One night in Lana'i
We got married! It happened one night in Lana'i and I would have told you all sooner, but I wanted to put together this kick-ass slideshow.
Damn the Man!
I looked both ways. No traffic was coming. I saw the hand was red. I crossed. I get to pay $46. Funny thing is that I constantly see people urinating, smoking crack, rolling joints, and defacing property, sometimes all at the same time and I get a ticket for crossing the street so I wouldn't miss my bus. It's ridiculous. The other funny thing, is that I was warned. When I moved to Seattle, people said, "We don't jaywalk in Seattle, the police ticket for that." But I laughed and said, "Don't the police have better things to do with their time?" I now know the answer. I'm thinking of selling the citation on eBay to subsidize the cost I have to pay. Would you pay $50 for a jaywalking ticket from the fine city of Seattle? It just might be a collector's item someday.
Dr. Feelgood: How I learned to stop sleeping and see some live music
As some of you may be aware, it was recently my birthday. I'm assuming it's scant few of you, as I received very few Birthday Cards. No worries however, as Meghan was kind enough to pick up the slack for you lot. She got me tickets to go see the Secret Machines on October 17 and Citizen Cope on October 22. Both shows were at The Showbox and both shows were amazing. If you are not familiar with either of the above mentioned music-makers, you should totally go check them out at their sites. They both stream music so you can listen and get totally hooked.
The only problem with these concerts was that they were on weeknights. And getting home at midnight during the week puts the hurt on you at six the next morning when you are trying to shower, but you can't open your eyes. So needless to say, I've been a zombie, a totally happy, live-music watching, zombie.
These are really the first shows I've been to since moving out here. There was an incident involving Bruce Hornsby, but I've been trying to pretend that never happened. Also, I just got tickets for me and Meghan to go see Death Cab for Cutie when they come through town in December. If they come to your neck of the woods, you should totally check them out as well.
I really loved the Secret Machines. They played "in the round" which meant they set up a stage in the middle of the venue and had the crowd fill in around them on all sides. It was a novel concept, and they rocked it well. Here's a photo from my crappy camera phone of them wailing to one of my favorites, "First Wave Down."
They played almost all of my favorites and really put on a fantastic show. I was disappointed that I didn't get to hear "Nowhere Again." It's awesome. But at least it gives us a reason to go see them again, not that we really needed one. But, that's it for me. I'm pooped.
A Special Announcement
Those of you who have been waiting patiently for a blog post from yours truly for lo these many weeks have one man to thank for getting me off my duff and back to the blog. I have been waiting for something to reinvigorate me and give me a reason to post. So without further ado I would like to thank Mr. Nathaniel Rogers for starting a Web site to feature his fantastic art work. One of my favorites is featured above. It's titled Her Baptism and it's just one of Nate's many fabulous works.
Now, many readers of this blog may already be familiar with Nate from his marvelous Monkey. (I must apologize for calling Monkey a "he" during the Feline Idol proceedings. I am truly sorry.) She is a fine specimen of a feline and is welcome at Buffalo Blog central anytime. Nate is also a regular contributor to the comments section of this blog and knows a good pirate joke when it bites him on the peg leg. He's a great guy (even if he does live in Baltimore) and an even more terrific artist. So go check out his stuff, I know you'll like what you see.
I'm always excited when my friends get on themselves on the Web. Who knows, maybe he'll even put a blog up there on his site. I won't hold my breath, but I will keep my fingers crossed.
In any case, tell Nate you're glad he's got me back at the Buffalo Blog again and give his site a visit: NathanielRogers.com. Also, if any of my other friends out there get their blogs/websites up and running, let me know. I have far too few sites to visit these days.
And the winner is...
No surprises here... the hometown hero comes through in the end and wins the title of "Buffalo Blog's Feline Idol."
It was a hard fought battle across three fronts: Monkey got off to a quick lead, and then Mr. Sandwich put in a bid for first place before Shelby stepped in and carried the lead for the next several days. However, in the clutch, Mr. Sandwich was able to pull in some last-minute votes to pull out the win.
Thanks everyone for playing, but really, did you think Mr. Sandwich could possibly lose? I mean, seriously? And for any doubters, take a look at the final vote count.
In other news, I think Monkey has been leading a double life. Take a look at this video and tell me that isn't our very own beefy-boy climbing ladders to some catchy John Williams beats?
