Saturday Check-In

Again with the posting slackeritis. I'm horrible at this. Whatever I guess. Not much to report. Life isn't all that exciting these days.

I guess there were a few activities of note in the last week or so to mention. Those would be an outing to see Local H at Roc Bar, me running a 10K (this is me), a wedding and a Ribfest.

Local H is getting older (like me) but still bring the rock pretty damn hard. You can't beat the amount of noise they generate, especially being just two guys. It's impressive. I bought their newest album at the show and the guy selling the merchandise was none other than Scott, the singer. His music straight to my ears and my money straight into his pocket. No middlemen necessary!

The 10K was pretty OK. I mean, running isn't really that fun, but as far as running a 10K goes I guess it went well. It was lightly raining but other than that no complaints. I finished right around my goal, beat one of my co-workers and I didn't even feel too shitty the days following.

The wedding was a co-worker's in Pennsylvania. Sort of last second style, definitely D list, but food and drink and people making asses of themselves on the dance floor is always OK no matter what list you're on. I have to say the wedding scene is a little strange for me as mine didn't really work out so well. This whole separation has made me more cynical than ever. And that sort of makes me nuts inside.

The Ribfest is an annual thing in The Cleve. And I know why. Those ribs are tasty as hell. It's not the cheapest way to stuff your face on a sunny Sunday, but sometimes spending money is worth it. Especially when ribs and rubs and sauces spend some time in the smoker and/or over coals. Delicious.

That's all for now. I'm going to go browse some cars in a used car lot up the road to see if they've got anything for me or if it will least strike up some inspiration for something motorized.

Here's A Kick In The Nuts To Go Along With Your Inevitable Delay

$15 for a checked bag? Are you kidding me?: American To Charge For 1st Checked Bag

See Dees

Since a question was asked in the comments of my last post and since I like to be "interactive" here at Stinktown I guess I should answer. The CDs I ordered from the wacky CD Baby are:

CD #1: Jimmie's Chicken Shack - Fail On Cue

CD #2: Suicide City - Not My Year

Also, it should be mentioned that I acquired two others this past week that were not ordered from CD Baby:

CD #3: mc chris - mc chris is dead (purchased direct from mcchris.com)

CD#4: Vietnam Werewolf - Ohio's City (purchased at a live show)

Yeah, it's all over the place, but it should at least keep my ears busy for awhile.

Shipping The Way It Was Meant To Be

I ordered a couple of CDs online yesterday. The confirmation e-mail that my CDs had been shipped was way better than what most companies send:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, May 19th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000

Get Those Legs Working

Tomorrow is Bike-To-Work Day so get your fat ass out of your car habit and plop that ass on a bike seat and pedal. It's fun. And it's good for you. And you won't be bitching about gas being $4 a gallon.

More info here.

Seriously, do it.

License To Boast

Saw this plate on a car outside of a Mexican restaurant I went to the other day:

Surprisingly there wasn't one sexy person eating, let alone two of them.

Sunday Brunch. Now With Feathers!

Here's a gross story for you.

I wound up working this past Sunday. Not my usual, but I'm a nice guy and I agreed to fill in for someone. Anyway, I ride my bike in and pull up to our quiet building. I roll up to the bike rack and look over to see a seagull looking at me. You know how they are. Always giving the evil eye. Head tilted, beak at the ready ... it makes me nervous.

I go about the business of locking up my bike and look up to see the seagull has something in it's mouth. I can't figure it out at first but then I see. It's a dead bird. There's this one in the seagull's mouth and two more on the ground. Apparently a bunch of little birds from the neighborhood had a run-into-the-building-windows party. It surprisingly resulted in a bunch of broken necks. Idiots. Anyway, this seagull had a sparrow in its mouth. Then the seagull tilts its head back and swallows the thing down. Pretty much one big gulp and it was gone. It may as well have been a piece of bread or a crab or a french fry. But it was a bird. A small bird, but a bird nonetheless. Pretty much cannibalism. Nasty!

The seagull gives me another stare and hops to another dead bird, scoops him up and gulps him down. At this point I decided enough was enough and I walked over that way and the seagull flew off with his two bird lunch. I'm sure it came back for the last bird but at least I didn't have to see it.

