I hereby entreat the Blue Angel, saint of Las Vegas' artistic community and the broad what gave me super-powers in my late 20s, to grant me the power to send the following back in time to Geoff Carter the teen-aged:
1. The internet.
2. Cheap long-distance service.
3. A better-rounded appreciation of post-punk.
4. The compulsion to perform a modicum of daily exercises -- crunches, lunges, simple fucking push-ups.
5. Grammar.
6. The iPod Nano.
7. Solace.
8. Awareness of a world larger than the suburbs, and a desire to see it.
9. The certain knowledge that the phrase "your permanent record" doesn't mean shit.
10. Sexting.
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"good luck dress shopping. Remember, they all look equally good on my bedroom floor so don't stress too much."
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Every year on my birthday I like to make plans for what I'd like to accomplish in the next year.
Here's my list of what I want to do at age 36:
- Discover the lost continent of Triceratopia, which I just made up.
- Broker peace between robots and mimes.
- Discover, distill, bottle and mass-produce happiness.
- Have a big giraffe head instead of a human head, like one of those Egyptian statues, only with a giraffe.
- Write a sternly-worded yet convincing letter to every evil person in the world, asking them in very clear terms to please stop.
- Do everything not covered by this list.
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Hey, they're only a month late. I'm very happy to say that I've been consumed with freelance and peripheral work and haven't had time to consider these shots, most of which were posted without the kiss of Photoshop. Also, I haven't had time to pick up the new Wilco record, and my head is filled with radio cures.
( From here we go NSFW. )
The other million-and-six photos are here.
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I'm having a problem. I've never encountered a problem of any kind before, so when this happened, I googled "Problem Solving Worksheet" to find a good way to solve it.
(Worksheet taken from ADHD News.)
( Problem Solving Worksheet )
I think I may need to grab another worksheet and start over. Please help.
( Another Worksheet )
This whole "solving" thing is difficult.
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On Sunday mornings, I like to go shopping in medieval Europe. You know, just to relax, and build up my immune system. Maybe feel a little smug.
Everyone back then was illiterate, so the signs all just showed picture of what they sold: a horseshoe for a blacksmith, a basket for a basket shop, clothes for a clothes store. It makes the shopping experience a little like playing card games with a three year old, and who doesn't like that?
This morning six hundred years ago, I was shopping around and decided to take a break and grab some watered-down honey wine. I stopped at an inn called the Rose and Griffin.
Except it wasn't an inn at all. It was a roses and griffins store. There were long rows of fragrant roses, and huge cages filled with mythical lion-eagles.
"No, no, we're not an inn," said the shopkeeper with a laugh and a shrug, "but people assume that a lot. We get a lot of angry medieval would-be drunken would-be customers."
"Do they ever cause trouble?" I asked, noting that the roses were way too expensive for my shopping day.
The shopkeeper just chuckled, "Of course not. Nobody comes around to raise a ruckus. My store is full of monsters."
He takes credit cards. Anyone want to go in with me on a bulk discount order?
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The classic trip: all the way down to Lemon Grove to a place that specializes in the fried pork delicacy, Carnitas. Typically an hour of driving for lunch requires some kind of occasion, but a visit to the king of pork is an occasion all its own. Buried off the path, past the off brand shopping, past the trophy store, it is easy to miss unless you know what to look for. A sign bearing a smiling pig, swollen with the apparent joy of being the object of consumption. Don't go Monday or Tuesday, because you will also see a closed sign. One time we made that mistake and had to make due with the nearby Carl's Jr. That was the very apex of a certain kind of disappointment. It was quite possibly then that a seething and festering hatred for fast food began to unfurl and strike out to lay claim upon my appetite.
Again, we are talking about a place with that good ol' quality. There is no pretense of fancy or shmancy here. Pigs line the walls, glass, stuffed, porcelain, and plastic. While a menu exists, ordering is a simple affair. Carnitas for 10. Though I'm told the barbacoa is also excellent, I'd never taken the chance to find out. And this being LCC, I never will. It certainly looks delicious, though.
Servings come out family style, portioned out in three piles along our table for 10 along with beans, guac, flour and corn tortillas with more on the way by simply catching the eye of the proprietor and pointing down at the warming canister. No extra charge. They are good people. They drop down pitchers of every drink at the table. If you smile, they will smile back. They're happy when you leave holding your belly because they know you will be back.
