MEtRoday: 1240, Y3049, Y3085, B5065
Here is a list of the fun-sized candy bars and other treats I ate today at work:
Snickers
Crunch
Butterfinger
Milky Way
KitKat
Snickers
Butterfinger
a chocolate doughnut from Wegmans
Snickers
Snickers
handful of spooky-colored M&Ms
Mr. Goodbar
KitKat
Snickers
Ironically, on the 3085 Yellow Line Train on the way home there's this hippie handing out fliers condemning a chocolatier for using child labor or some such nonsense. When it comes time for me to receive my flyer I don't even look up from my phone, I just wave her away. "Leave me alone, hippie girl, I'm experiencing my 2nd sugar crash of the day and really need to blog about it. Bah!"
Then I had a really great idea: trick-or-treating by Metro. Take your kids underground and have them get off at each stop and ask the people waiting for the next train for candy. Of course this would only work on dual-line stations (blue/orange or yellow/green). Maybe on the red line you could actually trick-or-treat on the railcars, and hop cars at the stations. The inherent problem with this plan is that no one is carrying candy to give out. I'm sure some cute kids in costumes could guilt commuters out of a couple of bucks though.
MEtRoday: O5088, Y3048, Y3093, B3104
Here's tonight's running playlist. Runtime 50:48. My running confidence is starting to build, because even if at the beginning it seems daunting to finish, I'm getting to the point to where I know I can complete it, including the run up Capitol Hill. After that, looping around Lincoln Park is a breeze. At that time I'm actually starting to hit a stride and feel I could go further. I'd like to do the Capitol Hill Classic 10K in the spring. It runs this route. Does anyone want to run it with me?
I'm visiting my Mom once a month now. Since her ALS is getting more progressed, it's difficult to talk with her on the phone, even the speakerphone. She gets tired very easily and needs to rest a lot. But my Dad has purchased her a new bed that ingenously inflates a mesh pattern of air baffles that seems to help her get a full night's sleep. But let's talk about the weekend:
Since Melba was going to Richmond to visit her folks, I asked if I could tag along, and be dropped off/picked up in Fredericksburg, where my brother or Dad could easily meet us and drive me the rest of the way. She said she would enjoy the company. So Saturday morning, we planned to leave around 10. I went to Cardio Kickboxing that morning, came home and packed. Melba picks me up and our first stop is the new Dunkin' Donuts on 8th St. A donut and coffee is a great way to start our mini road trip! Since Melba was picking up a half-dozen for her Mom, I decided to do the same. We noted that Dunkin' has a great color palette: hot pink and orange. Who would have thought those two colors could be used for a corporate identity? Especially when you throw in chocolate brown as an accent, and occasionally harvest gold as a tease? According to their website, it appears the pink and orange colors were introduced in in the '60s, while the familiar fat typeface first appeared in the '80s. And speaking of orange, Melba gave me a great windbreaker jacket that she got at Urban Outfitters!
I'm dropped off in Fburg and me and my Dad continue on to the house, where I found my other brother and sister-in-law and niece Sarah Jane are already there. Our Saturday plan is to move my old piano to their house so Sarah Jane can take lessons in a few years and start to play as a child, instead of starting to learn as a teenager, as I did. (I didn't learn/retain too much.) Since next Saturday is Jacki's birthday (my sister-in-law) my parents got her a cake for this weekend since they were at the house and I was down. So I've had a donut for breakfast and cake for lunch. We transport the piano and then go out for Mexican for dinner, my 2nd night in a row eating Mexican food, which is fine by me. I'm pretty stuffed by the time we get home, but we stay up and watch a movie on TV, "The Butterfly Effect" which actually wasn't that bad. But the network took a 1.5 hour movie and stretched it into 2.5 hours of broadcast time. I saw those same damned commercials every eight minutes and this is enough to make me never watch programmed television again. Ever. Ok, maybe for an hour, but that's it.
After sleeping in on Sunday I make breakfast for everyone: sage sausage, bacon and french toast. Then it was doing chores to ease the load for my Dad: kitchen cleanup, garage clearing and laundry. Then leisurely football-watching for the remainder of the afternoon.
