At least in photos, here.
There are some really amazing photos in here. It covers all sorts of types of photos. Heads up though that there are some graphic (In the news from a war zone sense as opposed to the skinemax sense) photos in the collection.
You could get them this awesome chainsaw. They might also turn out to be like Dexter so there would be that balance.
Primarily dedicated to me. It is cause I am the favored child (which I must bask in now until my niece / nephew is born and I am usurped by the youth).
31
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Now playing: Double F - West Coast Chaos
via FoxyTunes
Try out my new RSS feed at Feed Salon.
Casey has decided to create a new service that aggregates multiple feeds into one single one which I think is a pretty awesome idea and service. It is open to anyone at this point so I expect to see all my favorite blogs exposing a feed salon feed soon. If not expect much random harassment (consider yourselves warned).
I do not have many feeds (and am feeling kind of inferior about that) so right now it is just my blog but I am going to go out and acquire feeds like a mad man and add them.
For whatever reason (*cough* climate change caused by the human race *cough*) the weather in Seattle recently has reminded me of the stellar movie staring Hilary Swank, "The Reaping".
Last Saturday as I was getting ready to go shoot baskets with Tim I looked at the window and saw this:
After making fun of the neighbors trying to take pictures of the snow I decided to try to subject you my loyal reader(s?) to my own attempts (Much more successful as you can see)
Yachi and I of course decided to do the smart thing and wander around outside and head downtown. I put on my full capilene long underwear, multiple layers and boots. The snow was heavy and wet:
And by the time we got downtown it had mostly melted and I was overheated to the point of heat exhaustion.
Yachi soon tired of my slow pace and constant whinging:
In contrast I have been wearing a short sleeved shirt to work for the last three days and it hit 57 yesterday. I am telling you, in the words of Lewis Black, the next storm coming will involve frogs.
You should check out this DJ Spooky mix that he did for the Biennial in Venice. It is some of the normal Spooky type stuff mixed with his favorite music originating in Africa.
One of the cool things is that he does not limit himself to music but adds a lot of speeches and found sound / collage stuff. I know I make it sound exciting but the speeches are by some of the best in history (Malcolm X & Nelson Mandela). The music is ridiculous. Ginger Baker for those from an earlier generation (Cream), Fela for everyone, Abdullah Ibrahim for the avant garde in us all, Akon for the kids and my personal favorite Konono No. 1.
As heard on the radio in this land of Buicks and Oldsmobiles. That's right this version of the holidays is coming to you straight from the great lakes state.
It is always good to go home. There are a lot of things that are uniquely Michigan and it is great to see and experience them. It is also a lot of fun to catch up with family, both old and new.
Yachi and I have spent a week here shuttling between her and my families homes to see everyone. Along the way we have run into some great things.
We started out in Lansing (after a brief stop for rest, food and TV in Detroit) where we got to catch up with my family. We got to see the home of Jiffy <Link here> mix for delicious corn bread and muffins after having a spectacular lunch at the Common Grill. Surprisingly that was my fist time eating there and I am glad I finally was able to sample their wares.
We also were able to see a trailer park in the shadow of a landfill which I think wins the award for worst place to live. I also managed to develop quite the addiction to Project runway by watching the entire Third season and all the Fourth season episodes that exist now.
On Thanksgiving it snowed quite a bit which made for a really beautiful day. It was a wonderful day with lots of food and family.
I also got to see Trixie who has to win an award for cutest and smelliest dog ever. She is 14 and about to die so appropriately she smells like death. She had a great Thanksgiving as well as she managed to scarf down half a blueberry pie and step all over the pecan one. She is getting frail and there was some discussion of digging a grave for her now before the ground freezes. I am pretty happy that I was able to see her and spend some time with her.
We then went back to Yachi's parent's place and had another Thanksgiving dinner with her family (on Friday). Her mom brined the turkey for about 36 hours and it showed. Normally I do not really eat much turkey (the night before I just had a lot of my Aunt's outstanding stuffing) but this turkey was good. I mostly ended up eating that.
Saturday we had a reception for Yachi's family friends whom were unable to make it to the wedding which was cool. Great food and fun times were had by all.
Overall a most enjoyable holiday and fitting with the whole theme of what I picture Thanksgiving to look like and be about. Hopefully everyone else enjoyed theirs.
Yachi and I just got back from Vegas and I am writing this on a plan to Michigan. We were in Seattle for about 17 hours.
To go to Vegas I had to betray my basketball team and miss a game. From what I heard it was a bad game to miss as we needed more players. I felt bad for a couple of minutes but then sat down at the poker table and the guilt rapidly disappeared.
I am glad Yachi and I got married as we both are partial to gambling. Every night we both played our respective games until way too late. The biggest thing I learned is that I am a limit game poker player as opposed to a no limit player. In limit I have to ignore the voice that keeps telling me to push all my chips into the pot.
