our lady of intoxication altar

We all seem to worship a god of our choice whether it's power, sex, money, drugs or possibly the invitation to party with the big JC for eternity.

Come on, do you really want to be in heaven until the end of time with a bunch of redneck, conservative christians????

I have chosen a new God, or Goddess per the local artist Spooky Mama Creations and I am proud to present the Our Lady of Intoxication Alter.

God Bless You PBR, the American Beer of true Patriots. (No, it's not the Professional Bull Riders Association if you happen to Google the PBR)


You can find Spooky Mama's creations and several other local artists at the
I Heart Rumage show at Chop Suey in Seattle, every 1st Sunday of the month. Oh Yeah, the bar is open during the entire event. So Enjoy!

happy labor day

Here's to a nice and relaxing holiday!

Let's hope for a warm and dry September-but I can already feel the beginnings of Autumn.

road trippin

I decided to take a quick trip to Coeur d' Alene ID to enjoy the summer while it lasts.

My older sister and brother in-law lived in the area in the early 80's and I went to visit them as a young lad. It's been at least 25 years since I've been back to the area. I don't remember much of the town except for the large lake and that was the main reason why I wanted to go back.

I found a quiet spot along the beach and it was nice to take in the sun and catch up on some reading.

I don't mind traveling alone and I generally enjoy the solitude but I did get an odd reaction from the young, married couple with kids that managed the motel that I rented by myself for two nights.

I felt like blurting out to them in my defense, No, I don't have a dead hooker in the trunk of my car!

sea foam on the brain

I just can't get enough of the whacked out looking sea foam from the Oregon beaches.


No, an oil tanker didn't crash into rocks.

I just enjoy using the editing tools on Iphoto to make some pics look surreal.

Oregon Coast-July 4th weekend

So when I signed up for this free blogger account roughly a year and a half ago, no-one ever told me that this blogging stuff takes time and energy and dedication. It's been about 3 months since my last post and during this time of inactivity,DaisyMaeRobin has deleted me from her link list.

Sure, we can hang out as friends in real life-but in bloggerworld, you are apparently only as good as your last post.

Here's a very excited Lucky as we begin our trip to Manzanita for the 4 day holiday weekend!


Driving across the Astoria-Megler bridge with Kelly at the helm as we leave our home state and enter Oregon. This is a really cool and long ass bridge that spans the mouth of the Columbia river.

Manzanita is a really beautiful and laid back town but the weather was unfortunately not in our favor. It was overcast and rained for the majority of the weekend but I guess we should all be used to this living in the Pac NW.


The focus is a bit soft on this one but I was determined to capture these purplish leaves through the kitchen window.

This nature stuff sure is perty. Did I already mention it rained alot?


Bryan and Erica chillin in our tree house in the woods. Thanks Ann for lending us your home for the weekend (and why don't you have your own blog yet?)


We spent a lot of time indoors relaxing, listening to music and playing Chinese Checkers-and drinking till our livers were sore.

Here's Shane & Kelly locked in a heated battle.


After raining all day on Saturday, we finally had a chance to take a long walk on the be-atch before we headed back home. We still didn't see the sun but the view is still loverly.


This weird looking sea foam is one of my favorite pics. Not sure why I like it so much but I really dig it. Click on the pic to enlarge it so that you can really enjoy the rainbow colored pollution bubbles.


We had an excellent trip and the 4 days seemed to fly by. We then jumped on I5 along with the other several thousand cars and returned back to reality.

Duude, the colors

As most bloggers already know, one of the keys to an interesting post are eye catching pics. Thanks to the free on-line version of Photoshop Express there's really no excuse for badly exposed or poorly shot pics. This is a much stripped down version of Photoshop but it allows the amateur photog some basic photo editing tools like color correction, cropping etc. You can then upload and share your mini masterpieces or embarrassing little moments with the rest of humanity. Here are a couple of examples of how adjusting the tint can add a surreal quality to your pics.


I snapped this series in Pensacola Fl shortly after the area took a direct hit from Hurricane Ivan in 2004. I found this abandoned pickup on a closed stretch of beach and to this day I can't figure out what the Hell, "GCC Locals Only" means. I'm guessing it's some sort of hillbilly talk for, "We don't take kindly to strangers." If you've never been to Pensacola, you're not missing much. It's on the panhandle of the state and it's very conservative and rednecky but you can buy a home for literally Half the Asking Price of the Seattle market.

Easter-Catholic Style

It looks like the Catholic Church down the street from me just installed a new cross. I have to admire the minemalistic vibe but let's be honest and admit we all prefer the old school Christ in agony on the cross that daisymayrobin just blogged about.

