know the toe?

someone sent me this picture with the caption "know the toe". what does he mean?

define normal

let's see, what went on recently...

friday night i went to a surprise birthday party for a friend of mine. her brother held it at his nice med center townhouse and they were actually able to pull off the surprise. afterwards i hung out briefly with these two strippers from treasures at some bars in the village. it's strange to go from totally groping them up to not at all. i'm not a fan of this trend.

saturday i played in this asian volleyball tournament. my team consisted of some orientals in their 30s and some middle easterners in their 40s. we definitely had the oldest average age out there but we still won the b division. that night i went out on a blind date with jeremy, randi, and randi's friend. jeremy wasn't able to tell me shit about this girl prior to dinner. she was cute, 31, lives at home with moms, and has 3 dogs and 4 cats. she was just too quiet, only speaking when spoken to, and barely laughed. randi sucks.

sunday i went to visit willie and linda and their 2 yo girl jadyn and their newbie collin. they changed collin in front of me and i commented that he's got nuts like a squirrel. what does that mean? small body, big ass nutsack. don't act like you've never noticed when you see these squirrels in the park or in your yard. then we were playing hide and seek with jadyn. she's so cute, i'd count to 10 and she'd go hide with either willie or linda. when i'd come close to the vicinity where she was hiding she'd just get so excited and just jump out and made sure you found her. my folks were cracking up when i told them about her, they were just dying for a grandchild of their own i'm sure. sucks for them.

monday night i went to this happy hour for a friend of friends, a bartender at 713 that's moving to oahu soon. anyhow, we meet these two girls with tattoos. one has a tattoo on her spine between her shoulder blades (like me) and on her left foot. the other has a rose on the top half of her left boob. me, louis, jeremy, and these two gals grab a table to eat before getting drinks. rosie isn't giving any of us any special love until jeremy tells them that he's a neurosurgeon. you could see the sudden interest, it was so obvious. i'm cracking up and text message him "you're so in there!" as she's talking to him. mid-sentence he pulls out his phone to check his message and he starts cracking up as well. he plays it off like a patient needs his brain tucked back in his skull or something. i also tell a story about how i took a date to this cool hip hop art event at the houston museum of fine arts and how my date absolutely hated it. i mentioned the gal's first name and rosie guessed her last name correctly. houston is too small. later we find out both of these women are single mothers. and then i meet this 30 year old gal getting her undergrad degree in a semester and working as a waitress at houstons. if these are my choices i'll go with the super cute 19 yo hostess whom i don't expect to have kids or a degree. louis asked this one gal dressed in all white, looked like a nurse's outfit, for her number and she says she's out of minutes. where are all the normal gals these days? i'm sure they're asking the same thing.

today i got my windshield replaced in the parking lot at work. they show up, replace it, and i drive home as usual. let's see how long before i get my first ding/crack. stupid rocks. tonight i'm coaching two of duy's nieces in volleyball. they're 13 and 14, the 5' tall 14 yo will be trying out for her freshman vb squad in the fall. tonight we'll just see where their skills are at before coming up with a plan. i'm not asking for any money, i think it'd just be cool to get these midgets on their vb teams.

don't buy one of these

it sounded like a good idea but doesn't work as well as claimed. www.autocooltv.com

who did neo and i send into the tank?

grace has the answer...


i don't remember which round of playoffs it was and which shindig tournament. mario, the guy in the blue, was teamed up with jim, this tall carson daly looking fella. both of these guys have skills, for reals. mario is usually as solid as they come but for whatever reason that day he went into the tank big time. a world class tank as neo would put it. neo was serving him off the court or mario was hitting way out, very uncharacteristic. i don't remember how we did in this tournament but there's a good chance i was cramping by this time.

funny, neo tells me about some gal he took to this slanted door-ish place in the south bay. the first thing i ask is if she's a non-driving celibacy practicing gal. it's a valid question too.

beck in austin

after work yesterday we (kelli and i) drove from houston to austin to see beck in concert at the back yard. if anything i was a little worried about the weather. the last week in houston has been full of thunderstorms and a little flooding. two days ago i checked the weather conditions in austin and it looked great, clear and sunny, highs in the low 90s. when i checked again yesterday it said scattered thunderstorms. this wouldn't have been a big deal if beck were performing in an indoor venue. instead it was in an outdoor theatre called the backyard.

