Somewhere Near the Ville of Rock

Stanley Cup

2010-04-12T16:43:00.004-04:00

Bracketology

East round 1
Caps over Habs, no contest here, as long as the Capitals focus on this round before thinking about the second round.
Devils over Flyers, I think this will definitely go at least 6 games
Sabres over Bruins. The B's scoring collapse down the strech wont get them out of the first round
Pens over Senators. This may also go 6 games. Ottawa has a lot left in the tank, and the Pens are tired, but i think they'll get on top early

West Round 1
Sharks vs Avs. Not winning the presidents cup will get the sharks out of the first round
Blackhawks v Preds. I want the Predators to win this one, the only way they could do it is exploit the Hawks weak defense. Hawks win with their powerful forwards.
Canucks v Kings. The kings are all healthy at the right time. Kopitar and Co will crush the struggling Luongo
Coyotes v Wings. The always lethal wings will give the Desert dogs a run for their money, but the Coyotes are on fire. Coyotes in 6

East Round 2
Caps v Devils. Caps dismantle the Devils in 6. Washington has played well against the Devils this year and are well rested after the first round where philly weakens the Devils.
Sabres v Penguins. Sabres eliminate the Penguins in 5 with Millers outstanding tending and Rookie of the year candidate Tyler Myers stiffle a frustrated Penguins offense.

West Round 2
Sharks v Blackhawks. The Sharks powerful Canadian line is unable to offset the Hawks powerful group of young guns. Hawks in 7
Kings v Coyotes. The coyotes continue to succeed with Illya in net and Stempniak scoring goals by the bucketload. Kings unable to get through the Coyotes 'boring' textbook defense. Coyotes in 7

East Round 3
Caps v Sabres. Capitals continue their push to the Cup with their high power 30 goal club forwards peppering Miller. Capitals in 6

West Round 3
Hawks v Coyotes. Phoenix's (3-1 against Chicago in regular season play) dream season continues as the weakened Chicago defense falters and Chicago's inconsistent goal tending becomes apparent. Desert Dogs in 6

Finals
Caps v Coyotes. Capitals quest ends with the cup moving to the nations capital. Capitals rely on solid D and goaltending to supplant moderate scoring against the Coyotes, who are unable to contain the Capitals offense. Capitals in 5

Thoughts? Comments?

Its like Raindrops

2010-03-22T17:10:00.004-04:00

Today it rained a lot. Lame. It was also dark, so these two factors weren't to conducive to photographing. I did get some half ass shots of the raindrops though

Washington Sunshine

2010-03-05T16:37:00.003-05:00

Even though everything is still dead and there are still piles of snow all over the place, the buds and tulips are starting to pop up in places around town. This weekend is supposed to be nice and in the 50's, which is good as the last couple weekends have been either snowing, miserable, raining, or some combination of the former. I took a little stroll around this afternoon as its a flex day (gov employees who work 9 hour days take one day off every other week) and 5 people were out to begin with. Not to mention everyone cuts out early on fridays anyway. Even the roof top snipers were in attendance at the white house, usually you cant see them.

White house with complementary snipers on the roof

Go west young man!

Capitals aquire Scott Walker from Carolina for a 7th round draft pick

2010-03-03T12:43:00.003-05:00

Capitals have aquired Scott walker for the Carolina Hurricanes for a 7th round pick.
Walker is a fantasy dud, not sure what the are trying to do with this move

Forwards/Defensemen	Action		Opp: 3/4	Owner	O-Rank	Rank	% Owned	G	A	+/-	PIM	PPP	SHP	GWG
Scott Walker (Car - RW)			Ott	FA	674	676	0%	3	2	-4	23	1	0	0

His career stats aren't particularly impressive either, not sure why they are bringing another Nylander-esq player into the equation unless this is part of a multi-step trade with another team.

Career Stats

Stats
Year	Team	GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM	PPG	PPA	SHG	SHA	GW	SOG	Pct
1994-95	VAN	11	0	1	1	0	33	0	0	0	0	0	8	.000
1995-96	VAN	63	4	8	12	-7	137	0	0	1	1	1	45	.089
1996-97	VAN	64	3	15	18	2	132	0	0	0	0	0	55	.055
1997-98	VAN	59	3	10	13	-8	164	0	0	1	0	1	40	.075
1998-99	NSH	71	15	25	40	0	103	0	2	1	1	2	96	.156
1999-00	NSH	69	7	21	28	-16	90	0	1	1	0	0	98	.071
2000-01	NSH	74	25	29	54	-2	66	9	14	3	2	1	159	.157
2001-02	NSH	28	4	5	9	-13	18	1	1	0	0	0	46	.087
2002-03	NSH	60	15	18	33	2	58	7	8	0	0	5	124	.121
2003-04	NSH	75	25	42	67	4	94	9	15	3	2	3	157	.159
2005-06	NSH	33	5	11	16	2	36	1	3	0	0	0	57	.088
2006-07	CAR	81	21	30	51	-10	45	6	6	0	0	6	183	.115
2007-08	CAR	58	14	18	32	-3	115	4	6	2	0	4	122	.115
2008-09	CAR	41	5	10	15	-4	39	1	1	0	0	0	71	.070
2009-10	CAR	33	3	2	5	-4	23	1	0	0	0	0	50	.060
Career		820	149	245	394	-57	1153	39	57	12	6	23	1311	.114

Olympic break

2010-03-03T10:46:00.004-05:00

In my leave of absence it has:
-Snowed a lot (including 27 inches in a 24 hour period of time)

-I saw Cage The Elephant and got more tickets to see Florence and the Machine at the 930 club, (which seems to be my new poison)

-I went to Hershey PA to chocolate world and to see the Capitals farm team The Hershey Bears play at the Giant Center

-Wrote more music with my band (we got hired to do a St Pattys Day Hotel party this week. 20 days to learn 3+ hours of music...fingers crossed)

-I'm trying out this new google Buzz thing (real world position based twitter), which is linked to Google latitude (which i absolutely love)

Life is crazy

2010-02-23T10:54:00.001-05:00

Saw this ad today on WaPo.com. The lady doesnt look very asian to me...

best. movie. of 2010

2010-01-09T15:41:00.001-05:00

Avatar was amazing in 3-d! Everyone should see it.

Snow city

2010-01-08T14:23:00.002-05:00

While my childlike hopes that work would be canceled due to inclement weather were dashed this morning, it did snow last night. If its not dumping outside, this is the second best kind of snow, the easily manageable 2 inches that coats everything and makes it look nice.

Caps 5 Ottawa 2

2010-01-08T14:21:00.003-05:00

Speaking of grinding gears

2010-01-07T13:04:00.001-05:00

This is the stupid automatic reply. Doesnt anyone else find this a little off-putting?
---

This is an automated response from Comcast SportsNet.

Hopefully, you’ll be happy with one of these answers to your email:

1) Yes, we agree.
2) Of course, you’re right!
3) We sincerely apologize.
4) Sure you can anchor SportsNite….if it were up to me!
However, our News Director actually looks for people with many years
of experience in Sports and Television.
5) Yes, her hair is really blonde.

If none of those answers help, try our FAQ page:
http://csnwashington.com/pages/faq_09

Actually, a real live Comcast SportsNet person will read your email.
It’s common practice for us to circulate viewer opinions to everyone
involved in creating and producing our on-air content. This has a
tendency to irritate some of the suits, but hey, it makes for better
TV.

Thanks so much for watching Comcast SportsNet!

P.S. Want FREE tickets? Join our MVP Club! It only takes about
thirty seconds: http://csnwashington.com/pages/register

You know what really grinds my gears?

2010-01-07T12:57:00.003-05:00

Here is my letter i sent to Comcast Sports net today in regards to shafting the Capitals to the crappy SD channel and putting the Wizards on the HD channel.

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to express my frustration with the recent changes in CSN programming in regards to your coverage and channel lineup of the Washington Capitals. I understand that you may feel obligated to cover the Washington Wizards with preferential coverage and treatment as they are a more 'traditional' sport for this market area. However, the Washington Capitals are the hottest team right now in the area in terms of success and fan fervor.

