JOURNAL: YARD SALES: 20120630: 2012 Expedition #11: Post-derecho MOST CHALLENGING YARDSALEING EVER [***DERECHO DAMAGE PICTURES INCLUDED***]

SUMMARY:

Got up around 7:20AM, made it out driving by 8:00am and went out until 1:12PM. Subtracting the 20 minutes we spent in BJs, this worked out to a a total of 4 hours, 52 minutes. [Driving time was 3hr21min [69%]. Saleing time was 1hr31m [31%]. More time spent driving due to the derecho storm making it harder to get from point A to point B.]  DERECHO-DAMAGE PICTURES AT END OF THIS POST!

Spent $47.00 plus ~$11.09 gas for 41.2 miles of driving (11.0 mpg @ $2.96/G), for a total cost of $58.09.

We made 24 purchases (31 items if you count each piece of wood) for a total estimated value of $361.37, leading to a profit/savings of $303.28.

So in essence, we multiplied our $58.09 investment by 6.2X.

(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $333 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $303.28 in cash that we saved here. How long does $333 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 4.9 hrs we spent here?)

Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $62.32/hr as a couple or $31.16/hr per person.

COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:

After storm yardsaling is crazy. We took lots of storm damage pictures.

Sleepy Hollow Road was completely closed due to a big tree and downed powerlines. Fortunately we know the backroads like the back of our hand around this area — so we got pictures from BOTH sides of the blocked road.

We were getting free cabinet-wood from a curbside (to use as sunblockers/attic flooring), when a random guy came and did the same thing. He was looking for a piece of wood to put his generator on because his ground was wet. He had just bought the generator last week from Costco for $600. What foresight!

We saw a woman putting up estate sale signs… So we followed her until she got back to the estate sale. Clint’s Dollar Store keychain-LED-flashlight came in handy: It was the only way to see in the basement. Looking through old tools in a pitch dark utility room feels very dramatic. We felt like emergency response rescue workers… Except we were rescuing old junk instead of people.

Neither Clint nor the general public realized “if the light is out, treat it like a 4 way stop”. Seven Corners was PARTICULARLY INSANE. It sounded like New York City. Constant beeping. Everyone was just going. That was around 9AM. By 12PM people were catching on to how to treat these intersections, and behaving better.

We stopped at BJ’s, which was having an open house. Spent 20 minutes or so and left without buying anything. The prices there didn’t really seem that spectacular. For the same cost, you can get 24 Yuengling beers in bottles instead of cans. Whoop-de-friggin’-doo.

post-derecho haul

THE BOOTY:

• $20.00: ping pong table, foldable, Pro-Action, 6’x3’x30″ (EV:$99.00) – Ideally we’d want one that could somehow be placed on top of a pool table, but be folded up when not used. Good luck with that. I’m not sure if that exists. This one is foldable/portable (need 2 people to carry it any appreciable distance), so at least it doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s smaller than “normal” size, and we have no paddles or balls. But it also will make a great boardgame/card table, as it’s not so back-achingly low as our myriad of coffe tables.

[pictured above]

• $4.00: storage unit, large plastic wheeled shelf w/4 drawers, Iris Wide Chest, 23.5x16x26.75″ (EV:$42.99) – Our utility room had built-in shelves we used for a decade. Last summer, we got some free bookcases from a curb and started using them to bring some order to the chaos. But there are still tools on the wall behind them, and they are kind of annoying to move. Well, these new ones have WHEELS and DRAWERS. Much easier to move around, much more organized. Replaced one of those shelves and moved it to another place in the house [between air hockey table and wall] that wasn’t being used much and could use some more shelves for stuff.

• $3.00: camera, Canon, A520, 4.0 mega pixels, Zoom lens 4x [but zooming doesn’t seem to work, lens kind of messed up], PC1106, No. 1122237588, no usb cable, no memory card, batteries worked. (EV:$29.99) – Takes a 2G SD (not SDHC) card. Carolyn’s claiming this as “Carolyn’s camera”. The zoom doesn’t work, though.

• $3.00: decoration, Halloween, Spider candelabra, covered in sequins, with spiders hanging off of it, can take apart and store flat (inside the HUGEST BAGGIE I’VE EVER SEEN) (EV:$59.99, though people have paid 74.95 for this[!!]) – for Britt’s birthday. She liked it.

• $3.00: toy, action figure, The Tick, Taco Bell balancing Tick with brick wall. (EV:$3.95) – We already had one without the stand, and didn’t even know the stand existed! Awesome! We managed to get BOTH of ours (this one, and the one we had) to balance on the stand at the same time. Win!

• $2.00: funnelcake maker, Carnival Funnel Cakes, 32 oz, includes 2 mixes (EV:$7.49 price tag, but some of the original mix was used so docking 25% to get $5.62) – almost bought this exact set from Angel/Susan’s yardsale for $3 last week, but I didn’t want it enough to pay $3. $2 however? Sure. Funnel cakes next party?

• $2.00: storage unit, small plastic wheeled shelf w/3 drawers, Iris Mini Chest, MCS-003, 14.1875×15.375×27.375 (EV:$29.99 price tag) – the companion to the $4 purchase above

• $2.00: toy, action figure, The Tick, Sewer Urchin, Taco Bell edition, with submerging dolphin (EV:$0.99) – Okay, we now have 3 out of 4 of the Taco Bell tick toys!

• $2.00: game, Save The World!, Crown Andrews (EV:$15.99) – for 2017 Sagan?

• $2.00: toy, workbench w/wooden tools, 16x16x9″, includes wooden hammer/carpenter ruler/wrench/screwdriver/nails/screws/nuts/vice grip (EV:$12.99, but ours is slightly more lavish) – for present-day Sagan

 

• $1.00: broom (hand broom), 13″ long including handle, 8×3″ brush, EPI Inc 7920-00-178-8315 (EV:$12.99) – Carolyn wanted this… for cleaning or something

• $0.50: deck of cards, “The Batman” animated series, missing the 3 of clubs (EV:$4.99, however, 3 of clubs is missing, so we’ll dock it inn half to $2.49) – Carolyn’s purchase

• $0.50: action figure, Kung Fu Panda, McDonald’s 2011 (EV:$3.95) – why not?

• $0.33: tape measure, 10′, Lufkin W9210 (EV:$11.25) – we always misplace tape measures, so the new probabalistic strategy is to just saturate the house with them :)

• $0.33: 2-to-3 prong adapter (EV:$0.69) – we use these a lot, but they also get misplaced

• $0.33: roll of thin wire, about as thin as the smallest string on a guitar, at least 50′ of it. (EV:$9.00) – for picturing hanging and minor repairs … I also repaired our gutters with guitar string before; this would have been a lot cheaper

• $0.25: toy, top, flip-top, blue, Eastern Hemisphere map on it (EV:$1.25) – for our vast top collection

• $0.25: USB cable, 5′, with Type B connector type on one end (EV:$1.40) – good to have on hand for weird USB devices

• $0.25: flashlight with huge clip, small light, Nextel, came with new AAA battery (EV:$1.30) – the clip is really nice, this will be tough to lose

• $0.25: headphones, Delta Airlines, in-flight audio, pretty much useless because it’s a dual-jack headphone for an airplane (EV:$0.99 [found 10 for $10 on Ebay; lost link]) – oops. How the hell can we use headphones with 2 jacks? Carolyn purchase ;)

• $FREE: mason jar lids, Ball, vacu-seal, 10 bands, 3 lids (EV:$1.13 price tag, but the price was for 12 complete lids. Prorated out to the parts actually present, we get: $1.13*(13/24)=$0.61]) – a gift

• $FREE: cd jewel case, blacklight green (EV:$5.52 for pack of 10, so $0.55 for this one) – since it’s free…

• $FREE: hard hat, with adjustable knob, really a nice hardhat – found on the side of the road! (EV:$5.40) – Now I can have a hard hat designated for the 2nd attic (that we installed a telecoping ladder into)

• $FREE: wood boards, 1 board @ 60×34.5″, 3 boards @ 11×34.5″, 1 board @ 17×34.5″, 1 board @ 35×18″, 1 board @ 35×18.5″, 1 board @ 35.5×17″ (EV:we’ll arbitrarily value these $1.00/ea, so $8 total) – all of them are now residing in various windows, thwarting the evil sun from hurting is with photons

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).

