Sightseeing Once Again

This time as a tour operator.  I am thinking of getting some hats made and will start carrying around a flag so everyone can follow me.

So back to China where we tried to pack in as much as we could into one day.  This is an outlier but like I said in 365 I really love the long exposure shots (This was the night before for dinner).

Were we did see the new version of New Edition.  i was disappointed that they decided to take out Bobby Brown:

We started the day off in a cab and managed to even get some seeing in from there, like the new CCTV building.  I would hate to sit in the section that hangs off the building having seen some Beijing construction up close:

Then we headed to the forbidden city and Marcelo decided to hook up a glamour shot:

We even got to see some ghosts with weird heads:

 

A woman in a tree:

And the new time-honored coffee shop that replaced the American-honored coffee shop (AKA Starbucks):

Overall a pretty successful tour day.

Heading To China

I have been meaning to post about my last China trip for a while and have some extra time today.

On the flight there I managed to keep myself busy watching a ridiculous amount of movies and whupping up on Marcelo in Reversi

I also got to sit in my very own row on the flight from Japan to China which was pretty cool.  Not as cool as the lay down all the way chairs but close:

They also had my favorite champagne on the plane so I managed to get through 7 of the baby bottles which made the flight so much more relaxed (At least until my head started to spin):

Next up, being a tour guide in China.

I Have Not Had Enough Snaps Of Random Trips Recently

So these photos are from about 1-2 years ago now and have been sitting in draft form in the Blogger cloud.

They are pics from when I went to Seoul that I thought were interesting for one reason or another.

This was shot on the train going to Seoul from the airport. The landscape looked surprisingly desert like.

This was from the hotel window and was our view of the city.

This was a canal through the city that the government just refurbished and made available to people again. It had been covered with concrete and inaccessible. It was pretty cool seeing so many people out at night enjoying the park atmosphere.

Same place just a little blurrier. I was actually trying to do something like this and was pretty happy with the results.

Same thought for some street traffic.

This was in the canal. I had to wait for 25 minutes for the light show to reset to different colors after I missed it the first time.

A floating cross.

Part of a show we watched.

Santarchy

So I am running a little late in terms of posting pics.  Although after the next post I might have rewritten what late means

In December, Chris, Marques, Tim & I dressed as Santa and went drinking with a bunch of other Santas in the Wallingford / University District area.  It ended up being a great day and a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Here is us meeting up to jam into Yachi's car which is not built for men of such size (at least all at the same time).

Here is the group after one bar.  Like I said there were a lot of Santas.

Marques on the merry-go-round

The second bar where I caught Santa being naughty.

The third bar where we arrived early and got a prime seat for the festivities and drinks.

Still the third bar as we were there for the majority of the time.

Tim having been caught being naughty (If you want to see those photos you can ask me in person)

 

Marquis showing his compassionate side and feeding me a corn dog.

There were many bars after this but the photos just don't do the time justice.

More Lynchian Wisdom

 

Courtesy of my sister Ting.

Have I Mentioned How Much I Love David Lynch?

 

 

How could you not?

What A Sexy Belly

I wish mine was that sexy.  Taken by Chris at Tim's birthday party after getting beat many times over by the undisputed master of flippy cup.

365 Is Back Like The Jesus

And not even the baby Jesus, the fully grown Jesus.

Thanks to the lost and found at King County metro I have my camera back.  It was a pretty painless process once I called and told them some identifying info about the camera.

The only creepy thing is that the guy behind the counter instantly recognized me "from the pictures".  When I looked at the camera here is what he had been gazing at:

 

One of my better photos by far.  Note the heat saving shorts that allow you to loose weight incredibly fast (bought for $2.99 at Tuesday Mornings)

Anyways the feed is back up and today's picture is posted.

365 Ist Tot

I know it was no where near 365 days but apparently my camera was not at work nor was it at the restaurant I ate nor the car.  I think you get the picture, I have lost yet another camera and am looking for recommendations about good ones people have.

365 Started

I took a pic yesterday and then forgot my camera are work with the picture still on it.  for the last two days I have used my camera.

This is the last you will see of the project on this blog as I have decided to just use a Picasa album to host all the snaps.  It will save you all from having to see my grotesque face. 

I added the Picasa feed to my FeedSalon feed but if you just want the pictures they are available here.

Project 365

I have been hearing / reading a lot about 365 projects where the goal is to take a picture of something everyday of the year.  First I heard about it in Tyler's blog and then read a lot about it in DPS.

It has made me interested enough that I think I might give it a shot.  At first I was thinking about trying for some sort of theme (Self-portrait, portrait, music lyrics, landscape, ...) but think I am just going to try to do it and see if any pattern emerges.

I am looking for a partner or two to keep me motivated to do it so let me know if you are interested.  I will probably start this Friday.

Taxes?

Done with 'em. 8 hours of my life figuring out thing that would ordinarily make no difference to me.

My eyes and head hurt something vicious. Does anyone know of a country with no tax? (Besides the US for the ultra-rich, ohhh, zing).

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Now playing: OutKast - Git Up, Git Out
via FoxyTunes

What A Difference A Day Makes

Fuck Seattle Hipsters

And their unwillingness to dance.

