Attack of the Laundry Cat

I've heard of the ceiling cat, who apparently watches me masturbate:

But yesterday, after I finished a load of laundry, I suffered an attack from Laundry Cat, who decided that folded clothing should not stay folded. She attacked while I was in the other room, spreading havoc and dismay as she rolled around in my freshly washed and folded laundry. She unfolded my shorts and a few t-shirts before she was done, and let me tell you, it was a damn good thing I hadn't folded my socks yet, because she got into those as well. Crazy Laundry Cat, I'll get you one day!

Projects

I'm heading out of the country on Thursday, which means that I'll actually be forced to sit down and finish a bunch of projects I've supposed to have been working on. Call it a mental list.

Here's what's on my plate:
Obtain a copy of Foreigner's Greatest Hits.
Obtain a DVD copy of Cats.
Get color cartridges for my printer.
Figure out exactly what happened to my camera while I was in Boston, and see if I can get it fixed.
Finally fill out the form to get my 401(k) from the soulless company that stole my youth. Apparently they've owed me some money for 10 years that no one was aware of.
Finally fill out the form to roll-over my 401(k) from my previous employer.

Well, that's part of it. I'm should be able to cross a couple of those off my master list by the end of the weekend.

Mr. Webster, my contribution for the day:

I would like to offer a new word into the English language:

Netflixmas (n) - receiving one's full quota of Netflix movies all in one day.

This actually happened today, to my roommate, aka Jessinatrix 5000. I was on my way to grab some groceries when I checked the mailbox. I had a little chuckle and an idea as I took the good ol' grocery getter up to the store. Now, friends and neighbors, it is time for lunch!

I wasn't planning on upstaging anyone, but...

I took this test and got strange results:

You Are 88% Evil

You're the most evil person you know. The devil is even a little scared of you!

How Evil Are You?

Apologies and thanks to Bosco for finding it.

I rock

I also roll, when pushed down a hill. I have taken some 617 pictures with my digital camera in the last 5 weeks or so- and I've only posted a few of them, maybe 20, so I'm putting up a photo post:
This, friends and neighbors, is what you'll see if you're having a conversation with me, and hockey comes on the tv behind your head.
This is what happens when there's a kickass bassline to the song I'm karaoking.
Three beautiful ladies that I am fortunate enough to call friends.
The view of Montrose Harbor from Bosco's balcony, which I managed to brave for a grand total of about 90 seconds.
Two of my favorite Canadian transplants at a Cubs game.

It seems as though blogger doesn't want to load anymore pictures right now, so I guess there'll have to be another installment of picture time with Logan's Dave. Until then!

Keep your Jesus off my Penis.

I've been reading the Quality Control Alliance for a while now. I like to read stuff written by people who have problems with religon. Here's a post from the other day that I think merits some link love. Enjoy!

It feels kinda like a bar mitzvah...

...except I'm not Jewish, and it would be about 20 years too late.

Finally, after long delays and all kinds of bureaucratic hoop-jumping, I, ladies and gentlemen, have a US Passport:


When the lady took my picture, she asked me where I was going, which I would think is a common question to ask someone who is getting passport. "Everywhere" I said, "starting with Toronto."

Just in the nick of time, good ol' Uncle Sam comes through. Thanks, buddy.

I've also just returned from seeing Clerks II (ok, I had to see it, okay?). I don't want to spoil anything, but if you go into it expecting it to be as bad as you'd expect it to be, you might come out liking parts of it. Oh, and I miss my donkey. I also have a newfound attraction to Rosario Dawson.

That's all I'm going to say.

Meet Team mopundow 2006

Our 'official' team picture from this year was e-mailed to me this week. I thought I'd share it with all of you, my dear readers. You can access all of our team's pages through our team page, www.mopundow.org. If you haven't received e-mails from me asking for donations, it might be because of your spam blocker, but believe me, I have been asking for donations. Please, if you can, contribute what you can. Every dollar helps fight MS, which, I'm sure you all know, my best friend has.

Anyways, all me to introduce to you, and thank, my team:
Row one(kneeling), L to R: Larry Cairo, yours truly, Assistant Captain Tom Lariviere, Rosie Rodriguez. Row 2: Jenny Steiner, Elizabeth Hughes, Assistant Captain Jen Nelson, Lee Neubauer, Alexis Eiseman, Muriel Gutierrez. Row 3: Brian Ahrens, Assistant Captain Bob Mandel, Johanna Van Dorf, Anne Teulet-Cote. Row 4: Pete Mika, Mike Moody, Liz Homsy, Matt Keating, Ben Spannaus, Aaron Gutierrez, Ger Bonar.

