adrian is rad

Five all time great laughs:

• Buford- it’s not the laugh he has when someone tells a joke, but the laugh he specifically reserves when he tells stories. It’s a stifled laugh in the midst of a sentence when he’s setting up something particularly amusing. “So we’re at the circus [stifled laugh] and there’s this guy, right [stifled laugh], and he…”
• Jesse – He is a perfect example of the contrast between a big, tough exterior and a giggling laugh.
• John V – When John would laugh really hard, he’d transition from his normal laugh to a higher pitched laugh. I think it rubbed off on me.
• Colin A – I don’t know if Colin still does this but in high school he’d laugh in a moderately contained manner but his nostrils would flare and contract rapidly during his laugh. I tried to imitate this; it’s inimitable.
• Jeff M – Jeff has a few laughs, but my favorite is the mouth-fully-open boisterous one when he finds something really funny.

According to wikipedia’s list of statues by height:

1. Statue of Liberty depicting Lady Liberty. Located in Liberty Island, New York, it stands 46 m (151 ft) tall.
2. Our Lady of the Rockies depicting Mary. Located in Butte, Montana, it stands 27 m (88.6 ft) tall
3. Golden Driller depicting an oilman. Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it stands 23 m (75 ft) tall.
4. Tribute to Courage depicting Sam Houston. Located in Huntsville, Texas it stands 20.5 m (67 ft) tall.
5. Dallas Zoo’s giraffe statue depicting a giraffe. Located in Dallas, Texas it stands 20.5 m (67 ft) tall.
6. Christ of the Ozarks depicting Jesus. Located in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, it stands 20 m (65.5 ft) tall.
7. King of Kings depicting Jesus. Located in Monroe, Ohio it stands 19m (62 ft) tall
8. Praying Hands depicting praying hands. Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it stands 18.2 m (60 ft) tall.
9. Vulcan statue depicting a Vulcan (mythology). Located in Birmingham, Alabama, it stands 17.1 m (56 ft) tall.
10. Jolly Green Giant depicting Jolly Green Giant. Located in Blue Earth, Minnesota it stands 16 m (52.5ft) tall.

Not a very impressive list, I think. I mean, the Jolly Green Giant and a statue of a giraffe are within our top ten?

Absolutely ridiculous is the planned and partially completed Crazy Horse Memorial Statue, which when/ if completed will stand at 172m, placing it as the largest statue in the world. Then again, it was started in 1948 and the designer died in 1982 so who knows if it will ever be finished.

In order of mental energy required to start, from least to most:

• email to a friend or acquaintance
• phone call to friend or acquaintance
• email to someone I don’t know
• calling someone I don’t know, but is expecting me to call
• cold calling someone I don’t know

This list is not comprehensive.

1. Why is United giving us sporks? Sporks are not good for eating yogurt nor spreading jam on a croissant. I hold up the spork to show to the person in the next seat. “I know”, she says, but it comes out as an acknowledging “I knooooooww” in that drawn out British way. She’s Brazilian-born but grew up in London and speaks like a proper Brit. She’s just been visiting her brother in the Mission and her sister in Palo Alto. We commiserate about the weather.

2. A pub called the Jolly Cricketers in a quaint English town outside London. My uncle takes me out to traditional English pub for lunch but we both order thoroughly untraditional lamb and feta burgers which are delicious. We’re joined by my uncle’s old friend Tom; he does not order a lamb burger. I also down two pints of hand-pumped and only moderately below room temperature ale. They’re good, especially one called Rebellion. Looking back one could ascribe some significance to this trip according to the name of that beer, but really I had just tried Tom’s and liked it.

3. Row fifty two on an Air Bus 340-200 at about four in the morning. The lights are out. I’ve woken up for some reason. My shoulders shudder and my eyes stream messily into my eye cover. Part of it is doubts about coming to SA and part of it is doubts about leaving what I had. But the small hours are not a time when one can tell which are unfounded and which are not.

4. Passport control. The passport agent says “good morning” and that’s about it. Stamp! stamp!, in that nice rhythm that they do–and I’m through. If she’d been thinking about the book I would write about my experience, perhaps she could have said something with greater significance like “Welcome home” as she handed me back my passport. But she didn’t. It’s yet to be seen whether her omission is prescient or not.

Two beverage cap mishaps:

1. March 2002, Orangina bottle. Decided to follow the instructions to “shake well” despite forgetting that I’d removed the cap. Computer lab left sticky.
2. July 2009, Coke Zero bottle. Tried to drink out of it despite the cap still being on. Knocked cap into teeth.

I’ve got a G1 phone. It’s pretty good and has plenty of good applications for it.

I have a couple suggestions for new apps:

• Location reminder. Where’d I park my car? Get out of your car, click ‘remember location’ and, using the GPS, it puts a dot on the map with your car’s location.
• Holga-style camera app: Something like this, perhaps.

If I had copious amounts of free time, I might dig into the developers tools myself, but I have other things on my mind right now.

I’m against taxis on principle. They’re usually really expensive and I should just walk or take a bus if it’s available. But occasionally the other options aren’t good/ available.

• 3/22/09 2am, Austin, TX (getting back to my friend’s house after a show at SxSW after he’d left earlier)
• 3/20/09 1:30am, Austin, TX (getting back to my friend’s house after a show at SxSW after he’d left earlier)
• 3/12/09 1:30am, San Francisco (getting home with Dave and Tina after a show because their flight was early the next day)
• 2/17/09 10pm San Francisco (splitting a taxi back from the airport with coworkers)
• 2/16/09 6:05pm Lahaina, HI (with two others, getting back to the hotel after a 20 mile hike and 2 bus rides because the last bus/ shuttle stopped 6-7pm for the driver’s dinner)
• 12/17/07 5pm Taipei, TW (from work with two coworkers at their insistence)
• 12/09/07 1am Taipei, TW (post-subway hours trip back to my hotel)
• 12/3/07 8:30am Taipei, TW (to work after a bus came that was too full to fit on)

That’s right, I don’t think I took a cab in 2008.

Also, I have no idea why I thought I should make this list.

I’ve noticed that there are a number of instances where I use different prepositions when some other people use “on”:

• “on line”: e.g. “Where are you? I’m on line for the movie.” I say that I’m “in line”.
• “on accident”: e.g. “I bought two of the same thing on accident”. I’d say that I’m did that “by accident.”
• “on the…station” [I've only heard this once, I think] e.g. “We are now on [the] Civic Center station.” I would say that we are “at the Civic Center station.”

I find it strange that the language hasn’t converged on one usage by this point.

I don’t know how to do this at all in one post. I spent the last 12 days in Boston, NYC and DC.

The best part was seeing people I don’t get to see very much. Everything else places after that.

Tourism and whatnot:

• New York Transportation Museum is awesome. It’s in a 1930s subway station. On the tracks are 20 or so vintage subway cars from across the history of the New York subway. It’s pretty great.
• Brooklyn Museum is pretty good. A decent collection but definitely a second tier museum
• Coney Island is a lot of fun. The Cyclone’s first drop is heart-stopping and the sliding cars on the Wonder Wheel are pretty amazing.
• Baltimore Orioles vs. Texas Rangers. We had good tickets (3rd row of the bleachers). It was a good game and Camden Yards is a pretty great ballpark.

Music and Film:

• My friend played backup as part of My Brother the Welder’s first show ever. It was a good time. Good tunes and impressively precise for a first show ever.
• Lars and the Real Girl is an amazing movie. Touching and hilarious and awkward all at once. I really liked it.
• American Teen is a documentary following 5 people (and a handful of their friends) over a year at a midwestern high school. I found this very compelling and I was totally engrossed in each person’s stories. It also serves as a lesson in parenting–many of the parents in the movie just say horrible things.
• Shaun of the Dead. I managed to see this as part of an afternoon of TV. It was good, but I think I liked Hot Fuzz better.
• At my friend’s mostly-traditional Indian wedding, there was a really good dhol drummer providing a beat for dancing and the procession. It makes me want to learn yet another Indian double barrel drum.
• Other Music is a good small record store. I liked their selection and the people working there seemed pretty knowledgeable.

Food:
I ate so much food. Where to start:

• Hallo Berlin is still really good for sausage and fine beer.
• Patsy’s Pizza might have drugs in the slices they’re so good.
• Horace and Dickie’s is a fish and chips/ chicken shack that serves ridiculous portions for next to nothing around the corner from the Red and the Black (see below). I liked my crab cake sandwich ($4.80!) and their sweet potato pie was delicious.
• Three brunches in two days: because vacation is for overeating.

Pure ridiculousness:

• At a sports bar in DC on Sunday night, two guys were watching the PGA Chamionship. They were more into the sport than anyone I’ve ever seen. Our dinner was oft-interrupted by cheers or jeers. One of my favorite moments was near the end of the event: “FUCK! FUCK YOU, SERGIO!”
• On the 6 line in NYC, a 30-something black woman got on at one stop and proceeded to preach Jesus (in a pretty compelling and rousing style) for one stop. Then she sat down and read a book.
• While my friend and his girlfriend were disagreeing about something, I asked them if they were fighting. They responded that if they were fighting they would be yelling into each other’s mouths. They then proceeded to demonstrate: they opened their mouths wide, locked them together and proceeded to scream. I fell off my chair laughing.

Okay. That was the trip. Or some of it, at least.

A billboard on the building opposite of my work’s:

15′x22′?? I don’t think so!

