whazzmaster.com

I’m liveblogging from Yahoo HackDay and it’s pretty tight so far. I’m in their cafeteria and the concert just finished; they got Beck to do a show for 400 geeks in Yahoo’s courtyard, which was awesome. Free beer, Guitar Hero on a 20 foot screen, and tons of smart people inventing shit before my eyes. I’ll be checking back in as the evening prgresses (the Thing goes until 2:30p on Saturday, and it’s only 9:40p on Friday right now… so yeah, I’ll be up all night checking in with the Sceizzer and my Poker Pals. BTW– wwhazz, you’re comment was alsmot certainly flagged for moderation cuz it was about gambling, which it thought was spam. I apologize on behalf of the intelligence of the WordPress filter. HOLLLARIT, gents, I’m lookin’ to win a 32″ LCD TV prize to come up with some Cool Shit™.

[UPDATE 1 (10:12PM)]
Here’s our ideas:

1. PlaceBlog: add comments to an address somewhere in the world.
2. MosaicOnline: Create a mosaic from flickr photos (of a specific tag?) online
3. Literature Road Trip: User contribution system where you store where novels and short stories take place around the world, and when you plan a road trip it tells you what notable pieces of literature occurred at somewhere on your journey.
4. Talking Card: Upload audio file and take a picture off Flickr and then put them together where the picture is animated to talk along with the audio.

Still talking but we’ll need to get started before midnight if we want to finish by tomorrow.

[UPDATE 2 (10:59pm)]

I have seen the King of Guitar Hero play Bark at the Moon in Expert mode and I kneel before him. Trivia Note: He is asian.

[UPDATE 3 (11:53pm)]

TalkingCard it is, I’m started on the backend, our new late-night buddy Mo is on the Flash front end, and Ben is doing experiments on client-side photo mosaic techniques. MOre when we know. On the iPod: Hicktown, by my other late-night buddy Jason Aldean. This one’s for you, wwhazz.

[UPDATE 4 (1:56am)]

Problems abound as we hash out the details of this stuff.

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Sweet Mary mother of Joseph I own a lot of crap. What’s worse is that I’ve been carting it around for so long that I no longer have the right brain connections to honestly evaluate whether I should throw it out or not.  Every time I turn over a doodad in my hands I regretfully think, “But I brought this doodad out here FROM Madison six years ago. I owe it to the old guy to get him back there before I chuck him in the trash eight years from now.” No, quit that shit you sissy. Throw that doodad away and then light the box you found it in on fire.  I gotta get all my possessions to fit in a 6′x12′ trailer (more or less) and right now the task looks quite daunting.  For instance, the problem looks solvable until I realize that my kitchen contains hundreds of items concealed by cupboard doors.  And when I think of the storage locker down the hall I start to shake uncontrollably.  At this early juncture I’m pretty sure my best bet is to pile all my belongings in one big pile in my living room and then start throwing away shit until the pile measures somewhere in the neighborhood of 396 cubic feet.

sigh.

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“Costs” not being content with mere noun-dom, but taking on verb connotations as well in this case. As the days tick by and I lie in my underwear watching UFC on my computer it strikes me that such activities are terribly inefficient at actually preparing all my shit to be moved across town & country.  My solution: get off my ass and make a list.  Several days later check it between 2 and 3 times. Several days later: start ticking shit off the list.  Today was a banner day in Crossing-Shit-Off-The-List:

1. Purchased a rear-hatch bike rack for my truck.  So now I can strap my swanky bike to it and move back to somewhere where I can go camping with it and… stuff.
2. Purchased a trailer hitch for my truck (to tow a trailer with all my crap in it). Should be installed on Monday barring any delivery misfortunes. Boethius knew what he was talkin’ bout with them misfortunes.
3. Reserved a 6′x12′ trailer for the trip on Nov 1st.
4. Verbally informed the apartment company that I’m moving out; I have to submit a written notice tomorrow.
5. Brought home 10 big boxes I was given at work to start packing.
6. Invented my “Take one thing to the garbage every day” Rule that will hopefully allow me to get rid of some junk.
7. Got confirmation yesterday that Rock Chalk will take some of my furniture off my hands to go in her new house.  Apparently her puppy gets a bit overzealous in eating things like furniture.  Also, Rock Chalk runs marathons now, FYI. Cal, you should totally challenge her to a footrace through the Adirondacks.

