November 26, 2003

Thanksgiving Bookmark Clean Up

Jellyfish are cool.

Japanese Skyline

Mac Eye for the Windows Guy

Revisiting Thriller

Travel Brochure Graphics

Best Buy versus IKEA

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters from Russia

The Moog: book, movie

Anna and the Moods

Interview between Thom York and Howard Zinn

Two ways to pick colors

Van paintings (find them under - projects/vans)

NinjaCruise

November 25, 2003

Shattered Glass
Saw the terrifying movie Shattered Glass last night at the Uptown. Don't let this baby slip under the radar. Hayden Christensen's performance as pathological lair and freelance writer Stephen Glass, is so convincing that you have to watch it between your fingers. The intelligent direction allows the film to unfold like a tense chess game. Peter Sarsgaard's performance as Stephen's Editor at The New Republic is completely understated and reserved in the face of Christensen's frantic and impetuous character. At times, the exchanges between the two were distressing to the point that I found myself twisting uncontrollably in my seat. Man, you just want to punch Christensen in the face but Sarsgaard takes it in the totally opposite direction. Graceful.

I think it was better going into the movie knowing very little about the Stephen Glass story. If you're planning on seeing the film and don't want anything spoiled, stop reading this post and do not click on any of the following links.

Stephen Glass wrote many (approx 27) completely or partially fabricated stories for The New Republic. Here is a link to an index of those stories. The guy is so pathetic that one reporter has him quoted as saying, "I could have been Dave Eggers,". Ha. In attempting to cover up his tracks on a story called 'Hack Heaven'. Stephen Glass actually builds a website for a software company he completely made up. It's a sweet website. Check it out here.

November 24, 2003

Maximum Throwing Power
In what was being billed as the Storm of the Century (StarTribune Photo Gallery), and perhaps one of Minnesota's 10 worst storms of all time, the snow was coming and I had to make a mad dash Saturday morning to finally clean out the gutters. It was a nasty job I had been putting off for a long time. But I had these nightmare visions of ice packed gutters crashing down come Sunday. So to get my gutter cleaning engine all revved up, and so I could practice some Eddie Van Halen's on my roof top, I bought a few songs off the new Blink-182 and threw 'em on ye olde iPod. I was ready for action.

Turns out the gutters of this house haven't been cleaned since Shrinky Dinks were big. The job turned quickly into an archeological dig. There was at least a solid inch and a half of sediment in my gutters. Fortunately my passion for procrastination payed off. The freezing temperatures had turned what would have been a terribly messy job into a rather easy job of breaking off large junks of gutter sludge and then removing them one log at a time. The photo above shows just some of the logs pulled out of the gutters from the garage.

I have this gigantic foot deep hole in the backyard, a product of what, I'm not sure. But it's just dumb luck that no one has wretched an ankle by falling in this hole yet. Through my own genius I decided to use all the gutter logs to fill the hole. Hopefully something strange and wonderful will grow out of it now come springtime.

I finished up the gutters just as the snow was starting to fall. And by Sunday, just after the Packers polished off the 49ers, I'd say we had about five to six inches of snow on the ground. Certainly not the 'Storm of the Century'. When it comes to a midwestern-snowstorm-throwdown SIZE DOES MATTER! I mean five to six inches just ain't going to cut it. You have to bring a solid 10 to 12 inches for anyone around here to really stand up and take notice. But it was enough snow for the first decent shoveling - another chore I haven't had to do in a long time. And let me tell you folks, I wasn't even halfway done with the driveway when I came down with a wicked case of Snowthrower envy. As it stands, I'm probably the only one on my block still wallowing in the evolutionary cesspool of snow wrangling. Bent over with my little green plastic shovel, slowly developing a massive kink in my lower back, I looked like neanderthal man next to my heathy neighbors (aka Mr. & Mrs. Jones), who stood fully erect pushing gently on their high powered snow throwers. To hell with a new G5 or some slick iPod accessories, what I really need is a 'Two Stage Power Shift Snowthrower', with Serrated Drum Augers, and Independent Traction Systems. A memory upgrade got nothing on standard electric start action. Let the shopping begin.

After all the log tossing and snow maneuvering it was time for some good old fashion hibernating and DVD viewing. I got the new remake of The Italian Job, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Not nearly as good as the original Italian Job (one of my personal all-time favorites) but decent hollywood fare. Mos Def has a nice role in the movie, and the mini-cooper action was top notch.

