DO WANT

bookstore in cathedral.

I wonder if Jesus pays the utilities.

greatest promo blurb ever

from inside the jacket of Mystical Life of Jesus by H. Spencer Lewis.

Formatting preserved for bonus hilarity.

Look at the Table of
Contents-
See the fascinating
chapter titles-
and-
Each chapter is complete.

Who among us has the inner strength to resist such a potent siren song?

studio portraits

with funny captions.

What did we do all day before the internet?

winner!

me: would you like a bag?

them: Um.....I don't know.

awesome super slo-mo ants

dig it!

RIP Netscape 1994-2008

AOL discontinuing Netscape.

I remember when everyone used Netscape except Unibomber-style crazies who lived in the woods and rode modified exercycles to power their computers.

This makes me feel old.

Viva Pelf

LA Weekly top ten play.

Now all he needs is a movie sale to cap the year.

suggestions for a holly jolly christmas

Try to prevent your wife from getting violently ill for 15 hours straight.
Nothing dampens the holiday spirit like a downpour of vomit.

On the mercantile front, I got a sweet new waffle iron & some excellent dvds.
What were y'alls hauls like?

Oscar Peterson 1925-2007

RIP.

Merry Xmas Inc.

(click on photo for full glory- this is my xmas card next year)

Xmas, the annual x-ray of our consumer society.
Hardened cynic that I am, this year still had a few shocks for me.
The universal media adoption of the Black Friday tag for the day after Thanksgiving for one. A phrase more redolent of ruined traders leaping from on high than sugarplums, and an interesting burp from the collective subconscious of our superficial and unreflective corporate media.

Then came the wave of BIG SALES starting at 4am(!) on BLACK FRIDAY.
A few years back there was an SNL skit making fun of the Mach 3 razor. If three blades is better than two, then surely 4 is better than 3, 5 is better than 4, etc etc. (proof that satire is a tougher gig than it used to be, not long after the Quattro four blade razor came out, follows by the Fusion five blader).
This is the same kind of deal. If you're going to open at 4am, why not go to the logical extreme and just open at one after midnight on Thanksgiving day, like those nerd-friendly late night movie premiers.
I fear the first THANKSGIVING DAY Christmas sale is an inevitability.

The third was a wave of ads (Best Buy being the most egregious offender)offering up a corporate consumer fantasia of flatscreens & console games as a replacement for the messy complexity of family and friends, useful only as cardboard cutout gift-targets, something to be knocked over by the tee-shirt cannon. The most awful of these had a family doing a drive-by of Grandma, pulling up to the curb for a quick, grudging wave before peeling out for home, because, you see, they couldn't open their techno-wonder gifts until after the boring, obligatory family visit.

It was supposed to be funny, I guess.

That the desire for something more persists in the face of this corporate assault is heartening.
The annual screenings of It's a Wonderful Life, a socialist parable that loses none of its potency when sponsored by Pepsi & Ford. Dickens's savage attack on unfettered capitalism A Christmas Carol is a point of light in the commercialized darkness.

But the value of the season has to be mined by hand.
I had a good run when I lived with Bobo years ago, we'd throw together an Orphan's Christmas at Little Havana, which was a stopgap measure but one that brought me back to the holiday. The past few years we've carved out a cozy spot with with my bro n' sis in law and the Fiend. We take care of the family obligation stuff earlier in the week then bunker down with them for a Christmas Day chock full of those old timey virtues our culture pretends to celebrate while spiking the eggnog with rat poison.

This year I'm making overnight waffles for breakfast. On the drink menu are mimosas, French 75's & pomegranate cosmopolitans along with the de riguer mulled cider & nog. We'll screen our traditional holiday lineup with a few supplements. We'll all watch the Fiend open her presents & go crazy, we'll take naps, Tim will grill some sort of poultry for dinner to pair with Teresa's garlic mashed potatos & we'll all eventually fade out absolutely sated in body and spirit.

My christmas wish is that everyone's holiday be as full of joy and goodness as mine, shining like firelight though a living room window into the cold outdoors.

Game Review of the Year

courtesy Ivanus

its not very fun, though you can press P to urinate on an elk carcass which is pretty neat

stealth torrents

Deluge BitTorrent Client, an encrypted anonymizing client for Bittorrent.

When ISPs like Comcast persecute customers who torrent tools like this become necessary.

Chuck Norris sues, says his tears no cancer cure

bad news, Ivan.

Norris, whose real name is Carlos Ray Norris, claims in the suit he is protective of what his name is associated with. He has recently made U.S. headlines for backing Republican presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Chuck Norris is so literate he can debunk his own statements before the end of the paragraph.

boooooooosh

Few of life's delights compare with watching the Fiend dance around the living room to the Tundra Rap.

christmas cheer for Woody

Circut Shitty crashing and burning.

Weng Went Rap

I think this is old, but just in case:

end of year awards: a new beginning

Since Team Fortress II *finally* came out, my interest in this year's vaporware awards is high.

Vaporware 2007: Long Live the King

attn ANNER

We're hitting a party tonight for visiting compadres James e Courtney, so don't wait up.

=D

Ships vs. Big Waves

The photos are from a nearby quaint fishing village notorious for it's dangerous harbor mouth.

