gloves, and suppressed my gag reflex long enough to sanitize our now-forever-tainted bathroom. Sharaun, being a trooper, grabbed some gloves and a sponge and helped out.

I committed his face to memory, just in case I ever saw him around the apartments again, and sometimes I’d even make a quick sweep by the pool when I heard kids. I never did find that kid. I hate him to this day.

I’m outta here, until next time.

Posted on

to narrowly avoid divorce

This moll will break yo ass down!
Yeah, Sunday afternoon and I’ve done absolutely nothing all day. Did the first “real” test of the Winch Witch today, using the new “all-drill” winch mechanism. What’s better, it worked… it totally worked. Now it’s just tweaking and refining. Now I’m sitting here wasting my day away in a way that’s only afforded to the people of the modern day. No crops to harvest or animals to kill for dinner – the worst challenge I have to face is my bothersome headcold and rubbed-raw nostrils. And, having just thrown in the Fellowship of the Rings, it seems like I’m only planning to get lazier and lazier. I’m sick, I deserve it, right?

Last night Sharaun and I had a fight; the likes of which we haven’t had in a long time. I’m talking a real humdinger. Seems like the biggest fights always stem from the most minuscule and ridiculous things. This one, for instance, started with me asking Sharaun why she had turned on the air without closing the bedroom window first, and soon escalated into swearing and yelling (both the swearing and the yelling mostly done by yours truly). So dumb. Thankfully, we were able to smooth things over soon enough, and with apologies were able to narrowly avoid divorce. I’m glad we rarely fight, it’s a waste of time.

I know I haven’t stopped talking about it, but really, the new album by the Arcade Fire is hands-down the best album released this year. I worked in the yard yesterday for nearly five hours, and I listened to that 47min album the whole time. Over and over and over as I huffed and puffed and sweat in the grass and dirt. Happy the whole time. Don’t take my word for it, go out and buy it, or download it, or something. Just get it in your ears for God’s sake! You’ll be a better man for it.

Back in high school, I started smoking a pipe for a couple reasons. My fake-uncle (you know, your dad’s good friend who your family for some reason starts calling “uncle?”) had smoked one for as long as I can remember, and I was reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I can remember sitting out on the screened-in porch in Florida, smoking my pipe while turning the brittle yellowed pages of the coverless copy of The Fellowship that I’d picked up from the local used book store. I used to smoke whatever I vanilla-ey stuff I could pick up from the smoke shop in the mall, but soon developed a taste for more quality tabac. Now I have a nice pipe collection and a few varieties of smoke, but I rarely sit down with a pipe anymore. Every time I think about it, I remember how much I used to enjoy smoking my pipe. I think the fact that Sharaun won’t abide my smoking in the house stops me more often than not.

Last night I set the TiVo to record the first presidential debate, in hopes that it’ll give me some further insight into the upcoming election. At this time, I would still classify my current allegiance as somewhat tenuous… although still aligning with my inborn lean to the left. Having lunch the other day with an uber-politico friend of mine (a hardcore Independent with equal amounts of doubt for each major-party candidate) only helped to muddy up my mind on the whole thing. As sad as it sounds, I’m really looking to these debates, and the discussion and answers that come from them, to help me decide. I mean, I know it may sound superficial and “American” to rest my vote on a media event, a Jerry Springer -esque showdown if you will, but I have to admit it will probably play a big role in my decision. At this point, however, I just can’t see myself voting for W – which doesn’t leave me with a lot of options. I just don’t know.

I was going to write about how I’ve never been to a funeral, but I changed my mind because I want to go to bed more than I want to write about how I’ve never been to a funeral.

Dave out.

Posted on

i actually called nintendo power

Moo?
I don’t even feel like writing right now, so apologies if this sucks. Seems like all my people back in the F-L-A made it through the hurricane OK – only to face another one a mere week later. I’m with ya Floridians, I’m with ya.

Sitting here, around 10pm on a Thursday night – the most exciting thing I did tonight being take out the garbage for tomorrow and watch a TiVo’d episode of Reno 911. I just didn’t feel like doing anything, y’know? Put on T. Rex’s greatest hits and I’m groovin’, you don’t have this album? Man, you’re missing some dope, dope stuff y’allz. I mean, take a listen to “I Love to Boogie” or “Children of the Revolution” and tell me you just don’t wanna blare this indulgent 70’s glam out the open windows of your Ford Explorer while driving by the high school. What? Who’s cool!

Speaking of cool, Sharaun and I were in the mall a few weeks ago, and we ended up in a little store called Hot Topic. I mean, I’d been in Hot Topic’s before, you know it if you’ve been there – all employees are required to be goth teens (serious, it’s in the application or something), and they specialize in hot-right-now goods of all kinds. I mean, whatever is the nerd/goth/glam-chic of the minute fills the inventory. In short, it’s an awesome study in alterna-teen pop culture. And, I’m happy to say: according to what trendy-but-aloof teens think is cool right now, I’m the bees knees.

Seeing shelves stocked with shirts like this and this and this and this and this sent me into a near frenzy. So awesome. If they woulda had these back in my day, I woulda worn them while I played ultimate-universe-war with my action figures (you know, like when all of He Man fights all of GI Joe and Star Wars?). Only thing is, back then they wouldn’t have been cool – just nerdy. Who cares though, I left feeling empowered, actually having real memories of the things on those shirts – knowing. I am retro-rad baby, that’s right. I don’t need to pretend; I actually called Nintendo Power, we had Jarts, and I saw Gremlins in a theater. They say trends recycle every fifteen years – so right now I’m about as cool as I was when I was thirteen, which, and I gotta tell ya, was damn cool for thirteen. But for real, the one in the skull-shape of dungeon one in the Legend of Zelda? Oh man, totally off the awesome scale.

Oh, and I saw the FBI released some more info on a favorite case of mine from last year. They’re now calling it the “Collarbomber” case, and they released some of the notes that this pizza deliveryman was supposed to follow in order to remove the collar-bomb locked to his neck, before it detonated. Anyway, I dig stuff like that.

Dave out.