November 21, 2003

The Global Garb of the Disenfranchised
From Alternet; reporting in Miami on the use of undercover cops posing as 'anarchists':

"MIAMI – Protestors seemed to skirmish with heavily armored Miami police outside the Riande Hotel Thursday morning, but nothing is at it seems this week. These "anarchists" were undercover police officers whose mission was to provoke a confrontation.

The crowd predictably panicked, television cameras moved in, the police lines parted, and I watched through a nearby hotel window as two undercover officers disguised as "anarchists," thinking they were invisible, hugged each other. They excitedly pulled tasers and other weapons out of their camouflage cargo pants, and slipped away in an unmarked police van.

On the other side of the impenetrable police barricade, a young woman with a video camera was bent over, vomiting from pepper spray. The nonviolent revolutionary Starhawk stood blinded for 10 minutes as friends washed her eyes. Others knelt paralyzed on the street."

Here is a photo from yesterday's FTAA protest of the undercover cops in action. Check out the taser in the hand of the undercover officer on the left. Ouch. Also note the FTAA SUCKS stencil on the backpack of the undercover officer on the right. Highly original. I really would like to see the federally funded training videos that these guys watch. They probably all have cool titles like, "Six Easy Steps to Dress Like an Anarchist".

November 20, 2003

The Worldhood of the World as Such
Heavily distracted this morning by world events. Television news channels only covering weird Michael Jackson/Lacy Peterson stories. God Bless this internet thing. Listen to police reports coming from this mornings protest in Maimi. Listen to resistance radio (stream) to get a minute by minute testimony of events. Chase Bush in London.

November 19, 2003

Trent, Stop Calling Me
Ever since I got my T-moblie phone I've been a pretty happy camper. I don't ask much of it and it doesn't ask much of me. However, since the day I've had the phone, I've been called by a mysterious phone number. The random call is a local number and the first time it rang, I picked up and noticed that my phone then dialed a new number and then connected and then hung up. Now folks, I'm paranoid enough as it is but this kinda stuff freaks me out good. The same phone number called back a few times and I answered - always the same routine: phone dials a number, connects, then hangs up. So like any rational consumer, I immediately figured it as a T-mobile scam. I figured they were charging me for every-time I answered the call. Over time my theory developed into quite a complicated one where T-mobile had thousands of these numbers that called random people all the time. Most people like myself just shrugged it off as a wrong number or something. Meanwhile, in the background, T-mobile was slowly amassing millions.

In the beginning this number only called about once or twice a week and never left a message so I just adapted and ignored the number whenever it came up on the screen. I had outfoxed T-mobile.

Now, however, things have gotten out of hand.

The same number calls me on average of of 10 - 12 times a day. Sometimes it will call five or six times in a row. Finally today I used my land line to call the number back. I fully expected to get the same hang up response that my mobile always got before or something worse like an odd sounding voice that reeked of COINTELPRO.

So, I was stunned when I got some guy named Trent's voice mail: "This is Trent, I'm not in right now, leave a message".

And i did:

Ahh. . .Trent. . .Yeah. . .like. . .so your phone keeps calling me like several hundred times a week. Umm. . .Like, what the fuck dude? I think something's up with your phone. For real dude - you need to like. . . make it fucking stop, or something, cause I'm trying to get some work done over here and your endless mystery calls are REALLY FUCKING HARSHING MY MELLOW!!!. Make it stop - please!

I haven't heard back from Trent yet.

November 17, 2003

Flash Flakes
This cool flash site let's you make your own snowflake. Mine kinda sucks cause my hands are still a bit shaky.

Hazardous Materials
Shaky hands and a dizzy head greet my Monday morning. Yesterday, I was all excited and motivated after the Vikings got crushed by the Raiders and the Packers beat up a Tampa Bay team that doesn't look at all like the one that won the Big Bowl last year. I celebrated the victory by running on wood floors with my socks on.

Then I decided to whip out the Bartley's and stain the two night-stands that have stood naked now for a week or two in our bedroom. The Bartley's is a nasty chemical salad of polyurethane. To protect myself, I wanted to do the project outside but it was too cold so it was determined that the spare bedroom would do just fine if I kept the windows open and allowed the nasty chemicals some fresh air. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me, somewhere in the process of applying the second coat of stain the windows slid shut and I entered into a magical kingdom of dancing fairies. The bookshelves began to spin around in a tornado of literature. My fingers became weightless. I was too weak to hold on to anything. It was a bad scene. This morning I'm still feeling the residual effects. My fingers still feel like they don't have muscles on them. I've scotch taped pennies to them just so I can type this out.

