the long comment about lost that i put on abel's blog that i may as well post here because it's really long and it looks like i update my blog more

Read Abel's post.
http://www.abelkeogh.com/blog/index.php/?p=340

i’m proud to say that i called out the flash-forward very early on — fortunately before he mentioned his father’s alive-ness. i actually had to assume it was a flashback as the show went on strictly because of jack’s dad’s references. of course, this can ultimately be explained in one of two ways: 1) he’s dead but jack still refers to him being drunk in heaven or hell or wherever he is or 2) jack’s dad came back to life and got his old job back at the hospital. i wouldn’t put resurrection past the creators of lost, but i would question a world that just goes back to normal after something like that happening.

the flash forward was a fabulous idea in my opinion, although it actually will be looked upon in the future as a major lost ‘jumped the shark’ moment. it does frighten me though. there is a chance that they all get off relatively early in the remaining three seasons and much of the rest of the story is trying to answer the questions without actually being on the island. that sounds a lot more boring to me. if they go that route they better have some wicked phenomenal stories to actually bother leaving the island. the scenery alone would be worth missing.

i’m also happy to say that i knew that bernard, sayid and jin weren’t shot. if other people didn’t call it as well i blame the creators’ insinuation that five people would die by the end of the season. i have no doubt, abel, that the creators told you (i’m not sure where they told you; i only know that you told me) about the five deaths to make the three shots offscreen more probable.

i think locke and ben are right about naomi. i think she’s bad. that’s normal for me, though. whenever someone is presented as good i employ self-reverse psychology and assume the opposite and vice versa. this still doesn’t mean i don’t still hate locke. i hate locke because i was really gearing up for sawyer’s redemption and locke steered him back to dirty vengeance. now sawyer hit the point of no return by wasting a surrendering… i forgot his name. maybe what’s his name had it coming and maybe he still had something up his sleeve and needed to die, but sawyer’s long gone and that makes me sad. and i know i know it was sawyer’s decision to adversely affect both guys. i’m just saying it was locke’s decision to adversely affect sawyer.

yeah, i bet it’s ben’s funeral. there is a really awesome screengrab of the news clipping in jack’s hand on losteastereggs.blogspot.com. maybe i need to start watching lost in hd. it shows that the clipping is indeed real and details the death of someone with the first name starting with j and maybe the last name ending with antham. i guess there’s this philosopher from the 16th century named jeremy bantham. that may be another one of ben’s names or something and it would go well with john locke’s philosopher name.

crap. this is long. i should’ve just put all this on my blog. maybe i will.

they will be mine... oh yes

Usually rock shows are announced on the radio a few days before the Saturday they go on sale. The Blaze dj who mentioned the White Stripes coming to Utah may have jumped the gun since tickets apparently don't go on sale until June 2nd. I think he said they're coming on like September 12th or something.

This is huge.

Last month the White Stripes replaced New Order as the current band I most want to see live before I die (New Order broke up). As a result, Maria and I are getting tickets (she actually doesn't know yet (hopefully she won't mind part of her birthday devoted to buying them)).

Does anyone else want to come? Many of you aren't fans and that's fine. Many more of you may not be as familiar as I am. I'm totally willing to make a mix cd for both groups' benefit.

Let me know. J.R., if this gets you back on the mainland, you can sleep on my couch for a couple of days.

a pixel paints 1024 words

Here's a whole ton of stuff that I've been meaning to talk about, but my brain is too mushy to type about. So pretty much here are a bunch of pictures.

My work is semi-interesting. I'm dealing with thousands of dollars worth of audio and video equipment and sometimes I think it's thousands of dollars worth of complication. I sometimes wish things were back in the land of black & white and mono sound. I feel foolish about everything I don't understand, so it makes me feel pretty good when I find spelling errors on some of this stuff (even when it's a cheap digital audio recorder). Note that it's not just some foreign spelling since it's different in the instruction manual.

