Triumphant, Reign, Uncontained

Weekend was relaxing but unproductive. Watched a bunch of movies (American Gangster, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, I Am Legend - I was relatively unimpressed with all of these, oh, and they pumped up Common's role in American Gangster pretty hard in the previews but I don't think that dude said 5 words in that movie) and The Wire - Season 1 Episodes 6-8, played some GTAIV and messed around with my PS3. Reid twittered (tweeted, man, that just sounds lame) that he had beat the game already. He bought the game roughly two weeks after me. Dan reported that he had finished the game at 65% with a time investment of 40 hours. I am at 45% with a 22 hour time investment so I am feeling pretty good about that. Kia is not feeling as good about it as me.
Didn't manage to pack for the AK trip as I had planned to. Whatever, I still have a few days. Going to be a packed few days at work. Leaving in the early evening on Thursday so I only have three days to knock out some work. Looking forward to the trip home. The three day weekend was good, but damn, it was kind of just a teaser.
Thinking about heading out to Seward while we are in AK for a couple days. We will see. I am hoping that discs 4 and 5 of The Wire arrive before we leave.
OK, arrived at work. Keep it grimey.

My Daugher Found Nemo, I Found the New Primo

An interesting week to say the least. Three day weekend upcoming and I plan to take full advantage of it. I have blogged that I have wanted to get out of the city a number of times recently maybe out to Point Reyes or Monterey, but still haven't just hopped in the car and made it happen. Maybe this weekend.
Need to do some packing for the trip to AK. I am getting pumped to spend some time at home. Jason (my brother) is going to be in town for the entire time now because his schedule changed so I am looking forward to that.
Went to see Indiana Jones yesterday. It was mediocre. I mean, it was fairly true to the old movies, but I didn't think it was as good as any of them. The Transformers/Holes (yeah I saw that, what?) kid was kind of annoying. His tough guy persona was overshadowed by his natural geekiness.
I passed one of these billboards the other day and was pretty impressed. Their site is here and apparently they reclaim old billboards and throw some art up. I like the intent of this but I still think this is cooler.
So today we had an event at work where there was a trivia question of "What was Matthew's hip-hop name?" Now everyone who isn't a complete knucklehead knows the answer is Mr. Prime Beef (which in Alaska is mad gangsta because its the name of a local butcher - yeah, it was like that, still is really), but no one up there knew the answer. I decided to give points based on the best names people could come up with. These were the submitted answers:

MC Beard
Weirdy Beardy
Polar Bearrizzle
Matt Dougherty - this one got negative points
Wysz
ODH (Ol' Dirty Hyphy) - this was my favorite

I thought of another one that was pretty good - MC Otter Pop.
If I am ever going to make a comeback I need to come up with a new hip-hop name.
Speaking of highschool artistic interests, one of my coworkers was talking about teaching kids the piano the other day and while I stopped short of asking for free lessons I was thinking I should get back into it. Probably a good way to stave off the RSI.
One more non-sequitur - just passed this graffiti on the 101 for the 20th time and need to blog about it. This guy Girafa is making a big splash on the 101 in and a little south of the city.
He does a lot of stuff that looks like this:


But he has begun painting straight patterns which are, simply put, bad as hell:


OK, about to hop off the shuttle.
Get your mind right.

Fitted Hats Low Conceal the Crooked Eye

Condoleezza came to my work today as part of her tour of Silicon Valley with some British dude named Dave. Dave was charming and said many of the right things. Condie did much less of both of those things. Overall, I was underwhelmed. Apparently, Condoleezza was a professor at Stanford - I was unaware of this - Stanford -1. The Bush administration appears to be pushing very hard to clean up their legacy. There has been increased talk of renewable resources and education and from an administration which - from what I can gather - did its damnedest to strip funding for anything not relating to an aggressive foreign policy from federal budgets, frankly, stinks like bullshit. Condoleezza pushed the fact that the history books, and not headlines, will be the ultimate judge of the accomplishments of the administration. This is very possible because most history books I read in my youth were full of shit.
End of political rant.
Headed to Indiana Jones tonight. Kia is going to meet me downtown and we are going to watch Harrison Ford hobble around some ruins while being accompanied by the plucky lad from Transformers. rottentomatoes.com is giving the movie a pretty good rating at this point. Damn, Iron Man got a 93%. I think I need to see that mess. Speaking of Iron Man, these hats are sick, I don't even care.



OK, getting closer to the city. Long weekend coming up and not a lot of plans at this point. There is going to be a fair amount of trip prep for the upcoming trip home to AK. Dougherty made a comment about wanting to come up to "God's Country" and retrace the steps of the Grizzly Man - or something to that effect.
Get your bars up.

