It's Almost Friday!

Sorry to everyone out there, but my friday is tomorrow. I'm off to the Oregon Coast at approx. 3 pm tomorrow. I'm going up to my friend JB's family's Beach Cabin/House/Chalet/Shack (I'm not sure how they refer to it). We will be joined by two more of our friends. It's about a 10 hour drive and I'm getting really giddy. My last road trip was about a month ago when me and some friends drove to Walla Walla, WA. ("a town so nice, they named it twice" as they say) But the last time I spent any kind of time on the Oregon Coast was 9 years ago when myself and my then girlfriend took a road trip down the coast from Seattle to SF. Man, I miss the car I had back then. Easy to do when you don't have a car at all and no prospects of getting a car.

Anyways, so I'll not be posting until next week and hope to have some great stories to tell. I really do hope Weltball catches on up in the OC. If it doesn't, my friends are going to think I'm some sick fucker.

One more thing, 3 friends and I went to Murderball last night. It's a new Sports Documentary about Quadriplegic Rugby. I've got too much work to do still tonight so all I'm going to write is that I think everyone should see this movie. It's uplifting, exciting, heartfelt and a lot of fun. Grade: A-

Currently Listening To: Don't Stop the Rock by The Chemical Brothers

The Future of Music Coming Soon....

So I got an e-mail today from a former co-worker/friend/softball teammate. I thought this is odd because we don't really e-mail each other. Let's just say I was very happy to get this e-mail.

He left the company I work for, I wanna say about a year ago. He took over the Director of Marketing position at a new website called Pandora. So the e-mail he sent me today was a private invitation to the website before it opens to the public. Man, it's pretty fuckin' cool.

In a nutshell, the goal of Pandora is to open your ears up to music that you may not know or have heard before but the people at Pandora are banking you will like. This is how it works (no I'm not giving Pandora a free advertisement). I really think this is a cool idea and I've been listening to it for the last 3 hours, and I'm loving it. So anyways, what you do is you enter a song or an artist you like and they then will create a live streaming radio station with songs that are comparable to what you entered. If they play a song you don't like, you just click on something telling them that that song sounds like nails on a chalkboard and they will never play that song again and also tweak the station so that doesn't happen again. No this is not fool proof, but it's fun and it's a great way to learn about new music which I'm always trying to do.

The way this site is going to make money is that with every song you hear, you'll be able to link to itunes to buy the song, or amazon to buy the CD. I'm not sure when it opens to the public but I'll find out. When it does, the service will cost $36/year. Which isn't bad. When you do sign up you'll be able to personalize 100 "radio stations" at any one time.

I have found some issues where they haven't been able to find some songs I've entered. So I'll find out what's up with that from my buddy. Maybe they just don't have access quite yet. We'll see.

Some of the radio stations I've created so far today have been based on these songs:
Blue Orchid by the White Stripes
Galvanize by the Chemical Bros. (which I'm listening to right now)
Eple by Royksopp
Callin' Out by Lyrics Born
Mr. Brightside by the Killers
Evil by Interpol
One More Time by Daft Punk
Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand
Hollaback Girl by Gwen

Well I'm off to go see the Documentary Murderball tonight. Looking forward to a quality film. I have heard great things.

Currently listening to: (I Just) Died in Your Arms by Resource

Nevada City: The Disneyland of the New Millenium

At first I was a bit scared to write about my past weekend in Nevada City, CA. As I don't want it to be overrun by extreme athletes, drunks and masochists. Then I realized how many people actually read this, and most of them were with me this past weekend, so I think the residents of Nevada City, Grass Valley and the other outlying areas of Nevada County, CA nestled in the Sierra foothills can rest easy.

My weekend officially started as I hopped in my friend KM's honda, that we like to call the Blue Lobster. The reason for this escapes me at this moment. KM and I were joined by her boyfriend DK and our friend PSAB. I should write a whole posting about PSAB sometime as he is w/o a doubt the quip master of all the world. He makes me laugh like no other.

