The Stoke

Just before 2 my surf buddy calls me up. "Dude. I just picked up my board. Can I stash it at your place?" Hell yeah. So he drops it off. I offer to let him use my base coat to wax his board and he has brought a package of Sticky Bumps cold water wax with him. I am fairly certain that all surf wax smells awesome. Right now the house has a scent that reminds me of all of the good things about grape cool-aid. I call home at lunch break to talk to the loveliest girl on earth and she says, "I walked in and said 'What is that smell? Mmmm, Sex Wax.'" I informed her that it was actually Sticky Bumps, but agreed that surf wax smells freakin' awesome.

So this Sunday, now that we are fully geared and ready, we are hitting the coast. I've checked surf reports every day. They had predicted average swells with some winds out of the west. What do I find today? Surf reports have suddenly changed to predict epic swells bordering on 'hazardous' starting Sunday. That sounds so sick.

Then tonight after work I have my ride drop me off at the pub to pick up my post math test lover. I find her talking to a guy who just moved here from Southern Cal. The guy asks me, "What gets you going?" My answer, surfing. "Oh, no way! I moved here to get away from that scene." So I explain to this guy that Oregon has killer surf, this weekend Seaside Point will probably get double if not triple overhead waves, and since the water is freakin' cold, almost nobody is out riding them.

And when we get home, the killer smell of surf wax makes the underlying smell of a couple of shedding dogs seem but a trifle.

Dude, I am STOKED!

Chain of Mutilation

I said yesterday that it looked a lot worse than it actually was. All the same, thank you Becky for your Pro/Am advice. I am familiar with the technical term, "to fist". Wouldn't want to lose my ability to fist. Though with hands my size a couple of fingers usually does the trick. Lot's of strenuous activity in large bodies of cold salt water should be good for it, right?



Look at that index finger. The three cuts look a bit like a happy face. I can't stay mad with that staring back at me.

AWPC

As a side project at work, the swing shift maintenance crew has started to machine our own brass hammers. We work on them when we have everything else running. Today I finished up the brass ball-peen head. Feeling quite proud of my radius, I showed off the work to one of the machinists.

M: Not bad. Needs a few more ribs for her pleasure. Where do the batteries go?

Plug

For all you surfers, check out the Froghouse. Any place can sell you the gear you need, most places can do repairs, but how many give you really wicked stickers?

Show and Tell

I now have all the equipment I need to go surfing whenever I like.

I'm wearing the wetsuit as I type this. While it offers many of the benefits of nudity with the bonus of remaining warm, the inability to access my genitalia will keep this a special purpose outfit. Next step, spending more time on the board and less underwater.



Is it just me, or do I look like a turtle in this photo?



Finally, check out what happened to me last night! It's not nearly as bad as it looks. I accidentally jammed my knuckles into a stack of sharpened saw chain. We must make good chain. I barely felt it and it left four very clean and pretty deep cuts. Basically tried to remove a good chunk of my knuckle. It looks messy from me applying the superglue before it had stopped bleeding.

Math Anxiety

As always, Slack is the answer.

Math anxiety -- feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math -- can sap the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to compute difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcroft, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Los Vegas who studies the problem.

But I think the University of Nevada Los Vegas is phony.

God

I saw him at the temple of the sacred whore, walking away from a statue of a multi-armed woman wielding sex toys in each of her many hands (something like this). I recognized him immediately. So I ran up, threw my arms around him, and tackled him onto the sand in front of the temple. I wanted to know why he was still allowed to be a god and everyone considered Him good. Why when he deliberately mislead people, betrayed people, mistrusted his own worshippers, commanded wars and bloodshed, and would even offer up his own as a sacrifice, why did people still consider Him good? Lucifer never did anything so heinous and everybody calls him evil. Explain Yourself! But I never got any answers. He just looked frightened and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Great dream. I used to have dreams in which I would hunt demons with a shotgun reloaded with rock salt. With the demon problem under control, I must be moving up the ladder.

Whenever I have an idea that I want to express to others, the notion starts to play across my brain as words. I can see the words, even the individual letters, sometimes as typed fonts, sometimes as handwritten and every so often as script. The exact phrases I might use scroll through my visions. I've heard linguists who theorize that because of the way words shape our thoughts, language might actually be the original creative force of the Universe.

If in a mathematical mindset, things become expressible as equations. Physicists are constantly trying to come up with the one equation that is at the root of everything, the Grand Unified Theory. Yeah, GUT.

So it is no surprise that theologians see God as the source of everything.

You make up your own reality.

Actual Bar Conversation

Me: I'd like to close out my tab, please.

Guy: I'd like to place another order, unlike these pussies.

Me: Your accent, is that Australia or New Zealand?

Guy: Kiwi, mate.

Me: Ah, the velcro gloves.

Guy: We love our sheep. Keeps us warm at night. Ah, yes, a Coors Light, a Sprite, and a Diet Coke.

Me: Wait. Coors Light? I thought you said you weren't a pussy.

PSA

For most of my life I operated under the impression that Duck Tape came from the lazy tongues of Americans trying to say Duct Tape. Now I know the truth. Duck Tape predates Duct Tape. Duck tape originated with the US military as a product to seal ammunition cases against water damage. But you can't call all Duck Tape Duct Tape. In order to qualify as Duct Tape the Duck Tape has to meet certain heat requirements.

AWPC

D: So how did you decide where to put all those things?

Jake: Put all what things?

D: The rings on your face.

Jake: Oh, those things.

...

D: You know, back in my day if a guy wanted to look weird he just grew sideburns.

Jake: Yeah, but growing sideburns doesn't give you the endorphin rush giggles.

Art

Who planted the art meme that hit yesterday? I no longer walk in those circles. When it hits, it comes as a bit of a shock. Like an invasion of my own private world. Typically the conversations around me let me know what the TV and newspaper have talked about. So why the art meme? Don't tell me that the news has started to pay attention to art again. What did some artist piss all over this time?

Privilege

It must really suck to live a life of privilege. Imagine being totally incompetent at the job your second in command mom got for you, her buying you the biggest tool chest in the shop, and then offering to pay for a bunch of really expensive tools that the other guys have to scrimp and save for. The rest of the guys in the shop just can't understand your terrible situation. You don't know how to buy your own tools because nobody ever showed you how. You're just trying to get by the only way you know, by having everything handed to you.

Which leads to an AWPC!

M: If my mom were paying for my tools I'd have my own optical comparator.

Jake: If my mom were paying for my tools I'd get a plastic ruler.

Actually, my mom has given me a plastic ruler she picked up for free at a trade show. My dad gave me a steel machinist's rule that he got for free from a vendor. It's tough to be so privileged.

Surf Advice

Here is the absolute best surf advice I've found to date.

Always go surfing with a buddy. It cuts your risk of being eaten by a shark in half.

Stupid MySpace Games

This came across in MySpace today and I thought I'd share my responses.

Type the first word that comes to mind when you read these 40 words. Don't think and don’t go back and change. Doesn't matter how random just type it! Repost it for all of your friends.

