Friday Morning After

Ouch. After two big wins last night (but a whole lot of running on a hard field and some very unforgiving / need to be retired cleats), I came home extra-sore and unable to sleep. Blar. When I did sleep, I had some borderline fever dreams about how sleep was no longer possible in this universe. This type of thing is, understandably, quite disturbing. Still I press on.

Games were great - our team, as predicted, is very fast and good and deep, really no weak links. It's also full to the brim of some very competitive peeps, which is sweet because everyone goes all out, and not sweet because a lot of people get a case of the yells. I played well overall, good handling, dumping, and D, no drops, and even a couple of scores / thrown scores, but I did not have my best night hucking-wise - though this is a bit of an overstatement; really I just overthrew Cole twice. My other hucks were badly misread, dropped x 2, and one completed. So it's a crappy feeling 1/6, though without drops and misreads 4/6. So not terrible, but man, egos on the field start a'yellin' at the drop of the hat. Samesaid egos do not do a corresponding amount of apologizing or self-yelling when they drop your perfect hucks (cough, cough, Cole), which is always interesting. The plus side is that everyone is above-board reasonable, so when you say "hey, it doesn't help for you to yell at me, I know when the throw is good or bad," they understand and cut the crap. Aside from that, a very fun night - I don't mean to gripe about the onfield egos, just that I've been making an effort not to yell at people on field and getting treated like an idiot by people you don't know well is less than pleasant. But overall it was a great vibe - quick, crisp games, good feelings and jokes all around. Plus, we pretty much killed the comp - about 13-7 or so in the first game, 14-3 in the second. Great to be playing some crisp, horizontal stack, dump and swing flowy Ultimate. And I even played some good D, especially at wing int he Z, though it helps when there are tons of fast guys on the field along with you so you get to guard the opponent's #4-6 options all night. SO it's nice to be playing competitive disc again; here's hoping my feet / knees / etc. hold up (and some new cleats will probably help that substantially).

So i got home pretty late to a sleeping Beck and my little critters, who, FTR, look marvelous:


Sparkle was a little barky jerk at the clinic and Wrigley tried to bite the groomer - ugh - PLUS Beck blamed me for not wanting the groomer to spray them with cologne, which i assume will be tossed in my face tomorrow night at the office party. Great. But they are (clearly) supercute and they got baths, so they're soft taboot. Yeah dogs!

No tutoring today - I'm gonna do a little editing and recharge for an all-day calculus and chemistry-fest tomorrow. Should be exciting. In the meantime, let's hear it for blistery feet and broken toe-nails! Yeah! I think I will now look kick said ugly feet up and watch the impending thunderstorm that is rolling Phoenix's way.

Update: I just wrote "Eye of the Tiger"

Because I am a SURVIVOR!

Beck continued her quest of probability to destroy me, this time convincing me to join her in a hike up Camelback Mountain. We went up the Chollo trail which is fantastic for about the first 3/4 and then turns into rock scaling. Ay caramba. I unfortunately forgot the camera, so maybe next time I'll snap some photos of the EPIC SMOG that covers downtown Phoenix. The East Valley looks okay, and Beck claims this is due entirely to the contributions of her tree-generating Prius. Interesting. We made it to the top in about 45 minutes (after the 20 minute hike from the car to the trail-head) and down in about an hour, what with all the butt-sliding and near-dying and all. Not really - this one was a little treacherous, but not as bad as the time Beck tried to kill me at Wind Cave.

Otherwise, business as usual - in the past couple of days we have eaten yummy egg-white omelettes and some gourmet homemade pizza a la Beck. We have an office party this weekend and tonight I play my first couple of games in the Men's Competitive Winter League in Tempe. Very exciting, and our team looks sweet - good mix of height, speed, and skill, and I got picked a little late in the draft (hopefully because I am a newcomer and not because I am on my downhill slope) so I get to play with the some first round picks like the crazy athlete Cole I mentioned earlier this fall. Sweet. And best of all, the team is called Velvet Jones. Who?

So I'll let you know how that turns out - otherwise, still tutoring the unlearned and getting apps ready. About 2.5 weeks til they're due, so I am in good shape. Hopefully things will work out.

