you like music? so do i. support my station!

So hey...i work at a non-profit indie rock radio/internet station in Seattle.

we're in the middle of our winter pledge drive...and we could use some help.

check it out: http://kexp.org

make a pledge if ya want, we'd appreciate it: http://kexp.org/support/pledge/

okay. thanks.

Aaron

Stupidest Week Ever

Last week I spent mostly sleeping or padding around in my pj's and slippers, feeling all sorts of nasty. I finally got back to work on Friday, only to leave by 3 pm and go home and get back on the couch. Friday night my parents called and I was so excited to talk to someone who wasn't my dog. Then Saturday morning I got sick to my stomach again, but I went to a friend's going away party that night anyway. And being out of my house, being showered, talking to people socially, was THRILLING. It was almost intoxicating it was so much fun. I even had a beer, and a cookie. I really really love my dog (Hi Puppies!!!), but I cannot emphasize how truly awesome it was to be out of my pajamas and house feeling relatively normal and social again. I was so excited that when I gave my friends a little going-away gift, I started jumping up and down. Really. Not in a like "I'm so happy you're moving" kind of way, but in a "DEAR GOD AM I EXCITED TO SEE ALL THESE PEOPLE" way.

Hi Puppies!!!

i can't really explain this photo. i'm not sure what it means. i do know, that some people really really love their dogs.

moving on...if you know me, then you know i have a thing for korean bbq. further...any time i can eat korean bbq in a different town...well by golly i'm gonna do it...and here are two poorly shot pictures that show that i ate korean bbq. i really can't think of a more boring post actually.



And finally...here is my view of the la subway station platform. A very beautiful and expansive and very empty station. kinda sad actually.

food day

wander a bit around downtown today and stumbled upon central market. YUM YUM.
Mexican food stalls...Chinese food stalls...Korean food stalls...produce...spices..shall i repeat? YUM YUM!

largest kettle of tomatillo sauce i've ever seen:

New Glasses!

I got new spectacles last week! I was super nervous about them because I thought they were so different from my other spectacles.


But I've had them for a week now...nobody's noticed. Perhaps they're not so different from my old spectacles after all.

Sun Dog

coffeehouses....

so..being that i occasionally tour around the country with da band...i have gotten to know quite a number of coffeehouses around the good ol' USA...they are, as you know, the perfect retreat, when traveling, for ones laptop, a chocolate chip cookie and either a espresso macchiato (yes, make fun of me for the small dainty cup...i'm still gonna drink it yo.." or a tasty green genmaicha tea. i love going to them, i love seeking them out, and i finding a really really good one.

Today, i may have found one of the best: Lost Souls Cafe in downtown l.a.

it's down an alley off, of fourth, in between spring and main. de la soul is playing. peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookies. free FAST wireless. old crazy vibe. couches, 1900's tile floor, old and new and modern and authentic. just perfect.

thats all i got folks. aside from taking a bus that took FOREVER to get from silverlake to downtown today...everything has gone swimmingly...

i know i shouldn't complain...

But it's cold in Los Angeles!! how naive and hopeful i was to think that i'd fly a short two hours south to sunny sunny los angeles and be enveloped in warm dry cuddly air.

instead? Overcast and in the 50's today. what the hell kinda weather is that?
i can hang out in seattle if all i want is tepid. Come on LA! show me what you got!

Los Angeles, i'm on to you.

i'd also like to point out that randy newman was either lying or drunk when he penned the song "I Love L.A." Whatever it was, he surely can't still love LA. Case in point: if you recall the video for said song from 198whatever, he was actually in a MOVING CAR as he transversed the highways of la county singing its praises. that my friends, at least from my anecdotal and biased analysis, is very unlikely to happen today. Okay, i take taht back, perhaps he loves it (or did love it)...but only because he probably has a super fly crazy, totally sweetass beach front property in malibu (with a heliopad) or something akin to that..such as a submarine dock (maybe that's only a paul allen thing?) and only comes down from his holy and sacred songwriters nest to get organic free trade shade grown open source sencha loose leaf free range green tea.

i don't know....that's mostly conjecture on my part. sorry randy, maybe you still love LA.

not that i'm complaining all that much. if i'd brought my camera, i'd have taken pictures for you, the gentle reader. but i didn't. instead, you get the written word. which, really, isn't all that great tonight. As you can see, i'm not in the mood nor really inclined to just repeat the sequence of the days events, as those types of posts are only interesting to perhaps me, and myself when i go back to revisit the post 6 months from now.

i do love LA though. all that aside. it's like a big NY that's been smashed like a huge cockroach. love it!

(oh, and in-and-out burger...loves me some in/out)

star sighting...

it wouldn't be LA with at least one star sighting in the first 12 hours that i'm here...and who else, at 11:30pm in silver lake, would happen to walk into the crappy ass but awesome dive bar but jack bauer...i mean Kiefer Sutherland..actually, he's really just jack to me.

j's response upon texting her that jack bauer just walked into the bar:

"You better get the fuck out of there then."


and that's exactly what we did.

sunny

wow.

i forget.

i forget that every time i'm in Los Angeles that i love it here.

i get the value of seattle...chicago...minneapolis(although, less so..)

70 degree weather with sunshine in february?

WTF people?!

give me the sun any day over mr. beef or a stupid seahawk.

