Tag

I know, huh? It's been a while. I've really had nothing new to report, so I'll offer yet another cool web thingy that I found.

Dodgeball.com is a service that works with the web and your cell phone. You sign up on their site and link to friends. While you're out, say, at a bar, you send a text to Dodgeball with the name of the place, and it sends notices out to the friends you've linked with letting them know where you are if they want to meet up. It's free and it serves 22 cities. If you don't want to be found, you just don't check in, and if you don't want notices from your friends, you just send an "off" message to the service.

I'm on the LA one, obviously, but if you want to link to me, I'm on the home page (still, I think) and signed up under my hotmail account.

Hey Mr. DJ

My friend Nic just introduced me to the newest way I can procrastinate at work AND listen to music: Pandora.

From their home page:

Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?
Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favorite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs.
We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you.

Basically, you type in a band name or song title and based on a bunch of scientific criteria, they find other music in their library that matches and plays it for you. From this, stations are created and they'll save them in your account so you can access them later. It's a great way to discover artists you might not have otherwise heard of.

Puppy Bowl II

Ok, I'm blatantly copying my friend Todd, who just blogged about this on My Space, but it's worth spreading to the masses, so WTF.

Animal Planet came up with the genius idea to counter-program against the Super Bowl using a show that features puppies. Yup, just puppies. Puppies playing on a mock football field with toys, specifically. And when they piddle, a ref enters and throws a flag down (their version of a penalty) and cleans it up. I discovered it last year as I was cleaning my place to have a couple of friends over to watch the game. I was flipping channels near MTV to find some music and there it was - Puppy Bowl. I was transfixed, and as my friends and I watched the "real" event, we found ourselves changing back more and more.

It's too damn cute for words and, I swear, feeds my soul.

Just a number?

22. Jebus.

How old do you act?

She chops

This one is for you, Ms. Adams:

Broc

Not so "Simple"

Found a new group I like: Simple Kid . I think he's just one guy, which makes me think he's like a combo of Badly Drawn Boy and The Incredible Moses Leroy . Anyway, when you get to his site, click on the menu button on the lower right, then MP3, and listen to "Staring at the Sun".

Too many Van Pattens work in Hollywood

Thanks for nothing, Dick.

http://www.imdb.com/find?q=%22Van%20Patten%22;s=all

Ouch.

Did you ever look at an inanimate object and think, "Somewhere, I bet there's a fetish group for that."?

Rock on!

So, until Friday, I had no idea that Urban Dictionary existed. Be sure to check out my friend Rory's word that was just added, "Keith Mooned".

On the lighter side...

I was reviewing my last few posts and realized I've done a lot of bitching lately. In the interest of lightening up, I thought I'd treat everyone to a photo of some beagle puppies. Really, is there anything cuter?

All together now: awwwwww!

Verizon DSL can kiss my 2006 ass

I wish I could be more eloquent, but at this particular moment I'm in the middle of my second cold in a month. I blame the climate changes during holiday travel, too many time zones, and my own mother's germs for getting me to this point. And on my two days off before I go back to work, too. Blech.

Anyway, I'm posting this for anyone who might be considering Verizon DSL. They blow. They dicked me out of service for two months as I remained in some sort of customer limbo, and when I tried to get to the bottom of it (during my vacation, *ahem*), they were less than helpful and hung up on me. After HOURS waiting in the queue during various calls.

Adelphia, here I come.

FNG: RIP

Some of you are aware of the ongoing boy drama I experienced this Fall/Winter, which was highly entertaining, extremely hot, and intermittently frustrating. I've been on quite a ride, but I'm putting a stop to at least some of it for the time being. As of now, I'm shelving the homme you've come to know as Friday Night Guy. Let's just say the heat and the entertainment were superseded by the frustration, which is not what I want to start my 2006 with. I appreciate anyone who put up with my pain in the ass obsessive-ness over the last few months ("but ok, we did this, and this is what he said...what do you think it means? but it's HOW he said it...." BAH!) Done.

Of course, there's still Saturday Night Guy...

Can I dial "9" to get out of my life?

