tradition

behold! the second annual mahoney-thompson bad santa christmas gala!!!

we fixed some sandwiches and pickles and beer were on hand. next year we're thinking of upgrading to fried baloney tostadas...

santa's private reserve:




and we had some cookies:

competition

tim finally posted again, so i have to as well...

how is it the best gospel song i've heard all year is on a Ghostface Killah record?

The Prayer

2,920 days

yesterday marked the eighth anniversary of my current employment. well done, me.

in other news there were some kiwis in our house this week. check my flickr for a recap. better yet, check tim's flickr for an in-depth survey.

certainly nothing like sparta

300th post, yippee.

in keeping with the theme of "300," an overly-dramatic illustration of my current state of mind:

invisible

time change = dark and scary ride home. i need one of those flashy light things for my butt or something.

hanging with master chief

onetwothreefourfive

sixseveneightnineten, elevenTWELVE!

i blame sesame street for my interest in experimental music.

argument against rushing a job

i popped my new tube whilst putting my new tire on the rim...

EPIC FAIL.

OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!

so, they released a release date and the minimum requirements for the next iteration of mac os x today... our home computer is too slow to run it! it may finally be time to replace *Moondancer after almost eight years, with only one failed hard drive, two RAM upgrades and a replacement keyboard for battle scars. surely it will find its way to computer valhalla... ok, time to go home.

*name chosen by wife.

value for money

did you know if you buy something from patagonia, it has a LIFETIME guarantee? like, YOUR lifetime. like, even if you just get sick of it. suddenly their prices don't seem so steep...

less communicative

instant messaging is now blocked at work. if you gotta talk to me during business hours: call, text, email or google talk.

UPDATE: overcome with disappointment this morning, i completely spaced on fantastic services like meebo.com. IMing will continue apace...

say halo to my little friend

man, this here halo 3 just might catch on! extremely high replay value, excellent scales of difficulty, funfunfun multiplayer and then there's the saved films and screenshots! it's just ridiculous how much you can do. this thing should be quite a timesink for quite some time to come. (hey, THAT was a fun sentence!)

my dead body flying gracefully through the air, followed by the gear i was carrying:

different

press checks make you do funny things. the random hours, being in a town you don't live in and all that. sometimes you're starving at 3am and the only options are vending machines or burger king and vending machines don't give receipts for expense reports, so... i even went through a drive thru starbuck's and got a frappucino. on the other hand, you also get to watch a lot of showtime. i'd forgotten just *how* good Fargo is.

domicile

goodness gracious, i want to live here.

for people who like to pee

i just heard the dumbest coffee order in human history: venti triple decaf soy latte. did you catch that? triple DECAF? basically, they just ordered a really big cup full of bitter soy milk. talk about unnecessary calories...

btw, decaf is really bad for you.

take that, tim

supaman

heard some fresh sounds outside the window, looked out to see three girls doin' these steps to this track right under our bedroom window tonight:

happy holidays

tim made this:



so i made this:

routine

not much weblog activity due to complete normalcy of life, intermittently punctuated by the occasional Super Puzzle Fighter II TURBO HD Remix battle on xbox live arcade. in lieu of anecdotal musings, enjoy the top track of this afternoon:

Marlow - Road Kill

steph's birthday dress

toys building toys

via jalopnik

mobile weblog

mobile weblog is back, thanks to flickr. right up there on the right above the twitter badge. now you can read about what i'm doing AND look at pictures. creepy.

how

press check picture fest

we had the whole afternoon off in the middle of this last press check, so my esteemed colleague from schawk and i headed out into the countryside to see what we could see:




tent caterpillars


train trestle by the conestoga river




a little creek


a little tunnel


a big tunnel


scratches on the rental car from trying to back out of a sticky, er, sandy, situation off the beaten path...




refreshment

first time flying?

about two minutes from touchdown at IAD on united flight 914, a flight attendant comes on the PA and firmly states "SIT. DOWN." bahahahahahahahaha!

safety first

some people think putting a front brake on a fixie is lame. call me lame, but that thing saved me from injury and/or death at least three times today.

could you all do me a favor and check the rear view before making a right turn in your car? thanks.

i want to ride my bicycle

my birthday present, IRO Angus 59cm fixed-gear bike:



shane and i rode from the shop up to barclay's for dinner and some guinness, then up to ici but the line was too long, so back down to ben n' nick's for some guinness, then home. i can't wait to ride it to work tomorrow! and then ride it somewhere for lunch! woo hoo! bikes!

chrome hoof

one of my favorite things in the world is hearing new, good music for the first time. i think we're at some pinnacle of musical potential in history, just about everything has been done, i mean, "Noise" is an established genre nowadays... it's nigh impossible to describe a new band's "sound" without referencing some existing band(s).

there's a huge difference between simply copying a sound or style and taking existing ideas, influences and sounds and fusing them to create something "new" (for lack of a better word). to my ears, Chrome Hoof succeeds at the latter.

Tonyte
Symbolik 180

steph described their sound as "!!! and Primus had sex in a dark place and the kid grew up and said 'i want to make musicals.'" What's it sound like to you?

something

DONE.

brief note

just wanted to clarify that if you clicked those images in the comic-con post they launched galleries full of funny, amazing and weird pictures. ok, bye.

i heart helvetica

we went to see Helvetica last night and it is really quite a good film. i was a little dazed afterward, it lit up parts of my brain that just don't get used enough in daily life. i can't wait to buy the DVD, i think i could put it on for ambient noise while i draw or something.

if you consider yourself a type geek, designer, artist, film nut or simply intelligent and cultured find a screening and GO TO IT (more are added all the time, check back regularly). failing that, get/netflix the DVD in november.






director gary hustwit (who said tim was one of his favorite people he's met on the tour) and i. have i mentioned the iphone takes horrible photos in low light?

bug report

we got an email at work last week that they would be bombing the building for roaches over the weekend. apparently this dude didn't get the email...

comicon 2007

if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this post is worth seventy thousand words... in two parts:

click for gallery one:

click for gallery two:

jarrett's famous

michael leon and jarrett reynolds

their new stuff is all over the internets:

freshness mag
hype beast
wild style blog
riottt
high snobiety
the clones

digg it!

