Blogitude

2009-06-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

Who Will Dance on the Floor in the Round.

It appears that Michael Jackson is dead...which is apparently enough to bring this blog back to life.

If Michael is dead. I don't really know how I feel about it. Obviously I don't know the man, but it certainly seems like in recent years he took the story-line of his most famous video to heart and turned into some sort of monster.

I mean if his guy was out there using his celebrity to terrorize little kids, the world is probably better off without him.

On the other hand, it's hard to look back on my own childhood and NOT have fond memories of Michael Jackson. His talent was as legendary as his eccentric behavior. I feel like the Michael Jackson I new as a kid probably died in the 90s.

My favorite memory of MJ was watching him premier his "moonwalk" move on a Motown Special on television. We recorded it on VHS not knowing what we were about to see. Make no mistake. People went crazy for this fuckin moonwalk. For a year or so people who would visit us in our home, would ask to see this VHS recording of the moonwalk. This whole performance of Billy Jean was totally electric:

2009-01-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

Where Is My Mind

Last Week I had a pretty bonkers dream and since I woke up and actually remembered it, I wrote it down. So now I can share with you whatever it is that's wrong with me.

Before I can begin to describe this dream I should make one important announcement. I have become a huge fan of Heidi Montag. I am aware that she's not all that popular. Girls in particular seem to despise her. But me? I'm a big fan.

A couple of things for the record. I agree with what appears to be the common consensus: When compared to other beautiful celebrities, HM is not all that pretty. However I suspect that if she walked into my office right now she'd be pretty darn popular. Yes I know she's all plastic and fake, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I think she's got a hot body. So there's that, I'm a terrible person.

Also I have never seen the Hills ("The City" however is a different matter and I am quite partial to Olivia). Supposedly my new favorite singer doesn't come off so well on "reality" television. Whatever. I'm not into her for her looks, or her personality. I'm attracted to the artist.

She makes bad music (and bad music videos) in a way that I don't think I've ever seen before. As far as I can tell it's a revolution. There have been plenty of videos lampooning her masterpiece "Higher" so I'm not going to go into too much detail about how much I adore this video (I've watched it hundreds of times now). Let me just give you a few quick highlights.

1) Count how many times she raises her hands out dramatically to her sides. It's almost her only move...almost.

2) at about 1:40 in this video you will see the sexiest booty move ever to be ruined by a lack of co-ordination. Ever. Period. This has to be on purpose. Michael Scott can't be this awkward.

3) My other favorite moments are parts of the final cut of the video that were obviously meant for the "behind-the-scenes-bloopers reel" and yet somehow snuck their way into the actual video:

At 1:00 Heidi actually falls (while attempting her "raise your hands" move).

At 1:57 Heidi actually stops performing to respond to something that happens off-camera. I dunno...some fan shouting hello? A whale washing up on shore? Something. We don't get to see it. That's the genius of it. The director leaves it up to US and our imagination. Brilliant.

Anyway, back to my dream.

The dream began with me doing something very normal. I was watching the Heidi Montag video "Higher". As you can tell, I know this video pretty much backwards and forwards, and it quickly became obvious that I was not watching the standard version of the video. It was some "special edition" with actual film cameras and crane shots. Heidi was climbing a grassy hill instead of frolicking on the beach and the centerpiece of the video is some man being raised on a platform high(er) above the water on a nearby lake.

Than I was the man on the platform. I am so high(er) above the water that it's positively terrifying. I can see a boat down below and I know that there is some sort of film crew there and maybe a party. Why am I up so high(er)? I can't even remember. I know I have to jump though and so I do.

I plummet towards the lake and fall for a long time. I close my eyes and stiffen my body...bracing for an impact that takes forever to come. But it finally does and the next moment I'm being helped onto the boat. For someone who has just jumped into a lake I'm surprisingly dry (and in street clothes). I also realize that the boat isn't just some normal utility vehicle. It's actually more like a historical cruise ship. Maybe an old steamboat? It's filled with rooms that are made to look like scenes from the 1870's or something.

It's also filled with beautiful party people. More specifically beautiful party ladies. College ladies. It's basically girls gone wild on a floating museum but not quite so topless. I think some of my friends might be on the boat. I'm pretty sure my cousin Eric is, but I don't see any of them. I end up talking to a stunning young woman while wandering through all the different rooms on the steamer.

We pass through bars and a comedy club. We walk along the deck (which now looks more like a modern cruise ship...holy crap I think I'm on the love boat all of a sudden). Anyway at some point it becomes clear that what we are doing is looking for some privacy. However, unlike a "normal" dream (where there are no real rules or consequences), I don't seem to hanging out on Fantasy Porn Island.

I'm struck with an actual moral dilemma. The me in the dream is the same person as the me doing the dreaming in one important respect: we both have a girlfriend. The temptation this opportunity is presenting me is so powerful, and I am very conflicted.

This is the "tossing and turning" portion of the dream. I know that if I submit, no one will ever know that I've done something wrong...but I still don't want to be the guy who does something mean and shallow. I want to be the good guy.

Anyway I come pretty close to being the bad guy but in the end decide not to (hooray...probably). Instead I go to the fancy restaurant and have dinner with some strangers.

We are all sitting around the table talking when this cartoon waiter, with a huge mustache comes by. He goes around the table unfolding napkins and laying them on our laps, then he slips something into my coat. It's bulky and heavy like a glass of some kind. It slips down the side of my chest and falls onto the floor.

The waiter looks at me like I've done something wrong, picks up the item and gives it to me again. I look at it and realize it's some kind of plastic urinal and bed pan. It's a contraption that will allow me to sit there and eat without having to get up to use the restroom. I assure the waiter that I am quite comfortable leaving the table and that I won't be needing those things. (Again...another moral dilemma solved by me)

I decide to exit the restaurant and return to the party. I step outside into the backyard of the house that I grew up in. There are people at the barbecue, people swimming, people in the hot tub. My friend Danika is there and she tells me that there is one crucial ingredient missing from this party -- Giant balloons shaped like tits, and filled with chili. Seriously...this is something that my waking mind would never have come up with. Never in a million years.

"They are so awesome!" She gushes. She is so excited about these...these things that she finally convinces me to go find some. They are clearly a "must have".

Strangely enough I discover that we actually have some of these in the house. I go across the street to borrow some chili and get to work assembling the titty-balloons.

My last memory of this dream as a view of my old backyard, drenched in sunshine and filled with happy people. Happy people who are bouncing giant inflatable boobs (filled with chili) around like beach balls.

-E

2009-01-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Props

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

I use this blog to talk about a lot of things (when I actually post of course), among them are some of the important people in my life. A few of my readers have spoken to me about their desire to become a part of the magic that is "blogitude", and have been hoping for a mention here for years.

On the whole I try to avoid making this just a personal diary, and when I do talk about the details of my life here I try to be as open as possible. So sometimes people who "deserve" mention get lost in the shuffle.

So now, in no particular order I give you:

Brian Phipps.

Here he is wearing a bandanna:

I have been working with Phipps for a long time now. Our relationship has really changed over the years. As you may know, I am something of a "button-pusher", and soon after meeting Brian I took it upon myself to become the annoying brother that he never had.

You could describe our interactions as "adversarial".

At some point I remember deciding that things had gone too far and that it was time for us to be friends. It was time to cast aside the small-minded pranks and petty insults and embrace a more supportive and encouraging environment in the office.

It sorta worked out.

Anyway Phipps is a great guy, who faithfully reads my blog mostly so that he can tell me how disappointed he is with it every time.

Here's to Phipps. Hurray!

James Scarafone:

James is a heavy metal, rock n roller, drummer:

James is a solid guy. A good listener. Probably the one person here in the office who truly appreciates the fine art of Thor and his "muscle rock". James is a trusted confidant and a consistent source of sage advice. He's a good friend. He'd be a great friend but he's also something of a shut-in who never wants to hang out outside of work.

James recently cut his hair short. He's been a long hair degenerate for the entire 9 years I've known him. It was a bit of a shock, but probably for the best.

Last but not least I should talk about Trisha. Here she is:

For the past few years I've been clogging up this blog with many sad and frustrating posts about my stumbles in love. With Trisha I have taken a great leap forward. Trisha and I have been dating for about 9 months now. We met at work (which I know your not supposed to do but I mean come on. Where else do you meet people these days?)

Trisha is a sweet(and sassy) woman who has had a hugely positive impact on my life. She's soft spoken but will surprise you with some feisty fast talk when you least expect it (like I said...sassy). She's also quite artistic and especially crafty. She also really seems to understand me (which is cheesy but true) and that's pretty darn important.

Also. She plays complicated war games like Paths of Glory with me. I mean come on. Path's of Glory! You have no idea how impressive this is. Look at how awesome she is:

Trisha moved in with me at the end of December and I couldn't be happier about it.

-E

2008-12-19T17:52:00.001-08:00

Um...I'm Famous?

"Cherchez la Baditude"

-B-

2008-12-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

Time To Spread Some Cheer.

Well rather than clog up this space with a long-winded recap of everything I missed in the last year or so. I'll just pretend like there's been no break and write about something pointless and mundane.

What I remember about blogging is that most of it seems to be about complaining about something. With that in mind, here is a short list of things I am sick of:

1) "Got Anything"

Remember this?

We all loved the got milk ad campaign. It was effective because it communicated a simple truth that most of us can relate to, in a clever and humorous way. Namely that the average American finds milk to be a perfect and almost vital compliment to a wide variety of tasty (and typically rich) treats.

Interesting side note: that original "Aaron Burr" milk ad was directed by Michael Bay.

Anyway. About a million other people with zero creativity jumped on the milk bandwagon and attempted to peddle their products by placing the word "got" in front of whatever-the-fuck they were selling.

The day I realized I had had enough of this bullshit was when I was following some soccer-mom/private-tutor's Ford Escort and saw these words (in that all-too-familiar font) on her tinted rear window: "GOT GOOD GRADES?"

what?

"GOT GOOD GRADES?" *smirk*

excuse me? Wipe that god damned smile off your face. If you're not smart enough to come up with a better slogan your certainly not qualified to teach anyone anything. Ever. The only thing that slogan tells me is that this tutor excels at ripping something off badly. I'm sure all his/her student's excel at plagiarism.

2) "Scandalgate"

On August 9, 1974 President Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States of America. Nixon ended an unpopular war in Vietnam, made friends with China and helped foster a spirit of cooperation with the Soviets -- easing Cold War tensions. However because he was something of an arrogant shyster he wound up abandoning his office in disgrace, with a dismal approval rating of around 20%.

It was discovered that the Nixon administration was up to all sorts of no-good when some of his goons where found breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. Offices that were located in a group of buildings called the Watergate Complex.

The "Watergate Scandal" as it came to be known ended up sinking the Nixon Administration and tainted his entire legacy.

The worst consequence of this whole thing was that lazy news-people had a secret meeting somewhere to decide that from now on every scandal or disagreement or point of controversy should from then on have the word "gate" as it's suffix.

This means if you go to a restaurant and order a hamburger and the service was slow you should refer to this incident as "burger-gate".

If your neighbor crashes his car into the door attached to your fence and refuses to pay for the damages, you should refer to this incident as "gate-gate"

I hate this short-hand for "scandal" for a number of reasons. Mostly because it's trite and tired. But also because it obscures and confuses the actual history of the original "gate" and makes "Watergate" sound like some infamous aquatic crime.

3) "Carol of Hells"

Again I have to harp on advertisers. I know it's an easy target because there are SO many bad commercials out there but I just can't help myself. I know I only have like 10 readers here and I don't think any of them are in advertising but if you KNOW someone who is, please tell them to stop making holiday themed ads with Christmas carol parodies.

For the love of the Jesus who you claim to be celebrating. STOP IT!

It's not that I hate holiday music (though by December 10th or so it does get a little old). I just find these to be unbelievably lame. The song that gets raped most often seems to be Carol of Bells. Which is a rather charming tune actually (though I prefer it as an instrumental). It feels very "wintery". It sounds like snow.

However when someone like Garmin comes in a takes a dump all over it sounds like shit and makes me want pour acid in my ears.

Oh and lest you think I'm some sort of Scrooge. I do have a favorite Christmas song:

"I Wanna wiiiiish you a merry christmas!!"

-B-

2008-12-16T12:14:00.001-08:00

I wonder

If I started blogging again would anyone notice?

-B

2008-07-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Luxembourg and the Priest!

Almost done with these.

While I was planning this trip to Europe (predominantly the trip to Croatia), Mike mentioned to me that Judas Priest (an old high school favorite) would be playing a show in Luxembourg.

I'm not really sure why, but for some reason this seemed like a perfect combination and I was pretty sure I did NOT want to miss this.

Even though the boys in JP are a little old, they still put on quite a show. Rob Halford (the singer) seemed to have been hit the hardest by years of heavy metal touring. Every phrase that he belted out seemed to leave him exhausted -- leaving him leaning over on his mic stand about to pass out.

He never did succumb tho. In fact he really seemed to give it his all.

The Euro-metal crowd did NOT dissapoint either. A popular look for these aging rockers was the "all-over-denim" look. Super tight denim pants, black tee, and denim vest. The vest typically covered in "flair" (sewn on patches for various bands).

Another interesting part of the Euro-crowd was their tendency to sing along to melodies and guitar riffs. They can turn any song into a soccer chant. Check this part of Breakin the Law at 1:37 for an especially good example.

(One more reason to love the internet. I mean...I was at that concert and there is it on Youtube.)

The icing on the cake was the venue itself (the appropriately named "ROCKHAL"), which rests in the shadows of an imposing, abandoned steel mill.

I also spent some time that day in the city of Luxembourg just cruisin around and seeing the sites. It's probably not a "must-see" area of Europe but it's a charming town and a pleasant place to spend an afternoon.

-B

2008-07-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

Croatia Part 4

On the Way to Zadar we took time out to visit Krka National Park. We spent a few hours hiking around and taking in the impressive scenery. We had planned to go swimming in one of the lakes, surrounded by waterfalls but the weather turned cold just as we arrived and the idea lost its charm.

Of course it was hard to resist the siren song of this particular bathing beauty:

I didn't realize they made aqua-diapers for grown men.

Zadar was one of my favorite stops on our trip. It was also our final leg of the Croatian adventure.

We got some nice weather again while in Zadar and went for a swim at a semi-sandy beach. The beach was close to a huge diving platform that was about as high as our previous cliff jumping excursion. So we hung out there for a bit with some local youngsters.

Zadar was also the setting for some good Euro 2008 soccer viewing. We watched the game at a local bar/bakery and then cruised the town to observe all the merry-making and revelry that came along with a Croatian victory.

Zadar was also home to the sea organ which was a fascinating landmark. Basically a huge musical instrument that is played by the ocean tides.

All in all a fantastic end to a great excursion.

-B

2008-07-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

Croatia Part 3

Split was the first big city we visited in Croatia. We were not so lucky with the weather here. Despite the persistent clouds we wandered around much of the old city.

Split's central tourist attraction is that is is built withing the skeletal remains of Diocletian's Palace:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian%27s_Palace

Split's waterfront was quite nice, and it boasts a very impressive statue of Grgur, the bishop of Nin (Known to our group as Gandalf).

Despite these obvious pluses I found I was ready to leave Split pretty quickly and move on to the next town, Trogir.

Trogir was another small little coastal town with a charming "old section".

Mike got his hair cut in Trogir by a woman who was one of the most stand-offish and rude people I had met there in Croatia. She drove me out of her store with her stares and evil eye.

Turns out that after I had left she told mike that I was "beautiful". Wouldn't be the first time I've misread signals like that.

-B

2008-07-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Croatia Part 2

Mjet was one of my favorite spots on our trip. A peaceful and totally captivating little island. The perfect setting for an exhilarating bike ride around the lakes.

Mjet is where we started to realize that owning your own sailboat would probably be the way to travel around Dalmatia.

Everywhere we went from Dubrovnik to Zadar had places to tie up a boat right along the major thoroughfares along the water.

Korcula was where we started to get a little unlucky with the weather. We wandered around the cobblestone streets looking to see how many references to Marco Polo we could find.

-B

2008-07-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

Croatia Part 1

Well I've finally had a bit of time to catch up on a thing or two one of those things being my photos from my recent trip to Europe (mainly Croatia). While I'm at it I figured I'd throw up a blog post. I'm going to post the pictures and blogs and stuff in small chunks for easier digestion.

Traveling with me was my long time friend Mike (aka. Doc Mike, or Disco Stup), his main squeeze Gwen, Mike's lil sister Mal (no longer so lil), and Pete Henning (Pete's really neat).

This was the first time in a long time that I have traveled internationally and not made an effort to learn the language spoken by people native to my destination. It helped me realize how much a lil effort in that regard goes, even if the country you are visiting is full of people who also speak english.

This along with the nature of our destination made this trip seem just bit more "vacation" than "travel" to me. Nothing wrong with a bit of sun-dreanched relaxation though!

We begin in Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik was our first stop on our tour of the Croatian coastline. Here is where we first experienced the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic, the friendly hospitality of the Croatian people, and the astonishing lack of diversity amongst restaurant menus.

Dubrovnik was perfectly charming and set the stage for what would be a series of similarly charming, walled, coastal towns.

Dubrovnik highlights included gelatto, cliff jumping, and pirate ships.

-B

2008-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Symbols and Censorship.

I gotta great dirty trick you can play on a three year old kid. See kids learn how to talk from listening to their parents see? See so what you do…whenever you’re around ‘em… talk wrong. So now it’s like his first day of school and the kid raises his hand, “may I mambo dogface to the banana patch?” “give that kid a special test…”
-Steve Martin

(some disturbing images are displayed at the end of this post)

Language is a pretty fascinating subject when you stop to think about it. There is so much diversity across the planet in how people communicate. So much of a person’s culture is wrapped up in their language…and not just in their language but how they use their language. Their accent, their slang, every way in which a person speaks reflects something significant about who they are and where they came from.

I also find the “organic” nature of language to be interesting. How it changes over time. How grammar, and usage changes in order to suit the needs of the people who speak it.

Another aspect of language and communication I find interesting is the nature of slang and curse words. The relationship between taboo language and principles of free speech is a strange one. It can seem kind of silly for people to get so worked up over one word while find another one with a similar definition to be reasonably acceptable. Your favorite prime-time television character probably won’t be telling anyone to “fuck off” anytime soon. If they get angry with someone they might just shout, “get outta here!” or “leave me alone!”. Typically no one calls Simon Cowell a “cocksucker” or an “asshole” but he might get called a “jerk”. Polite conversation doesn’t include “shit” or “cunt”, but you might get away with the more scientific “feces” or “vagina”.

Some people would say that these curse words are just that – words. That we shouldn’t get so upset over their usage. That sticks and stones are the only thing that does real damage and that words do nothing.

On the other side of the fence from “sticks and stones” is the “pen is mightier”. Frankly I’m inclined to agree with the pen people. Words can hurt, and they SHOULD hurt. When someone tries to communicate hatred, animosity, or ridicule we should be able to understand them.

I like my curse words and I like them best as taboo. They are so much more powerful that way, and as a result much more useful.

Another vital tool for communication is symbols. The words you are reading now are symbols. You can understand my intentions without me having to verbalize it. Stop signs and traffic lights easily communicate the rules of the road and keep us all (relatively) safe. Symbols are a powerful means of communication because their meaning is easy to understand the instant that you see it. It’s a useful and necessary shorthand for getting through our complicated lives.

Symbols are powerful because they can communicate complicated ideas almost instantly.

One such symbol is the Swastika.

Like the Christian cross, it’s hard to find a more recognizable symbol, and one so charged with emotion and so heavy with cultural baggage. Like the cross, the swastika has meant different things to different people throughout the course of history.

For most of us here in the western world, the swastika has come to symbolize the worst in us -- Bigotry, hatred, murder, and evil. When the Nazi party adopted the swastika as their own, they made an indelible impression in how we see it.

Recently I’ve read a number of opinions on-line about the swastika and how we shouldn’t be afraid of it. People list a number of reasons for doing so. I don’t doubt that most of the people involved in these arguments are good people, free from the sort of darkness that enveloped Europe in the 1940’s.

I’m sure that their hearts are in the right place but I feel that their efforts are misguided.

“The swastika isn’t exclusively tied to Nazis”

This is a very common argument for casually displaying the swastika. It’s true that cultures all over the world have, for centuries, used the swastika as a positive symbol. Depending on where and when you are it could mean, luck, harmony, or balance. It could symbolize whirling winds, or healing powers.

I think that the history of the swastika is important. I don’t want people to forget what it used to mean, but in the western world, the swastika no longer stands for harmony…quite the opposite in fact. You may wish it meant something different. But it doesn’t.

It’s not the first time a symbol or a word has changed definition in a dramatic way. If I told you that you were a “nice person” in the 13th century you’d be insulted.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice

If you are determined to use “nice” in this antiquated way you’d not only be out of date, but you wouldn’t be communicating effectively with your modern counterparts. You would be “talking wrong”. In short…you’d look “foolish, stupid, and senseless”.

“The swastika is historical. We shouldn’t white wash history”

This is a fair point. I’m not in agreement with policies like those in Germany which make the displaying of swastikas a crime. Communication in most cases shouldn’t be a criminal offense, but just because something is historical doesn’t always mean is should be displayed casually. We shouldn’t try and forget about the swastika…that to me is dangerous. In fact what I argue is closer to the opposite. By keeping the swastika taboo, you re-enforce its meaning. It continues to be a powerful symbol, and an effective warning against fascism, racism, and the sort of mob mentality that can lead to terrible suffering.

I don’t want to ban people from displaying the swastika if they feel they need to, but it should not be displayed lightly or without sensitivity. It should remain taboo….terrible to look at. A reminder of what can happen when we let fear guide us down dark paths, when we late hatred rule our hearts. It should conjure up terrifying images like this:

And this:

And this.

Keeping the stigma attached to the swastika is NOT the same thing as trying to sweep it under the rug. It’s not the same thing as saying, “let’s not ever display this thing again and forget it ever existed”, and that’s not what I’m advocating. Taboos are taught, and then enforced. If curse words really were exclusively detrimental and served no real purpose we wouldn’t use them. The fact is that curse words are incredibly useful but only as long as they are “forbidden”.

The swastika is a powerful tool, and keeping it taboo is what gives it that power. Let it do its job and serve as a useful reminder. Let it remain a short-hand for genocide, and a cultural “warning sign” for oppression and bigotry. Keep it in the culture, and if it must be displayed do so with sensitivity and good sense.

-B

2008-02-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

Something you may not know about me: I am the worlds foremost authority on "Doug Rock". This is because I coined the phase and can apply it as I see fit.

This doesn't mean I randomly assign it on a whim. It describes a very specific kind of evil. My dream is to one day be able to search Wikipedia and find an entry on Doug Rock. Until that day. Here's what such an entry might look like:

**Doug Rock**
What is Doug Rock? While the quality of most music is a matter of personal taste, it's a scientific fact that Doug Rock is some of the worst music on the planet. Some of its defining qualities are:

-- Band members who take themselves way too seriously.
-- Crunchy guitars backing up wussified, cry-baby, lyrics.
-- An obsession with power ballads.

Doug Rock bands are still fascinated by the "tender aqoustic riff" to set up the "crashing electric guitar climax". This trick is to Doug Rock, what arpeggios are to 80's metal:

It's a good trick, but lazy. It's like in movies when they kill the dog. Killing the dog makes everyone cry. It doesn't matter how good the movie is or what its about. Killing the dog makes us all sad. But you cant kill the dog in every movie, and Doug Rock bands leave behind mountains of dog carcasses.

Before I continue it would probably be prudent to talk about where the term Doug Rock comes from. A good place to start would be to ask, "which came first, Doug or Doug Rock?" It would appear that Doug came first...some 33 years or so ago.

Doug Rock bust onto the scene in the late 90's...a terrible by-product of those sensitive times.

The term "Doug Rock" was born (as you might have guessed) after I met my friend Doug and realized he had a special talent for enjoying the worst music on the face of the planet. He's not a bad guy...but he likes evil music. If you could smell music...Doug's music would smell like the worst farts you've ever smelt.

The tricky thing about Doug Rock is that its not a simple matter of looking at Doug's ipod and simply applying DR label to every thing you see there. Doug likes some good music. To help you avoid that sort of pitfall lets get into the history of Doug Rock and give you some classic examples.

Surprising Beginings:

A friend of mine asked me the other day, "Is Pearl Jam Doug Rock?". It's a good question with a subtle and complicated answer. The short version is: no. Pearl Jam is NOT Doug Rock, but Pearl Jam is RESPONSIBLE for Doug Rock. It's not the first time something bad started out as something good. The devil was the best of all angels before falling into hell. This is a good way to look at Pearl Jam. A signature band of the 90's; highly successful and critically acclaimed.But with their distinctive style and great success came the copy cats. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots released albums that were pretty similar. For the record, STP avoids the Doug Rock label...but only just barely.

Then in 1993...Candlebox arrives on the scene. Their insipid and uninspired melodrama heralds the arrival of a new style of music. An atrocity that we now know as Doug By the way, Candlebox's web-site is laughably addressed as: "candleboxrocks". Seriously. That's not a joke. Someone should go to prison for that.

Anyway their first album went quadruple platinum and music execs started falling over themselves to sign every long-haired, Nancy-boy in a flannel.

The next year Kurt Cobain died and to fill the void we got even more pretenders. Topping the list is the "Live" and "Bush" (these bands could be better named as "Pretentious" and "Vapid" respectively)

Live:

Bush:This is really the "golden age" of Doug Rock. If you could pull off that Vedder-ish "mumbly-growl" and sing about how pathetic you were, you could probably get yourself a polished music video and a gold record.

We close out this era in the late 90's with Creed. Who give us the same old shitty songs and cement the idea that mono-syllabic, one-word band-names go hand in hand with dull music.

What a bunch of fuckin wankers!

Seriously if you've watched all these and you HAVEN'T stabbed yourself in the ears yet...your either incredibly strong, or simply lobotomized.

Finally 2000 came around. I'd have hoped that the new Millennium (which I suppose was technically still a year off) would bring about the end of Doug Rock...but it was only the beginning. In fact 2001 gave us the breakout hit for what is really the GOLD STANDARD in Doug Rock. As you might expect...this musical sin comes from the same country that gave us Bryan Adams...that's right. Canada. People in Canada are just too nice to do rock n' roll correctly. For your consideration...I give you.

Nickleback:unbelievable. On the other hand...Nickleback shows us why the Portuguese are such a great people:

awesome. awesome. awesome. Hats off to you Portugal. You did what had to be done.

