Merry Christmas.....



....minor Christmas miracle here in The Hills of Cedar - it snowed!! Not only does it very very rarely snow here (like, once every two years or less).....but on Christmas! I was getting slightly depressed spending my first Christmas in a place with no snow.........as usual, Portland didn't let me down.....it never does......






.......apparently, my cats don't quite share my enthusiasm!

Have a great Christmas........

-E-

Fucking Bills.......

Ya know....whilst JP Losman hasn't shown me much to impress me at all this year, I have indeed said it weeks ago - Trent Edwards is NOT the future of this team at Quarterback......

...and I've said it right here a year ago - The Skull Zombie is NOT the future of this Bills club at coach!! MAYBE as an extra in "28 Days Later" or "I Am Legend".....well.....OK, then, but otherwise.......

Speaking of "I Am Legend" and the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" and such......remember zombie flicks BEFORE 2000??? Like, BEFORE filmmakers got the brilliant idea of "Hmmmm.....ya know?? WHAT IF we, say, had these zombies actually be physically capable of running, you know, just like normal human beings??? Ya think that'd throw an extra scare at the audience??"

I mean, fuck, just HOW did the zombies catch ANYBODY in the first three "____ of the Dead" George A. Romero flicks???? THAT is a question to ponder.......

On to something other than the Buffalo Bills offensive unit that will make you laff.....

Saw this on the news recently.....surprised to see that in a suburb of a town as conservative as Seattle (well, OK....not conservative.....but serious faux leftists who sit on their arse and whine about that state of the poor whilst drinking their $9.00 latte-mocha-cappuccino-espresso whatever).....seriously! Surprised that it hasn't been vandalised yet......personally, I could not agree more with this guy.....and, despising materialism, I generally try to avoid both giving and accepting unsolicited Christmas gifts........so, yeah.....I'm not a huge fan of the holidays.....

Was actually trying to clean my dump today (no, really....I am a severe slob....and I am very seldom home.....but enuff for excuses) and I was just really trying to thin shit out!!!

Well, ya ever start at that point where you dive in so head-first.....so strong-willed.....so ready to take on anything?? So, you're sitting there, clearing out shit and deciding if you really want to keep it.....if you really actually need it or will need it within the next six months......or whether or not it has sentimental value (like, a gift from a family member, or a good friend, or that ball of string given to you by a casual acquaintance who just passed on last Arbor Day after fighting a long, tough battle against halitosis and finally succumbed to the dread disease) or if Goodwill really can actually sell it, or whatever.

So after about 30 minutes of sorting all of your shit into piles of "KEEP!" - "MAY need down the road" - "ship off to Goodwill" - and - "Goodwill won't even take this!!", you then accidentally stumble upon theeeeee really neat shit! Like a really cool scrapbook (if you're into that sort of thing) or a box of hundreds of fotograffs taken years ago.....or, in my case, a small stack of VIZ comic books.

And then you get to the point where you've just ignored anything having to do with the task you promised yourself that you'd do today (e.g. - clean the fucking house) and you literally pour over that scrapbook/box of fotograffs/VIZ comic collection without even realising just what the hell you're doing!!!

And then, next thing you know, it's 10PM!!!!!

"Awwwwwww shit!! Aw well, there's always next weekend!!"

Anyways, to make a short story long, I was going through some really old stuff I'd kept over the years, and I found my first chequebook of my first bank account in Denver, back in, like, the early to mid-90's sometime......

......so what????


Well, I remember that for our first order of checks, not only did the bank offer a multitude of various themes that could be printed upon the background of each cheque, but also offered a space for a personal message, a greeting, a thought, etc. of less than 25 characters. Well, feeling rather spiritual that afternoon (this was the morning after about ten pints at a bar in Boulder from the night before, and I swear I was doing shots with God that night), I had decided to go with the religious-themed cheques and pop my own words of spiritual and financial encouragement on the cheques.

I'm sure at one time or another in ALL of our lives, each one of us has gotten down on our knees, clasped our hands together and has uttered these same words to our Lord and Savior......

They fucking actually printed the cheques....thass the funny part.

And finally, I leave you with another YouTube video.......

New Model Army - 51st State

Yeah.....but at least here in the 50 states, we get dental coverage and decent haircuts, Dude!!

But still, seriously.....it's kinda eerie that this vid was made 20 years ago......man, did some people have foresight or what???

I'm taking a road trip next weekend (like, an actual driving one)....I'll try to pop on some pics if I see anything interesing......

Enjoy your Christmas!!!

-E-

Right....so, WHERE was me again?

Oh, right....



Greetings from The Hills of Cedar.....




Well....the few times it's clear, I look out over Downtown Beaverton from this view......

• Man.....somebody has just got to lighten the fuck up!!

I mean, I like RyanAir......I've flown them on several occasions. They're very friendly folk, absurdly cheap (I once had booked a flight from London to Barcelona in 2005 for, literally, $16.74 total round trip) and now they're assisting in raising money for special needs children!

Man, this entire "objectification" rubbish is just getting absurd.....it's like abortion: Against it??? Don't have one, then! Don't like girls in bikinis on calendars??? DON'T BUY IT!

