I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R Mine kid!

Interesting article from New York Magazine about the demise of the generation gap and all us "old hipsters" who like the same things all them young kids like. Oh, Seth Cohen... where have you led us?

Up With Grups

A few photos to share

Here's the pictures I promised of the porch and of my car.

Freshly repaired porch
Originally uploaded by M Kawamoto.

Let's Vet It Started

I took Skippy to the vet today to get some shots. Skip did not like the needles. His ears were kind of gunky too, so they gave me some stuff that I have to squirt in there. Skippy is not amused. Other than the ear thing, Skippy is healthy, if a bit chunky.

The vet also gave me an up-to-date record of his shots so I can get him licensed in Berkley. Then he won't be illegal.

In other news, I got new wheels for my car. They're not actually new, but new to me. I bought them off another member of the Suby board. They look nice, but now the car looks a little high, so I might need to put in different springs, and then different struts and a different exhaust and a bigger turbo and then engine management... and generally this is how it goes when you start modifying your car. Wheels are like a gateway mod. I'll put up a picture of the car with the new wheels sometime soon.

Wow, I actually have variety of small news items, another one being I had my porch fixed. These guys that fixed John's porch came and replaced the crumbly steps and blocks in the porch and mortared over the whole thing, making it look good. That picture will be posted later.

Beer as big as your head

At the Hofbrauhaus with our 1 Ltr beers
Originally uploaded by M Kawamoto.

Drew's girlfriend Erin sent this picture to me. Yes, the beers are as big as your head. So tasty. I think we are all fairly drunk by this time, but I finished that beer and started another before we left. So drunken.

I was in Kentucky?

I went to a wedding this weekend. It was one of my fraternity brothers, Adam. The wedding was in Cincinnati, so Austin and I drove down there early Saturday. Our hotel was on the Kentucky side of the river. At one point in my drunken thought process last night, I exclaimed, "I'm in Kentucky?!" in both amazement and confusion. Below, find a few pictures I took which will further detail the weekend's events.


Here is the accident that had us backed up in traffic for an hour, less than 25 miles from our destination. A truck had slid off the road, through the barrier and into the ditch. We had to merge from 4 lanes to one, on the shoulder. Suck.


This was the view from our balcony. I knew that heavy drinking was in store that night, so the Waffle House kitty-corner from the hotel was a welcome sight.


Adam and Andrea. The happy couple walking down the aisle after getting hitched.


This is the centerpiece on the tables, and also, the pitifully small glass of champagne they gave us for the toast.


The Bar Commitee had enough members that night to call quorum. From left to right, Joe (Adam's friend and best man, but not a Delta Chi member), Austin, Me, Dan Fanton, Drew, and the groom, Adam.
There was an open bar, which we took advantage of. Also, by random chance, and proximity to the bar, we chose our table, and thankfully ended up getting called to the buffet line early. It could have been disastrous had we eaten last and used that time to drink.


The bar stopped serving liquor about an hour before the hall was kicking us out, so to be sure to keep his buzz going, Austin wisely prepared and got a back-up drink.

Ok, now for the rest of the evening that I don't have photos for. We left the hall about 11:00, and went back to the hotel to drop things off (like my camera) and then headed out for the bar. Everybody stayed dressed in their tuxes/dresses/suits, thus we were looked at rather strangely when we got to the bar. We went to the Hofbrauhaus Newport, a German beer hall. I had 2 of the liter mugs of beer and then a bit more. There was a polka/pop/rock cover band playing and everybody dances on top of the benches and there clinking of mugs and oh so much drunken antics. We drunk dialed a couple people. I think. It was really fun time.

After the bar we hung out in Drew's room for a while and pranked Joe, who fell asleep. Bad idea in a room full of drunk people. We started stacking ice cubes on his crotch. Hilarious.

In the morning I was awoken by the maid. After checkout Austin and I went to breakfast at the afore-mentioned Waffle House with Joe, Drew and Erin (Drew's girlfriend). After that we headed back to Detroit, with a drive that was thankfully uneventful.