Who will be Buffalo Blog's Feline Idol?
The day has finally come. When three fierce competitors will face off to determine who truly is the cutest cat on the Buffalo Blog. I appreciate everyone's patience while I made this post. I recently had some visitors in town for the week and some people (Parker) took their sweet time getting me some photos of their alleged cat. But, the photos are in. So without further ado, let's move right on to the games:
In the Tabby corner, wearing his fattest trunks, we have the adorable Monkey. His charms include sleeping soundly, pleasing his plumpness, causing trouble, and working part time as a stunt-double for Jabba the Hut. Please give a warm Buffalo Blog welcome to Moooooonnnnkeeeeeey!
Dreaming of gigantic mice...
When he sits around the house, he sits around the house.
Monkey the Hut, King of the (Mouse) Bounty Hunters
And in the lady's corner, wearing mittens and a purple collar we have Shelby. She likes cavorting collarless in her birthday suit, taking long crawls through cardboard tubes, and being treated like the princess she is. Please give a big hello to the spunky, never chunky, white-paw quick-draw, Sheeeeellllllby!
The Princess will see you now
Look into those adorable eyes
"Doesn't this tube look fabulous with me inside?"
In the hometown corner, wearing an all-black velveteen suit is Mr. Sandwich. He likes hunting for bugs, practicing his Kung Fu, snuggling like a sugar bear, and being a Mama's boy. When he's not keeping the humans up, he's napping under the bed and getting locked in the closet. Let's all put our hands (or paws) together for the gentleman brawler, the sultan of suave, the bad boy of Seattle, Miiisteeer Saaaaaandwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiich!!!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...
Cat on a hot tin hotplate
It's always a good time for a nap (except when it's bedtime)
Now you've met our contestants. The choice is in your hands. Who will be Buffalo Blog's Feline Idol? Will it be the mondo-mouser, Monkey? The sultry she-devil, Shelby? Or the mighty-man from meerkat land, Mr. Sandwich? Cast your votes now. This is for all the bragging rights and a year's supply of humble pie to the losers. You may vote once per day, so sharpen those claws and ready your paws, the polls are now open. Votes will be tallied and the winner announced on September 20, 2006. Let's get it on:
Update: The polls have officially closed at 7:35 p.m. PDT.
Meet The Blueberry Muffin Divers
Allow me to introduce you to The Blueberry Muffin Divers, the baddest soccer team in Seattle... and who is that handsome devil in front, on the right-hand-side? Oh, is that me? Well, I guess the secret is out of the bag. Yup, I joined a small-sided soccer league last month and have been knocking the ball around with this rag-tag cadre of footballers and we have a fairly impressive scorecard: 0-3-2. Okay, so maybe it's not that impressive, but it is a ton of fun. We have another game today, and I think we are going to win. I'll let you know how it turns out. But even if we don't, we have the best name in the league. Don't ask how we came up with the name, just appreciate the brilliance.
Summertime and the livin's easy
This brings us to part three of our multi-part series on what I've been up to this summer. As you can tell from the above photo, the weather has been mostly awesome. We've had a bunch of people coming through the area (including Jim, KJ, and Meghan's mom). Above you see Meghan and I with our friend KJ. She was out here in June and we had a ton of fun. We went and did some wine tastings in Woodinville. We were all pretty tipsy by about 11:30 a.m. on a random Thursday, which makes for very easy livin'. The wineries were nothing special, but we still had a great time.
We started at Columbia Winery, which wasn't terribly exciting. We ended up pulling in right behind a tour bus full of octogenarians, which always makes for some interesting people watching. But even with all the old folks, the wine was pretty awful. So we made it disappear and headed off to the next stop: Chateau Ste. Michelle, which was very pretty, but had even worse wine than Columbia. It was only made worse by the worst. wine. tour. ever. You know that smell that emerges from the floorboards of fraternities and package stores when beer and wine spill, but nobody cleans it up? Well, that's your first impression as you enter the bottling area: stinky cheap wine spilled on the floor. All three of us were nauseous within two minutes and ready to leave. Unfortunately there are no exits and the tour drones on for about 30 minutes. I won't even get started on the tour guide, but Ben Stein would have been an improvement. When we saw the exit we made a break for it and escaped just in time to see the tour bus from Columbia pulling into the parking lot. So needless to say, by the time we arrived at our third stop, our expectations were pretty low. But, it turns out Silver Lake has some damn tasty wine. Not to mention that the woman behind the bar had a liberal pour and let us taste about 20 different wines (for those of you not good with reading between the lines: this is where "tipsy" turned into "drunk"). We ended up buying half a case of wine. I was very impressed with their zinfandel and their merlot. If you're in the hood, stop by and pick up a bottle or three. You won't regret it.