As anyone with spacial abilities can tell, that banner is not even close to a 1.46:1 ratio! From the windows and scale of the people, one can tell it is more like 15′x40′.

You can’t fool me, CBS Outdoor Advertising!

CEOs for Cities has an interesting presentation (pdf) of the top 50 cities ranked by various metrics. For instance, Pittsburgh is 49th in the category of “ratio of people reporting attending a cultural event to the number of people subscribed to cable”. (The biggest loser in that category: Nashville.)

Boston and San Francisco both rank highly (#3 and #1, respectively) in the “ratio of ethnic restaurants to fast food restaurants” category.

A lot of the page headings are confusing or misleading but the actual ratio that they are measuring is also listed on the page and I find those are much clearer.

(via the best non-blog out there Scott)

Zante’s Indian Food and Pizzeria. I went here on Saturday. Tandoori Chicken Pizza doesn’t necessarily sound like it’ll work, but it does and really well. It’s really tasty and their drinks are cheap too. I’ll take every one of you (that I actually know) there when you visit. (Note: this is only an offer to take you there, not to pay and in fact, I think this trade seems more fair: I introduce you to a great restaurant, you pay.)

–

SFist points to a Eater SF article about and summarizing points in a NY Times article about over-legislation in SF. SF is pretty crazy it turns out. Here are some of the points:

• Business owners must offer health care, typically a rarity in the restaurant industry except for managers, to all employees.
• Employers must offer 9 days sick leave to all employees.
• Chain restaurants must post nutritional information for all menu items.
• Minimum wage is $9.36, more than $3.50 above the federal rate, and will increase next year.
• Plastic bags are banned from supermarkets, Styrofoam containers banned at all “food outlets.”
• The Board [of Supervisors] wants to fine stores and restaurants that sell items with high fructose corn syrup.
• The Board proposed to prohibit new liquor stores within 500 feet of churches or recreation centers.
• The Board proposed to require permits and insurance for events including weddings, parties, and benefits.
• The Board proposed to fine office buildings that leave their lights on overnight.
• The Board proposed to make all lobbyists wear name tags when doing business.

Some of those I don’t care about: no plastic bags, fine. High minimum wage–doesn’t make any difference to me and it’s expensive to live here.

But other…I prefer products without corn syrup and sometimes go to lengths to avoid them but is it really the place of gov’t to ban them? I mean, this seems like a bit step beyond NYC. Trans fat by many accounts is very very bad for you. Fine, ban it. Corn syrup probably isn’t great but are there studies that show it to be the worst thing ever? (What I’ve read is pretty inconclusive.)

The bulk of my dad’s cautionary advice has been about the following three topics:

1. avoiding going into debt
2. avoiding excess sun exposure/ skin cancer
3. avoiding excess sound exposure/ hearing loss

Reading today, I realized I had an opinion about something that most likely no one cares about…so of course I must blog about it.

For me, the ideal bookmark is a reasonable size, is a bit thicker than standard paper and is plentiful, as I often lose bookmarks.

4 good bookmarks:

1. business cards: I have a box of 500 and I give them out pretty rarely. They’ve got a nice thickness and if I lose the book it’s already labeled. the downside is that they’re a little small and can slide around on the page or fall out of the back cover (which is where I store my bookmarks when I read).
2. business reply cards from magazines: these things are annoying when they fall out of magazines, but they’re always around and they’re a good size and thickness for bookmarks.
3. receipts: I buy usually one book at a time and often keep the receipt in the back cover in case I want to return it, so this is often my default bookmark. they’re pretty thin and often too big so they get crinkled and folded.
4. ticket stubs: a great size and thickness. I go to enough shows, ball games, and movies that these are often around. I get a little nostalgia trip whenever I look at them too.

[click for bigger version]

Gelatin? Really? That’s all I can get in this aisle? An entire aisle of gelatin?

And gelatin is a “frozen choice”?

I have been swimming a mile at a time these days, approximately 1600m, or for ease, 1600 yards (yes, I know they’re not the same). I count in 50 m/ yard increments, 1 length if the pool is set up in the 50m direction, 1 lap if it’s set up in the 25 yard direction, so that ends up being 32 increments.

I often get distracted by the thoughts of the day—one of the best parts of swimming is the time to think—and some days, the hardest part of the swim is keeping track where I am. (Other days, it’s pacing, speed or endurance.)

The three points (or ranges) where I often lose track of where I am:

• 3-6
• 10-13
• 18-21

I lived in Germany during the summer of 2002 and I traveled nearly every weekend. I arrived in Germany May 28 and left August 23. Sometimes I use this blog to put things down that are at the edge of my reach memory-wise, so I can make a record of them. I actually have all of this written down in a notebook, but I can’t find it.

• May 31- June2: Bremen, to visit Colin[1]
• June 7-9: Düsseldorf to visit my Oma[2], Frankfurt to visit Sam Breuning[3]
• June 14-16: nothing
• June 21-23: Solingen, Köln to visit the cousins Füser[4]
• June 28-30: München[5, 7], Bayrischer Alpen[6] for MIT-Germany/ MIT Club of Germany meet up
• July 5-7: Vienne, Strasbourg France for the Vienne Jazz Festival[8]
• July 12-14: Berlin, for LoveParade 2002 and visit with Justus[9]
• July 20-22: Hamburg[10], Lübeck[11] w/ Christian
• July 26-28: Karlsruhe for the “Savage Seven” ultimate frisbee tournament as a part of die Sieben Schwaben[12]
• August 2-4: Romantic/ Clock Road, Rottweil; Stein am Rhein, Switzerland; Rottenburg ob der Tauber w/ Meredith Gerber[13]
• August 9-12: Pittsburgh, USA for Colin and Heather’s wedding. Surprise![14]
• August 16-18: Köln (to see Bugge Wesseltof) and Frankfurt, w/ Sam Breuning[15]

Footnotes:

1. Bremen smells like hops when the wind is the right direction because of Becks. The Schnoor area was neat, with its small and odd houses.
2. My Oma didn’t realize I was related to her for the first hour of my visit; the Alzheimers had started to take its toll. This ended up being the last time I saw her. I regret not having stayed with her for the whole weekend, but at that point I thought I was going to visit again that summer.
3. Sam was a cool British kid also with a German father; he’d been on the Cambridge-MIT exchange. We ended up hanging out a number of weekends that summer. I’ve since lost touch with him.
4. My dad’s cousin (my “Tante”/ “aunt”), her husband and kids (my “cousins”) were all gathered at their palatial family estate in Solingen for a sculpture showing of a local artist set up in their gardens. At one point we all, including the artist, were sitting under some trees eating a snack and they asked me if I liked one of the statues near us. I said, in stilted German, that I did (it was actually one of the few I did). It came out wrong and they made fun. I said “echt!” in vain. At another point this weekend, another cousin-by-marriage of my dad’s who was also visiting announced, after having talked to me for five minutes that I spoke “perfekt Deutsch.” Right…
5. We all met at a Biergarten, all the current students and the MIT Club of Germany members. I was stuck at the Club table for most of the night, which was extremely awkward. At some point I excused myself and snuck over the student table. Seeings as it was social interaction with people I didn’t know well, it was still awkward, but not nearly as much.
6. We went hiking in the Alps and stayed in a rustic ski cabin that one MIT Club member had access to. Sam and I got a ride down with a guy who spoke with a typical German accent except, because he’d spent multiple years as a ski bum in the US, mixed it with ski bum slang and inflection all the time. At the cabin, I learned I was ace at splitting logs with an ax, usually splitting decent sized logs in one swing. During one of our day hikes we stopped at an inn, where a 10 year old kid was drinking a 1 litre “maß” glass of beer.
7. It was the day of the final when we got back to Munich and I had the surreal experience of watching Germany play (and lose) in a World Cup final with 10,000 Germans in a public square where they’d set up screens. Turkey won the consolation match so there was some celebrating. (Note: Turkish is the largest minority in Germany by a factor of 4, at least at the time.)
8. Vienne has a Roman amphitheatre with gorgeous acoustics. Sam knew the mayor of Vienne so we got VIP passes into the events, including into a VIP area the first night where we passed the London Times jazz critic. Vienne was about 450 miles from Stuttgart, a good 7 hours, which we drove non-stop on Friday afternoon, on half a tank of diesel in a pretty amazing VW Passat TDI. We still missed most of the first act. Also, French radio sucks. I bought a CD-tape adapter after this road trip.
9. The LoveParade is a parade along a mile-long route on which 40 heavy duty trucks with world-class DJs and sound systems drive for an entire afternoon. Estimates for my year were 500,000 in attendance. Oh and there were a lot of topless girls there.
10. My (second) cousin Christian lived in Hamburg at the time. He’d stayed with us in America in the early 90s and he was out to repay the favor by showing me a good time. We went out with some friends. On the way there, he’d talked to them and said he was bringing his cousin (”eine Cousine from mir”) with him. We got there and the friend said “this is your hair dresser (Friseur)??” See, they might sound alike on the phone; yes that doesn’t work in English and I don’t care. This was the first night that I drank more than one beer in a night, in fact, probably quadrupling my total beer consumption ever in just that night. The goal was to stay up all night and go to the Fischmarkt when it opened at 6am, but it ended with me falling asleep in a bar at 4:30am, having had multiple beers (mostly Heinikens while watching a crappy, but, let’s be honest, fun American cover band) and a good quantity of vodka. Incidentally, trying to explain complicated concepts in German wasn’t easy, let alone to a group of strangers in a loud bar while intoxicated. And, Malta, I can’t say your name correctly sober either; but you can’t say “squirrel” to save your life, so there.
11. The bells of the main church had fallen and melted from the bombings in WWII. They’d be left as a beautiful and poignant reminder. Lübeck in general is a wonderful small town.
12. “Savage seven” means no subs (the seven you have to start is all you have). Having gotten roped into this at the last minute, I played seven games of no-subs ultimate frisbee in two days. I can still remember the intense pain, mostly in my calves that I felt for the rest of the week. Walking on flat ground and up stairs, my right calf hurt intensely; my left calf hurt similarly walking down stairs. I couldn’t, and didn’t, win. Of course there were 6 flights of stairs between my office and the cafeteria/ train level at work.
13. This was a fun little road trip with another MIT-Germany person; Meredith was in Munich for the summer. We went to some classic historic German places. I also made my only trip to a Switzerland, to the town of Stein am Rhein, which was noted by the “strict” border crossing. “Passports? No, we don’t need to see those. In fact, you don’t even have to come to a full stop. Just roll on through!”
14. After the rehearsal dinner, I had some friends over, got tipsy on Mike’s Hard Lemonades and had to search for the right words to use in English. That I was thinking partly in German was a big step for me and I noted my progress.
15. Bugge Wesseltof had impressed Sam and I with his electro jazz stylings in Vienne. Plus we liked his awesome name, so we drove like maniacs (once again) to get to Köln by show time, only to be disappointed by his collaborative work with a female jazz singer.

