In the three and a half years I’ve known Jen, I thought I knew a lot about her. This evening I found out that when she was eight, her mother bought her a copy of KISS’ Double Platinum—this is the same mother who sent her to Catholic school from fifth grade through High School. Go figure…

Basically every piece of furniture I own is broken down into its component parts and stacked in the living room; the boxes are marked and labeled, and the fragile stuff is (hopefully) organized so that it won’t get busted. Suddenly, the idea of moving has become a reality instead of an abstraction.

Date posted: August 17, 2003 | Filed under history | Leave a Comment »

bar, frederick road, 8.13.03

bar, frederick road, 8.13.03

Date posted: August 15, 2003 | Filed under photo | Leave a Comment »

I’ve had my Scout for about five years, and in that time it’s gone from a strong-running, reasonably clean rig to a strong-running, rusty and dirty rig. In the time I’ve had it in the city, I’ve done curbside work on it twice, eventually giving up due to severe anxiety. The normal leisurely wrench-turning process became a mad dash to and from the house to grab [tool I didn’t bring outside] while being paranoid that some jerk would come walking down the street, casually pick up my socket set, and walk off with them all. Plus, I’m sure my neighbors weren’t so pleased with me working on my truck outside their houses; I’ve had enough “Abandoned” stickers left by the city to let me know just how some of them feel. So I’m looking forward to getting in the new house and being able to tear the engine down, pull off the fenders, hell, re-tub the whole body before it falls off around me. In the privacy of my own driveway.

I’m typing this in the basement of my house, on the futon, where it’s dry and cool. The top floor of my house is an uncomfortable 85 degrees or so. This is the first week of really hot weather that we’ve had in the city this year, and it’s nice to be able to come downstairs and enjoy the temperature. I’ve also been reading about the outages up north, and I’m thinking that being in New York City right now would be a hateful experience.

I wish that NPR encoded their feeds in a format other than RealPlayer. I love being able to listen to Morning Edition at 2-3PM in the afternoon while I work, but I refuse to install that shit software on this Mac.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: August 14, 2003 | Filed under house, Scout | Leave a Comment »

Last night our friend Dave dropped by with a full-size Ford pickup, and within about twenty minutes we filled it with boxes, crates, and other square gear for transport to storage. After a nail-biting trip across town (stupid dumb Harbor Tunnel) we unloaded and took him to dinner at Kelsey’s Irish Pub. This morning, besides the empty space where the mountian of boxes used to be, this place doesn’t look anything different.

Beginning to wonder about the origins of my house, I found this site this morning: Sears Modern Homes. I don’t think the new house is a Sears model, but I do see a few familiar designs in there. Also: the site that took me to this one, chock full of great links: Retrolounge.

Slashdot ran an article about identity theft last evening, and there was a tidbit of interesting information amidst the fames and paranoia: This link on fake SSNs.

In other news, the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration got blasted by that new virus thing yesterday, which forced them to shut their computers down for the day. Remarkably, service times actually increased.

Date posted: August 13, 2003 | Filed under friends, geek, house | Leave a Comment »

This will make you think twice about any professional photography you see these days.

Self-Serve. My new grocer is an older store in a neighborhood that’s seen explosive growth in the last twenty years. As a result they’ve taken some major steps to attempt to keep up—some of which are questionable. They narrowed the aisles some time back, so that pushing a cart anytime between the hours of 7AM to 8PM is like being in the backfield of a NASCAR race. If someone takes a minute to review a product in an aisle, the store closes down like a clogged artery. Despite this, and the walking proximity of the Wal-Mart, they stubbornly keep the junk aisle open (that huge area directly in front of the entrance where they stack useful items like beach chairs, Halloween candy, and cooler chests) instead of razing it and opening up the layout.

My new complaint—and this applies to other stores as well—is the idea that self-serve aisles will save money. Notice I didn’t say “speed up customer service”, but save money. Store Management, in its infinite wisdom, decided that putting customers in front of a series of touchscreens, card-swipers, reciept printers, and speakers instead of a catatonic checkout employee would be cost-beneficial. Nevermind that most people still can’t program the clock on their VCR, let alone navigate the crap UI on the kiosk. I have no figures to back up my claims, but I would estimate that it takes at least twice as much time to check out as it did before—this in a store I want to spend as little time in as possible. Where do we stand while we’re waiting for Grandpa to figure out where the barcode is on the box of Mini-Wheats? Oh, right. In the middle of the tiny aisle. Where other folks have no way to get around us.

Here’s a memo to you, folks: At some point, continuing to push the work in the lap of the consumer (think: ATMs vs. tellers, phone menu systems vs. operators) is going to piss us off to the point where we don’t use your company any more.

Our friend Rob sent me a link to this website yesterday: www.mediainspiration.com. I haven’t had time to really dive into it, but it looks pretty good so far. Thanks, Rob.

Date posted: August 12, 2003 | Filed under art/design, life | Leave a Comment »

Ow.

We got a dozen crabs last night, covered the coffee table in paper and tore into them; with a sixpack of Coronas and some fresh corn, life was very, very good. I’m paying for it this morning, though—between a slight hangover and a steady diet of C02 fumes from the Scout’s broken exhaust, I feel like a doormat.

