dead men tell no tales...

Very funny. MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com Rock.

I've always loved Something Awful, but for a while I stopped reading. I picked it back up a couple months ago and I just can't get enough. In the "Fashion SWAT" features, Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons and Dr. Thorpe dissect fashion catalogs, movie posters, whatever works... I've been laughing my ass off this morning at work and trying to be discreet, as Fashion SWAT have pointed their cannons of righteous hilarity at the likes of International Male. Oh lord...
Oh good christ...

So my boss just handed me a couple of 11"x17" posters that have ben matted... of two Disneyland attractions. He found them in his garage. Thought I might want them. Uhhh.... yeah. I do.     Oh yeah. Add these to the Pirates of the Caribbean old-school poster that I have, and all of a sudden, it's like a fucking gallery! Now, for some frames...

A fella named Steven Johnson has written a book... it's called "Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter," and I really want to read it. In the meantime, he's written an open letter to Hillary Clinton in the LA Times, about video games and "Grand Theft Auto" and kids and stuff... it's an excellent read: Link via BoingBoing.

I just found one of the coolest ways to find photos on Flickr... The Flickr Related Tag Browser. A nifty Flash interface lets you pick a tag (say, maybe, "puppies") and it will display pictures, in 6x6 grids, with that tag. Click on a picture, and it appears, full size (and original dimensions) next to the grid, including a link to the related page on Flickr itself. The coolest part though, is if you push the mouse pointer to outside the grid. You zoom quickly away from the picture grid, and surrounding it, are related tags to the one you're viewing (for instance... "puppy," "dog," "chihuahua," "pug," etc)... click on one of those, and see images with that tag, plus more related tags when you "zoom out." Too fucking cool. Link via PSFK.

I just realized that in 1 week's time, this blog will have been active for 6 months. Pretty nifty.

Because of this, I've started looking back over old posts, and thought I might share bits and pieces that I like... whether because they remind me of the time, or because, in retrospect, they're somehow interesting.

On February 16, I posted about the Valentine's Day trip Heather and I took to Disneyland:

All-in-all, it's the best trip to Disneyland that I can remember, and I'm down there a lot. She's one special girl, and she made my trip there all the better.

Here's to many more. Love you, hun.

Cute. We're going back to Disneyland in 40-something days... the number is counting down above and slightly to the right of this post... and I'm sure it will be as good, or better, than that trip. No fancy dinner at Granville's, but we're going down with my folks and my brother and his girlfriend, and we're all staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Oh, and thanks to my good buddy Andy, we've got the two-day passes taken care of. Very nice.

On February 28th, I made the first mention of seeking new employment. Well, the first mention here, anyway.

As long ago as March 2nd, I hinted at the December Walt Disney World trip:

I am an insane planner at times. Far, far future plans occasionally just come to me. Whatever works.

On March 9th, I pointed out the "new" template I was working on... uuuuuggllyy...

March 15th saw me decrying the choice of Robert Iger as the new CEO of the Walt Disney Company:

Briefly on the topic of Michael Eisner's replacement as Disney's CEO by current Disney President Robert Iger... Iger is a tool and has a long way to go to prove he isn't just a hand puppet for Eisner. Where does he need to start? Fucking REPAIR the relationship with PIXAR. The only profitable and acclaimed films to come out of the Disney camp the last few years... Pirates of the Caribbean excepted... came from either Pixar or Miramax, and Eisner screwed the pooch on both relationships. Get to work, Iger!

Though the hint was back on 3/2, the Walt Disney World countdown officially began on March 30th:

256 days, 10 hours, 48 minutes, 30 seconds... I am literally insane.

It now stands at 137 days, 7 hours and change...

On April 4th, I bragged about my fantasy draft:

C: Jason Kendall
1B: Shea Hillenbrand, Scott Hatteberg
2B: Orlando Hudson
3B: Alex Rodriguez, Dallas McPherson (minors)
SS: Edgar Renteria
OF: Johnny Damon, Gary Sheffield, Nick Swisher, David DeJesus, Jeremy Reed
DH: Travis Hafner, Dmitri Young
SP: Brad Radke, Cliff Lee, Noah Lowry, Bronson Arroyo, C.C. Sabathia (DL)
RP: Octavio Dotel, B.J. Ryan, Jorge Julio

While my team is doing alright (solidly in 3rd place at 20-12), 9 of those 22 names no longer exist on my roster, and of my original 9 starting batters (Kendall, Hillenbrand, Hudson, A-Rod, Renteria, Damon, Sheffield, Swisher, Hafner), 33% are no longer regular starters for my team. Just funny how things end up. I have only 3 of the 8 pitchers listed there... weird.

