Three months later

If anyone is still checking this. . . wow.

On that note, Cornbread, these are for you.

He has my sword.

“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this — a certain audacity — to this announcement. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”

GObama!

Wow, I should get the rights to that quick

How about a dulcimer?

Andrew Bird, whom I firmly believe is the best young/living singer/songwriter/whistler in music today (to hell with Surf-Yan Whats-His-Name; and you all know deep down that Oberst just plain sucks), did a guess spot as "Dr. Stringz" on some kid's puppet show.

Epic.



When he says "I've got more stringed instruments to fix" at the end his delivery seems to imply he just then realized what he was doing. Either way, good for him.

New album out March 20. I'm betting now it'll be in my top 3 of 2007

Because Jonn told me to and because I have something worth posting

So my boss pulled me in his office last week and asked me if I'd be OK changing territories. The reasons for this:

1) I've established a decent amount of consistency amongst our clients in Texas and Louisiana
2) Some of our clients have lacked said consistency.

On that note, I'll be making two more trips to Texas (although I may still go to Houston like four times a year for a meeting). The first is to San Antonio, meaning it may be the last time I see Austin for awhile. That's one of the big, if not biggest downfall to all this.

Then I get to go down there with Niles, the dude who will hopefully succeed me (anyone know Niles? I know people who know him at any rate).

So what areas of the country will I be taking over? Well, here are the major metropolitan areas:

Seattle


Portland, AKA the International Hub of Underachievement


Phoenix


Albuquerque


Also: Tucson, El Paso, Spokane and Eugene, Ore.

So yeah. Looking forward to talking to folks with a different mentality, although the adjustment's going to be kind of rough. Oh well; it's not as though I really have a life outside of work anyway so s'all good.

I can rent a car for less money now

Random photos from a small gathering on my 25th birthday.

I take credit for introducing Sarah B. to cider. Too bad she'll grow tired of it within five months, as is the case with everyone.


I on the other hand was drinking something from Belgium that came in a freakin' goblet. Sarah S. looks... yeah I don't know.


Shannon und Lisa


Willa (she blinks a lot in photos), Dominique (was sick but still came, the trooper), and Cathy


Will, one of the few cool male employees at work, and his fiance, Lacey


What? It's beer from El Salvador. Piss off.

Why have I ever given a dollar to this business

From back when the Burger King was actually a scary human being, as opposed to a scary human being in a scary mask.

I apologize for the nightmares.

Jonn updated his; I'd better fall in line

Nothing has happened of note since October 11.

Alright, here's some Halloween photos (I was in Austin with Tenspeed).

I really wanted to find one of those goofy Euro-ties that are like a scarf you wear inside a shirt, but I was unsuccessful in that venture - and believe me, I tried.

So my first idea was to utilize my own supplies and go as, um, one of THESE guys:



But that seemed kind of weak, so ultimately I decided to use Justin's costume from last year - A Team Zissou crewman:


I wanted a clear shot of Justin's neck - he wrote on it with pen in an attempt to be that guy who was on Project: Runway or whatever. With him is Lincoln expat Matt R., who went as Floyd Landis but kept getting called Lance Armstrong. Philistines.

Dominique Garay

I know this guy through my co-worker Willa, to whom he is engaged. Heck of a poet and an all-around nice guy; not pretentious at all.

He's in the running to appear on an HBO program, so vote for him: http://www.blastro.com/spokenwordbattle

His myspace (some of his other stuff is on there, I highly recommend the YouTube video): http://www.myspace.com/darcpoet

Biggest highlight of my life since I found the Ghostbusters building in New York

I'm staying at a hotel in a planned community in Irving, Texas (between Dallas and Fort Worth) known as Los Colinas.

As I drove here, I wondered "Where the hell have I heard Los Colinas before... Los Colinas... Los Colinas..."

Got to my hotel and got on wikipedia and found this:

"Many people will recognize Las Colinas as referenced by Lawrence (of Office Space fame), who awoke early in the morning to erect the drywall at the new McDonald's."

Hole-E Shit.

EDIT: I guess the majority of Office Space was filmed in Austin. Still.

The most relaxing waste of time ever

http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/flyGuy.swf

All you do is fly around, escaping copy machines, cell phones, etc. I think the music is what does it.

