Monday, April 30, 2007

Stupid Product Idea: Praisins



Turns to the flesh of Christ in your mouth, not in your hands. Pretty much peanut M&Ms but with a raisin inside and Christian iconography on the candy shell.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Out the Door!

This time I mean it.

Yikes. Busy Morning.

Definitely a more busy morning than I was expecting here at the old Doodlehead Retirement Studios, which has meant delaying work on play/not-for-profit/for little profit projects - and putting off trying out my new toys! I picked up a spiffy polaroid camera for $3 at Brown Elephant yesterday, a nice carafe, and an old classical guitar that's really messed up ($15). I also should visit my brudder in Oak Park to make use of his free box of comics. And take a nap. And go out and take some polaroid pictures. So much to do. I now have tips from two separate sources that the sensible lumpy breakfast donuts appear almost exclusively on weekends.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Aaaaaaaaaaargh.

I've been back too long for this to be jet lag. The insomnia is back. Curses.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Cards Cards Cards

So I went to the UPS distribution center and they had trouble finding my package (of course) but at least it wasn't as bad as going to the center downtown which apparently is co-run by the Department of Homeland Conspiracies and space aliens. From outer space. After about an hour of waiting I got my cards and they look super spiffy, other than that the "6" in my phone number could be mistaken for an "8". If someone dialed that number they'd get Noodlehead, my evil twin. Or my opposite twin. Maybe he's the good one.

Now I'm taking a lay of the land in terms of what needs to be done. Checking to make sure I understand where things are at, how things are structured, prioritizing, checking to make sure the balance of time is maintained. All very grueling brain work. Plus now that all my equipment is back here I've been getting my office set up so that I can get things done. Things aren't "just right" yet especially the temperature - it could be a little warmer in here (it's about 50 degrees, slightly chilly).

There were no lumpy donuts this morning so I had a chocolate croissant, which wasn't very satisfying. It's an over-sized croissant with a hard, not creamy, chocolate center - like a chocolate bar with padding. My irregular presence in town means that I'm left to the luck of the draw, donut-wise, from now on. It is to cry.

Short Trip.

Well, off to Northbrook to pick up my retirement cards. The excitement is as delicious as a Donnwich.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

And Again, Back

And I'm back in Chicago again. Other than the two hour drive from the edge of the city it was a pretty good trip. Plus my music player ran out of juice. And my head started hurting from too much commercial radio. But other than that a nice pleasant drive. I figured out where I lost my checkbook - a hidden compartment in my backpack. Well, hidden from me since I keep on forgetting it exists.

For now and the interim there's so much to be done on all fronts. The trick is going to be maintaining the balance between me time, my personal projects/exploration time, being available to help people out, and of course work to fund this stuff (which itself can be stimulating). Maybe it's not the right mix to impose on other people but it's the right mix for me.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Bah.

Still on California time. It's 2:21 in the morning and I'm not sleepy enough to sleep. Wait there it

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Back in Minnesota Temporarily

And so, I'm back in Minneapolis for a little whiles gathering things to bring back to Chicago. I'll stick around long enough for another broom session with the fabulous Roe Family Singers, but after that I'll be fairly scarce for a while. There are sandwiches to make, lumpy donuts to eat, arrangements and rearrangements to be made. There are a ton of notes from this last trip to write down, although I'm already starting to lose some of the characters.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

SF: Day Four, 3:30 on 4/20

Friday was much more of an interesting day than the others. I started out by harassing the guy at the Apple Store, then moved on to poke around EVB which is really a neat place - the developers have their own little lofted area and there's a basketball net and all that stuff. I proceeded from there towards the coast taking the 71 bus. I met an old Greek man who kept on asking "are we at 45th street? I can't talk to the driver that man is in the way. 45th Street. Where are we?" A couple of girls were standing next to me and wanted to know if they were on the right bus for Haight Ashbury. When the bus started up hill one of her feet would kick me.

