The Past Few

Drifted out of contact there for a little bit because I have been hacking away at the code for Jason's website, which is here if you're interested. Jason basically needed to update / redesign his lab website, so I brought my mad Dreamweaver skills (thanks iPJ and iPMM!) to bear on the issue. I believe I can get you through the night, scha-wing. Had to remind myself of all the little headache-inducing behaviors of HTML code and Dreamweaver in particular, so I practiced a bit on my site before putting Jason's together. If you are SUPER astute you will notice that I have put in some stylistic changes there; mainly, I've been making an effort to standardize all the tables and have everything be the same size so the screen is jumping all over the place when you click links. I'm not done yet, but a few things have changed - for example, here's the new art gallery page graphic:

In non web-programming life, it's just been the usual avalanche of reading. Classes start on Tuesday, an otherwise completely un-noteworthy day, and just this morning I got my schedule finalized. I'll be taking a seminar on Philosophy of Science w/ Drs. Hamilton and Creath, the usual HPS lab session, a Bioethics seminar later in the semester with Jason, and a Psychology & Culture class. I was SUPPOSED to take Neuroimmunophilosophy this term, but the Phil of Sci class got moved right into its timeslot, argh. I'll be able to half-audit it, but that's still pretty disappointing.

Have otherwise been very errand-happy this week - I used some of my parents' Xmas gift money to get a wireless speaker set for the house, so now we can listen to music from the stereo in any room of the house or outside. Pretty schwank. That errand was particularly pleasant sa the only Best Buy that carried the speaker was in Chandler, and I drove down there and exited the car to discover that my front passenger tire was completely flat - I probably drove on it that way all the way down, as my next door neighbor asked me when I arrived home (several hours later) "did you know your front right tire was flat?" Why no, no I did not. I didn't damage the rim, but I did melt the tire by driving on it that way, so I had to take it to a Discount Tire and have them replace it for a cool hundred bucks. AND I got to spend two and a half hours in lovely Chandler. I killed the time by playing on an American Fender Strat in a guitar store, which always makes me feel guilty - I bought some strings so I could feel like I had effectively "rented" the strat and amp. Good times. Kinda killed my Monday, though.

Beck had Tuesday off, so she went hiking while I finsihed up the aforementioned website. We hit up Lux for our usual "Beck's day off" date, and then hit up the local Best Buy to finish off our gift certificate - ended up getting a portable external hard drive, some new sports headphones for Beck, a nano carrying case and the Twin Peaks Gold Edition Super Duper Box Set. Thanks Mom & Dad! Beck and I also hit up the Apple Store, and are going to try to figure out how to spend our Apple money on a souped up laptop. Fun times.

Oh, forgot to mention, we've also further furnished both the living room and the bedroom with some shelf sets and plants. I'll take and post some pictures when I get around to it. The home is getting quite homey - Beck is an awesome decorator, and even I am mildly competent at putting IKEA furniture together.

Ultimate has been cooking lately - a TON of people showed up on Sunday for pickup, including the likes of Cole and Vince (whom I backhanded across the face inadvertently on a huck - SORRY!). Big, fun day, and I dominated at times a little bit. That led nicely to Tuesday's pickup / Sprawl practice, which also went very well. Beck practiced on Tuesday night, too, and is learning the ins and outs of the game slowly (largely due to the fact that is near impossible to learn about structure / positioning from the Phoenix women's team who, by every measure, appears to run around en masse like the proverbial headless chicken). She's thinking of playing league, which would be SUPER FUN as hopefully I could demand that she play on my team where there would be at least some structure. Genevieve and I are captaining together again, too, so Beck would get a lot of exposure to a very smart role model of a player in G. OH MAN! Almost FORGOT! I threw together a shirt / disc design for spring league - hopefully it will be chosen. Like all great art, it is a TOTAL RIP-OFF of other people's ideas:

Left would be the front of the shirt, right would be the back / disc design. The Vots-Love inspiration should be obvious, and here's the inspiration for "much better than regular frisbee" again if you've forgotten:

Anyways, hopefully it'll pass the audition (if you remember the hcuk shenanigans from the fall, I'd like to have an at least semi-cool shirt rather than the usual mundanity) (no offense intended to designers of such mundanity intended; it's not like either of these is exactly earth-shattering). Incidentally, after having that song drummed into my head, I can now play it on ye olde acoustic guitar. Dmaj7 - Amaj7 - Bm7 are the only chords involved.

Biggest news is that Beck and I are headed to LA this weekend - there's a big beach Ultimate tournament called Lei-Out that I am playing in with the Tufts Boys. Alumni reunion, SWEET! Should be fun. I'm a little nervous about running around in bare feet (with my ankle / heel / knee fun-ness), but we'll see how it works out; if it's painful I'll just quit and watch. Regardless, 'twill be a good time on the beach, and good to see the E-men.

And on that note, I should go take care of laundry / packing type tasks...

(addendum - beck put us through Hamlet 2 last night. And while the first 20 minutes were okay, the remainder was a front runner for worst movie ever. Just so, so BAD. I don't even know where to start. Just a painfully unfunny, half-assed comedy).

SA Greetings

Hola from South Central... Texas. Beck and I had a pleasant flight down to ye olde hometown yesterday, and I am up way before everyone else here because of my stubborn internal alarm that says 6 o'clock? Time to GO.

(Before I forget, I was awoken by a bizarre dream in which Davey, Josh and I were playing Uncle John's Band in a guitar circle, and my guitar gradually transformed into a large spoon with soup in it. The last thing I remember saying in the dream was "Sorry Davey, I can't play anymore, the potatoes are no longer lined up." I know I'm not supposed to write about my dreams unless they're about you, but if anyone can clue me in as to what deep-seated self-esteem issues I have because my dream Martin turned into a dream Campbell's, I'd be highly interested. Naturally this led me to wake up thinking about the time Josh, Davey and I played "Paradise City" in a basement in Medford. Not only was this vastly cooler than that ridiculous crap in Can't Hardly Wait, it got me amped enough to come downstairs and blog).

We lounged about the house yesterday, just chatting in the dining room and out on the porch with Mom, Dad and Grandpa. Aaron eventually rolled in, so we busted out the frisbee and played a game of catch until sunset with Dad, Aaron, Beck, Deb, Mom and me in the backyard. We then hit up the Cafer for some Mexican food with Pat & Ron, and came home for some Spurs and hanging out. Aaron and I jammed a bit on his old five string and his new Takamine acoustic guitar. (Clearly this prompted the dream, though I had no soup today so I don't know what the hey is going on there).

Good times in the casa - I think we are having a faux Christmas morning on this fine NYE AM in a little bit (read: whenever everyone else wakes up, so probably several hours from now). There's actually some pickup later on today, so while I'll be sadly missing the Phoenix NYDay "Hungover Hat" tournament, I'll at least get to enjoy the rare opportunity to play with the A-Dog. So that'll be cool, and then it's more festivities tonight - movies, dinner, Auld Lang Syning, you name it. I am currently taking bets on the Beck fall-asleep hour - when making your predictions, keep in mind that we are an hour later than our internal clocks, so she has a bonus sixty minutes to play with. She made it to 9:00 last year, so given a little motivation and maybe a slipped dose of caffeine in there somewhere, we're shooting for 10:42.

I forgot to write about it - had a fun evening with D&C on Saturday. The Light Rail, Phoenix edition is now up and running, and Dan's personal crack dealer Stinkweed's was having a little concert / sale in celebration. We headed over to enjoy some acoustic stylings where Beck judged EVERYONE and then rode the train downtown for some excellent dinner at Wild Thai-ger (I know, they are HILARIOUS). For climatological reasons that no one can explain, it has been getting down into the low forties / high thirties at night in PHX lately, so I had all kinds of pleasant Boston flashbacks while waiting fifteen minutes in the cold for the train to arrive. We eventually made it home to watch a great little film (on Katherine's rec) called The Fall, which I will review at some other time.

Oh, and before I go curl up on the couch to wait the several hours for everyone to wake up - I maintained my yearly tradition (started around 2000, I think) of making my mom some compilation CDs for Christmas. Not Christmas tunes, mind you, just a mix of songs for her to rock out in the car on her way to work. I am happy with this year's batch as I managed to seamlessly incorporate the likes of Mötley Crüe, GPGDS, Ludo, Spinners, GNR, Philip Glass, New Order and Joan Baez, to name a few. Good times. It'll be a rocking new year's eve, indeed.

