Action

last post? not if I do this again...

2007-10-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Saucy Brute + the Diamond Wedding Weekend Highlights
1. Dr. the "I'm buying a pitcher per person" Caveman (father of the groom), and Mrs. the "let's talk about how my son and daughter-and-law need good sex" Diamond (mother of the groom)
2. the popularity of our homebrews
3. being in charge of the alcohol
4. watching groomsman nop.bot in fine gay-tor drunken glory, including giving him a shot of water (while the rest of us took real shots)... which then resulted in him puking
5. dance-off with the great poet
6. college football
7. high school football, both the night before and the day after (playing on that hallowed ground)
8. S & J, and their breastfeeding bartender
9. how it was simply a magnified version of our typical lives anyway
10. being a part of the diamond & saucy brute's family

And when you wake up the morning after a wedding with the bridal bouquet in your house... does this mean you've simply done your duty as the best man?

Song of the Day: Bob Dylan - Make You Feel My Love

a woman (not my wife) sang / to me of the ghost land

2007-10-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

A similarly blogging friend recently did a post creating a movie soundtrack from one's (randomly shuffled) music. I love music, and I hate astronomy, so I thought I'd kill some time at work with it. The relevant "movie" moment...

Wedding scene: Rilo Kiley - Ripchord. Now, at first, I was ridiculously excited, because of my grand scheme to marry Jenny Lewis (see the photo above, from last night's Rilo Kiley show in Tucson... it's a crappy picture, but I was distracted). But then I realized that Jenny Lewis doesn't actually take part in this particular song... instead, it's all done by the lead guitarist, who as a child was Pinski (Budnick's replacement) on Salute Your Shorts. Anyway, not my wife (Jenny Lewis). And then I realized that the lyrics to this song include 'cuz nobody loves you, etc. So much for coincidental fate. Even despite all my carefully laid plans, I am not, in fact, currently wed to Jenny Lewis.

In case you're wondering, or are looking to kill some time of your own, the iTunes-randomly-generated soundtrack to my autobiographical movie would go as follows below. I especially like the Driving and Death Scene choices, both of which I might have actually selected.

Opening credits: Modest Mouse - Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice on Ice Alright
Waking up: The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes
First day of school: The White Stripes - This Protector
Falling in love: The Who - Happy Jack
Breaking up: Iron & Wine - Sunset Soon Forgotten
Prom: Tiger Army - Under Saturn's Shadow
Mental breakdown: Natalie Merchant w/ Billy Bragg & Wilco - I Was Born
Driving: Neil Young - After the Gold Rush
Flashback: The Beatles - Rocky Raccoon
Getting back together: Rage Against the Machine - People of the Sun
Wedding: Rilo Kiley - Ripchord
Birth of child: Goldfinger - 99 Red Balloons
Final battle: Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi
Death scene: Ben Kweller - Wasted & Ready
Funeral song: Johnny Cash - Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Life
End credits: Pavement - Newark Wilder

and the song of the day, one past the list (and certainly soundtrack-worthy)... The Beatles - A Day in the Life

drunk again and looking to score

2007-10-04T13:37:00.001-07:00

Last night I skipped frisbee to play kickball with sooz & her pink team, "drunk again and looking to score." I think I was a solid tribute to the team name:

1. I was a solid drinker... especially when umpiring for the other teams.
2. I scored from third on a suicide squeeze bunt up the third-base line.
3. I told a girl, so, sooz says I should sleep with 3 girls tonight... you can be one.

In dealing with the morning that follows nights like these... it's good to have a blender.

Song of the Day: CAKE - Shadow Stabbing

in frustration that the nozzle wouldn't fit my tire... I peed on this air machine

2007-10-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

2 stories, related only because they happened in the same night.

At the grocery store last night, this girl ahead of me is trying to buy like 10,000 things all on some kind of gift card. Her card ends up being short like $35, and she decides to take things off. I can see that I'm in for a long wait, and the pork chops I left in the oven at home are probably going to burn. But instead, the dude right behind her offers to pay the bill. Now did she really not have a credit card or something to take care of it? I'm always suspicious of attractive women like this one who have men do stuff like this for them...

My new (used) road bike has had a slow leak in the front tire. I noticed that the nozzle was a little bent, so I straightened it and it seemed to fix the leak. I bike to work, home, out for a beer with law/latin-american-studies people, and back to work and the tire's staying full... and then when I go to bike home at about 1 am, I find that it's completely flat. So I end up with a long walk home. Apparently the alcoves of the Baptist church up the street from me are the comfortable spots for sleepy bums.

Song of the Day: Wilco - I'm Always In Love

national pride

2007-09-30T22:02:00.001-07:00

More on Africa...

We spent most of the trip in Botswana. I'm glad we did. Our time in Botswana included:

1. A mini-bus from Jo-burg (South Africa) to Gaborone. I count this as "in Botswana" because all the other people in the combi were Batswana (the Setswana way to say Botswanans). Ox ended up promising his older brother in marriage to a girl who claimed that she would be the star in "Big Mama's House 3!" Afterwards, ox says to me: well, I had to throw my brother out there, because pretty soon it was gonna be us instead. We stood them up at the Bull & Bush that evening, though it was only because we had a train to catch. It's quite sobering to recall that of those girls, 2 probably have HIV.

2. Camping out in the Ntwetwe Salt Pans. It was a completely barren desert, like pictures of the lunar surface. When I woke up in the morning, it was disorienting... nothing but flat unmarked desert in all directions. In case you're wondering, it tasted a lot more like dirt than like salt.

3. The highlight of the trip, a 3-day mokoro (dugout canoe) trip in the Okavango River Delta. Every morning and evening our guide led us from our campsite on hikes out into the bush. This featured elephants (above), warthogs, monkeys, baboons, hippos, giraffes, etc. It was amazing. I also really felt like I gained an understanding of the environment, as the guide pointed out all facets of the landscape and its inhabitants. It was quite different from the jeep-safari way to see wildlife.

Anyway, the people in Botswana were especially friendly. We took public transportation and hitchhiked, and felt generally comfortable even as we stuck out as the only white people around.

Song of the Day: The Decemberists - Sons & Daughters (I challenge you to find another song which uses- and rhymes with- the word "dirigible")

slick andy's donkey emporium

2007-09-25T13:00:00.001-07:00

I've been back from Africa for almost 3 weeks, but I only just got a battery charger for my camera and managed to get the photos onto my computer. And I still have a lot to say about the trip.

Pictured above is my friend fiery ox, who just finished up his Peace Corps stint in Lesotho. He decided that he would take two months and just travel, and he asked me if I'd like to join him for some of it. So I did, for two weeks.

We started in Johannesburg, and I was pretty glad to get out of the city. As a whole, South Africa seemed paranoid and uncomfortable. White people were afraid of black Africans, and wealthy blacks were afraid of poor blacks. There probably is a violent crime problem, but I didn't witness it, so I can only comment on the paranoia. It's not very pleasant to walk around neighborhoods where all the homes sit behind 10-foot-tall fences topped with coils of barbed wire. And though all the other southern African countries are far less economically developed, I witnessed a lot more national pride from their citizens than from South Africans.

Plus, they lost my luggage for a day.

Song of the Day: The Strokes - You Only Live Once

not just a coach, but also a mentor

2007-09-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

My camera battery is completely dead, but I managed to get about half of the pictures from my Africa trip onto my computer. Here's me and a baobab tree outside of Gweta, Botswana.

On an entirely unrelated note: Last night, during a cock-ale-tasting / blender-explosion party, surly barnacle decided that we should coach a pop warner football team. The following roles were quickly agreed upon:

head coach: surly barnacle
offensive coordinator: dirty jersey
defensive coordinator: me
line coach: the cook at bobo's
southern consultant: the diamond

Mustaches required for all the coaching staff. (The moms will love us.)

Film at 6 am, with two-a-days beginning at 8 am. I'll be staying up all night drinking so I can make it in time. The kids will have a lot to learn, with the 300 offensive plays (all featuring variants of the hook & ladder). There will be only defensive play: all-out blitz (including the corners).

Today, while checking out the website:
dirty jersey: 12-15, unlimited weight division: that's what we want. They allowed to be over 170 lbs! That's like my dream: 170+ lb 15-year-olds.
me: yeah, the coaching page says "looking for qualified head coaches..."
dirty jersey: that's us, right? I mean, they'd take us?
me: sure! I'll tell them, "I work with children. It's okay, I'm like a doctor."
dirty jersey: yeah, we'll put down: qualifications: master of astronomy.

Song of the Day: Wilco - Candy Floss

battle at kruger: except I'm the baby buffalo

2007-08-23T01:03:00.001-07:00

It's 1 am. In 6 hours, I'll board a plane to begin my two-week trip to Africa. I'm sitting in my office because I don't have internet at home. I biked here, because I decided to celebrate the imminent departure with a bottle of wine (a la nop.bot), and it's roughly 10,000 degrees outside in Tucson (yes, even in the middle of the night), so I'm dripping with sweat.

I find it easier to just stay up all night when I have to fly somewhere far away beginning early in the morning.

#2: okay, I have a story for you. wait, I should wait until you get back...
me: [assuming/hoping it's about a girl and grinning] umm... what?
#2: all right, I'll tell you know. so this friend of a friend of a friend, their grandfather studied birds in africa.
me: [realizing that it's not about a girl and I'm an idiot]
#2: so he gets kidnapped while he's there! it's by some tribe, and his family tries to get help, but the government isn't helping. finally, they find some official who will help ransom him back, and they pay like $2 million to get him back safely. he lived, but he was really sick for the rest of his life.

Mostly, I'm nervous about successfully meeting my friend in Johannesburg and getting eaten by hippos on our dugout canoe safari in Botswana. But I think it'll be okay. Today I bought a guidebook to Southern Africa, which I will read on the plane while I'm not embroidering my messenger-bag-patch.

I've been in need of an adventure. Let's see how this does.

(Pictured above is ginny, who recently departed on her own 3-month adventure to China. Of course, it's far more complicated than that, but I'll let you make your own assumptions.)

Song of the Day: Dispatch - Open Up

how do you do it, bob log???

2007-08-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

Tom Walbank, Al Foul, and Bob Log III (pictured above). All at Plush, my favorite bar.