Twice yesterday this happened at two different social functions:

Dev/ Kyle: Hi, I’m Dev/ Kyle.

Me: Yeah, we’ve met. I’m Adrian.

Both of these people I’ve interacted with a few dozen times. Do I look different? Why are people not recognizing me?

Which reminds me of a pretty great story. At some point Natalie Portman, who went to the little brick schoolhouse up the road was at an MIT party. She was milling around outside. My friend Will was waiting outside for people so that they could all leave. He’s there; she’s there. Both milling. So he walks up to her and says “Hi, I’m Will.” She apparently grunts and doesn’t shake his outstretched hand.

This was in post-Phantom Menace, pre-Attack of the Clones period; there had been a young Anakin but no grow Anakin yet. He had this intricate plan in which he’d bust his butt and get the Anakin part for Attack of the Clones. On the first day of shooting, she’d introduce herself to him, her male co-star. “Hi, I’m Natalie.” He’d then yell “Oh, we’ve met!” and storm out.

Needless to say, this plan did not come to fruition.

5 odd questions people (totaling 5) in my car were asked by a member of the MPPD after being pulled over for an out left tail light on Sunday:

• “Hey, engineer in the back, what operating system do you use?”
• “Are you brother and sister?”
• “Are you married?”
• “Saving on gas, are you?”
• “What do you have against the regular units?”

And, yes, I’ve replaced the bulb; it’s fixed.

The last week (Tuesday-Monday):

• time in the air: 28 hours
• other time on airplanes: 5 hours
• time standing in lines at airports: 9.5 hours
• other time waiting at airports: 4 hours
• number of airports visited or passed through: 7
• approximate distance in miles sprinted in JFK: 0.25
• number flights missed, skipped, or unable to make: 8
• number of tickets sold to me without tickets being issued: 2
• time waiting for luggage at baggage claim: 2.5 hours
• time in the car: 8 hours
• number of meals with friends: 9
• number of delicious, home cooked meals for which I will be eternally grateful: 1
• number of giant, greasy meals at favorite Boston establishments: 2
• number of absolutely awesome froyos at places claiming to be “for the Gen-Xers” (flavor):1 (reese’s pieces and reese’s cups)

Not all bad.

[This was going to be one post with the above part 1 and below part 3, but it was too much, so I split them up]
There was recently the kottke best links of 2006. Here are some of my favorites from that list (including some I’ve seen/ linked to before):

• How to Care for your Introvert (from 2003; describes a lot of people I know and, well, me) and a current interview with the author
• David Copperfield gets mugged but doesn’t lose any property because of…slight of hand!
• old timey (WWII-era) color photographs of America
• the JFK assassination Zapruder film, stabilized even stranger and freakier
• songtapper tap a rhythm, it tells you the song. didn’t work as well as I wanted, but still interesting
• shiny mud balls only from Japan…and a how-to!
• Amateur a non-piano player or drummer makes a music video with himself playing those two instruments with clever editting
• a photo essay of female soldier in Iraq
• free historical sounds (as mp3s) “I Have a Dream”(MLK) to “Luckiest Man on the face of the Earth” (Lou Gehrig)
• Sheep Market 10,000 sheep drawn by online workers via Amazon’s odd Mechanical Turk service
• crazy aerial photos that look like tiny model cities
• Lake Peigneur disappears a 14″ drill bit made a lake and much of an island disappear
• 1964 New Yorker article on Dylan
• hilariously bad movie pitches
  

  Idea #1:
  What if the Internet Turned into a Were-Wolf

• Photos of European football (soccer) fields very diverse and often in gorgeous settings

This is one guy’s report of 2006, with stats about all sorts of things, from how many beers he drank to how many emails he sent.

I’m inspired. I’ve started a spreadsheet and I’ll be keeping track of the following per day:

• emails sent
• miles travelled
• wikipedia pages read
• beers consumed
• work day?
• photos taken (digital/ film)
• albums purchased
• concerts attended
• movies seen (theater/ netflix)
• hours of TV
• haircut
• shave
• miles biked
• miles ran
• miles swam

Andy (not andyl) is also inspired. He’s keeping track of mostly the same list of things.

I’ve owned the first three and tried the last two at work the other day for a couple hours each. These are all pretty pricey.

1. Sennheiser HD600 open a classic and a benchmark. some of the brightest and clearest sound I’ve heard from a headphone. absolutely flat, though: you hear what’s in the music and it makes nothing sound prittier; if the music sound crappy, these won’t fix it. great for monitoring music while mixing or the like (but bad for recording because open headphones can bleed to the mic). modular cable a plus. openness can be annoying if you want outside sounds to be blocked out. fairly comfortable, can be worn hours at a time.
2. Beyerdynamic DT990 open great sounding, slightly bassy, still very clear. great everyday headphones. the ones with the velour earpads are super comfortable, possibly my favorite in terms of comfort level
3. Beyerdynamic DT770 closed like a closed version of the 990s. Not quite as clear but still sound very clear and nice. slightly bassy. similarly comfortable to the 990s.
4. Technics RP-DH1200 closed fairly clear but muddy sound. fairly bassy and optomized for a louder sound that I’d like. the force both down and in is too high so they’re fairly uncomfortable for longer periods of time. solid construction. Modular cable a plus.
5. Audio Techics ATH-AD900 open Fairly clear sound, but not as bright as the HD600s (probably not as good of a high-end response). Large earpieces that sit too low and the force from the headband is too light.

Overall, I’d say the HD600s are the best sounding, but the DT990s are my favorite everday headphone for comfort and listenability.

I started this thing two years ago today.

The blog stats: 691 posts (0.945 posts/ day on average) and 1,056 comments (1.53 comments/ post; 1.44 comments/ day on average) in 32 categories (21.59 posts/ category on average). At last count, the comment leaders (besides me) were Jesse (130 comments) and Milkshake (125 coments). If you don’t count general (613 posts) or the overall music category (278 posts), the most posts are in music (recorded) (114 posts), sports (97 posts) and music (radio) (84 posts). The fewest posts are in music (photography) (2 posts, a new category) and arts (3 posts).

There are 691 posts and I don’t remember them all, but I think some of my favorite posts are in the list category. Lists like

• 4 things I will be pissed off if my mom throws out
• 2 ways I use senses in interesting ways for personal interaction
• 3 habits I have that probably annoy my friends
• 4 songs that Jesse and I played repeatedly in room 42 and are therefore candidates for the room 42 mix tape
• how to celebrate valentines day right

(that’s right, a list of lists! METALIST!)

I also like posts like how to wash and dry your socks and underwear if your crap airline strands you in Las Vegas when you’re trying to get home for Christmas and a couple of the posts where I wrote about my adolescent or past expieriences, like this one about Roald Dahl’s Omnibus and my fifth trip to Germany. The covers contest has come and gone, but now I have online mixtapes to impose on you.

It’s been an interesting experience. Sometimes I’ll start talking to someone (this happens particularly with dug) about something that happened and he’ll just say “I know, I read it on your blog”. I don’t think I’m a particularly good writer, but I enjoy writing here to some extent and I think my writing’s probably gotten better. I try not to take this place too seriously. After all, it’s just me writing about some crap on the web. There are probably a couple people who read this that I don’t know, but I don’t get an delusions of grandeur here.

So, any thoughts? Any of your favorite posts that I missed? Any particularly good or embarrassingly bad adrianisrad moments?

Just two. I had a short ska phase around the end of psychedelic classic rock and before I really got into indie rock. It’s tied in my mind to Boy Scouts and a few kinds who I talked about these albums with or listened to them with.

1. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Let’s Face It
2. Skankin’ Pickles Green Album

I should listen to them again and see what I think now.

