Extra day

Happy Leap Day!

Go look here for a math-geek-y note. • 8:36 PM 0 comments

The power of suggestion

Some years ago I tried to audition for an improv comedy group. They were specifically looking for people with no previous experience. After a short, maybe half-hour introduction to the rules for improv, number one of which was "Never refuse an offer from another improv-er", I got my chance to audition.

Me and another new guy got up on stage, and pretended to kneel by a campfire. He turns to me and says, "So... you been out here long?"

I say the first thing that comes to mind: "No...."

The director cuts me off. "Next!" and someone else takes my place.

Dammit. All that talk about "no" and it's the first thing out of my mouth! I never got another chance that night.

I swear I could do better today. I'm in a much more positive frame of mind. • 1:13 PM 2 comments

Sitting near the stage at Devil's Point, Jenn was describing her bicycle accident, a run-in with a car that resulted in a trashed bike and seven staples in her scalp. Owie.

So engrossed in the story and its telling, we were ignoring the stage show.

Suddenly, Ivizia stopped twirling the flaming bolos which were on actual fire and called us out. "Hey," she projected from the stage over the pounding music, "whatcha talking about?"

Startled, Jenn and I looked up, then, almost as one, we both pointed at the topic of conversation and shouted "Her/My head!"

Ivizia was enough of a showwoman to smile and go on with the fire dancing, having successfully restored the attention where it belonged.

Labels: stripclub

• 12:19 PM 0 comments

Too much to drink

I was taking a break from watching the stage show at Devil's Point. Monday night. Fun crowd. Firestrippers. But I have realized that parties and bars are more fun if I move around a bit, not staying in one place too long. So I made my way through the crowd to hang out near the video poker machines. There was still a crowd back there, whooping and cheering and drinking. Devil's Point is a small club.

Seated on the chair, I pulled out my iPhone and started checking email.

Six foot tall blonde dude with shoulders nearly as broad as I am tall in a brown fancy leather coat, holding a bottle of Dead Guy Ale and a cigarette looks over at me. "That one'a those iPhones?" he asks.

"Yes. Yes, it is," I confirm. There's a pause. I stroke the face of the phone, glowing through the haze from my palm. "It's sooooo... sexy" I intone.

Blonde dude's friends laugh and tell me that's great. Blonde dude smiles, but sheepishly, like he's been embarrassed. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I guess." He's deflated.

Feeling cocky, I ask him bluntly, "Oh, yeah? What've you got?"

His friends laugh again, and one of them holds up his hand for a high five. "You're allright, man!"

Blonde dude is smiling and determined to salvage something out of the situation. "Oh, oh, OK, I'll show you what I've got!" He digs in his pockets and pulls out a plastic LG or Samsung flip phone. He unfolds it.

"That's great!" I say. I can't believe how much of an asshole I'm being. "What's it do? Make phone calls?"

His friends by now are busting up, doubled over in laughter. Blonde dude holds out his hand. "You're alright, man. I'm Rod. What's your name?"

"Of course you are!" I say. "I'm Brian." I shake his hand.

"I'm gonna take a picture of you with my phone!" he decides.

"Yeah, remember this forever," I tell him, and smile for his phone camera picture.

Labels: stripclub

• 12:45 AM 0 comments

The More You Know

It's funny what you learn through random surfing.

Like just now, when I looked up my hometown, Kalama, Washington, on Wikipedia.

I'd always assumed that Kalama was named after a Native American tribe or word. Not so, according to the Wiki.

It was named after the Kalama River, which itself was named after a Native Hawaiian, John Kalama, who worked the fur trade on ships and finally settled in the Northwest near the Nisqually tribe. • 8:58 AM 0 comments

Unorthodox introduction

Years ago, I was dating a girl who was a hard-core runner, in training for the Hood to Coast Relay. We're at the gym and she's intense and focused on her workout, and I'm just goofing off. I give her some space to work out while I wander from machine to machine. Then I see my best friend and his wife come in. I didn't realize they used the same gym as my girlfriend. They didn't see or notice me off in the corner.

My best friend, Ken, hadn't met my girlfriend, Deb, yet. As I'm watching them, he and his wife get on a pair of treadmills... and Ken is on the treadmill right behind Deb.

Deb was many things, but damn, she looked great from behind. I loved her ass. It was literally the first thing I ever noticed about her. And Ken shares this love of booty. And his wife puts up with his ogling and isn't the jealous type. She knows he'll never act on it, he just likes to look. So now he's checking out the butt on my girlfriend. He's being subtle, but he's my friend. I know him.