We tried to explain how awesome this show was to someone who just moved here to Tucson...

#1 draft pick, bitches: best show in tucson, ever
me: well, calexico puts on the best tucson shows...
#1 draft pick, bitches: no. bob log is the greatest ever. and so's al foul. and tom walbank.
me: ok, maybe the 3 of them all at the same show together supercede calexico... but it's close.
#1 draft pick, bitches: whatever. You love Live.

In any case, it kicked ass. We could all use more helmet. I highly recommend that you check out Bob Log's videos on youtube. Most of his songs begin with ok: i'm gonna play this faster than the human mind can comprehend, or this song is perfect: everything that happens in this song is supposed to happen... damn, my shit is perfect... but you can't really understand him anyway, and he rocks out on the slide guitar.

Once again, everyone in Tucson was there. Oh, the vicious, vicious circle.

Song of the Day: Bob Log III - This Song is Perfect (Again)

their words are better saved than mine

2007-08-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

I use my cell phone as an alarm. When I was setting it to try to get to work before noon, I discovered that I have two random voice-memo thingys on my phone, among my custom ringtones (which I uploaded using some internet tool, rather than the expensive ones offered by the cell phone company). I have no idea how to record things on my phone. How the messages got there is a complete mystery to me: but a gloriously self-entertaining mystery at that (i.e.: an [action]-story).

The 2nd of these is the saucy brute giving me advice about a girl. I explained this to nop.bot, and...

nopbot: July 8, 2006!
me: what??
nop.bot: that's when it happened. there was a bbq, and that's when [saucy brute] was giving you advice about [...]

I was impressed. And he's probably right that I was getting girl advice on that date. But unfortunately for nop.bot, saucy brute and I have "girl talk" (as she calls it) probably once a week or so... and I can't blame him for picking the wrong occasion.

The other one was a recorded phone conversation... apparently nop.bot called around noon on a Saturday and my girlfriend-at-the-time answered the phone. Only his voice is recorded, but there's some discussion about living in sin.

I highly support having random recordings of my life resurface in the future.

Song of the Day: The Shins - Those to Come

birthday extravaganza #2

2007-08-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

My birthday, and day 2 of the Nopey & Action Birthday Extravaganza Week. Wizard's Staff at Che's. In the photograph above, you may observe our grand instruments of magical compulsion. (The wizard with the longest staff gets to tell everyone else what to do.) While I was slightly disappointed that I was the only one who dressed according to the highest level of theme, at least several people showed up in theme-1 bandanas.

There was much wizard naming (i.e. Thuggothreenut, Rockoccolicious, Doc Cockulus, Carbonaut, etc.) and other assorted waving about of our glorious PBR constructs. I spent some time as the grand-master wizard, and thus was able to successfully deflect the nefarious wizard Felchencracken (at right) and his foul attempted namings.

Meanwhile the wizard Vomitus Inducius:
VI: hey [action], you want a shot?
me: uh... [pointing to my stack of 8 PBRs]
VI: all right, I'm buying you a shot!

Shortly afterward, Felchencracken finished his ninth PBR and I became known as Santorus Slurpus (left). It's a rough life, alas.

Final count: level 10 wizard, along with 2 shots. I also saw St Vincent, but I honestly can't say if the show was good or not. (Blue [above], who remained sober, said it was all right but kinda weird; while nop.bot, a solidly drunk level 8 wizard, said it was the worst show he's ever seen). Then blue met susan (my paddle), we talked canoeing for an hour or two, and I forced her to leave with Moby Dick.

Wizard's Staff may be the greatest drinking game ever.

Song of the Day: Neil Young - Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

birthday extravaganza #1

2007-08-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Nop.bot's birthday, and day 1 of the Nopey & Action Birthday Extravaganza Week. The saucy brute and the diamond hosted a barbecue, complete with always-delicious saucy brute cakes. My favorite gift was the bottle of wine and box of chocolate meant for nop.bot and I to share (at some future man-date, I suppose).

me: I feel a little like I'm being taken advantage of, I mean, being drunk...
ginny: well, doesn't that come with the territory?

later:

me: hey, how do we figure out [an embarrassing personal attribute of a person not to be named]?
ginny: what!?! why do you want to know that!
me: umm... because we're awful people? there's sort of a bet, I mean, uh...
ginny: oh, I'm totally judging you. see this? I'm judging you now. this is my judging you look.

Song of the Day: CAKE - Open Book

Slamina!

2007-08-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

I got this wedding invitation in the mail today. Not only was it personal and hand-written, but the bride-to-be also included a drawing of our favorite childhood animal. Best wedding invitation ever.

It was, however, a mistake to tell this to all the other bride-to-be's I know that are getting married soon.

Song of the Day: Elliott Brood - Riding in Time

it's a messenger bag

2007-08-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm almost finished putting together my satchel-bag. What remains: the shoulder strap, the buckles (for which I'm using biners), some hemming... and a big fun patch for the flap. Above is basically what I want the patch to be. Problem is, I can't find such a patch anywhere I've looked. (If you know where to find it, let me know.) So I think I'll have to make it myself. Saucy brute took me shopping at a fabric store, and I think I've managed to get most of the required materials. And I think I'll get #1 to draw the template onto the fabric.

Now I just need to learn how to do the actual embroidery.

Song of the Day: Bouncing Souls - Kate is Great

Bike Gang!!!

2007-07-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 2nd post of its name, dedicated to the glories of the bike gang.

Oh oh! sweet bike gang: I love thee like PBR
Whilst your glory, I cry out
in thunder and wet-brake squelch.
Men both machined and firearm-ed
Stagnate helpless afore our might
While you and I, bike gang...
hand-in-handlebar...
Ride on through the night.

I didn't take any pictures, because I was too drunk. So while looking for something suitable, I found the above map to my old house. I don't live there anymore, so following it won't get you anywhere. It doesn't have much to do with the bike gang, really, save that the marked underpass is currently under construction and caused a couple of detours.

For more on the sweet, sweet glories of the bike gang, see here.

When you're so drunk you can't even focus with that random attractive girl who's trying to make conversation / get you to dance, even while she completely blows off your friend... you know it's a good night.

Song of the Day: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Me & Mia

waiting for action jacqueline

2007-07-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

I took all my puppy-raising books back to the library yesterday. I just don't think I can handle the drastic lifestyle change on my own. So to the the only close friend in the past few years who has actively encouraged my getting a puppy... not today, and probably not for a few more months, at least. Sorry. To everybody else... okay, maybe you're right. For now.

Alas, it's a catch-22. While puppies = great way to meet women, I don't think I could handle caring for one while I live alone. Of course, some good roommates would work too.

Song of the Day: Billy Bragg & Wilco - At My Window Sad and Lonely

i hear he drives a school bus, too

2007-07-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Richey deChico. Avid golfer, recreational boxer, and all-around sporting sort. Resides in north Jersey. Proprietor of deChico & Sons Moving Company. Alleged ties to racketeering and organized crime, but no arrests or convictions.

Song of the Day: Ben Kweller - The Rules

it's what I do

2007-07-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Vegas. It was the diamond's bachelor party.

woman of unnamed occupation: so who's the best man?
me: uh... uh... I guess that's me.

To see our gloriously fine suits, you'll have to make do with the picture above. Until we wear them again.

post-Vegas:
me: yeah, the trip was perfect, exactly what it was supposed to be: lots of glorious stupid masculinity. but it was starkly centering, too. I mean, it was like, okay, vegas is *not* my town. that's not who I am.
blue: is it anyone's town?

Song of the Day: Neil Young - On the Way Home

DWI

2007-07-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

I stayed at work pretty late last night, till around closing time for the bars here in Tucson. This always makes for an entertaining bike ride home, since my route goes by most of the bar scene.

At an intersection with a separate bike line in the center, a car pulls up to me next to me.
the driver (slurred): hey! is that a cop car behind me?
me: um, no... that's a pickup truck.
the driver: okay, great.
She then peels out, jumping the curb into an illegal left turn.

I bike down through a two-lane underpass, and I'm immediately surrounded by 5-6 cars all zipping past me, laying on their horns and yelling to me and each other. I can't hear anything they're saying over their horns, but they seem pretty excited about it. Meanwhile, I'm figuring one of them is going to hit me, and I'm just wondering if it will be by accident or on purpose. Then a cop car pulls out from out of nowhere and slides into the middle of their pack. I'm thinking, okay, I guess I'm gonna witness a DUI bust... But the cop just drives along with them as they keep speeding, yelling, and laying on their horns. I'm not really sure what he was looking for.

I was pretty excited to get back to my quiet, pitch-dark, and very safe neighborhood street (above).

Song of the Day: The Clarks - Last Call

not a drifter

2007-07-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

In college, I definitely strategically placed books and other items around my dorm room so that they could be noticed and used as conversation pieces. I still put some effort into arranging my bookshelf, with my more visible bookshelf (above) holding books-to-be-noticed, and my less visible shelf with the less interesting books. Far fewer random people come through my room than a dorm, of course, but I get pretty excited when someone sees my shelf and says, ooh! look!

Somehow, though, I still keep a bible on my shelf. Although it's not personally important like the London and Melville above it, it still seems too important in general to not be on the shelf.

On a completely separate note, I get very embarrassed when it's the day after I was really drunk, and, despite any previous conviction that PBR has magical properties and cannot cause post-drinking discomfort, I am extremely hungover. It's not that it was necessarily actually embarrassing: I think it's simply that I'm embarrassed to be hungover at all. Although it happens often enough.

Song of the Day: Wilco - In a Future Age (Alternate Take)

my dinners sadly involve far less balsamic vinegar

2007-07-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

Saucy brute and the diamond had a bunch of us over for a big dinner, with homemade pasta and homegrown tomatoes. It was delicious, of course... whenever saucy starts to say, yeah, I don't know how good this will be, I just explain to her what I'd be eating instead, and she quits hedging. The company was also far superior to most of my dinners, and I got to share some homebrew with a fledgling brewer.

Saucy and the diamond are getting married in October, and they asked me to give the best man's toast. (Maybe I should note that it was the bride that actually asked me...) Dinner with the bride and groom and their friends was a great brainstorming session for me.

Song of the Day: Wilco - Summer Teeth

motivation & distraction

2007-07-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's [action]-story time.

