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whoofin’ on cheeba


Hey friends. No blog yesterday, had a packed night with some old friends – a long-needed reunion of sorts. Now it’s Wednesday night, and I worked from home again today while Sharaun taught a guest art lesson to her old class. It was good being with Keaton again, and, despite having to tend to her baby-type needs, I was able to get a tone of workish junk done. Was gonna mow, decided against it, and that pretty much sums up the day.

I wonder if CNN knows how much humor I derive from their webpage sometimes. It can’t be intentional on their part, but I’ll be danged if some of the stuff they write isn’t hilarious. Take for instance this quote from their lead article sometime Wednesday morning:

A couple of Massachusetts construction workers picked up some bathroom cabinetry and discovered some illegal extras with their purchases. One contractor found ganja ‘bricks,’ and a plumber found a stash of cocaine.

Ganja bricks?

OK, who gave “the man” the weed-slang dictionary? What’s next, Fox News reports on the chronic found at Lowes? MSNBC runs a headline about the sticky-icky-icky discovered at Ace Hardware? It’s cool though, because CNN will probably run a follow-up about how the Home Depot doja was seeds ‘n stems shwag anyway; just weak shake – not hydro, buddah, or nugs.

If you’ve been reading this page for a while, you’ll know that I have a fascination with religion – more specifically with some of the amazing things humans will believe when it comes to religion. Without getting into my religious notions, I just wanted to share this awesomely concise “illustrated history of Scientology” with you. A series of animated GIFs which originated from the ‘net-famous “you’re the man now dog” site, it tells the story of Scientology from Xenu to today in a slideshow of cartoons. Well worth the time if you’re unfamiliar with the “religion” and what they believe, and likely won’t be up long since Scientology employs a stable of notoriously oppressive lawyers who make it their life’s work to remove any content from the world which might portray their sacred beliefs in a negative light. So, check it out, and get a god chuckle. This stuff is better than magic glasses and reformed Egyptian: An Illustrated History of Scientology.

Sorry for the short entry, got all creative feeling and made a new index page again – I never did like that “on the plains” one with the growing trees all that much, I think this one is much nicer. Thought about actually taking my 96 Tears page of the index links, like I did a while back with my music pages, since it’s such a terribly designed page (but, I’ll admit, it’s a neato window into my premillenial HTML skillz). But, it’s still there…

Goodnight folks.

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tomorrow’s yesterday


I finally motivated myself enough to get out in the front yard and pull the weeds from the planters after work today. Turns out it wasn’t that bad a job at all, I was finished in well under and hour. Some live Dead shuffled on while I worked, and it sounded so good. Sometimes there’s nothing better than a noodling Garcia guitar solo in the sunshine. I stopped short, however, of busting out the hedge trimmer and trimming me some hedge… not because I ran out of daylight, but because I ran out of caring. Tomorrow, maybe…

The more I analyze my trends in motivation, the more I’m convinced I have an excellent intuition. Historically, it seems I’m almost prophetically unmotivated – slacking most on things that end up being unimportant in the long run. I seem to “know” what to apply my resources to, and what to push down to the bottom of the pile. In the moment, my choices often seem damning – deprioritizing something that, it seems, would put me behind or cause my overall performance to suffer. But usually, later down the road that item I put on the back burner falls off the edge altogether from some directive on-high, and I look awesome for having diverted resources to other things when all the while I wasn’t paying attention to begin with. I’m convinced that this psychic ability to know when and what to work on, coupled with my ability to apply methamphetamine-like speed and productivity to important immediate tasks make me the ideal worker. I’m thinking of bulletizing this and putting it on my resume:

Personal Traits

  • Team player; works well with diverse groups.
  • Experienced in conflict resolution and teambuilding.
  • Possess a psychic “tasking” ability; can prioritize current tasks by future relevancy.
  • Fastidiously groomed; sparkling teeth, very little dandruff.
  • Well-filled shorts.

Yes… well then, let’s move on.

