August 31, 2004

Well, well, well. Afrojet's beloved Angie Harmon hails from the Dark Side. Who knew?! This makes my life SO much easier. Thanks Angie.

August 30, 2004

I don't really have much to add to the blogging airwaves today, so please enjoy this short film brought to us by the fine folks at Angry Alien Productions.

August 27, 2004

I'm lucky enough to work in an industry where "freebies" get thrown my way every so often, mostly from print and paper reps but sometimes from my own boss! I have managed to score two tickets to this evening's Vikings pre-season game against San Francisco. I am actually quite excited because I have never attended a Vikings game, nor has my father therefore I extended the offer of my extra ticket to him. I think we are more excited about our ride to the stadium via light rail than anthing else. Well be in Section 238, row 12. Stop by and say hi if you're in the area.

August 26, 2004

Ok now that he is gone I have to admit something. I was totally teasing John when I told him that I should be his guest blogger, and to my surpise he not only said yes but was quite enthusiastic about it. Crap. Now what? This should be interesting. If you're trying to catch a glimpse of the infamous afrojet while he's on his west coast tour, keep your eyes peeled for the sweet ride that he's rented. Do I need to tell you how excited he is about this car? No I do not because how could not you not be excited about a Pontiac Sunfire with bad brakes. Good times.

August 24, 2004

Off to the Pacific Northwest
Alright. All my t's are crossed and all my i's have beautiful little dots placed neatly above them. The work is done. Now it's time to let off a little steam and get down to the business of serious, unrelenting R&R. I know the first days of afrojet withdrawl can be pretty tough on you kids. I don't want you going all crazy - counting the days I'm gone by scratching charcoal hatch-marks on your prison walls, so for the next week the misses will be doing some guest blogging on these pages (look for a dramatic improvement in both spelling and punctuation). She'll be coming out West next week. And then, I'm sorry but you'll be on your own for awhile. Unless of course I find a quiet moment with some super connectivity. Or, shit, maybe I'll get bored at the airport tomorrow and I'll pay their $24 dollar/hour wireless usage fee just to let you know how everything went with my 'terror alert orange' body cavity check. You never know. I get pulled aside for extensive security screening every time I fly. Every time.

Today, while in line at the bank, there was a little girl ahead of me who was waiting to make a transaction. She couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 and she was on her own. She was very small and spoke to the teller in a very cute squeaky voice. She asked if she could know what the balance was on her savings account. I expected the teller to say something like, "you've got a whole twenty-one dollars in there honey." And then the little girl would grin real big and skip away thinking about all the freeze-pops she would buy with her twenty-one dollars. But no. This little girl is freaking loaded! The teller gave the girl her amount. I shit you not it was in the high four figures. I think I actually made an audible sound when I overheard the number I was not supposed to overhear. But damn, that girl ain't thinking about freeze pops. She's on a fast track to real-estate investment.

August 19, 2004

She Comes in Colors Everywhere
I want to decorate a room in my house in this here stuff called Colorflage, if only to see see how the kittens would react. I'm guessing they would get really agro and begin acting out with horribly anti-social behavior. How would I convince them that this is the height of modern design? It's really the perfect room for siting down with a good book, playing a good game, or exploring your latest fetish.

August 18, 2004

I Wish I Still Owned a Toy Ping-Pong Gun
Yikes. I'm starting to hear my blog call out to me in my sleep. "Why don't you love me anymore? Why are you neglecting me?" To deal with this petulant child, I've chosen a disciplinary route built with cobblestones of tough love. I say, "Listen here blog, I only got so many hours in a day, and there's only 12 notes a man can play, so you best quit your whining, and have some patience." But the blog remains defiant and shows a pouty twisted frown. I lock my hands to my hips, rock forward a bit on the balls of my feet and stare back with a firm gaze. Our eyes lock and no words are spoken. Slow seconds pass and then blog turns its eyes downcast, offers up a "harrump" and slowly shuffles away (really it's kind of a waddle).