Is it wrong to be bitter at Christmas while you're with your family? Fuckit, I'll sidestep my self-imposed guilt trip and launch into a holiday rant.

My Dad got a "winter location" in Arizona earlier this year, a house not too far outside of Phoenix, for the times he feels that Cheyenne - with it's mostly mild winters - would be too cold. "In Arizona," he declared, "I can golf in February!" This from a man who picked up his clubs a total of seven times in my youth, despite having a membership to the Country Club.

I checked it out in late Spring, and it's very nice blahblahblah. Round about September, he decided that this is where Christmas would be. Now, I've lived in LA for almost 10 years and I've spent most of the Thanksgivings within that time in close proximity to a pool. But of the few things I know in my life, one of them is that Jesus wants me to celebrate his bday in a cold climate. In a place I'm familiar with. Near my childhood friends and at least three bars we've gotten drunk in during college in an effort to erase whatever familial obligations we had to endure that day.

Nope, not this year. This year, my Grandma would get to see the house, hang outside in 75 degree weather, and then force us to keep the HEAT on at night. I compose this from the coolest room in the house with a fan above me and a window open. Did I mention I get to sleep on a futon? And the room has another window toward the top of the wall that doesn't have a SHADE? Don't even get me started on my lack of a car to use as an escape to the nearest Barnes and Noble (where I spent a lot of my daytime last year).

This is starting to make my Mom look good.

God bless the two bottles of Asti in the fridge.

Merry Christmas.

Table for ?

Ok, I'm getting shit for not posting since last week. It's the holidays, I'm sick, and honestly, I have nothing of note to say, but in the interest of maintaining my loyal fanbase (*ahem*), I'll offer this cool little find. It's called Open Table . If you're like me and you love going out to eat and feel fancy for doing so, this is a great place to make your reservations and get something back for it.

Country BlueGrass Blues

Praise the lord, CBGB will remain open until Oct 31st.

Read the news here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051208/ap_en_mu/music_cbgb_s_lease

Off the wagon

I lasted eight days and amazingly didn't go crazy when I kicked it back into gear. I celebrated the other night by stealing a pair of sake cups from a Japanese restaurant and almost getting kicked out of a bar for smoking.

Sober as a judge

I've taken a self-appointed sabbatical from drinking. Yup, I'm on the wagon. I'd had multiple social opportunities recently that afforded me the environment within which to drink excessively, and to be honest, I've gotten a little bored of it. So for the last week, I've been off the sauce.

Now, there are plenty of weeks that I've gone longer without social lubricants, but those were during far less popular times. It's a completely different story when you find yourself at a popular Mexican restaurant for a friend's birthday and no less than three tequila shots - FREE tequila shots (Don Julio, too!) - are passed under your nose at the urging of your friends. I passed on all of them. Where's my medal?

It was strange to sit there without a drink in my hand, the familiar anchor I'd grown so accustomed to. It's not that I feared I'd lose my social skills or be unable to carry on a conversation (hell, I was even able to flirt somewhat adeptly with the cute guy sitting next to me toward the end of the night). I think it's because I've felt that alcohol brings out the best parts of my personality: my humor, my charm, my bravado (wow, listen to me). Without something to wash down the initial awkwardness of any social situation, I'm left without a crutch, the sloppy veneer that I could hide behind.

What the hell, it's only 'til tomorrow.

Cheers!

Follow the beat...

I spent a large part of my long Thanksgiving weekend searching for used CDs and stumbled across two new bands (well, new to me):

Platinum Pied Pipers offer danceable hip hop (as opposed to crabby, thug hip hop), but what caught my attention is their groovy, jazz version of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". I love it when something so familiar can be remade by an unexpected genre.

Breakestra is a funk/soul group from L.A. Be sure to listen to "Hit tha Floor".

Seriously people

Answer the Proust thing in the comments section. It's not up there only for my own narcissistic tendencies.

In dreams...

Here are a list of some of the things I've dreamt about in the last week:

Big spiders in my house

Making out with a girl, who I think represented a guy I actually did go out with recently

Keith Richards asking if he could feel me up

Swimming with dolphins

Anyone wanna help me figure out my psyche?