On April 20th, I argued for the Niners to take Aaron Rodgers, and not Alex Smith, with the first pick in the draft:

I hope the Niners pick Aaron Rodgers with the first pick on Saturday. Rumor has it these days, that Alex Smith of Utah is the favored QB in the Niner camp... but that guy has the same agent who got Eli Manning retarded money last year, and convinced the young fuck to hold out for a few months before signing. The Niners are in pain and need a new face (and new arm), and now... not later. Rodgers could be drafted and signed within 24 hours, ready to go to work playing for the team he grew up following.

Turns out I may have been wrong about the Ute from San Diego. Sure, he just got insane money ($49.5 million, $24 million guaranteed, over 6 years), but he got it in time to make all the training camps, and every other sentence out of his mouth has to do with "earning this money" and "proving that I deserve this money" and stuff. Sounds like a good kid.

I still wanted Rodgers, though.

On May 3rd, I railed against the deceptiveness of toilet paper:

For SHAME! Those that sell the good people of America their t.p. should have, by now, found a way around the laws of physics to cease this seemingly endless charade! FOR SHAME!

Haw haw.

A day later, I applied for my current job. Then, on May 10th, I compared the two jobs's commutes.

On May 13th, I got all mushy about being with Heather for 4 months (of course, it's now been over 6, and still this good):

Let's just say that if things remain as they are, even if they can't quite hold their current, luminous quality, but remain really fuckin' good... it's not gonna take me five years to do the whole priest-family-altar-ring thing. No chance. I couldn't even hold out that long if I wanted to, and I doubt I want to.

That same day, I got the informal offer for my job at Robert Anthony.

June 2nd saw an infamous sign-off phrase that I took flack for, and for some reason, has never returned:

Seacrest out.

I still think it's funny.

After getting excited about a possible cheap place to get my Canon Rebel XT camera, June 7th found me discovering the truth about "Express Cameras."

Check this shit out. Apparently, these fellas are the Third Reich of camera sales. It just goes to show, folks... watch from whom you buy, especially on the 'net. It's pretty easy to find examples of others' experiences with a certain vendor or reseller.

June 11th was Paula's graduation BBQ/kegger... I moblogged:

Having a great time. Lots of friends, good food, two kegs (Bud and Pyramid Apricot Ale)... And my girl, of course.

having a seriously great time... Not sure if Paula reads this, but CONGRATS GIRL! Not sure what were doing tonight, but after free food and beer, it won't cost any money.

need a refill.

For whatever reason, my method of moblogging hard breaks lines and strips out quotes and apostrophes. Odd.

June 17th saw me buy and use that Rebel XT. I love that camera.

June 24th saw the creation of my personal marketing bussiness/logo... which I still haven't actually done anything with... though I do own the domain name in question.

June 29th saw my introduction, and resulting addiction, to Flickr.

July 1st saw my first political-type posting, which probably eventually led to the creation of Metaliberal, when I commented on the O'Connor retirement:

So I guess Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. I'm sure plenty of people out their are shitting themselves at the prospect of Bush appointing a SCOTUS Justice, but really, O'Connor was a moderate-conservative... certainly no liberal. Chances are, because an ultraconservative wouldn't be confirmed, Bushie will have no choice but to appoint another moderate-conservative. The interesting case, of course, is Roe v. Wade... the "liberals" on the court, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens, can be counted on upholding. And, in the past, moderate-conservative Anthony Kennedy has voted to uphold Roe when it has come up. Therefore, even if Bush appoints a staunch pro-lifer, the right is still 1 vote shy of overturning what is easily the most controversial SCOTUS decision in history.

July 7th, London was hit. I relayed a couple different comments from Londoners that I found particularly fitting.

