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Singles usually stand out from an album in a way in which a truly spectacular single (or two) can carry a mediocre album and make it good, or in some cases can make a great album seem mediocre by not living up to the best song. Either way there really can only be one pure ranking and that’s the single of this album of singles. See what I did there?

1. Jay-Z – Empire State Of Mind

In No Particular Order:
The Fray – You Found Me
Weezer – I Want You To
The Avett Brothers – I And Love And You
Lily Allen – The Fear
All Time Low – Weightless
Miley Cyrus – Party In The U.S.A
Good Girls Go Bad – Cobra Starship Feat. Leighton Meister
La Roux – Bulletproof
Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
Matt & Kim – Daylight

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Some of the things you can actually go out and see right now (that at some point only lived on my computer) are MySpace layouts for Boys Like Girls and My Favorite Highway. Both these bands are amazing, and BLG have a new record out, that I’m sure you’ve heard a few songs on your radio from. MFH has a new video out, which you can see on said MySpace.

I’ve also been working on quite a few logos, print work and layouts that aren’t quite out in the public eye yet, and MySpace layouts for Andrew W.K. and The Bleach Works should be up next week. Recently I launched a website design I did for a film called The Road Less Traveled, it’s a pretty interesting concept and gives a whole new view of a part of the world we don’t all get to see.

I’d also like to bring back what may have been a feature of my blog and recommend some things, mainly because I think everyone could stand to hear some good music:
fun. – Aim & Ignite – This band has one of The Format guys in it, along with a cast of other talented musicians who all played in a few other bands and came together to create fun. I happen to think The Format’s debut was one of the most perfect complete albums ever, so at first I HATED fun., then I let it play and found that I couldn’t stop. I had to apologize to a couple good friends for ever trying to say that this record isn’t absolutely phenomenal, and even the songs I hated I now love. Lesson learned.

Third Eye Blind – Ursa Major – I never expected to be this addicted to a new 3eb record. Sure their catalogue is one that is constantly playing in my life, but did anyone really expect this resurgence? I wanted to feel this way about this record, for months now, but I knew I wouldn’t, yet here I am. I think my favourite track has to be Summer Town, it just gives you that feeling where you want to be inside, is full of classic 3eb lines, techniques, phrasing, etc that just make it the classic non-single 3eb fave. The pseudo ending is spectacular as well. If you have somehow missed everyone talking about 3eb again, you need to drive a few laps around town playing this album.

Ryan Adams – The other day I realised I haven’t listened to Ryan Adams in months, and then I proceeded to listen to it for 3 days straight. Perhaps it got me back to being a little too jaded, but I think it was exactly what my days needed. Next month will be filled with lots of Elliott Smith as well.

Hope everyone out there who still checks in on this nonsense of a website is well, I’d name you by name, but that would just get awkward.

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I am not a huge fan of the NAACP. I understand why it was created, I understand all the good it has done, but in todays world I have seen them too quick to call anything racist and not really helping to advance anything. I recently saw an interview that got me excited about the NAACP again. Their President, one Benjamin Jealous (hello, awesome name), is multi racial, grew up on two coasts, was a Rhodes Scholar, his Grandfather was born a slave and died a Senator, and he is the youngest ever President of the NAACP.

So what did I like so much about this guy? What made me feel like he truly wants to better this world? For one, his multiple uses of the words ‘for everyone”. The lack of the NAACP getting behind other minorities and even majorities has always been my main criticism of it. A group like this was founded at a time where the need to focus on equality for “blacks” was the strongest, but this group could have evolved as they won battles towards civil rights for “blacks” and taken up more causes for all the other minorities. The NAACP is the iconic civil rights organization in this country, sure they don’t need to expand and change, but I feel like so much potential is wasted focusing mainly on only one “colour” of person.

Additionally Benjamin Jealous just seems real, I know this is naive on my part, but I feel like this guy gets “it”. It may be all political positioning, but this man is not just talking about all the injustices in the world, instead speaking on what more we can do to get the world where he hoped it would be. He is looking towards the future, while understanding his organizations past, and even acknowledges that the time has come for them to shift and adapt. It’s a refreshing stance to see.

I will not go as far to say that in todays world there is no discrimination towards minorities left, but I will also point out that there are people of all colour being discriminated against in this nation. I would love to see the NAACP formally become the National Association for the Advancement of People, and finally fulfill their potential to be fighting every civil rights injustice and helping making all of us better people in the process. Perhaps Mr. Jealous may be the one to begin that evolution.

Check out the first few minutes of the interview:

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Apple. Think Different Campaign. (Apple/TBWA Chiat Day)

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

I know I need to stop and remember these words more often, and keep pursuing my life as a person “uncomfortable with the status quo”*. To all those people in my life who fit into everything described above, thank you.

*This statement is one of those things like, 3 people will get. Sorry, but they will probably laugh pretty hard, and I can’t rob them of that just so that this would make more sense to you.

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So I’ve been busy, again. I got my tax extension turned in on time, so I’m doing better than some people, but it’s just an extension, so I’m doing worse than most. If you don’t appreciate the greatness of Twitter, and/or realise I don’t really say anything about what’s going on there anyway, and want to know what’s going on, this is your Huckleberry (I’mmm yuh Huhklebehhy).

I wrapped up a few MySpace re-designs for some great bands: My Favorite Highway (record was released yesterday, and you should own it), Green River Ordinance (FFO: The Fray, etc), The Urgency, and Young Love. I got up the website for a ska band from Boston called Westbound Train up, I’m not really into ska, and if you aren’t either realise these guys have much more of an old R&B sound to them. I also finally finished up the layout for a band I used to do a lot of work with called Parker Theory. I’ll get the cover up somewhere, sometime soon. I was also working a lot of sleepless nights on a secret logo project that I can’t really discuss yet, and don’t really know the outcome of, so you may never hear about it, but hey at least me writing this makes me appear “mysterious” right?

Other non-design things I have been up to include: Building an HD antenna with Kyle so we are one step closer to canceling cable, Finally fixing my Mail so that my Junk Mail will stay on the server (tip: don’t put periods in your account name), Got out to see the Ducks knock off the Sharks and fully reinvigorate my love for NHL playoff hockey, Bought more vinyl (still no turntable), and successfully got an external HD once deemed dead, back in the world of the living.

I’m off to get back into the work, nice seeing you again.

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For those of you who don’t know, I’m out on tour with William Tell and Jimmy Robbins. I have to tell you guys Jimmy is one of the best new things in my life, and William is one of the best old. We are a pretty great band of travelers.

So we started out in Boston, Cambridge proper for 2 days (including a great stop at Drink), and then Greyhound’d down to NYC. We crashed in Williamsburg the first night, then mid-town at the Pod Hotel (bunkbeds, with Eames patterned bedspreads). The show in NYC was at the Highline, and it had a great turnout. From there we went to Hoboken, NJ. Now let me tell you, I have said a lot of bad things about NJ, and quite a few about Hoboken (I mean it does start with Hobo, and Eli Manning lives there), but I take it all back. After 2 days I’m a fan. It’s a great town where you can still grab a slice at random hours of the night, but escapes the complete craziness over the river.

Sometime after that we finally got a car, drove to Baltimore, stalked the “Ace Of Cakes” place, and wandered Fell’s Point. I wound up buying hat’s and old screens (screen printing screens), and we even cheered for the Buffalo Sabers (I can’t really explain). The next day I headed to the airport for a flight to Newark and then Orange County, only to be greeted by a delayed flight which would have made me miss my connection. So then I was on a Delta flight to Atlanta, then Orange County. Yeah, so then a ground stop in Atlanta kept me at BWI another 2 hours (I had already waited 3). Did iI mention I was flying back for my Father’s wedding the next day?

So I was a bit concerned I would be stuck forever in Maryland or Georgia, but eventually I made it back to California. The wedding was great, very musical oriented, and out in the Angeles National Forest. That evening I got on a plane for here, JFK. I promptly passed out, and that flight is now known as the Best Redeye Ever. Soon I will be heading to North Carolina to meet up with William and Jimmy, who played Philly and Raleigh while I was gone.

If you want to be involved in my insane travels, I will soon be in Charlotte, Wilmington, Delray Beach (Ft. Lauderdale), Orlando and Tampa. If you have ways to get me and 2 others into Disneyworld for free, you are especially encouraged to reach out. I really recommend you come out to a show if you are around one of these cities, it’s a great chance to see wonderful music in it’s barest form performed at levels the likes you may never see. At least stop by and familiarize yourself with William Tell and Jimmy Robbins. I’ll see you all soon.

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So I have been ridiculously busy in the last few weeks, and there are good reasons for that. I have a ton of work, and I will be over on the East Coast for a couple weeks. Why? Why not! I will be headed out to such cities as Boston, New York, Hoboken, New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Wilmington, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, and Orlando. It’s quite a journey, and I will be on the road with my good friend William Tell and Jimmy Robbins. They will be playing perfect pop music, and I will be helping them in a multitude of ways, while still carrying on my normal load of design fun (though the past few weeks have made it so it will be a little lighter).

If you are on the lesser coast, and we are friends, we need to hang out. I’m really bad at calling people or writing them in advance, so just track me down and let’s get a drink. If you are one of my wonderful clients, fear not, I will have all the regular normal operations up and running, and you shouldn’t notice a thing.

See you soon. Miss your face.

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Currently the Associated Press is upset that an image that they hold the rights to was the basis for Shep’s illustration. They want license fees, and profit, and credit, and probably one of his children. The issue is actually pretty interesting in terms of copyright law. However frankly this case has no legs, and I’m surprised the AP is this hard up for cash (though no one in the newspaper world is exactly thriving).

The AP owns the image, they don’t own the moment in time the image was taken.

Fairey started with their image, and then he applied his now famous illustrative style. He didn’t simply threshold the thing in Photoshop, he didn’t auto-trace something in Illustrator. His work is no different than someone painting the image in a cubsim styling. Copyright simply doesn’t protect deviations in such things. Someone at AP has to know such things. If anyone should be able to claim rights to deviations based on photographs, it should be the person in the imagery. Kind of funny how they get no share of the AP’s licensing fees.

Anyway, that is my take on this whole thing, and I really hope Shep doesn’t back down or make a settlement. He deserves to stand alone as the source of such iconic imagery, and he is just the right person to stick it to the old media.

Also if I may rant…
I find it hilarious how the old media has talked about him as this “L.A. street artist”, like he is some ruffian who slums through streets stealing bread and spreading wheat paste wherever he goes. Do they not understand the guy went to THE premiere design school in America (RISD), do they not understand the guy owns his own clothing line, do they not understand the guy’s first studio he formed is responsible for such things as the Mt. Dew logo and the Mozilla logo, do they not understand his current studio is responsible for the “Walk The Line” poster and the cover art for The Smashing Pumpkins comeback album? This is no “street artist”, this is one of our generations most heralded graphic designers, this guy will be included along names like Bass, Lubalin, Rand, Glaser, Carson and Sagmeister.

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THE 20.5:

1. I get Deja Vu… a lot. Usually about feeling like I’m getting Deja Vu. (If you follow me on Twitter, you now have Deja Vu!)
2. The best Death Cab For Cutie album is “The Photo Album” end of discussion, this fact also known as “Lindsay lies”.
3. My first concert ever was The Beach Boys, 4th of July, 1984, National Mall, District of Columbia.
4. The only computer I have ever had in my home (from a child on) has been made by Apple.
5. I recently hung up artwork on the walls of my place after living here 4 years.
6. I have had this strange quest to be “mysterious” for years (less is more, right?), the best response was from the girl I was dating (at the onset of said quest) which was… laughter.
7. My wallet is bigger than yours.
8. Some people have magazine subscriptions, I have a Quarterly subscription, a DVD subscription, and a book clup subscription. I heart MCSWNYS.
9. I have a long standing addiction to WB/CW shows I should have no part loving. It started with “The Creek”, and has included “Smallville”, “Veronica Mars”, and “Gossip Girl”.
10. There isn’t much that is better than a fresh loaf of Boudin’s sourdough bread.
11. I played Lacrosse and Ice Hockey in High School, in San Diego, CA. I was a New Englander at heart I guess.
12. Speaking of New England: I have always had a fascination with JFK, I love the Red Sox, I hate the Patriots, I love Boston.
13. I unabashedly love pop music, of all types, that other people try to pretend isn’t pure hits.
14. As a kid (11-15ish), I couldn’t fall asleep to anything but the radio. Not a CD even. I had to hear a talking voice at some point or else my mind would spin into a labyrinth of thoughts on life and death.
15. I firmly believe I could save entire companies if they would just consult me on everything they do.
16. I tend to get infatuated with girls from far away cities, okay infatuated might be putting it lightly.
17. I’m horrible at filing, but quite organised.
18. I should mention, I use the Queen’s English whenever possible.
19. Almost all of my family teach, at one point I was going to fall in line as well, but wound up a designer. Lately I have the desire to be the jaded professor at Art School who: tells everyone their projects are horrible, everyone hates but realises years later was vital to their succes (i.e. Winter Sorbeck).
20. I’m great at buying old cameras, I’m horrible at buying new film.
20 1/2. I hate committing to making plans, except… (How else am I supposed to make a half fact?)

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I have spent all morning listening to them, and demanding others do the same.

Jack’s Broken Heart (true story, i never realised the Fight Club reference until 2 months ago) was an amazing 4 piece. Their EP “Against Forgetting” was amazing, go buy it on iTunes. I saw this band play a ton, with Jimmy Eat World, Counterfeit, et al, and it was great. They won the 2001 San Diego Music Award for best Alternative, beating out The Album Leaf, Black Heart Procession and Tristeza (I told you SD had a developing scene at the time). I later had the privilege of becoming friends with their drummer David, who is now in a band called The Little Ones (with ex-Sunday’s Best) that you should also check out.

Dewey Defeats Truman is a band that I came to know about through my own lame attempts at rock stardom. I was in a band, I will never mention more than it’s mere existence, because it was horrible. So anyway I was over at the Guitar Center (old one over on El Cajon Blvd.) one day, doing something, or buying something, and had this random conversation with this guy who was the singer for DDT. He was a pretty interesting guy and super nice, so I went over to Music Trader and picked up whatever I could find. That was “B-Sides, Rarities, and Out-Takes” and it was a great pick up. I don’t think I have the physical disc of this anymore, but somehow it has managed to stay on my computer all those years. I don’t think you can find this album, but they released an EP later that is still up on Amazon.

Enjoy.

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The man has musical performers on his show and doesn’t hold up the CD, he holds up vinyl. Gorgeous, circles of black, grooves of uncompressed, vinyl.
And it’s not just once in a while

It’s always.

It must be show policy. I wonder if a band is allowed to play if they can’t get the vinyl there? I wonder if he loves Squeeze’s “Singles” on vinyl as much as I do. Scotch & Squeeze, that’s all you need.

In related news, will someone sell me a record player. I’m sick of losing bids on ebay.

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60-something degrees.

My head felt like it was 80-something. Now I’m no scientist, but I think this could be something. So I deduced I had a fever. I refused to medicate myself, and choose to push through. I’m starting to realise this has been going on the past week, and has been what has cut into my productivity lately. I should have realised mid day exhaustion wasn’t normal, but I kind of enjoyed the naps.

So anyway, like a good friend of mine said:

Barney Stinson

“You see, whenever I start feeling sick, I just stop being sick and be AWESOME instead. True story.”

So this little nugget of Awesome comes in handy on days like today.

And yes, I realise Barney is a character, but if you met my friends you would know some fiction is clearly taking a cue from my reality.

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Sidenote: I once told a girl who I was dating, or had dated, or was going to date (I’m really not sure the time period in it all) that I was working on being mysterious, she laughed at me. She was right.

So if you are up to be a part of something that may require a few minutes of your time now and again, possibly a postage stamp, and will make 2009 better (or at the least more interesting) shoot me an email (you should have it) and include your postal address.

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I enjoyed a lovely holiday back “home” (Long Beach is home to me, but San Diego gets jealous when I say that) in San Diego, five-ish full days of family, friends and homemade cookies. My last few weeks of work had been slammed full of work (thanks all), and the time away was a great recharge. New Years was approaching and instead of being lame and doing nothing, we threw a last minute party. The flyer was probably the best part, but we had a pretty epic time all the same. I invented a new drink that night, and drank far too much of it, leaving me a little hurting New Years Day down in the OC. I hate people who say “the OC”, slash myself. Watched some football, played some poker, drank to cure the hangover and had some of the best chili ever made, then we ended the night with “Frost Nixon”:, great film.

The holidays, as they are known, were great, and I am endlessly thankful to have the amazing people in my life that I do. I don’t say it enough, but I appreciate you all.

Somehow in the middle of all that craziness above the Chargers made the playoffs, so this past weekend I trekked back down (stopping in HB to play some football myself) for what was one of the best games I have ever seen. I was so fortunate to see that game in person, what a start to the New Year. Sunday I went and saw “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with my Mother, I was a little nervous of how this would be adapted. I had heard some things that essentially made it sound like “The Notebook” and “Forrest Gump” were starring in a “Brad Pitt is rebuilding the ninth ward” infomercial, then I saw it and cried like a little old man baby. They nailed the potential this story has, and Pitt once again impresses. Everyone should see this and love it, but then again I do love “The Notebook”.

In the middle of all those things I also made a server switch (still MT, just a new version of the DV along with PHP5, finally), put up a few new websites (splash pages) for various friends and a few of my various projects and hung up a ton of art around the place.

I hope everyone else enjoyed some time with friends and family (or locked up avoiding them), whatever you needed the past weeks, and is looking forward to where 2009 can take us.

Oh, did you hear?
Yes we did.