• Spent Thanxgiving flying to Buffalo.

Fun time.....probably had one of thee best steak dinners I've had in a long time (at The Buffalo Chophouse) on Thanksgiving evening, had an amazing time with several different people I really wanted to see and hadn't seen in a long time, didn't run into anyone that I really didn't want to see, and went with my mum to our Nation's casino....and walked out with around one-fiddy more than I walked in there with!

OK.....all right.....so we didn't get a Falls View room, nor a suite this time, but hell....the room was free. And there's nothing like the vista overlooking an abandoned waterslide park and the factories of Niagara Falls, New York!!!!!!

Shit.....very enjoyable trip there!!

....may do it again shortly.....

• HooDoo Guru.....

Continued on a new tradition I created where, in the first weekend of December, I go to HooDoo and go skiing. Franz Klammer or Picabo Street I AIN'T!! Actually, FAR from it.

Actually, this was, like, my fifth time skiing ever......

But still, bunny hill a few times...then a couple SLIGHTLY faster hills....then I'm set. Well.....not this time.....

Stayed at a nearby summer outdoorsey tourist town called Detroit, Oregon in a motel room that was about the size of my closet and about 70 years older! I mean, I'm a huge fan of old historic charm....but this place had neither, history nor charm. But still, it was thee only place within one hour of HooDoo that was less than $139.00 a night! Plus, despite only possessing about 277 souls, this town at least had a pub......plus a very eeeerie feeling of being in the location where they filmed First Blood.....












Cool, so the next morning, I get to the ski hill. It was mellow going alone, 'cause I jus' took my sweeet-ass ole' time on the slopes, and had fun. Usually, I go skiing with a friend, and they tell me to hurry the fuck up and get offa the bunny hill 'cause they wanna go on the quadruple-black-diamond hyper widowmaker cliff jump or some shit like that! No pressure for me this time....again, I was having fun......initially, anyways.....


Just when I was reeeaaallly starting to get into it, I stooopidly decide to go down a run that I'd not been down before that is MARKED as a "green" run, only to discover, once I'm a quarter of the way on it, that it's waaaay steep (by my beginner standards) and really narrow. Cute. It's interesting the conversations you have with yourself during moments like this:

OK....cool...no worries! Make the snowplow/pizza wedge with your skis to stop! Cool....

......ahhhhh.......no. Ain't working. Too steep.....

Errmm....uhhhh.....OK. Well, go ride on the sides of the skis for a turn perpendicular so you can stop! There ya go! Cool.

......ahhhhh.....no. Ain't working. Too narrow. I'm about to plow into a fucking TREE!! And it's coming FAST!!

Ahhh....OK. Well, then....shit, I dunno. Maybe try panicking?


Which I did, and ended up doing a three-and-a-half tuck double somersault with a triple Lutz and a double Salchow to boot that vaguely resembled something on the opening of the 1970's ABC show Wide World of Sports......something about "The agony of defeat"......

So, when I finally stop tumbling, and shortly after I let out what was literally an eardrum-piercing "FUCK!!!!!", I proceed to take an assessment. Seems like my left knee kind of bent in a direction which it was naturally never meant to bend in. And then I saw, before my eyes, in searing bright red letters, the acronym.....

A.C.L.

Man, DID this idea have the word "suck!" written all over it or what....especially now! So, after I was lying in the freshly-dropped powder for five minutes or so, this 13-year-old kid comes screaming by, and does a hyper stop-turn combination about five feet from me that, had I attempted that move, would have put me in the grave.....

"You all right, mister?"

Oh....yeah....yeah....I'm fine....uhhhh....yeah, just taking a breather.....yeah, thass it....bit of a rest......

"You sure? You want me to get the snowmobile?"

OK, now I don't give a damm whether you took just a slight tumble, or instead, you broke your leg in FIVE places and TWO of the points of breakage have parts of your femur poking out THROUGH your skin and one part of your tibia is lying in the snow back up at the top of the run....doesn't matter. Either way......you DO NOT get the snowmobile......

.....sorry. Stupid as that sounds, there is just something totally un-masculine about getting The Snowmobile.

Naw.....naw, I'll be fine...just a bit of rest....and....

"All right. If you're sure......."

OK, I thought to myself....so, I CAN move my knee! All right.....THAT'S a relief.....uhhhh, now HOW am I gonna git down the rest of this ski run??

Apparently, I was a bit TOO much of a Drama Queen, and while my knee felt funny, I could at least walk! So, I just figured, screw this!! I'm just gonna walk down the rest of the Goddamm hill!!!!

Then, I re-figured, screw THIS! Walking's gonna take all Goddamm year to git down there!!

Well, nobody's actually ON this run right now for me to plow into and kill....so it's balls to the walls, I guess.....

.....and I just gunned it down the rest of the run! Wasn't TRYING to gun it, but I had to. I couldn't stop, and the last time I tried to stop, I ended up on the intro to Wide World of Sports!!

Made it down to the base after going real fast, but didn't fall EVEN ONCE! That musta been the consolation prize.


Knee felt kinda weird....so I just walked over to the lodge, turned in my rental skis, and drove back to Portlandia.....