Tonight I got the chance to see the Liars live and I am very happy about that.  I was going to be lazy and old and call Marques with some kind of made up story about how I could not go to the show.  Instead I decided to sack up and check the Liars out as I have heard a 7" of theirs but that is about it.

Very satisfied is how I would describe the show.  They managed to combine elements of the Stone Roses, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Trent Reznor and "Beaches and Canyons" era Black Dice into a mix that was uniquely their own.

Their drummer was a force of nature that went through at least three sets of drumsticks during the show.  He never played anything that was really crazy like Damon Che but damn was he solid and one of the better rock drummers I have heard in a while.

The rest of the band was pretty magnificent as well.  The guitarist captured a lot of attention early on because he looked as if he was producing the sound but due to the crazy deductive reasoning of Marques and myself we finally reckoned it was the bassist with the help of a foot pedal system who was making the ridiculous noise.

The show itself was amazing.  The energy peaked in the middle with a set that was good leading to the expected encore (When did that become expected by the way?).  They started off strong with the musicians described above providing ample playing room for everyone.

About half way through their set they played what might be the most amazing jam I have ever heard.  I have seen a lot of shows in my time but this was the most danceable cerebral music I have heard (This might apply to all their music).  I will buy their music bit by bit until I have something that roughfully approximates what I heard tonight.  It had elements of everything yo0u love plus those random things that you don't love but respect.

All in all a phenomenal show.  Peace and good night.

Giggle But True

 

Not sure why this makes me giggle quite so much but it really does.  Kind of rings true as well.

Detroit Represent

 

Brought to you by the mighty Fader.  These guys remind me of home so much I had to bring up the full screen to see if I recognized the musicians. 

The interview also made me hanker for a slightly less hipster area then Capitol Hill as the image of any of these guys riding a single speed bike in tight black pants makes me giggle a little.  Note, this is almost a complete non sequitur related to a long series of posts I was reading on reductionism in music criticism and can very safely be ignored.

Lazy Day?

My respect for those that work from home regularly (Jam glue, I am looking at you) has grown by an order of magnitude today.  I am about to go to bed in the clothes I woke up in.

That by itself would probably be enough to make me a little creeped out by my own laziness but I actually showered and put the same clothes back on.  Also I have not gone outside for over 24 hours now.  I did get a lot of work done though :).

Baby == Nominee VIP Pass

http://www.slate.com/id/2181495/

This was a pretty good idea from someone who both had a baby at the right time and lived in the right state.

It is interesting to see the difference in how the candidates look with the baby.

Underwear Gnomes

Have invaded my neighborhood.  First I saw socks hanging from a tree and not one or unmatched socks but a pair.  Today I say matching underwear hanging from a home sale sign down the street.

I will try to capture some snaps of it tomorrow and update this post but the gnomes might have already taken their booty to wherever they take it to.

Update:  No matter how I searched I was unable to actually find the underwear.  Apparently the gnomes have taken it to where they only know.

I did still find the socks as they must be less of a prize:

Want To Go Back To 1993?

or 2001 or any year between 1986-2003?  You can now do it.  At least if you commemorated your life through tapes as I did.  One of the best presents I got for christmas was the Plusdeck PC cassette player.

This beautiful device has allowed me to record all of my old tapes to wave format to be later ripped to mp3 for iPod delight.  I have been continuously amazed at how easy this whole process is and have gotten through around 24 tapes in about a week.  Only 20 more to go.

Every day has me going nuts over the most recent tape to be transferred.  It is crazy to me how much of my life I have associated with music and how this particular part was relatively inaccessible since I got rid of a stereo.

My favorites so far have been the mixtapes mostly.  Both the kind you make to impress someone you wanted to date and the kind that you make to drop off at clubs and try to have them book you.  I have run across a ton of things that were only captured to these tiny analog reels and am pretty excited about having them back.

Next time you want to convert a tape let me know as I have it down to a science now.   Also if you want to jump in a quick time warp you should swing on by and check out my Primus / Naughty by Nature mixtape.

Reuter's Best Of 2007

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.

In Case You Want Your Kid To Be A Lumberjack

 

You could get them this awesome chainsaw.  They might also turn out to be like Dexter so there would be that balance.

It's A Shrine Really

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).

Does This Make Me "A Bad Person"?

31

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Now playing: Double F - West Coast Chaos
via FoxyTunes

Fancy New Feeds

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.

Weather Of Biblical Proportions

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.

Good Day For A Guiness

Drum Pattern Awareness

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.

http://www.djspooky.com/articles/venice_2007.php

Holiday Travels, Pt. 2 AKA Chrysler, Ford Or Foreign

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.

Holiday Travel, Pt.1 Of Possibly 3

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.

Amateur Banksy

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:

A Little Halloween Action

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

Funny?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21432722/

I am not sure it is?

Kill The Pig, Cut It's Throat, Spill It's Blood

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.

Finally Some Wedding Photos

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

Defeat (Almost)

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.

Acrimony

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 was located at outside the windows of a new build which has a Quiznos in the first floor.