I thought it would be a bit cooler here in Norman now that I’m back from the sweltering death that is Houston. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself; it’s just more that a little hot there. We posted up at a number of places. My favorite was the Houston Dynamo game. We did a bit of tailgating before and after the game. There was beer, burgers and hot dogs. It was pretty fun. We went into the game and it was a blowout. The Columbus Crew didn’t have a prayer against the mighty Dynamo. I’m pretty sure my beloved Reds would stomp them into the ground though.
That wasn’t the only event on our itinerary though. Before the game we went to the St. Arnold Brewery for a brewery tour. There were several hundred people there and we were all thirsty for sweet refreshing beer. It was a mild 105+ degrees in the brewery and public sweatiness was the norm. We didn’t come as prepared as some of the veterans of the brewery tour though. Those bitches has sandwiches!
Continuing with my time-reversed portrayal of my Houston trip we ended the night before the Dynamo game by going to a super-awesome Ume concert. The first thing that you should know about Ume is that they do not fuck around. They are quite the sight to see. It will rock your sensibilities to the core seeing the smallest and cutest girl in the world smashing your brain with pure liquid rock. She has killer legs too. Whee!
Ume - Manic
We visited the Houston Aquarium. It was both awesome and air conditioned, a double plus. There were lots of critters there. We made friends with a sting ray we named Vernon. I’m pretty sure he wanted to drink my blood. Tara promised me that he was just trying to jump on me so I could take him home, not to drink my blood. There are two white tigers at the aquarium “because tigers like to play in the water”. They were very pretty and VERY big. There is also a tunnel-shaped aquarium that is filled with sharks. It was a pretty sweet facility.
During the hottest and most impressively disgusting day I have had the honor of experiencing in a very long time we went to Space Center Houston. Shit, it was hot outside. We went because of the (seemingly) awesome Star Wars exhibit. The video makes it seem FUCKING AWESOME. It is, in fact, not FUCKING AWESOME. Not even close. Not even one bit. This video shows every single bit of the exhibit. Now you don’t have to go, lucky you.
We did take the tour of the Space Center. It was ok, but with the heat it was probably not the best idea. We had to wait in line for quite a while in the blazing heat. It was lovely, look at the pictures. You can tell how much fun Lulu and Tay Tay are having. The Saturn V rocket exhibit is crazy awesome. You open the door and BAM! that thing is all in your face. It’s an experience. Lulu also had some astronaut ice cream, it made my mouth taste like sludge.
Finally we spent the first night eating and drinking. We posted up at the pool and set to drinking. Fun was had.
Thanks again for letting us post up with you Tara. We’ll have to do it again sometime.
This is wonderful. A guy named Matt Harding has been traveling the world. When he arrives at a place he then dances with the people there, usually in front of iconic landmarks. It’s hard not to feel a little closer to everyone else in the world while watching this video. Everyone can’t dance, just like me (except those Indian Sari dancers, they know what they’re doing). I am more than a little jealous of his adventures. He even got sponsored by Stride Gum! Free travel! Maybe if I ever get to travel again I will think of something equally as clever to do.
Pretty slick, eh? I haven’t found myself on there yet. It looks like it was probably taken in January or February of 2008. You can tell it’s after the new year because of all the storm damage to the trees and whatnot.
Later on in the journey we encountered the best part of our journey: Wheeling, West Virginia. Wheeling is the worst town I have ever been to and that includes East St. Louis (which we also ran into during this trip). Before we can properly bash Wheeling, WV we should learn a bit about it’s storied history.
The name “Wheeling” is of the American Adena tribe derivation for “place of the skull.” At the confluence of Wheeling Creek and the Ohio River near what is now 16th and Main Streets, a white settler was scalped and decapitated, and the severed head displayed.
In 2000 31,419 people lived in the great city of Wheeling but the city hit its population peak back in 1930 at 61,659. Wheeling is split between the West Virginia side of the Ohio River and Wheeling Island. On the island is a large residential area plus a casino and racetrack known as Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack which has a tropical theme despite it’s location. It does flood in the summer, though.