I went to ten [1] (rediculous!) concerts in October, so I was pretty busy there. There were a couple I wanted to write about but didn’t and now they seem a bit irrelevant. Well, I’m going to write what I wanted to say about them, in brief, now:

• Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, October 7: You get to see great artists (Earl Scruggs, Gillian Welch, etc.) for free, but you have to put up with the worst crowds ever.
• The Long Winters at the Cafe du Nord, October 13: What Made Milwaukee Famous was entertaining, the Long Winters were good. John Roderick was very entertaining. I took some pictures and put them here.
• The Hold Steady at the Great American Hall, October 17: They’re a bar band. They’re loud and rawkus. Craig Finn was almost definitely very drunk. The vocals were too low in the mix for a band that I like largely because of the deep lyrics, but it was still a very fun show.
• Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy at the Great American, Oct 31: While I was standing outside waiting for some friends, who walked up to the will call booth but Mark Kozelek. I barely avoided turning into a total fanboy and played it cool. Oh and the show: Will Oldham is a fantastically weird guy. Parts of the show were great and parts of the show were a bit boring.

[1] for real:

1. Jose Gonzalez at EBF, October 6
2. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park, SF, October 7
3. Sufjan Stevens in Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, October 11
4. John Vanderslice at the 750 Pub, Stanford, October 12
5. Long Winters w/ What Made Milwaukee Famous at Cafe du Nord, SF, October 13
6. the Hold Steady at the Great American, SF, October 17
7. Damien Jurado at the Swedish American Hall, SF, October 20
8. Beirut at the Great American, SF, October 20
9. David Bazan at Swedish American Hall, SF, October 27
10. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy at the Great American, SF, October 31

I’m all musicy lately, but here are three more things of interest:

• Sort of an update to that Sufjan @ Zellerbach post: the East Bay Express has an interesting article about how the Pacific Mozart Ensemble got to sing with Sufjan
• TW Walsh is now giving away (free! with artwork!) his band, the Soft Drugs’ latest EP, In Moderation. Solid stuff and I particularly like Defending the Paint (mp3)
• It looks like Dave and I (as Greetings from Johannesburg) are going to enter “Thaw” in Salon’s Song Search Contest

When I first heard about Jose Gonzalez playing at Enchanted Broccoli Forest from a fellow DJ I couldn’t believe it. Why would Jose Gonzalez be playing a weird coop at Stanford? Well it turns out that it was real and being put on by the Stanford Concert Network, which, it turns out, is being run by yet another fellow DJ these days.

The space in EBF where they had the concert was maybe a dining room or a living room. The posted maximum occupancy was 65. I’d guess there were closer to 222 people in there. It was packed and hot and sweaty. I couldn’t see Jose for most of the show.

But the sound was good and Jose played a good show. He didn’t say much and just ran through his songs and covers. He doesn’t have a giant repetoire yet, so he played most of Veneer and most of the covers he plays.

Final four songs:

• Heartbeats (the Knife cover)
• Crosses
• Hand on Your Heart (Kylie Minogue cover)
• Teardrop (Massive Attack cover)

Encore:

• Love will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover)

Pretty dang good final five songs.

So starting Friday, totally crazy 8 days:

• Friday: Oakland A’s ALDS game 3. Jose Gonzalez at EBF, Stanford (to be blogged)
• Saturday: Earl Scruggs, Gillian Welch and Jerry Douglas at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2006 (Day 2), SF
• Sunday: day of rest. (And watching the Steelers)
• Monday: nothing
• Tuesday: ALCS game 1 @ Oakland. Go team!
• Wednesday: Sufjan Stevens @ Zellerbach, Berkeley
• Thursday: dinner w/ Vanderslice, concert at 750 Pub, Stanford
• Friday: Long Winters at Cafe du Nord, SF

In 8 days, 5 concerts and 2 baseball games. Goodness.

So I’ll have plenty to blog about but probably won’t be blogging a lot, probably.

• Took a train across the country (Boston to Emeryville)
• Cycled around Lake Tahoe
• MIT
• Lived in Germany

I did Page Mill Rd, one of the hardest hills around here, for the first time on Saturday (coincidentally so did Palo Alto Cyclist). The sort of triumvarite of hills around here are Page Mill, Old la Honda and King’s Mountain.

The hill part of Page Mill is 7.2 miles long and 2400 feet of elevation. It starts out fairly shallow, like the lower part of King’s Mountain (for about three miles). Then it hits some steep sections:
Page Mill Road (at Los Trancos parking lot 19.25%
Page Mill Road (at Moody Road) 14%
Page Mill Road (lower view area) 15.50%
Page Mill Road (long, steep section) 15.5 – 17

The long, steep section they’re talking about hits right around Gate 3 of the Foothill Park and is about half a mile of steep. It hurts a lot. Then it levels out and even goes down a little bit before the 100 or 200 yard section right before the Los Trancos parking lot. By this point my legs were pretty tired so even though it leveled out a bunch, it was still fairly strenuous.

I’ve had a pretty good riding season. I started out never having gone up Old la Honda or King’s Mountain non-stop. I set some cycling goals through the summer and I did pretty well:

• Old la Honda non-stop
• King’s Mountain non-stop
• Old la Honda in under 30 minutes (and under 29 minutes)
• Old la Honda and King’s Mountain back to back
• Tahoe Century
• biking to SF
• coast ride
• Page Mill

My total mileage for this year (from January through now) is something like 1400 miles.

I wanted to make a list of my overseas/ abroad trips. We always traveled a lot because my parents are from South Africa and Germany and we have relatives in five or six countries (more now) so we were always visiting and whatnot. With my dad’s help, here it is:

• 1982 March-April: South Africa, Holland and Germany, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 70th
• 1984-85 Dec/Jan: England, Gloucestershire, South Africa (the never-ending Christmas presents in 3 countries)
• 1985 July: South Africa, surprise trip for my Grandpa’s 75 birthday (the last time I saw him)
• 1987 April: Germany, my Opa’s 75th; Holland, Düsseldorf, Köln, Nürnberg, Regensburg (Bischoffshof), München (except Frauenkirche inside*)
• 1988 August: Germany, my Oma and Opa’s 50th wedding anniversary, Black Forest, Düsseldorf, London
• 1991 March-April: South Africa, Johannesburg, Kruger Park
• 1992 April: Germany, Aachen, Holland, Belgium, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 80th
• 1993-94 Dec-Jan: South Africa, Hermanus, Pilanesburg
• 1994 July-August: England and Netherlands with Alex, first trip without my parents
• 1995 July & August: Germany, Solingen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Austria briefly
• 1995 October: Germany, my Oma’s 80th in Berlin
• 1997 March: Hong Kong and China with my Mom
• 1998-99 Dec-Jan: South Africa, Vic Falls (Zimbabwe, Zambia), Kruger, Cape Town
• 2000 May: Italy, Alex’s graduation
• 2001 January: England, with Andy Chadwick
• 2001 March: South Africa, my Granny’s 90th
• 2002 Summer: living in Germany, Stuttgart, Behr Group, side trips to France and Switzerland (and America for the weekend)
• 2003 May: Greece, my graduation
• 2004 Sept-Oct: South Africa and Tanzania, my dad’s 60th
• 2005 February: Mexico, Cabo San Lucas
• 2005 April: England, London for my cousin’s wedding
• 2006 February: Mexico, Playa del Carmen
• 2007 Jan-Feb: South Africa, Swaziland, my mom’s “40th”
• 2007 Aug-Dec: living in Taipei, Taiwan
• 2007 September: Indonesia; Thailand
• 2007 October: Hong Kong, China, Macau; Kaohsiung (TW)
• 2007 November: Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo)
• 2007 December: Taroko, Kinmen (TW)
• 2008 February: Zihuatanejo, Mexcio
• 2009 August-December: South Africa (Cape Town, Ingwavuma)
• 2010 Jan-?: South Africa, Lesotho, road trip

The counts are, I think.
Germany: 7
South Africa: 7 (8th in January) 8 11
England: 5
Netherlands: 4
Mexico: 3
Hong Kong, China: 2
1 each: Hong Kong, China, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Italy, Greece, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand, Macau, Lesotho

Averages (per year of my life):
Countries: 1.38
New countries: 0.62 (or one every 1.6 years)
South Africa: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years) (this will lower to once every 3.3 years in January)
Germany: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years)
England: 0.19 (or once every 5.2 years)

*The Frauenkirche Incident as I call it. We’d toured Germany and went to famous churches in every town. By Munich, I’d had enough so I said “I’ve had enough! No more churches!” and sat down outside the Frauenkirche. Much to my surprise my parents said “Fine.” and they cycled in with my brother. I still have not been inside the Frauenkirche. It is on my to-do list.

Note: updated 13 Oct 2007.

Note: Updated 22 Jan 2008

Note: updated 1 Jul 2009.

