The Cash Box: No Excuses, Play Like a Champion

DUDES.

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:51:56 GMT

Hi.

I'm Matt.

Remember me?

I'm a little balder now since my last post, no joke, but I am equally awesome.

And -- and! -- I have now migrated my bloggery over to a real live website. Y'all can keep up with me at noslowallgo.com, or via the handy lj feed I rolled for said site: noslowallgo

Keep on keepin' on. Hope to see y'all over on my corner of the internets.

25 Things That Are About Me

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:37:07 GMT

dudes, in the words of bret michaels: whassagoinon?

it has, as usual, been awhile. but, this time, in lieu of recapping the last couple weeks of awesome, i shall get my blogspiration from the roughly 65 people on facebook that have tagged me for the 'tell us 25 things about you' meme, and do just that ...

1. if i could eat only one meal every day for the rest of my life, it'd be steak frites with a caesar salad. the downside would be cost; the upside would be that i could go about three years eating steak fried in butter, fried potatoes and salad dressing before doing the ol' mortal-coil shuffle, so it wouldn't be *that* spendy.

2. if i could incorporate prosciutto into that meal without it being more or less instantly artery-hardening, i would.

3. likewise, if i had to drink but one cocktail ever again, it'd be straight-up lagavulin 16-year scotch, with a bourbon manhattan a close second.

4. that said, i have an affinity for jack daniel's; this, along with my accompanying affinity for the color orange, comes directly from wanting to be more like frank sinatra.

5. i used to be an almost-professional-quality trumpet player, before years of bad technique caused by playing in ska bands and marching bands caught up with me and wrecked my trumpet-playing muscles. i miss playing, but find trying to pick it back up kind of frustrating since i can't do what i used to.

6. appearing on jeopardy remains one of my chief life goals.

7. so does driving the nurburgring, but i suspect i'll have to practice a hell of a lot more first.

8. i have stumbled into nearly every job i've ever had by some combination of accident, luck and being a comparative peon in the right places at the right times. i recommend the strategy.

9. i was adopted as a newborn, and pretty much struck it as lucky as possible on the parental jackpot; this makes me a pretty fascinating nature-vs-nurture case study, too.

10. my first airplane ride took place just after said adoption, and then i didn't take another one for 15 years.

11. i am far too competitive for my own good, even, and perhaps especially, at things i'm terrible at.

12. for this reason, i'm a huge fan of bar trivia/pub quizzes, as they indulge my loves of competition, whiskey, and pulling random facts out of the farthest corners of my ass all at once.

13. [halftime break. please sing your favorite springsteen song quietly to yourself for twelve minutes.]

14. i am hugely and possibly alarmingly obsessed with the minnesota twins and with minnesota gophers hockey.

15. i am less obsessed, but still kind of obsessed, with gophers basketball, the minnesota timberwolves, the minnesota wild, arsenal ~~soccer~~ football, mid-major ncaa basketball teams, the entire culture of college football, and a dozen or so nba players who are stylish and intriguing enough to watch that i kind of forget that i never used to like the nba.

16. for a massive sports fan, i was a lousy athlete. seriously. aside from a marginal amount of defensive skill in baseball and a little bit of tennis prowess, i was more hapless on more fields than a tractor with no steering.

17. i did, however, pick up a deep appreciation for the aesthetics of sports, in terms of both on-field style and uniform design. if uni watch didn't already exist, i'd start it, and if every third dude my age on the internet didn't already have a sports blog, i'd try that, too.

18. my age, incidentally, is a month from 30. this would freak me out more if i hadn't started balding at like 24.

19. chicks totally dig balding guys. i think. or they totally dig awesome guys.

20. either way, there is one out there who seems to like me a great deal, which is good, because i'm pretty much crazy in love with her.

21. and, as an antidote to the foregoing schmoopiness, you should know that i am a proud and unswerving ass man.

22. i have owned four cars in my life; three, through no real fault of my own, have been pontiacs. their names, in chronological order: the swankmobile, willis, malibu stacy, and anna conda.

23. at the time the swankmobile was named, i was watching swingers at least twice a week. i'm down to maybe once a month, now.

24. despite having pretty ridiculously broad tastes in music and being a big hip-hop fan, i will never quite like any music as much as the ska and pop-punk of the mid-1990s. mr. t experience, i've got your back.

25. i've read infinite jest three times, met the president for academic-achievement-related reasons when i was in high school, spoke at my graduation and placed in the national geography bee ... and yet i still watch rock of love religiously.

holy crap, that was long. i tag any of the six people on the internet who haven't yet done this.

you can't spell 'we pretty much kick ass' without 'epic' ...

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:05:46 GMT

... and the last few nights have been nothing if not epic.

