A Bureaucracy of One

A Present Delayed - Bill Callahan

I'm going to see Bill Callahan play tonight a The State Room as a birthday present to myself. Yes, this is addition to the two games I bought myself yesterday. Shut up, I'm worth it!

Anyway, as I am going to a bar to celebrate a friend's birthday (and to catch some of the CONCACAF Gold Cup games) before the show, I don't have the time to spend contemplatively ignoring what time it is before panicking about what to post. Thus I am writing this the night before it will actually go up, but you don't know that! In fact, I can schedule it for whenever in the future I want, giving it some random time marker like 5:13 pm to make it look like I had just dashed it off before running out the door, and you will never know the difference!

What's that? You think I've just given away the game with that last sentence? Ha, no way! See, the post will go live, and seeing the link on Twitter or Facebook, you'll click it thinking that I had just finished slaving away over a hot keyboard (fo' realz, my laptop is burning my thighs), but you won't know the sordid truth until after you've started to read! Ha! Hahahaha! Mu-ahahahahahahahahahaha!

 

So, here is Bill Callahan's Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.

 

Trouble Over Me

I just learned that I have a fracture in the lateral malleolus of my ankle, which bums me out because it means that I have to go full crutch for at least a week.  It also means several friends and family members have spontaneously offered any assistance they can, which is nice.  That outpouring put me in mind of a song that came on my iPod as I was driving home from getting the x-ray, called "trouble Over Me" by Tift Merritt.

For those that don't know, which, given Ms. Merritt's lack of mainstream success, is most of you, Tift Merritt is a North Carolina native that writes and performs lovely little folk songs with a country twang.  I have been a fan of her's ever since hearing this song on 99X's Organic X program in Atlanta in 2002.  Since then, She has released three more albums, the most recent of which, See You on the Moon, was released this past June.

So, why do I love this song?  Well, apart from Tift's beautiful vocals, and the poetry of the lyrics, there is a sentiment of reluctant romantic wistfulness that makes me smile.  The naivete of the singer regarding her crush on someone tickles that part of my heart that isn't a hard, blackened lump of iron ore.  

The lyrics are a kind of subversion of the typical love song as the singer notes that she a) doesn't want a boyfriend with all the drama and circumstance that one comes with, and b) she doesn't want love.  All she wants is someone who will be there for her is small ways, and with whom she can flirt.  Yet, at the same time she yearns for an affirmation of the deeper connection that she and her crush share.

And today the song takes on added significance for me as it encapsulates how I feel about my fractured ankle.  I do not wish to rely on my friends, but I do want to know that they are will to go through a little trouble over me.

 

 

 

Video bonus!!! Tift has another great song that fits my situation today: "Broken"!

On Gift Giving

Oh man, I wanted to have this posted by now, but I got distracted by the epic Phantom Menace Review that has been going around the Internet (found via io9.com).

I swung by my sister's house this afternoon on my way back from work as they are heading to Kansas City for Christmas, and I wanted to see them before they left.  Also, I wanted to pick up my Christmas gifts because really, that's all that important, right?

Right?

Right?

Right.  That and my nephews.  Cute little buggers.

So, what wonderful gifts did my sister see fit to shower upon me this fine Season of Saturnalia?   Read on and find out!

SQUEEEEEEE!!!

Pic of the Day - One Year Apart

This picture was on the Alta website this past week.  It show is in stark contrast what awesome season we had last year, and what a terrible one we had the year previous.  750 inches of snow this past season, versus 380 inches the year before.

Indian Wedding

Jesus, I just bought 5GB worth of total storage for what my 256MB CF card cost five years ago!  I got a 4GB CF card and a 1 GB MicroSD card for less than fifty dollars.  Well, I find it impressive.

You know, I have a Flickr account around here somewhere, but I forgot to renew my Pro Account last year so I am limited in how many albums I can have active at once.  So then, here is but a taste of the pictures I will post there once I can be arsed enough to renew it.

Pretty, Pretty Pictures!

I call this one "Dinner".

If any of my friends ever come to visit me here in the wilds of Mormon Country, they can expect to be taken to Lone Star Taqueria at least once.  Possibly more than once.