Hey Mary, What are you holding in your hands? Is that a doll, No I think it's our future savior.

My hood

Here's the view from my balcony in Interbay looking at lovely Magnolia. Some might call this little known hood, the bastard child of Ballard. Enough with the trash talk! Whole Foods is apparently being built here so we have that going for us-plus a driving range and P-Patch.

The Interbay rail station. I don't normally hear the trains unless it's Summer and I have my windows open. The white noise is soothing (from a distance) if I'm drifting off to sleep on my living room couch.

Could they build those houses any closer to the tracks!


Creepy Q "Cafe" which is located conveniently next to Quest church. I can't figure this place out because it's always empty when I drive by and they're often closed during the week. I'm sure it's a front for some extremist Christian group and I'll bet they have secret meetings in the basement. Christian Soccer Moms like coffee too-but in a Pro JC environment.

Beer Porn

Happy St. Patty's Day to all!

I guess I should feel more of a kinship to this holiday because my mom's side of the family is Irish and I lived in Chicago where they dye the Chicago River green each year. I've always sort of thought of this day as amature night but it's a good excuse to get lit after work on a Monday night.

SODO

Seattle is generally pretty easy on the eyes with plenty of parks and fancy new condos but a true city needs to have it's share of gritty industrial areas.
I'm really drawn towards SODO because it kinda remains me of when I was living in a raw loft space in Chicago when I was just out of film school. It was a huge open space that was perfect for production work but it was COLD as hell in the Winter.Here are some pics I took this weekend as I enjoyed the late afternoon sun.

Man Bag 08'

Two of my lady blogger friends are slightly obsessed with purses and boyz can like man bags or murses too.

I always thought bike messenger bags were cool but quite frankly I think that most bike messengers are A-holes so I have always resisted the ultra-trendy bags until I came accross the Hip-Hop Bag by Ogio. I'm all about the "hip-hop", yeah right.

This bag has so many damn pockets that I wished I had more things to carry on my daily routine. I can store my Mac-book, Ipod Nano and Celly (maybe a boxed lunch or afternoon snack) but this crazy ass bag has several extra pouches including one for airline tickets. I think I'll go to Seatac this weekend with my new bag and just walk around the numerous terminals and pretend that I have a flight to catch. YES, I have a lot of spare time on my hands.

The sweetest thing about that world wide web craze is that you can search for a specific item and find it at a really reasonable price and thanks to The Nerds I found this super cheap.

Gmoney's Book Club

V-day is the day that people traditionally express their love for their spouse, partner or F*CK-buddy, but not everyone is tied down to just one person. In celebration of non-monogymous relationships, I am proud to share with you, The Art of Mackin. The "how to" book for wannabe playas or pimps.

Here are some selected exerpts:

How to tell if a woman is a chickenhead (low-budget or hoochie)
* Her weave doesn't match her real hair.
* If she has gold teeth.
* If she has acrylics on her toenails.

Here is how you can tell you're in the home of a chickenhead:
* If her mother tries to send you to the store for beer.
* If she washes her panties in the bathroom sink.

According to the author, there are 5 types of pimps:
1: The Gorilla Pimp
2: The Sweet Mackin Pimp (I'd fall into that category)
3: The Rigid Pimp (Not sure what that means)
4: The Professional Pimp (Aren't they all? )
5: The Overly Flashy Pimp

This book contains a wealth of material for the beginning pimp and proudly sits on my bathroom shelf next to my Ebola stuffed animal that is magnified 1,000,000 times the actual size, giantmicrobes.com

Thanks to my dear friend Jody that gave this book to me as a birthday gift a few years ago.

Winter in Seattle

One of my favorite places in Seattle is Golden Gardens park and I always feel like I'm on vacation when I visit there even though it's only a short distance from my apartment.

Here are some pics I snapped this morning after two days of non-stop rain. As you can tell, I really like taking pics of nude winter trees so please indulge me while I share.

Let's crop the same pic a bit and play with the colors.


My regular readers may remember this group of trees that I blogged about in May.
And this is how they look in January. The winter version is not quite as pretty but still nice.

I saw lots of brightly colored plants and sea life that washed up on the beach.


This especially creepy looking "life form" looks like it may have had eyes at one point...

Product

One of my friends (that doesn't blog) recently declared that blogging is self-indulgent and gratuitous. My reaction was, YES, and isn't that kind of the point of it all.

Endorsement of the month: Osis Fiber Gum:
Here is some good stuff to put in your hair if you want to get laid or just look good when steppin out. I got this at BabaLouise in Ballard for $14.95.