blink and you could miss it

Sweeeeet

While waiting on hold for someone on the help desk to pick up the phone, I had the pleasure of hearing Gilbert Gottfried singing the "Tiki Room" song. 

ketchup

It's been a while since I've bothered to post anything other than links or send out annoying grammar related tests, so let me bust out a few paragraphs filled with the minutiae that is my life.  At the moment, I'm throwing my own, one person kickback, listening to an old King Kong (I just today found out that one of the dudes from Slint started King Kong.  Crazy...) album that I've not put on for ages and enjoying that + the sounds of cars whistling by in lovely 58 degree weather.  The windows are all wide open and I'm taking full advantage of this lovely LA climate.  I'll be stuck in not so lovely Colorado Springs come Saturday.  The outlook is cold and boring from what I've heard.  Like 30 degrees cold and snow.  Whee.  If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should do for entertainment in Colo Springs, lay it on me.  I'm planning on plowing through the remainder of the Odyssey and throwing wet snowballs (watch out Cho! ;-)) at the guy who is suggested that I be sent to dullsville vs. sin city - Las Vegas.  I originally signed up for our "disaster recovery" exercise mostly b/c of the Las Vegas carrot on the end of the stick.  Gee, maybe they have a Wal-Mart there.  I can hang out in the pharmacy and get my blood pressure checked for free!  Woo hoo!

I just got back from grabbing a super tasty and cheap bite to eat with Azalia at the Fairfax Indian Food Stand/Grocery store - New India Sweets (NIS).  The Fairfax location is far superior to that of the NIS on Pico in both taste and friendliness.  The Pico location does have a patio, which is pretty sweet, but the last couple of times I went there, everyone working the counter was rude to me.  Jackals.  Btw... if any of you folks (Connor, Doug) were thinking of heading over to Mo' Betta Meaty Meat Burger (located directly across the street from the NIS on Fairfax), well forget about it.  It's all boarded up and covered with iPod Shuffle and 50 Cent ads.  Sorry.  I don't even eat meat and I was really bummed about it.  At least we still have Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.  Mmmm.... Michelob and waffles.

Most importantly - I recently found some kick ass Lucha in LA!!!!! 

http://www.realmexicanwrestling.com

Sure, it should be no surprise, but RMW do it up right.  For all of you H-Town Lucha fans who used to go to those matches in the stockroom of the old Target turned Flea Market way out offa Katy road, this Lucha is for YOU.  Sadly, they didn't have any cross dressing wrestlers, but they did have a lot of clowns, which I always dig.  Clown and ninja (especially midget ninjas) luchadores rule.  Marisol hates clowns, but even she had to give it up for the 400 lbs of clownin that was in the ring (Payazin was a large fella - it took two wrestlers to dole out ye old suplex.)  I was really looking forward to checking out Shamu II, but sadly, he didn't really didn't bring it that night.  Nor did he manage to splash any water on the front 5 rows.  The fact that his outfit looked like a really f'd up advert for Sea World really cracked me up, tho.  The night that we were there was the christening of the Perro Aguayo Arena (I'm not really sure what the building used to be, but it resembles an old school auditorium.) and he (Don Pedro) was there to pick up plaque to commemorate the occasion.  Awwww....I have no idea what's up with his forehead, but he looks hella tough.  Of all of the wrestlers with the crazy, high-flying action that you would expect to see in Lucha, Chilango turned out to be the evening's crowd favorite.  I swear I saw him do a double somersault back-flip while on his way to hammering some poor fella in a really strange and complex pin.  The crowd heckling was some of the best I've ever witnessed.  On the down side, I was kinda bummed that I couldn't get a churro or any of the other delicious and fattening treats that I expected.  (No Miller Lite - what's up with that?) The nachos weren't very hot and the Coke wasn't that cold, but these are insignificant complaints - if it weren't for the fact that I'm playing a show at the Derby with the Snail peeps, I'd so be there.  Oh yeah, if you're not busy on the 18th of March and yer in LA, come watch us at the Derby.  ( Is anyone from LA actually reading this blog? ) 

I wonder if Theresa Heinz Kerry ever dances around the house to Asereheinz?  I also wonder if anyone from the Sugar Hill Gang appreciates the little, uhm, nod within this nugget of Spanish condiment rock?  Why can't I ever find the karaoke version (complete with ketchup pouring video) of it at the Smogcutter...