 

VIDEO: Epic – Slinky on a Treadmill

VIDEO: Epic – Slinky on a Treadmill

The music, especially, makes this video! I can’t think of a video that’s made me this happy in awhile.

LINK URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=711bZ_pLusQ

 

JOURNAL: Today, 10 years ago. A party. Where my couch got puked on.

Today, 10 yrs ago, was an epic party at our house. Well, maybe not epic.. but more memorable than most! This was the party where John The Candien famously puked on our couch. He’s probably really tired of hearing about it, even 10 yrs later. But I wrote this post in 2009 so for me it’s only 7 yrs later. And he doesn’t do stuff like that these days. Anyway, here are some videos from the party 10 yrs ago today. They also show how our house looked before the addition; those rooms were small (not really; just small in comparison).

Here is a 10-minute montage of all our favorite slices of life from the party:

And here are the individual videos from the party:

#1: John’s first drink. Not much going on.

#2: John’s 4th drink.

#3: Various people talking about some fun New Orleans bar they couldn’t find their way back to. Listen for Dig-Dug in the background!

#4: People start noticing the camera. Wayne talks about a lost pack of cigarettes. The nature of the webcam is discussed (it’s record, not broadcasting). Becky suggests that we start playing Strip Poker soon:

#5: People play with our spinning-message-maker light/toy thingee:

#6-#7: Not much happens here, except for mingling. You can still hear Dig-Dug in the background:

#8-#10 are for friends only ;) Check my flickr if you’re a friend :)

#11: Various mingling. Clint explains to Britt that it’s recording, not broadcasting. Aaron starts playing with the camera around 2m50s. At 3m18s, you can see the software recording the party, and AE’s ex-girlfriend Tracy:

#12: At 2m10s, the camera gets shoved down somebody’s pants:

#13: John’s going dooowwwwn! Kipp, don’t encourage him! Things get interesting around 6m20s, when Jesse tells Carolyn, “John’s fucked up”, and Carolyn grabs his bottle, swigs it, then walks away with it. John The Candien looks disconcerted. “Noooo… Not the bottle!” Funny stuff :) But then look at 7m40s — Kipp picks John up and moves him to the couch that he later puked on. He got up, but for all I know he moved back to the couch at 11m30s because he didn’t want to be picked up again. And who picks somebody up anyway? Nice instincts (sarcasm) on everybody except Carolyn’s part:

#14: John is now out, and girls decide to put makeup on him:

#15: Finally, he pukes. But a cup was put in front of the camera, so you can really only see how people react to the whole thing:

#16: We all miss Samhain the cat, who made a brief 1-minute appearance before running away:

#17: Webcam voiceovers. Possibly the funniest on-camera moments:

#18: And then the webcam “optical illusion” of swallowing a huge cam (short):

#19: And another quick-but-funny voiceover:

And that’s how we rolled in 2002!

 

JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day 2009 (12X-Day) report – day 5 (20090705)

Read about day 4 here. Day 3 here.  2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

As always, click through to comment on any picture individually on flickr, or to see the full-size…

We went to X-Day again this year. It was a totally different experience than last year. It rained for the first three days we were there, but then it got really nice for the weekend. It was never overbearingly hot.

WAKING UP

July 5th — X-Day — is always the hardest day. Since X-Day — The Rupture — occurs at 7:00AM on July 5th, it’s tough. Most people are up late partying and drinking, and nobody is in the mood to get up at 6:55AM. Some lucky people are still awake from the night before. But most people are asleep at 7AM.

Granted, there’s not a single time, 24 hours a day, that you can’t walk around and eventually find people during X-Day…… But getting up at 7AM on a Sunday? That’s for people who go to church, not church of the subgenius! ;)

Last year Carolyn & I utterly failed to make The Rupture. Sure, we woke up in our tent, and heard the noise… But I was too hungover from slamming too many bears while trying to get the taste of awful homemade absinthe out of my mouth. I was a casualty on July 4th, 2008!

But not July 4th, 2009! We actually successfully woke up! And actually made it to The Rupture!

Carolyn’s Misfits hoodie accidentally left out all night

First off, we went to the Roundhouse, to warm up by the fire. This was also the Most Precarious Fire Set-Up Ever. I mean, check that picture out — those logs are practically levitated off the ground. Crazy, crazy. Will it fall down and fling hot stuff at us? We were passed some orange juice drink (pictured above). It wasn’t just orange juice… This was about 6:45AM or so.

Precarious fire is precarious

THE RUPTURE

As we walked to the main pavilion / saucer landing site, I got to use my noisemaker [recorder mouthpiece*] to bring misery to all the people who didn’t get out of their tents. Total awesomeness!

*[ i.e. the recorder instrument they have you play in music class in elementary school]

So, as it stands, we did, in fact, make it to The Rupture this year… The 15-25 lucky SubGenii who made it there were all presented with a drink called “Bob’s Pipe Juice”, which was a foul, brown, nasty-tasting alcoholic drink. Try as we might, any drink designed to taste like pipe juice is obviously not very palatable. We discretely poured ours into the trash cans.

909 Jim Jones Cult members agree: Bob’s Pipe Juice sucks.

Everyone gathered around, waiting for the pleasure saucers to come…

The Rupture – SubGenii gathered

Those of us who had cameras or audio/video recording devices got ready to commemorate this important day in SubGenius history…

Yetimen, start your recorders!

The moment of truth drew nearer, and nearer. We counted down to 7:05AM, and smoked the last cigarette we would ever smoke before leaving planet Earth:

The Rupture (by George Burgyan)

But alas, the saucers did not come.

Our Rupture video (1m24s)

Agent Lloyd’s rupture video. I love the last couple seconds, where you can see Bug and Rev. Panik trying to jump up into the saucers.

Damnit, “Bob”!

You screwed us again!

Well–maybe not. The Conspiracy keeps changing the calendars around. We may never know when it’s really 1998. But it definitely wasn’t 1998 this year.

NOW WHAT?!?!

Well….

This is awkward.

We’re not dead. (!!??!!)

And neither are you, Bobdammit.

Well, no what? Take pictures of the ground?

dew on the grass

Sit around a bit, and ponder the fact that all the pinks aren’t going to be left to fry in a hell on earth?

Ponder the existential existence of being lorded over by JHVH-1, and wondering what its motivation for us is?

Maybe it was my fault, somehow?

"What in the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Well, while we’re still here and in Brushwood, may as well take note of the pretty pagan thingamabobs:

pagan thingamabob is pagany

And maybe go check out the graffiti board… Completely different from last year’s…

Here’s last year’s, for comparison:

Well, Christie & 808 have candy, in this strange, orb-like container. Let’s eat some!!!

They made us some awesome peanut butter & marshmallow fluff sandwiches that were heated up on the sandwich press. I had never thought of using that for a peanut butter sandwich, but it was a definite win.

So now that we’re alive, we still have a day of stuff to do. Maybe catch a little sleep, then wake up before noon. OH HAI, A KITTY!!!

KITTY!!!

This kitty lives at Brushwood. She was really friendly. Someone told us she had had kittens but they all found homes. Tangent & Dammit Janet might have gotten one of them.

Carolyn petting the Brushwood kitty

This kitty was insanely sociable!

Brushwood kitty – stalking, attacking (1m4s)

kitty!

Brushwood kitty – petting (1m12s)

MORE WANDERING

So anyway, we checked out 808 and Christie’s campsite, which was strangely far away compared to last year. I’d never actually been on the other side of the field. Yes, we drove. We’re SubGeniuses, damnit! SLACK IS OUR GAME.

view from the alt.slack woods; we spent most of our time directly forward, on the opposite side, near the four flushers. You can see the roundhouse.

Funny stuff ’round the alt.slack woods:

Witch parking only – All others will be toad

808’s trademark parachute was put to use, as always (this thing has visited Assateague too):

808 & Christie’s campsite – full of supplies

I ran into a random “OH!” sighting:

OH!