November 14, 2003

Me and My Melodica
In these cooler days, I've been rocking out a lot with my Melodica. This crazy, German made instrument that's a cross between a harmonica and a piano, and made popular by the shining Rastafarian maestros of a dubwise babylon, continues to soothe the soul and illuminate the spirit.

With almost no moving parts and no messy reeds or extensive mouthpieces to deal with you can pick it up and get straight down to rawking. Mostly during the day, when I'm kickin' it on my screened in porch, I play for a select audience, that being "Franklin" the super mellow golden retriever that lives next door. Today, he looked and listened intently with a strangely cocked head to my rendition of Fishbone's "Skankin' To the Beat'. I'm working on a new composition for him right now. It will be titled simply, 'Franklin the Dog'.

I'm hoping to get a whole lot better at the soprano instrument soon and maybe start jamming with some folks who would appreciate a melodica to round out their sound. It's really a beautiful instrument for accompaniment. I've been practicing by playing along with Parliament's Osmium and the new single (mp3) from Houston. My time in the sun will come. Feel my melodica! T.G.I.F.

November 13, 2003

Choppin' Broccoli
If cooking consisted of nothing more than chopping things up with various types of finely sharpened cutlery, then I would be the king of cooking. Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Actually, it's far from true. Let's just say it's a title I would aspire to. A gourmet chopper. Is there a specific word for that? Is there one guy/gal in fancy kitchens whose only job it is to chop things up and prepare them for the people who actually do the cooking? If so, maybe I'll tie a string around my finger to remind myself, "self, think about professional chopper as back-up career in case all else fails".

If I couldn't hack it in a kitchen (I hear they can get pretty rough), I'd probably be just as happy to work the summer State Fair circuit as one of those RONCO/infomercial guys. Those scythe surgeons and their little display booths - I've seen them dazzle and delight masses off mindless consumers who stand and watch until they are hypnotized into a purchase by those blade wielding technicians of capitalism. It's really something.

I like vegetables best. Of all the hundreds of things one can chop, I really think the ripe onion can't be beat for pure chopping satisfaction. It's got just the right amount of inner tenderness and outer resistance to please even the dullest of your kitchen bayonets. It's round shape offers the perfect novice a subtle challenge when trying to create a symmetry of slice. In the grand symphony of a meal, I try and find a consistent shape and proportion to use on each element. That way things will cook evenly and when presented will look top-notch.

The new house comes with, not one, but two half inch wood cutting boards that remain hidden underneath the kitchen counter. When called upon, they slide out nice and easy from their slot and present themselves - two blank canvas. Since there's no chicken being cooked in this household, and we don't require a separate board for meats, I have designated one board the Chopping Board and the other the Mincing/Dicing Board. And never the two shall meet. That is until they actually get cooked or tossed.

Damn. All this talk of chopping, has made me hungry. I think I'll go slice up an apple.

November 12, 2003

Automotive Rescue Blues
My chariot, my trusty road-sled, the grand '85 Oldsmobile Brougham, is on its death bed - gasping and wheezing for its last ethanol breath. It will take a minor rattletrap, super skate miracle to bring my gas guzzler back from the brink.

I took it to the local garage today and they just shook their heads. They too realized what a fine machine I had on my hands but advised me that what it would take to nurse it back to health would be wisely spent on a hefty down-payment for another oil burner.

So now I'm left with some hard choices and as much as I want to get excited about the possibility of a new ride, I think its important to take some time to morn the passing of a loved one.

November 10, 2003

Bottled (falling) Water
My step-father Peter, who just returned from an East Coast Van tour of Cribbage lectures and sight-seeing, brought me back a souvenir from Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water. It's a brilliant marketing gimmick - Bottled Falling Water.

