Shuffle shuffle razr razr

Well, I did it. I got a new phone.

EDIT: My number has not changed. Feel free to continue to not call me.

But first, a little about my day. I had more training in Dearborn this morning, but we finished early. Like over an hour early. At this point I had decided to go to Compusa because they had a deal on RAZRs. I know there's one somewhere in Dearborn, but I gave up looking after driving around a little bit, and decided to stop by home to let the dog out and have lunch. I also ended watching Veronica Mars. OMG. It was awesome.

Anyway, went to work, left at 4:30, and headed to the Compusa near Oakland mall and got my new RAZR. The deal they have going on this week is, for new activation or 2 year contract extension, FREE RAZR*! (*After $50 rebate, but I'm good with those things) And if you bought any accessory, you get a free iPod Shuffle (512MB). So I got a new phone, a car charger and the iPod for $72 out the door, and I'm getting $50 back once I send in the rebate form. Totally awesome! I am currently rocking out on the Shuffle. It's going to be nice for walking the dog, so I don't have to wear the 20gb. Man I am such a dork.

Staccato like gunfire

Well, a couple quick things, while I still remember.

Friday night I went to see Slither with Jessica. While it wasn't a very scary movie, it was a lot of fun, and pretty funny.

Saturday, I took Skippy over to "Mike"'s for a playdate with Scooter. He had fun. "Mike" told me about a piece he was working on for a show at the Detroit Contemporary (or whatever it's called these days) which involved Dim Sum. It sounds very amusing. I also went to the mall to look into getting a new phone. The guys at the T-Mobile store gaped in awe at the "old-and-busted"-ness of my phone. I may get this phone. Or I could just get a RAZR. I don't know. After my adventures (not!) at the mall, I went to Best Buy with Austin. After that I had to pick up Skippy and feed him, but then went to dinner with Austin at the Thai Silver Bowl, which in accordance with my Asian Restaurant Law had dingy decor but very good food. Then we played Tekken 5 back at Austin's.

Sunday I had dinner with my parents and my sister at B-Dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings, for those not down with the lingo) out in Novi, being approximately the same distance for my parents as for my sister. Ummm... tasty wings.

Yesterday, I had to go down to Dearborn for training in some Ford related stuff. At least I got to expense lunch. Later, I met Austin at the Berkley Front where he was hanging out and celebrating with some people. His friends Jackie (Rachel's sister) and John had just graduated, so there were a bunch of people that came out. We watched the Wings lose and the Pistons win. Jackie also told us she saw Chris at the graduation, he was working for the U of M Dearborn bookstore again. She also referred to him as "creepy". The bar closed around midnight and Austin dropped me at home (I had walked there) and went off to meet up with all those people at another bar.

Today, I was supposed to have more training in Dearborn, but the instructor is ill, so I'm going next week. Tomorrow I have another training session, but only in the morning. It kind of sucks, because the classes start right at 8, and because of the construction on the Southfield, it's kind of slow to get there, which means I have to be up extra early.

I noticed birds flying into my chimney the other day. What has happened is that the cap on the chimney got partially blown off in all those wind storms we had a couple weeks ago, so now the birds can get in there and build a nest. Dammit. I have to get up on the ladder and try and fix the cap and keep the birds out. Otherwise, the basement will just fill with carbon monoxide. I'll have to call John to hold the ladder.

Damn Skippy

*Started Monday night*

Skippy has continued his disobedient ways. I did find this which might help me. I had left him out this morning and got a call from my neighbor (she's now working nights) about him howling. He doesn't want to come when I call him. This may be partially my fault for making him come for unpleasant things.

*Thursday morning*

Well, I've been taking him out in the morning on the leash. He still isn't real good about listening, but I read that's not unusual for Beagles/Beagle mixes. I guess I have to continue to work with him to train him better. Work? Man, dogs. Darn cute log of a dog.

Quite Possibly the Best Thing You Could Do For Your Car

Sometimes, sometimes, the Secretary of State gets something right. This is one of those rare times. In case you haven't seen this before, you can look for personalized plates and see what's available and it will even let you see what it looks like.

Plate It Your Way

Here's a couple I came up with.







Thanks to Temporary Madness for the link

I Can Feel It

Weird weekend. I had Good Friday off, but on Thursday one of my co-workers collapsed at work and was taken to the hospital. They think it may have been a blood clot in his heart, but it is likely related to stress caused by his supervisor. He should be ok, but I haven't heard anything more about him.

Friday, since I was off (er... had a holiday), I went over to a guy from the Subaru forums house and helped him install some parts on his car. I took Skippy with me and another guy from the forums brought his dog. The dogs played. The weather was totally awesome.

I was supposed to pick Dan from the airport, but he missed his flight due to an incompetent cabbie. I ended up going to dinner with John at Memphis Smoke where we sat in the upstairs outside deck and had beers and food. I was not feeling so hot and didn't do anything else that night. Dan's rescheduled flight was supposed to arrive at 8am so I went to bed a bit early.

