By the time anyone reads this, Jason and I will be on the road to Indio California for two fun-filled days of more bands than anyone was ever intended to hear in one day.

Coachella.

I’ll try to post some stuff while we’re there, but I promise nothing.

Have a great weekend ya’ll and shoot any comment spammers if they get near the site.

Sean Bonner just made me call this. I suggest you do the same.

William Hung’s Voicemail.

Who’s up for another round of…

Count how many things are wrong with this story.

I watched the news without any sound and here’s what I could gather from the pictures:

Britney Spears has now mastered control of the wind and oceans by sheer will.

It’s nice to see that Saddam has found some honest work since that Brutal Dictator gig didn’t work out.

I see that the networks are still having trouble keeping indecency off during prime time

John Kerry speaking to a group of old people, trying to convince them that Bush is actually responsible for aging.

As usual, Donald Trump is engaged in deep thought. Or he’s sad. Or maybe gassey.

Two days before the Coachella Music Festival and I’ve got work piled up to my, um, chin or something.

That’s why I need you- our loyal readers- to help.

See, we’re staying at the campgounds onsite, and they have posted these silly “rules” on their site.

01. All camping attendees MUST be 18 years of age or older and have a valid I.D.
02. Each camping attendee must have their OWN camping ticket for entrance into their camping area.
03. A camping ticket is NOT GOOD for ENTRANCE into the festival.
04. EACH camping ticket gets a 50 square foot area to pitch a tent and sleep under the stars.
05. Campsites open Friday, April 30th at 6:00pm and closes on Monday, May 3rd at 10:00am with check in open all night on friday and till 2am Sunday morning. (Sat. Night).
06. There will be on-site security at all times as well as first aid stations open 24/7.
07. All camping attendees are subject to search upon entry.
08. Feel free to bring your own food and beverages, but unfortunately there will be NO open fires, gas, charcoal, propane or any other cooking devices allowed.
09. No alcohol, glass containers, weapons, drug paraphernalia or drugs allowed.
10. No animals will be allowed in the campground.
11. Campers may go in & out of their own campground Lot and wristbands will be checked each time upon re-entry (this does not mean in & out of concert venue).
12. Campers are expected to behave in a manner that is courteous to other campers.
13. Noise curfew is 1:00am.
14. No tailgating allowed.
15. Venue is not responsible for any materials misplaced, lost or stolen. It is recommended you don’t bring valuable items or if you do, please lock them in your car for safety.

As you can see, we have a few problems here. These are supposed to be two days of music-y campy goodness. If you have any ideas on ways we could blatantly break the rules find creative solutions to this problem, please post them in the comments.

1. How should we smuggle in some whiskey?
2. How can we covertly operate a propane stove for our french press and burritos?
3. What else might we need to sneak in?

(note: neither of us get tanked. also, between the 100 degree weather and the 14 hour a day line-up, we would prolly die anyway.)

I have tasted the future… and it is good.

A few days ago our coffeemaker broke. I know- I should have told you all but I didn’t want you to panic. I immediately got control of the situation and seized the opportunity to upgrade the Adkins coffee arsenal. You see, in our ascent up the ladder of coffee snobbery, we’ve already acquired makers for Arabic, Vietnamese and Puerto Rican coffee. We’ve also begun buying our beans freshly roasted from a local roaster. But now, after seeing much fuss made over burr grinders at Sean Bonner’s site, we have completed the collection.

Enter the new weapons of mass caffeination:

DeLonghi DCG59 Retro Burr Grinder
Bodum Santos Vacuum Coffeemaker
Bodum Eileen 3-Piece Coffee Press Gift Set

I’ve actually been looking into these things for a while; I just had to wait for the coffeemaker to slip into oblivion before I could make my move. And let me tell you- it is much more than worth it. Combined, they don’t even cost as much as a nice auto-drip, but they put out coffee that’s ten times better.

I’ll geek out with you later on why they make a better cup o’ joe, but all you need to know right now is it tastes freakin awesome.

A while back, when “best Week Ever” started, I turned to Heidi and said, “theres a blog.” They’re just doing what bloggers are doing- a ton of short snippets of opinions on whatever is popular. The MTVerse has always been rabid over imitating the latest media trends with their shows, and it just looked to me like they had jumped on the blogwagon.

Of course, I had no idea it came with it’s very own blog, too.

Fast company Article.

I was reading a post ofer at Adam Curry’s blog titled, Google’s Destiny is History. He’s referencing a few other guys in saying that Google is going to come out with a new aggregator and gonna try to force us all to switch to ATOM instead of RSS for syndication.

Now, I’ve always liked Google. They’ve done an impressive job not only surviving the bubble, but building a solid business. But I agree- there needs to be more of a sense of collaboration in this whole syndication thing. Competition is good, but not at the expense of your customers. When you all come out with different standards, we’ll have to pick them all. IM lately?

Well, I hope that this whole thing ends well, ’cause I don’t have the time to figure it all out. Me likes my aggregator and that’s about as deep as I want to get.

I just got the word on my 10 year high school reunion. I’m not going too far into how weird that’s going to be.

Anyway, it’s going to be around Thanksgiving. What the crap is that about? Thanksgiving. I thought these things took place in the summer. Apparently it has to do with people being in town already. Oh well- I was hoping to catch up with old friends and finally show Heidi what the beach is like in the summertime.

Anyone else go to their reunion? Was it in the summer, or placed right smack in the same weekend of some lame holiday?

(note: anyone know what movie I got the title of the post from?)

Four more days till we drive out to the Coachella music festival. Drool over the lineup for a minute. The Cure, The Pixies, Radiohead… hello. My boys Wilco had to back out over a bout with pills, but oh well.