So I walk up to him, wave, and shush him so he won't say anything out loud. Then I walk up to Deb and start to ask her how her workout is going. She's a bit mad that I'm talking to her and says something like, "What are you doing? I'm in the zone!"

I laugh it off and just tell her I'm having a good time... then I pretend to notice Ken. "Hey, buddy. What are you lookin' at?"

Ken catches on and shouts, "Hey, it's a free country, man. What are you, her father?"

"You're checking out my girlfriend?" I'm raising my voice. I'm a quiet person normally so this seems out of character for everyone, including me. Inside I am trying very hard not to laugh.

"Maybe I am. Whaddaya gonna do about it?"

Ken's wife and Deb are both incredulous and shocked into silence, each of them looking at us in disbelief. Deb keeps running but now she's trying to look behind at the guy that's checking her out and challenging her boyfriend.

I stride back towards Ken. Ken stops his treadmill and gets off and poses there, chest out. I'm glaring at him.

And we both start laughing so hard. We couldn't keep it going. I introduce Deb to Ken and his wife. Deb slows down long enough to say hi and goes back to her workout.

Oh, man, she was pissed at me for breaking her workout. She didn't really "get" my sense of humor, I don't think. But, damn, that circumstance required me to take advantage of it. So funny. To me. • 11:10 AM 0 comments

Internet for the win

CBS is now offering streaming online versions of classic TV shows.

Including Classic Star Trek.

It looks like all three seasons are available.

This is 100% awesome. I think I'm going to have a Trek marathon.

They also have Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-0, MacGuyver, Melrose Place... and I bet they add more.

Nerd alert: My only question is, didn't Star Trek originally air on NBC? How did CBS get the rights? Was it because the rights were held by Desilu and Desilu got bought by CBS? Oh, well, whatevs. • 10:35 AM 1 comments

More Nakedness

What can I say? Portland is just a naked kind of town. We've got more strip clubs per capita than any other American city (may be a myth but it's true in our hearts), the Naked Bike Ride (not invented here, but we have the largest participation), the Voodoo Donuts Cockfest... and now, the Red Light Naked Shopping Spree.

Red Light is a used clothing store, a store that many film companies use when they're in town to purchase vintage costumes. And this weekend, they're going to have a contest where the lucky winners will strip down to their nothings (though for the modest, staff will be providing a tiny sequined G-string) and get to dash into the store and wear as much clothing as they can in 3 minutes. The winner with the most clothes wins... the clothing that they just pulled onto their bodies (I mean, who'd want them after that, right?).

Yeah. I fucking love this town. • 12:11 AM 0 comments

"There Will Be Blood"

Wednesday night Kevin and I saw "There Will Be Blood" at my neighborhood cinema. This completes my quest to see all of the Best Picture nominees for the 2007 Academy Awards.

I was captivated by "TWBB" and not just by Daniel Day Lewis' performance. I very much appreciated the storyline and how it personalized the turn-of-the-previous-century's history of how oil collection and production became a monopoly. But Daniel Day Lewis was great, as well, creating an intense characterization from the ground up.

Yeah. I liked this one.

Now that I've seen the quinella, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that "There Will Be Blood" will take the Best Picture Oscar. I'm not 100% sure of it; "Atonement" seems more like the kind of movie that the Academy chooses, but in my entirely un-expert opinion, I think they'll lean towards "TWBB".

However, of the five movies, I personally prefer "Michael Clayton". It's a more complex story, with interesting characterizations and plot twists that kept me engaged throughout. It's a writer's movie. It's, frankly, a movie from the ground up; it's in the minority of the top five - only it and "Juno" were written specifically for the screen. The others were all adapted from a novel. So in my eyes, "Michael Clayton" gets the personal nod.

Note I'm not hedging my bets by picking two movies. I really think that the Academy is going to select "There Will Be Blood".

We'll see how right I am on Sunday.

Labels: movies

• 7:46 AM 0 comments

True Story

Me and a buddy were on a road trip from Portland to Austin, TX. We were moving there, actually.

We'd stopped in this tiny little town in New Mexico, I forget where. Our route just nicked the corner of the state before turning in to the Texas panhandle.

We drove up and down the main street looking for a place to eat. The whole town looked deserted and it was near sunset. Finally found a SubWay open. The yellow sign and flourescent light were a contrast to the orange-red of the sunset and the red-brown of the desert.

Got our sandwiches, flirted a bit with the girl behind the counter, sat down to eat.

A big dirty ancient pickup truck pulled up, the tires crunching in the gravel. A tall, scarecrow thin old man got out, in plaid and blue jeans. His hair was the color of "whiter than white" and I remember it almost gleaming in the darkness outside the window. He looked at the car we were driving, and slowly walked into the store.