So, I was driving to the grocery store, when I see this ridiculously cute girl riding her bike. Now, it's been a long time since I've actually seen a girl I could ever become interested in, so I think that I'd forgotten that they existed. This random girl-on-bike could have been one of those. It also got me thinking about how women get about 10 bonus hot points if riding a bike (that's on the (0-10) * (0-10) attractiveness scale). But I digress...

So then I start thinking, damn, I need to do something exciting again. At this point it was all subconscious, but I'll explain the cause at which point it surfaced in this stream of consciousness. So after the grocery store I start to get a sleeping bag and some food together to go drive up near Sedona and backpack and look for elk. Then I decide, wait! I know what's causing this! It's just like that Sports Night episode, where Dan gets writer's block, then gets it cured when he meets a hot volleyball player because he remembers why he grew to love writing in the first place... like Jeremy said, it's the same reason anyone does anything: for beautiful women!

With this epiphany in mind, I resolved to go to work posthaste, and do some Impressive Astronomy. But while biking in, I noticed lightning! The monsoons have arrived! It felt much cooler, even if it actually wasn't. The oppressive laziness of the 105+ summer was shifted, shrugged off from the city. So I biked around for a while. Then I came to work, and told everyone that the monsoons had come. So we began to make plans on where to go watch the lightning tonight. Then I decided this had to be recorded.

Now it's 4 pm, and I still haven't done any work, Impressive Astronomy or otherwise. And the red sox game is on the radio. Ah, well.

Song of the Day: Marah - The Dishwasher's Dream

all hail the bushy-tailed

2007-06-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

One last shot of the ToN glory (hellmouth and frumpy... note that frumpy is drinking from the one and only cup of names). I will, after all, be reliving the experience for much of the next year. Oh, how I look forward to the dvd production that my friends will concoct.

Anyway, my trip finished up a wedding of the seltzer and the bringer of rain. Weddings are a mix for me, because it's fun to drink / dance / be happy for the wedded couple / see friends, it's also sad because, um, I'm not getting married. I always greatly appreciate those who invite me "& guest" because having a date makes weddings so much easier. Flying solo, I end up offering to breakdance as a gift for the groom:

me: but you have to stand there with me... I don't want people to think the breakdancing is about me... it's my gift for you.
seltzer: but what am I supposed to do?
me: umm... just watch? ooh, I know, you could do it with me!

He wasn't so keen on that.

The wedding was in State College, which was nice to reminisce (including peeing on a random building). But I don't belong there anymore. Really, that's a relief. I feel mature for having moved on, and I recognize I have a solid place in Tucson.

Only two years and I get to move somewhere else :).

Song of the Day: SR71 - Right Now

stew instead of fry

2007-06-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

The ToN. An annual event in which more than a dozen old friends from college get together and... well, we do a lot of things. Here is a brief list:

1. Drinking. All involved are very pompous drinkers. Two of us brew our own beer, three others are pompous cocktail makers (one of whom runs a cocktail blog). However, let not our taste for quality indicate that we do not also consume great quantities. I transported 70 pounds of "Longrifle's Cactus Brew" across the country just to share with everyone.

2. Penguins. Just trust me on this one.

3. Competition. From canoe races to Legos to culinary battles. There was also a greased watermelon.

4. The invention of new words, and the resurfacing of old ones. Like cockholster. Nothin' like a good cockholster... Also see: pumate.

5. Music. Four guitar players, three fiddle players (one of whom also plays stairway, etc on her harp), two harmonica attemptees, and several who just make up their own songs.

6. the Seltzer. There is only one.

7. Fire. I lit myself on fire, intentionally and while sober. Thankfully, the fist-sized burn on my chest is healing quickly. I think all around me thought it was mostly cool, except for the stench of burning hair.

8. Semi-nudity. This was kind of a new one this year, and video evidence indicates that I was the ringleader.

me: You're wearing 100% too much shirt! Frost-Arrow! Come with us! [sunshine rider]! You're still wearing a shirt, what the hell! sunshine rider!!! Okay... it's canoe time. Canoe! Time!
frost-arrow (trying to drag me away): okay, let's canoe...
me: I'm portaging, I'm portaging, it's cool... ohhh, let me slip it down. Okay! There is only 50% shirtlessness! [lingerie warrior], you're doing well.
lw: thank you
shroom: look, you've got more than 50%
me: okay, there is only 67%!
lw: look, you won't be the ToN whore, because 50%, I mean... I.
shroom: If I take my shirt off, then...
me: I mean, if I have to, I'll take my pants off!

etc. (my version of a "scary campfire story" was to say it was a dark and stormy night then turn around and moon everyone)

I also spent the last week in New York. But I just wrote a letter to E about that, and I'll probably write another one to fiery ox... so you can just ask me how that went.

Song of the Day: Tiger Army - Outlaw Heart

meanwhile sooz and the lesbians had papelboners

2007-06-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

I went to see the Red Sox play in Phoenix the other night... thanks to nonstop for organizing the trip. We had seats right above the Red Sox bullpen. It was a blowout win, starting with Lugo's leadoff homer. As any fan knows, this is the only sort of game to watch your team play and keep your blood pressure at reasonable levels.

Before the game, Ortiz - a giant black guy with a Dominican accent who scowls murder at opposing pitchers and hugs everyone on his own team - came out and had this little white guy stretch him.

Yeah, I'd be that little white guy.

Song of the Day: The Dropkick Murphys - Tessie

Back

2007-06-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

It's true... it's not actually the date listed above. But I have some things to say about a concert on this day (and I only figured out the date by checking the timestamp on the above drunken text message).

I love live music. I'll see almost anyone live, and I'll probably have a good time even if they play sad bastard music, or just plain suck. But the Hold Steady is my current favorite band to see live. I've seen them every time they've hit Tucson, and I'm thankful to have managed it.

Still, the crowds at these shows are generally filled by single young white guys... I don't have a clear explanation, but I've been throwing that around in my head in the weeks since.

Song of the Day: the Hold Steady - Stevie Nix

he also referred to my earlocks as "something to hold on to"

2007-06-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my dear friend and brewing partner Surly Barnacle. Recently he remarked, why does [action] get to have these things happen to him?

This is my favorite thing to hear, ever. And I probably spend most of the time watching my life as a spectator, without a clue on why things happen. Almost everyone seems to be nice to me, all the time. Except for the Surly Barnacle. He's always right to me, without bothering to be nice to me. Hence his extreme value as a friend.

Song of the Day: Beastie Boys - Professor Booty

at least the rotten fallen tree is gone

2007-05-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Another casualty to the Arizona sun.

Nop.bot likes to follow the little Asian* lady strategy. According to him: see, the way I figure it, walking around with an umbrella isn't going to prevent me from having sex. the girls that wouldn't have sex with me because I carry an umbrella wouldn't have sex with me anyway. as long as I live my life by this principle, I figure I'm doing pretty good.

Song of the Day: Neil Young - Come on Baby, Let's Go Downtown

* By the way, is this PC? Apparently Oriental is no longer appropriate... is that true? Anyway, I attribute umbrellas to Chinese and Japanese women both. I guess that might make me a racist anyway, so maybe I can use any racial descriptor I damn well please.

he was making out with her first, how was I to know that he was bi?

2007-05-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

I was reading the New Yorker when I came across this lovely little gem. Now the poems in the New Yorker are usually unimpressive (they just have no rhythm, said the old guy in my last community theater play)... but this one was ridiculous. Your aluminum softball baseball bat drooped like a penis when you saw your abusive dad? That's not just a shitty forced metaphor, it's also not even that interesting. It reminds me of a guy I know, who we'll call bi, who just sent me a text message. Bi's effort to be interesting is to be shocking. While this is fun from a distance, it doesn't hold up one-on-one. Insert your forced penis metaphor here.

Lately I've been noticing that some of the articles in the New Yorker are actually bad. I can't tell if this is some sort of graduation on my part, finally rising beyond simple worship of the magazine's liberal elitism and show of polish... or if I've read so much that I've grown too elitist.

Song of the Day: Beastie Boys - The New Style

rraj

2007-05-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend...
Friday: Enjoying the newly smoke-free bars, med students, the old man going toe-to-toe
Saturday: Red Elvises (above)
Sunday: BBQ, and the cherry wheat isn't that bad

It's gonna be a good summer. Although one of the med students did inform us fellas that we're 5 times more likely to get throat cancer from giving oral sex to women than from smoking. That's unfortunate.

Song of the Day: Spoon - I Turn My Camera On

long lost

2007-05-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's back. I'll be posting again more regularly, though maybe to the tune of 3-4 times a week, rather than every day.

Here are 10 things I've done since my last post, in no particular order:

1. Made (and ate) pie
2. Watched meth addicts awkwardly dance at a folk festival
3. Gone to court fully intending to fight a ticket, then pleaded "responsible" and paid it anyway
4. Saw a musical satire of Pirates ofthe Carribbean
5. Threw two hammers in a frisbee league game (and was the only person on the team to throw any at all)
6. Spent an afternoon trying to clean & fix my bike, mainly resulting in streams of curses and getting covered in grease
7. Listened to my beloved Red Sox almost every day while they turned the Yankees and others into their personal bitches
8. Brewed a cherry wheat beer, which actually seems to far exceed our expectations as solely a device for scamming on teenage girls
9. Insisted on splitting up instead of doing the long-distance thing with a girlfriend of 1-2 months as she moved away for the summer (technically, she [at least initially] wanted to avoid the long-distance connection thing too)
10. Been caught flagrantly breaking the law at a Bright Eyes show, but was too intoxicated to care, even while the man let me walk

Song of the Day: Neil Young - Revolution Blues

happy birthday evan!!!

2007-04-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

The 2nd part of beanfest was drinking. Above, you see me carrying singalong around. Apparently she doesn't usually drink.

This just preceeded singalong's interpretative dance of the life of a tree. I played the role of the sun. Meanwhile, she shouted at rhubarb snack: come on! you have the be the water! without the water, I can't germinate! Then we had pie.

Maybe you had to be there.

Song of the Day: White Stripes - Apple Blossom

rock 'n' roll, hold the roll

2007-04-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

Nasty nizzle remarked to me the other day that the toughtest time to blog is when you've got the most going on. When life is less interesting, you're far more likely to post. I'm like that about all of my creative outlets... I have to slow down from living to reflect and create. That's why I haven't worked on making my satchel-bag for a few months, that's why I haven't written much new material for about a month, and that's why my found book hasn't changed in a while.