Tiny Universe
I'm fighting a cold. Normally I might let it win for a while, take a day off and surrender to the kleenex kingdom and just let it run its course. But the work demands are still heavy and I don't have time just yet to allow the cold to take hold. So my plan is to just ignore its presence. Like punishing a small child, I will not even acknowledge its pestering and whining. Mr. Cold you are dead to me. You don't even exist. I think the cold came on this weekend while I was engrossed in the ugly task of putting up storm windows on the house. The task was made even more unpleasant by an odd and inconsistent numbering system that the previous dwellers had used to designate which storm window belonged to its corresponding window frame. Each window had anywhere from two to four numbers on it and sometimes conflicting placement instructions - like, "livingroom south/southeast" and "second bedroom left". After much trial and error, it turned out that the roman numerals were the most accurate indicator of where to put the correct window. However, the individual who decided on this schema needs to go back to roman numeral school for there were many incidents where the window frame was marked inconsistently. A window frame would be marked with the correct roman numeral for 'four' (IV) and then the corresponding window would be marked with an incorrect variation (IIII). Deeply frustrating.

This weekend I saw the movie Elf and enjoyed it quite a bit. Just like School of Rock was a perfect vehicle for Jack Black, Elf is the same for Will Farrell. And speaking of Jack Black, I got the Tenacious D DVD and watched all the old HBO episodes again. So, I guess besides the frustration with the storm windows it was a weekend filled with comedy. Saturday night, I traveled down to the Avenue and caught Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. Good funk with a decent bit of rock. One of those great shows where the musicians are so tight and the virtuosity is groovin' at such a high level that even after a two hour set you want them to just keep the funk train moving.

November 05, 2003

It's the birthday of Dr. Frewing today. Raise your glass.

My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs
Aghhh. Too much freaking work, heavy lifting, and pixel pushing for any serious blogging to happen in these parts. I'm on some serious head down, nose to the grindstone type shit over here. I was doing really well too, keeping things together, sauntering up to impossible deadlines with a braggadocio swagger, until Liz went and dropped this Silly Baby Name site on me and my productivity stride quickly collapsed into a toddler-like plod and writhe. Damn.

A trip to the post office brought everything to a grinding halt as budget cuts have taken the mail department to its knees. There is only one window (teller) open whenever I go now and damn if I can ever get out of there in under an hour. To make matters worse I had to send some packages to Japan and that led to a hundred different forms I had to fill out in triplicate. This, I tell you, I had no patience for. For some strange reason, whether it's weird video tapes or some old vinyl, the Japanese out-bid anyone else by like a thousand percent for whatever I put on ebay. The Japanese are onto some crazy shit. I sold one dude in Tokyo some local Minnesota Hip-Hop joint and he emailed me back asking if I had any records from some MC from Kenosha, Wisconsin!?!? This dude knew more about the underground Duluth Hip Hop scene than anybody actually living in Duluth. I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

OK. Enough of this writing some stuff about Japanese people and the post office. I have work to do. Here, go watch this strange video on Woody Harrelson's hippie website. Or here, I found this website the other day while looking for different bands on tour. The site is quite possibly one of the worst abusers of moving/flashing graphics ever. For some strange reason tho, I got transfixed for a long time rolling over the top navigation and trying to make a beat.

November 03, 2003

Stealth Praise
The Stealth Disco embodies the spirit of the Spike Jonez 'Praise You (real media)' video.

First Snow
Batten down the hatches. Morning comes today on the heals of a brilliant Packer victory over the Vikes and with all the promise of a wet and wonderful snow filled day. Maybe an inch or two by the end of it. Because my morning commute all happens indoors - the traffic on the stairwell always dry and free flowing - I can appreciate the snowfall from the comforts of my office free from the dread of an icey highway. Today I'm smoking a loose dark cherry flavored tobacco in my pipe and wearing a nice new banana republic scarf to keep me extra toasty. I went to bed with my hair wet last night and now I have something on my head that approaches Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven.

Friday night I was a little disappointed by the turn-out of trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood. I had over-anticipated the number of kids that would show up at my door by about one million. I had plenty of candy to go around. As i waited for the kids and their costumes to come knocking at my door, I watched my new Spike Jonez DVD and laughed my ass off seeing some of those old classic videos and the artists commentary. Many of the artists represented on the DVD owe much of the their career to Mr. Jonez. There is a mini-documentary on the DVD of Spike following around these rodeo kids in Texas, which is worth the price of the DVD right there. The kids take their sport vary seriously. The parallels to Skate Culture are many.

Saturday I awoke with a strange appetite for an Orange Julius and a need to buy a new iPod. So it was off to the mall to satisfy both impulse urges. The mall is a much more tolerable place if you can navigate it under the influence of an Orange Julius and accompanied by an iPod full of the Kokoro Library as your soundtrack.

Saturday night I went and saw American Analog Set and Ester Drang at the Triple Rock. Both were very good. Good winter music.