Aren't you glad I save everything?


"RAY!!! RAY!!! YOU NEED TO COME IN HERE AND CARVE THIS HAM RIGHT NOW!!!"

I never, ever throw files away. I have backup disks from 1998, ok? Here's a flood of old family pictures I found on an old hard drive. The meta-data on the pictures says they're from May of 2002, so five years ago. They were taken with our FIRST digital camera which was pretty boss at the time. It had a 32 megabyte smartcard. Oooohhhh....

I sure do look different, yet exactly the same, as does Daniel. Nobody ever really changes.







- posted by Mason @ 11:47 PM

Guitar Art is Fun!



At the guitar show this weekend we met a guy named Kevin Jehnson, a Fort Worth artist who freehands massively dense and intricate botanical illustrations on guitars with a Sharpie.

We gave him some booth space and set up a few pieces he'd done. People went pretty crazy for it, and you can see why. I have a uke I want him to do for me.

Check his myspace or email him to find out more about his custom work. I didn't get a picture of it, but one of the other guitars he brought had this insane Dios los Muertos piece on it. I'm thinking some serious sword and sorcery [a la Shadow of the Torturer].



As an update: I've received too many lists of people's 100 favorite bands to post, so I'm going to have to make a google page for them all. I'll let you know when it's done.
- posted by Mason @ 1:57 PM

Vegan Hot Dogs from Heaven



One more fantastic fucking reason to live in Dallas. Big D's Dogs at 3611 Greenville [that's right across from the Granada Theater] has the best hot dog I've ever had in my entire life. They use the these amazing Veggie Brat's [which we don't carry at work since they're not all natural... sometimes being the health food store is a drag...].

You're looking at a picture of "The Don". It's a grilled veggie dog on a grilled whole wheat bun topped with jalapeño relish, kraut, pickle, celery seed, onions, mustard and peppers. Chicago style to the max. It was perfect in everyway. Juicy, great texture, high quality toppings. Next time I'm going to go for just shit loads of kraut, because I love-a de cabbage, no?

Additionally the hand cut fries are MIND BLOWING. Some of the best french fries I've ever had. Megan and I also hooked ourselves up with their home-made lemonade. Cane juice, fresh lemon juice and water in glass with ice is fucking terrific, isn't it?

It wasn't cheap, but good food just isn't. The above pictured meal [Megan and I both had the same thing] rang up at $8.00 a person. That being said neither of us could finish our fries and next time we'd only get one serving to split. The lemonade was $1.50, and while very tasty, not all that necessary. I thought it was an excellent value for the amount of food and the overall quality.

The service was great: the staff was not only friendly, but pretty cool too, making it feel like a place you'd want to hang out all the time. They were listening to one of my favourite Jay-Z albums in rotation with Guns N' Roses, so I felt quite at home. As we were leaving, they told us they make... wait for it... veggie chili as well! Sweet fucking jesus. It's my new favorite place. I was very impressed, I must say. I'll be recommending it to everyone I come in contact with.

They don't seem to have a website, but their phone number is (214) 823-8223. Go there or die without having truly lived.
- posted by Mason @ 11:32 PM

Guitar Show Madness Again



It's that time again! The Forth Worth Guitar Show. We made some money, sold some strings and met a really good artist named Kevin who's drawing massively dense and intricate scenes on acoustic guitars. I'll post pictures tomorrow. I almost bought a Martin Stinger with no bridge for $25, but I really didn't need it.


- posted by Mason @ 11:21 PM

Robert's 100 Favorite Bands


photo via the man hisownself

Yesterday I challenged you to make a list of your 100 favorite bands.

