kazu googoo

Quit while you're ahead.

2008-08-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

They say that in show biz you should:

A) leave them wanting more and

B) never follow a kid's act

what I'm finding is that option A never really happened, and I have officially walked into the middle of B. Of course, I'm referring to my son Liam and his infinitely-more-popular-than-mine blog.

They say that as a father you will eventually be overshadowed by your children. You can see my son doesn't mind as he's apparently trying to literally and figuratively top me, even by climbing up my beard.

It's somewhat like having siblings. I can remember that in high school I started out as Matt's little brother, only to then become my own person. Then my younger brother Steve was seen as my little brother for a brief moment until I became "Steve's older brother."

So once again, I have been surpassed in popularity. So don't expect much out of this blog as I am now putting myself out to pasture and turning into a fan of my blogging child prodigy Liam Morrissey. I should have known that giving him that middle name would turn him into a star. Burn brightly little star...

the boy's blog!

2008-07-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

what a proud dad I am. my boy has a blog:

http://liammorrissey.blogspot.com/

before boy eats drum machine...

2008-07-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

(AKA: there once was a Benjy who had (some) hair)

so long before the band boy eats drum machine, i played with jonny in a rock (make that rawk) band called stereo crush (to save my life i still can't remember if it's spelled as one word or two).

this is an ancient picture that BethInPortland dusted off and sent my way from one of that band's photo shoots.

i really have no idea what to say further, other than to leave it open for comment. wow. band photo shoots are funny... or something.

wow! i'm so behind...

2008-06-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

well, life sure seems to be going by fast. it seems just like yesterday that i was blogging about by eats drum machine and my illustrious musical career. now, i'm proud poppa to a one-month-old and realizing that i have failed to update my online readership.

so here's to you, yes you, the ONE who reads this blog. in true tag-team new parenting fashion, i'll simply ask you to navigate to mrs. googoo's blog to get the skinny on our lives over the last several months. be sure to check out the little tot named Liam Morrissey, he's pretty cute:

reesarick

new ink

2008-01-28T20:43:00.001-08:00

Today I spent about four hours under the needle getting some work done on a new half sleeve. The new Scapegoat is a sweet space, with more room, bigger booths, fresh paint, and a warmer overall vibe. Not to mention the presence of a three neighboring vegan establishments: sweet pea bakery, the mystery clothing place, and the unrelenting food fight grocery that (seemingly) started it all. Once again, Ryan is off to a great start, and this piece is looking rad even in it's incomplete state. We took a break about half way through to see the free show at food fight that no age was putting on, and then realized that we could hear it all just fine through the wall. A quick rice milk chai latte later, and I found myself in more sweet pain. I am looking forward to finishing this piece and then will probably start dreaming up my next tattoo. After watching the TiVo'd first half of the state of the union address, I'm thinking that a Bush-themed tattoo might be in order. Now if only I could think of a place on my body to tattoo a Bush. Hmmm...

u2 3d

2008-01-25T10:19:00.000-08:00

After viewing the sensory overload that is the spectacle of U23D last night, I'm feeling compelled to spread the promising word. Having grown up watching, no, make that consuming, U2's "Rattle and Hum" figuratively millions of times with my brother, I was going into the 3D revamp with a bit of skepticism. Certainly the visual experience would promise to offer far more than the flat, two dimensional film from the late 1980s, however, there could be now way that U2 could recapture the passion and gene'se-qua of the band at what seemed to be the height of their career.

I guess it is simply time for me to stop judging U2 by their supportive undergarments, bloated stage personas, and leathery faces, because once again, they surpassed my expectations. The three dimensional U2 movie was simply said, a unique experience, and moreover, it couldn't be pulled off by any other band. There is a unique partnering of rock ego and high definition, three dimension to which only musicians named Bono and the Edge could bring justice. Or to put it simply, only Bono's ego can make a high definition, three dimensional movie that runs 83 minutes work on every level. As much as I love the Arcade Fire and Radiohead, I'm not sure that either band could do 3D like U2 could. There was something eerily familiar about seeing Bono's face up close and clearly defined with every laugh line and empty follicle there in plain view. It was like having my own personal moment with the rock star of my youth. It is hard to say that I would want to see Thom Yorke that clearly.

In any case, I was expecting the film to be another chapter in the later, boated U2 era, nothing more than another celebration of a once great band. Yet several hours later, I'm still compelled by several of the film's visuals and an experience that was truly unique if not a little more sincere than expected.

Here is a list of what I took with me from the film and what should prove as a rationale for a repeated viewing:

* Three dimensional drums are the coolest thing ever.
* It is rather odd, finding yourself head-bobbing and foot tapping in a movie theater.
* A kiss between band mates is always charming, and between Bono and Adam Clayton it reaches the level of sweet, quite even dear.
* For some reason, 3D crowds jumping up and down at the front of the stage reminds me of Helm's Deep.
* An opening scroll down to the back of a 3D drum kit rules (see #1).
* While I usually watch a concert DVD so that I don't have to see the back of someone else's head, three dimensional backs of heads are awesome!
* Larry Mullen Jr. has a mullet, a three dimensional mullet.
* Watching a Latin American concert crowd incorrectly count from 1 to 14 is rather humorous, even if a little tongue-in-cheek.

coolest thing all year!

2008-01-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

I know that the new year is young, but I may have already done the coolest thing that I will do all year long...

my new creation...

2007-12-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Christmas, it's the Santa Hat Smiley!

*<{:-)

*<{:-)

*<{:-)

sure, it may not be my invention, but I'll pretend it is for the rest of the season.

you and me and the baby makes three...

2007-12-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

So there's no better way than through a blog entry to announce that I'm going to be a father soon. Yikes! soon I will be responsible for another human life! Yes, the bow on Teresa's belly is an indicator of a present that we'll "open" in late May!

So Merry Christmas and here's to impending parenthood!

Benjy

in rainbows under rainbows

2007-12-20T19:47:00.000-08:00

so yeah, in rainbows pretty much rules. it may be blasphemous, but it's officially my favorite radiohead record. i must say having spent this week in Kaua'i Hawai'i, in rainbows becomes a completely different experience when listening in 80 degree weather shortly after seeing a beautiful tropical rainbow. it's also fun to queue up two iPods to play the album simultaneously with your sunbathing partner, so that you can air guitar/drum/synth/sing along to all of the key parts. so bad pun intended, in rainbows is awesome when listened to under rainbows.

p.s. my apologies in advance for the chest hair. how virile of a man am I?

this beautiful creature must die...

2007-11-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

each thanksgiving i get a little more than depressed thinking about the 300 million turkeys that will die for no better reason than a tradition that goes back to queen elizabeth ordering a second goose after hearing of a spanish ship (on its way to attack england) had sunk. the tradition of a late autumnal celebration featuring a large stuffed goose was replaced with turkeys by early colonists who found an abundance of wild turkeys while geese were scarce. never mind that the real thanksgiving meal was likely made up of seafood and wild venison. none of those options are very compassionate.

i realize that most people see vegetarians as mildly over-sensitive, too impassioned, or zealous, but for me it's simply a matter of compassion. if you can think of the 300 million lives that will be taken after a short life pent up in a cage, pumped full of hormones, after an infancy of clipped beaks and removed claws, and still eat these social creatures, more power to you. I may not have that ability to disconnect, but i don't fault anyone who does make that choice. provided they understand why they do eat turkeys (most would simply reply tradition), and what it means in terms of suffering.

so this is a reminder, think before you eat, and perhaps a little more thought than light or dark meat, because that meat was once a very social animal that would have loved to spend this holiday with its family. a great place to better educate yourself on the plight of the turkey is:

http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/

happy thanksgiving!

survey

2007-11-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

a survey from sloop:

01. What is your ultimate pet hate?
littering. i guess i just don't understand anyone under 40 years old not having compassion (or at the very least a mild concern) for the environment.

02. What is the most beautiful accent in the world?
French. Especially when spoken by an animated skunk.

03. If you could choose one city to live in for the rest of your life, which city would it be?
Paris, France. I'm able to ask for the restroom, order a baguette, and ask for butter all in French. I'm pretty much set.

04. Who is your favorite film director and why?
I should say Francois Truffaut to keep with my French theme, but that would deny George Lucas his rightful place. Wait, I misread the question, it's not the most-loved-as-a-child-and-hated-as-an-adult director, it's just favorite director. That would have to be Stanley Kubrick. Films that he completed in the 60s still completely challenge me. he's brilliant and relevant, and of course Eyes Wide Shut doesn't really count.

05. How much do you swear?
is this a contest? i think i'm winning!

if you're reading this, please feel free to contribute!

busted tambourine!

2007-11-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

the recent batch of boy eats drum machine shows have been particularly good. some would even say amazing, as several have done after shows, each one featuring someone saying something along the lines of, "that was your best show ever!"

i'd have to agree, and i feel fairly qualified to say so, since i have seen BEDM a ton of times. like basically, every show. actually, i'm pretty sure i have been to every show (even though i don't remember all of them, which is a totally different blog topic).

i think last friday's routure adventure should go up there in the ranks of "that was your best show" shows if for no other reason than i broke my tambourine! how cool is that! i seriously pounded my dearly beloved double decker ass shaker into the ground! sadly, not realizing i had done so until i picked up one third of it to my own shock and awe! so that's about the most rock thing i have ever done... far more impressive than breaking a drumstick, guitar string, or even bass string. for my next trick i'm gonna try it on one of those plastic ones... stay tuned.

i'm han solo

2007-11-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

the best thing about myspace is all of the mindless surveys that you can fill out to determine what genre of movie your life would be (mine would be black comedy), what superhero you most resemble (is iron man a super hero?), or what genre of music you are (do i have to check emo because i feel like cutting myself?).

so i ran across the ever-loving lulu of "what ______ would you be?" surveys. it's The Star Wars Personality Test

it turns out i'm han solo. so please know that i'm not in this for your revolution.

happ-o-ween everyone!

2007-10-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

well, it's been a crazy day at work with 32 of my 34 kids dressed as everything from wizards

to whatever these things are,

to even an appearance from yoda!

even i'm somewhat obligated to don a form of costume and since last year's Howie Mandel "costume" seemed so incredibly lame, I decided to try a little harder and went as Benjy Marley, one of Bob's illegitimate sons from a tour stop in Grand Falls, Michigan (hence the pale complexion). Sure, it was basically as easy as putting on a Bob Marley shirt, my normal olive green coat, and a $7 Fred Meyer Rastafarian wig, but it was a step above just putting on a suit.

so, after a day with the public school ghouls and goblins, i ran by the rite aid for candy. $16 later, and i'm set. so here i am passing out candy by myself. it's a terribly hilarious routine. my doorbell doesn't work, so usually i'm made aware of trick-or-treaters by my dogs barking as if someone was breaking down our front door. I then pause my DVD (the lookout right now, mr. smith goes to washington later), push the dogs back, spray the dogs with a water bottle because the pushing didn't work, then i grab the candy bowl, squeeze through the door without letting one (or both) of the dogs out, and then pass out the candy.

it's funny, because adolescents always get the bad rap for causing trouble on Halloween, but they have been the best behaved so far tonight. Surprisingly, it's been the youngest kids who grab fistfuls of candy without asking, or even saying trick-or-treat for that matter. i'm from the "grab a couple" school of thought, and most kids are cool, it's just the littlest ones who apparently don't know any better. then again, Halloween is for the little kids.

so cheesy i had to do it...