The people of Wheeling are aloof and backwards. We tried several places in the city but were unable to find gasoline. Resorting to asking the townsfolk where to get gas we went into a McDonalds where everyone eating and working there were related. I wish I were kidding. They couldn’t help us either, go figure. We eventually had to leave Wheeling and get gas outside of town despite running on fumes but not before we toured the lovely downtown. Downtown Wheeling is quite large once you take into account that only 30,000 or so people live there. The buildings are tall and almost all of them are boarded up. The best part is that it all nestles up to a groady river that doesn’t look potable. It is truly picturesque.
We made the trip in around 22 hours of straight travel taking turns driving and running the radio. My sister treated us to a nice italian meal and Jake got to meet up with his crazy (in a good way) sister, Mandy. I don’t remember much of the return trip because I was too exhausted from driving and moving but we refused to go back through Wheeling; we went through DC and Memphis instead.
Jake and I went to CAPE! 2008 this Saturday in Dallas. CAPE! is an annual comic convention that is every May 3rd (which is Free Comic Book Day). To get an idea of what it was like there are a few flickr collections you can look at: here, here and here. The event was sponsored by Zeus Comics that was right next door.
The event is basically 4 or 5 large tents lined with comic book writers and artists. Almost everyone had a book they were selling and a lot of them were doing comissioned sketches. It was a good chance to chat up some intersting people and to see lots and lots of talent.
Jake and I each got a sketch from Josh Howard and a print from Ivan Flores. They’re pretty awesome. Many free comics were had and other sketches were commissioned. Other people are talking about ittoo!
Afterwards Jake and I raided Majestic Liquors and bought most of the New Belgium products they had in the refrigerator. It is delicious and tasty.
As it turns out there are no computers in Europe. That might be a surprise to all of you but i have the facts straight from the reunified teat of what was old mother Russia. There are no computers in Europe. Sure, they have boxes that are shaped like computers. Those boxes have monitors and keyboards (if you want to call them that), they even have a mouse. They are also so locked down that you can’t really use them and that is why, my dear readers, I am only now getting back to you.
It would seem that they do not trust the common computer user to do anything except browse google in German or French. You can’t change the settings and you can’t access the URL. Blogs are also off limits. Anyway, the repression is over, I am home.
The first stop on my journey was Berlin. We stayed in a small hotel near the center of town in a neighborhood called Mitte. The first impression of Berlin was it’s stunning public transportation system. The trains are well appointed and there is no shortage of them. Prompt and well-oiled, just like the German people. Berlin is a sleepy town. During the day there are few people out and about except for tourists and tourist support. I believe they were all being industrious in a very German way. I like to imagine they all had on kaiser helmets (Pickelhaube) too. There were a number of impressive monuments in Berlin that were very powerful statements about war. We saw the The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (not elsewhere, they don’t get a memorial) and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche which is a church that was bombed during the air raids on Berlin and left as a potent symbol. There was a fair bit of drinking and an even more fair bit of eating here. The food is delicious and I don’t know what the hell people are thinking when they say that German food is dull.
German people must hide during the day
–Me
Munich (München) was a significant change from Berlin. It is the seat of the Bavarian region of Germany and it’s people can drink. I don’t remember in vivid detail much of my visit to Munich. I do remember the visit to the Hofbräuhaus, but after that it is quite fuzzy. We stayed at a hostel which was a blast. There was a bar filled with interesting people and after a few (too many) drinks I friends with the whole bar. I woke up and my iPod was gone and I had no idea how I made it back to my bunk bed. I called the dinosaurs that night, that’s for sure. Good times.
They come in liters?
–Me
I will update later on the Paris portion of my vacation. Fun-filled and even more action packed!
I had to leave a bit early for my trip because I was expecting some serious icing. Looks like I was right. So that’s nice. I got an extension to my vacation and I get to spend a nice long weekend here in New York. I have already had some fantastic Ukrainian food called Bigos. Delicious.