Also, the pups are with Beck at the Vet-dressers today - they are getting shaved again, which will surely result in goofy dog pics here in the near future. But it makes for a lonely Thursday. Or at least, a Thursday where I don't take the dogs outside five times. Just kidding; I miss the goobers.

(P.S. Super post today by the Frank over at his blog, and Karen is busy pondering Jay-Z lyrics over at hers. Click the links to the right, peeps!)

Starry Starry Links

More from my readah:

There is no reference point: the kilogram is no longer a kilogram.
Peanuts by Bukowski. (Warning: Strong language. But you knew that, you Bukowski-phile you).
And, maintaining a theme, we have Batman by Dostoyevsky.
Frame by frame Simpson-movie references.
Brainscans and God.
The incomprehensible Bob Dylan.
Tricked out Pez dispensers.
Crazy artwork from a guy named Kevin Mack. Or from Sheldon Drake.
I can't remember if I've linked this before, but: BRAIN COLORS!
The Jerry Seinfeld Dictionary.

Priceless Thanksgiving LOLCat:

And an LOLvid (Title: "Invisible Piano"):

Finally, get ready to be irritated beyond your wildest imagination as you listen to this guy give a Pascal's wager for Climate Control Action:

The thing that irritates the most - besides the general tone of voice and factor 18 shmarminess of the delivery - is that he never credits Pascal's wager! This is an old, old argument for belief in the existence of God without proof based on the incorporated risks, and is holier than it is holy. I pun me to death! Just so we don't leave on that argh-a-riffic note, here's some real brilliance, followed by some even realer brilliance:

Teh Internets! They has landed!

Stolen from the Sports Guy, Neatorama, Boing Boing and other places. I am an internet pilferer.

Craiggers lampooned on the Onion!
A nice skewereing of the modern state of sports reporting.
One-hundred notable books from your friends at the NYT.
A sick music video by a rapper named Abdominal. Seriously, this is good stuff.
Another SWEET VIDEO. This one is even better, and includes the indie band Menomena.
Time-lapse photography of an NFL football game.
A little history of digital photo manipulation in the mainstream media.
A rather intense collection of insect photos.
What happened before the big bang.
More crazy Da Vinci discoveries.
You want the cute, but you can't handle the cute.
Malcolm Gladwell disputes the effectiveness of criminal profiling.
In the spirit of Underworld style nuclear tension, some shots of atomic bomb tests.

Offset because it's that cool - an almost impossible Rock Quiz from Rolling Stone. I got a 54.

Interesting article on the candidacy of Obama.
An entire blog dedicated to stills of animation backgrounds.
Pac-txt: it's a brilliant little combo of the arcade and the text adventure.
BERSERK LLAMAS!
Um, want exploded brain? Then try Game, Game, Game and Again Game.
Want eated brain? Then try the sequel, Your Clothes Want to Die.
Mr. Picassohead.
Cool abstract scapes by Suzan Woodruff.
Libet's experiments on the delay of consciousness.
Hidden messages in a Queen song!

Phew. And here are some sweet videos to fill your day. First, the Trinity miracle!

A music video on the business of Death:

Some Oklahoma Sooner Freestyle Rap backed by a Ronald Jenkees beat:

And finally, the unofficial hockey fight of the year. WOWSERS!

Until next time...

Dry Eyes They Are a Smiling

Relatively uneventful weekend - hung out, took the dogs for W's and down to the park for a hilarious rendition of the S&W 500. We also watched Ocean's 13 and the new candidate for WORST MOVIE EVER, stupid division, Next. I found it STUNNING that in a movie where a dude can see two minutes into the future, Russians are trying to blow us up with a nuclear bomb and freaking Colombo wanders on screen for no apparent reason, the one thing I found improbably was Cage and Biel's romance. Egad. And Julianne Moore wins the US Postal Service's "Mail It In" Award as the cranky FBI agent. Hope that electricity bill is all paid off.