On the way back up 95 with Melba, there was a lot of traffic and the HOV lanes were closed. Usually on Sundays they are open heading into the city. After we pass the closed exit we see the VDOT truck heading south, which is closing/opening the exits to reverse the flow. Damn. So everybody behind us gets to whip by while we are still stuck in traffic all the way to Springfield. Ugh.
Today I rode the 5000 Metrorail car. It's an Orange Line Train.
I'm currently sitting at the upstairs bar at Banana Cafe, waiting for Melba to show up. We're going to have a couple of margaritas and then head down to La Lomita for dinner. There is a Jack & Jill birthday party happening around me. I've just learned the birthday girl is turning 29 tomorrow. Her female friends are comprised of brainy, field-hockey-playing DC transient types (except the pregnant one). Her male friends are comprised of brainy, lacrosse-playing DC transient types. Years from now when they're living elsewhere they will reminisce about the "wacky times in Washington" when they were younger, before they have three timeshares, two mortgages, and one-and-only-one child. When the bartender asks the men if they want anything they reply "No, I'm good", insinuating they don't need alcohol to have a good time, but apparently their father and their first stepfather did. They all probably have to get up early in the morning anyway to volunteer or campaign or participate in some other activity that will look good on a resume. Narrator's note: it is 6:46 at a Friday evening happy hour. Margaritas are $2.50. The women friends don't seem to be having any alcoholic drinks either, although one of them is clutching the drinks menu nervously. Oh, hold on, the menu-clutcher is ordering: two house margaritas for her and her friend. Neither one is the birthday girl. Thank God someone in this group is stepping up. My BlackBerry does not auto-capitalize "God" although it will add apostrophes for words like "I'm", "they're" and "don't". She does not keep a tab open. Menu-clutcher and friend are both Asian-American. Everybody else in the birthday party (with the exception of the birthday girl) are waspy-white. Does this signify some cultural difference between today's 29 year olds?
Wednesday October 25 do you feel the same because you don't let it show?
A brief recap: In 2001, the original five members of Duran Duran reunited and started recording new material even though they did not have a recording contract. To demonstrate their worth to the labels they "went on sale" in 2003 with a string of self-produced sold-out concerts in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K. Fueling this drive was also the fact that they had just received top Lifetime Achievement Awards on both sides of the Atlantic: MTV here and Q Magazine in Britain. They sign to Epic Records and release Astronaut in October 2004. A full-blown world tour follows, including playing to more people in Britain alone than they had played to before, even in their heyday of 1984 (this includes an unprecedented five sold-out nights at Wembley). Earlier this year they're back in the studios in San Francisco and London to start recording a new album which is due early 2007. Then today:
From Duranduran.com: (this link has sound)
To
Our Fans
We
know that there has been a tremendous amount of speculation over the past
few weeks regarding Andy Taylor's continued involved with the band and we
are sorry that we've been unable to provide you with more information until
now. The past five years have been an incredibly journey for us all—and
having the original five back together was something that we had wanted to
see happen for some time. As of last weekend, however, the four of us have
dissolved our partnership and will be continuing as Duran Duran without Andy,
as we have reached a point in our relationship with him where there is an
unworkable gulf between us and we can no longer effectively function together.
Although obviously disappointed and saddened about this, we are excited about
the next chapter of the Duran Duran story and look forward to seeing you
all soon.
Simon, John, Nick and Roger
This definitely sounds as if Andy was kicked out, as opposed to him wanting to leave on his own. Tune in to Andy's site over the next month or so to see how this "unworkable gulf" plays out and to see if any mudslinging begins.
Let's
run down the Seven and the Ragged Tiger Deadly Sins for why Andy has been
(apparently) given the boot:
Lust: was
he tired of being relegated to the back person in photoshoots?
Gluttony: is it drugs?
Greed: did
he feel he was not getting his share in the Duran Duran New Partnership
business agreement? He got backing vocal credits on Astronaut songs. Did
he want more?
Sloth: was
he not showing up to the recording studio?
Wrath: is
this why he's always wearing the sunglasses?
Envy: is
this about that ongoing "creative differences" fight with Nick?
