Dance With The Mantis, Note The Slim Chances

*OK, this post was supposed to go out on Friday.  It didn't.  I edited it a little to make it slightly less annoying.

Happy Halloween. Hopped an earlier shuttle this afternoon but I'm not sure what I am up to this evening. The SF Castro Halloween event has gone away as of late because of stabbings and shootings. I mean if you aren't willing to take some risk of getting stabbed or shot why don't you just move to Mountain View. Had a few beers at the El Goog Halloween bash so the commute may get interesting about half way through. My costume was a last minute type of affair this year. Same as last year frankly. I went as a Mazda Miata owner - complete with double popped collar, white Livestrong bracelet and slimebag hair. No one had any idea what to make of me. Its my own damned fault I guess for making such an authentic douche bag. Failed costume ideas included Silent Bob, Bearded Woman and my personal favorite Walter from The Big Lebowski. My team came decked out big time though. Other people will post pictures I am sure.
I took the last three days off of work because Jason, Heather and the kids were in town. I have to admit, they ran me ragged the last few days. Between the touring, eating and wrestling with the nephews I am gassed. The week's events included Fisherman's Wharf, the Presidio, Monterey, a trip to San Leandro to visit the grandparents, a visit to Google, a 49ers game, shopping downtown, a visit to Tea and basically food consumption at every stage of those events. It was good having everyone in town and the apartment - while pushed to maximum capacity - held up OK with six occupants.
Bladder update - pain beginning.
This weekend is going to be made up of being lazy, laundry, restocking our fridge and a little football. I've been playing Metal Gear Solid 4 the last couple weeks and while it started pretty slow (this is the first one I have played) it has gotten better as of late.
Bladder update - traffic has slowed, aaarrrgh!
Been watching Gravediggaz videos in honor of Halloween. I didn't know that one of the members was from Stetsasonic - thank you Wikipedia. Just got off the freeway, time to figure out the bathroom thing.
Trick or treat.

*Update, the SF library has a lovely public restroom.

Capture Food With Lasso Loops

Shuttling north.  Wednesday down, two more to go.  Lots to do in the next couple of days to get my ducks in a row for Jason and Heather's visit - they get here Friday.  Looking forward to seeing those guys and taking some time off next week to show them around the city and the rest of the bay area.   Like I said, lots to do before then.

I have become mildly obsessed with Mario Kart for the Wii thanks to my coworkers and just spent the last 10 minutes learning about cheats and short cuts to give me a much needed advantage over my coworkers who are freakishly good at this game.  I was feeling good about beating my nephews soundly and repeatedly while I was in Anchorage but it turns out they weren't quite the experts that they said they were.  Lets just say they would get served at my work.

Pretty gassed at this point.  The 8am start this morning meant a 5:30am alarm which just ain't right.  If I didn't stay up til midnight last night reading my new book it probably wouldn't have been an issue.  But shit, what fun would that have been?

The first game of the World Series is on right now and apparently the Phillies are up 2-0.  I am rooting for the Rays in the series because I like BJ Upton (come to the Giants BJ) but also because I want to buy a Phillies hat but if they win the World Series I will look like a bandwagon idiot.  

Pretty cool hat though.   Go Rays.

Speaking of sports, the 49ers just fired Mike Nolan and are replacing him with Mike Singletary for what appears to be the rest of the season.  I have to say, I am not that impressed by the move.  I mean, the 9ers aren't playing good football, but Nolan is not necessarily the reason for this.  He was brought in to retool the team with Alex Smith and after the issues between the two of them I feel like Nolan deserved this year to see if an Alex Smith-less 49er team could peroform reasonably.  No one expects O'Sullivan to be a stand-out this year but if the team can finish strong and fortify in the off season Nolan's year will have been a success.  Oh well, I like Singletary, the jury is out on Martz still, if the offense doesn't average 25 points the rest of the season I am going to vote that they dump him and O'Sullivan.  Maybe they can go to Seattle and run a Starbucks together in the offseason.  Oh, and yes, if they bring Holmgren to San Francisco I am going to rock an Upper Playground logo shirt everyday for a week.  

Given the economic crisis I would like to encourage everyone to grind just a little harder than normal.

