… not for this weekend, ‘cuz we’ll be gone camping, but these shots were taken the day of the big BBQ blast last month. they’re jus’ some fun shots of the entertainment room which consists of her Xbox, my Playstation3, our Wii, Rock Band (which is in a classification all it’s own) a dartboard, the hottub on the back deck and of course, my beloved wetbar… (collective ‘ahhhhhh’)

the animalz love the area too, since it’s where we do spend a fair amount of our evenings together. plus the long hallway down to my home office has the best wainscoting siding down it’s length (made of solid awesome) that deflects all toy scratches as they bounce down the hall again… and again… and again…

so yah, a few of you have inquired as to what the area looks like. here ya go! now, i’m gonna go mix meh’a'drink!

i had some fun editing these extremely washed out photos with some filters, a threshold adjustment or two, and a color overlay to get some fun effects…. so… enjoy!

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what can i say people, i’m a star wars fan. i love the movies… some better than others, mind you, but overall you could call me a diehard through and through. until now. with a cough, a choke, and a leetle’ *hhyurrrk* sound, i spat up a piece of my soul sunday night after watching the george lucas “i don’t know what else to make” film, “STAR WARS, THE CLONE WARS”

as my chunk of soul lay fwipping & writhing around on the floor, i was swamped with a mixed bag of emotions over what was once a really important and enlightening part of my childhood that had now been stripped to ribbons and left to…well… fwip and writhe around on the floor. i kinda want to punch george lucas in the face and scream, “why oh gads whyyyy?” star wars used to stand for imagination, fun, innocence, a real battle between good and evil and created some of the most iconic figures that are known worldwide! while they’re fun flicks in their own right, the much debated release of the 3 past films, (showing anakin/darth vader’s backstory and downfall) & forever bumping/branding the original trilogy as films 4, 5, 6… lucas has now taken his once fantastical franchise and flushed it down the drain officially with a voilent FWUSH with this weekend’s premiere of his animated crap fest.

i know it was billed as a kids film. i know it was supposed to tell the story between Attack of the Clones and the Revenge of the Sith film (movies 2&3 for any of you who care) i know that there was supposed to be the introduction of some new characters for people to fall in love with. but how can we when everyone knows what’s going to happen? (anakin goes all sithy & darthy, all jedi and padawan get creamed, ben kenobi exiles himself, count dooku loses his head in the 3rd movie, etc. etc. etc.) so why do people care? it created an empty feeling of distance and resounding ‘meh’ during the action sequences and jes’ made me pray for a swift end… let me just skip over the plot gaps and questions this one creates too, eh?

the dialogue? horrid. even offensive to me if you consider the supposed ‘respect’ a young jedi should have toward his/her master as the newly created “ashoka” character began to verbally spar and act ’spunky throughout’ the movie. don’t get me started on the snarky skywalker “skyguy” reference and artoo-deetoo (R2D2) being renamed “artooey” by this malevolent twit further making my skin crawl…

time to backstep now and discuss the animation: cool as shit. i have to say, that i didn’t mind this type of animation for the movie. while statuesque and even even rigid at times, the characters were fun to watch and the movement was still somehow fluid. close-ups of the clone soldiers helmets, fabrics on the jedi, count dookus face and beard and many other things were brilliant fun to see almost “canvas-painted” results that i believe worked in bringing anything star wars to an animated form.

so… will i watch another animated film in the theatres? no way in hell. are there supposedly 2 more coming? yesh. (shoot me now) what remains of the star wars galaxy that george lucas can further destroy? a lot.

so do i recommend this film? while it hurts my soul to put down a star wars film… dear gawd no.

i do, however recommend doing whatever you have to locate and buy these shirts, ‘cuz they’re still MADE OF THREADS CONCEIVED FROM PURE AWESOME. 