Here is my adopted brother Robert's list:

superchunk
portastatic
my bloody valentine
mono
centro-matic
built to spill
sonic youth
hartfield
ted leo and the pharmacists
elvis costello

rush
boston
journey
boris
the pillows
archers of loaf
silkworm
jens lekman
mates of state
suburban kids with biblical names

swirlies
adorable
the magnetic fields
the apples in stereo
explosions in the sky
the american analog set
dinosaur jr.
sebadoh
the thermals
godspeed you black emperor

sunn ())))
jackson browne
kraftwerk
brief candles
number girl
polaris
weezer
galaxie 500
why?
pipas

pale saints
slowdive
ozma
chavez
billy bragg
pelican
fleetwood mac
genesis
phil collins
peter gabriel

rocketship
sambassadeur
elliot smith
the get up kids
low
ida
guided by voices
saturday looks good to me
pedro the lion
somebody still loves you boris yeltsin

heavenly
belle and sebastian
stereolab
neutral milk hotel
the radio dept.
the velvet underground
múm
wire
brian eno
the buzzcocks

grandaddy
pavement
spoon
mirah
ratatat
björk
sufjan stevens
tripping daisy
jesus & mary chain
the telescopes

the beatles
the who
stevie wonder
they might be giants
the rentals
yo la tengo
lighting bolt
#poundsign#
aislers set
the kinks

tiger trap
ampersand
the lucksmiths
cap'n jazz
damezumari
david bowie
the beach boys
prince
hall & oates
bedhead
- posted by Mason @ 6:36 PM

Your 100 Favorite Bands



About two years ago I challenged a few people I worked with to come up with a list of One Hundred Bands that they liked. I think it's a great exercise, and it often jogs one's memory about music you've forgotten you love. These are Pop/Rock only, Rap/R&B and Country are separate lists. Please make your list off the top of your head [no looking at you iPod!] in no particular order and email it to me. I'll post any I get and then we can all have a chat about it. If you can't make a list of 100 bands you like, there's something horridly wrong with you and I need to make you a mix disc.

Here's my new current list from scratch [obviously I like more music than this, these are just the first 100 I thought of]:

Genesis
Jethro Tull
Rush
Archers of Loaf
Superchunk

Superdrag
Gentle Giant
Jamie T
Hall and Oates
AC/DC

Megadeth
Johnathan Richman
Kraftwerk
King Crimson
The Stiff Little Fingers

The Buzzcocks
The Cure
Billy Joel
The Kinks
Men at Work

The Zombies
The Beach Boys
The Shins
The Fruit Bats
Black Sabbath

The Who
Steely Dan
Crowded House
The Pretenders
They Might Be Giants

Aloha
Chris Issac
Roxy Music
The Talking Heads
Thin Lizzy

James Kochalka
Oasis
Hardship Post
Dinosaur Jr.
Elvis Costello

Billy Bragg
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Cake
Ben Folds
Weezer

Todd Rundgren
Centro-Matic
The Sweet
Pavement
Television

Old 97's
Jayhawks
Son Volt
Neil Young
Lovin' Spoonful

Bruce Springsteen
John Vanderslice
Codeine
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Bedhead

Low
Tears for Fears
Dire Straights
The Police
Squeeze

Depeche Mode
Gary Numan
Nirvana
This Bike is a Pipe Bomb
Sex Pistols

The Ramones
The Minutemen
The Misfits
The Leaving Trains
XTC

Judas Priest
Iron Maiden
Abba
Frank Zappa
Queen

Tangerine Dream
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Jam
Neutral Milk Hotel
Violent Femmes

Electric Light Orchestra
David Bowie
Silkworm
Guided By Voices
Bob Dylan

Velvet Underground
Nerfherder
Fountains of Wayne
The Rentals
Slayer

Tom Robinson Band
Fleetwood Mac
Randy Newman
Tom Petty
Boston

Like I said, this is just the first 100 that came to mind, I'm sure there are more so please don't send me emails that say "What???!?!?? You left off [insert name of band that you like more than I do]!??!?!?!?? You fucking piece of shit!" Do, however, send me your list, because I want to read it and I want to post it.
- posted by Mason @ 11:44 AM

Terminator: The Series



I literally freaked out five minutes into it. I threw my hands up in the air and yelled "oh, fuck yeah!".

I've been waiting for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for six months, and the purposeful interweb leak of the first episode far surpassed my expectations.

"But there's no Arnie," you say. You fucking moron. You obviously don't know anything about the Skynet-verse. Arnie is the T-800 model 101, one of only hundreds of T-800s. The terminator in this first episode is a T-800 of a different model. As in, same skeleton, CPU and thermodynamic core, different appearance. See how well that works out?