I absolutely love Spring snowboarding. It's warm. I get to wear shorts...
There's hardly anyone there (notice how there are no little dots around me)...
... but stuff like this can happen. I didn't hit a tree. This is from skidding across the Spring crystaline-like snow.
So the guy who runs MyExtraLife.com and Extra Life Radio is an acquaintance of mine and he rented out a theater to watch the new Spidermun movie.
Maria and I went and had a great time. She got to meet Scott Johnson (the Extra Life guy), wear her nerdy t-shirt and I got to win a t-shirt. Rhett was going to go, but he got tied up. He also said he didn't really want to deal with the "geek smell." I actually didn't know there was a geek smell. I suppose I actually have the geek smell and am just used to it. The particular day of the show also happened to be Free Comic Book Day. We actually bumped into Scott at the comic book store right after the movie. So it was a pretty fun day. Strangely I don't remember much of the movie.

I bet you're wondering how I got this old picture of the temple. Well, I actually took it, but made it look old. Just ignore the guy in modern clothes in the foreground, the Zions Bank building in the background, the car and the fact that the photo was obviously taken on the grounds of the new Conference Center.
Maria and I have been watching a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm lately which explains this picture of her looking a lot like Cheryl Hines.


This picture and the one below it and the two above it were taken on one of the first really nice days of the year.
This one is just for my friend Dre. Dre, this TREE is a huge 311 fan. It's somewhere in Salt Lake City. Your job is to find it!
This thing is a true mini like the ones I used to see in New Zealand. Notice that it's way smaller than a normal mini. This particular vehicle was parked at my work one day for some reason.

don't read this if you hate your time being wasted aaagghh!!!

I know I haven't written decently in like a month, so I just have to say that I'm still alive. I also have tons of pictures and a pretty big technological announcement coming very very shortly.

locke's dead!

Say hooray!

Well, maybe he's not dead. He tends to heal quickly like a lesser Wolverine or Heroes cheerleader. He probably is dead though because apparently Terry O'Quinn sold his house in Hawaii.

But if he's not dead, at least he's in a ditch with an abdominal bullet wound and bleeding. Good riddance. He was getting so freaking annoying.

dirty deeds done

You may be wondering why I'm rollin' in the Jacksons. My crew and I have made our fortunes by doing our share of dirty work. Some things I do are things that nobody else would touch.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned Joe before. Actually, I just did a quick search of the blog and I guess I mention Joe quite a bit. He beats me in Guitar Hero all the freakin' time. One thing I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned is that Joe has an intensely hairy back. After this last Wednesday, I think he may possibly have the hairiest back in the state.

About a week ago, Joe borrowed my camera to enter 101.9 The End's "Bringing Sexy Back" contest. It was a hairy back contest. We always joked with him about his hairiness, but I didn't think he'd make the station's callbacks. He did. The station asked him to come into the studio to compete against two other hairy-backed guys. They also required him to bring in someone else to sculpt his back hair into some kind of artistic statement. Since, my boss was to be out of town the day of the contest, I volunteered to take the day off work to do the deed.

I had one demand: that we didn't just cave to catering by simply writing in the name of the radio station. Joe, Maria and I brainstormed a few pretty good back designs. Maria suggested the rock-on hand sign and wings. Joe loved the rock sign, but i didn't think I'd be able to make it look convincing. I liked the idea of the wings, because a hairy texture is close to a feathered texture; so I talked Joe into doing the wing thing.

We barely made it to the station on time and were escorted into the studio. We met Parker and Wendi, the two newest personalities on The End. He pretty much talks non-stop about how the Utah audience hates him. Nicer in person than I thought though. Wendi was super-nice, but slightly forlorn. His picture on the website makes him look like a total db, but his hair isn't actually that peroxided in person. One of the other guys was our age. He brought his sister with him. Both of the other guys were bigger gentleman, but the guy who came with his wife was quite a bit bigger. He was also a bit older. His wife did a lot of complaining about how weird it is to cuddle up with a guy with a hairy back. Anyway, they started off jabbing off with us for an unnecessary amount of time. I brought in my iRiver FM receiver to record the experience, but the reception in there was strangely bad. Maybe I should have just turned the microphone recorder on. I'll try to post what I got anyway.