1. Cigarettes: surfing

2. Elevators: surfing

3. Relationships: surfing

4. Your Last Ex: surfing

5. Michigan Football: surfing

6. Crack: surfing

7. Food: surfing

8. The President: evil

9. War: surfing

10. Cars: surfing

11. Gas Prices: surfing

12. Halloween: surfing

13. Bon Jovi: surfing

14. Religion: surfing

15. MySpace: surfing

16. Fear: surfing

17. Marriage: surfing

18. Beyonce: surfing

19. Blondes: surfing

20. Brunettes: surfing

21. Politics: surfing

22. Pass the time: surfing

23. Summer: surfing

24. Cell phones: surfing

27. Vanilla Ice Cream: surfing

28. Porta-Potties: surfing

29. High School: surfing

30. Pajamas: surfing

31.Wet socks: surfing

32. Marijuana: surfing

33. Alcohol: surfing

34. The word "shake": surfing

35. My best friend(s): surfing

36. Money: surfing

37. Heartache: surfing

38. Love: surfing

39. Time: surfing

40. Divorce: surfing

Little Bliss

I love the smell of Sex Wax.

Dynamite Surfing

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Jewbacca for sending this my way. It made me say, "Woah, sick." I don't use that phrase much.

So Close

The wetsuit I ordered has arrived in California from the factory. With any luck I will find it in my possession in time to go surfing next weekend.

STOKED!

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult

A Daisy Chain 4 Satan

AWPC

Sitting at the lunch table with the guys from the tool and die shop

T: You okay?
P: Yeah. I'm just tired. Couldn't get any sleep last night.
T: Your wild wife keep you up?
P: Nope. She was sleeping.
T: Girlfriend?
P: (chuckle) No.
Jake: Boyfriend?

Two people had to put hands over their mouths to prevent the laughter fueled expulsion of their their lunch.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

New Terminology

A surfer can stand on a board one of two ways. If a surfer plants the right foot at the tail and leads with the left, they call it natural footed. If the right foot leads with the left at the tail, they call it goofy footed. Most surfers have a tendency to prefer one stance over the other just as most individuals will favor one hand when writing or doing something requiring manual dexterity.

Waves will usually break to either the left or the right based on local features. For instance Hawaii's Pipeline breaks to the left giving natural footers an advantage. Another famous Hawaiian surf spot, the monster waves of Jaws, breaks to the right. Goofy footed surfers have the advantage on such a break. A few surfers will switch stance depending on the break, but most stick with their favored footing. A top notch surfer knows how to catch right and left breaking waves equally well regardless of footing. A goofy footed gromit (inexperienced surfer, like me) would get chewed up, spit out, and probably killed at Jaws same as the natural footed grom would at Pipeline. It doesn't matter where you stand, but how you surf.

So from now on we should call Republicans goofys (right foot forward) and the Democrats naturals (left forward). Who cares, they're all a bunch of groms.

Maybe It's Warming

The topic seems to be hot around me, no pun intended. Sorry. No I will not go back and rephrase it! Anyway, I am referring to global warming. Must be all over the news or something since everybody is deciding to talk about all of a sudden.

MAYBE global warming is occurring. MAYBE current human activities are contributing to this phenomenon.

MAYBE there really is a Santa Clause.

If we choose to say there is no Santa Clause and we're wrong, we're out some gifts once a year. If we choose to say there is no such thing as global warming and we're wrong, we'll have really screwed ourselves.

Don't forget your rubbers.

Metaphor

Surfing as metaphor for something, and I like. From Ze Frank.

Bob

This is the longest Bob has ever been dead.

Ignorance Is Bliss

The past few days I've managed to ignore the news. This hasn't been like the times when I have made an effort to tune it out. Instead my head, when given the opportunity to view a few news article, has replied, "No. We don't need that shit." Of course the news of the Superbowl still filtered through. Given the environment in which I work it was inevitable. Impressive was that my ignorance of the outcome lasted nearly fifteen minutes in that place.

What have I to show for tuning out my online news fix? The dishes were washed, the floors swept, my face shaved, and my board waxed. Blissful ignorance has its rewards.

But for those who are total news junkies, here is a piece of exciting election news. My campaign is kicking off swell. Today when a fellow maintenance guy learned that I was a write-in candidate, he joked about me making shirts.

Jake: I've already got shirts.
M:No way.
Jake: Yeah. You can buy them online.
M: You're kidding me.
Jake: Nope. I'll show you.

So we go over to the computer and I show him my shirts at CafePress.com. He wrote down the address and promised he was going to go home and order up a button for his motorcycle jacket and a shirt. I don't even have one of the shirts. Perhaps the time has come for that to change.

Vote Jake or Don't!

The Board

The weather got nice. I clear coated the paint job on my board. Got a new leash. Now for the wax!

I Don't Understand It

I went to the pub with a couple of 'popular' girls last night. They were 21-22ish and admitted to being part of the popular crowd in high school. One even poked fun at me saying, "You hate girls like us, don't you?" I had to admit that it was true. Even my wife made fun of me this morning for hanging out with 'normal' girls.

Why was I hanging out with a couple of pretty young girls on a Friday night? What the hell are a couple of girls like that doing hanging out with a dirty old punk like me?

I had a real fun night.

I don't understand it.

Drug Education

Hey parents. Want to talk to your kids about drugs but you just don't know how? Here is your chance. Until Valentine's Day you can get a free download of the children's book about marijuana, It's Just a Plant.

801

That is a much better number.

I sometimes pause and wonder what exactly it is I am doing with my life. I don't know, but it fuckin' rocks.

Slack on.

post no. 800

800 is not a particularly great number. I'd much rather stare at 888 or 867. Yeah baby! But this is post number 800.

As a nation we seem to prefer certain numbers. Fifth year anniversaries seem more important than sixth year ones. Then come the zeros. Anything with a zero at the end of it is more important than something with a five at the end. There are two notable exceptions in 25 and 75. Yet nobody gives a rat's ass about 33 1/3 or 66 2/3. But if you throw two zeros at the end, everybody goes nuts and throws a huge party. Few of us can ever forget the fear and anticipation caused by the dread triple aught just seven short years ago.

Today I received an e-mail announcing the planning of my 15 year high school reunion. The five means it is only kind of special. Instead of going to my five year reunion, I went and got married. That means my 15 year reunion is completely overshadowed by a 10 year anniversary. Zeros trump most fives. And as I told them in my reply e-mail, the surf in Minnesota in the summer sucks. I'll stick with my California plans.

Why do we so obsess over fives and tens? We have seven days in our current week, why not kick out the jams using base seven? Why stick to a solar cycle? A Jupiterean cycle is about 12 years, why not just wait until Jupiter is back where he started? Need more excuses to celebrate? Count Lunar cycles. Sick of partying? Wait for Eris to complete a full orbit around the Sun.

If fives and tens are so great, why does most beer come in six packs and Guinness pub draught cans come in a four or eight pack? Why does seven always seem like the perfect number of bananas in a bunch? Try to find someone who can tell you about James Monroe or John Tyler then ask around about the 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was also elected in 1932. I like the number 32. Very beautiful compared to 800.

Makes Sense

A while back I told you about a surfing drysuit and how it would flop. Here is the competition. Ripcurl has developed the H-Bomb, a heated wetsuit.

"The theory is to apply direct heat to the body to keep the blood warm, rather than wait for nature to take its course," explains BrianBosson, Wetsuit Product Manager for Rip Curl USA.

Sound absurd? The geeks over at Popular Science Magazine didn't think so and they're featuring this revolutionary technology in an upcoming issue. Not bad for a bunch of surfers.

I've met a few Oregonian surfers who would go for this in winter time. The current practice is to throw a rash guard on under your wetsuit. I'm hot blooded enough that I can surf for hours in 50 degree water without any gloves on. Still, the heated wetsuit is a good idea.

It's all about being able to urinate while surfing.

NSFW: Surfboard Art

I'll get some shots at the beach in full sun. Granted, she'll be covered in wax.

