This Blog is Your Power Animal

Well I've done it... I've officially become as cool as any one human being can possibly be. I now own a motorcycle. Team that with being a drummer in a rock band, a comedic genius (some say visionary), and having a hot girlfriend and I don't see how my, or any other human's coolness level could possibly get any higher. This is quite the departure from the scooter I just sold yesterday. There was something very gorilla-on-a-bicycle about seeing my reflection in the windows of buildings as I passed by at a tentative 35 mph.

But I sold the scooter yesterday to a nice girl on Capital Hill. Her offer of "$1,500 and some free burlesque shows" was too good to pass up. So this morning I took my newly acquired wad of cash and even more newly acquired motorcycle endorsement to the good people at Lynnwood Cycle Barn. The bike I wanted to look at was listed on the website but not even on the floor yet. I took it for a test ride and was hooked.

It's a 1998 Honda Shadow Aero 1100. Only had about 6,000 miles on it and was in excellent shape. A couple of small dents in the front fender, but nothing too traumatizing. It's pretty fuckin' tough looking though, and it sounds pretty burly too.

So, I bought the bike (talked them down about $2,000 on the price) and decided to ride it home. About 10 miles into my 20 mile ride home the back tire starts to feel a little squirrely. I remembered how the previous weekend my motorcycle safety class instructor had said how rare it was for a motorcycle to get a flat (or did he say blow out) so I didn't think much of it. Finally when I was within a mile of home I looked back and saw that my rear tire was almost all the way flat. Turns out I picked up a nail somewhere along the way, so that sucks.

So instead of cruising around on my new ride I'm sitting at home. I'll have to figure out a way to get the tire fixed tomorrow. Turns out the only motorcycle shop around that is open tomorrow is the one I bought it from, so I'm going to need to get it over there somehow. Flat tires are distinctly UN-cool but it's going to need to do better than that if there's any hope of me being even remotely close to regular coolness ever again.

Posted by Devon at 4/14/2007 08:37:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Of Montreal
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Posted by Devon at 3/29/2007 05:24:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

So I've slipped into a once-a-month pattern for this blog thing. Couldn't say why. It could be that I am now no longer working from home so I can't waste time to blog while I should be working. As it so happens I get a ton more work done now that I don't have the option of surfing the web all day long.

It could also be that every other weekend for the last month I've been spending my time in the wonderful little town of Black Diamond, Washington. There isn't fuck-all going on in this hick-a-palooza town except for the studio we spend our time at recording the forthcoming Skeletons EP. We don't have a title yet so suggestions are welcome... we won't use any of them but I like to hear your attempts at comedy, so suggest away!

But here we are, bloggin' once more. So here's what I want to talk about... outsourcing. My job is going to be outsourced in the next 6 months or so to this company in India. (Note that their name is Tata Consulting, the irony is certainly not lost on me.) I'm certainly not married to this job but it's still sort of disheartening to hear that it doesn't really matter how good a job you might be doing as an employee/ team/ department, there are people who can be paid $7 an hour with no benefits to do the same thing in another country. Our company had record profits last year... they said so themselves. But still, every department is being looked into for outsourcing and my guess is most of the ones that don't involve working face-to-face or over the phone with the customer will be moved to somewhere in the eastern or possibly southern hemisphere. We've had plenty of meetings, bulletins, etc. keeping us informed of how well the team working on putting us out of our jobs is doing. Lots of harmless sounding acronyms are being thrown around (BPO, FTE), pleasant words are being said about how this "doesn't have anything to do with what a great job you're doing", and all the while we collectively moo as we are herded to the slaughterhouse. I say this as if there was much we could do at this point. There isn't... they said so themselves. I have only been with the company a little while. I can't imagine how betrayed the people who have worked there for a long time feel. Some people are retiring and this might be a blessing in disguise, but most aren't

I don't really have a long rant about this. I could. But I won't. What I will say is this... this is where capitalism fails. In a global economy where everyone is working to help their bottom line, it would be almost stupid to not outsource. That is, of course, unless you take a little less short sighted view of economic stability in this country (something capitalism generally isn't too keen on.) Who in country is going to buy these products and services when less and less of us have decent paying jobs?

Anyway, I'm hoping to make it big (or at least big enough to quit my day job) as a musician, so what do I care.

Posted by Devon at 3/23/2007 05:16:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Just a quick note... two of my favorite historical figure's where born on this day. I think that warrant's this quick note. Also, a third favorite died on this day... a moment of silence and then on to the comedy.

Posted by Devon at 2/12/2007 09:04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

That's right ladies and germs. We have arrived!

So ask yourselves this... What's the one thing that we 20 somethings rarely own, and almost always desperately need? A thing that I NOW OWN?

No, not a suped up Honda Civic. Not even a life time supply of Ramen noodles.


Oh glorious day! I don't think it's possible for me to be more giddy about owning any other household appliance... wait, does a hot tub count as a household appliance? Anyway... yours truly is now the proud owner of a GE Nautilus™ Convertible Dishwasher. Now a chore that would normally take me 1.5 hours (or 3 weeks depending on how you measure it) takes just minutes. That leaves plenty more time to sit in front of the computer, avoiding any real exercise or human interaction.