… hello to you all. thanks to you all who read and/or made a best wishes note on my last post. those were read on the road during the one and only time i could find a wireless connection at a truckstop somewhere around north dakota or so.

what did i jes’ come back from you ask? well… here’s the nut of the whole past week’s experience. (with a bunch of nuts, i might add) my special gal and me packed up our stuff and drove NON-STOP to michigan for her yearly family reunion. when i wasn’t driving, she was. when one of us wasn’t driving, we were sleeping in the back of the SUV. how’d we manage that? well i’ll tell ya!

i purchased a full-size, 4″ thick tempur-pedic bed insert and lined the back of the vehicle with it. with all seats down, including the passenger side seat laid flat/forward, even a 6′3″ guy like me can lay comfortably! all of our luggage and whatnot was packed/lined along the driver’s side of the car and secured, so it was quite nice! (and needed) the trip was about 44 hours straight due to a unfortunate TomTom GPS error detour in WI, and the trip home was routed better and completed in around 36 hours.  

sooo, i’ll spare you all the details of the week’s madness except a few things. we were able to spend sunday and monday with my gal’s mom and dad in De Tour, MI, then we traveled to Kalkaska to her grandparents home for the reunion of her mother’s family’s side. (did that all make sense?) AMAZING people. warm, friendly, hilarious and genuinely good to be around. they welcomed me back with open arms and it was fantastic.  sad to have to go on friday AM to start the long trek home. is it good to be back and finished with vacation? hell no. good to have memories and all tho? helllll yesh.

i took very few pics this time around. my gal took about 98% of them. i have fallen into an editing role, which i’m quite fond of; tho admittedly, her work needs very little ‘tweaking.’ enjoy some of the artistic nature of HER eye. personally, i think she’s amazing. (her photos aren’t bad either)

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… i wanted to letchoo all know that i’m gonna fall silent for about a week or so due to a road trip planned with my gal. we’re off to her family reunion back in michigan. yesh, we’re driving and it should be fun. the plan is to get there in about 30-36 hours or so of straight driving. and yesh, i said driving. thankfully, we’ll not be driving behind this ‘disaster waiting to happen!’ insert your appropriate puns now. (sh*t happens, tippy-kai-ewwww, ‘there’s the honey shot,” etc.)

for the record, my friend Dan, of RECTIFY fame and fortune took the pic of his yuppie iPhone. needless to say we quickly passed this smelly disaster on our search for lunch!

why drive the miles?? simple. costs nowadays are amazing. it would’ve cost me over 1600 bucks to fly us, and as you prolly know, you can’t take a rental car 2-3+ states over and have it “covered” insurance-wise, so that leaves my leetle hybrid SUV which actually gets about 600+ mpg on highways. those straight and narrows are primo conditions for those badass batteries to kick in. yeaaahhh boyeeeee, the Saturn VUE’s 14 gallon tank will be jus’ fine!

so… expect pictures upon my return, both from my gal and yours truly. maybe some stories, adventures, and hopefully no mishaps. we’ll be in the U.P. (hip talk in Michigan for “upper penninsula”) and then off to Kalkaska for the actual reunion.

lurve to you all, have a great upcoming week, and i’ll be in touch! wish us luck!

… dizzingly happeh. (and yesh, dissingly is officially a word, thanks to me… right now)

Tusken Raiders at the Office

Don t Make Fun of Boba Fett
 

… as a continuing piblic service that i’m well aware this blog often stands for. i’d like to alert you all of the dangers of shopping at World Market’s “Cost Plus.” if you’ve never been in one of these stores, or perhaps yer town/city isn’t blessed to have one of these import meccas in it… well, play along anyway.

as you shop through the store, you’re bound to find some funny things. toys, foods from all over, imported drinks, seltzers, coffees, and much much more. furniture? they’ve got that too? artwork? sure. so much more awaits your hungry eyes as you delve deep into the importy world of what’s on the shelves. allow yourself at least an hour to peruse, play and be amazed at what they have to offer!

now, with all this glory-goodness said, one CAN find, if looking for it, some translation issues that will occasionally adorn a possibly innocent food item or whatnot.

i give you exhibit A and exhibit B

wow. um… sooo many bad places i could go here with this picture. (not to mention her silly grin) don’t ask me what either of the products are, ‘cuz basically my Gal and i broke into devilish laughter and tears after this pic was taken. in fact, i feared we’d be asked to leave the store, given how loud we actually were. i’ll leave the translations up to you folks, but.. well, there’s nothing quite liking filling your push cart with some “HORLICKS” & “SPOTTED DICK.”