Pogues escape the censor's knife

clicky clicky.

It warms my heart to hear Fairytale of New York described as a "popular Christmas hit".

Holy E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Batman!

Galaxy Blasts Neighbor with Deadly Jet.

YIKES!

from the "more is better" file

eeeek.

Actually, the only surprise is that it's a UK phenomenon.

the extra mile

Taking DT's dictum the pregnant woman is always right perhaps too much to heart, I found myself in the kitchen at 5am making a tray of tater tots for the wife, who was enthroned on the couch watching The Apartment for the 4,629th time.


Now I'm at work & tired. =(

uncommon sights

Walking to work this morning I passed a homeless fellow with a saber standing at attention in the middle of the basketball courts.

when fundies collide

Chick vs the Mormons!

Elf School!

More reason to love Iceland.

Since, according to Magnus, only 4% of Americans believe in hidden people, it seems quite logical when our small group attending Elf School questions the need for his institution. It’s obvious we don’t know the statistics, as our Elf Master is quick to point out. Today, 54% of Icelanders believe in elves and hidden people and a full 90% of the population "takes notice" of this shadow community, which is said to number anywhere from 7000 to 20,000 inhabitants.

I'd swap our fundies for their elf-worshipers in a hot minute.

remix

The wife despised this runaway hit and applied her own title.

mainstreaming

w00t crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary

w00t!

bobo home movies

!!!!

speech

Now this is how you deliver a Nobel acceptance speech.

Ask any modern storyteller and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration, and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, to fire and ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.

The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.

I shamefully confess never having read one of her books.
In my professional life Lessing is one of those well regarded writers you continually pass over, sinking passionate defenses of her talent by noting the leaden unsalability of her catalog, aside from the very marginal Golden Notebook (a copy of which sat on our shelves for a year before the recent Nobel buzz hit).

But that is a hell of a speech.
I'll pick up one of her novels the next time opportunity presents.

observations

Wandering through the mission plaza where our piebald Santa's Village squats every holiday shopping season it occurred to me children see only the dazzling lights and colors of the spinning carousel, not the empty faces of the dessicated meth addicts running the machinery.

And that America has a large population who never evolved past that stage of development.

book title of the week

attn IVAN e BOBO

Granny saved by eating her daughters poo.

What, you don't believe me?

The treatment involves liquidising a sample of faeces from a close relative of the patient, and feeding the liquid down a tube into the stomach.

I love how they spell feces.

Xmas Feel Good Story

Health problems of slaughterhouse workers attributed to ingesting pig brain mist.

Because I don't want Ivan cornering the market on holiday cheer.

netflix

Taking advantage of a free trial right now.

I'm liking the 'watch now' streaming video thing. The selection isn't huge, but I won't look complete runs of Kolchak the Night Stalker and Johnny Sokko & His Flying Robot in the mouth.

And the documentary section is outstanding.
We screened Hiding and Seeking last night. The production had a very casual home movie feel, but it packed a mighty punch.

I really liked the music, which was incongruously excellent for such a shoestring production. Turns out it was composed by avant jazz maniac John Zorn, and the band had Marc Ribot & Trevor Dunn in it. Wild!

fun with baby name books

last night's winners-

Dagmar

Cherokee

And my addition, presuming mixed sex twins, Comanche.

Cherokee & Comanche O'Farrell....can you feel it?


Also, Blodwyn is the new Emma.

Winterbells

cute xmas-y flash game.

I suck at it, as I do all flash games, but it's a fun time waster.

good news

Real news, not the usual bloggorhea.

Erin is six weeks pregnant, Hallelujah!


It was supposed to be under wraps until xmas, but the sound of her keeping a secret makes dogs howl for miles around and it wasn't long until people followed suit.
Arguably an even worse liar than secret-keeper, she fessed up to her nearest and dearest and now the ponies are out of the corral and trampling the carrot patch.

Address congrats to her facebook, which other than the iPod is the only technological achievement of the last 30 years that fails to excite her murderous rage.

there is a god

Hearts of Darkness finally available on DVD.

Best 'making of' documentary of all time, narrowly beating out Burden of Dreams, which started strong but faded when Les Blank ran out of money during the interminable production time.

sanity

Now this is how you fight piracy.

Some folk are finally getting the picture.

WE LOVE DEVRITSKO!

plz to watch more Black Books with us soon.

TIA.

in which we narrowly avoid being held hostage

By serial bank robber The Mutton Chop Bandit

Just before 3:00 p.m. this afternoon in downtown San Luis Obispo, a man wearing fake sideburns and a fake goatee calmly robbed a bank.

"He's around here somewhere," said one Central Coast resident, Lee Anderson.

This happened literally seconds after we made a deposit and left the bank.

Viva Mailer

Award from Beyond the Grave!

Elevating the stature of every club he joins.

golden age of communism

old-timey Soviet retro-future space art


And more cool stuff.

bogus!

according to DT's link Ivan's blog, habitat of whale boners, Hindi music videos, goatse and sundry other horrors rates thusly:

Henceforth I will be imposing a 10 word limit on my posts, with the bulk to be made up of Youtube links and pictures of hedgehogs suckling newborn kittens.

demographic survey

Books most requested by borderline crazy demi-homeless locals:

chess books

bibles

dubious

DT sends along this link for rating your blog's level of edumacation:

BS!
I used 'existential ennui' AND 'archetypal psychology' this week, plus I have a deranged snow monster in my banner!