I didn't think we really had a chance of winning until it was time to have everyone take their shirts off. The young guy was about as hairy as Joe, but the guy with the complaining wife hardly had anything. Hopefully after seeing the other contestants, she'll quit her yappin.' So then they gave us about 15 minutes to go ahead and work our magic. We forgot an electric razor, but the station provided a couple of them for us. We were prepared in just about every other way. I sharpied up some key locations, so that I could get the symmetry of the wings right (I still got it quite a bit wrong). We also brought some razor blades to do some close cutting on the edges for a deeper contrast, but they were only good for a swipe or two before they became clogged up with hair and useless (it's not like we had running hot water to rinse them out with). I messed up plenty on the texturing. I wanted to sort of make the triangular shape of feathers, but when I did I wound up taking off more hair than I wanted to (because of the curl variable etc.) and we wound up with plenty of very unneeded baldness. Because of this, I panicked and to Joe's chagrin I touched up the whole project with some sharpie outlining.

When time was up and we got a glimpse of the other contestants, I had a sudden surge of hope. To my delight, BOTH of the other teams went with the butt-kissing "101.9 The End" design that I vetoed initially. They also went overboard in coloring their poorly shaved designs with magic markers. We had to tell a couple of people what our design was, but once we told them, they ahh'ed with mild delight. The judges were the sponsors (a husband and wife team from the laser treatment place called Evea) and an up-and-coming Georgia band intensely loved by Parker called Five Star Iris (a sort of blend of Gin Blossoms, Keith Urban and an EFY tape).

After a short dismissal, we got back into the studio where the Evea guy (who has almost no body hair, btw) announced that Joe won (say hooray!).

After the contest, we were treated to a free mini-concert by Five Star Iris. They're pretty nice guys. Good thing, because nobody really knows who they are yet, so they'd be dumb to be divas already. After the show we chatted and got our picture taken with them.

The contest prize was $200 (which Joe split evenly with me (hence the top photo)) and three free laser treatments, which I guess Joe will start participating in around Memorial Day or so. Of course If Joe wants to do it right, he'll have to order three MORE treatments after his free ones at close to a cost of 1000 bucks. In essence, the laser people will ultimately hustle him into it. On the other hand, the poor hairy guy has been meaning to do this for a long time, so he may as well get a huge discount on the process. Looks like Joe won't be the hairiest guy in the state for too much longer.

three things i learned at work today

There's been a theory floating around that one way to help overcome allergies is to consume honey that has been produced locally. Since bees make honey from the local pollen containing the allergens that cause allergic symptoms, eating local honey sort of produces an immunity in much the same way that vaccinations do. Rhett and I have thrown around this theory for the past few months. Today I found out at least two (2) people on the internet subscribe to the same theory. Although that doesn't prove its truth, the fact that I didn't stumble across anybody refuting the theory certainly doesn't dispel it. Of course they do recommend starting the "honey treatment" of a teaspoon a day three months in advance of allergy season. My allergies aren't nearly as bad as last year (when I actually saw a doctor because I was convinced I had more than mere allergies), but they've been pretty bad the past couple of weeks.

Years ago I read that the original guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers wanted to take action against the band because he wrote much of their first album and was shortly thereafter tactlessly fired from the band. It was probably about 15 years ago that I read that. Since then in every single magazine I've read and every single tv show I've seen that has had something to do with the Peppers I've been told that Hillel Slovak was the original guitarist and he died of a heroin overdose in 1988. Finally, a quick check on wikipedia informed me that Slovak was actually the original guitarist, but was also in another band with a record contract when the Peppers cut their first record. Slovak temporarily committed with the other band and re-joined RHCP after their first album was already recorded. The Peppers recruited a guy named Jack Sherman just for that first recording. I recall reading in that original article that the fired guitarist claimed that Anthony Kiedis and Flea were ridiculously abusive to him and that when they fired him they walked into the room giggling. Sherman's wikipedia entry didn't mention such abuse, but I can only conclude that the guy I read about must be him, even though we never ever hear about him being a part of the band.

(Speaking of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I also read that when Slovak died, their original drummer, Jack Irons (who was also in that other band (called What Is This?) with Slovak), said to the rest of the band, "This is not where I want to be. I do not want to be a part of something where my #*&$ing friends are dying." He then immediately left the band. Strangely, in the small world of rock music, he was asked to join a band called Mookie Blaylock. He declined, having formed a band of his own, but referred a singer to them by the name of Eddie Vedder. Mookie Blaylock later became Pearl Jam and Irons drummed (dram?) for them anyway between 1994 and 1998).