And I took a picture if Rev. Panik’s painting, which ultimately became the upper image on the official 12X-Day page, as well as the Facebook profile image for the girl who was dancing naked around the bonfire in real life:

Rev. Panik’s painting

I also found out someone — Christopher Lee — had my exact shirt! Except Clint’s shirt has permanent latex on it from Chris H‘s liquid latex party back around 2000.

a meeting of the shirts – don’t forget to bring a towel

THE BOBBY AWARDS

Unlike people who had to work Monday, this Sunday we were still not 100% sure if we wanted to leave today or tomorrow/Monday.  Carolyn wanted to get on the road if they were leaving, but Clint wanted to stay for the Bobby Awards. And that we did.

SubGenius signs @ main pavilion stage

I believe this year’s Bobby Awards were made by Suzie The Floozie and Popess Pantiara:

Suzie, Princess Wei R. Doe, Pantiara

Finally, they started giving out the awards…

Bobbie Awards begin

Carolyn was awarded the “Goddess Of Mellowing The Harsh” Bobby Award, for her mellowing skills as demonstrated on day 2. She was called up pretty early, like the 2nd or third one.  Yay!

Carolyn receiving Goddess Of Mellowing The Harsh award

They also had a dedicated video and picture cameras, to capture the awards:

official documentation of Carolyn’s award

Carolyn showing off her award

And here’s what her award looked like:

Carolyn’s Bobbie Award

Ultimately, Carolyn’s award became an inspiration for SubGenius artist IMBJR to create “The Mellow”, who also created “The Xanatos Scream”. Here they are:

^ This thing tiles really well. Check it out.

…

Clint got a double award, for “Earliest X-Day Casualty” and “Best Mud-Puddle Pass-Out”. Rob had nominated him.  Yay!

receiving Earliest X-Day Fatality + Best Mud-Puddle Passout award

Getting official documentation pic

Official documentation pic

Close-up of the award:

Quite appropriate

I was quite sunburned by this point… but didn’t really notice or care…. After all, THE WORLD ENDS TOMORROW AND YOU MAY DIE!

Dildo Valerie and Bunny Day got their awards, as did many others:

Bunny Day, Dildo Valerie’s Bobbie Awards

Bunny Day and Dildo Valerie received Bobbie Awards along with Bust A Nutmeg for something like the “Best Rendition Of ‘For A Good Time, Call'”…

DECAMPMENT

We decided it was time to pack up our tent and such. We hadn’t slept in it since Day 1 anyway — we’d been sleeping in the car. And my god did it smell like a diseased swamp in there. Our tent was by a small patch of trees — maybe only 10 feet across. Yet it took us 2 years to notice the random stuff that was right there in front of behind us the whole time:

stuff behind our tent I almost didn’t notice

Pagan things… orbs.. shiny stuff… yay..

stuff behind our tent I almost didn’t notice

Sirius Rising is a huge pagan festival at Brushwood, where some 1,000 people show up… But it costs way more money than X-Day…

stuff behind our tent I almost didn’t notice

This hair reminds me of the lost hair of 1,000 My little Ponies:

stuff behind our tent I almost didn’t notice – hair

All in all, I’m not sure how the hell I missed this stuff:

stuff behind our tent I almost didn’t notice

The 3 days of hellish rain were long gone, and the mud tracks were now baked into the mud:

dried mud tracks

We said goodbye to Teeters, and took a picture of his Cous Cous to remind us to buy our own:

Teeters LeVerge

Don’t forget:

Add a boullion cube. It's the only way!

POTLUCK

By the time all was said and done on Sunday, Carolyn was like “since it’s now so late, I’d rather just stay now.” But then we decided to go ahead and leave! We’d just get back in the middle of the night, rather than sleeping here one more day, waking up early, and getting back in the evening.

But then Carolyn was like “it’s already 5PM, and the potluck is going on, so we may as well stay for that!”

Free food rather than having to stop to eat. It makes sense. Plus there’s more variety. And WAYYYY better company. SLACK! It is the SubGenius way!

potluck dinner

The food was awesome.  Shitloads of pasta, incredible Indian food, haggis (yes, haggis! We actually tried it!), chips and artichoke salsa…  Olives with pits.  Carolyn tore those up, they were so delicious.  Clint thinks they should be eradicated from the earth.  They also had fried donuts that “were just donuts”, but that looked like seafood poppers.  If it was shrimp and scallops, Carolyn would have eaten them, but when she found out they were “just donuts” she passed.

potluck dinner

We said our final goodbyes to the remaining SubGenii that were hanging around, both inside and outside. Contact infos were exchanged, yadda yadda. But the truth is, as long as you’re on Facebook, you’re going to be able to find everyone at X-Day. They’re pretty much all on there. And those that aren’t are on the alt.slack newsgroup, where they’ve been for decades…

potluck dinner – outside

We just found out Rev. Spike’s glasses don’t attach to his ears! He custom-made piercing-based glasses! There’s no frame whatsoever, just lenses that attach to his piercings via magnet. That’s so friggin’ awesome. Piercings are mostly pointless — this one actually had a point.

Rev. Spike’s self-made piercing-based glasses

DRIVING HOME

Finally, we left and went home.

It was sad, but they were still broadcasting on FM, so we got to at least listen to X-Day until we were out of FM radio range.

And then at that point, we popped in all the various free cds of SubGenius-created music that various people had given us.

Finally, after a good hour or 2, we had to go back to our music, which represented the final unplugging from X-Day. Now we were just in a car, with still 6 hours to go.

And you know what? WE SAW FIREWORKS! One thing about going to X-Day is, there aren’t really fireworks in New York. And SubGenii were banned from having explosive devices at X-Day many years ago–we’re troublemakers. And since X-Day is July 5th, not July 4th, a lot of the times you don’t even realize July 4th happened. I had only seen 3 fireworks explode in the past 2 4th of Julys.

So driving home at night was actually kind of awesome! You got to see the various towns setting off their fireworks. And you got to see it three-dimensionally, as you passed. I was lucky, as Carolyn had first driving shift, so I got to stare at them more. But Carolyn definitely did some drive-by staring of her own.

It took about 6 1/2 – 7 hours to get home, which is pretty good time.

We stopped in Breezewood again to top off the gas and pee and switch driving shifts.  We also stopped at Taco Bell and had some confusion with the order. This Taco Bell still served the long-since removed from the Taco Bell menu TOSTADAS. I love ’em! They’re light. Chips, beans, lettuce. A great item if you’re not quite full, but don’t want a full taco. And only 79 or 89 cents. They’re even vegetarian! We had a long conversation with the guy who worked at that Taco Bell. Basically, they will make any canceled item that they have the materials to make. I wish our Taco bells were so rebellious.

Finally, we got home around 1:30-2:00AM, Sunday Night. We left our remaining beers in the cooler outside, where they were (much more slowly) eventually drank.

COMA

Under normal road-trip scenarios, three days of misery might have made Event Generic-Event not worth it. But since this was not a Generic-Event, but a SubGenius X-Day, the awesomeness of it all totally outweighed the rain. Sure — it would have been better if it hadn’t rained as much — But anybody who knows us knows that we hate driving. And we still think it’s worth the 8 hour drive. And we’re going to do it again in 2010! In fact, by the time this posts, we will have just come back from X-Day 2010. So there!

To view all the pictures from day 5, go to my 20090705 tag on flickr. Read about day 4 here.

Hey Pastafarians? What does your church do for you do? Bwahahahaha, we had a great time because Church Of The SubGenius is a real organization, not just a page you “fan” on Facebook! IN YOUR FACE!  One more thing: 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

 

JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day 2009 (12X-Day) report – day 4 (20090704)

Read about day 3 here. Read about day 5 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

As always, click through to comment on any picture individually on flickr, or to see the full-size…

We went to X-Day again this year. It was a totally different experience than last year. It rained for the first three days we were there, but then it got really nice for the weekend. It was never overbearingly hot.

Wilhelm’s Bob Dobbs painting

^ The “Bob” painting that stared over us, mocking us with his off-kilter eye!

Saturday was the pancakes and scrapple… A certain group of Subgenii that we haven’t really talked to much make these every year. Last year we did not realize how great it was to NOT MISS IT. This year, we actually went. They have this grill that’s so hot that they cook a pancake in about 10 seconds or so. They have gallons and gallons of batter, and basically feed everyone until the batter is gone.

They also serve scrapple!