(incidentally, last weekend, we contested the zod cup -- recreational bowling's most coveted spray-paint-covered trophy, in reasonably epic fashion, and saw reel big fish and streetlight manifesto at a club of the very same name. awesome show, and a good reminder that people in minneapolis still occasionally deign to dance while a rock band's playing, but that is not what we're here to talk about.)

after a combination of the weather being ass-cold and jenni feeling ill had kept us cooped up in the house for far too many days running, we decided wednesday night was alright for fighting. in the absence of a boxing ring and/or an easily accessible octagon, however, it wound up also being alright for the pub quiz at merlins rest, my favorite british/nerd bar. jenni and i made our way over there, freezing the entire journey; we were joined by dan a few questions in, and proceeded to pretty much whup up on trivia like the lakers beat the supersonics.

a trivia win, and the accompanying free drink, later, we opted for darts, because when you can't quite feel your hands and you've got a buzz, the correct thing to do is throw pointy objects. and, while i'm not sure whether it was the copious cider or our sparkling wit and preponderance of at-the-ready milf jokes, about halfway through the game we found ourselves unable to stop cracking up over cougar darts.

particularly when dan began impersonating the cougar. (the darts one, not, like, felicity huffman or whatever.)

regardless, it was a successful night of drinking and remembering things and laughing until our sides hurt, and, as a result, jenni's cold got worse to the point where she had to call in sick yesterday. fortunately, after a reasonably humdrum workday (for me) and sick day (for her), things picked up in a manner that i can only describe -- which you'll guess, if you've been reading -- as epic. to wit: we arrived at our usual thursday night bowling alley early, both to get some pre-bowling drinks and to make sure missy didn't have to sit by herself at a bowling alley bar, because, really, that's a sadder prospect than an unemployed mall santa on the curb with a bottle of night train.

we did so, then proceeded to total victory in two of three bowling games -- including one on which a pitcher of beer was riding. (our opposition team, being a bunch of bros from wisconsin, graciously bought us miller lite, so it was something of a pyrrhic victory.) between the glorious and heady sensation of victory, the somewhat-less-glorious and no-less-heady sensation of drinking about sixteen gallons of beer, and the amount of bemused discussion over the possibility of 'zen rage' and its impact on jenni's bowling (as part of a long-held metaphor about angry koi, which i could spend three semesters of a college course trying and failing to explain), it was excellent indeed.

and then we got home. and my beloved golden gophers, basketball edition, were playing -- and losing -- to the hated badgers, on said hated team's hated home court. i was excited to watch the game's end, until our 12-point deficit and the never-call-anything-against-the-home-team officiating finally drove me to turn it off and watch top chef.

that lasted about five minutes, until twitter kindly informed us that the gophers were a mere point down, so we came reluctantly but hopefully back. as did our team. they scored. and yelled. as did i, to the point where it was indistinguishable from me watching a hockey game -- a rare and thrilling and, yes, epic feat for any basketball team to achieve.

even more rare and epic? we fucking won.

and thus, a midweek stretch full of win reached its logical, inevitable and awesome conclusion, and i come to you now happy, slightly exhausted, and ready for the weekend. vaya con dios, hombres.

you got a date wednesday, baby

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:41:15 GMT

i'm hearing rumors that we've started an entirely new year. or we did a week or so ago, is what they tell me. i would have made my first '09 post already, except the fog of hangover from new year's eve is only just now starting to lift, after applying a long weekend and roughly 450,000 cups of coffee to it.

(every year, i should just make my new year's resolution 'drink an absolute metric fuckton of coffee for a week while i get used to work again', since that one, i never break.)

anyhow, my projection of more awesome for 2009 is bearing up pretty well, a week in, owing to everything from a gopher hockey sweep to making fresh salsa to swing dancing at the northeast palace to last night's adventure: hitting up the parkway for the first showing in their coen brothers series. it was, of course, the big lebowski and, while, between jenni and i we've seen the movie so many times we could recite it verbatim with our heads cut off, there was something just more excellent than usual about seeing it on a big screen, seated on a couch, with a white russian in hand.

and the parkway? they make a hell of a caucasian, jackie.

in an extra bonus, i have two nights of bowling coming up later this week, and, if it wasn't so fucking cold, i'd break out my walter sobchak costume from halloween for one of them. as it stands, though, i will merely have to take walter and the dude's magical run to the semifinals as inspiration for my own throwin' of rocks. that, and a lot of kahlua.

p.s. happy cüddlenacht!

party like it's 2009.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:05:44 GMT

hey, dudes: it's the end of the year, in case you hadn't noticed. i will not do an end-of-year recap, since i spent half of yesterday writing a novella about christmas vacation, save to say that 2008 reached levels of awesome that were heretofore scientifically questionable, and that the forecast for 2009 is similar if not more awesome indeed.

oh, and i'll be welcoming the new year much as i did the last: mixing whiskey and champagne and probably either wearing a lampshade, dropping trou, or both.

have a great one, everyone, and we'll see your smiling internet faces on the other side.

the five or six days of christmas

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:33:10 GMT

so, dudes, i had roughly 4,000 christmases this year, and all of them were basically awesome. and since i'm doing this whole 'getting back to posting' thing, i see no better way to start than by recapping the collected awesome.

first but by no means foremost: my work christmas party.
i've managed, over the last two years, to be in las vegas and key west during this; alas, i had no such tropical luck this year, and wound up on the campus of lovely gustavus adolphus university instead. and around which campus i drove roughly 4.5 times the circumference of the whole thing looking for the appropriate building, since i failed to do things like 'check the invite' or 'study a map of a place i'd never been before' prior to going. once i landed, though, it was all worth it, if only because our entertainment was a dad-and-daughter singing team with a ~~karaoke~~ band-in-a-box set, who sang discomfitingly creepy duets like 'jackson' in between slightly forced holiday cheer. all in all, though, it beat working.

