Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I love baseball and I'm not afraid to admit it. I've been to a smattering of major league games, and since 1994 I've regularly attended games of the hometown squadron, The Salt Lake Bees (formerly the Buzz/Stingers), AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Insert Joke About Southern California Here.

The Bees made the playoffs this year, and last night was game two of the first round. Without a doubt the most fun I have ever had at a baseball game. I got some discounted seats through work and we were right behind the opposing team's dugout. The stadium never sells out and there isn't a bad seat in the house, but I've never sat that close before and it was really cool. Not only that, but perfect night for a ball game. 75 degrees, clear skies, the smell of fall and hot dogs in the air.

We taunted those hated Sacramento RiverCats mercilessly. By "mercilessly" I mean shouting things like "Ron! Ron! Ron! Hey Ron! RON! Ron? RON RON RON RON!" (one of the RiverCats pitcher's name was Ron, FYI).

There was another RiverCats pitcher who came into the game with a noticeable ... arousal. This lead to:

"You're facing stiff competition now Blevins!"
"Are you just happy to see me Blevins?"

but the best came courtesy of Chris:

"Hey Blevins, why do you have a boner?"

A pitcher named Van Buren was on the receiving end of some biting Presidential-themed heckling as well.

Okay, maybe taunting doesn't translate well into blog form. The point is, we were in those pitchers' heads and though I'd like to give the Bees players some credit, I think we were mostly responsible for the victory.

And what a victory it was! After clawing back from a four run deficit, the Bees found themselves down by one going into the bottom of the 9th. With men on second and third pinch-hitter Adam Pavkovich drilled a ball to the right field wall, game over. Huge celebration on the field, huge celebration in the stands.

Again, most fun I've ever had at a ballgame. Go Bees!

The lowest common denominator...

...is the guy that cheats at laser tag at the office team building exercise. Also he kind of looks like that one melty Nazi guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Here's what you missed by not being me.

So much happened.

You should know, I'm a high-falutin guy that lives a high-falutin lifestyle. I eat at restaurants. In fact, the weekend began -

Thursday

• -at just such a place. Me and a couple of dudes (Scott+Andy) went to a restaurant to watch the University of Utah Runnin' U's lose badly to the Beavers of Oregon.
• Although I'm an alumnus I don't really have that much pride in the school so my level of devestation was minimal.

Friday

• Yet another restaurant. Koyo, which has been mentioned on this blog sooo many times. Also previously mentioned on this blog is-
• -Wayne, a friend from SF, who has actually left that city and will now be known as "a friend from Portland." He was in town so there was a gathering at the home of -
• Damian, a swell and hospitable fellow.
• Damian has the most convenient backyard I've ever seen (sorry for the fuzzy photos, didn't want to use the flash like some sort of picture taking idiot).

• It's also the most kid-unfriendly backyard I've ever seen, what with the exposed power lines

• and the big piles of spikes

• and the open flame

• Bloglebrity The Mediocre Gatsby brought his daughter and had a hard time keeping her out of trouble, but sometimes all a kid needs is two liters of Mountain Dew.

• Speaking of citrusy beverages, look what I drank, fools! The only reason I bring this up is because every day I get two or three hits from people googling "ruby red squirt." So there ya go. Still exists.

• I mentioned I was high falutin. Check out my wristwatch.
• While I was busy taking pictures of soda, Emily tried an experiment in Ultimate Decadence by putting a mini-Reese's into a marshmallow.

Saturday

• Had lunch at The Greek Souvlaki, as is my wont. I've been dining there so much lately that I think it deserves it's own blog entry sometimes soon.
• Movie! The King of Kong: a Fistfull of Quarters, a documentary about a guy trying to beat the world record in Donkey Kong.
• I know what you're thinking. "A documentary about arcade games? Yeah right!" Well I'm here to tell you "Yeah, right." Very riveting and oft-hilarious human story.

• This Billy Mitchell guy. What a jerk. Maybe.

• Declined the opportunity to attend a zombie themed dance party with Chris. Watched Good Eats with Emily. Then Chris came back from the party and since he already had zombie makeup on we decided to go to Freaky Dee's.

• Dee's is an SL Valley institution, and this one on 21st and 7th is known as the Freaky Dee's for its preponderance of gothic youth and the cross-dressing host.
• They serve typical diner fare. Pancakes, omellettes, burgers, gravy-based dishes, filet mignon, toast - waitaminute, filet mignon?

• Yeah, they have filet mignon on the menu which is kind of weird. I always boast that some day, when the time is right, I will get the Dee's Mignon. Well on Saturday, the time was right.

• Surprisingly, it was pretty good. If I had made it myself I'd a been darn proud.

Sunday

• I'm not completely certain that I was awake for Sunday.
• Oh wait, yeah I was. I bought some new shoes. They made me happy.

Monday

• Got a haircut that was totally unnecessary.
• Movie! Deja Vu. Pretty good.
• Chris had a BBQ at Harrison Ave. using my grill. Some other friends were doin' some porch sittin' next door but I didn't get to spend any quality time over there. Hung out inside and watched VH1's latest reality show, The Pick-Up Artist.
• Have you seen this show? The host, the self-proclaimed pick up artist, is a man named Mystery. That's his name. Mystery. Great show. And if you look him up on wikipedia you're going to find all sort of information about the show, about the Mystery Method, about the Seduction Community, AFCs... man, it just goes on and on.
  

okay that's it

I'm sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care

The first time I went to New York this was the view from my window.

My life has been downhill ever since.