You fill your tortillas with meat, onions, cilantro, beans, guac, rice, salsa, mirth, laughter, tall tales, and camaraderie. Then you simply fill yourself up until you cannot breathe without pain. Then you eat another helping and play chicken with a hospital visit. I usually feel guilty because we always split the check even, but I know I've eaten far more than my share. I'm almost certain their servings are designed for local highschool football linemen.
No trip to Carnitas is complete without a trip to the local discount general store, GTM. I don't know what GTM stands for and I don't care. They take overflow and cosmetic damages from Costco, most notably, and sell at a deep discount. Furthermore, on fortunate occasions they will have an excellent coupon, something like 35% off any item in the store. This triple discounting always reminds me of the triple application of the 80/20 rule, where you get 80%*80%*80%=51.2% of the result for 20%+20%+20%=60% of the effort. As an engineer, I interpret this as "Applying the 80/20 rule to anything that has 3 or more degrees of complexity(read: worth doing, or beyond grade school) results in a loss." Only here, you're just driving 20+20+20 minutes(total, both ways, at least from my house) to get a 50% discount, so it's worth it if you can beat the gas prices.
Their stock of giant TVs, appliances, and furniture tend to disappear on those coupon weeks. I was happy to complete the excursion by actually buying something from GTM. It was only a piece of luggage, but it's retail progression started a month ago at $120, on sale at Sears for $89, discounted at BedBath for $50($40 with your weekly 20% coupon), and finally here at GTM for $30. It was practically kismet, but for one thing. I should have had a coupon with me, and for these occasions where you are not diligent, you can drive 2 blocks to the library and print one out. The librarian has the link bookmarked, I'm told. But GTM, today you can keep this 25% off any 2 items and I will think of it as $23 luggage with an $8 tip. Go buy some hooch on me.
There is little misty eyed nostalgia here. Nothing ever happened here that wasn't about confederated exuberance and it will ever be so.
-tJ
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| User: |  jholloway |
| Date: | 2009-07-04 10:10 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
I need to take some photographs of small things. Can anyone in Cambridge lend me a hand? I just can't seem to get the focus right, or I'm moving the camera, or something. I know some of you are dab hands at this sort of thing...
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Western Steak Burger is located in the bosom of University Heights and North Park. On University and Idaho, the place definitely has some of that good ol' quality to it. The fare is an amalgamation of burgers, greek, and east coastish. Their burgers are top notch, but that much is obvious since it merits mention. The real charm of the menu is that it is largely unfixed, and you may mix and match as you please without paying nickle and dime substitution fees. Their star is the Western Deluxe, a burger topped with greek gyro meat. The blue cheese burger also gets top marks. I typically order far off the menu. Some of my favorites are the fried shrimp and onion ring sandwich, the Western Deluxe philly style(add grilled onions pepper and mushrooms), and the choice of the day the pastrami philly. There's just something about the way they welcome the pastrami into the philly sandwich that I cannot get over. And it is substantial! For just over eight, I get more sandwich than I should eat in one sitting and fries. I was sorely tempted to try a new concoction, either a gyro philly or a pastrami bacon philly burger, but alas, I decided to keep it classic.
As is the case with most of my San Diego experience, food acts as a precursor to any given neighborhood. Just up the street are Cafe Luna and U31, which I only started frequenting in the past two years, probably 4 years after my introduction to the neighborhood by way of WSB. This trip started me thinking about how many people I've probably seen for the last time in this neighborhood. Add a dash of melancholy to this edition of Last Chance Chow.
Coming soon: Carnitas Urupan
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Life is good. I like my job, I adore my house and I love my husband. What could be better?
There is a cottage in the back of the house Jason and I bought that we originally planned to rent. We were slow getting a renter in there (we really liked living alone), but we have it rented now for a short period of time to an intern at my work. This is his second week there. He seems very nice, quiet and easy going. He will be moving out in the middle of August. Last week, my one of my oldest friends Susan expressed an interest in renting the cottage. I love this idea, I have been friends with Susan since first grade (I think, it might be longer I really have no idea). She is fun, loves arts and crafts, and is a nice & normal person. I really hope Susan rents the cottage.
