afrojet

Death by OatsCreme
Busy times: deadlines, press checks, ferocious pixel pushing, coffee slurping and late night coding. I’m trying to deal with this lactose intolerance problem I seem to have acquired. The other night the misses, in a caring nice gesture, brought home a small tub of OatsCreme in the hopes that it would be a wonderful substitute for the real thing. I think she was getting put off by the gapping open mouth trance like staring that occurred every time she popped the lid on a new tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

Me: I want some of that.

Misses: You can’t have any or you’ll get mud butt.

Me: Mmm…mud butt…my own special Ben and Jerry’s flavor.

So I was psyched to try the OatsCreme. It’s made in Minnesota, how bad can it be? Fucking horrible – that’s how bad. It tastes like wet cardboard with subtle bits of dried paint. I gagged on the first bite. Shit, even the cats who will routinely jump on my lap and lock in on my bowl with a tractor beam like stare wouldn’t even look once at a bowl of OatsCreme. And that’s really the final judgment – when the cats wont eat it.

Of course I got chastised five minutes later when I put the tub of OatsCreme back in the refrigerator.

Misses: Are you planning on eating any more of that?

Me: Hell No. I’d rather eat a dead grass and candle wax smoothie.

Misses: Hmm, well then why are you putting it back in the freezer?

Me: Um, I can’t really answer that right now.

Also, Beck typography video, the wonderful work of Seldon Hunt and get ready for Pelican at the Triple Rock April 10th.

Slint by Buick
Just got back from a surgical strike road trip to Chicago that included two amazing shows by Slint, gallons of good Sushi, greasy soul food breakfasts, and lots and lots of driving. Great weekend. The band was amazing and the sets were heavy. The venue for the Saturday show, the Park West, was mind boggling. A terrific space for live music and an appropriate venue for what was quite possibly the last Slint show ever. We shall see…

For the drive, I elected to rent an auto and got a sweet deal on a nice new big ass Buick. What a car! One tank of gas was all it took to get from here to Chicago with a short pit stop in Milwaukee (a town which is quickly rising to the top of my favorite US cities). Driving the Buick was like sitting in a lazy boy on top of a cushy floating cloud. Pure heaven.

On the way back home there was a stop in Tomah Wisconsin for some afternoon Easter sustenance. We wound up in the most depressing all-you-can-eat buffet style diner. I ordered a fish sandwich. This guy and his mother came in to the joint. The guy was well over 600 pounds which fell about loosely. He had greasy matted shit brown hair that went out the sides of his head like airplane wings. He demanded the buffet and put together a plate of food that was over a foot high. No shit! He had that shit tiered up like a wedding cake. The two top layers consisted of a ring of buttered buns topped with five or six pieces of fried chicken. Underneath that was tatter tots, fried shrimp, ham slices, a steak, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese and pear slices. He used no utensils and vacuumed the fried chicken pieces in under ten seconds flat. It was so depressing and nauseating that I had to call the waitress back to my table and cancel my order. Appetite completely demolished.

I Walk With The Zombies
Suffering from a seriously debilitating head cold right now. Trying to see if I can get a little better before the big Duran Duran concert tonight. Lots of Sudafed, Kleenex, and grapefruit juice. Between terrible coughing fits and high pitched wheezing I watched Shaun of the Dead last night. It was very funny. I liked it but it hurt too much to laugh.

My computer and I seem to have merged into one. The machine seems a bit congested and achy. Computer sympathy sickness? Lots of spinning beach balls and hanging windows. I’m going to shove some alka-seltzers in the CD tray and see if that helps.

Jesus on the Dashboard
In the last few days I haven’t traveled much further than my office chair. Work loads have risen to DEFCON 4, the Orange Goblin of productivity demands devout dedication to the tasks at hand. Lucky for me the UPS man delivered a sixer box of Soy Crisps bags two days ago. As there’s little else in the refrigerator right now the Seven Day Soy Crisps Diet Plan is in full swing.