The weird creature I've seen crawling around our house isn't an alien, but just a house centipede. It looks pretty monstrous and unholy, but wikipedia claims that these things are actually great to have around because they cause no damage and consume unwanted pests. Plus, they don't really bite that often. Late last night I saw it and since it looked so different from a regular centipede I thought it might actually be an alien. I then imagined that it communicated with me that its species was dying and it needed milk or sugar or something to survive. It came to me because the species didn't want a lot of "Earth press" and they'd love to strike a deal under the table where the entire scientific and political community of the planet would not come down on them. I then readily agreed and in return for whatever nutrients they'd need, I would hire them as extras in a really awesome horror movie about bugs from outer space. Soon the celebrity would get to me and I'd inadvertently sever the deal and then the space bugs would kill me and most of Earth out of self-defense.

a non-joking aside

So I've totally lost count of how many jokes I've told so far this week. What's even worse is that I can't think of a single joke I've refrained from saying that I could tell at the end of the week. What that means is that even when I set a goal, put a time measurement on it and then tell everyone I'm doing it; I still don't bother to accomplish it. It's pretty depressing, especially coupled with an even deeper feeling that I automatically attempt humor as a defense mechanism. Does anybody remember that M*A*S*H where Hawkeye went 24 hours without telling a joke? He wanted to prove that he wasn't insecure. Even he made it 24 hours.

Anyway, badder news blending into better news...

Scott, the guy who runs the extralife link on the side of my blog page, recently made an open talent call for a new video game podcast he and this guy Blake are starting up. You can read the original call for entries here. I figured I'd totally try out even though at the time I decided to I didn't actually own a microphone or a Skype connection. I figured I'd worry about it if they actually liked what they heard, but more likely I would just fail and not have to worry about it.

A couple of nights ago I made a goal to finally get my audition mp3 sent over to him. That night was absolutely horrible. I already recorded my voice at work and some Nintendo sound effects onto my iRiver mp3 player the night before. I actually went a little crazy the night before because I couldn't find my double 1/8" wire (pretty much a wire with a headphone jack on both ends). This is pretty serious since it's the wire I had to buy to replace the wire my former boss stole from me (that's probably worth a story sometime). I did find a similar wire, but for some reason it recorded the Nintendo sound effects pretty low. I figured it would be no big deal since I shouldn't have any problem increasing the volume (it's a different story altogether if the volume was too loud and permanently distorted). Now all I had to do was edit the thing together, export it and email it. Unfortunately, both Soundtrack (non-Pro) and Garageband don't have (at least that I could find, I'm still new to this Mac thing (I should really name that thing, maybe it'll be more forgiving after I do)) a very good system of straight-forward audio amplification. I wound up downloading Audacity, a scrappy little free program I used to use all the time when I recorded the FreeCapitalist show. It let me down, though, when it couldn't read Soundtrack's mega bizarro sound files. After an inability to locate the mp3 conversion of the files by iTunes I finally wound up burning the audio to cd and then ripping the same cd back onto the computer I just burned from. As someone who even partially considers himself a computer user, I found the process sickening. Afterward I discovered the missing mp3 files were actually in a pretty obvious place after all. Must've been incredibly tired and agitated. Anyway (ever notice that I'm only long-winded when I talk about computer problems?) I compiled my voice (taken from three separate takes) with clips from the Wii main menu, Trauma Center: Second Opinion and the original Legend of Zelda. At 1 am, I emailed the completed mp3, by that time not really caring about the impeccable quality I was planning for. All I cared about was that my assignment was finished (a strategy I used through all of college) and that it could be sent to Scott and Blake (the other host of the future podcast).

I bet since I had such a hard time putting the thing together, they'll totally want me to do it. So... should I tell them I don't actually have Skype (yet)?

i've only told six jokes so far

That last entry was written very poorly and I apologize. Now is about the time I automatically tell a joke. Today I discovered that I really have to think about not being in a humorous mood. I think it might be a defense mechanism or a stress reliever or something.

Getting on with things, I've already had a really hard time and have actually given in a few times. Here are the jokes I slipped up on (marvel at how stupid they are that I totally sold out my integrity so soon):

1. During our V.I.P. Media morning meeting my boss, Pete, said that our latest video project was shown at some kind of library fundraiser that raised $100,000. I responded with "So, what's our cut?" This was almost not a joke, since I kind of legitimately wanted to know how much the company makes during these things. I didn't get an answer, though, so I guess it was just a joke.