Clint finally tried scrapple because Carolyn had the foresight to get him a piece while he was getting his pancake. Nobody was interested in Clint’s stovetop/campfire yardsale waffle-iron that he brought, though. They had things pretty streamlined.

They also had the “gang wars” event, which was mostly a few people with water pistols. But it really helped that Danger Unicorn was topless. What a ray of sunshine in an oppressive world!

Dammit Janet, Stang…Danger Unicorn boobs!

I forget why, but I had wandered to the other side of the campsite, to see the Norther Pavilion that I’d never really hung out at during the 2008 X-Day. Since my foot hurt from my plantar fasciitis, I actually drove across, even though it’s only 1000 feet away or so. I think people were making more food to mooch or something. I dunno. I kept hearing there was going to be a pinata. I didn’t want to miss the pinata. I think Carolyn was napping at this point or something. At some point we had the house salad and the quesadilla from the Blue Lady café run by Brushwood. They are damn generous with their portions.

Finally, the pinata happened. I got there just in time to see Dildo Valerie flashing everyone. Unfortunately for the general public, that link is to a video that only my face to face flickr friends can see. ;)

Only at a SubGenius event would someone think to have a pinata that is not full of candy… But is full of… BUGS! Crickets, to be specific.Hilarious when Dildo Valerie finally gets it open and says, “It’s like…bugs.”

they didn’t really move too much afterward

We also had some good ol’-fashioned preaching and ranting by SubGenius founder Ivan Stang:

Rev. Ivan Stang – preaching

Here’s a video excerpt:

"When Ivan Stang talks.. People listen."

Sometimes, he looks downright angry. Then again, if you’re not angry, you’re probably not paying attention:

Get mad!! You’ll pay to know what you really think!

Quit your job for “Bob”! Praise not working! Overman? I’m over, maaaan. “You can’t put ME in a box?”, you say? Ladies and gentleman, we all end up in a box. Find your ShorDurPerSav… Because you have a short duration personal existence!

Saturday night is also when the most bands play. Special thanks to Dildo Valerie and Bunny Day for imparting upon me the ability to enjoy the show much more, thanks to some of their leftover intoxicants. Unfortunately I missed the crazy drunk girl dancing on stage until someone kind of shooed her off. But I did manage to download videos of that, before they were pulled from YouTube ;)

Amino Acids

Video of Amino Acid craziness:

Amino Acids craziness

A fez is not an unusual sight around these parts

Amino Acids hit their high note

I should mention that at some point, they played the Amino Acids movie. I’d seen the first couple parts at the Baltimore Devivals, but I had not seen the brand new part 3.

After the shows, we had the huge bonfire. Basically, I’ve never seen bonfires huger than this — but during Brushwood’s Starwood festival, they actually make bonfires too large to fit in the roundhouse. (The roundhouse is the wooden semi-structure that these bonfires take place in.)

bonfire pit

Of course, SubGenii don’t just do something. They do the hell out of it. And that includes lighting bonfires. Why be normal, when you can light it with a fucking blowtorch?

blowtorch bonfire lighting (3m19s)

A random YouTube’er, who obviously goes to Brushwood, informed me that the blowtorch has a name. “‘Tis The Dragon”, he commented.

At some point earlier during this X-Day — or maybe the last one — we had wandered around with hot dogs on our camping forks, looking for the path of maximum SLACK — that is, someone else’s fire. Dr. Legume ended up cooking our hotdogs with a blowtorch. Let me just say — hot dogs cooked via blowtorch are quite execllent!

Here’s the best picture of the bonfire. NOT by me; You need a $2600 camera to pull this off:

bonfire (by George Burgyan)

The annual burning of the wooden Dobbsikon proceeded, as it always does. This time, a spinning, flaming piece did not break off and fly into a densely populated area of drunk onlookers. I was pretty amazed at their reaction time when that happened last year.

Pantiara – by the bonfire pit

People danced in circles around the bonfire… Others watched:

bonfire

And that crazy drunk girl? She danced naked the entire time. As depicted in Rev. Panik’s painting that I photographed, which became as close to the official photo for this X-Day as any, as it was used as the header image for the official 12X-Day page:

Who knows how the night ended? By the time the bonfire happens, things are usually pretty hazy. Last time, X-Day was a Saturday, so the bonfire was at the very very end. This time, X-Day is Sunday (tomorrow), so the bonfire was not the very end of our celebrations. But it did mark the last official major event.

Now we have to be up by 7:00AM tomorrow, as The Rupture is predicted to occur at 7AM, July 5th, 1998. The problem is — someone switched the calendars, and we don’t know when 1998 is. So we just have to keep trying every year, until the pleasure saucers come.

To view all the pictures of this set on flickr, go to my 20090704 tag on flickr.

Read about day 3 here. Read about day 5 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

 

JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day 2009 (12X-Day) report – day 3 (20090703)

Read about day 2 here. 4 here. 5 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

As always, click through to comment on any picture individually on flickr, or to see the full-size…

We went to X-Day again this year. It was a totally different experience than last year. It rained for the first three days we were there, but then it got really nice for the weekend. It was never overbearingly hot.

So, remember that story I talked about at the end of day 2? About Valerie losing her clothes and stealing Spike’s shirt and making a skirt out of it? Yeah, I guess that happened on day 3, not day 2. I’m not going to repeat it all again, but it was pretty funny how she lost her clothes.

Dildo Valerie with stolen shirt-skirt

Also at some point, not sure if it was Friday or Saturday, but there was a conversation about catheters.  Dildo Valerie said she had to change catheters for a living and that it’s not fun.

would YOU let her change your catheter?

At another point, someone was telling some story that involved bestiality. One of the people they were talking about had said something like, “You dog-fucking faggot.” To which I replied, “You can fuck a dog and have it not be gay.” This won the award for “funniest thing said in the last 5 minutes”. In fact, I was asked to re-create it on video. Said video appears to have been taken down, or I would have embedded it.

Agent Lloyd loves ho mom

(Actually, the shirt says “hot moms”, but “ho mom” was even funnier.)

Yuengling‘s almost lined up (by Tangent)

Unfortunately, the other pic where they were lined up even better was too blurry to save. I guess you had to be there, to witness the magical merging of beer bottles.

Wilhelm’s ”Bob” painting

Wilhelm’s “Bob” painting stared at us, with his evil off-kilter eye… Mocking us, the entire time we were there.

A lot of excellent and unique conversation was had during the day. Indeed, that is a boon of hanging out with Subgenii: Not talking about [or thinking like] normal boring people. The Pinks. The Conspiracy. The Perpetrators Of False Slack. None of them are here. Tangent talks about how he used to be gay, but then realized that a woman can fuck you like a man, but a man can’t fuck you like a woman:

Johnny Dildoseed / I used to be gay

I admire Tangent’s candor.

Note the purple distortion typical of most recent consumer cameras, when dealing with high contrast situations. Nothing to do with snow.

We found the water shrine. Apparently we did a poor job of exploring last year, since it was right there:

Water Shrine, maypole

After Brayneleeke’s “episode” the previous night, he apparently stayed up all night drumming with the pagans in the roundhouse. Everytime he would stop and/or fall asleep, some dude would say, “So, did you join the union yet?” And he would wake up and start drumming again. I believe his hands were sore the next day. (No protective layer of tears this time.) Finally, he was asked that, and he said, “NO!”, and left. Apparently, by leaving, he joined the union. No, not everything makes sense in Brushwood. Nor does everybody make sense.

The giant Oreo-eating contest. Each contestant ate a single huge Oreo comprised of the white filling of over 100 Oreos. So good… That it’s fucking disgusting!

Really — is this sensible on any level?

The Hugest Oreo Ever (by George Burgyan)

It still rained a lot, and was pretty damn muddy:

tents, cars, mud

During the un-costume ball, someone passed around communion wafers to put on our foreheads. Apparently, this is like really bad mojo for Catholics, haha. I later read news stories about people stealing the wafers from actual Catholic churches, and then receiving death threats. Ahhh, typical Christianity.

communion wafer foreheads – suck it, godboys – if there’s a hell, i’d rather be there than with anyone offended by this

At some point, Teeters was wearing a nametag with Ivan Stang’s real name.  He commented that Stang told him he was ruining his good name.