Once we left El Cerrito. Don't ask, that's where we got picked up. Something about KM and DK's love for all things East Bay. Traffic on 80 wasn't great. But it was better than I've seen and we made decent time. That is until we hit In 'n' Out, the Wine and Spirits store of Vacaville and Walmart. At the wine and spirits store we bought a handle of Vodka, and various mixers. From there it was off to Wal-Mart to get KM some kind of tester thingy that tells her if she should eat fruit snacks, so she doesn't die. After DK showed off his impeccable parking abilities, which forced a parking security guard into a game of chicken, which the parking lot attendant lost I ventured into the behemoth store that we have Sam Walton to thank. Did I have to buy anything? Nope. Did I? Yes. 5 coozies featuring different logos and pictures. But what was my main goal of entering this store? That's easy. Drinking alcohol illegaly in front of and under the noses of every Walmart customer and employee. Mission Accomplished. Thank you to the manufacturer's of In 'n' Out's' white and red palm tree beverage cup.

From there it tends to get blurry as over the next 1.5 to 2 hours. KM, PSAB, and myself drank vodka. By the time we reached the Ralph's grocery store where we were to meet SZ we had drank half the handle. The ride up was characterized mostly by us singling along loudly to the likes of ToTo, Elton John, Fischerspooner, Franz Ferdinand, Air among others. We headed into the Grocery Store, and that's where I realized I may have overserved KM. She was talking a mile a minute and running into things. As we waited for SZ. I thought there might be a good chance we get in a fight with the locals as she was getting a little mouthy. SZ showed up and we were off to ST's Dad's house. And the weekend truly started.

The rest of the night was characterized by many a round of Weltball. I'd love to go into the rules of this fabulous game however, we haven't patened it yet. So until then it's a secret. I can tell you these little tidbits though:
a) It involves ping pong balls and paddles
b) It is highly addictive in a scratching yourself with a compass sort of way
c) It is called "Tits o'Fire" in Seattle.

That's all for now I'm sure I'll delve into more details in the future. If anyone is interested I will be introducing this game to the fine people of the Central Oregon Coast this weekend. Can't wait. It's always interesting to find out which of your friends embrace this game and which ones are compltetly horrified by it. I think this is a great judgement of character or stupidity. Maybe both.

The next day with temps heading to the mid 90s we headed for a semi-nude beach along the South Fork of the Yuba River. I say semi-nude because there were a bunch of nude people and 11 of us who weren't. And of the nudies, there were upwards of 12 or 14 dudes, and three girls(one of which was covering her boobs the whole time, so it's hard for me to count that). The dudes ranged anywhere in age from 25 to 176(I'm not joking, one guy had a cane and fanny pack and the skin of a rhino and looked like Robert E. Lee. I wouldn't be suprised if he had been panning for gold in those hills since the mid 19th century). The river was amazingly refreshing and absolutely beautiful. After a few hours we headed back to the party compound for some rounds of Extreme Bocce Ball. A much better version of that old Italian Man game which has taken over this country in the past few years. This version is characterized by a wheelbarrow full of beer, an ever-changing course, exploding dry-ice bombs, wearing other people's underwear, talking in British accents, calling a lot people douchebag or buttface, the ever-growing chance of exploding a propane tank with a bocceball, beerbitches, no clear winner and more dry-ice bombs. Obviously a very fun game.

The rest of the night was filled with a ton of awesome grilled food and overcooked asparagus, really horrible Karaoke, save for PSAB who saved the day again with his wonderful Modest Mouse and Radiohead renditions, Bongos, more Weltball and more Dry Ice Bombs.

Sunday, we had a quick very nice brunch at ST's mom's house and then were off back to the city. I spent the rest of the day recuperating and watching an awesome Cubs - Cardinals game.

I'd like to give a shout-out to the Oakland A's who have come back a long way to be tied for first for the Wild Card with the Twinkies.

'til next time

Currently Listening To: Big Sur by the Thrills

A MILD LETDOWN

So I would have to say the big event of the weekend was definitely the Royksopp show that some friends and I ventured to on Friday night. First, let me start off by saying Friday was one of the worst workdays of my life. Not because I found myself in a stressful situation, not because I burnt my oatmeal in the kitchen in the microwave, but because I was hungover as shit. It didn't help that I didn't make it to work until 11:30. And it also didn't help that my chair was packing-taped to my desk. Those chicks in HR that have absolutely nothing to do, definitely get a kick out of themselves. Luckily my workday only lasted 5 hours. Then it was time to drink again.