2007-10-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

so, i know that a good deal of the blogging has been weight related, but have you seen me lately? I went to clean the gutters the other day, and threw on some "work" jeans. they then fell off. I pulled them up again, and again, they fell off. So i tightened up the old belt that was in the jeans and it went around me one-and-a-half times! now these were some older jeans, but i was still pretty shocked because at one point they fit me. wow. so there it is, my "look at how big my old pants were" picture. too bad i have no diet or weight loss plan to hit up for my 15 minutes of infomercial fame!

in rainbows

2007-10-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

if you wanted a review, i'm not ready yet. i tend to be the worst at being subjective with new albums. especially when it is a band that i love putting out a record after some time off. i am usually so excited with the pent up anticipation that the whole experience builds with each passing song becoming my next "favorite" leading up to some odd auditory orgasm ...and premature at that.

enter radiohead's in rainbows. after consulting with the drum machine eating boy, i set my "name your own price" price at six pounds sterling and waited the week until the past wednesday. so now that i have a few days and a half dozen listens under my belt, i'm still not ready to place this record in radiohead's cannon of work. it's good. i feel that i like it more than some of the recent work already, but it's still a little too early. all that i know is that it's good. hella good. and in a few more listens it will probably end up being brilliant.

fujiya & miyagi

2007-10-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

F&M at the doug fir last night. in a word, amazing. translated into british, brilliant. the boys from brighton were even more brilliant than their jaw dropping opening slot for peter, bjorn, and john in the summer. partly due to the simple fact that they got to play an entire set. i am the worst dancer in the world, and these guys make me forget that fact and enjoy myself (to the chagrin of everyone around me i'm sure). so well done lads, and please come back soon as i'm sure your fan base will continue to grow exponentially (but I hope that it's not so much that you'd be in a larger room where it's harder to get close and steal your set lists).

by the way, the new dave smith instruments prophet '08 (pictured above below the nord) is even more amazing in person. wow.

fashion faux pas

2007-10-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

so I committed a MAJOR fashion faux pas today, a mistake that I haven't made in at least the last 4 years. It was half way through my morning, teaching my second science class when I touched myself (not like that) and realized that I had NO BELT ON.

For some this is no big deal. I like to call those people unrefined, ill-bred, barbarians. In any case, I joined their ranks today walking around sans belt.

While not as bad as completely losing one's trousers, the lack of a belt aesthetically is a fairly severe offense. My fashion mentor Terri would be so disappointed. I guess I'll have to watch a self-made Devil Wears Prada, America's Next Top Model, and Ugly Betty marathon in order to get my life back in order.

In case you need them, here are a few more everyday tips for the tasteless guys out there that want some help:

1) Always, wear a belt. Yes, you bought your jeans in the correct sized inseam, but always wear a belt-no exceptions.

2) Said belt MUST match your shoes. Brown belt with black shoes is as unsightly as catching someone teabagging.

3) Your socks MUST match your shoes. Black shoes=black socks, tennis shoes (even with a little color on them)=white socks, and so on. Don't buy red shoes without buying red socks!

4) For the sake of us all men, buy an ear and nose hair trimmer and then use them. Every other day at least.

Wow! I feel like I'm better and back in my place atop my high horse!

Happy Invasion Day!

2007-10-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

For my people (the Tlingit tribe pictured above), today is not a day of celebration, but of sorrow. Columbus' arrival marked the beginning of the end for thousands of strong, powerful, and ecologically responsible nations. I do not celebrate Columbus Day anymore than I celebrate the day my grandpa died. It would seem to lake taste. Before you even begin to think about some sort of manifest destiny rationale, ask yourself why the Australian aborigines are still alive and thriving (and the answer is not because no one else wanted their desert lands).

new(-ish) tat

2007-10-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

so by now everyone has seen it, but this is such great blog fodder that it had to be done. i finally got the sparrow tattoo that i've wanted for so long. major special thanks to ryan @ scapegoat who is truly awesome, and to sloop who rode shotgun for the whole experience.

as the stories go, sparrows mate for life

...sadly humans do not.

bedbug

2007-10-07T06:26:00.001-07:00

they say never give a stray cat a saucer of milk, or it will no longer be a stray cat, it will simply be your cat. which by the way, is how I came to care for the only cat I have ever owned sidney, who followed my brother and I home from the school bus back when I was a freshman or so. Come to think of it that cat is still alive and well meaning it is 15 years old or something. I'm beginning to question whether Sid is truly a cat and not some kind of undead zombie.

In any case, the don't feed a stray thing also applies to dogs. When attempting (for the first few hours anyway) to crate train my wunderdog Kazu, I was faced with a similar conundrum. Kazu hated her crate and so she began to cry. For the first half an hour it was almost humorous. Then it began to interfere with my own sleep. So in a moment of weakness, I let her out and up onto the bed. Game over. So Kazu not only sleeps in my bed, she works her way up to the top of the covers and rests her head on the pillow. In her mind, she is a tiny, hairy, illiterate human with a poor vocabulary.

So here we are six years later, and she has not been able to sleep a night outside of my bed. Her habit transfers to other beds as well. In a hotel room, Kazu's in the bed, when camping Kazu's in my sleeping bag, when I sleep in my car, she's on top of me in the driver's seat and so on.

I honestly don't mind at all. That makes me a terrible Dog Whisperer, but I kind of like having a friendly heat source in the bed. Especially in these colder months, and even more especially as of late.

massive weight loss

2007-10-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

it's amazing what a general tendency of laziness coupled with life changes like graduation and the stress of starting one's career will do for weight gain. I never was a skinny guy, but it was kinda scary last Christmas when all of the cookies and treats found me a large inhale away from 200 lbs. It was honestly kinda scary for a short guy like me.

So in January I set out to make some changes. Nothing crazy. I'm the worst vegan in the world, so now I'm really just a vegetarian. The thing that I found that worked the best was simply being health conscious. Amazing, all of those balanced eating recommendations seem to be right after all.

here I am 9 months or so later and I'm down over 40 lbs. go team. 198.8 in January, 158.6 in October. I went from a 36" waist to a 30, from size large t-shirts to size small. I can barely believe it myself.

now while I don't recommend major emotional trauma to anyone, it certainly helps you lose that last pesky 8 pounds or so... and fast.

i have something to say!

2007-09-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

due to the cathartic nature of pouring one's soul out to the sheer ones of online readers, I will now return to blogging. I finally have something to say. and it will be good stuff, like today I bought an all-in-one remote that actually works and replaced five other remotes in my house. take that electronics!

please note that the pictured bird is intended only for said electronics. :)

7/7/7

2007-07-07T22:07:00.002-07:00

not being in school today, i wanted to take the opportunity to officially "write" today's date. so yay! it's 7/7/7! I actually saw 1 wedding. lucky groom will have no problems remembering his anniversary. it will come in handy come time to fill out the divorce papers in a few years. we all know that summer marriages never last.

happy 7/7/7!

album leaf 7/6/7

2007-07-07T22:07:00.001-07:00

album leaf 7/6/7
Originally uploaded by kazuhank

once again the album leaf was brilliant last night. sadly, a few factors seemed to make the show a little less than absolutely amazing:

1) under byen was great BUT they played a little long and seemed a little self-indulgent during the "well-let-all-of-the-instruments-feedback-for-5-minutes-after-the-last-song-in-a-hope-to-sound-like-sigur-ros" final note. it fell a little flat. pun FULLY intended.

2) maybe it was the hot weather, maybe it was a long work week for everyone, or maybe they were all pooped, but the crowd seemed subdued to say the least (nevermind the fact that teresa was sleeping against the wall). It seemed like the band took notice too.

3) perhaps due to the lame crowd, they played for an hour and twelve minutes, with no encore. people tried to get them back out, but a large part of the crowd left without protest.

all that said, it was still better than most musical options on the given weekend, and I remain a HUGE album leaf fan. I just really wanted that encore I guess.

not so bad after all...

2007-06-11T16:50:00.001-07:00

so at it's best, last night's final episode of the Sopranos had most of America wondering if their collective satellite and cable connections went out, and at worst, had them groaning and wondering if that was really the ending. i'll admit that like much of America, I was torqued and ready to scream last night (i'll thank baby Simon's presence for preventing me from going off). HOWEVER, after thinking about it, it could be one of the BEST series finales ever. Yes, I said ever.

Leave it to a sports radio hack to sell me, but this morning Colin Cowherd's ESPN Radio show made a compelling argument for last night's finale as pure genius. So here's his rationale with a few points of my own:

1) most season finales stray from the show's original formula. think Seinfeld. remember that feeling. Seinfeld's last episode tried to do so many things that by it's end, the audience wanted it to be over.

2) it was true to the Sopranos "realism". the Sopranos has always been more of a real-life mob story. what was the last big mob hit you read about in the paper? exactly. the show started with Tony seeking counseling help, moving on to family problems, having legal issues, and more family problems with a few mob hits mixed in. so while AJ's moping and Tony's pending court case may not be as titillating as having every last character whacked, it's true to the series' history.

3) we're all talking about it. there's nothing David Chase wants more than for all of America to be debating and talking over the episode the next day. again, remember when Seinfeld used to be the fodder of water cooler banter? well, not after their abysmal finale. I had several colleagues who NEVER watch the show ask me about it today. so having every radio station from talk to sports bantering makes good business sense for Chase and Co.

4) did you really want to see Paulie whack Tony? Mr. Men's Restroom whack Tony? Tony whack Paulie? or Tony whack AJ? well, I'll admit that I wouldn't mind the latter two, but remember that most of the past Sopranos seasons, depicted characters acting out until the HAD to be whacked. you can't whack everybody. Some seasons (I want to say Season 2) had nary a whacking, while others had more characters bite it, but in all cases, the hit usually came after a long percolation period.

5) open ended is always better to tying up loose ends. whether reading a book or watching a movie, it always takes more guts, but is more rewarding when an author or director leaves the ending open for interpretation. is the guy in the bathroom going to whack Tony? are the young punks at the jukebox in on the hit? will Meadow end up the victim of a botched hit (a la Godfather 3)? all of the conjecture is fodder for blog movie wishes, or webisode dreams. even if a movie never comes out and Gandolfini never reprises the role (how can he ever be seen as another character by the way?), by not tying up all the loose ends, there's room for speculation. sure there are those who wanted, maybe even needed to see Tony get whacked, but personally, I'm glad the only death was Phil's. it's nice that Chase was brave enough to leave such a jarring cut to black. he left himself some options. who knows when money dries up, maybe this non-ending will allow for a movie or 7th season. if it never happens, i'm still content.

6) the harsh cut to black was pretty cool. sloop asked if we were having TiVo problems and it wasn't until I checked that I was sure. by this morning, it was nice to discover that all viewers were sent scrambling for their remotes. pulling off a prank like that on such a large viewing audience is hard to do in this info age. well played Chase. I just hope no dogs were kicked for "laying on the remote"

so, i'm sure that these arguments for leave holes for some, and it's all subjective anyway, but the more time i reflect, the more content i am. and honestly, the more brilliant the ending seems to be.

Time to call it!

2007-06-06T17:35:00.001-07:00

anytime i'm uncertain about something i put it up as a poll question for my 6th graders. they are surprisingly accurate, after all they have called the last 2 super bowls for me.

so anyone unsure of whether Portland is going to take Oden or Durant need not look any further than the wisdom of the 12-year-old. sure it's a narrow margin, and more kids checked "Who are the Blazers?" than checked either of the players, but the 7-6 odds in Oden's favor are enough for me to feel at ease.

it happens to all of the good shows...

2007-06-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

well it appears that now that I am officially hooked on Sci-Fi's Battlestar Galactica, it is coming to an end.

at least they executive producers agreed to continue with Season 4, it's just going to be the last season. Better to know the end is coming and let the writers write to the end. HBO could have taken the same note rather than cutting Deadwood off in mid stride. So, I will wait for the final 22 episodes to air sometime next year. If only ABC could take a note with Lost and spare us from the tease that is spreading three 15 episode "seasons" over the next three years.

here's to hoping for a movie after all is said and done.