My Soliloquy May Be Hard For Some To Swallow But So Is Cod Liver Oil

Headed back to the city on a bit of a later shuttle than normal. Meeting ended at six. I am pretty pooped from two back to back 8am starts. An 8am meeting means that I have to get up at 5:30am to make the 6:30am shuttle which gets me in at 7:30am but ensures I am ontime for my 8am meeting. That's too early.
Listening to Ready to Die right now. I made a run through my music and put some older albums on my ipod, stuff I have been wanting to listen to for a while but was locked away in the depths of the external hard drive. Meant to put the ATLiens album on there but somehow I missed it. If you haven't listened to the ATLiens album lately, or ever, do so immediately. In my mind its one of the best hip-hop albums of all time. Concept is legit, production was crazy and Outkast was still at a point where they had something to prove. They took a departure from the first album and ran with that junk. Proof.





See, told you. Oh and if you don't allow embedding on videos you upload to YouTube you are dumb.
A few more videos from Outkast which weren't embeddable but are worth referencing.
Player's Ball
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik
Atliens
Elevators (Me & You)
Go to school on that.
Watched the presidential debate last night, or the replay at 9pm and couldn't stay up until the end. See my earlier comment on getting up at ungodly hours. I thought McCain came off pretty desperate in his taking shots at Obama. The terrorist thing to me is completely ludicrous and comes off as a pure scare tactic. I am pretty amazed that McCain has been willing to jump in line with the Republican party techniques of manipulation of the public through misinforming them so whole-heartedly. He is definitely not getting mavericky with it. The election is getting pretty ugly at this point though, the campaigns are taking pretty severe digs at each other.
Speaking of Sarah Palin, or more specifically Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin, did I mention that when I was back in AK I was at a VP debate (re)watching party on the Saturday after the VP debate at my brother's house and we were actually playing a drinking game around the word "maverick" when Tina Fey made reference to doing the same in her sketch? Pure magic.
Grind hard.

I Was Told "Dust Yourself Off and Try Again"

Shuttling home.  Pretty tired at this point.  

This was the 5th weekend in a row that I didn't spend at home.  This is a bit of a record for me considering I am pretty much a homebody.  

Made an effort to go camping for the weekend which was thwarted by a park ranger doing his best sheriff of Malibu impression from The Big Lebowski.  That said, the weekend was still a blast and part of my feeling tired has to be attributed to the massive quantities of beer I consumed.

Speaking of Lebowski, I was looking for a clip of the sheriff of Malibu for my earlier comment when I came across this gem.

Pretty funny.  There were other attempts with like the Flintstones and He-Man but they mostly sucked.

Big next couple of weeks.  Reviews coming due at work, Jason, Heather and the kids headed to town the week after next.  The big Wurm/Hitchcock wedding and Mike and Maria headed to town for that big event.

Luckily I have this sizable commute to spend up on blogging inanely and keeping all of you up to date on all of the intricate details of each one of those.

OK, commute was pretty speedy, about to hop off the shuttle.  
Grind hard.

Young Carter, Go Farther, Go Further, Go Harder

Wednesday down two more days before the weekend and the man trip camping trip. Looking forward to just sitting around and doing nothing other than smashing beer cans into my head after pouring their contents into my gut.

Lots of craziness the last few days. Spent last weekend in AK visiting the fam and looking at a house that the wifey and I decided to buy. Here are the reactions that I have gotten from the various people I have mentioned this to over the last few days:

"Are you fucking crazy, man?"

This was in reference to the economic issues facing the world right now. The answer to this question is a hearty maybe.

"Alaska, huh? So, you moving home?"

Yes Alaska. No, we are not moving home in the near future but someday we hope to live in the house we purchased. For the time being my brother and his family will be living there.

"Was the house cool?"

Uh duh.

"Sarah Palin has really gotten to you, huh?"

Sarah Palin did not factor into the decision but yes, she has really gotten to me, mostly in the sense that she is a magically talented woman.

Evidence. (Credit goes to M,P,S)

The only way that could have been better is if it were this:

Kia's trip to Korea is unfortunately being canceled because she has a monster ear infection. If you want details you can check with her but needless to say she is in no shape to hop a 12 hour plane ride to Seoul in the next two days. This is disappointing obviously but there will be other opportunities to visit what Albert describes as a wonderland of fantastic awesomeness.

