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-The Management

Today I went to see Matt Nathanson and Collective Soul at KFOG’s KaBoom show. They were each a lot of fun, although I’m still not huge on the whole big outdoor concert thing. It seems like so much energy is lost. Both of them tried to do the whole call/response thing, but in the SF winds it’s hard to hear anyone singing along.

Anyway, I was intrigued by a tattoo on a guy near me. He was shirtless and had “BURNS” in giant letters across his upper back. I wonder if this is there as a reminder to apply sunblock to that area when he is going to go shirtless, since it burns. On the same token, I speculate that he may have tattoos on his inner thighs that say “chafes”.

I just walked into the men’s restroom at MSP airport and heard a man, who was using the urinal while on his cell phone (I have to admire that level of coordination), say “Well, what about hand grenades?” I guess MSP is known for strange bathroom situations…

Edit: As I walk through the airport saying “No, it’s fine that you’re running late [to pick me up] since it gives me time to see the trained chimps” into my cellphone, I realize context is key. Although I waited until after leaving the restroom to make this call.

So apparently there are two schools of thoughts about how to score miniature golf. One way involves numbers:

The other way… well, does not:

By my math, "awesome" is greater than "poop", so I think I may have won.

Cathy says this shirt reminded her of me. Let’s run down the checklist.

• Related to monkeys? Check. (And really, we can stop here.)
• Random? Check.
• Confusing? Double check.

Yeah, that just about defines me.

Rachel is doing the MS Walk in a few weeks. Donate some money, why doncha?

Every hour of every day, someone is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That’s why I registered for Walk MS: Christopher & Banks Walk 2008 presented by Anchor Bank and that’s why I’m asking you to support my fund raising efforts with a tax-deductible donation.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is a collective of passionate individuals, moving together to create a world free of multiple sclerosis. But they can’t do it alone. It’s faster and easier than ever to support this cause that’s so important to me. Simply click on the link at the bottom of this message. If you prefer, you can send your contribution to the address listed below.

Any amount, great or small, helps to make a difference in the lives of people with MS. I appreciate your support and look forward to letting you know how I do.

P.S. If you would like more information about the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, how proceeds from Walk MS are used, or the other ways you can get involved in the fight against MS, please visit nationalmssociety.org.

Click here to visit my personal page.

I’m hoping there is an affiliate program for the baked goods and Ev-hugs. Tell her I sent you.

I randomly found this contest while looking for something related to M.C. Gainey. It sounds like quite a bargain.

In the latest issue of This is True, list owner Randy Cassingham linked to a piece about the Columbine massacre, written in 1999 by Dan Savage (of the Savage Love fame). I hadn’t seen it before, and I found Savage’s thoughts to be very interesting.

"The motivations of the two killers," [the cover story on Columbine in] People continued, "were hard to fathom." Actually, I had no problem fathoming Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s motives. While I didn’t suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it. I can only imagine the scenarios that must have rolled through Marty’s head on a daily basis. Watching SWAT teams inch their way toward Columbine High, I wasn’t shocked that something like this could happen in a high school. I was shocked that something like this hadn’t happened at any of mine.

Savage doesn’t aim to excuse or justify the actions of those two boys, but he does bring a perspective that was absent in the mainstream media at the time. I was lucky to not have a high school experience like his.

As you can see, this blog continues its timely coverage of current events. In the future, you can look forward to my thoughts on Y2K, 9/11, and the Bush/Gore election.

On Todd’s recommendation, I finally saw Once this weekend and, to use a line from the movie, it’s fucking brilliant. It was beautiful little film, and everyone should see it. I was going to write more, but now I’m dead tired, so instead I’ll go hum Falling Slowly as I get ready for bed.

Sidenote: The amount of time I’ve had this DVD in my possession demonstrates that I am really not getting my money’s worth out of Netflix, so I think I’m going to discontinue my subscription. Goodbye, red paper envelopes.

I’ve given up on the idea of writing a coherent blog post to sum up the last 6 months. With each passing week, it gets more overwhelming to think about recapping, so if I don’t just start posting my usual random stuff here, I’ll never use it again. In no particular order, I have:

• Seen the launch of the new Shipwire.com in October, as well as many new features since then.
• Taught a two year old that "mooses" is the plural of "moose" after his mother laughed at me for not remembering that (despite the fact that I’ve never actually seen a moose, let alone more than one, so this is hardly relevant information).
• Tricked someone into redesigning my site for me, only to procrastinate on actually slicing the images and building it.
• Started taking guitar lessons again.
• Become obsessed with Rock Band.
• Decided to start a new genre called Agnostic Rock to compete with Christian Rock, including such bands as Unknowable, A Priori Objections, and Scintilla of Evidence.
• Wasted thirty minutes researching agnosticism to write that joke.
• Come to believe that people riding their bikes on the sidewalk is bothersome, but less so than people riding their bikes the wrong way in the bike lane.
• Ridden Rachel’s horse.
• Killed my Treo 650, thus getting an upgrade to a Treo 700 and giving me an excuse to purge my phonebook of people who I never call and who never call me.
• Come to terms with the fact that my musical taste leads to like bands who are younger than my brother.
• Received a USB humping dog due to contractual obligations.
• Rocked out in matching haiku shirts with Rachel and Allison.
• Spent my second consecutive New Year’s Eve in Minnesota, as well as many other weekends along the way.
• Been to see Cowboy Mouth, Melee, Matt Nathanson, Magic Bullets, Glen Phillips, Jonathan Kingham, and Will Hoge in concert.
• Attended An Event Apart in San Francisco.
• Voted for Obama.
• Started planning a trip to Hawaii.
• Lost 12 pounds on an office diet bet to avoid dressing as Santa.
• Partook in a Wii hunt during the holiday season.
• Forgotten many interesting and exciting things I have done in the past few months.