"Sorry I'm kicking you," she says, and then kicks my sandal. "Kick! See? I'm kicking you."

Knowing what I know now, they were off to get high and might have already been high. I just took them for tourists.

So I continue on the bus to where it turns and I can see the ocean and figure I must only be a few blocks away and get off and start walking. There's a little oriental grocery and I get an orange for forty-one cents and it's absolutely delicious and I'm thinking of a bit about how the candy consortium manufactures these oranges, which are actually candy, and has used its evil influence to get people to pretend that they're actually fruit. My hands are sticky but I figure I'll find a restaurant along the way to wash my hands.

It ends up, however, that I'm several miles from the shore and it's primarily a residential street. I need to pee but there are no restaurants or anything but I keep on walking. I presume that when I'm near the coast there'll be all kinds of businesses but after a long whiles there's still no restaurants. There is however a surf shop so I head in there to ask for help.

"Hey, is there any kind of restaurant or something around here? I've been walking for forever and I haven't seen anything."

"Yeah, if you go one street over there's a lot of restaurants and a 7-Eleven."

D'oh! So it ends up I'd been walking parallel to relief the whole way. So I find a place to pee and have some lentil soup and a diet coke and then walk the rest of the way to the beach. There's a fireman, two policemen, and some kind of civic worker standing at the corner of the last street. I've finished my cigarette and I can feel their eyes on me. I drop the butt in the trash.

"Smart," the policeman says. There's some kind of highways to cross and then I'm walking, gingerly, across the sand towards the shore. A girl is there dressed in some kind of moon alpha unit clothes, loose cottons and silks or polyesters, shifting rocks and shells with her foot. I have her take a couple of pictures of me against the ocean and then head back towards this coffee shop nearby to post some pictures.

"Do you have 'the wireless internet' here?"
"Yes."
"Can I have a medium coffee please."
[ pause ]
"Will that train take me to Haight Assberry?"
"Yeah, if you take that train it'll take you to Hit. Get off at Cole and you can walk to Hit."
"I want to go to Haight Assberry."
"The train'll take you to Hit."
"Oh... are you Australian or something? You're saying 'hit'."
"I'm Irish. You say tomato, I say tomato."

A rather raw looking dude comes in with a backpack and a guitar. If he were in a movie he'd be played by Nick Nolte. He goes into the men's restroom and stays in there. Guys come by, jiggle the handle, then use the women's restroom. He was still in there when I left after twenty minutes, maybe taking a sponge bath.

There's a postman putting his cart away near the train turnaround. I ask him where to board the train and he points. He's from the Phillipines. I tell him I'm from Chicago and he tells me he has a friend from the Phillipines who lives there. "He uses his brain instead of his body," he says. "A lot easier." This he says is one of the worst routes in town but I'm guessing they're all pretty bad. He says one minute you're freezing the next burning. He had another route once in the hills, that's when his knee started hurting.

So that was the day up until about 3:30.

Friday, April 20, 2007

SF: Day Three, Via Vehicle

The city by car is a lot different than the city by foot. By car, I was able to focus out the areas that were unappealing as though they were just channels I was skipping over and only experience the areas I was interested in. Not surprisingly I got lost on my way to Muir Woods, somewhere halfway up the mountain, and ended up near the tippy top. Being lost, however, holds little consequence as I have nowhere I really need to be any time in particular.

And then once again I got lost, this time on the way back. I assumed that there MUST be a shorter way than back down the same way I came that might end me up in Mill Valley, and weighed that against the idea that there's no urgency and wherever I ended up I'd eventually find my way back.

Having run out of beverage I stopped at a small wayside for a snack and a drink and was informed that, continuing the way I was going, I would get where I wanted to be. It would be a long drive but I'd get there.