Watched the second half of the presidential debate last night and felt like McCain was really drilling home more rhetoric than substantial points. I continue to be concerned by the fact that this technique has worked repeatedly by presidential candidates over the last few elections and it has somehow become unreasonable to call bullshit on people in debates. I guess this is one of the (many) reasons that I wouldn't make a good candidate.

Me (in a debate): "Well, in response to your point, YAAARRRRGGHHH!!!!! BULLSHIT, BUUUUULLLLLLSHIIIIIIIT!"

OK, computer is about to die.

Grind hard.

Handle Hammers With Elegance

Sitting in the lobby at YouTube right now watching the screens flash by some sampling of video content.  Without audio, it makes absolutely no sense.

Meeting DP up here in San Bruno so he can give me a ride to SFO which is within shouting distance of where I am sitting.  Headed up to AK to handle some BI over the weekend.  Back early Monday after a red-eye.  Good times.  Looking forward to being home even if its just briefly.

Not particularly looking forward to the five hours of flying that is required to get me there and the five that it will cost to get me back on Sunday night.  Its interesting though that after flying across the ocean the five hours up to AK does tend to clip by fairly quickly.  One complaint I do have about the AK flight is that it doesn't generally have good entertainment options.  British Airways had some pretty legitimate movie screens in the headrests on the SF to London flight.  I ended up watching like 5 movies on the way back because I was trying to stay up.  The Forgetting Sarah Marshall movie, or whatever its called, was the best one.  I was pretty surprised by this because the movie looked absolutely horrible from the previews.  Watched Ironman again and was happy that it was watchable again within a couple months of first seeing it.  Watched Kung-Fu Panda too which was pretty legit but unfortunately represents Jack Black's continued decent into mainstream movies without edge.  Get that paper though Jack.  Speaking of Kung-Fu Panda, when I was in China one of the nicknames I managed to pick up was "panda" mainly due to my dead on panda impression and good nature but also perhaps due to my rotund physique - jerks.  When Kung-Fu Panda came out people basically though this was the most awesome thing ever.

Dan's here, grind hard.

I Gotta Handle My B I and I Do

Shuttling to Mountain View right now. Brain is operating at about 50% capacity mostly due to the extended vacation but probably also due to the time change. Stayed up for like 26 hours yesterday in order to deal with the jet lag thing. So far this has worked well but I was basically a vegetable last night. We will see how I am doing this evening but I was able to get up at 6:30am this morning and slept through the evening pretty well.
Overall the vacation went well. Got to see about a ton of stuff in Bavaria and Austria. A lot of it would have been pretty difficult to swing in the time given if Kia's grandparents weren't there to shepard us around. I have about a billion photos which I will try to boil down to a reasonable amount before posting. Photo management is one of my least favorite things. This trip gave me an additional appreciation for a few things.
German beer - pilsners mostly - which I wasn't a huge fan of going in but I am going to chalk this up to the bottling and importing process messing with the taste of German beers in America.
German dislike for other Germans. There were some pretty clear lines drawn prior to and during my trip around the incompatibility of southern and northern Germans but was further emphasized during my trip.
WWII scars on the country. For some stupid reason I assumed this was going to be much less apparent but anytime WWII, Hitler, Nazis, etc. came up it was a pretty damned sore subject. Lots of my jokes over the last two weeks ended with a "too soon?" - just kidding.
Its going to be an interesting week at work to say the least. Short one, so just a few days to ease back into the swing. This is good. I need to get my head back in the game a bit.
Speaking of the game, I took some brutal fantasy beatings during my trip to Germany. Dave brutalized me in the Fantasy Baseball finals and I lost two weeks in a row in my Fantasy Football league. Party's over, I'm back bitches.

Ninety-Nine Luft Bahloons

Autobahning it again. Something about blogging at high speeds I guess. The blackberry trackball has lost its click functionality which is annoying but doesn't entirely make the phone non-functional. Good thing too Google Maps has been keeping us on track this whoe damn time.
Just drove out of Salzburg where we will be returning to tomorrow to take the Sound of Music tour - Rick Steves says its quite delightful. We have arrived in Priem am Chiemsee which is a little town on a lake about a half hour outside of Salzburg where I believe we intend to stay. Hallstatt was quite picturesque and nice to walk around in. For some reason there were about a billion Japanese tourists in Hallstatt which was a welcome change of pace in the cultural homogenity which is the Bavarian/Austrian countryside.
At dinner last night Kia's grandparents accidentally ordered a souffle for dessert which was as big as my head. It was awesome and they ate every last bite.
The fall weather, note I am blaming the weather and not the beer consumption, has given me a bit of a headcold but I am going to Jaigermeister my way through it. Birthday on Friday and we should be headed toward Munich and Oktoberfest for the weekend. Grind hard.