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Boring Shoulder Update
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Still hurts - may have a played a bigger part in waking me up than my soup guitar, actually. I think I keep rolling over it in my restless sleep. AH, well. It's definitely feeling better - the astute among you will have picked up on the fact that I'm planning on playing Ultimate today, and I actually played on Sunday, too. A little tough to suddenly lunge at anything off to the left side of my body and above my head, but otherwise okay - on Sunday, I skyed some youngin from Tucson and had a trailing edge layout goal catch, so things can't possibly be too dysfunctional. I'll let you know how it holds up.
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Slight Respite: A Misc Mix

Trekked into school today and put in the last couple of hours on a quick research project I was doing for Jason. 'Twas about some of the neuroscience aspects of using model organisms for research. Not my favorite topic, and I didn't do a bang-up job, but I got something down on paper, so there's a physical thing to build from. Always helpful. Given that he and everybody else are absent for the holidays, I'm going to work from home until at least after Christmas day. Wahoo.

(In other school-related news, I got my grades back from my papers today, and everything went swimmingly to the tune of a 4.12 GPA for my first semester. Wahoo Two. Before you get too excited, I am told everyone and their dogs get As in grad school, so all this really means is that I am mediocrely competent and didn't overtly offend anyone's academic senses. Go Team Nyet).

Good Sunday - got some reading done in the morning and played a solid couple of hours of Ultimate in the PM. I ended the day with a crazy back of the endzone full layout catch on a big huck from Vince; tres exciting Ultimate action to win the game. Much better than regular frisbee, indeed. More importantly, I talked to Aaron yesterday and he had a much better time at his Austin Ultimate league. He's getting back into the swing of things after a long break from bigger, whiter, floatier (BETTER) disc sports, and after a shocker of a first week, it sounds like he is back on track for glory. We'll be sure to get some intense training in over New Year's and turn him into an indomitable beast. A forehand flickin', chump-skyin', layout-Din' beast. Raw; scream.

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This is a quick interlude to allude to things TIP. For those of you who don't know, Mike NTPB and I attend the Duke Talent Identification Program during our wayward youth. It is best defined as nerd camp; we took college-esque classes like Film and Intro to Philosophy while hanging out with dorks of our own ilk and girls who would talk to us. Unbelievably formative, at least for me; among other things, this was where I picked up Ultimate and a penchant for dancing the Time Warp. I'll save a detailed rundown of it for a rainy day post, but the things you need to know are this: 1, we had this friend Franklin who apparently has used the powers of e-mail to dominate Hollywood. I can't even explain this; Franklin was a shy child genius who seemed destined for I.R. glory or something, and now he's a bedreadlocked big guy behind the scenes. Who knew. That link is probably wildly uninteresting to you, but... hmmmm, let's say that Mr. Rogers turning out to have fronted a punk band in the late seventies has about equal "WHAT???" value. Anyways, thing 2 that you should know is that every year ended with a talent show. Mike mentioned this as his most embarrassing moment the other day in the comments, and what is scary to me is that I have no recollection of this whatsoever: we played G'n'R's version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," complete with Mike playing Axl and a call and response section. And apparently Mike couldn't hear himself or the audience or anything - no monitors at the TIP talent show, unshockingly - and so he essentially did a call and response sans response. Holding the mic out to the crowd and everything. Oh wow. This is just stupendous. And I can't believe I don't have it trapped between my ears somewhere. So next time you need to calm yourself down before speaking in public, just think to yourself, "as long as I don't warble "knock knock knockin' on heaven's dowowowowoorrr, hey hey yeah" and hold the mic out to a cricket crowd, I am okay." Yikes. Serious bonus points to Mike for surviving that.
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We capped Friday with dinner with D&C for the first time in a while - hit up a place called Ticoz which had some reasonably tasty southwest fare and some OH TRES CHIC attitude as well. Another one of those restaurants - maybe not as bad as Ra Sushi in this department - that made me feel like I wasn't anywhere near cool enough to be there. Fun times with D&C regardless, and we headed back to their place to watch the truly bizarre 2008 European MTV music awards despues. Why bizarre? Um, I had a dream once that Jared Leto crappily interviewed miscellaneous rock stars, Katy Perry¹ screamed her brains out to introduce acts called the Ting Tings, Kanye West dressed like Carlton from the Fresh Prince circa 1991, Kid Rock ruled a place called the Irony Free Zone², a slew of wackos gave shoutouts to Liverpool, Bono verbally climaxed as he introduced Paul McCartney, and then Paul actually showed up to pump his fist in half-assed they paid me to be here triumph. But the dream WAS REAL. Yikes.

I can't remember past that. It was raining a lot last week, as I recall. Anyhoo, I'll try and get some posting done over the next few days. Hope everyone's having a great holiday. And a big happy birthday eve to the Dadster!

¹ Don't know Katy Perry, eh? Well, that's amazing, because her trite songs have been all over the place this year. You should know that she has a white-washed weak drunk girls night out lesbian experience song and another that perpetuates the use of the term gay as a mild derogative. Did I mention she's a former Christian rock artist turned pop-sex prostitutestarlett? You stay genuine, Katy. Let's just let the allmusic review of her album describe her relative place in the trash pop spectrum: "she sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade."

² As dubbed by MC Dan. I don't think that's original*, but it quite aptly describes the fur wearing blues mangler ripping off Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd simultaneously in his sad sack summer single. I like that the same show welcoming him as a legend follows up with Bono and PM. That's just great.

* - It has come to my attention that "Irony Free Zone" is a DFW-ism.

3 Days of Dumb

I'm thoroughly aggravated at my workplace right now. In the past couple of days, I've had numerous students cancel on me - not entirely surprising, it's finals week - but no one really called to confirm their appointments, so this resulted in me going in several times from Mon to Wed and waiting for students who didn't show. I was biking to work, so several of those trips involved biking back and forth, getting sweaty and all hair-a-tussled for no good reason. Did I mention that it was 112 on Monday, in the hundreds on Tuesday, and still 95 yesterday. Awesome!! So i am sub-pleased with the folks responsible. Oh, well. That's what I get.

I've attempted to direct some of my ill-energy at exercising and guitar playing which has worked to a mixed degree. I ran about 3 miles Monday, 4 miles Tuesday and 7 miles on Wednesday - the last one turned out to be a bad idea as my left knee started clicking at about the six mile mark. Boo-urns. So I've decided to take today off and jump back on the proverbial running horse tomorrow (Note - taking the day off still includes running a 400 yard dash with the pups on their walk. Which is, as mentioned, awesome).

So on one of my runs I listened to the indomitable "Omaha Stylee" by 311 and decided to learn it. And once that fell easily, I started conquering other 311 songs. Yeeha. SO if you're in the need for some white boy funk metal, give me a call.

Tonight: the plan is to go to see Beck's boyfriend Indiana Jones. Don't know if that will pan out timing-wise (Beck gets off from work about 7, which could mean 8, and given her circa 9:30 bedtime lately, probably not a great idea to head to a 10 o'clock showing. Especially ona school night).

Two "shouldn't we talk about the weather" items: one, after being well into the 100s on Tuesday, today it's maybe 80, if that. Wa-friggin'-hoo; we push the deadly summer off at least another couple of days. Two, this Sunday past was absolutely fantastic - my back was bothering me a bit, so I skipped Ultimate and opted for a sit out by the pool day instead (and put a healthy dent in what might be one of the best novels I've read, The Sot Weed Factor). Just a gorgeous, perfect day for it, 100 degrees notwithstanding. I also had a bizarre string from Sunday through Monday where every single sporting event I even glimpsed came out favorably for the team for which I was rooting. Off the top of my head, in that two day span, The Cubs won twice, the Dbacks won twice, the Celtics and Spurs won Game 7s, the Penguins and Red Wings advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Red Sox won twice (and threw a no-hitter) and the Yankees lost. Great stuff.

Of course, that little streak was certainly not in effect last night. No analysis here - but if you can't cash in on the game where you have a 20 point lead midway through the 3rd quarter, it might be a hard series for you. Ugh. Not giving up, of course, but that was pretty barfariffic last night.

Alright, here's to upward facing days. I've been funked by bad Ultimate, bad work, bad disc golf, bad condo car thieves, aching backs and knees, just general badness of late and it's time to bust out. RAWWWWWWRRRR!!! Condo, hear my electric guitar!!!

(Oh, and if you are ludicrously bored, I just finished a fantasy strat-o-matic season and documented the results here). (Yes, I'm a dork).

He is a Champion, My Friends

Aaron hit up Sunny Azz this weekend, sadly without the above upper lip monster. But we made do. Picked him up from the airport Thursday night and got ready for a fun-filled weekend of NOT tutoring and hanging with the A-child.

Beck grabbed some ridiculously good pizza from Oregano's for dinner as Aaron and I rolled home from the airport (Special note - do NOT leave your headphone cord hanging out the door if you plan on driving 65 mph. It'll make you think your car has a death rattle, and, it turns out, it's not incredibly good for your headphone jack). So we devoured that, let the VCR record Lost (DVR = a chump's game!) and learned that the Spurs smoked NO for the first of two times over the extended weekend. Wahoo! Headed to bed pretty early as we had a bang-up day of disc golf ahead of us.