Back in San Francisco I stopped at Isotope, which was the most unusual comic book shop I've been to in a long time. A few things were striking about the place. First, it was clean and looked fairly upscale inside. Second, there were no action figures, resin busts, board games, collectible card games, t-shirts, none of that. Third, and most oddly, within a minute of me entering the owner said "Oh we've got a lot of events - etc. is coming, Gene Ha, etc. will be here in May..." I went over as though I knew nothing and said, "Gene Ha? What's he up to? He's coming here? Geeze, he's the greatest comic book artist in the world, perhaps the multiverse." It was during this conversation that I finally decided to drop my Paulie from Rocky III references. Nobody ever picks up on those.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

SF: Day Three, Pt. 2: I Hate Nerds

Apparently I'm missing all kinds of geek conventions that I might find amusing. The alternative press expo is this weekend, and there was a just ended Web 2.0 meeting this week. All things considered though I think my time is better spent otherwheres. It's an overcast day, and cool, which for me is just perfect. I can honestly say that I don't do anything for a living right now other than keep myself amused, which is better than saying I try to hawk pots and pans or make things so people can sell pots and pans.

In the upcoming week there will be two larger test runs of the Donnwich, one in Minneapolis with Big Three Attic and one in Chicago. Donnwich uber alles!

SF: Day Three

So I'm up this morning and head to Starbucks and there's a line that's on the cusp of having to wrap around it's so long. And I says to the lady in front of me "I wonder if the Starbucks down the street is this busy?" I figure her for a geographer there's a big conference of them here.

"Down the street?" she says, and I point in the general direction. Another lady, another geographer apparently, sidles behind us and then another two patrons behind her. We hatch a plan and head down the other ways to the Starbucks which is not more than 100 feet away and the line is a bit shorter but moving much faster. I have some pictures that I'll need to stitch together when I'm back home of a street where there are two Starbucks pretty much directly opposite each other.

I keep on saying "geologist" it's the stupidest thing - I know which one to use but some little imp inside of me is making me say "geologist". Fortunately they aren't insulted but rather take me for some form of simpleton.

Me, I'm heading north to the woods, get some nature. I get very impatient with nature - for the amount of time you have to spend on it there's not that much entertainment value. Hopefully it won't take up my whole day.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

SF: Day Two

Two days out from a bum's perspective, hoofing it hither and yon. I was at Pier 39 today and saw a Spanish guy trying to lure a seagull nearer to him. So I throw a french fry halfway betwixt them and the Spanish guy is all nicey nice to the seagull and then suddenly "STOMP" with his foot "ARF ARF ARF" he goes chasing after it with his arms waving about. The seagull looks more annoyed than scared but backs off.

How did I end up there again? Well, I says to myself "I'm going to take the first bus I come across to wherever it takes me." So the first bus arrives but apparently it's a charter bus. That's probably the bus I should have taken but I had to open my mouth and ask what the fare was when it was pretty obviously not a municipal bus. So I'm waiting for a muni when I get impatient. Seeing a trolley approaching I head over to the trolley stop and take that car to the end of the line, which of course is Fisherman's Wharf.

So walking back along the shore to Market Street I figure that I don't much like this town but that it's a nice experience to be somewhere unfamiliar with nothing to do. I wouldn't want to go to Los Angeles - my preconception of Los Angeles contributes features to my conception of Hell. But perhaps a Toronto or a Seattle, or almost anything north of Washington D.C. out east.

The first half of my day was Chinatown. It's a depressing strip of street. There were a lot of those electronic stores where nothing has a price marked but everything's "on sale", and you can find cameras for "$129 (on up)". I found a crappy Chinese restaurant that was nowhere near the quality of a crappy Chinese restaurant in Chicago. One dim sum restaurant had a female barker on the street who accosted me from quite a distance. I'm not sure why she singled me out - maybe she could see the MSG craving in my moony face.

In any case, tomorrow I am definitely getting away from the city and driving out.

Well Of Course.

You are Mr. Scott
You are a fun-loving foreigner with an
amazing ability to get any job done on time.
Often described as a "Miracle Worker".