Susie, Pantiara, McGani, Hercules, Teeters, Carter LeBlanc, Eggplant, Burger King

There was also the “Un-Costume Ball”.  Dildo Valerie and Bunny Day went as twins that gave birth to each other. Naked, with fake umbilical cords going from each of their vaginas to the other’s belly button. If you’re a friend of mine on flickr [which only applies to people I’m friends with in real life], you might want to check this picture out. It was not sanctioned for “the internet in general”.

Christopher Lee, Burger King, Carter LeBlanc

Since Michael Jackson had just died, of course someone had to go as him! After all, aliens and X-Day go hand in hand. And MJ definitely isn’t human.

Michael Jackson, Bust A Nut Meg

We heard a story about someone driving to X-Day, who noticed a hitchhiker/wanderer who didn’t even have a shirt on his back. So they gave him their “Bob” Dobbs shirt. The police later happened to drive by, and of couse couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to harass/talk to him. Because he had a SubGenius Dobbshead shirt on, they just assumed he was destined for Brushwood. So they dropped him off there. But the guy had no money. Brushwood gave him a sandwich and some soup, and sent him on his way. haha. Poor guy.

Dr. Agonfly actually DID hitchhike several thousand miles to get to X-Day.

Pantiara & her Dobbsicon crucified doll

Alien masks are a common theme for Subgenius-related bands….

John Deere Tractor Beam

Then I ran into these kids, with their matching Alternative Tentacles t-shirts! Totally kick-ass!! Of course they were also NoMeansNo fans! I think Carolyn & I were sleeping in the car [our tent broke on day 1, so we slept in the car after that. Surprisingly, I found it more comfortable than our own bed] when I heard NoMeansNo playing, and got out and wandered around until we found the source. It was them arriving. Then later they had the awesome matching shirts:

Rev. Not The Messiah, Galaxina – awesome matching Alternative Tentacles shirts

I didn’t get a piggyback ride ): Of course, I’m a lot heavier than Dildo Valerie.

Valerie, Bunny Day, McGani, Cyclohexane, Lloyd

Lots of glowsticks were everywhere… but they don’t photograph very well.

Carolyn – glow sticks in hair

Then, we were introduced to the awesomeness of Phat Man Dee. She was rather amazing… Her jazzy songs are both comical and insanely unique. One was so creepy it gave me goosebumps. And she had the stage presence of a typical SubGenius:

Phat Man Dee – singing

Her husband (I think), Tomy Amoeba, introduced as “The lowest form of life”, also had a small part in her show. More video of Phat Man Dee below.

Tommy Amoeba interlude

808 and Christie arrived on Friday.  But we didn’t see them till like 8pm at the pavilion when the bands were playing.  We also didn’t see much of them on Saturday. They had already heard the stories about Clint’s first night here, though they didn’t know that Clint was the subject of them. My reputation preceeds me!

Christie – glowstick cleavage

Oh, and Brushwood has some of its own cats too. I suppose technically they’d be considered feral, for having no home… But this cat was one of the sweetest cats we ever saw. You could jog 50 feet away, kneel down with your hand in “petting position”, and the cat would run up to be pet. We repeated this until we were tired from all the running.

Brushwood kitty

Someone told us she had had kittens but they all found homes. Tangent & Dammit Janet might have gotten one of them. I also heard that this cat, or some other cat, was pregnant… But one of the SubGenii had paid to abort her litter. They had no homes, and nobody even had a place for the mother… So she had a feline abortion performed, to keep unwanted kittens from appearing. I wonder what the Catholics have to say about that…

Then, Andrew The Impaled played.  There was a lot of excitement about this. Apparently people have fainted at previous performances. He has done things like literally sewn his lips shut. In our case, he nailed a nail into his nose:

Andrew The Impaled – nailing into nose

Then he nailed a screwdriver into his nose, and pretended to change radio stations with it. MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE LAST 10 SECONDS! HAHA

screwdriver impaled radio stations (2m22s)
Make sure to watch the last 10 seconds! HAHA

Andrew The Impaled‘s blood

Just kidding, it’s jelly. But when he was done with the screwdriver, he just so happened to throw it on the ground where this jelly was. It was quite disturbing. I did not realize it was actually edible :)

Back to Phat Man Dee — she did some awesome things, like a version of  the Star-Spangled Banner performed by inserting her hand into her mouth:

Star-Spangled Banner (Fist In Mouth Version) (slightly distorted)

I’ve also seen her do something similar on public access [viewed on YouTube], except it was Silent Night performed on Christmas.

She had some other neat songs too. Unfortunately, with the Canon camera broken, we could only record video with the GE camera, which heavily distorted the sound in any loud situations. However, it lets you take videos longer than 30 seconds, so you take the good with the bad. Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepe too?

Phat Man Dee – Pepe (somewhat distorted) (2m30s)

One of my favorite Phat Man Dee songs is the Ghandi Shake. Especially when Tommy Amoeba laid on the stage and started shaking.

Phat Man Dee – Ghandi Shake (somewhat distorted)

She also did War Pigs. She started it, aborted it, then decided, “What the hell”, and went on with doing it:

Phat Man Dee – War Pigs excerpt (somewhat distorted)

There was also the band that covered Miserlou and other songs Carolyn could recognize. That may have been John Deer Tractor Beam, as pictured above. Not sure. At this point, Rev. Spike was sitting outside in a pile of vomit in his lap.. With his phone in the middle of it.  Saturday, it was said that his phone was run over so hard that the battery had popped out — and yet it still worked. Vomit and car-attacks and all.

Carolyn checked on him but didn’t have the energy to do much else after two nights of taking care of Clint on night 1, and Brayneleeke on night 2. Haha. She did later win a Bobbie award for her efforts: “Goddess Of Mellowing The Harsh”.

Miserlou cover (somewhat distorted) (1m14s)

I had no idea the song Miserlou was 82 years old.

Here are some videos of the Oreo eating contest:

gigantic Oreo-eating contest (5m46s)

To view all the pictures of this set on flickr, go to my 20090703 tag on flickr.

Read about day 4 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

 

JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day 2009 (12X-Day) report – day 2 (20090702)

We went to X-Day again this year. It was a totally different experience than last year. It rained for the first three days we were there, but then it got really nice for the weekend. It was never overbearingly hot.

Read about day 1 here. Day 3 here. 4 here. 5 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

As always, click through to comment on any picture individually on flickr, or to see the full-size…

Quote Of The Day:

“Remember when you were dead?”
–Dildo Valerie, talking about Clint’s alcohol-fueld antics (or lack thereof) from the previous night

Lord Cyclohexane, Jim Jones, Zoot, at registration

We checked out the north pavilion on Thursday (and again on Friday).  Thursday there was supposed to be breakfast, but we took our time getting there, so there were only a couple of pieces of free bacon left.

Pantiara, Carolyn, on rocks

On Thursday, Carolyn & Clint were looking for their chairs to take the pavilion.  They weren’t at the camp site, they weren’t in the car, and they weren’t at the pavilion.  Clint wondered if they had even been bought, but Carolyn saw him put them in the car, and she also would have noticed them on her final “did I forget anything?” Check. They had apparently been misplaced by drunkest-in-his-lifetime Clint.

"Dude... Aren't we all just... shadows in the grass?"

After hanging out at the pavilion, we got an awesome cheeeseburger and nachos [NOT free] from the Blue Lady café that Brushwood runs and opens randomly.  We got nachos with peppers and they didn’t chince on the peppers at all.  Literally every single bite of chip had a accompanying jalapeno pepper.  They were some of the awesomest nachos ever.

Funny thing about being separated from civilization – Little things are so much better. That’s one of the reasons camping is fun. But at Brushwood, there is still a semblance of civilzation: Showers, toilets, hot tubs, and the occasionally-open Blue Lady cafe. These things are very easy to appreciate!

Rock On? [groan] … Last sighting of Tangent?

Tangent and others had hung out at that shelter drinking beast ice and chilling before Clint had woken up. Because of Clint’s major alcohol intake [where’d that bottle of Lunazul tequila go? all gone!] the night before, he woke up about 5 hours past Carolyn.

Thus, by the time Clint was awake, Tangent was pretty smashed. This was still probably around noon time. Basically, everyone at X-Day is drinking 24 hours a day. We didn’t see Tangent again until the next day.

