I have now become a 20oz stainless steel pitcher.


vintage espresso machine - beautiful, no?

CoffeeGeek.com (I know, I suck to the fucking max) has this amazing guide to steaming the perfect pitcher of milk [or milk substitute for those of us with a conscience... poke poke]. I read it last night before bed and I realized that I was doing a number of things wrong, thereby undermining the possibility of the ultimate latte.

I applied this new knowledge today at work and saw a world of difference. I delivered the bomb-ass shit to customers all morning and will continue to do so because of this article. Thank you coffeegeek.com, you're the fucking best.
- posted by Mason @ 10:11 PM (0) comments

"How much is this amp?"



I bought this bad motherfucking ass 80's Ross guitar amp (american made right here in central tejas) at a garage sale down the street today. James and I went and volunteered with some other people from work at this kid's fitness thing and we stopped by on the way home. I was looking around some computer stuff and spotted this sweet bitch. I picked up and said "How much is this amp?" I assumed it would be $25-$30, but was pleasantly surprised by his response of, "Gee, I dunno, what is it, some sort of amp or something? I guess five bucks." I stifled a yelp, gave the man my five dollars and got the fuck out of there before he changed his mind.

This amp is so money. It's so money and it doesn't even know it. It has a master volume, so of course I wanted to check the shred factor. It gets pretty dirty on it's own, but frontended by my MXR Micro Amp it's Moon Mission Death Squad-tastic. I'm blown away by the sound. I'd been wanting a Pignose for a while, but this an excellent substitute, especially given the price.
- posted by Mason @ 9:53 PM (0) comments

My Dad's Birthday Present



We got my dad the new Gabe Kaplan book for his birthday. It's called Kotter's Back: E-mails from a Faded Celebrity to a Bewildered World, and it's fucking hilarious. Here's the description from the jacket:

When fifty-eight-year-old Gabe Kaplan, perhaps best known for his performance in the title role of the popular seventies sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, got an e-mail asking him to participate in a show called Celebrity Boxing, he couldn't resist the urge to have a little fun with the request. After exchanging a series of ludicrous e-mails with the show's talent coordinator in a mock-serious attempt at negotiation, Gabe was inspired to start a prank e-mail campaign. The result is this hilarious collection of correspondence. See how people react to Gabe Kaplan's absurd claims that he:

* has slept with more women than Wilt Chamberlain
* is an expert at Cossack dancing
* thinks he's smart enough to become a member of MENSA
* wants his image on a U.S. postage stamp
* would like NASA to send him into orbit with Jimmy Carter and Dr. J
* and many more!

Witty, irreverent, and ridiculously comical, Gabe's e-mails and the responses he receives are sure to entertain anyone with a taste for the surreal.

It's totally excellent. We found ourselves with nothing to do near a Bored-ers [get it? it's a joke, get it?], so we stopped in. I saw it on the shelf, and started reading it. By the end of the first section I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. It's sort of like the Lazlo Letters, but much funnier, because it's the crutch of the joke is that he's Gabe fucking Kaplan.

This book gets my highest recommendation.
- posted by Mason @ 11:35 PM (0) comments

moonmissiondeathsquad.com



Hey, Moon Mission Death Squad fans (yeah, both of you, you fuckers)! moonmissiondeathsquad.com is back in action! I re-registered it for three years. Unfortunately, whatever host I had been using before still has .org and .net locked, but we'll get those back eventually. I chose to forgo the .biz or .info, because those are only for white-trash and Nigerian bank scams.

It's just a mask of the virb, but all that matters is it's google-ability.

check it.
- posted by Mason @ 11:21 PM (0) comments

I ated the bean burger, dad.



Megan, my dad and I had dinner at the world fucking famous Cosmic Cafe. The black bean burger there is tasty to the max, I highly recommend it. It's the best veggie burger in Dallas.

Also, this guy we really like named Matt Tolentino who shreds 1920's pop songs on the accordion was playing. We'd seen him there before (my mom went insane for him) and really enjoyed his set. His has a cool voice and he brings the mother fucking rukus on some Tin Pan Alley shit. Check him out if you live in Dallas.
- posted by Mason @ 11:48 PM (0) comments

It's Official!



I'm going to Colorado for a training in October. They're flying me and my friend John-Robert out there for three days. It's going to be most excellent. I checked happycow and it looks like Watercourse Foods is the place to eat veggie in the Denver area. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Anyone been to Denver recently? I haven't been since winter '98 (oh, that's a long time, getting old is poopy), so I don't really know what's up with Nugget-Scene. Let me in on the inside dirt on CO if you have any.
- posted by Mason @ 11:39 PM (0) comments

Blowin Up on the Fuckin SIMAK-tip



Clifford D. Simak is one of my favourite sci-fi authors. I bought a copy of Way Station (arguably his best) at the thrift store a couple of years ago and it destroyed me.

