two people, totally independently, today told me that my hairstyle made me look like a samurai.
earlier this weekend i thought the same about myself, and i am pretty sure hops commented on it, too.
there are worse things to look like than a samurai. i told my coworkers: arigato!
okay, i didn't say that. but i should have.
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x36!
i am the mohawk your haircut, who brought you out of boredom to be your haircut. you shall have no other haircuts besides me, for i am the MOHAWK.
in addition to the haircut, i re-styled my Hootie goatee. it was to be a transitionary step to the Real Facial Hair Plan that I had for xmas, but 1) it is clear i'm several months off from achieving my plan, and 2) i kinda like the transitionary form.
i have to face the facts: i look good in facial hair. the sillier the better.
which brought me to another realization. as i've pointed out before, and as all men know, the real purpose of facial hair, particularly a beard, is to distract women from the fact that the man in question has multiple chins. a good beard flows over all the chins and creates the illusion of a single, unified chin structure. a bad beard reveals the chinplex.
but it has come to my attention that for me (though probably not for someone like K-fed) the beard is a toy, a source of endless amusement, a joke-on-my-face which brings a smile in the midst of my mustache/beard complex whenever i get a glimpse in the mirror.
this one is particularly amusing. har de har! it's a twofer.
it's Frobuary 3, YOMHC 0x35!
clippers: best thing i ever bought, even though i have personally never used them.
the weirdest thing about shaving off a non-trivial beard (and i've done it enough times to speak with some authority) is looking at yourself in the mirror and not recognizing your chin.
"hey, what the heck is that thing there under my mouth?"
"oh, my chin."
or, if you've recently begun barbecuing and going to weekly beer festivals,
"oh, my chins."
bah. i knew i had a spare one there some place, i just didn't realize how well the beards hid it.
through a series of events stemming from my inability to read a product description, i shaved today with a feather disposable blade straight razor.
it offers all the terror, inconvenience, and slowness of a real straight razor shave, without the foreplay of stropping or the tedium of honing and sharpening.
right off the bat i cut myself under the nose. score one for the feather disposable.
my normal second pass includes ear-to-nose, but that frightened me too much and i couldn't get the angle right to avoid skipping (real bad idea with a straight) so i did nose-to-ear which is also scary because although it eliminated the danger of skipping-induced face lacerations, it introduced the real danger of hearing loss by way of ear amputation.
i survived with both ears intact. it was clear from the beginning that the blade was far, far, far sharper than any of my previous straight razors. now, because of the aforementioned reading failure, i have a pack of feather blades that are slightly less sharp than the ones i used today, but really, there is no such thing that i am aware of as a dull feather.
i sliced open a helmet pimple, score two for the feather. and i missed a patch under my chin and patches near both of my ears (see above, re: fears of ear amputation). this is common with straights, in my experience. the shave feels about the same as i'd get in 2 passes from my DE feather, but the real test comes when i check myself out in the car mirror (usually while merging on to 92).
in all, i'll surely use up the 20 blades that i managed to stick myself with. at this point, i'm somewhat amenable to putting the razor up in my case after (or even before) that, but that might just be on account of i've gotten outta practice with the cutthroat.
at last, i have a grill again.
after a long stretch of non-usage, i got rid of the old one, which had reached the ripe old age of 35 (dog) years and gathered a fancy coating of rust, corrosion, and burner rot. for almost a year i went without a grill at all, then hops got me a tailgate grill for 10 bucks which we used often enough to miss the even cooking of a real grill.
so yesterday the new grill arrived. it's a weber genesis. it came in a gigantic box attached to a pallet. the deliver guy (a small carrier that i'd never heard of) brought it into the garage but it clearly would not fit into the elevator, so he dumped it by the elevator and left. i can't say i blame him: the shipping paperwork said it weighed 400 pounds, so we weren't about to manhandle it into the elevator.
fortunately, hops was on the way home. she arrived about 15 minutes later and we unpacked the box right there and took the grill parts up piece by piece. assembly took a rather long time, but only because step #2 was exceptionally tough. something to do with getting bolts aligned exactly before they would go through the frame. once i got to step 4 i realized i'd used the wrong washers in step #2. doh!! had to remove all the bolts and re-washer them. fortunately step 3 had made step 2 quite simple, so it wasn't a big deal.
once over the step 2 hump the rest of the steps were pretty straightforward. with hops' help we were done... in time for dinner! i hadn't planned on that. all we had was a couple sausages, which i grilled, and they were tasty. coulda done better with the sausages, and coulda done way better with some real meat. wednesday i'll be grilling up some fish, and from there out, it's grilling all the time. i've got a whole backlog of stuff to grill.
yesterday a coworker acquaintance asked if i was still blogging. i said i was but that it'd gotten really boring. he said it had always been boring. ouch!
with that in mind, i bring you a really boring post about what i've learned about shaving these last several months, during which i've been really obsessive about exploring the (dare i say) art.
two things have become very apparent most recently, in the last week:
1) my face likes really sharp blades. feathers and swedish gillettes.