Mr. Scott...90%
Chekov...90%
Jean-Luc Picard...75%
Data...73%
Spock...70%
Will Riker...65%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)...65%
James T. Kirk (Captain)...65%
Uhura...65%
Worf...60%
Geordi LaForge...55%
Deanna Troi...50%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)...50%
Beverly Crusher...35%
Mr. Sulu...30%

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

Saturday, April 14, 2007

On My Word, Unleash Deliciousness!

The Donnwich/Hawich is born! Thanks go to my first taste test subjects Adam and Rita. Pictures of the first test on human subjects will be posted soon. The working name for this new food adventure is "The Shitfire Grill", as the food is very hot and spicy.

The Diaspora

And so the diaspora continues. I'm up here in Minneapolis, got here in time to prepare a large batch of spicy pork for Tim's birthday party, but so many are either already gone or leaving. I'll be hopping a plane Monday and heading out west to see what all the fuss is about.

Whenever I'm up here I think about that fishing trip we went on when I was a kid, me and my brothers and my dad and my grandfather. Where we first discovered David Letterman through his midday show "from the top of the sears tower" or something. We had to, apparently unexpectedly, drop our grandfather off at the airport so he could go somewhere in a hurry.

Soon Motorcoat will be heading out to Portland, Vickerman to Los Angeles. Strand is apparently off to Seattle. It's like this country's spinning and things are getting flung to the coasts. It's tough. If I weren't a Chicagoan where would I go? I'd imagine New York for the pastrami sandwiches, but I'm going to eat my way around San Francisco and see what they have there for the ol' tummy. I'm figuring I'll start on the wharf with something light - some kind of deep fried fish, then head to Ghirardeli's for a sundae, then follow my nose to a bakery, then have a nice coffee and let things digest. What sandwich delights await me? I know not. It is an adventure after all.

Kurt Vonnegut* died. We were both born in the same city, Indianapolis, making us part of the same granfalloon, and both had brewers in our direct family ancestry, another granfalloon. Of course, he's a famous writer and I haven't done much of anything other than keep myself amused - at times by reading his books.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Life Life Life

Life is pretty good right now. A little bit of work for money and beer, some doodling... busted out the 8-track and started recording some song stubs. As many naps as I need. I have time to field the occasional question, hang out with folks, go for walks. Time to write. Good good good.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Blue Monday

This flu is still beating the crap out of me. I thought I'd gotten past the worst of it but now I'm producing an unending stream of green snot. I always enjoy having the flu - it's such a totally altered state it's like a reset on life. Still, while I appreciate the discontinuity I'd like to be getting better soon.

I've been using the term "Fonzie Flat" with Gene in terms of finding a house with a, well, a Fonzie Flat. While not commonly in use in America it seems to be in use in Australia. Go American cultural hegemony, eh? I started using the term because we had a discussion with our step brother John about Happy Days, and how we thought Fonzie was super cool when we were young and how silly that seems now. Here's a high school dropout who would hang out with high school kids, lived above one of their parents' garage, and called the bathroom of the local diner his "office". Hitting a jukebox to get free songs seemed cool then too. Now, not so much.

In any case, I was thinking it would be nice to have a place to crash in Chicago so that I could be more rootless - moving about with no commitments but with a home base to store my stuff and have mail delivered to. Saturday morning the whole Ha clan of Chicago went to look at a place in Berwyn that was terrible but two houses down there was a house for sale and my mom made us all go look. Wonderful place, with fine turn of the last century woodwork. Anyways, back to play. There's experiments to run.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Blah.

I'm in Chicago with a horrible cold. The Dominicks had one of those dvd rental machines ($1 for 1 day) so I rented Rocky Balboa. Other than the scary plastic surgery around Stallone's eyes, which was very distracting, it was a really good movie.

The weather's really nice although it's supposed to turn again one last time. After that I anticipate garage sale season will be upon us - time for Garage-a-Thon 2007! The appropriate parties will be notified.