*snerx*giggle*guffaw* omgawd i’m twelve years old and loving it.

… okay okay okay, this will be a slightly chaotic post, so bear with me. omgoodness we did so much! I’ll highlight a couple of cool things that my gal and i did with friends, then you can review some fun pix of all the madness! K? k… here we go.

FIRST FEW PIX IN GALLERY: i have to first say that if you haven’t already seen the new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” then… well, yer missing out on a really amazing film.  11 friends got together on Sat AM for a noontime showing of the movie at the Seattle IMAX theatre. it was my first experience viewing the 6 story screen. (80 feet wide! gulp!) and i must say that Batman was the film to “break me in” to the beauty of the IMAX experience. think crispy clear, hi resolution and SO clear that you can see the individual pores of the Joker’s face during the movie…

amazing. i will not ruin anything about the movie, but i will say that heath ledger’s amazing in his final performance, aaron eckhart is also incredible, christian bale rocks again as the caped crusader, and michael caine again plays the dutiful butler/conscience and medic beautifully. 

we all met around 9am for a tailgate breakfast out of the back of my SUV and a truck that had a real 110v plugin for Pancakes (batcakes!), waffles, egg sammiches, fruit, bacon & sausage and juices! omgawd it was alllll so good! Highlighted in the pix are some early arrivers helping prep, some “batcake” attempts, hilarious (and actually good) SPRAY ON pancake batter, and a heath ledger/joker smiley batcake that tasted soooo good.

MOTH PIX IN GALLERY: last week i also found a “batman of my own” in the form of a HUGE moth that was outside my office. cool pix below show it by my hand for comparison, then onna’ leaf to show some of it’s utter coolness! where did it come from? certainly not a washington state native. (i’m thinking it got caught in a trade wind from down south and got carried up to us!)

GRILL PIX IN GALLERY: my birthday this month earned me a new BBQ from my gal. (she is the bestest evah) charbroil ‘RED’ is the brand and model. we experienced the bestest steaks evah sunday night due to infrared cooking and searing-goodness. my mouth is watering even now recalling how juicy and perfectly cooked they were.

MYSTERY FOILAGE IN GALLERY: i have behbeh romas! i have tomatoes! omgoodness i’ve finally successfully grown tomatoes on my back porch. i’m obviously easily amused, but damn they’re gonna be good when they’re ready. we sure are (ta’ eat ‘em!)

soooo, what did all of you do this weekend??

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… honest. it really does. at least in ‘catch’s’ case it does. he’s the funniest dawg. most of the time he runs when a camera comes out, but my gal has this way of getting him to come out of his shell. god knows i don’t wanna only post about dogs and yardwork, but damnit, life is good and catch makes me laugh so hard at times i almost throw up.

watch him cleverly try to ’suade my gal from continuing to film. he’s a total attention-whore i tell ya. (mainly i love how my gal talks to him in this clip. she does it to me too, results are about the same)

… well mine was gawddamned good thankyouverymuch! happy belated 4th everyone! i had to (oh darn!) work from home on thursday ‘cuz i had home depot delivering some goodies to my driveway, so in effect, it was a 4 day! so nice to work from home with no distractions… not to mention 3 puppies at mah’ feetz! eep!