Nickleback ushered in a whole new era. Some bands try to disguise themselves as "nu Metal"...but they can't hide from me. I know Doug Rock when I see it. I'm talking to you P.O.D. you and your fucking "Charger's Anthem" that jinxed the bolts in the playoffs of 2006/07.

P.O.D. is actually a sorta subset of Doug Rock. It's a specialized set of crap that includes shitty rap-rock bands that wish they could be "Rage Against the Machine" (as opposed to Pearl Jam). Your Limp Bizkits, your Salivas, your Linkin Parks. They all belong to this subset. It's not Doug Rock "proper" but it's certainly worth mentioning.

Now that we are officially moving in the latter half of the first decade of this century...there are sadly no signs that Doug Rock is letting up:

Puddle of Mudd:3 Doors Down:

I mean it's unbelievable. I could go on forever. There's even an American Idol Doug Rock:

I mean...it just gets worse and worse and it must be stopped. Now I know that we all have guilty pleasures. I'll listen to a Doug Rock song now and then. I mean...the shit's got unintentional comedic value that is off the charts. But I think the time has come for us to take a cue from our brothers and sisters in Portugal. It's time to start throwing rocks people. Aim for the shaggy dome.

-E

2008-02-11T22:35:00.000-08:00

Rain is Pourin', Touchdown Scorin'

I am a workin' fool lately. All those late nights, weekend grinds, really started to wear a fella down. All that time in the office seemed to obliterate my workout regime/active lifestyle or whatever and it just made me tired and grumpy. I can't remember being so irritable in a long time. This last project culminated in one all-nighter right before the deadline that finally knocked me down.

Its yet another reminder that I am in fact getting older like a normal person. I just can't bounce back from that shit anymore. It took me about 3 days to get normal.

So where was I? I think I was going to tell you a Sean-do story.

I have long history of beating Sean at video games (yes, what an accomplishment!). Back in the 8-bit era we used to play a lot of "2-player" Super Mario Brothers. I put "2-player" in quotes because Super Mario Bros was as a 2-player game in the same way that 2 people masturbating, in separate rooms, at separate times, is sex.

Okay so maybe a different metaphor would sound less like incest.

Anyway. 2-player Super Mario Bros was intensely boring since you weren't really competing with one another. You were just taking turns at the regular one-player game. You didn't get to play until the other guy died. This created a fun little meta-game for me called, "How to trick Luigi-Sean into killing himself".

Me: I'm telling you Sean, I read it in Nintendo Power. You jump down that third hole and you actually get 10 free lives. It's awesome. I did it yesterday.

Sean: You are such a liar.

Me: No dude I'm telling you. THIS time I'm telling the truth. 10 free lives.

Luigi: *death beeps*

Sean: YOU JERK!

Me: Looks like it's my turn!

Sean: *stomps out of the room*

Now-a-days Sean and I compete most often in Madden Football. Madden video football is actually the game that got me interested in real NFL football and I've been playing it pretty avidly since 1994 or so. I've had a long relation ship with the game. Ran a few work tournaments (which I never managed to win...folded in the play-offs every year), and had a number of epic games with Discostup, I'm no expert, but a decent player.

I'm not sure what bit we are in these days. I think they stopped keeping track with the N64.

Regardless of the bits, the one-sided video-contest between my brother and I continues. I'm pretty sure Seando has never beaten me in Madden.

Recently both of us picked up PS3s. Sean was here in town visiting and found out that I had yet to purchase Madden this year and started talking all cocky. I don't know if he thought he was safe...or maybe he figured he'd gotten a jump on me since I hadn't played in a while...but he actually uttered these words, "Too bad you don't have Madden so I could beat the shit out of you in it."

We were in the car on the way to the game store within five minutes of this comment.

So how'd those first games go? Well I was indeed a lil rusty. I hadn't really played much madden in the past couple years. I couldn't remember any of my defensive adjustment tricks -- Line shifts, and hot routes...all that stuff was out the door. In the old days I had my offense set up and good to go. A scripted opening of 10 or so plays. I could read defenses had my dump-off receivers planned and could execute in the running game (although I always struggled against the zone-blitz).

None of that was firing on all cylinders that day.

I beat Sean in our first game by something obscene. like 30 points or something. These are 5 minutes quarters we are talking about here.

We played 3 or 4 games like that with one exception (Sean had a lead on me for 3 quarters only to give up like 3 or 4 touchdowns in the final 2 minutes. It was horrible...I couldn't stop laughing).

So Sean gave up for the moment. I thought it was over. But he calls me a few days later and tells me he wants to get on on-line game going. Fine.

Let me say one thing about Madden on-line. What a suck-fest. Everything that is fun and exciting about Madden football is destroyed by online competition. It's slow, and laggy and just plain stupid.

Sean loves it though...even when I continue to slaughter him over and over again. Marshall Faulk comes on before each game to predict the score. I think he bases his predictions partially on the teams each player chooses but also on their past performance as a "coach". Faulk was starting to give me +25 points in his pre-game prognostications.

The one good thing about on-line madden is that I have a working microphone hooked up to my PS3 and Sean doesn't. Which means I can trash-talk Sean the whole game and he's powerless to strike back. Its even more fun to imagine him throwing temper tantrums after giving up yet another red-zone interception.

Don't take this gloating the wrong way. Sean's winless online last I checked...and that's in like 20 or 30 games.

So if you are looking to pad your madden stats a lil (and you actually like playing on-line) look up "punkace". He'll be playing the Niners and dropping F-bombs like no tomorrow.

-E

2008-01-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Do you Wanna Play With Me?

There is something of a renaissance going on in my house right now. One that no doubt rivals the importance of the rebirth in Europe throughout the 15th and 16th century...or not. A combination of Team Fortress 2 on the PC and my recent console upgrade to a playstation 3 has reignited my passion for video games. Or more specifically...video games beyond World of Warcraft.

I'll admit that one of the factors in choosing a playstation 3 versus an Xbox 360 was a bit of the ol' company loyalty. I mean fuck. I'm not gonna kill myself every day working on these titles only to go buy a system that I can't even play them on. Now that Blu Ray seems to be emerging as everybody's favorite next-gen video format...all the better.

Now that I have one I am more and more happy with the purchase. Here's a couple quick thoughts.

Eye of Judgment:
EoJ is essentially a card game sort of along the lines of Magic (it's collectible, with deck building as part of the strategies). The twist is that you play (with playing cards) and your PS3. EoJ comes with a USB "eye" camera that connects to your console. When you play a card, the "eye" scans it and sends it to your television:

It's really pretty cool, and there seems like a lot of potential here. The game itself is surprisingly good. My only problem with is is that the world it's set in is kinda generic. Dare I say it, but some sort of license would have been a great addition (and selling point). If you have a PS3 and buy this game...check out the packaging it comes in...specifically the pictures of people playing the game:

I don't remember posing for this picture...but that's gotta be me (the white guy) right? Someone owes me some cash.

The USB "eye" that comes with the game opens up all sorts of gaming opportunities via the Playstation Network. There are a number of titles that are specifically designed to work with this gizmo. Some are more passive (like virtual aquariums), but there are a couple fun, cheap little games that I quite like. My favorite of these so far is a game called Operation Creature Feature (I think it's a 4 or 5 dollar download):

It's got a sorta "lemmings" feel to it. Aside from the novelty of interacting directly with the game world via body movements, it's got a cool visual style to boot. Highly recommended.

I've played a couple more "standard" and "Serious" games as well. Heavenly Sword was pretty good despite the fact that you can't really jump. It's got outstanding visuals and great implementation of the "sixaxis" controller (that responds to how you move it) during sequences that allow you to guide arrows or cannon-balls like a homing missile. It's unfortunate that the final boss fight was kinda a let down...often devolving into a big, blind, button-mashing party.

Fwats also kicked me down a copy of Assasin's Creed. We all pretty much creamed ourselves at E3 a couple years back when this trailer released:

Creed's strong points: The ability to throw people from rooftops (I can't really explain why this is so fun), the Parkour style of movement and climbing, The incredibly intriguing story-line set in Medieval Palestine, working behind the scenes to prevent the crusades, the Hashshashin, the Templars...gripping.

Creed's weak points: Future town. For some reason they take this rich, detailed, medieval world and constantly take you OUT of it and bring you to this futuristic, sparsely-decorated, apartment where your movement controls suck and you get yelled at by a random bearded guy. So lame.

One last thing about Assasin's Creed. Turns out the producer is beautiful. Fwats. Seriously. Hook me up.

I'm not kidding.

Anyway I finished those two epic adventures and now I'm starting Resistance: Fall of Man -- A first person shooter that is in no way influenced by Half-Life 2...except for the fact that it's nearly fucking identical.

Fine by me tho. I love Half-Life.

Resistance (so far at least) is mostly sorta "OK". I mean it gets the job done. Nothin fancy. Plus playing an FPS with a game controller / joystick (as opposed to mouse and keyboard) is like trying to eat soup with a fork.

Finally there is Rock Band. How wonderful it is. I know a lot of people are reporting problems with their guitars but mine seems to work pretty well. My foot-pedal for the drum-kit broke but some super glue, a random metal thing I found at Home Depot and some Gorilla Tape (the strongest tape there is) fixed it right up.

Once again the Downloadable Content is where it's at for me. I LOVE the fact that new songs get released every week. Sure it's a cash-sucking scam when you compare the cost of 30 single downloads to the 30 tracks that come with the game. But fuck it. I'm obviously willing to pay.

The online gameplay is pretty neat too (though nothing compares to bringing a group of wanna-be rockers into a room together).

The standard slam you hear against Rock Band, or Guitar Hero and the fags that play it is that the time spent mastering each song in the video game is better served actually learning the instrument.

No argument from me really. The problem of course is that's true of a lot of things:

Time spent downloading new music (better spent learning an instrument)
Time spent watching music videos (better spent learning an instrument)
Time spent dancing to music in front of the mirror (better spent learning an instrument)
Time spent watching a live music performance (better spent learning an instrument)

My point is that Guitar Hero / Rock Band is really just another way to enjoy music so fuck off and allow me my fun.

Hmmm. I really wanted to tell you a story about my brother but that will have to wait for next time. Till then!

-E

2008-01-07T00:38:00.001-08:00

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love

Welcome to 2008. It is the new year and I could resolve to write more blog posts, but that would probably doom this blog to a complete melt down. My resolutions pretty much always fail. I like to think that's because I'm mostly perfect and it's just so damned hard to improve on something so grate...er...great.

Mostly it's because I'm lazy.

Last year I resolved to take a more active role in my community, and to devote more of my time to charity. I looked up a few options on-line and everything I found wanted me to take a class or sign some papers or some shit. I just wanted to show up somewhere and get to helpin'. Not really possible it seems. Really though I have no good excuses for being self absorbed all year.

Which leads me to the next issue. I have recently realized that my entire life is devoted to leisure. I spend pretty much every waking hour in the pursuit of some sort of hobby, game, or entertainment. Even my job (working in video games) is devoted to leisure. It's my sole purpose for being.

Sometimes I clean my house. That's not too fun.

Otherwise I have so much in the way of pastimes that I don't have time for all of it. I recently got myself a Playstation 3 and thanks to my job and the connections there I've already got a sizable library of new and un-played video games. I've got a DVR FULL (72%) of unwatched TV shows and a Netflix subscription that is totally going to waste. There's too many concerts I'll miss. Too many books I'll never read. More than a couple board games that await their first trip out of the box. There is plenty of traveling to do, ocean to surf, soccer to play, rocks to climb, etc etc.

Somewhere in-between all that there's still smokin' hot chicks who need my attention. Or so I've been told.

I'm obviously far too busy pleasuring myself to give my time to random strangers with real problems. I think if I was any sort of a decent person I'd follow through on that resolution from 2 years ago already.

Speaking of pleasuring yourself. Here is a riddle for you (based on a conversation I had last year):

A woman goes into a sex-shop. She buys something and you get to guess what that something is. Here are your hints:

1) NOT something you wear.
2) NOT something intended for arousal.
3) NOT something you read or watch.
4) NOT contraception.
5) Something that WILL contact the genitals.

Those of you who know the answer, don't spoil it for others.

So 2007 is over and it was quite a year for me and my single-nes. I'm still trying to figure out if it was a good year or a bad year. Feels like bad year. Started off bad.

There was certainly a fair amount of activity overall. I hit the internet dating scene pretty hard for a while with mixed results. Made a friend at least. Went back to some more "old school" methods and thought I had found one or two encouraging leads. Didn't quite pan out. One was particularly disappointing but such is life.

My family continues to hit on strange women for me. Everyone seems to be taking a turn at this practice (originally pioneered by my grandmother at a local Chili's). Most recent victim is some poor 20-year old over at Nordstrom. My dad just shakes his head with bewilderment. "We found this really cute girl" he'll say (as if she was a stray cat) "but he (meaning me) refuses to call her!". It's like I'm refusing to procreate just to spite them.

The other thing I heard a few times in 2007 is what a hot commodity I should be. People who tell me this:

1) My Family
2) Married Women
3) Old Married Women

Apparently a single guy like me, at my age, with my myriad qualities, this is when I'm supposed to "bloom". I'm prime meat. Grade-A, super-awesome.

It's not that I don't believe the hype. It's just that people have been telling me this for years. "wait till you are a senior in high school." "wait till you get to college." "wait till you stop waiting tables." "wait till your 30".

I keep peaking and peaking all over again (which makes me dyn-o-mite in the sack!)

Anyway. The search goes on. If all that sounded as pitiful as I fear, the next part will probably read like someone "talking themselves into something". Trust me -- I'm pretty far from miserable. I just suspect that my stumbling little journey through singledom is kinda amusing.

I feel like I'm in a good place. Yea would kinda like someone to share it with, but until that someone comes along I've got plenty to keep me busy and good friends to hang out with. You can see some of those people here in my photo set from New Years:

Happy oh-08 Everyone!

-E

PS. I resolve to write more blog entries this year.

2007-10-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

This Fire Is Outta Control, I'm Gonna Burn This City

Normally it takes me a little bit of searching to find my title tracks for each post but in this case there was a wealth of options. Here are some of the other contenders:

Through Fire and Flames:

Ring of Fire:

My Ass is on Fire:

Jump in the Fire:

Burning Down The House:

and many more.

So yes. As I spoke of briefly in my last post, we've had a hell of a week. The dry conditions and Santa Ana winds here in San Diego were the right ingredients for what the Governator cleverly called "a perfect firestorm". Evacuations were going on all over the county (some mandatory, some voluntary) and most of us were either displaced or were on the verge of displaced. Many, many people lost their homes. A few lives were lost.

I have to say that the emergency services really seemed to have their act together. Agencies appeared to be well organized, well prepared, and given the scope of this disaster...things seemed to go pretty smoothly. I think there were quite a few houses that were saved this year that would have been lost in the last round of wildfires.

One thing I would be critical of however is the television news coverage of the event. It may come as a surprise to some, but the news coverage tended to be more sensational rather than informative. Most of the news coverage consisted of having people call in live. The graphics on the screen would display the name and location of the caller along with a little "LIVE: BREAKING NEWS" icon in the corner. Meanwhile the actual imagery would all be pre-recorded video from all over the county. So you would look up and see "LIVE: FROM SAN MARCOS" but the video would be 12 hours old from Poway. Really responsible fucking journalism.

My other "favorite" moments of the TV news coverage involved one of the local channels and their "on the scene" reporter. Basically they had this guy running around along-side actual fire fighters and trying to interview them while they were busy...you know...saving homes and lives and shit. Unreal. The guy would seriously run up to some dude in a mask, holding a fire hose and ask shit like, "How difficult is it to fight this fire that has been 0% contained for three days now?" The firefighter would just sorta grunt in disbelief and run off to some new disaster.

Another interesting side-effect from all this was watching how local kids reacted to it. A couple of families who got forced to evacuate ended up at my dad's place down the street. One family had a couple of boys. I don't have a lot of experience with kids, but I can guess what happens to them when they are forced out of their homes and get couped up inside for three days.

They go crazy.

For the few hours I was at my dads house I became a living jungle gym. It's kinda fun for a while but kids with that kinda energy have a lot of momentum and are pretty much impossible to slow down once you get 'em going.

I also saw a number of families at the supermarket. All their kids were going bonkers as well. It just made me realize how much energy it must take to be a parent and that I had better get started soon if I ever expect to have enough "exuberance" to keep up with any kids of my own.

Anyway. Most of the area seems to be safe now. Life is returning to normal for a lot of us. Other people are less fortunate and have a long road ahead of them. I can't imagine it's very fun to rebuild your house and deal with insurance companies. My heart goes out to those families. Help out if you can!

Here are my pictures from the whole week:

-E

2007-10-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

Fire

Just a quick note to let anyone who might be concerned that I am ok. So far no one in my area has had to be evacuated. For the moment we are not in danger.

2007-10-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

So Much For My Happy Ending.

Yesterday I had my first massage. A lot of people love the massage. It's supposed to feel good. It's supposed to be relaxing. It's supposed to be good for you. I've always been a little uncomfortable letting a stranger go to town on me in such a "familiar" way. I'm rather ticklish. Also I'm afraid of getting a boner in the middle of the whole thing.

But I had a rough day yesterday and my body -- especially my left arm and wrist -- has just felt a little wrecked and out of whack for a while and my dad insisted that I give the massage a go.

I figured I could assuage my biggest fears (the ones relating to blood flow) by just "takin' care of business" myself before heading out (it occurs to me that maybe it's this sort of behavior that's giving my left arm so much trouble and NOT all the computer usage like I first thought).

With that dirty deed taken care of I head off to some small "alternative wellness center" in Carlsbad. I enter the building and the surroundings inside make me instantly skeptical. Smelly soaps, and candles adorn the shelves along side the myriad of new age self-help books. The soft, soothing, and vaugley "ethnic" sounds of Yanni style music fills the air. Blech. I guess it's too much to expect a lil RJD2 or Thievery Corporation.

Eventually I find myself mostly naked on that strange table with that toilet seat thing you put your face in at the end of it and the touching begins. Due to the masseuse using both her forearms and hands, along with some sort of oil or lubricant, my initial thoughts on the experience was that it felt like I was getting a tongue bath from a couple of elephants. It wasn't necessarily unpleasant...just weird.

The rest of the experience vacillated between slightly painful, sorta ticklish, and vaguely uncomfortable with splashes of genuine relaxation. I felt like I was doing something that was good for me...but I'm not sure I completely "enjoyed" the whole experience. My body definitely feels better today AND I managed to avoid an embarrassing moment Vis-à-vis my genitals. So that's a win-win-win.

It's been a long time since my last post and between than and now I have somehow managed to get myself into another failed relationship. Unlike the last one, this one ended less pleasantly for me (not that the last one ended like a day at Disneyland, but it wasn't a kick in the pants either). I can't remember being with a person who seemed so compatible. Who seemed to fit my life and my values so well. It all sorta crashed down so abruptly too. One day I was being told how amazingly fantastic I was and the next day I was told to hit the road.

I guess that makes it sound a little bit stranger than it actually is. The person I was dating has some health issues and decided (for the both of us I guess) that I shouldn't be dragged down by her problems. So...I don't really know what to say to that. I was really happy being with her. Maybe those problems would have eventually gotten to me. Maybe I'm better off without that complication. It didn't seem like it as of a couple of days ago. It doesn't seem like it today.

So...yes. The title track for today's blog has a double meaning! 1) A (not-so)funny joke about massages and 2) Also my life is a trite teenage drama.

-E

2007-08-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

That's enough sitting on the fence For the fear of breaking dams

Time to close another chapter in the sweeping epic that is my love life. The lawyer and I decided that things just weren't going to work out and so we amicably decided to split.

Our relationship was never all that serious (we were never exclusive) but I was spending a lot of time with her and it had gotten to the point where we had to decide whether or not to take the next step. We decided against it.

My thoughts leading up to this were similar to those leading up to my eventual break-up with my last really serious girlfriend (H-bomb). In both situations I didn't have too many problems with the person I was with, it was a matter of not experiencing the right sort of "connection". That profound bond that keeps two people together for the long-run just didn't seem to be there.

The lawyer was fun, open-minded, and has a great overall attitude. I liked spending time with her but at the end of the day I couldn't see myself falling in love.

I'm confident that this was the right decision (plus she was thinking along the exact same lines so it clearly wasn't in the cards), but there is a splinter in the back of my mind that's troubling me. It certainly seems that the girls I have been most interested in lately are the ones that are running away. I really don't want to be one of those people who only want the person who they can't have. I hope this absence of "connection" that I experienced with the Lawyer is real and not just my way of fooling myself -- a way of putting a more acceptable face on the whole situation.

Anyway I'm back to square one now. The whirlwind dating scene of the last month seems to have built itself to this less-than-spectacular little "thud" rather than a glorious crescendo.

I suppose that I now have more time for video games.

-B

2007-08-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

The Breaks are Good, Tires Fair.

Most of what I know about early or "primitive" cultures comes from games like Age of Empires or Civilization. For instance, I know that pottery always comes before grain storage and that every once in a while some spear-wielding, barbarian, warrior will shoot down one of your F-16s.

I also get the sense that one requirement for technological advancement and industrialization is specialization. That is to say that to bring about all the playstations and internets and Automatic Teller Machines requires highly skilled people. People who really only have time to develop the (bow hunting) skills necessary to bring these wondrous devices to life. Therefore you have a lot of people using a lot of equipment, who know next to nothing about how they work.

This is why I allow mechanics to rape me. I know very little about my car. I do know that it always seems to cost way more money when I bring it in working than when I bring it in broken. I feel like any time I limp into the service department -- engine smoking and sparks belching from the exauhst pipe -- Mr. Mechanic says something like, "Oh! All you need is this new belt and a bit of chewing gum and your good to go. 50 bucks please."

Today I brought my car in (a few months and a few thousand miles beyond my service warranty) for it's standard oil change service (which by itself is ridiculously high priced) and an hour later the guy started breaking down 10 or 12 other things that weren't broken but "required immediate attention" to the tune of about 2 thousand dollars.

(it's really the end of this clip that's relevant)

Nothing like a swift kick to the nuts to start your morning off.

-E

2007-08-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock

Well the Harry Potter series has finally come to and end. I finished The Deathly Hallows last night and spoiler free to boot. So for all the rest of you who have already finished it it's safe to talk to me again :)

-E

2007-08-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

The Simpsons

In 1987 I was 12 years old. The USA and USSR were in the wanning years of a "cold war". Ronald Regan was my countries president. Lethal Weapon and Good Morning Vietnam were top films. Wang Chung was popular while bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains were just being formed. The first Mega Man game and the first Legend of Zelda game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. While the Cosby Show was what everyone was watching, the Fox network also made it's debut this year and gave us shows like "21 Jump Street" and "Married With Children". Alongside those offerings was the Tracy Ulman Show -- a variety show that included some crudely animated shorts about a family called the Simpsons.

20 years later I am 32 years old and the Simpson family is still with us. There are few things in pop culture with that kinda staying power. I basically grew up with that show. I was watching the Simpsons before I was Bar Mitzvah. Which I think means I was close to Bart's age. Now I'm closer to Homer's age.

In 1992 when Bart falls in love for the first time I was dating my first girlfriend. A television experience that provided valuable insight for years to come.

A year later Homer returned to college the same year I entered UOP as a freshman. Certainly this program would prepare me for all the exciting challenges that were ahead.

hmmm....funny because it's true.

It's true that the quality of the Simpsons program has declined a bit since it's heyday. I don't watch the show religiously like I once did. I still catch it now and than and it's still good for a chuckle or two. Tonight I'll be going to see the new Simpsons movie to see how 20 years of solid character development, smart satire, and jokes about donuts translates to the big screen.

My expectations aren't really all that high, but they aren't all that low either. I'm really just sorta curious to see how it all plays out. I do feel like at this point it's probably time for the Simpsons to retire and take it's place in Pop Culture history. I'd rather it go out like Brett Farve a couple years ago (still got something to offer but on the downward slope) rather than Brett Farve now (what the fuck!?) *shudder*

-E

2007-07-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

I Wanna Devise a Virus to Bring Dire Straits To Your Environment.

Here's a story about my brother. I spent the weekend in Reno visiting with him, his son, and my mom. I love my brother but he is a hard guy to get along with. He's sullen, and negative, moody, and (quite frankly) pretty self-centered. If you can get past all that and get him to lighten-up a little he's an alright guy.

He's recently gone through some difficult times with his ex-girlfriend and is currently living with my mom. Most of my visits to Reno are focused on seeing my mom and I get very little time to hang out with Sean. Not this visit. Sean and I even hit the town on a couple of the nights I was there. One of these outings involved a piano bar. I suppose the piano bar thing is fun if you can get past the fact that the people on stage are only one-step above wacky morning DJs. The whole experience was just that much more surreal when experienced with my brother. His personality doesn't really mesh well with that goofy party atmosphere.

One of the highlights of Sean time came when he asked me to take a look at his "broken" computer. In this case "broken" means "completely infested with viruses and spy-ware". I looked things over, cracked my knuckles, and advised my brother to get comfortable as this would take a while.

So began a long painful process of uninstalling a ton of programs (including a ridiculous piece of software that disguised itself as an anti-virus tool but really pasted ads up all over your windows), setting up anti-virus, running virus scans, etc.

The whole time my brother is pissing and moaning about how terrible his machine is and what a "piece of crap" he has to deal with.

I try to explain to him that even though viruses and spy-ware can be very sneaky, his problems were mostly the result of being an irresponsible user. This of course was an insult to him. He would reply in a voice full of shock and outrage, "I know how to use the internet. I didn't do anything wrong".

(This leads me to another on of his more charming traits. Dishonesty and defensiveness.)

"Sean" I said, "Look at this keyboard! Does this look like the keyboard of a responsible user!?"

My brother stood silent for a moment and than mumbled, "I guess I'll go buy another keyboard". He went off to Best Buy while I stayed behind and let the Virus scan do it's thing (it came up with over 200 objects and 15 trojans). He also didn't have any drivers installed for his video card which was putting a damper on the machines performance as well.

After about 2 or 3 hours I had the machine running great. I gave him a number of helpful instructions on how to avoid this stuff in the future and left him to surf the internet.

I wandered back into the room a few minutes later and found him hunched over the keyboard with a look of frustration across his face. Moving to see what happened I notice (amongst the myriad of pop-up windows springing up across the screen) that Sean had installed one of those random search engine tool bars onto his firefox browser.

So I lost it.

"SEAN! What the FUCK is that doing there?"

"What?"

