Brain Dump

I'm psyched. I think I watched every episode of Max Headroom when it on the air. I even had a Max Headroom sticker I put on my RC car toolbox. I was totally in love with Amanda Pays and her British accent. Then she got married to Corbin Bernsen...the dream was over... Also from Slash and others, a story about a Transformer revival. A couple of years ago my friends and I toyed with the idea of a Transformer musical. A possible story line was about a young transformer who doesn't know what he turns into yet...He'd sing in this falsetto voice, voicing his adolescent worries, etc.... From Slashdot: Everyone's favorite 80's construct, Max Headroom, has returned thanks to the people at TechTV. According to their website, they will be rebroadcasting all 14 episodes starting this Friday! This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR....

Interesting excerpt on Power Negotiating... [More Info] Took this from a website about freelancing... www.unitof1.com

Now, I love dogs, but I also try to respect the different cultures of the world, so I'm not opposed to eating dog meat.... When the World Cup takes place in South Korea this summer, a group of restaurant owners plans to offer foreign tourists free samples of soup and sandwiches, all made from dog meat. Although animal rights groups have condemned the practice as "barbarous," advocates argue that it's part of South Korean cuisine, just as horse meat, snails and pigeon are in other countries. "Our campaign is aimed at advertising our traditional food to foreigners to dispel their prejudices about our food culture," the group said. There are an estimated 6,000 dog meat restaurants in the nation.

Just found this...Sound clips from the movie Friday.... [More Info] . and Homer sounds clips... [More Info]

So I stayed in last night. I've been determined to play this video game I bought a few months ago, Grand Theft Auto III. I saw a really funny commercial for it a few nights ago, and was kind of bummed, because I paid 45 bucks for it, and have hardly played it. So I devoted a few hours to climbing the underworld corporate ladder by taking on a few assignments from Leon and Joey. The last one I did was where I had to kill "Chunky" Lee Chong, a vendor in Chinatown. I spent an hour doing this one over and over till I got it right. Nothing like running over people, crashing cars and executing people, to end the day...At some point, my heart was racing after I sucessfully shot some gang dudes, outran the police and finally beat the shit out of "Chunky". I was so pissed because I previously had finished the mission, but got caught by the police because I turned on to a deadend street. I weep for the future.... I also watched Survivor. Finally that bitch Zoe is of...

Dudes, My friend Erik showed this to me. Cookie Cutter Pub's... [More Info]

So my friends Jay and Denis collect Star War figures. Last night at midnight they went to go find Episode II figures. Here's some photos of that event... [More Info]

Interesting article about locust....In 1875 the species formed the largest recorded locust swarm in the history of humankind, 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide, equaling the combined area of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. [More Info] . Bart and Homer walking away after setting free a swarm of locust inside George Bush's house... Bart: Hey Homer, where'd you get the idea for the locust? Homer: It's all in the trickster's handbook my boy. The Bible....

Haven't been up to much lately. Just been hanging out, try to prepare for the race this weekend. This past Friday, went to Magnolia near Inman square. They're kind of like yuppified Southern food. I had the BBQ chicken which quite good actually. We then went to see Human Nature at Kendall. It was a decent movie. Some funny moments...Then went to TOAD to hear some music. This crappy band was playing, lead violin, guy on cello, guitar and drums. I was not really into it. It kind of reminded me of bad Kronos Quartet stuff. It was making me very agitated, but then in walks Ashley and Carrie, the Canadians. We ended up hanging out the rest of the night...Good times. Saturday night, had dinner at the Metro with the crew. The Metro is this French bistro that opened up several months ago in Porter Square. I've been wanting to go for awhile. I liked the atmosphere, low lighting. I had the Steak Frittes, which is good, but it's pretty pricey for what you get. Jay and Russ' si...

