Kickin' Bass!

After buying a new Sony head unit, I was thinking of adding or replacing a speaker or two in the Corolla, so I perused some of the reviews at Crutchfield.com. Here's a couple alarming reviews, courtesy of our misguided youth:

SORRY BAZOOKA
Written by ANTHONY, BROOKLYN N.Y. 11222
"I WANTED SOMETHING WITH A LITTLE KICK FOR MY 1994 BMW 325IS MY FRIEND GAVE ME THIS BAZOOKA HE BOUGHT FOR HIS CAR, OK I DID NOT EXSPECT SOUND LIKE MY MERCEDES 190E WITH THREE AMPS 12 SPEAKERS AND TWO 12" SUBS I WANTED TO KEEP THIS ONE SIMPLE BUT I HAVE TRIED AND TRIED TO CONTROL THE BAZOOKAS BASS I WANT IT TO BE FELT AND HEARD "CLEAR" INSTEAD IT WAS LIKE A SOUND YOU HEAR IN THE BACKGROUND AND YOUR NOT SURE IF IT IS YOU OR NOT? DO YOU UNDERSTAND LIKE A POLICE SIREN YOU LOOK AROUND AND IT IS YOUR RADIO? I HEARD A STRANGE AWFUL SOUND AND IT WAS ME? SORRY I HAVE REMOVED IT AND AM NOW GOING TO TRY THE INFINITY WILL RATE IT AFTER IT COMES "

Gee, Anthony, could it be you're experiencing the effects of hearing loss already at the tender age of 19? Why the flip does anyone need 12 speakers! We're trying to sleep here and you're driving down our real estate value!

Good bang for the buck
Written by Christopher, Chicago, IL
"I was looking to add some bass to round out the 12 other speakers I had running thru my Audi without going overboard or beyond my standard musical needs. I got many mixed reviews about bass tubes but..."

Standard musical needs? What the hell do you listen to that needs 12 speakers?

And what's up with 12? Is that the magic number in car audio?

How far we haven't come

Suz and I went to a rather nice restaurant in the clouds last night, thanks to a generous gift from a client. The waiter was careful to:
1. Initially address me first, not Suzy.
2. Ask Suzy what she wanted first (ladies first.)
3. Give me a menu with the prices listed, while my wife's menu was bare. (That way we men-folk can direct and approve the menu choices based on price if we so desire)

But the food was awesome, shredded duck and roasted yams on home-made raviolli in a fancy green sauce of some sort. Then choklit molten lava cake for desert, drowning in a choklit sauce, with little white hearts drawn in white chocolate. Yumm!

Rapture!

No, not the name of that Blondie song, silly goose.

I picked up one of those fundie-flyers in the parking lot today:


It has the usual drek inside. In this case the mark of the beast will be "a new world order featuring a complex and complicated system to administer and track the movement of people, equipment, goods and finances." Sounds like somebody is lifting liberally from their old Economics 101 textbook. But I thought this part was funny:

What To Do In Case You Miss The Rapture:
1. Stay calm and do not panic. (Insert scene from Chicken Run. AAAAHHHH!!!!)

2. Realize that you are now living in the Great Tribulation. (Are there lots of Tribles around?)

3. Pray like you have never prayed before in your life. Start by repenting for your sins. (I'll be at the gym exorcising)

4. Do not take the mark at any cost. (Sucks to be you if you live in Germany. Oh wait, they're Euro'd now)

5. Set a plan in motion for survival. (Eat the tribles!)

6. Trust no one. (Wow, that's a good Christian thing to say)

7 Watch for the Antichrist. (I thought it was Saddam Huissen, according to Weekly World News)

8. Don't give up hope! (We're screwed! AAAAHHH!!!!)

ps Lo! The mark of the beast!:

I think the stress is showing...

I snapped this picture before we started our commute this morning.

I've been pressuring Chris and Rich to leave on time lately (haha), so sometimes Chris doesn't have time to take care of the grooming of his various hair projects...

OK one more...

I couldn't resist this one, brought to my attention by dear wife Suz:
Elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo have painted Expressionist masterpieces: Their interpretation of the Seahawk broo-haha. So that's what the animals do when they close the gates at night.
http://www.zoo.org/seahawks/seahawks.html

Stop the Insanity

Please know that, before I completely alienate everyone (except my dad), I will stop posting about the Seahawks and the superbo'. I'm not that guy. I have a couple witty and touching posts lined up that will replenish hope that Christian is a nice, sensitive, thoughtful guy. Stay tuned.

GO SEAmmmmmph

Seahawk update

The flight went well. Our boys are as comfortable as is possible:


Holmgren tried to keep the business as usual theme during the flight from Seattle.

He was so relaxed that he slept most of the way.

"We really have it rough when we travel," Holmgren said, jokingly. "The owner (Paul Allen) bought us an airplane. We have all the gadgets so that we can watch live TV or movies, whatever you want. All the seats are first class. The flight crew is the one that we've had all the time.