2. During the same meeting, Chad, a co-worker mentioned that when he was in school he took a sound class. For the final, the professor removed all the sound effects from the movie Silverado and the class took about a month to develop the sound effects and re-edit them into the movie. I said, "So you didn't just rent Silverado and put the same effects back in?"

3. We got new candy in the candy bowl at work. One of the candies is actually called "Mary Jane." I had to ask, "So do we just eat this? Does anyone have a lighter?"

4. I've been consistently coming into work at 9:15 am. Pete told me that we're meeting at Village Inn tomorrow at 8:30 am to award the winning bracket of the office March Madness contest. I said "There's an 8:30 am now?" Of course this is really an example of a totally different type of joke that I'm trying to overcome. It's pretty much a direct Simpsons quote.

5. Jarem was at my house with his girlfriend, Chantel, and he got on the phone with his mom to ask her if Chantel could come over for dinner on Wednesday. Suddenly, Mike and Rhett started yelling about coming along too until Jarem finally asked his mom if they could come too. After all the commotion died out I uttered, "I'm so very hungry." Same thing as joke five. That was a direct Futurama quote.

6. Chantel remarked that my customized Catan game just needed one adjustment to make an island of each resource. I told her, "I'll take it up with the committee," referring strictly to myself. It could be argued that the remark isn't a joke at all. It's also a longshot quote from Empire Strikes Back. Han said aloud to "Take it up with the committee," to which Leia yelled back, "I am not a committee!"

Also, since I made this list of six i was watching the big basketball game tonight and when the ball was passed to an exceptionally short player I instinctively yelled "dunk it!"

*sigh* See? these jokes aren't even that funny.

Okay, that's not a very good start, I admit it.

lent on loan

I'm taking a miniature Lent break in this week before Easter. For the next seven days I'm giving up humor for Lent. I haven't decided if I can still write humor in the blog or not or if I can still say, "ever see that Simpsons where..." Mostly I'll be getting rid of sarcasm.

It may actually be a nice break. I'm hoping it won't be hard at all. For the past 20 years or so in just about every situation I'm concentrating on thinking of something funny to say. I know a lot of jokey people sometimes just want to "be taken seriously," which is a pretty annoying phrase, so sorry for saying it. Sometimes I'm concerned that I don't take myself seriously. Now maybe I can concentrate on more serious things.

So I'm not going to be telling any jokes from now until this Sunday evening. If something pops up in my head, I'll write it down and totally tell you later.

the golden age of wireless

It's been a little while so I'm pretty obligated to post at least a musing (not necessarily amusing).

People who know me pretty well know that I have a constant fear and giddy anticipation for the time when technology officially enslaves mankind. It's portrayed in a majority of science fiction literature and film, so I think I'm preparing pretty well. One of the major perks to it all is actually becoming a cyborg. Usually cyborgs are portrayed as half-breed zombies with less humanity than even their "full-blooded" android cousins. Thanks a lot Star Trek. I don't think that cyborgs necessarily need such a bad rep. I think done right, we could have the best of biology and technology literally at our fingertips... actually that's a bad expression to use since it would be literally within our fingertips. Man! That's quite a concept when my semi-hyperbole expressions don't even come close to making the point.

Sorry, that was too many words.

There's an incredible cd (that I don't own) by Thomas Dolby called The Golden Age of Wireless. I believe the American version came out in 1982. It was repackaged with his hit single "She Blinded Me With Science" that you've probably heard. Don't confuse this particular album with The Age of Plastic by The Buggles which came out a year or two earlier and contained the hit "Video Killed the Radio Star," although both albums contain several of the themes I'm talking about here. That's one thing I love about early 80s synth-pop -- while a lot of the 90s alternative described how we feel now, the 80s stuff I'm talking about talked a lot about how we live now.

Whoops, I forgot to mention why wonderful wireless is relevant to what I was talking about before. You may be able to tell that I'm EXTREMELY tired at the moment. Have I mentioned how I gauge my level of energy? I probably have, but I'll mention it again anyway. However much energy my cel phone has is precisely how much energy I have. My functionality is directly related to my most important wireless device. Now my video games and a bunch of other stuff are all wireless too. Being a cyborg isn't too bad, now that we've surpassed all those ugly wires sticking out of us. Who says we need to actually look like zombies?