When comparing a broadcast of the Capitals vs the Wizards, how many Wizard games are sold out, or even close to half attendance? It is just sad to watch those games because there is an obvious lack of interest in the team, even the people there look like they don't care. There is no social status attached to sitting court side at a Wizards game like there is with the celebrity row at the Lakers games. On the other hand, the Capitals are now starting to sell out their games consistently, how many season ticket holders do the Wizards have? When the arena isn't sold out, i think it would be fair to say that generally it is above 75% capacity. Money talks, and there is an obvious interest in the Capitals in this town, something that couldn't be argued for several years ago.
A reason for the excitement is centered not only on their success (what other team has gone deep into the playoffs recently?) but also on their star player, Alexander Ovechkin. You only need to look at how Ovechkin is treated as a celebrity and a superstar in Canada, arguably the cradle of hockey culture which have seen superstars before like Lemeiux and Gretzky and know what talent of that caliber looks like. Look at the fan support on the road. How many Arenas or Wizards Jerseys do you see in the stands in rival arenas? My guess is going to be somewhere between little to none. Then look at a Caps road game in hockey meccas like Toronto or a distant venue like San Jose's HP Pavilion. There is going to be noticeable amounts of red, mostly Ovechkin jerseys. These are fans who are willing to shell out high amounts of money to see their team the one time a year they can, and it seems that a disproportionate amount of them sit in the premium ticket seats, directly behind the bench, rocking the red in enemy territory. While Ovechkin doesn't speak great english, and lets face it, Arenas isn't the most eloquent speaker either, he brings a buzz to a team that has languished for years in mediocrity. He may like to drive fast, but he hasn't ever brought weapons into a locker room and 'jokingly' threatened any ones life. Has Arenas received a symbolic key to the city, a representation of trust in an individual who is supposed to be not only a spokesperson, but also a role model. Ovechkin has.

The advent of HD television has been one of the most revolutionary things to change how we watch hockey since the advent of color television. The reason for this is due to the ability to now see a small 3 inch black puck traveling at speeds upward of 80 miles an hour across a white surface. HD technology allows crystal clear picture so that instead of watch a series of black pixels travel across a white blob, we can see a puck skitter across the ice hitting grooves and cuts in the ice left by players skates. In basketball, the basketball itself has a volume of 433 inches (when inflated at 8 psi with a diameter of 29 inches). This is a tremendous size when compared to a hockey puck, plus it moves much slower and is more or less in the air or at waist level for the majority of the game 7 cubic inches (1 inch in height and 3 inches in diameter). To illustrate the difference in size, approximately 62 hockey pucks would fit in the same space as one basketball. If a basketball game is broadcast in standard definition, you might not be able to see all of the pores on a players face sweating at the foul line. If a hockey game is broadcast in standard definition, you wont be able to easily follow the flow of the game or even see what is going on since the puck is generally on the ice, with hulking players trying to acquire it and bunching up directly on top of it. In standard def, it looks like small kids playing soccer, swarming all over the field. In high def, it is a beautiful display of agility, speed, grace, and sheer physics.

I'm sure it is confidential information, but what is your viewer rating of a CSN Wizards game when the Capitals are playing on CSN+? Even with the older broadcasting standard, i am willing to wager that the Capitals share is higher. Is CSN locked into a broadcast agreement with the Wizards that gives them preferential treatment? This past Tuesday (01/50/10), i was able to watch the IIHF world juniors in halfway across the continent in Saskatchewan where team USA defeated team Canada in HD, but since i had an evening doctors appointment and was unable to attend the Capitals game in my season ticket seats, i had to watch the game on CSN+ (standard def), which doesn't seem to have much plus about it. Meanwhile on CSN, Gilbert Arenas pretended to shoot all of his team mates in High Definition.

Tim ______
Section 113 Row R Seat 7

USA wins gold!!!!

2010-01-06T09:53:00.003-05:00

Team USA defeated Canada in the Finals to win the Gold medal in the IIHF World Juniors tournament, snapping Canadas 5 consecutive championships. The game winner was scored in overtime (after the US blew a 2 goal lead in the last 4 minutes) by none other than Washington Capitals future star John Carlson

dentist

2010-01-05T16:44:00.001-05:00

at the dentist getting an old filling fixed....damn novacain makes me look like ive had a stroke cause half my face is slack. im glad we pay them all this money to fix our teeth just so we can pay some other doctor to do it again in 6 years. its a racket i tell ya...

new year

2010-01-04T18:10:00.001-05:00

everyone makes lists and resolutions they dont intend to realistically keep around this time of year, so i might as well do the same.

things i did last year
-learn to play hockey (no comment on the level of ability)
-become a full season ticket holder for the washington capitals (the jury is still out on this in terms of financial responsibility)
-join a band (we have preformed 6 shows in the last 6 months)
-moved yet again (hopefully the last time for awhile)
-traveled to massachusets for my grandmothers 80th birthday)
-turned 24 (lame)

Trying to think of 'important things' you did is somewhat intresting as ultimately every decision you made has led you to this point. hopefully this year i can make better decisions to get me to next january in a little bit better shape. not that theres anything wrong with the state of things right now, i just wouldnt want to go through a whole 'nother year and arrive the same.

the person next to me on the train apparently is having a gas attack. shoot me now

life=fail

2009-12-17T17:28:00.001-05:00

Another really shitty day. Lets see if tomorrow i can go for 3 in a row

open letter

2009-12-11T13:02:00.000-05:00

Dear ex-girlfriend,
Stop stalking my dreams. K, thanx bye.
t

Hockey Proof

2009-12-08T15:06:00.002-05:00

New York Islanders player hit by a car and just gets up and goes to practice.

Former Capitals player Brendan Witt was hit by a GMC Yukon in Philadelphia this morning and just got up and left, saying "I am a hockey player...I have to go to practice" He skated at the Islanders morning practice and will play tonight against the Flyers. (which is surprisingly similar to playing in traffic, although not so much recently)

O Christmas tree

2009-12-04T17:35:00.002-05:00

This is why you play nice with everyone you work with. The guards allowed me onto the closed balcony last night to shoot the lighting of the national Christmas tree.

Friday Video Roundup

2009-12-04T17:34:00.001-05:00

Clip of the week

Conan is on point as always

Interesting 'easter egg' discovered in Modern Warfare 2

Johnny Cage from Mortal Combat questions the 'Tournament' system of fighting to the death

This will make any girlfriend who hates her boyfriends relationship with his video game console will enjoy this. Anyone with the male chromosome will not

Trust Me, I'm a Doctor

2009-12-03T16:48:00.004-05:00

The Dr. Pepper commercials made me think of other fake doctors in pop culture.
Doctors in the commercial
Dr. Dre
Gene Simmons (Dr. Love)
Dr. J

5 nontraditional Doctors i can think of
Dr Zhivago (which shockingly clears spell check)
Dr Feelgood
Dr Doom
Dr Death
Dr Mario

I approve of the retro Hersey's packaging that has come out, its like a throw-back jersey for chocolate. Here's the Mr Goodbar i picked up today.

Off the map

2009-12-01T15:49:00.004-05:00

So life is crazy. Two weeks ago i attempted to go on vacation. The vacation part was a great success. The getting there and back part was not so much. The important thing is no one was hurt, but i was hit by a sleeping driver on 66 leaving DC in the early morning hours.

This is the traffic jam we caused by having 3 cars on the side of the road. It got better after 20 minutes, then when the State police showed up (it took them 30 minutes, we should have told them we were bleeding out on the road) the traffic promptly backed up again.

The weather was super crappy for the entire drive with the exception of the last 20 miles.

I saw about 15 battle tanks and armored carriers on flatbeds heading north.

The Blue Ridge Mountains coming down into Asheville, first break in the weather after about 7 hours.

In other sightings of large mechanized steel, this flatbed had the worlds largest caterpillar tread on it. I don't know if it really is the largest, but the hydraulic chamber on the tread was the size of a VW bug

First sighting of a sign for Boone coming up 221 from 40.

King Street is totally chopped up, they are going forward with the 6 lane expansion, and have bought up all the old buildings and tore the suckers down (hopefully in that order).

You cant really see it, but there is a Wind Turbine the university recently purchased and installed. Near the telephone pole up on the mountain behind The RockBugs barks at everything, which is mildly irritating

This is why Ham is gross

FML or MLIA

2009-11-23T10:37:00.001-05:00

Today i got a request to photograph at the National Press Club, which i probably wont be able to do because the previous contractor screwed me over. FML

Is that what i do?