Sharking Sharks

Found a product called SharkCamo.

Sharkcamo was created based on the scientific fact that Mother Nature protects certain species of animals with distinct coloration patterns. The technical name for this phenomenon is aposematic pattern coloration... In the documentary "Smile of the Shark", shark experts proved Tiger sharks would not eat striped poles filled with fish. After viewing this film, the quest to find a graphic that could be applied to the bottom of surfboards began. The end result was the Zebra or fingerprint design.

The most dangerous surf spots in terms of shark attacks are in South Africa. With that being the case, which is worse; being attacked by a shark or getting mounted by an overly zealous zebra?

Rather than forking over $30 for a decal, why not just break out the Sharpie? Then you could get all modern primitive tribal. Regardless, I'm betting the bottom of my board won't have stripes on it any time soon.

Patience

Now is the time of waiting. Last week I finished cleaning up my surfboard, stripping it of wax and the previous decals. Friday and Saturday was spent carefully laying out the grid I would use to transfer the selected image to the board. Today represented a crucial moment in the process. In art, the transition from concept to manifestation can leave a person disappointed, disgusted, disheartened, disillusioned, and generally all around dissed. Working from my electronically rendered art in an effort to reproduce my vision on the physical plane, I was happy. Even as I carefully removed the penciled grid work with cotton swabs and lighter fluid, the outline rendered looked beautiful. Now a coat of red paint dries on the board. This paint dries quite quickly, and the temptation to continue is strong.

Now is the time of waiting. While the paint may look dry and feel dry to the touch, I know that application of a wet coat with some overlapping areas could easily ruin the work already accomplished. Tomorrow.

It still looks awesome.

Politics as Usual

Rolling Stone ran an article saying why Al Gore is an ideal candidate for President.

If the Democrats were going to sit down and construct the perfect candidate for 2008, they'd be hard-pressed to improve on Gore. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has no controversial vote on Iraq to defend. Unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, he has extensive experience in both the Senate and the White House. He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration's most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he's also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.

In the last election I managed to predict 90% of the races without knowing the policy choices or even party affiliation of the candidates. I just looked at their pictures.

American Idol Presidency. My prediction: 2008 will see the Democrats trumping the Republicans with a campaign that caters to idiot America even better than the Bush campaigns did. Clinton/Gore in 2008. And it will work.

Machining Titanium

Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up this year. My wife wants a new wedding band since the beautiful puzzle rings we initially used have not withstood the test of time as well as our marriage has. If something had to break up, I'm glad it was the rings. She was looking at titanium rings for a replacement.

Since I started machining classes, I also considered the possibility of making her a new band using the lathe after work. It's one of the benefits of my job. So I found an article on the machining of titanium. The stuff is extremely heavy duty. Pure titanium can handle 80,000 PSI and alloys up to 150,000 or even 200,000 PSI for aircraft grades. That makes it about as tough as stainless steel. But it is light. It has 2/3 the weight of your typical high carbon steels and weighs only 60% more than aluminum. What does that mean for turning a ring? Light passes at high speeds with well sharpened high speed steel cutters and never stopping the feed while the cutter is in contact with the work area. That's all stuff I should be able to handle. With my current abilities I would have no problem producing a simple, elegant ring with a couple of scribed lines around the diameter.

Why would I want to do this? First and foremost, because while I try not to let on about it, I am an old school romantic who puts great stock in the value of a handmade item from a loved one. A few years back I made her a sword that she really likes despite several flaws in the craftsmanship. My dad made her a cabinet that while not perfect it still lovely. But the ring would have to be very well done. I would not be able to tolerate an imperfection. If I made her a ring that I had screwed up it would be a constant reminder that I insisted on making a crappy ring when I could have just bought her a nice one. While being pridefully DIY, it has gotten me into trouble on several occasions. The purchase of a bunch of motorcycle parts that eventually became a chopper comes to mind. Temperance. I'm thinking I should make an attempt at a ring using cold rolled steel. If that goes well and she likes the result, I can order up a bar of titanium and make her a ring for every finger (and one for myself) for the same cost as buying one ring from a jeweler.

Owned?

I've felt it before. In about half of the foreign travel videos you will see it, and it makes me uncomfortable. But why? There they are, shooting on location in some country of little brown people and the crew thinks it is necessary to get a shot of the local police smiling and saluting for the camera. It never looks right.

Today while watching a preview of Sipping Jetstreams on the shralp surf! podcast, it clicked. There is fear behind those smiles. These cops in foreign lands have been told that if they ever come across English speaking white tourists with cameras, be nice and do what they say or it is ten years hard labor and weekly beatings. Or was it ten years hard beatings and weekly labor? At least it looks that way to me.

Berserker: Almost an AWPC

Several factors lead up to the incident. For the past several nights I have been taking a swig of mead before bed. There was being woken up several hours earlier than usual by three guys with chain saws wanting me to move my motorcycle and truck so they could remove the big pine tree from our front yard (which I really didn't want to see go but the landlord had a different opinion). Then some fool decided to make bad nicknames for the maintenance guys on our shift and write them into the log book for the night. I got 'Viking Quest'. None of these things are excuses, just contributing factors.

That was how things stood when I discovered several people had completely ruined the repair job I had done the night before. It wasn't just the blatant destruction of the new parts I had put on, but the way they had somehow managed to leave just about every single bolt on the damn thing loose. I lost it.

I frightened a lot of people last night. My face was red. I had raised heavy machine parts above my head and started waving them around menacingly. My feet were kicking at the air as I yelled and screamed at people who had gone home to leave me with the fruits of their incompetence. It was an easy fix. That is what made me so mad. There was no mystery as to what was wrong with the thing and they managed to screw everything else up by not seeing that the track had become magnetized. In a fit of rage I blurted out an embarrassingly regrettable phrase.

Why can't we ship these morons back to the retard farm where they belong!?

When angry, I should really stick to profanity. Otherwise I have a tendency to say really bizarre phrases. At least in my berserker rage nobody was hurt. All of the operators are now quite certain that they never want to do anything to piss me off.

When presented with obvious evidence, never underestimate the potential for human stupidity.

Rules

Try to remember the last 50 times you broke the law. Maybe you were speeding, rolled through an intersection, illegally parked, using drugs, urinating on the curb, or raping and murdering hookers in your basement. However you were breaking the law, out of the last 50 times you did so, how many times did you get caught?

Laws and their enforcement are a very effective means to an end, aren't they?

Gamers

Tonight it dawned on me why I'll never be a true gamer.

While gaming I always wear pants.

No Connection

I woke up this morning to the sound of my wife getting home from school. I went downstairs to say hello before she took off for work. Having just woken up and having to urinate, a certain part of my anatomy was quite attentive. She looked at me, smiled, and grabbed a banana from the counter for a quick snack.

No connection.

Not Doing It Right

In an otherwise pointless article, I learned that formerly hippie parents are disappointed in their children's apparent lack of college campus protesting.

Son, you ain't doin' that right. Back in my day we wore long beards, took drugs, acted strange, got our asses kicked by the police, and in the end nothing changed. THAT'S how you protest.

a Flop in the Making

Ocean Rodeo Sports... proudly introduces the world's first surfing drysuit!

Why is this a failure before it even hits the market? Why are surfers going to continue to favor wetsuits over drysuits?