WTF do they want from me?!

best thing ever

the Mighty Boosh.

can't get it here (yet), but our friend Hussein has the hook-up.

Anyone out there with a region free player, the first two seasons are out in PAL format.

requests

series of odd queries from a woman so grotesquely fat she was spilling over the sides of her mobility scooter like a melting ice cream cone:

"Do you have any books on those things they used to do at the fair, those silhouettes, they would cut them out of black paper?"

"Nope, sorry."

"Well, how about anything on cake decorating?"

"Right over here, in the cooking section."

"How about Candymaking? Do you have anything on candymaking?"

"That would be with the decorating books."

"Do you remember when shops used to sell flavored popcorn? Do you have any books on making flavored popcorn?"

"Uh.....no."

turkey postmortem

Dinner was fantastic.

The crescent rolls it took three days to make turned out good, although there's room for improvement. I might do another batch for xmas.

The gravy was spectacular, thanks mostly to the brother in law's 13 pound bird.
He mixed up a crazy middle eastern spice mix and BBQ'ed it with a pan to catch the drippings. My sole regret is not doubling the recipe, as the gravy boat went down like the Titanic.

The green bean casserole was also tasty, but not without some 'first time through the recipe troubles. It's another one I want to try again.

And the bar was lovely....it's amazing how much better drinks taste when you're mixing them in a convivial environment with a surgical array of specialist tools at your disposal. The vintage wood-grain ice bucket I picked up at a thrift store 10 years ago finally lived up to its full potential.

The winner of the evening was a Cosmopolitan made with pomegranate juice & citron vodka. Festive as all get out, and delicious in spite of being 9/10ths alcohol.

I got a couple of pix, I'll throw them up on flickr tonight.

yiddish

The wife's habit when suffering from a certain tone of existential ennui is to watch The Apartment as many times as necessary to placate its worst excesses.

A recent late night viewing generated this list of Yiddish words used in the screenplay:

schnook
mushigas
nebbish
schmeer
mensch

Apropos of nothing really- choose your own ending for this post.

the pessimists view of Black Friday

warning: PDF link.
Still worth taking a look at.
clicky

Also, given its manifold preexisting meanings the corporate hive-mind adopting Black Friday as the slogan for this annual orgy of consumption is an interesting quirk of archetypal psychology.

holiday indigestion?

Please consider the possibility of a GIANT HAIRBALL.

Awseomest Facebook Photo, round One

Place your vote in the comments.
Winners will eventually face off in a battle royale (with cheese).

Your host:


Devritsko:


Ivanus:

T DAY MINUS ONE

Have a happy one everybody!

We're going low key here- an intimate feast with the bro n' sis in law and our niece.

She was very excited about helping mama decorate the house.

"We will have lots of fall leaves......and I will dress as a squirrel!"

Can't wait to see it.

I'm on the hook for green bean casserole (via Cook's Illustrated, not the back of a soup can), crescent rolls & gravy. The wife is baking a pumpkin pie and an apple-cranberry number. And of course I'm bringing gin, and Citron vodka by request- the Burl has some zany holiday style drink she wants to make.

A full report will follow- until then, nobody rupture anything!

graphics

sweet collection of free use design stuffs

Modern Britain

Exploding Bladders on the rise in the UK.


potential victim, artist's conception

responsible opposing viewpoint

in order to balance out the unchained masculinity of the last post, here are laptops as imagined by 8 year olds.

Name: Mandy
Age: 8
How often do you use a computer? Five times a week.
What do you like to do when you’re using a computer? Play games and write stories and poems.
What will computers look like in the future? Well you see, if we had whole days to work on it, and bigger paper, I think we could make it way more detailed.
Who is better at using a computer, you or your parents? Games + me = good. Parents + trying = bad. I am better at using games and if you guys try them, you get crushed.
[ After being told this interview would be published on the internet ] “I’m going to be popular! I should make a blog button, right now.”

gun pr0n

recoilless auto-shotgun

8======D~~~

title of the week

Sexual Techniques During Prescribed Continence

From the introduction:

To the Physician, Psychiatrist and Family Counselor

There is a great need for instruction in marriage when, for various physical reasons, it becomes necessary for the doctor to advise his patent to abstain from sexual intercourse in the usual manner- vulvovaginal.

Gripping stuff!

the facebook

Anner peer pressured me into joining.
It's like Myspace, only not programmed by demented gnomes on a meth bender.

If you're on the facebook, drop me an invite.

a new frontier of worksafe goatse

ANIMATION

internet oddities

one shoe scenes in movies & TV.

Just what it sounds like.

more shenanigans from China

Recycled Condoms!

wonders of the internet pt 724

Behold men who look like old lesbians!

Industry Leader in Worksafe Goatse

best reaction evar

Customers will often gape, wheeze or otherwise affect astonishment when faced with the financial toll of their literary gleanings in the cold light of check out.

