Joe.

notaninja @ 2009-10-13T09:48:00

2009-10-13T14:06:16Z

So I'm out on vacation in Phoenix vacating friends, yesterday was my first day on my own. My goal was to climb Phoenix North Mountain, but the very rocky hike claimed my favorite pair of sport sandals. One long limp down the mountain and a quick trip to the shoe store and I was able to take the summit, though the last 20 or so feet is clambering up a very jagged face. On completion, I also decided to take on South Mountain on the other side of town, which was roughly equal height, but as I came to find out to find out, much less difficult (and thankfully, less crowded) but a much longer hike. On climbing two mountains in one day, I celebrated with a grilled wrap and a sampler of a local brewpub, the SunUp Brewery does a very flavorful and crisp vanilla porter.

Unbelievable, This is not butter.

2009-04-25T06:26:36Z

From Fark, a series of pictures of Chinese knockoff brandnames.

Our intrepid protaganist reaches a nightmarish conclusion he is not in the real Earth as he stares at the hipsters in Hike cross trainers, sipping Yerba Mochas at Bucksstar Coffee. Did the Communists in fact win the cold war? Next time on The Outer Limits.

notaninja @ 2009-04-21T21:13:00

2009-04-22T01:15:02Z

Letters from a 10-year-old

2008-12-28T07:07:12Z

Apologies to anyone who's seen it before, but every so often you see something so nourishing and hilarious on the Internet it has to be passed along:

Responding to Billy's idea for a "Hustler for kids," Larry Flynt wrote back encouraging the fourth grader to "Hang in there. You'll be 18 before you know it."

notaninja @ 2008-11-04T08:05:00

2008-11-04T13:07:46Z

I woke up with this guitar part in my head and about halfway to the polling station I realize it's "Electioneering."

here be dragons

2008-10-13T05:37:41Z

I spent tonight with my dad at a brewpub in Evansville, Turoni's, that I never knew existed before. We got a pizza loaded with peppers and a pitcher of nourishing black lager.

I'm on a sort of loosely-adapted vacation from work the next few days, which is to say there's a certain amount I've mapped and a certain amount which will be played by ear. My ultimate goal is get up to The House on the Rock to revel in its aura of Neil Gaiman mysticism. Along the way I also want to take in The Sears Tower (from the inside!), WonderDawg, and the Frank Lloyd Wright tour.

My desirables would be getting in two days of hiking in Wisconsin (otan let me borrow his field guide to the state), and my statics are taking in atleast three craft breweries along the way.

Grhlbl.zzz.

2008-10-01T13:48:20Z

so it's like awake is this island -- i'm in a boat about midway that's sank and i'm swimming to the island, and am consequently raped by stingrays.

peer review.

2008-09-22T03:55:32Z

Oh so I'm quoted for a line or so in the Courier-Journal, speaking about Ralph Nader. I wound up not getting a chance to see Nader (the doors were shut :[), but the reporter was still on hand and asked me a few questions. I hope John Milton will forgive me for paraphrasing him, the phrase came to mind, and then for the life of me I couldn't remember who said it first.

In other recent events, I moved in and out of a relationship with a girl I met from work over the past couple weeks. I wound up doing the break up, which made me feel self-satisfied and nitpicky. It's really not my strong point (I actually wound up doing the whole "it's not me it's you" thing.) hey, I'm a lonely guy, and generally desire to make things work, but it wasn't working out -- and it really made me reassess what I'm looking from a dating point of view.

There were three major points I had. First, she was into me for my intellectual discussions and my cultural background, but after we had been on a few dates, I realized I was the only one bringing discussion to the conversation, or introducing her to other people, or trying to make things fun and interesting. Not being an intellectual isn't an excuse for not having a personality. Second, and related, she lacked any curiosity for intellectual development, I tried to introduce her to new music and she skimmed through it without taking it in full (she described it all on the basis of the first song.) Lastly, and most importantly, she also made a lot of the fact she lived on the East End, which is the really upwardly mobile part of town, but it was more of a crutch for her insecurities (she grew up in a poorer neighborhood.) I felt that I'm not going to live up her definition of someone because that sort of materialism I don't find value in. I like nice things too, but I don't them up above conversations with close friends, a satisfying dinner out and about, or a sight I've never seen before.

It does feel a little painful to just give up, but I also didn't want to lead her on or make sense of a relationship where we're just around each other without any reason.

notaninja @ 2008-07-27T23:33:00

2008-07-28T04:08:28Z

This journal is dying a death of slow neglect. I weep for it, and in a flurry of compassion am bothering to scrabble together a few other words and impulses onto it for you, yes you, the random reader/skimmer/ignoring of this little patch of my headspace.