The surf is unreal. Set after set of killer swells keep rolling in. Suddenly, you have to pee. A surfer in a dry suit will have to go on shore, take off the drysuit, find a place to relieve himself, and then suit back up before hitting the waves again. His friend in the wetsuit just lets it flow and keeps surfing. Ocean water and urine are very similar chemically. On a cold day the urine actually warms the inside of the wetsuit for a brief period. In no time enough water has flushed through the wetsuit to 'clean it up'. When the surf is pumping, wetsuits will still rule the day.

Besides, how often is it socially acceptable to piss yourself while fully dressed? Why give that up?

Stranger than Strange

It's follow-up time with Jake!

Back to the Death by Water story. The woman who died was named Jennifer Strange. While some might find this an odd surname for an odd incident, just so happens I once dated a rather nice girl with the surname of Strange (first name Angel). But it gets stranger.

In an online recording of the show, the DJs can be heard making comments joking about people dying from water intoxication, even discussing a case in Northern California two years ago in which student Matthew Carrington, 21, died after drinking too much water during a fraternity pledge.

One of the DJs even admitted they maybe should have done some research before the contest.

One female caller, who identified herself as Eva, also phoned in to warn the radio station that drinking too much water can kill.

Eva Holt was the name of the chemistry instructor at AHS who imprinted the effects of water intoxication so heavily on friends of mine, but not me. Is that stranger than Strange? Maybe as strange. Yet not Strange at all.

A spokesman for the station's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, said 10 staff members, including several on-air DJs, had been fired from the station over the incident.

That's just typical.

article

Snow

Portland received a couple inches of snow today. It started this morning and continued ever so slowly to accumulate all day long. From what I have seen, Portland has three snow plows and two snow plow drivers. Instead of clearing the streets, the buses just chain up and the mayor tells everybody to stay at home.

Of course the factory declared today a "forgivable absence". Those who made it in could work and get paid, those who didn't would not get written up. What saints. So of course I have to drive to work. While missing a day of pay wouldn't kill me, my snow driving pride as a born and raised Minnesotan was at stake.

Dude, the roads were fine. Yet there were people who would start to skid going down a hill, slam on the brakes, and immediately send their vehicle into a 180 degree spin-out. Then some guy in a wagon decides the best way to force his old rear-wheel-drive vehicle up the hill was to gun it a whole hell of a lot. This is why I like to drive when it snows in Portland. Free freak show.

By the end of our shift, out of a normal working crew of nearly 100 operators between the two assembly plants, we had six. All of the maintenance guys showed. Between the two plants that meant there were six of us. Yep, one maintenance guy per operator. Bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED!

A good way to recover from boredom is to drink at the pub. After work I picked up my lovely wife and we went with a coworker to the Pub at the End of the Universe. There we enjoyed their eclectic juke box, cheap pool tables, a fine ham sandwich, and $10 pitchers of micro-brew. My turn as designated driver, but still a blast of a night. As the place closes down, some girl is telling me that the secret to driving in this snow is to drive very slowly. "Don't worry about me. I'm a Minnesota farm boy." Still she insists that we need to drive very slowly. As we are piled into the truck I am heard to comment, "What part of 'Minnesota Farm Boy' didn't she understand?"

Snow in Portland. More entertaining than a midget rodeo.

Sign from God

MySpace seems to think I'm Australian. They keep sending me through AU.MySpace.com to login. It's a sign from God. I must now move to Australia.

Guns and Dope

For people who are not yet comfortable with self-rule, just a friendly reminder that you can write my name in for President in 2008. While I'm not sure which party, if any, my non-running mate ascribes to, I can assure you that he will bring back the slacker days of the do-nothing Vice President. I doubt he'll even show up at funerals. As for my political affiliations, in honor of the passing of my favorite author, I have selected the Guns and Dope Party. What does that mean?

[1] guns for those who want them, no guns forced on those who don't want them (pacifists, Quakers etc.)
[2] drugs for those who want them, no drugs forced on those who don't want them (Christian Scientists etc.)
[3] an end to Tsarism and a return to constitutional democracy
[4] equal rights for ostriches

First things first. We need to get the hell out of Iraq. Afghanistan, too. There is no coast to surf. At least the troops in Vietnam could get some Thai sticks and ride some sick swells. Poor kids can't even get a decent hooker where they're stationed now.

Is this in line with the Guns and Dope philosophy?

Like what you like, enjoy what you enjoy,
don't be afraid to make slurping sounds,
and don't take crap from anybody.

I think 'slurping sounds' about covers it.

Water Poisoning?

I had never heard of water poisoning. I figured too much water meant enough to drown in.

A Californian woman died of water poisoning after taking part in a bizarre drinking contest to win a computer games console, according to US authorities.

Wow. A water overdose. New one on me.

AWPC

After working in close proximity for about a year now, one of the machinists decided that I'm not just some bright weirdo with a knack for maintenance. While many say that intelligence in manufacturing is a rare find, I'd argue that the same could be said of most work environments. This week has been question after question regarding everything from theoretical conditions for a perpetual motion device to holographic data storage in computing (real) and the human brain (theory). Today he hit me with the inevitable question that always pops up in these situations.

M: What the hell are you doing in this shit hole?

Jake: I'm not sure, but it's fun. When it ceases to be fun, I'll move on and do something else.

Chaos Rising

I mentioned it yesterday and I shall wax on more about it today. Robert Anton Wilson has died. While this has happened before, the results seem a bit more verifiable this time around. Old Bob has not surfaced to reassure friends that some paper made a mistake in running his obituary.

My wife comes home from school yesterday and tells me that as part of her class, they all went around the room with introductions stating name, age, and religion. She declared herself Discordian. Usually such a proclamation requires quite a bit of follow up. Most people have never heard of this joke posing as a religion cum religion posing as a joke. But on this day a person in an earlier class had also announced himself as a Discordian. His roommate made him a Pope (Spectacles, Testicles, Brandy, Cigar, You are now all Popes as well) and told him he would never meet another Discordian. An obvious lie since later that day he in fact met another Discordian. Not only that but he need do little more than Pope somebody (as I just did to all of you) and he would know another Discordian. The poor kid had never heard of Robert Anton Wilson, so my wife threatened him. He had until the end of the quarter to read some RAW or she would excommunicate him. When all of this transpired, neither of us had any idea that old Bob had snuck out before breakfast.

Then I found out, blogged it, and went to work. As lunch approached at work, someone inquired if I would like a hot dog for lunch. Hail Eris! I ate a foot long coney dog with so much crap smothered on it had to blaspheme against religions we don't even know about yet. While not a Friday, it still felt right.

After work a group of us went to the Pub at the End of the Universe to drink some pool and shoot some beer, or something like that. There I got my group of people who had never heard of the guy to toast Robert Anton Wilson. Or maybe they offered cheers to the fact that after five minutes the crazy guy had stopped ranting about some dead writer they had never heard of.

I have twenty of his books and have read others. Several of them I have read multiple times. Not only do we have the limited edition Maybe Logic documentary but we drove down to Santa Cruz for the premiere of the film and sat in the front row. My favorite author has passed away. In my eyes he was the last of the psychedelic revolutionaries. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsburgh, even Terrence McKenna all passed before him. So why instead of feeling sadness do I find myself wanting to cheer and chant, "GO, BOB, GO!"?

Lots of fun at Finnegans wake.

He's Gone

Robert Anton Wilson has left his shell. It was old and broken, anyway. His passing means more to me than the death of Saddam, Gerald Ford, or even James Brown for that matter. I'll just pretend that flags are at half-mast for RAW.

And I've been looking for some reason to post Dropkick Murphys. Thanks Bob for helping me to decide exactly which one to post.

