You can tell a lot about your lover by how they eat their pancakes. do they stack 'em? spread 'em around? use butter? syrup? a fork? or maybe their fingers?

And now somebody thinks their choice of chocolate has lots to tell as well. For the record, I prefer dark chocolate. the 70% cacao is about my threshold for that. when you get into the 90th percentile, I'm out dude. just a little too bitter. I have to wonder how this one eats her pancakes, and what kind of chocolate she prefers?

I learned something today, something about this record label called Elephant 6.

See, sometime about four years ago, Rich Engel introduced me to a band called the Neutral Milk Hotel. They are a little quirky, trippy, maybe even moments of beautiful dissonance (it is possible). Then last January or February, Josh Seybert introduced me to the band Of Montreal. They are a little quirky, trippy, maybe even moments of beautiful dissonance (it is possible). Their main songwriter, Kevin Barnes, strings together some very different sounding chord progressions, and the contributors make a sound like . . . nobody else. so last week, I dropped off Coquelicot Among the Poppies to Gabriel, a guy I work with. I told him it was maybe the strangest album I own. Today, he beckoned me off the elevator, and said, "Here, give these guys a listen. They're called The Olivia Tremor Control. They're another Elephant 6 group," he said to his girl Kim. And they're all apparently part of this Elephant 6 label. Pretty cool, eh?

Has anyone seen one of these ads yet (courtesy of Exit Stage Left) ? The first three of these refer to 9/11, and Mr. Bush, this is in poor taste. The fourth one makes you look like a beter candidate.

Hey Dr. Seuss is getting his own Stamp!

A page from the Guardian, about Mel Gibson's film . . . and it's a fun read. Trust me. And this one is silly silly silly

She Called it Torture

"Do you ever have a dream where you're with a dream-hottie, they're maybe not even a real person, but someone from the cast of your dream characters. You're hanging out with them, laughing, having fun, and so on. Maybe you are both sitting on a blanket in the park, or maybe on the couch in their living room. They have you lay down on your back; they're beside you or above you. And you know you want to kiss them and they want to kiss you, but for some reason they wait . . . and they hover . . . just above you . . . you may even feel their breath softly brushing over your lips. But no kiss, not yet. They move closer to your mouth, lips parted ever so slightly, eyes closing into smiling slits as their gaze moves from your eyes to your mouth and . . . BLINK!
You are in your bed, and you are alone.
It's Tuesday morning, moments before your alarm clock goes off.
Your dream-hottie, real or not, is certainly not there, just about to plant one on you. And as you drift back into dreamland after hitting the snoozebar, you may be in the same park, in the same room, or wherever you were moments before waking, but that person is simply nowhere to be found."

"That's torture . . . " she sighed, pulling me closer and then she kissed me.

A pretty good weekend overall:

The goodness started Thursday evening, as many good weekends do: I had dinner with my friend Meredith at Tram's Kitchen. Friday I had a nice apres-work nap (also known as stacking Zs in some circles) and then met Jim and Chris at the Inn Termission for some beers and pool. Saturday, i went skiing with Barb, Jack, and his brother Mark. that was pretty sweet. And yesterday, when I woke up, mylegs were a little sore, so I went to the gym, did a little lifting (it's been a while), swam laps in the pool, and then went to visit my mom. While in the gym, i worked my tripceps (oneof my favorite groups to work) but maybe a bit too hard? This morning when I woke up, I cou;ldn't really move my arms. so That means I have to go back tomorrow and lift again to get 'em back in place. Exercise is good food.

And so is Boxstep. My pal Sarah Siplak signs with Boxstep, and they have a CD jsut coming out now. Gotta like whenyer pals are seling CD's here and over in Europe as well. Rock on Sarah!!!

Here you will find some grisly poems to read,
and some lovely pictures go with them indeed.

Peering from behind death's velvet curtain,
The author, of course, is one Tim Burton.

For these I must thank the girl on the bus,
The one so pretty she'll make you cuss.

And if you wouldn't venture a guess,
I'll go on and tell you, her name is Jess.

The word is kind of familiar, in that I've encountered it before, but never knew what it meant. Think ... MacGyver.

Bricolage - (French, 'doing odd jobs'). A characteristic (according to C. Levi-Strauss) of the early human mind, in contrast to modern scientific thinking. But bricolage is entirely rational (i.e. not pre-rational) in its own way. He introduced the term in The Savage Mind. A bricoleur is one who improvises and and uses any means or materials which happen to be lying around in order to tackle a task: 'The bricoleur is adept at executing a great number of diverse tasks; but unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools, conceptualized and procured specifically for this project; his instrumental universe is closed, and the rule of his game is to make do with the means at hand.' In the making of myth, bricolage is the use of whatever happens to be 'lying around,' so that myth is both rational and improvisatory.