The Hills Are Alive...

OK, that was a little weak with the lyrics, but shit, I am in the middle of Bavaria and the closest thing to modern music I have heard was Forever Young this morning at breakfast.
I am flying down the autobahn in the backseat of a rented Peugot station wagon on my way to Hallstatt, which is actually in Austria, not Bavaria. The trip has been a lot of fun. We have seen a ton of stuff (3 castles, 2 lakes, 3 grand churches, 1 Hitler house, about 20 mountain villages and, at last count, 2,952,652 cows). Beer with lunch is quickly becoming my new favorite habit. Going to bed early and spending an hour eating breakfast are competing for second. I believe the wifey and I are the youngest people in most of the places we have gone which both makes me feel awesomely with-it and surprisingly spry. Well, we are off the autobahn and I am missing all the scenery.
Smell ya later.

You Tie My Hands, What Am I Supposed To Do?

On the shuttle. Now only most observant readers would realize that I shouldn't be on the shuttle right now but instead getting ready for a day of work in the SF office because of my flight in the early evening tonight to Munich. So why, pray tell, am I on the bus this fine morning? Well, I needed something to do with the car during my vacation so I drove it south, parked it at work and hopped the early morning shuttle from Mountain View to San Francisco. So I have spent the last two hours on the 101. Oh well.
Working from The City today and I have m day planned out already. Need to maximize my efforts to ensure that I get everything done that I have planned. Its going to be a bit tight.
In Fantasy news, I have made it to the finals of my baseball league. Finals in fantasy baseball, like most fantasy sports suffers from the fact that the playoffs are really at the end of the regular season, where many teams are benching their star players in anticipation of the playoffs. I'm hoping my teams are playing for playoff spots, most of them are out of contention though. Zoinks. Football was less successful this week. Carson Palmer is fast becoming a liability on my roster. Peterson had another bonkers game though.
Getting off the shuttle at Embarcadero. I may try to update the blog during my vacation, but it will be limited at best.
Grind hard.

Jump In the '64, Get Out, Cock the Hammer, Then Kick Down The Door

Man, had to post this little tidbit. (credit goes to Josi via the wifey for pointing me at this one *Updated with the actual Comedy Central video)



Uh, y'all got sizzerved. Oh, and Sarah (Palin this time, but happy birthday Wampler) if you have a kooshy cabinet position open for me, let me know girl. A to the motha fucking K homeboyyyyy.

I Call These Rappers Baby Seals 'Cause They Club You To Death

Another late night in Mountain View tonight.  Tomorrow will be a bit late too because of some video conferencing with another office.  Today I was late because, frankly, I am going on vacation next week and I have a shit ton of work to do before I leave.  'Twill be a magical vacation though.  I'm considering smashing my blackberry before I leave in order to ensure that I am not tempted to check my email.  I am going to end up checking it anyway though.  Isn't T-Mobile from Germany or something?

Man, the late night commute is something else though.  Flying towards the city.  About to get off the freeway and I left Mountain View roughly 35 minutes ago.  For those of you not from and/or currently residing in the bay area, this is completely insane.

Ended up winning my fantasy football matchup this week.  Adrian Peterson came through for me even if Carson Palmer was a big fat dud.

It turns out that I am going to miss the basketball final in our Google league.  My prediction on this is that it has abolutely no bearing on the outcome of the game though I will be a little sad to miss the victory lap that I imagine Nate taking around the the court doing his characteristic old man shuffle jog.  My coaching advice - pass David the ball in the paint and play Dougherty aka "The Human Highlight Reel" at least half the game because, damn, that is just some fine basketballing.  

Tomorrow is Sara's birthday, happy early birthday Sara!  On a related note, I was thinking that I may have to edit all of my blog entries about my friend Sara and change her name from "Sara" to "Sara, not Palin", but I am going to assume that my readers are advanced to pick up on the subtle presence of the silent 'h' on one of their names....

