As of today (27th) the new releases page on their website is still a week behind – not very useful!

In other news, some drunk drove his car into the front of their store Friday night.  Ouch.

Anyway, back to work & off to listen to the new album.

OK, so we didn’t party. I did have one drink though – a Mai Thai that came with a fucking garden growing out of it (it was OK, but not great or worth $8 ) – and we had some cheap & good food. $1 for good Miso soup & $4 for a burger that Dirk swore was the best burger he ever had. For me it wasn’t all that (and no it wasn’t just because I didn’t get it with the fucking sauce you bastards!), but it was good. I think I’m just not into fru-fru burgers. For me, my favorite burger joint is still Javan’s, with the Hamburger Habit (now just The Habit I think) coming in a close second. In’N'Out is also awesome. The best burger I’ve found thus far in Portland (and I’ve tried many, many burgers here) is at Skyline (Google street view rocks does it not?).

Oh – half the restaurant/bar has the seats/furniture all bright & white (this is the eating focus section I think) and the other half is black (this is the bar/drunk/happy hour section maybe). We sat on the black side.

Dirk would like everyone to start “wrecking shop” instead of, perhaps, “going to town”.

No, I don’t know where the “meatbox” came from, other than my mouth.

No, Z did not order any alcohol. I don’t think they would have served him anyway – he wasn’t wearing shoes.

There are lots of places to get fake tans in the Portland area. Because, you know, you won’t stand out at all in a city where THERE IS NO SUN 9+ months a year you have no sun. Here’s some random info about the history of sunless tanning (and the tanning fad in general).

Basically, lazy people who don’t actually work in the sun want to look like they do – ok, not exactly, BUT what the want is the natural result of being in the sun for long periods (historically the result of WORKING, but in the last 100 years those with time to spare (read: non-poor) have taken to languishing in the sun for whatever reason. But take the term “farmer tan” – a sort of condescending term, implying that one’s tan is similar to one actually gained from work – and thus uncool.

I don’t know if the previous paragraph makes sense, but the whole thing is funny/annoying to me.

But throw out everything and what you’re left with is that it is trendy to look dark (But not too dark! People with naturally dark/brown skin are scary! They will take your jobs and your women!). It is trendy and therefore people do it. People will take the path of least time (and often correspondingly most money). Even laying out in the sun all day actually takes time and *gasp* they don’t have that – time should be spent driving around in a hurry on a cell phone!

What really gets me is when people “tan” to like the nth degree and they look fucking orange. And they think this is hot. I mean, sure “hot” is subjective and all, but who the fuck thinks orange (and I’ve seen MUCH worse in real life, that’s just something that came up on the first google page) is hot? Well, them obviously I guess. And guys in general will fuck anything with a clear pathway to the funhole, orange or not. And Portland always has a decent amount of oranginas at any given point of the year. I mean, really, what are you supposed to think when you see them? “OH, they’ve obviously spent the last 4 months blasting their skin off on their yacht in the Caribbean!” I guess.

And it’s not like you could even CLAIM it is natural around here. At least lazy ass people in Cali who bakey bakey can try and be sly about it and pretend they were actually out in the sun (although of course they weren’t *gasp* working in it! That would be tacky! The work that is.). But here…no, no and NYET.

I guess it’s interesting that pale skin used to be the status symbol and now it’s flipped around. Oh, and don’t get me wrong, a tanned body can be HOT. But fake tan? You look nasty. But “Wait!” you say “I’m sure fake tans will eventually be indistinguishable from real tans!” Well, don’t you worry your pretty little orange head; I’m sure you’ll give me another reason to laugh at you.

Whatever, it’s annoying.

H. (P.?)

Christ.

Those kids are annoying.

A few weeks ago I was walking somewhere to find some food on my lunchbreak, and one of them turns around and starts pissing. He’s standing on the sidewalk, right behind a hotdog or some other bullshit vendor. Right on the side of the fucking courthouse. Or whatever it is – the thing immediately east of the square. His friend notices me staring (from across the street) and starts yelling “Stop looking!”. (He’s yelling it in that really retarded way urchins do when they want attention. Like 1/4 sing-songy, 1/2 down syndrom, and 1/4 directed at everyone but who they are actually yelling at so they can get everyone attention but make it look like they didn’t want it). Why? So he can PISS on the fence IN PRIVACY? In one of the busiest sections of downtown Portland? Fucking idiots. I just kind of stared for a while then moved along. You’d think I would know better, but people’s stupidity and lack of decency still amazes me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand some of how their values got they way they did (one piece: having not worked for any kind of property/ownership/achievement, how can one know the value of such?), but that in no way excuses anything they do in the least.

The same day, another one of them had a begging sign that said something like “Since you’re in my bedroom, can I bum some change?” Or something to that effect. Wow. Yeah, the street is totally your bedroom.  I mean, ok yeah it is where you sleep, but…whatever, you get the picture.  Plus, what is the logical connection between being in someone’s bedroom and giving them money?  Are we talking about a whore so trashy that she (or he if it’s a man-whore) bring business home??

I mean, I can’t stand beggars in general, but the Portland Urchins are some of the most obnoxious. Maybe because some of them seem to have a dress code? I think I’ll call it: “dirty, dirty, metal punk goth”. Because they act so entitled to things like pissing on the streets?