it's a weird scene. first of all it's in texas hill country. second, it's kinda in the middle of nowhere. third, this older theatre is surrounded by a brand new looking strip mall (best buy, old navy, etc). parking is down these dirt roads and in these empty fields. after you park you've got to walk up these windy dirt paths and the mall parking lots to get to the theatre. you get in line to enter the venue but just before you reach the entrance you have to split into boy and girl lines, i guess for security cop-a-feel purposes. i was groped by a man, kelli was groped by a dyke. not that there's anything wrong with it, my father's gay. anyhow, once we get in the scene looks kinda familiar. not big like the shoreline amphitheare or cynthia mitchell woodlands theatre, more like the small-medium saratoga mountain winery theatre.

we find a spot to stand about 40-50 feet from the stage dead center. as we're people watching i see this cute blonde gal walking around holding up a small piece of cardboard and toting one of those soft-sided coolers. i'm guessing she's selling beer or something but i couldn't see the front of her sign as she disappears into the crowd. finally she reappears and it turns out her sign says "FALAFEL". only in austin. ok, maybe in berekely as well. i guess there have been times at concerts where i've been thinking to myself "shit, a falafel would really hit the spot right about now!" right about now, the funk soul brother, check it out now...

anyhow, the weather turns out to be awesome. a few billowy clouds drift by but overall a clear night, you could even see the stars. every now and then a cool breeze would blow some second hand joint smoke our way. i forget the opener's name, he's a one man show. he's in pajamas and a robe with a white towel wrapped around his neck. he's standing in front of this table with all kindsa sampling and looping gear. he's beat boxing and rapping and recording and looping and tweaking various effects to make some semi-organized music. at first i thought it was just random but his last song made me reconsider. he was singing some lines, i actually thought he sounded taylor hick-ish. anyhow, he sings this line, records it, loops it, and then repeats the line but in a different, key, and repeats the process. now he's playing like four of himself but totally harmonizing. pretty inventive.

when he was done we got to see beck's stage gear. not your typical rock setup. back right - drums. back left - keyboards. back center - not sure, looks like a miniature stage or booth but had a miniature drum kit on it. front right - bass and bongos. front left - more keyboards and percussion effects. above it all was a big piece of cloth that was to used as a projector screen. when the band comes on stage and starts to play, it appears that the little stage in the middle back is to be used for a puppet show rendition of what's going on in front of them. it was actually pretty funny, one puppet for each band member, and dressed exactly like the real thing. even the little instruments looked true to life. when the real drummer drummed, so did his puppet. when beck sang, his puppet's mouth moved. when the geeky dana carvey looking guy danced around, so did his puppet. tonight's show brought to you live in puppetron according to beck. this was to go on for the entire concert and would be projected above the whole stage. it was pretty cool, i definitely hadn't seen anything like it, and it was probably a distraction since i found myself watching the puppets more than the humans. it's not just their puppets, but the fact that the puppeteers made their motions mimic their counterparts so well. for the entire show. the miniature stage even had a monitor in the back that projected the puppets so it really mirrored reality.

they played a combination of new (guero) and older stuff, and even a few brand new unreleased tracks. at one point it was just beck and the bass player (on guitar at that point) doing a few acoustic songs while the rest of the band sat down at a table and chairs that was brought on stage. there were glasses, plates, silverware, and even some food was brought out. they were just eating, drinking, chatting, just having a grand ol time. eventually they started banging away on glasses, plates, and even the table, creating a whole percussion section to go along with the acoustic tune going on. pretty entertaining really. to lead off the encore there was a short film starring the various puppets and their mini adventures in austin. then there was a live puppet performance to beck's first single "loser". you probably had to be there to appreciate it but it was all pretty funny. they played a couple more songs and then beck literally cut them off right at 10:30pm. maybe it's a curfew since it was an all ages show? regardless, it was an overall great show.

of course leaving one of these shows is always an event. big bottle necks leaving the venue as well as the parking lot. when we finally got to my car the traffic was pretty much at a stand still. all the cars were forming a few lines heading in the same direction that we originally entered. i saw one car take an exit on the opposite side and disappear into the dark. i wasn't sure where that led so decided to play it safe and follow everyone else. after 30 seconds it was clear this wasn't going to work so i pulled out. i saw one more car disappear into the dark and never say any cars come back out so figured it might be an exit. i flew down towards that exit, it appears a gate had been opened, and headed down that dirt road. it looked like there was some construction going on around the area but then it led to some paved roads. i kept following it and it eventually took me back to the main road where everyone else was exiting. this trip saved us a good 30 minutes. i know this doesn't seem like a big deal but when you've been standing for 3 hours and need to pee and are thirsty as hell, this is a big deal.