"That fucking random-ass tool bar on your browser?! Why did you download that?!"

"I DIDN'T!"

At this point I blow my brains out. Or at least I wanted to.

How am I related to this guy again?

-E

2007-07-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

Lay Your Coconut on my Tiki

Maui. What a place. In the olden days I went to Maui every Christmas, but it's been a while since I was there. About 15 years I guess. On this particular trip we had a pretty big group with us. We were kinda like a cult that took over a small condo place on the beach in Kihei.

We did a lot of Snorkeling (saw lots of turtles and even a bat ray) and swimming. I manged to get a day of surfing in at a mellow longboarding spot just south of Lahaina. All good stuff.

One of the things I couldn't help but notice was the amount of trim, beautiful, women hangin on the arms of dorky, pudgy, dudes. I know this is Maui we are talking about -- playground for the affluent -- so I guess the first reaction is "trophy wife". However I'm not sure that's entirely the best explanation. My second suspicion is that these are east coasters. Now I know there are plenty of dorky west coast types (yours truly for example) and I'm sure there are a lot of east coast hunks, but I get the feeling that east coast dudes in general aren't quite up to So. Cal standards.

Of course there were plenty of dorky chicks on the Maui beaches too:

Here are a few more pics:

and my favorite:

click on this to see the whole set:

-E

2007-07-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon.

I'll have a lil recap and photos from Maui soon. Until than you can enjoy the last of my Germany photos which I finally got around to uploading here:

-E

2007-07-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

I know you'd like to think your shit don't stink...

I have a problem with yo momma. Well maybe not yo specific momma, but there is something that can happen to women when they turn into mommas that can get a little scary. I understand that a mother and her child share a special bond. I also see how useful a mother's instinctive enthusiasm to protect her brood can be. The problem is that sometimes those instincts seem to corrupt the brain and turn ordinary ladies into whacked-out, self important, lunatics.

I swear that 50% of new mom's are convinced they are the Virgin Mary. Just like the paranoid schizos who hear voices and then run out to eat prostitutes, these women figure that the world is some jealous conspirator bent on destroying their precious, snotty, toddler.

I see this sort of thing a lot in parking lots. Women pushing a stroller somehow think they are invincible. They must imagine that stroller is some sort of crusader's shield -- a divine aura of protection. I've seen these people practically leap out into traffic. I think some of them hide in the shadows like a suburban Lone Wolf and Cub and spring out onto the pavement when you least expect it.

this generally leads to a slamming of breaks on some motorist's part and a cautious "whoa...I'm glad everyone's okay" sortta wave. But rather than just move on with their lives, the stroller driver is much more likely to give you the staring down of your life. I'm pretty sure these people are really trying to use "shame" the same way Darth Vader uses the force to crush someone's windpipe.

and to what end?! I mean sure, if you're a driver and your attention wanes to the point where you put someone's life at risk (even if it's only marginally so) than shame on you. A sincere apology is in order. But shit once the driver raises the hand and mouths the "I'm sorry" through the windshield, make up and move on with your life. You're keeping your kid in FURTHER jeopardy by leaving it out in the middle of the road while you take 15 minutes yelling and doing your best to summon your most self-righteous stink-face.

At the end of the day, no one got hurt and your not THAT special.

-B

2007-06-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

Gimmie the Night

Being single can take you to some strange places both physically and spiritually. I would say that most of my single life involves very little "action" (both physically and spiritually). A few weeks ago the tectonic plates that form the basis of my love life shifted and the pimpmograph went a lil crazy. My social life kinda exploded (which really put a damper on my gaming activities), and for a time being I think I might have been dating 5 or 6 different girls. I dunno. the number of girls keeps increasing as I tell the story more often.

It started to become really dangerous (in a Three's Company sorta way) when I was going out with two different girls who shared the same name.

Before I get too full of myself I should clarify that really most of these dates were first dates, blind dates, and really most of them didn't really go anywhere. I'm not really able to juggle multiple ladies at once. However for a short period of time it was kinda fun (and confidence building) to pretend to be "that guy".

So I've slowed down a bit now but I'm still out there meeting people and dating around which is fun (and expensive...I can't tell you how freakin broke I was after that marathon week of 1st dates!).

Last night was an especially interesting excursion that my married friends missed out on. A friend of mine (who I believe would like to remain anonymous) got himself into some sort of "auction" which he claimed was for charity. The whole thing was this big singles event downtown. lads and lasses show up to bid on bachelors and bachelorettes. The winners get a date and pay their money to charity. In short...it was weird.

The whole scene was just strange. I mean...I guess it's not entirely unlike online dating (a practice I'm pretty familiar with). You've got a big room, with a bunch of singles hoping to pair up. Most of the pretense is gone, everyone knows why you're here and so I think it kinda emboldens people a lil. Plus there are free drinks.

Even so I found it incredibly difficult to sort of wander over to strangers and strike up conversations. Mingling is an art form and I'm barely able to paint myself into a pleasant situation. That said I did meet a few cool girls, wrangled a phone number at least. I don't even know that I'll use it but I figured I might as well get caught up in the spirit of the evening.

Anyway the auction begins, and the bachelors are up first. I guess this was part of the "theme", but a lot of the dudes wore their uniforms to the shindig. I guess it's part of the allure. So the first guy is a fireman in his fireman's gear. Another guy is all "Top Gun" in his flight suit, there's a life-guard, the whole deal. Basically these guys are the village people. It shouldn't have been surprising than that the first two dudes got "bought" by gay men.

It was awesome.

The auctioneer lady would say, "Well...it looks like we've got 600 dollars from the ah...the...gentleman in the red mesh shirt!" and meanwhile the fireman is frantically giving her the "cut" signal over and over again. He's trying to tell her he wants no part of that bidder but he can't be heard over the din of falsetto "woos!" and "cat calls" coming from the male chorus in the audience.

When the MC cried "Sold" you could see the faces of all the upcoming bachelors freeze in terror. Meanwhile it was like Halloween in the Castro down where I was standing.

Anyhow, I got to see my friend get auctioned off (he sorta just stood there, rather than dance and take off his clothes. His noble attempt at dignity didn't net him a very big price sadly), but wasn't able to stay long enough for the chance to bid on any of the ladies. All of this dating has left me a little light in the pocket book anyway...I shudder to think of what I would have been able to afford.

-B

2007-06-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

Videos

Just a quick public service announcement / warning. I recently posted a number of old videos up to YouTube. A lot of them are (as I said) older so the compression quality or whatever really sucks. The main thing though is that all these video feature friends and family so I wanted to make sure you were all comfortable with these being here. If you DO have a problem with anything let me know so I can pull it down.

-E

2007-05-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've Got Dungeon Master's Guide. I've Got a 12-Sided Die

Last week I did something that I haven't done in quite some time. Probably not since college. Last Thursday I sat down and played a good old fashioned game of Dungeons and Dragons.

I've played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D if your "cool") since I was in 6th grade. Back then it was a semi-rebellious activity since the media was fond of casting it as some sort of elaborate suicide cult. Some reasonable Christians are still afraid of it.

Not me though. I am a bad ass. Well right now I'm just a level one cleric. Still...that's pretty bitchin right?

When I was a kid, I remember my dad being a little concerned that I was choosing to spend time inside and "play pretend" rather than go outside and play football or baseball. I definitely remember him telling me that I would one day grow out of this whole fascination. I think he was more telling himself that in order to feel better. I'm not sure what good that sort of information would do for me.

Actually I think I remember making a promise to myself that I would RESIST growing out of D&D because it was too much fun. So there I was last Thursday. A 32-year old, hanging out with other thirty-somethings, talking about magic spells, goblins, and elves while munching on chips and Cheetos.

So...take that dad. I guess. :)

-E

2007-05-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Does That Make Me Crazy?

In Sally Potter's Orlando, the principle character is an Elizabethan Nobel blessed with unending youth. At some point during the film he sorta magically (and for no real reason) turns into a woman. Orlando is the same exact person, just a different gender.

There are two moments in the film where the phrase "I adore you..." is uttered. The first takes place when Orlando is a man and it's his explanation as to why the object of his affection should be his. "Because I adore you" he says as if this was as obvious as it was sufficient.

It's spoken again in the second half of the film, this time by Archduke Harry who is proposing to (and is rejected by) the now female Orlando. The Archduke claims that Orlando is his on the grounds that "I adore you".

In the film this all brings the sticky subject of gender inequality into sharper focus, but I was thinking about these moments recently in relation to my own life. Hopefully my attitudes are not shaped by the same misconceptions that these men held, but I think I have a similar problem.

When I find myself connecting with a woman, when I find my attention becoming fixed on her, it's very hard for me to comes to terms with the idea that my enthusiasm might not be reciprocated. Something inside me perceives chemistry and at that point can't be convinced of anything other than successful romance.

So it is that I come to be recently very confused and somewhat disappointed. Conversations with this particular girl are always great. Seems like there's lots in common, good body language, plenty of laughs. Unfortunately all my attempts to actually hang out with this person end with her cancelling...often at the last moment...sometimes without actually letting me know.

So I SHOULD be annoyed yes? Maybe angry? But apparently I'm just pathetic because I'm only mystified and a little blue. Obviously this person is not all that fired up on me. Her actions say it plainly enough (even though her words speak to the contrary). I know I should just cut the whole situation lose and move on, but there's that weird part of me -- that part that says, "but I adore you". That's the part that's just sort of standing there with a quizzical look on it's face and a big cartoon question mark over it's head. I mean...don't get me wrong. I figure it out eventually. I'm not a stalker...I don't think. :)

-E

2007-03-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

"Looks like i got me one of them fish on -- Fish on."

What follows is a shameless cry for attention. But hell...I figure if I'm already blogging it's too late for things like quiet modesty. I'm tired of having all these kick-ass photos on my Flickr site with no comments. So. Do this favor for me. Head on over to my pictures and pick one (or even two if you like) and add a comment to make me happy. Say whatever you want. Be nice. Be a jerk. I dont care! Just waste some time on me! Here are some quick links to sets for easy browsing.

Oh and by the way. All you need it a Yahoo account to log in. you don't need to register something new with Flickr.

2007-03-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Video Killed the Radio Star

This blog is once again open for buisness. There are a number of factors that can lead to random and prolonged sessastion of blog communication. I wanted to try and finish up my Germany video before posting agin. Plus I'll admit I've been in some sort of a funk lately, and trying to write in that state is about as dangerous as drinking and driving. You don't wanna end up with this kinda stuff.

What I do have for you today is the video I made from my New Year's trip to Germany. When I first was going through the raw footage I was convinced I would not be able to put something interesting together. I think mostly I was right. However It's probably more entertaining than I first suspected...hopefully.

For some more in depth accounts of the trip check out Disco Stupe's blog entries:

here.

and here.

and also here.

and finally...here's the video.

-E

2007-02-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Extra-Terrestrial, Killin Pedestrians...

So as many of you know by now, my favorite television show went and shut down Boston yesterday. It seems that a bunch of small electronic promotional adds -- placed near bridges and hospitals -- set off a panic.

I will first say the following in defense of the city. I suppose it would have been wise for the Turner people to inform the municipality about the promotional campaign. I'm not sure how the city would respond to someone saying, "hey we think it would be a great idea to put small, light-bright style, advertisements up that depict an 8-bit alien giving drivers the finger", but I'm sure they could have at least given the city a heads up.

I also know that if I was one of the millions of people temporarily inconvenienced by the whole fiasco, I'd be pretty pissed. I know that if I heard that my city spent millions of tax dollars because of some silly ad campaign from "The View" I'd be a lil disgruntled.

Despite all that all this talk of "Hoaxes" is just plain stupid. I keep hearing sound-clips from the mayor, and from news people referring to the ad campaign as a "prank" -- as if the cartoon network intentionally was trying to scare people when that's obviously not the case.

Here's what's really going on. There's all these dramatic pictures of men in Hazmat suits, surrounded by police cars and firemen, gingerly dismantling a light-bright set that depicts Inignot flipping the bird. It's pretty fucking embarrassing I'm sure. What do we do when we are embarrassed? We lash out and overreact. The fact is the people of Boston were made to look stupid and now "Someone is gonna pay".

I don't know who they intend to arrest. The head of Marketing? The intern who got paid a hundred bucks to put the signs up? and for what? All this fuss is over something that basically boils down to high-tech graffiti. I feel sorry for any D.A. that has to take on the army of Turner attorneys.

Meanwhile the fact that all this trouble was caused by pictures of the Mooninites is hilarious to me. It's so totally appropriate that this particular character causes all the trouble since basically their role on the show is to be complete jerks! It's like Aqua Teen come to life.

-B

2007-01-16T10:59:00.001-08:00

"He was a luchador!"
Originally uploaded by Baditude.

This Plane is Definitely Crashing!

I'll get to my recap of my recent trip to Germany soon. I'll need to finish my video first, and I still need to get all the pics from Mike. Until than you can start to get an idea of what went on by checking out his views on the whole trip -- Or at least the first part of it for now.

In the meantime we can talk about football. This year has been a lot of fun for local fans. We've gotten the chance to support a talented team that seemed to finally be catching a few breaks rather than getting kicked in the teeth every Sunday.

The build-up to Sunday's playoff game against the patriots was pretty incredible. I drove to work early Thursday morning and the sports-casters were broadcasting live from the House of Blues (aka: house of powder blues), which was full of raucous bolt fans -- this is like 6:30 in the morning on a week day.

I was fortunate enough to get a couple tickets to the game itself. It was cold and windy up in those view seats, but the stadium was full of excited charger fans. If I were a crapy sportscaster I might say the mood was...electric?

The first indication that something was not quite right was the unleashing of the "new Chargers anthem" by local wankers P.O.D.

Hmmm.

Still we all rallied behind the crappy Jesus-Jock-Rock and the game was soon underway.

You could probably point to a number of "turning points" and "missed opportunities", but for many of us the back-breaker came when the Chargers were still up by 8 points and the defense needed one more big stop on 4th down.

The stadium was rocking; every fan knew just how critical this one play would be. A successful stop here and the home team would be in a great position to put this one away once and for all.

Brady drops back to pass and fires over the middle of the field. As soon as the ball was in flight I could see that the Chargers safety, Marlon Mcree was going to make a move on the ball and end the drive for New England.

I pumped my fist high in the air and blasted a triumphant battlecry into the cold early evening sky. I screamed with such vigor that I somehow strained the muscles in my neck. I felt a lil snap near the base of my skull and my head suddenly started to pound. The stadium started to spin just a lil and from far off I could hear my buddy Iwan say something like: "Oh no!!!"

"Wait...what happened?" I said, placing my hand on my seat to steady myself.

"McCree picked the ball off and than fumbled it away!"

I fell back into my seat. My head was pounding and my neck felt sore.

"He didn't just bat it down?" I asked.

"Dude...first and ten, patriots!" Iwan replied.

My ears felt like they were struggling to keep my brain inside my skull as I put my head between my knees. I was pretty sure this was the end. I couldn't believe we just gave the three-time superbowl champs four more downs -- A fresh start deep in our own territory. We all put on a brave face, but I think most of us had that sinking feeling that this was the bell toll.

Sure enough the Charger's luck had run out. Despite Tomlinson's 170 yards and Brady's three interceptions, the Chargers lost by 3 points.

I've never seen a town collectively get kicked in the pants like that. Everyone seemed to be walking around with a rain cloud over his or her heads for the next few days.

At work today everyone seemed to sorta shuffle in to their desk, brow-beaten, eyes to the floor. There's a lot of sighs, and headshakes, and talks of what could have been and what should have been.

Of course the home team losing a playoff game is hardly the sort of thing one should really be upset about. But no one seems to be able to put things in perspective. It's like the Patriots came to our birthday party, stomped on our cake, and set fire to our presents.

-B

2006-12-29T03:25:00.000-08:00

Germany

I've made it to Germany, "The land of chocolate".

This is my second trip to Europe, but my first time hanging out in Deutschland. Traveling off-season like this has its advantages: Less crowds and generally everything is cheaper. On the negative side it's cold as witch's teeeeet! Espeically for a Southern California boy.

I forgot how "story book" things look here. The countryside is full of story-book villages and eerie looking forrests full of frosted trees and (one would naturally suspect) hordes of ancient gallic warriors waiting to burst out of the woods screaming for roman blood.

New Years Eve at the Gate in Berlin is right around the corner which should be really exciting. I'm currently trying to convince Mike and Pete that we all buy matching fun-boy outfits and hit the town Euro-style for real.

-B

2006-12-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

You Already Know How This Will End.

The last time I sat down to write about LBB it began the same way -- with me sitting here staring at my computer monitor -- trying to work it all out. Last time I was trying to sort through emotional highs that came from being together in Brazil.

This time it's all about the lows. I had been looking forward to Becky's visit ever since I left her in Rio. I had been thinking a lot about her and trying to sort out what I really wanted and what was really possible. I had big plans about how I would share these thoughts. Well...you know what they say about plans, mice, and men.

I wasn't really under any delusions about my chances. I was pretty sure I would have trouble convincing this girl to make whatever we have work. At the same time -- I didn't really feel like I had a choice. It was a real struggle between my romantic side:

and my more cynical side:

l amour
Uploaded by orchidee67

I should mention that I'm almost certain that my sense of passion and views on love, heartache, and longing, have been shaped in good part by Motown artists. There's also probably a number of (non-pornographic) movies that mix in there along with whatever I witnessed from my parents (ALSO non-pornographic) that complete the picture. But those old Motown songs really strike a chord with me. I'm not sure what it is that makes this particular music stand out.

On the one hand it feels a lil melodramatic...but at the same time I think it's more honest as a result. When we get caught up with someone I think most people have a tendency to blow things out of proportion. I'm sure I do. In public I like to think that I come off somewhat rational and even-headed but I know in my private moments I'm much more "Ain't to Proud to Beg". Another embarrassing admission: "Just my Imagination" (even in happy times) still makes me mist up sometimes. I can't get over how fucking sad that song is. Maybe it's the desperation that seems to run through all those songs that I really connect with -- that gut-wrenching sense of longing that comes from really giving into it all.

Anyway. After several weeks of anxiety and some botched attempts to actually spend some quality time with Becks during her short stay here in the States, I finally managed to lay it all out and tell her what I had been thinking about. Unfortunately I had to wait till she'd made it pretty clear that she wasn't really thinking along the same lines as me.

I know that in the past I had said that the idea of maintaining a relationship with her seemed pretty ludicrous. But after thinking about it more and talking to a number of friends I decided: to hell with it. I knew LBB was a special person and worth taking a risk over. Plus I was having trouble thinking about anyone else. I always knew that my chances of success were low but I was still bursting to to get it all out there and let her know what I was thinking (even if it was retarded).

So when I did finally put it all out there I was disappointed to get the response I was expecting (in different places, want to be free and single in Brazil) but at least it felt good to have said what I really felt. I certainly don't blame her for wanting to be unattached at the moment. At some point during all my thinking about this I asked myself how I would respond if the situation was reversed and I'm pretty sure I would have reacted the same way she did.

So that's that. Chapter pretty much over I guess. I'm still disappointed. But I'm not shocked. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like I saved up a bunch of money to buy something special, but when I finally got the store that something was all sold out.

Finally when all is said and done, I consider the whole experience very positive. I'd make pretty much the same choices, even with the foreknowledge of what was eventually going to happen.

hmmm I probably should have actually used a Motown song as the title of this post...just goes to show you how complicated I am I guess.

Anyhow...now I can focus on my upcoming trip to Germany. It will be a great way to move on and drown my sorrows in beer and phallic meat products! Auf Wiedersehen!

-B

2006-12-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

A quick hit

more German inspired youtube:

2006-12-04T00:54:00.000-08:00

du hast mich gefragt, und ich hab nichts gesagt

I know it's a little long in the tooth, but I love this song (and video). I feel like this must have been made by Americans who are making fun of Germans -- Like this video should have been premiered on sprokets.

You might remember that before I left for South America, I spent some time trying to learn some Portuguese before I left. By chance I happened to pick up the Pimsleur CD' s for my chosen language and I was really happy with the system...

[Something about that Pimsleur website makes it look like it might be associated with the Hanzo corporation]

...I'm especially enthusiastic about the system after trying something different for my upcoming trip to Germany. The "Learn in your Car" series is a pile of shit. Stay away. I went back to my Pimsleur buddies and have been making some pretty good progress in picking up a some of working German.

When I was going through the course for Portuguese I couldn't help but feel as if the authors operated on certain assumptions when crafting their lessons. Now that I've ventured into the German language lessons for a bit, those assumptions have come into sharper focus thanks to the contrast between the two. So while the Portuguese lessons seems to give a traveler some outstanding tools for picking up lusty prostitutes, Pimsleur's attitude toward German women seems a little colder. Consider this piece of dialogue from somewhere around lesson 10:

Me: Hello Miss!

German Woman: Hello

(Apparently I have no time to mess around so I get right to the point)

Me: I would like to eat something with you. At what time would you like to eat with me? One o'clock?

German Woman: No...not at one o'clock.

Me: At two o'clock?

German Woman: No...not at two o'clock.

Me: Would you like to eat with me at four o'clock or five o'clock?

German Woman: No sir. I do not want to eat with you at four o'clock or five o'clock?

Me: you want to eat later...at eight o'clock!

German Woman: Certainly not!

Me: at nine o'clock?

German Woman: No. I do not want to eat with you.

Me: Ah I understand...You do not want to EAT something. You want to DRINK something! Something at the restaurant in Opera Square!

(you have to give me credit for a positive attitude at least)

Me: What time would you like to drink something? one o'clock?

This goes on again, with me asking this woman for a drinking date for practically every tick on the clock. Finally (after more begging on my part) she finally says:

German Woman: I do not want to drink something with you at four o'clock or five o'clock. and for good measure I don't want to drink with you at eight o'clock or nine o'clock.

Me: Would you like to drink something with me later?

German woman: You don't understand.

Me: What don't I understand?

German Woman: You don't understand German.

At that point the lesson abruptly ends which I think is "code" for a door being slammed or hand being slapped at my face.

So there you have it. The world according to Pimsleur is filled with hot and spicy Brazilian sex-pots but Germany is home only to the likes of Frau Blucher.

More (sorta) related German news is the current state of my recent fascination with random (mostly German-made) boardgames. Our little group (which began with about four Puerto Rico players) has really blossomed into a decent sized pool of people willing to spend a few hours on all sorts of intriguing games from all over the world. I've even managed to convince a few girls to join in!

It's a great hobby. I love how it brings people together. We can sit around the table, have a drink or two, and enjoy eachothers company while playing games that usually move pretty quickly but are genuinely interesting.

So if you're a friend of the blog and are interested in joining us one of these nights, let me know and we'll see about getting you in.

Here's my last bit of German-stuff. One of my all-time favorite animations. Sadly the youtube video of it doesnt read all that great -- give it a look anyway:

Lastly...how 'bout those Chargers!

-B

2006-11-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

I want to Thank ya Fa Lettin Me Be Mice Elf...Again

Upon reflection I have come to believe Thanksgiving to be the strangest holiday of the year. This estimation has nothing to do with the actual rituals of thanksgiving -- which really only include eating -- nor is this judgement a reflection of the holiday's origins or purposes. It just feels like strange things always seem to happen on thanksgiving. Things don't seem to fit within the boundaries of a simple, humble, family get-together.

Sure, you might get a little crazy on New Year's, but that sort of thing is supposed to happen on New Year's. We all approach that holiday expecting the unexpected. Halloween is the same way. It's scientifically engineered to turn the world upside down for one night, so nothing seems to phase me on October 31st. Even Christmas has the whole gift exchange aspect that tends to take center stage -- deflecting the participants from what's truly strange: our families.

Thanksgiving usually means getting together with a lot of people you rarely see and spending hours and hours in their company. Mostly (at least for me) it's people you love, and have known for years, but for some reason that doesn't make the event any easier. Especially when there are a lot of extended family around. There's always this weird expectation that comes with being related to someone. I might not know anything about my 3rd cousin's brother-in-law, but I feel compelled by some strange bond of family to engineer a "closeness" to him.

And that's just the "normal" thanksgivings. I've had a few abnormal ones over the years. Here now is the story of my strangest thanksgiving. I apologize to those of you who have laready heard this.

Thanksgiving Reno Style

While I enjoy seeing my mom on the holidays, I hate traveling to Reno on Thanksgiving. One reason is because it's the busiest weekend of the year for travelling. Long lines, delays, and the general chaos of the day gets on my nerves. I always feel stupid being one of those people in a security line who waits an hour and a half so that someone can confiscate a pencil-sharpener that's the size of a quarter.

Because of this my mom and I usually work out some other way to celebrate this holiday. Usually on some other weekend besides the "official" one. However on this particular year (lets say circa 2000) I had braved the throngs of desperate travelers and made my out to Reno.

My mom is a staunch republican. She listens to Sean Hannity on a daily basis. Her television only receives the Fox news channel. She subscribes to the Rush Limbaugh newsletter. Volunteered for George Bush's re-election campaign. She's into it. Therefore it made perfect sense that we would spend our thanksgiving at the home of two flamboyantly gay men and their live-in "personal trainer" who they may have met at "The Bird Cage".

well maybe that's a slight exaggeration...the people's who's house we were in weren't really "Nathan Lane flamboyant", but that personal trainer guy...Wow. I've never met anyone who dressed for a thanksgiving dinner in daisy-dukes and tank-top that's 2 sizes too small.

This was a wild get-together...like some sort of mini-burning man with cranberries and stuffing.

The evening really took a turn for the strange when I was sitting in one of the large easy-chairs of the living room and tried to make conversation with one of the few other attendees who was close to my age -- a young woman who was playing with her child on the other side of the room.

We made eye contact and I said, "phew...I sure am full" with a smile.

These were the first five words I had spoken to her all day. She responded by asking me what my astrological sign was and than commented on how similar I was to her child's husband before excusing herself to go outside and smoke her 37th cigarette of the day.

To put it bluntly -- Chain-smoking, astrologer, single-moms were never really my type.

I'm not really sure what we talked about for those 10 minutes but it must have been good because as my mom and brother and I were heading out to go home, this girl ran up to me, gave me her phone number and said I should call her if I wasn't doing much that night.

Give me a break right? I mean this girl was kinda cute but there was nothing about her that interested me.

On the other hand this sort of thing had NEVER happened to me before. Women generally don't throw themselves at me. So with the raging flames of my ego properly stoked, I did end up calling her, and she DID turn out to be a stripper.

I found out when I we were riding in her car to a casino lounge and I was looking at her CD case which had "Nova" emblazoned on the front of it.