I soooo can’t wait. Camping with my best friend at perhaps the phattest concert I’ve ever been to. Good times. Of course there will be updates from teh concert too. Do contain your excitement.

I got the latest edition of Entertaiment Weekly yesterday and noticed something startling.

Toby Maguire looks like a pretty version of K.D. Lang.

I don’t know if it’s all the make-up they put on him, or if it’d been there all along- but the resemblance is striking. Don’t believe me?

See here.
And here. (best)

It’s freaking me out, man.

here’s a neato little tool I saw on Tech TV today when I should have been writing up case studys. For all you with websites out there trying to pick the right colors for your next skin:

pixy.cz

They’ve got this color wheel where you can see what colors go together to make your site look snazzy. It’ll do monochrome or complex colorschemes, you just pick the background color and it goes to work. Try messing with the brightness and contrast too. Cool thing too, it gives you the hex for each color so you can just cut and paste.

Here’s something I’ve become convinced of lately.

People have become much more ballsy brazen, but not necessarily smarter. We gripe and moan about everything, and we tout how smart we are since we’ve poked around about politics and current affairs. But when it comes down to it, no matter how smart people try to look, whether they are conservative or liberal, most people still don’t really know jack. Why? Because they don’t bother to look at the other side.

I was required to do a police ride-along yesterday for a program I’m in with the Chamber of Commerce, hence the post I left: (I’m at the police station to do a ride-along. I chose Friday night with the gang unit cause i heard it was the most ”exciting”. more details to follow.)

The Ride-along was a blast. It’s like living an episode of COPS. I got to get out of the car and go with him do do everything. I was there as he busted some wanna-be gang-bangers, sped down city streets with the sirens on, and a bunch of other stuff. He arrested somebody for embezzlement and stopped by the house of some kid whose mom just couldn’t control him any more and drove by one of the local high school hangouts and watched ‘em skitter like roaches. Much fun when you’re no longer the roach.

The embezzlement one was definitely fodder for a story in the future. It seemed more like we were in a Christopher Guest movie.

The cop i rode with was great- he loves his job, he’s good with people and he’s very common sense. He pulled several people over for different violations, but didn’t write any tickets. What was funny, tho, was that every single one of them had the nerve to give him crap for pulling them over and tried to talk smack- thus almost making him give a ticket when he didn’t plan on it. I think that’s how most people are nowadays.

A few things I learned form the ride-along:

• Some cops really don’t want to give you a ticket, so just chill out.

• Police cars can speed without the siren on. They need to get to their call quickly, and are allowed to use their own judgment on how fast they need to be going and what rules to break.
• They’re not supposed to use the lights and sirens very often. It can actually be a hazard because most people get all freaked out, so most likely the cop will haul butt without the siren.
• They’ve got a job to do just like everyone else. All the cops I met were cool, and they have to deal with all the same bureaucratic crap that anyone working at a large corporation does. Just they get to bring a shotgun with them to work.

Bad Idea Boy in “Human Target” Check it.

Thanks to js for the heads up.

Man, my comics are getting all serious and stuffs. BD in Doonesbury lost his leg in the war, and Get Fuzzy’s Peter is visiting a cousin who lost his also.

Doonesbury
Get Fuzzy

Now, BD’s leg was hard to take. He’s been around quite a while and you just get a sense of loss and everything. He’s almost a real person. Trudeau is great at blending real life and politics with characters we not only relate to but have grown to love.

But Get Fuzzy? What’s he trying to do? I’m half expecting to see Garfield’s Opie fall to a stray drive-by or something. I’m prolly going to be accused of trying to censor the truth, but I’m really not used to Get Fuzzy being so sad. It’s kind of creepy. Last week they’re talking about dancing hairballs or something and this weeks it’s all, “off with your leg!” I dunno, man. Bring back the happy-go-fuzzy comic I remember before Dilbert gets called for reservist duty and we lose him forever.

“As you get older, you tend to have less- but better- friends.”

Heard that on the radio, and it sounded new. Of course I’ve heard it a million times, but it means a little something different to me in my late twenties. In highschool I had very few friends. Not by choice per se, I just wasn’t well liked. Then all the sudden that pool increased exponentially in my senior year. Nothing creates quick shallow friendships like the introduciton of drugs and alchohol.

Then I moved away, went to college and stuffs, and got a whole new bunch o’friends- and at times all the drama of a novela.

Now, having married and moved away, I look at my friendships in a more guarded way. The difference I believe is that I’ve realized I don’t have to be friends with everyone.

If you are the kind of person who drags people down for sport, we won’t hang long. If your life requires a constant near-lethal dose of drama, let’s stick to email. Lastly, if you just don’t value people- and that shows up in so many ways- I’m not willing to be your friend. I won’t make excuses for you. I won’t put up with your abuse. I just don’t have the time- we only get one go of this.

I like people. I love having friends and enjoying life with other people. Heck, I don’t go to the DMV with out inviting someone. People are a blast. Just, we all have the right to decide who to hang with and who not. People need to excercise it more. Brats are only brats because they’re allowed to be.

I think the best thing you can do sometimes is not be a friend. Some people need it. Maybe they get the picture, maybe they don’t. It’s not really your responsibility, and unless you are a trained therapist you’ll probably never help them if you do stick around.

You just go be a good friend to another good friend. It’s simple and obvious, but I think more people need to hear that it’s their choice to make.

Then you may want to place a bid on this.

Hello! There is justice in the world. I just might be able to catch DD in the theater. In case you missed it, I loved this movie on dvd.

Thanks go to Mac for the heads-up on this one.

Found a new site today: The Sneeze.

Its mad funny (consistantly) and they’ve got some interviews with the cast and crew of my favorite movie of all time, Better Off Dead. I don’t know if any one thing has influenced my life more than that film.