2) my face likes tallow. tabac is the cheap tallow choice, harris is the pricier tallow soap. both produce an exceptionally close shave when combined with a sharp blade.
i've also learned that my favorite safety razor is the one i started out with, the merkur classic. i've tried two different slants and a HD classic, but i enjoy the plain old classic the most, and with the right blade and soap i get fine results.
soap aroma turned out to surprise me. the soaps that i enjoy smelling are not necessarily what i thought i'd like. when i began the current obsession i was mostly interested in lime and sweet almond. now, i like the woodsy ones. today was harris 'marlbrough' and castle forbes 'cedarwood sandalwood'. i smell like a tree, a very nice tree. but not a lime tree.
for some reason, i've never read sun-tzu's classic text. i'm in the process of rectifying that.
in antiquity those that excelled in warfare first made themselves unconquerable in order to await the moment when the enemy could be conquered.
being unconquerable lies with yourself; being conquerable lies with the enemy.
one who is free from errors directs his measures towards certain victory, conquering those who are already defeated.
hops' nephew had a wedding in Athens, GA the other weekend. we flew in to atlanta to attend.
having arrived in atlanta, we secured our rental car (no small feat, as they'd evidently lost our info) and drove to athens. along the way, we stopped at a regional bbq chain, the name of which i have forgotten, which troubles me not one whit, having as i do no intention of returning my business to that chain. we were led to this place by our Hertz GPS, which had only shortly prior failed to guide us to a jerk restaurant, the restaurant itself having ceased to exist some time between the publishing of the GPS map an our searching for it.
during the plane ride to georgia and the subsequent days, up until just 3 days ago at my parents' house, i was engaged in the pursuit of the completion of the novel "The Diamond Age", which appears to have influence my writing style inasmuch as i've evidently adopted a pretentious Victorian writing style, as evidenced by the presence of superfluous verbiage.
or maybe i'm just happy to be caressing the ivory again, as it were.
anyhow. georgia. the first taste of barbecue was a huge letdown, but that only because it was chain barbecue. we arrived in athens and settled in for the night. the next morning, hops and i went for a run through the local college campus, where, coincidentally, a 5k run/walk was being held. an observant observer would have recognized that she and i were not participants in this event not only by the absence of numbers on our shirts, but by the fact that we were running, not walking.
i decided then that my future travels, the ones which would not afford cycling, would feature running, as often as possible. for the 3 days we were in georgia, that was the only day we ran, but it was also the day i felt the best. i appreciated the athens air, scenery, sunshine, and people much more as i ran through them than at any other point in my visit.
after our run we dressed and went to meet with hops' family, after which we headed downtown to The Trapeze, which had been recommended to us by The Captain, who, though he had never been to this particular venue, had spent some time in Athens, and Georgia, having grown up (insofar as he has done so) in The South.
The Trapeze was not open for eating until 30 minutes after our arrival, we found out, but fortunately the taps were open. The beer list was rather mind blowing, and I treated myself to 4 of their finest, including a pint of the local Terrapin Brewery's Rye Pale Ale. It was actually one of the better RyePA's that I've had, thoroughly enjoyable. The others were Belgian and weird. At one point, the waitress, whom I asked to teach me some Southernisms in trade for the words "hella" and "dude" (out in California, we say "dude" all the time, and not when we want to be ironic or something, it's just another word for us!), brought out a shot glass of beer for me to sample in lieu of what I had ordered. They were out of the exotic Belgian beer I'd asked for, but maybe I'd want to try this new beer they'd gotten in this week for the first time: Stone Pale Ale. Ha! I laughed a bit, and hops knew what was funny, and after I finished my giggles I explained that although Stone Pale Ale is excellent and I appreciated the sample, Stone is brewed in CA, from which I had just come, and I was not in the mood for my own local brew! Har de har. The food there was pretty weak but the beer was great.
Afterwards, I topped myself off with an Irish Something Or Another, some espresso concoction featuring hazelnut syrup and amaretto. It too was excellent but my judgement may at that time have been impaired. We went off in search of Terrapin Brewery, for the obtainment of schwag.
The waitress' directions to the brewery were 100% bogus. We recovered from this and headed out on our own. Tragically, the brewery was closed until that evening -- when we'd be at the wedding. Doh! Well, that's what we get for not planning to go to the brewery. Next time, we'll make better plans in that regard.
We went back to the hotel, failed to ingest more beer, and got a massage. It was a hotel/spa and we had an appointment and a coupon, but neither these nor the massage really removed any of my tension. She spent a lot of time on my neck and I think I have a tumor there, and little time on my legs which I had just pounded that morning during my run. Meh. After the massage we'd wanted to go swimming, but, unfortunately, the pool was closed.
After that, there was a wedding. After that, there were lots of pictures. After that, there was a reception with an "open bar" which featured my choice of Budweiser, Amstel Light, Coors Light, or that beer that compares itself to ass. I chose the king of crap beers but could swallow no more than one mouthful. That puts my lifetime Budweiser consumption at 24 ounces, one mouthful. I think I've learned my lesson: only at the brewery is it drinkable.