we gassed up, got some fluids, leaked my lizard, and headed back towards houston. about halfway home i got a text message telling me that miami edged out dallas. for whatever reason i was glad that dallas lost. i know that's not a very texan thing to do but whatever. i wanted san antonio to win anyway. where's that falafel gal when you need one?

babbling

are you guys watching the nba finals? i really haven't but i've been amazed at how it's played out so far. the mavs go up 2-0 and i'm thinking they could actually sweep the miami heat. then it goes back to miami and they tie it up 2-2. the fifth game is going on right now in miami and it's a little painful to watch. miami gets to the foul line quite a bit but they're missing a ton of free throws. imagine playing volleyball and your servers missing 50% of their serves, that's about as close as i can get, altho there aren't hundreds of people waving towels and middle fingers at you while you're serving. wade is surging, he could single handedly win the series for the heat if the mavs don't get their heads outta their asses.

so i got asked to play in an indoor volleyball tournament next weekend. i don't know much about it but i think it's some kind of asian american tournament, this year it's in houston. they better not let me pass and keep the women and children away from the walls.

tuesday afternoon i'll be driving to austin to see beck in concert. why isn't that fool coming to houston? it's at some outdoor amphitheatre called the backyard with a capacity of 500. well, if it were in houston this week there'd be a good chance we'd be watching beck in the middle of a thunderstorm.

you guys have myspace accounts? i've got an account but nothing on it yet. add me as a friend if you're on it.

baseball's code red

article and poll from espn.com:

Talk about a rough day at the office.

With the Chicago White Sox trailing 6-0 in the seventh inning, manager Ozzie Guillen appeared intent on settling another score after A.J. Pierzynski had been hit twice by Texas starter Vicente Padilla. Enter rookie pitcher Sean Tracey, who had thrown just over four innings in his two previous appearances in the majors.

Tracey threw way inside on the first two pitches but Texas batter Hank Blalock had little trouble avoiding the pitches and eventually grounded out. Guillen then pulled the pitcher and could be seen yelling at him in the dugout. While Guillen denied telling Tracey to hit Blalock, the White Sox returned Tracey to the minors after the game.

So what's your take on the "unwritten rule" about hitting batters, SportsNation? Is a pitcher ever justified in intentionally hitting a batter? Has baseball made things worse by taking some control away from the players on the field?

1) Do you feel a pitcher is ever justified in intentionally hitting a batter in retaliation for one of the pitcher's teammates getting hit by a pitch?
81.1% Yes
18.9% No

2) Who should make the call on whether or not to retaliate?
47.6% Manager
31.3% Pitcher
21.0% Player that was originally hit

3) Do you feel a pitcher is ever justified in intentionally hitting a batter in retaliation for a batter showboating at the plate?
66.3% Yes
33.7% No

4) Do you feel a pitcher is ever justified in intentionally hitting a batter to set a tone for the game or fire up his teammates?
66.5% No
33.5% Yes

5) Which method do you feel is best for dealing with this issue?
75.5% Old school: Let the players settle things ... ''You hit one of mine; I hit one of yours.''
24.5% New school: Umpires warn both teams at the first sign of trouble, with ejections to follow.

6) Should a player receive an automatic suspension if he is ejected for intentionally throwing at a batter?
69.6% No
30.4% Yes

7) Do you think White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen expressly ordered rookie pitcher Sean Tracey to hit Hank Blalock in Wednesday's game?
96.2% Yes
3.8% No

8) If Guillen did want the batter hit, was it fair for him to send in a rookie to do it?
61.5% No
38.5% Yes

9) Do you think the White Sox would still have sent Tracey to the minors after the game if he had hit Blalock?
80.4% No
19.6% Yes

10) Do you have a problem with Guillen berating Tracy in the dugout immediately after pulling him from the game?
74.5% Yes
25.5% No

11) What's your take on players taking things into their own hands in baseball and hockey?
73.0% Both are legitimate
11.7% Get rid of both
7.9% Get rid of fighting in hockey
7.5% Get rid of throwing at hitters in baseball

Total Votes: 12,266


i wonder if the kid's got a legal case. you want the truth? you can't handle the truth!

whips

last night i was driving by the galleria to pick up fabian for dinner. he's in town for work and staying at the westin galleria. he's engaged to my cousin audrey in connecticut. anyhow, i see some fool on a segway at the intersection sucking on a starbucks chai tea or some bs. how lazy do you have to be?







