December 31, 2002

City Pages goes Webloggy
As a Christmas gift to the staff, the editors at our Twin Cites weekly -- The City Pages, have given weblogs (blah! this link may give you a damn pop-up ad) to some of their staff (I hope this wasn't in lieu of a holiday bonus). My favorite so far is Brad Zellar. Also David Schimke's with his shifting typography could be worthwhile. Let's hope it's not just a fad and they all keep at it. Whoop! Whoop!

Non-essential Listening
I have to admit that I'm a bit curious to hear the new Toto and Boston records, but sadly they do probably belong with the Least Essential Albums of 2002.

Anablephobia
In the final stretch of Twenty-O-Two, I am thankful for the first cup of coffee in the morning and the first beer after work. What a wonderful way to bookend each and everyone of the 365 days that made up this year. A heavy dose of nostalgia hits hard this time of year as I am incapable of looking into the future or making nonsensical predictions or resolutions. Can you ever really ask for a restart? would you really want to? It's just a lot easier to reflect on the things from the past.

I found myself at the Mall of the America the other day in search of a replacement power cord at the Apple Store. My third power cord for this machine. Entering the mall from the Pineapple parking level I sashayed into Bloomies, wondering aloud what I was doing entering a mall so soon after the holidays. I immediately found the answer to that question staring me straight away in the dinnerware department -- Fiestaware. Specifically, the new shade, Shamrock was looking real good. My grandparents used to have a shade that was real close to the shamrock color only far less brilliant. I guess it was more of an avocado. I used to think my grandparents were so hip having Fiestaware. I had no idea at the time that this kind of dinnerware had a name or that it was as common as Christmas. You see, for me, as an eight year old running around the woods of my grandparents estate in Moose Lake Minnesota, Fiestaware had come to represent freedom.

Everyday at my Grandparents was ten hours in the woods traversing a maze of huts and thatched forts built by my father and his childhood crew who grew up and played a generation ago. Deep into the woods, the trailheads and huts were all marked with intricate but decaying signs that hung high on the trunks of bending birch trees. Each sign still tacked up with a single rusted ten penny nails. All the signs were colorfully painted in a Yogi Bear theme with messages and characters that hinted at the mystery of summers past. For an eight year old city kid it was an enchanted forest. Who needed to read Tolkien novels when they had woods like these?

One of the best parts, and the one I shamefully looked forward to when I learned that we were heading up north for a visit, was knowing that I would have the freedom to eat Fruit Loops with my grandfather. Sugar cereals were a forbidden element in my house as a kid and it was only my grandparents and their blind eye towards rotted teeth that allowed my brother and I to gorge ourselves on fiesta bowl after fiesta bowl of Fruit Loops. We needed to fuel up for our big Yogi Bear adventures and Special K or Granola would not cut it in those times. We needed sugar on top of sugar. I can still remember the color the last splash of milk and Fruit Loop dust took on as it swirled around in the reflection of the avocado Fiestaware. It was very similar to the rainbow oil slick that always hung tightly around the outboard motor of my grandfathers fishing boat. It was also very similar to the clothing that we wore at the time. The footprint Hang Ten tops and the Classic Op shorts had more unnatural colors than natural. An altogether brilliant time. So tonight on the eve of '03, I will raise my fiesta ware glass to my grandparents, Yogi Bear, those who created huts in the woods, and to the person who ever dreamt up a cereal of sugery rainbow circles. Amen. See you next year.

December 30, 2002

A Year in Pictures
Wrapping up the year, many news agencies have compiled their best pictures of 2002. Some of the one's I've been grazing are: The New York Times, Yahoo, The Guardian, Amnesty International, Time Magazine, and MSNBC.

December 29, 2002

Signs of Santa
End of the year weather around Minnesota is fantastic. Feels like spring. Strolling about yesterday, I ran across two homemade signs that left me scratching my head. The first indicates that Santa lost the keys to his sleigh. The second, indicates that someone was the victim of some nasty grinch-like activity. I wonder if they are connected.