No sooner did I decide to make Wolfmother’s eponymous album my #1 pick of 2006.5 did I catch their single “Love Train” on the new iTunes ad during prime-time. Great, just great. How is one supposed to stay elite when iTunes and M&Ms and Chrysler keep employing good music to appeal to consumers? No longer will people stare blankly when I tell them I’m listening to Wolfmother, they’ll instead go, “Oh, you mean the iTunes band? I heard they fucked Lindsay Lohan with a trout… or something.” Nah, I’m only messing with you guys… the more people at the good-music party the better, welcome to what’s rad world, welcome.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated with the Swapatorium blog – which I ran across via this mysterious and super-interesting (to me) BoingBoing post. I have my own personal obsession with wading through inconsequential history, whether it be mine or someone else’s, and Swapatorium’s posts are right up that alley. While browsing the archives, I ran across the “Diary of a Girl” feature that ran from January through February this year: An entry from a young girl’s late-1960s diary, which covers everything from sewing dressed to the sordid affair between her older brother and her best friend. There’s no easy way to link the entire thread as a cohesive story, but if you’re interested in reading it (and why wouldn’t you be?), the best way is to start here at the January archives (scroll to the bottom of the page and read up), and continue on here to the February archives (again reading from bottom-to-top). What a great feature.

Goodnight.

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just us


I really don’t have much to write tonight. Spent a good bit of time today working on a more “artsy” blog entry which’ll likely show up sometime next week (as it’s code-complex). Problem is, I blew most of my inspiration working on that, and not I’m not much in the mood to hammer something out for Monday. But, I shall press on… for you, dear friends; for you.

Saturday it was just Keaton and me, just us. I put her in her my favorite dress (not my favorite dress, mind you, but my favorite dress of hers), slid a yellow bow around her head, and we set out on a daddy-daughter trip to the local chili cookoff. I’m not going to lie, I “cruised” up and down the street, past the same chili booths over and over, just so new passers-by could peek into her stroller and stop me to fawn over her. I stood with glee, smile beaming broad across my face, as a man from whom I’d just taken a sample cup of chili told me, repeatedly, “You have a beautiful daughter.” I act shy, pretending to shuffle my feet and direct my eyes to the ground as a woman tells me, “She looks like a Hawaiian princess,” but I’m not shy – I’m eating it up, loving every compliment. And Keaton, she’s hamming it up like she knows she has a captive audience. Smiling, trying to fit her entire fist into her mouth, and making cute baby sounds for her patrons. Having a day alone with her, taking her out and spending time together… I had the best time.

Sunday I did a repeat performance, manning the mommy helm while Robin and Sharaun did a wine tour in Napa Valley. Although she wasn’t as sunshine-and-roses as Saturday, she did manage to enjoy some time at a World Cup party at Ben and Suzy’s place. After that, we headed home and fell asleep together on the couch while the iPod shuffled away. It was a good weekend for daddy-daughter bonding. And, in keeping with my Sunday night schedule, I did manage to post some pictures to Keaton’s gallery – it’s not much, but they’re there. Check them out here.

I’m getting one of those “underground” zits on my nose, those really painful kind that never even turn into a real zit – I hate those. Goodnight.

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my bid


Hey Maygsters, I think it was you who once told me you sometimes check this page multiple times a day to see if I wrote late? That one statement was enough to motivate this late entry; thanks. Sorry it sucks anyway.

Going on 10pm Thursday night and I was fully planning on not writing an entry for tomorrow. Yeah, I had some canned stuff I could slap together – but none of it seemed exciting enough to make an entry out of. Work had me frustrated today, to the point where I called it quits around 11am and headed home to sit on the couch and do e-mail and conference calls. Let me tell you, nice weather wafting through the windows and the iPod on shuffle make for a much more enjoyable working environment than 3 and 3/4 shoulder-high grey fabric walls and a grey desk. In counterpoint to my normal “working from home” days, I actually got a good bit done.

I’m such a procrastinator. It’s an trait I think I developed as a natural second-order effect of my desire to be lazy. I don’t consider my laziness a laziness of thinking, or creating, or reasoning – just a laziness of convenience. When things aren’t what I want to do, I drag my heels. Even when I want something done, but don’t want to put the effort forth to get it done – my laziness steps in and takes over. It’s a bad trait, one that has me constantly putting off things that are simple tasks – but it’s the way I’ve learned to work. In the end it all boils down to being extremely self-centered (I do feel I maintain a line between my self-centeredness and my caring for others before, but I won’t try and make the point here). Anyway, this paragraph doesn’t fit… it’s now over.