It’s a bit nicer weather-wise in New York City. It’s raining and about 38-degrees which is, to say, an improvement. I met up with the venerable Douglas Coulter. He is well and our collective concern for his heathen ways is unfounded. To the right is a picture of him in his natural habitat. More later.
This has to be one of the most fucked up things I have seen ever. Apparantly I-35 is haunted. Haunted with the HOLY GHOST!
Comments from YouTube
Please, you don’t need a joy buzzer to make a queen on tina feel like he’s on fire. That bitch had his shirt off before he got to the club. And the only reason he’s renounced his sexuality was because it’s apparently the hottest trend in America these days. Plus it makes the bathroom rendevouz that much hotter. -jberke
Solution to this problem: Start holding “gay sieges” at their churches. Turnabout is fair play, isn’t it? -crunchyfrog63
Sarah Sanders is kind of hot though.
I didn’t feel the desires to be with men like I had felt before.
I piled in the car with some friends and headed down to Dallas to see the one and only Coheed and Cambria yesterday. It was, to say the least, awesome. Really a great great great show. I cannot speak highly enough of their talent.
The set lasted around 2 hours with an splattering of all of their albums all mish-mashed up in there. They did a very good job blending several songs into one another so that it turns into one long 30 minute song. The encore was a 30 minute long mix of Welcome Home and The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut with a health dose of improvisation, theremin, behind-the-back guitar playing and good old fashioned rock your face off.
Bye bye, beautiful
Don’t bother to write
–A Favor House Atlantic
There was a huge monster in the crowd that was probably a smooth 6′6″. He liked to stand directly in front of me. Other than the monster the crowd seemed to stand still and caught up in the flood of liquid rock and roll that was flowing from the stage. I took some shitty pictures with my camera phone. I hope you like them.
I’m pretty sure that Jake has better photos and maybe a video or two he can contribute as well
On BoingBoing there is a link to an interesting article about inserting checksums into your final values on bar/restaurant tabs. These keep the nefarious waitstaff from upping your tip without being noticed (and they do that from time to time). It may seem a bit complicated but it could also be fun. Let’s look at the basics.
Let’s assume you have a $35.63 check at a restaurant.
Step 1. Decide an appropriate tip. This is up to you, I try to stay near the 20% mark. In this instance I would tip $7 exactly ($7 is 20% of $35 and that’s close enough)
Step 2. Apply that tip to the check amount to get a total. $42 in this instance ($35 + $7)
Step 3. Create the checksum and apply to the tab. To create the checksum simply add the digits left of the decimal place together. (3 + 5 = 8). If this is more than 10 then just use the singles digit (9 + 9 = 18, use the 8).
Step 4. Add the checksum amount to the cents place on the check. The final amount in this example would be $42.08.
It seems like a lot of extra work but it really isn’t. It’s one extra step. Just change the cents place to match the sum of the dollar amounts. This will keep those greedy waiters and waitresses out of your pockets.
PUSHMONK, a user at BoingBoing, has a few other suggestions.
The easiest way to discourage someone writing in a different amount is to be sure to put a dollar sign directly in front of both the tip and the total with no space between it and the first number. You’d be surprised how often that will actually stop this from happening.
It was also suggested that you use the calculation an iPhone app called Tipr uses. Tipr takes the amount and adds the tip then, as if by magic, makes the amount a palindrome. The above example would end up being $42.24 (which is probably closer to 20% anyway). Classy!
The benefit of the latter method is seen when you check your bank statement. All of the restaurant and bar tabs will be delicious palindromes: $15.51, $27.72, $5.05, etc. It’s also probably a good idea to stretch your brain at least a few times during the day.
**UPDATE: I tried this at lunch and it proved too difficult for my sleep-deprived mind to handle with any type of speed. I hope to get better. I went with the palindrome method. I believe this method will result in higher tips for the long term so that’s nice.