The reception, featuring activities which can be said, with dry, extreme understatement most befitting my pretentious pseudovictorian style, to have failed to pique my interest, happened. That having happened, and having not stopped, and having finally wrapped up, I helped transport gifts up to the bridal suite and then accompanied hops, her sister, and the sister's boyfriend downtown to Athens, to a bar called The Globe, which had been selected by my 24/7 internet uplink based on criteria which I had suggested, namely, a large selection of premium whiskeys, dammit. as it happened, the Trapeze had a more than respectable scotch selection, of which we did not avail ourselves on that trip, but which we could surely avail ourselves on our next visit. The Globe did not have, to my disappointment, a large selection of Bourbon, as I had hoped during my first visit to The South to imbibe their local spirit. Instead, I was fortunate enough to sample some Laphroaig 15, some Suntory Yamazaki, and some JMR "Rich Spicy One". All excellent, all at excellent prices -- the sort of prices you don't see in CA where two shots of whiskey could purchase a whole bottle. I finished off the JMR and was offered the bottle, which I refused as graciously as I could.
At one point hops had to visit the loo and asked me to look after her effects, which included her shiny metal badge, the latter which I took up to the bar, and with which, accompanying my proclamation of "whiskey inspector!" i endeavored and failed to obtain free spirits.
after this we parted ways with the sister and went in search of the wedding party, having determined after 2 rounds of drinks that they were not, in fact, joining us, even though they'd said they would. we tracked them down to an all-night diner, where i had my first taste (at last!) of real southern food: one piece of fried okra. it blew my mind, i think. it was good, at least. and this was just a crummy diner. before leaving the diner, we obtained the name of a good breakfast place for the morrow.
the morrow arrived, too late for a run before checkout and departure for atlanta. instead of a run, we went to the Five Star Day Cafe or some such, and ordered the Elvis Breakfast, which is a peanut butter and banana french toast sandwich. i also had grits, with cheese. the breakfast was good, and southern i'm sure, but not so great.
the drive to atlanta was, i am sure, quite scenic. i'd be even more sure had i been awake for it. we stopped in Decatur for lunch/beer at The Brick Store, another recommendation from the Captain. Two beers and one Brunswick stew into lunch, circumstances demanded that we cut our visit short and depart for the hotel, which we did. At the hotel, many words were exchanged. The effects of those words have yet to be observed in full. At some point during the exchanging of words, the recently married man called us and asked to sleep on a rollaway in our room. His new wife had departed or was departing or something and he was going to stop in atlanta on his way to really i didn't care enough to remember all the details. all i heard was "rollaway bed" and i said "get him his own room". he was hard up for cash on account of the father of the bride had evidently stiffed him for a large portion of the wedding bills. yikes!
so our dinner plans were delayed as we awaited his arrival, with his best man, with whom we intended to share our dinner. waiting thus decided upon, we departed to the hotel bar, where, finally, i was able to obtain southern spirits: a pair of mint juleps. i've never had one before, and granted, it was evening in georgia and not a day at the races in kentucky, but the bartender either knew how to make a delicious mint julep or a delicious non-mint-julep. either way, the drinks we got were fantastic. equally fantastic was the emptiness of our stomachs, and, despite the edamame we got with the mint juleps, we were too buzzed to drive by the time the groom arrived. he was told he'd be driving.
we got our car out of the lot and set off, with hops navigating. now, here is where the story gets fuzzy in my mind. on the way to the BBQ restaurant, Daddy D'z, we covered most of the roads in Atlanta, as hops led us down one variant of "lost" after another. The part that I can't remember is whether we first discovered that she was intermixing street turns from two different sets of directions, or whether we first discovered that the address she'd put into the GPS had an extra digit in the numeric portion. In any case, we had to conquer two major obstacles before we arrived at Daddy D'z, 9:35 pm. "They're closed" said the woman coming out of the restaurant with takeout. sigh.
I told hops she needed to tell them a sob story to keep them open so I could have my gorram southern barbecue. that she did, and the guy at the counter was so accomodating and awesome, he took our order. and order we did. meat after meat, side after side, and cornbread. we kept on ordering and ordering and then we signed off a really big tip and sat down to wait.
after a while, he called me up to the counter to ask if i wanted plates. plates? i asked. paper plates. oh? i asked if he was kicking us out. i said that was fine with me and i understood completely, i just needed to know. apparently this was more begging than he could stomach, and he invited us to stay. we offered to leave so he could close, but by this point he would not hear of it, and told me my jewish mother would be proud. how'd he know?
so we sat down and he brought us our barbecue, and paper plates. the portions were extra big, and he kept on bringing out extra plates of stuff we hadn't ordered. how was the food, you ask?
unbelievably great. having had no exercise that day i was incapable of the great feats of engorgement that i can sometimes pull off, but i did my best. it was goooooood. the cornbread was like nothing i've had before or since, and out of this world. the meats were smoky and tender, or smokey and chewy, and i like both. the greens were a little disappointing and the brunswick stew was better in Decatur (which they knew!) but the meats were the best barbecue i've had, ever. the cornbread topped the meats.
eventually, after much conversing with the counter guy, we left and went back to the hotel bar. another two mint juleps -- this time, they were awful. we decided to send them back and watched as The Older Bartender sipped them, dumped them, and taught The Younger Bartender how to make mint juleps. We got two new juleps, one obviously mixed by a novice. They were not up to the standards of the original earlier that day, but they were still quite good.