HAD plans for a four-day Christmas trip to the rural mountains of Idaho to go skiing and then soak in hot springs.

Uhhhh.........

.......no.














More soon.....

-E-

Oh......right......


....there's that blog thing that I have.


Greetings from the Hills of Cedar......


View from my balcony which happens to overlook an abandoned mental hospital. Interesting......twice in a two-year time span, I've resided in very close proximity to an abandoned mental hospital....take from that whatever you will....

Whilst I'd been traveling way too much, and wasted time being deathly sick.....still, no excuse for not posting on this thing.....

Went to Albuquerque for a four-day Veteran's Day weekend to visit my best friends. Saw two Haliburton vehicles on two separate occasions and, during one afternoon outing, saw a guy walking his dog....this guy wearing a T-Shirt that said "Blackwater Defense Contractors" on it (knew it was the real deal, 'cause I saw this logo on it):

Emmmmm-Kay......Toto, we ain't in Oregon anymore......

Still, though.....had a fun time. Went Geocaching (private land and barbed wire made that an interesting experience I'd not seen before whilst Geocaching in Portlandia) in a few places, including the New Mexico version of a National Forest. Something really weird about vegetation in the High Desert.....everything is sharp to the touch....EVERY fucking piece or strand of vegetation!!! No canopy whatsoever in these forests......just really bizarre compared to what I'm used to......

Apparently, New Mexico birds don't mind the sharp thingies....






My friends reside in a little bumblefuk town way out in the Eastern high desert of Albuquerque. Or, at least what used to be a little bumblefuk town (it's now rapidly becoming an Albuquerque ex-urb, and my friends refer to it as "....our own little slice of Texas....." [insert bone-dry sarcasm here]). I remember when I first visited them in this town about seven years ago....wasn't quite Mayberry....but it was a simpler place in a simpler time......the main drag leading into and out of town was a simple two-lane road......

.....the developer profiteers saw no reason to set up shop there....

.....and the townsfolk didn't feel a need for Mega-Lo-Mart to come in and build a monstrosity.....even if the folks from Arkansas thought members of the community might cotton to the idea of a Hypermarket in their backyard if they planted a fucking hitching post at the front door to the store (which is actually part of this store's design)!!

Not like they're gonna hafta face any infrastructure issues in a few years or anything like that....especially in the desert......naw.....still, though, it's a beautiful place.

Twilight viewed from my friend's back yard.....

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Now, possessing the unfortunate combination.......

.....of the traits "poe" and "cheap", me is a big fan of the word free. Almost not giving a fuck as to what it is, exactly, that I'm receiving that is indeed free.

In this case, my friend's sister couldn't make a concert....thus, I was nominated to take her place. Now, read the above disclaimer again about my perception of the term "free." "Free" and "concert ticket"? Fuck, I didn't care! I have a rather dubious track record when it comes to this sort of thing, having accepted free tickets to see (on separate occasions, obviously), Lionel Ritchie as well as Ratt!!

OK...OK.....so there was ONE exception: About three weeks ago, a co-worker of mine was trying to git rid of one ticket to Hannah Montana at The Rose Garden that he offered to me gratis!

Errrmmm...............

.......no!

Well, in this instance, it was some bird from London via Sri Lanka who calls herself M.I.A. (which are her initials, Mathangi Arulpragasam). Suffered through the opening act which was some absolutely horseshite two-boy hip-hop rapper group called cool kids that was about as pleasant as watching a duet performed by Ratt and Lionel Ritchie while undergoing a frontal lobe lobotomy with a Black and Decker cordless drill!

This idea was rapidly beginning to have "SUCK!" written alllll over it.......still, though, at the Roseland Theatre, there is the basement room, where anyone over twenty-one could hop down to enjoy a beer and a cigarette, and watch the University of Oregon Ducks football team (complete with Ryan Leaf's brother at Quarterback) piss away their National Championship hopes to the University of Aridzona. Proceeded to do just that and, a few pints later, went back upstairs to join my friend and see this M.I.A. person before planning to duck out early due to having to urgently re-arrange my sock drawer......

.......honestly??

Shocking.

Music didn't suck.....stage presence was great.....not a bad show, actually! Stayed for the whole thing! Pretty much the first free concert I got invited to that DIDN'T suck!

I is off to bed....today, I realised the upside to living on a hilltop in that as I look out down from my bedroom window out over downtown Beaverton, I realise that I'm not going to have any flooding issues unlike the poor souls in the Tualatin Valley.

This makes up for the downside realised last December, when a freak snowstorm dropped two inches of snow in the valleys of Portland and Beaverton and FOUR inches here in the Hills of Cedar (Yeah....big deal!!! Until you realise that Portlandia does NOT possess a fleet of snow removal vehicles....actually, I don't even think it possesses one!). This made life a LOT of fun for me as I tried to get my car with tyres so bald they were showing steel cables on the surface to go up the 12% grade from my garage to my apartment. Needless to say, it didn't make it, and I left it where it lay.

New post in a couple days.....Central Oregon trip, Thanxgiving trip and I'll post a newly recorded song (no video for this one) on here if I can figure out how......

-E-