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Best Songs of 2008
1. Augustana – Sweet And Low
2. Gavin Rossdale – Love Remains The Same
3. Mates Of State – The Re-Arranger
4. My Favorite Highway – Getaway Car
5. Jack’s Mannequin – The Resolution
6. Estelle (ft. Kanye West) – American Boy
7. Katy Perry – Hot N’ Cold
8. Kanye West – Heartless
9. Coldplay – Viva La Vida
10. All-American Rejects – Another Heart Calls

Running Commentary (with no care in the world for grammar) follows:
I still stand by the statement I made after my second listen of “Sweet And Low”, which was something along the lines of it being the best song the band has ever written, and for those of you that know me know how Augustana’s “Boston” affects me, so that is really saying something. Gavin Rossdale renewed my faith in him in one single, single. You probably haven’t heard the My Favorite Highway song, but you should, it should be huge if that album ever gets a proper push. I’m not sure how many times this year I was standing in a booth at a club singing “American Boy”, but it was a lot. The late pushes this year were made by Kanye’s second single, and a song that probably won’t be a single by AAR, but it’s gorgeous.

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The other day Kyle and I were sitting around talking about our distaste for NASCAR and distaste for the Detroit bailout. Let’s face it, the only people to blame for the Big Three failing are the people in charge, the people who put them in charge, and the people who allowed them to be in charge with huge salaries while losing money.

A brilliant idea then hit. What if NASCAR (which is called “stock car racing”) actually started using stock cars. We have all these cars sitting around not being sold, and yet these companies are spending millions to run “stock” cars around ovals. Throw a few out there fresh from the factory, show us how safe they really are, show us the true performance, show us what you want to sell.

NASCAR would gain 2 more fans, and Detroit could write off the 3-4 cars they crash (per team) every week at the track.

“Dude, we just saved Detroit”

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Here is the wrap-up:
I was sick for a good solid 2 weeks, most of it came from breathing pure ash from some of the lovely fires in Southern California, I finally recovered the week of Thanksgiving, but was way behind on work (thank you to everyone whose project was delayed, your grace is wonderful).

I got back on the ball and wrapped a ton of stuff up the past 2 weeks, including a 3 day trek to San Diego to see family/friends whom I love, and a 2 day trek to AZ to ride along with Tell as he played ASU. It was all great, and we officially decided AZ may be the best food state ever. Think about it, they get the west coast (In-N-Out, Del Taco, etc) and the Middle America (Waffle House, Chick-Fil-A, Sonic) along with other random things from states far off. Put a White Castle out there and my vote is in.

I just wrapped up William Tell’s MySpace the other day, if you haven’t been by lately he has quite a few new songs up that you should listen to. This little project was a fun nightmare. Lots of work overwriting MySpace and figuring out stupid little one line code issues, but it’s only the first time that this will kill me.

Also not too long back I finally got up a semblance of a website for Department Three. I have been promising this for years, and now finally some of my recent work is up to view at the studios site.

I’m working on a ton of other things, filing away files, getting caught up on emails, do if you are wondering why I haven’t replied to something, be patient. In the works are a few websites, some branding work, and a few more MySpace re-designs.

In other news, my friends at Hozell are having a warehouse sale this weekend. It’s today and tomorrow, and it also includes WeSC another great brand I’m a huge fan of. Info is on the MySpace linked there (because they didn’t want to put it on their MySpace?), and i’ll be there in a few minutes. If you are in LA/OC you should head down and hang.

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You see, in what many are claiming to be the cliffs of calamity in Detroit, their CEO’s all flew private jets over to D.C. for these meetings. I sure want my tax dollars going towards that. I know a lot of peoples jobs in Michigan, and a lot of other states that are home to suppliers, are at stake here, and I want this to turn out well for all those hard working people. However, this is not the case of this economy causing a dangerous situation for Detroit, but this economy presenting an easy escape from years of screwing up.

Gary Ackerman (D – Queens)

“Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class? Or jet-pooled? It would have at least sent the message that you do get it.”

For years I have had issues with the U.S. auto manufacturers. They pay their CEO’s ridiculous amounts for constant failures, they took years and years to adopt green vehicles, they were blind to the fact that Toyota was doing innovative things and balancing their product offerings. These companies should all fire their entire management and hire a few Harvard Business graduates that can think in modern times. I know, I use that plan for everything, but why do people think that the leaders of companies who have come up in the old way and fail will succeed somewhere else? When will there be discrimination laws about companies having to interview 2 candidates under 40?

The current CEO’s also turned down a gesture of good will that was brought up to them. When asked if they would take a symbolic $1 salary, much like Lee Iaccoca did years ago to help revive Chrysler, Ford and GM’s CEO’s said no. GM’s Wagoner took home 14 million last year; Ford’s Mulally grabbed a cool 22 million. For the record, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said he would take the $1 a year salary, but it was reported in 2007 that his salary would be $1 a year and then incentive based, so he is (and kinda isn’t) doing his part. Nardelli also is probably still living nice off that 201 million severance he got from Home Depot.

The U.S. “Big Three” in the past 3 years combined for 67 billion in losses, and it’s just the economy, right? I’m gonna spell this out for any Fortune 500 board members than might accidentally happen across my blog. No one, and I mean no one, is worth 15 million dollars a year. I don’t care who they are, or what they are doing, it CAN NOT be considerably more than the level of work you would get out of a person being paid 2 million. Give your CEO’s profit sharing all you want, I have no issues with that, but no base salary deserves to be that high.

You want to save these companies? Here is how. If you are a stockholder, write in your unhappiness with the board and CEO, the two public companies ARE accountable to all you millions of shareholders who have been fleeced in your stock value and owe it to you to stop spending money they don’t have. Cerberus should be able to figure out this thing for their own and save Chrysler, or sell it off in pieces to one of the Japanese auto makers. That is the other reality, Toyota or Honda can jump in the game and purchase on of these failing companies, though we may all be better off in a world without the original “Big Three”.

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Because of such celebratory events I am bringing you free music. From two different places.

Firstly, a lot of my time has been spent working on a few projects for William Tell, and part of that pile is up on the internet today. Right here, if you sign up you get a free song, and lot’s more to come. It’s a new marketing device that we have dubbed, “bribery”. The song is called “Gone Gone Gone” and it has some great Paul Simon moments in it.

Secondly, a lot of the rest of my time is spent talking to the one and only Chad Pearson. He has a record label, and they give you free music. He is currently living in a red state, but let’s look past that for a moment. FREE MUSIC! Okay, so yeah, his label sampler is now up for free on Amazon MP3. It features some great artists whom I truly love, and is just the right kind of mood for Fall days (Not that I know what Fall is like). A little more mature sound blasting from your windows, a little more proof you are cooler than people think.

So enjoy the music, and the new President, and if I could give away this for free I would.

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After my moment of jubilation, and my pestering Tell about his Obama 08 BlackBerry application (or lack there of), came the most perfect reply ever.

Tell

“I hear John McCain is coming out with one for a NEXTEL.”

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To wrap up my thoughts on the baseball season, I thought we would go to Ralph Nader for a comment.

Ralph Nader, after he’d been told by Washington Post editors that the lack of coverage of his presidential campaign was because he had no chance of winning:

“Then why are you covering the Nationals?”

Best thing ever, thank you Ralph, thank you Nationals for losing 3 more games than the Padres.

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Earlier today on the news I was watching a local report on WaMu and a reporter was getting the “word on the street” from the customers. Multiple customers had no idea WaMu failed yesterday, one even decided not to go in and deposit a cheque in his account. Pretty surprising how uninformed someone can be about what is happening in the country right now, and even more shocking that they don’t know their financial protections.

The greatest moment of this piece came when the reporter had talked to one customer who had gone into the branch last week and met with the Manager. He demanded to know “what was going on with all of this and what he should know”. The Manager replied with the following, “Everything is fine, don’t believe all that stuff that is out there, WaMu is as solid as a rock”.

Rocks do sink to the bottom.

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They let me out no problem, didn’t say a word to me, didn’t get my statement, didn’t tell me anything when I went to meet Kyle (who was not allowed in, and was told it would be an hour or so). So we went to grab some food, Alondra Wings, and it was delicious. Coca Cola with crunch ice makes you forget your street is on complete lock down. We headed back, a little over an hour later, walked up to an officer, and were informed that it “could be 10 hours”, “he can’t do anything”, and “the street is blocked of”. This guy was a genius, and a classic case of an officer of the law, who is paid to protect and serve the public (and paid by my tax dollars) treating the public with no respect at all. I asked if we could talk to his Sergeant, he made no effort to find out and told us “he was too busy”, and “all the officers on the scene were too busy doing their jobs to talk to”.

The intel we already had on the scene was that a body was found, and that it was possibly a baby in the alley. A tragic event completely, but we also thought it wasn’t too ridiculous for us to be allowed back into our house. So we set off to find a way in. We tried a chimney climb up to the roof, using a light next to the building, it was unsuccessful so we set off on foot so scope the perimeter. We hit the west perimeter first, Kyle had established a repertoire with these guys already and we tried to get a gauge on how long it would be that we would not be allowed in. These wonderful officers told us we should head to the south perimeter, as that was closer to the command center. Yes, there is a command center a few hundred feet from me right now. Choppers too, roaring overhead as I type.

At the south perimeter we found a uniformed officer and I flipped on the charm, the same charm I refused to show to attitude filled north perimeter guy, and stated that we “understood they have to investigate and understand everything, but it’s not that ridiculous that we be allowed into our home”. He told us that he was told simply “no one can come in”, and I pressed on asking if we could just speak to someone else. Well apparently “The Sarge” was fond of us, because once the officer actually got him, he told us we were all good to enter at the north perimeter and that he already called in to let them know we were allowed.

Upon reaching the north perimeter, we were apologized to, and walked in. We aren’t sure when we will be able to leave, but for now we are in.

UPDATE: Here is a news story on the investigation.

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The Huffington Post

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a woeful outlook of America’s economic situation on Sunday, saying the crisis with the country’s financial institutions was as dire as he had ever seen in his long career, and predicting that one or more of those institutions would likely collapse in the near future.

“Oh, by far,” Greenspan said, when asked if the situation was the worst he had seen in his career. “There’s no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I’ve seen and it still is not resolved and still has a way to go and, indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes. That will induce a series of events around the globe which will stabilize the system.”

Alan Greenspan covered all the topics, except the fact that he is pretty much single handedly responsible for what is happening to our economy currently, but hey that isn’t really important right?

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Just head over to Joel’s blog to see the video.

I have a newsflash “peaceful protestors” of Denver, the moment you left the park (where coincidentally the law enforcement had no issue with you) and started marching down roads made, not for people to march down, but for automobiles to drive down; the moment you started moving at law enforcement; the moment you were yelling aggressively; the moment you were running to find a new street to clog; you were no longer peaceful. You assembled, it was fine, and you could have stayed their with your signs and nonsense, but you chose marching. It’s funny, in California, I’m not allowed to cross a street in a downtown city unless I use a cross walk, but these people believe they should be able to randomly march down the entire street?

I wish people in this country would realise they don’t have the right to “march down the fucking street”. I wish people would not try to spin the fact that they declined to use the approved protest areas that were set up so a city could function while people would still be able to protest. I wish people would not spin the fact that due to their selfish act of marching down a street wherever they wanted with 2000 of their closest friends they are making other peoples lives miserable and delaying them from getting to/from work and going about their lives. I wish people protesting aggressively and yelling at law enforcement would stop acting like they weren’t hoping to be maced.

Protests are so futile, it’s one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. Protesting is about the same to me as wearing an American flag pin on your lapel. Up front, you made this big show, and you can talk to your friends about how involved you are in changing politics, but in the end you have done nothing. Get out and do something, call people, write letters, run for office, find us a better option and help get them elected; don’t just wave a sign and act like you are making any sort of impact besides trying to get your so-called movement a little press. The press who feeds off drama and has probably pushed more people towards this sort of thing with it’s choice of what gets covered, and it will get covered for that day, yet protestors think the press will suddenly stop ignoring the issues that they help our government perpetuate in the days that follow. There are so many countless ways better to bring change to the world.

I have seen firsthand for 2 years the kind of recklessness these protests bring with them, and those were formally organised city approved protests through Downtown Los Angeles. On one of these occassions I couldn’t even go into work because the traffic re-routing simply couldn’t get me to my office.

I’m pretty sure at some point people need to use some common sense and realise there are other tax paying citizens who might have issue with their lives being disrupted by a street full of people marching.

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It’s an exciting and challenging time, and I will surely be hitting up each and every one of my friends about anyone you might know who could be my next client. It’s tough out here in the design game, but so refreshing to be scrambling over something and having to sling my trade everywhere I go.

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I was recently listening to a few older records, and started remembering these amazingly vivid memories about where I was the first time I heard it, or the 3392382th time it spun through my CD player, and felt I would share. I think I may do this regularly, it’s quite fun.

These are the memories invoked by a collection of songs that hold a correlation of a specific trip or location.

The Get Up Kids – Something To Write Home About – Lake Havasu City, AZ

It was a random stop at a Music Trader before a trip to Havasu, and this album soon became the soundtrack of that trip, played over and over and over. TGUK had never terribly captured my ears until this album, and it was an album that was bought against the recommendation of a friend, going with pure instinct. Instinct was right.

No Use For A Name – More Betterness – Grossmont Ctr. Dr, La Mesa, CA

I purchased this the same day as TGUK – STWHA, it was a more obvious choice to me as No Use was a pretty common listen for me. This record was disliked by a lot of NUFAN fans, but it still is my favourite. The direction they took, the downright emo-ness of this record, was absolutely the perfect evolution for my musical tastes. It was poppy, it still had edge, it was smart, yet it was still punk. These were days of CD players in cars, and scratches getting the best of the most played. One day on the way to surf Abs (or maybe it was Subs) the unplayable-ness of this CD at the hands of it’s scratches caused me to fling it into the street. That was a horrible decision, and I regretted it 3 seconds after I had done it.

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Sounds like all is well out around the epicenter, and there is no damage reported.

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So how did I wrap up an utterly amazing week? Well, first I went down to San Diego and saw my family and celebrated my birthday early. It was a lovely time, and I got in some seriously needed pool time, because being on a river all week is way different angles of sunlight and the tan takes a serious toll.

Heading back home to Long Beach, I was ready to get back to reality. Well that was all thrown afoot on Sunday when we headed out to a little party that wound up being the biggest thing in LA County on Sunday. There were Lions, Tigers, Monkeys, Waterfalls, Margaritas, Old Friends, Amazing New Friends, Long Walks Back To The Car (Or For The Entrepreneurial Sorts Domino’s Car Rides), and Telling People Our Names Were 80′s Band Names (Which Worked Out Well For Todo). It was an absolute amazing time, and did I mention BI happened to have left his bayou home (and was visiting the place that misses him way too much, or maybe just the people do) and made the whole day that much better.

Thanks to everyone who invited us/threw the party, let us not wait in line, poured us beverages, gave me chips, made us smile, and all the rest involved, especially one graceful pizza delivery driver. I am thankful to have the friends I do, and the ridiculous times we get into. Life is good.

As if that run of days couldn’t get any better, early today I purchased a replica, orange, Chad Johnson jersey for far too ridiculously little. Ocho Cinco, check; Man Ram, up next.

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All the prints of my photographs will be 30×20, and I will post the day of the event the pieces that are there, maybe. I’m really excited for everything Chad is doing with Panda, I’m absolutely in love with the musicians he is working with, I’m thrilled to be a part of an art show where my work will be completely showed up by some of the most amazing artists out there today who I am also honoured to call my friends (therefore, such as.

If you are in the Atlanta area, you should make it out to this. I was trying to work out an appearance myself, but I think I will wait until the fall to fully experience the ATL.

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Mark Penxa, interviewed by Uni Watch about the “Stealing Signs” project. Mark and I worked together on a few projects back when I was with TMG, when I say worked together, I mean I took brilliance he did, and probably diluted it. However we had great fun, and still have some pretty amazing email conversations about life. Mark was kind enough to sell me some of the early versions of the “Stealing Signs” project, and they are absolutely moving in person.

Another fun thing to know about Mark and I is that I once tried to commission Mark to paint me a kind of 3 colour tribute to one of my ex-girlfriends. His complete panning of me and such a ridiculous idea proved more therapeutic than anything else had and has on said topic. Moral of that story is that Mark rules, nd I am valued to have him as a friend, and that I am a sap who fortunately has friends who don’t let him do utterly foolish things (most of the time).

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Do you ever get those messages out of the blue on MySpace or Facebook from an old HS (or earlier, or later) friend, whom you truly have some good memories of, and have once over the past 10 years wondered how they are? Yeah, me too.

Here are how they go:

Catching Up

Subject:
Long Time (Or some other vague title about how you haven’t talked in years)
Body:
Hey _________, wow it’s been like __ years since we have _______. How have you been? Are you still __________________? It’s crazy finding all our old __________ on __________________. Did you hear ________________ is ___________________?

I have been _____________, just _____________ and living in __________________. I am really glad I found you, we HAVE to ___________ soon. You have to catch me all up on _________.

And sometimes in there they slide in some guilt trip, like it’s your fault you forgot to get info about the 10 year reunion, or that it’s your fault you never come see them when you go home.

I get these, all the time, and even though a lot of people would assume I would treat then with attitude I am presenting here, I don’t. I love these messages, well used to, I love these people, well used to. I have noticed a strange pattern, and it goes a little something like this (hit me). I will write back, and I write back a well thought out response that I take a portion out of my day to sit down without distractions and write. A couple paragraphs, not much I know, but I do my best to truly try to re-connect with these people.

Then you know what happens? I never get a reply back. Maybe I don’t prod them enough to warrant one, maybe I don’t ask enough questions about _______ being _________, I really don’t know.

I have always been the kind of person who was accepting that there are certain times in your life where people you are close with are meant to leave, and new ones will soon be around; moments like these remind me why those people had their time in my life years ago.

So in conclusion, thanks, but no thanks. If you really care about me, we probably found a way to connect before the MySpaces, Facebooks and LinkedIns of the world were around. I’ve had the same phone number for 6 years, the same email address for 6 years (though be on the lookout, that is changing) and I’ve lived in Los Angeles County for 4 years, if you wanted to catch up or missed those old times, it isn’t hard to find a way. If you are just gonna message me to feel like you fulfilled a good deed by reconnecting with an old friend, and then just not even have the urge to reply even 3 words to a conversation you started, just read my blog and pretend like we are still friends.

Optional Bonus Activity:
Pretend above “Catching Up” conversation is a mad lib, post your most creative version as a comment, and the winner will get a special gift. Oh, and let’s keep it clean, it’s takes zero creativity to turn that thing sexual, it takes genius to come up with clean humour. Remember, this blog is a class act.