To explain any of the plot would be to totally spoil the whole thing for you, so just download it and watch it. I honestly can't tell you how happy this show makes me, and how happy it makes me that the Terminator series will continue forever and ever. They're going to make T-4 and their developing a new trilogy based on this series. I'm just giddy.

It's going to be the best thing ever.


- posted by Mason @ 11:52 PM

Hilarious New Spam


unrelated picture of hamburgers

Oh fuck, this is hilarious. This is one the best spams I've ever gotten.
A thing that I find terrifying is the knowledge that some people ACTUALLY believe nonsense like this. Enjoy!

You Have Just Picked Our Price!

The Netherland Lottery
Jul 20 (4 days ago)

Government Accredited Licensed Promoters,
Venderloop 1902 AB, Amsterdam
The Netherlands.

REF: EL3/9318/04
BATCH: 8/163/EL
Attn:Sir/Madam

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lottery Winners
International programs held on the 13thth of July, 2007. Your e-mail
address attached to ticket number 653164251591-6011 with serial number
7321410,batch number 151085135,lottery ref number 6376527711 and
drew lucky numbers 4-9-17-36-44-78 which consequently won in the
1st category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay
out of 1.500,000.00 Euros (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Euros)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep
your winning information confidential until your claims has been
processed and your money Remitted to you. This is part of our
security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse
of this program by some participants. All participants were
selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 40,000
company and 20,000,000 individual email addresses and names from
all over the world. This promotional program takes place every year.
This lottery was promoted and sponsored by Association of software
producers. We hope with part of your winning, you will take part
in our next year 20 million Euros international lottery.
===============================================================
To file for your claim, please fill the enclosed form and send it by
email to out lottery paying officer for the processing for your claim
with the information below:

Peter Smith.
Remittance Director
EMAIL: petersmithnl1@aol.co.uk

- posted by Mason @ 8:21 PM

Hey HBO, are you listening?



Here's what I want: an HBO original series about sports. Specifically about a fictional NBA team. I'm thinking the San Diego Conquistadors, and here's why. It's the 10th largest city in the US, they don't have a current team and the Conquistadors were a real ABA team '73-'76.

Basically the premise is that when the ABA was dissolved, the Q's [San Diego's nickname among fans] were absorbed into the NBA and have been a regular team ever since. The shows follows four or five different characters in the daily life of the team and how they interact with each other and the rest of the organization. The veteran star player [a center, obviously], the rookie, the team trainer, the assistant coach and the idiot son of the billionaire owner.

It would be slightly in the style of Entourage, existing in a world where everything is the same as in real life, except this one basketball team. It would be hour long, serio-comic and single camera. I think it would be one the best shows ever. HBO, come on, help me out here. Send me an email, ok?
- posted by Mason @ 11:42 PM

David Fincher is the man.



Have you seen Zodiac yet? Oh shit. You must. You simply must.

Very rarely is a film that clocks in at 2 hours and 37 minutes able to hold my attention, but Fincher delivers as always. This may be his best film ever.

Rarely is that Gil-en-hall guy in anything that I like, but he's fucking awesome in this. The whole rest of the cast is A-List to the max.

Rent it. Now. Stop whatever it is that you're doing and go rent this movie.
- posted by Mason @ 11:53 PM

Steely Dan almost made me cry today.



Today I was washing some dishes at work and I heard "Reeling in the Years" on the radio.

For some reason I was so overwhelmed by how much I love that song that I sort of teared up.

I don't know what it is that I love so much about the Steely Dan, or that song in particular. I'm pretty sure it's these lines:

You've been telling me you're a genius since you were 17,
in all the time I've known you I still don't know what that means.
The weekend at the college didn't work out like you planned,
the things that pass for knowledge I can't understand.

That just fucking destroys me. There's something about it that really resonates with me. It's almost like I wrote it, you know? Very rarely do I find lyrics meaningful or moving [which I suppose is probably why I write my own], but there's a certain magic in Becker/Fagen songs that moves in a way that other music doesn't.