That's one hell of a group of people, and one hell of a team!

Super Crunchy!

I've been spending my morning going over this year's pub quiz and bike team ledger, in hopes that I can make a budget for next year's bike ride and associated fun. We're trying to get some big sponsors for next year, so we're working hard on getting prepared. I'd say this is exciting, but the administrative part isn't the part I like.

The riding the bike part is what I really, really like.

In two weeks, I am heading to Toronto for a few days, including the going away party for Sass. My thoughts are also drifting to other points east, specifically Ceerock, who is stuck in the middle of a brownout, my favorite bar in the universe, and, well, a place I'll definitely have to go, next time I'm in New York:

....mmm, iambic pentameter....

Last night I had dinner and attended MacHomer with a young, intelligent, beautiful woman who probably knows more about the Simpsons than I do.

MacHomer is a brilliant show- funny, entertaining, and he does an amazing job with some of the voices, oddly enough, his strongest voice is that of Marge Simpson. Of course, some of the other voices aren't as strong, and you can tell, as those voices are generally done quieter, which makes hearing during the show a rather difficult experience. At times, too, his Homer, Principal Skinner, and Barney all sounded like the same character to me, but he recovered and moved forward. I can't remember the last time I read MacBeth, but he did warn us in the beginning that he wasn't going to stick to the original, and he sure didn't, which made it more fun. Overall, though, I can do nothing but recommend this show to every Simpsons fan I know, and even to those Shakespeare fans I know, too. One thing my companion and I both agreed upon was that Macduff should have been the voice of Duffman, not Barney.

Just a thought, I guess, for future productions, from a fan.

Worst pub quiz quote ever.

I've been called a lot of things since I started running the Globe's pub quiz. I've taken flak for questions, answers to questions, and questions about the answers, and I've done my best to weather all of those.

Tonight, with the air temperature being about 80 degrees (that's about 27 to my metric friends) in the back room, and me being all alone, and me being already pissy about something moderately related, took huge offense to a quizzer, sitting right next to my table, who said "you're probably not sophisticated enough to read Garrison Keillor."

Friends and neighbors, I grew up in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region. Sure, I lived in Chicago and Carroll County, Illinois, and Kitchener, Ontario, but if you really, really want to boil it down to where I spent the most of my formative years, it would have to be Minneapolis/St. Paul. During those formative years, I spent a lot of time being assigned works by, guess who... Garrison Keillor. I also, thanks to my mother and father, was exposed to the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, Stephen King, and last but not least, to the movies of Stanley Kubrick. I learned hard and fast what I thought was important to the world, at least, what I thought should be important.

One of those things is NOT the works of Garrison Keillor.

So, I told that quizzer what I told you. And yet when, after this happened, I took a couple points off their score, they insisted that I return those points. I do not take insults likely, especially when too warm, and especially when in the middle of running a pub quiz. Instead of standing my ground, I gave them the two mystical, magical points, and asked them not to return, other than to use their certificate, good for any night of the week.

I can understand wanting to win. I am a competitor. However, when participating in a quiz for charity, well, I'm just happy someone is giving me the opportunity to have some fun for my meager contribution.

Perhaps that's just me. Perhaps my friend is right when she tells me that I'm the only one who really gives a shit about what I work for. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

I've had enough. Time for some sketch and my bed. The rest of the world can kiss my ass, frankly.

...Puerto Rico, a'ight a'ight...

After a 5 day trip to the east coast, including using train systems in three different major cities, I came home today on the Orange Line from Midway Airport, and sat in the heat, watching trains go by for no apparent reason. I counted one Purple, three Brown, two Green and one Pink Line train go by, while we sat there for ten minutes. When I was in Boston, Newark and New York, the longest I ever waited for a train was 40 minutes, and that was my delayed Amtrak train to Boston. Other than that, no more than 5 minutes, I'd say.

I just had to bitch, that's all. For now, a picture that will probably scare the bejeebus out of my bwife. During the preparations for the wedding reception I was at this weekend, among my responsibilities were to blow up about two dozen mylar balloons with helium. I guess I got the job because I like things under pressure or something. More on the dynamicly tactile weekend and everything else later. Promise. Right now I need food and a nap.