Truth is, I'm taking off for a two week vacation of the Pacific Northwest starting next Wednesday. I'll be hitting Eugene and Portland Oregon, Seattle and Bellingham Washington, and then onto Canada to check out the view in British Columbia. If I were in a band this would constitute my Summer Tour '04. Exclusive engagement! Damn, I really should have worked harder on putting out my album of Bjork versions of Metallica songs played on solo Melodica. You all are just going to have to wait for that one to drop some time next year (attention record labels: call me).

So, I'm hustling heinies trying to wrap up projects and make clients happy. The only distraction that I am allowing myself from work is the viewing of obscure Olympic events. While others hate on badminton, table tennis, and shooting, they have become my lifeline. Especially, table tennis. I still believe to this day that I could have been an Olympic contender in this sport. Back in my freshman year of college, when I beat my entire dorm in "The Ping-Pong Challenge", fate presented a giant fork in my life's path, one road led through to a graduation of college and, well, basically to where I am now, and the other road led to Olympic Ping-Pong Gold! Sometimes, I just have to wonder, what if? What if?

August 12, 2004

All Work and No Play
Not much time for blogging this week. The work load has got me under the gun and up all night. I finally bugged out last night and had to escape the pixel warfare for a minute. I needed some laughter. I wanted big ass belly laughs for this work break. I turned to the man who is golden in the clutch - Will Farrell. Will Ferrell is damn good medicine. Specifically, I went to The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I spent the entire movie rolling up and down the isle holding my gut from laughter. It was all context. I suspect that on a different day, or in a different mood, I might have laughed a bit and then said something at the end like, "eh, wasn't as good as Elf". But damn, you know when you want to laugh and you're just primed for someone to crack you up? That's the best time to see a movie like this. I was definitely in that place. I was unquestionaly "A #1 loudest laugher in the theater". Just the site of Will Ferrell was enough to send me into volcanic eruptions of glee and happiness. I choked on pop corn twice.

I got to the theater, Centennial Lakes - a little place in suburbs, a bit early so I went outside for a cigarette and ended up discovering this insane little man made lake in back of the theater. This was the kinda thing you have to venture into suburbia to witness. Shit was well wicked. It was a decent size lake with a twenty foot geyser in the center. There were intricate trails and immaculate landscaping around the entire body of the lake. Wooden benches and simple hand-made adirondack chairs sat invitingly along the banks, nestled in andamongst a symphony of flora. There were tiny speakers set up every fifty yards, so that everywhere you walked you had an beautiful mozart soundtrack to accompany you. In the fading twilight everything took on this bizarre 'on golden pond' kind of vibe. Office parks and ugly looking condos surrounds the entire fake lake. But as far as fake lakes go this was pretty decent. Again, maybe it was more a product of the overworked and dizzy head space I was in but the fake lake really tripped me out.

Also digging: the video for "On your Way" by The Album Leaf (video) . Good record. Cool video. If I had kids I would have them watch this video. Kinda like Alice in Wonderland meets those fucked up little BoohBahs.

August 06, 2004

My Summer Vacation
The Google image search can kill a whole day. What was life like before you could access all kinds of weird images from people's personal web pages? The Good Doctor and I have been playing a little game called: 'My Summer Vacation'. It's a simple game played with iChat and Google Images. Essentially, you pull random family vacation photos from Google and try to string together the most interesting narrative based on the most disjointed gallery you can concoct. Points can be awarded for the most countries covered, the largest human gathering around a diner table, the most monuments seen. Extra points are awarded for out of focus or poorly framed snaps, for which you then have to make an excuse as to why you took such a bad photo.

Sometimes you'll discover some really nice images like these photos taken in Brazil.

August 04, 2004

New York
Back from NYC. Wow. Had an amazing time. I have blisters on both feet from all the ground covered. My shoes were definitely not up to the task of comforting my soles after all the epic walking that went down. I had great food at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House and the Khyber Pass. Got lit up on sakebombs at Decible and enjoyed a crazy Ukrainian cocktail called the 'zorka', which is essentially beet juice and gin with a little bit of ginger. Yum. Saturday I saw Peanut Butter Wolf spin some hard funk at Club APT, where the price of one drink is enough to make you drunk. Got to CBGB's, Bleaker Bob's, the new Prada store, the king Apple store, the Strand book store and all sorts of New York shopping madness. Big big fun.