April 2008 Archives
Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Celtic Festival of Southern Maryland, which included the Highland Games, where people of Scottish descent throw heavy things around for fun. I did overhear that one contestant was Jewish, and his nickname was "The Jewish Viking." He did a good job of throwing heavy things around too. They threw heavy things at great heights, and across distances, and also threw logs around too. There were lots of men and women running around in kilts, which must have been uncomfortable in the heat, but I think everyone was too drunk to care.
I was struck by the fact that Norwegians don't have fun festivals, throw heavy things around, or get together other than to eat pickled herring or oyster stew. I guess we're not a jolly people. However, the 17th of May is just around the corner, where the Norwegians celebrate their independence from the Danes. Get ready to party.
I played in more matches than I expected, first as a scrumhalf, and then as a winger in the final matches where we ended up playing with a lot of "old boys," which means rugby players above 34 or something. So I guess I'm officially an "old boy" now. However, the old boys are canny and have lots of tricks up their sleeve, and I learned a lot playing with the "crusty old buggers," as our coach calls them.
I also ate several roasted turkey legs immediately after the matches, and my face was all greasy and sweaty and dirty from all the Celticness. I felt barbaric in a nice way. Here is a person in a kilt throwing a heavy object at other people in kilts:
Not all the bagpipers were woofy, but this one was. Apparently there is only a single selection of bagpipe music to choose from, which they played all day. As one person said during the day, "OMG the DJ sucks!"
After the matches, the team hung around and ate Celtic things and watched people throw heavy objects around. Here's Lee, James, D'Andre, Aaron, Eric and Matt eating some non-Celtic food after a hard day of throwing people around:
We played on a field overlooking the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay.
Many thanks to the Pax River team for a fun day of rugby, turkey legs and revelry.
Photo at left from last weekend's match courtesy of a former Beaverhausen John.
They posted something this month!
Is Beaverhausen back?
Only time will tell...
This weekend we head down to the Patuxent River area to play a few matches in the Celtic Feststival of Southern Maryland celebration. There's bound to be lots of events were large people lift and throw heavy things and/or play gawdawful insturments. I hope to get some pics of shirtless men in kilts for everyone. But the last time I uploaded a photo of a guy in a kilt to my blog, my server log stats totally got whacked from the incredible number of hits for such a pic. I'll serve it remotely from Flickr this time.
In related news, clogging is a hit in my hometown, and black bears are back.
If you've ever wondered what happened to Jo, Blair, Tootie, Natalie and Ms. Garrett, here's the lost Facts of Life episode, courtesy of BooBob. I always knew something was up between Jo and Blair.
There's a George Michael "TwentyFive" Release Party this Saturday, April 26 @ OmegaDC, 2122 P St., NW WDC 20037 featuring another delicious serving from VJ Tre:
I'll likely be fried from a day in the sun playing rugby. Plus there's a mega-paper due on Tuesday, which I will of course wait until the last hour to write.
Our treebox is about 5' by 9'. You'll need a strong drill, a hammer, a circle saw, and 5 lengths of 4" by 4". Mine were pressure treaded, so were a bit tough to cut and drill. I'd recommend you get two 1/2" drill bits, as mine was all but worn out by the end of it. You'll need from 8 to 10 lengths of 1/2" rebar cut in 12" lengths.
I wanted the base of the box to be somewhat below the sidewalk level, so I dug a trench around the circumference of the box, from 1" to 2" deep. Eventually the wood will rot or get termites, but with pressure-treated wood it should last about 5 years at least.
Measure, cut and place the beams. I beveled the streetside ends of the top tier so it looks pretty. It helps to walk on the first tier to make sure it's all even, and again when you put the 2nd tier on the first. Imagine you're an Olympic gymnast on the balance beam. You might have to remove the beams and dig or fill where needed to make them all even.
Drill 1/2" holes through the corners and at the midpoints of each side. Don't pound in the rebar until you're all done drilling, and start with the corners first. Depending on the size of your tree, your rebar supports may encounter big roots. I'll have to saw off that one right next to the street as it hit something unyielding. But it was the only one that hit a root. This type of treebox might not be possible with a big tree in your treebox.
And you don't have to petition to a local quasi-religious leader to get one installed. I prefer to be self-sufficient and not have some symbolic figurehead's name on a plaque outside my home.
Materials from Homo Depot:
Five 4" x 4" x 10' posts: $49.85
Eight 1/2" x 1' rebar: $6.24
1/2" drill bit: $3.59
Saw: borrowed from Colin and Todd
Power Drill: borrowed from Mari (she's a rather butch librarian) a cordless drill won't work, by the way.
Time: about a day to buy the stuff and construct
Total Cost: $59.78
My back is out for the day. Time for a shower and a nap.
Despite impending ecological disaster, TJ calmly pores over the variety of ketchup our wonderful society has to offer.
With so much time on my hands, I've sunk to stalking people at Safeway. It's fun!
Happy Earth Day. The tranny bass with fish herpes in Virginia aren't so upbeat, however.