So anyway, I don't know if this is related to the upcoming revolution or just my intense weariness of late, but I was studying the Final Cut Pro instruction manual today and I was very impressed at how empathetic the technical writing was concerning instructing me on developing my own editing style. I nearly cried.

the 24/7 full moon.

I've spoken before about a technological curse I've had over the past few years (I've also spoken of it here and here and here and here and here and here). Just to sum up: computers don't work when I use them.

I hoped to rid myself of the curse by switching over to a Mac. I sort of explained my reasons for wanting to do so, but let me make it more clear. It's not necessarily because I think Macs are better. It's that PCs and I obviously don't work well together. It's kind of like The Police. Three awesome musicians in the biggest band in the world and they need to break up because although they're individually incredible, they were incredibly destructive in a group setting. Of course I actually heard that Sting once said that he left The Police because he was finally rich enough to hire real musicians. I'm pretty sure that's not an accurate quote, but I sure hope it is. Who knows, maybe just like The Police, I'll get back together with a PC in 20 years.

So anyway, I haven't mentioned this yet, but my unnamed Mac has had some problems. Not big, mind you. Not big at all. For some reason the packaged musical loops in Garageband didn't register with that program. I knew the loop files actually existed, but I couldn't open them up directly in Garageband for some reason. Strangely, everyone else I know who got a Mac at the same time I did (I know three people who got one within a month of my getting one) did not have this same problem. Curses!

So I tried physically moving the files around like it said to do in an online help file I found. Nope. I tried reinstalling the loops from an original cd. That didn't work either. Apparently, even though it was a minor problem, it was a very original one. This last Thursday I finally took the unnamed to the Apple Store. They have a Genius Bar there for people with computer questions. My "genius" uninstalled, reinstalled, moved files and turned stuff off and on for two hours. Nothing. The problem was completely new. It was solved, however. One of the other "geniuses" discovered that there were text files in the loop file that were somehow interfering with the folder's function. He removed them and it worked, but not before telling me that such a thing made no sense since those text files are actually supposed to be there and are there on other Macs with no problems.

I wish Macs and PCs weren't so compatible. Obviously, they've been talking to each other about me.

air conditioning in hell

Three big things happened today.

I turned on the A/C in my car. Usually, I save this event specifically for St. Patrick's day, as evidenced three years ago. Today I had Abel with me and he was on the phone, so I thought it would be a bad idea to roll the windows down. I still would've switched the A/C on for the drive home. It's going to be a nice, warm year. We're one day ahead of schedule.

I started my new job today. Yes, I work in the same building and yes, I'm still officially a "sound engineer;" but this time I'm completely away from the dull nightmare that is The FreeCapitalist Project. Now I just have to do what I've always done, but with a Mac. Good thing I brought this one home to practice on.

On the way home today I passed one of those company signs with the moving crawl that gives time and temperature as well as other announcements and ads. As I read it, I passed through an overpass or something so the salutation part of one message was cut off and I only caught the end of the next message. To me, the sign said, "Hell... apply within."

how to live in salt lake city on 130 dollars a day

So Maria and I have been wondering where all our money has been going. Each of us decided to keep track of our own money for a week. Here's my personal report:

Monday, 5 March
$95.46 -- cable/internet bill is due!
$22.95 -- I got an email from amazon informing me that the ridiculously expensive deluxe cd/dvd reissue of Depeche Mode's Black Celebration just went up for pre-order. I got 20% off, but after shipping it still came to the aforementioned price. I love their music, but they can really really skewer their fans. I've thought about making that a post in itself after also buying the re-issues of Speak & Spell, Music for the Masses, Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion.
$21.46 -- gasoline
$25.85 -- Smith's grocery shopping. I think I got aluminum foil and eggs.

Tuesday, 6 March
$420.00 -- rent (one day late)!
$12.00 -- solo lunch at Red Robin (souper sandwich combo (whiskey chicken and tortilla soup)). I love eating solo, but I hate tipping solo. What really sucks is that usually the server doesn't know that I have guilty solo tipping feelings, so they don't go out of their way to serve because they think I'll only tip 15% on an eight dollar meal.
$65.00 -- Monica's birthday dinner at Ichiban. It was Maria, Monica and me. We split three sushi rolls: the X96, the lotus and (I think) the dynamo. We also had them specially make us some katsudonburi which isn't on the menu anymore. The service was exemplary and Monica took us to Hard Rock for dessert later that night.