Night passed and another morning occurred. We went down to the hotel pool -- this one wasn't closed -- and went for a swim, within 30 minutes of breakfast. blurp. I remembered how much i like swimming and decided i need to do more of it at home. it sure isn't convenient, like running or biking, both of which i can do from home. so it goes.
after this, we went in search of Fox Bros BBQ, which wasn't easy to find. Having found it, we had lunch. The meats were deliciously dry rubbed in the Texas fashion, and the fried pickles were outstanding. For some reason, I don't remember having cornbread, i'm not sure how that could have happened. The flavor was not on par with Daddy D'z, but it was still head and shoulders better than any BBQ i've had on the west coast. having gorged ourselves thoroughly, we departed. with hours to kill, we went to the Coca Cola museum in atlanta -- yup.
The tour was meh, and I was real thirsty. we hurried our way to the tasting room which had around 70 coca cola company beverages on tap, from all around the world. we sampled each one, forcing ourselves to choke down diet and cherry and diet cherry coke, along with powerade, nestea, and other abominations. among the many, many, many abominations, there was Simba, a delicious South American product that was tasty enough to warrant a second sampling. Tasty as well was the Strawberry Fanta. Yum! Extra bletch on all the US offerings. There was some Lemony stuff from the limeys that was tasty, but a similar product from the same continent that was puckersome.
Amid much burping and bellyaching, we departed the coke museum, having consumed more caffeine and CO2 than was healthy, and stopped to redeem the "free coffee" coupon that had come with our tickets for the museum. i had an espresso concoction featuring caramel, whipped cream, and who knows what else. i did not, as i had predicted i would, reach a state of caffeine overdose, though i surely came close.
on the plane, we consumed nearly all the leftovers from Fox Bros which had been destined for The Captain. he still got some leftover fried pickles.
in all, a most enjoyable tour of southern barbecue, and also, a touching wedding between two people who have intended to marry for a very long time. a swell trip. the people of the south, outside of the airport, of course, were overwhelmingly warm, hospitable, and friendly, even to a weirdo like myself. i must admit i was expecting otherwise, and was pleasantly surprised.
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x33.
#1/2. breezy.
since i switched my weekday rides from length to hills, my weight loss has accelerated from 1lbs/wk to 2lbs/wk.
now, since back off man, i'm a scientist, i know that this is not only correlation, but even weak correlation. i've made many other changes, like running longer and harder, and probably even eating less, and certainly drinking less beer.
but it is an interesting bit of data.
also, my climbing has leveled up. that is, rock climbing. there was a 5.10c in the gym which i didn't make last week. i had gone on it thinking it was a 5.10a, and when i came off i was mad at the rating because it was so clearly harder than a 10a. then i looked closer and found it was a c. heh. anyhow, i climbed it with (imho) grace (in my scoring system for climbing, there's no hang dogging, and climbs that are not climbed gracefully aren't really climbed), and i also did a really nice 5.10d on tuesday -- also with a fair amount of grace. the grace thing is a funny measure, i know. and since i have no idea how i look when i'm climbing, and i don't ask but rarely, i measure it on whether i feel graceful on the climb, like a well-trained dancer or a monkey, or whether i feel like an elephant trying to climb up a tree.
the climbing, i'm sure, is a combination of accumulated technique and body positioning combined with a falling weight:strength ratio (that is, assuming my strength is holding relatively steady). in fact, my grip strength is mightier than ever -- i've retained the deadlifting grip without tiring myself out all the time by actually deadlifting.
man i need to get back to deadlifting.
she inquired about my beards.
i told her the full story. and then i bought a ton of cheese.
down 18lbs since may. dunno how far i'm going this time, but surely to 185 at least.
i was having a discussion yesterday with Curly and Vic. Curly recently lost over 40 pounds, Vic is down some 50 or 60 from his high. I explained to both of them that I'd lost about 40 lbs before, and then, I did it two pounds a week with lots of exercise and lots and lots of dietary restriction. I dunno whether I count as a yo-yo dieter, since this is my second big weight loss push in 10 years. Maybe I count. I gained weight in the pursuit of an athletic goal, which I guess is somewhat better than gaining weight through sloth and video gaming (/me looks around. oh, nuts.).
In any case, next time I do a deadlift cycle, I'm doing it without significant fat gain. There are plenty of deadlifters with low body fat. But back to my story.
I'm losing weight this time around with lots and lots of exercise, and very little dietary restriction. The beer I've cut back on these last couple months, but the spirits intake has increased. Two days ago I had carnitas for every meal, and I'm eating plenty of crap all the time. That's the point: I've got a diet that is sustainable and an exercise basket that I truly enjoy, from which to pick workouts that burn more calories than they induce in hunger (unlike, sadly, deadlifts).
So here's to the plan. Whoopie.
1) jeans. i fit in them again. i'm down to pre-deadlift-push waist size. oddly, i'm way heavier than when i last wore these jeans. must be all the added beard weight.
2) muse: hullabaloo. i really really enjoyed this. muse is great.