2009-11-17T11:42:00.000-05:00

I am going to try and get a couple new images up each week in order to motivate me to take my camera out more. I'm hoping i can start off with 2 or 3 non work images a week. My schedule is crazy that it hard for me to make time for photography outside of work I remember when i was in school a professor assigned us to take 7 photos a day. Everyone complained and no one did it. Its a good thought in theory, but its hard to accomplish in reality. I'm also going to work on finishing up my TTL rig so i can shot the 6x6 Pentaflex and 645 Mamiya i have as they both need some parts to get back to working film order. (My Mamiya doesnt advance properly) Its even less wieldy than my huge ass digital camera, so its gonna be not as easy to use without some forethought. We'll see what happens.

Nice red evening light from my office during a sunset

Crunching into the holidays

2009-11-16T17:16:00.005-05:00

Life is crazy sometimes, actually a lot of times it seems lately at least. Friday night Prettier in Person had a show in Herndon VA. The show went really well, other than i was having a problem hearing myself for the first two songs. I was using the other Bass players that i was unfamiliar with and when i had to do vocals i was 10 feet away from the amp and couldn't feel it/hear it with my earplugs in. So i took one out. After the set (50 minutes) was over, i felt like i had profound hearing loss in the ear i took the ear plug out of. It was quite odd for the next 30 minutes until they equalized back out. The set went really well and we got lots of positive feedback about some new things we were doing, which is nice to hear. My room mate was 90 minutes late as usual, but at least he showed up. Its the thought that counts. The War Within was really good as well, they played a new song that they've been working on in addition to most of the tracks off their album. The final band wasn't as band as i though they were going to be, but they did play a kick ass cover of Chris Cornells-You know my name off of Casino Royale.

Set list
Rocksalt
Down The Road
Take It Off-The Donnas
Intertwined
Plunge
In Disguise
On Your Life
[interlude/solo]
Crime Scene Loving
Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground- White Stripes
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)-The Proclaimers
High On The Mountain

Friday the 13th!

2009-11-13T11:17:00.000-05:00

Dear Diary: Jackpot

2009-11-10T17:05:00.003-05:00

Yesterday a ladybug landed on my shoulder and hung out with me for awhile. And today the vending machine gave me two bags of skittles when i only paid for one. Im not doing so bad this week. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Its a federal holiday, so naturally instead of enjoying my day off and sleeping in, i am working at my other job @BC. Supposed to be doing Sheetrock. I'm working off my debt pretty good so far though. Anyway, lets hope the luck holds out. Going to North Carolina next week, which I'm super excited about, and this Friday my band has a show with our good friends The War Within which we're really pumped about. Had a stellar practice on Sunday night. November's not so bad...

Our practice space in Sterling VA

Friday Video Roundup

2009-11-06T15:59:00.003-05:00

Its the super deluxe embedded version! All 3 of these were feature worthy i thought.

This video may help revive Eminems career (seriously, thats how popular these games are). Final launch trailer for Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Post-apocalyptic films/games/whatever that are set in DC are always kinda eerie for me. In the cut scene, i can see the building where my office is.

Another Jerry Brockheimer/Disney collaboration, this time its Prince of Persia, the classic game series that started on the SuperNES i believe. I only once attempted to play one of the iterations of this franchise last year, and gave up when i couldn't beat the tutorial. Didn't know it was being made into a movie, but it looks pretty decent.

Hyundai driver victim of worlds worst parking job rewarded for driving a Hyundai in the first place.

dont talk on the phone on the metro

2009-11-03T18:36:00.001-05:00

i can not believe the woman on the metro behind me is talking about getting a colonic. please, keep that shit to yourself.
-quote-
"Corn? i cant remember the last time i had corn."

Just another Manic Monday

2009-11-02T14:07:00.004-05:00

Thanks to my doofus room mate, i had to take my car into the shop this morning instead of dropping it off last night. Brendan FTW!!! (this is my new favorite acronym) They charged me $65 to look at two things i though were problems, which turned out to be nothing. All of my fluids are low (thats not what she said last night), so i got to hit my Pep Boys connection (my brother) to get some of the good stuff. You gotta be rich or out of your mind to pay the dealer a squillion dollars to have them put in 'dealer' (read: crappy) fluids in instead of spending $10 to get high quality stuff that you have to *gasp* spend 30 seconds pouring in. I only brought it in the have a recall service performed on it, i guess airbag sensors are important. I probably would have done it earlier if i had known that it was the driver AND passenger airbag. I previously thought it was only the passengers side, not that i dont care about my passengers, i just generally drive by myself unless its a short hop. Such is the sad life of a lonely bachelor...
H&M's car broke last night, while M was in the car with me, his wife called and the car died while she was on the phone with me. We had just been talking about how their car hadnt had any problems lately either...i kill everything i touch apparently. She was able to restart it and get it to my house where I cleaned the contacts on the positive terminal of the battery which had as much build up as a greasy teenager who never washed their face. We got it running again, and my brother is tracking down a battery for us.
Halloween is pretty lame when you work from 8-630 all day hanging quarter inch plywood. All i wanted to do was go to bed, but i headed back to the house to pick up H&M and doofus to go to my sisters Halloween party in Courthouse. Every time i drive over there, i remember how much i hate driving over there. It sucks. Metro is never reliable at night on the weekends outside the city, and the double threat of drunkards discouraged me from doing it, although i would have liked nothing more than to get drunk as working with M and his Pop all day made me want to put a little something in my soda for the drive home. The party was good, doofus and i ran the beer pong table winning 4 out of 5 games, until we played my sister and their really stupid rules, then we lost. Dumb rules=the suck.

This is a portrait i did last week that i was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Friday Video Roundup

2009-10-30T15:40:00.000-04:00

BioShock 2 footage!

Very funny Modern Warfare 2 ad for WalMart

CCTV footage of a mafia hit in Italy in which no less than 6 bystanders did simply nothing

In the news...

2009-10-27T15:07:00.003-04:00

Hockey tonight, looking like we're gonna be shorthanded though. Was also finally able to sell my Caps tickets for tonight as i am playing hockey during the game, had to take a hit though, but it all worked out.

Best news article published this year

This is what $53000 dollars looks like apparently

ed note: I just looked at the two links again and realized a link.

News Surge!

2009-10-26T17:26:00.000-04:00

Housing in the news

WiffleFail

2009-10-26T17:16:00.003-04:00

This is us not happy after losing. We didn't get it going in the first game, and then couldn't finish after forcing game three. Losing sucks, i should be used to it with The Whalers, but at least in hockey if someone is being a jackass you can run him up the keep him in check. I wanted nothing more than to bury this douche on the other team into the boards for abusing the rules. No more wiffleball til spring and the trophy eludes us for the second season in a row after losing in the world series in the summer league.
Box Score

Thirsty Thursday (remember those days?)

2009-10-22T10:12:00.005-04:00

I Have to start with this absolutely punishing hit that can only be described as Humpty Dumpty being run over by a turbo charger steamroller. Believe it or not, this is a very clean, absolutely legal hit. Who says that hockey isn't as tough as football? I also went and watch my room mates team play last night in a Bronze 1 game (the traitor is cheating on our team, and to think i made him an alternate captain...) at The Gardens, our home rink where we play all of our regular season games. I'm in a bit of a hockey drought right now as the Caps haven't played since Saturday (which is a long time for an 82 game season) and my team hasn't played since last Wednesday (and wont play until next Tuesday). The lucky fix for the Capitals is the NHL Center ice package we have (which only one channel is in HD since we're non subscribers) which allows us to watch any game that is going on in the NHL unless there are blackout restrictions, so we have been watching a lot of western conference teams (like Vancouver, Chicago, St Louis, LA, Dallas) who traditionally play very physical hockey like the above hit. I unfortunately scheduled our team practices before i knew the schedule, so the practices are the same week as our games. Fail.
This week has been interesting for me. I have been feeling tired during the day even though im getting around 8 hours of sleep a night, and im having a hell of a time getting out of bed in the morning to get to work on time. Its hard working late because i try to cram everything into the evenings, so typically i have something going on, its rare that i have a free evening. Tuesday i had to pass on a game of pick up as my legs have been killing me. I feel old at night. I went down and blocked a couple shots at our last game and the top of my femur has been killing me all week on both legs, the right one is worse than the left. Going down stairs has not been particularly fun, especially the 508 foot long escalator at my station (one of the three has finally been fixed, and then this morning someone dropped something into it jamming the thing, so hopefully it will be running again tonight). I need to get new pads that have more padding or reinforce my existing ones, although the ones i have are perfectly good, just not padded enough. I unfortunately had to buy a new vacuum this week as my old one tried to set the house of fire so I'll have to wait until next month.