Our room at The Hotel:
Yachi and I went to see our first Cirque De Soliel show which I highly recommend. It was really entertaining both from a music and physicality standpoint. The performers were amazing and the stage made me turn into a huge geek.
Us before the show:
After the show, they offer you glamour shots of yourselves taken during the show. Yachi and I might have purchased one for an excessive amount of money. A airbrushed photo of yourself is something ever house needs.
Yachi with flowers which cracks me up:
I was also able to catch up with a friend who I found out was in town for a conference. It was good hanging out with him as he was unable to make the wedding. Yachi hung out with us for an hour until her obsession with video poker took a hold and she had to head back.
Alright the plane is landing, on to the next part of the trip, family.
It appears that we have someone who has been following Banksy in our very own neighborhood. My favorite so far has been the following:
Maybe it is cause I am compulsive?
Another good one was this. Here is the setup:
And the punchline:
We got ready at our place in order to get ready for the social event of the season, better know as Marques' Halloween party. Ryan was a ghostbuster, Ella a pumpkin and Yachi a bat.
They had all prepared their costumes much earlier but as it was a busy week for me and I did not even start thinking about a costume till the night before mine was a little more haphazard.
I decided to go with the skin approach and be a mermaid. The thing I am most proud of was the real life previously live Dungeness crab that protected the world from the mayhem of having my junk exposed.
Once we got to the jam Marques was no where to be found but there were imposters hanging out.
After some waiting around the man of the hour showed up in his price tag costume. The night proved to be a blast with me finally achieving my revenge for the marshmallow fiasco of years past.
Shahaf and Pnina decided to go as Adam and Eve and were trying to seduce everyone to evil with their selection of apples.
More pics here
Apparently right now Seattle has reverted to a primal state similar to everyone's favorite 8th grade novel. The electricity is out in wide swathes of the city and the bridges into the city are closing sometime soon.
Here wrapped in the isolating cocoon of work with its very own electricity generation system (Also know as the Redmond / Bellevue grid but we pay more so we get all the juice over the plebs) it is difficult to tell anything is wrong. I am looking forward to the 97 minute drive home.
It took a little while but here are all the collections of photos I am aware of right now. I will continue to update this as I find more online ones to see.
Tama's
Ann's
Mine
Jong-Raye's
Carmen's (The photographer)
Robbie's
Holly's
Beacon Hill came close to defeating me today. This neighborhood is remarkably hard to get out of once you accidentally get in there. I was driving to the goodwill to donate some things and found myself heading in to Beacon Hill instead of where I wanted to go. I foolishly thought I could relatively easily make my way back down to the goodwill. How wrong I was.
30 minutes later I finally found my way out but it was after taking far too many lefts and heading back in the way I came for a while. It appears that the neighborhood was specifically designed to make it impossible to get out of. Every street leads you to a dead end or back to where you came from.
After finally making it out I was near the Rainer street taco truck so I had a celebratory set of tacos. They were awesome as usual.
In the Capitol hill neighborhood there are a bunch of new developments going in. Sometimes this causes a little tension between those that were here and those that want to be here. The most amusing thing to me is the cry that everyone around here makes about density being the way forward in city planning. Now that more high occupancy places are going up the cry is turning into density in every place but here. There are some valid points about new construction being something that fits into the overall aesthetic and integrating places that gave the neighborhood it feel into the new places. This naivete about neighborhoods changing without changing is a little grating though. At least one funny thing came out of this though:
This is the best example I have seen in a while of why I am not a model. My face is not what you would call photogenic. My sex appeal is purely in person (As opposed to Luke who exudes photogenicness, bastard).
The best thing about this photo is that it was before I started drinking. I cannot even imagine what the rest of the night looks like.
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Now playing: The Postal Service - Brand New Colony
via FoxyTunes
After the hustle and bustle of the wedding, things are finally settling back into a normal pace and feel. I will post about the wedding soon I am just waiting on a couple more photo posts to come in.
This past weekend was the first in which Yachi and I did not have to do wedding stuff or attend another wedding. We went to dinner at Veil which turned out to be surprisingly good and then I met up with Shahaf and Neville and Tyler and Sarah whom have just returned from a round the world trip. On Saturday I ate some pizza and watched the entire Planet Earth series and Blades of Glory. Sunday found me eating more pizza and playing a little bit of poker. Overall a most rewarding lazy weekend.
It has been about three weeks since I last posted but I was getting married and had no time. I will post on that later as I have lots of good pictures and stories. In the meantime here is a selection of photos from the landscape photographer of the year in England (As decided by the Guardian):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2007/sep/18/travel?picture=330763997
There are some truly amazing photos in here.