NSFW: Board Art

My board is nearly stripped. A few more spots of stubborn wax and old decal art to vanquish. When not stripping the board, I've spent time assembling new board art concepts. I'd love input on which designs people like. Not that I'll necessarily use the one that people suggest. I'd just like to know if you were at the beach, which of these designs would be most likely to make you go, "Awesome board." Not that any of you go to the beach or use words like 'awesome'. But if you did...

I know. You all watched Sesame Street. Sing it with me. "One of these things is not like the others..."

I marked this NSFW as a service to my readership. Personally I think breasts are safe anywhere. Except for that one gal they told me about at work who had somewhat floppy breasts and never wore a bra and one day got her boob caught between a guard and a spinning part selector. That breast was NSFW. She wore a bra to work after that.

AWPC

This is for X. Consider it a public service announcement on stereotyping.

M: Kayaking is a yuppie thing.

Jake: You think so?

M: Yeah. I mean it's always some yuppie with their kayak strapped to the top of their Subaru.

Jake: So not some radical anarchist punk thing?

M: Fuck no! There are a few old school hippies who have made kayaking a lifestyle. They're cool. But otherwise it's just a bunch of yuppies.

Quoting Myself

I've been spending portions of my evenings recording Black Whole Son for release as an audio book because some librarian's daughter couldn't be bothered to read it as an e-book. Parts of this book are really quite terrible. Seriously shitty, even. But there are other sections that rock. Some excellent stuff.

The very act of incarnating on the earthly plane exposes us to mortal danger. We will die. Every one of us. How many of us will live?

An American Death

Hunter S. Thompson called the past 100 years the American Century. He also claimed the American Century was over. Today I found a solid sign that he was right.

NASA finally goes metric!

The agency has decided to use metric units for all operations on the lunar surface, according to a statement released today.

The change will standardize parts and tools. It means Russian wrenches could be used to fix an air leak in a U.S.-built habitat. It will also make communications easier, such as when determining how far to send a rover for a science project.

No more throwing our weight around and stubbornly clinging to antiquated units of measure. From here on our nation's best and brightest will no longer flaunt intellectual prowess in conversion mathematics but instead use the lazy European's base 10 units. Just as the US has tried to do to its own people, the other nations have finally done to the US. We will cooperate and standardize along side the rest of the world.

This doesn't signal the end. It is merely an aftershock.

My Favorite Celebrity Couple

Bad News: Dita Von Teese is filing for divorce from Marilyn Manson.

Good News: Goth boys who have never reconciled their feelings of guilt instilled from a young age by parents who forced a religion they never really understood down their children's throats can now masturbate over pictures of her without breaking one of the ten commandments, just some bit about a guy named Onan pulling out of his dead brother's wife at the last minute.

Mutual Non-Exclusivity

While communicating with a friend, she helped me have an epiphany. I had broken down the known readers of this blog into the categories of strange boys and sexy girls. When she suggested that the two are not mutually exclusive (strange and sexy, not boys and girls, which due tend to be either/or), the relevance of the statement hit me like five tons of flax. Of course my readership is going to be on the strange side, and I find wyrd women wonderful. While I am flattered by having sexy women reading my blog, seems it was a self-fulfilling prophecy from the beginning.

Blasphemer

I committed a blasphemy last night. It was so horrible, so wrong, and I enjoyed it. Knowing how wrong it is, confessing what I did is difficult. But it is far better to live an open, honest life than to go around pretending I am something that I am not.

I double hit the same espresso grounds. I know it was wrong. I'm not proud. I don't feel ashamed either. The result was a full cup of what was almost strong enough to be espresso, but more like the best cup of straight joe I could have imagined. The substance fueled an evening of audio book recording and lasted into the night. I dreamt of a purple egg shaped alien nymphomaniac named Poonjaba. With results like that I make no apologies for what I did and I will probably do it again. I know it's wrong, but it felt so good.

The Big One

What happens when my favorite author, Robert Anton Wilson, becomes paralyzed, bed-ridden, and high in oath? He decides that a blog might be a more suitable medium for his writing.

Big Time

While this site has been registering about 50 hits a day, I had no idea that this thing had a regular audience of about 35. Wow! It is still a far cry from the 5,000 a day my Easy Rider site generates. But that place has broad appeal since choppers are still considered cool and the film that started the site is considered a quintessential piece of cinematic history. What is this place all about? Damned if I know. I think it has something to do with me being an Anarchist who wants to be elected president because it pays better than what I make now. Oh, and for some reason my AWPC's seem to be a hit. If elected president I promise to keep up the practice.

Pelosi: Did you or did you not have sexual relations with that woman?
Jake: Does anal fisting count as sexual relations? And she was wearing a latex glove.

Sorry. I must have thought I was someone else for a moment. So yeah, 35 or so regulars. Hi! You're so quiet.

Brilliant

"With this new Congress and new year, Democrats and Republicans will have many opportunities to serve the American people," Bush said.

Brilliant! Spot on. Honest. Every so often the guy gets it dead right. Congress has a long history of serving the American people. Tax cuts? The American people got served. Weapons of Mass Destruction? We got served. Stay the course...

Devil Inside

I warned him. I told him that I am evil. Like everyone else, he insisted that I wasn't, that I was one of the nicest guys he has ever met. Like they say, the devil wears a friendly face. A few days ago he figured out what kind of evil I am. Now he calls me el Diablo. Very fitting term. The Greek word diablos literally translates as "one who throws something across one's path." Yeah, that's the kind of evil I am.

AWPC

M: They shouldn't have killed Saddam. He was just doing what he thought was best for Iraq. It's what leaders do.

Jake: Actually, I'm okay with it. But I think we should hang the leader of every country.

A Good Day

Even coming home to tales of guild drama within WoW couldn't bring me down from the great day I had. Have I mentioned that it sucks coming home to tales of guild drama? It's freakin' World of Warcraft! Learn to have fun and play nice. It sucks coming home to tales of guild drama. Not that I can't empathize, it is just stupid that situations arise that lead to the bullshit that is then related to me. The poor girl puts up with stupid shit just so she can play online with her friends and try to have some fun and then they go and... but I digress.

My work day started with my supervisor taking all three of us maintenance guys into the office to show us something. He handed me a loop of saw chain and asked, "What's wrong with this?" My internal reaction was, "Oh FUCK! What shift made this crap?" Just about everything was wrong with it. Unchromed cutters with burnt edges and horrible edge shape. All the spins on the rivets looked so bad I thought I would be able to break them out by hand. The drive links were pitted and soft as were the tie straps. Every part on this piece of chain was shit. Then I noticed the name stamp on it. It looked exactly like our chain, but it was not one of the brands we run. Turns out, this loop was made by our competition in China. It was meant to show that the competition, while still crap, was getting better. Bullocks! This was the company that the world's largest home improvement center (rhymes with Dome Hepot) contracted with to replace our account. Their chain is in all ways inferior. We know it. Our testing department has proved it. The average home consumer wouldn't be able to tell the difference because they don't know what they are looking at. But this is the real kicker. It sells for the exact same price as our chain did when we had the account even though the stores are picking it up for a fraction of the cost. Our tests have shown that this chain doesn't even last a quarter as long as ours and usually ends with potentially dangerous breakage. Consumers beware. It comes in the same store brand packaging as our chain did and you are paying the same price for it. If you are reading this and are either too dumb to figure out who I am talking about or just as stupid and go buy it anyway, it's your own damn fault if you lose a limb. No skin off my legs, arms, face, etc. The stuff I help make is awesome. I can take pride in it.

