Apologies for the terrible Austin Powers/bee related pun.

So yesterday was the city of Holladay's giant dumpster day. For anyone outside of Holladay, the city puts enormous construction dumpsters up and down the streets so residents can throw away their oversized crap that otherwise wouldn't fit in a garbage can.

Well, this is the first round of dumpsters since my dog died last year, so we decided now was a fine time to throw away my dog's old doghouse.

Now, this doghouse is heavy. I made it with my dad back when I was young; it's one of the few 'father-son bonding' memories I have. But make no mistake, this thing was a monster. A brick. Solid, compact wood. Tar. Actual shingles. It's easily gotta weigh 100 lbs. So Kathy I and were bracing for some good times lifting it.

We walk into the backyard and Kathy sarcastically says, 'You should make sure there's no mice or anything in there before we start moving it'. So, being a big, strapping man-type figure, I decided the most reasonable course of action would be to shake the unholy hell out of the doghouse and see if anything ran out.

Nothing did. But instead, a low hum began to emanate from the hole in the front.

Now know one thing, gentle reader, I'm allergic to everything. If God made it and it's either A) green or B) has 4+ legs, I'm allergic to it. Plants, trees, flowers, all pets... and bees.

Bees? Yeah, that's what the low hum was. I immediately take a step back because hey, I know my limits. A few seconds later, in a perfect little row, four or five bees exit the doghouse and begin circling it. The humming grows louder, and the bees start to widen their circle, looking for the interloper. Me.

Unfortunately, the door to the house is right past the doghouse. Kathy, being the 'give 'em hell' type, marches right past the nest, attracting a couple bees. I quickly follow, and we're 15 feet past the doghouse when one lands on my ear.

I scream like a little girl (one of my better talents) and flail around like a spastic puppet. The bee takes off and lands right in Kathy's hair, so she flails and screams too. The two of us run into the house and lock the door, which is good, because the bees could have come right in if we hadn't locked it.

Now there's a giant nest of stuff I'm allergic to right down the side of our house. I have no idea how to get rid of it. Kathy says to throw a bee-killer bomb in there or something, but I don't want to take the risk of getting stung and possibly ending up in a hospital.

Stupid bees. At least there's no bees in my eyes.

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Everyone's favorite crass commercial symbol returns in full swing! Who's the biggest nut around? Who's your favorite nut in town? Nutty the Nut is!



And, he's EXCITINGLY ready to spruce up your torso on no less than three (!) shirts.

Boys/Girls - Character | Boys/Girls - Motto | Boys/Girls - Larger Motto

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They call him Dr. Chicken. His primary interests include grain seed, and saving lives. His partner in crime, Andy, not featured.



What started off as an office joke and poster now breathes new life on the internet. Grab yourself a Dr. Chicken before his office hours end!

Boys/Girls

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As long-time readers of this blog know, I tend to switch back and forth between vapid videos/news articles and in-depth, cutting analysis of my life. This is one of the later ones.

Over the course of the last week or so, I've made a decision. Steady Eddies will no doubt recall my ongoing battle with the rest of my family; namely that I was told about a month ago that my entire immediate family would be moving to St. George, Utah. For our out of state readers, St. George is basically a southern Utah vacation spot where bronzed families from Salt Lake go to hike and look at rocks and stuff. It's apparently a fast growing place, but by the same token, it's awfully reminiscent of a small town. Anyway, my mother's job is moving down there, and I was given two options: move with them and continue to save up money for graduate school, or stay here and get a place on my own.

Unfortunately, the decision isn't quite as black and white as that. Moving to St. George means switching up the job situation and leaving my friends, who are pretty great I guess. Staying in Salt Lake meant losing my family and also moving out, which in turn meant that all the money I was putting away for school would instead be used on rent and stuff like that. The decision is and was not an easy one.

But, as you might have gathered from both this blog's subject as well as the second paragraph, I've made a decision. Allow me to state the decision I have made, and then explain it a little.

I'm leaving Salt Lake. And going to St. George.

A friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that I should approach the situation with 'an open mind'. I've done that as best as possible but, as with most things, I tend to lean towards rational decisions. What I found, however, was that this wasn't a rational decision. There were benefits in both directions, and neither was the clear winner. Either way I had to lose something important to me: either my family, or possibly my job and friends.

Two things made my decision.

First, my family. The Utah holiday last Friday was good, because it helped to show me how important family is. Ever since my dad died, my family has been close to begin with. Being at that BBQ, I understood that family was an important part of who I am, and that not having a close family would be very hard on me.

The second was a sense of adventure. You see, I've never lived outside of the valley. Any time I've moved, I've been within a thirty minute drive of the hospital I was born at. This is the chance to do something unpredictable and new, and a chance to step outside of my comfort zone and experience life somewhere where you haven't walked the streets since you were a kid. It's the grand tradition of the country boy going to the city, except in this case, it's the city boy moving out to the much smaller city in the middle of the desert. It'll be new, and frightening, and I won't know anybody. It might be great. It could also be terrible. Worst case scenario, I come back in a couple years with my tail between my legs.

Still, it doesn't soften the blow. I'm leaving my friends, be they new or childhood. It's a scary place to be in. The plus side, however, is this: you guys can totally come visit me in the desert. We're either really close to some outdoorsy natural wonders or we're an hour and a half outside of Las Vegas, whichever is more comforting and exciting to you. Besides, I'm not really going anywhere. I'll keep up the blog. The Mustache Emporium will be relocating with me. The only difference is, you won't be able to see my sweet, shining face in person. The moving date is currently scheduled to be Friday the 7th, if all goes well, although it may go into the week after that.

Hopefully this will all work out. I've always made the safe decisions, and it's treated me well thus far. It's about time to make the unsafe decision; to roll the dice and let the chips fall where they may.

Heaven help me, I'm ready for an adventure.

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One again, Nedroid is both timely and close to home.

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Music is awesome. Movies are awesome. When movies and music have a baby? It's usually the most awesome stuff of all.

Someone, somehow, got Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page in the same room and told them to talk about music. And it will be majestic.

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Note to aspiring musicians -- wearing this shirt on stage makes everything you play sound better.


Buy six of these and wear them every day but Sunday. Just kidding. Wear one on Sunday too.

Boys/Girls

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If you weren't completely sold on the game yet, hopefully this will do it.

Personally, I think it looks unbelievable, even if it is the 'same old music games'.

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So I had a couple hours downtime tonight.

Meet Hipster Dolphin.


You could probably get him on a shirt or something.

Boys 1 | Boys 2 | Girls 1 | Girls 2

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So I've spent the last ten hours in excruciating pain.

Ever since dinner last night, I've been running hot and cold. I haven't felt particularly well this entire week, but I'm a manly man with a job that depends on me, so I've been bucking it up. For some reason, though, I've had crippling stomach pains for about ten hours now. I fell asleep last night sitting upright in an easy chair in my pajamas, waiting for my stomach to stop hurting. Now I wake up this morning, stretch and lean forward, and my stomach made this ungodly 'Bluuuuurgggg' noise. It still hurts, but now I'm tired and sore from falling asleep in a chair. I'm either sweating profusely or have the chills, and my breathing's kinda fast. It feels like the flu, but I don't need to vomit. I just don't feel great, like, at all.

As my own psychologist, I'd say this is probably stress related. I don't feel stressy, but I really am, especially considering all the stuff happening around me.

Remember when I mentioned St. George? Yeah, my family's moving down there in, like, three weeks apparently. From what I can gather, I'll have the house to myself until it's sold, at which point I need to colloquially poop or get off the toilet, so to speak. Do I stay where I am, with a job I love, but having to rent a place with a roommate or live in my Grandma's basement? Do I move with them and get to live in a disgustingly big house (i.e. 6k square feet) but without a job that might be my favorite thing currently going for me? I wish it was that simple. After my dad died, we became an even more tight-knit family. We basically take care of ourselves. I can't imagine living four hours away from them, but at the same time, I can't imagine quitting a job that I love. Absolutely love.

I can see why I'm stressed.