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Now playing: DJ Signify - Five Leaves Left (For Lauren)
via FoxyTunes
As much as I rail against it at times, there are times when needless consumerism is a source of the utmost joy. Such a case is my new AWESOME sneakers . Now I understand why people get shot over scuffed sneakers. I was actually going to post a picture of myself rocking them but such a site would cause the end of the internet as we know it. Everyone would be trying to reach Blogger to see the AWESOMENESS for themselves and that would eventually go down. All of the people who had managed to save the picture would post it only to quickly cause the demise of the internet. Finally it might spill over into the real world with people breaking into one another's houses to steal computers containing the photos or even the print versions people made. Madness all around.
I also purchased a couple of CD's that I am loving. The new Epoxies EP which I am listening to as we speak. As good as their previous work with a slightly more space age feel (if that is possible) and snottier lyrics. The new M.I.A. (the real one, not this one). If anything it is more experimental than her first album while managing to maintain an amazing energy throughout. My favorite song is still birdflu for its crazy use of sounds to make rhythm. The last album of note is the old new Justice album. I think everyone knows them for D.A.N.C.E. which is a great song but the rest of the album has been pretty spectacular. Some of the songs sound like they are the logical French progression of Air or Daft Punk (which is not a bad thing in my mind). The best songs though are those that sound like they spent two years hanging out with Merzbow learning the finer points of Japanese noise and Mr. Oizo learning the finer points of moving that ass. Check out Waters of Nazereth or at least a mix that is mostly it with some more Ed Banger bananas shit for the best example of what I am talking about.
Consumerism == bad
Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good
Recently I convinced Yachi to purchase the following fabric softener. My arrival in hippie hell is all but assured. Pretty soon I am going to start going by a noun instead of a name and wearing overalls. I already am kind of opposed to showering so I imagine that will continue to get worse. Hang out with me now before the transformation is complete.
On a completely unrelated note I finished a book called Perfume Dreams today. You can either read it here or borrow it from me (or maybe the library, I heard they were in to this loaning thing as well). It is non-fiction and great. It is a collection of essays about identity and culture that is much better than that description. You should read it.
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Now playing: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
via FoxyTunes
My schedule might be open. All I ask for is some Morcheeba and Steinlager.
Tonight I decided to get even more in touch with my crafty side (I think I might have to cut off all contact with women besides Divya as they are pushing this craftiness). I made the seating chart for the wedding. By my lonesome. By first copying everyones name to a word document and sizing them to be small notecards. By then cutting all said notecards out of the paper with scissors. By making piles of notecards into appropriate dining groups:
By organizing groups into small model sized tables with the help of my trusty lion cat:
By realizing I had not included Yachi and myself who are now at a table of our own :(:
All while Yachi caught up on some much deserved rest:
Even if you blow up the picture to see who you are sitting with chances are it has changed as I had to redo it all once I realized Yachi and I were sitting dolo.
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Now playing: Morcheeba - Almost Done
via FoxyTunes
I know that no one else wants to hear this but it is something easy to write about as it has been 8 days since I have posted.
I finally feel like I played decent basketball yesterday night. After an initial loss the team I was playing with managed to pull off a couple wins. It was fun playing hard and actually winning.
I also realized how much more I would like being close to where I work. My commute is not that bad in comparison to some people but I would love to cut it down. I think I might end up looking for a job a little closer to home.
Alright awful post out of the way. tomorrow will be better.
Marques is always complaining about graffiti and how it destroys environments.
I found this near Jack In The Box and am pretty fascinated with it. I like the stache; it is a great touch.
Nobody wants to have to be quiet when drinking. Follow the info below to contact the city council and make your voice heard.
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Action Alert! Voice your opinion to the City Council!
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So it has been almost exactly two weeks since I have last posted. I know that your lives have been bereft of meaning while waiting for the fix of sweet nothing that is this blog.
So much has happened, starting with a stupendous dinner at the tamarind tree. Between Yachi and I, we had the meat and seafood course. My favorite was probably the crunchy veal meatballs as appetizers. Hopefully they will find their way unto the menu. For those that have not tried this restaurant you should go there right now if in Seattle.
After that my friend Adam came into town and we hung out for a couple of days while I finally shipped the product I work on. After that a group of us went to Vancouver for the weekend.
The occasion was my bachelor party and I could not have asked for a better one. The one drawback was my own fault (The second mistake I have made this year, damn am I slipping). On the way up we decided to stop and gamble at Tullalip and it was there that I realized I had left my passport and birth certificate back in Seattle. This realization made me sad as you can see:
So after realizing this I made the responsible decision and went to Canada anyways. Adam came up with a decent way of solving the problem and I was able to get back into the country with the help of Divya and a locksmith.
Friday was a lot of fun with good food (that I did not really eat, damn stomach problems) and a great night that involved many bars and a story that is not publishable. All you got to do is ask me in person though and I guarantee I will spill the beans.