On Friday, we headed down to Mt. Rainier where I got the worst sunburn of my life and eventually ended up in the Emergency Room at 1:00 a.m on a Monday morning in pure agony, but that is a story for another day and is probably best told by Meghan who had to put up with my whining and whimpering during the whole ordeal (You'll also notice that the trip to the mountain was on Friday, the trip to the ER was on Monday. Stupid sensitive skin Dove). But anyway, I digress. We had an awesome time at the mountain. It was 80 degrees and we were hiking through 10 feet of snow in shorts. We probably took close to 200 pictures, got an up-close look at a glacier from almost 6,000 feet, and ate a few pounds of trail mix. It was awesome.
During the course of the weekend we probably took about 500 pictures, 50 of which turned out pretty good. I'd love to share them with you, but there is this little problem. I don't know where to upload them. But fear not. I, Austin Dienst, Internet frontiersman, have decided to answer, quite possibly, the single most important question since the dawning of said Internet:
What is the Best Online Photo Service?
I searched high and low (mostly high) to try and find a side-by-side comparison of the various options available, but I found nothing. Nobody to help guide me and my discretionary dollars to a photo service. So, being the self-starter that I am, I decided to find out for myself. I signed up for an account at Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, and Snapfish, plus I turned on the "Order Prints" option from my Flickr account. I uploaded the same six photos to each site and had them shipped to me. I am now impatiently awaiting their delivery so I can share the findings with you and start uploading the huge stash of photos burning a hole in my hard drive. Stay tuned.
He's Mr. Sandwich
Take 5 parts cute, 2 parts hellion, 3 parts kitten, and mix together all night long, non-stop and you will have yourself a perfect Mr. Sandwich.
Who, or what, or how is Mr. Sandwich? He's a 3-month old kitten that Meghan and I adopted two weeks ago and he is pictured above. His name is Mr. Sandwich. Not Reynold or Puss or even Tom. His first name is Mr. and his last name is Sandwich, and I laugh every time I hear or say his name. He's the awesomest. He's the super-cutest kitten in the whole wide world. He's also the largest hell-raiser this side of rockies. Some of his favorite activities include sleeping all day under the bed and staying up all night long to play rock-em-sock-em robots with our noses and feet. I think we've gotten a grand total of 14 hours of sleep in the last two weeks. But you can't stay mad at him, because he's so darn adorable. He's not even four pounds yet, and he's a super-snuggler, and likes to be flipped upside-down and have his belly rubbed. I could go on, but I don't want to say anything too embarrassing just yet.
I'll post more pictures when I can, but he's not one to sit still for more than 6 milliseconds, so most of my shots look like blurry photos of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. But, maybe once I get good at photographing Mr. Sandwich, I'll be ready to take on the hunt for Sasquatch.
Let Your Freak Flags Fly
I'm sure you've come across these badges in your travels on the Web. They have them for RSS feeds, for blogs, for websites, games, even foods and beverages. They are everywhere, but George Taylor McKnight has assembled a collection of most of them. What you may not know is that these little badges are called Antipixel Badges. They are 80 pixels wide by 15 pixels high and all have a 1 pixel border around the outside. They exist to show visitors at a glance who you are, what you like, and why your Live Journal is better than theirs (For more information on how to make your Live Journal better, check out Lore Sjöberg). So, since I don't want to be the only blog that you read that doesn't have a badge for you to slap on your site, I created my own:
It was really easy to do, and I think it came out pretty nice. If you want to make your own, head over to the 80x15 Brilliant Button Maker. Let me know when you have yours and I will add it to my blog. And, if you're looking to add my stylish badge to your page, just paste this code wherever you feel like it:
<a href="http://buffalo.blogs.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://buffalo.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/buffaloblog.png" title="Buffalo Blog" alt="Buffalo Blog" /></a>
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