crappy vacation photos is up!

for some reason... they all loaded small on flickr.

the stream: http://flickr.com/photos/callmesteam/sets/72157604767662377/

So our trip was fun, but busy... blah blah... everyone writes this kind of stuff, so I'm just going to nail down some highlights before I forget them.

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I finished two books:

Preacher Collection 1 (if that counts)
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

and I started the first Constantine collection.
Also, we listened to the audiobook for 'The Ruins'... There were no ruins actually visited in the book... SPOILAR~!!!

Preacher is badass and I can't wait to read more.

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We went to Amoeba Records twice. I felt a lot of emotions while there. at first, i was pissed because i was (again) incredibly overwhelmed. then i started coming into my own, finding albums, having fun, etc. then i got pissed again because i was finding too much stuff and i had still just barely scratched the surface. i decided to stick mainly to the used and clearance sections just because if its still there and new, i can probably still find it somewhere else.

I passed on a damaged copy of 'Meat Bob' by Bobcat Goldthwait... although i really wanted it and nearly paid the $15 for it.

the haul was small... but also dirt cheap. i think i bought 5 sealed cds, and two of those were EPs... most of the stuff i got are things i've been wanting to hear, but didnt feel like paying full price for, or were so cheap i just wanted to try them. clearly, i hit the comedy section pretty hard as comedy records are hard to come by in ABQ.

here's the rundown.

Sarah Shannon - City Morning Song
Starlight Mints - Drowaton
Interpol - Live EP
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
IllLit - Insound tour EP
ELYK Records Comp
Judd and Maggie - Subjects
Greg Behrendt is Uncool
Love Arcade
Athlete - Beyond the Neighborhood
James Kochalka Superstar - Spread your Evil Wings and Fly
Chromeo - Fancy Footwork
Mark Gross - Meet Mark Gross
Neil Hamburger - Raw Hamburger
Robert Kelly - Just the Tip
Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
Luaka Bop - The Sound of Sound Comp
We Are Standard - 3.000V - 40.000W
Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers
+/- - Let's Build a Fire
+/- - +/-
The Guggenheim Grotto - ... Waltzing Alone
K-Os - Joyful Rebellion
K-Os - Collected
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Livin' in the City
Duran Duran - Thank You (Import)
Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone - Blowin' Up
The Subways - Young for Eternity
Everclear - Welcome to the Drama Club
The Maccabees - Colour It In
The Naked Trucker and T-Bones - Live at the Troubadour
Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates
Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - #3
Creeper Lagoon - Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday
Hovercraft - Experiment Below
Isobel Campbell - Milkwhite Sheets
Spoon - Don't You Evah EP
REM - New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Special Edition)

I thought that last one was a collection of 7" es... but its the cd with a cool box and a giant book.

I think that's about it... besides stuff that Fotini wanted. Kate Nash is hers as well as some Chieftans stuff. I also got a couple copies of Surrogate and some other gifts. All that for about $200 i guess. so... around $4-5 each?

Last time I seemed to favor Astralwerks records... this time Minty Fresh was the repeat offender.

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We spent a lot of time with Ted, his wife Becca, and their daughter Riley... and their friends a bit too.

Here's a photo of Ted's house:


The Mickey toilet paper was a little unsettling, i mean... wiping with a pillar of your childhood is unusual (insert NKOTB joke here).

Still, we had a good time... lots of Catan and they gave us a ton of information about Disneyland. So much so that I actually ate TWO meals in the Disney park where I didn't feel totally ripped off. The other meals were ripoffs though, and Cafe Uva was so much of a ripoff that it neglects any perceived savings from the two reasonably priced meals.

I saw the Cafe Uva menu posted and fries were $6, a cheesesteak was $9, and after days of having insane prices drilled into my brains, these actually seemed like a 'good deal'. what we received was FIVE french fries. thats right... FIVE. they were like steak fries, but still. FIVE. and the cheesesteak. take an Olive Garden Breadstick, cut it in half and throw one onion slice and a slice of roast beef on it. there's your $9. I AM NO EXAGGERATING. It was literally the size of an OG breadstick.

