f u c k y o u i s t a n

yeah yeah yeah

2008-03-27T23:40:00.004-06:00

It's been a while. I know. I'm planning more posts soon, but was told I had to post tonight to avoid retribution rom my youngest brother. Fuck you Mattle.

So in lieu o
ve anything embarrassing in there (I'll admit, I love that Feist song but don't really want anyone to know about it) or just surprising? Go ahead, share in the comments, post your list or take geeky screenshots like I did and link to them.

And here are some coming posts/attractions to whet your appetite:

why I think the things you like about your favorite band and favorite people tend to be the same
a rundown on all the blog posting by friends/family while I've been out of the loop
stories/pix from new orleans
recap on rocking with my new "special friend" and Dan.
exciting internet trends from 8 months ago that i'm just getting into!
my fucking stupid new haircut

january project day 9

2008-01-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

(Shockingly I missed days 7 + 8 with more hantavirus. I think I must have somehow borrowed Tom Hanks' immune system from Philadelphia this past month. Being sick is the lamest.)

Drinkers: Luke, Dan, Wes, me
Server: Dani
Drinks: I missed when everyone ordered. I had a gin and tonic. Update me in the comments guys.
Tab: $8
Subject matter discussed: Ok, this one I remember because it only happened a couple hours ago. Dan brought up his recent blog post about his deep-seated hatred of baby boomers in general and the Doors specifically. Check out his rant over at his site, it's pretty spot on.

From the jumping-off point of the Doors, we decided to plow through what we thought were the most overrated bands now and past, and boy, would I have hated to be the people sitting a table near us and have to overhear our amazingly smug and self-satisfied (and obviously spot-fucking-on) repartee. Much fun was had by all.

Notable and particularly ballsy overrated throwdowns by each drinker:
Luke: The Smiths
Dan: Velvet Underground
Wes: Pavement (for this blasphemy our Okie friend will one day pay dearly)
me: My Bloody Valentine

january project day 6

2008-01-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

Drinkers: Ben, Luke, Hammer, Mari, Dan, Wes, me
Server: Dani
Drinks: The Greyhound, this night's special was a big hit. I think about 10-12 of these were ordered in total, also in the Salty Dog variation. I had a couple gin and tonics. Anyone else can fill in their drink from that night in the comments.

Again, I was pretty under the weather this night, so if anyone remembers details of conversation, fill them in in the comments. I think I said something foul to Mari.

january project day 5

2008-01-09T22:49:00.001-07:00

I missed Friday, JPd4, due to the hantavirus.

Drinkers: Mari, Dan, Wes, Joel, me
Server: Dani (sp?)
Drinks: Since I still kinda had hantavirus the only thing I remember is that I was talked into getting a Hot Toddy for the first time. verdict: ehh

I don't really remember much else from this evening mainly due to Tylenol PM hangover and the fact that I was scolded by Dan on Thursday for bringing my notebook to JPd3. I was told that "documenting the event fundamentally changes it." Yeah yeah yeah. Good work, how was that 10th grade philosophy class, dickwad?

Ok, that looks more bitter than I really am. xoxoxo

january project day 3

2008-01-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Ok I know this is late, but I've been sick as a dog and actually missed some January Project dates. Other more resolute and less sickly and weak members of the January Project soldiered on in the meanwhile. I'm going to give my recollections of Thu 1/3. More recent days that I attended to come soon.

January Project Day 3

In attendance: Luke, Dan, Wes, me
Server: Jen
Drinking: Luke - rum + coke, Dan - bourbon + ginger, Wes - Newcastle + an Anchorsteam, me - gin + tonic
Question of the night: Iowa caucus predictions. We started drinking at around 7:15pm MDT and we hadn't yet seen preliminary results. So these are the predictions we ended up with:

Dem:
Luke: Clinton winning
Dan: Edwards will do better than expected, Obama will do worse than expected
Wes: Obama, Clinton, Edwards
me: Obama, Edwards, Clinton

GOP:
Luke: Huckabee
Dan: Huckabee
Wes: Romney, Huckabee, McCain
me: Romney

We didn't do too badly overall, but I guess by this point in the evening it wasn't the hardest thing to call.

Dan made me write down that a jukebox highlight was "Sailor Girl" by the Shins. I don't know this song but apparently he enjoyed it. So, yeah.

Dan also induced a solid WTF look from me when he said, "You know if this comes down to Obama and Huckabee in the general, I'm really not sure how I'm gonna vote..."

So that was Day 3. Yay alcoholism!

january project day 3 update coming

2008-01-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Until then, enjoy my favorite highlights from tonight's Iowa caucuses:

Obama
Huckabee
Paul

Can I get an "aww yeah!" for a incredibly undemocratic means of selecting our next president? Really, fuck Iowa and this silly-ass hokey-pokey way they do things . I still <3 NH though.

the january project begins

2008-01-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

I'll get to year end wrap up sometime later this week, but I'm not feeling particularly reflective at the moment so this update on a project Wes and I have undertaken will have to suffice for now.

For some reason it seemed like a great idea to me and Wes back in early December to visit Gabor's, our neighborhood bar par excellence, each day for the month of January to consume at least one drink. I'll leave it to Wes to remind me of why we thought this would be a great idea -- I know we had some cool, compelling reason that was not simply just giving structure to our nascent alcoholism. Think of it as our version of NaNoWriMo, but with more drinking and slightly less crushing self-delusion.

Because I'm feeling lazy and just took two Tylenol PMs (hoping to cure both my nasty case of slut voice and some insomnia) this update will be somewhat brief. Here goes:

The January Project, Day 2, 1/2/08 *

Attending: Dan, Shelley, Wes, me
Drinking: Bourbon + coke x2 (Dan), Anchor Steam (Shelley), unidentified beer (Wes), gin + tonic x2 (me)
Server: Jen
Subject matter discussed: Admitting to low-grade highly-specific racism, the best times for parents to divorce, the sexual proclivities of distant acquaintances and why hockey is the most tragic of all major sports.
Jukebox highlight: Sonic Youth - 'Incinerate'
The tab: $12

Anyone reading this in the local area or beyond is welcome to join in our not-so-slow descent into alcoholism and dive-bar-regular-status. Just give a holler. It'll be a good time.