The 'Quatch

2007-05-27T15:05:00.001-07:00

i just got back from the second of two day-long trips into eastern washington for single-day concerts this month. first was Morriseey in spokane with Stephen, and yesterday/this morning was with sims, t-sickles and stephen.

i'm still sleep deprived and a little looped, but saturday's sasquatch was amazing! it didn't have the volume of acts that last year's show had, but the quality made up for the quantity in spades. viva voce owned their slot (we even stayed through the whole thing despite neko case playing midway through), bjork was exactly what i expected... stunning, and the arcade fire set was not only one of the best musical performances i have seen (if not the best), it was close to a religious experience. and no, i'm not intending a pun with the "neon bible" theme, it was just that good.

Blazers Win?!?

2007-05-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

So after having the worst record in the league and ending up with the 4th pick in last year's draft, Portland ended up winning the NBA Draft Lottery today. They were the 6th worst team in the NBA and now they hold the top pick in the draft!

Never mind the fact that last year's draft was arguably the best in Blazers history, having the #1 pick will put the Blazers back in the playoffs next year. I'm in total shock and wondering why the team with the worst record is stuck drafting 4th each year (this year it's the Grizzlies turn).

Now if only Portland could figure out whether to pick Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

geek chic

2007-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

it seems that i blog a lot (if blogging once a quarter can be considered a lot) about being a geek, but i am one, so it makes sense.

shouting things at your television as if it were sentient is rather unnerving in itself, but a few days ago i realized how deeply rooted my geekdom was when i started arguing with said TV during a Dow Chemical commercial. dow's new campaign is about the human element and the commercial had a graphic of the human "element" Hm with the atomic number of eight. "Eight is oxygen!" I barked at the TV. Startling myself, I looked it up on the periodic table and sure enough oxygen's atomic number is 8. More scary than me knowing this offhand is the fact that a major chemical company approved an ad that clearly has no understanding of our planet's chemical makeup.

alas, i do not feel ostracized because on the set of boy eats drum machine's new video shoot yesterday, i realized that all of my closest friends are quite geeky. i am at home with my people.

well, off i go--it's really hard to blog while watching battlestar galactica...

longest spiderman ever!

2007-05-07T23:08:00.000-07:00

so i went to spidey part 3 with p and was completely blown away by one thing. i could say it was the special effects, but they were good at best with a few seeming too CG or "cartoonish" for lack of a better word. or it could also be the action sequences which were, as would be expected, worth the price of admission. or i could say that i was blown away by the film's length, which was easily 30 minutes longer than necessary. i could even say that i was blown away by the predictable plot developments, and terrible writing (after such a strong spiderman 2), such as my favorite line, "Everyone needs help Peter, even Spiderman."

No, it was none of those things that amazed me. There was only one thing that truly stood out to me in this film. One thing that has made an impression on me, and that is simply how long (and slightly unnerving) Kristen Dunst's arm hair is.

Cinco de Mozzo

2007-05-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

"Let's go huntin'!" he said in what has to be one of the most comical versions of a Brit trying to sound like a backwoods Appalachian. "Only let's hunt the hunters!"

Morrissey's humorous song segues were in rare form last night, but none topped his final adoption of the hillbilly voice to ask the crowd if they had heard of his band adding, "We're from Wichi-taw!"

When Stephen and I decided to go see one of the Moz shows in Washington, we both felt prompted to pick Spokane over Seattle. Thankfully, it paid off.

There were several detractors, like the 10+ hours of driving, the last minute venue change, a shirtless idiot who kept trying to crowd surf (even during everyday is like sunday), an overzealous (and sans humor) security staff (when strip searching us before the show and asking if we had any knives or drugs, they did not find it funny when I joked that I never come to a show without them, all the android could mutter was that I'd need to give them to him or throw them away), a girl who was knocked out cold on the stage railing during the final encore, and the venue's insane policy of letting the restaurant patrons enter the venue before the people who line up ahead of time (like Stephen and I).

In spite of all of that, the show was incredible. Spokane paid off in the form of a more intimate venue, a more laid back Mozzer, and a long drive to debrief on all of the evening's events. The set list was great (including 1 new song, songs from Your Arsenal!, and 3 songs from the Smiths). Morrissey seemed playful and was very humorous. He was self-effacing about his age, his body (after stripping off his shirt), and even his inability to sell out the prior 2700 seat venue. The night was brilliant, one of the best live sets I've seen from the Mozzer, and his new band lineup is very good. Too bad his tour promoters have skipped Portland the last 2 tours, that said, it's good knowing that Moz is still worth the drive.

*photo NOT from Spokane (due to previously mentioned strip search) courtesy of the Press Democrat Santa Clara, CA (the show before Spokane).

lazy mexican food

2007-04-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

so i've had my recent issues with mexican food, which feels like i'm being two-timed. after all, authentic mexican food is up there with sex and seahawks games (if that seems like a juxtaposition to you, you don't know me that well).

in any case, i had my second round of taco bell food poisoning back in march that landed me in the hospital for a day. you'd think that would scare me away for good, but it has only served to scare me away from taco bell. i'm still completely willing to give the authentic joints a try.

sadly though, one such joint burned me on my last veggie thai burrito (after the first one was soooooo good). i'll probably give them another shot, but i miss having burrito loco so close to practice.

no offense, not even the food poisoning and ensuing hospitalization, was as bad as one in longview last night. it's tough enough eating vegan, but when a restaurant goes out of it's way to insult you, you tend to take it personally.

the offender was longview's plaza jolisco. their "new" special list included a "veggie burrito" without cheese that was described as having a "fresh mix" of vegetables. try freezer. i was expecting peppers, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, maybe even some cilantro or something. nope. what i got was beans, rice, and frozen vegetable medley. yup, the same stuff that's in those freezer bags. so my burrito had carrots, green beans, corn, peas, and lima beans "fresh" from the freezer bag.

thanks for nothing jalisco. could you show any less creativity? i can understand that mexican food gets progressively worse as you get closer to canada, but please, frozen veggie medley? i was raised to always clean my plate and never leave leftovers, especially in a restaurant, but i could barely eat a third of my burrito. i think my mom will understand why.

nice work netflix!

2007-01-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

netflix has a new oscar page up on its main site that is a great way to waste 2 minutes to an hour of your time. it has (some) classic quotes from oscar winning films that you can hover over, see the film synopsis and add to your queue. cool.

the advanced stages of geekdom

2006-12-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

my third trip to the star wars exhibit at omsi was hands down the most magical. peter and i were able to: wait in line for 30 minutes, get freaked out by a "live" stormtrooper, have photo ops with darth vader, yoda, and RD-D2 and C3PO, resist the allure of $30 action figures in the gift shop, leave omsi for breakfast and return 2 hours later, peek into the millenium falcon ride that was once again sold out, and ride a shuttle to omsi from 12 blocks away, all in the course of a morning that spilled into an afternoon.

truly, this was a beautiful day.

little phatty!

2006-12-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

little phatty!
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

i guess Santa comes to my house a little early. not only did he forgo the formalities of flying a sled and wearing a red hat and suit, he also arrived driving a FedEx Ground truck. I'll take Santa any way he comes as long as he comes bearing a little phatty.

if you've read the last few posts, you know that i've been geeking out (literally and figuratively) for this thing to arrive. even Hank could tell that something special had arrived. as i unpacked the box, he jumped up onto one of the dining room chairs to get a better view of the thing that will be pulling most of my free time attention away from him.

i'm letting the LP acclimate to my house (the manual addendum recommends allowing the board to warm up before firing things up) as i type, so i am jonesing to turn things on and watch the blue lights dance. so if i fail to answer my cell phone or come out of the house the rest of the week, i hope you can understand.

daily routine

2006-12-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

last summer when boy eats drum machine got off tour, i managed to drive reese crazy with my cabin fever. it seems that when given extended periods of time off of work, i manage to get nothing done (aside from making incredible progress on my Netflix queue) other than driving my working friends crazy with persistent gmail chats, phone calls, and other annoyances.

so for the next two-and-a-half weeks, i find myself off of work again. unlike the summer though, this time i have a plan. it's a four-step thing of beauty.

Step 1) jury summons. no kidding, i was summoned for October (when I changed my political party affiliation--sorry Pacific Greens!), but being the advance planner that I pretend to be, I saw an opportunity to counteract the housebound crazies. I deferred my term, but no felons are cooperating as I have yet to get the call up to jury duty.

Step 2) procrastinate all Christmas shopping/letter writing. "there will be plenty of time to shop when I'm off work," I heard myself saying. Too bad that all it took was a few hours yesterday, because I'm already done.

Step 3) create an impossible "To Do" list of household chores and projects. in theory, this is the one item on the list that should keep me busy. it is also the one thing on my list that i have devoted no time to completing.

Step 4) help record the new boy eats drum machine disc. what better way to knock out 10 hours each day than recording. this is the one item on the list that i'm actually excited to do. once again, i'm foiled in that peter is still laying down drums and i'm a little further down on the docket.

so in the absence of completing any of the steps in my four-part plan, here has been my daily itinerary:

06:00-07:00 wake up and drive Reese to the MAX
07:00-10:00 browse Internet/watch TiVo archives
10:00-12:00 nervously pace around house hoping for the arrival of the little phatty
12:00-05:25 watch EVERY movie that came in the mail from Netflix
05:25-05:30 drive Netflix movies down to the mailbox to make the 5:30 pickup
05:30-06:30 watch more TiVo and take an hour nap
06:30-07:00 pick up Reese from the MAX
07:00-10:00 practice upright bass/eat dinner/sulk because the little phatty didn't come/play music with Reese in basement/watch more TiVo

And repeat!

genital compensation?

2006-12-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

of course it wasn't until after i began bragging to all of my friends that i realized that announcing that i owned a little phatty could prove embarrassing. as it turns out in australian, bragging about one's newly-acquired little phatty is akin to driving around in one of those election-equipped bullhorn cars proclaiming that they have a small (albeit functional) penis.

so in order to take my hubris to an all new high, here i am ready to blog about my lil' buddy for the enlightenment of the whole Internet community (or at least for my three friends who will read this blog). so there you have it, small penis or no, at least i can remove my little phatty and carry it in the backpack that arrives on Wednesday.

David Stern is a jackhole!

2006-12-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, so last year I flipped out and said that David Stern was a genius when he finally listened to PETA's request that the NBA Switch to a synthetic ball. Evidently Stern's commitment to animal compassion only lasted a quarter of the season.

I had heard that several veteran players (you suck Steve Nash) were complaining about the new balls... not the young players though. In a recent interview, Brandon Roy said that all of the young guys liked the new ball, since they are used to it in the NCAA.

So disregard that the new ball looks cool, Starting Jan. 1st, the NBA will ditch the cruelty-free ball and switch back to using leather. Thanks Steve Nash and David Stern for giving me one more reason to loathe both Canada and the NBA respectively (and I was just starting to get back into the Blazers).

unlikely pair

2006-12-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

unlikely pair
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

gotta thank p for the opportunity to dress up as a repressed unappreciated german. i also wore a Team Zissou "Klaus" costume! some people dread costume parties, but when you find a red beanie in the $1 bin at salvation army, and throw on your blue coveralls, you've got it made. that and knowing that your costume came ready-made from your and your wife's closets means that the ensuing roleplay will be a guaranteed success.

i couldn't help it

2006-11-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

strike a pose
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

i was really trying to wait until i could go with sloop, but i couldn't resist a "day-after-thanksgiving, use-our-friend's-omsi-pass" trip to the new science of star wars exhibit at OMSI.

yeah, it's a little self-serving with Lucas' no food, thick glass (so you can barely get a good picture), and grocery store plastic flap curtains to keep the air static restrictions, but the exhibit is still pretty rad.

i could give a rip about most of the episode I and II stuff, and it is a little awkward seeing phantom models next to icons like AT-ATs and TIE fighters. that said, to be able to see film-used models and costumes from the movies that made my formative years is pretty amazing.

while i was there i told brian that my 10 or 13-year-old self would have flipped for this exhibit. it was funny to watch little kids walk up and recognize darth vader, and hysterical to see them leave the dark lord and get more excited phantom menace anakin costume.

somehow, i was a little let down overall. probably because the millennium falcon portion requires an additional admission fee, and it was closed by the time i realized it. all in all though it is a must for a star wars fan. there's only a month left to go see it:

http://www.omsi.edu/starwars/

Sophmore Creative Writing, Period 3

2006-07-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

I found a ton of old papers in my garage and I found a workshop piece for a creative writing class my sophmore year. I couldn't miss it as workshop pieces were to be copied 26+ times and handed out so that ALL of your classmates could give you feedback. Anyways, I thought I'd share my 16-year-old writing, and as much as it pains me not to, I'm leaving everything unedited, as much as it may need it. So let's all travel back to 1992...