But it's been exciting. Today (which, as the date above claims, is Saturday, and we all know that computers can't lie, so it has to be true), I went climbing outdoors for the first time. It kicked ass. I'm looking forward to many more trips.

And even better, the climbing was followed by a night of drunken debauchery, and more old men getting stoned that I have ever seen. There was pie, thigh whiskey, something that tasted like chartreuse, and beans. Maybe I'll post another picture of all that. Or maybe I won't. I'm a pretty unmotivated photobloggist right now, but I'm certainly not unmotivated at action-living.

Song of the Day: Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - Johnny Appleseed

my mustache love... oh-ee-oh-ee-oh

2007-04-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

I gave my first "general" science talk today, to the Arizona Astronomy Board. These are rich people (lawyers, CEOs, etc) who like to give money to astronomy. And they were lucky enough to experience a super-special mustache talk. Above is the "And also, it's awesome to go to Chile" slide from my presentation.

I was pretty pleased with how it went... several people told me they think I'll make a good teacher, and a few even asked me questions afterwards. One (mustached) lawyer-guy in particular was so happy with my explanation of redshift and the expansions of the universe that he gave me a hug. Yep... that was mustache love, right there.

Song of the Day: Hot Hot Heat - Pickin' It Up

*Title is sung to the tune of Jungle Love by Morris Day & The Time

mr president, I don't like you... you don't know how to rock!

2007-04-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Electric 6. In my opinion, it was a better show than last year's. Maybe that's because I had a mustache. Also 7 beers. What I learned:

1. The bastard child of Liza Monelli & John Glenn learned to play the drums in the Meteor Crater.
2. To connect politically, it is best to pretend to be a 73-year-old man on his 3rd wife, while the audience pretends to be blackhawk helicopters.

Unfortunately, a poor girl never got to fully experience the schemer mustache ride. And I was all prepped as wingman: yo, this is my boy lightning... he hardly ever strikes twice, but maybe you'll get lucky.

There were many fake mustaches also present at the show. While I appreciate that this is better than nothing... it's really just not the same.

Song of the Day: Bad Religion - Stranger than Fiction

the mustache made me do it

2007-04-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, only a few of the kids avoided me while I belayed this morning at the kid's climb. Then I went hiking with E, up to Romero Pools for the first time.

Song of the Day: Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues)

hide your children

2007-04-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

All through Mustache Night #2, E kept getting compliments on her mustache. When we left the Surly Wench, a couple of street musicians even started an improv song about it (that girl's got a mustache... and khaki pants... yeah she's got a mustache... and khaki pants...). I was feeling jealous until some girl yelled out of a car window as we biked home: nice mustache! your boyfriend is totally hot!

Witness the power of the mustache.

Song of the Day: Son Volt - The Search

what about the millard fillmore?

2007-04-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

The mustaches are among us.

3-balls (right) definitely takes the award for best mustache. Meanwhile, I took a lot of shit because I haven't shaved yet...

schemer: that's it, we're gonna hold you down and shave you... [surly], will you help hold him down?
surly: only if I get to rape him.

Welcome to the mustache. (Thankfully, I was neither forcibly shaved nor raped.) The hater joined me in the ranks of the still-bearded: I will not shave a lesser president from the mt rushmore that is my facial hair...

On the one hand, I want to badly to have a mustache too. On the other hand, I sure am glad that I don't look like they do (yet).

Song of the Day: Bon Jovi - Dead or Alive

and on lead guitar and harmonica...

2007-04-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

[photo from the archives]

I got a wedding invitation from seltzer & the bringer of rain (yep, she's that badass) in the mail today. Clearly marked on the invitation was "[Action] and Guest." I think that's pretty swell... I've been the excluded date from one wedding, and I've tip-toed to request bring a girlfriend outside the circle of friends to another, and it's a lot better when the people getting married are generous enough to do the blanket invite. Now I just have to finish the storybook I promised I'd write for them.

And meanwhile... Son Volt rocks. Life is good. And I'm still a Boy Scout (E: yeah...).

Song of the Day: Belle & Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue

remember, zombies can only be killed by destroying the brain

2007-04-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

It's true: despite my flaming liberalism, I own guns. From left to right, a 30-06, a .22, and a 16-gauge pump-action shotgun. Besides their obvious uses during zombie attacks, they're all for hunting. A few days ago I was drawn in the lottery to hunt elk here in Arizona. I'll be using my flintlock rifle, the only gun I own that isn't in my gun safe (it's at my parents' house in PA). The hunt isn't until next November, but already my dad is making big plans on coming out and going along to watch me hunt. (I should also note that most of the father-son bonding between my dad and I happened on hunting trips.)

Handguns, on the other hand, terrify me. Whenever I see a cop walking around with a holstered handgun, I tense up. I guess it's because my rifles and shotgun were designed for killing animals, whereas handguns were designed for killing people.

Song of the Day: R.E.M. - Lightnin' Hopkins

"i'm so amped right now..."

2007-04-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

Before last Tuesday, it had been a year and a half since I had done any climbing. I used to go with my little brother (with the Big Brother / Big Sister program), but when that ended (i.e., he stood me up and stopped returning my calls), I quit going. But now E has gotten me excited about it again. I'm thankful. It seems to be the right kind of intensely self-competitive sport for me, and I'm driven to get better. I also keep running into folks that I know at the gym too, like scojo and deuce and OJ and of course, #1 & smoove.

E keeps talking to me about some open rock climbing soon...

Song of the Day: Jack Johnson - Bubble Toes

that thing I should be too smart to care about

2007-04-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

The schemer and I have made a deal: whenever the yankees win and the red sox lose (e.g., today), he has to buy me a beer. Whenver the yankees lose and the red sox win, I buy him a beer. He made me promise to let him drink from my mug when I buy, so our consumption remains perfectly even. So, either the red sox win, and I'm happy, or I get bought a beer, and I'm happy. Flawless.

After the gators trounced the buckeyes (or, like we used to call them at penn state, the fuckeyes... god we were clever), la grizzle was vainly trying to restore balance and bring nop.bot (from florida, and a uf alumnus) back down. dude, it's not going to work, I insisted, that mustache is like a forcefield. How can you feel insults when you're sporting such a fine mustache?

Song of the Day: Leadbelly - There's a Man Going Round Takin' Names

hammer, supercell, & michelle

2007-04-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

The email I sent to my team today:

yo Hammer Time!

for those of you who weren't there today, it was an awesome team effort in our victory by forfeit... keep studying up on your MC Hammer dances for next week: we'll play pick-up again on Saturday with another official game on Sunday.

The grad student softball league has been really poorly organized: today was the first day that there was enough people on 2 teams for an official game (sadly, those were the other two teams playing at our time slot... our scheduled opponent had only one player). The most we got to do is what you see above, as M and I warm up on grounders. But at least we're still having fun playing pick-up on Saturdays.

Song of the Day: Seven Nations - Factory Song

the great white dromedary has lost an ear?

2007-03-31T15:09:00.001-07:00

My driver's side mirror has gone missing. I don't really know what happened to it, although I have a hazy recollection of bumping the mirror on a telephone pole while parking at OB & schemer's. Still, it's much more interesting to assume that it got ganked by some vanity-obsessed hooligan, or perhaps that it was clipped by one of those old people on segways that I see in my neighborhood sometimes...

Song of the Day: Neil Young - World on a String

Over the Top

2007-03-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

I try to go to the gym 3 times a week. It makes it a lot easier when other people want to go too... usually if you have a group of 3 people to go lifting, only 1 is actually motivated to go on any given day, but they convince the other two to go anyway. Pancho villa (above) and the schemer have been going too since they showed up as first-years.

This is what I'm working to. Well, that, and walking around my office in a wife-beater on International Mustache Day.

Song of the Day: Wolfmother - Woman

WWSD?

2007-03-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, E said something like you know I'm a desert rat when... That got me to thinking: I'm definitely not a desert rat. Here I am in the desert, and I'm probably more of an squirrel or an otter. I like the desert, but I miss forests and streams and lakes. (All this makes me think of those Brian Jacques books of my childhood, too... if only I could be as bad-ass as those badgers...)

Last night, at optimist club, I had a dance-off with some guy. I think he won with his last little spin maneuver, although he couldn't replicate my desparate 6-step response. After the contest, he took off his knit cap and stood next to me, revealing the same curly mess of hair and scruffy beard. Well met, indeed. And it turns out that E can really spin, too.

Song of the Day: Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage

PS the title refers to this awesome shirt.

ridiculous

2007-03-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

You're not supposed to get a ticket while riding your bicycle on a first date. I mean, technically, we only slowed for the stop sign, but we looked both ways, saw that there was no traffic, and continued. We didn't cut anyone off, and we didn't breeze through. I mean, stopping requires some effort on a bike, especially on an incline... and we were pretty tired from climbing.

Maybe this is just some sort of conservation of goodness. I suppose I had it coming to me, for how good the whole evening was. (Or we had it coming to us?)

Song of the Day: Son Volt - Action

free mustache rides

2007-03-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

They're coming. Some of them are so close, you can almost smell them.

Friday, April 20: International Mustache Day

Really, this year will be a bonus round here in Tucson: April 16-21 will be mullets and mustaches WEEK.

Look at those beautiful shaggy, bushy pre-mustaches and pre-mullets above. It will be glorious indeed.

Song of the Day: The Hold Steady - Charlemagne in Sweatpants

hammer time!

2007-03-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

Hammer Time!, my grad student league softball team, had its first game today. Yesterday, at our "practice," I kept swinging and missing... since I'm the captain, I felt pretty shitty about sucking so hard. So today I took my trusty Hammer (above) and a ball, and pounded the ball against the back wall of my backyard (any patrons of the art gallery on the other side of the wall may have been a little confused). Anyway, we dominated... I was all ready to do the hammer-dance (it's called the typewriter, says one of my teammates), but we also had to forfeit because we were shy a couple of girls for the co-ed rules.

Hellmouth also headed back to PA this morning. I hope he was as happy to see me as I was to hang out with him again.