Note: updated 26 Jan 2010

I have a bunch of friends about to leave for Burning Man so I’ll leave them with…

Five things I’ll be doing while you’re at Burning Man:

1. carefully stewarding my pallor
2. repeatedly watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the TiVo
3. defecating indoors—copiously, often, and without queueing
4. not tongue-kissing a sweaty Java programmer in clown makeup named “Shanti”
5. wearing clothes—lots and lots of square, capitalist, heinous-body-covering clothes

Five albums that I own but somehow have failed to rip from CD:

1. Beach Boys Pet Sounds
2. Low Things we Lost in the Fire
3. Beulah The Coast is Never Clear
4. Mogwai Young Team
5. Pedro the Lion The Only Reason I Feel Secure

Other albums that I missed ripping:
Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol. 1
Rachel’s the Sea and the Bells
Mark Eitzel The Invisible Man
Beatles Let it Be
Matt Pond PA Green Fury
Modest Mouse This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About
Seam Headsparks

from Aquarius:

1. Beirut Gulag Orkestar
2. Sufjan Stevens Avalanche
3. V/A The Sound the Hare Heard [Kill Rock Stars compilation]
4. Ben Gibbard and Andrew Kenney Home Splits Series, Vol. 5

from Amoeba:

1. Built to Spill Keep It like a Secret
2. Built to Spill There’s Nothing Wrong with Love
3. the Long Winters When I Pretend to Fall
4. Nedelle From the Lion’s Mouth
5. Johnny Cash American V: A Hundred Highways

I got “tagged” by judit so I guess I’ll do this…

(Incidentally, I don’t like calling these things memes. I think it’s a misappropriation of the term. I once saw a talk (I think that wally might have been there as well) about the Superman Meme by one of the writers. That is actually a meme.)

8 facts/ things/ habits about myself:

1. I have a hard time in bookstores because all the books on the tables are slightly off of square. I’ll often spend time straightening them.
2. My favorite way of getting somewhere is walking, though it’s not always feasible.
3. I’ve lived with one of my roommates for six years (going on seven) and the other five.
4. I listen to music about ten to twelve hours a day on average.
5. I wouldn’t mind if mushrooms and onions were outlawed for use in food preparation.
6. For a period of a couple years I pretended to be from Canada fairly frequently (Slave Lake, Manitoba to be specific).
7. I’ve received two scholarships to pay for bagpipe instruction.
8. My first love music-wise is oldies music and I mourn the passing of the last oldies-format radio station in the Bay Area.

I’m not tagging anyone. Go ahead and continue it if you’d like.

3 songs or albums that I like whose titles include a state name and a cardinal direction:

1. All Hail West Texas by the Mountain Goats
2. “East Virginia”, version by Damien Jurado
3. “Sodom, South Georgia” by Iron & Wine

Any “North”-state songs or albums? North Carolina or Dakota don’t count. Any other examples for the other (already given) cardinal directions?

• I should go to more risk concerts, fewer good concerts by bands I’ve seen before. For instance, I should see Danielson in a couple weeks and I probably shouldn’t be sad that I missed the Mates of State a couple weeks ago (I’ve seen them 8ish times)
• I’m trying to decide if songwriting taking into account all or almost all of my musical influences is possible. I like a lot of music. I like indie rock, post-rock, old-timey/ early american field recordings, celtic, african, other world music, motown (and other early R&B/ soul), oldies, some hip hop and the list goes on. In the past, I’ve managed to combine some influences together in my songwriting: the Greetings from Johannesburg stuff was largely an experiment in fitting world music ideas into indie pop (”Thaw” is based on the Balinese Ketjak rhythm, “Bitter” has Senagalese sabar drumming, “Nashville” cops a brazilian drumming line, “Drunken” has a 15 beat long beat-cycle). I also combined—in my opinion successfully—motown, indie rock, african drums and a banjo (which I couldn’t really call “old-timey” or country either) on one of the covers contest songs. But really, there’s a ton more stuff out there and floating around in my head. I always thought music had to be segmented a bit. Like Where’s Luke? was the folksy mostly-acoustic group, the Grievance Committee was going to be my post rock band. But many great bands aren’t like that: many of them combine a lot of disparate influences to make their music. I don’t know if I have the ability to do that.
• I’m thinking of trying to write some hip hop instrumental/ base tracks. I’ve been listening to a little bit of hip hop recently. I don’t like a lot of hip hop because a lot of it is a) musically crap and b) lyrically stupid (sometimes well-written but still stupid). Personally, I think a lot of the hip hop paradigms are stupid: songs about smoking pot and being misogynistic toward women aren’t for me. There is some hip hop out there that has good music and that tackles complex issues in the lyrics. I’m getting off on a tangent here. My point here is that a lot of hip hop has crap music and so I’m thinking of writing some hip hop music. I don’t think I could MC well, so I’ll either leave that for someone else or leave them as instrumentals. Any aspiring MCs out there?
• At a certain point I stopped really getting jazz. Most music has tension and release. Often in jazz the tension comes from dissonance in the harmonic structure and progressions. I don’t always find the way this is done in jazz satisfying. (On the other hand, I’ve really come to appreciate some “new” jazz, like Magali Souriau’s “Dersu Usala” which is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard.)
• I mostly don’t like this dance indie rock that is all the buzz (and has been for a year or so). It doesn’t get me going.
• I’m thinking of spinning of my music stuff into a separate blog and turn that into more of an mp3 blog. It’s probably be over at the new me. It probably me mostly indie rock mp3s, but I’d love it be a place where I could equally post Sacred Harp field recordings and rare Motown tracks. I don’t know what would be left here, though, as half of what I post here is music stuff and I’ve already moved most of my photo stuff over the godhatesmath.

I’ve been pretty slow on the posts recently, large because I’ve been busy doing stuff that is sort of not-interesting-in-the-blog-way.

So I decided I’d turn all this stuff into a post.

One time things and whatnot:

• Nedelle’s pretty rad. She’s going to be playing on my radio show this Wednesday at about 10:15pm PDT. I’m pretty excited. I’ll see if I can get a copy of the show up for you east coast people to listen to.
• I’m getting ready for the Tahoe Century ride in about a month. I’ve been trying to ride a lot in preparation. I rode today and yesterday, but I’ve also been having problems with getting an inordinate number of flats, so I need to resolve that. But my goal over the next three weeks is 3 rides/ week: 2 x 30 miles and 1 x 15 miles, including at least one trip up Old La Honda or King’s Mountain per week. At this point, I alternatingly feel I’m screwed and that I’m doing fine.
• I’m going to be in Philadelphia/ DC, NYC and Pittsburgh for about 10 days total in late July for a couple weddings. It’s pretty exciting. I’m thinking about Rye Playland and Kennywood among so many other things. I might also try to catch a taping of Conan, try to catch a Buc’s game and, of course, see some fantastic friends and take lots of pictures with too many cameras.
• I just now found a weird and kind of interesting acoustic cover of Sigur Ros. I never considered that someone could cover Sigur Ros. They’re no Sigur Ros, but it’s cool.
• I’m going to South Africa again next February. February 2007, that is for my mom’s birthday. I’m going to spend a week in Cape Town, but I’m also going to try to spend 1-2 weeks on the road driving around South Africa. I’m looking forward to going back to South Africa.
• It looks like my laptop (Proud Owner of Brand New Canada) is near its end. Unless something changes about the situation, I’ll probably be getting a new one in the next few weeks/ couple of months.

Everyday stuff:

• I’m still taking spanish at the Palo Alto Adult School. It’s about 2 hours a week and the pace is slow, but I’m learning stuff so, yeah, it’s good.
• Lots of KZSU stuff. I’m doing my indie show. I’m not longer hosting the the Lunch Special but I’m still acting as the producer. Lots of interesting guests bringing their music. A schedule is on that page I linked up there. I’m also the Promotions Director, so I try to organize tickets for concerts for on-air giveaways. As the promotions guy, I’m also writing a custom PHP web app. This stuff is not obvious and not easy, at least not for me, the mech e. I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m also pretty much sick of writing this app.
• I’ve been challenged by lawn bowling and recently applied for membership at the place I’ve been bowling, the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club. The green is closed until the end of May, though, so no bowling for now.
• The BoSox are tied for lead in their division. The Pirates are a couple steps away from the bottom of the league. The Steelers got what look like a couple good WRs in the draft.

1. drink
2. watch Lost in Translation
3. order crap online

it’s tradition.

I haven’t made a fun list in while. Here’s something interesting that I discovered today.

3 good songs that have “I will follow” in the title:

• I will follow you into the dark Death Cab for Cutie
• I will follow U2
• I will follow him Little Peggy March

Any know any other good ones? How about bad ones? So far I’ve only discovered good songs that have “I will follow” in the title.

I did my radio show this morning. I went through my top 15 albums of 2005, from number 15 to number 1. The playlist is here.

Here’s the list:

1. Illinois Sufjan Stevens
2. Takk Sigur Ros
3. All Day [EP] Mates of State
4. Pixel Revolt John Vanderslice
5. The Sunset Tree The Mountain Goats
6. Veneer Jose Gonzalez
7. Dignity and Shame Crooked Fingers
8. All Harm Ends Here Early Day Miners
9. Woman King [EP] Iron & Wine
10. Plans Death Cab for Cutie
11. Tiny Cities Sun Kil Moon
12. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning Bright Eyes
13. s/t 13 & God
14. The Great Destroyer Low
15. Devils and Dust Bruce Springsteen

I made the list four times and it was different every time. This was the last. So it’s more like my top 15 albums of 2005 for December 14-15, 2005. Something like that.

Albums that were close: Set Free American Analog Set, Bodies and Minds Great Lake Swimmers, Set Yourself on Fire Stars.

Slightly disappointing albums that would have made the list if they were as good as I’d expected them to be: On My Way to Absence Damien Jurado, Stubbs the Zombie Sountrack, What Comes After the Blues Magnolia Electric Company, In the Reins Calexico and Iron & Wine.

this is the point where I assume that you want to buy me stuff.

my christmas list.

my parents ask for a christmas list every year. it’s gotten significantly different in the last couple of years since I’ve been earning money. I tend to buy what I want so there’s not a lot on my “wish list.”