December 28, 2002

About a Boy named Schmidt
Naming a movie with a preposition seems to be all the rage with the kids in Hollywood this year. It may have started a nasty trend. As Nick Hornby writes in his latest, Songbook:

"My advise to young writers: never begin a title with a preposition, because you will find it impossible to utter or to write any sentence pertaining to your creation without sounding as if you have an especially pitiable stutter, 'He wanted me to talk about About a Boy.' 'What about About a Boy?' 'The thing about About a Boy...' 'Are you excited about About a Boy?' And so on."

And so it was that the book About a Boy became the wonderful movie About a Boy. Just as it seems the book About Schmidt has become the masterpiece movie About Schmidt. I am absolutely in love with this movie. I realized continually throughout Jack Nicholson's performance that I was wearing a permanent grin on my face. He must get an Oscar for About Schmidt. My favorite thing about About Schmidt (I hear ya Nick, that is kinda weird to write) is the absolutely slow pace of this movie. The minimalism of the shot gave me time to interact with the scene and digest the meaning. No, that's wrong. The pace of the movie gave me time to play with the scene, look at it from different angles and find similar parallels to my own world and life. Having been to so many movies lately where the story is crammed down my throat or where the pace just moves too fast for me to understand, About Schmidt was a welcome return to film making at the speed of life. Jack Nicholson just is this movie. I really enjoyed watching Jack act. He can say more in a facial expression than a thousand words of dialog can. There are several long scenes in About Schmidt that are simply close ups of Jack as he silently contemplates questions, answers them, questions again his answers, feels guilty about the answers and repeats the process. Just great. The rest of the cast is dynamic and pro. Kathy Bates is a riot. About Schmidt also brings back one of my favorite powerhouse actors: Howard Hessman. I always wondered what happened to Howard and am glad to see he's back on the big screen. Alright, that's enough. Go see this movie. It's good.

December 26, 2002

Having a Hard Time with Mr. Honeybear
Settling in last night to enjoy one of the good books delivered by Santa and the elves, I went through the ritual of preparing a cup of peppermint tea. Ever since Belize, I have added honey to peppermint tea. The combination is completely rewarding. When getting the honey from the pantry, I noticed for that Mr. Honeybear had again bled his own sweat and sticky juices and adhered himself to the panty shelf. Oh why do you do it Mr. Honeybear?!? Every time I use Mr. Honeybear I make 100% sure that he is leaking not one drop of honey and there is no residue left on his clear plastic bear skin or yellow pop top. But nothing I do stops the the inevitable from occurring. As the sun rises and sets, so doth a honeybear spill its contents. I am at lost for strategy. Will it ever be possible to save a Mr. Honeybear?

December 25, 2002

Top 50 albums 2002
As compiled and documented by the good folks at Pitchfork. Hopefully you got some of these from santa.

Happy Happy Merry Merry
Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Here to celebrate are some pictures ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ) from Christmas 1972.

December 23, 2002

Land of Ten Thousand Lemmings
Ok. A review of this mornings news indicates that holiday shopping is getting mixed reviews and not enough people are buying things at Wall-Mart, and dammit people are not gobbling up enough high ticket items and therefore the economy is going to have a bad day on the streets of wall. It's our fault. We aren't buying enough crap. We only have two more days to right our wrongs!!! Well luckily people, Afrojet is here. A sane and comforting voice to speak clearly through the endless noise of cash registers, HDTV 7.1 surround sound demonstrations, and mouse squeaking one-click shopping. People. Put away your credit cards. The economy is doing just fine.

Venturing out yesterday into a sea of humanity that clawed over each other to get that precious last minute gift, gave me deep horrible flashbacks of when I was a skinny ten years old tight-end for the Phalen Park Raiders. In the big game, I fumbled the ball on the 2 yard line and ended up at the bottom of a pile so crushing that I almost wet my pants.

All pretense of Christmas cheer has been wiped away from the faces of all, replaced by gnarly grimaces and desperate attitudes. Trying to get into the parking lot of a major electronics dealer yesterday, I was confronted by law officers roping off whole sections of parking lots with criminal Police Line Do Not Cross yellow tape. When they were questioned as to why they were doing what they were doing, they mumbled back, "Because, they pay us to do it." Jigga what?!? Since when? Isn't there more pressing criminal issues than securing parking lot space for mega electronics companies. Am I missing something here? Walking into said store, I was greeted by a 14 year old bleach spiked topped pimple freak child laborer, who welcomed and then asked oh so insincerely how we were doing, no doubt repeating a line some training video tape had burned into his mellon. Stopping in the midst of the endless flood of humans pouring into doors, I stated that I was, "doing well thanks and how are you doing?" As I stood there he did not even acknowledge my presence a mere 18 inches in front of his face. He simply looked over my shoulder and greeted everyone else with his holiday poetics. I swear I may have seen a microchip just behind his left ear flashing periodically.