"What's Nova mean?" I asked
"Oh that's my stage-name" she replied.
"Ah"

A few minutes pass while I think about this.

"Um...what sorta stage work do you do...that would require you to have a stage-name?"
"Well, I'm a dancer..."
"Ah...and what sort of dancer?"
"Ummm....Cabaret"

So that led to some interesting conversation to be sure. Just so we're clear I didn't engage in anything -- totally dirty -- with this girl. Plus she picked up on me, and i only knew her "details" till mid-way through our evening together. So my conscience is clear. Besides I'm no prude.

But that was an interesting evening. Good Ol' "wholesome" thanksgiving. yeeesh!

2006-11-17T17:38:00.002-08:00

Becky and the evening Rio skyline, originally uploaded by Baditude.

Eu sou do Rio

Well it's finally about time to kick this blog back into gear. No doubt some of my readers may be concerned that my trip to Brazil resulted in some sort of kidnapping, or jungle mis-adventure. A couple of planes did crash into the Amazon on the day I flew into Rio and thankfully I was not at all involved.

I'll be telling this story via a series of blog entries so as not to drown you in the boring details. (Too late!)

The story on my trip down south really begins about a year ago, on New Years Eve -- the night I first got together with Long Beach Becky. We enjoyed a brief and casual romance over the course of the first few months of the year, but by the time my birthday rolled around in May, I kinda lost contact with her as she spent her last month or so in the States getting prepared to leave the country for a few years.

The two of us kept in touch via Email once she arrived in Brazil and I was a little surprised when, after a month or so I got an correspondence from her telling me which dates were the best for me to come visit.

When the idea was first brought up I was really looking at it more as a great opportunity to travel to South America over anything else. So I picked out a time to go and went about arranging my travel plans.

As the date of my departure drew closer, I became more and more anxious about what would happen between Becky and I on a more personal level. I knew what I wanted (I knew that I missed spending time together), but I really had no idea what she was thinking.

My instinct was to press the issue and figure everything out on the phone before I left, and since my instincts are generally 100% wrong in these situations I decided to just shut-the-fuck up and let things work out for themselves once I got there.

By the time I boarded the plane I had spent a month or so learning a little Portuguese, reading a bit on the history and cultures of the places I would be visiting, and preparing myself for a strictly platonic vacation (even though one look in my toiletries bag would give you quite the opposite impression).

I packed light and managed to fit everything I would need (along with some various things for Becky) into a carry -on sized bag. It was a large carry-on, but carry-on none-the-less.

It's a long day of traveling to get to Rio and I don' t really sleep well on airplanes, but I arrived in Rio on a cloudy and slightly rainy day, full of energy and anticipation.

Becky - who actually lives in a different city (about 6 hours away) - met me in Rio for the weekend and it was during the process of checking into our hotel where our "inter-personal situation" really worked itself out.

Specifically when the woman at the front desk asked us, "So would you prefer one large bed, or two singles?" There was some nervous laughter from LBB who hesitated -- looking at me and saying, "ummmm".

I figured any such hesitation would indicate she was thinking along the same lines as me and I said, "One big bed will be fine."

****

Rio is an amazing city. Most of our time there was spent in a very small section of it, but I got to see a bit more of it while driving in from the airport. Of course there are the Favelas -- which are hard to avoid.
You see a lot of these slums while driving in from the airport. Eventually you drive through the mountain that is home to the famous Christ statue that overlooks the city, and you emerge in the famous costal region of Rio: Copabana, Leblon, Ipanema -- all right there.

Because the weather wasn't really co-operating, we mostly wandered around the city, went to great dinner (my first Brazilian Bar-B-Q), hit up a night club till the wee-hours and fell asleep in our hotel to the soothing sounds of some sort of porno coming from the room next-door.

Monkeys Do Like Bannanas

2006-11-17T17:38:00.001-08:00

Belo Horizonte - Monkeys Do Like Bananas, originally uploaded by Baditude.

After spending a couple days in Rio, Becky and I to Belo Horizonte, about an hour away by plane. Belo is where Becky lives and works, in a region of the city called Buritis. Most guidebooks describe Belo Horizonte as a good place to stop by on your way to somewhere more interesting in Brazil. However, a lot of Brazilians I talked to describe Belo as one of the most desirable places to live. It’s one of the safest large cities in Brazil and is well known for being home to some of the best food in the region.

The surrounding state of Minas Gerais also has a lot of interesting natural attractions, as well as some cool historical towns like Ouro Preto (more on that later).

Becky had to work most of the days I was there so I spent my time wandering around the various districts, talking with local people when I could, and sorta just exploring the area. It was cool to see where LBB is now living and working (I had a couple meals at the school where she teaches…surprisingly good meals actually). I fed some monkeys at Becky’s school, met a lot of her friends, went out to dinner and had a number of great meals. Stuff like that.

One of the more interesting places I went to was the Cerntral Mercado; a huge labyrinth of an indoor market in the center of the downtown area. Becky’s friend Trisha claimed it was one of the best places to drink beer and people watch in the world, so that’s just what I did. After letting myself get lost within a place that sold live chickens right next to the hair saloon, I wandered over to one of the many small bars, ordered a beer and a steak sandwich and enjoyed the sights.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!

2006-11-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

Galo - GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!, originally uploaded by Baditude.

On Tuesday, just a few days after arriving in Belo, a group of us went out to a soccer match in town. The local club (Galo – who’s mascot is a gigantic rooster) was playing a division 2 game against a team from Sao Paulo. Eduma, who is a Brazilian teacher at the school where Becky works, took care of arranging out tickets and drove us to the game.

Everyone had a few drinks before leaving, and Rita and Eduma seemed to spend a large portion of the evening having a competition over who could cram the most curse-words into a single sentence. It was pretty much a dead-heat all night; although Eduma may have pulled away on the drive home as he shouted English profanity to everyone we passed by (assuring us that they didn’t understand what he was saying anyway).

We arrived at the stadium pretty early and the gates weren’t open yet, so we milled around the outskirts where a myriad of different vendors had small carts set up to sell food and drink. At some point Rita decided she needed to use the bathroom in a serious way and so Eduma approached one of the still closed gates in attempt to convince security to let her in for the restroom. They were unwilling to help but Rita (with her limited Portuguese skills) decided to press the issue herself. Amazingly she managed to break down the gatekeeper’s resolve and sprinted for the bathroom. She came back beaming with pride and decided that this incident was proof that she had finally become “fluent” in the local language. A point she brought up with great frequency for the rest of the evening J

The game itself was fantastic. The atmosphere in the stadium was top-notch. The throngs of supporters chanted, sang songs, and zealously celebrated each goal with raucous vigor.

This night was also something of a turning point for me in terms of my alcohol consumption during this trip. Even though I had never previously had more than one or two beers in one night, I somehow found myself knocking down 5 or 6 during the course of this game. I would have thought that woulda spelled trouble for me, but I didn’t really feel much. This basically green-lighted my increased level of consumption for the rest of the trip.

Of course most of us had put away our fair share of beers, but that didn’t stop Eduma from driving us home that night (with a beer in hand actually). Throw in the fact that there was no working seat-belt where I was sitting and I’ll go ahead and admit to being slightly uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Speaking of discomfort: the drive home yielded yet another fabulous adventure in bladder control, this time for LBB who went from, “I need to pee but I can hold it till we get home” to some sort of “code-red, emergency” over the course of about a half hour or so. The drama intensified every five minutes when Eduma would insist we were only TWO minutes away from a bathroom stop.

Finally we had to just pull over and let the poor girl relive herself in the weeds on the side of the road. The punch-line of course is that we soon discovered that at that point, home literally was only 2 more minutes away.

Ouro Preto - Church on the hill

2006-11-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

Ouro Preto - Church on the hill, originally uploaded by Baditude.

Becky’s schedule on the week I was in town to visit was actually really light. Most of her students were out of school for something called “tournament” which, from what I could gather, was like a week-long sporting event that most of the kids participate in. I guess in lieu of having team sports that take place once a week over a few months they just pack it all into one long week of competition.

This was a happy coincidence because it meant that she was available to go out at nights and even take a day off for our trip to Ouro Preto.

On Wednesday night we boarded a bus and headed to the small colonial mining town of Ouro Preto. The bus ride out was really pleasant since it afforded us a great view of the landscape in between the bustling urban area of Belo Horizonte and the quiet hamlet of Ouro Preto.

At one point, when we seemed to be at the most remote part of the drive we passed some sort large campus, full of clean, modern buildings and marked off by a concrete sign with a well lit symbol. It was just sitting there in the middle of nowhere, nestled into the dense foliage of the mountainside. I’m pretty sure it was some sort of super-villain’s secret genetics lab or something. Becky was not quite convinced.

We arrived at our destination just after nightfall. Despite having a specific pension in mind, a local “guide” spent some time trying to convince us to lodge elsewhere while procuring a taxi for us. He was pretty persistent but we held our ground and were soon off to the Hotel Colonial in the heart of town.

The town itself reminds one of a small village in Italy or France. All the streets are uneven cobblestone, and the architecture of all the buildings harkens back to the 18th century, when it’s proximity to rich mining veins made it one of the wealthiest cities in the world. While we were here we saw a picture of what the town looked like in it’s colonial hey-day and it’s pretty much unchanged since then (at least as far as outside appearances go).

In terms of things with Becky and I, this was a particularly memorable evening. Now that I think about it was the last time (and one of the few overall) that we would be together for just the two of us for the whole night. Ouro Preto is still known for its gemstones, so we spent a good portion of the evening in and out of jewelry stores looking at the wares offered by all sorts of local jewelers and artisans. We had dinner at a cool little place close to the heart of town called Café Gerais, and afterwards just retired back to our room with some ice cream, a bottle of wine, and some Brazilian “Deal or No-Deal” (Topa o nao Topa) on the television.

The next day (after trying to rearrange our room to hide the wine stains) we wandered around the town more. This meant visiting a lot of churches, as well as the market place that is home to another local commodity: soapstone sculptures.

We had hoped to do a bit of hiking around the outskirts of town as well, but it turned out we didn’t quite have enough time for it. That afternoon we headed back to Belo, stopping at the local supermarket in preparation for our upcoming travels, and spent the rest of the evening packing and doing laundry.

Iguacu - Oooo

2006-11-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

Iguacu - Oooo, originally uploaded by Baditude.

The second half of my travels in South America began with an over-night bus ride from Belo Horizonte to Rio. It’s about a 6-hour ride that began at the bus terminal at midnight. The coaches are pretty cozy and comfortable with huge seats that recline almost all the way back. Normally I would sleep pretty well in this situation but it was so hot and stuffy that I found it nearly impossible to do anything but doze off now and then.

One of the more surreal moments my trip was about half way through this bus ride. The bus pulled into a terminal that was very much like a truck stop. Becky (who had taken this ride before) told me that usually this place was almost empty and very quiet, but on this particular day – at something like 3 in the morning – the place was packed. There was a large building that was primarily a restaurant (which was absolutely hopping) a few bathrooms, and a little store

What made this so strange was the complete lack of any reference. It was dark and a little foggy out, and there were almost no lights anywhere except this stop. All this conspired to make the place feel like it was seriously in the middle of nowhere. We could have been on an island in the middle of the ocean…miles from land. It was just me, Becky, Justin, Rita, and about a hundred other Brazilian travelers.

We arrived in Rio the next morning at about 6:00 and toyed with the idea of going to find some breakfast before heading to the airport but in the end we just crabbed a taxi and checked in a few hours before our flight. The Rio Airport does have one tourist attraction though…and that’s the ridiculous announcer. You will never hear someone on a PA quit like this woman who sounds like she’s constantly orgasming into the microphone while announcing flight schedules.

http://www.irislettieri.com.br/

Our flight out to Iguacu was pretty interesting as well. Our pilot was doing all sorts of crazy things like randomly going into steep climbs -- than cutting the throttle and “coasting” a bit. He also did an old-fashioned Top Gun move and “Buzzed the Tower” once before landing for real -- lots of excitement.

After all that we finally arrived in Iguacu late in the afternoon of the 7th, we checked into our hotel and immediately headed over to the Argentina-side of the largest waterfall system in the world. Words really fail to describe this place. It’s completely unreal. We were also fortunate to arrive on the eve of a full moon. As a result we were able to sign up for a moonlight tour of the “Devil’s Throat” – the top of the falls. It was mostly a cloudless night and the moonlight turned the Iguacu River pewter silver. It was very cool.

We also met another traveler that night who helped us get along in Spanish while we were trying to arrange for the tickets to get into the park. He was actually working in San Diego last year before selling his house and quitting his job to go traveling. He had some great stories and was very helpful to have around as a translator.

We spent most of our next day back at Iguacu, but this time on the Brazilian side. There is actually something of a debate as to which side has the more impressive view of the falls. Unfortunately our group didn’t quite realize how things worked on the Argentina side of the falls and so we missed out on seeing a large portion of what that side had to offer.

The Brazilian side was plenty impressive though. The site of the falls is so massive that each viewing platform offers something completely different, even though you’re still looking at the same waterfall.

Additional entertainment was provided on this day by the Coatis (medium-sized raccoon-like mammals) that are all over the park. Most of our fellow tourists were completely charmed by these little critters and had to problems approaching them with the intention to feed and pet the critters.

Becky was initially pretty skeptical of this maneuver, pointing out various Coatis features like, “large claws” and “sharp teeth”. This mild skepticism quickly turned to boiling hatred once we watched one of the “creatures” leap up on a well-meaning tourist, grasping her leg with all four of its paws, and basically hump the lady.

They were not shy. At the lunch area above the falls, I watched one leap up onto a table where some other people were eating and grab half their food and scamper off into the jungle with it.

I overheard another tourist that day refer to these lil guys as “Perro Peligrosso”. Becky had more colorful names. Like, “those god-damned, mutant, hell-creatures”.

Paraguay

2006-11-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

Paraguay - The Flag, originally uploaded by Baditude.

On Sunday the 8th, we bade farewell to Brazil and headed on into Paraguay. Iguacu is right on the border so it was just a simple matter of grabbing a taxi and driving on in.

Sorta.

First we had to deal with the border officials, it was our first Paraguay experience and it for-shadowed something very important: In Paraguay I was the fucking MAN.

The deal is this: For almost every country in South America, United States citizens need visas. I had procured my visa for Paraguay while taking care of my Brazilian one. The rest of my companions were unable to get their visas because the only place they could have really taken care of it was an hour flight away in Sao Paulo. So after missing work, purchasing a plane ticket, and buying the visa itself, the whole process would have been very, very expensive.

Becky, Justin, and Rita had all hoped that by presenting their un-laminated Brazilian ID they could slip into Paraguay unchallenged. As it turned out they had to fall back onto Plan B: Bribery.

This was still a bit of an ordeal. The boarder official kept holding up their paper ID’s, and Americano passports, shaking his head disdainfully and pointing back towards Brazil. Every now and then he’d hold up my passport (the one with the visa), point to me and say, “you’re good”.

Good. Me. In other words…I’m the man.

Eventually everyone else paid thirty bucks or so (which clearly went right into this guys pocket) and he stamped everyone with a 5-day “in-transit” visa. At the end of the day they got away paying less than I did, so it was all-good. Actually I was “good”, but they all figured out there shit, and it probably helped that at least ONE of us had proper papers.

At this point we were all low on cash so Justin exchanged what he had left in Brazilian reals, and distributed that to the rest of us and with that we bought our bus tickets from Ciudad Del Este to Villarrica.

Paraguay was a great experience. It stood out in contrast to the bombastic adventure of Iguacu falls, which was operatic in its grandeur (I’m not sure what that last sentence really means but it feels appropriate). Paraguay was quiet, mellow, and oppressively warm. Most of the country is agrarian, and a large percentage of those people are purely substance farmers. The viewable scenery from our bus was mostly that of wide-open plains, big skies, and small roadside towns. Every building we passed was either a small home or market. Everyone seemed to be just sitting out on his or her porch, sipping drinks and talking.

Villarrica, the town we stayed in, is described as “the cultural center” of Paraguay and is home to a number of universities. I would definitely compare it to a small college town here at home, at least in terms of size. It’s certainly no metropolis, but large enough to have most anything you need. You can even drink the tap water in Villaricca – something that’s not advisable back in wealthier Brazil.

While in Paraguay we stayed with Becky’s sister Regina who is working in the Peace Corps. We also got to meet her boyfriend (also a Peace Corps volunteer) and a number of other Peace Corps peeps while there. Conversations with all these people helped to paint a vivid picture of the people and culture of Paraguay.

We were told about the rampant corruption and the lack of private industry that conspire to keep the country in the economic doldrums. We were told about the general “tranquillo” nature of most of the people you meet, about how coupling frequently comes down to a financial transaction (Travel tip #1 for dudes looking for hot Paraguay action. You can get a lot with a simple phone card. Travel tip #2 watch out for STDs dude). We talked about the fertility of the soil (you can simply pick fruit off the trees while walking the streets of Villarrica), and how the farmers are not well versed in modern techniques, which means lots of waste and low profits.

Because were pretty far from the tourist attractions like the Jesuit ruins and other national parks, we spent our days in the hot sun, drinking beers, and walking around town. This actually leads me to the second reason why I was the man in Paraguay. Justin, Rita, and Becky all were carrying Brazilian bankcards. None of these cards worked in the Paraguay teller machines. Regina (being a volunteer) wasn’t really financially prepared to support us, so it was up to me – the wealthy American.

I went to the bank and took out a million Guarani (local currency), and spread it out amongst the whole group. We went to the store and I bought groceries for the whole group including a bunch of “expensive” imported Coronas (1 dollar per beer). On the whole I kept 5 people fed and drunk for 4 days and it actually only cost me about 120 dollars.

The last way in which I was the man was by bringing out my card game San Juan and introducing everyone to it. As I first began laying out the game and describing the rules I noticed familiar looks of skepticism. I saw the eyes rolling. I head the mutterings, “this seems awfully complicated”. 10-minutes later the game was in full swing and everyone had clicked with it. They were talking trash, throwing out lingo like, “I think that Guild Hall strategy might be unbeatable”, and generally became the primary diversion for the next few days.

I was quite proud.

Despite being hot and sunny for pretty much the whole trip, a turbulent thunderstorm rolled in on us on our last night in town. I say out in the courtyard of where we were staying and looked up into a sky that was full of angry looking clouds that burned with an eerie orange glow and barked out rumbling thunderclaps. At the risk of being overly dramatic, this may have been a bad omen for the conversation I was about to have with LBB.

LBB

2006-11-17T17:34:00.001-08:00

Ouro Preto - Rare Pose, originally uploaded by Baditude.

So what had originally began as an opportunity to travel South America with someone who already was living there had morphed into something very different.

From the first day that I arrived and met Becky in Rio de Janeiro, she and I were essentially “together”. More than that – It felt to me that we were more of a “couple” than we were while we were dating here in the states. Over the course of those two weeks, we had certainly spent more time together than we did over the course of our entire relationship back home. In my mind, everything was working. I learned a lot about Becky in the process and the more I learned the more impressed I was. The more I enjoyed being around her.

So during out last night in Paraguay as our time together was drawing short I decided it was about time to have a short discussion about what was in store for us after I returned home. I wouldn’t say I was quite so deluded into thinking that I could just move down to Brazil and be happy-ever-after. However I knew what I felt for Becky and I knew that I wanted to be with her…even if it was impossible.

In a practical sense I didn’t really know what I wanted. I knew we couldn’t have a “relationship” with me in California and Becky in Brazil. That’s clearly stupid. I guess what I wanted was to hear her tell me that she wished there was some way for this to all work out. I guess what I wanted was something like hope? I don’t know. It’s very hard to reconcile what I know is realistic, and the pie-in-the-sky romantic side of my personality.

Before moving on to anything I had to determine exactly what Becky felt about me. Over the course of the weekend everything FELT very close -- very good. Based on what I was getting from her behavior and attitude towards me, the question, “how do you feel about me” at first seemed redundant. When I asked it the answer I got was, “Well…I mean…I like hanging out. But I’m here and your there”. This wasn’t exactly an expression of the longing I was hoping to hear…

Sugarloaf and the end of the trip

2006-11-17T17:34:00.000-08:00

Sugarloaf with Becky and I, originally uploaded by Baditude.

On Wednesday afternoon we said farewell to Regina and headed back to Ciudad Del Este. The boarder town isn’t quite as quaint as Villarrica and we played it safe and stayed off the streets at night and lounged around our dumpy hotel room.

The next day we roamed around the local street markets (well known for their cheap electronics) and than headed for the airport and back to Rio. Once again Rio blanketed by thick grey clouds and subjected to occasional drizzles. No Bikini-filled beaches for me.

The four of us arrived in time to check in (where I received some extremely confusing instructions on how to operate the rooms air-conditioning -- Instructions that seemed to involve a lot of dialing the operator and front desk -- Instructions that I later by-passed in favor of ripping the cord out of the wall.) and walk down to a decent little restaurant that overlooked Ipanema beach. It was here that I tried my first and only caipirinha: a Brazilian cocktail made with sugar-liquor. Despite having plenty to drink throughout the course of this trip, that ONE caipirinha was the first thing that got me feeling really “affected”.

My last day in South America was spent hiking and sightseeing at “Pao De Azucar” – the distinctive rock formation known to English-speakers as “Sugarloaf”. It was a great little hike through a bit of jungle. We saw some monkeys, found a dog that adopted us for much of the hike, and (despite the low hanging clouds) got some exceptional views of the city of Rio.

Soon though it became time for me to get back to the hotel so I could shower up and head off to the airport. I hugged LBB goodbye and boarded the taxi and headed home. What an exceptional experience overall. The combination of being in a new and different place, experiencing Brazil and South America for the first time, and my personal experience with Becky made for some extremely happy two weeks.

I’m not sure if I can sum up the whole Brazil experience. First of all…Brazil is a huge and diverse place. The 10 or so days I spent there are hardly enough time to get a feel for the whole place. You couldn’t spend 2 weeks in San Diego and claimed you’d experienced America, and the same is true of Brazil.

That said I still felt like I got a good introduction to a lot of what makes it special. Especially when it comes to the warmth of the people who live there.

One thing that was NOT as advertised: Brazilian Women. I know that people associate Brazil with legions of gorgeous, lusty women, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. Which is not to say it was filled with ugly women either. There were pretty people and not-so-pretty people. It didn’t seem special in that respect – at least compared to Southern California.

As far as LBB goes, I’m really not sure how to understand that situation. Sadly I think that I find myself in one of those lopsided “I like you more than you like me” situations. I am also aware of a couple important factors that may or may not govern the intensity of my Saudade. The first is that it’s pretty common for someone to develop a more intense longing for things that are out of reach. I recognize that part of me is probably caught in the grip of wanting something more because it’s unattainable.

Secondly, it would be foolish to ignore the unique and special circumstances surrounding our time together. I think that the extra stimulus of being on a vacation like this can sorta take everything else to the next level. I don’t mean to say that this artificially heightens emotions, but it’s fair to say that vacationing through South America is different from what a day-to-day relationship would be like.

On the other hand, spending all that time together is still a pretty good indicator of how well you really get along with someone. Fact is, I think we are a good team and I know that I genuinely care for her.

So where does that leave me. The honest answer is I’m not really sure. Since the conversation in Paraguay, I think I’ve managed to talk myself into believing that “I like hanging out” is less an honest expression of apathy towards me and more the result of less-than-perfect communication skills combined with an sensible unwillingness to commit to someone who lives like 10,000 miles away from you. I figure I got a 40% chance of being right there.

Another thingI want to stress is how important it is to me that Becky have the best possible experience in Brazil. To that end, I really don't want to be any sort of impediment. She's in such a unique position (I'm frankly quite jealous) and I want her to be able to make the most of it, without distractions.

I still get to talk to LBB fairly frequently and I should even get to see her again for a few days in December. I’m still a little unsure of what I really want. It’s still hard for me to get past what’s reasonable, what’s possible, and what takes place in fantasyland.

So I think the solution is to just sort of wait and see. I think there’s a good chance that I could go back to South America in the summer and travel the Amazon and Peru with Becky and her friends. Who knows…I mean. There are certainly ways in which I can make it possible to spend a few months away from work and home without jeopardizing the future I’ve been working towards for the last few years.

In the meantime, I can’t really keep myself from at least dating around a little. I know she wouldn’t wait for me. I mean…I don’t even think the chances are good that she’ll return to Southern California when she’s done in Brazil. So I know I need to keep myself open to the possibility of meeting other people, although it’s still hard for me at this point to generate interest in other women.

The short way of saying all this is I’ll just have to take things as they come I suppose.

-B

2006-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's just your jive talkin' That gets in the way

Over the last month or so I have been taking some casual lessons in Portuguese in preparation for my trip to Brazil. It hasn't been too difficult really. I purchased the "Pimsleur" basic language disks and listened to them during my commute to and from work. Pretty painless and the reward for my efforts means I can now ask where the bathroom is.

I will also be drinking a lot of beer while I'm down there because that's the only drink I know how to order. Luckily I can order them in twos and threes!

One of the amusing things about this little language lesson is the built-in assumptions on the part of the lesson-planners as to what I'll be doing when I'm down there. Granted there's not a lot of conversations you can have with a vocabulary that comprises about 30 words. I still thought the little scenarios were kinda funny.

My journey into Brazilian Portuguese began at a small cafe. The narrator (in a voice that's sterile and starched) says, "Now imagine YOU are an American man sitting at a cafe next to a Brazilian woman" (aaalll riiight) "You want to start a conversation with her..." (do I ever!)

This initial little romance ends awkwardly however and consists of me asking, "are you American?" (which is dumb because I already know - thanks to the narrator - that she is Brazilian), "do you speak English?" (she doesn't), "I don't understand Portuguese", and "good bye"

just like that she's outta my life.

It's okay though because just a couple lessons later I'm already negotiating with a prostitute. Once again, the narrator paints a vivid picture of an American man (who's name happens to be "Peter" by the way) chatting up a Brazilian woman on the street. After exchanging a few brief greetings the woman gets down to business, "do you have any money?"

"yes...I have money"

"How many reals do you have?"

"I have one real"

"are you from here?"

"no I am not from here"

"Ah...Your an American. Do you have dollars?"

"Yes I have dollars"

"How many dollars do you have?"

"I have LOTS of dollars...In my hotel" (if ya know what I mean)

After my (presumed) evening with a hooker, I head to a restaurant, order a couple of cold beers and eventually talk to some dude (the hooker's pimp maybe?) who has some lofty - yet unrealistic goals.