Anyhoo, I played Ultimate Sunday (and, while I'm thinking of it, threw a legitimate greatest - jumped OB, caught the errant forehand and shot a thumber grip scoober right to a teammate for the goal - put that on the pickup resume, boo-yeah!) and despite the gallonS (PLURAL!) of water I drank, got severely dired out and crappy feeling. Welcome back to the Azz. How dried out? Here's my best Clockworkian take:




WOAH! This has been another effort by NyetJones Freak U OUT! productions. You can imagine how amused the Beck was I sat there trying to take pictures of my face from closeup. Anyhoo, my eyes were crazy dry, I put some eyedrops in, they felt better. Welcome to the realm of the banal, you can check out any time you like.

Uf! So we are caught up to now, when I should be working on the SoP but am instead blogging stupidly. Enjoy the horrorshow pics; I'll catch you guys when I do.

Turkey-Follow

The Friday after T-day was a predictably late-sleeping affair. For the normals, I mean. I got up at 7 and waited for everyone to roll out of bed around 10 - but that was more or less all we were capable of that day. Perhaps it had something to do with the double day dose of caloric insanity. To what do I refer?



Yeah, that's my brother's subtle attempt to kill us all via garlic, bacon, cheese, potato, cajun spices and salt. Salt? SALT??? Really, dude? That needed salt?

Anyhoo, Aaron was very proud of his portlifying concoction, in preparation and in finish:

WOOHA! The new character in the photo, the one without the goatee or the grease pouring down its sides, is LJ, Aaron's SLF / Pippen who came down from San Marcos to hang with the family on Wednesday. Freudian spectators may now explode in the appropriate verbal volcanic matter w/r/t her initials. Done now? Good. LJ, as mentions, was wicked cool, and the Jonesian collective hopes to see more of her around the casa. Here's a thoroughly unstaged moment between the two:

Back in the proper timeframe now - Friday, we hung out with Miguel NTPB and generally discussed our crazy life plans, his towards the top ten law schools in the country or bust and mine toward an esoteric branch of philosophy. Wooha, we have you all in check. Beck also attempted to lead us to a nearby non-Alamo Cafe Mexican restaurant and FAILed. SO we had italian at Rome's instead, where they FAILed to deliver 2 of 4 orders properly. ­¡Que lastima! We survived and returned home to kill the remaining pies in the house. Thanksgiving, DONE! After a quick jaunt to the dominion to return the NTPB home, Dad drove Beck and me to the airport so we could get back to sunny Azz just before midnight. AS always, a good time in SA.

Time I Had Some Time Alone...

Who knew that November Rain's lonely lyric was really a response to R.E.M.'s background chorus chant? I did. No, really. Michael Stipe and Axl. Together again. This One Goes Out to the One I Used to Love.

Why the late 80s early 90s rock references, you ask? I just finished the second and now at least passably readable draft of my writing sample that starts by obliquely claiming that the existence of the R.E.M. song is evidence of Lenny Bruce's thoroughly established status as a pop icon. It goes on from there. If you want to be my best friend forever / get invited to my birthday party / be written into my will, etc., you could read it for me and give me some notes to improve it. It's over at the old site, which required some serious dusting before they would allow me to host anything over there:

Nyet's paper on Lenny Bruce and Underworld

If you're too lazy to click, here's the conclusion, which more or less sums up the salient ideas. You know, like a conclusion more or less should:

Don DeLillo’s Underworld is a seminal American postmodern text that speaks specifically to the technological and social anxiety of the Cold War. The choice of Lenny Bruce as postmodern spokesman and prophet effectively narrates the postmodern position within the text via his textual portrayal, the extra-textual extension of the character, and the contemplation of symbolism and representation his character’s inclusion engenders. Bruce’s real-life descent is not an indictment of the text’s message as unreliable. It is an element of his popular narrative that simultaneously illustrates the benefits / detriments of extra-textual content and emphasizes the instability of representation. It can be interpreted as the death of the real under the auspice of the image. The meta-emphasis on the problems of representation that the Lenny Bruce choice highlights are emblematic of the postmodern anxiety that the decentralization of truth and the paranoia thereby created forestall all attempts at realizing stable truth, and that our most creative / visionary efforts could potentially devolve into the same demise as Bruce. The postmodern paranoid anxiety of Underworld is not limited to the overt problem of atomic holocaust, but encompasses the larger question of the technological representation of truth. The complexities of Lenny Bruce as the textual and extra-textual spokesman for this anxiety demonstrate the problems of this representation.