And so it was that I wrestled with the lemmings to secure items for my loved ones. I stood shoulder to shoulder with people in the DVD aisle and, not having the patience to actually think logically and critically what DVD's would actually be a good match for friends and family, I just punched my hand through when I saw an opening. I was content to buy whatever ended up in my hand. Rob Schnieder movies for everyone. The economy doing bad? Consumer confidence down? No way! The shelves were practically empty. I went to find one popular CD for the missus and found six of those empty place cards with the bands name above it holding back nothing. No product. Sold out. A search for a major appliance revealed that not only did this store not have any of that item in stock but no store in Minnesota had that item in stock. This was the trend of the day. Everywhere we went. People hungrily buying. Either the economists are lying through their teeth or we are all going to wake up with one hellova January shopping hangover. I already feel a bit queazy.

December 20, 2002

The Type of the Season
'Tis the season for holiday banner ads. I have been putting together a few ads for different clients over the past couple of weeks. I thought I would use the opportunity to expand my collection and explore some of the typefaces from different foundries. In the process, I found some fun gifts to get any holiday designer started down the right path. Chank has got a great free dingbat called Spunkflakes. I would use it for the name alone. Also, this slightly blackletter and free Christmas type is a fun one to play around with. If you're ready to put down some cash, then Linotype has put together a fine collection of typefaces for the holidays.

Turning from type to logos...design boom finally settled on a new logo and has put up all the other entries in their design contest. I think it's a fun example of what different people see in a name and an identity. Looking at all the other entries, I think they may have chosen the wrong one. Hee.

This scary logo captured by the memory hole was the official seal for the Ultra-Orwellian governmental organization, The Information Awareness Office. I guess they got enough feedback decrying the ridiculousness of wearing their manifest destiny badge so proudly and withdrew it from their site.

December 19, 2002

Hey Rube in Hawaii
Hunter S. Thompson was called upon again to cover last week's Honolulu Marathon. His words are golden and his outlook brutal.

At the post-race awards dinner at the Outrigger Canoe Club, one of the Ethiopian women was offering around a blue plastic gasoline jug of special homemade Ethiopian liquor. It was an iffy proposition. It tasted recently distilled. I recognized the taste as being very close to white lightning, Kentucky mountain moonshine, what we used to call thunder road whiskey.

It is not really the most logical thing to do -- akin to accepting cocaine in an airport bathroom from a stranger -- but in the scale of things, drinking it seemed like the most normal thing to do.

Missy Misdemeanor of Middle Earth
As fate would have it, the most unlikely of people - me, found themselves with tickets to the opening night of Lord of The Rings Two. Having not read any of the Tolkien books and with only a vague recollections of the first movie, I sat through chapter two of this painfully pointless saga. My review goes something like this. Cool mountain. Who's that guy? Who are they talking about? Was that guy in the last movie? Those guys look familiar. Oh I remember him but I don't remember her. God, this movie is long. Where are we now? I don't remember that guy? I need a map. Frodo's hair looks darker. There needs to be more fighting. I thought that guy died. Talking trees are stupid. God Damn, this movie is long and this seat is really uncomfortable. There goes another cell phone. Oh, good - some fighting. Who is that girl? I don't remember her. Please - this movie must end soon.

That movie required too much work on my part and way too much patience. But it was free so I'll stop my complaining. Besides, I'm sure for people who follow this kinda thing, it was interesting.

