What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs, Rolls over your neighbor's dog? What's great for a snack and fits on your back? It's Blog, Blog, Blog! It's Blo-og, Blo-og, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood. It's Blo-og, Blo-og, it's better than bad, it's good! Everyone wants a Blog! You're gonna love it, Blog! Come on and get your Blog! Everyone needs a Blog!

Friday, July 20, 2007

OK, I give up

Lately, in addition to cheap pharmeceuticals, I've been getting weird little jpegs with stock tips and wondering WHO would EVER read one of these blurry/poor grammer 'tips' and BUY stock?

And then I got this one this morning:

Subject: computation contralto degas

aurora congo, czarina balkan chlorine, algaecide ascend. clinch current barberry carrion
anniversary behold bitterroot. addendum antoine aqueduct attrition contrary delft crumb avenge
defiant austria brief description. chair breastplate afire allegiant cox belying boxwood


WHY? I don't even understand the point anymore.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

10 Fingers, 10 Toes, 1 Tail

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Well, as of Friday the 13th, 2007, I am now an actual uncle through blood-relation. Up until this point I've been an uncle to Dinah's 4 nieces & nephews and I count my two cousins' 5 kids as well, since we all grew up 4 blocks from each other, so they might as well be my brothers.

But now we've got Russell Dean (a.k.a. Rusty the Robot), who, from the look on his face, will take great pleasure in being turned to the dark side by his only uncle. I already promised that I'd take him for his first tattoo at 18.

I have about 2 years of plotting before I can actually start damaging him mentally, though. So I'll just have to bide my time.

(Note: my Dad was STILL in the hospital on Friday, so they wheeled him down to see the baby. He's home now, though)

Choke on this!


0385720920.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg, originally uploaded by macslost.

I tend to like Chuck Palahniuk's work simply because I like reading and watching depraved individuals. I have a rather addictive personality and I can see the attraction, I just like reading about others doing it instead.

Anyway, CHOKE follows the story of a guy who deliberately chokes on food in restaurants, strikes up parasitic relationships with the people who "save" him and milk them for money to take care of his mom, who's in a psychiatric hospital. Pretty funny stuff, right?

Anyway, they got a wicked cast attached to it so far. Sam Rockwell will play the lead with Angelica Huston as his mother. Kelly MacDonald (who I've had a crush on since Trainspotting) also stars, but I don't know which character she plays yet.

Woo-Hoo!

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Buncha movie stuff!

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How sweet is that? This is like the big mystery out there right now. A la Blair Witch or something. It's a giant monster movie but shot from the perspective of camcorders. Suh-WEET!

Next up! The new Dean Devlin flick. You either like him or you don;t I happen to enjoy his flicks for what they are. Epic popcorn. This? Looks pretty wicked. It's Apocalypto with mammoths and sabretooth tigers!!

And what up Kevin Bacon? Welcome back from pedophile-land!

And we also saw Harry Potter. Pretty good! Summer's doing better on this end!

Friday, July 06, 2007

And another Dad bites the dust!


normal_BrokenBicycle.jpg, originally uploaded by macslost.

Besides basic genetics, I inherited a few things from my parents.

From Mom, I got the packratting. I have a hard time throwing anything away. If you know me, you know I have more crap than God.

Dad's a fairly handy guy when it comes to building/fixing things, which I picked up, but he also is damage prone (thanks a bunch for THAT one). The man has had 5 major bike spills in the last decade or so. Like me, he is right-handed. Unlike me, he always lands on his ride side and I tuck and let the left side take the hit. Hey, I need my right hand. The left is pretty useless except for Guitar Hero fret buttons, secondary weapon fire and tying shoes. And I could do a whole 10-page blog entry of all of my accidents over the years, but I won't. Not now, anyway.

So this morning my Dad took a pretty severe spill off his bike while zooming down Old San Marcos in Santa Barbara. It's a rather brutal windy road and he hit a rock when his brakes were acting up (it wasn't the brakes per se, more that he was LOOKING at his brakes when he hit the rock).