Today, one transcended the genre and reached for the stars.


me, after totaling up big stack of fiction:
That'll be $29.63

tiny blond sorority gal, proffering credit card:
JESUS CHRIST!

judging movies by their cover

Am I the only one who thinks the trailer for Beowulf looks like an ad for a video game?
An old video game?

The cut scenes from HL2 look better than that crap.

just close the internet

I don't think they can top this.

obituary

Norman Mailer RIP.

I didn't like most of his stuff, but he was an interesting cat and an iconoclast in the old style.

I'm biased, but his best book was The Fight, his insider's coverage of the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and Foreman. In Ali he met a self confidence and an ego as great as his own, which prevented him from overwhelming the story. I remember the Executioner's Song as being good, but I read it 20 years ago.
I should check out his first novel, too. I hear good things.

Has anyone seen any of his flicks?

Oh, and then there was that little faux pas with murderer Jack Henry Abbot.
Great book, but c'mon.
Note to future generations- the artist is not the art.

HOSED on PIE

I get home last night, nostrils wide for the delicious aroma & homey warmth of apple pie, and am instead greeted by a frigid, baking-free house and two nearly passed out gals in the living room meditating on the wisdom of Alex Trebek.

"We're too tired to bake!" they lament.

"We're HUNGRY!" they complain.

So.
Instead of wallowing in delicious apple pie on a frigid fall evening, I end up making dinner for a pair of laggardly game show addicts.

Hrrrumph!

genre

blaxsploitation.

Oddly thin on the movies themselves, but the coverage of soundtracks is deep and wide.

filmic reminders

No Country for Old Men draws nigh.

Also, I found this cool site with reviews of HK cinema past and present.

They're finally releasing a Twin Peaks box set that includes the pilot.

And yet another version of Bladerunner.
I'll get it for a couple of reasons, none related to the promise of a super duper final ultra killer extreme directors cut.
One, the print used for the original release and the Director's Cut sucked ass. For this movie digital remastering is a big selling point. I'd be happy if they just cleaned up the existing Director's Cut, but that's not in the cards.
Two, the extras on the multi-disc Alien release were stellar and I'm expecting something similar.

I'm mostly against people rejiggering movies that are already set in the public consciousness, but the tone of this one was so badly mangled by the studio-enforced voice over & stock footage happy ending they tacked on I gave it a break. I doubt I'll take quite so well to whatever further alterations Ridley makes with this iteration...but c'mon man, digital remastering!

2nite

Devra is coming over to bake an apple pie with the wife.

The smell of delicious baked treats should draw me out of my bone-littered cave on the internet.

Hopefully someone brings vanilla ice cream....

inscriptions

on the ffep of a copy of New Elementary Latin by Ullman and Henry, in neat block print:

In Case Of Fire
Throw This In

EMERGENCY ANNER UPDATE

my connection has been down the past few days, on top of a fallow Halloween week, and Anner made her displeasure known.

So, emergency update before bed! And before my connection takes a dump again!


news from the Pelf:

Dudes, I'm driving on the 210 -- my cell rings -- IT'S STUART GORDON
-- the he-man legend who directed RE-ANIMATOR. I called him to pitch
my zombie opus JOE ZOMBIE a few weeks back and had forgot all about it
-- he was asking me to tell him about it -- I was off guard and
didn't do the best job, but he still said to send it his way and
someday he may read it...not a quote, but the gist of things.

This is especially amazing because we saw Re-Animator on the big screen (back when there was still such a thing as a B Movie, and you could still see them in theaters), and he got hassled and carded by the ticket gal which made us miss half the credits and sent his blood pressure through the roof.

It was hard for me to blame her, though.
We did after all spend that entire summer getting him into the drive in for the 12 and under price.

I don't doubt the simmering rage engendered by this and similar incidents (the Denny's waitress who brought him the child's menu, etc etc) fueled his journey to a place where you get cell phone calls from youthful idols who want to hear about your zombie romantic comedy script.

your tax dollars at work

Not a dream, not an imaginary story!

that looks like some shit a couple of 12 year olds would come up with and draw on their tee-shirts with Magic Markers after a Ghostbusters bender.

SCAT

attn ivan e bobo

title of the week

sage advice

courtesy bobo:

trouble

customer:
Um...yes....I was wanting to inquire...whether you had a section, ah, for computer system operating books...um?


This just can't end well.

more alan moore

complete comic from his excellent series 1963.

Creator interviews
More proof the Internet is a hotbed of obsessives with too much time on their hands.

some of the very entertaining fake ads ads Moore wrote for the series.

news post

Since the part of the state where lots of my friends live is aflame, here are some informative linx.

complete list of evacuations and road closures

LAC interactive map of fires

Dango's flickr, with firefighting action shots

some random stranger's Flickr Fire Set

Stay not on fire, Southland friends!

When Dinosaurs Attack!

more trading card goodness from the banner dudes.

These were after my time, but I'm happy to see Topps was still fighting the good fight against taste and restraint into the 80's.

holiday banner

via these cats

I bought packs of those stickers from the gas station mini-mart in my misspent youth, and now they decorate my blog- the glory of the internet made flesh.

gin review: Boomsma Genever

the official line:

Boomsma Geneva is one of Boomsma’s oldest products. Since centuries geneva is the most popular drink in Holland. This pure geneva is distilled according to a secret family-recipe since 1883. It is a double distilled Geneva made from a blend of 100 % pure grainalcohol and grainwine. This Geneva is made without using any artificial additives. Light and elegant in taste with a subtle flavour of juniper berries, coriander and a hint of citrus. Best served well chilled or on the rocks.