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The first is that next week I will be rafting rivers, yes more than one. So if you also will be rafting any of California’s greatest rivers (the Tuolumne and Kings) let me know, and we can battle our way through rapids together. Something like that. Also if you are the kind of person who needs anything from me, you best start bugging me now, though I will be reachable by the tubes of inter (not innertubes, intertubes).

Second is that Hit The Lights album “Skip School, Start Fights” came out yesterday, and it’s a pretty great Summer pop record. You might need it in your life if you like such things.
RIYL: Cartel, The Starting Line, All-American Rejects

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Happy Hour, The Summer Gin, Superbad Scrabble, Ice Cream Sandwiches, Honey Wheat Pancakes, Realising Every Better Than Ezra Song Is Trying To Be Another Band, PBR, 21-1 Pool Volleyball Games, Beach Boys, Burgers, Fireworks, Cool Runnings, Betting On Olympic Trials, Falling Asleep On Couches, Gin & Tonics, Breakfast Burritos, Red Sox v. Yankees, Poolside Days, Some Of The Best iPod Playlists Ever, Mai Tai’s, Fajitas, Jacuzzi, More Olympic Trials, Falling Asleep On Couches, Being Horrible At Video Games, Leftovers, F1 Races That Look More Like Rally Racing, Falling Asleep On Couches.

Bryan Adams – Summer Of ’69

“Those were the best days of our lives.”

It’s pretty true, even in ’08.

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A large movement in support of this law came from a Harvard Center study that everyone and their brother quotes as proof that this law will save lives. I decided to steal a pull from Wired, who ran an article about this law, and feel similarly to myself.

Wired

Studies by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (.pdf) suggest 2,600 people are killed and as many as 330,000 people are injured each year in the United States in cellphone-related driving accidents.

The part I really wish Wired would have brought up is as follows; How many of those 2600 people killed and 330,000 injured were in accidents involving bad drivers, speeding drivers, etc.? People don’t like to think about those sorts of things, they like to try to solve problems by eliminating things coincidentally involved. I’m not saying this is a horrible idea, and that it won’t help people to focus on the road, I’m just saying the real problem is the people who don’t focus on the road, not 1 of multiple things they could do that could distract them.

This is much like the logic that if you don’t allow kids to wear certain clothes, they will behave better and be more focused. People should start looking at the cause, to be able to solve the problem they have with the effect. It’s simple physics.

Things still legal to do in the car; put on makeup, shave, make out, wind your watch, read, type, write, search your iPod for “99 Problems” by Jay-Z, hit and/or yell at your kids, search through papers in the backseat, watch DVD’s, etc., etc.

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Now that we have all the title possibilities out of the way.

Just the other night Kyle and I were discussing the ridiculousness of the V-neck. It’s pretty much a plague the likes of Von Dutch hats. Sure the V is comfortable, and shows off all that cool chest hair we have worked years to have, but it doesn’t mean it’s applicable for all moments of life. If you think wearing a Deep V out to social events is a good idea, you should probably just take it to new levels and rock a tank top next time you are heading over to Les Deux (Les Deun’t? Hahaha).

The fine folks at Radar apparently listen to our conversations and decided to write an article about the “Deep V”, I have provided the below image and my favourite pull quote to make your life better.

Radar

So, at least for a little while longer, the question isn’t crewneck versus V-neck, it’s V-neck versus aggressive V-neck. Just be careful how low you go. “It’s getting pretty close to being a vest as it is,” Polk points out. “It’s, like, another three inches and that’s a vest, motherfucker.”

“Aggressive V-neck” may be the best description ever, well that is until you look at this image:

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Now you might be wondering what this has to do with the homeless. Well, last night I decided to go try this Angus burger and get one for free. You might think I got the wonderful idea to give my free one to a homeless person. Well you are half right, I decided to eat half of each of my 2 burgers, and throw the other half away. I know, I am a horrible, wasteful, American. However, afterward I came up with the brilliant idea to feed the homeless on McDonald’s dime.

Basically I am encouraging you, if you are the type to eat burgers (that are nowhere near as good as the ones we cook over at 333) from fast food places, to print out the coupons, eat the McD’s and find someone hungry to toss a burger to. Think of the effect if every person did this once a week until July 31, literally we would have some very gracious and full homeless people (and on there way to clogged arteries, but different story there).

The best part of this whole concept is that it doesn’t end at July 31, or McDonald’s. We get coupons every day from fast food. If you are gonna eat the death that is fast food, look over the coupons, find the buy one get one free, stop worrying about saving yourself money, buy whatever they are offering 2 for 1, and give the free one to someone who is in a less fortunate position. It’s no pay it forward, but it could make a difference, and it costs you nothing.

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I was able to spend Father’s Day with my very own Father at the U.S. Open. It was a great day of golf, on a gorgeous course. We followed “Lefty” around for a while, and it seemed to do him good as he finished with 68. We hung out at the gorgeous 13 for a few hours and saw some incredible approach shots to a tight pin placement on an elevated green behind 3 bunkers. We almost got hit by Tiger’s drive on 1. We were there on 18 for Tiger’s put that sent the whole thing off to 18 more holes.

Professional golf is one of those things that should be experienced in person to truly grasp the energy, and the U.S. Open is no different. It’s great to watch on television as your favourite golfers walk up the fairway to a roar of the crowd, but the chill you will get from being the roar is even better.

Special thanks to Kyle Davidson for being important; No Special thanks to the sun block that failed me.

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What happened to all the faith being in young people? What happened to giving everything to the future generations so that they could better the world far more than we imagined? What happened to teaching good decision making and ethics, as opposed to just giving up and blaming the failures on things like the clothes people wear? Why are scare tactics and propaganda existing in out educational system?

The final straw to me came when I read this. Seriously? I cannot even fathom a situation that I can somehow try to draw a parallel to for this one. It’s just unheard of, it’s just shocking that someone thought this was a good idea, it’s just utterly disrespectful.

MSNBC

On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.

… Many who heard the news of the 26 deaths between classes, were left in the dark until the missing students reappeared hours later.

The most tragic part about this whole story is that everyone seems to still think it was a good idea and that it will save lives. Are you kidding me? You people are a joke.

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P.S. Jessie Poland is the real name of Charlotte Sometimes.

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I can only describe it as a one man hip hop opera. One man on stage, the band/orchestra in the pit below, and one broken spaceship.

Kanye West just constantly impresses me with each and every thing he does, and it was one of those things in life that I honestly think will stay with me for years and years to come. If you have any way of catching the very few shows left of Glow In the Dark, do it, without any thought, go.

Special thanks to the lovely friends who helped make it an even more wonderful night, and the spectacular people who allowed us to share their suite with us for Mr. West’s performance.

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Let’s examine that. How fun would it be to see 30 people randomly pop up on your Bonjour list in iChat and randomly IM you. Aside from the fact that it could be that creepy dude in the “Foreigner” t-shirt, rather than the adorable girl from the crew team of Western Washington University, I think the whole thing would be amazing. Isn’t the internet supposed to bring us together? Isn’t the future of social networking, networking us when we are being social?

I digress, I think I have lost my mind due to words I have yet to write. They will come, they will flow with the surge of the American River.

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Boston was amazing, I am fully in love with the concept of spending entire days sitting in the Commons with a book and without a care to the world. On the flight home something interesting happened, I intend to expand on it, a chapter in the book perhaps, but you will have to wait. It’s good, I promise.

While I was on the East Coast I decided I may just buy a boat, put it in a slip in some small New England town, and always have a place there. Maybe a Boatshare? Anyone want in?

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So the blog has been a little lacking in interesting things lately, that is mostly because my non-blogosphere life has been a little too interesting and/or busy lately. Because of such events, I share with you two things. Two things I was presented with today that grabbed me a little bit, two things that some people may find interesting.

The first is a blog post by a Gypster. Lindsay Strannigan is her Christian name, I don’t know what kind of names Gypsters have, so make one up.

The second is a bulletin one Rory Felton sent out on MySpace. I am not too sure if that link to the bulletin will even work for everyone, nor if Rory wants the world (you know the 5 people who read my blog who are all probably already friends with him on the space anyway) reading his words, but he did put them on MySpace, and it is, at the least, a thought provoking essay.

I’m closing down the blog for the weekend, but you can find me on twitter, I’m sure.

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We never knew how that CD-R found it’s way to us that day, or why, but we never questioned that it was pure destiny. Y2Khai has since never left my iTunes, and after today it should never leave yours. I think I once even burned a copy for Dan Crittenden’s 21st birthday present, which I am sure was the best gift he ever got.

Recently I decided to see what “Y” was up to, and well it’s the same “sweet asian flow” on a seemingly recently made over website. If you haven’t, then you should. MP3′s can be downloaded at his site. Listen now, thank me later.

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I fly in on the redeye Thursday night, and have a quick stop in D.C (better than the layover at PVD Kyle was trying to propose, if you get this, you get this, I will not explain), so technically I can work in another Ben Gibbard reference if you would like. The District will sleep with me for an hour in the airport? I dunno. I am leaving the 27th, early and will be back in California in time for a day of work and a rock show that evening.

If you are in Boston and I know you, I would love to see your face. If you are in Boston and I don’t know you, shouldn’t you have introduced yourself by now? Let’s drink beers while we watch the Sox win, let’s talk Southie all weekend.

UPDATE: If anyone wants to rent out rooms in Long Beach on the dates of May 22-27th and June 4-17th please contact Kyle or myself. Kidding, sort of.

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I do think the real issue in this long withstanding debate is more etymology than anything. Any formal acknowledgement of a committed relationship by our government should be called a union. Marriage (though it should probably be matrimony) can be a term used by religious groups to show the spiritual acknowledgement of same relationship. We can take a page from Mexico and have separate civil and spiritual services. I don’t believe most people against same sex marriage truly oppose same sex couples having the same benefits and rights as marriage provides, I think they just get caught up on the word.

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I support Obama, I hope every day for him to be our next President, and when someone asks me why I do so, I reply with the following, “He is different”. Now sure this is a cop out (and to many jumping on the trend), there are much deeper reasons, but it doesn’t need to go deeper than that. Politics has always been skin deep, look at the system. Politics is inherently a system where we vote down party lines, we ignore the actual person, and we assume they will just put their parties agenda into practice entirely. It’s a pretty terrible way to do things, and assuming Obama will do the bidding of the Democratic Party once he is elected is just as naive as only supporting Obama because he will be a change of pace.

I hate giving away my money to support the “immobile lifestyles of those who choose not to contribute to society”. I hate the concept of healthcare for everyone. I think these things are not guaranteed, but privilege. As horrible as it sounds, yes, I think living a life free of dying young to pneumonia is a privilege. Until these treatments and cures don’t cost money, they should be for those who are in a position to afford to pay for them. The solution is not having me pay for other peoples standard of living to go up, the solution is having these treatments and cures affordable for everyone to pay for on their own (not subsidized either). That is where we should be trying to take society, that is how we should be trying to help all of humanity. Yet, I support Obama, a Democrat.

I wish we could be left to allowing the non-profits of the world to pick up those less fortunate, I wish it would work that way, but some of us in the world are far too selfish to extend a hand to someone. I have far greater issue with the tax dollars we spend abroad and overseas than what we spend on our own citizens, at least those in our country have the chance that they will become tax paying, productive members of society, it’s more of an investment. I am all for investing in people, all for investing in developing countries, but lets make sure we have a system where we can at least possibly gain financially from that overseas spending of my tax dollars (such an idea, here). I would realistically be more happy with this country if we were entirely practicing either Isolationism or Imperialism, anything with an “I” really.

I believe in people, I believe that our Government actually has 3 branches that all direct and lead our nation. I don’t believe the current President is to blame for all our troubles, just as I don’t believe the next one will magically right this sinking ship. So why do I think we need Obama? Simple, he is open to new ideas, he doesn’t pretend to have everything figured out, he openly states sometimes that his idea currently may not be the final solution to the issue, he is young and passionate. Sometimes experience is not what we need, sometimes we need a leader, doing things for the right reasons.

Michael Bloomberg makes a dollar a year as Mayor of NYC, he is doing it for the right reasons (I personally believe all high ranking politicians should be willing to take no salary for their “service”, but that’s a different rant). Bloomberg has been a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent, Bloomberg supports Obama’s economic plan, at least aspects of it, and I happen of trust the guys judgement on economics. There are certain people out there who are change agents, it’s a trendy term sure, but it’s the best way I can put this. Certain people simply know how to allow for positive change, not to stand in the way or be more important than the change (something I believe Hillary would do constantly), but to guide, to listen, to react and to have interests above their own personal gain. Hillary Clinton has now “invested” 11 million of her own money into her campaign, do you really think she isn’t doing this for the future “benefits”?

I was a huge proponent of John McCain, I think he is one of these people who have the better good above their own personal gain, I was fully behind him a few years ago… and then he went crazy. He started to make statements based on making his party happy, he latched on to ideas just to get their support, he lost a little of his identity. Sure it was probably necessary, but he lost a lot of respect in my book, he pulled a John Kerry. I did not vote for Kerry, so you know who I voted for, it wasn’t very easy. The real thing that killed Kerry in my eyes was seeing how passionate and ready to lead he was in old film footage from Vietnam. He was absolutely inspiring, then somewhere along the line he became a puppet.

Am I contradicting myself a lot? Probably. Didn’t I just talk about how Obama isn’t set on his decisions and is willing to listen? There is a difference between a puppet, a rational, listening leader and an egomaniac. The two extremes are what we keep having to chose between, and frankly I’m tired of it.

Where am I even going with this? Well, here is the thing. Sometimes the best judgement we can make on a person is the first judgement, it’s instincts. Sometimes I meet people for the first time and get this bad feeling about them, every time it has been accurate. Voting for someone because their movement moves us isn’t wrong. Yes we should be careful not to be misled, yes we should educate ourselves with what we are getting excited about (thankfully Obama has a handy little blueprint on the matter), yes it can be a fine line whether we are being ignorant or just believe in a person… these things have been at issue for Politics since the Roman Empire.

An amazing person said something to me about morality recently. I think it really sums up the approach we should take on politics as well…

Amazing Anonymous Person

Morality… it’s all crap because different things are good and bad to different people.

There is no defined right way, there is no solution that will please everyone. The way to lead this country is to understand that, to be able to have all these different, unique persons trust and to lead in good faith. The kind of person that can prove they can do that, shouldn’t need much more than the first impression and it shouldn’t matter what party they associate themselves with.

We are tired of the typical Democrat, we are tired of the typical Republican, we are tired of typical Politics. People don’t simply like Obama because he is different, people need Obama because he is different.

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In fact, I think I am gonna start manually combining my daily digests into a weekly one. It’s a bit of work, but I think it will keep the blog cleaner for the long run. Anyone wanna talk me out of this?

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27 year-old Mike Phillips lives with his Mother, and deals with all the same issues a child living under the parents roof go through. Rebellion, Dependency, Disagreements, Control all play a part in Mike’s story. The one factor we never had to go through is Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which has slowed the normal move into Independency to a crawl. SMA keeps Mike confined to a wheelchair, keeps him from communicating normally, keeps him from truly being his own person.

This whole thing sounds incredibly depressing, but it isn’t, at all, it is one hundred percent inspirational, is is hilarious, it is motivating. A few years ago Mike wouldn’t have had much of a future, but technology has advanced faster than the disease can take him, and even though he has numerous near death experiences a year he lives a (sort of) normal life. Just the way Mike speaks of these near death experiences is what truly makes you realise how different his life is. He is so accepting of them, he has thrown in the towel to the fact they are always there. Literally this man could die at any instant and yet he finds the time to enjoy his life, to rebel, to love, to do so many things we don’t.

I said something there about Mike speaking, I should have been more clear, Mike cannot speak. Mike has to click words into a computer (Apple, of course) to communicate with people, the words are then spoken by a computerized voice. The host, Ira Glass, realises how impersonal this whole computer voice is and and asks whom he would like to sound like, if he could pick any person in the world. Mike suggests either Edward Norton or Johnny Depp, “Because they’re both badasses”. A few minutes later, Glass narrates, “Ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Depp”.

This was the point it hit me like a load of bricks, where I realised the breadth of this story. Hearing Johnny “freaking” Depp voice the words of Mike Phillips completely broke me, in the most amazing way. Everything clicked, the whole story was twisted in a way that you needed to see it, that this was the kind of story that needed a character the likes of Depp for you to understand. It’s what This American Life does best, it tells a story you might normally block out or brush off after a few moments, and it tells that it in such a way that it will never leave your mind.

I strongly recommend everyone watch this episode, I know it is replaying on Showtime most of this week, and probably on Showtime OnDemand shortly.

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Video by Tom Guilmette.

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A list of AT&T’s 71,000 hotspots can be found on AT&T’s site, including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Airports, and McDonald’s locations.

P.S. T-Mobile is for suckers.

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I believe what it does is take people’s Twitter’s from all over and randomly pulls in ones that use certain words in them. I still don’t know “what” Twitter is, but if I ever find out, I might think this is really amazing or something.

This might kill 2 minutes of your day, that you would otherwise spend thinking about some past love, some failed relationship, some bad decision, some moment lost. For that, you should thank me. Speaking of loves lost, the new Augustana is out today and contains a great song titled “I Still Ain’t OVer You”, if the whole me distracting you thing fails, just listen to this song and relish in your non-over-ness of said love.

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Apparently (and according to their subscribe-able calendar) on April 17th, the Boston Red Sox played 3 games… on 2 coasts. I guess that whole 4 season openers in/on; 4 cities, 4 coastlines, 3 countries thing wasn’t enough for them. Usually I think a doubleheader is tough enough, but the BoSox are better than that.

The (currently, though not on April 17) last place Padres could only muster up enough energy to play one game, which they probably lost, because no one on the team is aware that hitting the ball over the outfield fence automatically scores a run.

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Next up, the decision on the Democratic nomination, live from Gladiator Arena.