Last night our company (remember, my first girlfriend and Sharaun’s college roommate?), Robin, inquired about the whole “blog” thing. And, being that she represented a major milestone in my adolescence, she is fairly well represented here – and I think she was surprised to find that out. Anyway, I ran a search for her name and handed her the laptop. She read through the entry about her birthday, the reminiscing over one of her notes, and the time I cheated on her with her best friend. At some point, she turned to me and asked, “Did you ever think we’d be here, on a couch in California, reading about this?” Hell no I didn’t, not in my wildest dreams. But… I’m glad it worked out that way, kinda cool.

Anyway, in the end she said the entries helped her remember what a dick I was. So, if nothing else, at least the blog serves the purpose of reminding people of my past-dickness. Which is good if I ever want to be inducted into the “Dick Hall of Fame” after my demise. I’ve heard written record of dickdom goes a long way as testimony in the judges eyes, so I figure I’m a lock.

Goodnight folks, love ya all.

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of music: 2006.5


Tuesday night as I write; a day ahead on blogging this week because the whole “clothes to charity” bit came so easily and quickly. Sharaun’s cleaning the guest bathroom for our next visitor, a friend of hers and mine both who was actually my 1st “real” girlfriend, my first real kiss, and certainly the first girl I ever “did stuff” with. Yeah, I pretty much tagged-up all the bases, but never quite made it home… it’s OK though – we were young. It’ll be nice for Sharaun to have a friend come visit, and they’re even planning on leaving me on daddy-duty for an overnighter into San Francisco and the wine country this coming weekend. Me, Mr. Mom alone with Keaton for the first time. I’m excited, but will surely miss being able to hand her off to her mom, who has some kind of stop-crying magic about her.

Been working on and off over the past few weeks on material for a new “thing” I’m debuting: I’m taking the yearly “best of” post and adding a mid-year checkpoint, a best of “so far” type thing. I think this will help me be more accurate with my year-end list, and besides – I love ranking and writing about music I like. I’ll do the posts in June, trying to stay around the mid-year mark, and format them identical to my year-end roundups. Since I know so many people are hanging on my every recommendation, and no one skips right over my music entries, I’m sure you’re waiting patiently to see what albums you’ll be rushing out and buying. I sometimes surprise myself with just how much effort I put into making these little lists: writing 50+ word blurbs about each album, making sure each has a hyperlink to more information, and formatting them all to be nicely indented and accompanied by a mini album cover. Anyway, without further ado – here is my best of 2006.5:

7. Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche

I never thought of myself as one of the many Sufjan “fanboys” out there, but I must admit I do find myself admiring him more and more each time I hear a new song of his. Granted, there are several “weaker” numbers on this outing – particularly some of what the album’s press blurb refers to as “outlines, gesture drawings, … musical scribbles mumbled on a hand-held tape recorder.” A flute arpeggio with some dreamy flashback chimey stuff that runs for ~30sec is hardly a masterpiece, and I don’t think Sufjan is quite yet the class of musical enigma which warrants releasing his “What’s the New Mary Jane, takes 1-6” equivalent for posterity. Dang, that last sentence has so much literary and music-nerd potential… but I just can’t seem to execute it properly. If you fancy you can rewrite it better, comment me with your version, OK? Bottom line, there are some painfully gorgeous tunes on this album – and it would make the list for “The Henney Buggy Band” and the spruced-up “Adlai Stevenson” alone.


6. Tapes ‘N Tapes – The Loon

Yeah… so… everybody with broadband loved the Tapes ‘n Tapes in 2006, and I’m no exception. A very basic album, The Loon impresses a lot for being as stripped-down as it is. Some of this album reminds me of what I loved about Wolf Parade’s “Apologies to the Queen Mary” last year: nonsensical lyrics, shuffling washboard tempos, and a bounty of energy and snarl. I hear Pavement in there, even the Arcade Fire… and I guess that’s not entirely a bad thing, especially if you can pull of all those analogies and still be more than just the same-old hero-worship. So, number six it is.