Hockey Diaries

2009-10-19T15:58:00.004-04:00

If you have the time, this short Public Radio documentary put together by Media Chameleon is definitely worth listening to. They played it on the XM hockey channel (Home Ice XM 204) i listen to in the morning today, and not only is it well edited and put together, but its also about Caps favorites Brooks Laich and Karl Alzner and last years season ending in the 2nd round of the playoffs.
Here's the link
Hockey Diaries

Friday Video Roundup (monday edition)

2009-10-19T15:55:00.002-04:00

Only two videos this week. I do love polite cops dealing with disgruntled/crazy drivers...

This is one of the most amazing one on one goals ive seen outside of the All Star Skills competition every year,, which is where this 9 year old saw Vincent LeCavlier perform a similar feat, after 2 tries.

News Surge!

2009-10-14T16:59:00.003-04:00

Another Onion/real life calendar match up!

Real life story

Friday Video Roundup

2009-10-09T17:36:00.001-04:00

I havent watched Mad Me, but i do love the Muppets

Epic Mickey: Disneys amazing looking steampunk-esq game for Wii
http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2009/10/05/warrens_2D00_collection.aspx

ESPN goes naked for the 'Bodies' issue. Behind the scenes look at the photo shoots.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4536943

Booby Scare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEF1p7YeFg

Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld) on Hannah Montana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZzrfLRmjlM

Extremely cheesy/70's UAF Hockey opening sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5YjPteCPLo

Anheuser-Busch Boycott

2009-10-07T12:19:00.003-04:00

Another reason to boycott Anheuser-Busch. Not only did they sell out to an overseas conglomerate, they now announced they are selling the amusement parks for $2.7 billion. Hopefully they'll sell it to an American company. What should they call it now?

Update: THey sold to an American (thank God) company that runs, among other things, Universal Studios and Lego land

Smoking metrofail

2009-10-06T10:13:00.002-04:00

I have no been on the train for an hour and a half. There is 'heavy smoke in one of the train tunnels' ie: a track is on fire. Trains are supposed to be single tracking, but we've been holding at our latest position for at least 20 minutes now. The major kicker is i forgot my phone this morning so i went back to get it. I probably would have gotten stuck anyway i guess. Sometimes thats just how it goes. Commute time t plus 96 minutes. I could have driven there and back twice now, even with traffic. MetroFail

Sent from the HTC Pro of Tim Davin

Tab master

2009-10-05T19:03:00.002-04:00

(Not) Part of my job description is apparently being a master tab maker. (i just sneezed on the train and the guy behind me moved to the other end of the train. I guess i look like i have swine flu, i mean H1N1) People love to come in to our office with a job that needs to be changed last minute and say "i need it now, its for (insert important persons name here)." for whatever reason, people seem to think that name dropping will cause us to panic and immediately stop what were doing to address the problem. They also are under the impression that telling us its for the big boos man will make it done quicker, like we'll get a power up from the mention of the boss' name that will allow us to temporarily set type and edit photographs at a superhuman speed. I find the last thing the most interesting/humorous.
The best kind of these requests is when the client comes in at 5pm (when most federal employees have already left for the day) and tells us the job is due first thing in the morning for a 10am meeting. The best part is when the person working on the project has gone home for the day 2 hours ago. They dont seem to understand that we dont all (10 designers and 2 contractors) work on each project that comes in. I was fortunately able to get a hold of the project leader on her cell and find the files we needed. In ms word. Dear god, beer me strength. The project was tab labels for a binder of info. Word is the most evil/soul crushing program in the world to do layout on. Formatting a simple document can reduce a man to tears when the text wont line up without running all over the margins. It also requires a significant amount of guess and check as there is no pre-flight in the program or any way to check it in the computer. After wasting ( i put the paper in the recyling bin) 6 acres of pristine amazon rain forest, i was able to get all the tabs (it was 4 sets of 5 tab pages) squared away, i had to put it into a pdf and send it down the internet tubes to the print shop so they can run it first thing in the am naturally as good government employees, they had already gone home for the day hours ago. Didnt leave work til 615 to edit a word document. Im so glad i went to college.

Sent from the HTC Pro of Tim Davin

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2009-10-03T20:13:00.001-04:00

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3-0 Caps at the start of the second! Ov, Laich, an Knuble have all tallied

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2009-10-03T18:21:00.001-04:00

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waiting for the game to start

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The end is here...

2009-10-03T15:52:00.005-04:00

Taylor Swift NOOOOOOO!
The Penguins have ruined everything i love in life. Hockey.......Taylor Swift.....Taylor Swift. I can hardly go on anymore.
Caps home opener tonight, on the way to the Phone booth now. Hello free bobble heads to comfort me....

Is Party Now! (Hockey party that is)

2009-10-01T16:30:00.002-04:00

In honor of tonight's Doubleheader season opener, here are 3 hockey related videos. (Can you tell im excited that hockeys back?) 2.5 hours til the puck drops....time always seems to drag on hockey nights.

Hockey Night in Canada's new TV ad

New Winter classic Bruins Jersey. Cam Neely is hockey legend

Top 10 list with the Rangers (boo) on Letterman

Vice presidential showcase

2009-10-01T11:58:00.003-04:00

As i was walking down the street this morning, i saw the cops driving around erratically near the white house and heard lots of sirens. If i hadn't have forgotten my cell this morning i wouldn't have missed the train and had to wait 7 minutes and then get stuck on the sidewalk for the Vice Presidents caravan to drive by. Biden made me late to work this morning (not really but he made me wait outside on the sidewalk). Thank you so much Mr Vice President, who cant be bothered for the first 9 months of his tenure to take an official photograph.

In more exciting news, i wish i could have been on the Price is Right (blonde hair Drew Carey, really?) for this recent episode. It was a hockey bonanza, Slapshot the Capitals mascot was even there. Although the Maple Leafs mascot appears to only have one move..

Paul Reed Smith

2009-09-30T16:29:00.006-04:00

Last Friday, during my weekend of festival-tacular adventures, my first stop was Stevensville MD (which the leader singer of Electric Mary (seen in this video rocking the set with matching finish PRS guitars) mistakenly referred to as 'Baltimore' several times during their set) and the Paul Reed Smith guitar factory and the 2009 Experience PRS event. I luckily was able to attend this event with the reference of the old rehearsal space we used to rent from for absolutely sweet price of FREE. Not only was it free, but i was free, catered for 3 meals, and you got a good ol bag o' swag with all sorts of awesome PRS goodies.

The whole event was amazing, i was only able to attend one day sadly though, as i only booked two things this year, and i rsvp'd for both of them in June, not thinking that the only two things i wanted to do all year would wind up falling on the same day. Totally screwed by the odds. Big thanks to Beverly Fowler at PRS for straightening my registration out the week before the event. However, Friday was still amazing even if i did have to go by myself as the rest of my group was going on Saturday as they were working (I cut out early from work on Friday for the 2pm start time). Santana and Buddy Guy had been there at the exclusive Signature club event on Thursday night and apparently brought the house, or rather gigantic outdoor tent, down to the ground. That, unfortunately, meant they probably wouldnt be popping in over the rest of the weekend. However, the Ace of Cakes Duff Goldman himself, was there with his band Soihadto (pronounced So - i - had - to) who are very kickass.The picture on the left is Duff rocking the low end with his custom PRS Bass, which i would gladly sell my kidney for in a heartbeat. I spoke with his band and him for a little bit after their set finished up, and they are definitely a cool group of guys. They have a couple big shows coming up, and have signed with Grape Juice records and are recording a full length CD that is supposed to come out soon. Naturally Duff also baked a cake that was amazing. It was a full size amp cabinet and head and a PRS guitar, all made from cake! It was equally delicious and amazing to look at, until of course they cut it up. Heres Duff and the cake.

I have added a photo album on the side bar that has pictures from the tour of the factory and explains the major steps that each guitar goes through, from plank of wood to finished piece of art. Its definitely worth taking a gander at. It was an awesome experience, and i cant wait til i can trade in a kidney for a PRS bass and next years event!

Paul Reed Smith showing the 25th anniversary Dragon model

Friday Video Roundup (monday edition)

2009-09-28T10:01:00.004-04:00

Last week was crazy, so only one video this week. What is he truely saying? We may never know. Watch the womans face.

This weekend was really good which made me forget all the crap of alst week. I will update with my various trips i made throughout this week. Free Nats game tonight with my hockey buddies, and the Metro was reasonably quick and strangely empty this morning. I felt like the rapture had come and i was left behind. I think i checked my watch 3 times to verify that i indeed was supposed to be going to work today. Not a bad start to the week so far.

ed note: He is apparently saying "Keep plucking that chicken," which apparently is a euphamism for keep doing what you're doing.