here's the car i want, or one like it. break me off santa.






damnit, this morning i found out i may have to go to chennai, india, for a month for work. hella rainy last year, hella hot this summer. damnit.

po

our juniors played a meaningless tournament in austin this weekend. i say meaningless because it doesn't serve to qualify them for anything, in fact it was the last tournament of the season. these gals are 14-15, just finished with school, and are looking forward to summer vacation and boys. more volleyball is the last thing on their minds. i wasn't there for friday play but apparently they stunk it up. that means saturday they play in a pretty sorry pool. i guess on the bright side they were going to be playing pretty well, just crushing the competition, and they did. it's like this one time the spice crew came up to norcal to play in a coed jacl tourney and we got placed in this lower division. we didn't belong in that division and other teams that knew us told the organizers as well. we had no choice but to beat the shit out of the competition, our point margin was something ridiculously high. speaking of, i was watching one of our 12's teams playing against a 12's team from somewhere like costa rica. they lost one game like 25-4 and i kid you not, one gal served for about 20 of those points. they had family and friends cheering like crazy, you would've thought this was a world cup soccer match. the kids must love all the support they got out there. one of our gals caught a serve in the grill, she did not love that and cried at the end of the game. oh yeah, saturday afternoon the team went to barton springs to cool off. it's this swimming pool that's fed by natural spring water. the water is very cold but stinky cuz there's algae growing in it and lotsa kids doing their business in there. saw a coupla nice belly flops and face plants off the diving board too. it's funny, as we watched a college kid hanging around two of our girls we were already getting worried. apparently when he found out how old our girls were he bolted. good for him.

i flew out of austin for montreal sunday afternoon. connecting in chicago, first there was a mechanical problem with our original plane. then when they couldn't get it fixed in time we had a gate change for a different plane. i feel bad for the gate personnel, they get screamed on by everybody but it's not their fault. if i could i'd stick up for them and put some of these angry fools in triangle chokes til they passed out. speaking of, last night i dreamt i was being chased around all night by some big dudes and finally i tried submitting one of them using an ankle lock. of course i don't know how to do that but i heard his ankle pop in my dream. ufc unleashed is making it's way into my subconscious.

i'm sure you've noticed that just as smells can bring back memories, so can music. in this particular case, oswald = debbie yang. why? that girl is cool and fine as hell. and we went to go see this local band somewhere in walnut creek a while back, they've got a little pearl jam sound going on. deb, you gonna marry this guy or what? if not i'm ready to move back.

beck concert in austin next week, should be kick ass. last time i saw him was in oakland i believe. radiohead is also on a very limited north america tour right now, not in support of a new radiohead album but some of thom yorke's solo stuff. they should be going back in the studio to record a new album in a few months tho.

last night i met up with my cousin to go running at memorial park. i'm two months older than him and live a few miles away, yet we rarely see each other. he and i are both only children, my mom and his dad are siblings. a year ago his father was diagnosed with cancer and they had to remove a mass from his brain as well as one of his kidneys. they didn't think he'd recover or live past a year. he's been undergoing chemotherapy and apparently his body has been responding to it extremely well. throughout all of this i've seen how his family has been supported by all of his brothers and sisters around the us. my cousin and i though, we won't have brothers and sisters around when we're ill in our later years. hopefully we can fill that void for each other when the time comes. i think he'd like to have a kid in the near future, preferably with a wife but possibly without. i'd be ok playing uncle hanky to my friends' kids until i can start a family of my own. i dunno, maybe that's why i volunteer at the spca and coach juniors.

so you think you can face plant

i think i've found a new show to follow - "so you think you can dance". man, you've got to be good at all the different types of dance here. there's some hip hop, some ballroom, some modern interpretive, and i'm sure a few other. and here, if you screw up, you can get ktfo. this one guy did a few moves and then went into a back flip. he didn't look like he committed to it and didn't get high enough or far enough around. he lands on his face and then smacks his knees on the ground. dayam. i'll say this is definitely harder than "american idol". like when you see a tap dancer doing a hip hop routine, dayam... for sure at least we're gonna see some hotter bodies.

i went home to have dinner with moms and pops last night, his birthday was earlier this week. this time he brings up me getting an mba not from a education or career perspective but to find a wife! anyhow, now that he's retired he's got a lot of time to work on the vegetable garden in the back yard. apparently squirrels are a big problem because he was asking me about bb guns. how can i, a volunteer at the spca, advise him on bb guns? i guess after i buy him one i'm gonna have to turn him in.