Strangely, I’ve bought lots of things in the last 24 hours. First I got a call from African Hut to say that the goods I had ordered in mid-August had come in and they were sending them. Then, later in the day I decided to pick up that Mark Kozelek/ Sun Kil Moon Modest Mouse covers record from Insound at which point I found that you could answer a stupid quiz and get 25% off your whole order, so I got a few things there. Then, this morning, I read that there’s a new 7″ Half-Handed Cloud/ Sufjan Stevens EP out today so I decided to pick that up and noticed something else while I was at the Asthmatic Kitty website.

So, the full haul:

• a case of Savanna Dry Cider, originally meant to be consumed with Jon Werberg, but that will do just fine now.
• 1/2 lb of biltong
• 1 can of guava halfs (or as I call it, 1 can of pure heaven)
• If You’re Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian. I’m finally picking up a CD copy of this. ($8.99 minus 25%!) I now have all the B&S albums on CD.
• The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore by Saxon Shore. I liked their previous album and decided to give this one a try.
• Summer in the Southeast by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The first time I heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in any form was live at Club Laga. I’ve wanted a live recording ever since and now he’s coming out with one. Pre-order for November 15.
• Bodies and Minds by Great Lake Swimmers. I liked GLS’s debut when it came through the station. This effort is apparently good, so I thought I’d pick it up. (What was I thinking last night? I never buy this many “gamble” albums at one time.)
• Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon. Aforementioned Modest Mouse covers album. Pre-order for Nov. 1 though I think I’ve heard they’ve started shipping them.
• What’s the Remedy by Half Handed Cloud. Aforementioned collaborative effort with Sufjan Stevens. Vinyl 7″.
• Sufjan Stevens Illinois shirt. They didn’t have them when the concert tour came through here in July but they wore them on stage and boy were they hot.

So yeah, that’s me going crazy. I’ll be getting piles of stuff over the next few weeks though!

And by films I mean that in the literal sense, of captured, originally, on film.

And by documentary, I mean documenting real events.

I saw three recently:

1. NFL Film’s History of the Steelers NFL Films used to have a weekly show called “This is the NFL” and I would watch it many weeks, even before I was much of a football fan, just because they had beautiful footage and the sound, especially of the impacts, was incredible. There’s something about watching football on film that’s great. I liked this DVD a lot. I learned a bunch about the pre-70s Steelers and there were many interesting interviews with former players and coaches and whatnot. I also saw that there is quite a symbiotic relationship and feelings of duty and mutual respect between the Rooneys (the family that owns the Steelers) and the Team, the Team and the Fans, the Fans and the Rooneys. My one sort of complaint about the film was that it glossed over the big losses. An intricate part of the story of the Steelers, at least over the last decade, has been some big losses, I feel. Definitely worth watching if you’re a Steelers fan or a fan of football in general.
2. Low in Europe Dave gave this to me for my birthday. This shows some great footage and interviews of the band on a tour of Europe following the release of Trust. Maybe I just haven’t looked for many interviews of Low, but it seems that they haven’t been interviewed much, so it’s nice to see some more in depth coverage of their lives in this movie. There’s also some great footage of the band playing live; one of my favorites is a couple acoustic songs at a radio station in Frankfurt. The film ends with them playing at the Union Chapel in London, which no longer hosts shows, but while it did was a fantastic place to see a band like Low, as Andy or I can attest to. Worth watching for fans of Low or if you’re interested in becoming one.
3. Drive Well, Sleep Carefully The Death Cab for Cutie tour documentary. This close to 90 minutes of interviews and performances from a tour last year. The interviews seemed a bit lacking and single-tracked, but there’s pretty good pacing and editting between the interview portions and the song portions. The individual performances of the songs vary in how good they are. It’s worth watching if you’re a fan or are just an OC watching hipster.

about not getting mentioned on my blog.

Other news:

• I killed some strange, CPU-hogging apache processes on my server. translation: this site should load faster.
• I’m trying to learn PHP3 (yes, the old version; I have my reasons). Any suggestions of good online tutorials?
• garage sale scores from yesterday: the game of Risk, a super 8 camera, a Weller soldering iron, and a Stockton State ringer T.

Of the four major sports (baseball, basketball, football. and hockey), there are 15 cities with exactly one major sports franchise. They are as follows:

• Columbus (Blue Jackets, NHL)
• Ottawa (Senators, NHL)
• Edmonton (Oilers, NHL)
• Raliegh (Carolina Hurricanes, NHL)
• Calgary (Flames, NHL)
• Vancouver (Canucks, NHL)
• Montreal (Canadiens, NHL)
• Greenbay (Packers, NFL)
• Jacksonville (Jaguars, NFL)
• Orlando (Magic, NBA)
• Sacramento (Kings, NBA)
• Portland (Trailblaizers, NBA)
• Salt Lake City (Utah Jazz, NBA)
• Memphis (Grizzlies, NBA)
• San Antonio (Spurs, NBA)

the following are what I call “sort of”s because they are in the metropolitan area with major sports franchises:

• San Jose, CA (Sharks, NHL, in the Bay Area with San Francisco and Oakland teams)
• Arlington, TX (Texas Rangers, MLB, in Dallas/ Ft. Worth area)
• Foxboro, MA (New England Patriots, NFL, in Boston area)
• Tempe, AZ (Arizona Cardinals, NFL, in Pheonix area)
• St. Paul, MN (Minnesota Wild, NHL, in Minneapolis area)

four sports or activities in which I can beat the layman but I am no match for the skilled or professional:

• swimming
• cycling
• table tennis (or “pong” as I call it)
• foosball

a couple quality “reality” shows that I picked up recently:

• Stranded A British guy gets dropped off in an undisclosed location without food or money or contact to that outside world (besides the camera crew, I guess). He figures out where he is and learns about the town. It reminds me of that guy on one of the network news casts whose idea is that everyone has (or is) an interesting story, so he’d go to random towns, open the phone book and start calling people. An the Everyday American always had an interesting story. Similarly, the Everyday Town has interesting things.
• Going Tribal A British guy goes to a remote tribe somewhere in the world and makes contact, often with a guide, with the hope of learning about and living with them. It’s tremendously interesting. Today’s episode he went to the occasionally canibalistic Kombai tribe who sleep in totally sweet treehouses. And this guy really tries to live in the traditions of the tribe. He ate maggots, went hunting, had his nose pierce (horizontal bar through the septum), and even tried (but didn’t end up going through with because he almost fainted) a vaguely described penis inversion thing that the tribe does for unknown reasons.

Overall some really interesting stuff to learn about our world.

Here’s a list:

• Start my Pentax K1000/ Canon A40 self-made all-manual digital SLR
• get a haircut
• Sell 2-4 Wurlitzer electric pianos
• order shirts for, make silk-screen for, silk-screen “Adrian is rad”* shirts**
• have a blast with jon werberg while he’s out here
• ask landlady about painting my room, pick colors, buy paint
• try to find a firmer bed, a smaller desk, a dresser
• learn php, get a start on internal online ticket giveaway system for KZSU

*The shirt came first, the blog with the same name second. I made it with iron on red letters a white shirt with blue ringers; the ones I’m going to make are basically the same except they’ll be silk-screened.

**Let me know if you want one (and your size). I don’t think I’m going to be able to swallow the cost on them so they’d be $8-$10 or whatever they cost me. I’ll see if I can get a picture of the original up soon.

With the Postal Service’s music appearing in just about every commercial on TV or radio currently and Give Up selling over 500,000 copies, which is huge for an indie album (100,000 is big for an indie album, many indie bands hope to sell around 15,000 copies of an album), I decided name a few other albums that you may like if you liked Give Up. The two elements brought together by the Postal Service are the electronica (IDM)-ish stuff by DNTEL aka Jimmy Tamborello and the indie rock/ pop by Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie).

The obvious:

• The Notwist Neon Golden This one is obvious because it is completely awesome. This was the first album that I heard that had electronic elements in it along with indie rock/ pop elements that I liked. If I didn’t like this, I might not have liked the rest of these (good albums have a tendency to open your ears and mind to more music). It is darker and has more depth, both lyrically and musically than Give Up (on which I only consider one song to have any real depth, “This Place is a Prison”, which is not to say I don’t like the album.) Neon Golden has many organic elements that have been sampled and twist: banjo, guitars, woodwinds (plenty of sax), voice, drums.
• DNTEL Life is Full of Possibilites This is obvious because the music is (mostly) by the same guy and it even has the beginnings of the Postal Service on it. The collaboration between DNTEL and Ben Gibbard started on the song “(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan,” which is a standout track on this album.
• Styrofoam Nothing’s Lost Styrofoam has opened for the Postal Service, has collaborated/ remixed indie songs before (his version of Postman by American Analog Set is incredible), and on this, his latest album, he even includes vocals and guitars by Ben Gibbard on it. I tend to like Styrofoam’s stuff more than DNTEL’s solo stuff. He tends to be more melodic and glitchy while DNTEL tends to be more atmospheric and blippy.