Dutch gin seems to have developed in parallel with the British variety, while maintaining its own identity.

I dig it.
It holds its own in a G&T, light and fruity but with a strong finish. It's very fresh tasting and smells intriguing. Like gin, but slightly different.

At 16 bucks it's priced competitively with midrange gins like Beefeater, and I'll be adding it to my regular rotation. A top drawer beverage.

gin review: Boodles British Gin

A solid gin lacking any standout attribute.
Very smooth & light, a pleasant drink but not one that lingers on your palate or in your memory.
I'd say it's comparable to an everyday gin like Gordon's.
Considering it's nearly ten dollars per bottle more expensive, that's not a ringing endorsement.

not afk yet

why LA is America's greatest city

I expect to see lively comments on this article upon my return, so LA natives start your engines!

Anniversary

Traditional Gifts: Bronze or Pottery
Modern Gifts: Linens or Lace

8 years married means we've been together ten years.
!!
In a just and equitable society, this would qualify the wife for a hazardous service bonus. Instead, she gets Friday Night Ram-Podge

We're off to scenic Morro Bay to celebrate with dinner on the water, a sandy stroll past the rock & a relaxing evening at one of the local seaside fleabags.

Oh and breakfast at Dorn's, where they make their own corned beef hash.

AFK until Thursday...

more Bearforce 1

maybe I should be the guy in pink for Halloween....

be careful out there

yikes!

This tale sums up both the allure and potential danger of iFriends better than anything else I've found.

game names of the day

courtesy vgng:

Sensual Frisbee Tycoon

&

Giant Manlove 1942

/edit
went back for more and got
Mavis Beacon Teaches Pony Uncensored

0.0

crafts

I'm unilaterally declaring CRAFT NIGHT at Megan's.

The theme is Mod Podge, nature's miracle substance.

Here is a graphic to stoke your artistic fires:

When: duh!
Where: Megan's
What: Mod Podge

PODGE & dinner will be provided, everything else is BYOC (Bring Your Own Crafts).

Let's get it rolling next Friday.

lolcats vs Bladerunner

clicky

heeee!

name generator

this time for video games.

My first result was Rogue Hang Glider Smackdown, which is top drawer.

I can almost taste the gameplay!

/edit
went back for more and got Sid Meier's Funk Conquest, which qualifies as brilliant.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOBO

I celebrate your nativity even though you're too lame to have a party.


Bobo at 40, Artists Conception
if the artist was Devra, it would look much better

Gin

I picked up a bottle of Boodles British Gin during today's sojourning.
Watch this space for impending reviews.

So far, I like the bottle a lot.

Devra Content

the Little Bee turned an idle musing at the recent Shins concert into this high quality graphic, uploaded it to cafepress and turned it into a shirt.


Artist's note:

I'm super proud, because I did the whole thing on illustrator without stupid live trace. From scratch.

10,000 Baxs using 10,000 copies of Illustrator could labor for 50,000 years and end up with this:

I guess that's why Devra is a talented artist, and I just have a blog.


This has been another edition of Why the Internet is Awesome.

book title of the day

ran across this one at a thrift store and was sorely tempted to pick it up.
Fortunately, the wife used up all our impulse buy mojo on a white leather jacket from Nordstroms, circa 1973.

It doesn't amaze me that someone would list it on amazon, but it does amaze me that they'd bother to scan and upload a picture of the cover.
Thank you, anonymous book scout!

second best cover blurb of all time

from Bad Wisdom by Bill Drummond & Mark Manning (aka Zodiac Mindwarp).

A monumentally sane project carried through, blood and hair, by madmen.
- Iain Sinclair

Not quite At Swim-Two Birds, but closer than I thought I'd ever get.

mysteries

How did this



father this?


the mind boggles.

review

Wife on the Shins:

"They were really good!"


in depth update:

"Their harmonies are much prettier in the real world."

Also she reports that Simon picked up two vintage western shirts that look "really cute".

This has been a Baxblog concert update.

recovery

Ok, I'm over the epic collapse of the Padres and I've come to terms with the implosion of the Chargers. Back to blogging.

It's been the wife's Birthday Week, a tradition of her brothers that has gradually spread through the rest of the family. His efforts to promote Birthday Month didn't get traction, but Birthday Week is firmly entrenched.

The celebratory caravan stopped last night at Koberl.
I like the location a lot- I liked it when it was JP Andrews, I liked it when it was Charlie's, I liked it when it was Blue. Ok, so I didn't like it when it was Madision's. That was the fault of the a-hole manager and the 400 televisions they glued to all the walls, not the building.

Quickie review:
The food was excellent and the wine was stellar.
The bar was less impressive- my Bombay Sapphire & Tonic was flat and didn't taste much like Sapphire. I sent it back. The replacement's tonic was only 3/4ths dead but still didn't taste like Sapphire. I don't expect a bar to measure up to the high mixed drink standards I set at home, but tonic needs to be fizzy and you shouldn't try to pass lesser gin off as Sapphire, because some people will notice.
C'mon now.