* You may be rightly asking, "Ok asshole, where is the post from Day 1?" Wes and I technically spent time drinking at Gabor's on January 1st since we rang in the New Year there and were feeling too wounded to head back on Tuesday, plus we had the entire first season of 30 Rock to watch. There will be an out-of-sequence post covering New Years coming soon.

fuck myspace. srsly.

2007-11-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

I signed up for a myspace account a few months back so that I could post something on mari's blog, probably some form of taunting or heckling. I haven't made a myspace page. I don't really care for myspace. But, since I have an account, I get myspace friend requests. I'm starting to notice a pattern.So apparently I either have recently made a lot of friends at a local strip club or myspace has some astonishingly shitty control over spammers. Any of you guys reading actually use myspace and not just Scrabulous, er, Facebook? This shit is annoying as hell and I don't even use the service at all.

On a related note - mari, for fuck's sake, drop myspace and put your blog on blogger or wordpress or anywhere else. My jihad on your blog will remain in place until action is taken on your part.

in time we will show the world why the world made us

2007-11-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

Work has been hard. I'm not saying my job is harder than anyone else's, I don't believe that
for a moment. Everyone has hard jobs.

Stop snickering Dan.

Right now though, if Toby Russell were still in the office and was to ask me, like he would with some frequency, "so, are you winning?," I would have to answer no. I am not winning. I don't know who is if I'm not, because that's usually a pretty binary situation, but I know it's not me.

It's probably just time to go out with friends and drink a bit (check), listen to some pissed off music (check), and then step back and try to figure out what the hell is going on (still to do). We'll see how that goes. Until then, enjoy a song from the album that I've been listening to pretty non-stop while I've been riding the fail-train the last few weeks.

Les Savy Fav - "The Lowest Bitter"

wait, i have a blog?

2007-11-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah, apparently I do. How bout that.

I've been slacking lately in general, or at least it feels like it. I want to blame it on fall arriving, or something that involves planetary movement and gravity and massive celestial forces represented by Greek characters that you can't get your head around and need to watch a NOVA episode to feel like you understand but you still really don't. That would be more comforting than just admitting I've been lame lately - not calling my family, not going to the last few excellent shows that have come through town (Deerhoof, Architecture in Helsinki, etc), not going to Halloween parties and nights out at Gabor's. Lame, lame, lame.

So here's my first stab at getting back on the right track - I'll post something long and rambling tonight and not stay up working. Here goes.

Going backwards from last I posted, I went with other folks in my dept. to Madison for a conference on using WebGUI. Wait a second, don't go look at Facebook or that hentai site (Dan!) there's actually some funny shit that happened. Here's the run down:

I was caught acting intolerant towards arguably the most tolerant people on the planet. Yes, that's right, the Dutch. So apparently WebGUI (the content management system we use at work) is amazingly popular in the Netherlands and several of the presenters at our conference were from the land of tulips and semi-legal hash. The only problem - you couldn't understand a fucking word they were saying most of the time. At one point Shelley and I determined what was coming out of one Dutch presenter's mouth was the sound of a throat full of cock. It was that bad. Really. So one day during the free lunch that was provided to us at the hotel where the conference was hosted (mmm, Xangos!), I decided to express my frustration with these presentations, perhaps including the phrase "Jesus Christ, not another fucking cock-throated Dutch guy mumbling for two hours this afternoon. Kill me." This in turn earned me about a dozen stink eyes from a table full of Dutch folks who unbeknownst to me were seated a mere five feet away. Turns out they don't have cocks in their ears and could hear my apparent anti-Dutch bigotry loud and clear. Damnit. I really do love the Dutch. But please, cock out of your throats when you're trying to explain SQL forms to me. Thanks guys.
In honor of Shelley's birthday, Wes and I went out in search of alcohol -- on foot and in a driving rainstorm -- from the sumptuous Motel 6 where we were staying. Turns out that although Madison gets a lot of hype for being the drinkingest town in the Midwest, it's really fucking hard to find alcohol after 9PM along a highway filled with strip malls and Mexican restaurants named something like 'Snugadero's.' Refusing to come back empty handed, we decided to purchase the most birthday-themed appetizers and depressing desserts from the Arby's across the street from the Motel 6 (in case you were wondering, the primary ingredient in Arby's Cherry Turnovers is sugar, followed closely by high-fructose fucking awful syrup). We capped off this awesome feat with dropping our gourmet purchases in the middle of the highway in front of oncoming traffic. It was epic, and Shelley was nearly asleep when we got back to the motel and had to be browbeaten into eating her birthday turnover. Sorry Shelley.
Everyone in our tiny room snored. Maybe not plo. Maybe. This forced us to spend $20 one night on his and hers ear plugs (men's are blue and called HEAROS and women's are pink and called Sleep Pretty in Pink - and it turns out they're made by the same company, which also happens to also make a line of ear plugs targeting Latinos(?!), called Muy Buenas Noches), BreatheRight strips and sleeping pills. All that shit kinda worked. Only kinda.
We got to fly into Rockford, Illinois (oddly enough not part of the metro-Madison area, but is the world-renowned home of the Sock Monkey), on one of the tiniest, sketchiest airplanes I've ever been on. Fuck aisle seats.
The Essen Haus rules. We drank a giant flower vase full of beer and ate manly German food.
Cheese curds and Big Buck Hunter rule as well.

So that was Madison.