5. Thome Yorke – The Eraser

The solo effort kept a secret until just before its planned release, Yorke’s Radioheadless foray into melodic-electronic took the music blogosphere by surprise. Then, it leaked over a month in advance, and the web collective had dissected and discussed the album to death before the law-abiding, CD-buying public ever even got to hear it for the first time. For me, I had to get it – couldn’t wait. I must say, I was leery from the moment I heard about the album. Could Thom’s genius shine as well without the group effort? In short: yes. Thom’s lyrical prowess and knack for eerie melody make a fine showing here; although I will admit the album is a little too ProTooled for me, and it drags a bit through the chewy center – it’s still a damn fine effort with some classic tunes. And for that, it falls in at number 5 on my list.


4. Phoenix – It`s Never Been Like That

Every summer deserves a summery album. Like a sweet, dripping ice-cream cone, “It’s Never Been Like That” plops perfect little circles of melted goodness all over your favorite Hawaiian shirt. Each track a self-sufficient pop gem, bouncy and singalong, with just enough rock sensibility and “rawness” to save it from being pure bubblegum indulgence. This album is 2006’s 95° summer-drive-with-the-windows down blarer; put it on and watch the sun move across the sky, maybe toss the frisbee with the hand not holding your beer while you wait for the meat to come off the grill. Oh, and chicks’ll dig the thing too… makes a great poolside swimsuit soundtrack.


3. The Islands – Return to the Sea

When I first heard the Unicorns album “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?,” I fell in love with it almost instantly. I was bummed, but not entirely surprised, when they announced their breakout shortly after the album’s internet buzz carried them to underground stardom. After all, I’d seen them on stage and they were young and insane with very distinct personalities – I could tell just watching them that they were a bubbling pool of varied talents… and sometimes that just doesn’t work out. But, when I heard that the two “creative” members of the group had formed a new band and released an album under the name The Islands, I was excited. Turns out, this album is only just shy of “Who Will Cut Our Hair…” awesome – and that’s pretty damn awesome. The songs are longer than what they did as the Unicorns, and a little more cohesive with less randomness. “Swans,” in particular, is a good example of why I consider this to be one of the best albums of half-2006.


2. Built to Spill – You In Reverse

I first heard of Built to Spill in my first year at “real” college. Back when CMJ was a funny-shaped little magazine that came monthly with a free CD and didn’t yet cover hip-hop or rap, they recommended BTS’s “Perfect From Now On” “if you liked Pavement’s ‘Wowee Zowee.'” I did indeed like Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee,” a whole heck of a lot. So I ran up to the CD Warehouse and picked up a copy. I liked three songs. Turns out, later on down the line that album would end up being one of my favorites – it just needed some time to grow on me. Now, BTS are back, and they sound outstanding. Write more here. (Yes that last sentence was a placeholder for more hyperbole, but when I eventually came back to it I thought it had comedic value all by itself, so this review is over.)


1. Wolfmother – Wolfmother

This album is so badass… it’s like a flying brick of solid rock and roll, aimed straight at your pearly whites – ready to smash them out in a fit of guitar-induced hysterical rage. You can’t help pump your hand in a clenched-fist salute to these driving basslines, neck and head at the ready to snap into hair-tossing action upon the tidal wave of guitars. It’s Sabbath reborn, it’s a Deep Purple-esque Hammond B-3 churning out macabre-sounding minor key hooks over a deafening crunch of guitar and high-pitch male vocals. Put this album on and try not to punch things, I dare you. This album will actually make your cock thicker. So filled with awesome you’ll choke on your own enthusiastic screams of “Yeah motherfucker!!” as the solo rages during “Pyramid.” People… this album… it has a flute solo… c’mon!!


Well, that’s it for tonight… no small effort mind you, but I’m sure not as worth the trouble as I might think.

Goodnight.

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hot is your excuse for everything


Tuesday’s gone (with the wind). Had my two-week Lasik appointment today: my vision is still 20/15 and my eyes are supposedly “healing nicely.” They feel a lot better, with some occasional dryness and irritation – but I’ve still got minimal problems at night with halos and glare (although it’s already markedly better than it was last week). My new eyes are great, and I love them.