Which leads to the other great thing about today. Since work is paying for me to take machining classes, I am now allowed to use the shop's machine tools to make parts that we need. Today there was such a need. It was a simple part. I pulled up the blueprint and machined a replacement. When I put the new part on the machine, it fit perfectly and ran great. Up until now I had only been using the mill and lathe to modify existing parts that didn't quite meet spec. This was my first attempt at machining a complete part from start to finish. It feels good to know that a machine is now up and running again thanks to the part I made.

It feels good to know that even if American consumers are a bunch of dumb shits willing to spend just as much on something crappy, allowing giant corporations to amass wealth faster, and eventually resulting in my current employer going out of business, that by being able to build and maintain machines I can always move on to some other company that hasn't been outsourced to death yet... perhaps an aerospace company building space colonies that I can move to and live amongst the floating tattooed boobies. It feels so good that even tales of guild drama in WoW can't bring me down.

Smokers and Surfers

I discovered a new trick for all you surfers out there. You can get most of the wax off your deck with some warm sun and a wax comb. It is Portland in the winter so warm sunshine is in short supply. You can still get a lot of wax off with the comb if you bring your board inside. To get the last layer of wax and clean up your board nicely, use lighter fluid. I squirted some Zippo fluid on my deck and then wiped that spot off with a paper towel. That spot was wax free and bright white.

You can also put it in your Zippo and use it to smoke tobacco, start a camp fire, or commit arson.

Transitions

The ambient music machine just made a great random transition. It went from Newtons Gravitatlichkeit by Einstürzende Neubauten into The Hardest Button to Button by The White Stripes. Beautiful. If you have both of these tracks in your collection give it a try. If you don't have them both, consider that maybe you should.

UFO Over O'Hare

It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.

A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon.

What really makes this story different is that it appears in the Chicago Tribune.

The FAA is not conducting a further investigation... The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon"

For anyone who has witnessed an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, there is nothing more agravating than having people who did not observe it try to explain it away as something you are pretty damn certain it is not. Best of luck to the United employees demanding an inquiry into the event.

Off to a Good Start

I started off the new year by succesfully encouraging a friend to break two new year's resolutions within the first two and a half hours of the new year.

Faith Based Execution

The news reports that Saddam Hussein was executed at the gallows. This could very well be the case. Remember that this man had several body doubles for security reasons, seven I believe. If they release DNA evidence that the man hung was indeed Saddam and not a body double, who performs those DNA tests? Are they corruptible? Could black mail or threats of violence against family be involved? Hell, is it possible to fake a hanging? I have already heard suspicions of it being faked because the noose was not a true hangman's knot of 13 loops.

Did they actually hang Saddam Hussein? With all the different ways that such a thing could be faked and/or falsified we will never know for certain. They probably hung Saddam. It was still a faith based execution.

Of course it doesn't matter if they did it for real or faked it. Neither can be absolutely proven. Alive in captivity, hidden with a new identity, or dead at the end of a rope, the general result is the same. Some people are mad, others are elated, and my beer tastes neither better nor worse than the pitcher I had two days ago.

That's New

I woke up early, drove the wife to work, and saw the sun rising over Portland and giving a nice back lighting effect to Mt. Hood. As a swinger I don't see that very often. Is that the right terminology? Let's see what does swinger mean... Oh! I meant as a swing shifter. Second shifter? I mean I'm not a morning person and my lifestyle manifests this in ways other than just bitching about it like everyone else. So as I saw the sun rising beyond Mt. Hood I thought, "It would be awesome to go surfing right now." Alas, no wet suit yet. Soon, soon.

Then there is the other new thing I've been experimenting with. I work with this 21 year old gal who is very cute, very sweet, and represents everything I have ever hated about typical Americans. She drives an SUV for no particular reason. She gets dressed up and puts on loads of make-up and perfume to go out dancing at the clubs. She likes cover bands because she already knows all the songs. She considers herself Christian because she was raised Christian, even though she only goes to church on major religious holidays and parties four or five nights a week. She is oblivious to just about anything happening outside of the mainstream culture. For example, we had to explain to her who Gandhi was and she had never heard of Genghis Khan. So far the only major curve ball she has thrown my way is that she likes Bauhaus but didn't know who Depeche Mode was. Her 23 year old sister also works with us. While not quite as stereo-typical a specimen as her younger sister, she is not far from it. For some reason I have yet to figure out, these two gals have taken a liking to me. They sit with me on breaks, like to chat with me while work on their machines, try to get me to go out with them for drinks after work, and have even invited me to parties. Yes, they know I am married and have even met my wife.

Regardless of why they are enamoured with me, I am absolutely enthralled with these two girls. If we had gone to high school together I would have hated them. Now they fascinate me. What makes them who they are? How do their heads work? What does life look like for someone like that? Most importantly, is it possible to corrupt their operating systems? Are these types of people more than just robots? Is it possible to undo a cultural consumer?

Why would I want to do this? Because I'm evil. Duh. And if I can wyrd out these girls, corrupt their routines and sub-routines, there is hope for the rest of America. But mostly because I'm evil.

Rant

You know what really...

fuck it.

Protecting the Home Break

The latest podcast from Shralp Surf has footage from the Nelscott Reef Tow-In event. After watching it I had to drop them a line to complain. They listed Nelscott Reef as California! Those killer waves are in Lincoln City, Oregon.

The podcast also has footage of bikini clad Brazilian beach babes. I didn't complain about that.

Mood

Somehow Sinfest has captured my mood for the day quite eloquently.

What Will It Be?

So here is one problem with being a Discordian. Since I take my humor seriously and my seriousness humorously, people often can't tell the difference. Was it a serious joke or a lark of a demand? Can you tell the difference?

Finding Happiness

It amazes me how much happiness one little note can bring to a person's life. Just one little note to a friend. Just a simple little note designed to cause needless chaos and confusion for no particular reason. I sent it off this morning and have been giggling all day. Knowing that the friend will take it seriously just makes it funnier.

We Discordians take our humor seriously and our seriousness humorously.

Long and Boring

I play World of Warcaft. My wife plays it a lot more. A lot more. She is a gamer. I knew this when we hooked up nearly 13 years ago. The first time I visited her house her dad sat in a chair in front of the television playing Nintendo. If her dad wasn't playing, her brother was. She didn't play around me but let me know that she was the Tetris queen and she loved playing the Final Fantasy games.

For quite a while I tried to be a gamer. I got a degree in Computer Animation & Design and was a professor of 3D Game Design at Academy College. When it comes right down to it, I'm not a gamer. I like to play video games and can have fun doing it, but I just don't have what it takes to join the ranks of the true gamers. When WoW was first released, it took less than a week for a player to level his character to the maximum of level 60. That was extreme. Most people can do it within two or three months of play. Most gamers now have several characters at level 60. I have one that reached level 58 just last night. That is what I have achieved in two years of game play.

Gaming is an odd one for me to categorize. While it involves staring at a screen for hours, it is not a passive affair like television, film, and theater enthusiasts. While it requires reflexes and strategy, it is not the physical endeavor of sport. Here sits a former professor of 3D Game Design and I can't even describe what a video game actually is. I can tell you about game design strategies, challenge and reward systems, artificial intelligence scripting, polycounts, mapping, and several things that go into a game, but not what a video game is. Choppers, surfing, sex, these things have much to offer on both the amateur and professional levels. I can wax on about any of them with a glazed over dreamy look on my face. Gaming, no matter how hard developers try, is always going to favor the pro. No wax, either.