The wife ordered a cappucino with the dessert course, and it literally tasted like lukewarm, stale Folger's with milk foam on top.
I've had better coffee at a truck stop in Wasco.
Much better.
And it only cost me a buck.

How is it even possible to make weak, watery espresso?
It tasted like something from a rest home cafeteria.

note to self:
stick to the wine list


The Fiend devoured more than her share of the desserts and it was like someone hit the Fast Forward button. Nobody could keep up with her the rest of the night.

Sorry Burl! =(

Tonight the caravan rolls down to Santa Barbara for a concert by The Shins.
Watch this space for a relay of the wife's review.

sports break

Trevor Hoffman and Norv Turner will both be drinking my hot urine in the afterlife.


That is all.

snippets

You haven't seen Grease until you seen it with my niece sitting on your lap providing a running commentary.

New 'final' version of Bladerunner is coming out soon. I'm not so interested in whatever story tweaks or revelations arise, but I am excited to get a high quality digitally remastered copy. The 'directors cut' that's been out forever is graphically substandard. Also the extras should be epic- the bonus discs on the super duper deluxe Alien from the box set were incredible.

Ridley Scott is a guy like Frances Ford Coppola...they both made astonishing movies until they gave up fighting The Man over artistic decisions and just started cranking the handle.

lolchtulhu
taking lolcats to the timeless frozen void beyond space!


The post on the show is about half done.
I had to enjoy Grease last night & have been buried under an avalanche of books today.
I'll get it done eventually.

attn GERN

Meyers-Briggs results made relevant.

I know how you like these things...


Apparently I'm a Conspiracy Theorist.

Beneath the calm, collected exterior of the INFJ lies the horrible reality of someone who has seen The Truth.

The wife is an Idealist

The INFP is a dreamy, imaginitive, idealist, capable of finding the good in anything or anyone, even something as foul as Newark, New Jersey. INFPs are sometimes dangerous to the well-being of society as a whole, as they are prone to adopting subversive and destructive ideologies like "The world should be fair," "People should treat one another well," and "You know, 'Friends' is a really, really stupid television show."

Spot on!

What an odd pairing we are.

dice

I don't usually hork stuff from Boing Boing, since whatever they post is assured to penetrate 99% of the Earth's population, but I couldn't resist this Shaggy-looking mofo rocking the dice cups.



I said gawt DAM!

In an effort to bring loyal Baxblog readers more, I offer budding dice stackers this helpful turorial:

cooking

top ten food books y'all should own.
Happy coincidence, a copy of Physiology of Taste translated and annotated by MFK Fisher just came in.

The list is a bit piebald- the real action is in the comments.
One more thing to love about the internet- so-so content being vastly improved by an active readership.

he said, casting a jaundiced eye on non-commenting readers...

trip part one

We took off around noon and drove straight to the Getty.

Eight bucks well spent!
Who says hereditary oil oligarchs contribute nothing to society.

We spent several pleasant hours perusing exhibits & sitting on the patio.

I finally met James Ensor (Belgium's famous painter).

I liked this Géricault study for the central figure on The Raft of the Medusa, and spotted the original of a painting familiar as the cover of a Signet Classics book. As a sucker for symbolists, I ate this one up with a spoon.

Oddly, the wife bonded with this Degas portrait of a neurasthenic relative.
Such a mystery!

Megan was mad for these flesh tones.

I don't remember any displays of enthusiasm from Simon- he must hate art.

There were two exhibits of photography, a goddamn vast Weston retrospective and selected shots by Luc Delahaye that were amazing. The life sized print of Taliban Soldier was especially striking, but all of them were exceptional.

I made it through about 1/4 of the Weston exhibit before Museum Fatigue set in and I needed to sit down & space out for a while. I love his work and there were many (many, many) spectacular photos, but the sheer volume of them was blinding.

What's that Stalin quote?
One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic?

Well, one masterpiece is a masterpiece, a room full of masterpieces is a headache.

My favorite picture in the Weston exhibition wasn't by Weston.
They had a small room for the work of some friends and contemporaries and I was floored by a Minor White print (frustratingly, not the one featured on this page).

I'm coming around to the museumgoing philosophy of deciding what you want to see ahead of time and ignoring the rest, or just giving it a quick once over. Even a small exhibit flirts with sensory overload- a big retrospective like this one is guaranteed to knock over any but least sensitive viewer.

Up next: the show.

comments

attention pat and dave:

however y'all are commenting is posting via the Blogger comment system, which I don't use (too much spam).

I get an email notification, but the comments themselves are being exiled to some electronic netherworld.

mime news

Marcel Marceau.....dead at 84.

geek alert

good interview with Alan Moore, mostly about the genesis of Watchmen.

In a previous life I was excited about the idea of a movie helmed by Terry Gilliam, back before Hollywood drained the life out of him.

I'm less enthralled by Watchmen- a Zack Snyder film.

Snyder tells the superficial story well, but the specialness of Watchmen is it's multiple layers.