I’ve heard others say we/Portland attract so many urchins from around the country because of the generous amount of free food/soup kitchen type things we have. I have no knowledge of this, because I’m just not that in to local politics. Whatever the reason…maybe we need cut back for a while. Or just conscript them into the military or some kind of labor force.

So, I stop off at Nordstrom to help a user with their computer & copier, and he shows me the $37,000+ chandelier we put into the, shoot, Dolce & Gabana boutique thing over there. My picture is shit, but there you go. It’s 100% hand blown glass from Italy I guess. Fancy shmancy. All the clothes I saw over there (and in the other new uber-haute(?) boutiques) were like, minimum $950, and plenty in the $4000. Who has that kind of money to spend on clothes? And WHY would you anyway, even if you had the money? Hell, you could pay someone to club a seal to death and personally make it into a coat for you for less than that.

So, I spent an hour or two there working on his machine, before heading over to the mall to pickup Hellgate: London, which had just arrived. Oh, factoid first: evidently at Nordstrom, when they page people (over the speakers), they page them with codenames so no one will hear their real name.

So yeah, headed past Pioneer Square, passed the little flower cart (which we’ll return to later) and came across the scene on the left. What’s wrong with this picture? There are multiple answers.

Saw that, snapped that (yay for 2 megapixel Mogul camera!), moved on. Picked up my game, had some lunch at that Paradise sandwich place down in the food court, enjoyed the ground shaking every few seconds from the road work above (I’m guessing, otherwise, no fucking clue).

I then headed back to the office and decided to stop at the aforementioned flowershop and grab something for my wonderful wife, who’s been busting her ass (not literally, that would be awkward) lately adapting to this new-mommy schtick. And doing a stellar job I might add. So, yeah, I stop there and figure I’ll just go with simple, I pick up 3 red roses and am set to go. I should note that I chose this flower place in particular because last time I came by a few weeks ago I noticed that they had a “We take VISA” placard thing out – and I never carry cash, and wasn’t aware of a BofA atm in the area, so I did indeed make a fierce mental note of said flowershop.

OK, so the nice ladygirl is ringing me up – which is a process in itself, because they use this little cellphone-modem thing to authorize the credit cards (normal shops use a landline dialer). And, because cell phones rock (I have a hunch it was on Verizon’s network), it wouldn’t connect. The poor girl was putting it on the hut roof, walking around with it, waving it around, trying whatever she could to get it to connect. I guess this is normal. So, I’m not in a hurry, I’m a patient guy.

So she is ringing me up when this other dude comes up, in kind of a hurry. He’s wearing one of those ubiquitous green Oregon (one of the colleges I think – let’s see..green is Ducks??) sweaters, and not looking particularly professional. He’s also British, most likely. He has a noticeable accent. He tells her that he’s in a hurry and has her start gathering up this little bouquet thing for him, he sees me waiting on the credit card auth thing, notes that that is what I’m waiting on, and continues. He does sort of pressure her into stopping fiddling with the cellphone thing and working on his flowers – which is fine with me because the phonething isn’t working for shit.

So she goes through the whole process and makes him a nice little thing of flowers as seen on the right. Yes that is my desk in the shot, more on that later. Yes that is my thumb, there will be nothing more about that later.

She gets ready to ring him up and he’s like “I’m also using credit card.” Oh, you’re in a hurry, and you’re also using the thing that isn’t working for me, which you SAW not working, and now you’re expecting it to work for you what, because you have a spiffy accent? I think not.. So, of course we’re still waiting on my card to go through when his train pulls up. He’s like “I have to go, I have to be on a conference call and if I don’t leave now I’ll be in the tunnel.” Ok, whatever dude, I love people who conduct business mid commute anyway. They are awesome. Especially in traffic, they are great drivers. It is really annoying to be next to them on the train too so yes, we have agreed that this guy is just generally annoying.

So he takes off. Leaving the poor girl with this quite nice little bouquet thing she put together with grass and branches and everything. It was nice, and I felt bad for her, and I figured it was much more pleasing on the eye than my simple roses, so I figured “Hey, why not.” and told her I’d take that one. Of course we were still waiting on the credit card thing, which was a no-go. But she saw my card was BofA and was like “Oh, hey there’s a BofA ATM right around the corner. Literally. There’s a BofA ATM built into the side of the Starbucks right there. Crazy. Learn something new everyday. So, I go around the corner about 15 steps, wait inline at this bizarrely located ATM (it’s literally RIGHT next to the door to Starbucks, so everyone going in or out almost brushes against you), grab some cash, and pick up the flowers. The girl (who was very nice! Bring her your business if you’re in the area and need flowers!) gave me a little discount for helping her out I guess. It all worked out, and everyone (except for the jerk) came out ok. Bonus!: I was happy to have found that ATM too – we’ve been in that area a few times in need of cash and had to drive all the way over to 5th or 21st or whatever the closest BofA is.

Moral of the story: Don’t be an ass. No, wait, that’s not quite it. Be patient and you will find good things. Yeah, that’s a little better.

And remember folks, I come from LA – I’m used to the prevalence of strip clubs & adult stores. And yet I’m still amazed. And I like to start sentences with “and” – bad habit I’ve had ever since I used to write poetry.

My pet theory is because a) its cold up here and b) there are a lot of truckers. And cold, lonely truckers need a pounding of the thunder bump every so often (in fact, probably more like daily) or else they will swerve into oncoming traffic, annihilating the rest of us. And this would be a Bad Thing (TM).