And that’s a pretty good list for a day and a half.  I need to get my furniture listed on cragslist so various loons can come look at it while I wish they would leave my house, but worst case scenario I chop all my stuff up with a giant axe and then throw it out the third story window.  It could be worse, case in point I feel like a carefree jaybird compared to what Ronni is going through moving to New York.  Say lah vee.

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I’ll love you, tomorrow, football’s only a daaaay awaaaaaaaay. Here’s to everyone losing in Survivor Foosball but Yours Truly. Have a great day, whazzmaster.com.

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I’m back in California, and I have some advice for you. It sounds like the kind of advice a 3 year old would give a full grown adult human, but listen carefully anways: clean your goddamned house before you go on a two week vacation. The last thing you want to do is come home, sigh (NOT DREAMILY), and start to clean up a gigantic mess. To my credit, I did all my dishes, cleaned my kitchen thoroughly, and took out the trash before shipping out, but that isn’t enough. NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

At any rate, technology thieves notwithstanding I had a fantastic time in the Double-Yoo Eye and I can’t say enough about Spacebee and Mee-Gan’s hospitality. They let me hobo up their new home for a week without complaint until sometime on Wednesday or Thursday Mee-Gan asked Spacebee, “Don’t you think it really smells in here? What is that?” (Psst– I think she was talking about me.) I got to go out on CONSECUTIVE NIGHTS~! with KVR, o’neil, and rumthumb (though rumthumb was absent the second night). Good times.

This post is about my new favoritest restaurant not in Madison, not in Wisconsin, but in the whole wide world. I want to eat every meal there. It’s that good. The restaurant is The Old Fashioned on the capitol square. I invite you to take a gander at their food menu. It is gigantic and good. Spacebee and I attended a meal there with KVR, o’neil, and a gaggle of KVR-Friends on Thursday night and it was the bees knees. I had my first landjaeger sausage (delicious), 3 old fashioneds (delicious), a lazy susan of meats and mustards (delicious), a plate of wisconsin cheeses (delicious), and a swiss’n'cheddar grilled cheese with bacon (oh god). Spacebee had a gigantic plate of pork (also good). Honestly, I see no reason to hate the place. My view: they take everything that is wisconsin and present it to the world. I can definitely see people going there and not getting it. I think it’s a rorshach to see if you grew up in Wisconsin. Blatz on tap. PBR on tap. Lots of little wisconsin breweries (notice I don’t necessarily say microbreweries) are represented. Just go there and then be happy.

I was in airports or airplanes pretty much all yesterday so nothing new to report there except that I really don’t like airports and airplanes. When I walk through security lines and look at those goddamned “The Current Terrorist Threat Advisory Is: Orange” signs I want to scream and stomp my feet but then I’d end up incarcerated forever being tortured by our new Republican Overlords. Come the fuck on, what human looks at those things and thinks “Holy shit, better be on the lookout!” Let’s make sure that all the people are kept in a perpetual state of fear so that Shoot-em-in-the-face Cheney and Commander Codpiece can stand on a broken piece of the World Trade Center and fight off the scary brown terrorists with their big swingin dicks. As the vice president once stated so eloquently, “Fuck you.”

Sigh.

I’m going to lie around my house until monday comes and then it’s back to work. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before November 2nd, so’s I better start doing it. And I’ll staaaaaaaaaaaaaart… tomorrow.