"where are you going?" I ask him

"I'm going to America" he says cheerfully

"that's good. But...Do you have any money?"

"yes"

"how much money do you have?"

"ten dollars"

they don't teach me how to ask, "are you fucking crazy?" so instead I say,

"that's not much money"

"yes" he responds, "but I am only drinking water...And I'm not going to eat anything"

It's a shrewd plan indeed. So I wish him well and get back to looking for hookers.

So that's all a lot of fun. It will be interesting to see how well I can apply my small stable of phrases once I actually get there. I have a feeling that I'll probably be falling back on "do you speak english" a lot. By all accounts it shouldn't be too difficult to get around. Everyone tells me how warm and helpful Brazilians can be. As evidence of that, my mom mentioned my trip to a Brazilian friend of hers who than sent me an email asking me if she could help me prepare.

Check this thing out.

That's what I call enthusiasm.

-B

2006-09-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Brazil

I don't know why, but this makes me laugh till I cry every time I see it:

As of this writing I've probably watched it about ten times and it still brings me to tears. You can file this under things that only Baditude finds funny. At least no one I've shown it to seems to find it nearly as funny as I do. I think the secret is that it actually gets better after one or two viewings. Or ten.

Pah! PAH! PAH! PAAAAAAAAOW! PAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIOOOOW!!

The official months of summer have come and gone. The last few months have been pretty good to me but there's still more fun to be had out there, so I think I'm gonna go have it. This weekend I'll be in Vegas to celebrate Rena's 30th in style. The big trip though, is in about 2 weeks when I leave for South America. I'll be spending the first couple weeks of October exploring Brazil and Paraguay. This will be my first trip to that part of the world and as the departure date draws near I am getting more and more eager to get there.

I will in fact be visiting good 'ol Long Beach Becky. As most of you remember, she high-tailed it outta here earlier in the summer to take up a teaching position in an American high school there in Belo Horizonte. So along with the excitement of seeing new places and doing new things, I'm also looking forward to spending time with her again. It's also great to be able to travel with someone who already has decent understanding of what’s going on. It is true that part of the fun of traveling (at least for me) is getting one's bearing, figuring out things like public transportation, and navigating new areas -- but there's something to be said for having a lot of that work already done for you.

A lot of what needs to be done of course takes place before you even leave. Traveling to both Brazil and Paraguay requires traveler’s visas (alongside your passport). This meant a couple of trips to L.A. to visit various consulates, fill out forms, and jump through a few bureaucratic hoops.

I found it especially interesting that the Brazilian consulate did not accept cash. I mean...anything else you give them (including the money order I had to get), is eventually gonna just get turned into cash. Why go through the middleman? I dunno...maybe they would have accepted Reals.

The other thing different about getting ready for this trip (as opposed to any others I've been on), is the amount of concern it can generate amongst other people. I mean...I recognize that we are talking about a place you might consider "developing"...but people can really freak-out when you tell them you are going to South America.

My Aunt (who - to be fair - worries about everything) gave me a look that was gravely serious when I told her I would be going to Brazil. "It's very dangerous there...I'm serious. Are you SURE you should go". Another friend told me "you couldn't pay me enough money to go to there." (This statement was later retracted but I still found it funny).

At the Paraguay consulate an older gentleman (who I think was actually from Paraguay) began by giving me friendly advice about which places had good hotels, and where to get cheap beer, but eventually told me not to trust cabs, and to always wear sneakers so I could run away faster. "These flip-flops" he said...pointing to my shoes, "Are no safe".

Even the "seasoned traveler types" at the Lonely Planet Forums would occasionally have a tendency towards hysterics...though for the most part those forums are filled with positive accounts of various South American adventures.

Actually that's a lie. Most of the people who leave accounts of their experiences are positive, but what the forums are really filled with is unanswered questions. I tried posting questions on several travel forums and it was a tremendous waste of time. This is because once people visit a place...they no longer really need to go to travel web sites about it. So no one is around to answer your question. It's like showing up to a bar for ladies night only to discover a complete sausage-fest.

So here's the deal. I recognize that there are places in the world that are less safe than Costal North County San Diego. I'm not going to blindly travel around Brazil wearing hundred dollar bills around my neck, or looking for a cheap place to stay in a Favela. But I'm certainly not going to be scared away from a place that millions of people live in safely everyday.

It shouldn't take anything more than a little common sense to carry me through a two-week vacation. I intend to pack light, speak the local language a bit (Eu falo um pouco de potuguese), and have an amazing time. Besides, I have friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan. I speak a dozen different languages, know every local custom, I'll blend in, disappear...

If I don't...well...that's just bad luck. Which can strike at any time, any place.

-B

2006-09-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

"Let's Get It Up"

Some time ago I was chatting with a friend of mine who also happened to be an ex-girlfriend. The conversation had turned to relationships and how a person should behave while in one. Specifically we were talking about how important thoughtful acts - even small ones - can be in maintaining a rewarding and fulfilling love affair. Most of us have experienced the warmth that fills us when someone we care about does something that shows how well they know you.

At some point in this conversation I somehow managed to suggest that _I_ was particularly considerate in this respect. My ex responded with something like, "no your not. In all the time we dated I can't remember a particularly thoughtful thing you ever did for me."

I was stunned -- partially by my own stupidity. I mean, it's probably not the best idea to ask an ex (no matter how friendly you are with her) for a report card on your boyfriend-behavior. At the same time I had no way to refute her claim. My mind was sorta spinning. Like most people, I assumed I was an excellent parnter. What was worse: I was being criticized for being deficient in one of the areas I assumed I was particularly strong in.

I couldn't muster a response. My mind was totally blank. Maybe I WAS totally thoughtless. After some long, awkward, moments I managed to bring up a few counter-examples but they were quickly shot-down for one reason or another. I left the conversation feeling angry, hurt, and humiliated.

This sort of thing can happen though. Every now and then we come face-to-face with a version of ourselves that is totally opposite from the person we believe us to be -- Like some sort of bizzaro-world, evil-twin.

***

This weekend I spent some time north of the grapevine, south of Bakersfield, and kinda in the middle of nowhere at a waterski ranch. The Vittitoes - longtime family friends of mine - have a place to sleep and a ski-boat there, along with plenty of hospitality. Their daughter Danika (who's my age)was there, along with her boyfriend Matt, and college pal Alex. The Vittitoes youngest Chase was also around. It was a fun little group. Here's the cast:

Danika: Smart, likes to read law-books, enthusiastic and passionate, empathetic. I've known her my whole life.

Alex: Big. This was brought up over and over again. He also was totally amiable, down for anything, good natured kinda guy -- definitely the coolest Olympic discus thrower / bobsledder I have ever met.

Matt: Quick-witted and sarcastic. He smiles a lot, talks easily about most anything, and drove the boat. He is also something of a Bakersfield local and was able to show us a couple "hot spots" in town.

Chase: Chase hasn't washed his hair in like a month or something so I didn't get too close to him. Actually that's not true (about not getting too close I mean). Chase is the Vitittoe baby and the only one left in the nest (mostly). He's a die hard surfer, earnest, and a hell of a inner-tube rider.

Craig and Suzanne: Mom and Dad. The closest thing I have to a second set of parents. Their only annoying quality is that they refuse to let me help pay for stuff.

Before I continue I should say a word about the Waterski lake itself. It's a slightly strange place. Well...maybe not strange...but definitly unexpected. It reminds me a lil of a Japanese garden. Japanese gardens always seem to be about control. About humans taking something that is generally chaotic and unpredictable and forcing it into a particular and deliberate standard of beauty.

The waterski lake is like that. It's in the middle of the California desert. Surrounded by agriculture. There should be no bodies of water here. Yet...There it is. Electric blue water (some call it "toilet-bowl blue") laps up against shores adorned with carefully cropped lawns of neon green grass and big shady trees. It doesn't make much sense...But it's really quite pleasant.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and I was really chompin at the bit to get in the water and do some skiing. While I used to do quite a bit of it in my youth, I rarely get the chance to now-a-days. Within a few hours of my arrival I was floating in "lake one" with a ski strapped to my feet and waiting for the boat to surge into action and lift me out of the water.

My first attempt was a no-go. I struggled against the pull of the boat for a moment or two before the rope left my hands.

"no big deal" I thought. Just a lil rusty. I'll get it the second time.

Only I didn't get it the second time. Or the third. Or the fourth. Or the fifth.

By the end the rope was just flying out of my hand the moment the boat started moving. Not only was I extremely frustrated...But I was suddenly THE cheesy metaphor for a viagra ad. I mean really...I could NOT get it up. Each time the motor roared to life, and the rope flew out of my hands I could hear an announcer say, "If you have a problem getting or keeping an erection, your sex life can suffer. So don't miss the boat on this special offer...Talk to your doctor today".

At one point, Craig drove the boat by and asked, "would you like to try two skis?" He was trying to be helpful...But inside I was furious. "I don't NEED two skis." I thought, "I'm GOOD at this". It was like having your lover you look at you - eyes filled with fake concern in an attempt to mask the shame - and say, "maybe we should just use the vibrator tonight".

I tried two skis anyway...It didn't help. I was face-to-face with a bizzaro me. A pathetic and weak evil twin who was an idiot out in the water.

The next day I streched out my forearms, pounded some advil, and made a second attempt. At first ilooked a lot like I did the previous day. But on the second pull I crammed my thumb down over my fingers, grit my teeth, and finally managed to get myself out of the water.

I wasn't so much happy as I was relieved. My triumph was short lived however. Whatever I had done wrong the first day (I suspect I had tried to start with my arms bent rather than straight which puts tremendous strain on them) had pretty much ruined me. The rope was constantly slipping away from me and I couldn't maintain a solid grip long enough to execute any turns.

Ah well. I ended up being able to handle some wakeboarding at least -- that's always fun. The highlight (in terms of watersports) for me ended up being the tubing which shredded my hands and demolished what was left of my ability to hold on to anything but was completely fun and totally worth it.

So despite my failure out in the water the weekend was a really a blast. I always love hangin' with the Vittitoes and Danika's friends were great. We played some cards, ate great food (including a family-style Basque place), played some tennis, got plenty of sun, and got to rock-out in Bakersfield. Pretty freakin great. I can't wait to go back.

(more pics here)

-E

2006-08-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

I am a YouTube Junkie

Here are some old and new favorites of late.

Ralph Wiggum:

Apache:

What my parties typically look like:

In summary...Manos:

The short version of The Big Lebowski (NSFW):

Our president's speech-writer:

and finally some Robot Chicken making fun of Star Wars:

and

enjoy!

-B

2006-08-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way"

I frequently forget that my mom had a fairly unorthodox childhood. When she was very young her parents split up and her father was awarded custody. Her mother lived in Los Angeles and spent most of her time as an alcoholic. Her father lived in Valley City, North Dakota.

Her parents are devout Jehovah's Witnesses, and she grew up in a very strict household. Her father re-married and had 4 more children. My mom is the eldest of the 5 by several years. This combined with the fact that she was the only child with a different biological mother probably made her a bit of an outsider.

One year, after staying with her mom in California for the summer she decided she wanted to stay in LA and go to school there. Her father denied her the permission and she in turn defied her father. Technically her mom "kidnapped" her and helped to prevent her from returning to North Dakota. Her father flew out to California to bring her home but was unsuccessful. Eventually she was tracked down by her aunt and uncle but when confronted she was told she could continue to live with her mother in LA.

As my mom grew into an adult she re-connected with her family, but she's always seemed pretty detached from them. I only remember seeing my mom's side of the family a handful of times...Maybe 3 or 4 times in all my 30 years.

This last weekend My mom and I got a chance to to spend time with the Berghs once more. Her dad - My grandfather - is pretty advanced in years and his memory is starting to fail him. I haven't seen him in about 15 years. It is more than likely that I will never see him alive again.

In 1996 the Cohen brothers gave us Fargo, which pretty much did to North Dakota what Bay Watch did to California...At least in the eyes of people who don't live in those respective states. Since my recent visit to this fly-over state took place in the summer, I can tell you that there is some beautiful weather in there. There's some nice scenery to go with it. It's a lot of green fields of soy beans, and big open skies. So in that respect the Cohen brothers' version of a Hoth-like wasteland perpetually blanketed in snow isn't the whole picture.

But the way people talk in that film is pretty much dead-on.

I was surrounded by people who use terms like "dog-gone" and "oh ya" "well fer goodness sake".

Valley City is a very slow place. On Saturday a group of us went for a walk around town. No one was out. Half the stores were closed. There really was nothing there except for a few gift shops selling nick-nacks, and maybe a bar.

Most of my trip was spent sitting on the porch, napping, sitting some more, playing the occasional card game, chatting, and more sitting. We did have some very unique accommodations. My uncle reserved the local universities guest house for all of us who were coming in from out of town. It was a very cool old building -- all wood floors, chandeliers, and a labyrinth like layout that connected the 5 or 6 rooms and 3 or 4 bathrooms.

This picture is compliments of some chick named Amy who I found on the internet...I don't know the people in the picture. I would have taken some video of the trip but I couldn't find my charger before leaving sooooo...Buttons.

It was also really great to see this part of my family again. It's a little strange to spend time with people who are part of your family and yet practically strangers. Frequently this can lead to a lot of "forced closeness", but everyone was genuinely warm and friendly. I really felt like everyone was especially glad that my mom made it out. She would later tell me that she felt a little like a celebrity.

Of course no family trip to No-Dak would be complete without a visit to the "Kingdom Hall" - that is...Church. "Kingdom Hall" always sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings to me. That or some sort of Norse mythology. I half expect to drive up to some immense structure built of rugged stone and lit by wood burning braziers. The sort of place that you find Thor locked in an arm-wrestling match with Beowulf.

Instead we found ourselves in a very modest building with about 30 other people listening to about 2 hours of sermons about Jehova. This side of my family (with the exception of my mom) are heavily devoted to their faith. Both sections of the service I attended were led by my uncles, and there were a lot of Berghs in the audience. In fact, the kingdom hall in Valley City is basically in my grandfather's front yard. It's pretty intense.

The first portion of the service was pretty standard stuff, "do good stuff live right, make sure god likes you." The second portion struck me as particularly strange. If you've ever come across a "Watchtower" pamphlet somewhere (I used to see them all the time in Laundry-mats), you have a good idea as to what it was like. This is because the second hour was spent reading through one of these pamphlets.

Basically one person reads and than asks the congregation questions about the reading. This particular reading seemed to essentially be about how the Jews are bunch of whining, ungrateful, complainers. If I was 100% cynical I would say that this lesson seemed to stress being complacent in all things. Really it was about the benefits of a patient and pleasant demeanor.

and about how terrible the Jews are. :p

You might think (being raised Jewish) that this was the part that made me the most uncomfortable. Actually it was the "question and answer section" that really made my jaw drop.

Basically my uncle would read a paragraph or so, and than turn to the audience with a question about those paragraphs. This seems like a good idea as it can obviously lead to some deeper understanding of the principles being discussed.

In reality it's just there to make sure people are awake. While sitting in the audience you would hear something like this:

leader: After the Israelites were delivered from bondage they began complaining to Moses. They asked him why he had led them into the desert to starve.

okay...So...After the Israelites were delivered from bondage...Who did they complain to?

If this weren't enough...Some people STILL couldn't answer the questions! I was in shock.

I was a little worried about being engaged in religious discussions over the weekend, but for the most part it was never brought up. I found myself in one pleasant discussion with my uncle about a few things, but I was never pressured about anything or asked about my own opinions. While I'm certainly not ashamed to be an atheist, I didn't feel like getting into it in that particular atmosphere.

So that was my weekend. I was glad to have made the trip although I could have done without staying all the way through Monday. Especially since most of my family left that morning which resulted in me spending most of my day in the Fargo mall.

The sad thing about the trip is that while it was certainly memorable for me, my grandfather's mind is not what it once was. He's likely to have already forgotten about our visit. He barely remembers my mom and I'm not sure he ever had any idea who I was. When I left his home on Monday I hugged him and said goodbye and he took me in his arms held me tight while saying, "who are you again?"

"I'm Eryn, your grandson"

"okay...And what can I do for you?"

"um...Well...Just take care of yourself I guess"

"I think I can do that" he said with a smile.

-B

2006-06-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

Festive mood is all around, Another world is what we've found
Step right up, let's make a deal -- Ride on the ferris wheel!

I have lived in San Diego for pretty much my entire life. In most respects I think of myself as a somewhat typical citizen of this county. I try and take advantage of much of what the city has to offer. However, there is one local event that takes place every year that I have always avoided, and that is "The Fair". Despite living here for almost all of my 31 years, I can't remember ever going (although I might have and just blocked it from memory).

Liz takes great pleasure in trying to convince me to got to the fair. Every year she organizes a little posse, and every year I get the same invitation. With sinister cackles and a mad gleam in her eyes she will plead with me.

I always resist. My dislike of the fair is really my stupid and silent protest against the traffic it brings to region. Really I can't think of anything more pathetically ineffectual (other than internet petitions) than my refusal to participate for this reason. As I cross my arms and turn my back on the fair it continues to generate all sorts of tourism and traffic for the region.

This year my resolve finally failed and on a humid, summer night I grit my teeth and entered the grounds....Ready to face my fair.

Unless you grew up on a dairy farm, the first thing you are liable to notice is the smell. There is an intense animal smell everywhere. I actually came in through the less conventional south gate, and as a result my introduction to the fair a face full of trailers, hay stacks, and garbage. I was "backstage" so-to-speak. Inexplicably the "pig races" are buried back here. This was a fun-for-the-whole family sort of event that was probably specifically hard to get to. Whoever sets this thing up may have purposely wanted to keep this attraction on the down-low.

After wandering around lost for a few more minutes I finally made it to "The Fun Zone" where the rest of my friends were waiting. I had been at the fair for about 6 minutes and already I felt dirty. Not dirty in a good, rough-housin in the sand way. More of a shameful, I just got caught picking my nose sort of way.

I was too late to join the crew on "The Zipper" (a fan favorite), but I managed to get on another ride that was a blast. The sense of danger and excitement is heightened by the fact that the same ride that is hurling you through space about 3 storied above the ground is not a permanent structure. It's actually designed to be broken down and come apart for easy shipping. Who knows...It could decide that the fair is over earlier than you'd like a break itself down mid-ride.

The rides were over and so it was time to experience the food. The Fair is the only place where I think deep-fried food is better for you than the other options. You know that any flesh-eating bacteria who's home may have been your chicken-chunk has probably been eliminated in the greasy waters of the frier.

So I had some sort of deep-fried apple-mass and freshly fried chips. The one thing I was determined to shove down my throat was a deep-fried twinkie. The legendary DFT. Let me tell you. That was my first and last DFT. The feeling I got after eating this thing was similar to the feeling I get when I sit down on a public toilet only to find that the seat is unusually warm.

It's really pretty gross. More than you might expect when you really think about it.

Ah the fair! More fun than a public toilet...but just barely.

I did learn a thing or two from the fair though. Mainly that people eat goat. When I asked the lovely woman inside the animal pen who eats goat, she replied, "whoever buys it."

ask a stupid question...

-B

2006-06-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

Why do Birds Suddenly Appear...?

I am starting to suspect that I am a bad driver. Either that or people hate Minis. I'll be driving along minding my own buisness when a car will pull up alongside me. I'll look over and see the guy next to me vigorously waving his middle finger at me.
The first time this happened to me, I just figured that the guy next to me was some sort of angry freak. Now that it's happened twice...I mean...there couldn't be TWO angry freaks out there in the world could there?

By the way -- regarding the middle finger and it's origins: Stop talking to me about bowmen and french people. please.

and finaly...watch this please:

-B

2006-06-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

Do ya wanna go where I never let you before?

Wow...More than a month since my last entry. I rule.

As many of you know, I am an enthusiastic believer in the idea that heterosexual men and women can maintain genuine platonic friendships. I'm not sure that's an entirely controversial idea these days, but there's still quite a lot chatter on the matter. Alongside my defense of cross-gender friendships goes my suspicion that the majority of them are fueled by some level of sexual attraction.

Some might say that men and women are only friends as long as one refuses to sleep with the other. I know that I have had friendships with women that ended up dissolving right around the same time that the sexual tension did. On the other hand I also have long standing friendships with women whom I am attracted to but have no interest in sleeping with. I suppose I also have a number of female friends who I'd be happy to spend the night with but never will -- and I'm fine with that (barely).

There are a few women in my life with whom I've been friends with for quite some time. I may like them (and I do mean "like" like them), but I always assume that these women are off limits. They are friends. Buds. Homies. You don't really hook-up with your homies.

At least MOST of the time you don't.

This year I did manage to get to know one of these long-time friends a bit better over the course of an evening. (The person in question has asked me to leave her name out of this blog entry, so I'll give you - the reader - the same instructions for the comment section below.)

I think this little encounter will have to remain an isolated incident. I am glad it happened though. It seems like our relationship had been leading up to this one event for quite some time now. It remains to be seen if our friendship is better or worse off as a result. I of course assume that it will be better -- I think it's probably naive to assume that it will remain completely unchanged (at least at first). I mean...There's no denying that there is something slightly odd about seeing a long-time friend naked for the first time. (I'll be curious to see what Gabe and Mick or the infamous Phipps does with that soft ball of a sentence I just lobbed out there)

In other news along the same lines...I think my "thing" with Long Beach Becky has about run it's course. In fact it may have been done 5 or 6 weeks ago. It was really a good thing while it lasted, but it could not last forever. LBB will be off to Brazil in a few weeks anyhow. I know she's got an amazing few years ahead of her down there and I wish her all the best.

So here I am, a fling or two later, and still searchin. This translates into: "I'm still on Match.com even though I'm mostly sick of it". Here's one of the more interesting email encounters I've had recently.

Girl sends me the first email and it reads: "check out my profile if you are interested".

I find this odd. I mean. This person has done pretty much nothing to get my attention other than send me an email asking me if she has my attention.

"whatever" I think, and follow the link to her profile.

There's no picture (*warning*), but a pretty intelligent and sincere (though fairly typical) little blurb about "substance over superficiality". I'm not at all repulsed, but still feel a bit in the dark about what this person is all about so I fire back an email. It's also fairly typical. A couple friendly lines regarding my response to her profile, and a casual question or two to get the ball rolling.

Her response: "I am not interested in emails. If you want to get to
know each other, we can talk over the phone, meet in person, and go from
there."

Uuuh...Okay. Not only does this come off as "less-than-friendy", but it doesn't leave me too many options since she left me no phone number.

I decide not to act on this email immediately. However the next day I get another email from this woman: "Didn't you get my message?"

Now in my experience it is not uncommon to wait 2 or 3 days before hearing back from some of these people. It had been less than 24 hours between "I am not interested in emails" and "didn't you get my message?"

so I respond and basically say something like, "I didn't get back to you because you don't like email and you didn't leave me a phone number, but I would enjoy chatting on the phone for a bit sometime. Leave me your number and I'll call you in a day or two".

I sprinkle the message with a few tactical smiley-faces so the mood is clear and off it goes.

So what do I get the next day? "Ok. Let's talk over the phone and go from there. I suggest we exchange numbers first. What is yours?"

wait a minute...Didn't I just ask this girl for her number in my last correspondence? Is it me or does this person seem extremely evasive and weird? Why do I keep responding to these terse emails?

So I am officially letting this one off the hook. I can only imagine what an actual date with this mystery-woman would be like:

"So Baditude" she says (her face hidden behind a menu) "are you interested in ordering?"

"sure, I think I'll have the chicken and maybe a salad. Would you be interested in sharing one? What kind do you like?"

"I don't care for salad."

"um okay...You want an appetizer?"

"I've got an idea...Why don't we consider an appetizer?"

"okaaaaay...um calamari is good, or spinach dip...What do you think?"

"about appetizers?"

"yea..."

"should we order appetizer?"

"um..."

"I don't care for appetizer"

-B

2006-05-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

Compton and Long Beach Together Now You Know You In Trouble

My first real "Relationship" with a woman was actually my first everything. My first kiss, first sexual encounter, first love, and first break-up. For me, My first girlfriend was really all about those firsts. I was so excited and eager to jump into that phase of my young adult life that I don't think WHO the girl was really mattered all that much (Sorry Sara). That first relationship was simply a voyage of discovery. Like Columbus but without the smallpox and rape.

My second Relationship was about taking everything I thought I knew about women and scraping it. I made the foolish error of assuming all women were exactly the same. It was terribly confusing for me to watch all the things that seemed to make Sara crazy about me, simply make Liz crazy. So where my first relationship was basically a nessesary exploration of ME and MY reaction to all this stuff. The second one forced me to realize that there were actually TWO people involved. Good lesson.

Subsequent relationships were really just fine tuning the lessons learned from the first two. Specifically: Understanding what I need combined with what I should be willing to provide. Each romantic experience leading me to where I am today...which is relatively clueless.

Things have changed of course since I first began dating. 17-year-old Baditude (A.K.A "Acne-tude") had different conscerns and goals than the 31-year-old version. Actually it's more acurate to say that both versions share the same goals, but 15 years later I just have more things I'm trying to accomplish. [ATTN Math Nerds: all ages are aproximated. Get off my back.]

Trying to determine if the woman I'm dating is someone I want to have children with adds a whole different dimension to things. It kinda adds a lot of baggage to an already crowded overhead compartment. This added concern can weigh a realtionship down and cause one to over-analyze the person they are with rather than just enjoy their company.

Enter "Long Beach Becky" - another first for me. My first entirely casual/romantic relationship with a woman. I've kinda known Becky for years now since she's been lurking around the fringes of my social circles. At New Years we found ourselves talking quite a bit and getting along well. We were also the only 2 unattached peoples at the party (which may have helped). One thing led to another and by the wii hours of the morning we were giving the married couples something to giggle about.

One of the things that attracted me to LBB that night was her laid back but adventerous spirit. It is this very combination of personality traits that makes our relationship fun and easy and doomed all at the same time. This is because Becky's adventerous spirit is taking her out of the country for 2 years come July. But it's her laid back attitude that allows us to still have fun together.

Now I will freely admit that while the two of us have no problem getting along, I'm not entriely sure that we have a lot in common in terms of how we chose to spend our time. If the circumstances here weren't so finite, it might give me pause for thought. I'd have to go through all these different senarios in my mind: "Are we compatible in the long run?", "Would we be a good team in terms of rasing kids?", "Would our families get along?", all those annoying questions that start to pop into my 30-year old head when I start to "evaluate" a potential partner.

