Everyone else is doing one so I will too! I know me, and I know I’m not great at consistently posting things. But I’m going to make this easy on myself. Instead of sticking to pictures from one camera (some people do DSLR or iPhone or webcam only pictures), I’ll post a picture from anything as long as it was taken by me. And I won’t even limit myself to pictures I took within so-and-so many days. I guess it defeats the purpose of the original 365 project, where you were sort of trying to become a better photographer. I considered creating a Tumblr account for this, but I’m already pretty spread out as it is. So I’m planning to make a subdomain.

I’ll start with this screenshot that I took this morning. I video chat with Jason once in a while. Wally recently got a web camera (who the hell buys web cameras these days, right?), but we can’t invite him to iChat so we had to search for a cross platform solution that supports multiple users. And we found stickam.com, which I would recommend to absolutely nobody. I guess it gets the job done, but we were probably better off just doing a non-video conference call or something.

NFL Network is on Hulu. Lots and lots and lots of content. Not just highlights. NFL Films season recaps. All the Hard Knocks episodes are on there I think. And a whole bunch of Greatest Games, with about one for each year in the 80s and 90s. I’m sure Dan loves this one:

Crazy to see Favre out there and realize that he got farther in the playoffs more than a decade later. Also, if you thought T.O. was acting during the “That’s my quarterback.” thing, then watch him cry for real after the catch.

Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme on Hulu. Would’ve been way more into this in 10th grade. Freestyling died when memorizing written verses and reciting them over beats at radio stations became freestyles. Couldn’t they just use a different term for that? Still, plenty of good clips in the movie. But the movie is like the guys at UW I used to see practicing Parkour—taking itself way too serious for something that should be at least a little bit lighthearted.

Update: I posted this before I watched it all. But if you check it out, make sure to skip to 53:00 and prepare for your mind to be blown. If I saw this in person at a club or something, I’d cheer and high five my friends for approximately an hour afterward. Actually, I’ll just embed it here.

From basically the end of summer.

Colts vs. Saints

I pretty much liked all the teams that played today, probably in this order: Colts, Vikings, Saints, Jets. I’m happy with the Super Bowl matchup. I’ll be rooting for the Colts but I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing New Orleans the city celebrating a Super Bowl win. I’m such a fence sitter—don’t worry, it sickens me too.

Dan is in Japan

My brother is working in Japan for a couple months. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him much, so I have no idea where the hell he took this picture, but it cracks me up. Mostly because it’s ridiculous, but also because it reminds me of one of the best Arrested Development episodes.

Bob reminds Michael to make sure that his family do not deceive the Japanese investors, or else they can all end up in prison. But Michael does not get there in time. G.O.B. has already lined up the investors and opens the curtains to reveal his “tiny town”. Surprisingly, it looks pretty good, and the investors are pleased. Michael wants Gob to close the curtains and not accept any money from the investors. But before G.O.B. can, Tobias, dressed in a mole costume, walks over the hill and begins smashing the tiny houses. Within seconds, George Michael, strapped into the jet pack, swoops out of the sky and knocks Tobias over.

Hardest I can remember laughing watching a show by myself.

I love this dunk

I love this video

Done by the same guy that did the great ‘Home’ video.

Not sure if this is real or fake and I’m still deciding if it’s awesome or awful

Bill Simmons often says it’s amazing that these days you can watch Piper smash a coconut over Jimmy Snuka’s head at your leisure. Anyway, it blows my mind that the above video even exists. Update: I’m leaning towards ‘awful’.

We were playing MW2 today…

and Jason said he had to leave to go to sleep and the rest of us of course gave him the usual “come on just one more” and “you can’t be that tired”. Usually this gets one more game out of whoever, but his response this time was “I ran a marathon today”. Jason, congratulations on your second marathon.

I felt like writing something. I realized I had a bunch of pictures from my New Year’s trip to San Diego. Done deal!

Dan dropped me and Jason off at the airport. But before the airport, we dropped by Elliot’s for happy hour. $0.50 per oyster starting at 3PM and going up $0.25 every half hour. “Dropped by” is accurate, because we left when we saw the line. Apparently their happy hour isn’t a secret. So we went to the Met. Fantastic fantastic happy hour. (I’ve been to Elliot’s and actually ate and their happy hour is great too.) We got our oyster fix. I’m sure oysters in the shooters came from a jar, but it hit the spot. The steak sandwiches were good for $3, even though they were allegedly free before. But the burger was the star. I didn’t order one. Huge mistake. I had some of Jason’s and it was the best I’ve had since Lunchbox Laboratory. Great patty.

Here’s me and Jason waiting to board. Google provided free WiFi at a bunch of airports during the holidays. Very thankful for this. Me and Jason were able to play Scrabble on Facebook on our laptops. We were waiting for 90 minutes and barely finished one game. Jason takes forever on each move. It’s painful.

Here’s where I try to take a picture of a cute girl. Then I showed my friends and they said she looks cute as in way too young. That’s when I started justifying it in my head with thoughts like, “Oh, you know, you can’t tell these days.”

My first breakfast! I did in fact visit friends in San Diego and not an elementary school cafeteria. This is what I wanted to eat though. I love oatmeal (sugary instant packets even better) and I love Flaming Hot Cheetos.

I went with Curt’s fiance Dyane to pick some things up at her classroom. She teaches troubled youth—lots of gang members.

Here’s me in front of the whiteboard where I wrote “Mr. Cortez” and thought it’d be hilarious for some reason.

Here’s the In-N-Out picture obligatory for trips to California that feels more and more like an obligation—it’s less exciting every time. Having a Double-Double for the first time in five years tastes a lot better than for the first time in five months. Maybe I was still thinking of the burger from the Met.