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I had two weeks of pictures in my digital camera, Tonight, my digital camera was stolen from me at They City bar in Madison, WI. If you go to The City, please don’t bring your camera, because the motherfucking cocksucking cunt fuckfaces that frequent that fucking establish-fucking-ment will steal your things.

Sorry whazzmaster, no pictures from wisconsin. Instead you get words; that’s it. Sorry. Two digital cameras in two years means I may not buy another one. Fuck those motherfuckers at The City. Eat shit and die slow, motherfucker.

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Hey everyone, it’s been an interesting week in Wisconsin and I’m glad whazzmaster.com had such fine stewards to keep things humming along while I’ve been indisposed. Spacebee does not have what you’d call a Technological Infrastructure in her apartment, so I’ve only been able to check in every few days or so.

It’s just about halftime in the Packer game and what started out as a Hot Start by the Pack has now turned into Shitty Middle. Man, Young Grand Dad is going down in the first week. Weee.

Thursday we Dry Bean’d it and I karaokeed Bust A MOve to a so-so, meh, kinda enthusiastric crowd. Friday was Wedding Day as Spacebee and I attended one of her nurse friend’s wedding and reception. I partied with free Miller Lite and sundry husbands and boyfriends of nurses as Spacebee danced and did shots of Maker’s Mark at the bar. Holy man I think her eyes glazed over when she did that.

We had to wake up early on Saturday to get ready to The EndTimes Tailgate with her entire family and I was feeling like muck so I proposed a Bloody Mary bar. A quick trip to Copps (Copps?!) and we had such mundane items as pickles, olives, and celery along with more exotic prizes like summer sausage and cheddar cheese. I had a delicious (DELICIOUS!) bloody and then we set about cooking 24 brats, 10 burgers, and 6 brat patties. I don’t know where these people grew up, but everyone made fun of me cuz of the brat patties. They’d never heard of them and mocked me. Pfffft. Do I care? No, I just ate three of them with my new pal: CAL. Yes, his name is CAL. For real, not because of video golf.

After the tailgate we headed down to the stadium and it was great to see a Wisconsin game again. I hadn’t seen the new stadium yet and it was pretty good. Our seats were on the 20 yard line across from the new tower of suites (facing The Shell) and it was a good game after a rough first half. We stayed for the Fifth Quarter and Spacebee and I danced in the stands. POLKA! Afterwards we headed over to the ~JORDAN’S~ Big Ten Pub, then Regent Street Retreat, then a side trip to BUCK’S~! before heading back to the Big Ten again. Result: drunkeness.

SO that brings us to today: Spacebee sleeps on the sofa as I watch the halftime show and type this up. Now on to pending business:

1. I’m tentatively signing the lease on the Tobacco Row apartment on Monday. We went to see it on Friday and it’s pretty swanky; it’s a corner unit with a balconey. There will be plenty of room for whoever wants to crash there.
2. I need to get a hold of rumsey and o’neil for a meeting of the minds. Preferably there will be dinner and/or booze involved.
3. KURT VAN RYZIN IS COMING TO TOWN! I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m. So. Scared!
4. Madddddddddddddd, sorry I didn’t call you. If you want to come down here one day it could be Wednesday night cuz I don’t have anything to do on Thursday. Spacebee said you could sleep at her place since you’ve let her crash in your house so many times. KINDNESS REPAID!
5. I think it’s funny that LuchaLumps has been put in Team Girlfriends. That’s a dude I work with at Intuit.
6. Recruiting starts Tuesday and then interviews are on Wednesday. I’m absolutely getting a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night.
7. If Tim Hobson is reading this, I talked to a Mountain View-to-Madison transplant at the tailgate yesterday and got the hot tip on some good coffee in this burg. It’s called EVP and they supposedly have some Peet’s-level stuff. I’m gonna go try it out later today.

HOLLLLARIT Quince! Second half is starting.

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As a service to my dear friends in the North Woods, I hereby present a photo essay of Hadley Kalish: The Baby Years.

This concludes our public service announcement. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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