OK, grind hard.

You Rhyme Depressin', You Haven't Learned Your Lesson - The Issue I'm Stressin'

Monday down, four more days to go. Then one more day next week, then 14 days of vacation. Boo ya.
Work was OK today but I was there longer than I wanted to be. Headed back on the later shuttle this evening which is on track to put me back home only marginally later than the 5:30pm shuttle. Man, 101 traffic is painfully bad if you are on the road at 6pm. I keep talking about adjusting my schedule to account for this, but I probably never will.
Following the Minnesota/Green Bay game on the Yahoo! ticker right now and Adrian Peterson just scored on a 3 yard touchdown run. I picked Adrian first in our work fantasy draft this year which was a bit of a risk but so far I am feeling pretty good about that. Tom Brady (picked second) is potentially out for the season with a knee injury. I am playing against the guy who got a bargain on LT picking third this week and with Adrian Peterson already scoring me 17 pts this game, I am feeling pretty good about my chances - I was up 8 pts going into the evening where I have AP playing and he has Selvin Young and Minnesota defense.
Speaking of fantasy sports, I need to set my pitchers in my baseball league playoffs this week. OK done. Lincecum pitching against AZ tonight. Timmaaaay.
So, another "tribute" (read: mock-tastic) post along the lines of Sophia's affront to Alaskan sensibilities - Palin would be appalled - was posted by a coworker.   OK, you have jokes, not bad.

Caught up on a bunch of Sex and the City this weekend, the wifey and I are almost all the way through the series and I have to say the production value and the sriting of the show has gotten much better as it has progressed.  

OK hopping off the shuttle.  If you haven't checked out Mock, Paper, Scissors yet, do so, its pretty funny.

Make that money but don't let that money make you.

I Bust With An Exuberant Lust For Life

Hurtling towards the city and its roughly 8:30pm. That puts my work hours committed today up to roughly 12. Boo ya.
So the topic of discussion at work the last few days - at least with me - has been Sarah Palin. Here are a few stats on Sarah.
From Wikipedia:

"Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996, then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as Ethics Supervisor of the commission."

"As of the 2000 census, (Wasilla's) population was 5,469, but the 2005 estimate gave a population of 8,471"

"In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest (playing the flute),^[7][8] then finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant,^[9] at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award.^[6] Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College — now known as Hawaii Pacific University — in Honolulu for a semester in 1982, majoring in Business Administration. She transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College.^[10] In 1987,^[11] Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science.^[12][13]"

Children's names: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig

Number of votes she received in 1999 Mayoral race in Wasilla: 909 (73.6%)

And of course:
"Governor Palin announced on September 1, 2008, that her daughter Bristol was five months pregnant and intended to keep the baby and marry the father of her child, 17-year-old Levi Johnston.^[134][135] Bristol Palin is a senior at Wasilla High School.^[136] According to Wasilla High School Principal Dwight Probasco, Levi Johnston plays on the school's hockey team but does not attend the school. Johnston is home-schooled through the Mat-Su Correspondence Study School in Wasilla, Alaska.^[137]"

Seriously, do I have to explain why this person is a bad idea to be anywhere near the president's seat let alone one tossed blood clot (in a dude who looks like he is about to pop half the time) away from the presidency of America? Give her a job in the cabinet. Let her be press secretary, something with lots of air time.
I think Mrs. Palin actually took longer in college than I did. Joe Bidden will tear her to shreds if they do a VP debate but (according to my mother) this actually worked to Sarah's advantage in the Governer's race in AK because voters thought that she was getting "picked on" when the other candidates tried to get her to state a position.

OK, whew, rant over. Good luck Sarah.
Weekend was good. Relaxed a lot, watched Tropic Thunder, which was pretty funny, but not awesome. Finished the Watchmen which was awesome. The ending was good, I was pretty worried about how they were going to end it, and they did a good job. I hope they do a good job in the movie version of capturing the cultural climate in which it was set (80s Cold War). I heard that Alan Moore (the author) walked off the set and told the producers to take his name off the movie. Yikes.
Hopping off the bus.

I Roll Backwood Trees With That Emerald Green

Uh-oh, serious face.