On July 11th, more mushiness as Heather and I celebrated 6 months together:

Today, Heather and I celebrate six months together. It's my longest relationship by threefold, and it has been the best six months of my life, bar none. We are planning for the future and enjoying the present. I relish the time I have with her, and luckily for me, she is more than generous with her time. She makes me smile and laugh and beam. It feels like we've been together forever, and I'm certain we will...

That's all for now. A fun, nearly-six-month retrospective on my life, as told in blog form. Things more recent than 7/11 can be easily found here on the front page anyway.

We'll see if I do this again some time... maybe in February... who knows?

BK has a new marketing effort out that lets you build your own Fantastic 4 comic book. Awesome. Via Random Culture

While the majority of my life will be bandied about without regret or shame here, I am now blogging my political thoughts at a place called Metaliberal.

I may like beer, but I doubt I could pay $130 for one, even if it is 25% ABV... Eric, isn't this your model car? And by "this" I mean "the most stolen car in the U.S. last year." Ouch. Slate has an article about Spielberg's War of the Worlds and the invocation of images of 9/11 throughout. The article argues for the film's handling of this imagery, but seems to completely ignore the most important fact... that movie sucked. Long, and hard... it sucked. Finally, I leave you with a quote from ESPN's John Clayton regarding my beloved 49ers: Fuck off. We're going 7-9 goddammit.

The Disney Blog has a link to a ComingSoon.net article about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.... ooooh I can't wait.

So the boss man just wanted to have "the talk" we hadn't had yet... how am I liking the job/office? What changes do I think could be made to processes to enhance the experience for clients? Et cetera, et cetera, "yadi yadi yadi." Ahem. So we went to Zheng Long. The Kung Pao chicken there isn't bad, and even with my blister on my thumb I was able to be not-too-lame with the chopsticks (since Rob was using them I felt obligated not to look too gringo. or whatever the chinese would have called me). So anyway, the talk was fine, Rob assured me that the upcoming work was going to be plenty for me, and he seemed to be genuinely interested in my answers to his questions, not just patronizing me for suggestions because he felt he had to or anything. Rock on. Put in the time requests for Seattle in August and Disneyland in September. No probs there. Will wait until after September to put in the official tim request for Walt Disney World in December (though the boss man was told about that before I was hired). Staying in tonight, I think. Drank too much Thursday and Saturday nights. No good. Need to watch Spanglish with Heather, it's due back tomorrow. Or we'll say fuck all that and go out. Who's to know? Not me. Not I.

Not sure what it's about... will report.

So I just changed Heather's blog to ditch that silly Blogger bar at the top. Word.

This rules. It's a game. You shoot Gonzo out of a cannon. My best score is 7,674. Rawk.

This looks like a cool place to go see some performing arts-type shit. Check out the Indian woman's hands.... DA SHOCKER!!

So as it turns out, when Heather and I go to Disneyland in September with my folks, my brother and his girlfriend will be coming along as well (which rocks). Oh, and my folks are going to put us up in the Disneyland Hotel as well... we just have to pay them the rate we would have gotten at the Park Vue on Harbor Blvd... $70/night. So, to recap... that's transportation, park tickets, and 3 nights in the Disneyland Hotel for $210 fucking dollars. This is gonna be good.

Thanks again to Andyman for the passes hookup. Word.

I think I actually have shit I should be doing for work right now... yup... SEO. Oh well. To that then.

Last night I must have been celebrating something. Can't, for the life of me, think of what that might be, but I was celebrating something, all right.

Got home last night late. Heather dropped me off around 12:15 or 12:20, something like that. I was craving these little veggie spring rolls we bought from Costco, so I preheated the oven, and turned on HBO to watch Bad Boys II. The oven dinged, I stick the baking sheet with 10 nummy spring rolls on it (they're only like two inches long each) and set the timer for 5 mins. Timer goes off, I grab the dish towel to take the baking sheet out, no prob, flip the little buggers over and go to stick them back in the oven. Apparently, this time, I had just one layer of dish towel between the 400 degree baking sheet and my thumb, because I now have a blister on my thumb the size of a popcorn kernel. I know, not that huge, but still, big.

The rest of the baking went fine and the spring rolls were munched with delicious fervor.

Tonight, Heather and I are going out to dinner for her birthday, with both our sets of parents. It will be the first time they've spent more than 45 minutes around each other. I know it will go fine. I think I'll get a haircut after work.