and then, there was jenni's work christmas party, which is basically the complete opposite of mine.
longtime readers around here know the drill: her boss goes all out and then some, buying dinner and (lots of) drinks for the staff + significant others, then giving her employees a bunch of free money and sending the whole crew out into the wilds of the mall of america with a mandate to buy as much shit as possible as quickly as possible, before reconvening, sharing all the details, and getting wildly drunk until going to the company-purchased hotel rooms.

we were, clearly, up to the challenge, even after some champagne, and some rum, and some manhattan-in-a-can (not recommended), and some manhattan-in-a-glass (recommended), and wound up with a very nice bottle of cabo wabo, tickets to see reel big fish and p.o.s., and the guitar hero world tour band set. due to a couple odd twists and turns, i also discovered just how far a fat kid can carry a giant box of plastic instruments around the country's biggest mall: 1.5 times, before feeling like collapsing.

with work out of the way, it was family time.
we swapped gifts at home first, since they were just right there under the tree, after all, and the next day hit jenni's family's house for our fourth pre-christmas-christmas. it was my first holiday (aside from thanksgiving) out there, and was a ton of fun. in addition, as an only child myself, i spent the better part of a couple hours being amazed by the exponential increase in the size of the wrapping paper pile when there's six people opening gifts.

after that excellent evening of gifts and jenni's dad telling cop stories, i had to schlep to work for another day before departing to my parents' place for my one out-of-town christmas of the year. 'twas a blessedly easy day of work, and the shit-ass road conditions abated enough that i had pretty much no problem making the trip south-dakota-ward, despite my mom's fervent belief that there was basically nothing i could do to prevent instant and cold death during the long journey down paved, well-maintained and snow-free federal highways.

but i made it.
after proving her wrong and hanging out for the evening, i slept in on christmas eve, waking up in time to experience a new and weird tradition: christmas eve church service in the middle of the day. as you may have gathered, i'm not a big church guy, but my parents are, and i like the tradition and the christmas-song-singing, and, to be honest, i enjoy gettin' my suit on, looking fly, and making quiet mental fun of the people who change into their nice dale earnhardt jacket for the service.

following this merriment, we headed home and awaited jenni's arrival from her last day at work; she made it, though not without the sort of knee-knocking, white-knuckle moments that happen when you go from city driving to plowing through unlit, snow-drifting roads in the actual middle of nowhere (seriously, i suspect that when you query google maps for 'nowhere,' the stretch of 212 between goodwin and kranzburg, south dakota, is what comes up). clearly, it was thus time for whiskey and pizza and presents galore, which were galoreful indeed. especially when it came to the kitchen: as a result of all the christmases, i now have: an alton brown signature salt cellar and a molcajete (from jenni), a meat grinder for the kitchenaid and a bottle of macallan (from her fam), a new knife sharpener and probe thermometer (from the folks, among an embarrassingly large amount of other stuff), and not one but two new ice buckets for the bar.

we call that 'pimp-tastic.'

after this excellentness, we crashed, and spent all of christmas day doing very wholesome things like sudoku, learning to play pinochle, refreshing memories on how to crochet (well, that was jenni and my mom), and, aside from the vegetarian girlfriend, eating a steak the size of a baseball glove, but much more tender. friday involved way more shopping-related-things than anyone should do the day after christmas, and also an impromptu reunion of people from my high school at starbucks, a trip to the massage chairs in the watertown mall, more pinochle, and, after dinner, our annual watertown bar run. we started at watertown's ~~finest~~ only brewpub, dempsey's, which was just utterly and completely packed with people i remembered in a vague way, all there to see my old high school buddy dan, who i actually had no idea was playing. we attempted to check out his set, but got about five songs in before (a) my parents decided to call it a night and (b) we became immensely annoyed with the lack of anyone coming around to sell us drinks, and so, onward and upward jenni and i went ...

... to the notorious harbor bar. site of at least three fights per weekend night, former home of one of our house decorations, and current home of 9-11pm two-for-ones and the chuck norris shot, which i can't really explain except that it's a roundhouse kick of booze. and that one was more than enough for the evening, and the energy drink component kept us going through an entire evening of watertown bar-crawl, which, every time it happens, is the funniest night out i can remember.

we decamped from the harbor pre-fight, and got home early so as to head to grandma's perilously close to 8am the next day. the drive down was long but uneventful, thankfully, and we got to spend some time with grandma -- my last remaining one, she's 99, can't see very well, and is still one of the most awesome people ever. and has a way better memory than anyone else in my family. we also showed jenni around the tiny towns and very large farms where my parents grew up, and, aside from my favorite bar ever being closed, it generally ruled.

oh, and then there was the pheasant that flew into my dad's grill (on the car; my dad is not, to my knowledge, a gold-toothed dj), and which we carried, folded over, in said grill for like ten miles. oops.

and, finally, having re-entered civilization, it was time to hit the dakota sioux casino for a final-night-in-town blowout. which is precisely what happened, insofar as i lost $20 on slots while jenni doubled her money, and then both of us proceeded to spend 20 minutes just killing the blackjack tables. i got my original stake back in four hands, and then added another $100 to it, while jenni cashed out $80 ahead, and we went to dance with my folks and enjoy the glory of $3.75 johnnie walker blacks the rest of the night.

so, gang, if there's one thing i've learned this christmas, it's this: there are no greater gifts than friends, family and vacation ... except for a bunch of free money and really cheap scotch.

p.s. if you don't want to read quite all that, you can just go right to the damn pictures of the watertown trip.