A fellow who remakes Dawn of the Dead while remaining ignorant of its roots as a parable of consumerism amok shouldn't be allowed within arm's length of Watchmen.

behold

the Iron Hymen!

WTF Book of the Week

Living with HorsePower!

subtitle:

Personally Empowering Life Lessons Learned from the Horse.

show

Pitchfork delivers pics of the show from much better seats than the ones we were in.

Bastards.

Tunes

Back from LA, trip report & photos soon to follow.

Right now I've got a sweet link for music lovers.

As little regard as I have for hip hop/rap, I love the primordial funk it mines and I see a lot of LP's on that site I need to track down.

Also, the dude from LCD Soundsystem looks exactly like my pal James.
EXACTLY!

new costume for Simon

Stephen Hawking has been dethroned by a brilliant new idea that doesn't require a wheel chair rental:

Young Bob Dylan!



The resemblance is uncanny, and Simon already has the harmonica brace.
Tease the hair, add a pair of dark shades and he's good to go!

The only question now is which of the local crazy homeless people do I dress as this year?

Hmm, decisions decisions...

meme

I don't really get these things, but I've been tagged which I guess means I have to do it or a gypsy will curse me with lumbago for running her over while getting a hummer.

Or something....like I said, I don't really get these things.
They are to the LJ set as chain letters were to previous generations.

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."

I'm going to violate rule 3 because I'm too lazy to do any of this "tagging".
If you're interested for some reason, post a reply in the comments....but I doubt anyone who reads this blog has any secrets from me.

Well, except maybe DT.
He's a mystery wrapped in the belly of The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

habits/quirks/facts about myself:

1: I compulsively update a blog that is read by maybe ten people.
2: I own a 1st edition of Farewell, My Lovely in a complete original dust jacket that I bought for a buck at a thrift store a few years back.
3: I'm going to see LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire at the Hollywood Bowl this Thursday.
4: I'm a hardcore boxing fan who regularly downloads European fights to satiate my unholy lust for the Sweet Science.
5: I just bought a pink linen shirt off the sale rack at Banana Republic.
6: I'm old enough to remember when Banana Republic was still a supplier of faux-safari wear, not Gap for the Well Qualified Buyer.
7: I know the truth behind all of Hudson's meme answers.

Mmmmm hmmmm.

tasting

A lovely evening was had.
Hussein even appeared from the mists bearing wine & victuals, a vision wreathed in Parisian scent and a certain sign that the evening was blessed.

Timmy made a delicious variant Nicoise salad with beets, corn and a splendidly multifarious dressing.

Aside:
Good dressing is so simple to make, I wonder at the existence of bottled dressing. Even more mystifying is dried packaged dressing mix....which is all the work of making it yourself, with the added bonus of using cheap, stale ingredients that taste like chemicals.

We had a marvelous cheese platter, recreating our mountain experience.
Burl picked up a gnarly Stilton & a wedge of caramelized onion cheddar (on which Hussein commented- "I like it! I'll admit, I tried it first just to get it out of the way, looking like it does...but it's really quite tasty!"). We brought a round of Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk and a fantastic imported salami, both of which were incredible.

The wine was a mixed bag, but serviceable.

After our meal the Fiend demanded that we watch The Odd Couple, her latest obsession ("let's see the Koo Koo Pigeon Sisters!").

A fine evening, one we'll doubtless reprise soon enough.

cheese n' wine

having a tasting with the broinlaw, sisinlaw and fiend tonight.

a report will follow.

overheard

an old gal browsing the sale cart:

I made bread....and even the cats wouldn't eat it!

a conundrum

Is a site really "undiscovered" if it appears in an article from PC Magazine?

glasses glasses

I'm picking up a couple of pairs from these cats, a $20 pair and a few $8 pairs for sporting about in.

Results to follow!

Devra was extremely happy with two out of the three pairs she scored, and at these prices I'll take a similar success rate.

In a world where you can drop $200 at Sears during a half off all frames "sale", I'm intrigued by the concept of a true discount provider.

intimations of mortality

While entertaining Devra last night with dinner and a screening of the lush, impenetrable Peter Greenaway masterpiece Prospero's Books (long out of print and never available on dvd- where's the justice?) it was noted that the year of Devra's birth (in Israel, no less) was the year the wife spent in Italy.

It's strange enough to consider a world without my niece, who's only 4 years old.
How much odder to live half a life in a universe without Devra.

With the passage of time thus imprinted, I urge anyone in the area to stop by the store today, where I am at perhaps the height of my late life appeal, bedecked in a new rose linen shirt, hipsterati jeans & euro-sandals.

Polyester cardigans, tan slacks & orthopedic boots are just around the corner, so get and eyeful of this while it lasts!

/edit
visitors so far:
Burl and Fiend
Fiend was more interested in dusting the shelves than my sartorial splendor, but Burl noted my stylish shirt without prompting.

Full Metal Santa

R. Lee Ermy vs Santa's Workshop
NSFW

Gin Update

Tanqueray No. 10 is on hold for now.

It runs $29.95, and I have a hard time picturing any gin being twice as good as Sapphire.