All in all, I'd call it a top 100 weekend*. That is, I expect only 100 weekends to be this good over the whole of my lifetime. My state of mind is evidenced by my Friday-night conversation with k-luv, who I was too drunk to remember to be mad at:

me: so how's life?
k-luv: uh, pretty good. i'm tired now, I guess...
me: what? why are you tired?!?
k-luv: because it's 1 am!
[pause]
k-luv: how are things with you?
me: oh god... awesome... life is good, I mean... the best! the best ever! shit, there's so much... I mean, I was just in chile. you probably heard about that, right?
k-luv: oh yeah, everybody was talking about it
me: what? really?
k-luv: no, I was just making fun of you. but yeah, I heard about it
me: okay... uh... I'm going to go over there now

Now I'm just finding my feet again, trying to catch up at work.

Song of the Day: Modest Mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty

*Why do I like making such lists and proclamations? Probably because I've watched High Fidelity too many times. It is, after all, in my top 5.

"did I tell you about the bbq? cause there are some holes in my memory of last night..."

2007-03-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

We worked with 25 gallons of mead and beer last night... that's 5 gallons each of:

1. smoked porter (title in progress: cotton-pickin' ale)
2. apple belgian (see photo above)
3. ESB
4. OB's mesquite honey mead
5. drinking team's dry mead

Oh, sweet delicious life of mine.

The meads were absolutely exquisite. In fact, they were so tasty that we've converted Pancho Villa, who is almost certainly going to start brewing as well.

Next, me and surly barnacle are going to brew a batch of sake. And then, with our 10 gallons of mead and sake... VIKINGS vs SAMURAI PARTY!!!

Song of the Day: Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy

Bike Gang!!!

2007-03-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

Stone Hands (center, with the open collared shirt and delightfully perplexed look on his face) is getting married on Sunday. To celebrate, he called out The Bike Gang. It was a glorious, glorious night, a once-in-a-month kind of celebration.* Bike ganging is quite simple. The pieces for last night's extravaganza:

1. a bicycle
2. "improper wedding attire"
3. fortitude and will

Stone Hands wore a frilly shirt and vest, borrowed from his boss' 70s wedding singer days. I wore the 3-piece pinstripe suit that my dad got married in. There were beers, there were bikes, I got to share it all with hellmouth... and there were girls, too :).

* The fact that I consider amazing nights, like the bike gang, to happen once per month should not lessen the fantastic-ness of the evening in any way. It simply indicates that the life of a grad student is awesome.

what do you hear, [action]?

2007-03-22T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's rained a lot since hellmouth came into town. In fact, I don't remember the last time it rained here 3 days in a row. So instead of going out into the desert, I'm introducing him to the city. This involves:

1. No Anchovies
2. Zachary's
3. B-line
4. Pico de Gallo
5. homebrew & bbq's

We did take a walking tour of downtown today also, which in my opinion, not enough people do here in Tucson.

Song of the Day: Wilco - Radio Cure

honesty for pixley reunited

2007-03-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

My old friend Hellmouth is in town visiting with me for the next few days. He's an editor for the Jewish Exponent, as I am fond of telling everyone...

me: yeah, [hellmouth] works for the jewish exponent. But he's not a real Jew, more of a fake one.
hellmouth: and by fake, he means Irish Catholic

But I usually talk about him as a poet. He is, after all, a published poet. And he may be going to grad school in an MFA program next fall for that purpose as well. The first thing we did after I picked him up from the airport was compare our recent readings and writings.

I'm doing my best to show him that grad school is [my version of] the Good Life.

Song of the Day: Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

ouch

2007-03-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yep, I got really badly burned. Note the distinct backpack-pattern on my shoulders. Here I am with some aloe, getting ready to lube up and prepare for the day.

Song of the Day: Wilco - Box Full Of Letters

the search for personal meaning

2007-03-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Since I'm spending all day (from 7 am today through 1 pm tomorrow) on buses and airplanes and in terminals, here's another photo from the backpacking trip.

The way I see it, through most of the trip I was dehydrated, sleep-deprived, and mentally stressed from the language barrier. So it was sort of like a vision-quest. I kept dreaming about having a puppy while I was out backpacking too. This may be extremely significant.

When I explained this to the surly barnacle:
surly barnacle: yeah, and vision-quests worked out real well for the native americans, huh?

Regardless, there's a strong possibility that I'll break down and get a puppy this weekend.

Song of the Day: Belle & Sebastian - For the Price of a Cup of Tea

and delicious meals of noodles, tuna, and cheese

2007-03-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Next time I travel to Chile, I swear that I'm going to remember to bring sunscreen.

On my way back out of my short 2-day backpack, I figured I'd just walk the 11 km to El Abanico. But instead, without me even sticking my thumb out, a family stops their car and asks me where I'm headed. A few exchanges of their broken English and my broken Spanish, and suddenly I'm in the car with them for 1.5 hours all the way back to Los Angeles. I can't believe how friendly and generous Chilenos are. They dropped me off at the plaza, and I promptly checked into a hotel and took a much-needed shower.

Song of the Day: Calexico - Not Even Stevie Nicks...

I made it

2007-03-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Begin by observing all night, then...

8 am: shuttle from Las Campanas to La Serena, 2.5 hours
noon: flight from La Serena to Santiago, 1.5 hours
2 pm - 10 pm: walk around Santiago
midnight: night bus to Los Angeles, 6 hours
9 am: bus to the tiny village of El Abanico, 2 hours
noon: hitchhike to Parque Nacional Laguna del Laja, 20 minutes
2 pm on: hike ~7 km over broken lava rock, gaining 1 km of altitude.

All this with my favorite Spanish phrase being lo siento, entiendo solo poquito espanol. I'm tired. But this is goddamn magnificent.

Song of the Day: The Hold Steady - First Night

driving miss imacs

2007-03-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

The control room of the telescope I'm at in Chile. There are exactly 20 monitors, plus my laptop and a PC in the back corner. I only use this laptop to surf the web / check my email / play old DOS games, and the PC's only use has been to play music through the stereo (it's playing Blonde on Blonde at the time of this post). Every 40 minutes, I re-align the telescope, and I set up another 40-minute run. Then I go back to web-surfing / playing colonization / reading about backpacking in the Patagonia. Sometimes I get really ambitious and run some reductions in the background. And sometimes I step outside and check out the galactic bulge and the Magellanic clouds (for you non-astronomers, these are galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way, they look like great big fuzzy patches on the sky).

This is observing. I'm happy here.

Song of the Day: Bob Dylan - Temporary Like Achilles

0.8" seeing, too

2007-03-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

I heart observing.

Song of the Day: Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop

between mountains and ocean

2007-03-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

There's a little town on the pan-American highway between La Serena and Las Campanas Observatories which may or may not be called Huasco. In my imagination, I figure that it probably has the best sea food ever. Maybe I'll find out one day.

Song of the Day: R.E.M. - Can't Get There From Here

at least international flights have free beer

2007-03-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

Flying all day and night (around 18 hours of airports and airplanes, Tucson -> Dallas -> Miami -> Santiago -> La Serena).

I wonder why airports feel so much like limbo-zones. Is it because of their function (holding people until they go somewhere else) or their design (like warehouses)? Apparently the Santiago airport isn't very popular on Monday at 7 am, above.

Song of the Day: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Heavy Metal

into the wild

2007-03-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

I've been hosting one of the five prospective graduate students visiting my program over the past few days. At one point, trying to convince them that my opinions were honest, I said you know, nothing really happens to us whether or not you get accepted here. it doesn't really matter to much to us. Shortly afterwards, I realized that in our own best interests we current grad students should be convincing these people *not* to come, in order to save more funding for ourselves.

The prospective student flies to visit Santa Cruz or Caltech or Berkeley (I forget) tonight, just in time for me to fly to Chile tomorrow. I've been using the book in the photo above to try to figure out a good backpacking trip to take after I finish the observing. If you know me, you may want to take note of the rough itinerary I have posted below, just in case something goes wrong. After all, entiendo solo poquito espanol.*

Finish observing morning of Fri, 3/16. Fly back to Santiago arriving at 1:20 pm. Taxi to terminal alameda, then 7-hour bus to Los Angeles, terminal santa maria. Taxi to local bus terminal santa rita, then 1.5-hr bus to El Abanico. From there, an 11-km hitchhike / hike to the Guarderia Chacay, the entrance to Parque Nacional Laguna del Laja. Then two days of backpacking around Volcan Antuco, followed by a return trip. And maybe hotels in Los Angeles the nights before and after the trip.

Song of the Day: Neil Finn - She Will Have Her Way

*In fact, I'm not even sure if poquito is even a real word, but I do seem to get the message across well enough when I say this.

like pete palladino at the crowbar

2007-03-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

Luca played at Congress last night. It rocked. And... it was for charity, too. Some lucky homeless dude is going to get a can of delicious baked beans, all thanks to me.

Monkfish knows the Luca's frontman (Nick Luca), so we chatted with him after the show. I always get a little flustered and giddy when I'm talking to rock stars. Of course, you've almost surely never heard of Luca. And while they have a couple of albums on the market, I think that's largely because Nick Luca works for a recording studio. So they're not that big or anything... but it doesn't matter to me. It's a huge rush

Oh god oh god how I want to be a rock star.

I didn't have my camera, and my usual contingency photographer, nop.bot, left his at home in favor of his flask. So instead, you'll find a photo I took the day after, at the courthouse downtown.

At the show:

1. We met a guy who moved to Tucson solely to live in Tucson. Previously, I had assumed that all people in Tucson either (a) came here for college and never left, (b) had family ties here, (c) are passing through, or (d) are republican engineers / air force people / rich snowbirds. Well lo and behold, at least one guy moved here just because he thought it would be a cool place to live. According to L, usually when there are fun things to do in a city, it has a high cost of living. But in Tucson, it's ridiculously cheap (as a grad student, I make more than the median income), and yet there remain fun things to do.

2. Talking with kat, the hot librarian:
kat: you know, I've never slept with a virgin
me: me neither. hmm... is that Islam, where you get like 80 virgins when you die? who the hell would want that? i mean, who wants to have sex with 80 people who don't know what the hell they're doing?
kat: [laughs] how's the no-virgin thing worked out for you?
me: pretty good... you?
kat: awesome.

