July 2008 Archives

Yesterday!  Was great!  I had my review at work and got an unexpected raise and promotion! 

Then in my excitement over that, I emailed a friend of mine in California and within 5 minutes got completely carried away and bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles to go celebrate!  On Virgin America where you can text the cute boy in seat 9B and pretend you are flying to space with Richard Branson and Victoria Principal! 

And once in LA, we're going ride subways and go see Point Break Live and find the finish line from Midnight Madness in Room 2704 of the Bonaventure Hotel!

Oh.  My.  God.  On the souls of all the VonErichs, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do??????



The WWF is hiring web analysts.

I am nanoseconds away from applying, just to say I did.

Today was the big Ballard Seafood Fest, which is kind of like a combination of a state fair, Groom Day, and a mall's food court with nothing but stall after stall of Long John Silver's.  I do not care for seafood.  Here is how I amused myself at Seafood Fest, despite my dislike for seafood:

1. Ate a huge ear of roasted corn that was dipped liberally into a vat of butter.
   
   
2. Nibbled on the elephant ear that Leslie bought, and in doing so, also became covered in a light dusting of powdered sugar just like the elephant ear.
   
   
3. Laughed at a bike pizza delivery guy trying to deliver a pizza IN THE MIDDLE OF SEAFOOD FEST.  (!?)
   
   
4. Followed a guy who was walking around in full-on corpse paint.  He did not eat any seafood.  But he did roll several cigarettes, and occasionally stopped to switch out the CD in his Walkman™.

I just got back from another trip to Austin for work.  I always seem to have really strange dreams when I'm out of my normal sleeping element.  And I'm pretty good about documenting these dreams.  Not so much for any psychological analysis...moreso just for my own entertainment.  I keep them all in a Ponyboy Curtis-style composition book.  I just spent a few minutes scanning through this book, and I'm going to share some of my favorite dreams with you...

• 10 MAY 2007 - I was a member of the Royal Court of Sweden, and the two red-headed twins from America's Next Top Model were my chambermaids.  Our reign was called the Malmsteen Dynasty.
  
  
• 16 SEP 2001 - With all the possibilities of computer animation, Hollywood decided to get rid of all human actors.  Except two, and they held a vote to choose which two actors those would be.  They chose Sharon Stone and Haley Joel Osment.
  
  
• 14 AUG 2000 - (note: this was in my most intense wrestling-watching days) ...then Ken Shamrock and Tazz started feuding.  Somehow I got pulled into this.  Ken was making Tazz sign a document promising not to put him in the Tazzmission.  They wanted me to sign as a witness, and Shane McMahon was there, too, since he was a notary...
  
  
• 17 OCT 1999 - I was in junior high and I was riding my bike back to the house because I had forgotten my homework.  When I got back, KISS had taken over the school.  I was very excited by this prospect until I got closer, and realized they were making everyone run laps.
  

My parents are currently here in Seattle visiting me.  I have dragged them all over: to the pier, through the city, on a lake, through the channel, around the Sound, up the highway, around the casino, etc.  It's always fun to have visitors because it gives me a chance to do some of the sight-seeing stuff I neglect to do as a resident.  And it's always hilariously fun when the visitor is my dad. 

The best way to explain is to provide all his out of context commentary that I documented over the past three days.

Griping at me for trying to pay for stuff...
"Now listen little stinky pot, you're not paying for nothing while we're here."

Modifying his hamburger order at Red Mill because he didn't want a kaiser roll...
"Can I get it on a regular bun instead of a keesher bun?"

Upon seeing a road sign for Tukwila...
"How do you say that?  Tooka-koala?"

Upon seeing a road sign for Snohomish and Wenatchee...
"Have you ever been to...Sn...Snotchy-botchy?"

Trying to learn Jackie and Jeremy's names in advance of meeting them...
"What time are we supposed to meet Jackie and Jerry?"
"What were their names again?  Jessica and Stuart?  No, no, I'm sorry, not Stuart...Delmar?"
"Let me think...Jessica and....Donald?"
"How old is Jackie and Jimmy?"

Mashing up golf, tennis, and horse racing...
"Was there ever a horse named after Greg Norman?  There was after Chris Evert!"

Commenting on the strength of Starbucks coffee...
"Strawback coffee is strong."

Disappointed that the senior special breakfast only came with one egg...
Dad: "I think this is only half an egg."
Me: "Dad...it's a fried egg!  How do you fry half an egg?"
Dad: "Well, that's what I wanted to know!"

Adding more commentary to the Puget Sound cruise...
" 'Barnacle' was the name of the cafe in that John Candy movie, and they won a race in it."

Gawking at people downtown...
"Does she have pink hair?  Or does she have pink hair?"

Trying to classify how a boat is or is not a ferry...
"That's not a ferry!  Where's the ferris wheel?"

This is a bit of a rip-off entry for those of you who knew me in my diaryland days, because I've already posted this topic.  Which is that Jock Ewing from Dallas looks remarkably like one of the urRu mystics from The Dark Crystal:



But suddenly, this is super-relevant because I just learned about a new website called TotallyLooksLike.com!  Where a whole community of people sit around and dream up (and document) stupid shit like this!  I just submitted this matchup for approval, so watch their site to see if my observation is worthy...

And now I have to go find some full-body images of Venus Williams and a sleestak.  Bye.


.......


Update!  Forget about Venus, I have a much better tennis-to-creature comparison:  Rafael Nadal and Trogdor!  Rafa, your arm is ridiculously huger than the other one!

Tomorrow I run away to Texas.  We have a client meeting in Austin on Tuesday.  The rest of my workie friends are heading down on Monday night.  I am leaving tomorrow.  You're probably thinking that's a bit early to arrive 5 days early for a meeting.  (15 minutes early?  Yes.  5 days early?  Slightly excessive.)  Well, Seattle "summer" has been disappointing weather-wise, so I decided to take advantage of a free trip home and the holiday weekend to go bake in the heat for a few extra days.

My sister understands how badly I miss the heat.  She delivered this weather report to me today:

Weather Forecast from NBC5 meteorologist Jennifer Lopez...

Thursday 98 - sunny

Friday 98 - sunny

Saturday 96 - isolated storms (which means nothing)

Sunday 98 - stray storms  (which is less than isolated, so again, probably nothing.)

Apparently JLo can't predict out to Monday, but there seems to be a trend of 98 degrees.  Can we get any more boy band and pop diva in our weather this week!!!  WHOOO!!!

Ivan Ljubicic	vs.	Anthony Edwards

Mikhail Youzhny	vs.	Joaquin Phoenix

Marat Safin	vs.	James Franco

Nikolay Davydenko	vs.	Matthew McConaughey

David Ferrer	vs.	Roger Howarth, aka Todd Manning from "One Life to Live" c. 1992

Bjorn Borg	vs.	Ed Begley, Jr.

David Ferrer, I'm sorry you look like the guy who instigated the Spring Break gang rape of Marty Saybrooke, and that that's what I think about every time I look at you.