Pride: is
he really that against the collaboration with Justin Timberlake & Timbaland
for the new album?
The most thorough cataloging of DD events can be found at the Duran Duran Timeline. I was going to wait until Simon's birthday on Friday to link to this video, which I think is pretty funny, but if I post two DD-related entries within a single week, people might think I'm a fan or something. And the fact that it singles out Andy just makes it seem even more appropriate not to wait.
FRAKDREAMWEAVERJUSTCRASHEDANDI'VEJUSTLOSTINGEVERYTHINGFROMTHISFREAKINGPOSTANDICANTREENTERITNOWBECAUSEITSLATEANDIMTIREDSOTHESTORYOFMINEANDBERNICEANDATEYAANDBUCKSPARTYBOTHBEFOREANDAFTERTHEDRAGRACEWILLHAVETOWAITANDPLUSTHEREAREPICTURESTOPOST.
UPDATED: Tonight was a little of a DC tradition, the High Heel Race. It's always held the Tuesday before Halloween, effectively kicking off the costume-wearing weekend. In the years that I have been living here I had never witnessed it. Here's what happens: a bunch of drag queens run a block of two. Sound interesting? Possibly. Me, Ateya, Bernice and Buck have been trying to get together for a while so this was the perfect opportunity. We decided to go after cardio class and Buck invited us over to his place for a quick light dinner and a pre-race cocktail. By the time we do this, goof around a bit and have another cocktail, we're already running late to hop over to the other side of town, secure a parking space (good luck on a non-event night) and force our way through the crowd. The race starts and 9:00 and we are parking at 8:58 so we run the remaining four blocks but we still miss it by about a minute or two. Like I said, the race is literally a couple of blocks so it takes about 0:20 for it to be over. The resulting pouring of drag queens and observers into 17th Street had potential for an impromptu block party, before the fuzz busted it up with their patrol car about four-and-a-half minutes later. And like much of Dupont these days, the event was overrun with straight people. Here's a rarity: WaPo actually covering something local!
After Ateya and Bernice went home I hung out with Buck for a while. He was showing me (on his new MacBook) the interviews that he's translating from Spanish Sign Language into written Spanish. It all seems very tedioius. A friend of his in Marseilles popped up on the iChat so we proceeded to have a video conference. Fun!
Sunday October 22 walk the line
This morning was the Walk to D'Feet ALS®. This is the 2nd year I've volunteered with the onsite registration. My Mother has ALS; she was diagnosed about two years ago. When I went down this morning to check in, I was impressed that workers from the local chapter knew who my Mom was. In fact, the Patient Services Coordinator had spoken with my Dad just the day before. This year my brother, sister-in-law and niece came up to do the walk too, so I cut out a little early and walked a little with them.
The DC Chapter had a fundraising goal of $400,000 this year but managed to surpass that amount by almost 44%, raising a whopping $575,812.79. You can contribute to this total by clicking here.
Protestors can go fuck themselves. When they march up my residential street at eight on a Saturday morning they can go fuck themselves. When they are banging on drums and chanting at eight on a Saturday morning they can go fuck themselves. When they are making such a commotion that cops with sirens blaring are called in at eight on a Saturday morning they can go fuck themselves. When the result of their protest brings a helicopter that hovers 500 feet above my head for an hour at eight on a Saturday morning they can go fuck themselves. I don't care what their cause is, they can go fuck themselves. The Mall is on the other side of the big white domed building, assholes.
---
Tonight there are two H8ST8 parties. The first is Becker's 40th birthday party; the second is John's Halloween party. Goldy picked me up and we try to go to Pulp but they're already closed so we stumble into the liquor store, and buy Becker a nice case-enclosed Grey Goose martini set with goodies located in all the case compartments. Note to readers: evite provides terrible directions, use Mapquest or Yahoo! instead. Once we got there, Becker's party was a lot of fun, got to see a few people I hadn't seen in a while. We never made it to John's, I had to get up early in the morning but we still made time for a late-night DC driving tour.
Goldy taught me this term: NSFW.
Franklin says he likes the MEtRoday concept, so maybe my decision to send it out for retooling was a little abrupt.