I did get the front door cleaned up and primed for painting yesterday; There’s some caulking and carpentry to be done but it should go smoothly. I’m also going to be a nice guy and build a simple storm window for the front… maybe.

Nate is out of the hospital and convalescing fine; donations can be sent to your favorite charity.

God damn it. I just want to be moved already.

Date posted: August 11, 2003 | Filed under friends, life | Leave a Comment »

This is a very nice compendium of bottlecap artwork by a collector; there are a ton of images here with some beautiful designs. I have a 4’x6′ steel/enamel sign for “Cheer Up” soda, and whose bottlecap is represented here.

Date posted: August 9, 2003 | Filed under art/design | Leave a Comment »

The Scout woke with a throaty roar—on the first start. Problem solved. The old battery was new to the truck when I bought it (it was stamped 10/97) so $60 later I have a new Exide 6-year battery in there and the starting problem is gone. So now I just have to get the exhaust fixed before the Man pulls me over for a noise complaint.

We are off tomorrow for the day to Jen’s parents’ place to do the Family Birthday; please send her your good wishes. She and I are going to order a bushel of crabs Sunday, throw some paper on the coffee table (or, maybe, in the backyard), crack some beers, and enjoy summer in the city. Hopefully I can catch the ice cream man out front too.

Break it down. More thoughts on Strays, the new JA album. Why is it that Dave Navarro, an otherwise outstanding guitarist, has to include some kind of break in the middle of an otherwise excellent song? Back in the day, JA used to be able to pull this off expertly (see: Three Days) but in 2003, it’s getting irritating. The tune Riches, which is a rip-roaring good time in the beginning, gets watered down in the last minute and a half or so with a buzzkill down-tempo coda. Another one of my favorite Navarro-written tunes, Transcending, off the RHCP disc One Hot Minute, began with a captivating Flea bass riff, building into a woven tapestry of guitar, drums, and vocal. At its peak, the song fell apart into a down-tempo sludgefest with an annoying chorus. Why? I ask you. Why?

Memo to this simple son of a bitch: Don’t come back, punk. I’ll buy a gun and shoot you for being a dumbass.
(thx to Todd for pointing this page out.)

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: August 8, 2003 | Filed under family, music, Scout | Leave a Comment »

Chewbacca

This evening I decided to get in the Scout and see if she’d crank over just for the hell of it. With the first turn of the key, she gave me a few low cranks and then got slower. Initially, I thought the problem had to do with the dreaded “Gold Box” syndrome (a feature of later IH gas engines, involving an electronic ignition module and frustration) where the starter didn’t get any juice, period. Now I think my accidental draining of the battery back on Friday night put the final nail in its coffin, and it’s been undercharged since then, contributing to my starting problems. I’m going to see if I can pick up a new battery tomorrow and make her happy again.

My buddy Matt in San Francisco sent me an email this morning with a link attached:

Isn’t it amazing that I actually can be a part of this craziness!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93985,00.html

I asked him to vote for Gary Coleman.

Tomorrow our friend Nate goes in tho the shop for a suspension job; he has about thirty blowed-up discs and vertebrae, and they have to put him up on the lift and sort the mess out. Good luck, and get well soon, amigo.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: August 7, 2003 | Filed under humor, politics, Scout | Leave a Comment »

new I think it may be time for some of our elected legislators to roll up their sleeves and get some of the kinks of the intellectual property and copyright laws sorted out before our economy goes down the toilet.

The new Jane’s Addiction album is a mixed bag. There are some songs that really rock, and there are some that merely move. I don’t know what exactly I was hoping for, considering the fact that the band was so strung out recording Ritual they don’t remember it, but this album is pretty good. I suppose it will be one of those albums I have to listen to a few times to get into (see: Songs for the Deaf, Turn On The Bright Lights, Vespertine) but overall it’s not too bad.

Slashdot had an entry on the art of Machinima, where you take the in-game engine of your favorite first-person shooter and “film” a script or some other story. Apparently there’s now a contest for the best of this year’s clips; that link took me to the Red vs. Blue site, where a couple of guys have taken the familiar Capture the Flag scenario and asked the question: If the bots in the game were real people, what would they talk about? This is a distinctly Kevin Smith/Quentin Tarantino approach to the subject, and howlingly funny for anybody who’s been in the military, played a lot of FPS style games, or just likes offbeat game humor. Worth a look, guys.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any funnier. The Scout’s ignition module burned out at work today, so the juice won’t get from the battery to the starter motor. It doesn’t click, grind, or catch. Not a thing. I caught a ride with Nate into town to pick up Jen (remember, the Scout is the one running vehicle we have) and then to Jen’s house to where the Tortoise is parked. We say good-bye to Nate (he doesn’t need to get involved in this insanity, and it would be our luck for his car to break down too) and hop in the Tortoise to try to make it down to the mechanic’s. About a quarter of the way there, she gives up the ghost—there’s a hole in the return line from the radiator about the size of a dime that I didn’t see when I looked over the engine. We get a tow from a nice young guy and drop it off with my mechanic, who so far has saved us roughly $500 by proving that the Saturn’s alternator wasn’t dead, just the battery. So that car isn’t heading back to the dealership anytime soon.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: August 6, 2003 | Filed under geek, humor, politics, Scout | Leave a Comment »