Tore myself away long enough to get the mail yesterday. Opened a package to learn that I have become a member of the Sacred Heart Auto League. I’m always ready for a little salvation. Why just the other day I thought I saw the image of the Virgin Mary in the blackened toe nail of my right foot. I have matching ‘black toe’ on both of the ‘piggy’s who go to market’ – war wounds I received last Halloween, when I wore white brunswick loafers that were three sizes too small. A dedicated follower of fashion like myself can always use a patron saint or two.

As a member of the Sacred Heart Auto League I am instructed to recite the ‘Driver’s Prayer’ whenever I get into my vehicle. The Driver’s Prayer starts: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, grant me a steady hand and watchful eye, that none be hurt as I pass by”.

Solid, Interesting, Persistant
According to the colorstrology site created by the good folks at Pantone, my birth color for May 13th is Piquant Green (Pantone 17-0235). As these things go, I kinda like the description (especially the attractive part):

THERE IS something unusual and provocative about you. People find you interesting and attractive. You are solid and persistent and continue to pursue as others give up. You know how to move toward your goals. You will be asked to change and adapt to different situations as you move through life Your personal color helps you change with the times. Wearing meditating or surrounding yourself with Piquant Green reminds you that there are different ways to achieve your desires and that the skills you acquire on the journey enrich you as much as arriving at your final destination does.

And according to this site, my color was all the rage in Spring of 1999. Which means it’s almost the perfect time for a revival. Perhaps I need to switch up the colors on this site and get more Piquant on ya’ll.

Piquant – adj 1: having an agreeably pungent taste [syn: savory, savoury, spicy, zesty] 2: engagingly stimulating or provocative; “a piquant wit”; “salty language” [syn: salty] 3: attracting or delighting; “an engaging frankness”; “a piquant face with large appealing eyes” [syn: engaging]

What’s your color?

Ornaments & Sounds

My latest recreation comes from the digital gallery at the New York Public library. I could kill whole days browsing through these amazing images and illustrations. So much inspiration. The craftsmanship is impeccable. Here’s just a sampling of some of the keywords and collections I have been browsing: Design, Studies in Design, Prisims, Original Designs, Vignettes Décoratives, Textiles, Relais 1930, Alphabets, and Papillons.

Also, in preparation for the Slint shows in Chicago coming up this month, I’ve been tracking down live audio from other shows captured during this reunion tour. Slint on MySpace offers up all the tracks from the first show in Louisville. there is also a radio blog of the concert from France. An amazing lossless torrent of the show can be obtained over at easytree.org.

And, a very well executed mash up of the Beastie Boys and the Beatles (The Beastles). Get ’em before ‘The Man’ shuts this down.

And, the ever triumphant Ted Leo’s cover of American Idol Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone‘

Shred It

Folks familiar to these pages know that of all the helpful and strange pieces of technology that fill my office, my centerpiece, that little darling of destruction – The Shredder, is hands down the sweetheart of my collection. Although she kills and maims that which was once beautiful and full of purpose and possibility, I would be lost at sea, Captain Ahab fighting against the swells of loose nostalgic sediment, if she were oldfangled or worse.

You can’t even imagine how juiced I was when I ran across a link to SSI (Shredding Systems Inc.,) and in particular their page called ‘watch it shred‘. My birthday is coming up in a few months and I think this might make the perfect gift for me. No longer would I have to worry about the neighbors and their lusty eye for my garbage can. I could be friendly, invite them over for beers. We could shred together in pure neighborly delight. I must insist that you watch SSI’s movie gallery of actual shredding. I think you’ll find the most drama and and story line with the boat and the washing machine.

Soy Crack

Is anybody else as addicted to these things as I am? They need to start selling Soy Crisps by the 10 gallon barrel because I’m starting to feel guilty at how fast I can crush one of these little bags. I haven’t tried all the varieties yet. Currently I’m partial to the Deep Sea Salted ones. But a 3.5 oz bag?!? That’s nothing! I can empty that in the time it takes me to unpack and shelf all the other lesser groceries that I bought. I know they are supposed to be good for you (7 grams of protein and all) but they must put some chemical in them that makes you pant like a horny poodle when you see them in Aisle 3 all lined up – showing their colors like the plume of a great peacock.