To keep the ramble up a bit, here are some of the things that have been occupying my time while not being social or blogging:

Weeds. Part of me thinks that I shouldn't like this as much as I do. I actually feel more guilty about liking this than I do BSG. But it's great. Go watch it online here.
The GFW Radio podcast . Ok, I feel even guiltier about this, but this podcast is fucking hilarious. Ostensibly, it's about PC gaming, which I don't do, but that is just a front for the guys on the show to discuss the endless strangeness of internet culture. The apex of each show is the "Heroes of the Web" segment where one of participants on the podcast does dramatic readings of internet message board posts covering things like otherkin, furries, and people who fall in love with video game characters. I find myself laughing because otherwise I'd be weeping for humanity. Check out these mp3 samples of "Heroes of the Web", you won't be disappointed (click the links to go to yousendit DL page):

Uncov.com. I justify reading this blog because it's kinda part of my job to keep up on trends on the web. That being said, the guy who writes it is a former Google employee who may be the most bitter, dark-hearted human in the world. The images accompanying the posts are, depending on your own level of misanthropy, either the funniest thing you'll see all day or will make you want to take a shower. I've been finding them pretty funny.
Scrabulous. This shit is a force of nature. I'm fully addicted, but you already know that because anyone reading this blog is probably also currently playing a game of it with me right now.

OK, I feel like I've done my due diligence. If you disagree, yell at me in the comments. Yell at me in there anyway. Seems like everyone's been a bit quiet on their blogs lately. Maybe we can all come out of hiding at the same time.

See y'all again, sooner.

episode three: stupid again

2007-10-09T20:05:00.000-06:00

As further evidence of my man-childhood, I missed my scheduled flight out of Boston last week because I misplaced my wallet. After a couple hours of sanity-questioning searching of my family's house where I was staying, I found that it had fallen down behind the twin bed I was sleeping in during my brief stay at the Natick homestead after Alpha training. Just fucking retarded.

This led to some further stupidity of course. When I found my wallet it was around 9:30PM and my flight left at 10:55. As I scrambled to figure out a way to still make the flight, I called my brother Mike, who was out boozing it up with some friends from out of town, to run my brilliant scheme by him. What follows is the conversation as I remember it:

MIKE: Hi Bill, you at the airport?

ME: Hey Mike! Yeah.. not there just yet.

MIKE: Huh? Why not?

ME: Well, I lost my wallet, but.. that's beside the point. I want to ask you something.

MIKE: (in a tone that sounding as though I was about to ask him for a kidney) What?

ME: (taken aback) Huh?

MIKE: (more perturbed) What is it?

ME: Um, ok... well I was wondering if you thought it'd be a stupid idea if I drove Mom's car to the airport, ditched it there in the parking and had her pick it up in a couple days when she gets back from her trip. I'd send her money for the parking and all that.

MIKE: (now realizing that his kidneys were safe) Oh... well yeah. I guess that'd be fine. I mean, I can just drive you to the airport.

ME: Ok, well, that would be great, but my flight leaves in like an hour.

MIKE: (now truly realizing what a hopeless tard he has for an older brother) Ok, well, good luck with your plan there.

ME: Alright, catch you later.

So I peel out of the homestead, and make it to Logan in about 35 minutes. It's now 10:25. I'm under the impression that I'll have about 30 minutes to make my flight and that this should be fine since it's a Saturday night and there shouldn't really be much in the way of lines. Stupid again.

I walk up to the jetBlue counter as the last ticket agent is getting her belongings together to leave, and I'm informed that the plane is taxing down the runway at that moment.

The ticket agent informs me that she'll "see what she can do" and picks up a walkie-talkie but looks at me with pure contempt and clearly has no expectation that I'll be getting on this flight. She is not amused by my suggestion that they could provide me with a tricked out sports car or lend me a baggage transport vehicle in order to catch the plane on the runway like you might see in a shitty Vin Diesel movie. She then informs me I definitely won't be making my flight because the plane is now in the air. I resist the urge to inquire as to the availability of a jet-pack.

Having completely resisted my charm offensive, the ticket agent then informed me that I should just call the airline's 800 number to get a flight for tomorrow, since if she did it, she'd "be here all night, and I gotta get out of here." I can't really blame her. I wouldn't have helped me in this situation.

And since I think it's been a bit since I posted a song, here's one from what I feel safe in calling Pittsburgh's finest.

Girl Talk - "Warm It Up"

So this song breaks my rules I set out in August a bit (anyone remember those? or give a shit? didn't think so. me either) but I'm sure it's destined to qualify in about a week. It's a mashup, but that's kind of an understatement. I think there are at least 10-15 songs sampled on this track, from Wire to Fergie to Annie (!) to Kansas to a number of random-ass club songs to Smokey Robinson. This shit is unbeatable.

Happy now, nagbot?

episode two: seemingly bigoted (but maybe just into trannies)

2007-09-30T18:51:00.000-06:00

THE SCENE: Riding the commuter rail from South Station out to Natick on Friday night, and I've just settled into my seat.

THE PLAYERS:

DT: A disheveled transvestite/transgendered individual with a sequined purple bow in his long salt-and-pepper hair and a five o'clock shadow
TT: a burly MBTA ticket taker
FP: four to five fellow commuter rail passengers within earshot
ME: your faithful emissary from Fuckyouistan

THE ACTION:

ME: (takes a seat on the commuter rail in the bottom half of a double-decker car, towards the back. puts headphones on.)

DT: (Lurches through the aisle, inexplicably getting his/her (ok, what's the correct terminology for this? do you use the sex they were clearly born with or the one they are "working towards"? is it just their call entirely and you're to go with what they want to be referred to as? are these questions in and of themselves offensive? i think they are.) bags repeatedly caught on the armrests of the seats he/she is passing, only to be unstuck when someone else (FP) frees the straps of his/her numerous bags. DT sits down in a seat three in front of mine, but only briefly. He/she drops one of their bags in the seat and then suddenly rushes away from the seat, up the aisle away from me, in search of something.)