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It's started to turn into a running tradition at work that any time a stupid tee-shirt idea gets mentioned in passing, I'll inevitably draw it in Illustrator so I can send it to everyone on Facebook and we can all guffaw at it.

Well, now you, yes, YOU can have the benefit of all this wasted, misappropriated time!


Over at Printfection, I've got a tee-shirt shop. I'd usually put this stuff on CafePress or Zazzle, but Printfection does a much better job printing onto the shirts, and they seem to last longer. Anyway, I have a shop there, called Totally Rocking, and you should go there and buy some awful shirts. I'm not looking to get rich in any way, but I wouldn't mind seeing someone somewhere wearing one of these shirts. There's something for everyone, be you a gross basement dweller or a well-shaved basement dweller. Go check it out, now! And if you don't, it won't hurt my feelings, I promise.

OK, it will. Not really, though.

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Well, it's Monday morning and I'm back safe. Decent flight back, other than, oh, OUR PLANE ALMOST CRASHED.

No hyperbole. No joke. Our plane totally almost crashed.

Descending into Salt Lake, we hit some heavy turbulence. It sucked, because it was a clear day and looked fine outside, but whatever. So we're maybe 1,000 feet up (close enough to see people on the ground) when our plane suddenly goes up sharply. I was sitting above the wing, so I looked out the window, and no joke, we suddenly went up at like 120 degrees. All of a sudden, we're going back down, the nose at 45 degrees. Honest to goodness, we were almost looking sideways at the ground. Everyone in the cabin screamed, and we rocketed down for a couple seconds before we hard corrected and went level again.


I'm terrified of flying. I don't know when I'm going to board an airplane again. Awesome work, Delta.

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As an added bonus, I have this charming video of the crazy bush hobo of Fisherman's Wharf. Both Justin and Sarah had told me to watch out for this homeless guy who hides behind his portable bush and jumps out at people. What I hadn't guessed was that it'd actually be really easy to find him!

Here he is in all his glory, filmed yesterday. I saw him on the Wharf today hiding in a cardboard box and jumping out at people. He didn't ask for any money; he was just doing it for giggles.

Godspeed you, crazy hobo!

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Thus far today we've hit up Chinatown, Amoeba Music and the Wax Museum down by the Wharf.


Chinatown was neat. I've already been, but nobody else had, so it was a fun experience for them. Unfortunately, nobody in my family seemed to care when I had helpful tips, such as 'Don't buy something from the first place you see it because every store sells the same thing'. Had they listened to Austin, they would have saved an average of 33%! I know, because I looked at the receipt.

After that, we headed to my favorite music store in the world, Amoeba Music.


I used this as an opportunity to score a sweet tee-shirt, and some CDs. I got physical copies of both the Be Your Own Pet albums and two of their EPs, both albums from White Rabbits and Jack's Mannequin's latest album. I also picked up a 'Music From The OC' CD, which prompted this really long, fart sniffing lecture from the cashier. The guy, in full douchebag record store tradition, informed me that I was 'an idiot' because, in his words, compilations are like buying milkshakes from McDonalds; you're an idiot because you could just buy the ingredients (i.e. individual tracks or CDs) and make it yourself. I had to hear about this, I kid you not, for a solid three minutes while the cashier next to him nodded in agreement. What he didn't notice was that the CD was a bunch of covers by various bands that were only released on that disc. Had he stopped sniffing his farts for a second, he might have picked up on that. That's my problem with Amoeba, and the Yelp! reviews seem to confirm it. The interview process for cashiers has to include the question, 'Are you a hipster douchebag?', and most likely, 'Are you cool with telling customers they're idiots?'. Amoeba is an awesome record store, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but come on. You're an independent store selling stuff I could get on iTunes for just as cheap; at least TRY to pretend like you don't despise every fiber of my being for being there. Ah well, that's half the charm of shopping at Amoeba... it's the closest thing to Empire Records that could possibly exist and still remain viable. I will admit, I was a little disappointed they didn't have any of the vinyl I was looking for, but they still had a killer selection, and they're still painfully hip (even if I am six piercings shy of the average). I had on a tee advertising a diner, though, doesn't that make me even a little San Francisco hip?