The not-as-obivous:

• Her Space Holiday Young Machines One guy making somewhat depressing, but poppy records. He does all the music production and singing himself. Unless you think Ben Gibbard is too whiny when he sings, you’ll probably not like HSH’s vocals as much— they don’t have the range or melodic sense of Gibbard’s; they’re not in any sense bad though. Mostly electronic sounds with some organic ones throw in.
• ms john soda No P or D This would be in the “obvious” list if the album that were in question were Neon Golden. This band shares members with the Notwist. It’s somewhat hard to describe exactly the different in sound between them and the Notwist: I’d say more organic sounds and lighter/ less dark/ less experimental. Compared to the Postal Service, I’d say one of the main differences besides the use of organic sounds would be that Gibbard’s vocals are pretty warm whereas the vocals of Stefanie Boehm have a detached sound to them.
• The Album Leaf In a Safe Place It’s hard to classify this band. They have vocals on a few songs but many are instrumental. There are many orangic sounds: most of the tracks are based on riffs on a Rhodes and have real drum and guitar parts. They also often have heavily processed violin sounds and synthesized sounds and plenty of glitchy beats. Some very emotive music. A great album. Note: the earlier albums of this band don’t have any electronic stuff to them so if that’s what you’re looking for, don’t get those.
• V/A Monster’s of Morr Music A compliation/ sampler from the Berlin-based label with a few tracks each by B. Fleischmann, Lali Puna, Duo 505, the Go Find and Styrofoam. Rather than try to recommend an album by each of these groups, I’d just get this, listen and figure out which you’d want to persue more. B. Fleischmann is melodic electronica with few words. Duo 505 has him in it, but has some sweet nintendo-like samples and tends to be more rhythmic and driving than his solo stuff. Lali Puna is sort of electro-rock with solid guitar and bass and drums but with some electronic elements. The Go Find is guitar + electronic pop stuff and I’ve already talked about Styrofoam’s stuff.
• Aqueduct I Sold Gold This is quirky, often dark, bedroom electro synth pop. His lyrics are about such things as the influence of Guns N Roses on him and “packing” heat. It’s fun stuff.
• Four Tet Rounds This is not indie pop at all. This is purely computer produced. It does however have mostly organic sounds and is pretty melodic in nature. According to iTunes, I’ve played track four (”My Angel Rocks Back and Forth”) 90 times since August 1, 2003 and though I haven’t played it in a while, it’s still in my top 10 most played songs.
• the One Am Radio A Name Writ in Water This is glitchy, dark singer-songwriter stuff. It’s not really, but that’s probably the most effective way to describe it. Lots of acoustic guitar, violin, amospheric sounds and very intimate vocals.

Note: these are just some albums you might like. You might not like all of them. In fact there may be some you hate. Many of these bands have songs on their websites that you can listen to and get a feel for their music. Otherwise there are various forms of downloading music, both legal (Epitonic!) and otherwise.

probably a leftover from my time at tep, I don’t really open my mail until it’s overflowing. Many of my bills are paid automatically or I periodically pay them online.

well, yesterday, it was time to go through my mail. here are some conclusions, harper’s style. There were probably about a hundred pieces of mail from mid-november until now:

• number of rebate checks from amazon.com: 1
• number of items that were important enough that I felt they should have been opened earlier: 0*
• number of apparently identical capitol one credit card offers: 6
• number of other credit card offers: 3
• number of offers for additional services from credit card companies I currently do business with: 3
• number of apparently useless tax forms from Massachusetts, which I didn’t live in for any of 2004: 1

*I should note that I’ll look through what appears to be new mail (the stuff at the top of the pile) and open things personally addressed to me or with a return address of someone I know. As such, I had already opened a wedding invitation. I also open netflix.

Alright, I’m catching up here on the past few days. It’s been crazy. The NoisePop Festival is going on, so I’ve been to 3 concerts in the last 4 days.

I went with Margot from the station. She’s on right now (Saturday midnight-3am) if you want to listen. We caught the last couple minutes of the first opening band, who were nice enough to listen to but not good enough for me to look up the name of or link to.

Smoosh was up next. They are a 10 and a 12 year old girl playing drums and keyboard, respectively. You think, awww, that’s cute. It’ll be fun. Then you’re like, wait, these guys are actually sort of good. In the end it’s something between a total novelty and total rockin’ music. If you’re interested, give this KEXP live in-studio recording a listen. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’m going to totally make my kids be in an indie rock band.

Aqueduct was just fun. It’s mainly one guy and his keyboards, writing songs about “Growing up on GnR” (Guns N Roses), which is available at the barsuk website I linked, and the like. His touring band has drums, guitar and bass as well. He had just found out (that day, I think) that they were going to be on Conan O’Brien two days later so he was really excited. I think in general he gets really into the show and is generally exuding happiness.

the Mates of State were great. Kori and Jason were in top form, returning to their former hometown. For the first time in all the times I’ve seen them, they brought along another keyboard in addition to the still-gorgeous Yamaha YC-45D. The second keyboard was a Yamaha electric piano, maybe a P80. I was scared at first that it was some cheesy synth that didn’t have the depth of the 45D, but it was just a piano and it allowed them to do “I Have Space,” a favorite of mine that I’ve never heard live. I was really happy with the selection of songs they did, including “A Duel Will Settle This,” the awesome one off their new EP “Along for the Ride,” their version of “These Days” and a bunch off of Team Boo. I like hearing “Hoarding for Home” and “Throw Down” live but you can’t get everything.

Overall, a really solid and enjoyable show throughout.

I like to make lists of all the shows I went to by bands that I’ve seen a ton, so here’s the one for the Mates of State:

• Oct. 7, 2001 at the Middle East with Beulah
• Feb. 23, 2002 at MassArt
• Oct. 5, 2002 at TT the Bear’s
• Feb. 1, 2002 at the Middle East with Rainer Maria
• Oct. 10, 2003 at the Bottom of the Hill
• Feb. 6, 2004 at the Los Gatos Outhouse (the teen center out back of the Los Gatos High School Football Field)
• Feb. 23, 2005 at Slim’s with Aqueduct and Smoosh

therein lies the rub

So I got to work on the final preps of what’s going to be Andy’s wurly. I’m going to ship it, so to reduce weight, etc, I’m going to take the bottom/ speakers off. I’m also going to add a line-out and re-route the power, of course. I’d done the power to this one already and the line-out seems pretty trivial so I set about trying to figure out how to take the bottom off. I basically spent 3.5 hours taking 8 carefully placed screws out. Now that I know where they all are and how to take them out without completely screwing up the hammer action of some notes to the point where I have to take off the pickup plate in order to fix my mistakes, I think I’d be able to do it in about half an hour.

I need to pick up a couple resistors and a capacitor to do the line-out line. should be fairly easy.

Other accomplishments of recent:

• went to Dittmer’s Wursthaus. got some boerewors, chicken apple sausage, weisswurst, thuringer bratwurst and ukrainian sausage for the game tomorrow.
• got some 40s and bad beer for the game tomorrow
• swam
• cleaned my room to some extent
• rehung my bike in the Jon Werberg-school of bike hanging (single-hook, by the seat)
• ordered a 50s reissue fender precision bass

From 5ives:

Five things I suspect I�m not supposed to think about when watching those bands with messy hair who sound like Joy Division

1. Wow. That�s a really expensive amp.
2. That bass player has nice skin for someone who�s so unhappy.
3. I wonder if they all have really cool apartments.
4. Would it kill them to get a tambourine?
5. Man. These guys sound a lot like Joy Division.

1. “Brick” by Ben Folds 5
2. “the Sweetest Thing” by U2
3. “mmm bop” by Hanson
4. “Gigantic” by the Pixies

Don’t ask. We had our weird moments.

When I get tired/ stressed, I get this twitch in my left eye. It’s been going for a while now. I’ve been tired; last week I was a bit stressed even.

Just a few minutes ago I noticed that my thumb was twitching, which I’ve never had before. It’s really strange.

And then (!then!) I noticed that my eye wasn’t twitching. It’s strange. I could handle this apparent trade-off though. The thumb thing is weird, but not immensely distracting like the eye one. It was hard to physically focus my eyes at times.

I was walking around the other day and this phrase and the way of saying it popped into my head: “so sad!” I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where it was from.

Then! Revelation! It’s from a funny Washington Mutal commercial. They made a series of commercials that were quite funny. The acting and writing in all of these are impressive (for non-national commercials).

The basic premise was introducing a character who had some bad personal trait (untrusting, dishonest, etc), demostrate this, show that some feature that Washington Mutual offers gives them peace of mind (or reversed that trait) and then changes the character’s life to display this new trait.

To be more specific, these are my top three:
(you should really watch these, at least the first one)

1. “Tom.” This is where the “so sad!” comes from. Tom has “weak principles” demostrated by him steeling lemonade from a kid’s stand and then throwing the cup on the ground. He becomes honest from his encounter with WaMu. Three scenes of him being honest: talking to a girl at a bar, “I’ve never had a girlfriend and I still live with my mother”; walking in late for a meeting “Sorry, I’m late. I had a job interview. Nailed it!”; and talking movies with guys over poker, “Have you guys scene Steel Magnolias? I was bawling. So sad!”
2. “Geoffrey” Geoffrey is untrusting displayed by a scene where he walks up to a hostess at a restaurant. “Name?” she asks and then he looks suspicious: “Why?” Some identity theft thing makes him more trusting. The kicker of this one is a scene where he enters his house and there’s a robber in black and a ski mask and everything carrying out his stereo. “What are you doing?” The robber replies “Factory recall” and Geoffrey says “Oh. Okay.” Then the robber stands there for a moment before he says “Excuse me.” Geoffrey says “Oh. sorry” and gets out of the way.
3. “Rick” Rick is frustrated with his home loan and brought that frustration to his construction job site. After WaMu he’s much more easy going. He proceeds to pull a few really dangerous practical jokes which he thinks are hilarious and rides a wrecking ball into a brick wall, which he thinks is great fun.