Bang on the System

Alright, a couple quick notes.
Lakers won last night. Dan is getting puffy chest syndrome. I like to remind him that Kobe sold his soul to the devil but Dan is from the OC. Enough said.
I got an email from Heather (my sister in law) saying that my nephew participated in the Doodle 4 Google competition and I checked out this sweet map doodle overlay. It shows submissions from different locations. There are a number from Anchorage and Seward (which were grouped together) and one from Juneau.
The first one from Anchorage is of talking buffaloes and walking pumpkins. Its pretty damned surreal (this is a kid from my nephew's school). The one from Juneau is pretty awesome as well. The theme being what if the Europeans never colonized. Damn, Alaskan kids are pretty damned subversive.
I think the doodle from the OC was of a kid's nanny taking him to his skateboard vert ramp lessons in their yellow H2. The two 'o's in Google were the wheels of the Hummer. Extreme.
The Spurs are boring, but at least they aren't the hated Lakers. Go Spurs.

I'm ET Zooted, Way Out There

Man, Monday, its like that.
Weekend was legitimate but highly unproductive. I would say that I somehow deserved this weekend off if I didn't consider that somewhat of an exaggeration. I ended up playing GTAIV more than I should have but managed to basically wreck shop in that game. One of the more interesting components of the game is that there are non-linear decisions you can make with regards to the plot. Well, that is pretty interesting, probably more interesting to most people is the fact that you can slam your car into other cars at high speed and knock people out of their windshields. How dare you judge me?
Weather shifted for the better in the bay so I have been able to sleep at night and wear normal pants (not hot pants like I do when its too warm). People complain about the fog and how cold it is in San Francisco, but damn, I am all about it.
Started watching The Wire this weekend mainly because I couldn't stand listening to Sean Price make references to the show that I didn't understand anymore. So far its pretty good. I like the characters but basically I end up rooting for the drug dealers.
Bay to Breakers was this weekend and I managed to sleep in through it. I did, however, go get some lunch at Mel's on Geary after the race was done and got to sit next to some drunken idiots wearing unclever costumes acting belligerent. Good times.
This bus runs right through the Tenderloin which has managed to maintain a lot of its griminess. People watching is pretty awesome in the 'Loin. I have a good first experience in SF story about the Tenderloin that I don't have time for right now.
Grindin'.

Only Chase Money for the Things I Need

We just passed a guy in a black Silverado pick up who managed to get his truck keyed. It went across both doors and consisted of one very deep looking scratch and the word "bitch" poorly written and in all caps. That ain't right. Though, perhaps he did something to warrant such action. Maybe during full moons he turns into a female werewolf and the scratches were done by his own claws in a desperate cry for help. Yeah, that's probably what happened.
So, its another scorcher in the bay. Its disgustingly warm.
Lakers are beating the Jazz right now and while I am not willing to align myself with Utah wholeheartedly I have to say that I am pulling for them hard in this series. I had a debate with a coworker about whether it is acceptable to root for LA teams if you are bay area sports fan. My take on this is a resounding no.
Just made it off the freeway. Looking forward to taking advantage of the weather this weekend and spending some time outside of my apartment. GTAIV may have to take a back burner for a few days while the weather is good. Maybe not. I am only 26% of the way through the game. Dan has beaten the game (at least the main story) already which he says is at roughly 65% completion.
OK getting closer to my stop. Stay on your grizzly.

I Stay Rhymin', Doin' My Thing

Damn, its hot. Current temperature in Mountain View is 99 degrees and its already 6:10pm. San Francisco is 82 degrees but Kia said it was over 100 in the city today. Basically, anything above 78 is too hot for human beings, lizards maybe, lizard people maybe, but normal humans no.


Work has been pretty ape this week. Glad tomorrow is Friday. If its nice this weekend maybe Kia and I can get out of town for the day. We've been meaning to go to Point Reyes for a while so maybe this would be a good opportunity.
Signed up for Twitter this morning. I have "tweeted" three items. They are listed below:

matthewlewis Giving twitter a try, begrudgingly....
matthewlewis Thanking Kunan for ruining my morning.
matthewlewis @njohns why didn't you just IM me? Ah! I don't get it.

This is where the great Twitter experiment may end. I will try to stick with it a little bit. People have been clamoring that micro-blogging is the next big thing. Based on what I am seeing, and now posting, I am relatively unimpressed. Fear not though, I will continue to post inane garbage in similar fashion to this blog. Oh and if you are wondering how Kunan ruined my morning you can ask him. I won't taint my blog with such things.
*I just edited this as I am writing it, I almost wrote: "Who am I kidding, Kunan showed me x" but I looked at it again and realized it was vile. Truly vile. I will never be the same. Thanks Kun, friggin' jerk.
Whew, OK. Getting off the freeway. Lost is on tonight. Looking forward to that.
Grind hard.