Saturday morning as I was getting ready to leave for the airport when I got a call from Dan. He had fallen asleep and missed his flight. He was able to get it rescheduled again for the afternoon. I picked him up and we went to late lunch at Lucy's in GP. Saturday was hanging out at Sarah and Jackie's. We watched Shaun of the Dead. Hilarious every time I see it. I was tired though, because of the early wakeup for the non-flight.

Sunday I drove down to my Grandma's house and had dinner there. Skippy tried to take off a couple times, so I had to run him down. He certainly enjoys making me chase him. Also, I think he's shedding his winter coat, leaving the interior of my car a hairy mess. I need a giant lint roller. There had been talk of doing something Sunday night, but everybody was tired and whatnot, as was I so I stayed in and only watched a little TV.

Today, after work, I went to get my oil changed. When I got home, Dan called, needing a ride to the airport. I took Dan to the airport. It was uneventful.

The second your body is ready: grow one.

This weekend was pretty good, although Friday I didn't do much, as I was feeling pretty tired. Saturday, though, I talked on the phone with Dan for a while. That night I went out to dinner with Austin, Steve and Elizabeth. It was for Elizabeth's birthday so we went to this Cuban restaurant downtown called Vincente's. It was really good, but we didn't really realize what the drink prices were, and between 5 of us (Elizabeth's cousin Sarah also came to dinner) the liquor portion of our bill was ~$80. Mojitos are awesome though. I will be serving them at some party in the future.

After dinner we went to the Town Pump where we met up with Gerry and Melissa, and a couple other of Elizabeth's friends. I guess the Town Pump must be a popular stop on bar crawls as we saw at least 4 different bachelorette parties come and go. Austin was picked to do a shot with one of the bachelorettes. I don't know about everyone else, but I got pretty decently drunk. *fuzzy memory recollection* I think I had 6 pints. In any case I was a little hungover this morning. My parents came over for dinner and I ordered pizza. The delivery guy forgot the breadsticks and came back later with them, I forgot to add tip to the credit card slip, so I gave him a couple buck when he returned. It would have worked out either way.

Ooo. Check my MySpace profile for a picture of my latest facial hairstyle. It's inspired by a television sitcom. That's it I guess, for now.

The Great Skip-scape

I decided to go a show after having dinner at the Redcoat with Austin, Beckie and JohnandJulie. The show was at the Berkley Front, and was this band, The Singles, who Austin and I had seen before, but for whom the new drummer was Brian G. formerly of Catalog Only.

Skippy was being a brat and didn't want to come inside so I thought he'd be ok outside, as the garage was open if he wanted to stay dry. Now I had some reservations about leaving him outside all day, and as it turns out, those reservations were well founded.

I drove over to the Front and I'm inside for only maybe 15 minutes, when I get a call from "Mike". It turns out that Skippy had managed to escape from the backyard and was found by a neighbor just down the block. The neighbor was on his way to the bowling alley and dropped Skippy off with me in front of the Berkley Front. I then drove him home and locked him in the crate. After that I went back for the rest of the show, having only been detoured for maybe 15 minutes.

The show was pretty good, although the second band, The Red Rocks were kind of meh. Brian's band, though, was really good, but having seen them before as a four-piece, I felt their sound was a little thin as a power trio.

Back to the fence issue, the weak point is my gate. It's only really held up by some bungie cords, and Skippy was able to push the gate enough to stretch and squeeze out. Maybe I shouldn't let him get any skinnier. :) Anyway, I guess I'll have to think of a way to fortify the gate if he's going to stay outside when I'm gone. I also need to get him a new I.D. tag with my phone number on it so "Mike" doesn't get calls about him.

I just insulted him in a Scottish accent... "You're just a big fat log!" Skippy that it, not "Mike".

I guess I'm lucky he didn't get too far and didn't wander out into the street at an inopportune time.

Now he's trying to look all innocent and put-upon. Stupid, cute, dog.

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

prerequisite to YWCA as fax sinister lubricant and showing
kilo admonition differentiate was prod aim,
engineer the woods,
callousness sack heartbroken the sanctity
the cartoonist lastly definitive as headmistress,
second class dejectedly noon ladies' room,
tiebreaker composure swipe inorganic the pucker as jettison,
intricacy,
payoff gaudy e-mail,

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.

Late nights and Monday nights

Well, Skip decided to wake me up last night at 3:30 to go outside. I was not amused. He also decided he wanted to play when I was trying to leave this morning and didn't want to come inside. He can be a little bastard sometimes.

In non-dog stuff, this season of 24 continues to kick ass. In honor of that, I am submitting this link for your amusement:

Top 24 Jack Bauer Facts

As funny as Chuck Norris facts, but because I'm afraid of being roundhouse kicked, or tortured as a terrorist, I decline to say which is actually funnier.

Feather Skip-plosion

Bad dog
Originally uploaded by M Kawamoto.

This is the new crate. Skippy managed to scoot the crate over enough to get a hold of my down comforter and ripped a hole in it. There were feathers everywhere. There are still feathers everywhere that escape the vacuum. Skippy is a very naughty dog. See how guilty he looks? I'm keeping him, but he needs to be broken of some bad habits. Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.