Song of the Day: Calexico - Feast of Wire

at least the minutemen are mostly from out-of-state

2007-03-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Yearrgh. Getting this email today made me spontaneously cringe and want to kick somebody in the throat.

Back in November, the enormously wise voters of Arizona put into effect a new set of "we hate brown people" laws. This is one of them. Why oh why do some people feel the need to designate others as something subhuman?

Song of the Day: Johnny Cash & the Highwaymen - Plane Wrech in Los Gatos

it's not just frisbee... it's ultimate

2007-03-07T08:37:00.000-08:00

Tucson city league ultimate frisbee again tonight. My blueballer$ played pretty well, and are a decidedly average team (we're 2-2). The only bummer was that there were several moments of arguing on the field... ultimate is self-officiated, with no referees, so sometimes there are contested calls on the field. In my opinion, city league ought to be treated more like a hippie-sport. It just seems wrong to get ultra-competitive when it's a game of frisbee!

Song of the Day: Neil Young - Yonder Stands the Sinner

from rap video to biology lecture

2007-03-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

In summary, the shredders and skiers on the Vail trip, from left to right:

MAchine aka george washington carver
little monkey sassbox
the renegade
rock 'n' roll AJ
pancho villa (taking the photo)
saucy brute (not pictured)
the diamond (not pictured)

love also goes to A, B, P, and the monkey mobile

This morning I had to give a lecture on extremophiles to my astrobiology class. After the attendance quiz, about a dozen students left class. I probably shouldn't take it personally, but that's pretty offensive when you're a teacher. It threw me off pretty badly, and I think the lecture suffered for it. Bummer.

Song of the Day: Luca - Rosalie

monkey-mobiling across traffic circles

2007-03-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Back to sunny & hot AZ today. Before I left for Vail, I thought, hmm, why do people love skiing so much? Now I know.

We got to spend last night with the brothers A & B, plus their crazy friend P, who told us the following stories...
1. Jumping off a lift (from 15-20 feet), and landing cleanly to snowboard down the mountain.
2. Getting stopped by a US marshall while snowboarding down after half a bottle of Jamieson, telling the marshall fuck off! gimme your gloves! want a bagel?, then being forced to walk all the way down the mountain after the officer took his board.

Later, B says, you know how you guys are here on vacation? Well, it's just my every day.

Song of the Day: Big Joe Williams - Somebody's Been Fooling #1

rock & roll!!! (I hope you got that on camera...)

2007-03-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

Even if I'm still not that good at skiing, at least I have no fear of going fast / falling. I rocked out a couple of blues today while hardly falling.

In the video above, note the intense tuck just before the disappearing act. It starts out with nop.bot aka george washington carver on his ass after a fall. Pancho villa took the video while snowboarding behind me, and you also see little monkey sassbox and the renegade shred past me at various points.

Song of the Day: Neil Young - Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

it's good to be a lost boy

2007-03-03T10:33:00.000-08:00

Vail, day 2. Today, I learned how to snowplow. That may have been good to know yesterday. Apparently, today was also the busiest day of the year at Vail, with 20,000 people on the mountain.

Other than skiing, the today's highlight was taking the monkey-mobile through snowbanks on the way to the grocery store. Those SUV-driving republicans sure must have a lot of fun...

Song of the Day: Leadbelly - In the Pines

moguls suck.

2007-03-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

I'm in Vail, Colorado, going skiing for the first time. Picture above are the renegade & little monkey sassbox, en route up the mountain. Sassbox hooked us up with her uncle's ridiculously pimp condo, and the saucy brute's brothers A & B hooked us up with free rental gear and discounted lift tickets.

Here is my progress in skiing:
1. Get off the first lift, fall down.
2. Fall down every 2nd turn.
3. Start going fast, tuck in, realize I can't slow down, then wipe out in an explosion of snow.
4. Make it down a section of moguls by a combination of skiing 20 feet and falling 10 more, over and over again to the bottom.

Coming up with a beard-full of snow and frost sure makes me feel like a man. Even if I suck at skiing, I'm damn good at falling down.

Song of the Day: Cypress Hill - Insane in the Membrane (as played in our giant white Durango, aka the monkey-mobile)

i wish the nsf would pay me to go to the ghostland observatory

2007-02-28T23:46:00.000-08:00

Ghostland Observatory kicked ass at solar culture last night. One of my students was at the show:

her: this is a little weird.
me: this isn't class! cheers... [tap my Stone smoked porter against her can of bud light... ah, poor uncultured undergrads...)

nopey & surly: dude, I'll give you a dollar if you...

I'm leaving tomorrow to spend the weekend skiing in vail. I've never skied before. Then I get back just in time to give a lecture next tuesday. Then I host a prospective. Then I go to Chile. Methinks I could use a breather.

Song of the Day: Television - See No Evil

"this film should be played LOUD"

2007-02-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

I watched The Last Waltz tonight. This film kicks so much ass that it defies all written description. It's Martin Scorcese's interpretation of The Band's last concert at Winterland, San Francisco. If you didn't know, The Band began as the Hawks with Ronnie Hawkins, then became Bob Dylan's touring band, then moved to a commune in Woodstock and started performing on their own. For their last show (after 16 years of touring), they performed with greats like Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Neil Young (above, with Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson, guitarists of The Band), and of course Bob Dylan. The Last Waltz is the filmed memory of the event.

When Rick Danko sings Stagefright, I believe him.

Joni Mitchell is clearly a powerful woman in a man's world.

Neil Young is raw and beautiful, bleeding his lyrics out. Also, I want to grow my hair like him (minus the chops).

And much, much more. They know it's their last show, and they are passionate about communicating their music... it's as if they know that this performance will be one of the greatest ever, even as they're playing. That invincibility, coupled with the passion and the earnest desire to struggle to change the world, is why I love music.

If you love rock & roll, you owe it to yourself to watch this film.

It should be noted that recently, a friend pointed out that I've transformed from a bassist to a lead guitarist. Of course, I play neither instrument (only piano, trumpet, and some harmonica for me): this is just personality metaphor.

I love watching Robbie Robertson play.

Song of the Day: The Band - Life is a Carnival

and the best supporting mustache goes to...

2007-02-25T23:12:00.000-08:00

1. Hiking in Sycamore Canyon (near Nogales, not Sedona) with smoove, #1, nonstop, & hst. Perfect weather for some light wading and boulder-scrambling.

2. BBQ at the diamond & saucy brute's house. This included a new Neil Young cd from the hater, lots of delicious food and homebrew, and the beginning of our apple-smoked maple porter (which I think I'll end up calling smokin' pimp porter).

3. Closing out the day with...
Song of the Day: Paul Simon - Can't Run But

nomad

2007-02-24T16:34:00.000-08:00

Walking around downtown on a sunny February day, among the tourists and blue-headed snowbirds, helps remind me of the good things of Tucson. It's true, I'm ready to be out, but I shouldn't forget that there's plenty here to love.

Happy birthday, dr word. la grizzle, I'm sorry I said you look like an elf... really, it's more like mr clean crossed with a pirate.

Grizzly Bear was a disappointment last night... they were just flat, incomplete. Ghostland Observatory this tuesday should make up for it.

Song of the Day: Moon Boot Lover - Ali

breakdance evolution

2007-02-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

Mark it down: optimist club, thursday nights at congress, is the new booty night. Even if #1 and #2 turned into 7's and didn't follow through on the following:

#2: We've already picked out some girls for you.
me: Really!?! Where are they?
#2: Probably on the dance floor. Any girl for you is definitely out dancing.

I love my friends. And to think, the evening started with free dinner at gentle ben's (reuben-questers, like my brother, should know that there's is only above-average), then poker whilst rocking a hookah at pancho villa's. Next week I'll print out a membership card (from myspace.com/optimistclub) so I don't even have to pay the $2 cover.

I also met a b-girl who claimed to have learned to breakdance at an elementary school in Phoenix. Naturally, I was a little confused. But not confused enough to refrain from pretending I knew how to break. When I came back up, a few drunk people were cheering. Maybe I don't actually need breakdance training to be a real b-boy...

Song of the Day: the Beastie Boys - Johnny Ryall

most embarrassing story EVER

2007-02-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

s-process & OB in the office. Between grading, observing prep, and building materials for my summer-camp-style class labs, I've been spending a lot of time here. Today OB told us a very embarrassing story about a friend of his at Santa Cruz. Naturally, I found it necessary to tell my deepest darkest embarrassing secret to s-process and him:

"So I spent the summer between my junior and senior years of college sleeping on my buddy's couch. It was a great set-up, I only paid like $200 rent, and they didn't even want me to pay them that much, because it was actually my couch, in his living room. But it was a really comfortable fold-out style couch. So anyway, one morning I wake up, and I really have to pee. See, I usually slept in, because I was just doing astronomy research, whereas this other roommate had to get up early and go work at some computer science job. So this guy's in the bathroom, and I really have to pee, so I just go over to the kitchen and immediately start peeing in the sink. Well meanwhile, this guy comes out of the bathroom and walks into the kitchen, to make some cereal or something. I'm still peeing and I start thinking, aww fuck, I've been living here for two weeks and already they're catching me peeing in the sink. These guys are gonna hate me. Well, I finally finish, so I turn on the faucet and splash it around the sink to wash it all down, you know, and then I go back to sleep. That night, when I see the guy again, I ask him, so, did I get up early this morning and do anything weird? I kind of have this weird feeling that I was sleep walking or something... He says, yeah, it was weird, you got up and I heard you pacing outside the bathroom, then I saw you washing your hands in the sink. I say to him, Oh really? Washing my hands, huh? He shrugs, says yep. Though you were kind of splashing the water around, so it was kind of weird. I couldn't believe it. They never really found out that I was peeing in their sink."

Until today, I had kept this all to myself. And I think my living-room-lending buddy doesn't actually read this blog, so the truth may still remain hidden from him.

As you can see, I'm a little short on the deep-dark-secret department. (This is honestly my deepest-held personal secret, although now that the whole world can see it, I guess I'll have to figure out what's on deck.)

I completely forgot about fastnacht day on Tuesday. I know most people call it Mardi Gras, but I always grew up celebrating it with hole-less doughnuts made with lard. Most delicious holiday ever. Although I forgot this year, I looked for fastnachts here in Tucson the last couple years, and I couldn't find them anywhere.