Well well. I haven't been here in awhile... Just read this whacked article on a free love hippie Apple Dealership commune from the 80's in Wired. [More Info]

Man. My sister just got back from London this past weekend and I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet. I spoke with my mom last night and she mentioned Jen has a new job...Anyway, I wanted to know what was up, so I pinged my sister's friend Anne for some info...Here's what transpired... AWhig: yo Anne Montone: hey AWhig: do you know what my sister's new job is? Anne Montone: receptionist at a trailer company AWhig: really? AWhig: is it a temp thing or fulltime? Anne Montone: full time! Anne Montone: and i think she can really move up in the company if she works hard Anne Montone: they know she wants to edit....so i think she might get some great training Anne Montone: she's at the universal lot AWhig: oh "trailer" company AWhig: i'm thinking trucks, tractor/trailers AWhig: :-) Anne Montone: hahahahahahhahahahahaha AWhig: I was like, whaaaaaatt? Anne Montone: hahahahahaha Anne Montone: i'm crackin' up AWhig: I was worried...

Well, I went to NYC this past weekend to visit Robin and go to Henry's B-day dinner. We met Henry and co. at Tao a restaurant in NYC that was very nice. In attendacne we Marcie Uemura, Robin, Tommy, TJ and Stacey, Henry's brother Phil and his girlfriend, and some other friends of Henry. There's was a total scene going on at Tao and I felt like I was in a TV show when I left. A ton of NYC bettys in the bar...Actually, this place was a restaurant the girls visited on Sex in the City. In the center of the dining room is a 30 foot Buddha statue, surrounded by a little pond filled with goldfish. After dinner, (which consisted of some really good pan-asian food), we went to a Louis', a wine bar in alphabet city and hung out there for awhile. We then went to one last bar, where we had a couple of Chimay's before we retired for the night. The next day, Robin and I went for some Dim Sum at her favorite place on Long Island. We then watched "A Taxing Woman", a Japan...

Wow, this guy lead an amazing and charmed life. [More]

Another good Boston marathon article. [More Info]

Awesome article in the LA Times about Karaoke Bars. Can't wait to go to some in Hawaii. They're always a good time. I've sung "Roxanne" by the Police in New Orleans, Lousiana, Honolulu, Hawaii, Joinville, Brazil, and Brussels, Belgium. I just need to add Africa as my next continent. [More Info]

Jogged 3 miles on the treadmill. 25 minutes. 8:20 minute miles Can't decide if I want to see Giant Sand tonight at the Middle East. There's still time to make it...

AWhig: i also did 8 minute dating on Tuesday with Jody AWhig: ABC's 20/20 was there. I might be on camera BrunoPuntz: anything happen on 8 minute dating? AWhig: i put down 2 woman for dating. my conversations weren't the best, but I thought they were cute...I had a good conversation with a girl, who was totally in to me, but I didn't find her attractive AWhig: another girl, I was totally getting vibes from, but I wasn't in to her AWhig: jody didn't like anybody... BrunoPuntz: so, you'd rather be in contact with a hot chick you don't like or click with, rather than a may-not-be-as-hot chick you get along great with? AWhig: yes. Because I know for a fact that I'm not attracted to the girl with the good conversation, but it's still uncertain that the bad conversation girl is not good...going on date can clear up that mystery AWhig: i worked this out :-) BrunoPuntz: what if the girl thinks she didnt click with you though, and you never get to go...

Good News!!! My sister's band, Elephonic , just had their songs added to the KCRW playlist. KCRW is the NPR station in LA. They do the show "Morning Becomes Eclectic" which plays cooler music and usually has interesting artists play in-studios. If you go to their site you can find an archive of them, in streaming audio format. I especially like the Richard Buckner and PJ Harvey in-studios. My sister Jen use to work part-time for a DJ who fills in for Nic Harcourt of "Morning Becomes Eclectic" and he use to spin their demo songs every once in awhile. Now people just have to call in and request their songs ;). If you check out Elephonic's site, you can listen to their songs in MP3 format...