i had 60 bags of pea gravel and 80 arizona slate stones delivered to finish off a circular stone patio extension i built off the back deck. the following pictures show the pain, the fun and the results. (not to mention some of my friends for a gathering on the 4th, as well as the animalz being hilarious…)

the entire project took 1.5 days, and needless to say we were dead tired by the time guests showed on friday. we literally worked up to the hour! thankfully we had framed out the shape and already deposited about 20 bags of pea gravel during the beginning of the week, so the project overall took it’s toll of 90 slate stones and 90 bags of pea gravel. (i’m sooo sore!) we love it a lawt. i couldn’t have accomplished this without my gal, either. so basically she rawks.

also, forgot to mention that ‘catch,’ the yellow albino mix-dawg got shaved recently to stay cool during the summer. (he runs h-a-w-t!) so, in case anyone was wondering, we don’t own a goblin, a gremlin, or a partially shaved and dehorned japanime unicorn. it IS a dawg, albeit a goofy, big-headed one.

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… not a misspelling, my friends. i truly have been there, survived and seen ‘dem bats in the millions. some of you may remember that about 2 weeks back, i went to a trade show convention in austin, texas to set up one of my designs and make sure it allll went well.

hmmm. “make sure it alllll went well.” that is always the rub, eh? it was hades hot. i kid you not, there were birds exploding in middair and pavement was bubby. it was truly an uncomfortable and penetrating heat that i’ve not felt in years. i should’ve known it was going to be an issue when stepping onto the trade show floor and experiencing a ’swooooosh’ of stale and stagnent cold generated by outdated air conditioning units. my booth design proved to be a miserable failure yet a learning experience due to varying heat conditions that stripped velcro from vinyl and caused all signage to “fall” each night and other misc. nightmares that i’ve taken into account for future shows/conditions fer sure…. but that’s not the point of this post.

austin has some amazing architecture, people, sights, growth and construction and well… bats. not a couple. not a bunch. not a flock or a lot… how about a shitload. 1.5 million bats that congregate under a refurbished bridge off “conger & 1st” that connects both south congress and the north. (’soco’ as it’s called, is the artsy 1/2 of austin, the north side is more well.. their driver’s license is their belt buckle) each night at sundown these hungry bastards pour out of the bottom of this bridge in a huuuuuuuge swarm and proceed to eat over 5 tons (again, not a typo) of bugs each night. amazing. freaky. really really cool. people actually stand on the bridge and occasionally become immersed in the swarm of bats as they rain out. it’s like watching a cartoon ‘cobra of mosquitos’ as their depicted! they move on as one eventually and blast out into the night. (i can almost hear their high shrieky squeals yelling “omg omg omg it’s still bright!” as they scatter around!)

by the way; how long would you think it take over 1.5 million bats to “unload” from the bottom of a bridge? …. over 15 minutes.  ewwwwwww.

so, enjoy the pics of some of austin’s architecture, a cool delivery truck, a statue with attitude, a neat way to fix a tree, a canopy of cool, a hitchhiking “airplant,” and some crappy & blurry but decent pics of the bats…. (i was NOT gonna get any closer!)

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… nope, it’s in my backyard, and it comes with a canoe!!! now don’t you all forget some of my other postings down below, k? i’ve jes’ had a hankering to get this one posted too this week since there’s some funneh’ video footage and some pics of my backyard that a few of you have been pinging me to post!

i basically feel that i have a little escape from reality in my backyard. we did section off the side lot to allow the doggeh’s to have their own dog run/bizness section, and that’s allowed the lawn to recover and spring sure has sprung regarding flowers, trees and general paradisee-goodness. got lots more planting to do and more, pruning back the growth from years of the previous one-and-only-owner NOT doing that will be a chore, but it’s sizing up to be a helluva nice yard! yay!

now for the funneh. maddie and ruckus have found that they enjoy a good tug-o-war. maddie tries to be vocal and tough, and ruckus is jes’ glad to have someone pull her around…. ’nuff said. (oh, and you get to see some of our livingroom in the video… ooooh, ahhhh)

next up is ruckus’s way of getting one of us to play. she’s a pusher. and a whiner. oh, and a groaner. but my goodness she’s adorable. you’ll see.