My directive for the day: LISTEN TO STEELY DAN.
- posted by Mason @ 11:53 PM

Wheat Roast is my new best friend.



I worked morning shift today, so I brought a bunch of shit home. I marinated portabellos, red peppers and White Mountain Wheat Roast in a bunch of herbs and oil and lemon juice. I sauteed it up and dropped the load on a pizza crust brushed with oil and herbs. It was the shit. Wheat Roast is great and we're going to make Chicago Style Italian Beef Sandwiches with it (I already bought the sliced jarred peppers).

Thanks White Mountain, you're the fucking best. Thanks for being [sort of] local!

Texas rules to the max.
- posted by Mason @ 10:06 PM

Driving is gross, but thrift stores are great.



After six weeks of not driving, we took a trip up to the bustling burg of Wylie, TX to pick up a Sears Take-Apart bike from the Eeeebay. We made a day of it and hit the Garland thrift stores. I picked up a few t-shirts and Meggers found some pretty dope shoes. We've been having thrift withdrawal, and today really helped us get a fix. Lunch was vegan chinese, and dinner was giant burritos. Movie VCR Tapes... classic.


this guy was just sitting on a box listening to tejano on a 70's Wards portable radio
- posted by Mason @ 11:56 PM

And you thought my room was messy in junior high...



One of the only papers worth reading in America, the San Francisco Chronicle, has this story that will blow your fucking mind.

At this house in Modesto, CA the above pictured fucked up white trash were keeping a miniature horse in their kitchen. Their son was living in a tent in his bedroom to keep the flies off him. Wow. What horrible people.

From the article:

Joe Curtis Silva, 30, denied having a horse in the house, but the officer saw Silva trying to load the animal into a vehicle and called for more officers to investigate, police said.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHHAHAH. Because you're going to put the horse in the back of a van while your wife distracts the cop? That's fucking classic.

Check it out:


Nice, huh? Doesn't seem that dirty to me, really.

I'm a big fan of the electric wok in the bottom left hand corner.
Why do these two people have a wok? Seems odd, no?
- posted by Mason @ 11:26 PM

A sad story from my childhood.



I'm eleven or twelve. It's summer, I'm home alone. (I don't know why I was by myself, I just was.)

All I want in the world is a soda. (Of course, we don't have any at home, because we never did. At the time it made me very upset, but retrospectively, I'm really glad that we didn't.) I scrape together every single piece of change in the house, because I'm going to get a Dr. Pepper.

I get my by Murray BMX bike and I ride to Braum's. I have just enough money to buy a large Dr. Pepper. (That's the red cup, if you grew up with BICADS [that's Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Stores, if you're out of the know])

I take it outside, I get on my bike, and I put the straw through the lid. As I'm bringing the straw to my mouth to draw that first, fantastic, fizzy sip.... I lose my grip and the whole mother-fucking thing tumbles over my handlebars, smashing onto the ground and spilling every single last drop of soda all over the concrete.

Since I've started riding again, we've had some hard rides, it's been hot, I've been tired and sore... but the 1/4 mile back to my house that day was the most depressing, demoralizing ride I'll probably ever take. That day stands out for me as the most defeated and frustrated I think I've ever been.

Think of time when you felt this powerless and hopeless over something seemingly insignificant, and email me about it.
- posted by Mason @ 11:37 PM

An open letter to Al Pacino:



Dear Al Pacino,

I am writing to ask you if you think that Scarface is the best movie of all time. If not, do you think it is the best movie you've ever made? It's certainly one of the only movies you've ever been in where you do not play a bitter, self-destructive alcoholic, so I suppose that says something for it. I think it is a good movie, but people who make rap music seem to think that there is not a better picture ever made than your Scarface movie. Do you like rap music?

Also, do you think that you are one the greatest actors of all time? You seem to play the same character in almost every movie you are in, which doesn't seem to me like it would be very difficult. I would like to seem a movie where you were nice and smiled a lot and maybe brought flowers to people who were sick in the hospital. I think that would show more range than the movies you make where you smoke cigarettes and use foul language. Maybe you could be in Patch Adams 2 if they ever make one.