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I have 2 allegiances in baseball, Padres and Red Sox, and I had already found my way to Dodger Stadium to support the BoSox in their exhibition game, so last Friday we decided to see Peavy v. Penny and support the Pads. Left field bleachers, no Padres hats present, Kyle, Liz and myself. There we were minding our own business, cheering for our team, witnessing countless Padres fans heckled, assaulted with peanuts, popcorn, seeds, soaked with beer, etc. Granted these fans were a little more outspoken, and finally each one at some point had enough and started throwing things back or yelling back, and every one of them was kicked out. What about the 30-40 Dodger fans who started the whole ordeal? Oh, they were fine, no need to stop that kind of behaviour in the stands.

I really was shocked, I had dealt with some obnoxious Dodger fans at moments in the old days of The Murph, I guess I just expected that to be the exception, not the rule. It is definitely the rule. The Dodger organization apparently supports this kind of behaviour and does not care about the fans of opposing teams and their right to enjoy a ballgame. The Dodger organization is a classless lot, which is probably why their fans like them.

We sat in the front of a section, Dodger fans behind us, it started out quite friendly and the guy directly behind me realised we knew baseball and we had some good fun talking a little trash with a known and vocalized respect that it was all in the fun of the game. I love trash talking, it’s encouraged, but at the end of the day, when the game is over, let’s go have a beer and laugh about whichever of our teams sucked the worse, it’s just a game. So this guy had a couple friends with him, they were apparently die hard fans (whom later told me they didn’t even like the Dodgers, and only came because of a free ticket) who refused to let any sort of friendliness exist with Padres fans. They decided the best way to act was to constantly talk trash and heckle while their team was losing.

Soon they realised we didn’t really care about what they had to say, and if they were gonna annoy us they had to step it up, so they did. Next thing you know I have a guy pulling up my hood. Is this 4th grade? Is this really happening? I shrug it off, whatever, we have style and grace they lack. The Padres continue with the monster 4th inning which seems to seriously upset said Dodger fans. Now they have moved on to poking us in the back, now mind you the main offender was already warned to stop causing trouble earlier when he was throwing seeds at people, so I turn around and tell the guy that if he touches me again, I’ll tell security he is back to throwing seeds at people and there happens to be a huge pile right behind me that will dispute his surefire response to not having anymore seeds, of course since it’s 4th grade he pokes me in the back once I turn around.

So then I turn and glare, and this guy thinks it’s a good idea to touch my face, now I know how this stuff works, he wants me to hit him, but I’d rather introduce him to the full face wipe, and then it gets a little heated and out of precaution Kyle restrains me. So I walk over to security, let them know the guys behind us are “poking and touching us the whole game” (yes, definitely the creepiest thing I have said in a while) and that I want them thrown out. So security takes them out, for 10 minutes, and then lets them back in. Wait, what? Yeah, apparently they just needed a time out. Well knowing these guys behaviour and track record you can bet they didn’t just calm down after almost being kicked out. Instead they tried to plot what they would do to us once they got their chance.

The main flaw in trying to plan an attack on people sitting right in front of you, is that they are right in front of you. I heard every word, and was planning my counter attack. My counter attack was brilliant and mostly involved ducking and shoving him down the stairs. I spent the rest of the game waiting for these guys to jump out of their seat and try to hit me, it was a really great way to enjoy a Padres victory. They stayed seated because a couple of LAPD had posted up near our section, joining the security a few feet away from us. I was even more excited for the assault now, knowing I would get to press charges, but eventually the officers decided to walk across to the opposite end of the bleacher, and conveniently the security guard left too.

The chatter of their plans grew more intense, and I kept an eye turned towards the main offender. Kyle and I exchanged some glances that ensured we were on the same page. During one of my looks back, the third rabble-rouser who was very intoxicated decided to show me the knife he had. He pulled it out of his pocket, and gave me a look that wasn’t very welcoming. I’ve never been in a knife fight, and I imagine they aren’t like the ones in Westside Story, I imagine this guy is the sort to let his friends start a commotion and slip in and stab somebody in the middle of it all.

So to make sure we are all up to speed, the Dodger fans behind us, who were only there because of free tickets, who had already been kicked out for their behaviour, but then were allowed back in, who were also allowed in with a knife, were behind us plotting their attack. After 2 outs in the ninth, we left, I turned around to the 2 sober ones and said “guys, it’s only a game”, extended my hand to them and left.

Thanks for the great night of baseball Los Angeles.

Interested in the Dodger Stadium code of conduct? I wonder if anyone who works there has ever read that?

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For the record, I still have no idea what this all means.

Edit: I added the Twitter feed to my “live” section, I think… and if you have a Twitter let me know the goods, I’m a 1 at this.

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Coming soon, a blog about why I hate Dodger Stadium and the events that lead up to it. You might think that this blog is a violation of “no blog weekend”, however I wrote this on Monday, just to throw you off.

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I go shopping for yogurt and bread buy way too many things decide that I need to go green and buy reusable bags because they will fit more in them and completely forget yogurt, schedule servicing for the Mini, wearing the Persol’s constantly, wandering through art stores, driving laps at the Long Beach airport, watching the Discovery channel all day expanding my knowledge on Egypt, drinking wine on a Tuesday night, keeping secrets, drinking wine on a Monday night, being politically active on the internet, not being shocked when people say they will call and don’t, missing people, dealing with an insane 2 day window graphic installation at work, adding icons to my iPhones home screen, realising I suddenly have a Converse “collection”, cleaning out the freezer, wondering what percentage of people use Q-Tips for the proper use which is not cleaning your ear canals, missing the entire final four save for the last 2 minutes of the championship game and lastly, offending the French.

None of that is in chronological order, so just enjoy it as the pile of letters it is and move on.

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A lot of people find iPhone versions of websites to be odd, dividing and others think it’s just the trendy version of a mobile site. I agree that it’s strange the fact that a device with the best (and most compatible) mobile browser available is responsible for a boom in optimising for specific devices, it’s ironic of course. However what a lot of people miss in this whole iPhone optimized craze, is that these versions enable the end user to do more (and spend more time on the site) through increased functionality and cross-tasking with the iPhone OS.

Thus, I bring my list of my favourite iPhone optimised websites (I left out the so-called “webapps” because they aren’t an iPhone version of an existing site):
1. Facebook – This borders between “webapp” and optimised site, but it blows away everything else and was one of the first. I am sure come June this will transform into a Facebook App on the iPhone, but for now, this takes the cake.
2. Google Grand Prix – This started out as a Google employee’s own personal project, and once the people at “The G” saw how brilliantly it ties together all the Google App Suite (Search, GMail, Reader, Calendar, et al) it was quickly green-lit for release.
3. Media Temple – Add email addresses on the go, Reboot the server upon a random crash at 11PM on a Friday night, et al. Probably not things very many of you need in your life, but for me this is a must.
4. Digg – Every few weeks I run into someone who JUST heard about Digg. It’s never ceases to amaze me. For all those who don’t know Digg, you should, and you should also know I’m addicted to it.
5. CBS News – CBS News recently became my favourite source for news, because of this really well done iPhone version. All the news that’s fit to touch.

Honorable Mention:
Trustkill Records – I recently got an email about this from a friend of mine at a label, along with asking my thoughts on it. I summed it up by saying it’s brilliantly well done, but I just don’t feel a record label website has the kind of readership to necessitate an iPhone version. They do a great job tying it into all the iPhone can do (iTMS, YouTube, etc.). Personally, I wouldn’t find myself on this site multiple times on my iPhone, but for those that would, you get quite the experience.

If I were to include websites who have a mobile version, and said mobile version includes an iPhone icon (for saving to your home screen), this list would also include The New York Times, and The LA Times. However these sites are just general mobile versions that look stellar on the iPhone and take advantage of only some of the iPhone technology. My criteria for a full iPhone optimization was basically that links were not just text, but utilize the entire graphical area (yes I’m aware of how little sense this makes to anyone that doesn’t use an iPhone, deal).

Have any to add, think I made bad choices? “Talk to me Goose”.

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A little excerpt for your enjoyment:

Daily Kos

Obama, and his campaign, are committed to bringing about change. They are doing this in both large and small steps. Refusing my money is a small step, but it spoke volumes to me. It showed me Obama means what he says and backs it up with action. It shows me that no detail is to small and that his organization is top notch. It strengthened my commitment to see him elected President.

I guess I just can’t use my money to do it:).

p.s.: As a side note, last year my spouse had set up automatic monthly payments to Hillary (nothing big $10/month) but after switching to Obama, had to battle with the Clinton campaign to cancel the automatic payment. I find it ironic that one campaign won’t take my money, the other won’t give it back!

Things like this remind me why we need someone who doesn’t have the “experience” (read: isn’t corrupt, jaded and biased; isn’t loyal to the old ways, run by big business, only worried about their legacy) to be President. Things like this make me soooo prObama.

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Check out the rest over at his MySpace as well as some great pop hits.

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Brandon drove separately because they had to stop in Van Nuys (read: he doesn’t know Dodger Stadium isn’t south of Van Nuys), and once they finally got there a lovely time of heckling Yankee fans (seriously why do they show up to Dodger v. Red Sox and Angels v. Red Sox games?) and trying to convince Planet Man Ram that he didn’t need to worry about the game. Manny was focused though, and played a solid outfield for 4 innings (read: he didn’t have one ball hit to him).

I tried to convince the concession lady to put duct tape (or scribble with a Sharpie) over the Dodger’s logo on the Souvenir cup, she wouldn’t so I went with a small beverage and a Red Sox dog (there are somethings you will never do, and I won’t support the Dodgers even in my ordering habits). Cocoa Crisp made 2 terrible plays out of routine flies in center, to show us all why he lost the starting job to Ellsbury, and later showed us all why he is great trade bait as he caught one while diving into the wall.

Buchholz drove his pre-season ERA to >9, while I refused to make eye contact with, while berating, the Silverlake girls in front of us.

Dialogue With Silverlake Girl

Her: Why is every Boston fan so grumpy?
Me: I’ll throw ice at you.
Her: I think you need a beer.
Me: I think you need a shower.

It was an absolutely lovely day at the game, and even though the Sox failed to score a run, we left the day happy, because, after all, the Sox are in first place.

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London Map Table

Steel Coffee Table

Exploded Coffee Table

London Street Sign Table

In conclusion, what is Etsy? I dunno, but it has some great tables.

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Kyle, my flatmate, had the brilliant idea of a little drunken Rock Band’ing on a Tuesday night. He got this idea at Yard House Happy Hour, I obliged. I had a lot of catching up to do, so upon my arrival it was pretty much beer in hand for the rest of the night, on one occasion it was 2 beers in hand and being thankful for mic stands. So we began the rock, I believe the first song I sang I got a 67% on. Basically that means it was horrible, I have no recollection of what song it was. By 9PM we were both good and buzzed, and performing at a level unknown to most. 199% on Blink (it’s possible, when your guitarist fails at the outro of the first 100% run through of the song), 100% on Wonderwall, even >90% runs on Black Sabbath. We were legends, we were being considered for Hall of Fame status, and then it happened.

Kyle Davidson

“How cool would it be if James Van Der Beek just came over?”

There you have it Ladies and Gentleman, the strangest words ever uttered.

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You tell me, if this isn’t the Cloverfield monster, what is it?

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Recently in the village of Los Angeles the FSM marketing has started up. It’s absolutely brilliant, and I have heard quite a few people talking about how they had no idea what it was until they saw one of the ads and checked it out. That’s what marketing is supposed to do right, expand the potential target market? Anyway, the transit marketing consists of signs that say things like, “My Mom always hated you Sarah Marshall”, “I’m so over you Sarah Marshall”, and my personal favourite “You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall” (Ed. Note: Kristen Bell is perfect, so this one is a little hard bit unrealistic).

Thursday as I was driving over to work from the home of one “Young Beverly Hills Adjacent”, after another amazing evening night at the Stone Rose where the game of “Beezerays” was invented, I snapped a pic of another one of the transit ads. Remind me to tell you about “Beezerays”, it’s a fun game, and strangely fun for Men AND Women, which is weird once you find out the game. I have been told that this game may only work in the greater metropolitan ares, so you may have to adapt it for your own use, and remember be polite.

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So the Daily Mail, decided to run this.

I’m sort of speechless about the whole thing. Speechless that they decided that was a good article, and even more speechless that those were the best images they could have created for them.

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Damion Suomi – Ghost

You might also want to consider that my Saturday night hijinks involved some Jameson on the rocks (along with a few Glenfiddich’s on the rocks to start things off) and way too much musical reflection and geek-ing out over Squeeze, photo poses of the modeling varietal and the “weird things you do at a bar” assortment, Ivy leagues, way too much use of the word “pensive” and some other amazing moments I don’t yet fully remember so drinking songs are definitely rocking the playlist right now. I will leave you with an amazing quote from Saturday.

Tell

“I just had the drunkest moment of my life. I just looked over at that shamrock sign on the wall, and it started talking to me.”

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I dream for success, for a certain level of fame so I can ignore it all with humility, for some plaque somewhere to loosely honour something I was vaguely affiliated with. They dream of the pasts they never had, the futures they never hope come, and the now, which most certainly cannot be their reality. So they slouch it off as they drive on sidewalks, with reckless abandon. Their cars are electric wheelchairs, their every day is some quartered version of the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Sometimes they yell at you from the sidewalks, the sidewalks which you cannot dare co-exist on. This is their town, they saw it broken, and it’s phoenix like rise will on day push them out, and only their stories told to switched off ears will remember how they went out kicking and screaming. They are there buying scratchers with change, every day buying scratchers with change. They have to play to win, and they need a few more addictions.

I have spent time with a few, the shoeless one, who always sprinted into my vicinity to ask for money after I foolishly handed out twenties one day. He used to live around here, his shoes are probably still there, his ex-girlfriend is still there, she is the one who got him thrown in jail. He grew to recognize my truck, I sold my truck, after several rebuttals of lies that I had no cash our friendship was renewed. He was moving on, he had found a job, he was finally getting back to where he had been on the edge of this place. He was never one of them at all.

They, being them, are a friendly lot mind you. They often wander up to use your shower, which is perfectly acceptable in what this town once was. Now it’s gates that actually lock half of the month, and intercom systems legible to all but without any connection to my name. Sometimes they even interact with you in an attempt to embrace the new, as I scouted out the location of the rest of us one of them saw me, and he answered back. I never asked him anything, but he answered “I’m doing good my man, keep on”. And you wonder if he felt like I was intimidated by him, like the new was scared the old would somehow violate the reality that he exists in. I never said a word.

I saw a man walking down the sidewalk at 4 AM, plain as can be, like he belonged there, like it was his normal stroll into the office, like it wasn’t 4 AM at all. It was, and it was bright as day at 4 AM, and I have no idea why this man was out, but I have no idea why I was awake to watch this through the window. They dream of things I was disappointed by, of things I forgot about, of things I wasted. They dream about things that I would never desire, they should never dream to be me.

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British philosophy journal Time and Mind

Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

I’m not defending the idea that maybe everything in the Bible isn’t exactly how it seems. I am a huge supporter of painting with a broader brush, when it comes to religious texts, and I think there are a lot of writings and unknowns out there that can enhance and strengthen the foundation the Bible says. However, this little theory is just a little too speculative and fact-less for my liking (and I love conspiracy theories).

The story gets better when you find out that Benny Shanon is an expert. An expert of what exactly?

MSNBC

Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the affects of the ayahuasca plant, having “partaken of the … brew about 160 times in various locales and contexts.”

So now the whole thing just becomes funny, would we listen to an addict tell us how Washington’s crossing of the Delaware was really a fabrication they came up with while high in an opium den? The most glaringly odd part of this article is the title “Was Moses high on Mount Sinai?”, because from everything presented in the article itself the only thing the theory even discusses is that the people who witnessed the event may have had hallucinations, not Moses himself.

Kudos, MSNBC, your journalistic integrity is at an all time low. I actually had to check several times upon reading this article that I hadn’t accidentally wound up on The Onion’s website.

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David Letterman

“What if those snakes over there in New Jersey decide to attack us?”

It’s nice to finally have New York’s Governor a bigger joke than (not) my Governor.

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The Interstate system was developed by Eisenhower, and this lovely illustration of the system that I recently came across was put together by Chris Yates.

To clarify one thing, the 15 doesn’t really go into Los Angeles, not sure where this dude gets his info, but it goes all the way to San Diego, and never really comes close to it’s downtown either. Moral of this lesson, the 15 isn’t fun.

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However, I had never seen someone claim to be able to move you away from the top results, let along move only certain results related to you down the line. That all changed today with Complaint Remover, which claims to “stop defamation by positioning links on the Search Engines and by appeals to law to remove negative information”.

If that isn’t the most hilarious thing in and of itself, The Consumerist decided to have some fun with Complaint Remover and defend the freedom of the internets, and cat breeders.

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Life is never in the now, what it will be later, save a few rare moments where everything doubles back on itself and you use words like “epiphany” or “realisation”. This is another forced attempt to remember that whatever is happening now is far better than I think it is, and I think it’s just fine.

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If you peruse these archives, you will find; early morning drives, Cheetah conservation, vague reminiscing, 11 o’clock news play-by-play, a reminisce vaguely worded, run-on sentences, moments, earlier morning drives (at the end of a roadtrip), and surely a lot of poor grammar.

If you are interested in my more literary type endeavours, this would be your gin.

* I totally made this up, I am quite capable of wiki’ing “blog” and “knowing” it was created earlier, but that would be boring and predictable.

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I had every intention of this blog being more about my life and what I am currently doing, than being the randomness it is. I had all these intentions, but then realised I am kind of boring. You would get all these posts like; “I worked today, then I came home and watched One Tree Hill, then I fell asleep at 10:20″, would have been this Tuesday’s post.

So, all that being said… Would it be better if I posted less (and only about the things I do/think/feel) or kept posting regularly (and include random things I find worthy of passing along)?

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You can find a full write up about Google’s move over at msnbc.com, but here is a brief pull:

MSNBC

“How do you communicate as a homeless individual? ” Newsom asked. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can’t even get information or if someone can’t even get in touch with you?”

“It just seems exactly like any other voice mail,” said Craig Walker, senior project manager of Google. “There’s no stigma attached to it that ‘hey this is a temporary thing’ or ‘this is an 800 number.’ It’s really just a local number owned by the user.”

