January 29, 2008

OEF Winter Summit 2008







I took a zillion blurry pictures at the MOMA --and restyled them a bit here because they were too neat not to post at all.

If last summer's OEF theme was relaxation (i.e. pool lounging, farmer's market visiting, beach walking). I'm dubbing this one's inspiration - across the North East in 3 days or less. It was nice when people said, "what did you do this weekend?" to say, "I went to D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Mays Landing, and New York City - now what did you do this weekend?"

Anyways - the desire to recap in entirety has faded as it's 10 days later.
But these are my highlights.

1. Leslie went to the MoMA and found her lost inspiration. Her modern art professor would be so proud.

2. Carol Ann got a tattoo.

3. Hench faced her pickle phobia and won.

4. We learned not to put your ticket stub in your pocket at Madame Toussards, you will use it at least 4 times before getting to leave.

5. Moe's is delicious in both NoVa and Nofo.

January 16, 2008

Blow






Warning: Incredibly immature & potentially offensive post ahead...

















Actually, it's not all that scandalous, it's quite SFW (am typing this at work---gasp!) (but definitely during my sanctioned 15-minute break) (hi, boss!) (maybe?). My sister, who works at night, had a fantastical story to tell me when she got home this morning.

You see, smoking is not permitted on the premises of her workplace, but there is a secret spot that people have found, attached to an adjacent facility. About 3 o'clock this morning, she headed out to said secret spot. There was a man (a fellow employee) about ten feet in front of her, headed to the same secret spot.

Out of nowhere, the man stopped dead in his tracks, bent over, put hands on knees, and blasted off like a rocketeer with no backpack.

At this point my sister was a mere five feet behind him. She could not contain her reaction---laughter and incredulity, in the form of a hearty guffaw.

The man shot up, and instead of (a. fleeing the scene immediately, (b. laughing it up with her, or (c. apologizing profusely... he tried to play it off like NOTHING happened and proceeded to chat my sister up for like ten minutes.

My only objection to the story is that she didn't get a picture of the incident. She recently got herself an iPhone (3 out of 5 Gardlers, now) and this would have been excellent use of the technology. To make up for it, though, for demonstrative purposes, my officemate (also on her sanctioned 15-minute break) offered to reenact...


As an aside---the illustration I used at the beginning of the entry is part of a larger work by Francisco Goya called "Los Caprichios". Which, I admittedly discovered when I searched Getty Images for "fart", but after reading the description, I'd kind of like to get a copy of. It looks kind of awesome.

January 8, 2008

As promised

Back to Earth

Said about Barack Obama tonight on Nightline (a habit I've picked up
since the writers strike). It's very spot on. I like Mr. Obama fine,
but in the last few days the rhetoric had him picking out his blotter
for the oval office already. The kind of stuff that makes me hate the
media. Always thinking they can will tommorow's headlines into
existence because it makes a better story, or it better plays into
archetypes and the lowest common denominator. I'm interested to see
how this election plays out...mostly because any outcome (besides
creepy Mike Huckabee) is going to be an upgrade to our current
Commander in Chief. Ok, will end this political iRant. Maybe I
should include a pic of my Pancakes to atone...

January 7, 2008

Mobblogging in a Vacuum is W-H-A-C-K

Since I got my iPhone/new reason for existing, I've been experimenting with "Mobblogging"; which I'm pretty sure means "Mobile Blogging", and using such a term makes me want to punch myself in the face, but whatever. I've been emailing pictures that I take in my daily journey through life to this blog. Usually with a marginally-descriptive title, and no text. Therefore no context. Just a picture of my cat, or of an ice-sculpture, or of a stupid sign I saw somewhere. While in the moment, as I'm snapping that photo & sending it out into the ether for my electronic friends to behold, it's fun and amusing, when I get back on an old-timey brick & mortar type computer, I'm left cold.

It makes me think of this little scrap of lyrics from a song by The Format that I like to yell in the car:
When we would take trips
We swore we'd never take pictures
Pictures only
prove you can't convince
Now I wish those photographs
Could convince you
that what we had
Would only turn out a negative
For some reason, I can't figure out how to post pictures and text (apart from the title) with iPhone. So I don't think I'm going to blog explanationless pictures anymore. Instead, here's a handful of pics I've snapped with the old iPhone in the last few weeks, with a little bit of literature attached.


This is a picture that my 3-year old friend and budding iPhone expert took of herself. It was at a funeral luncheon for her great-grandfather. Her mommy smartly didn't have Julia at the actual funeral, but she came to the lunch. I kind of snuck in a few minutes later than everyone else, and sat at a table with some friends. At some point the heads parted and Julia saw me across the room. She screamed "KAAAAARRREEEENNNNN!" (my name to her) and ran towards me, diving into my arms. It made a somber day kind of warm. I imagine how crappy it was for her, with all of these people she doesn't know talking about her, in front of her; pinching her cheeks and asking her ridiculous questions about Santa Claus or whatever.
Mostly, she just kept telling me that she wanted to "hear a noise" from my phone. So we watched some AFV clips on YouTube. iPhone is a great babysitter.









This is Uma, very seriously just sitting there with a ball in her mouth. That's it. She does it all the time, and it always makes me laugh.











My niece Emily and her brother, my nephew Andrew. I did actually get to take a "normal" picture of the two of them smiling nicely, but directly after that, as my mom was still trying to get a shot off, Emily decided that she wanted to bite Andrew. A lot. It was 90-bajillion times cute.

























This is the wallpaper in my friend Dena's parents guest bathroom. I snapped this pic some time around 3am on New Year's Day. It is very metallicky and fabulous. And it's not retro, either. They didn't move into that house until like 1985 or something, so this was a concious choice.















This past Saturday, I set out on a mission. A mission to find my Bill Clinton action figure some age-appropriate winter garb. Note: I didn't actually purchase the talking Bill Clinton doll, it was one of many random perks of working in a radio station, though this makes me cherish it no less. Double Note: I actually own 2 Bill Clinton dolls, as I worked at two separate radio stations that got the same freebies, with no other Bill-fanatics. So, I have a backup.
Anyway, Bill #1 lives on my entertainment center, greeting all citizens that pass. I've got a summertime outfit/lawn chair combo, and a decent fall jeans & flannelish shirt ensemble, and you all saw the ill-fitting Christmas outfit.
What I've found, though, is that Ken dolls get the shaft when it comes to fashion options. Toys R' Us had NO Ken outfits. Target had NONE. Walmart had two---one basketball warmup suit type thing with a silver stripe down the leg (not at all presidential) and a variation on his existing fall outfit, but with a psychadelic looking t-shirt and a messenger bag. So, that's that. I may have to resort to making my own clothes for Bill, because even if they did have more cloths available, they'd all be for like Skateboarding Ken or Multiple Color Highlighted Hair Ken, and that's just not right. Bill is an elder statesmen.
As for this picture, I snapped it at Toys R' Us, while wandering bewildered in the doll section. It kind of looks like a little gangster (Italian-American Gangster, not GangstA) trying to explain something. Most likely having to do with balls. Heh.
So there you have it. The boring, rambly background for my boring cameraphone pics. I feel better, though.

January 3, 2008

For Hench..

This made me laugh.

From Msnbc..
Lindsay Lohan's "Georgia Rule" finished second — behind “Norbit” — among voters for biggest waste of $10 spent on a movie ticket.


I just wanted to note that our resident movie reviewer called this one along time ago.
(See Georgia Rule: The Only Rule is that it must be random blog.)

I like this revision

Last Blog Post as a Man


He gets clipped in the morning. No more tiny ballies.