Since I am not a true gamer, why do I continue to play? My wife put it quite eloquently last week when we were discussing if I should reinstate my own WoW account rather than sharing one with her. "I love playing and I'd like to be able to game with you." That I understand. I love choppers and love it when she goes for a ride with me. I love surfing and appreciate her coming to the beach with me. I love sex and it just wouldn't be the same without her participation. Gaming is something she does and she wants to be able to share that with me. There is one more reason. Working second shift, she is usually trying to sleep while I am winding down from my day. Sometimes I will write or create art. Other times I just want to kick back and relax a little. Rather than do something observational like watch TV or maybe a movie, it can be fun to kick back and kill some monsters.

That is the element lost on most hard core gamers. Video games were developed as a hobby, a recreational activity. Just like drinking alcohol, when it ceases to be a recreational activity and starts to dominate your life, you might want to consider quitting. Luckily my wife isn't anywhere near that category. She is doing great at work, in school, and as a domestic partner. Some of the people she plays with seem to have forgotten this and it can cause problems. I hate coming home from work to hear about some messed up business with the people she plays with. It's a game. Why are her friends taking it all so seriously? By them taking it seriously, she is made to feel like less of a gamer for not taking it as seriously. Rule of thumb; if you don't get paid to do it, it is a hobby. Bowling, surfing, boxing, baseball, motorcycling, rugby, video games, sex, drinking, dancing, whatever. Pros get paid to make it more than recreational. Last time I checked, the only people who get paid to play World of Warcraft were Blizzard employees and Chinese gold farmers. Relax. Don't worry. It is a virtual world. Have fun. If you piss someone off, they can't even hit you. Let's get back to having some fun.

See. Long and boring.

In more exciting news, I now have neoprene booties and gloves for surfing. I am one wetsuit away from being fully equipped.

Not Weird

Waking up with the urge to Listen to Some Candy Talking by The Jesus and Mary Chain, I searched it out on my main list and hit play. With the player set on random, the song finished and immediately launched into another Jesus and Mary Chain song. At first this struck as highly improbable. As an unrepentant nerd, I had to determine the probability of this happening. Turns out that even though this band makes up a relatively small portion of my collection, there was still a 1 in 87 chance of one song by this artist being followed by another. That means it should happen about 4 times a year, and that isn't strange at all.

WoW:TBC

If you can understand the subject line, you might want to preorder now. I have a tough time understanding the escapism of MMORPGs. In real life I am a tall blue-eyed blond punk with a custom early model Harley and a surfboard who can inspire awe, love, and fear simply by entering the room. In WoW I'm a barely capable orc who gets his ass kicked by teenagers. With the expansion I'm going to try my hand at being a petite Blood Elf hottie who relies on the stupidity and gullibility of adolescent boys to get ahead.

Olfactory Observation

Apparently there is nothing wrong with my nose. At the store I was squatted down in the aisle across from some hipster gal. With two six packs and a bottle of soda under one arm, I reached out and got a large bag of dog food with the other. I slid my arm under it, curled it up onto my arm, then hoisted the bag onto my shoulder. Judging by my nose, this display was a turn on for the hipster gal.

Been hangin' with my hound dog too long?

Holiday Greetings

Company Christmas Party

A note to aspiring alcoholics.

Do not ask everyone at the table if they'd like some rum for dessert and within half an hour start acting like you're in a loud and crowded bar. Do not stumble around the room as though you are at a frat party and have forgotten where the keg is. Do not sit at the table next to the supervisors and chuckle loudly about how you had a hell of a time getting the rum from a big jug through the small opening on the flask. Do not make bad jokes about your punch smelling funny. Very amateur.

When sneaking alcohol into a work function, discretely pour under the table and sit quietly with a glazed look in your eyes. Everybody will know what you're doing but won't care. Everyone has had to deal with career alcoholics, usually within their own families. Even if they don't approve, they recognize the actions and are programmed to not do anything about it.

Drunkards get their booze supply cut off. People are scared to take it away from the alcoholic.

Holiday Cheer

End Times

May the next six years be filled with strange and mind bendingly bizarre experiences. In six short years we should know if Terrence McKenna with his Novelty Theory was full of shit. Personally I hope he was right and things get massively weird in that last year. Existence as I currently know it stagnates and replicates like a hillbilly. Give me novelty or give me something crunchy and exciting with asian spices. Or a really sweet wave to surf. Or maybe just legalize drugs so I don't have to deal with the fact that I walk amongst the living dead.

Vertigo Pimp

While I knew Brit back in high school and have witnessed the self perpetuating drama that if harnessed could power a few small third world countries, I have never completely understood the mass phenomenon of her blog Hookers on Stilts other than its brilliant name.

As far as food critique goes, with this one she is spot on.

They say NYC has the best food in the world, everything you could ever possibly want. But if you want to grow a giant, two-airplane-seats fat ass, you come to the Midwest.

P-town has thousands of average eating establishments serving all kinds of foods that are relatively healthy with a rare gem here and there. Minnesota has thousands of restaurants that inspire Pavlovian salivation and gluteal maximization.

AWPC

ACK! They played Christmas music over the intercom all day at work. By wearing ear plugs and humming Beethoven I was able to drown out Silver Bells, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Little Drummer Boy, and Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.

D: After a couple hours of this shit I'm begining to understand why they killed Jesus.

Me: Hell. I'd do it right now.

Let's not even get into how the Jews and Hindus at work were feeling today.

AWPC

As reference, I gave one of the maintanence guys at work a nick-name because he insisted on being called Michael instead of Mike. His initials were MD. While the other shifts all call him Michael, I have gotten everyone on my shift to call him Mad Dog, and he likes it. I just can't call someone 'Michael' with a straight face. In return he has been known to say, "Let me consult the mohawk."

Me: Thanks for all your help, Mad Dog. Without it tonight would have been really evil. And not the good kind of evil like D&D and Rock-n-Roll. I mean the bad kind of evil like Police Academy 3 and Billy Ray Cyrus.

MD: Dude. That's bad. How could you even go there?

Me: Sorry man. That's just how evil it would have been.

Not An AWPC

This morning I was talking with my gay neighbor. He was excited to go home to Idaho for the holidays but was also a bit apprehensive about the social environment there.

Me: In my experience most people aren't nearly as intolerant as they think they are.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

Jake Time Magazine's Person of the Year

I was deeply honored to see my own face would be on the cover of Time Magazine as Person of the Year. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible.

While DIY is fun, this year I don't have to break out the scissors and glue.

Sober Cab

I went out this evening to help celebrate a co-worker's birthday. I personally refuse to drive after drinking and offered to be the designated driver for my wife and a friend. If the bar serves decent coffee, which this place did, I don't mind. Getting wired off of coffee is loads of fun. At one point someone asked if I was having a good time despite not drinking. I pointed at my lovely wife sitting to my right, the good looking gal next to her, the cute girl on my left, yet another girl next to her, and raised my coffee mug in a toast. Being boxed in behind a table on a bench seat between four partying women? Yeah, I think I was having a good time. At least I couldn't stop smiling.

It's good to be the guy in a kilt.

Nothing Better

I do love putting on clothes straight out of the dryer on a cold and soggy day. Best thing in the world. Well, maybe second best. Then there is surfing and choppers and the thrill of fixing something and the smell of fresh baked bread. Anyway, it ranks up there pretty darn high.