Upon looking through photos on Google, I see that it could have been worse. Still, something about that gulping those little birds down whole is creepy to me.

It's All About Form

Speaking of rowing ... I hate rowing machines aka ergs. Always have. BUT if I could be on one next to this I might feel more tolerant and motivated.

photo from CrossFit

Sunday Boozy Sunday

Last night I went to a party with my fellow rowers at the house of one of the coaches. It was actually pretty cool. Good food, decent music, air hockey, pool and of course much of the drinky drink. I got pretty banged up. Then I walked home via the train tracks. It's really quite perfect. Plenty of places to pee, no drunk drivers or drunk walkers, and plenty of rocks to throw and/or trip over. Plus who doesn't like the thrill of possibly having a train rocket by you at 2am.

I woke up early because these same rowers were having a workout session in the park by my apartment at 9:15am. Always the early morning shit with this sport. So annoying. Anyway, I walk over and there is only one person from my boat there. She's curled up in a ball on the grass, all pale as hell and praying for death. First class hangover. Four others showed up too, all feeling rather crappy. We worked out, but it was pretty half-assed. We then went to breakfast. This seemed to go better than the exercise part.

We're going to be a dream team for sure.

Track Baby

I love this photo:

Watch out, Big Brown! Baby on the track!!

You'd think it was some wacky news parody site or something, but no. It's from 1010WINS. This photo that was whipped up to go along with this story: http://www.1010wins.com/ABANDONED-FOR-THE-DERBY/2122386 and quite honestly I think it's the best use of a Photoshopped baby I have ever seen.

Another Week Gone By

Again with the lack of consistent updates. I know, I know.

Anyway, this past week was pretty fun. Monday I went to see my boys from my old stomping ground, the New York Yankees play my new stomping ground's Cleveland Indians. Tickets were a birthday present making it even better. Despite it was pretty chilly out and there was some sloppy playing by both sides, the Yankees pulled out a win which was pretty sweet. Making all this even sweeter was the fact that some random guy comes up to me at the bar before the game and asked if I wanted to upgrade my ticket. I, of course, am suspicious of anything that seems too good to be true. I told the guy that the tickets I had were pretty good (not a lie) but he said, "Look, these are right behind homeplate. Here, take 'em." So I did. And he wasn't lying. Five rows back, right behind the plate. Pretty sick. I bought the guy a beer, but other than that it really was a totally free upgrade. WTF? That kind of thing never happens to me. So, thanks for the tickets mystery guy. It was appreciated.

The day after the game I went to see spaz rockers (did I just make up a new genre?), Mindless Self Indulgence at The Agora. Pretty cool venue. Sold out too, so it was full to the brim with the odd mix of punks, goths, rockers and ravers that MSI seems to attract. A good time was had by all. I even picked myself up a poster that I plan on getting framed (someday).

Last night I went to a dos de mayo party at a co-workers apartment. Also pretty fun. Drinks, snacks, drinking games, music, stories about whitewater rafting and high school football douchebags, etc.

Tonight I have another cinco de mayoish party with my newly established rowing peeps. I'm bringing some mac and cheese and people better fucking like it because it's the shit.

At Least Someone Is Using Their Brain

Mike Bloomberg is slightly nuts, but I really like his long-term thinking (a thing that most people just don't seem to have). Fuck that patching up problems and then have them come back to haunt us all worse than ever a few years down the road. Fix shit now, bitches.

Granted having assloads of money makes his style of thought a bit easier than for the average Joe, but maybe we need to start solving problems ourselves instead of depending on the douches running for President (who you know aren't going to get jackshit done). Kudos, Mike.

From 1010WINS:

Bloomberg praised Sen. Barack Obama for opposing the plan floated by Republican John McCain and supported by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.2 cent diesel tax during the peak driving months of the summer.

"It's about the dumbest thing I've heard in an awful long time, from an economic point of view," Bloomberg told reporters at City Hall. "We're trying to discourage people from driving and we're trying to end our energy dependence ... and we're trying to have more money to build infrastructure."

Full story here: http://www.1010wins.com/Bloomberg--Gas-Tax-Holiday-an--Idiotic--Idea/2108707