Tomorrow I'm going to build a border around our treebox out front, so people stop trampling my plants. Then I might shop for exterminators to finally get whatever critter is getting into my fish pond at night. I still think it's raccoons. Having eaten all of my water lilies, the critter has now taken to chewing on my irises. Damn varmints!
Bonobos size up their mettle at Taint on 4/20/2008:
Can you guess which one is mine?
Last week was crazy and good, not only for the long-awaited arrival of spring, but also some major changes in my life that I can't really get into much detail about on here. Let's just say I have a lot of spare time, am very happy about it, and that I'm casually looking for a new job. But that doesn't mean I'm in a bind at the moment or that I'm desperate for a job, however. I have a number of irons in the fire already. But I'm still keeping my eyes open for new opportunities and have the luxury of being selective about it. I'm looking for a communications, public affairs or media relations job in a smaller department or nonprofit, preferrably in the environmental field or having something to do with life-sciences. It is important that such a job allow for a full life on the side - my life outside of work is just as important as the forty hours spent at a workplace. The fact that I don't have kids to pick up from soccer practice doesn't mean I don't have something worthwhile to go home to during the week after 6pm. And I'm skilled and experienced enough to make bigger decisions in the workplace, and to have them duly considered as well.
We had a fun match yesterday in DC and a lot of Renegades alumni showed up. So did a bunch of friends - albeit at the last 5 minutes of the match. Umm...thanks. I think a few friends got to see me run 50 yards or so but that was it. There's another opportunity to witness a full match on May 17 (I was not aware of another home match until yesterday). I see there's also the big gay blogger meet in NYC that weekend, AND a Blowoff in DC at the same time! What's a gurl to do? Will someone please invent a reliable teleportation technology that allows me to be in several places on the same day? Thanks.
Homer did a little research for me and found out where my Irish parts came from. The Brennans were from County Kerry. If I have the time when we go to Ireland this June, I hope to give the county a visit.
MetroRail announces debut of new monorail system.
Andrea (Alessandro Calza) consoles Jeff (Adam Neal Smith) in the film CIAO, screenings at several film festivals this summer.
Yellow hanky bong hits for the Pope! The biggest drag queen in the world is here in DC for the week. I hope to avoid any traffic congestion associated with his visit, but that is my extent of my passion for the man. As far as I'm concerned, Sunday mornings are for establishing rapport with higher powers through the dream state. And Sunday mornings are for brunch and Bloody Marys too.
This Passover Saturday, Renegades alumni and friends of the 'gades are encouraged to come to our only home match of the season at 1pm on April 19 at Cardozo High School field, 1300 Clifton St. NW, Washington, DC. Field entrance is at 13th St. and Florida Ave. NW. The match will be vs. our friends the Philadelphia Gryphons. Social to follow at Stoney's, 1433 P St. NW, between 14th and 15th St. We'll be upstairs.
And the excitement won't stop there - all weekend it's the big 'ol Cherry Weekend celebration, with venues all over town, including Saturday night at the 9:30 Club. I'd expect to see the Pope trying to sneak in through the back door, or at least a couple of his underlings here and there. Judging by the state of my body last Saturday after a rugby match, it is highly unlikely Grampaw Jimbo will be able to make any of the events. My body is just too beat up to boogie this time of the year.
A cautionary note to the indie 'mos and angertwinks who are too cool for school: you probably won't find that new gay at a Cherry event, but it shouldn't preclude you from having some fun once in a while. Wipe that grumpy sourpuss off your face, take your shirt off and have at it. No cherry-colored letter will be permanently branded to your soul if you cut loose and have some fun once in a while. Jeez...kids are so frikkin' serious these days!
Margaret Cho last Friday was good for a few belly laughs and she definitely has the green stamp of approval for recycling - her old material, that is. And perhaps Kelly's best venue is the Internet, because 'Shoes' live just didn't really have the charm that it does on YouTube.
I heard somewhere that Ace of Base has reunited and are on tour? Unless it was somebody's cruel joke on me...I'd go see them if they came through DC, even though they're Swedish and not Norwegian. I'm not racist.
Despite the threat of thunderstorms and/or a hot, humid day, the weather eventually turned pleasant, cool and dry in time for our match out in Winchester, Virginia. Both the A and B sides won, and there was no eye poking in the scrums. I got to play flanker on the B side, and had a few nice drives over the rucks, one resulting in pushing the guy with the ball over the goal line. I'll count that as an assist. Flanking involves a new set of muscles that I don't normally use in other positions, and it seems like my lower back muscles are especially offended by the new tasks.
After the match we had a nice social at a micro-brew pub, and the porter was dee-licious. Later on me and OMG DJ TM™ stopped at the Dairy Queen for burgers and Blizzards:
I still like going to Dairy Queen even though I used to work at the largest Dairy Queen in Wisconsin. I could never master the art of making a tiered cone, so I was only allowed to make burgers and Blizzards. When business was slow, us Brazier boys in the back would go disappear into the freezer and gorge on Dilly Bars.