The best album of 2006, finally released

Although it leaked back in February, TV on the Radio's second LP, Return to Cookie Mountain, was released in the USA on the 12th.

If you know me, I've been verbally fellating this album for months. It's a bit more accessible than their earlier stuff (although that's great too), but still takes a while to grow on you. Heck, I wasn't much into the band when I first heard 'Staring at the Sun' and now they're up there with Pinback and Radiohead as my favorite bands of all time.

And I'll say it for the 23892nd time: 'Wolf Like Me' is the best single of the last five years.

And although I hate to cite various music critics to back up my opinions, etc...

"The disc might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedlic and ambitious of the year...Consider your mind blown."
-Rolling Stone (4.5 out of 5 stars)

"The latest experiment from TV on the Radio goes horribly right."
-Entertainment Weekly (A-)
"A punk gospel uplift that's often profoundly moving. There's an old saying that agitators play music because they like the noise it makes. TV on the Radio play noise because they like the music it makes."
-Spin

"This album has such an incredible pull: It doesn't make an atmosphere so much as a space to spend time in, and Adebimpe doesn't become a narrator so much as a witness."
-Pitchfork (9.1 out of 10)

"Anyone who spouts the perennial music is dead argument need only look to TV on the Radio for proof otherwise. Give up now, guys, because it rarely gets better than this."
-URB

And my favorite:

"...what might just be the best reason we've had for hope--as far as interesting, arty, progressive, well-executed, and mind-fuckingly good music goes--since OK Computer was lodge deep in the throat of music-listeners."
-Filter (94%)

A couple of links and videos:

http://www.myspace.com/tvotr - Their myspace page (free place to hear 'Wolf Like Me')

The video for 'Wolf Like Me'


They were on Letterman last night. I missed it; thank all that is awesome for YouTube.


If it isn't your cup of tea after one listen, I implore you - listen to it again. And again. And again. Hey, it worked for me with their last album.

'Tis the Season

In rememberence of the victims of 9/11 and the ridiculous censorship that followed, here's a list of several songs that were "banned" by Clear Channel following the attacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_deemed_inappropriate_
by_Clear_Channel_following_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks

Some highlights:

"Down" - 311
"Walk Like an Egyptian" - The Bangles
"Ticket to Ride" - The Beatles
"Smokin" - Boston
"In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins (perhaps my favorite)
"Mack the Knife" - Bobby freakin' Darin
"America" - Neil Diamond
"Ironic" - Alanis... yeah

Failing to draw restraint on Drawing Restraint 9

So with nothing better to do on Labor Day Eve I went to see 'Russian Dolls', the follow-up to 'The Spanish Apartment'. It was quite good, but anyway, prior to the film, the audience of about a dozen and I were treated to a trailer to Bjork's newest film 'Drawing Restraint 9', which I guess is about Bjork and some guy hanging out on a Japanese whaling ship or something.

Here's the trailer:



From the review on IMDb:

"Possibly tedious at some points, I thought it was equally wonderful that Bjork and Matthew and the Captain and crew had so much leisure to be able to tell the story, to act in this way, to live for weeks or months on the ship and its legacy. But then, I'm a full time artist who has no idea what time it is.

What was happening on the screen was only a key meant to unlock what has always been happening within us, within the deeper scar from which we all are naturally and continually emerging our being"

Yeah, ok dude.

So, anyone want to see this at The Ross? Maybe we can inject LSD into our eyeballs first!

And you thought clowns were scary (not that mascots are any different)

Nebraska 45
La Tech 14

With that in mind, here are some photos of past/current mascots.

If you plan on going to sleep soon, don't scroll down.

I now support the war

This sounds like something people from Maine would think up.



http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2006/08/30/
guard_families_cope_in_two_dimensions/

Guard families cope in two dimensions
`Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | August 30, 2006

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.

Welcome to the "Flat Daddy" and "Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

"I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. "The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

At the request of relatives, about 200 Flat Daddy and Flat Mommy photos have been enlarged and printed at the state National Guard headquarters in Augusta. The families cut out the photos, which show the Guard members from the waist up, and glue them to a $2 piece of foam board.

Sergeant First Class Barbara Claudel, the state family-support director who began the program, said the response from Guard families has been giddily enthusiastic.

"If there's something we can do to make it a little easier on the families, then that's our job and our responsibility. It brings them a little bit closer and might help them somewhere down the line," Claudel said yesterday.

