I continue to be amazed. check this new service out. granted there aren’t too many cities yet and only a few cab companies but still another interesting progression of ideas. google has such a broad palette to work with. I sure various other local organizations may have had the ability to put together something like this on a local basis (King County Metro system has something similar called tracker but only with the buses and not nearly as smooth) but google will have the resources to implement this on the larger scale. i wouldn’t imagine this was that difficult to put together. the gps already exists in the cab companies in large cities through a better portion of the us. collect all the information and present in a nice little package that everyone will know about.
Browsing Posts published in March, 2005
sad sad sad.
mitch hedberg passed away tuesday night at the age of 37. for those of you who don’t know, he was a standup comedian along the lines of lewis black and steven wright. his mainstay was one liners and stoner humor. the strategic grill locations cd was fantastic. the great part of that cd was the stand up bass playing in the background. he’d tell his jokes to the soothing plucks of the big bass, letting the music fill in the gaps during the good and the bad jokes. one of my favorite bits was smacky the frog – which was who he thought should replace smokey the bear as the forest fire icon as he would be less threatening than the bear to get help from.
The wikipedia link with some classic one liners.
“An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see a escalator temporarily outta order sign, just escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience… we appologize for the fact that you can still get up there”"
Hitting the town this evening for an enchanted night with two fabulous musical groups – the Master Musicians of Bukkake and HairyApesBMX. They are appearing together at the Sunset Tavern.
Hairy Apes are funky rhythm based freak band from Austin – Mike Dillon (critters buggin) leads the parade on his vibraphone and percussion with masterful skill and energy.
Bukkake would be, in my classification, as a band who fills a room with layers of sound. Mystery surrounds the players on stage (unless you look at their website and see who has played in each of the respective shows) as they storm the stage with a dark fire decorated in attire obtained from an otherworldly plain.
I am currently in Sin City. Maybe there will be updates maybe not. I’ll have to search but the hotel wants $9.99 a day for access. Boooooo. I’m at the imperial palace.
I was up near Buckley for work today and I ran into this bald eagle hanging out in the tree.
The 8th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Cribbage Tournament took place last weekend in Walla Walla, WA. It was to be an adventurous tourney, as it was the first one held outside of King County, WA. The size of the tournament was reduced this year to accomodate the smaller confines this year.
Three waves attacked the town of Walla Walla on that fateful friday afternoon. The first to leave was the eurovan. The last to leave was the bug dodge 3/4 ton truck. The ride i took departed in the middle. We had the distinct joy of riding in the TransVan.
It was a fine ride. The lap of luxury, the full comforts of home, right at our fingertips. I was worried and concerned considering other van rides I’ve taken in the past were usually in the back or front of some vw van that just didn’t have the go. But this ride was a cruiser, it encounter no problems flying over the cascades, through the rolling hills of central washington, an all the way to the southeastern portion of the state .
1. set a goal.
hey guys, i found this cool site freeipods.com. i think i’m going to try to get one.
no way man, that’s a scam. it’s a pyramid scheme. there is no way you are going to get one.
no really. i’m just going to try. they are so cute and i would look so sexy with one.
2. set your game plan
I signed up on the front page, making sure I gave them a new email address. I may be gullible but I don’t need anymore spam. How tough could this be? Sign up for one offer and then get five other people to do the same thing and the ipod would be mine. I harrassed a few people I knew and tried to convince them of the glories that could be theirs if they just helped me out once. First, I had to sign up for my offer. As it happened, when I signed up, the ebay offer was still available (currently, other offers include BMG, Columbia House, PetMeds, Blockbuster, etc.). All you needed to do was sign up for a new account and bid on an item. You didn’t even need to win the item. Well, they got wise to that one pretty quick and it was removed from the offers but I got in on that one. I sent out my referral link to a few places I hang out. I got the typical – get that spam out of here, why don’t you get a life, why don’t you just buy one? I wasn’t going to be deterred by such weak attempts to stop me. I got my five referrals.
3. wait
Now the waiting begins. They got multiple steps to “verify” all your referrals. i waited a few days. no response on the website to my status. i check back one day and it says two of my referrals have been denied due to “irregular” circumstances. My account was then placed on “hold”. At this point, I’m having doubts concerns and then the holiday season comes around and I don’t really think about it too much. After the holidays, the lightbulb comes on again upstairs and I battle to get two more referrals. I get one from a random and then convince a-ron to help me out for the fifth one. They both go through and now I have to ait for the verification process again. I think an additional month goes by with a few emails going back and forth, they are telling me that things are backed up and will take a little while.
the end comes closer. another week passes by. it was a consistent night but i couldn’t put enough strikes together to make it an excelleny night. I still enjoy bowling above my average every game which is currently 155.
I know, in everybody’s life, there are times when there is no one to turn to. I want to help. I want to be that person you can turn to. Ask me a question and press any of the buttons for a personal reply. I know it is not much but I try to do what I can to make a difference.
megan and i went to the modest mouse show at the showbox on friday night. i thought it was quite wonderful. isaac brock had it together and was quite energetic.
i was able to take a few photos that turned out all right for using a digital camera in a big underlit space.
sack, we also ran into bryan hart and his wife at the show.
Spring has been quite beautiful this year. Much too early though. The last six weeks or so have mainly been high 50s, low 60s and sunshine. Much to the suprise of all the plants and flowers in the area, they are getting an early wake up call this year.
It was so nice and happy friday after work. I decided to take a few pictures of the springtime growth.
i’m not to good with names of plants but if i do know i will tell.
here are some happy little pink flowesr from the front yard.