But my fantasy comes in a different form. For instance, I had a fantasy this morning that Missy Elliot had her own morning show called "Morning with Missy". Come on, it would be cool. A welcome staple to my morning ritual is Missy's "Work It" video. I absolutely must see it before I start thinking about doing any work. Sadly, It dawned on my today that soon (but probably not too soon) the video will disappear from the top of the charts and I will lose my morning dose of Missy. That's when I thought that she should have her own morning show. I'm sure Missy can decorate as well as Martha, deliver the world news better than Kuric, and the morning weather, - Forget about it - Missy would rule that too. So here's hoping. In the buzz words of a a client I met with yesterday, "that would really be On Trend." And now her buzz word has become mine. Everything must be On Trend, "Hey Sally, love that Christmas sweater. It's really On Trend."

December 18, 2002

Stay away from the tainted mayonnaise
I paid the price last night for dabbling in other french fry condiments, different than the old ketchup stand by. The unsound mayonnaise/mustard sauce that they serve at the Chatterbox went down fine but made for a long-suffering night of toilet bowl push-ups and nauseating sleeplessness. Oh how I hate it when one of my favorite food spots delivers a sneaky solid upper cut to the mid section. I won't be able to go back there for a while now. The good news, if there can be any when talking about food poisoning, is that I don't have the terrible stomach flu that has been making its presence felt here in town by taking down entire high schools in a day. At first, my bets were being placed that I was the flu's latest victim but I think I've moved past it now. A trip out to my favorite South Indian Restaurant for lunch has revived my spirit and settled the inner rebellion.

While laying around in pain this morning, I received a package from Amazon.com and chatted it up with the UPS guy for awhile. He told me that 40% of the packages that he's delivered in the last week were from Amazon. And, he said that number will continue to rise until Christmas. That's just nuts.

December 17, 2002

Nice hat dude
These hats from the the Lifted Research Group are a must have for the Minnesota Winter. And the Habitat hats aren't bad either. Delicious t-shirts from Designbackwards.

Best number to bet on in 2002
For some ego-maniacal reason I have been feeling the need to put together an afrojet year in review 2002 kind of thing. A list or an indices of sorts. But for now the list must stew, ferment and yes, marinate a bit before I can commit it to type. For now I will just revel in some others.

To wit, Google's top searches and year end stats. Makes me think I'm not part of the Google demographic. I guess kids at school aren't using the library to research quantum physics papers and D.H. Lawrence. The New York Times Magazine had a nice spread on the best and brightest Ideas of 2002. Yahooligan's have the best toys of 2002. Shift offers a nice Stupid Moments of the Web and a best of collection of the Smoking Gun. The United Press International has put together a nice collection of 2002 a Year in Photos. WEMU has got your best jazz and blues recording of the year. Yahoo also has the best named intersections and worst television shows of the year. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you know of any other good ones send 'em my way. I'm looking for inspiration.

December 16, 2002

The Case of the Canine Crunch
Christmas got a special early start last night when the missus and I went over to her mothers for a pre-Christmas dinner and gift exchange. As always, I was greeted by their micro dog Miles (named after some Jazz guy or something), who loves me very much and shows his affection frequently with quick little jumps up to my thighs. This gives way, only after repeated attempts to reach my stomach, to a very human like conversation where he sings a very lyrical doggy song on my behalf. It's sort of a half wining, half who is strangling Mariah Carry chart topping type vocalization. But hey, it's all for me. And what if all my friends were as enthusiastic to see me as Miles? I mean, I went to a few Christmas parties this weekend and I didn't hear any, "Oh, look everyone. John is here. Let us all gather round and sing him a song of grand merriment and cheer". It just didn't happen. Humans can be so boring sometimes.

Gifts were exchanged and we came away with a food processor/blender combination, which strikes me as one of those items much like air and aspirin that one wonders how life was lived before it came to be. Perhaps, today and every day subsequent will now be referenced as A.F.P (After Food Processor) and the dark days will be B.F.P. Oh they were cruel days when we had to crush ice with our hands. Can you imagine?