Stunningly, and perhaps with the help of a two hour time change, I managed to get Aaron up off the futon at about 6:15 so we could drive over to Fountain Hills for a round by the lake. Yeah! The matchup was pretty great - it turns out I can outdrive Mr. Toe by about 8-10 yards pretty consistently, but he has some dead-eye putting skills, nailing baskets from 50 feet away at times. Wowsers! So our games are pretty complimentary, and if I had thought about it for two seconds, we should have played scramble style. Oh, well. Aaron played the course quite nicely - he ended up at about +3 including only one lost disc (which cost him a stroke) and some spectacular putts. One of his par-saving putts was particularly ridiculous as he swished it in the basket from a good 20 yards away; that's the type of shot I lay up, but Aaron has no fear. Not bad at all for the first time out. I shot a +1, stupidly missing a few easy birdie putts and otherwise playing a boring round. But it is vastly more fun to play with my homey bro.

We took a break for a bit and came home to walk the pups; Aaron got to experience the joy that is running down our road with Wrigley at full sprint. She is seriously fast, and it's pretty hilarious watching Sparkle's ears bounce up and down as she tries to keep up. Feeling refreshed, we drove over to Vista Del Camino for another round. Aaron came out of the gates rusty and bogeyed the first couple holes; he also dropped a couple of shots into the river that winds through the course and ended up with about a +6. She's a fickle course. He did birdie the 10th hole with a pretty forehand that dropped within two feet of the basket on the drive. Excellente. I again played some super boring golf, birdieing one, missing a ton of putts and choking on one par putt to go even for the course. Ho-hum. But a great morning of disc golf, and we hit up the pro-shop to replace the ones that caught water.

Funny note: the shop has a lost and found program. They drag the water hazards on the course now and then and if you put your name on the disc, they'll return it to the shop. For two bucks, you get your 15 dollar disc back. Nice! So they had one of my discs from a couple fo weeks back, and as the guy went to retrieve it from the storage bin I took out my ID to show him that I was, indeed, Nyet J. An he said, "Don't worry, man, if this isn't you, that's your karma." And so of course, I immediately thought of how ridiculous I was being - the staple line is "Yes, 'cause that's what I do - I walk into disc golf shops and pretend to be other people so I can buy their lost discs at discount."

We then headed back to the apartment and caught the first of three Cubs wins v. the DBacks this weekend - a sweep "seven months too late" as my dad put it. Yep. Aaron and I then plugged in and tuned up guitars, jammed, and even put together a little drum-machine / synthesizer combo that will surely be climbing the charts soon. (I think Aaron was playing some kind of Irish dirge or something as I dropped my staple "Funky Col' Medina" beat; so when I say climbing the charts, I am being highly sarcastic. Our cover of Sweet Child O' Mine was much better).

Good times! Aaron then rocked a little Frets on Fire until we got a hold of Beck - we met up with her at Pinnacle Peak for a post-work hike. I didn't even think to bring my camera, so I'll have to do that in the next couple of days. Really pretty hike on a ludicrously manicured trail in Scottsdale. Great views, and it's not too long - some people were jogging the trail, so i got inspired and ran back instead of just hiking. Turns out running up hills is difficult. Downhill = much nicer. I am tempted to make that a regular workout - the mountain is not TOO far, so I may be able to bike there, run a three mile hill course and then bike back as an all-around workout. Maybe; we'll see.

Got back to the apartment at about 8:30 and made some burritos. We had another early start ahead of us the next day - NEXT POST - so we went to bed pretty early after catching a silly episode of Numb3rs. So a good Friday start to the weekend, and more fun to be had the next day in the NEXT POST.

(Turn the) Amp Higher Weekend!

Beck took off after work on Friday evening to go camping in a gigantic hole in the ground somewhere north-ish of here. Which left me to my own devices, namely a Tradition Strat and a Peavey Amp. The neighbors got a heady dose of some Sweet Leaf, yes they did!!! Besides an undue amount of evening guitar wankery, I've also enlightened the nearby folks with a great selection of high-graded albums (85 and above). Here's a quick peak at some of the tunes that have been emanating from the apartment at solid but respectful volumes:

Television - Marquee Moon
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Sleater Kinney - One Beat
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Dismemberment Plan - Is Terrified
The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

Good times, and nary a Simon-Garfunkel composition to be heard! When the cat's away, you know. Speaking of Mr. Simon, check out this tale from Los Lobos. But wait, I thought Paul Simon was a super great guy! Didn't he save 9/11 or something? Yikes. Actually, without hearing Simon's side, I guess judgment should stay reserved, but damn, if that's close to what went down, it's like when I came back to bed someone's taken my song. No good.

So besides watching copious amounts of baseball and basketball the last couple of days, I made it down to Dan and Christina's yesterday. We drove around the corner to a park behind their house - Dan dubbed it "Baja del Casa," which reminded me a lot of this:

Nice little wooded park with a short 9 hole disc golf course. And before you accuse me of redundancy, take a look at yourself - the course was physically short, in that most of the holes were about 200 feet or so. The holes were all lined with short, dense trees, and so a smart person would have used rollers or thrown low line drives. Which we did for the most part, but I did manage to launch one straight into a kite-eating tree and the disc was lodged. That didn't stop me from getting my idiot on and throwing two more discs into the tree after it - egad. Luckily, Xtina aka "Brass Monkey" climbed the tree and got everything except the original disc down. It's pretty much a given at this point that I lose a disc every time I go out. I guess I just have to accept that, like greens fees or something. Sigh.

Anyways, good times - Dan and I disc golfed while Christina "Rice golfed," which means whacking a tennis ball with a real life actual golf club. At one point Christina asked if she should shoot for the basket or just the pole; Dan replied that at Baja del Casa, there are no rules. I'm pretty sure that Dan inadvertently just declared himself Native American and opened a casino there. SO a lot of fun, and we even brought Elliot along - he learned the joys of lapping water from an upside down frisbee. And then we watched a hyper-competitive whiffle ball game. Yeah.

Headed back to D&C's to eat some pizza (Linner!) and catch the end of the Dbacks game. Then Christina showed us what was what on Guitar Hero (though I'm pretty sure that Dan won points for setting the new high score on "Cherub Rock" and I won a few for Axling and Slashing on Welcome to the Jungle. I basically have one talent). They had a party to attend in the evening, so I headed home and watch the Pistons win and SA get crushed before heading to be early-ish (about 10:30).

Woke up in the middle of the night dying of thirst - I blame "Dan and the Last Piece of Pizza," a tale wrought upon me by Danimal that, yes, insisted upon itself. And in my 4 am stupor I ran into the ironing board that someone, let's call her "Beck," left out in the living room. And the iron fell off the ironing board and onto my foot. And there was much rejoicing cursing! If I had been in the South, I would have said "'Ch!!!!" Seriously, I'm pretty lucky, what with the darkness and all, that I didn't break my foot. I responded to my attacker by thumping the ironing board with my fist - the lock on the board has long been broken, so instead of collapsing like a normal board, the high quality metal legs bent. Argh. So my errand list for the morning grew one item longer.

Fortunately I live in the 21st century and the land of infinite commerce. So when I woke up at 5:45 AM - am I still on East Coast time? - I went to the Fry's To The Right. And bought a new board - at 6 in the mo'n! Six in the m'on! Wow, the triumphant feeling of carrying a large board around an empty AM store. I was so buzzed I didn't even yell at the lady when she lied and told me I had saved four dollars.*

* - Serious pet peeve - liars at the grocery store. "By using your card, you saved four dollars." No, I saved zero; you merely didn't overcharge me by four dollars. Or you didn't overcharge me by x+4 dollars, because I'm pretty sure the 74 cents of materials and the 27 cents of malaysian labor that went into this ironing board do not warrant its 15 dollar price. Regardless, I'm not saving anything, and worse, you are using me as a marketing data whore and not compensating me. These freaking "VIP" cards - systemic and fraudulent! This is a topic for another post - but a certain friend of mine is piggybacking a business plan on these cards! Ayee! I am torn between support for my friend and hatred for the system. The road to Orwellian nightmare is paved with grocery store VIP cards; that's all I'm saying. Grin while you comment.

So now I'm back at home, ironing board in locked and upright position in the closet, awaiting the start of a 9:30 AM basketball game and the return of my beck later today. Ultimate later perhaps; there are two tournaments going on this weekend that I had to skip, so there may be a paucity of pickup players. So we'll see if I feel like driving.

Otherwise, here's a classic skit that will get you in the mood for the next post:

"If I Wanted Yesterday's News, I'd Look in My Brain."

Yep, Beck greeted me thusly this morning after I told her that Charlton Heston had died and that Beyonce and Jay-Z had gotten married. Don't blame me, blame a non-refreshed Yahoo-headlines page on her laptop. That said... I give you Yesterday's News! And the day before that, and the day before that.

First, though, a bullet list of miscellaneous thoughts that crossed my mind in the past few. Several are music related. A couple are not.