Experiment continues... AWhig: sucka Anne Montone: hey! Anne Montone: >:o Anne Montone: hhahahahahaaaa AWhig: sucka JoyceeMama: HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JoyceeMama: wassup geee!

I've watched 2 episodes of the Traffik miniseries. It's a BBC miniseries made in the late 80's which the movie Traffic by Steven Soderbergh was based on. They pretty much have the same plot lines, except the one involving the corrupt Mexican police and how they must do what they do to make a living. In Traffik, this plot line was originally about Pakistani farmers who grow Poppys in order to feed their families. The Pakistani government tries to please Britain with it's anti-Poppy legislation and programs to help replace the Poppy fields with other cash crops. An article in the LA Times, talks about this very subject... [More Info]

JANIS JOPLIN, blues/rock singer Port Arthur, Texas September 3, 1969 I have like what anyone would call like, say, a loneliness, a loneliness of my own. But it's just a private trip and probably shouldn't be forced on other people that much, you know what I mean? God, fuck it. Who cares how lonely you feel. You just have to learn to deal with it like everybody else does. Everybody has that, I think. Everybody. Even Christians. I remember I used to think, goddamn it, it's because I'm a chick or it's because I haven't figured it out yet. It's because I'm not twenty-one. It's because I haven't read this or I haven't tried that.... Well, I've done every fucking thing and now I know better. There is no "because." And it's not going to get any better. My father.... See, my father is a very intelligent man and I used to talk to him a lot because he reads and he's pretty sensitive and I was a mixed-up kid and too sm...

Baiting Jay... AWhig: dude, Bender507: dude AWhig: I heard that Yoda dies in the new star wars movie Bender507: Sure. And he's going to be digitally removed for IV - VI AWhig: no, he comes back somehow in the next movie Bender507: Right Bender507: No spoilers even if jokes He then proceeded to warn me on AIM. Bastard...

Okay, so I've been working at this place for about a month a half. I've met most of the people who work around me and they're pretty cool. They are in the sales department, so they are always on the phone talking to potential clients, etc. I almost know the sales pitch by heart now...Anyway, one girl I'll call her "Jane", has a shaved head. I couldn't decide if she was a lesbian, or it was the result of something like chemotherapy. So anyway, she's on the phone yesterday talking to a friend, and from the conversation I could tell her friend was diagnosed with cancer and was discussing it with her. At some point Jane mentions HER diagnosis and the therapy that she is doing. So she has cancer. Later on in the day, Jeff, a co-worker who sits behind her was on the phone talking to his friend. At some point in the conversation he says, "I'll be there wearing the powder blue leisure suit...", and hangs up the phone. Jane, joking arou...

I jogged 7.5 miles yesterday, 64 minutes. 8:30 minute miles about. Then went to dance class and went over the Rhumba again. There's not a whole bunch to it, so we were kind of bored. We then learned a very simple cha cha cha step. It was kind of funny, for some reason Malena couldn't get it. She was missing the back step on the last half of the step. The teacher came by while I was dancing with Diane and tried the step with Malena. Diane and I were watching and Malena wasn't quite getting it, and it was pretty funny. We kind of laughed out loud and Malena got a little pissed.... Then we started the Tango. We were suppose to go in a circle around the room, but I got distracted and went straight across the room and almost ran into another couple. Kind of funny. Then I got the hang of it and steered my partner (Malena) in a way to compensate for the movement to the side that happens with the steps. Can't wait to learn more of the Tango. Then met Magee at Tir Na Nog ...