He landed on his back on a bigger rock, breaking 9 ribs in his back, 5 in his side, puncturing the lung-liner (not exactly sure what the phrase is, but the wall AROUND the lung filled with blood, NOT the actual lung), and broke his clavicle (collar bone) in 4 places.

So we ran up from LA and sat around the hospital all day (blog time!). He's fine and should be out of ICU tomorrow. He can use his hands fine and is doped up to the gills.

You might think I'm being cavalier about this, and to an extent, maybe I am, but after spending a day in the hospital around the doctors/nurses and after it happening both to me and him on multiple occasions, it gets to be a little old hat. When my mom got the call this morning, she actually just sighed, rolled her eyes and threw some clothes into a bag and went to pick him up because last time he bit it and the firemen called, he was just scraped up. I love my Dad immensely, so of course we dropped everything we were doing and drove right up, but I only panicked for about the first 30 seconds after reading the text message that he was in the hospital. After I saw what happened, I just sighed and rolled my eyes.

2 times ago, he bit it, laid around the house all weekend gritting his teeth and finally went to the hospital and he had broken the ball-joint off the top of his humerus (upper arm bone). Yeah, sat around the house eating aspirin with his arm snapped in half. So he's not that much of a whiner.

Anyway, tomorrow we'll head back to LA, since we'll be back NEXT Friday for the birth of my first actual blood nephew and my parents' first grandchild. But that's another blog entry. Actually, the worst thing about the accident is that my Dad is a notorious baby-hog, so holding the baby is going to be a difficult task for him. For that, I feel bad.

Oh, and that's NOT a picture of my dad's bike. His bike is some hard-core mountain bike that's in way better shape than he is.

Thank you, come again!

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"Silly customer, you cannot hurt a Twinkie! "

So The Simpsons Movie has put these "real" Kwik-E-Marts around the country and one conveeeeniently in Burbank, so we kinda had to go. I mean, it's the real Kwik-E-Mart!

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" I won't lie to you. On this job, you will be shot at. "

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"Mr.Simpson--A Twizzler is not a sprinkle...A Mounds is not a sprinkle...A Jolly Rancher is NOT a sprinkle!!!! "

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"Thank you for coming. I'll see you in Hell. "

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"But, Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills. You're from two different worlds... Oh, I've wasted my life."

or

"Worst. Squishee. Ever." The sugar-free sour-as-hell Pomegranate Squishee did not balance well the dough filled sugar-bomb of a donut. Though the balance did keep me from vomiting, as 2 sips or bites in a row of either would send the body into shock.

It's also sad that this was located right across the street from my comic shop. And I went there after picking up my books...

(thanks to Megan for sending a link with even MORE photos in it!!! The photos are of the actual Burbank one we went to. Check 'em out! )

Soundwave: Obsolete

So my buddy Allistair apparently had way too much time on his hands today and dug out about a dozen HILARIOUS Transformers spoofs online.

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My favorite is the sad tale of Soundwave, who was left out of the current film. I mean, an iPod can't really eject anything but a USB cord, so ya can't really update him, can you?

KA-BOOM!!!!


fireworks.jpg, originally uploaded by macslost.

Damn! You know, I must say, next year we might actually have a get-together at our place for the 4th. Our neighborhood is full of crazy people! We almost ended up hanging out at home like last year before we got an invite to go to another house gathering. When we got home, our hood was 'sploding all over the place, especially our neighbors behind us.

I imagine it looked a lot like this, because they DEFINITELY had some BIG rockets and were launching them from a metal trash can or barrel so there was a huge BOOM! followed by car alarms going off each time they fired one. They blew up about 100' above our house and rained sparks all over the area.

So I sat outside watching, drinking & reading while eying the falling flames, my tiki hut, and the nearest fire extinguisher.

Pretty exciting stuff.

Speaking of being a hermit...


DSC03547.JPG, originally uploaded by macslost.

WHY would I ever have to leave my house NOW?!

A minor upgrade from my 2002 47" 1080i projection HDTV to a 52" 1080p flat-panel.

Behold the glory!

Plus I have a PS3, an HD attachment for my X-Box 360 on the way and a crate of about 60 movies on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.



Seriously, it'll make you cry.

This? Is a nerd post. Feel free to skip.