3) lagavulin. chefjef asked me: do you like lagavulin? i said: lemme find out. poured 2 glasses and though i still think it's too thin-bodied for an islay, it has a tantalizing aftertaste: smoke without the sweetness of a smokey bruichladdich, and pure smoke without the bandaids and garbage of laphroaig.
it's frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x32!
not really a mohawk anymore except technically. if i wanted to be a jackass i could do it up all 70's punk style, but i missed the 70s without missing them, if you know what i mean, so i have no urge to embarrass myself thusly.
instead i embarrass myself by combing it all over to the side, looking like either hitler or gary oldman in the fifth element.
of course, i couldn't be mistaken for either of them with the 5 inches of braided beards sprouting from the sides of my chin. that's how i make sure people don't think i'm hitler returned.
the Captain has let it be known, though not in so many words, that i am carrying the weight of all of beardsdom upon my, er, chin. taking one for the team, as it were, growing the beards that dudes everywhere wished they had the life circumstances to allow them to grow.
they do have expiration dates, tho. the hairdo, on the other hand, is a keeper.
yesterday, my beard smelled awesome. not that i go around sniffing my beard, mind you, although i am sniffing it now for science. today: not so good. but yesterday, i think it still had a-plenty of almond scented shaving soap in it, which made it smell like gingerbread or egg nog or something yummy like that.
or maybe i didn't, but no time to look now.
the beard style is not catfish as previously named. it's Mandibles.
It's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x31!
Got a bare-metal buzz today (mohawk buzz, that is, of course) and went in to work, only to find that there was an "all hands" meeting in which i was being awarded an award. i came to the meeting at the emailed request of my manager and got to stand in front of the company with my freshly cut mohawk and neatly braided beard, to receive a gift certificate from a high level manager who had absolutely no idea who i am.
have to get to an early morning meeting, and also, yesterday's against-the-grain shave left the skin a bit unhappy.
there's a great little exchange in "Watchmen" where Moloch says to Rorschach, upon being asked what kind of cancer he's got, says, "you know the type of cancer where it goes away and you get better?" Rorschach says, "yes", and Moloch continues: "that's not the kind I've got."
Someone asked me the other day what hops plans to do with the MS she'll soon have, and I failed to think of the reply, until today, of, "you know the type of marriage where people talk about their plans for the next five to ten years?"
also: the jerk store called.
but it said 208 each time.
makes no sense. last saturday it was 212, and since then i've had a night of partying, a missed workout, lots of big meals, and beer nearly every night.
but the numbers, they do not lie.
i've been trying to lose weight, so maybe it's the thought that counts.
the great eldritch god cthulhu sleeps, not in shadowy r'lyeh beneath the sea, but atop my head.
or is that nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos?
no wait, i recognize his noodly appendages: it's the flying spaghetti monster!
this post would be much better with pics. sorry.
it's Frobuary 2, YOMHC 0x30!
got a 1/2 this time on account of it's growing season.
we had a new crewmember on the boat. she's a GP and not new to boats at all, but new to this one. during the relaxing part of sailing, she and The Liver and I got to talking about food, and in answer to my question about the closest Jewish restaurant, she said: "brooklyn". now, i happen to know a couple good places closer than that, but one's in LA and the other is east of that, so in terms of convenience she wasn't far off.
The Liver tends to make chicken stock every once in a while. Before I could ask, Doc asked how he manages to make more than 4 cups at a time, and he said he starts with 16 pounds of chicken parts. Back when I made chicken stock I also ended up with a rather small amount. The trick, it seems, is to make a buttload at a time. He uses a 10 gallon pot.
Now, I have a 10 gallon pot, too, and plenty of propane to simmer my stock for 12 hours (could i actually simmer it? i think i can only boil on my burner), the only problem is that all my beer after that would taste like chicken.
i like chicken as much as the next guy, and i wouldn't mind one batch of chicken flavored beer, but i couldn't make a habit out of it.
so i don't think i'll make my own chicken stock, though i should. i also realistically won't get back into the cooking like i used to be, though that i also should. i'm sort of approaching activity overload. i've also been working pretty hard lately, too; you know, producing stuff. results and so forth. and it's too hot to spend time in the kitchen.
excuses!
since there is no name for my beard style in any of the (known) beard style guides, Uproar dubbed mine "The Catfish".
My mom likes catfish but I don't think she likes my beard. This will present her with a quandry. I didn't really get her anything for her birthday yesterday, but it seems that now I have something for her after all: the aforementioned quandry.
So happy birthday, and enjoy your quandry.
when you're chewing on some food and your beard gets stuck in between your teeth?
no? that doesn't happen to you?
you've got a short beard, then.
It's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x29. possibly my first monday haircut since The Big One, or The Smaller One Which Succeeded The Big One But Still Cost A Lot.
This one is the George Carlin Memorial Mohawk.
because it's laundry day.
because it's freaking hot out.
because it mostly fits again.
because jorge likes it.
yesterday as i was leaving hork a coworker was leaving, with his kid, fresh from daycare, in the back seat. he pulled over to chat with me a bit, and said to his kid, "look son, it's saint toad!" the kid, maybe 4 years old, looked at me and exclaimed, "that's his face!"