Oregon Surf

When you mention surfing people tend to think of California, Hawaii, and maybe Florida. So when I tell people I surf in Oregon, they often ask if the surf here is any good. Hmm, maybe they should ask some of the world's top surfers who gathered along the Oregon coast on Friday for the annual Nelscott Reef tow-in invitational. I was hoping it would hold off just one more day, but when the break is pumping, it's pumping. So while the biggest names in big wave surfing were enjoying fast double over-head (and bigger) waves, I was at work. Quintessential bummer. This surf spot is in Lincoln City, only two and a half hours from Portland.

We've also got Seaside Point that provides good waves all winter. Then there is Short Sands that has excellent summer waves. You just have to be stupid enough to surf in 50F water. Yep, I qualify.

Happy X-Mass to Me

When is X's birthday again? I always forget this shit. Anyway, while most folks celebrate X's Mass several days after the fact, I went out and bought myself a present. So now I've got a 7' 9" Bic, Sticky Bumps, and some Sex Wax. Pictures included for those who would otherwise be confused.

End of the month I'll pick up a wet suit and I'll be ready for some Surfin' USA, but only as covered by the Jesus & Mary Chain.

AWPC

Him: I was thinking that we need to pull the collar off of the shaft and take it over to the arbor press so we can resize the gap.

Jake cranks really hard on the bolt to tighten it down.

Him: Or we could always just get a Viking to torque the hell out of it.

The Real Nightmare Before Christmas

For the first half of my life, I enjoyed Christmas. It was a fun time. Then I found out that there was a giving element, too. That got difficult and my family often didn't seem to appreciate the cool things I had found at the military surplus store.

What really sucked about Christmas was the iconography. There wasn't a whole lot to like in the idea of a fat man wearing red and exploiting a bunch of short guys in funny looking shoes to aid him in his evil task of making sure that while bad kids got all the cool shit like Ataris and later Nintendos, the good kids would get socks, a pencil set, and maybe one mid-sized set of Legos or a Matchbox car. Nobody really cares about baby Jesus. He is either a doll or somebody's kid screaming its head off. Mary and Joseph looked like Arabs, and even back then we had the Ayatollah Khomeini we were supposed to fear. He seems hospitable in today's environment. Angels were too frilly. Nutcrackers in leotards? Sugarplum faeries? Tin soldiers? Snowmen? Reindeer? Little boys going rum-tum-tum-tum when every little drummer boy I've ever been around goes BAM-BA-BAM-BAM? It all sucked,

Then tonight I find out about Santa's evil sidekick, Krampus. Somewhere out there in Austria there is a remnant of the old Wild Hunt when people would lock themselves indoors to avoid getting swept up by the parade of dead souls roaming the streets in the dead of winter. I might just have to import this little Christmas beastie.

X-Mass Shopping

Hurray for crass commercialism!

You can get me a present simply by getting other people presents. If you plan on doing any of your shopping at Amazon, then might I suggest utilizing my page. By purchasing items from my Amazon store, or this gift certificate link, or the Amazon search function here, I get a cut. That way you don't have to buy me anything yet you still are giving me something.

AWPC

It was lunch break and I was at the sinks washing up.

Her: You having a good day?

Me: I'm done. I'm going home.

Her: What?

Me: I've had enough. I'm outta here.

Her: Whatever.

Me: Serious. Just wait and see. When you get back from lunch, I won't be here.

Her: No way.

Me: No? Hang around. I'm going to walk over to that time clock and punch out. I've had enough.

Her: Why?

Me: I'm sick of it. I'm sick of stupid operators turning on their stupid lights for stupid problems. I'm sick of stupid supervisors not telling me what is going on before they leave. I'm just plain sick of it. I've had it.

Her: Not me.

Me: Yes, even you.

Just then the other maintenance guy approaches. He doesn't know what I've just been saying.

Him: You can't go.

Me: Ta hell I can't! I'm sick of it and I'm leaving!

Her: You're not really serious, are you?

Me: Just watch me. I'm going to go over to that time clock and punch out right now, and then walk out that door.

I grab my jacket off the garbage can, put it on, and walk over to the time clock. I grab my time card from my wallet and punch out. As I'm walking away...

Me: Good night. Good bye. And good luck!

Her: No! You can't leave.

Him: Hey! Next time you should just hit him.

Me: Whatever, man. I'm gone!

What she didn't know, what none of the operators or even the lead knew, was that I had requested a half day off over a week in advance. But the other maintenance guy knew. That and he is the only other guy on our side of operations to have had theatrical improv training. The poor girl looked like she was going to cry.

I also happen to know that he can't hold an improv character for more than a minute, and would break down over lunch and tell the poor thing the truth. Hack.

Odds are I'll get a big slug in the arm from her tomorrow.

Doomsday Averted

Last weekend I went off about Guinness. Then someone had a grand idea. Why not try buying our Guinness elsewhere and compare? Instead of purchasing it at Safeway, we purchased four cans at the local import bottle shop, Belmont Station. To the fine folks at Guinness, I apologize. You still make the one beer that the world should not be without. To the asshats at Safeway, what the fuck are you doing to fuck up the Guinness so bad?

Dr. Merkwürdig

...or how I learned to stop worrying and love the mall.

That's right, I'm teaching myself to enjoy going to the mall. Not the shopping aspect. That is still bullshit. But I figured out that if I really want to fulfill my life long dreams, I should get comfortable in mall like settings.

It first occurred to my while walking through Lloyd Center. I looked around at the totally enclosed space with no windows on an outside world. There were people crowded into the hallways. I realized that life in an orbital colony would be very similar. Space would be at a premium. If you weren't in your small living space, the commons would almost certainly have a lot of people milling about. Granted, it wouldn't all be shops, but the feel would be very similar to a mall.

Since it is my dream to live in space, I am preparing myself. I can now go to the mall and enjoy myself. I even had a decent time this weekend. Of course wearing a kilt and having all the women and girls checking you out helps. Robert Heinlein was a genius.

Fenris Unbound

As I got out of the truck, the black wolf came at me. I placed my right hand in his mouth as a sign of faith. As he tried to bite down on it, I grabbed his tongue. Seeing as I still have my hand, I guess that means Fenris is still unbound.

This all took place on the moon, of course. Humans had taken up habitation on the surface, but there was a sub-culture. The sub-culture were people who had been 'banished' to live underground to prevent the spread of some disease they had acquired. I was shown the underground habitation, a huge cavern with a floor lined with dragon scales. A little girl let the truth slip. Did they look diseased? Did they look unhappy? And if they were all diseased, why was I being allowed to walk amongst them while others were not? The truth? The sub-culture had discovered this cavern of dragon scales that granted them with eternal life. Here was the real fountain of youth. They spread the rumor of disease to keep people out. El Dorado, Luna.

But as long as Fenris is unbound, it is in danger.

Then I came back down to Earth. So it has been a busy morning for me.

Third Time is the Charm

Guiness is no longer on my shopping list. I've been drinking Guiness for years. But the last three packs of pub draught cans I have purchased have all tasted like watered down shit. There are plenty of kick ass beers out there. If Guiness wants to rest on name recognition and water down what was once the best beer in the world, than fuck them.

Dirty Music

When I get the need for a fix, there is only one thing that really satisifies it. After months of listening to MP3s, the time had come to bust out some vinyl. My record player was top notch, one of the best you could buy back in 1981, and the diamond tipped needle hasn't ever been changed. Every pop, tchik, and hiss is pure dirty bliss. And for some reason I always grab Alice Donut. Dirty, fuzzy, hissing richness in full analog glory. Like the first trickle up the vein hitting the brain, I collapse twisted and tickled. Fuckin MP3s are like snorting sudafed.