INTERNET.

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:22:47 GMT

internet.

what's up?

it's ... i've ... well, it's been a while. like, months. i managed to get myself out of the habit of regular posting, and the more i didn't do so, the more it felt like a ridiculous and sisyphean task to recommence. that, and, to be honest, i kind of got sick of writing.

much has happened in the intervening months; looking at the time/date of my last post, it appears it was made before we even moved into our awesome house, which, holy crap. in the meantime, there's also been some sort of election, and a hell of a lot of hockey games, and even more bars, and a fair amount of rock 'n roll, and weekly bowling, and, in the last week, about eight different christmas-type things, which continue with jenni's family celebration tonight, and then a trip back to south dakota tomorrow for a few days with mom and dad.

in short, though i have not commented, things have basically been the usual level of awesome, if slightly colder. and, with the holidays and the new year and accompanying resolution-ish things happening, 'tis my resolution to start documenting the awesome in a more detailed and potentially entertaining way again. not sure if it'll be here or elsewhere -- the other blogger in our house is in the midst of a torrid affair with wordpress, so i may look in that direction, but, fear not, y'all will be the first to know where to find me. (facebook and twitter are good places to start.)

and now, off to do the three days of work that i've got a day and a half to do pre-holiday. keep on rockin', dudes, and i will see you in the '09.

MEME.

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:00:12 GMT

I like this one.

When you see this, quote Douglas Adams in your journal.

I couldn't pick between these two, so there's a long one:
"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."

And a short one, which is one of my favorite sentences in all of literature:
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

***

Aside from ironic musings about the nature of the universe and/or bricks, 'tis a nice uneventful Thursday. Only three times have work people called to ask me about things I'd have no reason knowing about except that they happen on computers and I write Web site code, which is a nice reduction over the number of times that usually happens in a given morning. So I've got that going for me.

***

In other news, Burn After Reading was kind of fantastic, and you should see it post-haste. Not quite a Coen Brothers classic, but deeply entertaining nonetheless (particularly for the last scene). And, in an excellent side effect, watching it made me want to go back and re-watch a whole bunch of Arrested Development, which, after the soporific effects of my steak frites and Jenni's chili cheese fries took effect last night, is exactly what we did. Tonight looks to be another early evening, as I'll be chauffeuring my ladyfriend to the opening of the Breast Cancer 3-Day at roughly oh-shit o'clock in the morning. (Well, 4:00. That's close enough.) Between now and then, however, stands a day of van-decorating (her end) and work + bowling (mine), so I shall now depart, and wish nothin' but the best of luck to all my friends around here participating in said 3-Day. Vaya sin blisters, y'all.

IT LIVES

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:27:03 GMT

holy crap, dudes, it's been an entire month since i've typed in this li'l ol' box. this is partly a consequence of getting sort of burnt out on the whole idea of blogging, and partly a consequence of, lately, having to spend way more of my time at work doing actual work. which, on balance, is okay with me, but it does leave perilous little time for, y'know, this sort of thing.

fortunately, i've had plenty of time for much else. in the last month:

• i ate my weight in fried food and experienced political crop art at the state fair.

• i attended the races at elko speedway, which featured school-buses racing in figure eights and a truck towing a camper jumping over a ramp and through another camper, which was precisely as incredibly awesome as it sounds. and about 8000% more awesome than the weird aspiration-to-southern-baptist-redneck vibe of the crowd.

• we escaped the twin cities for a deeply excellent labor day camping weekend and returned only to find it turned, however briefly, into a republican-convention-induced police state. despite this, we got to see atmosphere, mos def and rage against the machine in concert, the latter being one of the best shows i've ever seen in spite of the fact that the street outside was closed off by riot cops.

• i commenced one bowling league, was memorialized by my boys in another, found a house to move to, went to roughly 500 different bars including one with a wall of 100 tequilas, finally stopped spending most of the day sweating thanks to the falling temperatures, and fell off a barrel.

• in addition, the twins gained then lost then gained then lost the al central lead something like six times; the vikings proved that, no matter what, you can always be slightly more disappointing than last week; arsenal lost horribly, won spectacularly, and won even more spectacularly; and the gophers hockey team deigned to sell us tickets for ten games in the next seven months or so, thus adding the hockey countdown to our already exciting moving and going-to-vegas countdowns.

• and, as you may have heard, the entire american economy is falling apart and my favorite author of all time committed suicide, which is just pretty awful all around.

despite this, however, it's been a month full of pretty much all ridiculous awesomeness, as, y'know, they tend to be. and fear not, friends, for i've been reading all y'all's blogeration fairly consistently. and, while work and the aforementioned burnoutish feeling may keep me from daily typing here, i'll be around. (and if you need a more frequent matty cash fix, there's always twitter and the book of face.) consider yourselves ~~warned~~ awesome.

five ring circus

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:23:08 GMT

so, we've been watching a ton of olympics of late, partly because, y'know, it's interesting and fun and only happens every four years, and partly because the twins keep going into extra innings and keeping us awake anyway.

and, since i've been too busy the last two days -- driving to our other office, meeting, making websites happen as a way of procrastinating fixing the one that i can't figure out -- to come up with much in the way of actual content, here, then, are some intriguing olympic-related links for y'all. as per most of the sports reporting on here, they're a wee bit out of the ordinary, and related at least in part to design, hot girls and the nba.