But LBB is outta here in a couple months and there's really no reason for me to harbor any expectations. There's no need to break anything down. We just hang out and have fun. Which is pretty cool. I would even go so far as to say that I probably enjoy this whole thing MORE as a result. There's no pressure, no hard and fast rules and we are both understanding of the other's situation.

Basically this means I don't get bent out of shape when she can't hang out due to her crazy schedule (I actually haven't seen Becky in like 3 weeks), and I'm free to investigate other possible romances. In a word this whole thing is just "easy". Will I be bummed when she leaves? Of course. At the same time I dont know if I would have gotten very attached to begin with, without things being so...attachment-free.

So there we are. Oh and those of you paying attention to the title of this post: Yes that does mean that I'm the "Compton". This is because I'm gangstamuthafucka.

-E

PS: I turn 31 in a few minutes.

PPS: It's about time someone did this.

2006-04-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

When you lose the one you love, there's always plenty more.

Many years ago my mother signed me up for something called "Cotillion". Cotillion was a way to force children, who are already struggling with the joys of puberty, into incredibly awkward rituals involving the opposite sex. I think there was some dancing involved.

Kids show up dressed like they are trying out for the local production of the Great Gatsby. While everyone is roughly the same age, they are in drastically different stages of development. Boys and girls get randomly paired up. Girls giggle and boys faces flush strawberry-red. Half the girls are taller than their counter-parts and nothing feels natural.

In a lot of ways this is what the whole match.com experience reminds me of. I'm not really opposed to the idea of match.com and I'm still lurkin around that cyber-singles club. There does seem to be something constricting and unnatural about the whole thing.

In Cotilion everyone was over-dressed and no one was really sure what anyone looked like under all that tuxedo and taffeta. The same is true with the photos that your potential mate displays on his/her profile. Everyone I know who's been on a few "match-dates" has a story about meeting someone who looks significantly different than their given picture. In fact meeting up with a Carmen Electra who turns out to be Cameron Manheim is basically a right-of-passage that every match.man has to go through -- probably more than once.

Part of the training in Cotillion was sorta like "finishing school" type stuff. Proper dining manners, please and thank-you, that sorta bullshit. So your behavior during these dances was severely restrained. The same holds true again for the world of Match.com. Even your first phone call or face-to-face meeting always feels like your staring in a reality show rather than a easy-going get-together.

Match.com isn't the only game in town though when it comes to meeting singles. If that service strikes you as a little stiff and structured head across the tracks over to Myspace.

If Match.com is Cotillion reborn, Myspace is like a fraternity's Halloween party. After all, everyone knows that for most women, Halloween is the time of year where they can live out their deep and secret fantasy of being a total whore. Not that I'm looking down on it. I'm all for it. It's better than most men who use Halloween to dress up like a woman.

Match.com's romantic sensibilities remind one of the 1950's, but over here in Myspace town it's the seventies all over again. As a result the women on Myspace are a lot more "liberated" but at the same time it's much more of a train-wreck.

Despite the dangers and pitfalls with Myspace I think I might prefer it overall to Match.com. The only problem with it is that (since its not a strictly dating site) it's not as easy. With Match.com you know that everyone there is online to be approached by random strangers who might want to fuck you. In Myspace the chick with her boobs falling out of her shirt might just be a closet exhibitionist / prude / 14 year old.

It's extremely easy to just send "Winks" out to random Match.com girls. In fact that's sorta my M.O. I figure no one is being really genuine so there's not much point in spending all the time studying all that profile mumbo-jumbo. I basically make sure I'm in the target's height range, that they are non-smokers with no kids and if the picture is good -- they get a wink.

I figure if and when they respond THAN there's a time to get to (sort of) get to know someone.

The other thing I've noticed about Match is that you really gotta move on this stuff. Everything seems so forced and artificial that you gotta set up that face-to-face meeting soon to see if there is any actual chemistry. Otherwise things fall apart almost right away.

Of course when they do it is no big deal what so ever. You simply stop getting replies and move on to the next one. My favorite "break-up" so far has come as a result from one of the "joke entries" in my profile where I claim to be an artist (which is true) who works in various mediums including paper mache` (which is untrue).

Every once in a while I will get into an email string with a woman who will bring up that Pap-mach. "So I see your into paper mache...How interesting! I didn't know serious artists ever used that!"

So I respond, "heh...acually that's a lil joke. I work mostly in pencil and digital painting"

(no response).

see that? We just broke up. It's happened at least twice. It occurs to me now that maybe I SHOULD get into Paper Mache just to pick up some chicks.

okay that's all for now. Next post I'll give you the 411 on Long Beach Becky.

-B

2006-03-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

I want a girl with the right allocations,
Who is fast, and thorough, and sharp as a tack.

Well it's been quite some time since I've posted here. But I'm back from a long break with a new feature. As you know, most of my posts here are titled with a song lyric. I've decided to actually include an mp3 of that song for you all (when possible). Just click on the title and have a listen.

When I was younger, my parents mostly had friends who were other married couples. Every once in a while one of their contemporaries would come around who was unmarried. Maybe they'd have girlfriends or boyfriends or maybe they would be footloose and fancy free. Either way I always look at this people with suspicious eyes. In my world if you were mom's age, you should be mom-like. That meant that at the very least you would be married. Girlfriends were for the scary high-school kids, or maybe the aloof college kids.

There was definitely something "seedy" about them in my eyes. They were like drifters. You couldn't trust them.

Now I'm almost 31. When my dad was my age he had a house, a wife, and two kids. He had a couple cars, a boat, and a beard. I have a condo (thanks to a lot of help from my dad), and I will never be able to grow a beard.

Even though I live alone in my comfortable bachelor-pad, I rarely FEEL alone. I will admit though that there are times when I lie in bed and feel like I took a wrong turn somewhere. I feel like my chances of being a "cool dad" are starting to fade away and pretty soon I'll only have the opportunity to be an "old dad"

Over the winter holiday I was fortunate to spend some time with my old (girl)friend Rebecca and her family. I was sitting with Rebecca, her current boyfriend, her father, her step-mother, and her sister. We were all catching up and talking about what was goin on in our various lives when someone said someone said something to me like, "I can't believe your not married yet."

At which point Rebecca's sister (devorah) chimed in, "I know why...It's because he didn't know a good thing when he HAD it!". Devorah gave me a stern, matronly look, while I tried not to meet eyes with Rebecca's current boyfriend. It was good awkward fun.

The official reason IM single is the most obvious: "I haven't found the right girl" or rather: "I haven't found the right girl at the right time".

So that leads us back to dating, which I am doing a bit of these days. Technically I'm only really seeing one person (and have been since January), but there's countdown active on that relationship. It's a finite situation and come summertime that bird will be flying away.

That means that I am still on the market. In 2006 that means I'm exploring the dangerous world of On-line Dating. Before I slapped my profile together for Match.com, I was told by a number of experienced daters that online dating would at least generate good stories.

I'll some of the details of all this stuff for my next entry. Tune in a couple days from now.

-B

2006-02-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

(A few things to talk about today so I don't think I'll be able to deliver this post with my usual laser-like focus.)

The Sky is a Hazy Shade of Winter

Curling aside, the general consensus seems to be that the winter Olympics are much more exciting than the more standard summer Olympics. There's still a lot of the same old sentimental bullshit, but the sports themselves seem more thrilling. You got your speed freaks in downhill skiing, and all the bobsledding variations. You got your The upstart snowboarders. You got the graceful traditional figure skaters (with goofy outfits to snigger at). You got your fluid and exciting speed skating. I watched hours of Olympic coverage last night and wasn't bored.

One of the most intriguing aspect of the speed skating is all the controversy tha sprung up with Apolo Ohno's victory by default over South Korea's Kim Dong-Sung in 2002. I managed to find a South Korean broadcast of this event years back and it did not disappoint. When the decision came through that disqualified Kim, the Korean announcer sounded like someone was sucking his intestines out through his belly button.

The Koreans were "displeased". I mean check out this video.

So I was really looking forward to the re-match (sort of - Dong-Sung wasn't racing again instead it was Ahn Hyun-Soo as the Korean favorite). Unfortunately Apolo got greedy and fucked up all the drama.

Another entertaining aspect to last nights games was the company I was keeping. Liz and Pete came over, two friends of mine with deep roots in the snowboarding industry. So watching the Winter Olympics with them is like having Joan and Melissa Rivers on your couch while watching the Oscars. They spend as much time (or more) commenting on what the athletes are wearing than how they perform. It's hilarious. Liz was getting visibly angry at some of the things people were wearing.

Puttin All Kinds of Shame in the Game You Got

As a result of some prodding from the birdman and some simultaneous inspiration from a co-worker, I've become increasingly interested in boardgames. Specifically games in the "German-Style". The way I understand it, there is a whole sub-culture of board games influenced by European designers - many of whom are German mathematicians like Riener Knizia.

Once you start to investigate this world, you quickly discover that the grandaddy of these games is probably Puerto Rico. Phipps put it well when he said, "If I wasn't told that Puerto Rico was the best game ever I never would have picked it up". There's nothing too exciting about it on the face of things, but some friends and I put it to the test for the first time last night and it was really an exceptional game.

It's really interesting to watch a group of people work out a new system of game mechanics and rules like we did on Saturday while playing PR for the first time. There is this initial feeling of trying to find ones way through a dark room in the beginning. Everyone is sort of flailing to make sense of everything. It's cool to watch the transition from total confusion to comprehension to actual strategic decision making.

The game itself has some of the flavors of the classic Monopoly game in that the objective is basically to acquire wealth and build a commercial empire. However, Monopoly is very short on real decision-making, and long on luck. Puerto Rico gives players multiple strategic options and rewards savvy tactics. It utilizes some unusual play-mechanics coupled with some amusingly un-PC elements to make for a great game.

That's all I got for now...

-B

2006-02-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

This new math is whippin motherfuckers ass
You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add
It's mathematics

Let me take you back to Mr. Morris's Algebra 2 class...circa 1992. It's the middle of the semester and I have been suddenly inspired to try and improve what promised to be yet another miserable grade in math. I spend a good solid week of reading, doing problems, trying to carve out a basic understanding of the subject matter in preparation for a make-up exam.

The day of the exam arrives and I move out to the hallway...Determined to make this one test count. In my mind, if I can just do good on this one test, I can move on and maybe pull a C out of this class.

I hit the test running, my pencil flies across the paper with confidence. Numbers and letters and all sorts of algebraic symbols fill the page. In 40 minutes or so I turn in the test feeling completely confident. I never needed to stop and think on any procedure...It just all seemed to flow. All signs pointed to a well deserved B (maybe even an A?!).

Mr Morris handed me the results of the test two days later, and they were astounding. Out of 25 possible points, I received zero.

No points.

Somehow I had managed to be 100% wrong.

I can't imagine what that test must have looked like to someone who knew better. I mean...That page was FULL of symbolic language that...Loosely translated into English...Would have read, "I am from planet-stupid".

So math and I have never been friends.

Despite our rocky past I have taken it upon myself to "start over" and once again try and set things right. This has been inspired by my desire to expand my software horizons and become more familiar with MEL...A scripting language (inspired by C++) that forms the basis for one of our primary software packages at work.

I've got a text book and everything.

One of the early chapters of the MEL textbook discusses the value of brushing up on some important mathematical concepts relating to trigonometry, and vector mathematics. Naturally this kinda stuff makes my brain want to seize up. But instead of conceeding I called my friend Dartemis ( a math teacher, and all-around super smart person ), and scheduled some tutoring time.

While I was preparing for this, I was goin through the aforementioned chapter and something struck me:

11%5=2.2

"2.2" I thought..."twoooo point twoooooo...wow...I can't remember how to do long division."

Undaunted I turned to the internet. I found plenty of websites to help. Many of them featuring banners, with crayon-fonts that say things like, "Math is FUN!!!"

Indeed.

My favorite source of knowledge was a Dr.Math. Dr.Math displays emails from troubled readers and attempts to answer their questions. Here is an example of an email sent in that related to a problem I myself was experiencing:

"Dear Dr.Math,
I am in fifth grade and am having trouble with third grade arithmetic.
My biggest problem is long division. "

Yes Dr. Math!!! Please help me and the 5th grader who is 2 grades behind the curve! I eagerly downloaded and printed many of Dr.Math's helpful solutions, and challenging worksheets.

Midway through the level 1 "long division worksheet" I came to another embarrassing revelation. There are some serious holes in my times tables. I had seriously reverted to a first grade math level. I have no problem with the numbers that have tricks to them...Your 2's, 5's, 10's, and 9's (thanks to that sweet trick you can do with your hands)

But your 6's, 7's, and 8's...To me that's pure memorization. So while I was doin my long division (complete with drawin the lil downward arrows) I kept stumbling into problems that I SHOULD know, but have long since forgotten.

Shameful.

Anyhow, I eventually had to get back to work and put the division problems away for a another time. Later that night I had to actually talk trig with another adult...Which promised to be totally embarrassing. Good 'ol 'D' happens to be a great teacher though and I found most of what she was explaining to me to be totally accessible. Which was nice.

I did get to showcase yet another one of my problems with math however. It's like this: When I come across a relatively simple piece of addition or subtraction and I'm by myself...I'm fine. I work it out (perhaps a bit slower than others....Or using my fingers), no big deal. If I am in the presence of others though I have an altogether different "technique".

basically my mind works like this: "dude...That's an easy problem...25 - 16? You should be able to spit that out instantly, and if you don't you will look foolish". So -- not wanting to look foolish -- I sorta glance at the problem and quickly determine what numbers might be CLOSE to the answer....Like 10 for example. Than I just sorta stab blindly for a number close by. I can usually judge the success of this technique by the reaction of the other person (or persons) around. Sometimes it works and the conversation just goes on as normal.

Other times...

...MOST other times...

...I get this sorta, "raise of the eyebrows" look.

"ha ha! Oops!" (stab other numbers till I get it right).

The point is this technique completely backfires 70% of the time.

It sounds stupid, but it's important to understand the panic my brain is in at these situations. My heart actually starts to race a lil.

After the tutoring last night I discussed a lot of this with my friends, and the Birdman asked me if I felt my lack of numerical dexterity was really an obstacle for me in my daily life.

To be honest it really isn't. But I do have an idea of myself and my intellectual capacity, and I don't feel like my math is up to par with the rest of it...I mean...Fuck I hope not. If the rest of me were as deficient I think I'd need a helmet and full time nursing care.

The moral of the story? All you kids who hate math...you best fight through that shit. It will haunt you for the rest of your life. :)

-B

2006-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

I Had A Dream Joe

I almost never remember my dreams but last nights managed to stick with me so I figured I'd write it down and share it with you.

It's sometime in the early 90's and I'm at Lallapalooza (it's a period piece dream) with Liz. Somehow Liz has managed to get us backstage and we are hanging out in this lounge area. Musicians are cruisin around and Liz is sitting on some ratty couch talking to an musician who is a combination of the chicks from Sonic Youth, and Hole, and Liz Phair. I'm eating from the deli table.

Eventually I walk over and sit down next to Liz. Suddenly I realize that seated to my right is Gwen Steffani (still in No Doubt of course). It's a big couch but for some reason she's pressed right up against me. We start talking but it becomes obvious that she's not really talking TO me, more AT me.

In fact she wont shut the fuck up. I keep trying to participate and get a word in, but she talks right over me. She's the most annoying woman I've ever met at this point.

After a while of this I notice james Iha from Smashing Pumpkins has entered the room. He moves around without walking. It's as if there are microscopic wheels under his feet and he just rolls from place to place. All throughout the dream he rolls in and out of sight with a distant and pensive look on his face.

It's around this time that Wendy shows up. She dives head first onto the deli table and starts taking pictures of everything. Food goes everywhere, but no one seems to really pay attention. They just go aobut their buisness while Wendy (covered in vegetables, deli-meats, and ranch dressing) snaps photos of everything.

That's about it.

I used to have these sort of "hangin out with celebrity" dreams all the time in high school. Specifically I remember one where Metallica has come to town to play center court at the La Costa Hotel and Spa (for some reason). While at the show I discover that the real band is actually just hanging out inside a booth while holographic copies are performing on stage. Naturally they reward my curiosity by asking me to hang out and jam with them.

good times.

-B

2006-01-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

When the heavens open up and drink from the silver cup
The creature thus be born! And blow the magic horn!

(Those lyrics are from Master Shake's idea of what should replace the standard birthday song.)

Well my brother is now a father, which makes me an uncle. A few years ago my brother was wearing the same outfit everyday for weeks at a time and peeing in the shower...even when he wasn't taking a shower. Now he's responsible for the growth and development of a brand new human.

I guess he's had some practice on several cats (many of which he's already pawned off on my mom).

My bro really has come quite a long way in the last few years. I'm still a lil curious to see how he handles fatherhood but I suppose I believe in him. Besides, I know he's got a good family to help him out.

I would love to see him start a blog that documents his thoughts and feelings as he begins this new stage of his life and compare that to Streamside.

So congrats to Seando and welcome to tha world Eli!

(so fuckin weird....)

Dating.

I don't think I know anyone who really likes "dating". At least as far as we understand the term "dating" to mean the act of searching for other singles. Even people who don't want to be tied down or married must admit that the potential for awkward and uncomfortable situations far outweighs the potential for successful pairing.

Dating is like flexing. When you look in the mirror and flex your muscles...that's really you, but it's not really you as you always are. Being single and meeting women is like keeping your entire life clenched up like that. Your always showing off your emotional muscles, your personality pecks, your brain's biceps. It's still you (unless your deceptive asshole), but it's always gotta be your BEST you.

Stand in front of the mirror and flex for about 2 hours...it's exhausting.

That's dating.

There are payoffs however. This weekend I got to experience such a payoff. When you do meet someone with whom you click with, there is this dizzying whirlwind of pulse- quickening excitement. Everything is all new and undiscovered. Jokes are twice as funny as normal, conversation is invigorating, and your ego is basically getting shot up with steroids.

So I had a good weekend. A couple people have already asked me about it and my answers seem to underwhelm. Suffice it to say I am cautiously optimistic. "So far so good" is a better way of putting it. I dunno what the long-term holds (if anything). I have no expectations either way.

There is this romantic notion of love-at-first sight, that sort of conflicts with how things usually happen. When you first meet someone people want to hear a definitive "She's the best" or "She's the worst", but really it doesn't work that way. You can't possibly know someone well enough in the early goings to determine how much time you want to invest in them.

People who say otherwise are misguided. You always hear the, "I knew from the moment we met that we would be together forever". These people are allowing their genitals to cloud their judgment.

Anyhow...I'll keep you updated.

2006-01-02T20:28:00.000-08:00

She super bad now
She's here to really blow your mind
Dancing, dancing, dancing
She's a dancing machine

Now for a holiday story...A story about holiday parties to be exact. A story about my company's holiday party.

Every year my benevolent and somewhat faceless employers throw us a holiday party that never fails to be extravagant and somewhat weird. I'm not sure who plans these things they have an penchant for employing drag queens, midgets, Mexican wrestlers, and perfomers in skin-tight, flesh-colored unitards. Usually not at the same party and never the same person.

This year we had a couple of cirque de soleil types (in flesh-colored unitards) hanging from strange drapery up in the rafters. We also had some sort of casino thing goin on. The money was fake which was good because the dealers (despite being very friendly) had trouble counting to 21 at times.

The theme of this years Gala was "Fire and Ice". This elemental motif was brought to life via a group of performers called "Fear No Ice". A group of people who bill themselves as the first ice sculpture performance group. Sometimes new ideas come to the surface and find a person surprised...Blown away that such a sublime and important thing lay dormant in the collective subconscious for so long. People see or hear about these ideas and say things like, "How is it that _I_ never thought about that!"

"Fear no Ice" is not one of those ideas. The reason why these guys are the first performance ice scupltures is because this is a silly idea.

The group consists of two men stomping around stage with chainsaws while a 2 minute piece of music is set on a 15 minute loop. The men are dressed in a furry white thing with lights on their heads. It's as if someone from the Blueman Group and Sam Fischer from Splinter Cell copulated and these artists are the result.

The performers run around and stare menacingly at big blocks of ice, than twirl away as oddly timed pyrotechnics belch out sparks and flame in such away that seems to surprise even the people on stage.

It was all very...Strange. As one sits there watching this spectacle she is bound to feel compelled to appreciate what's happening. It's apparent that someone put a lot of time and passion into this thing...But it sorta falls short of being as fantastic as it clearly wants to be.

Oh well.

The party did come with all it's usual good stuff. Plenty of great food, plenty of fun people, and plenty of free booze which always leads to the obligatory gossip item.

This year it was probably the woman who stood up on a table and started to get freaky-naughty in front of everyone. It was a PG performance, but what was striking about it was that the last time I spoke to this woman she was complaining about the amount of inappropriate sexual material she has to endure in her office. I couldn't stop thinking of this as I watched her twirl her clothes high in the air above her while doing a fantastic pantomime of something you might see on the discovery channel...Or the spice network depending on your cable package.

One of the areas where the party-planner fell a lil short was in the heating. It was colder than some sort of cliche in there. The good thing about this was that it promoted more dancing than usual since it was one of the few ways (aside from coffee) that could keep from ending up like Jack Torrance at the end of the shining.

In their infinite wisdom the party planners also decided to hire a group of "instigators" dressed in tight black pants and some sort of shiny, red, sequined shoulder pads. These young women (and one spastic man) were responsible for making dancing, getting other people to dance, and dance with people who were already dancing. They were all attractive and extremely enthusiastic.

At one point, while myself and a few others were out shakin it, two of these hired guns shimmied into our circle and began to raise the roof with us. This ended up being really strange. One part of your brain notices that these hot girls are smiling and dancing at you and says, "Damn G! Look at you all studly and shit". The other part of your brain is saying, "these women are being PAID to pretend to have fun with you sucka!"

It got weirder when I noticed that one of the dancers kept looking at me and sort of...Ghosting me. In other words, I would dance a certain way and her eyes would light up and she'd nod her head and start moving the same way. Her expression seemed to say, "OH you like THAT sorta move eh?! Yea I can dig your groove! WATCH ME!"

After a few songs the DJ started mixing in some older songs like Ton Loc's "funky Cold Medina". The hired guns stopped singing along and sorta seemed like they were pretending even harder than before to have fun.

"You've never heard this song before have you" I said to the one who WASN'T mimicking my every move.

"No...I don't think so" she said.

"How OLD are you?!" I asked.

"I'm 19!" she said brightly.

un-be-lieveable.

We left shortly after. I dunno what the others were thinking but I was feeling something close to shame. :)

-B

2005-12-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

We don't need no phone at all
We've got a thing that's called radar love

A while back I posted about the confusion my name and (in particular) it's spelling can cause. It can be kinda a pain in the ass at times and I never really have a good answer to the question, "How did you get that name and spelling?" I think I just discovered a suitable answer. "Secretive Hunter Folk" -- That sounds like me. I know it might not pick up the chicks but it still sounds cool to me.

Speaking of picking up chicks; I have finally jumped into the internet dating pool. Hot single chicks looking for a hunky stud can now find me on Match-dot-com. So far I have received one email from a woman in Delhi, and this doozy from a woman in "Koreatown USA":

Greetings, please send to me the address electronic
And I shall write to you. I am very pleased, it
You have written to me. I shall tell to you more in
Detail about me I am direct also shall send more photo!

But I've had a few more promising encounters as well. I really just started though so I haven't quite figured out how I feel about it yet and I'm still sorta stumbling through it all. More as this whole thing develops.

-B

2005-12-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Learnin To Fly

Azeroth...from the windswept planes in the barrens of Kalimdor to the ghoulish horrors of the plaugelands of the Eastern Kingdoms, heroes of all types traverse and explore these lands. They battle for wealth, glory, and honor. Brilliant spells streak through the air, deadly steel flashes from dark shadows, and in the middle of it all is my mother -- one of the newest additions to the World Of Warcraft family.

[ If you don't know what World of Warcraft is you should skim through this to get some quick context. ]

My mom has never really played a video game beyond Pac-Man, so for someone to jump in to a complex, three-dimensional, virtual world like this is going to involve a very steep learning curve.

I think what initially drew my mom in, was the simple act of character creation. She had a lot of fun going through the small amount of options that allow a player to customize the look of her character. Initially my mom was disappointed to learn that if she wanted to play along side me, she would be unable to play some of the "prettier" alliance characters like Elves and Humans. Her initial reaction to the motley crue of Horde races (Trolls, Orcs, Undead, and the bull-like Taurens) was something just short of disgust. But as she got into it she was saying things like, "Ooo...I kinda like THESE tusks" or "I can't tell if should have green skin or blue skin".

Let's get one thing clear. My mom is a terrible WoW player at the moment. She needs to learn a lot of basic navigational-type skills that most people take for granted, even my contemporaries who don't consider themselves "gamers".

My mom really gets into it though. It's obvious because she reads EVERYTHING. Let me explain a lil. World of Warcraft is filled with computer controlled characters (also called NPC's) who stand around and give the players little tasks to fulfill. Completing the task will give the player various rewards and it's these tasks (or quests) that generally drive the game.

Many of the NPCs provide the player with multiple quests and quests that have multiple parts. This means that as a player you might interact with one particular quest-giver 4 or 5 times. Each time you talk to that quest giver (either to finish up a successful task or to embark on the next one) that NPC will greet you with the same lil blurb of text..something like: "The sun-baked earth and scorching sun of the Barrens is like a blazing forge from which great warriors are born" or something like that (but frequently much longer).

The NPC will say this every time you click on him...and my mom will read it (out loud) every single time. This is part of the reason why most people can accomplish 10 times as much as she can in the same amount of time.

There is an in game mail system and I received this letter from her yesterday (My charcter's name in this case is "Blackleaf", hers is "Greenstone"):

Greetings to Blackleaf!

I am Having some difficulty with those bastard
prarie wolves and the huamnoids dwarves
in he bramble------ravine.

I cannot win a fight with any of them and I am continually savaged.
if you could help me with armour or spells I would appreciate it since it appears I
cannout last much longer. Greenstone has advanced to level 4 on her own but
needs much training.

This could be my last communication. I am in bloodoof village at the inn.
thanks you for your help

There are a number of things that get my mom into trouble out there. First and foremost is that she has yet to really understand her place in the world. In otherwords: It's a world FULL of dangerous critters and my mom is a very myopic. She tends to focus in on one baddie that she needs to kill and run towards it without realizing that there are three or four more baddies to either side of her and often much closer.

So she ends up charging haphazardly into large groups of dangerous animals or villains, thinking that she's engaging one, when she's really going up against like 7 of them.