1. During the opening day Cubs game, Brewers outfielder Corey Hart (wearing his UV-filtering contact lenses during the day so he can so he can see the ball before his eyes) made a nice play down the line in right. The camera lingered on him a bit after the play, and he did something I've never seen on a baseball field before - reached into his back pocket and pulled out a laminated, color-coded sheet. Clearly some kind of scouting report info on the Cubs batters. Why haven't I seen this before? Why don't pitchers carry palm pilots out on the mound and look up the batter's tendencies online? The future is now.
2. I walked into Fry's the other morning very early to get some milk, expecting to hear the usual pop-morass on the overhead speakers. And lo, I was elated: "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by TMBG! In a friggin' grocery store! Awesome. I danced like no one was watching, because no one was; there were approximately 3 people in the grocery store: a cashier, an old lady buying four weeks-worth of groceries, and a Nyet. Sweet! Of course, this was followed up by the sad-sap R&B stylings of a synth-infused no one, so the trend stopped quickly. I then spent 15 minutes waiting for said old lady to finish her checkout, all the while exposed to the more normal top 200 stuff. Sigh.
3. I had GPGDS's Slow Down in the CD player as I left ASU campus on Friday. "Seasons Change," specifically. And there was something very nice about a little indie reggae providing the cruising soundtrack as I rolled through campus. I had a pretty good mood going anyways (see below), but I especially enjoyed the serious happy-times triumphant life-score provided by "Seasons Change" in a place where they rather blatantly don't (unless nice -> hot constitute seasons). So, further props to Jamie et al for providing a solid life soundtrack.
4. While that was great, I did have a better music as soundtrack experience yesterday while walking to work. I was attempting to motivate myself for a full day of tutoring - "here we go, seven hours of SAT, YES!" - when on the iPod comes that familiar Survivor beat. No, not Destiny's Child; rather, the early '80s version that invokes boxing and general riff-driven ass-kicking, aka "Eye of the Tiger." Only something sounds a little funny about the guitar, and it's not until I'm fist pumping and shadow-boxing and the first verse is about to kick in that I realize that this is not Survivor, this is Werid Al, and this is not EoTT, this is "Theme Song to Rocky XIV." Fat and weak, what a disgrace, etc. So I had a good laugh about that one. But again, I was on the Pima path, nary a soul around, so hell yeah I belted out those lyrics. Somebody got a 9:40 AM free show. All praise Weird Al.
5. On a separate trip to the grocery store last week, I saw an older lady drop her bag of groceries. And she exclaimed pissed-offedly, "God F... Bless America." I think, but am not sure, that is the first time I've seen blasphemy and treason committed in the same breath. Props to Scottsdale.

Alright, there were other things, but I'm sure I'll think of them later. Friday, as mentioned, I had an appointment with Drs. Robert (crushingly, I just learned that this is pronounced "Reaux-bear," which makes a lot of sense given his Canadian origin. So alas, a lifetime of Beatles jokes just died right there) and Maienschein down at ASU. And we had a fantastic meeting, setting up courses to look at for this fall and people to talk to re: research projects. Just awesome to be speaking with people and not have the conversation revolve around what "unique" means or why 4 divided by 2 is not, actually, negative two (and yes, those are two real conversations I had this week at work. God F... Bless the future of America). Seriously, though, talked about a seemingly infinite gamut of topics and projects and potential directions. Great stuff - it sounds like it will be very easy to mix and match coursework in everything from neurosciences to media studies to journalism to philosophy to etc. - YAH! I get that deep-welled since of "SWEET, FINALLY!" just thinking about it. Great feelings, life-direction-wise, after quite a while of wheel spinning. And after feelings of pressure crept up, I reminded myself: I smoked my med school courses, and that was with a fair degree of anti-motivation. I am, in a true sense and not the usual "good things to say in interviews" fodder sense, looking forward to seeing what I can do when properly motivated. We shall see.

So that's more than enough self-indulgent yeah-Nyet talk for today. But suffice it: am pumped. Might even start working on some projects this summer. Here's to real life, started at age 30.5. Of course, contingent upon whatever I mean by "real."

So the rest of Friday was spent serenading the neighbors with electric guitar and rolling into work for a a few hours of tutelage. And then I drafted yet another fantasy baseball team for a somewhat ridiculous league in which the only stats that matter are HRs and Ws. No, I will not post my team; instead I will laugh at buddy Neil for auto-drafting and grabbing Ichiro and a slew of closers. Good luck with that, homes. (Neil, incidentally, is kicking in Japan these days. Use that info as you will). Beck and I made an evening of margaritas and Risk (in which she kicked my ass soundly - the the atrocities committed by the pink armies storming Western Africa will be forgotten in the annals of history as there were NO SURVIVORS for my side. Yikes. I smell a revisionist history as written by the Iron Fist in the near future). Beck deserves special congratulations - and not just for the Risk-smacking - essentially for the first time since she started working, she was thrown to the veterinary wolves, left in the clinic by herself without other doctors in a coincidentally extraordinary busy time. And she performed swimmingly and made mad cash. Diagnosed kitties and pups and saved many lives. Great work, Dr. Fe-Fist. :)

Sometime Saturday I was strangely inspired by the nice weather and texted Dan - we arranged some HOME RUN DERBY for the afternoon at the gargantuan ballpark near our house, known in these parts as the "Little Miss Scottsdale Softball Park for Grades K-9."So after work, Dan came over and we displayed our prowess, launching many balls well past the 140 foot foul poles. As you can guess, HELLA fun but made us feel manly in exactly no way. Beck hit, too, and in her first set of swings crushed the ball. We won't mention the second set here.

Dan had dinner plans with Wren & Tim, so we stayed local and headed to a film. On Tufts-bud Andy's rec, we went to see "The Bank Job," which was quite good - nice, tense action/heisty film which struck a nice balance of humor and complex crime plot. Not going to win an Oscar or anything, but definitely in the 70-75 range for very good film - I recommend it, too. The Beck and I followed up our movie with a nice quick dinner at Oregano's (featuring an Award-Winning Weirdest Waitress Rocking a Pseudo-Britney Look) (who failed the "Bring Beer Within 20 minutes" test) and came back to watch a better-than terrible SNL hosted by Christopher Walken. So I'll hold off the Sunday news and just let you feast on the late night skit of "Googley Eyes Gardener" which just seems like some sort of "let's see if Walken can pull this off" type bet. And he did:

Son of Hockey Face!!!

Beck points out that if she has to look like a goofball on the internets, I should emphasize that I, too, look like an idiot whilst playing Guitar Hero. (That zenmaster face of concentration has scored a top shelf goal or two in its day as well).

Fretting the Pats

So the preceding sunsetscape came form our drive down to D&C's on Saturday evening. Dan had enticed me with a simple text message Saturday AM that read something along the lines of "Pats, pizza and Wii Guitar Hero?" Realistically, that's an unpass-upable offer. So when I got off the full day tutoring train and beck came home from work, we piled into the enviro-friendly mobile and headed down to Phoenix to kick it with the DC. The game was sweet; the pizza tasty. Como fue the Guitar Hero? Well, with all apologies to Frank and his coolest picture ever, the DCNB crew submit their parodical entry:

In short, DCNB rocked the Guitar Hero world. It's clearly a game with dubious merit - we've asked the dreaded question here before, why rock out to a video game when you could rock out to an actual physical style guitar? Well, mostly because it's fun, also because it entails fewer hours of preparation. I humbly admit that it's a bit toolish for me to play the guitar hero in lieu of expressing myself artistically via the real deal; I can do no more than hang my head and point to my own following of the masses. But really, who can deny Dan "God" rocking out in a turtle neck?:

We will eschew textual commentary for the now customary table of nyet-pictures:


See, you may think that by now you must have seen the awesomest of pictures. Well, it turns out that your favorite and mine, the Beck, likes to gyrate quite a bit while she rocks the 'Hero. And as a result, you get 5th dimensional images like this:

Wowsers. To cut to the details, we started the night on the "Easy" setting, ripping through a fair number of tunes before we decided we were up to a greater task. Medium! Yeah! Of course, the medium setting required religious rituals to overcome the adversity. Enter the DC's mystic ornament, the Lobster Hat. That's right, it's the Rock Lobster - or, as some of you may remember, the Lock Robster. Christina bravely took on the adornment, and when I needed it most - a fierce battle vs. Rage's Tom Morello - I, too, donned the eight-legged wonder:


We made a formidable GH team. I brought several years of guitar playing, Christina brought a keen sense of rhythm, and Dan brought all kinds of coffee house music crit witticisms. But we all paled next to Beck, who not only rocked with rhythm and accuracy but brought unbelievable dance skills to the table... er, floor. Here is the world premier, available on nyetjones.blogspot.com only, of the Beck rocking out (and NAILING) Social Distortion's "Story of My Life." Warning: this is a two minute clip, so feel no obligation to watch the entire performance. However, if you need some enticement, check the background for Coffeehouse Dan's approving sip of wine, which carries more approval that the standing ovations of millions could hope to muster:

I see you all, cowering in a state of stun.