So that's an example of the mangled, head-spinning prose you'll encounter if you delve into the depths of the PDF. Of course, in the paper itself, I use examples, so if you haven't read Underworld, it will be even more frustrating. Huzzah!

(Seriously, if you have a moment and some mad editing skills, I'd greatly appreciate a once over).

I've still got some work to do on my SoP and I need to finish piece together the app, but three weeks before the app is due, I feel I am sitting relatively pretty. That's it for now; enjoy upcoming posts of "the rest of t-weekend" and "a bunch of links i've found recently." And if you're lucky, you'll get to see my eyeballs!

Chief Shock Gobble

Aka, the turkey's primary death call. It's tragic, really, a reverberating emanation of soul-terror. But it's also pretty juicy. So we shtuff it accordingly. It also appears that we're commemorating the 44th anniversary of the JFK assassination with a football game in Dallas. Eh???

Welcome to Turkey Day from San Antonio. The Jones Extended Family Etc. (i.e., El Jefe, including beck, mom, dad, aaron, grandpa, deb, pat, ron, jordan, paige, and frank) are headed over to the casa at 5 for the ubertrad Turkey dinner. Which means that we just performed the annual "Turkey Dance," which, in the interest of preserving my cool-guy mystique, will remain unpictured here. Ha. It went off without a hitch, though, and some 14+ pounds of turkeybreast will be making its way down our collective gullet shortly.

(A brief break - tuftsman Andy may have made the joke of the year earlier this week. Here it is, ctrl-c ctrl-v'd direct from the fantasy basketball board:

"Due to the brother's firefighter work schedule, we will be having thanksgiving on saturday, which means I will be having thanksgiving with Kathy's family and then she will be having thanksgiving with my family. Sweet, Jimmy's having Stove Top at 8."

Genius.)

(Another big break: big fat congrats to Jamie and the rest of GPGDS. They are getting some great press here and there and *word on the street* is that they may have been booked to play Bonaroo in '08. If you don't know what that means, trust that is an awesome development and will surely be reflected upon favorably in the forthcoming Behind the Music special).

Good times thus far - Beck and I flew in on Tuesday, and I promptly ran 4 miles around the neighborhood. We hit up Alamo Cafe along with mom-dad-pat-ron-grandpa-deb, and put a dent in our margarita/nacho quota for the month. Nice. Wednesday, Aaron rolled in town just in time for our golf lesson from a nice dude named Magnus. We are now terrible plus one. Highlights included a Happy Gilmore style blast from me and Aaron smashing a driver into the ground and sending the broken head of the club farther than the ball. EXCELLENT! Magnus recorded our swings on DVD, too, so our art installment is coming along nicely.

Aaron's (gasp, shock, let it settle in, synthesis, comfort, go on) girlfriend LJ drove into town on Wednesday afternoon, and we had a nice afternoon of grocery shopping and lardy lardy food preparation (pictures forthcoming). She was sweet and more or less passed the audition. Fun night of burgers and bacon-potato-ness, capped off by a big Spurs victory v. the Magic.

Aaron, Beck and I went disc-golfing in the now 40 degree weather this morning. Nice little course over at McClain Park, pretty woody and challenging. The cold and Aaron's sore arm sent us home after 10 holes to watch the Packers eek it out and then go a-turkey-dancin'. Which brings us to the ever-fleeting here and now.

The menu for tonight: turkey, stuffing, rolls, green beans, creamed onions, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry salad, beer bread, pies, crab rangun (???!?!?!?!) and I'm sure forgetting a whole lotta stuff. This is our first t-day in Texas in quite some time, so a special hello to the iPFam up in Rochacha. It's also Mike NTPB's birthday today; he's 30 and reminds us all of our mortality.