C A P S!

2009-09-23T16:32:00.004-04:00

Off to the Caps preseason game vs the Chicago Blackhawks (who made it just as far as us in the preseason last year before falling to Detroit), its my first game this season, soo excited!

News Surge!

2009-09-23T15:55:00.004-04:00

I have been amazed at the accuracy and relevancy of my amazing desktop calendar "the ONION presents NEWS SURGE," a daily calender i got for Christmas last year. In order for all non-desktop calendar people (or those without a desk) To share in my amazement, i am going to post the relevant calendar pages as they occur. There have been about 5 that have hit the nail right on the head and a couple topically relevant ones. Here is the first in my installments. (I am aware that today is not the 21st)

Hispanic Heritage month

2009-09-22T17:21:00.004-04:00

Today i had to photograph at a ceremony to Kick off Hispanic Heritage month, which is actually during 2 months for some reason (15th-15th). Does anyone else find it mildly awkward that they were playing some music consisting of 2 Santana songs (including black magic woman) while people filtered in, but since they started late, it wound up looping twice. Santana is an amazing musician, but i figured they would be able to find more than one artist who was an example of Hispanic contributions to the world of music. I'm hoping i might actually get to meet Santana this weekend at the Experience PRS event im going to on Friday. Paul Reed Smith guitars has a special place in my heart, and although they don't make bass', if i played guitar i would own at least one PRS. THey are beautifully amazing. Paul Reed Smith began building guitars in a garage down the street from where i went to school in Annapolis, and he would go to shows and talk his way backstage to try and get artists to perform with his instruments. Santana was one of Pauls first clients and the Santana model is the flagship model for PRS today (Take a peak at the super high end Dragon model). Anyway, looking forward to the event Friday. I fell off the blog wagon for a bit here, but lots of news to share including PiP's very successful second show and another upcoming show in 3 weeks (the pieces are starting to come together).

Amarzing news!

2009-09-22T16:59:00.001-04:00

No I didnt just save a lot of money by switching my car insurance to Geico (USAA is a squillion times better), but check out the awesome FotC news!

Friday Video Roundup (monday edition)

2009-09-21T14:10:00.001-04:00

Absolutely brilliant comedy from Jim Tavare, a British comedian who was a finalist on Last Comic Standing last year

Very clever stop animation short about how Google Maps might work for the Google Japan team

Daft Punk may have pushed me off the fence in terms of buying DJ Hero. The new trailer features a Robot Rock mash up and the Pyramid is apparently an unlockable venue

Someone with entirely too much time created a mod(ification) that overdubs all of the sounds in the game Half-Life2 with his voice.

KanyeFail 3 (I would stop but its too easy)

2009-09-16T14:02:00.001-04:00

President Obama calling Kanye a jackass prior to an interview with CNBC

uh...ah....um...

2009-09-15T17:42:00.002-04:00

Watched the premiere of Jay Leno in order to see how awkward Kanye would be (very). The show was pretty lame with the exception of the awesome segment featuring LCS 07 winner Dan Finnerty and The Dan Band.

More KanyeFail

2009-09-14T17:19:00.002-04:00

Hillarious KanyeFail with BO

Kanye West=Royal Jackass

2009-09-14T10:25:00.004-04:00

Just another reason to hate the pompous Kanye West. After Taylor Swift won best Female video and was giving her speech, West jumped on stage and took the microphone away saying that Beyonce should have won. What arrogance, plus Swift is only 17 and it was her first award...why don't you insult her mother while you were at it. What a douche. Plus, where the hell is the security? What if some mad man was able to jump on stage and stab somebody. No one made an effort to stop West, awesome job security guys.

Metro Fail

2009-09-10T12:30:00.004-04:00

Once again, there has been another accident on the Metro today. While it is regrettable that there has been another injury to a MetroRail employee, it is getting out of control. In the news release Director Catoe (CATOE MUST GO!!! say it with me kids) beautifully illustrated why he needs to be fired:

"Catoe said he's trying to figure out how an accident could happen after safety procedures have "intensified tremendously" over the summer in the wake of the June 22 crash."
-WaPo

Its totally out of control and time for something to change. THe amount of accidents resulting in death/serious injury since June 22nd has to be close to ecclipsing the total of similar results since the inception of Metro Rail.

Is Party Now

2009-09-09T17:06:00.004-04:00

Ovie driving a Zamboni down 6th avenue in NYC this afternoon to launch NHL 2k10

ed note: link to the Wash Caps article and video of the drive. 6th ave looks odd with only a Zamboni on it

Most suspicious

2009-09-08T11:26:00.003-04:00

There is apparently a suspicious package on NY avenue near our building so our street is shut down currently. Hopefully some idiot dropped something on their way to work this morning. This is my high quality investigative journalism shot through my office window of a secret service police car

Mr Anderson.....

2009-09-08T11:03:00.003-04:00

A sign located just around the corner from my old house reported all day Sunday that "There is a glitch in the Matrix." Among other signs, such as de-ja-vu, an electronic message is a surefire indicator the agents changed something. A sign located just around the corner from my old house reported all day Sunday that "There is a glitch in the Matrix." Among other signs, such as de-ja-vu, an electronic message is a surefire indicator the agents changed something.

NBC Washington article

Friday Video Roundup

2009-09-04T16:32:00.002-04:00

I didnt think i would find a feature video this week...who was i kidding

Also hot on the internets this week is this trailer for Mario Kart The Movie

More footage from CoD Modern Warfare 2

Cougar convention (not small, deadly, furry, animals hanging out)

Blizzcon (aka Super-Dork convention) audience members asks a super inappropriate question on a panel.

I'm bringin' tazer back
Dont taze me remix (MC Hammer)
Cell phone footage of the tazing and aftermath. A girl in my class was friends with this guy. The video shows how clearly off his rocker he is. She was also a couple sandwiches short of a picnic basket.

CODE RED!!!!

2009-09-01T16:29:00.003-04:00

GMAIL IS DOWN!!!!!

wheel-less wagon

2009-09-01T10:59:00.003-04:00

This week has been an epic failure so far. Damn. It didn't start so bad other than time standing still yesterday, even though i had a good amount of stuff to work on at work. This morning barely got off the ground. As soon as i leave the house, i had forgotten my cellphone, so i have to go back and get it. Then i get to the metro station and realize i forgot my watch. Awesome. Then i get on the Metro and realize i forgot my checkbook. I was supposed to mail my rent check and bill. Much like Brett Favres late 3rd quarter drive last night, the wheels were falling off the wagon faster than i could put them back on. Then i get to work and i have a voicemail from my landlord. The reason she hadn't cashed my checks (or so i thought) is that she did and i wrote the check in the wrong f'ing checkbook. Boom. Not only charged the NSF fee for my account (twice as it was the security deposit and first months rent) but i also get to pay her fee to (twice). Right there, $130 because i made a mistake. It gets better in that i don't have a local bank, so i call them and i have to get a certified check. Boom. Another $13 dollars for processing and shipping. Because i am a loon, i pissed $143 dollars down the that i didn't have. I now have $20 to my name and have to try and work saturday and monday during the labor day holiday so i dont starve to death until the 18th. Hopefully nothing else bad happens today at least until i get can home and shoot myself.

Friday Video Roundup

2009-08-28T16:05:00.001-04:00

Reading Rainbow ended its 26 year run today with its last episode due to funding reasons. Reading Rainbow is the third longest running Public Television childrens show, only bested by Sesame Street and Mr Rodgers Neighborhood. This is one of the greatest tv shows ever in terms of its impact, i remember watching it all the time when i was younger. The space episode has got to be my all time favorite. Rest in Peace Reading Rainbow.

I absolutely love this new song from Owl City called Fireflies. I definitely bumped this new song to the top of the new music list.

Julia Stiles giving back to the Planet with Organic Clothing Design

Totally inappropriate laughing during a newscast in texas

Leaked Modern Warfare 2 footage from single player campaign

Bringing Polaroid Back

2009-08-28T15:56:00.004-04:00

Recent article in Newsweek in regards to the recent demise of Polaroid instant film. Its even better as it includes a breif interview with one of my photo idols, David Levinthal! Even better, Levinthal is going to have a show in DC in November!!! Super excited about finding that out. It would be awesome to meet him at the show opening if i can get into it somehow.