Here's an awesome article about modelling artificial societies. Really fascinating stuff, espcially the models that looked at racial tensions and genocide. Kind of makes me sad I didn't do anything with my economics degree. Kind of cool, running these models to try and explain societal behaviours. [More Info]

Okay, so this morning I IM'ed various people the word "sucka" to see what they would come back with... AWhig: sucka mayabazar: beatch AWhig: sucka BrunoPuntz: sucka AWhig: sucka wachs: super sucka wachs: super duper sucka AWhig: sucka mdupuis282: yo mama AWhig: sucka shanders99: yo

Interesting article. Ties into the running kick I'm on... The running animal In the evolutionary race, scientists find humans were built to outlast the competition. [More Info]

So the Yo La Tengo scored movies were pretty cool. I didn't really know what I was going to see until I was there, but it turned out to be a series of underwater nature films with the volume turned down and the music provided by YLT. There were some inspiring moments, especially the music that accompanied the Sea Horse movie and the one about octopuses (or is that octopi). The French narration was translated and subtitled in English at the bottom of the screen and provided a few laughs. Those crazy frogs... One movie was of ice crystals forming for about 10 minutes and YLT turned in one of their patented noisefest orgies. I use to find these terribly annoying, but at some point, after seeing them a bunch of times, I started finding it humorous. I like to watch the crowd reaction and see the people who are not as familiar with them get all fidgety and agitated. I guess it's my form of feeling like I'm in the "in" crowd....;) Other films were of mostly microscopi...

So tonight I'm off to see Yo La Tengo at the Somerville Theater. They're providing the soundtrack to some trippy experimental French films from the 60's done by Jean Painleve. Hope it's good...I think there's a lot of images of jellyfish involved. [More Info]

Reading over my past posts, I realized I use the word "boggling" a lot. Well twice. It's freakin' me out, cuz I never use the word "boggling"...

This just in from my sister... rich, what was the name of the city we stayed at the b and b when we were here? I feel that we are near to that place right now. Jim's parents live in the city of Twickenham, near Richmond, and we are 15 min or so from London. We took a jog, jim and I , along the river thames, Jim's parents' apt is along the river. it's beautiful here. We visited the castle at leeds in the county of kent, and today we are going to play. lvoe jen We stayed in Putney, near Putney Bridge when we were there for Thanksgiving 1999...

So Saturday I was feeling kind of crappy because I hadn't really worked out since last Monday. I get to the gym late and after lifting a bit, I decide to go jogging around Fresh Pond. I kind of decided earlier that I was going for a long jog and not go to dinner with friends at 6:30. So i'm jogging and finished my usual 2 times around and decided to go for a 3rd time around. Felt pretty good after 3 laps and then said what the hell, I'll do a fourth, I already missed dinner. And I did it! I've never done that before. A lap is about 2.5 miles so I did about 10 miles, which is kind of boggling to me. The most I've run is about 6 or 7 miles...I did take it easy though, about 9:30 minute miles. took me 92 minutes.....Afterwords I had a bite to eat to eat and I met everyone at Devon's Margarita party. Of course, I didn't have any tequila so the score now is: Rich 8 Alcohol 0 Sunday I watched Training Day on DVD. I thought it was an awesome movie. Gotta love...

Rich 7 Alcohol 0 So, I'm at work yesterday and near the end of the day, the sales team throws a party and next thing you know I'm surround by people all drinking Bud. Did I have one...Nope. Then last night at dinner we go to this chinese seafood restaurant who had a whole slew of old school tropical drinks on the menu. Jay had a Navy Grog, which is Gin and pineapple juice and other stuff...I didn't have a drink, but I did try a sip of his...Wasn't bad. So it's kind of boggling. So far this week I've been in seven situations where people are having a drink. I haven't even hit Saturday night yet...

Score so far: Rich 5 Alcohol 0 I met my friend Ryan and his v-ball team at Border Cafe in Harvard Square, but instead of drinking margaritas like everyone else, I had 2 huge glasses of water...I only have to make it through Friday and Saturday to complete my first week of no alcohol... Funny thing happened. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent...). I met this girl Sarah at the bar, who's a friend of Francesca, a girl on Ryan's v-ball team. They're both from Canada . Anyway, Francesca and Paul got in a fight over anal sex, so I ended up taking Sarah home. Sarah proceeded to relate an awesome story of how this guy totally screwed her over and how he tried to hide the facts after she found out that he had a girlfriend back in Oregon... The way she told it, she moved to Los Angeles for a project and didn't know anyone (she works for a consulting company). This guy Craig was her mentor and they ended up spending a lot of time together. Eventually, a w...