The other day we got one of those “put your old clothes in a bag on the curb for charity” fliers stuffed in our doorjamb. When those fliers come, Sharaun always decides to “go through” my closet and give away my clothes. I don’t know why God chose to give women this instinct, this notion that they have an idea what clothes men should and shouldn’t keep. What worse is, they always seem to target the items I love dearly. Shirts she deems “dingy” and “old-man looking” are the shirts that fit me best, don’t bind on the shoulders, have plenty of “skirt” to make for strong tucking, and have no pokies or scratchies to speak of. So here we are, me sitting on the couch in the living room while she brings out handfuls of clothes-laden hangers to parade by me, not really asking as much as telling me what I do and don’t wear.

“You never wear this one,” she says, hoisting a blue t-shirt into the air for my inspection. “I wear that all the time,” I say, “Just look at the paint stains on the front, that’s a good painting shirt.”

“You got this in college!,” she proclaims, as if clothes bought in college are things of evil. “So what,” I say, “It’s still a good shirt, fits me fine, and I like it.”

“Why are those jeans in the donate pile?,” I demand, “Those are the only jeans that truly fit me well all over.” “They’re so old, you have all these other jeans that look so much better.” “But I hate those other jeans,” I protest, “The legs are all fat and bell-bottomy… I hate that.” She rebuts, “It’s not called ‘bell-bottom,’ it’s called ‘flared leg’ and it’s the only kind of jeans that are stylish.” “Well I don’t want to be stylish then,” I say, “I like the legs of my jeans to fit around my ankles, not swing back and forth as I walk.” She fires back, “You know you’re talking about ‘tapered leg,’ right? No one wears tapered leg jeans anymore, not even cowboys.” “So what,” I say, “I want to wear them. I’ll single-handedly bring them back into style.” At this point she’s getting angry.

“Here are a pair of jeans with the tags still on them, you probably never even tried them on,” she begins, turning a brand new pair of denim over for inspection. “I did try them on,” I challenge, “Remember, at Christmas? They were all twisty in the hips, I asked you to return them.” “No, you’re thinking of another pair – you never even touched these,” she maintains. Apparently, I am not capable of being able to recognize my own clothes, as all my assertions about certain items are challenged on the basis that I’m “thinking of a different one” or am just plain wrong. Now my answers are beginning to reflect my frustration.

“What about these,” she asks as she puts yet another pair of jeans forward. “Those are too big,” I reply curtly. “What do you mean by ‘too big?,'” she asks. “What do I mean by… well… the size of my lower body is proportionally smaller than the amount of fabric that Levis decided to use when manufacturing those particular pants. Therefore, there is more actual jean than there is me.” She stops me before I can go into a brief discourse on relative volumes and capacities, holding her hand in the air as a silent “stop,” signalling that my humorous approach has come across as intended and she understands.

Eventually, because I am so incapable of recognizing and identifying which of my own clothes fit and which don’t, the whole exercise turns into a 11pm “try this on so I can see” marathon. I hate trying things on, loathe it – and she knows this. I don’t want to try things on right now, I’m hot, and I don’t want to robe and disrobe over and over to prove to you what I know is true. It’s true, you know, I’m a naturally hot human being – maintaining a core temperature that I’m convinced is several degrees higher than most everyone else. This rationale, however, is not flying.

“Hot is your excuse for everything,” she says. “You’re too hot to try on clothes; too hot to hold the baby; too hot for everything.” While this is true, I am often “too hot” to do things comfortably, in the middle of this moment of shared frustration hearing her say it comes off as the funniest thing to me. “Hot is your excuse for everything” sounds freaking hilarious to me, and start cracking up. “Hot is my excuse for everything,” I chuckle.

Luckily, the whole thing degenerated into sweet, sweet lovin’ on a pile of soon-to-be-donated clothing items (sorry beggars, but hey, can you really afford to be choosers?). Nah… I made the sex part up; but we did end on a happy note and a respectable three bags of clothes for the less-fortunate.

Goodnight.

PS – I added some friends’ pictures to the gallery for this weekend’s camping trip, check ’em out at the beginning of the original set, or get them sorted by date via this link.

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don’t blog for no suits


Another Monday done gone, workin’ for the man.