So let me tell you about the fascinating place we drove down to yesterday near Elizabethtown yesterday for an art party out in the boondocks. There was an expedition into the back country, we took two separate paths, 'flashlights' and 'no-flashlights' -- I drank just enough to think 'no-flashlights' was a good idea. I didn't get too badly lost but at one point I was on my own in the woods with no one around me, and wishing I had eaten more carrots recently -- though I'm not sure those would have mattered much if I couldn't see further than my hands in the dark.

'No-flashlights' surprisingly made it back to camp first with only 'a little' cheating, when we got there a friend who is always notoriously late for parties managed to find the empty camp (save one passed out guy). That must have been a little creepy for him, but he fared it well, and just listened to Dimmu Borgir on the iPod until we got back. He also brought a case of White Castles -- some people had the solid idea of putting the entire burger on sticks and roasting it over the campfire, which worked better than you might imagine. Oh and those little boxes they come in must really absorb grease, they tended to be incredibly flammable when tossed on the campfire.

We also viewed Jupiter and the Milky Way with a telescope, played one-on-one soccer on their front court, and passed around a light-up UFO frisbee out in the fields. It was an incredible night and worth the drive down there, my expectations were more of getting bored and perhaps bit alot. I'd love to go back.

Oh the clunkiness and the finnickiness... 9_9

2008-06-13T02:56:28Z

I got called in to be the cleanup hitter on an Adobe LiveCycle project yesterday. I got it done, and everyone thinks I'm wonderful now... but oh Gooood, that program combines the worst elements of both Adobe and Javascript in one truly horrific package. Imagine if you will writing for Adobe Acrobat Reader *in* Adobe Acrobat Reader. :p

I'm writing this to let you know that, in course, I also once existed.

2008-06-03T06:10:53Z

Saturday, I was at an art party at a fellow I want to call Charlie Crepuscule's place, I want to call him that because I'm not entirely sure he doesn't have a fanbase checking these pages, take it as innocent naivety or certain sense of unease. His home was turned into a striking gallery for art, there were bags of tea in rows along the ceiling that blew along to any prevailing winds, and Tibetan prayer flags in the hallways. What concerned me though were the number of photos lining the walls, Charlie and Hunter S. Thompson, Charlie and Jimmy Carter, Charlie and Lee Renaldo (who I wound up talking to him at great length over, professing my own mooshy immodest love for "Wish Fulfillment"...) Charlie was a wiry bearded old goat with a taut blue-framed granny glasses and a certain sense of purpose in his step, an intense provocateur of the beat generation.

What concerned me though, to an extent of the encounter was the cult of personality drawn around the entourage he kept, the pictures lining the walls and the closeness his doe-eyed consort kept, or how few words she spoke. As I nudged my friend and spoke to him in hush tones, if we stayed four hours, he'd probably end up shooting his non-existent wife in a game of William Tell. Charlie spotted me as a 'member of the media', and so in intimate recourse, handed me a few of his cds, a kibosh of poetry and rock riffs. I still haven't staggered through them, a mess of Wesley Willis assuredness and dour name-dropping. Still, a certain extent of me amires the distinctness and depth to which he's made his myth, as stark as his white beard and driven as his gaunt frame.

To the reinvention of the human idiot in all of us, and the necessary nonsense that we're all one degree of separation from the hall of valor Charlie kept.

Candidate Questions Overlooked by the Associated Press

2008-03-28T12:14:11Z

Though it's been very hit-or-miss in the past few years, SomethingAwful's Zack Parsons drives in a homerun when he (fake) interviews the presidential candidates.

Favorite quip:

Mike Gravel describing what scares him -
"We eat chickens. We take a bird and we put it in our bodies. In our stomach it dissolves down into atoms and then those atoms enter our bodies. We do this every day all over the planet. Now, think about this: WE are the chickens."

You suck a Photosack

2008-03-26T02:32:56Z

You suck at Photoshop is presented as a series of instructional videos hosted by Donnie Hoyle. We get to see his inappropriate use of file names (a kitten is named 'piss_factory.jpg'), his belittling of his supposed audience, and his wildly passive-aggressive attempts to get back at life through sorry instructional photo manipulation.

"You've only been using about... 75 dollars worth of Photoshop. This is going to open you up to about 250 dollars worth."
"A variation in the tone -- *or for you* THE LIGHT AND DARK STUFF."
"See, it's going to cover very nicely in this liar-crevasse of fingers right there, on this dirty whore-hand."