The misses is also hooked on these things, which is not good. Anytime you’ve got two people living under the same roof who covet a food stuff that comes in a 3.5 oz bag you’re bound for some hockey style face-offs and old west showdowns. The solution of course is to buy lots and lots of little 3.5 oz bags but then you look pretty foolish at the checkout line and your house looks like it was hit with a garbage stick after a Soy Crisp binge that leaves several small 3.5 oz bags littered on several surfaces with others wedged between the cushions of your couch.

Lesson From The Street
Learned some deep wisdom the other day while standing outside a taqueria on the corner of Lake and Chicago. I was smoking a cigarette with JG after eating a fat meal at said taqueria.

Lesson: If you are an aging and liquored up crotchety vietnam vet of the caucasian persuasion, with long white hair, wearing a green army jacket and using a metal cane as a walking assistant for your bum leg, and you are waiting for a bus with a dozen or so non-caucasions, then here are some things you should not do;

1. when the bus arrives and people line up to get on the bus, you should not stand in the back of the line and yell at people to “hurry up” and “get on the fucking bus already”,
2. you should not continue to holler and use racial expletives to cajole the party in front of you to move at a clip more to your liking,
3. it’s a bad idea to use your cane as a cattle prod and repeatedly stab people in the small of their back with the hope of moving the line faster, and
4. you should definitely not do any of these things whilst a Minneapolis Transit Cop is sitting in his well marked transit cop car, enjoying his lunch, not 15 feet away from you.

If, however, you choose to ignore the logic and etiquette of the 21st Century, then here are just some of the consequences you should expect;

1. you will be unceremoniously grabbed from behind by a transit cop (who is partly awestruck by your gall and definitely annoyed that his lunch break has ended), pulled from the first step of the bus and thrown to the ground,
2. you will be laughed at loudly by anybody who witnessed this event, and your present state – sprawled out on the ground being held down by a transit cop – will be applauded and cheered greatly,
3. all of your booze will be confiscated,
4. you will be arrested for ‘assault’ and for being a drunk lunatic,
5. you will be placed in a squad car and taken downtown,
6. someone calmly watching this scene play out will bookmark it in their brain and will think about blogging it when they are back at their computer.

Parade of Homes ‘Dream Home’ #0416
The Parade of Homes has started in the Twin Cities and yesterday the misses had a strange premonition that we were going to win the Powerball – it being a Saturday and all. Based on the fortified strength of this premonition, it was quickly decided that if we were just a few happy hours away from winning huge burlap sacks full of cash, then really, in looking at the parade of some homes, we should really narrow our focus and not consider anything less then two million dollar dwellings in our attempt to glean any kind of design inspirado from them. Anything less would probably jinx our chances with the Lotto.

In fact, we should probably just skip the riff raff domiciles altogether and go directly to the best home in the parade. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’m really a parade kinda guy. So let’s just cut to the chase or whatever the grand finale of a parade is and go home. Good. Yes. Let’s do that.

Thus the first stop, well really the only stop on our nouveau rich victory lap cum home parade was the appropriately named ‘Dream Home’ at 1 Windy Ridge Place in Mendota. And at an asking price of $2,175,000 it seemed like a good place for us to both begin and end this parade.

I have to admit, I came expecting greatness from a house that had the honor of carrying the singular in its address. You can’t be slacking if you hold first rank on a Windy Ridge. Maybe ‘3 Windy Ridge Place’ could get by with a lawn ornament grossly out of place or some other substandard housing misstep but ‘1 Windy Ridge Place’? No way. She had better come to the red carpet in a full gesture of simplicity and classic beauty – with not one hair on her head out of place.

From the moment we removed our shoes in the mud room and stepped onto the Jarrah wood floors, I knew that 1 Windy Ridge Place was deserving of its street level rank and was not here to kid around. The architect and builder have done a terrific job of presenting a beautiful progressive space for any design hungry home buyer. The harmony of natural materials, open floor plans and exterior light complimented the Scandinavian styled furniture and textiles in a mixture of contemporary and classic modern design.

The furniture for this dream house was provided by Xylos, Finnstyle, Danish Teak Classics, and Design Within Reach making every room an exhibition in modern furniture pornography. I took a few more snaps: (main floor, lower level, bedroom, bathroom, loft). And no we did not win the Powerball.