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know that I talk a lot about my work without really talking about where I work or what exactly I do. That’s not gonna change, but I did want to talk about a fairly recent development at “my work” that has caused me to think. At “my work,” the corporate intranet this year added a dedicated space for employee blogging. Much like wordpress.com offers subsites that come preinstalled with the WordPress blogging backend – our corporate blogging area has it’s own custom backend and offers a working blog to any employee who wants to write. Everyone at “my work” can read these company-sanctioned blogs, and from what I can tell – there are no boundaries on content other than the standard stuff like no porn, etc. Meaning, these company-resource-supported blogs don’t force employee bloggers to write about company stuff. In fact, upon browsing many of the employee blogs I’ve noticed the posts are often just as banal and random as my own.

This is where I get to thinking. These blogs are hardly anonymous. Not only do they contain the employee blogger’s name, but the time and date of the posting. Every comment is also timestamped and tagged with the commenter’s name. I browsed these blogs a bit today and found ruminations on clogged gym shower drains, commentary on articles seen on Fark and BoingBoing, and all other sorts of non-workish type content. Not only that, there were employee comments on the stories, and comments and stories alike contained links to non-corporate-intranet URLs. This corporate blogging thing is definitely not for me. Not just because a lot of my content is “gauche” at best, but moreso because I’d worry these employee blogs could be used as accurate records of company time wasted. Why tell everyone you work with that, at 3:23pm on Monday, you were typing about the nice sunny weather rather than whatever the hell you’re actually being paid to do at 3:23pm on Mondays.

I’ll stick to my external blog, thank you. With full knowledge that it’s out there on the internets for anyone to read – but also a guarded tongue at work as far as publicizing it goes. I don’t need the man breathin’ down my neck trying force some “rules” on my blogging. I don’t blog for no suits…

Folks, I have to say I was worried. About what? Why, about this new Thom Yorke album. Yes, I was worried. When I downloaded it, and had run through it once on the iPod, I was worried that I’d be underwhelmed with it. My first impression what that it started and ended strong, but got all blurry and drug-out through the middle bits. Alas, a couple more casual listens didn’t do much to change that initial impression. Then, I got some focused one-on-one headphone time with the album, and things began to get clearer. Swirly keyboards and understated beats, Thom’s sing-song phrasing full of unexpected changes in timing and key… yeah this thing is good. I still think it’s strongest while opening and closing, but now the middle seems more supportive than weighing. It is worth mentioning though, that, in my opinion, this isn’t as good as what these tunes could’ve been would they have been collaborated on by Jonny, Phil, Ed, and Colin.

Anyway – I’m glad it leaked, and boy did it – nearly two months in advance. Following in the tradition of the last Radiohead albums, all of which have leaked considerably prior to street. XL, the label the album will be officially released on, had some interesting things to say about the leak at a recent Eraser listening party:

Given the nature of Radiohead’s audience, and the history of their albums leaking, it has generally happened a lot earlier. Any label at this point expects that an album is going to get leaked. It definitely happened earlier than we had anticipated. I think it [the listening party] would have had a lot more punch if it was truly the first time that anyone had listened to it, but my assumption is most people in the room last night had already heard the record.

Leaks are just a given now, I suppose. I’m not sure there’s a way anymore to not have an album leak prior to street. You can restrict access to the studio during mastering, but things will still have a tendency to fall into the janitors pocket; you can watch the mastering plant where you cut the discs, even the assembly line where you package them; you can even embed digital “fingerprints” into advance listening copies sent to journalists and media outlets – but nothing is gonna stop that thing from making it onto the ‘net before you can buy it in stores. I’d wager that, if there’s any amount of pre-sale interest in an album, that there’s close to a 100% chance a release group will beat the street.

In the midst of an abysmal “funk” at work, I begrudgingly do my work each day, suspended in some perpetual state of limbo while my project gasps and sputters the longest death rattle in recorded history. But, work is work. Lumbering, wounded project or healthy, shiny-new project… it’s what I do for a paycheck. I keep telling myself to just shut up and get done what needs to get done. That kind of tough-love motivation does work, but it doesn’t come close to replacing genuine enthusiasm.

Goodnight my friends.