I Love You, But You Love Meat

From the NY Times. Of course infinitely interesting to me, as I'm a veggie and Aa is not:

“If you can’t allow your partner to have latitude in what he or she eats, then maybe your problem isn’t about food,” said Susan Jaffe, a psychiatrist in Manhattan.

One way Zack has broken me

Our friend R sent us this video of the basenji competition from the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. All I did while watching this was try to figure out which dogs had to poop. It was an incredibly stressful eight minutes (awesome Chariots of Fire / smooth jazz hybrid music aside).

Also - Seriously? Eight minutes? I like these dogs, but goddamn. Of course I couldn't stop the video because I WAS TESTING MY DOG NEEDING TO POOP SKILLS. STOPPING IS LIKE CHEATING. [breaks down in tears]

Whoa.

Mock Prom
Originally uploaded by bad art

This was my initial reaction upon seeing this picture, which was taken 236 years ago this May. We're all posing in our best thrift-store finery on our way out to Mock Prom, a yearly dance / party / other things at my college. We're in my and Gina's (she's in the red dress) old apartment in a place called the Bungalows, which was built of corrugated cardboard. Dave was our next-door neighbor.

Interesting side note? That dress I'm wearing? Was like a size 20, and floor length, when I found it at the Salvation Army. It took me three days to alter by hand. I didn't want to use a sewing machine because it felt like cheating. College Jeannie, you were dumb sometimes.

Also? I lived on nothing but coffee, beer, cigarettes, 25 cent little debbies from the gas station, and milk when I wanted to feel healthy. Again I wag my finger at College Jeannie.

Of course she is

I'm on the phone with my sister MK, who lives in Lincoln, NE. We're talking about this past weekend's caucuses (both WA and NE caucused on Saturday):

MK: How were your caucuses on Saturday?!
Me: Oh, I didn't go!
MK: WHAAT?! Sorry. Why?!
Me: Because of work. [boring explanation] But Aa went. And I feel OK about it. Plus...
MK (audibly excited and growing impatient with my long-winded explanation): MINE WERE AWESOME! I'M A DELEGATE!

Perfect. My sister was born to do this. Anyone who knows my sister and who has talked to her for more than three minutes knows she was born to do this too. I actually believe caucusing is a better system now, knowing she became a delegate.

One more gee dee thing to vote for

Every week, this blog takes a band picture and asks readers to vote on which member is most likely in charge. Look which band's perceived hierarchical structure is being discussed this week!

Voting stops on the 19th. Comments thus far are soooo worth reading.

Today in Arcane Deities

Today's arcane deity is…OSIRIS!

Osiris was a big-deal god in the Egyptian pantheon back in the days of the Pharaohs well through the time Christianity swept that country. He was the great-grandson of Ra, who's, like, THE GOD for Egypt during this time. Osiris was the first Pharaoh of Egypt. And all Pharaohs were descended from Osiris, hence they were descended from Ra. Get it?

Osiris is frequently depicted as having green skin and wearing an atef crown w/ ram horns on it. What's an atef crown? Well, remember those pictures of Pharaohs with the coney things on their heads? That, my friend, is an atef crown. (If my stunning descriptive ability isn't doing it for ya, fine).

So. Osiris was also the god of the underworld. How does one go from being a Pharaoh to being god of the dead? Well, yeah. Not a happy story. See, Osiris had a brother, Set, who didn't like him very much. (wow, siblings who mess with each other. Familiar?) Set got Osiris drunk one night and then locked him in a magic box. Then Set poured melted lead into the box, killing Osiris. Set disposed of the box by tossing it into the Nile. Mafiosos would later streamline and economize this idea with their innovative cement shoes method.

Set then forcibly took over the rulership of Egypt. That included forcing Osiris' grieving wife Isis to marry him. Isis, however, would not give up. She devised a super-complicated set of magic moves to bring Osiris back to life. Seriously. In summary, hijinks ensued. In longer summary, the hijinks included getting pregnant by the spirit of her dead husband ( ring a bell?) , getting her sister and no less than two other gods involved, being found out by Set, enduring Set ripping Osiris' body up into a bunch of pieces, sewing the pieces back together, and then finally coaxing Osiris' spirit back into his body.

HOWEVER! Osiris still couldn't come back to the land of the living, because he'd been dead. So he became the lord of the underworld. And the baby that was born from the crazy spirit-pregnancy? A boy, named Horus. Horus eventually defeated Set and took the throne from him. And in the really lovely words of one awesomely stitched-together version of the myth of Osiris, "so it is that Horus watches over us while we live, and gives guidance to the Pharaoh while he lives, and his father Osiris watches over us in the next life. So it is that the gods are at peace". And so it is that many years later, Willow will use the urn of Osiris to bring Buffy back from the dead.

Bonus side-effect from the whole Isis bringing Osiris back to life thing: a promise that all believers can live forever upon Osiris' triumphant return, once Horus finally permanently defeats crazy-ass uncle Set, thus forever vanquishing evil. (again, I ask: Ring a bell?)

And that's...today in Arcane Deities!

Cuter Tuesday

I'm working from home today. When I got home from my AM eye doc appointment, I noticed that someone had let Zack eat a lot of yogurt. In fact, it looked like someone let Zack immerse his face in yogurt.

The pictures don't really show the extent of the yogurtosity of Zack's face. I am ok with this. They are still awfully cute pictures. Early poll results indicate cute pictures of my dog leading heavily in Southeastern states. Numbers too close to tell in Midwest and California.