• if you're not reading deadspin's beijing bureau, you're missing out on some highly excellent reporting from the field. the piece on ticket scalpers, especially, was a good reminder of just what a really weird place the 2008 olympics are.

• and speaking of weird places, north korea, being maybe just a little bit insular and odd, has instead of the olympics something called the mass games, in which thousands upon thousands of athletes and kids do ... well, this. it's hard to explain, but the photo essay is mind-blowing.

• the freedarko guys, as you know, are damn good basketball writers, and they're arguably even better when they stop and talk gymnastics for a while. the thing that made me want to link this:

"Like, when I watch the best basketball players, I think "they're good at basketball" -- when I watch the best gymnasts, I think "these dudes are rocks -- why are they jumping on mats and not working as freelance ninjas?" Basically, I think gymnastics rests in this uncanny valley on the graph of sports ridiculousness right between "so basic that it works" (e.g. track and field) and "so complicated that it works." That and the concept of talking boulders scares me."

• since that's a lot of words, here's some pictures: an interactive gallery of olympic torches. awesome, and odd that it's the 1960 one that i always, always picture when i think of the olympic torch.

• and if that doesn't float your boat, here's a hot paraguayan javelin thrower.

***

in other news ... well, that's about it. life is good. may your weekend, when it comes, be stellar, and your medals be just gold as hell.

6,000 words

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:22:46 GMT

typing seems like an awful lot of work right now, since i'm doing a whole lot of it for *actual* work, so here's my weekend in six photos ...

friday:

saturday:

sunday:

(most of those stolen from my ladyfriend, except for the one of the thunder with the copyright bit, and the one from someone who was quite a bit closer to the stage during flogging molly's show.)

(not pictured, by the way: any of the vikings' season-ending knee injuries; the bouncer at the northeast palace who wanted to tell us all about the cops that came to hassle him at his other job; the fabulous trainwrecks -- one wearing shortalls -- at said bar; the incredibly delicious bar pizza at jimmy's; the hurling exhibition at irish fair [hurling, the sport, not hurling, the drunken thing]; the vendor from the ancient order of hibernians who made me take two straws for my lemonade because i was supposed to share with jenni and we're not married; the vast plain of 15-year-old punk rock kids at the flogging molly portion of the show; the taco truck that the thunder thoughtfully provided at their game; either of the two spectacular goals in said game by ricardo 'el perro loco' and/or 'dirty' sanchez; the variety of olympians and twins players that keep keeping us up late at night; or the seven loads of laundry we did yesterday.)

(you're welcome.)

grand old time

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:20:25 GMT

say what you will about the republican convention, but the fact that it's in town means i get to see mos def, lupe fiasco, billy bragg, a daily show taping and rage against the machine, live, all over the course of three days. not to mention the strip clubs that are staying open extra hours.

and they say republicans are uncaring.

in other very brief news -- i've got no attention span today, what with the impending tailgate/football game/weekend -- the frugal traveler is my new favorite blog, amber halliday is my new favorite olympian, and friday remains my favorite weekday.

have a fine one, all y'all.

born and raised in south detroit

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:31:59 GMT

i am currently mired in the midst of a project involving the most convoluted, poorly-thought-out, sloppily-coded website i've ever encountered, and, lest this sisyphean task bring me down anymore, i am taking a break to mention these ten very good things which have nothing to do with this horrible project:

1. just paid all my bills except for two; one's not due, i found out, 'til after my next paycheck, and the other is having website problems.

2. also found out that my electric bill was -$11.08. hooray for accidentally overpaying because something got weird in the transition between paper and online statements!

3. still have beer money.

4. made intensely kick-ass mushroom-cream sauce last night, involving a great deal of butter, a little white wine, garam masala, cinnamon, garlic, an ass-ton of pepper and did i mention the butter? served it over polenta, but, seriously, you could pour it over old cassette cases and it'd make a great dish.

5. have no real plans for this evening other than somehow taking advantage of the fact that it's ridiculously nice out.

6. have plans tomorrow that involve leaving work early, tailgating, watching the vikings preseason game from free and utterly awesome seats, and then after that getting down to maybe some fairly serious postgame tailgating.

7. have plans the next day involving the purchase of rage against the machine tickets, then brunch, then lounging by the lake, then heading over to irish fair for free flogging molly show.

8. have plans for sunday in which i will wish my parents a happy 41st anniversary and then go eat five tortas and watch soccer.

9. still have a third of a bottle of lagavulin at home, at least some of which i intend to hide in my bloodstream later this evening.

10. never have to hear about brett favre again, at least from fawning local sportswriters.

so, all in all, it's a pretty good day.

never gonna wake you up

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:48:08 GMT

a disappointing thing happened this morning. the evidence is as follows:

1. we are having management meetings here, and thus the kitchen this morning was a mess of coffeepots.
2. my first cup of coffee tasted really bad, even for work coffee.
3. it did not render me considerably more awake than i was when i reluctantly rolled out of bed.

and the conclusion: i got decaf-rolled.

not a good way to start the day, especially when you've been out slightly longer than anticipated the night before, i'll tell you that.

fortunately, these management meetings mean no one in management is available to bug me to "do things," so i'm, to put it charitably, working at my own pace today. a pace which involves plenty of ~~scrabble~~ wordscraper, emailing my girlfriend about car-nerd things, finding cool shit on the internet, and saluting america (probably but marginally worksafe, that).

in other words, a pretty fine hump day despite the iffy and undercaffeinated start. hope y'all are enjoying same, but with maybe a little more energy.

long way round

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:26:45 GMT

i believe that every weekend should be as full of hip-hop, baseball, lounging and bars as this one was. by the numbers:

1,000: approximate number of people surrounding us at the doomtree cd release show, which was intensely awesome even from our spot at the back by the bar.