We so Detroit like Murphy was in Robocop

My new bus is annoying me. Basically, if this bus was a bar, I would leave and brown bag it. I miss my old bus-mates.
Kia made it back to town last night after about five days in Texas visiting her grandparents. We went out to Darla's last night which was awesome. That place is solid.
Headed to AK in a couple weeks. Going for about a week. Looking forward to seeing these knuckleheads:


Had a basketball game yesterday and wore some high socks for Dougherty but he didn't even play. We won the game, I should say they won the game because my teammates did the scoring. Perhaps I will start logging the injuries I incur as opposed to my stats line. The injuries would likely be more interesting and take up more space.
Getting off the shuttle. Happy Wednesday.

I'll See You When You Get There, But I'm Going On

I started the day by getting up fairly early and deciding that I would rather take the bus to work than drive. If I took the bus, I could blog and save some gas money. No reason to drive today because I have to drive tomorrow to pick Kia up at the airport in the evening. So, I go to move the car from the spot it was in overnight and shouldn't be during the day today or I could get a ticket. I move the car across Geary park it reasonably and on exit realize that I could pull up a little bit to make sure another car could park behind me. I hop in the car, throw it in neutral to let it roll forward three feet and decide to fire the engine up because I am in a little bit of a hurry.
Click.
Huh? Do it again.
Click.
Nothing. But wait you say, you just drove it 3 blocks to re-park it, that's right and that was the exact moment it decided to crap on me.
Now you could argue that it was better to have happened on a morning where I didn't have an early meeting to get to. Fine, you are right, I shouldn't complain.
So I call AAA (yeah, I pay for that mess, it comes in handy) and they send a dude with jumpers. He says, "Go ahead and turn it over".
Click.
"Do it again."
Click.
This went on for a while.
"Its not the battery." The guy says to me, "The light on your battery is green." Green means good. He begins guessing that it is the starter.
Fine.
We get a tow truck out and head for the shop on California. Tow truck driver is very helpful and basically tells me that it is the battery because he smelled it burning.
Quick aside: Is it customary to tip a tow truck driver? I ended up not tipping him after and felt a little guilty, what do others do in this situation?
Drop it at the shop, guy calls later, its the battery, plus he is going to replace a belt which needed to be done for roughly a year. Kosher.
Monday. Morning. Whole day ahead of me.
The remainder of the day was fairly reasonable in comparison. Had some useful conversations with people at work (I think). Listened to the new Gnarls Barkley album The Odd Couple which has some pretty phenomenal tracks. It also has some pretty mediocre ones.
Went out to dinner with John Reese last night and had fairly authentic Szechuan food. Mmm, ma-po tofu. The place was pretty legit and was authentic down to the Jay Chou concert being blasted on the TV.
That's that. Stay on your grind.

Everything I'm Not Made Me Everything I Am

An introspective and contemplative week at work. I will leave it at that, I am pretty drained at this point. I almost missed my shuttle - thanks Burger - and managed to waste about 10 minutes of my day arguing mostly incoherently and ineffectually about whether the free market was good for child care - again Burger's fault. Guess which side I was on....
Kia is in Texas at this point hanging out with her grandparents. I am glad she is getting a little R and R. Work has been fairly ape for her.
Traffic on the 101N right now is pretty horrid so I am going to make a blog post and fart around on the internet a bit. Just got the Kanye West album that came out almost a year ago and I have been listening to that. Its kind of OK if I like it now because the bandwagon passed right? Its pretty decent. The kid can make beats, there is no question, I am liking this album more than both of the two prior even if listening to it makes me want to buy a teal BAPE shirt and some $250 jeans so that I can "shine". Ultimately looking a lot like this guy:


(RC Asked for that one) Speaking of BAPE, man, there was so much bootleg BAPE stuff in China that that brand has to be super devalued in greater China. That said, we are talking about a country that sells Pepsi sneakers and allows unsuspecting grandmas to wear Playboy sweaters.
I have big plans this weekend to play GTAIV and hang out with Salim on Saturday. I also plan on working on my jumper and calling my mom on Sunday (Mother's Day y'all).
Need to hit up Amoeba this weekend and scoop up some new albums also likely some grocery shopping. I will not be going to A.G. Ferrari's this weekend though because of the likelihood that I walk out with a piece of cheese that I a. probably can't afford and b. definitely shouldn't be eating.
Passing the Civic Center right now. Dougherty is headed into the city tomorrow for the Kids in the Hall show. Should be good, you know, if you are into Canadian humorists. Rick Moranis anyone?
Wow, three call-out/burns in one blog post. That's a stretch for even me. Did I mention its been a long week?
Peace.