Wednesday, 7 March
$198.20 -- while driving to Provo my front passenger tire exploded. I strangely fixed it all by myself. I was wondering when a cop was going to show up and help, but it's a good thing it didn't happen because surely the authorities would have found all the illegal fireworks in my trunk. Anyway, I had to get a new tire at Big O and asked them to re-align. Apparently they didn't do a good job last time because I was feeling a lot of vibration which, in hindsight, must have been the bad tire rubbing up against the car somewhere.

Thursday, 8 March
$1.00 -- went window shopping at the Gateway Mall, but mistakenly gave the parking guy one my spare movie validations instead of a normal validation. The movie validations only reduce
the parking fee to a dollar. As usual, I felt too dumb to hand him another validation so i coughed up the dough.

Friday, 9 March
$0.00 -- stayed inside all day, afraid to spend money.

Saturday, 10 March
$1.77 -- after helping someone with a stinky cat move, I had to curb my coughing with a bottled o.j. at the local gas station.
$25.31 -- local gas
$6.78 -- quick Smith's stop to nab sandwich turkey, Swiss cheese and Ritz crackers
$3.00 -- in a car making a McDonald's run. I get something small: 6 chicken mcnuggets. Doing the math I discover that it's 50 cents a mcnugget.

Sunday, 11 March
$0.00 -- fortunately I was sick in bed. Otherwise the Church would have milked a few pretty pennies from me since both tithing and fast offerings were due.

i owe you a couple of pictures

Here's the story of our bout at The World Series of Pop Culture that I promised:
Also, I'm only now recovering from my XXX birthday party. One thing I forgot to mention, though, is that ever since I was a kid I started a tradition to carry a 1977 quarter in my pocket on my birthday and then tape it into my journal that night. Every year I was pretty hit and miss with the concept. For the past few years my public blog has pretty much overtaken my private journal and I've written next to nothing in it. As a result I'm posting the 1977 quarter I carried with me the night of my 30th birthday.
Btw, because of this tradition I collect 1977 quarters. And this one is my very last one. If you know of any, let me know (or I guess with the advances of the digital age I could just post the same one every year).

wiini wiidi wiici

Finally! Wii footage! Here is the inaugural two-player tennis game played by Rhett and me. I must point out that by this time Rhett had amassed a tennis ranking of over 2000 while my ranking was at a measly 600. It was like David vs. Agassi Goliath.

don't trust me seven days ago

Ok, I'm going to commit myself. I'm finally going to post some photos from my birthday party a week ago. As I type this, I don't have access to the photos since I'm at work, but at least it'll sort of guarantee that I'll do it sometime tonight (so if you actually check this out between 5:30 and an undisclosed time a few hours after that you won't actually see any photos below).

Cinnamon did a great job getting most of the candids and my still-unnamed iMac took the photos of the t-shirts.

help a brotha and sista out... they're not related... yet

My friends Sally and Tim are getting married. Yay!

Anyway, real quick I just need to mention that they get a FREE WEDDING if you vote for them at this site here:

http://www.bridalguide.com/sweeps/brideoftheyear/BrideOfTheYear.cfm

Apparently, you can vote as many times as you want and the voting stops tomorrow, so get crackin'!

(Sorry I didn't post this earlier, Sal)

a birthday gift from page and brin

TONS of photos of my wonderful birthday are on the way.

In the meantime, here's something worth mentioning real quick. About a week ago, I discovered that after what, three years I think, my website finally wound up as the top hit when you search "jon madsen" in Google.

At least that was the case a week ago. I just checked a minute ago and I'm not numero uno anymore. Perhaps now that my birthday is over, the folks at Google bumped me down to number 2 (after a "john," nonetheless). Maybe they took my advice not to trust me after 30.

housekeeping you want mint for pillow?

I'm not adding anything to my blog right now. I'm merely deleting. My 'links' space is getting a bit bloated, so I'm just gonna clean it up a little bit. I may have taken your link off. Don't be offended! If you want me linking to you, I totally will. For the time being, I think I'll link to people who comment on my blog and then start the whole process over again next month.