So, my computer battery is about to die but I just had to throw this little tidbit up. According to the NYT McCain just selected Alaska Governer Sarah Palin to be his VP candidate. Nice little shout out to the 49th state but let me say this - I ain't voting for him. Congrats though Sarah. You are fast becoming the AK version of Gavin Newsom.

If you claim to be from Alaska and don't have a picture of a salmon you caught you might as well be from frickin' Seattle.

I Said A Banana Nutriment Man

Thursday over. Man, the week has been moving fairly quickly which I am definitely not complaining about. Long weekend coming up and only a couple more full weeks before I jump on a plane for Germany - or Bavaria as apparently some people consider it a different country than Germany. Headed into Munich and then spending the next two weeks traveling the German countryside. My dad put in a request for a cuckoo clock mainly to harass his clients but I am willing to take other orders as well. Apparently some of the towns we are going to go through are famous for their taxidermy of small rodent like animals and dressing them in lederhosen so there are options. It turns out - completely by chance - that I will be there for Oktoberfest. Uh, hello, this is going to be frickin' awesome. I wrote an essay in my college English class about how Oktoberfest really represents the best type of party because of the beer/meat/polka/lederhosen combination. I stand by this. I talked with Jan - visiting from Dublin - about Oktoberfest and he dryly remarked that it was great if you were into drunken American tourists.... Translation - its going to be awesome. Anyway, I am pretty pumped to be getting on a plane and not answering email for a little while.
Got my 49ers tickets in the mail this afternoon. They look legitimate and it turns out the face value on the tickets was like $98 so I am feeling pretty good about the $35 including fees I paid for them. I mean, it is preseason but it should be a good time. This is reminding me that I need to search for some tickets for October when my brother is in town.
Speaking of the 9ers, I got my Frank Gore t-shirt in the mail today and was reading his diary on the 49ers website. Lets just say, he's a better runner than writer. I wonder if the players actually write this junk. Ol' Frank probably has some agent crony who does this type of thing for him - shoot, I would. Actually, I heard Dan has a similar method for posting on his blog - he just transcribes them to his housekeeper Consuela. "Consuela - that picture of Kobe isn't an animated gif - I want it to be an animated gif!!"
Started playing Assassin's Creed last night. Its pretty fun so far and the graphics are pretty cool. I can kind of tell that I won't make it through the entire game, like as soon as it starts getting hard I am going to end up losing interest. The movement animations are pretty awesome and I spent a good 45 seconds jumping in and out of the stacks of hay.
So I think I mentioned that I got a new crackberry from work the other day. As a part of this new phone switch I have managed to lose all of the phone numbers that I entered into my old phone. So, old contacts from my sim card were cool, but any number I put into my phone after changing to the last Blackberry has gotten lost. This has already and will continue to lead to awesomely awkward moments where someone text messages me and I have to be like "uh, who the hell are you?" Sorry Burger.
Go hard in the boat.

I'm Pro-Zapatista, Pro-Cuba, Viva! Pro-La Raza Saying Fuck La Migra

Things have been pretty ape.  The shuttle has been a little wacky lately - they have been using smaller buses the last couple days - I blame Sara.  Thanks for ruining my commute Sara.
Work has been busy this week despite my manager being out of town and I have managed to not get a ton of sleep.
Fantasy baseball is winding down and I am finishing the season pretty strong.  In first place by 4.5 games in the last week of the season.  Playoffs start next week.  Trying to sweep that junk.
Been watching Coup videos on the way home.  If you aren't familiar with The Coup, don't feel bad, actually, scratch that - feel bad, real bad.  The Coup is Filthy McNasty.  Here is some evidence.  


Classic joint. Real old school West Coast beat - Shalbs, I'm talking to you - and some punchy lyrics.


Bad ass beat, Boots kills this one and shit, the video is just sick.


The first YouTube comment says "this song makes me want to dance AND punch a cop in the face. love this shit.". Enough said.


Last one. Bouncy beat and relatively low budget but high impact animations.

See, now you know.
Going to the 9ers game on Friday with Allan (Mountain) Du. Trying that nickname on for size. I tried it in China but it just confused everyone. Got some pretty decent tickets on Stub Hub - we will see how that works out.
Been reading the Watchmen graphic novel on the bus and in the evenings before bed. I have to say, I am pretty obsessed with it. Its really well written and the art, while not particularly edgy, is sort of understated and awesome.
OK, in the city. Grind hard.

