Tonight's YouTube obsession...

International (mostly Japanese) prank tv.

Spring Cleaning

Time to clear out the memory card...

Fessenden

White Stag

Industry

Cargo

Who, me?

They are

Sunset

Flores

Forest

Mayor Tom's Power Grab

If you live in Portland, you might or might not know there's an election coming up. With our mail-in ballots, its too late to send them in the mail, you gotta take them to the library or down to 1040 SE Morrison.
I'm not usually one to weigh in on political issues, but on this one I gotta say "No" to everything...
26-89, 26-90, 26-91 & 26-92 are all poorly written, (in true Oregon fashion) measures that undermine Portland's charter, (our city's "constitution") which has worked quite well for Portland for years and years while other big cities have abandoned it, mostly due to big money interests, which makes me suspicious of Mayor Tom. I once voted for him, finding him the lesser of evils...
Amanda Fritz explains it all quite elequantly on her blog. I trust her, I voted for her as well.
Unfortunately, it seems my neighbor is in Mayor Tom's pocket, and has convinced almost my whole neighborhood to follow suit.
For all three of you Portlanders who read this blog, for god's sake, vote "No" on everything. Its all a bunch of bullshit! Come on, Paul Allen and Qwest are all for it. How can it be in the best interest of the city?

"Word around the office is you've got a fat cock"

I found this video too amusing not to post, even though it did come from ebaumsworld, a website that's notorious for ripping off content from all over the net and claiming it as their own, then threatening those who they've ripped off with their silly lawyer bullshit. I won't link to them, but I will link to ebaumsworldsucks.com.



"Smells like fresh vagina in here."

And while we're on the subject of content thieves, check out urban counterfeiters.

See also: A great collection of images by ripoff artist Todd Goldman (Boys are stupid throw rocks at them) side by side with the actual original thoughts...

And also: You Thought we wouldn't Notice - "A site dedicated to pointing out those things that give you that feeling of 'haven't I seen that somewhere before?'"

One Hundred

Sellwood Street post number 100! Whoo-hoo. Put it in your pants!

I've been having a day where certain songs take me back to certain moments in my life, more so than usual. It all began with Counting Crows "Long December" on the radio as I was moving slowly inbound on the Banfield this afternoon. That song always takes me to a rainy winter afternoon driving around the outskirts of Bloomington, December 1996, looking for a part time job for an excuse to leave my tiny town every night after class. This is that moment after I realized I was gay, struggling to leave behind my high school self, searching for a new life. I thought the song was cheesey then and still do, not the best Counting Crows song, but it was especially poignant at that moment.

After I got home from work tonight, I put the iPod on shuffle and "Little Green Bag" popped up, which took me back to driving way too fast on gravel roads in my buddy Mike's two-tone blue Buick Regal, listening to the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack on the tape deck...

After that, something told me I needed to listen to Barenaked Ladies' "Gordon." I may be a big dork, but this is one of those albums that sticks with me as one of my all time favorites. Before all their radio friendly hits, the Barenaked Ladies were a smart and funny band that shaped my jr. high (and now adult) world view like no other.
I remember special ordering this album from Sam Goody back in 1992 when it first came out. We only had MuchMusic on the satellite dish, no MTV since we would've had to pay for that. I saw the video for "What a Good Boy," and had to get the album.
(I have to blame growing up with Canadian TV for turning me into the big ol' lefty I am.)



Fifteen years later, I realize that this video is very "Fifteen years ago," but I haven't seen it in a long time, and it still takes me back to a moment in my adolescent bedroom, tuning the knobs on the satellite dish receiver, and not realizing that I was about to see something that would stick with me for the rest of my life.

Shorpy

A little gem I found while surfing around Shorpy, the 100 year old photo blog. Hours of fun browsing weird and awesome photographs from the advent of photography up to the 1940's.
If you don't get enough old pics from Shorpy, check out another old photo site I just stumbled onto, aptly called Old Pictures.

Embedded down

Xiu Xiu's "Pox"



Here's a nice interview with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu from homo blog extraordinaire, Queerty.

Excerpt...

"The two arguments are valid: people should be able to do what ever they want and why do some people give a flying fuck who anyone marries? [Also] why do queer people feel the need to fit into an oppressive lame ass "straight" world to feel equal and validated? I think the wide answer is, "Go for it!" Cowabunga! It is just a way for the crazy right wing war/lust machine to distract people from their more and more obvious genocide/Armageddon orgy."