Bill pulled his hand back in pain, looking up sharply as he rubbed his knuckles realizing he hadn’t been paying attention. “Listen sharp boy.” Bill quickly nodded to avoid another swat from his grandfather. “Every man faces his own destiny. I won’t be able to help you son. There comes a time when you become a man and put away childish things. It says so in the Good Book–First Corinthians something-or-other, I’ve forgotten exactly… when you get to be my age more goes to pot than your looks. Point is, you have to give up what you held dear and value and sacrifice. Even more, it’s duty–your duty to God and man.”

The old man looked into Bill’s carefree young eyes and realized just how confused they both were. “Look at me boy,” Bill blinked, shaking his head slightly, thankful that he hadn’t been struck again. “I was like you once, free of care or concern. That was long before the Lusitania… long ago. Death is cold boy, I learned it alone and you will too. Protect yourself son.”
A bomb burst, sending shards of broken air slicing through Bill’s ears.

“What was that?” Bill cried, forehead wrinkled in worry.

“Don’t worry about that now, it’s not time,” he said, pulling Bill’s smooth face into his weathered hands. “When those men come to you all dressed up with their porcelain teeth and starched uniforms, don’t take their hand. Tell them, ‘No thank you sir,” and leave.” Another blast hit the sky.

“Grandpa–“

“Hush!” His old hands pressed harder against the boy’s temples. “Don’t follow them. They say they fight for freedom. Bill, you can’t touch freedom, so how will you know you’ve won? Don’t fight for something intangible. You hear me? I love you. Remember what I say…” Bill fixed his eyes on the cracks in his grandfather’s face, watching as the slowly cracked and blotted into each other as he faded out.

Another shell blast cracked, sending Bill snapping back into the mud. Pictures, places, events, and feelings all raced by him in a kaleidoscope of color and memory. He rubbed at his temples, reaching out trying to take everything in at once. He finally locked on and brought back the reality that he was not with his grandfather. He glanced quickly, still rubbing his knuckles. He was in a dugout covered in mud, smoke and debris. The small pit was vaguely lit, an arrangement of grays and blacks intoxicated by the acrid smell of gunpowder and decay. He peered through it, down at his throbbing hand; the skin peeled back revealing bone. Funny, he had remembered jumping in, but he didn’t recall catching his hand on any barbed wire.

With difficulty, he pulled off his sack. Squinting into the dark, his numb fingers fumbled for the gauze. He found it, a small victory compared to the hell surrounding him. As he packaged his hand, he scanned the dugout, finding his regiment gone. He was all alone, save six men. There were four Frenchmen, or at least that was what he guessed. They must have got it direct because they were a terrible mess. Four men reduced to a pile of chewed up flesh looking like the “assorted” bucket at the open market fishmonger’s back home. He pitied the salvage crew that came across these four. There’d be more mixing and matching than at a quilting bee a week before a big wedding. The other two were Limeys, who were in much better shape than their French allies. One lay face down in the dead center of the pit, like a bull’s eye for a blitzkrieging Nazi. The second lay on his side in a sloppy fetal position. Bill guessed that it was true what they said about soldiers hunkering over like babies when they knew they were about to die.

Bill could see the Limey’s eyes, glassed over, staring at a particular part of nowhere. Bill assumed that even a dead Limey deserved to have his eyes shut, so he lowered his hand, scooping up a fistful of mud. Feeling the uneven mix of grit and wet earth slide between his fingers, he flung it the distance of the dugout into the Limey’s face, at which point the Limey shuddered and let out a gut wrenching cough.

...and scene! well it appears post Gulf War the first I was just as anti war as I am now. I can't tell just how bad this is, but at least I was willing to sneek an anti war statement into an 800-word workshop piece that the entire class had to read. I hope that 14 years from now there isn't another Bush in office sending us back into the Middle East.

i just realized...

2006-07-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

beautiful and angular
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

i don't play bass anymore.

i used to be rather good at it.

Hollywood brings about Armaggedon

2006-07-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

I never thought that the end of the world would be brought about by Hollywood. Until I saw what I assumed was a joke trailer last night. I've known that big budget, major motion pictures have been at a loss for an original idea ever since I saw the Final Destination 2 trailer.

The problem as I see it though, is that continuing the dead end storylines of the Final Destination and Saw movies only shows Hollywood's desperation to cash in on even moderate successes. These movies don't bother me much because I never plan on seeing them.

But last night the TV spot I saw was so wretched, so terrible that I couldn't believe it was true. Have we dug so low into the dregs of screenplay pitches that we would actually entertain green lighting a film called "Snakes on a Plane?" What was even worse than the TV spot that had me wondering if an SNL parody had snuck its way into prime time was the droll tagline, and I quote, "Relax. Sit down. Enjoy the Fright."

Never mind the hackneyed tagline, or the literal title telling us exactly what to expect, what was most shocking is that Samuel L. Jackson is attached in the lead. there goes that career. along with my desire to watch television again for fear of seeing that terrible trailer again.

don't ask me...

2006-07-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

don't ask me...
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

having recently seen a great deal of the country, from the inside of both a van and several truck stops, I have to say that this "painting" on the door to the women's shower in a truck stop in south eastern Oregon explains a lot.

Don't ask me what it means or why "Lady Drivers" shower for "free." I'm more curious about why she's wearing a barrel and what that crazy smirk is all about. Needless to say, I left this restrooom without touching any of the surfaces with my bare skin.

ipod and journal

2006-07-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

ipod and journal
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

so i've been on tour with boy eats drum machine for the last two-and-a-half weeks. needless to say, i have ample things to share with y'all provided you don't mind some past tense posts.

one thing having summers off will give me is plenty of blog time, so in that sense i'm back. in another sense i still wish i was in minnesota. they provide a limitless supply of joke material, most of which i'll share soon enough. after some more sleep...

tongue and horizon line

2006-05-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

tongue and horizon line
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

The nice thing about the Proposal Rock Inn in Neskowin OR is that there's DSL in the hotel rooms. That way when you get back from the beach, you can blog about your dogs.

I've never been to Neskowin before, this place was recommended by the sloop john p. and it has its perks. Besides DSL in the room, the rooms are "pet friendly" so we can take Hank and Kazu with us to the beach.

In addition, our room is "beach facing," so rather than walk to the beach for a sunset, we can watch it all go down from our back deck. nice way to spend the weekend at the beach–especially if you enjoy sandy paws in your sheets as much as I do!

she wants an original thought

2006-05-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

are there no new ideas in the corporate music business? every time i have the unfortunate opportuinity to hear "she wants revenge," i wonder who she is and why she wouldn't rather just have an original musical act. "she wants a new idea," as i'll call her, should really spend less time seeking revenge and spend more time trying not to rip off interpol and joy division.

i understand the knock that several people have RE: interpol sounding a bit like joy division, but c'mon, "she wants revenge" might as well call themselves "she wants to turn on the bright lights" or "she wants interpol's antics" or "she wants corporate music copycatting to go away"

again, i have no idea who she is, but could she please just get this terrible b-grade, garage rip-off band off of the radio?

using your gifts

2006-05-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

some bands are completely failing to live up to their potential. take reptilian civilian, for example, they can clear a room faster than a greasefire. so why just play shows and invite your friends when you could really tap into that power? i think that they should open a moving company. with the power of their rock, they could clear out an entire house before their third encore. i imagine that the pay would be pretty good.

Mr. Rickard, gym teacher

2006-04-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

I guess the saying should go, watch out what you apply for because they may just give you the job. Several weeks ago, when my desk job at Teledigitappeared to be ending, I applied for a part-time morning P.E. position. Well, lace up your jogging shoes, slap on your matching warm-ups, and lasso your whistle Mr. Rickard, because you got the job.

As of next Monday, I'll be teaching P.E. in the mornings for grades Kindergarten through six at lil' ol Redland School. I guess I'll have to start calling students by their last names and will tell that fiesty 'lil Jonny to "take a lap", next time he "gives me guff." At the very least this should provide some blog fodder. Wish me luck, I'll probably need it.

the lost art of note passing

2006-03-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

in middle school i found that the quickest path to being seen as the "sensitive" guy was by joining the girls in their favorite game... note passing. any fellow note passers will understand the inherent risk associated with the practice and that is the interception of said note by the teacher. now that i'm on the other side of the equation, i find myself at a sort of mental crossroads. do i intercept the note? do i simply give a look to the offending student? do i confiscate the note and recycle it? or the worst of all scenarios, do i snag the note and read it to the class?

to the credit of my students (or perhaps my teaching style) the note passing thing hasn't come up in my class. sure i've given a few girls the "cease and desist" look, but it is anything from pandemic. so i was surprised when a note was volunteered onto my desk the friday before spring break. so what secrets would be revealed? what new insight would i have into my students and/or their perception of me and my body odor? well, it seems that the art of note passing is lost on our text messaging generation:

NOTE EXTERIOR:
First Side: "Don't let Anybody Read This!" (covered in green and purple ink in geometric patters.)
Second side: "2: 'Student A' aka 'insert nickname here' Don't let anybody read this please! Heart: 'Student B' aka 'nickname 1' aka 'nickname 2' (this time purple ink with a green shaded background)

okay, so at this point i'm thinking that this is going to get pretty good. the type of stuff that would make a coffee table book like "found" how wrong i was...

NOTE INTERIOR:
"Hey Student A,

I am sort of excited (scribbled out text) for Spring Break! I just am really excited to go to seaside (maybe)! But I am gonna miss 'student C' a lot!(underscored several times) And U and 'student d'! But I probably will be able to see U and 'student D' during Spring Break! But 'student c' probably not but maybe cuz I am gonna ask my mom if I can go see (more scribbled text) a movie with him, U and some other ppl! It would be a lot of fun! Well anyways write back! G2G! Love ya bunches!

P.S. I LOVE 'STUDENT C' (massively underscored)

P.S.S. Call me tonight!

Heart, 'Student B' aka 'nickname 2'

Write Back (underscored)"

So there you have it. Was it just me or were the notes I wrote in middle school so much more relevant? I was writing about starting a school-wide recycling campaign, sending food to Ethiopia, reducing the national debt, and finding a cure for altzheimer's. this seems so trite in contrast.

i hope that pleased the voyeur in you all. at least the spelling was good. i can't say the same for myself.

boy drinks drum machine

2006-03-17T09:33:00.000-08:00

something special was brewing (pun fully intended) last night at acme. the boys who eat drum machines seemed a bit thirstier than normal and the result translated into musical bliss. jonny even jumped up and down on stage for the first reported time since late 1997. a great set shared with great people for a pre- St. Paddy's party that was missing only green dye in the beer. that said, it's worth noting that following the drum machine with some good ole fashioned imbibing makes for a great evening.

existential reality

2006-03-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

as none of you may know, insomnia runs in my family. my father and younger brother both have it fairly severely, while i have it in the more "mild-to-no" category. so it only hits me now and again.

last night was one such night and when i couldn't get to sleep by 2:30, i decided to catch up on my netflix movies. i had attempted to begin watching richard linklater's (dazed and confused ... suburbia et. al.) existential quandry of a film waking life several times, but i really wanted to be able to get into it.

the film is amazing--it's a series of pretty heady philosophical discussions through which the protagonist is witness and sometimes contributor. the film ends with a discussion of lucid dreams and whether-or-not our hero is living in the waking or dreaming life.

after finishing the movie, i went to bed thinking of what is really real and all of the clues that the film gave for verifying a lucid dream. so a few hours later while sleeping, i had a bizzare dream and several clues told me that i was sleeping. there were pictures of family i knew had never been taken, my driving was deplorable, the only trick i wasn't able to try was adjusting the light level. just as an aside, if you think you are dreaming, try turning a light switch on or off. evidently light levels can't be changed in dreams.

so while driving a convertible that i knew i didn't own, i realized that i was dreaming and i tried to give the lucid dream thing a go. so naturally, i decided to drive myself off of a bridge. the result was amazing. i flew through the air, and landed the jump with no damage other than a burst of pure white light. i could have stayed in the dream, but i was so excited that i woke myself up and began to freak out. needless to say, this has been the most excited that i have been to get two-and-a-half-hours of sleep.

that or i should just stop taking those horse tranquilizers!

worst band ever...

