So tired. So very very tired. I was just sittin on the couch, chillin and suddenly it was time for bed. I must have dropped off for a second. I think I was dreaming about monster beetles from hell itself. There was even a moment near a Lake of Blood or something. Freaky.

Hail is formed when water molecules travel up and down within the wind currents of very tall clouds. Those stormclouds often produce lightning and thunder, but it's a rare thing here in SF. In the mid-West and South stormclouds can become supercells which can generate tornados.

Sleet happens when rain falls into a region of cold air.

Hail is much cooler. And it's been hailing quite a bit around here recently. Last night featured a few nice bolts of lightning and some excellent thunder. There was a minor quake in Berkeley on Friday, and then a few microquake aftershocks. It's been strange weather, if you can call the movement of the earth 'weather'. Of course then there's also 'earthquake weather', which clearly doesn't exist. Yet somehow, animals seem to be able to detect a coming quake before humans. Go figure.

I use Intellicast for the weather, mostly. I've also enjoyed Weatherbonk and Wunderground. The fact is, I'm secretly a weather geek. Or maybe not so secretly, really.

Alright, I'm off to take the temperature. Of my wine.

Ahh Monday. The Gem of the Week. The glorious day when we can stop being lazy and drunk and get back to work, get back to money-makin, get back to early wakeups and early bedtimes. Um, yeah. Awesome. Go Monday. No seriously, get out of here. I'm kidding about all of the above. You suck!

Except of course for tonight's television schedule. That's the one shining facet of an otherwise dreary, rainy, cold, winter Monday. (Tahoe got 5 feet of snow this weekend. SF has had rain. That's winter in these parts.) 24 is on, as is Heroes, and it turns out that (via birthday bro Mark) melissa's cousin billy is on the black donnelly's tonight on nbc, 10 pm est. he is a co-star and one of 4 irish brothers growing up in NYC. Check it out!

Florida was fantasic. Ate at Joe's Stone Crabs. Ridiculicious. Hit some golfballs far better than any of us expected. Lu's parent's were impressed with our 'natural swing' (or so they said:-) and I even got a few of those fuckers to sail straight and far. It was every time I sorta forgot what I was supposed to be doing that I hitit the best. It was annoying that we had 10 hours of travel home instead of just 5 like on our orginal Jetblue flight, but the 2 free roundtrip vouches are going to come in very handy. I also got the dreaded 'last seat' on the plane, which didn't tilt back, so I was nearly crushed to death when the person in front of me decided to sleep. She was cool about it though and tilted forward.

Alright let's see what I've managed to gather recently.

First off are some amazing ariel photographs. Many of them are by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and they're amazing.

Oh and don't even get started with Virus 2. Easy, awesome puzzle game that will steal a night from ya. I'm serious. Don't even click on it. You're done.

I've also got... ah fuckit. No one's here anyway anymore. Everyone's playing Virus 2. (Like I'm about to.) But first I need a beer.

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY MARK! I hope you rock it.

Tonight we celebrate a travel miracle, and a travel tragedy. The tragedy is that our flight to Florida was cancelled. Just like that, JetBlue gave us the ole shaftarooni and forced us to push our trip back a day.

The miracle, however, was amazing and wonderful. It was performed by Roberta, Lu's Mom, from approximately 3053 miles away. Her timing was beyond perfect, beyond impeccable. It was divine. It was praiseworthy. It was in every sense of the word perfect.

The door was open. The front door of our apartment was open and I may have even had a foot out the door, wheelie-bag spry and proper at my heel, when Lu's phone rang.

Seconds before that, I asked Lu, "you ready for travel-mode?" "You bet," she replied.

Lu's mom asked us when we were leaving. "We're literally walking out the door," Lu replied. Did we check our flight status, Roberta asked. We hadn't, so we paused to see what the interwebs could tell us. A mere formality, we figured. We could not have been more wrong.

Cancelled, the website told us, and 50 minutes of hold music later, so did the harried, defeated, deflated woman at JetBlue customer disservice confirm.

We're going nowhere but to the couch tonight and it sucks that we can't leave until tomorrow. But what would have sucked even more would have been to travel MUNI and BART all the way to Oakland, only to find out that we were going no where, fast.

Scott was up north in Maine on a snowmobile and he snapped a pic that's both edgy and cool. Cool because of the snow and temperature. Edgy because of the ways in which those trees were brought down. Those were the criteria I gave to him: edgy and cool. And that to the right is what he sent back to me. I'm not sure he even realized how right on and oblique that image is, to what I asked him for. It works perfectly, though and I hope you enjoy it.