One man who used to be homeless said the right message can raise the spirit.

“Having your family, friends and loved ones being able to say ‘here I’m thinking about you, I love you, I want you to know you’re mine, and I miss you,’ can have a monumental change in one’s behavior.”

Well done Google, Well done Mayor Newsom.

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I’m not so much speaking of one person literally. What I mean by that is that of course there was one of these certain things relating to one specific person that drove me to this point, so yes I am speaking of one person, literally, but also I am not. You see, lately the frequency of these moments is speeding up, and they aren’t always about that one person or any one person at all, I can assure you that, probably. Surely some of this had to do with the self-induced nostalgia (read: torture) of my musical choices the last week or so, so those moments did not surprise me in the least bit, in fact they were welcomed. The surprising moments came in the coincidental actions that came complete with one free, hit you in the face, trip down memory lane.

It is this sort of this lumped up ball of memories and emotions from all things past that has been constructed like some hybrid of a rubber band ball and dust bunny. It can’t be explained, but here I am explaining away. It is refreshing and amazing and all kinds of words that would be used to describe an unexpected welcomeness, really it is.

For those who think I write in cryptic, changes make only the end of refreshing moments. For those that think this is about them, it very well may be; and realise it is no less flattering to find out that it isn’t only about you, it only makes it less creepy. For those that think it’s about 14 February, it is not; for those that think it’s about today, it is.

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What really did it for me was one day after many conversations with many Windows users comprising of this automatic intense defense of their OS. It suddenly clicked with me, I was just that same way (only on the offensive), and it’s annoying. Anyone discussing anything who has to sell something that hard and make ravenous remarks has some serious insecurities. So I gave up, I would still always subtly slide in any pro Apple remark where I could, but it had to be applicable and rational, it would be only to educate and inform. I think this same “maturing” of the “Apple fan boy” has taken place on a wider scale with most others as well, and now you see a more confident Apple supporter, who doesn’t sink to kicking Windows users while they are down.

So can the same be said for Windows users? Did they give up on their hyper defensive stance? Have we all matured together to realise some people are okay with driving a minivan (is it at least a turbo charged minivan, with a cool number 18 decal on the side? No?), and the rest of us want something more sporty with a better design aesthetic and a functionality that is so simple, yet so forward? The answer lies on the internets friends, and it’s looking like the answer is “No”.

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How To Flirt

My thoughts upon first viewing:
1. “Hi” is a pick up line?
2. Being from Long Island is a “big red circle with a line through it”.
3. Shouldn’t a video that will be posted online about “how to flirt”, just show some guy and girl “MySpacing” and “AIMing” back and forth? Such as?
4. Talk about Butterflies, but then rub your arm all seductively. What?
5. Step 6: Alcohol?!?
6. “If a persons feet are facing you, he or she is interested”. Does this rule apply to all moments in life? Sweet.
7. So you shouldn’t touch a guy below the belt, but kissing him within 5 minutes is perfectly acceptable?
8. Was that even her wine?

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In psychology, emocentrism is defined as a) the incomplete attachment of the self to the emotions of songwriters, ignoring ones own actual emotions and thought and b) the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world through the emotional writings of others as they apply to the self. The term derives from the Greek emô, meaning “bangs over the eyes.” An emocentric person has no theory of emotional individuality, cannot help but “put himself in everybody else’s shoes,” and believes everyone feels what he and Chris Carrabba feels (or that what he understands about the music in some way exceeds what others understand.)

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John Corcoran

“When I was a child I was just sort of just moved along, when I got to high school I wanted to participate in athletics. At that time in high school I went underground. I decided to behave myself and do what it took. I started cheating by turning in other peoples’ paper, dated the valedictorian, and ran around with college prep kids.”

Some might call this a failure of our educational systems for this man to be allowed to go through and teach children while being illiterate; I call this a failure of our educational systems for allowing someone who clearly could apply himself (granted by unjustful means) to “success” no matter what. A lot of times those who struggle with these sort of things wind up down a much darker path so I think it should be celebrated that a guy who struggled, who had to cheat to make it, wound up figuring out a way he could make a huge impact on youth and prevent this from happening to other young persons.

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#27356
Singing “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” at karaoke when the only words you know are the title of the song, is never a good idea.

#81279
Upon the bridge of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, when executing “The Move” (you know the one), try limiting your knee slide to under 5 feet in length to avoid a sudden lack in epidermis on your knee.

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I was in a program in Elementary that was called “GATE”, I have no idea what it meant, but it was about as elitist a program as you could find. I was once informed by one of my “GATE” teachers that I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I had friends in my classes sure, but my real best friends were two boys who were by no means any less intelligent than I, and by all means applied themselves less and caused more trouble. I was told not to hang out with them anymore, me age 10, being told that my friends were not good enough for me. I grew up with those two in my life for many more years, had amazing memories made with them, and still have contact with them to this day.

In High School it was less about the system telling me point blank what I should do, and more about them telling everyone what we shouldn’t do. Over my years I witnessed headwear being banned, girls being told their straps on their tank tops weren’t thick enough, and oh by the way, anything sexy or attractive about the opposite sex will distract us from our tasks (me, personally, I always tried to impress the cute girls with my knowledge and charm). I took up the cause of thousands of other kids who sat in a class where they already knew everything in the text book when I refused to stay in my Calculus class (after being moved out of the Advanced Placement Calculus class at the first half of the semester for having a C).

In college it was me, in Oral Communications, refusing to do outlines for my speeches, because I simply didn’t need them to give speeches that were only graded B’s because of said lack of outline. It was me in Image Manipulation sticking up for the random kid who was getting butchered in review by one sole person for absolutely no reason. It was me in Digital Illustration refusing to use layers; having to correct the teachers lecture errors until I finally left the class. It was me in Drawing & Perspective refusing to shade the boring pieces of fruit; turning in a series of handgun illustrations on velum complete with red spray paint splatter and packaged in a “decon” mailing envelope. It was me in a constant battle with my AD over me; taking classes “out of order”, testing out of classes and dealing with grading injustices. It was me again, in my last stand, fighting against an automatic fail in my Law class (which was due to me missing too many classes, because my Mother was in the hospital).

Growing up today I would be driven insane by some of the control placed over kids and young adults; uniforms at school (though honestly I kind of wish I had to wear slacks and a sweet blazer every day), classrooms split up by gender, arts and music disappearing from the classroom, test scores being the only sign of progress. I mean look at how I shrug off “proper” grammar and “conventional” writing styles alone, I have become a monster. It is all this that has been brought into my mind by reading about the plight of one young man who it seems pretty evident is cast in a similar mold to my own. It’s a story more people should hear and care about. Taking away the freedoms of our youth, to me, is even more of a travesty than taking away the freedoms of a grown adult. We have a voice, we can vote, who will will speak for the youth?

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While you are getting ready, do yourself a favour and grab a pair of Stronger Shades (Okay they are sold out, you can find some on the bay though are back in stock).

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Notable about this film is that a large portion of the music is by El Ten Eleven (with some The Album Leaf thrown in for good measure). El Ten Eleven is a band Kyle discovered a few years ago at some random show that is comprised of two men who loop guitars on the fly in unbelievable ways, and were the rhythm section of The Incredible Moses Leroy, whom I was quite fond of, whom were last performing as The Soft Lighties. Did you get all that?

David Carson also did the movie poster for the film, and guess what font he didn’t use? Helvetica of course, gotta admit that whole unpredictable thing is getting rather predictable. Anyway, you can now view the entire film right here, in this post. Go grab some popcorn, we will wait for you.

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I think the best description of what to expect of this film was by Abrams himself:

JJ Abrams on Cloverfield

“A Cameron Crowe movie meets ‘Godzilla’ meets ‘Blair Witch Project’…”

I absolutely love a movie filled with characters whom you see parts of yourself in, even their darker moments, and this movie does that to me in a way I haven’t experienced since “The Rules Of Attraction”. It’s innovative in a myriad of ways (amazingly so), but it’s backed up by the solid foundational elements most big budget films miss. This is the sort of genre shifting film that shows Hollywood; there are more talented actors out there than the regular big name stars they shove down our throats, there are more talented thinkers, writers and producers out there who still want the art of cinema to evolve, CGI and effects don’t have to be the main focus of a shot and can seamlessly fit with the live footage.

If you haven’t yet seen it, you need to; if you have already seen it, geek out over Slusho, jamieandteddy.com, and Tagruato and call me up for Round 2.

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Amongst the things you will find here are Facebook status, Last.fm recently played, and Flickr photos. Hopefully it provides a little more insight into my days/nights.

The launch last night included me attempting to photo blog Kyle’s birthday extravaganza at Stingaree. So check that out if your interested.

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Two Wheels

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Gregg Doyel wrote a fantastic piece about Rivers over at CBS Sportsline which I highly recommend reading. Doyel knows Rivers a bit more than the casual columnist as he covered Rivers college days at NC State.

Rivers’ honesty refreshing, but many don’t want to hear it

“This is one of the more fun guys in the NFL. He’s everything we say we want in a professional athlete. He talks to the media and says what’s on his mind. He shows unscripted emotion on the field. He pumps his fist and flaps his gums. He’s a professional football player, and you can tell how much fun he’s having.

And so we bitch and we gripe. Why? Because Rivers isn’t like everybody else. Never mind that we’ve already bitched and griped about athletes who are boring and talk in clichés and act aloof and seem to be playing for nothing more than a paycheck. Like Eli Manning. Never mind that we resent those guys for making football look like a miserable burden.

Here comes Philip Rivers, and he has some nerve — he’s nothing like those guys! Who does he think he is?” …

… “Philip Rivers isn’t like any of them. You know who he’s like? He’s kind of like us.”

This really couldn’t describe any more perfectly why I root for the guy. After he got drafted by the Chargers I started to hear some of the stories about his intensity and passion for the game, along with the fact that in 4 starting years he was the MVP of 5 bowl games, and you sort of got the feeling that this guy just loves football. When he steps out on the field he is the ultimate competitor and pours every ounce of everything he has into the game. Sure sometimes this backfires and he gets too pumped up and he throws a ball 4 feet over a WR’s head, sure the guy is still young and has a lot left to prove.

Rivers acts exactly the way I did when I played sports; talking all the way, stirring the rivalry and competition, loving every minute on the field. It’s perhaps why I relate so well to the guy, and why I find it so shocking that other sports fans don’t realise this guy is playing the exact same way they would. The truly refreshing thing about Rivers is that when it’s all over on the field, the switch turns off, and it stays there until the next time he steps out in competition.

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The Echo Park Time Travel Mart is a fun little shop full of trinkets and empty packages spouting clever words on their packaging. All of the proceeds go to support 826LA and it’s programs, and this clever little store will surely have something worth picking up and making your boring house more interesting. Jordan and I chose “Robot Emotions”, because, well, because, who doesn’t love an emo robot?

Anyway, the event was absolutely wonderful, in an absolutely amazing space, with absolutely more impressive people than me. I decided to post a couple pictures showing just how amazing this event was (the fireplace in this room literally blows my mind, I mean that literally, like the proper use of it), and if any of you fair persons should be able to locate Jordan and myself in the photos, there will be some sort of prize. Of course with any internet based contest, there are rules. The rules are; people who are named Jordan Percy, Brandon Chamberlain, Lindsay Strannigan, Edward Norton, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera, Jenny Lewis, Spike Jonze and David Eggers are exempt from winning any prizes. Sorry.

Photos courtesy of Andy Barron:

Hint #1: Jordan and I are class acts.
Hint #2: Jordan and I were being stalked by a girl in a red dress, though I’m not sure if that is really pertinent to the photos.

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The rain and clouds provided quite the ambiance to add to the ridiculously high energy at “The Q” and I loved every minute of it.

The fabled Jordan Percy was present for said activities, and even led an expedition up Mount Ikea-Shortcut-To-The-Trolley. Jordan also has pirate facial hair currently, inspired by one Jack Sparrow, you should check it out.

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Well here I am, a few days late, letting you all know my dream of a lovely minimalist blog is now pretty much reality. I stole a ton of code from random people who probably hate me, I got my dreams of minimalism after realising how perfect of a website McSweeney’s is for them, I even added Google AdSense (get excited). I figured a new year is always a good time for a fresh look, though this one will probably stick around for a while.

Enjoy yourselves, whoever it is that actually reads this thing, I thank you for thinking I am worth directing your browser of choice to my little piece of the Internet.

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Here are my addictions of 2007. Some I am speculating I will be, eventually, addicted, or I am addicted to the idea of liking it, or I like something about someone involved, or I almost knocked the author down a few weeks ago. I have really high standards for these sort of things.

Albums (Completely Consumed Me In A Wall Of Sound):

Songs (That Required Way To Much Use Of Repeat), Amongst Spectacular Albums:

Best Album Artwork/Packaging (I’m A Sucker For A Complete Package):

Books (You Can Buy All These Here):

Films (Not, Movies):

Television (Trendy People Say It Rots Your Brain, They Also Heard That Hanging Out All Day On The Internet):

Video Games (Warning: I Am NOT One Of Those Elitist Gamers Who Play Obscure Games And Everything That Comes Out, Sorry My List Is Wrong And Missing All The Good Games):

Technology Devices (That Made My Life Better):

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I headed South to San Diego once again with a car full of luggage, presents and one Grandmother. It was an easy drive, and my Grandmother kept me entertained with some simply amazing stories. Then I got a phone call from my Sister. She was calling because she knew I would be heading over to my Mom’s and thought I should know she was not there but was in the Hospital. These Hospital trips are not quite the freak out they once were, as they happen every now and then to try to keep whatever ailment from getting to a threatening situation, but a welcomed holiday tradition they are not.

I did get to enjoy a lot of time over at my Sister’s house, which was lovely to see a lot of the baby niece, which was quite a positive side effect. Christmas Eve was a whirlwind of some last minute shopping, Hospital visits and football. Christmas Day was food preparation, more Hospital visits, being late places, amazing presents, leaving early, last minute wine runs, cooking for 10, doing dishes forever and a finale at the Hospital. Finally the day after Christmas the doctors said my Mom could come home, so we finished up the Holiday season by celebrating the last of Christmas a day late. It mattered little what day it was, it was just good to have a little normalcy to hold on to.

Twas not the ideal holiday season, but in a lot of ways it had a more lasting effect on me. I wish only that I could have seen more of my friends that reside in the city I grew up in; that I could have had more California burritos while I was there.

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For me, my platform was unsolicited physical junk mail. It kind of hilarious how everyone wants to go “green” and everyone is concerned with “Inconenient Truths”, well how about this truth; I get exactly 1.3 square miles of paper growing forest worth of junk mail in my mailbox every month (Note: That stat is completely made up). So you see, the real issue of our isn’t energy, taxes, or urban sprawl, it’s the USPS backed selling of our mailbox space.

Let me give you a little factual information here; you cannot opt out of Direct Mail Marketing/Pre-Sorted Mail, you cannot ask your mail carrier to not put it in your mailbox (even if it means your mailbox is full after one day)(Note: I do understand you can do this in Canada), you have to dig between coupons for things you don’t want and offers for even more credit cards to find your real mail.

Well today I discovered the first pillars of support for what will one day be my platform for office:
The Consumer Credit Reporting Companies opt-out website. This website lets you opt out of receiving Credit or Insurance offers which is at least a start. I am not yet sure how well it works, and to go permanent you have to print out, sign and mail in a form (lame, lame and lame), but at least you have a say in some of the mail you receive.

There are also some more options the Direct Marketers Association has made available via their website, however some require you paying, most don’t guarantee anything (just like the no not call list, really doesn’t help much with no way to enforce it) and there is some funny business with who pays for this “Association” to exist (word is the Direct Marketers themselves pay for this service so they can hit you with advertising you deem acceptable). For some, it may prove helpful.

Another great ally against the fight is the Center for Democracy & Technology (I am a huge fan of technology, this democracy thing I am not so sure about though). They dedicate a portion of their website to “Opting-Out”.

I firmly stand by that people should be pushing for a democracy where we don’t have to spend our own time and money trying to make companies respect their potential customers. If you have a good product, I probably know about it and I probably will be purchasing it soon. I do not need a mailbox full of things I won’t even look at. It’s a new world of marketing and there are much more effective and less destructive ways of gaining brand awareness.

Additionally I encourage everyone who is sick of these things to use the postage paid reply envelopes that these companies include to send them either; their own junk, other companies junk or slices of rotting fruit.

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Firstly, what made this girl so captivating? If you are a guy, and a guy who is into Apple, you totally were into her simple look, her being a ballerina, her using Apple. It was a great decision on Apple’s part because she is exactly the kind of girl you hope will randomly appear in your life to help with your addiction to Apple. Her website got a huge rush of traffic to it, which is weird because: why would people go to a “behind the tu-tu” ballet website? My excuse was that I have dated a ballerina or two, so I am allowed to revisit these things as some kind of healing process. Right, right? Anyway, the surprising thing is her website is pretty spectacular; Well designed, unique idea, loyal niche following (Sidenote: I am really into colons/semi-colons today, even if it means using them incorrectly). I feel like a lot of people visiting her site might have been drawn into it because of similar-to-my-own second hand ballet experiences; crushes on ballerinas, dreams of being a ballerina, crushes on the girl in the iPhone commercial who happens to be a ballerina. It’s a very interesting concept in a marketing sense. Could the NYCB could have paid for more exposure? Probably not, and kudos for realising her abilities and rewarding her with her new position.

The secondary cloud spinning in my head is about the story of her and her boyfriend. I’m sure this story crushed a few people hoping to somehow sweep Miss Sloan off her feet, but it in and of itself says so much about how our world has changed. I had no idea what dodgeball.com was, until this story. It looks interesting, but I am yet to cave into the world of telling everyone where I am at the time I am actually there (I much rather prefer hearing people tell me I was someplace I never was at). The truly interesting thing is the ease that this seemingly “everywoman” has of discussing meeting her boyfriend on, in simpler terms, the invisible world. I know people who have dated people they met online, I know some truly amazing people that I met through the Internet (in varying degrees).