"that's right," i said, "this is no mask, it's all me, 24/7."
on the advice of The Internets, I ordered a razor blade sampler pack from here. I also ordered a new brush and some shaving cream, and the guy was nice enough to throw in a free shave soap and a book on shaving which I read the other night while drinking rye, blogging, and listening to my headphone amp. it was like a hobby circus.
anyhow, the new brush is really nice (technically i got two new brushes but only one of them from that guy. from him i got an Omega (Italian, of course!) brush, which so far is by far my favorite of the three (technically 4) brushes that I now own) but it's with the blades that I am now getting all sciency. i'm taking notes each day with the goal being to find the perfect blade. according to the book which i read, the blade accounts for 70% of the goodness or badness of a shave, while the razor only counts for 30%. there's another 80% missing from that equation, imho, that deals with the cream/soap and the brush, but that's a different set of experiments.
so far, i've ruled out my longtime standby the Merkur Stainless. The first blade I tried blew it away: the Treet "no-name", which I think is what "they" call the Treet Blue Special, though I dunno why they call it that since it says no such thing either on the blade, the individual blade wrapper, or the box of blades. The blade is kind of bluish, though. This particular one is made of Carbon Steel and is thus sharper than a stainless blade, but, in the second conclusion I've drawn from my study, is only good for one shave. Maybe two but that's pushing it.
The price for 100 Blue Specials is under twelve bucks, so I could easily buy a year's supply of single-users without breaking the bank.
Fortunately for me, I have other hobbies, too.
but i've moved forward a notch on my belt, which has notches all the way around, so that theoretically i could lose an almost infinite amount of weight, or use it to shoot up heroin. hey, i could use it to shoot up heroin, which would cause me to lose a near infinite amount of weight! now that's multi-purposing! I could get to the point where I wouldn't even need to adjust the belt anymore, I'd keep it on notch 3 or whatever and slide it from my shooting-up arm down to my waist.
today i pioneered a new hairstyle, as i tend to do since last november: the fro-hawk. sure, i'm not the first to have one, but i'm the first to rock one at a fancy grocery store like the one where i overpay for bananas.
incidentally, i read that on The Internets that the reason the bananas at your grocery store are shrinking is because banana producers are desperately attempting to introduce new species of bananas to head off an incoming banana plague that threatens to decimate the current banana monoculture. the bananas we eat are sterile, all american-flavored banana plants are therefore clones. neat! or not!
anyhow, i'm rocking the fro-hawk. back in the day, i grew long hair or kept my hair super short specifically to avoid the fro that i get when my hair becomes somewhat longish, but today, i showered and forgot to comb/gel it, so my 4 inches of mohawk poofed up and out and all over the place and i ended up with a pillowy mound of poofed mohawk. now, if i had hair on the sides of my head, it'd look awful. as it was, it was a new kind of awesome, especially when combined with my no-nonsense attitude and sensible corduroy shorts.
yesterday, a kid working at the local hawaiian restaurant complimented me on my beard. actually, i get a lot of compliments on the beard. it's a crowd please, since most crowds around here don't see a lot of awesome beards: most crowds around here are genetically predisposed to not grow beards until they're really old, like the kid at the restaurant. he said he couldn't grow a beard if he tried, so i asked him how old he was. 17, he said, and i told him to wait until he was double that and he'd have no problems.
today, at my fancy grocery store, i saw a man with a braided single beard that was at least 5 inches long. very nice.
speaking of awesome beards, check this out. the best part, of course, is that my beard isn't on the chart, although the french fork, el insecto, and the sparrow are kinda close. close, but not nearly as great.
speaking of el insecto, when i'm cruising along on cañada road, i sometimes hear a buzzing sound that could be cicadas, but could also be the wind vibrating parts of my beard. the jury's still out on which it is.
some months ago, i got a waterproof pelican case (thanks!). at the time, i had no use for it. some fewer months ago, i got a dry sack, for which i also had no use.
but gear always has a use dropped in its lap if you hold onto it long enough. nothing beats my pelican case for keeping my wallet, keys, and phone dry while i'm on a boat, and in theory, if i had any bleeding clue where the dry sack was, it would keep my change of clothes as dry as my wallet.
sadly, i have no idea where it is. well, that's not strictly true: i have a pretty good guess which room it is in, if it's not in yosemite. i could tear apart the room or wait until wednesday.
i'm thinking wait: it looks in here like i've already torn the room apart. man, soldering makes a mess of the entire room.
the arduino is great but i wanted to dig a little deeper, and set some constraints. so i got ahold of an attiny13, an avr chip (like the atmega168 in the arduino) with only 1K of program flash. i acquired and soldered together the tools needed to program the chip and got under way.
one thing that became immediately clear: it's rather hard to debug. i've developed a flashing LED method of debugging, sending myself various pulse-based codes. not as efficient as a serial port.
another thing i ran into: the size of the .hex file is not hte same as the program size! I was trying to keep the .hex file under 1024 bytes, and it turns out, that's about 400 bytes in flash. score! i can relax a little about the size. a little.
luckily, avr's datasheets are quite nice, and i'm not having a lot of trouble interpreting which bits in which register do what. there's always fine print, of course. but that's not so bad.
my first project was a thermistor and a LED, hooked up so the LED would flash according to the temperature (now that I know I have more than 1K for the .hex file, I might look at a 7 segment).
the most irritating problem i encountered was this: i have a lookup table with 78 entries. when indexing to around 10, it would quite often inexplicably index 70 or so. i couldn't figure out why, but on a hunch, i split the tables into two tables of less than 65 bytes each. that seemed to fix the problem. no doubt if i read the datasheet a little more closely i'd discover why.
anyhow, it works now more or less. my next task is to get it running on 3V, then on a 3V battery, then into an enclosure to annoy my workmates.