… about a thousand words! or maybe tail wagginz! the other day, i came home from work and…well, was really inna foul mood. no details necessary, but soon after letting the petz out, i was attacked by ‘catch‘ who’s fallen deeply in love with me ever since i met my own special gal. (who you all know about now)

‘catch‘ went through some tough patches. he was lucky enough to be rescued by L from a shelter as a teensy puppy. ‘catch’s tail was what won her over. he was scared, young and not too happeh’ about being in a cage, when L came through and saw him. “thwump thwump thwump” went his big thick tail that made his whole body shake as he tried to look interested, but not tooooo interested (as all dogz are taught in shelters, right?) L fell in love with ‘catch‘ right there and then, and it’s been happiness and some chaos ever since.

‘catch‘ always wanted to love human guys more than gals, and after a ‘practice relationship’ with a dickwad who treated both L and ‘catch’ cruely, i was found. omgoodness does he love me. and i’ll be damned if he doesn’t melt my heart like butter. he’ll sit there and jes’ stare… with his funny pink lips, nose, and weird red eyes. (he’s a albino mix of possibly retriever, shepard, and that hunchback from the disney movie) but you give him a chance to be pet, and by gawds his tail goes “thwump thwump thwump” again to the point of knocking himself over!

soooo, yeah, i was brutally attacked on the couch when i managed to take this shot by holding my cameraphone out from my flailing body. while i despise the picture for making my mangled body look like i have a jabba-the-hutt double chin, ‘catch’s face JUST KILLS ME. he’s so happeh. his burying head and waggy tail and happy pawing silly schnorgling sounds he made almost made me cry. (looky his SMILE!!!!)

catch? you’re home. you’ll never be hurt again. love, bronxbt

… oh hai! it’s been awhile since i’ve posted! sorry! i’ve been so busy with work i’ve been remiss in sharing with you all. i decided to make this a light entry though, and post a few pics of recent fun in my world. warning tho… this post is riddled with important links to follow, so click at your own pace and don’t be scared. i’ll be gentle. ahhh promise. the pics below are viewed as listed:

** a recent party at a friends house where rock band struck us hard, you’ve got concentration face, rock out face, and what-am-i-doing face goin’ on… har har

** our puppeh ruckus luvin’ the fireplace

** one of my favorite pics of my lovely gal, our first sushi attempt @ a local source… her face says it all, and my goodness did we scarf our meal down! hee hee

** (2) pictures of a recent wedding CD i created for a coworker and close friend. it was a hit, and it was so much fun creating this design for them. the songs were compiled by the bride and groom (fun, silly choices too) and while the photos were done by another professional, the design and all the production goodness is mine mine mine… giggle

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not much else to share at this moment. the weather is complete monkey-butt. rain rain rain with little hope of a break in sight. i’ll be in austin, tx this weekend through tuesday on business, so fuzziechadsrule may be updated on friday evening so you can all still vote next week on it. i’ll do mah’ best between packing, and possibly catching the new HULK movie on opening night.

oh, and oh-my-goodness will you all ppppplease trust me and go see KUNG FU PANDA!! there are few films, especially animated ones that make me want to spin right around and see it again. we went with two of our friends and laughed so hard and sooo often that we left sore and bedraggled. (a good sign!) it’s fun, and the combined voice-talents of jack black, dustin hoffman, angelina jolie, jackie chan, lucy liu and more made it sooo much fun. okay.. i’ve said enough. go see it.. goooooooo!

*hugz to you all… hope yer all well*

… sometimes it doesn’t take much to create ‘a lawt of entertainment. this weekend involved a quickie trip to the local fred myer for some much needed plants to finish potting and omgoodness-we-splurged-onna-kiddy- pool! i sorta figured that my black lab, a true water dawg would appreciate the gesture of foot-cooly-goodness, but no… she is terrified of it. (maybe associating it with a bath?) ruckus, however proved to be a overly curious boxer and is now fascinated with the painted fish at the bottom of the pond.

the following video involves much pacing, a leetle bit of whining, some digging and my gal’s laughter and giggling which makes ME giggle each time i watch it. trust me, it’s not award winning video, but now that ruckus has graduated to two legged “digging,” it’s funnier than hell.