Just stood there in the doorway, half in, half out. Looked over at me and my friend. No one else was in sight, either inside the store or out on the street.

In a voice that sounded a lot like the sound his tires had made in the gravel outside, he said, "You boys ain't from around here, are you?"

My friend (whose name is Garret) just looked at me and said, quietly, "Finish up. We're leaving."

When we left, the leathery white-haired man was still ordering his sandwich. We got in the car, and as soon as the doors closed, I asked Garret why we left so fast.

"Tell me you didn't hear banjos start playing as soon as he said that!" His voice was mocking, apologetic and frightened all at the same time.

He was so freaked out by the whole thing he swore he'd never eat at SubWay again. • 7:39 AM 1 comments

Price is not the same as cost

In the year to date, I have spent $125 on the lottery.

I have not won back any of that money.

Yet. • 7:34 AM 0 comments

I like drawring

I bought a new sketch pad over the weekend.

I felt like being creative with pictures instead of words.

I think I was inspired by organizing all my pictures in iPhoto.

By the way, the tagging feature of iPhoto 7 (part of iLife '08) rocks. At first I didn't think it rocked because I was doing it wrong. But after I figured it out, it does, indeed, rock.

That is all. • 8:54 AM 3 comments

Flickr is teh new hotness

After worrying about how to get a picture gallery on my server, and not getting it figured out, I decided to just use the web tools that are already out there. From now on I'll be posting my pictures on my Flickr page. If you're obsessively following my every internet posting, you can even get an RSS feed of my pictures so you'll know whenever I post one or more. There's, like, features 'n' stuff.

On my end I'm importing all my pictures into iPhoto and I have a plug-in that lets me upload right from within the program: FFXporter. It's free and open-source.

When I get a chance I'll fix my menu bar to point to my Flickr page, and then I'll start posting Pictures of the Week again like I used to. Stay tuned for pictures 'n' stuff.

The bad part is that when I was importing pictures today I had tons and tons of Smacky, my cat who ran away. Sad. I hope he's still OK, out there pouncing on delicious birds. • 6:40 PM 0 comments

"Jumper"

Saw "Jumper" today. I was in the mood for a goofy action flick, and this one fit the bill.

Hayden Christensen totally reminded me of my youngest nephew. Especially when he does that furrowed-brow angry glare of his. But not when he's teleporting from place to place. I don't think my nephew can do that; he just drives now that he's got his license.

I don't get why movies aimed at "young adults" have to have such dickhead parents. Oh, wait... yeah, I remember being a teenager. Of course it makes sense. Nevermind.

Labels: movies

• 10:05 PM 0 comments

Ribbit!

I ran tonight along the river and past the wetlands. The frogs were croaking and ribbiting loudly. Almost deafening.

If that's not a sign of spring, I don't know what is. • 8:58 PM 1 comments

the cognitive process of acquiring skill or knowledge

When I let go of the rail, something happens.

Labels: fear

• 12:10 PM 3 comments

Annual

What? There's a holiday today?

I have no idea what you're talking about. • 6:43 AM 0 comments

a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity

I'm 5 years old, maybe younger, definitely preschool. I'm wearing my hooded blue cordoroy coat, zipped in snug, wearing ice skates and standing on the edge of the rink.

Near the railing.

In fact, I'm hanging on to the railing for dear life, watching the other kids skate and laugh and fall down and get back up again.

I look at my hands, knuckles white, death grip on the rail.

Every time I move my feet, I feel the blade cutting into the ice and slip. Each foot seems to want to go in different directions. But if I hang on to the rail, hard, as hard as I've ever gripped anything in my entire life... my feet can't go far.

One finger starts to loosen... knuckles slowly turn flesh-colored again... One finger slowly moves itself away from the others, twitching from the release of tension, but ready in an instant to resume clutching the rail.

I slip. I grip harder.

The sounds of yelling and happy voices are muffled by the thick warm material of the coat, somewhere behind me. Out on the rink. The volume of their joyful noise rises and falls as they circle the rink.

The cold slowly penetrates my protective coat.

I manage to let go, briefly, nanoseconds' worth, my palm separated by bare milimeters of air.

True story. For several certain values of True.

Labels: fear

• 1:01 PM 0 comments

Nearly two centuries

Happy 199th birthday to Charles Darwin!

It doesn't look likely that humans will grow up enough to fully accept the revolution you started this year. Next year doesn't look good, either.

Maybe by your 300th birthday. • 3:45 PM 0 comments

What a weekend...