HAHAHAHA!

2008-03-05T16:34:55Z

Gaze into this photo with wonder and dismay!

There are solutions, but they're not always elegant...

2008-02-26T15:45:53Z

I've been asked to interview the band Kula Shaker, so lacking a landline as I've had in the past to work with, in true making-it-up-as-you-go-along fashion I set about trying to sort out how to record a cell phone conservation properly. I tried to set up a full duplex recording system through my computer using the handsfree to 1/8" adapter through the line in and stereo out on the computer but I could never quite get it to work right... so I tossed that aside as a fool's errand and traded the adapter back to Radio Shack for beer money.

Instead I'm using the built-in recorder on the cell phone which I've discovered has these weird hardwired limitations of only being able to record 5 minutes before cutting out, and saving over the previous log if you don't close the file within the 5 minutes. Oh and don't get me started on getting the files off the phone, I spend hours, I mean serious HOURS, getting them into something usable rather than an obscure codec that breaks file standards, which eventually meant getting into the phone's O/S restricted settings and changing the default codec (Verizon hopes that you'll pay 25 cents for the service of having them decode it each time for you.)

I trust using this method of recording about as much as I trust telecommunications companies need retroactive immunity for spying on their customers, which is to say not so much. As a secondary precaution, I'm also setting the phone on an analog tape recorder and putting it in speaker-phone mode. This seemed like a good idea until I realized I no longer have a tape player (disappeared in the move, looked through all my possessions 4 times and still no trace), and had to get a new one. Between the two, I should have enough to work with though. My hopes are high, my aim is true.

A pet peeve

2008-01-20T22:41:34Z

I guess I've heard it mentioned five times now, particularly on NPR radio, that Hillary Clinton is the first woman candidate for President. Shirley Chisholm's campaign in 1972 would beg to differ. I guess what bothers me more than this omission based on short memories is the way the media has continued to paint this race as a measure of gender or race. I would like to see Barack Obama become President, not because he's an African-American, but because I agree the most with his character, positions, and I feel as though his leadership abilities would be a positive deterrence towards the civic apathy we've been facing in this country. Are the dynamics of race and gender really as important to this generation as they have been to the last?

notaninja @ 2008-01-02T06:41:00

2008-01-02T11:48:34Z

Oh man. The neighborhood I live in is populated mainly with old people and immigrants, so the closest grocery store, Valu Market, is mostly ethnic foods. They just got in this year's crop of fresh mangoes for 50 cents apiece. You haven't lived until you've had your half-pound of tropical fruit in the morning.

notaninja @ 2007-12-30T03:53:00

2007-12-30T09:13:17Z

I'm really tired but my drunk sense keeps telling me, "If you sleep now, you'll lose everything we're working towards." Whatever that means. I went to a red houseparty wearing a Soviet Union scarf. Otan went with a Nintendo hoodie I loaned him. Troy went wearing a Canadian flag. I brought along MD 20/20 Red Grape Wine to drink as well. We had that place clenched for strangeness, if you disqualify two guys who came dressed up in matching fedoras, suspenders and red muscle shirts and looked like some kind of WCW tag-team. It was about a draw for good moments and bad - when the soundtrack switches from "Talk Show Host" to mislabelled Edwyn Collins (no, that's not Iggy Pop) to The Mamas and Papas, it's a bit hard to feel really invested in what's going on. Still, they had a secret loft that I wanted to hide in, and a friendly bartender who mixed up rouge identity drinks. Anyone know how to get alcohol out of a flag?

notaninja @ 2007-12-14T08:35:00

2007-12-17T04:56:19Z

I went to an ugly sweater party last night. It was pretty classy, people who didn't have ugly sweaters were donated a rental by the host. Among the truly awful were a Grumpy Bear sweater and a Texas-themed sweater, which looked as though they were created under a heavy regiment of anti-psychotic drugs.

We also exchanged gifts no one wanted, I got an M.C. Escher jigsaw. I wanted the sadir plate or the Psychadelic Jesus picture. Someone gave a gift of beer, which went quickly given you can't easily disguise beer (someone didn't get the telegram that beer is always in demand.)

There was a vagina-only room, and me and some other guys mobbed the door for equal rights. Vagina-bearers can be cunts like that sometimes.

"Like Charles Foster Kane?"