These images appear to be profoundly dirty. I dare you to click around and see what you find.

And I had no idea that manta rays ever exhibited this kind of behaviour. Ahh, YouTube is there anything you can't illuminate?

Last bit is a reminder, pure and simple. Ropeadope Digital is now open. Get your musical goodies there and don't make me tell you again!

A mini-spring has sprung in SF and not a moment too soon. However, a part of me still wishes I was in the midst of a 2 day blizzard in some brownstone in Boston. At least until the snow stops and it's diggin time. Not such a fan of that. Or 2 days later when the city is still fucked and an already tight parking situation is further compromised by large piles of dirty snow at every corner and curb. However, holing up for a few days as the city is cloaked and quieted is a rather wonderful and sublime experience. It was so fun to watch the radar as the front moved in, see the band of 'mix' cross, and hear the sleet turn to blustery snow and know right then and there that there was no way we were going anywhere for a good, long, cozy while. I wonder where 'dying of cold weather' would fall on this chart.

Things can get pretty hairy in the city when the wind is whipping, the streets are frozen and eyeballs solidify in a mere twelve seconds of exposure. Still, it's important to keep the wheels of society greased, and these tips for getting by politely and correctly in NYC are spot on. And they don't just apply there. Many of these are universal! And since we're on NYC, please be sure you're checking Overheard In New York at least twice a week, if not more. There is gold there people. Gold!!

Here's a game to get you through a bit of Thursday. Here's a safe to keep your valuables in, that a thief will never, ever touch. Even if the thief knows about this he still won't ever go there. Here is Enzodude. And here are the many mug shots of Henry Earl. Those last two I found on this great wiki page of 'internet phenomena'. That should keep ya occupied for a while!

Gonna try and dream of snow tonight but even if I do, there won't be anything to shovel. I hope all you easties stay warm and have a nice big mug of hot cocoa with Bailey's tomorrow morning when you wake up and all the big cities are shut down with a snow day. We don't get those here in SF, and the only natural event that could stop this city in its tracks is one we never want to happen. I'll take a blizzard any day.

Great weekend! Spent Saturday in a mad-dash scavenger hunt through the city of SF. We were Scavenger Tribe Sector 4 and we rocked it. Didn't win and missed "first loser" by 1 point, but we had a damn good time, didn't get hurt, didn't get any tickets and didn't damage the car at all. Good stuff. The same couldn't be said for everyone. Infighting, injuries and accidents plagued the others, whereas our faults were inefficient time-use and some important missed opportunities. Next time a few more hours would be nice to ratchet down the stress a bit, but overall it was a fantastic, albeit rainy day. Ours was a fun SF-centric hunt, but there are a ton of 'net resources out there to help you plan your own. This one takes 3 weeks and a trip around the world.

Or, on the weekend of June 9-10 you've got BATH 3. It also takes place in and around SF, but the only instructions so far are "bring a tent and a sleeping bag." BATH 3 is really more of a treasure hunt than an actual scavenger hunt, the difference being a scavenger hunt is where there's a whole bunch of clues/items to procure and you race around trying to gather them. With a treasure hunt, each clue needs to the next with an ultimate treasure waiting at the end for the winning team.

Then you've got the even more cryptic "Game" where you don't really even know what's going on. No More Secrets is of that variety. And the more I'm reading about these events, the more I want to participate! It's daunting, though. Am I smart/capable/valuable enough to figure out what the fuck is going on? I'd like to think so, but this would be a surefire way to put it to the test.

Our event on Saturday was of modest proportions compared to the full-scale insanity that is The Game, (inspired by the movie of the same name) but it was an awesome birthday party for our friend Cathy. That it all ended at a bar with the captured pictures displayed up on the wall to determine the winners made it a fantastically hilarious day.

Sunday Lu and I worked hard on SE Asia trip video footage. Even went to a class at the Apple store for iMovie. Definitely learned a few good tips, but we'd figured out most of it just using it, which is a testament to its intuitive controls. We're going to have some video up really soon, I promise! That trip was like a scavenger hunt, too, but for our souls and with big things like Angkor Wat as a prize.

Rainy rainy February has begun but it's all good because, that's right, it's Strong Beer Month. Magnolia and the 21st Amendment are doing what they can to keep us warm and snuggly for this winterish month, so the least we can do is go help. (hat tip to Shack and Seth for reminding me daily: "hey, it's strong beer month.") They are so right.

Since we're on the topic, let's just get this all done with right away.