2006-03-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

i just realized one of the inherit benefits of tivo. primarily that i was not subjected to the atrocity that was fall out boy's performance on saturday night live this weekend ...until today that is.

i don't want to sound like one of those old skool music snobs, but what happened to the good ole days when punk rock bands jumped all over the stage while still playing a song? the same couldn't be said for the "performance" from fall out boy on snl. there hasn't been a disconnect between audio and visual on snl like this since the ashlee simpson debacle.

being exposed to 12-year-old music-of-the-month bands on a daily basis, i have heard my share of fall out boy (FOB from here on out). i can even understand why they are somewhat popular with the unrefined pallette of preteens.

but what went down on snl was easily one of the worst musical performances i have witnessed. that's saying something considering some of the bands that i have shared a bill with, but i digress. FOB seemed to be on stage simply to mug for the camera, jump up and down, and shout into each other's mics. somehow terrible just doesn't quite do things justice.

at times i was perplexed trying to find ways to match the "notes" to the physical movements of the "musicians." i don't think their guitars were even tuned. or was that just the singer? at this point i don't even care. but now that i'm watching the second 'song' i'm even more certain that i've played with these guys before. probably at the paris.

remember this kiddies

2006-03-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

it's been awhile since i've shared any teaching anecdotes, so believe-it-or-not, something funny happened at work the other day...

i was teaching math, more specifically, fractions. while i hated fractions as a kid, i love teaching them because i take it as a challenge to make it fun and memorable for the kids. one mean to this end is that i always like to teach acronyms for those important things you want to remember.

for example, to teach plot elements (Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution) i introduced "Edward Really Acts Clumsy Following After Redheads" and then i have the students come up with their own, which generally speaking, are far more humorous than mine.

so back to the rational numbers lesson. i wanted the students to remember that the numerator is on top and the denominator is on the bottom. long ago, i made up that the numerator was to the north, while the denominator was down on the bottom. that's worked for me for the last 18 years, but one of my students tried to one-up me.

he said, "we were taught that it was Nancy Drew." without hesitating, i offered, "that's great as long as you can always remember that nancy is on top of drew." needless to say, i think the kids will always remember that the numerator is on top of the denominator. and as long as i don't get that angry parent call, i'll have a job through the summer.

the results are in...

2006-02-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

apparently the shrimp cocktail in my leg was of the benign variety, so thanks all for the positive vibes and thoughts, i am officially on the mend (mentally and physically).

"out! out damned spot(s)!"

2006-02-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

i couldn't have said it better than lady macbeth. i've been out since tuesday afternoon (save a show with the thom that i'm not telling my doctor about) after having my "cut-open-my-leg-and-see-what's-inside" surgery.

so not only did i get to have my miniature twin brother removed from my thigh, i was able to serve the greater good of education. unbeknownst to me, the hospital had sold tickets to my surgery (i think it was $25 at the door). my surgeon was accompanied by a young nurse and a med school girl all there "just to watch." i'm glad that i couldn't watch their shocked faces as i was cut up and prodded.

so the good news is that the little me in my leg also had a little me. underneath the first 'palpable' (new vocab word kiddies) was a second growth. after a lot of stretching and pulling, both of my younger siblings were removed and the nurse was cracking jokes about my brain being removed. he thought that they looked like two little brains, but to me they looked more like jumbo prawns. now i just need some cocktail sauce and some crab cakes...

so now where i had a lump, i have a crater. i guess in the golf game that is surgery, you don't replace your divots. just as well, as my thigh is doubling as the creepiest whole on any put-put golf corse. so other than the fact that each step feels like someone is jamming a packing knife if my upper thigh, i'm on the mend. and on friday i get to find out how much trouble the twins were causing me.

"the sound of the ocean"

2006-02-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, what sloop was hearing was neither the ocean or the river located just below our hotel room. Last night was our last evening playing at the dyc, and rather than go home only to sleep for a few minutes and turn back around for this morning's final session, we shared a hotel room. which is all fine and good because male nudity is always funny.

anyways, with jon jr. a few doors down, we all decided to end the evening with some food and conversation at stanford's. this is where everything went wrong. the olympic ice dancers behind my head and in front of my face should have served as a warning. it seemed that when the male partners weren't throwing their female counterparts onto the ice, they were crashing into each other more than apollo ono and a south korean skater. disregarding the olympic-sized warnings, i ordered crab cakes on jj's recommendation... for the last time in my life.

you can do the math. when you roll into stanford's 1/2 hour before closing, seafood should not be considered. the worst part of it all is that they weren't that good going down... or coming back up. poor sloop j. p., instead of waking to a beautiful vision of ocean waves lapping at his bed, if was just me hugging a red lion toilet giving it all i had (less my spleen and gall bladder).

so needless to say, that raw food diet is sounding better by the hour. somehow i can't imagine a plate of leafy greens doing as much damage to my tummy and the sleeping ears of my friends.

weather post #3

2006-02-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

just because i am a petty moron, i would like to start a new kazu-googoo trend that i will call "My Daily Weather Report Designed with the Sole Intention of Annoying Beth Bagel" it will be a charming feature that will be sure to equally astound and stupify.

so here we go, today the weather is......... cold and sunny with a later chance of wind and cold. grab the gloves kiddies!

so there you have it, my third weather-related blog post this week, with several more to come.

seriously, thanks beth, because i had no idea what i was going to post today. by the way, does sarcasm register on the Internet?

dodgeball 101

2006-02-15T07:37:00.000-08:00

last week i received two new students, both girls (which is great as it restores some balance to the gender ratio in my class...). in any case, one was from california and had never played dodgeball.

friday we lined up for my students' favorite game only to have her ask in all seriousness, "What's dodgeball?" Clearly the governator has put his power to use replacing all violent P.E. activities with viewings of Terminator 3.

So how do you explain dodgeball to someone who has never played it or seen it played? I do my best to which she asks, "You try and hit each other on purpose?"

"Yeah, that's the basic idea"

"Okay," she says clearly puzzled by the rationale behind hurling foam balls at her classmates.

She learned all she needed to know 45 seconds later, when an arcing ball crushed the side of her face. She hadn't seen it coming. The last time this happened, we didn't play dodgeball for awhile (and I added a "headshot-and-you're-out-until-the-next-game" rule). I darted over and asked if she was okay and wanted to keep playing.

With a bloodthirsty look she replied, "Yeah, I get it now."

Dodgeball 101!

snow?!

2006-02-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

so i left the tripple deuce this morning for what appeared to be another normal work day, a little rain, no problem.

then i keep noticing snow on cars and wonder what gives. as i crest the hill in the o.c. it hits me--it's snowing moron! hiltop o.c. is like a winter wonderland. so we're here at work roasting chestnuts and wondering what santa will bring this year!

by the way Happy Valentine's Day!

who knew?

2006-02-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

i didn't realize that portishead played at the Super Bowl.

This must have happened after the Steelers were handed the Lombardi trophy. by that time i had thrown a shoe into the TV box, so my picture wasn't as clear as this one.

vitamin D

2006-02-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

the sun decided to show yesterday, which certainly beats the fact that i have been wearing a sweater all morning yet my fingers are still cold.

so i took advantage of the clear sky, donned my overalls (yes, they are my favorite thing to wear in full view of all of my neighbors), and jumped up on my ladder. i became so addicted to suddenly being 10' tall that i pruned one of my trees all the way into the ground by a few inches (at which point i had to get off the ladder). as the on-top-of-the-ladder endorphines kicked in i decided to clean out all of the gutters. atop the house i then decided to scrape off most of the moss on my roof. i think i also scrapped off most of the rocky parts of my shingles but what the hell, i was on top of a ladder.

i even stopped for what felt like 6 hours and was probably actually 45 seconds and watched a bird. i don't know about you, but when i stop to watch a wild animal i suddenly don't feel as self-absorbed. something about that little red-crested finchjay puffin worbler made my problems seem smaller.

after insuring that i will need to replace my roof this spring, i performed the coup de grace... i took down the Christmas lights. forget punxsutawney phil, there is no barometer for the end of winter better than the lights coming down from the front of my house. it's offical, forget the snow broadcast for the weekend, we're in for brighter weather now.

mr. predictable

2006-02-12T00:11:00.000-08:00

i must be easy to find on myspace, because first, my students found my myspace page, and they must have spread the word because a steady trickle of people i haven't seen in over a decade have been finding me. generally speaking, myspace is evil and a clear sign for the coming of armaggedeon. most of the time, you get solicited by either cyber-hos or terrible bands.

however, in the last few months, myspace has shown that it has its upsides. it helped me find a decent new band , okay, so technically i heard about these guys on itunes, but i used myspace to check out a few of their songs before catching them at berbatti's last week. i also caught up with an old friend.

the last time i talked to most of my high school friends, i was in training to be a firefighter, so they are surprised to hear that i teach 6th grade. so a friend recommended that i check out fever pitch because jimmy fallon's character is the kind of teacher that they imagine me being. i figured that i would be nothing like the character other than his name is ben, but the similarities were kind of scary.

fallon plays a teacher who is obsessed with the BoSox. he lives two lives based on the baseball season and offseason. the movie ben had a good rapport with his kids, and i'd like to think that i have the same. i finished the movie and didn't think that i was obsessed like movie ben, but as i stopped the movie and turned on my tivo i realized that in some ways i'm just as pathetic as my movie doppleganger.

i have four seahawks games on my tivo as i type this. i combined a birthday party with a super bowl party so that i wouldn't miss the seahawks first SB appearance. i can name not only every seahawk player on the 53-man roster, i can also identify them by their voices. i wore the same shirt for each of this year's playoff games. i have a "lucky" pair of overalls. i have a several-years-running draft day party that i throw at my brother's house each april (the "party" consists of only my brother and i by the way).

so basically, my pathetic obsession with the seahawks is clear not only to my friends, it's clear to people who haven't seen me in a decade, and now it's even becoming clear to me.

tagged!

2006-02-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

wow, i just posted my first post in the last 2 months and i already have a tag from sloop. so here i go:

Four Jobs I’ve Had
1. picking radishes and green onions on a farm
2. bucking hay bails until 11pm on another farm
3. guitar store manager (and part-time bass teacher)
4. elementary school teacher

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
1. the empire strikes back
2. 2001: a space odyssey
3. run lola run
4. the royal tenenbaums

Four Places I Have Lived
1. oregon city - with mom and dad
2. oregon city - by myself
3. se portland
4. milwaukie (the triple deuce)

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
1. lost (yeah, yeah, i know)
2. law & order (especially the old re-runs with chris noth)
3. arrested development (please come back!)
4. the office (i LOVED the BBC and the US version won me over)

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation
1. the united kingdom (glasgow, london, cardiff, edinburgh)
2. paris, france (kicks your city's ass)
3. maui, hawaii (i hit my head on the ocean floor!)
4. new orleans, LA (almost a year to the day BEFORE katrina)

Four of my Favorite Dishes
1. burritos
2. french toast
3. bagguette with fromage
4. vegetarian pad thai

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1. seahawks.com (yes, i am pathetic)
2. myspace.com
3. orecity.k12.or.us/
4. seattlepi.nwsource.com

Four Places I Would Rather Be
1. paris
2. new orleans
3. sydney
4. cairo

Four People I’m Tagging
1. reesarick
2. miss kazu
3. flying teresa
4. bonika stjames

a slight break...