You Can't Do Dirt in Shell Toes

Just finished up the first basketball game of the season at work. Our team (team Rick Roll) did fairly well, but managed to lose by one point (21-20). I think we will actually be pretty awesome. Unlike the team in China, I actually should not be playing on this particular team based on my skills. It was fun though and Dougherty wore high socks so that was a highlight.
Things are mostly kosher here in the bay area. Days are getting longer and the sun a little warmer. I'm looking forward to the basketball and football games over the summer and there is a pretty decent court near the new apartment where I can work on the jumper - Kobe!
With Kia out of town this weekend I imagine I will spend a majority of my time acting a fool in GTAIV. Someone asked me today whether I got the game. After I yelled at them for not reading my blog religiously and asked them sarcastically if they had ever heard of the internets, I answered yes, I got the game and it makes me do bad things. After talking to coworkers about the game it is pretty insane how much enjoyment can be extracted from an epic car crash or accidentally setting a bystander on fire. Muahahahaha. Come on, I said it was an accident.
Probably going to eat some leftover Chinese for dinner tonight. We ordered from a new place on Balboa. Its pretty tasty, Melissa's, check it out. The mango prawns were pretty awesome, I mean, how could they be bad though right?
Giants are 14 and 19 which puts them squarely in third place. Goooooo NL West.
Oh and while I am at it - Goooooo Jazz! I kind of want to see Boozer clothes-line Kobe in the throat. AK pride son!

Whatchu Know about Pinot Grigio and Roasted Duck?

Tuesday morning on the way to work. Shuttle is crawling past some on-ramps. Looks like it is going to be a beautiful day, its already clear and sunny and its 8:10am. The shuttle just drove by the guy who works in my building pushing a snack cart between 3 and 4pm calling out snack attack. Yesterday they had hazelnut brittle. According to his bumper sticker he is into City Lights.
Cat is getting better. He is limping around with a dinosaur cast on and beginning to be more rambunctious.
Kia and I went over to Heather and Salim's last night and got to hear their wedding story finally. It was pretty damned cool. I won't ruin it for you if you haven't heard but it involves Chuck Taylors and surprise vacations. The two of them are going to Beijing in a couple of weeks for six months. I have to admit, I am pretty jealous that they are getting to go to China but not jealous of being gone for six months. They will be there for the Olympics (if they can find a place to stay...).
Kia is headed out to Texas in a couple days to hang out with her grandparents and cousins. She is pretty amped on the prospect of a sun-tan.
We went to A.G. Ferrari's on Sunday and bought expensive Italian cheese. When I say we bought it I mean we were both physically there, but I bought it because Kia can't eat dairy. The cheese was an imported soft cheese that I can best describe as fresh mozzarella stuffed with a mild creamy cheese inside it, perhaps it was just a mozzarella which hadn't firmed up all the way. I didn't get around to talking to the sales lady about it before I had purchased a big chunk of this and a loaf of ciabatta and was headed home.
Almost at work. Later.

That's the Breaks, That's the Breaks

First day back in the office today after a couple days at the sales conference in Mountain View. It was pretty fun. Highlights include late-night burrito runs and group cake decorating. Our cake was fairly pathetic.
I have GTAIV in my bag right now, but I am expecting not to play it until this weekend. Its burning a hole in my bag though. Hot off the interwebs. Went for a couple drinks with the teams who were in town this evening which was pretty fun. Kun, Allan, Sean and Chrissy are in town from Beijing and its nice to see those guys.
Might go to the A's game tomorrow because Allan wants to go to a game and the Giants are out of town. Its pretty amazing the difference in ticket prices between Oakland and San Francisco, basically double in SF.
Getting back to the city a little late this evening. The cat is on the mend post-surgery. It turned out the cat's leg was broken and we did the surgery thing. He is wearing a cone around his head and dragging around a cast right now. Basically, he is the most expensive cat in the world at this point. Enough said on that. He was pretty cracked out last night coming down off of the drugs from the surgery so he was basically running his cone into stuff and acting like a sugared up 5 year old. I thought it was funny, Kia not so much.
Josi (Kia's sister) is in town this week until early next week I think on her way to Flagstaff where she is moving. Its fun to have her in town, even if I have only seen her for like an hour in the three days she has been in town so far. Maybe we can do something fun this weekend.
OK, getting off the freeway. Keep on your grizzly.