So the A's have shipped fan fave Eric Byrnes to Colorado, along with minor league infielder Omar Quintanilla in exchange for bullpen pitchers Joe Kennedy and Jay Witasick. This a day after they shuttled right-handed submarining reliever Chad Bradford to the BoSox for outfielder Jay Payton. Interesting. It appears Payton will platoon with Kielty in the outfield, and be able to truly back up Mark Kotsay as a center fielder. There was cash involved in both deals (from Boston to Oakland in the Bradford/Payton deal, and from Oakland to Colorado in the Byrnes-Quintanilla/Kennedy-Witasick deal) so the full details aren't yet available. At first glance, this makes this team better, as Payton is better defensively and against left-handed pitching than Byrnes, and I'd rather have Kennedy coming out of the pen than Bradford.

Are the A's actually trying to win in 2005? Could it happen? Not unless they win the West... the Wild Card is going to be one hell of a fight, with Texas, Minnesota, Cleveland, New York, and Baltimore at this point... that's if the Bo/ChiSox and Angels don't falter, thus entering that race.

Still lots of games to play. I'm finally going back out to the left field bleachers (hey, maybe to see Jay Payton) on Saturday. Rawk on.

To go to the University of Central Florida for grad school? I'd be going to school at Disney World (practically) for chrissakes!

I just don't think I could relocate to Orlando for 3+ years to do the only grad program that looks interesting to me there... a PhD in Business Admin/Marketing. Yeah... definately couldn't do that.

But still... I could use FAFSA money to pay for my WDW Annual Pass, for chrissakes! And do homework sitting at an outdoor cafe in Epcot! Heh. It's a nice thought.

I wish I was out taking pictures of interesting things right now. I have so little work today it's not even funny.

Heather's birthday yesterday was awesome. She had an excellent time, and all of her gifts were much appreciated. She's the most special person in the world to me, and her happiness only makes me happy.

And now for something completely different...

I found this conglomeration of "The Aristocrats" joke... "the Dirtiest Joke Ever Told." I'd never have taken a peek at this were it not for the documentary about the joke coming out soon.

I'm so bored I don't even have anything cool to say, or link to. I think I'm going to Costco today. Blegh.

I like the girl in it much better, of course.

Yup. Six months

Today, Heather and I celebrate six months together. It's my longest relationship by threefold, and it has been the best six months of my life, bar none. We are planning for the future and enjoying the present. I relish the time I have with her, and luckily for me, she is more than generous with her time. She makes me smile and laugh and beam. It feels like we've been together forever, and I'm certain we will...

To you, sweet pea: Happy Demi-Anniversary. I think that's what you'd call half a year together. Whatever it is... thank you for being you, and for having me.

I love you.

Just as brilliant as the last.

From the London News Review.

By blogger Nosemonkey at Europhobia, in regards to this morning's terrorist attack on the London Underground:

Rawk.

Because I'm taking Heather to Disneyland for her birthday in September. Of course, her birthday is next Tuesday, but September works better. YAY!

At just before 1pm, I was handed a fairly large project... create the elements for a three-page submission form, sticking it into a dummy of the future graphical layout, to show clients... and told that it "was hoped" I could get it out by EOD tomorrow.

Tomorrow?

2 hours and 45 minutes later, and done. And half an hour of that was making it prettier than I'd originally been asked.

I rule.

Went to Zheng Long with Heather and her parents today. Had some pretty good Mu-Shu Pork, though the flies through the open patio doors were either agressive or drunk, or both... because they certainly liked to stick around.

Wrote about yesterday's game at the Heart Foundation blog... Sean and Andy are supposedly both going to begin posting there as well, but as of yet, nada.

It appears work will be picking up very quickly here. The big guy just landed a new account... Standard Pacific Homes. We'll be handling email marcom for their "Sacramento" and "Northern California" (Bay Area, Tracy, etc) regions... something like 30 developments in all, which more than doubles our email volume just like that. And I was worried they wouldn't need me around here. Sounds like Rob Z and Alex and I will be rather busy as Rob heads off on a cruise with his family this friday, to be gone all next week. Crazy. But that's good stuff because it means mad moolah for the agency and job security pour moi... plus a chance for me to prove that I deserve a nice healthy raise at my 6-month review.