All in all, a fantastic night - the Pats won taboot! Here's to several more rockabilly evenings in the swinging abode of DC. Maybe someday we can throw some wood and steel strings in place of the Wii plastic, and Dan and I will get the Pleasure Pumas off the ground. Until then...

Penance

I started the last post with a less than excellent picture of the Beck, so I'll start this one off with a stunning one of her. Entitled: Vet on a Plane

Very nice. Before I forget, a couple of things Beck wanted me to share from the week in Nueva Rochester. When Meghan, Beck, Greg and I went to get coffee, both Greg and Beck were wearing their GPGDS regalia. This drew an enthused query from the coffee gal behind the counter, a pre-order "Did you guys go the show last night?" To which Beck replied "That's my brother," seemingly meaning the entire band. After the pleasantries and the "That James is soooo cute"s, the coffee gal actually went to the mid-'90s well* with this one: "I really wanna go to the New Year's Show, but I don't think my friends are gon'na go, so I don't have a ride." Pause. No one in team MGBN picked up on the ride request, we just smiled, nodded, ordered coffee. Another teenager's NYE dreams ruined.

* (Compare that to the following from Weezer's "Undone (The Sweater Song)":

[Mykel:] Hey, what's up?
[Karl:] Not much.
[Mykel:] Did you hear about the party?
[Karl:] Yeah.
[Mykel:] Um, I think I'm gon'na go but, um, my friends don't really wanna go. Could I get a ride?

Eerie).

The other story I need to tell is that the Grin and I had a pleasant GChat. He purchased the rights to the domain name "yellaphone," and after many jokes in the coward / chicken range, we settled on the concept that this would be a service where you could all us, give us a message, and we would phone your friend and yell it at them for you. This is only the preliminary stage, as undoubtedly the web 3.0 and such will get involved. Stay tuned.

Had ourselves a fun Sunday, full of meaningless football, Sephora-shopping and a little trashy pickup Ultimate to cap off the year. I made a no look catch behind my head of a blady hammer. That's all I got.

Pretty slow New Year's Eve today - Beck worked a short day and is presently delaying going running. I used some of my holiday cash to purchase (at Greg's brilliant suggestion) a backup internal hard drive, and spent some of the past two days backing up my music onto DVD and moving my entire iTunes library to the new drive. As a consequence, my iTunes is all bright and shiny and I have plenty of room for new tunes, photographs, artwork, recording music, videos, you name it. SWEET. In the spirit of hopefully creating some music with my computer, I changed strings on both of my guitars, a long overdue chore. But for more or less the first time, I did it absolutely perfectly, very tight and prettily done, so it doesn't look like some knock-off dumbass teenager with no clue strung them up (just a knock-off, dumbass near-30 year old). Good stuff:

Nice! Of course, this left me with a two guitars-ful of grimy used strings. What to do with such a set of found objects?

Ah, so groovy that I dig me. We're g.o.n.n.a.* take it easy for NYE tonight, eat some nachos, drink some drinks, and, if all goes according to tradition, celebrate the New Year as it occurs in Newfoundland and Beck falls asleep at 9 p.m. Insert the sound of a noisemaker here. Here's hoping everybody has a good one, stays safe, and makes all kinds of promises they have no intention of keeping in 2008. Drink some champagne, or sparkling white wine, whatever's available, for me. And here's personally hoping for the start of a productive 4th decade in 2008 por moi. I wanted to give a shoutout here to an old, well, not really a friend, just a person I knew, but his name escapes me. May I never think of him again.

* (Going Only Nowhere for NYE Activities)**

** - This has been an iPMM Shoutout.

Weather Outside = Frightful

Happy winter solstice peoples! We woke up this morning to this vision of cuddle on the futon:

That's Wrigley and the S-dog, huddled together as close as possible to maintain body heat in the frigid 54 degree (Farenheit) (Thank goodness) apartment. That's 54 inside - believe it or not, Sunny Azz got its Dominique Francon on and turned Frigid Azz. Cold! We finally had to cave and turn on the heater, lest we end up with a vanilla and a chocolate dogcicle. I'm sure you don't believe me, so I brought the trusty FinePix with me this morning to make my case:


That's FROST on the lawn! Wahoo! That's as close to a white xmas as you're gonna see in Scottsdale, folks (insert comment re: but isn't scottsdale all white? here). And I know you've got some crazy notion running through your sugar-plum laden brains that it's just dew. False! Exhibt 2A, please!

That's ice on my finger! (As well as a hyper-detailed picture of my index fingerprint. Take my identity... please! Thanks, I'll be here all week). As Beck forced me to explain, "Dew doesn't Do That," and now I'm sure I've infringed on a Pepsi-cola subsidiary or something. So it goes. Anyways, that's the excitement of the day, that it's dipping down toward 32 at night and making for chilly morning jaunts with the pups. Sparkle in particular notes that you, too, would take half an hour and dance before you poop if you had to squat in ice. Sparkle has taken to curing her coldness ills by donning her fur coat and looking like a pimp, a topic touched upon last winter. When that doesn't work, she channels her inner-kitty and lounges in a sunbeam. Pictorial evidence of Sparkle's feline tendencies:


Nice! Pictures 4 and 5 (as read in standard, left-to-right, up-down non-Hebrew fashion) are the cat pics. If you have a sec, look at picture 3 up close, 'cause that is straight up emo Sparkle. Emo, not emu. Emu Sparkle is off to your right there.

Otherwise, it's been a relatively unsuccessful attempt by the Nyet to grin and bear the bruised hip I received in the finals the other night. As predicted, I was fairly wrecked for the duration of Friday.* Hale, the bony guy with whom I collided on Thursday night (great player and all around good guy), did a number on me, and I'm starting to have a nifty little badge to show for his efforts. Next exhibit is my new "living art" project I call "He-Man Tomer."


And a word to the wise - Google Picasa's "I'm feeling lucky" is not always a great idea. And be warned, that makes it look gross and a whole lot worse than it is.

*(a day that otherwise included a whole lot of reading and a fair shake of guitar shreddage - I am sure I annoyed my neighbors by practicing the guitar solo to More than a Feeling no less than 278 times. I think I've got it - more or less. Also, Beck came home and went running, only decided to go for a walk, so i thought she had been kidnapped or Wrigley had been run over, so I locked the apartment and went out looking for her, forgetting that she didn't have a set of keys. So when I missed her out on her path, she got to spend several minutes standing outside our door in the frost-on-the-grass-creating cold, listening to her phone ring inside the apartment as I frantically called it trying to find her. I'm a neurotic dork. Anyhoo, we went to Houston's afterwards and were deemed attractive enough** to eat at the bar, so that was cool. And delicious - Beck got a prime rib sandwich au jus, and I think there is a special seat in cardiac Hades for my cheeseburger dipped in au jus. Dios mio! I may be going to hell in a condiment, but at least I'm enjoying the ride).

** - Seriously, what's the deal with stupid middle class bourgeois bullshit culture?***

*** - A waitress stopped to talked to us about some lady's Chanel diamond necklace last night. I told her about the coal necklace I have sitting in a drawer at home. She said what? I said give it time.

Today (after navigating frost-infested lawns), I tutored several students, including one who pretty much refused to do anything. Rationalizing with nine year olds is not my forte (mocking them is! See: all of my conversations with William re: Killgore), so trying to convince young Sam that his Christmas break had not in fact started because he still needed to learn his times tables was something of a fruitless exercise. I ultimately motivated him via challenge - five minutes to finish one hundred one-digit multiplication problems, CAN YOU DO IT? More importantly, CAN YOU BEAT ME???!?!?!?? Answer: no, and no****. But at least he got going enough to try. So success-ish.

**** - I finished all 100 in 1:05. My inner nerd vibrated in harmony with all that is.^

^ - really, you should try it sometime - it's weird, because for you or me, the limiting factor is your pen, not your ability to multiply one digit numbers, so you have to enter this meditative state of answering the next couple of questions while still writing the current one down. Interesting experience. Have I nerded you out yet?

And tonight, we start Beck's winter vacation by attending a Coyotes game! I caught a bit of the Yotes-Sharks game Thursday night, and it was quite a comeback by the local lads. It was 1-1 about halfway through the third when the Coyotes got SKA-rewed on a penalty call after a melee near the Sharks goalie. Essentially three guys from each team got involved in a brawl, and all three Coyotes got five minute majors (and a game misconduct for one of them) and only two Sharks got majors. Jeremy Roenick, who very obviously dropped his gloves and scrapped, got off with NOTHING, and the Sharks got a five minute powerplay. And you'll never guess who scored to put them up 2-1. So Wayne Gretzky's going bonkers on the bench, and for the final ten minutes of the game, the Yotes play their brains out but get nothing going. They eventually pull their goalie, but one of their forwards gets a two minute cross checking penalty. So their short-handed for the last 45 seconds of the game, albeit even with their goalie pulled. It's over - NOT! Shane Doan snaps one home off a face-off win, they battle through OT and then win the shootout! Huzzah! SO hopefully tonight will be sweet. I'll bring the camera and try to catch some action. And recap will follow.