Another disappointing week. Just two weeks ago we were in the hunt for the fourth playoff spot. two 0-8 weeks hace reduced the hunt to a prayer. our league is the ballard fraternal league with the majority of contestants over 50. we’ve struggled as of late. this week not being particularly good. look at my scores. i had the high game all three games this week. pathetic. but it is a long season 33 weeks, we are nearing the end with just six weeks remaining. the smmer break is always refreshing.
well here is the damage this week. i could just never get it going. constantly trying to adjust my throw. it started to come together the last game but at that point it was too late. i can’t decide if it was too many or not enough high life’s.
Another excellent flash done to the Beatles – Come Together. It was made by this company, melon dezign. They have some other interesting flash productions.
An excellent flash piece to giant steps. A brief description.
There have been many moments, objects, sightings that have found their way into my life. One of the more interesting rides in my existence was the classic tercel during the end of the iowa era and entering iowa state part 2.
This classic car was initially in the hands of an iowa friend, Dippy. The car was treated with love and respect. Babied at every turn. The summer before Dippy graduated. Dippy and I took this car for a little journey around the southeast portions of the us. We hit graceland, mississipi, alabama (my first brush with dry counties – the horror), georgia, myrtle beach, dc, pennsylvania, and the pro football hall of fame. It was quite the adventure. Just me, Dippy, and the tercel. Maybe that is where the initial bonding took place. Soon after that (time is such a relative term in those days), Dippy was moving on to bigger and better things, graduation and a new car were in his future. The tercel was no longer going to be his first love. How I received this beautiful car is lost to me, all I know is that the car cost me two dead tickets to the soldier field shows that year (what year, your guess is good as mine, but probably either 93 or 94).
It was a simple car. White, two door, hatchback. Part of the ease of the separation with DIppy was the back hatch didn’t really close all that well due to some unforeseen circumstances involving another automobile. We solved the hatch problem with a sledgehammer and a crowbar. It wasn’t quite the looker at the point either. That just gave it some charm.
To my recollection, this was the first car that was officially mine. Bought and paid in full with almighty beef dollars. I slowly began to add those special touches that would be necessary to hone my image as that special kind of character.
I belong to a bowling league these days. Actually for, i think, 5 glorious years now. most of the combatants on my team have worked with me in the past. i’ve have increased my level of play over the 5 years. we finally got to the point where we don’t lose every week. the season is grueling. 33 weeks of bowling every wednesdy night. the only time we get off is when either xmas eve, xmas, nye, or new years falls on a wed. the first 10 weeks are great after the long summer break with no bowling, but now we are in the home stretch, only 8 weeks left.
Bowling takes place at leilani lanes. It is one of maybe five bowling alleys in the city limits (sunset bowl,the garage,university HUB, and west seattle bowl are the others).
I think we are currently tied for fourth but things did not go in our favor this evening. We lost all three games and total pins. We could fall to sixth or seventh in the standings. My first game was pitiful but i managed to pick it up in the second two games. Underneath the three bowling lines are my current stats for the year.
i should buy bought this tomorrow today. it went on sale on march 1.
strange that amazon calls them mars volta when they are clearly the mars volta.
I won’t get a chance to listen to this until tonight.
Not to disappoint. Digging through a few more boxes pulls out the patch. It was a compromise i made with myself when this wallet was retired. i’m sure i kept the wallet for awhile but in the end saved the patch. The sweat and the grime still kind of glow in the dark.
I don’t really know what possessed me at times back in the glory days of college. I did odd things for the weird reasons. Granted, I guess that is what college was about. It just took me ten years to come to the end. One of my many habits that I shared with sack was candle making. It started off as a little hobby. Make a few candles here, a few candles there. We slowly started to take over the basement of sack’s rental house (which happened to be the morris’ and later sack’s property but that is another story for another time). Different options were explored as to best optimize the candle making process. Instrumental in the success of this operation was garnering supplies from the mecca of candlemaking supplies, pourette.
We started small with a few molds and a few sheets of wax. Soon the desire to make candles started to creep upon me. More hours over at sack’s house, making candles while cake or miles was playing on the stereo.
The setup in the basement was optimal for our rise to glory. Soon wax was coming in 60-lb boxes. The double boilers were on the stove, constantly needing tending or the water would boil away and create this acrid smoke that would fill the confines of the tiny basement room. Water baths and freezers were used to hurry up the process. the mess continued to grow on the floor, over the table, and in the sink.
Candles were made in a frenzy. Melt some wax, tie some wick, make some chips, pop some candles out of the molds, hurry up and wait. the glorious shapes that would explode from those molds after gently caring for them from birth. Sweet, sweet, candles.
The glory, the power, and the fame were intoxicating. What couldn’t be bartered for in ames with a few candles. Some of my ink was acquired through candles. Drinks were had. Friends were made. We rose to the pinnacle. You realize you can’t get much higher when you make the Ames Tribune, a paper with a weekend circulation of over 10,000, the highest circulated daily in Story County, Iowa.
I can’t quite pinpoint the decline of the candlemaking. graduation, marriage, moving, all figures into the demise of the candle making experience in the basement of the 206. I still hung on to hopes and dreams. Although I think the cold reality came as the rain fell at Hookahville.
A few examples of what was…..
So I moved on, moving to seattle to pursue greater things. well, not really i couldn’t resist candle making with the holy land so close. innovations were made. no longer using the double boiler method but the crock pot. wax was melted in a much quicker fashion. monthly trips to pourette increase the molds that were on hand. more molds meant more candles in less amount of time. no longer was it necessary to spend three or four nights a week keeping up with the frantic demands. slowly the candles took a back seat. an impressive stash lay in the basement of the 65th street house. we moved out of that house and into the next. all my candle equipment sits in the cabinets, twice a year it gets pulled out and spends a few weeks in the hands of the art club at a local high school. i can still hear the molds cry at night sometimes, sometimes……