2006-02-11T18:07:00.000-08:00

so i've been gone for so long. so many bloggable moments have passed without my cutting wit and sarcastic voice to let you all (or both as is more apt to describe my readership) know the duldrums of my life. so many memories that will fail to be blogged, my surgery-that-was-supposed-to-happen-but-didn't last month, or the bedm-shot-a-video-and-i-got-to-be-an-extra-and-best-boy-and-grip-and-clapper day, or the ben's-return-to-the-dentist-for-the-first-time-in-years, or my elated the-seahawks-really-are-the-best-team-in-the-nfl-this-year-they'll-prove-it-to-everyone week, followed by the how-come-i-keep-letting-the-seahawks-tear-out-my-heart-every-year week, to today. i've been wallowing in the latter for a week or so.

so what has kept me from my blog you might not ask? well let's just say that i got into a superstitious routine that found me obsessing over the seahawks wins from week to week. if i blogged, somehow the seahawks' win streak would snap and they would fail to win the super bowl. well that worked pretty well. so now i'm back to blogging. so screw football (for the next 7 months anyways).

so it's saturday and i woke up and ate breakfast, watched five minutes of usa vs. sweden women's hockey... upon the us' first goal i actually heard myself say, "take that sweden! why don't you go back to making watches and knives!?" at this point i stood up, turned off the TV and left the house. i'm not sure if the swedes are good at hockey, but the olympics sure bring out the best in me.

from there, i drove to peter's to run down to thom rehearsal. two hours of morning rehearsal were enough to tap us both out until two 6-year-old girls recommended that we make blackberry pancakes and coffee. they were right as the spike in sugar intake gave us enough energy for a boy eats drum machine rehearsal. today's rehearsal was odd in that we played music the entire time. we actually ran the set twice and never even turned on the Xbox. so i assume it's a given that our next show will blow since we haven't properly prepared. maybe we'll get back to our normal routine of 2 hours of halo followed by 27 minutes of playing music.

either way, i'll keep you posted.

no mas taco bell, no mas

2005-12-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

i should have known that the removal of the '1/2 pound bean burrito especial' from the value menu would mark the begining of the end of my taco bell patronage.

i have tried the '1/2 pound cheesy bean and rice burrito' but it is too late. in my stomach as i type are the last burritos that taco bell will sell me for at least a week. i quit taco bell. consider yourself dumped.

...unless i call back and leave a message next week. then could you please answer me back?

...or leave me a text?

how i made the teller girl cry

2005-12-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

she's a nice enough girl, always initiating the awkward teller-to-guy-that-just-wants-to-turn-in-the-work-deposit conversation with a smile. we share annecdotes mainly. which is why i know that she spent thanksgiving in the hospital because her husband split his head open in a turkey-bowl football mishap. in turn, she knows that i spend half of my workday working with kids, and the other half i spend teaching sixth grade. she will even jokingly complain when i end up in "another teller's" stall.

so why would i make her cry? i'm not even sure myself and things happened so fast. it all started with another one of our short teller-to-customer conversations (she likes to ask questions like, "so what have you done that's exciting today?"). it went somethink like this:

girl: going for a new look? (she noticed that there were 6-7 unshaved hairs lining my chin)

me: not really, i'm just lazy and on vacation.

girl: oh that's right. you teachers get all of the great breaks!

me: ...well i am still working the other job...

girl: (i don't think that she heard the last thing i said) Of course you don't get paid that well.

me: it's alright.

girl: there are more important things than money.

me: i think they're called intrinsic rewards.

girls: besides the good paying jobs are usually not rewarding at all. kind of like this job.

me: uh, ummm... i think they're called intrinsic rewards?

girl: at least you do something that has an impact on someone else's life. all i do is take people's money. and they're usually the people with the meaningless high-paying jobs. maybe someday i'll do something with my life that's worthwhile.

me: ... ... ...

i'm not sure what to type to represent the total silence on my end. i seriously need to talk to the maker because i think i'm missing the empathy chip that should have allowed for me to say something comforting. at any rate, she closed her teller door, threw herself onto the ground and began wailing. all i could make out was "why God?" and "i'll never be worth anything" the other tellers shoo'd me away and told me to "just leave"

so it's more clear now than ever ...i've still got it with the ladies!

guilty pleasure of the moment

2005-12-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

... has to be pearl jam's 'no code.' i know, i know, grunge right? i also know all of the reasons why i'm not supposed to like eddie vedder & crew, but is "good guitar tone" enough rationale to forgive this sin?

perhaps i'm digging on it because i followed PJ from 10 to 5 Against One and then turned to Quicksand and Morrissey, so later pearl jam albums are like hidden treasures in my ipod. either way i don't care what you may think because the guitar tone rules.

quote of the day

2005-12-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

yes, i love football way too much and my allegience to the Seattle Seahawksleads me to ridiculous habits such as watching streaming video of Mike Holmgren's bi-weekly press conferences. this is all way too geeky i admit, but at least this year my loyalty is paying off (for those of you that don't follow sports Seattle is tied for the best record in the NFL).

watching Holmgren in compressed, streaming format i can't help but feel as if i could recite his responses before he even opens his mouth. most of this is due to sports cliches and the fact that coaches and players (with the exception of chad johnson--sorry non-sports people i probably just lost you...) never say anything new. ever. not in press conferences, not in after-the-game-on-the-field interviews, not in the post-game lockerroom interview, not even on the nfl network (which i watch for about an hour a day). so why do i keep streaming 57 minutes of stuff i have heard before? because every now and again, the color-by-number responses produce something you never hear. today, mike holmgren rewarded my loyal listening with his comments on the probability of walter jones playing on sunday. holmgren simply stated:

"Probable will mean probable. Probably."

this may have been a long setup for a lame quote but in the predictable world of sports talk, this absurd quote had me laughing.

non-resolutions

2005-12-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

so at the aforementioned doctor's visit (i have not been in about 9 months due to a 'lapse' in medical insurance) i was asked to disrobe "anything that i did not want to count against my weight" and hop on the scale. i was severly conflicted as i pondered walking into the hall in my god-givens, i did not want to seem too vain. i pondered, "do i strip top down or bottom up?" i could hear the nurse in the hall tapping her clipboard. "maybe i'll strip down to the new comfort waistband boxer-briefs that reese bought me..." At this point, the nurse is clearing her throat and i'm fairly sure it's in relation to my delay. "okay, too assuming, i'll just take off my sweatshirt. that way i'm safe and don't seem self-absorbed," however, by taking 15 minutes to decide what level of nudity i was comfortable with, i'm sure i made it clear to the nurse. so off went the sweatshirt and purse and i was weighed with my jeans, socks, shoes, belt, t-shirt, and what was left of my dignity. i even remembered a 6th grade lesson on how air has weight and began to exhale, but i was too late as the nurse ended my ride on the scale with a curt, "thank you."

sadly enough, it wasn't until i read the discharge papers at home that i realized my blunder... my weight with all of my accessories was 192 lbs. holy crap! i could have sworn that i only had clothes on and that i hadn't inadvertantly worn a small child onto the scale with me. "kazu? did you follow me into the doctor's office?" it would be just like her. she weighs 55 lbs and that would explain some things. alas, she was with reese and free from any blame i could try and pass on.

needless to say, as eye opening as the casual drop of the c-word was, seeing my weight as 8 lbs away from a pair of c-notes, i had to do something.

so yesterday, i went for a run. it actually felt good. sure, i needed my inhaler and i only ran a mile-and-a-half, but at least i can say i'm doing something. when i got home i prolonged my shower by making the most detailed list of goals i have made this side of high school (yes, i wrote out goals in high school--i was that kid). i divided them into three main categories and made several short-term goals under each of the main goals. before you dismiss these as new year's resolutions, keep in mind that by beginning yesterday they are technically just goals. we are not in the new year yet, so i am just a man of vision. besides i want to drop a few lbs. before they weigh me again.

...and if i don't get any lighter, at least next time i could take off more clothes.

the c-word

2005-12-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

no not that c-word, but the one that you never want to hear from a doctor. she even referred to it as the 'c-word' in an attempt to reassure me that all was going to be okay. the problem is, even for the sake of reassurance, you never want to hear the word cancer during a medical exam. so you can understand that even though she said, "you know it really doesn't feel like cancer normally does," i seemed to stop listening at cancer. my mind actually lost most of the words and focused on "you" and "cancer."

perhaps i should backtrack and explain that last friday i had an appointment to have the no-longer-so-smallish growth in my right leg examined. i had (and still have) no idea as to what the lump was (or is), so i was figuring that the c-word would come up at least in passing. unfortunately, no matter how prepped you are to hear it, it's unnerving to hear the doctor say cancer when referring to a growth in your leg. so i'm on the referral list to have my lump biopsied and possibly removed.

at least this time around the c-word won't be so awkward.

john vs. paul

2005-12-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

perhaps the longest standing difference of opinion in my 6-and-a-half-year marriage has been which beatle is better, john or paul. "that's a subjective argument," you say, and you are correct. however, running in the deposit at work the other day, i realized how simply this argument could be solved.

all this time, reese and i would fire back and forth 'i'm only sleeping' vs. 'getting better' or 'polythene pam' vs. 'michelle.' how foolish of us. to truly compare paul and john, you have to delve into their work outside the beatles.

and what part of the catalog is better than their respective holiday songs? so to settle the score once and for all, i present john vs. paul in the form of two holiday classics.

'a wonderful christmas time' by paul

vs.

'so this is Christmas (war is over)' by john

to help you decide, i'll feature a line from each song.

from Paul, "The word is out, About the town/To lift a glass, Ahhh don’t look down"

whereas, John offers, "And so Happy Christmas, For black and for white/For yellow and red ones, Let's stop all the fight"

still not certain? here's another line from each song:

John, "And so this is Christmas, And what have we done/Another year over, And a new one just begun"

Paul, "The moon is right,The spirits up/We’re here tonight,And that’s enough"

i agree, Paul, that is enough. John wins in a landslide. Minor keys and introspection will always trump major keys and the substitution of ding dong ding dong for real song lyrics.

click wheel

2005-12-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

i am tempted to click
'next'
it taunts me with the
unknown

this song i know for it is
present
but the next song represents
future

this song is 4:54 of what i
know
while 'next' offers me the beauty of
unknown

will it be the syrupy sweet, cutesy schmaltz that is
fiest's 'gatekeeper'

dj shadow's 'mutual slump'
will surely put my head into club nod approval

or will i feel the melancholy introspection of
iron & wine's 'passing afternoon'

the only way to know is to press
'next'
to deny the sure thing that is
present
to imagine the next song that is
future

i will be tempted no more...

(click)

jackson five's 'never can say goodbye'

...dammit!

back to work

2005-12-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

Christmas break marks two weeks away from the kiddies and my full-time return to the world of telephony, service calls, a desk, the Internet, voicemail, and working with my buddy-old-pal Daniel.