In case that's not a long enough post for ya, check this excellent-but-similar to a previous-post video. This time we're featuring REM instead of John Lennon, but I think the mix is quite good:

Now playing: Yes - Heart Of The Sunrise

Productive Thursday

Cleared the cobwebs out of my morning lounge-about routine to shower early and head down to ASU for my big fat campus visit. This amounted to meeting with Dr. Robert again, meeting his grad student Jenny and a handful of other professors who are involved with the program. Good times - and further confirmation that with my scores, skills, writing ability, etc., I should be a lock for acceptance and funding. Phew! So it made for a solid morning / afternoon, and I got a vanilla chai tea out of it as a bonus. Still need to put a final layer of polish on my Underworld monster which, surprise surprise, pretty much no one has read or commented on (with the exception of Beck, who by day is a veterinarian but by night is... a editing person. Not the best superhero power, eh?). Then a few clicks, a submit, and it should be on to the world of academia in 2008.

Came back and tutored for a couple of hours and gave a pretty decent pep talk to a student of mine who is taking the ACT this Saturday - it was pretty much in the realm of "everything is fine, even if you don't do well you are still fine," trying to get her to be even keeled for the test as her biggest weakness is getting frantic and rushing and making silly mistakes. So hopefully that will work out. I powered out of there at 6 to drive down to Mesa for some competitive men's league action, only when I got out of the car - AGH. I lifted heavy weights on Wednesday (heavy for me, anyways), and for whatever reason all kinds of soreness kicked in right as I got ready to play. I felt pretty terrible, just had a really tough time getting loose, but I powered through and played respectably. Fortunately, our team remains ridiculous - we won both game 15-7, actually clinching a spot in the league championship by virtue of our 4-0 record. So we have the age-old debate of "do we play for the perfect season or do we sit our starters?" or "do we not show up for games 5 and 6 as a funny joke?" Things are really just going as predicted, which is less than awesome as it indicates that we can only go down from here. (In other Ultimate news, I got invited to play for a team at New Year's Fest, the local tourney, so expect a "wow, I am not in tournament shape" sometime in late January).

Back at the homefront, things are good. Beck has taken to drinking some smoothies that I affectionately term her "Shrek Drink" because, well, that's pretty much the kind of lager you would expect an animated ogre to imbibe:

Yikes. But she likes its tasty and mutation-inducing properties, so that's groovy. Dogs are also good, though today they are suffering a rare Arizona rainstorm and moping about accordingly. Beck snapped these pics of an exhausted Wrigley and an extreme close-up Sparkle the other day:

AND I've done a little internet-surfing and turned my computer into a Guitar Hero station for Beck's and my (note proper construction of possessive) entertainment. The program is called "Frets on Fire" and I've outfitted it with all of the GH 1, 2 and 3 songs. So if you're up for rockin' out low-budget style, we are your people. Of the program does not use a toy guitar but just USES YOUR KEYBOARD!!! Here's a screen shot and a pic of me in full on, left-handed upside down keyboard rockin' form (and I realize it's not left-handed, but I just thought I would Jimi the phrase a little):

Nerdy enough for you? The more apt question is "why don't you just take three steps to your left and play a real guitar?" I will, mister, I will. Ah - for those about to rock, I salute me.

USA 6, USSR 2

Yes! Beck the commie suffered a horrendous defeat at the hands of Nyet the white-bread, flag-waving, hot dog eating foo' at the bubble hockey table on Saturday night, and the adrenaline is still pumping two mornings later. What the heck is bubble hockey? You make me cry, you non-grow-upper-in-the-80s, you. It's essentially a foosball take on the famous 1980 hockey game, and many a quarter (nay, token) has been wasted on it in my lifetime. Fun times, and if you want to get your super-esteemed nerd on, just go check out some of the videos at youtube.

But where were you playing bubble hockey, you ask? After correcting your wandering person-perspective, I would tell you: At Dr. K-gorium's Magic Emporium, that's where! Beck's colleague / boss at the vet clinic had a holiday party Saturday night, and hombre has a home built for entertainment - including a giant game room that is bigger than our apartment and contains about 8 pinball machines, a pool table, an air hockey table, a foosball table, the aforementioned Chexx Bubble hockey table and 5 other standard stand-up video games (including Gaunlet II, another token-sucker from my youth), not to mention the play-station three seated neatly in the corner. We also managed to do some dice-based gambling and a White Elephant gift exchange comprised entirely of 20 dollar gift certificates. (In an alternate, non-commercial universe, people argued over who had the best serial number on their twenty dollar bill). And THEN there was a tour of the tortoises, which featured a viewing of the snake-collection from which I shockingly excused myself. AND there were yummy margaritas made from their Blendertron 6000. It was almost too much to take, but it made for a very fun Saturday night.

(And I haven't even mentioned Guitar Hero, which ate up the last hour (and pretty much all of Tad's evening). The game is sweet, if you haven't played, and even Beck got her Slash on. We stuck to the "easy" setting for the majority of the evening because we are lame like that. Yeah. We strolled out after I "dusted" a little Ziggy at 11:00 - good times in the castle).

Sunday was reasonably low-key, the usual Beck naps and football outing, and I played some pickup Ultimate in some new, non-feet-destroying cleats and felt better for it. Beck had Monday off, so we took advantage of the possible late evening and went to the Carlsbad Tavern, which was awesome, especially when you consider that the last restaurant Beck picked out of a magazine had us eating with the AARP crowd. Seriously, the place was very good, Southwestern fare and a cool restaurant design taboot AND the waiter got everything right (my big concern, always). We conquered a plate of nachos, a plate of sopapillas, and in between there ate half of our meals so as to have food for dinner the following night. We followed up our dinner with some 9pm-10pm Barnes & Noble browsing, and man oh man, if Frank is sick of hearing the holiday music generally, he would have stabbed his temple with a sharp hardcover corner if he could have heard the atrocious offerings at the B & N the other night (and btw, spot on with the Seinfeldian "What's the Deal with Christmas" sentiment from Frank's most recent post). Of course, we did not exercise our right to vote with our dollars and bought stuff anyways, thereby increasing the likelihood that they'll continue to play amped up Xmas-rock for years to come. Man, with so much in the balance, we choked.

Monday was a great day as well - running, cleaning the apartment, even a little - GASP - golfing at the driving range with Beck AND Nyet! Tres exciting. We came home and watched a miserable game by the Pats that they managed to squeak out - someone has apparently disabled their cheat codes from the preceding weeks. Through the entire weekend, it should be noted, Beck has been caring for a dove that got shot with a BB. It's currently living in our study bathroom and doing quite well, though S&W are intrigued by the aroma wafting from 'neath the door. Of course, S&W are intrigued by shopping bags in the wind, so this does not indicate much of anything.

Alright, time to WALK to WORK. T-minus 11 days on the apps - I've been working on them here and there the past few days, but will likely go into full psycho panic mode shortly. Huzzah for that. In the meantime, enjoy this snippet of the Abbey Road medley, as played by ONE GUY on ONE GUITAR. Note that he mashes neither green nor red buttons throughout this attempt:

Weekend Post! Proof of Car!!! Mundanity!!! Spelling!

Site or Gossip? Review of Through a Glass, Darkly coming soon...

Alright, you wanted proof, here you go:





If you were as awesome as the Beck and me, you too would get to gaze at this Knight Rider-esque display as you drove willy-nilly over the land of Mass. Here are some shots that more or less demonstrate that so much depends upon a blue civic, sitting in our driveway, beside the pink house:



Please note that the car / speedometer size ratio is not to scale.



So thar she blows, hope you dig. IPMM and IPJ saw the blue ghost in person this weekend - they were in town for a wedding, so we met them and Greg and Meghan Saturday night in Coolidge Corner for some good Japanese / Korean food. Fun times, and a bevy of references to Beck's wedding were made. On other dinner-related news, Beck and I went out with Ali & Ben to Canyon Cafe where we learned that sometimes Pomegranate margaritas are not really all that pomegranatey, and sometimes burritos have abnormally large chunks of garlic in them. Everyone involved survived. We also cemented the following joke in the pantheon:

Q: How do you get an elephant into a Safeway?

A: You take the 's' out of 'Safe' and the 'f' out of 'way.'

Genius! In other joke-related news, I tried to play Ultimate again this weekend - HA! Buh-dum-ching. No, seriously, I headed out to the BUDA summer club tourney to give it a whirl, and made it through 2 games just fine - played pretty well actually, hucked it like crazy - but then the third game rolled along and I couldn't run any more due to the heel. Argh. On the plus side, we won those first two games and added a third win in the last game of the day, matching our season win total. So we are not quite as hopeless as people may have thought, which is cool. On the definite downside, Cork hurt his knee Saturday in a manner that looked very ACL-ish. Gigantic bummer.