Also, in the last 40 years, you've only been in 35 movies, many of which I've never heard of. That really doesn't seem like very many when you consider that Clint Howard has been in well over a hundred in about the same amount of time. Do you think that being in fewer movies makes you a better actor?

Also, I heard that you had sex with Beverly D'Angelo. Is that true? What's she like in person? I bet she's nice.

Please write back to answer my questions.

Your friend,
Mason
- posted by Mason @ 11:29 PM

I am now obsessed...



My entire life is now on hold while I read 350 issues of Dell's Uncle Scrooge comic. I downloaded 6.78 gigs of Duckburgia today. Let me know if you're interested and I'll burn you off two dvds worth of Scrooge, Donald, and those evil Beagle Boys. They sure do try to steal Unca' Scrooge's money all the time.

He really loves his money, let me tell you what. He enjoys swimming in it. He dives in it like a porpoise. He likes to throw it up and let it hit him on the head.

Something I find endlessly fascinating is how they all refer to themselves as human all the time. As in, "Don't blame Donald, Unca' Scrooge, he's only human!". Doesn't that seem strange? I really like it and I think that Carl Barks is a fucking genius.
- posted by Mason @ 10:52 PM

It's nice when things still hold up.



Today at work I was trying to remember the name of the german professor duck in sixties Disney cartoons. I had to call my dad, the answer is Ludwig Von Drake. This sort of lead me down a garden path to remembering how much I've always loved 50's Donald Duck comics. The majority of them were written and drawn by Carl Barks for Dell comics. Barks created the entire "Duckburg" world [later perverted in the exceedingly crappy "Ducktales" cartoon, a favorite of my youth]. I downloaded a torrent of scans of 1948-1950 comics and I'm halfway through '48. If anyone knows of a good quality softcover reprint collection, let me know, I'd love to own it. Because I'm not a "collector" I don't care at all about the original books, I'd actually prefer to have reprints.

From a little light research, people seem to be obsessed with these comics and the "Scrooge McDuck Universe" [so named because scrooge is the main focus of the comics after the mid-fifties, and all characters shift to revolve around him]. This website has a ton of covers of Disney comics from all over the world. And this one has a gigantic index of books and strips.

Fuck Mickey Mouse, he's a bitch. Donald rules.
- posted by Mason @ 11:34 AM

I find this amusing....



Scott Adams said that this guy, Tony Carrillo, is the new funniest comic strip writer on earth. I think he's funny and all, but he's no Johnny Ryan. Johnny Ryan is the best fucking comic strip writer on earth. I laugh so hard that it makes my stomach hurt. I laugh Peep Show hard. It's wonderfull. My favorite thing he does is his "Klassic Komix Klub". He's a genius.

Here's my favorite comic of his. It's going to offend the shit out of my mom, which is always a plus.


- posted by Mason @ 11:32 PM

Vern needs a wife...



I've well documented my undying adoration for USA's Up-All-Night, but today's "I wish it was available on DVD" is a non-UAN, but still USA feature. I'm sure that my dad will remember the fantastic "Abducted" starring TV's Dan Haggerty. Grizzly Adams is a mountain man and his son, Vern needs a bride. They live in the fuck-all middle of nowhere so his choices are fairly limited. One day a woman is jogging in the woods, so he kidnaps her. What follows is an hour and a half of her trying to escape and them catching her again. It's pretty awesome.