Courtesy of my pal Kurt, and of course the folks in Britain, I offer you these three items:


http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie3.html
http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie2.html
http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie1.html

They are not obscene, just funny . . .

Whether I'm dateless or not, this approaching 'holiday' ranks low on my list
(below Columbus Day, but above Flag Day, maybe on par with Arbor Day?), and yet somewhere in the depths of my being, it does have something more than commercial appeal.

I guess . . .

I mean, it worked as an excuse to kiss a girl one night many moons ago: '"Well, no girl should go without being kissed on Valentines day," I said. And then I kinda ended up dating that girl. Hmmmm . . .

So I'm posting a couple items of interest, one for either sex, you can determine who gets what, or you can take both if you like, I won't know and it won't make a big difference to me either way. I'd hope it's not completely obvious that I'm dateless fo the weekend . . . anyways:

1. Gentlemen Beware: During the month of February in a leap year (like this year), it is kosher, kopacetic, considered fair game, in England (and their colonies?) for a woman to propose marriage to a man. Ok, wait, it's really just the last day, the 29th, so be ready. Although traditions and what not are looser now, or it could be anytime this month or this year or .... whenever. Ballsy, eh?

2. For those who are less interested in words, I offer you this link: Sweet Kisses Enjoy!

So Pennsylvanians, even if their convenience stores don't sell hooch, are still big time boozers. check it out . . . Pretty soon, we'll all be subscribers, eh?

Speaking of drinks n'at, I kinda like this Tiki Lounge place on Carson St, and apparently, it's a style of place popular with folks, dudes at least, all over.

Even though there's the little known spot in Friendship (a 7-11) that sells six-packs, for the most part, you can't find beer or alkeehol in a convenience store. But this makes me think , ... could it be true? that perhaps the Commonwealth is catching up with our neighbors? Eh . . . doubt it.

And then that's it for Bingo? Sheesh ...

Even the British politicians are looser than ours here in PA.

Some good fotolog pages to check:

Criminal; Debdamone; Roberta666; Biti; NERVOCRIATICO; MacWagen (aka Dan Buczinski?)

And Punxsatawney Phil says blah weather for the next six weeks . . . as if we needed a doped up groundhog to tell us that....

I want to go see Bubba Ho-tep, it's playing out at the Oaks Theater in Oakmont. THis movie features Bruce Campbell of Army of Darkness fame, and it's supposed to be top notch. Anyone wanna go? My car's down for the week (at least) so you'll have to drive.... :P

Here's the scoop, it's a limited engagement (from the Oaks webpage):

Bubba Ho-tep
SUN & MON @ 3:15, 5:15

TUE, WED, THU @ 5:15, 7:30, 9:30


PITTSBURGH EXCLUSIVE! Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominated short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, the stylish and funny "BUBBA HO-TEP" tells the "true" story of what really became of Elvis Presley. Bruce Campbell ("Evil Dead," “Army of Darkness”) and Ossie Davis ("Do the Right Thing") star as two elderly residents in an East Texas rest home plagued by an evil Egyptian mummy. Apparently Elvis (Campbell) actually switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death," and has now lost his desire to live. But when Elvis meets Jack (Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, the two old codgers sally forth to battle the mummy and rescue the other residents from losing their souls (as well as their lives)! At once a hilarious comedy and outrageously clever horror flick, "BUBBA HO-TEP" is a unique exploration of aging, dignity and the meaning of life.

It's like some local talent's Citizen Kane. but who in Pittsburgh would be Orson Welles? Ok, it seemed a bit hoi poloi (for the rock n' roll set at least) but i'm sad to see this place go. I saw a lot of good shows and this doesn't bode well for the music scene in Pittsburgh. Goodbye, Rosebud.

Correction: Apparently said sleepyhead foreign dignitary is a member of Congress: Democrat Representative Chuck Rangel. Thanks for the heads up, Joe! (see below)

here's a pretty cool article about an artist named Phillip Guston.

My favorite moment of Bush's State of the Onion address last night? When towards the end, the camera panned over to some foreign dignitary who was faaaast asleep . . . perhaps he's thinking deeply? No, he's dreaming . . . :P

Ok, so you may or may not have heard of the movie Big Fish. If you havent' you should check it out. Given recent events in my life, it held particular relevance for me, being a father/son type movie. Plus, Eddie Vedder and the Pearl Jam do the closing credit song, and blammo, it's a doozie. Quite fitting and a good song in and of itself.

I had my first class for the semester two weeks ago and saw this quote in the elementary school classroom where we had our first meeting:

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions" - Rainer Maria RIlke

Dang! what a great thought for folks at any age (I'm finding it especially relevant in many realms ... ), and what a great school that must be (the Falk School in Oakland) for kids to be getting Rilke perhaps as early as 1st or even the 6th grade. Wish maybe I had gone there as a kid.