And that's about it - other than some mundane stuff about the adventures of Nyet and his inability to change guitar strings without breaking them, which is not a happy story. Argh - but it's fixed now. One more week of summer, and it's back to daily Nutdom. Can't wait. Beck started small animal surgery today and is on call tonight, so I may or may not get to see her.

Oh, and in other joke-related news... ladies and gents, your 2006 Boston Red Sox!!!!

That's about it. More stuff to come.

Yaaaaaawn.

Site or Gossip?

On the Waterfront
Bonnie & Clyde
Wild Strawberries
Fear & Trembling

Addendum:

View From the Top (this is the meta-view piece I refer to later in this blog entry)

Okay folks, wipe that sleep dirt, those eye boogers away, we can all wake up and take in the deep breath of a Nyet Jones update. On a vital side note, I never intended this to be "here's the daily dealings" type blog, and I'm sorry if it became that. Will try to avoid such idiocy in the future. So fear not, if I should go, say, two weeks without updating the bloggity news, you might want to poke your head around the reviews to see if anything's new there, but trust that I haven't walked face-first into lion-infested waters or anything; I probably just haven't been up to much. All the same, here's the requisite shout-out to IPMM and the Pater for asking for news. And heeeeeere we go:



"The Civic has been bought," passively was said by him. We bought it, a 2006 Honda Civic Sedan. That's not actually it, above, but given that this is a consumer culture, dominated by Fordism and mass production, i bet even Andy Warhol would consider it a reasonable facsimile. It is even the same color, a deep navy blue, so you don't have to stretch your chromatic imagination. Anyways, the car itself is not here yet, but should be in good ol' South Grafton within the next day or so. Real pictures including smiling Becks and Nyets and dogs and pink houses will be forthcoming. I see you shudder with anitici... anyways, I'll need to pick up in the tutoring, sell some blood and generally stop eating "food" to make the monthly payments, but given that it's a reliable car that will last us well into the 22nd century, I figured that was a good balance. I'm kidding of course; I can't donate blood. I'm type "faints with dehydration," so I don't do that kind of thing. Seriously.

As for the car, Beck keeps rather insultingly calling it a "toy car" and "so cute" when I'm relatively convinced she means "manly Godzilla Cruiser" instead. Okay, admittedly it's a non-flashy, economical, pragmatic vehicle that just really isn't that large. But I don't choose to view it that way. I tend to view it as an ego-booster; when I wrap my pinky around the emergency brake and put the car into reverse by flicking the shift stick, when I steer with my knuckles - I mean, it makes me feel HUGE! I am a colossal beast! I am the lord of all that I survey! I am the master of my domain! Or... something. But the effect also makes me feel fat, given that my belly can't help but press against the steering column as it rests wedged between my knees. Which means I probably need to diet, which is convenient given that I can no longer afford to eat food.

Just kidding - the car is actually comfortable, I can comfortably afford to eat for at least the next six weeks. I do need to lose some weight though - a summer of not playing Ultimate and hobbling around on my gimpy foot has not served the waistline well. So it's all about cereal and Lean Pockets for the time being til I can make myself look a little more reasonable. Oh, and yeah, I guess it's implied by the above, but my foot is still bungled - I haven't tried any Ultimate since the last brutally failed experiment. Our end of summer tournament is this weekend, so i'm tempted to cleat up on the one hand but I value being able to walk on the other. These are the nerve-wrecking decisions that plague my time. I'm so depressed I could eat. Quickly, an homage to my insane, Jered-from-Subway-esque diet plan:



So other people seem more psyched about the car I am - not that I'm not psyched, just that I'm not bursting with fruit flavor. It reminds me of an episode of Lost where Jack, the de facto leader of the "tribe" or what have you, is having the crisis of the unwilling hero, the process of having leadership thrust upon him but not necessarily wanting it. Not to belittle the ordeal, it is indeed difficult to take on the leadership of the stranded masses (though in his case, it's actually pretend to take on the leadership of other pretenders who are pretending to be stranded), but I can't help but think that he would have a little more awareness of the metanarrative going on - meaning that he should be able to recognize the "hey, i'm struggling as the reluctant hero" nature of his dilemma. Not that he shouldn't struggle with it, just to say that maybe he could take some comfort in the idea that he was fulfilling a role, not encountering a set of events completely foreign to man. His role is scripted - he struggles, he debates whether he has what it takes, wants to run away, but ultimately fulfills his duty out of necessity and lack of other options (or at least options he could live with). So, in the episode, it just struck me as absurd that a person at least moderately educated in the concepts of tragic and/or reluctant hero would not instantly recognize his situation and at least have the thought, the "Wow, I'm playing the role now!"

Which brings it back to the car, that I feel like I'm at the "Hey, the Beck and I are buying our first car together" moment of our collective existence. Like the script notes say "His eyes jump, his heartbeat elevates as he handles the Honda keys for the first time." Um, yo scriptwriter, no they didn't. They just said "hmmm, you appear to be making a pragmatic purchase. Congratulations on your relatively mindless problem-solving skills." Then again, my eyes and heart-rate talk too much.

So yeah, that's something I've been contemplating a lot lately, the whole world-viewed from a meta-perspective and how this renders things unenjoyable. I've been reading a lot from the various Existentialists lately (see the review on Captain Fun & Games, Kierkegaard), a group that, well, isn't much of a group, but they do share a value of the subjective experience over the Objective, some even going so far as to saying the Objective is an illusion or a myth. This all stabs at living a life led by passions rather than stone-cold rationality. This entire topic, I think, deserves a musing. So I will muse on this later today.

Maybe another thing that deserves a musing - a shout-out to the non-bassist -for-Phish Mike Gordon! I got an e-mail from Robyn's Passionate Kisser recently, and he gave me this musing on the collected ramblings of Nyet:

You crack my ass up. Half the time I think you’re playing Devil’s Advocate either with yourself or with what you presume popular opinion to be. Intellectual shock value for the bored. The other half of the time, I wonder when you crossed over from questioning to cynical. And, Yogi Berra-like, the other half the time I completely agree with you, laugh out loud, and think, “Damn, I really wish we lived in the same city so we could have a weekly intellectual argument over an arbitrary bunch of caramels.”

So, just to very superficially clear some things up:

I generally don't play Devil's Advocate, unless I say something like "Damn, Nyet, you're SWEET, and by the way vote for Lucifer."

Let's say, for instance, that popular opinion is generally idiotic.

If my writings shock you, perhaps you should stop asking boring questions.

It was some time during Texas History, when they were talking about that line in the sand that Colonel Travis drew, and I was just like, yo, that's preposterous, that's just mythical crap, that never would have happened, and besides, wouldn't they have all recognized the meta-narrative cliché and jokingly thought "how ridiculous, I'm actually crossing a line in the sand! What an apt physical representation of my metaphorical moral stand!" !?!?!?!?!?!"

Mmmmmmm... camels.

Alrighty then, back to some events of the bloggily missed interim - Beck has been on Anesthesia for the past two weeks so she has been on-call a lot and spending late days at the hospital. We took care of her friend Kathy's dog Ingrid, who strongly resembles a black furry football with legs and weighs approximately that amount, too. I've had a bevy of rather uneventful Walnut happenings, including getting to spend the night in a dorm there, which was not awesome. School starts back up in a week and a half, so I am psyched, pumped and amped all at once. I've been reading a lot, actually a lot of postmodern discussion stuff on the web, which is neither here nor there, and trying to pay attention to the impending WW III in Israel. I've also been re-listening to the Existentialism series to make sure I have a good grasp of things before I go on to some other texts. I'm also up to "Martha My Dear" on the White Album, which is difficult because it's actually a piano tune. So either I can learn how to play a complicated piano song, or I can just fake it with chords on the guitar and dub it "my interpretation." That's more or less what I did with "O-Bla-Di, O-Bla-Da," so the precedent has been set. My writing has gotten nowhere since that flurry of activity two weeks ago, but I've got a new direction in mind that could work. Nice. What else... IPMM and IPJ are visiting this weekend; hopefully we will chance to see them.

It's very difficult to recollect the day-to-day. Let's just pin this down as another empty-promise to be more regular about entries. And I'm going to bite off and chew that attempt at the passionate life. May work, may not. Shall see.

Oh, and before I trek off into another 2 week black hole - regarding that terrorist plot "thing:"

Does it make me a psycho pinkie liberal bastard to think, after hearing what a great job the British and American intelligence agencies did for the 490th time, that this seems like a suspiciously large amount of self-congratulating, as in "feel at ease, free countries, big brother is watching... over you?" I mean, I'll grant that they caught the guys and there was an actual terrorist plot, I'm not quite that conspiracy theory crazy, but all of this back-slapping smells a little of "Team America, F@#$ Yeah!" And don't worry, I am glad that there are people who are sacrificing their lives for our freedom, I am thankful, it's just that the repeated "yay us" messages that dominated the airwaves all week were weird.