950: approximate number of times i got hit in the kidney by a hipster girl's damn giant purse at said show; it's a mark of doomtree's awesomeness that this did not send me into any sort of blind, hulk-like rage.

1: number of baseball games attended this weekend. also, number of times i've now seen the twins lose in person this season. also, number of victories francisco liriano now has in the majors on his comeback trail. also, rank of the twins, as of today, in the american league central. never saw that comin'.

6: number of episodes of ewan mcgregor's long way 'round we watched over the weekend, and, damn, i can't believe i'd never seen it before. two dudes ridin' their motorcycles around the world, via some of the worst roads in said world, and it's really, really great. we've got one episode left; fortunately, their second trip -- scotland to africa -- has commenced, and given me one reason and one reason only to watch the fox reality channel.

10: number of minneapolis's bars we've been to since thursday night, a number which bespeaks general awesomeness and which also indicates tonight just might be an evening in. after all, we've gotta rest up for friday's vikings preseason game -- at which we will be tailgating in midseason form, i have no doubt -- and saturday's flogging molly show at irish fair (any of y'all going?).

***

and now, back to work, where i will have to do about three things all day, while lamenting the fact that i am currently wearing a pink polo shirt that's just small enough to accentuate the ol' midsection a little too much, thus rendering me a comb-over and bad glasses away from looking like middle-aged man. ah, well, y'take the good with the bad, right?

rabbit

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:11:54 GMT

http://view.break.com/546361 - Watch more free videos

i cannot stop watching this. it's the best five seconds of video ever put on the internet. just ... run through it about six times and you'll find yourself in sort of a zen state, where you snort with glee every time it ends, then hit the replay button.

***

anyway, dudes, how's it going? i've been terrible at this blogging thing lately, partly because i'm a little momentarily burned out on the whole 'typing on the internet' means of self-expression, and partly because i've been ass-busy at work. but, it is a new month, and i'm going to attempt a new-ish leaf.

today, that leaf will not be long, because i'm still a tiny bit hung over, or at least sleepy in a way that coffee is only going so far to fix. as often happens, we had a good idea -- hey, let's go to pub quiz! -- that turned into a better idea -- hey, let's get second place and first place in the two rounds and thus get a bunch of free drinks! -- that, since we started on said drinks at 6pm, turned into a northeast minneapolis bar hop. in the interest of exploring previously unexplored bars, we stopped at the terminal, watched the twins sneak out a win over the bitch sox, and caught a few songs from these guys, who sound like ben folds five and wear matching white vests and pants and are from a town in minnesota that i have literally never heard of.

while there, we also met the smoking-porch hobo, who came in every half-hour, got a beer, and went back out to the smoking porch, where he sat drinking by himself and anyone who happened to wander out there. this also led to the discovery that, while ground zero was closed, the gate to their patio was wide open.

so, cross another bar off the list, and then it was off to jimmy's, where a drink and an order of li'l smokies costs $5, provided you can find the place.

in other words, a long and decidedly excellent way of spending a thursday night; tonight, on the other hand, we'll be joining half the population of minneapolis at the doomtree show, after which i, for one, intend on passing out and not waking up until my desire for toast outweighs my desire for sleep.

***

oh, one other thing: anyone remember the name of the thing that's along the lines of a snakebite or an indian burn, but that involves taking two fingers, (optionally) licking them, and then smacking someone's forearm? you probably haven't done this since like sixth grade, or last night.

five seven five

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:31:35 GMT

holy crap, dudes, it's been a while. and that can only mean one thing: HAIKU UPDATE.

friday
mom and dad and friends
in town, 612 bar-hop
well into the night

saturday
folks saw neil diamond
i did not join; seen him twice,
had no clean silk shirt

(photos instead, then
double whiskey coke with ice
at the triple rock)

sunday
elbow-sweating heat
mini-golf was lots of work
plantains: awesome fried

monday
went to iron man
(one superhero flick behind)
tony stark: fuck yeah

tuesday
scotchy scotchy scotch
tasted many single malts
then, sidewalk dinner

today
lady called in sick
allergies and itchiness
doctor's fixing it

THE FUTURE
the dark knight tonight
on the giant imax screen
now, to stay awake ...

saint joe strummer

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:14:38 GMT

here is a thing i did not know: the string of characters that represents a swear word in venues where actually typing out, say, 'fuckshitdonkeyassonarope' isn't appropriate? it's called a grawlix. thanks, brother of prominent music critic sasha frere-jones, for learnin' me this fact.

also, it's fun to say.

grawlix.

anyway, i keep getting busy with work and forgetting to type in here; today, i am less busy with work (marginally) and also the sky looks terrifyingly steven-king-novel-right-before-some-bad-shit-descends dark, and so i'm typing not only to catch up but for my own safety. and additional office light; the all-white screen of the 'post an entry' page is the brightest thing in here.