ME: (DT has caught my attention, not so much for his/her appearance but more for the fact that they dropped a bag in a seat and then took off. It's a post-9/11 world, and I don't know, maybe Al-Qaeda has taken to using the transgendered as a means to slip past standard profiling. OK, I admit that thought only spent a half second in my head. Mostly, I just thought it was odd.)

TT: (loudly to me) Checking out the broad, buddy?

ME: (trying to play it cool, responding with sarcasm) Oh yeah, totally.

TT: (to fellow passengers, again loudly) I'm trying to ask this guy like ten times for his ticket and he's all entranced with the missus there!

FP: (nervous quiet laughter, glances in my direction)

ME: (handing my ticket over) Hey, I had my headphones on...

DT: (returns to the lower section of the car and begins walking quickly back towards the part of the car where TT is currently tormenting me)

TT: Oh hey! Here comes your girl again, your lucky day buddy!

ME: (softly, defeated) Aww, c'mon....

- end scene -

I'm pretty sure I'm at least partially to blame for this whole fiasco taking place, whether or not it's just the fact that I had my headphones on in the wrong time or that I shouldn't be so jittery on trains to read something sinister into something that I'm sure is commonplace. Any interpretation on this is much appreciated.

EPISODE 3: STUPID AGAIN, wherein I temporarily lose my wallet and have to pay $45 because of it will be out tomorrow.

stupid, seemingly bigoted, stupid again: the fuckyouistan x-country tour stops in boston

2007-09-29T22:13:00.000-06:00

Episodes from my week spent in my hometown, or at least the nearest metropolitan area to my hometown:

EPISODE 1 - STUPID

Needing to make a phone call and smoke a cigarette, I went downstairs and outside the Winter Street office. I made my call and smoked my smoke, and then tried to re-enter the building. Forgetting that after 6PM all the doors to the building lock automatically, I was screwed. Everyone who could let me in had either already left for the day or I didn't have their cell number. So I tried to call Dan in Denver to get him to IM people who might still be in the building. In the meantime I kept an eye open for people leaving the building who might be able to let me in.

After about 30 minutes, some callers from the TOP left the building. I smiled and tried to seem harmless while I went in the open door, only to be trapped between the outer door and a locked door in front of me. This pattern repeated itself over another 30 minutes as I got through to the foyer containing the elevator, then to the stairwell, and then finally into the building. With each layer of 'security' I breached I imagine I looked sketchier and sketchier as it became more absurd that I was in an area and unable to get out of.

So, because of my stupidity I spent over an hour traveling roughly 100 feet. I'm pretty sure that both turtles and those without arms and legs can top that blazing speed.

EPISODE 2 - SEEMINGLY BIGOTED coming tomorrow.

omg fuckyouistan x-country tour - NYC edition

2007-09-23T04:33:00.000-06:00

OK, not really. I'm on layover at JFK and there's free wireless. So yeah, technically in NYC, but it might as well be Mars.

The one little slice of New York I did get was from the satellite TV provided by my jetBlue flight. I got to watch the 6am Sunday news broadcast on the NBC affiliate here, and I have to say, New York is comparatively a much more interesting place than I generally give it credit for. First up - a chunk of the East Side being shutdown b/c of Iran's president coming to town for the UN General Assembly. As much as I'm getting to love Denver, that kind of shit isn't happening anytime soon. The closest we might get would be a slightly more crowded 16th Street Mall shuttle because of the Wheat Growers Convention. But wait - HOLY SHIT - there's a "Ninja Bandit" (NBC's quotes, not mine) on the loose in Staten Island! He's robbed about 16 homes in the last few months and in his latest break-in was apparently scared away by what was described by the anchor as "a dentist's wife." Maybe the best new story I've seen this year. So, I admit it, NYC does have some charms.

It's 6 in the morning btw - so of course I'm pissed that I'm awake, but I'm also pissed that I thought that a redeye flight would be such a great idea. Redeye + shitloads of stuff to watch on jetBlue's satellite TV = i r zombie now. I just couldn't resist watching the following programming on my 3.5 hour flight:

Iron Chef America - Apples were the special ingredient! omigosh! Among the 'celebrity' judges was a man referred to as 'Chef Bonecrusher' who had to get up and hug the challenger chef after sampling his candied apple dessert. And also inform him that Jesus blesses him.
An amazingly crass History Channel series called MegaDisasters about gamma ray bursts from outer space and their potential to destroy our planet. I'll ruin it for you -- they won't! I just saved you one tedious stock-footage-laden-and-over-zealously-narrated hour. You're welcome. This show won some points though for finding ways to make the work that astrophysicists do seem active and engaging for a TV audience. They somehow got two of these guys who are way into space from KSU to be shot pouring some kind of acid onto a fossil. I'm sorry, someone who's taken a science class more recently than the 10th grade as I have please correct me, but that seemed like some ridiculousness to me.
An infomercial for a TimeLife CD box set called Flower Power. Hosted - I shit you not - by Peter Fonda.

- ok wait up - breaking news - apparently people from our office in Denver have sent out some kind of message to the listserve they're on for people who are amazingly inept with computers because a random Germanic man just interrupting my blogging (I have headphones on too, which I thought was the international symbol for 'I don't care to speak to you very much right now, Germanic man') to ask me how to connect his laptop to the free wireless service here in the terminal. It looked like he had just unpacked the laptop - it still had stickers everywhere and was running Vista. What an ugly and confusing OS. Fuck that noise. It only took me about 5 minutes to explain to him how to do something that essentially involved one click. Technology is awesome. ok back to stories about tv...