MEtRoday: 3042, 1170, 4064, 5111
Today is the last MEtRoday day, at least for a while. Recording and tracking these train numbers is starting to get a little tedious and self-compulsive so it's time to let it go. There were some good graphing days though. And I did hit some unique numbers, like my birthday train that I mentioned when I started doing this. And my LIncoln 4 land line. I also rode the Andre3000 car which I was quite excited about. (I didn't see him on the car, he must have missed his transfer.)
I saw Treadmill (whom you know as "LK", but Katie* called him "Treadmill" and I think that's a better moniker) at the gym today. Same scenario: running on the machine right outside of class. This time I decided to be the better man and say something. I went and got a drink out of the fountain and on the way back went over to his machine. He took his headphones off and we talked for maybe a minute. He's just back from San Diego yet getting ready to go to New York. Did I tell you he traveled frequently? He's landed a job after his three-month sabbatical which is why I think he was in SD. Anyway, I didn't drag it out too much, left it with a "Give me a ring when you're back from New York." and went in and had a great cardio class. At least this way there is no confusion about me not returning his infamous "Let's Connect" text message. OMG was that a cleverly disguised text message breakup?!
*there may be some uncertainty to this claim (see comments)
Wednesday October 18
MEtRoday: xxxx, 1289, 4065, 3084, 5137
I was going to go do this but instead Goldy called saying she was buying drinks on Henry's Patio and then we saw one of these go by. I know where it lives (seen it on the way to the gym for about three weeks now) so I'll get daytime pix of it this weekend.
Tuesday October 17 300000000
MEtRoday: 5137, 3127, 2043, 4098
I remember as a kid a Burger King jingle that sung about "200 million people" loving burgers, and that's why they're America's Burger King. Now we have more.
Monday October 16 post concert wrapup
I was able to unload the extra PSB ticket on craigslist. Much like a drug deal, I met him on the corner of 6th & Mass, he pulled over, gave me the cash, I counted it, gave him his ticket and he drove off. Keep the peace in Northeast! Strangely, I didn't see him at the show although his seat was right next to ours. I'll never order a grouping of pre-sale tickets again, thinking that people will want to go to the show and, sure, I'll be able to sell them. The craigslist ticket was discounted but I was at least happy to recoop something on it. I didn't lose that much, but the stress of it all!
For pre-show cocktails, I met up with mcG at JR's. He wasn't going to the show but we hadn't seen each other in months. We had a good time, standing in the way way back and watching everyone and talking. You want a blast from the past? Troy, Geoff Mason's (now former) partner was there. I didn't even recognize him when he came up to me. The rundown: they were together 10 years (whodathunk that one?) and Geoff is now living in Nashville. Yes, Nashville. I'll say it one more time: Nashville.
The show: I was afraid Mila was not going to like our seats because they were in the back (but dead center) and they were expensive. I told her about the floorseats I almost had but she said these were perfect because we had a good view. Phew! The performance was pretty good, but I thought the crowd was pretty lame. Looking down on the floor, people were just standing there, no one was dancing. Sometimes they weren't even standing. Maybe that's what happens to the crowd during a 90% pre-taped show?
Here's the setlist for their North American tour (pulled from an online post of their 101106 Toronto show, but I believe it's the same as the DC set):
Psychological
Left To My Own Devices
I'm With Stupid
Suburbia
Can You Forgive Her?
Minimal
Shopping
Rent
Dreaming of the Queen
Heart
Opportunities
Integral
Numb
Se A Vide E
Domino Dancing
Flamboyant
Home and Dry
Always On My Mind
Where the Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You
West End Girls
The Sodom and Gomorrah Show
So Hard
It's A Sin
Go West
Sunday October 15 twentieth century
Lyric Of The Day from petshopboys.co.uk, and one of my faves from the new album:
Oh,
I learned a lesson from the twentieth century
I don't think we should just dismiss
After one hundred years of inhumanity
the lesson that I learned was this
Sometimes
the solution
is worse than the problem
Let's stay together
Well
I bought a ticket to the revolution
and I cheered when the statues fell
Everyone came to destroy what was wicked
but they killed off what was good as well
Sometimes
the solution
is worse than the problem
Let's stay together
Stay
with me
this century
Together we're better
Oh,
I learned a lesson from the twentieth century
It may be somewhat hit or miss
If you've certainty 'bout the way it’s
all meant to be
the lesson that you need is this
Sometimes
the solution
is worse than the problem
Let's stay together
Saturday October 14 h.d.f!