"The mood on the flight was like the mood of this team all year. I make it a point to go down the aisle once or twice, along with the other coaches. The guys were watching TV or doing what they usually do. Our season's not over yet. That's how they've approached every game this year."

Not everyone Ga-Ga for the Seahawks

From the Friday Seattle Times:

"I'm disgusted," said Marietta Alexander of Everett, "I hope the team loses and loses big! I hope all the sports teams decide to move to Outer Mongolia and people get serious!"

"I don't worship people; I worship the Lord," said Alexander, a substitute teacher. "It's gone beyond reason. People are outfitting themselves like freaks and spending thousands of dollars that they probably don't have to go to Detroit. All that money could have been given to the homeless and the poor."

"They aren't thinking about the fact that one day they are going to have to stand before God and account to Him what they did with their time and money."

She plans to nap during the Super Bowl.

Shouldn't she be helping the homeless and poor instead of selfishly taking a nap?
GO HAWKS!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!

Where's the new annoying slogan?

Ok, 1 week until the superbo'. Where's the latest "Refuse to Lose" or "Two outs? Who cares?" or "Raider Busters"? There's a fan rally in kirkland tomorrow. Maybe they'll unfurl it there. I need to know what the Camry will look like with its new bumper stickers and flags.

SEACHICKENS ARE NOW SEAHAWKS! GO HAWKS!!! WOOOOOO!!!!

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Nike bought ads on MSN.com yesterday, for their new Airmax360 shoe. Being a sucker, I clicked on the link, in the name of flash research.

They have an inspirational commercial about getting up early and working out, to the sound track of life's most hated sound, the alarm clock. There's a montage of some of their athletes rolling out of bed in the dark and heading to the track/pool/field to sweat and actualize their dreams and stuff.

The gimmick to get your email address on the site is that you can sign up for a "wake-up call" from one of your favorite athletes, as long as they're one of the eight listed.


Mistake #1:
In my infinite wisdom, I decided to give it a try.

I signed up to have Justin Gatlin (Athens 100m champion) give me a call at 7am. I've been wanting to work out in the morning again, but it's been difficult since Suzy was able to adjust her hours at work and get in an hour later, forcing me to sleep in, the big meanie.

Mistake #2:
I woke up with a start at 2am, and thought it was 7, until I looked over at the clock and saw it was in fact 2am. It took me an hour to go back to sleep.

Mistake #3:
I didn't think to leave the phone by the bed to grab it when it went off. When it did go off (I waited for 15 minutes in excited anticipation, since I tend to wake up at 6:45 anyway) I had to feel around for my glasses and trudge to the other room to get it, while Suzy, jolted awake from a deep sleep, exclaimed "who the hell would be calling at this hour?!"

By the time I grabbed the phone, poor Justin had hung up, and didn't even leave a voice mail. I didn't want to come back to bed right away to an angry wife, so I had a bowl of cereal and read the latest Superbowl news. Then I crawled back to bed and sat staring at the ceiling until the alarm went off.

Now I'm tired and grumpy. And a little wiser(?). I signed up for a 9:45 wake up call tomorrow morning.

Boycott Catsup!

From the Seattle times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2002760169_funrail25.html

Pittsburgh's most famous export is Heinz ketchup. As a Seahawks fan, I'm imploring all of you to boycott ketchup for a couple weeks. We'll starve 'em out! Better to eat your freedom fries naked, or with mustard, as a sign of solidarity. Who's with me?

Of course, they suggest you pour your ketchup on the side of fries, not on top, as we cultured people have done for years.

In related news, Sports Authority is selling a beautiful Tiffany-style lamp with the Seahawks logo on it. The perfect accent to our Arts and Crafts inspired livingroom!

"The Sports Authority sells NFL-licensed Seahawks items on its Web site(www.sportsauthority.com), including the Wincraft Seahawks snack helmet.Chips go in the snack bowl on top, the salsa in the removable faceguarddish.For those hoping to integrate fan-dom and fine living, it also sells aTiffany-inspired table lamp with the Seahawks logo cut into stained glass.Not only is it officially licensed ? it's imported."

I just emailed Suzy. It may be a bit of a hard-sell, but I'm sure she'll eventually be on board. Whoops, looks like she's responded to my email:

"Apparently your involvement with professional sports has lowered your IQ tothe point that you no longer comprehend taste or remember that you have a wife."

Ah well;)

Super Sonic Dad

Digging through the big box of family photos:
Here's a picture from the mid-60s, when my dad worked for Boeing. Not only that, he was there during the exciting development of the Boeing "SST" or "Super Sonic Transport". The thought of the day was that planes are getting faster and faster, so it's only reasonable that going beyond the sound barrier will be an everyday occurance by 1980, so we better get on the band wagon now. And so they did. My dad was in charge of the graphic design of the program, secret high-level plane design, and making presentations to big wig clients overseas who wanted to buy the plane. They even gave him a white lab coat that said in big letters "USA" in red and "SST" in blue.

In this picture foreign dignataries wait for a presentation to start (note easel in background) while a woman-folk waits to get coffee. This hanger was the largest building in the world, until Johnny-come-lately Kennedy Space Center came along.