A snippet of Hannity and Colmes with Hannity blasting Al Gore for using a private jet to travel from Nashville to LA. He had a cute graphic of an average American family's carbon output from their average American station wagon making the same trip, and how much less impact they would have than Gore. It was adorable.
A poker tournament on ESPN Classic. I enjoyed this more than I should've.
The awesome local NBC news broadcast.

Ok, so the result of all that is that i've been up all night and am writing completely incoherently. This is probably not much more than an aimlessly snarky word-salad. But I did successfully kill the hour and 45 minutes between my flights, so it's not a total loss.

oh ps - that shit that crystal wrote the other day about her friend saying how blogs should be raw and revealing and all that, that's utter shit. i'll make a comment over there when i'm not completely insomnia-drunk, but the short of it - telling all your secrets on the internet is like gossiping to your friend who remembers everything and will answer any question posed to them by anyone at all. shit stays here forever and everyone can see it if they want. if you want to read honest stories from people's lives that aren't filtered, go read PostSecret. you don't open up a vein to a gathering of friends at a coffeehouse, and you shouldn't expect to see it when you're reading a friend's blog. i go to all your blogs looking for news about whatever clever, interesting thing you're all up to atm, or what you want to vent about. I'm not going there to peek through your windows or read your diary. fuck that.

This post was written while listening to "Matchbook Seeks Maniac" by Deerhoof and wanting a cigarette so badly I could cut someone. I've got a plane to catch right now so no mp3 of the song, I'll post it later. bye now.

that's when i reach for my revolver

2007-09-10T22:53:00.000-06:00

It's been a bit since I posted. Lately I have been both busy with work and sick as hell, not great conditions under which one can be expected to keep up appearances on my silly blog.

So a quick inventory of the past few weeks:

Spent the past weekend in Boulder -- polluted myself, ran from a cat with three other grown men, bought cocktail parasols, ate a fantastic burger, learned foosball and played it horribly, and actually got some work done.
Been listening to lots of LCD Soundsystem and Xiu Xiu -- I do now, in fact, je t’aime the valley OH! and feel like North American scum.
Rocked with greater frequency with Dan out in the garage. The name for our band is, tentatively, Gestetners. For more info on the stencil duplicator that would be our namesake, check this. I think it kinda works, and I think Dan does too, though he can tell you otherwise in the comments if he so chooses.
Been getting more excited by the day about my brother Mike coming to town this week. I'll be heading out with him to the Monolith Festival this weekend, as well showing him all of the tiny slice of Denver I myself have seen so far. OH AND YEAH IF YOU'RE READING THIS GO BUY MONOLITH TIX NOW!!! They're still available and even if I didn't hold a fundraiser to pay for your way to the show like I may have promised, I've decided I'm no longer accepting that as a valid excuse for some people not making it out here. Besides, I was super sick for like three weeks and I couldn't have made any money at a kissing booth even if I tried.
Started cooking again to mixed results - tomato sauce from scratch turned out considerably better than eggplant parm, which I forgot needed to be sauteed or somehow heated and transformed before being placed in a casserole to bake. I proceeded to bake the eggplant for roughly 4 hours at 250 degrees to reach the desired consistency. Which it still really didn't. It was an utter shit show.
Actually woke up for Friday morning breakfasts two weeks in a row. Got to listen to lots of baby-centric conversation I thought I wouldn't be party to for another 15 years. Silently prayed for my own infertility.
Still haven't seen Superbad. I did however watch New York Stories and sat through about 15 minutes of the "Life Without Zoe" segment from the Coppola family before it was proclaimed by the room to be among the most criminal of garbages and I retreated for a smoke. Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" short was quite enjoyable though and salvaged the experience.
Played RISK for the first time in maybe 15 years, and although it's been over a week since the game was started and I'm not the winner, I'm still happy I wasn't the first person eliminated. Sorry again, Wes.
Rediscovered and re-embraced my long-standing love of the powdered, sugar-free drink mix and nectar of the gods known as Crystal Light. Oh, and a special fuck you to all the CL haters out there - you know who you are. More on this development to come in future posts.

I suppose that was a handy excuse to avoid recapping my last few weeks in coherent sentences, but well, that's your problem now, not mine.

So now onto the present day. It seems that some of the groups I work on behalf of have me confused with the fine professional pictured below:

So yeah, I'm not an internet secretary, I'm an internet organizer. I feel like some days to get that through the fucking skulls of some of the people I'm working on behalf of I need teach them like Anne Sullivan, spelling the words "I WILL SEND YOU THE REQUESTED MESSAGING AND STRATEGY MEMOS" into their palm in ASL. How hard can this possibly fucking be? It's OK, don't answer that question, I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

Lest you think I'm a completely miserable sod, I will say that work on the whole has been pretty great lately, with the above outburst being an exception to the norm, and living at the Marion House still feels it's the days of wine and roses. And on top of that, today felt like the first day of fall - a startling crispness was in the air and people were wearing sweaters all over the place. Things could be a lot fucking worse.

Almost forgot, here's a song, currently at 59 plays in my iTunes:

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma

fake tans, defenestration & racing the moon

2007-08-23T21:54:00.000-06:00

Who knew you could combine those three items into a great pop song? My fav Aussie octet have done that on the single from their new album, Places Like This. From what I've heard so far on the album, they seem to be taking the opposite track of a band they used to get compared to all the time, and another band I love, the Fiery Furnaces. This record seems to be more focused, with typically only one well-developed melody per track instead of 5-10 like on previous outings, whereas FFs have just been going off the deep end lately.

This track, which is certainly qualifying for my obsession soundtrack having been played now 31 times in my iTunes, stands out to me because the parts that draw me in the most aren't the melody or vocals, but the beat. Again, I'm not a dance music guy, but when the song starts out with this great distorted drum machine, and then weaves in plinky kitchen-sink percussion and then Caribbean-sounding steel drums, I'm hooked.