i'm not pizza intolerant.
nor am i rye whiskey intolerant. in fact, i'm very tolerant; some might go so far as to say i'm downright friendly with the rye.
it's weird, i guess. i have a shaving fetish. sadly, it's not even the kind that involves women. fortunately, it's also not the kind that involves other men.
i look at a place like this and end up carried away.
now, in my defense, there's a whole movement of internet dweebs with wet-shaving on their minds, and i was there before it was cool, before there were shirtless internet dweebs on youtube with instructional shaving videos.
i've got a pile of straight razors that i no longer use because, though devotees will say otherwise, the safety razor was actually a progressive improvement on the old throat cutter. unless you're in a knife fight, of course.
as if my mondo order of pith-helmet smelling shaving creams of old london wasn't enough, i saw some mango shaving cream at the grocery (motto: too tired to go anywhere else? try the grocery!) and got that, too. mango! shaving cream! i am pretty sure it's for faces and not legs, but if i turn out to be wrong, hey, i'm a roadie after all.
the glove did not fit, i think we must acquit.
twice last week i had a salad with feta on it (without realizing it, on account of how green i am at not eating dairy).
yesterday for lunch i had a healthy serving of butter (on purpose). for dinner i had an omelette with a-plenty o-cheese. friday's dinner included a slice of provolone. who knows how much incidental dairy I've eaten?
I've been more or less fine throughout. I can conclude tentatively that I am not sensitive to cheese or butter. the glove may actually fit my morning cereal milk, but as soymilk, expensive and icky to my mind as it may be, can handily substitute in that department (at least for oatmeal -- i have yet to brave a bowl of soymilk and cheerios) i may not be motivated to go back to the moojuice.
to get me to 30 miles today, i had to promise me pizza for dinner. we'll see how cheese tolerant i am. either that, or we'll see how committed i am to weight loss ;)
thanks readers (!) for all your helpful comments.
it's Frobuary 2, YOMHC 0x28!
Still got the mohawk. Almost a full Zorg.
It's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x27!
Another excellent mohawk. At rei today, I saw another guy with a mohawk. His was pretty awesome, but mine was twice the awesome of his, even after i de-gelled it trying on bike helmets.
it's got a curl.
it's got a wave.
it's got a demilitarized zone.
it's twice as awesome as your mohawk.
i'm mostly alone for the weekend. hops went to arizona for a retirement party for an instructor she had at the university there.
this is my first real throwback to the old days in quite a long time. it's funny how easily i slipped back into the old swing of things. perhaps it's because i also recaffienated this weekend that i'm so bloviatous.
the woman at the lunch place (you know, the lunch place i used to go to EVERY FREAKING SUNDAY for about 3 years back when i was heavy into routines (heh)) asked, no doubt in reference to my seating requirements: "are you alone?"
to which i replied, channeling Robert DeNiro in "Heat," "I am alone, but I'm not lonely."
Sadly, the woman to which i replied this was the imaginary woman in my mind 2 minutes after the question had been posed. At the time the real woman asked it i answered, "yes," because i was tired and hungry and hot. also, I was alone.
there's something to be said for timing.
by way of virginia. on the way to DC, we stopped at fredricksburg for lunch. i am not what you'd call a "civil war buff", but i did recognize the name, and lo and behold, on the way out of town (after a decisively excellent lunch at an irish pub (!)), we came across a confederate cemetary. how did i know it was a confederate cemetary?
inside were a sobering number of graves. from looking at signs we determined that the graves had been moved to make room for more recent additions in the early part of the 20th century.
some folks visit still, it seemed. that's the confederate flag (the one on top of the general lee is the confederate battle flag, not the flag of the CSA. i may not be a "buff" but i do know a thing or two.). the iron cross dingus says CSA which i guessed (and later confirmed) stands for Confederate States of America.
eventually, we made it to dc. upon entering the metro (DC's subway), i was greeted by a fellow mohawkian. he wanted his picture taken with me, so i got one of us, too. he'd had his mowhawk created the night before while he was slightly more drunk than his "friends". then, the day of the photo, he'd had a local salon fix it up. i did mine in the hotel room with TSA-approved hair gunk.
although his facial hair was nearly identical to what i sported for my driver's license photo, i don't think his was a joke.
the washington monument is big.
really big.
you won't move it.
the view from the lincoln memorial is actually quite moving. in fact, the visit to the lincoln memorial was the most interesting part of the trip. looking out across the reflection pool, i could nearly feel the weight of the nation upon me.
pondering lincoln's role in the formation of our nation, in light of my more recent understanding of our nation's direction, i had to question my former assumptions about his positive impact. my feelings are now mixed. more research is indicated.
i and i.
who owns the government of the united states of america? not you and me, my friend. not you and me.
but we have the most open democracy in the world, yes? input welcome from citizens?
it is fitting that lincoln's view is one of ponderous, peaceful, solemn contemplation, while the senators' view is of...
(zoom)
toward the end of our rounds, we wandered up to what looked like, and turned out to be the supreme court. it's big. and impressive. and ultimately, not so big on the inside, i reckon, but how would i know? i'm just a lowly citizen, i can't get inside.
last but not least, your tax dollars at work.
it's Frobuary 2, YOMHC 0x26.
i went to a beer festival in berkeley this weekend, and mine was only the third best mohawk. clearly it was time for a trim. and maybe some egg whites (ick).
it's Frobuary 2, YOMHC 0x25!