"You know, this is my motto: `Deployment isn't a big thing, it's a million little things.' These families go through a lot."

While most families stay in touch with their guardsmen by e-mail, snapshots, and videophone, the cutouts are unusual.

"It's a novel approach," said John Goheen, spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States, a Washington-based lobbying group. "It's to remind the kids that this guy and this woman is still part of your life, that this is what they look like, and this is how big they are."

Claudel said she heard about the Flat Daddy idea while attending a national conference for the Guard. In Maine, the initiative began about eight months ago when Flat Daddies were offered as part of the deployment of B Company, Third Battalion, 172d Mountain Infantry, which is based in Brewer.

Now, when units are mobilized, the Guard organizes Flat Daddy parties, in which families can meet one another while receiving instructions on assembling the photos.

Judkins said the cutout has been a comfort since her husband was deployed in January.

"He goes everywhere with me. Every day he comes to work with me," said Judkins, who works in a dentist's office. "I just bought a new table from the Amish community, and he sits at the head of the table. Yes, he does."

In the car, her husband's image sits behind the driver's seat so Judkins can keep an eye on him. A third-grade class writes to him as their ``adopted" guardsman. And Judkins even brought her husband's cutout -- which she calls Slim Jim, because he's not -- to confession at the local church.

When asked what her husband had to confess, Judkins laughed. "That's private," she said.

Jim Judkins had at least one precarious moment as a cutout. When cousins tried to stuff him into a suitcase to take on a cruise, they broke his neck. But instead of expensive surgery, all the cutout needed was a little duct tape, Judkins said.

Cindy Branscom of Hallowell, whose husband, Colonel John Branscom, is in Afghanistan, said spouses of service members in the 240th Engineer Group often bring their Flat Daddies to monthly support meetings and group barbecues. She said one spouse, Mary Holbrook of Hermon, has been seen in the company of her cutout husband, Lieutenant Colonel Randall Holbrook.

"Mary has taken Randy to different events," Branscom said.

But then again, that's almost expected.

"I think it's wonderful," Branscom said. "My Flat Daddy sits in my dining room all the time. He even went to Easter dinner with us at my family's house."

We've got the power now, motherfuckers, that's where it belongs

Sonic Youth/Flaming Lips after-action report:

SY: Freakin' awesome, although I would've liked a longer set and some stuff off Sonic Nurse and Murray Street. They did the wacky distortion thing between songs, but if any band can get away with that it's Sonic Youth. I also though Kim Gordon sounded better live than on recordings.

Flaming Lips: Ok, now in terms of music I was a bit more jacked for Sonic Youth, not to take anything away from the Lips. But then they started and went right into 'Race for the Prize'; the confetti and ballons started flying and the people started jumping around. It was about as close as one can come to euphoria in such circumstances, and probably the most fun I've ever had at a show.

I meant to bring a camera, so here's the best I could do with my phone.

The famous Wayne Coyne Ball (I TOTALLY TOUCHED IT):



Assorted ballons:

Some kids are still smart

So this evening I was at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on a two-hour layover. I found some place that served alcohol that also happened to be showing the MLS All-Star game.

After a while, a gentleman and his son, who was probably 7 or 8, sat down near me.

SON: "Is this the World Cup?"
DAD: "No, this is the Major League Soccer All-Star game. The World Cup has been over for a month."
SON: "How come?"

Give this kid a medal because he has a fucking point.

Inaugural Compound Shindig

A fun time was had by all.

NEWS LINK CREW FRONTIN'



The gentleman here on the right is the man who hired me. I suppose, in a way, he was responsible for this whole thing.



TOTH SHOWED UP



Uh huh.



And your hosts

"The Tour" OR "You asked for it, Jonn"

I could post several photos of the house, but here's what's particularly important.



The wood-paneled basement, along with the house's feature attraction. Someone built a bar/window into it. If you're wondering what's on the other side, it's some storage room and the furnace. I keep saying we need to hire some guy to be down there 24/7; he'll serve as comic relief and we'll come to him with all our problems. I smell a sit-com!

The News Link Compound

THE DIGS:



CAST OF CHARACTERS:

Thew-



Shannon-



Cathy-



Housewarming gathering TBA. Stay tuned.