My dad took the picture with his Polaroid "Land" camera. After the shot was taken, he had to pull out the exposed paper, but it in a little slightly-curved container and stick it in his armpit. That's why the container was slightly-curved. You've come a long way, baby.

Unfortunately Boeing's plane never quite got off the ground, while the French Concorde ruled the trans-sonic skies. But it turns out dad was right all along, as the Concorde is now grounded, due to it's massively expensive expensiveness. And my dad still has a cool bathrobe he got out the deal that says "USA" in red and "SST" in blue.

ps Dad, be sure to chime in if I've distorted any of the facts regarding your roll.

Shot Pudding

I've finally started using one of my local shotput rings again, now that I'm recovering from injury yet again (wrist injury on throwing hand, from Olympic Lifting nine $%!& months ago). Reminds me of Lance Deal's '96 quote that he's like James Brown: "you have to keep coming back, coming back, coming back." It also reminds me that I work at a day job as a graphic designer only so I can fund my shot put career. It's important every once in awhile to step back and put things in perspective.

Anyway, I approached the ring, all excited and ready to throw, only to find that it had been covered by about 2-3" of dirt, mud and pebbles, all topped with a gigantic dog turd.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and didn't even remember this annual rite from previous autumns. I could've used a frikkin' snow shovel this time, for &%@&?!sake.

So out came the towel, scraping away the goo, inches at a time, until the towel became solid with dirt and grime. Then another towel, then another. Then I had to beat the towels against the nearest fence, but found that to be a decent discus exercise;)

After 1/2 hour of this, fingernails aching, I was ready to throw on the slick and still muddy surface. Unfortunately I couldn't turn out of the back with confidence due to the existing mud and moisture. So I put down a scrap of towel on the ring, underneath my left forefoot and turned on that. It worked! At least until I put so many holes in the towel it didn't work anymore.

But I thought that's a neat trick I'd pass along to y'all. Illegal for competition I'm sure, but helps in practice during inclement conditions, when you have enough to battle as it is.

Post Mortem:
I love the internet for helpful feedback like this, from Mohamad Saatara:

Christian,
I saw your post on the ring. We have a lot of trouble in Flagstaff with dirty rings due to inclement weather, and we devised this system that seems silly but actually works great:

Get an industrial mop, and a snow shovel (if you don't have access to a snow shovel you can use a regular flat head shovel), and make a mix of about 5 gallons: 1 small bottle of bleach (more if the ring is very dirty or muddy), and water. The bleach gets ride of the algae and other organic matter that make the surface slippery.
[etc etc blah blah won't bore you with the next two paragraphs on ring care]
I hope this helps and best of luck with your throwing.
Mohamad Saatara
NAU Track and Field
Associate Head Coach

ps (If you're actually still reading) I love having my own blog. It's time to abuse it and drive everyone away. If this post doesn't do it, the one below will. heh heh.

Jessica and Nick: Splitsville!!!

I don't usually pay no mind to what the stars are doing, but this one has me reeling. I thought, as did the rest of the nation, that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's marriage story would continue for the rest of their lives, like they vowed. But all is now a shambles.

A quote from the wire (Gosh I love MSN Entertainment):
The couple's reality show, "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica," which chronicled their daily lives in a new California home, turned them into stars. The show, which ran for three seasons, made Simpson infamous for her dippy-blonde moments, including the time she confused the tuna she was eating for chicken, or when she eschewed Buffalo wings because "I don't eat buffalo."

(cue rim shot. You can't make shit like that up.)

Donkey Kong Level 5

Here's a sketch I did for Donkey Kong, my favorite video game. It was partly inspired by Mowrer's sketches he did as a kid with Jack. But also inspired by bad or at least weird dreams I have every once in a while that I'm trapped in the world of Donkey Kong, a "Mario World" if you will, with no way out.

Darth Maul

A little late, but just found a photo of my Halloween Pumpkin from around 2000. Don't tell anybody, but I vandalized a few pumpkins for their stems without paying...

Disneyland 2005: Unflattering Portraits

Suzy has always had this thing for licking Angie's hair. Chris is thinking about the next big web thing as he strokes his chin contemplatingly. Angie's nodding off to nap. I'm practicing for my Kabuki theater debut. Shelley is using her invisibility cloak. Rich...I don't know what rich is doing.

Disneyland 2005: The darker side II

Fun with the camera: a magical Disney moment as seen through Walt's crotch.

Disneyland 2005: The darker side

Kid in blue suit: Yo G! You is on our turf! You aksing for a quick trip to the morgue, if you know what I'm talking about!
Geppetto: You talkin' to me?

(Brief battle ensues in which kid's ass is handed to him on a platter; he done been served.)

Geppetto: That's right, don't you EVAH come back to this hood, bee-yotch! And wipe that smile of yo' face! (Gives kid rude hand gesture)

Disneyland 2005

Great attention to detail: Even the wallpaper at Disneyland Hotel is properly themed!