Like the title says, "helldamnfart!" Franklin's not going to be able to make it into town this weekend. That sux. Now I have TWO extra tickets for PSB on Sunday. If anybody wants them, really cheap, let me know ASAP. I've posted them here on craigslist.
---
Today my father called, telling me that my grandfather, Papa Gene, who was helping my Aunt move some light boxes when he started feeling some pains in his chest. He was taken to hospital, where he needed immediate heart surgery. It turned out to be a triple bypass. Wow. It is events such as this that remind me that every second really does count. I tend to forget this for most of the time and I'm sure it will always come back to haunt me.
---
Reasons not to watch network television:
#1: Fashion House. God, this is awful. It has such a formulated recipe for success that all you can expect is tragedy. Put together two 50-year-old has-been stars who never made it past the casting couch of Dynasty: Bo Derek, of "10" fame and Morgan Fairchild of Knots Landing fame. Throw in some fantastic looking dark-haired 20-something Malibu kids with nothing going for them but their tits and faces and, I'm sure, Daddy's bank account, some Dynasty episode scripts before the re-writes, a super annoying narrator a-la Desperate Housewives, and set your blender to frappe. It's only redeeming grace is that Bo Derek is always throwing something in a fight scene (there were three of them in the first 20 minutes) but yet always missing her target, and the intended target seems to stand there without ducking or flinching, knowing that the thrown object (a vase, a book, a chair) is going to miss them by at least five feet. It tries to be campy but misses so entirely, much like Bo's thrown vases, books and chairs. If you want good camp, go talk to Valerie Irons circa 2000. Now that was a great show.
#2: Seeing Meredith Baxter Birney trying to sell life insurance on a commercial. Is this what it comes down to? Can't she find a nice theatre gig in the Catskills or something? For those of you a generation ago, MBB played Michael J. Fox's hippie mother in Family Ties. As you probably know, Michael J. Fox played the Young Republican of 60s free spirit hippie parents, resulting in an oh-so-comical display of political banter which, with the cast addition of no-talent-but-yet-to-be-superstar Courtney Cox, continued to fuel the fire of convincing the youth of America that, Hey! Republicans are Cool!. Never mind that the Republicans of the time were denying the existence of AIDS, cutting funds for social programs, or all of that Ollie-North-for-President funding he did to kill people and overthrow goverments in Central America. But gosh, isn't that Michael J. Fox so cute and funny?! Let's be like him and vote GOP. Right. And for those of you of an earlier generation, you might remember MBB from a wonderful ABC drama called Family. It also starred James Broderick (Matthew's dad), the tragically shrinking violet Kristy McNichol, Sada Thompson and Gary Frank. Family, unlike later shows Dallas and Dynasty, attempted to portray serious issues, much as James at 15 had done, in a compelling semi-serial-based format. Seriously, Meredith, life insurance? I had such high hopes for you back then.
---
I received my Moo cards yesterday. They're fabulous. It took exactly ten days to print and ship from London, just like they said. They arrived in a white plastic box with a cute belly band. The printing quality is actually pretty good. Nice four-color, on a 120# Cover stock with a satin finish. For the life of me, I could not find a milimeter ruler here at Jump Street but they're about 2.75 x 1.25 inches (probably 70m x 30m), a very nice size. I can't wait to start giving them out.
Friday October 13 bring it on
Happy 40th Birthday Becker!
I'm so thankful this workweek is ovra. Some co-workers were going to Carpool in Ballston after work and originally I wasn't going to go—I just wanted to come home and chill on a Friday night. But at the last minute I decided to go and it was a lot of fun; I'm glad I went. Those present: Heath, Kathy, Mike and his brother Frances (who brought his own cue), and our two interns, Chris and Nazir. Of course there was a lot of work dish, but we all shot pool and had some beers and greasy barfood and had a good time. Is that so wrong? Carpool is right down the street from ExArte, where I worked for a couple of years. I couldn't resist going to see the park where I spent so many afternoons eating lunch and people watching.