On the Sunnyside of the street

I have to admit that I really like Queens. Especially where Ceerock lives, in Sunnyside. Don't worry, I am not planning on moving back here at all, but I do really like this neighborhood. Very nice. Quiet. The 3am taco/burrito trucks are outstanding, and every bar we've been in so far had someone Irish working, and they knew how to pour a Guinness, although the best method I've seen this weekend was a four pour method. Let me tell you something- it was very tasty.

New York has changed in the last 8 years since I called it home. The people are friendlier, for one thing, even happier. Some of the bars I used to go to aren't there anymore, like the Bullmoose, and that other place where we once sent back a pitcher of beer because there was a cockroach in it. Needless to say, we got a couple free pitchers off of that.

I will not tell you who had already drank some of that pitcher, however.

One of my favorite restaurants is closed, apparently recently, too. This was sad, but came at an ok time, as we had already eaten, even having a gelato at MoMA, my favorite museum in the city. This is still a walking town, and my knees are telling me about how I don't like walking this much. If it weren't for me getting my directions reversed after we got out of hte train station, we would have had a much easier time getting to my favorite bar in the universe, the Stoned Crow. Instead, we wound up much further south than we needed to be. Fortunately, a quick hail of a cab, and we were right there.

I apologized profusely for getting reversed.

Anyways. I hear Ceerock is awake. I need a shower and maybe even a quick trip for breakfast before I head to Manhattan, and to Penn Station again, so the Summer of Dave can continue the first leg of its tour, heading north to Boston for two days. This will be my first ever trip to Boston without a certain redhead living there. Will there be bowling? Will there be a Red Sox game?

Time will tell. I will tell, too. In a day or two.

The Summer of Dave goes on tour!

Tomorrow, I'm leaving the friendly confines of Chicago on my first summer tour of the East Coast in almost 3 years, and my first visit back to New York since I moved!

I'm very excited. I'm visiting the lovely Ceerock and going to a wedding reception, and hopefully getting in some candlepin bowling before I have to come back here and continue my job search, which hopefully will be over before it really starts.

So, if you don't hear from me, at least you'll have a vague idea of why, right?

Right.

Super nerdy digs.

I set up a second computer, third on our network, here at home, so that we could both use it as a print server, and so I could use it as a general file server:
I am working on tomorrow's pub quiz, and I looked over to find Mia sleeping on the windowsill, cuddling up to one of the power cords:

And I think to myself, what a weird cat she is.

Take a walk on the wild side.

Back in the day my friend A and I were known for being big party animals. She's a very good friend who has always done right by me, so when she told me she was moving home to Detroit Rock City, I was sad. When she asked if I could help, I was more than obliged. I of course, am pretty much an expert at moving- I can drive any moving truck, and I know how to pack something fierce. I've got lots of experience moving cross-country.

She brought her new boyfriend with her, J, the guy with the long hair on the right. He's a very fun guy, very down to earth, and most importantly, very nice to my friend. He met with the Dave standards of now-you-can-date-my-friend even if he is a Red Wings fan. Nobody's perfect. Our first night of extreme partying included 3 different bars and one 4am trip to the 24-hour taqueria, where A had some trouble with the green sauce, which she more appropriately calls "liquid green crack" because it is just too damn good for words. I was rather taken back by the fact that my steak tacos with extra cheese and to tomato came to the table as steak tacos with onion and cilantro, but was too hungry and drunk to complain or wait to have them add cheese.

The next morning I woke up and took painkillers, then went back to sleep in hopes that my hangover wouldn't be as bad as I thought it was. A and J woke up a couple hours later. He was heading to the store to get some Gatorade. They asked if I needed anything, and I mentioned that an athlete does live in the house, and that there was plenty of Gatorade in the house, but to no avail. They had plans for the afternoon, and I had plans to do stuff around the house, so we went our separate ways.

Around 4:30 I heard my roommate say some very, very good words to me "Binny's has scotch on sale."

"Let me get my shoes."

I called the owner of the Globe, as he is also a big scotch fan, and let him know we were going. Sadly, he was busy, but he's planning on going this week. My goal was to keep the alcohol purchases under $200, and I did so, at least, I did so at Binny's. I got two very nice bottles of sketch, and some special beer for about $145, then we stopped by Trader Joe's, where I replenished my then empty wine rack. All told, although including food, I spent about $230 on booze on Saturday. That ought to last me a while, too. At least, I certainly hope it will.