Also - another sign of insanity, that *after* a terrorist plot is uncovered, the powers that be collectively slap their foreheads and say, "oh, they could have used liquids! Let's make liquids illegal!" The logical conclusion being that a terrorist would indeed have to board a plane in order to blow it up, so from now on, no more boarding planes. Of course, we'll have to wait for that ban until after the fact, too.

One of the radio reports I heard pointed out that the "War on Terror" (or whatever the news station graphics are calling it these days) has now lasted longer (from Sept.11 to now) than America's involvement in WWII. And someone else referred to it as the "100 Years War-to-be." These are truly the greatest of all possible times. And ya, tell me, over and over and over again my friend...

One of my Existentialism lectures pointed out that the idea of "freedom and progress" has been used by almost every power in history as justification for their actions. The American conservative version of "freedom" appears to be winning these days. Again, don't eat that as more absurd liberal cynical hogwash, just think about it - there's gotta be some reasons on both sides, right? Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, we're battling ALIEN MONSTERS!!!! Who, despite the technology to invade planet America, do not have rational principles.

Do you think there's a word for "terrorist" in Arabic that is lexically related to a word that means "crazy ass knight with a big cross on his chest came streaking into the holy lands in the middle ages?"

Friend Ben recently read that the likelihood of an American dying in a terrorist event is roughly equivalent to that of an American being struck by lightning - though something tells me those two groups, the Manhattanites and the Telephone Poll Shimmiers Association of Alabama, are not all that overlapping. Ben then furthered that he was going to head to Washington and request billions of dollars in funding for the Homeland Lightning Safety Act. Ben's funny.

Finally, beck and I had the give-up-on-humanity, vomit into a cold glass and make it warm pleasure of hearing Monica Crowley on 96.9 on Saturday afternoon - she launched into an anecdote in favor of racial profiling which essentially amounted to the fact that she and other airline passengers felt "very relieved" at the sight of some Arab Americans being strip-searched, interrogated, humiliated, really just violated and having their property destroyed in front of a plane full of people as they boarded a transcontinental flight. She then went on to read the names of those arrested with a "wink-wink, nudge nudge, what do they all have in common" air, going on to say that we have to profile people with Arabic names because they are the ones doing these things. That's right, it turns out she's one of those aliens without rational principles. In related news, all black people have committed urban murders and all white people have committed white collar crimes. Oh, and no one's allowed to drive anywhere any more. Or talk.

If only that last rule had been in place Saturday afternoon...

later sk8ers

I only reuse the best jokes

Huzzah! The Prodigal Fiancee has returned; prepare the finest nextdoor llama for slaughter and feast. Mmmmmm Llama. Mmmmmmeeeeeee llama... Nyet. Do you ever get the feeling that LL Bean was a company strategically named for animal proximity in dictionaries and encyclopedias? Or did you find Bugs Bunny att... oh... okay. Me neither.

Grafton and Beck are once again overlapping Venn diagrams in the universe of location. Or something. She's back. Ahhhhh... that's good. On the other hand, the Iron Fist is back in session, which means no more egalitarian land-sharing democratic forms of government as we've had the past week; no more S & W & N triumvirate. Everything was going great, except that I kept losing on all votes 2 to 1. And guess who conveniently got elected "Town Dog Walker and Up-picker of Poop?" I think Bart Simpson defines a paradox as choosing between an S&W-led government and the Iron Fist. Oh, well. Sometimes you get the Beck, and sometimes, well, the Beck gets you. La la la la la la la la la la la etc., the man in me will do nearly any task...

So what crazy events have taken place this weekend? I learned several more White Album tunes Saturday morning, chugging up to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as the next beast to slay. And seeing as I neither have Slow Hands nor am I God, this one may take some practice. But at least I have some structure, so that's good. For the record - Wild Honey Pie may be my new favorite guitar song. No, not really.

So I started cleaning the apartment and watching the Sox game when I got a call from Ben & Ali who en route en foote to Scoot and Skirts, so I hopped on the bike and met them for some afternoon frozen yogurt. They rescued me from house-cleaning to go out for Thai food and back to their casa for crepes with their friends Ben - another Ben - and Rachel, who was never actually a cast member of the Wonder Years, despite the fact that Ali knows her. Seriously serious, Ali is ridiculous - she knows Becky Slater. Becky Slater! Unbelievable. NEhoo, great times, great crepes.

Sunday was an all-day festival of Nut gathering and Nut departing. Camp departures are such sweet sorrow, but they're kinda just loud annoying over-the-top sorrow when it's all drama kids involved. Ha ha! I'm not actually this heartless - I'm just - wait for it - ACTING! But not acting like a histrionic ridiculoid like your average adolescent would-be Willy Shakes. No offense to blood relatives. Anyways, spent the entire day at Squirrel Heaven hanging out and listening to Chamber Music. Beck arrived at Providence late and missed her train, so she rented a car and headed to Natick. We hit up a small Chinese restaurant before my last airport run of the day, and then headed back to South-G where we sit this evening. I took her to school this morning, returned the car, picked up another Air-Nut and then gymmed it up this afternoon, nearly dying in the exercising process. It's in the 90's today, supposed to get to 100 later in the week, and the gym is not air-conditioned. Dubious - but I got a reasonable workout in, came home and showered, then headed back to Tufts to take beck to the grocery store... and yeah, that more or less catches you up. Stare deep into the meaningless details; they're allegorical.

In more allegorical news, I've decided to run away from home and join a rock band. Yes, this is a realistic fear you should hold. In less allegorical news, Mel Gibson is a drunken moron.

Ultimate tomorrow? Maybe.

Dear Beckence.

Site or Gossip?

Manhattan
Lost

Wow. A couple of days of some pretty focused and dedicated practicing, and a whole lot of repeated patterns, and I more or less have "Dear Prudence" under control. The key was getting the fingerpicking pattern to the point where I could do it by feel instead of by looking at the strings. I still need to hammer out the transitions between the different parts of the song, and every once in a while my brain locks up and won't let me play things correctly - but the difference between tonight and yesterday morning is in several ways astounding. It's a set of fairly typical Travis Picking patterns, so I learned each of them individually and now I'm trying to jump from to another. Good stuff; it's nice to be able to play a song that sounds surface level complicated like that, even when a, I know it's just smoke and mirrors accomplished with a pattern, and b, I'm still hacking my way through it a bit. Patience. Yeah. Word.

Beck got back to SA tonight; she is pulling onto Huebner Road as we speak. She had a good if relatively unenlightening time at the clinic(s) from what I can tell. So she will spend tomorrow hanging with my parents rather than feeling horses from the inside.

I finished Season One of Lost today and am adequately "Charlied" to the show. Ha. I am also thoroughly smiling at the fact that things like this happen in the 21st century. You can join me in my Stats class this semester if you would like to learn why it's stupid to use the lost numbers to play the Lotto. Geez-uhs. Speaking of the Son of God, Beck had the following conversation yesterday, more or less. Note that "Techie" is the clinic tech who doesn't really practice things like "Sterile technique" or "wearing lead in front of X-rays" - Beck even tried to helpfully advise her not to stand with her reproductive tract in front of the direct beam if the X-Ray machine. So here's that convo:

Dr.: How do you feel about gay marriage?
B: Oh, it's a real controversial issue in Mass right now.
Dr: I think it's ridiculous. We've got better things to be worrying about right now.
Techie: Well, I just think it's wrong.
Dr.: Why do you think it's wrong?
Techie: It just goes against everything this country stands for.
B: Like what?
Techie: You know, Christianity.

This is funny by itself, but what's better is that Beck follows up the account of the Techie's political views with:

"Maybe she should keep those ovaries in front of the X-ray after all."

Damn. Is it cold in Navasota, or is just the mean Yankee who just did a rotation there? Ha.

I also watched the Stephen Colbert Roast of George W. Bush today, a roast he delivered live and in person. Two feet from the president. Here's the transcript - and here are some sample great lines:

"I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

"And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

"Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

Alright. The 7 Beckless Days and Nights in the Grafton Wilderness are nearing their end. I've learned some guitar songs, watched some Lost, and transported some Nuts. I've watched some movies, written a bit on the website, and outlined some story ideas. I've gone running in miserable heat and then come back to an apartment where I sat in miserable heat. I got lost in a forest and came back with bugs that suck blood. Today, I ate a burrito. As you can easily tell, the TBN ship floats on Beck-fueled waters, and without it, my Graftonite existence exhibits a buoyancy quite unlike that of limes. Without the beautiful Beck, I am quite museless. We await her return with great antici...

Join us tomorrow, when we teach you how to keep a turkey in suspe...

It's been one, so I'm going to go do this now.