Yeah, not really.

After that, we headed to the Wax Museum down by the Wharf. It was OK. Here's a picture of me threatening to punch Mussolini.


Also sad was this, the guest book at the end of the museum. Wonderful state of affairs, America.


Awsm!

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Holy crap, awesome! We just got back from the Giants game, which was historic (and I mean that literally). But let's start at the beginning.


We showed up at AT&T Park. We had unbelievable seats (i.e. Row 25 behind first), and got ready for the get-down.



Anyway, that's cool, but let's talk about the real awesome stuff. Jonathan Sánchez.

So Sánchez threw a no-hitter tonight. It was almost a perfect game, except for a single error. That's OK for me, though, because I won't complain about an awesome no-hitter. It was the fifth no-hitter in Giants history, and the first since 1976. Being there, with one of my favorite teams, and seeing such an unbelievable game? I couldn't ask for more.


I knew what was goin' down, so I recorded the last batter in the ninth inning and ended up capturing the last pitch of Sánchez's no hitter. Check it out, live from the stands. We had awesome seats, so we were right in the thick of the celebrating.

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Today has been super exiting thus far. First, we woke up early and headed over to the ferry to take us to Alcatraz.


The view from the boat was pretty nice. You got a really good view of the entire city from the boat ride out there. As you approached, you saw this intimidating bad boy:


Alcatraz is really neat, actually. I was expecting it to be kinda cool, but it ended up being wicked sweet. Something I didn't know, apparently walking from the top of the island to the prison building is the equivalent of walking up a 13 story building. Impressive!

Anyway, there was a lot of walking. I took some awesome panoramas in the event that you've never been and are interested in shaky amateurish camera work.



I was having a good time! Fun factiod about that picture, I'm staring into about 30 MPH wind; guess that explains the squint. You'll also notice I'm carrying the camera. It turns out I'm pretty much the only capable photographer in the family, so I ended up taking all the photos. I can't transfer them until I get home, so I don't have 'em. I'll stick 'em on Flickr later.


So this is what the cells in Alcatraz look like. Preeeetty crazy. I'd hate to be trapped in there Papillion-style. There's an awesome photo of me in a solitary confinement cell that I'll have to upload when I get home.


After three hours at The Rock, we had lunch! Chowder in bread bowls!

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Check it out, we made it to the hotel! We're in the room, and it's pretty solid. Good times.



The obvious next possible solution? We passed an In-N-Out, which is RIGHT NEXT TO OUR HOTEL. Holy crap, In-N-Out is awesome. The family had never eaten there(!) so we headed next door for a little late night burger action.

(Side note: As I compose this blog, there was just an earthquake. Holy crap, we're a long way from Kansas!)

Anyway, as I was saying. I demanded the family eat some In-N-Out, because come on, you gotta loves the In-N-Out. I even convinced Kira, the godless heathen semi-hypocrite vegetarian, to have a burger.

(Waitin' on burgers...)

(Ditto, ditto.)

Anyway, our food totally came shortly thereafter, and I took a picture of Kira eating an American institution. That's patriotism, kids! Also, she can no longer claim she doesn't eat meat. The internet clearly has proof to the contrary.

(You just lost all your veggie indie cred, Kira.)

Anyway, it's good to be in San Francisco! Hopefully the vacation ends up being fun.

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So guys, I'm at the Oakland International Airport!



Hey, let's play a quick round of trivia!

What's the worst airport in the world?

Hmm, I know this is a tough one. You're probably thinking of the airport that the Hindenburg took off from. Or that one made up of cardboard boxes. You'd be wrong, though! The worst airport in the world is definitely the Oakland International Airport!

First, what's a good comfort? Coming off the airplane and walking onto shredded carpet. Then you walk up the runway and pass a janitor who PROCEEDS TO FART AS YOU WALK BY. The lights flicker as you head through it. There's half completed construction everywhere.

Oh, and, it takes an additional 25 minutes AFTER you make it to the baggage claim for your bags to show up.