A good adjective for my look is "Fuhreristic".
Aside from that, it's great!
it's Frobuary 3, YOMHC 0x24. another day, another mohawk.
i dont know why i didn't see it sooner.
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x23!
another trim for the hawk. it's very tall now, even with minimal gel. cool.
i realized this morning where my hair styling is leading. here's me in another month (only i wont be smoking) :
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x22. just a trim. i've taken to using gel now, and it works. i hates me the gel, but what am i to do? with the gel, the hawk scrapes the ceiling of my car. no room! i'm 6'2 with gel.
gelled the hawk.
looks good.
no pics.
it's Frobuary 3, YOMHC 0x21.
i went in (heh) for a trim to shore up the hawk. i don't think i can have anything else before the brows grow back. the mohawk distracts nicely from the lack of eyebrows, which, otherwise, is quite disturbing.
i made a stranger jump in surprise today just by walking past. that's been happening a lot, lately.
there's a guy at the office who i think, now, is actually scared of me. a coworker suggested that this is because the guy is jewish and i look like a skinhead. i explained that i do not look like a skinhead, and even if i did, i'd make a terrible nazi, though the best kind of jew, which is to say, of course, a self-hating one.
the longer i keep it, the more fond of the haircut i grow. which is a bad thing, since the joke of my license photo really is diminished if i actually look like that.
my hair, actually, is now the longest it's been in many months. the strip, that is. the rest is as short as the clippers (money's worth gotten, woo!) will let it be.
my plan is to let the strip reach the point where it's curly. no spiking goo for me, thanks. we'll have to wait and see what that means for the rest of the do.
now with 100% more akg!
than there is on top, now.
professional help.
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x20.
pics to come.
but now, my pimply scalp and burning, mentholated, former eyebrows are off to the DMV.
time for a haircut and a shave.
shave: tomorrow. haircut: wednesday.
alternate state of awareness <= hilight tribe : jungle .o. lavry da10 .o. beyer dt880
direct brain beat injection.
neat.
switched to an ipod for running today. that, plus my new cheapo senns solved all problems.
i couldn't have asked for better SQ, in fact, halfway thru i realized i needed to turn them down, and i still got good SQ. my only gripes are a) ipod shuffle shuffled my music even when i asked it not to and b) contact is poor between the ipod and the senns and sometimes i get static if i jog (ha ha!) the cable.
but really, the SQ is unbeatable (for running, and the crap i listen to while running), the cans stay put, and the shuffle is teeny tiny.
also, my lungs dont hurt as much this time. maybe the AQ was better today, or i ran earlier, or i'm getting used to.
it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x19!.
last time, i said something about "taking the final step" in my quest for cheap haircuts -- i was mistaken. in slight violation of the terms of the current No Buy Month, I went out and purchased some hair clippers. I wanted the $13 clippers, but both the ones at the store appeared to have been returned. likewise the $17 model. the $20 model looked a little lame, with a colored handle and colored combs, so i sprung for the $25 model with a chrome body. turns out i should have gotten the $20 model -- the colored combs are to help recall which one you like, not just for girly fashion.
in any case, the $25 model has 35% more horsepower, it says so right on the packaging with a * that doesn't match up to any footnote that I could find. those 35 extra horses really seemed to do the job, though, we were done in no time and with minimal bleeding. evidently, it's been a while since my last cut: there was a ton of hair on the ground.
need to work on our set-up and clean-up. anyhow, 2 more cuts and i'll be deep in the money on this one. that kinda justifies $25 during a NBM. kinda.
next time we'll try the #1.5 (#2 this time since the manual stressed using a bigger comb than you thought was wanted).
had the chance to demo some RS-1s today (and can probably do so at nearly any time in the future).
while the listening environment (my cube at work) was relatively noisy, i got a pretty good feel for the cans -- or maybe not, since i couldn't really find any particular difference between them and my (much cheaper) 225s. there was certainly something ephemerally "better" about the RS-1, and they were much more comfy, and far better made. but those points are really less to the credit of the RS-1 and more to the detriment of hte 225s -- the 225s aren't "cheap" but they sure look like they are.
now, grados are sposed to be rock headphones and they did get me involved in the music, i reckon. but i thought i spotted something funny in "american idiot" (my test music) so i came home and listened on my rig. i was mistaken about whatever i thought i'd heard, but i noticed one thing: as soon as "holiday" came through my DAC and my 701s, my head was bobbing. grados may be "rock cans" but the 701s kick ass for rock, electronica, trance, classical, classical guitar, and just about anything i've thrown at them.
i guess maybe i just don't care for the grado sound. it's nice, but i think i really prefer separation, headspace, and circumaural phones -- you know, all the things that the AKGs have that the grados dont.
all in all, i'm glad i have my cheapo (ha!) grados. i get to experience the grado sound without sinking a Woo6's worth of cash in woody headphones.
it occurred to me a moment ago that i've now exceeded my previous record for length of time living with someone.
i've been soloing it since junior year of college, a long time ago. my record back then was 3 quarters.