Funny conversation with my friend Snatch.... KELTIX: i just got back from dallas last night KELTIX: was there for 4 days AWhig: what were you doing there? KELTIX: visiting a friend and also trying to find investors AWhig: investors? KELTIX: its a long story but i'm trying to help this company get funded AWhig: ah AWhig: how much? KELTIX: i actually found someone who was interested KELTIX: only 500K AWhig: what does the company do? KELTIX: you know those texans, anything not in the millions is small AWhig: yeah...have you seen the movie Giant? KELTIX: its XXX, the company joy and i worked for AWhig: oh KELTIX: i went to these people's houses, i mean, who needs all that room??? AWhig: it's all about status KELTIX: it was really crazy, they have 2 or 3 houses just to park their cars KELTIX: yeah i know, they're all nouveau riche KELTIX: my friend tina lives there, she just got married last year KELTIX: she's been sick of her marriage already and...

Score another one for Rich. I'm taking a latin dance class with some friends and afterwords we went to the Sunset Bar and Grill in Allston for some food. I'm surrounded by people drinking yards of beer and what did I have? Huh? Yup. Just water...I really wanted ice tea, but it wasn't brewed so I stuck with H20. Rich 4 Alcohol 0 The class was cool. We practiced more merengue moves. A lot of spinning is involved, but we got this one move in particular that is quite nice. Then we worked on the Rhumba again, adding little moves here and there.

Okay. So I decided last Sunday to give up alcohol until at least April 28th. That's the day I'm going to run the James Joyce Ramble 10K. I want to lose some weight to go faster and I figure an easy way to do that is cut out the beer. So far the score is 3 for Rich, 0 for Alcohol. I went out Monday to TT's to see my friend Magee play an acoustic show with Tim Obitz. People around me drinking beer, I had none. I then went to a charity fundraiser thing Tuesday evening at Flashes, this bar and Denis and co. had a few beers, but yet, I had none. Afterwards, I met Rory at the Middle East to see Hayden play upstairs. Yet again, I had no drinks...Now for the tough part, Thursday through Saturday....

Denis and I have captured a new line we'll probably start using on friends. It was on the Andy Richter show. His friend Keith says something to him that was totally outlandish, and Andy believes him. Keith then leans over, touches Andy's right cheek gently and kisses him on the left cheek and says, "Don't ever lose that." Brilliant!

Well, last night I found out a friend has been dating someone for over a year now, and it's all been a secret. He works with her and they have to keep it all on the QT. Total relief. I was getting bummed cuz he was always blowing me off whenever I tried to meet up with him. I didn't know if he was down on me, or if he was depressed or something.

This past weekend I went up to Stowe, VT. where I met my friends Rory and Elaine for some spring riding. It was pretty nice. The sun was shining, BBQ in the air. The snow was really choppy and heavy, so we got tired fast, but it was definitely a good time.

Kind of weird. Last weekend my friend and I were walking down Mass. Ave. back to my car when we came across this guy convulsing on the lawn of some apartments. He clearly was having a seizure, so I went up to him and tried to talk to him, maybe to get him to snap out of it (I don't know much about seizures). Then I kind of tapped on the shoulder, to see if that would work. No go. He was shaking and his fists were clenched up and he was making these gurgly sounds. I was about to call the cops on my cell phone, but Ryan saw a cop parked across the street so he went over to him. We ended up hanging around a little bit and saw the 3 or 4 other cops who came to the scene after the first cop called them. It was quite exciting. Afterwords, I overheard the first cop say to the other guys that he was convulsing, but now is refusing medical attention. I could see the guy raise his arm up to the cops, but he was still on the ground in the same position I found him.