That's about it for this gluttonous holiday report. While Frank writes inspiringly about riding bikes more, eating smarter and generally trying to save the planet, I eat chocolate mint ice-cream for lunch, gain weight by merely looking at Aaron's evil bacon-concoction, and prepare to stretch my pylorus to unreasonable widths. I have the usual background mumble of anti-consumerist holiday time sentiments running through, but the inevitable crush of this faux-trad minded culture is killing my will to complain. So I'll just hang back and pretend that this is all as sacred as the tv ads imply. And regardless, El Jefe will have a swimming time. In the meantime, Sparkle was a little jealous of the Wrigley-centric post the other day, so in order to ensure that her 3 days away from her owners go smoothly, I'll throw a S-dog centric shot up here now. Because you KNOW that when we're away, Sparkle is all over teh internets.

Delightful Watts Grocery

The Clarion found the new Durham restaurant, Watts Grocery, on Broad Street just west of downtown, a wonderful experience. In an older building, just a couple of doors down from the legendary Durham pool hall, The Green Room, Watts Grocery has converted what used to be Pars Oriental Rugs into a beautiful space. They have maintained the rugged exposed brick and duct work that give the place an urban, older Durham feel.

Beneath duct work and beside the brick, the other colors are soft, easy hues, that make the place feel comfortable and welcoming, not trendy and over the top. The bar is a L shaped. It is highlighted by the short side of the L which does double duty as a display case filled with owner, Amy Tornquist's memories, from her grandmother's handwritten recipes, to family photos, to Durham headlines and momentos from her youth. The bar service continues right over the top of this display and this is in fact where the Clarion and friend ate last week.

The service was terrific. The bartender was a wit and handled getting us dinner and drinks with cool aplomb. Occasionally in a nice joint it is a risk to get waited on over the bar, occasionally it is a treat, this was a case of the latter. We ate the bar because when we called for reservations we found they were booked. It is a small intimate space, probably no more than 12 to 15 tables. This intimacy melds perfectly with the rest of the warm atmosphere.

The food was good, too, bordering on excellent. The truth is the entrees were far superior to the appetizers. The Clarion's delightful dinner company had a mixed green salad tossed with tomatoes, red bell peppers, pecans and roasted garlic. It was good, but standard fare in these kind of restaurants now a days. The dressing no act of culinary bravery either, was the usual balsamic vinaigrette. This was unfortunate because we were mildly disappointed with our own appetizer, also. It was an oyster stew with bacon, thyme and fresh spinach. It was inoffensive, but rather too mild and bland. The Clarion loves spinach and bacon, so perhaps hopes were too high, but within moments after the first spoonful we were instinctively going for the salt and pepper, never a good sign for the chef. (Neither appetizer was bad, both were, in fact, pretty good, in the damning with faint praise kind of way.)

The entrees, however, were superb. Our friend had a organic salmon glazed with molasses chile, served over collard green risotto. We both love risotto. Though the Clarion is more of a collard green fan than our friend, both of us loved the texture and taste of the risotto. The salmon was cooked perfectly and the molasses chile was supremely savory. Ironically, neither of us anticipated chili as a theme, but the Clarion had a chili accented entree, too. It was a beautifully presented plate of chili braised short ribs, tender as could be, the meat just fell off the bone. They were served with a celery root puree and brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts, which are easily under or over cooked were the ideal consistency and firmness.

The pace of the meal was just what we had hoped. Leisurely and relaxing, sometimes a restaurant with a lot of reservations will try to push folks through, or at minimum ignore the folks appear to be going slowly, so as to focus on turning other tables. That was never the case here, not once did the Clarion feel rushed or ignored. We had a before dinner cocktail and finished off with a good cup of coffee. Two more thoughts, it really was good coffee, the Clarion is a stickler and a coffee snob. Both of which explain our final thought and why Watts Grocery is an A- work in progress, not quite an A just yet. With this wonderful coffee, despite a clearly voiced request for a half and half, we were served whole milk. When we reiterated our request, as coffee aficionados we appreciate the difference, we were told they didn't have any half and half. Oh well, it was a great meal, anyway, ended with a good cup of coffee. They left something to strive for; all and all, Watts Grocery was great service, wonderful, authentic atmosphere, excellent entrees, and reasonably priced for the experience.