I take my last portion of the CPA exam on July 18th. I do not feel good about this exam. I studied a whole lot for my other portions of the exam, and I planned to study a lot for this one but I have been busy every single weekend since late April/early May. I gave myself many weeks to study for this exam as it is the largest of the four, but I did not realize that I had something planned every weekend. I am still going to take the test, but I do not have high hopes for passing.
OOooo.... It be quitten time at the salt mines. Off to the gym I go!
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| User: | akonken |
| Date: | 2009-06-30 13:25 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  stressed |
I'm a bit "aaaaaaaah Paris!" at the moment.
I am excited but anxious. Or anxious but excited.
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(Please select one)
- My other car is the six hundredth digit of Pi.
- My other car is actually my own hooved feet.
- My other car is sixty times the size of a typical sedan, but still proportional in its dimensions, hand-crafted from a hyperdense vanadium alloy, sitting in an oversized parking lot in Nairobi, totally immobile.
- My other car is this sentence.
- My other car is the horrible tickling of a hair on your arm that makes you mistakenly remember you've got spiders on you for the rest of the day.
- My other car is the Mariinsky Ballet company, arranged in perfect harmony to function exactly like a typical automobile -- please note that due to illness or injury the understudy Natalia Dzevulskaya will be replacing Diana Vishneva playing the part of the carburator though.
- My other car is a rational self-interest maximizer with perfect information and complete free will.
- My other car may actually be a windmill, in which case forgive my quixotic delusion.
- My other car is all made of pearls and clockwork, bathed in mist and the chirping of frogs, rumbling its ugly stumbling path from now into oblivion.
- My other car is a well-structures villanelle about a poem that can turn into a car -- like a Transformers robot, but more high-brow.
- My other car is the wailing of a distant star as it slowly collapses from giant to dwarf to nothingness.
- My other car is lurking right behind you, carefully balanced on everything you've got in that room of yours, until the moment you turn around to look, at which point it disappears.
- My other car is the opposite of a car, thus cancelling out my primary car and restoring the balance -- and I hope there won't be an explosion when that happens.
( Play At Home Version! )
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| User: | netropy |
| Date: | 2009-06-29 09:01 |
| Subject: | |
| Security: | Public |
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
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My friend Kelley is a Bad Advice Columnist for the local paper. People write in with their questions and problems, and he gives them bad advice. I'm not sure I approve of his vocation, but we've been friends since high school and I figure it's not exactly my place.
"I feel kind of uncomfortable with it too," he's told me several times over the years, "but sometimes people just really badly want some bad advice."
Anyway, I went to his wedding this weekend. His bride Maryana (well, now his wife) is a mysterious international jewel thief. Again, I'm not so sure I approve, but he's my friend and I want him to be happy.
The wedding started out wonderful. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception had a lively string jazz trio, there were stolen precious gemstones everywhere as party favors and decorations, and the country club was just lovely. It was one of those fancy overpriced weddings. Say what you will, but they both looked so happy!
You know that wedding tradition where the guests clink their forks against their wine glasses with increasing intensity until the bride and groom kiss, much to the applause of their celebrating friends and family?
Well, Kelley and Maryana didn't know it. We started clinking glasses and they didn't notice for a while, distracted by the month of June and the swelling in their hearts. Then they looked around, confused, and wondering why. Eventually they clinked their glasses as well, and when that didn't work, they quietly asked us to stop and we couldn't hear them.
We kept it up, clinking in a rising crescendo of expectation. At first we were all excited, then insistent, and finally bitter and resentful. We kept banging the stupid wine glasses. Our wrists were tired and our ears hurt but nobody was willing to back down. Even when someone stopped, someone else would pick up the pace. We had invested too much and didn't want to admit failure and so we kept stubbornly banging, even breaking a few wine glasses.
We kept it up for a little over an hour, until finally we gave up. The bride and groom were horrified and puzzled. The guests left with awkward apologies, crunching across broken glass. We never did get to eat the wonderful dinner they had presumably made.
Congratulations, Kelley and Maryana! Sorry for ruining your wedding. I wish we knew how to stop.
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