Jim Jones, Dobbsheads

After nachos, we wandered around a bit… then Clint said, “Check out those houses”, because there were these tiny cabins that had been built, and weren’t there last year. They were maybe 200 ft away. Carolyn looked, and was like, “Dude, those are our chairs!”

Clint had no recollection of ever being there… But we can only assume he drunkenly said, “Check out those houses!”, walked over there, and left our chairs there for some reason. We went over there [for what felt like the first time ever] and retrieved our chairs.

metal/screen Dobbshead

Friday was supposed to be the slip n slide but everyone had eaten turkey and were pretty chill.  Carolyn took a nap at that point and left Clint. I have no idea why our journal for Thursday is talking about Friday, but I’m still going to cut and paste it into this blogpost :) Unfortunately, slip-n-slide never happened. But that’s okay. As a child, slip-n-slide made me bleed.

Bob Dobbs dummy

Carolyn got up and hung out at Rob & Wilhelm’s shelter.  People would come and go, so Carolyn met Agent Lloyd, Spike Jones, Dildo Valerie, Kayte/Bunny Day, Wilhelm, along with also Two Beans, Rob/Teeters L’Verge, and Dr. Agonfly.

She thinks she spent 5 hours straight sitting at that shelter with everyone coming and going to use the Four Flushers.  It worked out because the people would come and go, and Carolyn just got to sit in one place socializing.

Dobbshead painting

When Clint woke up, we went to the main pavilion where the 2-hour Hour Of Slack happened.  I guess one of the bulldada auctions also happened, but we didn’t notice.

Then the couscous happened.  Teeters made couscous that was like manna from “Bob”. It was sooo good. Even when there were only remnants, people came and ate them out of the pan with their fingers. The secret? A goya chicken broth packet. MEAT MADE IT GOOD. Fancy that. (And suck it, vegans.)

After that, we made it a point to start stocking couscous AND boullion cubes in our house. Later, at Assateague, Clint learned that three boullion cubs is too many :)

J.R. ”Bob” Dobbs

Clint eventually showered. He doesn’t believe in cleaning up while camping, but after last night’s antics, laying in the mud during the rain, etc, it was necessary.

Carolyn chatted with Pisces who said that Orpheus Stain was also pretty drunk when she saw him and Clint. Yup! They both took out a bottle of tequila and many Budweisers in the space of an hour or 2.

Princess Wei & Ivan Stang & Carolyn @ Earth shrine

When Carolyn looked at the camera, there were a couple of pictures that were taken during the blackout.  Pisces and Jim Jones? at the pavilion, and Orpheus dancing on a picnic table at the pavilion.  Good times, I guess. Heheh. (These were the last 2 pictures in the previous day’s post: Orpheus Stain dancing on the table, and Modemac & Pisces hanging out.)

Still… if our camera was killed by having left it in the rain — then how did we check those pictures out? Parts of the written journal just don’t add up!

dead lighter shrine – 2009 configuration

At some point during the day, I [Clint] finally met a lot of people who had “met” him the night before. He never did know for sure who the 5 people who carried him out of the road were. I also met Dildo Valerie.

While I love her to death, my initial impression was not good. People had told me she was adamant about shitting on me while I was passed out the day before, so all I saw was The Girl Who Wanted To Shit On Me. I wouldn’t put it past her; she’s does some crazy shit:

However, my opinion of her was very quickly raised by hanging out with her and Bunny Day. Dildo Valerie is awesome. They’re both awesome. Their blogs are awesome too. You should go read them all right now. I wish people that awesome lived in Virginia…. But then, Virginia Subgenius density has always been pretty low. I tried to save you all, but you wouldn’t let me!

Thursday night some people were indulging, and Eggplant and K-ren came looking for Brainleak at some point.  Later, Brainleak stumbled up in tears so Carolyn tried to be there for him.

“It isn’t medicine unless it makes you make sick-face when it goes down.”

Dildo Valerie, Nutmeg – dancing and unhappy that Michael Jackson was dead

Carolyn walked to the north pavilion to let Brayneleeke’s parents know we found him.  They were very cool about it, and said he was fine as long as he wasn’t passed out in a puddle [like Clint last night].

It took and hour and 15 minutes for Brainleak to come down from his vision of hell. It kind of bummed the rest of us out a bit, but that’s okay. All part of X-Day, and it’s not like Clint didn’t bum some people out last night! Brayneleeke was simply tonight’s casualty.

(Tomorrow it would be Spike Jones, who puked on his cell phone then let a car run over it. Like I said… a fatality every day! Haha.)

The best part? Brayneleeke suddenly deciding it’s a good idea to put his fingers on the glass of a propane lamp. Basically, right by the flames. We heard sizzling. Tangent looked at me and said, “I’ve never heard a human being sizzle like that.” It was quite disturbing.

I asked him about finger-blisters the next day. His answer? “Fortunately, my fingers were covered in a protective layer of tears.” I think that’s the most goth/emo/brutal thing I’ve ever heard.

Nutmeg dancing – Dildo Valerie was right, she could take a better pic of this than me

At some point, Susie The Floozy, Dr. Hal, and others sat behind us at our shelter. By this time, it was the black of night. It was occasionally raining, so once we plopped down in the shelter, we didn’t move, so as not to lose our seats..

I [Clint] didn’t see Dr. Hal, who was right behind me, for quite some time. He looked as trashed as the rest of us, as his medical condition means he can only drink liquor, not bear.

“How long have you been here?”, I asked.

He paused for a moment to consider his answer, then simply said, “Since conception.”

I rate this one of the best comeback of all time. Plus, it’s about the first time I ever got to talk to the revered Dr. Hal, after listening to him on the Hour Of Slack for so many years.

bathroom graffiti

Thursday night, Rob/Teeters had grilled, and the grill was left out right by the shelter thing, so people kept tripping on it. It was dark and hard to see.  Rob/Teeters himself tripped on the grill 3-5 times.  It later became known as “The Grill Of Shame”. The worst part was a lot of cooked food ended up on the ground. In the end, a bunch of us passed around heated pitas, as all the actual food to put in the pita had wound up on the ground, courtesy of drunks tripping over The Grill Of Shame.

Agent Lloyd, Teeters LeVerge – groping mannequin

There was much talk about “let’s go fuck that mannequin”. Like, it came up MANY times. Finally, at the end of the night, after Carolyn went to sleep, they went to molest it, and Clint got some pictures.

Teeters teeters

I can’t remember if this was the day Dildo Valerie lost her clothes while at the pool/hot tub. I mean, it’s not that she was shy about walking around naked — check my friends-only flickr pics from X-Day 2009 if you want to see what I’m talking about. (But you probably don’t have access, haha!). However, it’s pretty damn cold in Sherman, NY.

She basically stole random clothes.

Later, Rev. Spike Jones realized that she was wearing his shirt — as a skirt. She had totally stretched the neck out to her hip-size. And while she is a petite sex goddess, nobody’s hips are as small as their necks, unless you’ve been photoshopped. The shirt was in bad, bad condition. Haha. Spike Jones didn’t seem too happy about it, but he knew it was too late for complaining, and took it like a champ :)

fire

There was also The Prolapsed Stripper Rectum Story. There’s no real describing this. You just have to check it out yourself. But it has strippers, cocaine, and anal sex. Also, the Grill Of Shame is mentioned in the beginning, but not by name. Star Trek is also mentioned. The prolapsed stripper story in specific doesn’t start until about halfway through the video, which is really just a slice of random drunktalk:

Rectums. Remember: “You only get one!”

To view all the pictures of this set on flickr, go to my 20090702 tag on flickr.

Read about day 3 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

 

JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day 2009 (12X-Day) report – day 1 (20090701)

Read about day 2 here. Day 3 here. 4 here. 5 here. 2008 (11X-Day) X-Day review here.

 

JOURNAL: 10 years ago today, we had our wedding reception

Our 10 year marriage / 18 year dating anniversary actually happened 2 days ago, on the 10th. But our wedding reception happened on 2/12/2000 — 10 years ago. It was a pretty big reception, and was followed by an equally big party at our house that night. (There were a few hours in between the events for everyone to change, eat dinner, etc.)