I chanced upon these six beauties for a dollar each at the Half Price on NW Highway and 75 earlier today. I love book club editions because most of my favorite 60's sci-fi was originally paperback only. 70's Book Club Editions have great artwork, they're well constructed and they're usually in pretty good shape because a lot of them never got read. They came in the mail, and went straight on the shelf.
- posted by Mason @ 11:24 PM (0) comments

I purchased a hat.



I found this very funny headpiece at an estate sale yesterday. I think it's the funniest hat of all time. I wore it work and my friend Issac doubled over laughing.
- posted by Mason @ 11:13 AM (0) comments

I really wanted it. I really did.



I wanted to buy this metal detector, but it was $70. Fuck that shit.

It looks so bad ass. It looks like the future. It smelled like the future too.
- posted by Mason @ 11:49 PM (0) comments

Richard Thompson


it was really dark, and i was trying to be sneaky because they're bitches about cameras.
consequently, this picture is fucking horrid.

I went with my parents to see Richard Thompson at the "historic" Lakewood Theater tonight. The show was good, but he played a lot of songs I'd never heard before. I'm really only into the 90's albums, and most of his set was 80's and post 2000. He did play 1952 Vincent Black Lightning solo acoustic, which just destroyed me. His intensity was overwhelming.

If you've never heard it, listen to it:

[feed reader users listen here]

For being 60, the mother-fucker rocked out pretty hard. There was more guitar noodling than was necessary, but he's very, very, very good at it. No one else really plays guitar like that, and it was pretty cool to watch. I would go see him again, but I think I'd probably prefer him by himself, which is the opposite of what I thought I wanted. Things seem to work out like that for me pretty regularly these days.
- posted by Mason @ 11:23 PM (0) comments

I'm creeped out by this.




Christina Ricci looks super scary now. I'm terrified by her. Remember when she looked like this?

Not any more. Now she looks like an alien. She's our age but she looks 40. I think that's really sad.
- posted by Mason @ 11:34 PM (0) comments

BINGO!



We played bingo this weekend at Lucky's Bingo in the MWC. I mentioned it the other day, but there was no picture of me to prove it.
- posted by Mason @ 5:10 PM (0) comments

My Dad is Right Again



A few months ago my dad and I were having lunch and he told me about a new show he'd heard about on NPR called Mad Men. It's AMC's first original series, and it's about Madison Ave. ad men in 1960. It sounded really interesting, and I meant to download it, but I never did. Yesterday I saw that someone had posted the new episode on EZTV, so I down'd them all. It's super fucking great. The set design is wunderbar, and it's really terse and sort of funny and it feels like an HBO series without the swearing or nudity (which is ok, and really isn't necessary).

It's totally serialized and episodes flow seamlessly into one another. I think it's the best basic cable series I've seen in a long time. According to AMC's website, it's available ON DEMAND for free from most cable providers.
- posted by Mason @ 4:45 PM (0) comments

The Longest Trip of All Time



Oh dear god.

We left OKC at 9:00pm last night. We got to Wynnewood and the Volvo started making a weird noise and vibrating. I thought, "Oh, Shit!".

I pulled over to check the tire and of course it was flat. I spent about thirty minutes changing it in the dark. I had taken a leak, and unthinkingly sat down in my own urine while jacking up the car. So I got the tire changed and climbed back in the drivers seat with my wet piss pants and we pulled back onto I-35. After about thirty seconds on the road, the front end started shaking again. I pulled back over, got out, checked it, and it looked fine. Then it dawned on me that since it's a spare, and not a full size tire, I couldn't drive over 35 miles an hour.

We didn't know what to do, so we drove to a gas station across from an indian casino, bought waters, I changed my pants and we talked through our situation. We decided to say "fuck it", so I flipped on the hazards and hit the highway, keeping it at about 30 the whole way.

We got to the Texas border at 1:30 in the morning. We pulled off to sleep at the first big rest stop. The dogs woke us up at three, and we got back out on the road.

We made it home at 6am. Nine hours after we left. I went straight to bed. Unquestionably the worst car trip of all time.
- posted by Mason @ 5:10 PM (0) comments

A good time was had by all...


scope the shelves lined with cookbooks and left-wing political books. my nanny is awesome.

We spent Saturday afternoon at my Nanny's house. We picked up Megan's cousin Cody (also, our best friend of all time), because my grandmother loves him. She made a lemon pie that we don't eat, so Cody had two pieces. He's a big fan of the pie in general, and my grandma's specifically.

We chatted and drank iced tea for about four hours. I had a great time, one of the things I really miss about OK is seeing my Nanny all the time. It's still weird for me for my grandfather to not be around, and it hit me really hard when I opened up the medicine cabinet in his bathroom. My grandma had cleaned it out, but it still smells like Aqua Velva (and it probably always will). Aqua Velva, White Rain Green Apple shampoo and Winston Cigarettes. That's what my Bam smelled like when I was a kid.