Walk, Don't Walk, Dodge

While waiting about 5 cars deep at a stoplight (it was actually turning green at the time) today, roughly halfway through Beverly Hills during my morning commute, I was treated to some completely unnecessary stunt work.  Some dufus clutching a refillable coffee mug in one hand - Heisman pose with the other - shot out of the synagogue on the Southeast corner of the intersection and busted across Olympic Blvd., presumably to receive his 5, 10 or whatever % off on the coffee of the day at Starbucks.  As boring as this may sound, it was quite entertaining watching him work his serpentine across 6 lanes of traffic, totally pissing off pretty much everyone who almost ran him down because of his crappy timing, pausing briefly in front of each car to show them 'the hand' and glare at them with an equal amount of indignation.  As if he should be expected to use the CROSSWALK that was 15 feet to his left...

It has been a while since I've posted, so let me post a bit to catch you up on things.  I'm a little over halfway through a biography of LBJ's years in the Senate.  Why, you ask?  It stems from a project that Marisol and I embarked upon 2 months ago, in which we were planning to read Ulysses together and discuss it as we progressed.  After about 30 pages, my ADD kicked in full force, so I thought that I'd check out a bit of a book that a co-worker of Marisol's had given her as a present.  Odd present, but as it turns out, it's one of the most engrossing books I've ever read.  Over the next couple of months, I developed a bit more of an interest in him, which resulted in my picking up a second book of transcripts of LBJ's recorded telephone conversations that occurred immediately following the Kennedy assassination to read while on break or lunch at work.  Not long after that, I discovered that C-SPAN radio was broadcasting some of his other recorded conversations.  It's pretty amazing that such an extensive amount of his recordings are available.  He was a complete and total self-absorbed, power hungry SOB,  but the tapes of his political wrangling usually make for damn excellent listening (and reading). 

I've been listening to a lot of Bob Wills, Mudhoney and the Goodbye Babylon disc set recently.  At the moment, I'm enjoying a little Galaxie 500.  Not much to say about that other than I really, really, really like my new iPod.  :-)  Me and the Azalia Snail peeps are still playing together.  We took a break over the holidays and are planning on getting that ball rolling again later on this week.  A little side project is about to start up as well - more details to come, but I'll be playing nothing but bass guitar in this band, so I'm pretty excited.   

Ok, that's enough.  I'm sure you're tired of reading this anyhow.

Little bit of shakin' going on

It's no fun to be woken up by one of these. Seasoned quake fans would scoff at my fear of a mere 2.7, but I was close enough to the epicenter to be woken up. THAT is quite impressive.

Oddly enough, nothing fell off of a shelf, flipped over, etc, etc... I just suddenly bounced upwards in the air a bit as if someone was jumping up on the other side of the bed.

Very, very strange indeed.

Sigh.

As you may have noticed, we're a bit behind on postings. I hope to get this taken care of soon, so you can finally quit gnawing your fingernails and ease back off of the edge of your seats.

In the meantime, go pick some locks -

http://www.engadget.com/entry/7796925370303347/

Hi there....

We're running a little behind on updating our travel log on this here blog. Sorry about that. The stones made it to Sydney, the dry ice has long since evaporated and we have temporarily relocated ourselves to Paris. What I've seen so far has mostly been out of a cab or office window. I'm hoping to change that later today...

More updates will be coming along soon. I promise!!!

dry ice and sea stones

Welcome to muh new blog.

Justin called me yesterday with an interesting request. His lady is switching planes at LAX and Marisol and I are to meet her tonight at 8 ish to drop off 5 lbs. of dry ice. She's transporting a collection of rocks collected somewhere off of the ocean floor from H-town to Australia for 'testing'. I don't have a lot of details about what makes these rocks special or what exactly will be done to them when they arrive in Oz, but the dry ice is needed to keep the stones at a temperature that is as close to that of their original habitat as possible. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to take a peek at these gems.

I wonder if NASA will reimburse me for the ice cream sandwich that I picked up at Mashti Malone's while scoring the dry ice. Seems fair enough to me.