Song of the Day: Great Big Sea - French Perfume

scavenger hunting

2007-02-21T14:41:00.001-08:00

Items transported by the Great White Dromedary(*) over the past 24 hours. On the left: our new imperial porter, which I recently described as having "the consistency and hue of motor oil... delicious, delicious motor oil..." On the right, supplies for our class activity tomorrow.

Some friends of mine have been discussing things they're giving up for Lent. Hell, I don't believe in giving up anything... except maybe for giving up not having sex.

Last night I saw Pan's Labyrinth. It was fantastic, and I highly recommend it to everyone in the universe. That includes you.

Song of the Day: White Stripes - Expecting

*my car. See how the nickname protects its identity?

Shatten des Kaisers

2007-02-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

Back in PA, used to play a lot of board games with my college buddies. Mostly this was because in the wintertime, it was always cold and gray outside, so there's not a whole lot to do... this was said best in Mystery Alaska: I don't really think about anything... I fornicate and I play hockey, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather. Insert football, video games, and board games for those who don't play hockey (like me).

Anyway, since we're scattered across the country now, every once in a while we'll play some game with each other online. It's a decent way to keep in touch. Above is our last game, which I just won last weekend (I played blue). The other players were tin man, sunshine rider, and bag.

Song of the Day: the Badlees - Gwendolyn

observing pt 2

2007-02-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

Clouds make good sunsets, but they don't make for good observing. We managed about half a night of observing before the clouds and humidity coerced the telescope operator into worrying about precipitation (refraction by rain on the surface of the mirror or corrector lens is very bad). We couldn't look at my science at all because of 35 mph winds blowing steadily from the south, which are bad for giant 20-foot diameter primary mirrors / glass sails.

AZ weather: 2
action's science: 0

Mountaintops are very strange places when there are gusting knock-you-over winds and it's new-moon-with-clouds pitch dark.

Song of the Day: R.E.M. - Find the River

looking for black holes, also spruce tips

2007-02-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

Observing at the MMT. It's pretty, but cold and windy. And cloudy, since midnight last night. I've been spending my days on walkabout around the mountain, and my nights waiting for the cirrus to clear.

Arizona weather: 1
action's astronomy: 0

Also, my search for spruce on this mountain has proved unsuccesful. It appears that I'll have to buy some spruce essence for the smoked spruce porter I'm brewing next.

Song of the Day: Swan Lake - All Fires

more triumphant than his ft lowell park knuckleball memorial

2007-02-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

Krakatoa returns. Last night, as we went from No Anchovies to Plush to Brooklyn, krakatoa kept a large enough entourage that we basically took over every place we went. He is irreplaceable.

Around 9:30 pm, the hater philosophizes: I'm wondering where this evening is going... I gave him an exceedingly verbose reply (mostly because I was already drunk... I blame the Grand Cru at Local Dough), but I basically said let's plan to have fun and we will. Soon after, krakatoa bought us a round of irish car bombs. Even though he was the guest of honor, we didn't argue with his charity, since while we're still students, he now works for the man. Fun commenced. At one point g-spotter and I decided to make nonstop look impressive, while he was talking to a stranger. In order to appear non-threatening, we decided to pretend that we were gay. Then g-spotter started biting me. I'm sure it all made nonstop look exceedingly impressive. It's hard to say if this was before or after I recognized that there is no good way to answer a woman when she says, [action], you seem to hit on everybody. (For instance, how can that be? am I hitting on you now? does not work. They just counter with the idea that I hit on every woman but them. The hole grows, etc.) It is true that I talk to everybody. And sometimes I hit on g-spotter, and he bites me.

When I have a night like last night, and I fall asleep exceedingly drunk, I continue to have dreams which are basically a continuation of the evening. This sounds fun, but these dreams involve more drinking. Bad news. Even worse than the hangover are the slow recollections of drunken conversations... goddamn I'm stupid.

Next Friday: Grizzly Bear at Plush, and one spruce porter for dr goodall (the self-titled "number whore") if she comes through...

Song of the Day: Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat

all work and no play makes action...

2007-02-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

Grading...

Definitely the worst part of being a TA.

At least I'm going to Chile next month...

Song of the Day: The Band - Stagefright

of montreal, of norway

2007-02-15T10:12:00.000-08:00

My camera battery died at the Of Montreal show last night. So, I have no videos or photos of the show (an excellent performance by an okay band), or the man behind john's mom's hot dogs, or the frontman's (frontqueen's?) fabulous costumes, or the Norwegian flag, or the midnight Grill run. Instead, here's a photo of the morning after. Action Jackson does not like having to get up at 7 am to try to finish grading homeworks (unsuccessful). Thoughts floating through my head while biking in this morning:

(6th ave & Pennington, by the bus station) hmm, what's that smell? Wait-- who smokes weed this early in the morning?
(6th ave & 7th st) why the hell does it always smell like sewage here?
(6th ave & 6th st) why does lack of sleep always give me gas?
(6th ave & university) goddamn I'm tired...

Last night I met a summit hut employee... the spider weaves its web... ah, hell, forget it, I'm no spider... instead: the action throws a sheet or something.

Song of the Day: Live - Mirror Song

a man needs a maid, or at least a robot which also cleans

2007-02-13T23:13:00.001-08:00

I go through roughly 2-week cycles of messiness and cleanliness in my house... i.e., when I clean, it lasts for about 2 weeks, then I leave clothes, books, project supplies, etc. lying about for another 2 weeks before I clean again. I'm approaching cleaning time: here's my living room floor, with the satchel-bag I've been sewing up for the past 6 months and several of the books and magazines I've been cutting up for my other "art" project, my found book.

Proof #38 that I am a bachelor: when I bike home drunk at 3 am, eat some pot roast to try and sober up, then drunkenly spill meaty juices all over my shoes, I clean them a few days later with the same scrubby-pad that I wash dishes with.

Song of the Day: the New Pornographers - The Laws Have Changed

the psyche-up

2007-02-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

Whenever I'm going out some place, and I'm in a low-energy state (i.e., lame, tired, etc.), I rock out for 10-15 minutes at home before I leave. With the right playlist, anything is possible. Hell, if you played me the right mix, I'd probably kill a man.

Song of the Day: Beck - We Dance Alone

more on music

2007-02-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

These are 2 pages from the "found book" I've been working on. I created this entry a week or so ago, but it has a lot to do with my conversations about music last night. Today, I created the next pages on "And if I could paint." I'm unnaturally nervous about posting it here, even though I've showed the whole book to a close friend who led me to the whole idea (#1), as well as to a complete stranger who lives in Florida (curegirl). Thes pages are not the most personal, nor are they the best entry... but like all my creativity, the entry is intensely mine, and it's a good example of my self-reflection (which heavy break-ups tend to motivate). I think I'm mostly worried that someone might think it trite, or cliche, when it's more like vomited honesty (at worst, impurely communicated, which I can live with).

Yesterday, the hater mentioned Guitar Wolf. Look at the picture: Guitar Wolf rocks.

Song of the Day: Ben Kweller - On My Way

top 12 deserted island artists, go

2007-02-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

From left to right, what we each want in our music, in one word...
the hater: empathy
#1 draft pick (bitches): zappa
g: [I don't really know, because I was too drunk by the time we hit his CD, but I'd say "wholeness," even though that feels like a cop-out]
nop.bot: the jam
saucy brute: [mostly, she made us ice cream and read a book, but if pressed, I'd say orchestration]
action, not in the photo: rock

I'd like to think that there was a sincere amount of transcendant conversation about music, and what it means for life, love, happiness, etc. And maybe there was, but it was surely accidental. Mostly we just listend to kick-ass music and drank a lot of whiskey. The hater's idea, to take our top 12 most-listened-to artists and present a song from each one, was genius. Here was my top 12:

12. the New Pornographers - Chump Change
11. Wolf Parade - Grounds for Divorce
10. Belle & Sebastian - Sukie in the Graveyard
9. Modest Mouse - Lounge (Closing Time)
8. R.E.M. - King of Comedy
7. Johnny Cash - Girl from the North Country (with Bob Dylan)
6. Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
5. the Hold Steady - Hot Soft Light
4. Wilco - How to Fight Loneliness
3. the Go! Team - Bottle Rocket
2. Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!
1. Neil Young - Cowgirl in the Sand (live, acoustic)

rockin in the free world, day-to-day

2007-02-09T14:32:00.000-08:00

Countdown: 1 week until the triumphant return of Krakatoa.

Match the quote with the person:

a. me
b. surly barnacle
c. nop.bot
d. #1 draft pick (bitches)

1. that's good to know, 'cause she was still on the list for me
2. you forget, I don't actually care about other people, so I can do that
3. but if I call her she's going to think I want to sleep with her... oh... hmm...
4. dude, if I can call the fat girl, I can certainly call [...]

The Mole Hill Orkhestra is pretty good, but they could use an accordion. Tom Walbank still rocks. And I still love Plush.

Song of the Day: The Chemical Brothers & The Flaming Lips - Golden Path

i don't wear my carhartts often enough

2007-02-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

I'm really enjoying teaching this week, while my professor is out of town. This is a photo from the last time I was a teacher, as a canoe guide / trail foreman in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, on the Minnesota-Canada border near Ely, MN. Just like those kids I worked with while canoeing, the students in my class seem to really enjoy learning the material, and I genuinely feel like I'm connecting with them. It means a lot to me.

Song of the Day: Neil Young - For the Turnstiles

world's strongest nonstop

2007-02-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

We watched the world's strongest man competition for a while last night at CBMN. nonstop: oh, come on, I can lift 600 pounds like that! So 3 of us sat on the couch while nonstop tried to lift one end. #1: wait, I think I felt it move a little...

My testosterone insists that I report that I lifted it fully. :)

Also today, sooz and I promised to do an Aaron Sorkin swap: her West Wing for my Sports Night. Rock!

Song of the Day: Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!

how I feel special

2007-02-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I saw a tour going through my neighborhood, so I took a picture out the back window of my car. A few times a week, I see people walking down my street, talking photographs of the houses. In turn... I photograph them.