News in brief from around the intarwebs:

I laughed pretty hard at this article over at Something Awful. Having gone to Chico, I knew the types of girls mentioned in their "College Cuties Survival Guide," and always wondered what they'd do at 30 when people would no longer offer them free drinks and attention for flashing their ta-tas.

AdRants pointed out an advertisement that utilizes female masturbation imagery to sell watches. Now that is creativity at work.

Ever wanted to know the exact distance your walking routes are without actually walking them and using a pedometer? Gmaps Pedometer is for you. Using Google Maps technology, you can map out a route and it will tell you the distance you're covering. Very cool. Via Lifehacker.

BoingBoing reports that it appears Disney will be jumping into the mobile phone world, and swan diving, at that, with the introduction of Disney Mobile.

That's all for now, methinks.

So a long, but good weekend.

On Saturday, some random fella at the bar... never seen him before or since... offered me $20 if I would do a double shot of well tequila. I did it. It burned, but it paid for my other drinks plus food later that night. Whatever works, right?

For the last four or five years, I've done the same thing on the Fourth, with Greg and Russ, and assorted others... Danville parade in the morning, food at Little Hills, Russ' folks' house for pool or movie or chill, then people show up, we party, then down to catch the San Ramon fireworks, then back to the house to par. tay. With Russ living in AZ but in L.A. this weekend, and Greg in freakin' Costa Rica for chrissakes, this didn't happen.

Instead, Heather and I got up a little after 8 and met our friend Peter for breakfast at Mel's. Then we headed down to Danville for the parade. We basically stayed in one spot and I took a bunch of pictures (some of those are from later in the day too), and saw my folks and stuff. There, we met up with Tanya, Shack, Kaveh and Sarah. A quick jaunt to Luna Loca for a drinky, then it was off to Tanya's folks' house in Danville for Absinthe (well, neither Heather or I took part) and BBQ (yummy Hefeburgers).

We could have gone to fireworks, but we were both really tired. We took Peter back to his car in W.C. and picked up a couple movies at Blockbuster... Be Cool ("Twinkle twinkle baby, twinkle twinkle!") and Finding Neverland, and watched both. We did take a break to watch fireworks on T.V. (kind of lame) but mainly it was chill, take it easy, and watch flicks.

Personally, I had a great time. San Ramon fireworks can't stack up to Disney, any way.

So our internet connections died this morning. For like three hours I had no email, no web, etc... kinda hard to do email stuff at that point. Things got fixed eventually, and I had some work to do today, so that's good.

Rob took us out to Tiki Tom's for lunch, to celebrate Alex's 25th birthday (he's the baby of the agency... though just barely) so that was nice... free food and beer usually is! I'd never eaten there before, but the burger I had was good, and I liked the side of tropical fruit along with the fries.

My father called me last night to let me know that the company he works for (and, until May 27th, I also worked for), HomeGain, was just acquired by Classified Ventures, a conglomerate of the Washington Post Company, the Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, Knight-Ridder, and others. Press release (in word format) on the merger is available here. This is good news for my old pals at HG... there was always a "revenues up, costs down" mentality that bordered on psychosis there... obviously, they will have more breathing room as a wholly-owned subsidiary of a much larger corporation. And, CV is a private company, so they still have advantages of nondisclosure over competitors like HouseValues. For me, it means I will just get paid out for my vested options, at whatever the per-share buyout price ends up being (not disclosed, 'cause like I said, private company)... not sure how much that means exactly, but it will be a three-digit figure, no more.

Looking forward to the long weekend. Kind of hoping, since it is a holiday weekend, and because I don't have much work right now, I'll be out of here before 5:30... will have to wait and see.

So I guess Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. I'm sure plenty of people out their are shitting themselves at the prospect of Bush appointing a SCOTUS Justice, but really, O'Connor was a moderate-conservative... certainly no liberal. Chances are, because an ultraconservative wouldn't be confirmed, Bushie will have no choice but to appoint another moderate-conservative. The interesting case, of course, is Roe v. Wade... the "liberals" on the court, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens, can be counted on upholding. And, in the past, moderate-conservative Anthony Kennedy has voted to uphold Roe when it has come up. Therefore, even if Bush appoints a staunch pro-lifer, the right is still 1 vote shy of overturning what is easily the most controversial SCOTUS decision in history.

That's all for now.