A+ work, Oakland International! Thanks for being a totally awful airport!

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Oh what's that? I'm posting this from 30,000 feet in the air?



Look at me! Even though I hate flying, I look so darn relaxed!

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Yes yes yes yes yes! This just hit my inbox.

Hello! I've got my old spark back, and we will soon have a new CLLCT to fill with wonderful music. It's going to take a while and we'll have to find a new host, but we'll do it. Thank you, everyone, for your support and loyalty to CLLCT. I'll send out a new newsletter once I've gotten something working.

Also, if you've been to cllct.com, you've seen the "mediamail" thing or whatever. **** that ****, that isn't me - the volumedrive people did something to the address. I think I've got it back, but I'm not sure. Just wanted to let everyone know.

much love,
a secret owl

PS i love you guys

Yeeeees!

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As should have been posted on 7/4, but I had no YouTube access.

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Vacation. For many people, it's a relaxing break away from work. For others... well, it's like work, but on the weekend.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me be clear. First and foremost, I am not a layabout who hates fun. I appreciate the cathartic effects of things like mountain climbing and boating, I really do. What I don't understand is using your weekend, the time you have away from work, to do things that look suspiciously like work. I mean, I love my weekends. What I don't love is tightly planning my weekends around a series of vignettes that I aimlessly wander through in pursuit of Monday. I like to kick back and, gasp, relax on my weekends.

So, for this beautiful holiday weekend, I planned to celebrate the things that make this country great. I had some gross horror movies delivered from Netflix and I planned to spend the long holiday reveling in my own pathetic debauchery. It sounded awesome. But fate had other plans for me.

See, my family owns property in central Utah. It's a few dozen acres in the middle of rural farmland where we go and hang out like country folks. Well, they go to hang out. I don't really go anymore for a combination of factors:

• It's dirty and dusty and full of things I'm allergic to
• There's not much to do if you're not Mr. Outdoorsman

Basically, it's a bad combination for me. I'm allergic to everything down there, so I can't breathe, and most of the recreation centers around the idea of driving a motorcycle over some rocks and stuff. Not quite my thing. It was when I was younger, but then the internet and TV and video games made me dull and lazy.



Anyway, total sidetrack, my family spends the 4th in Gunnison, Utah (population 2,394). It's about thirty minutes outside of nowhere and is small enough that you can drive through the main part of the city while holding your breath. As described on their official website, their Fourth of July celebration is their 'main celebration' and comprises just about every aspect of Americana you can imagine. There are fireworks, a big community dinner, a carnival, box car races. This year, they hit the big time and Merrill Osmond (of The Osmond Family) played a few numbers on the Junior High School field.

As you can tell from my familiarity with the proceedings, I somehow always end up going down to the ranch over the Fourth. I always plan to skip it, but somehow I end up being convinced that it'll be fun and I end up down there. This year was no exception. How I got conned into coming on the vacation is a different story, and one that I don't plan on typing up. Rest assured, I ended up packed into the front seat of the Focus, listening to classic rock and headed to the middle of nowhere.

Thursday, July 2nd
We arrive down at the ranch after a rousing two hour drive punctuated by a stop at Burger King and a long discussion as to why I should want to move to St. George. Both were just great; the discussion culminated in the promise of a huge rent-free basement to live in and the Burger King culminated in a stomach ache. Arriving at the property around 8 PM, we had just enough time to vacuum all the dead bugs out of our room and go to bed. I spent the better part of fifteen minutes wrangling a spider from above my bunk bed. The little bugger was lightning fast and did not take kindly to my murder attempts. Ultimately human ingenuity overcame nature's gifts and I busted the little bugger into the Handivac. I hate spiders, SO MUCH.