After dinner, we sampled one of my bottles, then headed out to see the Emerald Lizards, then we headed up for some karaoke, then we headed to the 5am bar, then we finally came home. J went down to the front porch for one last cigarette as A and I got ready for bed. We were talking when I realized he hadn't come up yet, so I went to see what the hold up was. He had fallen asleep with the cigarette in his hand, still burning. I put it out and threatened to fireman carry him up the stairs. He perked up pretty quickly and made it under his own power.

Yesterday started out with a pretty bad hangover which was again counteracted with Gatorade and naproxen sodium. I barely left the couch, other than to get the food I had delivered. I think I'll be taking it easy for a few days, needless to say.

Execute Order 66

Part of my early retirement from the futures industry is finally getting around to doing all the things I've been meaning to do for say, the last year or so. I am frequently amazed by how busy I can be- but now, I'm finally getting stuff done. Last night I finally (and that would be better said in italics, so here goes), finally threw out my old monitor, and my old microwave, and some other stuff that's just been taking up space.
Today was a fun one. I went through my old computer CD's and got rid of all the software I probably haven't used in 3 years- even the old NHL 99 disk that I have, where I once managed to score 218 goals in one season. Take that Wayne.

Up next is lunch, then there's some exciting things I need to do outside, then back to straightening up around the house. Next week? The job hunt begins, New York City, and Boston.

Doesn't all that sound like fun?

Could 6.6.6 be the most pivotal day in my life?

Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know soon, though.

In case you don't remember, read yesterday's post, where I detailed the many great and amazing things that have happened to me in the last month, since 6.6.6. Here's the insider information that you don't get from that list of accomplishments, which, upon re-reading it, I realized that I left out that I rode a century, my second ever.

I spend a lot of my time in my underwear. My roommate was gone for quite some time, and my cat doesn't really mind my naked (or near-naked) form. I've been spending a lot of time buying things, too, like plane tickets and stuff like that. I've been doing research on knee problems. I've been playing video games like Katamari Damacy, NHL 2005, and Star Wars Battlefront. I've ridden my mountain bike a lot. I made a cake for Jen's birthday, which we then surprised her with in the hotel we stayed in for the MS Ride.

I'll bet that you didn't even know that I could bake. I can- and I'm rather good at it- it is so much more precise than regular cooking, so it appeals to the scientist in me. Of course, I could be wrong, and everyone was just acting as though they enjoyed the cake.

Anyways. It is high time I did the things I promised myself I would get done on Monday. Enjoy the video above- it makes me so happy. Oh, and happy one monthiversary to my bwife, Maria. Aren't we a cute e-couple?

The most important thing said to me during this year's MS Tour de Farms

I've been wanting to write about this since it happened, honestly, but I've been holding this story back- I've been enjoying it too much.

Anyways, on day one of the ride, I was at the second-to-last stop on the ride, feeling pretty good, as the end of my century was coming up in just 15 or so miles. I was chatting with a couple of my teammates when a young woman came up to me and asked "you're the pub quiz guy, right?"

"Yes I am."

"I've been to your pub quiz before."

"I think I recognize you. What's your name?"

"[K]."

"I'm starting to remember you, it's been a while."

"I have to tell you that you're the reason that I'm here."

"Really?"

"You talked about the ride at pub quiz, so my boyfriend is riding and I'm volunteering."

I may have just had my name up in lights at Wrigley Field. I may have just told off my former bosses. I may have just gotten bmarried. I may be getting paid enormous amounts of money to no longer do a job that I hated anyways. But I have to tell you, that is one of the most incredible things I've ever had said to me.

My name is Dave

Hey.

I'm not a republican or a cowboy...
I don't live in a mansion or eat steak every day or own a gun...
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Suzy from America, althgouh I'm certain they're around here somewhere.

I have a president, who I didn't vote for, not a king...
I speak English and American and Spanish and French...
and I pronounce creek 'crick' because that's how my grandmother says it.

I can proudly disagree with my country's leadership...
Especially when they're policing instead of peacekeeping.
I mark 'other' not white when I fill out surveys...
I can trace my lineage back to Europe and Native roots, and my family fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War.
I can find Florida on a map and I am more than proficient in math and science.

America is the third largest landmass, the first nation of constitutions, and the home of the free and the brave starting in 2009!

My name is Dave, and I am American!

Once upon a time....

I was living in Brooklyn, and I started a novel. The novel, and my laptop, were stolen. Shit happens in the big city. Tonight I had a similar inspiration:

It is 3:09 AM: I am watching Beat Street on broadcast TV..