A good hour of video was taken by our friend Tony T! I managed to get it converted to VHS, and later to AVI on the computer, and later to YouTube postings with YouTube’s stupid 10 minute limit requiring me to break it up into 20 parts of various sizes. Here are the videos — most of them peppered with youngest-cousin Todd being extremely annoying. Go past the jump to see the pics & vid!

 

JOURNAL: ANECDOTES: I took ZERO pictures during college — but I borrowed a camcorder at the very end, exactly 12 years ago – Goodbye Virginia Tech Tour

Never having used a camcorder as an adult before… It was weird to have Jenny Hitchcock so graciously loan me one of her most expensive possessions right before I graduated. I mean, I could have left town without giving it back. But I didn’t. And I’m glad, because these are some of the few concrete memories I have of Virginia Tech and Blacksburg — My farewell.

First, I just walked around campus and Pritchard Hall, where I spent 2 of my 5 years. It doesn’t get interesting until about 3 minutes in, when I tour the “Cartoon Hall” of Pritchard Hall, and spend the next 4 minutes pointing out how someone has added a hit of LSD to the tongue of just about EVERY cartoon character that has a tongue. This fascinated me:

Part 2 (4.5min) had me visit my old dorm room, 1044 Pritchard. Graffiti written IN PENCIL, on metal, 5 years earlier — was still there. All the markings next to my dorm room door (adorned with Grateful Dead bears — there before I moved in) were still there. I go up to the 7th floor and film the view which I had shared with Carolyn many times — we’d even gone into the dorms after living in apartments to get a taste of the view. Incidentally, that vantage point was also where garbage bags full of water were dropped on us repeatedly as we went outside to smoke cigarettes. (Special thanks to Brent for not allowing me to smoke in the dorm.)

You can also see, at the end, the construction of the new quad of dorms in the center of the prarie:

Part 3 involved me driving away from the campus for my last time ever. And what song is playing right when I pull out? Last Dance With Mary Jane by Tom Petty, followed by yet another apropos Tom Petty song. (No, I didn’t have a CD or even cassette player in my Ford LTD, so I was forced to listen to the airwaves.) I drove back to my apartment, turned off the camera, left Virginia Tech, and never came back again. Except for Carolyn’s graduation ceremony and Vicky’s wedding. Anyway, hearing that song at that moment ingrained my soul with a specific imprint that can be revisited at any time by viewing the video — I feel the same emotions everytime I watch it.

There’s also a “deleted scene” that’s kind of lame. I never saw Andy Price again:

Anyway — I miss the simplicity of those days. $120-$160/mo rent, 6 ramen packs for a dollar, watching cartoons on a tiny 13 inch TV and thinking it was the shit. But it’s nice to have expendable income, and, most importantly, to never, ever, ever, ever have to walk in the snow again. As much as I long for those days, I remember quite vividly counting down how many times I would have to walk across the drillfield. From 400 or so until 0. I knew which classes required the walk, and how many of those classes existed. I literally counted down from the 100s. It was so fucking horrible to walk in the freezing cold. Especially when your mucous froze in your nose, and you could squeeze your nose and feel the crystals break. I have to remember that as great as those days were, I was quite ready for them to be over when they were.

Still… Things are more complicated as an adult, and I wonder what for. So we can have fancy gadgets that break, huge houses that cost an arm and a leg to heat, and jobs that drive us crazy and cause us to commute for 10 hours a week? So we can pay off our student loans just in time to go through the process again, reeducating ourselves for whatever industry is left over after the best jobs are outsourced or no longer sustainable?

A part of me years for a compromise between the two disparate lifestyles. Yet I know that yearning will probably never be resolved.

I settled down way too fast, even though it was extremely financially advantageous to buy our house in 1999. It’s still worth over double what we owe on it. I’m too secure now to ever go through those days again. But security is fleeting, the future is uncertain, and maybe someday I’ll live a simple life of squalor again. I often hope if I lose everything, that I might be able to return to a lifestyle like the one I lived in college. But the problem is that I’d be too old to handle it. I certainly couldn’t walk around everywhere with my foot the way it is. So as much as I yearn for squalor, I must remind myself that I could never endure it a second time. I’d look like the pathetic people I drive past waiting in bus stops all the time. I only feel pity for the bus stop people.

Yet the yearning will always be there. It’s probably a part of what it means to be me. Sehnsucht.

 

JOURNAL: VIDEO: Lighters can do amazing things with video feedback – Video Experiments from 1997

Lighters can do amazing things with video feedback:

Of course if you add refraction glasses, it gets even better:

MOAR:

And what was Carolyn doing during this? Making dinner :) Beef and cabbage of some sort, apparently…

These were highlights; my entire “video experiments” session lasted 17 minutes. The full thing is here:

Of course, I also saved a lot of screenshots as well. They were some of the first things I put on my flickr account.

—

 

COMEDY: Stupidity in action

Too bad that when you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to reproduce — because some people shouldn’t be in the gene pool:

 

QUESTIONS: HELP me convert these 2 VOC files! PLEASE! They’re from 1/1992!

I had several people tell me I was the first person they ever knew who recorded real music on their computer. Before mp3s existed, before WAV files existed – I recorded a VOC of The Descendents song “I Like Food” (which happens to only be 16 seconds, and was pushing the limits of the technology at the time — mainly harddrive space).

But before that, I recorded 2 VOC files of high school friends. One includes my friend Mark W strongly encouring the listener to suck the poo from a girl’s butt. It’s gross, and he goes on. But this guy… Well, he was obsessed with that stuff, so it’s really funny. The other is my friend Scott McNett saying, “Don’t touch me!” in a neurotic voice. I think. I’m not sure actually. I haven’t been able to play these files for a good 12+ years.

I’ve tried opening them every which way with CoolEdit. I’ve looked for VOC converters. I’ve had 16 years to fail at doing this.

Can anyone help? Convert it to WAV, MP3, anything other than what it is? Maybe there are some digital sound engineer hobbyist experts out there?

Anyway, here are the files:
VOC file 1
VOC file 2

And for the random people out there that don’t know me… First off, why are you reading this? Second off, I’ll PayPal you $5 if you are the first person to convert this for me.

 

VIDEO: REVIEW: Ambient Fire – The Ultimate Video Fireplace

You’d think that a video of fire burning couldn’t be done poorly, but I have to say this one was. It’s a 40 minute video. Of fire in a fireplace. For turning your TV into fireplace eye candy. But get this — it appears they couldn’t be bothered to actually film fire for 40 minutes. By fast forwarding through this video one minute at a time, and looking at the logs — it sure as hell seems like they looped 10 minutes of the fire burning 4 times. Talk about lazy.

To do this right, they should film a full fire for a few hours, even if that means adding — GASP — *new* logs. Oh: And make it HD. Flames have beautiful details. I’d love some 1080p fire.

 

COMEDY: Inappropriate Kids’ Slide / Bohemian Rhapsody covered with a horn

I’m really not sure what’s more ridiculous; the video, or the audio. Neither have the slighest thing to do with each other…

 

COMEDY: The Horror Of Mark I – webcam play from 6.5 years ago – “That’s a good… STRING!”

No, the camera wasn’t broadcasting to anyone other than to our own room.

We had been hanging out, and definitely were not sober at this point.

Mark I had a lot of fun playing with our webcam + microphone, which were hooked up to our 36-inch TV + 100W stereo. So this was blaring through the room at the time.

It was running through some software that lowered the pitch (among other things).

This could be described as “painful through the first half, annoying through the 3rd quarter, and just plain strange through the 4th quarter”. It gets more interesting at 50% and at 80%.

The first half is just him making really long noises. At around 50%, he has to stop and go “Whoo”, cause he tired himself out. Then he starts repeating “Satan” and “My name is Satan” over and over. Around the 80% mark, we get the the very end.

The very end is why we all remember this 6 years later. Mark started singing randomly. I was in the background messing around with a guitar and had commented about how a particular guitar string was a good string. Mark heard this and incorporated it into his song. He started singing, “That’s a good string”, over and over, reaching the final climax of, “Don’t you knowwwwww that’s a good ….. STRIIIINNNNNNNG!”

Um, yeah. You probably had to be there. In my basement. In 2002.

But it’s still nice to have moments preserved.