OK, I saw this and it just made me laugh.

The big thing these days seems to be killing off comic book characters. Which I'm all for. Not enough people have died in comics over the years. And seriously, they always come back. besides, most of them can easily be replaced by someone picking up the mantle and that makes it even more interesting.

Anyway, the whole Sabretooth vs. Wolverine thing has gone on forever, but apparently Sabretooth is about to bite it big time. I guess there's a sword that neutralizes his healing factor.

I'm only posting this because this page from the comic is some good slapstick:

wolverine-20070629060515383.jpg

(if you can't tell what's happening, Wolverine cuts of Sabretooth's arm, Sabertooth shrugs, picks it back up and reattaches it and....it falls off again...and again. Sabretooth is confused.)

SPEAKING of Austin...

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I suspiciously eyed THIS building in downtown Austin for the whole time we were there. I was glad to get out on the 2nd, just a few hours before TRANSFORMERS opened. Why?

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LOOK FAMILIAR? They even have the same TEETH, man. I'm betting he stood up and started smashing buildings and stomping on humans at 8pm Monday night.

We went and saw it at the Arclight on Tuesday and hot-damn, if it wasn't a fun ride. And Shia LaBeouf is funny as hell. Peter Cullen returns as the one true voice of Optimus Prime and it's FANTASTIC. Hugo Weaving does Megatron, but you can hardly tell.

Dear Seattle,

For years I have held all other cities up to you and found them wanting. Portland was a close second, Vancouver a third. Other cities had their values, but on whole, they never really compared.

Until now.

Up to last weekend, I had sworn to God I would never set foot in the state of Texas again. (aside from a layover in Houston's skanky airport which was unavoidable, unwanted and unsettling). See, 18 years ago, I got run over by a semi outside of Abilene, spent 3 days in the ICU and 3 weeks in the hospital there. All busted up and uglier for wear.

But as time passed on and silly little things like that fade away, we decided to visit some friends of ours in Austin. I always wanted to see Austin, simply because all of my friends in the music industry in Seattle & Portland went every year to SxSW and said it was the best place ever. Then I spent years reading about the awesome Alamo Drafthouses and the food.

So, after 4 days last weekend, I can honestly say Austin is probably the raddest city I've been to. Understand, I'm getting older (I sprained my knee standing in a doorway yesterday) and crotchetier, so my patience for big cities, long lines and @*#&$^% posers is reaching it's limits. Hence my personal compound I've been building. I'm like a hermit! Not on purpose, but whatever. (I'm sure working at home doesn't help).

ANYWAY!!!! Geez. So I pretty much ate & drank my way through the city: Rudy's, Trudy's, Guero's Taco Bar (from GRINDHOUSE!), Hotel San Jose, El Chilito, South Congress cafe, Shady Grove, Thundercloud Subs, Moonshine and of course 2 screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse: Sicko (which, after seeing this and then Bush pardon Libby, this government can suck it til they die) and Live Free or Die Hard (which was ridiculous and entertaining as well.). And? Two words: Breakfast. Tacos. Rock ON. Why have I never had these in LA? Grr!

Also? We went to the flagship Whole Foods store which may have actually been made by Willy Wonka. It was MAGNIFICENT. Immaculate in every way and anything you could want to eat, hot or cold, in specialty stands. Like CANDY:

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And after all of the awesome, awesome eating and drinking (oooh, Mexican Martinis, yum!) then there was the shopping, where you can get awesome clothes & music (think cheap Melrose & Los Feliz & smaller Amoeba's) then they had the local art, like the 70 scattered guitars (seriously, Seattle has pigs, Chicago has cows. Austin? GUITARS. This is one of the hippy-er ones).

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In addition to this, I have never seen more tattooed people in my life. Some really amazing stuff, too. And it was CHEAP. Man. Cheap eats and drinks, which was awesome.

The only drawback was the bugs. I mean DAMN. Probably lost a pint to the mosquitos.

All in all, though, what a great city.

So, to Seattle, I'll always love you, but methinks I just might not be able to handle the cold anymore.

But I'll still come visit in October.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Welcome the iPhone. It's...everything. And more.