“Debra” is also pretty funny.

City Council plans to work on relationships

Now, John, we know you love Susan, so why can’t you work this out?

It has passed. John, you love Susan and can work this out

This could become a daily thing. It’s so easy!

Homemade balloon found

1. explaining why jokes are funny
2. explaining any slight connnection someone or something has to Pittsburgh
3. self-deprecation

1. reading lips. Over many years I noticed that I read lips in addition to listening to people when they’re talking. I have a markedly worse time on the phone than in person for comprehension
2. recognizing people from afar. When recognizing people from a long way off (say 500 ft.), I use a person’s stature and any tell-tale articles of clothing, but I mostly recognize people’s walk. Ody walks with a lot of angular movement of his shoulders. Amrys has this long, loping sort of stride. Greg, at work, has this very pronounced toes-hit-the-ground-first shuffle.

• Bought boerewors for my parents and other sausages for a bbq at Dittmer’s Wursthaus
• Bought beers (including a fine Schwarzbier) at Bev Mo
• Had a last-minute bbq with a few of them teppers (as my dad would call them*) namely Dylan, andyl, Raag and Leo.
• Open up one of those Wurly’s and check out how the new power wiring will work with andyl. A common ground is already established. Yay.
• Slept for 6 hours.
• Watched Shad install a new starter in my car. (”Install a new starter in my card with Shad” would be a blatant lie and “Help Shad install a new starter in my car” would be a fib; I did hand him a wrench a couple times.)
• Work.

*Which got me thinking: there are these things like this where originally people do things that annoy me and then it becomes part of my picture of them. I’d correct him to say “teps” but now if he called them “teps” I’d be disappointed. His “error” has become endearing.

More broad generalizations from a small sample size.

• have a random assortment of friends, with associated back story
• after a number of seasons have two of the least related characters start dating
• have two characters that are “meant” to be together. they must break up and have a problems but everyone knows they will always end up together but for much of the show they are not together.
• have one “dumb” character. he says fantastically stupid things.

Bonus points if you can name the shows I was thinking of.

• Buy a new starter for my car. The current one doesn’t like me.*
• Buy surplus electronic parts to fix Wurlitzer 206A Electronic Pianos (21+ of them!!!!!!!!!) at HSC
• Call Uhaul to make sure they have my reservation for a truck to move aformentioned keyboards.
• Write and send christmas cards
• Write liner notes for lauren owens’ Lauren6 mix CD and send CD
• Add comment preview to blog for Andy
• Open up my receiver and find the loose connection (the speakers go between soft and loud as I move the receiver around)

*so Shad’s going to help me replace my starter and I was thinking it’d be funny if he comes over and is like “are you all ready to replace it?” and I said “almost” and I go inside and then come out in grease monkey jumpsuit, grease smeared all over my face and a big old monkey wrench hanging off my belt. “Alright, now I’m ready.”

I saw Pedro the Lion with Half-Life Souvenir and Viva Voce last night at Slim’s. Chris Atwell went with me.

We got there during the last couple songs of Viva Voce. The first of which was a sort of Low-like steady-rhythm, slow-build song and the second of which was ‘Tonight you belong to me’ (which I know because Steve Martin plays it on ukulele in the beach scene of The Jerk (and Bernedette Peters’ character pulls out a trumpet out of no where and does the solo)). I ended up buying their album, Heat Can Melt Your Brain, which is odd and goes from one idea to another quickly, but is pretty good from first listen.

Half-life Souvenir is promising. Rosie Thomas (who’s recorded with Damien Jurado) sings in this. The guy and her sing an octave apart, which I’ve heard in other bands before but can’t think of specific examples. The drummer was solid; he ended up playing keyboards and aux percussion with Pedro. Anyway, they have some of Low slow-changing-chord stuff, some Album Leaf or Ms. John Soda electronic-indie stuff and some of their own sort of sound. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll be keeping an ear out for their future stuff.

Pedro was good. He had a four-piece: (Pedro is not a guy, but David Bazan, who is basically the band, is, so I refer to Pedro the Lion as he.) he and TW Walsh (drums), of course. A bass player that I recognized but don’t know the name of and a keyboard/ aux percussion guy named James. He played a lot of early stuff and a few songs each from Control and Achille’s Heel. He did solid versions of ‘Magazine’, ‘Indian Summer’ and ‘Criticism as Inspiration.’

They were out of my size of the Pedro Lion’s tail shirt, but I ended up getting a Pedro scarf, which is pretty rad and good conversation starter with the cute girl standing next to me.

I’m trying to figure out how many times I’ve seen Pedro, so here’s my list:

• February 14, 2001 w/ Low at Sommerville Theater
• September 16, 2001 w/ Seldom and TW Walsh at the Middle East Downstairs
• May 4, 2002 w/ Damien Jurado(?) at the Middle East Downstairs*
• November 3, 2002 w/ Seldom at the TT the Bear’s
• May 5, 2003 w/ Stratford 4, Alan Sparhawk (solo) and Ester Drang at the Middle East Downstairs**
• February 27, 2004 w/ John Vanderslice and the Advantage at Great American Music Hall
• June 2, 2004 w/ John Vanderslice at Bottom of the Hill
• December 7, 2004 w/ Half-Life Souvenir and Viva Voce at Slim’s

*one of my few two-show nights. I went to Belle and Sebastian at the Orpheum (early show) and then went across town for Pedro. I’m not convinced that Damien Jurado was at this date, or maybe I just missed him while I was at the other show.
**this show was probably the best, I think. He was working out some new songs so he did a chunk of great songs with the band and then the new ones solo acoustic, including the ‘Poison Makes’ and ‘Backwoods Nation’, which he’s basically refused to play live since.

So, I guess that’s eight. That has to be a record for bands that I’ve seen. I’ve seen a bunch of bands three or probably even four times. I think I counted six times for the Mates of State. Eight is just ridiculous. I started liking him early, he tours often and I just kept going to shows. I’m looking forward to the Low/ Pedro date at Great American in March. Should be good.

I’m trying to draw a pattern from various indie rock/ hipster fads, which include trucker hats (foam domes, as I call them), work shirts or work jackets, old thrift store shirts (especially solid color shirts with simple black or white silk screens), hoodies, old sweaters and pabst blue ribbon.

A lot of these are tied to each other, but each criterium adds something. Not all of them will be true for each fad. These are more tendencies than strict rules.

1. cheap (probably able to be obtained used). thrift stores, surplus shops are usually good places to find things.

2. unpretentious. pabst blue ribbon (still) doesn’t advertize. no one used to advertize foam domes.

3. obscure enough that people in the “mainstream” probably don’t wear it/ drink it/ do it, but not obscure enough that people don’t previously know about it.

4. previously relegated to the working class. trucker hats, work shirts, and PBR all fall into this category.

5. ironic, usually because people in the ’scene’ wouldn’t previous think of using such a product. haha! sweet hat! my grandfather wore one of those!

6. not intrinsically ugly or baggy. I think big sweatshirts with big bubble letters would not become an indie fad even though they are cheap, ironic, and obscure because they are both ugly and baggy. hoodies (at least those worn by indie kids) tend to be tighter.

7. like much retro-influenced fashion, the two decade rule applies. you can wear 70s and you can start to wear 80s fashions as retro-ironic, but you can’t really wear 90s stuff. If you’re wearing multiple flannel shirts, you’re stuck in the past, you’re not starting a new trend.

I’m often complaining about how squeeky clean and character-less Palo Alto/ Menlo Park are, so I decided to make a list of all the things I like about this area of the Peninsula.

• Classic one (or two) screen theaters: the Guild and the Aquarius. Normal (expsensive) priced tickets, but good movies in classic theaters.
• Silent movies at Stanford Theater over the summer. Complete with live accompaniment on the Might Wurlitzer organ.
• Old people, cheap snacks, and artsy movies at Spangenberg Theatre
• Crazy people and punk kids at the Pit. I’m glad some people aren’t middle-aged silicon valley professionals.
• Beer gardens: the Oasis and Alpine Inn (aka Zott’s). You got your locals and your Stanford students. You got your bicyclists, motorcyclists and BMW drivers.
• Peninsula Creamery Dairy Store (on High St.). Not to be confused with the Peninsula Fountain and Grill (on Hamilton and in the Stanford Shopping Center), this is vintage and not retro, cheap and not pretentious.
• Sandwhiches: Pluto’s and the Prolific Oven. Fancy sandwhiches, but still reasonable value.
• Rose and Crown. You’re paying pub prices, but at least they have Hoegaarden and Franzikaner on tap.
• Ridiculous safetey. Just yesterday I parked my car on the street unlocked for the entire day, with CDs and other things sitting on the seats and nothing was gone.

stay up all night, sleep intermittantly for the morning, sleep solidly from 1pm to 8pm.

1. my boy scout uniform. it’s just one of those things that I’ve spent a lot of time on (not the uniform but earning the various patches). I guess it’s just important to me.

2. my soda can collection. I’ve got some sweet ones in there. do you remember crystal clear pepsi? of course you do. do you remember tropical fruit pepsi? yeah, I thought so.

3. my baseball card collection. it’s just one of those things that moms throw out and then is worth lots of money.

4. my yamaha electone yc-25d portable organ. this is one sweet keyboard.