Franklin comes in tomorrow night for Blowoff and I'm really excited to see him. And then Pet Shop Boys on Sunday. I better rest up.
Wednesday October 11 thank the gods
MEtRoday: 3112, 2024, 5156, 3098
Exhale. BSG is finally updated for the new season in iTunes. I will dork-out by myself quietly now, you'll never have to hear about it again. Thank the gods for Season Pass.
MEtRoday: 1188, 3147, 3057, 2035, 5174, 5049, 3193, 1178, 1238
Setup: in the week after LK gave me his telephone number, I ran into him three times at the gym. Once he had asked me how my cardio class was, and I hadn't told him that I took the class. The time after that, he was on the treadmills right outside of class and I saw him before class started. I stopped to chat, and realized that this is probably how he knew I took the class. I didn't want to be too presumptuous and assume that he had chosen this particular treadmill for the view.
Hangtime: after my 1.5 dates with LK, he said he would "love to connect" when he was through with the several trips he was taking over the next several weeks. This was the 2nd time he had used the " LTC" phrase so I was a little leary. I lost track of his travel schedule and subsequent return time, but as time wore on I figured there would be no "connecting". I never saw LK too frequently at the gym anyways, but since he belongs to several and also does a lot of outdoor running, I figured it would be while before I saw him again.
Serve: tonight I get into class about 10 minutes early, trying not to notice that most of the treadmills in the hallway are empty. I start stretching and chatting with Bernice when I notice who on the 2nd row treadmill but LK. He must have been just minutes behind me. Of course my vision isn't good enough to tell if he's looking at me, but I do notice that there's no change in his facial expression or recognizable awareness that I'm in his line of vision so I slowly stretch, stretch, stretch my way out of the frame of the doorway.
Game over: do not consider dating anyone whose car costs more than your annual salary. Later, I get on my sixth of nine Metrocars for the day.
---
Then, with no intended irony whatsoever, I went to a pre-scheduled dinner with Single. We only go to two restaurants now, Sakana or La Lomita. Tonight it's Sakana. He's introduced me to their tempura sushi, which is the most delicious ever. Dinner topics may-or-may-not have included: Pet Shop Boys, creative writing projects, the top 5 things one should do to prepare for a Barbra concert, how to get a free Diet Coke @ a restaurant, families with sick parents, the Twins™, pirated MP3s, Friendster, and Mail attachments. After dinner Single wanted something sweet so we went next door to the Oasis Deli. They had Toffifay!
MEtRoday: 4057, 5064, 3236, 3036
Total runtime of 55:32. Here's my full route. It's about 5 miles.
Saturday October 07
I have absolutely nothing planned for this weekend and it feels great.
Friday October 06 so say we all
MEtRoday: Thursday, 3080, 4026, 3020, 5178; Friday 5020, 2017, 4095, 3246
Yesterday I went to a meet-and-greet for Will Cobb, who is running for Ward 6 City Councilmember. I first met Will at the Eastern Market Metro. I was going through my commuting ritual, he was shaking hands and passing out flyers. I've tried to accept and read all the flyers that the politicos have been giving out this season. So, iPod-enabled, I took the flyer he gave me and proceeded to make my way to the down escalator. I was wearing my light blue Hofbräuhaus t-shirt that Ziska bought for me. He said "Looks like somebody's been to Munich!", which I thought was nice and being attentive, knowing that the Hofbräuhaus is indeed in Munich. Of course I was just back from Munich and still on a EuroHigh, so that kind of made my morning. Fast forward to earlier this week when I ran into Mr. Hunky at the gym, who tells me that he is volunteering for Cobb and that there is a happy hour at Remington's on Thursday that Cobb is hosting. (Mr. Hunky also volunteered for Marie Johns, who was running for Mayor. Again at the Metro one morning, Mr. Hunky slaps a Johns sticker on me, which earns me a genuine hug from Marie Johns. She got my vote.) So here is a pic of me and the tiny-but-cute Will Cobb. His wife, Pam, is also tiny-but-cute. And me with Mr. Hunky, who does not open his eyes very much while being photographed.