Is it retarded when I'm chatting online with a woofy visitor to DC on Manhunt, and I start giving smart travel tips and hot spot nightlife recommendations? I can't help it if I was genetically engineered to dispense information. Perhaps Julie McCoy, the Cruise Director, was the 13th Cylon, and I'm one of her alternate models. I will always be able to tell you where it's at, at any given day of the week. Or I can find out in minutes, give me a moment...
I can't watch Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica because I'll be paying $300 fucking dollars for a pair of shoes. I'll be seeing Margaret Cho as well, but Friday is all about Kelly.
Kelly wrote the lyrics for my personal mantra:
"I'm gonna blog and text and post and hostSo like yesterday I swear to you Cloris Leachman was working out at Washington Sports Clubs north of the Circle. And this totally hot scruffy guy with a hot wrestler build came up to me and politely said hi and introduced himself. I think his name was 'Drew but I was all flustered cuz he was scruffy. And I almost had a heart attack because he was so polite and friendly - I'm guessing he's not from the East Coast - and I was shocked by such a forward act of overt friendliness in this city. That's all it takes to impress me.
Podcast your bastard ass from coast to coast."
Rugby match out in Winchester, VA on Saturday. They're mean and they poke you in the eyes in the scrum. I'm gonna pull out my can 'o whoop ass and do a double-elbow atomic drop signature move like Chris Benoit would have done if they try to do that sorta shit. I'm going to get all Chris Benoit on your ass if you try that - don't you understand?
Oh yeah, and Blowoff is this Saturday at the 9:30 Club. I'm like totally going.
I've had a very shitty day today, but this Craigslist post negated all my worries, anxieties, uncertanties, fears and ills:
I swear I didn't post it.
To whoever posted this rant on Craigslist: I love you so much and I want to marry you. You are my hero. For you see, that fucking blue car with the hypersensitive car alarm is on my block, often parked right outside my front door. And if you even think about that crappy blue car, the fucking alarm goes off. It goes off when you walk by it. It goes off when one of the boys down the street swears loudly. It goes off in a light breeze. It goes off almost every hour of the day.
Sometimes, I wish I could shoot disintegration beams out of my eyes that were like the alien laser beams in the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds, where the laser beams would just vaporize that fucking car and it's fucking car alarm. Or sometimes, in my dreams, a flamethrower would do in a jiffy. Sometimes, it's a sledgehammer, and I am allowed the joy of smashing that piece of crap car into a thousand pieces. Sometimes, I just want to psychically implode that annoying car and it's annoying alarm with my impressive reserve of psionic strength points.
Like the Craigslist person said, no one wants to steal that piece of crap-ass blue car. All your alarm really does is draw more attention to the fact that you own a crappy car. Not even the lowliest, most desperate crackhead in Shaw would even consider breaking into your car, it's so crappy. Get over yourself and your piece of shit blue car and the hypersensitive alarm. Or move to Arlington if you can't handle things in Shaw.
I feel better now. And most of all, I'm glad to know there's someone else on my block (probably many) who feel the same way I do about that piece of shit blue car with its fucking hypersensitive car alarm. It's good to be part of a community.
Hoo boy I'm beat from a busy weekend. The Kylie party at Omega was a lot of fun, but I didn't understand why the strippers weren't dancin' it up a little more when the Kylie tracks came on the video screen. I guess if they did interpretive dance as I do, they'd knock everyone's cocktails off the bar and then they'd get fired.
Oh yeah - the Battlestar Galactica premiere did not disappoint. It's all up in the air as to who the 13th Cylon is, but I'll wager it's Cathy Dennis because she's really behind almost everything important that I can think of. Or it's President Roslyn, Baltaar or Starbuck. We were left hanging at the end, with delicious promise of Cylon infighting and civil war! How dare anyone lobotomize a good Centurion?
On Saturday we drove up to Havre de Grace for a rugby match. It's somewhat near Aberdeen, Maryland, on the opposite side of Baltimore from us here in DC. It gets rural real quick if you make the wrong turn, into the land of people with missing teeth. Regardless, our hosts were lovely and we played some good rugby. I played about 40 minutes as a flanker, still learning more about that position, but it's fun and pushing the scrum gives you nice calf and ass definition too. Judging by my leg and shoulder soreness and shortness of breath during the match, I have some more conditioning to do.
Here's a photo from last Sunday's match where I got a little time in as scrumhalf.
Photo by Brettie. As a scrumhalf, you have to touch a lot of bums, as opposed to stuffing your head in people's bums if you were a flanker or #8. It's all good - I enjoy playing a variety of positions on the pitch.
Kylie Minogue "X" Release Party
Saturday, April 5th
@ OmegaDC
2122 P St., NW
Washington, DC 20037
Kylie mentioned first, but on Friday, April 4th is the hipster heaven hirshhorn after hours event, 8pm to midnight with music by DJ Solomon Sanchez followed by special live performances by Lucky Dragons and Hooliganship.
I can't make that because Friday is the Battlestar Galactica season premiere. I have my priorities.