I waited for Jason to come home before heading to Medieval Times. Here he is, ready to hide in a pixelated ocean. You can’t shoot what you can’t see.

Medieval Times was really fun. Jason loves the place and has been frustrated on my past visits when we weren’t able to make the trip. I wish I had a bigger appetite. Chicken and the ribs were good. Tomato soup to start, not so much. There are six knights and they’re each assigned to sections of the crowd. You get really attached to your knight and ours made it to the final two. Then he died and the rest of the show died with him.

Disneyland fireworks go off every night as far as I know. It was kind of cool to drive by them outside of the park.

Sometimes Wally just likes to come to the Disneyland McDonald’s and think.

The day of New Year’s Eve we went to a driving range. There were these baskets probably 60-80 yards out. We had a contest to be the first one to get it into one. I thought speed was the key. Hit at a rapid pace and one of them will go in. Makes sense—unless your short game sucks dick. I went 0-for-a lot and ran out of balls . Wally got one in and ruined 2009 for me. Good thing a new year was only a few hours away.

We ate at a Mexican place by Jason, Curt, and Dyane’s apartment. Didn’t end in -berto’s but it hit the spot. Dan would be frustrated that I didn’t hit eat at a Mexican joint multiple times a day. Actually, I kind of regret not going to at least one other Mexican place during the trip.

Me and Wally, looking tight!

Me and Wally, looking tight!

We met up with two other couples that are friends with Curt and Dyane for a pre-function at a hotel. Really nice room. Really nice people. They made a bunch of surprisingly great food. Surprising because when you think hotel before amateur night, things like instant oatmeal and Flaming Hot Cheetos come to mind instead of lumpia and baked salmon.

And I say “really nice” because they really didn’t mind Curt bringing five other dudes who beasted on the food.

We went to Onyx for New Year’s Eve. Cool place. A lotta dudes. For whatever reason, we set up about six feet from the main speakers on the main floor and destroyed our ears. They played “Sandstorm” before the countdown and did what every other Jersey Shore fan did that night—beat that beat. First song I heard in 2010 was “I Got A Feeling”. Probably the first time I really enjoyed the song.

Sometime after that we realized it was really hot in the place and tried to get water. They were charging for water so we left to find some. We stopped by Hooters for water. Seems kind of weird writing it but it was actually one of the only options because we couldn’t find a convenience store and even the small bars we tried to go to were at capacity. On our walk to Hooters we got VIP passes to Deja Vu: “It’s only ten minutes away!” Would anyone really go there on New Year’s Eve?*

We went to Wally’s house the next day for dinner. Pop quiz: Is the following picture A.) Wally’s nightstand or B.) The Dork section at Barnes and Noble?

Me and Wally, looking tight!

We went to the gym the next day to pump up at the gym Wally described as small. If this gym is small, I want to see what he thinks is a big gym. Chargers practice facility? Olympic training campus?

We ate at Lucille’s BBQ. It was good. For a BBQ place attached to a mall, it was great. Biscuits are the table bread and they give some kind of sweet apple cinnamon butter to spread. Not that there’s a lot of competition (Claim Jumper comes to mind), but it’s the best butter for spreading that I’ve had.

Then we went to LA to hang out with a friend and her friend. We ate at Kuishimbo, which has 4.5 stars on Yelp. And I assumed LA was third to New York and San Francisco for food snobs so 4.5 seemed really good. It was good enough but nobody would notice if you dropped it in the middle of Seattle. Maybe I’m hating. Here’s Wally expressing our feelings about hanging out with girls instead of, you know, enough dudes to run small pick up games of various sports.

Here’s a picture I took for Jason to see if he’d remember something. Seeing as how I took this picture and stared at it for a good minute to try and remember what it was, I doubt he’d remember what that something was. Anyway, I was trying to see if he remembered this strip mall, because Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles is around the corner, where we ate the last time we were in LA.

On my last night, we watched Avatar and ate curry. Pork katsu and beef curry. That was really good. I’m sure there’s somewhere in Seattle to get a similar meal, and I’m gonna try and find it. Also, Avatar was really good.

Before bed that night we all watched a chicken wing episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. So before my flight I wanted to get wings. I asked Wally what he thought of Wings and Things. “It’s pretty generic.” It was one of those times where I shouldn’t have even asked because it was our only option and my mind was already set to go. They only serve three sauces: mild, medium, and hot. If you essentially only do wings, you should have more options than that. Basically, it’s pretty generic.

The trip was pretty fun and writing a few sentences about a few pictures took a lot longer than I expected.

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*YEEEEEUP

Avatar screenplay (PDF). I really liked Avatar.

Looks like Pete Carroll’s going to coach the Seahawks. I read this 2007 Los Angeles Magazine article about a month back. It’s long, but it’s really, really good: 23 Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in this Space

Carroll gave up fear long ago. He gave it up the way people give up carbs. Fear now has no part in his daily life. Fear is like an old, distant friend. They know each other well, talk once in a while, but they’re not close like they used to be.

In meetings, practices, pregame talks, fear is Carroll’s theme. “That’s what we’re all about,” he says, lying back on the leather sofa in his office one night. “Our entire approach is to come to the point where we have the knowing that we’re going to win. There’s nothing to stop us but ourselves. To do that is to operate in the absence of fear.”

Let’s hope this theme works on millionaires the same way it worked for college kids.

A City’s Specialty, Japanese in Name Only:

“Seattle likes to talk about local foods, about ridiculous things like fiddlehead coulis,” Mr. Berger said. “Seattle yuppies love the idea of going to some obscure Chinese place for dim sum but won’t dare tell you that they eat chicken teriyaki. Those places are so much a part of the streetscape that we can’t even see them.”

New York Times article about teriyaki in Seattle. Most people notice that there are a ton of teriyaki places in Seattle. But I always thought that other cities were similar.