Tonight is Battlestar Galactica premiere! Goldy was going to have me over to her new place to watch it since I ain't gots no cables. Turns out she durnt neither. I was forced to rely on instant downloads from iTunes for previous seasons, but they didn't post the new season (or even a blurb) this past Tuesday when they update, so I was a little nervous. Even if I would have to wait until next Tuesday to download it, that would have been better than waiting six months for the DVD to come out. But the gods were shining down upon me. Chris is a BSG geek so he and Jeff are having a few people over to the pHierce School to watch it. Goldy's going to make some yummy sausages with peppers, sweet potato french fries and maybe we'll have a cocktail or three.
Wednesday October 04 good buddy!
MEtRoday: Tuesday 1066, 3179, 4044, 5039, Wednesday 1147, 2009
Today was Mila's birthday so we took her out to lunch for all you can eat pizza and salad bar. There were 16 of us, so a smörgåsbord was the best option. Kristin even brought a cake, which with it being circular, was easy to divide into 16 even pieces. I guess a rectangular cake could easily divide into 16, but the circular cut was much more festive. And what did Mila get for her birthday you ask? Not one, but two new iPod shuffles! So new, they're not even shipping yet. I was trying to convince her to give me one and I'd give her my "classic" white one, but I don't think she took the bait. Damn.
Some fuckhead stole the lightclip from my bike. Not the light, but the cheap-ass 29¢ hardware that it attaches to. Is someone really that hard up for lighting hardware? Of course it's going to cost way more than that to replace it at the bike shop.
On a sad note, Kilian's father passed away this morning. Ziska told me he had developed tumors on his liver and then came down with a bad case of pneumonia, which meant he had to stop taking the liver medication. The family was with him yesterday and he was in good spirits, making jokes and all. So at least they got to spend some time with him.
To lighten things up, here's a list of babies coming next year from: Jacki, Ziska, Manni+Fred, Michelle and maybe some other people I don't know about yet.
MEtRoday: 5052, 3078, 2032, 5077
Since the original futurejunkie version 3 never made it off of my hard drive and onto my server, I've redubbed this blogging attempt as v3. The O.V.3 was all Flash and had groovy lunar landscapes and 60s TV broadcasting sets. The files have a September 2002 date on them and it looked something like this. You can see I didn't get too far; none of the links were ever finished. Below is another 1st page version that never got off the ground. This one was originally to be static, but then I wanted the background shape to slowly and constantly be moving, but I didn't {and don't} have the skills to make that happen. However, that did start the spark for moving the entire site into Flash. Don't even think of asking for a FlashBlog from me, cuz it ain't gonna happen. Dealing with html is aggravating enough, thank you very much. But I will give you a little motion treat.
The v3 links were to be:
dingbats—this
link will actually become active soon, so stay tuned;
intersections—I
was filming traffic intersections in DC and still have some of them on DAT. There
was going to be a map so you could click on the dot in the intersection and the
movie would pop up and play. Of course, visitors could send in their own intersections
that they wanted me to film, or ones they had filmed on their own;
tennis—rounds
of Photoshop
tennis between friends, strangers and whomever
wanted to play;
webshots—interesting,
fascinating & titillating imagery I had yanked from webshots.
Remember, this was back before Flickr and YouTube;
archives—version
2.0 would live here. It was a favorite of mine and this version pulls from that
design aesthetic. I remember people really enjoyed the interactive DC street-explanation
map I designed, maybe I'll bring that back.
My 2nd Peapod delivery comes this evening! I'm trying to get it into a routine of middle-of-the-month paycheck, and I think this order might allow me to coast for the next six weeks or so. I still have foodstuffs left over from the first order.
I'm very excited about this tomorrow morning, especially the iTunes-exclusive content. In addition to the previously mentioned BlackBerry Pearl, now would be the perfect time for a kind person to upgrade me to one of these.
I found this guy bloghopping. He always has great songs on his site. (And some office-safe soft porn, too. Click on "Arm Gallery" if you lust for more.)