i was going to type a whole bunch more about moondance, but missy took care of that for me, and all of jenni's photos are now up, so it's pretty much like y'all were there.

since that happened, there has been much else of awesome going on. monday night, there was (finally) new top gear, and then justin morneau won the home run derby despite (a) espn's announcers openly cheering against him because he's boring, (b) josh hamilton nearly putting a couple balls out of yankee stadium (and tiring himself out before the finals) and (c) erin andrews cock-blocking him in the post-derby interview right before the check-presenting guy called him jason. man, what's a giant canadian gotta do to get some respect?

tuesday i was a genius at work and then we headed out to the vast far reaches of the northern burbs, to get jenni's new (and as yet unnamed) car on the road, and see the thunder take on burnley fc in a friendly li'l soccer exhibition. it was a gorgeous night for a game, and we watched the whole thing from pitch level, which was awesome. especially when the team of 14-year-olds sitting behind us the second half decided to become superfans for burnley, and particularly for their goalkeeper, who kept cracking up at a bunch of kids from minnesota cheering for him. all in all, the new thunder stadium's a hell of a place to watch a game, aside from the lack of concessions, the horribly designed parking exits, the fact that it's 35 miles from my house and the relatively shit-ass soccer they've been playing.

once that was done, we headed home and watched the last 47 innings of the all-star game (good old jason morneau, coming through again!) before passing out; after basically sleepwalking through work yesterday, we went and bought everything in target, then came home, downloaded the new hold steady record (holy crap, love it so far), and became uber-domestic (but while drinking, so it's cool) in an effort to rest up for today.

jury on the rested-ness: still out. but i'm functioning.

penultimately but not next-to-least: this screenshot from nba live 09 offers a teaser of the new wolves unis; unfortunately, it also shows marko jaric wearing one, and that is a thing i never need to see again.

and finally: if you've ever worked in any sort of field using stock photography, or just seen an ad for anything marketed even remotely toward college students in the last decade, you know this girl; the fact that she has a blog is basically my reason, today, to love the internet.

hasta la banana, dudes and ladies.

i want action

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:50:26 GMT

i'm back from moondance jam.

as always, it was spectacular. good music, great parties, questionable yet potent drinks, and so much laughing i'm still sore today. and the moondance hangover, she is potent -- after four days spent with a drink in hand, rocking out, then going to parties and/or settin' by the campfire, and alternately reveling in and surviving weather depending on the conditions, it's a little tough to get back to functioning in regular life.

which is why, among other things, i have one hand with trimmed fingernails and one without.

words don't really do justice to the whole experience; fortunately, the old saw about the exchange rate between language and pictures is applicable here. missy's photos and videos are here, and jenni's photos and videos are making their way here. they will not explain everything, but they'll give you an insight into thomas the vicious log, butt quarters, the bitchin' scooter lightning rod and more things than i can recall just now.

more tomorrow, when i have fewer people to bug at work and more brain cells to spare ...

fake friday!

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:41:49 GMT

dear nashvillest:

i'm in ur blog, makin snow angels. (and i love the fact that said blog's editors went to flickr, found the 'snow angels' tag {presumably}, and decided jenni's photo of me was their favorite. makes a dude feel downright pretty.)

***

dear facebook:

what's with scrabulous disappearing completely at random intervals? if it's going away, i will do whatever the metaphorical internet equivalent of setting facebook on fire might be, so watch it.

***

dear everyone on the ol' friendslist:

i'm pretty much not in any condition to focus at all today, aside from a few very tiny laser-sighted work things that i absolutely have to get done. because, you see, tomorrow we're heading up north to the hallowed shores of (near) leech lake and the ~~sacred~~ relatively profane grounds of moondance jam, northern minnesota's greatest classic rock festival/massively drunken weekend-long party.

which means today's basically my friday. and while the rest of the world is having their friday, i'll be doing things like watching sebastian bach and being amazed he can still walk upright, and searching out the crowd at the poison show for stray rock of love outcasts.

it's gonna be a good weekend.

catch you guys on the other side.

five things and a meme.

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:12:59 GMT

1. i'm in the midst of the world's most tedious work project (desk-based, non-rock-breaking division).

2. my girlfriend is currently trading her car for a sizable check, which has led us to discuss, among other things, whether a nissan z is awesome, or too douchey to be awesome.

3. my parents are hanging out at my apartment right now, though they may have already decamped to do whatever it is they do when they're visiting and i'm at work. i know route-planning for their trip to the neil diamond concert in two weeks was going to be involved.

4. we had a highly awesome independence day weekend that involved barbecuing (of course), bocce, rock band, scrabble and much funtimes with dan and kate, my phone being wrecked in a kayaking incident, and then a trip to the fabulous black bear casino and hotel in the duluth neighborhood. man, duluth is a great city to spend a totally unplanned day in.

5. today's improved considerably since my sunroof peed on me this morning.