I can haz tribble?

My favorite Star Trek episode mashed up with my favorite net meme of late.



LOL Trek!

Fuck the Tram

I kinda like the tram. Sure it ended up costing us about 4 times the original estimate, and sure, its a special kind of sweetheart deal that Oregon is known for, but somehow I still think its cool. I've yet to ride it since it doesn't really go anywhere I need to go, but I drive under it every now and then and I think it looks really cool as you drive into the city from the south, with the skyline that appears out of nowhere, and those crazy silver testicle shaped tram cars hovering over you, and the support post that actually doesn't look like "an ugly ski lift at a bad resort" like it might have if the city had skimped at the time they were getting the most heat for the debacle.

However, there's some folks who live beneath the path of the tram who have hung this banner that's made me giggle all day. KATU is all over it. I don't think I've ever seen the word "F-bomb" used on the local news, especially in a headline!



Here's a better pic from flickr user jiminyshiznit, who has a very cool flickr set.

Here's some more background on the Portland Aerial Tram, and the official PAT website.

Hey Hoosiers

Here's a tourist attraction I want ya'll to go check out and let me know if its worth my while next time I'm there..
Dr. Ted's Musical Marvels.
How did I not know about this place? It seems its always been there, down by that Mega Maze thing we used to go to south of Jasper.
I've had an obsession with Marsh's Free Museum since my first visit to the Long Beach Peninsula, and this place seems to blow it out of the water. There's just something about old Nickelodeons and "automatics" that make me feel happy inside. Fun stuff, and it seems Dr. Ted has quite a collection.

Head down 37 past Paoli and English to I 64, then 30 miles West. Unless you're familiar with the state highway maze, in which case, head out of B-town on Bloomfield Rd. Follow the signs for "Loogootee," , then head down past Huntingburg towards Santa Claus, you can't miss it.

Snatch It!

I've never been a baseball fan. I like going to the park and drinking beer and eating hot dogs, but I just find watching baseball painfully boring, right up there on my list with watching little white ball golf, only I don't despise the guys who play baseball as much...
I really want one of these t-shirts from a couple seasons back though. This has to be the coolest team shirt ever! There's one for sale on ebay right now, but its only an L and my gut only fits into XL and bigger. I'm on the lookout for one of these in an XL though. I wish my shop had printed these so I could just have someone pull up the art and make my own contraband "Snatch it" shirt.
By the way, Friday is the home opener for the Beavers vs. the Fresno Grizzlies. I remember they used to have a "thirsty thursday" special that was a lot of fun, with pints of Widmer on sale, but now all I can find is "Miller Lite Thursdays." Ick! Fuck a bunch of Miller Lite. If my hometown team can't be sponsored by one of our 30 plus homegrown beers, I have no good excuse to sit through an ass numbing 9 innings. I'll be at the pub.

Immaculate Australian Awesomeness

Handmade cardboard miniatures of vintage synths and recording equipment. Check out danmcp's flickr set. Cool stuff.

I'm the only bee in your bonnet

While I'm embedding youtube vids, here's some They Might Be Giants videos that always put a stupid grin on my face. 15 years ago, we waited patiently late at night, watching MTV, just hoping they'd play one of these, without the knowledge that in the future we could simply "google" them and watch them at our leisure, and we were the fucking geeks! Just think what the rest of the world was thinking about...


Song lyrics that have become sort of a philosophy for me.
"No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful."



And this gem, the John's on MTV's 120 Minutes circa 1988 with an awesome performance of my favorite song ever written in 6/8.



Thanks for geeking out with me.

:(

Here's a little song called :( - -->->-@ (also known as 'cute') from a band called :( (also known as "colonopenbracket") that I've been hooked on ever since my friend Ricky (who's now a former Hoosier since moving to Seattle) posted a link to it on that myspace thing. They're from Aberdeen Scotland (the country, not the little Indiana town).
In my opinion, the coolest 8-bit "emoti-core" around right now. You can hear some more at their (sigh) myspace page.
There's some other cool stuff at their label's page, especially that cute little robot logo...
(Wow, that's the most parentheses per post in sellwoodstreet's history.)

Drunk Squirrel