I spent so much money, drank almost as much as I drink while on vacation, flirted and cuddled on the couch with chicks I just met, enjoyed live music, ran 5 miles, ate delicious food in good company, spent time with friends, pampered a sick friend, drove fast and hard in a car I didn't own...

And trust me, it sounds much better condensed into a sentence like that.

Although many parts of the weekend I will cherish forever.

Guess it's time for Monday. Ugh. • 7:01 AM 0 comments

Fook Mi

This morning I was shuffling around in my dark apartment, curtains drawn, in my underwear, waking up after a late night drinking. I can tell it's sunny outside but I'm not quite ready to let it in yet.

My doorbell rings.

I run to get my bathrobe. No one knocks on my door, ever, normally. I figure it has to be important. But while I'm running around trying to cover up for this emergency that has someone at my door, they knock again. Must be urgent.

I glance through the peephole at the same time I'm pulling the door open, but all I get is a flash of dark hair and white blouse.

Standing at my door are two young, pretty, Asian girls, in crisp white blouses and pressed knee-length skirts. Are they going to try to convert me?

I smile nervously and slightly hide behind my door, aware of my hairy naked white legs, even though everything unseemly is covered up, for some reason.

The first girl leans back upon first seeing me, and after the awkward moment, she says, "Oh, we're sorry! We were looking for Korean people!"

My last name is Moon. They must have gotten my name and address from some ethnically-sorted list. I get junk mail in Korean all the time. My nickname in high school (one of them) was "The Reverend". But my ancestors came from England and Wales, at least on my dad's side.

"It's actually an English name," I say, my voice crackly with sleep.

They're backing away, nodding, shaking their head. "Oh, is it?" the first girl says, and then they're gone.

Looks like I don't get to cross that item off my list of things to do before I die. Not today. • 11:45 AM 0 comments

Different words for everything

"Chalupa" means "boat" in Spanish, but it means "house" in Czech.

In English it's just delicious. • 4:07 PM 0 comments

Doot do do do

It's just a little lighter in the morning when I leave for work.

Here comes the sun. • 7:02 AM 0 comments

Short update

Yesterday I slept for 16 hours total.

Today, porn stars are teasing me about my hat.

OK, it's just one porn star. But, still. • 10:01 AM 0 comments

Love conquers all

When I walked into the building where I work, which is coincidentally the county headquarters, there were cameras and reporters and roped-off lines, and in the lines (already, at 7:30 AM) there were domestic partners getting their domestic partner paperwork and getting domestically-partnered. Makes me proud to be an Oregonian. We're so forward-thinking.

Well, most of us are, anyway.

So how long do we have to maintain the fiction that they're "separate but equal"? How much longer until we can just say they're getting married, like everyone else, and it'll be normal? • 8:04 AM 0 comments

Paradox

Wow. That was the busiest boring weekend I've had in a long time.

Also, "Atonement", which I saw tonight, was sad in an anticipated way, and an unanticipated way. I anticipated that Keira Knightley would not be naked at all, and I was right. See? Sad.

The unanticipated way relates to the ending and I won't be giving that away.

I've now seen four of the five Best Picture nominees. The last one, "There Will Be Blood", I will attempt to see early next week, just to complete the set.

Waiting at the bar next door to the theater prior to showtime, Ayesha, the waitress, asked me what I was doing. I told her about my quest to see all the Oscar nominated films, and listed the ones I'd seen and the one I was about to see. She seemed unusually eager when I listed them off, and then interrupted me to tell me she'd seen "There Will Be Blood".

"Daniel Day Lewis is... is..." she searched for a word.

"Wow," I said, "your eyes just lit up."

An older guy, a regular, laughed. "Chicks' faces always light up when they talk about Daniel Day Lewis!"

Ayesha smiled, happy but not embarrassed by her enchantment with the actor. "No, you guys, seriously. He's mesmerizing in that movie. I couldn't look away! It's, like, a three hour movie and I didn't look away once!" She turned to make change out of the register, continuing to talk over her shoulder. "He's not a good man in that movie, but, damn, I couldn't look away."

I can't wait to see it. It's highly recommended.

Labels: movies

• 10:59 PM 0 comments

How... Portland

Tonight I'm checking out a hybrid car from my car-sharing program and drive down to the Vegan strip club.

Oh, yes, I am. • 4:47 PM 1 comments

Fair Albion

An opportunity (a suggestion, really, just a hint) came up today to go to London in April.

I immediately started pricing airplane tickets, counting how many vacation days I'd have, mentally moving funds around to clear space on my AmEx gold card... and telling everyone I know that I might be going to London in April!!!!1!ONE

Including you, the reader, now.

Can you tell how much the idea excites me? • 2:10 PM 0 comments