Architecture in Helsinki - Heart It Races

I'm also a bit jittery today b/c I'm pretty sure we won the campaign I've been working on for the last month or so. Not entirely, but pretty sure we're at least close.

we smash rock music

2007-08-19T01:16:00.000-06:00

Ok, so first the literal part of that title. Dan, Nelson, Jaime, and myself were hanging out at the Marion House late this afternoon, failing to grill and successfully getting drunk, when I decided to be lame and ducked out to finish up some work.

Then, as it tends to happen, Dan had a genius idea. He grabbed the Wiffleball bat from the front room and simply said, "Please come with me." I had no clue what was going on since he left the Wiffleballs in the house. I decided to leave my work for a moment and we walked out through the backyard and out into the alley, where sitting out were about two hundred old albums. The following is what took place:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

It was the most fun I've had in a long, long time. We spent about an hour in the alley, playing Wiffleball with the records, and smashed every single one of them. (To concerned vinyl snobs - all the records sucked and weren't worth a dime.)

Unsurprisingly, we attracted a bit of attention, which ranged from local Old Man of the Mountain look-a-like contest winner and Gabors regular Bruce, who was slightly amused and just shook his head, to a few Gabors staff that decided to join in the fun (you can see them in some of the last photos in the stream) to an aging local wastoid who came out to inform us that while we seemed to be having fun, someone was going to have to clean all this up. Thanks, douche.

It was a blast, and I have to heartily suggest that everyone reading this take part in some random, benign form of destruction sometime soon.

Relating less literally to the post title are two songs that I've had stuck in my head lately. Both take rather tired but incredibly well-known rock lyrics and references and create new songs out of them. So in a way, they're smashing apart rock music, like the machines that take glass bottles at a redemption center, and using those broken bits. And it doesn't hurt that these songs are both full of hooks and super clever wordplay.

Okkervil River - Plus Ones
Built To Spill - You Were Right

OK, so I know the BTS song breaks my rule about all the songs being from 2007, but 1) I said I might break that rule and 2) the Okkervil River song is from an album that just came out. So I think I'm covered both ways. If you don't agree, feel free to bitch me out in the comments.

omg! breaking local denver news!

2007-08-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

I still haven't seen a lot of Denver. In fact pretty much all of seen is the 1.5 mile corridor between the Marion House and the office. But today, within that corridor, I think I saw something approaching news! Breaking news even, because I saw it happen.

I was on the 16th Street mall shuttle, just leaving the Market Street station. Another mall shuttle was coming towards the one I was riding on as we crossed Market, and then suddenly swerved to dodge an orange traffic cone on 16th and took out an entire fancy-pants lamp post! It was crazy!

I decided to take some pictures and pose as a grizzled liveblogger. So I busted out my cellphone and here's what I got:

You may be thinking - WTF is a park ranger doing in the pedestrian mall? That's actually my bus driver. Yeah, that's Denver.

While I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, especially since no one was hurt and the accident happened rather inexplicably, the last laugh was on me, because after the 'crash' the shuttle service ground to halt and I ended having to walk the whole length of the mall. The weather was decent tonight though, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

So yeah, local content. Enjoy.

who cares about commerce anyway?

2007-08-15T21:13:00.000-06:00

So I've decided to put the commercial mix tape thing on hold. I know, I know, this is hard for me too, but together we'll get through this. I'll probably come back to it at some point, but it was becoming annoying to me, and I thought that I would instead post songs that I've been obsessing over, and invite you, the reader, to talk about the tracks that have you feeling a bit abnormal because you're listening to them non-stop.

Thanks to iTunes, I can accurately record just how nearly autistic I'm becoming about a new song I've stumbled across. I've found play counts to be just searing indictments of compulsive listening, and are even more startling when you plug your iPod into sync and it reveals you listened to that Spoon song 40 times in the last two days. So this happy mish-mash of shame and compulsion is the context for the songs I'll be posting for a while.

I've set myself some rules for this series. They are as follows:

I have to have listened to the song at least 20 times
I have to have listened to it at least 3 times in a row on repeat
It has to be from 2007. (This may change)
I have to have tried to push the song on people
I have to feel at least a twinge of shame when I listen to it
I have to have turned off my last.fm tracking widget so that I don't display to anyone on this blog how obsessed I am about the song because I've played it over and over at work

The first song up is "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem from back in March. So first up, it definitely qualifies on rule #5. Plenty of assholes love this guy, and it is more or less dance music, which is kind of retarded for me to listen to because I fucking hate to dance. But I can tap my foot along with this song all day long. Great spiky piano line to start, and then a slow build through the verses and the shout-sung chorus. And not awful lyrics either at times -- the song has the sort of lines that are comforting/relatable after you've just turned like 30 or something (not that I'd know or anything, really) without being sappy.

LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

I'm interested to see what songs you guys have had these same kind of 'crushes' on - the thing where you know it's not healthy or normal to play this same song over and over again, but it's just too satisfying. So what ya got?

surprises

2007-08-11T20:10:00.001-06:00

So as a couple of the readers of this blog know all too well, I had a pretty shitty time at the Built to Spill concert last month. I won't go into it again, don't worry. But when looking through my cellphone the other day I found a nice little suprise from the concert, which was this photo:

Kinda snazzy, no? I had been frustrated because I thought the picture came out really terribly on my phone when I looked at it immediately after taking it, and then I couldn't get my phone to record any sound from the concert because its battery was dying. My plans for a blog post mocking liveblogging were being foiled. So I had forgotten I had taken the picture altogether. So, yeah.

I realize now this post contains shockingly little vitriol relative to my previous missives. Don't worry, that will be made up for in short order.

you fuckers are gonna pay

2007-08-08T22:37:00.000-06:00

Yeah, that's right. you know who you are. I head off to bed and then BAM! two sneak attack blog posts linking to me with like no context or whatever.