Fair (Fairly Abysmal Intermittent Rain) Time!

2009-08-27T17:04:00.014-04:00

This past weekend H&M and myself went to the MoCo Fair. We were hoping it would be awesometacular, but the rain put a damper on that a little bit. I was about to say i had never been to a fair before, but i vaguely remember going to a fair on Cape Cod when i was much much younger. I was kinda excited to go, but H was super pumped all week about it. We were going to go the first Saturday until we learned that the Demolition Derby was going to be the next weekend, and the first day there really wasn't much going on. Because of the rain, the Demo Derby got canceled...sad face. I also forgot my umbrella (which is why it rained the whole time we were there) so i dont know that i would have been too crazy about sitting in the rain for awhile.

Anyway, we did see the tractor pull (hurray!) although it was the small engine pull. I was hoping we would see the big boy tractors, but the little baby tractors were still pretty good. For those of you who dont know, the point of a tractor pull is to pull a weighted sled as far as you can before the weight on the sled slides all the way to the front of the sled and the weight shifts to the hitch point preventing any further movement. See the following pictures. As i suck i my job, i left my camera on the kitchen table and only had my cell phone camera to take pictures with.

We also saw a pig trying to dig its way out of its pen Steve McQueen-The Great Escape style...
Some goats were fighting each other to the point where one goat had head bumped all the hair off the top of his head. These are some really soft and fuzzy goats...
We saw a lot of crazy bunnies, which makes me want to get one as i cant practically have a dog since im not home enough. I could house train it so it could hop all over, but they apparently like to eat cords and i have a lot of those all over the house. We did see Bunnicula though.

"Please do not feed your fingers to our Rabbits."

Bunnicula!

We saw the miracle of Life in the chicken room as little baby chickens were hatching before our very eyes. We also saw a lot of the miracle of poop as every time an animal pooped (everybody poops) the kids in the area would loudly point it out to everyone within the same zip code.

You mess with Texas, you get the horns...or so they say.

And last but not least, the only reason i get women (yeah okay) is because she thinks my tractor's sexy (the woman in this video makes me think of True Lies)

Nothing runs like a Deere, and now i'm outta here.

Way to go Raleigh

2009-08-26T10:05:00.001-04:00

Shoulda stayed in school...Look at the picture carefully.

Friday Video Roundup (monday edition)

2009-08-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

Britney Spears (and her pretty hott new look) does the Top 10 list on Letterman

Clever Inglorious Bastards parody. Inglorious Plumbers

Strangely fascinating childrens show in Britain called In The Night Garden

This movie is definately on my must see list for the fall/winter movie releases. Trailer released this week for James Camerons Avatar

Fios (Fucked-up Internet Ordering System)

2009-08-20T17:27:00.001-04:00

Hooray! The Fios fairy is coming tomorrow instead of Sunday so we can have internet and tv again!

Utilities=Fail

2009-08-19T17:44:00.002-04:00

No fios today as verizon screwed up and lost our order and i didnt find out until 430pm, but i do have hot water now and can cook, but the ac guy came out this morning and apparently it still isnt working. Sweating in my sleep again Damnit.

movin on up

2009-08-18T17:03:00.002-04:00

2 accidents (no one got hurt) and 3 times my body weight in sweat later, i now live in a place with no air conditioning, internet or hot water. Some upgrade eh? When i have some aforementioned internet i can update.

Loss of a legend

2009-08-13T12:59:00.004-04:00

Les Paul, the creator of modern Multi-track recording and the modern electric guitar, passed away this afternoon at the age of 94. This man is more famous arguably than any artist who plays his instruments.

Here's a intro to the documentary about his life.

And this is an amazing new Gibson that just came out. It isn't painted, rather, each layer of of the guitar is individually stained.

Photobooth

2009-08-11T15:51:00.004-04:00

Awhile back i got lots of new toys to use at work, mostly because my old toys were old (like 20+ years) and made me look/feel very unprofessional and like i had a shoestring budget. Now i don't mind being frugal and budget conscious, people at work think I'm a paper Nazi because i get irritated when people don't align prints properly on our big 44 inch printer and instead of printing a image landscaped so it only wastes 1 sq foot of paper, they print it portrait style and waste 5 sq feet plus all the enhancer that is printed over the blank paper. No one else where i am have the private sector mentality of a budget and it drives me crazy. Its not the money but the unnecessary waste that drives me bonkers. I digress. Anyway, i got some new lights which was a huge relief as the pack that i had before was really difficult to work with (read: no adjustments). This was my set up the other day when i had to do a head shot for a new executive. Wasn't terribly crazy with the way it came out, i felt it was a little bright for the flesh tones, but she was kind of a pale lady, although very nice.

Left strobe fired at 1/3rd power, right strobe was above and to the right of the lens (she is about 5'4) and fired at 2/3rds powers

f3.5 @1/200
[for some reason, uploading this image desaturates it considerably]

Ticking away

2009-08-10T13:08:00.003-04:00

Whats so interesting about this clock? Well, besides the fact that its freaking awesome, the time is 123456. 12:34.56. Then i realized this happens everyday, so its just something to think about.

ed. note: Discovered the reason i heard this is that on Friday it was 123456789=12:24.56 7/8/09. This wont happen again for another 1000 years

Desktop macro photography

2009-08-07T17:32:00.001-04:00

I see this on my desk quite often, finally took a picture, wish i had a true macro lens though...

Friday Video Roundup

2009-08-07T17:30:00.001-04:00

Nine Inch Snails. Shear genius, it even sounds like Trent

Ed Helms (of the Office and The Hangover) on Conan and performing the Tiger song from the hangover.

How would you like to watch Tom Cruise get launched out of a cannon along with the Fonz? If life sized wax figures are an acceptable substitute, then click here for awesomeness!

Driving Horse

2009-08-06T14:18:00.003-04:00

Stumbled across this mans design work today, and it is absolutely amazing. Check it out if you got a free minute. I would totally buy this toaster even if it was $200.

Chris Labrooy

The area you shouldnt let your Garmin take you through at night

2009-08-05T16:50:00.005-04:00

Tuesday as part of my quest to find a new home, i had to travel to the netherworld of North East DC to turn in an application to a property management agency who would process the application for my landlord. NE DC is the part of DC that you don't go to if you are a.) a woman b.) alone and c.) a whitey. I of course was dressed to my full whitey potential in white khakis and a white pinstriped dress shirt. I took the metro over and was pissed i was going to have to pay for a cab, but now worries there as i couldn't have caught a cab if i was bleeding out on the sidewalk! After wandering around the metro convinced there would be a cab for 10 minutes i begrudgingly started walking the 8 blocks from the metro to the office. Normally this would be fine, but it was 87 degrees with about 100% humidity. Needless to say, i was sweating like Lance Armstrong during the mountain stages of the Tour.

I finally got to the address and couldn't figure out where this place was as there was no signage or lettering anywhere to indicate where the hell this building was as it was in a series of row houses. I finally figured out that the door up the stairs with the letter 'B' on it must be the building is the place as the address says xxxx-B on it. I knocked and went in, immediately being confronted by a staircase and being unsure whether i just stumbled into a random residence. Turned out i was in the right place, which consisted of a flat with desks and a fax machine in it. If they steal my identity I'm going to be so pissed. A not very bright secretary/assistant gave me a paper towel to wipe away the gallons of sweat pouring from my cranium. I forgot my W-2, but faxed it to them and now i am waiting to find out if i got approved or now have a black Visa card and property in Dubai. Walking back even the Cops that went by gave me the "what the hell are you doing out here" look. Never again.

This further reinforces my theory that the crappy areas get the nicest Metro stations. The curved roof is the entrance to the station at NY ave.

This is North Capital Street in its fine glory.Sketchy abandoned used car lot on Florida ave.

And to top it off, the escalators were temporarily stairs (ie:broken)

Fire logs

2009-08-04T17:56:00.002-04:00

News on my trip through a war zone today later, this article caught my eye on WaPo that is similar to my post yesterday about Apple, hadn't seen the info about GChat getting shut down as well. More fuel for the fire?