Next up is a piece that I like to call "Sunset Setting on Hellgate Cliffs", followed by "Sunset Set From the End of Little Cottonwood Canyon."

The way that the mountains change with the rising and setting sun is truly breath-taking.  The 9000" altitude also helps with that.

Lastly is one of I have titled "SeXXXy sEXxxY aLTA gRRl".

Please don't hurt me Lu.

Oh Dog, What Have I Become?

I'm sitting in a Laz-E Boy, eating delivered (not DiGornio's) pizza, and playing video games.  I have sunk so low.  Still, I am drinking a glass of water rather than having a third Pepsi for the day.  But, lunch did consist of the small bags of jalapeno potato chips with ranch dip.

Mmm...pizza!

Yeah, my diet really suffers on the weekends.

Of Banana Bread & Snow Drifts

I am anxiously awaiting the kitchen timer to tell me that my loaves of banana bread are through baking, and that it is time to take them from the oven so that they may cool.  I have a great deal riding on the success of this endeavor: if they come out delicious I can hold my head up proudly in front of my housemates; but should my baking turn out to be an abject disaster, then I shall nevermore be able to look them in the eye, let alone shred gnarly pow-pow on a day of bluebird freshies.  Indeed, I may well be forced to sling my PS3 skis across my back, and roam the back roads of Utah, forever more cast out from paradise!

But, I still have at least twenty-eight minutes more to go before my moment of Reckoning.  So, let's talk winter wonderland landscapes, shall we?  Fine, I'll talk type, you listen read.

Alta got dumped on this weekend.  We got about 30 inches of snow in the last thirty-six hours, just about doubling our settled snow depth.  I haven't been up there, but I hear that the powder was pretty sweet.  "Creamy good times" as the kids like to say.

Why haven't I been up there?  Well, because I am a hack skier, and I really like skiing groomers more than powder.  Yeah, sacrilege, I know.  (You can't see it right now, but I am rolling my eyes and miming masturbating.)

My preference for groomers has more to do with my lack of experience with skiing powder, than it does any actual dislike of powder.  I also lack powder skis, so the times I have tried to ski powder, I have ended up on my ass; face-first in a snow bank; doing inadvertent snow angels; and doing yard sales all over the mountain.  Not really my cup of tea.

However, as I do wish to be a better person than I am working to rectify this minor flaw in my being.  One of my friends from by the name of R.C. has already taken my "off piste" for my first runs of the season, and he is going to lead farther a-field before the season closes.  I also rather think he is going to make me ski Mt. Superior.  A prospect that both thrills and terrifies me in equal measure.

It's Good to Have Friends

Prior to the fire I had wanted to throw myself a party for my 33 1/3 birthday, and after the fire I decided that I really needed to have a party.   So, this past Wednesday the 24th, 33 1/3 years after I was born, my friends came over and I had the most fun that I have had in a very long time.  While I don't remember much, I do remember that I was laughing the entire time.  To be able to that after losing everything, well, I guess I must be doing pretty damned well!

Below are some pictures taken at the soiree, and once I figure out a way to get the movies off my camera (iPhoto chokes when the movies are over a certain size), I'll post those, too.  Most of the movies seem to be of me drunkenly rambling into the camera, all the while having a silly-ass grin plastered on my mug.  So, should be some quality entertainment!

God, the hangover was totally worth it!

A Couple'a Three

A threesome of videos for you to peruse!  First up is a a short clip of a recent rain storm here in Alta.  Maybe ya'll won't think it is sexy, but I sure do.

Next up is a quick pan 'n' scan of Red Pine Lake.  This is one of my favorite hikes in Little Cottonwood, and at nine thousand feet above sea level, it is closer to Heaven than most will ever come.

And to round out the Threes, it is another pan 'n' scan, but this time of Upper Red Pine Lake!  Upper Red Pine Lake is about 900 feet above Red Pine, in the cirque that is visible on the left at the start of the Red Pine video.  To get there, one must follow a "trail" that degenerates into a field of boulders that must be crossed.  This makes Upper Red Pine much more isolated, and therefor, much more satisfying, to reach.