I gave my first-ever lecture today, for the class I'm TA-ing. It was a success: several students asked questions, and no one fell asleep. However, no one laughed at my characterization of reflecting telescopes versus refractors: long and skinny doesn't cut it for astronomers, we prefer some girth. One of the students even stuck around after class to ask me some extra questions. This teaching thing is totally crescent fresh.

I'm never so happy as when I'm formulating plans... even for minor, inconsequential stuff. Shout out to nop.bot for encouraging that, even if he was flying straight-edge.

Song of the Day: Wilco - Blue Eyed Soul

6th & 6th, and mispronounced names

2007-02-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

The meat-pit, at swifty (aka OB) and schemer's house. There were probably 30 pounds of meat, in total, at their super bowl party. My pigs in a blanket, made with delicious bite-size wieners, looked even smaller next to their 15-hour pit-roasted chunks of pig and cow. It was not an event for vegetarians.

I've been wanting to go to more art openings in Tucson for some time, and so I was pretty thrilled to go to an opening last Saturday night. It was even better for having my very own artist / tour guide in #1. While I was checking out a painting of the Chiricahuas, I said to her, see, I've been there, and I think it affects me the same way, but I just wish that I could paint it like that... her reply was more intense than I would have expected:

#1: Dude, you can! Don't say you can't! This one's very technical, you could definitely do it, you'd just need to practice. You could definitely paint like this, if you worked at it!

Song of the Day: Royksopp - Remind Me

mysteries revealed

2007-02-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, surly barnacle & roller derby queen hosted a special drinking team dinner of lamb, cous-cous-squash, cranberry-pecan salad, and whiskey, abbey ale, port, champagne, and wine (you know it's the drinking team when the variety in beverages outnumbers the variety in food). Here we are discussing how strong surly & queen's relationship is: they've been married for 6 years and have experienced a lot of growth together. I commented: yeah, [surly], your wife makes you almost as happy as retard jokes. However, as you may note from the photograph, there is something far deeper lurking beneath that surly countenance. Something far more telling drives this man. Let's take a closer look:

As the Hoff says: No, you are the retard.

Anyway, here's a nice picture of all of us, minus nopey the photographer:Song of the Day: The Go! Team - Huddle Formation

"and this is the guy who wants us to call him action jackson..."

2007-02-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

I went to a search & rescue volunteers meeting last night. I had high hopes, thinking that this would be a great thing to "give back," a perfect place to hear about new hikes and trips, and a fun way to meet new people. But it turns out that it's just a bunch of old guys with a significant "good old boys" mentality, and the head of training basically told me that the best way to get accepted as a volunteer is to buddy up and play sycophant to him. No thanks. Oh well - there's still volunteering with the sierra club, or the boy scouts, or maybe going back to big brother / big sister...

Last night, no anch, enjoying a mug... After I explained that I don't watch porn because I don't have internet at home, saucy brute: [the diamond]! Did you get internet installed at our house so you could look at porn?

Sorry, heterolifemate, but I think the secret is out. And later, as we discussed the rapid change of a friend as he tries to combat loneliness, another gem from the saucy brute:

saucy brute: I mean, do you remember how hard it is to come home to an empty home? Do you know how lonely that is?
me & nopey: umm... yes

Song of the Day: Wolfmother - Tales

hey little sister, shotgun

2007-02-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

[pancho villa and t-bone laughing while they take my money... that's me with my eyes closed in the foreground]

The first steward poker night was a great success... although g & pancho villa cleaned us out. I thought this was america: how do they get off thinking they can take white people's money? My memory is a little hazy on what happened afterwards at booty night:

g: dude, do you remember that girl in the white fur-trim dress-thing?
me: no...
g: yeah, she's the one you almost got into a fight over
me: wow.

Damn you, maker's mark! Nopey's observation: I was thinking that maybe we should have just stayed at my place instead of going to gentle ben's, but I think if we had done that, we would have died.

Song of the Day: Billy Bragg & Wilco - Hot Rod Hotel

seeing eye puppy

2007-02-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Sooz, la grizzle, and t-bone at nonstop's CBMN last night. La grizzle had been in hiding for a while, and apparently he had an accident either in prison or with a lawnmower while he was in his undisclosed location. What that man needs is a mustache.

Nopey made it back into town last night too. Good news.

Sooz and I talked about puppies for a while... I've been wanting one for a long time, but I keep talking myself out of it because I travel so much. Lately I've been saying, well, maybe once I live with roommates again...But sooz recommended the seeing eye dog puppy program: apparently you can volunteer to raise a seeing eye dog while its a puppy, before it goes to official seeing eye training. This would be a perfect way for me to test-drive having a dog, without the dog getting killed if I fail at it. Unfortunately... the program is only available in the Philadelphia area, near where I grew up. I think it's likely that over the next few months I'll crack and just adopt a puppy from a shelter, then make the lifestyle changes as they become necessary.

Song of the Day: Violent Femmes - America Is

flying blind

2007-01-31T10:29:00.000-08:00

The s-process. Last night he went to a speed-dating thing. We had pizza and beer just before to try and calm him down. Today, the morning after, I asked him, so, how'd it go? The s-process' response: eh.

Song of the Day: Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: Counting Down the Hours

bowling for...

2007-01-29T23:05:00.000-08:00

I went bowling with paranoia last night. The photo above is not actually of us... my camera ran out of batteries, so I pirated it from somewhere. I bowled my new high score (168) while we downed pitchers of shitty beer. At the end of the night:

nonstop: We didn't even hug tonight...
me: Let's go!

Special times.

Paranoia likes to encourage me to do the online dating thing. (So, any prospects? Uh-huh... looking for something new? Every time, he sounds like he's selling dangerous drugs / prostitutes / a pyramid scheme.) It certainly seems to be working out very well for him: a constant stream of new, fun people to hang out with. And sometimes I'm impatient enough that the siren's call almost has me: what if I'm missing something... But when I stop and think, lately I've been meeting promising girls (i.e., women I'd like to date) about once a month, with other new people even more frequently. So I should consider myself fortunate. What's the rush?... right? Maybe what I could use is something more like this: arnie's blog (see 10/12 post)

Song of the Day: Woody Guthrie - More Pretty Girls Than One

brewing & drinking: another hard day's work

2007-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

Photo: Lady of the lake, when she visited me in AZ 2.5 years ago. This girl is one of the sweetest creatures to ever walk the face of the earth. While we were in college, she used to go out and give rides to drunk girls in the wintertime (which, in State College, included sub-zero temperatures). At least once, a drunk girl puked inside her car. You would have think she'd have learned her lesson after this, but she simply continued on, resolute in being kind and generous to everyone she'd meet. The way I learned from her character was my favorite part of dating her for two years.

Last night, I was chauffeur to several drunk people I'd never met before. Thankfully, there was no puking. surly barnacle: I hope you learn your lesson after tonight. Nope, I haven't... at least not in the way that he intended. I prefer the lesson learned from lady of the lake.

Song of the Day: Modest Mouse - Dark Center of the Universe

first date: u-boat sailors

2007-01-27T19:35:00.000-08:00

I had a first date last night. First dates are always a lot of fun for me: as I was explaining to smoove, I hardly ever remember anything from first dates. There's just so much energy, so much that's distractible in her eyes and her scent and the electricity leaping from her speech, that the specific words just become trivial. smoove: so does that mean that every 2nd date with action is basically just a repeat of the 1st date? It's not quite like that, but I think that on the first date, you just sort of feel everything through. On the 2nd date, you actually start to tackle details.

It went well; not magical, but really good. She was great, and the date certainly went well enough that I'd like to see her again. Unfortunately, it turns out that she's just visiting Tucson for about a week. I guess I'm flattered that she decided to have a date with me during this visit... but that really wasn't what I expected. Weird, but a lot of fun. And now, tonight, here I go all over again... though really, I'm spitting game in lieu.

The photo is schemer & swift's antique piano, to be restored at some date in the (distant) future. Me and surly barnacle brewed with them today, doing our first mash-extract beer: an imperial porter.

Song of the Day: Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Action

last post? not if I do this again...

a woman (not my wife) sang / to me of the ghost land

drunk again and looking to score

in frustration that the nozzle wouldn't fit my tire... I peed on this air machine

national pride

slick andy's donkey emporium

not just a coach, but also a mentor

battle at kruger: except I'm the baby buffalo

how do you do it, bob log???

their words are better saved than mine

birthday extravaganza #2

birthday extravaganza #1

Slamina!

it's a *messenger* bag

Bike Gang!!!

waiting for action jacqueline

i hear he drives a school bus, too

it's what I do

DWI

not a drifter

my dinners sadly involve far less balsamic vinegar

motivation & distraction

all hail the bushy-tailed

stew instead of fry

meanwhile sooz and the lesbians had papelboners

Back

he also referred to my earlocks as "something to hold on to"

at least the rotten fallen tree is gone

he was making out with her first, how was I to know that he was bi?

rraj

long lost

happy birthday evan!!!

rock 'n' roll, hold the roll

my mustache love... oh-ee-oh-ee-oh

mr president, I don't like you... you don't know how to rock!

the mustache made me do it

hide your children

what about the millard fillmore?

and on lead guitar and harmonica...

remember, zombies can only be killed by destroying the brain

"i'm so amped right now..."

that thing I should be too smart to care about

hammer, supercell, & michelle

the great white dromedary has lost an ear?

Over the Top

WWSD?

ridiculous

free mustache rides

hammer time!

"did I tell you about the bbq? cause there are some holes in my memory of last night..."

Bike Gang!!!

what do you hear, [action]?

honesty for pixley reunited

ouch

the search for personal meaning

and delicious meals of noodles, tuna, and cheese

I made it

driving miss imacs

0.8" seeing, too

between mountains and ocean

at least international flights have free beer

into the wild

like pete palladino at the crowbar

at least the minutemen are mostly from out-of-state

it's not just frisbee... it's *ultimate*

from rap video to biology lecture

monkey-mobiling across traffic circles

rock & roll!!! (I hope you got that on camera...)

it's good to be a lost boy

moguls suck.

i wish the nsf would pay me to go to the ghostland observatory

"this film should be played LOUD"

and the best supporting mustache goes to...

nomad

breakdance evolution

most embarrassing story EVER

scavenger hunting

Shatten des Kaisers

observing pt 2

it's a messenger bag

it's not just frisbee... it's ultimate