Saturday we made a great breakfast in our wonderful suites.
Given the surroundings I am amazed that the meal turned out as well as it did. We had an egg scramble, bacon and pancakes. The only difficulty was getting rid of the bacon grease in between batches of bacon. Someone had the great suggestion of pouring it down the toilet. This is the result of boiling bacon grease and the toilet:
I could not catch the steam that came off it. It was gross to say the least.
We spent the rest of the day playing ping pong and then had a phenomenal dinner at cru. The night was supposed to be spent at a club but those of us who decided to walk got a little lost and the night ended up being a meandering one around downtown Vancouver.
It was a great time and you can find more pictures of Shahaf's here.
For shipping I had the whole of last week off. I wish I had something terribly exciting to mention about that but it was very slow and relaxing. I watched some movies, finished the first 6 Harry Potter books and cleaned the house.
Last weekend was my birthday though and something exciting did happen on that day. We went to Wild Waves and I had my first day at a water park. It was a.w.e.s.o.m.e. Who new giant slides would be so much fun? A large-ish group of us left around noon and spent a couple hours there which as about the perfect amount of time. My personal favorite was the twisty all-enclosed slide. I highly recommend going if you can. Here are some pics that Ann took.
I think that is mostly caught up. Let me know if you like or dislike the new FoxyTunes sig.
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Now playing: Arrington De Dionyso - Khomuz Voice One
via FoxyTunes
Also known as my trip to South Korea. It was a short trip that was basically a layover on the way home from Beijing last time I went there. We only had two nights and one day there and seeing as how Seoul seems to be as big as Rhode Island we really did not see much. What I did see I liked quite a bit though. The food was amazing and the people were all ridiculously nice.
People did regard us a little curiously especially when I decided to kneel down in the middle of the subway and start taking pictures. I think they were more curious of what I could possibly be taking pictures of. My Korean was not up to explaining that we did not have subways in Seattle so I needed to satiate my urge to take photos of them in their fair city.
I wish I had thought of this and had the composure to achieve it.
http://www.alternet.org/story/57001/?page=1
It is amazing the level of ignorance that exists in the world still. An interesting topic for discussion would be the flip. What happens at a cruise full of readers of the New Republic?
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this wedding thing is the ability to go to tastings. Yachi and I treated ourselves to one recently at Sugar Rush bakery. They don't have a full blown "here taste some of our cakes" tasting soon so we made our own. 1 dozen cupcakes later we thought that they looked rather forlorn with half of them gone and the rest in various states of disappeared.
As part of our trips yesterday Yachi and I bought a bunch of energy efficient light bulbs. While I am excited about this rapidly speeding up slide to hippieness it leaves us with many extra unused and half used normal light bulbs. Before dropping them off at Goodwill I wanted to see if any of my 4 loyal readers wanted them or knew anyone who might. Let me know
This weekend was a blast. Yesterday we drove to Leavenworth to go tubing. This is an activity for those unfamiliar with it where you lie in an innertube and float down a river. Oh and you get to have a tube strictly for beer. Kind of making it a first class citizen. The scenery was beautiful and the camaraderie was wonderful. I think we ran a little over our allotted four hours but the company did not seem to mind.
The water was a little brisk when you first entered as it was mountain run off but Marques broke that seal when someone tipped his tube over. By the end I was spending more time in the water than out. Overall a great time and many thanks go to Ann for suggesting it and pushing it along.
Today was not quite as exciting. With sore muscles Yachi and I moseyed down to Whole Paycheck which turned out to be more inviting than I thought it would be. Let's see if we can keep up the weekly walk down there and the associated cooking (or more specifically if Yachi can keep up the cooking).
Where it is above 95 degrees in Seattle. I worked from home today and decided to walk down to Nordtroms in the early afternoon as I thought it would be the cooler part of the day. I am still sweating.
Jjang agreed with me.
So did Eileen:
Even Max:
I had a great picture of Yachi asleep as well but have been restricted from posting it due to legal reasons.
Apparently software used to download podcasts and sync them to an iPod is called a podcatcher. Glad I learned something new today. Why I am looking at this software? A long rant about iTunes should follow that but I don't have the energy. Suffice it to say that I am done with iTunes and looking for alternatives.
If you fall into my boat you should check out podcatch matrix I wish every decision were made this easy.
Primarily orange and pink ones. If you have not seen me or I have blown off social obligations it was to make these beauties. I am not traditionally very crafty but this past weekend Yachi and I made our invitations. It was a 10 hour marathon followed by a shorter 6 hour one on Sunday. We finished them for the most part though and I felt really accomplished. The only part to do is address the envelopes which I get a free pass out of because my hand writing looks like someone has a pen in their mouth while having a seizure.