neo

i watched a little of "sweet november" last night. this movie stars keanu reeves and charlize theron. from what i could tell the only redeeming qualities this movie had was charlize theron and a puppy she rescued from an animal testing lab. keanu reeves is still a horrible actor. do you think the blonde guy from "bill & ted's excellent adventure" could have been neo? i think maybe. i guess that's like asking who would be better for "the matrix: rechoaded", beavis or butthead? all i know is agent smith would get a swift kick in the nads.

neo is in a new movie with sandra buttock called "the lake house". the premise is a strange one, they're both living in this same house but like two years apart. i believe sandra's character is living two years ahead of neo's and they're able to correspond via snail mail and fall in love. i'm thinking one of his letters should look like this:

"i can't believe the woman i've fallen in love with is living in another dimension of time and space. our heart and soul are connected in the same place we call home but yet completely out of reach. whoa! by the way dude, what's your myspace username and what is ebay trading at?"

oh, on this one cooking show the host was throwing random battered or breaded shit into the fryer and tasting it. on the menu? a hot dog in a bun, a scoop of macaroni and cheese, a brownie, an oreo cookie, and a slice of cheesecake. if i had a cooking show that's what i'd be doing. maybe a wedge of lettuce, some earthworms...

ultimate

i played ultimate frisbee for the first time last night at jaycee park, probably 2-3 miles from the crib. this guy mark has been organizing this pickup game for nearly a decade now. anyhow, it should be called ultimate mf sprinting. running around on offense and defense. not to mention i can't throw that disc worth a damn. i probably sweated a gallon last night but only brought a half gallon to drink. by the end of the night both calves were about to cramp with each step. i noticed that only one guy that played was overweight, the rest were stick figures. now i see why. there were actually a bunch of really good players that showed up. they split teams into light and dark shirts, 7 on 7. extra players just kinda hung out on the side and subbed in after one team scored. next time i'm bringing more water and bug spray.

roger clemens re-signs with the astros

Two months into the season, Roger Clemens decided he will pitch for the Houston Astros. When he finally pitches his first game, in about three weeks, he'll begin earning a prorated amount of a $22 million contract (in a similar vein, the Yankees won't pay A-Rod after Oct. 10).

Bob Levey/Wireimage.com

Look, it's not just about the money.
Of course, the high salary isn't the only provision the Astros had to offer Roger to entice him to pitch another season. Some other key clauses in the contract:
• Roger is only required to pitch in months with an R in them. He is not required to pitch on Easter Sunday or Yom Kippur, nor during Lent and Ramadan, nor during government holidays. He will not pitch in the rain. He will not pitch when the temperature is above 76 or below 75. He will not pitch when the wind is blowing out at more than 4.473 miles per hour. He will pitch only when the Astros say, "Simon says."
• Roger will not pitch in a box. He will not pitch with a fox. He will not pitch in a boat. He will not pitch with a goat. He will not pitch in a house. He will not pitch with a mouse. He will not pitch here or there, he will not pitch anywhere. Nor will he eat green eggs and ham, he will not eat them, Sam-I-Am.
• On days Roger pitches, all his teammates will change their names to ones that begin with the letter K. They will not look him in the eye, as this will interpreted as a sign of aggression. They will also not light matches in his presence, as he is afraid of fire. He will be allowed to urinate in his locker to mark his territory.
• Roger will be allowed to have his family on the mound with him whenever he pitches.
• Roger will be paid his weight in gold bullion and sapphires. He will be weighed after the postgame spread.
• Despite coming out of retirement again, Roger still will be allowed to draw his retirement pension.
• Roger is required only to pitch at home, which is defined as the backyard of his house. He is willing to pitch at Minute Maid Park, but only with the roof closed, the air conditioning on and the lights off.
• Roger also reserves the right to go into Minute Maid Park wearing a Yankees cap.
• Roger will make occasional road trips, but only to the cool cities -- such as San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago and New York -- not the lousy ones like Milwaukee and Cincinnati. His family, six Hummers and house must be transferred to each city, as well.
• The Astros will fly in Anna Benson for Roger's scheduled starts so she can flash her breasts for luck when he leaves the bulllpen.
• Most important, Roger reserves the right to pitch only for winners. On the days the Astros play a team with a higher winning percentage, Roger is allowed to switch uniforms and pitch for the opponent. Similarly, should the Astros fall behind in any game Roger is pitching, he may elect to change sides the next inning, with the proviso that should the Astros regain the lead, he will resume pitching for them.