right on bro!

I went to Target today and started buying stuff for the Official Courtleigh Emergency Terrorist Attack/Disaster Kit.

So far, I have:

• 1 case of bottled water
• 10 cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli
• 2 bags of beef jerky
• 4 cans of Red Bull
• 1 portable TV/radio
• 2 packs of batteries for powering the TV/radio
• 1 flashlight and battery
• 1 first aid kit from my car
• 1 large Rubbermaid storage container to hold it all

I have also decided that my souvenir bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon whiskey - the one I hand-dipped at the distillery in Kentucky - is going into the emergency kit. Because when something happens where I need to use the kit - that’s gonna be as good a time as any to open that bottle up.

George Bush would be proud.

The earthquakes today rocked the building where I work pretty hard. From what people tell me, Santa Monica is some pretty loose soil or something, and if the Big One hits while I’m at work, it’s going to be bad.

I am going to make an emergency kit this weekend.

So, last weekend I went up to Santa Barbara for a wedding. I’d never been to Santa Barbara proper before. I played a show at UCSB once, but all we did was drive there, set up our shit, play the gig, hang out for a bit, and then we drove back. So I was looking forward to seeing this.

It sure is nice up there. Less smoggy, less crowded, less hot, by the ocean. I need to get super rich so I can buy a house up there and do nothing but chill out. It doesn’t look like anyone works up there. All they do is hang out and protest the Iraq war. I passed by a group of ten or so Green Party protesters standing out on State Street. Two of them were playing conga drums and they all had protest signs. I asked one chick if I could take a picture of her sign that said “Make Levees, Not War.” She said sure, but the sign wasn’t her idea.

The wedding was fun. There were a bunch friends from my old job there, and it was good to catch up with them, and funny to see everyone all dressed up. I ended up barely making the drive back to my hotel before I passed out. Good times.

I’m happy to report that the Prius broke 50 miles per gallon on this trip. This was the longest trip I’ve taken with the car (yes, I haven’t been out of Los Angeles in like three months, I suck) so far and it went well. Sheila knew where everything was and it made getting around a snap.

On Sunday I was thinking about going to see the Reagan National Library but then I drove back early because Montez had this footballl thing that he won from 97.1 FM here in Los Angeles. He won a 48″ HDTV, food from Fatburger, and a visit from two of Tom Leykis’ Leykettes (the chick on the right of this photo showed up). It was…interesting. I learned fron one of the chicks that coffee is a good “negative” because it takes more calories processing it than it contains. Like celery.

Thanks Montez. Your new TV is rad.

7:58 P.M. There’s nothing else on TV so I think I’m gonna sit my fat ass on the couch and watch the Emmys.

8:02 P.M. This band is wack, and this song is incredibly corny.

8:05 P.M. Okay, now that they added the Black Eyed Peas, this is even worse. I’m considering shutting off the TV.

8:10 P.M. Ellen is pretty funny.

8:14 P.M. Jeremy Piven should have won an award.

8:16 P.M. Holy shit - Pontiac used “Don’t Save Us From the Flames” from M83 in their commercial? I don’t know whether to buy a Pontiac or throw away my M83 records. (Gotta admit though…”Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun” is one of my favorite songs ever.)

8:21 P.M. Holy shit, Jack Bauer is on TV!

8:22 P.M. I hope Naveen Andrews wins. Oh wait, I hope Terry O’Quinn wins.

8:23 P.M. What the fuck is William Shatner saying?

8:25 P.M. Oh. My. God. Who the hell thought having Donald Trump sing the “Green Acres” theme song was going to be funny?

8:28 P.M. I just lost respect for Hugh Jackman, who was badass as Wolverine but unfortunately his speech sucks.

8:33 P.M. I searched on Technorati for “best drama” and found out that 24 didn’t win. I’m gonna turn off the TV and go do something else. Perhaps I will tune into the Emmys in another five years or so.

Who watched George W. Bush’s speech tonight? I caught most of it. The speech itself was well-written, but the way Bush presented himself totally blew it up.

About halfway into the speech, GW kept moving off to his left and stepping away from the mic. The camera would pan with him, back and forth, and suddenly I found myself distracted by his posture rather than his words.

Also…when he started talking about things that the federal government was going to do, I got totally turned off. I’m not sure if I’m reading into it too much, but he seemed on the verge of that Texas good-ol-boy smirk - the kind of shit that apparently works real well in every state between Nevada and Pennsylvania, but that I find unpresidential and condescending. “Lookie here, boy, here’s what Uncle George is gonna do for you.”

I think a president’s supposed to convey authority and statesmanship. GW sure doesn’t come across as either one.

And in every single goddamn speech, GW always makes reference to a terror attack. I am, quite frankly, tired of the references. He’s had three years to improve the nation’s security and disaster response since then. Either he has done it already, or he hasn’t. And it looks like….he hasn’t.

In other news, I called the Apple store in Santa Monica today to see if they had the iPod nano in stock, but nobody has the black 4gb version. What’s the deal with product shortages on product launches? The marketing theory goes, you create buzz and coolness this way, right? “I got the iPod and you don’t have one, nor can you get one, so you suck and I am cool.” Plus you end up extending the trendiness a little bit longer because if everyone got one, we’d all have nothing to talk about.

How do we, as consumers, turn the tables on that? You want the product because you like it, not because it’s cool or trendy. Otherwise, do you really want to be a fanboy for the corporate marketing machine forever?

Burnout Revenge came out today. I went to EB Games after work and picked up the Xbox version.

I was afraid it was going to be a boring rehash of the previous one, but it’s a cool rehash of the previous one with some new features. I played for about an hour and a half. It seems harder to do takedowns than before, and I still need to get the hang of the new crash game controls, but the traffic checking and new maps are a lot of fun.

Recommended.

Been going through a shit-nut past couple of weeks at work. Looking forward to the weekend.

The NowCali Konfabulator widget really took off. Over 5,500 downloads since it was made public less than two weeks ago. The downside is, I’ve blown through about 95% of the available bandwidth on my web hosting plan and we’re not even halfway through the month. My sites might get shut off any moment now, but I’m trying to arrange for additional bandwidth.

I watched the first season of Entourage. I guess I could have figured it out from the website, but I was surprised to find out there are only eight episodes, which is kind of a lot for $30. Still though, I think it was worth it. It’s a good show.

Yesterday’s power outage was freaky.

Time to do some work…

Went running; went to store and bought the first season of Entourage on DVD as promised.

They had the new iPod nano at the store. Now, I totally hate the Apple hype/cult, but the nano is incredibly cool. This is the first time I’ve looked at an Apple product and been like, “wow.” (Except for playing Snack Attack on the Apple II back in the day.) The color screen is amazing. I think I’m going to go to the Apple store tomorrow and buy one. I figure with the 4gb version I will be able to take a significant amount of music to work, plus add some of the NPR and KCRW podcasts to listen to on the drive.

Speaking of iPods and driving, I bought the iPodlounge-recommended cassette adapter for the Prius (the Sony CPA-9C). It works, but it sounds too much like a cassette player - it’s cutting out some lower frequencies. Gonna have to look into getting a direct hookup.

I am feeling really, really lazy today. I had a bunch of stuff to do today but I am going to save it all for tomorrow.

I think I am going to go take a nap.

I think this pretty much sums up the whole thing.