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we went to church with the Ted's as well. They go to church in a punkrawk venue. it was black as night and the only lights were christmas lights strung across the ceiling. during the service they turned on some chinese lamps. it was very hip. i'm surprised i didnt fall asleep. it was the perfect setting for an indie show. the church was cool though, and the people nice. the pastor wore jeans and welcomed us. word.

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we did two days in Disneyland. open to close.

I wore a hole in my insoles. we both need wheelchairs now because our legs dont work. but it was great. a real disney animator taught us how to draw Tigger.

The Bugs Life 3D show thingy is just about the best thing in both parks. i loved the hell out of it. even though they did spray RAID all over us in the audience.

The Muppet 3D thing SUCKED. The preshow was 10 times better than the actual show. You know how the Muppets are famous and have lots of big characters. Kermit, Piggy, Fonzie, etc? well, they decided that all those beloved characters are bullsh!t and instead most of the show revolves around 'The Spirit of 3D'... an annoying CGI bug thing that flies around. it looks like something Pixar would have made 25 years ago as a tech demo. its not even made of FELT. nice.

I've never seen Bugs Life or Monsters Inc... or a ton of other films apparently... but the Monsters Inc ride is pretty great too.

The Jungle Adventure ride thing is still the best thing in the Disneyland park.

The Enchanted Tiki Room was the only 'neglected' attraction we went too. everything in disneyland is PERFECT. clean and trimmed and everything.... really amazingly perfect... except the Tiki Room. damn near everything in there is dusty as hell. half the robots have broken parts. its a room full of birds and singing flowers and stuff. even the walls sing. everything sings. its really great and a big time capsule for what disneyland started as. there are more robots in that one room than on most of the other rides period. that said... many of the birds had half broken beaks, or one eye worked and the other was lazy. its a shame... but i'd imagine its not that big of a draw anymore anyway.

next time, we're paying for a tour guide. no contest. its $50 or something, but you get lunch so thats like a $300 savings right there.

the freaking submarines were always broken or buried under lines.

the longest wait we had was probably about 25 minutes... and it was for the lamest ride ever.... Storybook Land. you sit in a boat and look at miniatures for 3 minutes. i thought it was another robot ride. the second longest wait was for the Casey Jr train... 20 minutes. its identical to the Storybook Land ride except its on land and not sea... i wish i had known they were identical.

The Snow White ride.... WTF? its like... here's all the bad stuff that went down... snow white is done-skis, the dwarves are boned, prince charming is AWOL... RIDE'S OVER KIDS! HOP OUT! it doesnt even wrap up... it was funny how bad that ride was.

Pirates was excellent. i was never a huge fan, it was always ok, but its really good. i mean, you've got ships shooting over your head, and water splashing everywhere... it was awesome.

i'm not going to describe everything... but we loved our time in the magic kingdom. if you go, check the galleries out... we saw a Jane Seymour original!

we also watched a ton of movies. we did pretty much every attraction in both parks that wasnt a crazyass roller coaster. thats a ton. no matter how boring it looked, we did it. and nothing was really THAT bad.

I'll post photos soon.

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mick bought a freaking '08 BMW... gotdamn man! its nice. his new place is pretty nice too... he's still the same old mick... and dani is the same old dani. we stayed there for 2 days but our schedules were pretty opposite.

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we saw a big ass dead seal on the beach. its face was all bashed in, but the rest looked ok. must have it a boat blade. weird seeing something that big, that close, that dead.

hung out with my uncle and met his girlfriend. shes 60 and very nice. also checked out the maritime museum... they have the second largest collection of bone ship models. that is to say, models of ships made out of bones. prisoners in the 1700's made them out of their food leftovers. they were REALLY nice too. we saw some maps that Whistler did. before he did his mom. he got fired for drawing on the maps. very cool. my uncle has at least 5 models in that museum... they were really nice.

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everyone knows how much i hate my Kia, and some of you will remember that the last time i tried to drive to LA my gotdamned KIA broke down two hours outside of ABQ on my way there and i spent my two week vacation in my room with my gamecube feeling sorry for myself.

our rental car was a Kia Sephia.

it got amazing gas milage. i mean... in the 40mpg range. i'm very pleased.