This goes along with just poor navigation skills in general. Most of our adventures together begin with me saying, "okay lets get going", and her shooting off into some totally random direction for about 3 seconds. At some point she realizes I'm no longer close by, and she executes a looooong slow circle tryin to find me.

(keep in mind that as a player you can simply and quickly rotate the camera view around to look for stuff...It's half the work and takes a fraction of the time than my moms method).

Now...It's important at this point for me to explain that I'm not at all complaining about this. I find it all very amusing and (in a way) endearing. I have big smile on my face during all these gaming sessions and frequently find myself laughing out loud at the perspective my mom has on all this stuff.

Another example of this came recently when I was trying to instruct my mom (who's character is NOT a cook...) on how to interact the computer controlled vendors:

ME: Okay mom, you need to apple-click on that vendor in front of me...no...no...stop moving...turn around. yea that guy. Apple-click on him and open your backpack.

(Long pause...probably while my mom is reading something)

MOM: Okay...

ME: Now apple-click on all the items you don't need to sell them.

(Even longer pause)

ME: Howsit goin over there? Did you sell some stuff?

(brief pause)

MOM: I Bought some spices!

For some reason this had me in stiches.

So I really do enjoy trying to help my mom struggle through this whole thing. Also, I don't often connect with my mom like used to, so it's really cool that she's taken up one of MY hobbies in an effort to find something we can enjoy together. That's really the best thing about it, and worth the frustration of tryin to teach her character how to swim underwater....she still hadn't figured it out actually. :)

-B

2005-12-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

Doctor, Doctor, Gimmie Tha News...

Recently a friend of mine posted some of his early reactions to one of my favorite shows on television: Lost.

Hopefully Discostup won't mind me quoting him here:

Some of the doctor stuff (main guy) is a little overboard as well. The guy's story about his surgery on a young girl (a solo pediatric spine surgery in residency?! Um...yeah) and his fear issues (count to 5 - it's fun!) was ridiculous; the story happens early and was so bad it just about made me want to turn the show off. Luckily it was only a small piece and eventually it's forgettable. But that shit right there belonged more on House M.D. than this show. In that context, some of the other medical stuff is bogus, which is I guess to be expected and with the exception of that one time actually isn't that big a deal.

Discostup is an actual doctor and in case you haven't noticed, doctors have been getting a lot of play on television dramas over the last 5 years. Anytime you have a highly specialized field, especially one that deals with the obvious drama of life and death, you've got the makings of something potentially glamorous. Because doctorin' is requires so much training, it's pretty mysterious to most of us.

It goes without saying than that if you are a writer for a show like E.R. or House (M.D.) or any other crazy medical drama, you probably feel pretty secure in making up almost any crazy senario that pops in your head. Your audience will have no clue that story is built upon shaky science. Or as Disco' puts it...Is complete bullshit.

All this means that Pop Culture keeps throwing out fantastic stories that only a small percentage of the population can really understand as impossible. I actually really enjoy listening to a real doctor tear into stuff like that. Not only is it somewhat educational (although most of the time the actual medical facts go in one ear and out the other), but trying to discern what the underlying frustration is can be entertaining.

It's not like most of us are caught by surprise when we are told that television embellishes, exaggerates, and invents in order to create interesting stories. Deep down most of us realize that even the most grounded drama, the most faithful biopic, contains at least a lil extra zazz.

So why is it so frustrating when that zazz trespasses on something we are intimately familiar with?

I was thinking about this and an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 came to mind. In it a man has been bombarded with radiation of some sort. Naturally the 1950's understanding of this is that he would grow abnormally large...amazingly colossal even. According to the film, one of the downsides of getting so upsized (aside from enduring the humiliation of being forced to hang around in amazing colossal diapers) is that your heart doesn't grow enough to compensate for the rest f you. The reasoning for this?

Your heart is only made up of one cell.

one single cell.

one single enormous cell.

I'm no doctor...But I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

So I guess what's so frustrating about all this false medical information is that it makes it impossible to suspend ones disbelief. Which is too bad 'cause I was sorta hoping it was just arrogance.

Now that I think of it...I work in something of a specialized profession. Why don't they make an intense night-time drama about animators workin in motion capture? You could call it "MoCap". Like the title E.R. -- that's a lil bit of jargonized short hand for what we do (it stands for motion capture).

You could have the stodgy conformist boss who doesn't care about the art only the industry. You could have the main character who's something of a maverick..Constantly coming up with outlandish solutions of mundane run of the mill problems. You could have the sycophantic suck-up who has not real talent but kisses ass to a position of authority over the main character. Some fat guy for comic relief.

I could start throwin out terms like gimbles, platforms, pipelines, specular mapping, polygonal, and mash them all together into something totally incoherent but cool sounding. Throw in a bomb threat and a couple of haunted capture-stages and boo-ya! Emmy award-wining entertainment that's bound to piss off a few thousand people who are "in the know".

-B

2005-11-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this shit blood and cum on my hands.

Your thinking that with a title like that this entry has to be good right? Let's find out.

Today I bought a cutting board. Specifically a John Boos & Co Poly cutting board. I have a wooden block, but I was told I needed a specific board for meats, and a specific board for vegetables and stuff so I can prevent things like "cross contamination".

It's precautions like this that give us our super sassy modern life expectancy I suppose.

Anyhoo I was casually glancing at the "care instructions" that came with my purchase and at the top of the list I found this:

"1. Do not allow moisture of any kind to stand on the cutting board for long periods of time. Water, blood, urine, and dish water may contain bacteria which can become trapped in knife cuts on the board."

Okay...So did I mention that his was a cutting board for preparing food on? Right. SO this is not like..A medical cutting board or a bathroom cutting board.

I mean. I suppose I can understand the blood thing. After all there are knives involved and accidents happen. I am curious about the person who clips their finger while chopping carrots, and figures it's okay to just let that blood chill out for a couple days after the accident. I mean cutting board or no...You would think your natural instinct is to clean up blood whenever its spilled in your home.

Also...What's' with the urine? Why urine? Why is urine on this list? For godsake what are people doing on or with these cutting boards? Why include urine on this list and not Semen? It makes one wonder...Can you ejaculate all over your cooking utensils and assume it safe to leave it be for a day or two? I'm pretty sure that the guy who needs the urine warning ALSO needs the semen warning. I may write a letter.

Lastly....And after the urine thing it's a minor quibble...Do we need to give dish water its own category? I would think that "water" pretty much covers all water. Sea water, sewer water, fresh water, distilled water...water. You're tellin me your gonna go the extra mile for dish water but leave out semen? This is a concern to me.

Anyway, let it be known that I have been properly warned and will leave _NO_ substance on my cutting board for any extended amount of time. You may dine in my home with confidence.

-B

2005-11-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

First a cool Mashup featuring the Beatles versus a Song I inexplicably heard in a Toys R Us once.

well I had this whole long essay planned about movies that feature men tryin to understand their temporary place in the world and reconciling conventional ideas of masculinity against modern mores and values.

But it just wasn't flowing. There's some potential there so maybe I'll get it out later.

I had it tied into to issues of mortality and how people come to grips with it. Its an issue that's been on my mind lately because my grandfather has been hospitalized. Initially it was due to a broken hip, but he also suffered a stroke a few days later.

It looks like he will make a full recovery but there was some scary moments there for us. In the end modern medicine will be able to extend his time here with us, but we all know that such time is fleeting and who knows how many more years he's got with us.

In other news my video game world is in something of a golden age right now. While I still experience a bit of bloodshed in the form of battlefield 2. Most of my digital endeavors are much more high-minded. I'm either playing music, making movies, or trying to spread my own version of culture and governance across the world.

So to all those people who think gaming is full of degenerate mindless sec and violence...Well it is. But there are some other fun games out there that really aren't so bad. Plus degenerate violence rules (as long as its only make-believe)

-B

2005-11-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

This blog sucks.

But I promise to update it soon.

-B

2005-10-23T22:38:00.000-07:00

Feels Like The First Time

First of all I would like to send a big "Fuck You" out to the 10-year old brat who spoiled the ending of the Half-Blood Prince for me. You're a jerk and I hope you get crippling acne in your teenaged years.

Seriously people. Would it kill you to let me experience this stuff for myself? Chalk up yet another "mystery" and "surprise" that is significantly watered down because of outside influences.

Aside from spending time at Hogwart's, I've been keeping myself busy in the pursuit of something like romance. I wouldn't really say I've been wildly successful though, and I'm not quite sure what the heck is goin on. There may be some light at the end of the tunnel but it's been a confusing couple of months.

Rather than go into a detailed account of all this current stuff I figured we could take a look back at my very first girlfriend.

Those who know me remember her as Sara. But even those who know me well, probably don't realize that Sara was (technically) not my first girlfriend.

I don't actually remember the name of my first girlfriend...Although I suspect it was "Jenny" (Though that could have to do with the aforementioned time spent reading J.K. Rowling). Yea...We'll call her Jenny.

I think I was about 12 (13? 18?) years old at the time. I was playing in the lot behind my house when this girl and her friend approached me. We struck up a conversation which somehow quickly evolved into a series of tests and challenges that I was forced to perform in. I don't remember them being very difficult -- Crawling through dirt and jumping over various obstacles. Little did I know that this would be metaphorical of dating for the rest of my life.

Eventually I had passed enough tests to demonstrated a satisfactory ability to traverse an empty lot. The result of all this was that I was now officially Jenny's boyfriend. I started to say something about not realizing that was going to be the result of all my efforts...but before I could really protest I was being threatened by Jenny's friend who out-weighed me be about 50 pounds.

So I did what any other 12-year old playa would do. I refused to return Jenny's phone calls, and hid when she came to knock on my door over the next few days.

I'm not too sure how long this first relationship technically lasted. If I had to venture a guess I would say 15 or 20 minutes. Though when I think about it, it may not have officially ended until I watched Jenny flip me the bird through the peep-hole of my front door.

Those were happy times.

-B

2005-10-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

I Want My, I Want My MTV

I swear to god I could go the rest of my life without hearing the, "Ever notice how MTV doesn't play videos anymore?" comment.

(Sorry James) :-)

Let me break it down for you.

If you're my age, and remember the days of music videos on music television, you're too old to bring up this trite observation anymore. We've been preachin this gospel at social gatherings since before 1992.
Shut-up already.

It's the small-talk equivalent of bad stand-up where every joke is how women like shopping, and men won't put down the toilet seat.

If you were born in the 80's than you weren't really around for those years anyways and you can't really claim to miss them. So you can shut-up as well.

Here's another thing. If people REALLY wanted to watch hours of music-videos, MTV would never have changed. It's not like they broadcast their shit to piss you off. They stopped showing music videos on MTV because music videos are FUCKING BORING. No one raced home from school in order to turn on "Yo! MTV Raps!" No one stayed up late to watch "Headbangers Ball" or "Alternative Nation" with (shudder) Ricky Rackman, or (wretch) Kennedy.

You turned that shit on when you were bored...And rarely do music videos ever make you un-bored. They just fill the empty space around you to compliment your (my) empty fucking life.

Now don't get me wrong. I liked Thriller as much as the next guy, and one or two music videos are fine and dandy. But you can't keep anyone's attention long enough with hours and hours of music videos.

People who complain about MTV not showing videos are fakers.

And please...Don't talk to me about MTV2. Who watches MTV2? I mean really. I like music. Despite what I said above - I like videos (to a certain extent). I've probably watched all of about 30 minutes of MTV2...Total.

Come to think of it...Does anyone watch MTV2 anymore? Does that even exist? Next time your at a party and you get the urge to try and impress people with the "No more music on music television" quip...Skip it and take the next step and say, "What ever happened to MTV2".

-B

2005-10-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

Some Gal Would Giggle and I'd get red and some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head. I tell ya...Life aint easy for a boy named Sue

In face-to-face meetings or even over the phone, my gender is (usually) instantly recognizable. While my name is not "Sue" I do have a name that is generally associated with females and despite the womanly name I am not a member of that tribe. This is a situation that I've had to deal with in many stages of my life.

I try and remember the difficulties surrounding my name as a child whenever I get the urge to get too nostalgic about those days-gone-by. I think I was reminded on a daily basis that my classmates felt there was something wrong with the name my parents gave me. Most grade school kids like their sense of gender issues rigidly defined, and the ever-so-slight amount of ambiguity that came with my name had a way of turning me into the 3rd grade version of Boy George...at least in the eyes of some of my peers.

In college I often found myself wanting to stay up late into the night listening to music and so I would log into chat rooms to give myself a reason to do so. These chat rooms were just inane enough that I wouldn't have to concentrate on what people were typing, but they were engaging enough to give my fingers something to do while I was spinning disks.

Conversations in these chat rooms were like mini episodes of Dawson's Creek. Someone was always pinning over a boyfriend who had moved out of state. Other people were on the verge of suicide and crying out for someone to "talk them down". Still others were lonely and looking for some cyber-sex. Every once in a while a political discussion would break out and would instantly degenerate into flame-wars and name-calling. Most people would want to talk about the relationships they were struggling with IRL (In Real Life).

As a result you get a lot of strangers sharing deeply personal information with you behind the confessional-like mantel of the internet. There were several times when I would be engaged in some sort of intimate conversation with someone like "Lil_Princess_Muffincakes". LPM would know my name and be listening to details about my girlfriend, and then I would say something that would identify me as a male (like, "So I was walking out of the men's room yesterday and...") and my chat partner would interrupt with, "Wait a minute...You're a guy?! I thought you were a Lesbian!"

Yea...that happened at least 2 or 3 times.

Once I left the world of chat rooms (far far) behind me I figured that this sort of thing would no longer be a part of my life.

Turns out I was wrong.

After buying my condo I've been making a lot of changes to the place. These changes have me running around town to the sort of stores that don't really advertise on Spike TV. Stores that specialize in home furnishings and things of that nature. What's been happening is that I will walk in and hand the salesperson an invoice or something like that with my name printed on it. That person will look it over and say something like, "Hmmm...well it looks like your wife has chosen to go with this material in a latte color".

To which I respond, "actually I'm not married".

"Oh...I'm sorry. Is this for your Mom than?" They ask.

"No actually that's me...That's my name".

The clerk usually believes me but there's usually a few seconds where I have to endure the embarrassment of having a girl's name right alongside the reminder that I'm in my thirties and un-married with few prospects to that end.

But I smile and assure this person that "this sorta confusion happens a lot".

I suppose at the end of the day I could change my name or insist I be called something else. But after all is said and done I really don't care that much about it's association with the feminine. Besides...It's _my_ name. I wouldn't know what else to call myself.

But if I did change my name I think I'd be Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne.

-B

2005-09-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

I Am The Entertainer

I've got a random bunch of media to talk about today with links aplenty. So fire up those speakers and we'll get started.

First of all...Even though most of my readers have seen this already...You should really check out some of the results of this contest. It challenged participants to take a movie and re-cut it into a trailer in such a way that the new advertisement promotes an altogether different product.

The Shining

West Side Story

[Props to Chad Moore for turning me on to those]

Second: Mashups. Mashups are basically just remixes, but the point of them is to take two disparate styles of music and mash them together. Sort of the "cover song" for a new generation. It's not an entirely fresh or new idea really but it's still pretty fun and there seems to be sort of "mashup community" forming. Or maybe its been there for a while. I can't claim to be on the cutting edge of culture all the time. Anyhoo...enjoy these samples that Fwats X passed my way:

Nirvana/Stevie Wonder/J-Lo

Usher/Queen

Hendrix/Snoop Dog

So enjoy those.

Lastly: You should be watching Lost. I mean really. What's wrong with you. Go rent season one, do what you have to to catch up to season 2. It's some of the best TV I've seen in years.

-B

2005-09-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

Stand Up and Be Counted For What You Are About To Receive

Sorry bout the hiatus there but I'm Back In Black now so Let's Get It Up. Oh yea and in case you haven't guessed, I'm all sorts of fired up on AC/DC these days. This is not one of those things where I used to dislike a band or was ambivalent towards them and have suddenly come around.

I've always dug the 'DC.

ACDC was one of the first rock bands that got me on a musical path that branched out beyond the rap and hip-hop that dominated my boom-box back in Jr. High (that's right...I was that suburban kid who listened to N.W.A...and nothing else)

One of the first songs I ever played while learning to drive was "Thunderstruck" from "The Razors Edge". It was a warm day, I had the windows down, my sunglasses on, and the radio turned up. At that moment my mom succeeded in totally deflating me by asking in a disarmingly patronizing tone, "Feelin cool over there?"

well...frankly...yes...Until that moment I was feeling exceptionally cool. Like the biggest fuckin badass ever to drive a Volvo with his mom in the car.

On top of that "Thunderstruck" is one of a few songs that consistently whips me into a testosterone infused frenzy. I just get so fuckin fired up when those first bars start trickling into my ears.

In fact...Let's listen to it right now.

"aaahh-ahhhh-ah ahhh-ahhh-oh aaah ahhh!"

(right now your nodding your head - saying yes to every beat)

"THUN-DAH! aaahh-ahhhh-ah ahhh-ahhh-oh aaah ahhh"

(something inside you is saying, "you really should be pumping your fist in the air with each syllable of 'THUN-DAH!'" Go ahead...Don't be ashamed)

By now it really takes all my efforts to keep myself from kicking something over. When Brian Johnson snarls, "You've Been...Thundah-struck!" He's certainly talking to me.

This rediscovery of AC/DC corresponds with my recent Ipod upgrade. By the way I have to go off on a bit of a tangent here. When I went to the Apple Store I was prepared to throw down for the 20 gig Ipod. I got there and was confronted with this price scheme.

Now...I'm already resigned to droppin a few bills right? I mean call me small-time, but three hundred bucks is a lot of money. But if your already gonna drop 3 bills for 20 gigs...What's really holding you back from going that extra mile for the 60 gigs. Three TIMES the amount of storage.

You might say, "I don't need that much space". To which I say, "Fuck what you think you need". Don't make me bust out some math on you...Cause I hate math but I'll do it. Your spending 15 dollars per gig with the smaller version, while the larger one costs about 6.50 per gig.

Maybe it's just me, but if I leave that store with the 20 gig Ipod...I can't sleep at night.

Anyway...The new Ipod means I'm transferring songs over to it like crazy. In the process I'm making a lot of discoveries. Some of them are startling. For instance: did you know I actually like a handful of Boston songs?! Yea...Neither did I, don't let that get out.

Of course amongst these epiphanies my long-dormant love affair with AC/DC has blossomed once again. AC/DC is really one of the ultimate rock bands. If you need proof go check out an live show by any up and coming inde/alterna rock band. In my experience there's a about a 1 in 5 chance they have an AC/DC cover song in their repertoire.

Why is that? Because they know (like I know) that AC/DC is silly and stupid enough to give your cover song a funny "ironic" flair to it. You just don't get that by covering some more legitimate classic rock bands. The songs are also pretty darn simple and I think those simple songs give the artist a broader canvas upon which he or she can explore their interpretations. I mean you can really work your own personal style into a song like "Big Balls". On top of that these three-chord wonders are full of standard, hook-friendly, rock progressions that are tried and true.

I mean, if pop music is a sandwich shop, AC/DC is the PB&J.

Let There Be Rock.

-B

2005-08-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

everything I need, is denied me And everything i want, is taken away from me
But who do I got to blame? Nobody but me

My buddy Nemesis works in something like a customer service capacity for a big gamE Association. But when he describes his situation there to me it sounds like a lot of what he does is just baby-sitting. He has to deal with a lot of interesting angry people. Every once in a while he sends me partial transcripts of some of his more interesting encounters. Below are two such transcripts:

****

The net game was ignorant. The personal computer was bought, as much as one year had not passed, and study shortage. The bug is found by chance, do the get into one's stride, and a lot of items have been produced. The item is not sold to others. It self-satisfies and a lot of making is .. The crime did not think heavy honesty and play due to the bug. Coming back from work and playing with UO were the salt of lifes every day. Cannot you play with this Acant again? It is thought it is reluctant if it is not possible to play with this Acant though the consequence of one's deeds. I want the chance again."

****

One-sided mail with an account service stop has been sent to overlapping with the midst which is remodeling the house with the bug of EviiHome by chance, and he not having a duplicate intention lately this time. Even if here does the bug in act, the part-owners and the friend right of a house compulsive release disposal Is anything related to an account service stop? Players other thanthemselves are troubled very much by the release disposal, furthermore it sets to
Japanese shard. When information is exchanged by the same directions, same BBS, etc., compulsive release of the part-owners of a house and a friend right etc. is not performed, but it has become Arirang shardlimited disposal, furthermore since it is very unfair, I ask you for a disposal improvement. It is very sorry here for mail called this account service stop to reach a target on the other hand noting that a bug is used for when which was preparing the question / in / it thinks that I will be allowed to carry out Town Hall Meeting participation,and / UO / held in Japan on August 25

-B

2005-08-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

I Got Ya Horse Right Here.

I have been known to partake in the occasional game of chance. I've doubled down, made the nuts on the river, rolled hot dice, and tried to hit 4 game parlays on a teaser ticket. For the most part I like to think I'm a pretty savvy gambler. There is one place where I can't seem to wrangle myself a win. That place is where the turf meets the surf -- the Del Mar Race Track.

Despite my dismal record playin the ponies, I still find myself at the races fairly often in the summer. The marketing wizards teamed up with local radio stations a few years back and started bringing some cool bands to the track on race day. All you need to do is buy a cheap ticket into grounds and you can rock out once the horses stop running.

Of course...It's a cheap ticket until you drop 50 bucks on "Ludicrous Speed" in the 6th. Seriously...How do you NOT bet the farm on a horse called "Ludicrous Speed"?

After yet another winless afternoon I took a moment to look back on my horse-betting career and I was pretty sure that I was in the midst of a 5-year dry spell. I don't mean it's been 5 years since I've come out ahead, I mean I think it's been 5 years since I cashed a winning ticket.

Well that dry spell came to a thunderous end this past weekend as I rode "Runs In The Family" to a thirty dollar victory. It was an appropriate name since my dad has always been fairly successful at the track and since this was the first time I approached my betting using advice he gave me a few days earlier.

I also went and saw Cake who played after the last race was run and put on their usual fantastic performance.

While walking around, winning money, and rocking out, I noticed a few things I'd like to share with you.

1) Horse racing and toddlers do not mix.

Del Mar does have a grassy infield that was designed to appeal to families and I can understand wanting to bring your kids out to the races for a few hours. It's a good theory, you got animals (so it's kinda like a zoo), you got junk food, semi-fresh air, and sunshine.

In practice it's stupid. Especially on the day that Coors sponsors a Micro-brew beer festival in the infield. It's a recipe for disaster as droves of drunken beer fans collide (literally) with the stroller set. Little Timmy gets to witness profanity and debauchery first hand while fisting his face with Kettle Korn.

2) Concerts and small children do not mix.

Here's a message to the pregnant chick standing 5 people back, at a general admission rock concert, tryin to control the rest of her under-aged brood while the crowds around her swell and threaten to trample her off-spring...."You are a retard".

Oh and to the guy who standing a couple feet to the side of her with his huge igloo cooler..."You are also a retard".

-B

2005-08-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Luck be a lady...

A new illustration is up in my art section. Check it out here.

-B

2005-08-09T22:01:00.000-07:00

Gonna Buy Me A Condo

On Monday two fairly momentous occasions took place. The first it that the new Madden Football came out. I guess it technically came out the following day, but I went ahead and jumped in line during EB's "Midnight Maddeness!" and picked up my copy in the first few minutes of the release day.

I was actually rather surprised at the amount of people roaming the mall who WEREN'T there for Madden. I'm not sure what these people were doing some three hours after all the stores closed. One thing was certain...They were not the sort of people who could understand why the rest of us should be so enthusiastic for the release of a video game. This attitude was made abundantly clear thanks to the numerous comments made by these late-night mall rats who couldn't help but hide their disdain for those of us in line.

I suppose these harsh judgments were not completely without merit, but you should know that your average hard-core madden fan is not the same as say...Your average hard-core star wars fan. Most of these guys in line were gym-rats, meat-heads, and jocks. These were the guys that shoulda been mocking the mall-rats and kicking the shit outta them and yet somehow -- at that magical midnight hour -- the tables had turned. Somehow that stuck-up little cunt that folds sweaters at "forever 21" for 8 dollars-an-hour thought she was better than me.

I'm sorry...That was uncalled for.

Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about some good news and the other big occasion on Monday. On Monday I officially became a property owner. With a bit (lot) of help I have managed to pull into a nice little condo in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

Naturally this is a big occasion for me. Not only as a young adult, but also as a white male. It's no secret that the dream of ownership has historically been all but out of reach for me and my kind. I hope that this purchase is symbolic of a larger change in this great society of ours.

Speaking of change...Most of the condo as it was purchased will undergo drastic changes between now and when I move in. Ideally that move-in will occur in about a month since I will be forced to vacate my current apartment at that time.

My dad and step-mom have been just as excited about the whole thing as I am and have been incredibly helpful in getting this place ready to be the ultimate bachelor pad for the ultimate bachelor (me). I have to admit that the whole process of choo-choo-choosing the items, colors, and whatever else involved with making a house a home is a little stressful. Half the time I just don't really know what's gonna look good and what wont.

The other half of the time I'm simply amazed at the sheer amount of options and detail involved. Like grout. While looking for tile a woman asked me what color grout I wanted to go along with some of the stuff I will eventually be standing on while drying myself off after a shower.

I mean...This is fucking GROUT...I didn't know they had different colors for grout. It's at times like that when I just step aside and let my step-mother take over. I want to make it clear though that I am not in any way complaining. The bleeding-heart in me just feels a little guilty about trying to figure out grout color is all.

So it's exciting times for old baditude. I've taken a few photos of how the Condo looked right after purchase so we can so a lil contrast and compare once all the improvements are done. It's FUN!

The view from my balcony...On a "clear" day you should be able to see a bit of the ocean...If you lean out dangerously over the railing...Until someone builds a three story home on that empty lot.

The dining room, kitchen, and living room are all on the top floor, this is the dining room and entry way while standing in the living room.

The kitchen...That microwave has already fallen and put a nice sized crater into the stove-top. Now there's a GOOD reason to replace em I guess.

What the living room looks like while standing in the dining room.

Master-Blaster...I mean Bedroom.

Master Shake...I mean bathroom (sink)

Masterba....nevermind...the master tub and toilet

The guest room / office unless I decide I cant afford this place without a roommate.

And that's that. Stay-tuned for the exciting conclusion.

-B

2005-08-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Da-Do Do Do, Da-Da Da Da is all I want to say to you.