Toronado. Barley Wine Festival. Starts February 17. It *only goes* until February 24th. But you shouldn't go to it. It sucks. To crowded, mean bartenders. Wolves in the back room. Don't even look back there. Dank and dark and nasty and loud. Smells like stale hops and farts all the time and seriously, who wants to drink beer that was left to rot in bourbon casts? Forget I even mentioned it.

Then there's the Boonville Beerfest on May 5th. There's camping around the site and it's my birthday that weekend, so what the hell else am I supposed to do? You are invited. Everyone that reads this, you are invited to my birthday to drink the sweet nectar of 55 magnificent breweries and then camp under the stars around your cars with a whole bunch of other happy beer fools. Last year I tried to stick to IPAs because they are my favorite. Maybe this year I'll stick only to double IPAs. Either way, you should be there.

All right! Winter's finally rolling in a little bit. Rain on the way but the sad part is it won't even get cold enough to give Tahoe the load it needs. I'm eager to snowboard. I just want to wait until there's some action on the mountain before we make the trek north. Instead, we're going south and east, soon. FL with the folks and it's sure to be a hoot.

It was so great, the other day I decided I would give golf a try and go out for a round with Lu's dad. We thought he would be psyched to spend an afternoon with the new son-in-law. Lu then decided that she'd give it a try, too, since Mom's a golfer as well. The four of us would have fun, we thought! But of course, the first thing they say to us when we're talking to them on the phone about the upcoming trip... the first thing her dad says when we bring up playing a round is just so perfect it makes us laugh out loud. He says, "Well, we'll take you to the driving range first and we'll see how you do."

If you don't suck we'll take you out in public. Maybe.

I wonder what he's going to think when I whip out a sixer and toss him a bottle. He just might plotz!

Alright onward. The net is fucking weird today. The whole astronaut in a diaper, wig and trenchcoat racing 900 miles across the US of A with pepper spray and a BB gun to confront a rival lover seems to have put a weird spell on all the tubes. I can see Google kinda shaking itself sorting the links reading along at lightspeed, going Whaa? What? Were you feeling stupid? What the fuck is wrong with these so-called people?

This is rather nutty, too. It is a first hand account about a Yakuza war that's just started in Japan. Meantime there was a little internet battle waged this morning. I think it might still be affecting things, or perhaps a new assault. All the big sites seem sluggish or something. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's all me! Maybe the net isn't weird today at all and that's just the way I'm perceiving it. Could be. It's better than being a crazy dog, though. That's for sure.

Last bits: Trey's got some splaining to do in NY tomorrow. Not Whitehall, though. This looks like a lot more fun. Also, new site just opened. Get an account, fast, before your username is taken. But don't worry you get free, unlimited account editing. Fucking sweet. Alright, later. And stay dry.

I have a big problem. I'm a person who loves to write, but I'm also a person that loves to do a whole lot of other things, too. I love to hang out with friends. I love to have or go to dinner parties, be they with 2 others or 10 others. I love to chill at my favorite bar and read the paper, all alone. I love to go to wine country with my wife and friends. I love to ride my bike through the park, to see music, to stroll through SF as the sun sets and the light goes crimson-gold against the street and buildings, to read books, to work on the copious amounts of raw footage I have to edit, and all of that cuts into the time I have to sit here and write. But if I don't write, I get edgy, grumpy, agitated and unsettled, all rolled into one.

I have a feeling the most successful writers love to write more than just about anything else, and that's just not me. And sometimes that results in weeks where I just don't write much at all. Which brings up another problem: the self-disgust that comes when I don't write as much as I'd like to. Oh Paradox, is there anything you can't make more complicated!!??

Enough bitching, though. It's time to get the job done and give you what you've been so patiently waiting for: links.

The climate crisis has hit the bigtime and this mug is a great way to remind yourself that basically, we're screwed, and even worse, we screwed ourselves.

In the meantime, though it's important to have fun. However, this site just might cause more problems than it is worth. Use with caution. I can see my oldest friend Matt snickering with glee over these ridiculous and dangerous ideas. He was always the one that figured out a way to combine substances for explosive results. And just recently, he got engaged! Congrats Matt! And I hope your fiance never sees the above site in your history bar. It would explain too much. He also always liked engines, so this one's for you too, buddy. And you'll probably dig this little site about gravity as well.

Lastly, check out this photo of 3 awesome things in the sky off of the coast of Austrialia.

And I'm telling you right now that I'm going to work through my above problems and have all kinds of good shit for ya for this week, the next, the one after that and many more beyond that. Sometimes I need a break to recharge, but I will never stop writing. If I do for any long period of time, it means I've got serious problems far beyond the usual ones like life, fun, friends and books.