It really makes you think of how you “meet” people, and people’s hang ups on meeting people in “non-traditional” ways. People still get caught up in admitting their significant other was once just a MySpace message, random IM, or fellow website visitor. I decided to mentally list out how I met the people in my life who make regular appearances (meaning I talk to them on a regular basis, stemming over years) to see where I fit in. The summary is that of 10-12 people who are regularly in my life I; met the one’s I am the closest to in a way not involving technology (unless going to college for graphic design counts), stay more in touch with the ones I can email/IM than those I have to call, only one of them was I ever “buying dinner” (those who know me well, know this is what I call the purgatory between full on dating and being friends) on a regular occasion, I have met people because of music websites and online video games who are now very good friends (such a dork).

What does all this tell us? That I am apparently not hip to the times. I utilise technology to meet new people and stay in contact with people I already know constantly, and don’t have many reservations about it. However, I still tend to be pretty “traditional” for as much of a tech-dork as I am. In reality, I think this world is changing, while staying the same. For people to have a lasting effect on us we need to see, hear, feel, smell and touch them, not just read them. I know for many the “invisible world” presents interaction in a more convenient way, and perhaps we find it just as convenient to walk away from people we meet that way.

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It was incredibly amazing to see Chad again and we always spend hours discussing the days of old, and how things used to be. It made me realise that we are both really happy to be where we are right now, no matter what trials come daily and what more is sure to come. I also have come to understand that Bank of America has way cooler ATM’s than WaMu. For those of you not in the know, Chad has a company called P is for Panda that is doing things different.

It is because of these earlier events that I announce my full fledged support for Vinyl, and eliminate buying cd’s if the vinyl comes with the digital downloads. I don’t know how I was missing out on this for so long, but I was. I’m addicted, and you should join me. Is Vinyl better for the environment or something? Maybe I can go green?

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Paris Hilton

“The elephants get drunk all the time. It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them.”

Next up for Miss Hilton is the terrible plight we have allowed to terrorize the Lemmings.

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My Sister (due to give birth to her first child at any moment) and her husband had to evacuate from their first house, which they moved into only weeks ago. From what I can tell the fire was as close as a few miles to their neighborhood, but all seems to have gone well. My Mother evacuated that same night, it would become mandatory the next day for her neighborhood, but things appear to be okay now there as well. The fire rages on though, to the northeast.

Four years ago we evacuated my Mom’s house, wearing scars of scratching cats as battle wounds, and expected our Cabin in Julian to be lost. Once again Julian is threatened, and the small back country (well as back country as something in California can be) town will come together and fight like mad to save itself. I lived in San Diego County for the first 24 years of my life, and only in the 24th did I ever have to evacuate or truly feel the imminent threat of what these fires could bring. I think wildfires to a lot of people are not as much the tragedy as an earthquake or hurricane, but the psychological effect I gather is much the same. And now evacuations have surpassed those of Katrina, the local government taking so much necessary caution by making people get out before it really became life threatening or impossible to evacuate. The loss of possession is tragic, but the reaction of leadership and sense of community is in a somber way encouraging.

I reflect upon these fires to the south because most of me still considers San Diego my home. It’s where I’m “from”, it’s where I never intended to leave. I have family and friends spread out across the county, and none have been safe from the threat one shift in flames could bring. That image up above (Photo Credit: Brad Filip), that is Encinitas, maybe 10 blocks from the Pacific Ocean. At one point in the week both major interstates heading north, and the one interstate heading east out of San Diego were closed because of the fires. I think that makes a statement the news has failed to show. Up here in Los Angeles county we get hours and hours of a Malibu fire that has destroyed or damaged 22 structures, meanwhile an entire metropolitan area to the south is an island in a sea of flames.

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Everything Bagels – I’ve been going back to an old friend here, and it’s making every day start out right.
Kanye West – Love everything this guy does, I think I once said I would vote for him for President. Well “Stronger” makes the fist clench, but “Homecoming” is my favourite off “Graduation”.
The Dresden – As in, The Dresden, from “Swingers”. We shall be there tonight actually, bring a suit.

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Wednesday I made my way to the Roxy in Hollywoodville to see Holiday Parade play their first LA show ever. Kate Beckensale and her family were even out to see the band. Underworld 3 soundtrack? Maybe. The show was great, and being able to finally spend some time with these guys was even better. I cannot stress enough what amazing people these guys are, talented musicians and class acts through and through. If you are able, catch their path around the States that we call a tour, Scotty their merch guy will honestly make your life 500 times better on his own. I took the following picture on Wednesday, I do things like this on occasion.

The real entertainment came after the show when we headed over to the after party for The Format’s show. Brandon Chamberlain was aces as usual, and I told Chavez I expect to see him out at the next march. I gave these two scholars a ride back to Long Beach because Brandon lost his car… and Lindsay… who was in his car… passed out… and no one could find her… or the car… sorry Linny.

Thursday was back at it again with the HP guys, this time in Santa Ana. The venue seemed newer (read: it was interesting) but the kids there sure do support the bands, good to see. We got in some great conversation at various times in the evening, and _____ (name witheld to protect further damage to his ability to pull) definitely stole the show with his stories of romance. His absolute finest moment came when he told us a story about how he had an “encounter” with a young lady who later went on to tell her sorority sisters that he wasn’t good in bed. What did _____ do to rebuke such claims? Tell the sisters that he just couldn’t get it up, of course.

I will basically miss anyone who currently resides in Georgia for the rest of the weekend. Thank you all.

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AP

An Iranian hard-line student group unveiled a new video game Monday that simulates an attempt to rescue two Iranian nuclear experts kidnapped by the U.S. military and held in Iraq and Israel.

The “Rescue the Nuke Scientist” video game, designed by the Union of Students Islamic Association, was described by its creators as a response to a U.S.-based company’s “Oregon Trail” game, which depicts an American attack on an Iranian nuclear facility. (Okay, I edited that… it’s really in response to “Assault on Iran”, but I envision this Iranian game being a lot like “Oregon Trail”.)

“This is our defense against the enemy’s cultural onslaught,” Mohammad Taqi Fakhrian, a leader of the student group, told reporters Monday.

If you are worried you can’t get your hands on a copy, have no fear…

AP

Fakhrian said his group was trying to market the video game first in Iran and other Muslim countries. But the group also has plans to bring the game, which comes on a CD for computers, to Western countries, he said.

… I honestly kind of expected a floppy disk release.

If you wonder what kind of people create such things…

AP

The game comes from the same student group that was behind the infamous “World Without Zionism” conference in 2005 where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

… remember how crazy that guy sounds when he opens his mouth, speaks Iranian, then someone translates him? Okay, I have to admit that pull quote is rather boring, I just wanted to bring up President Mahmoud “Crazy” Ahmadinejad. I miss the guy, what’s he been up to lately?

Since that pull quote sucked, this one will be twice as good…

AP

Ali Reza Masaeli, leader of the group that designed the new game, said it took three years for his technical team to produce it. The team was based in Isfahan, a city in central Iran that houses a nuclear site.

… three years? For a video game? …

AP

“It is an entirely Iranian product in response to the U.S. cyber war against Iran,” Masaeli said.

… well, looks like there is at least one war we are winning hands down, the “cyber war against Iran”. If it takes them three years to make a video game, are we really that worried about Nuclear Weapons?

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So after shopping we were driving home and began discussing playing Dashboard Confessional for various reasons I cannot confirm nor deny. I agreed with the selection as long as it was “Vindicated”, and Kyle stated that if that was off the new album he didn’t have it. When I informed him it was off the Spiderman 2 Soundtrack, he affirmed he didn’t have that either. Of course, not one to miss a perfectly set up moment I yelled out “iPod Emergency”, and with a few rips of velcro we had “Vindicated” flowing through the speakers. Now how that lead into “Screaming Infidelities” being sung at the top of our lungs, well that I just really can’t put my finger on.

The moral of this story is either “One iPod is never enough” or “Don’t mess with Access-ories”.

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The original search that directs people to me can be found here.

1) You all know my infatuation with Britons, and apparantley the UK translation of Cosmo (In Queens English, I assume) has some amazing message board topics. Don’t believe me? Here are my favourite pull quotes:

Svetlana

“Bite your lower lip slowly as if your trying to eat up some of the lip gloss off your lip. It drive them nuts!- Just don’t make it so obvious.”

Of course we start with a lip bite discussion, that is why we are here after all. I will add to all the hopeful rosebuds out there that “Svetlana” is benefitting highly from being named “Svetlana” and also from her accent (or maybe I created that in my head when I read “It drive them nuts!), how Russian.
Don’t worry we have more accents for you…

TrAr

“A bit of cheekiness is always good. A big smile with a tongue in cheek “so are you going to buy me a drink then?” always works a treat.”

I just love the Brits, they talk such a treat, but watch out guys girls with accents are…

Weeyin87

“Keep your shoulders straight and look confident, these wee subtle tips make u look more attractive. I fancied a guy for 4 years who was too old for me. I tried these things and he was mine!!! Dumped him the next week right enough but it was cool to finally get him.”

Heartbreakers.

2) Visualisation has always been one of those things that works better in those 80′s/90′s “teen-angst” films, you know where the guy/girl is at home before the moment they are gonna have their shot at the girl/guy who didn’t know they existed until 15 seconds ago? Be The Hot Chick is your key to visualisation, but be careful, your kid brother could walk in with the video camera right when you are practicing making out in the mirror. Oh, the naive:

Be The Hot Chick

“The really embarrassing scenario is when a girl acts too into him with “ooh, baby” eye contact or over-the-top hair-flipping and giggle “signals.” Other times, a girl will swing the other way because she’s secretly shy. So she’ll go for the hard-to-get aloof routine, basically behaving as if she hates the guy. These are amateur maneuvers, not snag-him strategies.”

Let me tell you how embarrassing it is when a girl actually shows interest and gives you signals, it’s an absolute breath of fresh air. Imagine actually letting a guy know you are into him as opposed to the “your friends, telling his friends at the ice skating rink, to tell him the next day, which is by coincidence a day after the last time you ever see him,” but maybe I’m still a little scarred by my experiences. Do not listen to these silly words about acting too into him, unless we’re not that into you, but you should have caught on by then. Am I the only one that read “swing the other way” and thought the mystery of “why girls think making out with other girls to get attention is a good idea” was finally going to be explained? Girls, remember you want to optimise your “snag-him strategy” so you can break up with him in a week.

Be The Hot Chick

“By boy-world definitions, when you’re nervous, no guy can really tell. Guys don’t know what shy looks like. They just remember whether or not you were nice or sweet or whatever. So, just fake it ’til you get past those first few edgy minutes, because you will get a grip. Try this: Gently bite the corner of your lower lip. It smarts enough to help you remember to breathe (which helps you to think, which helps you to relax), but is still quite cute and flirty.”

First of all guys can tell, and we like it when a girl is nervous, blushing is hot. Guys most often remember “whether or not you were whatever” is pretty much the most accurate statement about male and female interaction ever written. I just learned that biting the lip not only makes girls cute and flirty, it also makes them smarter, or whatever.

Be The Hot Chick

“But a better option is to up your confidence. How? Resolve not to think about your body but to think instead about what’s in front of you–a store, a pool, the sun, your BFF, skater boy.”

Confidence is a huge plus, just make sure yr BFF and skater boy are separately right in front of you. Nothing kills the confidence like your BFF getting the skater boy, and that would not be “Being The Hot Chick”, now would it?

Be The Hot Chick

“Then, the obvious trick is to find the boy you think is skilled (read: hot), and ask him if he will help you improve your swing, catch the perfect wave or do a mean header. He’ll be into showing you what he’s about. Betcha.”

That’s the jewel of advise Lisa Mulcahy has for our youth? The same Lisa Mulcahy that started this very article off with…

Be The Hot Chick

“If you want to get noticed without looking like an extra on the The O.C., you’re on the right page. Summer means your playing field is large, and there are more available guys. Your choices increase, so your chances of getting it right increase. And getting a sweet, smart, into-you boy to notice you does not translate to dressing skimpy or faking like you’re into stuff just to impress.”

Yeah, that or, act like your into something he’s into and you need his help at because he’s “hot”. Now I challenge you to , “Be The Hot Chick”.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did with that all, it’s an honour to be found in the same “AOL Search, powered by Google” as those hits.

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In attendance were:
Michael Rapaport (It’s like a roller coaster with this guy, on one hand you have “True Romance” on the other, “Hitch”.)
Jonathan Silverman (I think I’m the only person who enjoyed “The Single Guy”.)
Ben Stein (…and his money.)
Quentin Tarantinos Ex-Girlfriend (I really have no idea if this is true.)
David Duchovney (…drinks Stella Artois.)
Woody Harrelson (THE Woody Harrelson.)
Pink and Carey Hart (Drank wine, and were a lot more boring than I hoped for slash had heard.)
Benicio Del Toro (He looks a lot different these days.)
Dave Grohl (…well, he was on the list.)
One of the Hobbits (I was unimpressed, I actually thought they were midgets.)
The other guy from We Were Soldiers (…not Mel Gibson.)
Gabriel Byrne (Looks like a drunk.)
Ethan Suplee (This guy has a pretty impressive IMDB, but I’ve yet to get into “My Name Is Earl”.)
Two guys who might be from Good Charlotte, but looked like they could be from any band like that. (Mmhkk.)

Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer was not present, so that meant no high speed rolls out of the Mini Cooper tonight. Kiefer did also once tell Rory Felton he was a “born leader”. In related news J.D. Salinger once said I was “a Scholar and a Gentleman” after I held the door open for him.

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The really interesting announcement that Apple made was the availability of Safari 3.0 as a public beta for Mac and (get this) Windows. So now all of you barbarians can browse like the rest of us (well, except Kyle), and you web developers have no excuse for your websites to not work on Safari. Have fun and browse safe.

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Everyone knows I’m a huge fan of Bay, I think he does action the way it should be done. He isn’t artsy enough for most people it seems, but he knows cinema. I really liken him a lot to Quentin; both make films their own way, are very successful in what they do, love making things over the top beyond reality, and are met with sharp criticism about almost every film they make. If he’s good enough for Tarantino, he should be good enough for all you pseudo-artistic types.

Michael Bay

“Quentin Tarantino called me once. Someone had written ‘Is Michael Bay the Devil?’ Quentin said, ‘Don’t worry, last year they called me the Antichrist.’”

I have a point, stick with me. Bay is doing something which I find to be spectacular, premiering Transformers on four screens in Westwood at the LA Film Festival. Now some might think, “yeah you need four screens for all those blockbuster hollywood types,” but you would be wrong. Transformers will be premiering on four screens so we can all have a chance to be a part of the premiere and the after party. Tickets go on sale for the Transformers premiere next weekend, and package tickets for the LA Film Festival (which include the premiere) are already on sale. See you there.

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Ice Cube’s new film “First Sunday” is shooting on my street. Incidentally, according to IMDB, I moved to Baltimore, MD. Baltimore is a gorgeous city on the shore of the Pacific… oh wait, that’s Long Beach. Anyway, Ice Cube rolled into town and is making some comedy about a crime inside a Church. Unfortunately, this isn’t gonna come close to the greatest “crimedy” (get it, a crime and comedy?) inside a Church ever, Sister Act. Honestly, what could? Fortunately this crimedy takes place on a corner that has a Church and a Liquor Store, which should bring a whole new dimension to the Church crimedy genre we all have come to love.

Kyle and I jumped a few barricades to bring you all some images of the set:

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Jack Turnbull (Bio)

Jack Turnbull has been called the “Babe Ruth” of lacrosse, and few, if any, could equal his playing ability. Billy Shriver, radio commentator, said in 1947, “Jack Turnbull is what I call the complete athlete. By that I mean when he played a game, he gave it everything he had – spiritually, mentally, physically. Although he was an individual standout, he was always the team player, always playing for the best interests of the sport.”

He was admired and looked up to by his teammates, because he performed unselfishly; rarely fouled; and his leadership, skill, character and accomplishment developed an esprit de corps and respect seldom, if ever, attained by others.

Jack Turnbull enlisted in the Maryland National Guard in March, 1940, became a Second Lieutenant in June and a pilot on December 9, 1940. He was promoted to First Lieutenant, Captain, Major and on May 29, 1944, to Lieutenant Colonel. On October 18, 1944, flying from somewhere in England, he and his squadron carried bombs to drop on industrial Germany. On the return flight, German flack downed the plane in Belgium, and the Sisters of a nearby convent, with the help of older men, made caskets and temporarily buried Jack and his comrades.

The Jack Turnbull Award is an award given yearly to the United States’ top collegiate attackman in lacrosse.

and…

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Bio)

On August 2, 1943, Kennedy’s boat, the PT-109, was taking part in a nighttime patrol near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. It was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy was thrown across the deck, injuring his already-troubled back. Still, Kennedy towed a wounded man three miles (5 km) in the ocean, arriving at an island where his crew was subsequently rescued. Kennedy said that he blacked out for periods of time during the life-threatening ordeal. For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

Kennedy privately admitted to friends that he didn’t feel that he deserved the medals he had received, because the PT-109 incident had been the result of a botched military operation that had cost the lives of two members of his crew. When asked by interviewers how he became a war hero, Kennedy’s grim reply was: “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

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Upon said green light, a bus came from the right, possibly still catching the yellow. This was no ordinary bus, Kyle describes it best as “That was Satan’s bus.” After the bus, we proceeded to turn left, a bogie appeared close on our tail. This car came out of nowhere, clearly running the red light Satan’s bus had almost run and along the way decided we needed to be tailed. Kyle and I don’t appreciate those sort of actions, so Kyle tried to improve foreign relations, to no avail. Suddenly I noticed a blur in the left mirror and a vehicle was suddenly on the side of us passing us. I felt like Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder as he erratically threw his Lancer at the front left of the BMW. I slammed on the breaks and let him fly right by, masterfully avoiding any collision as he passed left to right in front of us.

