Some funny guy prank called the RIAA - cause they SO deserve it - and even made up a little song about the experience, which i highly recommend you download and share all over the place over the internet for free. Now go see a live band and give them your money directly, they actually deserve it.

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Such an excellent weekend! Huge thanx to Lance for taking the initiative to come visit and remind me what a quality guy he is! Some great times to remember, a perfect way to finish out the summer.

I picked him up at seatac thursday nite, and it was straight to Sushiland Marinepolis for all the kanisara and california rolls we could eat. Friday we loitered around pioneer square, grabbing gyros for lunch and gelato dessert, and then took in a locks cruise courtesy of Kim (who rocks, btw), enjoying a perfect summer day on the water, complete with sailboats, wind surfers, and jumping salmon. After i ran home to get the baseball tickets i'd forgotten that morning, we watched the Mariners spank Oakland in an exciting (yet meaningless, as they're already out of the running for the WS) game, and finished the nite at the New Orleans with spiced rum and a blues band.

Saturday morning Steph picked us up in her sweet new convertible for the ride down to Alki beach and crab cakes benedict at the Alki Cafe, prompting everyone present to conclude that we all need drop-top rides. A quick visit to Caleb’s apt to catch up with his parents, Lance’s aunt & uncle, in town from Bozeman, and then Caleb joined us for some sunshine at Gasworks park and a tour of the Ballard Locks and the (oddly) fishless fish ladder. A short stop for supplies later Lance and I were at Skyla and Jana’s posh new apartment (complete with balcony- and skylight-trimmed bathroom) for an excellent bbq and lots of laughs. Lest the fun end early, Skyla joined us for billards and a pitcher of Mac & Jack’s at the Onion, followed by the back nine on Golden Tee, before we finally retired for the night.

Lance let me sleep in a little sunday before he raided the fridge and made us breakfast! (what did i tell you about him being a good guy!). Despite my being lazy, we still managed to be in SoDo again by game time, with plenty of ticks left over for a pint or two at the Pyramid beer garden while we waited for Casey, Jenn and Matt. Matt got us into the club level with sweet tickets that only cost us ten bucks, so from the cushioned, pampered shade of the full-service section we watched the M’s once again trounce the A’s in a very satisfying last game of the season. Then (oh, i'm not done!) Julia and Steph - still lookin' all that in their ballet-attending gowns - met us at the Garage, a billiards/bowling/arcade/bar on Capitol Hill, for a few rounds of both drinks and stick. Not too much for me, tho, cause by 6.30 we had to be on the road to the airport so i could get Lance to his flight on time. A killer visit that went way too fast!

It was still too nice to go home, tho, so i picked up Julia and we met Steph, Kim, Erwin, Julie, Scott, and Mark for smores and wine (they go together well, really!) around the campfire at Golden Gardens park (think sandy beach, sailboats, and a view of the Olympic mtns). And with a decided flourish, summer is over and fall is upon us. The looming fog will be here by morning.

So i'd just like to reiterate that i had a totally rockin' weekend, living it up with the guy who became my instant best friend the first day of high school, and who’s always been one of the best people i've ever known. Lance, thanks again for coming to visit - i look forward to your next trip westward, and i'll see you at Christmas!

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Short weeks are good. Long weekends are better. Explain: i have tomorrow off, so today is my friday. And that’s very good. It’s been a stressful week.

But Lance gets here tonight at 8 for the weekend, and i pushed my expense check thru in time to have it today so i won't be broke for his visit, and i'm going to have a long, enjoyable weekend with him and forget that i work here. And a lady emailed me about the Maxima today and sounds interested in it, so things can only get better. How many more weeks until my vacation??? Too many.