Actually, that was very nice of both of you come to think of it. You're right Mari, I am being randomly aggressive lately. But you're wrong when you claim that I have a "phone voice" that I put on. Do I not always speak in soothing, dulcet tones?

So anyway, context for people coming here from either blog -

Those from the 'rocking' link : Yeah, Dan and I got our rock on a bit today. I think the song we came up with today sounded like Deerhoof, which is OK in my book. What was not OK was the song we came up with last week, which when played again this week had, through some evil hex, become a droney, drunk-on-Nyquil version of Postal Service's Such Great Heights. We were in the middle of playing it, and it suddenly hit us what we were actually playing. And I, at least, felt like a douche.

Those from Mari's questionnaire link: Mari has undertaken an annexation of my blog by posting all her own blog posts as comments on my blog. Pretty genius move I must say. It's all because of this post of mine from a couple weeks ago. She still claims that this alone was her provocation, and that I fired the first shot in this war, but I beg to differ. C'mon, read my post. It's pretty clear who the victim is in this situation. After all, I'm not the one out gunning for some e-Lebensraum.

OK, all better now. And I'll even take back the threat from my subject line. Both you guys are pretty great in my book, and therefore will not be required to 'pay' for being 'fuckers.' I'll even wish you both a pleasant and enjoyable vacation. How's that for a change in tone in five or so paragraphs?

shh, don't say that out loud, our target market is listening!

2007-08-07T20:36:00.000-06:00

Another entry in the mix to end all mixes about songs in commercials. This one continues the theme of containing a prominent lyric more than likely antithetical to what an advertiser truly wants/feels: "We don't care about the young folks." C'mon, even if you're Sky TV, who used this song in a commercial last year, you care about that crucial 18-34 demographic.

Various Artists - Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons
#1: Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"
#2. Stephen Malkmus - "Phantasies"
#3. Luna - "California (All The Way)"
#4. Pixies - "Tame"
#5. Peter Bjorn and John (feat. Victoria Bergsman) - "Young Folks"

animalistic screaming and grain-based liquor

2007-08-04T23:23:00.000-06:00

So this next song struck me as fairly inappropriate for a TV commercial. Given that it contains what at least to me is the most inhuman yet incredibly cool screaming ever put to tape (listen for it at roughly 1:41 into the track) you'd think no one would ever want their product associated with such nuttery. But apparently this isn't the case if you're Smirnoff vodka, who used this song in a commercial in 2000-2001 in the UK.

Thinking on it a bit more, I suppose sending the message to consumers that perhaps drinking your vodka would turn you into a howling madman might be desirable in certain markets.

Various Artists - Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons
#1: Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"
#2. Stephen Malkmus - "Phantasies"
#3. Luna - "California (All The Way)"
#4. Pixies - "Tame"

this is what happens when you leave denver

2007-08-04T23:07:00.000-06:00

We, the strong, the survivors, we who persevere when everyone has turned their backs on us and high-tailed it to far-flung cities... make sushi.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

And it was really good, and none of you got to have any.

Suck on that.

tics, fidgets and random neuroses: an informal survey

2007-07-30T20:04:00.000-06:00

After getting yelled at repeatedly last night at the picnic table out back to stop flipping my empty cigarette pack off the table and up in the air (if you can't picture this deviant behavior, and really, I kinda of hope you can't, I was basically flicking my finger down on the top edge of the pack as it rested on the table, causing it to flip backwards up through the air, generally landing in front of me on the table or caroming off my face or chest) I started thinking about the other acts of fidgeting I do and came up with quite a few.

Among the most recently notable were the wet napkin cubes I mindlessly make when out at bars and the paint I peel off the aforementioned picnic table and roll up into little cylinders, which I tuck into the spaces between the slats of the table. Also, somewhat relatedly, I've recently found myself practically agonizing over which genre I tag songs in my iTunes library as. A lot of songs I download (really totally super-legally - Hi RIAA!) come with either random ass genre tags like 'Unclassifiable' or 'General Alternative' or 'Club-House' (which really, if there were music that came from a clubhouse/tree fort-type scene somewhere I would be so into that) or something else that just seems unbearably lame.

So my question to you all, finally - what sort of tics, fidgets, or pointless obsessions do you find yourself acting out and do find other people call you on them, or are they subtle enough that they only annoy the fuck out of you alone?

please stop quoting rod mckuen in your postcards

2007-07-29T17:45:00.000-06:00

Quick post here, both to stave off the incessant annexation attempts of the aforementioned infidels, and to continue along with the mix I've gotten started.

So here's the next track, and it actually comes from a suggestion in the comments (gasp!) and is of dubious 'indie rock' status, but whatever. It's a great song, wicked catchy, and ended up in both a Calvin Klein and American Express ad. Pretty high-falutin' placement. Anyhow, enjoy.

Various Artists - Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons
#1: Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"
#2. Stephen Malkmus - "Phantasies"
#3. Luna - "California (All The Way)"

the second song of the best mix tape that ever sold you a george foreman grill

2007-07-24T22:04:00.000-06:00

Ok, I know I'm on the kind of posting tear that must make certain infidels weep in awe and wonder, but I thought I'd continue along with my mix tape of crass commercialization for all y'all.

The next track up is "Phantasies" by Stephen Malkmus, which I think contains one of the least likely, but amazingly enough true lyrics for a song to be featured in an ad for a Sears 13 hour weekend sale:

White men go to pieces in the tropics/
I bet that is a topic you'd rather not broach

I am completely certain Sears and their fine riding mower-buying customers would indeed rather not broach that topic. And surely not while there are great deals to be a had on Craftsman tool sets and Panasonic portable stereos. They'd rather broach any other topic available! Does SM know his mid-level department store market demographics or what?! God I'm a douchey fanboy.