2007-11-30T01:37:46Z

It's my first week of working as a temp for Randstad (Dutch staffing company that most people confide sounds more like a German heavy metal band). Right now, I'm working for XanEdu, a scanning company that produces university course packets. I suppose the official title for the job would be graphic designer, but it's really more of a crop-and-chop job, pretty monotonous but atleast they let me listen to my iPod and everybody wears jeans.

So there's this walkway I regularly pass through between two access-restricted doors and for whatever reason, it's been done up with a Godzilla sort of monster montage. It's supposed to be a building common area but the company owns the floor so I'm I haven't gotten the story behind whether the building put it up or the company did. No one seems to know where it came from or why. Maybe the whole scanning thing for professors is a front for an evil corporation that produces radioactive monsters -- I can only hope I am so lucky! Anyway, I smuggled* out some cellphone photos just to prove I'm not making this stuff up:

*Smuggled isn't exactly the right term here since photography wasn't explicitly forbidden but then I didn't go to the effort of asking either.

moving

2007-11-08T20:18:38Z

Sunday: Drive 250m to Louisville, inspect apartment, sign lease on the floor, Drive 250m back.

Monday: Take car to shop, walk 1/2 mile to U-Haul dealership to obtain a truck, drive home, walk 1/4 mile to Walmart to get a lock, walk 1/4 mile back, load over half the U-Haul, get some larger things (bed, futon) in with coworker's help. Pick up car. Call power company to get electric and heat turned on in new apartment.

Tuesday: Finish loading U-Haul, drive 250m to Louisville, unload U-Haul (with some help from friends with the larger things), drive 250m back, walk back from U-Haul dealership through sketchy, darkly lit neighborhood. Drive back to U-Haul dealership to pick up luggage that I wasn't keen on carrying through sketchy, darkly lit neighborhood. Turn in U-Haul key.

Yesterday: Transfer money from savings to checking to cover my spread. Pack car with everything too small/fragile to fit in U-Haul, clean every inscrutible trace of my existance from old apartment, drive 250m to Louisville, unload car. Impromptu showing of Dario Argento's Opera alongside friends and exotic beers. Take biggest sleep in the world after two days in a sleeping bag/blanket 'coccoon.'

hay lifejournal.

2007-11-04T00:33:58Z

There's a lot going on, more than I can really write about. I have an great open entry in my Myspace blog that describes Chicago last week and the new Joy Division movie, but it's exceptionally TL;DR that if I posted it here, most of it would be behind lj-cuts for peoples' sanity. Read it at yer own risk. Move is being settled, I have the good fortune of finding a place and I'm probably signing a lease on it tomorrow. Internet is non-existant, you'll hear more from me when that's not the case.

notaninja @ 2007-10-21T22:19:00

2007-10-22T04:25:25Z

My last convention I'm working on at work was supposed to be this fine glass of champagne at the end of season, but the company we're putting it on for got bought out and gutted and apparently they have no one around to help keep on task, so it wound up an end-zone scramble, everything done afternoon of the last day available. I was sitting around, putting the data together until around 7pm. I was supposed to do some more scouting in Louisville on Saturday but lack of sleep from the past week led to my body recoiling on me and I didn't get up early enough to travel and make it happen. So I stayed around at home, chillin' out, maxin, relaxing all cool. I rented some movies instead.

The first I watched was "Crash," which I was trying to avoid because I heard it was a 'message film' and it won a Best Picture, which is about a deadly combination -- movies are an exaggeration of life, they're show, when they set out to make a statement they usually end up beating a conclusion up over the head. It lived up to my awful preconceptions. It could have been better titled "Everyone in L.A. is a Crazy Racist, Even Tony Danza." The other film I watched was "Brick," which really surprised me in a good way. It was a hardboiled crime thriller set in an Orange County high school, it was a bit bizarre and by no means flawless, but an interesting take and worth seeking out.

notaninja @ 2007-10-20T11:12:00

2007-10-20T16:30:49Z

found this through stumbleupon:

Computer components as assemblage art.

threaded but not wound

2007-09-30T18:36:17Z

I've been getting out some of the things I've wanted to do since I've been feeling like my days in Illinois are numbered. Yesterday, I visited the Homer Emporium, which is this neat antique store that is really more famous for carrying shelves full of different odd regional types of soda as well as Mexican Coca Cola, Dublin Dr. Pepper and such. I got two cases of different stuff, including Moxie, Dang! Butterscotch Rootbeer (soooo good), Clem's Strawberry Cream, and a Sopranos-marketed Chianti soda. I still want to visit the House on the Rock some weekend while I'm this far north, but I'm doubtful I can make that happen before I leave town.