As a side note, I had forgotten that southern Ohio is pretty southern. They's got a bit of an accent down there, darlin'.

flowerpot antitrust

I got some spam in my junk mail... I thought it was amusing as poetry.

flowerpot antitrust

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Dormus Interruptus Skippus*

Grumble. Skip woke me up this morning at around 3 to go outside. Well, it's better that than him peeing somewhere inside. He didn't want to go out because of the rain when I was wanting to go to bed, and I figured he'd be ok until morning. It's still better than if Max has to go in the middle of the night, because I can just open the door and let Skippy out, whereas John has to take Max out on his leash. Max's leash that is, not John's**. The wonders of a fenced yard.

At least with this rain, some of the salt will get washed off my car. And it's supposed to be warmer this weekend. Excellent. Not that this winter was really that horrible. Probably just means we'll get mid-May snow.

*Worst Latin Ever.

**Just kidding.

Week 2 with the Skipper

Well, week 2 of dog ownership went a bit better. Skippy didn't chew up anything, or have any accidents. I still need to find some canned food that he likes, he doesn't really like the diet stuff, but he likes the diet Iams dry food alright.

Big thanks to Beckie's Mom for reimbursing me for Skippy's new crate. I really appreciate it. Thanks.

Friday Night's All Right For Magic

Friday, Austin and I played Magic again with John Machiorlatti. It was pretty fun, as we watched The Aristocrats during it, The only thing that was annoying was John's notoriousness as a bad loser and winner. BTW, The Aristocrats is pretty damn funny.

Saturday, my computer was acting all wonky, so I had to buy a new hard drive and spent the time while the computer was copying files to watch a couple movies and some anime. I watched a couple more episodes of Full Metal Panic: FUMOFFU.

After I watched DIG!, Austin and I went to his friend Alex's (who works at Borders) place. She was having a birthday party for a friend of hers, who also works at Borders. Actually there were several people who work at Borders at the party. We ended up staying until after 3.

Today I'm at my folk's and I don't think I'm doing anything for the Oscar's. But at least my computer at home is working again and recording stuff.

Holding and folding

Went to Austin's last night for poker. I didn't want to leave Skippy alone for the evening, so I took him with me. He's not real stable in the car, I think for one because the seat material is kind of slippery and for two, because I drive sort of aggressively. All of Austin's poker buddies liked him though.

Anyway, I was doing O.K. at poker at first, I won the first hand with a pretty decent pot, but didn't really win a lot of hands after that, staying in a few hands that I should have stayed out of, and eventually losing to Austin. Still, a lot of fun for 5 bucks. Tonight is a more nerdly type of cards. And I'm not sure what's going on the rest of the weekend. Sunday is the Oscars. I'm probably going to my parents for dinner, and then maybe to Tess's afterward to watch. I think Saturday, Austin and I wanted to go check out some bands at the Blowout. Weirdly, it's no longer the "Hamtramck Blowout" just the Blowout.

Dogs have two speeds...

Fast enough to pull the leash out of your hands and slow enough to trip over.

As much as I've been complaining, I really do like having Skip. I had just forgotten how much work dogs can be.

This morning, I let him out, and I wanted to leave, but he decided it was playtime and didn't want to come inside. Eventually I got him to come in. It was much the same story after work, when I was leaving to meet up with a Subaru club I go to on Tuesdays. I was just about ready to leave him outside, but he decided to come in on his own.

Once the weather gets a bit warmer, I guess I should be able to leave him outside all day, I'm just not sure if he'd try to escape the backyard.

For now, though, my neighbor has been nice enough to stop by once and a while during the days she has off to see how he's doing.

To keep him a bit occupied when I'm gone though, I got him a Kong and they had some kind of biscuits you can stuff inside it, and that was driving him nuts earlier, trying to get at the treat. Hee hee. Dogs are silly.

This has really turned into a dog blog of late, a d'blog if you will. Actually I won't, as that is ridiculous.


Random photo of Skippy lazing on my couch.