Friday, July 3rd
Let me break down the relevant events. I woke up in my jeans and tee, had an enormous breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast) and proceeded to do absolutely nothing. I don't have a motorcycle anymore; like the government and the Native Americans, my motorcycle was 'co-op'-ed by my family without my knowledge, so it's not mine anymore. I watched a bunch of 'Psi Factor' on my laptop, pretended to write a script and ate a sandwich. During this process of sandwich eating, I mentioned that I had no pajamas, and a trip to the local Walmart to find some pajamas so I didn't have to wear my dusty clothing all the time. Normally I don't support Walmart, but I really needed PJs, so I made an exception. After a thirty minute drive, one way, I scored these 'handsome' puppies and an ice cream cone before heading home.

Note: Already it sounds like all we do is eat and do outdoorsy stuff. This is an accurate assumption.

We headed back, had spaghetti and waited for it to get dark. Once it did, we headed into Gunnison and watched the fireworks from the lawn of the Junior High School. Here's what it was like!



Saturday, July 4th
I wake up in my new pajamas and realize I forgot the Jonathan Richman concert on the 2nd. I become blinded by rage and take my anger out on some pancakes. There was some futzing around, a skipping of lunch and a spaghetti dinner. I'd pretend like I did something great in-between then, but it's a lie. I spent the day watching reruns of 'Bones' on DVD and blowing my nose. Fun factiod, allergies suck! The kids and my uncles went to the Gunnison parade in the morning, but that was about it for the first half of the day. Once it started getting darker, we had a couple hours before additional fireworks, so we went and saw 'Ice Age 3' at the little independently owned Gunnison theatre. It's adorable, and super vintage. Not 'Ice Age', the theatre. 'Ice Age' was about how you expected.

After that, there were some fireworks over in Manti, a few towns over. Here's what THOSE looked like!



The second video was taken by my niece while I took photographs (about 500 over the course of the trip, which I'm still working through). I promised her that she'd win her 'Junior Internet Reporter' badge for helping out; little did she know, I don't actually have the authority to pass those out! Mua ha ha! She did fine, though. Feel free to mute the sound so you don't have to hear my family and I discuss stuff.

Sunday, July 5th
Packed up after breakfast and drove home. Spent the majority of the day doing those two things. My shoulder hurts from sleeping on it wrong, so I'm writing this with a hot pack while feeling miserable. When I got home, I went to put stuff away in my bathroom and found a couple spiders hanging out near the toilet. Little did THEY know that I got my Spider Wranging merit badge while on vacation, so I made short work of them. We rarely see them around the house, which is a good thing, but I've got a Dirt Devil in case they want to make a scene.

So, it's back to work tomorrow. Did I get a vacation? Not really. I didn't do any of the things I set out to, I didn't get to relax (too dirty) and I feel unsatisfied from my time off. There's always next weeken--

Oh wait, no, I'm going out of town again next weekend for Kira's birthday.

How about the one after tha--

Have to go look at houses in St. George in order to fulfill my end of the 'be open-minded about it' bargain.

I need a vacation from vacations.

By the way, that's a terrible cliche sentence. Sorry about that.

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Judd Apatow's new movie, 'Funny People', is coming out soon. It's got some very positive reviews already, and is probably going to be another huge hit for Apatow. I'm more interested in the marketing campaign, however. It's wicked viral, and is one of the smarter and more interesting campaigns I've seen recently.



The premise is pretty standard: make a bunch of fake websites for people and things in the movie. This level of 'making it real' marketing isn't new; 'Cloverfield' did it too a couple of years ago. What's interesting about this one is the dedication put into doing it.

The main character is the movie is George Simmons, played by Adam Sandler. He's a stand-up comedian who hit it popular, started making some awful movies, and now is an unhappy movie star. George Simmons, the character, has his own website, which is here. It's pretty fantastic. He's got trailers for a few of his fake movies, write-ups and review snippets for the rest, and plenty of pictures of Sandler as Simmons with real actors on film shoots. Here's some of the best posters for fake Simmons movies.




Jason Schwartzman is also in 'Funny People' as the star of an awful NBC sitcom. So what did NBC do? Made a complete NBC.com webpage for the series, 'Yo Teach!'. It's also pretty awesome.

See, this is good marketing. It's funny, ironic and makes me interested to see the movie. Hopefully the movie itself will be as funny as the promo pages for it have been.

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