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Sunday night and the weekday’s almost here already. Of course, i didn't get out of bed today until almost 2pm, so today did feel kind of short… ;) Heh heh… that was awesome. Anyway, here’s the weekend update - can't guarantee it will be as funny as Jimmy Fallon and Tina Faye’s. Friday: drinks with John at the airport (rating: 10), heinous airport parking fees (rating: 0), crappy day at work (rating: -1), dinner of Ben & Jerry’s (rating: 8). Saturday: shopping with Clint & Christi (rating: 7 - would have been higher if we'd had any money to buy stuff), taking Steph to laser eye surgery appointment (rating: 6 - plugged into iPod in waiting room, got a nice nap in, finished the crossword), 80s party at Dave’s (rating: 8 - did the moonwalk and the running man, enjoyed hot melted cheese dip and Pop Rocks). Sunday: get up at 2pm (rating: 9), grilled cheese and old Matthew Broderick movie with Josh and Steph (rating: 7 - War Games never gets less entertaining, but the dishes are still in the sink), coffee with Steph on the beach (rating: 7 - beautiful sunny afternoon, although starbucks was out of white chocolate syrup), sitting around with Josh filling our sketchbooks - his with CD artwork mockups, mine with cartoons (rating: 8 - cause Josh is very supportive and keeps telling me i'm not completely devoid of talent). Now we're watching melodramatic cop shows on cbs and, well… doing this. And i think the dishes can wait until the morning. No sense cluttering up an “8.6″ weekend with low-rated chores. ;)

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Friday’s aren't supposed to suck. A friday that sucks is like getting robbed in a church - there are some things that just aren't supposed to happen. Okay, i'm being melodramatic, but that’s what you're expecting from me, right? And actually, some parts of it were pretty good, like where i met John Bender at the airport for some good conversation over a beer. The part where i had a pint of ben & jerry’s for dinner and watched Friends reruns trying to laugh at other people’s problems made me feel ok, too. However, the part where my employer is disorganized and ridiculous, lost my timecard two weeks ago and didn't see any reason to tell me, and then just didn't direct deposit my paycheck today. Yeah, that wasn't very cool. So after chasing it around for a few hours, they gave me a paper check that’s going to take a week to clear and no apology. I printed off this week’s timecard on hot pink paper so hopefully they won't lose it this time.

The real miracle of the day was that i succeeded in putting it all out of my mind while i spent a couple hours with John. We talked about everything and laughed a lot - i forget how much i enjoy hanging out with him. I really hope i can make it down to LA to visit him sometime soon.

Leaving the airport, tho, the stress of real life came back - starting with the $10 parking bill - and 20 miles and a stress headache later i was at safeway standing in line for a pint of gooey chocolate unhealthy denial and a megamillions lottery ticket. Once again, drowning my frustrations in unlikely odds and indulgent dessert. Because life is too short not to enjoy it, and because i still believe in miracles…

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Got an sms from John from Kalispell today, he’s on midterm break so went on safari. [sarcasm] I'm sure that will suck. [/sarcasm] Seriously, John, have a great time, and be careful of the hippos, i hear they're really mean. I, meanwhile, am sitting in front of a poor-quality crt monitor wasting my mid 20s pretending to care about windoze printing issues…

Still no one interested in buying the Maxima from me. Starting to get frustrating… i hate getting all emotionally and mentally prepared for things and then having to wait for them to happen. Guess i need to stop anticipating things i cannot control… What? There are things i cannot control? I never said that was okay!

It’s monday, so hopefully there’s a new Strong Bad Email today. And i'm on my first day of a resolution to eat better (gonna be broke anyway, might as well file bankruptcy with a full stomach) and i'm already feeling the benefits of a healthy diet… more energy, better mood, increased typing accuracy. It’s just a win-win! ;)

At least i can be thankful that i don't have a pair of forceps lodged in my abdomen like this poor woman in Bangkok, that were left there by surgeons in 1997… and have been there ever since. If micro$oft ran the medical community, that’s the kind of stuff you could expect… ;)

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If you haven't already, sign the EFF’s petition against the RIAA. Do what you can to keep corrupt corporate America from suing 12-year-old girls and otherwise screwing their customers when they should be devoting their resources to creating a new music distribution business model. The RIAA is evil. Don't buy CDs.