Not really, but sort of yeah. The other night I was looking through pictures from that trip trying to find a photo of an old printing press, and those digital images conjured a flood of memories. I could practically taste the air, frozen in time from October of 2003. I take a lot of pictures everywhere I go, but it's a rare thing for them to actually take me back to that moment in time.

Part of the reason I liked flipping through those pictures so much is because that trip came right in the middle of a period in my life, say eight months, where everything just came together. Before I was ravaged by the cruel hands of time.

This sounds extra mopey, and I don't mean it to be. I'm doing alright for myself these days. I mean, I've got this blog, I have pair of sunglasses.... pretty sweet.

The title of this post comes from a line in the song "NYC" off this album:

This is my favorite album of the last ten years. It's not the best album, oh heavens no, I could count off a thousand better albums on my right hand alone. It's not like I want to go around listening to it all the time, it's just that like the photos I mentioned above, this album is welded to pleasant memories.

No wait! That's wrong. Memories isn't the right word. It's not that when I put on the album I think "Ah yes, this reminds me of the crisp fall night that we drove down the canyon with the top down, the wind to our backs and our angst yet before us." [previous sentence should be read aloud in a J. Peterman voice]. No, there aren't any specific memories associated with it, just vague notions of good vibrations.

I guess it also reminds me of that one time Haydee tried to wave to me through the phone...

Okay, I can see that I've lost you. Here, I'll try to end this strong.

bells

I complain about the local news a lot, but there's one way in which it never lets me down. When there is any sort of unconventional wedding out there, I am the first to know about it.

"Who cares about the War anyway? What's this? Two theme park enthusiasts got married on a roller coaster? Whaaaaa? No way. No. Way. This I gotta see to belie- oh man there's footage! He's wearing a tux on a roller coaster! Ahahahahaha! Out-rageous!"

I've also seen skydive weddings and underwater scuba weddings and vows exchanged on a golf course. I've even seen a man marry himself (Dennis Rodman). There is nothing left that can possibly impress me.

So in Googling for a picture of some kind of crazy wedding, I observed an trend that I've been coming up against a lot lately. Now, everyone knows that no matter what you're searching for you're gonna end up with porn. It's a fact of life in today's internet. Doesn't matter how innocuous your search is. Look for a picture of "toast" and the results are going to be 17% porn.

But the thing that's been bothering me lately is that when Googling for regular things I'm getting a lot of pictures of horrible injuries. Terrible, grievous injuries. All I want is toast and wacky weddings and the Transporter 2 and maybe I've heard that I have a friend (you don't know him) who doesn't mind when porn comes up, but I don't need to see the results of unsafe driving. I'm starting to have nightmares here. Geez louise. Gotta be someone I can complain to about this. I guess I can turn the safe search on, but that might block something I really urgently need, like a picture of a fat Spiderman.

Incidentally, I was not able to find a good wacky wedding picture. I found some old fashioned wedding pictures where the people looked goofy and outdated, but they were all from those peoples' personal blogs and I didn't feel right mocking people that just want to share their love with the world.

By the way, if you're looking for a picture of a Star Wars Wedding the world is your oyster

Let's see how many new visitors I get now from people searching for Star Wars Weddings. Half of the people that visit this blog found it by looking for ways to clean their microsuede. By typing that out just now I've probably made it worse. Sorry that I can't help you clean your microsuede. You shouldn't have thrown up on it in the first place. I'm looking at you, Calgary.

Oui-kend

Conversation overheard at the 7-11 on Friday night:

Denim Micro-Skirt Girl: "Hey you! You need a haircut!"

Bullet Bike Enthusiast: "You need a haircut... maybe a ... buzz cut."

Denim Micro-Skirt Girl: "Ahahahahahahahahahah!"

Bullet Bike Enthusiast: "I thought you were coming in to use the bathroom."

Denim Micro-Skirt Girl: "Yeah, but I didn't."

Bullet Bike Enthusiast is unsure of which convenience-store-bathrooms-are-dirty joke to use: "Why? They clean them every two hours. Or like, every fifteen days."

Then Daniel bought me a Twix and a Coke. Why were these snacks necessary? For a special screening of The Transporter 2 at The Bud.

The Bud is where three of my friends live. It's one of those bachelor houses like you see in the movies but I'd never really experienced until these guys moved there.

Here's what you need to know about The Transporter 2:




Also, this dialogue [SPOILER ALERT!]

"I'm afraid this flight has been cancelled."
"I'm afraid you have been cancelled!"
(fisticuffs ensue)

The DVD also had a blooper real, which was about 90 seconds of two guys messing up their dialogue. Wacky!

I gotta say, I should someday hope to be half as cool as Jason Statham.

The Bud now has a Super Nintendo installed, which is a nice feature. Let the record show that as of press time I am the Tecmo Bowl '95 Champion of The Bud.

Saturday afternoon I had food from The Greek Souvlaki for the third time in a week. Their Gyro is the best in town and the only one I'll eat. At the moment I am completely addicted to them.

After that satisfying meal I went to the airport to pick up my friends (Andy&Cherie, Scott, and Emily, for those keeping score at home) who have been vacationing in Europe for over two weeks. They had a good time but by the looks of things they were pretty tired by the end.

Okay ya got me, that's not really them.

It was great to see everyone again. I desperately want to go to Paris now. They brought me back a bottle of cherry liqueur that is only made in Croatia. It's a neat little bottle, which is great because I collect interesting bottles (ask me about my absinthe sometime!)

(note: just because I'm holding a bottle of alcohol does not qualify this as a myspace picture)

The Best of the Photos, Part 2

A man's gotta have a code.

The Best of the Photos, Part 1

Of all the hundreds of thousands of pictures I've ever taken, this might be my very favorite.