***

and now this, stolen from extraneousrooot, because i like it:

Post something that makes you awesome in the comments of this post. Do it. DO IT NOW.

don't tread on me!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:32:52 GMT

in sheer defiance of the wishes of george bush, i just used my newly-deposited economic stimulus check to catch up on bills. i am weirdly and deliriously excited about this fact, not merely because for once in my life i managed to use a sudden cash influx responsibly instead of buying booze and sports memorabilia, but because it's a kind of vastly useful step toward getting my fiscal shit together. man, that feels good.

and, as an unintended cosmic reward, i also got, a month earlier than expected, my state property tax rebate. which i will now attempt not to blow on booze and sports memorabilia.

oh, also, it's apparently some sort of holiday weekend. this is awesome, as it means i can pretty much do fuck-all at work today, and then literally nothing work-related in any way for the next three. our plans are pretty free-form at this point, and may either involve a lot of time on the couch or a road trip, depending on how adventurous we're feeling (and how clean my house is prior to next week's mom-and-dad visit.)

for now, since uni watch did this, i'll leave you to the holiday weekend with this: the declaration of independence. even after all these centuries, it's still one hell of a read.

happy independence day, america-types. and happy weekend (soon) to all the rest of y'all.

what the fuck have you done lately?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:18:35 GMT

jenni and i had date night (tm) last night, and, not only was it a hell of a lot of fun, it came with at least two revelations:

one: cafe maude, which would be walking distance from my house if not for the giant hill in between the two, is astonishingly good and also not just for old people, as i'd previously kind of thought. didn't recognize the chef's name, had no idea who the bartender was ... but, damn, we had the best food and drinks you'd ever think possible on a patio wedged in between a hardware store and a duplex. to wit: the charming man, my first cocktail, which involved gin, cassis, and a drop or two of spanish sparkling wine, and was served on the rocks with a side dish of a dunhill cigarette. it was damn near magical. as was the fig-infused martini (with espresso liqueur and sherry) that jenni had; i remember there were other drinks, but they weren't quite as eye-poppingly ridiculous, just standard-issue amazing.

and the food: best fries in the twin cities, to start with -- thick, almost-but-not-quite too salty, and served with a side of cheese fondue with some sort of truffle thing in it. and, while jenni's caesar with a tempura-fried egg looked awesome, i can say for certain that my duck-confit-and-blue-cheese-and-balsamic on top of grilled flatbread pretty nearly gave me either an orgasm, an aneurysm, or both, right there at the table. i could eat that every day until my heart stopped. (so, a week.)

it's a bit spendy, as you'd guess, but you're damn sure i'm going back as soon as possible.

two: wanted was freaking awesome. something like a cross between fight club and the matrix, but without much of the social commentary of the former or the gothy religiosity of the latter; all of that was replaced with precisely what you want out of a summer action movie: a ridiculous plot that provides an excuse for sexy people to drive sexy cars and do sexy stunts in sexy costumes and fling around a lot of cool weapons. oh, and actual decent one-liners. and ass de jolie, however briefly. i haven't had that much fun watching a movie in a long time. (frankly, the headline of pajiba's review said it best.)

and in closing: i also found out, when our conversation drifted to the vast volume of crappy soft-rock songs about tropical locations, that the 'kokomo' the beach boys sing about is actually the name of a poolside bar at a resort in islamorada. take that, kokomo, indiana!

have a lovely hump day, dudes and ladies.

seven nation army

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:42:40 GMT

how many times have you said to yourself, 'man, i wish there was a video of jay-z at a giant festival opening his set with a cover of 'wonderwall' by oasis and then doing a version of '99 problems' that samples the guitar part from 'back in black''? well, wonder no more; courtesy of jenni and the good people at minneapolis fucking rocks, i am now able to share with you just such a video. it's the greatest thing i've ever seen.

***

also great: the spanish victory at euro 2008. i found myself rooting for the spaniards throughout the tournament for a couple reasons. one, they, along with the dutch, played far and away the most attractive soccer there, and i'm all about style points. (the slog with italy notwithstanding, they were more or less full of more pieces of flair than your average shenanigan's employee.) and, two, i have a searing and slightly gay man-crush on cesc fabregas. and, thus, seeing them finally take home a damn trophy, during cesc and torres's first really serious time with the national team, was pretty glorious. glorious enough that their tournament run put a serious dent in attendance at a porn festival. that's dedication, homes.

(speaking of both porn and germany losing in a soccer final, the deutschefussballbund experienced the further ignominity of their national five-a-side topless women's beach soccer team being defeated by austria, too. that stings like sand in the crack, right there.)

***

and, now that i've offered you jigga covering the gallaghers and half-naked soccer, i'm pretty much spent in terms of content. the weekend, she was excellent, and full of outdoorsness and dancing and the twins winning on a joe mauer home run (rarer in these parts than decent grits) and poutine at a bar (likewise) and, somehow, underwear-clad dancers of all possible genders. and today, it is monday, and just way too nice out to be at work. and, yet, work i shall. sort of.

friday friday night when i came to rock the town

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:07:00 GMT

due to a quirk of scheduling, i wound up with eight hours of vacation that i had to use before monday. and, thus, i have today off. which is glorious. insofar as it's a sunny, gorgeous, hot friday, and i got to sleep in and then, after much better coffee than i get at work, go downtown for lunch with my girl and wendy. if i had my druthers, every friday of all time would be like that.

and then, for the rest of the afternoon, i shall be dedicated to facebook scrabble, wii fit and porn, until it's time to head to the twins game and, after that, the first of a series in a variety of bars which we will be tearing up over the weekend.

in short: this is a damn good friday. hope y'all's are the same.