We also received chocolate gold coins and candy canes that we put aside to consume later. Unfortunately, I decided that I would eat one of the candy canes before dinner and in doing so I would taunt and tease Miles with the candy cane. He likes 'em and he likes gold coin chocolates. But I was getting the better of him in a little game called follow the candy cane, which involved me standing in the middle of the living room and pointing myself randomly with cane towards one of the cardinal points and then waiting gleefully for Miles to run around and sit staring up at me and my cane intently as I crunched off bite after bite. And so it went - me being clever and having fun at the dogs expense. After dinner we all got caught up in a marathon game of Cranium, which we almost lost cause I didn't know how to hum the tune to Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him". I just drew a blank. But we got the lead back when Kelly portrayed a spot on impersonation of his holiness - Evel Knievel. But during the closing minutes of the game Miles game bouncing into the kitchen wearing what I can only describe as a sticky candy cane beard. I swear he looked at me and winked, as if to say, "Fuck you buddy, don't EVER mess with me again." Sure enough he had gotten into and devoured all of our holiday treats the left the living room a mess. Gold foil was crumpled and littered everywhere in tiny speckles. Candy cane residue was ground deep into the carpet where the little canine capper had enjoyed more dessert than the rest of the family had put down. And thus it was that I knew that the holidays had now really moved into full swing. Party on Miles.

December 13, 2002

The misadventures of the illuminated lamb
When bad things happen to good lambs. This photo essay is a painful reminder of what can happen when your illuminated lamb gets the best of you and takes over your life. Nature versus nurture? You decide.

On the 12th day of Christmas...
Apple gave to me...hilarious Will Farrell Santa switch ads. And Tony Hawk gives his laser signature to a custom ipod. Now that would actually be cool if it was filled with all the mp3s that T. Hawk was listening to these days. Someday, I hope they have an ipod that you just hook up to your head when you go to sleep and it imports all the songs that were apart of your dreams. I have noticed that I wake up these days with some random songs stuck in my head that can only be the product of something that happened when I was in dream land. Today it's "C is for Cookie" by, I believe, Cookie Monster? But I don't know why I'm singing it. Yesterday, it was Boston's "Let Me Take You Home Tonight". And sometime last week I awoke with "Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky" hammering in my brain over and over again.

December 12, 2002

Chock full of Sherlock
More good sherlock news for sherlock users...more channels!! It's still growing but with the power of the simple (stolen) sherlock interface and the developers tools in the hands of many, sherlock offers a great alternative to shifting through heaping mounds of info. Now if only people can develop more useful channels than Lord of The Rings and Star Trek convention locators.

Froogle holiday shopping
Playing around with Google's slick new product search engine, Froogle, made the x-mas shopping oh so easy today. It's great for finding those mysterious vinyl rarities on your shopping list and is fantastic for price matching. If you poke around enough with Froogle you can actually find things cheaper then Amazon. You may not get the free shipping, but it's a welcome shopping assistant. The best part of Froogle shopping is that it lists all the mom and pop joints on even playing ground with the big chains. And if you don't know what you want to get someone, just describe them or their habits in the search field and then buy whatever the first item is. For example: if you would described your friend or family member as "manic and neurotic", then you would buy them this.

December 11, 2002

Get your Christmas on
The day was taken off yesterday to find and bring home a sturdy evergreen to bring good smells and christmas cheer to the Minneapolis domicile. This is the first Christmas ever that I have purchased my own tree and not mooched off the pine scent of others. I have been missing out. Definitely one of the best parts of Christmas is unpacking all your goodies from Christmas pasts and recounting the stories of old ornaments received or made.

Our tree is a good six footer. Strong and narrow with unflappable limbs. For ornaments, I am especially partial to the wooden Scandinavian sect. Very simple and nothing really too gaudy. The wooden Santa's are comical and fun and the welcome lights are smooth, warm, and - well...welcoming. There is even a class I may have to take at the North House Folk School next year on carving Christmas tree ornaments.

December 10, 2002

Peace on Earth
Jimmy Carter accepts the Nobel Peace Prize today! Go Jim. Read the full text of the speech. A few nights ago, on PBS I saw a special on Carter's term in office and was impressed by a speech he gave called "Crisis of Confidence", which although was steeped with religious overtones, was a remarkable speech nonetheless, especially considering that his popularity was falling in the polls. I really enjoyed this part:

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self- indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Also, a beautiful photojournalism piece up on the Washington Post site titled, A Day in the Life of Africa. Beautiful shots. The snaps of the Namib Desert are surreal.