My afternoon, early evening was characterized by a few Pacificos at Pier 23 with friends, while kicking back in the sun listening to a very tall-blonde female DJ. This is something I hadn't experienced before at Pier 23, and our whole group was definitely into the DJ-outside vibe. From there we pushed on to North Beach thanks to a free car ride from our friend JT. Lost and Found was our destination. Let me tell you, everytime I take a piss there nowadays, I am thankful. The bathroom(s) before the remodel reminded me of taking a waz in a 19th-century outhouse in the middle of August in Yuma, Arizona. After a couple of Sunshine Wheats brought to you by the fine folks that brought you Fat Tire and a couple of slices of pizza from Golden Boy(it is it's own blog entry) we were off to Bimbo's 365 Club.

A quick history on Royksopp. They're from Norway. They have funny names, that I can't pronounce. They make damn fine music. They remind me a bit like Groove Armada. This was the first time I had seen them, but I had heard very cool things. And the show was great and I had a lot of fun dancing and sipping on Patron that my friend DK thought would increase the pleasure of the experince. He might have been right. It took a few songs for the crowd to really get into the show, which I think is a very important aspect to any great show. However, there were some issues that I had. First, they played their hit song "Eple" twice. This is concert suicide. They played it like 4th or 5th and then ENDED with it. Just wait on it you guys, we'll wait around for it. Please don't ever play it twice again. If you have a whole new album that came earlier in the week, I don't know play another song off that or cover Dub-Tribe for God's sake, you have the same drum set. (Quick Aside: The only time where I've experienced something worse was like 9 years ago when I went to the Wallflowers show at the Fillmore, and they were filming the video for "The Difference". They played it 5 fucking times! At least you can see me in the video if you pause it). But the big thing was they played for an hour and 20 minutes. Now I've seen great shows that have been that length or shorter, I just wanted them to play longer and if you discount the 2nd "Eple" then it was less than 75 minutes. Royksopp added insult to injury, when I found out a few days later that they had left Bimbo's that night and went onto play a set at Mezzanine. If I had known, I think I would have gone to Mezzanine and closed the place down as I'm sure those crazy Noreweigians did.

The rest of the night took place at R Bar. My favorite watering hole. However, I was physically exhausted, thanks to Thursday night at R Bar and I headed home.

Tonight I'm off to Charlie and the Chocalate Factory with a big group of friends.

Currently Listening To: Wonderful Tonight by Fatboy Slim

So after the All-Star game last night I watched "Bad Education" by Pedro Almodovar. Now, I have only seen one other of his films which was "Talk to Her" which I absolutely adored for it's sweetness and brutal honesty. "B. Education" is definitely not on the same level.

It, first of all, is a much different film. It actually has a very distinct Noir feel. The convoluted plot lines that I don't have time to explain right now just lost me and when for the 3rd Act of the film that went straight Noir I just didn't buy it. And I'm pretty sure Almodovar has seen "Vertigo" quite a few times. The similarities were quite obvious. Which unfortunately makes me want to compare this movie to "Vertigo". That's not a battle many films are going to win.

I did like the film, I just didn't love it. The high point was Gael Garcia Bernal, who amazes me more with each film he does. The mystery he conveys with the duplicty of his roles keep the story interesting. Bernal is definitely becoming one of the more versatile actors working today, and I will go see anything with him in it. Grade: B.

Tonight I'm off to a new restaurant/bar for a friend's b-day. A friend from highschool that has lived in the area for the same time I have so we've become close. So hopefully I'll have time to write about Levende Lounge a little tomorrow. That is if I'm not hungover.


Currently listening too: Yr City's a Sucker by LCD Soundsystem

Well I'm off to watch the All-Star Game on the comforts of my Blue Couch. Go N.L.!

I'm wanted to leave you with this little audio commentary from Jake Halpern, on why so many of my friends and our fellow Americans read US Weekly.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4708341

Well I think this is going to be fun. My first Blog.

And now my first question:
If you write a Blog but no one ever reads it, does it really exist???

Maybe as I start this new adventure, that answer, among others will find it's way into my noggin'.