He threw his car back left and swerved at us a few more times, and I countered with avoidance each time. He finally stopped just before the end of the onramp where the freeway was, and threw his door open to get out. What happened next was unreal, he was charging straight at us sporting his Cleveland Browns Brady Quinn jersey and clenched fists, we had to think quick. The ARod special was unfortunately at Toyota of North Hollywood, so I muttered to Kyle “Get his plates,” and planned for the worst. My mind covered most scenarios and I decided the worst thing he could do was try to break the window, so I raised my arm up in preparation and Kyle shifted from License Plate capture mode to ready to dial 911 mode. The worst case is exactly what he had in mind, and he punched the window as hard as a Brady Quinn fan could. Neither Kyle, nor myself flinched one bit when his fist struck the glass.

An amazing thing happened, the glass did not break. I had decided in my head prior that once he had taken this past assault, and on to battery I was fully justified to run him over. I had already eyed enough room to the left of his Mitsubishi that was drivable terrain, and my feet were on the triggers so off we went leaving him in the rear view mirror cursing and spitting. By all accounts he either chose not to follow, or could not catch the Bimmer, and we were left only to revel in adrenaline.

Note: Im sure Kyle will have his account of the events surrounding the early morning of May 26th sometime soon, so be sure to check out his view of the night. In addition, I realise a large portion of this blog sounds like an ode to Tom Cruise. While it would be acceptable as it would be an ode to the old, cool, not insane Tom Cruise, I assure you it is only an ode to Tony Scott.

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These kind of lawsuits must come from that group of archaic minded individuals that still think; it’s a gun manufacturers responsibility when someone gets shot, it’s a girls fault for dressing “provocatively” when she gets raped, it’s McDonalds fault when you spill coffee on your lap. These people should be counter-sued for wasting the systems time.

ESPN (Source)

ST. LOUIS — The father of the late St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock has filed a lawsuit, claiming that a popular restaurant continued to provide drinks to the reliever even though he was clearly intoxicated before the drunk-driving crash that killed him.

The lawsuit brought by Dean Hancock names Mike Shannon’s Restaurant, which is owned by the long-time Cardinals broadcaster. It also names Shannon’s daughter, who’s the restaurant manager.

Police say Hancock was drunk, speeding and using a cell phone when his SUV struck the back of a tow truck in the early hours of April 29.

Also named in the lawsuit are the tow truck company and driver and the driver of the car who was getting help from the tow truck on Interstate 64.

How dare the bar not offer to drive him home, how dare they not give breathalyzer tests, how dare they think an adult should be able to be responsible enough to know their limits and/or call a cab. Shouldn’t any bar in the potential vicinity of a baseball team be closed anytime one of the teams players could potentially walk in the door anyway? Can you believe the gall of that person whose car broke down? A baseball player needed to drive drunk, why were you breaking down in his path? The tow truck driver should have known to look out for drunk drivers, that is their job you know. Why isn’t the Highway Patrol being sued because they failed to enforce the speed limit before he crashed? Why isn’t the person whom he was on the phone with being sued for not stopping him from driving?

I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Hancock, but pretending your Son didn’t have an alcohol problem, nor a penchant for the shady locale is just plain ignorant. You know who should be sued? You, Mr. Hancock. Failing to notice the demons your Son battled when he was alive and could have been helped is tragic, denying them in his death is just shameful.

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On May 27, 2005, Arnold traveled to San Jose, California. To catch those of you up who weren’t dating a girl from San Jose at the time, San Jose has huge transportation issues, most notably traffic and potholes. Arnold arrived to a quaint neighborhood that was full of interesting people that you will soon get to hear from. So Arnold is here, he brought an entire set with him. There are Key Grips, Best Boy Grips and Personal Assistant’s Everywhere. There is lighting (yes, lighting in the middle of the day) to ensure a soft glow off our Action Hero of a Governor.

They cued up The Doobie Brothers “Taking It To The Streets”, and Arnold swaggered towards your television with 10 of San Jose’s finest road workers flanking him. 10 workers in brand new Day-Glo vests (it’s still the middle of the day, still in a small neighborhood) and work gear to back up the Governor. After some speeches people couldn’t understand (by the Governor) and some by people you could understand (San Jose City officials) a truck full of black, smoking, asphalt backed up and unloaded for the Governor to fill the 10 by 15 foot hole.

Now you might be upset that it took 10 road workers to assist in filling a pothole when there are plenty of other road work needs in the city, I might agree if I didn’t understand how important it is for the Governor to look intimidating. The residents however, aren’t as understanding.

Nick Porrovecchio

“They just dug it out,” Nick Porrovecchio, 48, said, shrugging. “There was a crack. But they dug out the whole road this morning.”
“It’s a lot of money spent on a staged event,” said Matt Vujevich, 74, a retiree whose home faced the crew-made trench that straddled nearly the whole street. “We still have the same problems. Everything’s a press conference.”

Now that seems a bit ridiculous doesn’t it? Maybe those 10 road workers were just too good at their jobs, that’s why they had nothing else to do right? They must have taken care of all the cities potholes a day too early, right? Right??

Joe Greco

Joe Greco (no relation to Richard Greco), who used his video camera to record the crews ripping up his street, said Laguna Seca Way had “a few cracks,” which he termed “unsightly,” but they weren’t as bad as the “major potholes” a few blocks away.
“The street was very drivable,” Vujevich said.

So your probably figuring what I figured when I first heard this story, Arnold just got some bad intel, no one told him there were real potholes already needing repair so close by. Surely our Governor wouldn’t waste tax payers monies on purpose when he could have so easily saved a few bucks by fixing real potholes?

Rob Stutzman

Rob Stutzman, the Governor’s communications director, told reporters that “the staging of an event like this is paid for out of the Governor’s California Recovery Team account,” which pays for many of the governor’s political activities, “so there’s no taxpayer expense.”

So what, so he staged it? It needed to be staged, those other streets have terrible afternoon sun. No taxpayer had to pay for it, it’s fine.

David Vossbrink

But David Vossbrink, director of communications for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, who was in Washington, D.C., Thursday lobbying for more federal funding for BART, said the city paid the road crew and the extra security costs associated with the governor’s visit — as it would for any visiting dignitary.

So there’s no taxpayer expense ASIDE from the road crew that was being paid to not fix the real potholes, dig fake potholes and be back up dancers for the Governor’s performance. Well, at the very least a pothole got filled.

David Vossbrink

Vossbrink said, the Governor’s event involved “not exactly filling a pothole, but it represented the pothole aspect”

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I got over the $1200.00 bike when I realised I would be scared to take it out in public, so I decided that I should purchase an urban bike. You know the kind that bike messengers ride? I would go urban biking (yeah i make up a lot of urban ______ sports, but that’s what we do here in the Arts District), I would ride at night and rule the streets.

Fortunately I have a former professional mountain biker in my friend Jordan Percy (who rides his bike to work every day, and once rode from Pacific Beach in San Diego, all the way up to Oceanside just because he was bored), and fortunately Jordan paid us a visit last week. We took some time out of our interviews and meetings to discuss my bike situation with Jordan.

Jordan shot down my urban bike idea in seconds, claiming those mountain/bmx hybrids were for adults who rode bmx bikes as kids and want to pretend like they still can so they get an urban bike. I tried to explain that I am exactly that person and have no issues with it, but he demanded we go another route. Jordan then suggested a fixed gear bike. I being a good friend have listened to Jordan talk about these bikes before and know I want no part in a bike that you have to peddle to slow down. I immediately deny him, and go back to the urban bike.

Jordan finally asks me why I want an urban bike and why I was so fixated on the $1200.00 bike, so I tell him the most honest 2-drink answer ever, “to intimidate people.” Now I’m (not yet) a cyclist, but I feel intimidation is a big part of cycling. I need to look like someone who rules the streets at night in the cutthroat world of urban biking.

Jordan finally convinces me to let him build me a perfect single speed bike from vintage road bike parts and some sort of cut off bars that will look mountain bike-esque but he assures me will still intimidate. We have not yet set a bike building day, but you shall be updated… and you have been warned.

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And here is what Zach Braff had to say about Season 7…

Zach Braff

…what is the deal with all these myspace spammers lately. You’d think after Tom sold the company for 100 zillion dollars he’d spend a few bucks of it on trying to figure out how to stop that. Everytime I check my page there’s something like, “I love this fucking ringtone so much I wanna have sex with it all night long. I wanna impregnate this fucking ring tone. I wanna knock up this ring tone and marry it in Vegas, then have the wedding annulled the next day. That’s how fucking excited I am about this ringtone.

I must get 1000 comments a day telling me that “size matters”. Before I realized it was spam I kept looking at the picture of the person who wrote that being like, “wow. Not what I imagined coming from that person’s mouth, but ok. Size is very important to him. But alas, I should not give them any more attention as that is what they seek. If you’re one of the people who’s clicking on there to get iphones or penis enlargement pills you’re REALLY screwing it up for everybody else. I figure if the guy sells 2 bottles of penis pills a day, he can easily afford to lay back at his crib and marvel at how grand his own penis is. “No placebo’s for me. I was born like this. I’ve also been blessed with the very first iphone and I’m currently banging one of the hotter ringtones in Santa Fe.

By the by: please don’t send me anything HTML; especially in the comments section. Don’t get me wrong, I love an animated unicorn waving “Thanks For the Add” as much as the next guy, but I disabled those things because they make your page all wonky. And no one likes a wonky page.

And while your at it, get a Virb (Ed: I may or may not have added this myself).

… oh wait, that was him explaining why he hates MySpace wasn’t it?

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There were a few wardrobe delays getting to the track, but once all was overcome an absolutely wonderful time was had on a gorgeous day. I really wish they would create a Place-Show Exacta, because I would win them all (and yes I would bet it). Other important lessons learned were; the 9 horse is out to ruin me, a $0.10 Superfecta box on the entire field of 12 is costs more than you would think, some horses just have pure natural instinct to finish (with or without a jockey), the only horse I didn’t bet on is always going to win the Preakness. I missed about 5 Exacta’s by one position, blew a Superfecta by one position, and threw countless monies at horses who just couldn’t finish.

The other entertaining moments of the day were a close encounter (seated at the table next to us) with the infamous Wal-Mart wine/condom guy, and a baffling game of “are we girlfriends, or are we girlfriends” with attractive mid-twenties East Coasters as the subject.

I pretty much lost all day and had thrown in the proverbial towel on the day via text message, when my last bets all hit with the 3 horse in the Seventh. A good day turned even better, thank you for the luck kind text message-ers.

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Dinner was aces, per the standard at the Ram’, and the drinks were the thing of legend (I rec’ the Mango Mojito, though I’m always a sucker for the Rambutan Cosmo, slash anything with Soju in it). For the rest of the evening we decided to help the social resurgence of Downtown LA by visiting a few local watering holes. The Edison was dead, and there were no good leads for the Times so we pressed on to The Redwood.

The Redwood is one of the finer nautical bars in existence, complete with Quill and Ink sketches of ships and other lovely works of art. Once we headed to the stern we found the dance floor, complete with a DJ dropping hits everywhere (He had a few slips, but with most the wanna-be hipster DJ’s in this town refusing to drop some JT in his mix, I find the gesture unique and different).

B-list celebrities surrounded us on the dance floor, however these were a slightly different crowd than the usuals; Lil Jon, Kwame Brown and a few of the leaders of some rival b-boy crews. I have to admit I’d take this group on the dance floor over the Bang crowd on most days.

On our exit, we decided to go Bridge and Tunnel-ing through the city. Perhaps you weren’t aware of all the tunnels and bridges around Los Angeles, but while you are planning your own route, be sure to check out Angel’s Flight. Our soundtrack for the B&T-ing was the ever appropriate TBS, who reminds us of what fine young knives we all are.

Taking Back Sunday

Literate and stylish
Kissable and quiet
Well that’s what girls dreams are made of

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And the list of things not taken/left behind; Holy Bible (Must have been religious), Brand New Burton Snowboard Boots, Marie Calendar’s hat (this was not present before the break in, more on this later), Alex Rodriguez Bat (Must be a Dodger fan), Soccer Ball and cones (Hmmm, where to go with this one… what kind of person would leave a soccer ball behind?), $4.28 in change, Flashlight/Jumper Cables/Reflective Triangle from Emergency Kit, Nordstrom Bag, Most things with my address/phone number on them.

My Truck is downstairs at the car wash being detailed. I felt so dirty just being in it on the drive to work that I got here, threw out everything that was in it, and took it straight to them. Hopefully I will feel better about it after it doesn’t feel/look so violated.

I will be hunting persons who work at Marie Calendar’s for the the rest of my life. If you ever see a cook at MC’s rocking a ModAmuse shirt and my Tom Ford’s, call me… I’ll come right over and show him why he should have taken the ARod Special first hand.

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Virb is what Myspace would be if they cared about design and layout. Virb is fresh and small as we speak. I expect it to be popular but niche online community. We’ll see. – MichaelBay.com

If you are my real friend you have already added me on Virb… if you haven’t I’m pissed at you. It’s where all the real social networking happens, you do want to be cool right? Myspace is like wearing Seven Jeans and Ugg Boots.

This is the part where I just offended a lot of girls, I’m sorry… really, but lead instead of following for once.

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For the record, as Mother’s love nature and craft like things, Julian is quite the hit for Mother’s Day.

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With that said, I am now PrObama. PrObama is afilliating yourself with: Barack Obama, change, hope, politicians who are fresh and passionate, progressing, et al.

Usage: “Did you see that girl in the heels that I was talking to on the A, the one who was reading McSweeney’s? She was so forward thinking, so prObama.”

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Things ended, and continued, and continued to end. There were places I meant to go and never did, and places I didn’t mean to go and went twice. These are only notes, you shouldn’t know what I mean. Most of all I feel dulled, pulled out at times for the use I had grown so accustomed to, yet sheathed for far too long. It comes down to moments, sometimes you know… everyones gotta have their moments, but now they are spread out.

So this year I’m changing nothing, remembering everything I forgot, and walking into the crowd and screaming. People will probably think I’ve lost my mind, people have been more wrong, I suppose. They are all metaphors, I use cliche writing tools in these words to symbolize things I am not saying. I had a lot of realizations about packages that we’re marked return to sender, and I think I may send more.

As for next year, the Ivory Coast is ours; It’s gonna be another year of jackets.

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And we relate it all to things, to images, to songs, to books, to colours, to streets, to cities, to nations, to names, and we won’t remember one day, but today I’ll relish in the sadness it brings because I was smiling again.

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I would like to save the world’s population of Cheetah’s. However I don’t want to do it your way. I want to do it one Cheetah at a time. Since those people who were graced with the natural presence of the Cheetah blew it and killed them all, why should we give them more? Why not give them to people who really want a baby Cheetah?

I could start my own Cheetah ranch, and no one would dare question my tact for raising Cheetahs. It has been brought to my attention by one of the most beautiful persons on this earth that baby Cheetah’s eventually grow into full on Cheetah’s who might accidentally endanger my future family. Don’t worry, I’m working on this one.

I’m gonna go make sure Penguins haven’t mysteriously dropped off in population. In the meantime, go save a Cheetah.

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Fascinating to me is someone who can appreciate an artist. Fascinating to me is someone who only gets caught up in their own mind (and perhaps a few others). Fascinating to me is a mixture of self-promotion and humility. Sometimes i like my gin and tonics equal parts, sometimes i need more gin.

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Would it be better to be a chameleon who adapts and changes through short term manipultions of colouring or an animal who completely lives different moments of life through a process of metamorphisis? Ill take the latter, evolving, sort who will never be the person he fell asleep as. I have a destiny, my destiny is to not be me, to not be who I was supposed to be. It is what I must do to always be there.

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He had it all figured out, especially the cards, the cards were important. It would be crucial to the clubs existence. There would be discounts made available, a dollar off smoothies, and a free cola with purchase of a gyro. These were very important things to the club; people must realize the multiplicity of benefits from being a part of something revolutionary. Meanwhile her thoughts were on this extra hour, and whether or not this psychologically affects those people whose biological clock wakes them up only at certain times. She was sure even with these risks, that it was for the good. After all, there must be a reason for this change.

“Farmers,” he shouted, “It’s all for some stupid farmers. They can’t sleep in or something, and decide to punish all of us, so now I exit the office to a darkened world. Why do farmers get such preferential treatment in our nation? They get this AND Willy Nelson? Honestly how fair is that?” He was doing research now, lots of it. Lot’s of it meaning very little at all; recalling something he had heard once from his grandfather regarding which season to plant the corn in, pulling random sentences out of an online version of the Farmer’s Almanac. Later he took to the practice of googling every combination of the word’s “Daylight”, “Farmer”, “Savings”, “Irrigation”, “Spring”, “Time” and “Fall”; equally searching for an answer to the origin of this silly practice as he was hoping for a google-whack. He found himself amazed by a website on crop circles, easily wasting 6 hours and convincing himself that somehow farmers were using the time change to hide the secrets of these mysterious occurrences. It was a very logical solution; there really is no reason to get up at those hours of the morning.

She just hoped he would move on; he had moments like these in the past and always moved on, these windmills he would chase and never catch. This one started to worry her, because normally she could come up with some logical challenge to his un-stable life changing ideas. Here she could not. She could only wonder if he was right, after all Arizona doesn’t abide by these time changes. “So why doesn’t Arizona participate?” She never should have brought up Arizona, but it was too late. He was even more fueled, and he somehow managed to hide the fact he really did not know much about Arizona, aside from what the flag looks like and that they had the London Bridge, but including that they in fact do not follow this savings time. He began to organize a trip to Arizona, more research was due; it is lovely in Phoenix this time of year. These people would be allies; those forced out of Arizona would gladly join his club, they would find comfort and familiarity. It would be a support group of sorts for these wayward children of the valley of the sun.

It continued constantly, for days Marissa put up with his sketches and calculations. He was convinced it was algebraic, or some unknown logarithm, it could be so far unknown that even the greatest minds had given up on the problem and simply filled in a bubble at random. “I refuse to take part in the time change this year, I simply won’t give in to something we have no reason for. We will probably need a website for the movement. I wonder if whereisthesavings.com is taken? I will send out an email stating that I am no longer adapting myself to the ludicrous and unwarranted changing of the time. This message will tell people if they need to meet me at 9am, that my 9am will be 10am so they should plan accordingly.” He was actually gaining support at this point. The cards had been printed and he had 17 members, even the local print shop guy that printed the membership cards himself decided he would join, though Drake suspected it was only because he had a far too obvious fondness for Cinn-a-bon’s.