December 09, 2002

Hard times for Styx
A few weeks ago, I mentioned my new found interest in the Rock Odysseys of Styx. And today I found this sad article on the downward spiral and heavy hardships of lead singer, Dennis DeYoung. With that story, I wonder why there has never been a behind the music of Styx.

British commercials and nice logos
Checking out the British Television Advertising Awards is always a treat. My favorite part is checking in on all the products and brands that don't exist in the U.S. It is bizarre to think that other populations find brand loyalties to products that I've never been able to taste, try on, or drive. A whole nation is going crazy over a car that I've never even heard of, let alone driven. It doesn't seem fair. We are the U.S.A - imperialist monsters - and there are toys that other people get to play with that I only get to see the commercials for? Whole new atmospheres of automobiles, beers and sandwich spreads exist for the appreciation of our European brothers and sisters and I'm stuck with the same old same old. The Bush administration needs to step up their act and get these products over here for Joe America to enjoy. The fact that the British get to use condoms that I don't is a far greater International crisis then some bearded guy who may or may not have some bad smelling gases.

When waiting for the British Ads to start, I found an amazing book in the museum shop. It's called Los Logos and it's published by Die Gestalten. The book displays thousands of new intergalactic logo designs by the best in the business. Some revolutionary typography going on here. Unfortunately, the site that accompanies the book does not show off these logos but instead is dedicated to archiving and preserving older logotypes, one's that are in danger of becoming extinct by larger Multinational companies, who by design, always have horribly bland logos.

December 07, 2002

For my latest dream occupation, I'm going to pick...cocktail photographer. I will have the highest of artistic standards and develop a field of study in creating stock photography of neon colored cocktails. My images will be specifically for the display of happy hour drinks on those little flip-book table stands that sit nestled in with the salt and pepper shakers at the far end of the table. Captured in bold living color will be sumptuous strawberry daiquiris, standing tall, wearing nothing but a whole strawberry crowned and cleaved on the rim of its glass. There will be glowing mint juleps with mint leaves tossed gently on white cotton and a twig for you holiday romantics. We'll get contemplative with starker, more serious images of highballs and whiskey classics. These images will invoke overworked late nights at the firm, a fine brandy before climbing back up to Capitol Hill. I'll make some sour with Anisette and Orange bitters over glistening cubes of sharp ice. The models will be cooperative and lovely. Their glass shapes will be at times robust and stout while others stand thin with beautifully large mouths. They will hold their alcohol well and never complain when asked to accessorize with Celery, a pink parasol, or straw.

When I get good at my job, then I will be anointed into the wine club, the most sophisticate of all forms of drink photography, and I will be able to give up on happy hour flip stands and concentrate on capturing the stoic still life of a fine chianti. My life will be one of cosmopolitan travel and high society lifestyle. I will spend months in the California Valleys and French Bordeaux selecting the right background, lighting, and glass to show off the anise or plum composites of a '93 Citran Haut-Medoc. Ernest college kids will have my posters in their dorm room. I will look down on all my friends and bore them with wine talk and with tales of my last jaunt through the Ribera del Duero. It will be a fine and good life. It will become wiser with age and increasingly grave in manner as I am assigned to solved the most complex and weighty of the worlds problems through the raised eyebrow renaissance of my ART. My pieces will sell for heavy sums and my biographer will go to great lengths to show the sober truth of my sedate concern over the Latvian heiress when she was on the brink of an exhaustive collapse in the 30's. Yes! It will be a righteous life. I think now I will go practice on the half rack of MGD that I have cooling in my fridge.

December 06, 2002

Kelly in a jam

Took the day off today to relax and start in on the Yuletide rigamarole. Kel' and I ran around town trying to find gifts for others and ended up with wrapping paper and no gifts for anyone else but ourselves. We ran into my step father, Peter the Potter, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts gift shop. Sure enough he and I were both looking to buy the same thing for another member of our family, which I am hoping is much more cleverly ironic than it is coincidental. But the big score of the day were these individual Charlie's Angels cards we found at Theater Antiques, They feature Kelly mixed up in all kinds of wacky capers, solving crimes in that perfect coif that would kick Linda Carter's golden lasso slinging, invisible jet flying ass, if she was ever to throw down. Sometimes, it's just easy to have a name that's not very unique [ Ed: Or at least that's what people like John and Kelly need to keep telling themselves ]. We were way too amused. Enough so that we dropped the pretense of buying other people stuff and just concentrated on building our own Charlie's Angels card collection - coming up with names for cards that they had failed to put into the collection in the first place. Por Ejemplo:

Kelly in a pickle.