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The Card of Hope Over 26,000 people have signed to show their support and to express their hope for a better future.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation If we give up our precious freedom, the terrorists have won. Support free speech and resist overzealouse censorship: join the Electronic Freedom Foundation today.

Firefighters National Trust Founded by firefighters from Washington State, they rely on donations to assist the families of our nation’s fallen heroes.

LibertyUnites.org Connect with the philanthropic organizations most in need of your help.

WTC Site Memorial - RenewNYC.com Monitor the plans and progess on a structure to both honor the tragedy and rebuild lower Manhattan.

Disaster & Memorial Links & Information

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It’s a good thing there’s jazz and jello, or i'd be tempted to be in a bad mood today. Don't get me wrong, most of the day was great. I met Cara from Loyola for lunch - it was a perfect day for clam chowder on the peir, what with the wind blowing thru the city streets and the clouds threatening to rain all day. We caught up and talked shop a bit, i hadn't seen her since a chance meeting at a madison park starbucks. And most of the day at work was pretty pleasant, visiting with my office staff and appreciating the Max’s efficient heater (and lamenting that i took the good windshield wiper blades off!).

Stupid micro$oft had to go and ruin my day, tho, with their lousy software. As if the last time wasn't fun enough, there’s another security hole, another patch, and another headache for everyone in my line of work. In an effort to avoid the madness that ensued last time, we're actually applying the fix before a new virus is released exploiting it (i know - a proactive IT dept, wonders never cease). Kevin asked me to update the my 12 corporate office servers at minimum, but as i'm not interested in any more chaos i voluntarily bumped that goal to include all 120-ish machines in my offices. Now i know what you're thinking - how can i complain about work i've piled on myself? Well let’s just remember that this is the sort of work that shouldn't have to be done if things were done right in the first place. Or if john l scott had some sort of update procedure or plan for this sort of thing, but now i'm just daydreaming… Anyway, so i have two laptops spread across the kitchen table (my work one, which is a junky dell with a demon-possessed trackpad, and the lovely powerbook i'm using to talk at you all), some good techno mixes on shuffle, and i'm logging into a zillion stupid windows computers all over the state to give them their stupid update since stupid micro$oft can't get their code right the first time. I'd also like to point out that while there have been over 50,000 worms and viruses for windoze and dos, only about 40 known such viruses exist for MacOS, and most of those are for the pre-OSX systems. Expert programmers have been launching heavy artillery against BSD for years and have made it a rock-solid core for MacOSX. I don't even have virus software on this powerbook, and never have - eat that micro$oft!

Okay, i'm done ranting. The point is, i'm listening to some nice jazz now, and eating the last bit of jello and cool whip (isn't cool whip great?) that Mom made while she was here, and slowly but surely feeling much better about everything.

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Geez, it’s been like a week! Sorry about that, Danielle and i have been spending all our free time with our Mom, who’s been visiting since, well, my last entry. ;) She flew back home to MT today, after spending all week pampering us with homemade meals and general mom-ing. It was so great having her here, so relaxing for both of us to have her around and so much fun sharing our favorite city places and things with her. I really hope next time Dad can come too, as it’s just not the same without him. Danielle and i are hoping to head home to visit and see the new house sometime next month, and spend some time with them both.

I'll have a few pix of some of our random adventures, including lunch on the beach at Ocean Shores (the western coast of washington) and some quality time with Danielle’s cat, Ferris. I also have a few more shots in the bumbershoot gallery from monday, my second day at the festival, and baseball with the gang last week, that will be up once i recover… ;)

Still no bites on the maxima yet, but i know the price is a bit high. Can't really help that, my price is dependent on the loan. I dropped it again, tho, i can't believe it’s worth so little compared to what i paid for it three years ago. Stupid economy, i shouldn't be having to sell it anyway - i was supposed to be collecting cars by now…

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