Muddites of the 21st and 1/2 century

2009-08-03T16:59:00.004-04:00

As everyone who knows me know, i love macs..er..something like that. i have about as much admiration for Macintosh as i do for the chruch of scientology, which is to say, none. people tell me im jaded cause i dont have one, or that i need to try and to appreciate it. macs sound like a gateway drug to me. i have a super fancy g5 at work that i would like nothing more than to lauch out my second story office window. better yet, i would love to take it to the roff and drop it all 9 stories to the ground. or even better, leave it in front of the secret service building next door and watch as they blow it up monters inc style. it is frustrating to work with. i have been fighting it all day to do the very complicated task of printing.. my little baby computer (aka the asus eee) can print anything i want it to just fine, but something that costs as much as 10 of them cant? that is where the mac price disparity comes to the forefront for me. plus everything the runs on mac has to be done exactly the way apple wants it done.

in an interesting side note, the google chaiman on the board at apple resigned this morning. Spin doctor jobs said there were simply to many instances of a coi by having him on the board with googles ventures into mobile computing (android) and their new browser (chrome) that directly challenge apple products. the thing that makes it interesting is that goolge just released their mac version of the popular application latitude, which i love and use everyday almost. but apple made them run a inferior version on the iphone in order for them to approve it. the appleversion is html based an has to run within apples safari browser, which i think anyone with half a brain wouldd say is the worse internet browsser out there. the android and winmo versions are both application based and use the onboard gps (if available) wheras the apple version uses safari and positioning based of the cell towers, which is not as reliable or accurate. anyway, long story short is google was reportedly unhappy with the final product and how dumbed down they felt it was as compared to their other available versions. that was on friday, read what you will.

im on the shuttle bus and the driver just said he would drop us off on the bridge if we wanted to jump.

i dont know much about cologne (maybe thats my problem), but as i have experienced several times today thanks to the metrofail and walking in public, i have aparently figured out how it works. on the first day of the week, monday or whenever that is for your work schedule, you bathe in a tub full of it for 12 hours before you go to work. that way you hyper saturate the areas you habitate during the workweek and by the time its friday at happy hour people are so high/woozy they will do anything you ask them. and women work the opposite way, they take it easy at the begining of the week and then ramp up to saturday night when the pheromone effect is in full force. i think i need to further look into this correlation.

Friday Video Roundup (Is Party Now)

2009-07-31T17:25:00.003-04:00

This.
Is.
Amazing.

I am pre-ordering this immediately.
Below is the actual video

The Die-ogram

2009-07-30T15:51:00.006-04:00

Lots of exciting news about metro today. Wait, that cant be right. I stand corrected, somehow i confused exciting with business as usual. WaPo reports this at 3:54

Six Stuck in Woodley Park Metro's Elevator Six people have been trapped in an elevator at the Adams Morgan-Woodley Park Metro station on the Red Line since 2:17 p.m., authorities said.
"We're still trying to get the elevator up or down to get the people out," said Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel.
He said there are no reported injuries.

By James Hohmann | July 30, 2009; 3:15 PM ET

Lets hope that there weren't any of the regular Red Line crazies in the elevator. Seriously though, how hard can it be to get people out of an elevator? Hopefully they'll get them out quickly, its most likely stuck 50 feet below ground and 50 feet up from the platform, cause thats how metrofails roll.
Luckily i don't get off at that station ever, but this news was even more exciting (i keep using that word, i don't think it means what i think it means). iMetro found a copy of the information regarding the failing circuits on the Metro, which caused the crash last month. I do love a good allusion, and the fact that he called it "The Where You might crash and die-ogram." I love it! I love it even more that out of the 13 broken circuits, 10 of them are on my line (red) of course.

a close shave

2009-07-29T17:47:00.001-04:00

i finally got my haircut today. unfortunately, it cost me a squillion dollars. dear lord, apparently you cant get your hair cut past 7pm at any barber shop in the dc metro area as they have all agreed that they should close at 7pm as a union rule or something. i seriously went to 4 barber shops and 1 salon (i was getting desperate) last night to try and get my hair cut before i had to go to rock band. after that failure, i had wasted so much time i wasnt going to have time to cook anything to eat, so i figured i would hit up some fast food right quick. well, i mistakenly went to the worlds slowest McDonalds. i had only been their one other time amd had forgotten how bad it was. first let me say that mcdonalds or any kind of 'fast food' that doesnt have a drive through is not fast food. its slow food. what the hell is the point if there isnt a drivethrough. there are a whole mess of them in this area for some reason, i dont understand it. this one apparently lost its drive through because it was sooooo inefficient they just couldnt handle the strain of having to complete your order within 10 minutes of it being placed. it tool about 5 minutes to get my food, nd it wasnt even remotely busy and they had about 7 employees working, or should i say, on the clock (otc). epic fail twice in a row. meanwhile im standing hthere waiting for my food and watching as some punk ass kid keeps refilling his tiny courtesy cup, which is for water, at the soda fountain. man, some people. i guess im just old school. in high school we were doing a trip for the cross country team up the alcan, and had stopped in whitehorse canada at a pizza hut. two of the girls were sharing off the same plate on the buffet only paying for one meal. my dad said something to them about it and they just kinda ignored him. im not exactly what transpired after that, but my ddad paid for the other girl at the register when we were paying our bill. it wasnt a question of whether or not she could pay for it (because she could and just didnt want to), but of right and wrong and how it was stealing even though she didnt think so. I felt bad that i didn't ay anything to the punkass

fail whale

2009-07-27T20:35:00.002-04:00

this past weekend=fail. more later

Dont get caught in the storm

2009-07-24T17:45:00.005-04:00

Ran out into the rain and thunder last night for about 30 minutes to get some pictures of lightning at 10pm last night, while talking on the phone to my mother. Then it really started storming and i went in to dry off myself (dressed appropriately for the weather in shorts and a t-shirt) and more importantly the camera. Here are some of the better ones. 5 second exposure @f4.5

Manly men drive manly men cars

2009-07-24T10:15:00.004-04:00

I dont know why, but sometimes people and there cars are an awkward pairing. This morning i saw a huge man, and by huge, i mean he could easily be a professional wrestler in the WWF (or whatever it is now). He probably could have smuggled a keg in through airport security in his chest by just looking at the TSA agents when he set the metal detector off. (His look would be the "you gonna comment about my huge size? It may be the last comment you make.") The scared agent would just wave him ahead. Anyway, so this guy was huge, thats not what was funny. The funny fact was this awesome manly ride he got out of was a little red Prius...and he was smoking. I got mixed messages from this, he cared about the long term impact of his vehicle on the environment, but at the same time he didn't care about his own long term health. This guy would have looked perfectly natural pulling up in a monster truck and double parking it. No one would have said anything. I would have taken a picture, but i was on my doughnut break (because i clearly am concerned about my long term health) and didn't have my camera and i left my phone on the desk. And he would have crushed me like a bug if he saw me take his picture. But i swear that the rendering is what he looked like.

rickrolling

2009-07-22T17:50:00.000-04:00

Words cannot describe how awesome/horrible this is.

Wiffle ball (its trademarked, so it needs a space)

2009-07-21T17:39:00.002-04:00

My Wiffleball teams pitcher was featured in the Washington Post this past weekend, we were on the cover of the Local section. Our captain/pitcher/manager is the featured person in the story. I am in a couple of the pitchers, as well as in the video i belt a line drive down the third base line, you can hear Tony shouting at me. Check it out.

'Just' Wiffleball? Not a chance

Friday Video Roundup

2009-07-17T13:55:00.001-04:00

This video is so awesome, its the only one this week. This pretty much sums up my feelings on Twitter. I heart Conan

Video Games Live

2009-07-14T10:52:00.007-04:00

Last Friday, i attended the ultimate combination of music snob and uber dork, Video Games Live. First, i was totally blown away and hate that i dont see classical music performed anymore. One of the great things about Juneau was its over saturation of the arts. (and not in the way DC is in that theres an 'artist' at the top of every Metro station escalator hustlin) The show was at Wolftrap, whic is an amazing complex located just off of 66 in Virginia nestled into a tiny little National Park. M was trying to debate wether the supporting beams were poured concrete or steel, his brain is always analyzing the surroundings, not that thats a bad thing. I cant walk into a house without analyzing the sheetrocking or flooring, ect...I digress.