Kelly eats a hotdish.

Kelly in a Daze.

Kelly - "Whatever! I do what I want".

Kelly smells a rat.

Kelly! Look out behind you!

Kelly gives Bosley the evil eye.

Kelly serves for the set.

Kelly in an underground mine shaft.

December 05, 2002

All systems functioning normally

Well the mayoral work went off without a hitch. No fatal errors. Part of the gala took place outside in 16 degree weather. Amidst falling snow, the mayor was hoisted off the ground on a platform crane in the middle of the street. Looking unsteady up in his perch, he pulled a cord that unravelled a huge banner on the side of a downtown skyway. People honked and waved and snuck little sips from flasks hidden in their long coats. He came down. Speeches were made. Many spoke in hyperbole, "I used the site and it was FUN and EXCITING". They had obviously never seen it or used it. Good stuff.

But now I have some time to get down to the real business at hand, like checking out the amazing KillaKela site from the best British beatbox around. The site has a great little app that lets you create killer KillaKela graffiti. As a promotional tool this site is tops. It's everything I would want in a Musicians site: personal tour journal, music samples, pictures, video, tour dates, and a great bunch of links. Following one of those links I found an interview with The Diabolical Biz Markie, spouting about his collection of old Air Jordan's (Pink and White) and other classic footwear. The Biz also talks up his new 50,000 square foot house that he is building. The entire first level of the home will be storage for his record collection. Will this become my generations "Graceland"? Only time will tell.

December 04, 2002

The Dance of the Snow Chunk

Big burly well defined snow fell all over the place last night. I sat nervously drinking coffee this morning trying not to think about the mayoral website that's to be launched today and the myriad errors that could occur. What a train wreck. I never want to have to do a client on this kind of timeline again. My last frayed nerve has come completely unraveled. Time for a break and a little perspective.

Perspective came this morning as I was walking to my car and got to enjoy two cats - a big fat tabby and a small black and white kitten - perform their version of swan lake in a cloud of falling flakes. They were having a wicked good time sliding and jumping about in the fresh powder. Their snow dance was tremendously graceful and beautiful.

December 02, 2002

Pissing in the Snow
We've officially got accumulation here in the Twin Cities. That must mean it's time to start another winter season of urinary artwork. Seriously, It's fun. Do it here. I'm getting very good.

December 01, 2002

Pure German Stainless Steele.
I've been around this weekend. Friends folded into Family, family fixed us up with food, Jessica kissed Stein and my flat tire was resurrected to Die Another Day. It was a good vacation to get some needed things done in a murky cloud of way-to-much overtime and episodic television. Luckily, amidst everything, I had my rock, - The Miracle Blade knife system. For good or ill, this infomercial keeps me grounded. It's my guardian angel, following me from department store, to the mechanics waiting room, to friends homes, and to the local pub. Everywhere I go there is that slick cuttin' god-damn-son-of-bitch carving up tomatoes, beverage cans, and (gasp!) his own damn cutting board. It's like traveling with a good friend - an old friend. The Miracle Blade brings peace during uncertain times. I find myself ordering copious quantities from the T.V. and asking for more sets for Christmas. Fool heartedly, I thought the days of the miracle blade were over and had been laughed off the small screen years and years ago but it looks like they are back and here to comfort my passage as I toast my way into 2003. On a similar thought path, that horrible teenage freak, who gleefully peddles worthless consumerism on small children in all those holiday Wall Mart ads needs to meet an untimely and tragic death. I can not have him ruining my television experience for the next month. Seriously, I would like to punch him.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am very thankful right now for:

Red Hook Blond Ale
South Park
Ernest Hemigway's Islands In The Stream
Jimmy Carter
Cardboard
Good stories told by family and friends
Assorted peanuts (salted)
Snail Mail (except bills)
Cuba
People who don't talk during movies.
Suede
Leftovers
Oldsmobiles