UPDATE!!! I found another old video that couldn’t be decoded. After aggressively trying with various tools, ffmpeg managed to convert this “cjpeg” video to mpg4, sans color and sound. It’s from even earlier – 2000. Here it is:

 

JOURNAL: PETS: Kittens visit our creek (9/14/2008)

So Carolyn & I finally got a chance to take both kittens (though you can’t really call Oranjello that anymore) down to the creek. The experience was a little more than I bargained for, because it turns out that the hurricane brought little fish to the “pond” in our back yard. Carolyn outfitted little Lemonjello with the tiny red “ferret” leash/harness, and Oranjello got the proper (big-cat) leash/harness. Lemonjello had never really been outside before, so it was all new to him.  Just about the very first thing he did was complain:

Lemonjello meowing – close up
Lemonjello is a whiny little baby wherever he is. We always know when he enters the room because the first thing he does is meow really loud.
He whined a lot outside.
“I’m supposed to climb up this fallen tree to get up the steep hill?!?”
(Yes, that’s why I knocked it down there, Lemonjello.)

I also got a chance to take another picture showing the kudzu dominating of our back yard….

kudzu in the backyard
I just went out with a machete a couple weeks earlier and cut until I got a blister — twice. Utterly pointless battle.

The obstacles created by fallen trees had changed even more with the passing hurricane. When we finally got to the creek, I noticed that the “wall of roots” contained far fewer roots than before the hurricane…

^^ wall of roots seems less ^^
and before the hurricane, there were more:

The hurricane made the creek in our backyard rush like it never has before. The roots on this wall are partially gone; many tree roots were pulled into the stream — and we now have fish in our pond!

No clue if they will survive or have a food source.

Oranjello, Lemonjello – checking out the creek
Once the kitties realized there were fish moving all around in the water… They were very interested.  And also notice — the huge logs that had been here for years are now completely gone without a trace…
Also, the ivy roots have all been tugged by the rushing hurricane waters, and now all "point" downstream. They were lucky to survive.

Here’s a before pic, showing the logs that were taken away by the hurricane:

^ hurricane stole mah logs! ^

So anyway, the cats — especially little Lemonjello — stood quite transfixed by the little fish moving about…

Lemonjello checks out the brand-new fish

close-up of fish in the creek (2-4 pictured)
You can see about 2-4 of the brand-new fish (especially if you click through zoom in) deposited into our pre-existing pond by the rushing torrent of hurricane water.
also really how this picture came out with the reflections, autumn leaves, and red twigs.

Lemonjello – looking at fish

Oranjello looked too… But not nearly as much:

Oranjello – looking at fish

“this causes me to think”

“outside freaks me out”

“I can haz scooba soot?”

Oranjello had to be supervised a bit… He tried to walk away a couple times. But for the most part, he could be left to wander as he wishes…

Carolyn, Lemonjello, Oranjello – on rock
Oranjello wanted to cross the creek and explore the further lands. When we took him camping lately, he also demonstrated his desire to explore… Oranjello would have left us (unlike Lemonjello) had we not tied him down!

oops! no head!
Wouldn’t have kept this pic, except that that is kind of funny.

WHAT IS THIS?
What is this plant? What are those berries?

And then we had some fun at Lemonjello’s expense:

Lemonjello – on the rocks
What to do next? Put Lemonjello on the creekbed rocks! They were damp, so he whined about having to walk here:

Meanwhile, Oranjello made himself at home, which he technically is, since this is still around our property line:

Oranjello – basking in the sun – closer
a quite comfortable slice of paradise: Soft ivy to lay on, running water with rocks and a sandy beach, and a beam of sunlight falling directly on him.

Of course, as the video above showed, Lemonjello just whined and whined about the wet rocks:

Lemonjello – walking on rocks
“Hang in there!”

Lemonjello – “Are you going to do something?”

‘HOW **DARE** YOU TAKE ME TO THE CREEK… I INSIST YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TRAVESTY RIGHT NOW!’

Lemonjello’s whining finally caused Oranjello to get up from his comfy slice of paradise in the sunny ivy, and come over and locate Lemonjello to make sure he was okay.

Oranjello – to the rescue

By the way — even playing the video (above) of Lemonjello whining causes Oranjello to climb all over our furniture until he locates the speaker that the whining comes from. We think Oranjello must be protective of Lemonjello. Or at least curious enough to saunter over to watch Lemonjello’s demise as a form of entertainment :)

Oranjello – at the creek
Once Oranjello was done “rescuing” whiny Lemonjello, we then left him to his own devices to see what he would do. He decided he didn’t really want to stand in a damp creekbed, but he didn’t want to go back the way he came either. So he took the illogical course of action of trying to climb/hang out on a wall that is really too steep to do so on.

Finally, we took them back up the hill…

Oranjello, Lemonjello – walking up the hill
Lemonjello was buried in that ivy, and could barely see above it. Oranjello had left him in the dust. Tiny Lemonjello was plowing through the ivy as fast as he could, meowing distraughtly. Finally, Oranjello went up to him, and Lemonjello seemed relieved to be "rescued", now able to follow the beacon of Oranjello’s HUGE TAIL.

“made it”
Finally, the cats climbed up the steep hill. Oranjello looks back as his accomplishment.We never carry them up — it would not be possible during the steepest parts anyway. Instead, we go up and call them until they come. Oranjello is very good at it (see video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJQJA-Nj4JQ ). Lemonjello is still small enough to get his leash tangled several times, needing a rescue. Oranjello actually went back down the hill to try to check up on and help Lemonjello, but ultimately only Clint was the only member of a species with enough topographical comprehension to free Lemonjello.

And then Lemonjello decided that licking the ground would be more entertaining than walking back inside:

outtake – kitten licked and left tongue-marks

We were all a bit tired out afterwards…

Carolyn, Lemonjello – on lap
Carolyn likes having kitties.

But Carolyn is especially happy to have not one…

Carolyn, Lemonjello – holding
Carolyn’s very happy with her new kitten.

…but two kittens:

synchronized looking up

Lemonjello – on Oranjello – comparison – different M styles & stripes
Oranjello’s forehead tabby markers have a more pronounced “M”, while Lemonjello has a more Quake symbol-like marking, like Beavis (who was almost named Shub-Niggurath) did.
Also, Lemonjello’s stripes are much more pronounced.

Yup. Carolyn’s having fun:

Carolyn – holding Oranjello, Lemonjello
Carolyn loves her kitties!

And Lemonjello is as complainy as ever:

Lemonjello – meowing
Lemonjello meows a lot. He is the loud counter-point to Oranjello’s extreme quietness.

Oranjello’s completely mellowed out now. He even eats catnip calmly…

Oranjello – blinking
Oranjello blinks at the camera a lot. He’s like the Brent I of cats (Brent always blinks during pictures).

Really the only time Oranjello isn’t calm is when he and Lemonejllo are playing…

Lemonjello – biting Oranjello’s foot
This is one of the kitty’s favorite pastimes — biting each other’s feet with no mercy.

Of course, sometimes Oranjello deliberately provokes Lemonjello to play with his tail… We’ve seen him slowly walk backwards, tail encroaching Lemonjello’s face…

Lemonjello, Oranjello – playing with tail

Hopefully there still entertaining when they’re not kittens anymore :)

 

JOURNAL: Yea, we got a new kitten.

So, we got a new kitten. The one on the right, originally called “Dirty Face”.

I’m sure most everyone who reads Carolyn’s blog or looks at the pictures we post on flickr, or my twitters, knows this by now.

Now joining Oranjello, we have a “twin” (not really) orange kitten named Lemonjello.

Here are a few videos and pictures…

John narrates for the kitties:

Really only interesting for the first 3 seconds, because Oranjello was licking Lemonjello compulsively, and licked Lemonjello right off the chair they were sharing!:

Kind of boring, and low quality of course, but kitties playing with each other… With some slams near the end:

More kitties playing. This was actually the first video, from day 3:

^ of course Oranjello’s huge tail is nothing but a big cat toy to Lemonjello

2gether oar forses moar powurfl

 

POLITICS: Economic Crisis: VIDEO: Rep. Marcy Kaptur tells it like it is

You go, girl!

 

COMEDY: That’s what you get, you moron.