I'll put a bug in Santa's ear and cross my fingers.

attn SIMON

Stephen Hawking in Legos.
visual reference for your Halloween costume.

stolen from ivan

why I love the internet pt 453

I worship at the fetid gore-streaked alter of the mad genius who produced this hallucinatory marriage of Lemmy and Mel Gibson.

music: Go! Team

these cats rip it up live.
which you wouldn't really expect, given how sample-centric their records are...just goes to show.

Gin Review: Citadelle

I took a bottle of Citadelle gin with me to the cabin, eschewing the de riguer 750 milliliters of the Queen's Tears I generally sport on my trips to the tamed wilderness.

I was fortunate enough to have about 1/4 of a bottle of Bombay sitting in the liquor cabinet for comparative purposes, so this is about as objective as can be.

I led off with a Citadelle gin & tonic, my benchmark drink.
It was very pleasant, with a mild, floral taste & a quick finish. The juniper flavor was much less pronounced than with most gins of my experience.

When measured against the Sapphire and tonic I chased it with Citadelle came up decidedly short. The Bombay was brighter, with a deeper, more complex flavor and a longer finish.

This impression held up across a round of Gin gimlets and another of French 75's.

While Citadelle is pleasant enough, there's no reason to tip it over the superior (and cheaper, by two bucks) Bombay Sapphire, which remains the gin to beat.

Next up, I'm looking at Tanqueray No. Ten.

As usual, a full report will follow.

before I forget

the quote of the trip came courtesy Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen.

To live is to war with trolls.

This truth exerts a profound gravity as you traverse the miserable vistas of Porterville, Wasco & Lost Hills en route home.

The full quote, courtesy of my pal the internet & the Ibsen Society of America,

To live is - to war with trolls
In the holds of the heart and mind;
To write is - to hold
Judgment Day over the self.

Behold the Turkish Butt Plug

Forced to improvise our own drink recipes at the Cabin by a marked lack of internet, the Turkish Butt Plug was born.

combine two shots of chilled espresso with a healthy measure of vodka, a slug of Kahlua & cream to taste. Pour over ice.

In a perfect world, substitute Turkish coffee for the espresso.
And I suppose milk or half and half would do in a pinch.

It was darn tasty, and kept me conscious for an entire viewing of Krakatoa, East of Java, a film so terrible only the inebriated or insane survive its awful embrace.

back

reports to follow.

for the nonce, content yourself with a stack of additions to Flickr.

real last pre vacation post!

this time I mean it!

headline from the local fishwrap spied on my walk home:

Most Local Bridges OK

My confidence is soaring!

one for the road

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Overlooked Books

clicky clicky.

There are vast numbers of books in the world, and I'm sure a large portion of absolutely unknown titles are fantastic. Here, some notable authors advocate for personal favorites.

Michael Chabon's choice looked interesting enough for me to track down:

The Long Ships (1941-45)

Frans Gunnar Bengtsson

I personally guarantee that, however infinitesimally, the world would be a happier place if this wonderful novel, in its excellent English translation by Michael Meyer, were restored to print. A tale of Viking adventure set in the 10th century, what makes The Long Ships such a delicious book is not its thrilling escapes, battles and rescues, nor its lifelike, morally ambiguous heroes and villains, but the droll, astringent, sly tone taken by the narrator toward the characters, particularly with regard to their relations to God, gold and sex. It's a world classic of the literature of adventure, on a par with The Three Musketeers and The Odyssey, its avowed models.

The only one off the first page I've even seen is Amanda and the Million Mile High Dancer by Carol De Chellis Hill. Few things on earth sound less appealing than overtly feminist SF, so I passed.

I'll add a recommendation from the wife to this list- Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schultz.

I found a copy of his complete fiction at a thrift store once. This is my recommended edition, decorated as it is with his spectacularly atmospheric illustrations.

Tales from the Bookstore

Ripped from yesterday's headlines.

click image for readable text

impending vacation

We're heading off to the cabin tomorrow, to a pristine internet free landscape of trees, rocks, streams & the occasional feral beast.

Posting will by necessity be non-existant, but fear not dear reader.
Soon enough flickr will be full to bursting with portraits of the wild and reports of positively decadent feasting will fill these hallowed pages.

Fun Sale of the Day

Our Ancestors Came From Outer Space by Maurice Chatelain.


Space Ancestors, artist's rendition

A New Gin

I'm going to audition this French offering on my upcoming vacation.

A review will be forthcoming.

Sweet

Who just sold Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma by James Allison Brown & Philip Phillips?

MMMHMMM, that's right!

A nice boost leading up to next week's vacation at The Cabin.

ok it's official

we live in the end times.

18 Lawyer Attack

clicky clicky.

I lament the passing of the heroic age when problems like this were solved by swearing revenge and kicking asses until either honor was restored or they ran out of ninjas to pummel.

Potential GOAT

Best blues album title of all time?


You be the judge!

Tales from the Bookstore

they're addictive like potato chips!


click image for readable type

attn BURL

DIY Letterpress.

Build your own and use it to print stuff!

also, thanks for the Chicken Parmesan....it was darn tasty!

True Stories

click image for readable type

A disconcerting thing to hear echoing through your neighbors open window in the wee hours.

man burning burning man update

Support your local hippy arsonist!

Tales of the Bookstore

back by popular demand.


click image for readable type

and speaking of testicles....

clicky clicky.


Sexy!