改造スパルタンXとかをあの人にやらせてみた

kill dem wit positive vibes

grab a red stripe, have a listen.

ps: said it before, sayin' it again, if you don't have decent headphones or a system with good bass response, you're missing half of it...

making conversation

cafe girl: "all your shirts have those buttons! you must like them."

me: "uh, yeah."



dude in bathroom: "wouldn't today be a great day to get fired, go look for something better?"

me: "why don't you just quit?"

dude: "eh, i'm not much of a quitter, i'm waiting for them to push me out the door."

a brief photo essay

if you actually thought the preceeding series of images had anything tying them together, you are one of those people that looks at art and pretends to understand it. in parting, know how i know you're gay? because you listen to:

crash advance

fade in: steph and i are sitting on the couch watching the illusionist, starring edward norton, paul giamatti and a hawt chix, when we're startled from the action by a loud crashing sound outside. we rush to the window only to see a woman walking hurriedly away from Advance America Cash Advance and into Purple Pepper Pizza while a shopping cart careened off on a perpendicular trajectory through the parking lot.



i noticed that one of the cash advance windows was shattered just as the woman came back out of purple pepper, went to the broken window, leaned inside and hollered "hello! anybody in there?!"

while we mulled whether or not to call the police, she went back to purple pepper, grabbed a trash can, dragged it over to the broken window, threw it inside, asked again if "anybody (was) in there" and retreated once more to purple pepper. this was certainly a convincing argument FOR making the call.

as i returned with the phone, she was heading back to cash advance where she inquired as to whom might be inside again, reached in to grab the trash can, pulled it out, spilling some contents, threw those contents back in the window and then dragged the trash can back inside purple pepper.

that's pretty much the end of the story... i proceeded to call the non-emergency police line, described the situation and was assured a patrol car was on the way. after a few minutes of nothing happening, we returned to the film. when it had ended, we noted that there were a couple of police cruisers in the parking lot with no obvious evidence of any more strange goings-on. so, how was your sunday evening?

mine's bigger than yours

this is the best website i've ever seen this week.

speedcubing

this dude looked like he was ramping up for next year's World Rubik's Cube Championship 2007:



i blinked and he was done:



then he busted out his zune and rewound the final fight scene from gladiator to revel in his victory:



yeah, too bad about the thread in the hair, but moving on: i think this is the first time i've actually seen someone using a zune in the wild. the guy next to him had a backpack with an MSN logo embroidered on it:



coincidence? i think NOT. in other news, the fact that i once again own a phone that doesn't make a stupid noise when it takes pictures just raised my creepy levels to 87% of capacity.

your halloween costume sucks

13 yr olds suck

the PG-13 rating for die hard that let all those little snots in without mommy's approval almost ruined the film. just when i was about to start kicking chairs in front of me and standing up to verbally assault minors behind me, steph and shane each decided to ask them to keep it down in a much more civilized manner.

i am not going to a movie in the theater ever again unless it's rated R or G.

indignant hare

are we there yet?

technorganic

"organic" is a big word in my world. i'm wearing jeans and underpants made from organic cotton. all my toiletries are organic (except my deodorant, sorry nature, but synthetics win on that front). steph and i shop at trader joe's and whole foods and try to frequent only non-chain restaurants that serve food made from scratch with local ingredients.

on the other hand, i drive a brand-new car, have an iphone in my pocket and am constantly upgrading my home theater. i believe this technological bent explains why i can't stand any reggae post-bob marley or any "world music" yet absolutely love it when those genres are co-opted by mostly british kids making music on computers.

Anti War Dub
You Bring Me Down

4th

relaxed and refreshing.

two more things that suck about iphone

i can't mobile blog from it and there isn't anything to hang a cellphone charm from. minor annoyances that wouldn't stop me from buying it again, but they should be noted.

iphoned

done. got it. no more stress, no more speculation, i can finally just mess with the one in my pocket. first impressions:

the interface is insane, makes every other mobile device look and feel like a cruel joke.

i'm already typing fairly fast with my thumbs, maybe a little faster than i could on the numeric keyboard of my old phone.

call quality is fine, not amazing but not horrible (even with a mumbling skyper from aotearoa).

it's so sleek, feels like there is nothing in my pocket.

the camera is nice, as long as there's *lots* of light and *nothing* is moving.

music and movies are great, it's a freaking ipod after all.

the headphone jack sucks. it's so recessed in the case i can't fit my nice etymotic research headphone plug in there. it totally has to be a skinny, in-line plug, a la:


overall, it's an amazing device. the shortcomings are easily forgotten when you start browsing around the phone and seamlessly send an email with a picture you just took attached while listening to music that fades out so you can take a call and then keep talking while you look up directions to the restaurant on google maps.

anyway, probably plenty more about this thing will be found among the hallowed halls of this needless weblog. speaking of weblogs, let us now observe a moment of silence for the weblog generated with my previous cellphone, may it rest in peace...

about that line for the iphone...

the first dude in line is a professional line-sitter:



more info at gizmodo.

this revelation coupled with the news that apple is allowing two phones per customer definitely relieves some of my fear of low inventory.