My Choice Is What I Choose To Do And If Its Causin' No Harm It Shouldn't Bother You

It was a wacky week.  One day at SES, one day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  Didn't finish enough work to feel like I accomplished enough to relax this weekend.  

Left the office late tonight because of the Fantasy Football Draft.  I am pretty pleased with my team but I am noticeably WR heavy.  Its not my fault, the draft just crumbled like that.  That said, I scored first pick this season - the second time in three seasons - and picked Adrien Peterson.  We'll see.  I could be in big trouble if Reggie Bush or Adrien Peterson go down.  I need to stay on top of the free agents wire.

Headed to the Giants game tomorrow with Allan and the wifey.  Looking forward to that.  It will be my first game of the season.  Hopefully I can hit up a couple more games before the end of the season.  I still haven't gotten to see Lincecum pitch.  Speaking of which he is currently blanking the Padres through five.  That guy is a freaking beast (not that blanking the Padres is a real indicator of this, but still).  

Thinking about going to the Guitar Center this weekend to check out keyboards.  You know, the kind that is shaped like a guitar and you can rock out on.  OK, not really, but if people have recommendations feel free to let me know.  Something decent, medium sized with some bad ass Samba beats pre-programmed.

Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and watching more of season two of Weeds.  Its a pretty decent show.  Better than I expected.  Kevin Nealon is insanely hilarious on the show, in my opinion he is funnier than he ever was on SNL.  

OK, hopping off the shuttle.  Stay out of trouble this weekend.

Domino Effect, Arts and Crafts, Paragraphs Contain Cyanide

OK this post is going to be a little YouTube heavy, so what?
Headed back to the city from Mountain View a little late this evening. We had our playoff game today and my team (aka the people who let me hang out with them after they win basketball games) won which puts us in the semi-finals. I am pretty pumped about it and we played a team we barely beat the first time around. So far in the playoffs we have just been playing teams we have already played so we kind of have their scouting report together. Next couple of games might be a little different. Anyway, it was fun and I scored a couple points. I am tipping the scales on my injuries/points ratio in my favor....
A quick video game update - I have given up on Bioshock. No, not because "harvesting" small children was disturbing (it was though) but rather because I fired the game up last night and it had lost my saved game somehow and moved me back like two levels. Two levels? That was like 3 hours of my life. I sent it back to Gamefly and I am hoping my hard drive just had a little hiccup - yeah right, how often does that happen.
Its foggy as hell in the city.
Here are some classic videos:


Fat Joe is ballin'!


One of my favorite Wu videos and songs of all time.


My favorite Killah Priest song. No video that I could find but the song is bonkers. I know I said this before but if you haven't checked out Heavy Mental do so immediately.
Hopping off the bus. Dougherty just sent me an angry text message because I missed our annual photo booth session at the Google Dance. Sorry Dougherty, I will make it up to you at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Thursday.

Everything I Hear On The Radio Is Hillbilly Hood

On the shuttle. Sitting next to Sara so she is getting a preview of the blog content.
Spent the day at SES. It was the second time I have been on the first day of the conference with no intention of going any of the subsequent days. The first day of the conference is generally less well attended than other days and because the expo (schwag booths) aren't set up people generally aren't as apeshit excited about stuff. Anyway.
Weekend was good. Watched a bunch of Sex In The City - yes, I have already admitted to liking this show. Also watched a bunch of Olympics over at Nate's house. Basically, I burned myself out on the Olympics watching the women's marathon. Fun was had none the less, and beer and burgers were consumed.
Ordered the Watchmen graphic novel from Amazon and it arrived today along with a Japan travel book. Am I going to Japan? Maybe, I hope, but no plans as of yet. Amazon shipped me (and billed me for) two copies of the graphic novel though but a willing coworker took it off my hands, or will take it off my hands tomorrow when I collect his ten dollars. I'm pretty excited to read it though. I will update the blog with some kind of a review when I do.
I've been playing Bioshock for the last few weeks and taking my time with it. Its a little scary for my tastes but its pretty bad ass. Graphics are really good and the story is pretty engaging. I think I am on the last level.
OK, going to get off the shuttle. Grind hard.