Various Artists - Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons
#1: Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"
#2. Stephen Malkmus - "Phantasies"

revenge is a confession of pain

2007-07-24T21:27:00.000-06:00

Oh, it's on, MS, it's on.

lil' help please

2007-07-24T01:40:00.001-06:00

Just got back from The Shining at Red Rocks, which was really impressive. The acoustics of the place completely remade the movie for me. Even in the wide open space of the amphitheater, the whole experience was claustrophobia-inducing. I'd never imagined seeing a movie with a soundtrack so violently loud before, and actually enjoying it.

So that was great.

But what the fuck is up with the guy in the ass-less furry dog suit? Yeah, this guy:

There's gotta be an explanation. I need this sorted out, post-haste. Lil' help please.

mary schwimmer, you're on notice

2007-07-23T01:04:00.000-06:00

So it was brought to my attention this evening by the infidel Mary Schwimmer that, even though I have just started this blog, I am completely shirking my blogly duties by only posting twice within four days.

I'm not taking this sitting down.

I intend to strike back.

The following is my case against Mary Schwimmer.

Exhibit A:
I was informed not only that my blog was lacking in posts, but that I would know it was lacking had I read Ms. Schwimmer's blog and seen how frequently she posts. However, I had not been supplied with Ms. Schwimmer's blog address until after being berated for my lame blogging. That aside, after a highly scientific study, it was found that since the first of this month, Mary's blog has been posted on a total of seven times. Since I started this blog on Thursday, I have now posted three times.

mari's blog : .35 posts per day
fuckyouistan: .6 posts per day

I think I just wrecked your shit with math.

Exhibit B:
Readers will be shocked to find out that Ms. Schwimmer recently committed what most respectable citizens would consider a form of animal endangerment. She was entrusted with a cat, Eloise, while the cat's owner would be unable to keep the cat at her current residence. Ms. Schwimmer then jetted off to Albuquerque and knowingly left the cat under the watch of a person who shall remain nameless. That person proceeded to purchase and then dress the cat in a tie . The consequences of this action have been dire for all involved.

Eloise with no tie:

Pretty normal, happy cat.

Eloise with a tie:

I'm as astonished as you are, really.

I think I can rest my case. Ms. Schwimmer has many things to answer for, and I hope you will all hold her accountable for her grave misdeeds.

mile high top five

2007-07-22T18:03:00.000-06:00

#5. beards on homeless people

Ok, I'm sure this seems purposefully offensive, but hear me out. There are a couple of upsides to the near ubiquity of beards on the homeless of Denver. If they can grow a beard, it's a sign that they are not so malnourished that basic bodily functions have broken down to the point where they're not growing hair anymore. That's a good thing, right? Also, beards on homeless people also give you the feeling that you're walking through some kind of live action re-enactment of the mountain west's gold rush past. I haven't spotted anyone prospecting in the fountains on 16th Street Mall yet, but I imagine it's just a matter of time.

#4. the tattered cover

It's right next to the office, it's got cheap iced coffee, a byzantine layout with plenty of places to hide away in and get work done, and counter staff at the coffee shop that indulge whatever silly conversation you may be having at the time you're making your order and politely smile along with whatever you might be blathering on about. Can't beat that.

#3. gabors

I think that I've finally found a replacement for the Red Dragon in Mpls, which until now had been the standard against which I measured all other neighborhood dive-type bars. It has a super cheap happy hour, mostly pleasant wait staff, fried mac and cheese wedges and the most badass juke box I've seen in a probably ever. The entire Slanted & Enchanted album? Fuck yeah.

#2. a commute that costs zero dollars
In the past I've always had to drive or take the T or in some way expend money in order to get to my jobs. It's strange how almost luxurious it feels to get to work without spending a dime, walking through Cap Hill, past the state capitol and then down to the free 16th Street Mall shuttle.

#1. marion house + house regulars*

It's the nerdy frat house I never lived in during college but should have. Instead I spent my time in college living with, among others, cousins from Plano, TX, a jazz studies major way into Tool, a 50 year old acid-burnout with no fingers on his right hand and a laid-off telecom worker way into Star Trek Voyager. The Marion House crew beats all of them, gives them a wedgie and takes their lunch money. I couldn't be more psyched to live here.

* - if you're wondering if 'house regulars' refers to you, rest assured, yes it does.

Given that I'm such a Denver noob, I'd be interested to hear what vets of the city find most appealing. I've pretty much spent all my time here this month within the 1.5 mile corridor between the Marion House and the office, so I'd have to imagine there are other things to do in the parts of the city I've yet to see.

When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion

2007-07-19T01:16:00.000-06:00

No intro post, no reasons for starting a blog, nope nope nope. Here's something resembling content instead.

So after a few conversations with Dan about on the rather old hat topic of whether bands we love licensing their music for commercials constitutes the absolute death of our love for them or is just a means for them to keep making music we enjoy since the music business bones them so ferociously it's amazing they can walk straight, I decided it'd be fun to put together a mix tape of sorts made of songs I actually like by bands I actually like that have shown up in commercials in one form or another as a way to potentially settle our argument -- Dan was less inclined to give certain bands a break for licensing songs, while I was apparently the capitalist douche who doesn't believe in art for art's sake.

My apologies for that evil run-on sentence.

Anyhow here's the first song for the mix I'm making for you, which is anyone reading this tripe, which will be called Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons. It's from Of Montreal's 2005 album, The Sunlandic Twins, and it's a super poppy track. Sonically, it totally makes sense as an ad. Lyrically, not so much. So it's not surprising that Outback Steakhouse decided to use the song but completely change the words, since "let's pretend we don't exist/let's pretend we're in Antarctica" probably wouldn't sell a Bloomin' Onion or Pan-Seared Darling Point Crab Cakes all that fucking well. So instead they did the commercial you've all certainly seen by now unless you're some real hardcore luddite/commie.

So here's the original song and the beginning of my mix tape for you.

Various Artists - Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons
#1: Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"

Fancy-pants cover art coming soon.