Working with Daniel is awesome in that my boss is my friend and the job is one that I have dutifully performed for the last 6 years (READ: I know what I'm doing and don't need to think too hard). The one downside is that my name sounding somewhat similar to Dan, coupled with my propensity to mumble and speak without annunciating means that I have the following conversation with customers about 45 times a day.

phone rings (the customer is calling for Daniel, not Dan or Ben but Daniel).

me: Teledigit this is Ben (keep in mind I am mumbling and the following probably sounds like "Tele-mumble this mumble mumble...")

customer: hey Dan I wanted to ask you about that bid...

me: this is Ben, were you looking for Daniel?

customer: yeah Dan right? anyways, I wanted to ask you...

me: I'm sorry, there is no Dan, this is Ben (by now I am making an effort to emphasize the consonants), were you looking for Daniel?

customer: this is who?!

me: this is Ben.

customer: oh I'm sorry Bam is Dan there?

me: I can put you in DanIEL's voicemail if you'd like.

customer: that would be great Jan.

so needless to say I love the full time work even if it means that I am now a woman working for some guy named Ban. Well off to check Jan's email.

candy for the ears and eyes

2005-12-13T14:24:00.000-08:00

it's rather odd playing in a band that is garnering positive press these days. it seems that the willamette week is rather fond of boy eats drum machine in both pre-recorded and live formats. playing has been a joy, and i'm glad to be part of something so rewarding. i just never imagined that it would earn critical acclaim (not that i'm there yet).

im especially excited about BR in SW's astute assessment that "The synth player (that's me) kept the music lively alternating keys, guitar, tambourine and cowbell. The drummer kept the beats phat. It was candy for the ears and eyes."

you read it, i'm candy.

I love this game!

2005-11-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

Ah, the NFL. Some call it the No Fun League, others refer to it as the league of No-life Fantasy Losers, others see it as Not For Long based on the average NFL player's career expectancy being slightly under 3 years. To me though the NFL should stand for Nice F-in Language. That's right the league that brought you the 'wardrobe malfunction'that introduced prepubescent boys the world over to Janet Jackson's right breast is also providing those same boys with a weekly dose of obscene language that they can put into use on the playground.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to judge when it comes to language. On any given second of any given day, there are probably a few choice words held in my mouth only by my teeth. In any case, the NFL regularly gets away with on screen imagery that would make both live sensors and Mike Myers-with-Kanye-West-in-the-room nervous. It seems that each game I watch features at least one occurance of a player, coach or fan dropping an f-bomb on camera. Take for instance Laveraneous Coles' touchdown in the ESPN night game a few moments ago. The play was called a touchdown, then reviewed and taken away. Almost on cue, ESPN cut to a few Jets fans (the game was played at home in New Jersey) one of whom was flipping off the officials on camera, the other, a girl who was classic jersey girl in both style and function, could be seen in the same shot yelling "you effing suck" at the officials. I probably wouldn't even say anything if it didn't happen every week. After each bad Seahawks call, the camera always cuts to the firey Holmgren who obliges with a tirade of obscenities. I don't blame Mike either, it's the TV producers who know what they are going to get when the cut to the explosive coach on the verge of erruption. Yet after each questionable call there they go for the reaction shot. A few weeks ago, Holmgren even got his voice over the airwaves with his challenge for the officials to "make the effing call."

What I find humorous besides the obvious naughty language broadcast over reception television is that it is coming from the prudest of sports leagues. NASCAR is the fastest growing sport nationally, and its base fans are generally Bible-belt conservatives, yet it has allowed hard liquor sponsorships. Compare this to the NFL, the league that cancelled a successful cable series Playmakers due to the 'bad rap' that it gave the league. The NFL also will never allow expansion into Vegas for fear of gambling's influence (yet they cater to fantasy football players with their mandatory injury updates and point spreads). From this prude league you can count on a weekly dose of bad words that to me seem far worse than the completely natural body part that Mz. Jackson shared with the world.

Well, halftime's over so I'm back to watching the game. Who knows what words and gestures I'll see. Regardless, I'll keep my finger on the TiVo rewind button so that I can watch it again in slo-mo.

new member of our family

2005-11-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

here there lil' guy
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

before you freak out, this member has no poopy diapers or 9 month gestation period.

last night i was reminded that it was truely better to give than to receive when i surprised reese with a new ipod nano. the lesson was reinforced by my new ipod's inability to sync with my itunes while her nano is pumping out 2G of tunes like a trooper.

so if you want something to work right, buy it for your sweethear and not yourself. but don't worry about me, my 30G ipod video is loaded with reese's library which is nice, but i sure miss those boy eats drum machine {LIVE} tracks.

by the way the nano is very small here are a few pictures for scale reference:
/

dogblog

2005-11-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

did you know my dog has a blog? she's 'predee kewl'

stupid new kid

2005-11-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

at my teacher job i'm pretty much the punky new kid. yes, after being 'the old guy' in all of my college classes last year, i'm now the 'kid' again. while i've never favored being referred to as boy, i do like being considered young now that i am in the last couple of years of my twenties.

in addition to being the kid, my dual presence as both the only male, and the only employee under 30 ensures my place as the resident technology expert. i am looked at as a computer genius for my ability to construct Excel spreadsheets and the wizardry that allows me to move applications in and out of my dock. never mind the oohs and aahs that are declared when i add appointments on my palm pilot.

as easy as it was to make, what really blew my cohorts away was my silly little teacher blog. i made it last weekend as a place to direct students for homework assignments etc. so blogging has now earned me techno cred at work. who would have known. the irony is that i am a computer idiot. all that i know has rubbed off of smarter people than me. i'll take all of the praise, just don't let on that i really don't know anything.

Use Caution! Contains Hot Oil and Steam!

2005-11-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

i just finished an entire bag of microwave popcorn all by myself. Am I:

1) a glutton?

2) a slob?

3) really hungry and justified?

should i feel disgusting? is this normal? when i am at home and pop a bag for enjoyment with a movie or the like, reese and i usually share said bag. the sharing is either via the pass-the-large-bowl-back-and-forth method or the less popular divide-the-bag-between-two-medium-bowls. in either case i only eat about half a bag. now i feel rather lecherous and uncertain of how i crossed the line from seeking a slight snack to gobbling down an entire bag of corn.

oh well, i had originally planned on redeming a "free medium fry" coupon at mcdonalds, but the drive thru line was too long. i guess a whole bag of popcorn is the equivalent of a medium fry on the consumption scale.

the ballcap's my bling

2005-11-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

i have to address a trend of performers wearing baseball caps on stage. my fear is that paul simon may be the culprit here. now i understand that not everyone can rock the yule brenner chrome dome like yours truly, so i can appreciate paul feeling the need to cover his balding pate. but paul, do you realize how silly you look? you're paul freaking simon! if you keep rolling out with the ballcap people will mistake you for jimmy buffet (please keep your shoes on). i think there needs to be an intervention of rock star proportion. the edge, michael stipe, and kenna (i know, i know, no one knows kenna but he is brave enough to rock with a bald head) need to sit paul down, remind him of who he is and that there are options for bald rockers. the edge can suggest having a knit cap attached to simon's head with an industrial solvent or staples, the knit cap also serves as a billboard for political statements or to simply state the name of your current single (vertigo toque anyone?). ben kenney of the roots and incubus fame could recommend a plethora of cabbie hats, pageboys, or hand knit hemp lids. Or for a change of pace stipe and kenna could convince simon to go gillette and sport the kojack.

the need for the intervention could not be more clear last night when i saw another performer (whattup thom!) step onto the stage with a ballcap. the problem here was that this was not an aging used-to-be trying to hide a receeding hairline, this was a frontman with a full head of hair. therein lies the pitfall to simon's reckless use of his rock influence, the future rock stars of america are committing fashion faux pas. seriously, if you start a set with that baseball hat, you know it's coming off in 2-3 songs when you start playing. that leads to the worst atrocity of all, you on stage in front of your legion of fans with hat hair. nothing worse than that and i can't help but think that all of this could be prevented. if only we could get through to paul simon...

I see nog up ahead...

2005-10-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

yes, it's that time of year again. not fall back we're out of daylight savings time, but the glorious two-and-a-half months when egg nog is in stores.

now i understand that egg nog is a love-it-or-hate-it "beverage" (i guess egg nog is a beverage, but that's akin to calling gravy a beverage, it's more a liquid dessert. as a dessert, it's one of those too rich desserts like grammas fudge, but i digress).

so love it or hate it, nog is back, and boy do i love it. perhaps too much. i once used egg nog on my breakfast cereal. not out of necessity, but out of wonton lust.

now before you puke, i realize that it must sound digusting, but it was the best bowl of cheerios ever.

well, off to find some cheerios!

Halloweeners

2005-10-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

discussion overheard between two second-graders after school:

boy 1: what are you going to be?

boy2: i have the Darth Vadar with the voice transformer...

boy1: ohhhhhhhh...

boy2: basically i'm going to be all Darth Vadar it covers everything, everything except maybe my hands and the bottom of my shoes.

boy1: cool.

boy2: but, but there are shoe covers for the tops of my shoes, it's just the bottoms that won't be covered. and with the voice transformer i sound just like Darth Vadar. my voice is like Darth Vadar.

boy1: cool.

Clearly this little one has turned to the dark side.

"one year's salary please"

2005-10-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

that's what I should have said the other day when i made the business deposit for my afternoon job... it was the equivalent of my entire year of teaching pay. unlike the public sector, the private business that i work for in the afternoons makes money. it wasn't distressing processing the large deposit, in fact, a few days earlier i had deposited 3-4 times what i will making teaching the next year. rather, the shock came standing in line looking at a single day's deposit thinking 'that's all i will make for spending 9 months with the future of america' nothing quite like seeing your student loans and countless hours of coursework and practica reduced to a few lines on a piece of watermarked paper.

don't get me wrong, i'm thankful for both jobs. when i deposit my school paycheck i'm laughing not just at the size, but that they pay me to do what i do. yes, i love that job and am waiting for the day that the district mustaches see through my smoke-and-mirrors.

now before any of you get on your "you-have-great-benefits-and-what-about-june-july-and-august?" high horse, how would you like to pay the $400/month to add my wife to my 'great benefits' package? yeah, i don't really want to either. but i digress, i really only wanted to laugh about seeing my entire year's salary as 1 line on a small business deposit. viva la entrepreneur!

why i use the drive through

2005-10-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

fuzzy speaker and prerecorded "would you like to try our chilli-chahito-crunch-wrap-gordita-slap-grilled-stuffed-triplecheese-nacho-enchirito-burrito today?" message be damned, there are times that i realize the merit in putting up with the drive-thru shenanigans.

living in the triple duece, i should know better than setting foot inside the taco bell (they may have slapped some paint on the walls, but it still is the meth capital of clackamas county), the one (ahem) restaurant where $1.57 will fill you up.

case in point occured last night when i walked in and stepped up to the sand/taupe/cinnamon colored counter where a middle aged nutjob (pun fully intended in about a paragraph) was standing, narrating as a teenage couple ate in a nearby booth.

NUTJOB: (in play-by-play voice) ...and she takes another BIG bite!
Girl nervously giggles as boyfriend looks on...

NUTJOB: (louder play-by-play voice) I didn't know she could take such a big bite!
At this boyfriend adjusts nervously in his chair.

I step to the counter where assistant night manager wants nothing to do with the wacko that is hanging out at the counter and looks at me as if there was no crackhead yapping in our faces.

ASS. MGR.: Can I help you?

ME: Yes, I'd like--

NUTJOB: Hey it's Lance Armstrong! (clearly pointing at me)
I assume that he is unable to think of any other bald guy and so now I'm a world cyclist.

NUTJOB: (to the ass.mgr.): Hey it's nice of Lance Armstrong to visit us. This guy looks just like Lance Armstrong.

ME: Yeah, but I have both of my testicles.

NUTJOB: (laughing hysterically) Oh my God! That is hilarious! Look at him (pointing to me) he says that with a straight face. Oh man, you're a stand up comedian. That was pretty fast, and with a straight face. Seriously, that is good, you are a freakin stand up comedian right? (as he is bent over laughing saying this he continually pounds my shoulder, letting me know how funny I am)

ME: No. I teach 6th grade. I guess you have to be witty.

NUTJOB: No kidding. 6th grade, no you really are a comedian. You just made my night man.

I did manage to finish placing my order and after Nutjob received his he passed me a final time with a final shoulder punch.