Dad and I loved this movie when we watched it, and it's not very good sequel, the cleverly titled "Abducted II". We used to talk about it all the time. I couldn't remember the title, so I spent about twenty minutes googing keywords like "jogging kidnapped movie" and "horror jogging forest" until I found it. There's not much about it online, and this above picture of the box was the only image of it I could find. If anyone has a copy of the VHS, let me know.
- posted by Mason @ 11:04 PM

Peter vs. Phil


I used to be pro Peter Gabriel and anti Phil Collins. I think this was in a large way unfounded. I now believe them to be of equal value and possessing of equal artistic merit. It's silly to say that Phil Collins ruined Genesis. Peter quit and went in totally different direction from the band, and Phil, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford [yes, and Steve Hackett, but nobody cares about him] took it in another. They're just different things, neither of which are as good as the sum of their parts. If the original lineup went on tour [which they're talking about] I probably would pay fifty dollars to see them. I can't even imagine how gigantic the stage show would be.
- posted by Mason @ 11:57 PM

I Heart Neil Finn


picture from the bbc's awesome top of the pops galleries

I downloaded the shitty, unfunny late night Australian comedy crap hour Rove just so I could hear the new Crowded House single. It's good. It's very good. As you well know, I'm big Split Enz/Tim Finn/Crowded House/Neil Finn fan, and on the basis of the single, the new record should be quite good. Listen to it here.

I'll be buying it as soon as I get off work.
- posted by Mason @ 11:39 PM

"This ain't 1940, bitch!"


this, apparently, is me

Two old men [ball caps, suspenders, mustaches, glasses] came up to the coffee bar today.

Old Man #1: Let me get two small coffees.
Me: Sure, do you want the house blend?
Old Man #2: No, it's two hot for coffee.
Old Man #1: You're right, it is to hot. [turning back to me] Can we get two malteds?
Me: [silence]
Me: [realizing what he's talking about] Oh, a malt! Yeah, we don't have malts.
Old Man #1: [jokingly indignant] You don't have malts? [gesturing toward the gelato] What kind of ice cream parlor is this?
Me: [slightly shocked and confused] Uh, well... we have gelato, but I wouldn't really call this an ice cream parlor. I guess I could put some vanilla gelato in the blender with some milk. Are two milkshakes ok?
Old Man #2: Yeah, a milkshake sounds good.

So I put gelato and whole milk the in vita-mix and ran it for a while. Gelato makes shitty milkshakes because the fat content is so low. I added half and half but it didn't help. It just turned into milk with tiny pieces of ice cream in it. I charged it like a smoothie, and they seemed like they enjoyed it. Bizarre.
- posted by Mason @ 11:37 PM

"like a bird, on the slicer..."



Yesterday a bird flew in the building and landed on the meat slicer. I crept closer and closer until I got a really good shot with my phone. Two seconds later it flew away. Afterwards the slicer got washed and sanitized, and the bird was shooed out the loading dock. It was fairly exiting, I must tell you.

Today I made a very tasty Vegan Banana "Milk"shake:

2 Bananas
16oz ice
4oz soy [rice, almond, whatever] milk
2oz organic vegan chocolate syrup

Put it in the Vita-Mix and watch the magic happen. If you wanted it to be thicker, you could add less milk. You could make a fake ice cream treat with the same recipe minus the milk, but it probably wouldn't be that great. If I'd had any peanut butter on hand, I would have added that. Hazelnut butter would be best, but you'd probably have to make it yourself, which is a huge fucking hassle. If you wanted it super chocolaty you could use melted choc-chips, but that would be a shitload of trouble. It would probably help as well to use chocolate soy milk.

Even the people who drink "moo-juice" [a customer said that to me today when I asked what kind of milk he wanted in his cafe au lait. "just regular old moo-juice" he said. i was both bemused and annoyed by it.] really, really liked it and asked for seconds. I love being right.
- posted by Mason @ 7:30 PM

The bike hits keep on comming.







This sweet Puch bike was chained up outside of Fiesta yesterday. The guy in the first shot put his hands up over his face when I was trying to take a picture, but he calmed down when I told him I was just interested in the bike. He was hassling passerby and trying to get them to sign up for pre-paid legal services. One of the strong positives about biking is that panhandlers, junkies, drunks and bums assume that you don't have any money and leave you alone.

I've seen this bike around before and I want to know who rides it. I really dig the cloth crudely wrapped around the pedal. That shit is hardcore, yo.
- posted by Mason @ 12:52 PM

We are not alone



I took this picture last week and I forgot to ever post it. This hispanic dude had this tape deck rigged up very similar to mine. For some reason this bike was also rocking some sort of composite racing wheels and tubeless tires. I didn't really get it, but the stereo was totally dope.
- posted by Mason @ 11:37 PM

Your son isn't picky, lady... you're just a shitty cook.