… after way too long of an absence, i did finally post again on my old site for art, design, photos, edited works, comics i’ve done and more. please feel free to visit and leave a remark. alllllways want to hear feedback, good or bad. click here to visit “somethingsketchy.”

i also got my creative green thumb on last weekend with my gal. we hit a local woodinville, wa., hotspot for some plants, some planter pots, soil and voial! magical planty-goodness! my backyard has a raised section extending out from the back deck, but i’ll be damned if it’s not filled with ivy groundcover that’s the DEVIL to keep at bay. soooo, i opted to get all medievil on it’s ass with a weed whacker to keep it scared and huddling @ root level while we put multi-level planters out there to bring in some more color! as you’ll see from the pic below, they’re ready to place in the yard to create “ooooooo’s and ahhhhhhhh’s” galore!

… to catch certain puppy dawgs on film. overall, ruckus has one expression. my goodness tho, when she gets her spaz on, all levels of sanity (not to mention peace and quiet) go out the window. and off the deck… and on the deck, in the side lot, around and around furniture and my legs… you know, the usual.

ruckus is so damned funny tho, it’s all worth it. my gal and i did some overall hanging out this sunday… bought some plants & relaxed. (i’ll post pics of those later) saturday found me at our local toastmasters spring conference all day. i managed to wrestle up a crowd of 56 attendees to listen to me talk about memorization techniques. fun stuff, great crowd & people seemed to enjoy my presentation. i’m available for kids parties or other engagements if anyone’s interested. (heh heh, no really)

what didjoo do?

… famous! help my ‘catch’ become the cat’s meow on icanhascheezburger.com’s LOLDOG site! i couldn’t help but make a caption and enter it onto the site for the fun of it. no, neither my dear catch or i get anything from this, only your vote, support, and a chance to be highlighted on the homepage of the webpage.

click the LINK HERE and follow the link to RATE from 1 to 5 cheezburgers! catch thanks you, and so do i!!

… with a warning! while i love her smile… sometimes i know better than to get in her way. better yet, when to get OUT of her way…. curious what all you fellow bloggers and visitors think of my gal’s latest picture!? she’s brought such silliness, fun and well.. overall ham’age into my world i couldn’t THANK her enough.  as you can tell, she’s an incredibly serious person tho, (cough*bullsh*t*cough) has a soft side and doesn’t understand why her devilish leetle’ smile isn’t taken seriously all the time? any ideas people!? got any captions to add?

“show me any lawn, i am ready to stomp any grass blade that thinks it can defy meh!”

side note: thankfully my lawn isn’t large enuf’ for one of these badboys… tho i hafta’ admit i’d love to take one of these for a spin. i have a pretty good idea that she’d make me wrestle her for the keys tho. (and we all know how that would turn out)

… that ‘dobby’ from the damnedable harry potteh’ movie series infiltrated my home? while apparently ruckus makes certain people (ahem, crystal, cough) die a little inside, the mug’s can’t be mistaken for anything else than what they are. i’m jes’ saying people… the nut doesn’t fall very far from ‘da family tree.

… well, a different kind of shower i guess. snow began falling in the pacific northwest and kicked our butts for about 24 hours. roads were blissfully not effected overall, (except for “general” washington state-drive-lika-retard skills that are already out there in abundance) and by sunday it was about 90% gone to be replaced by the normal wet uggy-ness that’s plagued us all for awhile now. some of the shots here aren’t faboo, but snowfall messes up the camera’s focal points and frankly, it was spur of the moment. we let the kids out to play in the snow and hilarity ensued.

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i don’t know about you all, but i’m ready for spring. we had one nice day this month and the rest has overall been crappola. i need some sun. i need to sit on my back deck, have a drink and watch doggies play. i need bbq’s, fun and friends. who’s wif’ me!?