NUTJOB: Thanks for makin my night man. Seriously, that made my night.

I never imagined that talking about my testicles would make a complete stranger's night. Next time, I'll use the drive thru...

plucked from the web...

2005-10-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

today's quote comes from a dorky forum that i frequent. this could not be any more Fruedian...

"First off, this is my first post, so bare with me ..."

Wow, only their first post and they want to get naked. i wish i had that kind of restraint.

easiest post ever

2005-10-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

i wanted a turnkey blog post and this one sure does the trick. now if only i can find those gold diapers...

(in case my sarcasm doesn't come through, the mere presence of a pre-made cowbell sketch picture for your blog should mean that we can put this thing to rest now.)

i may be bitter or just sick of people mentioning that something needs more cowbell. if we're going to beat a musical snl skit to death, why not make it the bass off between jack black and will ferrel? now that was funny. or was i just up late at night?

reading, writing, and L mix R

2005-10-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

so in my classroom i play music during study hall or anytime that the little kids decide to be quiet for two to three sequential minutes. every month or so i have the kids fill out a personal interest survey and we chart a billboard style top 10 list of hit songs, artists, tv shows and movies. i haven't figured out how i'm going to tie that back into the Oregon state standards yet, but i'm sure there's a way to squeeze it between math statistics and current events.

so most of the kids are hell bent for classic rock (ac/dc, G&R, led zep to name a few), country (you're on your own for examples here), z100 pop (any girl named simpson, ciara, or clarkson) and there's one kid who is a classical buff (who knew?). so i thought that today while the choir kids were in choir, i'd see what my band kids thought of portland's own L mix R.

prefacing the track only by saying that i was going to play a song that they had never heard by a band that they had never heard of, i asked them to play music critics and critique the song. i have only played L mix R once before and that's because " ghosts & whores" came on at random (to which the kids said, "we like this hippie music") so on a scale of 1-10, 1 out of 9 students rated L mix R's "god bless you portland" as a 5. There were 4 voting the track as 4 out of 5 stars, two voting 1 out of four stars, and two found that on a scale of 1 to 5, L mix R earned a zero (someone needs to teach these guys some math).

for kicks i asked them to explain their answers. One of the zeros simply said that the song "stunk." The fours were in the "pretty good" camp due to the guitars. The lone rating of 5 was due to the fact that the student's step dad "listens to this band all the time, so i hear it so much that i kinda like it." not likely i imagine.

the best response of all was from the student who simply asked me to press "stop! stop! stop! stop! stop!"

bigotry, hatred, and ignorance--the roadtrip!

2005-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or are the protestors from Topeka, Kansas completely taking their bigotry and hatred a few steps to far? It's one thing to drive into your own town to spread your ignorance, perhaps even spew it onto the internet (check out their home page godhatesfags.com). It's a far cry though to ask your boss for time off, pay for tickets to Portland, rent a car to drive to Beaverton all to protest a high school production of a play based on Matthew Sheppard's brutal murder.

Watching the coverage of these cross-contry haters really started to bother me until I checked out the webpage that they were wearing on their shirts. Evidently not only are these bigots spending their time attempting to shut down a high school play, they are busy thanking their god for Hurrican Rita's "Direct & Immediate Visitation of the Wrath of God Upon Sinful, Sodomite America - Avenging America's Abuse of WBC!" WBC being Westboro Baptist Church, the church that loves god enough to dedicate their time and money to maintaining a webpage devoted to his hatred for homosexuals. Reading a few of these articles put my mind at ease that these are simply ignorant bigots who mask their hatred in their religion.

"There is no voice in this town to speak for God," says one of the roadtripping protestors. She's right in that there is no voice in Portland insane enough to put words of anger in God's mouth. I guess what bothers me is these people bring God into their bigotry. The God I believe in loves ALL of his people, but when you are thanking your God for killing thousands in the gulf coast, you are clearly praying to another deity.

I agree with the Southridge student who called these protestors "the real terrorists."

long ago...

2005-09-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

gifty show
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

so this is me rocking out with my good friend erin back in the day when i was bothered by the necessity of having to cut my hair. more shocking than seeing myself with hair (albeit receeding hair) is how many people i can identify in the picture. so many friends and lovers i can't count them all. look how young we all look... N8 looks like a baby. i guess i see how youth is wasted on the young.

Gimme a C!

2005-09-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

So today after school a sixth grader who is the absolute "best-friend-till-the-end" of one of the girls in my class handed me a piece of paper.

Girl from another class: Here you go Mr. Rickard.
Me: That's nice of you. What does it say?
GFAC: It's a poem about you. I used the letters in your name.
Me: Wow, thanks. That's really sweet of you. (proceed to read poem) So energetic starts with a C?
GFAC: Oh, whoops. I did that in like 30 seconds.
Me: Well I see that I'm daring. I guess I better go jump in a fire or rescue a kitty (both girls smile and blush). Well thanks a lot.
Another GFAC: Bye, Mr. Rickard (she grabs me in a side hug).
Me (seeing that another teacher has received the same type of poem): Why didn't you put 'beautiful' on mine?
GFAC: Because your name doesn't have a B in it.
Me: Oh I see. Just like it doesn't have an E.
GFAC: Huh?
Me: Don't miss your bus girls.

So anyways, here's a poem that describes me.

Mr. Rickard

rocken

R-Rock on
I-Intelligent
C-Energetic
K-Kind
A-Active
R-Reads a lot
D-Dareing

I just can't get over being called rocken and dareing in one day. Maybe I'll correct the spelling errors and return the poem...

AI vs. Live Cover

2005-09-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'll try and protect the innocent here, but I gotta say that sharing an email address at work sucks for more than just the reason below. I mean, I receive my share of spam from sultry manboys and the like, but sometimes it's your co-worker's legitimate, solicited emails that get sticky (pun intended). take this example for instance. I should preface by saying that I don't generally consider myself a prude, but this email casually referred to semen so many times that even I began to blush. Before you pervs continue I think that this has something to do with horses...

"Eileen, John:

I noticed that you do ship semen, the $150.00 additional for that is that just the collection/chute fee then I would pay shipping on top of that or does that include the first shipping? Most cases that I have dealt with in the past have included the first shipment of semen. What is the motility rate at 24, 36, & 48 hours for him? Have you done those numbers? My old Switch a lena daughter does so much better with AI than live cover. Will you be standing black next spring? What is Black’s percentage of throwing yellow? I try for any color other than yellow. ...Thanks for your time."

Needless to say, I'm now checking email with one eye closed in the hope that I won't start "throwing yellow" myself.

from the mouth of Rufus Wainwright

2005-08-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

"This next one's a country song," Rufus started. "I'm trying to save country from itself. It's kinda knawing its own arms off." The croud laughed as he pantomimed chewing his own hands. "It needs some new blood," he finished with a smile. When he plays 'country' songs, I think Rufus is more authentic than most artists in the 'country' genre. As great as he is though, I'm not sure if one Rufus can make up for the boatload of Dixie Chicks, Brooks and Dunns, and Travis Tritt's out there knawing their own arms off.

Last night's show was simply amazing. why God chose to bless one man with such an angelic voice is beyond me. couldn't I have been granted a fraction of that ability? oh well, at least I had the privledge of listening to that flip-flap clad angel. I could have listened all night, but the hour-and-a-half that I had last night were well worth it.

Oh yeah, and ben lee was like a 5 -foot-tall ball of pure entertainment.. Way to go lil' buddy.

hey mr. dj...

2005-08-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

so i think i may have horrendously insulted my dear friend sloop jon p. last night when i insinuated that his party mix may have been created by simply pressing the itunes 'party shuffle' button. hardly a nonosecond later, i was wishing i could take my words back as sloop took time and great detail to show the craft that went into his modern day, live mixtape. each selection was both thought out and heartfelt, so sloop here is a not-so-public apology and the recognition that you are the master of party mixes. and unlike the february bash, last night there was plenty of hip hop for everyone. so hats off to you sloop. ur the DJ Masta.

four by four

2005-08-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

four by four!
Originally uploaded by kazuhank.

i know that it may sound insane, but i came to a realization this weekend. halfway up the logging road past road 27 on mt. hood i discovered that my suburban assault vehicle has this four wheel drive feature. i actually engaged said feature and found myself trudging up the mountain trail. i may be the first person ever to go offroad in an SUV.

flick this

2005-08-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

so i have been informed that i have been using my flickr account recklessly and improperly. apparently there is a level of online protocol that i have broken. so flickr is a photo sharing site that is for the art of photography. so when i photoshop frankenstein basses made up of assembled parts stolen from various websites, I am thumbing my nose (or am i nosing my thumb) at the photo artists on flickr. sorry artists, but i do use flickr as image hosting. before tonight i had no idea what photobucket was, so there are my roughly photoshopped basses sitting beside pictures of my dogs and other images that i want to post to this blog. so forgive the ignorance and try to overlook this idiot's misuse of flickr. after all, if i choose to spread caviar on my smartdogs, it tastes good to me.

book baton

2005-08-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

oh crap! evidently sloop had baton'd me without my knowledge. i'm still new to these things but here goes...

number of books i own
i don't even want to get up and count, but there are probably 350-400 on the several shelves in the house. i wrapped about 50 in tin foil for a lesson in my 2nd grade class last year and i have yet to unwrap them. it will be like christmas when i finally do.

last book purchased
'the long way round' by ewan mcgregor and charlie boorman ...this is the firsthand account of ewan and charlie's motorcycle trip around the world, literally, as seen on the popular(?) television series of the same name. if i was as rich as these two actors, i'd buy a motorbike and take timE across the globe. minus the camera crew and lithuanian mafia.

book reading right now
this is pathetic for two reasons, but i have been reading this book for the last nine months. the book is none other than dan brown's 'the da vinci code' yes, i know, that's so 5 minutes ago, but i'll have you know that i am on top of other trends like this new musical movement called grunge that is all the rave... in any case, my excuse is that i picked this book up in france over christmas from the owner of the house that we stayed in while in paris. it was a great place to start reading as i would read about san sulpice and its golden compass rose and then hop on the metro and see it in person the next day. da vinci code became a frommer's guide for me during my week in paris. alas, i read slowly and gave the book back to the owner when i left france. it wasn't until my birthday in march that reese bought me the super-cool illustrated edition of of the book. by then i was busy teaching and i don't like to set a bad example by reading in front of children.

last five book i have read
this will also seem pathetic and will show that (a) i just graduated from college and (b) i have been taking a mental break. after all, it is the summer and i don't read during the summer. i tend to spill margaritas on the pages and again, i don't want to set a bad example for the children. in no particular order...

1) 'shall we gather at the river' by james wright this was a grad present from laura, brian, and n8, and i gobbled it up in a matter of hours. i am a gigantor poetry fan, and james wright is my favorite poet, he's basically pittsburgh's answer to langston hughes

2) 'the panther and the lash' by langston hughes...speaking of langston hughes, this book was a gift from my poetry professor and i try and read it a few times a year.

3) 'professional learning communities at work: best practices for enhancing student achievement' by dufour and eakerany book with a colon in the title is apt to put you to sleep. this was actually a gripping read that examined the failures of the reform movement in education and presents a case for PLCs which are all the rave in education as of late. i honestly read this book to be able to speak to PLCs in an interview, but i found it interesting and helpful on a professional level. but it may be like counting sheep to some.

4) 'Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6): Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy' by Irene C. Fountas, Gay Su Pinnellagain the colon in the title indicates that this wasn't pleasure reading. it does lay an insane foundation for teaching literacy though!

5) 'the branch will not break' by james wright' is it sad that three of the five books are poetry collections? i think not. i actually carry this book in my manpurse so that i can read it whenever i feel the urge. it's the bible of poetry and i try and read it in its entirety at least once a month.

so there you have it. i been batoned. i'd pass it on, but i don't know enough bloggers, so i break the chain. just like kobe, i'm the black hole and you aint gettin the ball back!