This week is the annual CG conference known as Siggraph. While there is some sort of convention floor, the real draw (at least for me) is the large amount of lectures and classes that go on during the show.

What surprises me at these lectures is how much I actually understand. There is a lot of intense jargon flyin around and the fact that I can pick out most of it and figure out what the lecturer is tryin to say makes me feel pretty good about myself.

Of course a lot of the stuff is still over my head, and even though I understand what each term is meant to convey I doubt that similar sentences find their way into my own thoughts on a day-to-day basis.

Stuff like, "you don't even need to use a deformer for this bit of MEL to work. You can even take a simple locator and select its transforms, and you can see its got a complete rotational matrix in terms of world-space."

or whatever.

There was even more crazy talk to be heard outside the classroom walls at the convention this year. Before I continue I should say that I have spent plenty of time in Los Angeles. Every time you go you get to see some sorta "LA stereotype" played out in front of you. On this particular trip I got to see all the random insane people that I imagine Midwesterners assume exist around every corner and in every boutique.

The bulk of these experiences were had in and around the LA public library. It was a warm sunny day and the grounds outside the library seemed like an ideal place for strolling or finding some shade. It turns out its also a very popular place with the invisible gremlins that plague our nations homeless.

Some of these gremlins are quite the jokesters, as the man sitting just beyond the main entrance could tell you (if you dared to start a conversation with him). Others are clearly annoying naggers like the one pestering the gentleman sitting on one of the shaded benches around the side. Others are more likely to rat you out to the cops -- there was a particularly frantic man who was trying to dissuade his gremlin from that very thing as he ran across the courtyard.

The fun didn't end there though. Once inside the library I found myself in line for a public internet terminal. To my right was a guy who seemed normal until he turned to the woman standing next to him and drawled, "you're beauuuuuutiful. hehehe"

"uh...thanks." she replied.

"you're weeeeeeelcooooooome"

(I don't think he pulled any digits).

but the grand finale was the guy who came in later standing in line but giving the person ahead of him an unusually wide berth. When someone came in behind him and asked if he was in line for the computers he responded with, "yea...Get the fuck away from me". To which the man who asked the question said, "well...I'm standing in line..." but was interrupted with another, "Just back the fuck off man".

Later this same angry computer user randomly shouted at all of us, accusing us of staring at him. "what the fuck are you all lookin at"

I was tempted to say, "Im lookin at a crazy asshole in the middle of the public library" but I thought better of it.

-B

2005-07-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

American Woman, Mama Let Me Be

First and foremost...In case you were wondering, "Bewitched" is bad. Neither Will Ferrell nor Nicole Kidman can save this film. Go rent "Old School" or "To Die For instead".

Last weekend I was asked to provide a little "light shuttle" service (meaning a golf cart was involved) for a party my Stepmother threw at her house. The party was some sort of crazy "Hen Night", no men allowed within the walls (except for a few scattered food servers and musicians).

Age range of said women: about 50 - 80. There were a fair amount of women on both ends of the scale.

AT the beginning of the night I ferried many of them from their cars to the front door. Some knew me, others didn't, everyone seemed polite and friendly. At about 7:30 everyone had pretty much arrived so I joined my dad for a steak dinner at a place down the road, returning close to 9:00 to start taking the party-goers back to their cars.

Peter B, who was a neighbor with his own golf cart and was helping me out, asked me to grab him a drink from inside and I happily obliged.

Bad idea.

The scene on the patio in the back yard was...Unique. Like someone combined the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" with "The Dirt" It was all booze, chocolate fountains, and awkward dancing.

At one point, 2 severely intoxicated older women grabbed me by my arms and began to earnestly engage me in conversation.

woman 1 - Your Mike's son aren't you?

me - that's right.

woman 1 - You're very handsome...You look just like your father.

me - well thank-you very much

woman 1 (turning to woman 2) - doesn't he look just like Michael?!

woman 2 (grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me close) - I don't know who you look like...But you're really handsome.

I barely made it out of there alive.

A couple quick things.

I saw two cool bands who I was relatively unfamiliar with recently. Coheed and Cambria, which struck me as a total David (My friend from UCSC) band. Sorta good solid hard rock with a science fiction story driving all the lyrics. They were at Comic-Con as well.

I also saw Devotchka thanks to Liz's suggestion. This was a fantastic show and made me think of another friend of mine who seemed like she practically belonged in that band. It was sorta all over the road...Gypsy, Mexican, rock-abilly, craziness.

Both shows were good intimate Casbah productions.

2005-07-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

And the future hangs over our heads, And it moves with each current event

Today is a strange day. Today I found out that Discostupe, one of my closest and most important friends, will be shipping out to Iraq in about 12 weeks. Despite the fact that this event was almost inevitable it still manages to catch me by surprise and knock the wind outta me a little.

I'm not entirely clear as to what his role will be over there. Originally I was under the assumption that if and when he went, he would be stationed within a permanent (and relatively safe) structure. Now it seems that he will be given a more dangerous assignment with an infantry support group. It sounds like his chances of being involved in fire fights and the like have increased dramatically.

Even so, I feel as if his chances of getting through his time there without physical injury is pretty good. My main concern is for his emotional and psychological health. This is not to say that I have no confidence in his mental strength...I just worry about what will happen to the goofy-happy-fun guy if he's confronted with some harrowing war-time shit.

Anyhow...I wish him the best for a speedy safe return. He should know he has a devoted and enthusiastic support group here at home.

-B

2005-07-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

It's Just yo Jive Talkin That Gets In The Way

It's true. Just as the Birdman described...I stormed out of a movie recently because the kid behind me was holding a symposium on the presence of snow in the arctic climate that certain flightless birds tend to inhabit.

"Look at all the SNOW!"

"There's snow there mommy."

were both important themes in her lecture, to be addressed time and time again. She was also heard to comment on the film itself. Her insightful criticisms were summed up in this one sublime statement, "This is a SILLY movie!".

So I left.

I can't recall if I've covered this here or not but at the risk of repeating myself:

The Reason little kids talk so much and so loudly in movie theaters

The first VHS VCR was introduced in 1977 -- two years after I was born. A good VCR in the late 70s could run you about 5 grand. So my family didn't bring one home till sometime in the mid-eighties I'm guessin. I don't remember the exact year but I DO remember the first movie my family rented to play on our new VCR...It was Rocky. I don't even remember really seeing the movie, but I was fascinated by the idea that you could watch a real movie, uncut and unedited, whenever you wanted, right in your home.

I was probably about 10 years old at the time, and had already seen a number of movies in the movie theater. Movies were special, and the movie theater was a unique place that had it's own set of rules. It just made sense. You could only see a movie once or twice, because you could really only see it in the movie theater. So when you went there...it was a sorta formal place. You could have fun or course. You could laugh and maybe whisper a quick comment to your buddy or to your mom. But there was something special and different about where you were and what was going on, your behavior needed to follow suit.

Of course now, children grow up with crisp, film quality DVD movies in their bedrooms...From day one. They can be upstairs watching Spy Kids, be called down for breakfast and continue watching it in their living room, and then hop in the car and finish up the movie on their way to school (in the back seat of their enormous SUVs).

All of these are places where it's totally appropriate to say whatever you want (as long as your not cursing...you don't get to do that for a few more years), pretty much as loud as you want. I really think these kids...being so used to having movies around them in their houses...just treat their local movie theaters like just another big room of their house.

Meanwhile their spineless fucking parents sit there and do what they've trained themselves to do over the last few years of their lives. They just tune their kids out.

I'm convinced that a parent hears their own child at a totally different volume than the rest of the people around them. It's probably necessary to their own survival.

*begin disclaimer* I know that all of my close friends who have kids of their own will train them properly on theater etiquette and they'll all be perfect angels. *disclaimer end*

To the rest of you...shut that fucking kid up already.

-B

2005-07-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Numba One in Da Hood G

Here is the THEME SONG for today's blog entry. You can listen while you read!

Aqua Teen Hunger Force is my new favorite thing. I know I come into the craze a lil late as the show is already 4 or 5 seasons strong. The good thing about that though is that I can (and did) just purchase myself three rock solid DVD collections of the show and totally saturate myself with it.

I can't really explain what is funny about ATHF...it's certainly not witty or clever. I'll be damned if it doesn't make me laugh out loud at pretty much every episode. I would have to say that the character that really slam dunks the show for me is Carl. I think he's basically in the same seat as those of us who are watching the show...because for the most part his entire response to what goes on in each episode is "what the fuck is this shit!?"

anyhoo...if you haven't yet checked it out, do youself a favor and tune in. Unless your a girl...I haven't met a girl yet who likes the show. This may just prove that girls are smarter than boys. Ignorance is bliss I guess!

-E

2005-06-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Take Me To The River

Or lake as it were.

Well I spent most of my weekend (aside from Father's Day stuff and a cool concert down at SDSU) editing my video from the recent trip to Lake Powell.

You can view these videos here:

Part One.

Part Two.

Hope you enjoy em!

The trip itself was fantastic (See Adam's Blog for some photos and some more trip details). I definitely feel a special connection to the lake and it was so much fun to share it with some of my close friends and see them experience it for the first time.

There was also this really interesting "passing of the torch". I have never been to Powell without my dad. He was always in charge or the boats and getting the camp site set up and broken down. He came with us on this trip but left after the first day, leaving me to basically do most of the stuff that he did when we used to go as a family. Of course I wasn't doin anything alone, but I definitely got a strange tingling sensation when I took control of the houseboat and we broke camp to head for home.

The amount of equipment that we took with us required that I drive the entire distance to and from the Lake. On the way home I decided to detour to Long Beach so I could return all the ski equipment we borrowed from our family friends the Vittitoes.

This was the family that we originally traveled to Powell to. The father, Craig (aka "Crazy Craig") was sorta the official videographer of all these trips and after I showed him some of the raw footage from this recent trip, he first pulled out a video of he and my dad water skiing at Powell when they were 30 years old, and then a video from another Powell trip a few years later when I (at about 7 years old) was taggin along. A lot of old memories flooded back, and I was also caught off guard at what a cute lil kid my brother was back then. He was hard to see because I would always jump in front of the camera whenever it focused on him. :)

Anyhoo...it was a highly succesfull little get away. It's really difficult to get all those people together for a trip like that but it would be awesome to do something like it again.

-B

2005-06-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Powell

I just got back from one damn fine vacation. Details soon to come.

Stay tuned.

-B

2005-06-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

(big bonus points for those who can tell me what the title of this post is)

I've been goin to some doctors and stuff lately. Everything appears to be fine. Whatever was funky with my heart seems to be unrelated to my passing out at my desk. So that's good. Is till have to see the urologist (that's about an hour away). But early feedback from my cardiologist seems to indicate that there's nothing seriously wrong with me. I do have to walk around with a heart monitor today, which isn't super comfortable but what the hell.

I did find out that the UCSD medical center had my religion listed as "Jehova's Witness" Which is odd and apparently somewhat dangerous as well since doctors hesitate to give blood transfusions to those people.

Oh yea...originaly the cardiologist said he thought I had whats called a winkibach (winky + bach)...which sounded so ridiculous to me it was hard to take seriously. But after my lil treadmill test today I think that's been ruled out. Doc Mike can fill you in if you he wants.

-B

2005-05-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Unchain My Heart

A fun question to ask people when they get a year older, especially when they reach a milestone year, is "Do you feel any different now that you X-years old?". Of course you don't feel different it just sounds weird.

I didn't really feel any different either until yesterday when, after working out for about 10 minutes at the gym and experiencing some pain in my "bathing suit area" I went back to my desk and lost consciousness.

My friends at work called an ambulance and paramedics arrived shortly after. My blood sugar was low and my heartbeat was erratic. As I was being put into the ambulance the paramedic asked my how I was feeling (for about the 10th time). I said I was cold and a little nauseated. He gave me a blanket (which apparently I now own and must pay for) and told me my nausea was probably due to the fact that he gave me 20 candy bars worth of sugar. I hope he was exaggerating.

Anyhow By the time I got to the hospital I was feeling much better. The doctor kept me around so he could run a few EKG's on me. Apparently my heart sorta freaked out.
The doctor felt that it was something of an anomaly and nothing to be too concerned about. In his words, "We're not in heart attack land or anything like that”. He kept referring to it as “an electrical disturbance”. In My head I kept hearing the words “in the force” appended to that phrase. He also said, “It's not something that will lead to other problems".

He put me in touch with a cardiologist anyway (which I see on Wednesday) and I'll have to make an appointment with a urologist (which I think may be the fun-fun-funest doctor a man can visit).

Everyone at work was very cool and helpful. Whish was awesome. My dad was on the phone with me here and there as the night wore on, and my roommate had the fun job of hangin out and waiting with me while the doctor's did their doctor stuff behind the magic screen of my room.

He also had the sublime pleasure of sitting in the room while I peed into the plastic jug they supplied as a urinal. The nurse-guy told my roommate he had to watch and make sure I didn’t pass out again!

What a trooper!

-B

2005-05-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

You Know My Name, Look Up The Num-bah

It's no secret...Grandmothers love grandkids. They especially love the little grandkids. It should be no surprise then, that once the first round of grandkids grows up (say by the time they are around 30), the Grandmother starts jonesin for another fix....They start pining for the great grandkid.

Some grandmothers will go to great lengths to try and get this to happen.

They'll cheat, lie, and steal their way into a new bundle of joy.

My grandmother has decided to go straight pimpin.

It's true...My grandma has no confidence in my skills. In her mind...I got no game. So when she's in Chili's for example...and she sees a waitress who seems nice. She gets her phone number FOR ME, and spends the next few days calling me and asking me if I've used it yet.

So last night I used it. I called this girl...Apologized to her for my grandmother's harassment and asked her out for a drink. She basically said, "what the hell...Why not".

So now I got plans for Friday.

We'll see how that goes. :)

-B

PS...today's Hollywood Baditude goes to this guy.

2005-05-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

I Can't Go For That

I submit that Hall and Oates crafted some of the greatest Pop Music the world has ever seen (heard). What a weird duo too. On the one hand you've got this sorta blonde pretty boy...totally ready for MTV. Next to him you've got someone who basically looks just like BabbaBooey. seriously...check it out:

Oates
Babbabooey

okay maybe they weren't separated at birth or anything...but I see a resemblance for some reason.

Anyway...I always used to feel bad for poor old Oates. I remember seeing videos for "Private Eyes" or "Your Kiss is on My List" and Hall would get something like 80% of the screen time. It was always long slow tracking shots of this blonde mimbo clumsily emoting into the camera lightly sprinkled with quick flashes of a brooding Oates (who was probably bent outta shape for being so marginalized).

I was young but I could already tell that MTV was going to change (already had changed?) the face of popular music by insisting that it had to be a pretty one.

Here's something else.

Last night a friend and I were discussing the current state of Gasoline prices and I suddenly found myself thinking back to the days when I would roll into a gas station, stroll over to the window and plop down something like a buck thirty in change for just enough gasoline to get me home.

those were good times.

-B

2005-05-17T15:59:00.000-07:00

Recipe For Hate

I know I swore off song titles/lyrics for post headings a while back...But maybe I've changed my mind. We'll see.

I've decided to hate something random today. That something is Strawberry Milkshakes. I don't hate the people who order them...I'm just very very disappointed in them.

I had to jump through some bureaucracy hoops today. I had to run down to the court-house and turn in my little note that said I completed traffic school. I could have completed the school earlier and then just mailed my lil certificate in, but than I'd have nothing to bitch about.

I have many fond memories of the small time I spent in Japan a few years back, one such memory is being amused at the difference between a typical government employee there compared to here in the states.

The court-house here is filled with slow-moving heffers (yes it's another disparaging post about fat people. I'm a bad person) who seem genuinely bothered that they number they called actually corresponds to the one that I am holding while waiting to be served.

As I approach the counter they smile lamely at you in a sort of "I have to stretch my lips across my teeth at you...but I'm not actually happy here". Then slowly...Ever so slowly...They....Start...To...Help...With...Your...Problem.

In Japan it was a couple brisk, "Hai!"s followed by a blurring motion of documents getting stamped and suddenly you were on your way.

nice work those guys.

-B

2005-05-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Another Day Closer To Death

Today is my eleventyfirst birthday. Well actually it's my thirtieth birthday.

The prospect of turning thirty has been haunting me for a few years now. Not really an everyday sort of haunting, and not an "Ametyville" or "exorcist" sort of haunting. More of a "Ghostbusters" sort.

Over the weekend a friend of mine asked me how I felt about "the turning", specifically he wanted to know if the shape of my life (at this point) had turned out to be similar to my expectations. Have I accomplished whatever goals I had set for myself earlier in life?

It's hard to say. When I was in Elementary school I expected to be driving a ferrari at this point in my life. It's safe to say that I wasn't all too sure about what that would take, I just new it was a cool car and seemed like the right thing to shoot for.

When I was in High School I knew enough about myself to know that I had now idea about what I wanted. I was pretty sure I didn't want any sort of responsibilities...Ever. I may have had romantic notions of being some sort of vagabond -- Living a bohemian lifestyle across the cities of the world (despite the fact that I didn't appear to have the patience to learn any new languages). Also I thought I might want to draw for comic books.

In college I started to realize that I wasn't a good fit for comic books. If you had asked me to look forward to my thirties I think all I would have expected for myself was to be married. I didn't have any idea what my job prospects would hold. As a freshman, a friend of mine seemed to think we could transfer to Berkeley and start a punk band there. Eventually we'd sign to a major label and sell out for gobs of cash. For us it was this "selling out" stage that was critical but we sorta overlooked the more important "starting a band" part and so that never happened.

As I hit my mid-twenties I was starting really put that ferrari dream to bed, but had a better idea of where I thought I could find happiness and success as far as a career. Somehow I managed to hit pretty close to the mark in that respect.

In terms of quality of life and overall fulfillment I would say that I am pretty happy about the person I have become at this stage at my life. While I still can't see myself as married...I would also say that this is the only part of my life that doesn't live up to expectations. I imagine that will change soon enough and I'd much rather enjoy where I am than pine for the future.

I am still moderately annoyed at the inevitabilities of aging. Part of me feels like I wasn't meant to grow older. That all those qualities of youth that I have enjoyed so far should never have to go away (and to some extent they don't have to), but I can't say what the rest of my life holds for me. So in the final analyses...I can't be depressed about something that's a total mystery. I can mourn for the good days I leave behind, but I suppose I should embrace the possibilities contained within the days to come.

-B

2005-04-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

Too Friendly

I think most of us would agree that being friendly is a good quality to have, but it's awfully disconcerting when someone is overly friendly. Especially when its an overweight stranger in the bagel line.

Einstein's was plenty busy this morning and this jolly fat man starts chatting up everyone in line and behind the counter. A little friendly chit-chat is all fine and dandy, but these people behind the counter are desperately trying to move people along while this guy is asking them where they are from, and how he likes his coffee warm, but not too hot -- how cream is good but too much can ruin the drink -- while plowing bagels into his face, fist-fulls at a time.

He catches my eye and says, "Hey dude where do I know you from?"

"I dunno...I dont think we know eachother" I say...Desperate to try and dis-assosiate myself from this lunatic while everyone in the restaurant throws me strange glances. Perhaps that's why I responded to his following question: "Do you go to church?" with an slightly overzealous "no".

"Oh..." He said, and his mood went slightly icy,"I DON'T know you then."

So ended our brief friendship.

B

2005-04-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

Lookin back

I stopped by to visit with my grandparents this weekend. About half way through my time there My grandfather (I've always called him "Poppi") went into his room to get something he wanted to show me.

He came back carrying some old photographs. I had never seen a picture of my great-great-grandmother before. There was a picture of her sitting by a swimming pool...She looked young. There was also a couple picture of my great-great-Uncle Gus.

He musta been important to Poppi cause there were a lot of pictures of him. He looked confident...A tad surly even. Like some old mafia guy or something. There was a picture of my Dad and Aunt when they were kids that I had seen before and three or four photos of my grandfather from when he was in the service in the Philippines during World War II.

He's lean and strong, and wearing a smile that's all business.

Poppi loves talking about the old days. He tells a lot of his stories over again, but I always listen -- Sometimes politely telling him I had heard the story before. He sighs and smiles and says, "yea that's a good one".

My grandma hates it when Poppi talks about the old days. I think she gets so annoyed for a number of a reasons. I would guess that the biggest reason is that she sees it as a sign of his mental decay. Poppi's still pretty sharp though for his age. Grandma's also heard all this stuff thousands of times before...so she's a lil tired of it.

While I've heard a lot of Poppi's war stories before I've never heard him tell me the whole story from start to finish. My grandfather joined the service in 1942. He chose to enlist in the navy mostly because he didn't want to get drafted into the army. He was a gunner on a merchant-ship transporting supplies all over the place. Australia, Chile, New York, England.

His boat was actually scheduled to go through the U-boat infested waters that led to a Russian port, but he managed to find out about it and put in for leave before the boat headed out.

He eventually became a Navy Pilot and flew a few missions before getting married...At which point the brass told him he couldn't fly any more. The details were hazy, but apparently there was some rule about going through pilot training and getting married...I dunno. For whatever reason he wound up in the Philippians after the marines had landed there and cleared the islands of Japanese resitance.

My grandfather seemed to spend most of his time there handing out malaria medicine and cleaning the place up a bit.

As his story was drawing to a close my grandma yelled at him a bit and he got really defensive.

"Just bear with me for 2 more minutes! Can you do that for me!?" Grandma huffs a bit but lets him finish.

"There that wasn't so bad was it?" He says later. "Had you heard all that before" He asks me. "Not all of it no".

"Well the parts that you had heard before...Have they changed at all? Still sound accurate?"

"No it all sounds just the same as before."

"A-ha!" he says with a satisfied smile.

I told him that he had yet to win the entire war single-handed and I had never heard about any big battles he'd been a part of. I was kidding about that cause I had always assumed that my grandfather had never taken part in any battles...eventhough he was a gunner.

"well..." He said and his face darkened just slightly, "Those stories are too...Well..They are too gory for your grandma. We won't talk about those -- They aren't important".

-B

2005-04-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

Haircuts

Being a cynical, smart-ass, can sometimes feel like an easy way out. I'm not sure that it makes a person very happy either. There is something to be said for being able to put aside snarky sarcasms and embrace the things that we so often take for granted. In that spirit I offer you two important videos.

These are videos that not only inspire us with glorious melodies, and sublime harmonies....But they teach us a little something about life...And love.

god bless.

-B

2005-03-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

Spring

The air is warm, the skies are blue and clear, and day light savings time is just around the corner. That means that spring certainly appears to have arrived. One thing I'm not used to seeing at this or any time of year are biblical swarms of butterflies.

Let me tell you...They are everywhere. It's given my little town a sort of Lorien-like quality...Only slightly more annoying.

When you hear about a mass of butterflies it might seem like a magical sort of happening, until you experience it and realize that it's not too different from any other swarm of insects. they still explode against your windshield at 70 miles per hour.

-B

2005-03-18T10:27:00.000-08:00

More

Here's another example of Gwen Stefani's brilliance. Particularly her talent for compelling lyrics.

Trust me...It doesn't make much more sense in the context of the whole song.

-B

2005-03-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Dirt

I know it's been a while. I know I just got back from a week in San Francisco. But I want to talk about bathrooms.

For the normal American man, the public toilet is one of the last remnants of uncivilized society. The brilliant light of modernity has yet to illuminate these dank and dangerous corridors.

I am constantly surprised at what men feel is an appropriate in terms of what they leave behind when they exit these chambers. Seriously. What did I do to deserve a bowl full of shit? How is it fair to leave behind a seat splattered with piss and/or blood?

You know people sit on that thing right?

I know I am not the only one troubled by this because there are institutions who seek to elevate the men's room from the pig stys they usually are to something that fits better in the 21st century. They do this through robots.

Specifically through motion sensor equipment that's supposed to automatically thrust a sense of decency on you and force you to flush the god dammed toilet. You would think that I would be a fan of such equipment.

I am not.

Step one: Auto Flush.

For urinals this is generally a good idea. The sensors seem to work pretty well. For bowls...They suck. I constantly walk into stalls and see an auto-bowl that is mysteriously full of crap. So unless you can actually find the well-hidden manual flush, you end up dancing around the stall tryin to engage the auto-flush...Which seems to take forever.

Finally the waste is whisked away and it's your turn to do your business. All of a sudden the flushing mechanism becomes extremely sensitive. I find that, unless I maintain a perfectly rigged posture, the toilet will auto-flush two or three times while I'm sitting there. This means that if I'm actually "mid-transaction" my ass is getting sprayed with my own waste. It's not really how I like to spend my afternoons.

Step two: Auto sinks.

These don't work. The activation zone for these faucets are so small you usually can't rub soap on your hands while the water is running. The rubbing motion invariably puts you outside the zone. After an unreasonably long amount of time you finally make it to...

Step tree: Auto paper dispensers.

The Auto hand-dryer actually seems to work pretty good for me. But those fucking paper dispensers -- If you don't sit there and wave your hands like your dancing the Macarena you'll never escape the restroom without soggy hands. Which is fine if your heading to a pool party but not that pleasant to go back to the dinner table with.

-B

2005-02-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

O-Zone

The last time I checked, that video of that kid dancing to Romanian Techno music no longer exists (or at least not from that link). It's okay though because the actual video is just as good really.

Al Franken also used the song as a bumper for his sohw this morning which made me smile.

-B

2005-02-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Mikey
*Updated Below*
MIKE

So the only difference is if I forget
about her or pretend to forget about her.

ROB
Right.

MIKE
Well that sucks.

ROB
It sucks.

MIKE
So it's almost a retroactive decision.
So I could, like, let's say, forget about
her and when she comes back make like I
just pretended to forget about her.

ROB
Right...or more likely the opposite.

MIKE
Right... Wait, what do you mean?

ROB
I mean first you'll pretend not to care,
not call - whatever, and then,
eventually, you really won't care.

MIKE
Unless she comes back first.

ROB
Ah, see, that's the thing. Somehow they
don't come back until you really don't
care anymore.

MIKE
There's the rub.

ROB
There's the rub.

So...I opened up my email inbox this morning to a bit of a surprise. After some 2+ weeks there was an email from the woman who was the subject of my last post. It was a brief but friendly hello. A "what's up?, how ya been?".

I spent this morning drafting my response. In a nutshell I basically said, "I Like you...but what's goin on here?"

Hopefully I will get an informative (and timely) reply. I'll keep you posted.

-B

*Update*

Well I got my timely response and it appears things are "on the friendship tip". Fair enough. At least I know now, and can stop embarassing myself more than I USUALLY do! :)