Now we know how many holes

"So bored..."

"Really bored...."

"What to do?"

"Wait a minute..."

"ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Fin.

The Fruitful Products of Advertising Brainstorms

High End and Low End Editions:

Now in LOL-Cat!!!!???!?!?!:

I Can Has Get in Trouble Later 4 This

But I can't resist:

Nature at Your Convenience

On M & G's recommendation, the Beck and I caught the Chocolate & Chile Festival at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden. The chocolate and the chiles were nice - in a weird, touring show artsy crafty kinda way - but the grand jungle of desert plant life that sits in the middle of urban Phoenix made the day. Here's a little table of various shots; you can check out the whole set of photos over at Flickr.

False Advertising

My butt begs to differ.

And later they found him, tied to a log

Bent over and buffalo billed. Egads - The Patriots repeatedly called Left and B in their game of Super Tecmo Bowl last night, hit the X button every time the 4th down options came up and generally laid waste to the Computer AI in a 56-10 spanktasm. Dan's Randy Moss scored 40 some odd fantasy points by halftime, and we were treated to a wealth of John Madden filler and Al Michaels saying things like "the thing that defines Belichick... is that he just doesn't give a damn." Wowsers. NBC even took to showing the three passes the Pats dropped on the night as evidence of their humanity. ¡Increible! Beck bemoaned the Patriot's lack of practicing their two-point conversions, Dan and I played both the "beat the announcer to the punch" and the "correct the announcer's grammar" games, and Christina effectively oggled Tom Brady and made comments about night sky zoning laws in Phoenix. Does this girl know how to party or what? All of this over some delicioso St. Louis style Pizza and a halftime pause-the-tv stop at the super-cleverly named "Gelato Spot."

After the Pats saved their game and clicked OK, we headed home to e-mails of exciting news: Reeun and Carrie gave birth to baby Harrison! Huzzah! So the super-stacked gene pool of Lovett 314 will live on. Big congrats to the newest Nyetverse parents in the Georgia division. As I'm sure they intended, Beck will now confuse their baby with her favorite sexy grandfather actor. Here's a sample of the baby's awesomeness, and you can click to see Ryan's public photos of the happy fam. The only q, natch, is whether those are the hands of a surgeon or a programmer:

Other exciting news: in very un-Bills fashion, my fall league team "Taco Technique" made it to the semis of the end-of-year tourney, and in very un-Pats fashion, lost by two to a team headed by a dude named "Tricky" wearing a skirt. D'oh. (Actually, Tricky is completely sweet, and is in the rare air of those who can wear a skirt without causing drop-headed moans of "I hate this hippie sport." So it's all good). We did manage to run through our pool 13-2, 13-3, 13-2 in a display of butt-kickery, so we got to feel Mossy for a little while. I also flopped around the field like a maniac all day long and especially in the semi-final game, getting some D's and such but ultimately not doing enough. Definitely one of those games where you end up lamenting the 3 or 4 lost opps that would have turned the one break loss around. Oh, well - both of our losses this fall were among my favorite games, just very hard-playing, competitive disc (if not the most beautiful Ultimate ever), with people getting appropriately heated but not stupid. Good times. And the Taco gelled nicely through the course of the season, playing some pretty sick Zone D in this windless Valley - we had a lot of depth, nobody particularly spectacular but a generally plus squad. Fun times; I suppose I'm trying to say that my first Phoenix league experience was a good one. Here's a pic of the *gorgeous* (though dry and Nyet-skin removing) fields where we played the tourney, and a shot of the 3rd/4th place Taco:

(Back) Craig, Katherine, Dan, Tyler, Chunlang, Jesse, Erik, Ned, Gary
(Front) Leah, Nyet, Jason, Angel(Featuring Socrates-esque, "I drank what?" expression)

Are you digging the use of the gratuitously gigantic pictures? Hope so. Alright, things to do, but I'll try to squeeze in a couple more posts before we leave tomorrow for SA. In the meantime, here's a nap-inducing shot of three of my favorite Sunday afternoon sleepers (now with new comforter!):