I'm so bored with women who claim that their children are picky eaters. You kid is afraid to try new things because you've given him so much trash to eat. We have responsible parents come in all the time who's children love... and I mean LOVE things like beets, kale, edamame and asparagus.

If you hadn't ruined their pallets with deep fried sugar balls and caffeinated white starch, they might be able to taste different foods and enjoy them. If you've been gargling with kerosene every day for five years, chances are you won't be able to tell the difference between onions and shallots. Your kid loves McDonalds for the same reason that Kate Moss loves cocaine, it's addictive and they have unlimited access to it. You can pretend all you want that they're not junkies and you're not their connection, but it's still the case.

Maybe if you try real hard, they can grow up to not like vegetables just like you.
- posted by Mason @ 7:33 PM

"Who's that hippie riding his bike barefoot?"



Today at work one of the cashiers said, "I saw you riding your bike to work. I was like, why is that guy riding his bike with no shoes on, and then I was like, oh, that's Mason!"

Yup, I rode shoeless to work and back home again today. My cons got soaked this morning from a massive downpour that caught me and the Megster. I must say, riding barefoot wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. It sort of made the bottoms of my feet hurt, and I can't ride as fast because I can't put as much pressure on my foot when it's unclothed. I suppose if you were a stupid, smelly, dope smoking hippie that didn't own any shoes, it would be ok to ride a bike with your feet in the nude, but I think I'll stick to shoes. Maybe these shoes.

Also, Happy Birthday America.
- posted by Mason @ 11:23 PM

I don't understand Rastafarianism I guess.



The whole thing seems like a total excuse to smoke a lot of marijuana to me. However, it's probably still better than mainstream christianity (which is just an excuse to subjugate women and minorities).

If you're rasta, what you think is that Haile Selassie I (former Emperor of Ethiopia) is god incarnate who walked the earth. Somehow that translates into all people on earth loving each other through peace, brotherhood and smoking massive, massive amounts of dope.

If you're into reggae, and no white people are "really" into reggae unless you believe in the rasta, you call the bass drum a Pope Smasher or Vatican Basher because you hate catholics. And somehow, breathing in gigantic clouds of THC brings you closer to "jah".

So I totally don't get it. But I don't really understand religiosity in general, so there's no surprise there.
- posted by Mason @ 11:17 PM

I love Stephen Tobolowsky


You know him as Needle Nose Ned Reyerson from the movie Groundhog Day. He's one of my favorite character actors of all time, and now there's a movie about him.

Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party is a documentary about his birthday party. Neat! I added it to my netflix, we'll see if they ever actually get a copy in.

He was on a series that I would really like to see from '95 called Dweebs where he plays a ho-hum computer programmer. Apparently he says that everything is "mulch", which I really like and have started saying. As in, "dude, these muffins suck, they're totally mulch".

I've chosen to stop saying that things are "gay" because it promotes negative sexual stereotypes. From now on I will only say that something is gay if I actually mean that it is homosexual. I will instead be saying that things are "balls".
- posted by Mason @ 11:30 PM

"Right Son, On Your Bike!"

me adjusting my brake calipers in a parking lot

Today was our first big outing in quite a long time. We stopped by Dodie's on Greenville for a couple of frosty Abita root beers (quite possibly the best root beer on earth) then rocked up to Mockingbird Station. Literally seconds ahead of a huge downpour, we puttered around in The Gap, American Apparel, and Urban Outfitters. Have I ever mentioned how much I detest AA and UO? I think they're both just horrid.

We hit Fiesta, where bell peppers [red and yellow] were 50 cents each. EACH! We bought an armful of them, then came home and roasted the fuck out of them. Tasty, tasty, like fer sure, bro.

We just finished watching Mission Impossible 3, which I thought was awesome. It was totally ridiculous and wonderful. JJ Abrams is my action movie jesus. Now I'm going to eat an apple empanada and go to bed.
- posted by Mason @ 11:27 PM