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i saw Tommy Lee in California Adventure with an incredibly hot blonde girl. it was him though. tats and bad haircut and all.

we didnt go to the free Flight of the Conchords concert, but i did see them driving by Amoeba as we walked in.

as previously mentioned, we saw Norm MacDonald doing standup and he was wonderful. it was a great surprise. we met my friend Jason and he said there was a good comedy club near our hotel in Tempe. he called to see who was performing and we just lucked out! we sat in the balcony, front center. great seats.

there were two hecklers in the crowd... and no joke, they were literally sitting right next to us on both sides. the comics reamed them though and they pretty much shut up after the first comic.

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we listened to several podcasts, Random X, Penny Arcade, CAG Foreplay, Leo LaPorte, Hijinks Ensue, SModcast... and about 6 hours of the Stern show... most of which involved Arties departure and comeback. nothing like bear porn and ejaculate eating for sustenance talk to start a vacation right.


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We also watched 'Juno' today.

I was torn because part of me wanted to really like it because everyone does and everyone told me that I would love it. For those same reasons, I wanted to hate it. I wasn't interested in watching it before because it looked like a pretentious hipster movie. I think I liked it better when it was called 'Ghost World' like 10 years ago.... but it was ok. It's the kind of movie that people who haven't seen 'Ghost World' or the like would probably find hip. It was kind of like a Wes Anderson movie, but without the heart. It probably sounds like I hated it, but I didn't. It was just... there. and exactly what i thought it would be. a movie that thinks its more clever than it actually is, but it had some zingers in it as well. JK Simmons and Michael Cera were excellent. Her stepmom was really good too.

I think its funny that someone who calls themselves 'Diablo Cody' and names their lead 'Juno MacGuff' takes the time to make fun of the name 'Madison' in the script.

Also. no one says 'Swear to Blog' or whatever the hell. no one. really. except the 13 year old girls who saw Juno and say it now.

a lot of people said i would like it because i talk just like the characters in the film. apparently i'm a bigger asshole/douchebag/tard than i thought.

i didnt think i needed to say it, but when i write things like 'SPOILARZ!' and 'omg lollerz! and the like... thats not ME, thats me making fun of people who say those words. i'm fueling the fire i guess, and for that i'm sorry. its like if i were 19 and wearing a phil collins t-shirt. word?

(i do say 'word' and 'dig' sans irony however.)

anyway... if you havent seen it... rent 'Rushmore'.

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Yesterday was the worst day off I've ever had.

I met my dad at my house at 630am, we spent 3 hours trying to get the stupid hopper to work so we could insulate my attic. He was shoehorned into the attic, while i was breaking up the insulation into the hopper. it kept getting clogged because the dispenser plate was broken off. anyway... we finally got a routine down and i just put the crap in the hopper really slowly. it took us NINE AND A HALF hours to finish. he was all sore from laying around in the attic, and my hands are still killing me from breaking up the insulation. its like giant blocks of feta cheese... 52 of them. ugh... i'm sore today... i cant imagine he's much better off. and the garage is TRASHED. its covered in a thick layer of insulation dust.

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last night fotini had bible study, so i finished off Half-LIfe 2: Episode One. starting in one Ep 2 today.

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Puzzle Quest has kind of a crappy multiplayer mode. it has a health handicap, but thats it. everyone on there is like level 40+ ALREADY. the game has been out for 6 days. on the DS i've played the game into the ground, and i'm only a level 48 or so. i mean months of playing every day! sheeesh... these kids need a job or something. needless to say, i got my ass kicked by a level 48 wizard with my level 9 druid. still, i got him down to like 34 health... not bad for 6 starter spells.

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today the new Jimmy Eat World record comes out. which is weird because when 'Futures' came out I had that week off as well. i guess they stick with october releases and i take vacations in october.

speaking of which... where's our Black Label Society record!??? Zakk Wylde had been pumping out a record every two seconds, and now its been over a year. its probably coming soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAYmode7overworld! Nooge.

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Can you guys do me a favor and not update when I'm out of town? Thanks. teencraft knows the score.