Monday, September 29
Last day of vacation in Austin checking out some cool shops, buying t- shirts and music -- the geek power of waterloo records is high. Check out their rad 33 1/3 rack (I picked up the let it be volume by colin meloy). Then over to the Ginger Man with 100 beers on tap and some darts before we head off for a fancy goodbye dinner. Great week!
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 6:16 PM.
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Friday, September 26
Austin City Limits are go! Sunscreen applied, 24oz Bud Light in souveneir cozy underway... Time
to get our rock on.
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 11:08 AM.
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Tuesday, September 23
Smells like heaven! I love Austin right now...
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 7:14 PM.
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Thursday, September 18
things done or left to do this week: -- watch the poll numbers reverse course as mccain lies circles around himself, and all the things he's stood for the last 25 years (massive deregulation, corporate interests) prove to be direct causes for the current economic disaster. congrats, fiscal conservatives, you had your big chance and you blew it big time! -- prepare for vacation, which pretty much involves daydreaming about barbeque for every meal. -- pick up some new cds (i'm thinking okkervil river for sure, probably the ra ra riot album) for the plane ride. -- finish one book so i can write a combo book/movie review of choke and bring a fresh one on the trip. -- revel in the huge USC football victory vs ohio state, be sad there is no game this weekend. -- try to fight the overwhelming urge to buy rock band 2, out now, until at least after vacation. (have you seen the set list? it's gonna be so sweeeeeet). -- mourn the probable loss of my work computer to a crash taking out all the files i've accumulated in the past 6 years, save for the assortment of ones stored on servers or hopefully in coworker's files. funny, i was just thinking of doing a back-up last week, and should have probably followed up on that intuition.
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 1:22 PM.
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Sunday, September 14
looks like i'm even deeper into the cult of apple now. no regrets. at least not yet. not that it's news or anything, but this is one slick piece of technology. we'll see in a week or two of field-testing if it's super handy, just a flashy phone, or causes me to start acting like a douchebag. 
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 1:29 PM.
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Friday, September 5
i am totally addicted the the white house race right now. so much that, as much as it pained me to do so, i've watched all the prime time republican speeches out of fairness, just to see what they had to say. i have to say, wednesday's palin speech rubbed me entirely the wrong way with all its vitriol and hard-right pandering, but at least it went smoothly and seemed to be a hit with the people in the convention hall. but last night's mccain speech was a little embarrassing to watch. the first thing i caught was the sad sign someone held up reading 'THE MAVRICK', which was too bad for that person but pretty hilarious to see on national television. i mean, anyone can make a spelling mistake, but come on, it's only one word, and this is not the time to be sloppy, republican guy. then there was that big sprawling green lawn on the video screen behind mccain for a large part of the beginning of his speech. i tried to guess its significance but had no idea what it was until this morning. apparently, it was supposed to be walter reed medical center for US veterans. which i guess makes sense since mccain is so proud of his military service (despite the fact that he didn't show up to vote on the new GI bill for current service members). but again, a little mistake was hilariously appropriate. apparently the image was the wrong one, and is actually of walter reed middle school in north hollywood, california. oops! this one's a little less forgivable to me. someone within the campaign had to prepare those images. and if the people working for him are that careless, and no one that knows any better is overseeing details like this, do we really trust his appointees to make good decisions down the line? it's not just embarrassing but it shows some pretty weak control of your team. and of course, my preoccupation extends to hopping on the internet to read all about the reactions, as well as religious watching of the daily show coverage. this clip sums up so perfectly the spin machine of the conservative talking heads, everyone voting should take a moment to consider it before listening to these people ever again.
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 10:59 AM.
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Thursday, September 4
one road trip: gangbuster success. we left friday morning last, and once in san francisco managed to drink beers almost nonstop during waking hours through sunday night. we did step out briefly on friday for burgers and to go to a bar for a while, but saturday and sunday we let the party come to us. football game and and hanging out all day saturday, bbq and beer pong all day sunday. all the buddies just having a good time. it was uneventful and at the same time, amazing. more weekends like that, i say. other road trip: cancelled! or at least delayed. yes, after months of trying to wrangle our friends into the RV trip to austin, we had enough people realize they couldn't afford it or get the time off, that now the rest of us that were still committed had to finally call it off. it was within reason when we had six or seven people splitting the bill (and the driving duties), but once we got down to four or five, it just didn't make sense any more. so no grand canyon for me this month. don't worry, we'll just be flying to austin to hang out and eat bbq and go to the festival. but don't worry: the dream will live on! perhaps a shorter, less pricey, less time-intensive RV party bus just to vegas and the grand canyon to come in the spring? don't count us out yet, it's still a great idea in the making. we'll see if we can get more brave souls to join up next year.
brought to you by Brian Longtin and the number 1 at 11:42 AM.
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