The show was very well done, they played about 18 pieces. The conductor and solo artists travel and work with local orchestras to put on the show. In this case, it was the fabulous National Symphony Orchestra from DC. THey also did a couple cool local things as well. While they were in town, they went to the Smithsonian (i believe it would have been American History, I'm having lunch with them later so i will find out then) and obtained footage of the worlds first video game and its creator, Ralph Baer. They showed this, and then, wait for it......they had him on the projection screen via Skype! How awesome is that? The guy is not 87 years old, but they had him call in special for this show via Skype video conferencing. I thought that was pretty cool. They also brought in a local game developer, which i thought would have been someone from Bethesda Softworks, the creators of Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls series, to name some of their recent smash hits. Their office is only about 2 miles from my house. But it was Sid Miers of Firaxis games, which is apparently just outside DC in Virginia. Equally as cool, this guy created one of the best selling titles of all time, Civalization (now in its fourth iteration). The top video is the orchestra playing the global hit theme song, Baba Yetu.

They also had audience participation. The bottom video is a man playing space invaders, which he sucked at, usuing himself as the controller. He is the center spotlight, my cell phone camera doesnt have much of a zoom on it. He sucked and died faster than a noob on hardcore. They also had a guy play guitar hero along with the band. He only had to score 200,000 on hard, but he wanted it on expert, and scored over 300,000, only missing like 4 notes in the whole song. His fingures moved so fast it was like watching a machine. He won a $3000 laptop. It was well worth the $35 we spent for inside Loge seats, although a lighting truss partially blocked the screen (thumbs down for not letting people know about this, i would have paid a little more for a better view). The second video is the pinnacle piece, the Halo trilogy. For some reason at the show in the video they didnt perform the ODST piece, but it is still amazing! Im done dorking out now.

Friday Video Roundup (monday edition)

2009-07-13T12:54:00.001-04:00

Chase Dat Gold- Autotune meets Role Playing. Gotta love the Starcraft reference at the end

Beckys Forte is not escaping from a straightjacket. The BBC show i listen to has been trying to find her forte on air. So far it is not wii tennis (vs Andy Murray), mind reading, cheerleading (she did do the splits), beatboxing (with Birdyman), or escapology.

This has to be the most calm and unflappable traffic cop in the US. Man flips out at traffic stop.

Way Prettier in Person

2009-07-10T12:13:00.006-04:00

I haven't posted recently as things have been crazy/im lethargic. I also blame the fact that H&M got me Resident Evil 5 for my birthday, so i spend the majority of my down time relaxing and playing through RE:5. (Apparently this game has set off claims of video game racism) After getting over the seemingly backwards control system (which is apparently really well done compared to the other RE version) I have definitely gotten into the game and story, even having not played any of the other ones. The graphics in game are really realistic (as realistic as a zombie with a chainsaw can be) and it strikes a good compromise between action and suspense/thriller. Deserving of the 9.5 out of 10 it received. The co-op is supposed to be amazing, and as i have yet to play through it solo once and live by myself, i wouldn't know.

The other big thing I've had going on is last night my new band had our first gig! It went really well, we sold 38 of our 40 tickets ($380) and had a good group of people including some last minute people come. The headliner wound up being drunk and sucky, we had about 100-125 people when we played, when they played there were probably about 30 people, 27 of which looked like they were about 16. Black 'x's on their hands and everything. There was a photographer there, so i will try and post up some pictures when we get them from him. Anyway, the show was pretty rocking and we got a really good reaction and response from the other bands and the crowd...not bad for our first gig. It felt really good. We were really happy overall with the show, a couple of things to do differently next time (i stupidly told them we only needed one mic, big mistake), but we learn and move on. I'm really excited to have such a good gig and the venue should be able to provide a good recommendation for us since we sold 38 tix's and about 30 of them were over 21 so the bar should have been happy. The bartender was very cute, and i'm pretty sure she hooked me up with a couple drinks as my tab was only $23 for 4 beers and a jack and coke (heavy on the jack and light on the coke). I'd frequent her bar anytime. I almost ran out of gas trying to find a gas station in Virginia last night (big thumbs down for everything being fucking closed in VA). That's a story for another time. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and thats whats important.

More later on, hope everyone else is having a good week. TGIF!

Friday Video Roundup

2009-07-03T16:46:00.001-04:00

The Shining as a Romantic Comedy

Puppy Pulling Power. Which puppy is best for picking up girls?

The ShamWow guy hawking tv products in Jail.

Sister fight. Not sure how real this is as its pretty far fetched, but weirder things have been argued over.

First Person Shooter disease. quite clever and funny

Movies
Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais
The Box

Metro Fail

2009-07-02T09:56:00.001-04:00

This is what the Metro has felt like recently. Heres hoping todays ride home will be better. (Yeah right)

Friday Video Roundup

2009-06-26T16:19:00.001-04:00

Kobe and LeBron as muppets. It gets better as the commercials progress.

Mario Brothers protest

What if Jurassic Park was filmed with gay dinosaurs? Answer

Wiffle Ball

Bill Cosby (Jimmy Kimmel) interviews Bill Cosby (Nick Cannon from AGT). Jimmy is way better i think.

Is it the weekend yet?

2009-06-25T17:56:00.005-04:00

Still not feeling great today, but last night i did watch some of Americas Got Talent, and this act was barely shown, which means its off the chain. Maybe its the Daft Punk in me, but i am strangely intrigued by this act. Its also interesting that in this modern day of web 2.0, i cant really find anything about this act online. Now i feel like i need to watch it (and by watch it i mean dvr it and fast forward through the crap). My guilty pleasure of the summer ended last night. 'Im a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' ended its 4 week run last night. I was a little suprised at the winner, i had thought Torrie Wilson would have swung all the votes Patti Blajovich was getting before she was eliminated. Lou Diamond won, but he was a competitor and deserved it. Still dont feel great, hopefully tomorrow will be better (and that the commute wont be hellacious).

In other sad news, reports have leaked from TSN and ESPN that the Broadstreet Bullies will be the team to play outdoor at Wrigley this coming new years for WC III and not the Capitals. If anyone is interested, i could tell you exactly the cost of the trip yesterday, now i can remove 'Boston at New Years' from my hotwire watch list. Sad Face...

Mini update

2009-06-23T16:38:00.003-04:00

This video can not wait until Friday, it is very clever and catchy. They have several other versions, but this is by far their best.

Also in terms of news, there is a new version of Alice in Wonderland in the works. Disney is producing it, and it looks like it will be along the same lines of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (almost put 'Charlie factory' there). My personal favorite incarnation of this classic story is the 1999 made for TV version with every comedic great (of the time) in it. It doesnt get much better than Christopher Lloyd as the White Knight. No trailers are available for this film yet, but it looks very crazy. It is set for a May 2010 release, meaning we should begin to see trailers come the end of the summer.

2009-06-23T10:20:00.005-04:00

This was the official statement from Metro on the trains last night.
"There is a red line train experiencing mechanical difficulties at the Fort Totten Station"...Its pretty chilling. 9 people have died and several more are in critical condition in the hospital. This affects thousands of people in my area.

Timmy and the Lord of the Underworld

2009-06-22T11:53:00.004-04:00

While i will respond to most variations of my name, with the exception of 'Timmy,' i dont get heated about which version people use. My Ikon site boss calls me Timothy, as do several of my regular clients, so 'Timothy' is my professional name. The people i work with everyday or i know from sports (wiffleball, hockey) call me Tim. Timmy is a special exception. There is a short list of people who i let call me Timmy. My old boss called my Timmy for the 3 years i worked for him, and i didnt say a thing about it. When i graduated my parents met him he talked about me as 'Timmy' and my Mom was shocked. She promptly told him that my grandmother was the only one who called me that. (Way to go Mom) T (my boss) immediately found me and called me out that my mom said no one called me that and asked why i never said anything about it. Thats what my Mom thought, i use to hate it so that was as much as she knew. The superfriends call me Timmy, my old boss calls me that, L still calls me that, but she says it differently for some reason, accenting the 't.' M calls me that at work, and at hockey. Luckily no one else on the team has tried it, mostly because they are in awe of his hockey prowess. (they want him to play full time) This short article from Politico is worth reading for the 20 email chain at the end with this crazy staffer.

Hill interns drive me insane with their self-importance and stupidity. This is an overheard conversation posted on dcinterns.blogspot.com

Heard: Pirate Attire

(Talking about the recent pirate troubles off the coast of Africa)

Intern #1 So do these pirates look like pirates?

Intern #2: What do you mean?

Intern #1: Well, what do they look like?

Intern #2: They’re people with normal clothes . . .and guns.

Intern #1 So they're not like real pirates?

Intern #2: ?

Intern #1: When I think of pirates I think of Pirates of Caribbean. Do they look like that?

Intern #2: Pirates back then dressed like that because that was the clothes of the day. Pirates today dress in today’s clothes.

Intern #1: Well they should at least still have eye patches.