I am thinking about starting a dish washing service. Say $5 a load... Any takers?

Posted by Devon at 1/31/2007 06:04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

So I just found out that it's official, Van Halen are touring this summer with David Lee Roth. How cool is that? Now, other than the fact that this is a terrible idea, THIS IS A GREAT IDEA! Unfortunately they will probably not make it through 3 nights before some punches are thrown, but I'd still pay a good chunk of money to go see it. Let's hope Seattle is somewhere in those 3 nights.

But my definition of "a good chunk of money" is undoubtedly different than most. Maybe I'd go as high as say... $75. Maybe a little more depending on when and where it is. I have a hard time shelling out that kind of money for anything that is not a bit more permanent than 3 hours of loud music. The most I paid for a show was something like $50 to see Radiohead at the White Horse Amphitheater a few years back. And, as good as it was, I still felt like $50 was a little steep even though I like Radiohead quite a bit more than Van Halen.

"But that makes no God damned sense!" you may be saying. "Why would you pay more to see a band of geriatric egomaniacs than a band of mumbling Brittish egomaniacs?" Well, there's historical value first. It's been so long since David Lee Roth has been with VH that it makes it seem more appealing. 10 years if you count the brief bit of time they got back together in the late 1990's. We've had to endure 11 years of Sammy "Red Rocker" Hagar and even one album with that girly sounding dude from the band Extreme. It's like if you went 10 years with only eating white rice and water and suddenly got a hamburger, it would probably taste better than a steak you could get anytime you wanted.

Plus, maybe they'll fight on stage and it'll be funny, or DLR will try and do the jumps splits and break a hip or something. Either way, well worth the money.

There are a few bands that fit into this category for me. Along with Van Halen there's the Police, the Cars (maybe), Neutral Milk Hotel (who I've only recently discovered and would almost certainly never get back together), Nirvana and the Beatles (you know, if it wasn't for that whole being dead thing.)

So, to the 3 readers of this blog, who would you pay upwards of $80 to see if they got back together or weren't dead?

Posted by Devon at 1/25/2007 04:06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

So the three people who actually visit my little website here have been on me to post something to move the picture of my broken tooth off the front page and I have been remiss in my duties. Once again, the reasons I started a blog (peer pressure and "in-group" thinking) rear their ugly heads. But a few interesting things have happened since November 18th so I thought I'd go ahead and post them.

First, Thanksgiving...
I've always liked Thanksgiving much more than Christmas. I don't really know why. It just feels like there is less pressure on Thanksgiving... a bit more genuine. Unfortunately it's sort of turned into a Christmas prequel of late in this country. Maybe something like

XMAS: The Beginning...
a Jerry Bruckheimer production.
Starring Dolph Lundgren and Tracy Ullman

I can picture it now.

We had TG dinner at our house this year because of a gig here in town that same weekend that made driving 3 and a half hours seem less appealing. The original plan was to go to Kendra's family's place somewhere in town but we decided to skip that and just have some friends and Kendra's mom over here. It was good. The turkey turned out really well and the fixin's were great. Kendra and her mom did an excellent job. Neal and his lady friend also brought some delicious day old cookies that were quite amazing.

After dinner I jokingly suggested that we turn the lights off and spend the rest of the evening gathered around my Parker Brothers Ouija Board (I couldn't tell you why). This idea was rejected for the opposite reason I imagined. Apparently a lot of people I know, and some I don't, seem to believe that spirits not only exist (they don't) but contacting them is possible (it's not), and is also a really bad idea. And apparently the good people over at Parker Brothers seem to have created a device to bridge the gap between the real and "spirit world." Pretty sweet huh? And I bought the thing at the mall for only $14.99. Killer deal.

Then San Francisco...
A couple of weeks after that we took a 4 day trip down to San Francisco to visit Starla, a good friend of Kendra's. It was a blast. We drove down to Monterey Bay and went to the awesome aquarium there, ate some really good Mexican food in the Mission District, rode bikes to the Embarcadero and went ice skating, hung out for a short time at Twin Peaks and the Haight, and just generally had a really good time.




And Lastly, Christmas...
Then came the long 3 week wait until Christmas. It was pretty standard. Driving 3 and a half hours to visit family, shopping at the last minute, shoving various sweets and poultry into my face until I almost felt sick... about par for the course.

Presents of note include DVDs of the 1980 PBS series Cosmos, Marty's last bottle of his home brewed Imperial Stout, and a telescope that allows me to spy on people who aren't even my neighbors. Unfortunately they're upside down as I look at them but I like to do my spying hanging from the ceiling anyways.

Tonight is Geoff and Julie's new years party which should be good. The band is supposed to play even though this house is not at all the right set up to have a party with a band. We're hoping that everyone will just get drunk early and not mind if we do the same rather than making loud noise in the basement... we'll see.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Posted by Devon at 12/29/2006 12:21:00 PM | Permalink | Comments