We played bingo Saturday night with Megan's Meme and Dad. None of us won, but it was a hoot as well.
- posted by Mason @ 5:12 PM (0) comments

pictures pictures pictures

when we get back, there a lots of pictures to upload.
- posted by Mason @ 12:38 PM (0) comments

no time for post dr. jones

we're on vay-kay to the oh-kay.
- posted by Mason @ 12:37 PM (0) comments

I almost cried.



This fucking excellent Xena Warrior Princess shirt (or, as lesbians call it, "the uniform") was only one dollar at the thrifty. Sadly... oh so sadly, it was too large for me. I was very, very upset. It is so hysterically funny that I can't stand it. I deeply wish that it had fit me.

We had chickpeas, cabbage and rice for lunch. It was great.
- posted by Mason @ 1:31 PM (0) comments

"It's a manufactured poison!"



According to a number of crackpot customers I've talked to recently, canola oil is the worst thing you can possibly eat. Science and scientists, of course, disagree. Pure "rapeseed oil" (the plant that canola oil is a hybrid of) is high is in erucic acid, which IS bad for you. Canola is a hybridization of that plant LOW in in erucic acid. In the early 70's the U of Manitoba developed "Canadian Oil Low Acid" or CANOLA (aka LEAR [Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed]). This hybridization is a product of CROSS BREEDING, not genetic modification. SOME canola is GMO, but it's very easy to buy non-GMO oil (you shouldn't be buying any GMO products at all if you can help it).

Also, these people seem to think that canola oil is used to manufacture mustard gas.

HA!

Ok, mustard seed is high in erucic acid, that's fine. Let's pretend that canola oil is too, [remember that canola is LOW in erucic acid] just for the sake of argument. Mustard gas is made out of mustard in the same way that the moon is made of green cheese. Mustard gas just SMELLS like mustard, it's a chemically manufactured sulfide cytotoxin [Bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide]. A man actually said to me, "It's a manufactured poison!". What a dope.

All these crazies claim that you should be eating coconut oil. Gross. It's so high in saturated fat that it's solid at room temperatures. Awesome.
- posted by Mason @ 11:36 PM (0) comments

I think I might not be a nerd.


picture courtesy of that internets

James and I were talking today about the possibility of me not being a nerd. I've sort of assumed for years that I was, and I may have been at some point, but I'm pretty sure I'm not anymore.

A list of reasons I may not be a nerd:
I don't like anime.
I don't like Star Wars.
I don't like comic books.
I don't like Comedy Central.
I don't like Adult Swim.
I don't have terrible acne.
I don't have poor posture.
I don't play MMORPGs.
I'm not afraid to talk to people.
I'm not a weak nancy boy.
I'm not a computer science genius.
I don't wear oversized t-shirts.
I don't have a carabiner clipped to my belt loop.
I don't wear jean shorts.
I don't talk about how 1337 (or leet, or elite... get it?) I am.
I don't love fake breasted porn stars.

See what I mean? I'm not sure if I used to be, and now I'm not, or I never was. Maybe what a "nerd" is now means something totally different than being a Gen X nerd. Or maybe I'm just "old indie rocker dude", and I always was... I don't fucking know. Based on my above list, I think I hate nerds as much as I hate hippies. Wow.

Also, don't forget to fly your flag today! It's National America Day!
- posted by Mason @ 4:19 PM (0) comments

The Asian Jake Bone



In general, I try not to make posts that are "inside jokes", but I'm making an exception today. Megan found this picture on a street style blog, and I think it's the funniest thing ever. This kid looks just like Jake Bone, doesn't he?

Tomorrow is National America Day. Don't forget to hate a Muslim!
- posted by Mason @ 11:41 PM (0) comments

Vincent "The Mustachio" Pistachio


i chose not picture a close-up of my mouth because i think that's gross

I've let my beard get pretty fucking long recently, partly because I think it looks cool, and partly because I haven't bothered to trim it. I've let it grow out before, but I think now that I'm thinner it looks way more awesome, and way more homeless. I haven't trimmed my mustache either, and while it really funny, it's starting to be inconvenient. I can only drink through a straw, and I have a very hard time eating sandwiches. Which (obviously) is not so funny given my deep and abiding love of salami hoagies, pit beef sandwiches, and meatball heroes.