“What time is your hair appointment on Sunday?’ he asked Marissa. She replied it was at 10am, but she wasn’t sure if that was 10am his time, or 10am her time. At this point she was no longer sure if she was going by his time or her time. Also at this point in time he was no longer sure if she was mocking him or supporting him. They settled on nine-thirty, it was a good median. There would always be side effects, and better to be only half an hour early or late than an hour late or on time. Imagine if he showed up on time, where would that show him as a revolutionary to the people? Surely a mutiny would follow.

He wondered to himself if the European nations accepted this mark of fools, or if it was another rebellious American trait. Arizona had the London Bridge; it would make perfect sense if they stole this from the British as well. Finally he questioned Marissa about it. As her heritage was European, she would surely have to know. She simply could not provide a definite answer; this would require more research. “If Britain does not abide by this Daylight Savings, I will definitely never again take part. Britain most certainly handles these situations better than us. After all, they have Paul McCartney.” Marissa actually laughed aloud when he said that, and the awkward silence that followed was one of love mixed with persistence. She knew in that moment he would never give this up, and in the same moment felt a soothing that came from knowing in some way this cause was necessary.

For certain it had improved their relationship. She had countless moments of just smiling as she glanced over at him while he riffled through some half-hearted research. There were the nights they would both lay entwined on the couch watching films on the great depression, crop circles, and World War II. The addition of World War II films to the research came from wandering the historical film section of the local video rental store and realizing ninety percent of this section was World War II films. He was able to completely share his halfway insane thoughts on this time subject with her, while she countered with more than halfway insane thoughts on some other subject. It was a life’s quest that only managed to fill the gaps of their life, never taking it over, and almost entirely existing for comedic relief.

“It has to have been the communists.” Marissa just giggles to herself, “How do communists have anything to do with this?” He began to explain, there really was much more caused by communism than we all think. This was a classic communist idea. He was really going with it, hand’s moving in and out, showing structure and systems. Perhaps the communists were really to blame after all. The similarities were far too aligned in these cases. “See Mar, Communism and this whole time thing, they both look really good on paper and when you think about them, but when they actually go into effect they make no sense at all.” She coolly responds, “Ah, yes. It’s mostly the execution.”

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And you forgot to carry a zero.

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Secondly, this traps us in a boring lifestyle, we do not learn new words, we do not think of new words. Somehow we have decided there is some mysterious language board somewhere voting on what stays and what goes. And somewhere along the way people seem to slip a few in, under our efforts to stop them. The whole language we speak is a microcasm of the society we created and allow to flourish.

Why should we expect something new, when we are taught everything is a retread. So we constantly keep this pattern going, we constantly do the same things, and never try to truly revolutionize our world. Every once in a while someone sneaks something in, but we hardly notice, in fact once we are presented with something new, we insist it must be the same as something we experienced before. After all there is nothing new under the sun… or is there?

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So to the real point of the story, last night I had this dream. They have happened before, she was there. There have been about seven in the series, the first starting with the end of the process. This one was more towards the beginning which made it far harder to deal with. The message I was trying to get through all the radio waves and toaster communication that my brain freelances out was simply one of indifference. I cannot go into the exact specifics of what she said, or what had happened, and if the dreams hadn’t started at the end, than this could definitely be ignored. But the situation is here, and very well could be real.

What if she actually likes Napoleon Dynamite? Like thinks its amazing? What then?

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David Eggers, Author/Designer
taken from an interview conducted for “YSKOV(Sacrament)” release.

“You actually asked me the question: “Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?” I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

Now, there was a time when such a question – albeit probably without the colloquial spin – would have originated from my own brain. Since I was thirteen, sitting in my orange-carpeted bedroom in ostensibly cutting-edge Lake Forest, Illinois, subscribing to the Village Voice and reading the earliest issues of Spin, I thought I had my ear to the railroad tracks of avant garde America. (Laurie Anderson, for example, had grown up only miles away!) I was always monitoring, with the most sensitive and well-calibrated apparatus, the degree of selloutitude exemplified by any given artist – musical, visual, theatrical, whatever. I was vigilant and merciless and knew it was my job to be so.

I bought R.E.M.’s first EP, Chronic Town, when it came out and thought I had found God. I loved Murmur, Reckoning, but then watched, with greater and greater dismay, as this obscure little band’s audience grew, grew beyond obsessed people like myself, grew to encompass casual fans, people who had heard a song on the radio and picked up Green and listened for the hits. Old people liked them, and stupid people, and my moron neighbor who had sex with truck drivers. I wanted these phony R.E.M.-lovers dead.

But it was the band’s fault, too. They played on Letterman. They switched record labels. Even their album covers seemed progressively more commercial. And when everyone I knew began liking them, I stopped. Had they changed, had their commitment to making art with integrity changed? I didn’t care, because for me, any sort of popularity had an inverse relationship with what you term the keeping ‘real’ of ‘shit.’ When the Smiths became slightly popular they were sellouts. Bob Dylan appeared on MTV and of course was a sellout. Recently, just at dinner tonight, after a huge, sold-out reading by David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell (both sellouts), I was sitting next to an acquaintance, a very smart acquaintance married to the singer-songwriter of a very well-known band. I mentioned that I had seen the Flaming Lips the night before. She rolled her eyes. “Oh I really liked them on 90210,” she sneered, assuming that this would put me and the band in our respective places.

However.

Was she aware that The Flaming Lips had composed an album requiring the simultaneous playing of four separate discs, on four separate CD players? Was she aware that the band had once, for a show at Lincoln Center, handed out to audience members something like 100 portable tape players, with 100 different tapes, and had them all played at the same time, creating a symphonic sort of effect, one which completely devastated everyone in attendance? I went on and on to her about the band’s accomplishments, their experiments. Was she convinced that they were more than their one appearance with Jason Priestly? She was.

Now, at that concert the night before, Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, had himself addressed this issue, and to great effect. After playing much of their new album, the band paused and he spoke to the audience. I will paraphrase what he said:

“Hi. Well, some people get all bitter when some song of theirs gets popular, and they refuse to play it. But we’re not like that. We’re happy that people like this song. So here it goes.”

Then they played the song. (You know the song.) “She Don’t Use Jelly” is the song, and it is a silly song, and it was their most popular song. But to highlight their enthusiasm for playing the song, the band released, from the stage and from the balconies, about 200 balloons. (Some of the balloons, it should be noted, were released by two grown men in bunny suits.) Then while playing the song, Wayne sang with a puppet on his hand, who also sang into the microphone. It was fun. It was good.

But was it a sellout? Probably. By some standards, yes. Can a good band play their hit song? Should we hate them for this? Probably, probably. First 90210, now they go playing the song every stupid night. Everyone knows that 90210 is not cutting edge, and that a cutting edge alternarock band should not appear on such a show. That rule is clearly stated in the obligatory engrained computer-chip sellout manual that we were all given when we hit adolescence.

But this sellout manual serves only the lazy and small. Those who bestow sellouthood upon their former heroes are driven to do so by, first and foremost, the unshakable need to reduce. The average one of us – a taker-in of various and constant media, is absolutely overwhelmed – as he or she should be – with the sheer volume of artistic output in every conceivable medium given to the world every day – it is simply too much to begin to process or comprehend – and so we are forced to try to sort, to reduce. We designate, we label, we diminish, we create hierarchies and categories.

Through largely received wisdom, we rule out Tom Waits’s new album because it’s the same old same old, and we save $15. U2 has lost it, Radiohead is too popular. Country music is bad, Puff Daddy is bad, the last Wallace book was bad because that one reviewer said so. We decide that TV is bad unless it’s the Sopranos. We liked Rick Moody and Jonathan Lethem and Jeffrey Eugenides until they allowed their books to become movies. And on and on. The point is that we do this and to a certain extent we must do this. We must create categories, and to an extent, hierarchies.

But you know what is easiest of all? When we dismiss.

Oh how gloriously comforting, to be able to write someone off. Thus, in the overcrowded pantheon of alternarock bands, at a certain juncture, it became necessary for a certain brand of person to write off The Flaming Lips, despite the fact that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their music was superb and groundbreaking and real. We could write them off because they shared a few minutes with Jason Priestley and that terrifying Tori Spelling person. Or we could write them off because too many magazines have talked about them. Or because it looked like the bassist was wearing too much gel in his hair.

One less thing to think about. Now, how to kill off the rest of our heroes, to better make room for new ones?

We liked Guided by Voices until they let Ric Ocasek produce their latest album, and everyone knows Ocasek is a sellout, having written those mushy Cars songs in the late 80s, and then – gasp! – produced Weezer’s album, and of course Weezer’s no good, because that Sweater song was on the radio, right, and dorky teenage girls were singing it and we cannot have that and so Weezer is bad and Ocasek is bad and Guided by Voices are bad, even if Spike Jonze did direct that one Weezer video, and we like Spike Jonze, don’t we?

Oh. No. We don’t. We don’t like him anymore because he’s married to Sofia Coppola, and she is not cool. Not cool. So bad in Godfather 3, such nepotism. So let’s check off Spike Jonze – leaving room in our brains for… who??

It’s exhausting.

The only thing worse than this sort of activity is when people, students and teachers alike, run around college campuses calling each other racists and anti-Semites. It’s born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It’s ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don’t have to get off the couch to dismantle them.

And now, I am also a sellout. Here are my sins, many of which you may know about already:

First, I was a sellout because Might magazine took ads.
Then I was a sellout because our pages were color, and not stapled together at the Kinko’s.
Then I was a sellout because I went to work for Esquire.
Now I’m a sellout because my book has sold many copies.
And because I have done many interviews.
And because I have let people take my picture.
And because my goddamn picture has been in just about every fucking magazine and newspaper printed in America.

And now, as far as McSweeney’s is concerned, The Advocate interviewer wants to know if we’re losing also our edge, if the magazine is selling out, hitting the mainstream, if we’re still committed to publishing unknowns, and pieces killed by other magazines.

And the fact is, I don’t give a fuck. When we did the last issue, this was my thought process: I saw a box. So I decided we’d do a box. We were given stories by some of our favorite writers – George Saunders, Rick Moody (who is uncool, uncool!), Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis, others – and so we published them. Did I wonder if people would think we were selling out, that we were not fulfilling the mission they had assumed we had committed ourselves to?

No. I did not. Nor will I ever. We just don’t care. We care about doing what we want to do creatively. We want to be interested in it. We want it to challenge us. We want it to be difficult. We want to reinvent the stupid thing every time. Would I ever think, before I did something, of how those with sellout monitors would respond to this or that move? I would not. The second I sense a thought like that trickling into my brain, I will put my head under the tires of a bus.

You want to know how big a sellout I am?

A few months ago I wrote an article for Time magazine and was paid $12,000 for it. I am about to write something, 1,000 words, 3 pages or so, for something called Forbes ASAP, and for that I will be paid $6,000 For two years, until five months ago, I was on the payroll of ESPN magazine, as a consultant and sometime contributor. I was paid handsomely for doing very little. Same with my stint at Esquire. One year I spent there, with little to no duties. I wore khakis every day. Another Might editor and I, for almost a year, contributed to Details magazine, under pseudonyms, and were paid $2000 each for what never amounted to more than 10 minutes work – honestly never more than that. People from Hollywood want to make my book into a movie, and I am probably going to let them do so, and they will likely pay me a great deal of money for the privilege.

Do I care about this money? I do. Will I keep this money? Very little of it. Within the year I will have given away almost a million dollars to about 100 charities and individuals, benefiting everything from hospice care to an artist who makes sculptures from Burger King bags. And the rest will be going into publishing books through McSweeney’s. Would I have been able to publish McSweeney’s if I had not worked at Esquire? Probably not. Where is the $6000 from Forbes going? To a guy named Joe Polevy, who wants to write a book about the effects of radiator noise on children in New England.

Now, what if I were keeping all the money? What if I were buying property in St. Kitt’s or blew it all on live-in prostitutes? What if, for example, I was, a few nights ago, sitting at a table in SoHo with a bunch of Hollywood slash celebrity acquaintances, one of whom I went to high school with, and one of whom was Puff Daddy? Would that make me a sellout? Would that mean I was a force of evil?

What if a few nights before that I was at the home of Julian Schnabel, at a party featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and at which Schnabel said we should get together to talk about him possibly directing my movie? And what if I said sure, let’s?

Would all that make me a sellout? Would I be uncool? Would it have been more cool to not go to this party, or to not have written that book, or done that interview, or to have refused millions from Hollywood?

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it’s corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I’ll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no’s you’ve said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one’s life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one’s collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Thankfully, for some, this all passes. I am here to tell you that I have, a few years ago, found my way out of that thicket of comparison and relentless suspicion and judgment. And it is a nice feeling. Because, in the end, no one will ever give a shit who has kept shit ‘real’ except the two or three people, sitting in their apartments, bitter and self-devouring, who take it upon themselves to wonder about such things. The keeping real of shit matters to some people, but it does not matter to me. It’s fashion, and I don’t like fashion, because fashion does not matter.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

I say yes, and Wayne Coyne says yes, and if that makes us the enemy, then good, good, good. We are evil people because we want to live and do things. We are on the wrong side because we should be home, calculating which move would be the least damaging to our downtown reputations. But I say yes because I am curious. I want to see things. I say yes when my high school friend tells me to come out because he’s hanging with Puffy. A real story, that. I say yes when Hollywood says they’ll give me enough money to publish a hundred different books, or send twenty kids through college. Saying no is so fucking boring.

And if anyone wants to hurt me for that, or dismiss me for that, for saying yes, I say Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers, finally, finally, finally. “

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Are there even two paths? Are things inversely proportionate in my mind? Maybe it just needs more sauldering. A connection is loose, after all I was made in the USA. Is it so hard to fathom that it actually works out, or is it the fact that I cannot fathom this that makes it not work? So do I try even less, and like they all are telling me it works out? Or is giving up a logical decision.

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Today I learned a revolutionary force in the musical world is gone. Working with such amazing talents as Rick Rubin and Jello Biafra, and recording somewhere near 50 albums, no one has shown us such amazing will power as Wesley Willis. I will simply say I miss him, and Chicago is at a loss without him. True performers are always taken early because they give so much to this world, and sadly all we have left today are those gifts.

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A different town’s not much different when your there, it’s just how it feels to drive, clear phone calls when your friends call every one in the car’s cell phones, catch drug runners in action, spend hours making signs to hold out to no one, meet random people in random places saying random things to get them to hang out with you, never figuring out exactly what number she left on the voicemail after an hour and at least 70 numbers dialed, naked people hugging non-naked people, camera phones are a must, maybe we’ll take the 1 back, Avril Lavigne’s sweet sounds from the speaker of the car, whatever means is neccesary get to Krispy Kreme.

On the transition, seeing good friends in town, even if they were here 3 weeks ago, and seeing good people’s hard work paying off dull’s much of this world. We need more good people, but what do we do with the bad? Can we work out some sort of free trade agreement?

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Seeing little pieces, with memories attached, and I don’t seem to remember the order in which it all happened. I was young once. I’m not what you’d consider old, but if I belonged in this time than it would all be different. As I watch and recollect for the first time in years I start to see it is not my life, or at least not the way I want to remember it. There is this defining moment in my life, and than I realize it’s just the latest, these were all defining moments. Add another to the list. So I’ve spent years doing things I spent days forgetting about, and I wonder how much I will really care about or even acknowledge when I’m older.

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As my parent’s close in on old I am noticing I need to devote more time to them. And I’m at my Fathers and we been have playing golf all day, mostly worried if I look the part. So we are there, He, a family friend, and I; and we are reminiscing. We think of old times we had, we’ll mostly that they had and I reflect forward on similar ones I might have at some point in my life. And I realize it is never good to swear you “smoke pot and forget it” in front of your Father. So my Step-Mother begins the grilling, “are you dating anyone?” To which I always want to reply something, but none really seem that special, and any great joke would only prove confusing. And I’m not gay.

She, this is the interesting one, asked if people think I’m gay (they do) and she clearly pointed out all my gay qualities. I am okay, I have confidence in my woman liking abilities, they will not fade. After all, she is interesting.

I live with my Mother but rarely see her. My hours are spent out, making sure the things I do are done, no one really understands me, what I do. So we agree on dinner and I eventually get home from work to wait as she takes a phone call for 20 minutes. Yes I was late, but the phone was after I was there, and it still lasts 20 minutes. So I drive to dinner, as apparantley Mom has had a few glasses of wine. We discuss plans for vacation, a few days off for me to fly to Sedona, to the timeshare. Talk turns to her Father who is altogether great, and at times my nemesis. His status is on the decline, and although I am confident it is normal and he is doing good for his age, it affects my Mother. She is suggesting I spend time there this weekend, and I agree. As we are seated I notice Mom is a little loud, and can’t remember what she wanted to order. I do not fully grasp the part of the conversation where “a few drinks” apparantley meant drunk. We begin the conversation about the vacation again, I hit all my marks, my lines are solid. I look for a cut, but we are apparently still rolling. We discuss a barbeque at the house this weekend that my sister will be having, and how I should go. This however conflicts with the “my hanging out with her Father” plans we made in the previous take. She suggests she meant some time, that she is staying the night there so I would not come. I look around the room, something has changed.

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A glimpse of a childhood memory, one of freedom and of change. You see the roads before the highway, the simpleness in them. These roads now are desolate, the places you learned these now robotic ways of steering and braking. These roads you know so well, yet visit so little. Some have never seen this road, it was not part of them. But the road sometimes calls out to them, and someday they may test its curves. You slam the car into third, the motor starts to whine. You slide around the turn, the girl now noticing you as you drive. She maintains her course, just as he does too.

They stay in what is simple, what you don’t have to work for. Your heart races as you’re on the road, you change out your cd. A release is overwhelming, you are now focused determined. The road was never invisible, your mind just made it so. The harder lines, and steeper grades cause you to drive with more control. Soon it all comes back to you, and you feel so much more than just a photocopy of the person on TV. A simple pleasure denied by a routine turned to habit, a thought process lost. You feel something different, and take enjoyment in.

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