Today I decided to do something about it, so I had Megan snip it off. I feel much better now that my 'stache isn't resting on my bottom lip. I know that I "sold out" and that I'm a "bitch", but I can drink out of a cup again unaided. I suppose that only having a normal mustache is small price to pay for that peace of mind.
- posted by Mason @ 11:51 PM

Boss Dr. Pad at an Estate Sale


stock photo

I bought a Boss Dr. Pad DR-I at an old lady's estate sale for $10. I have no idea why she had it, but it's mine now. It's the most late 80's thing ever, and I think running it through some wacky pedals will be cool. It also has a 1/4 inch trigger in, so I should be able to trigger it off the guitar or something else interesting. Hey, where's that sampler of mine? Daniel, do you have it? I don't remember what I did with it.

Get the manual here.
Check the sounds out online here. They're super gross, but super awesome.

I really want the DRP-II, which has the bass drum sound in it. Then I can rock the drums on two things that look like guitar pedals.


stock photo
- posted by Mason @ 11:56 PM

Milkshake Nation


check out my milkshake action

Today I purchased a three head, variable speed Hamilton Beach commercial milkshake machine at the thrift store. It costed $12, grandma. I need to go to restaurant supply and buy metal cups for it, but until I do, we have to use these crappy hard plastic cups. We used Vanilla 365 Soy Cream and 365 Soy Milk to make the tastiest soy shakes of all time.

Next time you come over, we can have soymilkshakes. YAY!
- posted by Mason @ 11:05 PM

My New Tom Petty EP



I'm thinking of putting out a companion EP to Daniel's Bruce Springsteen EP from a couple of years ago. At the time, we talked about putting out a split where the first half was Daniel doing The Boss and the second half was me doing Tom Petty. I'm finally ready to do it. I haven't even decided what it's going to sound like. It'll be four track, that's for sure. Maybe I'll break out the Casios again, maybe not. You can be sure there will be drum machine, acoustic guitar and me yelling. To tide you over, listen to the new album if you haven't.

It's going to be called "I Used to be From Gainesville". Here's the track list:

American Girl
Listen to Her Heart
Even the Losers
The Waiting
I Won't Back Down
King's Highway

I should be done by xmas.
- posted by Mason @ 11:55 PM

Dark Shadows



I found this Dark Shadows album at the thrift store. It was very hard for me not to buy it. But it wasn't in good shape, and I don't really like Dark Shadows. I did steal the poster out of it, though.
- posted by Mason @ 11:42 PM

The Most Scratched Up Record of All Time



I've probably looked through well over 250,000 records in the last ten years, but I've NEVER seen an LP in worse condition than this. It's a copy of Bowie's "Pinups" at the Goodwill in Irving. It looks like someone took a kitchen knife to the fucker. I don't know what a person could do to an album to ruin it that badly.
- posted by Mason @ 9:29 PM

Dan Hedaya vs. Dean Stockwell


Dean Stockwell


Dan Hedaya

I love both of these men. Whom do you prefer and why?
- posted by Mason @ 7:40 PM

Cover Songs



Whenever I finish an album it's both a huge relief and a real downer. I currently don't really have anything to work on. I'm not in a writing mood, and I don't have anything to record. Traditionally this is the time that I take a break and learn a whole bunch of new cover songs. Currently I'm working on:

Neil Young - Tell Me Why
Neil Young - After the Goldrush
Dylan - Tonight I'll be Staying Here with You
Dylan - Don't think twice
Gin Blossoms - Hey, Jealousy
Springsteen - Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?/Lost in the Flood
Elton John - Tiny Dancer

I don't mean that I'm just looking at the chords and words online and playing through them, I mean I 'm really trying to own them. This kind of acoustic material couldn't be any more removed from what I've been writing and recording this year, which is really what I need. Sort of a palate cleanser between albums. I'll probably record acoustic versions of them and post them over on the moon mission blog. Any suggestions? Pick a song you want me to do, tell me, and I'll record it if it sounds good.
- posted by Mason @ 2:15 PM

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee



I've been reading this great book called The Book of Coffee and Tea by the Schapira family. [you can get it on Half for $0.75] It's quite fascinating really. I've learned a ton of stuff I didn't know about coffee. It grows on a tree like bush, it's the seed of the fruit you see above, it's picked, dried and shipped to the roaster. There any number of levels of roasting, but here in the US we tend to like our coffee "City Roast" which is also known as "brown roast". How dark the coffee has nothing to do with it's strength (strength comes from the brewing process). The darkness of the roast is what gives the coffee body and depth. The acidity of a coffee comes from the kind of soil (preferably volcanic) and the altitude (preferably high) where it's grown.

Cheap mass-marketed coffees are made from a shitty bean called the Robusto. The trees are hearty and disease resistant, but the cup quality is like boiled straw. Good coffee comes from Arabica beans only, which is why good coffee is more expensive than cheap shit.

So I know all this stuff now, and I'm learning more all the time, but I still don't like the taste. I can discern the difference between types of coffees now, but I don't really like any of them. Maybe I'll learn to like it...
- posted by Mason @ 11:31 PM